Chapitre 27: Six's Name
The name issue was momentarily forgotten because Claire needed to make the icing for the cookies. When that was done she divided portions into little bowls and squeezed colored liquid onto each, mixing it around with a butter knife to make different colors of icing. Then she moved the icing into what she called piping bags.
"I have to use thicker icing on the borders and thinner icing to flood with. It's easier to show than tell so just wait a few minutes," she explained. "It'll take a little while to dry so we can do something else while we wait."
Six watched intently as Claire took a cookie shaped like a leaf and used an orange piping bag to trace the outline of the cookie and veins like on an actual leaf. She did this three more times until she handed one to him and told him to give it a try.
The leaf shape he had been given was slightly different than the ones she had done. The cookie cutters they had used were three different leaf shapes, a pumpkin, a squirrel, an acorn, and an apple according to her. He had only recognized half of them.
He used the green piping bag and tried following her example to the best of his ability. His lines weren't anywhere near as smooth as hers; he had to wipe them off and start over several times. But eventually he had a passably connected outline and held it up for her approval.
"Good job!" Claire praised. "I knew you would catch onto this quickly. I had to try a lot more times than you did my first time. This can be kind of hard to get right. We should do all of the outlines now and then let them dry before doing the next part. I'll show you how to do the acorn next."
Six discovered that the leaves were the least complicated cookies to do as he watched her work. The most complicated was probably the squirrel so he left those to her and stuck to some of the easier ones.
This required a fair amount of concentration but it wasn't unpleasant. Claire didn't seem to realize she was singing to herself as she worked either and he liked that. She was acting more like she had before she knew of his existence; maybe she really wasn't afraid of him anymore!
A warm feeling filled his chest. What was this sensation? He didn't know what it was but he didn't dislike it either. It was actually pretty nice.
Both of them sat at the kitchen table on their phones while waiting for the cookies to dry and Six took that as an opportunity to look up what emotion he might be feeling. It took a lot of sifting through to find anything useful but he was able to reach a conclusion eventually.
Happiness. He was happy. How strange.
It was difficult to describe…it was similar to feeling pleased but more than that somehow. Sharper and more defined than simply being pleasant. He would have to remember this emotion.
Claire broke through his thoughts by asking him what he thought about certain names. "Hey, Six, I'm looking up names with powerful meanings and I wanted to run some by you to see if you like any."
Six was confused. "Powerful meanings?"
"Ah, right you don't know anything about names. Most names mean something because they have root words and whatnot from other languages. Mine means 'bright' or 'clear' and has a Latin origin. I figured since you were the top guy at your agency you should have some sort of power name," she said a bit sheepishly.
Claire was really putting a lot of thought into this, wasn't she? She wanted his name to fit him. He experienced that unfamiliar happy sensation again. He had thought he didn't care about names at all but he liked the fact that she was putting real effort into this.
"Thank you," Six said sincerely. "You can tell me your ideas now."
"Right! I was thinking maybe Andrew or Liam. Any thoughts?"
Hmm. Neither of those seemed right. They were pretty far removed from the number six. He shook his head and Claire tried again, undeterred. "Okay, what about Owen? Miles? Magnus?"
Six didn't like any of those either. Maybe he should have tried looking for a name himself after all.
She went silent for a few minutes and then spoke up excitedly. "Ooh, I know! What about Alexander? It means 'defender of men' and it can be shortened to Alex, which sounds kind of similar to Six."
He thought it over. Claire was right about it being similar to what he had been called up until this point. He said it aloud a few times to try it out. He liked it.
Alex felt like far less of a placeholder than John had. If name meanings were as important on the outside as she claimed, 'defender of men' wasn't so bad either. He could get used to this and accept it as his own, especially because Claire had been the one to give it to him.
"I like it," he told her.
She rewarded him with another wide smile. "Great! I'm going to start calling you Alex now so you can get used to it. That way, by the time this is all over with and you start interacting with people other than me you'll be able to respond to it naturally."
Six could accept that. He did want to be able to adjust to the outside world as seamlessly as possible. It would take some getting used to but so did being outside of headquarters at all. He would manage. He had so far with everything else.
Not only was he adjusting, he was actually happy. Something that Numbers were trained not to feel because emotions like that were supposed to be nothing but a fleeting illusion that got in the way of business.
Now that he had experienced a taste of happiness he disagreed with what he had been taught. How could something that felt so good be considered in the way?
Cadeaux
-- Cadeau
reçu État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone