"Typo?"
"Go away."
A slight creak was heard, and Tank's friendly face peeked around the corner. The thin girl was sitting in the corner of her cot, her slender hands folded idly over one another on her knees that were pulled up to her chest. Her face was smoothed over so it held no expression, and yet just that spoke everything to Tank. Her confused eyes stared at something on the far wall as though it were the most interesting thing she'd ever seen.
"Typo we need to talk."
"You know so much, go talk to Gizmo, even he knows more than I do." Her eyes didn't diverge from the drab gray wall, though her eyebrows narrowed slightly in an attempt to keep back the tears that wouldn't come anyway.
"Don't give me that, you know we've always been able to talk before."
"That's only because YOU are -have- to stay back when they go into the matrix because you don't have any plugs."
"Even if I could I would still stay to talk to you-"
"Don't give me that bullshit." Her voice was slightly cracked, and only a split second of silence went by, and Tank opened his lips to say something. Before he could, Typo threw her glare of reproach at him and said with dead enthusiasm, "Look at me, Tank. These holes in me, in my head, my arms. They mean nothing. I'm just another girl, but you dragged me from the life I could have had. And now I learn that I'm some sort of expirement?"
There was a painfully long silence between the two, Typo taking trembling breaths and hugging her knees closer to herself. Finally, Tank spoke.
"You have in your head information that could destroy everything you've ever known."
Typo shot a piercing look at Tank, and he continued. "The matrix."
"I don't have anything in my head. You've got the wrong person..." her hands slipped from her knees, and her ankles linked themselves together over the side of the bed. Her glare was softening though, and Tank let forth a tiny smile
"I'm pretty damn sure we have the right person."
"Prove it."
"Come with me, Fiona," his dark hand pulled the door open the rest of the way, and he motioned for her to go out with a smile. Typo got to her feet and crossed her arms her brown blanket draping lightly over her shoulders. She gave Tank a defeated look and walking past him out the door.
"Don't call me that," she said in an attempt to get back her wall of unfeeling. Persing her lips together, she waited for Tank to go ahead of her, then followed.
"You aren't fooling anybody, you know."
"Of course I know. Don't burst my bubble."
He shook his head and smirked, glancing back at Typo, who averted her proud glance immediatley. They entered a room filled with many screens, all rolling the codes of the matrix down them like drops of rain down a window. Tank sat down in the chair in front of them, striking a few keys on the keyboard. Picutres and files started cycling through at speeds Typo couldn't keep up with. The bald child watched over Tank's shoulder, her arms still crossed defiantly. There were many thoughts, well actually only a few thoughts conflicting with eachother in her mind. First was the instinct to be angry at Tank and the rest of the crew for not telling her thing she should logically know about. Second was the intense curiousity to found out what exactly they had hidden from her, and a grateful sense of relief of knowing that within moments she would know. Tank's fingers still flew over the keys..
"Do you know anything about genetic diseases?" he made this sound like a normal small-talk topic, and the girl quirked a brow in curiousity.
"A little.. we learned about it in Biology."
"What about Huntington's?"
Just as he said this, one of the screens paused, and a small picture grew to take up the whole screen. It was a cross-diagram of a human brain..
"This is a normal brain. Not unlike one I, Morpheus, Trinity, anyone else on this ship or in the world have. Now this," Tank paused and struck a single key. The brain proceeded to crumple and rot away around certain areas, and large gaps opened up in the middle. "is the brain of a near-death Huntington's patient. You can see here that there's degeneration of the cortex, and complete atrophy of the caudate nucleus." he motioned his finger around the center of the brain.
"Doesn't that not happen until about mid-life though?"
"Not until about the 25th-30th year of life, no. There is no cure, and doctors still have basically no clue as to how it's caused."
