Part 4: A Body at Rest
by
Joseph Devon
(Please note: This story is the fourth part of a series of stories beginning with, “Part 1: Second Choice,” and while it is designed to stand alone it does draw heavily on the foundation of characters and events that were created in “Part 1: Second Choice,” and continued through Parts 2 and 3. Basically, I have to highly recommend that you start at “Part 1: Second Choice” and continue on in order.)
Matthew stood at the top of the steps and looked down at Bethesda Fountain. A crowd was gathering in the early winter morning. He watched as much of the crowd arrived at the fountain by walking across the boat pond to the north, and a few appeared next to the fountain, their bodies wavering and misty until they took shape and looked around, saw a friend, started talking.
There were a few members of the crowd who were oblivious to all of this. Two young lovers, huddling against each other, bundled in heavy winter gear, were standing by the northern benches and quite a few of the water-walkers continued on their way by walking right through them.
A family taking a photo on the near side of the fountain was equally oblivious. Smiling for the camera, they did not notice the constant stream of people who were wavering into existence all around them.
“It’s kind of creepy,” Matthew said.
“You’ve never seen a large group of us coming together?” Bartleby asked, standing next to him. Bartleby’s question was largely for show as he was concentrating on keeping the glove of his right hand form bursting into flames. His face was screwed up into attention but he was loosing whatever control he had over the situation as flames began to grow higher and higher over his black wool glove. He sighed and walked over to the side of the path and dipped his hand into a bank of snow. There was hissing and steaming and when he took his hand away there was a disorienting double existence of snow that was both melting and untouched at the same time before things blended together again and returned to normal. Matthew blinked, shook his head, then looked away.
“I don’t understand how you can not be mad at Epp,” Matthew said.
Bartleby looked over, then turned back to the gathering crowd below. “I’m not about to go complaining to Epp because I keep catching on fire.”
“You scared of him?”
“Not hardly,” Bartleby said. “I told him off pretty good for sending me to Mercury. It’s just that complaining to Epp about my hand occasionally getting too hot would be like complaining to Gandhi that you had to skip breakfast.”
Matthew turned, and while the hyperbole of the statement got a laugh out of him, no understanding of what it meant crossed his face.
“Oh, that’s right,” Bartleby said, “You don’t know. I keep forgetting.” There was arrogance in his words, a thin veneer of swarmy layered over his normal conversational tone. The arrogance wasn’t enough to be offensive, and Bartleby had been nice to Matthew over the past few months since Epp’s trial, so that Bartleby’s arrogance, while certainly hinting at the level that had gotten him banished to Mercury to begin with, only came across as mildly irritating, the sort of cockiness that is easily tolerated among friends because it’s well known that it’s also a cockiness that is easily mocked away if it grows too strong.
Matthew was about to ask what it was that he didn’t know when a familiar melodious voice called out to him and Bartleby. He looked up and saw Mary walking, practically skipping, her way towards them, her short frame bundled in clothes that looked soft and warm, her breath steaming out of her cheeks, apple-red from the cold. “Hello, boys,” she smiled, standing up on tip-toe to give both Matthew and Bartleby a kiss on the cheek.
“You seem happy,” Matthew said, watching Mary remove her large furry hat and scratch at her head before replacing the hat and turning back to him.
“It’s a wonderful day,” she said simply, then walked towards the railing and looked down at the still gathering crowd around the fountain. “It’s not every day you get to see a life begin.”
“Is that what this is?” Epp asked, all of a sudden standing next to Matthew, his appearance abrupt enough to cause Matthew’s feet to skitter on the cold stone beneath his feet.
“It’s as good a description as any,” Kyo said, appearing from nowhere on the other side of Matthew and rattling him further.
“Did you guys plan that?” Matthew asked, unnerved but enough under control to pretend calm.
“We thought it up while getting coffee,” Epp admitted, his eyes never leaving the crowd below them.
Kyo didn’t answer; he only took a sip from his cup of coffee.
“I’d think you two would have more interesting things to do with your time.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Epp answered. He set his cup of coffee down on the ledge and popped the plastic lid off. “You get sugar?” he asked Kyo. Epp wasn’t dressed for the cold, his perfect charcoal grey suit was left uncovered by any coat, his closely shaved hair was uncovered by any hat. Once his coffee was flavored to his liking he replaced the plastic lid and took a long sip, his eyes happy against his dark skin.
