Chapter 10
Going to your funeral and I'm feeling like a fool
Know who's going to take the blame
Thinking of the days of hanging out behind the school
Everything goes away.
-Eels "Going to Your Funeral Part I"
The ship was going to Zion.
It had been attacked by Squiddies at every turn; down every old sewage tunnel another AI controlled machine lurked. The Nebuchadnezzer had taken a different, longer route when Morpheus decided to go to Zion to foster off Mouse and Hope for a little while. The attacks stopped soon after, though, and the hovercraft was no longer dodging danger as it usually did.
If you asked Cypher about it, though, he'd swear he didn't know a thing.
"Hope, please." Mouse was in the infirmary, where it felt like he lived in the past week. His newborn baby wailed in his arms as he tried to calm her down so he could maybe get some sleep that night.
Hope continued to cry and wail, however, and Mouse, for the life of him, just could not figure out why.
Dozer entered the infirmary and took a seat by the pale, skinny boy and his crying infant child.
"Problem?"
"I fed her, and I changed her. I don't know why she won't calm down." The frustration was clear in Mouse's voice.
Dozer reached out for the baby. "Give her to me." Mouse, shaking, handed Hope over to Dozer, who held her in the crook of one big arm, supporting her head. "You have to be gentle." Solid, steady arms rocked the baby back and forth. She calmed down, and gurgled up at Dozer happily.
"She doesn't know me," Mouse said after a long, quiet moment. He wrung his pale hands in his lap.
"Of course she does." Hope drifted off to sleep in the cradle of Dozer's arm. "You're her father."
The word still sounded strange to Mouse. "Every time I touch her, she cries."
You just have to learn how to handle her," Dozer tried to console Mouse. "She knows you're nervous and that makes her nervous."
"Great."
"Here," Dozer shifted his weight towards Mouse so as not to wake the baby. "Take her gently, support her head."
Hope slept lazily in her father's arms. Mouse saw how little and light and fragile she was. He felt his heart rate increase and his breaths grow shallow.
"I do love you, Hope, I do." He said, softly, apologetically. "You just.I'm afraid of you. A little. And every time I look at you.you look just like your mother." And every time I look at you, I see what killed her. "Jesus fuck, I can't do this." Mouse carefully handed the baby back to Dozer.
"It's all right to be nervous." Dozer said quietly. "You know, Morpheus was nervous when you first came. He had to bounce you on his knee when you wouldn't calm down."
Somehow, images of himself in Morpheus' place were not comforting. "Why did this have to happen to me?" He winced. His voice cracked a little.
"Mouse?" A familiar voice was at the doorway of the infirmary. Neo hung back from entering completely. "Tank wants us to do a favour for him."
".Can it wait?"
"I don't think so. He says it's urgent."
Mouse sighed. "Go on," Dozer, beside him, said. "I'll take care of Hope."
--
"Please? You guys have to. It'd mean so much to me.please?" Tank really didn't have the upper hand in this argument.
Neo stood, his arms crossed, just staring coolly at Tank. Mouse sat on one of the terminals, staring at his hands. Tank looked at Mouse for a bit and sighed.
"I know this is a really bad time to ask and everything, but.you guys, please. He's going to die if we don't do something!"
"We can't just go in there and change everything," Neo said. "It's crawling with Agents. And behind Morpheus' back? That's only ever ended in heartache."
Mouse didn't say anything. He pulled at his toque a little.
"I'll be careful. No one will ever find out. And.okay, at the slightest sign of danger, I'll pull you guys out. All right?"
"Why us?" Neo asked.
"'Cause, well.he knows you, Mouse. Sort of. Astral was his best friend."
Mouse looked away.
"And you, Neo, you're-"
"Don't even say it!" Neo drew back. "No. No. That's not true, what you were about to say. It's not going to happen."
"Please!" Desperation was written all over Tank's face.
"I don't wanna go back there." Mouse said, smally, and the other two men barely heard him. "I can't.I can't go back there. Not to Copenhagen."
Tank approached the terminal slowly. "Mouse." He paused and waited until Mouse looked up at him, which took a while. "I know.I know it's difficult. I understand. I.you need to do this. He's going to die, and he was Astral's friend.she loved him, you know that."
"I know.but."
"I know it's hard for you, but she would have wanted you to.in fact, I think she would have begged and nagged too." Tank smiled, the kind of forced, desperate smile one smiles in these kind of discussions. "Please?"
Mouse went back to staring at his pale, fragile hands. He shrugged. "I guess."
--
It was dark when they got there, and raining. Warm. Neo lost track of what season it was supposed to be, and where, inside the Matrix. He wondered vaguely if his family, the one he had left so long ago across several oceans, had noticed yet if he was missing, and if they cared. Time passed differently in the Real World then here. Perhaps they forgot he existed at all.
