=*=
A/N: Thanks for the reviews, people! In response to the comment about that E-NORMOUS plot window in the first part (please don't hurt me, I'll fix it all up, I promise!), despite contradiction from the direct use of "training programs" in the text itself, Morpheus actually hacked into the Matrix itself and got Trinity and Neo caught up in an alley brawl. Sorry, it wasn't very clear at all, I know. I'll rewrite it some other time. That thing has put a whole blemish on the fic, but I hope people will learn to ignore that sloppiness. Sorry. This chapter should be better. I hope.
=*=
Disclaimer: Yeah, The Matrix isn't mine. You know, it's really quite straightforward. If I was the creator, I wouldn't be writing 'fanfiction'. 'Nuff said. Let's go off and eat some biscuits. Because I lurve biscuits. Particularly those ring ones with pink-and-white icing and a coat of suga-
=*=
REGULATION Part Two: Clarity
=*=
Neo awoke with a start. He was tangled up in the mesh of boiler pipes nearby his unrolled mattress, his sparse clothes alone saving his skin from any scalding by the tubes. Unable to believe he had thrust himself into them on purpose, he clambered away to examine his surroundings for clues.
Everything had notably shifted to the right side of the room, accumulating up the wall in a number of cluttered piles he was sure Morpheus would not approve of should he come to see them making such a state of his ship.
And speaking of the ship.
The Nebuchadnezzar had taken a heavy blow, and certainly one it did not have need of. The attacker, currently invisible amongst the rifts of electricity pulsing about it and the ship, had struck a hard gash clean through the sacrificial metal cuticle usually so resistant to the probes and points of the military machines, peeling deep into the true bodywork, almost prising apart the ribbed casing of the helm. Apparently proud at the great scar it had inflicted, the droid fell to arranging itself juxtaposed unto the ship. Pressing its spiny belly against the Nebuchadnezzar's cheek, it began to shove and worry at the larger vessel, gradually cranking it up at an angle to such an extent that it was now passively mounting its shadowy opponent, inch-by-inch.
It would have been further satisfied if, indeed, it had gained the profit of an awareness concerning the panic it had created within the Neb's creaking stomach. From his usual perch at the Matrix monitors, another crew member, a tan-skinned man, twinkling of eye, glowing of grin, and going by the name of Tank, had descended to the main deck, and was doing his best to prevent the complete collapse of the internal shell, with Morpheus acting rapidly as his aid. Meanwhile, Trinity was doing her utmost to dislodge the ship in its entirety from the vice of the machine, albeit to no avail.
Presently, the attacker gained grip enough to turn the ship at a right angle to its usual state, sending its contents gliding to the left wall like so many plastic dolls in a child's toy boat. Again, Neo crashed headlong into the piping, this time searing his ear with such an excruciating pain that he gave a sharp yelp and pawed at the floor in an attempt to writhe his way up it.
Mercilessly, the Neb continued to topple, weak as a flailing flower, upside- down, the very slowness of its motion bringing the worst of agonies to the crew. Morpheus and Tank had been fortunate enough to find the stalks of the connection chairs in sufficient time to save themselves the fall to the buzzing ceiling. Trinity had locked herself into her seat tensely, her feet braced beneath the chair powerfully. Neo meanwhile was on his back, sprawled over the ceiling.
All of a sudden, as if the dog's master had summoned away his beast, the machine relieved its pressure and welled away from the Neb. Trinity grasped the fortune to see the elusive monster, identifying it as a lone squidie, retarded by the loss of a good five of its limbs, with a bleeding chunk drawn from its butt, no doubt by one of its more able fellows. Expressing an anxiety quite bereft of its order, it thundered unsteadily yet speedily away, leaving the Nebuchadnezzar stranded, turned on its head.
A noisy current galloped through the tunnel. Morpheus mustered his first breath for a whole minute and nodded to Tank's addled face. Gingerly at first, but later with greater power, the Zion-born human swung his hips up about the chair, coming to hug its stem with both arms and legs. Morpheus was quick to follow suit, clambering into the more secure pose, the back of his skull pressed against the cold flooring.
