That Saturday morning, the sun was shining brightly, almost as if promising me that there would be better days than the last few ones. Its beautiful, strong rays entered my bedroom through a small window. I had left it open, just to feel the cold sea breeze of the morning and to listen to the bewitching music of the waves breaking on the rocks down below.

I had woken up earlier than anybody else. K8 and Agape were nowhere to be seen. I decided to spend some time reading the books on Martin Luther King and Gandhi that Old Sue had lent me. Luckily, it wasn't a workday, so I could read as much as I pleased while lying on my bed.

I was sailing in a sea of wisdom. Gandhi's and Martin Luther King's ideas were uncharted territory for me, so to speak. Traditional humans like me never got a grasp of any kind of knowledge besides a basic command of calculus and English during our school days. Yes, we had physical education, a subject on clone laws, a twisted version of history, and religion (which consisted in talking about how great Apollo was, basically).

As far as religion was concerned, I had been told the bare basics about the life of Jesus by my parents at home, but that was it. All churches worldwide had been converted into shops or offices. I felt lucky that the clone police had never come for us due to our religious beliefs.

My father had been convinced it was because the belief in other, older gods than Apollo couldn't be totally eradicated despite the initial, periodic rounds of public beatings of people who were Muslim, Christian, Hindu, and many many other religions. Many of us kept faith to ourselves, in the intimacy of our homes, and kept it short just in case the clones at the GSNS got pissed off at us for praying for too long.

It all made sense then while reading the books that Old Sue had lent me. Clones needed us to know as little as possible about these great minds: Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jesus, and God knew how many more. We had been kept in the dark.

Of course, resorting to violence like Agape was preaching was much easier! She had never had a chance to read about other ideas or other approaches. Repeating past mistakes was inevitable.

Would she have become a different kind of leader if she had? I realised she might not. She had read Valentina's letter. She had gotten exposed to my grandmother's ethos, but she was the leader of a terrorist group nonetheless. And that was why Old Sue hated her guts so much.

The endless chain of hatred had hooks in every person I knew. It had ensured its procreation everywhere I looked.

I sighed with sadness and left the books on the nightstand.

I got up, and instead of preparing some breakfast at Amanita's bar, I decided to enter Agape's office and examine both the technowolf and Valentina's exosuit.

Agape wasn't there. The technowolf was lying on a large table right in front of me. It had already been looked into. On my left, Agape's computers were on, but their screens only showed a screen protector. A labyrinth with multicoloured walls. On my right, the exosuit was standing close to the nearest wall, close to some shelves with boxes.

I opened a small window to let some fresh air in, and sat down at the desk, staring at the currently-not-so-deadly technowolf. I wondered whether Nemesis would be alright.

"I thought I'd find you here," Agape told me with a warm smile while crossing the threshold of her office and leaving her mirror glasses on her computer desk.

"I'm sorry, Agape. I didn't mean to pry," I said. I hoped she wasn't mad at me for entering her office without her consent. "I'd love to get a look at both the technowolf and the exosuit if you don't mind."

"Sure, no problem. I was with K8 and Kono. We were showing them around and introducing them to the rest of the group," Agape replied without an ounce of anger or distrust. She was surprisingly cheerful that morning. "The technowolf is in pretty bad shape, but I think I can fix it and make it work for us," she added cheerfully while coming closer to me. "But I know you will disagree, of course."

"I do," I replied while she took a seat right beside me.

"I haven't even tried to examine the exosuit," she said then, avoiding a discussion about ethics. "Bearing in mind that it sent you a text and recognised you, I've had the decency to wait for you. I have got a feeling it will only respond to you, Daphne. I'd love to witness the magic in person if you don't mind. I've never seen you while you work."

I welcomed her good mood. I wondered what was going through her mind. A lot had happened lately: Momo had betrayed us, I was almost drowned, Kono had become one of us, Apollo's gifts had officially become dangerous, we had lost Vera, and Sigi and I were two idiots in love defying Agape's rules. I didn't understand why she wasn't mad at me at that moment.

