Zarah Jameson was 19 and beloved by her family and her Tribe. How could she not be? She was intelligent, bright, kind, and nice to everyone! She willingly helped out on her family farm and around the town. She was bright smile and cheerful laughter that was so genuine that when she spoke for one brief moment you had to believe that nothing in the world, in all the galaxy, could possibly go wrong. Yes, she was still young. Yes, she was a scatterbrained chatterbox. Yes, she could constantly be found have run off to yet another Old Tech site. Yet she was so eager and so optimistic that you wanted to do everything you could to protect her, to protect her wide smile. This was all before you knew what she could do. Once you knew that you had to do everything you could to protect her.

The Jameson family and the Mountain Lake Tribe valued Zarah’s skill as a Mechanic, which was why, over the years, her running off to the Old Tech sites became less annoying and more essential. Zarah got all of the Old Tech she touched to work. She had come back from one journey with a device that allowed the blacksmith to control and know exactly what temperature his forge was at. Another trip yielded a pair of flying things history said was called drones to help herd the cattle and find dear in the forest. There was the scale that helped Mikala Jameson with her baking, the device that had been a wedding present for Jacob and Lilla Jameson that would sew a straight line in practically no time at all, the kettle that boiled water for you that every member of the Tribe took turns using. While the Mountain Lake Tribe didn’t want more power, Zarah’s skill with Old Tech was going to bring them stability and safety.

Which was why Zarah didn’t know how to tell the Elders of the Tribe or her mother that she wanted to travel Trazie. She wanted to see the twin points up north. She wanted to see Canterpoint Volcano and Rainforest Island. She wanted to visit all six of Trazie’s lakes. She wanted to see how high she could make it up Centerpoint Mountain. She wanted to go diving off the Cliffs of Insanity. She wanted to walk the coastlines and swim near Bracket Reef. But most importantly, Zarah want to scour the continent for lost Old Tech Sites. She wanted to find the lost Administration Building or get the Chairlifts working again. She wanted stories of Zarah Jameson and her Mechanical genius to spread across Trazie like a blaze. Somehow, she didn’t think her mother would be okay with that.

Luckily Zarah had Zigma on her side. Zarah wasn’t sure what Zigma was. Zigma wasn’t sure what Zigma was. Once, when she was ten, Zarah had found a geode after tripping over a tree branch on her way back home from a nearby Old Tech Site. She wasn’t sure why, but she kept it even though it looked ordinary. After that wherever Zarah went the geode went too. Though every scrape and every adventure and every, well, every everything, the geode was there. Then one day it broke and out came Zigma. At first Zarah had freaked out. Zigma was a glowing ball of neon green light. Who wouldn’t be freaked out? Then, slowly but surely, Zigma and Zarah were always together. Zigma’s earliest memories were of Zarah freaking out over her broken geode, but he knew his name and he knew that he loved Zarah just as much as she loved him. Soon he was just as much a member of the Mountain Lake Tribe as anyone else. The Elders scowled and called him a prankster, but at least he could be counted on to listen to Zarah chatter so she would leave others alone.

Which brought them today. Zarah was nineteen, which made her an adult. While it was true that she was a baby adult, she was still an adult. She didn’t want to live in her parents’ house forever. Granted, no one expected her to leave home for another year or two, but she wasn’t going to find the Administration Building while helping to water crops. Not that watering crops was a bad thing. She liked being to eat, but Zarah was a Mechanic. She wanted to be doing Mechanic things. Though everyone in the Tribe supported her desire to do Mechanic things, but they rather her stay close and help support the Tribe. And it wasn’t that she didn’t love her family and Tribe. She would totally bring all her really good finds home and she wasn’t going to find anything really good if the longest she was allowed to be gone was 2 months. Zarah nodded as she decided that was how she was going to word it to her mother tonight. Tomorrow. W-Day at the latest. She stood up from wear she had been sitting on the edge of the bed. With that decided it was time to get ready for the day.

