Taking a break for a few days. Got things to do.
Sheldon was typing furiously on his laptop. He had originally just gone to Map Quest and plotted a route that would take them from Pasadena to Omaha by the fastest route but now…
He knew that Las Vegas was the first major city on their route and if L.A. had burned so quickly then he had no doubt that Vegas, with its large population of tourists and visitors would be a madhouse with roads clogged with vehicles and traffic jams as people panicked and fled the city for their homes. Abandoned vehicles and those filled with dead refugees would make Interstate 15 impassable.
He began to doubt the wisdom of his plan and when he doubted himself, he sulked and became almost unapproachable.
"We'll head to Barstow first, ladies. I think Vegas will be just another L.A. by the time we get there. Once we get to Barstow we'll reevaluate your route given what we find. I should have realized that your route, though the most efficacious, would take you through large cities and all they entail. I should have…"
Winkle and Penny exchanged looks. Penny had never seen a 'Sheldon melt down' but Winkle had been there for the Monopole fiasco after the Pole trip and had seen him first hand. Penny had only seen the tip of the iceberg when he returned from Texas.
Winkle sat down on the couch beside Sheldon and placed a hand on his forearm. He was trembling in anger at himself and she whispered that they needed him focused on finding them a safe route. They were depending on him to keep them safe.
Penny watched, jealous, as Winkle whispered that they needed him. Leslie was right. They did need him but for differing reasons. Winkle saw Sheldon as a resource and a man who would never shirk his responsibilities, someone who would throw himself between them and any danger.
Penny saw him as her whack-a-doodle PhD who needed him because…she finally admitted it…because she loved him and couldn't bear to lose him either to the plague or to his own insecurities.
Penny finally found her voice. "Sheldon Cooper, you listen to me. This is a problem just like String Theory only it's not so complicated as that. This is child's play for one of the brightest men on the planet, so get cracking on a solution. We'll head out and try to make Victorville as our first way-point."
Sheldon was so angry with himself that Winkle's placating words did little to pull him out of himself but Penny's comments played to his enormous ego and challenged it.
"Penny, take 210 to Interstate 15 and Victorville. Be careful of the abandoned vehicles and 18-wheelers especially once you hit Interstate 15. We will re-evaluate your route based on what we find there."
He turned his head away from the girls and back down to his laptop. His original plan was trash. He would need to use secondary roads to move first north and then east. There was snow in the mountains and he'd never considered the need for tire chains as recommended by the CHP for use in the passes. Another error.
'How many more will I discover and will I discover them before or after someone dies?'
The sixty-five minute drive to Victorville took almost 6 hours. Penny had to carefully skirt pileups and once she had to back the coach almost 4 miles to take an off-ramp and then use secondary roads to bypass them before pulling onto I15 again.
"I need to stop for a while and unclench my fingers. This is so nerve-wracking and I'm getting stiff and sore. Leslie, how about taking a turn at the wheel? It's not hard at all to drive and it would be fun under normal road conditions - WHOA!"
Several people, mostly men, were blocking the lane and if she hadn't been paying attention she would have run them over. She started to slow down and stop the bus.
Leslie was standing behind her, ready to take her place but when she saw that a couple of the guys had what looked to be rifles, she urged Penny not to dare stop. "Mow them down. They've got guns! And I don't think they want to hitch a ride, Barbie!"
"No way. I'm not going to – "
A bullet ricocheted off the steel sheeting that Sheldon had welded over the large windscreen and it was like someone flipped a switch in Penny's mind.
"Hold on. These guys are what Sheldon warned us about!" She floored the gas pedal and the big Alison Diesel roared and she blew through the line of men and on down the interstate, only slowing because of wrecks that she had to carefully drive through.
"You can stop anytime now, Penny, and I'll take over. If it makes you feel any better, I don't think you hit any of them but they'll need to change their undies for sure!"
Leslie made the leg of the trip to Barstow without any 'complications'. It was starting to get dark and Sheldon unpacked the Night Vision goggles and had Leslie pull off the Interstate and find a large parking lot. He wanted the girls to be familiar with how the NVGs worked and made each of them drive around in a nice large area until they got used to them.
Leslie stomach growled – loudly. "Hey, howsa 'bout feeding us since you haven't done anything except sit on your butt all day, Cooper?" Her tone was whimsical and light, taking any unintended hurt out of her comments. Considering everything he'd done so far, he could sit around twiddling his thumbs all day and she'd be content with it.
"I suppose this is as good a place as any to practice leveling the coach and setting up for the night. Leslie, you first, go through the shut down and start up cycles and then drive around and find a spot and let Penny have a go. I'll have your dinner prepared by that time."
He walked back through the lounge area to the galley kitchen and closed the door. He wanted privacy and it was a surprise. He'd found several frozen dinners 'for two' and was going to sacrifice two for their first meal. Hopefully, they'd be in Omaha within 36 hours. He doubted that Mrs. Flynn in 2B would have begrudged them her meals. She was one of the first to die in the building and she'd always been nice to him, giving him baked goods whenever they met at the mailboxes.
The coach suddenly lurched and then swerved to the left sending Sheldon across the galley kitchen and into the small table there. He gasped and tears filled his eyes. He'd struck his wound on the edge of the table and it really hurt.
The coach stopped and Winkle opened the sliding corrugated door and told him to 'get your ass up here, Sheldon. We have a problem!'
