Title: The Backrub
Author: Stormhawk
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: This all belongs to The Wachowski Brothers and Warner Brothers. And the Agents, don't forget the agents. Vincent Greer and Recruit Anne belong to Overlord Mordax. Stef Mimosa and Carol Whitman are mine. VWTSRR (you will get it if you don't already but the now official abbreviation is VWS) was made up by Mordax. I made Shadows up.
I don't own KFC.
Notes: Please, please, please read 'Lies' by Mordax first. Please, you won't get some stuff in here if you haven't read that first.
Short pseudo-companion piece to Mordax's 'Lies'. Remember when Greer was thinking about whether or not Stef would give him a backrub? Well, read on…
I made Shadows up but Mordax wrote some really cool lyrics for them, read this then jump over to her page.
Word Count: 4368
Summary: The title is pretty self-explanatory. Then things get interesting.
Please Read and Review.
The rebel Greer was fighting was stronger than most, at about six and a half feet tall the man was built like a tank. On the other hand, the agent recruit was lankier, muscled but in no way as big as opponent.
His katana had been knocked out of his hand and he didn't have a spare second to require another.
The man gripped the recruit around his neck and pulled him off the ground. It was hopeless to try and pull the hands away, he was too strong.
Suddenly, the grip weakened and the rebel fell to the ground. Greer dropped into a crouch and looked at the rebel who now had a large hole in his back. A fatal gunshot wound from a Desert Eagle.
"You ok?" The agent who had shot the man asked.
"Yeah Stef, I'm fine," he answered as he looked at the female agent.
"Good, can't have these jerks picking on the newbies."
"I'm not a newbie, I've lasted longer than most recruits."
"Most, not all."
"I know," he said as he tucked a few strands of his black hair behind his hair. Wincing, he rubbed his back. Damn, it had been hurting a lot since he had gotten shot.
"Back trouble?" she enquired.
"It gives me trouble if I don't get enough sleep."
"Hm…give me a look." Shrugging, he turned away pulled his ponytail over his shoulder so she could see it.
Tapping two fingers down his back in a very medical way she saw what was wrong.
"Ok, I see the problem," she mumbled.
"What is it?"
"Shush," she commanded. Greer frowned but stay quiet. A second later he was in heaven. All the tension was gone; a slow smile crossed his face as he became aware of two hands gently but firmly plying his shoulders.
An agent was massaging his shoulders.
Gently catching one of her wrists, he turned and looked at her. "Where did you learn to do that?"
She smirked. "Something I picked up." Actually, her aunt had been a masseuse, one of a myriad of talents that she had. She had taught Stef some tricks when she was younger.
Greer smiled, she was good. Maybe she would…
"Um…Stef I was wondering," he folded his arms across his chest, having not seriously considered asking his out loud.
Copying the gesture, she looked at him, "yes?"
"Couldyougivemeabackrub?"
"What?" Having understood each word she still needed to hear it again.
"Could you give me a back rub?"
"Ok."
"What?"
"My way. Our secret. If that's ok then sure. Why not?"
"I really didn't think you'd agree."
"Shows what you know. Now ok?" He nodded. The scene changed, one second they were in a dark part of downtown, the next they were in a room made of scrolling code.
"Where are we?"
"GCS room. Basically it's whatever an agent needs it to be, a couple of requirements and it's a…Holodeck." She said with a half-smile at the Trek reference.
"A Holodeck?"
"What do you want me to do? Shift us to Japan or do you want to do it on my desk?" Greer just looked at her with her last statement. She flexed her hands and with a look of pain she added. "That so didn't come out the way I meant it."
"I guessed that."
"Shall we?" The recruit shook his head in the affirmative.
The room changed to a Japanese-styled room. Thin, rice paper walls and motifs of cherries and Mt. Fuji adorned the rice paper in pale watermarks.
"You'll need to take your jacket off. And your shirt too."
She left for some reason or other. With a few seconds of reluctance, Greer stripped to the waist. Laying himself on the table, he waited for her to come back.
When she did, she had required a kimono and a couple of small bottles of oil. He folded his arms and propped his head on his crossed wrists. Sitting beside him on the wide slab/table she pulled out his hair tie and pushed his ebony locks over his shoulders so that they were out of the way.
"This is the second time you've had me strip to the waist Stef, I'm starting to think you just like me this way." He said with a grin.
"A, it is quite impossible to give you a massage through clothes and B, I could have let that bug tear your shirt but it's usually easier if it gets direct access to your belly button. You don't want to seem them when they're disorientated, I've seen a file of one going up someone's nose."
