AN: Hiya everyone! Welcome to the semi-sorta-sequel to the misadventure known as "On Fairy's Wings." I'm sure you can read this story on its own, without having read "On Fairy's Wings." The aforementioned story is, mostly, the back story to this misadventure. If you enjoy this story, please, feel free to read it though! Anyway, I promise that this story will have more misadventures in and out of the Matrix as well as some changes in the romance aspect of the story. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys this little misadventure of mine. Please, please, please, feel free to leave me a review! I appreciate any suggestions or criticisms from anyone out there. I'm always looking to improve on what I write, especially on the romance aspect of this little story. It sort of crept in there and made itself at home so I'm not too sure about it. By the by, a great big thanks to everyone who read "On Fairy's Wings" and to everyone who reviewed it! All of you rock like a box of sock!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own The Matrix, The Animatrix, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"That's me in the corner
That's me in the spotlight…" (from "Losing my Religion" by R.E.M.)

Close to her nineteenth birthday- Her birthday in the Matrix and not in the Real World- the young female rebel felt she might have been one of the luckier people in Zion's military fleet. She worked on the Nebuchadnezzar under the famous, or infamous depending on who you were talking to, Captain Morpheus. She trained with individuals like Trinity, Apoc, and Switch. Her practical medical training was nearly done with and she always had enough work to keep her busy.

When not on her ship, when she was back in Zion, the young woman had something like a family. There was the family that had adopted her when she was first freed from the Matrix. The family that had told her she was always welcomed in their home- or what passed for a home in Zion- no matter what was going on.

The young woman also had a family made up of her friends. Once upon a time, she might have called them allies but now they were her friends. They being, Aisling and her twin brother Adoh, Ngaio, and Chian. Then, of course, there was Wheeler. Wheeler was something like her best friend since they had a past from their days in the Matrix.

She didn't get to see either family as often as she liked, though, because they were all working in one way or another. She'd spoken to Wheeler a handful of times and that had helped her a bit. Still, she missed seeing them face to face.

Not that she ever regretted taking the job she had. No, the young woman greatly enjoyed her position on the Nebuchadnezzar. She felt like she was giving back in some small way. Helping people in the same why she'd been helped just after her fifteenth birthday.

More importantly, the young woman had gone into and out of the Matrix several times and had yet to run into an Agent of the system. She'd been chased by the police quite a few times but she'd never run into an agent.

As with nearly everything else in her world, the young woman had several working theories as to why she'd never run into an agent. Mostly she suspected that she wasn't really worth their times. Yes she knew that her being a freed mind and wandering through the Matrix made her a target but she wasn't on the same level as the Morpheuses and Trinities of the Real World.

If anything, she had been a small time hacker now working among a bunch of big names. A very small fish in a very large pond so to speak.

The young woman sat in the dusty basement of a once busy dance studio. The basement must have been some kind of office area because framed pictures of famous tap dancers stared at her from their spots on the walls. The images were yellow with time and age, dust covered and blurry in some places.

Actually there was a layer of dust on everything, settling on the boxes that were now being stored in the former dance studio and on the young woman sitting in the dark space. Her waist length braid was almost as dusty as everything else in the room. Boxes were piled to the low ceiling with only a small path cut through them. It was that small path that the young woman had used to get to her seat.

Tucked into a niche in the wall, was a wide desk. The desk had once been white but now it was grey with dust. The computer- the only new item in the room- sat in the center of the wide desk. It cast a sickly glow on the young woman and illuminated a vase of long dead roses that were on the desk.

The flowers gave the young woman the creeping willies, actually. More than the dark or the loneliness of the space around her.

It was difficult to even pick out the young woman sitting in the battered, rusty chair at the desk. She, herself, was like a shadowy wraith, dressed all in inky black. In a sort of ironic way, she was dressed in a flat black bodysuit with a high collar and a unitard that zipped up the front. It fit tight to her body but flared out at the legs, slightly covering the black boots she wore on her feet. Over her clothing, she wore a small leather jacket with several pockets.

A phone trilled in one of her pockets, breaking up the oppressive silence in the room and making the young woman jump. She hadn't expected the phone to ring so suddenly. If anything, she figured she was going to have to call in to let them know where she was and what was going on.

"Pixie," the young woman stated as she answered the ringing phone, confirming her identity even though she knew the people on the other end of the line knew who she was.

"I know you want to stay in but I'm reading some serious police activity around you," the tiny voice of Tank said, "Morpheus wants you to get going, Pixie."

"But I just told Eurisko I'd meet him," Pixie protested, a small hint of whining in her voice.

