Anything-Can-Happen Thursday, for Wizefics (BBT, PG13) (4/4)
Title: Anything-Can-Happen Thursday (4/4)
Author: LilyAyl
Recipient: wizefics
Fandom: The Big Bang Theory
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 13,264
Spoilers (if applicable): General show
Warnings (if applicable): None I can think of.
Summary: After the boys accidentally cause aliens to invade the Earth, Penny helps start the Resistance to save the world.
"I do not believe this darkness will endure."
~Faramir, RotK (film)
Getting into the Woods was actually easier than Penny had anticipated. Dressed in her Ramona disguise, Penny walked through Pasadena until she found a restaurant full of loose-haired Elves.
The hostess wrinkled her nose as Penny walked in. "Great, another wannabe. Look, eating in their favorite places isn't going to make them like you."
Penny shook out her umbrella and dropped it into the stand. "I see reports of Yank rudeness were not exaggerated at all. I require a table for one. Do you suppose you can manage that?" Penny matched Ramona's pitches in her head. She also pictured Sheldon at his worst, using his arrogance to bolster her own.
"Sure, why not? This way."
Penny suppressed a delighted grin when the girl sat her close to several tables full of Elves. She glanced over her menu, played with a fallen lock of hair as she'd seen Ramona do several times the previous day. Frowning with indecisiveness, Penny leaned to the table next to her own. The Elves glared at her.
"Very sorry," Penny said, "but what do you think I should eat? Everything looks good." The sentences were ones she'd practiced repeatedly until they wriggled naturally out of her throat.
The glares became as thunderous as the dark clouds outside. Penny only smiled. "Is something wrong?"
A hand seized her from behind, its grip painful around her upper arm, and pulled her from her chair. The Elf spun her to face him. Little wrinkles dug into his face, deepened by anger. "Who are you?"
"Oh, didn't I say?" Penny said, not needing to fake her fear. "Dr. Ramona Phillips. Linguist. Kirran truly is a love-ah, ow!" Penny tried to prise his fingers from the muscle of her arm, but it did no good. He dragged her outside and all but threw her into a transport.
As she checked her arm to see how bad the bruising would be, the Elf took them to the sky, to the aerial city, into the Woods.
Had the Woods been a painting or, perhaps, a human achievement meant to create shade and livable space in the desert, Penny might have thought it beautiful. Above the smooth metallic ships she always saw from the ground, rested bubbles, glass ships filled with alien trees and wandering people. When lightning flashed, the light bounced off all the surfaces, breaking into an explosion of swift rainbows. The rain cascaded over the glass like waterfalls.
"We have made improvements since you last visited us," the Elf said.
Penny closed her mouth, aware that she had just broken character. "Charming," she said.
"Stop. You aren't her. If you have hurt her, I--"
Penny's eyes widened and pushed back against the side of the transport, trying to create as much distance between her and his anger as possible. "I've done nothing," she said, her accent slipping.
"Who are you?" the Elf asked. His hair rippled and Penny nearly groaned when she saw the small braid hanging amid the loose strands.
"Just, please take me to the central ship. I have to-" She stopped, an idea sparking. "She taught me."
The Elf looked at her and then relaxed. "Is she really safe?" he asked.
Penny breathed. "Yes. She is." Though Ramona might find herself a bit less safe once Penny returned to Moria. Why hadn't she warned Penny about this possibility?
"Good." The Elf altered his course and the central ship loomed large beneath them. "Keep her that way."
Safe as hobbits, Penny thought, but she said nothing. She didn't know what to say.
Spread out along one side of the ship was a large bracket of transports stacked high together. The Elf slowly guided his transport beneath this structure and parked. He grabbed Penny again, but not as hard as before, and dragged her from the car and to a set of doors leading down into the ship. Behind them the transport seemed to crawl on its own to a perch high amid the wires and poles. Penny was still gaping when the doors closed.
"Take down your hair," the Elf said, not looking at her. "You are ridiculous in your effort to be her. Why are you here?"
"Why should I tell you?"
"I could help."
Penny considered the offer, but shook her head. She couldn't rely on an Elf, even if it would make her task easier.
"Why did you take her?"
"I don't know."
The doors opened and the Elf pushed Penny out. "This is where the dangerous people are kept. Tell her you met me. Tell her I helped."
"I will," Penny replied as the doors closed between them. No guards roamed the halls. She had expected cameras, at least, but she saw nothing. As Penny rounded a corner, she expected to see more long, gray halls and anonymous doors. Instead the hall lead to a large room filled with people and tech. Voices buzzed, rising in argument and lowering with sudden ideas that needed just a little more consideration to shine. A spiral of books surrounded by a frame of platforms and tables dominated one section of the room. Computers were everywhere. Some people worked furiously on problems, and others were rolling die and arguing over alignment. She even heard some words in Elvish, which almost surprised her more than anything else. People were building and deconstructing, laughing and learning. Here, for a geek, was paradise.
