THE METAHUMAN TRANSFIGURATION

Description: The gang gets superpowers. It's not as cool as some of them always thought. Alternate Season 9 premiere.

Notes: Still not up to my goal for updates, but at least it was slightly less than a month this time. I am happy to report that I now have a fairly clear plan in mind for how this story's going to end, and I am pretty sure it will be within two or three more chapters. I'd like to pause and thank everybody who's enjoyed and reviewed this so far, and to let you know that I do have plans for further stories in this AU, so if a loose plot thread appears to be dangling, rest assured I will come back to it. As a reminder for those who like head-casting, I see Michael Cudlitz as Sergeant Abrams and Kevin J. O'Connor as Sammy.

Disclaimer: The author does not own THE BIG BANG THEORY or any of the characters.

- 16 -

LAS VEGAS BOULEVARD SOUTH, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 2015, 10:22 P.M.

The SWAT vans pushed north on the Strip as fast as they could, which wasn't very; the wake of Sammy's passage was a chaotic array of cars either shoved aside by Sammy himself or jammed into one another by their drivers' frantic attempts to turn and escape, punctuated with the occasional out-and-out wreck from the running battle. On the street, uniformed police officers and firefighters were doing their best to clear a path and keep everyone back, but everything had happened so quickly they hadn't had much time to make progress. The vans jolted back and forth, pulling sharp turns to get around the abandoned vehicles, sirens and lights blatting out imperative noises as they did.

Crammed into the hindmost van's dark, sweat-smelling, cramped rear compartment, an ill-fitting police helmet bouncing up and down on his head, Leonard's only consolation was that Sheldon looked even more put off by the conditions than he was, despite—or perhaps because of—Amy clinging to his side like a limpet. Across from them, Raj had similarly put one arm each around Bernadette and Lucy. All of them, even Amy, now wore helmets and vests; Bernadette was further huddled up inside a police jacket, her hastily-cleaned face still showing specks of blood. Leonard hadn't had a chance yet to ask what had happened to her, or to her blouse, but he wasn't altogether certain that he particularly wanted to know. The look in her eyes was more wounded than anything he could see on her skin.

He cleared his throat and leaned forward. "Listen, Bernadette," he said, "if you're not up for this, say so. Regeneration or not, this could be dangerous. We can think of something else if we have to."

Bernadette raised her eyebrows at him. "Leonard, this was your idea. And if you've got another one, now'd be the time to say it, 'cause I don't."

"I have to agree, Leonard," said Sheldon. "I somehow don't think this Sammy person will be nearly as respectful of Stuart's comic book store, and a time-pocket's only a temporary solution. Besides, given how few good ideas you tend to get, are you really sure you want to waste this one?"

Leonard stared at him, then looked at Raj and jabbed a thumb in Sheldon's direction. "Why did we want to rescue him again?"

Raj looked thoughtful. "Well . . . if you ever want to go trespassing on Skywalker Ranch again, it'll be a lot easier to get in and out if Sheldon can teleport you." He scowled meaningfully. "But remember to bring me and Howard along next time, all right?"

Sheldon's eyes narrowed. "Raj, are you just asking in the hope of seeing me get Tased again?"

"No!" said Raj indignantly, sitting up. Then he looked sheepish. "Well, I wasn't, at least. But now that I think about it, that does sound like a delightful bonus." He smiled brightly.

"Rajesh!" said Amy, sounding offended.

"No, no, Amy, it's all right," said Sheldon. Despite his tightly controlled expression—the one he typically used to mask discomfort, though generally unsuccessfully—Leonard couldn't help but notice that Sheldon hadn't asked Amy to move or let him go. "This is just the usual joshing banter exchanged by men of iron thews and heroic resolve, before going into battle. It's perfectly normal. I take no offense. I myself will point and laugh loudly when you are squashed like a bug, Raj."

Raj frowned. "Er . . . thanks?"

