Who We Are (12/35)
Title: Who We Are (12/35)
Author: ladygray99
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Charlie/David
Word count: 4,205
Warnings/Spoilers: Attempted Suicide and the after effects there of. See Part 1 for Spoilers.
Summary: Sometimes life makes you look in the mirror and if you don’t like what you see there are only a couple of options. - The Math is back
Previous Chapters: 1 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Notes:Written for choc_fic 's 100 Days of Color. I debated with myself a lot of this section so I'd love to get people's feeling on it.
Beta: swingandswirl and riverotter1951
Chapter 12
David could feel a different vibe before the doors even buzzed open, like the whole building was vibrating. Of course as Charlie and Larry had once explained to him technically everything was vibrating. At least if all the string theory people were right.
David didn’t look for Charlie at his window. He didn’t have to. On the far side of the main room Charlie was holding court. He was standing in front of three battered old chalkboards that were covered in math and diagrams. Strange little mobiles and models were hanging from them constructed from what looked like random bits of medical and office supplies. And Charlie was lecturing. David couldn’t hear what he was saying but nearly all the patients were gathered around, along with much of the staff and the other visitors, and he had their attention. It looked a bit like one of his math for non mathematicians lectures.
Of course what truly got David’s attention was Charlie’s smile as he spoke and gestured to various models and bits of math.
David turned quickly as Dr. Flores tapped his shoulder. “So Agent Sinclair, I think we’ve made some sort of breakthrough.”
David pointed to Charlie. “That is the best looking thing I’ve seen in weeks. That is Charlie as we know and love him. That is what he was meant to do.”
“Teach math.”
“Absolutely. It doesn’t matter how many bad guys he catches unless he feels like he taught us some math in the process the case wasn’t a success. What’s he lecturing on?”
Dr. Flores just shrugged. “I have no idea. Something about the state of the entire universe.”
“Ah, Larry’s coherent cosmos theory. You know if Fleinhardt is actually right on this one then he’s a slam dunk for a Nobel Prize.”
“Dr. Eppes said something to that effect. Now what’s he doing?”
David looked back to Charlie. He had cleared a space in front of the boards and dragged up from his audience a thin blond girl with stringy hair and bandages on both wrists. He put her in the center of the space then poked her in the side until she smiled and held her hands up to either side of her face. Then he pulled up a young man and quickly had him circling the girl while waving his arms around. Charlie followed him around the circle with one hand on the man’s shoulder. Then he waved and spoke to one of the large orderlies who quickly rushed past the two. Charlie briefly grabbed onto the orderly and let go of the young man but stayed close. After that the arm waving stopped and there was much spinning around.
“Oh!” Something clicked in David’s head. “A theory on the creation of the moon. A rogue planet slipped by earth when it was still in liquid form sucking off a big blob that became the moon and stabilized Earth’s orbit.”
Dr. Flores gave David the kind of look he was used to seeing people give Charlie. “You got that from that?”
“I’ve had six years to get used to translating Charlie and I don’t even have a math degree to help.” The Sun and the Earth sat back down, the Earth looking a little dizzy, and Charlie moved on to doing something with a roll of gauze and some rubber bands.
“It’s kind of like watching performance art.”
“Give him a trough and enough corn starch and he’ll walk on water for you.” David gave Dr. Flores a slap on the back and went to join Charlie’s audience. It probably wouldn’t go down in history as one of his best lectures. It jumped from topic to topic and often went well over the heads of his audience but Charlie’s analytical mind had clicked back into gear and was scrambling to catch up. That much was obvious.
Charlie was still going strong when David’s watch told him it was time to get back to the office. He had actually needed to ask Charlie something before coming in so he waited until Charlie paused to breathe then waved him over. Charlie quickly excused himself from his unwitting students.
“Hey,” David kept his voice low. “Feeling better?”
“Everything terrifies me, but the math’s back.”
“That’s great. Hey, do you still have copies of your work for the Genno Lab case, Clarence Weaver?”
“Um... I should. Why?”
“Weaver’s up for appeal.”
“That loony? Shit. When?”
“We don’t have a date yet. Soonish.”
“Lovely. Um…Yeah. I keep all my case work in my office once it’s closed. It’s in the locked filing cabinet opposite the windows. You’ll need my keys.”
“Where are they?”
Charlie’s eyebrows pulled together and a deep frown came across his face. “I have no idea. Home I guess. Probably in the bowl by the door.”
“Okay, don’t worry about it, I’ll find them I just didn’t want to go randomly rummaging through your stuff.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll let you get back to your class.”
Charlie grinned. “It does feel kind of nice.”
“Yeah, I know.”
~
David knocked on the Craftsmen door. He still had the spare key and knew he really should give it back. Alan opened the door. “David. Hey, come on in. You’re just in time, I was just about to order pizza.”
“Oh, I’m fine, Mr. Eppes, really. I’m just looking for Charlie’s keys.”
“I though we agreed on Alan and what do you need Charlie’s keys for?”
“One of his old cases is up for appeal next couple of weeks and we need to make sure every I was dotted and T crossed. He told me his finished work was in his filing cabinet in his office but that I need his keys to get in. Well I could probably pick the lock but, you know.”
