Amanita: Poison Shot

Chapter 49: Anger Issues

I coughed a little to try and change the subject. We were too shaken to start meditating anyway.

"So, how's the league going? You might need to play against the Shell again. The match wasn't over when the police barged in last Friday."

"Yes, we shall repeat the match. Will you come?" he asked with renewed interest in our conversation.

When I nodded, he smiled one of his lovely smiles again. I wished I could glue it to his face so it could never fade away.

"I hope the police don't come again this Friday, but it's all wishful thinking, I guess," he added.

"How so? You expect them to come again?" I asked frowning.

"Don't you know?" he asked frowning back at me. "There's been massive questionings. The police have been receiving tips from all over the city. Many traditional humans have turned against their neighbours, friends, co-workers, even family members. The police have interrogated and tortured many suspects these last few days. All of them innocent people, of course."

I was horrified by the news.

"Nobody has told on us – yet. The new portable devices you told Agape about are next-gen nanochip scanners. They're using them to get to us before the additional check-up. They've been using them on innocent people, but the clones are a bunch of sadists who've kept on torturing them nevertheless, even after checking they're innocent. They're using drugs even. Drugs that damage a person's brain permanently. Bastards!" he exclaimed with clenched fists. "There have also been many general beatings in the factories in the Tsu Community neighbourhood, and they're also checking whether there might be traitors in schools and high schools among children and teens."

"Can't they just wait for all of us to pass the additional check-up?" I asked getting paler and paler at that horrid tale.

"They're sadists, Daphne. Or they want to trigger us, to make us rush into a decision that might compromise us. And if they don't find us during the check-ups, expect something worse than what they've been doing these last few days. God knows what they might come up with."

His jaw was clenched like never before. It felt as if he would love to go on a clone-killing spree right then.

"But now it's not time to dwell on this. As you say, we'll cross that bridge when we get there." And then, he smiled at me warmly to go on: "Agape will think of something. Or you might. She's fascinated with your brilliant idea. She's been working non-stop on those mosquitoes."

His lovely chocolate-brown eyes threatened to melt my heart right then. They were casting all his hope on me.

"If we survive the android crisis, it shall be thanks to both of you," he added with pride. "You're both two of a kind."

The admiration in his eyes was second to nothing I had ever seen before. He was staring deeply into my eyes when he had said that, with a high level of devotion only matched by the kids' adorable staring at his hockey idol. My whole body was warming on account of that, especially my cheeks.

He was amazed at both Agape and me due to our talents, and I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't regretting having met me through that peephole by accident and hacking my nanochip as an emergency and hurried course of action.

"The rest of us rebels have got a more action-like kind of frame of mind," he added with a nice, confident smile while stuffing his hands in his black jeans' pockets as if he didn't know what to do with them. "None of us would've come up with that idea you had. It might mean the difference between winning or losing this war. It's admirable."