With a nasal groan, the Nebuchadnezzar began to swirl back onto its belly, thrusting its passengers into a moment of silent panic as they tried to right themselves in proper accordance. Failing this, Neo fell straight from ceiling to floor in a tidy heap of sore moans.
When calm had been fully restored, Morpheus jogged up the ladder into the helm, Tank in close pursuit. On entering, they found Trinity melted into the front-most seat, her hands dropping softly from the controls. The captain shuffled past, pecking with an index finger upon a dark blue button that brought up an electric projection of their surroundings.
"Squidie?" The usual culprit, he resolved.
"Without a doubt." Trinity patted another control, and the projection appeared to pan out, absorbing a good sixty metres more of the tunnel within its scope. "We're not out of the woods yet, though. It'll be back pretty soon."
"With reinforcements?"
"Mmm. Probably why it left-"
"We better get out of here," interrupted Tank apprehensively. His eyes sucked in the room with haste. "Where's Neo?"
As if on cue, a dishevelled, shattered man emerged from the doorway, almost tripping over the step on account of the stutter of his footsteps. The attentions of the crew trailed to his person, and, blushing slightly at himself, Neo slid into one of the rear seats, dragging his feet in from the aisle.
"What was that crap all about?" he demanded hoarsely. Morpheus and Tank found their seats, the latter swinging his chewed boots into the aisle with an air of sloth. "I didn't think there was much turbulence in this sector."
"Not turbulence," corrected Trinity. "A squidie."
"How-"
"It's safe to say they've long been aware of our more secretive routes," chimed in Morpheus, gripping awkwardly at a nearby lever. "Trinity, take the ship back along the passage to one of the southern atria. Neo, you and I will revert to the Matrix. The machines' tightened security may have something to do with that fault you detected earlier. Tank - connect us then revive communication with any other ship within a ten-kilometre radius: tell them to be on their guard. "
"Got it," grinned Tank, flipping to his feet and heading down the ladder in two giant bounds. Morpheus and Neo followed, leaving Trinity to reel the ship about: murmuring; trembling; shattering.
=*=
"Hacker ships, I repeat, all hacker ships - please respond!"
Tank folded over slightly, fingers hugging the communicator in irritation, his head cocked keenly to one side, listening intently for anything of purpose above that static chatter. He had shifted his headset so that it occupied only his right ear, stretching his attention to both the workings of the Matrix and their cohorts in the Real World.
"Hey Tank! Long time, no hear!"
The man was delighted to pick up the throaty tones of another Unplugged. He recognised the voice immediately as being that of Dolam, the thirty-year- captain of their sister ship, the Belshazzar*. Disconnected from the Matrix at the tender age of five, he had become well accustomed to the Real World and its dangers, bearing something of a sixth sense for detecting the machines' attack forces. Tank dwelled that if it were not for his excessive unplugging of rather randomly selected humans, he might be as good an authority as Morpheus. As it was, Tank had been asked prior to his recruitment to join the swollen crew of the Belshazzar, but having noted the comparatively skeleton clutch aboard the Nebuchadnezzar, Tank had been quick to assign himself to their loyalties.
"Dolam, great to know you're still around. Just calling on behalf of Morpheus to warn you the machines have closed in. Pass the message on and all that jazz."
"Way ahead of you. They've been racing after us for hours. Half of us haven't got a wink of sleep lately."
"Sounds about right. I'd better leave you to it then. Spread the world, Bel."
Rupturing the connection, Tank sighed and curled back in his seat, brushing the receiver over his lips. He was reluctant to admit it, but Morpheus, as he often was, could well be right. The Bel had been detected at least nine kilometres away - the thought that entire squadrons of attack machines could scale this breadth without any dwindling of their power, without any impediment to their chasing of the human-led ships, was quite simply terrifying. Terrifying, but more probably, berserk, so great was the risk of malfunction at this distance from the core. Mainly to their discredit, the fighting cyborgs processed energy at an alarming rate.
"Something's up," Tank muttered.
=*=
Neo twitched.
