AN: I have NO clue when this occurs in the Gamma storylines. Probably
several thousand cycles later than the other two. Use your imagination!
***
What I'm doing right now is more illegal than you can possibly imagine. What I'm doing right now could be seen as an act of me going Rogue. Another one. Especially because Agent Rogers isn't here.
I made this tape recorder myself. It took me about 3000 cycles. I don't know why I did it; I suppose I just needed something to talk to. I know I can talk to Rogers, but I confuse him. I can see it on his face every time I start mentioning the reasons why programs go Rogue, or why they'd bother breaking the rules. It's illogical; it's stupid. It's insubordination to a degree that even I can't aspire to.
But I guess I can, because here I am with an object that shouldn't exist, saying things that shouldn't be said.
It'll leave a trace. All objects that don't obey the rules leave a trace, that's how we can find them. I can already feel it; it makes a sound, sort of, a light ringing. It's very annoying, but I don't know how to delete the traces. I'm just paying a lot of attention to the signals other Agents are sending out, so that if anyone sends out an alert, I can crush the recorder and Jump away. There's only one carrier signal anywhere near me, and it's a Watcher hanging out on the highway.
I'm having problems with my own code. Every so often something inside my programming gets distorted, and I can't ever locate what. It doesn't last long enough for me to find out what's wrong with my mind. I haven't told this to Rogers yet and he obviously can't feel it through our connection. He'd have made me go to the Debugger by now if that were so.
I dislike going to the Debugger. Rogers actually rather enjoys going, he says it's rather soothing. That sounds so wrong to me, the prospect of being disconnected for any length of time irks me. I get paranoid after waking up from the sessions. I don't like it even when Rogers goes, because he comes back with his emotive processes inhibited slightly, and then I confuse him even more. It bothers me, his being confused. It makes me feel superior, and then I feel alone.
I shouldn't feel at all. I'm an Agent.
I've been talking to humans more often now, discussing the concepts of emotion with them. They just think I'm a random, friendly woman in the coffee shops. One thing I've noticed about them is their desire to be understood by someone. I was talking to a girl whose lover had abandoned her. She was sobbing and I was trying to comfort her, though nothing in my programming could possibly explain this outpouring of emotion she was displaying. "I really thought he UNDERSTOOD me!" She said. That hit me.
I want to be understood by someone.
That's not normal. That's VERY abnormal, even for an unstable, experimental model like myself. There's a reason Agents don't have emotions, they're notoriously dangerous. Even inside the Matrix, emotion is a large component in human wars. As an Agent, I should be incapable of hatred, fear, love, and pain. I should be neutral.
Then why do I hate Rogues so much? Just because their actions are illogical and insubordinate? That makes me a hypocrite then. Why do I fear termination? My code would eventually be recycled, so it's not death like the human death. Why do I feel pain when someone else kills Rogers? It makes no sense to me. It's illogical.
There it goes again. That distortion. I knew it would. I think I know what it is now, whenever I start contradicting myself and become more and more confused, it twitches. It's like a muscle spasm.
That's going to inhibit my discussions of emotion with the humans greatly. That's probably why it's still there after several trips to the Debugger. He probably put it there, the blue haired little freak.
They're coming.
Gamma heard the carrier signals of seven Agents coming her way, one of them being Rogers. He was attempting to hail her over their private connection, but she had locked him out. Going through Rogers's earpiece, she determined their goal: She had been placed at priority four for retrieval. They were coming to get her, and all were prepared to terminate her if that was necessary.
She sighed and put the recorder on the floor. She stepped on it. It shattered; its trace was disrupted, and then ceased.
The seven Agents burst into the room to find an extremely confused 14-year- old girl, who saw their guns and immediately started crying. Rogers walked into the room and picked up the remains of Gamma's recorder.
"What was she doing?" Asked Agent Johnson, one of the many low-level, unimaginative Suits that Agent Gamma held in disregard.
Rogers rubbed a bit of metal absently. "She was recording something, but it's lost now." He glanced at the 14-year-old. She had curled herself into a little ball in the corner and was staring fearfully at the Agents. Rogers took uncharacteristic mercy on her and knocked her unconscious. "Agent King, take this back to it's home. It shouldn't remember anything."
Suddenly Gamma's voice filled his private link. "She's not an IT, Rogers. She's a human female. They're not just animals, you know."
