THE METAHUMAN TRANSFIGURATION
Description: The gang gets superpowers. It's not as cool as some of them always thought. Alternate Season 9 premiere.
Notes: The more anal-retentive fans may have noticed (as I only did with this chapter) that Leonard and Sheldon actually live at 2311 North Los Robles Avenue. As I cannot bring myself to care enough about this to edit and reload every chapter, I am hereby declaring that these versions of the characters live in a very slightly different parallel universe. (Well, it's significantly more different now, but nonetheless.) Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and followed the story; I hope the ride continues to meet all expectations of craziness.
Update Notes as of Oct 17: Minor but important continuity detail revised (I forgot that Barry Kripke had taken everybody's cellphones away in Chapter One and never given them back). So I guess I'll bother going through the edit and reload for some mistakes.
Disclaimer: The author does not own THE BIG BANG THEORY or any of the characters.
- 5 -
HUNTINGTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, PASADENA, CA
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 2015, 4:42 P.M.
Angela Page strode across the hospital's parking lot towards the FBI command centre vehicle, flanked on one side by Dr. Glenn Foxworth—whom she'd yanked from his office in Chicago at first over his protests, and then with his all-too-enthusiastic cooperation—and on the other by her task force adjutant, Nick Anderson, a skilled young field agent from Iowa whom she would have appreciated more if he hadn't made it clear he had his eyes on her job. That was par for the course in the FBI, but the sensible agents made more effort to conceal it; Anderson was a little too free with suggestions and tweaks for all her decisions. Only the fact that those suggestions had been reasonable, and that Page didn't punish her own where outsiders could watch, had kept Anderson free of a significant dressing-down so far.
Of course, he was taking that as license to push ever farther, and Page had decided that her visit to the FBI's command centre truck was going to have a second purpose besides reporting back to Washington. She was going to have to take a certain amount of reaming herself as it was, and right now, she wasn't above sharing out some of that reaming.
"The correlation between exposure intensity and proximity, incubation time and eventual strength is demonstrable, though not 100% consistent," said Foxworth, flipping through sheets in a folder as he walked. "The younger you are, the more likely you are to manifest; nobody over fifty years of age seems to have been affected, and only a very few over forty. Physical puberty also seems to be a limiting factor: we have no reported manifestations at all so far of anyone younger than thirteen, or possibly twelve. And there seems to be a correlation with, well, for lack of a better word, mentality and personality; most of the people showing manifestations have been psychologically exceptional in some way or another—IQ, charisma, unusual talents or gifts of some kind, and so on. Unfortunately that also seems to include those who are psychologically unusual in negative ways, and if Winters and Sweeney are any example, whatever their issues were before the Pulse, they get, well . . . ." He shrugged unhappy. "Worse."
"But still no physiological markers?" pressed Anderson.
"Not one that's shown up on any tests we've been able to do yet," said Foxworth. "Kripke, Winkle and Bloom all consented to MRIs, and we've got those scheduled, but the backlog on MRI runs is always so long that you need a court order to jump it, which we're still in the process of getting. Blood tests, tox screens and pathogen tests have all proven negative for anything unusual so far, and the first few DNA tests we've finished haven't found any differences either. Sweeney was the only one who showed significant metabolic alterations, and the doctors are still in the process of trying to figure out what the heck all her anomalies add up to. Academic as that is now, of course."
"She was the only Primary significantly injured at Ground Zero before the Pulse went off," said Anderson. "Maybe that makes a difference. Agent Page, we should put out a request to any other agencies dealing with metahumans and get that question as part of their surveillance intel. I could draft a memo for you to distribute, if you like . . . ."
Page held up a hand, abruptly fed up. The dressing down could wait. She didn't have the patience left to do it professionally right now. "Not at the present time, Agent Anderson. Most government agencies out there are still building their basic procedures for handling all this, and all of them are hampered by the fact we simply don't have any laws on the books about this stuff. Loading them down with extra intel requests is just going to make their work harder. Instead, I want you to coordinate the field hunt for our missing Primaries. You have the bios and the addresses; get surveillance teams in place on all likely target locations and start assembling capture teams. I'm going to concentrate on locating Winters and Sweeney. Go." She indicated the command truck.
Anderson opened his mouth, but there was really nothing he could say that wouldn't amount to contradicting a direct order, and Page saw that he knew and resented this. Stiffly, he nodded and went on, climbing the stairs into the truck and closing the door behind him. Page slumped and wiped her forehead. "God save me from people who want to prove they have initiative," she muttered.
"People like you, you mean?" said Foxworth archly.
"Exactly." She flicked a smile at him, turned around and beckoned him back with her towards the hospital. "The truth is, Doctor, I know the four missing Primary males. None of them are threats. They're all quite capable of being enormously irritating, and they may be more potentially dangerous now . . . but none of them are threats. Safer for Anderson to handle them."
"Didn't you say Wolowitz caused serious financial damage to the space program?"
"Wolowitz drove the Mars Rover into a ditch trying to impress a girl," Page scoffed. "He's a lech, not a terrorist. He had his clearance reinstated for his trip to the International Space Station. And Fowler, like your Rostenkowski girl, is an accomplished scientist with no significant religious or political affiliations. Carmichaels we're still doing research on. It's conceivable she could be a really deep-cover sleeper agent; she's engaged to Hofstadter, and our files show he's been targeted by honey-trap espionage before . . . ."
Foxworth made a face. "Doesn't sound likely, to me. I remembered this, actually, a little while ago, and meant to tell you when I could: I met her before. Carmichaels, I mean."
"Really?!" Page stopped and turned to him, suddenly alert. "When was this?"
