Or maybe, even, another world �?

I

The problem was that they were too close behind Neo, too � and he was not yet free. One day he might be the One, but for now even Trinity had to agree with Switch that he was just another coppertop.

She decided to risk the cellphone. She dialled.

�Operator.�

Call trans opt: received
2-19-96 13:24:18 REC:Log
Trace program: running.

�I know, Cypher, but I felt like taking a shift.�

She could hear the knowing, mocking smile in his voice. �You like him, don�t you? You like watching him?�

�Don�t be ridiculous.�

Still that smile, caressing an inexorable, implacable, fatalism: �We�re going to kill him, you know. He�s going to die just like the others.�

Trinity did not wince, quite. A person not seeing, hearing only her voice, might have heard it actually firm. �Morpheus believes he is the One.�

�And you?� Cypher�s relentless doubt. Doubting others, doubting himself. Again she wondered about the no-longer-quite-a-boy under her surveillance. Was he already too old to be able to accept freedom?

But she trusted Morpheus� judgement. �I � it doesn�t matter what I believe.�

�You don�t, do you?�

She came very near to hating Cypher at that moment, would have crossed that line were it not that hatred was so alien to her soul. She took refuge in a tight anger: �If you have something to say, I suggest you say it to Morpheus.�

�Oh, I intend to, believe me.� A brief pause. �Someone has to.�

Trinity never knew what she would have answered. Every sense suddenly on hyperalert. �Did you hear that?�

�Hear what?�

�Are you sure this line is clean?�

�Yeah, �course I�m sure.�

Another click. This time she was certain. Time to go.

Trace complete. Call origin: #312-555-0690.

And was stabbed by four flashlights simultaneously: �Police! Freeze!�

She did not turn to look at them, at the remnants of the kicked-in door, at the revolvers she knew were trained on her. She did not have to.

�Get your hands behind your head!�

She knew what the four police officers were seeing by the bare glow from the computer screen: bare, emancipated room in an abandoned building, walls soot-spooled, floorboards scraped clean of varnish if not of splinters where an ancient fire had licked its way across the polyester carpeting of the room�s former life. At one end an open-shelved desk and fold-up chair. Telephone, cradle modem, screen, keyboard. And sitting at the desk, a gaunt, leather-clad woman whose initial appearance was not unlike that of the room: tired, worn, hacked-off hair which should have been gray rather than its determined black � but a chiselled maturity not so much softening her hard features as evoking their deep beauty, and an odd peace in her dark eyes that might have warned the four had she been facing them. She knew, and regretted, that it would be the last thing that they would see.

�Hands behind your head!� barked the biggest one, edginess making his voice sharp. �Now! Do it!�

Slowly Trinity raised her arms � waiting.

* * *

If they heard his mumbled �Oh shit,� they never gave evidence of it. That was another thing that unnerved the lieutenant: they gave evidence of nothing. Two clones, two robots, would have shown more individuality. Secret Service types, punched out of a single mould. Not that they looked at all alike, physically � and yet �

�Lieutenant,� began one of them in that oddly singsong monotone he had come to resent and to dread, �you were given spe-ci-fic orders ��

He was not allowed to get any further. �I�m just doing my job,� broke in the lieutenant resentfully, with more than a little bitterness. When in doubt, attack. �You give me that ju-ris-my dick-tion and you can cram it up your ass.�

�The orders were for your pro-tec-tion.�

The lieutenant laughed, almost hiding the angry contempt. �I think we can handle one little girl.� Were they listening to those small earphones each of them wore? Who could tell? �I sent two units. They�re bringing her down now.�

Did they exchange a glance? �No, lieu-ten-ant,� said the one who had been speaking from the beginning, and now the police lieutenant knew that hidden gaze was drilling through him. He felt a thin bead of sweat begin trickling down his backbone, but forced himself to keep meeting those black lenses. Anger. Anger helped. He refused to name it fear.

But the words did not stop, chilling, mocking: �Your men are already dead.�

* * *

It freezes the first cop with his cuffs in his hands. Blink � and he is falling, blood gathering to erupt from an exploded nose, massive body slamming heavily against the one nearest the doorway. Blink � and the revolver held by the third cop is redirected into the ceiling even as it fires. Blink � and the bullets fired by the fourth spiral slowly, so slowly, into a nearby wall, while the revolver begins to fall feather-slow from a savagely twisted wrist. Blink � and the instant changes attacker into a human shield stitched by his own partner�s bullets. Blink � and the beginning scream of the last is choked off by a crushed trachea.

