"Leonard Speaking"
'Leonard Thinking'
Burbank, California
Leonard woke up in a small house. Looking around at the unfamiliar room, Leonard heaved a sigh, shaking off the last traces of his sleep, bringing alertness to his limbs and joints. His eyes roamed on his desk, noting the time on his bedside clock. Without wait, he walked to his living room. Ellie had offered to rent a luxurious penthouse or a condo, but Leonard refused for privacy.
Spreading a yoga mat on the ground of his living room, Leonard started a rigorous routine, one that he had been keeping since his improvement through the Chrysalis. Every stretch loosed his muscle fibres, bringing much needed circulation. From stretches to push ups, sit ups and squats, he finished his routine in half an hour. Once he was done, his body was slightly drenched in sweat, partly from exercise, partly from his body's more efficient regulatory system.
It took him another fifteen minutes to shower, rinsing the stink accumulated from the previous day. In another half an hour, he was ready to go to the university. He packed his phone, his laptop, a couple of notebooks, and a portable SynthBrain terminal connected to his main terminal. This would allow him access to Cygnus, even at the university. After some thought, he picked a small box of CBots with their transmitter.
Since he changed his genome, Leonard found himself running a lot. Time seemed to crawl at normal speeds, so running became a habit. With a press of a button, the garage doors opened, revealing his Mercedes. Carefully placing his bag at the passenger seat, Leonard smoothly drove the car out of the garage and headed towards Caltech.
Caltech, Pasadena
Sheldon was walking through the corridors of Caltech, with Amy at his side. While he would never admit it, Amy's presence over the past months was soothing to him. If he ignored her slightly longer hair, he could even imagine it was Leonard walking at his side. Amy looked at him, blushing slightly at noticing his gaze. Sheldon's lips quirked up in a ghost of a smile, which faded the next second as a nasal voice came from the front.
Barry Kripke, his colleague and rival appeared from the side, carrying his bag, " Hey Shewdon, how have you been? I heawd Weanowd came back. Whewe is he?"
Sheldon sneered before replying, "I don't know Kripke, he doesn't live with me anymore. He should be in his lab."
Kripke grinned, "Weww, I heawd he got a lawge donation to the Physics Depawtment. I pwan to ask fow a gwant fow my weseawch."
Before Sheldon could reply, he heard a small rhythmic click. He watched as Leonard came from the other end of the corridor, dressed in a white shirt and a black suit, a bag slung on his shoulder, his cane making clicks on the floor. As he passed by, he gave an acknowledging nod to the group, whispering a quick good morning. Kripke's eyes widened at the taller and stronger figure, with an air of quiet authority around him.
Kripke turned to Sheldon, "He wooks diffewent."
Sheldon ignored Kripke. He wanted to approach Leonard, but his demeanour gave Sheldon pause. He decided to approach and question Leonard during lunch.
Leonard's Lab, Caltech
Leonard opened the door to his lab, his eyes lighting up at the clean lab. He still remembered how he spent his last day at the lab, making more Pills in secret. Smiling slightly, he placed his bag on the table, removing his suit, and folding his shirt to his elbows. He hung his suit on the rack at the corner, before putting on his lab coat.
Opening his bag, Leonard quickly pulled out a small black tube, releasing a cluster of CBots. Putting the transmitter on his ear, he gave a quick mental command, causing the tiny robots to slip under the door and arrange themselves in a mesh outside, forming a localised detection field.
Leonard sighed, "Well, this should take care of any surprises."
Next, Leonard pulled out his phone and laptop, along with his SynthBrain terminal. With its graphene battery, it could run for the entire day. The terminal lit up with a soft blue light. A clear masculine voice sounded from the cube apparatus, "Good morning Sir. Do you require any assistance?"
Leonard kept arranging the lab. While placing some of his equipment in order, Leonard instructed, "Morning Cygnus. Are there any messages for me?"
Cygnus began listing, "First, Mr. Ross has sent a message that the Chaldea Legal Division is operational now. They have recruited many talented lawyers while being on the lookout for any they might have missed. Mr. Ross mentioned a brilliant lawyer, Advocate Marshall Eriksen. He is an environmental lawyer, and he will be arguing his first case against Gruber Pharmaceuticals in a month."
Leonard asked with interest, "Oh, that's nice. Who is he up against?"
Cygnus answered, "Gruber Pharmaceuticals has appointed Michael Hofstadter and Brad Morris as defense counsel."
Leonard thought for a second before answering, "Inform Ross that Michael is married to a New Jersey Judge. If she is even slightly involved in the proceedings, Marshall can weaken their position by arguing about Judicial Bias. Anything else?"
Cygnus continued, "Mr. Edgar has informed us that Don Eladio will be holding a party next month. According to him, that is the best time to eliminate the Cartel."
Leonard answered quickly, "Coordinate with Giselle to launch an operation at the Cartel. She has some connections within the DEA. They will jump at any chance to eliminate an entire Cartel at once. Ask Stan to provide details about supply chains and people associated. I don't expect to completely root out the Cartel, but they should be able to eliminate everyone associated with Stan. Any more?"
Cygnus announced, "The last message came from Dr. Paige Swanson. She was asking for you."
Leonard smiled widely at that. Paige was a woman deeply dedicated to science, but she could also be very caring to the people around her. Leonard replied, "Send her a message that I will talk to her tonight on the secure channel."