Neo didn't say anything as Mouse led him up a narrow staircase in the dark, dirty apartment building in the center of the old city. It made him a little nervous, this depressing, sickly looking building. But then he remembered that it was not real, like he always had to force himself to do, and that made it a little better. A little.
"Inger?" Mouse knocked on the door of one of the apartments.
No answer was forthcoming. Mouse glanced up at Neo, and produced a credit card taken from the white room.
The door opened to a dark, dank room. Blinds were drawn shut around the windows. The door to the messy, unmade bedroom was half open, like the teasing mouth of a dark cave where danger most likely lurks.
Broken bottles littered the floor as the two walked in, slowly, leather creaking along with the floor.
Huddled on the floor of the kitchen, shaking and clutching a curling broom, was Inger. His eyes were clenched shut, one of them swollen shut by bruises. Tears streamed down his bloody face, and his body wracked with the sobs that he refused to voice.
"Inger?" Mouse started softly, stretching out a hand gently.
The boy turned inhumanly fast, whipping the curling broom around him wildly.
"Mouse?" His voice was small and scared and far away. "Is that.is that you?" Inger squinted painfully through his one good eye.
"Yeah.yeah, it's me, Inger."
"Who's that?" Inger held out the curling broom at Neo warily.
"That's Neo. A friend." Mouse stepped forward carefully, still crouched a little. "Inger.what's going on?"
Inger didn't seem capable of concentrating very long. "Where's Astrid?"
Mouse swallowed down whatever response he was supposed to give to that, his hand shaking the littlest bit. "Inger, what's going on?"
"He's going to kill me. He.he left a few hours ago, but he'll come back. He's going to kill me. I'm scared."
"And you're going to defend yourself with that?" Mouse gestured warily at the curling broom clutched in Inger's hands.
"Ye.yeah. Yes."
"C'mon, Inger. Come with us." Neo said finally. He hadn't even realized how everyone was speaking Danish.
"No! He'll find me and kill me and.I can't leave him."
"I thought you said he stopped using for you." Mouse moved some old bottles out of the way nervously. "That's what Astrid told me, anyhow." He just let her name come out. Better not to think of her too hard.
"He.I made him angry. He went on a bender. Jesus, Mouse, what am I going to do?" Mouse realized just now how bruised up and beaten Inger's face was, and how pointless all that anger must have been.
"You'll come with us. We're taking you to Norway. You'll be safe there."
"But I can't! There's nothing I can do, I can't get a job-"
"Don't worry about it. We'll take care of you." Mouse wasn't as confident as he was trying to come off as, just being in Copenhagen was wearing his certainty down.
"But.he'll find me. He will."
"Inger! Don't worry about it. Trust me," Mouse reached out a hand, shaking almost as much as Inger's. For a moment he considered pulling back and running for the nearest payphone, leaving Inger behind in whatever squalor he was living in, leaving Astral's former world behind him forever. But he saw the pain in the Inger's eyes and remembered how Astral looked when she birthed his daughter and something inside him pinned his feet to the ground. "Come with us. Trust me."
Inger stared at Mouse for a moment, slowly letting the curling broom down on the ground, and reluctantly took his hand.
--
The three were running up to catch a train when someone grabbed Inger from behind and threw him to the ground.
"Thought you could get away from me, you little slut?" Sören's breath reeked of alcohol and his face was writ with fury and barely reined in bitterness.
"Sören, I.please, don't!" Inger struggled to get up as Mouse and Neo ran back towards him.
"Inger! Just get up and run!" Neo commanded. A train conductor had noticed the kafuffle and had come down from the platform to investigate.
"Who the hell are you?" Sören demanded. "Stay out of this. He's mine."
"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you, Mister Ibsen." A freakishly calm, familiar voice cut through the darkness. The conductor, now at Sören's arm, was suddenly tall, suited, and forbidding, raising a gun to the man's head.
"What the fu-" Before anyone knew what was happening, Sören was dead.
"No!" Inger screamed as Neo and Mouse both grabbed him and ran with inhuman desperation.
Agent Smith watched them run. Let them go. They weren't really disturbing anything, anyway. He'd have his way soon enough.
--
"It's better this way. You'll see."
Neo's words didn't seem to have an affect. Inger remained, his head bowed, leaned over the rail of the ferry that was shipping them across to Sweden. It was cold, but it didn't seem to bother the boy and Neo had since learned to manipulate his own body temps in the Matrix. Neo looked down at where Inger was looking, at a constant field of black murkiness, which was probably how his soul felt.
How Neo felt before. Before he found the truth. But that hadn't really helped, either. Well. Better just to not think of that.
"I know it hurts," He did, too. He had loved, once, and he would have liked to think he knew love now. But. "You'll see. You'll be happier now."
"He took care of me." Inger's voice was barely audible. "What am I going to do now?"
