Amanita: Poison Shot

Chapter 73: A Twisted Reflection In The Mirror

The person who had had my life in her hands ever since Sigi had hacked my nanochip had an ego the size of a skyscraper on fire at that moment. Agape's rage was burning more vividly than her bright red blouse. I gulped.

"You've defied me, Daphne!" Agape yelled at me. Her office felt incredibly small then, and I felt trapped in it with a dragon with fire between its large teeth and a piercing stare.

"What?!" I felt the rosy colour of life leave my cheeks. Agape couldn't be serious about wanting to kill me. "But the virus was yours to make, Agape. I had nothing to do with it! Just the idea of developing it."

Defending myself like that only triggered harsher non-verbal communication from her. She raised her hands awkwardly, which were trembling with badly contained ire. Sigi took a couple of steps forward, partially shielding me from her. His biceps were tense under his black T-shirt.

"Agape, please," he said carefully. "Calm down. Why are you so angry at her?"

Then, she refrained from doing what she was going to do apparently, and let both her shaky hands rest on either side of her.

"Sigi, step aside. This has got nothing to do with you," Agape replied, ignoring Sigi's comment. When her face was once again facing me completely, I felt her fiery indignation from both her words and her pose scorching my whole body inside-out when she said: "Daphne, I'm not buying this sheepish and docile act of yours right now! I know what you've done! You messed with my virus to fulfil your pacifist needs. You did it to retrieve your mother and your brother!"

"What?! I have not done such a thing! Besides, I've got no IT training like you." I tried to defend myself further, but Agape's mind seemed already set.

"Don't lie to me, Daphne! You could've gotten K8's help. I know both of you have become close, haven't you?" Agape asked with a nasty, smart-ass kind of voice which made the hairs on my nape stand on end. She then turned to K8, who was wearing a dark yellow T-shirt and skin-tight, black jeans as much as a panic-stricken expression on her face. "Tell me, K8, have you helped her to modify my virus?!"

"No, of course not, ma Agape!" K8 exclaimed and frowned. "None of us would ever do that behind your back. Someone else must've messed with it."

"K8, you saw me working on the mosquitoes and the virus. You know how they work in detail. I also know that Daphne has appealed to your desperate need to feel acknowledged as a human-like entity. You've bonded. You're besties now. You told me so yourself! At first, I was happy to see you happy. But I assume you haven't hesitated even for a second when she's asked you to modify the virus! That way, more non-fully human entities like you can claim to be treated as humans, which is what you've always wanted! You even offered to spread the mosquitoes yourself, all on your own, so that I wouldn't notice you had done something to them! Do I find that behaviour suspicious now? Well, yes, you idiots! You've betrayed me!"

"No, I didn't do such a thing, ma Agape," K8 complained quite calmly. "Besides I don't think Daphne would ever betray you. She might not agree 100% with you, but she likes and respects you." I loved the way she had emphasised that last bit.

I heard snorting from different people in the room, and then, I even heard a soft but defiant whisper saying thus:

"Fucking, needy tin doll."

I saw K8's glowing pink irises go slightly duller then. It broke my heart.

But it made my pride burn, too. Not only did they feel disdain towards K8 because of what she is, but also towards how I felt about Agape. Sigi, Gabi, and Cian made long faces. They looked uncomfortable due to their colleagues' reactions. They were not on board.