Once all the messages were given, Cygnus fell into silence as Leonard opened up his backlog, wondering if there were any experiments on deadline. Luckily, he was quite free for a couple of days. Soon, his lab started resembling a proper lab. He sat on his chair, opening a notebook. He had been working on a couple of theories based on his epiphany.
Leonard's mind ran with ideas. He remembered the strings that made up matter, how they crumpled into knots, forming atoms and molecules. As his mind pushed further, a sense of dissociativeness came over him.
A voice sounded in front of Leonard. Leonard looked at the source, only to find another Leonard sitting on the chair in front of him.
Leonard inhaled deeply. He whispered, "The Author."
The Author smiled, "Congratulations. This is the first time since you enhanced yourself that you were thinking so hard. Everything else must have been so easy."
The Author moved from the chair, approaching a board on the side. Leonard swiftly followed him, taking a marker from his desk drawer.
The Author turned to Leonard and asked, "How far have you reached in this theory?"
Leonard answered, "I started with the General Theory of Relativity. Einstein proposed that spacetime is a fabric, and any matter or energy can create curves in that fabric. Since the universe in one dimension looks like a string, all bunched up, and there can be multiple strings all around it. But the issue with string theory is that it is too open. We cannot see the string, even if the string is mathematically possible. Also, it is too open when we consider mathematics."
The Author listened to Leonard rant for a while before suggesting, "Since you know that String Theory is a dead end, why follow it? Why not start with the strings, but instead of thinking of them as unorganised, messy tangles, think of them as organized ones, laying parallel to one another."
Leonard pondered over the question before admitting, "Maybe I am too influenced by Sheldon. I still have the urge to compete with him. I probably thought of solving string theory before him."
The Author smiled and said, "Maybe it is better to disprove String Theory and prove something else instead. Let us take the strings again. Instead of considering each string individually, how about connecting them together."
Leonard commented, "Like a tapestry?"
The Author grinned, "Exactly like a tapestry. Every universe, at every level, is a tapestry. The lower universes form their tapestry in the form of matter, while the upper universes form the tapestry in their own way."
Leonard thought hard, "So each string is weaved together to form a multiverse, each multiverse is in higher and lower forms. We cannot go into lower universes because we are made of them. And higher universes are similar. Instead of directly going to lower or higher dimensions, we are stuck on our own, simply because we cannot break the energy barrier needed to jump from strings around us to strings beyond us."
The Author looked thoughtful, "That would explain a lot. We don't have enough energy to jump between universes or even beyond our multiverse."
Leonard interrupted, "I just realized, what we need isn't energy. We need a catalyst. Something that can allow access to higher or lower dimensions with minimal energy usage. This could change everything. We could control spacetime."
The Author grinned, "Yes, we could shunt space into higher dimensions, allowing for things like pocket dimensions, hyperspace travel, wormholes and so much more. You could open a box that should provide just one liter of space, yet it could open to megaliters of space."
Leonard matched the grin on his counterpart, "Yes, just imagine. The TARDIS, tents from Harry Potter, the bag of holding. We can do all that. But we need experiments. Before that, we need a workable theory and experiment."
The Author smiled softly, "Looks like you can take it from here. I'll see you around."
With that, the Author vanished from the room. Leonard wholeheartedly devoted himself to his research. Unknown to him, his life was about to become interesting.
Axe Capital, Westport, Connecticut
Dudley Mafee can be called kind hearted, capable, understanding, trusting or even naive. However, no one would call him a fool. As a trader in one of the most profitable hedge funds in the country, Mafee had seen many talented individuals. Right now, he was looking at the charts of another individual. The chart gave him a clear idea of the trader. He noticed the meticulous investments, a propensity towards technology stocks, a keen understanding of the market, and almost surgical precision to understanding the patterns of corporations by that individual. Unfortunately, this trader was not one of them.
Mafee looked at the account name, "Dr. Leonard Hofstadter. Is he a doctor of economics or something…"
Mafee spent about half an hour trying to dig deep into the identity of this sensational stock investor, who was able to bring his investments from ten million dollars to more than 100 million. After collecting everything, Mafee went to the CEO's office.
Bobby Axelrod sat in the chair, furiously working on various investment portfolios. His eyes narrowed and his hands intertwined with each other as he looked at Mafee with impatience.
Bobby gritted, "This better be important, Mafee. I am knee deep in work, and interrupting me when I am working is a death sentence. Do you want to leave Axe Capital?"
Mafee quickly interjected with panic, "No Sir, I did not mean to interrupt you. I know you were busy, but I wanted to give this information to you personally. It is about an account I was looking at. A trader, by the name Dr. Leonard Hofstadter has made a hundred million dollars from his initial ten."
Bobby straightened and asked, "Any signs of market manipulation or insider trading."
Mafee pointed out, "Not really. If you look at the charts here, he is using global patterns to predict market shifts, allowing him to easily buy stocks at low and sell them at high. I thought that maybe we could recruit him."
Bobby nodded, "I will contact the guy in the evening. If the meeting goes well, we will get a very smart trader."
Mafee looked worried, "And if the meeting doesn't go well?"
Bobby grinned in his arrogant manner, "Then we will have a mouse we can set against Chuck. It should keep him busy for days."
AN: It is a slow chapter, sort of. The action will pick up from the next one.
AN2: I sincerely thank all my patrons for their valuable support.
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