Chapter 14: Don't Stop Me, I Want to Kill This Kid
The Cooper Family Home
Evening
Mary gathered up Missy and said her goodbyes, and the Coopers headed home.
Everyone except Emmett left satisfied. Sheldon's talent had been immediate and undeniable, and the Hard Candy Band had gone from a loose three-person idea to something that actually sounded like a real band. They'd crossed a line tonight from amateur to legitimate.
Early The Next Morning
Adam lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
Ding!
Intelligence +0.005
Ding!
Intelligence +0.005
"Yes!"
He sat up grinning. Two separate ticks in one morning. Juno and Sheldon both running simultaneously, exactly as he'd hoped.
He ran the numbers in his head. Two separate 0.005 gains daily added up to 3.65 intelligence points per year between the two of them alone. His starting point had been 108. He was already at 114 and climbing. At this rate, he'd break through 120 — the threshold for genuinely above-average intelligence — within a year and a half. Breaking through 140 and hitting true genius territory would take roughly seven years, but he'd still be in his mid-twenties when that happened. Well before he'd be taking his surgical boards.
He thought it through from there. A genuine genius-level intellect combined with an endurance stat of 300 going into medical school. Even with the brutal hours, the impossible volume of material, the political maneuvering of residency — he liked his odds considerably more than he had a week ago.
And once he was actually practicing surgery — ten procedures a day at 0.01 lifespan points each. That was 0.1 per day, 36.5 per year. Two years of that and he'd be looking at a normal lifespan. From there it just kept climbing.
That was the conservative estimate.
Adam lay back and laughed at the ceiling, completely unable to help himself.
"What's going on down here?"
Bob appeared at the top of the basement stairs, squinting, hair going in several directions.
"Nothing," Adam said. "Good dream. Got a promotion, married well, whole thing."
Bob stared at him.
"Son." He came down two steps. "I used to have dreams like that too. You know where I ended up? Pest control." He pointed at his own head — notably bald, notably round. "Set a small goal first. Something achievable."
"You're right, Dad."
Adam looked at his father with genuine affection — and also could not help noticing that middle-aged American man weight distribution was a real and documented phenomenon. He made a private note to stay active. A doctor in a white coat was one thing. A doctor in a white coat who looked like Bob was a slightly different proposition.
Over the following weeks, Sheldon settled into Hard Candy like he'd always been there, which was both remarkable and slightly irritating. With Sheldon on keyboards and Juno on bass, the band's sound had jumped up two full levels from what Adam and Emmett had been doing before. Even Emmett stopped grumbling about it. Good music had a way of making arguments irrelevant.
Beyond rehearsals, Adam started going to Sheldon with academic questions. The results were extraordinary. Sheldon's explanations were occasionally condescending and always longer than necessary, but the underlying clarity was something Adam had never had access to before. His progress accelerated noticeably.
Juno watched this unfold over several days and finally said, "I had my doubts about what you were actually after when you started all this. I'm starting to think you were telling the truth."
"I told you," Adam said.
"You did," she agreed. "I just didn't entirely believe you."
Summer wound down. School started.
Galveston County High School — First Day
Front Entrance
Mary Cooper stood at the school gate holding her purse with both hands, looking at her son the way someone looks at a small animal they're releasing into the wild and aren't fully confident will survive.
"Adam, Juno — please keep an eye on him. He's still so young—"
"We've got him, Mrs. Cooper," Adam said.
He watched Sheldon carefully adjusting his bow tie and felt the specific anxiety of someone who knows exactly what's about to happen and can't do anything to stop it.
Bullying in American high schools was a genuine problem, and Sheldon Cooper — nine years old, bow tie, academic intensity radiating off him like a signal flare — was going to attract attention. The one thing working in his favor was that his father George Sr. was the school's football coach and his brother George Jr. was on the team, which meant the primary bully demographic had complicated reasons to leave Sheldon alone. His situation was going to be frustrating and lonely, but it wouldn't be what Leonard Hofstadter had eventually endured. Leonard had been truly roughed up by the world. Sheldon at least had a force field.
Adam felt a moment of genuine sympathy for Leonard, wherever he was right now, growing up on the East Coast with a mother who was clinically analyzing his emotional development and publishing her findings.
Nobody had it worse than Leonard.
Homeroom — Room 114
A middle-aged woman with a practical haircut and a warm, practiced smile stood at the front of the room.
"Good morning everyone. I'm Ms. Eliot. I'll be your homeroom teacher this year, and I teach English as well. I've been at this school for over twenty years and I like to think I've seen just about everything—" she paused, and her eyes moved to Sheldon with an expression that was genuinely trying to be welcoming "—but I'll admit, this year is already a first for me. I think you all know we have a rather exceptional new student with us."
Every head in the room turned toward Sheldon, who was sitting with his back perfectly straight, bow tie immaculate, hand already raised.
Most freshmen were fourteen or fifteen. Sheldon was nine. The contrast was not subtle.
"Sheldon? Did you want to say something?"
"Yes, thank you." Sheldon stood. "I've had a chance to review the student handbook, and I noticed several violations already present in this classroom." He turned and began pointing. "That student's hair length exceeds the guideline on page 12. That student is wearing athletic clothing outside the designated area. That student—" he paused at a girl near the window "—is wearing a top that the dress code would classify as non-compliant, which I can confirm because I can see through it."
The room went very still.
"And Ms. Eliot." Sheldon turned back to the front. "Chapter 5, section B of the faculty dress code does specify professional grooming standards. You have a small mustache."
In the very back row, as far from Sheldon as the geometry of the room permitted, four people simultaneously put their faces in their hands.
Adam.
Juno.
Emmett.
And George Jr., who had chosen that seat specifically so nobody would connect him to his brother, and who now looked like a man watching his carefully constructed anonymity collapse in real time.
Ms. Eliot's warm, practiced smile was gone.
She stood very still, hand partially raised toward her upper lip, staring at Sheldon Cooper with the expression of a woman rapidly reassessing the next nine months of her professional life.
End of Chapter 14
[500 PS unlocks 1 Extra Chapter]
[10 Reviews unlock 1 Extra Chapter]
Thanks for reading—reviews are appreciated.
P1treon Soulforger has 20+advance chapters