Make Some Noise (Danger days)

Jet Star

"Ray!" The voice called out. He turned. His mother and Aunt Valerie stood in his bedroom doorway.
"What is it?" He hoped to not have to leave the radio he was working on.
"We have family over, you need to leave your cave for a bit."
Ray gestured to the large window letting in bright beams of sunlight that would highlight every floating speck of dust.
"Ray," his mother said again, this time with a warning tone. After sighing he got up off his chair and forced a smile at aunt Valerie before making his way to the living room.

Ray's family sat in the living room of their dusty Neutral statehouse. His family lived in a small town in Zone 1. Twelve miles away from the Lobby of Battery city. Luckily for the most part Bl/Ind left them alone.

"Hello uncle Henry," Ray greeted to the man seated on the sofa opposite to him.
"Good day my boy," Henry replied in the same way as he had since their first meeting when Ray was four.

His mother and aunt joined them soon after. Ray inwardly groaned as he knew what was coming next.
"Raymond!" Exclaimed his aunt.
"Hello Aunt Valerie," Ray mumbled.
"Speak up Ray your aunt is a bit deaf," he heard his father say as Ray dreaded what was next.
"So when are you cutting this mop of yours?" His aunt picked up a lock of his curly hair.
"Haven't thought about that yet Aunt Valerie." His aunt raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything.
"Why don't you share what you've been making Ra-Raymond?" His father tried to break the awkward silence.
"I'm building a radio. Nothing special or anything you should take interest in."
Aunt Valerie wrinkled her nose.
"Radio? Radios are for those rebellious kids who run around the Zones killing people and listening to rock music. You have a perfectly fine television for your news."
"They're called Killjoys, Aunt Valerie. All that's on TV is BLI propaganda. At least the radio has interesting stuff."
She shook her head.
"My nephew is not turning out a respectable young man Sally." Aunt Valerie told her sister. "Maybe if he cut his hair and washed those doodles off his arms he'd be getting somewhere. I expected better from you Raymond. I really did."
"Those 'doodles' are spiders I saw today that I need to document but I didn't get the chance to because of this surprise visit."
"They're probably radioactive." His mother quipped.
"You know what I've had enough." Ray got up from his seat. "And no Aunt Valerie, I'm not cutting my hair." He left the staring eyes and went back to his room.

A fiery blaze woke him. Then the wave of heat. Ray snapped his eyes open. Huge flames licked up the house, his home.
He leapt up to run toward his family when another explosion hit the house, forcing him backwards.

When he came to his senses he turned his head to the radio lying next to him. Over the sounds of fire, his own breathing and the faint screams of terror and pain in the distance, the realization hit him that, his family was dead. He watched the burning crater where he once lived.

The survival instincts kicked in, Ray dragged himself up off the ground. Taking his radio and running out to the desert, running so fast he put out the flames on his clothes.

Just before dawn he reached a sign reading, 'Route Guano turn off 3 miles' and a sign below with,
'Zone 3. Warning! Some BLI tech may not correctly operate beyond this point.'
Stepping onto paved road felt like a heaven after hours of getting sand in his shoes.

By noon the sun had reached peak intensity making it painful to look at anything with a reflective surface. Ray held his radio tight to his chest and slowly walked up the road.

Big shiny yellow letters spelling, 'Diner' came into his view. Ray breathed a sigh of relief. "Finally some shade." He blurted out. Almost running till he reached the door.
He sat down leaning on the door. All was well and good until the door opened. Ray did nothing to stop himself from falling onto the concrete floor. He didn't mind that much. The cold was a welcome feeling on his face.

Then the worst pain in the world came on him as something caught his hair and fell to the ground behind him.
"Oh my god mY FUCKING HAIR!!" He yelled. The person who caught on his hair looked at the complete stranger in the doorway and screamed too.
"CHERRI COLA I'M STUCK!!"

