Chapter Four
WILL SOMEONE PUH-LEASE EXPLAIN TO ME JUST WHY I WAS NOT INFORMED OF THIS?! HMM? ANYONE CARE TO TELL ME WHY?
The room remained silent. The whole room. It wasn't a room. It was a code, green, flowing, cool, crisp, clear, harsh, bold, lifeless, heartless, there, real. If any mage had had the ability to travel through time, and had wanted to look inside the Matrix, he would have seen the same things as you would outside of it. Cool, crisp, clear, flowing, magic. Running through everything. Outside the Matrix, what is alive is green, first and foremost. What is blue is also blue. What is not alive is no color, it is whatever color it looks like to a normal eye. A chunk of amethyst will always be purple, it's code, it's spell, it's force, it's nature, it's name, will always be purple.
Inside the matrix, people have gold codes; everything else has a green code.
But the pity of being able to see the code was that your code was forever different. You had green coding, so that you could see the other coding. You were one of the few whose code was you. Brown was the symbol that said, "This is brown, this is brown, brown, brown, brown…" Clear-cut, crisp, bold was the symbol that said, "This is a slightly rough, crisp material. Coarse, crisp, clear…"
The code moved, she saw the symbols run through the agents; theirs were all the same. Green, green, green, green, cruel, green, cold, green, heartless, green, professional, green, but occasionally a gold symbol, a simple gold symbol consisting of three lines, like an upside-down 'y' with a crosspiece, it read loud and clear, HUMAN.
She looked at the rest of the A-lines, all two hundred forty of them. They had similar codes. She watched them, closely. One had been terminated; she had avoided all contact with any Matrix personnel for thirteen months. There had been two hundred forty-two girls, A-lines, killing assassins, now there were two hundred forty-one. Of the two hundred forty-two A-lines, only two could read the code. They were the first two, and now there was one left. Rhiannon had been hoping to see her at the yearly meeting, so that she could know what her code looked like, know if she was alive, know if she was real. But now her only hope of knowledge was gone. The only one who was like her was gone. Eliminated, obliterated, destroyed, broken, eradicated, annihilated, desolated, razed, wrecked, murdered, slaughtered. And what did the agents have to say? Nothing. What did her fellows have to say? Nothing. What did Rhiannon have to say? Plenty.
However, Rhiannon was smart, very, very smart. She held her tongue and kept her vicious, flying thoughts to herself. How could they? Those damn agents could not have done that without permission from the Programmers. And that meant, the Programmers had had a problem with her, because the Programmers love their A-lines obsessively, and although the younger the A-line was, the more advanced she was, the older A-lines were guarded religiously. No-one could harm an A-line without facing serious, severe consequences.
Rhiannon knew that she had been much closer coding wise to the first A-line. They both had a profound knowledge of computer technology, they both had strong reactions to anything, they both could read the code, and they both could write their own codes and slip them into the Matrix. She also knew that if the Programmers had had a problem with her because of one of these traits, she herself did not stand a chance if it looked like she had issues with the Matrix.
One A-line decided to answer Rhiannon's fury. "It is not the business of an A-line to know the doings of the agents," she said, in a high, child's voice. She could not have been more than eight, but she was obviously attached to the Matrix. She continued, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were questioning the decisions of your superiors."
Rhiannon's blood was about to boil over. "And just who, pray tell, are you?" she seethed, trying not to shout.
The little girl answered, "A2036832917."
"Well, then, 917," Rhiannon began, "if we are not to know the business of the agents, then why do they know of our doings? And if we are not to know of the business of the agents, then why do the Programmers, or anyone else for that matter, have the right to know what we, or others do?"
The little girl jumped up on her chair, "Are you saying the Matrix is flawed?!"
A few younger A-lines cheered and several clapped.
"Actually," Rhiannon answered coolly, "I'm saying that to function properly, the parts must know the mission of the whole so that nothing is done twice and things are not forgotten. We should all know the doings of every other system involved in the Matrix so that we can all do our best jobs."
Most of her side of the room cheered, applauded, agreed aloud, or nodded. They were mostly older girls, ranging from twelve to fifteen, with Rhiannon being the oldest at sixteen. None of them liked the newer A-lines very much; they were too upstart-ish, too brown-nosed, too… yekch!
Little apple-polisher retorted, "The Bible says not to let your left hand know what the right is doing!"
The newer A-lines agreed, either by clapping or by voicing their own opinions.
"Ah, but the Bible also says that a house divided cannot stand!" Rhiannon said back sardonically, thinking all the while, I'm gonna kick your ass.
Her side was getting riled up. "These upstart newbies…" was the general thought.
"The Bible is poppycock codswallop! It's not true! Why are you quoting it?" the little one said.
Several girls on her side made snide remarks such as, "Yeah, why?" and, "She knows her stuff," and, "You gotta way of putting things, you tell 'em!"
Rhiannon laughed aloud, maliciously, cruelly, coldly. It took no more than four seconds before the rest of the older girls realized the little one's mistake. They're laughs echoed Rhiannon's: they were cold laughs, empty, mirthless laughs, full of despicable hate and anger.
"You realize of course, little one," she said devilishly between laughs, "You are the one who brought up the Bible in the first place."
"If you think you're so big and bad!" the younger girl yelled, "Then I dare you to fight me!"
-}^^#~@~#^^{-
A/N: Gomen, gomen, gomen for leaving you with a cliffhanger, but I sincerely must study! I will update ASAP so please don't be mad… Gomen nasai, I am so very sorry