"About four years ago, when I bumped into Bernie again at a convention. That whole group was there." Foxworth smiled reminiscently. "They were giving one of the opening panels together, and there was clearly some, ah, interpersonal tension going on. I'm sure it was no fun for any of them, but watching from the audience, it was . . . ." He chuckled. "Oh my, it was funny. Unprofessional as all get out, but funny. Anyway, I wound up giving Penny a lift back to Pasadena that day, and we talked for a while. I think I can pretty confidently assure you she is no sleeper agent."
"'Penny,' is it?" Page raised one eyebrow. "And what tells you this?"
Foxworth shrugged. "Oh, nothing like your experience, but I honestly think a real agent would have asked me more questions and complained far less about her own situation. I'm pretty sure real honey-trap agents don't build the kind of erratic on-off history she and Hofstadter have, either; it's too risky. And I don't think real agents genuinely fall in love with their targets. Or at least, I know they try very hard not to." He gave her a serious look. "There's real love and friendship there among that group, Agent Page. You're used to dealing with criminals. These people are not going to think or react like criminals. Not unless you teach them to."
Page nodded slowly. "You make a good point, Doctor." She paused. "What about Armbruster? Or Sweeney?"
"Ah, well, there I can only go on secondhand comments from Bernie—she and I exchange e-mails every now and again. I don't think she tells her husband that. He gets jealous."
"Does he have reason to be?" She held up her hands placatingly at his offended look. "All right, all right, never mind. Had to ask. Habit."
Foxworth harrumphed and deliberately straightened his jacket. "From what Dr. Rostenkowski told me," he said, "the common link between Armbruster and Sweeney is that they've both dated Dr. Koothrappali. I was reading some of your preliminary interviews with, oh, which one was it, the comic store owner—"
"Bloom," Page supplied.
"Yes, Bloom, thank you. He reported that apparently Dr. Koothrappali had invited Armbruster to attend the event with him, rather than Sweeney—but when Sweeney found out, she came to the lab anyway and the two of them were fighting bitterly just before the accelerator was started up. And apparently the reason Armbruster ended things with Koothrappali was because she was too socially phobic to handle acquaintance with the group as fast as Koothrappali was pressuring her to."
Page folded her arms and stopped; they had reached the main entrance to the hospital, underneath the awning roof, next to the driveway. An ambulance sat waiting beside the doors. "Is there a point to all this, Doctor, or are we just gossiping?"
Foxworth held up the folder. "My point, Agent Page, is that character—emotion—may have more to do with all of this than we thought. Lucy Armbruster is a woman with crippling social phobia; she acquires the ability to phase through solid matter and to turn invisible—to disappear without hindrance from any situation she wants. Penny Carmichaels is a physically adept, vivacious woman who likes solving her own problems; she gained the powers of an iconic comic book hero. Kurt Winters is a professional thug; he acquires superhuman strength, invulnerability, and a catastrophic increase in his antisocial tendencies. And Emily Sweeney, as reported by Bloom, was a horror fan with a distinctly twisted sense of humour, and in the moments just before the Pulse went off, she was angry, betrayed, and then nearly mortally injured trying to save the people who'd betrayed her. And she became . . . what she became.
"If we want to deal successfully with these people, we have to understand who they are, so that we can understand what made them what they are."
Page considered this for a moment. She held out her hand for the folder. "I'll review the psych profiles," she said. "But right now, I think understanding Emily Sweeney is a lot less important than finding her. Dr. Foxworth—"
"Please. Call me Glenn."
Page sighed. "I prefer formality on duty, Doctor. But if you like, I'll call you Glenn in private. In return for which you may call me Angela—again, only when in private. In front of my agents I am always Agent Page. Am I clear?"
Glenn nodded with no sign of offense. "Understood—Angela." Over his shoulder, he indicated the hospital's main doors with his thumb. "What would you prefer me to do—continue reviewing the tests, or run some more interviews with the Primaries we still have here?"
"You choose, Glenn." Page sighed again and massaged her face. "I shouldn't put this off any longer. I have to contact the Washington office and give them the hard details. Including the deaths. I'll be the one who has to write the condolence letters, you know."
Glenn grimaced in sympathy. "I don't imagine that's ever easy."
"I'd be more worried if I did start finding it easy." Page surprised herself with a smile; it dissolved into a yawn. She'd had less than four hours sleep each of the last two nights, and it was catching up to her. "Let me go and get a coffee. I'll meet you in an hour at your designated office."
They parted at the door to the coffee shop, located just by the main entrance for the convenience of visitors and ambulance drivers. Page got herself a large coffee with a shot of espresso, loaded it up with two sugars, then walked back outside, sipping at it as she rehearsed her opening lines to the Washington bureau. She'd have to make it clear to them right up front that the danger in the Primaries had been something nobody could have anticipated—
The side door of the ambulance slammed open just as she passed it. Before she could react two cold, extremely strong hands had seized her and yanked her inside, sending the coffee cup flying, so quickly she didn't even have time to scream before she was slammed to the floor of the ambulance and one of the hands had clapped over her mouth. Emily Sweeney leant down, her brown eyes blazing with chill amber light, to stare right into Page's eyes.
"Agent Page," she whispered. "I tried to get out of here myself. I can't. I tried to get some help—" she jerked her head to one side; Page followed the movement and saw Kurt Winters, lying on a gurney, mumbling incoherently to himself. "—but he's taking longer to get back up to speed than I can afford. So in the interests of picking somebody I know isn't going to be challenged leaving here, I had to go straight to the top. I'm sorry. And—" The amber light suddenly faded, a little. "I'm sorry for what I had to do, but . . . if they'd just—fucking—backed off, it wouldn't have gone so far."
Then her face hardened, and the cold light blazed anew in her eyes. "So this is what you're going to do. When the paramedics come back, you're going to commandeer this ambulance and drive it out of here, and you're not going to tell anyone where you're going or that we're in the back. If anyone asks, just say it's confidential and related to the search for Primaries. Are we clear?"