“Sure. They’re in the bowl.” David looked into the bowl by the door and pulled out a set of keys with a bright orange Princeton key chain and a bright red one from CalSci. “Are you sure you won’t stay for dinner? Give an old man someone to beat at chess?”
Alan’s tone was light but there was a little twitch in his eyes. David hadn’t really thought about Alan’s living situation once he moved out. But Alan would have been used to having Charlie and Amita and often Larry around not to mention Don’s regular presence. He had to admit there was something about the house that now felt a little colder than usual despite the warm evening. “Sure. I haven’t exercised my completely masochistic streak in a couple of weeks.”
Alan smiled. “Great. You like pepperoni on your pizza, right?”
“That’s the only thing that belongs on a pizza. None of this weird Californian smoked salmon and artichoke heart stuff.”
“Pepperoni it is.”
David pulled out the chess board while Alan ordered.
David was still deciding on an opening move when Alan sat down across from him. “So how was Charlie today? I wanted to see him but every time I tried to step out of the office someone dragged me back.”
David lifted his knight for an opening move. “Actually when I got there he was lecturing to all the other patients on Larry’s coherent cosmos theory. They even found chalkboards for him somewhere.”
“Really!” Alan hastily moved a pawn. “He was actually doing math?”
“He was. I think... I think he’s snapping out of it. Weeks of watching him just stare out that window and today he was behaving like nothing had happened. There was math all over the boards. He had them all enthralled, even the staff. And he was smiling and bouncing around. I mean I know this could just be some kind of weird manic up swing but for a moment today... it felt like the world was right.”
~
David thought learning the FBI filing system had been difficult and counter intuitive. It wasn’t even nine yet but after a half hour of being nose deep in Charlie’s personal system he vowed never to complain about the Bureau system again. That, at least, was alphabetical.
There was a knock on Charlie’s door, then it opened. A young man leaned in. “Hi. Is Doctor Eppes here?” His voice was eager.
“Sorry.” David flashed his badge. “Just getting a few files.”
“Damn.” The young man stepped the rest of the way into the office, closing the door behind him. David looked him over. He looked like he was a couple of inches taller than David though probably fifty pounds lighter. He was in jeans and a t-shirt with some molecule on it. But most noticeable were a pair of grey blue eyes made that much more noticeable since they we’re looking at him from an African American face. “Um… I’m Liam Goodwin, I’m one of Doctor Eppes' students.”
‘Oh of course you are.’ David thought then held out his hand. “Agent David Sinclair.”
“Hi... Um... look... Is Doctor Eppes okay?”
“Why wouldn’t he be?” David replied quickly. He wasn’t sure what the CalSci rumor mill did or didn’t know.
Liam looked around like he was expecting someone to be lurking in the shadow. “When a teacher up and vanishes they’re usually sick or hurt or something, and we know about it. Someone gets a card, we all sign it. But no one’s come around with a card for Dr. Eppes. People are saying he’s off on some secret government thing but I don’t think so.”
“Why not, sounds reasonable?” David remembered what Charlie had said about Liam, observant, good at making connections.
“Well you’re here for one, and you’ve got Dr. Eppes' keys.” Liam pointed to the lock on the filing cabinet. “So it means you’re in contact with him so he’s in the city, not DC or something. And he’s not just moping at his house ‘cause his doctoral students tried to dig him up there with no luck. And I’d say maybe he’s at a safe house doing secret work or something but that doesn’t feel right ‘cause Dr. Ramanujan’s engagement ring vanished from her finger a few weeks ago and believe me she showed that thing to the entire damn school and she won’t say where Dr. Eppes is and honestly I don’t think she knows. And the last time we talked. I don’t know... He was acting a little weird.”
David looked the kid over. He was making some leaps in logic but was still putting things together very quickly. “Define weird?”
“His voice was really tight, you know, like he was trying not to cry or something and he just kind of looked at me for a while, then he said he like my shirt and honestly there’s been a running bet that you could walk into Dr. Eppes’ class naked and he wouldn’t notice and I don’t know, just something felt really wrong.”
“Where do you think he is?” David asked.
“Well I’d like to think that he’s south of the border, passed out on a beach with a couple of senoritas and the biggest bottle of tequila in Baja and he’s going to swan back up here in a week with a sunburn and a smile.”
David smiled. “I like that idea.”
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s right though. I think something happened. I think something happened to Dr. Eppes and it’s all being kept secret from everyone but the FBI.”
David nodded slowly. “Was there something particular you wanted to speak to Dr. Eppes about?”
Liam reached into his backpack and pulled out a notebook. “I had this idea for data encryption. I mean it’s pretty out there and it’s probably completely wrong and I’m just an idiot but I wanted it run it by Dr. Eppes.”
“Can’t you show it to other professors?”
“It’s pretty cut-throat around here. When you’re wrong most of the professors let you know just how unbelievably wrong you are and if you’re right you’re still usually wrong about something. With Dr. Eppes if you’re wrong he tries to figure out how to make you right and if you’re right he puts a foot on your back side to get you onto the next thing. Plus he’s already got the top spot, he doesn’t need to be an asshole.”
