Chapter Three: GhostFlower
The first order of business Smith concerned himself with was obtaining a hotel room. The whiskey fumes that surrounded him made the hotel doorman frown, but since (mercifully) he was wearing his usual perfectly respectable black suit and tie, he let him inside and tipped his hat when Smith gave him a twenty dollar bill on the way back out. It was more than most government hacks would have afforded him.
Next, he visited a several pawn shops and obtained a laptop computer and small toolkit that suited his requirements enough to justify spending almost all of the rest of the cash Faraday had given him. There were things he could do to it to over-clock the wretchedly slow processor back at the hotel room; it was the depressingly slow internet connection the hotel provided that would hinder him. It would remain to be seen whether or not that could be remedied as well.
After leaving the pawnshop, it suddenly came to him with great frustration that he was hungry again. Resigning himself to the inevitable, he entered a McDonald's and surprised the clerk by actually asking for their leaflet listing the nutritional information of each menu item.
She had never heard of it, and the manager had to be roused. Giving it to Smith with one of those small, bemused smiles that spoke of the quiet contempt he had for those who actually ate the food there, much less concerned themselves with whatever nutrition might be gleaned from it, he took his break and Smith made his choices from it without comment.
As he exited, holding his bag with plain hamburger and chef salad in it in one hand and his diet soda in the other, purchases slung over one shoulder, two men with their hands in their voluminous coat pockets brushed past him and entered the restaurant. Smith was nothing if not attentive to detail, and their attitude suddenly raised many red flags in the vast database entries of experiences collected in dealing with the rebellious and disaffected element of the Matrix.
He stopped, and considered what to do. When the scream of the clerk inside came, he had already decided to act. Morosely, he noted that Faraday had not included his Desert Eagle when he brought him here, and added that to the list of grievances he had against the grinning freak. Then he walked back inside.
One of the men was standing just inside the door as lookout, but unfortunately for him he was not doing a very good job. He was paying attention to the screaming clerk with the other's pistol held against her head when Smith walked in and tossed his diet coke in his face. The man brought his shotgun up in surprise, but he was panicking in his nervousness and squeezed the trigger far too soon. The glass window behind and to the right of Smith shattered, and in the next moment, so did the assailant's jaw as Smith dropped his burger and salad, reached over, grabbed the shotgun with both hands, and with lethal, inhuman speed and strength, wrenched it around and cracked the butt end of the shotgun in his face.
The man crumpled at his feet with a sickening, gurgling scream, and Smith was already turning to the other gunman as he noticed what was happening behind him and switched his aim with an outraged howl to Smith. But he was far too slow. Smith had the modified shotgun already in place and with perfect aim he gave the man both barrels in the chest. Blood exploded onto the pristine white counter as the man's innards exited his back, and the girl shrieked again helplessly. Reflexively, the already dead assailant's finger tightened once, then twice on the trigger, and Smith felt the weight of two 9mm caliber slugs slam into his left shoulder and exit into the glass door behind him. It shattered, and the shoulder strap of the laptop disintegrated along with a good portion of his shirt and suit jacket. The device crashed to the floor, and Smith growled in irritation.
He never stopped to wonder why he was still so much faster, stronger, and more agile than the average human outside of the Matrix. The girl at the counter stared at him, gape mouthed in astonishment though, as he ignored his wound and picked it back up. Not a single droplet of blood had marred her perfectly starched blue uniform shirt. Satisfied with his perfect aim, he looked down at the spilled salad and hamburger next to the now unconscious felon and discarded the idea of salvaging them. He thought quickly.
"Does your manager have a jacket," he asked the girl, who glanced once at the two men on the floor and then back at him, unable to process the seeming non sequitur in her shock.
"Wh-wha?"
Smith sighed and took another fraction of an instant to consult his memory.
"Bring me Mr. Sullivan's coat. Do it now," he said firmly but not harshly. He was not the terrorist here.
She blinked, and for a moment Smith was uncertain as to whether he would have to escalate the urgency of his request by threatening her in order to break through the haze of shock he saw in her eyes. When she nodded and rushed back into the coatroom to do his bidding, he could not explain to himself exactly why he was grateful he did not need to consider that line of thinking any further. Instead of concentrating on it he bent down and searched the two men.
As the girl came back and handed over the long beige raincoat, he pocketed the six stolen credit cards along with the two dollars and thirty two cents and sixteen shotgun shells he had found. Turning up his nose at the now crumpled, bloodstained joint of marijuana and the cheaply made pistol that had nevertheless managed to damage him, he slung the shotgun over the unwounded shoulder by its strap and donned the raincoat. A decent fit, as he had known it would be.
He looked back at the girl. She was watching him, in curiosity now, the fish-eyed shock fading from her eyes. It never ceased to amaze him just how quickly some humans could adapt to their environment when they chose. He wondered if she would take the money from the cash register herself after he had gone.
"Wait exactly five minutes after I have gone. Then call the police," he said, and turned to go.
Her soft voice stopped him. "They used to work here you know. About a month ago Mr. Sullivan fired them 'cause he caught them smoking joints out back on their break. They were never mean to me though. Dev even gave me a hug once 'cause I told him my grandpa got cancer. Why'd they do it?" she asked, and her tone was both angry and grieved now. "I think he would really have killed me."
"Don't worry," he called over his shoulder as he pulled the remains of the steel frame door towards him and walked outside. "They won't make you clean up the mess."
Gritting his teeth, he continued out the door without looking back. He had absolutely no desire to look at the expression on her face.
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Shotgun concealed under his newly acquired coat, he went into a department store several blocks away and used one of the credit cards to buy himself a new set of clothes and a much more appropriate trench-coat to go over them. He used the same card at the drugstore on the corner to buy a first-aid kit, then dropped the card in the gutter and walked back to the hotel.
Once secured in his room, he made an attempt to disinfect and bandage his wound, but even with his flexibility found it difficult to complete the task adequately. In disgust he abandoned the effort and focused his energy on making the modifications to the laptop and Internet connection that he would require.
