And once again, one more for this story ^^ For those of you who don't read my other story, I couldn't write the past few weeks due to the insane heatwave that had gripped Europe. I simply couldn't concentrate while baking in 90°F heat in my apartment
Enjoy :)
Disclaimer: Again, not mine.
The present – 9 years and 7 months old:
"So, Mister Hofstadter, are you ready?" the man, who had introduced himself as Doctor John Watson, to Leonard and Chris' amusement, especially when the name tag showed his middle initial to be an 'H'.
"Is Sherlock Holmes also coming?" Chris asked grinning as he and Leonard followed the man into the room.
"No." Watson replied tersely and Leonard had the feeling that only the fact that Chris was nine years old prevented the older man from saying some more choice words.
"Hello, my name is Jessica Leary." a middle-aged woman greeted them when they sat down. "According to your file, you already had an IQ test a few years ago and it was determined to be two hundred and sixteen."
"Correct." Leonard nodded.
"And why do you want to retest him now?"
"Because we think that his IQ may even be higher." Leonard shrugged. "As you may know, Chris is getting a Nobel Prize this year for his discovery of the synthesis of a super-heavy element and since then, he had two more groundbreaking discoveries that could get him even more Nobels later."
"Of course." the woman gasped, finally realizing who she would be testing. "Chris Hofstadter. Artificial gravity, which has astronauts in space now walking around instead of floating and the shell for the fusion reactor that is currently being constructed in Germany."
"So, this test is to see if his IQ is even higher than it was estimated before?" Doctor Watson asked.
"Yes." Leonard nodded. "I know that the IQ is difficult to estimate at a certain point, but we think his thought processes and ability to comprehend even the most difficult things warrants a second test."
"Okay." Jessica nodded as well before turning to Chris. "As you may know already, an IQ test usually comprises of four fields. Mathematical, spatial, language and memory abilities. Since you are quite the genius, we're going to add questions and problems from biology and chemistry to the mix to see how you fare in fields you may not be educated yet. The entire test is recorded on video, so we and our colleagues can later evaluate his answers, the speed and the accuracy of the spoken tests."
"Understood." Leonard interjected. "By the way, regarding biology, on his third birthday, our neighbor gave him a marble run to further his artistic imagination and two months later, he built a Ciclosporin molecule out of the parts."
"Three years old?" John gasped. "Very impressive."
"Now, as to the first test, language." Jessica began. "We're going to show you various sentences on that screen where the words have their letters scrambled. We'd like you to read them as best as you can."
Leonard simply watched as the woman pressed a button on a remote in her hand, which caused a sentence to appear on the wall, projected by a beamer hanging on the ceiling. As he looked at the words, all the while Chris was reading the sentences, he too had no trouble reading them, although it took him a bit longer than his son.
"And now, the last one." Jessica said after several dozen sentences of various length and pressed the button on her remote again, revealing a very long sentence on the wall.
"All I know is that I stood spellbound in his high-ceilinged studio room, with its north-facing windows in front of the heavy mahogany bureau at which Michael said he no longer worked because the room was so cold, even in midsummer; and that, while we talked of the difficulty of heating old houses, a strange feeling came upon me, as if it were not he who had abandoned that place of work but I, as if the spectacles cases, letters and writing materials that had evidently lain untouched for months in the soft north light had once been my spectacle cases, my letters and my writing materials." Chris read, again without any problems and barely any pause between the words.
"That was very good." John commented. "That last one is a quote from a book called The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Siebald."
"Lets get to the spatial portion of the test." Jessica said and mentioned for Chris to come with her.
They followed her into a side room with several tables, all of them containing discs of various shapes, triangles, rectangles, squares and everything in between. Above the various piles were pictures of two-dimensional geometric bodies that, Leonard supposed, were the shapes that Chris had to build the parts into.
"So, I'll have to build these shapes with the parts on the table?" Chris asked, looking at the various piles.
