Do The Math
Title: Do The Math
Rating: T / PG-13 (for minor violence and peril)
Summery: When a lecture hall at CalSci is bombed, Charlie is shaken but determined to assist with the case. As the mystery unfolds, however, Don begins to realize that all the clues involve Charlie. 3 Bombs, 12 Days, 4 Futures…1 Target.
Legal Disclaimer: I do not own the Eppes, CalSci or any of the other original characters or locations from the TV show, "Numb3rs". They are the property of CBS and its associates. I also do not own the rights to official titles such as the FBI, WITSEC, the LA Museum of Art or any other recognizable establishments and locations. This piece of fiction is purely for entertainment and is in no way to reflect on any of these organizations.
Author's Disclaimer: I am a high school student and a huge fan of the show, "Numb3rs". I am not, however, a math genius. Despite my best efforts to research all mathematical concepts and methods used, one who is better educated than I myself may easily find "errors in my data" (as Charlie would say) and for that, I do apologize.
Feedback: Oh! Well what a great idea! How incredibly thoughtful, that'd be lovely. You're so smart. lol…
- - - - -
3 Bombs
12 Days
4 Futures
1 Target
California Institute of Science, 9:58 pm
The dim, yellow lights poured warmly onto row after row of empty seats. A banner at the front of the impressive room declared: "Extremal Combinatorics: Ramsey Theory and Computer Security". The clear board was peppered with equations and at the top of the board, written in bold, red marker: Professor Charles Eppes.
The only sound in the whole room was a steady tic tic tic that would be inaudible, were it not so still. A small, red light could just barely be seen under the lectern at the front of the hall, blinking dully at steady intervals.
Across campus, a dozen students flinched as the windows of the Blaise Pascal lecture hall blew, sending glass flying twenty feet in each direction. Someone screamed, "It's a bomb!" panic ensued, and by the time the FBI got there (VFD, police department and bomb squad in-toe), half of CalSci was standing about campus, watching in horror as the lecture hall burned.
- - - - -
There was a hesitant tap at the door. Charlie rolled over, pulling the covers up to his shoulders, and mumbled loudly, "You really don't have to keep checking on me, I'm feeling better."
"Now that's a curious statement," Charlie turned around, surprised. "We are accustomed to saying we feel better or worse, but without allowing for a basis of comparison, it's really impossible to state anything as better, worse, or really of being at all. Exasperating that one must technically master the concept of special and general relativity before you can make even the most basic generalization."
Charlie grinned. "Hi Larry."
Larry swung the book bag off his left shoulder, the laptop bag off his right, and sat down in the chair next to Charlie's bed. "When I heard that Professor Eppes was canceling his lecture on the radical, albeit slightly naïve theory of mathematical password protection, I don't know…I sort of expected to find you in here with Leishmaniasis." Charlie just stared impassively back and Larry clarified, "Black fever."
"When could I have possibly come in contact with sand fleas, Larry…"
Larry put his hands up defensively. "I was merely pointing out that I expected to find you more lethargic than you are. It's not a disappointment, mind you," he added cheerfully.
Charlie smiled, tousling his all ready messy hair. "Yeah, well trust me, I didn't want to cancel over a fever either, but when I threw up half my breakfast, Dad said he wouldn't let me go."
Larry bounced his thumbs off each other. "Forgive me, but aren't you a grown adult, Charles?"
"He hid my keys, what was I supposed to do? I all ready talked to the board and personally apologized to some of the professors who were going to be there." He sat up, rubbing his eyes blearily, then paused. "Hey wait a second, aren't you supposed to be doing your class in…" he glanced down at his watch. "Right now?"
Larry shook his head, "I traded hours with Professor St. James so I could…well, muse."
Charlie hid a smile. "Muse."
"Don't judge me prematurely, you would do well to break away from structure once in awhile, it's the only way you reaffirm a grasp on the unfathomable."
Charlie climbed out of bed as he talked, and gripped the bookshelf, pressing a sweaty palm to his forehead. "Currently I'd be okay with having a grasp on gravity."
The door opened suddenly. "Charlie, what do you think you're doing?"
