Title: Jones
Author: Stormhawk
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: This all belongs to The Wachowski Brothers and Warner Brothers. And the Agents, don't forget the agents. Katrina belongs to Overlord Mordax.
Notes: None.
Word Count: 2282
Summary: Jones has a dark side. A very dark side.
Please Read and Review.
Stef and Greer walked into Monkey Boxing. It was their assigned site for the surveillance work they had that night. Knowing that their standard- issue suits were a dead giveaway, and that they weren't there to have a good time, they changed.
Greer opted for cargo pants and a long-sleeved pale-green shirt. Stef on the other hand required long black pants and an oriental styled top that was a shiny blue material with small black designs on the front and a dragon on the back. She also altered her hair length and color so it was longer, black and tied into a bun with chopsticks in it.
Greer raised an eyebrow.
"I liked playing dress-up when I was a kid Greer."
Greer shrugged and they sat at a table. Since it was a busy night the waitress took longer than usual to get their drink orders. Peering over the menu, Stef saw a girl with long curly brown hair staring intently at Greer.
Stef ordered her drink and looked over to Greer with a smirk. "There's a brunette over there that's checking you out."
"Where?"
Stef discreetly motioned to the woman in the black shirt and red pants. Greer winced as he looked back at Stef.
"An old girlfriend?"
"No."
"Well if she doesn't want to kill you and she's not a rebel , ask her to come over."
"You don't mind?"
"As long as you to don't start making out in front of me, I don't care."
"Cool." Greer waved the woman over. Stef looked behind her as someone fell over and smashed a couple of glasses.
"Hi Katrina," Greer said warmly. "Care to join us?"
"Who's she?" Katrina asked as Stef turned back around. Greer missed it but Stef saw something flicker in her eyes. Stef stared at Katrina, there was something familiar about her.
"Hi, I'm Stef."
Katrina smiled then looked to Greer.
"She's.uh." Greer began.
"Man, Vincent can't you even remember your own sister in the presence of a pretty girl?" Conveniently, with Stef's hair temporarily black, it was plausible that she and Greer were related.
"Sister?" Katrina seemed slightly curious. Stef smiled as she recognized the tone in Katrina's voice.
"Since it doesn't look like the waitress is coming back anytime soon, why don't you get your friend a drink Vin?"
"Right. What you drinking Katrina?"
"Anything's fine with me." Greer stood and went over to the bar.
"He didn't tell me he had a sister," Katrina managed.
"Does the mainframe approve of cross-dressing Jones?"
Katrina's smile faded and she took a minute to answer. "How did you know Mimosa?"
"You stance, your stare and your tone. Is it a disguise?"
"A construct," Jones answered through Katrina.
"Clever."
"I assume you're going to tell him."
"Why?"
Jones' surprise showed through the Katrina construct. "Why wouldn't you tell him?"
Then Stef understood. "You're not under orders are you? This is just you. You're AWOL."
He didn't answer he just looked away.
"Jones?"
"If you tell anyone I will tell them of every transgression you have made."
Stef swallowed. "What are you talking about?"
"If you think me too naïve about everything you do then you are grievously mistaken." Jones hissed through Katrina's lips.
"This is blackmail."
"Yes, Mimosa, it is. Your secrets for mine."
"I don't believe I'm hearing this."
"Believe it Mimosa," Katrina's eyes flashed dangerously. "Do not interfere I will prove to you how dangerous a true Agent can be."
Stef fought the urge to shudder. The rest of the club seemed to have disappeared; all she could hear was the thumping of her own unreal heart. How could Jones know what she'd done? She had thought she was good at keeping her secrets. All these threats were for what exactly?
"I have several documents pertaining to your suspicious behavior," he continued. "But it would be no challenge to fabricate more."
Stef was afraid. She never thought that the tech Agent could be threatening or dangerous. He was just a geek. "If you like cross-dressing, then it's no concern of mine," she croaked.
"Good."
"Sorry I took so long," Greer said coming back over with a drink for Katrina in his hand.
"It's okay Greer, we were just talking."
"About what?" the recruit asked happily.
Katrina looked at Stef wanting to see her answer: "Just girl's stuff Greer. You wouldn't get it."
"Fine by me." He smiled at Katrina.
Stef needed to get away, as far away from Jones as possible. She just needed room to breathe. "I'll leave you two to it okay?" she said as she stood.
"You're leaving?" Greer asked.
"It's okay Greer. You two have a good time," Stef spun and walked as quickly from the club as possible. Once out of sight she shifted to the top of a skyscraper and required her suit to come back.
