The King's Mandate: Anomalous System

"Do you want to eat something else?" Derek asked.

"Nope. We still have to eat dinner."

They were almost done eating the cream-sandwich.

Derek took the last bite and slid the plate that had one-half sandwich towards Das. "I will go wash my hands."

Das nodded.

Derek left, and Das saw him go. He then glanced around and grabbed Derek's tablet, unlocked it, and opened the main database.

'One last thing to do, and everything will be alright.'

Das copied all the data and uploaded it to his cloud, then made another identical copy and deleted the main database from Derek's tablet.

He then tampered with the database and removed the data of the 4 spies, making it look like they never worked there.

Once he was done with that, he deleted all the footage that featured those spies and replaced it with similar footage.

'Now I just need to reboot the server.' He rebooted the server and put the tablet back in its place.

Derek came back, and Das went to wash his hands. After that, they sat in the car; this time, Das sat beside Derek on the passenger's seat.

Derek turned on the car. "What now? Do you want to stop by somewhere else?"

Das leaned back and closed his eyes as he said, "I am tired. Let's go straight home."

Derek looked at his watch. "It's past seven."

"Hmm."

"Angela was saying she planned to go to the NGO today."

"She did? Didn't she visited there like three days ago?"

"Yeah. She said she found new land and that she is planning to build a new NGO there."

"Good grief. I don't understand her."

Derek increased the speed as he said, "She has always been like that. She likes helping people."

"She has no need to do that, though."

"She is the queen of this country; of course she would that."

"But there is no need." Das opened his eyes and looked at the window. "Nothing good comes out of it."

"Das?"

"You get nothing in return for your kindness. You will only attract haters and killers. It's not worth it; at least I would never be kind to anyone."

"That's some bold statement."

"It might be."

Derek scoffed and said, "You know, you are a lot like Angela."

Das turned and looked at Derek. "What do you mean? I am nothing like her."

"Alright. Let me rephrase." He cleared his throat and said, "You are a lot like Angela from high school."

Das' eyes widened. "Mom wasn't like she is now...before?"

Derek shook his head and said, "Nope. She was a very wild girl."

'Mom, and wild?' Das tried to imagine his mom being wild, but he couldn't and gave up.

Das' face flushed a little as he stuttered, "Tell me more."

"Sorry, can't do that."

"Come on!"

Derek looked at Das from the corner of his eyes and said, "I dare you to ask Angela about his"

"I can't dare to do that." They both laughed.

"Anyway, back to the topic." 

"Hmm?"

Derek turned the steering left as he said, "You are saying all that because you are still a kid."

"I just became seventeen."

"Still a kid."

"..."

"I am sure you will meet more peoples in the future and make friends with them." He patted Das' head and said, "You will be happy with them."

"I don't need friends."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah."

"Then what about Elena?"

"..."

"Hmm?"

"We already talked about this."

"She is a good girl."

"How do you know that?"

"I have met her many times; Angela had too."

"Well, you and her parents are friends, right?"

"Yeah, we went to the same school together."

"Was mom also hiding her identity as Edens at that time?"

"It wasn't as bad as it is now."

"I see."

"Lucas… I mean, Elena's father and her mother were childhood friends."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. And Lucas and I were also childhood friends."

"It's my first time hearing about this."

"Angela and Rebecca… Elena's mother were also childhood friends."

"Then you four already knew each other since childhood?"

"Not exactly."

"But you just said--"

Derek stopped the car at the red signal. "You see, Lucas and me, then Lucas and Rebecca, and Rebecca and Angela, it was like that."

"Oh! You there wasn't any mutual relationship between you four?"

"I was friends with Rebecca but just a… uhh… casual one?"

"So mom had never seen you before highschool?"

"Probably."

'Probably?!' Das had so many questions he wanted to ask, but he knew he wouldn't get answers for any of them, so he didn't ask any.

After around 20 minutes, they reached home. Das got out of the car, and Derek drove the car to the garage.

He looked up in the sky. 'Why do I feel like I am forgetting something?' Das entered the house with the front door.

Angela was cooking dinner in the kitchen. As soon as she heard the sound of the door, she turned around. "Das? I was just about to call you."

"What's up?"

"Go take a bath."

"Yeah." Das really wanted to take a bath today. 'I am tired.'

Das went upstairs and took out his clothes from the closet, then came downstairs again.

"Aww. I wanted to take the bath first." Derek said as he walked in.

"You are here too." Angela then looked at Das and made a troubled face.

Das sighed and said, "You can go first."

"Thanks." Derek went to his bedroom to take out his clothes.

"See, mom? This is why we need a bathroom in my room too."

"We already talked about this, Das. There won't be more than one bathroom in this house."

"Come on. We have like dozens of rooms, and this house is too big. Heck, even I don't know how many rooms are there. And only one bathroom? Come on!."

"We have a swimming pool on the terrace, though," Angela stated with a straight face.

"Alright. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. I know. Yeah. Give me twenty minutes; I will be there." Derek came out of his room as he hung up the call.

"What's wrong?" Angela asked.

"I got a call from the cops. I will be back in some hours. Sorry."

"I will come with you." Angela tired to take off her apron.

"No, please. It's just an office matter. You don't have to butt in."

"But--"

"Please, Angela. I can handle things on my own." Derek left the house.

'Sorry, mom and dad, but I had no other choice.'

Angela then turned to Das and said, "Go take a bath; the food is ready."