Heroes For Ghosts
by
Kirstma
1. Who Will Hold Us
Were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
-T.S. Eliot, "Journey of the Magi"<
Trinity sat
alone in a room, shivering and unclothed. The room was white and barren,
stark and utilitarian. She wanted her
clothes back.
She wanted to be through this, to be somewhere else, she wanted her friends.
All of them. Back again. She
wanted --
The door opened.
In walked two doctors, one female and one male, the latter in the throes
of middle age and rapidly balding.
"I’ve been
deloused," Trinity said. "Can I have my clothes back now?"
"They’ll be
ready in a few minutes," the woman answered firmly. She held a clipboard
in her right hand. "But first, have you
been generally
in good health?"
"Yes," Trinity answered grudgingly.
"To the best
of your knowledge, have you, at any time since your last visit, come into
contact with any lethal substance or
chemical,
either identified or unknown?"
"Jesus Christ,"
Trinity said, trying her best to keep her breasts concealed from view.
"If my blood work came back okay, I must
be okay."
"Just answer the question, Miss Trinity," the man said, his voice hinting at severity.
Trinity twisted her mouth. "No."
"To the best
of your knowledge, have you come into contact with any bacteria or virus
since your last visit, either identified or
unknown?"
Only the flesh-eating one that left me disfigured, Trinity almost said. "No. Can I have my clothes back?"
The woman pursed
her lips. "Shortly." They both turned and left the room. Now she was alone
again, still shivering and smelling
of the chemical
shower. Shivering, not because it was cold but because it was lonely and
disconcerting to be treated with such
aversion.
She wondered
about Neo -- about how he was faring during his check-up and rehabilitation.
"There is much repair to be done
on his muscles,"
Morpheus had told her as they rode to the center of the earth aboard the
Orion. Neo was resting. He wasn’t in
good shape.
Of course, he wasn’t in terribly bad shape either -- but he’d withstood
a lot during his most recent battle in the
Matrix. God,
five days ago. It seemed like it had been a year or two ago when she’d
flown that helicopter through the skyline,
escaping just
in time before it crashed into the side of a skyscraper. And then, after
that . . . well, no one had discussed it very
much, except
for Morpheus who spoke reverently and thoughtfully about her revelation.
Those words that had simultaneously
saved and
shocked them all were fused with silence. "Trinity, know you love him,
but you must be very patient with him,"
Morpheus had
told her.
Morpheus was full of advice she didn’t feel like taking.
Trinity missed
Switch who, during all of the previous trips to Zion, had undergone the
same humiliating inspection in customs that
Trinity was
enduring alone now. But when they’d been together -- well, they could typically
laugh it off as the usual Zion inanity.
But now --
without Switch -- it seemed so much more personal.
Without Switch.
Without Apoc, or Mouse or Dozer, dear God. . . . Trinity felt her face
collapsing in a tense expression of grief
that was becoming
exhausting to suppress.
The door swung
open. Trinity pulled herself together. "Miss Trinity, your clothes." The
lady doctor dumped them on the floor
and left,
the door closing with a resolute clank.
After she was
dressed in her usual scrubs -- that now smelled faintly of something like
moth balls -- Trinity quickly left the stark
waiting room.
In the surrounding areas that resembled a doctor’s office -- though with
none of the amenities -- Trinity observed
a nurse flipping
through some charts. "Excuse me," she said, "have you seen my captain?"
He turned to
face her. "I think the rest of your crew is still being processed." He
was young and beautiful, and Trinity noticed
how his lips
curved out a little. They’d never been that attractive when she was young.
Younger, that is.
He glanced over at her again. "My, that’s a nasty bruise."
"Oh, yeah." Trinity reached down to cover her arm with her ragged sweater. An RSI bruise that still hadn’t faded.
"You want me
to get you some ice for that?" His eyes looked at her, brimming with kindness.
She hadn’t seen that kindness in
any of them
for a long time.
Before she
could answer with an irresolute no, the boy was already rummaging through
an old icebox in the corner of the room
and gathering
ice chips and wrapping them in an old towel. He came to her, placing the
pack carefully on her arm.
"Thank you,"
she said, barely able to form the words with her shaking lips. She felt
human again. She couldn’t bring her eyes to
meet his,
afraid that one look from him might cause one emotion to bubble to the
surface of her face, then another, then another,
and soon it
would be out of control like Pandora’s box. She took the pack and carefully
turned away.
* * *
Trinity ended
up staying at the military hospital that night which was connected to customs.
Neo, as it turned out, was to be kept
under observation
to ensure his full recovery. At least that was what the doctors told Morpheus,
and when anything had to do
with Neo,
Morpheus took it very seriously.
The crew of
the Orion was long gone by then, released into Zion to frolic and play
and do whatever it was that normal soldiers
did on their
vacation in the city. Tank’s wound was being treated with antibiotics,
but he’d soon be released to join his family in
Zion -- and
then mourn the loss of Dozer. Trinity, however, was just glad to collapse
on a make-shift couch that was put in the
waiting room
of the hospital for her.
"I want to
see him," she told Morpheus, whose own quarters were at a military hostel.
Trinity was encouraged to join him there,
but she didn’t
want to leave the hospital without knowing more about Neo’s condition.
"He needs a lot of rest, Trinity," Morpheus told her. "I don’t think he’s ready for anything particularly draining."
Trinity faltered, growing a little red. "I just need to talk to him."
"I know you
do. But -- he is the One . . . his being here is a miracle in itself. For
now, we must treat him very gingerly . . . this is
a period of
transition for him. And your feelings . . ." He didn’t continue.
My feelings are secondary to everything. My feelings don’t matter.
Trinity rolled
over on her side on the old, worn sofa. Few things were made of new material
in Zion -- everything was recycled,
organically
grown, and somewhat shabby. Human luxury was unimportant in the face of
war, and most people wore their
clothes until
they just about rotted off. Frivolity was considered wasteful -- almost
sinful. Vanity was some kind of horrendous
crime.
And what about love? Is that frivolous . . . vain?
She couldn’t
sleep, thinking of Neo in the hospital bed down the hall and of her imposing,
breathless feelings of love for him.
They’d hardly
shared a moment together in the last five days, due to his fragile condition
and the arduous chore of getting to
Zion before
another sentinel attack. Those few moments after the EMP blast, after Neo’s
miraculous resurrection and hasty
retrieval
from the Matrix were fresh and raw in Trinity’s mind. How they’d kissed
then -- she running the tips of her fingers over
his cold cheek
and reaching to tenderly hold his neck . . . the taste of his salty lips
and the instant connection between them . . .
When he tried
to stand afterwards, he collapsed. Trinity held him and Morpheus put him
in bed, covering him with the extra
blankets of
dead crew members. Trinity had given him her blanket also, but then Morpheus
found out and made her take it
back. And
while they waited for the Orion to come and rescue them, Trinity slept
on the small space of floor beside his bed until
Morpheus found
her and made her sleep in her own bed. But when she gazed at the empty
quarters of her dead friends, grief
had floated
to the top of her mind and settled there, a constant fixture.
