beginning note/Still haven't bought the rights to the Matrix, but i'm determined.
/Hm, much longer this time, is that good?
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Was it odd that there was a cold breeze whispering upon the back of her neck? Was she imagining it running down her spine like a cold trickle of water? Yossi still couldn't breathe, but her heart was hammering belligerently in her head, pounding on her eardrums. She wasn't sweating, however. She felt cold, too cold to be comfortable. But who would be comfortable in her situation anyways? A white hand had slithered just below her chin, just in the bottom field of her vision. It was stark white and impossible to miss against her loose black shirt. However her eyes hadn't moved from the sharp black barrels pointed at her. Truly they were aiming for the white man behind her, but they would have to go through her to get to the bad guy. One of the women behind the trigger pulled the hammer back. The noise was sharp, and unless Yossi was imagining it, it echoed loudly in the quiet room. This reminded her of something, she needed to breathe. Her chest was rising rapidly, up and down, too fast. Was she hyperventilating? The noise of the rushing air was too loud, much louder than the click of the hammer. Why wasn't anyone talking? What happened to negotiations? The white arm tightened around her upper chest, if it was any higher, he might have been choking her.
"Are you doing the agents work now?" finally someone broke the silence, it wasn't Dice, like she had expected, but one of the women, the tallest, it seemed, wearing a sleek, shiney coat that reached a little past her hips. Yossi wasn't able to see, but the twin behind her had smirked and pulled her closer to him. Dice's expression grew even more angry, if he barred his teeth he might be sneering. Yossi noticed that her mouth was full of saliva and swallowed loudly, then continued hyperventilating. Would it help if she closed her eyes? People always said to close your eyes when expecting pain, or something horrible. She thought this counted, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, it didn't seem safe and she desperatly wanted to see what the twin behind her was doing. He flicked out a razor, right by her ear so that she heard the metallic shink. She hardly flinched, but her eyes certainly widened even more. The room was filled with the clicking sound of hammers being pulled back. Instinct was to take a step back, but there was no safety behind her. Instead, she was slowly being pulled down the staircase. One step, then the next, slowly, carefully, sideways and awkward..
"Where do you think you're going?" Dice growled slowly and was inching towards the end of the staircase. The other twin, brandishing his razor, phased and dashed through them, turned and slashed the razor against the back of the youngest mans neck while they were into the process of following Yossi and his brother and turning to protect themselves. Chaos insued as everyone turned in every direction, apparently torn between watching Yossi slowly being kidnapped and protecting themselves from the attacking ghost. The guy fell to his knees, turned and shot too late in the phased twins abdomen. He sneered and phased through one of the women, but didn't turn to slash. Everyone was pointing guns everywhere and Dice was having trouble keeping his eyes on Yossi and the other twin.
Yossi brought her hands up slowly to grip the white hand that now cupped her neck just below her chin. She unconsciencly raised her head to try and escape the cold hand, but he tightened his grasp and she was defeated and dropped her hands. But she was diligent. The Twin glared down at her form in annoyence. She had stopped moving, not thinking if it was smart. With the battle below them, where the apparent good guys were going nowhere, she figured they didn't have the time to notice their escape. It seemed that the young man who had been cut had enough of the useless battle and shot several rounds into the ghostly twin, but to no avail. The twin behind her chuckled lowly, too quietly to be heard by any ears but her own, despite his annoyence with his captives resistance. Yossi grimaced, not enjoying being on the losing side. She was surprised however, when the twin behind her wrapped a white clad arm around her waist and hoisted her up, covering the rest of the stairs in an untraditional way. He lept, with her dangling at his side, and landed neatly, but loudly. Puffs of stale gray dust rose around his feet, but he still didn't let go. Smart of him, because she had been planning more ways to slow the escape. Dice turned, the twin who had been distracting them was busy with the rest of his crew, and pointed the gun squarely at Yossi's twin's head. She sucked in a breath, hoping that he had good aim. The twin stood perfectly still.
