Title: Choices and Chances: Chapter Twelve

Author: Stormhawk

Chapter Word Count: 447

Notes: This is so very short, but so very important.

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Smith typed in the last line of coding, "there, I have done what you asked, now let Ivy go."

"Sit down in that chair," Mero said as he pointed to a chair with restraints that Carlson was standing beside. Smith did as he was asked. Triumphant, The Merovingian smiled and nodded to Carlson who tightened all of the restraints.

"Finally," the powerful exile said with an elated smile. "I've finally won."

"Does this mean I can finally drop this ridiculous act?" Ivy asked him.

"By all means my dear," he said as he walked over to the wall and retrieved a bottle of wine and three glasses from a hidden compartment.

"Act?" Smith asked.

He watched in silent and utter horror as Ivy melted away to reveal another person. A shapeshifting exile woman with olive skin and red hair. "Yes Smith, act."

Smith felt his heart break into small glass shards that proceeded to cut him apart from the inside. "Ivy?"

"My name is Kyla. I'm no more your Ivy than Carlson is," she said with a laugh as she accepted the glass from her boss.

"But..." Smith started, at a loss for words, "you knew everything..."

She smirked, "human minds are so easy to hack, especially when their bodies are broken. Now, if you not-so-gentlemen will excuse me, I really need a shower."

"No..." Smith said hopelessly. "I don't believe it."

"Your problem is," Mero said with a smile, "you did believe it. You never questioned her for a minute. You saw Ivy and you took my bait. Neo, the virus, the underground prison, and your girlfriend, all of that was to get you here, and to get you to break through your own security coding. Game, set and match, I win agent. And you have lost so very badly that I almost feel sorry for you. I would, but I'm too busy savoring my victory."

Smith just hung his head in shame at being so very fooled so very easily. The Merovingian, one of the single greatest threats from the exile world was now getting access to agent coding and it was all his fault. If the exiles didn't kill him, he was going to get deleted for this.

And what hurt him the most was the fact that his time with Ivy hadn't been real. That he had believed and loved a copy, a fake. That the woman he had loved really was dead. He had really loved Ivy, even if perhaps he hadn't expressed it enough while she had been alive.

Carlson left the room after a minute, and then so did the Merovingian, and so he was left alone with his thoughts.