AN: I do not own The Big Bang Theory, its characters or any of the places referenced in this story. In fact, I do not own a darn thing.
Sheldon glanced at his watch for at least the hundredth time since they got onto Interstate 15, and that had been only twenty minutes ago. Leonard suppressed a chuckle at his roommate's impatiens and adjusted himself into a more comfortable driving position.
The Science Fiction Convention they had been attending had been a major disappointment, and once it had become obvious that the guest of honor was going to be a no-show, Sheldon had insisted they leave right then and there. But Howard and Raj had whined that they hadn't had sufficient time in the Huckster's room and since listening to one griping individual was easier than two whining ones, Leonard had given in and stayed. Add to that the fact that everyone had been hungry and wanted to catch dinner before leaving town, and trying to find a restaurant that Sheldon would agree to, they had been far later getting on the road than they had planned. Well, actually they had originally planned to stay the entire weekend, so he guessed they had actually left early, Leonard mused to himself.
Sheldon sighed dramatically as he watched the passing desert out the passenger side window. In the back seat, Howard and Raj were asleep. They had dozed off even before they were out of the Barstow city limits, and were now making soft sleeping noises as they slumped towards each other in sleep.
Sheldon let out another sigh, making a big show of looking at his watch yet again. Leonard rolled his eyes and grimaced.
"Come on Sheldon," Leonard spoke quietly so as not to wake his slumbering passengers. He wished Sheldon too would doze off, but Sheldon was Sheldon and he was certainly not going accommodate his friend by doing so. "We'll be home in a couple of hours, just relax and enjoy the ride."
"I don't know why we had to leave so late," Sheldon groused indignantly, "if we hadn't have gone back to the Huckster room we could have left two hours earlier. And why did we have to go back to the Huckster room? Just so Howard and Raj could spend their money on junk."
"And if we hadn't have had to drive past every restaurant in town, twice, before you'd agree to go into one, we could have left even sooner. " Leonard countered, glancing over at the lanky, baby faced man sitting in the passenger seat, "And besides, you spent how much on an articulating replica of a Zat gun?"
"It's not a replica!" Sheldon stated sharply turning to face Leonard, "It's an actual prop used in the TV series Stargate SG-1." The last part coming out slightly louder then Leonard would have wanted considering the two slumbering in the back seat. "I was given the certificate of authenticity."
"Yeah, like you can believe all of the sellers that come to Sci Fi conventions," Leonard mumbled more to himself than anyone else, "And keep your voice down, I rather not wake those two."
Sheldon huffed and turned back to the window crossing his arms over his chest. A nearly full moon cast defused shadows among the scrub brush of the high desert, making the landscape look like something from a horror movie. The kind where you expect something dreadful to jump out at you at any second and even though it was expected, still made you jump out of your skin.
Sheldon watched without really seeing, lost in his own thoughts, sighing from time to time and glancing at his watch occasionally. He pursed his lips and leaned his elbow on the door and his chin in his hand utterly board with the ride, making Leonard shake his head and consider suggesting they play one of Sheldon's traveling games. But that might disturb Raj and Howard, so he abandoned the idea.
Watching the road before him, he wondered, not for the first time, why there was no traffic on the road. After all this was the main road between Vegas and LA and there should have been some traffic, but then again it was only Saturday night.
From the back seat, Howard mumbled something incoherent and shifted his position leaning his head on Raj's shoulder. In response to the sudden presents of another warm body next to his, Raj reached up smiling in his sleep and gently patted Howard's cheek. Howard swatted at the offending hand causing both of men to wake up enough to glair at each other before moving as far apart as was possible before drifting back to sleep.
Leonard suppressed a chuckle watching the pair in the rearview mirror, remembering the time his Mother had informed them that they had an 'ersatz homosexual marriage' and the reaction it had gotten.
They drove in silence for a few miles before Sheldon turned to Leonard, "I have to pee," he announced not unlike a child would inform a parent.
"Oh for . . ." Leonard rolled his eyes, "why didn't you do that before we left Barstow?"
"I didn't have to pee before we left Barstow."
"Well you are just going to have to . . ." Leonard didn't get to finish his retort before the car went dead. Really dead. The headlights went out, the lights on the dashboard flickered and went out and the car's engine sputtered a couple of times before it too went dead.
"Oh Leonard," Sheldon sighed in exasperation, "did you forget to fill the gas tank before we left town?"
