We ride for what seems like an endless amount of time without any change. The first few hours we spend just looking out the window at everything, amazed by all the lights. After a while I have to pee so I go to the tiny little bathroom in the back. It consists of only a toilet smaller than my head, and sanitation wipes instead of a sink. Not cool.
When I'm done I try to find the snacks that the officer mentioned, but it proves to be quite the struggle. I squeeze my way past Neil's seat and open all the compartments and cupboards within arm's reach. Dang, this pod is tiny. I maneuver my way to the last cupboard in sight and open it, snacks spilling out onto the floor. Freeze dried food, water bottles, prepackaged snacks, and more.
"Jackpot!" I shout. "What do you want?"
"How about that bag of Crispies?" Neil said, pointing to the bag of chips at my feet. I pick it up and toss it to him. He catches it and I pick out a bag for myself. Suddenly a red light flashes over head.
"What's that?" I ask. I look around for the source and find a tiny mechanism on the ceiling of the pod, flashing bright red. A siren starts going off, practically blasting out my eardrums, and an automated voice comes on over the speakers.
"YOUR POD HAS GONE OFF TRACK, REPEAT, YOUR POD HAS GONE OFF TRACK. PLEASE REMAIN CALM AND CONTACT ANOTHER POD TO HELP YOU REACH YOUR DESTINATION."
"Shit." Neil muttered, unstrapping himself from his seat and jumping up to look through the manual. "The officer said we could use the radio to get help."
"Well where's the radio?" I say, looking around the tiny pod trying to find anything useful.
"YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES UNTIL YOUR POD HAS STRAYED OUT OF BOUNDS. ONCE OUT OF BOUNDS, YOUR POD IS BEYOND HELPING. IF YOUR POD GOES OUT OF BOUNDS IT WILL BE FOREVER LOST TO TIME AND SPACE." The woman says in a sickeningly calm voice.
"Shit!" Neil shouts. "Okay okay okay, where would the radio be?" I try to remember if I saw it when I searched through all the compartments. I fling open cabinets practically ripping them from their hinges, turning over everything. Then I remember seeing something on the other side of the pod, right by the door.
I make my way there and shove the cupboard open. Inside I find a little box attached to a small cord, like the radio speakers truck drivers used in the olden days to communicate. "YOU NOW HAVE TWO MINUTES UNTIL YOUR POD IS OUT OF BOUNDS. REPEAT, TWO MINUTES."
I let out a string of profanities and then cry, "How do you work this thing?" Neil comes over with the pod manual and flips through it frantically. I find a button on the side of the little box and push it, talking into the speaker. "This is pod number- Neil what pod is this?"
"Uh- two thousand eighty."
"Right. This is pod two thousand eighty, and we've gone off track. We were on our way to Jupiter and we are at risk of going out of bounds. We need immediate help!" I wait for a moment to see if I'll get a response. "Hello? Is anyone out there?"
"Hello?" A young female voice comes from the little box, sounding tinny and far away. "This is pod two thousand twenty, on my way from Jupiter to Earth. I am within close range. I may be able to tow you back to Jupiter."
"Oh thank god." I say to Neil, and then I press the button to speak to the girl. "Oh thank god. How fast can you get here? We have less than two minutes left-"
"ONE AND A HALF MINUTES UNTIL YOUR POD IS OUT OF BOUNDS."
"Make that one and a half minutes." I say.
"Can you tell me your coordinates?" The voice says. I look to Neil in desperation and he searches the pod for anything that might tell us. He opens a compartment and finds a small screen, about the size of my hand. It shows an image of the pod, and the path from Earth to Jupiter. We've gone way off to the left.
"24, 36." Neil says, and I relay that to the girl.
"Alright," She says. "I'm on my way. If I can get close enough for our doors to touch, they'll seal together allowing me to tow you. The scientists presumed something like this could happen, so they made the doors extremely magnetic. They'll stick together as long as I'm close enough."
I look out the window and see a shape approaching in the distance. It's a sphere like ours. "ONE MINUTE UNTIL YOUR POD IS OUT OF BOUNDS."
