Precious little interest in this. Is it that damned bad? Or is it the premise turns you all off after chapter 2?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Reparata
Posted 12/4/2012

Chapter 4

Burbank

Penny pulled up in front of a low-rent bungalow and looked over at her passenger. His grip on his messenger bag had tightened and he never took a hand off the strap of the strange backpack that was nestled between his long legs except to consult a tattered spiral notebook he kept in his messenger bag. He'd confirmed the address they were at.

"Penny, really, you don't have to wait. Go shop 'til you drop' but leave a note in your purse telling people where you live and – "

She popped him in the arm and then rubbed it to make it all better. Actually, she found it hard to keep her hands off him. Something was different about him. He was normally fidgety in the car, talking non-stop, but not this time.

"I said I'll wait for you, Shelley-bean, and I will."

"I suppose telling you to go home wouldn't work either, would it?"

"Nope." She popped the 'P' sound, knowing that it was one of his pet peeves but he just sighed and got out.

"No matter what happens, Penny, stay put. If things get exciting, drive away and don't look back. I'll be along directly. Don't worry."

"Wait! What do you mean, 'exciting'?"

He simply turned and walked up the driveway past the Jeep Cherokee that was parked in it. Sheldon felt the hood and smiled. It was hot so they were here. He walked up the two steps to the porch but stopped. He felt her presence behind him. He turned, anger making the thin planes of his face almost white and she stepped back, afraid of him for the first time since they met.

"I told you to stay put, Penelope. Were the words too big?"

He looked like he was torn between carrying her back to the car and spanking her. She felt a frisson of desire flush through her system. She'd always liked bad boys and this Sheldon was definitely bad.

"Doc!" A slim 20-something brunette with long dark hair tore open the bungalow door and launched herself across the porch at Sheldon, throwing her arms around his neck and covering his cheeks with sloppy kisses.

Penny got instantly jealous and she growled deep in her throat but that didn't deter the young woman from laughing and hugging on Sheldon.

"Cam – please, control yourself. It hasn't been that long since I last saw you."

"Fuck all yes it has, Doc! It's been almost a frikkin' lifetime and Derek told everyone you'd been greased by that Triple-8 that was chasing you. Should have known you'd show up like a rotten penny. We really bollixed up the transit but then we didn't have our resident armorer and time traveling genius to set the parameters for us!"

"Cameron, if you don't watch that sewer of a mouth of yours – and it's bad penny, not rotten."

"What? You'll spank me?" She smiled saucily but then her face lost all emotion when she looked over Sheldon's shoulder and saw Penny. She hissed, "What the fuck is she doing here?"

"Cameron Baum, get back in the house. Hello, I'm Sarah Baum and you are?" Sheldon noted how the older woman held her right hand behind her back, no doubt wrapped around the butt of a pistol tucked into the waistband of her enticingly-tight jeans.

"Sarah, he's the Doc that Derek and I told you about. He's John's right-hand man in the scrounging department. He's the one who gave Derek my emotion chip to bring down with him." She prattled on until a look from Sarah quieted her down and she went into the house, sending a glare over her shoulder at Penny.

"So you're the one who turned her on? I ought to shoot you where you stand!" There was just the hint of a smile and Sheldon suppressed his own smile. Cameron was normally taciturn not the loquacious Valley Girl who greeted him so emotionally.

"In my defense, I was only following your son's orders, Sarah. Personally, I think I need to readjust her filters and reduce the – "

"Why don't you and Blondie come in where we can talk without being gawked at. I assume she knows about – "

"No, not yet. We haven't, I mean, she hasn't, um, it's complicated. Is Derek here?"

Sheldon and Penny followed Sarah into the living room of the bungalow.

"No. He and John are out scouting a possible – " Sarah Conner looked at Penny and then at Sheldon who barely shook his head in the negative. " - A possible apartment vacancy. He's been living here since, well, and it's awkward, Dr…"

"Cooper, Sheldon Lee Cooper and this is Penny, my, um, neighbor across the hall."

Sarah Conner smirked a smirk that screamed 'sure she is' but didn't say anything.

"Hi, Penny, I'm Sarah Conner and this is my menagerie of relatives and near-relatives. C'mon, I know it's early but I could definitely use a beer while Dr. Cooper has a little 'chat' with my um, step-daughter, Cameron."

Sheldon rolled his eyes but then blanched when he realized what the 'chat' would entail. He glared his fiercest glare at Sarah who just laughed it off.

