Soldiers Never Live Apart
By Miss Misery
For Nikki and Carolyn
had a dream as an army man with an order just to march in my placewhile a dead enemy screams in my face
–Elliott Smith
What do we know
beyond the rapture and the dread?
-Stanley Kunitz
It was easy to forget that the world moved on an axis, tilted, and made a circle around the sun.
Deep underground, everything was languid. Languid. Languishing. Trinity let the words sit on her lips like breath. Like puffs of steamy air. Different, since everything down here was dry, dry. The only moisture in the air came from breath, from words, from people talking. But she didn't talk anymore. Instead, she lay on her side in this godforsaken place, hoping that she wouldn't wake up. When she did awake, she was reluctantly pulled into consciousness, wondering why she was still here, why she wasn't yet dead.
This time, she opened her eyes and stared, unblinking, at the dark surroundings. A med bay in Zion. Cots all around her, some empty. Sterile but dark. When someone touched her shoulder, she cringed.
"Trinity." That was Morpheus, his dark hand on her shoulder. "Trinity. Trinity, do you want me to get a doctor?"
She shook her head against the worn, cotton pillow. Then, she paused before shutting her eyes again and said, "How long have I been asleep?"
"Five days."
She shut her eyes, then opened them and rolled over to face him. "How long have you been here?"
"Off and on. Tank and I traded."
She shook her head and struggled to sit up. Morpheus was sitting beside the cot on a small, backless bench. "You didn't have to do that. That's stupid." She couldn't look at him. There was something about his pity that made her want to kill herself faster.
"I wanted to," Morpheus said.
Trinity pulled herself into a sitting position and began looking around, careful to avoid Morpheus. "I need my shoes. Where are my shoes? Have you seen them?"
"You're not going anywhere," Morpheus said quickly, rising to his feet. "Not until I get a doctor to check you over."
"I just want my shoes," she said. "My shoes." Suddenly, shoes seemed like the most important thing in the world. She'd never been without them. She couldn't navigate the dirty streets of Zion without them.
"I'll go get Nik." Morpheus walked to the nurse's station some twenty feet away. Trinity looked down at herself, horrified to find that she was wearing some kind of hospital scrubs instead of her usual clothing—her ship rags. Someone had taken her clothes. No, someone had taken off her clothes and put her in these scrubs. Who had done such a thing? Who had seen her at her most vulnerable state? Had Morpheus been there for that?
Morpheus approached with Nik, one of Zion's medics. Trinity knew Nik, even had roomed with her in Zion a long time ago. She'd been a ship girl like Trinity, a teenager when she was set free, someone who spent more of her life on a ship than anywhere else. When her boyfriend Mace died, she transferred to Zion and never went back out there. Too many bad memories. Well, there wasn't any need for that anymore. No more fishing for men, no more Matrix excursions. All of that was over.
"You feel better?" Nik asked gently, as though she were speaking to a very sick child. She touched Trinity's back.
"Okay," Trinity said. "Can I have my clothes back?"
Morpheus stepped forward, a neat set of clothes under his arm. They were folded, the same kind of threadbare stuff she was used to, but slightly nicer.
"Those aren't mine."
"These are new," Nik said. "I secured them for you."
They weren't that new. Trinity accepted them. "I need shoes."
"You aren't planning on leaving, are you?" Nik forced a smile. She was pretty—green eyes, blond hair, petite frame. Pale skin and good teeth.
"I need to go," Trinity said. "I have some things to take care of."
"You're sick," Morpheus insisted. "You need to get your strength back."
"I'm not sick," Trinity said. "I'm fine. I'm fine now. But I have to go. It's been days. Days since I've been in an upright position."
Nik brought equipment over, acted official. She snaked a stethoscope around Trinity's back and down her shirt, took her blood pressure. "Pressure's awfully low," Nik said. "That's what happens when you're down for a long period of time. Be careful when you stand up."
Trinity was careful. She wanted her shoes. She wanted to get out of the hospital as soon as possible.
"Where are you planning on staying?" Nik asked.
"I'll find a place," Trinity said after she was dressed and ready to leave. Morpheus followed her. "I need to be alone, Morpheus."
