And all your souls shall be mine,
Um, I mean, thanks to all reviewers.
Chapter 25: Infamy, wonderful
"Bullshit."
Through Niobe's forced clam, I could hear the hatred, loathing and disbelief. The others it seemed were having a harder time accepting Smith's story then I did. It was then I learned that Hero worship is more troublesome then it appears.
The survivors had all been patched up and had joined us in the construct. I'd had to wait almost a day for them to arrive; there were some pretty serious injuries on the survivors, or so I'd been told, Ghost had had his left arm torn off; another person whose name I forget had more holes in him then a guy on the receiving end of a firing squad.
You wouldn't know it from the assembled faces; residual self image apparently didn't take personal injury into account. The people around me all looked healthy and ready to deliver a skull crushing kick at any moment.
"If you can bring yourselves to look past your instinctive denial then you'll realise that I'm telling the truth. If it were me who was uploading people into sentinels then you wouldn't be here would you?"
There was a silence, all of us had been convinced of what Smith had told us with the exceptions of Niobe, Ghost and some woman called Restoration, Morpheus' short speech about what the Oracle had said had helped achieve this, but there's always one, or in this case, three.
"Neo sacrificed himself to save Zion," this was Ghost speaking; "there's nothing that could make him want to destroy it."
Smith sighed with exasperation that I almost shared. He'd already explained the copying and pasting of parts or whatever the hell it was three times.
"I've already explained this; do I need to draw cue cards with brightly coloured smiling stick figures to make you see sense? Mr. Anderson's mind was separated from his body the same as it did when he destroyed the five sentinels remember? This happened as I was destroyed, this caused a," he paused to search for the right words, "fusion of our souls if you will. We've both been re-written."
There was another silence; the information seemed to cause the same feelings of disbelief and shock, in all of us, that it had the last two times.
"Bullshit, that's impossible." This one came from Restoration. I almost ended up groaning with irritation when a repeat of the last three hour seemed to be approaching. I had the feeling that it was going to be a long day.
***********************************************************
I woke up on the floor of an empty restaurant.
Well, it wasn't completely empty. There were no customers, no waiters or anything like that; there was security however, in the form of four people pointing guns at my head. I also noticed two other people sitting at a needlessly large table. One was the Merovingian, I recognised him from a photograph that Hydra had shown me. The other one, a bored looking female, I didn't recognise.
"Ah, the dreamer awakes."
The other ascended ones were nowhere to be seen. I slowly pulled my weary self off of the floor and tried to avoid getting a gun barrel in my eye as I di so.
"This way," a nauseatingly forceful voice said.
We walked to the table and I was pushed into a seat. I considered drawing my swords and trying my luck but I decided against it. I may have upgraded myself so that my skin was as durable as a concrete wall, but shooting at a concrete wall still results in holes, besides, this could also spell trouble for the others.
"So," the Merovingian had a strong French accent and a voice that was filled with pretension, "I can only surmise from your presence that the Ascended fools have finally found themselves another member."
I shrugged in reply, hoping to convey an aura of calm that I didn't feel.
"Come now, surely you can be more sociable then this, if I wanted you dead then you would not be here would you?"
"Alright," I clawed through my mind for an appropriate conversation starting question, "Have you been constipated recently?"
He made no attempt to hide his irritation, not surprising really. The anonymous woman seemed to be amused.
"No."
"Me neither, I haven't crapped in a while either, oh how I miss it."
"Let me get to the point," all traces of humour died abruptly with this new sentence, "your pathetic group of do-gooders is still alive because I want something. Give it to me, and you will be free to continue with your pitiful superhero role playing game."
"Sorry, I'm not one for anal penetration." (In sophisticated company it helps to employ a sophisticated vocabulary, or so I've been told.) My attempt was met with another irritated glare however.
"Very witty, let me make one thing clear, it would be very easy for me to have your friends killed, slowly, so I'd advise you'd watch what you say around me."
Anger found its way into the back of my neck. I wanted very much to slice everyone in this room and reduce this building to a smattering of rubble on the floor. Common sense kept me from trying however.
"Alright, what do you want?"
"That's better; do you see how much easier everything is when you use a little politeness in your speech? Now to business, as I said, there is something I want. Three heads." He paused, probably so as to look for a shocked reaction on my face, there wasn't one.
"Alright, tell these guys to lower their weapons and you can have thee of theirs."