Page mastered the terror blazing through her nerves with a vast effort of will. "Miss Sweeney," she murmured against Emily's palm, as calmly as she could, "what makes you think I'll do any of this?"
Emily smiled mirthlessly, her teeth white and gleaming in the dimness of the ambulance. "Because you won't have a choice. Not when I'm done with you."
The amber light blazed up blindingly bright, and drowned the world. Page fought. From inside, it seemed to last forever. But when it ended, she knew, screaming inside the cage around her mind, that it had taken only seconds.
632 SECOND STREET, EVERHOLT, TEXAS
4:54 P.M. PACIFIC / 6:54 P.M. CENTRAL
Leonard had let Sheldon tell the story of what had happened, partly because he knew Sheldon's eidetic memory would ensure nothing was missed and partly because it was easier than having Sheldon correct him all the time. Some of how Sheldon presented things was, as always, slanted in his own favour—he seemed oddly convinced that his new abilities were something he could have done all along if he had only figured out how, before now—but Leonard suspected Mary Cooper knew her son well enough to compensate for that. When he finally finished, Mary sank back into her couch and wiped her face. "Well, now," she said, eyebrows high. "This is . . . this is an awful lot to take in."
"We know, Mrs. Cooper," Leonard said. "And we're really grateful for your hospitality while we figure out what we're going to do."
Mary waved it off. "Oh, honey, don't you fret about that. I practically feel like all y'all are family already." She looked thoughtful. "You know, I think the best thing to do right now is make some food. Anybody hungry?"
Sheldon scowled. "Mother, I hardly think that indulging a bodily appetite is the optimum use of our limited—" He was cut off by his own stomach, which growled loudly, and cleared his throat. "Then again, nutrition is a vital requirement."
"By which he means, we'd love that," said Penny. "Can we help?"
Mary shifted uncomfortably and glanced at Leonard, who wished he hadn't mentioned the general quality of Penny's cooking the last time Mary had visited Pasadena. "Oh, well, I certainly don't need all of you . . . Leonard, Rajesh, maybe you'd care to assist me?" Then she snapped her fingers and looked distressed. "Oh, wait, though—Rajesh, I'm sorry, but I don't keep alcohol in this house . . . ."
Raj held up his hands. "It's quite all right, Mrs. Cooper. I no longer need alcohol to be able to talk to women, however lovely they are." He bowed to her. Howard rolled his eyes and muttered something that sounded like "oh, brother" under his breath. Sheldon sat up, looking outraged.
Mary smiled delightedly. "Well, praise the Lord! Who says miracles don't happen?" Abruptly the smile dropped into a stern look and she slapped his arm; Raj recoiled with a hurt look. "But save the flattery for somebody your own age. And come to think of it, given the problems that seems to've caused, I might suggest you put a sock in it on general principles. Now up. You and Leonard are going to help me prepare some fried chicken. The rest of you, why don't you get the dining room table set? Shelley can show you where everything is."
Sheldon looked torn between protesting the relegation to chore duty and his delight at the choice of meal, but finally sighed. "Yes, Mom," he said. "Well, come on, everyone." He went to the dining room, got a dustcloth from a sideboard drawer and began wiping down the table. Leonard and Raj followed Mary into the kitchen, where Mary handed them each a knife; Leonard got a plate of potatoes, Raj carrots and onions. For a few minutes the only sound was the chopping of blades on cutting boards, and the quiet sizzle of the deep-fryer heating up.
"Leonard," said Mary quietly. Her hands were motionless in a bowl of spices. "How much trouble are all of you in? Really?"
Leonard and Raj exchanged glances. Leonard sighed and turned to face her. "Honestly, Mrs. Cooper, I don't know. I've read, and seen, a hundred different stories about stuff like this happening. Sometimes they decide they want to round people up and imprison them, sometimes they try to draft them into government service, sometimes they decide just to exterminate them . . . ."
"Sometimes they build giant flying robots to do the exterminating," added Raj. Leonard glared at him, and he cringed. "Sorry."
"Exterminating. Oh, my." Mary swallowed, then gave herself a shake. "You, you don't really think that they would . . . ?"
"Oh no, Mrs. Cooper, no, no no, I don't think they'd try to do that. I don't think they can." Leonard waved back at the living room, where the TV was still on. "The world knows metahumans exist now, there's no point in trying to cover that up. And none of us have actually committed any crimes, after all. Heck, Howard and I haven't even developed abilities."
"No, but you did blow up a JPL lab building," Raj pointed out. "And a prototype particle accelerator that probably cost the better part of fifty million dollars, in both public and private funding. The university might not be all that happy about that. Or the State of California. Or the federal government."
Leonard closed his eyes and leant against the counter, rubbing his forehead. "Thank you, Raj."
"Well, I'm just saying, even a multimillion-dollar lawsuit's better than jail time. Right?"
"Raj, you are not—helping!" Leonard snapped, and instantly regretted it as Raj jerked backwards and stumbled against the kitchen table, blinking as if Leonard had punched him. Mary squeaked and went to his side. Raj patted her shoulder, shaking his head. Leonard made a sheepish face. "Sorry, Raj."
Raj grimaced. "Well, that was sort of my fault, I guess. I just wish I could get a handle on this. It goes in and out."
Mary held her hands together before her—not quite a gesture of prayer, but close. "Forgive me, boys, but I have to ask this." She glanced towards the living room and lowered her voice. "If what Sheldon has told me is right—and looking at you right now, Raj, I can't think to doubt this—the things you can do now, they're . . . they're dangerous. They make you dangerous. To yourselves as well as others. I asked how much trouble you were in; I should have asked . . . how much trouble are you? Should—" She stopped for a moment and took a shaky breath. "Should we be afraid?"
