+J.M.J.+

Under the Gun

by "Matrix Refugee"

Author's Note:

Sorry for the long delay, but this was a tough chapter to choreograph. Another character from "Reloaded" showed up, whom I didn't originally intend to appear here and, well, he's *that* kind of character whom you can't say no to... you'll see what I mean. Special thanks to all my kind reviewers and patient readers:

To DarkPuck: Thanks! I have to admit, Ash's voice is a difficult one to capture: sensibleness tempered with toughness; he's pretty close to the Raymond Chandler/Dashiel Hamnett model for a hard-boiled detective, but there's just something a little more human about him.

To Gijinka Renamon and Nathan Postmark: Your wishes for this fic are my command!

To Chase's Aces: Wow! thanks for the reviews! Hope this chapter lives up to your expectations.

Disclaimer:

See chapter 1

* * * * * * *

Chapter Five : The Lion and the Unicorn

Over the next couple of days, Tank and Morpheus continued to train me. I still had no idea how the heck I could serve in this war with the machines, but hey, I'd been flying blind when I was investigating several cases. Nothing new.

I noticed, a lot of the time Morpheus and I were in the Construct, that Ref was jacked into the Matrix, sometimes alone, sometimes with Jack. These little jaunts of hers probably had something to do with her archival work, but I felt a little funny asking her outright. None of my business really. I could have used my usual tactics to finagle the answers out of her, but that was just plain dishonest.

At evening mess three nights after the head-crunching session I had with the Oracle, Ref finally spoke up about her recent excursions into the Matrix.

"If you've all been wondering what I've been doing in the Matrix lately, I've been doing a little research. I just found out the Metropolitan Museum of Art is auctioning off part of its medieval collection tonight," she announced. "I'm going to need a couple people to come with me as back-up."

"You sure you wanna do this now?" Tank asked, his face wary, but his tone light. "We've been picking up some major squiddie activity the last few hours."

"It's just a short run and there's only one piece I'm interested in," she said. "It's an in-and-out job."

"I certainly hope so," Sand said. "I don't want you to end up needing a major patch-up job like the last time."

"I was stupid enough to go it alone last time," Ref said. She looked everyone at the table in the face; maybe part of me just hoped her gaze lingered on mine for a little longer. "Anyone want to go in with me?"

Zara gave more attention to her bowl than to Ref's request. Jack looked at Sand, who nodded, agreeing with his decision even though neither of them had spoken a word about it, or needed to, obviously.

"Okay, I'm in," Jack said. He eyeballed me dead-on. "And I think this might be a good time for you to test your mettle, Sherlock."

I was just opening my mouth to reply, when I sensed Morpheus's steady gaze digging into me. I clammed up and turned to him.

"Do you think this is a wise course to take, Ash? You have only just started to train your mind, to let go of your old life," he said.

"I want to do this," I said. "I gotta do something: I'm a do-er, I leanr by doing, not just by this training stuff."

"Oh what harm could it do?" Zara mumbled, her tone a jumble of sarcasm and her usual snittiness.

"You will have to make your choice sometime," Morpheus said.

I took that to mean he was giving me permission to go with Ref, but I suddenly got this bad feeling in my gut, though it just might have been that single-cell goop not sitting right in my stomach.

Tank, Sand, and Trinity led Jack, Ref and I up to the main deck. While Tank set to work punching code, Sand and Trinity helped us jack in.

I had thought we were going right into the Matrix, but I realized I had another thought coming when I found myself standing inside the dead-white space of the Construct.

"Hey, what are we doing here?" I asked.

"We brought you in here to suit you up," Jack's voice said. I turned to find him standing at my elbow, clad in what looked like a tuxedo made of very thin patent leather and the dark glasses that seemed to be everyone's trademarks.

"How's that?" I asked.

"It's a semi-black tie affair," Ref said, approaching me. She wore an oddly cut floor-length dress, like a cross between a gown and a coat, all made of a deep purple plastic-like material that clung to her form. "Sorry to spring it on you like this, but much as the film-noir detective look really suits you well, you'll have to lay it aside for the moment." She looked at Jack, one eyebrow lowering and the other one rising over the lenses of her dark glasses. "Are you really wearing that?"

