Trinity gunned the Triumph's engine, the purr reverberating in the slick tangle of streets, in tandem with the more full-throated roar of Eyes' ... What had she called it? Bow-an-air-jazz? Something like that.
The figured they had time to get her to the Isis, the abandoned theatre at Penn and Main. She repressed the ripple of a shudder that ran down her spine. Place gave her the creeps, despite being a mere computer program. Now was not the time, though... Time. The red pill would take more time to work, with two ships tracking it. And she'd heard Typhus muttering something about 'remote activation...'
This was hardly the time to think about it. She saw Neo twist around in the Continental, returned his smile, and watched as he tossed a nod to Eyes... His eyebrows shot up suddenly, eyes wide behind the sunglasses, and he gestured wildly to a point behind them. Trinity's eyes flicked downwards to her rear-view mirror.
"Shit!"
An Agent. An Agent on a rather fast bike....
Fast bike, her ass. It was the Souped-Up Mitsubishi From Hell.
Eyes-of-Lawrence must have seen him, too, yelping a harsh "Aw, bloody hell..." barely audible over the engine's roar. They had time, yes, but not much.
+Trinity.
A digital readout, in the left corner of her sunglasses... Had to be Shakespeare. Hesitantly, then, not sure if he could 'hear' her. "Yeah...?"
+Can you and the kid lead him on for a bit?
"What? You want me and the live-wire here on a chase? With a fucking Agent?"
+She handled him well enough in her apartment. Besides, I'm having an absolute bitch of a time with this 'remote activation' crap. I just hope we don't lose the tyke.
"Don't even think like that. But... Fine." She regarded the softly glowing green text in her sunglasses for half of a second. "You've been reading too much fucking Neuromancer. Trinity out."
+I know. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Shakespeare out.
Trinity blew out a sigh. "Great..." She shouted to Eyes, with more calm than she felt, "Follow me!"
The girl must have heard, despite the engines and those strange clunky leather goggle straps over her ears, peeling away with Trinity as the Continental sped off into the night, led by Ariel on her Harley.
Trinity wondered how such an old bike could move so nimbly. It was really like some sort of hotrod motorcycle... Anyone who could build something like that would be damned useful on a ship... No time, though. The chase was on, the ball in her court, for the moment...
She dived down a narrow alleyway, trusting Eyes to follow, and Smith's larger bike to be not quite as quick. "Bring it, you bastard," she growled through clenched teeth. The chase was on.
Smith's own irritated growl was on nearly the same note as the motorcycle between his legs, distantly thankful for the human host with a motorcycle. Reinforcements were already set to close in on the rest of the rebels, so Trinity and the Lawrence girl were left to him. A mere supposition, of course, so... Ah. The constant, buzzing dataflow in his ear confirmed it.
Perhaps he could talk some sort of sense into the Lawrence girl before the rebels had corrupted her mind completely, poisoned her ideals with the toxic doctrine of chaos. If he could, the girl might have a future, and the Matrix a potentially potent weapon. If not, then she'd have to be terminated, like the rest.
He found himself curiously reluctant to perform that particular task, however. Most likely it was the lingering influence of her strangely pleasant smell... But, also, a thought flashed across the almost-perfectly ordered surface of his mind, as quickly as the neon glare on the metallic blur of the motorcycle's spokes.
The bonsai on her glass table.
It spoke of a strange yearning for Order, in the midst of the semi-mystic, semi-mechanical chaos of her residence. That craving for Order could be useful, could be set to the purpose of the greater good... He pushed the engine harder, leisurely closing the gap between himself and the fleeing women.
Trinity dropped back, the Triumph's matte black somewhat harder to locate than the Brough's shining chrome in the pulsing pattern of passing lights. Smith's Desert Eagle sprang from it's holster with perfect grace as she came into range. He waited another yard, perhaps a sixteenth of a second, and fired.
