A/N: more thanks, Oracle cookies and Neo plushies to Mussed, the Uber
editor.
Chapter 2
Spike faded in and out of consciousness. The only thing constant was the terribly bright light above his head and the cool table under his back. Sometimes there were shadowy figures working around him, talking softly out of view. Other times, they were working over and around him, poking and prodding. Once he woke up covered in little needles which made his muscles twitch uncomfortably. Each time he woke he was told to go back to sleep, and he did, wondering briefly what exactly was going on and why he was so tired.
When Spike woke this time, the room was dark. Had they finally turned off the damn light? He reached up to wipe the sleep from his eyes. Something was attached to his left arm. He held his arm in front of his face and focused on his wrist. A clear tube was attached to a strange sort of metal thing. Spike tugged at it experimentally. The tube was connected to something inside his wrist which moved minutely. The feeling was weird and the thought of something staying under his skin made him uncomfortable so he left the IV like thing alone. He examined the metal on his arm and remembered the tubes popping off his body and the stabbing pain each time one separated. He squinted at the sleeve of the sweater he wore. It was green and worn and he was sure he'd never seen it before. He started to pull back his sleeve further when the door swung open with a metallic squeal. Spike forgot about examining his arm and sat up.
"Hmm, We'll have to oil that." Neo stood in the doorway. He swung the door experimentally a few times, listening to the different squeaks it made. Spike watched him, hardly believing that this was the same person. For one thing, his clothing was a far cry from what Spike had last seen him wearing Neo was dressed in what looked like hand-me-downs from head to toe. He wore an oversized sweater which appeared old but clean and may have been blue at one point. His pants were baggy and patched and he wore heavy boots which looked like they'd just come from an army surplus store. Neo's presence was also different: somehow he was now more.tangible? Spike's sleepy mind couldn't even begin to figure it out.
"Morning." Neo shut the door with a final squeak and stepped into the room. "Let me take that IV out." Neo sat next to Spike, took his wrist and withdrew a long metal needle from the strange implant. Neo unhooked the IV fluid bag from the wall and folded the long tube around it a few times as Spike watched.
"What is this?" Spike asked, holding his wrist with the metal implant out for Neo to see.
"It's a plug socket," Neo said, setting the IV bag down. He pulled back the sleeve of his sweater to reveal his own metal plug. Neo pulled the sleeve further to show one higher up on his arm. "Everyone who was born in the Matrix has them. They're located on the major arteries and on key junctions on the central nervous system so they're not exactly the same for everyone." Neo pushed his sleeve back down. "They take awhile to get used to, but you will. The biggest one is on the back of your head."
Spike tentatively felt the back of his head and was aware of two things at once. First, his head had been shaved. It felt like the military fade his father had insisted Spike and his brothers get when they traveled to visit his ex-marine grandfather. Second, and more importantly, a huge metal disk was attached to his it.
"The hell is that?" Spike asked, alarmed. That thing hadn't been there this morning.had everything happened to him only that morning? Neo turned around and pushed his dark hair out of the way to reveal his own plug, momentarily distracting Spike
"I have one too. It's the main data plug. Do you remember the power plant? The place you woke up in?" Neo paused as Spike nodded, shuddering as he remembered the hellish place. He hoped it'd been a nightmare.
"All the plugs were connected to the plant. Most fed your body. The big one fed your mind." Neo shrugged. "So I guess you're wondering just what's going on, right?" Neo asked. Spike thought it was an extreme understatement and nodded mutely.
"Well, first," Neo said, "It's not 2000. We're not sure, but we think it's 2200. There was a war between humans and machines and we didn't exactly come out on top. This place," Neo said as he gave the metal hull a tap, "is a hovership called the Nebuchadnezzar. Morpheus is her captain and he'd be here talking to you himself, but he had to jack in and make a drop at the last moment.
Almost none of what Neo was saying was making any sense to Spike. Machine wars? Hoverships? Morpheus was a captain of some sort on top of being a hacker and terrorist? And furthermore, he wasn't here to give Spike the answers he'd promised? What. The. Fuck.
He should be back any minute now. Come on." Neo smiled and stood. "I'll give you the five-cent tour. When Morpheus gets back he'll tell you everything, ok?"
"Ok." Spike felt his rising anger lessen somewhat. Morpheus would be back soon and then he'd get concrete answers. Neo was nice enough, but he wasn't doing a good job explaining what the hell was going on. For now, he could live with following Neo around this "Nubuchadnezzar place. Spike rose to his feet and for the first time noticed how the sweater hung loosely on him.
"Oh my god!" Spike exclaimed.
"What?" Neo asked, expression concerned.
"I'm thin!" Spike said, awed and confused. "How long was I out?" he asked, patting his chest and feeling his ribs, examining just how bony his wrists were now.
"You were out for about three weeks," Neo told him with a small smile. "In the power plant, you didn't get more food than anyone else, but your mind thought you did, so you thought of yourself as overweight." Neo shrugged. "Everyone comes out malnourished. You'll bulk up a bit, especially on Zion food. Come on."
Spike numbly followed Neo through the porthole into a small corridor. The harsh light drew his attention away from his nearly skeletal physique to the real world. It was like someone had suddenly pushed aside the curtain of fog clouding his mind. He finally processed everything he'd been told and stopped mid-stride, in shock. Neo, realizing he wasn't being followed anymore, stopped and turned.
"Spike?"
"Wait, wait, wait." Spike waved his hands around, as his mind tried to get a mental grasp on this new reality. "There was a war and we lost? So, what? And what the hell was that power plant you called it? How can I be in a power plant? I'm not electric," Spike said then his eyes grew large, "Am I?" Horrific visions of cutting his hand only to see not blood but thick white liquid seep out and plastic flesh covering cogs, tubing and wires, like in the movie Alien, filled his head. Neo shook his head with a small chuckle.
"We're not machines; don't worry about rusting or anything." Spike relaxed marginally. Neo ran a hand though his dark hair and looked extremely uncomfortable.
"Look," he said, "I really shouldn't be the one explaining any of this since I haven't been unplugged that long myself. Let's go see Morpheus. He's really the one that's supposed to tell you everything."
"Ok," Spike agreed. He was getting slightly annoyed by the lack of answers, but everything was so different and bizarre that he didn't feel like he could do much about it. Spike silently followed at Neo's heels thought submarine-like corridor.
"This is the Mess," Neo gestured into a smallish room which included a table, some benches and what looked like a kitchenette. Further down the hallway was a room filled with various monitors, metal trays, stethoscopes hung on a hook, a clear box of what looked like gauze and a faint antiseptic smell. The table Spike had become so well acquainted with stood in the center of the tidy room.
"Sickbay?" Spike asked. Neo nodded.
"Yeah. Like I said, you were there for a few weeks. We don't really get to use our muscles in the power plant, so we had to rebuild those. We also took out a few of the smaller plugs you don't need."
"What was with the light?" Spike asked, sort of annoyed. He'd hated that thing.
"Well, you'd never used your eyes either, so that was one reason. The other was to make your body produce vitamin D. We take supplements too, but this gives your natural system a kick start. It's sort of annoying, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Spike agreed. He could tell Neo was trying to be nice, though he seemed unsure of what to say or do. Spike's anger was tempered a bit by Neo's kindness, but he wasn't sure how long he'd be able to hold off on demanding answers.
