Mirror Account: Chapter 2: Two heads are better.
Ranma stood across from Morpheus in the dojo, relaxing his posture as the older man unfolded into a drunken-fist stance.
This was going to be fun.
Morpheus put out his forehand and waved Ranma forward, but the young man simply shook his head. This seemed to surprise Morpheus, but he quickly compensated, taking an offensive stance and lashing out at Ranma with a double punch that would have knocked the wind out of him, had it hit.
Ranma was not where Morpheus would be, but his hands were as he caught Morpheus' wrists and tossed the larger man into the wall behind him.
Morpheus got up and brushed the dust from his Gi.
Ranma waited.
***
Trinity watched the monitor for any hint of the girl, but she did not show up. As Morpheus moved faster and faster, so did Ranma. Finally, the refresh rate of the monitor was not enough, and the boy became a blur. Morpheus flew against the opposite wall of the dojo for what seemed like the hundredth time during the match. A hand caught Trinity's shoulder.
"Look at this, Trin." It was Tank. He quickly led Trinity over to the screens that displayed the neurokinetics of the two combatants. The screen labeled "Unit 2" almost seemed to be a solid block of light blue, while the other was going in a steady sine wave.
"This is insane, Trin. Nobody has neurokinetics like that. He'd be breaking the damn sound barrier in there if there was one!"
***
Ranma pummeled Morpheus again as he was attacked yet again.
"Give it up, Morpheus. I'm not even catching my second wind!" he folded his hands behind his head and jumped lightly onto Morpheus' shoulders and giving the man a gentle kick into the wall behind him. "You can't even hit me!"
Morpheus said nothing, but instead came at him again, with similar results.
Finally, Ranma gave it up and began to lead Morpheus into a mild spiral, allowing the man a hit or two to make him feel better until he let loose with a Hiryu Shouten Ha.
The result, as expected, was Morpheus being blown through the roof.
***
Ranma looked surreptitiously around the lobby at the others who were sitting there waiting. They were all so quiet! Bored, Ranma walked over to a young girl in Buddhist-style robes who was playing with a pair of metallic balls.
As Ranma approached the balls began to float. The girl was not moving a muscle, Ranma was positive, but the Balls were maintaining positions in mid air just as if they were suspended on strings. As Ranma allowed her arms to drop to her sides the girl seemed to notice her for the first time and smiled at her as the balls dropped lifelessly to the floor.
"How did you do that?" Ranma's eyes remained locked on the balls, expectantly waiting for them to come back to life.
"Do what?" The girl spoke perfect Japanese. "Nothing happened at all!" Her eyes glittered with held-in mirth as the smiled once again and trotted off into another room, leaving the mysterious balls to wait for the next child who wished to play with them.
***
"He beat him." Cypher twitched nervously as he looked at the screen which displayed Morpheus' inert bulk, spread out on the matt of the dojo. He turned to question Trinity. "Has that ever happened before?"
Trinity was not there, but was instead already at Ranma's side, helping him to his feat. Scarce minutes later, Morpheus was on his feet and smiling proudly. "I knew you could do it, Ranma. I knew you were the one!"
Ranma turned towards the exit to the uncomfortably snug room. "You're just one in a long line. This doesn't mean anything."
Even as the boy's back turned, Cypher new that this was going to be another dangerous situation. Morpheus was getting old. It had been ten years since the screw-up with Neo and the man was still trying. As Tank, and finally Trinity left Cypher to his duties of watching for serious anomalies in the Matrix. Now was his chance.
***
"So. You feel that you have another opportunity to present to us." The Agent was somehow more imposing as the soft-spoken Japanese man who sat across the table from Cypher, sipping tea.
"Yeah. You know the deal, though." Cypher fiddled with the chopsticks nervously. He had never liked sushi.
"Yes. Of course." The Agent scarcely moved. "We feel that there is something that we must add. For our protection in this...deal, let us say."
Cypher shivered immediately gave a quick glance behind himself for danger. It was as if the room temperature had just dropped ten degrees.
"If we find the access codes on our own, all deals are off." The Agent smiled, making Cypher even more nervous. "You will be hunted like any other human."
It took a good deal of self control not to stand up and break into a run. After all, Cypher had been hunted by these things for almost three decades. "Fine. No squidies, though."
The Agent promptly stood up and handed Cypher a rotary phone.
"Deal."
***
Ranma stared at her hands as she followed the woman through the `employees only' door that led into the bowels of the hotel and finally came to a small family shrine, where a statue of Amida Buddha sat.
"She will be here shortly"
Before Ranma could turn to thank the woman she was gone, off to tend to another of those who were still waiting in the lobby. Turning back to the Shrine in confusion, Ranma found an old woman sitting there quietly, as if she was waiting for something.
"Excuse me..."
"Yes." The woman answered affirmatively before Ranma could finish her query.
"Why am I-"
"Wait." The woman turned to look at Ranma. "Come closer so that these old eyes can get a good look at you."
Ranma got a good look at the old woman's face even as the latter seemed to be analyzing Ranma. This woman was old. She may have even been older than Cologne!