Kyo, on Matthew’s other side, stood in his hideous lime-green suit, ill cut and made of some fabric that seemed neither to bend nor breathe well. With an arm of stone he too brought his coffee to his lips and took a drink. There was no reaction in his high cheeked face; his narrow eyes never left the fountain.
“Nice to see you again,” Matthew said, leaning away from Kyo. Kyo didn’t respond. Matthew gladly took this excuse to walk around to the other side of Epp and take a stance at the stone railing. The rest of their group joined them and all five watched the crowd below gather and swirl.
“Okay,” Matthew said after awhile. “So what exactly am I looking at?”
Epp pointed, coffee cup in hand, “You see Gregor?”
Matthew’s eyes searched the crowd until he spotted the tall pale figure of Gregor, his dark overcoat enhancing his overall vampiric aura. Standing next to Gregor was a much taller man with broad shoulders, his face mostly hidden by mirrored sunglasses. “I see him,” Matthew said. “Who’s the guy next to him?”
“A lower member of the Council. An aide of sorts. You rarely see Gregor without seeing the big guy in the mirrored sunglasses.”
“He looks more like a bodyguard.”
“We don’t have bodies, Matthew.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Sure. Anyway, the big guy’s name is Hector.”
There was a perceptible shift in energy in the crowd as more and more attention became focused at something happening towards the western side of the fountain. A small path cleared and a young man walked through, making his way towards Gregor.
“See him?” Epp asked.
“Yeah.”
“That’s the tester everyone is here to see.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. Never met him personally.”
The young man arrived in front of Gregor and Gregor began to speak. Matthew was too far away to hear everything being said but he caught a lot of talk about commitment and momentous events.
“What’s the rope for?” Matthew asked, watching as Hector handed Gregor a rope.
“It’s largely symbolic,” Epp said.
“It’s a strong enough symbol that it’s become very real.” Kyo said. Matthew had forgotten about him standing on the other side of Epp.
“We’re not having this argument now,” Epp said, glancing at Kyo. Then he turned back to Matthew. “Technically the rope represents a commitment on the part of the tester as to how far they’ll range from the meat bag. A longer rope means more potential to bring a wider array of things into play, but also carries quite a bit more risk. If you lose too much control and stray too far from your meat bag…” Epp didn’t finish his sentence. He only tried to take another drink of coffee, noticed that his cup was now empty, and commenced to crush it in his hands until it disappeared from existence. “Anyway, it’s customary to mark off a certain length of rope to indicate just how freely you’re going to play your mark, but since we don’t have bodies and the rope doesn’t really exist in any physical reality, I’m a firm believer in the notion that it’s all in your head.”
Matthew turned back to the crowd and watched as Gregor counted out a certain number of lengths of the thick waxy rope. One end was knotted in a loop and the young man hung it around his waist. Gregor continued speaking and his face became grave as he pronounced some sort of blessing upon the young tester.
“What was that?” Matthew asked.
“Hell, I don’t even believe in the rope,” Epp shrugged, “as far as I’m concerned anything beyond that is a rather large load of horse shit.”
“Epp doesn’t exactly care for ceremony.” Kyo said. “Gregor is saying a few words of hope and inspiration. I personally see nothing wrong with providing a little send off for someone who’s going to commit himself to a single person for the next few decades.”
“I have no problem with that either. It’s when Gregor gets it into his head that he’s the main event here is when I start to lose interest. This is that young tester’s day, not the Council’s. All they’re doing is piling on. And then you get all of those people down there believing that it’s more important to please the Council than to do your work well. Too many people start believing that and…”
“They have their way of doing things, but there are other ways as well,” Kyo said. “Plenty of people take after you, Epp, among others.”
Matthew didn’t say anything, but as he looked around at the crowd that was a good thirty yards away, he felt a strange sense of isolation and a distinct difference between the small group of five he was standing with and the larger group down by the fountain.
“So you have a little following, Epp?” Matthew asked. Epp didn’t say anything. “How about you, Kyo? You have a following?”
“Those without masters find it difficult to take on students,” Epp said.
“But you take on students, Epp,” Matthew said.
Epp gave a tiny shrug in reply.
There was another ripple in the crowd and heads began to turn to the west once again. “And there’s the mark,” Epp said. A family of three crested the small hill that rose to the west of the fountain and began walking down the path towards the crowd they couldn’t see.