Further down the hallway, the ceiling became heavy metal grating and there was a hole in the ceiling with a ladder through it. Neo climbed the ladder and Spike followed. The ladder led to an open room on the deck above.
"This is the main deck, and over here is the Core," Neo said.
'The Core' was a longish area filled with computer banks and worn metal grids. Looking up, Spike saw hanging cables and a long metal catwalk. To one side there was a cluster of flat panel monitors filled with falling green code. He remembered the ever-changing code from when he'd been in the abandoned building. A dark-skinned man with really impressive dreadlocks sat in a chair facing the computers. He gave Neo a nod before returning back to whatever he was doing. On a lower level, another man stood next to what looked like a row of dentist's chairs. Morpheus was sleeping in one. Well, he looked like he was sleeping. The entire setup was creepy but looking around at the men in the room, he realized he was the only one who felt unnerved by the setup. Neo and the others seemed fairly relaxed and intent on their tasks. Spike drew a small amount of comfort from that and tried to force down a sudden panic attack.
"When is he coming back?" Neo asked.
"He's just on his way now," the dark skinned man replied. Spike was confused now, panicky feelings gone. Back? From where? Morpheus was sitting right there, wasn't he? Or were they talking about someone else? But then Neo had said that Morpheus was gone.
Morpheus opened his eyes and the guy standing next to him seemed to unhook something from the back of the chair. The chair moved from its reclined position and Morpheus sat up and looked around. His eyes fell on Spike and the man smiled.
"Good morning, Spike. I'm sorry I wasn't available when you woke up, but I had an unexpected matter to attend to."
"That's ok," Spike said, feeling as if he had to say something.
"Please, have a seat," Morpheus gestured to the dentist's chair directly opposite him. Spike walked over and sat down. "This is Tank." Morpheus gestured to the man standing next to him. "His brother-in-law Link is working behind you. You know Neo. Trinity is busy with other duties at the moment."
"Hi," Spike said quietly. The men nodded back.
"I expect you'd like to know what is going on?" Morpheus gestured to the ship and set up around them. Spike nodded mutely. "And I expect you wish to know what the Matrix is?" Spike nodded again.
"What is this place? Why do I have these things in my arms? There was a war, with machines? I don't understand." Spike shook his head. Morpheus nodded in understanding and Spike felt a bit better.
"The Matrix is a fully interactive program most of humanity is directly connected to. You've noticed the plug in the back of your head? That is the main data port which allows the machines to feed whatever sensation they want into our minds." Morpheus held up a stalling hand as Spike opened his mouth to ask a question.
"What is sensation but the result of electrical stimulation sent to the brain? The machines learned how to manipulate input into our brains in such a way that we feel as if we are truly in the real world when we are actually just plugged into the Matrix. Since humans born directly into the Matrix have nothing for comparison, no real experienced sensation of running through a field or smelling a flower or the sun on our face, we cannot tell the difference until we are unplugged."
Spike thought about that for a moment as Morpheus' voice trailed off. It made sense, in a sick and frightening way. If he'd never really done any of those things, how would he really know what they felt like? Just thinking about it made his head hurt. This was some upper-level philosophical stuff and Spike had never really cared for any of that.
"Why is there a Matrix? If we lost a war, why aren't we all dead?"
"In the early twentieth century, humanity created Artificial Intelligence. From this, a whole generation of machines was created. We don't have the details, but war broke out. We blacked out the sky, hoping to deprive the machines of their power source, the sun. Unfortunately the machines were far more adaptive than anyone expected and they found a new power source, us."
"Us?" Spike asked, amazed and appalled.
"A human generates both electrical energy and body heat. The machines found a way to harness this energy and, with a form of fusion, use it, to replace their dependence on the sun."
"So I really was in a power plant?" Spike asked, looking from Neo to Morpheus. Both men nodded back grimly.
"But why keep us in a- a giant, virtual reality, MUSH?"
"We think it is because the human mind needs to be kept occupied otherwise it rejects the system. We have also learned that the world had to be modeled very closely to what once actually existed for humans to accept it. Apparently, prior versions of the Matrix, ones that came closer to the Utopian vision, were not as successful as the current one and many people died."
"I don't know if I can believe this," Spike said after a moment's contemplation. Spike could easily understand and even believe that humanity had massively screwed up, but a small, optimistic part of him didn't want to accept what he was being told.
"Sit back," Morpheus directed, "I'll show you." Spike eyed him warily but then settled back in the seat. Neo walked over to him and began fiddling with the equipment around the chair. Tank strapped Spike's feet into the chair's footrests and gave him an encouraging smile. His head was pushed back against the headrest by Neo.
"If this is a 'a lot weird' like last time was, I am seriously going to flip out on someone," Spike told Neo. Then the data spike was sliding into his head and Spike had the strangest sensation of being disconnected from his body before slamming back into it.
"Ow." Spike rubbed the back of his head and then froze. His plug was gone and his hair had returned. Spike looked down. He was fat again and was in the same clothing he'd been wearing before he'd been unplugged. "The Hell?"
"What you are seeing now is what we call your RSI, your Residual Self Image," Morpheus said. Spike whirled around to face him. Morpheus was dressed the same way he'd been when Spike had first met him. The alligator coat was slung casually over one shoulder and he was leaning against one of the shabby red leather chairs like he was posting for hacker GQ or something.
"I'm fat," Spike replied. Even if the world had gone to hell, being thin had been a definite perk for him personally and he was not happy to be husky again.
"That is because you still think of yourself that way."
"So what? Mind over matter? I just think the pounds away? What gives?" Spike knew he was being indignant and probably rude but he didn't really care at the moment. In fact, his feelings were fully justified. If he'd been lied to his entire life, he was due some serious anger and annoyance.
"You spent your entire life thinking of yourself as looking this way so your mental image of yourself reflects that. Your RSI will adjust to your real world appearance but it is not an automatic process."
"Will the metal stuff ever show up here?" Spike asked, calming slightly.
"Usually they don't show up. Sometimes, after someone has been unplugged for a very long time, they do appear. Then it is a matter of writing some cosmetic adjustment programs much like what we use to alter our clothing or equipment."
"Is this the Matrix? It's awfully. white."
"This is the Construct. It's a loading program, a staging area. Here we equip ourselves with whatever we need before we enter the Matrix. Guns, clothing, phones, even cars. It is a program, much like the Matrix, but it is not controlled by the machines."
"How do I know I'm not dreaming now? How do I know this isn't some elaborate hoax? You said yourself that my brain can be fooled by a computer. I buy that. How do I know I'm not being fooled now?" Spike asked. Morpheus smiled.
"Do you feel like you are dreaming? Is this like sitting in the Core?" Morpheus asked, enigmatic, Cheshire cat smile wide. Spike stopped to consider his surroundings.
"This is different," Spike had to admit after a moment. In here, nothing felt as real as it had while he'd been sitting in the Core. Spike felt the leather of the red chairs. It was almost like the worn leather of the dentist chair his body was sitting in, but not quite. This was real. Well, it wasn't real, it was a program. The situation was real. Great, now he was talking to himself. At least it wasn't out loud. Man this was messed up. A program! He was inside a program! Spike smirked and let out a small laugh. Seeing Morpheus' questioning quirk of eyebrow Spike slumped in the chair and explained.