The ship was
cold and in shambles. While they waited for the Orion, they were frightened
that they’d be discovered by another
batch of sentinels,
though they weren’t. And Neo was feverish and moaning in pain, in need
of medical assistance that they
couldn’t supply.
The power had been lost, but the backup had come on so there was enough
to survive for a few days.
The Orion had
arrived the next day, its crew pausing to gawk at Neo’s existence. "He’s
old for a trainee," the medic had
whispered
to a few of his cohorts, and Trinity had felt a sort of indignance that
bounded to the surface of her mind. But they’d
worked on
him then -- hell, they’d probably saved him. She had to be grateful.
Morpheus was
adamant about keeping Neo’s true nature and purpose a hushed secret. And
for good reason, because there
wasn’t just
one war going on. Cypher’s insidious betrayal hadn’t been an anomaly --
just a symbol of something much bigger
than all of
them.
Trinity stirred, still unable to sleep. Her thighs ached and the slight bruise on her arm still swelled. And she wanted to see Neo.
Without really
thinking about it, Trinity sat up and slipped into her boots. Quietly,
she made her way down the hall in the dim
hospital lights
and sterile atmosphere. She reached the room where she thought he was staying,
and pushed on the door.
Two men jumped
up caught her by the wrists, forcing her back into the hall. She took note
of their appearances as they came
into view
-- one fat and the other very thin with diirty blond hair. Their clothes
were not as shabby as her own, but not nearly as
tidy as the
clothes in the Matrix. They wore simple pants with dark shirts.
"What are you doing?" the fat one hissed at her.
She jerked free. "I need to see him -- "
"No one is allowed to see the patient in there. Strict orders."
"Strict orders from whom? Who are you?" Trinity felt her voice climbing in desperation.
One pulled out a slim wallet with his credentials. "ZPA. We’ve been assigned to this man for the rest of the week."
"Oh, you’re
fucking kidding . . ." Apparently the Zion Protectionary Agency had been
assigned to Neo, and without her
knowledge
or consent. "I’m his commanding officer," she said, "I have every right
to see him."
"Not until morning then, I’m afraid," the fat one said, his jowls waggling. "And not without your credentials."
"Trinity?"
Trinity’s eyes
widened -- Neo was awake and calling her from his bed. She pushed past
the officers, despite their efforts to
keep her contained,
and crouched by his bed. She reached for a small lamp on the table beside
the bed and a comforting light
made shadows
in the room. "Neo . . ."
"Trinity . . ." His eyes, glazed from sleep, tentatively scanned her thin frame. She shyly slid her hand into his.
"Neo, are you alright?"
"Yeah," he whispered, "I feel much better . . . where am I?"
"A hospital in Zion. Don’t worry -- I’m sure you’ll be well enough soon.
"Who are those men?" he said, his voice weak.
"We call them zaps. They’re no one, just police men here to protect you."
"Protect me?"
"Yeah, and I’m down the hall."
His grip on her hand tightened. "They’re doing all these tests on me. Is it because I’m . . ."
She turned
away, afraid that she might cry. Then she looked back and reached over,
lightly touching his hairline. She hadn’t
planned to
fall in love, it’d just happened. And here it was, with so much power and
emotion that she didn’t know if she could
take it on
without breaking. "Neo, I -- "
She felt a
hand on her arm. "Out." It was one of the officers. "You aren’t supposed
to be here. If we have to physically remove
you, we will."
Trinity turned
back to Neo and thought about what that would look like to him. Then she
thought about kissing him, but decided
against it.
She squeezed his hand and left him without looking back at him and waited
until she was in the waiting room again
before she
let herself weep.
* * *
The next day
Trinity awoke and went to the room to find Neo. He wasn’t there and his
guards were gone. The bed was empty
and made,
and there was no trace that he had ever been there.
Feeling stricken
and a little ill, she decided to venture into Zion. She had to walk a mile
or so through a tunnel in order to reach
anything vaguely
metropolitan -- the city had been arranged that way for the purposes of
protection. And when she emerged
from the tunnel,
there it was -- noisier and more unattractive than any simulation of a
city she had known. Wires and metal
tubing were
in abundance; simple concrete blocks formed the roads and ground. Buildings
sprang up senselessly, with no
thought of
organization or aesthetic purposes, and people jogged, walked, and yelled
to each other in the street. Trinity could
hear the hovertrain
roaring in the distance. Though there were no cars or busses, there was
the omnipresent whooshing of air
and the buzz
of electricity.
When she looked up, she couldn’t tell where the "sky" ended and Zion’s ceiling began. That was the trick of it.
The people
who jostled her in the street were real ones. At least that was how they
considered themselves. They had no plugs
and their
clothes were different, neater. She knew that being a soldier amid these
civilians was obvious, but that day she didn’t
care.
Trinity spotted
a paper on the ground, a newspaper. Zion had done away with most paper
publications because of the waste
factor, and
because they couldn’t grow many trees. But they kept newspapers and published
just enough of them, recycling the
papers each
day to make a new batch the next. Most other publications were done electronically,
like books and songs and
records.
She picked
up the newspaper. The Free Zionist -- a title that Tank always laughed
at for its redundancy, because a Zionist
was, by definition,
free. This was a New Humanist publication, from a faction that was largely
anti-war. The paper was a few
days old.
Immediately the thought seized her -- had the Neb’s destruction made the
paper? And what about Cypher’s betrayal?
She tore through
the paper, most of the articles concerning the politics of expanding the
city and taking more resources -- which
was evil according
to the New Humanist point of view. And there it was on the back page: "Sentinel
Attack leaves five dead,
one wounded."
"Oh, is that what they’re calling it?" Trinity muttered to herself. She
scanned the subtitle. "Nebuchadnezzar
Captain Morpheus
waits to use EMP, Sentinels destroy ship." Angrily, Trinity threw the paper
down and continued walking.
That was just
like the New Humanists, always trying to destroy the reputation of the
resistance. According to that party, the war
had gone on
long enough. There was no legendary "One" -- it was all folly. The best
thing to do would be to call an end to the
war by destroying
the machines’ database, and thereby destroying the enslaved population
of the earth. New Humanists did not
like ex-slaves.
Neither did many other people.
It hit Trinity
suddenly -- she was starving. She hadn’t eaten since . . . well since the
morning before last, when they’d had
breakfast
on the Orion. There was a small place that served food on the corner --
she’d been there before when she was
younger.
She had no
sooner entered the door when a man sprang up from his seat and left the
restaurant. Another man followed.
Another man
-- supposedly the manager -- approached heere. "Sorry, we don’t have anything
available right now. You might
want to come
back later."
"Really," Trinity said, enjoying the challenge. "Then why the empty tables?"
He turned around to look. "We’re . . . we’ve got reservations."
Trinity turned
and walked out. Two young girls sat in a stoop a few paces away. One was
reading a ragged book and the other
was swigging
from something, probably a bottle of rotgut. One look was all it took .
. . Trinity knew they were Matrix born.
Then -- her name. In the street. Trinity turned around to find Tank parting the crowd. "Trinity!"
"Tank!" They met each other with a hug, drawing each other close. "Tank . . ."
"Yeah?"
Trinity pulled away. "Do you know where Neo is?"
