Amanita: Poison Shot

Chapter 100: Technowolves

"Do you think the codes to the lab on Silver Island that Old Sue's given us will still work, ma Agape?" K8 asked her maker while driving back home. Sigi and Gabi were riding right behind us.

"I don't know," Agape replied between a couple of bumps in the road down Naiad's pathway. "To be honest, I think it was just an excuse to get us out of her home. I'm glad she did. I hate her too. I despise her conceitedness as much as her stupid, prideful attitude about her allegedly superior ideology."

"Don't hate her, please, Agape. It's only natural that she felt offended by our presence there," I commented, trying to sound neutral, but Agape's hatred for the old woman felt way too personal.

"Not by your presence, though," Agape replied with some cynicism.

"Don't take it badly, Agape," I tried to reason with her. "She's an old woman who's been forced to live a life in confinement for decades. Her faith in Valentina's ideals didn't falter, but their project got no support from anybody – unlike yours. Maybe she's envious of you. Besides, she's got no relatives, no partner, no children to fill her life. Her disagreement with you doesn't make her a bad person. Nothing that's happened to her or anything she's done so far makes her a bad person. If I were in her shoes, well, I would be cross and disillusioned with life, too."

For a moment, a lame idea crossed my mind: the fact that Agape might have felt jealous of me for positively getting Old Sue's attention. Had Old Sue's lack of desire to meet Agape in person branded her too harshly, maiming her psychologically? I discarded that thought immediately. Agape wasn't a teenager with self-worth or confidence issues.

"I agree with D, ma Agape," K8 replied. "Old Sue's not a bad person. Besides, I think that what has bothered you the most was her pro-peace ideology and the reference to what your name means, ma."

I saw Agape grabbing the steering wheel of the van with a lot more force than necessary. The tendons on her arms were tense like Sigi's when he was angry.

"Bloody hippies," she whispered with badly-contained ire, but she seemed to do it to herself only. She went on in a much more serene tone after that: "Let's do something. Tomorrow night, we go to Silver Island, we explore the premises if the code she's given us still works, and only if we find something worthwhile there, I say we trust her a bit more.

"But coming to her for help once again is out of the question. She's made it crystal clear she hates us and how I think we should approach this conflict with the clones, so there's no point in pressuring her. Besides, I don't think she could be of any use to us even if she had agreed with our ethos. When we win this war, I shall thank her for her help... only if the codes work and if we find something we can use. But that's it."

I wasn't satisfied with that. Agape's hatred echoed in her intonation patterns of every sentence. K8 didn't say anything, she just stared at her maker with a sad expression on her face. The rest of the team remained quiet until Taro broke the ice:

"I do think we are going to find something useful in that secret lab," he said with sarcasm while glaring at me, "and Daphne will try to make sure we can't use it to our advantage, of course."

He was referring to the fact I had discarded the palaeoviruses into the Neon Sea, assuming I would do something similar again.

"ENOUGH!" Agape yelled. "I said I didn't want any more arguments! No complaints! No nothing! I need to focus on the road. The curfew has already started, and clones will be on the lookout for us tonight. So stop pissing me off!"

That was when Agape turned on the radio.

"Well, you've heard it yourselves. Great Apollo's latest press release has confirmed it," a female radio journalist said with a grave voice. "This evening's mass shooting has saved millions of lives."