"'Iron thews'?" repeated Bernadette in disbelief. "At our last dinner party Howard had to help you jury-rig a lever to get the corkscrew out of the wine bottle."

"Well, now, be fair, Bernadette," said Sheldon, holding up his forefinger defensively. "That was only necessary because Penny couldn't make it that night."

Bernadette blinked. "Oh, right, she was away that evening, wasn't she." She looked at Leonard. "Just out of curiosity, Leonard, have you ever talked to Penny about her drinking?"

Leonard cleared his throat. "Well, that's a delicate subject. I thought I might wait until we talked about something less touchy first, like, I don't know, her temper, her dangerously haphazard driving skills, her refusal to admit she can't sing and the fact none of us has any idea what our living arrangements are going to be once we're married . . . you know: safe topics." He shrugged. "For all I know, maybe her liver's super-strong now too. We really need to get some lab tests done as soon as possible—"

Brakes screeched and the SWAT van jolted to a stop, throwing them all towards the front with startled cries and thuds of impact. The driver—Davies, Leonard had heard Abrams call her—looked hastily over her shoulder. "Sorry!" she yelped. "I think we've spotted our target! Can you guys be ready to—"

She broke off as the van jounced in place. Then it thumped again, more forcefully. Leonard suddenly found himself remembering Jurassic Park, and the sight of water rippling in a glass, with a numbingly cold feeling in his stomach. A third time the van bounced, this time hard enough to rattle Leonard's teeth. He leant forward, twisted and stared out the windshield.

Something huge, spiky and concrete-coloured came plunging out of the sky and landed between the SWAT vans, right in front of their own vehicle, fists planted in the asphalt like it was only mud. The WHAM of impact lifted the van so far off the ground Leonard felt his butt leave the seat; then the van slammed back down with an earsplitting bang, so hard the windshield shattered and one of the back doors popped open. The wind knocked out of him, Leonard gaped at the thing glaring back at them through the broken windscreen.

Sammy looked like he might be fully ten feet tall now, nearly as wide at the shoulders, only his sheer mass preventing him from standing completely upright. He lifted clawed, spiked hands that looked big as manhole covers, grabbed the SWAT van by its hood, and began to lift it slowly off the ground. Metal creaked and groaned. In the driver's seat, Davies fumbled out her sidearm, swung it up and unloaded it at the monster; the thunder of the pistol drove spikes of agony through Leonard's ears. He cringed down, covering them, as the others yelled in fright and huddled back. Sparks flashed off Sammy's face and chest as the bullets ricocheted harmlessly away. Then, as the van lifted higher and higher, he felt himself sliding backwards and down towards the open rear door.

The back door of the first SWAT van burst open; Abrams' officers leapt out, levelling their rifles. Davies screamed a warning, unbuckled herself and rolled out of the seat, almost falling down into the back compartment. In the next second the air exploded with the roar of automatic weapons. Sammy bellowed in anger and pain; the van dropped out from under Leonard's butt, then smacked him hard as they both hit bottom, his teeth whacking painfully together. He threw himself to the floor, falling into a loud and elbow-ridden pile along with everybody else; his skin sizzled with ice-cold sweat as bullets whistled audibly over his head.

The van jounced again, and Leonard caught a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye as Sammy shot skyward. The gunfire ceased. His ears ringing, Leonard barely heard Abrams, even though he knew the SWAT sergeant was shouting at the top of his lungs. ". . . cease fire, dammit! CEASE FIRE!" Footsteps pounded asphalt; Abrams thrust his head through the broken windshield. "Everybody all right in here?! Davies! Status!"

"Uninjured, sir," Davies rasped, pushing herself upright.

"Can we get some warning next time you do something like that, though?" said Raj tremulously, lifting one hand. "I would really rather have clean underwear if I wind up going to the hospital."

Bernadette, who had managed to huddle into an even smaller space on the van's floor than she normally took up, swivelled her head to gape at Leonard with huge eyes. Her helmet had slipped askew on her head; like Leonard's, it was too big for her. "That was Sammy?" she squeaked. "That's the guy you need my help to stop?! Are you out of your flipping mind, Leonard?!"

