In 'In Which We Meet Mr. Jones' Mrs. Loeb handed Olivia a piece of paper hidden in a copy of A Christmas Carol. In 'The Equation', Walter sings Christmas carols over and over to try to jog his memory about the pattern of green-green-green-red lights.
FRINGE DIVISION CASE FILE #108-111808
FRINGE EVENT: Hypnagogic trance with David Robert Jones/ZFT connections
CLASSIFIED CASE CONNECTION(S): Dr. Bishop's flashing lights experiments for advertising agencies
AGENTS ASSIGNED: Dunham, Francis
SUPERVISING AGENT: Broyles
FILE ARCHIVED BY: Mica Dulfano, Angela Klein
WITNESSES/CONTACTS: Jeremy Stockton (father), Maureen Stockton (sister), Dr. Bruce Sumner
LOCATION: Clarksboro, MA
VICTIM(S): Ben Stockton, Dashiell Kim, Joanne Ostler (deceased)
CASE REPORT SUMMARY:
Jeremy Stockton reported that he and his son, Ben Stockton, stopped to aid a woman with car trouble. The father claims that while he was looking at the woman's car, time jumped, and his son, the woman, and her car disappeared. Nine months earlier, Ben Stockton had survived a car accident, woken from a coma, and suddenly was able to play piano perfectly. Two weeks later, he was composing his own music and became fixated on one piece.
- Project 577 - Exploration 5 -
It happens all the time: Newton and Leibnitz inventing calculus. Darwin and Wallace discovering evolution by natural selection. Jevons, Menger, and Walras elucidating marginalism in economics. And yet. Dashiell and the boy -- with nothing in common -- not even working in the same medium -- not even knowing what they were trying to find --
YOU SHOULD HAVE SOLVED IT YOURSELF! IT IS JUST MATHEMATICS, A SIMPLEMATTER OF CALCULATION, NOTHING MORE
Every iteration of the main theme of the composition corresponds to a further expansion of the central function in Dashiell's equation. And with each iteration, he comes a step closer to a closed-form solution. Yet the expansion is infinite, implying a potentially endless composition -- small wonder the boy was obsessed --
EXCUSES. EXCUSES TO RETURN TO WHERE YOU KNOW YOU BELONG.
No! I have the boy now, he is the key, on some level he understands, even if he chafes and bristles -
BECAUSE YOU ARE A BURDEN. AND THE VISITOR CAME AGAIN, DIDN'T HE? ALWAYS PRESSURING YOU FOR THE NUMBERS, THE NUMBERS!
I couldn't stop him, he knows my combination. He bumped my head and I went to bed and I couldn't get up til morning --
ENOUGH RHYMES. THE QUESTION 1S, WHAT HAPPENED WHEN HE LEFT?
It was still there, my box of secrets, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma within a lumpy mattress. I should have left it there --
FOR THEM TO TAKE? FOOLISHNESS. IS IT SAFE OR NOT?
I have it now. The box is safe, but my secrets are not. My visitor whispered to me: thank you. No more pearls in this oyster, he said.
PETER: "The best lie - the one that's easiest to remember with consistency - is the one that's based on the truth."