[TBBT] Ch: 6 [I don't like you] (Patreon)

AN: Had to Google too many scientific terms lol. Anyway, hope you like it.

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I stared at the door for another second.

There were some moments in life you knew were going to matter before they happened.

Dying.

Waking up again.

My first university lecture.

Defending my first doctoral dissertation.

Finding out Sheldon Cooper existed.

And now, apparently, opening a door.

Leonard remained seated on the cardboard box with the folder resting across his knees. Judging from the expression on his face, he wasn't nearly as enthusiastic about the approaching historical event as I was.

"You sound excited," I said.

Leonard looked at me. "That's because you've never met him."

"Fair point."

I opened the door.

Sheldon Cooper stood in the hallway with his hands clasped behind his back, wearing a brown T-shirt over a long-sleeved shirt and an expression of intense concentration that suggested he'd come upstairs to investigate a suspicious chemical spill rather than meet his new neighbor.

For several seconds, neither of us said anything.

I had seen Jim Parsons on television during my first life, watched clips from the show, and occasionally laughed at Sheldon making everyone around him question why murder remained illegal. None of that prepared me for seeing the actual Sheldon Cooper standing outside my apartment.

He was a little taller than I remembered.

Also thinner.

And somehow his expression was even more judgmental in person.

Sheldon tilted his head slightly while his eyes moved from my face to the apartment behind me, then toward Leonard sitting on the cardboard box with my research folder open across his knees.

His eyebrows rose.

"I see you've already made contact with Leonard, which means the introductory portion of this interaction can be significantly shortened."

I glanced back toward Leonard. "Does he always begin conversations like he's writing a laboratory report?"

Leonard gave me the tired look of a man who'd answered that question several hundred times. "You're getting the condensed version because he hasn't brought out a questionnaire."

Sheldon looked toward Leonard with mild irritation. "I haven't brought out a questionnaire because I don't have sufficient information to construct one properly. A badly designed questionnaire introduces bias, Leonard, which you would understand if experimental rigor were as important to you as playing with lasers."

Leonard's expression flattened. "There he is."

I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.

Sheldon returned his attention toward me. "Since Leonard has apparently neglected basic social procedure, I'm Dr. Sheldon Cooper. I live in Apartment 4A directly beneath you, which makes your behavior particularly relevant to my continued quality of life."

I extended my hand automatically. "Karl Peterson. Nice to meet you."

Sheldon stared at the offered hand.

Then he stared at me.

Then his eyes returned toward my hand as though I'd placed a recently discovered biological specimen between us.

"I don't shake hands."

I slowly lowered it again. "Germ thing?"

"Germ awareness," Sheldon corrected while raising one finger. "Calling it a germ thing implies an irrational fixation, whereas my reluctance to exchange microorganisms with someone whose hand-washing habits remain completely unknown is objectively sensible."

From behind me, Leonard spoke without looking away from the folder. "He means germ thing."

Sheldon ignored him.

His eyes moved past me again, inspecting the apartment with uncomfortable thoroughness.

"I came upstairs because your arrival introduces several previously nonexistent variables into my residential environment."

I leaned against the doorframe. "That sounds ominous."

"It shouldn't sound ominous unless you're planning to become an environmental nuisance," Sheldon replied. "Apartment 5B has remained vacant long enough to function as an effective acoustic and social buffer. Your occupation of that space therefore represents a measurable reduction in environmental predictability."

I stared at him.

Somewhere inside my head, the twenty-three-year-old version of me who'd watched The Big Bang Theory during my first life was absolutely delighted.

The twenty-one-year-old version currently dealing with him was beginning to understand Leonard's expression.

"You came upstairs to tell me I ruined your buffer zone?"

Sheldon considered the wording. "Crude, although essentially accurate."

Leonard finally lowered the folder enough to look toward us. "He spent the last five minutes explaining how an empty apartment was protecting him from scented candles."

Sheldon's attention snapped toward him. "Artificial lavender was one example among several plausible hazards."

I looked back toward Sheldon. "For the record, I don't own scented candles."

Some of the tension disappeared from his face.

"Excellent. That eliminates one concern."

"I might buy one now."

His expression immediately tightened again.

Leonard started laughing behind me.

I couldn't help smiling. "That was a joke."

Sheldon continued staring for another second before nodding slowly. "Yes, I determined that from Leonard's laughter. Your facial expression provided supporting evidence."

That was incredible.

I stepped away from the doorway and gestured toward the apartment. "You might as well come inside."

