"What's that saying? If God's on our side, who the hell could be on
theirs?"
-- Private Reiben, 'Saving Private Ryan'
The coffee store had not changed at all since the two men had last been there, except for the colours of the polished wood which was reflecting the dying rays of the sun, slipping below the programmed skyline and casting it's veil of orange and red over the city that lay in the minds of sleeping men. They sat in their same seats, the table nearest to the door - one never knew when one would have to make a strategic exit - with the other chairs removed so nobody would bother to ask if they might sit with them. They did not want to talk to anybody, although both had, at one point or another, been approached by women of questionable intelligence to do just that, and they had politely refused at every chance, as they would refuse anybody. Except now, for the other thing which had changed in the small store was that there was a third chair which had been drawn up to their table, and another coffee accompanied the two which usually sat on the table, just as untouched as it's companions.
The third man, feeling distinctly out of place, took the cup into his hand, and took a drink of the bitter brew - the Matrix promptly informed his mind that it needed sugar, but nonetheless, the caffeine would take effect very soon. The calming of his nerves took effect instantly, though, which was a good thing, even if the effect was more from the sheer action of taking a sip than the beverage itself. The two men he had come to talk with had said very little, other than to buy him the coffee which he didn't want, and to tell him - certainly not offer, as gentlemen do - to sit. He sat. One of them was staring at him now, blank eyes boring into him from behind smokey black plastic, as he had been for the past half hour, and the other was staring out onto the street, his fingers resting idly on the saucer that had been supplied with his coffee. "I'm not sure what you expect me to do," he said, putting his drink carefully on it's saucer and trying not to make it clatter too much as he withdrew his shaking hand.
"We do not expect you to do anything, Mr Harris." The man who had been staring at him spoke, and though his jaw moved, the rest of his body remained perfectly still as if somebody had glued him there, or some great puppeteer had snipped him free of his strings and he was unsure of what to do without guidance. "My partner and I are reasonable men, here to offer a bargain as you know. Are you certain of what you would like in return for your cooperation?"
The third man nodded sharply. He knew exactly what he wanted, what he had prayed for any deity to grant him, and was now being offered by these shadows among men. "Kill Surge. Kill him, and you can have whatever you want."
The reply was instantaneous. "Access codes for the Zion mainframe."
While the third man may have thought the one who was staring out the window was not paying attention, this was far from the truth. His head snapped around to face the pair haggling beside him, a minuscule twitch in his lip before he spoke making him seem less direct than his associate. More like was scheming, or had something to hide. "You will give us the information, simply for killing Andrew Dalton?"
"I'm tired of this game." Pulling his trenchcoat comfortably into place, the foreigner pushed back his chair and stood, eyeing the one who had spoken to him last. "Bring me what I want - Surge's head - and you'll have your precious codes. Thankyou for the drink. Gentlemen," he tapped his fingers to his forehead as though tilting his hat, and departed the store without another word. The two who belonged at that table turned to each other, snapping into a quick-fire review of the events that had taken place according to their design.
"Treachery is a distinct human trait," Doe observed. "Many of them bow to it without fear of it's repercussions."
O'Brian nodded his head. "His companions will not let him live if they discover what he has agreed to between us."
"Revenge is another human trait."
"You do not believe that you are as capable of revenge as a human?"
"I am not human."
"No, you are not, though you practise deception, guile and under- handedness to achieve your means."
Doe took a moment to respond, the only one longer than a nanosecond as each Agent instantly knew what it was they wished to say. "They are useful traits, though human. Unlike other human properties, emotions; happiness, anger, hatred." He paused a second time, tapping his finger to make sure he had his partner's attention. "Mercy."
O'Brian gave the barest tilt of his head which Doe perceived as a nod. "Indeed. But we would not be in this position if I had not exercised mercy."
The second Agent quirked a brow upward, visible over the square of his glasses. "Elaborate."
"If I had not saved Dalton in the first place, Harris would not want him dead - and we would not have so powerful a bargaining tool."
"An interesting hypothesis. I doubt Smith will accept it as I do, however."
"Smith? What does he have to do with this?"
"He will be here when we have the Zion codes." Doe extricated himself from the table, pushing his coffee distastefully to arm's length. "He will not be so impressed with your theories on mercy, O'Brian."
