Amanita's Questionnaire

Seattle, Washington. It's a big city with lots of technological and financial traffic, especially with Amazon perched over the city like a hulking corporate dragon- not a vulture, vultures actually do good. It's a place with culture, too, lots of them, and you can find just about anything anywhere if you know how to look. That it's a gorgeous city doesn't hurt either; it's lush with greenery, parks, gardens, and the ocean is a beautiful sight no matter the weather. Plus, that very weather can be useful for hiding- rain lowers visibility, and even the smoke from wildfires can be used against someone tailing you if you're clever enough. It's not perfect, but it's home.

I'm a cleaner. I clean houses. The rich, the moderately comfortable, the poor who have scrounged up enough money to be able to pay- it doesn't really matter who's hiring, grime is the same across all class stratum. It's simple, unlike the vigilante shit I do when I'm off the clock. I can space out, zone out, meditate, ruminate, whatever you want to call it, when I'm cleaning a drain of a fat deposit or making sure someone's fancy fucking vacation home is spotless for their next rager. It's also convenient that nobody really pays attention to cleaners.

Mostly, I spend my money on equipment for aforementioned vigilante shit. More tech that means I have a better chance of coming out on top. I don't use the money I steal from rich bastards on myself. That would be much too obvious. I'm not greedy. I just don't like seeing people suffer when I can help. And I can help.

I want to make the selfish shitheads on top of their piles of gold share. It's the first thing most people learn in fucking preschool, is to share, and those fuckwads were never taught. School's in session, and I'm the teacher. Or the modern-day Robin Hood, I guess. Steal from the rich and give to the poor has been a popular idea for hundreds of years for a reason.

I would kill for it, absolutely. They've killed for their money, millions of corpses stepped on like pebbles to obtain the wealth they hoard. What goes around, comes around. I'm only limited right now by my access to those bastards.

I don't know if I'd be willing to die for it, though. I can only do what I do if I'm alive, right? I can always find other ways to help people if I can't do this anymore. It would suck to have to stop, but there's other ways to do good in the world.

My parents used to run a small business. Then they were pushed out by a big-name corporation that stole all their customers. I watched them struggle and scrape and eventually have to apply for jobs at that same fucking company, and saw how being poor and being worked into the ground stole their lives out from under them. It sucked the light out of their eyes and the joy out of their souls. We went from doing alright to barely being able to put food on the table. It wasn't so much one defining moment as it was a thousand cuts delivered slowly with a smile and the company's other hand outstretched.

My relationship with my brother, Ethan, is one of dislike on his side and exasperation on mine. I like the guy well enough, but he knows what I'm up to. He won't turn me in- he values family too much as an ideal for that- but he doesn't exactly approve, either. He's the kind of guy that will always take honest work over shady, and theft is pretty shady. I've tried to explain that I do what I do for good reasons and I do it to the right people, but he's... well, his moral compass has always worked better than mine. When bad shit happens, he stands his ground against the storm, instead of letting it take him where it pleases and adapt afterwards. It's not always for the better, but.... it's also not always for the worst. He's dependable, if predictable.

My niece, though- I adore her, and I know she sure adores when I come around for holidays. Rosh Hashanah is just about the only time of year my brother will tolerate me in his home (or in general), and it's mostly for Rachel's sake. She likes to tell me all of the things that have happened in the year that I've been away while I help make the food, and I tell her about the places I've seen and the people I've met. Ethan would kill me if I told her about my vigilante work, so I don't, but I also don't mind not telling her. She's innocent, and I'd really hate to tarnish that by trying to explain... well, any of it, really. That there are evil people in this world that are worse than the bullies she's seen at school is not something I want to tell her- she'll discover it in time, so why not let her take her time with it?

I'd like to be closer than I am to Patricia. She's one of my coworkers- one of the people I actually like working with- and she always has a joke or a story on hand when things get quiet. I don't think most of them are her stories, just ones she's making up, or retelling, that she thinks maybe I'd like, but it's always appreciated nonetheless. It's a damn sight better than cleaning in silence together or listening to music alone. It doesn't hurt that her laugh when she can't even finish her own jokes fills me with giddy bubbles. Not the crush kind, I've never had one of those in my life. But it's a feeling like I'd like to know her more, like to hear it more.