"I guess you're about halfway there, child. You're just waiting for your prince to come." The woman chuckled to herself, infuriating Ranma.
"I'm a guy, you-"
"So you are?" The woman's voice was suddenly harsh, much as Colognes had always been. It carried pain of a war. "Do all `guys' have breasts, child? Do all guys have capacity to bare children? You're delusional. Maybe you won't be able to handle it."
"You don't understand, old woman. I'm cursed-"Ranma was once again cut off by the old woman.
"You will be silent, now! When was the last time you touched an ounce of hot water. Was it when you awoke in your bathtub? How many days ago was that, Ranma Saotome?"
Ranma shrugged, and was about to speak when the woman continued.
"You will not speak! I shouldn't have to tell you so many times." Her voice softened suddenly. "Children these days...you think you own the world!" She chuckled to herself yet again.
As if that chuckle had signified the end of a ceremony the woman arose and took Ranma's right hand in her own soft, wrinkled palms.
"Come with me, young one. I'm sure you're confused."
Ranma allowed herself to be led into a busy kitchen, where food was being prepared on all of the stoves except for one, which housed a kettle. The woman quickly took the kettle in one hand and handed it to Ranma.
"Do your thing, child."
Ranma dumped the kettle over her head and turned to the woman. "There! You see! I'm not a gi-" The old woman was holding up a mirror. In the mirror was a very tired looking young redhead.
"Now you see, child. That room and that tearing were not dreams. You're free to stay here and wait for your brother. We've had a room prepared for you for a few years now. It's all set up even as we speak. Here's your key. It's even got a view of the outside dojo, just the way you like it. A perfect option to go collect your thoughts, wouldn't you say?" The old woman, no, the Oracle led Ranma out as she handed her the small silver keychain which sported a single numeral with clarity.
1/2
***
Ranma stood, staring at the iron claw that had brought him, unclothed and immobile, so like a newborn child, into this world with reproach. It looked like some mechanical, mutated perversion of a human hand. It was hard to wonder whether or not that painful, scalding water down below that pod from whence he came, down below that small thing that Morpheus claimed made Ranma a battery, may have been a better fate than this darkened sky and twisted metal. He got up, gradually, as his muscles still ached, and pressed a hand, skin still as pink as the day he was born, against one of the joints of the claw.
"Mechanical mother..." His voice sounded weak as the half-joking statement rolled off of his tongue. He ran his fingers up to the cable and investigated it gingerly. Flakes of red rust came off on Ranma's fingers, feeling so unnatural. If he wasn't so certain that he was not dreaming he would have been able to swear that this was a dream. It was not, of course. It could not be. The warmth was warmer, the ice colder. It was just all so unnatural, though!
"Lookin' for something to grasp onto, eh kid?" It was the bald guy, Cypher, holding a metallic mug that exuded a smell that caused Ranma to want to gag from many feet away.
"Yeah." He wished he could have his voice back more than ever now. What would have had happened if he'd taken the blue pill?
"I know what you're thinkin' kid." Cypher sat down on the floor next to Ranma. "Just wait 'til a few decades are up. Maybe you'll be as crazy as Morpheus is."
Ranma looked up at Cypher's round face. "When did he...take you?"
Cypher shrugged. "I was sixteen or seventeen years old, and just like every other hotshot hacker kid out there, trying to prove my name. Morpheus used a pretty girl to get through to me and we had a bit of a contest. I made an ATM spit out cash and she cracked the IRS T-Base in the US. Guess who won?" He chuckled to himself and sipped some more of his noxious beverage.
Ranma finally rubbed his eyes and stood up.
"Where ya' going, kid?" Cypher turned around to give Ranma a sidelong glance. "Sleep. I have more operations programs to run tomorrow. Morpheus says he wants me to meet the oracle as soon as possible." Ranma turned towards the large hatch that led into the main body of the Nebudchanezzar just in time to miss a wide grin coming to Cypher's face.
***
Ranma stood atop the skyscraper next to morpheus, wearing a black T-shirt that flapped in the high winds in a way that made Ranma feel just a little off-center.
"The trick in the Matrix is realizing which rules you can bend and which you need pay no mind to. Observe." Morpheus took a running start and leapt from the top of the building on which he and Ranma stood onto the next building. When Ranma only shrugged noncommittally Morpheus grinned triumphantly and called out to him. "Now you try!"
Ranma leapt straight up and came down a few moments later mere steps away from Morpheus stood.
"Are you done?"
Morpheus only smiled as if he'd had some small victory and nodded to some unknown deity.
Moments later Ranma was gasping for air as gentle hands removed the offending needle from his neck. As he sat up and surveyed the transmission room again he found seven six pairs of eyes looking directly into his own.
"Amazing." The solitary word from Cypher broke the silence and the motion on Nebudchanezzar resumed as if nothing had happened. Confused, Ranma returned to his room to rest.
***
"It doesn't make any sense!" Ranma went through her katas with a fervor that she had not felt since leaving Nerima. "There was no Chisuiton this time. There was only the little red pill. It wasn't the Phoenix pill. Cologne said that there was only one of those." She quickly incapacitated another imaginary enemy
Ranma's assigned room stood in disarray, all of the furniture shoved to one side so that she could practice her katas and maybe achieve some sort of balance in her current confusion.
