[Verit]

Начала читать Out of Scattered Things.
Пиздец, как же так хорошо-то.

ПИСЬМА. Господи, просто как начал читать, сразу канон, идеально, все, навсегда, насовсем, епрст, какие они STUPID CUTE NERDS.

Speaking of positions and optimizing them, what are you doing right now, by the way? Finishing up more quantum-foam thinking? Looking for a post-doc? Working this giant document you sent me into a paper? That’s what I’d do if I were you; it’s almost like...a mathematical opinion piece that’s going to make you look like an outrageous quantum mechanical savant if you publish it before the empirical data that everyone’s waiting on and like a prepared mathematical badass if you wait. You should probably wait. [Enthusiastic aside: don’t wait! Responsible aside: wait.]

<...>

To formally answer your question, I am neither appalled by your mathematical literacy nor purposefully being obstructive. I am entirely delighted to encounter an askew mathematical twist upon a too-familiar problem, and I am impressed at the extent to which you are able to follow my work. Your grasp of quantum field theory is sounder than it has any right to be, I find your notation to be entirely charming, and I await a delineation of your mathematical/quantum mechanical credentials with much anticipation.

+++

<...>

This career option, aside from being ridiculously lethal also has a streak of badassery the width of a light year? I feel like I’m having a hard time putting together a complete picture that encompasses you, Thucydides, your uber-suave quantum field theorizing, and the experimental test pilot thing; who are you even? I don’t understand how you can get more interesting all the time; you’ll have to tell me how to do that; I, like almost all humans, definitely become less interesting with time; literally everyone agrees. Your mystique trajectory is skyrocketing.

<...>

Are you genuinely interested in the details of my relationship with my father? I can’t imagine that you are, and yet, I find myself terribly curious about the minutiae of your personal history, if only because I find your observations to be compelling; not only when it comes to quantum field theory, but universally. You have an unusual way of looking at the world. You must know this about yourself. I hope that you know this about yourself. If you still want a second approximation of detail regarding my father and his habit of exerting unwanted influence on my career trajectory, I will give it to you. But, as you’ve been rather sparse on the particulars of your own personal life I’d rather not overstep the bounds of familiarity.

И КОНЕЧНО ЕЩЕ ОЧЕНЬ МНОГО КВАНТОМНОЙ ФИЗИКИ. И ЦИТАТЫ ИЗ ФУКИДИДА. И ОТСЫЛКА К ПЕСНЕ НОВОВВЕДЕНОГО АВТОРОМ ЖАНРА (Intellectual Underground) КОТОРУЮ НАПИСАЛ ПОСТОРОННИЙ ЧЕЛОВЕК МММММ ФАНДОМ

А потом Кэйтлин, hjfgdhjfdghjkdfghjk, живая-живая (живая!), любит свою кошку, считает до четырех в качестве coping mechanism, слушает Supercos, и, ну, вообще, все.

“It’s currently controlled, but anxiety, frustration—they may exacerbate things. I’ll need people around me who could step up in the event that my performance were to be compromised in any way. Everyone will need to know. It’s not a thing that can be held against me on an institutional level. Do you understand what I mean by that?”

“I have no experience organizing something of this magnitude,” she says, low and tight and abruptly too fierce for a trendy little bar. Like it’s an accusation. She needs him to answer fully for all the ways his choice is wrongheaded. “I can build you the machines you need—but what you’re talking about—that’s more than science. That’s administration. Distribution. Industry.”
“You’d run our Jaeger Division. You’ll literally build the things, Cait. You’ll build as many of them as you can with every resource we can muster for you. You’ll get them to work. Anything you don’t know how to do, you hire someone to do for you. The main thrust of the thing is exactly what you’ve been doing at DARPA, just scaled up.”
“Scaled up,” Lightcap repeats. “You’ve seen my projections. And you want—you want to scale
that up? What if there’s never another K-day? You’d distort global industry and commerce for decades to build a collection of these things; have you thought of all of this?”
“We have,” Pentecost says.
“Well,” Lightcap says, momentarily at a loss.
“You feel the stakes,” Pentecost says, like it’s an explanation. “Just like I do. That’s another reason I wanted you instead of Dr. Schoenfeld. You can feel the reality of the stakes and, in the face of enormous risk, you’re prepared to go all-in.”

