Title: Home and Heart
Author: Stormhawk
Rating: PG
Disclaimer:
Matrix universe and associated characters: Wachowski brothers.
Agents universe: co-owned by me and Mordax.
Stef, Stevie, Exodus crew: Me
Word Count: 3330
Summary: The Exodus crew deals with being plugged back in.
Notes: Takes place a few days after downloaded.
Please read and Review.
"No Cray I forbid you to do that."
"Come on Ryder."
"No Cray, it would cause too many problems."
"I thought, since were back in and all…"
"They think you're dead Cray. You and Niq can't go home."
"It will cause them more pain to know that we lied to them," Niq said softly as she walked past the dining room.
"I'm glad you understand Niq."
"Hey captain, bye captain," Niq said as she walked from the mansion. A minute later a cab picked her up and drove off down the rich street.
"Where'd your sister go?"
"I don't know," Cray said honestly. "She just disappears sometimes." Ryder nodded, teenagers did strange things, it was acceptable he supposed.
"Well Pandora and I are going to lunch. Phee has on a shopping trip so we'll be by for dinner later."
"See ya cap," Darth called from the kitchen.
"What is he doing in there?"
"Umm…it's better if you don't ask," Cray said shaking his head. His bright blue hair offset his brown eyes.
Ryder chuckled, "after all those years out this seems too good to be true."
"I know, soft beds, real food. TV! And arcades, which is where I'm going now."
"In a limo," Darth called from the kitchen.
"We're rich, for the first time in my life I'm rich and I don't intend on wasting it."
"Well it is fortunate that you have a bottomless bank account isn't it?" a voice said from beside them. Cray spun and tripped, hitting the ground. "Agents!" he became aware of three pairs of eyes looking down at him.
"Get up Smurf. It's just us."
His cheeks flushed red, Cray stood. "Sorry, it's just a normal reaction after running from you guys so long. Just for a while, could you please use the door?"
Smith smirked, "we did – it was open."
Cray walked past them as the limousine pulled up into the driveway, "note to self, kill sister."
Ryder nodded, "Pandora is waiting for me. Thank you again," the Exodus captain said to the agents before walking out the door and this time it was shut.
"Dad!" Stevie said as she jumped down the stairs three at a time.
"Stevie," he said hugging her tightly. "Ready to go?" The teenage girl nodded.
"See you later."
"You are welcome to come," Smith said.
Stef shook her head. "Do you know how big that TV is in there? I'm gonna watch a DVD."
"Have fun," Stevie said as Smith shifted them away.
Listening carefully to the almost empty house she walked through to the kitchen to where the last ex-rebel was. "Well Lord Vader what are you doing now?"
"Wow!" he said jerking his head up suddenly. "I didn't know you were here. I thought everyone left."
"Well, except for me," she smiled. She hoped he wouldn't mind her hanging around for a whiled. She liked him, a lot. Even if he couldn't feel the same way it might be fun to watch a movie with him and pretend that he could. It could really suck being a program. "What are you doing?"
The programmer stepped aside; Stef took a step closer and looked at his work. "Oh god. What is that?"
"Sandwich with pizza, crisps and jelly beans on it."
"And a mustard smiley-face? Have you gone quite insane?"
"I was on a message board before – thanks for the broadband by the way – and this guy with the alias Scope said he made one of these last night and enjoyed it."
"So you had to try it."
"Yeah, duh."
Walking to the door of the kitchen she picked up the cordless phone and then sat on the bench behind the table. "Go ahead, I'll call 911 if you pass out."
Or you could just give me mouth to mouth resuscitation, Darth though wryly, a small smile played out onto his face. Grabbing the sandwich with both hands he squeezed his eyes shut and took a bite. With a look of utter repulsion on his face he turned and spat the bite into the sink. Wiping his mouth on a paper towel he washed it down the drain and turned back sheepishly.
Stef shook her head. "Humans and the stupid things they do."
"You're one to talk."
"I never did anything that stupid."
He smiled, "I'm sure."
