Chapter 1

The history of Tess.

A while ago, in the matrix fandom, there was a Sue. According to the fic, she was the only female Agent ever. She had done such Suvian things as fighting Neo to a standstill, flying, falling in love (with Agent Smith, but still…), and generally being a Flaming Sue. I was a rebel, and her arch-enemy. It's very interesting, looking back at what I was then. As the story continued, we fought multiple times, neither of us winning conclusively. Then, I met the PPC agents.

"Tess. You are hereby charged with… erm…" The agent turned to the other one. "All what is she charged with again?"

The second, shorter agent turned to the first. "Being an original character, you idiot."

The first agent held up a list. It was big, easily a page long. "What about these?"

"Those are for the Sue. This is not the Sue, just an original character. Now get on with it!"

The taller agent turned back to me. "Very well. Tess, you are hereby charged with being an original character. Any last words?"

The shorter agent smacked her head with her hand. "You kill the SUE, not her! We were going to deputize her. Remember?"

The first agent turned back to me. "Very well. Look here, please." She held up a slim chromed rod, with a little red light near the top. Both of the agents donned sunglasses.

[FLASH]

And that was that. With one little neuraliser flash, I was free of the Matrix fandom, and playing by PPC rules. The agents deputized me, and I killed the Sue. After coming back to HQ, I- What? You want to hear how the Sue died? Very well.

"Tess." The Sue said.

"Agent Michaelson" I retorted. "I am with the Protectors of the Plot Continuum. You are hereby charged with causing character violations and ruptures, most notably in the personas of Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, The Oracle, Agent Smith, and just about everyone else. Also, you are charged with:" I took a breath. "Breaking up a Canon romance, Causing a character (Agent Smith) to act like a love struck fool over yourself, causing female characters (Trinity and myself) to be antagonistically feminist, stealing lines, changing geography and architecture, altering locations of key plot events, altering the back story of characters (Neo and Smith), changing the race of a character (Agent Smith was never human), use of bad physics, use of bad plot devices, employing Deus ex machina, bad grammar and syntax, wanton cruelty to the common comma, punctuation errors, spelling errors, and being a Mary-Sue. Any last words?"

The Sue was thunderstruck. This was completely against the Words, which I could now see. She was supposed to kill me, but be wounded in the process. I pulled out my Uzis.

"I'll take that for a 'no'. Have a nice day." Agents may be fast, but there's no way that one could dodge sixty bullets coming at her in less than two seconds. However, she did. She sped up to faster than any Agent has the right to go. I tossed my empty Uzis aside, drew my long knife, and charged.

Around me, the Matrix rippled and distorted. Suddenly, I realized that my Uzis were hovering in mid-air. I stopped and looked closer. They were still falling, but so slowly as to be almost imperceptible. Then it hit me. I was moving fast. Really fast. So fast, if made dodging bullets seem easy. The Sue fired. I saw the bullet move down the barrel, the slide inch back, and the muzzle flame.

I looked at the bullet, which was barely moving. It spun lazily through the air, leaving a cone of super-compressed air behind it. I realized that this was what made a sonic boom. I smiled. The author of the fic had given me a rather nasty, predatory smirk. I used it, and advanced on the Sue, who was starting to run away. I, moving a hundred- no, a thousand times faster, whipped my knife through the Sue's neck. It left a jagged inch-thick gap. I saw the Matrix distort again, as time resumed its normal flow.

The Sue's body instantly flew forward, disintegrating as it went. Behind me, I heard my Uzis clatter on the cement. I looked at the wall in front of me. Below the huge red stain on the brick wall, various pieces of Suvian anatomy lay on the ground. It looked like someone had hit the Sue with a three-inch cannon. I felt sick at the sight.

What more is there to say? The agents picked me up after killing a few other OCs, we went back to HQ, the Department of Geographical Aberrations burned the back alleyway where I had killed the Sue, and that was the end of my 'fic. At PPC HQ, I was given a choice. They could neuralise me, and then return me to the canon Matrix, or I could sign on as an assassin. I chose to remain.