Desperate for some sort of answer, she launched into a Chestnut attack and nearly demolished a wall in her blind frustration, hesitating just in time to avoid damage that the small hotel would surely not appreciate.
Finished with her kata and only more distressed through the effort that she had put out, Ranma retreated into the suite's bathroom, drawing a hot shower for herself.
***
Morpheus occupied a stool near Ranma as the boy rested, neither one of them making any sound at all until the silence was almost tangible.
"I'm sorry." Morpheus' voice betrayed immense pain. "I believe that my time is almost up, and I believe that you know why."
"Because I'm 'the one'?" Ranma snorted derisively. "I'm just a martial artist. I don't bother with any of this techno-crap. If you're going to feed me this bullshit, at least have the sense to talk about it like someone who's not just some fanatic, devoted to a dying religion."
The silence came again, and for longer. It seemed to be a continuously widening gap between Ranma and Morpheus.
"I..." Morpheus' forehead glistened with sweat. "I think you don't grasp the situation, Ranma."
Ranma sighed and rolled onto his side, staring at Morpheus.
"You're the first person I've ever seen who could make that jump on the first try. Out of all of the captains of the ships, out of all of the 'ones,' none has ever been able to make The Jump on the first try. Not ever, Ranma.
Ranma shook his head in denial, refusing to debate with the older man any longer.
Morpheus shrugged and held his hand up, standing and making a polite bow
in Ranma's direction.
"Tomorrow we dive into the Matrix, Ranma. Be ready."
***
Morpheus, Ranma, Trinity, Cypher, Tank, Switch, and Apoc all sat in a circle, awaiting the wrenching feeling that was to come. It was time to see the oracle. It was time for Ranma to find the truth for himself.
After an eternity of waiting, the needle came in a moment of white-hot pain, and then.....Nothingness.
***
Ranma shrieked in agony as she clutched the shower curtain, grasping for balance in retaliation against the piercing pain that had suddenly come upon her. She strove to reach to the elegant medicine cabinet that sat mere inches from her desperate gasp and fell in an unrealistically fast, and yet blindingly, painfully slow plunge as her forehead made hard contact against the edge of the marble sink. As she blacked out she saw the woman who called herself the oracle, standing in the doorway of the bathroom in panic, ready to catch Ranma as she fell.
***
Ranma came to in a warehouse, surrounded by vaguely familiar figures and agitated voices.
"What the hell happened? That felt like I had my skull ripped out and rearranged."
"Quiet, Cypher. We've got a problem on our hands, a big problem."
"It looks more like a girl to me," a soft feminine voice said with irony.
Ranma felt that this would be a good time to sit up and look around and open her eyes all the way, and was immediately sorry that she had. She hadn't had this much of a headache since the hangover that had followed that 'Drunken Fist' fiasco.
"Where the hell am I? Why am I with you guys again? Where's the oracle?" Ranma looked around at her new companions until her view centered on the large man known as Morpheus.
"Who are you?" Morpheus' voice was silent.
Trinity stepped out of the still-blurry darkness from behind Morpheus and smiled smugly.
"I told you so, Morpheus! There were two signals! That's the girl who helped me!"
Morpheus' gaze shot from Ranma to Trinity and then back to Ranma, piercing her soul like a barbed arrow
"How is this possible? The Oracle never said anything about there being two of you!"
As Ranma looked from Morpheus to Trinity confusedly a cel phone rang. A kid with a large black anvil case pulled a small cel phone out of his jacket and answered. "Mouse here"
He nodded once and his face fell into a look of despair.
"How many?" He waited another moment and then dropped the phone, shattering it on the ground, creating another deafening silence.
"We're dead. There're ten of them. Ten Agents."
***
Yamada surveyed his partners, useless machines. All of them simultaneously cracked their various joints as if it mattered. There was no body there to tune up. There was not the joy of being a well-oiled machine. There were just his subroutines, and their victims.
Even now, he could see the young boy, now a man of twenty-eight years. He was sitting there with two Gattling cannons, just as he had when trying to defend Neo. The foolish programmer had sacrificed his own life so that his compatriots could escape. Neo. What a pathetic waste of the humans' time. He never even made it to the Oracle.
Yamada gave a glance to the rest of the agents and began to run towards the door of the warehouse. He increased his speed past human limits until his legs were nothing but a blur. Faster and faster he ran until the asphalt under his feet began to blacken under the friction that he was causing. One hundred yards. Twenty five yards.
The groan of the steel as Yamada plowed through the door would have been considered raucous if he were a human. Instead, he found it pleasurable. It was the sound of the human's demise. It was the sounds of the codes that allowed him into the mainframe of Zion.
It was the sound of Victory!
Yamada zeroed in on the kid, Mouse, and made a beeline straight for him, ignoring all of the other pitiful humans. It was time to rectify a mistake.