"Of Sheldon?!" Leonard took Mary by the shoulders. He wished he was tall enough to bend down for this; people always seemed to find that more reassuring. But he projected all the confidence he could. "No. Never. Sheldon would never hurt you, Mary. I don't think he'd hurt any of us."
Mary shook her head impatiently. "Oh, Leonard, I know he'd never intend anything like that. None of you would, I'm sure. And it's not so much me I'm scared for."
Leonard frowned. "What do you mean?"
Mary sighed. "Leonard, I love my son, but the plain truth is you need a hide like a rhino's to live with him, because everything Jesus gave Shelley in brains He took away in carin' 'bout ordinary folk." Her face took on an unhappy expression. "To be fair, between his father and the neighbourhood kids, the 'ordinary folk' didn't exactly give him a lot of reason to care. I was really hopin' Amy might get him to start seein' things a bit differently, but . . . ." She shook her head. "Well, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, for His own reasons. Heck, Shelley's so clueless about people he's actually easier to live with when he's tryin' to tick you off, 'cause he can't get that any righter than anything else."
Leonard raised his eyebrows and looked at Raj. Raj shrugged. "You know, she's not wrong."
"Of course I'm not wrong, Rajesh; this is my son we're talkin' about." Mary took a deep breath and brushed herself down, as if physically pulling herself back together. "But now this is my son with a whole lot of truly supernatural power handed to him, and Leonard, I'd be lyin' if I said I was entirely easy about it. Before, he makes a mistake about people, he hurts their feelings at best, maybe gets himself a dressing down from his boss. He makes a mistake now . . . ." She shrugged helplessly. "You know what he'll do? I don't. And I know him better than just about anyone." For a moment she looked genuinely haunted, staring into space as if seeing a hundred different futures, all terrifying.
Leonard fought down the urge to swallow, realizing only then how badly he'd been hoping Mary would reassure him. He tried to think what to say. Before anything came to mind, Raj stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. "Mrs. Cooper," he said solemnly, "I don't know what's going to happen any more than you do, but I can promise you, we will do our best to keep Sheldon safe. In every sense of that word." He smiled.
And just as he'd felt back in his apartment, Leonard could sense the force coming off Raj's mind now—except this time it was warm and gentle where before it had been a furious torrent; focused narrowly on Mrs. Cooper, where before it had simply flared out in all directions. Before his eyes Mary returned Raj's smile, and Leonard saw the fear fade from her, the hope return. "Thank you, Rajesh," she murmured, and moved into his arms, hugging him.
Leonard took off his glasses and sent Raj the fiercest glare he could. Raj blinked at him, visibly taken aback, but could not answer before Mary broke the embrace; she patted him on the chest, pulled herself together with a huff and turned back to the stove. "Now," she said, "let's get those veggies into the oven to roast, before they dry out."
Leonard put his glasses back on and nodded obediently. "Yes, ma'am," he said, and turned back to his chopping board, concealing the unease in his gut as best he could.
5:38 P.M. PACIFIC / 7:38 P.M. CENTRAL
"By His hand we are all—" said Mary, and paused.
"Fed," said Sheldon, sounding bored. He gave everyone else a sharp look.
"Give us, Lord, our daily—"
"Bread." Penny, Bernadette, Amy and Leonard joined in this time, though Howard and Raj just held hands with the rest of them and looked uncomfortable.
"Please know that we are truly—"
"Grateful."
"For every meal and every—"
"Plateful," said Sheldon, and released himself with alacrity. Penny wondered how much of that had to do with his annoyance with prayer and how much had to do with the fact that Mary, in what had to be either blithe obliviousness or a rather pointed message, had seated him between herself and Amy. Amy had shown neither objection nor enthusiasm, but Penny, who had been seated on Amy's other side, had felt Amy's grip tighten with tension, to a point that might have been painful a few days ago.
Then again, Penny thought, abruptly revising her opinion as the platters came round, Sheldon's hastiness might just have been sheer eagerness to eat. This smelled delicious. She grabbed two pieces of the fried chicken along with her vegetables, and was halfway through the first before she remembered something. "Ah, crap," she mumbled through a mouthful.
Mary looked concerned. "Something wrong with your food, hon?"
"No, it's absolutely perfect," said Penny. "I just forgot I've been trying to keep up with my vegetarianism. This is just as good as my dad's barbecued steaks." She took another big bite, her eyes almost rolling back in bliss. She hadn't realized how hungry she was.
"Might be the change, you know," suggested Leonard. "For all we know your metabolism's kicked up a level or more, Penny. You might need to start upping your protein intake."
Penny frowned. "Which means?"
"Eat more meat," said Bernadette helpfully. Abruptly she snickered. "I'm sorry, Howie, I couldn't help remembering—your mom always kept telling me the same thing."
Howard nodded with a rueful smile. "Yeah, that was Mom." He paused, then spoke in a loud, abrasive, nasal rasp: "I keep telling you, bubeleh, you're too skinny, eat, eat!"
Bernadette snorted with laughter and joined in. Her impression was even more eerily accurate than Howard's. "Come on, sweetheart, men like to see a little pastrami on the tuchis, ah?" That got a laugh out of all of them. Even Sheldon smiled slightly.
"Sheldon told me you'd lost your mother, Howard," said Mary. "I'm so sorry. I know how much she loved you, and I'm sure she's in a better place."
Howard shrugged. "We, ah, we don't go in for the same kind of afterlife you do, Mrs. C. We're still waiting on our better place. But as long as it has a kosher buffet once it gets here, I think she'll be happy."
"And as long as that buffet doesn't have a tur-briske-fil, I'm pretty sure everybody else will be too," added Bernadette. She waved one hand at Mary, who looked puzzled. "Don't ask. Believe me."
