THE METAHUMAN TRANSFIGURATION
Description: The gang gets superpowers. It's not as cool as some of them always thought. Alternate Season 9 premiere.
Notes: Sorry for the slightly longer time between updates this time round, folks; real life has this way of interfering. Please note that any statements about available options in FBI training, the economic status of Marvel Comics Inc. or the mechanical structure of Sikorsky helicopters has been fictionalized for sake of drama and may not reflect reality.
Disclaimer: The author does not own THE BIG BANG THEORY or any of the characters.
- 6 -
2311 LOS ROBLES AVENUE, #4A
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 2015, 6:09 P.M.
Call me Laura? That was it. Penny stuck her head into the laptop's camera pickup, next to Leonard. "Hi!" she said brightly to Mrs. Latham. "Laura, is it? I'm Leonard's fiancée, Penny. Glad to meet you."
"You're engaged, Leonard? Congratulations!" Mrs. Latham's good cheer seemed perfectly sincere, which for some reason only made Penny distrust it all the more. "Are you calling to invite me to the wedding?"
"Um, no, actually. Not that I wouldn't suggest inviting you, if we'd planned a guest list yet, but—" Leonard cleared his throat hard, obviously trying to find someplace to look that wasn't either Mrs. Latham's raised eyebrow or Penny's lowered ones. "Anyway, I'm calling you because, well, we need help. Me and my friends. You see—"
"I've been watching the news, Leonard," said Mrs. Latham, her voice suddenly disquietingly shrewd. "I have a pretty good idea of what kind of help you need. Luckily, I happen to have a principled dislike for government agencies who try to get their way by force, which in practice means I have a low opinion of most government agencies. Do you need a car sent to your apartment?"
Leonard blinked. "I, uh, I don't know. The building's probably being watched. We might not be able to get out."
"Yes, they do tend to do that. All right, I have a better idea. Can you get to your building's roof? I'll send a helicopter."
Penny frowned. "You have a helicopter?"
"I have lots of helicopters, dear. I usually just don't bother riding in them. How many of you are there, again?—seven, eight?"
"Nine," interjected Sheldon. "My mother will be joining us, Mrs. Latham. Just to make sure there isn't any funny business going on."
"Oh, Dr. Cooper, I think it's a little late to worry about funny business, don't you? Nine it is, then. Be on the roof of your building in thirty minutes, Leonard. 'Bye." Mrs. Latham's grin turned sly again, and she winked just before her image disappeared.
Penny looked at Leonard. "You're right. I don't like this."
"I can't say I care for it either, Leonard," said Sheldon. "In fact I'm profoundly disturbed by the whole idea of renewing contact with this woman. I'm rather surprised you aren't."
Leonard frowned at him. "You didn't have any objection when you wanted me to whore myself out to her so she'd fund our department."
"Yes, well, that was before I realized the disturbing similarities between 'Laura Latham' and 'Lex Luthor'."
"Fine," said Leonard, shrugging. "Stay here so they can confiscate all your comic books."
Sheldon blinked. "Of course, linguistic coincidence is nothing to go losing one's head over. Well, come on everybody, chop chop, let's get upstairs."
Raj cleared his throat. "Listen, Sheldon—is there any chance Lucy could have a shower first?" At his side, Lucy looked caught between embarrassment and gratitude. "And Penny, I'm so sorry to impose, but it would really be great if you could lend Lucy some spare clothes . . . ."
Sheldon's eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me—you want somebody who sat for God knows how long in a municipal garbage truck to use our shower? Leave her filthy clothes on our bathroom floor or in our laundry basket?! Do you have any idea of the work it'll take to sterilize . . . the . . . ." Uncharacteristically, he trailed off. Penny followed his gaze and found Amy, her arms folded, giving him a calm look with one eyebrow very slightly raised.
After a moment, Sheldon slumped, glowering. "Oh, all right," he muttered. "On two conditions: one, I get to use it first, now, before it's . . . sullied—" He gave a shudder, then glared at Leonard. "—and two, you go over it first when we come back. With chlorine bleach and the safety coveralls. I'll have to redo it anyway to get it right but at least I'll save some time." He stomped off to the washroom, mumbling to himself. Amy closed her eyes and let out a breath.
