Still don't own Matrix.
Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! Here's the latest chapter, tell me what you think!
"He really said that?" Tina, Elise's roommate from college asked, baffled, as she giggled over her latte with a tone more suited to a thirteen-year-old than a twenty-seven-year-old.
Elise nodded. "Scrooge in the flesh." She'd been entertaining her three friends with the story.
Tina, Tina's sister Rebecca, and Jessica were visiting the city and crashing at Elise's new apartment for a few weeks. It made Elise's transition easier. The three of them had gone to college together in North New York, and had been like sisters. Then Elise had got married and moved to the city, Jessica had gone to Florida to open a boutique, Rebecca was still finishing graduate school, and Christina (or Tina) had wandered America until she had found, who Elise considered to be her soul mate, in Tina's fiancé Frank.
Elise had moved away from the city, to New Jersey three years ago when her husband James, of two years had...well...when they weren't married anymore. Elise got a new job, working for Microsoft in the city. Things changed for the other three, and, since Frank lived in the city (where he and Tina were going to be married), Rebecca's new school was twenty minutes away by bus, Jessica had declared bankruptcy on her boutique, and Tina needed a place to stay, all three of them had wound up moving in with Elise.
Not that Elise didn't like having her friends with her, she loved them like sisters...but they weren't exactly the easiest people to live with. But Elise couldn't just say they couldn't stay. She knew how much money Jessica had (none), and how good Tina was about working (she couldn't be interested in one job more than a few months) and how many fines Rebecca had for school (a lot). It was kind of nice too...like being in college again.
"If a guy said that to me, I'd spray him with mace." Jessica tossed her head to the side, making the others laugh. "Unless he was really hot." She gazed up to the ceiling of the '80's style diner they had agreed to meet at.
Rebecca snickered, being the youngest of them; she blushed the most, giggling at any word having anything to do with the looks of men.
"It doesn't matter anyway. I came, and I left. I hope I never see him again." Elise made a slash to end her memory of the man in the air.
"Hey Elise?" Tina asked. "Can I borrow your cell? I was going to call Frank and tell him to bring his brothers, I want you guys to meet." Tina's boyfriend of two years, and now fiancé, wasn't a nice guy, but Elise dreaded Tina's constant matchmaking. Just because she was single didn't mean she was desperate.
"Tina, do you have to?" Rebecca asked. "Frank's brothers are so annoying." She curled her top lip up disapprovingly.
"I don't care." Elise shrugged, rummaging through her purse to offer the phone to Tina. "...Oh crap."
"What?" Jessica asked, twirling her blond curly hair around a finger absent-mindedly.
Elise shut her eyes, biting her lip, furious at herself. "I left my phone at Scrooge's office." She mentally slapped herself. "I have to go buy a new one now," she muttered bitterly.
"Why can't you just go back and get it?" Jessica shrugged.
"Because the guy's Hitler's son reincarnated as a CEO or whatever the guy does." Elise frowned.
"...Hey guys..." Rebecca whispered, while taking a sip from her styrofoam cup of coffee, obviously trying to be casual.
"What?" Tina asked.
"Don't look, but that guy with the newspaper in the booth by the window has been watching us for, like, an hour." She kept the lid to her mouth, not actually tipping the cup.
Jessica's head turned sharply to the window, locating the man, glancing around the paper.
"I told you not to look!" Rebecca kicked Jessica under the table, saying it much louder than she wanted.
"Relax. Men like attention from women." She smiled, looking up. "You know, like me." She giggled, making her usual kind of joke.
Elise felt someone staring at her, making a cold spot on her back. Turning slowly, she glanced over her shoulder. The newspaper was up much higher than people actually read out of it, but she saw his sleeves and one of his shiny black shoes.
I swear, I must have bad karma or something. She grimaced.
"I'm going to go see what he looks like," Tina decided, probably to try and set one of them up with him. "Maybe he has a cell I can borrow."
"Oo! Me too!" Jessica agreed. "Did you know, you can always tell if a man's a creeper, because the good-looking ones don't have to be, and the ugly ones do."
"That's not shallow at all Jess." Elise raised her own drink to her mouth, saying the words with a sarcastic joke.
"I know right?" Jessica laughed.
If I didn't love them, I'd probably hate them. Elise rolled her eyes.
Maybe it's not him. She hoped.
Tina and Jessica slipped off the spinning, red, barstools they had at a raised table in the corner, walking with what they thought was a 'relaxed' step, they walked passed the man in the booth, and watched him from the other side.
