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Poppy’s dying. That was their first thought when they woke up—red in the face, nauseous, and with a terrible migraine.
“Eughhhhhhhh.”
Pretty bad choice of last words, all things considered. What was going to be written on their gravestone? Poppy Cobs, great sibling, partner, inventor. “Eughhhhhhh.” 2025–2025.
Ah, well. They hoped someone would give them a gravestone. They wouldn’t like it much if their corpse was left out in the open. A small chill ran down their spine.
“Whoa, never seen you sleep in. Thought you were dead.”
MePhone4 cracked the door open, letting in what little light Meeple Headquarters still had.
Poppy groaned as they sat up, their bedsheets drenched in what they hoped was only sweat.
“Yeah me too. What time is it?” They rubbed their eyes.
“Eh, around twelve? You missed breakfast.” MePhone4 leaned on the doorway, taking in the underwhelming sight of Poppy’s room. All kinds of appliances, clocks, remotes, lamps, had been taken apart and now lay useless in every corner of the teen’s room. Their desk was covered in broken machinery, and the floor was decorated with dead batteries.
“And I thought I was the slob.” MePhone4 lazily kicked a broken electronic clock, the time permanently reading 4:18 AM.
“Missed breakfast? Awh, man! but 3GS was cooking!” They sniffled, stifling an incoming sneeze.
“Hey, why don’t I ever get that attitude when it’s my turn to make breakfast?” He crossed his arms.
“You literally almost burned down the house last time.”
“Oh, come on, it only happened twice!”
“Hachoo!” The sneeze interrupted Poppy before they could point out that it had, in fact, happened three times.
“Oh.” MePhone4 grimaced. “Ew.”
----
"Well, you’re sick. Quite ill, actually.”
MePhone3GS lifted his hand from Poppy’s forehead. The cold metal felt pleasant against their warm skin.
“What? How can you even tell? Maybe it’s just allergies.” Poppy scoffed.
“Poppy, we are in the clouds. What could you even be allergic to up here?”
Poppy responded with stifled coughs and a defeated shrug.
“You should get some rest.” 3GS sat beside them on the bed, shooing away the kernels that popped out with every sneeze.
“I’m fine! Sure, it was bad when I woke up, but I’m perfectly—achoo!”
This was humiliating. First, a whole island’s worth of contestants were against them, and now their own body?
“Not to worry, dear sibling!” 3GS grinned daringly. “I shall take it upon myself to nurse you back to health!”
He jumped up from the bed, voice full of determination and possibly misplaced confidence.
“Could you start by making me breakfast?” Poppy asked, voice nasally and raspy.
“Make? I saved you some from earlier this morning!” 3GS stated proudly.
“Yeah, but—achoo—I have a feeling 4 ate it.”
“I heard that!” came his voice from a few rooms away.
------
“So, how are we supposed to take care of a sick object?” MePhone4 broke the silence in the kitchen.
“You were around Cobs the most. Do you remember him ever getting sick?”
“Uh, no. Not really. I didn’t even know the guy had weaknesses until I saw him blow up.” He whistled, then made a boom sound to illustrate what was apparently the only way to defeat Cobs.
“Well, what about when you were sick?” 3GS asked. “You had to have your batteries replaced, right?”
“I don’t think that’s going to work with Poppy.”
“No, I mean, what if we have to replace something of Poppy’s?” 3GS pondered aloud.
“Like what? Their kernels?”
“Something like that. Maybe their blood?”
“Oh yeah. We can just replace Poppy’s blood afterward with new, fresher blood!”
“Yes!” 3GS clapped his fist into his palm.
“I leave you guys alone for an hour and you’re already talking about bloodletting me?”
Poppy’s raspy, feverish voice cut through their brainstorming.
“Hey! Shouldn’t you be in bed?” MePhone4 turned to face them.
“Just putting the dish away.” Poppy dragged their feet to the counter, letting the plate clank into the sink.
“‘Dish’ is such a funny word. Sounds like a sound effect, y’know? Like dshhhh. Or diiiiishh. Eheheh—achoo!”
Another kernel popped from their head, landing on the kitchen table. MePhone4 recoiled, eyes narrowing at the seed.
“You shouldn’t be awake. For a while.”
“You’re not taking my blood!” Poppy hissed, pointing at the blue MePhone.
“That’s not what I meant.” He sighed. “Why are you being so annoying about this?”
“I’m not being annoying! You are!”
“Let’s calm down,” 3GS interrupted. “Maybe I’ll get MeTag. They probably know something about this.”
“What?!” Poppy nearly flopped to the floor as they scurried over. “You can’t! They’re busy protecting everyone!”
“Poppy, MeTag can leave the contestants alone for a few hours—”
“But I’m fine!” they barked, much too loudly for someone who was supposedly fine.
3GS flinched slightly.
“Yeah, we’re getting MeTag,” MePhone4 muttered.
------
Poppy was getting very tired of this.
Crumpled tissues, kernels, empty soda cans, and crumbs surrounded them like a nest of grossness.
“Here.” MePhone4 tossed a blanket at them.
“I could be doing much more productive and useful things right now,” Poppy muttered, crossing their arms. 'Like being down in the lab fixing MePad' went unsaid.
They shoved the blanket off, letting it fall unceremoniously to the floor.
“Nope. 3GS told me to watch you.”
MePhone4 sat beside them on the couch and retrieved the blanket.
“Right… the reason you’re here is because 3GS told you to.” Poppy sneezed. “Not because you’re scared of being around the contestants again.”
