FIC: In a Mirror, Darkly: Chapter 11/?
Title: In a Mirror, Darkly: Chapter 11
Author: Valerie Vancollie (valeriev84 [at] hotmail.com)
Characters: Don, Charlie, Alan, David, Colby, Nikki, (surprise)
Pairings: brief canon mentions of Charlie/Amita & Don/Robin
Rating: 15
Summary: There was a certain irony to the situation, that the brother who was a federal agent had been abducted to be used as leverage against the brother who was an applied mathematics professor at a highly respected college. Don Whump, Charlie Angst!
Betas: aleo_70 & fredbassett
Spoilers: Uncertainty Principle, Vector, Man Hunt, Dark Matter, Spree, Two Daughters, Brutus, Finders Keepers, One Hour, The Janus List, Breaking Point, Black Swan, When Worlds Collide, The Decoy Effect, Jack of All Trades, Arrow of Time, The Fifth Man, Greatest Hits, Angels and Devils
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Numb3rs characters, items or situations. I only lay claim to the original aspects of the fic.
Part III: Charlie: CalSci
Chapter 11:
Tuesday, 13:18
Dr. Charles Eppes' Office, CalSci
He'd all but forgotten about it, but just as the full truth of his mother's condition had become apparent, Harvey had contacted him for help. His old friend had said that he'd just discovered a brilliant student who showed incredible potential and reminded him of his old collaborator in a lot of ways. 'The next Charlie Eppes' had been his exact words and he'd had nothing but praise for his new pupil. Harvey had mailed him to ask his opinion on a piece of the girl's work and whether he had any suggestions for her further education. He'd only had the briefest chance to look at the attached document before he'd been sucked into P vs. NP in a desperate and misguided attempt to hide himself away from what was happening to his mother.
By the time Mom had died and been buried, Charlie had long since forgotten about the e-mail and the student's work. In fact, he'd completely forgotten about it until he'd seen Harvey at a conference a year and a half ago now. He'd apologized profusely and been told that it was okay as his friend had heard about what had happened and understood that his mind had been elsewhere. He still wasn't sure if Harvey was referring to his brief foray into madness or simply his mother's death, but dismissed the thought as he tried to recall exactly what this student- Maria Espinoza, he thought- had done in her work that he'd seen.
Did he still have a copy of it on his computer? Charlie grabbed his laptop from his overflowing desk and moved to the couch with it, pushing aside papers and folders so that he could sit down. He blinked and looked about as he realized that Colby seemed to have vanished and he glanced at his watch, wondering just how much time had passed since the agent's appearance, but he wasn't sure. Shrugging it aside, he delved into his computer's memory and, after a few minutes searching, found the file he wanted. Opening it, he was instantly assaulted by the sheer familiarity of the work contained within. This was, without a doubt, the same person who had written the expressions that he'd admired from the moment Banner had first shown him the files. Oh, the work here wasn't nearly as elegant as that contained in the encryption and security program, but it was definitely done in the same style, just a lot less advanced.
So, Maria Espinoza was the mysterious mathematician whose work had made his own so incredibly difficult.
"Here, eat this."
Colby's sudden reappearance at his side caused Charlie to jump slightly and he glanced up, distracted and confused, gazing blankly at the candy bar.
"Huh?"
"Eat it," Colby pressed, ripping open the wrapper and holding it out to him.
"Why?" Charlie asked, completely lost even as the majority of his mind continued to process what he'd just uncovered.
"Because you haven't been eating properly and have low blood sugar. This isn't enough, but it'll help get your blood sugar back up some."
"Ah."
It had been a while since he'd last eaten, though that had been partially done on purpose as he wasn't sure he'd be able to keep anything down. The knowledge that he'd collapse without food and be totally useless to Don made Charlie accept the candy bar and start eating it absently as he turned his attention back to his laptop screen.
"Charlie, are you sure you can't look at something for us?"
Now that he had seen some of her more recent work, Charlie dearly wished that he'd been able to meet Maria as he had the feeling that there was a lot that they could learn from each other. Unfortunately, she'd already gotten her PhD and left MIT by the time the conference had rolled around and thus she hadn't been there with Harvey.
"It could be quite important to helping us find Don."
A chill ran through Charlie as he remembered what his former collaborator had told him about her during the conference. Instead of going on to do a formal post doc at some prestigious university or research laboratory, Maria had accepted a permanent position with the NSA. She hadn't told Harvey exactly what she'd be doing, she wasn't allowed to, but he'd confided in Charlie that he assumed it would be related to material classified at the highest level given her skill.
"We got word from the head of Fugitive Recovery yesterday-"
The knowledge made Charlie put his laptop aside and leap to his feet. He darted around Colby who still seemed to be present and grabbed one of the folders off of his desk. Only just remembering to be careful so that Colby didn't catch a glimpse of the logo on the folder jacket, he started flipping madly through the pages, trying to find one of the expressions that he thought was Maria Espinoza's. His heart sank as he found one and knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was looking at her work.