Eurisko- a twenty year old young man- was one of the many people being monitored just in case he started asking the right questions. For some strange reason, no matter who he spoke to, Eurisko was asking the right questions but looking for the wrong answers. That was until he started talking to a young, just starting out hacker calling herself "Shieldmaiden."

Of course, the young hacker was not starting out. If anything she knew more than Eurisko did about the nature of the Real World and the Matrix. "Shieldmaiden" was Pixie in disguise, speaking to Eurisko with a fake name in order to protect herself and the young man she was trying to guide.

Whatever Pixie had told the boy, it seemed to work wonders. All of a sudden, he was asking the right questions and looking for the answers in all the right places. Pixie had been told to try and get the boy to Morpheus so he could make the decision each and every one of the Free Minds in Zion had made.

She guessed that the decision would have to wait for another time. Morpheus wanted her back on the ship, in the relative safety of the craft she called home.

"Don't worry, Morpheus is working on that. You'd better get going, though. Your area is crawling with cops. Exit's on 21st and Crescent, old school office," Tank informed the young woman.

The line went dead, clicking off before Pixie could say anything else. In a paranoid sort of way, the young woman glanced around the room. It was almost as if she expected something to jump out of the shadows at her, arresting her or worse. When the room proved to be empty, she took off running through the maze of dust covered boxes.

Her booted feet retraced the steps she'd taken to enter the room, leaving a confusing muddle of prints on the dusty ground. Anyone who came in would know someone had been here and had left from the same place. Pixie made a mental note to tell Morpheus to let the rest of the fleet know to stay away from that particular place for a good long while.

Pixie kept running, darting here and there to get away from patrolling police officers. Though she was well aware of the fact that the shortest distance between two places was a straight line, the medic-in-training decided to take the more circuitous route to the exit. Her mind was focused on getting around the officers, outwitting and out smarting them so she could get back to her ship

The young woman knew she'd have to ask Morpheus what they were their next step was. There was still Eurisko to help out. They couldn't just leave him moldering in the Matrix now. They were committed to, at least, giving him the choice to get out now.

The address Tank had given the young woman belonged to an old school building. Like the dance studio, and many other things in this area, this school had closed its doors and sat in disuse and disrepair. Its red brick walls were lost under many coats of graffiti. Swear words and grotesque images covered the walls of the former institute of education.

Oddly enough and much to Pixie's surprise, old school was locked up tighter than a prison. The front door was chained shut, padlocked closed with a very formidable looking lock. She half expected the place to be wide open like the former dance studio she'd been working in.

There was no way for her to break the lock short of trying to shooting it off. Pixie wasn't fond of that idea. The noise it would make could bring the police down faster than she could jack out.

It seemed rather strange that Tank would send her to a land line in a place she couldn't enter. That defeated the whole purpose of sending her to such a place. Tank was rarely wrong when it came to locations so she couldn't chalk up her being sent here by accident.

This was where she was supposed to be. She just had to figure out how to get into the building before the police officers found her first.

"I need a way in. I need a way in," she mumbled, speaking to herself and glancing around the building for some inspiration.

Part of Pixie wished there was a flashing sign with the words "Enter Here" and an arrow pointing to a way in. Of course, that…flashy…sort of sign was not something conductive to the secrecy under which Zion's military fleet worked. That was a bit too glaringly obvious thus making it extremely dangerous.

Something like that was like a writing an invitation for an Agent to come pay a visit. Since defeating an Agent was a distinct impossibility for anyone in the rebellion- except for the person known as the "One" but he hadn't been found yet, according to Morpheus- that wasn't something you wanted to do. It was better to try and find other ways to get around the Agents that patrolled the Matrix.

As she fretted and tried to find a way into the building, something caught Pixie's brandy brown eyes. Generally, and like everyone else who went into and out of the Matrix, she wore sunglasses when in the Matrix but it was the dark of night so the shades were a bit superfluous. In all actuality, they were more of a hindrance at night than anything else.

Walking a few steps, Pixie noticed that the streetlight glinted off of the glass panes of a side door. With a half resigned sigh, Pixie pulled out her twin side arms and trotted over to the door. One of the panes of glass had been broken and the door jimmied open making it easy for Pixie to get into the building.

The medic-in-training wanted to smack herself upside the head for not noticing that fact sooner. This was the entrance Tank meant when he gave her the address. Pixie pushed the door open, leaning into it with one of her boney shoulders. It opened with a soft creak, the moan of a door jamb that had seen much use and was wearing out.

