"Purrr..." a voice said a figure sauntered into the darkened warehouse.
"You're finally here," a voice said from the other side. The lights went up and illuminated the two figures. One was a thin man enveloped in a long dark coat, and the other was a tall woman, with a cat's tail and claws. She was wearing a black cat suit - no pun intended - and had a small backpack on her back.
"Sorry, I had to scratch someone," she said with a pointed look as she walked over to him and lay on the table in front of him, her tail flicking in the air.
"I saw her tonight."
"Her? As in her? As in the one who want dead?"
"The same," he said with a dark look.
"Where?" the woman, whose name was NK, asked.
"Here, just down the road. She was chasing that damned Knight for some reason or other."
"So how come you didn't take care of her?" she asked, as she rested her head on her hands.
"There was an agent in the area, I didn't want to take my chances. Besides, he might have done the job for me."
"Did he? Well, you called me so I would guess not."
"I checked the whole area, no fairy blood."
"Darn...guess that means I'll have to do it. Have you got any clues to where she is now?"
"New York, and working for the Merovingian."
"You're kidding me."
"Would I kid about something like that?"
"How'd you find this out?"
"Because she dropped this," he said pulling a slip of paper out of his pocket. It was a statement from an automatic teller. "Recognize the numbers?"
"Well at least it's down to one city now," he smiled. "So what are you waiting for?"
NK grinned, "Purr-fect Will, I'll have her dead by the end of the week."
*****
What am I doing? Brown asked himself as he kicked his punching bag. He had let an exile live! That was something he had never intended to do or ever wanted to do.
He killed exiles, he was an agent, that was what he was supposed to do. And yet, for no good reason that he could find he had let that fairy live. It must be an error of some kind. There was something wrong with his coding that was making him act this way, for he was sure that he wouldn't do something like this out of free will.
And unfortunately there was only one person he could see concerning something like that. Jones. Jones who had been the first to become less than perfect. Jones who had been an addict and been allowed to live.
The corrupted agent had even gone so far as to change the color of his eyes. Something that still irritated Brown all these decades later.
But, he had no choice, so he required the wrinkles from his suit and shifted to Jones' office. He opened the door and walked in, Jones jumped and turned around. Seeing it was Brown the small tech agent immediately put his sunglasses back on and required the light in his office to turn on.
"What can I help you with Agent Brown?"
"I need you to inspect my code. A self-diagnostic has revealed nothing and I believe that I am experiencing a code error."
"Of course," Jones said and typed on his keyboard. A representation of Brown's code appeared on the screen and Jones diligently checked for every thing he could think of. The job wasn't made any easier for he could feel Brown staring at him, and he knew what Brown thought of him.
Five minutes later he looked over to the taller agent, "I can find nothing wrong with you Agent Brown. Perhaps it was an error that has corrected itself."
Without another word Brown walked out of the room.
He went back to his stark office and looked around. He required the fairy's file and stared at it. There was no difference between her and the rest of the exiles. She was just another enemy to be destroyed.
Only he hadn't.
*****
Pixel walked up the alley that took her straight through to the chateaux in the hall near her room, she froze as she went to reach for her key when someone spoke.
"I knew you'd be back." She spun and saw Brown. She whipped out her sword in less time than he could blink.
"What do you want?"
"What did you do to me?"
"I have no idea what you are talking about. Why would I want to anything to you besides cut you four ways?"
"Ever since I saw you the first time I have not been myself," he snarled. "I demand you undo this corruption that you did to me so that I can go back to how I was."
"I didn't do anything."
"You're lying!" he screamed and went to walk toward her.
"Why would I even bother lying to you?"
"I know your name Pixel, I know what powers you have, I know everything that's in your file but I know that's only scratching the surface. It always irritates me that we do not know all about the exiles as that makes them harder to destroy but in your case..."
"What?" she demanded. "And why me?"
"Only you know that! You're the one who corrupted me!"
"For the last damn time, I did nothing like that!"
"I don't believe you." He snarled, "I don't believe you."
"Oh I'm sorry," NK said as she dropped down in front of them. "Am I interrupting a lover's tiff?"
"Who the hell are you?" Pixel asked.
"NK, I'm here to kill you."
"What?" she shot a look at Brown, "is she here with you?"
"Unlikely," the agent said stoically.
"Be quiet," NK ordered Brown. Her tail, prehensile in nature, reached up into her small bag and pulled out a whip. It had several thick lashes, all of which had spiked endings, like knife blades.
"Do you know the saying 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'?"
"Yes."
"Then how about we kill her and then get back to our lovely little talk?"
Brown said nothing as NK flicked the whip, it hit him fully in the chest as Pixel changed size to avoid it. His hand flew to his chest instead of his gun, he was bleeding. It took him a second to think of reaching for his gun, but by then it was too late.
With a feral screech, NK leapt and swung the whip again, lashing him in the same area, drawing more blood before she kicked him in the chest and landed on top of him. He tried to fight her off to no avail, she was too agile.
He looked up and saw her face changing, become more tiger-like, he only just saw the fangs that grew in her mouth before she bit into him, tearing some flesh away and leaving his shirt in ruins.
He tried to reach for his gun but her tail pulled it from his holster and threw it across the alley. She bit into him again and he went limp from pain.
Pixel was frozen, the rational part of her brain was telling her to run for the nearest door, to get away from this crazy cat-woman who was apparently here to kill her.
Could she leave the agent?
Of course she could, it was too enemies fighting each other.
But did she want to?
She reached down and picked up the gun from the alley, which had landed fairly close to her. She took aim and squeezed off a shot.
NK recoiled when she heard the noise. She looked up, her face covered in the agent's blood. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, which was closer to a paw at the moment and leapt at the fairy.
Pixel grew her wings quickly and flew away, while NK chased her quickly on the ground. She flew into a dead end alley and turned to face her, this was the kind of controlled situation that she had wanted.
NK came flying around at high speed, not expecting for the alley to end. Pixel was ready, and managed to cut a gash along the cat's side as she ran into the alley.
"Oh," NK said in faked pain. "I think you cut me." She lashed out at Pix with her claws.
Pixel shrank back from the cat and fired off another two rounds from the stolen gun. These two hit her fully in the chest, she fell down and this time she didn't get up. Pixel nodded and ran from the dead end alley.
What she didn't see was a few minutes later the cat-woman shrank down into the form of a black and white cat, that didn't have any injuries, then back up to a woman, with minimal cat features that was clearly in pain. She limped through the nearest door.