Tank stepped back and frowned. "The hospital. Dr. Holdzapfel wanted to run some more tests. But don’t worry, he’ll be fine."
Trinity’s gaze slipped to the ground. "This isn’t going to end, is it? They want to find out what makes him tick."
Tank didn’t
answer her. "Let’s get out of here. This isn’t our type of neighborhood,
if you know what I mean. One of my sisters
has a flat
on the upper east side, but she’s working in the agricultural district
so she said I could stay there."
A few minutes
later Trinity was on the hovertrain, letting the motion rock her back and
forth. She glanced over at Tank. There
was a lot
he wasn’t talking about -- like Dozer. How had his family reacted? Trinity
wanted to be with them to offer her
condolences,
but she knew that this was private time, family time. They all wanted to
be alone.
Tank’s sister’s
flat was in a dingy area -- their type of neighborhood -- a place called
Lestrygonia. They had to walk up five
flights of
stairs and pull back a shoddy metal door before they reached the small,
dark apartment. One main room, a bedroom,
a porch overlooking
a concrete courtyard where dirty children played, and a small kitchenette.
The place held only a few pieces
of furniture
-- a chair, a table, a mattress on the flooor that served as a bed.
"You want some water?" Tank offered.
"Sure," Trinity
said, watching as he turned on a spigot and let clear water filter into
a jar. It tasted good. "Damn, I almost forgot
how sweet
Zion water is."
Tank grinned affably. "I know. Everything on the ship has that metallic edge to it."
"I saw some
girls today," Trinity began. "One was drinking some kind of grain alcohol.
On the street. In a store front. They were
with the resistance."
"What?" Tank’s eyes grew large.
"I mean, they
must have been with the resistance at one time. Now they just look displaced.
They were pretty young. I think I
might have
known them."
"They could
have been freeborn," Tank pointed out. "Some people leave their kids in
Zion because they’re in the resistance.
And then they
die or something, and the kids are totally destitute. Story of my life."
"They seemed like soldier types."
Tank moved
into the bedroom. He came back and set some pot down on the table, then
began to roll a joint. "You want?" he
said, without
looking up.
"Might as well," Trinity said.
* * *
Getting high
was great, but it hardly did anything to solve Trinity’s problems. It didn’t
open either one up to talking, either. They
sat against
the wall, passing it back and forth and talking lazily about how long it
would take to fix the Neb or how they were
going to get
a new crew.
Then Tank said: "So you really love him?"
Trinity felt
herself blanch. She tried to reply, but there was no air left in her lungs.
Finally she managed a few gruff words. "I -- I
don’t know
what it is."
Tank smiled sadly. "I know. You can’t describe it. It’s just there. He probably feels it too."
"Oh I don’t know, Tank." She looked down at herself. "How could he . . . how could anyone . . ."
"Love you?"
Tank said. He reached over and put a hand on her shoulder, which rested
against the wall. "I don’t think it’s so
difficult
to believe."
She bent forward and shielded her eyes from view with her right hand. "I don’t think I can do this . . ."
"I’m here for you," Tank said. He removed his hand from her shoulder. "The funerals are tomorrow. For everyone."
Trinity drew her knees to her chest. Without meaning to, she had begun to cry.
"Hey kid," Tank said, "wanna talk about it?"
Trinity managed
to shake her head. "Hey, it’s okay," he said. "You’re not a bad person
for surviving. Neither one of us is. I
wish it had
been me instead of Dozer, but it’s not our fault . . ."
"I just want to sleep," Trinity said. "Do you have a bed I can sleep in?"
* * *
Trinity didn’t
know why the need for sleep overtook her the way it did. Now in Zion, she
had the feeling that she could sleep for
days and still
want more; it was insatiable and intoxicating. She crashed on the dirty
mattress in the bedroom, and when she
awoke Tank
was gone and it was nearly dark. In Zion they gradually phased out the
light to simulate a sunset in the evening.
The clock
told her it was past seven.
She stood up
and shuffled back into her boots, deciding that it would be better to simply
leave now. She left the apartment and
made her way
through the crooked streets, boarding the hovertrain and allowing herself
to be transported back to the spot
where Tank
had found her. She wanted to go back to the hospital and see Neo for herself.
Would they release him?
But when she
reached the familiar strip, still bustling with human activity, she knew
what had brought her back. Those two girls.
And they were
still loitering against a store front, one slumped against the steel siding,
the other bent eagerly over a book. Trinity
walked over
to them and then simply stood there.
The girl with
the book looked up and smiled tentatively. She was plain but pleasant,
and had long, unkempt brown hair. She
was tiny --
she couldn’t have been more than seventeen. She looked down at the book
and began to read: "When the Lord
restored the
fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled
with laughter, and our tongue with
shouts of
joy; then it was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things
for them.’ The Lord has done great things for
us, and we
rejoiced."
She looked up and smiled again. "Those are pretty lines, aren’t they?"
Trinity nodded. "What -- what is that?"
The girl continued to smile. "The bible. I’m Temple. What’s your name?"
The other girl stirred and awoke. She narrowed her eyes in tiny slits.
"I’m Trinity. I’m sorry, but I think . . . this is crazy, but I think I know you."
"Nothin’ crazy
about that," Temple said. "We all know each other. See, I’m like you."
She pulled back her sleeve to reveal a
tiny plug.
"I used to be a fighter, just like you."
The other girl hunched forward and spat at Trinity’s feet.
"Don’t mind her, ma’am," Temple said. "She don’t know what she’s doing."
This all was
bothering Trinity very much. She wanted to know why the girls were sitting
on the street rather than minding their
duties on
a ship. It was disturbing.
The man who
owned the store was sweeping the sidewalk. "Alright kids," he said. "I’ve
let you loiter long enough. No more.
Get up and
get going to somewhere else."
"You can’t make us!" the other girl erupted. She tried to stand up but fell over.
The man laughed.
"You drunks! If you had any sense, you’d pull yourselves together and stop
begging from the rest of us. Now
get out of
here."
Trinity bent over toward Temple. "Can I get you something to eat?"
* * *
The pub was
poorly lit and dirty, serving awful food that was most likely left over
from some other time and place. Trinity had
never enjoyed
Zion food. She had long ago decided that having tasted Matrix food was
a curse, and it was something that never
left her mind.
She’d wake up at night craving the most mundane things -- a hamburger,
an egg, spaghetti.
But Temple
seemed to enjoy her soy milk and dry bread, slathering the bread with hummus
and eating hungrily. She’s starving,
Trinity thought
as she quietly ate. Trinity should have been hungry, but couldn’t muster
any excitement for food. And the other
girl ate solemnly
and with less vigor.
"So, we were on the Aeolus," Temple said between mouthfuls.
"And what happened? Did it crash?"
"No ma’am, taken by sentinels. Everyone died but the two of us."
Trinity put her fork down and stared. "Everyone died . . . but how did you . . . how did you survive?"
"Oh ma’am,
I don’t know. We hid. We thought they’d get us anyway, but they didn’t.
So we waited and waited. Took days for
someone to
find us. Yeah, we were all hurt and stuff. They brought us here to help
us get better. I liked it at first. It’s warm
here."
The other girl stopped eating.
"That’s Nala," Temple said. "She don’t like to talk so much."