Agent Rogers rubbed his eyes, tiredly. "I'll take over from here." He told the other Agents. "If Gamma can still Jump, she's not going Rogue. I can handle things from here." To Gamma he said this: ~You are SO much more trouble than you are worth.~ She didn't respond.
The other Agents filed out, the more intelligent ones sending him a few signals that, translated into a language humans can understand, said something along the lines of "Women are insane."
Rogers could only agree.
Agent Gamma 3.141 was back at the coffee shop where Rogers had left her, eating a cookie and reading Dune. She looked up at him, "Hello."
"Agent Gamma." Rogers stood next to her, pretending to read over her shoulder so that they would stay inconspicuous. "What exactly where you doing back there?"
"Nothing." Gamma turned a page in her book, beginning a new chapter.
Rogers's face was totally blank as he set a hand on the back of Gamma's neck, a hostile move made slightly less so by the gentle signal he sent to her over their link. The female Agent didn't react negatively, which surprised Rogers. If anything, she arched her neck slightly, which would allow him to break her spine as easily as he could break a stick.
"What are you doing NOW, Gamma?" He asked, slightly confused.
"I'm reading a book, Rogers. Please, if you don't intend to break it, let go of my neck. I have survival instincts programmed into me, you know."
"If you thought I was really going to snap your neck then, you'd have done something about it by now." He increased the pressure on her spine slightly, and was rewarded by Agent Gamma spinning around and grabbing his wrist, threatening to break it. He simply stared at her through his dark glasses, unthreatened. "Why don't you tell me what you were doing so I don't have to go looking myself?"
Gamma released his wrist. Rogers was perfectly capable of entering her mind and finding whatever information he wanted, and she knew it. The intrusion would not be welcomed, and, if she fought it, could be quite painful.
"Sit down then." As Rogers did so, she folded her hands in front of her and leaned forwards. "I needed something to talk to. That's all. Nothing more. So I bought some parts and built a tape recorder. I knew that I was breaking the rules, and that I would probably get into a massive amount of trouble for it, but I needed to do it, so I did." Gamma sat back. "Satisfied?"
"No." Rogers cocked his head and touched his earpiece as he received a signal. Gamma heard it as well. They were needed on the outskirts of the Anomaly to serve as back up, a group of rebels were attempting to sneak away with a valuable program. "Let's go."
They Jumped away; leaving behind an old woman who promptly had a heart attack, and a young man whose last memory was working at McDonalds.
The young man was admitted into a mental hospital a week later. This happens quite often.
The old woman died. It was terribly unfortunate, but she was reaching a stage where she wasn't providing much energy anyway. Her body was reduced to its basic components and drained of its nutrients and used as food for the rest of the human population. This happens quite often.
An Agent revealed that it felt emotion. This has not happened for many years.
***
Rebels were attempting to steal one of the Databases that Agents and other sentient programs used to retrieve information from. This happens more often than the machines would like. Of course, success in kidnapping the cleverly disguised codes happens far less often than the rebels would like.
There was a young nuclear family driving towards Old Ellicott City, a haven for Exile and Rogue programs. A rather large section of Ellicott City and Columbia Maryland comprised the local Anomaly. This Anomaly was in a constant state of flux, prone to shrinking and expanding in size without warning. This created a bit of a problem for Agents, as once they entered the Anomaly they could no longer Jump, and their abilities were reduced by at least two Levels.
This meant that one lucky shot from a Rebel gun could kill an Agent. Permanently.
The young nuclear family was having a bit of an argument, this time over grades. It appears that the elder daughter was not performing up to expectations, and the parents were letting her know this.
"If you keep getting Cs in school you will fail in life." Her father informed her. "Cs are not acceptable on your report cards. Only As are acceptable, do you understand? Anything less is a failure. Do you understand m-"
The elder daughter had lapsed into a belligerent silence quite some time ago, but now she screamed as her father's angry words were suddenly strangled, and transformed into a twisting, mechanical gargle. Her scream grew louder as her mother's features began to melt and blur. Her sister was echoing her scream as their parents morphed into Agents Rogers and Gamma.
Rogers wanted to shoot the hysterical children, but Gamma wouldn't let him. She silenced them both with the threat of breaking their kneecaps; then dropped them off on the side of the road, assuring them that their parents would probably be perfectly fine.