Howard gazed at her admiringly. "Amy, I have only one thing to say to you. What the hell have you done with the real Sheldon Cooper?"
Amy shrugged. "It's just basic neuroscience, Howard—all you have to do is find the most strongly inculcated symbol framework for someone's moral reflexes, and for most of you guys, that's comic books. Then you just push the right buttons at the right time. I was considering going with the old Spock quote about 'the needs of the many,' but I'd kinda like to save that for emergencies."
Howard nodded, looking impressed. Then he frowned and gave Bernadette a slightly worried look. "You . . . don't use comic book morals to manipulate me when I'm not looking, do you, hon?"
Bernadette smiled fondly at him. "Oh, Howie, I would never do that to you. I love you. Besides," she added, "you're not that complicated. I manipulate you by controlling your access to sex."
"Which just for the record surprises exactly no one," said Penny. She sighed. "On the other hand, Ames, you realize that when you can get Sheldon to be reasonable, it doesn't really leave any wiggle room for the rest of us, does it?" She turned to Lucy. "Okay, Lucy, what's your clothing size—five, six? I'll go see what I can dig up for you."
Raj touched her elbow. "Thank you, Penny," he said sincerely.
"Yeah, yeah," Penny grumbled. Ah, well, at least she'd be able to change her own clothes. If she never wore orange and green together again it'd be too soon, and these clothes were wrecked. "You know what? I think I'm gonna have a shower, too. See you guys in a minute."
She went across the hall, digging in her pockets, then stopped and closed her eyes. Aw, crap. Like her cellphone, her keys and her purse were somewhere back in that hospital. Her door sat in front of her, locked and blithely indifferent. For a moment she considered simply wrenching it open the way she'd done with the doors in the hospital . . . but no, dammit, no. This was her home. She shouldn't need to break into her own home.
"Here," said a voice, startling her; she jumped, turned and saw Leonard, holding out the spare key she'd given him a long time ago. "Figured you'd need this; it was still in our bowl. Sheldon let us into our place when we escaped, but he can do it without breaking things. Or we could get Lucy to just walk in—or Amy, if she figures out how to borrow Lucy's power . . . ."
"No, no, I'll do it the old-fashioned way, I think." Penny took the key with a rueful smile. "Thanks." She opened the door, then paused, looked back at him and gave a little tilt of her head. "Hey. You want to come in?"
Leonard laughed wearily. "You think I'm ever going to say no to that question?" He followed her in and dropped onto her couch, rubbing his face. She sat down beside him, her hand finding his almost without thought. He looked down at their intertwined hands. "Mrs. Cooper was right, you know," he said after a moment. "You're an angel."
Penny snorted. "Yeah, and now I can even fly and kick ass like one. Maybe we can have our wedding in mid-air, if you wind up being able to fly too." She looked at him. "Leonard, can I ask you something? Does it bother you, that . . . that whatever happened to me, and Sheldon, and the others, that it hasn't happened to you?"
Leonard looked thoughtful, then did something she hadn't expected. He took off his glasses and held them out to her. "Look at these," he said. She took them, wondering why they felt so light, and then realized why. The lenses were gone. She gasped, running her fingers through the empty frames.
Leonard nodded. Without the glasses, his dark eyes were unexpectedly sharp and penetrating, with no hint at all of his usual myopic squint. "I don't know what's going on, but something happened to me that day," he said. "And you know what? All my life, if you'd asked me what the coolest part of getting superpowers would have been, the first thing—the first thing—I'd have told you is, 'Getting rid of my glasses.'" He paused, then smiled. "For most of my life, the second thing would have been, 'Being able to win a beautiful girl's love.' So if this is all I get out of this, then I'm happy. More than happy." He lifted her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing it, holding her eyes with his.
Penny swallowed. "So you're, you're not jealous? Or . . . scared of me, now?"