Then she saw Sheldon standing before a white board in an area clearly marked as his by red and blue cables. He had everything he needed to work, including solitude amid the cacophony. No one dared go near him, Penny noticed, except for one man. Jeff.
Looking around again in vain for guards or overseers, Penny approached Sheldon's space. Moving through the crowd, Penny noticed how people divided their space. Few were as bold as Sheldon, but everyone had their spheres. She noticed how no one walked near the doors, even going out of their way to avoid them. This was still a prison, just a very pretty one. Penny had experience with the pretty prisons; they gave everything you thought you should want and made you forget the stuff you really desired. She thought of the years she had spent earning her father's wide grin and tight hug, happy, but still yearning. College, old boyfriends-- it was always so easy to close your eyes and convince yourself you were content. Prison was still prison, though. The pretty ones were just harder to leave.
Penny tapped Jeff on the shoulder. He tensed, but otherwise showed no reaction. "Let me stand at your side," she quoted. He turned faster than a tornado spinning.
"Penny."
Sheldon dropped his marker and turned. Penny smiled at him over Jeff's shoulder. "Hey, Sheldon," she said, easing back from Jeff's embrace.
Sheldon stared, then, without warning, crossed the feet between them. He stopped only when he reached her, awkward and uncertain. Penny pulled him into a hug and he leaned into her, filling every empty space. Penny squeezed once and patted his back. "Okay, sweetie, that's enough."
Sheldon let go, straightening himself embarrassedly. "I did not realize you were alive," he said. "Please forgive my overly-enthusiastic greeting. I--"
"Sheldon, it's okay," Penny said. "That sort of hug is perfectly acceptable after a long absence during which you never thought you'd see each other again."
"Is it? I shall have to make a note. Well, Penny, I supposed I speak for both of us--" he gestured to Jeff-- "when I ask, what are you doing here?"
Penny threaded Jeff's fingers with her own. "Isn't it obvious?" she asked. "I'm here to rescue you."
"Leah sent you?" Jeff asked.
Penny shook her head. "She said she'd send someone, but I had time on my hands."
"What about the cafe?"
"David is handling it. Everything is fine. So, what are we waiting for? Pack up. Let's go."
"Love to," Jeff said. "Only one slight problem." He looked at Sheldon.
Sheldon rolled his eyes. "How many times must we tread over this issue? I signed a contract. I can't leave until I can prove which is correct, string theory or Belkirs."
Penny slapped a hand over her face. Of course. No cameras. No guards. Just Sheldon. "Great."
"Any ideas? You have more experience with him than I do."
"I'll think of something," Penny promised.
Jeff found some pillows and placed them near Sheldon's workspace. They sat down, Penny leaning back against his chest.
"Why did you come?" he asked, playing with her fingers. Penny couldn't remember the last time they'd been able to relax together.
"Leah said you were in trouble." Penny recounted the events from the past couple days. She could feel Jeff frowning into her hair.
"But I never make contact while in the Woods," Jeff said, interrupting her. "Leah knows that."
"Then I don't know what's going on. She looked really worried."
"Strange. So how did you manage to get in anyway?"
Penny tilted her head up to look at him. "Oh, you know me. I just talked my way in." She laughed at the surprise on his face and explained about Moria and Ramona.
"Can you see the doors?" he asked, abruptly.
Penny looked around. "Of course. Why?"
Jeff waved a hand at everyone else in the room. "They can't. Before the Elves bring them here, they do something that makes them completely avoid the existence of doors. I don't know how. It is like they're scared of them."
"Hence the weird walking around the edges of the room," Penny said. "I was wondering about that. Can Sheldon--?"
"He's fine. He was apparently the first inmate and was such a model prisoner, that they didn't bother tinkering with his head."
"Yeah, when Sheldon gets into a routine, it is nearly impossible to break him out of it. Contracts are even worse. They're as binding as gravity in his head. The only way to get him to leave is to find a loophole or a contradicting and previously existing contract that would take precedence."
"Any ideas?"
Penny watched Sheldon fuss at his work. "Maybe. What day is it today?"
"Um, Thursday, I think."
Penny nodded. "All right. That might work. Hey, Sheldon."
"Yes, Penny?" Sheldon asked, not taking his attention away from his work.
"Do you know what today is?" She put a teasing lilt into her voice.
"No," he said.
