The Marquis and its entire crew is made up by me, as well as certain other characters. The rest of it is the property of their respective owners. So here it is.
MATRIX
ACE
CHAPTER 6
EXILES
It was a part of the Matrix that humans could simply not go to. It appeared simply to be an empty room, with no doors or windows, with a metal table in the middle. Six figures stood, three on each side.
Agent Grey spoke up. "So you are saying that we discovered that their target was called 'Ace', i.e. Mr. Michael Klaymoore, immediately after he was discharged from the power plant."
"Correct," said Agent Roberts. Insofar as it is possible for an emotionless sentient program to look nervous, this is what he did.
"Perhaps this particular arrangement of our groups was not the most efficient one possible," said Agent Black.
"I have noted a decreased level in our efficiency rating," said Agent Williams.
"Perhaps keeping in the one-trio-one-naming-scheme tradition was the best course of action," said Agent White.
"The original argument against that," said Agent Adams, turning significantly to Agent Roberts, "was that the 'batteries' might become suspicious."
"The counterargument was that they would form the wrong suspicions," said Agent Grey. "Myself, I agree with this. We shall once again reorganize our groups, back to their original configuration."
Agent Roberts didn't sigh. The Agents were alone, and didn't need to use their human-interaction subroutines. He did, however, wish that they were back in the Seventh Cycle, or before that, when there only were three Agents at any given moment.
The bar off in one corner of New York was called Biers. Someone had gotten the idea from a Terry Pratchett book, in which its namesake was where the undead gathered.
This, however, was the Matrix; on one wall was a sign bearing the words:
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
And, below that, a picture of an aged, bearded man, with a hard look in his eyes, and below that were the words:
Somebody had crossed out "Big Brother" and written "The Architect," but someone had crossed that out as well.
Biers was the bar where the rogue programs stayed; faced with deletion, they chose instead exile in the Matrix. It was where alarm systems could go off; clock programs could take some time off; damage simulators could have a break; and random number generators could get a mean sandwich.
Agents didn't bother them; there was no way they could dodge bullets from all of them, and anyway, Agents weren't properly equipped to delete some of them. It wasn't worth a battery to attack Biers. It wasn't worth a battery to go near Biers.
Two programs walked through the door. One was tall, bald, and wore a black trench coat. He had piercing blue eyes. The other one was shorter, gangly, and had a ratty look about him. He wore a black poncho, and a pair of dark glasses, much like most other programs, and had black, oily, matted hair.
"Here's da place, boss," he said as he led the taller one in.
The taller one seemed confused for a moment. And then he said, SO, THIS IS WHERE WE'RE GOING TO RELAX, SNEAKER?
The one called Sneaker looked up at him. "Uh, look, Boss, you're gonna need to use the sound system here. I don't care you had to delete the last one, it's just ..."
"Yes, I know," said the taller one with a sigh, and looked around.
Every single other program was staring at them. About half of them were grinning. Some of the others were glaring.
Sneaker took a bow. "Yes, we are Reaper and Sneaker, the primary and secondary exile-disposal programs, whose purpose was to try and delete all you guys!"
"I left the Source," said Reaper, in a rich, deep voice, "because it got so depressing. Sneaker here joined me, simply for the sake of going along with what I was doing. I do not believe that they've created new ones yet ..."
"So ..." said Sneaker, feeling sweat break out on his forehead. "... No hard feelings, huh?"
There was a long silence. Then there was a slightly shorter one.
Then two identical programs stood up and stepped forward. They had white skin, white dread locks, were dressed in white, and wore ray-bans.
"Why should we have any hard feelings?" said one of them.
"You've left the Source to join us," said the other one. They glanced significantly around at the others. "What do we care what your purpose was before?"
The other programs relaxed slightly, in a way that only now drew attention to the fact that they'd been tense. If the Twins didn't want someone harmed, you didn't harm them, unless you wanted the Frenchman after you.
Sneaker grinned. "Thanks, guys!" He immediately went to the front of the bar and ordered something extremely alcoholic.
Reaper shook his head; his counterpart seemed incapable of focusing on anything for any length of time. He didn't even need to compare Sneaker to himself, and Reaper was widely regarded as a rather single-minded program. Even most programs could focus on some things. The exception in Sneaker's case seemed to be alcohol, which he could pay much attention to over a large amount of time.
The crowd of programs was mostly silent, and what they said consisted mostly of small talk. This was because the Twins would probably listen, and given the ridiculous prizes the Merovingian charged for information, giving it to him freely didn't seem very nice.
A mathematical program was talking to the Twins just at this moment, in fact. Reaper sat at a nearby booth, looking idly at the codes of the Matrix to see if he could interpret the sounds the hard way.
"... Well, I have the latest update of what you requested."
"A list of those most recently unplugged from the Matrix, and a map of hardlines throughout the system."
"Give it to us, then."
"Here it is ..." The sound of a disk being dropped onto a table. "Just to let you know ... I've outlined a few things I discovered about each ... A few of them have 'blue flags'!"
"Blue flags ...?"
"Tell us again what that means."
"It means ... well, it would look like just a random glitch, simply caused by their being removed from the System ... but what it signifies is that the Oracle is going to pay attention to them."
"The Oracle?"
"Hmm ..."
"Hmm ..."
"Well, here's the money." The shuffling of dollar bills. "Thank you, Matthias. Once again, you have given us information that will certainly prove useful."
Reaper waited until Matthias had left, and then approached the Twins. "Yes?" said one of them.
"How much is that information worth?" he asked.
The two exchanged a glance, then gave him a hard look. "Beyond your price range," said the other one.
"Then what about the conversation itself? The mere words you exchanged with him?" said Reaper.
They exchanged another, equally unreadable glance, and then the first one said, "Twenty thousand."
Reaper considered this, and then said, "And what if I already know what was said?"
There was a long silence. Then a slightly shorter one. Then the second twin said, "Have you ever considered working for the Merovingian?"