AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Any speech marked in "[]" indicated another language is being used.

Chapter Five - A Girl Named Independence

Neo stood in the construct, feeling the flow of the code around him. It was like cool water running along his mind, so easily manipulated. He let himself play, creating gentle ripples in the code, watching it weave around the disturbance.

"Knock it off." Trinity said, irritated.

Neo opened his eyes to see what he had done. He and trinity were standing on a lake, no, an ocean. Crystal clear, fishes swam below them, and the waves licked their boots. The weapon racks of the construct sat on the water as they did, supported by some unseen force. Neo smiled, and closed his eyes once again. Trinity nearly lost her balance as the water rushed away from under her feet. All gravity lost, Trinity floated, having nothing to grasp to. Everything was white, with no walls, no boundaries. Trinity looked up to see Neo slowly spinning, his coat spread behind him, almost looking like wings. His eyes were still closed, but on his face was a slight smile. Trinity began to tumble, moving closer to him until.

Neo was jarred out of his reflections by her voice, her breath on his ear. Although he could see the code that made her face, her voice, those things still made him happy.

"We're going to be late."

Neo placed his arm around her waist. "Let's go then." Neo focused.

Link watched the code, and laughed as on his screen appeared the shape of a rabbit, the background turning green and the code white upon it.

Trinity's cell phone rang. She answered.

"Ready to go?" Link asked.

"Yes."

The world flew by the pair, buildings, cars and people as the world rematerialized before them. People stopped and starred at the pair of strange foreigners step out from a corner, and walk down the Ginza strip.

"Neo, I can't."

"Understand them? Neither can I." He smiled. "Call Link."

Trinity picked up her cell again. "Link, we need a language download."

"Let me guess," he said, digging around through piles of disks. "Japanese?"

Link looked up to see Neo's code reading, "It would help."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going." He muttered.

"What?" Trinity asked

"Nothing. Tell him to quit playing with the damn code."

Trinity looked up to see Neo grinning.

"It's not that funny." She said to him.

Saying nothing, he just kept smiling, as if to say, "Yes it is."

"Ok," Link said, holding a disk marked East Asian Languages. "Here we go."

Both Trinity and Neo's eyes shut. Their lips moved, speaking words that suddenly had meaning. Their eyes opened in synch. Trinity listened to the speech of the passer-bys.

"[Look at her, is that what Americans wear? How ugly!]" A woman laughed.

"[Damn, looks like she's got a boyfriend.]" Another man said, walking with his friends, all of whom stared at the pair.

"Well," Neo said. "Now that we've got that out of the way."

"Ikimasho." Trinity said simply, experiencing the feeling of the foreign words rolling off her tongue.

The pair walked on, leaving in their wake crowds of confused and wondering Japanese. On the other side of the Ginza strip, Thaddeus walked along side Niobe. His black suit and crisp silk blue tie matched his glasses, a deep ocean blue. A pack of girls walked by, speaking rapidly in Japanese. Niobe heard them. It was about her hair, and she half-smiled. Behind them walked Jue and Ghost. Jue was smiling, if ever so slightly bitterly, at the surroundings. Ghost knew, this was where she grew up. He looked at her face, still marked with a bit of longing at the packs of fashionable girls who walked down the strip in their uniforms, chatting on cell phones and PDAs. It was a group she never fit into, no matter how hard she had tried. Ghost couldn't help but be proud of the woman she was today, standing tall, walking with confidence. After only 5 years out, she had risen to a place of importance on a highly distinguished ship, the Osiris.

"There they are," Neo said, pointing up ahead.

"I can't see them" Trinity said.

"You will."

Through the crowd, she caught a glimmer of white. For a split second, she thought of Switch, remembering the first day she'd seen her in the Matrix, so shocked by the color of her clothing, so white it seemed to blind Trinity. She had asked her about her clothes, which had spawned a two hour discussion over metaphorical use of color between the two. Next to Ghost, she had been Trinity's best friend and confidant. She broke from her thoughts, seeing the group move closer, Thaddeus and Niobe in the lead, Jue and Ghost behind them, his suit glimmering in the oppressively hot Tokyo summer sun.

"Are we ready to go?" Niobe asked.

Neo nodded.

"Lead the way." Thaddeus said.

Tayoranai sat at her computer, watching a movie. She'd seen it more times than she could count, and recited the words along with the actors. She was halfway falling asleep when she heard something odd.

"[It's a pleasure to meet you, Independence.]"

Tayoranai looked at her computer screen. The movie had paused, and a man, dressed in a simple black suit stared back at her from the video.

