Previously on Numb3rs:
- Dwayne Carter. - Did a tour in Afghanistan.
Your friend is bought and paid for by the Chinese government.
The man who saves your life, you put him in jail.
Things I could tell you about squeaky-clean Colby Granger.
If you find the Janus List, trust it.
- Ashby was building a Janus List. - A master list
- of double agents and traitors. - Welcome to the Janus List.
The following have been co-opted.
United States FBI agent Colby Granger by the Chinese.
I mean, do you understand what you're telling me?
Nothing you don't know.
Nothing everybody's not gonna know tomorrow.
- Damn. - David, not...
How long have you been lying to us, huh?
From the beginning, David. That's what a spy does.
You ain't no damn spy. You're a traitor.
All that crap about serving your country!
Get out of here.
You ain't no damn spy. You're a traitor.
All that crap about serving your country!
Get out of here.
Spying on your own country.
I mean, do you understand what you're telling me?
This man, do you know this man?
- I don't know... - Do you know him?
This man, do you know this man here?
Turn around!
- Do you know him? - No, that's not me, officer.
I will book cases on every one of you! Every one of you!
How long you been lying to us, huh?
You ain't no damn spy. You're a traitor.
All that crap about serving your country.
Get out of here.
Dwayne Carter approached me while I was in the Academy
and asked if he could make a copy of a training manual.
It didn't seem like a big deal.
Then, you know, he'd ask for a file or a pass code to a database.
Before I knew it, I was spying for the Chinese.
It didn't seem like a big deal.
Then, you know, he'd ask for a file or a pass code to a database.
Before I knew it, I was spying for the Chinese.
So consider the game of chicken,
in which there are three Nash Equilibria.
Each driver can choose to drive straight at the other,
consistent with a rational strategy, and rationally crash.
So game theorists recognised this conundrum during the 1950s
as we contemplated nuclear annihilation.
Mathematical theory confirmed what we instinctively understood,
that the sane man often operates at a disadvantage.
So, what am I illustrating? I'm illustrating the ability of math
to do more than define the parameters of our lives.
It can illuminate the human condition and someday, perhaps,
it will even define what lives deepest in our hearts, okay?
Tomorrow, however, we are gonna return to parameters,
specifically, partition congruences.
All right, you guys are done. Enjoy the rest of your day.
Oh, hey, here you are.
Your analysis of game theory seems a little bleak.
Yeah.
I've noticed you haven't been doing any consulting work for the FBI.
Well, Don hasn't asked me, you know.
It's... Honestly, it's been kind of nice getting back to teaching and breathing
and kissing you.
Before I knew it, I was spying for the Chinese.
Yeah? How'd it feel?
Spying on your own country?
I didn't do it because I believed in communism or China.
I did it because I could. Because after Afghanistan,
I just didn't really believe in much of anything.
So are you finding your answers here?
These monks and I are asking the same questions.
Hey, I'm sure you know,
the Dobsonian telescope owes its very existence to the hours
that John Dobson spent at the Vedanta Society monastery.
I did not know that.
I just think I needed
some kind of surcease from the madness of daily obligations.
And you?
To what do you owe your respite?
What makes you think I'm taking a respite?
Well, given the many hours you've spent here,
your distribution over the past many weeks,
I mean, it's highly doubtful
that you could be maintaining your official duties as well.
I had some leave time coming that I think I really needed.
You know, with everything that happened with Colby,
and my work for the DOJ before that.
Still not at liberty to discuss it?
I'm not sure that I'm ready.
You know, I feel like I've been sleepwalking since I got back.
I'm physically present but I'm somewhere else at the same time.
You know, I had a very similar experience on my first spacewalk.
Just this sense of, oh, for want of a more elegant term,
quantum disconnectedness.
And did it go away?
Unfortunately, it did.
Who else was involved?
Carter was my cutout. He never let me near his handlers.
Donnie.
Come on, it's been five weeks.
There's just something about his confession. It doesn't feel right.
Do you understand what you're telling me?
- It just doesn't seem right. - Like what?
I don't know. Like, I didn't see it coming, for one thing.
No one did.
Come on, you gotta allow yourself a few mistakes in life.
Yeah, well, people die that way.
How's it been?
Last chance to turn back.
I've spent two years lying to everybody about everything.
Stop now, it's all for nothing.
Expect something to happen during the transfer.
Take the guard's cell phone.
Number 6 on the speed dial.
- Who else knows? - Almost no one.
