Everything in the Matrix trilogy belongs to the Wachowski Brothers. I'm just ad libbing.
Morithil.
OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR. I .
CLOSER
Objects in the mirror are always closer than they appear.
Trinity half smiled quietly to herself. That was the epitaph always printed on those clear stickers that you got on the mirrors of new cars, sometimes bikes.
She was tensed on top of a bike at this moment. She had pulled up outside the government building where they'd taken him. Oh Neo, she thought absently, why didn't you just get on that platform like Morpheus had told you to? I would have been there to meet you at the foot of the building, back on ground level. You would have made it.
She could only imagine what the interrogation had been like. Based on the rumours and facts that all rebels had heard, she didn't want to dwell on the thought.
Focus, Trinity.
The doors swung open and there he was, looking dishevelled and not a little dazed, the effects of the interrogation plastered all over his ashen face. He looked pale, alarmed and as the agents strong-armed him to the waiting car, almost childlike, naïvety shining out from those big brown eyes.
Yes, she liked watching him. She wasn't sure it would be possible to grow tired of watching him.
The thick shock of dark hair, that tall, slightly awkward figure made so because of the ill-fitting suit he had reluctantly worn to the job he hated that morning. If ever there was a hacker completely disenchanted with his life and the world around him, it was Neo. Sometimes while she was monitoring his movements he'd get that vague, faraway look in his eyes, searching for something he didn't know the name of. More than Morpheus. More than the truth. Perhaps he was lonely. She'd never seen him in company unless at work or extracurricular business with less than savoury clients. She'd been the same, except she had masked her feelings with an expression of silent cynicism and feigned ignorance of the world around her. Perhaps Neo was lonely.
Listen to yourself, Trinity. You're beginning to sound like a romantic. What would Switch say? You'd never hear the end of it. Trinity? A romantic? The only things she ever shows affection for are the mention of Zion and those goddamn bikes she's hooked on riding.
Nothing like a powerful engine and the open road.
Trinity stiffened slightly as the doors to the car were opened, and clumsily, the agents began to force Neo inside, pushing his head down to fit his tall frame inside the vehicle. One of them stopped.
She assumed he was the superior of the group of sentient programmes, judging this only by the fact that he wasn't assisting the others in cramming Neo into the sedan, and the grimly authoritative stature he commanded. The agent stopped before the car and his head turned smoothly, like well oiled mechanism towards where she was parked, her back to him.
His face in the small side mirror of the bike.
She paused for a moment, studying the reflection in the circular mirror. Afterwards, she would berate herself for allowing the notion to come into her head, but somehow a small part of her remained convinced it was true.
Something had passed between them, her and the agent, in that single look. Staring at his reflection she saw the dull, hard truth. She saw a machine, a programme, designed to bring down what was left of humanity with a faint idea of satisfaction. Trinity saw a form of intelligence that was as deadly as it was remarkable. Yet - in that look the agent had thrown her, there had been a glimpse of a promise. As long as there were machines humans would be hunted. As long as there were machines humans would prevail against them. The battle was far from over, but there was light at the end of that distant tunnel. All this and more Trinity felt echo in her brain as if the agent had spoken the words out loud. Somehow he had promised that Neo too would be fine, although this went hand in hand with the resolution that this agent would stop at nothing to bring him down.
Morpheus believes Neo is the One. He needs my help, Trinity thought, and my help is what he'll get.
That look had bizarrely brought them closer. Maybe both sides of this war were struggling. When he remained gazing at her, she cursed her slowness and flicked up the stand to pull away, the engine beneath her starting with a comforting growl.
He stared with an empty expression, but behind those dark glasses Trinity could feel the electronic connections in his system firing up and glaring at her as if he knew exactly what she was up to.
Goddammit, he knew.
"Shit".
She rode off, having been nearer to an agent than she'd ever wanted to be, the marketed phrase running through her head as she left the scene. No amount of, "Focus, Trinity"s were going to get rid of it for a while.
Objects in the mirror are always closer than they appear.
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