A/N: It took me far to long to update this and I feel AWFUL about it! :(

I DO NOT OWN THESE AMAZING FEATS OF INTELLIGENCE (You'll see what I did there...).

Anyway, I was trying to add the interrogation onto the end, but I haven't been able to make it work, and the crappiness I had made this chapter unbearably long. Hopefully it won't take too much longer, as this chapter is unbearably short, considering how long it has been since the last one...

Howard knew something was up. These people, these government agents, they were all just too mysterious; their stories didn't quite match up. This entire affair was forming a vast web of contradictions. And he wasn't paranoid!

To start off, the old man, Walter Bishop, was a mystery in himself. Howard had heard of him, of course. He'd been made an example of throughout the young scientific community: a man of brilliance, confined to working on toothpaste by an overpowering corporation. He'd simply lost it one day and flung himself into the world of quantum and theoretical physics. A fire had started in his lab – the one that killed his assistant- and although he hadn't been prosecuted, he'd been deemed "unfit for trial" and incarcerated in a mental institution. Who knew how he ended up here?

The mad scientist in question was currently sitting quietly on the floor, per the request of his son, while the younger Bishop and two FBI agents attempted to untangle the security net Sheldon had paid Howard to set up around the hiding place of his most valuable comic.

Speaking of the FBI, Agent Olivia Dunham was definitely amazing. If he weren't preoccupied with the important issue of censorship at hand, Howard would've been mooning over her. But she was definitely hiding something. The way she kept skimming the details of the situation was beyond suspicious; and her words seemed very rehearsed, like she had received a script of politically correct terminology and practiced beforehand. The final bit of curiosity brought him to the third person: Agent Dunham definitely had a past with Peter Bishop.

The way they spoke to each other and worked together almost flawlessly displayed that to everyone around them. The group of agents had only been working on untangling the older Bishop for a short time, but they seemed to be only about an hour away from discovering the secret to removing the net, and deciphering one of his traps was definitely a feat of intelligence and teamwork. Even with their apparent chemistry, it was obvious that Agent Dunham and Mr. Bishop were avoiding each other.

And he may have been the most curious. Howard just couldn't shake a feeling of familiarity about the guy. It wasn't the same feeling as knowing about Dr. Bishop. This man had been in Howard's vicinity repeatedly, and something had happened then to bring him to Howard's attention, but, for the life of him, he couldn't put his finger on it! Who was Peter Bishop?

The young agent who had informed everyone of the incident, Astrid Farnsworth, was the first to let her frustration get the best of her, "Who built this crazy thing?" Her exclamation drew Howard from his pondering prematurely.

"Oh, um… that would be me" Howard raised his hand, then held it out to the young woman. "Howard Wolowitz, engineer." He gave a smile that he perceived to be charming and they shook hands awkwardly. Astrid looked slightly frightened, but that was probably because of his awesomeness. It seemed to happen a lot.

Howard strode up to Dr. Bishop and plucked a strand of rope off of the floor to the doctor's right. When he pulled it, a mechanism clicked and the entire net began slowly withdrawing into a box above the pantry. Howard dusted his hands off and moved carefully back to his friends, narrowly avoiding treading on the moving ropes.

"And you didn't think to do that before?" Mr. Bishop asked, perturbed.

"We'll, who wouldn't, Peter?" Dr. Bishop interrupted. "I was trying to inform you of the trigger string, but you commanded me 'sit still'!" Crazy or not, the old man was obviously brilliant.

While the father and son broke out into an argument over the standards of normalcy and public etiquette, Agent Dunham smiled apologetically and led them away from the kitchenette. She began taking Sheldon's statement with much difficulty, and Howard took the opportunity to call Leonard, Raj, and Penny over to him for a conference of sorts. "Listen, these agents getting to be too much. There is something weird going on here!"

Raj leaned over and whispered into Howard's ear, "I think it's a cover up."

"I just said that." When would this guy ever learn to listen? Or talk, for that matter – the whispering was getting a little strange.

"Something is definitely not right with them." Leonard agreed. "We can't just allow them to hide our work from the world! It could change science forever, and our parents would be proud of us!"

"Yeah, the government has no right to censor the people!" The three boys all looked at Penny with slightly surprised expressions on their faces.

"What?" she asked. "One of my friends got arrested from a protest, and when I picked her up from jail, she raved about censorship and animal rights for hours… I guess the meaty horror stories seared the facts into my brain."

"That explanation is anatomically impossible, though mildly comical." Sheldon was back. "The nosy Agent Dunham wants to speak to you, Howard. Although I am unable to fathom what information she could hope to gather."

Sheldon never could drop it, could he? "Listen, I-"

"Mr. Wolowitz?" It was the Agent. "I need to speak with you."

"You'll never make me talk!"

Thanks for reading! Please review and things, whether or not you want to. I COMMAND YOU!