"Yeah, why, isn't this semi-black-tie enough?" he asked, grinning.

"Well, the cut is just right, but that leather makes you look like a charter member of the League of Inappropriately Attired Assassins," she said.

"It ain't the clothes that matter, it's what you got under 'em that makes the difference," Jack replied, flicking back the halves of his jacket and showing off a pair of shoulder holsters, each packing a Desert Eagle .38.

"Okay, you pass inspection," she said. She took something out of a pocket of her coat-gown, and pressed a button on it. A small square of plastic slid out of the bottom. She pressed another button and raised it to her ear. "Tank, could you load the men's semi-formal wardrobe? And no funny stuff this time, we're running late."

It took me a second or three to realize that little widget she had was a small portable phone with no wires

Then I heard this rumbling sound, like a freight train approaching. From out of nowhere, several racks of semi-formal suits and jackets slid into view. Jack helped me select a black silk three-piece suit and a navy blue silk shirt, topped off with a grey leather topcoat (with one of those portable wireless phones in the pocket) and the inevitable sunglasses. I realized that, as odd as this would look, since we were going in at night, wearing shades was an easy way to be anonymous. Jack was about to start helping me into them, but I held him off. "Ref, could you, uh, t-turn around?" I asked.

"I know what you look like," she said. "I helped Sand put your real-world clothes on when you were woozy from that knock on the head you took." But her face turned slightly pink as she spoke and she turned around, much to my relief.

Once Jack had me covered again, Ref made another phone call. The clothing racks slid out of sight.... and then another battle-line of heavy metal racks slid into place... *Big* racks, weighed down with every kind of gun you could imagine, from derringers to hand-guns to grenade launchers to submachine guns.

Ref took a couple derringers and strapped them to her ankles, pulling her knee-high boot-tops over them before filling her pockets with clips for them. I selected a pair of .45 revolvers, much like my old reliable Colt pistol I'd left behind in the Matrix. Jack found me a pair of shoulder holsters and I strapped them on under my jacket.

"You ready fella?" Ref asked me.

"Ready as I'll ever be," I said, starting to feel that rush of adrenalin I'd felt when I took my first case -- before it turned out to be the first of a couple dozen cases just like it. I guess the machines didn't have enough imagination to make them any different.

"Okay, Tank, send us in," she said into her pocket phone.

Something like wind roared in my ears...

Next thing I knew, we stood inside the warehouse office, where Jack was hanging up the rotary phone. He glanced at his watch. "C'mon, people, we're short on time," he said.

He lead us outside and around to the back of the warehouse to something that looked like a car under a blue tarp. Ref and I helped him pull the tarp back, uncovering deep maroon car with a slightly boxy but more modern look to it.

"Nice," I said as we climbed in, Jack in the driver's seat, Ref in the back, me riding shotgun. "Must be a recent make?"

"This old beater? It's a semi-classsic from the 1970s," Jack retorted. "I keep forgetting: that seems new to you." He keyed the ignition and pulled out of the alleyway onto a side street.

"Few things you fellas need to know before we get there, especially you, Ash." Ref said. "When I was still plugged in, my dad was an art dealer and my mom restored oil paintings and such, so I grew up around artwork. I can handle that end. I need you guys to serve as a back-up, in case something wierd should happen. Your job is to get me out of the Matrix alive."

"Why am I not liking the sound of that?" I asked, more a rhetorical question than anything else.

"I don't blame you for feeling leery, but don't let it stopr you," she said. "There's a very dangerous man who's liable to show up at this auction. I've known him since forever, but I've never been able to figure out just what he is, though he calls himself a trafficker of information. He seems to have a hand in every pie you can imagine: oil refineries, diamond mines, owns a chain of gourmet restaurants, you name it. Everything this guy touches turns to gold for him.... But he's as dangerous as a dagger."