"I'm not as good as you in IT," I whispered with mild sadness.

"But you are in mechanical terms," she added with a broad smile. "You can do both at the same time if you put your heart to it."

"Very well." I sighed.

I examined the metal guts of that beast that had almost killed us that previous Wednesday night.

"The engine is pretty cool. I hadn't expected Apollo to waste so much money on tech developed to chase and kill us. The suspension in their legs is the best I've ever seen," I added while getting a look at the beast's legs. "It can take on pretty much anything, any kind of road. It could even..."

"Even jump vertical distances with ease? Yeah, I've thought so myself. Jumping from down the street and landing on a rooftop, and vice versa, would be easy for them, wouldn't it?" she asked with a smug face.

"No doubt about it."

"Apollo means serious business with these," she concluded.

"What are you planning to do with this technowolf?" I asked with some doubts. "Filling it to the brim with those palaeoviruses and making it attack clones all over the city? Do to them what this one did to Nemesis?"

The expression on her face and her whole body language were sadder than usual. Those weak-looking eyebrows, those shiny whites in her eyes, those dry and apparently bitten lips, those slumping shoulders. They told a story of little sleep, exhaustion, sorrow, and nervousness. Probably something more.

"No," she replied immediately, becoming dead serious. "I need a bodyguard."

"A bodyguard? For you?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes."

"But you don't take action. Ever. You only stay here, command, and supervise ops," I stated.

"There's something I need to tell you." Her voice was filled with dread then. "I'm done waiting in this basement. I am taking action, as you say."

"What?!" I exclaimed.

I suddenly remembered Sigi's story, and how easily she attacked him and pinned him down although he had stunning hunting skills. I wondered how good she would be in a fight.

"Tonight is the benefit," she said with determination but also with a bittersweet voice. "I've got a surprise for the clones, so to speak. I hope Apollo likes my... gift."

I didn't like the sound of that last word. It had the aura of a bad omen.

"But what I'm really looking forward to is next Monday," she continued. "I'm going to poison the BioBank's DNA base and storage with the palaeoviruses and the mosquitoes. Cian, Taro, and Sven have agreed to come with me. The rest will stay here, in Amanita."

I was stunned.

"As backup?"

"No. No backup. You'll be inactive and taking care of Nemesis." She sighed. "I think she knows she's gonna die. Her wounds are deep and nasty, and not healing fast enough. The neurotoxins have caused great damage, to be honest. She's got delusions. She sees things and people who are not there. And her fever isn't going down either."

She sighed in frustration.

"All doctors are clones, so if I request medical help... they would euthanise her immediately. Taro doesn't know what else he can do to save her."

I turned pale.

"That's why I need this technowolf as a bodyguard. I keep losing assets," she added. "I hate it! So, I'm gonna fix it, make it loyal to me, and I'm taking it with me next Monday night. I'm gonna end this once and for all. If I fail, I fail. I know I might die during this mission, Daphne. I'm not stupid."

"But, Agape, this is... reckless." My complaint and worry fell on deaf ears. Agape's mind was set.

"If I don't come back, it means I don't deserve to succeed," she went on with determination. "And if Cian doesn't come back either, I want you to become the next leader of the rebels. An automatic email will be sent to you with all my credentials and passwords. Do what you think is best with the group. You don't need to follow my guidelines, my ethos, my... nothing. You wouldn't do it anyway."

"This is insane!" I didn't want to become a leader!

"Oh, you haven't heard the juiciest part of my plan yet," she went on with mischief. "I'm inviting Apollo to a rendezvous. There. At midnight. I want him to witness the damage – and die by my own hand!"

"WHAT?!" She was crazier than I thought.

"Don't look at me like I'm mad, Daphne. You know what I want and how I want it. Don't tell me you expected different from me."

"I know, but... I-I can't stop you, can I?" I asked after a heartfelt sigh.

She just mildly shook her head and smiled bittersweetly back at me.