"Would it reassure you if I said not any more than the rest of the world is?" Leonard offered feebly.

"Not a lot," said Bernadette.

Davies had scrambled back into the driver's seat. With a flick of one hand she put the van in neutral, revved the engine a couple of times, then nodded. "Okay, vehicle mobility unimpaired, looks like," she said. "All right, people, let's turn around and get back at—" She turned to look back at them and stopped, jaw falling open. For a moment Leonard had no idea why. Then his stomach knotted up in a lump of ice. He turned to look back out the van's rear door.

Sammy was stalking towards them, his steps slow, heavy and clumsy, but utterly unflagging. Beams of light stabbed down from the helicopters hovering overhead, painting him in a stark white glare that followed him as he moved. Screams and cries split the air as pedestrians fled, streaming away from the monster like rabbits fleeing a hawk. The gargantuan arms swung like scaled, armoured pistons. Leonard could hear his rasping breath from where he sat, like Darth Vader but far more liquid and angry. Step by step, Sammy came closer, not taking his eyes off the van. Leonard tried to think of something to say—a warning, a command, a plea, anything—and couldn't. He saw absolutely nothing of the small ratlike man he'd first seen in the Camelot hotel room. It felt like he was watching a movie: unreal, incomprehensible.

Then, with a whoosh of displaced air, Penny dropped out of the night sky into the glare of the copters' spotlights and landed on the street between Sammy and the van. Sammy stopped and tilted his head back with a groan of frustration. "Oh, Christ, bitch, not you again," he growled.

"Yeah, I just keep turning up," Penny agreed, raising her voice over the noise of the helicopters. She sounded almost as hoarse as Sammy did, the toll of several minutes' shouting over her radio and the near-strangulation still visible as a bruisy ring about her neck. "Call me 'Bad Penny', if you like."

Leonard blinked and spoke before he realized it. "That's . . . a really bad joke, sweetheart."

"Gimme a break, sweetie, I'm out of practice with the badass quip thing," Penny grumbled over her shoulder. She put her hands on her hips and gave Sammy an exasperated look. "You really want to do the whole go-round again? 'Cause I think we've seen how that works out."

Sammy blinked at her, then squinted past her at Leonard where he knelt inside the van's rear entrance. "'Sweetie'?" he echoed. "This is the bitch you were marrying, Hofstadter? How'd you pull that off?"

"Oh, you don't want to get into that story," said Sheldon unexpectedly, leaning out around the door. Beneath his helmet, he was even paler than normal, eyes bright with fear but brighter with manic determination. "It's an extremely and unnecessarily drawn-out saga of mutual incomprehension, exploited pity, foolhardy devotion, and a wholly counterproductive degree of carnal obsession which was fortunately likewise mutual, saved only by the fact that their counterpart insecurities happen to match almost perfectly. And by my own patience, unwavering support and encouragement."

Leonard couldn't repress a double-take. "'Unwavering support and encouragement'?!" he repeated incredulously. "I can count the times you encouraged our relationship on one hand! With fingers left over!"

"Well, that's just—" Sheldon's indignation abruptly collapsed into a sheepish look. ". . . unfortunately true," he acknowledged. "But it helped get you here, didn't it?"

"Jesus." Sammy spread his massive hands out and shook his head. "What'd I do, huh?" he asked the sky. "It's not enough I turn into this, it's not enough I get smashed through every wall in Vegas, I gotta listen to a bunch of geeks bitch at each other too?"

Leonard got his temper under control and grabbed the opportunity. "And that," he said, "is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about, Sammy." He slid out of the SWAT van and hurried to Penny's side, squinting against the spotlights' glare and slipping an arm around her shoulder without thinking about it. She leaned into him, her own arms sliding around his waist. "What if," Leonard pointed at Sammy with his free hand, "we could figure out a way to help you, Sammy? Get this—" he gestured at the man's gigantic form "—under control? Help you shut it down? Maybe even learn how to turn it on or off?"