"You aren't eighteen anymore," Morpheus said, a cautious tone in his voice. "People aren't going to open their doors to you and ask you to sleep on the floor just so they can hear the details of the war from a pretty girl."
"I thought the war was over anyway."
"You know what I mean, Trinity. I think you need to come with me." He gently took her forearm by the hand.
She jerked away. "If I need anything from you," she said, looking at his creased forehead, "I'll come looking for you."
* * *
So she walked around Zion and tried to think of ways to kill herself. Throwing herself from one of Zion's rocky crags could work, but she didn't want Morpheus and Tank to have to identify her mangled remains. She wouldn't be able to get her hands on any lethal pills—not without a doctor's approval, anyway. Drinking herself to death seemed risky and time-consuming (and how did she know that someone wouldn't come along and try to pump her stomach when the crucial point came?).
Instead of killing herself, she slipped back into lethargy, wandering around Zion's crowded streets in the warmth, observing the dirty, metallic high rises and apartment buildings. If she were smart, she'd find a place to stay and try to settle down. Find another job. Do something to pay the bills and make ends meet. That's what she would have done if Neo were still alive, still with her. Both of them had quiet fantasies about settling down when the war was over, having a life, a family perhaps. Something normal—something few people in Zion enjoyed. But then there was the glaring truth of the matter—that the war was long and difficult, that Neo's health had been failing, that one of them, if not both of them, probably wouldn't live to see the end of the war, and if they did, they probably wouldn't be able to live normally. They both knew this, but they rarely talked about. It seemed to invite tragedy, invite bad luck. But tragedy had come anyway, despite their special precautions.
"Promise me," Neo said one time just as they finished making love in their dark bunk, "that you'll go on living if anything should happen to me."
Despite the warmth that had been running through her body, Trinity felt a chill. "Don't say anything. Don't talk about it."
"We have to talk about it some time or another," he said. "Please try to be happy."
"I won't," Trinity said, curling into his chest. "You know I can't live without you. I couldn't really live before you came. I won't live when you're gone. I'll kill myself."
He admonished her over this. He said she meant more to him than his own life, that she had to promise to live on, to keep going. He persisted until she promised him, then finally went to sleep. Trinity was left in the dark bunk, her limbs growing cold.
He'd been sick. He knew he was dying—they all did. A lot of Matrix-borns had problems with their immune systems, and doctors treated Neo with traditional kinds of medicine. It didn't work. His illness seemed to be connected to the Matrix—when he deleted portions of the Matrix, his health declined. The destruction of the Matrix seemed to be connected to the destruction within his own body. Trinity used to hold him at night, unable to sleep, worrying about the future. He was so pale in the real world. So unlike his Matrix RSI. "It's not fair," she once complained to Morpheus when Neo took a turn for the worse. "Just not fair. That this should happen. We searched forever, and now he's slipping from us." This was near the end. Instead of silently agreeing, Morpheus sat down in his captain's chair and cried. They weren't mourning the impending loss of the One as a soldier, but as Neo, their brother, their love.
Exhausted from walking, Trinity sat down on a curbside and tried to keep from throwing up. Eventually, she tucked herself into the crease of a nearby building and watched the people walk by. Flags hung loosely out of windows, celebrating freedom, the end of the war. Neo had done it. If Trinity'd had a choice, she would have preserved the Matrix forever to save Neo's life.
* * *
"Trinity? Trinity, is that you?"
Nik approached her as she sat against the building. Trinity leaned her head against the bricks and stared up at the young woman's face.
"You poor thing," Nik said. "Oh, Trinity. I shouldn't have let you leave the hospital."
"I didn't want to be there anymore. I'm so tired of it, Nik."
"I know, I know." Nik wrapped her arm around Trinity's waist and brought her to her feet. "I won't take you back there. I'll take you to my place. At least you'll have a place to rest."
They walked together in silence, Nik's arm supporting Trinity. Then Trinity said, "You know what this is like." It was a statement, not a question. A grant of authority.
Nik nodded. "For a year, you feel awful. You want to die. You can't even wash your hair, it all seems so pointless. Then, after the year has gone by, you start pretending that everything's okay. That's just for everyone else's benefit. You get a job and start pulling your own weight. You stop crying in front of your friends. But you never really get over it. You can't, you won't." Nik stopped when they reached her flat on the north side. "I don't need to tell you all of this. You know how it's going to be." Nik smiled, as if to prove the point.