"Thursday," she said. "Anything-can-happen Thursday."
Sheldon capped his marker and turned around once more to face her. "When the others created that particular routine, I highly doubt they meant the breakage of agreements and escape from an alien facility."
Penny shrugged. "Who cares what they intended? You gotta move with the times."
"A living document approach, interesting. Regardless, a written agreement does take precedence--"
Penny tilted her head. "Did this contract of yours specifically state that you could disregard Anything-can-happen Thursday?"
"You know," Sheldon said. "I don't believe it did. Well, shall we be off then?"
Penny stood up and reached down to help Jeff up as well. "That's all it took?" Jeff asked, in disbelief. "The day of week?"
"You just have to know how to handle him. Now, where are we going?"
Jeff shook his head, took Penny's hand, and tugged her toward a small door to the right. "This way," he said.
They, even Sheldon, crept quietly down the hall. Penny could hear Elvish being spoken and people walking around. From what little Penny could catch, the Elves talked about their next holiday to other ships in the Woods and an upcoming family-thing.
"Not to interrupt," Sheldon said, as they paused in an empty room, waiting for the coming patrol to pass so that they could continue. "But I do feel as though I ought to finish my tenure here with, as the expression states, a bang."
"What do you mean?" Jeff asked.
"Well, I did get considerably bored during my time in their intellectual bubble and I amused myself by hacking out of their network, onto the web, and into their ships. While I cannot persuade a ship to actually explode, I could reroute their controls or offset their balances. In the next big storm, we could make the ships fall out of the sky."
"Sheldon, it is storming now." They could crash the ships, cripple the Elves in one, grand fell swoop. It would be amazing.
Amazingly stupid. While Jeff and Sheldon discussed timing and possibilities, Penny thought about all the people still trapped and the Elves who were just doing their jobs. She thought of the human cities below the Woods, most of them still full of people, in spite of the lack of sun.
They could be heroes, sure, but they'd also be murderers.
"No," Penny said.
"What?"
"Too many lives," she said. "We're the good guys. We don't do junk like that."
"Penny, we can't let this chance pass us up."
"I know. I have an idea. It isn't as glorious, but it also isn't as stupid." Neither guy said a word. Penny took a deep breath. "If we crash a few ships, they can still build more. They're always building more. We need to stop that expansion. Can we cripple just that ship?" Penny asked. "A virus or something that would lock it down and make it completely useless without hurting anyone?"
Jeff looked to Sheldon. "Maybe," Sheldon said. "But I do not believe we have the time required for me to write a dastardly enough virus."
Penny reached under her shirt and pulled and the small jump drive from her bra. "This destroyed my laptop in less than a minute," she said. "Would that work?"
Sheldon looked at the tiny device in awe. "Why, yes," he said, "I believe it will." He hurried to the computer terminal. Penny wondered if the room they were hiding in was a classroom; it certainly looked like one. Jeff watched out the door.
Suddenly, he cursed.
"What is it?" Penny asked.
"They changed the damned patrols, again. We're going to have to sneak past them, rather than behind them. I don't want another back of hair."
"Do you have any stimulants?" Penny asked.
"Just the couple doses I always carry. Why? Oh-- the caffeine trick."
"Exactly. Sheldon, how much longer do you need?"
"Twenty minutes. Maybe a little more."
"Half a stim will get us 30 to 40 minutes," Penny said. "Where are we going?"
"Down. I have a transport waiting beneath this ship."
"How?"
Jeff looked embarrassed. "It likes me. Whenever I come, it always goes where I ask. I don't know why."
"It can think?"
Sheldon snorted. "No. The supposed sentience is merely a byproduct of--"
"Sheldon. Virus."
They glared at each other in an impromptu staring contest. Penny won and Sheldon returned to his work.
"How much further?" Penny asked, looking back to Jeff.
"Down this hall, down two flights of stairs, and then through one of the engine rooms to the hatch. If we run, fifteen minutes."
"All right," Penny said. "Let's stab the Elves."
Jeff handed her one of his stims and opened the door. A pair of Elves were on their way. "They come in groups of four," Jeff said. "Two, then two more. I'll these two and you get the next pair, all right?"
"All right," Penny said.
As soon as the Elves reached their door, they both lunged out the door. Penny held down one Elf with all her body weight, while Jeff stabbed it in the neck. His hair slashed through her cheek and blood dripped down on the Elf's face. The other one tried to run, but Penny drew on countless afternoons spent with her father and dove. She knocked the Elf in the back of her knees and tackled her to the ground.
"Nice job," Jeff said as he injected the remainder of his stimulant into the Elf's neck. His wrist was bleeding. Penny staunched it with her shirt while they waited for the next pair of Elves to arrive.
