Title: Choices and Chances: Chapter Thirteen

Author: Stormhawk

Chapter Word Count: 871

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An hour later Smith looked up as two ghosts phased through the floor, when they became solid he saw it was the Twins.

"Isn't this pathetic brother?" the one his left asked. "Poor little agent..."

"Indeed brother, it's lame."

"No, lame is your girlfriend thinking about buying Cain and Abel flea collars."

"Do shut up about that in front of the agent or I'll knock you out and feed you to Vlad."

Smith gave the exiles a look and they shrugged, remembering that they were there for some other reason than petty bickering with each other.

"Boss is...busy you might say," one of them said to him. "So you get to spend the night in the dungeon and you get pulled apart tomorrow."

"Undo the restraints One," Two said as he shut down the computer. The other twin undid the restraints.

As soon as he was free of his restraints, Smith leapt out of the chair and charged at the twin. One simply phased and Smith ran through him and landed on the floor. Two neatly hopped through his phased brother and drew his razor. He sliced it down the agent's leg, and Smith stared at the bloody line and torn fabric. As he watched them expertly twirl their razors, he realized it was useless to fight.

"The boss wants you in one piece, don't make us disappoint him."

One put his razor away and rummaged around in a cupboard and pulled out an electric shock collar and clapped it around Smith's neck. For a demonstration, he pressed the button on the remote and watched as volts ran through the agent.

Smith dropped his head, and got up to his feet and demurely followed them to the dungeon. He's been beaten, he had been utterly beaten by his own emotions, and he deserved to be deleted.

The twins threw him into a dark, concrete cell and he blacked out as he hit the wall.

There was a knock at his door, he looked up from his work, "come in."

Slowly, the door was pushed open, and Agent Whitman walked in. It had been three days since she had become an agent and she hadn't said much of anything in those seventy-two hours, except for quietly accepting orders and following them to the letter.

He wasn't sure if that was her choice, or part of the problem of transferring a human to an agent, but she didn't seem to have the same attitude as the recruit he had...rescued...if you wanted to call it that, from the enemy. She was a changed person. Whether or not it was for the better, he wasn't sure yet. Only time would tell that.

Whitman gave him the smallest hint of a smile and put a small box on the desk in front of him. It was wrapped in black paper with a white ribbon tied around it. "I don't understand," he said.

"I just..." she started, "I just wanted to get you a present...a thank you I guess. I hope you like it," she said quietly.

Smith picked up the box and looked at it, he had never received a present before. It was a human thing. "You have to unwrap it," she said when she saw his confusion.

He slowly pulled the ribbon away and ripped the paper open to reveal a simple white box. He put the paper down on his desk and opened the box and pulled out an hourglass. "Thank you," he said.

"I was wandering around all the shops, just tying to find something that fit your personality, and wasn't stupid. I hope you like it."

"Yes, thank you Carol," he said with a smile as he turned it upside down and watched the white sand fall down to the bottom and begin to pile up.

"You're welcome," she said with a slight smile of her own.

Smith woke up and rubbed his head, having no idea why hitting the wall had jarred that memory. Deep down, he had always felt sorry for her. Perhaps he shouldn't have brought her back, he hadn't even been sure she had wanted to come back. Even though he had done it twice, it really wasn't his place to play the life giver. 'To play god,' as Carol had put it.

He still had that hourglass, buried under a pile of paperwork in one of his desk drawers. After she had been deleted the first time, he had thrown it in the wall in anger, but after calming down and realizing that they could recover from the damage - even if the recruitment program was on hiatus for a while - he had repaired it and stowed it in his desk.

And as the years had worn on, he had begun to feel sorry for Carol. No one could find the fault, so perhaps it hadn't been her fault that she had turned homicidal. Perhaps it had just been an error. A fatal error for her, but an error all the same.

He found a comfortable position on the floor and attempted to rest, knowing that he would need all of his strength and at the same time dreading what was to come.