Neo glanced back at Mouse, who sat on a bench by a window revealing the ferry's casino bar inside. Mouse remained staring at a point somewhere near Neo's feet and didn't look up. "Well." Neo started. "You'll have to trust us. We'll set you up with people we know."
"But.I.I loved him. I did. I know what you're going to say, but I did. I wish I dead." Inger still didn't raise his head.
Neo glanced back again. "Mouse?" he said softly. "Do.can you come help?"
Mouse looked up at Neo and the intensity of hate and anger in the boy's eyes scared Neo a bit.
"Okay. Never mind." He went back to staring at the black ocean and patted a reassuring hand on Inger's back.
"Inger?" A soft voice approached them from the side. Jolix stood, calmly, not nearly as towering and commanding of Morpheus, but the pale, gangly man had started getting the look right. "My name is Jolix. I'm a friend of Mouse, and Astrid's."
The boy did look up at this, eyes shining, and looked at the jaunty captain carefully. "A.Astrid?"
"Yes." Jolix took a step forward. Inger didn't flinch back. "I know what you're going through, Inger. It's all right. Trust us. We're taking you somewhere safe. You'll have a place to stay, and work, and you'll get your life back together."
"Wh.where?"
Jolix smiled. "A small town in Norway. It's all arranged."
"But-"
"Don't worry about anything." Jolix stepped forward again, and Inger still didn't back down. "Just have faith."
Inger looked back at the only one there who was not a stranger. "Mouse?"
Mouse looked up again, and this time his gaze was not filled with hate and anger.only pain. "Do as he says, Inger. It'll be okay." He shifted his gaze eventually to Neo, and without a word, got up and disappeared inside the ferry.
Neo sighed and, casting only one last glance at Jolix and Inger, followed him.
--
Cypher shivered in the cold and gagged down some of Dozer's moonshine for warmth. He set his mug to the side and wrapped his tattered blanket around himself a little tighter.
"I hate it here," He said to no one in particular, his words echoing ever so slightly in the darkness. His face was bathed with the green glow of the scrolling code, and Cypher sighed.
He was alone. Story of his life. Everyone else was asleep, or he figured they were. It shouldn't have been that way, someone else should be awake somewhere just in case, but Cypher was beyond caring. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, settling down for the long night watch.
A gentle cry came from somewhere down in the belly of the ship. Cypher looked over his shoulder slowly, listening. It came again, a little louder.
Probably Mouse having another nightmare. Poor kid. Cypher adjusted his blanket a little and closed his eyes, settling down for a little rest.
He heard it again, and opened his eyes bitterly. Geez, someone should go check on the kid, at least. He looked over his shoulder again, listening for any footsteps. Trinity or Switch usually did this, or at least got Morpheus. But no one was coming. Sleeping too deeply, probably. Assholes.
Cypher sighed and got up slowly, sniffing in the cold. The wailing didn't stop, muffled by the distance in the metal corridors, echoing eerily.
That wasn't no nightmare crying, either. Cypher heard it get louder as he got closer, more desperate more.constant. He suddenly felt himself break into a run, his blanket fell from his shoulders and remained in the hall. Geez. Geez! It didn't stop.
Mouse wasn't asleep. He was standing in the middle of the infirmary, next to a swivel chair that had toppled over, just yelling. Screaming. Wailing. Whatever.
"Mouse?" Cypher asked carefully, loud enough so the boy could hear him over his own voice.
Mouse spun around, desperately, his face sticky with tears and discharge. "Oh, Jesus," He muttered, and scrambled underneath the incubator where his baby slept, still sobbing loudly. He stared at Cypher a little while and started wailing again, a long, high, wordless cry.
"Mouse, Mouse, calm down, what's wrong?" Cypher stepped forward and looked into the incubator that the boy currently cowered under, where Hope lay silently under small grey blankets. He reached out slowly and touched her. Still. Cold.
Oh.fuck.
"Do something, Cypher!" Mouse had snapped, understandably, and he covered his face with his hands and yelled and cried and yelled. "Make her laugh, make her cry, do something!"
"I.I." Cypher was panicking now too as he stared at Hope, lying eerily still, looking to all the world like a plastic baby doll, still and fake and.dead. Her arms were still stretched up, too, tiny, chubby fingers curled in ever so softly. Jesus, Jesus!
"Please!" Now Mouse talked a lot, but god, Cypher had never heard him this loud before in his life. "Cypher, do something!"
"Somebody help us, please?" Cypher yelled out into the darkness. They were too far from anybody to hear them, but he didn't want to leave the kid alone here. Who knows what would happen.
Cypher felt a headache coming on as he knelt next to the wailing, crying boy. "Mouse," He reached out to touch the boy, who scrambled back with an intensity Cypher had never seen before.
"Don't touch me! Help her! Hope! Hope!" The front of Mouse's sweater was almost completely wet, and he made no move to wipe his face.