For the second pair, Jeff exploded from the room first, knocking both down to the ground. Their hair spread out into fury of needles. As they started to attack, Penny slipped behind them and stabbed each in the neck. When the hair went limp, Jeff pushed himself up, wincing with pain. His shirt was in shreds. Blood dripped everywhere. Penny swallowed hard. After they pulled the last two bodies into the classroom, Penny removed her shirt and used it to tend to Jeff's back. The cuts all looked to be shallow, which was good. He'd heal more quickly this time.
Sheldon announced he was nearly done. Then a radio buzzed and a loud, harsh voice came through.
"Kyrgst, report, now." The smallest of the four, the one Penny had tackled, had a small radio on her belt. The light was blinking and the voice was angry.
"He wants a report," Penny said.
Jeff disconnected the radio from the belt and handed it to her. "So give them one," he said.
Right. A report. Penny lined up words in her head, hoped they'd make sense, and pressed the button. "Reporting."
"We heard the thud. What is going on down there?"
"Stupid game," Penny said. "Very sorry. All is fine. Quiet. Boring."
"You say everything is boring. Do not disturb us again ----------------------------." He spoke too rapidly for Penny to understand.
"Always," she responded when he paused long enough for her to talk.
The light blinked and the radio shut off. Penny handed the radio back to Jeff, relieved that their ruse was working.
"Done," Sheldon announced about ten minutes later. "I believe that was my best time yet."
Penny looked at Jeff. Her heart was pounding with anticipation. "Well?"
"Let's go."
They slipped into the hall and ran down to the first flight of stairs. "Careful," Jeff said, "these can be loud. Move slowly." He pushed Penny and Sheldon ahead of him and watched out for anyone coming up behind them.
Penny tried to take deep breaths as she crept down the stairs. She thought of trying to catch Santa Claus, sneaking out for a party, anything that did not include Elves with crazy hair. She was cold. The ship's air prickled the skin over her stomach and chest. Her lip was bleeding. She didn't know whether from an attack or her own biting.
At the base of the stairs, Jeff motioned for them to be quiet. Sheldon handed her a t-shirt. She accepted it gratefully. Thank goodness the boy always wore layers. Jeff bent his hand, beckoning them forward, and they were off again. The next stairwell was only across the hall, but at the other end of the hall a patrol stood, talking to one another. If just one of them were to look over their shoulder, they'd see them. Penny's chest ached from her heart pounding against it. Soon they were safe in the stairwell, but then the alarms began to ring.
"Run," Jeff urged, pushing them a little. Penny pushed against the banister and leapt to the landing. She sailed over the next set of steps as well, landing hard on one knee. Red and blue lights flashed on and off like at a dance club. Motion was jagged between flashes.
Jeff shoved past her to the bottom level of the ship. The engines drowned all noise. He grabbed both her and Sheldon's hands and ran. He moved with a confidence that suggested more than just two previous visits to the central ship. They passed into a large room with larger engines; they were all Penny could hear. Jeff opened a hatch and the room filled with sudden brightness as lightning flashed. The transport bobbled in the wind.
Penny climbed down first, then Sheldon. Jeff jumped in last, pulling the hatch door shut as he did so. The engine noise was replaced with alarms, thunder, and wind. The windshield closed and Jeff pushed a lever on the console, hurtling them down toward the ground.
They were escaping. Penny laughed. She saw Sheldon's fingers clenched white against the seat and she laughed more. The storm had picked up during her time in the Woods and rain now pelted so hard against the glass of the transport, that Penny thought it might break through. This made her laugh even more. To almost escape and be killed at the last minute by bullets of rain. Jeff grabbed her hand.
"We're okay," he said. Penny bit her lip, trying to believe him.
"Okay?!" Sheldon protested, his voice loud and shrill. He began to lecture. It was almost normal. The pressure in her chest broke.
"Yeah," she said, as Sheldon continued talking. "We're okay."
She looked back up at the underbelly of the central ship. Lights flashed, a mix of alarms and lightning. Penny wondered what she was supposed to do next. She had too many questions now, questions she'd never even known to ask. She hoped David enjoyed running Cafe Norah.
She couldn't go back and get stuck there like the scientists stuck in their pretty prison, unable to see any of the doors. She wanted to finish learning Elvish, figure out why Leah had lied to her, and get some answers from Leonard.
The sky shattered around them with the storm while Sheldon cited statistics on lightning strikes and death or something. Jeff slowed into the traffic of other transports, disguising them into the anonymity of sameness. Penny squeezed his hand. Soon they would land and walk away, free. Then back to Moria. Penny watched the world below and started making plans.
