Title: Prelude to Eternity
Author: Stormhawk
Rating: PG
Disclaimer:
Matrix universe and associated characters: Wachowski brothers.
ATS universe: co-owned by me and Mordax.
Stef: me
Word Count: 2578
Summary: An insight into Stef's life before the Agency. Takes place before
the beginning of ATS.
Notes: Umm…nope. I shouldn't have to tell you that the angel she thinks
about is Smith. If you didn't know that I suggest you go read (and review)
'The Angel' which was the birthplace of the name Angel Smith.
'Or wills c real' that still scares me, it almost seems deliberate. Maybe it
is….
Please read and Review.
"What the hell is so hard about spelling my name the right way?" Stef
mumbled to herself as she flipped through her mail on the way back to her
apartment. Mostly people got it right, it was just Mr. Jenkins who insisted
on spelling her name with a 'ph', the man was in his sixties so she could
forgive him on that basis.
Locking her door she pinned the bills on her notice board in the kitchen,
grabbed a can of soda from the fridge and went straight back into her room.
She'd been living there since she moved out of home four, almost five years
now. She'd moved out when she was seventeen, with no complaints from her
aunt. Having no contact since she wondered if the woman who had raised her
for nine years even remembered she was alive.
Then again, she had half raised herself, Pam had been busy with many a
party, social occasion and gentlemen caller. Living the high life that was
demanded of their status. At least according to Pam they were a
high-standing family. What was left of it anyway, the Henderson's money had
almost run out. (Her aunt and her mother were born Henderson's; she was a
Mimosa because of her father.)
It had been old money, made in the early days of the family. There was still
enough, that she was glad of. Namely her inheritance. Her grandparents had
arranged it before they died, and put into a trust fund. It had been just
over ten thousand dollars.
That may sound like a lot of money but with bills and rent to consider it
really wasn't much. There was little over two thousand left. Mostly she used
it to pay the rent, her work paid for everything else.
Not that she did an actual job that involved being employed by a business or
company. Her job involved a lot of sitting behind her computer. That she
loved, she loved being able to immerse herself into the computer and the
world of the net. There was nothing wrong with being connected about half
the day and doing offline work the rest of time, except what was required to
sleep, eat, shop or other necessities.
Stef wasn't a hacker, she was a webhunter. Someone who would scourer the
internet (and private databases) for information or facts that a client
needed. It could be a simple order like students too busy or too unfamiliar
with the net to look for information for assignments. Other clients used her
like a private detective, having her sift through virtual paper trails to
look for someone.
It paid well enough, she always had enough, always had a roof over her head
and the lights on. And it was the only thing she felt she was good at. There
was nothing better than the feeling of being plugged in.
Her net connected and her Yahoo mail account opened up. 'Welcome Unseen
Spyder' it said, she felt comfortable by either of her two names. Not that
many others besides those hooked up ever used them. The most human contact
she had had in months, or that matter years, was when she went shopping and
made idle chitchat with the clerks.
Humanity sucked.
An odd thought for a human but a true enough one.
There were several webhunting jobs lined up. A couple of author alerts for
stories on Fanfiction.net, junk mail and some quick notes (and a couple of
viruses) from some hackers she knew.
Viruses between hackers (or hunters) were like jokes for the rest of the net
community, something you sent when you didn't want that person to feel alone
in the world, but not something that required a reply.
"Shit," she cried as a pain struck her head. Holding her head, she hoped the
pain would pass quickly. They were really irritating her, the headaches.
They had started a few weeks ago and hadn't given up. They would come and
go, and no painkillers she took helped.
Unable to focus on the screen in front of her, she crashed the computer and
fell over onto her bed, which was easy because it was right next to it. With
the heavy curtains drawn, and the door closed, it was dark like night.
Closing her eyes, she fell asleep on the cool sheets.
A couple of hours later she felt a lot better. Rising, she felt hungry. As
she walked out to the kitchen her eyes passed on the calendar. Oh, so that's
what day it was. She had thought today was something special, just couldn't
remember what.
Opening the fridge she pulled out a small white box. The bakery in this
neighborhood made nice cakes. And since it wasn't right to make your own
birthday cake she had walked down and bought one for herself.