- So I'm alone. - You got me.
Any chance you got some Johnny Cash up there?
Seriously. I may be a traitor but at least I'm an American.
Any of you guys even got green cards?
Dwayne, do you ever shut up?
Solitary for three weeks. Conversation's been a little thin.
Excuse me for being social.
Don't move or I'll blow your brains out.
Dwayne, grab his gun.
Ride's here.
This ain't going our way, Granger. We gotta go.
- Hey! - Get down, don't move.
We could see that there was a fire and explosions...
- Didn't hear you get up. - Oh, hey.
You know, since Millie's been on me to publish lately,
I thought I'd dust off some of my insights
into Gröbner Basis calculations.
"The Mathematical Analysis of Friendship Dynamics."
I figured I could navigate through the 11th grade using the minimax theorem
- and n-person games. - Did it work?
Actually, my insights into the network externalities
of school elections were absolutely bulletproof.
Payoff strategies for doing other people's homework
- were not as well reasoned. - I'm telling you, it's absolutely new.
- I just bought it. - Third one this year.
With the shoes, which I have to try on right now.
Charlie, last chance.
I love the game of golf, but, no, thank you.
- We have other priorities. - All right.
- I still remember this. - You remember it?
- Yeah, the friendship math. - Yeah, that's right.
- Yeah, yeah. I tried to read this. - Really? Why?
You know, I thought I could pick up girls.
Of course.
- Yeah. What, it was 11th grade, right? - Yeah, it's 11th grade.
All right, Dad, let's get out of here. Eppes.
- They gotta be too small. Oh, God. - What? When?
Yeah, yeah, all right. Yeah, I'm on my way.
- I gotta go. - Why? What's up?
Dwayne Carter and Colby just escaped.
There's gotta be something in here.
Where's my keys?
You left them on the hook in the kitchen.
Charlie, I think you better help him.
Come on, you did this before. What was it? Chase curves, right?
Pursuit curves. And they're not really applicable here, Dad.
Although, you know, I have always suspected
that the set covering deployment problem
could be invaluable in positioning police...
- No, no, these aren't my keys! - Oh, they're on the coffee table.
- a fire or an explosion of some sort.
We're getting no confirmation from the L.A.P.D. or Department of Defence.
It's potentially revolutionary. Now picture a coastline at night.
To keep ships from crashing on the rocks we build lighthouses.
But lighthouses are a limited resource
because they cost time, money, materials.
But using set covering deployment, we can determine the best placement
for our limited number of lighthouses to illuminate the ocean.
Put your ankle up here.
Where'd you get the key?
I swallowed it right before they busted me.
Figured it was just a matter of time.
Standard-issue cuffs use the same one. Give me this thing.
I have to make a call.
Use the phone right in the office there.
Right in there.
Hello, it's me.
Yeah, we need a ride. Now!
Fifth and Alvarado.
We got a ride but we gotta go to Fifth and Alvarado.
All right. Awesome.
Hey, put on something to cover that up.
Yeah, good idea
- Oh, man. - Man, I must have tripped the alarm.
- What? - The cops. We need to get lost.
What do you say, Mike? What have you got?
Thanks.
What's up, Megan?
Thanks for coming back early. So, what have we got?
Carter and Granger were being moved to a new facility.
Transport was ambushed en route. Driver hit the panic button.
Response time was faster than they probably expected.
Which could explain why there's two dead, a third in critical,
and a fourth guy was ID'd as Jimmy Hong Tran.
What's that? Like Vietnamese?
Yeah, he's a local mope. He's not talking. Strictly hired muscle.
Granger and Carter used the diversion to overpower the guards,
they slipped away during the firefight.
Eyewitnesses saw them taking off down Hill Street.
They were shackled together at the ankles.
But the driver said Colby's hands were free.
- They must have got a key somehow. - Yeah, it's right here.
It explains how they got loose.
And, if they lost it, why they're still in leg shackles.
Yeah, so they're going to be trying to cut those off, right?
Charles, the monks do not appreciate FBI agents knocking at their doors,
especially during morning contemplation.
- I didn't have any way to call you. - Yes, by design.
As much as I respect... I've even embraced your work...
Colby escaped from jail.
All right.
So you are programming a matrix for set covering deployment.
There doesn't seem to be much use for a cosmologist.
Plenty of use for a friend, though.
Look, intellectually, this case is no different than any case I've worked on,
a problem needs to be solved.
As in every case there is a human component
and, in this instance, a personal component.