Elise put a hand over her eyes, pretending she didn't know them when she saw Tina tap him on the shoulder, trying to start a conversation about...napkins? Are you serious?
The man's mumbled responses were enough to tell her either Scrooge had some way of cloning himself, or Mr. Smith had followed her to the diner to spy on her and her friends. "Son of a-" Elise began.
"Elise! Don't curse!" Rebecca hissed.
Elise rolled her eyes. Rebecca had always been the "good one".
"Hey, do you have a cell phone I can borrow?" Tina asked the man. "I needed to call my-"
"Ladies! Kindly shut your mouths and leave me alone!" the man yelled in a angry Scrooge-like way.
Elise swore under her breath. "Smith." She glared at the table. What did he want now?
"What a prig." Jessica frowned, coming back to the table.
"The guy's the Grinch whose shoes were too small for a baby and whose heart is non-existent. It was like talking to Hitler," Tina agreed.
Jessica, not used to be being ignored or disliked by men, huffed, her pride hurt. "He's probably gay."
Elise swore she heard a plastic, kind of evil cackle behind her, but when she turned, only saw the paper crinkle, blocking the face behind it. "Okay that's it," Elise muttered, sliding off her chair, and strutting to the booth.
She stood in front of him until he lowered the paper. His black glasses seemed to mock her with their glossiness. "Are you following me?" she demanded.
"Why ever would I wish to follow you, Miss Roberts? Humans are all the same kind of filthy beings anyway." Smith folded the paper.
Serious? What is this guy on?
Elise slipped in opposite the weirdo, wondering how long it took him to think up all the crap that came out of his mouth. "What do you want?" she asked, just so he would leave her alone when he finished the long monologue he would have surely prepared. Maybe then he'd go away and quite stalking her.
He looked at her with a certain thoughtful disgust, like she was an interesting piece of some unknown substance stunk to the bottom of his irritatingly shiny shoes. "Those three woman are the classic example of human's shallow lowliness." He nodded his head a slight, towards her table of confused friends.
Here we go again. She rolled her eyes. Does he ever give up?
"The small one is 'shy' and uncomfortable with other humans. She is overly, and annoyingly scared. A..." He looked down, trying to find the word. "Goody-goody, if you will. Her existence is centered on others, and will work herself out of being, just trying to get attention. Her purpose is education, but since she cannot accept herself, she will never accept what she cannot see. Then the other two," he gave hints of a smile, "are so caught up in themselves, they can't see straight. The blond especially. She is offended when no one cares about her. Her purpose is to be, as you females call it, pretty." He sneered at the word with some kind of humor. "The other, is so full-headed, she thinks she can control those around her." He put his elbows on the table, balling his hand around the other, shrugging with his eyebrows. "Pointless, Miss Roberts. All of them striving for some sort of purpose in a world derived of meaning, all of them trying desperately to invent some kind of meaning, some answer to the question they don't understand. Control over those who think they master it is far easier than any of you could fathom."
Elise,who'd gotten before Scrooge even started, was holding her head in her hand, blinking, and looking at him with a sloppy kind of laziness. "Are you done?"
"I could continue, but my point has been made. Good day, Miss Roberts." He began to leave.
"And you're the classic example of the most miserable person on the earth." She leaned back on the cushiony seat.
Smith paused, already standing. "Miserable? Have you not yet learned emotion is a trivial thing only applying to those who still believe their life is worth anything?"
"You're case of misery is so bad you can't even see it. You see faults in everyone and everything except yourself." She didn't smile this time.
Smith, curious, took his seat again, warming up to the argument. "I can see no fault in myself because I have no faults."
Elise blinked at him for three seconds, before breaking into hysteric laughter. "You prude." She laughed.
Smith clenched his fists with power that could break a human skull. She dared laugh?! His perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth were grinding against each other. She was going to die slowly.
"You are the most stuck-up person I've ever met." Elise's smirk returned to her thin face. "But I guess you can't be that bad...you really are a very nice person." She nodded, her brows getting her face serious. She thumbed her bottom lip, looking outside.
"What?" Smith nearly yelled. He wasn't that bad? Oh she was going to die very slowly...begging for death before he'd put her out of her misery.
"You're an organ donor. It's the only explanation I can think of that you don't have a heart." She smiled, waving a hand at him.
"And you don't have the muscle you call a brain in that empty head of yours," he replied coolly. "By mentioning my heart," he slurred the word sarcastically, "I am assuming you are referring to the fact I don't love. Love is an emotional thing. Pointless and pathetic."
