Copying the breast catalogue had been the lamest idea I had ever had! I mentally face-palmed.

"Just kidding!" She smiled. "This is the best prank anyone's pulled on me!"

One day she was hot, the next she was cold. Was she bipolar?

"It was a lame idea. I'm sorry," I apologised, feeling stupid.

"I mean it. I like it!" she insisted with approval. "Here's why. You've dared to steal good material. This isn't a low-quality USB. And you've brought me sensitive info: the customers' details and the surgery clinic's agenda. Now, the agenda will be most useful."

"Honestly, these are the first documents I've come across. There's also an encrypted file with passwords. I guess the company's bank account number is there, together with the credit card numbers of clients and security codes. Useful if you're looking for easy money. There were more patient files. Maybe next time..."

"No need." That look of evil satisfaction and desire. Did the encrypted file turn her on? "I can see, for example, that Mrs Nevermore, the wife of the Secretary of State, needs periodic Botox injections. I would've never imagined that the agenda of a cosmetic surgery clinic could be useful to spread chaos in this city. Did you know that the botulinum toxin can be used as a poison if the dose is higher than prescribed? Breast jobs also use toxic chemicals which can be deadly."

"You..." I replied, hesitating, "y-you want Mrs Nevermore to get an OD with Botox?"

Mrs Nevermore was the kindest clone in the world. Would I be responsible for her death? I didn't want that!

"She's a clone," she replied with resentment. "You don't look like you approve, Daphne. Why is that? Don't tell me you feel sorry for her."

I didn't dare to answer. Would she kill me if I disagreed?

"Daphne," she went on, serious as cancer, "she's a clone. She hates our kind and supports a state which has tortured and murdered too many of us. It's payback time. Tell me, Daphne: how much does Daniel's untimely death mean to you?"

He meant the world to me.

"A lot," I replied instantly. "It hurts."

"Great. Welcome onboard, Daphne!" Agape exclaimed with joy, taking for granted that I had consented to murder clones. Then, she spoke with serenity to me, "By the way, I think I should apologise already, shouldn't I? I was such a bitch yesterday, right?"

One minute she was lusting over an encrypted file with passwords, and the next she was planning the murder of an innocent person. And the next thing you know, she was apologising to me. What kind of mood swings were those?

She sounded completely sure of herself in every single mood swing of hers. I envied her for that.

"Look, I don't want anyone who works for me to think ill of me."

"Who said I thought ill of you, Ms... er...?"

Yesterday Siegfried had used an informal form of address, calling her by her first name, but I didn't dare to.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed as if she had heard nails scratching a blackboard. "Mrs nothing! Call me Agape. My behaviour yesterday wasn't the best. I could've handled it better. I admit my mistakes, and that was one of the shittiest I've made in the last few years. So, I wouldn't hold it against you if you thought ill of me. The mission hadn't gone the way I wanted, and I lost my marbles. I hate myself already."

She was staring at me behind those mysterious mirror-covered glasses. Then, she smiled with her perfect lips.

"Am I wrong about what you think of me? It isn't hard to guess. I know I'm insufferable sometimes – well, most of the time. I might sound tyrannical, but I'm not a monster. Clones are monsters indeed," she added with disdain. Her lips were drawing a scornful line. "They're only keeping us alive to serve them, to work in the shittiest jobs, and as organ donors thanks to the Organ Donation Act as if our lives were expendable and less worthy than theirs. But I'm not gonna amuse myself with hatred when it's obvious that the one who's in a personal hell right now is you."

That last bit had been uttered with tenderness. But I didn't want to discuss my afflictions with her.

"No reply? You don't trust me, do you?" she whispered.

I wasn't there to blindly hand in my trust to that woman. I was there to ensure my survival.

"Daphne, look at me. See these scars?" she said taking off her glasses.

Oh my God! She had got the most enticing blue irises I had ever seen, and perfect dark and long eyelashes, but her eyes were surrounded by small burning marks all around them. Small, roundish burns, healed some time ago but noticeable.

"These are cigarette burns. I know the true meaning of hell."

What had happened to her? That wasn't due to an accident. They had been done deliberately. They marred her face, but she was still strikingly beautiful. But why was she showing me those?

"I went through a bad experience," she whispered with a dark voice and a deadly tone. Why was she willing to open up to me? "If you're willing to stay with us, I will tell you their story." She pointed vaguely around her eyes. "Tell me, isn't your brother's death your own private burning scar, deep in your heart?"

She had a point. That was probably why she had brought her scars up in conversation.

