21.
I don't want to open my eyes.
I am having a dream. I am Copper, but I am not at the same time.
I am sitting in a dark room as Copper, a cramp in my entire back from this damn excuse of a chair, empty instant noodle containers littering all over the desk and floor where he works. But he doesn't care, he doesn't care about anything except the countless monitors stacked in front of him, all showing various locations in the hotel I had been in. Specifically, he cares about one screen.
There I am, Ebony, laying on the ground, laying in Demon ash and my own vomit on one of the screens.
Since I am him, I can feel his frustrations towards me. If only I had listened, if only I was as compliant as the last one.
But no, he corrects himself, compliance is how the other one died. He relied to heavily on Copper, he could not make a move without direction.
He is... proud of me. He thinks I am strong. He thinks I am weak. He doesn't know what I am.
His mind flashes to... Oh my God. His mind flashed to that girl. The one with yellow hair.
You are Will, I think.
At this moment, in my sleep, I am Will, who is Copper.
And I don't want Ebony to die like the rest. To die like Jade did.
Because he can't bear one more loss. He can't bear this responsibility of sending people to their death any longer.
His mind moves to another image, another figure. I don't recognize her. She is little, with freckles on her cheeks and the same autumn hair he and all his mother have. Copper remembers the tantrums she can throw, how people die when Sofia directs her anger at them.
The Necro Proxy wants her.
S.H.A.D.E wants her.
But they will have to settle for Copper. And he must always be the best so that they are satisfied, so that they forget about Sofia.
Sofia does not know Copper. Neither does the rest of Copper's family. Their minds have been wiped by the Blues. Now, Copper is a Shade, but he is permitted to remember -- to know why he must send people to their death.
He remembers them, when he was still very young, at a Thanksgiving dinner, his mom youthful and pretty, his father scholarly, on about something or another, and Sofia and him bickering over who gets the last piece of pie.
He loves them. He misses them. He is no one to them.
To protect them, he must protect me.
Though I am Copper, I move out of him. I watch him in his dream, his eyes glued to my image on the screen, yelling into a microphone to another Sync to alert my Swatch that I am down, that the floors are clear of Security.
He does not see me, but I reach out my hand to touch his cheek. It's only a brush, and we can't feel each other, but it shows me that he is real.
I wonder, for a moment, which one of us has it worse. I had my memories of my family and my identity stolen away, Copper instead mourns for a family who doesn't even realize he exists. He knows what he is missing.
I never see Copper, I only hear him. I don't see the scruff on his face or the bags under his eyes or his wrinkled clothes. But he watches me like this all the time. Always concerned.
He has to protect everyone.
For the first time, I get him. I even understand him.
But I have to open my eyes sometime, and then he will return to being my faceless Sync.
"I see you," I say to him. "I know you are here."
I know he can't hear me.