On the Ninth day of Toymas – Engineer RAD

Fireworks

The room is dark, lit only by the green light of the power tubes on Raven’s bionic left arm and also by the dim light of a candle on Raven’s desk, which has almost burnt out. The light of the candle flickers on the concrete walls and on to the many big sheets of paper stuck up on the wall above his bed. The Sheets have many drawings and designs scribbled on them. The room is quite small, as small as a storage room. It is just big enough to fit a bed and a desk. At the desk, Raven is slouched in his chair, his notebook precariously perched on his lap. His pen falls out of his hand, on to the floor and rolls under the table.

All that can be heard is the gentle ticking of the slumbering engineer’s pocket watch. Suddenly a loud beeping noise startles Raven out of his peaceful stupor. His notebook flops on to the ground as he fumbles with the control panel of his bionic arm. After some trouble finding the correct button, the voice of his assistant James comes from the device within his arm. “Hey Raven, you have an urgent call.” Raven Rubs his eyes with his right hand and mumbles “Alright, forward it to me.”

“Engineer RAD! Raven!” Dr. Hoctor Says loudly through the comms. “What? What!?” Replies Raven in a grumpy tone. “Where are you!?” asks Dr. Hoctor. “I am in my living quarters, in the bunker.” Raven replies.

“You have living quarters here?.. Never mind. Look, you have to get up. Toymas is right around the corner!”

“Wait, what? Toymas?” Raven mumbles, still half asleep.

“You don’t know about Toymas!? Ok, stay there. I’m on my way.” Dr. Hoctor says, he ends the call.

Raven slowly gets up from his chair and makes his way over to his automated coffee machine. He makes a coffee and leans against the table. After a sigh and several sips of his coffee, Raven walks over to his desk where he was working on some blueprints and designs for airships.

Raven was so focused on his work that he didn’t notice the scurrying noises coming from a vent in the wall behind him. Three fluffy hamsters watch Raven from inside the vent. The brown one, who seemed to be leading the group looks at the other two and says “We wait until he leaves.” The others nod.

Quite a considerable amount of time has passed and Raven has resorted to pacing. “What is taking him so long?” Raven thought to himself. Not long after, Dr. Hoctor enters Raven’s room. “Where have you been? It’s been three hours!” Exclaims Raven.

Hoctor ducks for cover, half expecting to get a cup of coffee to the face. He winces when the coffee doesn’t splash and opens one eye to look at Raven. “Oh, you already drank it. Thank God!” He returned to his regular standing position and dug in his pockets for something. “Hang on a min. I know it’s somewhere….” Raven just looked at him with disdain, and unsure where this conversation was going walked over to a nearby corner and leaned against the wall.

“Ah! Here it is!” Hoctor pulled his personal communication device out of his pocket after fighting with it on its way out. Raven, intrigued but still unimpressed, got up from the corner he had been leaning against, and walked towards the pictures that Hoctor had pulled up on his device. Hoctor led Raven out of the room, explaining each picture in great detail, making sure he understood the concept, history, and rituals of Toymas.

Meanwhile, the three hamsters had taken a liking to some of Raven’s drawing that were strewn around the room. The brown one had just pointed out some of the more “Hamster-Friendly” drawings for his comrades to check out when he noticed Raven’s idea notebook lying on the floor. While the other two frolicked over some of the drawings of steam-powered flight suits and clockwork airship innards, the brown hamster pulled Raven’s notebook under his cot, in case he went looking for it. “Guys! Come over here!” The brown hamster called the others over to help him open the notebook. With one big push, it opened to a page with multiple sketches in it. The hamster’s eyes grew big.

“This is what we need! Something for the big finish!” The brown one pointed to a drawing for the Steam-Powered Fireworks Display-inator 2000, an automatic fireworks creator and firing device. “And I bet he has all the supplies to make it!”, the white one implied.

The brown hamster tore the blueprints for the fireworks machine out of the notebook and looked around Raven’s room for his supply closet. “Spread out and look for the supplies.” he told the other hamsters. They spread out through the room, each looking in a corner, but each came back empty-handed.

“Where could they be?” The brown hamster thought to himself for a minute. “I know! Follow me!” The three hamsters scurried off to Raven’s closet and slid themselves through the crack under the door. The brown one knocked on the back panel. It sounded hollow! “This way guys!” He chewed his way through the back panel all the way to “The Supply Closet”.

The lights came on and the hamsters saw how much stuff was actually in the “Closet”. The brown one looked at his comrades and said, “We’re gonna need some help…..maybe some robots, too.” They scurried off to find the other hamsters and some robots to help them get their supplies.

“But my main question is, can you still drink coffee during this time of year, or is it a faux-paux?” Raven hoped that he could still at least have his morning cup. “Of course! Coffee, hot chocolate, tomato soup, whatever you like!” Hoctor followed Raven back to his room still answering Toymas-related questions.

Raven took a step back. “Where’s my notebook?” Hoctor froze in fear. Raven looked around the room, under pillows, in the desk drawer, and finally under his bed. “Ah, Found it!” Hoctor relaxed, but, still apprehensive, realized he should probably leave Raven alone with his drawings. Raven flipped through his notebook, just in case, and noticed a missing page.

“I need another cup of coffee……”

Special thanks to Dr. Malice for helping me finish this story and for basically writing half the story. You made it ten times better that I could have ever done.