INTERWOVEN ADVENTURES | Circadian Earth: Book 1

Chapter 8

Twenty minutes after the call, Izzy heard a knock at their door. This time, they got up to get it themselves rather than asking Citrine to do so.

"Who's at the door this time?" Citrine asked.

"Some visitors." Izzy replied.

Niko groaned. "I swear, if it's Amelix again, I'm going to be annoyed. I don't trust her one bit... and she just left!"

"Niko, you just have to give her a chance, she doesn't seem malicious at all!" Citrine replied, exasperated.

"Calm down. It'll just be the kid with the damaged prototype." Izzy closed the door of the workshop and walked through the house. They opened the front door, and looking up at them were two fennec Trialians, one purple, and one grey.

Izzy crouched down to get eye level with the two. "Hi! I assume you two are the callers from earlier?" they asked.

Josie beamed. "Yep, that's us! My name is Josie, and this is Layla!" The younger Trialian pointed at her sister.

"Oh, uh, yes. I'm her sister, well, one of them anyway." Layla muttered, "Nice to meet you, miss... uh..."

"You can drop the formalities, Izzy is fine." Izzy replied, smiling. Layla's posture sunk a bit, clearly embarrassed.

"Anyhow, how about this Nasric you speak of? Where are they?" Izzy asked. Josie turned to look behind her, trying to usher someone out from behind.

"It's okay Seven! She's super nice!" Josie whispered to the prototype. Seven hesitated, but slowly peeked out from behind where Josie was standing. Izzy's eyes widened.

They couldn't hide their shock. Fiery gradient hair, with red, orange and yellow stripes on her torso, legs, and one of her arms. This was none other than...

"2-07?! I thought you were-" Izzy cut themself off, and took a moment to take a look at the state the Nasric was in. Seven shyly waved, but began to slowly back behind Josie once more. Izzy suddenly stood up and made their way further inside. "Why don't you three come in?"

"Okay!" Josie said, excited. She strode in, holding Seven, with Layla in tow.

Izzy began to talk to themself as the four made their way through the house to her workshop. "This is a lot to process... but I'm sure I can get 2-07 fixed up in no time." They opened the door to the workshop, and motioned for the others to come in.

"Citrine, Niko, this is Josie, Layla, and..." Izzy began, but was cut off.

"Seven!" Josie interrupted. The Nasric only nodded in response, slowly freeing herself from Josie's grasp and revealing herself to the other two robots.

"You go by just the last digit, okay." Izzy mumbled to themself. Citrine and Niko looked very surprised to see Seven alive.

"2-07?! I thought you failed..." Citrine said. She looked at Izzy. "Didn't her hard drive short-circuit or something when we created her?"

Niko piped up, rolling right next to Citrine. "Yeah, it did, I remember that! How'd you find her, Izzy?"

Izzy smiled as they sat down at their workbench. "I didn't. These two did."

As Izzy sat down to write some notes, Niko turned her attention to the Trialians, who were looking around at the workshop curiously. "How did you find her and bring her back to life?" she asked them.

"Oh! It was my birthday, and my mom let me go to the scrapyard to pick out my present and I found her! I fixed her up by myself! I fed her a crystal and she woke up!" Josie said, grinning.

"Yeah, I can tell." Niko said, examining Seven's patchy repair work. She was quickly nudged by Citrine. "What? I'm not wrong!"

Citrine rolled her eyes and flew up to Seven to inspect the patchwork job. She frowned when she saw the raw edges, the different metals attached to her casing, and hastily engraved number on one of the pieces. "Do you... like being like this?" Citrine asked.

Seven looked down at her body. I remember being normal, not for long, but that's not important... however, something about this is special to me, maybe sentimental? This is how I was when Josie brought me to life, and this time it's for real... Looking back at Citrine, she simply nodded.

"She doesn't want her outer casing fixed?" Niko said from behind Citrine. Citrine shrugged. Seven nodded again.

Izzy, finishing up her notes, picked up Seven and put her on the work table to take a closer look. "Sure, we don't have to fix any of the cosmetics, I suppose. Some light sanding down would be smart though. A few of those edges look very sharp, they could be very dangerous." Izzy grazed their finger against one of them, and immediately pulled their hand back. A tiny cut appeared on their finger. "Ouch, yep. We're smoothing that out for sure. That's alright with you, right?"

Seven nodded once more. I wouldn't want to hurt Josie or Layla...

She suddenly had an idea, and looked around for something to write on, noticing a small stack of blank paper. She used her thumb to point at it, and Izzy noticed what she was trying to show them.

"Oh, do you want to write something?" Izzy asked. Seven nodded. Izzy stood up and grabbed a piece of paper, along with a small red pen. Seven gleefully took it out of their hands, and began to write to the best of her ability. When she was finished, Izzy read the paper aloud. "'How quickly will the fix be done'? Easy! I can replace both your voice and flight module in just a few minutes, ten at most," they replied.

"Awesome! Can Layla and I watch?" Josie asked.

"For the flight mechanic, absolutely not." Izzy started. "It's a secret I don't share with anyone. However, I don't mind you watching the voice module be replaced though-"

Layla took notice of something propped against the wall, and began to reach for it. "Hey, what's with this purple staff?" she asked, unintentionally cutting Izzy off. Their expression shifted to be a lot more serious.

"Don't touch that!" Izzy suddenly exclaimed, which caused Layla to jump. "It's the source of all the Nasric energy."

"Really?!" Josie said, and turned to look right at it. "Cool!"

"It is pretty cool," Izzy said, "Just don't touch it. It's... very important to me." Josie shot them a thumbs up, continuing to look at it, and Layla said nothing, leaning against the wall of the workshop instead.

Seven suddenly perked up, and wrote something else on the paper. When she was finished, she handed it off to Izzy. I'm ready. Can we do the flight first?