Pixel ran from NK and back to Brown. She didn't want to believe what she was doing. She was running toward an injured agent and she didn't intend to kill him, she was going to help him. An exile helping an agent, that was an unspeakable act. It was something that was against the nature of both sets of programs.
The agent was only stirring now, the front of his suit was slick with blood, his sunglasses had fallen off sometime during the fight, revealing the blue eyes that all agents had.
He tried to sit up, but he groaned and flopped back to the ground. "Are you alive?" Pixel asked as she leant down close to him.
His arm shot up to strangle her but his hand didn't make it and it fell back down to his side, his other hand gingerly touching the blood on his suit. "I guess you can bleed," Pixel remarked.
"Kill me and get it over with," he snarled at her.
Pixel blushed an extraordinary shade of red, "I wasn't actually planning on killing you."
He didn't see her blush, "I will not be taken apart by your boss. I'd rather self-terminate."
"No, don't do that. I wouldn't give you to Mero."
"Well I don't want to be given to Carlson either."
Pixel looked confused, "who's Carlson?"
He looked up at her without blinking, "then what were you planning on doing with me?"
"I was..." Pixel paused, the words were hard for her to say. "I was going to help you."
Brown barked a short humourless laugh, "and next you'll be telling me that all the exiles are willingly going to come forward to be dealt with."
"Let's not go that far just yet," she said as she helped him up. He tried to pull away but since he was injured he wasn't strong enough. "So why didn't you just leave anyway? I mean, that's a perk of being an agent right? Agents don't die."
"Well I can't shift out of here," Brown snapped, "there must be a firewall around this area."
Pixel clamped her mouth shut before she blurted out that they were near Club Hel, that would have been quite possibly the stupidest thing she had ever done. She just shrugged and they walked into the nearest building.
A bum had been living there but he wasn't to be seen at the moment, she leant him against the wall as if he were a plank of wood instead of just having the personality of one. She flipped over the dusty mattress and patted the rest of the dust out of in and then helped him to it. He resisted as much as he could, preferring to die than to accept the help of an exile.
He was bleeding badly now from several large wounds on his chest, his white shirt was now red except for his collar which was just a little dirty from lying on the ground.
She pushed his jacket off and undid his buttons. He tried to swat her hands away. "Do you want to live or not?" she asked before she undid the last button.
"Not if it means help from you," he said in a bitingly cold voice.
"Fine," Pixel said and she withdrew her wings into her back and walked out of the room. Brown managed to sit and he looked down at his chest. There was a huge amount of blood. The scratches were huge and since they were into code it would be fatal if he did not get assistance.
But that help would not come from that fairy. He would not, under any circumstances, even those that pertained to the continuation of his own existence, accept help from an exile. He was an agent, exiles were his enemy. They were as worse, if not more so than the rebels. And this one was working for The Merovingian. The Merovingian had been a thorn in his side ever since they had become aware of him.
He tried his earpiece again and again to no avail, and it didn't take long for him to realize that things were not going his way. It appeared that this was going to be his end, this was not how he had he had expected it to be. He had suspected that it would at the hands of an exile, maybe even Carlson himself. But he had thought it would be in battle, not lying in some human building.
He steeled his expression and closed his eyes. He had done his job flawlessly as an agent. There were only three possible outcomes now. He would be found in time, he would simply end or he would go to the source to accept his deletion.
His eyes snapped open a while later when he felt someone touch him. It was a touch without violence behind it, something he had not experienced before. He opened his eyes and saw the fairy. Pixel. The fairy. She gave him a small smile, "do you still want to lay here and die?"
"You left," he said – purposely not giving her a real answer.
"Yeah," she said with a shrug, "two hours ago. I've had lunch and you're still here bleeding. I'm guessing you're in the same trouble."
He turned his head to the side and refused to look at her. Pixel shook her head at his arrogance and made up her mind. She undid the last button and pulled his shirt out of his pants and away so she could properly inspect his wounds.
If he had not been bleeding to death she would have taken the time to admire his chest, he looked as though he worked out everyday, which he probably did but it may have also been because they programmed him that way.
Well, there certainly were some positive elements to agents. She shook her head, that wasn't a good thought to have, when he got the chance he was going to kill her.
Wasn't he?
"You are in a bad way," she said. "So I'm going to help you."
"You're an exile," he said unnecessarily.
"And you're arrogant. Not even agents are invulnerable when it comes down to the bottom line."
"I'm still going to kill you."
"If that is what you choose to do. But I still want to help you."
"You're corrupted."
"Would you shut up?" she said and wondered what kind of a reaction that she would get.
"I have never let someone live after a comment like that."
"And yet, I seem to be still alive."
"I don't have the strength," he muttered.
Finally, she smiled, a breakthrough. "Are you asking for my help?" he still didn't give her an answer. "Well? Or should I just leave again?"
"No," he said at last, "don't."
"Why?"
"I..." he never wanted to say these words. Never ever, he was too strong for this. But if he didn't he would ever be strong enough to fight again. "I need help." He coughed. "I need your help."
He expected her to laugh, even though she was the one offering the help. It was wrong for an agent to ask for help. It was traitorous to ask for help from an exile. And yet...he was asking for help.
"Are you sure," the fairy asked with a smirk.
"Yes," he said as if he were signing his own death warrant. He would have gladly accepted his demise but he wanted to continue to serve the mainframe. He would do anything to serve forever and perhaps this was the price for that servitude.
It had nothing to do with the fact that he was afraid of death. He was not afraid of death. Only once had he been afraid. Only once had he ever felt a second of what would be construed as fear. But this situation was something completely different to being killed by Whitman.
Even if the fairy was blond, she didn't look like Whitman in the face, she didn't have the same disturbingly blue eyes but when the fairy's back was turned he could almost imagine that it was the blond mistake.
Whitman, like so many things around him in his life had been a mistake. And one that had been fatal for him. He often wondered that why of the three agents in his agency that she had chosen to kill him. 'Kill' was the closest world he could find to describe what she had done to him.
Technically, it was more of being offline for a time while his code was being repaired and rebooted.
'Killed' it seemed was just a more efficient way of putting it. In that split second of fear he had experienced he thought that his code might be damaged beyond the chance to choose deletion.
He was sure that before his deletion that he would get a comment or suchlike his decades of service. He was proud of what he did and a little appreciation wouldn't be out of place.
