The Matrix Linked: A Matrix Fanfiction Story

Chapter 9:

A minute later, in the 2.0 Matrix…

Morpheus with a scabbed over shoulder injury, Neo, and Tara are flying over the white clouds of the city below, slightly manipulating the Matrix code around them to keep their momentum and slow breathing going. Everything is quiet, until some police helicopters below them show up. Morpheus figures, "that's our target." He points to one of the noisy black police helicopters.

Neo realizes with a sigh, "I know what you're up to. It's too dangerous, Morpheus!"

Morpheus reasons, "the only way to track an Administrator is to provide a tempting target to an Agent. You'll both trace the call and follow its trail of code…while I make it look like I'm acting alone."

Tara figures, "sounds like a plan to me."

Neo turns to her, "what?!"

Trinity assures them over comlink, "damn it, Neo! You're still over a telephone at 1^06-5^23-4^21-7^16-8^05-0^14."

Neo sighs, "fine. But at the first sign of trouble…"

Trinity insists over comlink, "we'll bring Morpheus back. Besides, I thought you hate him now."

Neo points out, "doesn't mean I want him to die!"

Morpheus mutters dryly over comlink, "Trinity! Now isn't the time to be picking on the One."

Trinity sighs, "sorry. Just be careful."

Morpheus responds, "we will. Let's do it!"

Tara suggests enthusiastically, "who's got time to be careful? We're kicking Agent ass!"

Trinity mutters over comlink, "as if we didn't have enough problems." Tara and Neo fly away from the nearest helicopter, which Morpheus flies into by charging through the police helicopter's windshield with his arms around his head in frozen time to lessen the impact on his body. Morpheus lands on top of the co-pilot, who soon after gets possessed by Agent Jones.

Agent Jones darkly chuckles a little, "welcome back to the Matrix." He punches Morpheus in the head, but Morpheus shakes it off easily with help from Neo's teachings about manipulating Matrix code and smashes one of Agent Jones' sunglasses' lens with his fist.

Morpheus remarks, "this is no homecoming. I've come to finish this…starting with you!"

Agent Jones clutches his head in aching pain, allowing Morpheus to spin kick him against the armed police helicopter pilot and knock the pilot's pistol through the open windshield. The pilot gets possessed by another Agent, who almost falls from the helicopter. The random Agent pulls himself back into the cockpit with ease, coming up behind Morpheus as he and Agent Jones exchange fists. An eye of Agent Jones is missing where Morpheus hit him with his own sunglasses' glass lens. Agent Jones mutters coldly, "when I'm finished with you…you're going to wish you took one of your blue pills."

At the same time, in the clouds above…

Tara and Neo are following a trail of Matrix code from the helicopter pilots that Morpheus is attacking, when it just as quickly vanishes in the wind around them. The Matrix code is echoing all over the sky, as if there are walls there. Neo mutters uneasily, "I can't move fast enough. There's just too much Matrix code to deal with in so short a time!"

Tara turns to him uneasily, "so now what?"

Neo figures, "now…we improvise." He zooms back towards the same helicopter that Morpheus went into, with Tara following him eagerly.

In a certain helicopter…

Morpheus mutters angrily, "give it your best shot." He jump spin kicks into midair to kick Agent Jones upward, into the helicopter's ceiling.

Agent Jones mutters, "pity that this is all a distraction. I'd rather have a real fight. But then again…what's the point of playing fair against the error that is humanity?" Morpheus, in his hatred of Agent Jones, failed to focus in on the Matrix code that would tell him of another Agent sneaking up on him. The other Agent injects a green liquid from a injector into Morpheus, who begins to feel hotter than usual.

Morpheus mutters, "next time, you won't be so lucky."

Agent Jones adds coldly, "it's only a matter of time now." Morpheus in frozen time punches both Agents on either side of him in anger, then hurl kicks them in midair out of the windshield. The Agents vanish deeper into the Matrix, having no nearby bodies to possess at this point. Morpheus starts coughing a little, with his forehead sweating a lot. By the time Neo and Tara got back, they were too late to prevent Morpheus from coming down with something.

Morpheus sighs, "Neo…" He falls unconscious seconds later, much to Tara and Neo's unease.

Neo reports, "something's wrong! Bring us back."

Trinity says over comlink, "I'm trying, but whatever the Agents did to him is making it too hard to disconnect him…even with hacking! You have to get back to the telephone in one piece before he can come back." Neo and Tara carry Morpheus's unconscious body out of the falling plummeting helicopter, minutes before it crashes into a small skyscraper like glass office building below. A chain reaction of explosions follows around the office complex, along with more police helicopters that start chasing after Neo and Tara with a random armed Agent and Agent Jones possessing police officers freefalling out of the side doors to fire their pistols at Neo and Tara in midair.

Neo adds, "easier said than done!"

Tara chuckles, "that's what I'm talking about!"

Neo comments, "is there such a thing as being too happy?"

Tara adds, "not for me. You go ahead. I'll catch up!" She fires both of her pistols at both Agents, distracting them with dodging while Neo flies with Morpheus's unconscious body on his back.

Neo mutters to himself, "come on!" He struggles to maintain a steady speed, but is heading on a crash course for a public high school's mostly flat gray roof below. Down below, busloads of students are getting off at this random blue and yellow bricked high school. Neo purposely dives into the school, shielding his passenger and himself from the crumpling roof and floor pieces from above. He gets to a greenish black home phone styled cord phone on the wall of a now empty classroom. Neo lays Morpheus down on the teacher's desk. He picks up the receiver. Neo urges, "operator?"