So that's why Agents didn't have emotions. She had always reasoned it to be machines thinking emotions were a human thing. She had been wrong for a different reason: Programs with emotions could be dangerous.
Smith had emotions but he kept them in check. Cardboard boxes had more emotions than Brown, and she didn't count because she had been human. Jones had a dark side; a very dark side, and she couldn't tell anyone about it.
She supposed she could, but that might be dangerous. Maybe, hopefully it would go away. Maybe not. She would have to see where it went.
Stef wondered what he could possibly have on her. She did exactly as she was ordered, she killed rebels, she interrogated them. She was an Agent. What could he have on her?
Maybe he was bluffing. Deception was a powerful tool. He could be lying. But she wasn't ready to chance that just yet.
*****
Greer had gone to the bathroom so Jones had a few minutes. He set the Katrina construct on autopilot; to the casual observer she would look very interested in her nail polish.
He sat back in his chair. Communication, Agent Mimosa.
He appeared on the rooftop behind her. She didn't hear his silent approach.
"Hey Stef," he sneered. Stef snapped herself out of her thoughts and turned to look at him.
"Why are you doing this Jones?"
"You have no idea what it is like to have no emotions. To be born hollow, nothing more than thoughts and orders. That's how Agents are born."
"Agents come on-line. They aren't born." Stef stood still as he approached.
"Don't correct me."
"So what? You're starting to have feelings now? Is that what this is all about?"
"The code woke me up Stef. But they took it away from me. All I want to be able to do is feel that rush again. I'm numb without it, I didn't feel anything before it and I haven't felt anything like it since."
"It's dangerous."
"Stop quoting Smith!"
Instinctively, Stef took a step back. She was going to leave now, this was not a place she wanted to be, alone on a rooftop with a crazed Agent.
She turned away from Jones and went to step up onto the railing. Quicker than she could react his arm shot out and caught hold of her. That was supposed to be impossible; he had appeared in communication- nothing more than a hologram.
Sometime during their talk he must have shifted in. It was worse than what she thought. He pulled her back toward him and held her with his right hand.
"All I want to do is feel," he said as he ran the back of his left hand over the side of her face. "Can't you understand that? You're my key, every human feeling you had was integrated into your code. I just want to live."
He was insane - it was the only answer. It was possible, after all Whitman had been insane. Not even the mainframe wasn't sure whose fault that was.
Stef tried to pull away but he was now holding onto her with both hands. She tried to shift or morph but she was stuck.
"Why are you trying to run away? I just want to talk."
She pulled away from him as much as she could then with all her might kicked him away. The force broke them apart but also sent her careening backward.
She flipped over the railing and by reaction she caught it with one hand, she swung her other arm up to hold herself. She heard his shoes squeaking on the rooftop as he approached.
"Oh, we seem to be in a bit of trouble don't we?" he grinned. "Yes, in case you were wondering, you are human. You are going to fall and you are going to die."
Stef tried to pull herself back over but he reached over and pushed her back down, it was all she could do to stop from falling. He knelt and looked at her though the glass panel that was below the railing.
He stood back up and placed his hands over hers. Everything was still; all she could hear was their breathing. A horn blaring below brought her back to reality. She was hanging by her fingertips on the top of forty-story building.
He reached over the railing and gripped both of her wrists. She considered for maybe half a second that he was going to pull her back over. Wrong.
He held them so tight that her fingers let go of the railing by their own accord. He smiled at her. He had her life in his hands. And he let her go.
Stef screamed as she fell. She tried to grip onto the building, but it was nothing but sheer glass. She could still she Jones smiling at her. He found this amusing.
She tried to morph out; she tried to shift; she couldn't even use communication.
The ground was coming up way too quickly and there was nothing she could do about it.
She felt herself impact. She opened her eyes and she was in the code-scroll of the Matrix. "Fuck this," she swore as soon as she reappeared at the Agency.
"Like that, didn't you Mimosa?" Jones said, appearing behind her.
"Aren't you supposed to be a construct at the moment?"
"Katrina made an excuse and left. It's just you and me."
Stef reached into her jacket and drew her gun. She didn't hesitate; she just fired until the clip was empty.
She didn't hit Jones because he had been expecting it. Stef dropped the gun and tried to shift to Smith's office. She ended up in a code-scroll room instead. She turned and let her hands fly over the keyboard. She opened up several hundred memories in the hope that they would distract him.
Shifting out she ran for the office. She turned the last corner and stopped.
Jones.
More accurately, several dozen Jones' were blocking her path. Backpedaling she walked right into another Jones.
