The pressure applied by the college president was different. It was financial—a force George Cooper understood all too well. A wealthy donor, Mr. Sterling Vance, was considering a major gift to the physics department and the athletic program. He'd heard of the "boy genius" and the coach-father, and wanted a personal audience.
"It's just a dinner, son," George told Sheldon, practicing his own tight smile in the mirror. "You listen, you shake hands, you say 'thank you for your interest in science.' You do not explain why his idea for a perpetual motion machine powered by positive thinking is thermodynamically illiterate. You handle me grumbling during our workouts, you can handle a bunch of rich people. Lord knows watchin' you out perform me is humbling enough."
Sheldon saw the necessity. The university needed resources. His father's program needed legitimacy. It was a social algorithm with a clear desired output. He ran practice scenarios with the only person he considered reliably impervious to subtlety: Billy Sparks.
"Imagine, Billy, that Mr. Vance says, 'I believe crystals focus cosmic intelligence.' What do I say?"
Billy blinked. "That sounds nice?"
"No.That is a statement of profound ignorance. I would say, 'The crystalline lattice can indeed piezoelectrically transduce mechanical energy, but there is no empirical evidence for extra-dimensional intelligence transfer.' However, for the funding, I must contain that retort."
Sheldon paused, his brow furrowed in concentration. "I could say, 'The aesthetic appeal of minerals is universally acknowledged.' It is a neutral, non-committal, and factually adjacent statement."
George nodded, clapping him on the back. "That's the spirit. Just… be adjacent."
The dinner was held in a restaurant where the cutlery seemed unnecessarily heavy. Mr. Vance was a large man whose confidence outstripped his knowledge by several orders of magnitude. He spoke of "harmonic quantum frequencies," "suppressed Tesla technologies," and his belief that the pyramids were built by aliens using sound waves.
Sheldon sat very still. He felt the corrections lining up in his throat like soldiers awaiting deployment. He saw his father's fixed, glassy smile. He saw the college president's eager, desperate nods.
When Vance turned his magnanimous gaze to him. "And you, young man! You, with the mind of Newton! You understand that true science is about breaking free of the dogmas, yes?"
Sheldon felt every eye upon him. The event dictated a polite, adjacent agreement. But a deeper logic, one born of a doctor's disdain for false cures and a scientist's reverence for truth, intervened. He could not pretend to agree. But he could analyze why others did.
He met Vance's gaze. "Mr. Vance, I observe that people often pretend to agree with you. I hypothesize this is because you control a resource they desire: capital. It is a transactional dynamic, not an epistemological one. I, however, am currently funded by my own patents. Therefore, I am free to state that your theories are not science. They are narrative. But," he added, seeing the president pale, "your enthusiasm for the idea of discovery is genuine. That enthusiasm, financially directed toward actual science, could achieve remarkable things. I would encourage such a redirect."
A stunned silence blanketed the table. George closed his eyes, awaiting the explosion.
Then, Mr. Vance let out a booming laugh. "Refreshing! Brutally, beautifully refreshing! No one has been honest with me in twenty years!"
He pointed a finger at the stunned president. "The donation is doubled. The boy gets whatever equipment he needs. And George," he turned, "you and I have season tickets to discuss."
Sheldon's reward, requested via a precise written memo, was a top-of-the-line, ergonomic, anti-static lab chair for his home workspace. It was delivered two days later. He found the transaction efficient and satisfactory.
---
Across town, Connie was at a wedding, a minefield of past grievances. Dale's son was remarrying, and Dale's ex-wife, June, arrived with a date who appeared to have recently graduated… from high school. June confessed to Connie at the punch bowl, her eyes gleaming with spite. "Isn't he beautiful? Drives Dale absolutely wild with jealousy."
Connie, who had a soft spot for Dale despite everything, felt a surge of disgust. "So you're using a kid as a revenge prop? Honey, that's not a date, that's a human firecracker. You're gonna burn your own hands."
The joy went out of June's eyes, replaced by a weary shame. Connie walked away, the festivities suddenly feeling cheap. Some transactions, she thought, just made everyone poorer.
---
At home, a different rebellion was brewing. Missy wanted to go to the Spring Fling dance. Mary's refusal was immediate and rooted in deep-seated principle. "Dances lead to close contact, to inappropriate music, to… rubbing."
"It's called dancing, Mom!"
Georgie, trying to help, made the critical error of showing her Footloose. Missy was inspired; Mary was horrified.
"You see? That's exactly what I'm talking about! Rebellion! Denim!"
"Mom, that movie's about finding joy," Georgie argued, but the cultural reference was too thick a weapon.
Later, he found Mary scrubbing an already-clean sink.
"You know why she told you?" Georgie said, leaning in the doorway. "She told you because she respects you. She's asking for permission because she knows how much this matters to you. That's the kid you raised. If you say no, she'll probably listen. And she'll miss something normal, and she'll start not telling you things. You want the kid who sneaks out, or the kid who asks?"
Mary stopped scrubbing, her knuckles white. She saw the future he outlined—a slow, silent drift into secrecy. She thought of her own mother, of the porch and the toothbrush, of the lines drawn in sand that only taught her how to erase her footsteps.
With a heavy heart, she found Missy. "You can go. But your father will pick you up at ten. Sharp. And the dress will have sleeves."
Missy's hug was explosive, a torrent of gratitude. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Mary didn't know that Missy's joy also contained a seed of guilt. Her friend had already plotted a post-dance sneaking-out to meet boys at the quarry. The permission had been granted, but the temptation of the forbidden had already taken root. Missy was now navigating the complex calculus of how much of her mother's trust she was willing to spend.
That night, Sheldon sat in his new anti-static chair, its pneumatic sigh a sound of perfect functionality. He had successfully navigated a social contract by exposing its core hypocrisy, and been rewarded. His grandmother had witnessed a petty emotional transaction. His sister had been granted a conditional freedom that she might yet abuse. His brother was becoming an unsettlingly competent social psychologist.
Human interactions, he reflected, were a series of benevolent and malevolent transactions, of permissions granted and trusts tested. His own world, of clean equations and honest corrections, felt increasingly like the only true refuge. He adjusted the chair's lumbar support, and turned back to his work, leaving the chaotic marketplace of human emotion to hum softly outside his door.