Chapter 4- He's still cute as a puppy!
In a room further down the corridor, three rather shell shocked agents stood.
"We were just..." Alocin trailed off.
"I know." replied T'Lorie.
"... Oh we are never going to live this down." groaned Angel.
"Well we better go see what's happening in Angels office." Alocin suggested "We never know what Gappy's done to Star."
"Why the hell would he come in OUR agency?" Angel asked. "I mean, the entire resistance knows to stay away from use, even more-so than the other Agents. And how the hell did he know where we were anyway?"
"Angel, if we want to stay hidden then I really think we need to take down that Big Neon sign out the front of the building. You know, the one that reads 'The Agency'" T'Lorie told her "And perhaps we should make it a normal building colour?"
"Yeah and who's fault is it that is pink?" Angel asked angrily, "Seriously T'Lorie, you need a new hobby."
"Come on guys, we need to go find Star." Alo interrupted.
"Yeah, and we better call for backup. I'll get Jasmine, you reckon you can get hold of Boris?"
"Um, do we have too, I mean Morpheus is big and has a really scary gap in his teeth." questioned a rather green T'Lorie.
"Yes, Star is in there and I won't let her suffer him alone." replied Alocin bravely.
"Um really?"
"Nah, I just though it sounded heroic." Alocin laughed. "Let her suffer, I can destroy all her pictures of Neo without being disturbed."
"Shut up." Angel interrupted. "We need a plan."
"How about, she shifts out?" T'Lorie put forward.
"Nah, she wouldn't think of that."
"How about we burst in there with guns ablaze?" Alocin said half mockingly.
"Excellent idea.' Angel jumped for it.
"But it was only a joke." Alo whimpered,
"Stop thinking of the small things. T'Lorie, think of your laptop stuck in there, Alocin think of your..." Angel came to a stop.
"My what?" said Alocin skeptically
"...Your future without Star to bother." Angel said, finishing her sentence.
"That's almost a fate worth than death, okay I'll do it." Alocin said bravely.
"T'Lorie?" Angel questioned.
"Yeah, anything for a laptop."
"Okay, on the count of three." Angel said bravely.
"We're all going to die!" stammered T'Lorie.
"Shut up." the other two said.
MEANWHILE
Agent Star gave a week smile and backed up towards the wall, as Morph advanced on her.
"Uhh...hello, can I help you?" She asked, nervously. The Guy had just tatly taken out all of her friends, and now she was stuck in a room with the creepy rebel. Yuck.
Now she knew why Alo got so pissed that time she locked her up with him in just a bathrobe. Star chuckled, that was fun.
"Yes, as a matter of fact you can...Agent Star..." Morphy grinned gappily.
Star cringed remembering the situation she was in.
"What do you want you freak!"
"Charge!"
Three agents came barreling into the room at high speed; the door crashed open silhouetting their forms in the light. The shock drove Gappy into Star arms and as the three stepped out of the light it showed Star, holding Morphy above the ground both with looks of fear of their faces.
"STAR! What the hell is going on?" Angel yelled.
Star immediately dropped Gappy and began frantically wiping her hand off on the jacket as T'Lorie raced across the room, grabbed her laptop of Angels desk and went back to hide behind Angel and Alocin.
"Thank goodness you're here!" Star sighed, kicking Gappy, who was still lying at her feet. "He is WAY too freaky to be left alone with." She shuddered.
Alocin glared at her. "Now you know how I felt! A honeymoon suite, what were you thinking?" Remembering the unrivalled horrors of the semi-naked gappy lockdown
"Well you started it!"
"Did not!"
"Did so!"
"Did no..."
"OH SHUT UP!" Angel yelled, "This is NOT the time."
T'Lorie let out a small 'meep' and started backing towards the door.
"Right, how about we see what the hell Morpheus is doing here?" Angel continued, pulling T'Lorie back into the room.
"What about Jeff?" Alocin asked.