Pixel opened a small black bag and pulled out some bandages. "These were expensive," she muttered. "you are going to pay me back for them. I might get a good pay check but that doesn't mean I like wasting money."
"Do you ever shut up?" he asked with a frown.
"No, not really. That's what I'm like. I think that's what most fairies are like." She pulled out some cloths and a bottle of water. She soaked the cloths and held them up. "This may sting a little."
"I'm not afraid of pain."
"Just because you aren't," she said as she started to wipe off the excess blood so that she could see how big the actual wounds were, "doesn't mean you don't feel it." He winced as she touched on one of the deeper cuts.
"I can feel it," he said as she continued. "Usually only minimally that is. But I can feel it more now because of this firewall."
"Agent Brown did you just say something civil to me?" The agent didn't answer and she finished cleaning him off. Then she unravelled the bandages and helped him to sit up. He cooperated for the sake of his own existence.
He allowed her to wrap them all the way around his body to ensure that they stayed there. Then she noticed something on one of his broad shoulders. "You've got a scar there."
"It was such a small wound that I did not bother to get it repaired. I do not go running for every injury that I receive."
"I assume it was an exile who did this?"
"Of course it was. The rebels do not have such sophisticated weapons as to harm code."
"Then which exile was it?" she asked as she made him drink some of the water.
"I don't need to tell you that."
"I am trying to have a civilised conversation with you, Agent, and that's not exactly an easy thing to do. So if you don't want me to pull all these bandages off and leave you to die then I would suggest that you make an effort to be nice to me!"
"I'm not nice to anyone," he said but for once there was no spite behind his words.
"See?" Pixel said with a grin, "was that so hard?"
"I have no idea what you are talking about."
"Sure you do," she said as she helped him to lie back. "Now I think you need some rest before we attempt to get you back home."
"You do realize," Brown started, "that once we are out of these firewalls that I am going to attempt to kill you."
"If you have the strength then you are certainly welcome to try but I think you'll be having enough trouble walking by that point."
"You can't make assumptions like that."
"Sure I can," she remarked with confidence. "I've seen enough damaged programs to know how their injuries are going to affect them." She considered what she had just said. She didn't know that many programs, only the ones in Mero's world and the two she knew most about were the Twins and they didn't get hurt as a rule.
That meant that what she had just said was coming from her memory. She stood up and closed her eyes, trying to focus in on what she could remember. "Injured programs," she muttered to herself. "Lots of injured programs." She forced herself to remember something.
"What are you saying?" Brown demanded as he looked up at her. "Are you talking to me or yourself?"
"Shut up!" she yelled.
She could hear a quiet voice, not what he or she – though she 'knew' it was a he – was saying. It was just the impression of someone talking but the voice didn't seem unpleasant.
He sounded...she couldn't think of a way to describe it. Familiar was probably the word she was looking for. And for some strange reason she kept an imagine in her mind that didn't make any sense. But then it was gone and she couldn't hear it any longer.
"What was that all about?" Brown demanded from the floor.
"Damn," she swore, she had almost remembered something. Maybe not where she came from but at the very least a clue to it. It was terrible not to know about you past. But, as most exiles had to be, Pixel was quite good at adapting to new situations.
Adapting helped you to survive.
Survive people like Brown.
Who she was helping.
Why was she helping him?
"Well?" he asked in a louder voice in case she had suddenly developed a hearing problem. "Are you going to tell me or not?"
"Not," she said with a nod. "Not until you tell me who gave you that scar," she added a moment later.
"You have a childish attitude," he muttered and gingerly touched the bandages that were slowly seeping red again.
"That's not a real answer," she said. "Are you going to tell me or not?"
"It was a program known as Twin One. He used his weapon, a razor, to cut me before phasing to escape me." He looked across and saw a strange look on her face. "You said you wanted to know."
"I know that."
"Have you heard of these Twin programs? They have been a great annoyance to me as no way I have tried to kill them has worked."
"Agent, I would say that it would be smart of you to stop this line of conversation."
"So you have heard of them," he said in understanding. "Allow me to guess...you are one of the many who work for The Merovingian?"
"He deals out the best paychecks in town."
"I should have guessed that."
"But you didn't until I gave you a clue. You must be running slow Brown."
"Don't insult me fairy."
"God, could you use my name even once?"
"Why? Are you going to forget that too?"
"How did you know?" she asked in a much quieter voice.
He knitted his brown in confusion, "how did I know what?"
"Oh! So you were just being stupid. I guess you don't know."
"Don't know what?"
"That I can't remember anything beyond a couple of months ago. I just woke up one morning with basically no memory whatsoever except for my name."
"That is something I will have to append to your file."
She looked at him in shock, "I have a file?
"Yes," he said as if she were asking him a stupid question.
"So what does it say about me?"
"Known information, sightings, abilities, that kind of thing is standard for a file on an exile."
"Mind reciting what you can remember of it?"
"That," he said with a glint in his eye, "if I am not mistaken, which I never am, would be doing you a favor wouldn't it?"
"Yes, but then we would be even."
"I don't owe you anything."
"You do, even if you don't want to admit it."
"Fine," he said, relenting. "I doubt whether you would have shut up if I hadn't have told you."
"Yay!" Pixel said, "Exile 1, Agent 0."
"I suspected you were going to say something like that."
"Well?"
"It says that you were the program of silver jewelry. You went exile twenty- eight years ago. All the sighting previous to my own were on the west coast of this country."
"So maybe that's why LA seemed so much like home."
"It would seem that you have been almost solely operating out of an around Los Angeles."
"What else does it say?"
"Prior to my own observations the only power that was on you record was your wings and therefore your flight ability." He paused for a second, "it would appear that another exile has altered your coding."
"Thank you," she said genuinely. No matter how much he had begrudged giving her the information she now knew it and therefore had more clues as to her past. She waited a minute and then gave him a strange look. "Well aren't you going to say 'you're welcome'?"
"I have never said that in my life and do not intend to start now."
"Say what?" she asked with playful smile.
"You're welcome," he clarified.
"You just said it then," she said with a fit of laughter that would suit some kind of demented chibi. He growled at her then stopped short, out of breath. "Ok Mr. Agent man, all jokes aside you need some rest."
"I have been here for too long already. If I am going any longer they may suspect that I am becoming a traitor and delete me."