As he picked up speed yet again, something went wrong. The body of another agent hit him squarely in the midriff, knocking him back. The startled kid turned his two Gattling cannons on him and blasted. The momentary oblivion was unsettling, but the recovery was quick. Another hardwired human disappeared and Yamada was a dockworker. Yoji Takeshi, age 36, father of two. No more was he. Now he felt Yamada's joy and made a run for the warehouse even as he felt the re-entry of three other agents. Something was not right about this battle. The humans had a new weapon. Yamada checked his data as he accelerated once more towards the warehouse, this time aiming for a side door, and found that there was one human who was out of place in this mix. There was one human who was still hardwired into the system. It was the girl from the other day!
Yamada's frown turned into a vicious snarl as he dove for the wall. Twenty feet of hard cement passed under him as his head collided with the fist of a young girl, not more than 19 years old. Then, his head collided with it again, and again, and again. Crimson filled Yamada's field of view as he found his target and attempted to move at her only to find a solid wall. He desperately searched for another hardwired human in the area and had no luck. They had lost this battle, and the higher order would not be happy.
***
Ranma gasped for air as she looked at the battered corpse of a normal Japanese man, skull pounded into some sort of concoction that resembled moldy oatmeal with tomato juice mixed in.
She looked around at the people who had been here and woke up and found them staring directly back into her eyes, the young man with something like triumph.
"I've never seen a single human take down an agent one-on-one," Morpheus walked towards Ranma with a brisk, triumphant spring in his step, "and yet, here I see a girl taking out not one, but ten agents!" Morpheus removed his sunglasses, revealing eyes darker than Ranma would have thought possible on a man, but bloodshot around the edges. "Surely, we have had a change in luck. Let us make our way to the Oracle."
***
Ranma tossed and turned, pain wracking his limbs as he gasped for air, the needle that he had thought he would be used to by now stinging all the way in, and then exploded into eddies of pain which wracked his entire body, not allowing him to settle even as he felt the confinement of the pain confining each and every muscle of his body. He felt the pain of a battle, the ice that was felt when he knew that one of his fists was snapping bone, and the glory of beating what everybody else thought the odds were, but he knew the truth. He would always win.
Pain caused his body to spasm again, still leaving him in darkness, unseeing, but feeling something soft and cold pressing up against his forehead.
"Are you okay?" A worried voice attempted to sound soothing, but just betrayed worry. The accent was unmistakably rural Japanese, but Ranma could not place the voice, only that it sounded familiar. He attempted to move and failed. He was still confined.
Warmth began to spread through his legs, causing them to thrash violently with the sudden onrush of feeling. He heard a frightened shriek as he kicked out violently, involuntarily.
The warmth spread up to his abdomen, causing him to want to wretch with the sickness that followed, but he could not. He simply sat there as blood seeped out the corners of his mouth.
The warm feeling made it to his torso and caused him to violently shudder in pain again as his lungs burned in an unholy fire and he gasped for the air that he knew he would need, or he was going to die.
I'm dead. Dead. Dead. DEAD. Ranma could only come to the conclusion that some unknown poison had infected his body as he systematically stretched his burning arms and the warmth moved throughout them as well. He tested his arms as if newly born and flexed each finger in turn, ignoring the fire that coursed through his veins.
Then the fire maid it through his neck to his head, and pain overcame Ranma, and he screamed, and darkness came, but the pain did not end. He continued screaming and screaming, until finally he awoke.
***
Darkness invaded Ranma's vision as the pain receded, but he exuded satisfaction as he investigated that darkness and found that it was darkness with depth. He was not dead! He was somewhere! But where?
He slowly turned around, grasping the covers that enveloped his body, feeling that they were something like cotton, and trying to make out any details. After he'd taken in all that he could of the room the lights came on, barely bright enough so that Ranma could make out a solitary, feminine figure, curled up in a chair opposite to the bed that Ranma had found himself in. Before Ranma was barely able to stand before the figure stood and made its way out of the room, allowing a small bit of light on it as the door opened and silently shut.
He attempted to disentangle himself from the blankets as he felt movement on the bed and immediately felt stirring on the other half of the bed.
"Why are you moving all around?" The voice from before sounded annoyed. The stirring continued. "What is it, 3 AM? Couldn't you have picked another time to have a nightmare love?"
Ranma sat rigid as a board as a feminine curvature slowly made its way up his back, breasts sliding smoothly along either side of his spine and arms wrapping themselves gingerly around his necks.
"I'm sorry, hun." The voice sounded hurt, now, quickly converting from annoyed to pouting. "Mmm...I love your back so much! It's just like a girl's!" A nervous giggle followed.
Ranma'd had enough. He edged to the side of the bed and stood up, knocking the girl, whoever she was, to the ground.
"Ouch!" The girl stood up, thankfully obscured in her nudity by the darkness, brushing her short, boyish hair out of her eyes. "You Baka! What's the big idea?" The voice was right, but the tone was wrong. Something was terribly wrong! Ranma rushed to the light switch and pushed it up the rest of the way, looking at the girl who stood with her arms around her chest, in front of him, indignantly staring at him.
"No..." Ranma turned from her. "This can't be."
*******
Author's Note:
This chapter was very long in the making. I NEED C & C. Ream it. Rip it up! Criticize! Flame! Just tell me what you think!
No special thanx yet. Nobody's read it.