"Correct." Jessica nodded and took out her stopwatch. "Begin."
Leonard watched as his boy began to work. The first few shapes were easy, only comprising of between six and twelve parts and Chris managed to build them in a few seconds each. The next set was a little more difficult, as there were more parts than were needed but Chris, after sorting them out, quickly build the shapes that were shown on the pictures above.
The last three were, by design, the most complicated. The first shape consisted of thirty-five pieces, the second one of fifty and the last one even made from more than seventy, and there were between a hundred to a hundred and fifty parts available for each. Chris took one look at the shape on the paper and the parts lying in front of him and quickly and efficiently removed several pieces before starting to put the shape together, achieving success for each in less than five minutes.
"Alright, that was very impressive." Jessica noted and stopped her stopwatch, noting the time on her pad. "Lets go back to the other room for the math test."
"Okay, this is a math test." John said, handing a stack of papers to Chris, along with a pen. "The problems get harder as you progress through them. You have an hour to answer as many questions as possible."
"Understood." Chris nodded and began writing.
"I'm gonna get us some lunch, anyone want anything?" Jessica asked.
"Can you get us some chicken and rice?" Leonard asked, taking out his wallet and handing a ten dollar bill to the woman. "I saw the blackboard outside showing that meal on offer today."
"Will do." Jessica nodded. "John?"
"I have the chicken fricassee with rice." John said and handed her five dollars in coins. "Tell Debbie to keep the change."
While Jessica was gone, Leonard busied himself by grading the latest test of his students, choosing to do this particular laborious chore rather here and not at home or in his lab or office. Ever since he became tenured, his teaching load had increased a lot and he felt that it would be unfair to the students who came to CalTech to be taught by him to palm off those duties to his grad students while only working in the lab and getting grant money.
Since his discovery was mostly done, and further work on its realization had been done by his son, he had gone back to his high energy laser research. After his work for the military, whose Corps of Engineers had begun using his and Howard's tunnel bore laser for some work, several companies an other entities had approached Leonard with grant proposals for more work, something President Siebert had been ecstatic about.
Though he didn't like working on projects for the military, he had chosen one for what he started calling a multi-laser, a type of laser gun similar in function, size and shape of a mini-gun, with six rotating barrels that shot out laser pulses instead of ballistic ammo. He had chosen it because the military promised him that it would be a strictly defensive weapon to be mounted on ships so they wouldn't have to carry the millions of rounds necessary to supply a number of guns that were able to shoot out six thousand rounds a minute. The waste-saving aspects in particular were what had drawn him to it, even though he knew that a gun like this could easily be built onto a tank, provided it had the energy supply to feed the gun.
"I'm back." Jessica proclaimed, holding three plastic bags in her hand, one holding two menus.
"And I'm done." Chris grinned, pushing the papers away.
"Already?" John gasped and checked his watch. "It's only been twenty-four minutes."
"Really?" Chris smiled. "Cool."
"One more test." Jessica said and grabbed a box of paper clips, removing the seal and opening it before dumping its contents on the table. "How many paperclips are on the table?"
"A hundred and forty-seven." Chris said after three seconds of looking at them.
"I'm continued to be baffled." Jessica chuckled and revealed the three paperclips she had hidden in her hand, out of the box of a hundred and fifty.
"Go through this book and look at every picture." John said, handing Chris a rather thick book, which took Chris ten minutes to go through while Jessica unpacked the food, handing Leonard the two portions of chicken and rice, along with some plastic forks.
"Lets eat before we continue." Jessica told them and Chris gave the book back to John, who then began to eat his food as well.
They spent lunch with idle chatting, not talking about the test at all. Jessica asked about the Nobel Prize ceremony happening in seven months and how Chris felt about receiving a prize that usually went to accomplished scientists who were much older than he or even Leonard was. Leonard had a problem with the word accomplished, since Chris had immense accomplishments already, despite his young age but Jessica assured him that she equaled the word with age, along with her earlier reasons.
