A/N: Alright, several hours isn't so bad is it? *yawns* it's almost five in the morning. I really have got to quit getting inspiration at oh-hundred hours. Gawd, I'm going to bed. Don't expect to see me for several hours. I'm dog tired.
D/C: too tired… read last chapter…
Rhiannon:
Chapter Eleven
The ceiling had no interesting features. There were no water stains, no spots, no dots, no lines, no bumps, no cracks, no scratches, no marks, and no colour. The ceiling was, in fact, a most boring thing to stare at, and, although her eyes seemed fixed on it, Rhiannon agreed. Her stainless steel ceiling was horridly dull, and the thing that caught her eye was a fly. It buzzed about the surface, occasionally landing and crawling around for a few seconds before zipping off on its erratic and sickeningly spastic path. The fly had just landed when the clock rang out into the silent void of Rhiannon's room. The startled arthropod jumped and buzzed around for several seconds before landing again, but Rhiannon did not see this. She had stood up, and was slipping a last look in the mirror, wondering how much her reflection will have changed when she returned later. The Matrix was a difficult thing to contemplate. As long as she didn't begin to go into any amount of deep thought, she would be safe from it's ravaging effects on her already troubled brain.
Rhiannon tried to smile into the mirror, but she could only muster some odd grimace that ought to have shattered the mirror. This did not improve her somber and contemplative mood at all, and she frowned at her reflection. Rhiannon flipped her hair and walked to the door. She stepped out of the room backwards and pulled the chain across through the door, as she was in the habit of doing.
"Are you ready?" asked a grave Dahr, his dancing eyes hidden by his unruly brown hair.
Rhiannon did not answer, but only continued down the hall, flanked by Dahr. They stepped into the lift and rode it down to the executive level in silence. There, a second agent, a program, joined them before proceeding to the interrogation room.
The rebel had already been in the room for several minutes. He looked up slightly, not noticeably enough, but enough to see the three agents step into the room. He was still confused about this girl, the one who had caught him. She was an enigma. She had acted as the other agents had, ruthless and cold, but when she had stood with him in the lift, he had noticed the strange way she carried herself, as if she was being torn apart from the inside. He noticed that she had dark circles under her eyes, something he had not noticed before. She looked almost scared as she sat down in the chair opposite him.
"Mr. John Wallace Reynolds, you are accused of," the woman began shakily. He quit listening to her; she became a slight droning sound as he thought very hard about what to do.
He did hear her say, "Your freedom for your cooperation." Her eyes were not trained on him; they had flicked to the brown-haired agent behind him as she said this.
She's seems new at this, the rebel thought to himself.
"I'm Rory," he said, surprising himself with his own voice.
Unsure of herself, she faltered. "Your freedom for your cooperation," she repeated.
Rory smirked. "Cooperation with what?" asked the curious part of him.
The girl seemed to be thinking.
"Cooperation with what?" he asked again.
The girl answered with definition, "Tell me everything you know about the Rebellion."
Rory felt his dangerous side take over. "Just you?" he asked.
"Us," the girl said, staring through his head. "Us."
"I know nothing."
"Suit yourself," she said, but she held her right hand up. A gun appeared.
"It's up to you. Tell us what you know, or this bullet will have a real heart-to-heart with your brain."
"I'm sure it will," Rory said.
~@~
Rhiannon was looking straight into the face of the determined rebel. He was sporting a black eye now, a good many cuts, and a split lip, but he had lost no cheek. She tried to remember psychology, but her brains were so worn out she could hardly answer two plus two. She asked him again for nearing the thousandth time to tell her anything, but he still refused. Up until this point, she had let Zados and the other agent handle the physical bit, but she was under the vague impression that if she slapped him or something, he might answer her.
Rhiannon motioned to her companions to leave the room. The program touched two fingers to his earpiece before leading the way out of the white room.
"Tell me something. Anything."
The rebel only growled.
"Give me a name, a time, the location of a bolt, anything."
He didn't answer.
"Fine," she said turning around. She decided to try a trick she saw on an anime once. They called it water something or something water. She could not remember it, but she remembered what happened. She thought for a moment about blurs, ghosts, holograms, doubles, and Nintendo games. She felt something happening around her, and she saw to her surprise, that it had worked. She had created at least thirteen watery copies of herself, and she looked as ghostly and transparent as they did.
The rebel looked frightened for a split-second, but he instantly changed his expression to something between stunned and wary.
