"Totally Recalled..."
Summary: Another acting exercise for new and somewhat baby-blued mom, Mrs. Penelope Hofstadter and her entourage. For the prequel of sorts, read "Sheldon Swifties LXXV: 'The Creation Fluctuation'..."
In the late 22nd century a young and supposedly happy housewife finds herself drawn to another existence on the Mars colony, currently under the crushing heel of a brutal dictator... ("And his vicious secret police chief girlfriend!" Bernadette hisses.
"supposedly happy"...Leonard sighs. Maybe this wasn't such a good...
"Guys." Howard sighs to group. "I don't know if I can do the Dictator. Mom came to me in a dream last night and started complaining, "Now, ya wanna be Hitler?"
"Fine. I'll be the Dictator." Bernadette notes. "You be the sidekick."
"Actually, that does somehow seem to fit..." Howard nods.
"Hey, we have a former secret police chief right here, you know?" Raj fumes.)
Disclaimer: They're all Chuck's. Except Penny Hauser.
Part XXXIV...
"Adam...?" Amy eyed her beloved if somewhat ruthless and maniacal at times, though only with our opponents and the occasional collaterally damaged innocent bystander...With me, he's a sweet baboo...Companion as he pulled on his suit gauntlets prior to his upcoming EVA in lunar orbit.
"Yes?" he eyed her, clearly a bit out of sorts...Lacking that sparkle that tells you he's ready to tackle the world and kill anyone in his way...
"You seem rather down. I know you're not a fan of EVAs...But this would, if it works, get us home in about thirty minutes. And much as I do regret the missed chance of four months in space again with my honey poo...It is nice to know we could be back on Mars like that, ready for another crack at Penny." Encouraging smile.
Sigh...
"I suppose, as to eighty-sixing our former superior, with corresponding rank upgrade, crushing the Resistance, and winning a war that could leave us Prince and Princess of the Solar System under Empress Corversant...It's ok. But not only do I hate the idea of an EVA and space doodadaling, but I'm rather disturbed by this whole mission, Amy. It's not seemed right from the start, Penny turning from Corversant for love of some short, rather unpredisposing Resistance leader, not to mention the greater good? Penny Hauser? Machiavellian master spy and political operative par excellence?"
("Yeah, I know Machiavelli is a political guy not a fragrance, Sheldon." Penny frowned at his look.
Thanks, honey...Patting Leonard's arm.)
"Odd, admittedly...But stranger things have happened, darling..."
And you might sometimes remember I outrank you...So it'd be Princess and Prince.
("What?" Sheldon stared. "Cut...A...gain..." Howard sighed.)
But I can't pull rank looking into those beautiful cold eyes of my baby-faced killer...
("Missy did always say I had the dead soulless doll's eyes of a shark." Sheldon reflected.)
"And Bernadette so anxious not to kill her unless absolutely necessary...And she was clearly not willing to consider Hauser's escape on Earth quite reason enough. That's not like the Boss, you know that." He continued.
"True, but Hauser is her foster daughter...Even Corversant has a functional heart...And she has always indulged Penny. Though siding with the Resistance is really a bit much, even for an indulgent mother to take."
("Say, Bernie's really a sport to keep taking these 'mother' remarks...Tell her I appreciate it. And you know, adopted, so not really to imply she's old..." Leonard noted to Howard at the next camera reset.
"Oh, she knows it's part of the character...The 'persona'..." Howard nodded. "And she uses the repressed rage to make Corversant so vivid." Smile.)
"And now this escape..." careful stare... "Using a ship which was originally her entire mission to Earth, to steal. Which she did, rather too easily for a woman no longer processed of Hauser's skills, to put it mildly."
"There is evidence to believe instinctive memory can survive even the Recall process..." Amy shrugged in her seat. "Penny could be operating on instinct..."
"Hmmn..." Adam, uncertain. "I know her instincts are good, but..." shaking head. "And now this miraculous second warp drive, which we've now learned has been sitting hidden in lunar orbit for two months...Two months', Amy?" shrewdly questioning stare.