"Can you stop a queen?" she asked whispering with naughtiness while showing me a white queen from a chess game set.

She had taken it from a pocket of her jeans, and then she was playing with it with her fingers. Then, she went to her computer desk, which was a few feet behind her. She came back to me with an empty chessboard and a black king. I could see where that was going.

"So, you're the white queen," I said, "and Apollo is the black king."

She didn't reply. She just got a tube of glue and stuck the black king horizontally, defeated and dead, on the board. Then, she proceeded to glue the white queen vertically, standing tall as the winner, in the right position on the board to portray a checkmate on Apollo.

I was about to ask her what chess piece I was, but I stopped myself. She had said that that was her war some days before. I realised she wasn't thinking of any other pieces or players in that war or that game, or whatever that was.

Next, she got a permanent blue marker and wrote a note for Apollo.

"Gonna get it delivered that same day in the evening. What do you think of my work of art?" she asked, showing it to me.

"That's a daring work of art if you ask me. But there are more players in the game."

"You mean... you." She didn't look satisfied with my reply. I wasn't with hers. I wasn't talking about me. She had made me feel small and insignificant like a coin.

"Not just me," I replied immediately. "Everybody's a player. You could still get thwarted by somebody else besides Apollo. By clone cops that he might call as reinforcements. By any secret agents and tech Apollo might have up his sleeve. Where is Momo right now by the way? Are you sure she's not gonna come back for you at some point? And what about the androids? What if he's fixed them? What if...?"

What if Eros' project to reinvent and improve Kevlar works better than what Agape's planned to do to harm Apollo?

"Those aren't really important," she replied calmly. "What's important is the unfinished business between Apollo and me. The fate of the world shall be decided next Monday at midnight. That's what matters."

She stared at the white queen with a sad kind of longing. It seemed as if she didn't care whether she survived or not.

"I am not going to stop you, even though I'd love to," I said with a knot down my throat. "I disagree with your approach, but I understand and respect your choices."

"Thank you. I respect your choices too. I won't force you to do anything you don't want to do or even endure any more hatred from your teammates. It was wrong of me to let it brew and spiral out of control. I should've been a lot firmer to them."

Her apology sounded truly remorseful and tainted with the ache of a bleeding heart.

"Don't worry about it now," I whispered, wondering what was the matter with her. That wasn't the Agape I knew – well, not 100%.

Silence filled the room.

"I... I would love to have children one day," she said with an amazingly bittersweet smile, but there was something dark and wicked about it as if she was hiding some ominous thought from me. "It's a nice thought. If I do have any one day, I would like them to be like you, Daphne. You've proven to be quite an uncontrollable storm with plenty of aces up your sleeve when all I had ever expected from you was a shy, tame, naive, and second-rate rebel. I'm proud of you."

And I had expected her to be a ruthless dictator without a heart. Both of us had been wrong.

A wave of warmth invaded me inside out. My eyes were shot wide open. What she had said, and how, with that serene but serious attitude and that tone of voice which echoed mixed feelings inside me – they revealed a new perspective of her.

I stared intensely at her. The scars around her eyes were proof that a haunting past was never far, but all of a sudden she acquired an aura of cosiness I had never seen before. I felt naked in front of her then, but in a good way. And then, it hit me. I realised I had lived without a mother figure for a long time.

"Let's examine Valentina's exosuit together, shall we?" she asked me with a bittersweet voice while I was still swimming deep in a sea of thoughts about her.

"Sure, let me show you something first," I whispered while fishing my phone from the pocket of my jeans. "It sent me a weird text yesterday. About getting late for rehab. Forty years late."

"What? Lemme see."

"Even though my old phone is now in a watery grave," I said while handing her my phone. "Valentina's exosuit still managed to text me to the new one."

"Maybe it recognises the parrot you used on it to scan it, and looks for the closest device with which to communicate. It seeks you," she said while reading the text.