"Sheldon!" Leonard yelped trying to steer the car out of the travel lanes before it lost all forward momentum, "You were in the car when I filled up, right after dinner!"
"What's going on?" Howard asked his voice thick with sleep. He leaned forward peering over Sheldon's shoulder at the now dark dashboard. "Did we run out of gas?"
"No we did not." Leonard shot back angrily, easing the car onto the shoulder of the road.
Raj stirred, "Are we home already?" he asked looking around him, trying to get his bearings.
"We've lost power." Leonard informed them sickly as he tried to restart the car. He turned the key in the ignition, but nothing happened, the car didn't try to turn over, it didn't even click, it was just dead. He groaned miserably leaning his head back against the headrest.
"Oh, now it's going to be morning before . . ." Sheldon's complaint died in his throat. He looked at his watch with unbelieving eyes, blinked a couple of times to make sure he was seeing what he was seeing before nearly shouting, "Hey my watch stopped!"
Howard pulled his sleeve back to reveal the gold Rolex Bernadette had given him. "Mine too." He said his voice barely above a whisper. "You don't think . . ."
"Don't be ridiculous," Sheldon started to reprimand the engineer but Leonard cut him off before he could finish.
"Ohmygod," Lenard breathed not pausing between words. He placed his hands on the dashboard in front of him so that he could better feel the fine vibration now transmitting through the car. "Do you feel that?"
"Earth quake?" Sheldon offered sounding uncharacteristically unsure of himself.
"I don't think so dude," Raj squeaked pointing out the driver's side window.
All eyes turned to look. It was coming in low, it was coming in fast, and it glowed with a brilliant blue-white light that hurt the eye to look at. There was hardly time for the four friends to bail out of the car and hit the dirt, before whatever IT was, streaked over their heads, clearing the top of the car by only a few feet. It had to have been the size of a small school bus, but it had passed over them without a sound, just the wind from its passing.
The guys scrambled to their feet and watched as IT glided out over the desert slowing far faster than it should have been capable of, before performing a lazy S-turn. It stopped, in mid air and settled itself silently to the ground some two hundred or so yards away from the road. No one moved, no one dared to even breath for several heartbeats as its glow faded to nothing. Now lit by only the light of the moon they could barely make out the object's silhouette.
"Whoa dude, do you think that was a real UFO?" Raj said giving voice to the question everyone else was thinking but were to afraid to say aloud.
"Ah it's probably just some experimental aircraft," Howard said trying to sound casual, but not being too successful at it. "We really aren't that far from Nellis."
"And Area 51," Raj added as he and Leonard walked around to the passenger side of the car to try to get a better look at the object that had just landed. The group fell into silence never taking their eyes off the thing barely visible in the distance, trying to see movement or any indication of life in or around the object.
Quietly Sheldon move to the other side of the car away from the rest, grateful that everyone's attention was otherwise occupied. The sound of fluid splashing on the ground caused Leonard to spin around to face his friend across the vehicle.
"You're not doing that on my tire, are you?" Leonard wailed, his whole body slumping a bit.
"I'm not a dog, Leonard." Sheldon shot back indignantly his blue eyes flashing dangerously even in the dim light of the moon.
"Well, if anyone else needs to relieve themselves they might as well, go ahead." Leonard sighed turning back to stare at the object that had only a few minutes before, buzzed the car.
Once everyone was back on the passenger side of the car, they all stood in silence saying nothing, almost not breathing. Everything was still, except for a light desert breeze that had barely enough force to ruffle their hair, or rustled the scrub brush around them.
Without warning, something shot out from behind a low bush not three feet from the group and raced away from them. The reactions were as varied as the individuals were, Leonard ducked and turned sideways, Raj squealed and tried to jump into Howard's arms, Howard staggered as much from the start as from the force of Raj jumping into him and Sheldon only shook his head clasping his hands behind his back.
"It's only a Jackrabbit," he told them dryly, "you see them all the time in Texas."
"This is ridiculous," Howard said with a touch of false bravado in his voice, "I'm going to get a closer look." With that, he strode off in the direction of the object.
"You aren't really going to go up to a UFO, are you?" Raj asked incredulously taking a single step after his friend before thinking better of his actions and stopping dead in his tracks.
"It's only Unidentified," Howard pointed out, turning back to the others and giving a small shrug, "because we haven't identified it yet." He turned around again and started walking.