The 'problem' was two pickup trucks that were driving around the darken coach in circles. There were a couple of men in the back of each and they appeared to have weapons. Their intent was unclear but to Sheldon it was crystal clear. His mind processed 'worse case' scenarios and he hurried to the weapons case and took out his two surprises.
'I should have planned better. We only have a few drums of ammunition for each. Another failure on my part.'
"Penny, these are SAWs, squad automatic weapons." He lectured them for about 15 seconds on how to reload them and then he told them to take positions at the coach front and safety doors and to shoot anyone who wasn't him.
"What? Sheldon, where – " By the time Penny got turned around and untangled her SAW from Leslie's, Sheldon was out the back of the coach's rear safety door.
It was cold and pitch black. The only light came from the headlamps and light bars of the pickups. He could hear them shouting over the sound of the engines. They were drunk and surely planned to loot the coach.
'Penny and Leslie would never survive such an attack and if they did, would probably hope for death. These lowlifes would abuse them and then kill them for sport. Not going to happen.'
Sheldon had already read up on two of his purloined weapons systems and knew what to do but in his fear and excitement, he'd totally drawn a blank on how to assemble and fire the damned things.
'Think! Grasp the tube in the center and pull the sealed end to the left forcefully until you hear a click. Then fold down the sight and mount the weapon on your right shoulder and sight in on the target. Pull the trigger when the target fills the sight aperture. Remember to lead a moving target.'
A series of mechanical and electrical events occurred when Sheldon depressed the rubber trigger detent resulting in a flash of 1400 degree ignited gases and the discharge of the 66mm warhead from the disposable tube of the LAWS rocket launcher he'd pilfered from a National Guard armory.
For a scared-shitless beginner, he did amazingly well. He would have received an 'Outstanding' from an instructor. The warhead struck one truck in the center of the sidewall of the truck bed and exploded, sending a spray of superheated plasma and metal that killed most of the bandits outright. The secondary effect was that the gas tank erupted in a spectacular fireball and the entire truck was engulfed in flames and that took care of the rest of the gunmen in the truck.
The second truck's driver was temporarily blinded by the flash or panicked but whatever reason was good enough for Sheldon. The truck ploughed into a parked car, sending the men in the back sailing out. One was crushed when the driver backed up over him in his haste to get away. One other limped away following after the departing truck. Two others began working their way around the coach to flank Sheldon.
Penny had been using the NVGs to watch for the threat that Sheldon apparently thought he could deal with on his own. She saw the flash of the one pickup when it exploded but the flare of bright light temporarily blinded her.
"Shit! Leslie, I can't see squat now. See if you can tell what's happening. No real visibility with these plates over the windows, even with the cut-outs." She was rubbing her eyes and didn't see Winkle's smirk as she picked up the SAW and stepped down out of the coach.
Leslie had been looking forward to this. She saw the two surviving bandits, thugs, would-be rapists, whatever label applied, scuttling between parked cars and she unloaded on them with the SAW.
She was unprepared for the kick and the rate of fire. Her old boyfriend would have punched her for 'wasting ammo' and not really sighting in on her target. In her defense, the SAW was heavier then she expected and with a much greater rate-of-fire and she was 10 years older and softer than when she was banging the survivalist and playing capture the flag in the woods.
While Leslie punched holes in parked cars and then poked holes in the sky, Penny slipped out and went to check on Sheldon. She had no idea what he'd done or how, but they were safe – for the moment.
"Sheldon!" she stage-whispered. "Where the hell are you?" She was duck walking around the back of the coach to where she thought he might be. The smell of the burnt gases made her eyes water but she saw him sitting on his butt, leaning back against the rear wheels of the coach.
"I think it's safe to get out of here now, sweetie. You okay?" He was staring at the burning pickup and she thought she saw him wipe his eyes with the sleeve of his field jacket.
She sat down next to him and put an arm around his shoulders and he leaned into her and she knew he was crying.
"Did you hurt yourself? Are you okay?"
"Fine. Just – I killed those men. I just wanted to disable the truck and scare them. We're all just trying to survive, Penny."
"You don't go out looking for survivors to rob and kill them, Shelley. That's the difference between you and them. Let's get inside and eat and then get out of here."
They climbed up into the bus and Penny secured the exit and went forward to give Sheldon some privacy. She didn't want him to be embarrassed in front of Winkle. His regret for killing those men was something to be admired, not ridiculed.
Winkle had surprisingly good luck and had wounded both their assailants. She calmly and efficiently shot eat in the head with her 9mm. 'It doesn't pay to leave a wounded enemy close by.'
"Where's our hero?" asked Winkle when she climbed back into the coach. "It's starting to snow and maybe we need to move out and get to a more secure location before calling it a night."
Just then, Sheldon pulled aside the folding door and announced that 'dinner is served, ladies'. The microwave in the bus worked just like his at home and he had no problem nuking the double portions.
"Paper plates! I forgot paper plates and plastic utensils and…" Another error. How many more had he made but didn't realize yet?
Winkle saw the look on his face and sighed. Barbie was slacking off in her care of their resident survival specialist. He was too upset about a minor thing like plates and forks for it to be the major source of his mood.
Penny saved the day by pulling out some dishes she'd 'borrowed' from the Cheesecake Factory and utensils. She'd only stuffed them in the bag for barter but now they'd serve their intended purpose.
Winkle had the last word on the issue before they silently dug into their dinner.
"Sheldon Cooper, you can't be expected to think of every possible contingency. You did all this in 3 days. Barbie and I will scrounge for whatever you forgot. It's no big deal. What is a big deal is that we're starving and the food's getting cold."