Sammy's eyes narrowed, almost disappearing in the crusted, monstrous face. "An' why the fuck would you . . . wanna help me?"

Leonard swallowed; he glanced at Penny. Her mouth tightened, but she nodded, and he looked back to Sammy. "Because we don't actually want to do any more damage. To you, or to anybody. And because . . . well, in a way, because this is my fault. I'm the person who designed the experiment that set off the Power Pulse—"

"Based on my grand unification theory and my theorized oneirion particles," Sheldon interrupted.

"Oh my God, Sheldon, can we fight about the blame later?!" Leonard burst out, so angrily that both Penny and Sammy actually started. He caught himself and forced calm back into his voice, bringing his hands down as if physically stuffing something back into a box, then turned back to Sammy. "The upshot is, if we can help you, I think we have to. So please. Let us help you." He held out his hand.

Sammy looked at the hand, then glanced at Penny and let out a breath, his body seeming to crumble slightly like a drying-out sandcastle. "You know, I wanna believe you," he said at length. "I really do. But the last time you guys gave me this spiel, a buncha cops tried to shoot me. And, ya know . . . ." He trailed off meaningfully, then gestured around them.

Leonard blinked and looked around. His stomach sank. He had been so focused on Sammy that he hadn't heard the SWAT officers moving stealthily into a surrounding circle, their weapons now all levelled squarely at the giant. Beyond them, a larger ring of police officers had cleared a safety zone, keeping the pedestrians who hadn't already fled out of the street. Sammy only lifted his hands to the night sky in a classic Whatchagonnado? gesture and laughed, a grinding, weary chuckle like gravel being crushed in his chest. "Shit, guys," he rumbled. "You know you can't stop me with that crap."

The officers didn't move, but several of them flicked glances back and forth at each other. Abrams, who was squarely behind Sammy, didn't take his eyes off the man. "Irrelevant," he said. "It's our duty to try. And Dr. Hofstadter has a point. If you ever want to be normal again—"

"—so you can send me up for ten to twenty? Or shoot me?" finished Sammy, glaring over his shoulder at Abrams. "Yeah, no, I don't think so." Then he turned back to Leonard and Penny. "Little tip, Doc," he growled. "Next time you wanna catch flies with honey, make sure you actually got some honey. I got no use for 'normal' anymore." He made a sound that was half cough, half laugh—it sounded more painful than amused—and pointed at them with a claw that looked like broken, dirty rebar. "And you guys don't look like you got any normal left to give, either."

Leonard opened his mouth, then stopped, shocked by how hard the remark had hit. Normal. He'd never been normal, or so he'd always flattered himself—and, yes, now he faced up to it, it was flattery; like Sheldon, he'd always taken pride in the intellect that set him apart from most people. He'd merely been far better than Sheldon at keeping it secret, and at keeping it in perspective. But compared to where he stood now, his old life, his old self . . . they really had been far more "normal" than he'd ever realized, hadn't they? Were they all really so far gone that none of them could ever get any of that back? He looked at Penny, hoping to ground himself, but the baffled look in her eyes was no help.

Sammy looked up, past Abrams, southwards to where the Grand Camelot towered in its halo of blue, green and gold light; the metal sword at the top of the obelisk glinted in the spotlights. "I think I'm gonna go get some of my stuff," he announced, "and then I'm gonna leave. Anybody wants to stop me, feel free to try." He trudged up to Abrams and pushed him out of the way with inexorable force. Abrams stumbled across the asphalt and caught himself, blinking. Sammy only continued down the street, heading for the Camelot, steps hammering the street in weblike puddles of cracks. The helicopters followed, keeping their spotlights steady on him, but he didn't look up. Abrams stared after him as if he couldn't believe what had just happened. One by one, the SWAT officers lowered their weapons, glancing at each other and at Abrams.