I can't reconcile what I know about the man with his actions.
Try as I might to put that out of my head.
No, no, no, Charles.
You ignore any reality, no matter how uncomfortable,
only at your own risk.
But on the other hand, you incorporate it, and I don't know,
who knows what insight might rise up here from the depths.
I'm not sorry I dragged you out of bed, Larry.
They lost the key, they cut the link.
It looks like one of them is still wearing a belt.
They made a call, or tried to.
Well, I can get a dump on the phone line.
Yeah.
L.A.P.D. lost them in the back alley,
but thinks they might have ducked into the Farmers Market.
Why are we doing this?
We're acting like this is any other case and it isn't.
So, what do we do? Go home and leave it for somebody else?
No. I think we gotta address what we're feeling
because it's affecting the work.
I'm feeling like I'd really like to put him back in prison.
You sure you're up for this?
Hey, that's not fair. That's not what I said.
What do you want me to say?
How do I feel? I feel like it's my fault, that Colby is my responsibility.
We move the foot patrols into the unknown-occupancy grids.
Won't that compromise the coverage in the central zone?
Okay, how about a terrain-guarding algorithm?
It's always terrain-guarding algorithms with you.
- Hey, Charlie Eppes. - Charlie, it's Colby.
- I need to talk to Don. - Then why call me?
Because the FBI doesn't have enough time to trace me through your phone.
Think like a mathematician. Is there a reason not to put me through to Don?
No. It's Colby.
I gotta call you back.
What, you call my brother? Is this a threat?
Don, my handler is Agent Michael Kirkland,
- counterintelligence out of D.C. - Your handler?
Look, when Dwayne first came to me back in Quantico, I reported it.
Kirkland has been using me to feed cherry-picked information
through Dwayne to the Chinese.
He's sure that Carter's working for someone high up in the DOJ.
- Who's that? - That's the thing.
Now, we haven't flushed him out yet.
When Carter got busted, Kirkland figured
if I got thrown in jail with him and escaped with him,
that was our only shot that he might lead me up.
But the problem is I can't get ahold of Kirkland right now.
I don't know if something's happened to him or if I'm being set up.
Who else can verify this?
The ranking guard on the transport. Other than that, Don, I don't know.
Kirkland kept this whole op extremely contained.
You're giving me a story I can't even check out.
I'm giving you Kirkland, Don.
Okay, you don't trust me. I get that, all right?
But you have to understand that I trust you.
The fact is, you are the only person that I can trust right now.
So D.C. said there is a Michael Kirkland in counterintelligence
and he's been in Hollywood for six weeks.
Number of ways Granger could have known.
It could be a name he sold to the Chinese.
So you go talk to him, all right?
But let's just keep this one among ourselves, okay?
We're not going to report contact with an escaped prisoner?
No, I just wanna find out what Colby gains by telling us this story, you know.
Because you think he could be telling the truth.
Any of you familiar with trust metrics?
Sure, in psychology, it's a measure
of how much a member of the group is trusted by the other members.
We can't trust anything Colby says.
Well, it's not an either-or proposition, if we employ a fuzzy system.
Yes, I am done with that.
Now, how would we describe this ice cube?
Wet, hard, cold.
But none of those words mean anything
unless we have a basis for comparison.
Using fuzzy logic, we create a range of those states,
and assign the ice cube values accordingly.
Similarly, a person's honesty is not absolute.
We all lie to varying degrees for varying reasons.
What are you gonna tell us? What percentage to believe him?
More like a probabilistic statement. I mean, let me do the work.
If you guys don't wanna use it, at least I tried.
Don't you really have your hands full
trying to figure out their possible escape routes?
Well, actually, my set covering deployment yielded
a very interesting byproduct.
So we created a dynamic, adaptive system, adjusting for crowds,
911 calls and suspicious activities.
Yeah. Of course, it must seem fairly abstract to you.
No, no, no, I get it. The thicker lines are higher probabilities, right?
We start where they escaped, take them to the garage.
Why do the subway stations have lower values?
Coverage. There are police on the station stairs and platforms.
Yeah, but not all the trains. They disappear here
and they haven't shown up here, right? Yeah.
Well, well. Don has gotten much better at the math.
He puts on a good game face, but it seems like he's hurting.
Well, it's hard enough Colby betrayed him.
And now even more confusion about who he is and what he's doing.
You know something? We might do well to consider
a strange neutral b-meson here.
