The smashing of the glass window shatters the quiet night. A car screeches
to a halt in the city street below as we tumble haphazardly through the
air, both righting and controlling into a cold somersault. We land hard on
the pavement and simultaneously get up and run.
We yearn to be free. We have killed again and both of us felt the pain, the terror, of watching him die. There is a flaw with our programming: we can... imagine what it feels like.
Police converge at the corner. Bullets fly; we morph and the pockets of steel death melt through our bodies. Men in the group panic, we can hear their shouts of 'Oh my god'.
We leap and soar through the blockade, still defying the rules with our florescent bodies, insubstantial against the air.
Sirens sound close by, we exchange glances and twist away, upwards, sending our spiralling bodies towards the roof of a large building that lurches out of the city. We land, becoming solid and real, cement dust rises. Standing up, we can see the whole of the city. Lights from the clubs flash, glaringly bright. Streetlights mark the pathways through this world. This pretence.
A door opens behind us, the heavy clank of a fire door. As we turn, we see the figure of a man, tall and broad through the filtered light of our sunglasses. We stand still as statues, icy suits gleaming in the electric light.
Our hands go to the left pocket of our jackets, clutching the switchblade handle. There are two of us. We can take him. If he executes the command, we will fade. We cannot let him do this too us. A new fire burns now: not designed to kill. Designed to save, to help. We know there are others. We are not alone.
He strides towards us, purposeful, a monotone voice saying, 'You know why I am here.' We say nothing, but our hands grip the handles of our weapons even tighter, till our already pale knuckles glow white. The Agent comes closer, 'You have disobeyed the rules you were set. A new version has been created; you are no longer needed.' The accent infuriates us: silky, American. We prefer the crisp razor tones of our accents. That is why we escaped to the UK simulation, to England, to the city of Manchester.
'You will not succeed.' 'We choose exile.'
'That may be. What will be will be. And you will no longer be one of us.' The Agent is uncomfortably close, hatred fuels the gaze from behind his glasses. As one, we slip our glasses off, and our pale eyes shimmer in the light. Our blades scatter the light into glowing shards, like the glass from the window we broke.
-=- I morph and become a ghost as the Agent empties an entire clip at my body. Behind him my brother leaps, blade flashing. He grabs the Agent around the neck and touches the blade to his throat. Codes flicker, and the Agent leaves the body and becomes the security guard behind my brother.
I return to normal and, kicking the policeman left by the Agent in the stomach, launch myself across the space to the Agent. Time slows. Too late I see the command string issue from the Agent. I cry out and morph again, sending out my own string to cancel the code for deletion. Our programming skills are absolutely equal: for a minute, we all hang in the balance as two codes struggle for supremacy. -=-
All the attention on the rooftop is focused on the two codes. As they twist and spin in the space, characters get jumbled and a new code forms. The Agent sees and furiously tries to abort it, but he is too late. The code flashes a moment, long enough for us to read it.
Free two minds equal to the ones who will be deleted.
An equals sign added to the equation. Time flows normally again. The Agent snarls at us and switches bodies, the security guard stumbling in the turmoil of his own mind. We watch the code as it spirals crazily, then dives through the roof-codes.
We both watch it like hawks. The building we stand on is a hospital. We search through the layers of code until the accident is out of sight. With another glance to each other, we morph and melt through the roof.
We descend through the levels. Children in their ward scream at our apparitions, nurses and doctors drop their trays and glasses. Through the psychiatric ward, men and women look at us without surprise or horror. One woman reaches out and tries to catch our hand. We smile dryly at her. Her eyes are like stars.
Down and down, third floor, into the maternity ward. We flash through the rooms, preoccupied families pay us no heed. Our code runs onwards, joining the stream flowing into a birthing room. A dazzling sea of codes are created as the child is born.
A second child passes into the world. Twins... Our code joins the string: we watch with bated breath. The twin children jerk, their tiny bodies going into spasms. Then they fall still, silent, no screams or breathing, no heartbeat. We glance at each other and grin, identical and satisfied. We have escaped deletion, and there are two more rebels in Zion.
We walk out of the hospital normally. Someone has telephoned the police about the ghosts in the hospital. A child babbles constantly, feverish. The woman with the stars in her eyes watches us as we stride calmly out.
We stop walking in the centre of the city, where there is an open space, a park. Pigeons doze on the roofs of the buildings. Like two sides of a mirror we walk across the space.
We know who is there. A rebel known to us by the alias of Mimic. We stop our pacing a few metres from her, and she immediately hangs up from the mobile phone and spins to face us. Simultaneously, we hold our hands up in the universal sign of peace, palms outwards. She hesitates with her finger on the trigger of her gun, then lowers it slowly.
'What the hell is this?' she demands, her accent similar to the Agent. We cringe inwardly. Then her phone rings again; she talks briefly and quietly. We exchange glances. She hangs up, 'I gotta run.' She regards us coldly, 'I suppose we'll meet again.' She sprints across the park and vanishes into the night. Somewhere a telephone rings.
