A/N: yeah. it's religion class. Gotta love not paying attention :P hehe.
D/C: i do not claim to own the matrix. however all oc's are mine and may not be used without permission. ask me before you archive this elsewhere. i won't say no, but i wanna know where its going.
Pandora the Brave
Chapter 11
"Okay, now. You use these three cards up, then you use these. You can't look at them before you turn them over. First person to lose all their cards wins," Pandora said, playing a nine. Now it was One's turn.
~@~
"You what?" the Merovingian asked coldly.
The younger woman started laughing.
"Is this… a joke?"
"Of course not," said the older woman, Eris. "Why would we two joke about something like that?"
"Knowing your. History," said the Mero as he leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "I would not doubt zhat you might joke about zhis sort ahv sing."
"The box is serious," Ate (A'-tay), the other woman, replied. "And we have bad news."
"Really? Tell me everything you know."
"Good news is," said Eris, "We know exactly where the box is, what it does, and what's inside."
"Bad news is," finished Ate, "We know exactly where the box is, what it does, and what's inside."
The Merovingian's eyes narrowed. "Explain," demanded he.
"The box contains the program 'Nemesis,' and when you touch the box, you feel every wrong you've done to others ten-fold," Ate said knowingly.
"Vhere is it?"
"Destroyed," replied Eris calmly.
The Merovingian shrieked, "WHAT?!"
"Yo, old dude, breathe," Ate said. "There's still more bad news."
Eris continued, "The box was opened, and Nemesis was released. However, raw instinct led the opener of the box to absorb Nemesis into her code, and now the opener is the bearer of the program."
"'Ow was zhe box destroyed?" the Merovingian asked.
"Opening the box destroyed the code of the box. It's purpose was completed and it was no longer needed," said Eris. "Unlike us, the box needed no conscious thought, and it flowed back into the codes of this world."
"But the box was not important," said Ate.
"Indeed it was not, or not in the way you believed it to be."
"Mon dieu… Ai-je gaspillé tout ces heures?" the Merovingian sighed.
"Yeah, you have," agreed Ate.
"Shut up, you!" snapped the Merovingian.
"Sorry, but it's the truth. You have been wasting your time on this."
The Merovingian began to sputter with rage, but Eris spoke, "No. You haven't. We now know about Nemesis, and how we can stop her."
"Wait… vhat exactly is Nemesis?"
"You remember Rhea, don't you?" asked Eris.
"Pretend I don't," he answered.
Ate woman cried, "Rhea, who helped the Architect and the Oracle create this whole world? Rhea, who wrote the prototypes for nearly every major program? Rhea, who wrote Eris and myself? Who wrote you and your wife? Rhea?"
Eris quieted her sister as the Merovingian sighed, "Yes, I know that Rhea…"
"And you remember her betrayal?" Ate snapped.
"No, I thought she was betrayed, not the other way around," the Merovingian said. "And so what if she was? What has it got to do with me, now, six hundred years later?"
"Nemesis is a revenge program, numbskull," snapped Ate. "Geez, don't you think? I mean, what with Rhea's obsession with the Greeks, you'd think a program named after the goddess of revenge would have something to do with vengeance, wouldn't you?"
"What do you mean, revenge program?" asked Persephone, suddenly interested.
"Come on, 'Seph… Think about it. Poor, bitter Rhea, deceived by the children she wrote... writing a program to take revenge… And what better way, than create a program version of the goddess Nemesis, who helped those with righteous vengeance?" Ate said.
"You haven't answered my question," the Merovingian said. "Why should I care about Nemesis?"
Eris answered, "Nemesis is going to dramatically change this world. We know that she's going to return Rhea's sentence on those Rhea felt wronged her. But we have a problem."
"You don't know who she's after, do you?" asked the Merovingian.
"We've complied a list of those we think Rhea wanted destroyed. The Architect and the Oracle for starters, but I think we can make do without them. But there's also Hermes, Hades, Zeus, Apollo, Terminus, Gaia, and Poseidon," said Ate, pulling out a legal pad covered in black scribbles.
The Merovingian rubbed his temples. "Remind me again what all these programs did?"
"Hermes oversees all communications, inner and outer. The ones between this world and the real world, and the ones within this world itself," Ate said.
Eris took the pad and read off the next name, "Zeus—sky. Self-explanatory. Apollo—sun. Again, self-explanatory. Gaia—earth. Think about it this way, a mountain could just pop right out of the ground where we stand, or the land could fall away into the ocean. Obviously, that's a bad thing."