"This the French guy you mentioned, the one who's been beating you to the good stuff?" I asked.

"You got it. ...Few things to remember when he's around: don't look at his wife too long, and don't make any sudden moves around him: he's got goons that would tear you to shreds at one word from him."

"Yeah, and no wisecracks about his accent," Jack added. " 'E gets ve-ry touch-y about zat."

We drove from the industrial section of the city into the downtown area, then into what was clearly the uptown district. We pulled up before a swanky-looking high-rise hotel. Jack circled the block, looking for a parking spot before nipping down an alley and parking the Detriot disaster there. "No way I'm letting valet parking take this baby," he said. He got out first, but I beat him to opening the rear door for Ref.

"You lead the way, Ms. MacAffee," he said to her.

"MacAffee?" I asked.

"I used to be Berlin MacAffee," she said.

"So... who am I then?"

"Mr. Ash," she said, smiling.

She led the way to the hotel, in through the front doors and up the elevator.

A crowd of people got off before our stop, the 101st floor. Once the three of us were alone, Ref knelt and reached into her boots, checking the clips in the derringers.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, just a little nervous," she said. "My worst flaw: feeling too much. One of these days, it's gonna cost me one."

"Well, tonight ain't gonna be that night," Jack said. "Y' got two guys covering your ass."

"Just make sure no one tries to grab it," she said, as she straightened up.

"They'll have to get past us," I said.

The elevator doors slid open on floor 101. Ref stepped out, the two of us following her, like we were her entourage or something. I had to compell myself *not* to come up alongside her and let her take my arm, much as I wanted to.

She led us through a foyer and through a set of open double doors into a grand ballroom crowded with fancy folks in their glad rags, clustered in twos and threes and fives around pedastels and glass cases bearing medieval-looking sculptures and swords and metal goblets and manuscripts. Faded tapestries hung from the walls, behind sheets of clear plastic. In front of each item stood a small white tripod holding up a binder with a few sheets of paper and a pen attached with a chain. I realized it was one of those silent auctions that the fancy folk conduct. The kind that lack the intensity of a real auction, you what I mean, the kind with a fast-talking auctioneer rattling off the bids like he had lightning in his jaw. But there again, I'm just old-fashioned.

A string trio in a corner played some kind of classical-type music. Waiters circulated through the crowd, carrying trays of drinks, most likely champagne. I almost took a glass, just to blend in, but Jack caught my eye and shook his head. Ref mingled with the crowd, chatting politely with several people before moving on, scanning the cases.

"Is *he* here yet?" Jack asked Ref.

"Nope, we beat him this time," she said, turning to a case containing a leather-bound book about the same dimensions as a bible, which lay open to a two-page spread picture of the Last Judgement, all in bright colors and gilded with what was most likely real gold. It dawned on me that it was probably hand-painted.

Or that it was the digital shadow of something that had been hand-painted.

Two people had already set their bids for it, but Ref took the pen and added her mark: Berlin MacAffee ... $800,000.

As she did this, something shiny and glistening caught my eye. I turned to take a look.

In the case next to the hand-decorated bible was a padded wooden frame holding an ancient-looking sword. If it wasn't so tarnished and the edge of the blade nicked up, it would have looked really nice, but I guess when you take off the tarnish, that takes away some of the metal.

But why did it glisten? I asked myself.

"Hey, see something you like?" Ref asked, turning to me.

"Yeah, I'm just getting a load of this sword."

"Hey, I thought you went for Art Deco stuff," she teased.

"It just caught my eye."

She examined it. "It's a rare item: it's a sixth century French sword. You rarely see stuff *that* old. What's it doing here?"

"Guess they thought it was too old and tacky-looking to keep," Jack said.

A rustle rose from the rest of the crowd. Ref looked up. A wrinkle of disgust crossed her face. I followed her gaze. The crowd nearby us parted, as if making way for entering royalty or something like that.

That's when I caught myself looking *up* at this tall, lean guy in his early forties or so, clad in a long black jacket, the kind that the guys wear in nineteeth century costume dramas. I gathered this must be the French guy Ref had talked about.