("Let me try that again...I don't think I was 'shrewd' or 'questioning' enough..." Sheldon noted. "How's this...?"
"Oooh...Wonderful, honey!" Amy gushed. "Really wins me over to your speculation...So Leonard?" she turned suddenly to him. "Seeing as we're such a great romantic pair as villains, hows about that idea I had for a new version of 'Moonlighting', for our next project? Sheldon as the roguish, devil-may-care, worldly-wise detective, me as the glamourous ex-actress/model who affects to be put off by his casual bad boy manner but is actually determined on roping and branding that steer, running a detective agency together?"
"What?" Penny eyed a rather hapless Leonard.
"You would play our ditzy but lovable secretary, bestie. Wouldn't it be great?" eager beam.
Bernadette eyeing Howard who nods...Oh, yeah...Maddie. I already have my David Addison suit.)
"Meaning Hauser's original mission, supposedly critical enough to risk our top agent and heir apparent, was not all that critical after all...Bernadette already had the data on the warp system and was building her own before we even came to Earth with Hauser. And any relatively good agent...Meaning not us, cooling our heels on Earth for months..."
"...As 'friendly neighbors'...Yeah, I did hate that." Amy sighed.
"...Could have been used to destroy the prototype." Adam noted.
"That is true..." Amy sighed. "But Hauser may have been the only agent trusted enough to reach Bernadette's mole in Targaryen's government."
"Far more likely, given her position in our administration, she would've eventually attracted UN Security attention, even if not caught...And risk revealing this mysterious mole to the UN...Surely too valuable a piece to sacrifice for so little...? No, this mission bites, darling. And I fear it may bite us if we're not careful." Adam shook head. "Plus, it hurts not to be trusted, if there's more. We're supposed to be the top people in the organization now Hauser is out."
"That does sting...I have to agree, there's got to be more going on here." Amy nodded. "But..." shrug...
"But...Ours not to question why, till we can make heads or tails of this thing and figure out our own safest move to our best advantage." He pulled down helmet. "You secure?"
"Secure..." Amy, helmet down, seated at control panel.
"See ya...I swear these things have bugs crawling around..." nervous squirm in suit. "I know they decontaminate automatically after each use but..." he groused, heading for airlock. "Space dodaddling... Things I do to bring Peace...And Order to the Solar System." Shaking head.
("Now that's acting..." Leonard grinned to Penny. "He must be freaking out in that suit at even the thought I'm implanting there..."
"And cut...Before he does 'freak'." Howard noted. "Those suits are officially NASA property, after all, even if not used anymore."
"I don't wanna ask how you got hold of them, do I?" Leonard eyed him.
"That would be a yes..." nod.
"I've got the gallon-sized Purel right here, sweetheart." Amy noted to the trembling Sheldon, just feverishly out of suit. "You're the greatest actor since DeNiro." Fondly patting...
"Purel!" he cried, eyeing her hand. "Sorry, sorry." She noted, spraying hand.
"I don't think Adam's such a bad fellow if he wants to bring Peace and Order like the Empire..." rubbing hands, accepting paper towel from her. "By the way, DeWho?" he asked.)
...
17000 miles above the Martian surface and falling...Though falling far more rapidly towards Mars' outer moon, Deimos, now about 2000 miles away...
"Ok, ok...Check rate of descent...Red zone, crash imminent. Right. Fire thrusters...Whoa, wrong, wrong direction!" Penny cried. "Ok,ok...We just...Turn, and fire! Ok...Yellow zone, still too fast...Green zone, great..." she peered behind her.
No, do not wanna see Deimos rushing up, even if at green zone descent. And "Deimos"...The Greek god of Terror, nice.
That's where I wanna set down... "Terror".
Ooof...As the back of her suit hit Deimos...She bouncing off. Yehow!
Uh-boy...Ok...Turn...And there's Deimos...Feet out, tiny, tiny thrust...Ooof...
Ok, how the hell do I stay on this freaking little moon...! As she bounced up again...
"Welcome to Deimos, Ms. Hauser." A voice over her radio. "Just grab one of the cables running across the surface, you'll find it lots easier to pull yourself than try to walk here."
...
