OK, chapter 2 of the story is coming up.

D Wolf Falls - Your wait is over. Thanks for the positive review.

RaptorK Beta - Yeah. You know, I started GK2 before I even knew about the prequel. The CL dot com forum? Yeah, but it seems it isn't there, anymore. (checks CL dot com and clicks on Forum) Wait! It's back? Never mind. Anyway, that forum was where I first published my GK sequel stories.

As you can see, before I go into the main story, which is post-GK2, I have flashbacks to the pre-GK1 (the 5-minute short by Antefilms). I just wanted to provide how Jeremie, Yumi, and Ulrich discover what they end up having to reveal to Odd, in the non-fanfic chapter of the saga. Anyway, here's chapter 2.

Garage Kids 3:
Glaciers and Hornets and Research, Oh My!

Chapter 2

Flashback, Jeremie's POV:

Ulrich and I stood and watched as Yumi knelt down to lift up the cover of the manhole hidden by the tall grass around it. That's when Ulrich brought up a curious question.

"You guys, well, have known each other for a long time, I'm getting, and, um..."

Yumi glanced up and said, "Yeah, and?"

"You guys don't, um, well, have anything special for each other, do you?"

Yumi and I glanced at each other. Then, we started to laugh. Why would he think a thing like that?

"No, of course not," I said.

"Why would you ask?" said Yumi.

Ulrich blushed. "Oh, no reason."

I saw him look at Yumi and I was pretty sure I knew the real reason.

As we climbed up the ladder, I looked at the old building at the other side of the bridge we were coming up on. "There it is," I said. "The old Renault Factory."

"Isn't that a type of car?" asked Ulrich.

Yumi came up after us. "This factory made them, didn't it?"

I nodded as she put to cover in place. "That's right," I said. "The building is deserted now."

Ulrich started walking up. "Not for long."

The three of us walked up to the front doors, pushed them open (hard to do, because they were so big), and walked inside.

"Wow!" I cried. "I never realized it was so big!" I heard my echo bounce back to me.

Yumi looked over to the far right of the factory. "Hey, what are those?"

"What?" Ulrich and I asked at the same time.

"Some sort of pods," she said, pointing to the three wide ones that rested on top of a huge, cylindrical console.

We ran over to the far right of the factory, followed the upper deck to the other side, and found a flight of stairs that led to a platform. From there, a stairway went up to the pods, and another went down to the lower levels of the factory.

"How about I check out where this lower staircase goes to," I said. "You two can check out those pods."

Ulrich and Yumi nodded and we split up.

As I reached the bottom and looked around the lower level of the factory, I saw this: on both sides were nooks along the walls, separated by the support beams that held up the deck that ran along the outer wall. A variety of things cluttered the area inside those nooks.

However, on the left-hand side, along with the entrance to the factory, on the upper deck, a bit to the left of the entrance (from inside view), was a large, metal box built into the wall, and covered with caution tape. We were all to learn later that it was actually an old maintenance elevator.

That's not important at this time. Anyway, I looked to my right and saw nothing but bare wall. To my left was some very peculiar items: a round rug, some metal objects attached to some objects shaped like gaskets. Walking further in--and onto the rug, to be exact--I noticed a yellowish couch, and a few stairs leading up to a small room. Inside the room was a whole bunch of odd-shaped monitors and other computer machinery.

I pulled out my mobile phone and dialed Ulrich. "Hey, Ulrich," I said, when he answered. "What did you and Yumi find out?"

"Nothing," he said. "We can't figure out anything about these weird pods!"

"Come down here," I told him. "There's some weird computer equipment down here."

Soon, he and Yumi came down. By the time they did, I had found a bulky book and was already leafing through it.

"What do you think all of this is?" asked Yumi.

I glanced up from the book and said, "The computer to enter Xanadu, I'm assuming." I found a page on 'Creating a Virtual Profile'. "And, I think I found the directions to get you in."

Ulrich and Yumi came and looked at the book. We noticed a figure captioned, 'Standard Virtual Scanner'. "The pods!" we all cried simultaneously.

I read through the directions, and so did Ulrich and Yumi. "You can read this?" asked Ulrich.

I smiled and, forgetting I was the only genius present, said, "It's really not that complicated."

Yumi laughed. "Maybe not for you."

I nodded with a broad smile and looked up from the book--Xanadu's user manual--and said, "OK, I think I figured it all out. You two get to the scanners."

We worked out that Ulrich would use the left scanner and Yumi would use the center. The right scanner would remain unused, leaving us oblivious to the fact that Ulrich's future new roommate would be using that one.

I typed in the command for Scanners One and Two to start up new Virtual Profiles. Two blank Digital Cards came up. The one for Scanner Two came up first, so I started on Yumi's Profile first. "Transfer: Yumi," I said, automatically (I had a habit of announcing the commands I type in), and typed her name into the computer.

Next, for Scanner One, "Transfer: Ulrich," I typed in his name.

I saw, in the manual, I could select abilities and weapons for the Profiles I was creating, or set the computer to automatically pick ones (that was what I did for Odd, since I was in a hurry). I looked through the list for Ulrich and found an interesting one: 'Super speed: Displace one's own body at the speed of light'. I figured that sounded nice and selected that one for him.

Looking, for Yumi, I found an ability labeled, 'Telekinesis: Moving objects with one's own thoughts'. I selected that for her.

Next, I picked weapons. I selected the saber for Ulrich and the metal fan for Yumi.

Now, I just had to set the computer to scan their bodies to work on their virtual forms. "Scanner: Yumi. Scanner: Ulrich."

I waited, as the computer filled in the blanks on their Digital Cards. When it was done, I typed in the command for the virtualization process and cried, "Virtualization!" upon striking the enter key.

OK, they have made their first trip into Lyo--er Xanadu. LOL! Tell me what you think!