bigbangbigbang: A Mighty Roar (1/4)
//
The legal proceedings following the break-up of Century Genetic Applications, Inc. were played out over a ten-month period between January 28 and November 13, 2015. After initial interest from the tech media and business industries had run its course-about six weeks in the broadsheets and journals-things quietly shifted to the background, and the whole thing became nothing more than another tale of a promising venture going belly up in a still limping post-GFC world. Cenetic had its doubters and critics, but by then they had more pressing things to occupy themselves with, and the company, with its remaining stakeholders, ended its days in a darkened boardroom, bankrupt and signed away.
There were rumors, of course, as to what had happened to cause this end, and why. Even officially, where such dealings are normally clear cut, the administrators representing the small group of start-up investors were choked with multiple non-disclosure agreements, and found the legal team representing Cenetic, Gablehauser and Siebert of Los Angeles, to be increasingly tight-lipped in their co-operation. In fact, the firm kept hold of the company assets long after the official time period was up; particularly, and most stoically, those of Cenetic's enigmatic founder, Wil Wheaton.
Unofficially, the rumors were without number. In the blogosphere wildly conjectural third and forth- hand accounts abounded, but were either ignored or waved off with a bland company line.
One account, that of Gablehauser and Siebert junior partner Stuart Bloom, was considered with particular interest. Bloom was known to have been a personal friend of Wheaton's, though to that score he offered up little detail. It is noted that he refused several times on record to speak of his client in an unprofessional capacity; much as he did for fellow attorney Rajesh Koothrappali, whose disappearance in August of the previous year, along with Wheaton himself and seven other Cenetic employees during a routine site inspection at the company's research facility off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, soon became an unsolved mystery of its own.
-
Midday, Fort Baum, Montana. The sun, hidden for the better part of the morning behind a thick layer of cloud, was now high and clear in the sky, and as he reached for the field kit that had been set out neatly on a canvas blanket beneath his bent knees, Sheldon Cooper reflected that it may have been a good idea to bring that extra bottle of water after all. It was hotter than hell out here in the open, not a lick of shade to darken the endless monochrome of the bare rock. He wiped a bandana over his forehead, collecting sweat and sand. He could even picture it, sitting nice and chilled in their tiny fridge-freezer back at camp. There'd been a tuna salad sandwich in there, too, now he thought about it, which he'd also forgotten. Well, so runs the pursuit of science. Nothing he could do about it now, he decided, quickly pushing aside the moment of regret to concentrate instead on the work in careful miniature beneath his hands, to the fine strokes of his brush; to the bones he was unearthing.
This was not a perfect specimen-they would be lucky to find anything so complete in this corner of the vast site-but a find was still a find, and in his opinion nothing, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, should ever be thought unworthy of attention. He considered this a basic function of the palaeontologic field. His grad students might be quick to scoff at his singular focus, calling him rigid, accusing him of not knowing what adventure really was, but these were kids who took off for the weekend to throw themselves down churning rivers and scorched-dry canyons. The long hours put into a meticulously organized and maintained dig were...well. Maybe he was hitting middle age prematurely, or was simply conforming to the genes passed on to him through the long line of studious men and woman down the generations of his Texas name, but he couldn't help shaking his head at the world around him. To wonder if he was the only one left who really cared, the only one who-
His phone beeped.
With a sigh he put his weight on one elbow, fished out the device from his pocket and thumbed at the screen.
Hey Sheldon!
Just that, two words. He clucked with annoyance. How many times did he have to tell Leonard that cellular coverage, though vastly improved in the last few years so that even the most remote desert mesa was not without its own Twitter feed, was still a dent in their carefully rationed budget, and if he must be contacted, his colleague should, for want of a better phrase, get his ass to the damn point.
On the other hand, even if there were a one in a trillion chance that he was needed for something, Sheldon was transparently unable to ignore it. So he entered ? and hit send.
Eight and a half seconds, then: Need you back here.
He shook his head, punching in letters rapidly.
Can't. Juvenile Maia. Very delicate stage.
No reply. Good. Just as he suspected, trivial nonsense. One of the students with a rock shaped like Lincoln's nose, or something equally baffling.
The phone rang. Loudly. Sheldon jumped, lighting fast reflexes the only thing stopping him from falling into a small pile of skeleton. He swore lavishly in German and barked, "Yes?"
"And hello to you, too," said Leonard's voice.
"What do you want, Dr. Hofstadter?"
It was a tendency of Sheldon's to revert to proper titles when irritated. Which was most of the time, really.
"I would like you to come back. If it's at all convenient."
"You know that's impossible. This is an incredibly sound specimen, and I'm going to be at least another couple hours. Whatever it is those kids have found," he said, "you're going to have to deal with it yourself, okay?"
There was a long pause. He could hear mutterings in the background, a radio crackling. Good lord, but it was hot. He reached for his bandana again, twisting it around his neck until the knot sat flush beneath his chin. This of course immediately made him want to rip it away; he got as far as hooking a thumb into the cloth when Leonard's voice reappeared.
"Sheldon, those bones have been in that rock since the dawn of forever. Another hour's not going to hurt anyone. Now pull that tarp closed and come back to camp, or I'll...I'll eat this quite delicious looking tuna sandwich."
And with that, Leonard hung up.
Grumbling to himself, Sheldon clambered to his feet, patting at his shirt pocket until his fingers landed on a pair of sunglasses. He looked down to the shallow valley, raised the glasses to his face but didn't put them on. The temporary buildings, the tents and vehicles of their desert home, sat like a mirage in the distance, reflecting light with eye-piercing vibrancy. He blinked as the afterimage flashed onto his eyelids, and was about to turn back and collect his gear when he caught sight of a figure standing outside the main tent.