Now, all the French guys I ever met fell into two categories: the little short feisty ones and the big tall goony ones. This guy had the height of the big tall goony types and the attitude of all French guys: patronizing. The way his cold, cobalt-blue eyes set in his narrow, rat-like face scanned everything and everyone, you'd think he owned the joint.

Come to think of it, based on what Ref had told us, he probably *did* own the joint.

I have to hand it to this guy, he'd taken the kind of pains about his appearance that most women want to see on their men, (and, for that matter, every dame in the room was darting a look at him and he was taking care to meet as many of those gazes as he could). But his pains had defeated his purpose, since he was certainly no work of art himself: mouth too wide, face too thin, nose too long. And that had to be a rug on his head.

I guessed wrong: not every woman in the room was looking at him. Ref even looked away, but he'd caught sight of her and approached her.

"Ah, le petite Mademoiselle Berlin MacAffee, we meet again," he said, smiling like the hyena that he was.

"Good evening, Armand," she replied, coolly. She didn't step away from him, but I could tell her thighs were tightening together under her coat-gown. She held out her hand to him, letting him kiss her fingers in a smarmy-polite Continental manner. I thought I saw her pelvis tilt ever so slightly toward him, but a barely hidden pucker of disgust wrinkled her brow.

As Armand the French guy straightened up, his eye swung to Jack and me. Maybe I just imagined it, but I swear the iciest look of cold contempt passed through his eyes. "And you came 'ere with your bon ami M'sieu Jack?" His eye lit on me. "And M'sieu ash, zat young detective who vanished some time back. Did you find a case to your liking, mon enfant?"

I glanced at Ref. How the hell did this goon know about that?!

"Shocked, mon ami?" the Frenchman asked, ironically. "I make it my business to know as much as I can about everyone. As they say, knowledge is power."

"Not that you really need any more, Armand," Ref replied, bantering.

He reached out and ticked her under her chin with his long fingertips, as if she were a child. "Still as sharp-tongued as you ever were, ma fille."

A heavy-set, grey-headed guy in a badly fitting tuxedo (most likely a curator or something) came bustling through the crowd and approached the Frenchman, jabbering a blue-streak in French. Now, I don't understand the lingo, but I could tell from the aura of irritated condescention that exuded from the Frenchman as he and the curator moved off together that the curator didn't speak it very well.

I got a look at the French guy's entourage as they moved on: a few of the usual big tough guys, but I noticed a couple short, dark guys in black suits over open-collared grey silk shirts. They looked like they might be Italian or something. Now, I've heard of lackeys mimicking their master's mannerisms, but these took it over the edge, to the point that they looked almost like they were mocking the boss.

I glanced over at Ref, who had quickly crossed out her bid on the book and had placed a bid -- the first bid, I might add -- on the sixth century sword: $800,000.

"Here comes trouble," Jack murmured.

I turned, following Jack's rough line of vision, well, the way he was facing: it's a little hard to tell what exactly someone's looking at when they have cheaters on.

But it didn't take me long to figure out what or rather *who* he was referring to.

Among the Frenchman's entourage, flanked by a pair of mannish-looking female guards was this drop-dead gorgeous brunette in a gleaming white satin gown that was tight in all the right places. I mean, she had hair and eyes that Theda Bara would die for, a figure that would put Ava Gardner to shame, and legs that Betty Grable would kill for. A real femme fatale if I ever saw one. Not that I'd actually ever seen one before in the flesh, but she fit my teenage imaginings...

She lingered behind her husband, only half-listening to the conversation that passed between him and the curator. Her mind clearly drifted away from their blatherings...

And so did her gaze. Toward me.

Our eyes met, her sad brown ones gazing across that room to look deep into mine, as if she were trying to read my heart and my soul. I felt my mouth tweaking in a friendly smile and I nodded to her, the least I could do. Her hooded eyelids lifted slightly and a sad smile showed at the corners of her full-lipped, rose-bud soft mouth. I felt my heart drop to my shoes and my stomach rub against the inside of my shirt. What was a pretty thing like her doing with an old geezer like him? She couldn't have been much older than I was, but more likely, she was younger than me.