David grinned. “Would you believe me if I told you that fairly recently Dr. Eppes kicked a guy in the nuts?”
“Did the guy have it coming?”
“Yep.”
“Cool.”
David took the notebook. “If I see him, I’ll ask him to take a look at this.”
“Thanks. And tell him, I hope he’s doing okay with whatever it is. We need him around here.”
“I will.”
~
Charlie was sitting under his window but with a notebook propped up on his knees and a pen twirling between his fingers.
David peered at the notebook. There was math but it looked a little odd. A little too simple perhaps for Charlie’s usual work. “Hey there.”
Charlie looked up. His smile was bright and relaxed and David felt a knot in his chest begin to loosen for the first time in weeks as he sat down.
“Did you find the files you need?”
“Yes. It took me two hours to start to wrap my head around your filing system but yes I found the relevant files.”
Charlie pinched his lips. “It’s not that complicated a system. They’re just arranged by type of original crime, primary math used, then date.”
“Most people just use dates, or lacking that the alphabet.”
“Spelling’s never been my strong suit.”
“Tell me about it.” Charlie snorted and looked back down at his notebook. “Oh. I ran into one of your students.”
“Really?”
“I ran into Liam Goodwin.”
Charlie went still. “Oh.”
“He hopes you’re doing well.” Charlie looked back up quickly. “He doesn’t know anything. Most of CalSci thinks you got grabbed by the Men in Black for a secret mission but you were right. The kid’s smart. He’s worried something happened to you and hopes that whatever it is that happened you’re doing better and he hopes you come back soon.”
Charlie nodded slowly. “We should see about getting him clearance.” His voice was flat. “He’s still young but I’m sure he could be trained into a solid investigator.”
David pulled the notebook Liam had passed him out from under his jacket. “He asked me to give you this. He said it was an idea on a new type of data encryption. He said it was pretty out there and probably wrong and that’s why he didn’t want to show it to any of the other professors.”
Charlie took the notebook and flipped it open. David watched as Charlie ran his finger across the page. A frown crept across his face as he flipped a page then another. For several minutes he just read over the first few pages again and again. “What in the world are you doing Mr. Goodwin?” Charlie stood up his nose still in the notebook, a frown of deep concentration across his face. David watched as he started to pace, slowly turning each page and then often backtracking several pages. Then Charlie’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped. “Holy. Fucking. Shit.”
David stood up. “What?”
“Holy fucking, shit.” Charlie repeated.
“What? What is it?”
Charlie began to pace quickly enough that David could see the orderlies start to take note.
“This could be wrong,” he said quickly but didn’t sound like he entirely believed it.
“Charlie. What is it?”
“Possibly an entirely new way of encrypting data. This is brilliant. This is fucking brilliant.” Charlie was leafing through the rest of the notebook and not really paying any attention to where he was moving. “He’s got to do his doctorate on this. No question there. Writing the raw code to test it might be tricky but we’ll get Amita on that. I mean she is the best.” Charlie was waving one hand through the air like he was having to push through a cloud of equations and walking rapidly towards the door. “We’ll need a completely secure testing environment. CalSci won’t be good enough.”
“Charlie.”
“And we’ll...” Charlie bumped chest first into the very large hand of one of the very large orderlies.
David put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Charlie.”
Charlie looked around, blinking rapidly, confusion flickering across his face as if he just realized where he was. David’s heart broke as Charlie’s face, so vibrant just a moment before, fell and became still. He closed the notebook and handed it back to David.
“I need you to speak to Mr. Goodwin for me.” Charlie’s voice was controlled and professional.
“Of course.”
“If he is right he may have come across an entirely new way of encrypting data. It still needs several more years of work but I need to make sure that he has shown this to no one. That he has told nobody.”
“You want in on it first.”
Charlie’s look became deathly serious. “This is an H-bomb for the digital age. The first country or organization to get a hold of this will become very scary indeed and I’m including our own country on that list. A way of transmitting information that no one else can possibly look at?”
“I get it.”
“Remember that guy, Ethan Burdick, mathematician, got his daughter kidnapped five, six years ago.”
“He’s the one who thought he’d solved that math problem and the kidnappers wanted the answer.”
“Yes. A solution to Riemann could destroy all encryption on the internet. What’s in that book could be just as damaging in its own way. I need you to speak to Mr. Goodwin. I want him to keep working on it but he can tell no one, not a soul. This exists just between the three of us. I need you to put the fear of God, Uncle Sam and the North Koreans into him.”
David looked down at the notebook in his hands and idly wondered what would happen if he just made it disappear. “No problem. I’ll talk to him.”
“And...” Charlie took a deep breath. “If he needs to talk to me you can bring him here.”
“Okay. But I think he’d rather you could come and talk to him. He said something about the other professors being assholes.”
The tiniest fraction of smile touched Charlie’s lips. “Thank you for taking care of this, David.”
“Hey. No problem.”
~
David waited in Charlie’s office. The more he had thought about what Charlie had said the more he realized that what was in the little notebook really was a digital nuke. He actually asked Colby to put his spy hat back on and sweep Charlie’s office for bugs as well as check the surrounding area. The sweep didn’t turn up any bugs but it did turn up a surprising number of chocolate bar wrappers shoved in between the cushions of the couch. Someone had a nasty Twix habit they were trying to hide.