Tank assures him, "we're bringing you back. Is Morpheus…?!"

Neo assures him, "yes. Hurry!" As he says this, he lifts one of Morpheus's arms to pick up the receiver. He disappears from sight. Footsteps of worried teachers are coming around to the yellow bricked classroom. Neo checks over comlink, "Tara?"

At the same time, above the school…

Tara is knocked backwards by the random Agent and Agent Jones above punching her repeatedly. Tara turns into a body of code again, making their punches bounce off like ripples in a pond. Tara chuckles, "for a collective mind, you still don't learn…do you?" She spin kicks them backwards in frozen time in midair, but Agent Jones grabs Tara's body of code in mid-kick.

Agent Jones mutters coldly, "unlike humans…I adapt." He absorbs the code in Tara's body with that one touch, making himself somewhat stronger and Tara somewhat weaker. Tara starts falling towards the school below, turning back into her normal form.

Tara calls out over comlink, "be right there!" She tries to fly, but can't because of the power drain. Tara does however use manipulation of the Matrix code around her to make herself as light as a feather, allowing herself to hover down to where Neo is. But, she stumbles and lands against a brown student desk a little dazed. Tara mutters, "see?" Neo is already nowhere to be seen, with the receiver dangling on the cord. Some random teachers are getting closer. Tara sighs a little, "you're welcome." She reaches for the receiver, barely getting out of range of incoming bullets from the soon after disappearing Agents from above.

The teachers nearby scream with horror at the shots and the knocked things off the teacher desk from within the room.

Back in physicality…

Tara and Neo come off of the center seats, seconds after their brain plugs and Morpheus's brain plug retract. Morpheus is physically sweating a lot. Neo checks uneasily, "is Morpheus…?"

Naimah assures Neo, "well, he's not dead." She uses a black steam dial like device with a small viewscreen on it to check Morpheus's vital signs.

Trinity checks a little uneasily, "well?"

Naimah uneasily realizes, "Morpheus's organs are burning up from the inside! And I don't have the equipment to treat that."

Tara adds uneasily, "yikes."

Trinity calls out to Herold at the wheel, "are we within communications range of a Zion ship?"

Herold answers, "yes…but there may be an hour delay."

Tank urges, "then divert all power but life support to the hover engines! Morpheus is an hour away from death!"

Herold uneasily responds, "got it." He puts in a long sequence on the power input control pad to do just that.

Four hours later, in the 1.0 Matrix…

Due to the psychological effects of the Peyote plant, semi-clarity is reached to the point where the tribe of Peyote and the tribe of Zeus can mostly see flashes of Matrix code. Brando nervously looks around the Peyote garden, which is made up of oddly placed plants in oddly shaped places in dirt. He mutters uneasily to Glenda nearby, "can you feel that?"

Glenda wonders with a small chuckle, "feel what? The dirt?"

Brando insists, "no. It's all around us…closing in. Green symbols that are begging to be understood."

Glenda turns to him concerned, "Brando, maybe you should get some more sleep."

Brando cries out, "I don't understand! I can't understand. What do you want from me, green symbols?!" He heads for the nearby stream of underground water, as if he's in a stampede. Brando dunks his head into the water, hoping to drown out his own thoughts on his apparent paranoia. Glenda pulls him out soon after.

Glenda mutters, "I'm doing this for your own good." She kicks Brando in the side and punches his head upward, knocking Brando to the ground unconscious. Eshana, Destiny, Nikita, and Raphael come up to where they are, also concerned.

Destiny asks, "what happened?"

Nikita sighs, "I was afraid of this."

Glenda checks warily, "afraid of what?"

Raphael points out, "some minds are more likely to resist the Peyote than others. It seems that Brando may not be able to stay after all…for all our sakes."

Glenda protests, "but he's our friend!"

Eshana sighs, "if one friend was unintentionally a danger to everyone else I care about…as it is the case now…I would. Wouldn't you?"

Glenda insists, "don't you have any other plants that can help him get back to normal?"

Eshana insists with a sigh, "the effects will wear off in hours…but the only food and plants we have are the Peyote. It would be suicide for Brando to live here."

Glenda mutter coldly, "it'd also be suicide to leave him out there alone, damn it!"

Raphael tries to assure her, "if you were Eshana, what else could you do?"

Glenda figures, "well, look for other means of food."

Eshana sighs, "we already tried…but all we could find was the stream and a lot of rotten food."

Glenda checks, "then how come we were able to find apples around the same time you were attacked and found us?"

Nikita reasons, "that wasn't even in our territory. If we leave our territory for too long, we risk getting crushed by Mescalito!"

Glenda mutters, "goddamnit, do you people have no sense?!" Eshana surprisingly glares at Glenda, along with the other members of the Peyote tribe.

Destiny reasons, "then why don't you go with him?"

Glenda sighs a little, "but then…what about you?"

Destiny concludes somewhat enthusiastically, "I never felt so…happy. Like there's nothing bad to happen to me anymore."

Glenda insists, "except for us going separate ways."

Destiny urges solemnly, "I'm sure to miss you."

Glenda concludes solemnly, "we may have had our differences before…but never like this."

Destiny concludes, "things change."

Glenda sighs, "I guess so. Good luck." She briefly hugs Destiny, with some tears in both of their eyes.

Destiny urges, "you too. You too." Glenda breaks out of the hug, then with Destiny's help gets Brando on her back for physical support.

Eshana urges, "I'm sorry…but it's for the best."

Glenda mutters right before walking away, "you did it to yourselves."