The MATRIX: The One

4 - Peeta falls down the rabbit hole

Peeta POV


What the hell am I doing?

"We're not prepared for a hijacking, Katniss," the older man with the eyeglasses and smartly trimmed goatee warns her in a mild whisper.

"Well, get prepared, Beetee. He's coming with us."

"A baker, huh?" This comment comes from a smirking woman in a blue halter top and white jeans that look to be painted on. Her sharp gaze slides over Katniss' flour-smudged front before she scans my apron with a smug grin. I decide I won't be intimidated. She's just trying to get a reaction from me.

I give her a friendly smile. "Yup. I'm a baker."

"That's gonna be one helluva transferable skill."

"Shut it, Jo."

The sound of a cell phone being snapped closed puts a halt to the debate. "I'm Finnick," the tall, bronze-haired man says, rounding out the haphazard introductions. "And this isn't the way we normally do things, but hey – Katniss likes to keep us all on our toes." He gives her a look that practically screams the promise of very heavy words being exchanged later, but she isn't phased.

Katniss glares at the nearest window, looking irritated and impatient. I redirect my attention before she turns that scowl on me. Unfortunately, the rest of the scenery leaves doesn't add up to much. The room is large with a high ceiling from which rotting and torn wallpaper drips. At the edges of the moth-eaten and dust-saturated drapes, I can just barely see daylight licking at the fabric. The winding stairwell had creaked alarmingly with every step we'd taken on the way up here. The pitter-patter of little rodent feet had fled the sound of our footsteps. I am certain this building is condemned. I really hope I don't end up dying in here.

God, what have I done?

You've just thrown your life away for a girl you barely know. Again.

Well. At least it's the same girl. I'm consistent, so that counts for something… right?

A phone rings in the other room.

Finnick nods toward a set of closed doors. The hinges are rusty and paint is peeling from its warped surface. "Beetee, if you would?"

"Of course. Won't be a moment." The bespectacled man heads for the room beyond to answer the call.

Although she isn't looking at me, Katniss shifts a little closer. My hand twitches. Would she have grasped it if we were alone right now?

Jo grins gleefully. "Relax, Kat. If they had a lock on your baker boy, they would have come through already."

"Come through?" I echo.

Katniss shoots Jo a deadly glare.

"Johanna," Finnick sing-songs. "You're not trying to jinx our new friend, are you? That's not very nice."

"Since when am I nice?" she retorts with amusement.

"Only in my most unsettling nightmares," he jovially admits. A sound from the other side of the doors widens the smile on Finnick's face. "Ah. I believe our delivery has just arrived."

Delivery?

I feel myself frowning in Katniss' direction. She frowns back but not in confusion like me. "What is it?" I ask.

"Don't expect this to make any sense right now."

I snort out a laugh. "So I should just assume all this is some kind of weird dream I'm going to wake up from in the morning?"

Her lips twitch. The woman named Jo throws back her head and cackles. Finnick slaps me on the shoulder as he saunters into the room Beetee had entered not two minutes earlier.

"Something like that," Katniss finally says. When she gestures for me to follow, I need to take a moment to settle my nerves so I don't fall flat on my face. I also need a moment for other reasons.

I can't believe I'm doing this.

I can't believe I'm seeing her again, that I finally know her name, that she'd kissed me.

Oh, God what a kiss.

I can't believe I'm leaving behind my dad's bakery, my brothers, my nephew and niece. But they don't need me and Katniss does. She's the only one who ever has. I remember each and every time our gazes had locked over the sound of my lunch money – usually quarters – chiming and clinking into the bottom of the careworn guitar case. I remember the wide-eyed look of fear on her face as the lights-roar-inevitable had thundered down on us. She's the only one who has ever seen me.

Are you seriously doing this because of a pair of big, grey eyes?

I let Katniss guide me to some kind of vintage dentist's chair in the midst of odd gadgets and gizmos that seem ridiculously out of place in this dilapidated building. I take a seat.

I guess so.

"Katniss?" God, that had almost been a whimper. "Did you do this once?"

"Yes," she answers bluntly, distractedly accepting something from Finnick, something small enough to be concealed in the palm of her slender hand. "You'll be fine, Peeta. I'll look after you."

I nod to cover up the helpless shiver. I can't hide the goose bumps on my arms, though. Katniss perches on the edge of the chair beside my hip and holds out two pills – a blue and red – one in each hand. That's what Finnick had passed to her. "You have to choose. Take the blue pill and, um, you can go back to your life here."