There was a knock on the office door and Liam Goodwin popped his head in. “Agent Sinclair?”
“Hello Mr. Goodwin, come on in. Lock the door behind you.”
Liam looked instantly nervous but still came into the office and locked the door with a click. “So... I guess you talked with Dr. Eppes.” Liam was obviously one for cutting to the chase.
“I did and I showed him your work. He was seriously impressed. I need to ask you, and I need the complete truth, have you showed this to anyone else?” David waved Liam’s notebook.
“No.”
“Have you talked to anyone about it? Even mentioned it in passing? Maybe you were bragging online? Does anyone know about this?”
Liam shook his head. “No. I’m not stupid and I’m not a masochist. Make a claim like a new type of encryption without being able to back it up. I’d be laughed off campus and that kind of shit just follows you forever.”
“So no one?”
“No one. I swear.”
David let out a long breath. “Good. That’ll make this easier.”
Liam took a step back. “Shit! You’re gonna whack me. Or... or... take executive action! That’s what they call it, right? Executive action? Oh God.” Liam squeezed his eyes shut.
David laughed. “Relax. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not the one you’ve got to be scared of.”
“Really? Who do I have to be scared of?”
“Everyone else.” David handed Liam his notebook. “Charlie wants you to keep working on that but you may have found a whole new way of encrypting data. Everyone is going to want it. Governments, corporations, cartels, terror groups. Everyone.”
Liam looked down at the little notebook in his hands. “It’s just some math.”
“Sit down.” David gestured to the now candy wrapper free couch. Liam sat down and David grabbed Charlie’s chair. “Okay, about six years ago we got called in on this case. Little girl, Emily, gets grabbed from her own birthday party. Sadly this isn’t as uncommon as people like to think so there are procedures and we followed them and then the father decides he doesn’t want the FBI’s help. Now the father is a mathematician, one of you guys. And he is convinced he has solved one of the Millennium prize problems. Riemann’s-hypothesis. You know it, right?”
“Yeah, I know Riemann’s.”
“Okay, he is so sure he solved it that he even told a journal to expect his paper any day. The kidnappers find out about this and they kidnap his daughter so they can get the solution as the ransom.”
“So they can collect the prize?”
“So they can hack into the Federal Reserve.” Liam’s eyes got wide as things started to click. “A little girl almost lost her life ‘cause of just some math and it wasn’t even correct math.”
Liam’s eyes darted between the notebook and the trash can. “Maybe I should just...”
“No. Charlie wants you working on that. If something is out there to be discovered someone is going to discover it. Who do you want discovering it? You? Or maybe someone with fewer qualms and morals.”
“It was just an idea I had one night when I couldn’t sleep. I just scribbled it down then got a little obsessive for a few weeks but, I don’t know. Maybe Dr. Eppes should just finish it off.” Liam tried to hand the notebook back but David didn’t take it.
“Nope. That’s yours. Your idea, for now, your responsibility.”
“Can I talk to with Dr. Eppes at least?”
David struggled not to cringe. “I can take you to see him but honestly I’d much rather he’d come to see you. It would... It would better for him if he did that. If he could do that.”
“I see.”
“Can you give him a week? If he’s not up for the trip in a week I’ll take you to see him.”
“Something happened to him, did it? Something no one is telling us.”
David wasn’t sure what to tell the kid. That his favorite teacher had a suicidal breakdown after their last conversation. “You know Charlie’s got a lot of respect for your talent. He’s been talking about getting you clearance so you can help out on cases.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No it doesn’t. Charlie will be back at some point. Right now he wants you working on that idea of yours, quietly, to prepare for your doctorate.”
“I’m not even sure if I’m doing a doctorate yet.”
David grinned. “You’re doing a doctorate and the great Doctor Charles Eppes will be advising you so don’t sweat it.”
Liam looked back down at his notebook then slipped it into his backpack. “With great power comes great responsibility?”
“That’s what the man said. Hey, there’s a possibility it won’t actually hold up under experimentation. You know, like the cat in the box thing. Everyone knows it’s not actually alive and dead at the same time no matter how much math you throw at it.”
Liam nodded. “You hang out with Dr. Eppes a lot, don’t you?”
“And I once got drunk with Dr. Fleinhardt.”
“Wow. Okay.” Liam took a deep breath and stood up. “Okay. Tell Dr. Eppes he’s got a week and then I’m gonna to come looking for him.”
“I’ll be sure to pass it along and if anything comes up or you have any worries you have my number.”
“Worries? I’m going to be paranoid as all crap now. I’m going to go back to my dorm room and sweep it for bugs.”
“If no one knows then no one is watching you.”
“Yeah, yeah. How do I know someone isn’t watching you?”
“I got a buddy who’s an ex-secret agent keeping an eye out and he already swept the office for bugs.”
“Find any?”
“Nope, just lots of Twix wrappers.”
“Those are Dr. Ramanujan’s. She gets them out of the vending machine and always says she’s getting them for Dr. Eppes but Dr. Eppes is AWOL and she’s still getting them.”
“And that there is why Charlie wants you working on cases.”