Something akin to apprehension found itself articulated on O'Brian's expression, pale face turning a shade lighter at the mention of the one name every Agent knew better than their own... Smith. Meeting him would not be pleasant, as he had hard enough a time of explaining why he had saved Dalton in the first place. He, too, stood from the table, following his associate out to the immaculate black sedan parked outside of the coffee store, leaning against the passenger's door as he patiently waited for Doe to let him in. The Agent stood still as the door unlocked, letting the digital sun cast it's rays over his pixilated face and ignoring the curious glance Doe shot his way before slipping into the car. He followed the other man's lead, getting into the car and closing the door loudly beside him, fastening his safety belt from a mixture of habit and programming.
Finally, he added one more strange thing to the list of unusualness the pair of Agents had observed that day; he reached behind his ear and scratched at an itch which had developed there, obviously a glitch or a quirk of some kind in an obscure line of the code which made his being, stored on some long-forgotten chip of silicon somewhere in the bowels of the machine world which had once been Earth. Doe turned the ignition, the powerful engine thrumming into life, the sound bringing an unexpected smile to O'Brian's lips, reflecting on how much he simply enjoyed to hear that sound, as did some humans. The man in the driver's seat shook his head once, reversing the car onto the street and driving off, headed towards the community hall on the outskirts of the town. "I hate bingo," grumbled Doe.
***
None of the group that had assembled in the large black car behind the community hall in the parking lot were particularly comfortable, the most of them because there was one more person than they were used to, and the fourth because he didn't feel all that much like he belonged in there. Joule and Volt sat in the front seats; Joule with her arms draped over the headrest of her seat and Volt keeping his hands firmly on the wheel, humming to himself a comforting tune so that he wouldn't be quite so jittery if they needed to make a quick escape, even though he knew he would be just as skittish, regardless. Surge occupied the back seat, his hands held out in front of him before Spike, who was staring at a choice he had to make at that exact moment - he would never get that chance again, and he knew it. Fighting the urge to scratch the itch behind his ear, Spike put a quivering hand out and took the Red Pill, tucking it into his palm. The large man in front of him smiled, patting him gently on the shoulder. "Good choice," affirmed Surge, "Now, we've got to get you somewhere we can do something with that."
"But the Slave Auction!" Spike, hesitant, pointed his hand dumbly towards the bingo hall. "And Mrs Hall is going to want her robes back." Despite keeping company with three others in sinister - he was sixteen, sinister had no effect if he thought he would look cool in it - coats and jackets, Spike was still stuck in his Inquisitor costume, not looking the part at all with his glasses and frizzled hair.
Tapping Volt on the shoulder to start the car, Surge answered with a shrug. "I don't particularly want to spend the night with the lovely yet deranged Mrs Mulqueen. As soon as she had dragged me off that stage she'd pulled a credit card book filled with pictures of cats." Looking up at the source of a giggle, he frowned at Joule. "Anyway, you're not going to have to worry about those robes much longer, Spike," Joule giggled again, "And *not* because of her, unfortunately."
Somehow, Spike rather liked the idea of Joule being the one to dispose of his robes for him. "Oh," he murmured, a little disappointed. "So where are we going?"
Volt, shifting the transmission back into first and heading off down the street, tilted his head back slightly to answer. "We've got a, erm, little place on the other side of the town." They rounded the corner as he spoke, the image of Mrs Mulqueen running from the hall with a stack of photographs held above her head slipping from the rear vision mirror. "You'll get to meet Jack when we get there, you'll like Jack."
Spike's uncertainty about the absent member of the party was not at all helped by a short grunt from Surge, who pounded his fist into the leather seat he was sitting on, shifting his weight and feigning as though he was attempting to get comfortable. The young man shrugged, and did the same, sitting back into the deep, soft seat and trying to see around the seat in front of him to discover whether or not he knew the route they were taking, which didn't do him any good when he was distracted by Joule staring at him. Surge, too, seemed to be staring from the corner of Spike's vision, but not at him, rather at the fact that Joule was staring. The only person that wasn't staring was Volt, and that was because he was driving and if he started staring they might all end up in an awful mess and their trip would have been wasted, so Spike thought it a good thing to just keep quiet, letting Joule and Surge do their staring and not bothering Volt so he might start.