"Oh, God, Penny, the only thing I was ever scared of was losing you." Leonard reached out and cupped her cheek with one hand. "You know, maybe you were right, back in May. Maybe I picked that moment to tell you about my screw-up because part of me just wanted to stop being scared of that, whatever it took. But when I saw you in that observation window, and I thought we were both about to die—" He stopped, clearly forcing himself to take a few steadying breaths, and wiped his hand across his eyes. Penny's own eyes blurred, reliable as clockwork. "Well," he resumed. "It, ah . . . clarified things. So, for me, this is it. No more doubt. No more excuses. I've loved you since the day we met, and the only thing I've ever wanted is to be your husband, and for you to be my wife. If that's what you still want, then let's do it. First chance we get."
She was impressed—he'd actually managed not to cry. Not that it was helping. She could barely see through her own tears, and gulped back a sob. "God, yes, Leonard, of course I do. You're not only the best friend I've ever had, you're the only person who's ever had the guts to be completely straight with me—even if you didn't do it right away, you did it. And maybe . . . maybe part of why I reacted so badly was that I was afraid of the same thing you were." She scrubbed at her face, needing a deep breath of her own. "But that was then. Right now, what I'm scared of more than anything else is . . . everything—everything that's happening. And knowing you're gonna be with me is just about the only thing helping me keep myself together. So yes. Yes, I will marry you. The first damn minute we can." She blinked her eyes into focus, then burst out laughing and jabbed him in the chest with her forefinger. "Aha! Got you, Hofstadter, I knew you'd cry!"
Leonard laughed through his own tears, grabbed her face and brought her mouth to his. It wasn't long before the kisses turned heated, and Penny indulged herself by simply ripping off her bullet-torn top with one hand, leaving only her tattered bra. Leonard gulped. Penny leaned close, moistening her lips, and murmured in his ear, "We don't have a lot of time, and I do need that shower. You up for it?"
"Um, I think that is quite possibly the most literally accurate description of my physical state you've ever given," said Leonard, unbuttoning his shirt as quickly as possible. "And, uh, time is probably not going to be a concern—just to say. But if you don't mind, let me get my own clothes off. I don't want to have to go back and get new ones."
Penny gave him her best cat's smile, got up, and skinned out of her jeans, enjoying the way he gulped again to see it. "We should probably be quiet," she noted. "The gang might object if they know we're taking time out from the global crisis for a shower quickie."
"Oh, screw them," said Leonard. "But I'll keep quiet if you will, sweetheart."
Penny smirked. "No promises." She took his hand, pulled him to his feet, and drew him with her towards the bathroom.
1422 SOUTH CATALINA AVENUE, PASADENA, CA
6:25 P.M.
As part of her Quantico training, Angela Page had chosen one of the rarer—and generally unpublicized—options available: she'd undergone a controlled exposure program with several of the more common drugs used to facilitate sexual assault, including Rohypnol, GCB, and ketamine. Some agents who trained to do undercover work among sexual traffickers would go on full courses of those drugs in order to build up tolerance. Others, like Page, went through a shorter program so they could more easily recognize the symptoms in victims' descriptions, or help a victim make sense of her own reactions, and gain some practice in resisting the effects.
Of them all, the scariest, without a doubt, had been the Colombian drug known as burundanga, a scopolamine-heavy plant extract that induced a hypnagogic state of extreme suggestibility. She had expected the feeling of bodily disconnection, as if she was only a passenger in her own skull; what had been truly frightening was how little that had seemed to matter at the time, and how easily her body had done what the testers suggested she do. Page hadn't even remembered what they'd suggested until, to her mortification, they'd played back the recording of her session afterwards and shown her clumsily dancing her way through an off-key rendition of "Hello My Baby, Hello My Honey, Hello My Ragtime Gal", like a five-year-old showing off for a family gathering.
What Emily Sweeney had done to her was terrifyingly like that in some ways, and—even more terrifyingly—completely unlike it in others. The disconnection felt a lot like the drug's, but there was none of the emotional distance: Page felt like she had been beating her fists bloody against a plexiglass wall, where she could see and understand everything her body was being made to do but was utterly unable to stop it. She had followed Sweeney's instructions to the letter, calmly commandeering the ambulance from its bemused paramedics and then driving it away from the hospital and into downtown Pasadena. Huddled in the back under a blanket, Sweeney had issued further instructions in an ever-hoarsening voice, as if she was struggling against some gradually increasing pain or illness. At last, Page had driven the ambulance into an underground parking lot beneath an apartment building, found a space near the elevators, and turned it off.