"Shouldn't we get flash lights?" Raj asked doing an about-face and heading for the car's trunk.
"Nah, they probably won't work," Leonard answered, reluctantly starting after Howard. "Besides, there's enough moon light to see where we are going."
Sheldon and Raj exchanged glances, Raj's an expression of disbelieve, Sheldon's one of distain and exasperation. With trepidation, they too followed the little engineer out into the desert.
Together they picked their way towards whatever it was that had landed, each lost in their own thoughts. As they neared the object, they could see it had landed with its "passenger side" facing them. It loomed in front of them like some weird consolidation of a Star Trek Next Generation shuttlecraft, a puddle jumper from Stargate Atlantis with touches of US Shuttle and Stealth bomber thrown in for good measure. Above the snubbed nose, the windows were dark, maybe they were tinted, or maybe there was no light in the cockpit, it was hard to tell. Its smooth exterior seemed to be both light and dark in the same glance. From what could only be its backend, a soft ethereal light shown glibly. However, nowhere in the vicinity was there any sign of life or movement. They stopped within arm's reach of the craft.
"Whoa, dude, do you think it's really extraterrestrial?" Raj breathed, taking in the exterior that simply refused to define itself between light and dark, to the point that he wasn't completely sure he was seeing it.
"Who knows?" Leonard answered to no one in particular. He blinked several times trying to focus in on the smooth surface. There seemed to be no marks of identification that he could see.
Howard reached out and tentatively touched the craft with one finger. Everyone else started to voice their own warnings, but were silenced as they watched as Howard, place the palm of his hand on the surface sliding it several inches almost as one would stroke a pet.
"This is weird," He whispered looking the thing up and down, side to side, "I mean it's hard, but otherwise I can't feel it."
"What are you talking about?" Sheldon protested, his voice cracking slightly.
"I mean, there's no texture no temperature," he continued to stroke the craft's exterior, "it's not smooth, it's not rough, it's not hot, it's not cold. It's solid, but other than that I can't feel it."
"Nonsense," Sheldon proclaimed shaking his head, "unless the nerves in your hand have gone dead, there has to be a feel to it." He reached out his own hand and laid it on the craft, jumping back almost as soon as he came in contact with it. "It tingles, like there is a mild electrical current in the surface."
"No," Howard corrected patiently, "no tingling, just solid"
This time Leonard reached out to touch the craft.
"Howard's right, it's just solid." He agreed looking over at Sheldon.
Hesitantly, Sheldon touched a finger to the surface this time eliciting a spark, as one would get when touching something metal after shuffling across a carpet in stocking feet in the wintertime. Sheldon jumped back.
"Oh look, Sheldon's special," Leonard laughed continuing to watch his quirky roommate.
"This is no laughing matter," Sheldon shot back hotly his brow furrowing, "who knows what contagions or pathogens we've pick up by touching that . . . that thing." He tried to inspect his hands but there was simply not enough light to do so properly. Desperate to do anything to make himself feel cleaner, he dug into his pants pocket and took out his ever present bottle of Purell using half the bottle to clean his hands.
Raj moved towards the back of the craft first, "Guys look!" he exclaimed disappearing from their sight.
"Now hold on," Sheldon called after him, "you can't just go in there like you own the place." He followed Raj, but stopped short of actually entering the craft. Leonard and Howard pushed past him, clamoring onboard as if this were the most normal thing to do. "Yeah, go ahead," he quipped waving an arm in their direction, "climb on in and let's have a party. What are you going to do if the owner comes back?"
"Come on Sheldon," Leonard beckoned to him, "How often do you get to see the inside of a real UFO?"
"Go ahead," Sheldon, scolded crossing his arms over his chest, "I'll just stay out here," pause "Alone," another pause and looking around at the open desert surrounding him, "in the dark." Even before he finished speaking, he too scrambled into the craft's interior.
Slowly the interior lights became brighter, allowing time for the eyes to adjust. Inside Sheldon's head only cleared the ceiling by a few inches. Along one side of the craft was what could only be called a couch, with one continuous cushion forming both seat and back. It would have just accommodated his 6 foot 2 inch stature and looked to be just as suitable for sleeping as sitting. On the other side were two chair like fixtures with a pedestal table between them. The seating was the color of caramel, the walls and floor a few shades lighter. On the walls there appeared to be some sort a cabinetry with sleek chrome fixtures. The interior looked more like the inside of a Learjet, then what one would expect of a UFO.
