Chapter 37: The Best Laid Plans…

Our guys are getting ready for the big banquet. But where are their wives?

It was after four o'clock in the afternoon and Sheldon and Leonard had just finished the last of their lecture series. Feeling both relieved and somewhat melancholy that their adventure was close to ending, they made their way back upstairs to their apartment.

Leonard put his satchel on the floor next to the coffee table, looked down at his watch and grinned at his friend, "The girls should be joining us soon. Once they get here, we can make our way over to the banquet hall."

Sheldon nodded, looked at the wall to check the temperature on the thermostat, and then replied, "Yes, I expect them any time now. Leonard, I have a plan. Let's take our showers now and then keep ourselves busy getting ready until they get here."

Leonard agreed with him, which wasn't a common event, "That sounds good to me. So, who goes first?"

Sheldon made a sweeping gesture with his hand, "You may go first, Leonard. I want to work on my 'thank you' speech for a few minutes."

The shorter man gave him an annoyed look and asked, "What's wrong with just saying 'thanks for having us. It was great'?"

Sheldon crossed his arms on his chest and looked down his nose imperiously as he replied, "Need I remind you that we are both celebrated physicists? Our public deserves more than a few trite words."

Leonard replied to that with an annoyed wave of his own hand, "Sheldon, if any of the people who will attend this affair had wanted to hear us talk at length, they already did. At our lectures. Look, our work here is done, our contract has been fulfilled, we're done. Let's just say 'thank you' and gather our wives and kids and head home."

Sheldon acted almost affronted as he reminded his cohort, "Have you forgotten that our wives are determined to find Helmut's mother? Though God knows, with our wives in charge of the production, how long that particular endeavor will take."

Leonard cleared his throat, "Ahem, she's your wife's aunt, too. So, you may want to hang around for that."

Sheldon gave his cohort an insulted sniff, "I never said I wasn't. I have every intention of doing just that, but if you and I get involved, the search for Niki's aunt shouldn't take long at all." With that said, his mood brightened considerably as he added, "Then we can all head home and check on what Wolowitz and Koothrappali have been doing in our absence."

Leonard gave a deep sigh and headed down the hall, "Whatever, Sheldon. Right now, I'm headed for the shower. I kind of like the idea of getting all spiffed up for our wives."

Sheldon trailed behind him and called out, "And all of our associates in academia, also. I'm sure Binary will be quite pleased with the show we will both put on."

The bathroom door shut and a muffled, "Whatever, Sheldon." was the end of the conversation.

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Meanwhile, back in the cab…

All was silent in the back of the cab for a bit, until Penny asked the group, "Now what? We don't know who this guy is, why he's kidnapped us, or where we're going."

Annelise then inquired in a serious voice, "Are either of you two massively wealthy?"

Niki looked over at the tiny actress and replied matter-of-factly, "Not that I'm aware of. I mean, Sheldon and I do pretty well, but our net worth is well under three million, even if you include the business."

Penny sadly confessed, "Leonard and I are worth even less. We're not broke by far, but the Coopers are way richer than we are."

Annelise nodded her head, then spoke in a far-away voice, as if talking to herself, "Then this will not be an extortion plot, which can happen in Europe."

Niki was quick to correct her, "It can happen anywhere. But Sheldon and Leonard are two acclaimed scientists. Maybe that has something to do with this."

Annelise then became the pragmatist, "Who the general public has never heard of. Be real, most people would draw a blank if asked who either of your husbands were. The scientific community knows of them, but they wouldn't shell out big dollars to get their wives back to them. And neither of those groups would have the faintest idea of who Helmut is." She paused and then continued, "If it was extortion from the science community this guy and his people were after, they would have taken your husbands, not you guys. And they would have never even looked at me."

Penny blurted out, "His people?"

Helmut's lady nodded and responded with her take on the situation, "Yes. I've been in a few plays that centered on the disappearance of someone and I'll tell you this, very few people draw up a plan for a kidnapping on their own. No, I can almost guarantee you that this guy is being paid by someone else."

Niki interjected, "Wait a minute, You and Penny are pretty well-known actresses. Maybe that's a part of this."