The temptation to remind Morpheus of the Agents' constant vigil over the Matrix was burning at his brain, and yet his immense respect for the man restrained him. The captain seemed far-drawn in his task to detect any violent electric pulses or disappearances - so much so that he appeared to have forgotten the presence of their major enemy whilst plugged in. Standing atop the roof of a fairly low warehouse, he had taken to a one- kneed stoop, dark eyes scanning the currents beneath for a single irregularity.
"What do you think it could be?"
"Hopefully only a glitch." Both of them knew well that the machines frequently found 'fault' with their perverted game and consequently edited it to their temperamental preferences.
"Didn't look it, Morpheus. Damn well didn't look it."
On hearing this, his superior turned slightly to glare at him, and burnt to a blush, Neo returned his gaze to the Plugged below. There they were - toys to their own creation. Over-thrown and ridiculed, these humans' legacy had been torn like wings from an eagle, sending them, degenerates, plummeting into an ocean of despair. The very thought of it saturated Neo with a boiling fury, and a desire that Morpheus had weaned him off the Matrix sooner to save him from the disgusting truth that had made him the fool all this time.
They did not have to wait long though. For at that very moment, a localised body of humans fizzled quietly and vanished, the manner considerably neater than before, when many had died under the immense currents collapsing about the bizarre victim. Unfortunately for the Unplugged, the displaced bulk left a hole even its peers could not ignore, and their task increased in ardour as a result.
"What happened?"
"Did you see that?"
"They just disappeared!"
With a communal sigh, Neo and Morpheus slipped off the roof, feet-first, the impact against the pavement minor to them. Running towards the void, which was even now slowly filling with curious onlookers daring to step into an invisible lion's den, they shouldered several rows out of the way and skidded into the clearing. The crowd's attention, thankfully, was thrust upon them.
"People, people!" shouted Neo, raising his hands to settle them. His face became painted with a forced grin. "It's obvious the findings of our surveys have been secured. If you'll all bear with my colleague and I, we will explain the situation fully."
As the hubbub reluctantly resided, Neo nodded to Morpheus, who cursed him beneath his breath and drew the alibi to a nervous conclusion.
"The city's water supply has been polluted with a minor hallucinogenic substance by a group of youngsters who have now been placed under police custody. Do not be afraid - we have filtered the entire system and any negative effects will probably fade by next week at the very latest. This goes to explaining your collective notion of what has just happened; but there is no need to be alarmed." As he and Neo backed away, he faded into expressions of pretentious pleasantry. "God be with you, good health, everything is alright."
"We've got a problem on our hands," his companion muttered as they marched away to the nearest public telephone.
"Indeed. Our first priority is to find out what the cause of all this is, and soon." Morpheus's attention steered back towards the gradually dispersing crowd. "Two-bit excuses aren't going to convince an entire population for long."
=*=
Trinity was sure she wasn't due south anymore.
The lower regions of the chartered Real World were less regimented than this. Here - wherever here was - there were fans of tunnels, all with the exact same course, channelling the traffic of several small maintenance droids and the odd torpedo attack machine, which by itself posed no immediate threat. Trinity had thus concluded that either the south had become unusually overrun, or that she was in fact moving the Neb towards the core.
Presently, Morpheus and Neo hopped into the helm beside her. Trinity's stomach purred in their company, as if embracing a wonderful security blanket. She was externally bitter, casting off most affection, coyness and even enjoyment for the sake of her reputation: dominance. Yet despite this, she would admit to herself time-after-time that she greatly loved the intimacy of others over loneliness. To her, it donated a safety grander than any self-sufficiency, any attempt at becoming the immortal 'independent woman', could ever achieve.
But it shattered like thin ice.
"Trinity," droned Morpheus, sitting himself down beside her. "Where are we?"
"I - I'm not sure. The course was set south, but."
"Morpheus," whispered Neo, glimpsing a crab-like droid hover past starboard, "we're in the core."
Rocking on a strong electromagnetic current that surged up behind it from apparently nowhere, the Nebuchadnezzar drifted through into a new chamber. A chamber all three of them were overly familiar with.
