Amanita: Poison Shot

Chapter 14: My First Official Lie

"Where have you been this afternoon?!" my father asked in a bad mood.

It was late in the evening. He was standing in the kitchen, staring at me with anger, disbelief, and worry. I was sitting on a chair by the kitchen table, wondering whether I had betrayed his trust beyond repair. Even the kitchen seemed to be smaller than usual, closing in on me, due to the unbearable awkwardness that I felt under his imposing stare and thundering voice.

"I'm awfully sorry. My boss has called you back, I assume." I felt caged in with a lion as a cellmate.

"Of course, he has!" he yelled back so loudly that it startled me.

He was pacing up and down the kitchen in fury while I rested my elbows on the table and leaned my cheeks on my hands.

"You've left work not saying a word to anyone!" He sighed with frustration.

Our kitchen was old and rather minimalist. I had always been told that my great-grandparents from my mother's side of the family had built it themselves a long time ago. The wood was light and the marble, white. It had some scratches here and there. Some of the tiles had old cracks, too. The electrical household appliances were also old, and the vast majority of them weren't even ours. Either Daniel or I had mended them, and we had left them on the kitchen counter to make tests.

"Your boss' secretary was talking to you!" I could even feel his voice like an earthquake on the table. "What do you think this incident's gonna cost you?! What you've done not only is wrong according to common sense, but it's also against the Gender-based Job Listings for Traditional Humans Act! You're gonna lose this job!"

"I know, dad," I replied as calmly as I could, but I was shivering.

The Gender-based Job Listings for Traditional Humans Act detailed which jobs were meant for traditional humans according to economic background and gender. In my case, since I was a young woman from the Dam, I could only work as a cleaning lady, a cook, a housemaid, a dust woman, or a level one tailor (not a designer, just the one in charge of small arrangements, under clone close supervision), for example. That was why most men in my neighbourhood worked in factories and most women in the cleaning sector.

The act also stated the reasons to get sacked. What I had done that afternoon could be construed as an irrefutable action to be made redundant. Only if a clone boss was kind enough, they could give you a second chance. That didn't happen often.

"I'm forty-four years old, Daphne!" my father insisted with worry. "You can't get sacked like that!"

"You're right," I replied with unbearable sadness and covered my face with both hands. "I will have no job. I no longer have got a mother or a brother. He's dead, dad. He's not going to come back. And soon I'm gonna be left alone, without you," I added that last part whispering.

"Daphne, please..." he said as if he was begging me to end his misery.

"I... I'm sorry, Dad." The less I talked to my father, the better. His brain chip could give me away to the clone government. So, I just apologised.

"Since the brain chip network is still running," he said after a sigh, "I don't think we have to worry about the police forces coming to fetch you for interrogation. They must've already checked that Daniel and you have got nothing to do with the attacks."

I nodded.

"By the way, where have you been this afternoon?" He sat by my side at the kitchen table. Luckily, he was calmer. "Were you in trouble?"

"No! No... I..." I hesitated.

I couldn't tell him the truth even though I was dying to do so. I suddenly felt horribly alone, because I could no longer tell him my worries and my thoughts like before. I couldn't seek his advice. I was in that mess on my own, except for the people from Amanita – if I managed to survive Agape's test.