"- a prisoner that Don tracked down before escaped again two weeks ago-"
If she worked fulltime for the NSA, then Maria wouldn't spend time consulting or collaborating with outside partners on non-NSA business. Charlie had seen first hand how busy things got inside the NSA headquarters and knew, from the number of times Bob had tried to recruit him, that they were always looking for more mathematicians. Maria wouldn't need to look elsewhere for work, which meant that the problem he was working on now, the encryption and security program he was attempting to hack, were NSA security features.
They were designed by the NSA to protect its highly sensitive data.
"- and he has sworn vengeance on Don."
Charlie swallowed thickly as he looked up at the boards he'd been working on. On some level, he'd known, right from the start when Banner had first shown him the photos of Don, but he'd managed to not really think about it. Instead he'd tried to convince himself that what Banner had originally said was true; that all the security was for a computer he and the others he was now working with had acquired. A non-NSA computer. He nearly laughed aloud at his own stupidity, his own ability to blind himself to the truth in order to make what he was doing easier on himself.
But no more. Now that he realized the truth, he couldn't hide from it anymore. He was helping Banner and an unknown number of others hack the NSA's security in order to steal data. For what purpose he didn't know, but he found he didn't really care too much. He was doing it for Don, to save his brother's life. Despite that, the new knowledge weighed heavily on his conscious. He'd helped the NSA create better security programs in the past and he knew he was betraying the trust they, and especially Bob, had placed in him, but what else was he to do?
"Charlie? Charlie, are you even listening to me?"
He couldn't just abandon his brother and telling David or the rest of the team was entirely out of the question. If they knew Banner and the others wanted to steal something from the NSA, there was no way they'd allow him to continue working on the problem. Oh, he knew they'd let him try and create some type of illusion like he'd done when Amita was kidnapped, but it was too much of a risk without knowing exactly what they were after and he highly doubted the NSA would give him enough data on it for it to succeed. Not even to save Don's life. To them, for the intel, one person was often expendable, but not to him. Not his brother.
All of which meant he was right back where he was before he knew who the mysterious mathematician was. Or no, wait, not quite. Charlie rushed to the board and grabbed a piece of chalk as he recognized a part of the third layer from Maria's earlier work, only there it hadn't yet been perfected and provided a vital clue to how it could best be overcome. If he took into account the changes she'd made to the basic makeup of the algorithm, then he should be able to bypass it using the same weakness it shared with the Unbalanced Oil and Vinegar scheme, though with a slight modification to take the y differential into account.
When he'd finally finished writing down that line of thought, Charlie stepped back from the board and looked around. His office was quiet and deserted but for him. Hadn't Colby been here just a moment ago?
/
Wednesday, 15:25
Dr. Charles Eppes' Office, CalSci
"Dr. Charles Edward Eppes."
Not having heard the door open, the voice startled Charlie and he whirled around to face it. The speaker was of average height with very close-cropped brown hair. His eyes were also brown and made Charlie shiver as he looked into them. He'd never seen this man before but already he didn't like him, which was strange as he normally wasn't very good at picking up vibes from other people.
"I- I'm sorry," Charlie began and paused to swallow, not sure why he was so nervous all of a sudden. "Did you have an appointment to see me? If not, I'm going to have to ask you to come back another time as I'm quite busy at the moment."
"Nope, no appointment, but you'll see me anyway," the man declared confidently, casually pacing further into the room. "See, Jeremy's a bit- uh, hung up at the moment and couldn't make it."
Charlie froze as the words registered, his eyes widening. This was one of the other people working with Banner! The knowledge made him take a closer look at the man's appearance, but the black leather bomber jacket he wore hid any weapons he might be carrying.
"I'm still working on the problem."
"So I see," the man stopped next to the desk, perching himself on the edge of it, crumpling papers as he glanced dismissively at the equation filled boards. "But is any of this crap actually worth anything yet?"
"It will be, soon," Charlie replied, angry at the man's tone and attitude but unwilling to risk saying anything that could anger him. Not so long as Don was likely to suffer the consequences. "I just need a few more days and-"
"A few more days? Isn't that what you told dear Jeremy a few days ago?"
"It's complicated!" Charlie snapped, frustrated, his exhaustion sapping his control. "The math involved is of the highest level and it-"
"Blah, blah, blah," the man interrupted as he got to his feet and stalked around the desk.
Involuntarily, Charlie took a step back and then another until he felt the board behind him and knew he had nowhere else to go. He really didn't like this man for some reason and he'd seen enough criminals while helping his brother to know that this one was almost certainly dangerous. His mouth went dry as the man continued to advance until he'd stepped into his personal space.
"You know what, baby brother? I don't really mind if it takes you a long time to solve it, 'cause the longer it takes you, the longer I get to play with Agent Eppes."
The title came out sounding more like an insult than anything else and Charlie's breath caught in his throat as he realized exactly who was standing before him. This was him; the man who'd been holding the gun to Don's head in the second photo. The man whom Banner kept saying they had to restrain from hurting Don even more than he already had. The man who hated FBI agents.
