CHAPTER 2: THEY'RE COMING FOR YOU
Rick woke up at 7 o'clock AM to get ready for school, in his large water bed in his upstairs bedroom in his two story house with a white picket fence on White Rabbit Avenue. Even though he didn't want to see the blood splattered everywhere or the body of Mr. Morrell sprawled on the floor, his parents would not let him skip school. Not with the end of the school year only a day away. He ran down the stairs wearing navy blue cargo pants and a dark gray Quicksilver shirt, greeted by the smell of French toast and maple syrup. His dad sat at the round dinner table drinking coffee and his mom was at the kitchen counter finishing up with the breakfast. The news was on, and his parents were watching the screen intently.
"Good morning," he called to his parents, but they did not reply. Their eyes were glued to the screen, and his dad had been holding the coffee mug to his lips for a long time without drinking. Rick sat down next to his father, also watching the television screen. A woman reporter stood outside of a schoolyard. My schoolyard, Rick realized.
"The FBI has caught one of the most wanted criminals in the world last night at Calantha Intermediate. The man was a terrorist who went by the code name Turbine, though his real name is known to be Winston Morrell. He was wanted for murder, resisting arrest, breaking & entering, and defacing of public and private property. It is most well known for his widespread destruction at Mall City last August, having a shootout with local policemen and the FBI. FBI agent Smith is here to tell us about the capture. Smith?"
The camera turned to somebody that Rick did not want to see. His hair was combed straight and perfect. He wore a pair of shades, more square than streamlined. He wore a dark suit, a very dark green-black color. He wore a tie of the same color, with a little metal clip to keep it neat. An audio feed was in his right ear. He looked like an FBI agent, only scarier.
"After receiving a tip from a local...informant, my fellow agents Johnson, Thompson, and Jackson pursued the man from a black woman's home. He momentarily out ran us and tried to get to the phone in room 18 of Calantha Intermediate. It is our observation that his kind use telephones to call fellow terrorists to come assist in an escape. But we have ways of tracking people down. We apprehended him as he reached for the phone. Thompson destroyed the phone with a shot from his pistol. He refused to come quietly and tried to shoot back, but we shot first..." Smith stopped and fixed the cuffs of his jacket. "He is no longer a virus of this community."
"Thank you Agent Smith for your report..." the reporter went on, continuing the news, but they all jumped as phone rang. Rick's mother reached for the phone as the reporter announced that school at Calantha Intermediate would be canceled until further notice.
"Hello? Oh, hi Mrs. Patrick, how are you? Glad to hear it..." Typical mother to mother conversation, Rick thought, rolling his eyes. "No, I haven't seen Greg or Tom..." Damn... He sat staring at the screen when there was a knock a the door.
"Get it, son," Mr. Thornton, Rick's father, ordered. Rick got up and grabbed the brass door knob, turning it and pulling, opening the red wood door. A man from Fed-Ex was standing at the door holding a small brown box under one arm.
"Package for Mr. Richard Thornton," the Fed-Ex guy said cheerfully as he handed over the package. "Hey, you look like you might go to Calantha Intermediate. Did you hear about..." Rick didn't let him finish, taking the box and closing the door in the guy's face. He didn't want to hear about the capture of Mr. Morrell, he was there. That Agent Smith guy on the television had lied about how the kill had gone. Sure, they had asked Mr. Morrell to surrender, but how they had finished him was much different. They had appeared out of nowhere, 'replacing' his friends and throwing the desk out the window. And Mr. Morrell had said something about a thing called 'the Matrix.' What the hell was the Matrix? Rick contemplated this as he walked up to his room. The box he was carrying might have his illegal fireworks that he ordered, so he didn't want his parents to see. He locked the door behind him.
He flopped down on his bed. He shook the package to see what it might contain before opening it, and then flipped out his knife. He cut through the tape and cardboard and soon he was holding a black cell phone. He flipped it open, examining it thoroughly. Who would send me a cell phone? he wondered. He turned it on and watched as the buttons lit up one by one by a green light. It began to ring, startling him and nearly causing him to fall off the bed. He held it to his ear and pressed a button.
"Hello?" he asked.
"Hello Wake," answered a deep, calm voice. "I suspect you are wondering who I am and why I have sent you this cell phone. To answer your first question, you may call me Odysseus. To answer your second question, I sent you this phone to answer your other questions that you may be having. It is something you have been thinking about since Mr. Morrell said it last night."
"What is the Matrix?" Rick asked.
