[TBBT] Ch: 18 [Perfection] (Patreon)

Sheldon kept the answer sheet facedown against his thigh and raised the test page.

"Number one."

His eyes moved across the first line before he read it aloud with the careful pronunciation of someone who'd already practiced every sentence several times.

"Ez dut uste zure plana oso ona denik."

I barely needed a second.

"Basque," I replied. "The translation is, 'I don't think your plan is very good.' More naturally, depending on context, you could render it as, 'I don't think your plan is particularly good.'"

Howard's confident expression didn't change, although I saw his eyes move toward Sheldon.

Sheldon flipped the corner of the answer sheet upward just enough to check.

His face remained neutral.

"Correct."

Raj leaned forward slightly.

Leonard glanced toward Howard. "One."

Howard waved him off. "Please, it's Basque. Half of Europe backpacks through there. It's practically mainstream."

I looked toward him. "You want to translate it?"

Howard immediately crossed his arms. "I'm participating as an investor."

"Convenient."

Sheldon ignored us and moved on.

"Number two."

He adjusted the page before reading the next sentence.

"ქარი მთელი ღამე ძლიერად ქროდა."

That one actually made me smile.

"Georgian," I answered. "It means, 'The wind blew strongly all night.' A smoother English translation would be, 'The wind blew hard throughout the night.'"

Sheldon's eyes dropped toward the answer key.

Another brief pause followed.

"Correct."

Raj's eyebrows lifted.

Howard looked considerably less relaxed.

Leonard's mouth twitched as though he was trying to keep from smiling too early.

I leaned back into the armchair and rested one ankle over my opposite knee. "This is fun."

Sheldon looked mildly offended by my enjoyment. "You have answered two questions. Statistically meaningful conclusions remain premature."

"Of course."

He moved immediately to the third.

This time, the writing used Arabic script.

"إذا أردت أن تفهم المشكلة، فعليك أن تبدأ من البداية."

I answered before Sheldon finished lowering the page.

"Modern Standard Arabic. 'If you want to understand the problem, you have to start from the beginning.'"

Sheldon's fingers tightened slightly around the page.

"Correct."

Howard shifted on the couch.

Raj looked toward him with growing amusement before turning back toward me.

I smiled at Sheldon. "You're going to need to dig deeper."

"I already have."

The way he said it told me the opening questions had probably been chosen as calibration.

Good.

I wanted him to make this interesting.

Sheldon moved to number four, which turned out to be Hungarian. Number five was Swahili. Number six used the Armenian alphabet. I identified all three and translated them without much difficulty, though the Armenian sentence contained a slightly archaic construction that forced me to think for several seconds before giving Sheldon both the literal translation and the smoother modern English version.

He accepted it after checking his answer key twice.

By number seven, Howard had stopped pretending he wasn't nervous.

"Okay," he said while leaning toward Sheldon. "Hold on. You promised me a linguistic bloodbath."

Sheldon didn't lower the page. "I promised a rigorous examination."

"He's seven for seven."

"My grasp of elementary arithmetic remains intact, Howard."

Howard pointed toward the paper. "Then hit him with a dead language! Or an alien one!"

Leonard stared at him. "That is generally how language tests work."

Howard ignored Leonard and focused on Sheldon. "Give him something horrifying."

Raj nodded enthusiastically. "Ooh, do one of those languages where they click."

Sheldon looked toward Raj. "Your understanding of linguistic complexity appears to begin and end with unusual phonetics."

Raj gave him a small shrug. "I just think clicks are neat."

Sheldon returned his attention toward me.

"Number eight."

He read a sentence written in a language I recognized immediately from the phonetic structure.

"Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu."

That one was famous enough that I almost laughed.

"Zulu," I said. "Literally, 'A person is a person through other people.' The broader meaning is tied to Ubuntu, where a person's humanity exists through their relationship with others."

Raj smiled. "That's actually beautiful."

Howard stared at Sheldon. "You gave him philosophy?"