Cypher went to the doorway of the infirmary, trying to keep at least one eye on Mouse, yelling and kicking and making as much noise as he could. "Somebody, help! Now! Morpheus, Trinity, anyone! Neo!" He looked back and saw Mouse, strangely quiet, writhing on the floor. "Oh, Jesus," He ran back and pulled the boy out from under the incubator, turning him ever so slightly. Mouse was promptly sick all over Cypher.
Mouse closed his eyes and cried softly, his breath coming now in small, short gasps. He looked as if he were about to pass out.
"It's okay, it's okay, Mouse," Cypher actually wiped the sweat, tears and vomit from Mouse's face. Somebody had to do it. "Hey, listen to me. Mouse?"
Mouse didn't respond except to start wailing anew, and collapse into Cypher's arms, burying his face into the balding man's shoulder. Oh, geez. The Truth. Christ. No one wanted this. Who the hell wanted this?
"I-I.I fell asleep and.and-and.wh-when I woke up, she.she wouldn't." Mouse broke into loud, wailing tears and tightened his grip around Cypher's neck.
"Shh, shh." Cypher held the boy for what seemed like eternity. He knew the others came eventually but he didn't look up at any of them, even when he felt them kneel down and try to comfort Mouse. Eventually he felt his own face and realized he was crying.
The others were talking. Neo led Trinity off somewhere, weeping, probably so the both of them could be sick. Tank leaned up against a corner, one hand over his mouth, shocked. Too cold, someone said. Sudden death, someone else, Apoc probably, was crying softly. It happens. There was nothing they could do.
Cypher felt eyes on him and he looked down at Mouse in his arms, looking up at him, eyes shining, the occasional wet streak running down his cheeks. "She died because I didn't love her enough," he said softly, simply.
No, no, that's not true. That's what somebody else, anybody else, would have said. Cypher could only watch as Mouse closed his eyes and another bout of quiet sobs racked the undernourished body, and he curled back into Cypher's arms. There was nothing Cypher could say that would take away that pain. Nothing he could do. Why bother? Why make it worse?
Besides. Perhaps it was the truth.
The Truth. Huh. Fuck.
They were gone now. The others. Cypher didn't know what they had done with Hope.
Morpheus was still there. He sat on the floor across them and took Mouse from Cypher, who didn't resist. Mouse started crying loudly again, and twisted out of Morpheus' grasp, crawling back to hide under the incubator.
"Mouse." Mouse turned his back to the two men and sat sobbing his pathetic little heart out. Morpheus moved forward slightly to the crying boy. "Mouse, please? I know. I know.there was nothing anyone could do. Don't blame yourself, Mouse." A new, almost mocking cry split the air. "Mouse, please, just." Morpheus fell silent and slowly turned his head to glare at Cypher, where he was still sitting.
Cypher glared right back and left the room.
He leaned against the wall, hugging himself, outside the door to the infirmary, listening to what he could. The rest of the ship was spookily quiet, sickeningly quiet.
"Mouse.will you at least speak with me?"
"Why?" Mouse sounded frighteningly like a child.
"Because I care."
"No you don't."
"Yes, I." Morpheus sighed, sounding close to tears himself.
"I wish I was dead." Mouse's voice was nasal from all the discharge.
"Don't say that, Mouse, please," Morpheus was in tears now.
"Why did she have to die? Why does everything." Cypher rubbed his temples. Jesus. Jesus.
There was a long stretch of silence where Cypher felt his anger rise in his throat. Damn that Morpheus. Damn him. Asshole.
"Mouse, I.we're going to stay out here for a while. I know how you feel, and I wish-"
"What? Why?"
"Trinity voiced her suspicion. It's been too quiet. It's too dangerous to go to Zion right now."
Damn Trinity! Damn her!
"But I.Hope.I have to."
"We can have the ceremonies here, Mouse, it'll be all-"
"No it won't! Jesus!" Mouse was yelling again. Cypher straightened as he heard Mouse's pained voice grow closer. "Why would you do this to me? You won't even let me bury them now? I do hate you! I do! No!" Cypher imagined that Morpheus approached Mouse at this point. "Fuck off! I hate you!" The boy's voice broke painfully and Cypher winced and turned away as he swept past him, weeping bitterly. Cypher watched the frail, pale, sobbing heap of bones stoop to pick up his discarded blanket as he went.
Cypher stayed where he was, waiting for a moment. Wiping the last of the tears from his face, he carefully looked into the infirmary and saw Morpheus sitting, his head low, his arms hanging over his drawn up knees, on the side of the room. No Zion. Dammit. Could anything else possibly go wrong today?
Cypher sighed and wrapped his arms around him and walked back to the Construct, trying not to think of Hope.
Damn Morpheus. Damn him.
He'd just have to get the bastard back in the Matrix. That's all.