"Would that be so bad?" she asked him quietly. "You'd be an exile."
"Would be that so bad?" he echoed. "It would be the worst thing I can imagine. I would die if I were an exile. They are everything that I stand against. Especially ones like Carlson. And, besides, when my time does come I am choosing deletion rater than exile."
"Why?"
"I think you know by now."
"Being a system program is only the start of existence. There is so much more to life after it."
"You are entitled to my opinion, even if I don't and never will agree to it."
"You sure do have a big stick up your ass." She smiled, "now go to sleep." With hesitation he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
"And just who the hell is Carlson?" Pixel asked herself as the agent slept.
Maybe Mero had been right when he had said that her code was corrupted. There was no good reason that she should be helping an agent. No good reason at all. But, for whatever reason this was the path that she had chosen.
"Is he dead?" a voice asked from the doorway. Pixel snapped her eyes up and saw Stef standing there.
"No," Pixel said and stood, "and it wasn't me who did this to him."
"Damn," the other agent said quietly. "So did you just find him like this?"
"No, this cat exile cut him up pretty bad so I fixed him."
"You what?" Stef practically shrieked. "But you're an exile."
"So?"
"Forgive me, but that's Brown..." Stef groaned. "This is giving me a headache. So you're saying that he asked you for help?"
"Not at first, I had to convince him that he needed my help and then he waited until he was practically on Charlie's doorstep..." Pixel clamped her hand on her mouth and gave the young agent a strange look. She didn't want to tell the agent anything about the exiles that she didn't know.
"I know who Charlie is," Stef said with a sigh. "He gave me a key to the backdoors which I also know about. I also know that Club Hel is about three blocks away and that this whole area is covered in Mero's firewalls. And on top of that I can even manage pleasant conversation with the Oracle so you really don't have to hide anything."
"That's both a complete shock and a huge relief."
"Yeah, it's kind of like that."
"So do you want to take him back?"
"Me? Help an injured and pissed off Brown? I'd almost rather take my chances with Carlson."
"That's the second person I've heard mention that name, now could you kindly tell me who the hell he is?"
"Oh come on, you work for Mero and you don't know?"
"No. I don't. Come on, you can tell me can't you?"
"Brown's evil twin brother I guess you'd call him. He was an agent made out the same basic coding as Brown. Long story short - Carlson started the rebellion and now works for Mero."
"Great..." Pixel said sarcastically.
"I'm going to get out of here before he wakes up. He sees me talking to you and he'll get me deleted in a second. Not that I'd mind being an exile but I like being an agent."
"Being a system program is fine while it lasts," Pixel commented, more to herself than to Stef.
"Wait," Stef said aloud to herself as she was walking out of the door. She reached into her suit and threw Pixel a CD in a black case. "Hum told me about your memory problem so that's a copy of your file. Hopefully it'll help."
"Thanks."
"No problem," Stef said as she left.
It was another hour and a half before Brown woke up. "You ready to try walking?" Pix asked him with a smile.
"Yes," Brown said and tried to stand. Being woozy from blood loss he couldn't make it on his own. She grabbed his right arm and hauled him to his feet. "I hate being helped," he said harshly.
"Do shut up," Pixel said, echoing his earlier words.
Half-allowing her to help for he was too weal to have a choice in the matter she helped him back out to the alley. It was getting on night so she hoped that none of the patrons from Club Hel drifted this way or they would be in serious trouble.
They walked a couple of blocks in relative silence until they were out of the maze of alleys and away from the firewalls. "I can shift now," he said and she let him go.
"So...are you going to kill me now?"
He required a gun and looked from it to her and to his bandages, "next time." Pixel smirked and waved to him as he shifted away.
Brown shifted to Jones' office, he was too injured to be able to heal himself so he would have to get Jones to do it for him. No matter how he disapproved of the lesser agent, the technical agent was good at what he did.
He leant heavily against the wall and went to twist the knob but stopped himself. He hated being interrupted without warning so it was safe to assume the same of Jones. He then did something that he hadn't done since the days before the other agent's corruption.
He knocked on the door to Jones' office.
*****
One week later.
When Pixel walked through to the backdoor hallway the last thing she expected to see was Vorateu standing next to Persephone. Thinking that he was trying to harm her, she drew her sword and ran at him with an angry yell.
Her sword caught the bright hallway light. The vampire bared his fangs and prepared to fight her off. She was careful to avoid looking into his yes, she wasn't going to fall for that trick again.
She swung her sword in a wide arc, unfortunately it was too wide and with a simple step he avoided it. He gripped her right hand that was holding the sword and dug his fingernails in, causing blood to run down her hand.
She gritted her teeth as the blood ran down her wrist. He forced her to drop the sword and wrapped his other hand around her throat and lifted her off the ground. "This time," he whispered in his richly accented voice. "I am going to vait until you die before I suck you dry."
But...Pixel thought, that usually kills vampires.
He read the thought easily and then he laughed, "that's only in movies, fairy." Pixel grimaced as small dots appeared in front of her eyes.
"Run Perse..." she managed to utter, not wanting her death to be for nothing, which it would be if Perse didn't get away.
"That's enough Vorateu," Perse's voice said and immediately the vampire let her go.
"As you wish, my love."
Pixel slumped against the wall and massaged her throat, trying to get used to the idea of breathing again. Perse clapped her hands and made Pixel look up. "What are you doing here?"
"I was going out, what are you doing mistress?"
"Deciding whether or not I should let him finish."
"I saved your life."
"He wasn't going to hurt me."
"What about the agent? You owe me for that." She saw something flicker in Perse's eyes. "This is why you hate me, you two know each other and you're pissed at me cause I was hired to kill him."
"Something to that nature."
"I was doing my job. What's the deal anyway?"
"I need to first know if I can trust you or not."
"Will he kill me?"
"If I decide that I can't trust you, or if you break my trust." Vorateu stood silently, waiting to see how it all played out.
"I won't say anything if you don't want me to, but I would like to know what's going on."
"All right," Perse said after a few moments of thought. "I shall trust you for the moment."
"Good."
Vorateu nodded, "I guess that this means ve von't be trying to kill each other anymore."
"I guess so."
He nodded at Perse before wrapping his cloak about him and disappearing.
"So...?" Pixel asked with a questioning look at Perse.
"He and I are from the same world, he was reminding me of that. He was reminding me of what it like to truly be alive."
Pixel winced, "I guess this means I won't get my twenty million dollars!"
