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┃🝣 Copper III 🝣
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xxxxxxIt took Sirius three consecutive moments to comprehend at least slightly what was inside the Living Orb. The first moment was used trying to pick himself up off the curving floor of the Orb. The second moment was used to grow accustomed to the relative dimness of the Orb’s interior. The third moment was spent staring at the girl he saw.
xxxxxxThe interior of the Orb was more spacious than Sirius had imagined, with plenty of room for him and the girl. He stood on the sloping floor of the Orb while she seemed to hover on the other side. Her skin was a pale cream, and she wore a simple white shirt with pants as gray as the metal around them. Around her radiated cords and tendrils of metal, all disappearing somewhere beneath her long straight hair. That hair seemed to shimmer and dance in the light that somehow found its way into the Orb, and the color faded between a bright green and a cerulean blue as it cascaded down her back. Up by the strange girl’s ear was something distinctly not metal to hold some of the hair back from the girl’s eyes. With a start, Sirius recognized it as the first carving he had sent up the column.
xxxxxxFor the first time, Sirius looked into the eyes of this strange girl. They were a green so bright, they rivaled her hair. Her freckled cheeks turned a slight pink, and her head tilted in an adorable way. Sirius wondered where this girl could have come from. She looked to be a teenager, but Sirius knew he would have remembered a girl this stunning had she ever been in the city.
xxxxxx“Y oua ren otNob le,” the girl said, the question and disappointment evident in her voice. Sirius was transfixed as she appeared to float to him. This strange girl, with her strangely familiar language. She was taller than he had anticipated, and when she stood directly in front of him, they were almost eye-to-eye. The girl seemed to pause, then she carefully said, “Y oua ren otfamili ar.”
xxxxxxWith painstaking slowness, Sirius realized he knew this language. “Do you know that old guy from the trading group?” he asked suddenly, bright eyes searching hers. He immediately regretted the question as she backed up with wide eyes. “Sorry, sorry,” he said quietly, trying to take a step back as well to show he meant nothing by the question. The curved walls of the Orb were hard to walk on, though, and he slipped to the bottom in a spread-eagle mess.
xxxxxx“Sorry,” he said again, sheepishly this time, and his response was met by a light tinkling of giggles and chimes. The strange and beautiful girl sat beside him on the floor of the Orb, her smile lighting up the whole space. Sirius wanted to talk with this girl more and make her smile. He decided to start simple, hoping that he could gain her trust at least a little. “My name is Sirius,” he said, putting a hand on his chest, “Sirius.” He waited, wondering if his message had gotten through.
xxxxxxAfter a moment, the girl responded with squinted eyes, “Sirius.” The named man smiled broadly and nodded his head. He sat up and paused. What was he going to do next? “Sirius,” the girl said, pointing to his chest. He nodded once more, and she pointed to herself, “Copp er.”
xxxxxxSirius smiled and tried to hold in his excitement. He pointed from himself to the girl and said, “Sirius. Copper.” He winced as he butchered the name, knowing he had messed up on the inflection. “Cop per,” he tried again, then, “Copp er.” The girl’s eyes lit up and she pursed her lips.
xxxxxx“Copper,” she said, pointing to herself, “Copp er.” To Sirius, it looked like she was trying on different clothes with the ways she said her name. The two of them sat inside the Orb for a long time, sometimes communicating, other times just repeating random words at each other until they were blue in the face. Sirius enjoyed his time with the strange girl in the Orb, but eventually, something had to happen.
xxxxxx“Unt il weme eton cemo re,” she said sadly, carefully placing the sun carving in Sirius’ hand.
xxxxxx“Unt il weme eton cemo re,” Sirius replied, having had practice with the inflections a bit. He wasn’t entirely sure what it could mean, but it seemed to make Copper smile. Sirius smiled in return and held on tightly to the carved sun as the Living Orb gently lowered him down the center column and into the half-light of evening.
xxxxxxSirius walked back to his house in a kind of half-daze, starting to doubt that he had actually been inside the Living Orb and talked with a beautiful girl all day. His neighbors were all surprised that he had not only freed himself from the wall, but also come home from a completely different direction. As he laid his head to rest that night, more and more rumors spread of the boy who moved with the wall, the boy who could talk to the Living Orb.
