Disclaimer: Fan Fiction Inspired by the film The Matrix by Larry and Andy Wachowski © Warner Bros. Entertainment (1999).  The Ghost in the Machine and The Hecate Cycle © oqidaun / M.L. Nicholson (2002)

Credits: Opening lyrics from Quidam (Cirque de Soleil, Quidam)

Ratings:

± Complete work:  R for Language and Violence.

± Chapter Seven: PG for Mild Violence Imagery and Language. 

Cycle II: Descent Chapter Seven A Man for All Seasons

There's nothing left.

There's nothing right.

There's nothing wrong.

I'm one. I'm two.

I'm all yet none of you.

The truth, the lie, the tear, the laughter…

The hand and the empty touch.

Here I am alone

waiting for the curtain call.

Antiseptic sunlight imposed itself on the day. The morning sky demanded benevolence and the squeaky wheel of the medication cart rang like the cheerful music of an ice cream truck. Brown speckled birds twittered delusional ditties to the peaceful morning.  The day was summer bottled up and carefully packaged for intravenous consumption.

Four pudgy fingers gripped the green chalk and made grand sweeping movements over the pristine concrete.  The heavy-handed lines produced a trail of crushed color.  Back and forth, side-to-side the pulverized chalk seeped into the miniscule cracks and crevices.  A lopsided grin crossed the artist's child like face not so much for the pleasure he took in his post modern color block scheme, but more so for the utter joy associated with the destruction of his medium.

"Good morning, Mr. Montgomery." A pair of fine Italian wingtips scuffled through the art. 

"Ger mumring, Ter Solay." Pudgy fists clenched and deceptively innocent eyes narrowed.

"Where did you acquire the green chalk, Mr. Montgomery?"

"Ner chalks her." He held up two empty green hands.

"That I can see, Mr. Montgomery, but I am no fool.  You have disobeyed me.  How are you going to get better if you refuse to heed my instructions?"

"Ner better, olee werser ern ter green werld."

"Green world?  Mr. Montgomery, that is precisely why I instruct the nurses to give you red chalks. At this rate you will never get better."

"Ter Solay, you did tis ter me."  A green stripe appeared as his pudgy finger traced across his broken jaw.  The green smudge grew radiant and a blinding light consumed the frustrated artist.  A thin hand snapped out of the glow and seized the psychiatrist's ankle. 

"Bright beautiful morning, eh Alsace?"

"Undoubtedly," he purred and extended his hand.  "I knew Mr. Montgomery was not taking his potassium supplements. How are you, Agent Thoreau?"

"Perplexed."

With a cavalier bow he helped her to her feet. "Perplexed?  I did not know that was an emotion of which your kind was capable."

"You would be surprised by what I am capable of, Alsace."

"Probably only momentarily, each day you become more like us and less like them.  Just as you mimic and acquire our strengths you acquire our failings and faults.  You have quite a stock of the glaring human weaknesses your kind is supposed to transcend.  Is it worth it?  Do you revel in your feelings of confusion? Do you like it?"

"My job is to be like you so I can crush you.  I do not revel in confusion.  I will find a way to use it against you." Unamused, her voice became cold and she dropped his hand. The topic of conversation was old and repetitious.

"You are irritable as well.  I like the agent-talk—it's a bit of a sick turn-on of mine, Kai.  Enlighten me as to what has your brilliance perplexed."

"Your Latin lessons and taste for blood."

"Excuse me?"

A parchment colored card appeared between her fingers and she shook it under his aquiline nose.  "Last night after you left your quote of the day I found this.  A bit careless, Alsace.  I've been defending you." The staccato words forced their way out of her clenched teeth.  "You've got Enforcement salivating at the opportunity to eliminate every Void in this zoo.  This nonsense has put my position in a comparable jeopardy.  Why in the hell are you doing this?"

He turned her hand to see the card, but did not take it.  His brow furrowed and he turned his nose upward. "This is not mine.  I do not practice medicine under my real name.  Patients have trouble pronouncing it and it is a bit too ethnic for this narrow-minded society in which we live. Anyhow, I have grown to prefer the French to the Greek, even if the French is just a phonetic spelling.  Apparently someone wants you to believe this is mine.  As for Latin, I would have never entertained the idea of teaching you the classics—fashion sense and etiquette being a far more pressing pedagogical issue in your case."  A wayward cloud passed in front of the morning sun.  "I appreciate your defense.  Of what am I being accused?"

"You don't know what's been happening, a likely story. You've not heard about the murders?"

"Murders? Forgive me, but my attentions have been directed elsewhere.  I have some personal—family concerns at the moment.  I have heard rumors and felt some apprehension, but my followers are sometimes prone to flighty behavior.  I attribute it to the nature of their being.  Now you, on the other hand; pardon the play on words, but you seem positively spooked."

"Spooked? Very cute, Alsace, but I fear nothing.  I need to get to the bottom of this ridiculousness and I know that you know something about it. Two Voids are dead:  a male by the name of Danh Tù and a female named Margaret Tanger. The first murder took place on 13 August and the second last night.  In both instances there was a high level of residual energy left at the scene and no other useful evidence such as fingerprints.  You're suspect number one."  She tapped a pale finger against his chest.

"Suspect number one? What is my motive? Why would I publicly eliminate my servants when I can do anything I want in private."

"I don't know.  What do you know about these two corpses?"