The figure waved, raising an arm, indicating north, to the sky. Sheldon turned to look just as his ears picked up a new sound, a rhythmic thumping, faint at first then louder as it broke through the clouds. It was a helicopter.
They had company.
-
It seemed to take an agonizing length of time for their guest to land. They stood beneath an awning, eyes shielded from the whirling dust, watching as the chopper dipped low, hovered, rose up again, then finally settled down level. The noise was immense; it was like being trapped in a broom closet with a very small hurricane. Sheldon could only give a silent nod of thanks to the habit he had cultivated over many years of fieldwork of securing any exposed dig to a point where it could practically endure a nuclear attack. Or at least, a moderately ferocious storm. He almost wished for one, if only to get out of this dreary meeting.
After a minute or so the rotor slowed and the cabin door opened. A man in a suit clambered out, clutching a briefcase. He caught sight of Sheldon and Leonard, gave a small wave, and began to pick his way across the soft ground.
Unimpressed, Sheldon glanced over, and then, more pointedly, to his watch.
"This is a waste of time," he said.
"Now, now." Leonard spoke through his teeth, smiling in the man's direction. He waved back. "Play nice."
"Okay. I can do that. But I'll let you in on a little secret, Leonard. I believe everyone has a place and a role on this planet. And wealthy, faceless philanthropists who fund digs and University professors should, in my opinion, stay that way."
There was a pause. Leonard just stared at him. "What way?" he asked.
"Faceless." Sheldon tutted. "Pay attention."
"Right, I see. And does that same theory apply to their lawyers?" Without waiting for a reply, Leonard stepped forward and stuck out his hand. "Hi, welcome! It's Rajesh, right?"
The man nodded brightly. "It is, it is. Except only my parents call me that. Well, and my sister, when she's annoyed with me, but who's counting. It's Raj, please." He spoke in a pleasant British accent, smiling at them both.
Sheldon gazed back, not moving. He waited to be acknowledged first, before nodding a stiff hello. "Dr. Cooper."
"Raj Koothrappali. I'm with Gablehauser and Siebert."
"Yes, Mr. Koothrappali, I'm well aware of who you are."
"Then I should say the same. Your reputation precedes you, Doctor." Raj laughed nervously, and glanced at Leonard. "That is, er, the both of you..."
Sheldon shoved his hands in his pockets. He had visions of this going on forever, unending pleasantries circling around a nonexistent point. "Look, I apologize for appearing rude," he said, only half lying, "but I have a very exciting find that's close to full excavation, and as much as I enjoy some good old fashioned mutual admiration when dealing with members of the legal fraternity, I'd much sooner be out there than-"
He broke off. In the last few seconds as he'd been speaking something new had appeared in the lawyer's expression, as if the stumbling disposition had been hurriedly tucked away, replaced with the clear focus of a person who had anticipated such a reaction, and knew perfectly well how to respond.
"Dr. Cooper, forgive me. I know what your work means to you. But my client is an influential man. And he rather insists that I speak to the two of you in person. So..." Raj tapped a finger to the briefcase, and nodded to the interior of the tent. "Shall we?"
-
Of course, the first thing Sheldon did when they had settled on three uncomfortable chairs, and once Leonard had hastily cleared the table of journals, geological charts and month old catalogues, was to immediately get up again, walk to the tiny kitchen, and say over one shoulder, "You don't mind if I eat while you talk, Raj? No? Carry on, then, I'll just be here, exploring the refrigerator."
He could almost hear the exasperation crackle on Leonard's face. He ignored it. It was like water off his back, something he'd grown used to after more than a decade spent working together. "Ah, there you are," Sheldon murmured, unwrapping the sandwich. He inspected the lettuce, deemed it to be still crisp and therefore consumable, and wandered back to the table.
"Wil Wheaton doesn't just spring random lawyers on his hard working projects without prior notice," he said, chewing thoughtfully. "I mean you people normally make appointments in order to make other appointments. Which usually turn out to be a request for something almost completely random, like the gestation period of African ostriches, or whether I happen to take vitamin B supplements." Sheldon gestured to the briefcase Raj had placed on the table, still unopened. "So I assume...this...is something along the same lines?"
He swallowed. Two pairs of eyes were staring up at him.
"What?"
"Are you finished?" Leonard folded his arms. "I think there's about four hours of daylight left, and I wouldn't want you to stop and draw breath before then if you didn't absolutely have to."
They shared a look. There was once a time when Sheldon's grasp of sarcasm was pretty much nonexistent, and while this had improved over the years, if there was one thing that a life spent working at the top of his field had taught him, it was that sometimes it was just simpler to revert to silence and admit defeat. Naturally he considered this method of keeping the peace to be fairly unimaginative, no matter how unsubtly Leonard rolled his eyes behind those glasses. After all, he was the holder of two doctorates, not to mention his mother's nails to the ground streak of stubbornness, and he would stay to his last held breath under the belief that to back away from an argument, no matter how petty, was always the wrong choice.
Still. It struck him that now might be one of those times, so he sat down.
Raj, who had been observing all this silent communication with the faintest of smiles, turned now to the briefcase and clicked open the locks, taking out papers, several maps, and what looked to be architectural drawings. He spread the larger pieces out over the table, and handed them each a bound volume, a sort of mockup folder scattered with tabs and colored memo cards. On the cover was the Cenetic logo, the familiar red and blue helix design they had seen on every fax, email circular, business card and company tweet since funding had been agreed upon from this very new, and very media-shy genetics outfit, headed up by that all-round magnet to controversy, multi-billionaire Wil Wheaton. It had been Wheaton's interest in dinosaurs, which he claimed, quite innocently and truthfully, to be a hangup from childhood he'd never been able to shake, that had seen Sheldon's department at UC Berkeley acquire new tools and the means to keep hot weather digs such as this one open for longer, not to mention being able to lure the best students. The advantages, the autonomy, it outweighed anything else. As uneasy as it made him feel, he knew this sort of philanthropy would always be a part of their work, and he had grown to count on it.