"I don't need these gadgets, these computers, hacked chips, all this shit, to know what's going through your mind right now. You're in pain. You don't like us, rebels. You fear us. You would like to put miles and miles between us. I've known the true face of fear and suffering for far too long. I see it in the mirror every day, and yet here I am. Because my journey is far from over.

"You've lost your brother, and now you're scared that we might want to get rid of you if we don't like you – or if the clone government finds out you're one of us, the bastards who have caused havoc by partially blowing up their precious BioBank and the GSNS. We haven't destroyed them completely – yet. All in due time." She sighed. "You're getting paler, Daphne. And I'm not even done telling you what I have to tell you."

"Then, say it," I whispered trying to sound collected, but I was terrified.

"Okay," she replied with a bittersweet smile, staring deeply into my eyes. "When I look at you, I don't see a random teenager – I see a mirror."

Her pose was relaxed, while I was tense all over. When she had said that last word, she had been playing with her mirror-like glasses in her hands.

"A mirror?"

Honest to God, I had been expecting a rather demeaning conversation with her all day, in which she would've spared my life in exchange for some small favours on my behalf. Easy stuff I could do, no murders, nothing big on my lap. I had expected her to yell at me. But that? She was having a much greater impact on me with her kindness and honesty than with threats and insults. How was that even possible?!

"We share plenty of stuff, you and I. Thus, the imagery of the mirror." She seemed to be in pain. It was crystal clear like fingerprints on a clean window. "They've hurt me and the ones I loved. The world would be much better off if I won this war against the clones. Don't you think so? I might scare the shit out of you right now, but I assume you dislike how they abuse you and those you love, how they murdered your brother, how they do the unspeakable things they do. I want to dethrone these bastards, and you will help me – because you will want to."

She sounded tempting. I swallowed hard.

"Your father is forty-four years old already. He hasn't got much time left. If you're not desperate now, you will be soon. I can guarantee your safety. I could even offer you a job if you get sacked, a place to stay if you don't want to be alone.

"You're not the next person on my black list, Daphne. I don't think Sigi screwed it up when he used the parrot to hack your chip. I screwed it up when I aimed my anger at you. For that, I apologise again.

"I don't want you to be scared of me. I want you to see me as a benefactor who believes in your worth. I don't want you to fear me. If you do, I've got a lot to lose."

I let her speak her mind. I felt the weight of experience in every word, in every sentence. But the same issue kept nagging me: why had she insisted on me being to blame for Siegfried's failure to shoot my brother? I was too afraid to ask, though.

"May I beg you to give me a chance?" she asked, leaving me thunderstruck.

Shit. She was begging me. Were we in a parallel universe all of a sudden, or what?

"Beg me? To give you a chance?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"I ordered your brother's death, but I haven't heard you say a word. Not the slightest complaint, accusation, passive-aggressive comment, nothing. What's on your mind, Daphne? I think we need to be open with each other, starting now. You need to vent, and I need to listen. I don't want a sour event to poison our relationship."

She had a point. I wanted to spit that daunting question out, but I didn't dare.

"I know you had a row with Sigi yesterday when you left my office – a row with him, not me." She chuckled. "We call him Sigi around here, by the way. He prefers it that way. So why?" she asked with enthusiasm, staring at me as if I was a unicorn that could lay golden eggs and grant wishes. "Why did you verbally attack him instead of me?"

"He was a... dick to me."

She burst out laughing.

"He's never a dick to women. Only to Momo."

"I just... He was..."

"Did you blame him for my command to shoot your brother? I regret signing such death warrants, especially on a fifteen-year-old kid who wasn't even a clone. I'm awfully sorry."

I could only feel the burning sting of missing my dear brother whenever she mentioned him.

"I'm not inhuman. But I cannot rewrite the past. And if I could, I wouldn't even want to. I need to give such commands."

"So... bombing the BioBank and the GSNS wasn't your first attack?"

"That was the first operation out in the open, for the broad public to witness and enjoy. But we've been acting in the shadows for some years now."

Oh, my!

"I can offer you a ray of sunshine, hope for a better future." Her assertiveness was something I envied. "I'm going to change the world when I win this war. The clone era will be over for good. You will be ultimately free, and everybody you know too.

"My aim is a noble one, even though my means aren't. They are atrocious. I am the leader of a small rebel group, with no intention to stop murdering clones. Terror is my language, and these motherfuckers will have to learn it to understand what I want, what is coming to them, what they deserve.

"I am not going to ask for forgiveness for the atrocities and deaths I am going to order. I can't do it. And yet, I have apologised to you a few minutes ago. Doesn't that make you feel special?"

Hello, my dear readers!

Does Daphne feel special after what Agape's told her? What do you think? Stay tuned to know more!

XOXO

MS