"I don't understand." Neo gave a sideward glance to Trinity as Morpheus unraveled the ordeal to them. "How can it be human one minute and…gone the next?"

            "If we knew that, we would not have docked to find out." He stated coolly, looking around. "We're going to investigate it."

            "Any way of telling how long it's been down there?" Neo queried, intensely curious.

            "Not without finding what it is. Link detected it about twenty minutes ago…I apologize if I woke you." He said passively.

            "It's fine. If there's a chance it could be someone…" Trinity dismissed.

            "How could someone survive down there? Wouldn't the droids find them?" Neo mused quietly, almost to himself.

            "Perhaps it confused them as well. The signal comes in and out at completely random intervals." Morpheus surmised. "But whatever the case, we must act quickly."

            "I'll go." Neo said simply.

            Morpheus looked to him in consideration and nodded.

            "Wait, you can't just go out there." Trinity objected. "It's dangerous. There could be droids. It could be an ambush."

            "We would be able to detect them, should they come close enough to be considered a threat." Morpheus pointed out.

            "I don't sense any danger." Neo agreed, stepping forward. "It'll be okay." He touched Trinity's arm reassuringly before stepping away with Morpheus. "What do I do if it is human?"

            "We'll have to bring them aboard before we're found out. Take caution not to startle them. You can imagine what a shock this would be."

            "Hm." Neo returned to his solemn inner thoughts.

            Outside of the ship was dark and dank, sentient with a surreal life that was not a life at all. It seemed as though the ghosts of long forgotten things writhed idly about Neo's shoulders, whispering mockery in his ears and envy behind his back for the life that was stolen from them. Ghosts that lived outside of both the matrix and real world, aware of everything and even more bitter than the stale air they existed in. His surroundings were illuminated dully by the lights of the ship as he walked smoothly across the broken earth, coat trailing behind his confidant stride. He despised being out in this world where it was like this. It reminded him of how reality had turned, of things that he had only read in books and thought as passing notions, and how all these things were real now.

            And just there, in the darkness, he felt something. Nothing phenomenal, nothing he would have noticed had he not been looking for something, but a small read of energy that brushed through his veins, reaching out to him like a beckoning arm from the black abyss around him. He walked slowly from the familiar lights, peering through the dark at a standing-out-something he was sure to see. Figures in blackness toiled about, aimlessly strewn around in the haphazard fashion he saw any other time he was outside the ship or the walls of Zion. Nothing was new, nothing was particularly more ghastly than normal all save for the feeling that gripped at the edges of his mind. It guided him to continue forward.

            It started out really as a hushed roar of mechanical fluttering, followed by a mere clatter against the ground. Neo knew that he had found what they were looking for. A few more steps forward was rewarded by the huddled figure of a naked man, unearthly pale skin cutting the darkness like moonlight against the cold and dampened ground. Feeling bewildered and concerned at once, Neo carefully approached this creature and observed him further. Sure enough, he had come from the matrix, the port plugs on his body told him as much. But as for whether he was alive or not remained uncertain. The man was sitting up, body drawn into itself, head leaning against the wall and eyes wide open, staring blankly with an eerie blue light in them. Neo came closer still, kneeling down slowly with an arm resting over one knee. He must have been in his early twenties, but marks of strangely graying hair were beginning to grow out from his scalp. His nearly white skin made his gaunt body look very fragile, to the point where it would seem easily breakable.

            Neo gently moved his hand in front of the man's face, waiting for a reaction in those dead eyes. There was no movement, no facial twitch or even breath drawn from his still body. Deciding sadly so that this young man was in fact dead, Neo began to draw away, but just as he fixed to do so, however, the man blinked. Or at least he seemed to. It was such a quick motion that it almost seemed no more than a mere shadow had passed over his eyes, but his head snapped to meet Neo's. Shocked, Neo jolted back, but paused, studying the man's face.

            The man raised one hand, bringing it across Neo's face in the same slow manner. He then cocked his head with a whir of mechanical cracking. He appeared to be non sentient…Neo reached out briskly and poked the wet man with a finger in the chest. Pulling back, the man mimicked Neo's gesture. "My name is Neo…" he tried.

            The frail figure did not answer, but instead, again prodded Neo in the chest. Neo smirked, which the man also duplicated, setting an unfamiliar amount of character against his empty features. "What the hell is this?" Neo mumbled to himself. It occurred to him that perhaps this thing was impersonating a distressed man…an agent perhaps? But he didn't feel that seemed likely.

            "Neo…" came a voice in his ear. He touched the small communication device held to his ear and listened to Morpheus' voice. "Have you found anything? We just lost the signal a few minutes ago."

            "That's…" he stopped, confused. "That can't be possible."

            "Why? What do you see?"

            "I found someone." Neo looked back towards the ship. "Do you think the ship could be malfunctioning? You have to be able to pick up this guy's signal…"

            "You found a man?" Morpheus' voice buzzed briefly. There was a long silence from the ship before the voice buzzed in again. "Wait, the signal, it's back."

            "That's odd, I-" Neo turned back to his new find, suddenly met with a very different sight. The man's demeanor was so unlike it had been the moment before that Neo was scarcely sure he was seeing the same man. This figure suddenly jerked away from Neo with a gasp of terror, shaking violently as he clung to the wall. Droplets dripped from his naked body as he stared at his finder, eyes wide and horrified in a completely and utterly human expression of fear.

            Neo was stunned as well, but immediately held up his hands. "Don't worry, I'm here to help you." He managed to stammer through his befuddlement. Taking off his long coat, he calmly held it towards him. "Come with me. Please, don't be afraid."

            The man gazed at Neo with a genuine terror, teeth chattering from the cold and his irrational fear. Slowly, he placed the coat around his shoulders, watching him seize into a contraction of distrust and waiting for what he was sure would be pain. Once he felt the coat heavy around his body, he clutched it, giving into a mad session of shivering. "Yes, it's a man." He told back to Morpheus.

            "From the matrix?"

            "Yes."

            "In what condition?"

            "Fatigued, wet, naked, mortified, you know, the usual…"

            "Bring him in quickly."

            "Come on." Neo turned back to the man. "No one's going to hurt you."

            The young man all but threw himself at Neo, clutching onto his shirt like a toddler would its mother. He was breathing rapidly, muttering things in a high, fraught tone.

            "Uh, i-it's okay, come on. Come with me to the ship." He pulled the man to his feet and dragged him to the ship.