-Inu
Ranma stood across from Morpheus in the dojo, relaxing his posture as the older man unfolded into a drunken-fist stance.
This was going to be fun.
Morpheus put out his forehand and waved Ranma forward, but the young man simply shook his head. This seemed to surprise Morpheus, but he quickly compensated, taking an offensive stance and lashing out at Ranma with a double punch that would have knocked the wind out of him, had it hit.
Ranma was not where Morpheus would be, but his hands were as he caught Morpheus' wrists and tossed the larger man into the wall behind him.
Morpheus got up and brushed the dust from his Gi.
Ranma waited.
***
Trinity watched the monitor for any hint of the girl, but she did not show up. As Morpheus moved faster and faster, so did Ranma. Finally, the refresh rate of the monitor was not enough, and the boy became a blur. Morpheus flew against the opposite wall of the dojo for what seemed like the hundredth time during the match. A hand caught Trinity's shoulder.
"Look at this, Trin." It was Tank. He quickly led Trinity over to the screens that displayed the neurokinetics of the two combatants. The screen labeled "Unit 2" almost seemed to be a solid block of light blue, while the other was going in a steady sine wave.
"This is insane, Trin. Nobody has neurokinetics like that. He'd be breaking the damn sound barrier in there if there was one!"
***
Ranma pummeled Morpheus again as he was attacked yet again.
"Give it up, Morpheus. I'm not even catching my second wind!" he folded his hands behind his head and jumped lightly onto Morpheus' shoulders and giving the man a gentle kick into the wall behind him. "You can't even hit me!"
Morpheus said nothing, but instead came at him again, with similar results.
Finally, Ranma gave it up and began to lead Morpheus into a mild spiral, allowing the man a hit or two to make him feel better until he let loose with a Hiryu Shouten Ha.
The result, as expected, was Morpheus being blown through the roof.
***
Ranma looked surreptitiously around the lobby at the others who were sitting there waiting. They were all so quiet! Bored, Ranma walked over to a young girl in Buddhist-style robes who was playing with a pair of metallic balls.
As Ranma approached the balls began to float. The girl was not moving a muscle, Ranma was positive, but the Balls were maintaining positions in mid air just as if they were suspended on strings. As Ranma allowed her arms to drop to her sides the girl seemed to notice her for the first time and smiled at her as the balls dropped lifelessly to the floor.
"How did you do that?" Ranma's eyes remained locked on the balls, expectantly waiting for them to come back to life.
"Do what?" The girl spoke perfect Japanese. "Nothing happened at all!" Her eyes glittered with held-in mirth as the smiled once again and trotted off into another room, leaving the mysterious balls to wait for the next child who wished to play with them.
***
"He beat him." Cypher twitched nervously as he looked at the screen which displayed Morpheus' inert bulk, spread out on the matt of the dojo. He turned to question Trinity. "Has that ever happened before?"
Trinity was not there, but was instead already at Ranma's side, helping him to his feat. Scarce minutes later, Morpheus was on his feet and smiling proudly. "I knew you could do it, Ranma. I knew you were the one!"
Ranma turned towards the exit to the uncomfortably snug room. "You're just one in a long line. This doesn't mean anything."
Even as the boy's back turned, Cypher new that this was going to be another dangerous situation. Morpheus was getting old. It had been ten years since the screw-up with Neo and the man was still trying. As Tank, and finally Trinity left Cypher to his duties of watching for serious anomalies in the Matrix. Now was his chance.
***
"So. You feel that you have another opportunity to present to us." The Agent was somehow more imposing as the soft-spoken Japanese man who sat across the table from Cypher, sipping tea.
"Yeah. You know the deal, though." Cypher fiddled with the chopsticks nervously. He had never liked sushi.
"Yes. Of course." The Agent scarcely moved. "We feel that there is something that we must add. For our protection in this...deal, let us say."
Cypher shivered immediately gave a quick glance behind himself for danger. It was as if the room temperature had just dropped ten degrees.
"If we find the access codes on our own, all deals are off." The Agent smiled, making Cypher even more nervous. "You will be hunted like any other human."
It took a good deal of self control not to stand up and break into a run. After all, Cypher had been hunted by these things for almost three decades. "Fine. No squidies, though."
The Agent promptly stood up and handed Cypher a rotary phone.
"Deal."
***
Ranma stared at her hands as she followed the woman through the `employees only' door that led into the bowels of the hotel and finally came to a small family shrine, where a statue of Amida Buddha sat.
"She will be here shortly"
Before Ranma could turn to thank the woman she was gone, off to tend to another of those who were still waiting in the lobby. Turning back to the Shrine in confusion, Ranma found an old woman sitting there quietly, as if she was waiting for something.
"Excuse me..."
"Yes." The woman answered affirmatively before Ranma could finish her query.
"Why am I-"
"Wait." The woman turned to look at Ranma. "Come closer so that these old eyes can get a good look at you."
Ranma got a good look at the old woman's face even as the latter seemed to be analyzing Ranma. This woman was old. She may have even been older than Cologne!
"I guess you're about halfway there, child. You're just waiting for your prince to come." The woman chuckled to herself, infuriating Ranma.