Author: LilyAyl
Recipient: wizefics
Fandom: The Big Bang Theory
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 13,264
Spoilers (if applicable): General show
Warnings (if applicable): None I can think of.
Summary: After the boys accidentally cause aliens to invade the Earth, Penny helps start the Resistance to save the world.
"I do not believe this darkness will endure."
~Faramir, RotK (film)
Getting into the Woods was actually easier than Penny had anticipated. Dressed in her Ramona disguise, Penny walked through Pasadena until she found a restaurant full of loose-haired Elves.
The hostess wrinkled her nose as Penny walked in. "Great, another wannabe. Look, eating in their favorite places isn't going to make them like you."
Penny shook out her umbrella and dropped it into the stand. "I see reports of Yank rudeness were not exaggerated at all. I require a table for one. Do you suppose you can manage that?" Penny matched Ramona's pitches in her head. She also pictured Sheldon at his worst, using his arrogance to bolster her own.
"Sure, why not? This way."
Penny suppressed a delighted grin when the girl sat her close to several tables full of Elves. She glanced over her menu, played with a fallen lock of hair as she'd seen Ramona do several times the previous day. Frowning with indecisiveness, Penny leaned to the table next to her own. The Elves glared at her.
"Very sorry," Penny said, "but what do you think I should eat? Everything looks good." The sentences were ones she'd practiced repeatedly until they wriggled naturally out of her throat.
The glares became as thunderous as the dark clouds outside. Penny only smiled. "Is something wrong?"
A hand seized her from behind, its grip painful around her upper arm, and pulled her from her chair. The Elf spun her to face him. Little wrinkles dug into his face, deepened by anger. "Who are you?"
"Oh, didn't I say?" Penny said, not needing to fake her fear. "Dr. Ramona Phillips. Linguist. Kirran truly is a love-ah, ow!" Penny tried to prise his fingers from the muscle of her arm, but it did no good. He dragged her outside and all but threw her into a transport.
As she checked her arm to see how bad the bruising would be, the Elf took them to the sky, to the aerial city, into the Woods.
Had the Woods been a painting or, perhaps, a human achievement meant to create shade and livable space in the desert, Penny might have thought it beautiful. Above the smooth metallic ships she always saw from the ground, rested bubbles, glass ships filled with alien trees and wandering people. When lightning flashed, the light bounced off all the surfaces, breaking into an explosion of swift rainbows. The rain cascaded over the glass like waterfalls.
"We have made improvements since you last visited us," the Elf said.
Penny closed her mouth, aware that she had just broken character. "Charming," she said.
"Stop. You aren't her. If you have hurt her, I--"
Penny's eyes widened and pushed back against the side of the transport, trying to create as much distance between her and his anger as possible. "I've done nothing," she said, her accent slipping.
"Who are you?" the Elf asked. His hair rippled and Penny nearly groaned when she saw the small braid hanging amid the loose strands.
"Just, please take me to the central ship. I have to-" She stopped, an idea sparking. "She taught me."
The Elf looked at her and then relaxed. "Is she really safe?" he asked.
Penny breathed. "Yes. She is." Though Ramona might find herself a bit less safe once Penny returned to Moria. Why hadn't she warned Penny about this possibility?
"Good." The Elf altered his course and the central ship loomed large beneath them. "Keep her that way."
Safe as hobbits, Penny thought, but she said nothing. She didn't know what to say.
Spread out along one side of the ship was a large bracket of transports stacked high together. The Elf slowly guided his transport beneath this structure and parked. He grabbed Penny again, but not as hard as before, and dragged her from the car and to a set of doors leading down into the ship. Behind them the transport seemed to crawl on its own to a perch high amid the wires and poles. Penny was still gaping when the doors closed.
"Take down your hair," the Elf said, not looking at her. "You are ridiculous in your effort to be her. Why are you here?"
"Why should I tell you?"
"I could help."
Penny considered the offer, but shook her head. She couldn't rely on an Elf, even if it would make her task easier.
"Why did you take her?"
"I don't know."
The doors opened and the Elf pushed Penny out. "This is where the dangerous people are kept. Tell her you met me. Tell her I helped."
"I will," Penny replied as the doors closed between them. No guards roamed the halls. She had expected cameras, at least, but she saw nothing. As Penny rounded a corner, she expected to see more long, gray halls and anonymous doors. Instead the hall lead to a large room filled with people and tech. Voices buzzed, rising in argument and lowering with sudden ideas that needed just a little more consideration to shine. A spiral of books surrounded by a frame of platforms and tables dominated one section of the room. Computers were everywhere. Some people worked furiously on problems, and others were rolling die and arguing over alignment. She even heard some words in Elvish, which almost surprised her more than anything else. People were building and deconstructing, laughing and learning. Here, for a geek, was paradise.