Trinity nodded, her right hand touching her lips.
Nik unlocked the flat's metallic door. Theft in Zion was a problem—everyone remembered to keep things locked up. "You okay?"
"I have to throw up," Trinity said.
As soon as they were inside, Nik showed Trinity the bathroom, where she promptly vomited. When Trinity finished, she found Nik at her small kitchen table, preparing to smoke a bowl. "This will make you feel better. I don't know what I would have done without it."
Trinity took a seat at the table and took the bowl from Nik and inhaled. In a few minutes, her head would feel light. "It's strong," she said.
"Stronger than anything we ever had on the ships. I know someone who grows it. By the time it gets to the ships, it's been cut and adulterated. I get it fresh and strong."
When they were finished, Nik led Trinity to a small bed in the back bedroom. "You take my bed," she said.
"You sure?"
"Unless you want me to sleep with you."
To Trinity, who had grown pleasantly used to waking up beside a warm body, the suggestion didn't sound too far-fetched. But Nik was just kidding. She reached into a small dresser and pulled out nightclothes. Her apartment was sparse and naked, like a nun's tiny cubicle.
Just as Trinity was falling asleep, she heard Nik's voice coming from the other room. "Yes Morpheus, it's me, Nik. I'm with Trinity. She's okay. No, don't come over to get her. I've got everything squared away." Trinity heard a small beep as Nik clicked off the phone.
* * *
In those days, Trinity awoke and collected her stipend at the Cashier's Office, dreading the day when there'd be nothing left for her to collect. This would mean that everything was officially over, that there was no need for soldiers anymore.
One day, when she was fighting off queasiness by eating nuts in an outdoor gathering place, Morpheus found her. "You've been away," he said, pulling up a metal chair.
"I've been staying at Nik's place," she said, careful as always to avoid his eyes. She looked around, gesturing to the small fountain and carefully maintained trees. "It's nice here. Seems unnatural though."
"Everyone needs some beauty in their lives. Even in the middle of a war." He shifted in his chair. "I've stopped by several times. I've left messages for you."
"Well," she said, brushing her hands and setting her elbows on the table. "What do you have to tell me?"
He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I've been agonizing over whether to tell you this or not."
Her eyes shot up, dark and angry. "What is it? You think I can't handle something?" She rolled her eyes and turned away. "This is why I don't answer your calls."
He leaned forward. "I think you can handle anything. But I wasn't sure if you were wanting to get back on the Neb or not. Tank and I are taking her back out, doing some scavenging near the surface. I don't want to go without you, but if you don't feel like going, I understand."
"I'll go," she said quickly. "Anything to get out of Zion."
"You sure?"
"Of course I'm sure." The ship would be a welcome refuge despite its hollow emptiness, its haunting memories.
"Are you sick?" he asked.
The way he said it annoyed her. Sick. "I'm great," she said, unsmiling.
"You look awful," he said. "Like you've lost weight."
"Food here doesn't appeal to me. I have no appetite." In truth, she couldn't keep anything down. "I don't sleep well. It's just grief, that's all."
"Maybe you shouldn't come."
Trinity rose to her feet. "I'll see a doctor about it. I just . . . have to get out of here."
Morpheus nodded. He obviously understood.
* * *
Trinity didn't tell Nik that she was going back on the Neb. In the few weeks they stayed together, the two had become close. Trinity wanted to wait for the right moment, but the right moment never came. Instead, Trinity staggered out of bed one morning, feeling the vomit rise to her throat. She stumbled into the bathroom and fainted.
Nik ran in as Trinity was beginning to regain
consciousness.
"Must be my low blood pressure," Trinity said as Nik pulled her into an upright position and into the next room where she helped her sit on the bed and hold her head between her knees.
Nik's fingers felt for Trinity's pulse, her white hands holding Trinity's. Next, she brought Trinity a glass of water and a few wafers. "I'm fine," Trinity said. "I just don't sleep well."
"It's more than that, I'm afraid." Nik looked worried. Trinity was secretly pleased—she hoped Nik would tell her she was going to die of some terrible illness.