“Which one?” Matthew asked.
“The girl,” Epp answered.
She was maybe ten years old, bundled up in a snow suit, taking a happy stroll through the park with her parents, oblivious to the fact that her life was about to change forever. The family began to walk, literally, through the crowd. They approached the fountain and the girl ran ahead to look into the stone basin, emptied for the winter. The young tester stepped forward and with a gentle hand he looped the other end of his rope around the girl. Immediately both ends tightened, the girl didn’t notice a thing, but the tester collapsed to the ground as the rope squeezed his midsection. The crowd began applauding, slow at first, but it grew in strength until it was a sustained roar of approval.
He was still collapsed on the ground in pain when the family of three began moving away from the fountain. The loops of rope began to run out as the girl got farther and farther away until finally it pulled taut and the body of the tester, still in pain, began to drag along behind the family.
“Well he’s off to an amazing start,” Epp said thickly.
Kyo eyed him. “Watch yourself, Epp.”
“Oh get off my back,” Epp said, “you knew I was going to get all worked up watching this thing.”
“Yes, but the Council is what upsets you, you’ve no right to take it out on that tester.”
“I know,” Epp said, honestly lamenting. “I wish him luck, I really do, I’m just in no mood to take part in,” he waved his hand, “all of this.”
Gregor was speaking again, saying something somber to the crowd.
“Do you need the Council’s permission to attach to a mark like that?” Matthew asked, watching the young tester getting dragged out of sight to the east.
“They think you do,” Epp said. His tone was sour, harsher than Matthew had ever heard him. Matthew decided to switch topics.
“What the longest rope that anyone’s ever used?”
Epp didn’t answer; he only stared down at Gregor and the crowd. On the other side of him Kyo chuckled his deep dry laugh.
“Great,” Matthew said. “Let me guess. That question is fundamentally stupid on some deep level that I don’t understand.”
Epp continued staring. He took a deep breath, his chest rising, then let it out and seemed to relax some. “The year was 1655,” he said, and with one last look down at the fountain, he turned and began to speak.
—–
The cold rain pelted down on the black mud digging thousands of tiny holes in the earth. Epp’s coat was drenched over his breeches and waistcoat and he was staring with obvious anger at Kyo, who was dressed in a rough jerkin hanging above wrinkled stockings.
“He’s in the schoolhouse,” Kyo said, pointing across the empty farmland surrounding them towards a small town of clustered cottages. Epp glanced down at his shoes as he walked, sneering at the accumulation of mud.
“I should be in London,” Epp said, slogging his way towards the town.
“No,” Kyo responded woodenly, “no, you should not.”
“There is absolutely nothing worth nothing out here, Kyo. Mud farmers and small town lords…and you know what will be here in a hundred years? Mud farmers and small town lords.”
“You told me to find you a mark. I found you a mark.”
“Yes, but somebody interesting. Not some rube out in the sticks that needs help milking his goats.”
“The great Epictetus,” Kyo said as they followed the road into town. The rain continued down, the sound of it hammering down on the cottage roofs a different pitch than the sound of it pouring down over the fields. “Your arrogance has grown to the point where it is in danger of choking you, Epp.”
“My arrogance? My arrogance has nothing to do with the fact that I would greatly prefer to be in London at the moment searching for something more interesting to occupy my time with.”
They passed through the wall of the schoolhouse. Kyo stopped at the desk of a young boy seated next to the window. With a knife the boy was carving something into the window sill.
“His name is Ayscough,” Kyo said.
“And he is a lost cause,” Epp said, eying him, seeming to study something underneath the visible appearance of the boy.
“You don’t see it?” Kyo asked.
“And what is it I’m supposed to be seeing?”
“You can’t even see his potential, can you? Are you that far gone?”
Epp sighed, fed up with Kyo, and looked around as if getting ready to leave. “I truly don’t know what we’re doing here.”
“We are here,” Kyo said, advancing, hard eyes searching Epp’s face with anger, “so that I can teach you the only thing I possibly can teach you: humility.”
“I don’t need to learn any more humility,” Epp said, avoiding Kyo’s gaze. “This boy could be great. And on and on. All I have to do is believe. I get it.”
“Clearly you don’t,” Kyo said. “And I never thought I’d see the great Epp acting as scared as you are now.”