Behind her, Sweeney let out a relieved-sounding breath. And then something strange happened—for a moment, the plexiglass barrier around Page's brain seemed to thin. Without thinking about it, as if it was a normal part of the routine, Page pressed another button under the dashboard, then sat back and tried to forget about it.
A second later, the curtain dividing driver's cab from the medical bay behind shot back. His movements slow and clumsy, Kurt Winters pushed his way into the cab and sat down in the passenger seat, shaking his head. "Oh, man," he groaned, one hand to his temple. "I dunno what they shot me up with, but this is one mother-bitching hangover."
"Could be worse," said Sweeney, peering out from the accessway at the underground garage. She sounded less hoarse, but there was still a tightness around her eyes and in her jaws, as if she had a headache. "You could still be there. We probably won't have long—once they've figured out we're not at the hospital any more they'll come down on both your home and mine with everything they've got. We need to get money and we need to get off the grid."
Winters nodded slowly. "Yeah, okay, that makes sense. So what do we do with G-girl, here?" He elbowed Page, hard. Page had no choice but to ignore it. "Break her neck?"
"What? No!" Sweeney leant forward and glared at Winters. "First of all, we don't need to. Second, the last thing we need to do is add one more body to the trail—I've got enough to live with already. And third, I think she'll be a lot more use alive."
"Use? What kinda 'use' is she gonna be?"
"Well, for starters right now, I need to top up, and the alternatives are either we waste time on picking up a stranger—" Sweeney's voice hardened "—or I go after you. You feel like finding out how that would go down?"
Top up? thought Page. A slow worm of dread began spiraling coldly through her guts.
"Point," said Winters at last. "And what else?"
"Well . . . ." Sweeney sounded a little less certain, but not enough that Page got any sense it would stop her. The worm of dread sped up in its coiling. "I'm still getting the hang of this, but I'm pretty sure I can make sure she doesn't remember any of this. And if I can make her forget this, then I think I can make her forget some other stuff too."
"Like what other stuff?" said Winters suspiciously. "Why do we need to bother?"
"Come on, Kurt." Sweeney's voice sounded halfway between humour, pain and anger. "Haven't you ever seen any old Hammer movies? Don't you know what a Renfield is?" A cold hand clamped on Page's shoulder; Sweeney's next words resonated in her ears like a gong struck in her skull, guts and groin. "Agent Page, get up and come into the back with me, please. Now."
For the first time Page tried desperately not to fight, to fall by herself ahead of time into the amnesia zone to which most date rape drugs took their victims. But the cage around her mind kept her will awake and aware as inflexibly as it kept that will powerless. Her screams of rage and terror went unheard by anybody except, perhaps, Sweeney herself, as the other woman made her sit down on Kurt's abandoned gurney, calmly unbutton the top two buttons of her blouse, and tilt her head back and to one side.
Yet the most horrendous thing of all was how good the pain felt, when it came.
6:37 P.M.
Page blinked herself slowly awake. The first thing she felt was an intense cold, a biting chill through her skin and her body that made her shiver hard; the next thing she realized was how weak she was, and how dizzy. She tried to push herself to her feet and for a few seconds simply could not find the strength anywhere in her. When at last she moved, the best she could do was roll slowly to hands and knees, and she held herself there for a minute, head dangling down, breathing slowly, staring at the concrete floor under her fingers. Her neck felt sore, as if she'd strained it somehow.