"Well, that was a singularly ineffective approach," Sheldon grumbled after a moment.

"I dunno," said Penny. "Beats getting strangled." Her hand went to her throat and she rubbed at the bruises, wincing. "Okay, sweetie, what do we do now?"

Staring at Sammy as the giant strode away, Leonard realized that his mouth was still hanging open. He shut it with a snap. If his plan was going to work, they needed to immobilize Sammy somehow, just long enough to do what needed to be done. But strong as they were, neither Penny nor Amy had the mass or leverage needed to hold Sammy in place on the ground; they might be able to lift him into the air, but neither was physically big enough to pin all his limbs, and anybody getting within reach would only get a gigantic fist in the face. They needed to trap him with something, or in something—

The idea hit him so sharply it almost felt like being Tased again. He stiffened, then spun and ran to the van, grabbing Sheldon by the arm and pulling him down. "Out, out!" he shouted, ignoring Sheldon's offended glare. "Everybody out, come on, come on! Officer Davies, you too, please!"

As Bernadette, Lucy, Raj and Amy scrambled out of the van, Davies looked at Abrams. Abrams scowled. "Hofstadter?" he demanded.

Leonard turned back and met the SWAT sergeant's eyes. "Trust me," he begged, aware as he said it that he might well be lying. He had no idea if this would work.

Desperation seemed to be an adequate substitute for conviction, in the event. Abrams lifted his arms in a helpless shrug, looking more like Sammy than he realized, then gestured at Davies and stepped back. Davies slipped out of the driver's seat and slammed the door shut. Leonard beckoned Amy and Penny, grabbed them by one shoulder each and muttered his instructions to them; when he finished, Penny was staring at him in disbelief and Amy was grinning. "Are you nuts?" Penny demanded.

"I'm open to better ideas," said Leonard. "Got any?"

"Nothing that awesome," said Amy gleefully, practically bouncing on her feet. She grabbed Penny by the elbows. "Come on, bestie, please, please, let us try? I don't need to know how to fight to do this."

Penny rolled her eyes. "You have definitely gotten too much into this hero crap, Ames," she grumbled, and turned to the others. "Okay, guys, stand back." She waved them away from the van, then went to one of the back doors and gripped it by top and bottom. Amy did the same with the other door. They locked eyes and nodded. "Right," Penny said, "one, two, three—"

They tore the doors off simultaneously, the hinges breaking in a flurry of deafening snaps, and tossed them to the street with discordant clangs. The SWAT officers yelled in alarm and indignation, but stopped at Penny's glare. Abrams groaned and put his hand over his face; he was probably envisioning his budget report, Leonard guessed. Penny paused and met Leonard's gaze, her glare fading into a nervous look. "You sure about this?"

"I trust you," said Leonard simply. He wanted to say more, but he was more than half afraid Abrams might lose his patience and try to shut them down if he got any sappier. So he only held her eyes and touched his chest. Penny's mouth trembled for a moment, her eyes huge. Then her jaw tightened.

"Okay, Ames," she said. "Let's do this."

Amy nodded with a visible gulp. But she didn't hesitate. She and Penny hurried back to the front of the van and knelt down. There was a moment of silence. Then the van creaked. Shifted. Metal groaned. And the van began to lift, rising up and tilting back. With a clang and a cacophony of falling gear, it dropped onto its back end, almost teetering over before the girls stabilized it. Shaking their hands out, Penny and Amy went to either side of the van and without ceremony punched holes straight through its armour, two on each side. Bernadette gasped, hands to her mouth, and Lucy's jaw dropped. Even Sheldon looked a bit aghast.

He never had really seen Amy in action using super-strength, Leonard realized; he had been too Taser-stunned at his mother's to notice the fight, and too terrified by Amy's fall to watch her handle the FBI copter. Absurdly, Leonard found himself hoping it wouldn't disrupt their relationship. He himself had always found Penny's superior physical prowess hot, rather than intimidating—well, mostly—and wouldn't have expected Sheldon to care about such things one way or the other, but Amy had a long-proven capacity for getting unexpected reactions out of his roommate.