“Scared,” Epp said, dismissing the remark.
“You hide behind your fame and your past works. You occupy your time with the Council and-”
“Don’t get me started on the Council right now.”
“And you value your fame and your reputation over doing actual work in this world.”
“The Council needs to be-”
“The Council is none of your concern anymore. Even Gregor has come to forgive what happened. Your acts of defiance are now only distractions from how far you have slipped.”
“How far I’ve slipped?” Epp asked, standing up to his full height, cutting an imposing figure in his coat and breeches. Off to his side the boy continued carving in the window sill. “You are talking to Epictetus, one of the only testers to have seen the age before Christ. I don’t need to stand here and listen to you lecture me about-”
“Then why did you ask me to take you on?” Kyo asked. “I don’t care very much what you do. I’ve seen any number of testers grow fat and useless on their own arrogance. It makes no difference to me if you choose to go that route as well. But you agreed to become my charge and so here we are. So before you start quoting ancient deeds and meaningless titles at me, you should bear in mind that it was you who asked me to present you with a challenge.”
Kyo looked down at the boy. “And so here we are. Twelve year old Ayscough is nothing but blind untapped potential. You knew I had a knack for spotting meat bags that others might overlook, you asked me to find you something that could actually challenge you, that might possibly be a danger to you. You might have been desperate or drunk when you asked, that is no concern of mine, all I know is you asked, and here we are.”
The boy continued to carve into the sill.
“You have until tomorrow to make your initial measurements. Then you bind.”
“Why bother with the wait,” Epp said, angry.
“Let yourself calm down before you do anything foolish,” Kyo answered.
“No. Why bother, if I’m going to waste sixty years of my existence on this boy I see no reason to delay another day. Let’s bind right now. And why don’t we go with no rope at all? A completely free binding? How’s that?”
“You are making the mistake of thinking that you are going to teach me a lesson here,” Kyo said. “You forget that I belong to none of your clubs, I ascribe to none of your thoughts. I serve nothing.”
“Oh? And I suppose I serve you? Is that what you mean to say?”
“No,” Kyo said. “You serve them,” and he waved a hand around the room, indicating everyone in it and everyone beyond its walls. “All of them.”
Epp didn’t react one way or the other for a few moments. Then he shuffled his feet and looked down at the boy. “In all seriousness…do you think I could do an infinite binding? No rope?” his question was plaintive, his argumentative mood gone now to be replaced by a quiet boyish insecurity.
“If you’re as great as you seem to think you are then I see no reason why not. If you’re doing it in order to look as great as you think you are, then it will destroy you. But the thought of a ropeless bind had crossed my mind after you first approached me. I never thought you’d actually go for it.”
“There are legends of it happening.”
“Again. If you want to actually use that much freedom on your push, then you might survive. If you do it only so that you can seem legendary, I’m pretty sure you’ll perish or recede into cowardness.”
Epp had stopped listening. He was staring down at the window sill. “What did you say his name was?”
“Ayscough.”
“Where’d you get that?” Epp asked.
“It’s his mother’s surname.”
Epp laughed, seeming to be on sure footing for the first time since the start of the conversation. “We’re not on the Pacific Rim, you crazy umbrella maker. Here in England it’s given name, then father’s surname.”
Kyo seemed unsure of himself. “Oh?”
“Yup.”
“So…what’s his actual name?”
“He carved it right here. Isaac,” Epp said, reading the window sill. “Isaac Newton.”
—–
Kyo walked across the courtyard of Trinity College of Cambridge University. He entered the northern building near the courtyard entrance and made his way up a narrow stone stairway before walking through a closed door and into a small apartment.
Epp was sitting over at the windowsill, his body framed by the small panes of glass interspersed through lead frames. He saw Kyo enter and he smiled and gave a gesture of greeting, then rolled his hand out as if unveiling something and Kyo’s eyes turned to see twenty three year old Newton sitting at a desk in the corner of the apartment furiously writing over some papers.
“You’ve got something?” Kyo asked, walking up behind Newton and looking over the papers meticulously arranged across the desk. They were awash in calculations, some of which took up entire sheets, and precise sketches of arcs and tangents. In spite of the obvious attention to detail and accuracy the sheer amount of work represented on the papers all around created an air of disarray and chaos.