"Yes, that is what I will answer. But not right now. Do you know the abandoned apartment building three blocks from your house?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Meet me there, room 101. Now, there is another question you have concerning people like Smith. The suited men that you saw last night..."
"How did you know I saw them last night?" It was very confusing, for nobody but the three suited men, Mr. Morrell, and his two friends had been there.
"I know many things," Odysseus replied. "And about those suited men, they are called Agents, they are coming for you. Listen..." Downstairs Rick could hear a knock at the door and then the redwood door opening with a creak. His mother greeted whoever it was at the front door. The person at the door replied.
"We are here to talk with Richard Thornton," replied a gruff voice. It was Smith from the news.
"What is he doing here?" Rick asked hurriedly.
"You forgot your backpack at room 18 last night. The navy blue one with the nametag attached to it," Odysseus told him. "And they know that you are on the phone with me at this very moment. Jump out your window, they are in the house."
"What? Are you crazy?"
"No, just very wise. Do it now or they will get you in ten seconds. I will guide you onward. Now go!" There was a knock at the door.
"Mr. Thornton, may we have a word with you?" came the voice of Smith at the door. Rick ignored his mental reasoning of why he should not jump out the window and wrenched it open, climbing out onto the roof. He turned back to see a fist go through the door, splintering it. It reached down for the lock and swiftly unlocked it.
"Jump off the roof. I moved your bike out of the garage earlier, get on it and start pedaling fast. Avoid people, and I'll see you at room 101." Odysseus cut the connection to Rick's cell phone. One block down... Rick told himself as he crossed past the intersection of Elm Street and White Rabbit Avenue. He looked back after crossing over 18th Street only to see that two of the suited men were chasing him down the street, mere feet behind him. He turned back to see a fist flying towards his face, and then he knew nothing. Agent Smith had punched him hard and he flew backwards and off his bike.
"Good work Agent Smith," Agent Thompson said in monotone as he caught the unconscious boy in mid-air.
"Thank you Agent Thompson," Smith said, fixing his tie as they walked to the black Lexus with tinted windows, Thompson carrying Rick by the throat. Seeing this, a girl in a tight black leather outfit drove away on a motorcycle, her eyes covered by a pair of shades...
Rick came to in a small, white room. He was sitting in a plastic fold-up chair, strapped to it with a taut cord. The room had one door, painted a sickly green, but the door did not have a window, nor did the room. His senses were returning to him, his vision less blurry. The instinct to rub his eyes was strong, but he could not because his arms were bound tightly behind him. The gag in his mouth did not help the now aching jaw.
"Hello, Mr. Thornton," Smith called as cheerfully as he could in his monotone voice. He was standing at the other side of the room, accompanied by two suited men, or Agents as Lincoln had told him on the phone, that Rick had not yet seen before, though they shared the same perfect hair and dark green suit and all that fun stuff. "Glad you could join us."
"Why the hell are you doing this to me?!" Rick wanted to shout, but it was muffled and his jaw hurt terribly. Smith walked over and sat down at the table in front of Rick, still smiling. The smile faded as he began to talk again.
"We've been monitoring you, Richard. We know that you have a D in history class, that you watch violent movies when your parents are asleep, and that you help your elderly neighbor walk her dog..." Smith rambled, looking through a file on the table. "We know you were there in room 18 at the intermediate school to vandalize your teacher's room. We know you saw us eliminate a public enemy using certain...skills. We know you were receiving phone calls from a man that we have defined as...extremely dangerous. Do you know why he called you?" Agent Smith got in his face, not expecting an answer. "Because he wanted you to become a dangerous criminal like him. He wanted to turn you into a public enemy. Do you know what we do with public enemies? Of course you do. You watched Mr. Morrell die."
Agent Smith pulled off his glasses and tucked them into his suit pocket, revealing piercing, unnaturally ice-blue eyes, which stared, unblinking, at Rick. "We are giving you a chance to tell us where this...Odysseus, wanted you to meet him." Rick had a sudden urge to not tell him, to keep the location of his mysterious caller a secret. He shook his head best he could, but it pained him after a few shakes that indicated "No," so he stopped. He blinked and Agent Smith had his square sunglasses on again. He pulled off his glasses and tucked them into his suit pocket, revealing piercing, unnaturally ice-blue eyes, which stared, unblinking, at Rick. "We are giving you a chance to tell us where this...Odysseus, wanted you to meet him."