Raj leaned over and pressed his hand, fingers spread into the seat of the couch. When he pulled his hand back the impression, it left behind lingered for several heartbeats before dissolving back to its original condition, not unlike memory foam. He turned to his friends with a broad grin.
"Soft as a baby's bottom," he cooed in delight, raising one eyebrow.
Raj and Howard both dropped onto the couch with a contented sigh, Leonard into one of the chairs.
"It's like it's molding itself to me," Howard sighed leaning his head back and resting it against the back of the couch.
"Sure, come'on in, set a spell, take yer shoes off and will chew da fat," Sheldon told them in that forced Texan accent he used when he felt the others were behaving like rednecks. "Maybe y'all would like a cold one. Get serious, this isn't ours," he wailed actually stamping one foot to accentuate his point.
"Yeah, he's right," Howard, agreed getting to his feet. "I'm going to see the cockpit," he added raising his shoulders slightly before bouncing into the forward cabin.
Sheldon followed but was pushed out of the way by Raj and Leonard. "You're taller," Leonard commented as he ducked in front of the taller man, "you can see from the back."
The cockpit was small, only accommodating the two seats set before a large control panel. As Howard dropped into the left-hand seat the panel adjusted itself to the smaller man's stature, dropping down slightly and tilting up to allow his reach to gain access to the forward most controls.
The panel itself was a flat expanse of triangular 'buttons' each containing symbols that reminded the guys of Runes. Two 'Joysticks' before each seat completed the array of controls.
"Would you look at this?" Howard breathed in wonderment as he passed his hand over the array of buttons. Below his hand, each button in turn lit up outlined in a pale greenish light as the symbols lit in soft yellow. Without thinking, his fingers lightly touched one of the buttons.
There was a hushed whirring sound followed by the softest of thumps anyone had ever heard before. In horror, the four men turned towards the back of the vehicle to find the entrance had closed.
"Oh this is not good." Leonard whimpered wringing his hands.
"Oh what fresh hell is this," Sheldon intoned tiredly and turned back to Howard, "You just had to push a button, didn't you?" he cried literally lifting his friend out of the seat and shoving him aside. Sheldon clamored into the seat as the control panel readjusted itself to his taller frame.
"Oh yeah," Leonard almost yelled, "Like you can read the writing." His voice was thick with sarcasm.
"Which button did you push?" Sheldon demanded a hint of panic creeping into his voice.
"I don't remember," Howard shot back, trying to move his body as far away from Sheldon as was possible in the confines of the chair he now sat in.
"Think, man think!" Sheldon bellowed scanning the board trying to remember the path Howard's hand had made over the controls, but he hadn't been paying that much attention. He started to extend his own hand over the board.
"For God's sake Sheldon," Leonard screamed grabbing Sheldon's wrist to keep him from doing what he was about to do, "you'll make things worse!"
"No, I won't," Sheldon insisted trying to pull his hand free from Leonard's grip. He gave his friend a stern look a yanked his hand free allowing one of his long fingers had passed over one of the buttons, and although he had not actually touched it, it lit up in red this time. There was a fine vibration and the muffled sound like a wind, as the vehicle started to rise slowly off the ground. Everyone reacted at the same time.
"Now look what you made me do?" Sheldon yelped.
Raj shrieked.
"I told you, I told you!" Leonard bellowed.
While Howard inhaled sharply and took a death grip on the armrests of the seat, he had fallen into.
Everyone watched in awe as the wall of the forward cabin slid back and two additional chairs materialized in the new space. Without hesitation, Leonard took a seat behind Sheldon, while Raj sank into the one behind Howard.
"What do we do now?" Raj asked furrowing his brow, "We don't know how to fly this thing?"
"Let's not panic," Sheldon started, putting his hands up as if to stop something, but at that same precise moment the windshield lit with a heads-up display of numerous gauges, meters, something that look like an artificial horizon display and over in front of Howard, a GPS style representation of the landscape below them.
"Stop moving!" Leonard growled gripping the back of Sheldon's chair. Sheldon complied and froze.
By now, they were some twenty feet above the desert floor and starting to move very slowly forward. Howard gripped the joysticks in front of him and tried to maneuver the craft, which responded to his untrained commands, by wobbling erratically.
"Tttich ropelyn sy'numrroach," a rich breathy female voice spoke, as the small space craft leveled out and shot forward. The first word had started with what sounded like a tongue click and the last word had a rolling r sound, but otherwise it was completely foreign to all four of them, it wasn't even Klingon.