“Those models we made when he was a teenager? Those were nothing. Absolutely nothing,” Epp said. “This is something else altogether.” Epp walked up to the desk and plucked the corner of one of the sheets at random, the page splitting into two, one copy laying on the table undisturbed while another appeared in Epp’s hand.
Kyo squinted at the hunched numbers scattered all over the table. “Looks like algebra,” he said.
“It’s beyond algebra, from what I’ve gathered. This can go where algebra can’t.” Epp flapped the sheet. “We’ve invented calculus.”
Kyo turned his attention to the paper in Epp’s hand. “Actually,” Kyo said, “that’s a logarithm calculated out to about fifty places. I supposed if you took that and-”
“Don’t bother,” Epp said, “I don’t understand a tenth of what this boy has done. I just know that we’ve invented something pretty big.”
“Discovered something pretty big. Any number of people are working on these problems even as we speak. You’re having him write it up and send it around, I’m assuming?”
“Of course,” Epp said smiling. “He’s writing up a letter now. Once he posts that I want you to go gather up as many members of the Council as you can find. I want them to see this.”
Kyo turned away from the sheet of paper and began to examine Epp’s happy face. He was disappointed by what he saw there.
“He’s writing a response to a letter right now,” Epp continued, “from someone named…”
Epp turned and looked at the sheet that Newton was composing. “Wait,” he said. “No, don’t do that.” He came around and began reading over Newton’s shoulder. “He’s doing it again,” he yelled. With an exasperated sigh he looked over at Kyo.
Kyo didn’t say anything, only continued to study Epp. “He’s been…hesitant to send things out. He received some replies that were less than worshipful earlier and since then there’s been some reluctance to-oh stop that!” he yelled as Newton crumpled up the sheet of paper he was writing on and began composing a new one. This time his pen moved with determination, no hesitation, and in a few minute he already had reached the point where he had crumpled up the last sheet.
“Good,” Epp said. “Just finish your damned letter and let’s get this over with.” Epp returned to Newton’s shoulder and resumed reading. His face fell immediately. “No,” he spat out.
“Problem?” Kyo asked.
“He’s writing in code,” Epp said. “He’s sending out our discovery but he’s writing it in code!” Epp stood up, angry. “Who the hell shares their ideas using a secret code that nobody understands.”
“Some would say that’s all that mathematicians do,” Kyo said, sitting back and watching Epp, amused.
“You’re going to do this and you’re going to do this right,” Epp said, coming around to stand next to Newton. “We’re just going to recopy this letter and then,” Epp reached a hand up to Newton’s head then screamed and jumped back, tripping over himself he fell onto the stone floor before curling up, holding his hand in pain.
Kyo stood over the wincing Epp. “You don’t seem to have the greatest rapport with your mark, Epp.” Kyo walked back over to Newton. He bent down and began examining him. “You pushed him towards the calculus, did you?”
“I gave him a couple of kicks, yes,” Epp said, sitting up, flexing his hand.
“A couple of kicks? That sounds rather clumsy,” Kyo came around to the front of Newton and peered into his eyes.
“I don’t need advice from a pauper,” Epp said, gathering himself up quickly and hurrying over towards the desk. “I’ve got this completely under control.”
“He’s paranoid,” Kyo said, concluding his examination of Newton.
Epp stopped. “That’s impossible.”
“No, it’s quite possible. He’s isolated and paranoid and not about to share anything that he creates.”
Kyo looked at Epp with disgust. “This is a not a very impressive start, Epictetus. In fact,” Kyo turned and watched as Newton took the current sheet of paper and crumpled it up as well, “it’s rather disappointing.”
—–
Kyo walked across the courtyard of Trinity College. He made his way into the building on the northern border and walked up the narrow stone steps. When he walked through the door into Newton’s chamber he found that it was all black within, the windows were heavily draped with everything covered except for a single beam of light.
“We had to grind the prisms ourselves,” Epp said, standing next to twenty-nine year old Newton as he carefully arranged two pieces of glass on a table. The beam of light was traveling into the room and striking the first glass, at which point it changed into a band of multicolored light before striking the second glass and turning back into a single beam of white light.