Annelise gave a resigned reply, "Not likely, Dr. Horner, we mostly act on the stage. We are not famous film or television stars. Few people in Europe know who Penny is and even fewer citizens in the States have ever heard of me. So, I think that theory, though flattering, holds no promise."

Niki thought on that pronouncement for a moment and then asked soberly, "So…what do we do now?"

Annelise's answer was short and to-the-point, "We do exactly what the man said. We behave ourselves, but we also keep our eyes and ears open."

Penny leaned back and closed her eyes in resignation while replying, "Got it."

Niki, however, had a different response. Her eyes grew bright and she smiled at Annelise, "Okay. That sounds like a plan."

As the ladies could not see out of the darkly tinted windows, the three of them sat back and contemplated their next moves, which would all depend totally on what transpired once they reached their mystery destination. After approximately fifteen minutes, the cab came to a stop and one of the back doors opened.

The same Eastern European voice announced, "My ladies, we have arrived."

Where they had arrived at was still a mystery to the trio. All any of them could make out was that they were in a basement parking garage and that their kidnapper now had another accomplice. A short, rather stocky man who, judging by the vacant look in his eyes, seemed to have more muscle than brains. Before any of the women could ask any questions, they were herded quickly into an elevator that took them to what they guessed to be the seventh floor. When the doors opened, the ladies were once again shuffled along down a short hallway and led into a rather large, empty, room.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Niki demanded of the tall man who appeared to be the leader, "Where are we and what is this all about?"

Hugo Fronek would have been considered a very handsome man if there had been any trace of kindness or humanity in his face. As it was, the only things the women could surmise were that the man was of good height, unfailingly polite, and as cold as a slab of granite. He presented all these qualities as he answered Niki with, "All in good time, my dear. For now, please have a seat."

Niki surveyed the room and made the observation, "There are no seats."

The smile that graced Hugo's face made all the ladies' blood run cold, "Oh, it seems you are right, my darling, there are not. Well, that means we have no chairs to tie you to as a means of containment. Therefore, I'm afraid we will be forced to have you sit on the floor and bind you all together." He added, "I am truly sorry for this inconvenience," though his face belied his words.

It was at this point that Penny spoke up, "Excuse me? We all have somewhere to be in a few hours."

Hugo shrugged and checked his phone before answering, "What a pity you all will fail to make that engagement, but such is life."

Annelise had reached her breaking point and she snapped at him, "Hast du nicht alle Tassen im Schrank?"

The tall man merely rechecked his phone and then answered her calmly, "My dear girl, I speak several languages, but German is not among them. Could you kindly repeat that in either English, Italian, French, or Czech?"

The actress' eyes narrowed, and she spat out, "Very well. I merely asked, 'ARE YOU CRAZY?' If we don't show up for our previous social commitment, there will be people out looking for us."

Hugo crossed the room and retrieved a long length of coiled rope. As he returned to the group, he gave an evil smile and replied, "Let me reassure you fine women, by the time they will begin looking for you, the event will be long over and you will have all been released unharmed." He then added threateningly, "Unless, of course, any of you decide to do something stupid."

One of the women challenged him with, "Well, I don't have a high IQ, so I can't promise anything."

Niki glared at her friend, "Penny, please shut the fuck up. You aren't helping matters any."

Leonard's wife made a feeble attempt to defend herself, "Hey, I was just trying to lighten the mood a bit."

"Total fail, girlfriend. Try again."

Penny gave a teasing grin and tried again, "Okay, I promise to be good…for now."

"Penny…", Niki warned her ominously.

"Okay, okay. I'll shut up and cooperate."

Hugo walked over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder, "That's much better, Mrs. Hofstadter."

Penny asked in a startled voice, "How did you know my name?"

The man gave a wicked chuckle and informed her, "I know all of your names, except for the little one there, but I'm assuming she is a friend of yours. Am I correct, Dr. Horner?"

Niki nodded somberly, not wanting to upset the man, "Yeah."

"Very well. Now, no further questions. Just sit together down on the floor and my aides here will make sure you are all properly secured, to each other."

Fifteen minutes later, all the men left the room, locking the door behind them.

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Niki looked around the room and saw that it contained no windows, no pictures on the wall nor anything else she could have used as a mind diversion. As the three women were bound very tightly to each other, she couldn't even turn to look at either of her companions. She did realize, however, that speaking was still possible, so she asked, "Now what do we do? It's going to get a bit boring just sitting here on the floor."