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xxxxxxI rampaged at the metal around me. Why couldn’t they just leave me alone?! At some point, though, my rampage turned into more of a desolate quietness. Everything was still, and something somehow felt off inside. My chest felt heavier than normal, and my head pounded.
xxxxxxWithout realizing it, I had curled up into myself at the bottom of my protective orb. My metal would protect me, just like it always had.
xxxxxx”IB.11-29, your task today is to defend. Got that?” The man wears the annoying white coat. His smile is really annoying, too. Why do I have to do this? There are plenty of others modified like me. Why can’t they ask one of the others from the IB.11 bunker?
xxxxxxI am shoved outside into a wasteland. I try to turn back, to go to VIIIB.10-28 and complain like always, but the outside of the dome reflects something bright and blue. I look up to see what it is, and almost scream for my curiosity. What is up there?! It can’t be that big! Nothing could!
xxxxxxI focus on the ground at my feet and negligently tap the remains of a vehicle. The metal leaches out of it, and I wonder what could have eaten something like that. I most certainly do not look at the big blue thing above my head. It just can’t be there forever, right? I continue collecting metal, first creating an umbrella over my head, then eventually making a cocoon, and finally spreading out.
xxxxxxSomeone opens a door and screams something, but the sound doesn’t get through my metal in time. This is more metal than any of them had ever let me collect! It's wonderful! I sense something large and metal falling from above somewhere and reach my metal toward it. Maybe I can catch it and save it from scattering all its metal everywhere!
xxxxxxI touch it. At least, I think I do. It is hot. Really hot. I am boiling inside my cocoon. More metal! That will ward off the heat! More! More! It isn’t getting any cooler! Where can I get more?! I reach out. More metal! It has to be around somewhere! More! More!
xxxxxxIt works! My metal cools down. It isn’t so hot anymore. I wait. Is it still hot outside? I don’t want to get cooked. Something outside taps my metal, kind of like those people in white coats. Are they here to reward me? Sometimes they do, so I cautiously open a bit of my metal, wondering if something can really be out there in that heat.
xxxxxx“Commander! This one’s alive!” Someone is out there! I open more, wondering if it is a white coat person. I am greeted with a young face who looks at once surprised and happy. “Commander! It’s a girl, Commander!” Who is this Commander fellow the kid keeps yelling at?
xxxxxx“I’m project VIIIA.18-2, but my friends back at Camp call me Noble.” Noble, huh? That is a nice name.
xxxxxxMy metal was warm when I woke up, quietly reminding me that I was safe. For now, anyway. I sat up and stretched. A slight tug on my metal brought my thoughts down to earth. What was that? Something pressed against my cocoon. What?! An invasion? I tried to keep it out, whatever it was, but my metal vibrated quietly. Well...My metal seemed to trust whoever this was. Maybe I could, too?
xxxxxxI carefully let a little bit of whatever it was into my cocoon. It was that hand! The one from before! I stared at it a little in disbelief, then flinched back as it opened slowly. Was that a carving? Gently, I lifted the wood out of the hand without making skin contact. This carving was so beautiful! It looked like a swirling sun, like the ways the others used to draw fancy suns on papers back…home…
xxxxxxMaybe this hand belonged to a friend. I carefully touched the hand, ready to pull back if it tried to pull me out from my protection again. It didn’t, which surprised me, and I slowly wrapped my fingers around its large mass. I wanted it to belong to a friend, but I needed to see their face to be sure. Maybe if I pulled them in? They didn’t seem to not want to come in.
xxxxxxWhen I pulled a little harder, my metal decided to help, and I backed up to the other side of my orb in surprise. It was a boy. His hair looked like a rusty iron kettle whose warm coffee had spilled over and stained the rest of him. And his eyes! They were so warm, like the coffee had pooled there and they were just staring at her. Wait.
xxxxxxIt was embarrassing to be caught staring, and I think I may have blushed a little. I nodded in a kind of hello and looked at what the boy was wearing instead. His pants were ripped at the knees and a strange steel-blue color, and his shirt looked about as red as his hair. He was barefoot, like me, though he was a bit dustier than me.