The End.
"You're finally here," a voice said from the other side. The lights went up and illuminated the two figures. One was a thin man enveloped in a long dark coat, and the other was a tall woman, with a cat's tail and claws. She was wearing a black cat suit - no pun intended - and had a small backpack on her back.
"Sorry, I had to scratch someone," she said with a pointed look as she walked over to him and lay on the table in front of him, her tail flicking in the air.
"I saw her tonight."
"Her? As in her? As in the one who want dead?"
"The same," he said with a dark look.
"Where?" the woman, whose name was NK, asked.
"Here, just down the road. She was chasing that damned Knight for some reason or other."
"So how come you didn't take care of her?" she asked, as she rested her head on her hands.
"There was an agent in the area, I didn't want to take my chances. Besides, he might have done the job for me."
"Did he? Well, you called me so I would guess not."
"I checked the whole area, no fairy blood."
"Darn...guess that means I'll have to do it. Have you got any clues to where she is now?"
"New York, and working for the Merovingian."
"You're kidding me."
"Would I kid about something like that?"
"How'd you find this out?"
"Because she dropped this," he said pulling a slip of paper out of his pocket. It was a statement from an automatic teller. "Recognize the numbers?"
"Well at least it's down to one city now," he smiled. "So what are you waiting for?"
NK grinned, "Purr-fect Will, I'll have her dead by the end of the week."
*****
What am I doing? Brown asked himself as he kicked his punching bag. He had let an exile live! That was something he had never intended to do or ever wanted to do.
He killed exiles, he was an agent, that was what he was supposed to do. And yet, for no good reason that he could find he had let that fairy live. It must be an error of some kind. There was something wrong with his coding that was making him act this way, for he was sure that he wouldn't do something like this out of free will.
And unfortunately there was only one person he could see concerning something like that. Jones. Jones who had been the first to become less than perfect. Jones who had been an addict and been allowed to live.
The corrupted agent had even gone so far as to change the color of his eyes. Something that still irritated Brown all these decades later.
But, he had no choice, so he required the wrinkles from his suit and shifted to Jones' office. He opened the door and walked in, Jones jumped and turned around. Seeing it was Brown the small tech agent immediately put his sunglasses back on and required the light in his office to turn on.
"What can I help you with Agent Brown?"
"I need you to inspect my code. A self-diagnostic has revealed nothing and I believe that I am experiencing a code error."
"Of course," Jones said and typed on his keyboard. A representation of Brown's code appeared on the screen and Jones diligently checked for every thing he could think of. The job wasn't made any easier for he could feel Brown staring at him, and he knew what Brown thought of him.
Five minutes later he looked over to the taller agent, "I can find nothing wrong with you Agent Brown. Perhaps it was an error that has corrected itself."
Without another word Brown walked out of the room.
He went back to his stark office and looked around. He required the fairy's file and stared at it. There was no difference between her and the rest of the exiles. She was just another enemy to be destroyed.
Only he hadn't.
*****
Pixel walked up the alley that took her straight through to the chateaux in the hall near her room, she froze as she went to reach for her key when someone spoke.
"I knew you'd be back." She spun and saw Brown. She whipped out her sword in less time than he could blink.
"What do you want?"
"What did you do to me?"
"I have no idea what you are talking about. Why would I want to anything to you besides cut you four ways?"
"Ever since I saw you the first time I have not been myself," he snarled. "I demand you undo this corruption that you did to me so that I can go back to how I was."
"I didn't do anything."
"You're lying!" he screamed and went to walk toward her.
"Why would I even bother lying to you?"
"I know your name Pixel, I know what powers you have, I know everything that's in your file but I know that's only scratching the surface. It always irritates me that we do not know all about the exiles as that makes them harder to destroy but in your case..."
"What?" she demanded. "And why me?"
"Only you know that! You're the one who corrupted me!"
"For the last damn time, I did nothing like that!"
"I don't believe you." He snarled, "I don't believe you."
"Oh I'm sorry," NK said as she dropped down in front of them. "Am I interrupting a lover's tiff?"
"Who the hell are you?" Pixel asked.
"NK, I'm here to kill you."
"What?" she shot a look at Brown, "is she here with you?"
"Unlikely," the agent said stoically.
"Be quiet," NK ordered Brown. Her tail, prehensile in nature, reached up into her small bag and pulled out a whip. It had several thick lashes, all of which had spiked endings, like knife blades.
"Do you know the saying 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'?"
"Yes."
"Then how about we kill her and then get back to our lovely little talk?"
Brown said nothing as NK flicked the whip, it hit him fully in the chest as Pixel changed size to avoid it. His hand flew to his chest instead of his gun, he was bleeding. It took him a second to think of reaching for his gun, but by then it was too late.
With a feral screech, NK leapt and swung the whip again, lashing him in the same area, drawing more blood before she kicked him in the chest and landed on top of him. He tried to fight her off to no avail, she was too agile.
He looked up and saw her face changing, become more tiger-like, he only just saw the fangs that grew in her mouth before she bit into him, tearing some flesh away and leaving his shirt in ruins.
He tried to reach for his gun but her tail pulled it from his holster and threw it across the alley. She bit into him again and he went limp from pain.
Pixel was frozen, the rational part of her brain was telling her to run for the nearest door, to get away from this crazy cat-woman who was apparently here to kill her.
Could she leave the agent?
Of course she could, it was too enemies fighting each other.
But did she want to?
She reached down and picked up the gun from the alley, which had landed fairly close to her. She took aim and squeezed off a shot.
NK recoiled when she heard the noise. She looked up, her face covered in the agent's blood. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, which was closer to a paw at the moment and leapt at the fairy.
Pixel grew her wings quickly and flew away, while NK chased her quickly on the ground. She flew into a dead end alley and turned to face her, this was the kind of controlled situation that she had wanted.
NK came flying around at high speed, not expecting for the alley to end. Pixel was ready, and managed to cut a gash along the cat's side as she ran into the alley.
"Oh," NK said in faked pain. "I think you cut me." She lashed out at Pix with her claws.
Pixel shrank back from the cat and fired off another two rounds from the stolen gun. These two hit her fully in the chest, she fell down and this time she didn't get up. Pixel nodded and ran from the dead end alley.
What she didn't see was a few minutes later the cat-woman shrank down into the form of a black and white cat, that didn't have any injuries, then back up to a woman, with minimal cat features that was clearly in pain. She limped through the nearest door.
