Author's lengthy notes: Wow! I never really expected response to be this good… thanks you guys, esp. Centaur, I'm absolutely honored to receive a review from you. *blushes* So, here we go, second chapter already. I've decided to kind of have fun with all the characters (but not make fun of them), so you'll probably see the weirdest things about them. Ah well. Sorry it took so long, because halfway through – crap! – I realized I'd written half of it in 3rd person instead of 2nd person, or the other way around…

Some swearing, a lot of *ells. You don't know how much it pains me to stick it in, but it's all about keeping the character right. Heck simply doesn't cut it. Do not use thy Lord's name in vain.

Can someone please tell me how long Cypher's been unplugged? I think it was nine… please correct me if it's not… I need to fix a couple of age problems in chapter one, so I just repeated here with the changes. I'll fix it properly later, because I don't have the original file on this computer, long story.

~*~

"How old are you, anyway?"

"Twenty-five or so, I guess." I focus my attention on the swan, which disappears into a bush, promptly abandoning me.

"Christ." He shook his head again, looking somewhat like a rumpled horse. "You don't look it."

"Morpheus found me when I was nineteen – I'd finished college already, since I went to high school unusually early. I've been on board nearly six years." I grimaced. "After nine, that's a record on the Neb."

"Someone's been here nine years already?"

"Yeah. Morpheus." I didn't tell him that Cypher had been around about nine years, too.

"So you've seen 'em all come and go, I expect."

I choose not to reply and return to my dutiful observation of the swan as it remerged from the bush, a long line of cygnets trailing cheerfully behind. Family. Perhaps that was one of the concepts that Zion in general lacked the most.

I closed my eyes and rested my head against Neo's shoulder.

~*~

Neo sensed tension and tried to change the subject. "Any friends back in the Matrix?"

"If you mean exes, no. Friends, yes. Mostly the other people who worked in the deli. I didn't mix around in college very much." A light breeze rippled the crystal waters of the pond, sending several leaves of the willow tree fluttering down. A small part of me wanted to just sit there, forever, warm in Neo's arms, never having to think about the war again, or whether the next moment would be their last…

Neo's voice cut in. "The deli?"

"I took a part-time job as chef at a local place to pay my way through college. Doesn't everybody?" I paused, smiling fondly. "Peak hours were really boring because you'd just stand there and fry your ass off most of the time, but in between major meals we'd just leave one or two people on shifts and the rest of us would head off to the back yard – this big, empty concrete box bordered off by trees. Sometimes Jed had drugs with him. He always knew where to get them. Sitting around, kicking dry leaves, getting high – that was the life. That's where we all learned to throw knives."

Neo shuddered.

"Useful skill, really, throwing knives. See, knives are a lot easier to carry than guns. Being in the kitchen teaches you a lot of good stuff. You handle knives, blood, fire, and you kill a considerable lot of stuff. Squids and all that.

"They were all actually a pretty odd bunch – all college dropouts except for me and the guy who ran the place, who was really good to us, too – he gave us free reign of the premises and adjusted shifts to fit college schedules, in my case. The best bit was he let us take back whatever food there was at the end of the day. In fact, we got all our meals there free – mum, too. The others and I used to have these great fights with the leftover live prawns on seafood Sundays." I frowned. "He did get kind of crabby if you didn't slice the eggplant thinly enough, though.

"That's basically it, anyway. My life wasn't all that exciting. Hell, I didn't even do drugs properly, mainly because I didn't know where to get them. I took up computers in high school – figured out hacking from there. I'd managed to crack the IRS-d base about a week before I took the red pill from Morpheus. The end."

Neo chuckled. "A lot better than mine, though." He looked around. "Where the hell is everybody?"

I smiled back as seductively as I could. It didn't work quite as well as it did with the leather. "Does it really matter?"

"Hell, no." Neo closed in and kissed me softly.

"Ever heard Apoc's story?" Neo shook his head no. "Apoc was unplugged about a month or so after I showed up. He was probably the gentlest of us Matrix-borns. He didn't even like guns. In fact," I paused for effect, "he used to be a kindergarten teacher, believe it or not."

"Right, now you're kidding me. Please say you're kidding me." I resisted the urge to laugh. He really did look damn sweet when he was confused.

"Nope, serious." Neo found himself lost in the blue eyes that had brightened in a way they hadn't for months. "Apoc loves little kids – nobody knows though, simply because we don't have little kids around here."

"Apoc?!!"

I choked back another laugh. "You should have seen him in here the last time, then. He was going ga-ga over the children." I lowered my voice considerably, thinking. "Guess you never will."

Neo slowly took it in. It was still so hard to imagine they'd lost so many crew members in such a short time – he'd never even got to know them, not at all.

I continued anyway. "He was a lot of fun to watch, really. Apoc's a real gentle giant – dead patient, too. Kids used to climb all over him and pull his hair, and he didn't mind a bit. He doesn't – didn't – talk much, mostly because he just didn't like talking to adults… he was always best with kids."

"But Switch-"

Trinity's full lips twitched into a wry grin. "I'll come to that later. Apoc really seemed like an unlikely candidate at the time – even though he did have some interesting hacking skills, since he never used them. The only problem with him was that he'd accidentally gotten hold of something he shouldn't have – I don't know what exactly, even I didn't talk to him all that much. Anyway Morpheus decided that it was best to pull him out – at the time, it was only him, me and Cypher on board – we couldn't risk detection.

"He actually stretched for the blue pill at first, you know. After all, he'd had a good life, no drug or criminal records, like some of us. Good family. Something must have made him change his mind, though – I don't know. But he took the red pill in the end, and we all breathed freely. That is, until he recovered and well, pretty much went nuts. He wasn't even late, maybe twenty. We had to sedate him twenty-four-seven for nearly half a month before he calmed down. Fortunately he cheered up when we started loading programs into him, so that wasn't so bad.

"Another word for Apoc was intelligent. You know what they say about people who don't talk – they listen. He was brilliant – learned to be an operator without lessons almost immediately after he recovered." I smiled. "Not a very good one, though.

"And that's where Switch came in."

~*~

Yeah, that's the end of the chapter. I'll have Oracle trips next chapter, promise! This is sadly short simply because there wasn't much to say about Apoc, I'm afraid. Next chapter will definitely be meatier – yeah, Switch! And more Apoc. *grinz cheesily*