It seemed he needed more assistance than he originally thought.
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Mariko studied the watercolor before putting adding a touch of pink to the roses. The painting of the garden flowers was coming along nicely, she thought, despite her lack of true talent. Her work was competent, if not inspired, and she hoped that it would convey to someone else the same sense of peace she had obtained by meditating there. If not, at least the colors were pretty, and painting allowed her to find that peace in a different way through self-expression.
It was the only true medium of self-expression she had ever been allowed in her brother's household, and she continued it here in her strange new life despite the incredible new world of freedom she now had laid before her. Too much freedom, she reflected, was not good for a soul that had yet to define its own identity within its scope. Zarathus had been kind enough to give her some meaningful labor to assuage this need for guidance. She hoped in turn that she was useful to him.
Setting the paintbrush aside, she checked what was happening in the chat room. It had been a quiet night tonight, which was unusual, given the nature of the meeting place. Her duties as its monitor could be punctuated with the continuation of her painting without losing track of things, and she was in a very contented frame of mind. It seemed she liked to keep busy after all, and soon the work she contented herself with now would not be enough. She had healed, and the ghost was starting to believe there might be life after all worth exploring again.
But now something had changed. There was a new visitor, and although not everyone who visited this virtual meeting hall was led to exactly to what they sought, it was her duty to monitor them as they came in went.
In case anything of importance occurred.
In case Zarathus should take interest.
Half an hour later Mariko Yashida, also known as GhostFlower, was on her way to meet the one who called himself Shade.
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Smith sipped his glass of water and pondered on the efficacy of the antacid he had taken an hour ago. His earlier hunger was gone, and it did not seem to be having much effect on the hotdog and extra onions he had eaten that afternoon. He wondered if perhaps the information in the corporate databases had been incorrect. Rolaids should be more effective than Tums, since the amounts of calcium and magnesium carbonate were greater per tablet. Of course, his acute indigestion was probably increased by the fact that he had never eaten before and had included straight Kentucky Bourbon in the hotdog, onion, and ketchup mix.
It probably had little to do with the stress of his situation. Stress as a cause of indigestion and acid production had been proven to be much less of a factor in such cases as the common practice of consuming caffeinated products and over-eating in such times of stress.
Needless to say, he saw no reason to actually buy any of the food being sold in the deli. A cup of water had sufficed in this instance as cover while he waited for GhostFlower to make her appearance. He looked down at his clothes and was satisfied they were not out of the ordinary in this neighborhood: blue button down shirt left open at the collar; grey slacks; black leather belt; grey trench-coat.
The modified shotgun lay against his side underneath the coat: it seemed to him a lesser hazard than the laptop computer he had left back at the hotel room. After the incident at the McDonald's, he considered it his most practical accessory.
Casually he probed the wound in his shoulder, the shirt and coat concealing the torn flesh. It was starting to bleed again but it was already healing, he knew: an unexpected bonus this strange new flesh machine had provided him. Smith studied the rate of tissue repair and pondered the implications.
To his right and at the rear of the establishment, a toilet flushed in the restroom and a young woman emerged. Smith was waiting: he had already heard the small noises associated with her climbing in through the window and deduced that it must be his contact. The exercise seemed pointless to him, because if indeed he was being monitored they would no doubt have previously noted any and all exits to the deli. They would have seen who was coming to meet him. It also had the possibility of arousing the curiosity of the clerk, who was keeping a casual eye on the patrons who came in.
Smith himself preferred entering through the front door of places whenever possible.
GhostFlower, as she referred to herself, moved past him with a brief glance and a nod and went to the counter. Smith noticed the clerk's obvious surprise with grim satisfaction and re-evaluated his decision to trust anyone who called themselves by such a repugnantly sentimental-sounding alias.
"Ah..I would like a turkey sandwich please, on a Kaiser roll. Lettuce, tomato, mustard please. Not the spicy one, the honey mustard." Smith listened to her voice and catalogued it. Despite her facility with the language, there were intonations suggesting Japanese origin, which coincided with her appearance. A lean, fit woman of average height, hair cut asymmetrically to highlight almond-shaped eyes already made large by the shape of her delicate, heart-shaped face. If you were not careful, you would miss the stubborn tilt of chin that indicated will and determination. In her graceful, self-effacing movements, she was expert in hiding it. But it was there, along with the two Glock pistols secured around her waist, hidden by her own long black trench-coat from the eyes of the clerk and other patrons but not from Smith.
"Have you tried the knishes here?" She turned slightly, addressing Smith.
"No."
"Oh I haven't either, I was wondering if they were any good. I guess I will just have to buy one and see. Do you like knishes?"
"I've never tried one."
"Oh my goodness what a deprivation. Please heat one of the knishes up for me," she asked the clerk, and a few moments later sat down across from Smith. He looked up from his water, studying her expressionlessly. This was becoming needlessly complicated.
Quickly she cut the potato filled pastry in half and slid part of it over to him on a paper napkin. Smiling, she took a bite of her half and nodded.
"Mmmm it is good after all. Here now you have to try it, you can't come to a New York kosher deli and not have a knish," she avowed, speaking around the mouthful.
"I see. Has that new maxim replaced the old one about taking food from strangers?"
She chuckled and shook her head. "But you didn't get that from a stranger, it was made behind the deli counter. Oh well, if you don't try you're missing out on something special." GhostFlower took another bite of her knish and got up. After paying for her sandwich, she left without another word, and Smith picked up the knish. Underneath, he could clearly see some directions and an address were written on the napkin in blue ink. He sighed, tucked the grease-spotted napkin into his pocket, and bit into the pastry. This was all so very inefficient.
After five minutes and 23 seconds, Smith got up and walked out. Chewing on another Rolaids tablet, he made his way down the sidewalk and followed the directions to what looked like a run down but well-maintained tenement building. He stood out on the step as it began to rain until the security door unlatched, and was briefly comforted and amazed by the falling droplets.