"Yuk."
As she began to poke and prod his back and shoulders in a gentle manner that released all the tension from them he frowned.
"Something's missing?"
"Sake?"
"No."
"Geisha girls complimenting your muscles?"
That earned a chuckle from the recruit. "No – music."
"Evanescence?" Stef suggested - they were her favorite band.
"Ozzy. The prince of darkness."
"Kelly." One Osbourne or the other.
"POD."
"Three Doors Down."
"Shadows." Greer said as a compromise, but he liked them anyway.
"Done."
Requiring a CD player, track one the garage/local club band 'Shadow's' first CD, 'Freezing Inferno' blasted the oriental room. Stef made tutting sounds.
"You don't like this track?"
"Actually it's my favorite. You have no imagination."
"What are you talking about?"
Sticking her short nails into his skin Greer yelped. She smirked and required away his CD player. Instead a small stage and the band appeared.
"Isn't this kidnapping?"
"You can't kidnap constructs."
"Can I make them?" he asked as the 'band' began to play their songs live for them.
"No, it's an agent thing like shifting. You recruits could probably make some strange and or scary constructs if you could require them."
"I'd be afraid to see what Anne required."
"Want to know something? Her file reads like a Jerry Springer show."
"That would not surprise me in the least."
Returning to the job at hand, Stef thought about the recruits. She had been one of course, but for less than a week. The other recruits that she had known had been nice enough but then everything had changed when she died.
Coming back a month later two of them had died and they hadn't understood why she of all people had been given immortality.
It was understandable; she had been confused about it at the time. Truth be told now she was ever confused about her existence but had come to accept confusion as a part of life.
Greer was outcast even from the recruits. Recruits, in general band together as they were often of the same background; Internet, video games, fantasy and the like.
The half-naked recruit was like them in those respects, having the same interests but it was his way, his personality that set him apart from the rest of the recruits. He valued his time by himself.
Or his time with Katrina or Jones. At least he wasn't alone.
The construct of Shadows began their second track.
"Stef? What's your deal?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're different to the others."
"Thanks for noticing."
"Come on, level with me, it's not like you were a junkie like Jones. He says that addictions like that cause variances in agent behavior but that's not you."
Sighing, she let her palms rest on his broad back. "Actually it is. I went through the same thing he did, we both belong at an addicts anonymous meeting."
"I didn't know."
"Neither did I at the time. You have no idea what it's like to be totally lost in something. An addiction is an addiction, it doesn't matter what it is, it consumes and crushes you, tries to wipe you out. Then it tries to kill you."
She was silent for a moment. Stretching his muscles they did feel better. Whatever subroutine it was it was a well written one. Sitting up he required himself into a sleeveless shirt.
Greer wasn't used to the smirking agent's silence. Except in the presence of Brown, but pretty much everyone shut up when he was around.
Except for him, for reasons still unknown to him, the night he had been shot he had had the guile to speak 'above his place' to the combat agent. Not a good idea when the man he was back chatting to could kill a human twelve different ways with his pinkie finger.
He wasn't an irrational person, he wasn't a violent person. He had even done his best to avoid confrontations with teachers, preferring to drift off quietly into his own world.
But he remembered one incident where he had gone completely nuts. He had yelled at his teacher in front of the whole class. Poor Miss Rosalie, he must have scared her but he was scaring himself at the time.
It had been when his power had manifested fully, letting him hear telephone conversations.
Could his outburst with Brown be connected to his power? He hoped not.
The Edmund twins had gone insane and Nicholas had killed his sister. Jones seemed to think it was linked to his power.
He shuddered to think that that's what lay ahead of him. And it wasn't something he could escape either. He hoped that the twin's insanity was unrelated.
But he knew somewhere deep down that it wasn't.
Both were silent for a minute longer, one thinking about what lay ahead of him, the other thinking about what lay behind her.
Usually Stef could ignore the addiction, but sometimes when she couldn't blow it off any longer it would drag her down into the dumps. How weak she had been to get addicted, becoming a junkie.
Something that even Whitman hadn't done.
Her predecessor, her dark shadow. Something that she did not want to become but scared her that it may yet happen.
For real and without help.
She did not want to become that person.
Both were pulled out of their depressive moods when Shadows started playing their third track. This was the most upbeat of the album they felt instantly better.
"You know what this track is called?" he asked her.
"The Truth."
"Well, it's appropriate. I know your secret."
