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Li'l Trek: Cayuga - Episode 1 - Be Not Afraid

:: September 4th, 2017 : Locke and Key Junkyard :: { Roland Locke & Frederica Renell }

It was only twenty minutes after school had let out. Roland Locke, called Rolly by those who knew him well, was sitting in front of the TV considering his measly video game collection, trying to decide if he really felt like any of them. His father was still in the garage working on some project or maybe fixing a car for someone, his mother was buried in a stack of papers doing forms and numbers for some big company. When the doorbell rang he was almost grateful to be yanked away from his disappointing collection.

"I'll get it!" Rolly called out as he got to his feet and walked over to the door.

He was greeted when he opened it by a young girl in a mish-mash of various traditional European garb wearing a long scarf-like blue stuffed animal around her neck.

"I-I fixed replicators," the little girl said, seeming to work hard to get the words out as she moved the head of the stuffed animal in time with her speech, as a sort of puppet. She then gestured to the little red flyer wagon with the tail end of the stuffed animal she had pulled with her and left at the bottom of the porch steps. It contained a mixture of various snack foods, some healthy, some not so much. Drinks ranging from cans of soda to juice bottles. Fruit and chips. She smiled brightly at him.

"I can see," Rolly said with a smirk. Then he turned back inside and called, "Mom, I'm going outside to play for a bit."

"Okay, sweety, be back before dinner," she called back from her mountain of papers.

Rolly turned his focus back to the girl. "Okay, so what about the shields?" He asked as he stepped out onto the porch and stretched really quick. "How are those?"

"Main power still down across most of ship," the girl, Frederica, explained moving the head of the stuffed animal as she walked over to the red flyer wagon. Still holding onto the tail end she wrapped it around the handle of the wagon and began to pull it along the little walkway that led alongside the house to the back. "I think Suraj work on that." As she spoke she seemed to relax a little, the head of the stuffed animal moving head of her, serpentining through the air.

Rolly walked beside her and nodded, catching up on things. most of the time he let the other kids tell him what was going on and he would just react to things. "But we have replicators."

"I make them work by route power from other non-vital place," Frederica explained, turning the stuffed animal head to look at him, even though she did not, as she tugged the wagon through a gap in the large fence that covered the area behind Rolly's house, the massive Junkyard his family had purchased with the house. There was a narrow path that wound through the various debris of the junkyard to the various places the other kids had turned into parts of their ship. As always F'Rell made her way to an old discarded school bus. "But only replicator in cargo bay work," she went on, "so no working one anywhere else yet. Need get warp work first."

Rolly again nodded as he followed after. It seemed none of the kids entered the junkyard through the main gate. The fence was old and had a number of breaks in it that were easy enough to climb through. When he had first moved in he had wondered how many had been created by the various neighborhood kids when he had first found out about them and how many were created by natural wear. "Okay, well if Vivian shows up today I'm certain she can help with that. She's science-y."

"She know warp core?" Frederica asked as she led the way, the snake-like stuffed animal in her extended hand leading her.

"We'll have to ask her," Rolly said thoughtfully.

When they got to the old school bus, Frederica let go of the wagon and climbed into the back of it. It was filled with odds and ends from all over the yard. "Much to do," she said as the stuffed animals head looked around.

"I'm going to head to the bridge, okay," he said as he looked around to see if any other kids had shown up yet.

"I wait in cargo bay, use comm if need me," Frederica said, only the stuffed animal turning to look back at him.

The comm, a bunch of old CB radios scattered around the yard was how the kids would stay in touch when they were separated. It worked well enough. "Okay, if you need me, let me know. And if you figure something out for warp power or shields, let me know that too," Rolly said and then with a wave he walked toward the bridge, a small clearing surrounded by old cars. A bunch of old car seats was clustered around a massive broken TV.

He took his seat, a fancy racing chair out of an old race car, one he had personally selected for his captain's chair. He'd drug the old Lazy-Boy recliner that had acted as the captain's chair out of the way. In his chair he leaned back and looked up at the blue sky and the clouds that dotted it. He couldn't wait to see what the day had in store.

Re: Li'l Trek: Cayuga - Episode 1 - Be Not Afraid

Reply #1 –
Suraj walked home most days, because the fresh air was good for him and he loved the outdoors. There was a turtle on the side of the road he sometimes liked to meet and talk to. Today, there was not only a turtle to talk to, but also a lizard on the side of the fence outside the neighborhood! He was so delighted to meet another new friend, that he was actually quite late to his usual after school play date.

In fact, he was still holding the lizard when he came to the junkyard. It was frozen, it’s mouth wide open, tail long lost somewhere else, but still alive of course. Suraj held it in his little hands, his toddler backpack clunking about as he walked and kicked up dirt in the junkyard. He didn’t greet anyone there, he had his head down watching the toe of his shoes as he dug into the dirt, holding his lizard friend.

He looked up through his hair and saw the boxes. He smiled, because he saw a few new boxes. He loved new boxes. He wondered if any of his friends were aboard the ship, so he climbed in himself.

“Hello?” He called out, squatting down and holding his lizard friend close. He went to the cargo bay, where he usually finds his friends. Fredrica was there, and he smiled very big when he saw her. He liked her. She talked pretty. She WAS pretty!