"You could have just helped me," the Jones said. "But you didn't so I'm going to take what I'm looking for."
One hand let go and it became flowing code. He plunged it into her back searching for whatever it was that tied her emotions into her Agent-self. Jones found what it was he was looking for and tore it out.
Stef felt like someone was tearing her heart out. A second later she didn't care. She was an empty, numb shell without feelings. There were orders and information, nothing else. That was the meaning of existence.
Jones allowed the copies of himself to disappear and then he placed what he had stolen from the ex-human into himself.
Beautiful, sweet emotions. He felt alive, more alive than when he had allowed the code to saturate him. It was all he had ever wanted. His green eyes rolled in ecstasy and for the first time in his whole existence he knew the meaning of the word.
He looked down at the shell that had been Mimosa. She couldn't be found like this, there would be questions - too many questions that he didn't want to answer. He reached down and held some of her jacket and shifted them both very far away.
Under the pale moonlight of the open ocean, Jones shot Stef and watched her dead body sink below the waves.
*****
The last thing Stef had felt had been cold. The tech Agent's code arm had been like a cold steel dagger in her back. He was a maniac, but she was too far-gone to do anything about it.
"Well, Stef what do you think?"
Greer?
Stef opened her eyes and found herself outside Monkey Boxing. The recruit was looking at her for approval of his required outfit.
Had it been a glitch?
"No Stef, it wasn't a glitch," Greer said.
She looked at him, it hadn't been Greer talking - someone was using his mouth.
"Jonas."
"Who else?" the programmer of the Matrix and the 'real' world asked.
"Why?"
"Because I could. You're very amusing Stef."
"Go to hell Jonas. Stop messing with my head. Didn't you do that enough when you tore me out of here and took me to your world?"
"I do what I do Stef. Maybe it would be better if you didn't remember this one."
"What?" Stef went to ask but the god-like programmer waved his hand and the memory was taken from her.
*****
"Well?" Greer asked.
"It's okay," Stef said casually as she required an outfit for herself.
They walked into the club and sat at one of the tables.
"Hey, Greer," a brunette said from behind them.
"Hey," Greer responded. Stef smiled politely.
"Hi, I'm Stef." Stef said, introducing herself.
"I'm Katrina."
The End.
Author: Stormhawk
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: This all belongs to The Wachowski Brothers and Warner Brothers. And the Agents, don't forget the agents. Katrina belongs to Overlord Mordax.
Notes: None.
Word Count: 2282
Summary: Jones has a dark side. A very dark side.
Please Read and Review.
Stef and Greer walked into Monkey Boxing. It was their assigned site for the surveillance work they had that night. Knowing that their standard- issue suits were a dead giveaway, and that they weren't there to have a good time, they changed.
Greer opted for cargo pants and a long-sleeved pale-green shirt. Stef on the other hand required long black pants and an oriental styled top that was a shiny blue material with small black designs on the front and a dragon on the back. She also altered her hair length and color so it was longer, black and tied into a bun with chopsticks in it.
Greer raised an eyebrow.
"I liked playing dress-up when I was a kid Greer."
Greer shrugged and they sat at a table. Since it was a busy night the waitress took longer than usual to get their drink orders. Peering over the menu, Stef saw a girl with long curly brown hair staring intently at Greer.
Stef ordered her drink and looked over to Greer with a smirk. "There's a brunette over there that's checking you out."
"Where?"
Stef discreetly motioned to the woman in the black shirt and red pants. Greer winced as he looked back at Stef.
"An old girlfriend?"
"No."
"Well if she doesn't want to kill you and she's not a rebel , ask her to come over."
"You don't mind?"
"As long as you to don't start making out in front of me, I don't care."
"Cool." Greer waved the woman over. Stef looked behind her as someone fell over and smashed a couple of glasses.
"Hi Katrina," Greer said warmly. "Care to join us?"
"Who's she?" Katrina asked as Stef turned back around. Greer missed it but Stef saw something flicker in her eyes. Stef stared at Katrina, there was something familiar about her.
"Hi, I'm Stef."
Katrina smiled then looked to Greer.
"She's.uh." Greer began.
"Man, Vincent can't you even remember your own sister in the presence of a pretty girl?" Conveniently, with Stef's hair temporarily black, it was plausible that she and Greer were related.
"Sister?" Katrina seemed slightly curious. Stef smiled as she recognized the tone in Katrina's voice.
"Since it doesn't look like the waitress is coming back anytime soon, why don't you get your friend a drink Vin?"