"That was foolish." Said Rogers as they drove away from the still-weeping children.
Gamma looked straight ahead, refusing to respond. This was perfectly fine with Rogers, though he sent a single questioning string through their link. Her answer was just as simple: "Stuff it."
The non-Agent ignored her rudeness and continued driving. Gamma stared out her window and absently stroked her automatic handgun. There was a large, white truck next to them. Gamma didn't like trucks, though she admitted to feeling a sick sort of pleasure when she felt a Rebel's body crunch beneath the tires of a sixteen-wheeler. There were two men inside the truck, one fat and hairy and the other skinny and nervous looking. A few seconds and a barrage of warped carrier signals later, and the truckers became Agents Johnson and Black.
Johnson was a gray-suited Level 12 Agent, the kind most often used against rebel groups. Black was Level 17. They sent greetings to Gamma and Rogers, and were slightly confused with Gamma declined to reply. Roger simply told them not to worry about it.
They didn't.
Gamma continued to absently polish her gun on her coat. Looking out the window, she made a face at Johnson and Black, who ignored her. With a certain amount of boredom, she tapped into a public highway database, asking for information about the stolen program. It responded through her earrings:
~Database 63.376: A secondary database used for high-level Agent and Debugger access only. It contains information about Exile and Rogue programs. ~ There was a slight pause before the database informed Gamma that she did not have security clearance to obtain more information about the contents of the stolen Database 63.376
The female Agent frowned and disconnected.
"This one's a bit more complicated than the last one, isn't it?" Gamma returned her gun to its proper place.
Rogers answered. "Yes."
"You're not going to talk to me, are you?"
"No."
"Well you can go screw yourself then."
"I'd really rather not."
Gamma glared at Rogers. His face was as impassive as ever, but Gamma could swear that she detected an element of humor among the stone-carved features. Shaking her blood red hair out of her eyes, she sat back and stared out her window. Johnson and Black were sitting in their truck, silent, stoic, and extremely creepy.
Silence didn't suit Gamma. She tried to hail Black, but his response was empty and submissive. And they wondered why she chose to talk to humans. She turned to Rogers, who looked ready to shoot out the tires of the slow- moving SUV in front of him.
"How close are they to the Anomaly?"
Given that her question was directly related to their current mission, Rogers chose to respond: "Too close for comfort. 4 miles. Well within range for any potential fluctuations in size." Rogers scowl deepened, despite the SUV's lane change. "I don't see why they want us doing this. You shouldn't be anywhere near that Anomaly."
"None of us should be. It's insane." Gamma put her feet up on the glove compartment. Rogers swatted her, demanding that she remove them. For once she obeyed him. "Really. It's absurdly dangerous."
"Especially for you. If we get word of the Anomaly expanding two miles from where we are, you will Jump away, understand?"
Although Gamma hated it, it made sense. If she was caught in the Anomaly, she could be killed. Or worse: captured. If the Rebels managed to capture Gamma they would use her against her rightful creators. They would delete her intelligence. She wouldn't even have the semblance of free will that she did now.
Rogers was waiting for her to respond. "Fine. But if we're in the middle of a fight I'm finishing it, even if the Anomaly overtakes us completely."
Her chaperone Agent removed his sunglasses and glared at her with his icy blue eyes. "Do you WANT to die?"
"No." The rebellious look was gone from Gamma's eyes. "No. I just want to kill."
This both surprised Rogers and put him at ease. Agent Gamma was relatively young, and it was not uncommon for new or experimental Agents to desire the scent and feel of battle more strongly than the senior Agents. However, Gamma had never expressed this desire before, and had even shown an aversion to killing humans. Admittedly, once she began a battle, she was very - thorough. Very seldom did a human escape from Gamma once she determined that it should be terminated. Agent Rogers had decided that her indecision pertaining to death was one of Gamma's many little idiosyncrasies, and generally harmless.
She was staring out the window now, and rubbing her arm. Something was making her uncomfortable, but Rogers couldn't place what. He reached over and tapped her shoulder lightly with two fingers. It wasn't an action that required a response, and Rogers wasn't surprised when he didn't receive one. They drove in silence again, but it was now a comfortable silence.
~How long until we get there?~ Asked Gamma through their link, preferring this to actual speech during this rare moment of peace between them.
