Amanita: Poison Shot

Chapter 9: An Avenging Angel

That was how my boring, normal life was no more. On Thursday, May 18, 2141, I fixed the bike of a mysterious hunk on Dam Road. Siegfried Thor. It turned out that he was a terrorist with a deadly mission: bombing the BioBank. Probably the GSNS building too. Many clones died and my dear brother Daniel disappeared.

And I helped that terrorist not to miss his target.

To make matters worse, I accidentally spotted him in his hiding place and he hacked my nanochip. I became a rebel, just like him and his teammates.

The conversation I had had with my father felt distant, as if it had taken place ages ago. Siegfried's eyes were piercing mine with hope, probably expecting me to give him an answer he would like.

Don't worry. We'll figure something out, his voice echoed in my brain. We were still inside that empty rubbish bin after the incident. He let go a heartfelt sigh. Will you come with me? I promise you can go anytime you want if you don't want to have anything to do with us.

Could I trust him? I had my doubts.

And he took my hesitation the wrong way.

"Are you a collaborator?" he asked me with coldness and a piercing glare.

"What?! No!" His question had offended me. A collaborator was a traditional human who lived to lick the clones' arse to gain favours and privileges. I hated them. Many of us did.

"Good." My outburst had been so fast and genuine that he didn't doubt whether I was telling the truth or not.

He spied on the clone guards out there on Victoria Square and made a dissatisfied click with his tongue. He turned to me once more. "The coast isn't clear yet. Can I ask you something while we wait? What the fuck are you doing out here in ground zero, staring at the BioBank, when every civilian has already been evacuated?"

He scanned me with his unforgivable green eyes.

"Are you a spy from the government or the police?"

"No! Absolutely not!" I exclaimed still feeling offended.

"No offence, but you're giving the wrong impression with that pristine white coat with Replica Ltd.'s logo, did you know that?" He pointed at the logo with disdain. "You work there?"

"Yes." My dry tone denoted how much I hated my job.

"So, what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be working right now?"

"I left work when I was told my little brother was inside the BioBank," I replied innocently, not losing a single second. "Well, I guess he is. I don't know. They registered his entrance some minutes before the explosion, but he wasn't found during evacuation. His chip stopped emitting any signal. My father called me at work to tell me so after the cops told him. I just wanted to..."

I started to mentally bang my head against a wall. How could I be so stupid?! Why was I opening up to that complete stranger? Not only that: he was also a terrorist!

"I came here in a hurry... to look for him," I whispered sheepishly.

"Crap," he whispered, downcast.

He put his hands on his face, grunted, and mumbled something I didn't grasp. He took the hands off his face. He was clenching his teeth badly. A few seconds later, he sighed softly with his eyes closed for a moment.

Something was bothering him greatly. He looked dejected.

"What's wrong?" I asked feeling my heart at the back of my mouth, beating hard on the base of my tongue.