"We'll worry about her later, I want to hurt Gappy, and bad!" Star gave an evil grin.
After getting over the whole separated from laptop thing T'Lorie began to recalibrate her senses and take control of the situation. Shifting them all to the interrogation room, they all began to set it up.
T'Lorie set up her laptop and attached the wires to Gappy.
Angel pulled out her lie detector.
Alocin started feeding Gappy digestives.
And Star had come to the conclusion Neo was going to come rescue Morphy again so she was setting up a big trap.
It took a while but finally they were all set up and took their positions as their tied-up-like-a-shishcobabe prisoner began to come round. And the first thing he saw...
…Was four curious faces peering at him from a distance of 5 cm.
"BOO!" they shouted.
"Aaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhhhh!" he yelled.
"That worked." Said Angel with an evil grin on her face, "Now for the real fun!"
"Mummy..." whimpered Gappy.
Stepping away from the other agents Star was a little worried.
Why, of all the random agents had Morpheus come after her? If anything Star felt she was probably the least threatening to the rebels, and was particularly soft on the Neb crew due to Neo. So what was it that Morphy wanted with her, and her alone? Something worth breaking into an Agency and facing a whole group of Random Agents for?
"So Gappy. What did you come here for?" Star demanded to the tied up rebel.
"Gappy?" he said confused.
"Urmm... Morpheus then... Neo warned me you were coming for me but he didn't say why, and why did Neo warn me anyway?"
Gappy frowned slightly. "I'm not giving away any rebel plans to a bunch of Agents!"
"Ahh.. so it was a rebel plan then?" T'L stated.
"Umm..yes..no..maybe.."
"Wow that was useful..." Alocin sighed. "Wait a second, Neo warned you? How come you never mentioned that Star?"
Star blushed slightly. "Oh I don't know, he wasn't exactly clear with the details, I guess I forgot..."
The group turned back to Gappy menacingly.
"So out with it, why did you really want Agent Star? And how did you know where to find her?"
Just then Angel's lie detector popped into the room.
"Well it took you long enough!" Angel sighed, and began attaching all the wires to Morpheus.
"I had to get more tea." it replied, in its English accent.
"Your lie detector scares me..." Star said worriedly. "Milk no sugar please!"
"Don't bother" Angel said. "The tea is for Sheerluck, not you. He is less likely to give it up than Alocin"
"Sheerluck?" Alocin queried.
"Don't ask."
Gappy looked at each of the agents. "Is one of you going to interrogate me? Or are you going to stand their bickering?"
"I WILL ASK THE QUESTIONS!" Roared Angel before circling around the trapped Gappy like a shark.
"So how did you find Star and why do you want her?" Angel demanded.
"Well you're not hard to find, just follow the screams, bangs and explosions." Gappy explained rather proudly. "And as for her well..." Gappy sniffed. "She's standing between me and my one true love Neo!"
All four agents looked vaguely traumatized, Angel looked at the lie detector.
"He's telling the truth." It said in its British accent, and then sipped a cup of tea, leaving Angel looking more traumatized.
Star looked rather shocked, not at all by the fact Gappy had a thing for Neo, I mean who could blame him! Hello! Sex-god? Yeah, but anyway, the thing that confused Star was the fact that Gappy had though she was stopping his chance with Neo...
"Surely you meant to go after Trinity..." Star asked.
"No, I can't exactly kill her, she's my co-pilot!" He protested.
"You can't be right Morph, how would I stop Neo liking you, he doesn't even like me?"
"He's a rebel leader with a gap in his teeth that small container ships could sail through," Alocin interjected, "of course nothing he says is going to make sense!" She poked at him with a handy pencil. "I say we just take him back to the main Agency. We will get uber-brownie points for capturing Gappy!"
"But what about Jeff...Gemini...whichever?" T'L asked. "We kind of lost her...him...whichever. How are we going to explain that?"