The small moment that they had been standing there, Yossi in the frigid grip of the twin, hoisted at least a foot off the ground, was broken suddenly. A painful, wet howl erupted from behind Dice. The sound seemed to be coming from below water, and this confused Yossi more than ever. She couldn't see what the cause was, however, because Dice was in the way. He wouldn't move, however, but Yossi could see it in his eyes. His expression, as stoic as it was, seemed to be inexplicably saddened. His gun never wavered from the twins head, and his grip on the trigger tightened, and then pulled. The shot went wide however, the twin behind Yossi didn't even phase. Dice's eyes widened painfully, the whites seemed so pure. Dice twisted around, in the middle of falling, and tried to aim, but it didn't work, and Yossi finally got a good look at the scene he had been blocking. The phased twin that had been causing such havok, was grinning broadly as his hair and clothes flew wildly around in some nonexistant wind. He was in the stance of someone who had just thrown something. Yossi's eyes were seaching the two people standing behind him. They were in shock, and pointing their guns at the phased twin, hoping he'd forget and return to normal. Yossi found this odd, however, wasn't there someone else that was supposed to be there? Her gaze flicked to the ground. The youngest member of Dice's crew lay crumpled in a bloody heap. His face was hidden, but it was obvious the source of the of the dark blood was from a wound in his neck. It must have been deep, because blood had coated everything, even on the girls. Noone seemed willing to touch him. So much blood. Yossi swallowed another mouthful of spit, and dropped her gaze, but now she was looking at the motionless heap that was Dice. When he twisted around to try and shoot his attacker, he managed to fall with his back facing Yossi and her kidnapper, so she finally saw what the twin had flung into his back. An identical razor to the one that the twin holding her had brandished by her ear. Yossi was sure that the whole moment she took to study the scene was only a couple of seconds, but they seemed to have lasted forever. A headache was slowly taking over her mind.
The phased twin finally turned on the remaining women. The tallest began shooting, bullet after bullet, uselessly at him, but didn't seem to realize that this was firing in the general direction of Yossi and the other. Her twin moved quickly towards the door to escape from the inadvertant attack. The huge entrance doors swung away with incredible force and made a terrible crashing sound. Yossi closed her eyes then, not from the noise, but the brightness of the day. The ground was still wet, and clouds studded the sky and blocked out the true sunlight, but outside, it was a lot brighter than the dimness of the apartment. Not to mention she rarely ever left her apartment, staring consistantly at the glow of the computer screen. She felt like she was enterting a new world after the building, and it seemed quiet after the firing guns. It seemed like the woman who had been shooting at the twin had stopped, but the twin that was holding her was still moving. Yossi's eyes were mostly closed, but she could see the fallen heap of another person, another girl laying in the sad garden of the apartments behind a small tree and mostly dead bushes. No one seemed to notice her, but she doubted if anyone had seen her, that they'd stop and try to help.
The twin was opening the door of a black car parked in front of the brick building of the apartment complex and shoved Yossi in unceremoniously. She was only now pulling away from her shock and almost said something before the door was slammed shut. He knelt down to look into the window and grinned at her, a small curve of his pale lips, then turned and visited the girl in the garden. Yossi's hand was on the latch to open the door, but he turned and pointed a gun that he had picked up from the fallen body of the girl at Yossi. Her eyes widened and she released the handle of the door like it was hot. He grinned again, but Yossi wasn't watching him anymore. Several gunshots echoed faintly from the building and the phased body of the other twin was backing through the closed door. Both were now running at the car that Yossi had been shut into. Again, they didn't even bother opening doors, but phased through and returned to normal sitting in the seats, turning the key of the car and slamming into gear. The door of the apartment crashed open with a hail of gunshots. The taillight was now busted from a bullet, but they didn't seem to keen on firing in public. Yossi creeped up to look through the back window after hiding from any stray bullets that might lodge itself in her forehead, and watched as one of the women was talking on a cellphone, or what she perceived to be a cellphone since all she could see was that her hand was cradling her ear.
Still peering through the backwindow, even after the women were gone from her sight, Yossi finally vomited. All over the backseat so that after she was finished she had to huddle close to the cardoor in a small place that wasn't slimey with her vomit. After there was nothing else, her stomach clenched into a single nervous knot as she peered at the white dread-locked heads. They weren't speaking, and this seemed adnormal, even more so than being kinapped by albino twins. The silence, though, gave her some piece of mind. She certainly would have hated to hear any of their plans that they might have. Shouldn't they have commented upon her weak stomach? This car wasn't cheap, she was sure of it since the interior seemed to be expensive leather and other materials. The windows were heavily tinted, no one could see through, but she traced a finger along the glass in idle thought. Her capters were strong, silent, and deadly. She watched one kill two people while the other wisked her away into a car, threatening to shoot her if she tried to flee. Her only hope was picking up the bloody remnants of their friends in her apartment building. She'd been told a strange story about the supposed world she lived in and now she was being driven away by two strange, deathly pale men that could transform into some ghostly version of themselves.
