Torn

**ZippyTheSquirrel**

((Original thread can be located here. I'm taking the stuff from that thread and massively upgrading it to include more comedy, more dramatic drama, and to make it not seem so rushed. I expect the finished project to be so different from the thread I linked you to that you can hardly recognize it. For instance, my character does not go to Blackwood at the end of the thread. In fact, that is no longer going to be the end. Most importantly, I plan to finally fully write my character's backstory.

Author's notes: This story takes place several months ago.

If you are reading this thread and expecting nothing but comedy, after my Storytime thread, you will be mistaken.))

[PROLOGUE/PREVIEW]

His head whirls. Fire leaps out over him, like birds escaping a predator. Dimly, he becomes aware of clanging feet upon metal. The word comes into focus slowly, and he shoves at the floor to flip and face the ceiling. Above, he sees her, and him, as they tangle and scramble for his gun. How did they get up there so quickly, he thinks. No time to think about that now. He scrambles to his feet and rushes to the stairs. Faster than he thinks he legs can carry him, he drags himself by the rail, skipping stairs eight at a time. Above him, the sounds of battle increase.

He leaps the last couple of stairs and faces the two combatants. They are standing now. The woman makes a move.

The gun fired.

Alec snapped awake. He looked to his side. Someone was shooting at a group of pigeons. He shook his head and snorted. "Hey, squirrel boy's awake," someone else said.

Alec grinned. "Did I miss something?" He refocused his attention. "Hey," he shouted, "why are you shooting at those birds?"

"Oh, leave him, Zippy, he's just having fun."

Alec turned to retort when his cell phone rang. "Excuse me a moment," he said, then grabbed his phone and clicked it open.

"Zippy!"

His eyes widened. "What are you doing," he whispered harshly. "You know you can't call me here!"

"I'm sorry. You have to come here. We have a problem."

"What kind of problem?" As he listened, someone walked up to the bench where he had been strewn out on.

"Hey," she said. "Everything alright?"

He looked up at her. "Yeah! Yeah. I have to go, though. See ya later." The others gathering around the water fountain instinctively shouted out their farewells. Alec grunted and hopped to his feet, cell phone glued to his ear as he strolled towards a phone booth.

"I'll be there as soon as I can. Just stay alive."

**ZippyTheSquirrel** · 12/16/2007 19:04:18

Alec stood on the roof of a tall apartment building in the barrens of the city. Five floors below, a lone window was lit with a flickering orange and red light. He breathed deeply, and turned to head for the stairs. His foot caught on a pail someone carelessly left on the roof. He stumbled around, and found himself on the edge of the roof, windmilling his arms frantically. He cursed, "Oh, fuuuyyaaaaaaaaaaah" as he fell down the side of the building. His head scraped on the side, flipping him over to an upright angle. He raised his arms to carress his freely flowing brain blood, and his elbows caught on a window sill, swinging his torso into the wall. Groaning with pain, he looked up into the window through orbiting stars, and into the eyes of a shocked young man, possibly in his twenties, with dark skin tones and piercingly sharp hair. He grunted at the man. "Little help?" After a brief hesitation, the man opened the window and helped Alec crawl through. He landed on his head.

"Who the hell are you," the man asked.

Alec opened his eyes and saw a flat nose and thin lips resting on a narrow head. Upside down. Next time, he told himself, take the elevator. He focused on the young man's eyes, an oddly bright brown -- yellow? -- and muttered, "I'm here to save you." The man grunted, grabbed Alec's shoulders, and hauled him up into a sitting position where he could see his surroundings.

Whatever this floor of the building used to be, it had fallen heavily into disrepair. The walls were stained with age, and most had crumbled away, revealing many rooms with like-ruined walls. Dust covered most of the floor, giving everything a greyish look. The window Alec had just fallen through lay at the end of a hall that stretched from him down to the door that likely held the stairs. Stairs that would probably make a better entrance, Alec noted sourly. About halfway down the hall, a metal tank stood upright, with a large fire lapping gently from the opening. Sitting and standing around the blaze, four men and a woman of similar appearance to the gent who opened the window, another woman with lighter skin and blonde hair, and an elderly woman looked - no, scratch that, stared back at him. He smiled meekly.

"Hello," he began, "sorry for dropping in."

The largest of the men lumbered towards him, a rather large knife nestled in his palm. One of the women dashed forward and grabbed his arm, whispering hoarsely into his ear. He grunted and put the knife away, then crossed his arms and shot Alec a vile look.

The woman walked past her large counterpart and cradled Alec's hands in hers. "Glad you could make it."