"Danh Tù is Vietnamese for lover, he was an usual character.  I found him at a noodle shop.  I hate Asian food.  I should have left him there, but he struck me as unique.  It does not surprise me that anyone would murder him as he turned out to be an arrogant little bastard.  He had only a rudimentary understanding of how to harness and store borrowed energy.  Like the sad majority of my Voids, he craved it because it produced a feeling of intoxication.  The young ones call it the Perfect Drug.  Now, Margaret Tanger… I find it disturbing to think that anyone could destroy Margaret. She was older and far more experienced than the boy.  I taught her myself, initiated her into my world.  Her appetites took over her better senses and I lost faith in her.  As you have been studying the classics, I don't have to explain the story of Medea to you.  Her husband was first and then her children.  She devoured her own children." He paused. "That is considered an inappropriate behavior."

"I didn't know you had any notion of inappropriate behaviors.  Alsace, you suck the life out people."

"Like your employer, we consider infantile energy undesirable and prefer it to age a bit.  Additionally, there are cultural issues as well—we are human after all.  Yet most importantly, the energy is too pure, too raw, too concentrated and the after effects are miserable. Children need their fuel for growth and development, to take it away invariably results in death, a very disturbing and unpleasant death.  There is little sport in it." He looked down at Kai with an air of disdain. "Margaret liked suffering.  She was quite voyeuristic about it.  Are you certain she was murdered? Perhaps her conscience caught up with her or she had an accident."

"It was quite a feat.  Few people accidentally hang themselves on swing sets in the middle of night and even fewer suicides are committed with such acrobatic dexterity. It was a murder—a very well executed, pardon my play on words, murder."

"She was very strong, one of the strongest. Danh Tù was just a kid; he had potential, but was not using it.  Margaret on the other hand was talented.  It would have taken someone quite astute to destroy her."

"Such as yourself?"

"True, but as I have said I have no motive.  If I dislike someone then I find other more creative means by which to discipline them."  He gestured to the red brick asylum behind him. "You'll have to find another suspect.  Have you any leads?"

"If it's not a Void, then it's an agent in error or a subversive, just like I've been telling Smith from the very beginning.  Two murders and I have no specific leads. I wish it were you."  Kai sighed and then having a second thought pulled her shades off.  Squinting in the overbearing sunlight, she focused on Alsace's face. 

"What are you doing?"

"Something stupid." She shrugged.  "An old woman suffering from dementia showed up at my office the other day babbling about her granddaughter.  She was senile and talking about this fellow who wanted attention.  She said he abducted her granddaughter and was going to kill her.  I got this weird feeling that it might be connected to the murders."

An anxious cough escaped him. "That's quite odd."

"Quite."

"Why were you looking at me?  Did the old woman pass off one of these faux business cards of mine?"

"No, I was looking at your eyes."

"My eyes?"

"Yeah, she said the man who took her granddaughter appeared to her in a dream and had glass eyes."

The color seeped out of Alsace's face and pooled around his neck. "Mysterious forged business cards, dead Voids, strange old Sicilian women, precognitive dreams, a missing girl and a man with glass eyes?"  A hollow laugh shook his angular body.  "That's priceless.  You'll be a regular Nancy Drew before it's all over.  I'd love to stay and chat, but I've got a group of suicidal insomniacs waiting for me in my office."  He turned sharply and started towards the red brick building. 

"Alsace,"  Kai did not raise her voice, yet he stopped.  "I never said she was Sicilian."

* * *

Agent Jones stretched his legs and leaned back in the unresponsive metal chair mimicking Smith's arrogant posture.  Irritably, Smith switched his monitor off and rested his elbows on his desk. The morning sun cast indifferent light into the cavernous office.  Like opposing panes in a House of Mirrors, the two agents faced each other in silence. Minutes ticked by…

"Do you have something to report?"

"No."

"Clarify your answer."

"I have nothing to report.  The information you requested on anomalies is designated as classified.  The information on Flight 858 is missing and also classified.  I have nothing to report, except that there is nothing to report."

Smith started to lean back in his chair and stopped. "Which databases did you consult?"

"The Enforcement databases as we are unauthorized to access information from other sources.  You did not expect me to consult an unauthorized database, did you?"

"No. We do not challenge the parameters of our programming as defined by Enforcement protocols" He finished quoting procedure and shrugged.  An insincere smile surfaced and he modulated his tone to match it. "I am modifying your schedule.  Neither Agent Brown nor myself have downloaded the Interactive Communications and Behavioral Interpretation upgrades.  The download is more energy efficient when the file is recompressed and copied.  We are expected to operate in the most energy efficient manner. It is not viable for all three of us to download the upgrade when one can do it and share the recompressed file." He paused to inspect his fingernails.  "It should take you at least twenty-four hours for the first compression; however, as my protocol software is older it will be necessary to compress it a second time."

* * *

The sharpening stone grated along the edge of the steel blade and the Cleaver family joked about Ward's boyhood on the farm.  A limp banana peel hung off the edge of the dented metal bedside table.  The console set blared and the sharpening adjusted its rhythm to match the theme song to the trendy Japanese automobile commercial. Steady hands paused to test the blade.  A watery red droplet fell to the white sheets and the stainless steel reflected a one inch by one and half inch section of a joyful sadist.

"The gang's almost all together, my love.  Oh, this will be great fun."