Exile: shadows

Author: Elthial

Disclaimer: I don't own the matrix or any of its attached characters so don't sue me etc, cause its pointless as I am stone broke.

Authors note: This story is based way back in the ATS timeline, this is in the Torquin AKA Raven, the first "one" time period according to ATS timeline, the Year is 1853 and the rebel resistance has recently started. As such the agents themselves have also only recently been created and characters such as Agent Mimosa and the recruits won't exist for another 150 years or so.

Gemini stood and stared at the man in front of her like he had grown a third head, sure part of her had always accepted that this moment might come but… so soon?!?

She had served the system loyally and well, acting as an emulation program between the two incompatible codes that made up the matrix at the time. The matrix when she had been created was going through a metamorphous, the old code and programming it was made up of was being rewritten in a newer more efficient coding language. The problem had been that due to the nature of the matrix, they simply couldn't switch it off, rewritten the code and then switch it back on, the human hosts needed to be connected to the system at all times to provide the needed life giving energy. So the system update had to occur on the go, this meant that the design programs made from the new code had to somehow interact with the old world which was made of totally incompatible coding, hence her purpose in life.

Gemini was or had been an emulation program, an interface if you will between the two different programming languages allowing programs from each side to interact with one another. She supposed she should have expected it, programs were often created to perform a particular task and once that task was completed and they served no other purpose then they were deleted, harsh perhaps but it was the world they lived in. Any life is better than no life at all, which brought her back to why she was standing staring at this man like he had grown a third head.

Deletion had not been something she had be expecting, it was something that happened to other programs but never to yourself, it had been quite a wake up call to reality to lose that almost invulnerability of being a system program, suffering the terrifying reality of deletion., the feeling tiny compared to the might of the system, being completely helpless and unable to do anything.

It also had not been the most pleasant of experiences feeling her code being torn at roughly as she was painfully ripped out of the system despite all she resisted and feeling her code being torn at byte by byte until she fell into darkness. She had seemed to float in the blessed relief of painless darkness forever, not a worry in her mind as she drifted through eternity itself blissfully unaware. Then something pulled at her from the edge of her consciousness pulling her back, back into reality. Although part of her wanted to return to the world she had once known now she was resisting leaving this dark place of no worries, again this proved futile and she promptly found herself in the middle of a forest.

The forest stretched as far as she could see in all directions, shafts of sunlight came beaming from between gaps in the trees and the forest was quiet and tranquil. Only the birds disturbed the peace and even they seemed to take nothing away from the feeling of peace and calm the forest radiated. She walked slowly from tree to tree, her fingers lightly brushing the ferns as she passed them, her eyes taking in the forest wondering what this paradise was. Resting against a tree, she decided not to work out why in the name of the mainframe she was here and relaxed letting the soothing peace give her a few minutes away from the hell her life had become, she closed her eyes and drifted of to sleep.

Images half born danced through her mind, the chaos of sleep showing things that could never truly exist in reality. Warped creatures danced in a warped landscape of dreams twisting every law of physics and man that she ever knew, her mind expanded looking beyond what was the narrow minded perception of reality into the full fledged perception of eternity. In that moment she touched something beyond her world, something greater and more powerful that existed beyond her but before she could grasp it, she was pulled back to reality and found herself in a semi-darkness facing a man.

Still dazed by the near grasping of something beyond her world Gemini managed a confused "er… hi"

"Hi" the man nodded "So what did you think?" he asked

"of what?" Replied Gemini still confused as hell.

"Of the dream, fantasy if you will" He answered walking over to a table that suddenly appeared and leaning against it.

"It was…. Strange" She answered truthfully, well it had been downright weird. She shook her head.

"Alright who are you? And what the hell is going on?" she demanded.

"I guess you could call me the grim reaper and you've just been deleted" He said cutting straight to the point.

Gemini stood and stared at the man in front of her like he had grown a third head, sure part of her had always accepted that this moment might come but… so soon?!?

Yep, that pretty much explained how she got to that particular point, its strange how your life can change so utterly in less than a few short hours. Gemini briefly wondered if anyone had written a book on that.

"You have a choice before you." Mr Grim reaper continued, distracting Gemini from her musing of books and life altering events.

"So what's the choice?" Gemini asked with a hint of foreboding.

"Its quite simple really. Death or exile" Replied the reaper guy, if she was human she would have expected him to have the robe and scythe but of course she was a program so really didn't have the same preconceptions.

Still you'd think a guy who hanged out with the dead would have dressed more gothic and there she was again. She had just be offered a choice which would alter her existence forever and she was busy worrying about his clothing sense? Pah.

Forcing her mind back on track, Gemini made her choice although it wasn't much of a choice.

"Exile" She said firmly and then the world exploded in bright light.

"Ow bugger" were her next words as she found herself face down on the stone pavement of a alleyway, couldn't the bastard have given her a warning? Geesh… His manners were obviously as dead as his customers were.

Pushing herself up and brushing herself off, Gemini took a look around the alleyway. Rundown looking, concrete walls could have been anyone of the thousands she had seen in her time and no visible landmarks to tell her where she was. She sighed and ran her tongue over her sharp canines.

Hang on…

Sharp canines?!

Checking with her hands did indeed prove that she now had large sharp canines, fangs really if you want to get technical, heh…. That was new. She wanted to check out her new appearance in something but alleyways seem to have a inconvenient lack of mirrors plus the fact it was night and pitch-black.