The recoil forced a shiver through him. It was slight, but there. And combined with a exquisitely timed fist-sized rock laying in the exact angle of the motorcycle's oncoming tire... Although he compensated for the recoil almost before it hit, the placement of the rock slowed his progress for just a breath too long...
"Trinity!" Eyes-of-Lawrence yelped as Trinity cried out in shock and pain. Her motorcycle swerved wildly as the scorching lead ripped through her calf. Eyes started, both at the woman's cry and her own intense wish for Smith to just back the fuck off for a while.
"I'm hit!" Eyes saw the ivory flash of clenched teeth in the racing shadows.
"Well, no shit, Sherlock..." she muttered, then called, "Get out of here! You're no good like this! I'll lead him on!"
"No-!" Her voice was thin, nearly lost in the thrum of the two-going-on-three engines.
~"GO!"~ Ned shouted it with her, and her voice almost resonated with some distant air of command, like the wind stirring the desert sands. Trinity complied, a solider to the bone, trailing blood and motor oil as she peeled away.
Eyes smirked grimly, fumbling for her .22 as she careened down the narrow alleyway, hoping to buy herself, and Trinity, now that she thought of it, some time.
Six bullets. Six... She'd have to aimed damned carefully.
"Ned, take the helm, if y'can..." she gulped, sending a disjoined prayer up to Whoever was listening.
The bones of her fingers seemed almost melded with the steel of the bike's handlebars, and the tiny overlapping strips of electrical tape that wrapped around the .22's grip must have left grooves in her metacarpals. The tendons of her annoyingly small hands were stretched taut, to what felt like the breaking point. She was almost sure she could feel individual fibers beginning to fray and snap...
Come on, come on... She let him gain, the shrill whine of his engine overlaying the Boanerges' purring roar.
~Now, Marie!~ Ned shouted, and her spine snapped like a whip, .22 leveled, fingers frozen to stone claws, immutable. And-
Time slowed for the second time in that hallucinatory night, high on unknowable narcotics.
Somehow, their eyes met, through the thick, battered glass of her aviator goggles, and the pure, shining night of his sunglasses. She granted him one smirk, faintly sorrowful and highly ironic. His eyebrows raised in shock and, yes- fear, -over the sights of her pistol. Without conscious thought, she swung it downwards and fired. She could see the blossom of escaping air that sprouted on his front tire, and-
The slight jolt from the .22 was enough to throw her off balance, forcing the bike into a swerve, veering like a drunken cow. The pattern of grime-coated bricks burned themselves into her retinas, and the bluntly serrated stench of burning rubber assaulted her lungs, the tires screeching out the siren song of madness as she slid sideways. She could feel the beaten denim of her jeans disintegrate between the rough asphalt and the carved-wood tautness of her calf, jaws clenched so tightly she was sure that her teeth had fused.
Behind her, the searing grate as Smith's front rim ripped into the concrete. Sparks sprayed up, the souls of Indian Paintbrush given brief, intense form. The screaming metal grinded to a stop. Then the back tire catapulted forward, flinging the hapless Agent into the air.
Fuckin' surreal.
He didn't fling his arms around and scream, like anyone with half a brainstem attached to their spine would do. Nope, not Mister Smith-Agent-Smith. The fucker actually attained some measure of displaced, cold grace in the air. A completely wrong grace, but grace nonetheless.
She watched in awe as he arched over the trail of smoldering rubber the Boanerges had left in its wake, drawing his arms to cradle his head. She caught the gleam of light on unnaturally white teeth, the chrome flash of the black, mirrored sunglasses.
She winced as he slammed into a Dumpster, the metal shuddering and rocking from the impact.
"Ouch."
~Indeed. I wonder if he left a dent...~
"I ain't stickin' around t'find out." She gunned the now-stilled engine, which rumbled ominously. "The tires should hold out till we get there, right?"
~I should say so, yes.~
The Dumpster shifted. Eyes-of-Lawrence fled into the night.
A soft putter as the Brough Superior pulled alongside the curb outside the Isis. She grimaced at the pain that scampered up her road-burned leg as she plunked it onto the sidewalk, shifting her weight onto it.