"We don't have to explain it if they don't know" Angel said smugly
Just then "Angels brought me here" by Guy Sabastian of World Idol filled the room
"What is that?" Alocin asked, looking rather scared
Star sighed, "That would be our new doorbell, guess who chose it?" She looked pointedly at Angel
"Hey, I was on a sugar high"
"Well, who is going to answer the door?" T'Lorie asked
"I guess I will" Angel said "Anyone got a sledge hammer so a can smash that doorbell to pieces on the way through?"
T'Lorie handed her one and she left the room, heading in the direction of the door. There was a couple of crashes, the song began to slow and warp, making it sound even more strange, then one last BANG and it stopped all together. They heard a muttered "I don't know what I was thinking" and then a pause as she opened the door.
"Who do you think it could be?" Star asked
Alocin was poking Morpheus with a pencil again "Probably girl guides or something. I wonder if they have cookies!"
T'Lorie raised an eyebrow "At this time of night?"
Alocin's face fell "I guess not. Damn, I wanted some cookies too..."
All of a sudden there was a yell from the entrance "What the bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! Its NEO!"
The three agents in the room stared at each other in shock
"I don't believe it! I was right! He is here at our very own agency!"
Star was jumping up and down and barely suppressing a yell of joy. The other two girls put their hands over their ears in case she decided to 'Squee" again. Fortunately she got herself under control and managed to call out to angel "Well invite him in then" before rushing around to set her trap.
A few seconds later Neo walked into the room, followed by a very confused Angel. they all just stood and stared at each other for some time until T'Lorie gave an exasperated sigh
"Oh to hell with it Neo"
Neo gave her an odd look "Mr Anderson, would you like some tea?" she said, offering Alocins teapot and a mug.
Neo looked even more confused (so what else is new?) "Um, yeah... ok..."
Angel slid over to where Alocin was standing, looking quite shocked and horrified that Neo was drinking her tea. "Hey Alo. You got any drugged sugar on you?"
Alocins eyes lit up and she started searching through her jacket "Well I have some drugged teabags, sugar, a lollipop, and coffee" She shuddered at the last one.
"Great" Angel took a couple of packets of sugar off her and went over to Star, who looked like she was about to faint. "Hey Star, why don't you ask him if he would like some sugar with his tea?"
Star looked at her suspiciously, but seeing as it didn't come from Alocin it was highly unlikely that it was drugged. She offered it to Neo who took it gladly.
Morpheus was sitting in his corner, still tied to his chair and being ignored by everyone. He was sulking, he wanted some tea too! But then again... Neo was starting to think that he was a dog, a puppy by the looks of it.. No, maybe it was best if he didn't have any tea after all…
Star smiled dreamily. Neo was here! In her Agency! And even more surprisingly, her friends were actually being nice to him! No shooting or insults, they had even made him tea. Now this was just perfect!
Star was about to go back to gazing adoringly at Neo when she realised she couldn't find him, Suddenly she felt something by her leg, Looking down she found it to be.. Neo! Who appeared to be ...Pulling at her trouser-leg...and...Growling...
"Neo! What for the love of the mainframe are you doing!" Star yelled, jumping up.
"Bark! Barkbarkbark!" Neo...barked.
"What did you lot do to him!" Star moaned, glaring at the giggling agents.
"Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with drugging Neo and making him think he's a dog..." Angel laughed
Neo started to gnaw at Stars leg again.
"Arrgg! Get away you Freak! I HATE dogs!" Star squealed, running back from the growling rebel.
Neo whimpered and started to howl.
Star scowled. "I hate you programs so very much."
Alocin took out another one of her drugged sugar sachets and read the instructions. "Oh don't worry Star it says that it wears off after 6-8 hours..."
"How long?" Star didn't seem best pleased.
"...but that is if he only took one sachet." continued Alocin.
T'L went over to the table and picked up three empty packets. "So what happens with an overdose of drugged sugar?"
"You know that's never come up." Alocin decided waste not, want not and finished off the tea in the pot, avoiding the sugar-contaminated cup.
"I guess we will find out!" Angel said, snickering.