Pixie entered the building, broken glass crunching under her feet. The door shut behind her with a muted click, sending a chill through her. It was dark in the once school, but the young woman could make out several stairwells and doorways.

From what Pixie could tell, she was on the first floor of the building. Someplace on this floor was an office and, in that office, a telephone. At least she hoped that was the case.

"This is way too easy," the young woman mumbled as her eyes glanced around her desolate surroundings and ears listened for the tell-tale sound of a ringing phone.

It took a moment but Pixie, finally, heard one of the best sounds in the world. In her opinion, anyway.

The shrill sound of a ringing phone, loudly, split the air. The fact it was so loud was a sign indicating that it wasn't all that far off. A smile crossed Pixie's face at the closeness of the sound. If she made a break for it, threw caution to the wind, she could be home before she knew it.

Pixie was preparing to run when another sound intruded Pixie's little world, covering up the welcome ringing of the phone. This sound was different and distinctly unwelcome under the circumstances. It sounded like boots, boots marching along the glass and debris littered floor.

"This isn't good," Pixie mumbled, around an almost sad sounding sigh, "not good at all."

She watched, waiting with baited breath to see what was walking along the building. Almost of their own accord, the young woman's hands reached into her jacket and removed the weapons- twin hand guns, one for each hand- she carried with her.

Pixie had a strong dislike for firearms but she knew she had to carry them for her own safety. She even knew how to use them, thanks to a few downloads and lessons on her ship, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

The young woman crouched in the darkness, hoping that she was just shadowy enough so that the owner of the boots passed her by. She was fairly shaking by the time the owner of the boots swung his flashlight in her direction. She averted her eyes as the bright beam caught her square on in the face.

Pixie frowned, sighing deeply. She knew she was in trouble. Very, very big trouble. More trouble than she'd ever been in because there was no one here to back her up. The young woman was well and truly alone and stuck.

"Hold it right there, kid. This is private property, you're not supposed to be here," overweight security guard informed Pixie, in a rather harsh tone.

The guard, a former police officer who had left the police force after a fight with a superior, had been assigned to watching the abandoned building, after a series of break-ins. Several incidents of darkly dressed figures moving into and out of the building had been reported by nearly everyone in the surrounding homes.

Since the building wasn't in the best part of the neighborhood, the calls went unheeded for a very long time. Attention was finally paid to it when it was discovered the upper floors of the building were being used by a local gang of street thugs. Now there was someone patrolling the building every night.

The officer looked like he was about to say something else but a surprised look crossed his face. He'd spotted the weapons the young girl held in her hands.

"Drop your weapons, kid. I'm not going to hurt you," the officer ordered, his tone now soft and almost placating.

He really didn't want any trouble and Pixie was more than willing not to give him any. He could try to arrest her but the medic-in-training figured she could just knock him out, rendering him temporarily unconscious and get to the phone that was still ringing in the distance.

Pixie, slowly, put her weapons down, showing the officer than her hands were empty. It was her way of assuring him that she was absolutely no threat whatsoever. She didn't want any trouble….really.

Then something strange but, at the same time frighteningly fascinating, began to happen. Like melting wax, the security guard's face and body began to change. Navy blue uniform was, ever so slowly, replaced with a black and white suit.

It took all of a moment for Pixie to recognize what was happening to the poor man. The security guard was turning into an Agent. His body was being taken over by one of the sentient programs that protected the Matrix and he was becoming something each and every member of the Resistance feared.

Thinking fast and acting on instincts she didn't even know she had, Pixie reached down and snapped up one of her weapons. Twice she fired in rapid succession before the transformation could be completed. The security guard, now back in his regular uniform, fell to the ground with a sickening thud. The same sort of thud was made by Pixie's stomach as it seemed to his the ground.

Fear and adrenaline driving her- two very powerful motivators to say the least- Pixie darted in the general direction of the sound of the telephone. She wasn't even really aware of what she was doing as badly shaking hand lifted the receiver to her ear.

The receiver fell to the ground a moment later, the plaintive wail of the dial tone echoing throughout the building.

AN: I thought some of you might be interested in the meanings behind some of the names I used in this and in "On Fairy's Wings." There are only a few I won't give you meanings for because, well, that'll spoil things later. Anywho, here are some of the names and their meanings (and places of origin).

Aisling-"dream" or "vision" in Irish Gaelic

Adoh- a variation on the name Aodh, which means "fire" in old Irish

Ngaio- "clever" in Maori

Conall- "strong wolf" in Gaelic

Eurisko- "I discover things" in Greek