~ Like Minds ~
An Author's Note follows the story.
Word count: 2330
Disclaimer: 'Stargate Atlantis' and its characters are not mine. I would not have left them under the aegis of those whose interest lay elsewhere.
SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA
The hall was poorly lit, with row after row of cramped seating directed toward a raised stage more in keeping with some comic entertainment than the serious subject of mathematics. Rodney McKay had arrived just before the lecture began, in time to sidle in quietly, several rows behind the bulk of the audience. He'd never expected such a crowd. How many people in the room could even begin to appreciate the implications of the work being presented? How many in the world or, for that matter, in two galaxies could understand any of it? Rodney hadn't been allowed to publish most of the brilliant work he'd been doing for the last few years, and really, Charles Eppes wasn't that much younger than himself, but he supposed Eppes' worn-out 'wunderkind' reputation still drew people in and the conference had been publicized and was open to any bum on the street.
Rodney was talking to himself ~ more like venting under his breath ~ as he took notes. He understood Expedition equipment was government property and was not allowed outside the SGC, but it would be a whole lot easier if he had his computer ~ there was no place to spread out. Pen and paper had their place, but what he needed was to input some of Eppes' equations to run simulations with data collected on gene carriers. Even his tablet would be helpful, yet there he was, one notepad of handwritten data he'd brought for reference and another pad on which he was madly taking notes. Stone Age. And there was Eppes, bounding around on stage, scraping chalk on slate boards? Pre-Stone Age.
Rodney had almost been late for the lecture. Considering the available transportation, actually getting there had been an irritating hassle. He'd been back on Earth for over a month, enduring debriefings by the SGC and trying to explain the indescribable to the unimaginative representatives of the IOA, all the while interviewing candidates for newly created positions in Atlantis, now that the ZedPM allowed communication with Earth and the Daedalus could provide regular support. A week ago Rodney had learned Eppes would present a paper at the conference, on work Eppes called Cognitive Emergence. Rodney argued that what Eppes was formalizing could help them in Atlantis quantify the connection between Ancient tech and the gene. What Rodney really wanted was a way to reproduce artificially the deftness that someone like, oh, say, Sheppard-with-his-Super-Gene had to manipulate Ancient devices. Speaking of whom...
"You could at least try to look like a professional. This is a scientific symposium, not a Saturday afternoon matinee," Rodney grumbled to the man lounging next to him in a spineless slump with one ankle resting on a jean-clad knee. It still rankled that Elizabeth ~ and the SGC ~ didn't think Rodney should attend the lecture on his own and they'd assigned a chaperon to escort him. Did they think he'd announce to everyone how Eppes' work might be applicable in the Pegasus galaxy?
Sheppard turned his head slightly in response but kept his eyes on the stage, where Eppes was gesturing to the most recent board on which he'd been chalk-scrawling. "...What?"
"Is that your idea of professional attire?" A question Rodney knew wasn't fair, since many in the audience were apparently casually dressed students, who'd come to see their young professor. Even Eppes, although in a suit and tie, needed a haircut.
"Next time I'll stick a slide rule in my pocket," came the reply, and Sheppard finally looked at Rodney and then down at Rodney's notes. "You left out an expression in the first mapping sequence," he pointed out, then lazily looked back at Eppes.
Rodney looked down at his notes, back to the stage, down at his notes and then made some quick scribbles to insert omitted material. He kept his eyes on Eppes and on his notepad, all the while remembering there'd been no arm-twisting involved and Sheppard had quickly volunteered to accompany him...
Eppes' work was insightful and certainly could have Pegasus applications. If human thoughts could be mathematically defined and if Rodney could correlate them with the energy signature for Ancient tech... "This is genius," he breathed excitedly.
Rodney could feel Sheppard's stare. "You mean there's more than one genius in this room?"
"In his narrow field of endeavor Eppes is a genius, while my intellect is applied in a number of disparate disciplines."
" 'Disparate.' Math and physics have nothing in common."
