Chapter 7: The "System" Solution
The Big Brother conversation was a triumph. For two hours, Sheldon was forced to sit there, listening to me and Paige debate the philosophical implications of a group of strangers living in a house together. He sat there, his hands clasped behind his back, a look of profound indignation on his face, but he couldn't leave. He was trapped by his own rules, and it was a beautiful thing to behold.
After the conversation, he retreated to his apartment, a defeated man. It was then that I decided it was time to tell Paige my secret. She was my intellectual equal, my partner-in-crime. She deserved to know the truth. The full, ridiculous, sci-fi truth.
I waited until she was sitting on my couch, a cup of coffee in her hand, a look of triumphant satisfaction on her face. "You're a genius," she said, a small smile on her face. "You've broken him. He's been broken by his own rules. I think that might be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
"I have to tell you something," I said, my voice a little more serious than usual. "Something a little… weird. Something that might sound a little… crazy. You might want to sit down for this. Actually, you're already sitting down. Good. Don't get up."
She looked at me, her eyes narrowed in a mix of amusement and genuine curiosity. "Weirder than a theoretical physicist being forced to debate the merits of a reality TV show? I think I can handle it. Try me."
I took a deep breath. "I'm not from here. I'm not from this universe. I died in my old life, and I was given a System. A computer program that helps me navigate this new reality. A cosmic cheat code, if you will."
She just stared at me, a blank look on her face. Then, a slow, knowing smile spread across her features. "You… you're a transmigrator? Like in a webnovel?" she asked, her voice filled with a mixture of disbelief and pure scientific curiosity.
I blinked. "You've read webnovels?"
"I've read everything," she said, a small, triumphant smile on her face. "I'm a genius with a lot of time on my hands. I've read enough sci-fi to know a good trope when I see one. So, you have a System? What does it do? Does it have a crafting feature? Can you build a spaceship out of spare parts?"
I smiled. She wasn't scared. She wasn't skeptical. She was just… intrigued.
I closed my eyes and focused on the System's interface. A holographic screen, shimmering with a blue light, appeared in front of me, invisible to anyone but me. I, with a simple mental command, made it visible to her.
Paige gasped, her eyes wide with a mix of astonishment and fascination. The screen was a series of floating screens and buttons, with a hundred different functions and sub-functions. It was beautiful, a perfect, logical, and yet completely chaotic piece of technology. It looked like the kind of thing a hyper-intelligent alien race would design, and then hire a committee to over-engineer it into oblivion.
"It's… it's beautiful," she said, her voice a low, reverent whisper. "It's absurdly over-engineered, like something Sheldon would design, but it's… it's beautiful. What does it do? Does it have a 'Bazinga!' button? Because if it does, I want to press it."
I chuckled. "It has a 'Bazinga!' button, but it's only for emergencies. Its primary function is to double my IQ and knowledge from people within a 5-meter radius of me. I can pick and choose who I want to get the knowledge from, and I can even get a permanent IQ boost if I spend enough time with a person."
I went on to explain the other functions, the "Permanent IQ Boost," the "Temporary Knowledge Boost," and the "Degree Acquisition." I explained how I had used the "Sonic Manipulation" function to give Sheldon a ghost.
Paige listened to the whole thing, her eyes wide with fascination. She asked a hundred questions, each one more complex than the last. She asked about the System's origin, its purpose, and how it worked on a quantum level. She was a scientist, and this was the ultimate scientific discovery. It was a chaotic, beautiful mess, and she loved it.
"So," she said, a mischievous glint in her eyes, "we're going to use this thing to get you a degree and get you into Caltech, right? Because I have a feeling that my revenge on Sheldon is going to be a lot more fun with you there to help me."
I smiled. "That's the plan. We're going to get a degree, get into Caltech, and make Sheldon's life a living hell. It's going to be glorious."
By the end of the conversation, we had a new plan. We were no longer just two pranksters. We were a team. A chaotic, sarcastic, and incredibly smart team. We were going to use the System to our advantage, to create more chaos, to cause more trouble, and to make Sheldon's life a living hell. And it was going to be the most fun I'd had since I got here.