Rhiannon multiplied her voice as well, and she said quietly, "Tell us," as her images spun into a blur and disappeared into her. She stood behind him. He stood up and turned around. Rhiannon vanished the table as he backed up. She wanted to smirk, but she kept her most dastardly and frightening expression plastered to her face. The rebel continued to back away, but he was still not answering.
Drawing still more on her Nintendo games, she tried a similar trick, blurring herself as she slid forward. She stopped just short of his face, her own a daunting grimace. "Tell us," she said as she faded out from him and into the space ten feet away. "Or there shall be consequences."
The rebel looked ridiculous, standing slack jawed and staring at a teenage girl who looked about as harmless as a fire hydrant. Rhiannon sauntered forward. "Maybe you still need some persuading," she purred, trying to act like a real interrogator, although she had only a vague idea of them.
Just as she was nearly even with him, she slammed him back into the door with her palm. Turning, she walked back to the opposite wall.
"This world," she said, "is the strangest brainchild ever created. It is unknown to those who are entangled in the system—which includes you—as to who dreamed it up. I am under the distinct impression that it was the Architect. I know little of him, but there is much to speculate. He could be human, he could be a machine. He could be another program. No-one knows…"
"And no-one cares," Rhiannon said sardonically as she turned on her heel.
The rebel was pulling himself to his feet.
"Mr. Reynolds, this world is a hoax, a sham. However, there are several million people who are living in peace without this knowledge, and the world you call real is nothing but a desert wasteland. The sky blots out the sun, the oceans have dissipated… Mr. Reynolds, what would anyone want with that desolate, inhospitable world? In this world, there are things besides humans and machines left, you know. There are plants and animals, there are great spacious skies, purple mountains, shimmering seas, golden harvests. In this world, several million people can live. In the real world, only a few thousand can survive. Why would anyone trade this world for that one?"
The rebel seemed to be preparing an answer.
"It's rhetorical," Rhiannon snapped, not wanting to hear any mind-boggling bits of information. "Reynolds, I am offering you the chance to go back to your razed waste. All I want is one piece of information."
The rebel seemed to find his tongue. "Information? I'll give you information," he spat. "Wild zartoks could not drag that information from me. Do your worst."
"Temper, temper," Rhiannon said. "Alas, it is your choice. On the one hand, a small piece of information. On the other, your beloved world… and your life. Take your pick."
After receiving no response, Rhiannon sat down in a chair that appeared to seat her. She waited for an answer, but her only answer was a speech about truth from the rebel.
Rory ignored his eye and his bleeding lip. This psycho program was not going to make him talk. She did not even have any good arguments as to why he should nark on his ship. She did, however, challenge his world, and she was going to get an answer. Whether she wanted it, or not. He began, "I would, I have traded this world for the real world. There might be no other life forms, but there is the truth. I would die for the truth. I will die for the truth. I will not betray it. The truth is something that people place their trust in. When a person has nothing left to trust, he turns to what he knows, the cold hard ground beneath his feet. What if he found out that that ground was a lie? What if you found out that what you called reality was only a sham? An elaborate hoax? What would you do? How would you feel if you discovered that everything you've ever known is a lie? Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot. You can't feel. You are nothing but a scrawling code," he spat. "You could never understand what it's like to feel that there is a problem with the world. To search for the problem. To ask the question. To find the answer. You'll never know. You're not even real."
He missed the strange, sad look on the girl's face.
Rhiannon bit back tears at the rebels stinging words. Ever since she had begun the training at the agency, she had been struggling with the great flaw in her world, the splinter in her mind. This rebel was going to force her to ask the question, and she did not know what the search for the answer would drive her to. She wanted to kill something, anything, but she could only smile at the man. It was the saddest and most heartbreaking smile one could ever imagine; it said, as plain as day, that he did not understand as much as he presumed to understand.
Her voice wavered as she spoke. "It is your choice. I will not force you," she whispered. She faded from the room, tears sparkling in her crystal blue eyes.
Outside the room, Rhiannon informed the two agents that they could take the prisoner downstairs. Rhiannon filed her report quickly and quietly before riding silently up the lift to her tomblike quarters.
Once inside, Rhiannon fell onto her bed, sobbing. The rebel made her ask the question. She hated him. She hated the question. She hated the world.
"Am I doing the right thing?"
-}^^#~@~#^^{-
please review… I'll say witty stuff when I'm awake enough to think. Good night, er, morning
