Chapter XII: The Littrow Configuration
Morning bled into the world like an unfinished sketch.
The London sky was dull, smudged grey, but Nathaniel Cross woke with no relief. His eyes ached as though painted in shadows, his chest throbbed where the scar pulsed faintly, and his desk was an autopsy of failed experiments—sheets curled from candle soot, shattered beaker fragments, ink blotched with water stains. The prism sat at the edge, fractured rainbow trapped in its glass belly, a reminder of what violet light had done to him.
He sat up slowly, shirt clinging with the sour weight of sweat.
Another day.
Another lie to wear like a jacket.
He washed his face, combed fingers through his hair, then dressed in the plain uniform of a student: white shirt, dark trousers, jacket. Anonymity was his armour. His satchel bulged with more than textbooks—pages of frantic notes, equations no professor had assigned, sketches of spectra scribbled between AutoCAD printouts.
On the Underground, voices clashed around him: chatter of commuters, the hollow echo of the tunnels, buskers weaving notes that broke against tile walls. Nathaniel stared at his reflection in the dark glass. The man staring back looked tired, but more than that—he looked like someone eroding.
Theo's voice pulled him back to the present.
"Cross!"
Nathaniel turned. Theo was waving from across the carriage, satchel swinging dangerously, grin unbothered by the morning crowd. He plopped into the seat beside Nathaniel.
"You look like you fought a bear and lost," Theo said. "Don't tell me you were up all night again."
"Studying," Nathaniel replied evenly.
Theo groaned. "You're studying yourself into an early grave. DE, Econ, AutoCAD—they're not worth insomnia. Trust me, I've been skimming notes since first year and I'm still standing."
Nathaniel smirked faintly. "Somehow."
The train lurched. Theo rattled on about a lecturer who pronounced "Laplace Transform" like it was a French wine, about how Engineering Economics was a conspiracy to torture students with numbers that weren't even real money. Nathaniel let the words wash over him.
But underneath, the scar throbbed once, twice—like a second pulse.
Differential Equations.
Professor Pennington's chalk scratched across the board, trails of variables multiplying into landscapes of lines and slopes. The lecture hall smelled of paper and faint mildew.
"Gentlemen, equations are not just abstract nonsense," Pennington intoned, his voice like gravel dragged across stone. "They describe reality. Motion. Decay. Growth. Even the trajectory of planets can be mapped with the right system."
Nathaniel copied mechanically, symbols lining his notebook. But every ∂, every dy/dx, every symbol reminded him of his scar.
Decay. Growth. Reaction.
What equation described light burning flesh? What system mapped the chaos under his skin?
Pennington called on him suddenly. "Mr. Cross. Solve this first-order system. Quickly."
Nathaniel blinked, then rose, chalk trembling in his hand.
He stared at the problem.
dy/dx + y = e^x.
A standard problem. He knew the integrating factor, the steps, the solution. His hand moved almost without him. The board filled with neat lines, exponentials and constants weaving into balance.
When he finished, Pennington gave a curt nod. "Acceptable."
Nathaniel returned to his seat, his chest tight.
Equations could describe the universe. Yet none could explain the fire that lived in him.
Engineering Economics.
A different battlefield, this one of ledgers and projections. Professor Davison clicked through slides of cash flows and net present value, her voice quick, precise, impatient.
"The value of money changes with time," she said. "That is the law of finance. The same pound today is not the same pound tomorrow. You must calculate, discount, and predict."
Theo whispered to Nathaniel, "Translation: our future salaries are already worthless."
Nathaniel forced a smile. But Davison's words lingered.
Value changes with time.
What about scars? What about curses? Did their weight grow or shrink as the years went on?
He imagined discounting his own fear, reducing it with formulas until it reached zero. If only numbers could strip light of its power.
He wrote a note in the margin of his textbook: Energy changes with wavelength. Can value of light be calculated like value of money?
The scar pulsed faintly, as if mocking the comparison.
AutoCAD Lab.
Rows of computers, their screens glowing blue. Students hunched, dragging lines, snapping angles, constructing structures out of digital skeletons.
Theo cursed under his breath. "Why does this bloody rectangle keep snapping to nothing? Look at this—it's floating in space!"
Nathaniel leaned over, adjusted a setting, realigned the coordinate system. "You forgot to lock your reference."
Theo groaned. "You're a machine, Cross. Admit it—you've got gears in your head."
Nathaniel didn't reply. He turned back to his own monitor, the white canvas glaring back. He drew lines. Shapes. Projections.
But his thoughts strayed.
What if he modeled the spectrum? Wavelengths plotted like beams, scar tissue as a surface absorbing energy. Could AutoCAD map pain? Could it measure agony in units?
He nearly laughed at the absurdity. But his hand kept sketching—an arc like a prism, lines refracting, energy arrows stabbing into a shape labeled simply: SCAR.
He closed the file quickly before Theo could see.
Night.
The flat again.
Textbooks piled on one side of the desk. Beakers, mirrors, the prism on the other. A battlefield divided between sanctioned learning and secret discovery.
Nathaniel sat, notebook open, pen trembling in his grip.
Almost there.
He had mapped the spectrum. He had narrowed it down: violet and ultraviolet carried the knife that cut him. Red, orange, longer wavelengths—they left him almost untouched.
Protection. That was the question now. How to shield? How to build armor out of science?
He remembered chemistry again. Absorption. Reflection. Materials designed to block or scatter specific wavelengths.
He gathered what he had—cheap sunglasses, dark plastic, fragments of glass he had tinted with ink. He layered them over the prism, testing each against the scar.
Trial 34: Black plastic sheet. Reduced sting. Partial block.
Trial 37: Double layer tinted glass. Burn diminished. Still present.
Trial 41: Combination filter—red plastic plus tinted glass. Violet nearly gone. Scar calmer.
Nathaniel's breath hitched. He scribbled notes furiously.
It was working. Not perfect, but close.
He pressed the layered shield against his chest, angled the lamp with prism again. The violet shard broke—muted, smothered, like a knife dulled.
The scar throbbed, but did not ignite.
Relief crashed over him.
He slumped in his chair, laughter escaping in a hoarse breath.
"Almost," he whispered. "Almost."
But exhaustion claimed him before triumph could settle. His head dropped to the desk, notes crumpling under his weight.
In the dark flat, the scar pulsed faintly. The filters on the desk gleamed under lamplight, fragile as glass, temporary as shadows.
Outside, the rain returned, steady and endless, washing London in silver.
Nathaniel Cross slept, his dreams flickering with numbers, spectra, and fire—caught between equations of men and laws of something far older.