Behind Tank, the multiple screens were showing faces, people talking about the disease in general. Typo let her eyes wander past Tank and look in wonder at the clipped videos of people talking. One was of a young girl, who couldn't have been more than 10. She was speaking with an eerie quietness to her, Being at risk is dying a little when you drop a spoon. Being at risk is looking at your brothers and sisters, wondering which one of you will go first.... Typo's eyes flicked to another screen, and there was an old black and white clip showing two women, a man's voice narrating over it We suddenly came upon two women, mother and daughter, both tall, thin, almost cadaverous. Both bowing, twisting, grimacing. I thought they were possessed until I wrote a paper describing it and it was called Huntington's.... Her slightly shaking hand went to her mouth and she couldn't look at the screens anymore, at the faces of people who knew they were going to die. She looked down at Tank, her eyes slightly watery.
"Why are you showing me this? Why would the AI do this to people?"
"It's a glitch."
"A what?"
Tank turned around in his chair to face his thin crew member, rubbing his eyes. "A glitch. This 'disease' is actually the growth of a computer virus planted into people's heads. It's original intent was for storage. The AI thought it would be a good idea to store information in people's heads without their knowing. That way they could retrieve it at any time. So basically they implanted the first streams of information, but every single time the information starts multiplying around 25 years of age, starts taking over space in the human skull and killing the brain inside. It's just like a ticking time bomb. There's no reverse effect, and the AI can't get it out of the system. It became a dominant gene and and now is being passed from human to human. If you happen to be the unfortunate child with one parent with huntington's, you have a 50% chance of getting it."
Typo was shaking, seeing way too many connections here, she tried to cover it and asked slowly, "What does this have to do with me?"
The operator hesitated, his eyes donwcast on the ground. "Your mother died at 26, a year after your birth. And your father... he died while you were still a fetus. Both from Huntington's."
"No.. But, my father is alive. And, and.. and even if I DO have this disease, there are so many other people who have it. Why did you take me??"
"I'm going to be blunt and say what you already know, Typo. You have Huntington's, that's why we couldn't train you. We feared that by putting more stuff directly into your head via computer, it would aggrivate the diseas and trigger it sooner. You have it, but you are different from the other's who do."
She was still shaking her head back and forth in disbelief, her eyes glazed over and watery. She was slowly backing away from Tank and those god-awful screens, but her back hit the wall. She slid down onto her ankles, facing the ground and trying to contain her feelings, gripping onto the brown blanket tightly. Tank hadn't seen this, for he was facing the keyboard again, tapping away.
"We still don't know how or why, but you started to be able to tap into the information in your head. The AI figured this out nearly the same time we did. We've been watching you for years now. But so has someone else, your 'father'. He is actually a specific type of agent who was designed to keep you under control and frightened for your life. That way you would never be able to be freed by the resistance. Three months ago, about a week before we freed you, you starting being able to -see- us. We have absolutely no idea how, but whenever we'd have one of the matrix screens watching you, you'd turn and stare right at us curiously... though from your perspective you were probably just looking at a wall, or a door, or a mirror."
She lifted her head very slowly, looking at the screens. They were all videos of HER, looking right back out at them. One in particular caught her attention, and this was near the center on the left hand side. It was of the raven-haired, pierced and scarred Fiona, standing in a bathroom. She was staring right at Typo, her chest rising and falling in confusion or fright. A single tear slipped down Typo's cheek, and she rose, walking over to the screens. Tank looked up in curiousity at Typo, watching her as she put her hand right on the screen, and looked painfully at herself of three months ago.
"I remember this.." she whispered softly, looking into her own eyes that stared out at her from behind the glass monitor.
"What?" asked Tank, looking at Typo, then at the image of Fiona. His eyes grew wide and his jaw opened slightly, as Fiona's hand touched the opposite side of the screen and spread her fingers to match Typo's.. as though she was there right then. A thought burst through Typo's head, and she balled her hand into a fist, slamming it against the monitor,
"DON'T GO HOME!!" she cried as though the image on the other side could hear here, though obviously she couldn't. "He's going to try to kill you!! Don't GO HOME!!" Tears were streaming down Typo's face for the first time ever, and Tank immediatley switched off the screens. The last Typo saw of that familiar school bathroom was a door opening and Fiona looking away from her. The image faded to blackness, yet she kept looking at the screen as though searching..
"How?"
"I.. I don't know.."