What happened? She forced her swaying mind backwards to the last memory she could find. She'd told Nick Anderson to focus on finding Hofstadter, Cooper, Wolowitz and Koothrappali . . . she'd talked with Dr. Foxworth ("Call me Glenn."—yes, she remembered that), she'd gotten herself a coffee, and . . . nothing. She distinctly remembered having the coffee in her hand, sipping it and thinking she shouldn't have put in quite so much sugar, and then . . . here. This cold concrete floor, on hands and knees next to—a vehicle of some type. What was it? She forced her head up by sheer willpower. An ambulance—from Huntington Memorial, the paint job said—in a public space in a parking garage. And somewhere in the distance, a sound. Getting closer.
Sirens.
They cut off a minute or two before the screech of braking tires on concrete announced the vehicles' actual arrival. Black Escalades and blue sedans veered into place, parking to create a perimeter, and armed men—some her agents, some Pasadena detectives—swung out with their weapons levelled. "Agent Page!" one of them called; not Anderson, one of their field agents—Morisco? Margenau? "Are you all right? We saw the LoJack GPS signal from this ambulance. What happened?"
Page would have liked to say, in hindsight, that she'd chosen her next action deliberately out of sheer impatience with answering questions. Unfortunately, there wasn't that much cool factor to it. The strength in her arms gave out, and she collapsed. Blinking hazily, the cold concrete floor sucking out what little heat remained to her, she watched her men running towards her while others went for the elevator up into the building, and wondered: would they see her as weak, now? The thought annoyed her, but in some distant, dreamy way.
It was only when they tried to put her back into the ambulance that Page woke up enough to struggle. She could not for the life of her think why. But the thought of going back into that vehicle filled her with the shrieking terror of a five-year-old, a child made by heartless parents to look in her own closet and prove there was no monster. They had to strap her down and sedate her to get the transfusion needle into her.
2311 LOS ROBLES AVENUE, ROOFTOP
6:40 P.M.
It was cramped in the stairwell with nine people standing and sitting in various places, but Howard, finally perhaps developing some proper sense of paranoia, had insisted everybody stay inside the door leading out to the roof until Mrs. Latham's helicopter landed, if it ever did. Bernadette tried to feel the same dread and nervousness she could see in the others, but it was oddly difficult. The sheer wonder of everything she could feel inside her kept overwhelming her; she felt as if with a moment's thought she could count her own blood cells, give names to all her gut bacteria. She knew exactly what happened when that surge of power had kicked in, following Penny's disastrous landing—every moment of cellular regeneration and tissue reconstruction was like a movie she could replay in her mind. And she could feel that power waiting still, inside her brain, like her whole nervous system had been plugged into the fusion-reactor core of the sun. She might very well now, part of her thought, be immortal. Or as close to immortal as any human being would want to be.
Howard peered outside and up at the sky again, then ducked back. "Nothing yet," he reported, and sank back against the wall, one arm around Bernadette's shoulders. She was unutterably proud of him. In all this chaos, he had never once lost his head and he had thought of almost nothing except her own welfare—hers and her child's. She wondered if that was part of it. The hormonal shifts of pregnancy often subtly altered personality, and the change was as often positive as negative; it was merely that the negative alterations got more press, by virtue of being better copy. He didn't seem even to be bothered by his own apparent lack of abilities, so far, though she suspected that was in part simply lack of time to think about it. Howard was at his best when he had a problem to solve or a gadget to build; it was boredom that tended to lead his mind down its most unproductive cul-de-sacs.
As if to prove her point, Howard sighed, lifted his other hand, screwed up his face in what looked like either concentration or constipation, and snapped his fingers. Nothing happened. He huffed in annoyance, pointed at the door, and screwed up his face again, straining in effort. Nothing continued to happen. Finally he dropped his hand and slumped, annoyed and disappointed. "Damn," he muttered.
"What were you trying to do?" said Bernadette.
"I don't know," Howard admitted. "Move something telekinetically, throw fire from my bare hands, make something disappear . . . just something, you know? Doesn't seem fair that out of all of us it's just me who hasn't gotten any improvement out of this mess."
"Hey, I haven't turned into the Hulk either," observed Leonard, looking up over his shoulder. He and Penny were sitting on the stairs at the bottom of the flight, supporting the still unconscious Mrs. Cooper between them. "Maybe you just need to get angry enough."