Even though the speed of the spacecraft went from walking speed to that of a bullet in less than a blink of an eye, they had not been slammed back into their seats. There was no sensation of acceleration, no jostling, if they had closed their eyes, they would not have been able to tell they were even moving at all.
"Dude, how fast do you think we are going?" Raj commented leaning forward to peer out the side window.
On the heads-up display the artificial horizon indicated that they were still gaining altitude, another gauge was slowly moving in a counter clockwise direction and still another, bar type, had shot from nothing to nearly one half its length as was still moving steadily from right to left . There was writing on the display, but these too were in the unknown symbol set as those on the control panel. The world outside the windows wavered slightly, as if a sheet of water had cascaded over the windows.
Raj lifted himself up a little to see the ground better, "Hey, we aren't casting a shadow anymore!" he explained excitedly.
"Mashoe qu'kook sy'numrroach," The disembodied voice spoke again.
"Who's saying that?" Leonard choked out his facial expression still showing panic.
"More importantly, what is it saying?" Howard asked turning to look at Leonard. His voice and expression was far calmer than his companions were.
There was a moment of silence as they rocketed across the desert. Sheldon, who had not moved since Leonard had told him to be still, turned in his seat to glare at his fellow physicist. "Did you really expect the computer to speak English?"
"How do you know it's the computer speaking?" Howard asked looking over at Sheldon with an accusing smirk on his face.
"Well since there only seems to be the four of us here, one can reasonably assume that the voice is that of a computer." Sheldon retorted hotly turning his glare on the engineer.
"Remember what they say about assuming. . ." Raj started to chide, giggling slightly as he spoke.
"Yes, yes we all know don't we. When you assume you make an ass out of you and me." Sheldon sighed rolling his eyes, "Grow up Koothrappali!"
"Hey," Raj responded insulted by the comment, "I'm not the one who started pushing buttons or acting like I knew what I was doing."
"Ooooh my God," Leonard groaned, "I think that's Las Vegas up ahead of us."
All eyes turned forward looking past the heads-up display to the brilliantly lit city looming up fast before them. They were approaching fast and as they reached the edge of the city, the spacecraft banked sharply to the left and skirted along the edge of the city, they could tell by the buildings and houses they were passing, that they were slowing down quickly, the bar meter moving back to the right.
The guys watched as they approached the Las Vegas Expressway wondering if they were going to cause a major pile up as the spacecraft made a right hand turn to follow a few feet above the cars. However, nothing happened. The traffic below continued as if there were nothing out of the ordinary.
"It's like they can't even see us." Raj noted a touch of wonderment in his voice. He hoisted himself up a bit more to see below them.
"Apparently," Sheldon agreed leaning over to look out the side window, "if this is indeed an extraterrestrial vehicle it would not be beyond possibility that it can cloak itself."
Reaching Las Vegas Boulevard the craft turned right again, slowed down and descended to just above the level of a second floor. Drifting down the Las Vegas Strip moving only slightly faster then traffic on the street it was almost as if they were on some bazaar sightseeing tour, taking in the local sites. As with the traffic on the expressway, the traffic, both pedestrian and motor vehicle, no one seemed to take notice of an alien spacecraft passing over their heads.
"This is so cool," Leonard giggled, grinning like a kid in a toyshop.
Sheldon turned in his seat to look at his friends, his face an expression of true concern, if not outright worry. "What all of you have seem to have fail to realize," he began in his normal authoritative tones, "is that we are, for all intents and purposes, prisoners in a vehicle of unknown origin. A vehicle which is navigating itself to an unknown destination, and there seems to be nothing we can do about it." He glared at them knowing he was right and that they had not considered the possibility of the truth of the statement he was about to make. "For all we know, we may never see home again. We could be headed to our dooms, or about to be whisked away to some alien planet were we could find ourselves part of a Zoological exhibit of sorts."
Leonard looked like he was about to be sick, Raj just stared back at the theoretical physicist looking like the proverbial dear caught in the headlights, Howard's mouth had dropped open, his eyes wide his face pale.
"We haven't actually tried to do anything about our current situation," Howard broke the silence. He turned back to face the control panel and spoke as calmly as possible. "Computer, please take us back to where we started."
For a few heartbeats, nothing happened; they simply continued to drift down the Strip. Then slowly they began to gain altitude again.
