Chapter 10: One Handed Ambush

Kineta was working hard at her usual station, rendering code while…"instant messaging" her young crew members. She didn't know why they were all up at such an ungodly hour, but then again, why was she?

ARIN came back on screen relaying a message. "Silver says you're a dirty rotten liar."

"Am not. Morpheus was the player back in my day." After a pause, "Was that really what she said?"

ARIN looked guilty. "Ok, I might have censored her language. A lot."

Kineta laughed. "Ok, Ok. Look, I don't really care what the hell Silver and Magma are up to, just tell Dessa to go home. I bet you her parents know she's gone."

"Will that be all?" ARIN asked.

Kineta grunted her response, yet again consumed in her work. ARIN disappeared from the screen.

…

ARIN zipped through the cyber hallways as fast as it could. Being the messenger was its favorite thing to do at this hour because of the ridiculous things these humans liked to talk about.

As ARIN got to the last hallway, it spied something in the distance blocking its way. Before ARIN knew it, it was up against the wall feeling its life-force being ripped from its mother board. Darkness clouded its vision as it tried to fight this massive power. It wasn't a Virus; Viruses didn't have this kind of control. ARIN would have sensed a Virus. It was something much worse.

With its last will, ARIN sent a message to Smith, warning him that something was trying to override it, perhaps the entire system. Hopefully, Smith would stay away and not risk this same fate.

…

"What's taking that program so long?" Silver asked, her legs crossed on a computer tower.

"Maybe Kineta's message is more like a lecture." Dessa answered.

Silver shrugged, and then yawned. "Whatever."

Dessa felt a yawn coming. "Maybe I should—" a stray code on the monitor caught her eye. "Hold up…" she said, typing in the render code that Silver had just taught her. When she was done, a digital rendering appeared as a hologram before them.

It was a silver plated trumpet. Silver caught the gag.

"Cute." She said. "So, what is it?"

"Don't tell me you've never seen a trumpet before. You have to have seen one in the Matrix."

"I probably have, but I didn't have what you'd call the 'average childhood.' Anyway, those memories are fuzzy. Now what's it do?"

"Makes music, like every instrument." Dessa swiped her hand through the hologram and it faded back into code. "Anyway," she said, closing the program, "it's getting late."

"It's getting early. Like three in the morning early."

"Shit. I should get home before dad notices I'm gone."

"How's he gonna know? Does he check on you or something?"

"Bingo."

"Wow." After a pause in thought, "That's actually not creepy at all."

"Yeah, it's kind of comforting."

"You know what my dad used to do?"

"What?"

…

In the back of her mind, Kineta was wondering what was taking ARIN so long. Maybe they all went home or something and ARIN shut down. But that was the least of her worries.

Kineta's highly trained eyes spotted a miniscule, diminutive, hardly noticeable gap in the code. To anyone else, it would've looked normal. Kineta then found patterns that didn't belong in the storage system. She typed away and scanned a diagnosis. It reported nothing wrong.

"Damned technology's useless." She mumbled. She got up and made the screens black in order to see better. She didn't know exactly what was coming, but she knew it wasn't nice. She went to the radio transmitter and tried to send a signal, but it crashed.

"Shit." She knew something was up. Whatever it was, it must have gotten to ARIN first. In this flurry of thought, she didn't know what to do first, warn the kids or try and save the storage…

"Volt! Get up here!" She yelled, knowing her was still in the system. He never really left her side unless he was out doing errands. She would make sure he stayed out of this.

"Mom?" he said, jogging up the stairs.

"I need you to go and tell whoever is here to leave."

"Why?"

"Commander's orders, got it?"

Volt hesitated, unsure of what she was on the brink of freaking out about. "Yes, mom." And he was gone.

Kineta immediately set the codes back online. It was worse. As she looked back and forth from screen to screen, se=he could tell exactly what was going on. Agent X.

She heard it. Whatever it was materializing in the back room. Shit. It took over ARIN…he could probably destroy the data from the inside, why would he want to materialize himself? Then it hit her.

To kill the fuckin' One!