"Okay, lets continue with biology and chemistry." John told them once they had finished lunch. "We're going to show you some molecules and chemical compounds and you tell us what you think they are."
"Okay." Chris nodded and waited for John to open his picture book.
"So, lets begin." John said and flipped the first page, revealing an easy element.
"Hydrogen." Chris said and the man flipped the next page. "Ozone, Iron, Copper, Bromine, Zirconium, Rhodium, Thallium, Xenon, Platinum and Uranium.
"And one last one." John smiled and flipped the last page, revealing an intensely complex-looking molecule
"Hofstadterium." Chris giggled. "It's the first time I've seen it in its molecular arrangement."
"Very good." John nodded. "Now on to biomolecules."
"A protein." Chris said upon seeing the first picture. "A lipid. Single amino-acid. Myoglobin. Glycogen. Fructose. A peptide."
"Wow." John blew out some air. "So far, you haven't made any mistake."
"Here's another written test regarding biology and chemistry." Jessica said and gave Chris more papers. "One hour time limit."
"Understood." Chris nodded and got to work, giving Leonard more opportunity to grade papers.
Leonard looked up a few times, seeing how his boy was doing and he could see that Chris had a harder time answering questions from a field he rarely spend time working. Despite that fact, Chris finished the test in time, with two minutes to spare, pushing the papers away from him with a satisfied smile on his face.
"All done." he proclaimed.
"In fifty-eight minutes." Jessica proudly smiled at him. "Now the only test left is memory."
"Okay, this here is a row of symbols with numbers under them." John showed him a sheet of paper with several rows of symbols with sequential numbers under each. "You have thirty seconds to memorize them, then we'll hand you another sheet with the same symbols in a scrambled order."
"Okay." Chris nodded and let his eyes roam across the page, his brain making a photograph of it.
"And eyes off it." Jessica said and took the sheet away before handing him the other one. "Now write the numbers under the symbols that you remember."
Chris nodded again and took the pen, beginning to write quickly. Without much pausing to remember, he filled out one row after another, something Leonard watched baffled since he wasn't capable of doing that. The only one in their circle of friends who could do that was Sheldon with his eidetic memory but Leonard doubted that even his former roommate could memorize something that fast.
"Done." Chris spoke up and pushed the sheet of paper away.
"And for the last test." John said. "Remember before we ate lunch, I had you look through a book with pictures?"
"Do you want me to show the pictures again and have me name the page it was on?" Chris asked. "Because I can do that even without you showing me the pictures?"
"Really?" Jessica gasped and grabbed the book. "Alright, begin."
"On page one, a crouching crane, on page two, a seven-four-seven jetliner with one engine detached for maintenance, on page three were four pigs with thirteen piglets among them, on page four a picture of the Sears tower, which is actually officially named the Willis tower since 2009, in Chicago, on page five..."
For the next two hours, Leonard could only watch both baffled and proud as Chris recounted the two hundred and fifty-two pages of the book. He had no idea if Chris was even correct, since the two testers didn't give any indications if he was right or wrong. When the clock struck four in the afternoon, Leonard yawned involuntarily, a testament to the long day they had. When Chris was done, they shook hands and departed, receiving the promise that the results would be available in about a month.
Right now, Leonard only wanted to get home and sit on his comfortable armchair. Six hours on an uncomfortable chair was too much for his middle-aged bones.
The present – 9 years and 8 months old:
"Hey Howard." Leonard greeted his friend as he entered the house that the engineer grew up in.
"Welcome, Hofstadters." Howard grinned, holding his three years old daughter in his arms.
"Hey, Halley." Penny greeted the little girl who giggled at her.
"Aunt Penny." Halley cooed, holding out her arms for Penny to take her.
"Come here you." Penny took the girl, rocking her on her arms. "Damn, you're getting bigger every day."