"See," Howard said with a nervous chuckle, "all we had to do was ask."
No sooner were the words out of Howard's mouth than the spacecraft angled upwards at a very steep angle of attack, and shot upwards at an alarming speed. This time they did feel the acceleration, at least slightly. All four began to scream like youngsters on a rollercoaster.
"You fool," Sheldon managed to yell out, "It's going to take us back to where it started from!"
"I have to pee," Raj moaned miserably as the craft rolled over and they were all treated to the sight of Las Vegas receding into the distance.
Just as the US Shuttle, this spacecraft was headed into orbit belly up and even though they were not wearing any kind of seat restraints, they did not fall out of their seats.
"You may get into space sooner then you planned," Leonard gasped as they gained enough altitude that the curvature of the Earth became apparent around them.
"We're going to die," Sheldon yelped. His hands gripped the armrests of his seat so hard that more than just his knuckles were turning white.
"You don't know that!" Leonard shot back, "If this thing was going to hurt us, I think it would have done so a while back."
"How do we know that the life forms that own this thing breathe an atmosphere of 78.084% nitrogen, 20.94% oxygen .934% Argon and .035% Carbon Dioxide?" Even in a state of panic Sheldon could spout out anything scientific with the detail and accuracy of a textbook, and it was annoying.
"Oh God," Howard added not even trying to hide his panic, "I think we've achieved escape velocity!"
By now, they were high enough that they could see most of the Mid West, and still climbing. The heads-up display was changing. The artificial horizon monitor was gone replace by a representation of their flight path away from the planet below. The GPS display now held a schematic of the Solar System. Other gauges and dials were changing as well, but without being able to read the writing, there was no way to tell what they were.
"No, no computer, take us back to where we started!" Sheldon bellowed.
"Poshttt," the computer's voice responded calmly, if a computer-generated voice could be said to sound calm.
They were in orbit now, and all forward momentum had stopped. They just sat there, the Earth turning lazily above their heads.
"Look at this," Leonard breathed taking in the site of his own home planet in a manor he had never dreamed he'd ever see, "it's beautiful!"
There was a hushed silence as the four men took in the site, barely breathing, barely blinking. If it were not for the movement of the planet, one might have thought time was standing still. It was an awesome sight that none of them, except Howard, ever thought they would see. Leonard started to laugh, breaking the silence.
"This is no laughing matter!" Sheldon barked in response to what he saw as an inappropriate reaction to a dire situation.
"Can we go home now?" Raj mewed softly. He looked like he was about to start crying.
"POSHTTT," the computer repeated, this time the tone was harsh.
"Anyone else get the impression that means 'No,'" Howard, asked not really expecting an answer.
"You just had to get onboard this thing," Sheldon said venomously turning to look at his companions, "you just HAD to go and press the button."
"Kal esttt cin'nobell," the computer responded again.
"English, dam it, English!" Sheldon shouted turning back to the control panel.
"There is no need to raise your voice," it was the computer's breathy voice again, but this time in English. There was startled silence as they stared at the console.
"Dude," Raj said in amazement, "it did what you asked!"
Sheldon closed his eyes and drew in a long breath trying to will his heart to stop pounding. His palms were sweating and he was trembling slightly. Why had this computer responded to him? Yes, he was Homo Novus, but was this some kind of cruel joke. Was he being singled out so that his friends could taunt him about it later?
"Would you like a quick tour of your star system?" the computer asked drawing him out of his reverie.
"No," Sheldon sighed even as his friends shouted "Yes."
There was no response from the computer at first, only silence. "Just take us back to where we left the car." He said. He was tired and his head was still reeling from everything that had happened since getting onboard this . . . this thing. All he wanted was to go home. The others tried to argue with him trying to point out that they would never have an opportunity like this again. But he would have none of it.
"Your orders have been countermanded, Dr. Cooper" the computer stated with a touch of triumph in its tone, "I have been instructed to," the voice changed to another, new female voice as it continued. "'Take them on a joy ride they'll never forget.'"
"Hey Sheldon, it knows your name," Raj said turning a wide-eyed face to the others, "how does it know your name?"
"If this is an artificial intelligence," Howard noted raising an eyebrow, "I want one."
"Hang on boys," the computer interjected, and then continued in a thick Jamaican accent, "it's going to be a bumpy ride."
