Disclamer: Yeah, yeah. I don't own the Matrix. Don't sue my poor broke ass off, please.

Author's Note: Matrix fic, with me own sweet li'l OC, whom I am told is not a Mary Sue. Smith's alive, the how part is indeed coming up, not to worry. Everything else remains pretty much intact. Ah, what else? Just an idea I had with my Son-of-Ether-to-be and the Matrix. Different ship and crew are featured, by the by. Be merciful, as other than the digital world, it exists only in the scrawlings of my battered Chemistry notebook.

Oh, a few things you might wanna know about Marie: she fixes motorcycles and writes for academic journals for a meager living, and she's got the spirit of T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia, to the layperson) in her head. If you read past that, (and please do, I'll try an' make it worth your while) enjoy, and kindly review, please.

Thanks must be offered to Jules, my right-hand fox, Inity, for backing me up, and the Divine Miss PL, without whom this would have died a long time ago. Also to Tanathir, who roused my seldom-seen competitive side.

I know it's silly for a fan-fic to have a dedication, but if this ever actually gets finished... For my father. I love you, Daddy, and I miss you.

Also: I'm thinking of compiling this sucker into one mega-chapter when I'm done with it. What says ya'll?




Sons of Thunder, Daughters of Ether

Trinity sighed, rubbing gingerly at her eyes. The Nebuchanezzar hummed and whirred around her, almost subliminally, the kind of constant white noise that was beginning to creep into her dreams... She'd been watching this damn code all shift, and it was starting to all look the same. The beaten leather chair creaked and groaned beneath her as she leaned back, cracking her vertebrae like a ratchet.

There wasn't much happening in the Matrix construct of Independence, Missouri. But something nagged at her about this late-high-school-to-early-college girl, as she watched. Morpheus had noticed her first, claiming that she might be able to see things. "Certainly not in the way Neo does, or even you or I do. But I believe she might be onto something." She'd been wary, Tank had eagerly accepted the idea of a possible new crewmate, while Neo had merely nodded.

He'd been right, of course. Always was.

And now... Oh. Oh, SHIT!

"Guys! Get your damn asses up here! The girl's got company!" She hollered over her shoulder. There was silence, momentarily, then the scuffle and clang of commotion, and they were huddled around her, yawning and bleary-eyed.

"What? What is it?" Neo's voice, still sleep-slurred.

Trinity spoke one chill word, a word that snapped them to wakefulness and sobriety.

"Smith..."

Marie Lawrence, Eyes-of-Lawrence to her friends and associates, cursed. Loudly.

~Not very lady-like, Marie,~ Ned chuckled in the hollows of her mind. T. E. Lawrence. The calm voice of sanity and reason she'd lived with every moment since she was... what? Six? Seven? Yes, that was it, seven... How it happened, she wasn't sure, it was an accepted fact of life... Plus, this wasn't a very good time for contemplation.

"Blow it out your ass, Ned," she hissed, under the Boanerges' roar. The mighty SS 100 Brough Superior (~Although it's more like SS 320, with what I've done to it,~ thought the girl,) was hauling major ass through the grungy back-alleys of Independence. She didn't understand it. She'd been weaving and threading through this veritable labyrinth, at mind-shattering, suicidal speeds, and still the goddamn Feds in their goddamn black Lincoln were about to chomp on her goddamn tailpipe with their goddamn grille.

~So you're thinking that sneaking into the "office building" might have been a bad idea?~

"Shut up, old man," Marie grumbled, flinching as a bullet zinged by her riding goggles. She gritted her teeth. They were gaining... "Blaze of glory, I suppose..." Hell, there were worse ways to go.

She gunned the engine viciously, and it roared like a wounded tiger as she reared upward with a savage jerk, the buildings around her a complete blur. For a single weightless moment, the human and machine were one, time warping into Zen-like stillness as her black woolen coattails snapped and fluttered in the wind.

Time returned to it's normal state as the tires whumped onto the battered pavement, sending a shock all through the bike, Marie's jaw snapping shut with a painful click. Loose gravel, rocks, and shards of glass sped through the air as the tires squealed for purchase, banking and swerving impossibly, the tires spinning with an undulating, sandpapery hiss. It sounded like the death-rattle of a viper, and for one marrow-freezing moment, Eyes thought she'd lost the bike completely, that what gray matter she had was going to be strewn across the slick pavement, body broken by the impact, and shattered further by the following bullets.

At the last possible millisecond, steel reacted to sinew while her storm-blue eyes were counting individual cracks in the oncoming asphalt. The Boanerges jerked upright, and stormed down the alleyway like the child of thunder that it was named for.

In fact, it wasn't until two blocks later that her mind processed the Lincoln's own tell-tale signs of a less fortunate spin-out. Ned murmured some smart-assed comment or another about how it took her long enough as she crowed her triumph to the stars, slipping safely into the sheltering arms of the city night.

Agent Smith slammed the mangled car door shut with a growl. "You're sure she's still plugged in?" The streetlights glinted malevolently off of his sunglasses, the cold neon and smooth chrome shining in chill mechanic perfection as their owner glared down the slick, narrow alleyway.

"Yes," Agent Jones said, surveying the wreck of the Lincoln. "It would be a simple matter to dispose of her. We're already running a search for her location."

Smith 'breathed' in. (Breathe. Was there such a thing as breath?) Wet asphalt, motorcycle and car exhaust, garbage, the ever-present human reek.....

--And something Else.

Just a whisper, a gossamer thread of scent, as soon gone as touched, but there. Undeniably there. It was... fresh. It didn't saturate him, almost seemed to brush away the stench of humanity that clung to him constantly, binding his senses in overwhelming disgust. It was... ozone and incense, motor oil and old books. Musty and vibrant all at once. Intoxicating.

"Sir? Are we to terminate the girl?"

"No..." It was faint, as he returned from that particular tract of data. Firmer, then. "No. This one interests me." Why? He assessed it with electrical speed. "She could be bait for the resistance."

Jones nodded as Smith stalked off. He shook his head behind his superior's back. Smith was getting more and more erratic by the day...