CHAPTER 3: SHELDON-SPEAK
Aron sat at his desk, staring at the screen. It was another Tuesday, and the work was slow. Password resets, printer fixes, the usual. His mind, however, was in a completely different place. He was in his own private world, a world where he had an AI in his head and a group of friends who were a strange blend of fascinating and infuriating. The thought made him smile.
[SYSTEM: HUMOR SUB-ROUTINE: ACTIVATED. SUGGESTION: INITIATE A HARMLESS, BUT PSYCHOLOGICALLY-TARGETED PRANK ON SHELDON COOPER. RATIONALE: OPTIMIZING AMUSEMENT METRIC. SOCIAL CREDIT GAIN: NEGLIGIBLE. PERSONAL ENJOYMENT: HIGH.]
Aron leaned back in his chair, a mischievous glint in his eyes. He had been looking for an opportunity to test the "Misdirection Protocol." The thought of messing with Sheldon's mind, just a little, was too good to pass up. Sheldon was a creature of routine and logic, and the slightest deviation would send him spiraling. It was the perfect target.
He pulled up his digital interface for the System, the screen a slick, black-and-green terminal. He found the "Misdirection Protocol" and the sub-routine "Sheldon-Speak." The description read: "Subtly alters text to include non-sequiturs, overly pedantic but grammatically incorrect phrases, and an overall sense of 'uncanny valley' communication."
A grin spread across his face. "Activate," he whispered.
A notification popped up on his phone. It was an email from Sheldon, sent to the whole group. The subject line was "URGENT: PIZZA PROTOCOL."
This is too easy, Aron thought, his fingers hovering over the keyboard.
Sheldon's email read: "Friends, Due to a temporal anomaly, the designated pizza night has been moved forward by a factor of 1.7 hours. I have selected the pepperoni pizza from the standard menu, as per our agreement. The cheese-to-crust ratio is, while not scientifically perfect, still satisfactory."
Aron watched as the "Sheldon-Speak" protocol worked its magic, the System's little digital cogs turning. The word "satisfactory" was replaced.
A few moments later, a second email came through, an edit. "Friends, Due to a temporal anomaly, the designated pizza night has been moved forward by a factor of 1.7 hours. I have selected the pepperoni pizza from the standard menu, as per our agreement. The cheese-to-crust ratio is, while not scientifically perfect, still moistly adequate."
Aron's shoulders shook with silent laughter. The sheer absurdity of the phrase was so perfectly wrong for Sheldon that it was genius. The next few minutes were a flurry of group texts as everyone tried to make sense of the new email.
Penny: "Moistly adequate? What?" Leonard: "Sheldon, did you mean 'satisfactory'?" Sheldon: "That is what I wrote. It seems my phone has autocorrected to an absurdly redundant, yet factually accurate, synonym." Howard: "You got a new phone, Sheldon? Or did someone finally invent a moisturizer for pizza?" Raj: (silent emoji of a facepalm)
This is a thing of beauty, Aron thought, leaning back in his chair, a smug look on his face. The perfect crime. It's a problem he can't solve, because the problem is his own words.
Later that night, as the group gathered in their apartment for pizza night, the subject of the email came up.
"It's illogical!" Sheldon insisted, gesturing with a slice of pizza. "I've run a full diagnostic on my phone, and there's no evidence of a text-editing virus. The word 'moistly' doesn't even exist in my predictive text database. It's an unexplainable occurrence."
Leonard sighed, rubbing his temples. "Sheldon, maybe you just had a typo. It happens."
"It doesn't happen to me!" Sheldon said, his voice rising in agitation. "I have a flawless verbal-to-text conversion rate. My mind is a finely-tuned instrument. The phrase 'moistly adequate' is an insult to the intellectual purity of my mental lexicon!"
Aron, pretending to be engrossed in his phone, offered a helpful suggestion. "You know, Sheldon, I could take a look at your phone for you. I'm pretty good at debugging."
Sheldon pulled his phone back to his chest, his eyes wide. "Don't touch my phone! I don't want your 'debugging.' Your methods are likely to be... peculiar."
[SYSTEM: SOCIAL ALGORITHM: CONFLICT/RESOLUTION. RATIONALE: ALLOW SHELDON TO RETAIN HIS SENSE OF INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY. RESULT: HIGHLY AMUSING.]
Leonard, trying to mediate, suggested, "Maybe it's a glitch in the machine, Sheldon. You know, like an unexplainable glitch."
Sheldon scoffed. "A glitch in the machine? Please. That is a pre-scientific, superstitious explanation for a quantifiable technical error. There is a logical explanation, and I will find it. I am not resting until I have solved the Conundrum of the Moistly Adequate Pizza."
Aron couldn't help but let a small, genuine smile escape his lips. He was in his element. He was the one pulling the strings from the shadows, the one with the knowledge no one else could access. He was a silent, benevolent, and slightly mischievous god.
As the night ended and Aron walked back to his apartment, his phone buzzed.
[SYSTEM: MISDIRECTION PROTOCOL: "SHELDON-SPEAK" ACTIVATED. AMUSEMENT METRIC: 85%. NEXT PRANK SUB-ROUTINE: UNLOCKING NOW.]
Oh, good, Aron thought. It's time to take this to the next level. The fun had just begun.
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