"Hey Penny." Bernadette greeted her as she walked into the kitchen. "Hey girls."
"Hi aunt Bernadette." Diana and Selene greeted the diminutive blond in unison.
"Still creepy." Bernadette chuckled. "Girls, how's school?"
"It's fun." Diana smiled.
"Our teacher lets us paint a lot." Selene added.
"That's very good." Bernadette nodded. "I've seen some of your works, you are very talented."
"Tell me about it." Penny nodded.
Every since she and Leonard had seen the artistic talent of their daughters, they had nurtured it by giving them paint and paper on easels. What had started as simple pictures had evolved into elaborate works of art that painters ten times their age were incapable of producing. One picture in particular, which was currently hanging in the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Arts, had been drawn by both of them working in concert, a painting of their grandparent's farm in Nebraska, with the horses and other animals in exact detail, down to the missing mane of one of the horses.
Leonard had taken it to his office at the university where it then had been noticed by a colleague of his who knew some people in the arts community. A week later, the painting was hanging in the museum, along with a plaque telling everyone looking at it that it had been drawn by two six-year old girls who happened to have a last name that was already quite famous.
"So, Bernie, what's the occasion for this shindig?" Penny asked, looking at all the food that they would get to eat and sniffing the air to find the smell of barbecue and other assorted meat wafting through the air. "Your daughter's birthday was last month."
"I'll let Howie explain." Bernadette smiled and picked up a plate.
Penny set Halley down and Diana and Selene took a hand each of the little girl, leading her outside where the others were. Penny took two smaller plates and carried them out, placing them on the large table where the guys in their group were busy with talking about stuff no one else understood. Chris and Sheldon were in a discussion about the latest developments in data storage mediums based on graphene, which allowed for tremendous amounts of data to be saved. It had reignited Sheldon's desire to transfer his consciousness into a robot chassis at some point in his life and Sheldon had begun to work on the project, much to the chagrin of Amy.
"Sheldon doesn't know yet, does he?" Bernadette whispered to Penny after they were back in the kitchen to get the rest of the plates.
"No." Penny shook her head. "The Nobel committee is announcing this years picks in a month, so we have some time to prepare for his meltdown."
"What do you expect?" Bernadette asked. "Me and Howie think he'll become semi-catatonic."
"Well, a few years ago, on Chris' birthday, he broke into our house at night to confront my boy about the element that Chris discovered. Sheldon said if Chris got a Nobel before him, he would jump out of our ground floor window."
"What was that supposed to achieve then?" Bernadette wondered.
"I think he just wanted to be dramatic." Penny shrugged and heard a glass clink outside.
"That's our cue." Bernadette smiled and the two women joined their fellows outside where the group was now silent.
"Welcome." Howard addressed them all. "This gathering has two reasons. One, congratulations to Raj and Cheryl for your engagement."
"Thank you." Cheryl grinned widely, the large diamond ring on her finger glinting in the sunlight.
"And I must add, Raj, it's about time." Howard directed at his best friend. "You should get to the baby making as soon as possible, you guys are not getting younger."
"Gee, thanks." Cheryl deadpanned. "And for your information, the wedding is already set for late October, you'll get your invitations next week. And the wedding night will become baby making night."
"Don't I get a say in this?" Raj asked.
"No." Cheryl shook her head. "You get to enjoy my lady parts and I get to make the decisions."
"Can't argue with that logic." Raj demurred, Leonard and Howard giving him the whipped sound. "Very funny."
"Anyway, the second reason for this gathering is something more personal." Howard continued. "As you may remember, I planned to get my PhD on our laser tunnel drill that we developed for the military."
"We assumed you had dropped that plan because nothing happened afterwards." Raj said.
"That's because I had to consult with the military again and again to make sure I wouldn't reveal some classified information and that took time." Howard explained. "But, after five years of writing and consulting with the military and rewriting and consulting again, last week I finally and successfully defended my dissertation."