Nala pushed
her plate away and glared at Trinity. She was much prettier than her friend,
but with a savage set of brown eyes.
She folded
her arms across her chest and continued to stare.
"So then what did you do?" Trinity asked.
"Oh, we waited for them to reassign us, but they never did." Temple finished eating and looked longingly at Trinity’s plate.
"You want this?"
"Oh ma’am, I didn’t want you to think I was begging, but. . . ."
Trinity pushed her plate forward and Temple took the food excitedly. "Thank you, ma’am."
"Why didn’t they reassign you?"
Nala pounded her fist on the table. "I need some more money." She held a shaking hand out to Trinity, her eyes twitching a little.
"For what?" Trinity said. "You haven’t eaten. You think I’m made of money?"
"I need five krummens," Nala said. "You don’t understand."
"She need it, ma’am," Temple said. "She need liquor like some people need pills and things."
"Oh, that’s it," Trinity said. "Well, I won’t give it to you. The less you need it, the better."
Nala lunged
at Trinity grabbing for her neck but Trinity caught both of her arms, spun
her around and held her arms behind her
back. She
was strong both in and out of the Matrix, with good reflexes that rivaled
her mental abilities. And Nala, caught by
surprise,
limply fell to the ground.
Temple leapt to her feet. "Don’t hurt her!"
Trinity stood
back and brushed herself off. "I wasn’t planning on it. She came at me
-- not the other way around."
Temple began
to cough. Trinity bent over and tried to help Nala, but she swiftly turned
her head. Temple continued to cough,
Blood appeared
in short spurts on the white cloth. Trinity backed away. "Temple? . . .
Jesus . . ." Tuberculosis. Words ran
Nala scrambled
to her feet and whimpered a little. She rushed toward Temple, throwing
her arms around the girl and sobbing
"What’s going
on here?" Trinity said. "You’ve got tuberculosis." She backed away a little
and hated herself for it, but she didn’t
Temple calmed
herself and pulled away from Nala. "Yes, Miss Trinity."
"What are you
doing here?" Trinity said. She looked up to find the bartender eyeing them
with heavy suspicion. He moved into
"Oh ma’am!
I was in one, you see." She folded the blood stained handkerchief and put
it back in the pocket of her ragged
"Okay, okay,"
Trinity said, trying to quiet the girl. Temple exhaustedly collapsed into
her chair, and Trinity noticed how sick she
"Please don’t
turn me in," the girl begged.
"You shouldn’t
be out among the rest of the people," Trinity told her. "You’ll make the
others sick."
"Huh!" Nala
said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. She flounced into a chair.
Trinity ignored
her and continued. "And, and you need to be somewhere with doctors, where
they can help you."
"Help me!"
the girl shouted, anger rising up in her light voice. "Is that what
you think they do?" Heads turned in their direction.
Trinity felt
something digging into her palms, and realized that it was her own fingernails,
leaving their succession of crescent
No one said
anything.
Trinity felt
her breath catching in her throat. "Was she . . . alone?"
The doors burst
open and in walked two men wearing dark clothing. Their gazes leveled to
take in Trinity, Nala and Temple,
"Young lady,
you’re to come with us." They surrounded Temple. They grasped her upper-arms
and the girl rose to her feet
"Miss Trinity,
she just knew. She knew about the One --" The men began to cart her away.
"She told us stories ’bout how
Nala was wailing,
though Trinity hadn’t noticed until then. The men were struggling to keep
Temple in tow, dragging her roughly
Trinity’s mouth
was dry. The book. She reached for Temple’s bible.
Nala, still
crying, swatted at Trinity until Trinity reached for her arm and pushed
it away. "Fuck you! I hate you!" she cried, and
now laboring
over each gasping breath. She pulled a cloth out of her pocket and coughed
wretchedly into it.
through her
head. It’s how Chekhov died. Now I’m going to die like that.
silently.
want to catch
it. No, not now. Especially not now, not with everything that had just
happened.
the other
room. "You know you could spread this to the population. It’s illegal for
you to be out here -- you’re supposed to be
in a sanatorium."
pants. "It
was horrible, I finally had them think that I was well and they let me
out. Oh ma’am, I don’t ever want to go back! I
ain’t made
anyone sick, I swear!"
looked. Why
hadn’t she noticed it before? The girl’s cheeks were sunken and dark rings
appeared below her eyes. Trinity had
surmised that
it was hunger.
"Is that what
they told you when they put your friend there to die? Ma’am, that’s all
it is -- just a place for us to die. They put us
six or seven,
maybe eight in a room an’ there’s hardly any food to go around . . . sometimes
someone’ll die and they won’t take
the body away
for a day . . ." Her voice broke off with a slight choke. "That’s how I
met her. Your friend Harmony."
moon marks.
Her knuckles were white with frustration. She hadn’t thought about Harmony
in a long time. Harmony, the young
crewmate who'd
been on the ship just before Neo was freed . . ."Was she . . . was she
treated . . . badly?"
and then they
sharply turned and made their way to the three women. Cool as machines
. . .
solemnly.
she’d seen
him! In my book! My book!"
through the
door and into the street.
turned and
ran out of the pub and into the street. Trinity was alone again.
* * *
It didn’t occur
to Trinity until later that Temple meant something inside the book,
rather than a biblical passage that alluded to
the present
moment. On the Hovertrain on her way back to military headquarters, she
flipped through the tattered pages and a
slip of paper
fell to the ground. It was folded and unmarked. She picked it up and opened
it carefully.
In Harmony’s
careful scrawl was the word Neo. So she had known about him, had seen him
briefly through the haze of
sickness.
What followed was a poem that spanned the length of the entire page.
1.
When the world frothed with unhappiness
I could trace the source of my dismay
by putting my hand
at the base of my skull,
letting my blue tinged fingers
kiss the cold metallic ring,
mark of slavery.
Head bare, eyes in pain --
ripped from the arms of my mother
and placed in the womb of a stranger --
I knew no comfort.
They come in to tell me my progress:
Congratulations. You weigh eighty-five pounds.
2.
When you came into my world,
I didn’t understand that our time together
would smother
the whiteness from your head.
Your eyes are questions
or songs in a foreign tongue.
How I clamored to see your birth!
Yours was the first to come after mine
and you were pink
with the frailty I no longer
remember.
3.
This ship holds us.
She is our mother, and we
are in her womb.
Her milk sustains us -- white, tasteless, plain
and thin with waning memory.
We are waiting for this war to end so that we can be born,
but our birth will be a death -- and who will hold us then?
Touch this mother, for she
is the only mother you will ever know.
4.
In a world that seems familiar
I walk on webbed concrete,
pull apart its strands like thin lines of cotton,
test its pliability
with heavy combat boots. In this world, I am not
a girl. I am a giant, I am a gangster.
I kill children, see smoke blood rise from their heads.
When I kill people, they burn out quietly, their screams
fused with silence. Like little children, they die
while sleeping
-- preserved in a jar labeled ash,
still and
black as the world above.
But I don’t
want to die while I sleep.
I go see
the oracle.
She says,
You will not grow old.
5.
On this
ship, there is more than humanity
between
us.
There is
silence,
startled
only by mere breath.