Then she saw Sheldon standing before a white board in an area clearly marked as his by red and blue cables. He had everything he needed to work, including solitude amid the cacophony. No one dared go near him, Penny noticed, except for one man. Jeff.
Looking around again in vain for guards or overseers, Penny approached Sheldon's space. Moving through the crowd, Penny noticed how people divided their space. Few were as bold as Sheldon, but everyone had their spheres. She noticed how no one walked near the doors, even going out of their way to avoid them. This was still a prison, just a very pretty one. Penny had experience with the pretty prisons; they gave everything you thought you should want and made you forget the stuff you really desired. She thought of the years she had spent earning her father's wide grin and tight hug, happy, but still yearning. College, old boyfriends-- it was always so easy to close your eyes and convince yourself you were content. Prison was still prison, though. The pretty ones were just harder to leave.
Penny tapped Jeff on the shoulder. He tensed, but otherwise showed no reaction. "Let me stand at your side," she quoted. He turned faster than a tornado spinning.
"Penny."
Sheldon dropped his marker and turned. Penny smiled at him over Jeff's shoulder. "Hey, Sheldon," she said, easing back from Jeff's embrace.
Sheldon stared, then, without warning, crossed the feet between them. He stopped only when he reached her, awkward and uncertain. Penny pulled him into a hug and he leaned into her, filling every empty space. Penny squeezed once and patted his back. "Okay, sweetie, that's enough."
Sheldon let go, straightening himself embarrassedly. "I did not realize you were alive," he said. "Please forgive my overly-enthusiastic greeting. I--"
"Sheldon, it's okay," Penny said. "That sort of hug is perfectly acceptable after a long absence during which you never thought you'd see each other again."
"Is it? I shall have to make a note. Well, Penny, I supposed I speak for both of us--" he gestured to Jeff-- "when I ask, what are you doing here?"
Penny threaded Jeff's fingers with her own. "Isn't it obvious?" she asked. "I'm here to rescue you."
"Leah sent you?" Jeff asked.
Penny shook her head. "She said she'd send someone, but I had time on my hands."
"What about the cafe?"
"David is handling it. Everything is fine. So, what are we waiting for? Pack up. Let's go."
"Love to," Jeff said. "Only one slight problem." He looked at Sheldon.
Sheldon rolled his eyes. "How many times must we tread over this issue? I signed a contract. I can't leave until I can prove which is correct, string theory or Belkirs."
Penny slapped a hand over her face. Of course. No cameras. No guards. Just Sheldon. "Great."
"Any ideas? You have more experience with him than I do."
"I'll think of something," Penny promised.
Jeff found some pillows and placed them near Sheldon's workspace. They sat down, Penny leaning back against his chest.
"Why did you come?" he asked, playing with her fingers. Penny couldn't remember the last time they'd been able to relax together.
"Leah said you were in trouble." Penny recounted the events from the past couple days. She could feel Jeff frowning into her hair.
"But I never make contact while in the Woods," Jeff said, interrupting her. "Leah knows that."
"Then I don't know what's going on. She looked really worried."
"Strange. So how did you manage to get in anyway?"
Penny tilted her head up to look at him. "Oh, you know me. I just talked my way in." She laughed at the surprise on his face and explained about Moria and Ramona.
"Can you see the doors?" he asked, abruptly.
Penny looked around. "Of course. Why?"
Jeff waved a hand at everyone else in the room. "They can't. Before the Elves bring them here, they do something that makes them completely avoid the existence of doors. I don't know how. It is like they're scared of them."
"Hence the weird walking around the edges of the room," Penny said. "I was wondering about that. Can Sheldon--?"
"He's fine. He was apparently the first inmate and was such a model prisoner, that they didn't bother tinkering with his head."
"Yeah, when Sheldon gets into a routine, it is nearly impossible to break him out of it. Contracts are even worse. They're as binding as gravity in his head. The only way to get him to leave is to find a loophole or a contradicting and previously existing contract that would take precedence."
"Any ideas?"
Penny watched Sheldon fuss at his work. "Maybe. What day is it today?"
"Um, Thursday, I think."
Penny nodded. "All right. That might work. Hey, Sheldon."
"Yes, Penny?" Sheldon asked, not taking his attention away from his work.
"Do you know what today is?" She put a teasing lilt into her voice.
"No," he said.
"Thursday," she said. "Anything-can-happen Thursday."