Previous Next
Author: ladygray99
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Charlie/David
Word count: 4,205
Warnings/Spoilers: Attempted Suicide and the after effects there of. See Part 1 for Spoilers.
Summary: Sometimes life makes you look in the mirror and if you don’t like what you see there are only a couple of options. - The Math is back
Previous Chapters: 1 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Notes:Written for choc_fic 's 100 Days of Color. I debated with myself a lot of this section so I'd love to get people's feeling on it.
Beta: swingandswirl and riverotter1951
Chapter 12
David could feel a different vibe before the doors even buzzed open, like the whole building was vibrating. Of course as Charlie and Larry had once explained to him technically everything was vibrating. At least if all the string theory people were right.
David didn’t look for Charlie at his window. He didn’t have to. On the far side of the main room Charlie was holding court. He was standing in front of three battered old chalkboards that were covered in math and diagrams. Strange little mobiles and models were hanging from them constructed from what looked like random bits of medical and office supplies. And Charlie was lecturing. David couldn’t hear what he was saying but nearly all the patients were gathered around, along with much of the staff and the other visitors, and he had their attention. It looked a bit like one of his math for non mathematicians lectures.
Of course what truly got David’s attention was Charlie’s smile as he spoke and gestured to various models and bits of math.
David turned quickly as Dr. Flores tapped his shoulder. “So Agent Sinclair, I think we’ve made some sort of breakthrough.”
David pointed to Charlie. “That is the best looking thing I’ve seen in weeks. That is Charlie as we know and love him. That is what he was meant to do.”
“Teach math.”
“Absolutely. It doesn’t matter how many bad guys he catches unless he feels like he taught us some math in the process the case wasn’t a success. What’s he lecturing on?”
Dr. Flores just shrugged. “I have no idea. Something about the state of the entire universe.”
“Ah, Larry’s coherent cosmos theory. You know if Fleinhardt is actually right on this one then he’s a slam dunk for a Nobel Prize.”
“Dr. Eppes said something to that effect. Now what’s he doing?”
David looked back to Charlie. He had cleared a space in front of the boards and dragged up from his audience a thin blond girl with stringy hair and bandages on both wrists. He put her in the center of the space then poked her in the side until she smiled and held her hands up to either side of her face. Then he pulled up a young man and quickly had him circling the girl while waving his arms around. Charlie followed him around the circle with one hand on the man’s shoulder. Then he waved and spoke to one of the large orderlies who quickly rushed past the two. Charlie briefly grabbed onto the orderly and let go of the young man but stayed close. After that the arm waving stopped and there was much spinning around.
“Oh!” Something clicked in David’s head. “A theory on the creation of the moon. A rogue planet slipped by earth when it was still in liquid form sucking off a big blob that became the moon and stabilized Earth’s orbit.”
Dr. Flores gave David the kind of look he was used to seeing people give Charlie. “You got that from that?”
“I’ve had six years to get used to translating Charlie and I don’t even have a math degree to help.” The Sun and the Earth sat back down, the Earth looking a little dizzy, and Charlie moved on to doing something with a roll of gauze and some rubber bands.
“It’s kind of like watching performance art.”
“Give him a trough and enough corn starch and he’ll walk on water for you.” David gave Dr. Flores a slap on the back and went to join Charlie’s audience. It probably wouldn’t go down in history as one of his best lectures. It jumped from topic to topic and often went well over the heads of his audience but Charlie’s analytical mind had clicked back into gear and was scrambling to catch up. That much was obvious.
Charlie was still going strong when David’s watch told him it was time to get back to the office. He had actually needed to ask Charlie something before coming in so he waited until Charlie paused to breathe then waved him over. Charlie quickly excused himself from his unwitting students.
“Hey,” David kept his voice low. “Feeling better?”
“Everything terrifies me, but the math’s back.”
“That’s great. Hey, do you still have copies of your work for the Genno Lab case, Clarence Weaver?”
“Um... I should. Why?”
“Weaver’s up for appeal.”
“That loony? Shit. When?”
“We don’t have a date yet. Soonish.”
“Lovely. Um…Yeah. I keep all my case work in my office once it’s closed. It’s in the locked filing cabinet opposite the windows. You’ll need my keys.”
“Where are they?”
Charlie’s eyebrows pulled together and a deep frown came across his face. “I have no idea. Home I guess. Probably in the bowl by the door.”
“Okay, don’t worry about it, I’ll find them I just didn’t want to go randomly rummaging through your stuff.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll let you get back to your class.”
Charlie grinned. “It does feel kind of nice.”
“Yeah, I know.”
~
David knocked on the Craftsmen door. He still had the spare key and knew he really should give it back. Alan opened the door. “David. Hey, come on in. You’re just in time, I was just about to order pizza.”
“Oh, I’m fine, Mr. Eppes, really. I’m just looking for Charlie’s keys.”
“I though we agreed on Alan and what do you need Charlie’s keys for?”
“One of his old cases is up for appeal next couple of weeks and we need to make sure every I was dotted and T crossed. He told me his finished work was in his filing cabinet in his office but that I need his keys to get in. Well I could probably pick the lock but, you know.”