"Go away."
A slight creak was heard, and Tank's friendly face peeked around the corner. The thin girl was sitting in the corner of her cot, her slender hands folded idly over one another on her knees that were pulled up to her chest. Her face was smoothed over so it held no expression, and yet just that spoke everything to Tank. Her confused eyes stared at something on the far wall as though it were the most interesting thing she'd ever seen.
"Typo we need to talk."
"You know so much, go talk to Gizmo, even he knows more than I do." Her eyes didn't diverge from the drab gray wall, though her eyebrows narrowed slightly in an attempt to keep back the tears that wouldn't come anyway.
"Don't give me that, you know we've always been able to talk before."
"That's only because YOU are -have- to stay back when they go into the matrix because you don't have any plugs."
"Even if I could I would still stay to talk to you-"
"Don't give me that bullshit." Her voice was slightly cracked, and only a split second of silence went by, and Tank opened his lips to say something. Before he could, Typo threw her glare of reproach at him and said with dead enthusiasm, "Look at me, Tank. These holes in me, in my head, my arms. They mean nothing. I'm just another girl, but you dragged me from the life I could have had. And now I learn that I'm some sort of expirement?"
There was a painfully long silence between the two, Typo taking trembling breaths and hugging her knees closer to herself. Finally, Tank spoke.
"You have in your head information that could destroy everything you've ever known."
Typo shot a piercing look at Tank, and he continued. "The matrix."
"I don't have anything in my head. You've got the wrong person..." her hands slipped from her knees, and her ankles linked themselves together over the side of the bed. Her glare was softening though, and Tank let forth a tiny smile
"I'm pretty damn sure we have the right person."
"Prove it."
"Come with me, Fiona," his dark hand pulled the door open the rest of the way, and he motioned for her to go out with a smile. Typo got to her feet and crossed her arms her brown blanket draping lightly over her shoulders. She gave Tank a defeated look and walking past him out the door.
"Don't call me that," she said in an attempt to get back her wall of unfeeling. Persing her lips together, she waited for Tank to go ahead of her, then followed.
"You aren't fooling anybody, you know."
"Of course I know. Don't burst my bubble."
He shook his head and smirked, glancing back at Typo, who averted her proud glance immediatley. They entered a room filled with many screens, all rolling the codes of the matrix down them like drops of rain down a window. Tank sat down in the chair in front of them, striking a few keys on the keyboard. Picutres and files started cycling through at speeds Typo couldn't keep up with. The bald child watched over Tank's shoulder, her arms still crossed defiantly. There were many thoughts, well actually only a few thoughts conflicting with eachother in her mind. First was the instinct to be angry at Tank and the rest of the crew for not telling her thing she should logically know about. Second was the intense curiousity to found out what exactly they had hidden from her, and a grateful sense of relief of knowing that within moments she would know. Tank's fingers still flew over the keys..
"Do you know anything about genetic diseases?" he made this sound like a normal small-talk topic, and the girl quirked a brow in curiousity.
"A little.. we learned about it in Biology."
"What about Huntington's?"
Just as he said this, one of the screens paused, and a small picture grew to take up the whole screen. It was a cross-diagram of a human brain..
"This is a normal brain. Not unlike one I, Morpheus, Trinity, anyone else on this ship or in the world have. Now this," Tank paused and struck a single key. The brain proceeded to crumple and rot away around certain areas, and large gaps opened up in the middle. "is the brain of a near-death Huntington's patient. You can see here that there's degeneration of the cortex, and complete atrophy of the caudate nucleus." he motioned his finger around the center of the brain.
"Doesn't that not happen until about mid-life though?"
"Not until about the 25th-30th year of life, no. There is no cure, and doctors still have basically no clue as to how it's caused."