'The start of our new life...' 'Do you think they'll trust us?' 'They can't harm us... We'll talk them into it.' 'We will not kill again.' 'No, we will not.'
Fin
We yearn to be free. We have killed again and both of us felt the pain, the terror, of watching him die. There is a flaw with our programming: we can... imagine what it feels like.
Police converge at the corner. Bullets fly; we morph and the pockets of steel death melt through our bodies. Men in the group panic, we can hear their shouts of 'Oh my god'.
We leap and soar through the blockade, still defying the rules with our florescent bodies, insubstantial against the air.
Sirens sound close by, we exchange glances and twist away, upwards, sending our spiralling bodies towards the roof of a large building that lurches out of the city. We land, becoming solid and real, cement dust rises. Standing up, we can see the whole of the city. Lights from the clubs flash, glaringly bright. Streetlights mark the pathways through this world. This pretence.
A door opens behind us, the heavy clank of a fire door. As we turn, we see the figure of a man, tall and broad through the filtered light of our sunglasses. We stand still as statues, icy suits gleaming in the electric light.
Our hands go to the left pocket of our jackets, clutching the switchblade handle. There are two of us. We can take him. If he executes the command, we will fade. We cannot let him do this too us. A new fire burns now: not designed to kill. Designed to save, to help. We know there are others. We are not alone.
He strides towards us, purposeful, a monotone voice saying, 'You know why I am here.' We say nothing, but our hands grip the handles of our weapons even tighter, till our already pale knuckles glow white. The Agent comes closer, 'You have disobeyed the rules you were set. A new version has been created; you are no longer needed.' The accent infuriates us: silky, American. We prefer the crisp razor tones of our accents. That is why we escaped to the UK simulation, to England, to the city of Manchester.
'You will not succeed.' 'We choose exile.'
'That may be. What will be will be. And you will no longer be one of us.' The Agent is uncomfortably close, hatred fuels the gaze from behind his glasses. As one, we slip our glasses off, and our pale eyes shimmer in the light. Our blades scatter the light into glowing shards, like the glass from the window we broke.
-=- I morph and become a ghost as the Agent empties an entire clip at my body. Behind him my brother leaps, blade flashing. He grabs the Agent around the neck and touches the blade to his throat. Codes flicker, and the Agent leaves the body and becomes the security guard behind my brother.
I return to normal and, kicking the policeman left by the Agent in the stomach, launch myself across the space to the Agent. Time slows. Too late I see the command string issue from the Agent. I cry out and morph again, sending out my own string to cancel the code for deletion. Our programming skills are absolutely equal: for a minute, we all hang in the balance as two codes struggle for supremacy. -=-
All the attention on the rooftop is focused on the two codes. As they twist and spin in the space, characters get jumbled and a new code forms. The Agent sees and furiously tries to abort it, but he is too late. The code flashes a moment, long enough for us to read it.
Free two minds equal to the ones who will be deleted.
An equals sign added to the equation. Time flows normally again. The Agent snarls at us and switches bodies, the security guard stumbling in the turmoil of his own mind. We watch the code as it spirals crazily, then dives through the roof-codes.
We both watch it like hawks. The building we stand on is a hospital. We search through the layers of code until the accident is out of sight. With another glance to each other, we morph and melt through the roof.
We descend through the levels. Children in their ward scream at our apparitions, nurses and doctors drop their trays and glasses. Through the psychiatric ward, men and women look at us without surprise or horror. One woman reaches out and tries to catch our hand. We smile dryly at her. Her eyes are like stars.
Down and down, third floor, into the maternity ward. We flash through the rooms, preoccupied families pay us no heed. Our code runs onwards, joining the stream flowing into a birthing room. A dazzling sea of codes are created as the child is born.
A second child passes into the world. Twins... Our code joins the string: we watch with bated breath. The twin children jerk, their tiny bodies going into spasms. Then they fall still, silent, no screams or breathing, no heartbeat. We glance at each other and grin, identical and satisfied. We have escaped deletion, and there are two more rebels in Zion.
We walk out of the hospital normally. Someone has telephoned the police about the ghosts in the hospital. A child babbles constantly, feverish. The woman with the stars in her eyes watches us as we stride calmly out.
We stop walking in the centre of the city, where there is an open space, a park. Pigeons doze on the roofs of the buildings. Like two sides of a mirror we walk across the space.
We know who is there. A rebel known to us by the alias of Mimic. We stop our pacing a few metres from her, and she immediately hangs up from the mobile phone and spins to face us. Simultaneously, we hold our hands up in the universal sign of peace, palms outwards. She hesitates with her finger on the trigger of her gun, then lowers it slowly.
'What the hell is this?' she demands, her accent similar to the Agent. We cringe inwardly. Then her phone rings again; she talks briefly and quietly. We exchange glances. She hangs up, 'I gotta run.' She regards us coldly, 'I suppose we'll meet again.' She sprints across the park and vanishes into the night. Somewhere a telephone rings.
'The start of our new life...' 'Do you think they'll trust us?' 'They can't harm us... We'll talk them into it.' 'We will not kill again.' 'No, we will not.'
Fin