"Don't you trust me?"
"Considering I jumped off a building on trust that would have to be a yes."
"Well if you'd splattered you'd be…"
"Darth Pancake," they said at the same time.
"Exactly."
*****
In the middle of the city Phoenix looked around her at the gaggle of people. After years of going into the Matrix with a purpose, a goal, in mind all this freedom was a little unsettling.
The bright lights of the shops, the intense sounds of humanity all around her were drowning her out. She needed an out. It was an overload, she needed an out. Pulling her cell phone from her tight black pants she brushed her hair back behind her ear.
Her hair was long in the Matrix; in the real world it was extremely short. Dialing the number for the operator she studied the golden charm bracelet around her thin arm. She may be thin but she was strong. Growing up with four brothers and no mother she had just been treated as another one of the boys.
In fact, she had taken over her father's garage on her twenty-fifth birthday, the best present she had ever received. She loved machines – the type that didn't spend all day trying to exterminate the human race that was – loved how they worked, that's why once unplugged she had studied on how to be an engineer. Ten years on there were only a few that could come close to her skills and even less that surpassed her.
"Operator?"
"Right here Phee."
"I'm ready to come home. Can you get me out of here?"
"What no specials? I didn't think you were going to be this quick."
"Galli come on."
"Umm…" the dark-haired man said as he typed several quick commands into the keyboard in front of him. "Couple of block's walk at least. Utopia station, a juice bar that closed down has an old exit in there. Just walk down the street for five blocks, hang a left and it's on the corner. It'll be ready by the time you get there."
"Thanks."
~ ~ "I'm ready to come home."?
Home? Was the Exodus her home? She wondered as she walked down the street of the world she had grown up in and then fought for so many years to help destroy. After leaving her family, her garage and everything she knew the Exodus had become her home.
She loved warm meals, baths and the conveniences of her 'old' home but had become adjusted to her new one. It wasn't so bad really, to her there was no better feeling than going to sleep listening to the purr of a well-tuned engine, the precise clicking of old hover-playing and the imaged gremlins that caused all the other noises that she had come to love about her ship.
And, not that she would ever tell anyone, but she didn't find the 'snot' they ate as repulsive as most did. She adjusted quickly, she wasn't sure if she wanted to adjust back to a life half-in, half-out of the Matrix.
She'd have to tell Ryder of course, but she was fine with just staying on the Exodus. Besides, she thought with a smile, Galli was out there.
*****
"Dad can I ask you something?"
"Anything Stevie."
"What am I?"
"What?"
Stevie shifted in her seat uncomfortably, this was hard to ask him – she wasn't entirely sure she was ready to hear the answer either. "What am I?"
"My daughter," he answered even though he knew that wasn't what she meant.
"You told me I was part of some experiment. I know you left some details out, I just want to know what I am."
He sighed heavily, "are you sure you want to know all this?"
Stevie nodded, resting her hands on the park bench. "Yeah."
"Your birthday, your next birthday is both your sixteenth and your first. I only had you for a month."
"But out in the real world I still look like this, shouldn't I have been a baby out there as well?"
"No." He refused to say anymore. He hated knowing these facts himself without her knowing as well.
"Dad come on."
"I'll tell you when you're older."
"How older?"
"A hundred and three," he said with a smile.
Stevie swallowed, "humans don't get to be that old."
"Stevie I am never going to lose you and when you do turn a hundred and three I will tell you the other details." How exactly she would live to see her hundred and third birthday was beyond him but he refused to lose her. Even if it meant going against the mainframe he would not let her die. They would think of something.
They always did.
Smiling and taking Stevie's hand he was glad when she smiled back. "I think you need ice-cream."
"Only if you have some too dad."
"If I must."
*****
Niq sat in the small room, the red light made it seem cozy. But on another level it was vaguely disturbing, it reminded her of her first memory of the real world – waking up in the pod of goo, almost the same color as the light was now.
A small window slid open beside her head. "Hello my child," the father's voice said from the next room.