Going to your funeral and I'm feeling like a fool
Know who's going to take the blame
Thinking of the days of hanging out behind the school
Everything goes away.
-Eels "Going to Your Funeral Part I"
The ship was going to Zion.
It had been attacked by Squiddies at every turn; down every old sewage tunnel another AI controlled machine lurked. The Nebuchadnezzer had taken a different, longer route when Morpheus decided to go to Zion to foster off Mouse and Hope for a little while. The attacks stopped soon after, though, and the hovercraft was no longer dodging danger as it usually did.
If you asked Cypher about it, though, he'd swear he didn't know a thing.
"Hope, please." Mouse was in the infirmary, where it felt like he lived in the past week. His newborn baby wailed in his arms as he tried to calm her down so he could maybe get some sleep that night.
Hope continued to cry and wail, however, and Mouse, for the life of him, just could not figure out why.
Dozer entered the infirmary and took a seat by the pale, skinny boy and his crying infant child.
"Problem?"
"I fed her, and I changed her. I don't know why she won't calm down." The frustration was clear in Mouse's voice.
Dozer reached out for the baby. "Give her to me." Mouse, shaking, handed Hope over to Dozer, who held her in the crook of one big arm, supporting her head. "You have to be gentle." Solid, steady arms rocked the baby back and forth. She calmed down, and gurgled up at Dozer happily.
"She doesn't know me," Mouse said after a long, quiet moment. He wrung his pale hands in his lap.
"Of course she does." Hope drifted off to sleep in the cradle of Dozer's arm. "You're her father."
The word still sounded strange to Mouse. "Every time I touch her, she cries."
You just have to learn how to handle her," Dozer tried to console Mouse. "She knows you're nervous and that makes her nervous."
"Great."
"Here," Dozer shifted his weight towards Mouse so as not to wake the baby. "Take her gently, support her head."
Hope slept lazily in her father's arms. Mouse saw how little and light and fragile she was. He felt his heart rate increase and his breaths grow shallow.
"I do love you, Hope, I do." He said, softly, apologetically. "You just.I'm afraid of you. A little. And every time I look at you.you look just like your mother." And every time I look at you, I see what killed her. "Jesus fuck, I can't do this." Mouse carefully handed the baby back to Dozer.
"It's all right to be nervous." Dozer said quietly. "You know, Morpheus was nervous when you first came. He had to bounce you on his knee when you wouldn't calm down."
Somehow, images of himself in Morpheus' place were not comforting. "Why did this have to happen to me?" He winced. His voice cracked a little.
"Mouse?" A familiar voice was at the doorway of the infirmary. Neo hung back from entering completely. "Tank wants us to do a favour for him."
".Can it wait?"
"I don't think so. He says it's urgent."
Mouse sighed. "Go on," Dozer, beside him, said. "I'll take care of Hope."
--
"Please? You guys have to. It'd mean so much to me.please?" Tank really didn't have the upper hand in this argument.
Neo stood, his arms crossed, just staring coolly at Tank. Mouse sat on one of the terminals, staring at his hands. Tank looked at Mouse for a bit and sighed.
"I know this is a really bad time to ask and everything, but.you guys, please. He's going to die if we don't do something!"
"We can't just go in there and change everything," Neo said. "It's crawling with Agents. And behind Morpheus' back? That's only ever ended in heartache."
Mouse didn't say anything. He pulled at his toque a little.
"I'll be careful. No one will ever find out. And.okay, at the slightest sign of danger, I'll pull you guys out. All right?"
"Why us?" Neo asked.
"'Cause, well.he knows you, Mouse. Sort of. Astral was his best friend."
Mouse looked away.
"And you, Neo, you're-"
"Don't even say it!" Neo drew back. "No. No. That's not true, what you were about to say. It's not going to happen."
"Please!" Desperation was written all over Tank's face.
"I don't wanna go back there." Mouse said, smally, and the other two men barely heard him. "I can't.I can't go back there. Not to Copenhagen."
Tank approached the terminal slowly. "Mouse." He paused and waited until Mouse looked up at him, which took a while. "I know.I know it's difficult. I understand. I.you need to do this. He's going to die, and he was Astral's friend.she loved him, you know that."
"I know.but."
"I know it's hard for you, but she would have wanted you to.in fact, I think she would have begged and nagged too." Tank smiled, the kind of forced, desperate smile one smiles in these kind of discussions. "Please?"
Mouse went back to staring at his pale, fragile hands. He shrugged. "I guess."
--
It was dark when they got there, and raining. Warm. Neo lost track of what season it was supposed to be, and where, inside the Matrix. He wondered vaguely if his family, the one he had left so long ago across several oceans, had noticed yet if he was missing, and if they cared. Time passed differently in the Real World then here. Perhaps they forgot he existed at all.