"I think you're pregnant," Nik said.
All breath left Trinity's body. She dropped her cup of water on the floor. Nik scurried to find a towel. "You're wrong," Trinity said, "and it's not even funny."
"I'm serious. When did you have your last period?"
Trinity put a hand up. "Don't start. Don't even talk about it. I'm not pregnant. That—that would be awful. I can't be." But tears had already started in her eyes. The first tears in weeks—the first since she'd come to the core from the cockpit to find that Neo had died, that Tank was bending over him, sobbing. Spike still in his head. Tears hadn't seemed adequate, and hers were frantic and desperate, tears of the agony of denial.
Without speaking, Nik sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped her arms around her, holding her as the sobs came in waves.
"I just want to die," Trinity said. "I don't want a baby."
Nik pressed her cheek against Trinity's, then pulled away. "You don't have to keep it."
"I have to. It would be Neo's. It's not mine but me, not me but mine."
"Stay calm," Nik said. "We don't even know if you're pregnant." She went into the next room and came back with a syringe and a belt. "Don't worry, this is clean."
"I'm not worried," Trinity said as Nik tightened the belt around her arm. When she had the vial of blood, she sealed it and placed it in a small container. "I'm going to the hospital now. I'll analyze it there."
"You won't let anyone else do it."
"No, I promise I'll do it myself."
Once Nik was gone, Trinity took her mind off things by looking out the window to the street below. She hoped not to see children. Instead, her view was worse—two lovers kissing deeply by the concrete fence. Trinity laid down and tried to sleep, but instead her mind wound itself and her head throbbed.
* * *
Nik came home at the end of the day, small cloth bag around her shoulder. Trinity emerged from the bedroom and watched as the other woman quietly removed a slim box of pills from her bag.
Trinity didn't have to ask her for the results. By then, she knew. She'd run through the details in her mind.
Nik looked up and brushed her light hair back from her forehead. "You know what I'm going to say."
Trinity nodded and took a seat at the table. "I'm really pregnant."
Nik pointed to the box of medicine. "If you don't want it, you can always do this. If you take this, you'll miscarry within twelve to forty-eight hours. No one will ever have to know. You can forget about it, forget everything, even try to forget Neo."
Trinity held herself to keep from shuddering. "I wish I could forget him. It would be so much easier to delete the last two years of my life from my mind, to forget that I had ever been happy."
Nik nodded. "It's hard to know happiness for such a short time and then have to give it up. It's a kind of punishment."
That night, Trinity lay in bed, thinking of Neo, trying to remember when she had conceived the baby, if it had been during an afternoon break or a long night together. It was impossible to know. She had no idea how advanced the pregnancy was.
In the middle of the night, she got up and went for the box of pills, then went to the bathroom and flushed them away.
* * *
Nik snuck Trinity into the hospital the next night for a check-up. Trinity refused to see anyone else, and Nik had training in midwifery. She didn't want anyone to know, and hadn't even told Morpheus.
"You have to tell people," Nik said.
"You know."
Nik rubbed the cool gel on Trinity's abdomen. "I'm only one person."
"I like having a secret," Trinity said. She still hadn't told Nik about going back on the Neb.
Nik flipped the TV screen on. "Oh, look," she exclaimed. "Everything looks great."
Trinity sank into the small cot. "Is that—"
"Yeah, that's it. See the arms and legs? They're tiny at this stage. I'd say you're ten to twelve weeks."
Trinity began crying silently, tears spilling onto her cheeks. "Is it really that big?"
"No, no. It's a fraction of that size." Small limbs trailed off like fins.
"You can't tell if it's a boy or a girl, can you?"
Nik smiled. "Not at this stage."
"Good. I don't want to know." A girl would be hard . . . but a boy would break her heart. She wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. After she and Nik had looked long enough, Nik wiped Trinity's abdomen and Trinity pulled her shirt down.
She didn't tell Nik about the Neb, but she had to go back on. The expedition would only take a few weeks. It would take her mind off things, make her feel useful again. It was her home. Hand on her abdomen, she packed her bag and got ready to tell Nik. She was going to show her unborn baby the ship where she had spent most of her life.