"You torqued her up, you fix 'er. I don't think this is quite what John had in mind when he had you alter her emotional chip. One must keep Universe in balance, Dr. Cooper."

Her smirk conveyed volumes to Sheldon. He liked her even though he'd just met the mother of the Savior of Humanity. She was just like her son only in a much more attractive package. A very attractive package.

As Penny followed Sarah into the kitchen she bumped into Sheldon deliberately and glared up at him. "Moon Pie, we will have a chat about what's going on in your life, who these people are and just why that little brunette hussy thinks she can kiss you and rub herself all over you and why you're making cow eyes at her stepmother. Bet on it!"

"Penny, Sheldon Cooper does not make cow eyes, whatever they are." He looked so affronted that she wanted to hug him but just kept on moving.

John Connor watched as his companion slithered through weeds and scrub grass and hooked electrical leads to the bottom of the chain link fence. The only thing that tipped them off to the electrified fence was the couple of dead birds and mice that were on the ground along the fencing.

'No one electrifies a fence around an abandoned trucking terminal. Score one for Derek's intel.'

A few wires and rubber-coated snips and Derek had an opening large enough for them to slip through without being electrocuted. They ran the 20 or so yards to the rear of the terminal building and then began their assessment.

"Coming in daylight is totally unexpected so if there is any metal in there, they should be in stand-down or whatever. Move along the building to the west and I'll take the east. What are we looking for?"

Reese was in full teaching mode and John hated it but knew that he needed just this type of experience to become what his mother told him he would one day become.

"High-tech burglar alarm system, active CCTV cameras, signs of recent activity in the loading bays and anything else that screams Sky Net. This place has supposedly been abandoned for more than a year but there's no trash around the bays and no signs of decay that you'd expect to see after all this time."

"Don't get cocky, kid. Just about the time you think you know it all a Triple-8 will show you that you don't and you won't survive that lesson, John."

"Yes, Mom," he replied with an exasperated sigh. "Ow! Man, that hurt!" He rubbed the back of his head where Reese had cuffed him.

"Don't be disrespectful to Sarah. She's devoted her entire life to keeping you safe, training you, getting you ready for JD. You're not The Man yet, John, not by a long shot."

"So you never get tired of telling me…" he said in a soft voice.

"If Tin Lizzie were here you wouldn't have mouthed off, would you? You pay more attention to what that metal abomination says than what either your mom or I do. We all have something to teach you, damn it, so listen."

"Yeah, but sometimes you all forget that I'm giving up everything, too, for something that might not ever happen."

Any further arguments were postponed when they heard a large truck shifting gears and driving around the western side of the building and heading for the loading docks. They couldn't run across the tarmac and back to the fence. They'd be spotted. John ran along the side of the building and around the corner and dropped down and waited for Derek to join him.

"Okay, I don't think we were spotted. Let's do a total walk-around and note anything unusual. Get the info on the truck and we'll toss their office for manifests later tonight or tomorrow."

"Shouldn't we find a way in and see just what they're unloading? It might be legit, y'know?"

"Cameron, please go offline. This will be hard to do with you awake and feeling pain. I – "

"Doc, Doc, Doc, I told ya a thousand times that I do not 'feel pain' like you do. Just slice where I showed ya and pop out the chip. I think I'm getting on Sarah's nerves, y'know? John seems to like the upgrade but it's hard for me to override the chip when things get dicey."

"I have a modified chip in my bag but…the General was very specific about how he wanted you to behave, Cameron, very specific."

She grabbed both his wrists and her voice got that flat tone that he was more familiar with.

"Doc, just do it but talk to me, okay? Tell me what you've been doing. How're things going Up there? And I can't believe you had the nerve to bring her here. Where's your head, Doc?"

"She's my neighbor and friend now, Cameron. I don't drive and she was good enough to bring me here. I told her to go 'shopping' or stay in the car but she listens as well as you do. Hold still."

"She never does. It's her nature, Doc. Omaha is a very strong-willed woman. I'll bet your 'resurrection' shook her up some, didn't it?"

Sheldon used a gauze pad to mop up the 'blood' and then he began removing the chip from her head. He knew exactly what he had to do and it would only take a few seconds.

"Hey, I said – "

"I heard you. I do not wish to discuss it. This is the Before and we can't change our fates, Cameron. Tell me about Sarah. Is she what you expected? How's Derek adjusting to being here?"