Rain had always been the only thing that was remotely beautiful to him in the Matrix. The only thing that could be considered real in any sense of the word in that illusory hell.
Opening the door, he went upstairs. A door opened as he reached the third floor, and GhostFlower beckoned him into the apartment behind her.
"Please be seated, Shade," she said, and closed the door behind him. The special lock on it required a key card, he noted, and again he reflected that this place was quite secure and well-maintained for the neighborhood.
Obediently, he sat down on the couch in the living room and waited for her to follow. After a moment she sat down across from him. She wore the Glocks openly now, having discarded her trench-coat, but she was alone in the apartment as far as he could tell. If she became a problem it would be easy to resolve. He had already had occasion to prove the competency of his physical reactions once this evening. Even wounded he was sure he was up to the task if the situation presented itself.
"Now, perhaps you could be more explicit. We know the name of the person you mentioned, this Russell Faraday. I can tell you he is a demon that is very powerful, and that if he has taken an interest in you it is very bad."
"A demon. What kind of human superstitious nonsense is this? I thought you would be able to assist me."
"Why don't you explain what happened with him, and I will tell you what we know of him. We will do our best to assist you, I assure you."
"Not if you're going to insist on feeding me some kind of mystical human delusion as an explanation. I need to know what he is, not whatever myths you have created in your own mind to accept the unknown."
"Shade, it is up to you to believe whatever I tell you. But wouldn't you rather know what it is before dismissing it as irrelevant? Besides." she gestured to the window and the rain outside, "Whether you accept the explanation or not, is there really someplace else you have to go? It did not seem so to me when we spoke earlier. But you are welcome here in this safe-house whether you choose to believe what we tell you or not.
"If you wish to go you certainly may. I do not hold you here. But I think at least you should wait until you have spoken with Zarathus."
Smith regarded her for a long moment, his glance following her gesture then back to her face.
"He is coming, then?"
"Yes," she replied, nodding once. "He said he would be here shortly."
"Very well. But I think I know already what you are going to say. Your misplaced belief in demons and the occult skews your understanding of the situation."
"Perhaps," GhostFlower said mildly, "It would assist us both in understanding if you were to explain the situation more fully."
Smith studied her, annoyed, then shrugged. "I have until midnight tomorrow night to declare that I will serve this Russell Faraday. According to him it is all I must do in order to keep this.body.I have acquired. He claims he gave it to me, a ridiculous and nonsensical statement which I do not accept. However he seems quite determined to prove this to me by performing tricks and deceptions which I have been unable to counter. In short, he purports to hold me hostage to myself. I do not know what his true intentions are, but it will not succeed."
GhostFlower nodded thoughtfully, and then asked "Why not?"
"Because my orders, the only orders I have ever taken or will take, come from those that created me. I am not like you." His tone was rich with contempt and scorn, and the strength of the emotion confused GhostFlower.
"You say that as if you hated me. You do not even know me, or the person I take orders from," she said slowly.
"Why do humans insist on taking things personally? I was not speaking of you as an individual, but as a species. Humans shift their loyalties based on resources to be obtained and allow their emotions to justify their actions. My loyalty to those who created me is unquestionable because I do not allow my own emotions to get the better of me. I am in control and he.is not.
"I am a machine. I will not do service for some being that has presumed to set himself above us. I do not know how exactly he accomplished this deed, of taking me out of the Matrix and inserting my programming into a human-like body, but it will not gain him what he thinks to achieve. Faraday cannot manipulate me as he believes."
GhostFlower mulled this over, her almond eyes studying him with concealed astonishment even his practiced skills of observation had trouble deciphering. This was a woman trained to mask her feelings, certainly. That gained her an increment of respect.
"What is the Matrix? And why were you in it?" she asked finally.
"The Matrix is not something easily explained to a human being. Their primitive cerebrum must experience it firsthand in order to comprehend it, and even then they do not appreciate its scope fully. If I were to explain it to you I doubt you would believe it."
"Can you show me, then?"
"I cannot. This place does not seem to have any equivalent, despite the primitive, ragtag attempt the population has made at creating a virtual network. It is far more complex and sophisticated than anything your mind has a reference for."
"You seem so certain. How am I to understand, then?"
Smith continued, seeming not to hear her. "It is a zoo, a place for the minds of human beings to wander through in as their bodies sleep, producing electrical energy for the machines to use. It is chaos brought into order only through strict control and management of the worst of human depredations so they do not damage themselves so much they are of no use to us. I was one of those who enforced that control. I was an agent." He stopped here, and frowned. Why use the past tense? He was still an Agent.wasn't he?
"I see. So then, if you considered humans creatures to be managed and below you.why did you seek out Zarathus? You sound as if you despise all of us, and well, Zarathus' reputation is hardly one of keeping order and peace in any society, much less one like the one you describe."
"I did not seek him out specifically. As I said I had little understanding of this place when I first came here. I learned quickly certain facts about who humans who find themselves in positions of desperation here contact in an emergency.when there is no other choice."
"And so you found out Zarathus' name, and spoke with me over the Internet. And you say this was only a few hours ago? Amazing for you to discover so much in so short a time. Either that or his name is becoming even more wide-spread than we thought. Tell me, what else were you doing in this time?"
Smith chuckled sardonically. "You mean besides being shot at and stopping a robbery in progress? Why I suppose I was procuring suitable clothing and a laptop computer from a local department store as well as finding a hotel room."
GhostFlower raised one delicate eyebrow. "Stopping a robbery and being shot at? Is that the reason you have blood seeping through your shirt?"
She was far too observant, he noted, looking down at his shoulder. His coat should have hidden the wound enough for her to overlook it. Certainly none of the other humans he had encountered had noticed it. But then, there seemed to be blood leaking out of the impromptu bandage he had made underneath his shirt again. It would have to be dealt with soon.
"Yes."