Before them, stretched as far as the eye could, or desired to, see, lay a jet-black ocean of pipes and gutters, from which a million billion orange- red humps extended outwards, scales on the massive oil-slicked dragon. The breath was at once stolen from Neo's lungs.
They were sitting in the middle of a human field.
"Oh, dear God." Trinity could have shot herself - not for the ship, but for the poor humans all around. If the attack droids closed in now, the untimely explosion of the Neb would crush at the very least a healthy three percent of the pods (a surprisingly large quota), leaving the humans within torn crudely apart, head and vertebrae to remain connected to the wall, limp. The very thought caused the woman to wretch.
Disgruntled, she flew into a flurry of animation, ripping at various levers and buttons. "Alright, I'm backing out."
"No," hissed Morpheus hoarsely, his lips buried in his knuckles. "Wait for just a second. I want to see what they do."
To Neo and Trinity, this sounded like a death wish. Surely it was rather inevitable! A scout, most likely a torpedo machine, would appear, register them, and then scurry away to fetch allies. By that time, it was far too late to even consider escape: the forces had both the speed and tenacity to finish the ship off in seven minutes flat.
"Come on, Morpheus." Trinity was standing up now.
"Wait!" Then, realising his tone: "To our best knowledge, the Agents and the control over human minds came about as a result of the machines: they are all-powerful, and I think they may be at the root of the problem."
As if to compliment the captain's speech, a small white arachnid cyborg pattered onto the rim of a nearby pod, seemingly unaware of the gigantic ship floating quietly nearby. Throats bristling with terror, they watched as it jumped down onto the membrane, steadied its footing, and threw up its fat head in an airy howl far above the human hearing range.
"Pick up its frequency and lower it," ordered Morpheus. Trinity silently obeyed, her mouth dry. The radio chirped and wailed, before dropping to a reasonable level. The crew reclined in their seats.
"Listen to it."
//almost in. Are the others ready? //
The arachnid's 'voice' was shrill and tinny, even with its pitch considerably reduced. The artificiality was the most over-whelming feature of it, however, sending the congregation's hairs- on end as it hummed and buzzed helplessly, trying to reach a state of harmony.
//yes. // Another call caused the Neb's crew to jump in shock - this one was deeper and, if it were possible, more eerie than the first: a sort of raucous moan that clung to the 's' in its phrase, drawing it out in a serpentine hiss.
This being said, the arachnid set to work, digging into the pod membrane with oscillating jaws. As it undid the skin in two ravaged gashes, its snake-voiced assistant, peered up behind it. This cyborg was easily twice the size of the Nebuchadnezzar, and consisted of a screw-shaped head of fibreglass-like plating with a curtain of tubular arms extending from its lower half downwards. Each arm was the casing for a high-power suction device about the mouth of which four toes stuck out, flickering slightly.
The moment the arachnid tasted success, the larger machine closed one broad foot over the pod and plucked it cleanly from amongst the other 'crops'. Then, to the Neb's horror, it crushed the glass and let the human within slip, unplugged, into its full grasp. The animal's skin was perforated with small shards of its vessel but the machine did not appear to care, instead stabilising it roughly between its fingers and coiling its arm up until the weakly kicking body was pressed into its chest-plate. The spider robot was nowhere to be seen.
The steel behemoth quivered and swung away from the pods once more, arms first, still clutching its clawing prize. Frozen to his seat at the helm of the Neb, Morpheus choked.
"They're unplugging humans. By their own decision."
=*=
*A.N./ Those of you who are Christians may be aware that Nebuchadnezzar was a Babylonian king accounted for in the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament. A later monarch went by the name of Belshazzar, thus I have chosen for this to be the title of the Neb's sister ship. Perhaps the later films will somehow highlight upon this - I don't know.
-A.N./ Okay, so technically Morpheus doesn't have any hair - look, will you give the poor guy a break!?
=*=
Tadaa! Another chapter finished! If any of you read this, can you be so nice as to review it? I'm no great writer, but I spend ages trying, so if you wouldn't mind making 'ages' seem worthwhile.
Woah: I sound so measly. Well, nothing new there.