"Congratulations." the people around the table said, raising their glasses in salute, except Sheldon.
"Sheldon, what's wrong?" Amy asked. "Why aren't you congratulating him?"
"I think Howard made a rash decision in pursuing his doctorate." Sheldon said quietly.
"Are you freaking kidding me?!" Penny exclaimed loudly.
"He's just sad because now he can't make fun of Howard for not having a PhD anymore." Leonard put his hand on her arm to calm her outburst.
"Well, now you can make fun of Penny for not having a doctorate." Howard quipped, making a joke everyone except Sheldon got.
"I can't do that." Sheldon vigorously shook his head. "If I do that, she'll hurt me."
"Then how about her children?"
"The reason I just gave applies here too." Sheldon mumbled. "She'd hurt me even worse."
"You're right about that." Penny grinned, waving her fork.
"What about Cheryl?" Raj asked, his hand on his fiance's arm to prevent an outburst from her, though he didn't have to worry, since Cheryl understood that he wasn't earnestly suggesting that Sheldon made fun of her.
"Hmmm." Sheldon hummed, looking at the brunette sitting next to Raj. "You're a friend of Penny's, right?"
"Yep." Cheryl nodded. "Born and raised in Omaha Nebraska, went to school with her."
"Did you have to fight in your childhood?" Sheldon continued, his face ticking a bit.
"Grew up with three brothers and had to defend myself against some overeager guys in my teen years as well." Cheryl smiled deviously, straightening her shirt to accentuate her chest, doing the same thing Penny had done often.
"This is a nightmare!" Sheldon complained.
"Congratulations Howard." Leonard said again. "Can I read our dissertation?"
"It should be online next week." Howard nodded. "Don't worry, I didn't forget to include your and Chris' names, since you worked with me on this project and it wouldn't have been successful without Chris' input."
"My boy." Penny giggled and gave Chris a kiss on the cheek, which he quickly wiped off, to the humor of everyone present, except Sheldon, who gave a look of disgust.
"Mom!" Chris complained. "I'm getting too old for that."
"Nonsense." Penny laughed and dropped another smack on his cheek.
"Alright, dig in." Howard said and sat down.
"One moment, I have an announcement as well." Leonard stopped them before they could begin eating. "Last month, we had Chris' IQ tested again."
"I knew it, I'm still the smartest." Sheldon gave them a scary smile.
"Hold your horses." Penny grinned.
"Two days ago, we got the results." Leonard smiled at his boy who smiled proudly back.
"So?" Raj asked impatiently. "Don't keep us in suspense."
"After a series of tests in various scientific fields, they reevaluated it." Leonard said proudly. "From two hundred sixteen up to now two hundred seventy-nine."
"How do they get that exact number?" Cheryl wondered, while the rest of the table, minus Sheldon, applauded.
"They don't, it's all an estimate." Sheldon moped.
"Then they estimated his a lot higher than yours." Penny twisted the knife.
"A toast." Leonard interjected and stood up. "To good friends and family. May these bonds always grow stronger."
"Cheers." the group lifted their glasses as well, even Penny's girls, with only Halley not doing it due to being too young.
Penny looked around the table at her circle of friends. Sheldon's reaction to Howard's accomplishment pleased her more than she was willing to admit, not because of Howard but because it foreshadowed Sheldon's reaction to the announcement that would come in the following month.
Sheldon would see the name Hofstadter on that list for the second time. She hoped she could be there when he saw it the first time.
As usual, another pillow. Soft and fluffy ^^
Originally, I had planned for the next chapter to be the last one and had already begun writing some stuff down as an epilogue. But the response to the last chapter (hadn't expected 14 reviews to be honest) convinced me to expand the story a bit more. And as long as the response stays that way, I will go on. Which means that the meltdown will happen next chapter.
But at some point, this story will end. There's only so much you can expand on ;)
Still, review please :)