"Emotions are what separates us from animals," she retorted.
"Your 'love' is a sad excuse for living. Look at yourself." He gestured towards her, his expression full of amusement.
Elise glanced down at herself, angry she'd obeyed, glared back up at him.
"Your 'love' is gone. You have no more purpose, Miss Roberts, and so cannot give a good excuse for living. Your life is worthless now that your precious 'love' is gone." He took great pleasure in her angry pain. "You talk about this 'love' that you can't keep together."
Elise didn't hear the rest. Her eyes stung, her head felt heavy, and her stomach ached. She saw him again...his cold lifeless body laying on the table, the nurses taking him to the morgue.
"My husband," she raised her head, her voice gruff from inner pain at the memory and her lips feeling dried and swollen, like she had already started crying. Her eyes flickered back to Smith, "was shot, you conceited douche."
She expected something in his demeanor to shift, an apology perhaps, but saw only blankness.
"He was being an idiot! He was on his way to meet some guy he met online, and was shot!" She had lost her poise, wondering how this monster could be so heartless.
Smith's curiosity perked... Perhaps...? "Really?" He didn't bother trying to make his tone sound sympathetic.
"Yes," she answered, hoping she could keep it together. "With two others. Some man and a younger woman I had never seen before in my life. They were all dead."
"What did they look like?"
Elise stared at him. "Why would you care?"
"Was the killer ever found?"
"No. I hired some people, but they couldn't find anything. No fingerprints, no DNA no-"
"What did they look like, the two with your husband?"
Elise didn't understand. "You're going to help me find the one who killed my husband?"
Smith smiled internally. "It's what I do, Miss Roberts. I'll need all the details you can give me."
"Uh...okay...I'll try." Did Scrooge just grow a heart, or is he just after the money?
"Did your husband ever do anything against the law?" His voice answered her internal question.
Nope, Scrooge is after the money. Elise concluded.
Elise looked away. "He hacked a few things," she said only a notch above a whisper. Looking up, she turned her head back to him. "I'm totally clean. I don't do that stuff," she defended.
"I wouldn't dream of accusing you, Miss Roberts." She's lying, Smith thought happily. A likely candidate for the rebels to unplug. Lovely. "About this person he met online. Did he have a name?"
"Some guy called...Orpheus I think it was." She shrugged.
"You mean Morpheus?"
"Yeah, that's it. You know him?" He and murderes probably have regular play-dates, she tried to amuse herself.
"He's a notorious cyber terrorist. We've been tracking him for years. He kills hackers." Agent Smith found it hard not to laugh when she gasped like that. She is definitely a possible candidate. It would be best to win her trust.
Elise looked shocked. That always worked on humans. Mention "terrorist" and they'd believe anything you say.
"Do you think this Morpheus person was the one who killed my husband?" Elise asked, feeling an excited and terrified thrill.
"It's very possible. What did the two with your husband look like?"
"Tall, black boots, both were wearing all leather and sunglasses even though it was the middle of the night." Elise looked down at her hands, recalling that awful night. It was a month before she had decided to leave the city...and here she was again...but maybe this time she could find who killed James. Maybe. And I need Scrooge to do it. That thought was bitter in her mind, but she wanted desperately to make the killer pay for killing James.
Smith suppressed a victorious grin with some difficulty. "What happened the day he died?"
"My husband and I worked for Microsoft, I still do, but at the time we were working on a program together." Elise tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, remembering, turning her eyes away from the emotionless face. "Some police officers came, and told him government men were waiting to talk to him downstairs. All I saw, since I wasn't allowed to go with him, was a shiny black car driving away with him in it."
"What kind of car?" Smith asked, already sure he knew.
"I think it was an Audi...a black Audi...does that matter?" She didn't know how that would apply to anything...not that she had ever been a detective.
That confirms it, doesn't it? Smith wanted to laugh with triumph.
"He called me when I got home, and said he was going to meet some guy with answers or something like that. Then he was dead."
"Thank you, Miss Roberts." Smith stood.
"Yeah." She nodded, smacking her mouth around the word to try and regain herself.
Perhaps it's fate I didn't kill her. It seems I can make use of her after all. I truly am the perfect Agent. Any other would be too dense to make a perfect plan like this. He smiled, turning, leaving the diner, and casually drove away...in his black Audi.
This chapter wasn't really funny...(devious smile) but just wait till the next one. I made it with an extra gallon of 'awkward'.