Neo didn't say anything as Mouse led him up a narrow staircase in the dark, dirty apartment building in the center of the old city. It made him a little nervous, this depressing, sickly looking building. But then he remembered that it was not real, like he always had to force himself to do, and that made it a little better. A little.
"Inger?" Mouse knocked on the door of one of the apartments.
No answer was forthcoming. Mouse glanced up at Neo, and produced a credit card taken from the white room.
The door opened to a dark, dank room. Blinds were drawn shut around the windows. The door to the messy, unmade bedroom was half open, like the teasing mouth of a dark cave where danger most likely lurks.
Broken bottles littered the floor as the two walked in, slowly, leather creaking along with the floor.
Huddled on the floor of the kitchen, shaking and clutching a curling broom, was Inger. His eyes were clenched shut, one of them swollen shut by bruises. Tears streamed down his bloody face, and his body wracked with the sobs that he refused to voice.
"Inger?" Mouse started softly, stretching out a hand gently.
The boy turned inhumanly fast, whipping the curling broom around him wildly.
"Mouse?" His voice was small and scared and far away. "Is that.is that you?" Inger squinted painfully through his one good eye.
"Yeah.yeah, it's me, Inger."
"Who's that?" Inger held out the curling broom at Neo warily.
"That's Neo. A friend." Mouse stepped forward carefully, still crouched a little. "Inger.what's going on?"
Inger didn't seem capable of concentrating very long. "Where's Astrid?"
Mouse swallowed down whatever response he was supposed to give to that, his hand shaking the littlest bit. "Inger, what's going on?"
"He's going to kill me. He.he left a few hours ago, but he'll come back. He's going to kill me. I'm scared."
"And you're going to defend yourself with that?" Mouse gestured warily at the curling broom clutched in Inger's hands.
"Ye.yeah. Yes."
"C'mon, Inger. Come with us." Neo said finally. He hadn't even realized how everyone was speaking Danish.
"No! He'll find me and kill me and.I can't leave him."
"I thought you said he stopped using for you." Mouse moved some old bottles out of the way nervously. "That's what Astrid told me, anyhow." He just let her name come out. Better not to think of her too hard.
"He.I made him angry. He went on a bender. Jesus, Mouse, what am I going to do?" Mouse realized just now how bruised up and beaten Inger's face was, and how pointless all that anger must have been.
"You'll come with us. We're taking you to Norway. You'll be safe there."
"But I can't! There's nothing I can do, I can't get a job-"
"Don't worry about it. We'll take care of you." Mouse wasn't as confident as he was trying to come off as, just being in Copenhagen was wearing his certainty down.
"But.he'll find me. He will."
"Inger! Don't worry about it. Trust me," Mouse reached out a hand, shaking almost as much as Inger's. For a moment he considered pulling back and running for the nearest payphone, leaving Inger behind in whatever squalor he was living in, leaving Astral's former world behind him forever. But he saw the pain in the Inger's eyes and remembered how Astral looked when she birthed his daughter and something inside him pinned his feet to the ground. "Come with us. Trust me."
Inger stared at Mouse for a moment, slowly letting the curling broom down on the ground, and reluctantly took his hand.
--
The three were running up to catch a train when someone grabbed Inger from behind and threw him to the ground.
"Thought you could get away from me, you little slut?" Sören's breath reeked of alcohol and his face was writ with fury and barely reined in bitterness.
"Sören, I.please, don't!" Inger struggled to get up as Mouse and Neo ran back towards him.
"Inger! Just get up and run!" Neo commanded. A train conductor had noticed the kafuffle and had come down from the platform to investigate.
"Who the hell are you?" Sören demanded. "Stay out of this. He's mine."
"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you, Mister Ibsen." A freakishly calm, familiar voice cut through the darkness. The conductor, now at Sören's arm, was suddenly tall, suited, and forbidding, raising a gun to the man's head.
"What the fu-" Before anyone knew what was happening, Sören was dead.
"No!" Inger screamed as Neo and Mouse both grabbed him and ran with inhuman desperation.
Agent Smith watched them run. Let them go. They weren't really disturbing anything, anyway. He'd have his way soon enough.
--
"It's better this way. You'll see."
Neo's words didn't seem to have an affect. Inger remained, his head bowed, leaned over the rail of the ferry that was shipping them across to Sweden. It was cold, but it didn't seem to bother the boy and Neo had since learned to manipulate his own body temps in the Matrix. Neo looked down at where Inger was looking, at a constant field of black murkiness, which was probably how his soul felt.
How Neo felt before. Before he found the truth. But that hadn't really helped, either. Well. Better just to not think of that.
"I know it hurts," He did, too. He had loved, once, and he would have liked to think he knew love now. But. "You'll see. You'll be happier now."
"He took care of me." Inger's voice was barely audible. "What am I going to do now?"