Sheldon didn't move.

His eyes traveled across the floor behind me, examining boxes, the guitar case, the sleeping bag in the corner, and whatever else he could see from the hallway.

"Has the apartment been cleaned since the previous tenant vacated?"

"I assume the building management cleaned it."

"Assumptions are responsible for a considerable percentage of preventable human error."

I raised an eyebrow. "Would you like me to find the cleaning records before allowing you across the threshold?"

Sheldon seemed to genuinely consider that possibility.

Leonard saved me from discovering the answer. "Sheldon, either come inside or go downstairs."

Sheldon frowned toward him. "I wasn't asking you."

"And yet I'm still helping."

After another moment of internal calculation, Sheldon stepped inside while carefully avoiding one of the boxes near the doorway. He stopped three steps into the apartment and surveyed the room like a military commander evaluating newly captured territory.

I closed the door behind him.

Sheldon pointed toward the mostly empty living room. "Where is your furniture?"

"I've been here for approximately half a day."

"That wasn't an answer."

"It was the reason."

"Reasons and answers aren't mutually exclusive."

I looked toward Leonard. "How long did you say you've lived with him?"

Leonard sighed while closing the folder. "Long enough that sometimes I hear his voice even when he's not home."

Sheldon turned toward him. "That could indicate auditory hallucinations. You should probably consult a neurologist."

Leonard rubbed his forehead. "Thank you for your concern."

"You're welcome."

I laughed before I could stop myself.

Sheldon looked at me, apparently uncertain why Leonard and I both found the exchange entertaining, then his attention shifted toward the folder resting across Leonard's knees.

His entire posture changed.

"What are you reading?"

Leonard looked down at the folder. "An early draft of Karl's optofluidic life-support paper."

Sheldon stared at him.

Then he looked toward me.

Then back toward Leonard.

There was a noticeable pause while several pieces of information apparently rearranged themselves inside his head.

"Your name is Karl Peterson," Sheldon said as his left eye twitched a bit. 

"I mentioned that approximately two minutes ago," I replied.

"You did, although I reasonably assumed there could be more than one Karl Peterson. Karl is derived from the Germanic word meaning free man, while Peterson is a patronymic surname sufficiently common that identifying someone solely through those two pieces of information would be statistically irresponsible."

Leonard looked toward me. "This is his way of admitting he didn't recognize you."

Sheldon frowned. "I recognized the name. I simply hadn't completed the association."

"Which means you didn't recognize him."

"Your insistence on oversimplifying language is one of the reasons conversations with you are exhausting."

Leonard smiled faintly. "And yet you keep having them."

Sheldon ignored that and shifted his attention to me. “Karl Peterson. Twenty-one years old, two doctorates, several publications involving closed-loop habitation systems, and an unfortunate tendency to let newspapers describe you as a multidisciplinary prodigy.”

Leonard glanced toward me with a faint smile. “See, he recognized you eventually.”

Sheldon ignored him and lifted one finger. “Although calling both doctorates equally impressive would be academically dishonest. One is in aerospace engineering from MIT, which is respectable in the same way precision machining is respectable. The other is in food science and technology from UC Davis.”

I waited while his expression shifted into something dangerously close to sympathy.

Sheldon clasped his hands behind his back. “You’re twenty-one years old. At your age, Isaac Newton was developing ideas that transformed mathematics and mechanics. You spent part of your peak neurological development studying shelf stability, emulsification, moisture migration, and the many ways humanity can stop cheese from becoming fuzzy. A brain capable of doctoral-level work was directed toward calculating how long a snack cake can remain edible.”

Leonard’s face tightened. “Sheldon, you’re being rude, even by your standards.”

“I’m being accurate,” Sheldon replied. “Food science is useful, just as refrigeration is useful. Usefulness doesn’t automatically confer intellectual grandeur.”

I folded my arms while Sheldon’s attention moved toward my second degree.

“Then we arrive at aerospace engineering, specializing in bioastronautics,” Sheldon continued. “Better, certainly, although engineers are essentially the Oompa Loompas of science. They aren't real scientists. Theoretical physicists uncover the architecture of reality. Engineers take our equations, add bolts, tolerances, warning labels, and enough redundant systems to prevent ordinary people from killing themselves.”

Leonard let out a slow breath. “You really don’t hear yourself when you talk, do you?”