And then I felt Jack's elbow jab me in the ribs. "Eep-kay your yi-ays off er-hey," he warned me, through unmoving lips, like a ventriloquist.

"Sorry," I mumbled. I just hoped the French guy didn't understand Pig Latin.

Too late. The French guy must have had eyes in the back of his head (of course he'd need them with a wife who had that much appeal). He turned and looked right at me, a steel-cold smile crossing his face. But he turned away: something else had caught his attention, and that something was Ref putting her bid on the sword.

"So, you've put a bid on zat old thing, Berlinette?" he asked, his eye roving from the sword to her and back again.

"It's an unusual piece," she said. "I thought I'd add it to my collection."

"But... an unusual choice for a young woman," he said. He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket. I half expected him to pull out a goose-quill pen and a portable inkwell, but he drew out an expensive-looking black-barrelled ballpoint and wrote his bid underneath hers: Henri Armand Minos Lambert de Meroveque --- $ 1,000,000

Meroveque, hey? Sounded like the kind of stilted French name that belonged to a stilted French goon.

Again, someone in the crowd distracted M'sieu Meroveque from his prey. Ref took advantage of that and added her next bid, then walked away slowly, pretending to examine other items in the collection.

"Ref, be careful," Jack warned. "You're baiting him."

"Relax, Jack. I know how to handle Armand," she said.

"Why don't I like the way you said that?" I asked.

She smiled at me. "You scared, Ash?"

"Not for you," I replied.

A museum lackey tried talking Ref up on this small thing that looked like a half-size piano with no legs -- and no bids either. Ref listened patiently, but gave him a polite reply and turned away. I noticed Mrs. Armand approach and put her bid on the list.

Ref's gaze turned away, back toward the sword... and to Armand the annoying, making another bid. He looked up at her, giving her a smirk of a smile. Ref kept her face relaxed, but I saw her shoulders tighten a little under her coat-gown.If she was baiting him, he seemed to be showing it by baiting her, and it was working.

"Ref, don't let him make you mad," I warned.

"I'm not getting mad," she said. But anyone with ears to hear would have heard that note of irritation in her tone.

Jack and I looked at each other. Even from behind our blacked-out lenses, we knew the other had a wary look in his eye.

Ref strode back to the sword and wrote another entry, then turned back to join us.

"Ref, you're getting reckless," Jack said.

"I'm still well within my limits," she said.

"I don't think he was referring to your account," I said. "I think he meant you're losing focus."

"I can handle this," she said, almost snapping.

Jack frowned, clearly distrusting her judgement. Or rather, her lack thereof.

Even as this exchange passed among us, Arman the French guy strode up and made another entry on the bid sheet for the sword. The crowd nearby had started getting interested in the indirect sword-fight between Ref and the French guy. Even Mrs. Armand had an eye on this game of cat and mouse, but I noticed she was clearly trying to make sure the cat didn't get anywhere near the mouse. I could tell by the furrow between her brows that she knew exactly what was really going on between her husband and this girl.

Ref stalked back to the sword's display stand, clearly intent on raising the ante once more. But when she got to it, the pen attached to the binder had gone AWOL.

It hadn't gone far. She glanced up into Armand's ugly smirking mug. He held the missing pen between his fore- and middle fingers, at an angle that made it look almost like he was flipping the bird at her. She grabbed the pen from his hand and scrawled down her bid. She laid the pen down. He tried reaching for it, but she moved in front of it, blocking him. He tried to reach around her, but she shifted into his path.

"Are you trying to dance with me? You know I'm a married man," he replied, with phony seriousness.

"You sure never acted like one," she said, cocking an eyebrow at him.

"Do *not* contradict your elders," he replied, trying to sound like someone's great-uncle, but with a hint of something far less chummy.

At that point, the curator approached, holding an old-fashioned pocket watch. "Last bid on the 6th century French sword, which goes to... Berlin MacAffee, at three million dollars."

