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When Hannibal finds Hermann Gottlieb, he’s looking for a very specific type of person. He needs an accountant who knows how to hide things, keep accounts untraceable, and knows the value of discretion. No flash, just facts.
Hermann Gottlieb lost his tenure and his position at the university due to an incident involving alcohol, a student, and his TA. The car crash mangled his leg and lost him his job. His student died on impact. His TA dropped out of college.
After a year of substitute teaching at local high schools and being denied jobs at other universities again and again, Hermann Gottlieb is more frequently at a bar than anywhere else. As a result, he’s more than willing to have a drink with the strange eccentric man and his large friends. Hermann drinks a lot, and the eccentric man pays for the rounds, so he’s is willing to talk about just about anything.
For example, the equation he’s been chipping away at for ages, to predict when and where a Kaiju will make landfall. Even slurring his speech and doodling on napkins, it’s obvious he knows what he’s talking about and that his equations are good.
(The fact that the disgraced professor is working on that is a nice bonus for Hannibal Chau.)
“I’d like to offer you a job, Professor Gottlieb,” Hannibal says after the third round.
Hermann has a glazed look about him already. “Job? Nobody’d hire me … I … my Vanessa … she … she said, she said to me …” Hermann holds up a hand and knocks over a glass. He stares, closes his eyes, and passes out on the counter.
Hannibal motions to his people, and they toss money at the bartender and haul Hermann up.
When Hermann wakes the next morning he has a splitting headache, and a stranger in his home.
“Morning, Professor Gottlieb,” Hannibal says. He brings Hermann water, coffee, and some painkillers. Hermann accepts them with the thoughtless trust of an honest man with no enemies.
“Was that poisoned?” he asks after ten minutes.
… perhaps not so honest after all.
“Why would it have been?” Hannibal asks, the picture of innocence, or, rather, as close as he can get with a face and a wardrobe like his.
“My TA, back for revenge. They never did figure out which of us was the father, you see. I believe he’s convinced I murdered his child and lover in one fell swoop. So, if you’re here to kill me … to be honest I expected something a bit more dramatic than poison.” Hermann shrugs halfheartedly.
“I’m not here to kill you, Professor. I’m here to hire you. If you accept, that is. The benefits are quite generous.”
Hannibal hands Hermann a few sheets of paper. Numbers, mostly, detailing his health benefits and salary.
“And in exchange for these, frankly, criminal sums of money, I would be doing what exactly?” Hermann asks.
“What you do best, Professor. Playing with numbers.” Hannibal grins, making sure to display all his gold teeth. “Take care of my accounts, and I’ll take care of you.”
Hermann looks unconvinced. “I –”
“I’m also very interested in that equation you’re working on. Predicting the Kaiju attacks? My business is Kaiju remains. If I know where they’re going to be, and when, I can get ground crews ready much faster, and make more money than I already do.” Hannibal glances around the dingy apartment, with cardboard boxes stacked in the corner nothing hanging on the walls, and beer bottles piled by the door. “It’s your choice, Professor, but I don’t think you’ll be getting a better offer any time soon.”
Hermann looks at the papers, looks at Hannibal, and looks around his apartment.
“Very well. I accept.” Hermann holds out his hand.
Hannibal shakes it.
~*~
Hannibal doesn’t go looking for Newton Geiszler, Newt finds him.
Or, rather, Hannibal’s guards find Newt, sneaking in through one of the back doors.
They’ve just taken in a new Kaiju corpse, and are processing its organs and bones and everything else in a production line. The whole affair is taking place in a warehouse Hannibal rented the previous day, thanks to Hermann’s calculations. The calculations aren’t always right, but he’s getting better: six or seven times out of ten, Hermann gets the location within a 100 mile radius. Plenty of space for Hannibal to maneuver his crews, instead of maintaining several costly outposts all around the Pacific 24/7.
Hannibal is on an observation platform when he hears a commotion on the floor. He looks down and spots a stranger being dragged between Chan-Juan and Li, and heading up the stairs.
Hannibal sighs, cracks his knuckles, and hopes that he doesn’t have to get blood on his new jacket.
Chan-Juan and Li bodily toss the guy at Hannibal’s feet, so hard that the stranger trips and sprawls on the metal platform. He’s not an especially big guy, a little scrawny to be honest, so when he stares up, Hannibal – already a tall man – seems pretty gigantic.
“Holy shit.” squeaks the guy.
Chan-Juan flashes a rare smile behind his back.
