Adrian decided that, for everyone's sake, it would be best if he went outside for a while. He grabbed a book, the Invisible Man, from the Twins' bookshelf, a lamp that didn't need plugging in, and trotted off into the Merovingian's large garden to read...

***

Aidenn felt a little sorry for his Twin, he was, after all, having a rather rough night. He tried to *ding* him, but he only got a prearranged *reading* answer. He clearly didn't want to be disturbed... Which was fine with his Twin. Antoine, he discovered, was quite intelligent, amusing and entertaining. They sat on Aidenn's bed, just enjoying each other's company. She listened to everything he told her, about working for the Merovingian, his Twin, Persephone, things he wouldn't even tell his Twin. She was just so easy to talk to, he found himself spilling his heart to her. They finally ended up laying next to each other, telling each other stories of the various weird things that they had done or situations they had been in. He found, after a while, that he didn't love her as he did someone he would want to sleep with, but as... He searched for a word that he hadn't used for many, many years. A sister. Yes, that was it. She was like a sister, someone to confide in, love even, but not in a sexual way. It was new to him, but novel. He relaxed and told her everything...

Antoine, for her part, thought it was a bit odd that this cool, pale, adult killer would be telling her of his secret sorrows and woes, of his past, of how much he HATED getting dirty. Almost as though she was a sister. She, being pure program with no human roots, had never had siblings, of course, but as she had traversed the Internet to educate herself, she had come across information about siblings. But that had been all it was. Information. She had never expected that to change. But now, as she lay curled on the bed with him, she felt a small of what he shared with Adrian. She envied them for this. At length, after an eternity of these jealous thoughts swirling throughout her mind, she asked, "Aidenn? How did you come to be connected with Adrian, like... Like you are...?"

"We have never told anyone that story..."

"Oh, I didn't mean to pry! You don't have to tell me if you don't want to..."

"No, we mean to. We were just telling you, we have never told anyone. We think we'll show you. You do know about programs' ability to share memories with each other?"

"Of course!" Before she could say or do anything else, she found herself...

***

The Merovingian had not been especially impressed by the twins, who had been dragged before him by his contact. They were still dressed in their Agent suits, but they were quite scruffy. Their deep brown hair was ruffled, and they were quite dirty. 'Oh well,' he thought, 'I'll just reprogram them. Easy enough...' He waved his programmer over, and told him to prepare a programming room for the twins. He then left his restaurant, leaving Persephone in charge, for his supercomputer. He missed her wistful glances at the twins as they were dragged away.

Elon, who would become Aidenn, was shoved forcibly along a hall in this strange building. He was a little afraid, but at least his twin was beside him. They exchanged worried glances as they were forced into an all-white room that looked suspiciously like an interrogation room.

"Danny. What is this place?"

"I have absolutely no idea. Whatever it is, I don't like it. I say we escape and go back to exile."

"An excellent plan. The only question is, how?" The door that they had come through had disappeared. The two of them promptly began to search the walls all over, looking for the door.



"Ah, look at them! So clueless about the powers they have as programs, unaware of what they are, what they can do! They will learn quickly enough!" The Merovingian watched their futile efforts as he prepared to dive into their programming. His programmer was hovering around nervously. He knew, all too well, how limited his boss' programming ability was. He liked the twins, and would not want to see them destroyed. The Merovingian called up a program on his computer. One of his favorites. The programmer sighed his relief. A simple outfit/appearance program. The Merovingian, with a cackle of glee like a small boy's, began to program...

The twins, still relentlessly searching for the door, stopped suddenly. They were no longer wearing their ragged suits... They were now wearing... white. Lots of white. White pants, white shirts, white vests, and, coolest of all, white trenchcoats. They stood, wondering, for a few minutes, before they began to circle each other. "Wow..." Danny muttered. "We look..."

"So much cooler than we did as Agents?" Elon finished.

"Exactly." But the door had still not reappeared. "Um... Maybe it's not over?" They felt another change, but couldn't see it until they turned to face each other. "Ha, Elon, you're wearing makeup!"

"You can't laugh, so are you!" Their skin had turned a dead white, too, and they were now wearing bluish lipstick and black nail polish. The only other spot of darkness was their sunglasses. "Hmm... It doesn't look half bad, though... It looks a little funny with your dark hair, though..."

"Yeah, you too." Since no door was forthcoming, they decided to sit, facing each other, and wait.

The Merovingian had noticed the hair, too. "One last thing..." He muttered. He scrolled through the options for hair the programming program had, before...

"White dreadlocks, sir?" The programmer asked, nervously. "Won't that look, uh, a little weird?"

"Possibly, possibly not..." The Merovingian hit 'yes' and watched the change. "You see? It would look strange, on anyone else. But on them it looks quite fetching, don't you think?"

The programmer was forced to agree. "Indeed, it does!"

The Merovingian smiled. "But, there is still something. Something else that needs changing..." He closed the appearance program and opened a second, much more complicated program.

The programmer tried to think of a good way to voice his thoughts. "Uh, sir? Are you sure about that? The personality program is rather difficult and finicky. Perhaps you would allow me?"

"Of course not! Don't be stupid! I know what I'm doing, I have everything under control..." With that, he accidentally pushed The Button That Should Not Be Pushed. "Um. What does that do?"

The programmer had to fight back the urge to say 'You tell me, if you're so good at programming!' and said, in a whisper, "I-I don't know. I was programmed to never, ever press that button, but it was never explained why..."

"Is there a way to undo it?"

"Not that I know of... We'll just have to wait..."