He was, by the end of the trip, feeling rather sick. The route that Volt had taken them on lead into the industrial area of Palmerston North - if the relatively small city could be said to have such a thing - and to an immense building which from the outside, reminded Spike of an aircraft hangar. Possibly because that's what it once was, but was no longer. Joule got out, pulling open the large steel roller doors so the car could rumble it's way into the building, the headlights blaring their white glow onto all and sundry. It had become dark, and as Joule slipped away from the shining lights, Spike imagined her simply disappearing into the darkness without a fuss; his chief concern at that moment was that these strange people might make him do the same. The simple lightbulbs hanging from the high ceiling flickered dimly as they began to warm up, and Volt cut the power to the engine, the sound of which died promptly, leaving only the sound of his own pulse in Spike's ears as Surge pulled open his door and instructed him to get out. He hadn't even noticed Surge leave the car. There wasn't an awful lot to look at - all he could see were four walls, probably a dusky grey in the rising moonlight, and the rolling steel door which had admitted the car to the hangar. "Where are we?" he asked, kicking aside a tiny stone on the poured concrete floor, smooth under his sneakers.
Joule and Volt had already disappeared, leaving Spike standing in front of Surge in the quiet. "This is our workshop, if you will. This is where we our most important work to do with the Matrix begins."
As his eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, Spike could make out the other two flitting excitedly around a morass of equipment, a few sophisticated-looking devices surrounded by tangles of wire and dusty, derelict technology. "Cool," he said, his breath rising in a thin plume of air before his face. Behind him he could hear a lighter's flint being struck to produce flame, and the sound of immense lungs drawing breath into them. Sure enough as he turned around, Surge had begun puffing away on a cigarette, one hand leaning on the trunk of the car as he stared out the roller door and into the street, the giant of a man acting as their smoking sentinel while Joule and Volt did whatever it was they were doing that concerned him. To Spike, Surge looked as though he might suddenly turn into the Cigarette Smoking Man from the 'X-Files'. He thought he looked damned cool.
Surge shifted onto his feet as a dark figure stepped into view across the doorway. His coat swirled around his legs in some unseen breeze, as an arm lifted up with fingers spread in a silent greeting - until, of course, he spoke. "Evening, folkies." Spike watched Surge pull the middle finger on the hand that was holding his cigarette, pointing it towards him, and started snickering loudly, which brought Jack's attention on him. "That's him, huh? He's Spike?"
"It's rude to talk about somebody in the third person when that person happens to be present, isn't it, Spike?" chided Surge, inhaling another breath of nicotine-laden air. He let it out at length, casting a veil of smoke into the space between he and Jack, who was already beginning to smoulder more violently than the lit end of the cigarette.
Starting to reply, Jack's words were cut off by the sound of a car gunning down the street towards the hangar, the sound of which was enough to make him fold his arms smugly, watching Surge's reaction. The other two of his crew looked up curiously towards the door without slowing in their work, while Spike began to scratch behind his ear. "I hope you don't mind," drawled Jack in his most obnoxious tone, dripping contempt like honey, "But I invited a couple of friends here. To officially welcome our little friend to the Matrix." The engine's noise switched suddenly to the sound of tyres screeching protest against the street as they were slewn into a new direction, the heavy vehicle which rested on them coming to a stop with it's headlights pointed dead centre into the doorway, making it impossible for Spike to see. He threw up one hand defensively, Joule, Volt and Jack all forgotten as he watched Surge, calm as ever, simply take another breath and reach into his greatcoat, taking into his other hand... A pistol?! Oblivious to the world around him which had disappeared into blinding white, Spike watched in a daze as Surge dropped his cigarette to the ground, crushing it under the heel of his boot, and used his freed hand to cock the weapon.
The reason why became apparent quickly. The doors on the invading car cracked open simultaneously, thrown open to full length to cast a wide shadow over Spike, finally giving him his sight back. As the two dark men in the black suits climbed from the vehicle, synchronised perfectly, he suddenly wished he wasn't able to see, one of them turning his view onto Spike - or so Spike guessed, the man's eyes totally hidden under black glasses like Surge's, only square. The other man turned to the one staring at him, lifting his hand towards Surge. "That is the one." Surge laid his hand over Spike's chest softly, stepping foward from the trunk of the Resistance vehicle and carefully maneuvering the young man they all hoped was The One behind himself defensively.
Jack grinned maniacally in the blistering white light around him. "Agents, you have your target. Kill that man!"
