Penny closed her closet door and gave a happy sigh. All her stuff was in and put away, not that she had much these days, she liked to travel light. Clothes on the rail, underwear in the drawers, shoes in the closet. She had never been tidy growing up, her teenage room had used the floor as a wardrobe, but med school and the army had changed her. It hadn't been an easy change but it had been her only real ticket off the farm and away from the dead end life of her siblings. Her brother had squandered his gift for science into cooking meth and a jail term, her sister alternated fits of extreme drunken violence with pumping out babies.
She'd been handed the same cards as them, smart, drunk, violent, but had decided to try a different path. She had been just a teen when a month of hard partying and bad drugs had screwed her menstrual cycle up so bad she had been seriously late and had to take a pregnancy test. It had been negative but it had make her take a long hard look at her life, all the other girls who had been in the corn queens court were already pregnant, talking about dropping out of school and getting a trailer home with their dead beat boyfriends.
That week she handed in her first A at school.
Her friends accused her of blowing the class nerd to get the answers, but she had scored higher than him. She cut the drinking, the partying and started running. She hit the books as she rapidly outclassed her teachers, most of whom were just going through the motions. She had the drive and ability but the biggest hurdle had been money. The recruiting officer had just stared at her when she walked in but as soon as he saw her scores he'd signed her up and Uncle Sam had covered the rest.
She took a matt black metal box from her bag. It was a keyless gun safe, she didn't know how Sheldon felt about guns but she wasn't leaving hers . She slid her right hand into the slot in the side, pushing in so it could read the lengths of her fingers as the combination. With a near silent click it unlocked, pushing her pistol up into her waiting hand.
It was a compact pistol, a Springfield EMP4 Contour with a 9 round single stack magazine so the grip wasn't too thick, she had small hands and a double stack would have needed a two handed grip .
It had been heavily modified for one handed use. The biggest trouble was the reload so the mag release was resprung and the mag-well flared to guide the new magazine in easily.
Working the slide was always going to be a problem so she'd had a gunsmith weld a metal ring onto the back of the slide and a small wheel onto the side. Now she could cock it by hooking the ring on a finger from her left arm or by pushing the side wheel down on her belt.
She laid out a clean cloth on the bed and stripped and oiled the gun then reassembled it, loaded and cocked it then returned it to the safe, which she carefully stowed in her nightstand.
She then unbuttoned her shirt and took it off. As Holmes had noted, her skin was tan but paler. She wore a plain functional bra that didn't quite match her skin tone, she'd been quite busty in her teens, even considered getting a boob job and starting an acting career like her ex Kurt had dreamed, but exercise had firmed her up and she had slimmed down to B. She'd looked Kurt up a few days ago, he had never become the action hero and he hadn't the skill or nerve for the stunt work he'd wanted to do. Instead he was now a bouncer at a night club, just a small time drug dealer and a gym hard-body, all whitened teeth, toned abs and fake tan. Hardly living the dream.
Strapped across her chest was the harness for her left arm. She carefully unbuckled it and worked her arm free. The mechanical part started a few inches down from her elbow joint but the socket had a fabric sleeve that fitted up over her upper arm.
She rolled it down, flexing her bicep. The sleeve had a mesh of electrodes that measured muscle movements in her upper arm, she methodically checked over the skin of her upper arm, looking for pressure sores.
She could feel the small hard lumps of the implanted sensors under her skin. Checked each in turn. They were experimental, a newly de-classified development from DARPA the defence research people, only part Mad science
She tensed her bicep and the prosthetic hand clenched, even though it wasn't worn any more. That always creeped her out, the arm was sensative enough to feel her move over a few inches gap.
Then she set about cleaning and servicing her arm, checking all the joints over. The original project model had been called LUKE but this was a prototype she was testing for them, female proportioned and with a realistic sleeve toned to match her skin. Though, as Sheldon had noticed, she had a tan line on her right wrist. It even had finger nails. The technicians had dubbed it LUCY as it was the first of her kind, and over the last few months of her physiotherapy they d become good friends.
Putting the batteries to charge off the mains she picked up her robe and wash bag and headed for the bathroom.
In the short corridor she heard voices. Sheldon discussing something?
Bathroom, locked the door and stripped off, looking forward to a long hot shower. She didn't think Sheldon was the sort of creep to spy on her but to be sure she'd already checked the place over with an IR torch to spot camera lenses. She was surprised to have found one, hidden inside a hollowed out copy of Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard on the book shelf, pointed at the front door and set up to be triggered by motion. Sensible precaution.
She stretched out, standing up on tiptoe. She was lean and toned, Her legs were long and well muscled, tan skin with a quarter size puckered scar on her thigh.
She touched the scar, then its brothers on her hip, side and bicep. She still remembered the explosion that started the ambush, the lead vehicle vanishing in a cloud of smoke and thunder. She had caught a few fragments but only minor wounds, her vest and helmet stopped several bits of metal shrapnel that could have proved fatal.
She shuddered then willed herself to relax. Her therapist called it hyperarousal, it was like constantly being on an adrenaline high, always looking out for danger and you burned out quickly, ending up exhausted but edgy and unable to sleep. She started to work through a yoga routine, tensing and relaxing her muscles, willing the anxiety down. A long hot shower would be just the thing.
She got the water going easy enough into the tub but no matter how she tried it wouldn't switch to shower. She tried all the knobs and dials with no success, cursing under her breathe in Pashto.
She caught the frustration, breathed through it. Don't get frustrated. Just go and ask.
She slips back into her robe and pads barefoot into the living room.
"Hey Sheldon, Is there a trick to getting it to switch from tub to shower?"
Sheldon is sat in his spot, looking over some papers. Sat next to him is a short rumpled looking man with dark hair and glasses. The stranger jumps to his feet and she started, clutched her robe tighter closed, turning her left shoulder away from him, making her a smaller profile target and hiding her empty sleeve. Instinct tells her the nearest weapon is a paperweight on the windowsill and the knives are in the kitchen area.
The stranger has the wide eyed look of a deer in headlights "Er... hi." He stumbled.
"Hi" she says back, willing a smile onto her face. he's a friend of Sheldon's, no need to panic.
He glances at Sheldon who is still engrossed in the papers "you didn't tell me you had company""
"I don't. Please meet my new roommate, Doctor Penny Watson. Penny, This is Detective Leonard Hofstadter.
Leonard fidgets with his hair. "Hi" he looks panicced and says "Hi" again.
It's Penny's turn to say "Er.. Hi" then the glances at Sheldon
Leonard stutters "He said a Doctor but I didn't expect..."
Sheldon sighs and puts the papers down. "I'm sorry to say the shower is temperamental. Leonard, sit down, I'll be right back"
he heads to the bathroom "There's a trick to it, I'll show you." Once in the bathroom he mutters "I must apologise for Detective Hofstadter, he usually has a modicum of intelligence but it appears the presence of an attractive woman robs him of that"
He gets the shower running and leaves her to her shower, closing the door behind him.