However long that lasts. I haven't forgotten that I'd been scheduled for disposal. I have no idea how she'd known something like that, but she honestly believes it's true. She is genuinely frightened for me; I can see it. And I can't think of a single reason for why this girl – woman – would lie to me.

I could still take my chances but… I'll never see her again. She'll go back to haunting my dreams and nightmares and after all these years – after seeing her in the flesh at last – there's no way I can go back to that. There's no way I can be content with not knowing what might have been.

She's asking me to make a choice. I'd made it the moment I'd looked into her eyes.

"And the red pill?"

She gives me a soft smile. "The red one will show you the truth."

"And I'll be with you," I check.

"Yes."

I pluck the red pill from her palm and pop it into my mouth. Jo – Johanna – offers me a glass of water. I sniff it cautiously, glancing at her and receiving an amused look, before chugging it. My hand shakes when I lower it. Trembles. Katniss grabs the glass before I can drop it. She sets it aside and laces our fingers together.

"Focus on the sound of my voice," Katniss softly murmurs.

Johanna leans over me, pressing an electrode to the skin over my jugular vein and taping it in place. Behind her, Finnick is talking on the phone and Beetee is typing on a computer, fiddling with some kind of game controller. I tune them out. I close my eyes. In my self-imposed darkness, I notice a chill which dances and twirls through my veins, starting out in my wrists and spinning outward. My brows draw together. "I feel cold."

"That's right. Cold. It's fine. You'll be fine." I sigh into the feel of her fingers combing through my hair. "We'll find you."

Find me? But I'm right— I gasp as my entire body shudders. Violently. My eyelids fly open. "Shit!"

"Listen to me, Peeta. I'm right here. Like that morning in the subway. You remember? You grabbed my hand and wouldn't let go—"

I remember. I remember a girl's scream. I remember a crowd, pushing and shoving – too many people on the platform. Men in suits and dark sunglasses wrestling her father (uncle?) to the ground. Katniss' small face, stricken and pale. Her father's scream-shout-plea—

"Go! Run! Get out of here!"

She scrambles backward. Trips. Disappears over the edge of the platform and onto the tracks.

I dive after her, battling through the throng. Swimming against the tide. My backpack catching on elbows. The press of bodies resisting my forward momentum, holding me back. And then, finally, the edge.

"Here, take my hand!"

She can't reach me. She's just a girl. I'm just a boy. Our arms are too short. And then: the lights of an oncoming train.

I jump down onto the tracks with her. No time to find a place to hide. I push her to the concrete, cover her, tuck her underneath me. She's not as small as I'd thought. We're both gonna die. Our fingers tangle together.

"I'm not letting go!"

The blare of the train horn.

The thunder of the wheels.

Noise collides with darkness. Life and death explode above me and then—

Nothing.

No, not nothing. It's cold. It's wet. Can't breathe. What? Where—?

"Katniss!"

I mean to shout. I choke on water instead.

And then the warped metal of the subway train undercarriage wraps around me. Pulls me through the cold, the wet, the dark. A light above. A hum – an engine? And then a voice.

I don't understand the words, but I know this voice. I know it down to my bones.

"Katniss," I croak, searching frantically for her, fighting how weak I feel, struggling to blink the blurriness from my eyes. "Katniss…"

The voice comes again. Closer. A touch. So warm. Burning. Or maybe I'm cold. Shivering. A hand cradles my face. Another clutches my fingers.

"Peeta." The sound of my name. The syllables are warped and strange, but I know her voice. I know this olive-skinned form and dark hair. I still can't bring her indistinct features into focus, but I know her. "I'm here, Peeta. I'm here…"

I try to hold onto her hand as the world slips away.


If you're a tad confused...

Beetee leaves the room and answers the phone so he can re-enter the Matrix (all entrances and exits are done via a telephone land line) with the supplies they need, which come from the Construct. More on the Construct later when Katniss explains the system to Peeta. Right now we just have Peeta's POV so everything seems completely random and WTF.

Johanna's comment about someone "having a lock" on Peeta and "coming through" is a reference to agents. Again, more on this later. Side note: the threat of an agent "popping in" why everything's kinda awkward/tense when Katniss shows up with Peeta out of the blue.

When Peeta thinks he feels the "undercarriage of the train" wrap around him and lift him up, it's actually a retrieval mechanism (i.e., hand-grabby thing) from the hovercraft Finnick captains. Peeta has never used his real eyes or ears, so his perceptions of his rescue are completely warped. And, yup, you guessed it, more on this later, too.


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