Another guy (who must've been Cherri Cola) came in the room.
"Help." The guy stuck to him whimpered.
"Jesus can you keep it down you don't want to send a Dracu-Oh my god." He looked down at the complete idiot who somehow managed to get their rollerskate wheel stuck in the hair of a sunstroked stranger with a radio who rolled up out of nowhere.

The next ten minutes were lots of hair detangling and multiple comments of ''Show Pony you're a complete idiot'' and ''jeez man you've got thick hair"

After the hair was successfully detangled the rollerskate scooted away, Ray however stayed lying on the floor clutching his radio.
"You can get up now." The guy he thought was Cherri said.
"It's nice down here." He replied. It earned a sigh from Cherri before he hauled Ray off the floor. He held him by the shoulders and firmly told him. "You've got sunstroke mate."
Ray laughed slightly.
"That would explain things." He said before lurching out of Cherri's grasp and puking in the doorway.
"Pleasant." Remarked Show Pony. Ray pulled the finger at them while simultaneously chucking up his guts.
"You must've had a rough day."
"You think!?" Ray replied, wiping his mouth.
"Come inside you're a complete wreck." Cherri led him into the diner and motioned toward the sofa in the corner. Ray sat and nearly got hit by the bucket Show Pony through at him.

"So anyway who are you?" Cherri asked.
"I'm Ray Toro. I'm from Neutral settlement 4, in Zone 1." He replied. Show Pony looked worried.
"BLI Scarecrows bombed that town last night." They swallowed nervously "It's a miracle you survived," They paused. "How?"
"I got blasted out of my house and ran out into the desert." Ray replied. He soon remembered. "How could I have forgotten,"
"What?"
"My family is dead. They were killed in the explosion. Stupid of me to forget."
Cherri, not knowing what to say just patted him on the shoulder and whispered a sorry.

Cherri and Show Pony fixed his burns and wounds while he sat there not doing much staring into space. He continued that for the next three days.

Eventually he got up and hobbled over to the other room. Cherri was in there attempting to use out of date coffee powder.
"Cherri?"
"Cherri Cola is my full name, Cherri is fine if you must. Anyway what do you want?" He took a sip of his drink. "Ugh that's shit." He exclaimed.
"Don't think that's drinkable anymore," Ray noted.
"What do you want?" Cherri repeated.
"I want to fight BLI."
"Ok you do know that doing that will seriously increase your mortality rate?"
"Yes. I know that."
"Very well then. What do we call you? Ray Toro just won't cut it in the Zones." Cherri stirred his undrinkable coffee around. "Show Pony! This Jet needs some help."
Show Pony came scooting in. "What does Star Boy want this time?"
"He's joining the fight against BLI." Show Pony's eyes lit up. They grabbed Ray and raced out of the room.
"Careful I'm not wearing rollerskates remember!"

The storage cupboard was full of clothes and weird objects. Show Pony pranced around the room. "So do you have a name yet or do I keep calling you Star Boy?"
"Jet Star," He decided. "My name is Jet Star."
"Sift through everything and take what you want. Your clothes aren't going to last much longer." He looked at his scorched grey tshirt and agreed.

He came back to the living room with a pile of new clothes, naturally black.
"Come on man you're a Killjoy. You have literally a hundered other colours to choose from."
"I'm fine with the black."
"Ok fine, but at least decorate your jacket." Show Pony handed him a box of random bits of fabric and patches.
He dig around for a while and found red and yellow patches for the jacket. He then pulled out a larger piece of fabric.
"Wow it's an old American flag."
Show Pony came over. "Cool."
"It just needs something else." He found some black paint and drew the spider he found onto the flag before stitching it on the back of his jacket.

"While we have the paint out you can decorate your ray gun." Show Pony looked over at Jet who was painting a space helmet with a bunch of bandannas strewn everywhere.
"A gun?"
"Yep you actually have enemies now."
He took the gun gingerly.
"I'm not that good at shooting," Jet admitted.
"You'll learn."

Later Cherri Cola came back.
"Not bad. I like your ray gun." He said. Jet smiled. He took the mask off his jacket and placed it over his eyes.
"Now you look like a Killjoy." Show Pony stated.