Sheldon capped his marker and turned around once more to face her. "When the others created that particular routine, I highly doubt they meant the breakage of agreements and escape from an alien facility."
Penny shrugged. "Who cares what they intended? You gotta move with the times."
"A living document approach, interesting. Regardless, a written agreement does take precedence--"
Penny tilted her head. "Did this contract of yours specifically state that you could disregard Anything-can-happen Thursday?"
"You know," Sheldon said. "I don't believe it did. Well, shall we be off then?"
Penny stood up and reached down to help Jeff up as well. "That's all it took?" Jeff asked, in disbelief. "The day of week?"
"You just have to know how to handle him. Now, where are we going?"
Jeff shook his head, took Penny's hand, and tugged her toward a small door to the right. "This way," he said.
They, even Sheldon, crept quietly down the hall. Penny could hear Elvish being spoken and people walking around. From what little Penny could catch, the Elves talked about their next holiday to other ships in the Woods and an upcoming family-thing.
"Not to interrupt," Sheldon said, as they paused in an empty room, waiting for the coming patrol to pass so that they could continue. "But I do feel as though I ought to finish my tenure here with, as the expression states, a bang."
"What do you mean?" Jeff asked.
"Well, I did get considerably bored during my time in their intellectual bubble and I amused myself by hacking out of their network, onto the web, and into their ships. While I cannot persuade a ship to actually explode, I could reroute their controls or offset their balances. In the next big storm, we could make the ships fall out of the sky."
"Sheldon, it is storming now." They could crash the ships, cripple the Elves in one, grand fell swoop. It would be amazing.
Amazingly stupid. While Jeff and Sheldon discussed timing and possibilities, Penny thought about all the people still trapped and the Elves who were just doing their jobs. She thought of the human cities below the Woods, most of them still full of people, in spite of the lack of sun.
They could be heroes, sure, but they'd also be murderers.
"No," Penny said.
"What?"
"Too many lives," she said. "We're the good guys. We don't do junk like that."
"Penny, we can't let this chance pass us up."
"I know. I have an idea. It isn't as glorious, but it also isn't as stupid." Neither guy said a word. Penny took a deep breath. "If we crash a few ships, they can still build more. They're always building more. We need to stop that expansion. Can we cripple just that ship?" Penny asked. "A virus or something that would lock it down and make it completely useless without hurting anyone?"
Jeff looked to Sheldon. "Maybe," Sheldon said. "But I do not believe we have the time required for me to write a dastardly enough virus."
Penny reached under her shirt and pulled and the small jump drive from her bra. "This destroyed my laptop in less than a minute," she said. "Would that work?"
Sheldon looked at the tiny device in awe. "Why, yes," he said, "I believe it will." He hurried to the computer terminal. Penny wondered if the room they were hiding in was a classroom; it certainly looked like one. Jeff watched out the door.
Suddenly, he cursed.
"What is it?" Penny asked.
"They changed the damned patrols, again. We're going to have to sneak past them, rather than behind them. I don't want another back of hair."
"Do you have any stimulants?" Penny asked.
"Just the couple doses I always carry. Why? Oh-- the caffeine trick."
"Exactly. Sheldon, how much longer do you need?"
"Twenty minutes. Maybe a little more."
"Half a stim will get us 30 to 40 minutes," Penny said. "Where are we going?"
"Down. I have a transport waiting beneath this ship."
"How?"
Jeff looked embarrassed. "It likes me. Whenever I come, it always goes where I ask. I don't know why."
"It can think?"
Sheldon snorted. "No. The supposed sentience is merely a byproduct of--"
"Sheldon. Virus."
They glared at each other in an impromptu staring contest. Penny won and Sheldon returned to his work.
"How much further?" Penny asked, looking back to Jeff.
"Down this hall, down two flights of stairs, and then through one of the engine rooms to the hatch. If we run, fifteen minutes."
"All right," Penny said. "Let's stab the Elves."
Jeff handed her one of his stims and opened the door. A pair of Elves were on their way. "They come in groups of four," Jeff said. "Two, then two more. I'll these two and you get the next pair, all right?"
"All right," Penny said.
As soon as the Elves reached their door, they both lunged out the door. Penny held down one Elf with all her body weight, while Jeff stabbed it in the neck. His hair slashed through her cheek and blood dripped down on the Elf's face. The other one tried to run, but Penny drew on countless afternoons spent with her father and dove. She knocked the Elf in the back of her knees and tackled her to the ground.
"Nice job," Jeff said as he injected the remainder of his stimulant into the Elf's neck. His wrist was bleeding. Penny staunched it with her shirt while they waited for the next pair of Elves to arrive.