"Is the wound one of the reasons you called for assistance? I have training in that area and supplies here if you'll let me look at it."
It was one of the reasons and he didn't want her looking at it, but he also didn't want to admit either of those things. It was important to him to be self-sufficient within or without the Matrix and under any circumstances. But he could recognize where self-sufficiency also paradoxically required knowing when and who to ask for help when it was needed. This conflict had already been settled, he told himself, and was further irritated by his mind's seeming insistence on worrying at processes that didn't require further analysis. He took a fraction of an instant to reconsider it all, too small for anyone but him to notice and be annoyed by it, to answer her.
"Yes."
GhostFlower got up and went into the bathroom, retrieving the impressive kit of supplies that was kept in the safe-house for such occasions. Shade was still sitting there, his coat and shirt still on, a faraway expression in his eyes, and she wondered if she could have missed earlier signs of shock. With a frown, she set the things down beside him.
"Shade? It will be necessary for you to remove your coat and shirt in order for me to treat you."
Shade blinked, then nodded and began doing so. He had been thinking of much less practical things.
"This changes nothing," he said almost softly. "You still revolt me no matter how much I am already infected with you."
GhostFlower stopped and stared at him, completely taken aback with the menace and coldness in his tone. It was far more intense than the detached contempt with which he had declared his superiority earlier. However, it was mixed with something else of the opposite nature, and the contradiction made her consider carefully her response. She had been about to clean his wound so she could see it, but her hands were paused a few inches away from the bloody mess. For not the first time that night, she wished that Zarathus would arrive soon.
"Will you allow me to touch you?" She asked, and without knowing why precisely. It turned out to be the right thing to do.
He was looking at her now, the utter contempt and loathing in eyes shocked her until she realized it was probably for himself as well as her. Then she felt a deep sympathy. She knew what it was to loathe oneself, even if she didn't quite understand his reasons for doing so, she knew her own and was grateful when she stopped seeing that own expression in her eyes every morning as she looked in the mirror. His look faded as she gazed back, waiting, the emotions replaced quite suddenly by machine practicality and emotionlessness.
"Yes," he replied tersely, and she began her work.
"How interesting," GhostFlower said a few moments later. "The blood was already stopping. It appears to me your healing is accelerated beyond normal humans'. And there are no bullets lodged in your wound as far as I can tell."
"They exited the flesh on the other side."
"Yes, I can see that now. Will you tell me what happened?"
"As I said, I halted a robbery taking place at a McDonald's. They had waited until I walked out of the establishment with my food and then held the clerk at gunpoint. I re-entered the restaurant when I heard her scream."
"Wait, you heard her scream after you had left and were already out on a crowded sidewalk?" GhostFlower interrupted.
He nodded, slightly impatient to finish his account. He wasn't sure, but he thought the pain of her ministrations was making him irritable. Smith wished he had merely allowed his flesh to heal, however he was well aware of the dreadful infections that could occur if the wound was not treated. He had no desire to acquire gangrene or blood poisoning along with his other 'infections'.
"Yes, it was perfectly audible."
"Why did you go back?"
"That is a foolish question. If humans scream with the intensity she exhibited there is a clear and present danger to their existence unless they are victims of some kind of emotional disbalance. When I observed her behavior prior to the confrontation she did not seem to be insane or easily disturbed." But afterwards she would be, he thought and cursed the nameless girl again. She probably took the money from the register for herself after I left, he contradicted the renegade thought with satisfaction.
"That was an interesting observation to make after being in her company for what, a few minutes? How could you know her so well?"
Now he fully exhibited his annoyance with a narrowing of his eyes. He wanted this conversation over with so he could return to the far more important issue of getting her and her absent associates to assist him in getting back to the Matrix and in contact with the First. Perhaps if he became annoyed she would stop interrupting him.
"I have spent a great deal of time observing and classifying the entire spectrum of human behavior available to me. It was necessary to my objectives to have a complete understanding of their motivations. My conclusions might be quite revealing to you if I were to share them.sometime when you are not otherwise occupied with the immediate task of treating my wound. Now do you intend to finish it adequately or must I seek attention elsewhere?"
GhostFlower stared at him, then chuckled softly. "Very well, I apologize. I will continue." She bent back to her work, mercifully remaining silent the rest of the time. She even had the decency not to notice his slight grunt when her manipulations produced a particularly painful sensation that momentarily slowed his thought processes. GhostFlower merely continued in her ministrations and then helped him put back on his shirt over the new bandage.
While she cleaned up the mess, he turned on the television. Almost everything that could be learned about the current state of human idiocy was reproduced for popular consumption on the airwaves here as it was in the Matrix, and he hoped to educate himself more fully as to where he was and who held power here. Instead of the newscast, however, he was greeted by the pathetic, ear-wrenching maunderings of some human creature whom he supposed was dressed up to look like a vampire on the music video station. Smith had nothing against music; in fact he enjoyed it. But what he thought of as music had little to do with the same kinds of emotional attachments human beings seemed to associate with it.
He liked the music of the rain still pouring down outside the windows of the apartment.
Rejecting the helpless gyrations of the performer on screen, he unconsciously flipped the channels until he reached the CNN broadcast. It wasn't until he noticed GhostFlower staring at him thoughtfully from the bathroom doorway that he realized what he had done.
He hadn't used the remote. Nor had he gotten up to do it manually. And as he reviewed the background processes involved, he was quite certain he had not used the Matrix. It was painfully obvious that this was not the Matrix and therefore he should have had no abilities in that respect. The calculations involved in such a maneuver would have been completely different. The seemingly inherent nature of the ability had been similar, but that was not to be falsely associated as the same thing.
It seemed that in addition to healing his body quickly, he had a sensitivity to and effect on electrical current and devices that used it.
Revelation.
He smirked, feeling better than he had all evening. His indigestion was a memory. Even the pain in his shoulder seemed to recede dramatically.
But before he could consider it more deeply, the buzzer sounded in the apartment, heralding a visitor.