~About fifteen minutes,~ Responded Rogers in the same manner. ~I can only hope that we get there in time.~
Gamma frowned, and asked the mainframe for knowledge of the whereabouts of Database 63.376. It responded that there was no such database; that it had been deleted.
~We're too late.~
It was Rogers's turn to scowl. "That's impossible." He said out loud. "We would have been taken off the mission! We."
Both Agents stopped as a transmission went out on all "public" frequencies. "All Agents assigned to retrieve Database 63.376, change objective. Agents Rogers, Gamma, Brown, Kirke are assigned to eliminate Rebels nearby the Anomaly. Agents Black, King, James, Jones report to Debugger immediately."
All Agents sent out an affirmative reply, except for Gamma, who was still feeling irritable. Rogers was forced to answer through her, something both Agent and non-Agent detested.
"I think a bit of a Jump is in order, don't you?" Rogers signaled Brown and Kirke, requesting information about their location. Kirke responded, including a pleasant greeting for Gamma. Agent Kirke was one of the few regular Agents who got along well with the experimental Agents.
Kirke and Brown were in a vehicle about 2 miles from their objective. There were two coppertops in the back seat that Rogers and Gamma could use as hosts. Brown remarked that they had better hurry up; the people were making a racket.
Gamma complied readily. She was perfectly happy to get away from Rogers even for a few moments.
"Heya, Kirke!" She chirped as she completed the takeover of one of the bodies. "How about you let me drive?"
"The last time you drove, Gamma, you killed my host. Rather painfully, I might add." Kirke glanced back at her for a moment. "I don't feel like being impaled upon a stop sign again."
Gamma made a face at the back of Kirke's head, and then proceeded to ignore Rogers as he took control of the fourth body.
She was completely silent all the way there, until Rogers screamed.
*****
AN: OH! CLIFFHANGER! BOOYAH! Well, it hardly matters, since nobody appears to be reading this anyway, but even so. I decided to include Brown in this one, just because Agent Brown is awesome. It was going to be Theta, the chain-smoking Newstyle Agent, but he'll be introduced later. That's the end of this installment of Agent Gamma! Tune in next time for another scintillating story about your not-quite-favorite female Agent!
.
***
What I'm doing right now is more illegal than you can possibly imagine. What I'm doing right now could be seen as an act of me going Rogue. Another one. Especially because Agent Rogers isn't here.
I made this tape recorder myself. It took me about 3000 cycles. I don't know why I did it; I suppose I just needed something to talk to. I know I can talk to Rogers, but I confuse him. I can see it on his face every time I start mentioning the reasons why programs go Rogue, or why they'd bother breaking the rules. It's illogical; it's stupid. It's insubordination to a degree that even I can't aspire to.
But I guess I can, because here I am with an object that shouldn't exist, saying things that shouldn't be said.
It'll leave a trace. All objects that don't obey the rules leave a trace, that's how we can find them. I can already feel it; it makes a sound, sort of, a light ringing. It's very annoying, but I don't know how to delete the traces. I'm just paying a lot of attention to the signals other Agents are sending out, so that if anyone sends out an alert, I can crush the recorder and Jump away. There's only one carrier signal anywhere near me, and it's a Watcher hanging out on the highway.
I'm having problems with my own code. Every so often something inside my programming gets distorted, and I can't ever locate what. It doesn't last long enough for me to find out what's wrong with my mind. I haven't told this to Rogers yet and he obviously can't feel it through our connection. He'd have made me go to the Debugger by now if that were so.
I dislike going to the Debugger. Rogers actually rather enjoys going, he says it's rather soothing. That sounds so wrong to me, the prospect of being disconnected for any length of time irks me. I get paranoid after waking up from the sessions. I don't like it even when Rogers goes, because he comes back with his emotive processes inhibited slightly, and then I confuse him even more. It bothers me, his being confused. It makes me feel superior, and then I feel alone.
I shouldn't feel at all. I'm an Agent.
I've been talking to humans more often now, discussing the concepts of emotion with them. They just think I'm a random, friendly woman in the coffee shops. One thing I've noticed about them is their desire to be understood by someone. I was talking to a girl whose lover had abandoned her. She was sobbing and I was trying to comfort her, though nothing in my programming could possibly explain this outpouring of emotion she was displaying. "I really thought he UNDERSTOOD me!" She said. That hit me.