You Neo,
my hope for war’s death --
I forget
most things about myself
but about
you? Some things stay with me --
The wet,
glistening shine
of your
newborn skin,
the rasp
of your first, timeless words.
All of us
here, circling round you,
the prickling
silence of hand in hand.
2. Flight
What are you now? If we could touch one another,
if these our separate identities could come to grips,
clenched like a Chinese puzzle. . . . yesterday
I stood in a crowded street that was live with people,
and no one spoke a word, and the morning shone.
Everyone silent, moving. . . . Take my hand. Speak to me.
-Muriel Rukeyser, "Effort at Speech betweeen Two People"
The light came
in slowly, like the light fades into the corners of a painting. Trinity
opened her eyes and recognized nothing.
Desperate,
she searched her memory for a piece of something that would bring her to
the present moment, but found nothing.
She struggled
to sit up.
"Don’t get up so fast."
Trinity slowly turned her head. She flopped onto her back and stared at the white ceiling that loomed above. "Morpheus . . ."
"You were lucky that you were in the hospital when you fainted. Most people never get to pick where they pass out."
"What?" she gasped. Her head throbbed. "What the hell happened to me?"
Morpheus hovered over her, trying to help her into a sitting position. "You’ve been very sick for the past couple of days."
Then it hit her. She put a hand to her chest. "Morpheus, you shouldn’t be near me. I need to be tested for TB --"
Morpheus held up his hand. "It’s already been done. Don’t worry, you’re fine."
Trinity exhaled. "Then what’s wrong with me?"
"Just a nasty
virus. You’re lucky it happened here. On the Neb you would have been in
bad shape, without a medic to help.
Here, drink
this." He handed her a small cup of juice and she took a tiny sip.
"A couple of days? Shit, I missed the funerals." Her eyes fell to her lap. "I never got to say good-bye, then or now."
Morpheus stood.
"I’m just glad you’re going to be alright. That’s what I’m thankful for."
He lingered for a second and frowned,
like he wanted
to say something more. "There’s someone else who’s been worried about you.
I’ll send him in."
Jesus, Tank,
Trinity thought as Morpheus left the room. He’d probably been running around
in circles when she didn’t go back
to the apartment.
She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d organized a search party.
Instead, Neo
appeared in the doorway, smiling shyly and holding a bunch of sad-looking
flowers. He stepped inside. "You look
a lot better
than you did yesterday."
"You look better too," she said. He looked so much different than she remembered . . . stronger, more confident.
He handed her
the flowers. "When they showed me the agricultural caverns yesterday I
managed to grab these. They were
going to recycle
them."
She made room for him on the bed and he sat down. "Thanks. But you shouldn’t come near me. I’m probably still contagious."
Neo shrugged
and looked down at himself. "That’s what Morpheus said. But I don’t care.
The doctors fixed me up as good as
new. In fact,
I feel better now than I’ve ever felt in my life."
A wave of self-consciousness overtook Trinity. She looked away from Neo, carefully weighing her next move.
"So . . . so how are you?" he asked in his quiet voice, leaning toward her a little.
"I’m okay,"
she said, staring into his eyes for a brief moment and then looking away.
Whenever their eyes locked, she felt that
she was at
risk of losing her own identity -- an identity she’d spent years fashioning.
They’d all had their own strict roles. Tank
was the funny
one. Mouse was the emotional teenager. Apoc was the cool guy. Switch was
the clever bitch. Cypher was the
whiner. Dozer
was the confidant. And Trinity had been the strong one -- never the one
to falter under pressure or let emotion
shake her
from her duties.
"Have you seen much of Zion yet?" she asked cautiously.
"Yeah. Morpheus and Tank showed me some things yesterday."
Secretly her heart fell. She’d been hoping to show Neo Zion before anyone else.
"The food is
awful," he said, making a face of disgust. "I was hoping that they’d have
something decent here, but I guess not.
That must
be why everyone’s so thin."
She nodded.
"It’s all vegan. They can’t raise livestock. But the liquor’s okay." She
turned away again. "Um, I sort wanted to . .
. I have to
change now . . ."
"Oh!" Neo said, rising from the bed.
She looked over to see a slight look of hurt cross his face. "I’ll see you . . ."
"Later," he finished, his mouth forming a slight frown.
* * *
Dressing was
the most exhausting thing Trinity had done in a long time. She was out
of breath by the time she pulled on her
pants, and
could barely reach around her back to fasten her bra. By the time she was
dressed, she felt like crawling back into
bed.
She was up
just in time for an important meeting at military headquarters. Dr. Holdzapfel
presided, along with Morpheus. The
crews of the
Orion, the Blue Streak, and the Dragonfly were in attendance. As Trinity
sat in one of the long rows, she found it
increasingly
difficult to keep her mind on the subject at hand. She twirled a pencil
in her fingers as the doctor debriefed them on
the latest
advances in hovercraft technology.
"He looks a lot stronger than before," she whispered to Tank. She couldn’t take her eyes off Neo, who sat closer to the front.
"They’ve been working on him," Tank muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
"Well. I’m glad he’s better."
Tank rolled his eyes and shook his head. "You guys are doing this backwards."
"Huh?"
"Well, think
about it. You started out by declaring your undying love for him.
Then you kissed him. Now you’re talking to each
other in fragmented
sentences and barely making eye-contact --"
"That’s not
true!" Trinity whispered harshly. She caught the eye of the doctor who
glared at her. She sat back in her seat and
resigned herself
to staring at the edges of a note pad.
After it was all over Trinity quietly spoke to Morpheus. "Have you told anyone yet?"
"Only Dr. Holdzapfel.
And a few resistance leaders. That’s it. You, Neo, Tank and I are about
the only ones who know the
true extent
of his powers."
"If the New Humanists got a hold of the information they could destroy us," Trinity said.
"The New Realists could be worse," Morpheus said. "They’d make him a poster-child, and for all the wrong reasons."
Trinity observed
Neo over by the long, metallic tables. He was probing some odd looking
sandwich they’d put out for
everyone.
"He needs to get out of here," Morpheus said. "I want you to take him to some other part of the city."
Trinity looked at Morpheus questioningly. "I thought you and Tank showed him everything yesterday."
"It’s a large place, Trinity. I’m sure he’ll appreciate a different perspective."
Shit, even
Morpheus was trying to throw them together now! Oh, for a place that had
attempted to keep them apart for the first
several days,
it was certainly trying its hardest to push things along now.
"He’s under
too much scrutiny here," Morpheus said. "Even those who don’t know the
truth know he is different from them.
He’s older.
And Dr. Holdzapfel can’t stop experimenting with him. He needs a break."
Trinity nodded. "Shall I take Tank with us?"
"No, no," Morpheus insisted. "Go alone."
* * *
"You know, I can um, I can fly now."
Trinity looked
up. She felt a pang of jealousy in her chest but squashed it. She knew
she should be happy that he could do all of
things she
couldn’t accomplish in her twelve years with the resistance. "Not bad for
a guy who freaked out at the thought of
climbing a
scaffold." She smiled over her cup of coffee. They were in a small cafe
that overlooked Zion’s main square. Trinity
had never
dreamed that Zion could be so cozy.