Zarathus had arrived.
The first order of business Smith concerned himself with was obtaining a hotel room. The whiskey fumes that surrounded him made the hotel doorman frown, but since (mercifully) he was wearing his usual perfectly respectable black suit and tie, he let him inside and tipped his hat when Smith gave him a twenty dollar bill on the way back out. It was more than most government hacks would have afforded him.
Next, he visited a several pawn shops and obtained a laptop computer and small toolkit that suited his requirements enough to justify spending almost all of the rest of the cash Faraday had given him. There were things he could do to it to over-clock the wretchedly slow processor back at the hotel room; it was the depressingly slow internet connection the hotel provided that would hinder him. It would remain to be seen whether or not that could be remedied as well.
After leaving the pawnshop, it suddenly came to him with great frustration that he was hungry again. Resigning himself to the inevitable, he entered a McDonald's and surprised the clerk by actually asking for their leaflet listing the nutritional information of each menu item.
She had never heard of it, and the manager had to be roused. Giving it to Smith with one of those small, bemused smiles that spoke of the quiet contempt he had for those who actually ate the food there, much less concerned themselves with whatever nutrition might be gleaned from it, he took his break and Smith made his choices from it without comment.
As he exited, holding his bag with plain hamburger and chef salad in it in one hand and his diet soda in the other, purchases slung over one shoulder, two men with their hands in their voluminous coat pockets brushed past him and entered the restaurant. Smith was nothing if not attentive to detail, and their attitude suddenly raised many red flags in the vast database entries of experiences collected in dealing with the rebellious and disaffected element of the Matrix.
He stopped, and considered what to do. When the scream of the clerk inside came, he had already decided to act. Morosely, he noted that Faraday had not included his Desert Eagle when he brought him here, and added that to the list of grievances he had against the grinning freak. Then he walked back inside.
One of the men was standing just inside the door as lookout, but unfortunately for him he was not doing a very good job. He was paying attention to the screaming clerk with the other's pistol held against her head when Smith walked in and tossed his diet coke in his face. The man brought his shotgun up in surprise, but he was panicking in his nervousness and squeezed the trigger far too soon. The glass window behind and to the right of Smith shattered, and in the next moment, so did the assailant's jaw as Smith dropped his burger and salad, reached over, grabbed the shotgun with both hands, and with lethal, inhuman speed and strength, wrenched it around and cracked the butt end of the shotgun in his face.
The man crumpled at his feet with a sickening, gurgling scream, and Smith was already turning to the other gunman as he noticed what was happening behind him and switched his aim with an outraged howl to Smith. But he was far too slow. Smith had the modified shotgun already in place and with perfect aim he gave the man both barrels in the chest. Blood exploded onto the pristine white counter as the man's innards exited his back, and the girl shrieked again helplessly. Reflexively, the already dead assailant's finger tightened once, then twice on the trigger, and Smith felt the weight of two 9mm caliber slugs slam into his left shoulder and exit into the glass door behind him. It shattered, and the shoulder strap of the laptop disintegrated along with a good portion of his shirt and suit jacket. The device crashed to the floor, and Smith growled in irritation.
He never stopped to wonder why he was still so much faster, stronger, and more agile than the average human outside of the Matrix. The girl at the counter stared at him, gape mouthed in astonishment though, as he ignored his wound and picked it back up. Not a single droplet of blood had marred her perfectly starched blue uniform shirt. Satisfied with his perfect aim, he looked down at the spilled salad and hamburger next to the now unconscious felon and discarded the idea of salvaging them. He thought quickly.
"Does your manager have a jacket," he asked the girl, who glanced once at the two men on the floor and then back at him, unable to process the seeming non sequitur in her shock.
"Wh-wha?"
Smith sighed and took another fraction of an instant to consult his memory.
"Bring me Mr. Sullivan's coat. Do it now," he said firmly but not harshly. He was not the terrorist here.
She blinked, and for a moment Smith was uncertain as to whether he would have to escalate the urgency of his request by threatening her in order to break through the haze of shock he saw in her eyes. When she nodded and rushed back into the coatroom to do his bidding, he could not explain to himself exactly why he was grateful he did not need to consider that line of thinking any further. Instead of concentrating on it he bent down and searched the two men.
As the girl came back and handed over the long beige raincoat, he pocketed the six stolen credit cards along with the two dollars and thirty two cents and sixteen shotgun shells he had found. Turning up his nose at the now crumpled, bloodstained joint of marijuana and the cheaply made pistol that had nevertheless managed to damage him, he slung the shotgun over the unwounded shoulder by its strap and donned the raincoat. A decent fit, as he had known it would be.
He looked back at the girl. She was watching him, in curiosity now, the fish-eyed shock fading from her eyes. It never ceased to amaze him just how quickly some humans could adapt to their environment when they chose. He wondered if she would take the money from the cash register herself after he had gone.
"Wait exactly five minutes after I have gone. Then call the police," he said, and turned to go.
Her soft voice stopped him. "They used to work here you know. About a month ago Mr. Sullivan fired them 'cause he caught them smoking joints out back on their break. They were never mean to me though. Dev even gave me a hug once 'cause I told him my grandpa got cancer. Why'd they do it?" she asked, and her tone was both angry and grieved now. "I think he would really have killed me."
"Don't worry," he called over his shoulder as he pulled the remains of the steel frame door towards him and walked outside. "They won't make you clean up the mess."
Gritting his teeth, he continued out the door without looking back. He had absolutely no desire to look at the expression on her face.
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Shotgun concealed under his newly acquired coat, he went into a department store several blocks away and used one of the credit cards to buy himself a new set of clothes and a much more appropriate trench-coat to go over them. He used the same card at the drugstore on the corner to buy a first-aid kit, then dropped the card in the gutter and walked back to the hotel.
Once secured in his room, he made an attempt to disinfect and bandage his wound, but even with his flexibility found it difficult to complete the task adequately. In disgust he abandoned the effort and focused his energy on making the modifications to the laptop and Internet connection that he would require.