"I'm a guy, you-"
"So you are?" The woman's voice was suddenly harsh, much as Colognes had always been. It carried pain of a war. "Do all `guys' have breasts, child? Do all guys have capacity to bare children? You're delusional. Maybe you won't be able to handle it."
"You don't understand, old woman. I'm cursed-"Ranma was once again cut off by the old woman.
"You will be silent, now! When was the last time you touched an ounce of hot water. Was it when you awoke in your bathtub? How many days ago was that, Ranma Saotome?"
Ranma shrugged, and was about to speak when the woman continued.
"You will not speak! I shouldn't have to tell you so many times." Her voice softened suddenly. "Children these days...you think you own the world!" She chuckled to herself yet again.
As if that chuckle had signified the end of a ceremony the woman arose and took Ranma's right hand in her own soft, wrinkled palms.
"Come with me, young one. I'm sure you're confused."
Ranma allowed herself to be led into a busy kitchen, where food was being prepared on all of the stoves except for one, which housed a kettle. The woman quickly took the kettle in one hand and handed it to Ranma.
"Do your thing, child."
Ranma dumped the kettle over her head and turned to the woman. "There! You see! I'm not a gi-" The old woman was holding up a mirror. In the mirror was a very tired looking young redhead.
"Now you see, child. That room and that tearing were not dreams. You're free to stay here and wait for your brother. We've had a room prepared for you for a few years now. It's all set up even as we speak. Here's your key. It's even got a view of the outside dojo, just the way you like it. A perfect option to go collect your thoughts, wouldn't you say?" The old woman, no, the Oracle led Ranma out as she handed her the small silver keychain which sported a single numeral with clarity.
1/2
***
Ranma stood, staring at the iron claw that had brought him, unclothed and immobile, so like a newborn child, into this world with reproach. It looked like some mechanical, mutated perversion of a human hand. It was hard to wonder whether or not that painful, scalding water down below that pod from whence he came, down below that small thing that Morpheus claimed made Ranma a battery, may have been a better fate than this darkened sky and twisted metal. He got up, gradually, as his muscles still ached, and pressed a hand, skin still as pink as the day he was born, against one of the joints of the claw.
"Mechanical mother..." His voice sounded weak as the half-joking statement rolled off of his tongue. He ran his fingers up to the cable and investigated it gingerly. Flakes of red rust came off on Ranma's fingers, feeling so unnatural. If he wasn't so certain that he was not dreaming he would have been able to swear that this was a dream. It was not, of course. It could not be. The warmth was warmer, the ice colder. It was just all so unnatural, though!
"Lookin' for something to grasp onto, eh kid?" It was the bald guy, Cypher, holding a metallic mug that exuded a smell that caused Ranma to want to gag from many feet away.
"Yeah." He wished he could have his voice back more than ever now. What would have had happened if he'd taken the blue pill?
"I know what you're thinkin' kid." Cypher sat down on the floor next to Ranma. "Just wait 'til a few decades are up. Maybe you'll be as crazy as Morpheus is."
Ranma looked up at Cypher's round face. "When did he...take you?"
Cypher shrugged. "I was sixteen or seventeen years old, and just like every other hotshot hacker kid out there, trying to prove my name. Morpheus used a pretty girl to get through to me and we had a bit of a contest. I made an ATM spit out cash and she cracked the IRS T-Base in the US. Guess who won?" He chuckled to himself and sipped some more of his noxious beverage.
Ranma finally rubbed his eyes and stood up.
"Where ya' going, kid?" Cypher turned around to give Ranma a sidelong glance. "Sleep. I have more operations programs to run tomorrow. Morpheus says he wants me to meet the oracle as soon as possible." Ranma turned towards the large hatch that led into the main body of the Nebudchanezzar just in time to miss a wide grin coming to Cypher's face.
***
Ranma stood atop the skyscraper next to morpheus, wearing a black T-shirt that flapped in the high winds in a way that made Ranma feel just a little off-center.
"The trick in the Matrix is realizing which rules you can bend and which you need pay no mind to. Observe." Morpheus took a running start and leapt from the top of the building on which he and Ranma stood onto the next building. When Ranma only shrugged noncommittally Morpheus grinned triumphantly and called out to him. "Now you try!"
Ranma leapt straight up and came down a few moments later mere steps away from Morpheus stood.
"Are you done?"
Morpheus only smiled as if he'd had some small victory and nodded to some unknown deity.
Moments later Ranma was gasping for air as gentle hands removed the offending needle from his neck. As he sat up and surveyed the transmission room again he found seven six pairs of eyes looking directly into his own.
"Amazing." The solitary word from Cypher broke the silence and the motion on Nebudchanezzar resumed as if nothing had happened. Confused, Ranma returned to his room to rest.
***
"It doesn't make any sense!" Ranma went through her katas with a fervor that she had not felt since leaving Nerima. "There was no Chisuiton this time. There was only the little red pill. It wasn't the Phoenix pill. Cologne said that there was only one of those." She quickly incapacitated another imaginary enemy
Ranma's assigned room stood in disarray, all of the furniture shoved to one side so that she could practice her katas and maybe achieve some sort of balance in her current confusion.