“Fredrica, I got a friend, come see!” He held out the lizard and approached, meaning to put him in Fredrica's hands.

Re: Li'l Trek: Cayuga - Episode 1 - Be Not Afraid

Reply #2 –
Vivian hurried to the junkyard and slipped through one of the many holes in the fence. All of her homework was done, so it was time to play with her friends. She wandered through the junkyard, looking out for new and interesting pieces of junk that they could use to make their ship cooler. There wasn’t much, but she did pick up a bag full of old, empty perfume bottles. They could be useful, as sample containers for her experiments.

She entered the boxes which made their ship and smiled happily, she loved their ship. She heard a voice and followed it, quickly finding Suraj, holding out a lizard to Fredrica. She smiled and put down her bag of perfume bottles. She swung her school bag off and knelt down with it, quickly opening it and pulling out a book.

”Hi Suraj! Hi Fredrica!” She beamed at her friends as she came closer ”Is that a lizard? Cool! I got a book about reptiles, maybe your lizard will be in it. Lizards are reptiles you know.” She nodded in a very matter-of-fact way as she spoke and began to flick through some of the pages, looking for the section on lizards.

She peered closely at the creature in Suraj’s hands, comparing it to the images in her book. Eventually she found one which resemeled the reptile her friend held, and she showed them the page. ”Do you think this is it?”

Re: Li'l Trek: Cayuga - Episode 1 - Be Not Afraid

Reply #3 –
“Are ya settled in all nahs?” said Krystal, looking back at the tiny girl wrapping her arms around the redhead's waist.

“Y-yes...” said Heather, feeling a bit nervous. She was normally not allowed to ride on a bicycle, but since technically Krystal was doing the riding and she was just along for the ride on the installed back seat and leg rests, all she had to do was hold on...really tight.

“Don't ya worry none, honey,” said Krystal, “Ah won't go past warp nahn.”

“Could you keep it to warp WHOOOOOAAAAAAAAHHH!!!” Heather's eyes bulged wide open as the redhead accelerated so quickly she could not even find her breath, and she had to let go with one hand to grasp one of her torchlights, barely catching it by the wristguard, and shoving it back into a pocket before grabbing hold of the older girl again. They made incredible time, and were soon in the junkyard. She had finished her homework, of course, and in record time. She wasn't sure about Krystal, who rarely went home, and often hung out with others as much as she could. She had appeared at Heather's doorstep today almost right after school had let out, which made her wonder whether she ever got any homework done...

“Howdy, cap!” said Krystal, waving at Rolly, and ringing the bell on her bicycle as she rode around his barricade of cars which made the "ship bridge". She slowed down just long enough for Heather to get off and she was blasting off again, looking for other children.

“Hullo,” said Heather to Rolly, and she clambered into a chair, fetching out a old remote with missing switches, and played with it, “I think I can identify more anomalies once I configure this three-corder properly.”

Re: Li'l Trek: Cayuga - Episode 1 - Be Not Afraid

Reply #4 –
Spotting the girls riding by on the bicycle at what had to be something like warp 8.997, Rolly cupped his hands and called to them, "No buzzing the bridge in a fighter! We need those to do important battle stuff with." He shook his head at them, wondering how safe it was for Heather to be riding with absolutely no safety gear at all, he figured Krystal had somehow talked her into it and he was pretty sure Krystal was steady enough on the bike that it wouldn't be too dangerous. Remembering something he added, "Frederica fixed the replicator in the cargo bay, I think that means there are snacks there."

---

"It a agama, it from desert," Frederica said as she examined the lizard with both her real set of eyes and the eyes of her stuffed animal. She liked Suraj, he was always nice to her and seemed to enjoy bringing new and fun friends, usually some wild animal, to meet her. She liked to meet them and she usually had some kind of guess as to what they were, even if she was wrong she got to feel a little special. She was glad to be able to talk with him much easier than using her 'speak and spell' to talk through or trying to use the electrolarynx which made her sound funny. Her voice was still more raspy than the other kids, but it at least worked better. "They feed on warp plasma an' berries." She took a small bag of fruit from her red flyer wagon and stuck a raspberry in the lizard's frozen mouth. "I make berry with plasma in it, so lizard friend can eat." The lizard, terrified, did not eat, instead, it simply held the berry in its mouth.

When Vivian approached Frederica turned and waved the end tail of her stuffed animal in greeting. "It a warp plasma agama," she said matter-of-factly with a toothy smile, exposing a few spots where she was missing some baby teeth and her adult teeth had yet to grow in.

Re: Li'l Trek: Cayuga - Episode 1 - Be Not Afraid

Reply #5 –
“Reptile.” Suraj repeated, and crossed his eyes looking at the book. It was a new word. He was good at words. He was going to take this new word home to mommy later today. “Yeah! Do you think that’s her mommy?” He asked, genuinely beliving the authors of this book knew all of the lizards. Every single one on the planet. They had to, of course, they were lizard experts.

Soon enough, others started arriving. Krystal and Heather, he thought he heard their voices somewhere outside. But instead, he was focused on his lizard friend. It held a berry in it’s mouth. At first, he thought maybe the lizard was just tasting it. Then, the lizard still did not eat. After a full minute—quite a long time for a child—Suraj began to panic.
“He’s not eating!” He said, alarmed. “We gotta take it to sickbay!”
 
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