Writing hadn't cost anything extra so it had '22' written in blue icing on
chocolate frosting. Chocolate on chocolate, her favorite.
She slipped the cake from the box onto a dinner plate, took a knife and
carried it over to the dining room table. Birthdays weren't any harder than
any other day of the year, and being alone had never bothered her.
Cutting a slice, she almost considered singing 'happy birthday' to herself,
but there wasn't much point in that. No one would hear her. She put the cake
back down on the plate, stood and looked around the room.
"Do I even exist?" she asked the world at large. "Well, answer me."
No one answered.
"I need an answer," she said as if admitting something that would make her
weak.
Sitting back down, Stef chided herself. She knew she existed, and that would
have to be enough.
Maybe it was time to do something else, maybe go to college. Spend more time
outside her apartment.
Or maybe she could stay here and die.
She loved her life, no one bothered her, no one controlled her. She loved
her life on the Internet. She didn't need anyone else.
That was perhaps the source of the problem; it was always 'no one'.
No one would care if she died, if her headaches were something serious. If
was a tumor or something and she died no one would care. No one would
notice. It wasn't so bad, it wasn't like she'd be missed or miss anyone.
She finished her slice of cake, stashed the rest back into the fridge and
went back to her computer.
*****
"Morpheus, good to see you," the Oracle said as the bald rebel walked into
the kitchen.
"You told me you needed to talk to me."
"Yes, I did," she said as she pushed the cookie barrel over to him. He
declined.
"What about?"
"There's someone you need to find."
"Who? We have potentials looking all the time."
"No, this one is different. She's not looking for you, specifically, the
truth maybe, but you'll never find her."
"We can find anyone, is this potential part of the prophecy?"
"No Morpheus, not everyone is part of the prophecy."
"Then why?"
"Do you trust me enough to look?"
"Of course we do, you've helped us so much."
"The name is Unseen Spyder, and I want you to send her this message," she
said handing him a slip of paper.
"I'll do my best," he said bowing his head and leaving.
*****
Stef was in a better mood the next day, the amount of sugar she had ingested
at one in the morning may have had something to do with that. There was none
of the self-doubt there had been the night before, and none of the angst.
She was herself again.
Micro waving a bowl of popcorn, she got dressed into a pair of loose jeans
and a long tee shirt and flopped on the couch to watch a movie.
After it finished, she dialed up and got most of the webhunting orders
finished for the day. Sending off messages to the clients and her bank
details she just sat back and waited for the money to be transferred to her
bank account. Payment before information that was her motto.
As was the motto of all true webhunters, of which there really wasn't that
many. There were a couple of others she knew in various parts of the
country, and a couple of international ones. The only other one she knew of
in the city was some guy named G'Mork, or GMork_the_hunter, as his email
stated.
He was good, not as good as her but good enough for some of her clients to
transfer to him, because he had cheaper rates. He probably didn't pay the
bills with what he did. He covered his tracks well, and she couldn't find
anything out about his offline life.
For all she knew, G'Mork could be an eight-five year old woman living in a
cardboard box. Not that that was likely but the idea made her smile.
Seeing no money was coming in straight away, she got up to make dinner. Not
that she was a gourmet chef but she could cook what she liked to eat.
Tonight, all she felt like was a peanut butter sandwich.
She turned on the kitchen CD player, and took her sandwich out to the tiny
balcony. But as she did her eyes caught onto Alexandria who was in the
lounge room on a bookshelf as always.
Alexandria stared at her from her one eye, her one lifeless eye. The other
side of her skull had been broken long ago.
Alexandria was a doll.
"Don't give me that look Alexandria," Stef said to the doll. When she had
first gotten the doll she'd been unable to pronounce the name correctly so
it had been 'lexandwa', she had been Stef's favorite doll until it had been
broken.
The day Jack had stomped out of her life he had stood on the doll's head and
never even looked back. Jerk.
And the angel hadn't come back to fix it.
"Oh shut up about that Stef," she said to herself. She couldn't believe that
still believed she had seen an angel twenty years ago. How the hell was
anyone supposed to remember things coherently from that long ago? They
didn't. And she was stupid for believing in a thing like an angel. Angels
didn't exist, god didn't exist, there was nothing beyond the world that
everyone saw.
