Chapter Four: Erasure
It was happening again.
Pandora shivered in fear. She cold faintly hear (or so she imagined) the humming of a thousand Sentinels pursuing the lone hovercraft through the tunnels of the real world. The sound, a resonant buzzing, filled her head and she thought it might explode from the pain. A trickle of water squeezed its way from the corner of her eye, traveling down her face. The room's only other occupant, Morpheus, looked over at her in surprise.
"Pandora, are you feeling alright…"
His words trailed off as the buzzing grew in intensity. There was a loud popping sound and the blackness rushed up to overtake her.
Lynx felt the air rush past her ear and a bullet struck the pavement next to her left foot. Pivoting on said foot, she turned around while balanced and threw her arms up, tracking the bullet's path. She pulled each trigger twice, sending Smith falling from the roof, his body hitting the ground with a thud.
Strange, the analytical part of Lynx thought. He didn't even try to dodge that.
A door to her left swung open and she turned around just in time to dodge a bullet from Smith's new body. She aimed and shot it in the head. Continuing her slow fall forward, she rolled and came up on her feet, pointing arms in a right angle towards the streets ahead of her. Smith appeared at both exits.
What the hell is going on?
Neo and Trinity stood on opposite sides of Voyd, looking over his shoulders.
"What the hell is going on?" asked Voyd, almost shouting.
Trinity wondered the very same thing. One Smith had killed Neo, who knew what two could do to poor Lynx?
As she had that thought, Lynx leaped onto a ladder running up the wall of a nearby building. She shot one of the Smiths and began scaling the ladder.
As Lynx reached the halfway point, two more Smiths ran into the alley from the doorways below. As Lynx's hand touched the top rung, she felt a weight on it, and looked up into the barrel of a pistol.
"Greetings once again, Miss Hawkins," said a cold voice.
Neo looked at the screen in shock. Four Smiths? What the hell is going on? Lynx is gonna need some serious help getting out of this one.
The Nebuchadnezzar hurtled around a massive pillar, lines of destruction streaming from the rear guns. The pillar groaned as if wounded itself, and collapsed into the swarm of Sentinels, pushing a good number into the walls and crushing more under itself.
Sentinel 10-55A was a third generation Sentinel, smarter and better equipped then B or C generation Sentinels. It flew over the collapsing pillar and fired. Machines cannot feel, but it certainly had a sense of completion as its shot hit the rear cannons of the fleeing rebel craft, silencing them.
10-55A switched to missile launchers and fired one. The projectile flew forward and struck the left back of the hovercraft. The ship took the hit gracelessly, spiraling around out of control, almost hitting the wall. The ship straightened back out, however. 10-55A could not admire, either, but his analytical programming told him the pilot of this hovercraft was ranked "Above Average," only a few steps below the pilot of Ship 011001 – The Logos.
Fallen Angel hit the pilot's yoke hard, slamming the ship into another tight spiral. Phoenix swore. "We've got no guns back there! And they hit the engines! We're losing speed, fuel, and power!"
"Holy shit, they couldn't have picked a better place to hit us! Their programming is getting better."
Phoenix thought. "Yeah, but human behavior is irrational. Listen, here's what we do."
Lynx cried out and tried to let go of the ladder with one hand, but the Agent's foot held it down firm. Lynx gazed into the unforgiving metal of the pistol, feeling fear for the first time since she had started training with Neo. All the training, everything she had worked for and aspired to was all about to come to naught.
The gunshot echoed over the roof.
It had all fallen apart.
10-55A was possessed with the most advanced human stratagem programs, and was utterly shocked when the hovercraft turned around and came head on, firing with its undamaged front guns. 10-56A and 10-54A had vanished from either side of 10-55A, and the hovercraft had swept through the machines like a stick through a swarm of bees, leaving broken metal in its wake.
As the ship barreled down the tunnel, 10-55A, now commander of Sentinel Scout Force 10110, called for a retreat. This new strategy had to be examined before they could dare to attack again. Hopefully, they would figure everything out before Sentinel Army Detachment 00001 reached Z10N.
10-55A and the few survivors began the long flight back to 01.
Fallen Angel looked at Phoenix with a new respect.
"I can't believe that dumbshit plan worked," he stammered. Phoenix smiled cockily.
"I win the bet. Now you have to tell me how you got your name."
"Fine," Fallen Angel sighed. "Soon."
Pandora sat in her own private prison, composed from her own mind.
Her vision of hell was simple. She was trapped in the real world, aimlessly wandering the tunnels. Sentinels flew around her head, tiny ones, zapping her mind with their little lasers.