"You know, all my life I've felt I've been in some sort of dream and I've been just going along with everything, going through the motions. My parents made me talk to the school's guidance counselor and he said: 'Life isn't a video game, son. There isn't a reset button here. What you do here really matters." Sort of ironic that I really was living in a program, isn't it?"
"It is, indeed." Morpheus said as he sat in the other chair. "Would you like to see what the real world looks like now?"
"It's some sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland, right?" Spike asked. The way the story was going, it almost had to be. Morpheus produced a remote from somewhere and the TV flashed to life.
"This is the real world. It's mostly desert and ruined city sprawl." As Spike watched, the TV seemed to grow and fade as the world around them faded from white into rocky landscape. The sky was filled with rolling grey clouds. Lightning flashed along the surface of the cloud cover like the foam of breaking waves. The skeletal remains of what must have once been huge buildings reached towards the equally ruined sky. What city was he in? None of the landmarks he was familiar with from TV or Movies were present. "Where are we?" Spike asked.
"This is what the ruins of Chicago look like." Morpheus nodded his head off to the left. "Shall we take a walk?"
"OK." The desolate landscape was depressing and awful. The simulated air was filled with the smell of ozone and dust and crackled along Spike's skin. Except for the dust and the chilly air, it wasn't unlike being outside just before a summer thunderstorm.
"This is a simulation too, right?" Spike asked. Intellectually he knew it was, but the ground crunched under his feet and the wind tousled his hair in such familiar ways. Spike even felt a little cold. He stole a glance at Morpheus. The bald man has left his duster behind on the chairs and seemed unaffected by the chill.
"Its is a simulation created from footage about a year old, but not much has changed since then according to our scouts." They turned a corner and Spike could hear the soft lapping of water over the low creaking of aged steel and the soft crunch of debris under their feet. "Most of the world's cities look like this now. Some are merely radioactive fields of rock and glass in the shape of the city's footprint. The cities that resisted the most were blasted the worst it seems. New York, Moscow, Brussels, Tokyo, London to name a few. Some cities were abandoned as people fled the machines. It is said that when the machines came, only a few thousand people were left in Cairo, Denver and Paris. Everyone had fled into the countryside."
"Did those people escape?" Spike asked. They climbed a crest and could now see the lake stretching out before them, as grey as the sky it reflected.
"Some did. Some found their way to the underground tunnel system which housed the sewers for the cities above. Others found habitable rock caverns and carved vast cave systems. Those people became the founders and citizens of the underground cities. Avalon, Shangri-la, El Dorado, and Lemuria were a few that we know existed. Still others created fortified cities in remote places, hoping to be spared by the machines; the floating city of Atlantis, for example, was built in the middle of the Atlantic."
"I thought those cities were all legends?"
"They might have been legends people named their cities after." Morpheus turned from the view of the lake and Spike met his gaze. "Then again they might be the cities the legends came from." A chill ran up Spike's spine. The implications were terrifying.
"Are those cities still around?"
"No." Morpheus turned back to the lake. "They were all destroyed by the machines once they were found. Together, the survivors founded Zion."
"Is that one still around?" Spike asked.
"Zion is the last human city."
"The last?" Spike asked. Morpheus nodded. Spike shivered, and not from the cold.
"The planet isn't entirely dead, Spike." Morpheus pointed to the remains of what might have been a park. Blasted steel and concrete had ripped a scar through what had once been some dense foliage, killing many of the trees. A few pathetic looking specimens clung to life close to the water's edge. Spike could make out movement there. A rat scurried out from under a ruined slab of concrete, chased by a skinny cat. The pair dashed off into the distance.
"We know there are a number of animals left on the surface of the planet. There are even a few species of plant which have actually begun to thrive in this," he gestured around. "We know there are fish still in the seas and even in some of the rivers." Spike nodded and looked out over the ruins of the city. Finally he had to look away.
"This place is like a graveyard. Can we leave?" The silence too, was getting to him.
"Tank," Morpheus called into the air, "Bring us out."
In an instant, Spike was both there and not there. Then he was sitting in the chair and aware of the sound of the ship around him. He felt the odd sensation of the plug leaving his head and the metallic sound it made. The chair moved into a sitting position and Spike ran a hand over his face over his short, stubby hair and back to the data plug on his head. He looked at his hands and saw bony wrists once again. That would take some getting used to.
Morpheus sat across from Spike, seemingly awaiting his reaction. Spike tried to wrap his mind around everything he'd just witnessed. He was now free of an interactive group hallucination called the Matrix, the world was pretty much blasted into wasteland and killer robots ruled the earth.
"This sucks." Not poetic by any means, but it summed everything up rather nicely. "I can't go back, right?" Spike asked. Morpheus nodded solemnly. "OK. I can deal with that. No one would believe me even if I could. I mean people are so messed up even in the Matrix, so I can believe we screwed ourselves over royally. People have always talked about stuff like this happening. Half of the plotlines for the Twilight Zone are like this." Spike rubbed his hand across his face again. He felt tired and drained. "This is going to take some getting used to." Spike admitted. Morpheus nodded again.
"Why don't you head back to your cabin and rest there. You're probably tired and this is a lot of unpleasant information to take in."
"Sure," Spike said as he slid out of his seat. "Where do I live again?"
"I'll show you," Neo said. Spike nodded and followed Neo back they way they'd come.
"This is my cabin," Neo pointed out one of the doors. Spike noted where it was in relation to the Mess. "If you need anything, you can knock on my door."
"Thanks."
The door behind Neo opened and Trinity stepped out. She quietly closed the door behind her, lips quirking into a small smile when she spotted Spike.
"Hello Spike," she said, sending Spike's heart racing. Like Neo, she was different in the real world. She wasn't wearing anything flashy or tight and her hair was slightly tousled instead of slicked back. But Trinity was still utterly gorgeous, although in a different, more natural way. Without the sunglasses Spike could see she had amazing eyes. His already addled brain slowed to a halt as he gaped.
"I'll got get a mop and drool bucket for the newbie," Neo quipped lightly for Trinity's benefit. Trinity sent him a mock glare over Spike's shoulder. Spike had barely heard Neo as he was quite busy trying to remember how to speak.
"I- Er-" Spike stuttered. "Hi," he finished lamely, feeling like the world's biggest idiot. There followed an uncomfortable silence in which Spike wracked his brain for something intelligent or witty to say and came up with nothing.
"Are you ok?" Neo asked after a moment. He actually sounded concerned. Spike nodded then shook his head.
"No. I'm- I-. I think I'll just go now," Spike said, kicking himself for not being more eloquent.
"You've had a lot to deal with. Go take a nap and call or come find us if you need anything, ok?" Trinity said. Spike nodded dumbly and slipped into his cabin, quickly closing the door. He winced as he heard Neo through the metal.
"I think he likes you, Trin."
Spike groaned and flopped onto the bed.
**************************
Syzygy pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders and resumed hugging her knees. It was cold here, always so cold. She'd been told it would get better when she gained more body weight. Neo had remarked that Zion was exceedingly hot in some places - the city was powered by geothermal energy and there were open pools of magma in several areas. Syzygy whished she was there now, not hiding in her room, which, as much as she might want to deny it, was exactly what she was doing. Spike had finally shown signs of waking up and she'd run and hid in her room. She nearly had had a heart attack a few minutes later when her door had opened.