<...>

“It’s currently controlled, but anxiety, frustration—they may exacerbate things. I’ll need people around me who could step up in the event that my performance were to be compromised in any way. Everyone will need to know. It’s not a thing that can be held against me on an institutional level. Do you understand what I mean by that?”
“I think I do,” Pentecost replies, and takes a sip of his drink.
“Do you?” Lightcap says. “I’m an extremely difficult person to work with. I’m nearly impossible to work for. I have high standards. I’m a perfectionist to the point of genuine pathology. I can be mercurial. My work ethic has been most kindly described as ‘grueling’. I have achieved what I have achieved by force of will and it shows in my personal leadership style.”

<...>

“I have a cat,” Lightcap says, her pen hovering above the page. “I’m bringing that cat. This is non-negotiable.”
“You can keep your cat,” Pentecost says.
“Non-negotiable,” Lightcap repeats.
“You can bring your cat to work for the rest of your life for all we care,” Pentecost says, with an amused aggravation that hints at the personality beneath the professional exterior. “It can ride on your shoulder. The cat is a non-issue. We can literally go get your cat right now.”
“I love that cat,” Lightcap informs him with maximum poise, uncapping her pen.

ну и тут уже просто мурашки, потому что, боженьки, это же начало всего (и больно заранее, а я даже не слушала еще Blue Guitar, только Lightcap as List)

They walk into crisping air of a September night, Pentecost matching her strides, Lightcap counting silently in her head in time with her steps, not in stylized neutralization but just for luck, the chords of an obscure band playing in her head, her shoes clicking against the pavement, already planning the call she’ll make to Tendo Choi, what she will say, how she will say it; already adjusting the flow of her presentation, scaling things up, growing them organically from already overwhelming beginnings—she’ll now need quantum physicists to study the anomalies in the Pacific and she’ll need biologists to study Trespasser and whatever else might come through, and she’ll need Jaeger pilots; people ready to look death straight in the face on behalf of their species.

Maybe she’ll get to do it herself.

А самое главное – я так чувствую эту вселенную, она просто пульсирует.
и вот одновременно с этим разговором в баре в DC, где-то примерно в то же время в Кембридже (MA) биолог/невролог/будущий экзобиолог пишет письма через Атлантику, и, возможно, все еще пишет песни, которые слушает Лайткэп в DC, и все такое большое и бесконечное и впереди.

Comments

[Hali]

А где ты читаешь? На ao3 все ссылки битые, а поиск ведет на cleanwhiteroom.com, который требует логина. Или ты там и читаешь как-то?

[Verit]

Hali, О! ПРИВЕТ! =DDD
я несколько раз давала в предыдущих постах ссылку! Вот тут можно все скачать: seserakh.tumblr.com/post/133453977536/designati...

Там есть сами фики, есть подфики/аудиофики (очень, очень, очень советую! вот тут я немного писала), есть музыка, созданная благодаря фику и с lyrics автора фика (Superconducting Supercolliders).

Начинать надо с Designations Congruent With Things. С текста или аудиофика.)
Там много науки и потрясающее просто все, тебе понравится <3

[Hali]

О, спасибо! Я не сопоставила, что это то же самое, о чем ты раньше писала - почему-то предыдущие посты мне казалось, что это про трансформеров.
С удовольствием начну читать меееедленно с учетом обстоятельств. Судя по описанию и цитатам, понравится очень. :-)

[Hali]

Теперь и я дочитала до Out of Scattered Things, и какое же оно клевое, даже лучше идет, чем Destinations Congruent with things, потому что да - и письма, и маршал, и Кейтлин, и первый дрифт (омг, Еванжелина - еще одна отсылка к Евангелиону, случайная ли, намеренная ли!). Читаю параллельно с Дарвином. Спасибо за рекомендацию еще раз. ^___^