There it was ~ The Tone. Rodney knew without looking that Sheppard was smirking. Rodney faced his team leader to make his point, enunciating clearly in a firm, hushed voice. "Obviously if Eppes spent the necessary years studying to expand his area of expertise he could give Zelenka a run for his money, and just as obviously if I didn't have to spend my time putting out fires in Pegasus and saving the city I'd be mathematically mapping human brain functions. I have to apply my genius on a daily basis in the real world, so I don't have the luxury Eppes has of working in his ivory tower with no demands on his time."
"Except for his normal teaching load, his consulting with various government agencies, and his work with the ivory-tower FBI, 'contributing to the successful conclusion to more than a dozen cases in the past year'..." Sheppard waggled a brochure.
Rodney frowned. "Yes, well, I'm sure, like me, he enjoys the isolation when he's not hounded by the clamor of everyone's demands for him to solve all their problems."
On stage Eppes was relating an anecdote, mentioning how much credit his family and friends deserved for providing him with the support and even the inspiration to do his work.
If there was one thing about Sheppard that really put Rodney on edge, it was the way the man could make a point simply by maintaining a deadpan stare. In a smug, sarcastic way.
SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA
Charlie Eppes loved math. Sharing that passion was effortless because the central truth, that everything was numbers, didn't require a hard sell. Given a few examples from nature or music anyone could feel at least some of the wonder ~ the universe was ordered, from far-flung galaxies to atomic structure. Newton's apple or celestial bodies, math could describe movement, predict behavior, explain attraction, even between two people.
The auditorium was a large one and Charlie had lectured in it before. The conference had a three-day program and was hosted each year in turn by one of the participating local institutions. The purpose of each symposium was to give the various faculties and students the opportunity to show their work in their respective fields and ultimately, to function as a recruiting tool.
Charlie's audience was comprised of faculty and students from the different institutions ~ mostly from math departments, parents, and prospective students and their parents. Inwardly Charlie sighed ~ this lecture in particular had been well publicized, with his old 'Boy-Wonder of Math' title featured prominently to put a face to the Math Department at CalSci.
He was speaking to a general audience, which meant his vocabulary had to be universal, but his math was specific to his work for those attendees who could grasp the tenet of his theory. During any lecture Charlie could look out and see the awe form in the faces of those as they first glimpsed the power of numbers. There were those who understood that power already, who knew why numbers were everywhere. And there might be a kindred spirit, for whom numbers were a fixture, always recognizable in all their patterns in life, like a background music.
Charlie pulled one of his chalk boards back to center stage and flipped it over to expose the side on which he hadn't written. For Charlie, for as long as he could remember, the scrape of chalk on slate, the dash-and-dot sound, was the accompaniment to working problems. The smell, the feel of the white dust on his fingers, the messiness of the process brought clarity. The clean, lifeless, generated text on a computer screen had its place, but for Charlie, hand-writing mathematical expressions was a reflection of his thinking process that a keyboard couldn't mimic.
The lecture was well attended but the room easily accommodated the crowd. The auditorium was also a theater, with excellent acoustics. The lights were lowered to accent the business on stage while allowing the attendees enough illumination to take notes. Charlie could look out over the audience and see individuals without being blinded by uneven lighting. The stage was at a level such that people in the first rows could see what was happening on the platform without craning their necks, just as Charlie had no need to crane his own neck to see the faces before him.
The two men at the back of the room had entered just as the session moderator was introducing Charlie's talk. The tall one in the dark turtleneck reminded Charlie of his brother, and not just because of the hair; despite the boneless slouch, Charlie bet the man knew the location of every exit in the auditorium and could probably give an accurate count of attendees. Charlie had seen it with Don's team ~ security detail. The shorter man wore a sport jacket and came prepared to follow the math. He was fussing with papers and pencils and he clearly knew his stuff, so who was the mathematician who needed protection at a lecture?
SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA
Rodney was feverishly making calculations, checking his notes on gene carriers, adapting Eppes' equations, making recalculations. He could see where Eppes was heading with his theory. Rodney tuned out the useless small talk and light joking the 'wonderboy' evidently felt was necessary to entertain the clueless masses attending the lecture.
Suddenly something changed. Rodney knew that Sheppard had shifted his attention without actually moving a single reclining muscle. The maj– colonel; it was going to take time to get used to that– The colonel tapped his earbud twice and began sliding into an upright position. He looked at Rodney.