Star sighed and sat on the table.
"You guys suck, couldn't you have just drugged morphy instead...not that he needs it... the baldie freak..." Star muttered.
Now she was annoyed, Neo was right here, no-one was being ultra-violent, and yet she couldn't exactly glomp puppie-neo it would just be too weird. She would have to settle for glaring at the rest of the rooms occupants...
"Oh cheer up, Star" Angel said, moving over to sit with her. "We've captured Neo now, which means uber-uber-brownie points for us and the drugs won't last forever. Then we will have Neo locked up back at the Agency and you can spend all the time you want gazing adoringly at him."
Star brightened at this, but was still annoyed at the whole obsession the others seemed to have with drugging people.
As if to prove this point T'L had required some of Agent Jones' interrogation drugs and was busy experimenting on Gappy, who did not seem to be having a good day. Alocin had got some more digestives and was attempting to train puppy-Neo to do tricks.
"Sit! Sit! Siiiiit! Sit! Sit damn you! Okay then lie down. Good Neo! Have a biscuit. You know Star I think this is a vast improvement on the old Anderson, can't we keep him like this?" Her glare suggested not, but she patted Neo on the head anyway.
"This is just SO wrong..."
Agent Angel... what is your status?
Angel jumped at the sound of Smiths voice, and span around looking in the room before realizing it was her earpiece. She quickly put it back in.
Umm...my status? Well..its...um…good
What are you doing exactly Agent Angel?
Angel looked towards the others for help, mouthing 'smithy wants to know what we're up to!'
Alocin required a pen and a pad of paper and started writing. Angel was making increasingly frantic "hurry up!" motions. After a few seconds Alocin held up the sheet of paper:
WE ARE DOING AGENT TEAM BUILDING EXERCISES...
And then swapped it for the next sheet:
OFF THE COAST OF SWITZERLAND. BACK IN 30MINS
T'L quickly pointed out that Switzerland was land-locked, so Alocin crossed out Switzerland and replaced it with Sweden.
Yes Smith...that's what I said...
but why are you in Sweden? They have their own agency..
Angel paused, why didn't she have an excuse sub-routine?
Umm..all the Swedish agents... are on holiday... in Belgium you see. Now um… I have to leave now... for.. A reason... Angel promptly removed her ear-piece before Smith got a chance to reply.
"We need to decide what we are doing, I don't' think smithy is quite believing the Sweden thing..."
All the other Agents removed their earpieces too. "I think it was a cunning excuse - I would believe it." Alocin said proudly.
"Yes but that doesn't mean much. You are slower than that new snail mascot we acquired from somewhere." Angel pointed out. Alocin took several minutes to ponder this.
"Hey that was an insult!"
"My point is proven."
Neo had meanwhile got bored and curled up asleep on the floor next to Morpheus' chair. Morpheus seemed quite happy with this. Star was not.
"Look! You've got him sleeping on the floor! And I do not like Gappy-freak here being next to him with all his creepy delusions."
"Look on the bright side Star, think of the recruits for the resistance are going to go down when I post these..." T'Lorie pulled a camera out of requirement and took a couple of pictures of Neo, "...photos on the Internet. The resistance will have will have to change their ideals to: 'the right not to act sane in public'."
"Give me those." Star yelled diving for the incriminating photos.
"I don't think so." T'Lorie chucked them to Angel who chucked them Alocin who chucked them back to T'Lorie. In the background Neo started snuffling and chewing on gappy's trousers. The piggy in the middle game was rather fun until Star required a butterfly net and used it to catch the camera in full flight.
"No fair." Angel protested,
"Yeah, that's against the rules!" Alocin joined in.
"Yeah, prove it then.," said a smug Star holding the camera like a trophy.
"It says right here." Alocin began to reply holding a massive volume entitled: the correct rules for every game in the matrix."
"Ahem!"