Hannibal leans against the railing. “And what do we have here?” he drawls. He’s in no rush; he enjoys this sort of thing, and he has a Kaiju corpse being processed faster than ever. Hannibal can afford to kick back and have a little fun with this guy, and he’s got all the time in the world. (Or, rather, all the time until Hermann crashes into his office at 3am with a new calculation.)
“Found him trying to sneak through the back. Maybe a spy to steal Kaiju bones?” Li glares down at the guy on the floor, who, from the confusion and worry on his face, doesn’t understand a lick of Cantonese.
“Find anything on him?” Hannibal asks in Cantonese, just to keep the guy in the dark.
“Just these,” Li hands him a small phone, nothing too fancy, and a satchel with nothing in it besides some clothes and a notebook full of Kaiju doodles.
Hannibal scrutinizes the man: white pasty skin, dark unruly hair, ripped jeans, and retro glasses: pretty standard for a kid of his age, which can’t be much more than twenty-something. He’s wearing a black tanktop and a plaid overshirt, but Hannibal can see glimpses of tattoos on his arms.
“Show me your arms,” he snaps, in English now.
The kid blinks. “What?”
“Show me your arms.”
The kid tries to stand up and Chan-Juan kicks him back to the ground. He cringes and rolls up his plaid shirt, staying down on his knees. He’s got two full sleeves of tats, snaking up his arms, over his shoulders, and vanishing under his shirt. Hannibal is betting the kid has full chest art too, or plans to get it eventually.
The tattoos are all of Kaiju, lovingly detailed. He must have paid an arm and a leg to get an artist to do such work: it’s a pretty fucked up thing to ask for in times like these. There’s probably people out there with Nazi tattoos who don’t get into as many fights at this kid likely does.
“So, Kaiju-groupie?” Hannibal grabs the kid by the hair and hauls him up, flicking out his favorite butterfly knife with the other hand. “You got exactly five seconds to tell me why you’re here, and who sent you, or I start carving up your face.”
The kid squirms and wriggles and whimpers and it’s all really quite entertaining. Hannibal is having far too much fun already and he’s barely begun. A part of him hopes the kid doesn’t tell the truth right off, to prolong the interrogation. Hannibal lets the knife trace along the kid’s cheek and neck before suddenly sliding partway up his nostril.
“I’m here to work for you! Nobody sent me!”
That’s a strange enough reply that Hannibal withdraws the knife from the kid’s nose. But it’s also nonsensical enough that he’s feeling a twinge of frustration. So he nods to Chan-Juan and Li, and they grab the kid and haul him over the railing, gripping his legs but letting his arms flail out into empty space. Hannibal reaches and catches the kid’s glasses before they fall. It’s a long way down, long enough that it’d be tough to survive crashing down onto the concrete. More likely his head will split like a melon.
“I have a resume! It’s in my bag!” the guy yelps, arms windmilling frantically. “I just want to work for you!”
Hannibal raises an eyebrow and rummages through the bag, pulling out a legit resume on stiff formal paper. Doctor Newton Gieszler has quite the impressive credentials: six doctorates already; graduated from MIT with honors.
“Say this checks out, and isn’t something you copied offline,” Hannibal says, as Newt’s face begins to turn red from the blood rushing into his head. “Why would someone with five doctorates want to work for me?” He gets it wrong on purpose, to see if the kid knows the story well enough to correct him.
“Six.” Newton corrects. “You have the most complete Kaiju specimens in the world! You have the best access to their corpses and the most knowledge about how they work and how to store them. And I want to work on them! So, I want to work for you, Mr. Chau.” Newton flashes what is probably a winning smile on his good days, but upside down and in the middle of a red and sweating face, isn’t doing him any favors.
“Ok, ok, bring him back,” Hannibal waves a hand and Newton is hauled back onto the platform. “And wipe that smirk off your face, kid. If something on here doesn’t check out, you’re not going over the side. I’m gonna make you pay for wasting my valuable time.”
Newton pales, but nods. “Yeah, ok. Fair enough. It’s all going to check out, though.”
“It’d better,” Hannibal growls. “I haven’t gutted someone in weeks. I’ve got an itch.”
“Well, I’d rather not help with the gutting thing, but … metaphorically, I scratch your back, you give me access to Kaiju brains?” Newton wheedles, grinning hopefully.
Hannibal snorts. “Like I’d turn my back on you. You tried to break into my facility. I don’t trust you enough to be in a room alone with me.”
“Should I be afraid for my virtue?” Newton asks, wide-eyed with exaggerated concern.
Li coughs hurriedly to mask a laugh, and Chan-Juan stares at the ceiling.