R + R please! I'm not going to be satisfied until I've finished this fic, so a new chapter will be coming soon.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews, people! In response to the comment about that E-NORMOUS plot window in the first part (please don't hurt me, I'll fix it all up, I promise!), despite contradiction from the direct use of "training programs" in the text itself, Morpheus actually hacked into the Matrix itself and got Trinity and Neo caught up in an alley brawl. Sorry, it wasn't very clear at all, I know. I'll rewrite it some other time. That thing has put a whole blemish on the fic, but I hope people will learn to ignore that sloppiness. Sorry. This chapter should be better. I hope.
=*=
Disclaimer: Yeah, The Matrix isn't mine. You know, it's really quite straightforward. If I was the creator, I wouldn't be writing 'fanfiction'. 'Nuff said. Let's go off and eat some biscuits. Because I lurve biscuits. Particularly those ring ones with pink-and-white icing and a coat of suga-
=*=
REGULATION Part Two: Clarity
=*=
Neo awoke with a start. He was tangled up in the mesh of boiler pipes nearby his unrolled mattress, his sparse clothes alone saving his skin from any scalding by the tubes. Unable to believe he had thrust himself into them on purpose, he clambered away to examine his surroundings for clues.
Everything had notably shifted to the right side of the room, accumulating up the wall in a number of cluttered piles he was sure Morpheus would not approve of should he come to see them making such a state of his ship.
And speaking of the ship.
The Nebuchadnezzar had taken a heavy blow, and certainly one it did not have need of. The attacker, currently invisible amongst the rifts of electricity pulsing about it and the ship, had struck a hard gash clean through the sacrificial metal cuticle usually so resistant to the probes and points of the military machines, peeling deep into the true bodywork, almost prising apart the ribbed casing of the helm. Apparently proud at the great scar it had inflicted, the droid fell to arranging itself juxtaposed unto the ship. Pressing its spiny belly against the Nebuchadnezzar's cheek, it began to shove and worry at the larger vessel, gradually cranking it up at an angle to such an extent that it was now passively mounting its shadowy opponent, inch-by-inch.
It would have been further satisfied if, indeed, it had gained the profit of an awareness concerning the panic it had created within the Neb's creaking stomach. From his usual perch at the Matrix monitors, another crew member, a tan-skinned man, twinkling of eye, glowing of grin, and going by the name of Tank, had descended to the main deck, and was doing his best to prevent the complete collapse of the internal shell, with Morpheus acting rapidly as his aid. Meanwhile, Trinity was doing her utmost to dislodge the ship in its entirety from the vice of the machine, albeit to no avail.
Presently, the attacker gained grip enough to turn the ship at a right angle to its usual state, sending its contents gliding to the left wall like so many plastic dolls in a child's toy boat. Again, Neo crashed headlong into the piping, this time searing his ear with such an excruciating pain that he gave a sharp yelp and pawed at the floor in an attempt to writhe his way up it.
Mercilessly, the Neb continued to topple, weak as a flailing flower, upside- down, the very slowness of its motion bringing the worst of agonies to the crew. Morpheus and Tank had been fortunate enough to find the stalks of the connection chairs in sufficient time to save themselves the fall to the buzzing ceiling. Trinity had locked herself into her seat tensely, her feet braced beneath the chair powerfully. Neo meanwhile was on his back, sprawled over the ceiling.
All of a sudden, as if the dog's master had summoned away his beast, the machine relieved its pressure and welled away from the Neb. Trinity grasped the fortune to see the elusive monster, identifying it as a lone squidie, retarded by the loss of a good five of its limbs, with a bleeding chunk drawn from its butt, no doubt by one of its more able fellows. Expressing an anxiety quite bereft of its order, it thundered unsteadily yet speedily away, leaving the Nebuchadnezzar stranded, turned on its head.
A noisy current galloped through the tunnel. Morpheus mustered his first breath for a whole minute and nodded to Tank's addled face. Gingerly at first, but later with greater power, the Zion-born human swung his hips up about the chair, coming to hug its stem with both arms and legs. Morpheus was quick to follow suit, clambering into the more secure pose, the back of his skull pressed against the cold flooring.