Neo smiled
a little. "I know. As trite as this sounds, it’s amazing what you can do
if you put your mind to it. I mean, I look at life
in a whole
different way now."
"There is no spoon?"
"Right. Exactly.
And -- and I’ve been thinking a lot about what the oracle told me. She
didn’t tell me I was the One, but didn’t
really tell
me I wasn’t either. She made me say what I thought. Really, it was brilliant.
I don’t think she knows anymore than the
rest of us.
She just knows how to phrase things."
Trinity shook
her head. "Mmm, I don’t think so." She knew he wanted her to elaborate,
but she lowered her eyes and remained
silent.
"What is it?" He slid his hand across the table and gently took hers.
"Nothing," she said, looking up but not removing her hand from his.
"Are you alright?"
"I’m fine," she said. "You want to go for a walk?"
The central
square of Zion was by far the most decorative thing in the whole city.
Hell -- it had actually been planned. Canals of
water used
to irrigate the city flowed through concrete passages below them, underneath
panels of glass. There was even a
fountain in
the center of the square. They ambled along, not touching, and paused there.
"What are these factions I keep hearing about?" Neo said.
Trinity sighed.
"There are the New Humanists and the New Realists. In truth, both parties
comprise only a small percentage of
the population.
But most people, if you question them carefully, will reveal a preference
for one party over the other."
"What do they represent?"
"The New Humanists
want to end the war, which sounds right and good, but they want to end
it at all costs. They believe that
by fighting
within the Matrix we’re concentrating on an unattainable goal, and we should
concentrate on simply fighting the
machines at
a ground war level. Cutting off their energy supply. Killing the enslaved
population."
"Jesus."
"They believe in getting back to basics. They want to see us become less dependent on technology in general."
"And the New Realists?"
"Are technology
lovers. Most are Matrix born like you and me. They want to use technology
to further the war effort, even by
studying the
machines if possible. By using them to fight their own war."
Neo cleared his throat. "Which category did, uh, Cypher fall into?"
"Neither. He was just -- I think he just lost it."
"To put it nicely," he said, jamming his hands in his pockets. Trinity didn’t say anything.
"So there’s a war here too," he said.
"In a way," Trinity said. "Sometimes this place feels more unreal than anything I’ve ever experienced."
Neo looked up. "That light feels almost natural."
"It’s supposed to be just like sunlight. But don’t worry, it can’t burn us."
Neo laughed
lightly. "That’s what I was wondering." He took her hand again and they
walked, and Trinity let herself feel a
certain comfort
that she’d only thought about. She almost approached euphoria a few times,
but pulled back at the last moment.
* * *
Whenever Neo
ate, he became sick. He apologized profusely because he was never quite
able to predict when and where he
might throw
up. "I’m so, so sorry," he told Trinity while he was bent over and retching
into a gutter. "This is awful, I know."
"It’s okay,"
she said. "It happened to all of us. The shock of eating solid food after
a lifetime of receiving things intravenously has
its downside.
And you never did have a strong stomach."
"I’m so sorry," he said again, wiping his mouth and standing up.
"Really, it’s alright." He amused her. He seemed so innocent about a lot of things -- it was rather touching. "Stop apologizing."
"The food here is disgusting. I don’t know why I eat it."
"I know," Trinity said. "I miss real bread and noodles, and not the imitations here made without milk or eggs or anything else."
"Yeah. I miss a lot of things, even though they weren't real." They began to walk again.
"Sub sandwiches," she suggested.
"Steak."
"Did you ever try BLT pizza? It’s a lot better than it sounds."
"You know,"
Neo said, "when I was in college, a friend of mine gave me a jug of this
liquid stuff called beefomato as a gag gift.
It was totally
disgusting at the time, but I bet I’d drink it now." He paused. "Well,
I don’t know if I’d drink it now -- it still
sounds pretty
disgusting, actually."
Trinity laughed, she couldn’t help it. "You don’t seem too sick anymore."
"I’d hold you
right now," he said quietly, "but I’m really revolting. I’ve been puking
all evening. You’ll have to forgive me for
that. Hey,
where are we?"
Trinity looked
up. She didn’t recognize any of the tenement houses that surrounded them.
The light had gone from Zion which
made it even
harder. "I -- I think we came from this way over here." They changed directions
and passed between two metallic
buildings.
"Well, maybe not."
"Are you saying you don’t know?" Neo smiled. He was clearly enjoying this unrehearsed bit of comedy.
Trinity wasn’t
as relaxed. Zion was a large place -- like Chicago. But virtual Chicago
was more familiar than this. "If we can find
the hovertrain
. . ."
"I haven’t seen it in a while," Neo said.
A group of
people stood on the corner, speaking in a different language. Trinity tried
asking directions, but they didn’t
understand.
"Shit," Trinity
muttered. She led them down a different passageway lined with old pieces
of scrap metal that formed uneven
buildings.
Don’t get excited, don’t let on that you don’t know where you are .
. .
"Hey!"
Trinity turned
around. A group of teenage boys stood at the mouth of the alley. They’d
been behind a heap of scrap metal so
she hadn’t
seen them before.
"What do are
you people doing?" a tall one asked. He had a slightly different accent
-- typical of English-speaking people who<
were born
and raised in Zion.
Another boy jumped down from the heap of scrap metal. "This is our patch. Take your coppertop selves somewhere else."
"What’s wrong
with this one?" A red-haired boy began to jab Neo. "Fuckin’ bald guy with
a plug so big it could hold eighty
krummens."
"Let’s get out of here," Trinity whispered to Neo. She took his arm and turned.
A stout boy
flanked them and the tall one obstructed their passage through the alley.
The tall one reached out and whipped Neo
across the
base of the skull. Neo took the blow and stumbled forward then danced around
to face the boy, still holding his hand
across the
back of his neck. Trinity could tell that he didn’t know how to react.
He looked to her. In the Matrix he was the One
-- but in
Zion he was simply another soldier at the mercy of gang violence.
The red head
stepped in front of Trinity. "Seen any real combat? Seen any real combat
like this?" He reached out to grab her
and she blocked
him, raising her leg and kicking him squarely in the abdomen. He doubled
over.
"Run Neo,"
she said, before taking a punch to her jaw. She reeled from the shock,
then came back to deck another boy. But
there were
too many of them, and strong through she was, this wasn’t the Matrix. She
was thrown against the metal siding of a
building before
collapsing to the ground, taking a series of kicks to the face and throat.
She felt despair for the first time in
weeks. What
was happening to Neo? Was he taking it as bad as she was?
"ZPA!" a loud voice bellowed. "Don’t move!"
The boys who
had been holding Neo let go and ran. Those who had been surrounding Trinity
retreated and were not chased by
the agents.
They’d get away with it, as always.
Trinity couldn’t
see anything, but she could tell that the agents were busy helping Neo.
Then they turned and bent over her. "This
is bad," one
of them said.
"I’m fine,"
she groaned, clenching her abdomen and trying not to shudder from the pain.
"What are you doing here?" She
squinted to
see their faces and realized they were the same agents who had been staked
out in front of Neo’s hospital room all
of those nights
ago. "Neo . . ."