"Hello father," Niq responded.
"What can I do for you?"
"I just feel a little lost. Forgive me I have not been here for so long – too long – but I was somewhere else."
"Did you still pray to the lord?"
"More times than I can remember but I feel as though somewhere along the line I have lost my faith. I know…things that have made me doubt the existence of god. Terrible things that he couldn't possibly allow if he were real."
"We cause our own problems, people must work through them. It doesn't mean he's not up there."
"It's just hard to believe sometimes."
"My child, you are not the first, nor the last to ever doubt their faith."
"I need you to tell me that somewhere beyond the dreams, fiction and lies that surround us that there is something else."
"I can't tell you that," the preacher said honestly. "I can tell you what I believe, I can tell you what others are taught to believe. But I cannot tell you what you believe."
"I need to be told. I need guidance."
"There are paths to take, choices to be made. Down the road of life there are points of belief and disbelief, hope, fear and anger. Times where you doubt everything around you because of what you have seen."
"How am I supposed to believe after all that?"
"Because you are still here. I believe in god, heaven and angels. I know there is more to this world than meets the eye but that is this world, who knows what lies somewhere else? Who is watching over you?"
Niq let it process for a few moments, it was true, all of it. 'Thank you father."
"The door of the church is always open. The ears of god are as well."
"Goodbye," Niq said as she opened the door of the small room and let herself out. Someone was walking out of the door of the church and the bright sunlight lit up the doorway for a moment. Shielding her eyes for a second because of the brilliance Niq stopped.
Almost a part of the sunlight she saw a being. Features in a face the color of sunlight and ripples in the air that suggested robes she caught a flash of wings.
An angel.
It smiled at her and as quickly as it had appeared it disappeared, if it had ever been there at all.
Instantly she felt better and walked out of the church with a smile on her face. She had a feeling that she wouldn't need to be hiding down here seeking the answers to life. They would come in time.
*****
Cray sipped on a drink with one hand as he drove the car with the other. It had been a while since he had been able to visit an arcade so he had taken this opportunity to take up his old hobby of racing games.
Setting the drink back down so he could drive through the mud with both hands he missed his mark and the soda went spilling everyone. Jumping up to avoid it spilling on his new clothes. Black combat pants with a blue surf belt with a black and red top, his blue hair stood out above all this, contrast, he liked contrast. That had been going to be his hacker alias but he liked 'Cray' better, supercomputer for a super-hacker.
Well, maybe not super but enough to catch Pandora's attention.
Patting the wet spot on his pant down with a napkin to avoid it drying sticky he left the wet machine and looked for another game to play. His wallet was fat with bills and he had a small bag full of quarters, today was just for fun. Reaching into his shoulder bag for his Discman (the most expensive he could find, and a few CD's) he pressed play and pressed one of the headphones into his left ear. Before he could get the other one in however, he heard a voice.
"Cray?"
The blue-haired boy spun and found himself looking at captain Qwert of the Medusa. "Shit," Cray swore and looked around for an escape.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Frozen to the spot, he couldn't form an answer. "Your ship should have run out of juice before this."
Cray just stared; this situation could turn really ugly real quick. But even as the captain stared at him the answer came by itself. "You got plugged back in didn't you?"
Cray muttered something incoherent as he started to realize how bad this situation was.
"I didn't think even Ryder would sink that low, more of a traitor than leaving Zion." Cray wished the arcade wasn't so empty, and that he was closer to the front counter, that there was at least someone around that might help him if Qwert did what he was beginning to believe.
"Are you going to let me walk out of here Qwert?" Cray asked in a voice that was much stronger than he felt.
"I don't let traitors live, you came back to the lie – you die in a dream, you die in real life." The tall captain drew his gun and aimed it at the fifteen year old without sympathy or compassion. Cray took a step backward; this was only the second time a gun had been pointed at his head at this range, and only one of few times that his life was in true danger.
"You can't do this," he mumbled.
"Oh?" he asked as Cray heard the gun click, "and why not?"