“The main reason is because I want to make sure you’re okay,” he admitted quietly.
“Not seeing the contestants is a plus.”
“Well… I guess I can relate.” Poppy leaned back. “I don’t like seeing them much either.”
They paused. “I’m pretty sure they don’t want to see me anyway.”
Silence followed—nothing but the whir of the air conditioner. MePhone4 opened his mouth, closed it, then settled on a look Poppy couldn’t read. Fear? Guilt? Frustration?
Poppy knew. They might only be a few months old, but they weren’t stupid.
“Poppy, I—”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” Their voice wobbled despite their effort.
“Just listen to me, alright?” He scooted closer, either not noticing or not caring about the used tissues and kernels that formed a wall between them.
“When Cobs died, I was upset. Even after everything he did—after he made my life a living hell. Maybe I was upset because I was programmed to be. Maybe it’s because I saw him as a father. Maybe it’s because what little chance of him loving me was ripped away—”
“If you were programmed to, it’d be a pretty dick move on his part,” Poppy interrupted.
“Sounds like something he’d do, doesn’t it?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know. But yeah.”
“Can I continue?”
Poppy nodded.
“Yeah. Well, I hated to admit it, but I missed the guy. And maybe I got a little sad about it.”
“3GS said you got depressed.”
“Okay, fine. Very sad.” He huffed. “But that’s not the point. The point is that even though I was upset, one thought kept me going.”
“3GS kept you going too, though. Right?”
“Can you be quiet? I’m trying to have a heart-to-heart with my sick, annoying little sibling.”
He roughly ruffled the leaves on Poppy’s head. “But yes. He helped a lot.”
“So what was the thought that kept you going? Cookies? Reality TV?”
MePhone4 shut his eyes.
“Now that he’s dead, there’s no one else he can hurt.”
He took a shaky breath.
“He hurt me. He hurt all the Medroids. He hurt the contestants. He—” His voice cracked. “He stabbed MePad.”
Poppy wanted to say something. Anything. Some comforting words for their older brother. But nothing came out. Instead, they leaned against him awkwardly, tossing half the blanket over his shoulder.
MePhone4 wrapped the small portion of blanket around himself and pulled Poppy closer.
“But in the end, he did what he did,” he continued quietly. “It can’t be undone. And it can’t happen again.”
A pause.
“That’s what I used to think, at least.”
“Hm?” Poppy looked up. “Ohhhhh. You’re talking about me.” They pointed at themselves.
“It was frustrating,” he admitted. “Like he makes his kids’ lives hell when he’s alive, and then keeps doing it when he’s dead. How is that fair?”
“Yeah.” Poppy sniffed. “My first few days being alive sucked. I had to learn everything myself—how to walk, talk, read. It wasn’t hard, but I would’ve liked some help.”
They swallowed. “If everyone wasn’t too busy being scared of me or ignoring me…”
They trailed off with a frustrated groan.
“I know I look like him. I know why people don’t like seeing me. But I’m so… so…”
Their voice faltered.
“So…?” MePhone4 prompted gently.
“I don’t know,” Poppy admitted. “Tired. Upset. Angry. Fed up?”
“All of the above?”
Poppy looked up at him, trying to keep their expression steady and unreadable.
“I think so,” they managed.
“For what it’s worth,” MePhone4 said, smiling faintly, “I like seeing you.”
“Thanks.” That was all Poppy could manage.
“3GS does too,” he added. “He was worried when you didn’t show up at breakfast today.”
It was strange to think about how, just a few months ago, 3GS had been terrified of them. It had taken him longer than 4 to warm up, but even then, he had been nothing but kind, something Poppy hadn’t really known before. It was a low bar, sure, but one 3GS had easily cleared.
“And MeTag,” MePhone4 continued.
Poppy curled up beside him, thinking back to those days—just them and MeTag against the world. Blame was constant, but it hurt less with MeTag on their side. Even without eyes, Poppy had always felt seen by them.
MePhone4 grinned.
“And I heard Bot especially likes seeing y—”
“Okay! That’s enough!” Poppy blurted, face heating up.
“But you get the point.”
MePhone4 gently stroked the leaves on their head.
“Poppy, you’re not Cobs.”
“Yeah. But I look like him. I sound like him. I even act like him sometimes,” they muttered.
“I have the same hobbies and everything.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You look like Poppy. You sound like Poppy. You act like Poppy.”
“You invent because you like making and fixing things, not because you like controlling people.”
He met their eyes. “Take it from someone who knew Cobs better than anyone here. You’re nothing like him.”
That did it.
Maybe it was because the day had already been awful. Maybe it was the overworking, or the fever, or the fact that someone finally trusted them enough to say all this out loud. Maybe it was all of it.
A small sniffle escaped Poppy. Then another. Then tears.
Suddenly, they were sobbing.
“Whoa, Poppy, what’s wrong?” MePhone4 wrapped his arms around them.
“I’m sorry,” they choked. “I—I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
He awkwardly patted their back, clearly improvising comfort.
“Achoo!- Sorry,” Poppy sniffled again. Just as quickly as the tears had come, they stopped.
“That was embarrassing.”
“It’s okay to cry.”
“Yeah,” Poppy muttered, wiping their face. “But I don’t want to.”
They took the tissue he handed them and blew their nose.
“I don’t want 3GS or MeTag to see me like this.”
“You’re okay with me seeing you like this, though. Right?” MePhone4 asked quietly.
“Nope.”