The twins had just been examining each other's dreads, running their fingers through them, when a huge blast of pain sent them both tumbling to the floor, curled together into a question mark. They screamed as one. Memories drifted up, random and disjointed...

Red. Christmas. Pain. Blood. Andrew. Mother.

Each twin realized that some of these memories belonged to the other, but soon that stopped mattering. The pain went on, and on, and on, and the memories became indistinguishable. Just as suddenly as it had begun, the pain stopped, as if a switch had been thrown. The two of them, or was it the one of them? Inched backwards until they could lean against the wall. For several minutes, it was all they could do to lean and breath, raggedly. At last, they realized something was different. They could hear what the other was thinking! Well, not exactly hear, but think. As if it was originated in each of their minds. They stood up in unison, stared at each other. Reached for each other.

The Twin who had formerly been Elon felt a *ding* in his head. 'Brother dear... Has it occurred to...' He tried to say 'you', but it wouldn't come out. 'Has it occurred to... us, that "Danny and Elon" are rather sad and pathetic human names?'

'Yes. It has occurred to... us. We need new names.'

'Yes, we do.'

'We've always liked the name "Aidenn".'

'We've always liked the name "Adrian".' So they were named. They never confused one another, not after the first few seconds with their new way of speaking. 'We think,' said Adrian, 'That it is time to get out of here.'

'Quite.' They discovered that they had several knives in each of their pockets, and, after a few minutes of throwing them at the walls, they began systematically attacking the walls, like sharks, looking for a weakness.

***

"So then what happened?" Antoine was shocked. How horrible for them. "Who brought you there?"

Aidenn laughed. "So many questions! You do know that we were Agents, right?"

Her eyes bulged. "Uh, no... So that's why you freaked out in the car when I mentioned them!"

He looked a little embarrassed. "Uh, yeah. Well, we were. But... We didn't like the system. Or it didn't like us. In any case, we were deleted. The Merovingian, with as many contacts as he has, soon found out about us. He needed some new guards for the Keymaker, and we've been here."

"Neat. But what happened? Did you get out, or did he let you out? Of that room, I mean."

"We broke out. That's how we discovered we could ghost. Even he hadn't known we could do that. We felt a... a calling in our minds, leading us through the building we found ourselves in. It lead us to his restaurant, where he was with all his guards. One of the werewolves, all tooth, no brain... We were never sure if it was a test or not... Anyway, he laughed at us... Only once." He smiled his little killer-assassin-bodyguard smile and broke off.

Just then there was a knock on the back door, one that Antoine hadn't noticed before. Aidenn threw back his head and... Meowed? Antoine looked at him oddly, but he was concentrating on the door. What came through caused her to gasp. It was so beautiful. It looked like a woman who had been crossed with a silver, spotted cat. She was tall, almost six feet, with large ears, very long teeth, and a tail.

"Ah, Aidenn!" She purred. "I would not want to be in your plassssse. Iffff I were you."

"And why is that, Lady of the Silken Fur?" Aidenn answered, with great courtesy.

The cat-woman, catching sight of Antoine watching her, shot four inch claws from the tips of her elongated fingers, and looked at them innocently. "Well, you ssssee, Perssssephone," she hissed that word, loathing evident in her voice, "hassss complained to him. And he hassss commanded all of you to be at breakfassst tomorrow."

"All of us? Even the Rebels?"

"Yessss. Be there, trusssst me." She turned, oh so gracefully, and left the room.

"Who? What? Breakfast?" Antoine was very confused.

"That was the Lady of the Silken Fur..."

"That's her NAME?!"

"Usually."

"What the heck does that mean?"

"Exactly what we said. It is usually her name, although she has been Lady of the Long Claw, Lady who Bites Werewolves, and Lady of Moonglow."

"I see... What IS she? She's not a werewolf, a vampire, a ghost, an alien, an angel..."

"No, she is none of those. She was created by the Merovingian's old programmer. She called her a Calar. After the programmer, uh, died... the Lady stuck around as a guard, although she doesn't do orders well, and she's always fighting the werewolves. He tolerates her because she's a very, very good fighter."

"Better than you?" She laughed.

He blushed. "She is the only one who has ever beaten us."

"What's wrong with breakfast? Is that punishment or something? What is it, raw sausages or something?"

"Oh, you'll see... On a happier note, we made you an appointment to get dreadlocks tomorrow, but your hair's kind of short..."

"Oh, that's no problem." She shook her head, and by the time she was done her hair was waist length. "I'll do it just before we get there. I don't want to sleep with it like this."

"Neat trick. And a manicure, so you can get your nails like ours."

"Okay..."

"We also have a job tomorrow, want to come?"

"What kind of job?"

"Oh, the usual. Killing, torturing, car chases." He smiled. "A day in the life of an assassin. Get your hair done, go kill someone..."

"Ok, I'll come. But let's go to sleep, I'm really tired."

"Alright. Good night, Antoine." She was already asleep.

***

By the time Adrian came in, hours later, he had calmed down. He felt some anger return when he entered the room and saw his Twin and Antoine curled together, but it vanished just as quickly. He sensed that something was different. He had no idea what, but it was good. He crawled into his own bed and even left the curtain open, watching them until he slept...

Wow, that was one long day! Seriously, this whole story has just been one REALLY long day so far... But it's FINALLY OVER! YEAH! Well, that out to keep you happy for a while, but what about me? See the poor, lonely, blue button in the corner? It's that easy to donate to the "Feed the poor, starving ego of Matrix_twin1" Foundation! In return for this small price, you get a (wonderful) investment: More chapters! Isn't that a great deal?