Yossi could feel bile inching up her throat. She wanted to swallow it down, but her eyes trailed over to the mess on the seat beside her and she spit up orange, acidic juice upon the back of the passenger seat in front of her. She groaned quietly, the twin must have felt it, heard it, smelt it. She squeezed her eyes closed as the man slowly reached around to the back of his hair. A white finger lightly touched the warm fluid and he quickly brought his hand back in front of him. The smell was beginning to grow heavy.
"We should clean some of this up," the twin in the passenger seat said darkly.
"Can we, please?" Yossi said feebly, bringing her legs up onto the seat to escape some of the dripping mess.
Both twins exhaled loudly through their noses. They were now leaving the business district of the city, varying types of stores were coming into view. Yossi was hoping they'd turn into a gas station as cafe's, bar's and corner stores were passed by. This would be considered the 'afterhours' district, a place Yossi had never wandered into. The buildings were old, like her apartment, different from the shiny buildings they had passed on their way to wherever. The sleek car was finally slowing down, a gas station, a savior from the growing stench that the vomit was exalting. Yossi had thought that watching the twins clean the car would be intriguing, they didn't seem the type used to washing vomit or other such things. She doubted they ever washed their own clothes. Maybe they had a closet with millions of silver and white suites, whenever they were finished with their clothing, they simply tossed it into a trash bin.
And she was right. The twin she had unintentinally spit vomit at phased in and out, magically clean, no more orange vomit in his hair, then opened the door she was leaning against and picked her out. His brother, meanwhile, casually opened the door of another car, whose owner was paying for gas and drove the short distance to the twin and Yossi. The owner never knew, and they drove away in a new clean car. Yossi watched the gas station in a trance, determined to see if the owner of the car would come out and notice his loss, but they were too far gone to see. Turning around to sit quietly, back against the passenger side door, she watched their heads in a quiet, almost peaceful manner. She was certain if she asked they wouldn't tell her their plans, but she had to put out at least one question.
"Are you part of the Matrix?"
No answer, she expected that much, and turned her gaze to the outside. The windows weren't as heavily tinted, now, but she would hate to find out what would happen if she tried anything. She knew they hadn't threatened her any more, not even in the operation of stealing the car, but she wasn't curious. In all truth, she was too tired to try anything. She hadn't eaten a full meal in a month and with all of this excitement and activity, and vomiting the carcass of her apple and ramen noodle breakfast wasn't fun. With a sigh, she decided that maybe if she asked the right question in the right way, she'd get some sort of answer.
"Is there a good reason behind this?"
No answer.
"Are you going to kill me?"
No answer, again she sighed.
"Where are we going?"
She was now asking the questions with failing enthusiasm. Still no answer.
"What are you guys?"
Nothing, yet.
"Ghosts, part of the Matrix?"
"Will you answer me?" She actually mumbled this.
"We are here," the twin in the passenger seat stated flatly. Yossi's eyes brightened before she realized he hadn't answered her, but just commented on the situation. It was Yossi's turn to remain quiet. She didn't try to open the door, remembering the last time she reached for the handle and the twin's twisted grin with the gun in his hand. She couldn't get a good look at the building they had pulled up to, but it must have been big. They were still in the same district with the bar's and cafe's and various types of malls and shopping centers. The twin looked down at her through the window almost expectantly. It was intriguing how even with the glasses they could communicate affectively by facial expressions. Yossi tentativly opened the door, stood and watched the twin with the door between them. He still watched her like a hawk as she closed the door and began following the other twin towards the door of the large gray building. It was mostly windows and had a decorative entrance with columns and a place to stand under when it rained. The twin followed her from behind and she felt like she was on parade. This surprisingly didn't attract the attention of those coming and going passers-by. The glass door slid smoothly as they approached, and closed behind with the sound of moving air. The inside of the building easily reflected it's outer appearence, expensive with a touch of Italian decoration. Nearly unbearably cold, however, she quickly found out as goosebumps raised upon her arms. She sighed slightly as the twin behind began walking at her side. She stole a look at his silver coat and his perfectly white hands that didn't show a sign of realizing the frigid temperature of the place. In her baggy short sleeved shirt and loose cloth pants, she was neither warm, nor stylish in this scene. But contrary to what she expected, no one spared her a single, indignant glance. This alone was unsettling, more so than travorting through a high-cost building with two pure white men.
