Amanita: Poison Shot

Chapter 62: O Fortuna!

"O Fortuna,..." I heard Agape singing, opera-style and with fake pomposity, as I came down the stairs to Amanita's basement during lunch break that Friday. "velut luna statu variabilis, semper crescis aut decrescis;..."

She was no professional singer, but she sang quite well even though her tone was of self-mockery. Her office door was already open, and I saw her singing along with a recorded version of the song in a lower volume, which was playing on the main screen of her obsessively crowded office.

Passion was filling her motivation to sing while checking on a tablet on her hands. It was connected to a strange device that resembled a black box via USB. She did nothing, only stared at it while she sang. I knocked on the door softly with my knuckles and I also cleared my throat.

"Oh, hello, Daphne. Come in please," she said with a nice smile on her lips.

She left the tablet in a space on her large desk at the far end, close to the weird black box. Next, she pressed pause on the music app. When she turned to me, I saw the tablet's screen. It was an ever-changing chaos of letters and numbers, jumbled up in different combinations.

"You've noticed my old tablet, I see."

"Do I want to know what that is?" I asked feeling jittery.

"It's the tablet that I found stuck in a hole in these very walls some years ago when I inherited this place from my parents. It contains the encrypted file I told you about, remember?"

"Oh, that. And the black box?"

"It's a decoding machine I invented when I realised I couldn't solve the last riddle. So far it's been unsuccessful." She sighed with frustration. "Been trying with some esoteric programming languages. Some LOLCODE and Malbolge." I had no idea what she was talking about. "Hacker's stuff. The person who created this was a bloody genius. Let's see if my current strategy works."

"What information do you think hides behind the right code?"

"Her current location. Her headquarters. Anything personal about her that the clones can never find out. The reason why she never came for me. Whether she's alive..." Her voice got sadder as she talked.

"Who was she? Why did she defy the clone ruling? How come she managed to escape from nanochip control and the GSNS? Or... she didn't. Did she get murdered?"

"I don't know. I've got too many questions too, Daphne. I can answer some of those, but another day. We've got more pressing matters now. When the check-ups are over, come and I'll let you read her letter on the tablet. Deal?"

"Deal. By the way, I love the way you sing. But I've never heard that song. Which is it?"

"Under no circumstances should you ever tell anyone you've heard this song, Daphne."

"Why?"

"It's an old song, 'O Fortuna', by Carl Orff. It's been forbidden for decades... ever since the nanochips were implanted extensively all around the world and ever since the last rebel group died. They used to sing it like an anthem. The song predicts that luck won't always support a certain victor, that sooner or later a younger generation can be the new favourite champion under Fortune's protection and take over. It's a bitter song, meant to teach a lesson, like me."

"I get why you like it."

"Clones got insane the moment anyone would sing it in the street, in a riot, anywhere. It was a severe offence at the beginning because it reminded them that no king is undefeatable, that he fears the whims of Fortune too. Later, when we started being surveilled with nanochips, they censored it and banned it from our lives. Anyway..." She sighed, and then a melancholic smile dawned on her lips. "It's just a sad story, from a time long gone. I bet nobody even remembers this song exists."