But Trinity, not Spike, had entered and Syzygy had relaxed marginally for a moment before tensing up again, awaiting the reprimand for cowardice which was no doubt coming. Syzygy got the distinct impression that Trinity didn't suffer fools gladly, and loathe as she was to admit it, she was acting foolishly. And one thing she did not want to do was act like a fool in front of Trinity. Syzygy respected Link and Tank a great deal, but she was in total awe of the Neb's fighters. Especially Trinity.
Morpheus had enticed her with hints about the Matrix. He'd captured her interest and she'd followed his trail across the internet and into some places she wasn't supposed to know about, let alone go into. Then he'd contacted her, warned her about the men in dark suits she now knew were agents. She'd run downstairs and screamed in horror as her parents morphed and twisted into men with dark sunglasses and guns
It was Trinity who'd come to a screeching halt on a black motorcycle, hauled a shaken Syzygy behind her and then sped off, agents firing shots after them. The Agents had caught up with the speeding bike just before they'd reached the abandoned warehouse they'd been heading for. The programs had missed the bike's riders, but not the bike itself. Syzygy would have surely died if Trinity hadn't somehow grabbed her and hauled her sorry ass to safety once again as the bike exploded under them. Then the Agents had attacked: their guns spent or kicked away, they'd both fought Trinity hand to hand. Even now Syzygy's mind couldn't comprehend the physics defying movements of the warrior woman as she fought off the agents in the street. Then Neo had arrived.
He'd fucking flown in and kicked ass until no one was left. If Trinity defied the laws of physics, Neo simply seemed to ignore them altogether. With the agents gone, Syzygy had thought she was safe. Then she felt the mind wrenching sensation of confused twisting which was ended only by the sharp, painful, clarity of Trinity's knife along her thigh.
She'd barely registered the woman's hastily offered regret at having to cut her, but she heard and understood that it - that anything - was better than being taken over by an agent.
Finally there had come the stumbling way into the warehouse where Morpheus, god of dreams, awaited, ready to wake her up. Syzygy had swallowed the red pill dry.
Recent history flashed though Syzygy's mind while she waited for Trinity to berate her for avoiding the other newbie. But Trinity never said anything.
Instead, Trinity calmly sat on the far side of Syzygy's bed and began arranging some of the fabric she'd entered with on her lap. Syzygy watched with mixed emotion as Trinity carefully took out a needle and thread from a case and began to repair a tear in a sweater.
A small, logical part of Syzygy reasoned that of course she'd have to fix her clothing herself. Wal-mart probably hadn't survived the machine's holocaust, so going out to get another shirt for $5.99 wasn't an option. But another part of Syzygy's ranted and raved against the image of Trinity, thus far the epitome of liberated femininity, doing something as mundane and domestic as sewing.
She watched Trinity's fingers deftly weave the thread through the garment, closing the hole with neat stitches. Trinity finished her work, examined it for a moment then tied off the thread and cut it with a small pair of scissors from the case. Without comment, Trinity folded the sweater and picked up another one. Syzygy watched the needle flash in the dim light of her room for a few minutes until, finally, the silence became unbearable.
"Aren't you going to say something?" Syzygy finally asked. The older woman's eyebrow arched, but Trinity kept her eyes on her task.
"Say something about what?"
"About why I'm in here and not out there?"
"Ah."
Ah? That was all she was going to say? Syzygy stewed for a moment, trying to see what Trinity was doing. Was this some sort of elaborate ploy to get her to run out there and declare to the wide world that she was female? That she'd lied to who were probably some of her closest friends even if she'd never met them in real life (or at least in the frighteningly real facsimile of real life she'd been living)? That she'd betrayed her gender by pretending?
"You know," Trinity mused as she examined her stitches along an unraveled seam, "when I first met Neo, he was surprised I was a woman." Trinity glanced over at Syzygy before returning to her task. Syzygy blinked. Well, that wasn't so far-fetched, she thought. After all, the hacking community was dominated by men. Some guys even took special pains to target who attempted to join the hacking community, the way F33r targeted lamers and newbies. Syzygy herself had always wondered why a guy had chosen such a feminine handle and had written 'him' off as either super religious or someone poking fun at the super religious, the way F33r poked fun at 1337- speaking posers.
Syzygy had been more pleased than surprised to find out that the notorious Trinity was a woman who, in addition to being an amazing hacker, could kick some serious ass.
"Syzygy."
Syzygy withdrew from her musings and focused on Trinity, meeting her eyes. Trinity had folded the clothes and they now rested in a pile in the middle of the bed.
"You aren't the only one who has ever pretended to be a guy online. You're not the first to." Trinity trailed off, a hint of a smile playing at her lips, "omit certain things."
"It was easier." Syzygy muttered. She let go of her knees and moved to sit cross-legged on the bed. "It started as a game, ya know?"
"And then you realized most of the guys treated you differently when they thought they were talking with another guy, right?" Trinity asked, her tone wry. Syzygy nodded.
"Yeah! I couldn't believe it. I was kinda pissed. But at the same time no one blew me off. And the guys are such pigs! Some of the stuff they said? I know for a fact they cleaned up when they thought a girl was around. I wanted to yell, "hey! I'm a girl! You guys are complete idiots! But." Syzygy trailed off with a shrug.
"I know." Trinity nodded. "I've been there too. Spike thought I was a guy." Trinity's lips quirked in a smile. Syzygy snickered.
"Yeah? How'd that work out? I mean, no offense, but you look more like one of the anime chicks he probably had on a wall scroll or something than what people think of when they hear 'hacker'." Trinity rolled her eyes.
"To say he was a bit surprised would be an understatement."
"I bet he kept trying to check out your ass," Syzygy stated. Trinity rolled her eyes again, giving Syzygy all the confirmation she needed.
"You'll have to tell him, but I don't know when Morpheus will want you to meet him." Trinity said, getting serious. The light mood left the cabin in an instant and Syzygy sobered. "Being unplugged is a big enough shock; Morpheus doesn't want him to have to deal with too much right away. Finding out that the world you knew isn't real is much bigger than finding out one of your guy friends is actually a girl. But finding out you're female will be a bit more personal, I think."
"Yeah," Syzygy agreed, looking down at her lap.
"He'll probably understand once he has a chance to think about it. That will help with the others, too."
"They got unplugged?" Syzygy asked, looking up. Trinity nodded.
"Not yet. They will be in the next few days if they choose the red pill. The Vigilant has been tracking them for nearby agent activity and we've been in contact as well. Spike was supposed to leave, so they aren't suspicious of him disappearing. We left some emails in your name saying you got grounded, so they're no longer hunting you down."
"Can I talk to them?" Trinity shook her head, and Syzygy's shoulder slumped a bit.
"We can't let you do that. This has to be their own choice. We can't let Spike and your decisions sway them in any way."
"What if they don't take the red pill?"
"The idea was to get all four of you out as a unit. If they don't choose the red pill, at least two of you are unplugged. That's better than nothing. These are for you," Trinity pushed the pile of clothes with the two mended garments on top towards the newbie. "They should fit you a bit better. I have to go. I'm on duty soon. Today you did downloads, and tomorrow morning we're doing more martial arts training, so get a good night's sleep."
"OK." Syzygy nodded. Trinity stood up, slipped the sewing case into a pocket and quietly left the room. Syzygy dimmed her cabin lights and curled up on the bed to try and get some sleep.
