Thanks to LadySmith for reviewing. With any luckI shall read one of your fics within the next five hours.

Unfortunatlyall updates will not be this quick.

Chapter 2: Cause

February 19th 2007

Flame's perspective

The envoy was late. I can't say that was surprising, we already knew what the message would be, and by being late, he helped to convey his master's contempt for us 'lesser beings'.

It was a shame that with his rise to power he could not find a way to keep a residue of humility. His ego was larger then his empire, it made everything more complicated. The arrogance brought with it such tedious, time consuming rituals as these. Everything had to be done in a way that fit in with his views on how the artificial world should be run.

It was also nauseating.

"Where the fuck are they?" Torrent half shouted for the fourth time.

"Calm down" I replied, trying to make the following sigh seem more exasperated that anticipatory.

I looked down at my drink, raised the glass halfway to my lips, held it there for a second and then returned it to the table. I just wanted to get this over with.

To my left I noticed Rebus scanning the room continuously. With the exception of Hale, she was the one who had been able to hide their anticipation with the most success and adopt an expression of nonchalant calm. In the field of poker faces however, Hale was unrivalled. I envied her for that.

The now quarter of an hour late envoy was a servant of the Merovingian. He was, in all probability coming to 'offer' us a place within the ranks of his minions. It was what always happened whenever his influence within a city or town in the Matrix became worthwhile. He didn't like the idea of stray exiles running around in his territory, so he either recruited them into his services, or he had them killed. All over the city there were exiles getting pestered by the Merovingian's messengers. Either they'd accept his offer, or they'd be hunted down one by one.

We had decided on a third option.

The last member of our group, Silent, was silent. He hadn't said anything since we'd got here. He was staring at the table as if waiting in line for his own beheading. I avoided looking in his direction after I first noticed his depressed state. His pessimism wasn't doing much for my state of mind.

I cast another glance towards the clock. Two minutes had passed since I'd last looked at it. I shook my head in disgust at my own nervousness. This wasn't even the hard part.

"Fear." The sudden sound of an unfamiliar voice broke me out of my somewhat chaotic train of thought. I looked to my left, where the voice had sounded and I noticed two immaculately dressed, forgettably hansom programs. I half expected them to follow up this statement with some unoriginal cliché such as 'You all reek of fear.' or something similar.

"My name is Fear" The one on my left, a male with tanned skin and medium length almost painfully white hair, said instead. "This is Reclamation."

He gestured to the second program, another male with much shorter brown hair said nothing, said nothing. He simply inserted himself into one of the two unused chairs at the table. He started staring at each of us for a few seconds. Rebus shot him a reproachful glance and then joined the rest of us in ignoring him. By the looks of things, this 'Fear' guy was the one we should pay attention to.

"You know why I'm here right?" He said, taking a chair next to his companion, "The Merovingian has sent us out to give the recruitment pitch to more potential employees. We're also supposed to say that refusing this offer can be very bad for your health." He paused a few moments, a small smile appeared on his face, "You have to imagine we said that in a fierce and daunting tone of voice."

Reclamation glared at him then, he seemed to be taking the whole thing a lot more seriously then Fear and didn't seem to appreciate his partner's light hearted attitude.

"Yes, we know why he sent you." My voice now felt as calm as I did. You know hw it is when you dread the approach of something, but when it comes your fear and anticipation vanishes and all that's left is calm determination? Anyway, after a second long pause I continued, "And we're not interested."

"Are you sure?" He asked, not fazed in the slightest by our refusal; Reclamation on the other hand seemed ready to lunge at me. "It's not a bad line of work, decent pay, reasonable hours, all you have to put up with is the occasional overly pretentious character. Besides, if you don't take this job you'll be killed, remember?"

This last sentence was delivered with the same light hearted tone of voice as he'd used to outline the perks of the job. He'd done this a fair few times before.

"That remains to be seen." I replied, "Go back and tell your master that we are not interested in joining the ranks of his minions. Whilst you're at it, tell him that anyone he sends after us will meet a swift untimely end."

I know how stupid that sounds. Trust me though; it wasn't just foolhardy bravado bullshit. We'd fought whilst outnumbered before, and we'd emerged triumphant. We'd do the same here, they'd come after us, obviously, but after the Merovingian lost a sufficient number of minions trying to hunt us down, he'd realise that trying to kill us wasn't worth the collateral damage.

