🐀 Chapter 2: Into the Echo, Rat Gang Crew, Synthia's Not Normal Read by Atlas

Let me know in the comments which version you prefer, Atlas or Scarlett. Som neurodiverse kids prefer a specific voice so I will keep both if needed.
https://taletellerkids.blogspot.com/ for mor Rat Gang fun. 🐀

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter two. Into the echo. The tunnel got narrower the
deeper they went. Pipe's hissed and clicked above their heads
like a nervous audience. Let me go in front, said Cynthia.
I can hear better there. Scarlet, who was usually ahead
of others due to bravery and a teeny bit of
older sister bossiness, knotted and step back. After all, Cynthia

(00:23):
had skills and she was the biggest. Also, Scarlet really
liked Synth and hoped they would be Besy's one day soon.
Leading the way now, torch angle downward to catch every
tiny shift in the ground. Cynthia held her breath so
she could listen even harder. It's definitely louder, Ivey whispered,
holding her glasses so they wouldn't slip off, and checking

(00:43):
her equipment signal amplitude is escalated by a minimum threshold
of forty percent, indicating a significant surge and waveform energy
across the transmission field since the junction. I never understand
the mass stuff, Scarlet muttered, ducking under a dripping valve,
I do, said Cynthia. It means we're close. Alice trudged

(01:05):
behind them, carrying what could only be described as a
ridiculous picnic. If this robot thing's hungry, I've got three
sandwiches and half a fruit wiggler. It doesn't eat, said Cynthia. Oh,
no worries. I am pretty peckish myself, but it might
hear us. Everyone froze. Then Amily dropped her spanner with

(01:27):
a claim. Boops, she whispered. Sorry. Cynthia turned and stared
at the wall. There again that thrum, but now with
pulse and patterns like a code. Everyone quiet, she said,
count with me. They waited silence, Then thrum, thrum, thrum thrum.

(01:52):
Alice frowned. That's music, sort of, said Cynthia, ears twitching.
It's a loop, but not made by rats. Something's trying
to signal or practice. Emily tilted her head. Practice what language,
said Cynthia. They kept moving deeper into the under rails

(02:15):
where the old tram wires used to buzz. Ivy checked
a crumpled map. Next hatch is labeled three Z abandoned
maintenance hub could be the origin. Scarlet nodded and opened
her wide eyes even wider. They were getting to the
exciting bit. Then we crack it open, she said, trying
to play things down, just another day in Metropolis. They

(02:38):
reached the rusted hatch. Ivey fumbled with the bowl while
Alice stood ready with a plank of what he'd found somewhere.
Emily withow a squeal. She was worried about getting a
new yellow dress dirty three two, scarlet counted one. The
hatch grown open with a mole nut made Omiley gasp
and Atlas drop the plank. Inside was a wide metal chamber.

(03:02):
A giant screen flickered in the dark, coated in a
fine layer of dust. Wires like vines snaked across the ceiling,
and the center sat a chair, and in the chair
something slumped. Cynthia stepped forward, heart dutting, that's not a rat.
The figure lifted its head. It had the shape of

(03:22):
a rat, vaguely, but its eyes glowed with static, and
its limbs moved with stiff, unnatural graze. Welcome, it said,
in a voice like a broken speaker. You have reached
the relay. Are you rat gang? Everyone stared, we might be,
Scarlett said cautiously, who are you? The thing flickered. I

(03:45):
am repeater Protocol Unit nine C. My primary function is
to listen. I have been listening for one thousand, two
hundred nineteen days until the sequence was detected. Cynthia felt
goosebumps under her fur. You heard the city change, I
heard you, said repeater, and I remembered initiating contact, optating allies,

(04:12):
all ay ees, whispered Ivy, what does it mean? Friends?
It thanks? We are friends, Scarlet whispered as the crew
hauled hand and looked on in amazement, alerting, said repeater,
allies danger, alerting help. Then the room hung with a
new frequency, low, long, and filled with something else, something desperate,

(04:36):
in a sadness so powerful that vibrated the very ground
beneath their toes. To be continued copyright twenty twenty five,
Sarnia de la Maire