Chapter 10: HALO NIGHT
The bag of chips weighed exactly nothing in terms of social currency, but Leonard had been specific: bring snacks, arrive at seven, don't mention string theory unless Sheldon brings it up first.
I stood outside Apartment 4A, listening to muffled voices through the door. My first Halo night. My first real integration with the group I'd been orbiting for weeks.
Deep breath. You've watched these people on television. You know how this works.
[SOCIAL INTEGRATION OPPORTUNITY. RECOMMEND: STRATEGIC UNDERPERFORMANCE IN GAMING. EXCESSIVE SKILL RAISES QUESTIONS.]
I knocked.
The door swung open. Leonard stood there in a vintage Battlestar Galactica t-shirt, glasses slightly askew.
"Nathan! You made it." He stepped aside, waving me in. "Come on, we're about to start."
The apartment was exactly as I'd imagined—exactly as I remembered from countless episodes. The couch with Sheldon's spot. The whiteboards covered in equations. The kitchen that had seen more takeout containers than home cooking.
It hit me all at once: the surreality of standing inside a television set that was someone's actual home.
"Is that a double PhD with dip?"
The voice came from a short man with a bowl cut and an expression suggesting he'd already sized me up as potential competition for... something.
Howard Wolowitz. Aerospace engineer. MIT graduate. Future astronaut.
"Just tortilla chips and salsa," I said. "Nothing fancy."
"Howard Wolowitz." He extended a hand, shaking mine with slightly too much grip. "MIT. Aerospace. I'd offer to show you around, but there's not much to see. Unless you want to see my room at my mother's house, which I assure you is very impressive."
"I'll take your word for it."
A tall figure emerged from the hallway. Sheldon Cooper, wearing a Green Lantern shirt today, surveyed the snacks with the intensity of a health inspector.
"Adequate." He picked up the chip bag, examined the nutritional information. "Though the sodium content is concerning, and the chip-to-dip ratio appears suboptimal. Did you not bring a secondary dip option?"
"I brought what Leonard suggested."
"Leonard's suggestions are frequently suboptimal." Sheldon set the bag down. "Nevertheless, you may sit. Not in my spot."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
I settled into the armchair near the window. From this angle, I could see the whole room—Leonard setting up the Xbox, Howard claiming a section of the couch, and a fourth person I hadn't initially noticed.
Raj Koothrappali sat at the far end of the couch, giving me a small wave. He didn't speak.
Right. The selective mutism around women. But I wasn't a woman, so—
He still didn't speak.
Leonard caught my confusion. "Raj doesn't really talk much. Don't take it personally."
Raj shrugged, pointed at himself, then made a "talking" gesture with his hand and shook his head.
"Got it," I said. "No pressure."
He looked relieved.
[SOCIAL OBSERVATION: RAJ KOOTHRAPPALI EXHIBITS COMFORT WITH NON-VERBAL ACCEPTANCE. FILE FOR FUTURE REFERENCE.]
The controllers were distributed. Sheldon took his with the reverence of a samurai receiving his katana. Howard immediately started trash-talking. Leonard explained the game mode—four-player co-op against AI, nothing too competitive for the newcomer.
"Have you played Halo before?" Leonard asked.
"A little." A lie. I'd played hundreds of hours in my previous life. "It's been a while."
"Don't worry, we'll take it easy on—"
The match started.
My hands knew what to do before my brain caught up. The muscle memory was different from the original Nathan's racquetball—this was my own skill, carried somehow across the void of death and transmigration.
I headshot three enemies in rapid succession.
Too good. Dial it back.
[WARNING: NOTORIETY RISK. CURRENT PERFORMANCE EXCEEDS STATED EXPERIENCE LEVEL.]
I deliberately missed the next shot. Then another. Let an enemy flank me that I could have easily avoided.
"On your left!" Howard shouted.
I pretended not to react in time. Took the hit. Respawned.
Better.