For the second pair, Jeff exploded from the room first, knocking both down to the ground. Their hair spread out into fury of needles. As they started to attack, Penny slipped behind them and stabbed each in the neck. When the hair went limp, Jeff pushed himself up, wincing with pain. His shirt was in shreds. Blood dripped everywhere. Penny swallowed hard. After they pulled the last two bodies into the classroom, Penny removed her shirt and used it to tend to Jeff's back. The cuts all looked to be shallow, which was good. He'd heal more quickly this time.
Sheldon announced he was nearly done. Then a radio buzzed and a loud, harsh voice came through.
"Kyrgst, report, now." The smallest of the four, the one Penny had tackled, had a small radio on her belt. The light was blinking and the voice was angry.
"He wants a report," Penny said.
Jeff disconnected the radio from the belt and handed it to her. "So give them one," he said.
Right. A report. Penny lined up words in her head, hoped they'd make sense, and pressed the button. "Reporting."
"We heard the thud. What is going on down there?"
"Stupid game," Penny said. "Very sorry. All is fine. Quiet. Boring."
"You say everything is boring. Do not disturb us again ----------------------------." He spoke too rapidly for Penny to understand.
"Always," she responded when he paused long enough for her to talk.
The light blinked and the radio shut off. Penny handed the radio back to Jeff, relieved that their ruse was working.
"Done," Sheldon announced about ten minutes later. "I believe that was my best time yet."
Penny looked at Jeff. Her heart was pounding with anticipation. "Well?"
"Let's go."
They slipped into the hall and ran down to the first flight of stairs. "Careful," Jeff said, "these can be loud. Move slowly." He pushed Penny and Sheldon ahead of him and watched out for anyone coming up behind them.
Penny tried to take deep breaths as she crept down the stairs. She thought of trying to catch Santa Claus, sneaking out for a party, anything that did not include Elves with crazy hair. She was cold. The ship's air prickled the skin over her stomach and chest. Her lip was bleeding. She didn't know whether from an attack or her own biting.
At the base of the stairs, Jeff motioned for them to be quiet. Sheldon handed her a t-shirt. She accepted it gratefully. Thank goodness the boy always wore layers. Jeff bent his hand, beckoning them forward, and they were off again. The next stairwell was only across the hall, but at the other end of the hall a patrol stood, talking to one another. If just one of them were to look over their shoulder, they'd see them. Penny's chest ached from her heart pounding against it. Soon they were safe in the stairwell, but then the alarms began to ring.
"Run," Jeff urged, pushing them a little. Penny pushed against the banister and leapt to the landing. She sailed over the next set of steps as well, landing hard on one knee. Red and blue lights flashed on and off like at a dance club. Motion was jagged between flashes.
Jeff shoved past her to the bottom level of the ship. The engines drowned all noise. He grabbed both her and Sheldon's hands and ran. He moved with a confidence that suggested more than just two previous visits to the central ship. They passed into a large room with larger engines; they were all Penny could hear. Jeff opened a hatch and the room filled with sudden brightness as lightning flashed. The transport bobbled in the wind.
Penny climbed down first, then Sheldon. Jeff jumped in last, pulling the hatch door shut as he did so. The engine noise was replaced with alarms, thunder, and wind. The windshield closed and Jeff pushed a lever on the console, hurtling them down toward the ground.
They were escaping. Penny laughed. She saw Sheldon's fingers clenched white against the seat and she laughed more. The storm had picked up during her time in the Woods and rain now pelted so hard against the glass of the transport, that Penny thought it might break through. This made her laugh even more. To almost escape and be killed at the last minute by bullets of rain. Jeff grabbed her hand.
"We're okay," he said. Penny bit her lip, trying to believe him.
"Okay?!" Sheldon protested, his voice loud and shrill. He began to lecture. It was almost normal. The pressure in her chest broke.
"Yeah," she said, as Sheldon continued talking. "We're okay."
She looked back up at the underbelly of the central ship. Lights flashed, a mix of alarms and lightning. Penny wondered what she was supposed to do next. She had too many questions now, questions she'd never even known to ask. She hoped David enjoyed running Cafe Norah.
She couldn't go back and get stuck there like the scientists stuck in their pretty prison, unable to see any of the doors. She wanted to finish learning Elvish, figure out why Leah had lied to her, and get some answers from Leonard.
The sky shattered around them with the storm while Sheldon cited statistics on lightning strikes and death or something. Jeff slowed into the traffic of other transports, disguising them into the anonymity of sameness. Penny squeezed his hand. Soon they would land and walk away, free. Then back to Moria. Penny watched the world below and started making plans.