"What secret?" she had so many to choose from.
"You were human," he said in a singsong voice.
"Who told you?"
"Jones. I asked him. I just figured you were like the new model or something but this makes much more sense."
"Well, what do you think now?"
"It's cool. Why didn't you tell me?"
"I dunno…it's not that important is it?"
"Like hell it isn't. This is big."
"Well, part of it is because it doesn't happen to everyone. We can't have the recruits thinking that everyone becomes immortal, they'd relax and more of them would die."
"Is that the only reason? There was someone before you."
"Want to talk predecessors Greer? What about the Edmund twins?"
"How do you know about them?"
"It's on your file. Remember, 'we know about your abilities'? I knew about them before you did."
"Oh, yeah. Can I see my file?"
"Why? It's as boring as hell."
He smirked. "Your turn."
"Carol Whitman. One insane blond bitch. She went insane and killed almost everyone here, all the recruits and even Brown."
"Shit."
"Then she showed up a couple of months ago. Just before we got as a matter of fact. I don't even know if she's dead now. Who knows what's floating around in the system?"
"Are we both depressed?"
"Yes we are."
"Want to get drunk? Cures everything."
"No it doesn't and no I can't. I've tried. Most we can get is slightly inebriated but I think that was psychosomatic. But I heard about one of the Paris agents who got deleted for drunken behavior."
"There are other agents?"
"What? You thought we were the only ones? There are thousands of agents and hundreds of agencies."
"Wow."
"I haven't met any of them. Just Clarke."
"Kent?"
"Agent Clarke. He does brings orders from the mainframe and gives briefings and stuff."
"Well, if you can't get drunk," he sighed and thought about what to do. "The mall?"
"Ok."
Both required street clothes and Stef shifted them both the nearest mall. Greer was in dark combat pants and a dark blue, long sleeved shirt with Celtic-styled art running down both arms.
Stef, on the other hand was in a loose shirt emblazoned 'so what?' and jeans. Swinging a backpack onto her back while Greer required a wallet full of cash for himself they walked into the mall.
Stopping briefly in the newsagent, they moved onto the CD shop. Greer flipped through the CDs.
"Got it, got it, need it, got it. Dear god what is that doing there?" He pulled out a CD gingerly with two fingers.
"What's wrong you big baby?"
"This," he said holding the CD in front of her face. Swiping it off him she looked at it.
"What's wrong with Avril Lavinge?"
"Oh god, you're one of them. You're a girl."
"Gee…ya think? She's cool."
"You start singing skater boy and I will kill you."
"Was that a threat?"
"Yup." Smirking evilly and chuckling under her breath she dragged him away from the hard rock toward the listening station. Selecting one of the CDs she rammed the headphones over his head and pressed play.
He tried to wriggle free but she held the headphones tight to his head. He wasn't going anywhere.
He mumbled for mercy as his most hated song started.
"Please let me go."
She shook her head. He was desperate; he refused to listen to girly music. Dropping to his knees, he swept one of her legs from under her. She was too quick, pushing him forward, she pinned him with one knee and held the headphones tight until the song was finished.
"Can I get up now?"
"Rest of the album first."
"No!" Pushing her off with both hands, he held her down in a similar manner while deciding what music to torture her with.
"Do you two mind?" an authoritative voice asked. They looked up to see the store manager, an old man with a mustache and a security guard.
And about half the store was watching them.
"Would you please leave the store," it wasn't a question.
"Sure," they both mumbled.
Climbing to their feet they left the store with the security guard staring after them.
"Jerk," Greer muttered under his breath.
"Ass wipe."
"Touché."
"Oui mon ami."
"Are you French? I mean originally."
"No, I just took it in high school. I'm American but my history is English mostly, bits of Irish and Scottish chucked in. Maybe some Welsh. How about you?"
"Not exactly sure."
"Look it up when we get back. It's useful to be part of the system that knows everything."
"Tell me about it. I've read someone's file." True that that person didn't really exist and the file had been fabricated because he had been looking for it but nonetheless it was indistinguishable from any other and it was extremely thorough.
"Really? Who's?"
I should have just kept my mouth shut. "Katrina's."
"How's it going with you two?"
Well, she's actually Jones. How's your love life? "I don't think we'll be seeing much of each other any more."
"What a shame. Why?"
"She's moving across the country."
"You like her right?"
"Oh yeah."
"We might be able to transfer you to a different agency. That doesn't usually happen."
"Nah, I'm fine here."
"Good, be a shame to lose you."