I want to be understood by someone.
That's not normal. That's VERY abnormal, even for an unstable, experimental model like myself. There's a reason Agents don't have emotions, they're notoriously dangerous. Even inside the Matrix, emotion is a large component in human wars. As an Agent, I should be incapable of hatred, fear, love, and pain. I should be neutral.
Then why do I hate Rogues so much? Just because their actions are illogical and insubordinate? That makes me a hypocrite then. Why do I fear termination? My code would eventually be recycled, so it's not death like the human death. Why do I feel pain when someone else kills Rogers? It makes no sense to me. It's illogical.
There it goes again. That distortion. I knew it would. I think I know what it is now, whenever I start contradicting myself and become more and more confused, it twitches. It's like a muscle spasm.
That's going to inhibit my discussions of emotion with the humans greatly. That's probably why it's still there after several trips to the Debugger. He probably put it there, the blue haired little freak.
They're coming.
Gamma heard the carrier signals of seven Agents coming her way, one of them being Rogers. He was attempting to hail her over their private connection, but she had locked him out. Going through Rogers's earpiece, she determined their goal: She had been placed at priority four for retrieval. They were coming to get her, and all were prepared to terminate her if that was necessary.
She sighed and put the recorder on the floor. She stepped on it. It shattered; its trace was disrupted, and then ceased.
The seven Agents burst into the room to find an extremely confused 14-year- old girl, who saw their guns and immediately started crying. Rogers walked into the room and picked up the remains of Gamma's recorder.
"What was she doing?" Asked Agent Johnson, one of the many low-level, unimaginative Suits that Agent Gamma held in disregard.
Rogers rubbed a bit of metal absently. "She was recording something, but it's lost now." He glanced at the 14-year-old. She had curled herself into a little ball in the corner and was staring fearfully at the Agents. Rogers took uncharacteristic mercy on her and knocked her unconscious. "Agent King, take this back to it's home. It shouldn't remember anything."
Suddenly Gamma's voice filled his private link. "She's not an IT, Rogers. She's a human female. They're not just animals, you know."
Agent Rogers rubbed his eyes, tiredly. "I'll take over from here." He told the other Agents. "If Gamma can still Jump, she's not going Rogue. I can handle things from here." To Gamma he said this: ~You are SO much more trouble than you are worth.~ She didn't respond.
The other Agents filed out, the more intelligent ones sending him a few signals that, translated into a language humans can understand, said something along the lines of "Women are insane."
Rogers could only agree.
Agent Gamma 3.141 was back at the coffee shop where Rogers had left her, eating a cookie and reading Dune. She looked up at him, "Hello."
"Agent Gamma." Rogers stood next to her, pretending to read over her shoulder so that they would stay inconspicuous. "What exactly where you doing back there?"
"Nothing." Gamma turned a page in her book, beginning a new chapter.
Rogers's face was totally blank as he set a hand on the back of Gamma's neck, a hostile move made slightly less so by the gentle signal he sent to her over their link. The female Agent didn't react negatively, which surprised Rogers. If anything, she arched her neck slightly, which would allow him to break her spine as easily as he could break a stick.
"What are you doing NOW, Gamma?" He asked, slightly confused.
"I'm reading a book, Rogers. Please, if you don't intend to break it, let go of my neck. I have survival instincts programmed into me, you know."
"If you thought I was really going to snap your neck then, you'd have done something about it by now." He increased the pressure on her spine slightly, and was rewarded by Agent Gamma spinning around and grabbing his wrist, threatening to break it. He simply stared at her through his dark glasses, unthreatened. "Why don't you tell me what you were doing so I don't have to go looking myself?"
Gamma released his wrist. Rogers was perfectly capable of entering her mind and finding whatever information he wanted, and she knew it. The intrusion would not be welcomed, and, if she fought it, could be quite painful.
"Sit down then." As Rogers did so, she folded her hands in front of her and leaned forwards. "I needed something to talk to. That's all. Nothing more. So I bought some parts and built a tape recorder. I knew that I was breaking the rules, and that I would probably get into a massive amount of trouble for it, but I needed to do it, so I did." Gamma sat back. "Satisfied?"