"Yeah, I'll wait 'til I'm in a big empty field to try testing that one," said Howard. "Seriously, Leonard, at least you got twenty-twenty vision without having to go through Lasik. So did Bernie."
Bernadette grinned and poked Howard's shoulder gently. "Well, who knows? Maybe your peanut allergy's finally gone. Maybe Leonard's lactose intolerance has cleared up along with his eyesight."
"Yeah, you might wanna wait 'til you're in a big empty field to test that one out too," Penny deadpanned. Leonard gave her an injured look. Penny smirked at him.
"Neuroplastic changes take a varying degree of time, Howard," said Amy. "If Sheldon is right—"
"Excuse me, 'if'?" Sheldon groused.
"—and these powers are created by stable fields of these particles, these oneirions, that have somehow got embedded in the brain's neural structure, then the effects of exposure are still going on for all of us, and for everybody affected. It's entirely possible that your talent simply hasn't finished developing yet, whatever it is, or that you haven't had the right stimulus to manifest it."
"So . . . what would be the right stimulus?" said Howard.
Amy sighed and shrugged. "I have no idea, Howard, not without knowing what your power might be, and if we knew that we wouldn't need to find the stimulus. Just don't try jumping off a bridge to see if you can make yourself fly. That could have deleterious side effects."
"You know, it might not be so bad, not having any powers," said Raj. "The mundane sidekick is an ancient and honourable tradition. Alfred Pennyworth to Batman, Lois Lane to Superman, Detective Joe West to the Flash, Dr. Lee Rosen to the Alphas, and we all know Horn-Rimmed Glasses Guy was the most badass character on Heroes . . . Oh dear." He suddenly looked upset. "I hope they're not going to cancel The Flash or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. over this."
"Really?" said Penny. "Out of all our problems, that's what bothers you?"
Raj folded his arms defensively. "Hey, if Marvel's pictures start flopping and their stock tanks, we could lose the whole company. The movies have been all that's keeping the comics alive for a while now. Thousands of people could be out of work, man. You don't know."
Bernadette turned to look at the door to the roof and got a nasty shock; Lucy had knelt in front of it and thrust herself halfway through, and all that remained visible was her lower half, bisected neatly a little above the waistline. A moment later, she pulled herself back in and looked around. "Guys," she said, "I think our ride's coming." She rubbed her arms as if chilly; Penny had lent her a purple T-shirt and beige khakis that were both a little large for her, and she looked even more lost and waiflike in them.
"You sure?" said Leonard. "Could be something from the press, or the police, or . . . ." He trailed off as the sound that had been growing louder for a few minutes suddenly became far more evident, a rumbling roar that got more and more thunderous. He had to raise his voice over it. "On the other hand, Lucy, you might be right. You mind phasing out and watching for us? You won't have to worry about getting hit by any gravel the rotors kick up."
Lucy gulped. "Uh, I'll try, but really loud noises make me nervous, and one thing I've noticed is, if I get nervous enough this, uh, phasing thing kinda goes overboard. So if I'm not there when you come out, it's probably just 'cause I couldn't stop myself dropping through the floor, okay? Just wait for me to come back up." She turned, squared her shoulders, and stepped through the door without opening it.
Howard stared after her in fascination. Oddly, Bernadette felt absolutely no jealousy; it was a completely different look from the leer he might have given in his bachelor days. "God, I'd love to figure out how she does that!" he shouted; the roar of the rotors outside had become deafening. "Does she adjust the vibrational frequency of her constituent superstrings, or what?"
"Hey!" Raj raised a warning finger. "No plots to put my friend under a microscope, please!"
Howard looked back with a wry expression. "Buddy, I think we're all going under a microscope sooner or later," he shouted back. "The question's only ever been who's gonna be on the other end of it."
A heavy thud rattled the floor. The roar outside began to diminish in volume. Lucy's head and shoulders came through the door again; she beckoned them all, then disappeared back outside. Howard clambered to his feet, pulling Bernadette with him. "Okay, looks like they've landed! Let's go!" He opened the door, hunched against the wind that howled in and hurried out onto the roof. The others followed.