"To tell me to finish some rehab Valentina left unfinished," I replied while standing up and getting close to the exosuit. I got hold of it and carried it to make it stand between the two of us. "I had been wondering what was her deal, leaving such wonderful tech behind – unless it wasn't designed to be an offensive tool? Or maybe it was too big to bring along with her? Apollo might not even know it exists. And then, I found it hidden in that closet."

"She might've gotten hurt and was doing some rehab exercises with it until she had to leave it behind the day she decided to flee, I guess. And I agree. This isn't an offensive gadget."

"Exactly. The suit looks comfy, and the design of the skeleton reminds me of gym equipment. It makes me think of the machines Sigi and I found in the lab on Silver Island."

"You know what all this means, don't you?" she asked with a look of pride. "You need to try it on. I'll help you and make tweaks on it if you need them."

I smiled back at her, eager to try such a cool gadget.

"Stop giving me that stupid smile and try it on already!" she exclaimed after a funny chuckle.

Under normal circumstances, any stranger who could have heard us would've thought we were mother and daughter having a girl moment over a dress. But we were two unrelated females fangirling over an exosuit.

The spandex had been designed to cover a body like a diving suit would, while the steel parts had been added right on the exterior of those body parts which were key to executing movements, like joints and such. Everything was connected and supervised thanks to a network of movement sensors, scattered all over the body, which transmitted all data to a computer or a smartphone. It was a true goddess of technology.

I could feel the devotion of her creator in every curve, every joint, every motion sensor. I bit my lower lip in appreciation of such a divine gadget.

I started by stripping down to my underwear. Then, I put on the boot-like feet of the suit. I adjusted the two buckles on the cuff of that semi-rigid shell. I also adjusted the straps on the upper part of the boots. The soles were thick but flexible. The exterior metal skeleton hovering close to the shell on either side of me quickly adhered to the boots with a soft click sound when they felt my presence secured in them. They had those miniature triangles which glowed in those amazing neon blue hues I found so fascinating.

Next, Agape helped me pull up the legs of the skin-tight suit over my knees and thighs. The spandex enabled me to dress fairly quickly and with ease. The fabric was smart enough to recognise me, glowing all the way up as I was getting dressed. When we strapped my legs to the outer skeleton, it was time to fasten the belt.

I wasn't done, but I felt empowered like never before.

Then, I put both my arms into the exosuit's sleeves, and my fingers inside the gloves. The gloves also had semi-rigid parts on the backs of the hands, with thin but powerful, wire-like extensions of the skeleton. They adjusted to my hands with a few soft clicks.

I played with my fingers in the air as I stared at the superb work in engineering in sync with my movements while glowing with those mesmerising neon blue lights.

"Girl, you look fantastic," Agape whispered while pulling that front zipper up right beneath my chin. I looked and felt more than just fantastic. I felt like a superwoman.

The metal skeleton was adjusting to my back, vertebra by vertebra. Each metal vertebra was becoming a sibling of my bone one. I felt the last click close to my nape, and then metal ribs hugged my chest from behind. Last but not least, the whole suit glowed blue all over.

Next, my phone's text ringtone went off. Agape and I checked it. There was a message from the exosuit welcoming me back. Or Valentina, to be more precise.

"How do you feel?" Agape whispered with curiosity.

"It feels so comfortable!" I answered, moving a bit around. I walked, moved my arms in the air, jumped, stretched my legs, and the like. "I barely need to do anything at all. It feels as if the suit is doing all the effort for me."

"Would you be able to punch an enemy real hard, or knock them out?"

I stared back at her and put both my hands on my hips with mild defiance.

"This suit wasn't made to be a weapon, remember?" I complained.

"I know. I was just... curious," she answered while rolling her eyes at me.

"It's a rehab gadget, Agape. What for? I don't know, because my entire body feels great." And then, I added in a whisper filled with desire and joy: "Damn, I wish I could wear this every day!"

Agape chuckled.

"Let's put the exosuit to test. Why don't you try to lift something heavy?" she asked.