“In your dreams, groupie,” Hannibal snaps, but inwardly he smiles. He’s starting to hope this kid’s story checks out, because the banter is fun and, weird tats or not, there’s no denying his eye-candy appeal. Having a nice piece of ass around the place could be good, and having a brain and six doctorates as a package deal just makes things even better.
Turns out that Newt’s story is legit, and he really does just want to work on Kaiju bits. He knows a helluva a lot more about their anatomy and DNA than anyone else on the planet currently, excepting maybe a few government scientists who tend to have better things to do than puzzle over identical Kaiju DNA from separate specimens, seven years apart.
Newt is a weird one, twitchy, excitable, and now perpetually hyped from being around so many Kaiju samples. But he figures out how to better preserve the skin parasites after his first day, so Hannibal decides to keep him around. On a trial basis, of course. And he’ll be back to knives and railings if Newt tries to run off with any specimens or sells any secrets to Hannibal’s rivals. Hannibal makes sure Newt is very, very clear about that. So no matter how excited the kid gets, he never goes running off to the competition.
The “trial basis” evaporates after the first week or so, and it’s like Newt has been there all along.
~*~
Hermann and Newt get along exactly like a house on fire. They bicker, they fight, they needle each other. Newt is messy where Hermann is meticulous, Hermann is rigid where Newt is more of an out of the box kind of guy. Worse, Hermann is still clinging to some shreds of religion, and Newt is a confrontational atheist.
Hannibal walks into their shared office one day to find an actual line drawn down the middle of the room. It’s the exact shade of Kaiju blood, of course.
“What are you, goddamn children?” he snaps.
Instead of looking ashamed, the two scientists glare at each other across the sides of the line.
Hannibal swears some of the foulest curses he knows, mixing Cantonese and Russian for the best effect, and tries to get a hold of himself. “If this line isn’t gone by tomorrow, I’m moving you both into a smaller office. And then a smaller one. Until you either kill each other, or learn to work together.” Hannibal storms out, already hearing the start of another shouting match. Surprisingly, Newt knows enough German to throw some colorful insults at Hermann. Hannibal hasn’t even rounded the corner before he hears the sound of the first punch.
Hannibal sighs and hopes it doesn’t actually end in a death, because both men are ridiculously intelligent and becoming increasingly vital to his organization.
The next day he enters the office, expecting blood and a mangled body. Instead he finds the line washed away, and Newt and Hermann scrawling on a whiteboard together, writing around each other’s shoulders and joking in a mixture of English and German.
Well, whatever they did, it must have worked. Hannibal nods in approval and leaves them to it.
Three days later, Hannibal walks in on Newt bent over a desk with Hermann fucking him.
Suddenly their reconciliation makes a whole lot more sense than before.
“You … insufferable … Schlampe,” Hermann pants.
“Oh, calling me a slut? Very original. Haven’t heard that one a million times in grad school.” Newt rolls his eyes, glances up, and spots Hannibal. “Oh, shit, the boss is here. Better look busy!” he reaches for a marker and starts scrawling on the wall with a shaking hand.
Herman tilts his neck and freezes upon seeing Hannibal in the doorway.
“Hey, did I tell you to stop?” Newt squirms, whining. “Don’t leave me hanging, man!”
“Uh … sir … I …”
“This would be exactly what it looks like, then?” Hannibal asks, slowly walking over to the desk.
“Yesssssss …” Newt draws out the word with a satisfied lilt. “Turns out the Professor here would rather fuck me than kill me for more office space. Score! He’s a rockstar in the sack. Hey,” Newt glances between Hermann and Hannibal. “Have you two fucked yet? Never got around to asking, but it’d make a lot of sense –”
Hannibal and Hermann have been staring at each other for a long time.
“How good is he?” Hannibal asks, ignoring Newt completely.
“Exceptional. He learned quite a lot in college.” Hermann rests a hand on Newt’s hip, gripping it possessively. “I recommend his mouth.”
“Do you?” Hannibal has been half-hard since he saw them fucking, and his erection is starting to get painful, constrained in his pants.
“Only way I’ve discovered to shut him up.” Hermann smirks.
“Hey!” Newt interjects. “Don’t I get any say in this?”
“Way I figure, you still owe me for trying to break in here,” Hannibal tells him, unzipping his pants. “What, don’t tell me you’ve never taken two guys at once?”
Newt grins. “I must be dead. This has gotta be heaven: there’s Kaiju parts all over, and two guys wanting to fuck me.”