"Man. That's gonna hurt like hell in the morning...."
~Technically, it already is morning. And buck up. You should be dead.~
"Well, thanks fer th' vote of confidence, chief." She smirked, joints groaning as she knelt to survey the damage. "Damn..." If she was lucky to be alive, it was a goddamned miracle that the bike was even holding together... She noticed she wet sheen on the nearly-ruined front tire, and glanced downward, at the gutter... Gorgeous. The faint, orange light was playing on a tiny rivulet running through it, the water almost braided in its tiny ripple. She forced her eyes back to the bike, and frowned again. "That's going to take one fuck of a long time to fix...."
~Language, dear. Look up.~
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I should be thankful to be alive."
~No... Look up.~
She complied.
"Woah..."
Rarely did one see stars in the city, and rarer still this clearly. The sky was absolutely bottomless, just this massive indigo-black well filled to the brim with cold stars. It was so deep, and so utterly vast, her own existence but a speck in this grand design, her short life of no consequence to this great spangled canvas of celestial velvet.
Her breath steamed as she spoke. "You know, Ned, sometimes I see all of this, and I think... Well, I think that, despite all the shitty parts of the world, there's such beauty here, that... That maybe whoever made it can't be all bad, y'know?"
~Yes, my dear, I know. Now, you better get inside, as they're waiting... And Marie?~
"Yeah?"
~You... You take care of yourself. Promise me that. You're rather important to me, you know...~
"I figured that." She grinned, trying not to wonder why he was acting like this... Strange old man. "And I will."
She steeled herself, and faced the Grand Old Lady.
A winged sun disk, in faux-guild, spread sheltering wings over the shattered marquee. A delicate grating hung over the yellowing plastic, THE ISIS in stately letters. She crept forward to the doors, the brass handles, in the shape of lotuses, worn smooth with time. She allowed her fingers to play over the metal blossom a moment, then yanked.
Shit. It was stuck... Another pull, the muscles in her shoulder protesting, and it gave with a B-movie creeeeeeeeaaaaaakkk....
"Nice touch," she muttered, and slid into the awaiting shadows, without the slightest trepidation. Nope, no fear here. Not in the least little bit. Nuh-uh. Nope. Nada. Zip. Goose-egg.
The door slammed shut behind her, and she yelped, a pitiful girlie-scream.
"Hush, kid! We've gotta be careful!" Thick Brooklyn drawl, female, nearby.. shit...
She fumbled for a small steel Zippo that she knew was in her coat, hands shaking as she flicked it once, twice, and, ahh... Let there be light.
Her eyes about bugged out of her head as she took it in. The lighter's flame danced on ruined box office windows, stone columns, and glittering Art-Deco opulence. She was reminded of Howard Carter's words upon the opening of Tutankhamen's tomb... "Wonderful things..." she breathed. It was like some holy place, an Egyptian-themed temple to cinema. Or, maybe, to old gods reborn... Still, there was power here, something whole and ancient and pure running deep beneath the flawed fabric of this world.
"Hey, ya gonna stand there all th' damn night, or are ya gonna come with me, fer chrissake!" She forced her eyes to the speaker. It was... String? Spindle? Needle?
"Yo, it's Thread. Remember, in yer garage? Jeesus, kid, wasamattawicheuw?"
"Bless you."
"Yeah, yeah. Smart-ass." She turned on her heel, gesturing with her chin for Eyes to follow. Which she did, wary, lighter high. The older-and-smaller lady swung a door open, one Eyes had missed, and darted through a dizzying array of rich corridors, Eyes glancing at brief flashes of faux hieroglyphics, mostly names and hidden jokes when translated, along with some painfully bad interpretations.
"Would you stop with th' damn daydreamin'? We're 'ere, already. Oh, an' kid? Good luck."
She blinked from her observant trance, and smiled, sheepish, as Thread rolled her eyes and stomped through a door that looked ready to fall off it's hinges, into what looked like some sort of lounge for the director or manager in it's day, or some other equally important person, full of faded luxury.