Sheldon frowned. "I gave him Zulu."

I tilted my head toward Howard. "Still waiting for the horrifying part."

Howard muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a threat against my genetics.

The next several questions became noticeably harder.

Sheldon had included Lithuanian with an unfamiliar idiomatic structure, then Icelandic, followed by Tamil written in its native script. He even slipped in Amharic, which made Leonard step closer because he apparently hadn't expected Sheldon to go that far.

I translated every one.

By number twelve, nobody was talking between questions anymore.

Howard's posture had changed completely. His arms remained crossed, although the position looked defensive now rather than confident.

Raj sat forward with both elbows resting on his knees, openly fascinated.

Leonard had moved away from the kitchen island and was now standing behind the couch where he could see Sheldon's reaction after every answer.

Sheldon himself looked increasingly irritated.

That was probably my favorite part.

He reached number thirteen.

His eyes flicked toward me before he read the next line.

"In xochitl, in cuicatl, yancuic nemiliztli quitemoa."

I paused.

Howard's face immediately brightened. He pointed at me. "Ha! A pause! We have a pause!"

I raised one hand. "Just give me a second to contextualize."

Howard's grin returned with alarming speed. "Behold, gentlemen, the impenetrable firewall of Peterson's brain has finally been breached."

Leonard looked toward him. "You said that after the Armenian one too."

"Yes, but this time I can smell the defeat."

I ignored them and replayed the sentence in my head.

Classical Nahuatl.

The structure was recognizable, though Sheldon had chosen poetic vocabulary rather than conversational language. In xochitl, in cuicatl literally referred to "the flower, the song," although culturally it functioned as a paired metaphor associated with poetry and artistic truth.

I looked toward Sheldon.

"Classical Nahuatl. Literally, something close to 'The flower, the song, seeks new life.' Contextually, I'd translate it as, 'Poetry seeks a new life,' because 'flower and song' functions as a metaphorical expression rather than a literal botanical and musical statement."

Sheldon froze.

Howard's smile disappeared.

Sheldon slowly lifted the answer sheet and read it. His eyes moved across the line once.

Leonard leaned over the back of the couch. "Well?"

Sheldon kept staring at the page. "His semantic nuance actually supersedes the baseline translation I prepared."

I couldn't stop smiling.

Howard turned sharply toward Sheldon. "Wait, what? How can it be better than yours?"

Sheldon looked annoyed. "By possessing a higher degree of contextual accuracy, Howard. Do try to keep up."

"But you're the one who wrote the test!"

"Yes."

"And he improved the answer key."

"I do not require a play-by-play of my own humiliation."

Raj covered his mouth, but his shoulders shook.

Leonard made no attempt to hide his grin anymore. "This is getting really good."

Sheldon straightened the page with unnecessary care.

"Number fourteen."

The next sentence was Finnish.

I translated it.

Number fifteen was Yoruba.

I got that too.

Number sixteen was Mongolian written in traditional script rather than Cyrillic, which finally made me lean forward and actually concentrate. The System's language reward didn't feel like reaching into a dictionary. It felt more like switching between already organized mental frameworks, each one carrying its own grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, historical development, and cultural context.

Traditional Mongolian script ran vertically, which made reading it from Sheldon's horizontally held paper slightly annoying.

Still, I got it.

Sheldon didn't comment beyond confirming the answer.

Howard looked like someone had replaced his blood with anxiety.

By number seventeen, Raj had started quietly calculating what his comics were worth.

By number eighteen, Leonard had begun looking openly delighted.

Then Sheldon reached number nineteen.

For the first time since the test began, a tiny trace of confidence returned to his expression.

That interested me.

"Number nineteen," he said.

This time, he pointed at the line on the paper. I guess, even he couldn't pronounce it.

"𒀀𒈾 𒂍 𒃲 𒌑𒊒𒁺."

I stared at the symbols.

Cuneiform.

Now we were finally getting somewhere.

