The Continental pulled up to a restaurant in the kind of neighborhood where every corner had a pair of eyes. The doors opened and Queen P and Sheldon got out.
"The Cheesecake Factory?" Sheldon asked.
"YuP," she replied and the pair entered the building.
"But the food isn't real and, to be honest, isn't that good a non-food either."
"We're not here to eat," she said as they entered the dining room. "You've got an appointment."
They marched across the room to the bar where a young man wearing oversized glasses and a grin tended bar.
"Hi," he said enthusiastically. "I'm Daryl. What can I get you?"
"Access," Queen P said with a smile.
"Cool. Cool." He looked Sheldon over with eyes that suddenly seemed sharp and intelligent. "He cool, too?"
"Very cool."
Daryl nodded and resumed his vacant smile. "You're in luck. The kitchen's open."
Queen P and Sheldon walked past the bar and through the doors into the kitchen. Several cooks looked up, suddenly gripping their butcher knives and rolling pins. Sheldon hurried forward and practically pasted himself to Queen P's side.
At the back of the kitchen was a monolith of a man wearing baker's white who stopped kneading dough and slapped his hands together to get off the flour.
"You're late," he said
"Busy times, Kurt," Queen P said as they went over to a heavy metal door. Kurt opened it and Queen P clicked on the light before descending the stairs. Sheldon glanced warily at Kurt, who was all business, before following.
The stairs led to the wine cellar where Sheldon took in the racks of wine and cases of beer. Queen P went directly to another door and opened it. Inside, Sheldon could see a single bare bulb hanging above a high-tech laptop and modem which were set up on a stack of milk crates.
They went to the computer and Queen P typed in a series of access codes. After a moment the screen blinked, "Welcome Queen P."
She walked past Sheldon and went through the same door they entered. Sheldon made to follow but stopped at the entrance as, wide-eyed, he took in walls and floors of polished marble.
"What happened?" he gasped as he stepped into the room.
"This is the temple," Queen P explained as they proceeded into the next room. "It is a part of Sheldonopolis's mainframe. It's hidden inside the Molaro so that we can access it."
Two women were waiting for them. The tall, auburn-haired one wearing a purple-plaid sweater smiled.
"Hello Sheldor. We've been expecting you," Martha said.
"Okay, you're on your own," Queen P said. "Go with them."
Both priestesses took Sheldon by the arm, leading him down the hall into another room filled with children. The room felt at once like a Buddhist temple and a kindergarten class. The children's heads were either shaved or thick with dreadlocks.
"Wait here. Among the other Potentials," Abby said before the two women left.
Sheldon took in the children playing, meditating or practicing their gift. He watched a little girl levitate wooden alphabet blocks. A plump Asian boy, looking to be in his mid-teens, held a spoon which swayed like a blade of grass as he bent it with his mind.
Wanting to be with someone near his age, Sheldon crossed over to him and sat. Dennis smirked as Sheldon picked up a spoon and tried to imitate him. Despite his best efforts, Sheldon couldn't make it bend.
"Your spoon doesn't bend because to you it's a spoon," Dennis said.
"So this is a Schrodinger's dilemma?" Sheldon again focussed on the spoon but nothing happened.
"You're still in the physical. There's no duality because there's no spoon, just my mind," Dennis snorted as his spoon curled into a knot. "Bell's Theorem."
"Once connected, objects affect one another forever no matter where they are," Sheldon said as he watched the spoon unwind and straighten.
"Link yourself to the spoon. Become the spoon and bend yourself." Dennis plucked his spoon out of the air with his hand and gave it to Sheldon.
Sheldon stared at the spoon, nodded, and then held it before him. "I am the spoon. My thoughts are its thoughts."
The spoon began to bend just as Sheldon felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Danger! Danger!" he screeched as he got to his feet.
Martha smiled at him. "The Oracle will see you now."
Sheldon's stomach felt fluttery as Martha pointed to the door beyond. He opened it and nervously entered. Beneath his feet as he walked was a path of the zodiac which led to a set of marbled stairs that rose to a dais and a three-legged throne. The throne was empty.