It seemed he needed more assistance than he originally thought.
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Mariko studied the watercolor before putting adding a touch of pink to the roses. The painting of the garden flowers was coming along nicely, she thought, despite her lack of true talent. Her work was competent, if not inspired, and she hoped that it would convey to someone else the same sense of peace she had obtained by meditating there. If not, at least the colors were pretty, and painting allowed her to find that peace in a different way through self-expression.
It was the only true medium of self-expression she had ever been allowed in her brother's household, and she continued it here in her strange new life despite the incredible new world of freedom she now had laid before her. Too much freedom, she reflected, was not good for a soul that had yet to define its own identity within its scope. Zarathus had been kind enough to give her some meaningful labor to assuage this need for guidance. She hoped in turn that she was useful to him.
Setting the paintbrush aside, she checked what was happening in the chat room. It had been a quiet night tonight, which was unusual, given the nature of the meeting place. Her duties as its monitor could be punctuated with the continuation of her painting without losing track of things, and she was in a very contented frame of mind. It seemed she liked to keep busy after all, and soon the work she contented herself with now would not be enough. She had healed, and the ghost was starting to believe there might be life after all worth exploring again.
But now something had changed. There was a new visitor, and although not everyone who visited this virtual meeting hall was led to exactly to what they sought, it was her duty to monitor them as they came in went.
In case anything of importance occurred.
In case Zarathus should take interest.
Half an hour later Mariko Yashida, also known as GhostFlower, was on her way to meet the one who called himself Shade.
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Smith sipped his glass of water and pondered on the efficacy of the antacid he had taken an hour ago. His earlier hunger was gone, and it did not seem to be having much effect on the hotdog and extra onions he had eaten that afternoon. He wondered if perhaps the information in the corporate databases had been incorrect. Rolaids should be more effective than Tums, since the amounts of calcium and magnesium carbonate were greater per tablet. Of course, his acute indigestion was probably increased by the fact that he had never eaten before and had included straight Kentucky Bourbon in the hotdog, onion, and ketchup mix.
It probably had little to do with the stress of his situation. Stress as a cause of indigestion and acid production had been proven to be much less of a factor in such cases as the common practice of consuming caffeinated products and over-eating in such times of stress.
Needless to say, he saw no reason to actually buy any of the food being sold in the deli. A cup of water had sufficed in this instance as cover while he waited for GhostFlower to make her appearance. He looked down at his clothes and was satisfied they were not out of the ordinary in this neighborhood: blue button down shirt left open at the collar; grey slacks; black leather belt; grey trench-coat.
The modified shotgun lay against his side underneath the coat: it seemed to him a lesser hazard than the laptop computer he had left back at the hotel room. After the incident at the McDonald's, he considered it his most practical accessory.
Casually he probed the wound in his shoulder, the shirt and coat concealing the torn flesh. It was starting to bleed again but it was already healing, he knew: an unexpected bonus this strange new flesh machine had provided him. Smith studied the rate of tissue repair and pondered the implications.
To his right and at the rear of the establishment, a toilet flushed in the restroom and a young woman emerged. Smith was waiting: he had already heard the small noises associated with her climbing in through the window and deduced that it must be his contact. The exercise seemed pointless to him, because if indeed he was being monitored they would no doubt have previously noted any and all exits to the deli. They would have seen who was coming to meet him. It also had the possibility of arousing the curiosity of the clerk, who was keeping a casual eye on the patrons who came in.
Smith himself preferred entering through the front door of places whenever possible.
GhostFlower, as she referred to herself, moved past him with a brief glance and a nod and went to the counter. Smith noticed the clerk's obvious surprise with grim satisfaction and re-evaluated his decision to trust anyone who called themselves by such a repugnantly sentimental-sounding alias.
"Ah..I would like a turkey sandwich please, on a Kaiser roll. Lettuce, tomato, mustard please. Not the spicy one, the honey mustard." Smith listened to her voice and catalogued it. Despite her facility with the language, there were intonations suggesting Japanese origin, which coincided with her appearance. A lean, fit woman of average height, hair cut asymmetrically to highlight almond-shaped eyes already made large by the shape of her delicate, heart-shaped face. If you were not careful, you would miss the stubborn tilt of chin that indicated will and determination. In her graceful, self-effacing movements, she was expert in hiding it. But it was there, along with the two Glock pistols secured around her waist, hidden by her own long black trench-coat from the eyes of the clerk and other patrons but not from Smith.
"Have you tried the knishes here?" She turned slightly, addressing Smith.
"No."
"Oh I haven't either, I was wondering if they were any good. I guess I will just have to buy one and see. Do you like knishes?"
"I've never tried one."
"Oh my goodness what a deprivation. Please heat one of the knishes up for me," she asked the clerk, and a few moments later sat down across from Smith. He looked up from his water, studying her expressionlessly. This was becoming needlessly complicated.
Quickly she cut the potato filled pastry in half and slid part of it over to him on a paper napkin. Smiling, she took a bite of her half and nodded.
"Mmmm it is good after all. Here now you have to try it, you can't come to a New York kosher deli and not have a knish," she avowed, speaking around the mouthful.
"I see. Has that new maxim replaced the old one about taking food from strangers?"
She chuckled and shook her head. "But you didn't get that from a stranger, it was made behind the deli counter. Oh well, if you don't try you're missing out on something special." GhostFlower took another bite of her knish and got up. After paying for her sandwich, she left without another word, and Smith picked up the knish. Underneath, he could clearly see some directions and an address were written on the napkin in blue ink. He sighed, tucked the grease-spotted napkin into his pocket, and bit into the pastry. This was all so very inefficient.
After five minutes and 23 seconds, Smith got up and walked out. Chewing on another Rolaids tablet, he made his way down the sidewalk and followed the directions to what looked like a run down but well-maintained tenement building. He stood out on the step as it began to rain until the security door unlatched, and was briefly comforted and amazed by the falling droplets.