Kineta ran through a long hallway of screens. She threw open a metal door and took out what looked like a giant tazer. She wrapped the strap around her shoulder and heard heavy footsteps against the metal floor. Agent X had no doubt taken ARIN over and made it into a materialized killing machine. That much she could tell from hearing its ravenous breathing from behind her. She turned quickly and saw it lung at her.

…

Volt stepped out into the hallways only to run into someone. It was Tomb.

"Mom said—" Volt began.

"I know what she said. Hurry up, she's going to need my help."

With that, Tomb, pushed the young boy away and entered the chamber.

…

"Did you really mean it? When you said I didn't have a purpose?" Dessa asked.

"Did I say that?"

"Yeah. You said I was born for nothing."

"Oh yeah. Roamer, I say a lot of things. Forget about it."

Oddly, they heard a small voice yelling through the hallways and feet stomping an echo across the metal hallways. Silver got up and poked her head out of the open door and saw Volt. When he saw her, he stopped.

"Volt, what's the matter?" she asked.

"Mom told me to evacuate the system." He said, out of breath.

"Evacuate? Why? She could have used the alarm."

"I tried that, it doesn't work."

"What is it, a fire?"

"I don't know, but she wasn't telling and it scared me."

Silber had no idea what was happening, but she knew Kineta didn't mess around. "Alright, Roamer, let's get you the hell out of—"

Just then, the floors started shaking.

"What the hell? An earthquake?" Silver raised her voice over the machinery clanking together. "Get out of here, Volt! Go!"

And he ran as quickly and consistently as he could.

Silver looked back and saw Dessa open the automatic door. Magma had been leaning against it and plopped down on the floor, asleep. The collision of his skull to the floor woke him, confused. "What the fuck is going on?"

"I don't know." Dessa answered.

Silver came from behind. "Let's move people!"

Magma went ahead, acting as a shield. They entered the hallway, and with difficultly, tried to run. One of the segments of floor ripped away from its attachments and sent Magma falling through. He grasped the end of the segment, still hanging on by on bolt. The floors underneath him were of the same weakness, so if he fell, he'd most likely fall through the entire system.

"Magma!" Silver knelt down to help him up before he yelled at her to keep going.

"I'll be fine!"

"No you won't!" Silver argued.

"Don't start this, keep moving! Get Dessa to safety! She's more important than I am!"

Silver stared at him, and with difficulty, left with Dessa. In the back of her mind she wanted to scream at him and say, "You're more important to me!"

…

Kineta lay on her side, blood seeping out of her chest wound; her heart failing to keep her awake. She couldn't see anything clearly. The monster had ripped apart the screens and destroyed the balance beams that held apart the system before she destroyed it for good.

Her eyes closed as she felt the darkness seep into her, her senses immune to the rattling and shaking. Her world went black.

…

Neo and Trinity started to worry about Dessa, and they had a hunch where she would be. It took a while for them to agree to go and see if she was in the system, Neo wanting to wait while Trinity wanted just the opposite.

They were walking slowly and close together, admiring the night, when they heard rattling. They looked at each other in confusion and then heard running. They soon recognized Volt in the distance, looking as if he was running for his life. When he stopped, he bent down, his hands gripping his knees, breathing heavily, trying to catch his breath.

"Volt, what is it?" Trinity asked, very concerned.

He tried answering evenly. "The system…*huff*…its coming…*puff*…down. Its shaking its…*huff*…like an earthquake! Dessa was in there…*puff*…they should have been following me out."

Alarm struck the two as if they were being shot at.

"Go tell system control!" Neo said to Volt before the two parents bolted for the main entrance. When they saw what was happening, they couldn't hide their terror. The main station was coming down; they could hear parts of it crash down into the crater just below it. If the whole thing collapsed, it would be a miracle to survive it.

Trinity started to run in, but Neo held her back. "Go get Crater and Kid. There's no doubt Silver and Magma are in there too."

"I can't just let you go in there alone." Trinity replied angrily.

"And I can't let you go in there at all." He simply added, looking directly into her eyes.