Behind Tank, the multiple screens were showing faces, people talking about the disease in general. Typo let her eyes wander past Tank and look in wonder at the clipped videos of people talking. One was of a young girl, who couldn't have been more than 10. She was speaking with an eerie quietness to her, Being at risk is dying a little when you drop a spoon. Being at risk is looking at your brothers and sisters, wondering which one of you will go first.... Typo's eyes flicked to another screen, and there was an old black and white clip showing two women, a man's voice narrating over it We suddenly came upon two women, mother and daughter, both tall, thin, almost cadaverous. Both bowing, twisting, grimacing. I thought they were possessed until I wrote a paper describing it and it was called Huntington's.... Her slightly shaking hand went to her mouth and she couldn't look at the screens anymore, at the faces of people who knew they were going to die. She looked down at Tank, her eyes slightly watery.
"Why are you showing me this? Why would the AI do this to people?"
"It's a glitch."
"A what?"
Tank turned around in his chair to face his thin crew member, rubbing his eyes. "A glitch. This 'disease' is actually the growth of a computer virus planted into people's heads. It's original intent was for storage. The AI thought it would be a good idea to store information in people's heads without their knowing. That way they could retrieve it at any time. So basically they implanted the first streams of information, but every single time the information starts multiplying around 25 years of age, starts taking over space in the human skull and killing the brain inside. It's just like a ticking time bomb. There's no reverse effect, and the AI can't get it out of the system. It became a dominant gene and and now is being passed from human to human. If you happen to be the unfortunate child with one parent with huntington's, you have a 50% chance of getting it."
Typo was shaking, seeing way too many connections here, she tried to cover it and asked slowly, "What does this have to do with me?"
The operator hesitated, his eyes donwcast on the ground. "Your mother died at 26, a year after your birth. And your father... he died while you were still a fetus. Both from Huntington's."
"No.. But, my father is alive. And, and.. and even if I DO have this disease, there are so many other people who have it. Why did you take me??"
"I'm going to be blunt and say what you already know, Typo. You have Huntington's, that's why we couldn't train you. We feared that by putting more stuff directly into your head via computer, it would aggrivate the diseas and trigger it sooner. You have it, but you are different from the other's who do."
She was still shaking her head back and forth in disbelief, her eyes glazed over and watery. She was slowly backing away from Tank and those god-awful screens, but her back hit the wall. She slid down onto her ankles, facing the ground and trying to contain her feelings, gripping onto the brown blanket tightly. Tank hadn't seen this, for he was facing the keyboard again, tapping away.
"We still don't know how or why, but you started to be able to tap into the information in your head. The AI figured this out nearly the same time we did. We've been watching you for years now. But so has someone else, your 'father'. He is actually a specific type of agent who was designed to keep you under control and frightened for your life. That way you would never be able to be freed by the resistance. Three months ago, about a week before we freed you, you starting being able to -see- us. We have absolutely no idea how, but whenever we'd have one of the matrix screens watching you, you'd turn and stare right at us curiously... though from your perspective you were probably just looking at a wall, or a door, or a mirror."
She lifted her head very slowly, looking at the screens. They were all videos of HER, looking right back out at them. One in particular caught her attention, and this was near the center on the left hand side. It was of the raven-haired, pierced and scarred Fiona, standing in a bathroom. She was staring right at Typo, her chest rising and falling in confusion or fright. A single tear slipped down Typo's cheek, and she rose, walking over to the screens. Tank looked up in curiousity at Typo, watching her as she put her hand right on the screen, and looked painfully at herself of three months ago.
"I remember this.." she whispered softly, looking into her own eyes that stared out at her from behind the glass monitor.
"What?" asked Tank, looking at Typo, then at the image of Fiona. His eyes grew wide and his jaw opened slightly, as Fiona's hand touched the opposite side of the screen and spread her fingers to match Typo's.. as though she was there right then. A thought burst through Typo's head, and she balled her hand into a fist, slamming it against the monitor,
"DON'T GO HOME!!" she cried as though the image on the other side could hear here, though obviously she couldn't. "He's going to try to kill you!! Don't GO HOME!!" Tears were streaming down Typo's face for the first time ever, and Tank immediatley switched off the screens. The last Typo saw of that familiar school bathroom was a door opening and Fiona looking away from her. The image faded to blackness, yet she kept looking at the screen as though searching..
"How?"
"I.. I don't know.."