Charlie looked up to see his dad standing in the doorway. "What, does…does an alarm go off in the living room if I get out of bed?"
"Get back into that bed," Alan interrupted. Charlie groaned, rubbing his forehead.
"Dad, I'm not-"
"Here, I'll help you…"
"I'm not going to get better playing invalid all day long. I need to keep my system running-"
"No, no, you need to get some sleep. Ask any doctor, they'll tell you the same thing: Water and rest." Alan directed him back to his bed, pushing him down and throwing the thick blankets back on.
Charlie scowled, trying to bat him away. "No- Dad I don't want them."
"You need to stay warm."
"I'm burning up as it is!"
"Exactly, that's what happens when you have a fever." His dad patted him on the knee. "I'm going to go make you some soup. Okay?"
Charlie simmered then forced a smile. "Kay. Thanks."
"Can I get you anything, Larry?"
"Thank you Alan, I'm fine."
"Suit yourself." He closed the door behind him, and the smile vanished from Charlie's face. He aimed an accusing finger at the door.
"He's been like that all day. He won't let me get out of bed, he keeps making me drink water, eat soup, take Tylenol…"
"He's just trying to help. It's in a parent's nature to coddle their children in times of illness, even when they're thirty-year-old children."
"Amita got the same thing a week ago, and she was only out of commission for an afternoon…" Charlie grumbled.
"Amita didn't have somebody to make her stay in bed, or else she wouldn't have come down with it again."
Charlie blinked. "She got it again? Isn't that impossible?"
"Unlikely, most definitely. But once you step beyond that one restraint…" Larry raised his palms in that 'nothing is impossible' way. Charlie decided to get back to the original topic.
"I don't know, it's not my dad's fault or anything, and I'm grateful that he cares so much." He let that sit for a few moments, then went on. "But I'm just- I'm going nuts sitting in this tiny- hot- stuffy room." He kicked the blankets off him defiantly, and huffed. Larry looked amused which irritated him. "What?"
"I was just thinking about how fascinating-"
Charlie held up a hand, "Actually, Larry, I'm really not in the mood."
Larry shrugged and turned his chair around so he could rest his arms on the back. "Well, if it would help, you could assist me in my quandary."
"How's that?"
Larry scratched his palm absently, then began to speak slowly as though the words were coming to him as he went. "Tell me something, Charles. If you asked a doctor what his favorite memory was, do you suppose it would be the day his mother was saved from cancer? Or put it in more personal terms, if you asked me about the best gift I was ever given, would I tell you it was a telescope?"
Charlie seemed taken aback. "Social and relational studies? Professor Fleinhardt, I'm surprised. I mean…you're talking basic characteristics, personality qualities."
"Not entirely. I'm talking about how we assign high values to favorite memories, childhood traditions and even unpleasant memories. If a young man remembers how it felt when a doctor told him his mother was going live, he would think of himself as someone who truly appreciates medicine. It's just one of the many pieces that contributed to his own diploma."
"So you're saying you can predict a person's vocation based on a good memory?" Larry gave an 'if you want to put it that way' sort of shrug. Charlie thought a moment. "It's good in theory, but you're the one who once said humans always come with an element of unpredictability."
"You of all people, Charles, should see the significance that certain events have on a person's life choices. What makes a killer? Memories and emotions pent up over years and years. Based upon basic choices and memories a human has made, we could learn volumes about the person they are today. It's uh, well it's like stars." Charlie sighed audibly. With Larry, it was always about stars eventually. Maybe he was just feeling cranky.
Larry cleared his throat patiently. "Now bear with me, Charles. Tracking a person's life is complex but never impossible. It takes the light from Proxima Centuri 4.2 years to reach Earth, but does that mean it is impossible to determine when that star was born? Of course not."
"Okay, sure," Charlie leaned forward. "So tell me…what's your worst memory?"
Larry got a faraway look in his eye that lasted for a very long time. Then, about when Charlie was beginning to wish he hadn't asked, he seemed to snap out of himself. "Well unless you really must know, I'd rather try it on you."