Alocin stopped and stared, so did Angel and T'Lorie, Star spun around. Three of the weirdest figures had just come in through the door. It was Agent Smith, Brown and Jones... all wearing radiation protective suits.
"Oh I say." said Angels lie detector
Brown looked ill, Jones no better but Smith was acutely furious. All three stopped dead when they saw Neo and Morpheus. Smith started to tap his foot...an explanation was needed and fast!
Agent Brown glared through the visor of his helmet. "You do not seem to be in Sweden."
"You in fact appear to be in the Agency we banned you from using." Smith pointed out. "Do you have an explanation for why this is?"
"Not one that isn't going to land us in even more trouble..." Alocin admitted, slowly attempting to move out of Agent Brown's line of sight.
"But on the plus side look what we caught!" said Angel, gesturing to Neo chewing on Morpheus' shoe.
Jones tilted his head to the side. "Is that...Anderson?"
"Yes, and the one giving him 'come to bed' looks is the legendary Morpheus, Those three..." Star said' pointing at Alocin, Angel and T'Lorie who were doing a poor job of trying to look innocent.
"...Thought if would be just hilarious to drug Neo, who now by the way thinks he's a puppy-dog, where as Morpheus I believe just has some outstanding psychological issues..."
Smith and Jones looked rightly disturbed, where as Brown was getting quite scared of the fact the 'the one' was pawing at his leg with a squeaky toy ball in his mouth, that T'L had required.
"How on earth did you manage to get them here?" Said Smith mildly impressed.
"Well you see one of these deep-seated psychological issues that Gappy here has," Alocin said gesturing to the half-drugged Morpheus, "is that he seems to think Star stands between him and his true love, Mr Anderson. Nutty as a bag of extra-nutty peanuts he is."
Angel took up the explanation. "So Morpheus came here, following Star. After this little, erm, 'incident', we captured him and started the interrogation. After a while Mr Anderson showed up, ready to be all-heroic and save Morpheus. Star was going to trap him but was too busy gazing adoringly in his direction, so we took matters into our own hands and drugged him."
The other Agents just stared at Neo, now chewing at the rubber ball and looking up at them in the hope they would play fetch with him.
"The poor thing" Star sighed.
"Can't we just let him out into the wild? I doubt he'll be much of a threat to us as a puppy...
"But Star, I told you, the drugs will wear off eventually and he will be back to his regular One-ish state then..." Alocin stopped as soon as she noticed Star's death glare but it was too late. She tried to get further away from Star but was trapped between her and Agent Brown's eerily similar glares
"Then we are certainly not 'releasing' him anywhere. Both of them will be returned to the main Agency where they can be properly interrogated in more appropriate surroundings." Smith said.
"That's just...Great" Star said with a very forced smile.
"Well I am delighted that we have your approval in the matter." Smith said in a tone of similar sincerity.
"But I believe it would be best if Agents Brown and Jones transfer Mr Anderson and Morpheus back to the Agency. Just in case anything... untoward... occurs during the journey, as it so often does when it involves you and your cohorts."
Star tried not to look frustrated as her plan of "accidentally" crashing the car into a lamppost on the way back to the Agency and freeing Neo was foiled.
Damn, she thought, and he would have had to be eternally grateful to me after that as well...
T'Lorie jumped for the chance. "I'll be happy to accompany the prisoners if Agent Jones is going." Jones blanched.
"Negative, you will remain." Smith intercepted. "You will all remain and fill out complete reports, in triplicate about what has happened here. I want them on my desk by 1800 hours."
"But sir, its 1600 hours already. "Star informed him
"I know that, after you have finished you will be given surveillance and report duty for a month." Smith continued their penalty.
"But Smith..." Angel protested
"No complaints, Dismissed"
The four agents dragged themselves out into the corridor.
"We've really got our selves in it this time. "Alocin complained,
"We better get started on those reports." T'Lorie said half-heartedly.
So the four agents dragged themselves off to their offices to attempt to do their paper work. There wouldn't be time for much fun in the days ahead, or so it seemed...