Chapter 2
Spike faded in and out of consciousness. The only thing constant was the terribly bright light above his head and the cool table under his back. Sometimes there were shadowy figures working around him, talking softly out of view. Other times, they were working over and around him, poking and prodding. Once he woke up covered in little needles which made his muscles twitch uncomfortably. Each time he woke he was told to go back to sleep, and he did, wondering briefly what exactly was going on and why he was so tired.
When Spike woke this time, the room was dark. Had they finally turned off the damn light? He reached up to wipe the sleep from his eyes. Something was attached to his left arm. He held his arm in front of his face and focused on his wrist. A clear tube was attached to a strange sort of metal thing. Spike tugged at it experimentally. The tube was connected to something inside his wrist which moved minutely. The feeling was weird and the thought of something staying under his skin made him uncomfortable so he left the IV like thing alone. He examined the metal on his arm and remembered the tubes popping off his body and the stabbing pain each time one separated. He squinted at the sleeve of the sweater he wore. It was green and worn and he was sure he'd never seen it before. He started to pull back his sleeve further when the door swung open with a metallic squeal. Spike forgot about examining his arm and sat up.
"Hmm, We'll have to oil that." Neo stood in the doorway. He swung the door experimentally a few times, listening to the different squeaks it made. Spike watched him, hardly believing that this was the same person. For one thing, his clothing was a far cry from what Spike had last seen him wearing Neo was dressed in what looked like hand-me-downs from head to toe. He wore an oversized sweater which appeared old but clean and may have been blue at one point. His pants were baggy and patched and he wore heavy boots which looked like they'd just come from an army surplus store. Neo's presence was also different: somehow he was now more.tangible? Spike's sleepy mind couldn't even begin to figure it out.
"Morning." Neo shut the door with a final squeak and stepped into the room. "Let me take that IV out." Neo sat next to Spike, took his wrist and withdrew a long metal needle from the strange implant. Neo unhooked the IV fluid bag from the wall and folded the long tube around it a few times as Spike watched.
"What is this?" Spike asked, holding his wrist with the metal implant out for Neo to see.
"It's a plug socket," Neo said, setting the IV bag down. He pulled back the sleeve of his sweater to reveal his own metal plug. Neo pulled the sleeve further to show one higher up on his arm. "Everyone who was born in the Matrix has them. They're located on the major arteries and on key junctions on the central nervous system so they're not exactly the same for everyone." Neo pushed his sleeve back down. "They take awhile to get used to, but you will. The biggest one is on the back of your head."
Spike tentatively felt the back of his head and was aware of two things at once. First, his head had been shaved. It felt like the military fade his father had insisted Spike and his brothers get when they traveled to visit his ex-marine grandfather. Second, and more importantly, a huge metal disk was attached to his it.
"The hell is that?" Spike asked, alarmed. That thing hadn't been there this morning.had everything happened to him only that morning? Neo turned around and pushed his dark hair out of the way to reveal his own plug, momentarily distracting Spike
"I have one too. It's the main data plug. Do you remember the power plant? The place you woke up in?" Neo paused as Spike nodded, shuddering as he remembered the hellish place. He hoped it'd been a nightmare.
"All the plugs were connected to the plant. Most fed your body. The big one fed your mind." Neo shrugged. "So I guess you're wondering just what's going on, right?" Neo asked. Spike thought it was an extreme understatement and nodded mutely.
"Well, first," Neo said, "It's not 2000. We're not sure, but we think it's 2200. There was a war between humans and machines and we didn't exactly come out on top. This place," Neo said as he gave the metal hull a tap, "is a hovership called the Nebuchadnezzar. Morpheus is her captain and he'd be here talking to you himself, but he had to jack in and make a drop at the last moment.
Almost none of what Neo was saying was making any sense to Spike. Machine wars? Hoverships? Morpheus was a captain of some sort on top of being a hacker and terrorist? And furthermore, he wasn't here to give Spike the answers he'd promised? What. The. Fuck.
He should be back any minute now. Come on." Neo smiled and stood. "I'll give you the five-cent tour. When Morpheus gets back he'll tell you everything, ok?"
"Ok." Spike felt his rising anger lessen somewhat. Morpheus would be back soon and then he'd get concrete answers. Neo was nice enough, but he wasn't doing a good job explaining what the hell was going on. For now, he could live with following Neo around this "Nubuchadnezzar place. Spike rose to his feet and for the first time noticed how the sweater hung loosely on him.
"Oh my god!" Spike exclaimed.
"What?" Neo asked, expression concerned.
"I'm thin!" Spike said, awed and confused. "How long was I out?" he asked, patting his chest and feeling his ribs, examining just how bony his wrists were now.
"You were out for about three weeks," Neo told him with a small smile. "In the power plant, you didn't get more food than anyone else, but your mind thought you did, so you thought of yourself as overweight." Neo shrugged. "Everyone comes out malnourished. You'll bulk up a bit, especially on Zion food. Come on."
Spike numbly followed Neo through the porthole into a small corridor. The harsh light drew his attention away from his nearly skeletal physique to the real world. It was like someone had suddenly pushed aside the curtain of fog clouding his mind. He finally processed everything he'd been told and stopped mid-stride, in shock. Neo, realizing he wasn't being followed anymore, stopped and turned.
"Spike?"
"Wait, wait, wait." Spike waved his hands around, as his mind tried to get a mental grasp on this new reality. "There was a war and we lost? So, what? And what the hell was that power plant you called it? How can I be in a power plant? I'm not electric," Spike said then his eyes grew large, "Am I?" Horrific visions of cutting his hand only to see not blood but thick white liquid seep out and plastic flesh covering cogs, tubing and wires, like in the movie Alien, filled his head. Neo shook his head with a small chuckle.
"We're not machines; don't worry about rusting or anything." Spike relaxed marginally. Neo ran a hand though his dark hair and looked extremely uncomfortable.
"Look," he said, "I really shouldn't be the one explaining any of this since I haven't been unplugged that long myself. Let's go see Morpheus. He's really the one that's supposed to tell you everything."
"Ok," Spike agreed. He was getting slightly annoyed by the lack of answers, but everything was so different and bizarre that he didn't feel like he could do much about it. Spike silently followed at Neo's heels thought submarine-like corridor.
"This is the Mess," Neo gestured into a smallish room which included a table, some benches and what looked like a kitchenette. Further down the hallway was a room filled with various monitors, metal trays, stethoscopes hung on a hook, a clear box of what looked like gauze and a faint antiseptic smell. The table Spike had become so well acquainted with stood in the center of the tidy room.
"Sickbay?" Spike asked. Neo nodded.
"Yeah. Like I said, you were there for a few weeks. We don't really get to use our muscles in the power plant, so we had to rebuild those. We also took out a few of the smaller plugs you don't need."
"What was with the light?" Spike asked, sort of annoyed. He'd hated that thing.
"Well, you'd never used your eyes either, so that was one reason. The other was to make your body produce vitamin D. We take supplements too, but this gives your natural system a kick start. It's sort of annoying, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Spike agreed. He could tell Neo was trying to be nice, though he seemed unsure of what to say or do. Spike's anger was tempered a bit by Neo's kindness, but he wasn't sure how long he'd be able to hold off on demanding answers.
