Chapter 4 - Helplessness

It was 5 PM, the news now had their Cheesecake Factory hostage story for the evening special report. Leonard and Sheldon where on their way to the comic book store, Leonard was feeling pretty good, the Tin Man project had a working prototype and his preliminary paper was almost done on the material it was made of. He was looking forward to a nice weekend with Penny, he really felt he had been neglecting her over the past few weeks, so this weekend he was going to make it special for her. However now he was going to spend time with Sheldon, Raj and Howard, because Penny wouldn't get home from work till 11 PM tonight and Leonard needed to kill time before he saw her. He was going over, in his mind, ideas for planning this wonderful weekend with her, when he pulled into the comic book parking lot. Leonard then followed Sheldon into the store only to find Stuart and a couple of patrons staring at the TV behind the counter.

"What's so interesting, Stuart?" Leonard smiled at his friend.

"Leonard, have you seen or heard the news?" Stuart was very excited which made Leonard confused, something was up.

"No we don't waste our time with that social drama." Sheldon dismissed them all as he walked to the comic books.

Leonard shook his head, "Sheldon doesn't let me turn the radio on. So what's up?" however, Stuart looked really agitated and looked back at the TV so Leonard stopped to watch what Stuart had been looking at.

The longer Leonard watched, the more his stomach sickened, they were showing the Cheesecake Factory and talking about a hostage situation. Penny was suppose to be working now, so with trembling fingers he immediately sent her a text, then stared at his screen, nothing. He watched the TV, they said that workers and customers were hostages, so Leonard now tried calling Penny, nothing, he didn't know that Penny's phone was in her work locker on vibrate. Leonard felt helpless and kept watching the news, getting sicker by the minute, until he heard the information that made him want to throw up. The reporter said that an unknown source from the mayor's office had said that the criminals had threatened to start killing hostages, if their demands were not met.

Leonard felt light headed, this couldn't be happening, not to his Penny, he thought, 'Please no, please no', he was almost in tears. Leonard didn't even realized Raj and Howard walked into the comic book store, they had agreed earlier to meet them there after work. Howard stared at Leonard, he looked so pale, then to the TV, that Leonard was staring at, after a couple of minutes he understood Leonard's expression. The reporter seemed to done providing information, because then she said 'Our hopes and prayers go out to the hostages and their families." Howard was going to try comfort Leonard when he saw Leonard's face change. Howard watched the pale expression change as the red of anger came over Leonard's face as he turned to head towards the door with a determination that surprised Howard. Howard, stood there for a few seconds wondering what changed, then it dawned on him, he ran after Leonard, "Leonard!" Sheldon and Raj just looked at each other, both concerned about how they were going to get home since their rides had just run out the door.

Howard got to the parking lot just in time to see Leonard's car hit the street, its tires spinning, heading away. Howard shook his head and quickly went to his car, he knew where Leonard was going, he saw it on his face, so Howard pulled his car out and headed to Cal Tech. Howard drove quickly, but did not speed, he knew Leonard would be still there when he got there, it took a little while to power and set up the suit.

-TIN MAN-

Howard walked quickly down the hall to the storage room, he actually felt the electrical ozone in the air, when he put his hand on the double doors, and opened them to go in. He saw Leonard scrambling around the suit and the electronic hookups, getting it ready, but he still didn't seem to understand that he couldn't do it on his own. "Leonard what the hell are you doing?"

Leonard's head shot around to look at Howard, "They are going to kill Penny. I'm not letting that happen."

"Leonard, let the police do their job. They will end it and everything will be fine."

Leonard then looked at Howard, straight in the eyes, his stare like ice, "I'm going Howard. Nothing or Nobody is stopping me."

Howard folded his arms, "You can't run up the suit or even get into it without help, so there, I'm stopping you."

Leonard walked up to Howard, and Howard became afraid, Leonard was going to hit him, Leonard's hands were balled into fists. However, Leonard just stopped in front of him, and Howard saw a tear in Leonard's eye, "Damn it Howard! What if Bernadette was in there, what would you do to protect Bernadette?"

Howard swallowed, he knew what he would do, he would go after her, he stared at Leonard and his resolve melted. "Yeah….Okay….get your coveralls on, and I'll get the power and set up work done."

A very small serious smile formed on Leonard's lips, and he nodded, "Thanks buddy."

Howard nodded but thought, 'Yeah sure, we are going to get in so much trouble'.

Howard still had the keys from one of the bread van type trucks the university used to transport oversized equipment. They had used the same vehicle to test the suit the first time they took it out. Howard pulled the truck up, so it was against the loading docks, and then did a check to see if anyone was around, thanking his stars that it was Friday and everyone had left early. When Leonard got the okay on the radio he walked out to the docks and backed into the back of the truck, Howard immediately closing the doors behind him. Howard then plugged the suit into a power converter, in the truck, to top off the batteries on the way, and checked his radio link and remote system monitoring. Finally Howard hooked up cargo straps on the suits lifting devices to secure the suit, so Leonard wouldn't fall over during the drive. They were ready to go.