This, thankfully, seemed to amuse him rather then irritate him.
"The heads I want belong to Seraph, the Fortune teller…"
"Who?" (I was really growing to hate this question.)
"The Oracle," I nodded in recognition, trying to suppress the increasing flow of anger, "and Morpheus."
My response to this third name was a little strange. My head flicked upwards to stare at the Merovingian, my fists clenched, and my mind sprang back and forth between bloodlust and undirected anger. It took me about eight minutes to regain the self control to form a coherent sentence. The Merovingian seemed to recognise what was on my face.
"Now this is interesting. Tell me, what has Morpheus done to cause this?"
I ignored him; I was too busy trying to resist the urge to smash his face to pulp. The thought of his death seemed like the only thing that would ever make me feel better.
"So let me get this straight," I wasn't about to taint my memory of Seamus by talking about him with this arsehole, "upon receiving the severed heads of the Oracle, Seraph and Morpheus," my voice almost became a growl as I said the third name, "you'll let us walk out of here and continue our hindrance of your plans for genocide, correct?"
"Oh please, the damage you've done has had the same affect on the plan as Persephone here oversleeping would." He gestured at the woman on his left, "it's amusing more then anything else."
I really wanted to kill him.
"Why me? I've only been at this for a few months."
"I considered using one of the others, but experience has taught me that the image of a heroic warrior of good is too strong in them, mainly because they've done little short of nothing for centuries."
"Sounds familiar." This came from the woman on the right.
"As I was saying, I'm hoping that you are more willing to see good sense. Now, do we have a deal?"
To be continued
Right, now for replies:
Angel-of-lightness: What occurred to me was, (another long dramatic pause) well, I'll leave you to guess. Those pictures you sent me were, um, odd. Yeah. Anyway, thanks for reviewing.
Agent Josie: There are cardboard cut outs of Morpheus and Trinity in the forum library in Norwich that have no heads. Whoever has done this shall be struck down with a pitchfork. Anyway, thanks for reviewing.
Tai Wilson: Enjoy Jacksonville. I had to wander around universities when my sister was trying to decide which one to go to, to quote from Tank; it was 'Major boring shit'. I hope you have a better time. Anyway, thanks for reviewing.
Um, I mean, thanks to all reviewers.
Chapter 25: Infamy, wonderful
"Bullshit."
Through Niobe's forced clam, I could hear the hatred, loathing and disbelief. The others it seemed were having a harder time accepting Smith's story then I did. It was then I learned that Hero worship is more troublesome then it appears.
The survivors had all been patched up and had joined us in the construct. I'd had to wait almost a day for them to arrive; there were some pretty serious injuries on the survivors, or so I'd been told, Ghost had had his left arm torn off; another person whose name I forget had more holes in him then a guy on the receiving end of a firing squad.
You wouldn't know it from the assembled faces; residual self image apparently didn't take personal injury into account. The people around me all looked healthy and ready to deliver a skull crushing kick at any moment.
"If you can bring yourselves to look past your instinctive denial then you'll realise that I'm telling the truth. If it were me who was uploading people into sentinels then you wouldn't be here would you?"
There was a silence, all of us had been convinced of what Smith had told us with the exceptions of Niobe, Ghost and some woman called Restoration, Morpheus' short speech about what the Oracle had said had helped achieve this, but there's always one, or in this case, three.
"Neo sacrificed himself to save Zion," this was Ghost speaking; "there's nothing that could make him want to destroy it."
Smith sighed with exasperation that I almost shared. He'd already explained the copying and pasting of parts or whatever the hell it was three times.
"I've already explained this; do I need to draw cue cards with brightly coloured smiling stick figures to make you see sense? Mr. Anderson's mind was separated from his body the same as it did when he destroyed the five sentinels remember? This happened as I was destroyed, this caused a," he paused to search for the right words, "fusion of our souls if you will. We've both been re-written."
There was another silence; the information seemed to cause the same feelings of disbelief and shock, in all of us, that it had the last two times.
"Bullshit, that's impossible." This one came from Restoration. I almost ended up groaning with irritation when a repeat of the last three hour seemed to be approaching. I had the feeling that it was going to be a long day.
***********************************************************
I woke up on the floor of an empty restaurant.