Was there?
But, she realized as she started to eat her sandwich while overlooking the
city. It was still nice on some level to believe that something special like
that had happened.
It would be so nice to know that there was someone out there that was
looking after her.
She slowly ate the rest of her sandwich as she watched the little lights of
the city go out. Not that you got a great view from a third-floor apartment,
but those who had lived there their whole lives knew when 'the city that
never sleeps' was going to bed.
That was her cue to go back to her computer.
Hopping back onto the net, she jumped over to her site, 'The Spyder's Lair',
which had no point, just links to stuff she liked and details on her skills
as a webhunter. Though, when she jumped into the guest book she found a new
message.
Whoever had placed it was obviously playing a joke; the name read 'Trinity'.
Everyone knew that Trinity was a world-class hacker, what the hell would
someone like her…or was it him…no one knew for they were good at covering
their tracks, want with a webhunter like her?
Stef clicked it and opened up the message. She was disappointed, it was only
a riddle.
"Is this the truth or…or wills c real. Find it to find the truth." She read
out loud. She clicked to delete it but something stopped her. Trinity, if
this message was really from Trinity, had ties to this mysterious
underground hacker movement; they apparently left clues and only those who
were smart enough found the truth.
The Truth.
Something about those words resonated in her. The Matrix. The Truth. Maybe
they had answers.
But she had to find the answer to the riddle first.
She tried running it through some online translators, but nothing came out
that made sense. She knew it was the last part of the message that was the
important part. Reading into it, it could mean something to the nature of
you had to have a will to see what was real and what wasn't.
"Damn you," she cursed at the computer. She was on the verge of giving it up
so she jumped over to a forum she haunted. The last thread that had been
replied to was 'Sorry I'm Late' she clicked over to read it. One of the
administrators did a rambling apology about something or other and ended his
post with a screen cap of the Disney 'Alice in Wonderland.'
Realization dawned over her as she realized what the message meant. Somehow
it came to her within an instant, the translation was Lewis Carroll.
Why that was she had no idea, but it was the answer to the riddle.
She jumped back over to her lair and send off a reply to the mysterious
person.
About an hour later, she dropped off to sleep.
The next morning she woke to someone incessantly knocking at her door.
Dragging herself out she undid the locks and looked blearily at…a FedEx
deliveryman.
"Can I help you?"
He smiled a nice false smile, something that made her want to punch him.
"Stef Mimosa?"
"Yes."
"Package for you," he handed her a clipboard. "Sign here." She grumbled
something unintelligible and signed her name on the dotted line. He smiled
again and handed her a package.
She slammed the door behind him and dumped the package on the table. She
tipped some coffee granules into a cup, "must have caffeine," she muttered
as she turned the kettle on.
The package rung.
She looked back at it, "no, that didn't happen," she said shaking her head.
It rang again. Tearing it open she pulled out a cell phone. As a side note
it was an expensive cell phone. She answered it.
"Hello?"
"Unseen Spyder?" a man's voice asked on the other end.
"Who is this?"
"Unseen, this is the reply to you answer to the riddle."
"You can call me Stef," she said quietly, "is this Trinity?"
The man laughed, and following the Wonderland theme she thought of the
creepy cat. "No, my name is Morpheus."
"I've heard of you," she said in wonder, Morpheus had even more underground
fame than Trinity did.
"That's good to hear. I understand you are looking for answers."
For lack of a coherent sentence, she just answered "yes."
"I can give you those answers. Will you meet with me?"
"Just name the place."
"A friend of mine will meet you on the corner of River and Dale."
"When?"
"Nine o'clock tonight, can you make it?"
"Of course."
"Then I shall say goodbye." The call died in her ear, and she put the phone
down on her table. She wasn't sure what to do, most hackers waited their
entire online lives for a call like this, she had heard about 'contacts'
like this. And she had been contacted by Morpheus and Trinity, whatever she
had done to deserve this was she glad of.
Nine pm, which was about eleven hours.
Nothing would be the same after that.