Charlie blinked. "Uh…"
"Unless you're uncomfortable." Larry made to get out of his chair. "I could go help your father prepare your soup, I actually make a really good-"
"Larry, I have nothing to hide." He made a look Don often described as his 'impish grin'. "Try me."
"All right, fine, soup can wait," Larry sat back down, failing to conceal a triumphant smile. "I want you to dig back and tell me what is truly one of the most difficult memories you can think of. One that just comes to mind when I ask." Charlie wrinkled his brow in thought. "Don't think about it too much, just enough to be sure you picked a particularly relevant one."
"Okay. I have it." Larry nodded and waited. "What you- you want me to tell you?"
"We could attempt Fredric Myers' bodily impossible solution of telepathy, but I just figured with you feeling under the weather-"
"Yeah yeah," Charlie grinned, sitting up straight. "Uh, okay…well, I was probably ten years old, and this…this little punk of a kid, Travis Roberns, had threatened to beat me up. So I told Don he had to show up early to walk me home that day, cause, you know I didn't want to be alone when Travis came to collect. But uh…Don didn't show. My dad ended up picking me up from the school nurse. He had this look of…just utter shock all over his face. I'd never seen him so upset, so…" he shrugged again, brushing it off. "It wasn't bad, you know, I had a black eye, couple bruises…I guess that's the first time I ever busted a tooth. But uh…the tough part was when Don got home that night. He said he'd had extra work at school, which was why he didn't walk me home. He was so apologetic…and I remember feeling just so guilty for thinking all day that that beating was his fault."
He glanced at Larry for the first time. He looked pensive, hands clasped behind his neck, elbows resting on the back of the chair. Charlie felt a little impatient, his light-headedness and the unpleasant memory both messing with his mood. "Any chance you'll share your results with me, professor?" When Larry didn't respond, he added, "I don't see how you can draw any sort of conclusions from a story like that."
"Your intense guilt on your brother's behalf, your dependence on both his and your father's emotional stability…both speak volumes about you, Charles."
Charlie couldn't think how to respond to that.
- - - - -
"Don? Don." Don snapped out of his thoughts.
"Sorry, David. What've you got?"
David shook his head, brushing soot off the arms of his coat. "It's a real mess. Maybe ten, twelve pounds of C4. Bomb squad says the place is clean, and we finished cornering off the area."
"So they've confirmed that this is the same guys who did the grocery store and restaurant last week?"
David nodded. "LAPD's officially turning the case to us now. They're thinking organized crime."
"Yeah well a pattern doesn't mean it's organized, but it's worth considering. The police told me zero casualties, no one was in the building."
"Yeah, and it's what makes this entire thing so strange."
Don nodded, surveying the charred walls of the once-impressive lecture hall. "If it was an act of terrorism or a group of some kind, you'd think they would have attacked a roomful of people."
Megan approached them at that moment, stuffing latex gloves in her pocket. "Unless they meant to get a roomful of people and they missed it." The two of them looked at her. "I just spoke to the events coordinator. Don, Charlie was supposed to give a lecture this morning."
"Yeah I know, he woke up in the middle of the night with a fever, had to stay home." He shrugged. "But Charlie's lectures are always at the uh- the Everhart hall." He waved his hand towards the north. "That's way across campus."
"Not today. This was a big deal to CalSci, they had a lot of important professors coming, they reserved the biggest hall for him."
"So…what, you're telling me that the bombers targeted Charlie's lecture?"
Megan shook her head. "Well it doesn't explain the previous bombings, but based on the bare facts we have here, it's certainly starting to look that way."
"Don!" Colby came running up behind Don before he could reply to this new information. "It's definitely the same guys." He held out a sooty strip of cloth. "It was tide to the plastic binder, just like the grocery and restaurant bombs."
Don nodded, reading the cloth, all ready knowing what it'd say. FREE OUR BRO. "I'm thinking the LAPD are right on with that hunch."
"So-" Colby looked at Megan. "Someone told me that someone had a…mathematical computer security lecture here today?"
"Yeah," David interjected before Megan could answer. "Charlie."
Colby's eyebrows rose. "Woah…well-" he looked at Don whose thoughts appeared to be elsewhere. "Charlie sure chooses a good time to get sick."
- - - - -