Whoa, deja vu, Rick thought to himself, shaking his head "No," again. But looking past Agent Smith, he noticed something. The door was gone. So were the cords that had previously been holding him to the chair, as well as the gag that had prevented him from speaking. The room was inaccessible and inescapable, and there were three Agents in the room with him. He was terrified for some unexplainable reason, and he finally decided it was because of what he had seen the Agents do to people when they killed Mr. Morrell and made his friends disappear. He had felt what they did to people in that solid punch that he hadn't been expecting. Yet, he was feeling defiant. He could not come up with a logical explanation for that other than he didn't belong here. Like he belonged elsewhere. He tried to speak but his jaw wasn't working. In fact, his mouth felt like it was stuck and his jaw muscles were extremely tight and aching. He shook his head no and then reached up to feel his mouth but...it wasn't there! It was gone entirely, with no trace whatsoever. He started screaming, but there was no sound.
"You made the wrong decision, Mr. Thornton," Agent Smith said grimly, a foul grimace on his face, though Rick could tell he was slightly amused by his panicking. Smith tossed the file off of the shiny table in between them, and slammed Rick down upon it after pulling him up by the throat as if without effort. The other two Agents walked forwards calmly. The first one pulled up his shirt, the second one held his writhing body down to the table. The first one then aided the second one in holding him down. Rick tried to get away from their grasp, but they were incredibly strong. "And though you have made the wrong decision, you are going to help us, whether you like it or not."
Smith removed a small metal container from his suit pocket. It looked similar to fancy cigarette container, but when he opened it, it contained teardrop-shaped metal equipment. He plucked one out of the container and held it up while a transformation took place. A gelatinous substance formed around it, and then the thing popped out of the mold. It now wiggled around in Smith's hand, and looked like some sort of mechanical bug. Smith dropped it on Rick's chest and the boy began to 'scream' harder. He continued shaking against the Agents' grip, but to no avail. The mechanical insect crawled down towards Rick's belly button and began inserting its 'legs' into it. Then it wrenched it open and crawled inside, pulling itself in. The last thing Rick remembered was feeling intense pain as the thing disappeared inside of him...
And then he woke up.
He was sitting in his bed at home, the rain pounding outside. It was all a dream, Rick realized as he propped himself up. There is no such thing as Agents, and my friends haven't disappeared... The phone started ringing. Who would be calling me at this hour? Rick glanced at his clock, and felt somewhat startled by the time, though he knew not why. 1 am? He picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hello Wake. Do you still want to meet? I've been waiting for most of the day..."
Rick woke up at 7 o'clock AM to get ready for school, in his large water bed in his upstairs bedroom in his two story house with a white picket fence on White Rabbit Avenue. Even though he didn't want to see the blood splattered everywhere or the body of Mr. Morrell sprawled on the floor, his parents would not let him skip school. Not with the end of the school year only a day away. He ran down the stairs wearing navy blue cargo pants and a dark gray Quicksilver shirt, greeted by the smell of French toast and maple syrup. His dad sat at the round dinner table drinking coffee and his mom was at the kitchen counter finishing up with the breakfast. The news was on, and his parents were watching the screen intently.
"Good morning," he called to his parents, but they did not reply. Their eyes were glued to the screen, and his dad had been holding the coffee mug to his lips for a long time without drinking. Rick sat down next to his father, also watching the television screen. A woman reporter stood outside of a schoolyard. My schoolyard, Rick realized.
"The FBI has caught one of the most wanted criminals in the world last night at Calantha Intermediate. The man was a terrorist who went by the code name Turbine, though his real name is known to be Winston Morrell. He was wanted for murder, resisting arrest, breaking & entering, and defacing of public and private property. It is most well known for his widespread destruction at Mall City last August, having a shootout with local policemen and the FBI. FBI agent Smith is here to tell us about the capture. Smith?"
The camera turned to somebody that Rick did not want to see. His hair was combed straight and perfect. He wore a pair of shades, more square than streamlined. He wore a dark suit, a very dark green-black color. He wore a tie of the same color, with a little metal clip to keep it neat. An audio feed was in his right ear. He looked like an FBI agent, only scarier.
"After receiving a tip from a local...informant, my fellow agents Johnson, Thompson, and Jackson pursued the man from a black woman's home. He momentarily out ran us and tried to get to the phone in room 18 of Calantha Intermediate. It is our observation that his kind use telephones to call fellow terrorists to come assist in an escape. But we have ways of tracking people down. We apprehended him as he reached for the phone. Thompson destroyed the phone with a shot from his pistol. He refused to come quietly and tried to shoot back, but we shot first..." Smith stopped and fixed the cuffs of his jacket. "He is no longer a virus of this community."
