Amanita: Poison Shot

Chapter 16: Now or Never

The next morning, I woke up with my batteries only half charged. I had slept little. My eyes felt sore from crying. I missed my dear little brother. Besides, Agape's test was crushing my soul.

My bright red alarm clock was ringing madly on my nightstand. It was an old family relic from before the Prevalence War.

My mother had inherited it from her mother. It had a small inscription on the back, a personal note of sorts, but I couldn't make sense of it. No one in the family could because we didn't know any Latin. We did know Greek, though, since most of our family had Greek ancestry. It read Hecuba Regina, and there was also a number written right afterwards: 21011007.

It must've been something that had mattered to my grandmother, and it definitely looked like a date, but nobody knew what it made reference to. It didn't fit with anyone's birthday, death, or special family date (like a marriage and the like). It was weird.

Anyway, Agape would kill me if I didn't bring her a gift. I was clueless as regards what she could find interesting or what she could possibly need to help her in her crusade against Apollo and the clones.

To think that only a few days before I had complained that nobody would dare to do anything to fight against the clones! I admitted that I had mentally ranted about solidarity and such in a naive way.

Oh, the irony! You're a bittersweet bitch.

I would have never envisioned that being free from the chip network would entail so many risks. It wasn't a utopia of carefree will: it was a brand-new, secret, underground world ruled by an insatiable, tyrannical woman.

I feared them both, Agape and Siegfried. I was sure they hated me. I was the most reluctant person he could've found in Thalis.

Ever since the attack at the BioBank and the GSNS, the clone authorities must have been searching everywhere for the bastards who had dared to defy them. Apollo must have been raging. Our hacked chips were protecting us from being discovered, but for how long would that work?

That Friday morning, I was cleaning the restrooms in Replica Ltd. as usual. But that day my hands were shivering all the time. I was too nervous.

Yes, I had kept my job. I had had a meeting with my boss first thing in the morning to bow before him and apologise for my rash behaviour from the day before. He welcomed my subdued attitude. At least that had gone smoothly.

He had one request, though: he wanted me to smile more. Grief should not reach me at work. My smile was part of the business. Company policy.

I simply nodded at his request even though I thought it was unethical. Then, I offered him a courtesy smile. It was fake but I knew it was what he wanted. He smiled back at me with satisfaction.

That was how I had managed to keep my job. A job I loathed, but hey, I needed the money.

Trouble number one solved. I started cleaning the water taps industriously while thinking about the other problems I had. My ponytail kept my hair out of the way, and my white coat shielded my clothes from getting nasty stains while I scrubbed.

My father. He had asked more questions about the mystery guy that same morning before going to work. I dodged all of them as if my life depended on it. Well, it did. But he'd ask me again sooner or later. What could I tell him? I needed better lies and more confidence. He would not let it go. I had to brainstorm some ideas real quick.

Maybe I could tell him that, in the end, that mystery guy and I didn't get along. Would that be enough?

That could work, yes – if I managed to survive the day.