"[They're coming for you. The Terrorists know who you are.]"

"[What?]" She said, confused. What was going on?

"[You know who they are.]" The man said, his Japanese slurred ever so slightly as he extended each syllable longer than he should have. She watched her screen to see a new video play. It was one she was very familiar with.

The terrorist attack on America - it had been in the news in Japan as well. She saw pictures of the lobby of the building they had hit, bodies burned beyond recognition, all with multiple bullet wounds. The images changed, to the giant hole left in the side of an adjacent building by a helicopter that one of the Terrorists had stolen and crashed.

"[Why me?]" She asked. "[I'm no one.]"

"[Do you remember the train?]" The man asked.

How could he know about that, she thought. She remembered, her cat had leapt out of her arms and in front of a bullet train. She had screamed, and the train stopped. She was able to get her cat, and as she walked away, the train began to move again, as if it had never stopped.

"[The train stopped for me.]"

"[No,]" said the man, "[You stopped the train.]"

She shook her head, and sat down on her bed, only to feel something touch her shoulder. She tried to scream but found herself unable to make any noise - her mouth opened but nothing came out. The man was behind her, and had turned to look her in the face, his black glasses so flawless she could clearly see her reflection in them and nothing else.

"[You must help me Independence, because their next target.]" He pointed at her monitor, "[is that.]"

It was her parents building, the office skyscraper that both her father and mother worked in. The girl's face became clouded with anger and fear.

Just what Smith wanted.

Neo stopped.

"What is it?" Trinity asked.

"Something's wrong. Hurry!" Neo said, breaking into a run.

Thaddeus and Niobe looked at each other, and began to run after him as did the rest. Neo began to run faster, until he realized he was flying, straining just to go a little faster. Something was horribly wrong. He looked behind him to see that he'd lost the rest of the group. That didn't bother him - they knew where he was going and could catch up.

Ghost and Trinity ran side by side with Jue, Niobe and Thaddeus in front of them. Neither looked at the other, but focused on their goal, an apartment complex that could be seen over the lower lying buildings.

"Shit." Ghost said, looking behind them.

An agent was behind the group, quickly gaining ground. Agent Jackson pulled out his gun, aimed and fired. Niobe focused, narrowly avoiding the bullet.

"I'll hold him!" Trinity yelled, stopping and turning to face the agent. "Go!"

Ghost stopped also, but was met with an angry glare from Trinity.

"I said go! Get Neo!"

Ghost looked at her, but she had already turned to face the agent, less than a few yards away. He turned and ran, hating himself for it.

Agent Jackson ran towards the woman who stupidly stood in his way. He raised his firearm to remove her, but found with aggravation that she dodged all of his bullets. Trinity leapt into the air, feeling the world slow and she took careful aim, and kicked the agent in the face, sending him sprawling. She landed on the ground, and watched the Agent. He didn't get up. What the hell, she thought, get up.

Trinity turned to start running again, and stopped. Another agent stood in front of her. The last thing she saw was the agent's fist coming towards her face.

Ghost looked back to see an agent hoisting Trinity's limp body over his shoulder. He wanted to stop, to do something, but found himself in conflict. He knew that he couldn't save her, that he needed Neo. Furrious, he ran harder to where Neo was.

Link flinched as he saw the agent's fist hit Trinity in the jaw. He turned to see blood dripping from the side of her mouth.

"Fuck." He said, turning to tend her wounds.

Morpheus beat him to it. "Trace where they are taking her. Don't lose her." He said, as he took a cloth, wiping the blood from her face.

Link turned back to the console, only to be faced with an even more grave situation.

Neo stood in front of Tayoranai.

"[Hello, Independence. Do you know who I am?]"

She looked at him, a scowl crossing her face. "[You are nothing but a Terrorist.]" she spat. "[I won't let you pass.]"

Neo smiled. "[Really?]"

Tayoranai hated that smile. She was sure he'd done the same thing after the attacks in the US, after killing hundreds of innocent people. Disgusting.

Neo stopped smiling. He saw the code change around him, become heavily encrypted, so much so that he could no longer manipulate the Matrix. He watched the girl, watched her code begin to glow red. Neo found himself unable to move, felt the world begin to stop. "[Die!]" She screamed, pouring all of her fear out in her words. It worked, just like it had before. The man had stopped, was frozen, his face a mix of disbelief and surprise. Smith walked behind Tayoranai, touched her shoulder in a fatherly way.

"[You've done very well, Independence.]"

"[Thank you.]" She said.