The spacecraft rolled over and shot off at an alarming speed causing another round of screaming, except for Leonard who was laughing gleefully.
"I'm glad you find this so exciting," Sheldon spat sarcastically.
"Don't worry," Leonard could hardly get the words out for laughing so hard, "nothing bad is going to happen."
"What makes you so sure?" Raj wanted to know pressing himself back into his seat as far as he could.
"Trust me, I just do."
By now, they were approaching the moon, as the shot past it, everyone gasped in awe at the site of Earth's sole natural satellite. No sooner were they clear of the moon they were struck with the sensation not unlike the feeling one gets when starting down the main drop of a rollercoaster, accompanied by that of a cold shower. Blink and they were approaching Mars.
They made a wide turn around the red planet, then Blink and they were at Jupiter.
"This is utterly incredible," Leonard chuckled "and to think we may be the first Humans to see this in person."
"Ya think?" Howard gasped turning a cold stare at Leonard, "maybe the first?"
Once around the gas giant and Blink, they were at Saturn. They did a low pass over the rings, where their spacecraft turned belly up to give them a better view.
"This is sooo cool," Raj breathed, the astrophysicist was truly in his element and could not get enough of what was being shown to him.
"How do you think we are getting around so fast," Howard mused completely awestruck.
"Who cares?" Leonard giggled, "This is fun!"
Blink and they were back approaching Earth.
"Sorry boys, the ride is over." The computer informed them.
"Good," Sheldon spoke for the first time since leaving orbit around Earth.
"Aw, come on," Raj pouted, he reach over and punched Sheldon on the arm, "we didn't see Neptune or Uranus. Tell it we want to see Neptune and Uranus."
"No," Sheldon scolded, "you heard the computer, the ride is over." His voice held a definite tone of relief and he visually relaxed some, although he was still gripping the armrests with white knuckles.
It took longer to come down then it had to go up, but there was no fiery reentry, just a gentle decent, with numerous S-Turns to bleed off excess speed. No one spoke as the craft finally leveled off over the desert. Coming to a stop above the precise spot, they had taken flight. Slowly the vehicle lowered itself to the ground, after a moment or so after touchdown, the back opened up.
Not wasting any time the four jumped from their seats, every one trying to push their way through the opening between the forward and aft compartments at once. The opening widened allowing them to bolt forward leaping from the spacecraft and running as best they could on the uneven ground in the direction of the car.
"Do you think anyone is ever going to believe this?" Howard panted as they moved toward the road.
"Hell, I'm never going to tell anyone about this," Raj shot back, "They'd be convinced I was crazy."
"I just want to get out of here before the black helicopters get here!" Leonard wheezed, but there was no way he was going to stop to use his inhaler now.
So intent on gaining the perceived safety of Leonard's car, none of them noticed the petite figure rise from the rock where it had been sitting and enter the back of the spacecraft.
Reaching the car, they piled in slamming the doors behind them. Leonard reach for the keys he had left in the ignition only to find them missing.
"Oh God," he groaned, rolling his head in defeat.
"Dude, let's get out of here!" Raj cried grabbing the back of Leonard's seat and shaking it.
"My keys, there gone!"
"They have to be here somewhere," Sheldon stated starting to look around on the floor. In the back seat, Howard and Raj began searching for the missing keys as well.
"No, wait," Leonard said, a devilish grin blossoming across his face. "Check the glove compartment."
Sheldon opened the glove compartment and the keys tumbled into his lap. Snatching them up and handing them to his friend, Sheldon reached for the seat belt to buckle him-self in. "I don't remember you putting the keys in there," he commented.
Leonard jammed the key into the ignition and turned it to the start position.
"I didn't," Leonard smiled as the engine roared to life, "and I didn't turn off the headlights either." He flicked on the lights and floored the accelerator.
The tires spun in the loose gravel of the shoulder before gaining traction and lurching the car forward before they sped off down the road.
"But if you didn't, who did?" Howard said still breathing hard, his eye wide, "we're alone out here."
Sheldon, Howard and Raj turned to peer out the rear windshield in the direction they had come from. Leonard kept his eyes on the road, as he allowed the car to come back down to the posted speed limit, a huge grin on his face and his eyes squinting slightly.
"Apparently not. . ." he chuckled knowingly.
Feedback is important, so please be so kind as to leave a review for me. This could be worked into a longer story and would include an OC if enough people are interested (would also become a crossover to Warehouse 13).