-- Private Reiben, 'Saving Private Ryan'
The coffee store had not changed at all since the two men had last been there, except for the colours of the polished wood which was reflecting the dying rays of the sun, slipping below the programmed skyline and casting it's veil of orange and red over the city that lay in the minds of sleeping men. They sat in their same seats, the table nearest to the door - one never knew when one would have to make a strategic exit - with the other chairs removed so nobody would bother to ask if they might sit with them. They did not want to talk to anybody, although both had, at one point or another, been approached by women of questionable intelligence to do just that, and they had politely refused at every chance, as they would refuse anybody. Except now, for the other thing which had changed in the small store was that there was a third chair which had been drawn up to their table, and another coffee accompanied the two which usually sat on the table, just as untouched as it's companions.
The third man, feeling distinctly out of place, took the cup into his hand, and took a drink of the bitter brew - the Matrix promptly informed his mind that it needed sugar, but nonetheless, the caffeine would take effect very soon. The calming of his nerves took effect instantly, though, which was a good thing, even if the effect was more from the sheer action of taking a sip than the beverage itself. The two men he had come to talk with had said very little, other than to buy him the coffee which he didn't want, and to tell him - certainly not offer, as gentlemen do - to sit. He sat. One of them was staring at him now, blank eyes boring into him from behind smokey black plastic, as he had been for the past half hour, and the other was staring out onto the street, his fingers resting idly on the saucer that had been supplied with his coffee. "I'm not sure what you expect me to do," he said, putting his drink carefully on it's saucer and trying not to make it clatter too much as he withdrew his shaking hand.
"We do not expect you to do anything, Mr Harris." The man who had been staring at him spoke, and though his jaw moved, the rest of his body remained perfectly still as if somebody had glued him there, or some great puppeteer had snipped him free of his strings and he was unsure of what to do without guidance. "My partner and I are reasonable men, here to offer a bargain as you know. Are you certain of what you would like in return for your cooperation?"
The third man nodded sharply. He knew exactly what he wanted, what he had prayed for any deity to grant him, and was now being offered by these shadows among men. "Kill Surge. Kill him, and you can have whatever you want."
The reply was instantaneous. "Access codes for the Zion mainframe."
While the third man may have thought the one who was staring out the window was not paying attention, this was far from the truth. His head snapped around to face the pair haggling beside him, a minuscule twitch in his lip before he spoke making him seem less direct than his associate. More like was scheming, or had something to hide. "You will give us the information, simply for killing Andrew Dalton?"
"I'm tired of this game." Pulling his trenchcoat comfortably into place, the foreigner pushed back his chair and stood, eyeing the one who had spoken to him last. "Bring me what I want - Surge's head - and you'll have your precious codes. Thankyou for the drink. Gentlemen," he tapped his fingers to his forehead as though tilting his hat, and departed the store without another word. The two who belonged at that table turned to each other, snapping into a quick-fire review of the events that had taken place according to their design.
"Treachery is a distinct human trait," Doe observed. "Many of them bow to it without fear of it's repercussions."
O'Brian nodded his head. "His companions will not let him live if they discover what he has agreed to between us."
"Revenge is another human trait."
"You do not believe that you are as capable of revenge as a human?"
"I am not human."
"No, you are not, though you practise deception, guile and under- handedness to achieve your means."
Doe took a moment to respond, the only one longer than a nanosecond as each Agent instantly knew what it was they wished to say. "They are useful traits, though human. Unlike other human properties, emotions; happiness, anger, hatred." He paused a second time, tapping his finger to make sure he had his partner's attention. "Mercy."
O'Brian gave the barest tilt of his head which Doe perceived as a nod. "Indeed. But we would not be in this position if I had not exercised mercy."
The second Agent quirked a brow upward, visible over the square of his glasses. "Elaborate."
"If I had not saved Dalton in the first place, Harris would not want him dead - and we would not have so powerful a bargaining tool."
"An interesting hypothesis. I doubt Smith will accept it as I do, however."
"Smith? What does he have to do with this?"
"He will be here when we have the Zion codes." Doe extricated himself from the table, pushing his coffee distastefully to arm's length. "He will not be so impressed with your theories on mercy, O'Brian."