Sheldon continued without acknowledging him. “Bioastronautics makes the situation stranger. You could contemplate the fundamental structure of the universe, yet you devoted years to ensuring astronauts retain bone density, breathe recycled air, digest dinner, and remain psychologically functional inside metal cylinders. You took a racing engine of a brain and installed it in a very sophisticated life-support technician.”

I stared at him for several seconds before smiling. “Well, how about we check facts and see who is the real scientist?”

Leonard immediately looked between us. “That sentence is going to make tonight much longer than I expected.”

Sheldon’s posture straightened. “An objective comparison would be acceptable, provided you don’t inflate engineering achievements through emotional appeals regarding astronauts remaining alive.”

I nodded toward him. “You’re confident enough to compare records, then?”

“Extremely confident,” Sheldon replied. “How do you suggest we do it?”

“We keep it simple,” I said. “Age, education, original research, demonstrated results, and range. Since you came upstairs to evaluate me, you can start.”

Sheldon’s expression brightened. “I entered college at eleven, graduated summa cum laude at fourteen, and received the Stevenson Award at fourteen and a half. At fifteen, I was a visiting professor in Heidelberg. At sixteen, while ordinary adolescents were acquiring acne and poor judgment, I examined perturbative amplitudes in N equals four supersymmetric theories, contributing to a re-examination of ultraviolet properties in multiloop N equals eight supergravity using modern twistor theory.”

Leonard leaned slightly toward me. “He’s been waiting his entire life for someone to ask that question.”

Sheldon barely acknowledged him. “I received my first doctorate at sixteen. Work involving a hyperelliptic Riemann surface later became the basis of my postdoctoral fellowship, and I completed a second doctoral degree after four more years of research. I’ve also contributed to work touching dark matter and cosmology. But my primary goal is String Theory. I currently work at Caltech on problems whose mathematical difficulty would make most engineers seek emotional comfort from a torque wrench.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “That’s genuinely impressive,” I said, leaning back against the wall. “You’ve got an absurd academic record, Sheldon. I’m not going to pretend otherwise just because you spent the last five minutes insulting both of my doctorates.”

Sheldon gave a satisfied nod. “Good. Intellectual honesty is an encouraging trait.”

Leonard glanced toward me over the folder. “Don’t encourage him too much. We still have to get him back downstairs eventually.”

I ignored that and looked at Sheldon. “Since we’re comparing records, mine’s shorter. I entered UC Davis at twelve, completed my doctorate in Food Science and Technology at seventeen, then finished my doctorate in Aerospace Engineering at MIT four years later.”

Sheldon tilted his head. “Educational acceleration alone doesn’t establish scientific significance.”

“I know,” I replied. “That’s why I wasn’t finished.”

His mouth closed again.

“During my first doctorate, I developed the Peterson Encapsulation Matrix, a multilayer microencapsulation method for preserving micronutrients, volatile compounds, and pharmaceutical-grade bioactives under heat, oxygen exposure, and long-term storage. Three companies have already licensed versions of the process, and the military has tested derivatives for field rations and emergency medical supplies.”

Leonard’s eyebrows rose. “That was yours?”

I nodded. “Yep.”

Sheldon’s expression changed slightly, although he kept his arms folded.

“I also developed a low-water sterilization process using pulsed pressure, controlled humidity cycling, and targeted antimicrobial compounds,” I continued. “It cut thermal damage enough to preserve texture and nutritional quality while still meeting commercial sterilization standards. That one’s already being used in specialized disaster-relief food production.”

Sheldon lifted one finger. “Useful industrial chemistry remains industrial chemistry.”

“Which is why I went into aerospace afterward,” I replied. “At MIT, I designed a compact variable-load centrifuge system for long-duration spacecraft. Most artificial-gravity concepts assume large rotating structures or fixed-radius systems. Mine uses adaptive loading, seat articulation, and individualized spin profiles to reduce vestibular stress while maintaining enough mechanical stimulus to slow bone and muscle loss.”

Leonard leaned forward. “The Peterson Short-Radius Centrifuge?”

“That’s the one,” I said.

His face lit up with recognition. “I read about the prototype. You got subjects tolerating higher rotational speeds than predicted.”

“With considerably less nausea,” I said. “That detail mattered to the volunteers.”

Sheldon’s eyes narrowed. “I’m familiar with the paper.”

I smiled. “Excellent. Then you probably also know about the radiation dosimetry work.”

His silence answered for him.

