A Second Chance

Part 74 - No Margin for Error

I pulled up my contacts on the phone and found the name I was looking for.

It's been so long since we met.

"What's good, Justin?"

"Well, well, well," Justin voice came through, "if it isn't my favorite lightning guy. You know I literally had a feeling today. Kinda like a vibe off my biased and unfair system. I was sitting there eating my breakfast and I thought, today feels like a Jay day."

"Because it is, man! I need your help,"

"Already? You just got back. Or wait, did you just get back? Where did you go? Actually don't tell me yet, give me a second to guess." A pause. "You went somewhere with portals."

"What?! How did you-"

"The Vipers have been moving weird for the past three weeks. Emily uncovered reports of portals all around the world. My guys flagged it and I've just been watching it like a TV show."

"I see, not a bad thing," 

"And who's breathing near your phone."

Charlotte looked at the phone. "Hi, I'm Charlotte."

"Charlotte, a good name," Justin said. "Where are you from, Charlotte. North Carolina?"

"The City of Glass."

"City of what?"

"Glass! It's literally doesn't match the name and it's weird and all, but it's advanced too! Really cool city-" 

"Yeah, really cool," I interrupted. "It's complicated and I'll explain later. Right now I need to find four missing people from Charlotte's school. They got pulled through a portal from my world into Chicago and we don't know where they ended up."

"Ohhh okay so it's a missing persons situation level 2. That's new even for us." He sounded genuinely delighted about this. "Alright what do you know.""

Charlotte leaned toward the phone. "You're know a lot!"

"I know a lot of things," Justin said. "That's kind of my whole brand."

"Yeah, so you think you can help us?" I asked. 

"Yeah, so here's the thing. My LLC has expanded considerably since you left. We're talking significantly more people on the ground in significantly more locations. Literally all countries across the world, even the bad ones!"

"How many people are we talking?"

"Formally, than a thousand," he said. "In casual, 10000+ minimum. And here's where the beautiful mathematics comes in. You've got over 10k over all countries, what, maybe fifty possible locations the Vipers could be keeping four teenagers across the world? By the pigeonhole principle alone-"

"The what?" Charlotte said.

"Pigeonhole principle," Justin explained. "You got pigeons and holes. Imagine more pigeons than holes, right, which means at minimum some of those holes have got to have more than one pigeon in them. Apply that to my guys versus the possible locations and statistically there is no version of this where they don't find your four missing kids."

...

Charlotte looked at me. "Is he high?" 

"Somehow, it works,"

"Are you high too? You're way past 20! Did you drink?!"

"It 100% works," Justin laughed. "It works every time. The math doesn't lie. The math has never lied to me, and now, I'm gonna text my guys the details. What do they look like."