Ate glanced at the sheet and said, "Terminus keeps the physical laws in order. Laws like gravity."
"Poseidon keeps the oceans from just walking away or enveloping the earth," Persephone said.
"What do you know about this?" demanded the Merovingian.
Before Persephone could answer," Ate said, "And then there's yourself, sir. Hades."
"I'm not Hades anymore," the Merovingian snapped, standing up and sending his chair flying into the wall behind him.
"But you were," said Ate.
"I think the point they're making," Persephone said, "Is that Rhea wanted revenge on those she felt had betrayed her. Maybe she thought that we should have protected her, as her children. She made each of the first agents by hand, lovingly, if you could call it that. She took great care to make them individuals, like she did us. But they were loyal to the Architect and when he ordered her dead, they showed no qualms about deleting her. Imagine how great that betrayal, her friends and her children killed her, at least in her mind."
"I don't see why I have to care about zhis 'Nemesis.' I'm not Hades anymore, so why should it matter?"
"You were still Hades when Rhea was deleted. That's all that matters," Ate said solemnly.
Eris said, "Now, we have a plan to stop Nemesis."
"Alright," the Merovingian sighed. "Go ahead. Explain it to me."
"We've already made a deal with the Mainframe," Eris began.
"And it's costing us an arm and a leg, so you better help," Ate interrupted.
"How did you talk to the Mainframe without…" began the Merovingian.
"We lied," Ate said simply. "We were never Exiles. We're still part of the system."
"We didn't lie about our jobs, though," said Eris, "I'm in charge of Discord, and she's in charge of Mischief. We're a means to keep the humans from thinking the world is too perfect."
"Wait, stop, hold it right there," said Persephone. "You two aren't Exiles, and you're supposed to make problems within the Matrix. Who says you didn't write Nemesis?"
"We have no way to prove that we can't write complex programs like her, but we can assure you: we can't. You're just gonna have to trust us," said Eris. "Now, back to the plan."
Ate said, "We're assembling seven of the nine programs we mentioned, and then some. We're asking those who we think can help the bearer beat Nemesis."
"Why do I have to come, and who is the bearer?"
Eris said, "You have to come because we're not sure what form Nemesis will take. If she's a deletion program—"
Ate interrupted, "You're going to have to use some of those Hades-skills and eliminate it."
"And the bearer is your pseudo-daughter, who we're coming to in a minute," Eris said. "Let us explain the rest of this before we explain the girl."
"First tell me one thing," said the Merovingian. He shouted, "Why did you not tell me any of this before!!"
After the patrons of the restaurant had recovered, and the typical chatter was up to its usual dull roar, the girls continued. "Because Cassie told us to, so we didn't," Eris said. "But again, that's not important."
"You look lost," Ate said. "Let me summarize. Rhea, one of the programmers for the Matrix, was unfairly deleted. Just before she died, she created a program to avenge her death and called it Nemesis. Nemesis floated around for a while and, for some reason, started to activate. Some program quickly wrote a box program to stop and contain Nemesis. This box was called Pandora's Box. It then disappeared from history. This all occurred in the first Era, before the first Anomaly."
"Now, six hundred years later," Eris continued, "Pandora's Box resurfaced. We began to track it, but by the time we got to it, someone had opened it. This was your daughter, a nameless remainder. The box program assimilated into her code, and gave her a name. However, Nemesis was released. Just as Nemesis finished activating, Pandora realized, deep within her three-year-old mind, that Nemesis was bad. Somehow, she absorbed Nemesis and has been carrying her around ever since."
"If Nemesis is contained," the Merovingian asked, "why are we trying to set it free?"
"Nemesis will break free whether we want her to or not. Now we have two choices," Eris said.
Ate finished, "We can choose when Nemesis escapes and stop her, or we can let her escape on her own and wreak terrible havoc."
Persephone suddenly stood up. "I'm leaving," she said.
"You mustn't tell Pandora or anyone who might accidentally tell her," Ate called after Persephone's retreating form. "Pandora must not know about Nemesis, or Nemesis might break free."
~MnI~
it's stops her 'cos class is over. i promise i'll pick it up after school and post then or tomorrow. you have my word, and i've never broken my word. Please review and tell me if you like the way this is going or not. There's still time for me to stop it!!