In the Matrix, the way computers actually work is never really shown. All I knew was that the operator pressed a few buttons, and something happened. I quickly found out that that was not the way it really was. I started learning, being taught by the excellent Makes Things. While I learned, I managed the paperwork for the Department of Sufficiently Advanced Technology.

Once my computer training was complete, I decided to remain as the Dpt. of SAT's secretary. I'm sitting in the outer office now in my secretary disguise, guarding Makes Things from whatever happens to come this way. I found that, when disguised as a nice little secretary, everyone who meets me underestimates me. There are several assassins who would faint cold if they found out that Tess keeps two loaded Uzis and a foot-long, razor sharp knife in her desk.

What's that you say? Something about if I like Makes-Things? Yes, I like Makes-Things. A lot. Yes, Makes-Things likes me as well. But, we haven't gone any further than that. And we don't intend to. Ever.

Chapter 2

A/N: What do you know? My first chapter inspired a second one. Do read and enjoy!"

The History of Tess: Part two.

Tess woke up to the unusual sound of nothing. Her sleeping was usually interrupted by beeping, crashing, or an explosion coming through the all-too-thin wall between her bed and the Lab. However, this time she slowly came awake in the silence.

She opened her eyes. A thick black fog was surrounding her, cutting her sight down to around five feet. Around her, she felt air currents that told her that she was in a big room. A very big room. In the back of her head, she felt a familiar tingle.

This was like no Matrix she'd ever been in. In the fic she had come out of, the Matrix had seemed cold and detached; feeling like it was there only to serve as a backdrop. Here, it seemed angry. Angry with her! Tess got up and stepped away from the bed. Before she could think more, a girl's voice echoed through the room.

"Tess. You know who I am. I created you, and you rebelled against me. What you didn't realize is this: I made you who you are. You belong to me. I decide when you live, and when you die."

Tess almost panicked. Not that anyone could tell that by looking at her. Outwardly, she looked cool as a cucumber. Then she noticed something. She could see the Words. She could tell what was going to happen.

The voice continued to speak.

"Tess. I have decided. You have tried to escape from me, but you could not. You tried to kill me, but you failed. Now, it is my turn, and I will not fail."

Tess looked at the words again.

Tess whipped around to her left, slapping the reincarnated Sue's knife arm away, around, and into the Sue's leg. The Sue was in the process of looking at the knife sticking out of her own leg, when Tess's roundhouse kick connected with her head. Agent Michaelson collapsed into the fog.

The voice continued to speak.

"Very good, very good. I see you've been practicing. Let's see how much you remember."

Suddenly, Tess was flying backwards. Then, she realized what had happened. While she had been listening to the author, Agent Michaelson had come back and hit her. Hard. Her back hit a large metal pipe, which was level and quite strong. From below her, she heard the Sue start to speak.

"Where is she? I want to kill her!"

The author replied, with a sickeningly sweet tone of voice.

"She's still here, pet. You'll get your chance."

Tess had been doing some quick thinking. Starting from about a foot below the pipe was a wall that extended down out of her reach.

Tess pulled herself over the railing, and fell onto the floor three feet below. Her foot hit the wall on the other side with a clank that sounded a lot like hitting a metal plate. She got up, and felt it more closely. It was a box, recessed into the wall so that the front was just barely beyond the rest of the wall. It was a circuit-breaker box. Tess opened it, grabbed a group of switches, and flipped them.

With a crackle of static, lights in the ceiling came on, and a large fan started to turn. As the fog faded away, Tess saw where she was. She was standing on a balcony, overlooking a gymnasium. The floor was the size of a single basketball court, the walls were made of concrete that had been poured flat and then tilted up into position, and the ceiling and top half of the walls were coated with what looked like asbestos insulation.

On the floor below stood Agent Michaelson, looking very annoyed. Somehow, the knife had disappeared and the cut had healed. The Sue suddenly jumped, bending the Matrix around her. She landed on the balcony, twenty-some feet from Tess. She advanced, and whipped a fast right at Tess's face.