"Just keep pulling and follow me..." the voice, male, over her suit radio, she struggling to turn to look up at a figure in standard space suit. "Traffic to Mars is pretty restricted cause of the war situation but we've a secure lander shuttle over here." The suited figure pointed over a rise...
"Great." She noted. "How the hell did you know I would be here?"
"Your landing coordinates were preset..."
"Right..." she nodded.
Could this be?...I haven't been able to get a look...
But he'd call me Penny, right? Even if he knows me only as Penny Hauser.
"Just up...And now you can pull up to stand. Quite a view down there, eh?" the figure pointed to the large view of Mars beyond the small horizon of the moon. "She's no Earth for size but we love her."
"Yeah....Ummn...Is it ok to ask?" she began.
"Benny...Shuttle and cab driver extraordinaire. Here to take you where you need to go. And do you prefer Hauser...Or Quade?" facing her, a short, thin figure in space suit, with wide smile visible through faceplate.
...
Oval Office...
"All right..." President Targaryen eyed the holobubbles of his Cabinet members floating in the room. "Thanks to Mike Hofstadter's mom..."
("Hmmn...'Mike'...I'm a 'Mike'..." Leonard beamed to Penny who rolled eyes.
"Aww...Come on." He sighed. "Ya gotta love 'Mike' Hofstadter..."
"I prefer Leonard." She said, simply. "Leonard never lets me down." Sigh to his worried look. "But, at least it's not, Kurt. So, ok... 'Mike'." Smile.
"But be Leonard again, soon?" she whispered, gentle, but pleading, smile.)
"...we have a few names of scientists who either willingly, or un-, cooperated with the government in the past. And we have a vague idea of what Bernadette's pinning her hopes on. Though, frankly I'm surprised a practical girl like her, not to mention your quite pragmatic cousin, Jaden, would put all their eggs in an alien tech basket."
"She also has Hofstadter's warp system..." Singh pointed out.
"And we need to find out how she got that..." Targaryen, quietly. "And it's true, we'd have more to lose in a nuclear warp standoff, though she may find herself surprised how much we're prepared to, to stop her. But the real concern now is this magnetic shield, if our ex-President, current felon, is right and it could be used as a planetary defense if activated. Hofstadter, Singh?"
"Our people have together been combing everything that we could find, particularly top secret and especially among Mother's papers for anything on the early Mars exploration data or the shield or the complex." Hofstadter noted. "We have learned a couple of things...All data on the complex and shield was physically erased by the research teams, almost right after discovery of the complex. There was deliberate distortion of data to minimize any evidence of past Martian civilization, though of course not everything could be suppressed with the various old governments sending more research teams to Mars up until the Third World War...And we believe the complex was deliberately sealed off, on a massive scale, at the start of the war."
"The scientists didn't want us crazy politicians from getting their hands on Martian tech, in the midst of the worst war in human history, I get that." Targaryen nodded.
"It seems, from the little we can uncover, there actually was a struggle for control...Some scientists were a bit more nationalistic than others." Singh noted.
"A few Habers in there, eh?" Targaryen nodded.
("Hold the lecture, Sheldon." Penny put up a hand. "Fritz Haber, Jewish German scientist who wanted to be the best German he could, invented poison gas and plant stuff, all for the not-so-bad Germans in WWI. Leonard tole me all about him."
Sheldon nodding...Very good.
"It was very sad, his wife was a scientist and killed herself in horror at his using his chemical knowledge to invent a horrible new way to kill for Germany." Amy sighed. "But the Nazis never accepted him, even though he'd saved Germany in the First World War from starvation with his nitrogen fertilizers and provided essential chemicals to keep the war effort going as well as the poison gas thing, he had to flee Germany."
"Uh...Well, maybe not everything..." Penny noted. "Wow."
"Howard..." Sheldon, having 'casually' stopped by his director's chair, a bit carefully...
"Sheldon. I know you had some 'very nice' German friends when you lived there...And I'm sure they were. If I'd ever thought you a Haber or worse, I'd've 'Dead Zone'd' you for Humanity's sake long ago. We're good." He smiled.)