“I developed a wearable distributed dosimeter using layered scintillating fibers and real-time directional reconstruction,” I continued. “Instead of telling an astronaut how much radiation they accumulated after exposure, it estimates where the dose came from while it’s happening. That lets the habitat computer identify shielding weaknesses and adjust crew positioning during solar events.”

Leonard slowly lowered the folder. “Caltech’s engineering group discussed that last year.”

“I know. One of them emailed me thirty-seven questions in a single message.”

Sheldon frowned. “Thirty-seven questions is an efficient way to consolidate correspondence.”

“Of course you’d defend that.”

Leonard smiled faintly while Sheldon ignored him.

I gestured toward the folder resting on Leonard’s knees. “The closed-loop biological system you were mocking earlier is still early-stage work. The published material is proof of concept, and I’m nowhere near claiming it can keep a Mars crew alive. I’ve got scaling problems, optical heating, control instability, biological drift, and a list of failures long enough to qualify as recreational reading.”

Sheldon’s expression relaxed slightly, apparently pleased that I understood the difference between experimental promise and finished science.

“But outside that project,” I continued, “I’ve already produced technology that preserves critical nutrients for years, improves sterilization without destroying food quality, reduces physiological deterioration under artificial gravity, and tracks radiation exposure in real time. Those aren’t hypothetical achievements sitting in my notebook. They’ve been published, patented, tested, licensed, and demonstrated publicly.”

Sheldon studied me more carefully now.

I folded my arms. “So when you call food science intellectually inferior and aerospace engineering glorified bolt-tightening, you’re dismissing fields that solve problems theoretical physics can identify but doesn’t automatically fix.”

Sheldon’s jaw tightened. “Fundamental physics remains the foundation upon which those technologies ultimately depend.”

“Absolutely,” I replied. “But you’re making one assumption that doesn’t hold.”

Sheldon’s expression sharpened slightly.

I folded my arms. “You keep talking about my work as though I take theories developed by physicists, attach machinery to them, and call the result science. That isn’t how my research works.”

Leonard glanced up from the folder while Sheldon lifted his chin. “Engineering remains dependent upon established physical principles.”

“Of course it does,” I said. “So does your work. You didn’t invent quantum mechanics, differential geometry, or quantum field theory before you started using them.”

Sheldon’s mouth tightened.

“I didn’t invent thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, radiation physics, or control theory either,” I continued. “That isn’t the point. Original research doesn’t require rebuilding science from first principles.”

I nodded toward the folder across Leonard’s knees. “The short-radius centrifuge uses known rotational physics, but the adaptive control model is mine. I developed the loading framework, derived the response predictions, and designed the control scheme that adjusts rotation and body positioning around individual physiological tolerance.”

Leonard gave a small nod as he followed the explanation.

“The radiation dosimeter works the same way,” I continued. “Scintillation isn’t my discovery. Radiation detection certainly isn’t my discovery. The directional reconstruction method is. I developed the mathematical framework that uses distributed detector responses to estimate where the incoming exposure is originating in real time.”

Sheldon remained silent, which I took as permission to continue.

“And the preservation work doesn’t magically replace chemistry. I developed a new stabilization model around diffusion, oxidation, moisture transfer, and degradation kinetics, then used that model to design the encapsulation system. The theory produced predictions, the experiments tested those predictions, and the resulting process performed well enough to be patented and licensed.”

I leaned back slightly against the wall. “That’s the part you keep ignoring. I’m not simply building devices from equations somebody handed me. I develop new models inside established science, derive consequences from them, then build experiments and hardware to see whether reality agrees.”

Leonard looked toward Sheldon with faint amusement. “That sounds suspiciously like science.”

Sheldon ignored him. “Applied theoretical modeling is still distinct from fundamental theory.”

“I never said otherwise,” I replied. “I’m saying your distinction between scientist and engineer falls apart the moment the engineer is also producing original theory, making testable predictions, and experimentally validating them.”

I gestured toward the unfinished folder. “Even the closed-loop project started with a coupled model I developed for biological growth, nutrient transport, fluid flow, optical redistribution, and feedback control. That one’s still immature, so I’m not putting it beside the others yet. It has too many problems left to solve.”

Sheldon’s eyes dropped toward the equations.

I smiled faintly. “The laws I’m using aren’t mine, Sheldon. The models are. The predictions and the implementations are. And when those predictions survive experimentation, the results are mine too.”

For several seconds, Sheldon simply stared at me.

Then his attention shifted toward the folder in Leonard’s hands. Then he looked back at me. 

"I don't like you."