And yet Sheldon had never met Wheaton. Neither had Leonard, and it was Leonard who tended to 'deal with the dollars', as Sheldon liked to put it; and after eighteen months, he would have thought that one of these private helicopter charters might finally contain the man himself, rather than a proxy in a flashy suit. Not that he desired in any way to meet and greet; Wheaton was as unfamiliar and inscrutable as his company logo was blandly recognizable. It was this fact above all else that most annoyed Sheldon.
No...not annoy. It was closer to an itch he couldn't scratch. The way they were both bound to a face that neither of them really knew. And if he were honest he would admit that yes, there was also resentment in knowing he could never have achieved as much as he had without such a benefactor, as if every small success came with a bitter taste that wouldn't wash away. Probably not the healthiest way to conduct a business relationship, but then Sheldon had yet to find any that was.
He flicked through the pages. The typeface was dense, the language overtly technical. It looked like a manual for a very specialized piece of lab equipment, but with slightly out-of-place overtones, as if that piece of lab equipment happened to also double as a guesthouse, or underground bunker.
"And this is..." asked Sheldon, turning the book over and scanning the index for clues.
Raj spread out his hands. "Mr. Wheaton's latest project. Well, I say latest, but it has really been in incubation for some ten or so years, curbed in the early days by the fact that the technology was not yet there, the potential he was looking for elusive to nonexistent. In the years since he has had to, how shall I put it...apply new thinking to the science."
Both of Leonard's eyebrows were trying their best to meet in the middle. "Incubation?" he repeated.
A smile tweaked at Raj's lips. "So to speak."
"What new thinking?" Sheldon set the pages down with a thud and returned to his sandwich. "I don't like vague gobbledygook, Mr. Koothrappali, especially when it affects my work."
"So I've found."
Was it in the legal code somewhere, Sheldon wondered, that all lawyers be as purposely obscure as possible, every moment of every day? "To be brutally honest with you, all I see here is a lesson in speculative chaos." He paused to examine a small, oddly shaped radio collar. "And what appears to be a leftover screen prop from a Michael Bay movie..."
"Sheldon." Leonard's gaze was sharp, the warning clear in his voice.
But Sheldon ignored him. Something half-hidden under Raj's shirtsleeve had caught his attention. "Show me that," he said.
The lawyer pushed it across the table. A small object, a fragment of something broken. Sheldon picked it up, turning it over in his palm. It was crisp and smooth.
"You're kidding." Leonard's eyes narrowed. "That's..."
"This is an eggshell," said Sheldon. "Of a dinosaur."
Raj nodded. "That's right."
"It's real."
"Very real."
Sheldon gazed at Raj, gazed at him hard until he thought he saw something click.
"You came with an invitation." He wasn't asking this time; he knew. "To where?"
"To meet with my client. He thinks it's about time you saw what he's been putting his money into. That new thinking...it has built him a little place, you see." Raj leaned back, smoothed down the line of his collar, a look of knowing on his handsome face. "I think you'll find it most interesting."
-
Rajesh stepped out to make a phone call, and after about fifteen seconds of gazing solidly into the middle distance, Sheldon scraped his chair back, and he too left the table.
For a moment it was quiet, and very still, and all that could be heard was the ticking of a clock propped up against some shelving. Leonard, still sitting, took off his glasses and wiped a smudge off the lens. He didn't put them back on, though, choosing instead to watch the world in a comforting blur. Sometimes when things got too hectic, or when Sheldon became too overbearing in his need to compulsively align the entire universe to his every whim, Dr. Leonard Hofstadter, palaeobotanist and weekend chess enthusiast, would retire to his small corner of the makeshift lab in the adjoining tent and quite literally stare at a wall. There was nothing remotely relaxing about it; the inevitable headache usually came in under a minute; but it meant he was forced to stop and think. Or not. Either way the result was the same.
Clarity.
If everything the lawyer was alluding to was even a tiny bit true, was even a millionth of a microscopic fraction in the vicinity of proven fact-then clarity was what they were going to need. And a hell of a lot of it.
He took a breath, held it for a few seconds, and put his glasses back on. The first thing to come into focus was the plastic wrapping of Sheldon's sandwich. He thought back to the exchange they'd had. There'd been some threat to eat it himself. Probably a good thing he was such a passive adversary, he thought. He couldn't stand tuna.
"Christ alive," he murmured, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Don't be ironic, Leonard, it doesn't suit you." Sheldon breezed inside and stood in the middle of the room, hands on his hips. He exhaled loudly. "He's out there now, talking to some guy who's apparently holding a charter plane for us. This is ridiculous. It's...it's bordering on fantasy!"
"Well, I'd agree with you, but I'm too busy applauding you recognizing irony."
Sheldon gave him a withering stare. Leonard sighed and waved him away, rising from the chair to stretch out the kinks in his arms. Outside the tent, some of the kids were coming in along the tracks, carrying electronic equipment and various other pieces of gear, talking, getting ready to pack up the for the day. High spirits. He knew how they felt.
Dinosaurs, he thought. They were fantasies too, once, before the first scientific words had made them real.
"Aren't you curious?" asked Sheldon, quietly now. There was something tight in his voice, as if he didn't want it said out loud. He came over and leaned against the awning, one hand lifted to block the sharp angle of the sun. Together they watched Raj as the lawyer turned in a slow circle, the phone still held tight to his ear.