The girls got their hands seated in the holes they'd just punched. Penny paused for one last glance at Leonard, then lifted her head. "Okay, Amy," she called, "again, together: one, two, three!" She bent her legs and jumped. Together, the van suspended between them, they shot into the air—and decelerated, their upwards movement stalling some twenty feet above the street. The van held still in the air for a surreal second, then began slipping back downwards with slow, nightmarish inexorability. Leonard's breath stopped. He could see the strain in Penny's clenched teeth, in Amy's bunched and trembling arms. Had they finally found the limits of the girls' power? The FBI copter had been far heavier, but they hadn't had to do more than slow and guide its fall. This required controlled lift and targeted movement. Dread twisted in his stomach. Maybe this had been too much . . . .

But then Penny closed her eyes, taking several deep breaths. "Amy," she called. "It's not about strength. It's not the muscles. It's you—it's us. Your mind! All you need with your hands is to hold the van still. Lift with your gut. Think yourself up." The strain faded from her face; she looked almost peaceful. The van's descent slowed, then stopped. "Last time, Amy, with me," Penny said. "One. Two. Three."

A beat of silence and stillness ticked by—and then the van ascended smoothly, not fast but steadily, rising upwards and upwards until it was over a hundred feet in the air, its black armour rendering it near-invisible against the night sky. Screams went up from the watching crowd, and Leonard held his breath again: would Sammy realize what was happening? But the monster, already more than halfway back to the Camelot, didn't even seem to pause or look up. Leonard wondered if Sammy even could look up far enough at this point—the armour-encrustation around his head and neck seemed so thick now that it might well be interfering with his movement, like Michael Keaton's rubber Bat-cowl in the Tim Burton Batman.

Giddy exultation swelled in his breast. Holy crap, this might actually work. He beckoned Raj, Lucy and Bernadette towards him. "Everybody, together, holding hands—yeah, you too Lucy." With his free hand, he grabbed Sheldon's arm. "When the van comes down," he told Sheldon, "I want you to put all of us right next to it. Teleport us there. Got it?"

Sheldon yanked his arm out of Leonard's grasp with an indignant expression. "Leonard, I don't recall you being deputized to give—"

"Dammit, Sheldon, stop arguing with me!" The volume of his roar startled Leonard himself, but he was too angry to let it stop him. He grabbed the edge of Sheldon's vest and yanked the taller man down until they were face to face, glaring straight into Sheldon's shocked, wide eyes. Out of the corner of his eye, he was vaguely aware everyone else was staring at them; he didn't care. "Now are you going to do what I say, or not?!"

Sheldon blinked at him, then twitched away and upright, suddenly looking no more than mildly miffed. "All right, yeesh," he said. "No need to get all handsy-touchy about it. Of course I can put us where we need to be. Just let me get ready for it." He brushed himself down, took Bernadette's hand and held his elbow out for Leonard to grab.

Raj frowned. "You'll hold Bernadette's hand, but not Leonard's? Real nice, dude."

"Bernadette works in a bio research lab," said Sheldon loftily. "I've lived with Leonard for over ten years. Whose personal sterilization habits would you trust more?"

"Oh come on," demanded Leonard in disbelief. "Seriously?"

"Well, it wouldn't kill you to wash your hands after using the toilet a little more often," Raj remarked.

"Guys!" said Lucy, more loudly than Leonard ever remembered her speaking—which still wasn't much, but coming from her it was startling enough to cut the squabble off at the knees. She nodded down the street with her chin. "I think this might be it."