With a nasal groan, the Nebuchadnezzar began to swirl back onto its belly, thrusting its passengers into a moment of silent panic as they tried to right themselves in proper accordance. Failing this, Neo fell straight from ceiling to floor in a tidy heap of sore moans.
When calm had been fully restored, Morpheus jogged up the ladder into the helm, Tank in close pursuit. On entering, they found Trinity melted into the front-most seat, her hands dropping softly from the controls. The captain shuffled past, pecking with an index finger upon a dark blue button that brought up an electric projection of their surroundings.
"Squidie?" The usual culprit, he resolved.
"Without a doubt." Trinity patted another control, and the projection appeared to pan out, absorbing a good sixty metres more of the tunnel within its scope. "We're not out of the woods yet, though. It'll be back pretty soon."
"With reinforcements?"
"Mmm. Probably why it left-"
"We better get out of here," interrupted Tank apprehensively. His eyes sucked in the room with haste. "Where's Neo?"
As if on cue, a dishevelled, shattered man emerged from the doorway, almost tripping over the step on account of the stutter of his footsteps. The attentions of the crew trailed to his person, and, blushing slightly at himself, Neo slid into one of the rear seats, dragging his feet in from the aisle.
"What was that crap all about?" he demanded hoarsely. Morpheus and Tank found their seats, the latter swinging his chewed boots into the aisle with an air of sloth. "I didn't think there was much turbulence in this sector."
"Not turbulence," corrected Trinity. "A squidie."
"How-"
"It's safe to say they've long been aware of our more secretive routes," chimed in Morpheus, gripping awkwardly at a nearby lever. "Trinity, take the ship back along the passage to one of the southern atria. Neo, you and I will revert to the Matrix. The machines' tightened security may have something to do with that fault you detected earlier. Tank - connect us then revive communication with any other ship within a ten-kilometre radius: tell them to be on their guard. "
"Got it," grinned Tank, flipping to his feet and heading down the ladder in two giant bounds. Morpheus and Neo followed, leaving Trinity to reel the ship about: murmuring; trembling; shattering.
=*=
"Hacker ships, I repeat, all hacker ships - please respond!"
Tank folded over slightly, fingers hugging the communicator in irritation, his head cocked keenly to one side, listening intently for anything of purpose above that static chatter. He had shifted his headset so that it occupied only his right ear, stretching his attention to both the workings of the Matrix and their cohorts in the Real World.
"Hey Tank! Long time, no hear!"
The man was delighted to pick up the throaty tones of another Unplugged. He recognised the voice immediately as being that of Dolam, the thirty-year- captain of their sister ship, the Belshazzar*. Disconnected from the Matrix at the tender age of five, he had become well accustomed to the Real World and its dangers, bearing something of a sixth sense for detecting the machines' attack forces. Tank dwelled that if it were not for his excessive unplugging of rather randomly selected humans, he might be as good an authority as Morpheus. As it was, Tank had been asked prior to his recruitment to join the swollen crew of the Belshazzar, but having noted the comparatively skeleton clutch aboard the Nebuchadnezzar, Tank had been quick to assign himself to their loyalties.
"Dolam, great to know you're still around. Just calling on behalf of Morpheus to warn you the machines have closed in. Pass the message on and all that jazz."
"Way ahead of you. They've been racing after us for hours. Half of us haven't got a wink of sleep lately."
"Sounds about right. I'd better leave you to it then. Spread the world, Bel."
Rupturing the connection, Tank sighed and curled back in his seat, brushing the receiver over his lips. He was reluctant to admit it, but Morpheus, as he often was, could well be right. The Bel had been detected at least nine kilometres away - the thought that entire squadrons of attack machines could scale this breadth without any dwindling of their power, without any impediment to their chasing of the human-led ships, was quite simply terrifying. Terrifying, but more probably, berserk, so great was the risk of malfunction at this distance from the core. Mainly to their discredit, the fighting cyborgs processed energy at an alarming rate.
"Something's up," Tank muttered.
=*=
Neo twitched.