The helicopter, a white-and-blue executive transport, had indeed just managed to put down neatly on the available roofspace, which both impressed and unnerved Bernadette. Pilots that good didn't come cheap. Mrs. Latham was clearly pulling out all the stops. Then she got a closer look at the logo on the side, and a chill went through her. Sheldon's reluctance suddenly made a lot more sense. But it was too late to bring that up now.
A tall man in a black jacket and jeans had jumped down from the copter's side door, and was waving the group in one at a time; he looked Native American, with dark hair, deep-set dark eyes and a mournful, unsmiling face. As he passed, Raj gave him a distinctly disquieted look, which didn't make Bernadette feel any better either. She climbed in and found a place to sit; the chairs were covered in rich burgundy leather, the floor with white shag carpeting—the whole cabin gave the distinct air of a first-class flight compartment.
Leonard and Penny were the last in, carrying Mrs. Cooper between them. Howard got one of the seats tilted backward, and they lay her down. Howard glanced worriedly at Bernadette as he belted Mrs. Cooper in. "Hon, you're the closest thing we have to a medical doctor. She's been out of it for nearly an hour now. Should we be worried?"
Bernadette frowned. "Well, electroshock's really only dangerous to people with prior health conditions. Sheldon, do you know if your mom's got any history of heart disease, or high blood pressure?"
Sheldon shook his head. "Not that I'm aware of. But . . . there have been other things she hasn't told me, recently." He exchanged a glance with Howard. Bernadette wondered what had happened on the Texas trip they'd taken together, a year or two ago; unusually for him, Howard had never been particularly forthcoming about it. "If her health has declined in a way that isn't obvious, I'm . . . not as confident as I once was that she would have told me of it."
"Everybody ready?" said the dark-haired man, leaning in. He didn't wait for an answer, though, merely flicking his eyes around and nodding to himself; then he stepped back and slammed the compartment's door shut. A few moments later, the engine began to ramp up again, though within the insulated cabin the noise wasn't much worse than a loud lawnmower next door. The cabin rocked, then stabilized, and outside Bernadette could see the buildings and the ground dropping away. Lucy gulped, and clung to Raj; without even seeming to think about it Raj put his arm around her. Bernadette snorted to herself. Your "friend," Raj. Yeah, right, she thought.
"Leonard, I think you know how much I hate being a wet blanket—" Amy began.
"Oh, yes, we all know that," said Leonard. "Especially the Indiana Jones fans among us," he added in a lower voice.
"—but are you really sure this is a good idea? Do you know, for starters, exactly where we're going?"
Leonard shrugged. "I'd assumed Mrs. Latham's place, somehow—she has a penthouse condo downtown—or maybe the airport, or . . . ." He trailed off.
"So in other words, you don't," Amy finished.
Leonard threw up his hands. "Okay, fine, no, I don't know exactly. But this was the best option I could think of. Have you got a better idea?"
Amy shook her head. "If I had one I would have brought it up at the time. I just want to make sure we're all aware of the possible pitfalls here. If we have to fight our way out again, being ready for it in advance would be a nice change."
Bernadette decided that was as good a line as any to take for her cue. "And it might be a good idea to think about some of those pitfalls. Did any of you see the logo on this helicopter? The big L.I. inside the upside-down triangle?"
"For Latham Industries?" Surprisingly, it was Sheldon who spoke. "Oh yes, I saw it. Why do you think I objected when I did?" When Leonard looked blankly at him, Sheldon's brows drew down. "Or did you honestly think the alliterative similarity was the only parallel I was drawing with Lex Luthor, Leonard? Do you really think I'm bothered that much by pettifogging details?"
Leonard was saved from having to reply by Penny. "Wait, wait, wait," she said, waving her hands. "Bernadette, are you saying this chick is some kind of supervillain?!"
"Not . . . that anybody's proven. Legally," Bernadette admitted. "But I hear a lot through the Zangen grapevine about some of the shenanigans Latham Industries gets up to, and it didn't stop when Leonard Latham died—" She broke off at Leonard's expression, and at the horrified looks on the faces of Raj and Howard. "Oh my God, you didn't know her husband's name, either?! For God's sake, do you guys read any news outside the comic strips?!"