_________________________________________________________________
MSN Messenger with backgrounds, emoticons and more.
http://www.msnmessenger-download.com/tracking/cdp_customize
Author: Stormhawk
Rating: PG
Disclaimer:
Matrix universe and associated characters: Wachowski brothers.
ATS universe: co-owned by me and Mordax.
Stef: me
Word Count: 2578
Summary: An insight into Stef's life before the Agency. Takes place before
the beginning of ATS.
Notes: Umm…nope. I shouldn't have to tell you that the angel she thinks
about is Smith. If you didn't know that I suggest you go read (and review)
'The Angel' which was the birthplace of the name Angel Smith.
'Or wills c real' that still scares me, it almost seems deliberate. Maybe it
is….
Please read and Review.
"What the hell is so hard about spelling my name the right way?" Stef
mumbled to herself as she flipped through her mail on the way back to her
apartment. Mostly people got it right, it was just Mr. Jenkins who insisted
on spelling her name with a 'ph', the man was in his sixties so she could
forgive him on that basis.
Locking her door she pinned the bills on her notice board in the kitchen,
grabbed a can of soda from the fridge and went straight back into her room.
She'd been living there since she moved out of home four, almost five years
now. She'd moved out when she was seventeen, with no complaints from her
aunt. Having no contact since she wondered if the woman who had raised her
for nine years even remembered she was alive.
Then again, she had half raised herself, Pam had been busy with many a
party, social occasion and gentlemen caller. Living the high life that was
demanded of their status. At least according to Pam they were a
high-standing family. What was left of it anyway, the Henderson's money had
almost run out. (Her aunt and her mother were born Henderson's; she was a
Mimosa because of her father.)
It had been old money, made in the early days of the family. There was still
enough, that she was glad of. Namely her inheritance. Her grandparents had
arranged it before they died, and put into a trust fund. It had been just
over ten thousand dollars.
That may sound like a lot of money but with bills and rent to consider it
really wasn't much. There was little over two thousand left. Mostly she used
it to pay the rent, her work paid for everything else.
Not that she did an actual job that involved being employed by a business or
company. Her job involved a lot of sitting behind her computer. That she
loved, she loved being able to immerse herself into the computer and the
world of the net. There was nothing wrong with being connected about half
the day and doing offline work the rest of time, except what was required to
sleep, eat, shop or other necessities.
Stef wasn't a hacker, she was a webhunter. Someone who would scourer the
internet (and private databases) for information or facts that a client
needed. It could be a simple order like students too busy or too unfamiliar
with the net to look for information for assignments. Other clients used her
like a private detective, having her sift through virtual paper trails to
look for someone.
It paid well enough, she always had enough, always had a roof over her head
and the lights on. And it was the only thing she felt she was good at. There
was nothing better than the feeling of being plugged in.
Her net connected and her Yahoo mail account opened up. 'Welcome Unseen
Spyder' it said, she felt comfortable by either of her two names. Not that
many others besides those hooked up ever used them. The most human contact
she had had in months, or that matter years, was when she went shopping and
made idle chitchat with the clerks.
Humanity sucked.
An odd thought for a human but a true enough one.
There were several webhunting jobs lined up. A couple of author alerts for
stories on Fanfiction.net, junk mail and some quick notes (and a couple of
viruses) from some hackers she knew.
Viruses between hackers (or hunters) were like jokes for the rest of the net
community, something you sent when you didn't want that person to feel alone
in the world, but not something that required a reply.
"Shit," she cried as a pain struck her head. Holding her head, she hoped the
pain would pass quickly. They were really irritating her, the headaches.
They had started a few weeks ago and hadn't given up. They would come and
go, and no painkillers she took helped.
Unable to focus on the screen in front of her, she crashed the computer and
fell over onto her bed, which was easy because it was right next to it. With
the heavy curtains drawn, and the door closed, it was dark like night.
Closing her eyes, she fell asleep on the cool sheets.
A couple of hours later she felt a lot better. Rising, she felt hungry. As
she walked out to the kitchen her eyes passed on the calendar. Oh, so that's
what day it was. She had thought today was something special, just couldn't
remember what.
Opening the fridge she pulled out a small white box. The bakery in this
neighborhood made nice cakes. And since it wasn't right to make your own
birthday cake she had walked down and bought one for herself.