"Yes," said Leonard.
"Me too."
It was not a hard decision to make.
-
There was enough daylight to take the chopper back to town that same evening, however for this to happen they had to be packed and ready to go in half an hour, or else the pilot would have to come back the next morning. It was Raj's assumption, perhaps a naive one, that they might like to avail themselves of the first option and save a little company dime, as he jokingly put it. But Sheldon's complaints of needing at least a night to prepare were so immediately vocal that Leonard was forced to step into neutral ground before things got even more awkward than they already were. Raj took the hint graciously, accepting the offer of a bed with multiple assurances of how much Mr. Wheaton was looking forward to seeing his star dinosaur experts.
"Well, I'm actually a palaeobotanist-" Leonard began.
"Oh." Raj looked confused. "So, what, you dig up old...leaves?"
There was a long pause. While Leonard hid a sigh, Sheldon drifted past with a toothbrush in hand. "Just nod, it'll be less painful," he said in an undertone, leaving Leonard to wonder if it would simply be better for all involved if he went and stared at a wall again.
-
The morning they woke to was vivid and clear, promising another fiercely hot day, but once inside the helicopter Sheldon felt goosebumps rise on his forearms. He didn't like flying, not one bit, and as they gained height his hands kept returning to the safety harness, because quite frankly it didn't seem at all sufficient a means of keeping him in one piece if indeed they were to catch and spin into a great fireball out here in the wilds. Eventually Leonard shot him a look and Sheldon relented, turning to the cabin window to stare at the rolling country, far below.
There were to be a few stops along the way, Raj told them, mostly to refuel and take in some supplies. They would be changing to a private jet in Los Angeles, where they would also be picking up two more passengers, one being Wil Wheaton himself, and from there would pass over the remainder of California direct to San Jose.
"This mysterious second, is it someone we know?" asked Leonard, but Raj was busy chatting to the pilot and didn't hear him. Meanwhile Sheldon shrugged and closed his eyes. He was still fighting sleep from the early start, and had about as much interest in small talk as he had in needing to know where their lawyer friend had acquired his dashing silk tie. Soon he fell asleep, his worries kept quiet by the thrum of the engine.
-
"Welcome everybody! Dr. Cooper, Dr. Hofstadter, I'm so glad you were able to join us. I hope the ride wasn't too rough on you. That chopper's not as quiet as some of the newer models, and I've been meaning to replace it for ages now-but it's sort of like throwing away a pair of favorite tennis shoes. Hard to do."
Wil Wheaton wore black jeans, a white t-shirt beneath a grey jacket, and a smile on his bearded face as broad as the Californian sky. As soon as they had landed he had been at the cabin door, swinging it open and offering his hand to help them down, his greeting made loud over the roar of activity surrounding them. But, despite the air of casualness, they'd had barely time to shake hands before being marched onto a very luxurious and discreetly staffed private jet. Money, Sheldon thought, really did buy one most of anything.
"Uh, Mr. Wheaton," said Leonard, as they found their seats, "are you able to tell us anything more about this place of yours? You have to...well, you have to forgive us for being slightly confused..."
"Wil."
"Excuse me?"
"Leonard, Leonard. It's going to be a long couple of days if we have to go around offering up our name, rank and serial number every time we need the key to the bathroom, don't you think?"
"Right...what?"
Wheaton clapped him on the shoulder. "I mean," he said, with a grin. "Call me Wil." He turned to face the others. "Guys, look, there will be plenty of time for questions, I assure you. Now please, I have staff here with very little to do apart from pour you the most fantastic coffee that I'm allowed to have brewing at forty thousand feet, so...sit, make yourselves comfortable. We'll be in the air again in about fifteen minutes. I'm sorry it can't be sooner but that's the FAA for you. Feel free to direct all complaints to my legal representative here."
And with that he stepped out of the cabin, leaving Sheldon, Leonard and Raj to look at one another in silence
Raj was the first to speak. "Oh, and by the way, he didn't really mean that last bit. About the FAA. Believe you me, I have enough on my plate as it is without the national air regulatories getting their curtails in a knot." He went to the back of the cabin to begin unpacking his things. Within moments he had a laptop out and was typing fast.
With a sigh, Sheldon folded himself into his seat. It was over the wheelbase, which he normally couldn't stand, but for the life of him he just wanted to sit and at this point would've happily taken a rattan highchair on a barge down the Yukon.
"Sheldon." Leonard's voice drifted over from the opposite window. A stewardess with attractive features and a quiet, patient smile had materialized from nowhere and was standing between them in the narrow aisle. "They have chamomile tea. You want one?"
No, Sheldon didn't want chamomile tea. He wanted to know what sort of rabbit hole his brain had fallen into when he'd agreed to partake in this sidetrip to nowhere. So he'd seen a shell. So what of it? It could be anything. What sort of scientist was he if he hadn't at least stood up and demanded proper answers the minute some childhood flash of excitement had manifested itself like a rude gesture he had no means of controlling. What sort of idea was it to come all this way at the beck and call of someone who wanted to be best friends on sight-
"Wow, boys, we got a party going on here, or what?"
In the time it had taken Sheldon to agonize over the last day and every moment from here on in, Wheaton had returned. And by his side, sporting a messy braid and a t-shirt with the words I LIVE TO SING, was someone he had never seen in person, who wouldn't know him in turn from the vast galaxy to an empty room, but someone who was so immediately familiar that Sheldon had to force himself to look the other way in order to hide the realization he was sure was flashing in neon lights across his face. Of course Wheaton would bring her. Of course. She was only the poster girl for a generation of women in an era that had fielded men to the forefront of every achievement and prize; the voice that called out to daytime TV and the face that struck poses for magazines hungry for brains and beauty. No matter that her opinions were wild, or that she made whole mountains of chaos from fact. She had ideas and Wheaton wanted to hear them.