"No." Rogers cocked his head and touched his earpiece as he received a signal. Gamma heard it as well. They were needed on the outskirts of the Anomaly to serve as back up, a group of rebels were attempting to sneak away with a valuable program. "Let's go."
They Jumped away; leaving behind an old woman who promptly had a heart attack, and a young man whose last memory was working at McDonalds.
The young man was admitted into a mental hospital a week later. This happens quite often.
The old woman died. It was terribly unfortunate, but she was reaching a stage where she wasn't providing much energy anyway. Her body was reduced to its basic components and drained of its nutrients and used as food for the rest of the human population. This happens quite often.
An Agent revealed that it felt emotion. This has not happened for many years.
***
Rebels were attempting to steal one of the Databases that Agents and other sentient programs used to retrieve information from. This happens more often than the machines would like. Of course, success in kidnapping the cleverly disguised codes happens far less often than the rebels would like.
There was a young nuclear family driving towards Old Ellicott City, a haven for Exile and Rogue programs. A rather large section of Ellicott City and Columbia Maryland comprised the local Anomaly. This Anomaly was in a constant state of flux, prone to shrinking and expanding in size without warning. This created a bit of a problem for Agents, as once they entered the Anomaly they could no longer Jump, and their abilities were reduced by at least two Levels.
This meant that one lucky shot from a Rebel gun could kill an Agent. Permanently.
The young nuclear family was having a bit of an argument, this time over grades. It appears that the elder daughter was not performing up to expectations, and the parents were letting her know this.
"If you keep getting Cs in school you will fail in life." Her father informed her. "Cs are not acceptable on your report cards. Only As are acceptable, do you understand? Anything less is a failure. Do you understand m-"
The elder daughter had lapsed into a belligerent silence quite some time ago, but now she screamed as her father's angry words were suddenly strangled, and transformed into a twisting, mechanical gargle. Her scream grew louder as her mother's features began to melt and blur. Her sister was echoing her scream as their parents morphed into Agents Rogers and Gamma.
Rogers wanted to shoot the hysterical children, but Gamma wouldn't let him. She silenced them both with the threat of breaking their kneecaps; then dropped them off on the side of the road, assuring them that their parents would probably be perfectly fine.
"That was foolish." Said Rogers as they drove away from the still-weeping children.
Gamma looked straight ahead, refusing to respond. This was perfectly fine with Rogers, though he sent a single questioning string through their link. Her answer was just as simple: "Stuff it."
The non-Agent ignored her rudeness and continued driving. Gamma stared out her window and absently stroked her automatic handgun. There was a large, white truck next to them. Gamma didn't like trucks, though she admitted to feeling a sick sort of pleasure when she felt a Rebel's body crunch beneath the tires of a sixteen-wheeler. There were two men inside the truck, one fat and hairy and the other skinny and nervous looking. A few seconds and a barrage of warped carrier signals later, and the truckers became Agents Johnson and Black.
Johnson was a gray-suited Level 12 Agent, the kind most often used against rebel groups. Black was Level 17. They sent greetings to Gamma and Rogers, and were slightly confused with Gamma declined to reply. Roger simply told them not to worry about it.
They didn't.
Gamma continued to absently polish her gun on her coat. Looking out the window, she made a face at Johnson and Black, who ignored her. With a certain amount of boredom, she tapped into a public highway database, asking for information about the stolen program. It responded through her earrings:
~Database 63.376: A secondary database used for high-level Agent and Debugger access only. It contains information about Exile and Rogue programs. ~ There was a slight pause before the database informed Gamma that she did not have security clearance to obtain more information about the contents of the stolen Database 63.376
The female Agent frowned and disconnected.
"This one's a bit more complicated than the last one, isn't it?" Gamma returned her gun to its proper place.
Rogers answered. "Yes."
"You're not going to talk to me, are you?"
"No."
"Well you can go screw yourself then."
"I'd really rather not."
Gamma glared at Rogers. His face was as impassive as ever, but Gamma could swear that she detected an element of humor among the stone-carved features. Shaking her blood red hair out of her eyes, she sat back and stared out her window. Johnson and Black were sitting in their truck, silent, stoic, and extremely creepy.
Silence didn't suit Gamma. She tried to hail Black, but his response was empty and submissive. And they wondered why she chose to talk to humans. She turned to Rogers, who looked ready to shoot out the tires of the slow- moving SUV in front of him.