“Sure. They’re in the bowl.” David looked into the bowl by the door and pulled out a set of keys with a bright orange Princeton key chain and a bright red one from CalSci. “Are you sure you won’t stay for dinner? Give an old man someone to beat at chess?”
Alan’s tone was light but there was a little twitch in his eyes. David hadn’t really thought about Alan’s living situation once he moved out. But Alan would have been used to having Charlie and Amita and often Larry around not to mention Don’s regular presence. He had to admit there was something about the house that now felt a little colder than usual despite the warm evening. “Sure. I haven’t exercised my completely masochistic streak in a couple of weeks.”
Alan smiled. “Great. You like pepperoni on your pizza, right?”
“That’s the only thing that belongs on a pizza. None of this weird Californian smoked salmon and artichoke heart stuff.”
“Pepperoni it is.”
David pulled out the chess board while Alan ordered.
David was still deciding on an opening move when Alan sat down across from him. “So how was Charlie today? I wanted to see him but every time I tried to step out of the office someone dragged me back.”
David lifted his knight for an opening move. “Actually when I got there he was lecturing to all the other patients on Larry’s coherent cosmos theory. They even found chalkboards for him somewhere.”
“Really!” Alan hastily moved a pawn. “He was actually doing math?”
“He was. I think... I think he’s snapping out of it. Weeks of watching him just stare out that window and today he was behaving like nothing had happened. There was math all over the boards. He had them all enthralled, even the staff. And he was smiling and bouncing around. I mean I know this could just be some kind of weird manic up swing but for a moment today... it felt like the world was right.”
~
David thought learning the FBI filing system had been difficult and counter intuitive. It wasn’t even nine yet but after a half hour of being nose deep in Charlie’s personal system he vowed never to complain about the Bureau system again. That, at least, was alphabetical.
There was a knock on Charlie’s door, then it opened. A young man leaned in. “Hi. Is Doctor Eppes here?” His voice was eager.
“Sorry.” David flashed his badge. “Just getting a few files.”
“Damn.” The young man stepped the rest of the way into the office, closing the door behind him. David looked him over. He looked like he was a couple of inches taller than David though probably fifty pounds lighter. He was in jeans and a t-shirt with some molecule on it. But most noticeable were a pair of grey blue eyes made that much more noticeable since they we’re looking at him from an African American face. “Um… I’m Liam Goodwin, I’m one of Doctor Eppes' students.”
‘Oh of course you are.’ David thought then held out his hand. “Agent David Sinclair.”
“Hi... Um... look... Is Doctor Eppes okay?”
“Why wouldn’t he be?” David replied quickly. He wasn’t sure what the CalSci rumor mill did or didn’t know.
Liam looked around like he was expecting someone to be lurking in the shadow. “When a teacher up and vanishes they’re usually sick or hurt or something, and we know about it. Someone gets a card, we all sign it. But no one’s come around with a card for Dr. Eppes. People are saying he’s off on some secret government thing but I don’t think so.”
“Why not, sounds reasonable?” David remembered what Charlie had said about Liam, observant, good at making connections.
“Well you’re here for one, and you’ve got Dr. Eppes' keys.” Liam pointed to the lock on the filing cabinet. “So it means you’re in contact with him so he’s in the city, not DC or something. And he’s not just moping at his house ‘cause his doctoral students tried to dig him up there with no luck. And I’d say maybe he’s at a safe house doing secret work or something but that doesn’t feel right ‘cause Dr. Ramanujan’s engagement ring vanished from her finger a few weeks ago and believe me she showed that thing to the entire damn school and she won’t say where Dr. Eppes is and honestly I don’t think she knows. And the last time we talked. I don’t know... He was acting a little weird.”
David looked the kid over. He was making some leaps in logic but was still putting things together very quickly. “Define weird?”
“His voice was really tight, you know, like he was trying not to cry or something and he just kind of looked at me for a while, then he said he like my shirt and honestly there’s been a running bet that you could walk into Dr. Eppes’ class naked and he wouldn’t notice and I don’t know, just something felt really wrong.”
“Where do you think he is?” David asked.
“Well I’d like to think that he’s south of the border, passed out on a beach with a couple of senoritas and the biggest bottle of tequila in Baja and he’s going to swan back up here in a week with a sunburn and a smile.”
David smiled. “I like that idea.”
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s right though. I think something happened. I think something happened to Dr. Eppes and it’s all being kept secret from everyone but the FBI.”
David nodded slowly. “Was there something particular you wanted to speak to Dr. Eppes about?”
Liam reached into his backpack and pulled out a notebook. “I had this idea for data encryption. I mean it’s pretty out there and it’s probably completely wrong and I’m just an idiot but I wanted it run it by Dr. Eppes.”
“Can’t you show it to other professors?”
“It’s pretty cut-throat around here. When you’re wrong most of the professors let you know just how unbelievably wrong you are and if you’re right you’re still usually wrong about something. With Dr. Eppes if you’re wrong he tries to figure out how to make you right and if you’re right he puts a foot on your back side to get you onto the next thing. Plus he’s already got the top spot, he doesn’t need to be an asshole.”