"Why can't you be a recruit? Then I've have someone to talk to besides Jones. The rest of the recruits are…strange."
"They think the same thing about you."
"You have been spying."
"It's my job. I'm an agent, I have to keep an eye on the recruits."
"What the recruits like back when you were…when was that anyway? Ten years? Twenty years?"
"Yeah, I was a recruit when I was three. Well, I knew about the matrix when I was three but I'm not that old. Year, year a half ago."
"That's all?"
"What do I look that old do I?"
"Is there an answer that means I won't get the crap beaten out of me?"
"Joking. I'm not that much of a girl. I'm twenty-three. Recruited when I was twenty-two, I'm an immortal now."
"Die young and live forever."
"That was in Lost Boys wasn't it?" Greer nodded his head.
"You hungry?"
"Never. But I could pretend if you're hungry."
"Rebels and a backrub tend to make me hungry."
"Food court is over there."
As they waited in line at KFC Greer mulled something over. "You look like your brain is about to pop, what in hell are you thinking about Greer?"
"Why is it called a food court? Is the food on trial or something?"
"Well…"
"It's one of those mysteries like Bigfoot and ghosts and stuff." She chuckled, there was no mystery.
"Come here," she said with a slight wave. Whispering as to not draw attention she said, "all those creepy paranormal things are just rogue programs. Ones that have been disconnected from the system."
"All of them?"
"Just their powers that they have. I mean, what did you think of the agent when you first saw him? And the rebel jumping that far?"
"I figured superpowers or mutants or something. Something cool like that. It seemed impossible."
"A good assumption. Some of the others are more blatant, guys that can ghost through doors, floors and walls. I know two of them…knew them anyway. Or ones that look like Bigfoot. Some of the others are just what people choose to see them as."
"Like what?"
"Angels."
"Programs with wings?"
"In some cases." Not all of them, Smith was quite earthbound.
"What will you have?" The KFC worker asked him.
"Three piece and chips and give me a mountain dew as well." She nodded and he paid her.
"Be a few minutes. Next."
"Whatever he had," Stef said with a shrug. "And give us six dinner rolls and a large gravy."
As she turned away to fill their trays Greer smiled. "I always forget the rolls."
"You can't have KFC without rolls and gravy. It's like blasphemy. You can have three."
Their food was handed to them and they found a table away from the major part of the crowd.
"What you want to do next?" she asked him after swallowing some of her drink.
"No clue whatsoever."
"Arcade?"
"The last time I walked into an arcade I met Yami. It's her fault I got shot."
"You better now?"
"Only psychosomatic chills when I think about how close I came to dying. Not that I'd tell anyone but that scared the crap out of me. I'm not ready to die."
"Dying is a bitch."
"Sorry, touchy subject. New topic."
"No, I'm ok with it."
"Really?"
"There is no white light if you're wondering." Only if Jonas is orchestrating it.
"How'd you die?"
"Bullet right here," she said rubbing the spot between her eyes where Smith had shot her.
"Am I going to become an agent?" he blurted out before he could think.
She was quite taken back; leaning back in her chair she studied the sharp features of the recruit. What was she supposed to tell him?
"It's not my decision. The mainframe completely rules those kinds of big decisions. I'll put in a word for you, so will Smith and so will Jones. He usually doesn't get along with the recruits but he seems to like you."
Yeah Jones likes me, enough to fall in love with me, Greer though wryly of the green-eyed agent and his gentle features.
"I'm better than the rest of them put together…"
"Isn't that a little arrogant?"
"Maybe so but it's true. Well?"
"I still don't know."
"Fine," he said flatly. Damn it made him angry when people didn't know important things.
/I'd like to order a pizza please/
Greer blinked.
No, he just wasn't concentrating; there was nothing wrong with his power. He just wasn't focusing.
"I'm going to get a sundae, you want one?"
"Nah, I'm right."
He stood and made his way over to the ice cream palace. Staring up at the board he heard two unpleasant sounds.
Or rather, two voices.
Recruits Anne and Peter. Both could be as dangerous as vipers when they chose or as bitchy as teenage girls. The latter was most of the time.
"Greer, what are you doing here?" Peter drawled. "I thought you had your rec time already. And don't you haunt clubs or something?"
"I'm just at the mall Peter. Got a problem with that?"
"Actually I do. I also have a problem with your existence your majesty. You are so annoying, all you Internet addicts, there is no class among the recruits. Save a few," he said with sideways look at Anne.