[color=63e42d]“Zarah?”[/color]

Zarah’s head snapped around to look at Zigma where he was hovering by the screened window, [color=c2be89]“What? Is everything okay?”[/color]

One of the things that she and Zigma could do was communicate telepathically with each other. While Zigma wasn’t doing that now she still got a vague sense of unease from him, [color=63e42d]“I don’t know. I’m being pulled towards something near mountains east of here. I don’t know what it is.”[/color]

Thanks to the telepathic bond Zarah immediately knew what Zigma wanted to do and he immediately knew she was on board, [color=c2be89]“Let me get packed.”[/color]

It wasn’t long before Zarah was dressed in her linen pants with the leather kneepads sewn in. Her leather vest was tied tight over her undyed shirt and the pockets in her sleeves were stuffed full of crackers and small screwdrivers. Her boots were laced up and had wood wrapped charcoal stuffed in the side. As an aside she desperately needed new ones. The soles were getting thin. Zarah double checked her bag for her small blowtorch, wrenches, bigger screwdrivers, her spanner, her Old Tech tablet, her journal, and other tools before swinging it on her back. She made a trip to the kitchen to grab her lunch kit to stuff with a sandwich from the pile her mother had made earlier and to fill her metal water bottle that wasn’t technically Old Tech but had come from an Old Tech Site. Both the lunch kit and the water bottle clipped to the bottom. of her bag and would bump her shins as she walked and hiked. Zarah readjusted the bandana over her hair before putting her goggles on her forehead to pull down if she needed to. Then she grabbed the walking stick her youngest brother had made her for her last birthday and she and Zigma were out the door and on their way.

It was easy enough to get to the mountains east of the Mountain Lake Tribe’s town. They were technically part of the Circle Range, but the Tribe just called them the “mountains east of here.” Once there Zarah started hiking, following Zigma as he led the way. Occasionally he seemed to forget he was leading Zarah and he bobbed too far ahead only to come back when Zarah mentally called to him. It wasn’t long before the sun started to rise. It almost the end of Nov and sunlight didn’t last long in winter on Trazie. Most people got up before dawn just because they had to. Zarah was no exception.

Suddenly Zigma mentally called, [i][color=63e42d]“Zarah! Look!”[/color][/i]

Zarah looked in the direction Zigma indicated, which was down a shallow ravine, to see a person. That in an of itself was not unusual. What was unusual was the woman’s ears. They looked like fox ears on the top of her head and if Zarah looked close enough she could tell that the woman had a tail as well. In just their few seconds of observation Zigma and Zarah could tell that she had some sort of control of these appendages. A few more seconds told them that the technology pack that she was using to bounce from rock to rock was not Old Tech, but they didn’t know what else it could be. The last thing they realized was that the strange woman was with a bird sized woman that hovered the same way Zigma did.

Zarah whispered, [color=c2be89]“They’re not from around here.[/color] She then repeated it loud enough for the woman to hear.[color=c2be89]“You’re not from Trazie, are you?[/color] She scrabbled down the steep path only to stop right in front of the stranger with a look of manic glee on her face, [color=c2be89]“Are you from space? Do you have a spaceship? Can we see your spaceship? Can we touch your spaceship? Can we learn how your spaceship works?”[/color] She then paused to take a breath, [color=c2be89]“Sorry! Sorry. That was rude.”[/color] She then used her palm to tap her chest, [color=c2be89]”I’m Zarah.”[/color] She jerk at thumb towards Zigma who had followed her down, [color=c2be89]“That’s Zigma.”[/color] She held out a hand for a hand shake, “[color=c2be89]“It’s nice to meet you.”[/color]

This was incredible! This was so exciting! Now that Zarah was closer she could see that the woman’s technology was based on some sort of crystal. She had never seen anything like that! If the woman wasn’t from space, Zarah would have to go to wherever on Trazie was making it. She wondered if she could make it work the way she made Old Tech work, that magic way that she and Zigma seemed to be able to do together. She wanted to be this woman’s friend. Zarah lived for tech. Well, she lived for Old Tech, but that was only because she didn’t realize other kinds existed. She had to know more!