Hi again. I know I said I'd update yesterday, but ff.net was down for a while, and I was being forced to work on my room. Anyways, I have some people I'd like to thank for helping me with a muse crisis last night: Darren for reminding me to think of the storyline, Lulu for reminding me to think of the readers, Kaki for reminding me to think of the characters, Cara for reminding me to think of my sanity (or whatever's left of it), and an extra big thank you to Tony who did most of the above, and for keeping me from going loco while I made my decision.

TADA!! (applause) Another new chapter (aren't you proud of me?) and with it comes (dandandaaaan)

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!! (ooooooo)

Yes, and the first part is a bit of Strongbad rave music () which I don't own either (and my d/c remains the same).

But now I leave the rest to you to figure out.

Enjoy!

~Rhiannon~

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep
Dan dandan dun, dan dandan dun, dan dandan dun,

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, dan dandan dun, dan dandan dun, dan dandan dun
Doodoo doo doo, doodoo doo doodoo, doodoo doo doodoo, beep, beep, beep

The system is down. The system is down. The system is down.

"DUDE! Why the hell are you sleeping in the hallway?!"

Rhiannon blinked her eyes open and saw two black boots.

"Hello? Earth to whoever you are? You're asleep in a hallway and that bloody watch of yours has been going off for nearly an hour!! Wake up, you stupid girl!" the boots yelled, tapping slightly with impatience.

"Mmmph. Go away," Rhiannon mumbled, as she swatted at the boots, the strange invented rave music carrying her off. "Five more mints."

"Get UP!" the boots aimed a kick straight into her stomach.

Rhiannon was awake, although she had just had the wind knocked out of her. She rolled herself slowly onto her hands and knees. The boy helped her up roughly.

"Are you drunk?" he asked.

Rhiannon answered, "No… God what is that bloody beeping?"

"It's your watch."

"My watch?" Rhiannon asked, confused. "Why would I have… set… my… watch?" Her face contorted as it dawned on her that she had a meeting at 6 o'clock. She checked her watch. "Oh, shit."

6:52 it taunted her with its digital black flashing.

"Oh shit, oh shit," she repeated to herself as she dusted off her jeans. "Oh rickety-frickin-frackin-hizzin-bizzin-nogood-dirty—where's the conference room?"

The boy was now eyeing her with an odd look of mixed suspicion, fear, and curiosity. "Uh, you go to the elevator and say, 'Conference room'?" he said as if asking her for her sanity levels.

"Greatthanks!" she said, as she tore off down the hall.

"Wrong way," he call

She rushed past him a second time, mumbling, "I knew that."

"What's the rush?" he called after her retreating form.

Rhiannon yelled back over her shoulder, "I'm late! I'm late for an important date!"

The boy chuckled.

~@~

The steel doors of the elevator closed.

"Erm," Rhiannon began, uncomfortable with the notion of talking to the elevator, "Conference room?"

There was a soft ding, and the elevator dropped steadily. Rhiannon chanced a glance around the empty cube. There was nothing inside, and the crack between the doors was invisible. She was rather uncomfortable in the blank room.

All of her life, there had always been color or sound or smells to occupy her, but in the monochrome elevator, there was nothing for her to occupy her nervous mind. It was an utterly new feeling, the blankness of this new place. No-one was laughing or crying, shouting or smiling. They were all emotionless rocks. They all spoke in similar monotones, never raised their voices, never added hints of pleasure or distaste to their words, excepting when the talked of humans. They did not care if she made jokes or poked fun at their monotony.

She spent sixteen years trying to get Agent Doe to smile. Every time he spoke to her, she asked him to call her by her "real" name, but he never did. Even when other agents had come in place of Doe (who was off kicking rebel arse), they spoke the same way, used the same words, demanded that she quit spilling emotions on them. After she turned twelve, she realized that they did not like her way of telling them about her week, about how she hated so-and-so and how she loved such-and-such. They wanted to hear about anomalies, about her hacking skills, about her martial arts training. They could have cared less about her books, her elves, her friends, her dreams, her core.

Besides, Rhiannon thought bitterly to herself, they never laughed at anything I said.

The sly part of her mind said, Except that boy.

The elevator slowed, and an operator-ish voice said, "Executive Level." It stopped, dinged, and—sat there. The doors did not open. She stood for a moment before she felt the draft on the backs of her legs.

"Ahem," a decapitated head said, floating inside a solid black laptop.

Rhiannon whipped around.

"You're extraordinarily late," it said.

~@~

All throughout the head's monologue about the glory of the A-lines and everything they were capable of, Rhiannon had eyed the floating menace with growing contempt. He had been treating her like an object.

Rhiannon had thought back to her first boyfriend. She had met him at the freshman mixer, a small dance held between the freshman classes of St. Angela's and St. Paul's high schools. The following week, she walked straight up to him in front of his whole football team, kicked him in the nuts, and backhanded him, all the while screaming at him for being a sexist boob. Her reason had been simple: he had treated her like an object.

This stupid head was, in her opinion, doing the same. He had said stuff about how marvelous her powers were, and he had kept complimenting the Programmers and the Architect, and it reminded her very much of The Horse and His Boy, how all the people had to talk very nicely about the Tisroc. She had begun to despise the head, who had continued to explain things to her condescendingly, as if she were a stuffed bear.

"Oh, you probably wouldn't understand, but you see, there are all of these little places, called coordinates, and, oh, nevermind. But you can change the location of things, there's a disk on the table for you to upload to yourself after all the meetings are over. You'll just have to go back up to your office to do it," it had said.

She had wanted to break the laptop to shards, or to make it "change locations." Both would have worked fine for her.

The head had explained that the green glass "playing field" was a portable sparring area for agents and human agents—something else he only half explained. She understood most of it, however, people who worked for the machines; people who either tricked rebels or spied on them (or both), she could not decide which sounded more interesting. The head had not bothered to continue his explanation, for he had launched off into another spiel about how wonderful the A-lines were and how they would destroy the resistance entirely.

It was a most unhelpful talking head.

Now Rhiannon was sitting in the same position, her glare slightly more menacing than before, as the head jabbered on about anomalies and missions. She could not care less about any of it. She was busy contemplating, mulling over what had happened. She hated the machines for killing the first A-line. She hated the agents for being so cold. She hated the A-lines for being indifferent. She hated 917 for standing up to her. She hated herself for getting angry. She hated Agent Doe for leaving her stranded in the hallway. She hated the head for being an asshole. She hated the Architect for creating the Matrix. She hated to machines for fighting the people. She hated the people for making the machines. Her own thoughts and words came rolling back to her, echoing through her mind, drawing her inexorably closer to the one decision she did not want to make.

Rebels or Machines?

-}^^#~@~#^^{-

*coughs* erm… I hope you liked it, and now, an update of the current polls (which are still open)

Rhiannon should meet Pandora: 1

Rhiannon should NOT meet Pandora: 0

Please VOTE, because I don't want to decide by myself. Domo arigato!

And… you know that this is the part where I say that reviews make me write faster, and you just roll your eyes at me… but please… feed the starving artist's creativity, if not her tummy *pitiful puppy eyes*