"You know, I don't know why the oneirion exposure would have caused physical changes," said Sheldon, putting down his chicken leg. "The level of cascade coherence required to induce viable beneficial mutations in an organism beggars the mind for its improbability. All the observed effects so far can be explained by the creation of self-sustaining modifiable oneirion fields in exposed brains through existing neuroplasticity, without any necessary genetic or tissue alterations. I think Penny's just having an attack of gluttony." He nodded to himself in a satisfied way, picked up his chicken and took another bite. "To be strictly fair," he added after swallowing his mouthful, "the gluttony's understandable, when the food is this good."
"Oh, well, I'm glad the gluttony's understandable. Nothing else you just said was," said Penny, frowning. She thought she might have just been insulted, but wasn't sure; she would have been more annoyed if that feeling hadn't actually been welcome for its sheer familiarity.
"Oneirion," said Leonard thoughtfully. "From the Greek oneiros, 'dream', right? That's what you're calling your fifth force boson?"
Sheldon nodded. "I considered calling it the 'cooperon,' but really, that's something that the theoretical physics community would have to award, and I do like the classical touch. Plus, if it didn't work out, it'd be all too easy for substandard minds like Barry Kripke's or Leslie Winkle's to start calling it the 'pooperon,' or, or the 'chicken cooperon.' Or the 'stuperon.'"
"Or worst of all," added Howard, "the 'coopon.'" He chuckled; Leonard, Raj, and even Amy laughed along with him. "Discount rates on craziness at Lab Number 5!"
Mary looked at Penny, visibly bewildered. Penny only shrugged. "When they get like this I just kinda let them run with it, Mrs. C.," she said, taking a bite of potato. "If it's really important I get Leonard to explain it to me later in words of one syllable."
Mary smiled. "Anyone ever told you you really are an angel, sweetheart?"
Penny blushed. "Well, Leonard does, but you know, you kinda have to take his bias into account."
"Hey," said Leonard, mock-indignantly. "Just 'cause I'm biased doesn't mean I'm incorrect." He reached over and took her hand, smiling at her. Gulping back a sudden lump in her throat, Penny squeezed back.
Raj rolled his eyes. "Oh, for Krishna's sake, get a room, you two," he muttered into his plate.
"Rajesh!" said Mary sternly. "I expect you to show better manners at my table, dear. That does remind me of a question I wanted to ask, though," she said, turning to Penny, as Raj slumped back in his chair. She waved her fork back and forth between Penny and Leonard. "You two made any more plans about getting married, or you still just cheerfully fornicating in sin?"
Leonard choked loudly, pounded himself on the chest and grabbed his glass of apple juice to take a long swig. Penny put her fork down, her face burning. For the first time she envied Lucy's ability to disappear through floors. "I, uh . . . well, you see, Mrs. Cooper, we—"
"They decided to elope back in May, Mom," said Sheldon, rolling his eyes as if the whole topic bored him immensely, which, Penny had to admit, it probably did. "Of course Leonard couldn't even get that right, he had to pick exactly that moment to confess to Penny about a minor two-minute indiscretion with a marine biologist on the North Sea over a year ago, which I gather pretty much completely snuffed the impulse. You know," he added, turning to Penny, "I don't understand why you continue to be that bothered about it. You spend far more time and mental energy fantasizing about Hollywood actors than Leonard ever spent thinking about Mandy Chao, and you feel no guilt at all about that."
Leonard buried his face in his hands. "Thank you, Sheldon, for so neatly summing up my humiliation," he said through them, voice muffled.
"You're welcome," said Sheldon.
An earsplitting crack echoed through the dining room, making everyone jump. Penny stared down at her hands, which were holding a jagged chunk of the table's edge. She hadn't even realized she'd been gripping the table in an effort to hold onto her temper. And her hands didn't feel strained or sore at all. It had been like snapping Styrofoam in half. Her fury drowned in mortification, and she dropped the chunk of wood and held her hands to her breast, face beet-red.
"Ah, well," said Mary, clearing her throat. "Don't you fret about that, sweetheart, I've been meaning to replace this table anyway—"
"No," said Amy suddenly. "No, Mrs. Cooper, I think it's about time we said some things that have needed to be said for a long time." She put her cutlery neatly by her plate and turned to face Sheldon. Strangely, she didn't seem angry at all; her tone was firm and decisive rather than accusatory. "Sheldon, you've been allowed to get away with your chronic disregard for other people's feelings all your life because we know how genuinely difficult you find it to recognize and understand them, and because you've never been given much incentive to try. But two days ago, the world changed. We changed.
"What do you think would have happened if Penny had still been holding Leonard's hand, when you said what you just said? What do you think would have happened if your mother had been at home, standing in the living room, when you ripped open your portal and came here? Do you know? Can you really afford to be careless about other people any longer? Raj and Penny only lost their tempers for a second, but Raj knocked us all flat on our posteriors and Penny broke a hardwood table. What do you think will happen if you lose your temper, now that you have the kind of power you've fantasized about all your life?"
Eyes wide and mouth slightly open, Sheldon stared at Amy as if he had no idea who she was.
"Sheldon—" Amy paused half an instant, squaring her shoulders, but then went on exactly as she had "—I love you, and the apology you tried to give me two days ago at the laboratory means more to me than I can say. But if it means anything to you beyond simply honouring a social protocol, then I'm going to have to tell you probably the hardest truth you'll ever face in your life: It's not enough any more just to honour the protocols. Not for any of us." She leant forward and took Sheldon's hands; he started as if he'd forgotten he had them. "From this day forward, Sheldon, the first thing you're going to think about before you say, or do, anything is going to be: 'How will this make the people thereby affected feel?' And if you don't know the answer, ask somebody else first, whom you trust. Ask me, or Leonard, or Penny or Bernadette. Or even Howard or Raj."
