I Need a Hero, Chapter 2 by patricia51
(Worries and a Plot)
Sheldon stood aghast. "Honeymoon?"
"Honeymoon."
"But why?"
"It's traditional after getting married."
"But they didn't say anything to me about it!" protested Sheldon.
"Exactly."
"But I need to get to work," Sheldon explained as though that might conjured one or the other of the missing pair out of the air.
"Excellent. People should be gainfully employed."
"Gainfully employed? I'll have you know that I am a world-renown theoretical physicist, a mind that comes along only once or twice in a generation."
"Oh so you're a physicist?" Without waiting for an answer she went on. "Well take the 'gainful' away then but still it's good to know that you are employed."
Never any good at reading people Sheldon didn't see the twinkle in the green eyes. He just sputtered. He was still sputtering when the woman ushered two children out of the door, closed and locked that door and headed down the stairs.
"Wait a minute! There aren't supposed o be children in this building!" he called after them. "It's for adults only!"
"They let you in didn't they?" floated back up the stairway.
The relationship between he and Donna only continued to go downhill from there. It turned out that despite his strongly worded letters to the building management that there was no bar to tenants having children. He was comforted somewhat on Leonard's return in two weeks only to discover that his friend was moving out. It quite baffled him that Leonard would prefer to live with Penny than with him.
He had assumed that being Penny's cousin that Donna would shoulder her obligations in regardless to taking him to work and the other places he needed to go. She didn't refuse; she simply ignored him in those matters.
"Don't worry about it Sheldon," she told him after breezing by him yet again in the hallway. "As soon as quarters are available at the Coast Guard Station Channel Islands Harbor at Oxnard we'll be moving there and you can bother the next occupant of the apartment.
Sheldon sniffed. Bother indeed. As if his perfectly reasonable requests should be considered any kind of bother. They should be considered to be favors.
He attempted to bring this to everyone's attention at a get-together at Penny and Leonard's new home. A chorus of "Go Away!" was all that greeted his efforts. Even Amy declined to take his side.
That was why when Leonard had intercepted him in the hallway two months ago and asked him to join him, Howard, Raj and Leslie in a discussion "of great importance" he had, of course, declined. Surely he could not be expected to participate in anything involving Leslie Winkle. Besides he doubted any of them were capable of determining that something could be "of great importance". And finally he reminded Leonard that he had yet to apologize to him for winning HIS Nobel Prize. With that he stalked off.
Leonard shook his head and returned to his lab, carefully closing the door behind him. The members of the group he had mentioned to Sheldon were scattered around the room. They all looked at him.
"So what did dummy say?" asked Leslie. "Might have known," she added when Leonard shook his head again.
"It may be for the best," suggested Raj thoughtfully. "Not that I'm suggesting Sheldon be left out of our plans but rather that prematurely recruiting him might be dangerous. He never knows when to shut up. And from what Howard has discovered there really does seem to be something very strange going on with regards to people who seem to know too much or say too much about what we suspect is coming.
Howard shrugged. "It's useful to have cousins and cousins of cousins all over the world. The latest apparent victim seems to have been the director of the Louvre, who dies in a mysterious car accident the day before he was to hold a press conference. He had announced there would be spectacular revelations concerning all of Mankind. One might take it with a grain of salt but the accident was very suspicious and coupled with what we have been able to find out it's likely he was killed to shut his mouth."
Leonard sighed. "I just can't believe things like that happen."
"Believe it," answered Leslie.
"I do," Howard supported glumly. "When you're Jewish you get used to the idea that someone may be after you. Unfortunately you're usually right."
(Three years previously)
The seed of this get-together had been planted several years before when Raj had been home visiting his parents in India. After having survived a series of completely unsubtle attempts by his parents to arrange his marriage he had finally escaped one afternoon. While visiting the University he had been very pleased to run into Doctor Satnam Tsurutani, India's foremost astrophysicist and a boyhood hero of Raj's.
Over lunch they had carried on a animated discussion of their recent activities. Raj s interest was outward; he studied Trans-Neptunian space while Dr. Tsurutani's interest was the sun. Raj noted that his idol seemed distracted and even a bit worried at times. He was not willing to press but he did ask if everything was alright with the older physicist.
"You are aware of that recent massive solar flare of course."
"Of course," Raj had returned. "Among other things orbital telescopes were useless for weeks after. I had to stop my research until they were safe to be used again."
