4: Last Chance

   "Where am I?" said Miriam. "What is this place?"

   She had to admit that it wasn't a terribly original line. But it was a perfectly valid question. She'd never been anywhere like this before.

   She was sitting in a room that was completely white – not milk-white, or chalk-white, but pure, blinding white from floor to ceiling. She couldn't tell how big the room was, where the floor ended and the walls began, or where the walls stopped and the ceiling started, or even where the door was. As soon as the white door had closed behind her, it had become invisible.

   The table was completely transparent, made out of some sort of glass or clear plastic, and the chair that Miriam was sitting on looked so flimsy that she had been afraid of breaking it as she sat down.

   Why was it so bright in here? There were no windows and there was no visible light source, and yet the room was so bright that it hurt Miriam's eyes. It just didn't make sense.

   The agents provided the only real colour in the room. The three men sat in front of her, on the other side of the table, staring at her from behind their sunglasses. They looked out of place in the glaring whiteness, standing out far more than they should, and in the bright white room with no perceptible boundaries, it almost looked as if they were floating.

   "You don't need to know where you are," said Agent Black. "But you need to know why you are here."

   "Why?"

   "You did not have a dental appointment. You skipped school in order to collect something. Something from window two of the Barclay Street Post Office. A piece of undelivered mail, addressed simply to Miriam Moorgate. You received certain… instructions. When you followed them, you were told to go to the museum. To the Egyptian Exhibition. When you got there, you met someone."

   "I know all this. Why are you telling me what I already know?" said Miriam.

   "We are merely establishing the facts, Miss Moorgate," said Agent Black. "And since you yourself said that you were looking for truth, here is the truth. The truth is that the… individual that you met is dangerous."

   "To me or to you?" Miriam retorted.

   Agent Black's expression didn't change.

   "To everyone, Miss Moorgate. To everyone and everything that you hold dear. The individual known as Horus is a wanted criminal who has already kidnapped several people. People like yourself, Miss Moorgate. We wouldn't want you to end up on the back of a milk carton now, would we?"

   "Wouldn't you?" said Miriam.

   "No. We are here for your protection. And so we are giving you one last chance. We advise you not to meet with him again. We also advise that you do not continue in your search for the Matrix."

   "Or what? You'll kill me? Like you killed Marty?"

   "Ah, yes, Martin Coombes. Known as Marty to his friends. And Digit to the FBI."

   "Excuse me?" said Miriam sharply. "The FBI?"

   "Indeed. Were you aware, Miss Moorgate, that your friend Marty was a computer hacker wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for breaking into the computer networks of several government agencies and for the theft of files vital to national security?"

   "What?" exclaimed Miriam. "Marty? A computer hacker? No way. That's not possible! He was the most law-abiding kid I've ever met! He never so much as breathed on anything that didn't belong to him! He would never have - "

   "You are mistaken, Miss Moorgate," said Agent Black. "As were we. At first we did not believe that a sixteen-year old boy could be responsible for so much damage. However, he was a threat. He was a hacker, Miss Moorgate, a very competent hacker who went by many aliases, of which the most common was Digit. It took us some time to track him down."

   "And then you killed him," said Miriam. "Hacker or no hacker, you're not allowed to do that."

   "Again you are mistaken. We can do anything we want, Miss Moorgate. And if our paths cross one more time, then you will share your friend's fate."

   "Is that a threat?"

   "No, Miss Moorgate. That is a promise."