Neo glanced back at Mouse, who sat on a bench by a window revealing the ferry's casino bar inside. Mouse remained staring at a point somewhere near Neo's feet and didn't look up. "Well." Neo started. "You'll have to trust us. We'll set you up with people we know."
"But.I.I loved him. I did. I know what you're going to say, but I did. I wish I dead." Inger still didn't raise his head.
Neo glanced back again. "Mouse?" he said softly. "Do.can you come help?"
Mouse looked up at Neo and the intensity of hate and anger in the boy's eyes scared Neo a bit.
"Okay. Never mind." He went back to staring at the black ocean and patted a reassuring hand on Inger's back.
"Inger?" A soft voice approached them from the side. Jolix stood, calmly, not nearly as towering and commanding of Morpheus, but the pale, gangly man had started getting the look right. "My name is Jolix. I'm a friend of Mouse, and Astrid's."
The boy did look up at this, eyes shining, and looked at the jaunty captain carefully. "A.Astrid?"
"Yes." Jolix took a step forward. Inger didn't flinch back. "I know what you're going through, Inger. It's all right. Trust us. We're taking you somewhere safe. You'll have a place to stay, and work, and you'll get your life back together."
"Wh.where?"
Jolix smiled. "A small town in Norway. It's all arranged."
"But-"
"Don't worry about anything." Jolix stepped forward again, and Inger still didn't back down. "Just have faith."
Inger looked back at the only one there who was not a stranger. "Mouse?"
Mouse looked up again, and this time his gaze was not filled with hate and anger.only pain. "Do as he says, Inger. It'll be okay." He shifted his gaze eventually to Neo, and without a word, got up and disappeared inside the ferry.
Neo sighed and, casting only one last glance at Jolix and Inger, followed him.
--
Cypher shivered in the cold and gagged down some of Dozer's moonshine for warmth. He set his mug to the side and wrapped his tattered blanket around himself a little tighter.
"I hate it here," He said to no one in particular, his words echoing ever so slightly in the darkness. His face was bathed with the green glow of the scrolling code, and Cypher sighed.
He was alone. Story of his life. Everyone else was asleep, or he figured they were. It shouldn't have been that way, someone else should be awake somewhere just in case, but Cypher was beyond caring. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, settling down for the long night watch.
A gentle cry came from somewhere down in the belly of the ship. Cypher looked over his shoulder slowly, listening. It came again, a little louder.
Probably Mouse having another nightmare. Poor kid. Cypher adjusted his blanket a little and closed his eyes, settling down for a little rest.
He heard it again, and opened his eyes bitterly. Geez, someone should go check on the kid, at least. He looked over his shoulder again, listening for any footsteps. Trinity or Switch usually did this, or at least got Morpheus. But no one was coming. Sleeping too deeply, probably. Assholes.
Cypher sighed and got up slowly, sniffing in the cold. The wailing didn't stop, muffled by the distance in the metal corridors, echoing eerily.
That wasn't no nightmare crying, either. Cypher heard it get louder as he got closer, more desperate more.constant. He suddenly felt himself break into a run, his blanket fell from his shoulders and remained in the hall. Geez. Geez! It didn't stop.
Mouse wasn't asleep. He was standing in the middle of the infirmary, next to a swivel chair that had toppled over, just yelling. Screaming. Wailing. Whatever.
"Mouse?" Cypher asked carefully, loud enough so the boy could hear him over his own voice.
Mouse spun around, desperately, his face sticky with tears and discharge. "Oh, Jesus," He muttered, and scrambled underneath the incubator where his baby slept, still sobbing loudly. He stared at Cypher a little while and started wailing again, a long, high, wordless cry.
"Mouse, Mouse, calm down, what's wrong?" Cypher stepped forward and looked into the incubator that the boy currently cowered under, where Hope lay silently under small grey blankets. He reached out slowly and touched her. Still. Cold.
Oh.fuck.
"Do something, Cypher!" Mouse had snapped, understandably, and he covered his face with his hands and yelled and cried and yelled. "Make her laugh, make her cry, do something!"
"I.I." Cypher was panicking now too as he stared at Hope, lying eerily still, looking to all the world like a plastic baby doll, still and fake and.dead. Her arms were still stretched up, too, tiny, chubby fingers curled in ever so softly. Jesus, Jesus!
"Please!" Now Mouse talked a lot, but god, Cypher had never heard him this loud before in his life. "Cypher, do something!"
"Somebody help us, please?" Cypher yelled out into the darkness. They were too far from anybody to hear them, but he didn't want to leave the kid alone here. Who knows what would happen.
Cypher felt a headache coming on as he knelt next to the wailing, crying boy. "Mouse," He reached out to touch the boy, who scrambled back with an intensity Cypher had never seen before.
"Don't touch me! Help her! Hope! Hope!" The front of Mouse's sweater was almost completely wet, and he made no move to wipe his face.