Annelise quickly came up with a suggestion for her, "I know. Why don't you tell me the tale of how you and Sheldon met and got together? I've already heard Penny and Leonard's story."

Niki decided to go along with the idea and asked her, "The entire story or the abridged version?"

"Let's begin with abridged and if I have any questions, you can expound on them."

Niki took a deep breath and began to speak, "Okay. Here goes. My first husband died. I went into a deep depression and began using alcohol to deal with my pain. I eventually lost my job as a professor at the Keck Science Institute and began to drink even more. A mentor of mine from Stanford got me into rehab and when I was done with that, they secured me a job at the Mt. Wilson Observatory. I eventually earned the job of running and maintaining their giant telescope. That is where I met Dr. Rajesh Koothrappali, a good friend and coworker of Sheldon's. He came up to Mt. Wilson about once a month and we began to talk. I always asked him if there were any openings down at Cal Tech, where he worked. You see, he worked with Dr. Sheldon Cooper, whose work I had always admired, and my dream was to work at the same institution as Dr. Cooper on the chance that I might actually meet him. Well, one day, Dr. Koothrappali informed me that he had lost his research assistant and then advised me to apply for the position. I don't know if he pulled any strings or not, but I got the position and moved down to Pasadena."

Anna stopped Niki's train of thought by asking, "Did you meet Sheldon at Cal Tech?"

"Uh huh. You see, Raj was working with Sheldon on a very important research project, but he had been offered a temporary position at the Mt. Palomar Observatory down near San Diego. Raj is crazy about telescopes, as am I, so he jumped at the chance to work there and Raj asked if I would be willing to fill in for him and help Sheldon with his research for a couple of weeks while he was busy at Palomar."

The smaller woman smiled to herself and invited the older woman to continue her story, "So, you two met, fell madly in love, and ended up getting married?"

Penny burst out laughing and replied with glee, "Oh, hell no! Trust me, Anna, it wasn't love at first sight for either of them."

Anna seemed greatly surprised and challenged Penny's response with, "Really? You two seem so into each other."

Niki thought back to when her and Sheldon had met and then continued, "No, Penny is right. At our first meeting, I liked him well enough, though I thought he was a bit rude and strange. And he resented the hell out of me."

"Why?"

Niki gave a short sigh and began to explain, "He didn't want Raj to go to Palomar, that's why. They were at a very critical juncture in their research and Raj was leaving. In his defense, Sheldon didn't know me at all and here was this complete stranger being sent to help him at a very crucial point in their work. I understood that, but nobody else wanted to work with him, so I was all he had."

Annelise grew impatient and pointedly inquired, "So how did you two get together?"

Cooper's wife smiled to herself and replied, "Penny had a part in that. You see, Sheldon and I began to work together and soon we both realized our research styles were very well suited to each other, maybe even more so than his with Raj. So, Dr. Cooper concocted a plan where I would meet all his friends so that they would start to like me and take his side when he replaced Raj with me in their research group."

"Did that work?"

Niki chuckled at the memory of the dinner party where she had first met Sheldon's friends, "Not like he thought it would. They all liked me, but not to the point where they liked me better than Raj. In spite of that, Sheldon and I decided to start hanging out more often as friends. And the more we spent time together, the closer we got."

The younger woman then asked in an exasperated voice, "So that's when you two fell in love?"

Niki shook her head, even though she knew Anna couldn't see her, "No. One night, Sheldon was supposed to come over for dinner, but he stood me up to go over to Raj's for a night of gaming."

Anna was confused and asked her, "Dr. Koothrappali was back by then?"

Sheldon's wife apologized to her new acquaintance, "Sorry about that. I left that part out. By the time Raj got back from Palomar, Sheldon decided to keep both of us on his research team which was just fine with all of us. Dr. K's girlfriend at the time did not like me working so closely with her boyfriend, so he was more than happy to only see me when Sheldon was there, also. It kept his girlfriend happy. Anyway, back to Sheldon standing me up. I got so angry I called him up and gave him an earful, which he took a little too nonchalantly for my taste. So, I called Penny and Bernie and we all got dressed up and went out dancing."