Pixel ran from NK and back to Brown. She didn't want to believe what she was doing. She was running toward an injured agent and she didn't intend to kill him, she was going to help him. An exile helping an agent, that was an unspeakable act. It was something that was against the nature of both sets of programs.
The agent was only stirring now, the front of his suit was slick with blood, his sunglasses had fallen off sometime during the fight, revealing the blue eyes that all agents had.
He tried to sit up, but he groaned and flopped back to the ground. "Are you alive?" Pixel asked as she leant down close to him.
His arm shot up to strangle her but his hand didn't make it and it fell back down to his side, his other hand gingerly touching the blood on his suit. "I guess you can bleed," Pixel remarked.
"Kill me and get it over with," he snarled at her.
Pixel blushed an extraordinary shade of red, "I wasn't actually planning on killing you."
He didn't see her blush, "I will not be taken apart by your boss. I'd rather self-terminate."
"No, don't do that. I wouldn't give you to Mero."
"Well I don't want to be given to Carlson either."
Pixel looked confused, "who's Carlson?"
He looked up at her without blinking, "then what were you planning on doing with me?"
"I was..." Pixel paused, the words were hard for her to say. "I was going to help you."
Brown barked a short humourless laugh, "and next you'll be telling me that all the exiles are willingly going to come forward to be dealt with."
"Let's not go that far just yet," she said as she helped him up. He tried to pull away but since he was injured he wasn't strong enough. "So why didn't you just leave anyway? I mean, that's a perk of being an agent right? Agents don't die."
"Well I can't shift out of here," Brown snapped, "there must be a firewall around this area."
Pixel clamped her mouth shut before she blurted out that they were near Club Hel, that would have been quite possibly the stupidest thing she had ever done. She just shrugged and they walked into the nearest building.
A bum had been living there but he wasn't to be seen at the moment, she leant him against the wall as if he were a plank of wood instead of just having the personality of one. She flipped over the dusty mattress and patted the rest of the dust out of in and then helped him to it. He resisted as much as he could, preferring to die than to accept the help of an exile.
He was bleeding badly now from several large wounds on his chest, his white shirt was now red except for his collar which was just a little dirty from lying on the ground.
She pushed his jacket off and undid his buttons. He tried to swat her hands away. "Do you want to live or not?" she asked before she undid the last button.
"Not if it means help from you," he said in a bitingly cold voice.
"Fine," Pixel said and she withdrew her wings into her back and walked out of the room. Brown managed to sit and he looked down at his chest. There was a huge amount of blood. The scratches were huge and since they were into code it would be fatal if he did not get assistance.
But that help would not come from that fairy. He would not, under any circumstances, even those that pertained to the continuation of his own existence, accept help from an exile. He was an agent, exiles were his enemy. They were as worse, if not more so than the rebels. And this one was working for The Merovingian. The Merovingian had been a thorn in his side ever since they had become aware of him.
He tried his earpiece again and again to no avail, and it didn't take long for him to realize that things were not going his way. It appeared that this was going to be his end, this was not how he had he had expected it to be. He had suspected that it would at the hands of an exile, maybe even Carlson himself. But he had thought it would be in battle, not lying in some human building.
He steeled his expression and closed his eyes. He had done his job flawlessly as an agent. There were only three possible outcomes now. He would be found in time, he would simply end or he would go to the source to accept his deletion.
His eyes snapped open a while later when he felt someone touch him. It was a touch without violence behind it, something he had not experienced before. He opened his eyes and saw the fairy. Pixel. The fairy. She gave him a small smile, "do you still want to lay here and die?"
"You left," he said – purposely not giving her a real answer.
"Yeah," she said with a shrug, "two hours ago. I've had lunch and you're still here bleeding. I'm guessing you're in the same trouble."
He turned his head to the side and refused to look at her. Pixel shook her head at his arrogance and made up her mind. She undid the last button and pulled his shirt out of his pants and away so she could properly inspect his wounds.
If he had not been bleeding to death she would have taken the time to admire his chest, he looked as though he worked out everyday, which he probably did but it may have also been because they programmed him that way.
Well, there certainly were some positive elements to agents. She shook her head, that wasn't a good thought to have, when he got the chance he was going to kill her.
Wasn't he?
"You are in a bad way," she said. "So I'm going to help you."
"You're an exile," he said unnecessarily.
"And you're arrogant. Not even agents are invulnerable when it comes down to the bottom line."
"I'm still going to kill you."
"If that is what you choose to do. But I still want to help you."
"You're corrupted."
"Would you shut up?" she said and wondered what kind of a reaction that she would get.
"I have never let someone live after a comment like that."
"And yet, I seem to be still alive."
"I don't have the strength," he muttered.
Finally, she smiled, a breakthrough. "Are you asking for my help?" he still didn't give her an answer. "Well? Or should I just leave again?"
"No," he said at last, "don't."
"Why?"
"I..." he never wanted to say these words. Never ever, he was too strong for this. But if he didn't he would ever be strong enough to fight again. "I need help." He coughed. "I need your help."
He expected her to laugh, even though she was the one offering the help. It was wrong for an agent to ask for help. It was traitorous to ask for help from an exile. And yet...he was asking for help.
"Are you sure," the fairy asked with a smirk.
"Yes," he said as if he were signing his own death warrant. He would have gladly accepted his demise but he wanted to continue to serve the mainframe. He would do anything to serve forever and perhaps this was the price for that servitude.
It had nothing to do with the fact that he was afraid of death. He was not afraid of death. Only once had he been afraid. Only once had he ever felt a second of what would be construed as fear. But this situation was something completely different to being killed by Whitman.
Even if the fairy was blond, she didn't look like Whitman in the face, she didn't have the same disturbingly blue eyes but when the fairy's back was turned he could almost imagine that it was the blond mistake.
Whitman, like so many things around him in his life had been a mistake. And one that had been fatal for him. He often wondered that why of the three agents in his agency that she had chosen to kill him. 'Kill' was the closest world he could find to describe what she had done to him.
Technically, it was more of being offline for a time while his code was being repaired and rebooted.
'Killed' it seemed was just a more efficient way of putting it. In that split second of fear he had experienced he thought that his code might be damaged beyond the chance to choose deletion.
He was sure that before his deletion that he would get a comment or suchlike his decades of service. He was proud of what he did and a little appreciation wouldn't be out of place.