Forgetting all his annoyance on the instant, Leonard found himself up on tiptoes, craning his neck. The police and onlookers lining the street had parted like the Red Sea before Moses, keeping instinctively back from Sammy as he neared the Camelot; among them, Leonard could see the lenses of cameras here and there—news crew, or just lucky amateurs, he didn't know. A trail of cracked dents in the street marked where his feet had fallen. He held one ogrish hand up, shading his head from the glare of the helicopters' spotlights. Leonard held his breath. Come on, Penny, Amy, any second now . . . . Only the strength with which he was gripping Bernadette's hand made her grip on his less painful. Come on, girls, bring it—

"Bad Boys, Bad Boys, whatcha gonna do? / Whatcha gonna do when they come for you! / Bad Boys, Bad—" As everyone swung around to stare at him, Abrams fumbled his smartphone out of his belt and silenced the ringtone. His face redder than his hair, he jammed the phone against his ear. "Abrams, what?!" he snarled through clenched teeth.

With startling speed, the anger vanished from his face, leaving it unnervingly pale and blank. He straightened, his shoulders relaxing and his free hand falling to his side. "Yes," he said flatly. "Yes. Yes, sir. Yes."

For no reason he could name, the hairs on the back of Leonard's neck went up. He was no psychiatrist, but by dint of several years in therapy and osmosis around his mother he had learned enough to know that emotional affect didn't naturally change that fast . . . unless there was something seriously off behind it. But it was more than that. Something about the big SWAT leader's stance, expression, his whole being suddenly felt . . . wrong. As if something had reached into him, given his soul a quarter-twist and pushed it down and back, leaving only a simulacrum behind—

"Leonard!" shouted Bernadette, and Leonard whipped his head back just in time to see the SWAT van come hurtling down out of the night with only the tiniest whicker of air for warning, slamming down around Sammy rear-end first with a massive BANG like a gigantic metal tumbler clapping down over a bug. Screams came from the crowd. The impact was so fierce it crumpled down the back half of the van, leaving Sammy with his head jammed through the empty windshield, his arms pinned by the van's teetering armoured shell. As Amy and Penny dropped down and collapsed to hands and knees with the force of their landing, the van tipped over and crashed onto its side with another bang. Sammy's head wobbled, clearly dazed. Even Amy and Penny seemed to have shocked themselves; they knelt motionless on the street, staring at the trapped giant.

"Yeeeehaaawww!" Sheldon bellowed without warning, jumping and punching the air like a high-schooler watching his team make a touchdown. "That's what you get when you mess with our girlfriends!" He looked around at their flabbergasted expressions and suddenly seemed to recall himself. "As they'd say back in East Texas," he muttered.

Leonard came to his senses. "Okay, Sheldon, get us within arm's reach! Everybody knows what they have to do, right?" Bernadette, Lucy and Raj Lucy nodded, and Leonard grabbed his roommate's elbow. "Sheldon?"

"Yes, Leonard, everybody knows what they have to do," said Sheldon, and suddenly Leonard felt like he'd been punched in the stomach: Sheldon was wearing the earnest-but-certain look that always presaged the revelation of his most infuriating decisions. "Except apparently yourself. Everybody else has some variety of enhanced ability to defend themselves if something goes wrong. You do not. So the most sensible action for you is to stay right here at a safe distance and trust the rest of us to carry out the plan." He yanked his elbow free of Leonard's grip—not something he would normally have been able to do, but Leonard's hands had gone strengthless with shock—and pointed at him. "Stay," he ordered, as if Leonard was a recalcitrant dog. "Stay."

Before Leonard could respond, Sheldon vanished, and Bernadette, Raj, and Lucy all disappeared with him; in the same instant they reappeared some thirty metres down the street, steps from the fallen van. Leonard gaped after them, not sure whether he wanted to weep, punch Sheldon, or fall to the ground kicking and screaming. But the immediate flurry of action held him still for a moment: Raj flung out a hand, pointing at Sammy, and Lucy moved in and took his other hand, ready to take them both safely out of phase on the instant. Sammy roared with a note Leonard had never heard before—a confused, despairing howl, worlds away from his normal bellows of rage. And as he shook his head like a bear trying to shake off a swarm of wasps, Bernadette raced in, ducked under that spiked, horned head and slapped both tiny hands against it. Sammy froze, his howl dying into silence on the instant. As if likewise paralyzed, Raj, Lucy, Sheldon, Amy and Penny stood still around the van, black silhouettes against the white glare of copters' spotlights.