"That's like the expression, When life hands you lemons…"

Niki laughed out loud at that common saying, "Exactly. Anyway, we were out having fun when guess who shows up?"

"Sheldon?"

Niki strained against the ropes that bound them all together as she answered, "Sheldon, Leonard, and Howard, to be exact. Howard is another of our friends. He's Bernie's husband. So, Sheldon was extremely upset to see me dancing with another man and took me to task over it. It ended up with us both realizing we were true friends who wanted to spend even more time together."

Annelise sounded skeptical as she asked, "You didn't fall in love that night?"

Niki stopped struggling against the ropes and replied, "Possibly, but neither of us would admit it, even to ourselves. This is where Penny comes in. Sheldon's birthday was coming up and Penny suggested I give him a special present. Now at that point, Penny's idea of special and mine were completely different."

At that, Penny exclaimed, "I'll say!"

"She wanted me to seduce him and I wanted to take him to Disneyland."

Helmut's girlfriend smiled at that reply and inquired, "And whose idea won the day?"

Niki's answer was quick in coming, "Mine, at first. Sheldon and I went to Disneyland, a place we both adore, and had a great day. But something changed that day. We began to touch each other a lot more and got even closer than we had been before."

Anna's voice held an edge of excitement as she questioned Niki, "Aaaaand?"

"At the end of the day, to make a long story short, Sheldon kissed me and I kissed him back. We went dancing, returned to our rooms, had dinner, and…"

"You seduced him?"

Niki's admission was factual, "Sort of. But there wasn't much actual seducing necessary. We ended up spending the weekend together. We came back to Pasadena as a couple. That was in February. We got engaged in May and married the next April. We had Lori in October, on the same day we found out we had won the Nobel. Now, we've been married going on two years and I'm…and that's the short version of our story."

Penny caught Niki's unfinished sentence and told the young woman, "She left out a lot of things, Anna, but we can fill you in on all of that later."

A voice from above her asked, "And now, would you like me to untie you two?" Niki looked up and saw Annelise standing over her, a wide smile on her face

"How did you do that?" Niki demanded.

The smaller woman grinned widely and informed her, "Oh, I didn't tell you I'm double jointed? It just took me a few minutes of wiggle time to get myself free. That tale of you and Sheldon helped distract the two of you while I went to work freeing myself." She quickly untied the other two women, "There you go, free at last!"

Penny raced for the door, "Great! Now let's get the hell out of here."

Niki stopped her with, "Not so fast. Those guys have our purses, which contain all of our money and our phones. I don't know about you guys, but I want to get my belongings back from them."

Annelise looked over at Penny as if she were insane and remarked, "That's a fine idea, but how do you propose we do that? They're all a lot bigger than any of us."

Penny thought for a moment and then turned to her bestie and asked, "Nik, think back to your first Christmas with Sheldon*. What did you guys do?" *The Assistant Conundrum, Chapter 47

"You don't remember? You were there, girlfriend."

Penny dismissed the comment and replied, "Humor me."

Niki gave an impatient sigh and told her, "We went out with our families and friends."

Penny pushed her, "Where did we all go?"

The lady physicist worked from memory to recall their itinerary, "Let's see…we did dinner and then we went to this lip-syncing place and exchanged most of our gifts."

"Anything else you recall about that night? Like when you and I went to the powder room?"

Niki's eyes grew huge and she exclaimed, "Oh my god! Yes, those two drunk guys who bothered us." "Those two were total ignoramuses, but we handled them, didn't we girl?"

"We sure did, and I suggest we do the same thing here."

Niki protested to her friend, "But Penny, these guys are sober. And there's three of them here, not two."

Penny looked over at their new friend and asked her, "There's three of us. What do you think, Anna?"

Annelise smiled broadly and rubbed her hands together gleefully, "I love a good fight. Helmut always says it's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog. Trust me, girls, I've got plenty of fight in me."

Niki turned to her, "Do you know any self-defense moves?"

"Enough to get by. I'll take the smallest guy and the leave the bigger men to you two."

Penny nodded in approbation and drew the three of them into a tight circle, "That's the spirit. Okay ladies, here's the plan."

What is Penny up to now? I don't know about you, but I almost feel sorry for those guys.