Pixel opened a small black bag and pulled out some bandages. "These were expensive," she muttered. "you are going to pay me back for them. I might get a good pay check but that doesn't mean I like wasting money."
"Do you ever shut up?" he asked with a frown.
"No, not really. That's what I'm like. I think that's what most fairies are like." She pulled out some cloths and a bottle of water. She soaked the cloths and held them up. "This may sting a little."
"I'm not afraid of pain."
"Just because you aren't," she said as she started to wipe off the excess blood so that she could see how big the actual wounds were, "doesn't mean you don't feel it." He winced as she touched on one of the deeper cuts.
"I can feel it," he said as she continued. "Usually only minimally that is. But I can feel it more now because of this firewall."
"Agent Brown did you just say something civil to me?" The agent didn't answer and she finished cleaning him off. Then she unravelled the bandages and helped him to sit up. He cooperated for the sake of his own existence.
He allowed her to wrap them all the way around his body to ensure that they stayed there. Then she noticed something on one of his broad shoulders. "You've got a scar there."
"It was such a small wound that I did not bother to get it repaired. I do not go running for every injury that I receive."
"I assume it was an exile who did this?"
"Of course it was. The rebels do not have such sophisticated weapons as to harm code."
"Then which exile was it?" she asked as she made him drink some of the water.
"I don't need to tell you that."
"I am trying to have a civilised conversation with you, Agent, and that's not exactly an easy thing to do. So if you don't want me to pull all these bandages off and leave you to die then I would suggest that you make an effort to be nice to me!"
"I'm not nice to anyone," he said but for once there was no spite behind his words.
"See?" Pixel said with a grin, "was that so hard?"
"I have no idea what you are talking about."
"Sure you do," she said as she helped him to lie back. "Now I think you need some rest before we attempt to get you back home."
"You do realize," Brown started, "that once we are out of these firewalls that I am going to attempt to kill you."
"If you have the strength then you are certainly welcome to try but I think you'll be having enough trouble walking by that point."
"You can't make assumptions like that."
"Sure I can," she remarked with confidence. "I've seen enough damaged programs to know how their injuries are going to affect them." She considered what she had just said. She didn't know that many programs, only the ones in Mero's world and the two she knew most about were the Twins and they didn't get hurt as a rule.
That meant that what she had just said was coming from her memory. She stood up and closed her eyes, trying to focus in on what she could remember. "Injured programs," she muttered to herself. "Lots of injured programs." She forced herself to remember something.
"What are you saying?" Brown demanded as he looked up at her. "Are you talking to me or yourself?"
"Shut up!" she yelled.
She could hear a quiet voice, not what he or she – though she 'knew' it was a he – was saying. It was just the impression of someone talking but the voice didn't seem unpleasant.
He sounded...she couldn't think of a way to describe it. Familiar was probably the word she was looking for. And for some strange reason she kept an imagine in her mind that didn't make any sense. But then it was gone and she couldn't hear it any longer.
"What was that all about?" Brown demanded from the floor.
"Damn," she swore, she had almost remembered something. Maybe not where she came from but at the very least a clue to it. It was terrible not to know about you past. But, as most exiles had to be, Pixel was quite good at adapting to new situations.
Adapting helped you to survive.
Survive people like Brown.
Who she was helping.
Why was she helping him?
"Well?" he asked in a louder voice in case she had suddenly developed a hearing problem. "Are you going to tell me or not?"
"Not," she said with a nod. "Not until you tell me who gave you that scar," she added a moment later.
"You have a childish attitude," he muttered and gingerly touched the bandages that were slowly seeping red again.
"That's not a real answer," she said. "Are you going to tell me or not?"
"It was a program known as Twin One. He used his weapon, a razor, to cut me before phasing to escape me." He looked across and saw a strange look on her face. "You said you wanted to know."
"I know that."
"Have you heard of these Twin programs? They have been a great annoyance to me as no way I have tried to kill them has worked."
"Agent, I would say that it would be smart of you to stop this line of conversation."
"So you have heard of them," he said in understanding. "Allow me to guess...you are one of the many who work for The Merovingian?"
"He deals out the best paychecks in town."
"I should have guessed that."
"But you didn't until I gave you a clue. You must be running slow Brown."
"Don't insult me fairy."
"God, could you use my name even once?"
"Why? Are you going to forget that too?"
"How did you know?" she asked in a much quieter voice.
He knitted his brown in confusion, "how did I know what?"
"Oh! So you were just being stupid. I guess you don't know."
"Don't know what?"
"That I can't remember anything beyond a couple of months ago. I just woke up one morning with basically no memory whatsoever except for my name."
"That is something I will have to append to your file."
She looked at him in shock, "I have a file?
"Yes," he said as if she were asking him a stupid question.
"So what does it say about me?"
"Known information, sightings, abilities, that kind of thing is standard for a file on an exile."
"Mind reciting what you can remember of it?"
"That," he said with a glint in his eye, "if I am not mistaken, which I never am, would be doing you a favor wouldn't it?"
"Yes, but then we would be even."
"I don't owe you anything."
"You do, even if you don't want to admit it."
"Fine," he said, relenting. "I doubt whether you would have shut up if I hadn't have told you."
"Yay!" Pixel said, "Exile 1, Agent 0."
"I suspected you were going to say something like that."
"Well?"
"It says that you were the program of silver jewelry. You went exile twenty- eight years ago. All the sighting previous to my own were on the west coast of this country."
"So maybe that's why LA seemed so much like home."
"It would seem that you have been almost solely operating out of an around Los Angeles."
"What else does it say?"
"Prior to my own observations the only power that was on you record was your wings and therefore your flight ability." He paused for a second, "it would appear that another exile has altered your coding."
"Thank you," she said genuinely. No matter how much he had begrudged giving her the information she now knew it and therefore had more clues as to her past. She waited a minute and then gave him a strange look. "Well aren't you going to say 'you're welcome'?"
"I have never said that in my life and do not intend to start now."
"Say what?" she asked with playful smile.
"You're welcome," he clarified.
"You just said it then," she said with a fit of laughter that would suit some kind of demented chibi. He growled at her then stopped short, out of breath. "Ok Mr. Agent man, all jokes aside you need some rest."
"I have been here for too long already. If I am going any longer they may suspect that I am becoming a traitor and delete me."
"Would that be so bad?" she asked him quietly. "You'd be an exile."