"Trinity? Are
you okay?" Neo crouched down beside her, cupping her face with one hand.
"Jesus . . ." He found her hand and
squeezed it.
"I’m okay," she whispered. She stared at the men beyond Neo. "You were following us!"
"Your captain’s orders, ma’am," he said. Trinity tasted blood.
* * *
Back at the
military hostel, Morpheus was on the rampage and the target of his fury
was Trinity. "How could you?" he yelled,
shut in a
room alone with Trinity who was tending to a mess of cuts and bruises on
her face. "With everything you know . . .
how the hell
could you get yourself and Neo in such a volatile situation? Do you have
any idea what might have come of this?
Do you have
any idea what could have been lost?"
"You had us followed!" Trinity countered, her voice breaking.
"And it’s a
good thing, too! Jesus, this is something I would have expected from .
. . from someone else, someone young like
Mouse. How
. . ." His voice grew quieter but with no less seriousness. "How could
you be so irresponsible?"
"We just . . . got lost," she said faintly.
"You should have known better."
"It won’t happen again." Trinity bit her lip and turned away.
"You’re damn right it won’t." He got up and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
After what
seemed like a very long time, Trinity finally found the strength to leave
the room and stagger down the hall into her
own private
room. Neo was already there.
"Trinity, my
God . . ." he said, staring at her face. Her eye would be swollen shut
by the next day. "This shouldn’t have
happened --"
"It’s not your fault, Neo," she said flatly, avoiding his eyes at all costs.
"I think it is. You -- you were trying to protect me. It shouldn’t be that way. It should be the other way around --"
"Oh God, go to hell," she said. "I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You of all people."
"I’m the One," he said, as if that explained everything.
"You’re right,
you are," she said, trying to hide her face. "And the rest of us have to
be willing to do anything to keep you safe. I
let you down.
You were my responsibility and I failed --"
"Bullshit!" he said. "You think my life is worth more than yours?"
"Yes! What
do you think this is about? Of course your life is worth more than
mine. It’s worth more than all our lives put
together!
Why do you think Morpheus gave himself to that agent? And Tank waited to
use the EMP? You’re the One! You’re
our last
hope . . ."
Neo stepped back. Trinity could hear his ragged breathing. "That . . . that’s not . . ."
"I want to be alone," she said with her back toward him.
Neo didn’t move. "You’re shaking."
"I’m fine."
"You’re in terrible shape --"
"I’m fine, goddammit!"
Neo grew very
quiet. "Stop saying that," he whispered hoarsely. "You’re not fine. I’ve
never seen anyone farther from fine.
You’re not
telling me the truth. You owe me the truth."
Trinity’s shoulders
were shaking. It took her a few moments to realize that she was crying.
Neo came up from behind her and
put her arms
around her. She let him, slowly relaxing enough to turn around and wrap
her arms around his waist. Neo’s hands
fluttered
up to her shoulders and the back of her head. He whispered something. She
could feel him touch the ring at the back
of her neck
and clutch her more tightly.
Several minutes
later Trinity was sitting on the bed with Neo. She had let him take the
ice pack from her and hold it to her face.
Other than
that, she couldn’t do much of anything. "I’m numb," she said, holding onto
his arm.
"You’re not
numb," he said. "Numb people don’t cry for extended periods of time." He
massaged her shoulder. "I thought
maybe you
resented me."
"You? Why would I resent you?"
He sighed.
"The crew. I feel like . . ." He drew back, searching for the words. "I
feel like it was my fault. Like they died for me.
I guess they
did. I guess they did die for me. And . . . if I had done things differently
. . . like if I had paid more attention to the
oracle, perhaps
--"
"The same thing
would have happened anyway. Cypher wanted us dead. He would have killed
them anyway, if not then, then
later. It
was inevitable."
"Maybe," Neo said. He put his arm around Trinity’s waist. "You told me you loved me . . . how did you know?"
"I just did,"
she said with a reluctant smile, though her tears were stinging some of
the wounds on her face. "There wasn’t any
scientific
explanation about it. And I do love you. I’ll always love you, even if
you don’t love me back --"
"Trinity," Neo said, touching her chin. "I love you."
They curled
up together on the bed intending to go to sleep. Trinity held tightly to
Neo, afraid that everything was a dream,
another reality
from which she would be pulled out of, and Neo ruffled her hair and kissed
her softly. Then they were kissing
more frequently,
coming to grips with a need that suddenly seemed to run through them both.
They were lifting each other now,
holding each
other up and making love with an intensity that shocked them and bound
them together at the same time. And
Trinity, always
afraid that she might never really know anyone, realized that she had let
Neo reach a part of herself that she
never knew
existed.
* * *
The days that
followed were not easy ones. The council called for a special investigation
into Cypher’s last actions, and Trinity
had to testify
before a select assembly. Testimony was dragged out of her about Cypher’s
character and motives. After a
particularly
grueling day on the stand, Trinity came back to the hostel and collapsed.
"That asshole," she sobbed to Neo, not
quite knowing
if she meant Cypher or the council member who cross-examined her.
"Go ahead and cry," Neo said. "This is the only the time we’ll be able to afford to cry."
The case continued
and no one knew what was going to come of it. Eventually it became clear
that the council had no real
objective;
they were simply using the tragic deaths on the Nebuchadnezzar to fight
a political battle. It was a profane abuse of
the system.
"We’re leaving soon," Morpheus told his remaining crew members in a meeting one day. "They’ve got nothing to detain us."
"That’s a relief," Tank said. "I never thought I’d be so happy to get out of here."
But Trinity
felt like there was something missing. One day she ventured into Zion to
purchase new ship supplies. The
Nebuchadnezzar
had been repaired, but they lost many of the things they’d taken for granted.
As Trinity haggled over the price
of a new frequency
detector, she heard a shout go up and saw a dark blur sprint past her.
It was Nala.
"Nala!" she cried.
Nala turned
once but continued running down the next street. Trinity dropped everything
and ran after her. Minutes later she
found the
girl huddling in a doorway.
"Nala, come with me."
"I stole this," the girl said, holding out her hand to reveal an apple. "I won’t give it back."
"No, of course not," Trinity said. "But I want you to come with me."
"No. I hate you. You’ll turn me in. I won’t go with you." Her dark eyes glared up at Trinity.
"I won’t turn you in. I want to get you out of here. Don’t you want to get out of this place and do something for a change?"
Nala laughed humorlessly. "I’m happy where I am." She took a bite out of the apple.
"There she is!"
Trinity turned
to find a grocer heading for them. "Come on! Let’s get out of here!" She
pulled Nala to her feet and dragged her
down the street
and into the tunnel.
* * *
Trinity watched
as Nala slept in the military hospital. She was hooked up to an I.V. and
a few other things that were supposed
to get her
system back to normal and clean out all of the nasty substances. Nala slept
through everything, oblivious to the fact
that she was
being cared for by the people she once despised.
"Where’s Neo?" Morpheus asked as he approached the glass window.
"Oh, he’s with Tank," Trinity said.
"Good. I hope Tank’s teaching him how to maintain the ship engines."
Trinity smiled and glanced at Morpheus. "Oh, I think Tank’s giving him quite a time." They laughed a little.