"How close are they to the Anomaly?"
Given that her question was directly related to their current mission, Rogers chose to respond: "Too close for comfort. 4 miles. Well within range for any potential fluctuations in size." Rogers scowl deepened, despite the SUV's lane change. "I don't see why they want us doing this. You shouldn't be anywhere near that Anomaly."
"None of us should be. It's insane." Gamma put her feet up on the glove compartment. Rogers swatted her, demanding that she remove them. For once she obeyed him. "Really. It's absurdly dangerous."
"Especially for you. If we get word of the Anomaly expanding two miles from where we are, you will Jump away, understand?"
Although Gamma hated it, it made sense. If she was caught in the Anomaly, she could be killed. Or worse: captured. If the Rebels managed to capture Gamma they would use her against her rightful creators. They would delete her intelligence. She wouldn't even have the semblance of free will that she did now.
Rogers was waiting for her to respond. "Fine. But if we're in the middle of a fight I'm finishing it, even if the Anomaly overtakes us completely."
Her chaperone Agent removed his sunglasses and glared at her with his icy blue eyes. "Do you WANT to die?"
"No." The rebellious look was gone from Gamma's eyes. "No. I just want to kill."
This both surprised Rogers and put him at ease. Agent Gamma was relatively young, and it was not uncommon for new or experimental Agents to desire the scent and feel of battle more strongly than the senior Agents. However, Gamma had never expressed this desire before, and had even shown an aversion to killing humans. Admittedly, once she began a battle, she was very - thorough. Very seldom did a human escape from Gamma once she determined that it should be terminated. Agent Rogers had decided that her indecision pertaining to death was one of Gamma's many little idiosyncrasies, and generally harmless.
She was staring out the window now, and rubbing her arm. Something was making her uncomfortable, but Rogers couldn't place what. He reached over and tapped her shoulder lightly with two fingers. It wasn't an action that required a response, and Rogers wasn't surprised when he didn't receive one. They drove in silence again, but it was now a comfortable silence.
~How long until we get there?~ Asked Gamma through their link, preferring this to actual speech during this rare moment of peace between them.
~About fifteen minutes,~ Responded Rogers in the same manner. ~I can only hope that we get there in time.~
Gamma frowned, and asked the mainframe for knowledge of the whereabouts of Database 63.376. It responded that there was no such database; that it had been deleted.
~We're too late.~
It was Rogers's turn to scowl. "That's impossible." He said out loud. "We would have been taken off the mission! We."
Both Agents stopped as a transmission went out on all "public" frequencies. "All Agents assigned to retrieve Database 63.376, change objective. Agents Rogers, Gamma, Brown, Kirke are assigned to eliminate Rebels nearby the Anomaly. Agents Black, King, James, Jones report to Debugger immediately."
All Agents sent out an affirmative reply, except for Gamma, who was still feeling irritable. Rogers was forced to answer through her, something both Agent and non-Agent detested.
"I think a bit of a Jump is in order, don't you?" Rogers signaled Brown and Kirke, requesting information about their location. Kirke responded, including a pleasant greeting for Gamma. Agent Kirke was one of the few regular Agents who got along well with the experimental Agents.
Kirke and Brown were in a vehicle about 2 miles from their objective. There were two coppertops in the back seat that Rogers and Gamma could use as hosts. Brown remarked that they had better hurry up; the people were making a racket.
Gamma complied readily. She was perfectly happy to get away from Rogers even for a few moments.
"Heya, Kirke!" She chirped as she completed the takeover of one of the bodies. "How about you let me drive?"
"The last time you drove, Gamma, you killed my host. Rather painfully, I might add." Kirke glanced back at her for a moment. "I don't feel like being impaled upon a stop sign again."
Gamma made a face at the back of Kirke's head, and then proceeded to ignore Rogers as he took control of the fourth body.
She was completely silent all the way there, until Rogers screamed.
*****
AN: OH! CLIFFHANGER! BOOYAH! Well, it hardly matters, since nobody appears to be reading this anyway, but even so. I decided to include Brown in this one, just because Agent Brown is awesome. It was going to be Theta, the chain-smoking Newstyle Agent, but he'll be introduced later. That's the end of this installment of Agent Gamma! Tune in next time for another scintillating story about your not-quite-favorite female Agent!
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