Polite applause rose from the crowd. Ref looked slightly relieved and followed the curator toward an office-like nook at the head of the room. Armand the French guy flared his nostrils slightly, but he kept his face relaxed as he turned away, clearly in search of his wife. But I didn't like the hard light that came into his eyes.

"Where's Ref gonna get that cash?" I asked Jack.

"She'll work it out: she always does," he said.

Simple enough, I thought. Just upload some code that equals cash on this side of the looking glass.

Then I realized I couldn't see the French guy, but he'd probably gone off in a lather at being bested by a girl.

Several minutes had passed. Jack looked at his wristwatch, then reached into his jacket for his portable phone, pressing one of the buttons and keying it on.

"Hey, you seen our girl anywhere? She just bought some old sword-thing...."

Suddenly, his face went pale under his duskiness. He slammed the phone into his pocket and ran for the room where Ref had been talking with the curator. I dashed after him.

The room had been set up as a temporary office. Heavy on the "had been": everything had been turned upside down -- account books on the floor, furniture overturned. A computer stood on the desk, but someone had torn the modem from it.

The curator lay on the floor bound and gagged and wriggling against his bonds like a worm on a hook. I untied him and helped him to his feet.

"What happened to you?" I asked.

"I don't know," he panted. "I was talking with Ms. MacAffee when those two young hoodlums with Mr. Meroveque came in and punched me in the stomach and the jaw. When I came to, they had disappeared and so had Ms. MacAffee. Did you see what happened?"

"We were about to ask you that," Jack replied, sourly and led me out.

* * * * * * * *

Neither of us spoke till we got back to the car and started back to our exit.

"Now what do we do?" I asked.

"We'll have to jack out and see if Tank can get a location on her," Jack said.

Suddenly something rammed into the car from behind.

"Damn! What was that?!" Jack growled. "Learn to drive, idiot."

I glanced back. A silvery grey vehicle, like a pick-up truck with a longer cab was on our tail. Jack u-turned at an intersection to shake it off, but the truck-thing stuck to us like lint on a serge jacket. It clipped our left rear wing, making us swerve.

I peered into the side mirror on my side, trying to get a look at the occupants of the truck-thing, but their windows were too dark for me to make out anything.

Then a hatch opened in the roof and someone stuck their head out, on the passenger side. I saw light gleam off something that definately looked like the barrel of a gun.

"They got a gun!" I said, ducking.

Our rear window shattered as shots blew it out. Jack, who had ducked as well, swerved down a side street and into an alley, trying to shake our pursuer.

"I know where there's another hardline. If those goons come at us again, give 'em a taste of their own medicine," Jack said.

"Talk about riding shotgun," I said, drawing both my revolvers and rolling down my window.

The truck swerved after us from another alleyway. Jack floored the gas and swerved down another side-street onto a main road.

The goon in the truck stuck his head out again and opened fire. I ducked back just in time: a bullet meant for my head hit the sidemirror on my side. I leaned out and fired back at them, taking out both headlights and punching a decent hole in the windshield.

Jack swerved into another alley, coming out beside a TV repair shop. He jumped out and bolted for a payphone nearby. I ran after him.

He dialed the phone and shoved it at me...

* * * * * * *

"What the hell was on your tail, man? You were driving like the devil was after you," Tank asked as Sand and Trinity unhooked Jack and me.

"Sure felt like it," Jack replied, standing up and leaning over Tank's shoulder, his eyes on the monitors. "They were driving like a bat outta hell, whatever they were. They didn't drive like Agents, but they were just as mean."

"I ain't sure what it was either, but this side it was readin' like a virus," Tank said.

I stood up, turning to Ref's chair. Her body tensed against her restraints and the monitors hooked up to her were going crazy.

I reached down and touched her face. "I should have gone into that room with her."

"She can't feel you," Zara said.

"I got you into this mess, I'll get you out," I told Ref. The monitors seemed to settle down just a little, but I was probably just hoping they did.

To be continued....