Further down the hallway, the ceiling became heavy metal grating and there was a hole in the ceiling with a ladder through it. Neo climbed the ladder and Spike followed. The ladder led to an open room on the deck above.
"This is the main deck, and over here is the Core," Neo said.
'The Core' was a longish area filled with computer banks and worn metal grids. Looking up, Spike saw hanging cables and a long metal catwalk. To one side there was a cluster of flat panel monitors filled with falling green code. He remembered the ever-changing code from when he'd been in the abandoned building. A dark-skinned man with really impressive dreadlocks sat in a chair facing the computers. He gave Neo a nod before returning back to whatever he was doing. On a lower level, another man stood next to what looked like a row of dentist's chairs. Morpheus was sleeping in one. Well, he looked like he was sleeping. The entire setup was creepy but looking around at the men in the room, he realized he was the only one who felt unnerved by the setup. Neo and the others seemed fairly relaxed and intent on their tasks. Spike drew a small amount of comfort from that and tried to force down a sudden panic attack.
"When is he coming back?" Neo asked.
"He's just on his way now," the dark skinned man replied. Spike was confused now, panicky feelings gone. Back? From where? Morpheus was sitting right there, wasn't he? Or were they talking about someone else? But then Neo had said that Morpheus was gone.
Morpheus opened his eyes and the guy standing next to him seemed to unhook something from the back of the chair. The chair moved from its reclined position and Morpheus sat up and looked around. His eyes fell on Spike and the man smiled.
"Good morning, Spike. I'm sorry I wasn't available when you woke up, but I had an unexpected matter to attend to."
"That's ok," Spike said, feeling as if he had to say something.
"Please, have a seat," Morpheus gestured to the dentist's chair directly opposite him. Spike walked over and sat down. "This is Tank." Morpheus gestured to the man standing next to him. "His brother-in-law Link is working behind you. You know Neo. Trinity is busy with other duties at the moment."
"Hi," Spike said quietly. The men nodded back.
"I expect you'd like to know what is going on?" Morpheus gestured to the ship and set up around them. Spike nodded mutely. "And I expect you wish to know what the Matrix is?" Spike nodded again.
"What is this place? Why do I have these things in my arms? There was a war, with machines? I don't understand." Spike shook his head. Morpheus nodded in understanding and Spike felt a bit better.
"The Matrix is a fully interactive program most of humanity is directly connected to. You've noticed the plug in the back of your head? That is the main data port which allows the machines to feed whatever sensation they want into our minds." Morpheus held up a stalling hand as Spike opened his mouth to ask a question.
"What is sensation but the result of electrical stimulation sent to the brain? The machines learned how to manipulate input into our brains in such a way that we feel as if we are truly in the real world when we are actually just plugged into the Matrix. Since humans born directly into the Matrix have nothing for comparison, no real experienced sensation of running through a field or smelling a flower or the sun on our face, we cannot tell the difference until we are unplugged."
Spike thought about that for a moment as Morpheus' voice trailed off. It made sense, in a sick and frightening way. If he'd never really done any of those things, how would he really know what they felt like? Just thinking about it made his head hurt. This was some upper-level philosophical stuff and Spike had never really cared for any of that.
"Why is there a Matrix? If we lost a war, why aren't we all dead?"
"In the early twentieth century, humanity created Artificial Intelligence. From this, a whole generation of machines was created. We don't have the details, but war broke out. We blacked out the sky, hoping to deprive the machines of their power source, the sun. Unfortunately the machines were far more adaptive than anyone expected and they found a new power source, us."
"Us?" Spike asked, amazed and appalled.
"A human generates both electrical energy and body heat. The machines found a way to harness this energy and, with a form of fusion, use it, to replace their dependence on the sun."
"So I really was in a power plant?" Spike asked, looking from Neo to Morpheus. Both men nodded back grimly.
"But why keep us in a- a giant, virtual reality, MUSH?"
"We think it is because the human mind needs to be kept occupied otherwise it rejects the system. We have also learned that the world had to be modeled very closely to what once actually existed for humans to accept it. Apparently, prior versions of the Matrix, ones that came closer to the Utopian vision, were not as successful as the current one and many people died."
"I don't know if I can believe this," Spike said after a moment's contemplation. Spike could easily understand and even believe that humanity had massively screwed up, but a small, optimistic part of him didn't want to accept what he was being told.
"Sit back," Morpheus directed, "I'll show you." Spike eyed him warily but then settled back in the seat. Neo walked over to him and began fiddling with the equipment around the chair. Tank strapped Spike's feet into the chair's footrests and gave him an encouraging smile. His head was pushed back against the headrest by Neo.
"If this is a 'a lot weird' like last time was, I am seriously going to flip out on someone," Spike told Neo. Then the data spike was sliding into his head and Spike had the strangest sensation of being disconnected from his body before slamming back into it.
"Ow." Spike rubbed the back of his head and then froze. His plug was gone and his hair had returned. Spike looked down. He was fat again and was in the same clothing he'd been wearing before he'd been unplugged. "The Hell?"
"What you are seeing now is what we call your RSI, your Residual Self Image," Morpheus said. Spike whirled around to face him. Morpheus was dressed the same way he'd been when Spike had first met him. The alligator coat was slung casually over one shoulder and he was leaning against one of the shabby red leather chairs like he was posting for hacker GQ or something.
"I'm fat," Spike replied. Even if the world had gone to hell, being thin had been a definite perk for him personally and he was not happy to be husky again.
"That is because you still think of yourself that way."
"So what? Mind over matter? I just think the pounds away? What gives?" Spike knew he was being indignant and probably rude but he didn't really care at the moment. In fact, his feelings were fully justified. If he'd been lied to his entire life, he was due some serious anger and annoyance.
"You spent your entire life thinking of yourself as looking this way so your mental image of yourself reflects that. Your RSI will adjust to your real world appearance but it is not an automatic process."
"Will the metal stuff ever show up here?" Spike asked, calming slightly.
"Usually they don't show up. Sometimes, after someone has been unplugged for a very long time, they do appear. Then it is a matter of writing some cosmetic adjustment programs much like what we use to alter our clothing or equipment."
"Is this the Matrix? It's awfully. white."
"This is the Construct. It's a loading program, a staging area. Here we equip ourselves with whatever we need before we enter the Matrix. Guns, clothing, phones, even cars. It is a program, much like the Matrix, but it is not controlled by the machines."
"How do I know I'm not dreaming now? How do I know this isn't some elaborate hoax? You said yourself that my brain can be fooled by a computer. I buy that. How do I know I'm not being fooled now?" Spike asked. Morpheus smiled.
"Do you feel like you are dreaming? Is this like sitting in the Core?" Morpheus asked, enigmatic, Cheshire cat smile wide. Spike stopped to consider his surroundings.
"This is different," Spike had to admit after a moment. In here, nothing felt as real as it had while he'd been sitting in the Core. Spike felt the leather of the red chairs. It was almost like the worn leather of the dentist chair his body was sitting in, but not quite. This was real. Well, it wasn't real, it was a program. The situation was real. Great, now he was talking to himself. At least it wasn't out loud. Man this was messed up. A program! He was inside a program! Spike smirked and let out a small laugh. Seeing Morpheus' questioning quirk of eyebrow Spike slumped in the chair and explained.