Howard saw my expression and almost jumped off the couch. "Boom! We got him!"

I held up one finger. "Calm down."

"That is the thousand-yard stare of a broken man."

"I'm parsing Sumerian cuneiform, Howard. It takes a moment to mentally switch to a bronze-age logographic script," I replied. 

His smile grew wider. "Admit it, you're tapping out."

I ignored him and reconstructed the signs.

The phrase was Sumerian, although whoever had transliterated it had chosen a fairly basic structure.

I looked toward Sheldon.

"Sumerian. Something close to, 'He went to the great house,' depending on the verbal interpretation and whether you're treating the final construction literally. If 'great house' is functioning institutionally, then 'He went to the palace' would probably be the better translation."

The room became silent again.

Sheldon checked his answer sheet.

"Correct."

Howard dropped backward against the couch.

Raj turned his head toward him. "I'm pretty sure your mint-condition issue is weeping softly in its mylar sleeves."

Howard glared at him. "The fat lady hasn't sung yet!"

I looked toward Sheldon. One question remained. He stared at the final sentence for several seconds before raising his eyes toward me. Something had changed in his expression. Annoyance remained, obviously. Sheldon could probably sustain intellectual irritation through a hurricane.

There was something else mixed into it now.

Respect would be too generous.

Recognition was probably closer.

He understood the claim I'd made wasn't exaggerated anymore.

Sheldon lifted the sheet. "Number twenty."

Howard leaned forward with renewed hope. "Prepare for the coup de grâce."

Sheldon ignored him and carefully read the final sentence. "Nid aur yw popeth melyn."

I stared at him for perhaps two seconds.

Howard practically launched himself upright. "Look! Brain freeze! The gears are totally jammed!"

God, this bitch just won't shut up. I looked toward him. "Howard, utilizing one's brain before opening one's mouth is a standard human function. You might want to take it for a test drive."

Raj burst out laughing while Howard's excitement disappeared.

I turned back toward Sheldon. "Welsh. Literally, 'Everything yellow isn't gold,' although the natural English equivalent is, 'All that glitters isn't gold.'"

Sheldon's eyes immediately dropped toward the answer sheet.

Leonard leaned over the couch. "Well?"

Sheldon lowered the page with visible reluctance. "Correct."

Howard's face collapsed.

I smiled. "Twenty out of twenty."

Raj sank back against the couch and stared mournfully toward the comic books. "This is a profound PSA on the dangers of compulsive betting."

Leonard sighed and pushed his glasses higher. "I did tell you you were walking into a buzzsaw."

Howard pointed accusingly toward me. "Nobody knows twenty random languages like that."

"I warned you yesterday."

"People exaggerate!"

"That sounds like a problem with your risk-assessment methodology."

Sheldon placed both sheets on the table and studied me with considerably more intensity than before. "Your performance was statistically improbable to an irritating degree."

"Thank you."

"That wasn't intended as praise."

"I'll take it anyway."

I stood and carefully took the comic from the coffee table. Sheldon's eyes immediately followed his Flash issue as I picked it up.

"Your thumb is too close to the upper corner."

I adjusted my grip. "Better?"

"Marginally."

Then I collected my $7,700 from the table and slipped the cash back into my jacket.

Howard watched every bill disappear.

"This isn't over, Peterson."

I sighed. "You set the terms, picked the adjudicator, deployed Sheldon as your final boss, and got wiped out. I'd say 'over' is exactly the word we're looking for."

Raj smiled toward Howard. "Webster's Dictionary couldn't have defined 'over' any better."

Leonard started laughing.

I headed toward the door, then glanced back at Sheldon. "Good test, by the way. The Nahuatl question was clever."

Sheldon gave me a long, irritated stare.

"I still don't like you."

I smiled as I opened the door. "Yeah, I'm starting to get that impression. And send me the promised comics to my apartment by the end of the day."

Behind me, Howard groaned while Raj began laughing again.

Living here was getting better every day.