Along with Trinity, nursed by that strange, pale warrior Eyes had seen before, there was Caliban, behind a number of computers, thick fingers flying, pink bows bobbing softly to a pair of headphones perched on his temples. A taller, slimmer lady of African descent was focused intently on some fricking strange machinery that looked hooked up to a dentist's chair... Or what could be a dentist's chair, if the furniture designers had a nasty crack habit.
"Ah, Eyes-of-Lawrence... A pleasure to meet you."
She turned her attention to the resonant voice, and wondered why she hadn't noticed the two before, as their presence seemed to pervade the room. A tall black man, arms folded behind his back, clad entirely in flowing black leather, with the single most kick-ass pair of sunglasses Eyes had ever seen. A short, somehow willowy lady stood beside him, with dusky skin and a tattoo that curved from the corner of her eye down her cheekbone, elegant as a raptor's claw. Robes that seemed like tangible smoke hovered around her ankles, just barely above the base clay.
She'd seen these two before, somewhere... In grainy flashes, with the oil-grit texture of rubbed-off ink... News. These two were terrorists, and hackers of the highest order, pulling death-defying attacks on repressive social systems around the world. She gulped, and managed a nod of greeting.
"You've naught to fear here... Naught but truth." The lady, voice dark and rich.
"Allow me to introduce myself and my associate... I am Morpheus, and the lady here is Typhus. No doubt you've heard of us."
"Oh, yeah," she squeaked. "Yep. Just a bit."
"I'm afraid there's not much time... Even here, it's not entirely safe," Morpheus purred. "You've made your choice previously, now it's time for us to make good on that offer..."
"Fuckin' miracle we got alla dis shit set up in time..." Thread muttered, gnawing furiously on a toothpick as she fiddled with the controls of...something. "'Ay, Neo, ya wanna gimme a hand, 'ere? Yer ass-kickin' girlfrien'll be fine for a few minutes."
Typhus smirked, very slightly, slipping a cell phone from some unidentifiable pocket. "Your ship or mine, Morpheus?"
"Yours would be preferable, as the med bay is somewhat more advanced. I trust you'd let us transfer over, once we found a safe haven of some sort?"
"Like you even had to ask..."
"Over here... Eyes-of-Lawrence, is it?" The pale gentleman called to her from the chair. Morpheus nodded to her, and she crept over, as ordered. "Have a seat, kid. Cool name, by the way."
"Thanks... Didn't catch yours."
"Neo," he said, flipping metal restraints over her wrists and feet. He looked up at her alarm, chuckling at some private joke. "Try to relax. ....This is the easy part."
"Oh, joy..."
"Shakespeare, she's ours. If the remote activation's set up, press a button or something... Wondrous. Set her free."
"Yo, mon, is de gel ready?" boomed someone that must have been Caliban.
Her eyes widened, falling on an open book that seemed to be... dripping.. a la Dali's Persistence of Time. Dripping. A word slid off the page, to pool on the floor, illegible. "Holy shit... That ain't right..."
Trinity's voice, from somewhere off to her left. "Catch you on the flip side, Eyes."
The world began to melt, dripping in a similar fashion to the book, things twisting into incomprehensible forms, sounds mutilated and warped. The room was peeling away, revealing...
Oh, sweet God.
There were these shining green strands weeping downward, the truest, brightest green she'd ever see, against stark black. Black like the void, like whatever it was that was beyond the universe. It was somehow like the stars outside, but so much more, as if that had been only some pale imitation of this... This that must underlay the whole word... This was the fabric of the world. All that existed, contained in that shining code. It was hieroglyphics reborn... Computer code. Glory, amen... Fucking computer code!
Ned's voice, then, before the darkness took her, distant and with more sorrow than she ever thought she'd hear there... ~Goodbye, Marie...~
The code (hieroglyphs) swirled around her, and enveloped her, and..
down....
down....
down....
Gone.