Well, it wasn't completely empty. There were no customers, no waiters or anything like that; there was security however, in the form of four people pointing guns at my head. I also noticed two other people sitting at a needlessly large table. One was the Merovingian, I recognised him from a photograph that Hydra had shown me. The other one, a bored looking female, I didn't recognise.
"Ah, the dreamer awakes."
The other ascended ones were nowhere to be seen. I slowly pulled my weary self off of the floor and tried to avoid getting a gun barrel in my eye as I di so.
"This way," a nauseatingly forceful voice said.
We walked to the table and I was pushed into a seat. I considered drawing my swords and trying my luck but I decided against it. I may have upgraded myself so that my skin was as durable as a concrete wall, but shooting at a concrete wall still results in holes, besides, this could also spell trouble for the others.
"So," the Merovingian had a strong French accent and a voice that was filled with pretension, "I can only surmise from your presence that the Ascended fools have finally found themselves another member."
I shrugged in reply, hoping to convey an aura of calm that I didn't feel.
"Come now, surely you can be more sociable then this, if I wanted you dead then you would not be here would you?"
"Alright," I clawed through my mind for an appropriate conversation starting question, "Have you been constipated recently?"
He made no attempt to hide his irritation, not surprising really. The anonymous woman seemed to be amused.
"No."
"Me neither, I haven't crapped in a while either, oh how I miss it."
"Let me get to the point," all traces of humour died abruptly with this new sentence, "your pathetic group of do-gooders is still alive because I want something. Give it to me, and you will be free to continue with your pitiful superhero role playing game."
"Sorry, I'm not one for anal penetration." (In sophisticated company it helps to employ a sophisticated vocabulary, or so I've been told.) My attempt was met with another irritated glare however.
"Very witty, let me make one thing clear, it would be very easy for me to have your friends killed, slowly, so I'd advise you'd watch what you say around me."
Anger found its way into the back of my neck. I wanted very much to slice everyone in this room and reduce this building to a smattering of rubble on the floor. Common sense kept me from trying however.
"Alright, what do you want?"
"That's better; do you see how much easier everything is when you use a little politeness in your speech? Now to business, as I said, there is something I want. Three heads." He paused, probably so as to look for a shocked reaction on my face, there wasn't one.
"Alright, tell these guys to lower their weapons and you can have thee of theirs."
This, thankfully, seemed to amuse him rather then irritate him.
"The heads I want belong to Seraph, the Fortune teller…"
"Who?" (I was really growing to hate this question.)
"The Oracle," I nodded in recognition, trying to suppress the increasing flow of anger, "and Morpheus."
My response to this third name was a little strange. My head flicked upwards to stare at the Merovingian, my fists clenched, and my mind sprang back and forth between bloodlust and undirected anger. It took me about eight minutes to regain the self control to form a coherent sentence. The Merovingian seemed to recognise what was on my face.
"Now this is interesting. Tell me, what has Morpheus done to cause this?"
I ignored him; I was too busy trying to resist the urge to smash his face to pulp. The thought of his death seemed like the only thing that would ever make me feel better.
"So let me get this straight," I wasn't about to taint my memory of Seamus by talking about him with this arsehole, "upon receiving the severed heads of the Oracle, Seraph and Morpheus," my voice almost became a growl as I said the third name, "you'll let us walk out of here and continue our hindrance of your plans for genocide, correct?"
"Oh please, the damage you've done has had the same affect on the plan as Persephone here oversleeping would." He gestured at the woman on his left, "it's amusing more then anything else."
I really wanted to kill him.
"Why me? I've only been at this for a few months."
"I considered using one of the others, but experience has taught me that the image of a heroic warrior of good is too strong in them, mainly because they've done little short of nothing for centuries."
"Sounds familiar." This came from the woman on the right.
"As I was saying, I'm hoping that you are more willing to see good sense. Now, do we have a deal?"
To be continued
Right, now for replies:
Angel-of-lightness: What occurred to me was, (another long dramatic pause) well, I'll leave you to guess. Those pictures you sent me were, um, odd. Yeah. Anyway, thanks for reviewing.
Agent Josie: There are cardboard cut outs of Morpheus and Trinity in the forum library in Norwich that have no heads. Whoever has done this shall be struck down with a pitchfork. Anyway, thanks for reviewing.
Tai Wilson: Enjoy Jacksonville. I had to wander around universities when my sister was trying to decide which one to go to, to quote from Tank; it was 'Major boring shit'. I hope you have a better time. Anyway, thanks for reviewing.