The temptation to remind Morpheus of the Agents' constant vigil over the Matrix was burning at his brain, and yet his immense respect for the man restrained him. The captain seemed far-drawn in his task to detect any violent electric pulses or disappearances - so much so that he appeared to have forgotten the presence of their major enemy whilst plugged in. Standing atop the roof of a fairly low warehouse, he had taken to a one- kneed stoop, dark eyes scanning the currents beneath for a single irregularity.
"What do you think it could be?"
"Hopefully only a glitch." Both of them knew well that the machines frequently found 'fault' with their perverted game and consequently edited it to their temperamental preferences.
"Didn't look it, Morpheus. Damn well didn't look it."
On hearing this, his superior turned slightly to glare at him, and burnt to a blush, Neo returned his gaze to the Plugged below. There they were - toys to their own creation. Over-thrown and ridiculed, these humans' legacy had been torn like wings from an eagle, sending them, degenerates, plummeting into an ocean of despair. The very thought of it saturated Neo with a boiling fury, and a desire that Morpheus had weaned him off the Matrix sooner to save him from the disgusting truth that had made him the fool all this time.
They did not have to wait long though. For at that very moment, a localised body of humans fizzled quietly and vanished, the manner considerably neater than before, when many had died under the immense currents collapsing about the bizarre victim. Unfortunately for the Unplugged, the displaced bulk left a hole even its peers could not ignore, and their task increased in ardour as a result.
"What happened?"
"Did you see that?"
"They just disappeared!"
With a communal sigh, Neo and Morpheus slipped off the roof, feet-first, the impact against the pavement minor to them. Running towards the void, which was even now slowly filling with curious onlookers daring to step into an invisible lion's den, they shouldered several rows out of the way and skidded into the clearing. The crowd's attention, thankfully, was thrust upon them.
"People, people!" shouted Neo, raising his hands to settle them. His face became painted with a forced grin. "It's obvious the findings of our surveys have been secured. If you'll all bear with my colleague and I, we will explain the situation fully."
As the hubbub reluctantly resided, Neo nodded to Morpheus, who cursed him beneath his breath and drew the alibi to a nervous conclusion.
"The city's water supply has been polluted with a minor hallucinogenic substance by a group of youngsters who have now been placed under police custody. Do not be afraid - we have filtered the entire system and any negative effects will probably fade by next week at the very latest. This goes to explaining your collective notion of what has just happened; but there is no need to be alarmed." As he and Neo backed away, he faded into expressions of pretentious pleasantry. "God be with you, good health, everything is alright."
"We've got a problem on our hands," his companion muttered as they marched away to the nearest public telephone.
"Indeed. Our first priority is to find out what the cause of all this is, and soon." Morpheus's attention steered back towards the gradually dispersing crowd. "Two-bit excuses aren't going to convince an entire population for long."
=*=
Trinity was sure she wasn't due south anymore.
The lower regions of the chartered Real World were less regimented than this. Here - wherever here was - there were fans of tunnels, all with the exact same course, channelling the traffic of several small maintenance droids and the odd torpedo attack machine, which by itself posed no immediate threat. Trinity had thus concluded that either the south had become unusually overrun, or that she was in fact moving the Neb towards the core.
Presently, Morpheus and Neo hopped into the helm beside her. Trinity's stomach purred in their company, as if embracing a wonderful security blanket. She was externally bitter, casting off most affection, coyness and even enjoyment for the sake of her reputation: dominance. Yet despite this, she would admit to herself time-after-time that she greatly loved the intimacy of others over loneliness. To her, it donated a safety grander than any self-sufficiency, any attempt at becoming the immortal 'independent woman', could ever achieve.
But it shattered like thin ice.
"Trinity," droned Morpheus, sitting himself down beside her. "Where are we?"
"I - I'm not sure. The course was set south, but."
"Morpheus," whispered Neo, glimpsing a crab-like droid hover past starboard, "we're in the core."
Rocking on a strong electromagnetic current that surged up behind it from apparently nowhere, the Nebuchadnezzar drifted through into a new chamber. A chamber all three of them were overly familiar with.