The match continued. I kept my performance solidly middle-tier—good enough not to embarrass myself, bad enough not to raise eyebrows. Sheldon, predictably, had positioned himself as team leader and was issuing tactical commands that nobody followed.
"Nathan, if you would kindly provide suppressive fire while I secure the objective—"
"Got it."
I sprayed bullets in roughly the right direction. Sheldon charged ahead, got the killing blow on the final boss, and stood up with his controller raised triumphantly.
"And that is how a superior tactical mind operates."
"Nice work, Sheldon." I kept my voice neutral.
Howard squinted at me. "You sure you haven't played before? Some of those shots were pretty clean."
"Beginner's luck. Or maybe just luck."
He didn't look convinced, but he let it drop.
[+15 XP. SOCIAL INTEGRATION: SUCCESSFUL. NOTORIETY CONTAINED.]
The pizza arrived twenty minutes later. Thai food, actually—Leonard explained that pizza was reserved for different nights, per Sheldon's schedule.
The ordering process was an experience.
"I'll have the chicken satay with extra peanut sauce," Sheldon began, "prepared without any green vegetables because the texture is unacceptable, with rice on the side but not touching the main dish, and spring rolls—"
"Sheldon, they know your order," Leonard interrupted. "You get the same thing every time."
"And yet they occasionally include green vegetables. Vigilance is required."
Raj wrote his order on a napkin and handed it to Leonard, who read it aloud to the delivery person. Howard ordered something elaborate that involved impressing no one. I got pad thai.
We ate around the coffee table, controllers set aside. The conversation drifted from game strategy to physics department gossip to comic books.
"Did anyone read the new Batman?" Howard asked. "The one where—"
"The one where he takes on the Court of Owls subplot?" I said before I could stop myself.
Three heads turned toward me. Raj's eyes widened with interest.
Careful. Batman comics exist in 2007, but the Court of Owls didn't debut until 2011.
"I mean—the owl imagery in the recent issues," I recovered quickly. "The hints they've been dropping. I have a theory about where it's going."
"What theory?" Howard leaned forward.
I improvised, pulling from general Batman lore rather than specific future knowledge. Gotham's history, secret societies, the kind of story beats that would make sense. By the time I finished, even Sheldon looked mildly interested.
"That's actually a reasonable extrapolation," he admitted. "Though I suspect the writers will take a far more pedestrian approach."
"Probably," I agreed. "But a guy can hope."
Raj gave me a thumbs up.
For the next hour, we talked comics. I'd forgotten how much I'd enjoyed this in my previous life—the speculation, the character analysis, the passionate arguments about fictional people's choices. It was easy to fall back into.
Too easy.
[OBSERVATION: HOST EXHIBITING GENUINE ENJOYMENT. PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFIT NOTED.]
Around ten o'clock, the night wound down. Leonard started collecting empty containers. Sheldon retreated to his room to "process the evening's data." Howard made his excuses about getting home before his mother started calling.
Raj waved goodbye with a smile that suggested he'd had a good time too.
"Thanks for having me," I said to Leonard at the door.
"Thanks for coming. Same time next week?"
"I'll bring better chips."
"Sheldon will still complain."
I laughed—a real laugh, not a social performance. "Yeah, probably."
The walk to my car was cool, the Pasadena night settling in. I unlocked the Honda and sat behind the wheel for a moment, processing.
I had friends now. Sort of. People who expected to see me, who'd made space for me at their table and in their game.
In my old life, I'd had friends too. But they were dead to me now—or I was dead to them. The distinction didn't matter much.
These people were real. This life was real. And somewhere in the last few hours, I'd stopped treating it like an infiltration mission and started treating it like... just hanging out.
[SOCIAL INTEGRATION PHASE 1 COMPLETE. RECOMMEND: ADVANCE RESEARCH FOCUS WHILE MAINTAINING SOCIAL CONNECTIONS.]
For once, I agreed with the System.
I started the car and headed home. Tomorrow, I'd go back to being a scientist. Tonight, I was just a guy who'd spent an evening playing video games with friends.
It was enough.
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