I hid the USB in my fist, hoping Miss Radica had not seen me or the device I had stolen. Then, I turned my face to her, only to see her frowning at me.

"Stop touching those magazines, you idiot!" she exclaimed. "I've told you a million times not to touch them! I don't want your filthy hands on them. Go clean somewhere else if you've finished here!"

Luckily, she was only angry at me for the usual reasons, not because she had seen me steal data from her computer.

"Go sweep the hall on the ground floor," she ordered condescendingly.

She knew I hated sweeping the hall because it was a busy place and everybody stared at me with disgust.

"Right away, Miss Radica," I whispered obediently.

"And don't forget to smile."

I rolled my eyes when I had my back to her. I went to the stairs.

Once I was alone, I hid the USB device in my bra. I sincerely hoped that there would be no problem with it, since I had taken it out of the socket in a hurry, not properly disconnecting the device from the tower as I should've.

When it was lunchtime, I took a bus to Amanita instead of going home. I was too nervous to be hungry, anyway. Luckily, my father was having lunch with his colleagues from work.

While on the bus, I heard the bus driver complaining to another passenger about the latest robots that the GSNS would launch into the market. Apparently, those new robots were smarter, and they would soon be driving all buses and trains. He was afraid of being out of work.

So, the GSNS had done it again. They had been able to recover some of the lost technologies due to the Prevalence War thanks to the generous grants that the government had set aside for that aim. That time, it was a milestone in robotics.

While he was complaining, I could also overhear two girl friends sitting behind me on the bus. They were talking about a girl they had known from school. She had gone missing. She never came home from work. The parents called the police, but a search warrant was never filed with the GSNS in order to geolocalise her.

Great. Another missing girl. It was always the same. Only young, traditional human girls went missing from time to time. And the police never cared, since all the agents were clones.

The driver turned on the radio.

"As regards the terrorist attacks," a female news reporter went on with a formal voice, "it is still unknown who is behind them. The police forces are carrying out an investigation while the opposition in Parliament is complaining about the security protocols..."

Those attacks were the first serious hardship ever since the Compulsory Insertion of Brain Nanochips Act of 2110. An unknown enemy who had managed to escape from the neural network was something to be truly afraid of. The clones would be looking for us rebels, to arrest, torture, and kill each and every one of us – and that gave me chills all over my body.

"And now the weather forecast. Our meteorologist, Heather Ivanovich," the news reporter went on, "will tell us about the weather. Heather."

"The sun will shine over Thalis in the next few days, except at night. It is expected to rain moderately every night over the next few days. As regards the rest of the province, acid rain will pour all over the weekend. So, get ready to protect yourselves and your houses from it. The Neon Sea will be turbulent, as usual. The other marine areas will be a lot gentler."

The weather was insane, as usual. I hated acid rain. It made your clothes stink, and the acid ate the fabric away, but most importantly it itched on the skin. It was extremely corrosive. Even the glass of windows, the wood of doors, or the metal chassis of cars, for example, would get nasty marks and go awry if exposed too long.

"The next solar storm will hit us hard in a couple of weeks," the meteorologist went on. "So, be sure to disconnect all electric equipment when the 'Kiss of the Sun' arrives."

The bus reached my stop. I got off and walked towards Amanita under a glorious sun.

Fuck, I was shivering – not because I felt cold. I wondered how Siegfried would react toward me that afternoon. After what I had told him the previous day, I wouldn't be surprised if he hated my guts for life.

I knocked on the door with a trembling hand. Would I come in but not out? I hoped that the USB device full of sensitive data I had just stolen would be enough to sate Agape's thirst.

"Now, who have we got here?" a feminine voice said full of sarcasm when she opened the door. "The cosmetic surgery princess!"

"Momo, let me in. Got to talk to Agape." I whispered trying to be civilised even though I hated her.

"She's waiting for you in the basement." She looked tired to see me.

"Thanks," I answered politely while I came in.

Momo, then, made a conceited snort. Was she laughing at me because I was being polite? Why was she so corrosive?

I turned to her for a couple of seconds, assessing her reaction, but she said nothing. I didn't either.

Honestly, I wasn't too offended. I was more worried about the pronoun she had used: 'she'. She didn't say 'they'.

That meant Siegfried wasn't there. Disappointment was written all over my face. Why had I taken for granted that he'd be there?

I was an idiot. Of course, he wasn't there! He was a bouncer, so he was due to work at night. He probably was a night owl.

I knocked three times on the wooden door of Agape's office with trembling knuckles. A blend of hesitation and fear was embedded in those knocks as much as in my perspiration.

"Come in, Daphne."

Agape's voice from behind the closed door sounded a lot calmer than twenty-four hours before, but that didn't put me at ease.

When I opened the door, she was having lunch at her computer desk, looking at screens full of data and running several programs. She was eating instant noodles with chopsticks in a childish way. When she turned her head to me, all I could focus on were those mirror-like glasses and the scar on her chin. Her office casual look suited her perfectly, like the pencil stuck in her bun. She signalled me to come in with her chopsticks, and then she said with enthusiasm:

"Let's see what you've brought for me."

When I stuck my right hand into my bra and took out the USB device, she burst out laughing, which scared me.

"A USB device hidden in your bra?" she asked with a smirk. "Now, you've got me hooked. Let's see."

I handed it to her. When she plugged it into her tower, she left her noodles aside and started to rummage in the data storage device. She was going faster than I could follow, checking all the files in less than a heartbeat, leaving them open in a waterfall layout on the screen.

As soon as she found the new breast-style catalogue, she started laughing so hard I shuddered.

"Seriously?" she asked all of a sudden. "Do my tits look like they need a makeover?"

Hello, sugar cubes!

What do you think about Daphne's theft? Will she pass the test?

Stay tuned to know more! 😊

XOXO

MS