Cypher went to the doorway of the infirmary, trying to keep at least one eye on Mouse, yelling and kicking and making as much noise as he could. "Somebody, help! Now! Morpheus, Trinity, anyone! Neo!" He looked back and saw Mouse, strangely quiet, writhing on the floor. "Oh, Jesus," He ran back and pulled the boy out from under the incubator, turning him ever so slightly. Mouse was promptly sick all over Cypher.
Mouse closed his eyes and cried softly, his breath coming now in small, short gasps. He looked as if he were about to pass out.
"It's okay, it's okay, Mouse," Cypher actually wiped the sweat, tears and vomit from Mouse's face. Somebody had to do it. "Hey, listen to me. Mouse?"
Mouse didn't respond except to start wailing anew, and collapse into Cypher's arms, burying his face into the balding man's shoulder. Oh, geez. The Truth. Christ. No one wanted this. Who the hell wanted this?
"I-I.I fell asleep and.and-and.wh-when I woke up, she.she wouldn't." Mouse broke into loud, wailing tears and tightened his grip around Cypher's neck.
"Shh, shh." Cypher held the boy for what seemed like eternity. He knew the others came eventually but he didn't look up at any of them, even when he felt them kneel down and try to comfort Mouse. Eventually he felt his own face and realized he was crying.
The others were talking. Neo led Trinity off somewhere, weeping, probably so the both of them could be sick. Tank leaned up against a corner, one hand over his mouth, shocked. Too cold, someone said. Sudden death, someone else, Apoc probably, was crying softly. It happens. There was nothing they could do.
Cypher felt eyes on him and he looked down at Mouse in his arms, looking up at him, eyes shining, the occasional wet streak running down his cheeks. "She died because I didn't love her enough," he said softly, simply.
No, no, that's not true. That's what somebody else, anybody else, would have said. Cypher could only watch as Mouse closed his eyes and another bout of quiet sobs racked the undernourished body, and he curled back into Cypher's arms. There was nothing Cypher could say that would take away that pain. Nothing he could do. Why bother? Why make it worse?
Besides. Perhaps it was the truth.
The Truth. Huh. Fuck.
They were gone now. The others. Cypher didn't know what they had done with Hope.
Morpheus was still there. He sat on the floor across them and took Mouse from Cypher, who didn't resist. Mouse started crying loudly again, and twisted out of Morpheus' grasp, crawling back to hide under the incubator.
"Mouse." Mouse turned his back to the two men and sat sobbing his pathetic little heart out. Morpheus moved forward slightly to the crying boy. "Mouse, please? I know. I know.there was nothing anyone could do. Don't blame yourself, Mouse." A new, almost mocking cry split the air. "Mouse, please, just." Morpheus fell silent and slowly turned his head to glare at Cypher, where he was still sitting.
Cypher glared right back and left the room.
He leaned against the wall, hugging himself, outside the door to the infirmary, listening to what he could. The rest of the ship was spookily quiet, sickeningly quiet.
"Mouse.will you at least speak with me?"
"Why?" Mouse sounded frighteningly like a child.
"Because I care."
"No you don't."
"Yes, I." Morpheus sighed, sounding close to tears himself.
"I wish I was dead." Mouse's voice was nasal from all the discharge.
"Don't say that, Mouse, please," Morpheus was in tears now.
"Why did she have to die? Why does everything." Cypher rubbed his temples. Jesus. Jesus.
There was a long stretch of silence where Cypher felt his anger rise in his throat. Damn that Morpheus. Damn him. Asshole.
"Mouse, I.we're going to stay out here for a while. I know how you feel, and I wish-"
"What? Why?"
"Trinity voiced her suspicion. It's been too quiet. It's too dangerous to go to Zion right now."
Damn Trinity! Damn her!
"But I.Hope.I have to."
"We can have the ceremonies here, Mouse, it'll be all-"
"No it won't! Jesus!" Mouse was yelling again. Cypher straightened as he heard Mouse's pained voice grow closer. "Why would you do this to me? You won't even let me bury them now? I do hate you! I do! No!" Cypher imagined that Morpheus approached Mouse at this point. "Fuck off! I hate you!" The boy's voice broke painfully and Cypher winced and turned away as he swept past him, weeping bitterly. Cypher watched the frail, pale, sobbing heap of bones stoop to pick up his discarded blanket as he went.
Cypher stayed where he was, waiting for a moment. Wiping the last of the tears from his face, he carefully looked into the infirmary and saw Morpheus sitting, his head low, his arms hanging over his drawn up knees, on the side of the room. No Zion. Dammit. Could anything else possibly go wrong today?
Cypher sighed and wrapped his arms around him and walked back to the Construct, trying not to think of Hope.
Damn Morpheus. Damn him.
He'd just have to get the bastard back in the Matrix. That's all.