Howard and Raj exchanged a frown. "Wait—'even Howard or Raj'?!" Howard muttered indignantly. Raj nodded and spread his hands, as if to say WTF?
"But the days of behaving like the rest of the world is an annoying distraction are over, Sheldon," Amy finished, ignoring them. "And you're the one who knows why better than any of us. What's the famous Spider-Man maxim again?"
The question stopped Sheldon cold in his tracks; he'd clearly been about to protest, or argue, or evade the point. Instead, he looked almost betrayed. Slowly, he dropped his eyes, until he was staring at Amy's hands where they enfolded his. "With great power . . . comes great responsibility," he finally muttered, so quietly that only the absolute stillness of the rest of the room made it audible at all.
Amy nodded. Not smiling, she leant forward the last distance between them and kissed him, not passionately but steadily. Penny gasped and covered her mouth with both hands. Amy had told her she and Sheldon had actually kissed from time to time, but she'd never seen it—and, she realized now, had still more than half disbelieved it, the way she'd never really believed Howard was going to space until she'd watched his rocket blast upwards from the launch pad. And yet here Sheldon was, neither pulling away nor hunching up in disgust. In fact—Penny had to exert every ounce of willpower not to squeal like a schoolgirl—he looked like he might even be moving his head and mouth, just a little. For Sheldon that was practically the equivalent of dramatically sweeping everything off his desk and throwing someone onto it.
Leonard leaned in very close to her, looking as if someone had just whaled him across the face with a pillow. "I am seeing this, right?" he murmured, sounding dazed. Bernadette was grinning; Raj looked halfway between flabbergasted and uncomfortable, while Howard was drumming his fingertips together and looking everywhere but at Amy and Sheldon. Mary stared steadfastly at the kitchen, dabbing at her eyes with a napkin. Penny only nodded and took Leonard's hand. She felt like she might be glowing.
Finally Mary cleared her throat, then again, more loudly, and Amy separated from Sheldon. She still wasn't smiling, and neither was he, but that betrayed, shocked look was gone. Instead, he looked puzzled, almost bemused. "This is not the manner in which I planned to effect a reconciliation."
"Good," said Amy. "Then here's your first lesson: Learn to accept that the optimum solution is not always your solution."
Sheldon sighed. "Oh, dear. That's going to be extraordinarily difficult, you know. I have so little experience of those two things not matching."
"Okay, it is him," Leonard muttered to Penny. "For a minute there I was afraid he'd been possessed or replaced." Penny snickered and squeezed his hand again.
Mary wiped her eyes one last time and smiled brightly. "Well, I suppose congratulations are in order? Amy, Sheldon, I don't think I have any really good deserts in the house, but there's half a Sara Lee chocolate cake in the—" She was cut off by a sharp rapping from the front door, and rolled her eyes. "Oh, for heaven's sake, who could that be?" she muttered, and threw her napkin down. "One moment, folks." She got up and left the dining room.
"Chocolate cake!" said Raj gleefully. "Sheldon, your mother wouldn't mind if I went and got it out for her, would she?"
Sheldon blinked. "Well, she did indicate she already planned to do so, but I don't know if that creates an effective legal easement for the interior of her refrigerator—" he began.
"What the hell are you doing?! Get out of my—!" Mary's shout sliced through the air, then was cut off with a short, sharp, buzzing sound; Penny heard the sound of a body hitting the floor, and the thunder of heavy running treads. The door to the dining room filled with black-armoured men in riot helmets, Kevlar and combat boots, transparent riot shields held up before them and heavy squarish black pistols in their hands. Before any of them could react the cop in front lifted his pistol and shot Sheldon. Sheldon went rigid, spasming and juddering, then fell over and began to writhe on the floor. Amy screamed.
The explosion of fury that detonated in Penny's brain was all her own, this time. "You son of a bitch!" she shrieked, and leapt at the men in the doorway. Piercing stings rattled her skin without effect as more Taser guns went off. She landed in front of the leader, between him and Sheldon, and swung her best Nebraska haymaker. The cop got the riot shield up, which, Penny belatedly realized, probably saved his life: her fist smashed through the shield, bursting it apart in a hail of plastic splinters, and continued on to strike the cop so hard on his Kevlar-armoured chest that he flew almost five yards backwards into Mary's living room, taking down three more cops as he crashed into them. Stunned, Penny gaped at her own fist. Had she done that?
The hesitation was a mistake. Another cop tackled her around the waist, and for the first time Penny learned the difference between leverage momentum and mass inertia: all the superstrength and invulnerability in the world didn't stop a man who weighed twice what she did bringing her to the floor. She screamed, this time more in fright than fear, and flailed around, but couldn't find anything to push against. Before she could get her balance two sets of hard hands, neither as strong as she was now but both much better trained, had seized her arms and pushed them up behind her shoulder blades nearly to the snapping point, almost dislocating them. This time Penny's howl was nothing but pain.
"No!" She felt the wave of Raj's anger burst over her, as it had back in the guys' apartment, but there was more control to it this time; what was only a disorienting judder to her hit the cops with the force of a tsunami. Penny's captors released her and fell back, hunching down, gripping their helmets with both hands as if holding a lid down on overloaded pressure cookers. She tried to get to her feet and grab one of them herself—and yelled again in agony; the wrenching pressure of the cops' immobilization grip had left its mark, and she could barely move her arms.
"Bestie! Are you okay?" Amy grabbed her shoulder—and Penny felt a zing whip through her like a static shock, not unpleasant but startling. Amy released her and staggered back, just in time for herself and Raj to get hit with another burst of Taser darts from the cops who had, unseen, come in through the back door into the kitchen. Raj gurgled and dropped like a ladder knocked over from a garage; the wave of rage holding down the first group of cops vanished.
