Chapter 47: The Faster-Than-Light Debate and the Canine Invasion
David took off his down jacket, then the hoodie underneath, and used the hoodie to carefully wrap up the shivering little pup, holding it close before putting his down jacket back on.
The puppy stiffened at first, but perhaps because it felt the warmth and security provided by the fabric and human body heat, it didn't struggle. Instead, it snuggled closer into David's arms, letting out a faint, dependent whimper.
Back in the car, David placed it, still wrapped in the hoodie, on the passenger seat.
The puppy lay quietly, only occasionally raising its luminous eyes to nervously observe the strange environment inside the car and the unfamiliar human beside it.
David restarted the car, but his mood was far more complicated than before.
The relief of solving the data problem was now replaced by the helplessness of having "picked up trouble."
He glanced at the uninvited little passenger beside him and gave a wry smile.
"I'll take you back to the apartment first," he murmured, half to himself and half to the puppy. "I can't just leave you back in those mountains. Tomorrow... tomorrow I'll figure out how to find your owner or take you to a shelter."
He turned up the heat in the car and continued driving toward Pasadena.
Meanwhile, inside the apartment, Leonard, Howard, Raj, and Sheldon were immersed in a heated debate concerning the clash between the laws of physics and popular culture.
On Sheldon's laptop screen, the 1978 film Superman was paused.
The frame was frozen just as Superman, played by Christopher Reeve, began accelerating around the Earth, preparing to perform his infamous "time reversal" stunt—a standard segment of their "Sci-Fi Movie Criticism Session," where they mercilessly used scientific logic to deconstruct classic scenes they secretly loved.
"This is an insult to my intelligence!" Sheldon exclaimed, standing in front of the whiteboard, which was covered in messy formulas and crooked diagrams of the Earth. "What does he think he's doing? Rewinding the planet like a VHS tape?"
"Oh, come on, Sheldon, it's just a movie." Leonard countered weakly, slumped on the couch, his energy depleted after returning from the lab.
"A movie that is scientifically indefensible!" Sheldon retorted. "Faster-than-light travel causing time reversal? That completely misunderstands Special Relativity! Time dilation points toward the future! Like the Twin Paradox—it doesn't allow you to go back in time to retrieve Lois Lane's corpse!"
"Maybe he created a Closed Timelike Curve?" Howard offered, curled up in the armchair, trying to display his engineering wisdom. "Like in Star Trek..."
"Howard!" Sheldon interrupted him. "Don't use the premise of one scientifically illiterate movie to explain the plot hole in another scientifically illiterate movie! The energy density required for a Closed Timelike Curve would instantly turn Earth into a black hole. At that point, forget saving his girlfriend—we'd all be inside the Event Horizon wondering what's for lunch!"
Raj once again played the most emotional one of the four: "B-but it's emotionally moving! He challenged the laws of physics for love!"
"Love?" Sheldon looked at Raj as if he were examining a failed experiment. "Love is a neurochemical state regulated by dopamine, phenethylamine, and oxytocin, and it cannot alter the geometric structure of spacetime! If it could, my Meemaw would have reversed time every time I disappointed her with my dinner choices—which, frankly, would be more thermodynamically probable than what Superman did!"
"Maybe the point isn't how he did it," Leonard tried to summarize, rubbing his temples, "but that he was willing to do it for her. It's symbolic, a... metaphor."
"Metaphor?" Sheldon's pitch rose high enough to shatter glassware. "Leonard, we should describe the universe using clear logic and mathematics, not these vague, emotional 'metaphors' that are the scientific equivalent of building a nuclear reactor out of Twinkies! If the filmmakers wanted to express emotion, they should have had Superman write Lois a sonnet, or at least provided a less physically outrageous solution!"
Just as Sheldon took a deep breath, preparing to launch into a lengthy discourse on "How to Scientifically Save Lois Lane"—
"Knock, knock, knock."
The knocking interrupted Sheldon mid-breath.
"Who is it?" Leonard, as if granted a stay of execution, practically leaped up and rushed to the door.
The door opened. David was standing outside, seemingly carrying something tucked into his jacket.
"Hey, guys," David walked in, his face showing a bit of fatigue from driving dozens of miles back and forth, and... a certain indescribable look. "The data problem's solved."
Just then, a small, furry head peeked out from the folds of his jacket. A pair of bright eyes timidly surveyed the four distinct male specimens in the room.
Eerie silence instantly descended upon the living room.
David looked at the four frozen men, then down at the puppy in his arms, and decided to break the silence in the most straightforward way possible.
"Oh, right," he raised the 'bundle' in his hands and added, "Also, I found a dog."
Leonard's gaze darted back and forth between David's calm face and the small creature that was clearly a puppy, his mouth slightly agape like a malfunctioning machine.
After several seconds, he finally found his voice, speaking with complete incredulity: "Of course I know it's a puppy, David. What's with the dog? Is this some kind of bonus gift from UCLA for distinguished alumni visiting campus?"
Author's Note
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