Squeezing her eyes tight for a moment, the gravity of the situation finally descended upon her as they approached one of the many stainless steel elevators. As they stood there, quietly, patiently waiting for the doors to slide open, she felt nausious again. Wet brown eyes glanced at both twins in turn, on either side of her. They didn't move. Yossi decided deep, gulping breaths would help until the doors open, perhaps she could faint on the way to whereever they were going.
Welcoming them into it's shiny depths with a flood of people, the trio entered the elevator alone. This perplexed Yossi, there was a small crowd waiting at the other elevators and there was easily enough room for ten to ride, but she didn't have time to ponder this as one of the twins pressed one of the many, tiny buttons and the doors slide smoothly closed. Now would be perfect to ask her questions again, she quickly decided.
"Where are we going?"
This was, yet again, met with stony silence. She moved to stand more in front of them, as they stood stock still as if they were at attention.
"Just tell me if I'm going to die!" she didn't mean to yell, and in the enclosed place it sounded much louder than it would have. Yossi's heart began hammering in her chest and she had to urge to crawl into a small place when both of them simultaniously turned there attention upon her.
"All humans die eventually," one of them said with a devious grin. Yossi's eyebrows rose at this in a worried, yet perplexed expression. That was an odd way to put it, yet she decided to word her question a little differently, since his answer was irritatingly skirting the question.
"I am going to die..as in you murder me?" she could have picked different words, she thought exasperatedly.
There was a moment of silence and then, "No, not if it isn't nessecary."
A huge lump in the pit of Yossi's stomach quickly unravelled. That was incentive enough to be a good girl, yet she was feeling slightly upset that she didn't have anymore dire questions that needed answering, and felt foolish when she was standing with her back to the open door and the pale twins with their expectant and patient faces. The door almost closed on one of the twins as he moved out first, but he placed a hand upon the bumper and it stayed open long enough for Yossi and his brother to exit. The ride was long and Yossi had a strange feeling that they were near the top of the building as they began walking down what could only be a hotel hallway. She had the urge to say something in the air conditioned silence. With only the hushed sound of their feet upon some expensive carpet, it was nearly unbearable with a sort of sanctuary aire about the long, cold hall. The decorations along the way were only quiet paintings and silver doorknobs that Yossi could hardly contain herself from grabbing ahold and twisting. Yet this was blocked, of course, by the twins. One was slightly ahead of her and the other at her side. They were about to reach the end of the hall, which ended with a simple table and a vase of a couple roses when they stopped at a door indenticle to the rest. The twin that was leading their little parade pulled out a keycard and they were in. The room was much like the entrance of the building. Expensive design, yet frigidly cold. There was a small kitchen that contained a full size refrigerator that Yossi was sure held some sort of food to fill her empty stomach, and pale blue walls that barely separeted the kitchen, living room and a huge, heavily covered bed. It seemed like a small mansion, and the large windows made it fit. There were signs of being lived within, which broke the spell. The bed was slightly fussed and the cushions on the black leather couch were out of place, and as Yossi moved further into the room to see the rest of the bedroom, there were several computers and a laptop. All looked highly modified, exactly as Yossi had had hers. A pang of homesickness nudged at her insides at the thought of her computers.
She subconsciencly moved into the nearly victorian styled bedroom. The wood furniture made it seem so, as two of the computer were placed upon a large desk that was once used as woman's vanity. One of the screensavers seemed to be on as the whole screen was covered in symbols that fell down the moniter. One of the twins had followed her, watching Yossi as she quietly studied the four computers, and in the end switching her attention to the laptop.
"We'll be staying here if all goes well," he said in a bored tone. Yossi looked up to see him standing at the end of the wall with his arms crossed.
"Will I be able to use these?" Yossi couldn't keep the hopefulness out of her voice.
"That's the plan, but not today, we'll have to wait a couple of days.." he seemed to lapse into quiet thought, but Yossi couldn't reliably tell with his sunglasses still on. She wanted to bring the topic of exactly what they needed her for to discussion, but could really only think of settling her hunger at the moment. Instead she looked slightly saddened, and passed the twin on the way to the kitchen. She was feeling at home already, though still out of place, considering she was here against her will. The idea to ask exactly why she had to wait a couple days didn't come to mind, she was far too intent on eating something to fill the void she'd created whilst vomitting in the car. In all of the excitement she'd forgotten to ask them about what Dice had explained as the Matrix until the very moment she opened the refrigerator. One of the twins had followed her into the kitchen, the same one she that was watching her look over the computers, she expected, but didn't do a thing.