"Would be that so bad?" he echoed. "It would be the worst thing I can imagine. I would die if I were an exile. They are everything that I stand against. Especially ones like Carlson. And, besides, when my time does come I am choosing deletion rater than exile."
"Why?"
"I think you know by now."
"Being a system program is only the start of existence. There is so much more to life after it."
"You are entitled to my opinion, even if I don't and never will agree to it."
"You sure do have a big stick up your ass." She smiled, "now go to sleep." With hesitation he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
"And just who the hell is Carlson?" Pixel asked herself as the agent slept.
Maybe Mero had been right when he had said that her code was corrupted. There was no good reason that she should be helping an agent. No good reason at all. But, for whatever reason this was the path that she had chosen.
"Is he dead?" a voice asked from the doorway. Pixel snapped her eyes up and saw Stef standing there.
"No," Pixel said and stood, "and it wasn't me who did this to him."
"Damn," the other agent said quietly. "So did you just find him like this?"
"No, this cat exile cut him up pretty bad so I fixed him."
"You what?" Stef practically shrieked. "But you're an exile."
"So?"
"Forgive me, but that's Brown..." Stef groaned. "This is giving me a headache. So you're saying that he asked you for help?"
"Not at first, I had to convince him that he needed my help and then he waited until he was practically on Charlie's doorstep..." Pixel clamped her hand on her mouth and gave the young agent a strange look. She didn't want to tell the agent anything about the exiles that she didn't know.
"I know who Charlie is," Stef said with a sigh. "He gave me a key to the backdoors which I also know about. I also know that Club Hel is about three blocks away and that this whole area is covered in Mero's firewalls. And on top of that I can even manage pleasant conversation with the Oracle so you really don't have to hide anything."
"That's both a complete shock and a huge relief."
"Yeah, it's kind of like that."
"So do you want to take him back?"
"Me? Help an injured and pissed off Brown? I'd almost rather take my chances with Carlson."
"That's the second person I've heard mention that name, now could you kindly tell me who the hell he is?"
"Oh come on, you work for Mero and you don't know?"
"No. I don't. Come on, you can tell me can't you?"
"Brown's evil twin brother I guess you'd call him. He was an agent made out the same basic coding as Brown. Long story short - Carlson started the rebellion and now works for Mero."
"Great..." Pixel said sarcastically.
"I'm going to get out of here before he wakes up. He sees me talking to you and he'll get me deleted in a second. Not that I'd mind being an exile but I like being an agent."
"Being a system program is fine while it lasts," Pixel commented, more to herself than to Stef.
"Wait," Stef said aloud to herself as she was walking out of the door. She reached into her suit and threw Pixel a CD in a black case. "Hum told me about your memory problem so that's a copy of your file. Hopefully it'll help."
"Thanks."
"No problem," Stef said as she left.
It was another hour and a half before Brown woke up. "You ready to try walking?" Pix asked him with a smile.
"Yes," Brown said and tried to stand. Being woozy from blood loss he couldn't make it on his own. She grabbed his right arm and hauled him to his feet. "I hate being helped," he said harshly.
"Do shut up," Pixel said, echoing his earlier words.
Half-allowing her to help for he was too weal to have a choice in the matter she helped him back out to the alley. It was getting on night so she hoped that none of the patrons from Club Hel drifted this way or they would be in serious trouble.
They walked a couple of blocks in relative silence until they were out of the maze of alleys and away from the firewalls. "I can shift now," he said and she let him go.
"So...are you going to kill me now?"
He required a gun and looked from it to her and to his bandages, "next time." Pixel smirked and waved to him as he shifted away.
Brown shifted to Jones' office, he was too injured to be able to heal himself so he would have to get Jones to do it for him. No matter how he disapproved of the lesser agent, the technical agent was good at what he did.
He leant heavily against the wall and went to twist the knob but stopped himself. He hated being interrupted without warning so it was safe to assume the same of Jones. He then did something that he hadn't done since the days before the other agent's corruption.
He knocked on the door to Jones' office.
*****
One week later.
When Pixel walked through to the backdoor hallway the last thing she expected to see was Vorateu standing next to Persephone. Thinking that he was trying to harm her, she drew her sword and ran at him with an angry yell.
Her sword caught the bright hallway light. The vampire bared his fangs and prepared to fight her off. She was careful to avoid looking into his yes, she wasn't going to fall for that trick again.
She swung her sword in a wide arc, unfortunately it was too wide and with a simple step he avoided it. He gripped her right hand that was holding the sword and dug his fingernails in, causing blood to run down her hand.
She gritted her teeth as the blood ran down her wrist. He forced her to drop the sword and wrapped his other hand around her throat and lifted her off the ground. "This time," he whispered in his richly accented voice. "I am going to vait until you die before I suck you dry."
But...Pixel thought, that usually kills vampires.
He read the thought easily and then he laughed, "that's only in movies, fairy." Pixel grimaced as small dots appeared in front of her eyes.
"Run Perse..." she managed to utter, not wanting her death to be for nothing, which it would be if Perse didn't get away.
"That's enough Vorateu," Perse's voice said and immediately the vampire let her go.
"As you wish, my love."
Pixel slumped against the wall and massaged her throat, trying to get used to the idea of breathing again. Perse clapped her hands and made Pixel look up. "What are you doing here?"
"I was going out, what are you doing mistress?"
"Deciding whether or not I should let him finish."
"I saved your life."
"He wasn't going to hurt me."
"What about the agent? You owe me for that." She saw something flicker in Perse's eyes. "This is why you hate me, you two know each other and you're pissed at me cause I was hired to kill him."
"Something to that nature."
"I was doing my job. What's the deal anyway?"
"I need to first know if I can trust you or not."
"Will he kill me?"
"If I decide that I can't trust you, or if you break my trust." Vorateu stood silently, waiting to see how it all played out.
"I won't say anything if you don't want me to, but I would like to know what's going on."
"All right," Perse said after a few moments of thought. "I shall trust you for the moment."
"Good."
Vorateu nodded, "I guess that this means ve von't be trying to kill each other anymore."
"I guess so."
He nodded at Perse before wrapping his cloak about him and disappearing.
"So...?" Pixel asked with a questioning look at Perse.
"He and I are from the same world, he was reminding me of that. He was reminding me of what it like to truly be alive."
Pixel winced, "I guess this means I won't get my twenty million dollars!"
The End.