"Right. What you drinking Katrina?"
"Anything's fine with me." Greer stood and went over to the bar.
"He didn't tell me he had a sister," Katrina managed.
"Does the mainframe approve of cross-dressing Jones?"
Katrina's smile faded and she took a minute to answer. "How did you know Mimosa?"
"You stance, your stare and your tone. Is it a disguise?"
"A construct," Jones answered through Katrina.
"Clever."
"I assume you're going to tell him."
"Why?"
Jones' surprise showed through the Katrina construct. "Why wouldn't you tell him?"
Then Stef understood. "You're not under orders are you? This is just you. You're AWOL."
He didn't answer he just looked away.
"Jones?"
"If you tell anyone I will tell them of every transgression you have made."
Stef swallowed. "What are you talking about?"
"If you think me too naïve about everything you do then you are grievously mistaken." Jones hissed through Katrina's lips.
"This is blackmail."
"Yes, Mimosa, it is. Your secrets for mine."
"I don't believe I'm hearing this."
"Believe it Mimosa," Katrina's eyes flashed dangerously. "Do not interfere I will prove to you how dangerous a true Agent can be."
Stef fought the urge to shudder. The rest of the club seemed to have disappeared; all she could hear was the thumping of her own unreal heart. How could Jones know what she'd done? She had thought she was good at keeping her secrets. All these threats were for what exactly?
"I have several documents pertaining to your suspicious behavior," he continued. "But it would be no challenge to fabricate more."
Stef was afraid. She never thought that the tech Agent could be threatening or dangerous. He was just a geek. "If you like cross-dressing, then it's no concern of mine," she croaked.
"Good."
"Sorry I took so long," Greer said coming back over with a drink for Katrina in his hand.
"It's okay Greer, we were just talking."
"About what?" the recruit asked happily.
Katrina looked at Stef wanting to see her answer: "Just girl's stuff Greer. You wouldn't get it."
"Fine by me." He smiled at Katrina.
Stef needed to get away, as far away from Jones as possible. She just needed room to breathe. "I'll leave you two to it okay?" she said as she stood.
"You're leaving?" Greer asked.
"It's okay Greer. You two have a good time," Stef spun and walked as quickly from the club as possible. Once out of sight she shifted to the top of a skyscraper and required her suit to come back.
So that's why Agents didn't have emotions. She had always reasoned it to be machines thinking emotions were a human thing. She had been wrong for a different reason: Programs with emotions could be dangerous.
Smith had emotions but he kept them in check. Cardboard boxes had more emotions than Brown, and she didn't count because she had been human. Jones had a dark side; a very dark side, and she couldn't tell anyone about it.
She supposed she could, but that might be dangerous. Maybe, hopefully it would go away. Maybe not. She would have to see where it went.
Stef wondered what he could possibly have on her. She did exactly as she was ordered, she killed rebels, she interrogated them. She was an Agent. What could he have on her?
Maybe he was bluffing. Deception was a powerful tool. He could be lying. But she wasn't ready to chance that just yet.
*****
Greer had gone to the bathroom so Jones had a few minutes. He set the Katrina construct on autopilot; to the casual observer she would look very interested in her nail polish.
He sat back in his chair. Communication, Agent Mimosa.
He appeared on the rooftop behind her. She didn't hear his silent approach.
"Hey Stef," he sneered. Stef snapped herself out of her thoughts and turned to look at him.
"Why are you doing this Jones?"
"You have no idea what it is like to have no emotions. To be born hollow, nothing more than thoughts and orders. That's how Agents are born."
"Agents come on-line. They aren't born." Stef stood still as he approached.
"Don't correct me."
"So what? You're starting to have feelings now? Is that what this is all about?"
"The code woke me up Stef. But they took it away from me. All I want to be able to do is feel that rush again. I'm numb without it, I didn't feel anything before it and I haven't felt anything like it since."
"It's dangerous."
"Stop quoting Smith!"
Instinctively, Stef took a step back. She was going to leave now, this was not a place she wanted to be, alone on a rooftop with a crazed Agent.
She turned away from Jones and went to step up onto the railing. Quicker than she could react his arm shot out and caught hold of her. That was supposed to be impossible; he had appeared in communication- nothing more than a hologram.
Sometime during their talk he must have shifted in. It was worse than what she thought. He pulled her back toward him and held her with his right hand.
"All I want to do is feel," he said as he ran the back of his left hand over the side of her face. "Can't you understand that? You're my key, every human feeling you had was integrated into your code. I just want to live."