She was, in short, every cell and every fracture of DNA his complete opposite...and there was pitifully little he could do about it.
The stewardess, perhaps sensing his mood from the fact that he was suddenly trying to stare lasers through the bulkhead, placed a cup on his tray table before the unhappiness could morph into stormy angst. He murmured thanks without making a sound, and slumped a little deeper, feeling the first notes of the engines start up from beneath his feet. Despite his best intentions, his eyes kept returning to the braid, the end of which she was now touching absently with dark-polished nails.
If she noticed his reaction she hid it well. The way her eyes flickered his way, though, he suspected that situation was not going to last.
"This," said Wil Wheaton, "is Dr. Malcolm."
"You left out the most important bit of my name there, guy. I hope you don't do that to all the girls you swing onto private jets." She popped the piece of gum in her mouth and gave them all a wave. When she smiled it was if her whole face turned bright. "It's Penny."
Penny Malcolm stepped down the aisle, greeting them in turn, and when she got to Sheldon she said hello, once, and took the seat behind him before he could respond. He heard the click of a seatbelt being snapped tight, and Leonard's voice, small talk, wondering if she'd had far to come...but then the wheels began to move, the engine kicking up a gear. If she gave an answer, it was lost to the noise.
-
The words may have been spoken lightly, but anyone who knew her well was all too aware that she took absolute pride in her name.
Her mother had wanted to name her Cally-Caroline-after a great aunt who'd lived out east in Knox County, Nebraska, and had grown up in a house full of boys to end up practically running the town. But in the late eighties she'd had a falling out with that side of the family, and grew closer to her husband as she grew distant in her pregnancy. Her father liked the name but thought a few altered letters had a better ring to it, and so Penny was born.
She was what the teachers liked to call a directionless child. Nobody went and told her what to do or where to go. She waited partway through high school for a ways forward, because it seemed like you had to go where your parents told you, or at least, that was how her small group of friends made it out to be, what with their ranch clubs and pony shows, blue ribbons and smiles from daddy. But still nothing came. It was a strange blow, disappointing for a girl who had ambition, who felt it so keenly that it kept her awake through whole nights. She couldn't give a name to what this feeling was, or where she wanted to see it end. Instead she counted the shell-shaped ridges in the plaster ceiling above her bed, made patterns from those numbers, and in the early mornings during summer, when leading out their string of cows to the back pastures, she would cut open the bales of hay and see those same sequences and lines in the heads of grass as they fell, cross-bladed, to the ground. Something pricked at her skin after that, and when she shocked her teachers by proving equations from sight it occurred to her that it might never have been ambition at all, but a void instead, one she'd seen open and now knew how to close.
That was her safety, the thick lined compartments that held the laws she learnt to rely upon and to trust. Laws made up of strange symbols: plus and minus, division sharp as the speed at which she worked in her head. Messy, tangled abstraction. On the outside she let herself go wild, smoke yards and in college get sky high with the best of the best, because she always knew she could beat them.
She was a rock star in a dusty sphere. She bit her nails to the quick and made her bed with odd sheets.
It was at a seminar at MIT where she first met Wheaton. She was on her way back west, and told him that for all the brilliance and bullshit she'd put up with in that school, she wanted nothing more than to get out of there. He'd bought her iced tea at some falling-to-bits antiquarian bookstore in the city, and asked if she could look at a flock of birds and pick out the one with the strongest wings.
His face was interesting to her. She could see immediately how smart he was, how he was used to getting to every place he wanted to be. He said he was working on something: a kind of game changing something, he called it, with a grin. Hollywood flash talk, she thought. They flirted gamely; she told him he needed to slow down.
That was seven months ago, and every day since, Penny had wondered.
-
A humid and heavy sky met them at San Jose.
That, and another helicopter.
"Will the joys of modern transportation never end?" asked Sheldon. "What next? Are we to finish the day in a mine cart?"
Raj was the only one who laughed at this; Leonard pretended to ignore him, and their new acquaintance Dr. Malcolm seemed more interested in reading something on her phone. Sheldon had the height advantage of being able to peer easily over her shoulder, and it was only politeness that stopped him from demanding to know why she needed a brownie recipe in the middle of an airstrip.
Meanwhile, Wheaton had jumped ahead to greet the pilot, a short, muscular man wearing a Cenetic baseball cap. He appeared flustered and stony-faced, and kept shaking his head at Wheaton. But when they came within earshot his expression turned pleasant, and he welcomed them with a nod.
"Ah, yeah, I should mention that," said Wheaton, angling his head toward the phone in Penny's hand as they climbed into the cabin. "You're going to find that fairly useless out where we're going. A drawback of isolation, I'm afraid. We're working on getting the network up and running, of course, but it's still in the bare bones stages. That applies for most of everything."
Sheldon, who was slightly more concerned by the fact that his safety harness was doing its level best to turn into the Gordian knot, turned a portion of his frown in Wheaton's direction. "I assume at some point you will expand on what exactly that everything is? You have to forgive me for being curious. Call it a scientist's fault."
But Wheaton didn't hear this; he was busy talking to the pilot again, and eventually Sheldon untangled the nylon straps and pulled them tight.
"You know," he said to Leonard, who was seated next to him, "I can’t help thinking that somewhere out there there's a parallel universe in which that man is either my mortal enemy," and here he paused, lost in thought as the engine kicked into life and they rose and turned nose to the ocean, "or my dearest of friends."