". . . look out, gangway, comin' through!" Leonard spun and saw Howard, his battery clutched in his arms, skittering down through the air towards him and the SWAT officers; he ignored the yells and cries from the onlookers as he braked to a stop beside Leonard, floating an inch or so above the street. "Leonard? What's going on?"

Leonard cast a glance back at the tableau on the street, just before the Camelot's driveway. "Well, I don't want to jinx it," he said, "but I think . . . I think we might just be winning." He scowled at Howard. "What the hell took you so long, anyway?"

"Hey, you try doing jury-rig electronic repairs without a tool kit or soldering gun on a dark street after skating on air for over a mile," said Howard, sounding miffed. He frowned at the tableau down the street, then suddenly stiffened. "Wait a minute. Is that—is that—" Horror and fury filled his face like a tidal wave coming in. "Bernadette!" he bellowed, and fumbled at the control for his skates.

Leonard grabbed his hand, wrestling the control out of his grip. "Howard, wait!" he shouted. "She's not in any danger—all the rest of them are there, they can get her out if anything goes wrong, and—"

Hands like steel clamps seized him, hauled him back away from Howard and slammed him down to the ground, face first; his arms were jerked up behind his back, the pain so abrupt and huge Leonard couldn't even scream—all that came out was a kind of whimpering yelp. Howard had been captured with equal, and equally humiliating, ease, one of the SWAT officers ripping the wire away from his battery and killing the power to his skates. The man holding Leonard down looked at Abrams. "We, uh—" He cleared his throat. "Suspects immobilized as ordered, Sergeant. What, uh, what do you want us to do?"

With effort, his neck screaming with the pain, Leonard managed to scrape his face around against the street's asphalt to look at Abrams. The SWAT sergeant was staring down at them with the same blank look that had come over him during that phone call: a completely empty look, like a mannequin's. It was more terrifying than the FBI choppers, than Rozokov's sociopathic affability, even than Sammy's horrendous power. It was like the man was simply gone and something hollow had been left behind.

"Restrain them," he said, voice as flat and toneless as unmarked paper. He nodded at Howard, who was screaming obscenities at him. "And gag that one." He turned and headed back to the second SWAT van. Two of the officers exchanged uncertain looks, but after a moment, one of them pulled a roll of black duct tape from his belt, ripped a couple of strips free and got them over Howard's mouth. It only muffled Howard's shrieks of fury. The man who'd applied the tape hesitated, reached out as if to pat Howard's shoulder, then seemed to give up.

"What the hell's going on here, Ed?" said the man holding Leonard, sounding worried. "I thought we had a truce 'til that thing got put down?"

The man with the tape, Ed, shrugged unhappily. "You wanna be the one who argues, Nate? Maybe he decided to get a jump on—" He turned to look back towards Abrams and stopped, mouth falling open. Leonard felt Nate's hands jerk where they held him, as if the other officer was equally shocked. He scraped his face on the street again as he got his head around.

Everything inside him froze in a single, arctic-cold blast at the sight of what the SWAT sergeant was carrying. Abrams strode past him, past the officers restraining Howard, completely ignoring the aghast looks of his own men. He walked a few yards down the street, his face still utterly blank and empty, seemingly not even aware of the throat-rending sounds Howard was making behind his gag of tape. Then he stopped and hoisted the six-foot tube of the rocket launcher to his shoulder.

He spread his feet slightly, shifted the launcher around until its aim was centred dead on his friends where they surrounded Sammy, and pulled the trigger just as Leonard lifted his head and screamed at the top of his lungs:

"SHELDON!"