David grinned. “Would you believe me if I told you that fairly recently Dr. Eppes kicked a guy in the nuts?”
“Did the guy have it coming?”
“Yep.”
“Cool.”
David took the notebook. “If I see him, I’ll ask him to take a look at this.”
“Thanks. And tell him, I hope he’s doing okay with whatever it is. We need him around here.”
“I will.”
~
Charlie was sitting under his window but with a notebook propped up on his knees and a pen twirling between his fingers.
David peered at the notebook. There was math but it looked a little odd. A little too simple perhaps for Charlie’s usual work. “Hey there.”
Charlie looked up. His smile was bright and relaxed and David felt a knot in his chest begin to loosen for the first time in weeks as he sat down.
“Did you find the files you need?”
“Yes. It took me two hours to start to wrap my head around your filing system but yes I found the relevant files.”
Charlie pinched his lips. “It’s not that complicated a system. They’re just arranged by type of original crime, primary math used, then date.”
“Most people just use dates, or lacking that the alphabet.”
“Spelling’s never been my strong suit.”
“Tell me about it.” Charlie snorted and looked back down at his notebook. “Oh. I ran into one of your students.”
“Really?”
“I ran into Liam Goodwin.”
Charlie went still. “Oh.”
“He hopes you’re doing well.” Charlie looked back up quickly. “He doesn’t know anything. Most of CalSci thinks you got grabbed by the Men in Black for a secret mission but you were right. The kid’s smart. He’s worried something happened to you and hopes that whatever it is that happened you’re doing better and he hopes you come back soon.”
Charlie nodded slowly. “We should see about getting him clearance.” His voice was flat. “He’s still young but I’m sure he could be trained into a solid investigator.”
David pulled the notebook Liam had passed him out from under his jacket. “He asked me to give you this. He said it was an idea on a new type of data encryption. He said it was pretty out there and probably wrong and that’s why he didn’t want to show it to any of the other professors.”
Charlie took the notebook and flipped it open. David watched as Charlie ran his finger across the page. A frown crept across his face as he flipped a page then another. For several minutes he just read over the first few pages again and again. “What in the world are you doing Mr. Goodwin?” Charlie stood up his nose still in the notebook, a frown of deep concentration across his face. David watched as he started to pace, slowly turning each page and then often backtracking several pages. Then Charlie’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped. “Holy. Fucking. Shit.”
David stood up. “What?”
“Holy fucking, shit.” Charlie repeated.
“What? What is it?”
Charlie began to pace quickly enough that David could see the orderlies start to take note.
“This could be wrong,” he said quickly but didn’t sound like he entirely believed it.
“Charlie. What is it?”
“Possibly an entirely new way of encrypting data. This is brilliant. This is fucking brilliant.” Charlie was leafing through the rest of the notebook and not really paying any attention to where he was moving. “He’s got to do his doctorate on this. No question there. Writing the raw code to test it might be tricky but we’ll get Amita on that. I mean she is the best.” Charlie was waving one hand through the air like he was having to push through a cloud of equations and walking rapidly towards the door. “We’ll need a completely secure testing environment. CalSci won’t be good enough.”
“Charlie.”
“And we’ll...” Charlie bumped chest first into the very large hand of one of the very large orderlies.
David put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Charlie.”
Charlie looked around, blinking rapidly, confusion flickering across his face as if he just realized where he was. David’s heart broke as Charlie’s face, so vibrant just a moment before, fell and became still. He closed the notebook and handed it back to David.
“I need you to speak to Mr. Goodwin for me.” Charlie’s voice was controlled and professional.
“Of course.”
“If he is right he may have come across an entirely new way of encrypting data. It still needs several more years of work but I need to make sure that he has shown this to no one. That he has told nobody.”
“You want in on it first.”
Charlie’s look became deathly serious. “This is an H-bomb for the digital age. The first country or organization to get a hold of this will become very scary indeed and I’m including our own country on that list. A way of transmitting information that no one else can possibly look at?”
“I get it.”
“Remember that guy, Ethan Burdick, mathematician, got his daughter kidnapped five, six years ago.”
“He’s the one who thought he’d solved that math problem and the kidnappers wanted the answer.”
“Yes. A solution to Riemann could destroy all encryption on the internet. What’s in that book could be just as damaging in its own way. I need you to speak to Mr. Goodwin. I want him to keep working on it but he can tell no one, not a soul. This exists just between the three of us. I need you to put the fear of God, Uncle Sam and the North Koreans into him.”
David looked down at the notebook in his hands and idly wondered what would happen if he just made it disappear. “No problem. I’ll talk to him.”
“And...” Charlie took a deep breath. “If he needs to talk to me you can bring him here.”
“Okay. But I think he’d rather you could come and talk to him. He said something about the other professors being assholes.”
The tiniest fraction of smile touched Charlie’s lips. “Thank you for taking care of this, David.”
“Hey. No problem.”
~
David waited in Charlie’s office. The more he had thought about what Charlie had said the more he realized that what was in the little notebook really was a digital nuke. He actually asked Colby to put his spy hat back on and sweep Charlie’s office for bugs as well as check the surrounding area. The sweep didn’t turn up any bugs but it did turn up a surprising number of chocolate bar wrappers shoved in between the cushions of the couch. Someone had a nasty Twix habit they were trying to hide.