-
His first thought was that it couldn't be real. He would, of course, later blame the sheer whimsy of this reaction to the teeth-chattering turbulence they were subjected to during the helicopter ride from the coast out to this tiny speck in the Pacific. It struck him that the closest thing he could compare it to was something from a 1950s pop science fiction novella, cast neatly in the shadow of Jules Verne.
The island rose to greet them from the tumbling ocean, top heavy and sheer on all sides, green peaks scattering birds out to sea.
"Jesus Mary." Penny's voice came over the mic, loud in his ears. "You'd better have King Kong down there, or I'll be asking for my money back."
-
Sheldon Cooper stepped onto ground that was wet and sodden with rain, and he breathed in deeply. The air had a sweet sensation to it that was pleasant at first, but all too quickly he felt a burn at the back of his throat and a familiar taste coating his tongue. Though he might claim rightly to live a scientist's life, there would always be some aspects of the natural world that he preferred not to experience first hand.
"Sulphur." He coughed into the crook of his elbow. "Ugh, lovely."
"Yep," said Wheaton. "Once upon a time, this place would've been spewing lava every which way but down. You'll get used to it." He shrugged gamely, a friendly gesture like a salesman accepting all blame, and nodded to where two brightly painted Jeeps were pulling up. Wheaton turned, raised his voice to include the others. "Okay, here's our ride, guys. Hop in."
They drove down a rough-cut dirt road into jungle, the overhead canopy so immediately dense that the effect was like entering a tunnel. Sheldon winced, not for the first time, as they hit a pothole, causing one of his shoulders to bump against Leonard and the other against the passenger door. Wheaton and Raj were in the leading Jeep, and through the windscreen of their own he could just make out the angle of the road ahead. He couldn't help feeling that they'd done little but follow and be led since sunrise. It was not a feeling he enjoyed.
A few minutes passed in this way, before the trees began to space out, the scenery change. He heard the new call of birds, and what he first thought were monkeys, a low hoot, like a drum. But when he craned his head he couldn't see anything except leaves and sky.
Then the road broke into open field, and the change from dark to light was so sudden that he had to blink several times so his eyes could adjust. To the right, at the bend of a hill, a tree stood tall in stark profile, casting a shadow across the grass.
The Jeep in front slowed; a moment later he felt their driver touch the brakes.
Sheldon stared out the window. He stopped blinking.
It was no tree.
In the front passenger seat Penny Malcolm was fiddling with her hair, sweeping aside loose strands that had fallen across her eyes. She was sweating, and waved a hand in front of her face. "Damn, it's hot." With a sigh she twisted her shoulders around, looking them over with a crooked expression. "You guys are real talkers, aren't you? Oh well, I guess we'll have plenty of time to get to know one another, seeing as he's got us here the whole weekend. Except I'm pretty sure I'll only need half that to drum into him what he can't seem to get into that ego-laced head of his-"
In a single movement he had jammed his body against the door and was stumbling out of the car. He could feel his heart thud, the heat of sudden shock pouring through him as he took two, three steps back, almost tripping onto the road. His eyes never left the sky. There came the sound of two more doors slamming shut as Leonard and Penny followed him out.
"What the hell, Sheldon..." began Leonard.
But Sheldon stopped him. "Look up," he said.
It was no tree. It was the long, languid, blood pumping neck of a creature that had died out near to sixty-five million years ago.
There, not thirty feet away.
They were standing in the shadow of a dinosaur.
-
"Now see, that's what I call an introduction," said Wheaton. He smacked his hands together and shot a grin at the rear view mirror, to where Raj Koothrappali was sitting. "Fan-freaking-tastic. Gets me every time."
Raj nodded but didn't reply. His briefcase was propped open between his knees, he had one hand inside and was trying to extract a paper copy without disturbing everything else he'd carefully arranged. They had resumed their ride down the dirt road.
"When do you expect to get the grading equipment back here, Mr. Wheaton?" he asked mildly. "Only I seem to recall that you'd signed off this area some five months ago. Same with..." He paused as they sped over another rough section, looked down and realized that his hand was gripping the exact piece he wanted, though it was now crushed slightly and had several fingernail marks at one edge. He smoothed it out and ran his eyes down the list. "Same with, uh, the pylons in the smaller dactyl cage, the air ducts in the nursery complex, and several other items which I'm sure you are well aware have fallen very much behind schedule. Plus, I've been told by your head ranger, Ms. Winkle-several times, in fact, but who's counting-that the electric fencing leading down to the river is still tacky in places, and the orthies have taken to chewing on the connecting ties. Apparently they like the color blue."
Wheaton waved a hand. "Details. Rough edges in an otherwise brilliant diamond, my friend." He turned to the driver and said, "Take the next right, would you? I think they're running cable down the maintenance blocks, and I'd rather not set Wolowitz on edge while we have actual company..." Then he glanced back into the mirror, smiling easily. "Diamonds. Things the world stands in awe of. Five, ten years, you come back here, tell me I'm wrong. Hell, you can even tell me now."
"Okay," said Raj slowly, "I'll skip right by that metaphor for a moment and instead ask you this: are you aware of what those details actually mean? Here's an example. That electrician you fired last month, Larry Enberg, did you know he was going to some journalist or other with a full and frighteningly undisclosed account of everything he'd seen and done over five months of cable routing through some extremely sensitive areas? I had to fly to Long Island to talk him down. And then, just as I think I'm getting somewhere, Gablehauser gets a phone call in the middle of the ninth hole at Maui from someone high up who knows this guy's damn mother! His mother, I might add, who very kindly made it clear to me that she will be taking the hatred of all lawyers everywhere to her grave. So I've got your PR people in one ear looking to squeeze a half-decent angle from this mess, and now my boss in the other asking me to get a handle on these details before they start splitting like damn amoebas! So. This is not me telling you you're wrong, Mr. Wheaton. This is me telling you to listen."