If something as simple as a heavy-bottom antiquark,
bound with a strange quark can reverse its identity
three million times a second,
how do we expect something as complex as the human mind
to simply remain unchanged?
Colby!
Don't move!
Colby? Don't move!
Hold it! Colby!
Colby! Come on, a train!
Carter!
Damn it!
I let Colby go.
Oh, come on, man, you didn't let him.
We have to assume he's beyond the boundaries of my set deployment.
I let him get away. I had him. I was looking right at him.
All right.
Were you basing your decision on his statement,
the circumstantial context,
or a disposition towards giving the benefit of the doubt?
What, are you actually putting it in an equation?
Of course. That factors into my trust metric.
You know, I just... I don't know why I believed him.
Unless it's so simple as I don't want to admit I was wrong in the first place.
- Don, you have a big ego. - Thanks.
- And you have a ginormous ego. - Thanks.
But you're not stupid. You made the best decision you could
with all the available information you had.
And, if past performance is any indicator, man,
you are probabilistically right.
Probabilistically, huh?
I know math is full of absolutes,
and, unfortunately, the rest of life isn't.
This guy doesn't say much, huh?
Never heard him talk, come to think of it.
Remember when I dragged your ass out of that Humvee?
- Yeah. You remember why? - Sometimes I think the burns
are payment for things we've done. Other times, I know they're not.
Holding that key, sitting in jail for five weeks,
you trusted me to make a move, and I knew I could trust you to wait.
- Well, we're in this together, right? - Damned straight.
The rest of them can go to hell,
as long as we keep dragging each other out of the wrecks.
What were you thinking, trying to shoot it out with the cops?
I was thinking I'm gonna die before I go back to jail.
You know this is a smokescreen, right?
Granger sends us off chasing ghosts while he gets clear.
You know, the best way to find out is to just ask Kirkland ourselves.
- Do you smell that? - Only one thing smells like that.
Damn.
Clear.
Special Agent Michael Kirkland.
This is Agent Sinclair. Yeah.
Do you have an Agent Michael Kirkland?
Yeah, he's dead.
Whoever tortured Kirkland didn't know he had aortic-valve stenosis.
- Induced a major heart attack. - And D.C. is pushing us off.
Their official statement is that,
because Kirkland was in counterintelligence,
his operations may be beyond our need to know.
Yeah? What about unofficially?
I got the impression no one has any idea
what he was doing in Los Angeles.
Obvious theory is he was a spy. Maybe he got Carter's mystery contact.
He outlives his usefulness with the Chinese, and they kill him.
Yeah, what do you think?
I don't know.
D.C.'s already asking us how we found the body.
Don, we have to come clean.
Look, if Colby's telling the truth, we got a leak at the DOJ.
Come on in.
How you doing?
Take a seat.
- Any problems? - Nothing we couldn't handle.
- Do you know who I am? - Should I?
Well, that's a question I need answered, Agent Granger.
Oh, it's not "agent" anymore.
Mike Kirkland says differently.
Am I missing something?
You've been missing it for two years.
He's a triple agent, Dwayne.
He's been feeding us lousy intel
and spying on the FBI for the last two years.
May I have the phone, please?
How long were you planning on playing this? All the way through to China?
If I had to.
You were responsible for transporting Carter and Granger?
Yes, sir.
The orders came in late. I was ranking officer on the block.
Sir, am I in trouble?
Do you know an agent named Mike Kirkland?
No, sir.
All right, let's suppose your orders were in fact to help these guys escape.
Agent Eppes, are you accusing me of treason?
That's what helping traitors escape from custody would be.
Agent Kirkland was found dead this morning, okay?
If there's some kind of classified operation going on,
there's lives in jeopardy. You understand what I'm saying?
Yes, sir.
I mean, Kirkland picked the right man. The guy can definitely keep a secret.
Or he has no idea what we're talking about.
All right, either way, it would only confirm Colby's story.
It's not gonna help us find them.
All right, maybe we're just chasing this thing wrong.
Last time we went after Carter, what did he do?
Made a run for China.
Then he arranged a murder from prison.
He pretended to cooperate with us.
Yeah, but that was only to convince the CIA
to trade him back to China.
Right. So how's he planning to get there?
You're suggesting we develop a projective analysis assuming
that Colby and Carter intend to get to China?
Not Colby, just Carter.
Everyone agrees on who he is, you know, what his motivations are.
Well, that makes sense, Charlie. Isn't there a mathematical term
- for removing the clutter? - Yeah.