Writing hadn't cost anything extra so it had '22' written in blue icing on
chocolate frosting. Chocolate on chocolate, her favorite.
She slipped the cake from the box onto a dinner plate, took a knife and
carried it over to the dining room table. Birthdays weren't any harder than
any other day of the year, and being alone had never bothered her.
Cutting a slice, she almost considered singing 'happy birthday' to herself,
but there wasn't much point in that. No one would hear her. She put the cake
back down on the plate, stood and looked around the room.
"Do I even exist?" she asked the world at large. "Well, answer me."
No one answered.
"I need an answer," she said as if admitting something that would make her
weak.
Sitting back down, Stef chided herself. She knew she existed, and that would
have to be enough.
Maybe it was time to do something else, maybe go to college. Spend more time
outside her apartment.
Or maybe she could stay here and die.
She loved her life, no one bothered her, no one controlled her. She loved
her life on the Internet. She didn't need anyone else.
That was perhaps the source of the problem; it was always 'no one'.
No one would care if she died, if her headaches were something serious. If
was a tumor or something and she died no one would care. No one would
notice. It wasn't so bad, it wasn't like she'd be missed or miss anyone.
She finished her slice of cake, stashed the rest back into the fridge and
went back to her computer.
*****
"Morpheus, good to see you," the Oracle said as the bald rebel walked into
the kitchen.
"You told me you needed to talk to me."
"Yes, I did," she said as she pushed the cookie barrel over to him. He
declined.
"What about?"
"There's someone you need to find."
"Who? We have potentials looking all the time."
"No, this one is different. She's not looking for you, specifically, the
truth maybe, but you'll never find her."
"We can find anyone, is this potential part of the prophecy?"
"No Morpheus, not everyone is part of the prophecy."
"Then why?"
"Do you trust me enough to look?"
"Of course we do, you've helped us so much."
"The name is Unseen Spyder, and I want you to send her this message," she
said handing him a slip of paper.
"I'll do my best," he said bowing his head and leaving.
*****
Stef was in a better mood the next day, the amount of sugar she had ingested
at one in the morning may have had something to do with that. There was none
of the self-doubt there had been the night before, and none of the angst.
She was herself again.
Micro waving a bowl of popcorn, she got dressed into a pair of loose jeans
and a long tee shirt and flopped on the couch to watch a movie.
After it finished, she dialed up and got most of the webhunting orders
finished for the day. Sending off messages to the clients and her bank
details she just sat back and waited for the money to be transferred to her
bank account. Payment before information that was her motto.
As was the motto of all true webhunters, of which there really wasn't that
many. There were a couple of others she knew in various parts of the
country, and a couple of international ones. The only other one she knew of
in the city was some guy named G'Mork, or GMork_the_hunter, as his email
stated.
He was good, not as good as her but good enough for some of her clients to
transfer to him, because he had cheaper rates. He probably didn't pay the
bills with what he did. He covered his tracks well, and she couldn't find
anything out about his offline life.
For all she knew, G'Mork could be an eight-five year old woman living in a
cardboard box. Not that that was likely but the idea made her smile.
Seeing no money was coming in straight away, she got up to make dinner. Not
that she was a gourmet chef but she could cook what she liked to eat.
Tonight, all she felt like was a peanut butter sandwich.
She turned on the kitchen CD player, and took her sandwich out to the tiny
balcony. But as she did her eyes caught onto Alexandria who was in the
lounge room on a bookshelf as always.
Alexandria stared at her from her one eye, her one lifeless eye. The other
side of her skull had been broken long ago.
Alexandria was a doll.
"Don't give me that look Alexandria," Stef said to the doll. When she had
first gotten the doll she'd been unable to pronounce the name correctly so
it had been 'lexandwa', she had been Stef's favorite doll until it had been
broken.
The day Jack had stomped out of her life he had stood on the doll's head and
never even looked back. Jerk.
And the angel hadn't come back to fix it.
"Oh shut up about that Stef," she said to herself. She couldn't believe that
still believed she had seen an angel twenty years ago. How the hell was
anyone supposed to remember things coherently from that long ago? They
didn't. And she was stupid for believing in a thing like an angel. Angels
didn't exist, god didn't exist, there was nothing beyond the world that
everyone saw.