But Amy turned, blinking, shrugging away the darts as if they hadn't touched her at all. Which, Penny realized, they hadn't. In the corner of the room where they'd taken cover, Leonard, Howard and Bernadette stared at her. Then, without changing expression, Amy picked up the dining room table in both hands, swung it once left and right to clear it off with a cacophony of shattering porcelain, tossed it lightly up as if it were made of cardboard, then caught it in an upright vertical position before her like a bulldozer's blade and charged the kitchen door. The cops in the kitchen tried to retreat, but too late; Amy hit them like a bowling ball through a set of tenpins, smashing them to the ground with roars and grunts of pain.
Howard seized the moment, scrambled across the dining room floor on hands and knees, ripped off one shoe, stuffed his hand into it, and used the rubber sole to catch the Taser darts by their connecting wires and yank them out of Sheldon. Sheldon instantly went limp, blinking up dazedly at the ceiling. Howard hauled him up to a sitting position. "Sheldon!" he shouted. "Can you get us out of here?! ASAP, buddy, please, move!"
A hand fell on Penny's shoulder, squeezing the abused joint tight enough to draw a scream of pain, but this time she was angry enough to fight through it. She whirled and back-kicked the cop, sending him flying back into the living room. "Sheldon!" she bellowed. "Seriously, Sheldon, we need to leave like now!" She struck out against the other cops, this time concentrating on short darting jabs at a fraction of her strength, spinning away from any return attacks before anyone could get a grip; nightclubs broke across her arms and back without effect. At the door to the kitchen, Amy was calmly using the ten-foot-long hardwood table to smack down any cop who got too close. Bernadette and Leonard had repeated Howard's trick, and dragged the equally stunned Raj to where Howard held Sheldon up. "Sheldon!"
Sheldon shook his head exhaustedly. "I can't," he mumbled. "I can't. Coordinates . . . too complex . . . I can't think, oh Lord, my head . . . ."
Leonard grimaced. "Great, now he gets his Shatner impersonation down. Sheldon, buddy, come on, we've got to—"
The outside window of the dining room shattered. Several small, cylindrical objects clattered into the room and fell to the floor near Howard and Sheldon. Howard's eyes bulged; his face went pale. "Oh, shit," he said, and hunched down, throwing his arms over his head. "Everyone! Cover your—!"
Everything stopped.
Penny slowly straightened from her own involuntary hunch. The room had gone dead silent. She looked back at the cop she'd just stiff-armed, and realized he was hovering in mid-air, frozen in the middle of his catapulted backwards flight. Amy stared wide-eyed at the table she was holding, then let go of it and backed away: it stayed in mid-air without moving. There was no sound in the house at all. And outside the windows, the night beyond had gone dead black; no stars, no hum of traffic, no streetlights.
Leonard stared at Sheldon. "Sheldon . . . did you just do what I think you just did?"
Sheldon let out an exhausted, painful breath. "If you think what I just did," he rasped, "was to displace the seven of us into . . . into a synchronized-phase common temporal pocket . . . then yes, that's exactly what I did." He held out his hands; without protest, Howard and Leonard hauled him to his feet, where he stood swaying. "It's much simpler than creating a contiguity on the fly or a simultaneous sevenfold teleportation, but it still ain't no picnic." He looked at Amy and managed a smile. "Congratulations, Peter Petrelli."
Amy frowned. "Who?"
"Character from a TV show," supplied Leonard. "He could copy others' powers by touching them. Looks like you lucked out, Amy." Penny wondered if that was envy in his voice, but couldn't be sure; she was still too dazed from the fight, and from the unnatural, impossible stillness around her.
Bernadette struggled to her feet, helping Raj get up with her. "Sheldon, how long can you keep this up?" She waved around at the dining room.
Sheldon winced and touched his temples. "Not long. We're only breathing because our time pocket is bringing oxygen across the temporal disjunction barrier; that mass transition is eventually going to destabilize the pocket and collapse it. We'd better get back to our apartment." With one shoe he indicated the cylindrical objects on the floor. "Certainly before those stun grenades go off."
Penny frowned. "Won't they be watching our building?"
Sheldon shook his head impatiently. "Yes, but almost certainly it'll just be from the outside. I can open a contiguity to bring us all right into the living room—" He stopped, suddenly looking aghast. "Oh, Lord. Mom." Without warning he let go and staggered out, worming his way past the time-frozen cops. They followed, and found him kneeling by Mary, who'd fallen to one side by the front door. Her wide eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling; Sheldon knelt, hand out but not quite making contact, as if desperate to touch her and terrified to try.
"I think she's all right," said Leonard, and pointed. "Look, the only thing that's hit her is the Taser darts. Can you bring her into the time pocket?"
Sheldon shook his head. "Not that much dense mass at once. The pocket will collapse." He looked to Penny, and for a moment a hint of his old condescension came through. "That means, effectively, that time will appear to 'start up again', and we'll be back in the fight."
To her own surprise, Penny grinned. "Okay, then, we'll just have to do this quickly. Can you open a hole back to your place from here?" He nodded, and she clapped her hands together. "Right, this is how we're going to do it."
Thirty seconds later, the rest of the group had gathered near the big front windows of the living room, the clearest space. Only Penny had positioned herself elsewhere; she knelt by the front door, her arms out, poised right beside Mary's prone body. She held up one hand. "Okay, Sheldon, hit it."
Sheldon sucked in a deep breath, lifted his arms, touched his fingertips together over his head, and drew a rectangle in the air down to the floor. His fingers met on the base, and for a few moments the air flickered inside that rectangle. Sheldon grimaced as if his head suddenly hurt. Then, without warning, the spatial distortion seemed to snap into place and Penny could see the living room of Leonard's and Sheldon's apartment through it. "Okay," she called, "everybody else, go go go!"