"Derek's Derek. What more can I say? He's very rough around the edges, treats John like his own kid, has a thing for Sarah that he keeps hidden and spends his free time watching TV and watching Sarah."

Sheldon removed the chip, inserted it into a device from his backpack and keyed in some digits, grunted to himself, and then replaced the chip.

"That's it, Cameron. I didn't need to use the spare after all so keep it with you in case of damage. I've enhanced the filters so your potty mouth should be less spontaneous. Let me staple the incision and we're done."

"So, you and the Doc?" She waggled her fingers suggestively.

"Oh, no! We're friends, that's all. He's my best friend and we're not…" She waggled her fingers just as Sarah had and then laughed.

"Actually, right now he's totally pissed at me for something stupid that I said and then when I wouldn't wait in the car, he really got angry."

"Yeah. Derek told me about him. Smart guy appears out of nowhere at the precise moment he's needed? Sounds like fate to me." She realized that Penny had no idea who the 'Doc' really was and she hoped the blonde was a 'real' blonde and wouldn't catch the inference.

"Actually, he has been there for me whenever I needed him. He's always willing to help me out without expecting the 'usual' sexual payback. He's sweet but such a whacko sometimes."

Sarah had seen the faraway look in his eyes and the tremors that periodically shook his hands. Yep, he was the real McCoy, all right. He knew what they were up against and unlike others that had been 'sent Down', he could actually do something about it, 'any time' he pleased.

"Look, it's none of my business but you and he…I get this vibe about you and I'm almost never wrong. Stay with him, help him, watch over him and he'll do the same for you. Walk away from him and you'll regret it the rest of your life."

From the journal of Dr. Sheldon Cooper, PhD recounting the events of his transit experiment #44.

My head was pounding but I was more concerned with the poking and prodding I was getting. I decided to play doggo and wait for the opportunity to escape. I just hoped they weren't traffickers in human organs. I needed what I had more than they did.

"He's human. According to his ID, he's Dr. Sheldon Cooper of 2411 Los Robles here in Pasadena. From the junk in his bag, I figure he's…he's from Before. He's clean! I mean he has no ground-in dirt, no lice or signs of any disease or tooth decay. He's disgustingly healthy and human. Probably weak and starving and thirsty. I didn't hit him that hard."

"And his clothes match the period. The question is, how could he be here? From the reports from teams we've sent back, there were never any serious investigations into time travel until Sky Net developed it. No one's ever come Up-Time before. This is incredible."

I found my voice. "Unless you intend to vivisect me and sell my organs on the Black Market, may I have some water?" I was secured to a table of some kind and couldn't move more than a finger.

"Release him and get him food and water and then bring him to the Ops Center. I want to interview him. And get him some clothes that don't advertise that he's not from around here. Don't want the troops asking questions."

This section is from a different point of view and is not part of Dr. Cooper's journals but rather was added by someone after the events recounted here unfolded – author unknown.

She was dead tired and the patrol they'd just completed had been a complete bust. What little they could scrounge up had been lost when a surveillance drone had buzzed them and they'd had to run for their lives.

"Hey, the cook's got a new recipe for rat he tried out. It's not bad. Meet you there?"

She nodded and then followed her best friend out of her area of the old church basement to what was known as the 'mess hall'. Rat wasn't new on the menu but if the cooks had found a new way to prepare it so it wasn't rat, she was up for it.

She stepped aside as two troopers, one was Derek Reese, her platoon leader, helped a tall man towards the mess hall. He looked – clean - but was wearing the same type clothing they all wore. Her assessment started at his midsection and then moved upwards, cataloguing what she saw for future reference.

His escort stopped and the man glanced around and saw her. Their eyes met and she felt a jolt of panic and then she screamed, "Metal!" and lunged at him, plunging her combat dagger into the terminator's chest. It wouldn't do any good but it would give others the chance to escape and arm themselves.

Except it was Sheldon Cooper's chest.

One trooper screamed, "Medic!" and tried to stop the flow of blood while LT Reese wrestled with the woman known as Omaha and finally got the combat knife away from her.

"He's DEAD! He died of radiation poisoning! That's some new kind of Metal. He's dead. My husband's dead!" Her screams were mostly ignored once people realized that the frantic cry of 'Metal' was a false alarm.

Every once in a while someone flipped out and they were generally ignored unless they went totally postal and then they were quietly and humanely 'put down' like the mad dogs they'd become.

I await your screams of intolerant rage with bated breath.

Reparata Briggendiola