Desperate for some sort of answer, she launched into a Chestnut attack and nearly demolished a wall in her blind frustration, hesitating just in time to avoid damage that the small hotel would surely not appreciate.
Finished with her kata and only more distressed through the effort that she had put out, Ranma retreated into the suite's bathroom, drawing a hot shower for herself.
***
Morpheus occupied a stool near Ranma as the boy rested, neither one of them making any sound at all until the silence was almost tangible.
"I'm sorry." Morpheus' voice betrayed immense pain. "I believe that my time is almost up, and I believe that you know why."
"Because I'm 'the one'?" Ranma snorted derisively. "I'm just a martial artist. I don't bother with any of this techno-crap. If you're going to feed me this bullshit, at least have the sense to talk about it like someone who's not just some fanatic, devoted to a dying religion."
The silence came again, and for longer. It seemed to be a continuously widening gap between Ranma and Morpheus.
"I..." Morpheus' forehead glistened with sweat. "I think you don't grasp the situation, Ranma."
Ranma sighed and rolled onto his side, staring at Morpheus.
"You're the first person I've ever seen who could make that jump on the first try. Out of all of the captains of the ships, out of all of the 'ones,' none has ever been able to make The Jump on the first try. Not ever, Ranma.
Ranma shook his head in denial, refusing to debate with the older man any longer.
Morpheus shrugged and held his hand up, standing and making a polite bow
in Ranma's direction.
"Tomorrow we dive into the Matrix, Ranma. Be ready."
***
Morpheus, Ranma, Trinity, Cypher, Tank, Switch, and Apoc all sat in a circle, awaiting the wrenching feeling that was to come. It was time to see the oracle. It was time for Ranma to find the truth for himself.
After an eternity of waiting, the needle came in a moment of white-hot pain, and then.....Nothingness.
***
Ranma shrieked in agony as she clutched the shower curtain, grasping for balance in retaliation against the piercing pain that had suddenly come upon her. She strove to reach to the elegant medicine cabinet that sat mere inches from her desperate gasp and fell in an unrealistically fast, and yet blindingly, painfully slow plunge as her forehead made hard contact against the edge of the marble sink. As she blacked out she saw the woman who called herself the oracle, standing in the doorway of the bathroom in panic, ready to catch Ranma as she fell.
***
Ranma came to in a warehouse, surrounded by vaguely familiar figures and agitated voices.
"What the hell happened? That felt like I had my skull ripped out and rearranged."
"Quiet, Cypher. We've got a problem on our hands, a big problem."
"It looks more like a girl to me," a soft feminine voice said with irony.
Ranma felt that this would be a good time to sit up and look around and open her eyes all the way, and was immediately sorry that she had. She hadn't had this much of a headache since the hangover that had followed that 'Drunken Fist' fiasco.
"Where the hell am I? Why am I with you guys again? Where's the oracle?" Ranma looked around at her new companions until her view centered on the large man known as Morpheus.
"Who are you?" Morpheus' voice was silent.
Trinity stepped out of the still-blurry darkness from behind Morpheus and smiled smugly.
"I told you so, Morpheus! There were two signals! That's the girl who helped me!"
Morpheus' gaze shot from Ranma to Trinity and then back to Ranma, piercing her soul like a barbed arrow
"How is this possible? The Oracle never said anything about there being two of you!"
As Ranma looked from Morpheus to Trinity confusedly a cel phone rang. A kid with a large black anvil case pulled a small cel phone out of his jacket and answered. "Mouse here"
He nodded once and his face fell into a look of despair.
"How many?" He waited another moment and then dropped the phone, shattering it on the ground, creating another deafening silence.
"We're dead. There're ten of them. Ten Agents."
***
Yamada surveyed his partners, useless machines. All of them simultaneously cracked their various joints as if it mattered. There was no body there to tune up. There was not the joy of being a well-oiled machine. There were just his subroutines, and their victims.
Even now, he could see the young boy, now a man of twenty-eight years. He was sitting there with two Gattling cannons, just as he had when trying to defend Neo. The foolish programmer had sacrificed his own life so that his compatriots could escape. Neo. What a pathetic waste of the humans' time. He never even made it to the Oracle.
Yamada gave a glance to the rest of the agents and began to run towards the door of the warehouse. He increased his speed past human limits until his legs were nothing but a blur. Faster and faster he ran until the asphalt under his feet began to blacken under the friction that he was causing. One hundred yards. Twenty five yards.
The groan of the steel as Yamada plowed through the door would have been considered raucous if he were a human. Instead, he found it pleasurable. It was the sound of the human's demise. It was the sounds of the codes that allowed him into the mainframe of Zion.
It was the sound of Victory!
Yamada zeroed in on the kid, Mouse, and made a beeline straight for him, ignoring all of the other pitiful humans. It was time to rectify a mistake.