I turned to the large desk where the technowolf rested and smiled. I got closer to it and lifted it all with ease.

"It feels light as a feather," I whispered with awe.

"Good, now break one of the wolf's legs," she ordered with curiosity.

"Are you sure? I could break something else instead. Something we might not need."

"I'd like to know whether it could match any of Apollo's gadgets in a fight," she explained with a large grin. "The best way to test that..."

"... would be fighting against a living technowolf," I said, finishing her sentence.

"True, but let's try it with a dead one first."

I did as she told me. I pulled one of the hind legs in the air, grabbed it with both hands, and broke the leg in half with ease.

"You look as strong as K8," she commented with satisfaction. "I'll call her right away. I want to see you sparring with her. This could be amazing!"

"But...!" I tried to complain. I didn't want to fight against her!

She was already dialling K8 on her phone with a smirk on her face. I took a couple of steps toward her, and I wish I could have foreseen how big a mistake that was.

My right ankle made an awkward movement without my consent. A cracking sound filled the air, and barely a second later, a painful cry escaped from my lips.

I knelt forcefully on the floor while Agape left the call unattended. Her phone fell on her computer desk. The stark pain made me sit on the floor, trying to bend my ankle into the right position, but I couldn't.

"What's wrong?!" Agape asked me with worry. "Oh my... your right ankle!" It was bent into an unnatural pose.

"GET IT OFF ME!" I begged, yelling.

Agape unzipped the suit in a hurry, and she also managed to deactivate the outer skeleton, unstrap my arms, legs, and boots in little time, until I was down to my underwear again. I was panting hard due to the pain in my ankle.

"Fuck!" Agape exclaimed, panting and sweating as much as I was. "What the heck happened?!"

"I-I don't k-know. I was w-walking over to you. I-I wanted to t-talk to K8 too, but... then..." I let out a painful groan. Tears were running down my cheeks. "I don't know. It just bent my ankle the wrong way."

Agape got my phone and checked for any new texts from the suit.

"Shit," she whispered with anger. "The suit has identified a malfunction. A glitch."

"We can repair it. Maybe that was the reason Valentina left it. It was malfunctioning."

"No, I don't think that's the problem." The frown over her forehead deepened. A storm was brewing inside her.

"Why not?"

"The suit mentions that the latest upgrade was performed..." she said with a cold sweat running down her spine. I could tell by how pale she turned then. "... yesterday, during the hockey match. But neither you nor I could've done it. You were in the Sports Palace, and I was with K8, upgrading the DJ cage for Amanita's grand reopening next week. Taro was out looking for Vera. The exosuit was all alone down here. Or was it?"

Agape's office was wired, or so Sigi had told me once. She immediately checked the footage on her main computer.

"Fuck, no, this little bitch!" she exclaimed when we saw Momo entering Agape's office and tampering with the exosuit and the technowolf. "She knows she's banned from coming back to us, and yet she dares to come here and mess with our stuff, the conceited little bitch! The worst of it... is that she tried to access my alternative network!"

In the footage, Momo was trying to unlock Agape's computers to no avail. She left a few minutes later, whispering profanities.

"Vera's alarm signal came some minutes later," Agape noted in an angry whisper. "I was so focused on getting her back that I didn't see this."

"She wanted to hurt us," I whispered. "She still could. I thought she was gone."

"She's not gone. I'm putting all assets on guard. I'll make all of you take turns to keep an eye on both Amanita and the rebels' home. This aggression will not go unanswered!" she exclaimed with her pride wounded.

"Agape," I said still in pain due to my right ankle, "have you got some painkillers close by? I need them badly."

"Sure, right away," she replied in a much calmer tone. "I'm calling Taro. He knows how to put a cast. And you need one asap. This ankle is surely broken or sprained."

"But I have to go to the benefit tonight! What am I supposed to do now?" I asked feeling frustrated.

Hello, my sugar cubes!

Will Daphne go to the benefit? Stay tuned! 😉

XOXO

MS