xxxxxx“You are not Noble,” I concluded out loud. It was a bit disappointing, but that’s what I deserved for hoping the impossible would happen. I moved toward the boy, wondering if I did know him from somewhere. I pretended that it didn’t bug me, but the fact that he was ever so slightly taller than me was a bit of an annoyance. And he seemed to be older than me. How annoying.
xxxxxx”Everyone! We’re back!” Noble seems in high spirits as we enter a room with a lot more people than back at the IB.11 barracks. Where had all these people come from? “This is our new friend, IB.11-29. Does anyone have any good ideas for names?” What? Me, have a name? I wonder if it will be like Noble’s.
xxxxxxLots of faces go by, each introducing themselves and suggesting their own name for me. At some point, someone very familiar comes up and says they are called Nicki. The name she suggests sounds pretty nice, and Noble must have seen it on my face. “OK, everyone! Let’s call out new friend Copper!”
xxxxxxNo...This boy did not look like any of the others I know, and everyone had been at Camp. “You are not familiar,” I said, contemplating who this stranger could be. Suddenly, the boy leaned forward and said, “Do yo ukn owth atol dgu yfr omth etr adinggr oup?”
xxxxxxI was startled, and I quickly backed away from the boy. He seemed to realize this and backed up, too, but I suppose he wasn’t used to walking on curved surfaces. Whatever he muttered from the bottom of my orb sounded rather funny, and I found myself giggling at the way he spoke, my metal chiming with me in its parody of laughter.
xxxxxxHe couldn’t be too much of a threat down there on the floor, so I sat next to him, knees brought up to my chest. This boy was very strange, and his little mistakes were endearing in a surprising sort of way.
xxxxxx“My na meis Si rius,” the boy said suddenly, putting a hand on his chest, “Si rius.” I wondered what he could be up to, but he seemed to be waiting for something. Did he want me to repeat?
xxxxxx“Si rius,” I said slowly, hoping I wasn’t giving any permission for something. The boy seemed to brighten when I said that, but then his brow wrinkled. That expression really didn’t fit his face. “Si rius,” I tried again, pointing to the boy. He nodded, and I wondered what I had been saying. Was it his name? It seemed to make sense with the gestures, so I pointed to myself and tried my own name.
xxxxxxThe way Si rius said my name was strange, like there was some kind of rock in his mouth. Maybe it was a strange dialect? I tried my name his way and my way, wondering if they were really the same thing. My version definitely felt more familiar, but his seemed to have more confidence behind it. They both felt like me, and I wondered if I could live up to both. I also wondered about his name. Could Si rius be the same as Sirius?
xxxxxxWe sat for a while, only sort of having conversation. Mostly, we just repeated words back and forth until the sounds made no sense, but I definitely had fun. I may not have known him for very long, but I enjoyed Sirius’ company. Unfortunately, it was getting harder to reflect light through my metal, which probably meant the sun was going down. That meant my new friend had to leave.
xxxxxxReluctantly, I brought out the new carving he had given me. Maybe this could act as a kind of key? That way, I would know that it was Sirius next time my metal tried to introduce me to new people. Sadly, I put the sun in his hand. “Until we meet once more,” I said, sincerely hoping there would be a next time.
xxxxxxTo my surprise, Sirius said, “Until we meet once more.” We had been talking for a rather long time, trading words and such, but this was still a pleasant surprise. I carefully helped my metal lower Sirius down to earth when a thought struck me. That metal from earlier could come from anywhere around the perimeter, but I didn’t have enough metal to keep it out all the way around. I also didn’t want to leave my new friend unprotected if I tried to decrease my boundaries.
xxxxxxI thought a long time about how I could protect him and myself. My metal seemed to sense my mood, and I did my best to keep it stable. I wondered how to protect myself and Sirius. I had all this metal, maybe I could just carry it all here and make one big cocoon for us. If I did that, we’d both definitely be safe! The plan sounded fine, until I considered that maybe Sirius might not like not being able to see the sky. The big blue thing is important to see every once in a while, but once I made us a big cocoon of my metal, the sky would vanish for who knows how long. I had to come up with a better solution! Maybe, if I just pulled everything in a little everywhere and moved my center closer to Sirius. That way, the sky would still be there, my metal could make better walls, and Sirius would still be protected from the bad metal. With this new plan in mind, I spent some time moving metal and non-metal bits and pieces around. Hopefully Sirius won’t mind!
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