As he picked up speed yet again, something went wrong. The body of another agent hit him squarely in the midriff, knocking him back. The startled kid turned his two Gattling cannons on him and blasted. The momentary oblivion was unsettling, but the recovery was quick. Another hardwired human disappeared and Yamada was a dockworker. Yoji Takeshi, age 36, father of two. No more was he. Now he felt Yamada's joy and made a run for the warehouse even as he felt the re-entry of three other agents. Something was not right about this battle. The humans had a new weapon. Yamada checked his data as he accelerated once more towards the warehouse, this time aiming for a side door, and found that there was one human who was out of place in this mix. There was one human who was still hardwired into the system. It was the girl from the other day!
Yamada's frown turned into a vicious snarl as he dove for the wall. Twenty feet of hard cement passed under him as his head collided with the fist of a young girl, not more than 19 years old. Then, his head collided with it again, and again, and again. Crimson filled Yamada's field of view as he found his target and attempted to move at her only to find a solid wall. He desperately searched for another hardwired human in the area and had no luck. They had lost this battle, and the higher order would not be happy.
***
Ranma gasped for air as she looked at the battered corpse of a normal Japanese man, skull pounded into some sort of concoction that resembled moldy oatmeal with tomato juice mixed in.
She looked around at the people who had been here and woke up and found them staring directly back into her eyes, the young man with something like triumph.
"I've never seen a single human take down an agent one-on-one," Morpheus walked towards Ranma with a brisk, triumphant spring in his step, "and yet, here I see a girl taking out not one, but ten agents!" Morpheus removed his sunglasses, revealing eyes darker than Ranma would have thought possible on a man, but bloodshot around the edges. "Surely, we have had a change in luck. Let us make our way to the Oracle."
***
Ranma tossed and turned, pain wracking his limbs as he gasped for air, the needle that he had thought he would be used to by now stinging all the way in, and then exploded into eddies of pain which wracked his entire body, not allowing him to settle even as he felt the confinement of the pain confining each and every muscle of his body. He felt the pain of a battle, the ice that was felt when he knew that one of his fists was snapping bone, and the glory of beating what everybody else thought the odds were, but he knew the truth. He would always win.
Pain caused his body to spasm again, still leaving him in darkness, unseeing, but feeling something soft and cold pressing up against his forehead.
"Are you okay?" A worried voice attempted to sound soothing, but just betrayed worry. The accent was unmistakably rural Japanese, but Ranma could not place the voice, only that it sounded familiar. He attempted to move and failed. He was still confined.
Warmth began to spread through his legs, causing them to thrash violently with the sudden onrush of feeling. He heard a frightened shriek as he kicked out violently, involuntarily.
The warmth spread up to his abdomen, causing him to want to wretch with the sickness that followed, but he could not. He simply sat there as blood seeped out the corners of his mouth.
The warm feeling made it to his torso and caused him to violently shudder in pain again as his lungs burned in an unholy fire and he gasped for the air that he knew he would need, or he was going to die.
I'm dead. Dead. Dead. DEAD. Ranma could only come to the conclusion that some unknown poison had infected his body as he systematically stretched his burning arms and the warmth moved throughout them as well. He tested his arms as if newly born and flexed each finger in turn, ignoring the fire that coursed through his veins.
Then the fire maid it through his neck to his head, and pain overcame Ranma, and he screamed, and darkness came, but the pain did not end. He continued screaming and screaming, until finally he awoke.
***
Darkness invaded Ranma's vision as the pain receded, but he exuded satisfaction as he investigated that darkness and found that it was darkness with depth. He was not dead! He was somewhere! But where?
He slowly turned around, grasping the covers that enveloped his body, feeling that they were something like cotton, and trying to make out any details. After he'd taken in all that he could of the room the lights came on, barely bright enough so that Ranma could make out a solitary, feminine figure, curled up in a chair opposite to the bed that Ranma had found himself in. Before Ranma was barely able to stand before the figure stood and made its way out of the room, allowing a small bit of light on it as the door opened and silently shut.
He attempted to disentangle himself from the blankets as he felt movement on the bed and immediately felt stirring on the other half of the bed.
"Why are you moving all around?" The voice from before sounded annoyed. The stirring continued. "What is it, 3 AM? Couldn't you have picked another time to have a nightmare love?"
Ranma sat rigid as a board as a feminine curvature slowly made its way up his back, breasts sliding smoothly along either side of his spine and arms wrapping themselves gingerly around his necks.
"I'm sorry, hun." The voice sounded hurt, now, quickly converting from annoyed to pouting. "Mmm...I love your back so much! It's just like a girl's!" A nervous giggle followed.
Ranma'd had enough. He edged to the side of the bed and stood up, knocking the girl, whoever she was, to the ground.
"Ouch!" The girl stood up, thankfully obscured in her nudity by the darkness, brushing her short, boyish hair out of her eyes. "You Baka! What's the big idea?" The voice was right, but the tone was wrong. Something was terribly wrong! Ranma rushed to the light switch and pushed it up the rest of the way, looking at the girl who stood with her arms around her chest, in front of him, indignantly staring at him.
"No..." Ranma turned from her. "This can't be."
*******
Author's Note:
This chapter was very long in the making. I NEED C & C. Ream it. Rip it up! Criticize! Flame! Just tell me what you think!
No special thanx yet. Nobody's read it.
-Inu