Was there?
But, she realized as she started to eat her sandwich while overlooking the
city. It was still nice on some level to believe that something special like
that had happened.
It would be so nice to know that there was someone out there that was
looking after her.
She slowly ate the rest of her sandwich as she watched the little lights of
the city go out. Not that you got a great view from a third-floor apartment,
but those who had lived there their whole lives knew when 'the city that
never sleeps' was going to bed.
That was her cue to go back to her computer.
Hopping back onto the net, she jumped over to her site, 'The Spyder's Lair',
which had no point, just links to stuff she liked and details on her skills
as a webhunter. Though, when she jumped into the guest book she found a new
message.
Whoever had placed it was obviously playing a joke; the name read 'Trinity'.
Everyone knew that Trinity was a world-class hacker, what the hell would
someone like her…or was it him…no one knew for they were good at covering
their tracks, want with a webhunter like her?
Stef clicked it and opened up the message. She was disappointed, it was only
a riddle.
"Is this the truth or…or wills c real. Find it to find the truth." She read
out loud. She clicked to delete it but something stopped her. Trinity, if
this message was really from Trinity, had ties to this mysterious
underground hacker movement; they apparently left clues and only those who
were smart enough found the truth.
The Truth.
Something about those words resonated in her. The Matrix. The Truth. Maybe
they had answers.
But she had to find the answer to the riddle first.
She tried running it through some online translators, but nothing came out
that made sense. She knew it was the last part of the message that was the
important part. Reading into it, it could mean something to the nature of
you had to have a will to see what was real and what wasn't.
"Damn you," she cursed at the computer. She was on the verge of giving it up
so she jumped over to a forum she haunted. The last thread that had been
replied to was 'Sorry I'm Late' she clicked over to read it. One of the
administrators did a rambling apology about something or other and ended his
post with a screen cap of the Disney 'Alice in Wonderland.'
Realization dawned over her as she realized what the message meant. Somehow
it came to her within an instant, the translation was Lewis Carroll.
Why that was she had no idea, but it was the answer to the riddle.
She jumped back over to her lair and send off a reply to the mysterious
person.
About an hour later, she dropped off to sleep.
The next morning she woke to someone incessantly knocking at her door.
Dragging herself out she undid the locks and looked blearily at…a FedEx
deliveryman.
"Can I help you?"
He smiled a nice false smile, something that made her want to punch him.
"Stef Mimosa?"
"Yes."
"Package for you," he handed her a clipboard. "Sign here." She grumbled
something unintelligible and signed her name on the dotted line. He smiled
again and handed her a package.
She slammed the door behind him and dumped the package on the table. She
tipped some coffee granules into a cup, "must have caffeine," she muttered
as she turned the kettle on.
The package rung.
She looked back at it, "no, that didn't happen," she said shaking her head.
It rang again. Tearing it open she pulled out a cell phone. As a side note
it was an expensive cell phone. She answered it.
"Hello?"
"Unseen Spyder?" a man's voice asked on the other end.
"Who is this?"
"Unseen, this is the reply to you answer to the riddle."
"You can call me Stef," she said quietly, "is this Trinity?"
The man laughed, and following the Wonderland theme she thought of the
creepy cat. "No, my name is Morpheus."
"I've heard of you," she said in wonder, Morpheus had even more underground
fame than Trinity did.
"That's good to hear. I understand you are looking for answers."
For lack of a coherent sentence, she just answered "yes."
"I can give you those answers. Will you meet with me?"
"Just name the place."
"A friend of mine will meet you on the corner of River and Dale."
"When?"
"Nine o'clock tonight, can you make it?"
"Of course."
"Then I shall say goodbye." The call died in her ear, and she put the phone
down on her table. She wasn't sure what to do, most hackers waited their
entire online lives for a call like this, she had heard about 'contacts'
like this. And she had been contacted by Morpheus and Trinity, whatever she
had done to deserve this was she glad of.
Nine pm, which was about eleven hours.
Nothing would be the same after that.
_________________________________________________________________
MSN Messenger with backgrounds, emoticons and more.
http://www.msnmessenger-download.com/tracking/cdp_customize