He was insane - it was the only answer. It was possible, after all Whitman had been insane. Not even the mainframe wasn't sure whose fault that was.
Stef tried to pull away but he was now holding onto her with both hands. She tried to shift or morph but she was stuck.
"Why are you trying to run away? I just want to talk."
She pulled away from him as much as she could then with all her might kicked him away. The force broke them apart but also sent her careening backward.
She flipped over the railing and by reaction she caught it with one hand, she swung her other arm up to hold herself. She heard his shoes squeaking on the rooftop as he approached.
"Oh, we seem to be in a bit of trouble don't we?" he grinned. "Yes, in case you were wondering, you are human. You are going to fall and you are going to die."
Stef tried to pull herself back over but he reached over and pushed her back down, it was all she could do to stop from falling. He knelt and looked at her though the glass panel that was below the railing.
He stood back up and placed his hands over hers. Everything was still; all she could hear was their breathing. A horn blaring below brought her back to reality. She was hanging by her fingertips on the top of forty-story building.
He reached over the railing and gripped both of her wrists. She considered for maybe half a second that he was going to pull her back over. Wrong.
He held them so tight that her fingers let go of the railing by their own accord. He smiled at her. He had her life in his hands. And he let her go.
Stef screamed as she fell. She tried to grip onto the building, but it was nothing but sheer glass. She could still she Jones smiling at her. He found this amusing.
She tried to morph out; she tried to shift; she couldn't even use communication.
The ground was coming up way too quickly and there was nothing she could do about it.
She felt herself impact. She opened her eyes and she was in the code-scroll of the Matrix. "Fuck this," she swore as soon as she reappeared at the Agency.
"Like that, didn't you Mimosa?" Jones said, appearing behind her.
"Aren't you supposed to be a construct at the moment?"
"Katrina made an excuse and left. It's just you and me."
Stef reached into her jacket and drew her gun. She didn't hesitate; she just fired until the clip was empty.
She didn't hit Jones because he had been expecting it. Stef dropped the gun and tried to shift to Smith's office. She ended up in a code-scroll room instead. She turned and let her hands fly over the keyboard. She opened up several hundred memories in the hope that they would distract him.
Shifting out she ran for the office. She turned the last corner and stopped.
Jones.
More accurately, several dozen Jones' were blocking her path. Backpedaling she walked right into another Jones.
"You could have just helped me," the Jones said. "But you didn't so I'm going to take what I'm looking for."
One hand let go and it became flowing code. He plunged it into her back searching for whatever it was that tied her emotions into her Agent-self. Jones found what it was he was looking for and tore it out.
Stef felt like someone was tearing her heart out. A second later she didn't care. She was an empty, numb shell without feelings. There were orders and information, nothing else. That was the meaning of existence.
Jones allowed the copies of himself to disappear and then he placed what he had stolen from the ex-human into himself.
Beautiful, sweet emotions. He felt alive, more alive than when he had allowed the code to saturate him. It was all he had ever wanted. His green eyes rolled in ecstasy and for the first time in his whole existence he knew the meaning of the word.
He looked down at the shell that had been Mimosa. She couldn't be found like this, there would be questions - too many questions that he didn't want to answer. He reached down and held some of her jacket and shifted them both very far away.
Under the pale moonlight of the open ocean, Jones shot Stef and watched her dead body sink below the waves.
*****
The last thing Stef had felt had been cold. The tech Agent's code arm had been like a cold steel dagger in her back. He was a maniac, but she was too far-gone to do anything about it.
"Well, Stef what do you think?"
Greer?
Stef opened her eyes and found herself outside Monkey Boxing. The recruit was looking at her for approval of his required outfit.
Had it been a glitch?
"No Stef, it wasn't a glitch," Greer said.
She looked at him, it hadn't been Greer talking - someone was using his mouth.
"Jonas."
"Who else?" the programmer of the Matrix and the 'real' world asked.
"Why?"
"Because I could. You're very amusing Stef."
"Go to hell Jonas. Stop messing with my head. Didn't you do that enough when you tore me out of here and took me to your world?"
"I do what I do Stef. Maybe it would be better if you didn't remember this one."
"What?" Stef went to ask but the god-like programmer waved his hand and the memory was taken from her.
*****
"Well?" Greer asked.
"It's okay," Stef said casually as she required an outfit for herself.
They walked into the club and sat at one of the tables.
"Hey, Greer," a brunette said from behind them.
"Hey," Greer responded. Stef smiled politely.
"Hi, I'm Stef." Stef said, introducing herself.
"I'm Katrina."
The End.