Something akin to apprehension found itself articulated on O'Brian's expression, pale face turning a shade lighter at the mention of the one name every Agent knew better than their own... Smith. Meeting him would not be pleasant, as he had hard enough a time of explaining why he had saved Dalton in the first place. He, too, stood from the table, following his associate out to the immaculate black sedan parked outside of the coffee store, leaning against the passenger's door as he patiently waited for Doe to let him in. The Agent stood still as the door unlocked, letting the digital sun cast it's rays over his pixilated face and ignoring the curious glance Doe shot his way before slipping into the car. He followed the other man's lead, getting into the car and closing the door loudly beside him, fastening his safety belt from a mixture of habit and programming.
Finally, he added one more strange thing to the list of unusualness the pair of Agents had observed that day; he reached behind his ear and scratched at an itch which had developed there, obviously a glitch or a quirk of some kind in an obscure line of the code which made his being, stored on some long-forgotten chip of silicon somewhere in the bowels of the machine world which had once been Earth. Doe turned the ignition, the powerful engine thrumming into life, the sound bringing an unexpected smile to O'Brian's lips, reflecting on how much he simply enjoyed to hear that sound, as did some humans. The man in the driver's seat shook his head once, reversing the car onto the street and driving off, headed towards the community hall on the outskirts of the town. "I hate bingo," grumbled Doe.
***
None of the group that had assembled in the large black car behind the community hall in the parking lot were particularly comfortable, the most of them because there was one more person than they were used to, and the fourth because he didn't feel all that much like he belonged in there. Joule and Volt sat in the front seats; Joule with her arms draped over the headrest of her seat and Volt keeping his hands firmly on the wheel, humming to himself a comforting tune so that he wouldn't be quite so jittery if they needed to make a quick escape, even though he knew he would be just as skittish, regardless. Surge occupied the back seat, his hands held out in front of him before Spike, who was staring at a choice he had to make at that exact moment - he would never get that chance again, and he knew it. Fighting the urge to scratch the itch behind his ear, Spike put a quivering hand out and took the Red Pill, tucking it into his palm. The large man in front of him smiled, patting him gently on the shoulder. "Good choice," affirmed Surge, "Now, we've got to get you somewhere we can do something with that."
"But the Slave Auction!" Spike, hesitant, pointed his hand dumbly towards the bingo hall. "And Mrs Hall is going to want her robes back." Despite keeping company with three others in sinister - he was sixteen, sinister had no effect if he thought he would look cool in it - coats and jackets, Spike was still stuck in his Inquisitor costume, not looking the part at all with his glasses and frizzled hair.
Tapping Volt on the shoulder to start the car, Surge answered with a shrug. "I don't particularly want to spend the night with the lovely yet deranged Mrs Mulqueen. As soon as she had dragged me off that stage she'd pulled a credit card book filled with pictures of cats." Looking up at the source of a giggle, he frowned at Joule. "Anyway, you're not going to have to worry about those robes much longer, Spike," Joule giggled again, "And *not* because of her, unfortunately."
Somehow, Spike rather liked the idea of Joule being the one to dispose of his robes for him. "Oh," he murmured, a little disappointed. "So where are we going?"
Volt, shifting the transmission back into first and heading off down the street, tilted his head back slightly to answer. "We've got a, erm, little place on the other side of the town." They rounded the corner as he spoke, the image of Mrs Mulqueen running from the hall with a stack of photographs held above her head slipping from the rear vision mirror. "You'll get to meet Jack when we get there, you'll like Jack."
Spike's uncertainty about the absent member of the party was not at all helped by a short grunt from Surge, who pounded his fist into the leather seat he was sitting on, shifting his weight and feigning as though he was attempting to get comfortable. The young man shrugged, and did the same, sitting back into the deep, soft seat and trying to see around the seat in front of him to discover whether or not he knew the route they were taking, which didn't do him any good when he was distracted by Joule staring at him. Surge, too, seemed to be staring from the corner of Spike's vision, but not at him, rather at the fact that Joule was staring. The only person that wasn't staring was Volt, and that was because he was driving and if he started staring they might all end up in an awful mess and their trip would have been wasted, so Spike thought it a good thing to just keep quiet, letting Joule and Surge do their staring and not bothering Volt so he might start.