"Thank you Agent Smith for your report..." the reporter went on, continuing the news, but they all jumped as phone rang. Rick's mother reached for the phone as the reporter announced that school at Calantha Intermediate would be canceled until further notice.
"Hello? Oh, hi Mrs. Patrick, how are you? Glad to hear it..." Typical mother to mother conversation, Rick thought, rolling his eyes. "No, I haven't seen Greg or Tom..." Damn... He sat staring at the screen when there was a knock a the door.
"Get it, son," Mr. Thornton, Rick's father, ordered. Rick got up and grabbed the brass door knob, turning it and pulling, opening the red wood door. A man from Fed-Ex was standing at the door holding a small brown box under one arm.
"Package for Mr. Richard Thornton," the Fed-Ex guy said cheerfully as he handed over the package. "Hey, you look like you might go to Calantha Intermediate. Did you hear about..." Rick didn't let him finish, taking the box and closing the door in the guy's face. He didn't want to hear about the capture of Mr. Morrell, he was there. That Agent Smith guy on the television had lied about how the kill had gone. Sure, they had asked Mr. Morrell to surrender, but how they had finished him was much different. They had appeared out of nowhere, 'replacing' his friends and throwing the desk out the window. And Mr. Morrell had said something about a thing called 'the Matrix.' What the hell was the Matrix? Rick contemplated this as he walked up to his room. The box he was carrying might have his illegal fireworks that he ordered, so he didn't want his parents to see. He locked the door behind him.
He flopped down on his bed. He shook the package to see what it might contain before opening it, and then flipped out his knife. He cut through the tape and cardboard and soon he was holding a black cell phone. He flipped it open, examining it thoroughly. Who would send me a cell phone? he wondered. He turned it on and watched as the buttons lit up one by one by a green light. It began to ring, startling him and nearly causing him to fall off the bed. He held it to his ear and pressed a button.
"Hello?" he asked.
"Hello Wake," answered a deep, calm voice. "I suspect you are wondering who I am and why I have sent you this cell phone. To answer your first question, you may call me Odysseus. To answer your second question, I sent you this phone to answer your other questions that you may be having. It is something you have been thinking about since Mr. Morrell said it last night."
"What is the Matrix?" Rick asked.
"Yes, that is what I will answer. But not right now. Do you know the abandoned apartment building three blocks from your house?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Meet me there, room 101. Now, there is another question you have concerning people like Smith. The suited men that you saw last night..."
"How did you know I saw them last night?" It was very confusing, for nobody but the three suited men, Mr. Morrell, and his two friends had been there.
"I know many things," Odysseus replied. "And about those suited men, they are called Agents, they are coming for you. Listen..." Downstairs Rick could hear a knock at the door and then the redwood door opening with a creak. His mother greeted whoever it was at the front door. The person at the door replied.
"We are here to talk with Richard Thornton," replied a gruff voice. It was Smith from the news.
"What is he doing here?" Rick asked hurriedly.
"You forgot your backpack at room 18 last night. The navy blue one with the nametag attached to it," Odysseus told him. "And they know that you are on the phone with me at this very moment. Jump out your window, they are in the house."
"What? Are you crazy?"
"No, just very wise. Do it now or they will get you in ten seconds. I will guide you onward. Now go!" There was a knock at the door.
"Mr. Thornton, may we have a word with you?" came the voice of Smith at the door. Rick ignored his mental reasoning of why he should not jump out the window and wrenched it open, climbing out onto the roof. He turned back to see a fist go through the door, splintering it. It reached down for the lock and swiftly unlocked it.
"Jump off the roof. I moved your bike out of the garage earlier, get on it and start pedaling fast. Avoid people, and I'll see you at room 101." Odysseus cut the connection to Rick's cell phone. One block down... Rick told himself as he crossed past the intersection of Elm Street and White Rabbit Avenue. He looked back after crossing over 18th Street only to see that two of the suited men were chasing him down the street, mere feet behind him. He turned back to see a fist flying towards his face, and then he knew nothing. Agent Smith had punched him hard and he flew backwards and off his bike.
"Good work Agent Smith," Agent Thompson said in monotone as he caught the unconscious boy in mid-air.
"Thank you Agent Thompson," Smith said, fixing his tie as they walked to the black Lexus with tinted windows, Thompson carrying Rick by the throat. Seeing this, a girl in a tight black leather outfit drove away on a motorcycle, her eyes covered by a pair of shades...
Rick came to in a small, white room. He was sitting in a plastic fold-up chair, strapped to it with a taut cord. The room had one door, painted a sickly green, but the door did not have a window, nor did the room. His senses were returning to him, his vision less blurry. The instinct to rub his eyes was strong, but he could not because his arms were bound tightly behind him. The gag in his mouth did not help the now aching jaw.