He jammed the briefcase shut, catching his thumb in the process. For a long moment there was no sound but the tires rolling over the gravel, and then Wheaton turned in his seat. He looked at Raj carefully.
"Feel better?"
It wasn't teasing; there was something in his voice that reminded Raj of the serious, young entrepreneur he had met about five years ago, when the project first started getting some serious leverage. He knew that man was still there. It was just hard work getting through to him beneath all the layers of blitheness, the jokes, the thumps on tired shoulders and requests to call me Wil.
"Listen, I understand where you're coming from," said Wheaton, when Raj didn't reply. "This is a hell of a thing to realize, and you, man-you've practically been there from the start. I know you get a lot of shit kicked your way. Anyone with less of a vision would've walked away long ago. I really do appreciate that."
Raj wasn't exactly sure if he had a vision. Or, if he did, whether it sat in the same realm as someone who for most of his adult life had hoarded his intelligence as if it had been under lock and key, only to let it fly with one brutal and astonishing achievement.
"Yes, well, it's my job," he said quietly, glancing out the window just in time to see the sauropod lift its neck and gently rip the high branches of a tree.
When he turned back Wheaton was still watching him, a knowing gaze only broken when the Jeep swept beneath a high arched gate. He felt the hum of fresh asphalt replacing the dirt, and saw that the tropical flowers which had been planted just a few months back were now sprouting in vivid color. Raj knew, having sighted the landscaping budget, that they weren't native to the island. Nothing spared, he thought.
"Excellent," said Wheaton, and Raj couldn't tell whether this was directed at him, at everyone, or that his client was simply speaking to himself. He decided it didn't matter.
They drove along the road, towards the main building.
-
One of the ceiling lights was flickering. A long fluorescent tube, high up in the corner. As she stood in the doorway, hands clasped around a mug of cooling tea, Amy Fowler considered the hours that had gone into designing every curve and corner of this building, and wondered how, in all those dollars and lucrative contracts, they had still managed to install basic fittings that fell apart so regularly that you could set your watch by them.
She stared a moment longer. It was almost calming. In an entirety perverse way, of course.
Her eyes were caught by a slight figure in the middle of the room.
"Howard," she said, nodding.
"I know, I see it. I called maintenance. If nobody turns up in the next hour I'm breaking occupational health and safety protocol, stealing a damn step ladder and yanking out the bastard myself."
Howard Wolowitz punctuated this statement by twisting his neck and stretching both arms out. He looked rough, she thought. She wandered in and let the door close. "And you've been up now for...how long?" she asked. "You know these people aren't really going to change anything in his mind. He just wants to show off, now that us poor harried souls have become immune to it all."
"I've slept."
"Yeah?" Amy looked over, trying not to appear amused. "With a stack of printouts as your pillow and the tiny chipmunk blast from Kripke's headphones soothing you to the land of nod? Sounds very relaxing."
He shrugged. When she came closer and glanced over his shoulder she saw that he was looking at the map again. The map was a real time picture of what was happening throughout the island. It took up almost half of a large bench situated in the center of a bank of video surveillance monitors, and was the focal point of the control room. From this place Howard could oversee everything and anything. Which was mostly good, but it also gave him about a hundred new things to stress about each day. No one could deny his brilliance as an engineer, no one could argue against the way he had managed to pull the logistics together on what was, really, a project of meteor-impact proportions.
But he was very good at forgetting himself, of that small thing known as down time. His own wife could tell that to anyone. Quite easily, actually, seeing as she worked for Wheaton too.
Still, it was hardly Amy's place to throw such claims around. She practically lived in her laboratory. She was simply very, very good at ignoring her own life, choosing instead to carefully analyse those around her. Enigmatic bosses; married, bickering couples; shy lawyers-and Amy. As a bright, young geneticist, she could have had her pick of options after her doctorate, and she chose the private sector, not for the money-which was good as well as a good excuse, allowing her to send her mother away on endless vacations so as to spare Amy of the maternal grievance over her disciplined and somewhat monastic life-but because of the force behind it. The senior employees of Cenetic all had stories to tell, and Dr. Amy Fowler's was the longest running.
Not that Wheaton minded her any more than he did the chef who cooked him barbeque at his private quarters. Mutual distance lent itself to respect. She was happier that way.
"What are you working on, then?" asked Howard. He glanced at her hands. "The amazing hot liquid that never cools?"
Amy set the mug down. "I wish. No, it's EK9887. I think we're close to signing off on version 4. Only the third cycle. But this one's more robust, minimal UV reaction. I think he'll be pleased."
This brought a half-smile to Howard's lips, that familiar precursor to sarcasm. She knew what he was thinking. Wheaton rarely noticed. He gave such free rein that to drill down into the minute specifics, like the impossibly fine changes Amy was talking about when she spoke of cycles and versions, it just wasn't part of the operation. That was Howard's place; that was Amy's. That was for the select few who had been given every opportunity, however lighting fast it had changed in the last years especially, and however strange and bewildering it was. Dinosaurs. Created and bred and raised. And living. It was enough to erase doubt in even the most ironclad skeptic. Amy knew this. She had been one herself.
Speaking of which...
"That them?" she asked, glancing at the map, where the two dots that had been moving for the last fifteen or so minutes in a gradual loop across the teardrop-shaped island had come to a stop outside the main building.
"Yep. New blood, come to play and be shocked beyond measure." Howard rubbed his hands together, and raised his eyebrows. "That's what we do, right? That's our game?"