We call it removing the clutter.
I mean, I suppose we could develop some expressions.
I have to go.
Well, that's how it is, you know. He gets an idea.
Yeah.
So how are you doing, David?
You know, just trying to treat it like another case, you know.
I don't see how you can.
I mean, it's you and Colby and...
That's the thing about friends.
- Sometimes they turn on you. - Yeah, that's the big test, isn't it?
How do you deal with that really close friend who lets you down?
Mr. Eppes, he did not just forget to pick me up from the airport.
He sold out his country.
I don't wanna get all 1960s on you,
but I've heard that accusation tossed around a lot in my lifetime.
And the truth is, it's never that simple.
I mean, you might owe it to yourself and Colby
to try to understand why he did what he did,
before you actually close the book on him.
Excuse the camera.
I can't remember things like I used to.
I should have realised you were a plant from the start.
We have that in common. I was born in Beijing.
Absorbed into an extensive training programme just after I could talk.
They sent me to the United States where I was educated and assimilated.
I was even premed before I followed my path
into government service.
Unfortunately, Kirkland died before he could answer
the important questions like, does the FBI know my name yet?
And, if I go to Washington, will I be arrested?
Why don't you just ask Dwayne?
He's been working with us this whole time.
Why don't we start with something simple
I already know, like your op name.
Arabian Knights.
Stalking Horse.
Lesson number one, you can't lie.
I don't bluff.
I may need to find a new monastery.
So I was on my way to the FBI to help answer some questions,
and I had to stop and take a deep breath
before I went the rest of the way,
because I'm not sure about the optimality
of giving Don the solutions he's asked for.
Why? Because you're not sure he'll use them wisely?
I'm not sure they're right. I mean, they're right,
but how can I be sure that they'll produce the right outcome?
Well, you've certainly wrestled with this question before.
The stakes have seldom been so personal.
Well, you know, one could posit that any outcome the solution produces
is the one that was meant to be.
Science transcends functions and facts.
It's all in a path to understanding higher truths.
Just yesterday I made that very same point
to my Intro Game Theory class.
Every professor should spend time in the back of his own classroom.
- Oh, you're right. - Thank you.
Sorry to interrupt your meditation.
Silent contemplation has certainly taught me one thing.
- What's that? - You can contemplate silence,
but you can never find it.
What I administered was a non-lethal dose of tubocurarine.
It paralyzes the muscles and depresses the respiratory capabilities,
creating what I've heard described as the sensation of slowly drowning.
You and I are in the same position. We're both fighting for freedom.
We're both fighting for our lives.
Think of what you'd do in my position, multiply that by five,
and you'll understand what I'm willing to put you through.
We assume that Dwayne Carter intends to get to China
from Los Angeles by a direct and safe path.
Now, he is aware of all the resources at your disposal.
Police dragnets and surveillance on family and friends.
I mean, you don't need Karmarkar's algorithm to see where this is going.
Ernst Straus posited a roomful of mirrors
and a man lighting a match.
Like lighthouses, that man wants to illuminate everything.
Now, as the reflection of the light bounced from wall to wall,
Straus wondered if there was a room so complex
that a match lit in the right place couldn't reach every corner.
Well, it was 40 years before George Tokarsky devised an answer.
A 26-sided room.
In the spirit of that problem and solution,
I looked for Carter's dark corner.
The nearest, safest Chinese soil.
We've already had the Chinese consulate staked out.
But he has a much simpler, more viable option.
Any ship flying a Chinese flag is considered foreign soil
once it's out of the contiguous zone, 24 nautical miles offshore.
- It's practically untouchable. - Right.
So a value-based algorithm ruled out private yachts and cruise ships
and any boat incapable of making the transpacific journey.
However, it weighted heavily towards freighters
and the Port of Los Angeles recorded 13 Chinese freighters as of yesterday.
Do they know my name? Have they been watching my contacts?
How much of my network is compromised?
Kirkland never said and I never asked.
That's not what Kirkland said when I asked him.
I know Kirkland. If you tortured him, he didn't tell you anything.
That's right.
Quinuclidinyl benzilate.
Produces akathisia, an intense desire to move.
It also amplifies pain receptors
so that even a pin prick
will feel like you're being stabbed.
It also causes hallucinations
and a loss of mental and physical control.
Good. Then you'll know what to expect.
Four Chinese freighters pulled out of harbour this morning.
