Chapter 3 ( Part 3 )

One day, Kaya was absent and Anita was pulled by the art mothers to be replacement womb wall. Although she was given a brief explanation what the womb was, she could only think of one thing.

It's this rascal's way of feeling me up!

Only, seeing tears in the eyes of her favourite person, made Anita go and hug him tightly , ask him what the matter was.

Anita was later told by Mariaka that Aniket only ever cries in the womb. Everything he says is usually gibberish. Even if he speaks, he speaks in code that only he understands.

Only, what he told Anita that day did not seem like code to her. It seemed like fact.

'King Adharma lives forever.'

Anita ran home, put on her father's favourite traditional garb and ran over to find him at the lotus lake. As usual, he was in meditation. As usual, he was floating on water in the middle of the pond. As usual, there was already a hint of a smile on his sombre face. As usual, already knowing Anita will come.

'Father!' Anita stamped her foot. She had no regard to disturbing his mediation at all.

'Oh dear. Anita is here?' someone's surprised greeting.

'Father!' Anita stamped her foot again and hopped madly on the rim of the lotus pond.

Her father always used some trick or another to float on the lake like that. Be it a floating pad, a brick column or an invisible piece of wood. He would also shamelessly maintain a cross legged appearance while using one leg to swim. The mechanics of it were not known to Anita. Suffice to say, he did it all to irritate the hell out of her.

This wealthy timekeeper had no business in life but tease his own daughter. After her mothers died in action, her father didn't take another podmate and just teased Anita full time.

This was not any ordinary teasing. For seven years since her mothers both died in the same operation, her father deviously mediates in all her training routes. Levitating in air, floating on water, in an underground crystal grave, standing on one leg on nothing but a pin head. Sitting in wheel pose, appearing like a real wheel!

He looks really serious. And he truly does meditate. But clearly, all these optical illusions were created to disturb Anita's training. Since she was the truly serious one!

After doing all these shameless things, he orders her around and makes her wear traditional clothes, cook lunches like a good girl and decorate the house. Silently hides the guns and knives she put out for maintenance. She cannot find them at all.

Clearly the title 'bare claw tigress' did not come out of her own volition.

'Father, if you don't come out now, I won't tell you about your grandson!'

A slight creak and bubbles. The underwater drone nearly lost control. Wrong XO commands given.

Anita mockingly fumed as she watched her father's pristine white clothes soiled by the mucky lotus pond.

The gentle, shameless man licked his lips and walked out of the pond.

'Didn't you just get a podmate? Did the panel already find you a son?'

Anita dragged her father to the small fountain next to the pond and cleaned his legs and feet with its water. She had to put some effort in it because the flowing white cotton of his trousers had many small muddy spots even up to the area of the crotch.

Her father suggested, 'Let's go back. I'll change at home.'

Anita didn't mind him and finished her worked delicately, until the mud was gone. Since they will encounter time servants on the way back, she can't let her father be seen with a haphazard look.

Her father is a sciencekeeper who used his good knowledge to tease and fool Anita. It could not give her enough headache.

'So what about the grandson? Show me a picture.'

Sahoo sought her daughter's hand and twisted her middle finger urgently. He meant for her to send a code via XO.

Sahoo was around forty years old. In his day, children could enter pods as well. But his wives were older, so they adopted right away. He had this daughter since he was fifteen years old. He never even had sex and was already a father.

When the little girl heard that, the moment she turned fifteen, she wanted to become a maa as well. Progeny's mission was to protect and raise war orphans. It is a difficult task, but she was overcome by urgency to become a mother. It was very funny. But if Sahoo laughed, she would call him a hypocrite. So he never laughed.

'Show me girl.'

Anita touched her forehead. Her father would never let her be until she showed him. So she showed him a picture of Aniket as a boy, hoping he'd be fooled.

'Ah…I thought it would be like this!' he said with a growling but amused voice.

He was not fooled.

'Father!'

Sahoo laughed. He said nothing else. Timekeepers are grouped into pods at the beginning of their careers. This is the same as assigning new recruits to teams. Marriage was a secondary factor. The more important thing is team compatibility and work efficiency. In these two matters, bringing the child into the pod was an inspired move by Nate. Father-in-law was happy.

Of course, he always wondered how the obsessive Nate would ever share Anita with anyone. Turns out son-in-law put another inspired move in place. Made father-in-law proud.

This girl can finally get some years on her before actually becoming a mother.

'Father, you are not listening!'

'What is it?' The duo went into her father's room where he changed while listening to his daughter.

'I think I have a string to break the duplex mirror.'

'You solved the encryption?'

'No. It's XO's encryption. How can I possibly solve it? But the duplex mirror can still be broken.'

The duplex mirror is a puzzle that reflects two layers of information complexes in the same knowledge tree. His dear daughter only ever played with knives and guns. If she is finally talking about knowledge trees and data analysis, she might as well make papa cry.

But like a good science teacher and dad, Sahoo pretended to be unimpressed. 'There are ten levels of operation in XO. There are eight duplex mirrors. What does it matter if you solve one of those?'

'That is because the string I have can create at least one instance on solving all of them!'

Sahoo laughed. He grabbed a little contraption that hid under the sole of his foot. He levitated on one foot and stood in the air like a great sage. This immediately raised Anita's ire, but that's the effect he wanted.

'My little Anne likes to dream big.'

'I'll prove it to you!'

'Then prove it.'

'Let's go to data room.'

'Let's go.'

They almost made it to the door when Anita kicked the contraption under her father's foot and caught him as he lost balance. 'Oh old father, I worry for your health…'