Hannibal chuckles, ruffling Newt’s already messy hair, and pulls his cock out. “Think you can handle me?” he asks, stroking himself a few times.
Newt eyes his length. “Yeah, I think so. Might not be able to deep throat you right away, but we’ll see.”
Hannibal bites back a moan and tangles his fingers in Newt’s hair.
Hermann smirks and starts thrusting again.
~*~
This is how it works now:
You go to Newt if you want something and you want someone nice.
You go to Hannibal if you need something and you’re willing to strike a deal.
And you go to Hermann if you piss of Newt and/or Hannibal enough.
Newt is the “nice one” because he’s usually distracted with five different things at once, spinning so many plates in the air he doesn’t have time to get angry at people. Hannibal has a reputation to uphold, and thus uses his anger in a controlled manner, to make a statement or crush opposition. Hermann, on the other hand, is barely controlled rage until he unleashes himself upon whatever poor bastard tried to cheat them of their cut or leered at Newt a little too long or was about to betray them to a rival gang.
Then come the tools Hannibal’s been helping Hermann outfit his cane with.
Then comes the pain.
Once, after watching Hermann deal with a man skimming off the take, Hannibal looks up that TA of Hermann’s. The kid died in a “freak accident” around the same time Hannibal’s outfit was in the area selling off Kaiju remains.
Hannibal doesn’t ask about it, and Hermann hasn’t mentioned it by now, so the topic stays buried.
Newt only shuts up when both of them are fucking him, and even then there’s a chance he’ll try babbling at some point. He wants to Drift with a Kaiju brain, desperately, and Hannibal is starting to entertain the idea simply because it means Newt will stop whining about it every damn week.
Hermann keeps the money moving, keeps it hidden and secure, circling the globe and leaving no traces. Sometimes he seems so cold, so distant, glowers out the window and rubs at his leg. Only Newt can shake him from those moods, drag him into a round of teasing banter, scrawling equations across the walls and each other’s bodies in magic marker and edible paint.
Hannibal starts to let them have more public appearances, appear at his sides during meetings and negotiations. Sometimes he has them “wear something nice” (for Hermann this means tasteful suits, for Newt this means a tie and no jeans) and mingle with him at functions and parties among the world’s underground elite. On rare occasions they attend less formal events, with Newt in skinny jeans or Kaiju-leather pants and a ripped shirt, displaying his tattoos, sitting on Hannibal’s lap the whole night; Hermann lurking nearby, cane gripped in both hands, the rings Hannibal has given him over the years glittering. They watch men fight in cages, women have sex in chains, and things they don’t talk about in the morning.
Sometimes Hannibal will grab at Newt, drag him to the nearest bedroom or flat surface, take out his knife and make Newt squirm again like the first day they met. Sometimes Newt will hover around Hannibal all day, biting his lower lip and fidgeting, until Hannibal forces him to beg for what he wants.
Hannibal and Hermann try, once or twice, but can’t get the right rhythm going without Newt present. Without him, the equation falls apart, the data is incomplete.
Hannibal showers them with money. Newt’s tattoos spread down over his belly and across his back, curling down his legs until there’s hardly any blank skin left.
Soon, Stacker Pentecost will call. Will make them an offer, exclusive rights to the bodies in exchange for Hermann’s equation and Newt’s analyses of the Breach. He’ll include them in his plan to close the Breach for good, offer to let them in on the operation or be tried by the world governments for black market dealings. He has enough on them at that point to sink them, taking himself down, but Pentecost will be a decorated war hero after the Breach is closed, and they’ll just be criminals. Easy scapegoats for a world with no monsters left to punch in giant robots.
So Newt will Drift with a Kaiju brain, sharing the neural load with Hermann, and scaring Hannibal half to death. They’ll learn what they need, send it on to Pentecost, and the Breach will be closed. Hannibal and Hermann and Newt will look around, at the final Kaiju corpses, and their piles of untraceable money, and wonder what to do with their lives.
Soon, all of that will happen.
Now, Hannibal drags Newt into his bed, Hermann slipping in after him, silent and dark. Hannibal and Newt writhe against each other briefly, too tired for much more, while Hermann strokes Newt’s hair and bites down on the crook of his neck. They fall asleep, tangled together, dreaming of Kaiju and money and more nights like this one. Hermann’s first (and only tattoo) is still bandaged. It’s a kind of crest they’ve invented for themselves: Hannibal got it on his chest, Newt squeezed it onto his foot, and Hermann got it on his forearm.
This apocalypse has come, and is staying for the foreseeable future, and as far as they’re all concerned, it can stay.