"You're part of the Matrix," she said with finality, peering at the man over the door of the refrigorator. She had asked them in the car, and after she had time to give it a second thought, it seemed to be the only answer that fit. It seemed too odd to believe in the beginning, but adding in all of the strange events everyone had been in on her way up to this room, it seemed to fit.
The twin tilted his head to the side, still with a slight grin tilting the corners of his mouth, "you're a smart one."
"But why did you take me? They..almost saved me and you stopped them!" Yossi finally had a sense of loss. She now realized that she was almost aware of the Matrix, all on her own. She almost knew Dice and the rest of them like family, and they were dead. She was almost free. Being alone for such a long time in a world that she didn't belong in, it was almost gone, and she didn't know if there would be another chance at escaping. All of this was crashing down on her shoulders at once. Her knuckles were white from the pressure she was squeezing on the smooth black handle of the refrigerator. Her gaze was out of focus and watery as she stared down at the wooden floor, the tips of the man's boots, made out of some animals scales, was barely in her view. Tears that wouldn't fall blurred her vision, but she didn't cry. She wanted to simply shut down, forget about the hunger gnawing at her insides and the small fact that she had been kidnapped and stolen away from a golden oppertunity. She blinked the tears away and numbly released the handle after realizing her hand hurt and walked past the twin with her head hung low and defeated. They only spoke when they thought it was absolutly nessecary, so she didn't believe he had any good excuse to console her with. The other man was sitting on the couch, and there was only one other place to sit, a matching, equally leathery and expensive chair. Unfortunatly, the room was set up to make idle chitchat easy, like at a party, so the silence that settled in was akward, and marked with almost silent sighs as Yossi reflected. The twin that had been present at her moment of revelation had traveled from the kitchen to the bedroom, and then from the bedroom to the livingroom, where he sat on the couch, opposite the end that his brother was reclining at.
An hour seemed to pass in the type of silence you encounter at a library. Yossi's eyes were slightly too wide and red, she hadn't blinked in a while until she looked at the two men on the couch. She glared softly at them, and only one seemed to notice since he grinned broadly at her while his brother seemed to be peering off into space. She wanted to tell him to stop it, the urge was almost too much, but she settled for something different.
"Why don't you talk? Even if it's to each other, I promise not to judge you," she said this with an awkward frown that got the other's attention as well. His expression was a little like his brothers, only not so much. She figured she could easily hate them now that she realized just what they had done.
"Why do you need us to speak so badly?" the twin with the largest grin, sitting nearest to her asked in the same even tone. The way in which he spoke wasn't condescending, but the look in which accompied the words was infuriating.
"I don't know, it's just so quiet.." she shrugged, her look of disdain subsiding a bit. She thought she could blame it on the absense of conversation that she had been submerged in. She only spoke to her clients, and that was usually online. She loved her computers, but they couldn't talk to her. They couldn't comment on her clothes, or tell it was time for lunch. They were indifferent, and while she was used to that then, only now was she feeling the effects of the silence. She felt cheated that when she was finally in the presence of somebody that could talk, yet they wouldn't. It was worse that she couldn't bring herself to explain this. "I would also like it if you could explain why I'm here..exactly."
The twin that was sitting farthest away let his gaze wander again, his head was now resting against an arm propped upon the armrest as he looked in the completely opposite direction, apparently studying the painting hanging above a small table with another vase of roses.
"We only need you to do a little task that we can't. You were right that we are programs in the Matrix, but what we need done is not possible for us, but will be for you." This seemed to catch the wandering twin's attention. Yossi got the creeping sensation that he was watching her with much more attention than he was watching the painting, she couldn't bring her gaze back to the twin that was finally telling her what she had so earnstly wanted to hear. "You will break into the mainframe of the Matrix, it would be impossible for anybody but you, since you are still connected to it, almost like a program."
Yossi's gaze was finally pried from the intense expression of the silent twin, her brows were furrowed in obvious confusion. "But the Matrix is what we are living in..How could I hack into..the world?" The way she worded it seemed amusing to her, but the twins were showing identical expressions of complacency. "The computers in that room are connected to a program that will make more sense than us trying to explain it in words."
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End note/I had a hard time determining when to end this. I think, if I had stopped the first time, it would only be half this long. I'm not a fan of short, or long chapters, so it's weird. Wouldn't want to be a hippocrit, right?