"Hello?" Sheldon called out.
"Hello," said a distant robotic voice.
Sheldon looked around before tentatively ascending the stairs. At the top of the dais, he heard something mechanical moving and followed the sound behind the pillars where he found an open door.
"Come in," the robot voice said.
Sheldon walked through a vestibule where he saw a fabulous moonstone headdress and velvet robes. A second door led into a large study right out of a Sherlock Holmes novel complete with large oak desk, oodles of leather-bound books and a large wooden globe in the corner beside a bay window fringed on either side by thick velvet curtains.
In a motorized wheelchair sat a small, physically distorted man who was staring at a computer laptop mounted on his chair.
"You're the Oracle?" Sheldon asked. "But you're Stephen Hawking!"
"One moment, Sheldor," said a computer voice from a speaker which was also attached to the man's chair. A moment and then the chair moved towards Sheldon and stopped beside the desk. "Your scepticism has been noted—and appreciated."
"So how is it that one of the great minds of science is called the Oracle?"
The keys on the Oracle's laptop moved without being touched.
"The long story short is that my mind calculates all variables of an object's Path Integral Formulation. From there I extrapolate the most likely path. For instance, I'd ask you to sit down, but you're not going to anyway. And don't worry about the vase."
"What vase?" Sheldon said as he turned around to look and in that motion his elbow knocked a vase from a side table. It fell and broke. He turned back to the Oracle with a frown. "This is not precognition. You put into motion the path in which I look for the vase and in that action I haphazardly turned and broke it."
"So you're saying that my suggestion controls your fate?" The Oracle laughed in an awkward computer flat tone. "Are you really that easily manipulated by suggestion? I thought you were Homo Novus?"
Sheldon was surprised. "How did you know I called myself Homo Novus?"
"For a genius, you're not that bright," the Oracle said, causing Sheldon to purse his lips. "But on to business. You know why Queen P brought you to see me?"
"I believe so."
"So what do you think? Are you the One?"
"I don't know," Sheldon said with a shake of the head. "If I was the One Queen P thinks I am then I must be a disappointment." He gave a half shrug. "She said I have to learn how to live."
"Temet Nosce."
"'Know Thyself'?" Sheldon thought over what he'd experienced since taking the red pill. "I'm not sure if I know anything at all."
"What have you resolved?"
"Well, I demonstrated the properties of super solids in relation to the Bowes-Einstein condensates, examined perturbative amplitudes in n=4 supersymmetric theories leading to a re-examination of the ultraviolet properties of multi-loop n=8 supergravity using modern twister theory, reconciled the black hole information paradox with my theory of string-network condensates—something which you couldn't do, I might add. I've been responsible for Caltech's six loop quantum gravity calculations and have resolved why electrons moving through graphene, act as if they have no mass."
"You have the gift," the Oracle said. Sheldon smiled. "But you are not the One." Sheldon's smile vanished. "You have a lot to learn. Perhaps in the next life you will achieve greatness."
"I see," Sheldon said after a moment to compose himself. "Well, thank you."
"Take a Red Vine. I have a package on my desk."
"I'm not hungry."
"Trust me, you'll be having a busy day."
Sheldon eyed the Oracle before venturing to the desk and took out a licorice from the box.
"I'll make a believer out of you yet."
"The licorice is good but this is still a load of hokum," Sheldon sniffed.
XXX
Queen P rose from a bench as Martha escorted Sheldon to the antechamber. When they were alone, Queen P put a hand on Sheldon's arm.
"You don't have to tell me anything, Sheldor, because I already know what he said."
"You do?" Sheldon asked as he ate the licorice.
Queen P nodded. "I brought you so that you could hear it for yourself. I knew it would help." Sheldon made to speak. "No one will ever ask you because it is a gift from him. It is for you and you alone."
Sheldon closed his mouth. He had a feeling Queen P wouldn't believe him, anyways.
And that feeling didn't make him psychic.