"I happened to discuss the situation with Adrian Helmsley, an American geologist. I had wondered if there were any effects on the Earth. The flare produced an outpouring of neutrinos from the sun such as I have never seen or heard of before."
"And is there?"
"He told it explained a lot. The temperature of the Earth's core has increased rapidly since then."
Raj was absorbed in thought for a few moments.
"Could that be dangerous?" he asked.
"Possibly."
The conversation had moved on to more pleasant subjects and Raj had nearly forgotten about it by the time he came back to America. However the idea surfaced again when he was reading some scientific articles. Out of curiosity he talked to several members of the Geology Department. What he found out gave him pause.
At first the geologists about talked his ears off. After a few months though he noticed they were becoming more and more reluctant to speak on the subject or even acknowledge it existed. Finally he found that certain senior members had left the University recently and no one could or would tell him of their whereabouts. It was then that he started to bring the others into his confidence and share what was becoming increasingly mysterious and worrisome to him.
Of course Howard and Leonard were the first he talked to. They debated trying to recruit Sheldon as well but decided against it.
"The first thing we know he'll decide that he's in charge and start making up grandiose titles for himself," declared Leonard.
Howard had shuddered. "We do NOT want to go through what happened when we developed your idea for the smart-phone app."
"At the same time he IS our friend no matter how crazy he drives us," Leonard stated firmly. "If we discover that there really is something to all this he will have to be included in whatever plans we make."
"Okay," agreed Raj.
"Fine," said Howard. "But I'm making a crossbow just in case."
Time passed. The initial furor of excitement and worry died down but never went away. Howard married Bernadette, which gave them another very intelligent member of their group, and he went into space, which opened a broad assortment of contacts. Leonard came up with the idea that would lead to the Nobel Prize and recruited Leslie Winkle when Sheldon haughtily rebuffed him. The female physicist was added to their group and dug deeply into her friendship with a number of Geologists and Seismologists. Finally Leonard's relationship with Penny deepened and reached the point where she, in accordance with their agreement, finally asked him to marry her. This added someone to the group who was no scientist but who had her feet firmly planted on the ground.
(One month ago)
Everyone sat tensely around the dinner table in Leonard and penny's apartment while Howard circled the room. He watched the screen on the piece of electronic equipment he was using, occasionally glancing up and around the room and pointing the tip of the item as though he was conducting some arcane ritual. Finally he lowered it and turned it off.
"We're clean."
"I cannot believe that we have to use a bug detector in our own home," Penny protested. "Who ARE these people you are worried about? The government?"
"Not just our government we think but all the world's major ones," replied her husband. "And it's not like they are looking specifically for us or anything. This isn't "Enemy of the State', we're not being targeted."
He looked grim. "All the same the number of accidental deaths and disappearances among journalists, scientists, politicians and even business leaders has become statistically significant. We think the disappearances and accidents fall into two classes of people."
Leslie took up the thread. "The so-called accidental deaths, and some of them aren't even being covered up anymore, some are just outright murders, are devoted to keeping whatever the secret is. The disappearances are different."
Now it was Howard's turn. "You would not believe the number of engineers who have dropped out of sight over the last two years, particularly marine engineers. We're talking top flight ones. Coupled with the extremely vague rumors we've heard about the "Arks", well, I'm wondering if that term is literal rather than figurative.
Raj jumped in. "Leonard and I have been keeping current with the effects of the neutrino bombardment and its effect on the Earth's core. Once again, interestingly, all the discussion on those subjects has stopped and the research dropped out of sight. But what we saved, cross-researched with Geology and Seismology models leads us to one conclusion. There is about to be a catastrophic shift of the Earth's crust."
Silence blanketed the room. Finally Bernadette broke it.
"So what do we do?"
"Going public is not an option for two reasons. First, we'd probably be silenced as soon as we tried. Second," and now Leonard looked desperately grim, "We think there's not much time left."
"So what do we do?" Bernadette repeated.
"We stockpile food, water, medicines and other emergency supplies. But only the amount that we can take with us. Obviously California will be one of the least safe spots in the world." Leonard proposed.
"Where can we go? East?"
"If, and it probably will, the Yellowstone Caldera erupts, the entire Western half of the United States and more will be rendered uninhabitable."
"South then?"
"Perhaps. But there is no promise that any place on the globe will be safe. Therefore, I suggest that we listen to a plan that Penny came up with.
(To be continued)
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