A vague memory of Colby saying that a fugitive who had it in for Don had escaped from prison surfaced and Charlie wondered if that was the man standing before him now. Could it really be that personal? He seriously hoped not as he knew enough about crime stats to know how much worse that made it for Don. How much it decreased the odds of his survival.
The sudden, inescapable, confrontation of cold, hard facts jolted through Charlie. Up until now, he'd done his best not to think about the statistics he knew so well. Those of kidnappings and the sharp drop of the odds of getting a victim back alive after the first forty-eight hours had passed. The stats of federal agents who were targeted for vengeance or other motives and abducted as a result. The odds of his brother surviving being held at gunpoint, no, having a gun held to his head, yet again. Now that the first had wormed its way past his defenses, however, all of the others came pouring in behind it, nearly overwhelming him.
The man was laughing now, his cigarette-laden breath washing over him, making him nauseous. Or maybe that was the image of his brother held helpless at the mercy of this man. Not that Charlie thought the man had any, mercy that is.
Play with.
The words made him sick to his stomach as they confirmed that, yes, it was personal for him. At some point in the past, Don's path had crossed with that of the man in front of him and something had happened. Charlie didn't know what, but whatever it had been, the man hated his brother for it. And now he had Don, restrained and helpless, to do with whatever he wished.
"You'd not be nearly so much fun," the man observed with a feral smile. "Look, you're afraid already. You sure you two are related?"
The question awoke Charlie's anger. The insinuation that he and Don were nothing like each other was a far too painful reminder of all the time they'd spent so distant from each other, both physically and emotionally. Now, when it looked like their time together might be violently terminated, it cut more than ever before to think of it. Between that and the casual remark about it being fun to torture his brother, Charlie's frayed nerves finally snapped and even the sinking feeling in his stomach wasn't enough to restrain his sudden surge of temper.
"You leave my brother alone!" Charlie ordered, straightening and meeting the man's gaze head on, a hand coming up to make his point.
Surprise flickered across the man's face before he reacted. Charlie's hand was knocked aside before he was shoved back against the blackboards. A brief metallic noise preceded the sudden appearance of a knife, so close to his face that it caused him to flinch. His eyes opened impossible wider and he felt his heart stop as he caught sight of the rust colored substance coating the length of the blade.
Blood.
"So, the professor has teeth!" the man exclaimed with a manic laugh. "Color me surprised."
The words washed over Charlie, barely registering as his eyes were locked on the stains coating the blade, fear and horror flooding him. Flashes of memory from just a few short months ago surfaced with unexpected clarity. Briefly, the man's face was replaced with that of Radovic, holding a similar knife which, though it was clean, was also stained with his brother's blood. At least he assumed it was Don's blood he was currently seeing.
Why Don? What had his brother ever done to deserve all of this?
"Hey, Eppes!" the man snapped, displeased at not being the center of his captive's attention. "What is it with you two and knives?"
"N- nothing," Charlie stammered, realizing just in time what kind of power that knowledge could give this man over his brother.
"Now you're just lying to me. This has got to do with that scar your brother has, doesn't it?"
Charlie swallowed nervously, not sure what to say but determined not to confirm the other's guess.
"You should have seen the way he reacted to this baby, it was beautiful."
The pleasure on the man's face was incomprehensible to Charlie. He was talking about hurting another human being, about hurting Don. How could he possible think of something like that in such terms?
Play with. Beautiful.
"What have you done to Don?" Charlie demanded, wanting his voice to come out strong and steady, but getting a hoarse whisper instead.
He was almost afraid to ask, sure he wouldn't like the answer.
If Charlie had thought that the sight of the second photo, with the gun pressed against his brother's head, was the worst thing he'd ever see, he'd been so terribly wrong it wasn't even funny. The third picture had proved that and now, the fourth one which suddenly appeared before his nose, took his breath away. A moment passed before he could reach out and take it from the man's fingers, its contents so horrifying.
The blood was the first thing Charlie saw; it was everywhere. Don's face, throat and forearms where they emerged from a navy blue shirt were covered in it from what appeared to be a series of cuts which crisscrossed his skin seemingly at random. Almost automatically, his mind attempted to find some sort of pattern to the madness but he couldn't. It was as if the knife had simply been taken to every available inch of exposed skin. Luckily all of the cuts appeared to be shallow and not deep, but it was hard to tell from a photograph. The close proximity of one to Don's right eye caused Charlie to swallow, not even wanting to contemplate what his brother had been thinking at the moment that particular cut had been made.
The despair which rose within him at the sight of what had been done to his big brother nearly crowded out his horror and anger, leaving him speechless. This man's cruelty was staggering and Charlie simply couldn't wrap his mind around it, around how or why someone would do something like this.
"I've just been having some fun while waiting for you to do your bit," the man remarked, turning his head slightly towards the knife and licking it.
Charlie could only gape in disbelief as he watched the tongue dart out and carefully lap part of the knife clean.
"Mmmm, there's nothing quite like federal blood. Want a taste?"
"No!" Charlie exclaimed, horrified and disgusted at the same time.
The man threw his head back and laughed. "Are you quite sure? It tastes exquisite."
Chapter 12