"Sorry Petey, we can't all be Harvard dropouts."
"I did not drop out, I got recruited. As for you, this has to be better than living in some rat hole getting pastier and pastier in front of a monitor."
"Piss off."
Peter pulled the top off his drink and threw it at Greer. The liquid froze in midair millimeters from Greer then flew back at Peter. Some of it splashed onto Anne.
Defeated, they walked away bitching at each other.
"The perfect couple," Greer muttered.
"I agree," Stef said coming up behind him. "That was so childish."
"Thanks."
"It was that or shoot him. I should fire him."
"Let the rebels do it."
"Want to go to the arcade?"
"Actually I'm addicted to a game I've got on my computer back at the Agency."
"What? You downloaded Pong?"
"No, it's…" should he tell her?
"Spit it out. The new Final Fantasy? I knew this girl who had the hots for Auron."
"You wouldn't have heard of it."
"Try me."
What was there to lose? "Virtual World that Seems Really Real Smackdown."
"Uh-huh. Did you just make that up?"
"Can I trust you?"
"Unless you're planning on becoming a rebel than sure."
"Shift us to my room."
"Not in public, it draws too much attention."
Walking around into a service corridor where there were no people Stef shifted them both to Greer's room.
Sitting at his computer he opened up a hidden file called VWS. Requiring herself a chair she sat down.
"Where'd you find it? Some new software company?"
"No…not quite." He said as the title screen came up. She stared openmouthed at the caricature of Smith before cracking up laughing. Calming herself down she looked at the option screen.
"Who in hell designed this? You?"
"You've got to be kidding, I could never design anything near this good. It was…"
"Spill it Greer."
"Just keep it to yourself ok?"
"I swears on the precious. Who?"
"Jones."
"You're kidding."
"No and you ain't seen nothing yet."
"Really?"
He smiled, handed her a controller and selected a two-player game. Scrolling through all the characters he let her look at the rebels; Dream Master, Neon, 0003 and the agents; Smiley, Dirt and Phones.
He clicked on Neon, "My coat of doom will beat you senseless!" and clicked again, "Fear my deranged death wish!"
"This is nuts. I want a copy."
"You'll have to ask Jones."
"Did he put in any hidden characters?"
"Umm…no."
"Well, have you even looked?"
"No. There won't be any hidden characters, there's no need to look." He said, stumbling over his words.
"You're hiding something. Give me that mouse!" she wrenched it from his hand and started clicking around the screen. She hit pay dirt when she started clicking on the letters in the title.
[Congratulations, you have found a hidden character.]
"I found it," she said triumphantly as he buried his head in his hands, not wanting to see the reaction to the caricature of herself.
"This is interesting," she mumbled as she clicked the mouse.
Suddenly, he heard his own voice, albeit a little more neurotic than his own saying, "I hear voices."
Looking up he saw the hidden character was a parody of himself. Recruit Gamer, who had a huge earring in his left ear that weighed that side of his head down and a sword that kept glitching back to a gun. Attired as Greer normally was, his ponytail had been shorn off leaving him with short hair.
"I didn't even know this was in here, it must be new."
"Well, what other hidden character is there?"
"If you liked this you're going to love what's next." Interested, she handed back the mouse and watched him click on the second R of character.
[Congratulations, you have found a hidden character.]
"Agent Mimosa meet Agent Honey," he said as her caricature appeared.
Stef's face froze as she saw her character's abbreviated suit. Blinking a few times her face relaxed and smiled.
"You're not mad?"
"How could I be? It's all in good fun."
"Fine, then I will kick your ass."
"Can we play as ourselves?"
"One of us has to be a rebel."
"Ok, I'll be Dream Master, I want to use that boring speech attack."
"Ooh, that's deadly." He quipped as they selected their characters.
As the game loaded and Greer pondered what kind of powers 'he' had in the game he realized that he wasn't worried about the nightmares he'd been having or the rest of the recruits he called him a multitude of names behind his back, he was playing a video game.
Notwithstanding the fact that the characters in the game were all based on someone he knew.
Finding that all the junk in the digital alley was interactive she picked a lid up off a trashcan and started to beat him over the head with it.
Fighting back, he shot his gun before it glitched and turned back into a sword.
Life could suck, predecessors, nightmares, enemies and suspicious allies but sometimes it wasn't that bad.
"I am wise and I know everything. Everything except why my sunglasses have no frames." Said the gangster rapper version of Morpheus.
"That may be so but I can listen in on your phone calls." Gamer retorted.
The End.