Title: Choices and Chances

Author: Stormhawk

Rating: PG-13

Updated Disclaimer:

Carlson = Me

Chapter Word Count: 1365

Summary: Carlson, Neo and exiles...

Notes: Nope

Please read and Review.

"What's going on?" Stef asked Smith as she appeared in his office, requiring back the rest of her suit.

"Anderson," he said with a frown.

"Yeah?" she asked as she sat on the corner of the desk. "So?"

"Stef...maybe I remind you he is our number one target."

"I thought we kind of came to the general consensus to leave him alone, we chase him, he flies away, we waste ammunition, what exactly is the point of that?"

"We have to follow orders."

"And why is this time different to all the other times we have ignored him?" she asked as he shifted them away.

"Because he was spotted with exiles."

Stef looked around at their new surroundings and stopped walking. "Um...do you know where we are?"

"Of course I do."

"You're about to step through a firewall. He's not in there is he?"

"Would I be stepping in there if he wasn't?" Smith asked and stepped into the firewall.

"You are crazy," Stef said as she followed him. "This is so stupid Smith, we can die in here."

"We have to, you aren't afraid are you?"

"No, but I'm also not suicidal."

"I'll protect you," he said with a smile as he drew his gun.

"So anyway," Stef said as she drew her gun and looked around the alleyways for signs of trouble. "You have to come to the mansion sometime today, I think your daughter has something to talk to you about."

"And what would that be?"

"My lips are sealed, she wants to tell you. I wanted to tell you, but she was adamant that she was the one who had to tell you."

"It's nothing bad is it?"

"No, nothing bad."

"Is it something strange?"

"Define strange for a sixteen-year-old."

"Well is it?"

"She is a perfectly normal sixteen year old, she's a perfectly normal girl. I'm the weird one."

"Besides the obvious, what are you referring to?"

"I'm obviously weird? Thanks...Well when I was her age, I had sheets of programming languages plastering my walls."

"That seems reasonable enough, it was an interest of yours..."

"I handed in an English assignment in binary."

He gave her a strange look.

"You are taking this way too seriously. It's not like she's worshipping a satanic cult or anything...Jessica might have but she's past that...it's just something she wants to talk to you about."

"I'll go over later, it's been busy. But right now we have to be on the look out for exiles and Anderson."

"Yeah, Ander-snot. You'll protect me huh Angel Smith?" she said sarcastically as she checked her gun. "Taking me into a firewalled area with that flying freak around, plus the exiles he was seen with, that's completely safe. Some angel you turned out to be..."

There was a dull thud as he hit the ground. She spun and saw him twitching like he was having a glitch and then he went still. In a second flat, she was kneeling beside him. She pulled off his sunglasses, and looked at his eyes. They were still and glassy. She pressed two fingers against his neck and felt for a pulse, but she didn't feel one.

There hadn't been a gunshot, and he wouldn't be this still if he was having a glitch. He looked dead.

Dead.

"Smith?" she asked as her voice trembled. "This isn't funny Smith."

She pulled him up and found the cause, a six-inch-long dart had hit him in the back. She pulled it out and looked at it closely, doing a surface scan, it had been filled with some kind of virus, but she couldn't make out what kind. It had been fast acting, too fast.

Fatal?

No, it couldn't be. He couldn't be dead.

The limp body in her arms said otherwise. "Wake up!" she yelled at him. Laying him back down, she started to shake. "Please wake up."

"That isn't going to happen," a voice said. She looked up and saw Carlson.

"Did you do this?"

The ex-agent grinned, "I was the one who shot him if that's what you mean. My boss wrote the virus and the flying git humanity calls a savior was the bait."

She braced herself, "what's the nature of this virus?"

"Can't you tell? Wipes them clean as a slate."

"How do you repair it?" she asked as she stood up and aimed her gun at him.

"Put that thing down before you hurt yourself. Now either walk out of here or I'll kill you."

She gave him a deadpan expression, "the second I turn my back, you'll shoot me."

"Yeah...innate nature. Yours too, little one, I actually have to admire you having the guts to shoot my boss in the back. He always wears the kevlar though."

"Your boss write this or did he steal it?"

"He wrote it," Carlson said with a smirk, "it's an old favorite of his. He used it on Smith's other bitch as well."

Stef didn't even have time to question that as Carlson walked over, "all this talk has put me in the mood to kill someone. Namely you."

"Gee...that's original."

Carlson's arm moved so fast it was a blur even to her eyes. And then it really hit her, Carlson was just Brown. There wasn't that much difference between them, except for the fact that Brown didn't carry code knives. And she had always accepted that she couldn't win a fight against Brown. Sure they were both agents, but Brown had so much more power and sheer bulk.

Time to retreat.

Ducking the next punch, she dove to the ground, grabbed the front of Smith's suit and started dragging him toward the firewall. Leaping the last ten meters, Smith's body went flying over into safety and she landed half-in and half-out of the firewalled area.

She shifted Smith to the medical ward and tried to get up so she could get out herself but Carlson grabbed one of her feet and dragged her back into the firewalled area.

He bent down and wrenched her right arm at such an angle that she heard it snap, and she screamed in pain as he slammed the broken limb into the wall behind her.

"I love hearing people scream," he said with a smile slammed it against the wall again.

"You got to handle Smith, let me take care of this one." Carlson looked up and saw Neo.

"Get lost you flying git, my vendetta against the agents is more personal than yours."

"I'm starting to understand why our superiors dislike working with each other."

"You have superiors?" Stef asked in as sarcastic a tone as she could manage. "I thought you were their messiah Neon. Little Ander-snot still has to take orders..."

Neo pointed at her and she was pulled out of Carlson's grasp and into the air. Neo glared at the ex-agent and then flew off to a nearby rooftop. "We don't let traitors live," he said as he drove his arm into her.

The blow hadn't been physical, he had altered it so that it was more damaging to her code. Anderson smiled grimly as chunks of her code fell off. He tensed his arm and the stress on her code increased, he was trying to shatter it. It was all she could do to stop from passing out as she ready to fall apart at a base level.

She tried punching him with her unbroken arm but he easily deflected it.

Taking a step back from him with his arm still deep in her code, she saw the edge of the roof and free fell backward, his arm tore out of her as she fell. Using every coherent thought in her head, she managed to land without hurting herself. Stumbling down the alley, she reached in and pulled out her backdoor key. Woozy, she jumped into the hallway and slammed the door shut behind her. Against all of her wishes, she fell to the floor.

The floor was nice. Nice and cool. Stay there for a while. Just rest. Sleep.

"Get the hell up Stef," she ordered herself, "otherwise you're dead." Smith, she needed to know if Smith was ok.