Leonard, Raj, Bernadette, Amy and Howard ducked through the portal. Sheldon stepped up to it, then turned to look back at Penny, his fear, worry, and fatigue like cold fire blazing from his face. Penny nodded. "Don't worry, Sheldon. I've got her. On three, just like we practiced, right?" Sheldon nodded. "Okay," she said. "One, two—"
"Wait, wait!" Sheldon suddenly interrupted. "Is it on three, or just after three? You know, is it 'one, two, three!' or 'one, two, three, go'—?"
"It's one-two-three-go, Sheldon!" shouted Penny. "Now come on, are you ready? One, two, three—go!"
Sheldon closed his eyes. He made no movement, said nothing, did not even snap his fingers, but abruptly time resumed; the cops in mid-air hit the floor, and the dining room table crashed down, fell back and broke apart, finally giving up the ghost. Cries and moans of pain went up as Penny got her arms under Mary, lifted her like a hollow doll and sprinted for the portal. She leapt through with Mary over her shoulder just as something went off behind her with a thunderous CRACK and a blaze of light like a magnesium flare. Then the portal closed.
2311 LOS ROBLES AVENUE, #4A
6:05 P.M.
Penny paused a moment to catch her breath. She turned to put the unconscious Mary down on the couch, then stopped. It was already occupied.
"Oh my God," breathed Raj. "Lucy." He bent down as if to stroke her hair back from the sleeping girl's forehead, then stopped. His nose wrinkled. "Um—is it just me or does she smell really bad?"
Penny shook her head, wishing she had a hand free so she could wave away the stink of garbage coming off Lucy's clothes. "No, Raj, it's not just you. Bad news, Sheldon: we're all safe and alive, but it doesn't look like your spot is going to make it."
Sheldon grimaced down at Lucy. "I suppose if it was drycleaned once, it can survive it again. Penny, can I ask you to put my mother on the bed in my room?" As she was about to move down the hall, he pointed at her. "And please be aware this doesn't create a permanent easement, either."
Penny surprised herself with a laugh. "Oh, Sheldon, you glorious whackadoodle, I almost don't want you to change too much." Still laughing, she went down to Sheldon's room, eased inside, lay Mary down atop the covers of his bed, and returned to the living room.
Raj knelt by the couch, and Lucy's eyes were fluttering awake under his gentle touch on her forehead. When she saw him, they widened. "Raj," she gulped. "Are, are you okay?"
"Yes, yes, I'm fine. You?"
"Oh yeah! Yeah, I'm great!" She beamed at him; then her smile collapsed into a worried look. "Well, for certain values of 'great' that include probably being a federal fugitive, smelling like the garbage truck I escaped in, and, uh, well, pissing off your current girlfriend to the point she nearly killed me."
"Get in line, lady," said Howard. "If they called a squad of Texas riot cops on Sheldon's mother's house just on the chance we'd somehow show up, I think we're all on that fugitive list." He abruptly frowned, then turned slowly to face Bernadette. "Except . . . maybe for you, honey."
"Me?" squeaked Bernadette. "What are you talking about? What did I do?"
"You were the only one not mentioned in that news broadcast," Sheldon remarked. "Either by name or picture."
"Oh, I think I know why that is," Lucy piped up. "Uh, Bernadette, do you know a doctor by the name of G. Foxworth?"
Bernadette's mouth dropped open. "Glenn? Oh my God, Glenn! Is he working with the FBI on this?"
Howard stared at her. "Wait—Glenn your ex-boyfriend Glenn? Glenn the six-foot-seven-and-probably-correspondingly-large-in-other-places Glenn? Glenn who gave Penny a lift back to Pasadena instead of letting her stay so Leonard could talk her into bed again? He's trying to look out for you?"
Bernadette frowned. "Why does Glenn giving Penny a lift bother you?"
Howard paused, then shrugged. "Well, it doesn't, not really, but I was on a roll. Seriously, though—what does this mean? Should we try to call him for help? Can he help us?"
Leonard cleared his throat. "He might be able to. Whether he'd want to help any of us other than Bernadette is another question. No, I think I have a better idea . . . ." He hesitated, then turned to Penny. "But I don't think you're going to like it. Because it involves calling someone who, well, who you might characterize as an ex. Of sorts."
Penny sighed. "As long as it isn't Priya, Joyce Kim or that marine biologist, I think I can handle it."
Leonard nodded, dug in his pocket, then grimaced in annoyance. "Crap. We never got our phones back from Kripke—the FBI probably has them." His look at Penny was oddly furtive, as if he'd hoped to do this privately, but after a moment he sighed, went to his computer and turned on Skype. Scrolling through his contacts screen, he found the name he was looking for, hesitated a long moment, and at last clicked the "call" icon. The ring chirruped through the systems. The call connected.
The black screen gave way to the face of an attractive woman in her mid-60s, wearing a red embroidered blouse and smiling cheerfully out of the screen. "Hello?" she said. Then her eyes fell on Leonard, and her face and smile brightened amazingly. "Well, hel-lo, Leonard! I haven't talked to you in years. How goes it with the new cryogenic centrifugal pump?"
Penny wanted to slap herself. Sort-of ex, indeed. She still remembered watching Leonard's walk of shame the morning after he'd let this woman seduce him. At the time, when they hadn't been going out, it had just been too funny to find offensive. Now it was suddenly a great deal less amusing.
Leonard cleared his throat again. "The, uh, the pump's fine, Mrs. Latham—"
"Oh, please, Leonard." Mrs. Latham's smile broadened slyly. "Call me Laura."