Before them, stretched as far as the eye could, or desired to, see, lay a jet-black ocean of pipes and gutters, from which a million billion orange- red humps extended outwards, scales on the massive oil-slicked dragon. The breath was at once stolen from Neo's lungs.
They were sitting in the middle of a human field.
"Oh, dear God." Trinity could have shot herself - not for the ship, but for the poor humans all around. If the attack droids closed in now, the untimely explosion of the Neb would crush at the very least a healthy three percent of the pods (a surprisingly large quota), leaving the humans within torn crudely apart, head and vertebrae to remain connected to the wall, limp. The very thought caused the woman to wretch.
Disgruntled, she flew into a flurry of animation, ripping at various levers and buttons. "Alright, I'm backing out."
"No," hissed Morpheus hoarsely, his lips buried in his knuckles. "Wait for just a second. I want to see what they do."
To Neo and Trinity, this sounded like a death wish. Surely it was rather inevitable! A scout, most likely a torpedo machine, would appear, register them, and then scurry away to fetch allies. By that time, it was far too late to even consider escape: the forces had both the speed and tenacity to finish the ship off in seven minutes flat.
"Come on, Morpheus." Trinity was standing up now.
"Wait!" Then, realising his tone: "To our best knowledge, the Agents and the control over human minds came about as a result of the machines: they are all-powerful, and I think they may be at the root of the problem."
As if to compliment the captain's speech, a small white arachnid cyborg pattered onto the rim of a nearby pod, seemingly unaware of the gigantic ship floating quietly nearby. Throats bristling with terror, they watched as it jumped down onto the membrane, steadied its footing, and threw up its fat head in an airy howl far above the human hearing range.
"Pick up its frequency and lower it," ordered Morpheus. Trinity silently obeyed, her mouth dry. The radio chirped and wailed, before dropping to a reasonable level. The crew reclined in their seats.
"Listen to it."
//almost in. Are the others ready? //
The arachnid's 'voice' was shrill and tinny, even with its pitch considerably reduced. The artificiality was the most over-whelming feature of it, however, sending the congregation's hairs- on end as it hummed and buzzed helplessly, trying to reach a state of harmony.
//yes. // Another call caused the Neb's crew to jump in shock - this one was deeper and, if it were possible, more eerie than the first: a sort of raucous moan that clung to the 's' in its phrase, drawing it out in a serpentine hiss.
This being said, the arachnid set to work, digging into the pod membrane with oscillating jaws. As it undid the skin in two ravaged gashes, its snake-voiced assistant, peered up behind it. This cyborg was easily twice the size of the Nebuchadnezzar, and consisted of a screw-shaped head of fibreglass-like plating with a curtain of tubular arms extending from its lower half downwards. Each arm was the casing for a high-power suction device about the mouth of which four toes stuck out, flickering slightly.
The moment the arachnid tasted success, the larger machine closed one broad foot over the pod and plucked it cleanly from amongst the other 'crops'. Then, to the Neb's horror, it crushed the glass and let the human within slip, unplugged, into its full grasp. The animal's skin was perforated with small shards of its vessel but the machine did not appear to care, instead stabilising it roughly between its fingers and coiling its arm up until the weakly kicking body was pressed into its chest-plate. The spider robot was nowhere to be seen.
The steel behemoth quivered and swung away from the pods once more, arms first, still clutching its clawing prize. Frozen to his seat at the helm of the Neb, Morpheus choked.
"They're unplugging humans. By their own decision."
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*A.N./ Those of you who are Christians may be aware that Nebuchadnezzar was a Babylonian king accounted for in the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament. A later monarch went by the name of Belshazzar, thus I have chosen for this to be the title of the Neb's sister ship. Perhaps the later films will somehow highlight upon this - I don't know.
-A.N./ Okay, so technically Morpheus doesn't have any hair - look, will you give the poor guy a break!?
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Tadaa! Another chapter finished! If any of you read this, can you be so nice as to review it? I'm no great writer, but I spend ages trying, so if you wouldn't mind making 'ages' seem worthwhile.
Woah: I sound so measly. Well, nothing new there.
R + R please! I'm not going to be satisfied until I've finished this fic, so a new chapter will be coming soon.