"Shut up!" I yell at the automated voice, so calm and cheery in the face of danger. I wanted to slap whoever made that recording.
"I'm almost there, just hang on." The girl says from the little radio speaker. The sphere comes closer, and I notice it's painted dark red, instead of dark blue like ours. I suppose because it's from Jupiter. The sphere is soon about thirty feet away.
"THIRTY SECONDS."
"Come on, come on!" Neil says. The red pod comes even closer. Twenty feet.
"TWENTY SECONDS." Ten feet. "TEN SECONDS." The pod is almost here. "FIVE SECONDS." The other pod starts glowing and moving toward us at a faster speed. Must be the magnetism. "YOUR POD IS NOW OUT OF BOUNDS. I AM SORRY, YOU ARE BEYOND SAVING. ENJOY THE REST OF YOUR FLIGHT."
"Oh my god. That's it. We're stuck out here." I say. The magnetism field fades from the other vehicle and it starts backing way. This time it's Neil who let's out a long line of profanities. "Oh my god. Oh my god. We'll be stuck out here forever!" I start to panic.
"What the hell are we supposed to do?" Neil says, kicking the side of the pod in frustration.
Suddenly the girl says, "Hang on, I may still be able to help. If I can increase the magnetic field it will break through the layer between me and out of bounds." She pauses. "Sit tight, I'll be right back."
I hear the speaker drop on her end and the red pod backs away about ten feet. I see through the window that the red pod glows dimly like before, then stronger. Then dimmer again, and then stronger. It flickers like this a few times and then glows stronger than ever. But our pod has been slowly drifting away, further and further out of bounds every second. What is 'Out of Bounds' anyway? Why should going an extra meter make us beyond saving?
We drift even farther but the red pod glows bright, coming closer and closer. Soon it's within arm's length. It spins slightly to the left until our doors are aligned. I hear and feel a giant snap as the doors lock into place. "I got it!" The girl says.
The pod shakes with the impact. "Yes!" I shout. The red pod begins to pull us back, slowly at first, but faster and faster with each second. I look at our progress on the little screen and see that already we're back on the right path, moving toward Jupiter at double our original speed.
"Haha!" Neil calls. "We made it!" I pull him in for a hug and then he kisses me quickly on the lips. I stare up at him in surprise, but I smile in spite of myself.
"We made it." I agree, and he picks he up by the waist and swings me around.
"Ah!" I cry, and he puts me down.
"Oh sorry! I'm so sorry." Neil says, remembering my injured back. It's still not perfectly healed.
"That's okay." I said. We both stare out the window, lost in our thoughts, until I break the silence. "I really thought we were going to die out there."
"Me too. I thought that was it." He said. "But it wasn't."
"Looks like you're stuck with me for a while longer, huh?" I joke.
"The pleasure is all mine." He replied with a grin. Becoming serious again, he adds, "I'm just glad that girl could save us. I don't know who she is, but she just saved our lives."
"I went out of bounds for you two nuts, so you owe me!" She says. I hear the click of the radio going off, knowing she turned it off from her end.
We sit back down in our seats and Neil grabs my hand. His thumb rubs distractedly in circles on the back of my hand, and he looks out the window, clearly lost in his own world. I can tell he's thinking how glad he is that we'll get to Jupiter after all. Together. Just like we always planned.
And maybe he can finally find his family. He could build a life there, a happy one. As long as I've known him, which is pretty much my whole life, he's been sort of the silent brooding type. He was the mysterious beauty that all the girls had eyes for, but he never noticed. He kept to himself, but yet it made him extremely popular. He had a past, he had baggage, and yet all it did was intrigue people more.
Whenever something went wrong, he kept it inside. Just in the past couple years has he really opened up to me. He told me about his family, and how once they were taken he felt like he had no one. But then my family took him in and he felt like he had another home. Once my parents died, he said I was all he had left. I guess that's why we became so close. In reality, he was all I had left too.
I'm pulled out of my thoughts by a thump. I look out the window and see a brown-ish red color all around. That must be the ground. I look up and see that the sky is white; I'm assuming it's daytime now.
Neil, unable to hide his smile, says brightly, "Welcome to Jupiter."