Reclamation smirked, Fear sat still with a look of calm resignation in his eyes. He'd undoubtedly heard similar speeches before now, all most probably from foolish, new exiles with not enough experience of the world outside of their original function to recognise mortal danger.

"Fair enough," He said after a few seconds, "Nice meeting you Flame."

I wasn't really surprised that he knew my name. The Merovingian had a reputation for knowing little short of everything in the Matrix.

He stood up and began to walk towards the bar's exit.

"Wait!" This screech came from Reclamation, deciding at last to say something. Looking in his direction, as he hastily made his way over to where Fear was standing, I noticed that he'd turned red with anger.

"Yes?" Fear asked wearily.

"Fair enough? That's all you have to say. We don't just let retards like this treat us like that. We have to…"

"We?" Fear looked at his comrade as if he'd just asked what a door was. After a second he turned towards me, "Why I always get stuck with the infants I'll never know." He then turned his head back towards Reclamation, "Look kid, sooner or later you're going to learn how truly insignificant men like you and me are. To his Lordship the arsehole we're just tools, tools that can be replaced, and we'll never be more then that. Accept that and stop trying to live up to your deluded ambitions and you'll be surprised how much better li..."

Halfway through the word 'life', Reclamation landed a punch on Fear's jaw that sent him staggering backwards several paces. I'm not sure if it was because he called him infant or because he was standing on his hopeless dreams that Reclamation decided to clout Fear, I guessed the latter. By the looks of him, this young program had delusions of ascending to the ranks of the Merovingian's trusted, feared and respected right hand man. Or maybe even his paramour.

Fear rubbed the spot where he'd been struck and stared with genuine amusement at his partner.

"You'll see kid." He said, checking the area for any blood, there was none.

"You worthless piece of shit." Reclamation was shouting now in genuine outrage, a number of faces turned towards the screeching idiot. "You may be happy to eat shit for the rest of time, but I'm not like you, I don't have to settle for some lowly position. I can…"

He kept talking but that last bit is all I can remember. Me, Hale and Torrent started laughing at about this point. I think we were loud enough to attract another round of glares from the bar's other patrons.

Eventually he fell silent and turned to glare at us. His face was that of someone ready to lunge at the closest person and try and rip their throat out with his teeth.

Remarkably, he managed to resist the temptation and instead waited for our laughter to die out. This didn't take too long. In the corner of my eye however I also noticed Fear fighting back laughter of his own.

Reclamation moved back to the table. He then leaned forward and rested his hands on its metallic surface.

"Laugh on," He said calmly, "When he finds you, I'll be the one laughing. You'll all be screaming till your last fucking breath." He turned his head towards Hale, his mouth twisted to form a sickening, lecherous grin, "I think I'll enjoy your final hours a lot. Especially if…"

I'd started reaching for my knife about halfway through that sentence. Hale got to hers first however.

It was a fine shot; of course I'd expect nothing less from her. The knife smashed through the guy's skull and buried itself within his forehead. He was dead before he had time for one shocked breath.

As the body fell backwards, people in the bar were starting to notice the dead guy with the knife in his cranium. Screams broke out almost in succession. Some people bolted for the doors, others cowered by the walls. One person I noticed was punching numbers into his phone. I cast a warning glance in his direction and he froze. A few seconds later he slowly placed the phone on the table and sat back in his seat.

After the screaming had died down, a deathly silence filled the room. People were making a conscious effort not to breathe. Believing that the sound of their breath would be loud enough to drive us to burry a knife in their skulls.

I was hoping to avoid something like this, by which I mean a viewing audience as opposed to a fatality. The idea had been to kill whoever the Merovingian sent our way, (simply to make ourselves a priority an get this over with more quickly), and then run like Hell. It seemed like the better option. None of us were willing to serve that bastard and none of us would lie down and die. We had intended to do this out of public view however. We had enough to deal with without law enforcement types.

As Hale was reclaiming her knife from Reclamation's head, Fear spoke again.

"This is why we always need new people." He paused for a moment, staring at the corpse as if he was staring at a floor tile. It meant nothing to him. "Run," He said to me after the moment had passed, "Run now."

I thought I could hear traces of genuine concern in his voice. In retrospect I very much doubt that this was the case.

We let Fear live. One death was all we really needed. Besides, there was something about this guy that I liked.

After a moment's pause in which the whole situation finally started to sink in, we ran.

To be continued