The "play" begins
I own nothing.
Leonard met with Sheldon and Howard over breakfast the next morning. Sheldon was interested in starting a conversation. "Query… How much of the data that was established on the original expedition was secured?"
Leonard looked up from his coffee and eggs with kippers. "What? I would guess all of it… Why?"
Sheldon held his oatmeal spoon straight up considering his next words. "Well… if I'm right, the presented data last evening has nothing to do with any of the new problematic data… and everything to do with the original data from the original expedition".
Howard was now interested. "How so Sheldon?"
Sheldon was settling into one of his comfortable know-it –all postures. "Well… all the data that we have tagged with Howard's inclusion would need to be down loaded recently. The information presented last night, carried no indication of Howard's ministrations".
Leonard questioned. "How can that be? I thought that the coding would be automatic, and the only people that know about it are the three of us and Pence…"
Sheldon considered again. "Well, if there is a leak, clearly, the offending party has access to unaltered data".
Howard interjected. "The lecture was on new developments… The only new data comes from the our data base and would have been automatically labeled".
Sheldon shifted in his seat. "Yesss…. Wellll… it remains that the information presented last evening was clean as a whistle. So… either they are on to us…. And by us, I mean you… Howard. Or… they have access to data in another location not affected by your program, or they are truly performing their own studies, or they lied and are using old data".
Leonard sat up. "If they were doing their own studies, the data couldn't be that close to ours. We never published the system or working parameters of the original experiments".
Sheldon sat back and pondered the possibilities. "Hmmmmmm".
At that point, Pence walked up to the group of friends. "Morning Darlings".
Bernadette and Amy had flown in to New York on opening day of Penny's Show. They were incredibly excited. Neither of them had ever gone to a Broadway Show before. It was something they were both looking forward to.
The flight in was nothing out of the ordinary. When they got their bags, they took a taxi to the hotel that was sponsoring the Biology Symposium. After they dropped off their bags, they located the Concierge to tell them how to get to the theater where the show was playing. It really wasn't a very long walk and the girls decided to walk instead of taking a cab. They thought it would be fun to walk down Broadway after their long flight. The sun had set, so the Theater District was lit up in all its New York Glory. It wasn't long before they were standing in front of the box office. Penny had said that they would have tickets waiting for them. The theater wasn't one of the biggest, or one of the newest, Actually to the girls, the theater seemed to see better days quite a while ago. But who were they to judge… this was BROADWAY!
After a short wait, they found their seats. Amy was looking all around. "We must be early… there doesn't seem to be a full house".
Bernadette sat next to her friend. "Well, I'm sure there will be a good crowd. This is a well-known Director."
As they got closer to the time of the show, the crowd did indeed grow in size. It was not sold out, but the crowd was respectful in size. Amy and Bernadette settled in as the house lights went down.
Howard, Pence, Leonard and Sheldon were looking at the tracking data being logged by Howard's program. Nothing out of the ordinary was taking place. It seemed that the tracking program was being inactivated, a case that Howard didn't want to consider. "I don't know what to tell you… If they are deactivating the tracking program, that means that they have someone on the inside. And by inside, I mean someone who knew that we put it there".
Leonard looked from one to the other. "Who knows other than the four of us?"
All eyes went to Pence. "I have told Dr. Hawking, I will have to find out who else has been informed".
Leonard turned to Sheldon and Howard. "Okay, that means we are going to have to split up and start going to any lecture that has any topic remotely associated with the research. Sheldon, you will be the best at seeing the anomalies right off. Howard get any information you can on who is on the teams presenting. Maybe we can track something down by association. Pence, see what information we have on the original expedition, staff that went…results… researchers that were turned down… that sort of thing…"
The meeting started to break up, Pence interjected. "There are two lectures tonight. Howard, you and Dr. Cooper go and Leonard and I will attend the other."
Howard looked quickly up from what he was doing. Looking quickly from Leonard to Pence. "W… well… do you think that this is something we should all do together?"
Leonard looked over. Howard, there are a bunch of presentations being put out this season, if we don't split up, we won't get to the bottom of this".
The play went into the intermission. Amy and Bernadette sat in their seats not believing what they had seen. Half the audience left prior to the intermission. Amy turned to Bernadette. "I don't know, but do you really think that was intentional?"
Bernadette just stared ahead. "Ummm".
After stretching their legs, and getting a bottle of water, they settled into their seats for the second Act. Things were not much better. There were theater patrons leaving by the droves. It was not lost on the cast, who by the end of the performance, seemed to be going through the motions, save for one particularly perky blonde. Actually, the whole chorus performed rather well, Maybe it was because they were typically the ones that were trying to make it in a profession that had terrible odds of success.
Penny made all her marks, the dance number she was in seemed crisp, and there were just enough members in the chorus to balance each other out in their singing. To the girls, she seemed to play her part with pride and enthusiasm. Bernadette did, however notice the look of disappointment in her eyes when the cast came out for their curtain call. There were barely one quarter of the audience left when the curtain dropped.