"You know, all my life I've felt I've been in some sort of dream and I've been just going along with everything, going through the motions. My parents made me talk to the school's guidance counselor and he said: 'Life isn't a video game, son. There isn't a reset button here. What you do here really matters." Sort of ironic that I really was living in a program, isn't it?"
"It is, indeed." Morpheus said as he sat in the other chair. "Would you like to see what the real world looks like now?"
"It's some sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland, right?" Spike asked. The way the story was going, it almost had to be. Morpheus produced a remote from somewhere and the TV flashed to life.
"This is the real world. It's mostly desert and ruined city sprawl." As Spike watched, the TV seemed to grow and fade as the world around them faded from white into rocky landscape. The sky was filled with rolling grey clouds. Lightning flashed along the surface of the cloud cover like the foam of breaking waves. The skeletal remains of what must have once been huge buildings reached towards the equally ruined sky. What city was he in? None of the landmarks he was familiar with from TV or Movies were present. "Where are we?" Spike asked.
"This is what the ruins of Chicago look like." Morpheus nodded his head off to the left. "Shall we take a walk?"
"OK." The desolate landscape was depressing and awful. The simulated air was filled with the smell of ozone and dust and crackled along Spike's skin. Except for the dust and the chilly air, it wasn't unlike being outside just before a summer thunderstorm.
"This is a simulation too, right?" Spike asked. Intellectually he knew it was, but the ground crunched under his feet and the wind tousled his hair in such familiar ways. Spike even felt a little cold. He stole a glance at Morpheus. The bald man has left his duster behind on the chairs and seemed unaffected by the chill.
"Its is a simulation created from footage about a year old, but not much has changed since then according to our scouts." They turned a corner and Spike could hear the soft lapping of water over the low creaking of aged steel and the soft crunch of debris under their feet. "Most of the world's cities look like this now. Some are merely radioactive fields of rock and glass in the shape of the city's footprint. The cities that resisted the most were blasted the worst it seems. New York, Moscow, Brussels, Tokyo, London to name a few. Some cities were abandoned as people fled the machines. It is said that when the machines came, only a few thousand people were left in Cairo, Denver and Paris. Everyone had fled into the countryside."
"Did those people escape?" Spike asked. They climbed a crest and could now see the lake stretching out before them, as grey as the sky it reflected.
"Some did. Some found their way to the underground tunnel system which housed the sewers for the cities above. Others found habitable rock caverns and carved vast cave systems. Those people became the founders and citizens of the underground cities. Avalon, Shangri-la, El Dorado, and Lemuria were a few that we know existed. Still others created fortified cities in remote places, hoping to be spared by the machines; the floating city of Atlantis, for example, was built in the middle of the Atlantic."
"I thought those cities were all legends?"
"They might have been legends people named their cities after." Morpheus turned from the view of the lake and Spike met his gaze. "Then again they might be the cities the legends came from." A chill ran up Spike's spine. The implications were terrifying.
"Are those cities still around?"
"No." Morpheus turned back to the lake. "They were all destroyed by the machines once they were found. Together, the survivors founded Zion."
"Is that one still around?" Spike asked.
"Zion is the last human city."
"The last?" Spike asked. Morpheus nodded. Spike shivered, and not from the cold.
"The planet isn't entirely dead, Spike." Morpheus pointed to the remains of what might have been a park. Blasted steel and concrete had ripped a scar through what had once been some dense foliage, killing many of the trees. A few pathetic looking specimens clung to life close to the water's edge. Spike could make out movement there. A rat scurried out from under a ruined slab of concrete, chased by a skinny cat. The pair dashed off into the distance.
"We know there are a number of animals left on the surface of the planet. There are even a few species of plant which have actually begun to thrive in this," he gestured around. "We know there are fish still in the seas and even in some of the rivers." Spike nodded and looked out over the ruins of the city. Finally he had to look away.
"This place is like a graveyard. Can we leave?" The silence too, was getting to him.
"Tank," Morpheus called into the air, "Bring us out."
In an instant, Spike was both there and not there. Then he was sitting in the chair and aware of the sound of the ship around him. He felt the odd sensation of the plug leaving his head and the metallic sound it made. The chair moved into a sitting position and Spike ran a hand over his face over his short, stubby hair and back to the data plug on his head. He looked at his hands and saw bony wrists once again. That would take some getting used to.
Morpheus sat across from Spike, seemingly awaiting his reaction. Spike tried to wrap his mind around everything he'd just witnessed. He was now free of an interactive group hallucination called the Matrix, the world was pretty much blasted into wasteland and killer robots ruled the earth.
"This sucks." Not poetic by any means, but it summed everything up rather nicely. "I can't go back, right?" Spike asked. Morpheus nodded solemnly. "OK. I can deal with that. No one would believe me even if I could. I mean people are so messed up even in the Matrix, so I can believe we screwed ourselves over royally. People have always talked about stuff like this happening. Half of the plotlines for the Twilight Zone are like this." Spike rubbed his hand across his face again. He felt tired and drained. "This is going to take some getting used to." Spike admitted. Morpheus nodded again.
"Why don't you head back to your cabin and rest there. You're probably tired and this is a lot of unpleasant information to take in."
"Sure," Spike said as he slid out of his seat. "Where do I live again?"
"I'll show you," Neo said. Spike nodded and followed Neo back they way they'd come.
"This is my cabin," Neo pointed out one of the doors. Spike noted where it was in relation to the Mess. "If you need anything, you can knock on my door."
"Thanks."
The door behind Neo opened and Trinity stepped out. She quietly closed the door behind her, lips quirking into a small smile when she spotted Spike.
"Hello Spike," she said, sending Spike's heart racing. Like Neo, she was different in the real world. She wasn't wearing anything flashy or tight and her hair was slightly tousled instead of slicked back. But Trinity was still utterly gorgeous, although in a different, more natural way. Without the sunglasses Spike could see she had amazing eyes. His already addled brain slowed to a halt as he gaped.
"I'll got get a mop and drool bucket for the newbie," Neo quipped lightly for Trinity's benefit. Trinity sent him a mock glare over Spike's shoulder. Spike had barely heard Neo as he was quite busy trying to remember how to speak.
"I- Er-" Spike stuttered. "Hi," he finished lamely, feeling like the world's biggest idiot. There followed an uncomfortable silence in which Spike wracked his brain for something intelligent or witty to say and came up with nothing.
"Are you ok?" Neo asked after a moment. He actually sounded concerned. Spike nodded then shook his head.
"No. I'm- I-. I think I'll just go now," Spike said, kicking himself for not being more eloquent.
"You've had a lot to deal with. Go take a nap and call or come find us if you need anything, ok?" Trinity said. Spike nodded dumbly and slipped into his cabin, quickly closing the door. He winced as he heard Neo through the metal.
"I think he likes you, Trin."
Spike groaned and flopped onto the bed.
**************************
Syzygy pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders and resumed hugging her knees. It was cold here, always so cold. She'd been told it would get better when she gained more body weight. Neo had remarked that Zion was exceedingly hot in some places - the city was powered by geothermal energy and there were open pools of magma in several areas. Syzygy whished she was there now, not hiding in her room, which, as much as she might want to deny it, was exactly what she was doing. Spike had finally shown signs of waking up and she'd run and hid in her room. She nearly had had a heart attack a few minutes later when her door had opened.