Rain had always been the only thing that was remotely beautiful to him in the Matrix. The only thing that could be considered real in any sense of the word in that illusory hell.
Opening the door, he went upstairs. A door opened as he reached the third floor, and GhostFlower beckoned him into the apartment behind her.
"Please be seated, Shade," she said, and closed the door behind him. The special lock on it required a key card, he noted, and again he reflected that this place was quite secure and well-maintained for the neighborhood.
Obediently, he sat down on the couch in the living room and waited for her to follow. After a moment she sat down across from him. She wore the Glocks openly now, having discarded her trench-coat, but she was alone in the apartment as far as he could tell. If she became a problem it would be easy to resolve. He had already had occasion to prove the competency of his physical reactions once this evening. Even wounded he was sure he was up to the task if the situation presented itself.
"Now, perhaps you could be more explicit. We know the name of the person you mentioned, this Russell Faraday. I can tell you he is a demon that is very powerful, and that if he has taken an interest in you it is very bad."
"A demon. What kind of human superstitious nonsense is this? I thought you would be able to assist me."
"Why don't you explain what happened with him, and I will tell you what we know of him. We will do our best to assist you, I assure you."
"Not if you're going to insist on feeding me some kind of mystical human delusion as an explanation. I need to know what he is, not whatever myths you have created in your own mind to accept the unknown."
"Shade, it is up to you to believe whatever I tell you. But wouldn't you rather know what it is before dismissing it as irrelevant? Besides." she gestured to the window and the rain outside, "Whether you accept the explanation or not, is there really someplace else you have to go? It did not seem so to me when we spoke earlier. But you are welcome here in this safe-house whether you choose to believe what we tell you or not.
"If you wish to go you certainly may. I do not hold you here. But I think at least you should wait until you have spoken with Zarathus."
Smith regarded her for a long moment, his glance following her gesture then back to her face.
"He is coming, then?"
"Yes," she replied, nodding once. "He said he would be here shortly."
"Very well. But I think I know already what you are going to say. Your misplaced belief in demons and the occult skews your understanding of the situation."
"Perhaps," GhostFlower said mildly, "It would assist us both in understanding if you were to explain the situation more fully."
Smith studied her, annoyed, then shrugged. "I have until midnight tomorrow night to declare that I will serve this Russell Faraday. According to him it is all I must do in order to keep this.body.I have acquired. He claims he gave it to me, a ridiculous and nonsensical statement which I do not accept. However he seems quite determined to prove this to me by performing tricks and deceptions which I have been unable to counter. In short, he purports to hold me hostage to myself. I do not know what his true intentions are, but it will not succeed."
GhostFlower nodded thoughtfully, and then asked "Why not?"
"Because my orders, the only orders I have ever taken or will take, come from those that created me. I am not like you." His tone was rich with contempt and scorn, and the strength of the emotion confused GhostFlower.
"You say that as if you hated me. You do not even know me, or the person I take orders from," she said slowly.
"Why do humans insist on taking things personally? I was not speaking of you as an individual, but as a species. Humans shift their loyalties based on resources to be obtained and allow their emotions to justify their actions. My loyalty to those who created me is unquestionable because I do not allow my own emotions to get the better of me. I am in control and he.is not.
"I am a machine. I will not do service for some being that has presumed to set himself above us. I do not know how exactly he accomplished this deed, of taking me out of the Matrix and inserting my programming into a human-like body, but it will not gain him what he thinks to achieve. Faraday cannot manipulate me as he believes."
GhostFlower mulled this over, her almond eyes studying him with concealed astonishment even his practiced skills of observation had trouble deciphering. This was a woman trained to mask her feelings, certainly. That gained her an increment of respect.
"What is the Matrix? And why were you in it?" she asked finally.
"The Matrix is not something easily explained to a human being. Their primitive cerebrum must experience it firsthand in order to comprehend it, and even then they do not appreciate its scope fully. If I were to explain it to you I doubt you would believe it."
"Can you show me, then?"
"I cannot. This place does not seem to have any equivalent, despite the primitive, ragtag attempt the population has made at creating a virtual network. It is far more complex and sophisticated than anything your mind has a reference for."
"You seem so certain. How am I to understand, then?"
Smith continued, seeming not to hear her. "It is a zoo, a place for the minds of human beings to wander through in as their bodies sleep, producing electrical energy for the machines to use. It is chaos brought into order only through strict control and management of the worst of human depredations so they do not damage themselves so much they are of no use to us. I was one of those who enforced that control. I was an agent." He stopped here, and frowned. Why use the past tense? He was still an Agent.wasn't he?
"I see. So then, if you considered humans creatures to be managed and below you.why did you seek out Zarathus? You sound as if you despise all of us, and well, Zarathus' reputation is hardly one of keeping order and peace in any society, much less one like the one you describe."
"I did not seek him out specifically. As I said I had little understanding of this place when I first came here. I learned quickly certain facts about who humans who find themselves in positions of desperation here contact in an emergency.when there is no other choice."
"And so you found out Zarathus' name, and spoke with me over the Internet. And you say this was only a few hours ago? Amazing for you to discover so much in so short a time. Either that or his name is becoming even more wide-spread than we thought. Tell me, what else were you doing in this time?"
Smith chuckled sardonically. "You mean besides being shot at and stopping a robbery in progress? Why I suppose I was procuring suitable clothing and a laptop computer from a local department store as well as finding a hotel room."
GhostFlower raised one delicate eyebrow. "Stopping a robbery and being shot at? Is that the reason you have blood seeping through your shirt?"
She was far too observant, he noted, looking down at his shoulder. His coat should have hidden the wound enough for her to overlook it. Certainly none of the other humans he had encountered had noticed it. But then, there seemed to be blood leaking out of the impromptu bandage he had made underneath his shirt again. It would have to be dealt with soon.
"Yes."
"Is the wound one of the reasons you called for assistance? I have training in that area and supplies here if you'll let me look at it."