Time releases Trinity. She steps easily to the ground from the momentum of her last roundhouse and jump kick � she seems almost to float � and only at this moment could a mind have caught up with what its senses were desperately, impossibly telling it, and filled in the blank moments between to understand that Trinity had killed all four of her captors with an inhuman speed. She lands at the same time as the last police officer collapses, choking, dead.

She looked at the four bodies. �Shit.� Too close. Would be closer yet since they had traced her � on a line that was supposed to have been clean. No, don�t think about that yet.

The desk telephone was dead.

She could see no way out.

Morpheus.

Dial.

�Operator.�

She could have dropped with relief at hearing Morpheus� voice � but no time for that either. �The link was traced, I don�t know how.�

�I know. They cut the hard line.�

The niggling thought at the back of her mind would no longer be denied. She asked, her voice tight, �Are there any Agents?�

The world crashed in upon her with his reply. No one had ever faced an Agent and survived. As in a dream she heard the rest of his words, calm, collected, in control. �You have to focus. There is a phone. Wells and Lake. You can make it.�

Trinity clung to his voice as a lifeline, borrowing his control, a deep breath, another, centring. Centred. �All right ��

�Go.�

She went �

And froze, another timeless instant, rabbit-prey facing the implacable dark lenses of the faceless hunter who had just entered the hallway.

No easy quarry, she. The Agent did not move more quickly than she as she spun and bolted through the broken window at the other end of the hallway.

On the fire escape she caught a brief glimpse of another Agent in the alley, far below, silhouetted by flashing lights. Not one of them then, but two. He was staring up at her. Goddamnit! One option left, then, and she took it without hesitation. The other Agent was almost on her heels as she reached the roof, the small squadron of police officers gasping for breath as they clambered after him.

They broke and stumbled behind him on the parapets as the Agent continued to run inexorably after her, legs and arms pumping mechanically. For all Trinity�s own smooth distance-devouring stride, he was gaining.

Trinity reached the edge of the rooftop and, without hesitation, jumped �

And the Agent followed her across the wide back alley, just enough behind her that the closest of the police officers behind him could see. Forty feet to the next building. He landed on its roof with a solid tile-cracking thud, dropping immediately to one knee and one hand, gun like an extension of his other hand. She had rolled and hit the rooftop running.

The cops skidded to a halt on their own rooftop, staring. One of them whispered, �That�s impossible ��

For the moment Trinity was invisible behind the ventilation shaft, her lungs aching. She resisted the instinct to take deep gulps of air. Do you think that is air you are breathing? Focus. No other rooftop nearby, even within what she would consider jumping distance, but �

Some part of Trinity heard the sharp intake of breath from one of the cops as she bolted from her hiding place and launched herself from the roof�s edge, arrowing outward, arms overhead and outstretched, spinning like the missile into which she had effectively turned her body �

Falling �

And crashed through the small window she had spotted earlier, barely larger than the streamlined cross-section of her own body, went down the stairs along with the wood and splintered glass debris in a semi-controlled tumble, and fetched up against the landing, a gun in each of her hands. Pointing up, steady, waiting for the inevitable pursuit.

Incredibly, it did not come.

She could not seem to move her arms.

"Get up, Trinity.� Quietly to herself, then more sharply, urgently, �Get up!�

Her will finally jerked her body into motion, down the remainder of the stairs, out the door. A part of her noted absently that the decrepit building seemed to be abandoned, as were so many others. Towers of steel and glass, and underneath, this. Some paradise. You would think people would be desperate to escape from this suffering, to seek the freedom Morpheus was risking so much to offer � and yet she was hunted at every turn, and by those same people.

Then again, what Morpheus had to offer was not exactly paradise either � only truth.

The building disgorged her, and no one was waiting at the doorway. At the end of the block, pooled in white light, she could see her destination. She could also hear the slow revving of the nearby garbage truck as it suddenly turned sharply to face the telephone booth. She did not have to see inside its cab to know that an Agent was controlling it.

The telephone began to ring.

She bolted forward.

Spinning tires shrieking on the pavement as the truck lurched forward.

She reached the telephone booth first, barely. Picked up the telephone. Turned to face five tons of death hurtling directly at her. Held up her hand. A ludicrous gesture. An inexorable law.

The truck plowed through the telephone booth, leaving nothing but shattered plexiglass and twisted metal debris.

Soft hiss of steam escaping from the truck�s radiator.

Stepping down from the high cab of the garbage truck, dark dress shoes utterly incongruous with their surroundings. The other Agent came up behind him, and a third. As one being they observed the wreckage silently, implacably.

Somehow, impossibly, she was gone.

No matter. The informant was real. They had but to find the next target. They already knew who it would be.

The no-longer-quite-a-boy who was searching too hard.

Neo.

* Characters and concept property of Warner Bros. Novelisation � 2003 Kyle Altis

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