“This is what made us decide to redesign the telescope,” Epp said. He was anxiously walking back and forth with Isaac, his uncontained energy contrasting with Newton’s meticulous slowness as he took any number of observations of the refracted light. “He kept wanting to see things the old way but I kept forcing him out of it until we got to this point.” Epp was practically hopping from one foot to the other as he watched Newton at work. In spite of his energy there was a worn look to him, and he was sweating heavily. “Do you know what this means? Everything is different. Objects don’t generate color. It’s all backwards. Objects appear different colors depending on how they interact with light, with this,” and he gestured in the dark at the rainbow, “with light itself.”
Kyo busied himself at the table, enjoying what he was seeing but somehow uncomfortable. His eye strayed towards Epp more than it focused on the prisms and the light.
Eventually Newton backed away from the table and removed the drapes over the window.
“I supposed that’s interesting enough,” Kyo said.
“That’s it?” Epp asked. “That’s all you have to say?”
Kyo stared at Epp.
“You know what? I don’t think I want to wait anymore. Can you go call on some of the other testers? Go ahead and contact the Council too, while you’re at it. It’s time everyone knew about this.”
“Knew about what,” Kyo said, impassive.
“About…about all this,” Epp said, looking around at the room that was now empty except for Isaac sitting at his desk.
“Epp,” Kyo said reluctantly, “you still haven’t done any real work.”
Epp stopped pacing, the bounce fell out of his body and he turned to stare with smoldering anger at Kyo. “You keep saying that. I’ve been working this guy for eighteen years and you keep coming back to me over and over again, after every new thought, every new equation, every new experiment, and you tell me that it isn’t enough.” He began circling, walking slowly, moving towards the window, his eyes tracking Kyo. “The telescope? That wasn’t enough?”
“The telescope was the hit of the Royal Society,” Kyo said. “I told you they were fascinated and you received any number of letters asking for an explanation of what Newton had learned in order to make it, and what he had learned after making it, and what came out of that?”
“They got the telescope,” Epp said, “that wasn’t enough?”
“It’s a trinket. They want to know how it works.”
“He knows,” Epp said, pointing at Newton.
“But you can’t get him to share,” Kyo said, his words were laced with delicacy, although there was a firmness underneath that made it unlikely that he was going to back down. “It’s the calculus all over again.”
“He knows,” Epp said. “It’s all in there,” he said, pointing at Newton’s head.
“And if it stays in there than it will be of absolutely no use to anyone.”
“So he has to share? Is that it?”
“There’s no give and take here. He just throws out conclusions that are as startling as they are brilliant, but with no backing he’s not a member of the modern scientific community, he’s more of a throwback to the age of magicians.”
“He’s still brilliant.”
“Agreed. But that was there before you came along. What is it that you’ve managed to bring out of him?”
“You,” Epp snorted, “are really starting to get to me. Have you not seen anything we’ve done in the past two decades?”
“I’ve seen all the things you’ve started. I’ve seen you bring exactly zero projects to completion.”
“You know this is all very big talk from a hobo who’s never even pushed a little girl not to mention,” Epp was circling in closer, his face getting angrier and angrier as he spoke, “ever suffered an honest day’s pain in his life-”
Epp’s words clipped off in bitter anger and he boiled over, charging at Kyo. There was a sweeping motion around Kyo’s body and Epp’s feet stopped running, the soles of his boots skidding across the stone floor before he came to stop a few feet in front of Kyo with the blade of a samurai sword resting across his neck. Kyo turned his wrist and the blade glinted in the sunlight.
“I realize that you’re rather on edge,” Kyo said, “so why don’t we take a moment and recollect our thoughts?”
Epp was frozen under the blade, his eyes peering down and to the side to get a glimpse of it. His face was thoughtful, as if he weren’t trying to physically avoid the blade so much as think his way around it. “Is it even possible for you to cut me with that?”
“Let’s not find out,” Kyo said. With a slow withdrawal he took the blade away from Epp’s body and with another sweeping motion it disappeared.
“I just feel like I’m doing enough here,” Epp said.
“And I feel like there’s only one problem here that you both are sharing,” Kyo said. “He isn’t following through with anything because you aren’t following through with anything. You get two steps into a new idea and you get excited to show all your friends and it never comes to completion.”
“And I,” Epp said, slowly and deliberately repeating himself, “feel like I am doing enough here.”
“Despite what you think, Epp, I am not here to judge you. If you think this is the best you can do than this is the best you can do. But you should keep in mind that you sought me out for a reason. You knew I wasn’t part of your cadre and you came to me seeking a challenge. I respect you and the work you’ve done over the centuries can’t be ignored, but as of late you’ve stopped working and tried to build yourself a life here with your societies and your adulations and your yes-men praising everything you do.