It was one of the reasons and he didn't want her looking at it, but he also didn't want to admit either of those things. It was important to him to be self-sufficient within or without the Matrix and under any circumstances. But he could recognize where self-sufficiency also paradoxically required knowing when and who to ask for help when it was needed. This conflict had already been settled, he told himself, and was further irritated by his mind's seeming insistence on worrying at processes that didn't require further analysis. He took a fraction of an instant to reconsider it all, too small for anyone but him to notice and be annoyed by it, to answer her.
"Yes."
GhostFlower got up and went into the bathroom, retrieving the impressive kit of supplies that was kept in the safe-house for such occasions. Shade was still sitting there, his coat and shirt still on, a faraway expression in his eyes, and she wondered if she could have missed earlier signs of shock. With a frown, she set the things down beside him.
"Shade? It will be necessary for you to remove your coat and shirt in order for me to treat you."
Shade blinked, then nodded and began doing so. He had been thinking of much less practical things.
"This changes nothing," he said almost softly. "You still revolt me no matter how much I am already infected with you."
GhostFlower stopped and stared at him, completely taken aback with the menace and coldness in his tone. It was far more intense than the detached contempt with which he had declared his superiority earlier. However, it was mixed with something else of the opposite nature, and the contradiction made her consider carefully her response. She had been about to clean his wound so she could see it, but her hands were paused a few inches away from the bloody mess. For not the first time that night, she wished that Zarathus would arrive soon.
"Will you allow me to touch you?" She asked, and without knowing why precisely. It turned out to be the right thing to do.
He was looking at her now, the utter contempt and loathing in eyes shocked her until she realized it was probably for himself as well as her. Then she felt a deep sympathy. She knew what it was to loathe oneself, even if she didn't quite understand his reasons for doing so, she knew her own and was grateful when she stopped seeing that own expression in her eyes every morning as she looked in the mirror. His look faded as she gazed back, waiting, the emotions replaced quite suddenly by machine practicality and emotionlessness.
"Yes," he replied tersely, and she began her work.
"How interesting," GhostFlower said a few moments later. "The blood was already stopping. It appears to me your healing is accelerated beyond normal humans'. And there are no bullets lodged in your wound as far as I can tell."
"They exited the flesh on the other side."
"Yes, I can see that now. Will you tell me what happened?"
"As I said, I halted a robbery taking place at a McDonald's. They had waited until I walked out of the establishment with my food and then held the clerk at gunpoint. I re-entered the restaurant when I heard her scream."
"Wait, you heard her scream after you had left and were already out on a crowded sidewalk?" GhostFlower interrupted.
He nodded, slightly impatient to finish his account. He wasn't sure, but he thought the pain of her ministrations was making him irritable. Smith wished he had merely allowed his flesh to heal, however he was well aware of the dreadful infections that could occur if the wound was not treated. He had no desire to acquire gangrene or blood poisoning along with his other 'infections'.
"Yes, it was perfectly audible."
"Why did you go back?"
"That is a foolish question. If humans scream with the intensity she exhibited there is a clear and present danger to their existence unless they are victims of some kind of emotional disbalance. When I observed her behavior prior to the confrontation she did not seem to be insane or easily disturbed." But afterwards she would be, he thought and cursed the nameless girl again. She probably took the money from the register for herself after I left, he contradicted the renegade thought with satisfaction.
"That was an interesting observation to make after being in her company for what, a few minutes? How could you know her so well?"
Now he fully exhibited his annoyance with a narrowing of his eyes. He wanted this conversation over with so he could return to the far more important issue of getting her and her absent associates to assist him in getting back to the Matrix and in contact with the First. Perhaps if he became annoyed she would stop interrupting him.
"I have spent a great deal of time observing and classifying the entire spectrum of human behavior available to me. It was necessary to my objectives to have a complete understanding of their motivations. My conclusions might be quite revealing to you if I were to share them.sometime when you are not otherwise occupied with the immediate task of treating my wound. Now do you intend to finish it adequately or must I seek attention elsewhere?"
GhostFlower stared at him, then chuckled softly. "Very well, I apologize. I will continue." She bent back to her work, mercifully remaining silent the rest of the time. She even had the decency not to notice his slight grunt when her manipulations produced a particularly painful sensation that momentarily slowed his thought processes. GhostFlower merely continued in her ministrations and then helped him put back on his shirt over the new bandage.
While she cleaned up the mess, he turned on the television. Almost everything that could be learned about the current state of human idiocy was reproduced for popular consumption on the airwaves here as it was in the Matrix, and he hoped to educate himself more fully as to where he was and who held power here. Instead of the newscast, however, he was greeted by the pathetic, ear-wrenching maunderings of some human creature whom he supposed was dressed up to look like a vampire on the music video station. Smith had nothing against music; in fact he enjoyed it. But what he thought of as music had little to do with the same kinds of emotional attachments human beings seemed to associate with it.
He liked the music of the rain still pouring down outside the windows of the apartment.
Rejecting the helpless gyrations of the performer on screen, he unconsciously flipped the channels until he reached the CNN broadcast. It wasn't until he noticed GhostFlower staring at him thoughtfully from the bathroom doorway that he realized what he had done.
He hadn't used the remote. Nor had he gotten up to do it manually. And as he reviewed the background processes involved, he was quite certain he had not used the Matrix. It was painfully obvious that this was not the Matrix and therefore he should have had no abilities in that respect. The calculations involved in such a maneuver would have been completely different. The seemingly inherent nature of the ability had been similar, but that was not to be falsely associated as the same thing.
It seemed that in addition to healing his body quickly, he had a sensitivity to and effect on electrical current and devices that used it.
Revelation.
He smirked, feeling better than he had all evening. His indigestion was a memory. Even the pain in his shoulder seemed to recede dramatically.
But before he could consider it more deeply, the buzzer sounded in the apartment, heralding a visitor.
Zarathus had arrived.