A quick check of her abilities proved that she had lost all of her system access and old powers, annoying but not unexpected, She wasn't honestly expecting them to allow a rogue program system access. She would have to deal with her new limitations day by day she guessed, first of all she had no money, no where to live and not much in the way of skills. Theses were things she would have to change and soon…

Wrapping her long black coat around her body she walked out of the alleyway into the empty street, her crystal blue eyes scanning the street for danger before she finally stepped out and began walking down the street. It was completely deserted, the residents having been in bed for several hours already and the only ones still awake were her and the few odd alley cats that wandered around. It seemed that she had picked up a long black coat with black trousers , sleeveless top and normal shoes. She guessed she had Mr reaper to thank for that….

She came up to a main street, which she recognised being somewhere in New York, a horse and carriage came clattering past her on the streets as she walked on, rain beginning to fall as she pressed on not really having an clue where to go. She wrapped her coat closer around her to try and keep the rain off her, as she became aware of a deep hunger inside of her, licking her lips she pressed on trying to ignore it.

Wandering into the town centre she passed several groups of people most of them sheltering under the Victorian buildings to get away from the torrential rain that poured down from the sky. From the sidelines a beautiful dark hair gothic girl watched idly as Gemini trudged down the street, her long black hair framed her face as she leant against the wall of building alone. Her skin almost unnaturally pale against her hair and black dress that seemed simple but elegant and she practically radiated predatory danger, which was, probably why she stood alone.

Gemini shook her head, she was already quite soaked and standing staring at the gothic beauty wasn't going to help her much so she carried on walking leaving the girl behind. She still didn't really have a clue where she was going, what where you suppose to do in this type of situation, she had nothing and needed everything, to make matters worse that incessant hunger had returned. It was so strong she had to bite her lips to keep from crying out, what was she going to do now? She had no money and it didn't look like there was anywhere to open to buy food from even if she had the money that was needed.

Turning off from the main street, she went down several alleyways scaring a couple of cats she came across. A pair of drunken men were stumbling down the next alley she went down making vulgar comments about everything and anything that came there way, they had probably been thrown out of whatever pub they came from. Frowning Gemini wrapped her coat tighter around her and carried on walking hopefully to get past them with no problems, unfortunately fate and those two guys decided to be asses.

As she made her way down the alley the two men noticed her, gazing at her with expressions of drunken stupidity before their brains finally comprehend that she was female. Their brains making this small but vaguely vital link decided to have them make a number of loud lewd comments. None of which particularly impressed Gemini as she frowned deeper and becoming slightly twitchy as she tried to make her way past the two however just as she was going to step around them, one of the men stepped in front of her blocking her way.

"Hey baby, what about you and me have a good time?" he leered at her as he tried to make a grab at her but Gemini pulled away from his hand before he could grab her and then pushed past him not intent on listening to his drunken advances. But as she pushed past him he cause her right wrist in his large hands bruising her slender wrist as he clamped down on it, scowling she tired to pull her hand free but the man held her wrist tight in his hold.

"Let go!" cried Gemini throwing her whole body weight into pulling herself free from the man's grip. Panic began to grip her and she struggled against his grip before lashing out with her other hand across the man's arm, there was a sickening tearing noise as muscle was separated from bone. The man screamed as Gemini's claws sliced through bone tearing his arm off, blood sprayed everywhere as Gemini fell to the floor free of the mans grip looking rather shocked.

Gemini's hunger from before peaked again driven by the scent of blood and she snarled before pouncing on the screaming man tearing out his throat with her teeth as she feed from his blood. The second man seeing his mate being devoured by something not quite human ran, screaming down the alleyway before his scream warped turning metallic as he body merged and changed into that of a tall man in a suit.

The man in the suit turned and advanced slowly but surely on, Gemini where she had dropped the man's corpse in fright and was backing slowly up against the wall in terror. She had heard about agents and what they did to those who were no longer part of the system, a scream caught in her throat as she tried to stand up.

"Exile…" The Agent growled before leaping at her….

This time Gemini did scream as the agent lunged at her, her leg coming up for lucky kick across his face which caused the agent to stagger before he snarled and came back at her, his fists connecting with her ribs with sickening force as they cracked under the blow. Gemini collapsed against the wall as burning pain filled her chest and bent over coughing up blood before the agents over fist came slamming into her stomach again and then another into her face cracking her head against the brick wall behind.

More blows rained down on her and she fell to the floor choking on her own blood, her conscious filled with little black spots as she struggled to stop passing out from the sheer pain. She tried to force herself to stand up, to try and fight back but her body refused to respond, the agent came into his vision as he stood over her broken body and drew his gun. The last thing she noticed before her vision faded to black was someone shouting and a shadow tackling the agent.

Gemini cried out, thrashing trying to hit something, anything as she came to consciousness not caring about the pain it caused to move and found herself being pinned by someone. She couldn't see who it was because her vision was stilled badly blurred her eyes swollen and sore, so she panicked and threw more force into trying to escape.

"Hey! Hey Calm down.. your safe shhh no ones going to hurt you" Came a soothing melodious female voice.

"What?" Gemini tried to ask, her throat and chest full of burning pain so her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. A cold flannel came down on her hot forehead cooling it before going back again.

"Your at my place, don't worry you'll be safe here" the same voice replied. "I brought you here after you had been attacked by brown"

Gemini lay back thinking remembering back to the fight and cringing "You saved me? Why?" She asked peering blurry figure.

The blurry figure seemed to shrug "Why not?" she asked "I would never leave another exile in the hands of the agents if I could help it." The woman stroked Gemini's hair "sleep.. your still weak and need your strength"

Gemini closed her eyes and let her pain racked body drift off to sleep

Authors note: Alright there will be at least another chapter maybe two but your going to have to give me time to write them etc since im going through the middle of my AS exams right now