The Tian Xi was scheduled to load bicycle parts and paper pulp,
headed for Vietnam next Tuesday.
Instead, it pushed out of harbour this morning.
NSA's satellite image is two-hours old, but you can see,
she's moving past the 12-mile mark. What makes the Tian Xi interesting
is the bicycle parts are being loaded by the China National Export Company,
which is on our watch list as a possible front for Chinese intelligence.
You see that boat right there?
Take a look at this.
Did you see that? Do me a favour. Zoom in on that black SUV.
- That's a whip antenna, isn't it? - One of ours?
- Let's see. - Infrared markings.
- Run it. - All right.
All right, so the car was signed out to this guy. His name is Mason Lancer.
He's a special assistant to the deputy attorney general.
That's exactly the kind of position
that would have access to classified information,
but he still needs somebody to go and steal what he can't reach.
- Yeah, like Carter. - Or Colby Granger.
Now, the ship is 16 miles out,
and it's still outside the 12-mile territorial mark,
but it's inside the contiguous zone.
Which means we'll still need a search warrant
from the State Department if we wanna board.
- How long does that take? - Between three hours and two days.
- No guarantee they say "yes." - Once they cross that 24-mile mark,
there's no way we could get on at all.
All right, look, it comes down to this.
Do we in fact think that Colby is a traitor?
That's all it's about. Do we? And, if we do,
we let the Coast Guard watch and we wait for a warrant.
And if he's not, he could be dead by then.
Yeah.
So this is the trust metric I prepared on Colby Granger.
It's a man's life put down on a few pages of expressions,
distilled down to an index of trustworthiness,
which is a number that incorporates all facets of his behaviour.
Like, you know, like the risks he's taken.
Or the orders he's obeyed. Or disobeyed.
The confidences he's shared.
Yeah. So, what does it tell us?
Nothing.
Nothing we don't already know in our hearts.
I'm in.
I don't know what to believe but I'd like to go find out.
All right, we roll in 10.
Do they know my name?
Your name, your dog's name, your grandmother's name.
Everybody knows everything.
The last syringe is potassium chloride,
the finisher in the lethal-injection cocktail.
If I can't know what you know, it's best for me that no one else does.
What it comes down to is,
do you wanna spend the last hours in unholy pain just so that you can die?
Granger, don't do this. It's not worth it for some secrets
nobody will care about six months from now.
Dwayne, I really wish somebody else had pulled me out of that fire.
Why?
Because I hate owing you.
This is the FBI. Shut down your engines.
Prepare to be boarded.
- What are you doing? - What I said I would.
- Potassium chloride. - That stuff will stop his heart cold.
Plunger wasn't deployed, but he's not breathing.
- Colby! - I gotta get a medic.
Stay with me. Wake up!
Let's go!
Wake up!
- Colby just keeps owing this guy? - Only if he lives.
- Colby, come on. - Let's go!
- Come on. - Colby!
We've got control of... Oh, damn.
- Colby? Can you hear me? - Wake up!
Stay with me! Wake up! Stay with me!
Doctors say his vitals have stabilised,
but it will be a day or so before the drugs are out of his system.
Until I saw that needle sticking out of his chest,
I was sure he was guilty.
You saved his life.
But I still don't know who he is.
I didn't know him when he was a spy.
Now he's some guy who pretended to be a spy.
Who pretended to be my partner.
You coming in?
No. Not yet.
Oh, I don't feel any the lesser for a night away from broccoli,
- carrots and coarse-grain bread. - Yeah, I'm stuffed.
Oh, yeah. Celebratory food always tastes better, Larry, don't you think?
Okay, to Colby Granger and his rapid recovery, we hope.
Yeah, well, then in that case, to Don's instincts.
Yeah, and your trust metric.
Sounds like a new chapter in
"The Mathematical Analysis of Friendship Dynamics."
- I'm not familiar with that paper. - It was early Charlie Eppes.
Yeah, mathematics and friendship.
It was like a self-help manual for eggheads.
- Something like that. - No offence.
- You guys might be onto something. - Don't, Charlie.
- Charlie, we were just kidding. - Dust off the old paper
and convert the playground to an office,
run a few new expressions.
- Charlie! - I could publish anyway.
I laud the attempt to wrestle order
out of the chaos of interpersonal relationships,
but how are you going to address higher-order constraints?
- Don't egg him on. - Heuristics.
Heuristics, you see. Everybody knows that.
That's why I didn't get through it to begin with. It's too complicated.
Heuristics.