"What’s going to become of her?" Morpheus asked, pointing at Nala.
"I don’t know,"
Trinity said, touching the glass. "They’ve got no programs to care for
people like this. As soon as they turn her
loose, she’ll
go back to the same things all over again." She shook her head.
Morpheus studied
Trinity and his mouth was set in a firm line. "I don’t think they’ll turn
her loose," he said carefully. "I think
she’s coming
with us. God knows we need her."
Trinity glanced
up skeptically. "Morpheus, are you sure? This girl has real problems .
. . and Jesus, we’ve had our fair share of
those."
Morpheus smiled.
"I don’t think she’ll be too much of a handful. She reminds me of you,
the way you had that glint of hostility in
your eyes.
The way you’d flinch if anyone came too close."
Trinity looked up, startled. Then she shook her head. "I forgot."
"I think we
forget most things about ourselves. It’s easy to remember things about
the others." He paused. "And besides, Tank
will grow
tired of Neo. He’ll need someone new to boss around."
Trinity’s heart felt light for a change.
"I’ve been hard on you," Morpheus remarked.
"You’re kidding, right?" Trinity said casually.
"It was wrong of me to have your followed without your knowing it," he said. "And I apologize for that."
Trinity nodded,
unsure of what to say or how to act. "I used to be the best. I was always
the best. At everything. Now
everything
is different and it’s better this way."
Morpheus squeezed her shoulder before walking away. "You might still be the best." Behind the glass Nala awoke.
* * *
When Nala awoke, she didn’t speak for a long time. She simply followed Trinity around the room with her eyes.
"Nala," Trinity said softly, "what happened to Temple?"
Nala’s weak answer came an hour later: "She died a week ago."
"In the sanatorium?"
She nodded.
Trinity went to see for herself if Nala was correct. She was not allowed
in the sanatorium, so she had to discuss
things with
a nurse through a narrow window. "Miss, we had the body burned after she
died. There’s nothing to see."
"Did she leave anything behind?"
"No." The nurse went to shut the small window.
"Wait," Trinity pleaded. "There was someone else here. From my crew. A girl named Harmony. Do you remember her?"
"No."
"Could you check to see if she left anything?"
The nurse frowned. "Miss, we don’t keep things around. It’s not good for the public health --"
"But this girl was a poet."
"It doesn’t make any difference," the nurse said. "We get rid of everything."
So that was
it. Trinity took comfort in the fact that she had Neo and a new crew member
to look after, and the fact that they
were finally
leaving Zion. What was supposed to take two weeks had lasted nearly a month.
A month away from the war. That
was the longest
Trinity had gone without being on a ship, or without being in the Matrix,
for that matter.
* * *
Another newbie
joined the ranks -- a pale freeborn named Link. He would be the new medic.
"Looks pretty sickly for a
medic," Tank
whispered to Trinity and Neo as they prepared to leave Zion. They all tittered
a little, but Trinity couldn’t help feel
a pang for
Dozer, who had been the absolute picture of perfect health.
And Nala wasn’t
really talking, but she seemed rather content with her private quarters.
She seemed for comfortable with the
crew. "You’re
a nice girl," Tank told her while she helped him run wires from deck to
deck.
"Shut up, fuckhead" she replied. "I hate you." It was fitting.
Trinity tried
not to let the noises of the old ship haunt her too much. Now she had Neo
to wake up with in the morning, his
warm breath
on her cheek and the back of her neck, his hands wrapping around hers,
moist and damp with a mixture of sweat.
Get the
ring. The ring was in sight. She could almost touch it.
One day Trinity
was clearing through some things in her old quarters when she came across
items that she hadn’t seen in a long
time. She
wasn’t even sure how they’d gotten placed in her quarters, but they stared
up at her from the pile and she handled
them reverently,
and felt something touch her deep inside. Mouse’s hat. Switch’s deck of
cards. Two books, probably either
Morpheus’s
or Harmony’s. One was an old, fading book about North American birds, and
the other was a tattered collection
of Chekhov’s
short stories.
Trinity didn’t
like to read because it seemed like a complete waste of time, and because
you couldn’t change a book the way
you could
change a computer program. But now she let her eyes skim the words and
take everything in. She liked one story in
particular,
for the end seemed rather poignant: And it seemed as though in a little
while the solution would be found, and
then a
new and glorious life would begin; and it was clear to both of them that
the end was still far off, and what was
to be the
most complicated and difficult for them was only just beginning.
* * *
They had been
in flight for a week when Morpheus, Link, Trinity and Neo were in the mess
hall together and Morpheus was
talking about
what they had to do now that they were getting back on track. "We
need at least two more members to have a
complete crew,"
he said. "They’re going to have to come from the Matrix. This is the first
thing that needs to be done."
A loud voice came from the hallway. "No I won’t! You can’t make me!"
Link chuckled. "They’re fighting again."
"I’m not doing anything to you!" Tank shouted.
"You’re sick, really sick! You know that?" came Nala’s voice.
Morpheus sighed and closed his eyes. "Who’s on duty?"
"Nala’s supposed to be," Neo replied. "But I can take her shift."
Morpheus shook
his head. "I almost forgot how wonderful it is to have young people on
this ship. How could I have missed
this?" He
left to break up the fight.
Link smiled shyly at Trinity and Neo. Then he got up and left, which Trinity thought was awfully considerate of him.
"There’s a lot we have to do," Trinity said to Neo. "Starting with the extra shift you just picked up."
"You’ll have to show me how to take it all on and retain some sanity."
"Oh believe me, this is just the beginning," she said.
Neo got up
and accidentally knocked Trinity’s book from the table, sending loose pages
fluttering about the room like a soft
explosion.
"Oh my God, I’m sorry."
Trinity laughed
and they both bent over to collect the scattered pages. "How will we ever
get these in order again? Boy, it’s
useless."
"Wait -- what’s
this?" Neo was bent over. He flipped something over in his hand that had
fallen from the book and landed near
his boot.
It was a photograph. "Trinity?"
"What?" She got up and crouched beside him, draping an arm around his back and threading her other arm through his.
"This is -- it’s --"
Trinity inhaled
slowly. The photograph was about ten years old. The whole crew was there,
but mostly a different crew, a crew
that was long
gone. The photograph was an official one, probably taken for record purposes
in Zion, and what it was doing
nestled in
the book was a mystery.
Morpheus was
the same, his staunch attitude reflected in the photograph. Tank was so
young and innocent and grinning off to
the side.
Trinity recognized the other crew members -- they stared solemnly into
the camera with age-old expressions of longing
and candor.
They believed they were doing the right thing, and none of them had expected
to die that day or the next day or the
week or month
after that. This was before Switch and Apoc came, before Mouse -- even
before Cypher. And she recognized
all these
people, could hear their voices calling to her in the corridor and fading
quietly with the roar of the engine.
And there she
was, with the same stoic demeanor as the others, her eyes catching the
camera with a mischievous light. You’re
the best,
he’d told her, and she believed him and she lasted. She had lived.
"My God," Neo said in a choked whisper. His eyes, wet and astonished, met Trinity’s. "That -- that’s --"
"Yes Neo,"
Trinity said. "My God, I know."
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