There was a knock on the office door and Liam Goodwin popped his head in. “Agent Sinclair?”
“Hello Mr. Goodwin, come on in. Lock the door behind you.”
Liam looked instantly nervous but still came into the office and locked the door with a click. “So... I guess you talked with Dr. Eppes.” Liam was obviously one for cutting to the chase.
“I did and I showed him your work. He was seriously impressed. I need to ask you, and I need the complete truth, have you showed this to anyone else?” David waved Liam’s notebook.
“No.”
“Have you talked to anyone about it? Even mentioned it in passing? Maybe you were bragging online? Does anyone know about this?”
Liam shook his head. “No. I’m not stupid and I’m not a masochist. Make a claim like a new type of encryption without being able to back it up. I’d be laughed off campus and that kind of shit just follows you forever.”
“So no one?”
“No one. I swear.”
David let out a long breath. “Good. That’ll make this easier.”
Liam took a step back. “Shit! You’re gonna whack me. Or... or... take executive action! That’s what they call it, right? Executive action? Oh God.” Liam squeezed his eyes shut.
David laughed. “Relax. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not the one you’ve got to be scared of.”
“Really? Who do I have to be scared of?”
“Everyone else.” David handed Liam his notebook. “Charlie wants you to keep working on that but you may have found a whole new way of encrypting data. Everyone is going to want it. Governments, corporations, cartels, terror groups. Everyone.”
Liam looked down at the little notebook in his hands. “It’s just some math.”
“Sit down.” David gestured to the now candy wrapper free couch. Liam sat down and David grabbed Charlie’s chair. “Okay, about six years ago we got called in on this case. Little girl, Emily, gets grabbed from her own birthday party. Sadly this isn’t as uncommon as people like to think so there are procedures and we followed them and then the father decides he doesn’t want the FBI’s help. Now the father is a mathematician, one of you guys. And he is convinced he has solved one of the Millennium prize problems. Riemann’s-hypothesis. You know it, right?”
“Yeah, I know Riemann’s.”
“Okay, he is so sure he solved it that he even told a journal to expect his paper any day. The kidnappers find out about this and they kidnap his daughter so they can get the solution as the ransom.”
“So they can collect the prize?”
“So they can hack into the Federal Reserve.” Liam’s eyes got wide as things started to click. “A little girl almost lost her life ‘cause of just some math and it wasn’t even correct math.”
Liam’s eyes darted between the notebook and the trash can. “Maybe I should just...”
“No. Charlie wants you working on that. If something is out there to be discovered someone is going to discover it. Who do you want discovering it? You? Or maybe someone with fewer qualms and morals.”
“It was just an idea I had one night when I couldn’t sleep. I just scribbled it down then got a little obsessive for a few weeks but, I don’t know. Maybe Dr. Eppes should just finish it off.” Liam tried to hand the notebook back but David didn’t take it.
“Nope. That’s yours. Your idea, for now, your responsibility.”
“Can I talk to with Dr. Eppes at least?”
David struggled not to cringe. “I can take you to see him but honestly I’d much rather he’d come to see you. It would... It would better for him if he did that. If he could do that.”
“I see.”
“Can you give him a week? If he’s not up for the trip in a week I’ll take you to see him.”
“Something happened to him, did it? Something no one is telling us.”
David wasn’t sure what to tell the kid. That his favorite teacher had a suicidal breakdown after their last conversation. “You know Charlie’s got a lot of respect for your talent. He’s been talking about getting you clearance so you can help out on cases.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No it doesn’t. Charlie will be back at some point. Right now he wants you working on that idea of yours, quietly, to prepare for your doctorate.”
“I’m not even sure if I’m doing a doctorate yet.”
David grinned. “You’re doing a doctorate and the great Doctor Charles Eppes will be advising you so don’t sweat it.”
Liam looked back down at his notebook then slipped it into his backpack. “With great power comes great responsibility?”
“That’s what the man said. Hey, there’s a possibility it won’t actually hold up under experimentation. You know, like the cat in the box thing. Everyone knows it’s not actually alive and dead at the same time no matter how much math you throw at it.”
Liam nodded. “You hang out with Dr. Eppes a lot, don’t you?”
“And I once got drunk with Dr. Fleinhardt.”
“Wow. Okay.” Liam took a deep breath and stood up. “Okay. Tell Dr. Eppes he’s got a week and then I’m gonna to come looking for him.”
“I’ll be sure to pass it along and if anything comes up or you have any worries you have my number.”
“Worries? I’m going to be paranoid as all crap now. I’m going to go back to my dorm room and sweep it for bugs.”
“If no one knows then no one is watching you.”
“Yeah, yeah. How do I know someone isn’t watching you?”
“I got a buddy who’s an ex-secret agent keeping an eye out and he already swept the office for bugs.”
“Find any?”
“Nope, just lots of Twix wrappers.”
“Those are Dr. Ramanujan’s. She gets them out of the vending machine and always says she’s getting them for Dr. Eppes but Dr. Eppes is AWOL and she’s still getting them.”
“And that there is why Charlie wants you working on cases.”
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