She thought: You really do need sleep. But all she did was shrug a little, and say, "Then I guess they'll be wanting something a bit stronger than cold tea."
-
All in all, they actually looked reasonably calm and rational for a group of people who had quite literally just had the impossible loom over them.
"Come in, come in," said Wheaton, while Amy and Howard duly arranged themselves in the middle of the room, the smallest and most forgettable of welcoming committees. She thought their boss looked a little harried himself, but then she saw the suited figure of Raj step inside, arms folded tightly, and reassigned the adjective. She caught his eye and gave him a friendly nod. He nodded back, but didn't smile.
The one with the glasses and hooded jacket was the first to offer his hand. There was something about him that was immediately calming; unlike his tall companion, who gave his name in the most perfunctory manner possible, his gaze darting birdlike around the room. She could see that his skin was pale around the lips and cheeks, his fingers absently playing with the buttons of his shirtsleeve.
Then there was Penny.
Amy tried not to stare at her. This was mostly difficult and she was mostly unsuccessful. Fortunately the mathematician seemed intent on shooting down Howard's full on charm assault; the rest of the time, her face was unreadable.
"I hope you had a pleasant trip," said Amy, when the conversation-what there was of it-hit a lull.
"Oh..." Leonard nodded quickly. "Um, yes. Yes, very pleasant."
This seemed to amuse Sheldon to no end. His colleague merely folded his arms and proceeded to examine the carpet. It looked like a familiar exchange, one that made her immediately curious as to their relationship. And they were so calm, she thought. Maybe it was only the barest of holds keeping a lid on what she was sure were dozens of questions they were dying to ask. Some they'd never really get answers for. Either way, it would be a long process getting there, more than one fly-in weekend could ever provide, that was for sure.
For Amy, this was something she could now only experience through those around her, always guessing what her own reaction might have been if she were put in the same position. Hers had been an incremental process; in a way, the end result had been no different than that first breakthrough, a string of letters on a digital readout, that kink in the sequence leading her to dial Wheaton's cell-this a man that she barely knew-and tell him there was a chance, just a chance, that something monumental had happened. That she could see where this was going. If he wanted it to.
He hadn't said yes. He'd turned up in her lab the next day and tripled his offer.
She watched him now; he had an eye on everyone, everything, moving about with an energy that seemed to almost fill the room. Whatever it was he was running on, Amy thought, taking up her mug and holding it against the white of her lab coat, hoping for a little warmth and finding none, she had a feeling that it only just ramping up.
And then, almost as quickly as they had come in, the slightly shell-shocked group was ushered out again, Wheaton's voice trailing behind and loudly proclaiming an open kitchen and food for all.
"Interesting bunch." Howard was back at the table, peering once again at the map. He spoke quietly and didn't look at her. "Think you can convince them we're not all pulling rabbits out of hats there, Amy?"
She glanced at the top of his head. "You mean we," she said, and left the room.
-
It was never his intention to be a success. From the time he could first shout out an argument or voice an opinion, he considered himself to be no more than an entertainer, juggling action figurines and juice boxes before he could keep two feet on a skateboard, taking on the role of the grand old showman while still in short pants and with baby fat blushing pink in his cheeks. Aged nine he announced to the family that his greatest hero was Henry Houdini, and it was his born duty to not only emulate this man, but one day better him.
His mother’s favorite words were Oh and Wil, typically in that order. William’s Bazaar, she called his little act. His many cousins served as clowns and lions, willing victims and laughing critics; an audience when he had none.
It was not success when he made his first million. It was not success when he rode out the worst shocks of the global financial crisis (both times round as the Greek crow flew, he would often point out) with his venture capitalists still on side and quietly whispering for more. It was trust.
Looking now at the faces around the table and the expressions they held-Sheldon's steely and distrusting, Leonard's worn to the bone, and Penny's flat out amused-he acknowledged, albeit reluctantly, that this one might take a little longer to reach the dealbreaker stage. These three were coming in at the tail end when they hadn't been through the trials and failures and endless, debilitating long nights when he'd had his geneticist, his engineer, his star colleagues tell him over and again that he was wasting time, money, hope, good intentions. To an outsider with any modicum of sense, yes, it was ridiculous. Hollywood science. A multi-billion dollar slight of hand. Wheaton was man enough to nod, laugh, say yeah, I get it. And he would follow that up with but think about this...
Because he knew better. He knew how to win
As they ate, Wheaton spoke eloquently. It was a skill he had, and one that rarely failed him. He figured a working kitchen, well-lit and full of polished chrome, hanging pots and the like, set a casual enough of a backdrop; that he would be better listened to if he didn't stand before a static vid presentation to read from what was basically a press pack without the press. He knew his politics. This was a tough sell. He wanted to be raising an index finger over leftover roast beef and mustard with his jacket undone. A billionaire for the people, a man with a vision.
So he told them a story. The one about how they'd cloned dinosaurs.
When he finished speaking, he took a drink of water. It brought an air of reassurance to the gaping silence, which, by the way, he was getting damn good at predicting. But a piece of ice hit his bottom teeth, and he was forced to cough slightly through the punchline of "Any questions?"
Fortunately no one seemed to notice. Then Sheldon raised his hand.
"Dr. Cooper."
"Thank you. Yes, I have a question. It is in thirty-five parts."
Penny groaned. Wheaton shot her a frown. She eyeballed him back and flicked a scrap of lettuce across the table.
"Well, I say question," Sheldon went on, more to himself now, "but I suppose technically it's more of a combined group statement, one in which I believe I am speaking for my esteemed colleagues, too, when I say..."
Wheaton swirled his glass, watching as the last of the ice melted away. "Yes?"
"You need to take us back out there."
continued in part two