"Because I'm the only one around here allowed to threaten the Smurf," a voice said as a shot rang out. Cray jumped as Qwert's now-dead body fell to the floor, the back of his head covered in blood. Pushing her earpiece back in for a moment Stef pressed two fingers to it and said, "clean up crew to Hooper's arcade, Kodiak Street." Then she pulled it back out.
"Cray are you ok?" Darth asked as he stepped over the body to the silent young man.
His voice was hoarse but full of relief, "he was going to kill me Darth."
"We knew this wasn't going to be easy."
"What the hell are you doing here anyway?" he asked as Mimosa dumped a white sheet over the rebel body and informed the manager that a terrorist had been shot in his establishment.
"Two weeks ago we were on his side."
"Having second thoughts Smurf?"
"It's way too late for second thoughts but no, I'm happy in here. I just didn't expect anything like this to happen. And please Miss Agent, don't call me Smurf – it's more annoying than the nicks Niq has come up with for me over the years."
"Ok Smurf. You guys ready to go?" Both nodded so she shifted them all back to the mansion.
"Where's everyone else?" Cray asked as he made a beeline for the kitchen.
"No one else is here," Darth said.
Cray smiled, "so it was just you two here all morning?"
"Yeah," Stef answered evenly.
"Well what did you do?"
"We…um," Darth smirked at Stef who gave one of her own. "Um…"
"Oh ho ho," Cray said grinning openly, "do tell."
"It's not that easy to say," Darth said. "It's probably easier to show you."
Cray's eyes bulged, "you're going to give me a demo?!"
"Follow us," Darth said as they walked into the kitchen ahead of him. This morning Cray had left the tidy kitchen with Darth making a strange sandwich, now it looked like a small war had been fought there. There was flour all over the table and small amounts of butter/sugar/milk/chocolate/etc everywhere else.
"What the hell?" Cray asked, this was weird. "What exactly were you two thinking at the time?"
"Different combinations, trying to see what worked the best," Darth said as he grabbed a dishcloth and started to wipe the bench down.
"O…K, where's this demo?" he asked somewhat cautiously, this sight was kind of making him afraid of what he would see.
"You ready Darth?"
"Whenever you are Stef."
"Now's fine." Darth grinned and bent down out of sight.
"No fair hiding behind the counter," Cray protested as Darth reemerged holding a silver bowl.
"I'm not hiding," he said as Stef dumped half a packet of flour into the bowl. Turning back, the programmer grabbed the sugar bottle and a measuring spoon. Cray was now suspicious.
"What kind of demo is this going to be?"
"Cooking, we've been cooking all morning," Darth said as he dumped some chocolate chips in.
"What did you think we were talking about Cray?" Stef asked as she handed a bottle over to him. "Want a cookie?"
"Just cookies? You've been baking cookies all day?"
"Almost all day," Darth admitted. "There was pizza for lunch and the small flour fight that broke out."
"So that's where that white patch came from," Cray said nodding in disbelief, all that to watch them make cookies, he'd been expecting something else.
"I told you to change your shirt."
"I'll go up and change."
"No need," she said quickly, requiring him into a new shirt. The shirt was pink with yellow bowties all over it. Darth looked down at himself and his mouth dropped open in shock horror.
"I won't wear this," he raged and pulled the shirt off as quickly as he could.
"Have fun," Cray commented, grabbing a cookie as he left.
"I'm going up to my room to get another shirt," Darth said in a serious tone even though he was smiling. "That was completely degrading."
"But so much fun."
"You wouldn't think so if you were the one wearing this…thing," he said as he dumped it quickly into the bin.
"Me? Wear something like that? Thank god I never have to."
"Excuse me," he said as he went to walk by her.
"Don't trouble yourself," she said, as she required him into a plain black shirt. "Better?"
"Better," he agreed. "Want to watch a movie?"
"Sure," she said with a smile as they walked toward the living room. And she had a reason to smile, what Darth saw was clean black shirt.
What he didn't see was the big pink bow printed on the back of it.
The End.