-TIN MAN-

JT had just finished another turn at the door, and it was Breaker's turn. "Hey dumb shit, you're next." JT then walked over to his bunker and stopped before Penny, the small 18 year old waitress was sleeping in her lap, a table cloth Penny grabbed nearby draped over her. The scene looked cute to JT, but he wasn't too much into cute, so he was about to grab Penny, when he remembered how much that little brunette cried and he didn't feel like hearing her cry now, if he pulled the blonde away. He decided he could wait a little and would do the blonde next time, so he reached over to pull a redhead up by the hair, who hadn't cried the whole time and was trying to act tuff. He smiled and thought, 'We'll see how tuff she is' as he pulled her into his little bunker. Penny cringed again as she heard the whimpering after a while, she knew she was suppose to be next and she knew he would rape her soon, she was so scared, so she closed her eyes and thought of Leonard.

An hour later the animal let the redhead go and made her get in front of the barrack again. Penny couldn't look at her, she felt that the only reason the girl was raped was because of her and she was ashamed. Penny was so afraid, she held on to the little brunette in her lap, knowing as long as she held her she was a little bit safe from being raped. She was trying so hard not to cry, that man, didn't care about them and anything would set him off. She tried to think about things outside this horror she was living, tried to think about happy things, things that made her feel good, Leonard immediately came to mind. She thought how safe she felt wrapped in his arms at night when they slept together, only Leonard made her feel that way, and she so wanted to feel that way now, safe in Leonard's arms. The more she thought about it the more it upset her until Penny couldn't take it anymore and gave up as the tears flowed down her face.

-TIN MAN-

Howard had to find a secluded place to off load Leonard, but still close enough so he didn't have to walk that far, he had to conserve power. Howard was having no luck driving around the streets and even got an ugly look from a policeman, when he went down the wrong street and was made to turn around. He was getting very frustrated and was thinking about what Superman would do, when he saw it, an old falling down warehouse and one of the vehicle entrance doors was opened. Howard drove in, the only witness a old drunk sitting with a bottle in the alley across the street.

Howard stopped the truck inside, then opened the suit back pack to start his checkouts. He needed to make sure all the electronics, especially in the laser circuitry, were working properly, before he took the safeties off the chemical reaction packs, they didn't need any explosions. The circuitry checks took almost 20 minutes and Leonard was driving Howard nuts with all of his questions on when he would be done.

"Howard, come on, how long is this going to take."

"It will take as long as it takes. I am not putting power to the weapon until I know it won't blow up."

"I'll take the chance Howard, button me up."

"Well, I'm not risking blowing up so you can be a Hero, two minutes earlier, so shut up!"

Somehow hearing Howard say 'Hero', didn't feel right to Leonard, it was almost a dirty word. Leonard did not feel like a Hero, he just wanted Penny safe, if anything he was being selfish, he was only thinking of Penny, he never thought about the other people in there. He never said another word till Howard completed his checks.

Howard completed the electrical check and took the safeties off the chemical packs, all three of them. He then closed the back pack and took the straps off that held the suit up, Leonard was now mobile. He stood in front of Leonard, one more test to do. "Leonard do the maneuvering test".

Leonard went through the preplanned moves that showed that all the power assisted limbs worked properly and all the servos were operating. It took less than a minute and when it was over, "Feels good Howard, I'm ready."

Howard opened the back door and stepped outside, watching as over a quarter ton of suit and man moved to the van back and stepped out. Howard gasped as he looked at the suit in the fading sunlight of the opened door, it was amazing and scary at the same time. It was somewhere in-between an Army soldiers body armor and a space suit in bulk and it was in the off white color of a space suit. You could barely see the aluminum bars from the exoskeleton under the fabric on each side of its legs, arms and torso, and combined with the special boots and helmet it towered over 7 feet high, which was really tall to Howard. The helmet was probably the scariest part, because they intentionally tried to make it not look like a space suit, so it actually looked…evil. It was really beautiful, the only thing taking away from its clean lines, was the large back pack, that was needed to run everything.

Leonard looked down at Howard, who was standing there with his mouth open, "Howard, I'm ready." Howard then came out of his trance and nodded. It was another couple of seconds before Leonard heard Howard's voice and saw the GPS map on the head's up display.

"Okay Leonard, the blue dot is you and the red dot is where the bad guys are. Be careful buddy. I'll try to help as much as possible, but all I got is audio and system monitoring, so I can't see what you are doing, okay."

"Okay, thanks Howard, here I go." Leonard walked out of the warehouse and started up the street to the Cheesecake Factory.

The drunk man watched the man-robot walk out the building, turn and go down the street, his eyes wide in shock. He stared until it was out of sight, then looked at the bottle of cheap wine he was drinking, "So much for buying the cheap stuff." he mumbled to himself.

Leonard followed the map Howard had up on the heads-up display, he was two blocks away, and he was in a hurry, Penny now was the only thing on his mind. The two blocks seem to take forever, he even had to go down an alley to avoid a police road block and get to the area surrounding the Cheesecake Factory. He almost stopped completely when he saw all the police around the building and he suddenly had second thoughts, but just as suddenly his fear of Penny being hurt came back into his mind. He couldn't let her get hurt or die, he had to save her, otherwise he could never live with himself again. Howard told him to move like he owned the place, so Leonard moved straight to the police line, he had no intention of letting anything stop him.