A Doctor's Call

Smith calls Dr Comox. She introduces herself as Sarah, sounds genuinely grateful for the call, and apologises for her late arrival: some bureaucratic nonsense held her up. She has spent the last day working through the physical evidence, and the two arrange to meet at the Hammond Laboratory.

Back in his hotel room, Smith switches on Channel 6. Enrico Save is on screen, and the story is in constant breaking-news mode. The latest development is that another Columbia student has been taken into FBI custody.

Stevens calls Dellaroche with an update on her task. She asks for a sample of Wei's handwriting, hoping to copy it and forge a note of explanation.

Der Glockenturm

Smith's attention is pulled back to the television by a brief news segment from Germany. A man stands on the roof of a church, a bedsheet in one hand and a gun in the other. As the sheet unfurls, a series of numbers is visible, painted in running black ink.

Smith rewinds the broadcast and freezes it on the figures: .22998, a middle segment of the hypergeometric sequence.

He calls the operation handler at once. They are already aware, and tells him it is "beyond [their] concern."

Borders are a Social Construct

Dellaroche and Anderson travel to Columbia University's library, where glass barriers block the entrance and require a scanned card to pass.

Dellaroche calls Sandy Beeman, who is not pleased. One of her students has been taken into FBI custody without anyone consulting her, and the story is already on the news, damaging the university's reputation.

She is also confused. Dellaroche has told her he is with the FBI, yet he apparently knows nothing about the detainment. He smooths it over with a generous helping of bureaucratic nonsense, and Beemanagrees to help. She says she'll be along presently.

Navigating Dewey's Decimal System

Andersonisn't prepared to wait. He asks a student to let him in, and by matching the vibe of a laid-back stoner he is buzzed through. Dellaroche stays outside, in no hurry to be associated with him.

Inside, Anderson finds a digital pad and searches for Libre Plures Admiratio. The stacks system is foreign to him, so he asks a library assistant named Veronica for help. She takes him down to floor -3.

There he finds the Dutch edition, and learns that Education Studies Books published both the Dutch and English copies. The English edition appeared in the late 1970s.

Wei's Summer Reading List

Beeman arrives, issues Dellaroche a guest pass, and follows him into the library.

Dellaroche has forgotten the name of the book Anderson meant to investigate, so he checks Michael Wei's checkout history and finds it there.

Dellaroche and Beeman head down to the floor -3 floor, where Dellaroche easily spots Anderson working in an alcove.

Aligning the Words

Anderson is trying to match the Latin words highlighted in Wei's notes to their places in the English translation.

The first word lines up with a passage about a ship, the St Thomas Equinous, on which Claudan once sailed. In the sentence, THOMAS is underlined.

The next belongs to a passage about his travels in Asia and what he hopes to find on his next journey. The word marked there is AND.

The third comes from a prayer for the people who will take on his work after him. The word underlined is SON.

THOMAS AND SON

Numbers are True

At the Hammond Laboratory, Smith is let through to meet Dr Sarah Comox. She is well dressed, though exhausted from hard work. The introduction is pleasant, and she hands Smith a profile of Wei almost immediately.

She has read the sequence at the crime scene as the product of obsession, potentially religious in character, and has pushed further into Wei's studies, particularly Mersenne numbers.

Numbers are a truth that cannot be tarnished by human emotion, Comoxtells Smith.

A Certain Inevitability

Comox explains the idea of Laplace's Demon: if someone knew the nature of every atom and every law of physics, they could predict everything with absolute certainty. She believes Michael Wei and Molly Frank became convinced they had discovered it.

She is sure that Wei stumbled onto something brilliant, and that further calculation on the sequence will unlock his motive. She has been working on it through the night.

None of the mathematics makes much sense to Smith, whether because of his own limits or because it is simply nonsense.

An Accomplice in Waiting

Smith tries to ease her mind. Wei, he suggests, was just a madman without a plan, and they have no need to understand his motives, only to make sure nobody else is put in harm's way.

Comox won't hear it. She believes Frank is a possible accomplice, and at a minimum shares Wei's delusion. Frank had spoken of a machine or program capable of making accurate predictions.

Smithcan't talk her out of continuing.

Analyst Note: Dr Comox has now reviewed the sequence evidence both remotely and in person. She is working on the material unsupervised and without sleep, and has no intention of stopping. She must be stopped.

Dear Mr Ridgeway

Armed with a sample of Wei's handwriting, Stevens begins forging letters to Malcolm Ridgeway. They claim Wei has discovered that Ridgeway is his biological father.

The first is written as an informational note.

The second turns harsher.

The third is openly aggressive, and eventually describes Wei's plan to assassinate Ridgeway in the manner of JFK.

Stevens produces a convincing set in Wei's handwriting, and believes the escalation tells the story of a man agitated step by step into murder. The final letter is the most persuasive. She sends them to Smith as evidence.

Five Letters Short

Smith reads through the letters from Stevens and concludes that the story doesn't entirely hold together. The escalation needs at least five more letters, and Stevens has dated the existing ones in a way that makes it impossible for any to have been "lost."

Smith calls Stevens to talk it through. Smithalso asks whether she's all right emotionally, since the letters read like the account of someone with a troubled past.

Stevenssays she's fine. She put a lot of work into the letters, and justifies the swings in tone by saying she has rapid mood changes herself.

Smith suggests she talk to Dellaroche.

A Message From Michael

Anderson, meanwhile, has pieced the underlined words together into a single message:

Das ist Problematisch

As the group passes a television screen, the news is back on the German bell tower. The man on the roof is firing into the crowd below. Twenty-one are dead.

Psychological Evaluations

Standard agency procedure to track how operations are impacting agents in the field.

Jackie Stevens– Forged a set of documents in the subject's handwriting with considerable skill, but with an emotional escalation. Her own account of "rapid emotion changes" and the recent separation proceedings suggest that this is a growing concern. Recommend welfare review.

Malcolm Smith – Quickly identified the broadcast fragment and reported it to the handler. Showed sound analytical judgement in reviewing the forged letters. Failed to persuade Dr Comox to halt her work. Recommend monitoring.

Marcus Dellaroche – Handled the university administration effectively under pressure. Reliance on bureaucratic misdirection with a civilian asset is beginning to strain the cover story. Continues to operate within parameters.

Thomas A. Anderson – Gained unauthorised entry to the library by deception, then decoded a message addressed to him by name from the deceased subject. Both the message and its personal framing represent a significant escalation in exposure. Recommend urgent reassessment of his role.