love equations -- charlie eppes x reader - numb3rs

ch ;; 8

''you suspect the two are related.'' charlie stated. ''well, that's what I'm trying to determine.'' don answered. charlie sighed, taking the case notes out of ciara's arms. ''all right, all right, I'll check it out.'' he said, placing them into his case. ciara and don nodding, thanking him.

~~'~~'~~

''why don't you tell us what you know, charlie?'' ciara requested, pushing herself up on her desk. charlie nodded, clearing his throat. ''salazar sent e-mails to investors at smith-waterson that looked like official communication. It's called "spoofing." those e-mails claimed that he was connected to smith-waterson; asked investors to send him information, such as user I.D.'s, security codes and such, so he could get into their accounts.'' he explained, pacing slightly.

''now, why didn't people complain about missing money? well, mr. riley was a very, very smart man. instead of pulling out lump sums, which might draw immediate notice, he had a scheme to drain out of large sums without raising an alarm. he started by taking two dollars out of each account... then he'd replace the money within a few days by taking two more dollars out of two more accounts.'' charlie said, looking around at the four people surrounding him. 

''so he'd put two bucks back, and keep the other two for himself.'' don said, looking over to the other fbi agents.  ''he recorded them as accounting errors with amounts so small, no one double-checked.'' ciara added onto don's statement. david spoke up, ''okay, so how does two dollars become half a million?'' he asked charlie.  ''okay... uh... good question. and,'' he pauses his speech, quickly folding a sheet of paper.

''i've folded this paper twice. it is now four times as thick as it was. if I could potentially fold it 50 times, how tall do you think the resulting stack of paper would be?'' charlie asked everyone.  ''well, I mean, it's got to be at least a couple feet.'' ciara reasoned, looking at david. david offered his own answer. ''no, no, I'd say more like a building.'' he glanced at ciara. 

''tall enough to reach the sun.'' charlie said. ''well, i mean... it is a couple of feet...'' ciara joked, causing charlie to look over at her, shaking his head slightly. ''not funny? okay..'' ciara cleared her throat. charlie sighed and continued. ''it's a geometric progression. i mean, obviously, you cannot fold this paper 50 times. a high school student named britney gallivan predicted a way to do it 12 times and then she did it with actual paper. she set a world record.'' charlie used an example.

''how tall was it?'' terry asked. ''oh... a foot and a half. the same principal applies to embezzlement. however, it takes twice as many accounts at each level. it's a pyramid scheme...''

~'~~~~'~

sitting in the office with charlie and a professional examiner, the three sat and were pairing fingerprints from the killer to cliff's finger prints.  ''how do we know that everyone has their own unique fingerprint?'' charlie asked the lady running the tests. ciara's head popped up to look at charlie, unsure where he was going with this. ''because no two people have ever been found to have the same prints.'' the lady explained.  ''mm-hmm. and you've examined everyone's print? everyone on the planet?'' charlie pushed, looking at the screen.

the lady furrowed her eyebrows. ''it's an assumption we make, based on a hundred years of empirical evidence.'' she explained to charlie as if he was stupid.  ''i- it is. how often does one part of someone's print resemble someone else's?'' he asked, curious.  ''i couldn't tell you that. we've never done those kind of, uh... population surveys.'' she explained to him