But Trinity, not Spike, had entered and Syzygy had relaxed marginally for a moment before tensing up again, awaiting the reprimand for cowardice which was no doubt coming. Syzygy got the distinct impression that Trinity didn't suffer fools gladly, and loathe as she was to admit it, she was acting foolishly. And one thing she did not want to do was act like a fool in front of Trinity. Syzygy respected Link and Tank a great deal, but she was in total awe of the Neb's fighters. Especially Trinity.
Morpheus had enticed her with hints about the Matrix. He'd captured her interest and she'd followed his trail across the internet and into some places she wasn't supposed to know about, let alone go into. Then he'd contacted her, warned her about the men in dark suits she now knew were agents. She'd run downstairs and screamed in horror as her parents morphed and twisted into men with dark sunglasses and guns
It was Trinity who'd come to a screeching halt on a black motorcycle, hauled a shaken Syzygy behind her and then sped off, agents firing shots after them. The Agents had caught up with the speeding bike just before they'd reached the abandoned warehouse they'd been heading for. The programs had missed the bike's riders, but not the bike itself. Syzygy would have surely died if Trinity hadn't somehow grabbed her and hauled her sorry ass to safety once again as the bike exploded under them. Then the Agents had attacked: their guns spent or kicked away, they'd both fought Trinity hand to hand. Even now Syzygy's mind couldn't comprehend the physics defying movements of the warrior woman as she fought off the agents in the street. Then Neo had arrived.
He'd fucking flown in and kicked ass until no one was left. If Trinity defied the laws of physics, Neo simply seemed to ignore them altogether. With the agents gone, Syzygy had thought she was safe. Then she felt the mind wrenching sensation of confused twisting which was ended only by the sharp, painful, clarity of Trinity's knife along her thigh.
She'd barely registered the woman's hastily offered regret at having to cut her, but she heard and understood that it - that anything - was better than being taken over by an agent.
Finally there had come the stumbling way into the warehouse where Morpheus, god of dreams, awaited, ready to wake her up. Syzygy had swallowed the red pill dry.
Recent history flashed though Syzygy's mind while she waited for Trinity to berate her for avoiding the other newbie. But Trinity never said anything.
Instead, Trinity calmly sat on the far side of Syzygy's bed and began arranging some of the fabric she'd entered with on her lap. Syzygy watched with mixed emotion as Trinity carefully took out a needle and thread from a case and began to repair a tear in a sweater.
A small, logical part of Syzygy reasoned that of course she'd have to fix her clothing herself. Wal-mart probably hadn't survived the machine's holocaust, so going out to get another shirt for $5.99 wasn't an option. But another part of Syzygy's ranted and raved against the image of Trinity, thus far the epitome of liberated femininity, doing something as mundane and domestic as sewing.
She watched Trinity's fingers deftly weave the thread through the garment, closing the hole with neat stitches. Trinity finished her work, examined it for a moment then tied off the thread and cut it with a small pair of scissors from the case. Without comment, Trinity folded the sweater and picked up another one. Syzygy watched the needle flash in the dim light of her room for a few minutes until, finally, the silence became unbearable.
"Aren't you going to say something?" Syzygy finally asked. The older woman's eyebrow arched, but Trinity kept her eyes on her task.
"Say something about what?"
"About why I'm in here and not out there?"
"Ah."
Ah? That was all she was going to say? Syzygy stewed for a moment, trying to see what Trinity was doing. Was this some sort of elaborate ploy to get her to run out there and declare to the wide world that she was female? That she'd lied to who were probably some of her closest friends even if she'd never met them in real life (or at least in the frighteningly real facsimile of real life she'd been living)? That she'd betrayed her gender by pretending?
"You know," Trinity mused as she examined her stitches along an unraveled seam, "when I first met Neo, he was surprised I was a woman." Trinity glanced over at Syzygy before returning to her task. Syzygy blinked. Well, that wasn't so far-fetched, she thought. After all, the hacking community was dominated by men. Some guys even took special pains to target who attempted to join the hacking community, the way F33r targeted lamers and newbies. Syzygy herself had always wondered why a guy had chosen such a feminine handle and had written 'him' off as either super religious or someone poking fun at the super religious, the way F33r poked fun at 1337- speaking posers.
Syzygy had been more pleased than surprised to find out that the notorious Trinity was a woman who, in addition to being an amazing hacker, could kick some serious ass.
"Syzygy."
Syzygy withdrew from her musings and focused on Trinity, meeting her eyes. Trinity had folded the clothes and they now rested in a pile in the middle of the bed.
"You aren't the only one who has ever pretended to be a guy online. You're not the first to." Trinity trailed off, a hint of a smile playing at her lips, "omit certain things."
"It was easier." Syzygy muttered. She let go of her knees and moved to sit cross-legged on the bed. "It started as a game, ya know?"
"And then you realized most of the guys treated you differently when they thought they were talking with another guy, right?" Trinity asked, her tone wry. Syzygy nodded.
"Yeah! I couldn't believe it. I was kinda pissed. But at the same time no one blew me off. And the guys are such pigs! Some of the stuff they said? I know for a fact they cleaned up when they thought a girl was around. I wanted to yell, "hey! I'm a girl! You guys are complete idiots! But." Syzygy trailed off with a shrug.
"I know." Trinity nodded. "I've been there too. Spike thought I was a guy." Trinity's lips quirked in a smile. Syzygy snickered.
"Yeah? How'd that work out? I mean, no offense, but you look more like one of the anime chicks he probably had on a wall scroll or something than what people think of when they hear 'hacker'." Trinity rolled her eyes.
"To say he was a bit surprised would be an understatement."
"I bet he kept trying to check out your ass," Syzygy stated. Trinity rolled her eyes again, giving Syzygy all the confirmation she needed.
"You'll have to tell him, but I don't know when Morpheus will want you to meet him." Trinity said, getting serious. The light mood left the cabin in an instant and Syzygy sobered. "Being unplugged is a big enough shock; Morpheus doesn't want him to have to deal with too much right away. Finding out that the world you knew isn't real is much bigger than finding out one of your guy friends is actually a girl. But finding out you're female will be a bit more personal, I think."
"Yeah," Syzygy agreed, looking down at her lap.
"He'll probably understand once he has a chance to think about it. That will help with the others, too."
"They got unplugged?" Syzygy asked, looking up. Trinity nodded.
"Not yet. They will be in the next few days if they choose the red pill. The Vigilant has been tracking them for nearby agent activity and we've been in contact as well. Spike was supposed to leave, so they aren't suspicious of him disappearing. We left some emails in your name saying you got grounded, so they're no longer hunting you down."
"Can I talk to them?" Trinity shook her head, and Syzygy's shoulder slumped a bit.
"We can't let you do that. This has to be their own choice. We can't let Spike and your decisions sway them in any way."
"What if they don't take the red pill?"
"The idea was to get all four of you out as a unit. If they don't choose the red pill, at least two of you are unplugged. That's better than nothing. These are for you," Trinity pushed the pile of clothes with the two mended garments on top towards the newbie. "They should fit you a bit better. I have to go. I'm on duty soon. Today you did downloads, and tomorrow morning we're doing more martial arts training, so get a good night's sleep."
"OK." Syzygy nodded. Trinity stood up, slipped the sewing case into a pocket and quietly left the room. Syzygy dimmed her cabin lights and curled up on the bed to try and get some sleep.