"Hello, Mr. Thornton," Smith called as cheerfully as he could in his monotone voice. He was standing at the other side of the room, accompanied by two suited men, or Agents as Lincoln had told him on the phone, that Rick had not yet seen before, though they shared the same perfect hair and dark green suit and all that fun stuff. "Glad you could join us."
"Why the hell are you doing this to me?!" Rick wanted to shout, but it was muffled and his jaw hurt terribly. Smith walked over and sat down at the table in front of Rick, still smiling. The smile faded as he began to talk again.
"We've been monitoring you, Richard. We know that you have a D in history class, that you watch violent movies when your parents are asleep, and that you help your elderly neighbor walk her dog..." Smith rambled, looking through a file on the table. "We know you were there in room 18 at the intermediate school to vandalize your teacher's room. We know you saw us eliminate a public enemy using certain...skills. We know you were receiving phone calls from a man that we have defined as...extremely dangerous. Do you know why he called you?" Agent Smith got in his face, not expecting an answer. "Because he wanted you to become a dangerous criminal like him. He wanted to turn you into a public enemy. Do you know what we do with public enemies? Of course you do. You watched Mr. Morrell die."
Agent Smith pulled off his glasses and tucked them into his suit pocket, revealing piercing, unnaturally ice-blue eyes, which stared, unblinking, at Rick. "We are giving you a chance to tell us where this...Odysseus, wanted you to meet him." Rick had a sudden urge to not tell him, to keep the location of his mysterious caller a secret. He shook his head best he could, but it pained him after a few shakes that indicated "No," so he stopped. He blinked and Agent Smith had his square sunglasses on again. He pulled off his glasses and tucked them into his suit pocket, revealing piercing, unnaturally ice-blue eyes, which stared, unblinking, at Rick. "We are giving you a chance to tell us where this...Odysseus, wanted you to meet him."
Whoa, deja vu, Rick thought to himself, shaking his head "No," again. But looking past Agent Smith, he noticed something. The door was gone. So were the cords that had previously been holding him to the chair, as well as the gag that had prevented him from speaking. The room was inaccessible and inescapable, and there were three Agents in the room with him. He was terrified for some unexplainable reason, and he finally decided it was because of what he had seen the Agents do to people when they killed Mr. Morrell and made his friends disappear. He had felt what they did to people in that solid punch that he hadn't been expecting. Yet, he was feeling defiant. He could not come up with a logical explanation for that other than he didn't belong here. Like he belonged elsewhere. He tried to speak but his jaw wasn't working. In fact, his mouth felt like it was stuck and his jaw muscles were extremely tight and aching. He shook his head no and then reached up to feel his mouth but...it wasn't there! It was gone entirely, with no trace whatsoever. He started screaming, but there was no sound.
"You made the wrong decision, Mr. Thornton," Agent Smith said grimly, a foul grimace on his face, though Rick could tell he was slightly amused by his panicking. Smith tossed the file off of the shiny table in between them, and slammed Rick down upon it after pulling him up by the throat as if without effort. The other two Agents walked forwards calmly. The first one pulled up his shirt, the second one held his writhing body down to the table. The first one then aided the second one in holding him down. Rick tried to get away from their grasp, but they were incredibly strong. "And though you have made the wrong decision, you are going to help us, whether you like it or not."
Smith removed a small metal container from his suit pocket. It looked similar to fancy cigarette container, but when he opened it, it contained teardrop-shaped metal equipment. He plucked one out of the container and held it up while a transformation took place. A gelatinous substance formed around it, and then the thing popped out of the mold. It now wiggled around in Smith's hand, and looked like some sort of mechanical bug. Smith dropped it on Rick's chest and the boy began to 'scream' harder. He continued shaking against the Agents' grip, but to no avail. The mechanical insect crawled down towards Rick's belly button and began inserting its 'legs' into it. Then it wrenched it open and crawled inside, pulling itself in. The last thing Rick remembered was feeling intense pain as the thing disappeared inside of him...
And then he woke up.
He was sitting in his bed at home, the rain pounding outside. It was all a dream, Rick realized as he propped himself up. There is no such thing as Agents, and my friends haven't disappeared... The phone started ringing. Who would be calling me at this hour? Rick glanced at his clock, and felt somewhat startled by the time, though he knew not why. 1 am? He picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hello Wake. Do you still want to meet? I've been waiting for most of the day..."