"I'm glad, too, Carrie." Alec smiled. There was something in her eyes that reminded him of... let's not lose focus. He kicked himself mentally, adding out loud, "How did they find you?"

"One of those sweeps they were doing to find the Zionites," Carrie explained, "passed over us. We managed to clear out, but it's only a matter of time before they find us again. They must think we're helping the cave ravers."

Lupines. The programs that normally follow the rules of the Matrix, but reject them for whatever reason and choose a life of exile within the virtual prison instead, conveniently in the form of the old mythological beast, the werewolf. One of the younger men that was crouching by the fire suddenly piped up.

"We thought you were dead!" Another kneeling beside him nodded.

Carrie confirmed this exclamation. "We all did."

Alec shrugged. "I got better." Carrie wrinkled her nose as the two kids grimaced. Come to think of it, Alec counted quite a few Exiles in the room. But not nearly enough. "Say, where is everyone else?" He was met with silence. After a few minutes, Carrie spoke softly.

"This is everyone."

A coldness pitted hard in Alec's stomach. "What?"

Carrie placed her hand gently on his shoulder. "When they first found us, they took us by surprise."

Alec shut his eyes against the words. Inside his own personal world of darkness, he could feel his face heating up and his hands twitching. He fought off a sea of tears. There were eight Exiles here. Eight. He felt himself spinning. Eight more dead innocents that just wanted a chance at life. Something spoke from the back of his mind; A voice from his past.

"Hey!" He yells. One of the roughs look around at him, then back at the woman. They begin to close around her. Thinking quickly, he grabs a tomato from his grocery bag and flings it at one of the assailants. It splatters around his ears, juice sticking to his hair and to his friends. That gets their attention. They turn as one on him. With noone to watch her, she easily plucks the leader's gun out of his holster. Four shots later and they all had fallen.

He rushes over, the question of whether she was alright on the tip of his tounge. They're replaced by the tip of her tounge as she snakes her arm around him and pulls him in tight. His eyes open wider than dinner dishes. She releases him and steps back. "Thanks," a guttural voice rumbles from her throat. It somehow sounds melodious. Before he can speak, the woman takes off in the direction of the subway.

He calls after her.

"Zippy!" Alec snapped out of his daze and forced open his eyes. A blurry Carrie looked him in the face. He blinked away the tears, and the image cleared. "Are you alright?"

He shrugged her off. "Yeah," he muttered, "I'm fine."

"It's not your fault."

"Oh, if I had a nickel every time I heard that one."

"Well, it isn't."

Alec nodded slowly. "Listen," he said firmly, "I want you to go out the fire escape as quietly as you can, make your way down to the subway, and take the train to Chinatown."

He paused. "I'll stay here and see if I can't trick them here and slow them down a little."

Carrie immediately objected, asserting that he was family, and she and her bretheren - the taller, older male scoffed, to which she shot a look of indignation - would happily stand by his side. He waved the complaint off.

"Trust me," he said, grinning, "I know what I'm doing."

"I don't think you do," Carrie growled.

In response, Alec reached into his coat and revealed a pair of sub-machine guns with a grin. With a flick of the wrist, he deactivated the safties and pointed them both past the exiles crowded around the garbage can and at the single door at the end of the hall.

"How about them jewels?" He challenged Carrie. She nodded slowly, and abrubtly wrapped her arms around him in a hug.

"Good luck," she whispered in his ear. Out loud, she called, "Okay, guys, let's go. Zippy here will distract the Machines while we make our break for it." The crowd of dark-skinned warriors picked themselves off the floor and walked towards the window Alec had made his bizzare entrance through. Alec smiled inwardly as they passed, but kept a stony face.

He turned to watch them leave. They left in pairs, the old woman and the the younger woman first, followed by the two other men. The muscle-bound exile and the skinnier male left next, leaving Carrie. She paused, one leg out the window.

"Thanks, Zippy," she called softly. "You have no idea how much this means to us."

Alec watched her exit via the window, and whispered under his breath, "No.. I do."

Several minutes after she had left, footsteps echoed from the direction of the lone door in the ruined building floor.

Alec leapt to his feet and aimed his weapons at the frame of the door. It was just as well; the fire in the garbage can was dying down, and he was falling asleep. Adrenaline wound through Alec's veins - or was it a drug that his crewmates in the Real were pumping him with? Alec's thoughts briefly wandered as he considered the choice he had made in abandonding his fellow Cypherites to come here. Would they understand? Would they support him? Or, feeling betrayed, would they oppose him?

His short reverie was broken by the sound of a man hurling his body into the locked door.