“You’ve grown weak, Epictetus. I mean look at you. You haven’t even suffered a single day you’ve been working this man. Have you even once felt the pain of your choices?
“You’ve forgotten what it is you’re to do here. I’ll try and sum it up with some simple math.” Kyo walked over to where Newton was sitting and looked down. He flipped through some papers, then looked up again. “One choice,” Kyo said, holding up his fingers, “plus a second choice, equals an eternity of service. You made those choices, Epp. It is a simple as that.”
Kyo took one last glance at the desk, then began walking towards the door. “I’ll check in on you again in a few-”
“What if he’s too much for me to handle?” Epp said.
Kyo smiled and Epp was surprised to realize that he had never seen Kyo do this, he was also surprised to see that it was friendly enough. “I knew who I was choosing a mark for,” Kyo said. “You’ll have to trust me on that.” Kyo reached the door. “But really you have no choice here. You could back down and not commit fully, but allowing yourself that weakness would kill you inside as surely as anything else.” He stood at the door and looked at Epp. “There are only two paths here, Epp. You can either walk off into the darkness, lighting fires where you can to warm those who might dare to come after you…or you can sit here and do nothing but complain about the cold. For people like you that isn’t much of a choice at all.”
Then he turned and walked through the door.
Epp stood there, breathing slowly, staring at the door, lost in thought as Isaac Newton scribbled at his desk on the other side of the room.
—–
Kyo walked across the courtyard of Trinity College under a clear starry night. He approached Epp and Newton standing near the entrance to the northern building. He nodded at Epp, received a nod back in reply, then he turned and stared up into the sky.
“It’s beautiful,” Kyo said.
“He certainly thinks so,” Epp replied, staring up at the comet looming over head, its luminous tail four times as large as the moon, hanging in the sky above them.
Newton remained outside for hours watching the comet move across the nighttime sky. Epp stood with him and Kyo stood with Epp and no man uttered a word.
Sometime after dawn Newton finally returned from his stupor and made his way inside. Epp didn’t follow.
“Something’s happening,” Epp said.
“Oh?”
“This comet…and an argument we had a few years ago with Hooke. It’s…something’s there.”
Kyo studied Epp, watched him struggling with his words, saw the wear on his face.
“I know you probably don’t believe me, but I think maybe this it. I think I’m ready to see what Mr. Newton is capable of.”
“I believe you,” Kyo said softly.
Epp looked at Kyo curiously. “Why now?”
“Are you really going to try in earnest?” Kyo asked.
“Yes. I am. But how did you know?”
Kyo looked Epp up and down again. “How did you die?” he asked.
Epp’s eyes narrowed. “I woke up, heard the woman I loved screaming from behind one wall and my wife screaming from behind the other. It was a house fire. They lived…I died.”
“You died in the fire?”
“Yes.”
“That’s how I know you’re serious this time,” Kyo pointed down at Epp’s hand. When Epp held it up in the dawn light a sickened look came over his face as he saw it blister and writhe.
“You’re hand is burning,” Kyo said.
Epp stared at his hand, flexing it, shaking it in the air.
“I’d like to bring in someone to help,” Kyo said. “If you’re going to lock with Newton I think we might need it.”
Epp’s eyes never left his hand. “Okay,” he said. Then he looked up. “Nobody I know too well. Nobody too connected. I don’t want to see any of them.”
“Afraid you might fail?” Kyo asked.
“No. I just don’t want the distraction. I think I know someone who would work. She was a nun. She just crossed over a few years before I latched on here. Her name is Mary. If we’re going to need someone to patch me up, she knows some basic medicine. She should be fine. I’ll send her word.”
“I can track her down,” Kyo said. “Shouldn’t take too long. You going to be okay while I’m gone? You’re not tethered you know.”
“I know.”
“I’ll be back soon. Try not to stray too far.”
“Try not to take too long.”
“Okay then.”
—–
“I’m still not sure why I’m here,” Mary said. “There have to be hundreds of testers dying to help Epp out.”
“He wants to keep this quiet,” Kyo said.
They were in Newton’s chamber. Isaac was seated in his usual spot at his desk. Epp was standing off to the side, watching as he wrot