Leonard swallowed. "Oh, God, and to think I was sure that memory couldn't possibly be any more disturbing," he mumbled. Then he frowned, and turned to face Sheldon. "Wait a moment. Did you know? About Latham Industries, Mr. Latham, all of it?"
Sheldon shrugged. "Of course. I found it all out when I was researching her, to help you land our funding."
"Then why," said Leonard through gritted teeth, "didn't you tell me any of this?!"
Sheldon blinked. "Because we needed a new cryogenic centrifugal pump, and I didn't want you distracted from your erotic activities. My research indicates a split attention predicts poor results in that field of endeavor."
Leonard stared at him, then turned to Penny as if seeking help. Penny bit her lip and eventually gave a small shrug. "He's not wrong," she said.
Abruptly Raj put his hand to his head, scowling. "Uh-oh," he said, and looked around at the cabin. "Hey, guys, remember when I tuned in on Penny, when she was incoming?" Off their various nods, he lowered his hand, looking grim. "Because I think I'm just tuning in on some other people incoming . . . and they are very not happy with us."
As if on cue, the door to the pilot's compartment slid back. The dark-haired man in the pilot's seat turned to look back over his shoulder. "Excuse me," he called. "Is one of you called Carmichaels?"
Penny looked alarmed. Leonard looked scarcely less so. "Uh, yeah, that's me," said Penny. "Um—why?"
"Because the FBI is ordering us to land or they'll force us down," said the dark-haired man, sounding as if this was an everyday occurrence for him. Bernadette gasped, and she, Lucy and Howard sprang to the windows. Within seconds they'd located the two black helicopters following at close distance like sharks scenting chum, their paint gleaming in the early evening sunset light. On both, the long black cylindrical muzzles of machine guns seemed to reach out for them, like serpents' tongues.
"Now I don't have any choice but to comply," the pilot went on, "since Latham Industries is scrupulous about cooperating with law enforcement whenever requested. But if somehow those FBI copters were to experience a catastrophic malfunction, by the time they could send somebody else after us, we'd be on Latham Industries property, where they'd need a hell of a lot more than a simple search warrant to get past our lawyers. If only we had somebody capable of taking them on in the air, somebody who wasn't yet an official Latham Industries employee." The pilot looked straight ahead with a blank expression. "Oh. Wait."
"What? No!" Penny looked outraged. "Look, I don't want to go to jail any more than anybody else, but I'm not gonna try to crash FBI helicopters! I don't want to get anybody killed!"
"You wouldn't need to crash them," said Howard abruptly. "If you cut the fuel lines, as long as you don't damage the motors they'd have enough time to land safely." He looked out the window again. "Those copters are Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawks; the main fuel lines run under the roof, just beneath the main rotors. Take the guns out, punch holes in the lines, easy-peasy." He shrugged.
Penny stared at him. "'Easy-peasy'?!" she repeated. "Are you high?"
"No," said Howard. "Just desperate. And not in the way you always used to call me desperate, either."
"Yeah, well, we're not that desperate," said Leonard. "Absolutely not. Penny, you don't have to do this. Sir," he raised his voice to the pilot, "tell Mrs. Latham we appreciate her help, but I really think you should do what the FBI—"
"Wait," said Penny. "Wait. Howard, you're sure cutting the fuel lines will give them enough time to set down safely?"
Howard looked abruptly uncomfortable. "Um . . . pretty sure. Like—eighty-five percent. Well, eighty."
"Of course." Penny sighed. She looked around at all of them again, then leaned over to Leonard and kissed him, hard. When they separated, leaving him blinking, she got up and went to the side door of the cabin. "Just in case this doesn't work," she said, "tell the pilot to be ready to call 911."
Without hesitating, she opened the side door. The roar of the engines and the wind howled in simultaneously, plastering them all flat against their seats, knocking Mary Cooper awake with a yell of fright. Penny braced herself in the open doorway, and paused for one last look back at Leonard, who returned it with a heartsick glaze in his eyes.
Then she flung herself out into open air.