He was, by the end of the trip, feeling rather sick. The route that Volt had taken them on lead into the industrial area of Palmerston North - if the relatively small city could be said to have such a thing - and to an immense building which from the outside, reminded Spike of an aircraft hangar. Possibly because that's what it once was, but was no longer. Joule got out, pulling open the large steel roller doors so the car could rumble it's way into the building, the headlights blaring their white glow onto all and sundry. It had become dark, and as Joule slipped away from the shining lights, Spike imagined her simply disappearing into the darkness without a fuss; his chief concern at that moment was that these strange people might make him do the same. The simple lightbulbs hanging from the high ceiling flickered dimly as they began to warm up, and Volt cut the power to the engine, the sound of which died promptly, leaving only the sound of his own pulse in Spike's ears as Surge pulled open his door and instructed him to get out. He hadn't even noticed Surge leave the car. There wasn't an awful lot to look at - all he could see were four walls, probably a dusky grey in the rising moonlight, and the rolling steel door which had admitted the car to the hangar. "Where are we?" he asked, kicking aside a tiny stone on the poured concrete floor, smooth under his sneakers.
Joule and Volt had already disappeared, leaving Spike standing in front of Surge in the quiet. "This is our workshop, if you will. This is where we our most important work to do with the Matrix begins."
As his eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, Spike could make out the other two flitting excitedly around a morass of equipment, a few sophisticated-looking devices surrounded by tangles of wire and dusty, derelict technology. "Cool," he said, his breath rising in a thin plume of air before his face. Behind him he could hear a lighter's flint being struck to produce flame, and the sound of immense lungs drawing breath into them. Sure enough as he turned around, Surge had begun puffing away on a cigarette, one hand leaning on the trunk of the car as he stared out the roller door and into the street, the giant of a man acting as their smoking sentinel while Joule and Volt did whatever it was they were doing that concerned him. To Spike, Surge looked as though he might suddenly turn into the Cigarette Smoking Man from the 'X-Files'. He thought he looked damned cool.
Surge shifted onto his feet as a dark figure stepped into view across the doorway. His coat swirled around his legs in some unseen breeze, as an arm lifted up with fingers spread in a silent greeting - until, of course, he spoke. "Evening, folkies." Spike watched Surge pull the middle finger on the hand that was holding his cigarette, pointing it towards him, and started snickering loudly, which brought Jack's attention on him. "That's him, huh? He's Spike?"
"It's rude to talk about somebody in the third person when that person happens to be present, isn't it, Spike?" chided Surge, inhaling another breath of nicotine-laden air. He let it out at length, casting a veil of smoke into the space between he and Jack, who was already beginning to smoulder more violently than the lit end of the cigarette.
Starting to reply, Jack's words were cut off by the sound of a car gunning down the street towards the hangar, the sound of which was enough to make him fold his arms smugly, watching Surge's reaction. The other two of his crew looked up curiously towards the door without slowing in their work, while Spike began to scratch behind his ear. "I hope you don't mind," drawled Jack in his most obnoxious tone, dripping contempt like honey, "But I invited a couple of friends here. To officially welcome our little friend to the Matrix." The engine's noise switched suddenly to the sound of tyres screeching protest against the street as they were slewn into a new direction, the heavy vehicle which rested on them coming to a stop with it's headlights pointed dead centre into the doorway, making it impossible for Spike to see. He threw up one hand defensively, Joule, Volt and Jack all forgotten as he watched Surge, calm as ever, simply take another breath and reach into his greatcoat, taking into his other hand... A pistol?! Oblivious to the world around him which had disappeared into blinding white, Spike watched in a daze as Surge dropped his cigarette to the ground, crushing it under the heel of his boot, and used his freed hand to cock the weapon.
The reason why became apparent quickly. The doors on the invading car cracked open simultaneously, thrown open to full length to cast a wide shadow over Spike, finally giving him his sight back. As the two dark men in the black suits climbed from the vehicle, synchronised perfectly, he suddenly wished he wasn't able to see, one of them turning his view onto Spike - or so Spike guessed, the man's eyes totally hidden under black glasses like Surge's, only square. The other man turned to the one staring at him, lifting his hand towards Surge. "That is the one." Surge laid his hand over Spike's chest softly, stepping foward from the trunk of the Resistance vehicle and carefully maneuvering the young man they all hoped was The One behind himself defensively.
Jack grinned maniacally in the blistering white light around him. "Agents, you have your target. Kill that man!"