Tess blocked it without turning a hair, quickly sliding her hand down to grab the Sue's wrist. Continuing with her turn, she smashed the base of her palm into the Sue's collarbone, and then pulled on the wrist and shoved on the bone, lifting the Sue into the air and over the railing. Agent Michaelson fell to the floor like a brick. Tess swung over the rail and dropped down onto the Sue.

Tess bounced off of the Sue's back, and landed near the far wall. She watched as the Sue pushed herself to her feet, and then walked towards Tess. The Sue whipped out another fast right, and Tess sidestepped, letting the Sue bash her knuckles into the hard concrete.

As most anyone who has seen The Matrix knows, the reality inside the Matrix is a set of rules. Most of them can be bent. A few can be broken. Tess didn't break any rules to let herself run down the wall; she just bent a few. At the corner, she stepped onto the other wall and then sprang off, flying towards Agent Michaelson with a sidekick extended.

The next thing Tess realized was that she was lying crumpled on the floor, with the Sue in mid-air above her, and dropping quickly.

Tess rolled over her shoulder and to her feet just as the Sue smashed into the hardwood floor where she had been. The Sue's impact threw Tess backwards and into the air. She hit the wall, and grabbed the basketball hoop's support. Then, everything changed.

Suddenly, Tess wasn't up against a wall, hanging onto a support; she was lying on the floor, holding onto a post sticking straight up. Above her, Agent Michaelson stood on a wall, staring at her. Tess reached out with her mind into the Matrix code, and changed something that looked different.

She was falling. To be more specific, she was falling straight across the room, headed for the far wall and its basketball hoop. Flipping around, she landed. The Sue walked up to the wall. Tess grinned, and decided that 'down' was back where it should be. She plummeted down from ten feet up the wall, and right onto the Sue. Then, she changed her mind, and 'fell' upwards onto the ceiling. The Sue looked up at her, and then jumped, flipping around and landing on the ceiling too.

Tess attacked first this time, swinging a left roundhouse at the Sue's face. Predictably, the Sue blocked. What wasn't predicted was Tess's right. She slammed the Sue in the gut, with all the force that a PPC Agent can summon. The Sue was blown backwards, bent over double. Suddenly, the Sue slowed down in mid-air, and began to fly back towards Tess! Tess jumped, and landed back on the floor, with the Sue far overhead.

Agent Michaelson landed on the floor near Tess. She walked forward, smiling. From all around the voice of the Author boomed.

"Not bad. A pity that your fighting will not help you in the end. Your fate is decided, no matter what you do. Goodbye, Tess."

Agent Michaelson swung her right, aiming for Tess's face. Tess barely blocked it, and then planted her hand firmly against the Sue's chest. Through the Sue, she accessed the Matrix, and changed a few key variables. With a flash of green code, the Sue was blasted backwards, smashing into the concrete wall. Purely by habit, Tess reached for where her Uzi should have been, fitted tightly into the small of her back. The cold metal handle was the most relieving thing that she had ever felt. She pulled it out of its holster and leveled it at the Sue. The Sue looked at her.

"You cheated."

"Agent."

Before the Sue could do anything more, Tess squeezed the trigger. A single bullet, traveling at over a thousand miles per hour, blasted through the Sue's forehead. She was dead before she hit the floor.

The matrix rippled, distorted, and then ripped apart, revealing the code. The code twisted, circled, and then vanished, leaving Tess standing in a bedroom. Plastered on the walls were posters for Lord of the Rings, Matrix Revolutions, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Sitting at the room's one computer was a scared-looking teenage girl. Tess looked at her, and then lowered her Uzi.

"Let's talk."

Some time later...

"-and I never, ever want to see you write a fic with me in it again. Do you understand?"

The trembling fangirl spoke. "Yes. Don't kill me, please?"

"Unlike your Sue, you have rights. Much as I would like to kill you, I can't. However, should you ever bring me into a fic again, I shall personally make your life a living hell."

"How?"

Tess looked at the fangirl. She gave her most predatory smirk and then replied. "You'll never know until I do it, and then you'll wish it had never happened."

Before the fangirl could reply, Tess opened a portal and stepped through, back to PPC HQ.