Trinity knew there was no point in arguing and that they were losing time. She lunged at him and kissed him quickly, ripping away from his grip and running in the direction of Kid's apartment. Neo turned and ran into the mess of shuddering metal.

…

A wall crimped and broke away from its hinges, blocking the girls' way.

"Fuck!" Silver cursed. She shot her head to the side into a lab the wall had once shielded. "This way!"

Dessa was obediently being guided through the system, staying close to Silver. Things were falling and threatening to wound them more frequently now. Apparently, they'd entered a conference room, and there were screens everywhere.

Silver found the door and tried open it, but it was jammed shut. She grunted in frustration. "God damn it." She said under her breath. She looked over passed Dessa and tried to think their way out of this. Suddenly, a giant screen caught her eye as it made its way towards Dessa. Without thinking, she pushed her to the side and took the blow.

"Silver!" Dessa screamed.

The debris covered her entire body accept her head and right arm. She knelt down beside her.

"Silver, what the hell?" was all she could think to say.

Silver winced in pain, but managed a smile. "Guess I really won't be here to save your ass anymore."

"Shit Silver, don't say that! I'll get you out!" Dessa tried to take Silver's arm and pull her out, but the stream of blood coming from under her stopped her completely. Silver let go of Dessa's hand, slipping her ring off in the process.

"Give that to dad, won't you?" She sounded weaker. "Tell him I don't regret anything."

"Silver…" Dessa fought back tears.

"Didn't I say it was Ok to cry?"

Dessa ignored the shaking and destruction around her as she saw the life pass through Silver's eyes. Her last words were mumbled, but strangely clear, as Dessa could hear nothing else.

"Purpose…so that's what this is…"

She watched as that ruthless, fearless flame in her eyes finally died with her.

…

Neo paced himself as he ran through the diminishing hallways. He was used to this much pressure from the Matrix, so his searching strategies hadn't yet failed him. He heard a voice cry something, a name maybe, he couldn't tell. He followed that voice and there she was, kneeling in front of a broken monitor, a body underneath it.

"Dessa!" He yelled out. She looked back at him, tears rolling down her face. He ran to her as she got up and met him half way. He took her hand and they started running back from where he came from.

"Who was that?" Neo asked, fear in his voice.

"Silver…" Dessa said, now trying to hold back the tears.

Shit. Neo thought. He had questions, but now was not nearly the time to answer.

A broken part of a wall, having been stretched out, struck Neo in the leg. It felt like being hit with a baseball bat at a hundred miles per hour. He tripped and fell, the floor collapsing under him. Dessa held on and braced herself, keeping him from falling through. He felt a giant pain in his leg, but ignored it as his adrenaline killed in and Dessa pulled him up. They kept running.

The floor was less stable now, daring to do just what it had done to Magma, whom Dessa had no idea was alive or not. They reached the main exit and realized that the system was tipping over, moving away from the level ground. Without much hesitation, Neo jumped, Dessa flowing suit. They were inches short from making a clean landing, both gripping the side of the crater's edge. Dessa slipped, and Neo caught her with one hand, hanging by only four fingers.

He felt his arm being taken by strong hands and they were lifted back onto the safe ground. Trinity went straight to Dessa, hugging her as she cried, head buried in her mother's chest. He looked up and saw Crater and Kid kneel down to his level. Crater was still staring at the system, crashing down before them. His face was unreadable. Kid knew Magma was in there, but couldn't bear to look at the destruction. Instead, he worried himself with Neo. His leg was twisted in a horrifyingly painful looking position.

"Your leg looks bad." Kid said, trying to touch it, causing Neo to wince in pain. Trinity noticed this, looking up at him.

"It's broken." Neo managed to say.

"Broken? When'd it break? When you jumped?" Kid asked, hurriedly for some reason.

"No, before that."

That seemed to wake Crater up. "You mean, you jumped that distance with a broken leg?"

"…Yeah." Neo said, still very much in pain.

They sat there for a while, people starting to crowd around. Crater went to get an ambulance, trying to convince himself that his precious daughter was still alive.