"Time's up. The Daedalus has a schedule."
Rodney started to object, but Eppes' work was not complete, so it wasn't as if staying would give him further information and besides, Rodney knew if he had the uninterrupted time to apply his own genius he could finish Cognitive Emergence.
Sheppard reached over to help Rodney gather his belongings and tore a blank sheet off the notepad he'd picked up.
"What are you doing?" Rodney hissed, grabbing back the pad and trying to sling his coat over an arm while stuffing papers, pen, pencils ~ it would have been so much easier with his laptop ~ into a portfolio, frowning as Sheppard snagged a paper clip. "I thought we were in a hurry," Rodney huffed. He peered closely in the dim light; Sheppard was skillfully folding and refolding the pilfered page into...an airplane? "Is this really the time?" Rodney groused and started a crab-walk to the end of the row. With one last look at Eppes on the stage Rodney walked up the aisle to the exit, the sound of laughter telling him that Eppes was once again mixing entertainment with serious science.
SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA
Cognitive Emergence had been humming at the back of Charlie's mind for quite some time. It was an unfinished work, but the audience could feel the excitement of a journey to understand human thought, to map it, quantify it, and mathematically define consciousness. Charlie grabbed the chalkboard he'd written on at the start of his talk and aligned it next to the current board to show the attendees that in a way, he had come full circle.
During his lecture Charlie had kept his eye on the tardy duo at the back of the hall. He'd learned a lot since working with his brother; somehow Charlie knew the taller one was in charge, and something about the way he dealt with the shorter man spoke of the military. The tall, dark man said something and the shorter one began forcefully putting his belongings into order. The dark one stood, then leaned down to write on a paper.
Charlie began the conclusion to his talk, reinforcing as he always did the presence and power of numbers, then he segued into summing up his theory of mathematics and the human mind.
A paper airplane came sailing over the seat rows to land gracefully mere inches from Charlie's shoe. The audience tittered and several people turned around to look for the source of the disturbance. "I suppose we could open up the questioning to include aerodynamics," Charlie commented, and received a good laugh. When he looked up again, the latecomers were gone.
His talk had been scheduled right before the dinner hour, so the room wasn't booked after his presentation. There were some insightful inquiries made during the normal question period, and Charlie stayed after the room began to clear in order to discuss his work with some of the more interested attendees.
After everyone had left Charlie picked up the paper airplane. A moment later he hurriedly removed the paper clip and flattened out the paper in order to read the handwriting on the page ~ 'Human thought defined mathematically, transmitted, to control a device capable of acting as receiver.' Below the written statement was a half page of mathematical expressions and a partial equation. Charlie had wondered if his theory could be adapted for practical application, but each mind was different, and buried in Charlie's theory was the genetic component.
Charlie grabbed a pen to make some quick notes for later consideration, his mind turning to another puzzle: why would a military mathematician have a civilian assistant?
If there currently was a project involving military and civilian scientists, his brother might know about it. Charlie sighed. Despite his own, higher level of security clearance, he knew he wouldn't get a word out of Don. *~*
Author's Note: After I wrote 'The Morning Grind' a number of people contacted me to request a sequel or continuation or just "more". TMG was meant to be a fun, funky one-off way to overlap, very briefly, the two very different shows without compromising the integrity of either, especially Numb3rs, which is played real-to-life. I didn't know where to go with a sequel ~ spending too much time connecting such different realities, especially involving N3rs with sci-fi, didn't seem right. So, this 'prequel' was a way to overlap the two series again, very briefly, for a fun moment and Charlie's understanding of the world remains 'real' and not 'sci-fi'. Now, if I can just squeeze a third story out of overlapping the shows and have both Eppes brothers still remain 'real'...
I give thanks to one of my followers (who really enjoyed TMG) for "re-inflating my writer's ego" after I contacted her because I wasn't sure this story was working since it wasn't nearly as funny as I expected it to be when I first had the idea! Thanks.
Disclaimer: 'Numb3rs' and its characters are not mine either.
Thanks for reading.