The pain was intense. Pandora screamed in her own little world, where no one heard her.
The Smith froze in place and toppled forward off the building. A familiar, rough hand grabbed Lynx's and pulled her up to the top of the building.
"Thanks." She gasped to Rabbit. Across the roof, Trinity sat on a bike, impatiently gunning the motor.
"Let's go," she called.
"Where's Neo?" asked Lynx, perplexed.
"He got held up," answered the first mate.
"Mister Anderson! Did you get my package?"
"Yes."
"Oh, good. Surprised to see me?"
"No."
"Then you're aware of it.".
"Of what?"
"Our…connection. I don't fully understand it myself, perhaps some part of you imprinted onto me, something overwritten or copied. It is at this point irrelevant. What matters is that whatever happened happened for a reason."
"And what reason is that?"
"Hurry up!" Trinity ordered. "Smith could return at any moment - "
The door to the roof swung open. A gun emerged, and a bullet emerged from that gun. It flew forward and struck the bike in the engine. Trinity had already reacted, years of training allowing her to start moving as the doorknob was turned. She was off the bike and five feet away when it exploded, lifting her into the air and letting her drop twenty feet away. She rolled and came to a stop by the edge of the roof, groaning.
Lynx swore and began firing. This Smith, however, dodged every bullet and sent a return shot at her. She leapt to the side, falling into Rabbit and sending them both to the floor.
"I've changed, I'm unplugged. A new man, so to speak. Like you, apparently free," he continued.
"Congratulations," Neo said sarcastically.
"Thank you. But, as you well know, appearances can be deceiving."
Lynx pushed herself back into the air with one hand, letting go of one of her guns. The other she brought around and unloaded at the replica, making it pause to dodge. In that moment of hesitation, she struck.
Voyd looked at the screen in shock. "Holy shit, that's a lot of Smiths."
He switched views to Trinity and Lynx's situation.
"Oh, shit, this is gonna be bad."
There was no sound first. Then it hit them. A rush of heat and sound, billowing up from beneath the building, exploding out in all directions. The shockwave lifted the four combatants off the building and throwing them into the air. Trinity, already injured, came down upon a landing of an adjacent office building with a thud, lapsing into unconsciousness. Rabbit and Smith landed on a building to the left, Smith upright, Rabbit stumbling and falling. Lynx rolled forward as the bomb exploded, tripping, accidentally propelling herself further into the air, and landing on the extreme edge of the same building as Trinity. She leapt to her feet, ready to rush over and help Rabbit.
Voyd held his breath. "Come on, get out of there."
The Smith lifted Rabbit high into the air and threw him against the wall. Rabbit groaned, his head rolling forward onto his chest as he slid to the ground. Smith cocked his foot and shot it into Rabbit's chin, lifting his head upward with a snapping sound. Rabbit yelled and fell forward. Grinning, Smith drew his pistol and emptied his clip into the stunned rebel.
Lynx watched from across the way. "No!" she yelled. She took a step forward. A revived Trinity grabbed her by the shoulder.
"There's nothing you can do for him. We must go, now. That's an order."
Lynx took one last look at the building across the way and flew into the building and up the stairs.
After a long, hard climb, they reached the top. Trinity and Lynx walked to the edge and looked around. They heard the hard line ringing somewhere. Lynx pinpointed the source of the ringing as an old shack across the way. As she took a step towards it, the door swung open to reveal Smith again.
"Shit, give us a break!" Lynx screamed in fury. Trinity tugged her backwards and drew her sidearm, pointing it at the Agent. She suddenly noticed a faint whistling sound from her left. Praying, she took a deep breath and jumped off the back of the building, pulling Lynx with her.
They fell fast, much faster then Trinity expected. They had reached the halfway point of the building when Trinity suddenly felt a pull as their fall stopped. Looking up, she smiled at Neo.
"Good timing."
Trinity sat in her room, staring at the wall.
He was gone.
That thought dominated her thinking. The pain was like a knife ripping through her, spilling tears instead of blood.
Rabbit was gone.
Her best friend – he had always been there for her.
Morpheus rubbed his forehead. He had a headache. He couldn't believe it. He was fighting for the survival of the very human race, and he had a dammed headache!
It was unbelievable.
Pandora lay stretched out on the table, breathing shallowly, life signs stable. Phoenix – who, ironically, considering his kamikaze attitude, was a medic – was examining her.
"She's definitely got something. Some life form I've never seen before is inside her. I don't think it's lethal, but it'll put her out for an indefinite amount of time."
"What happened?"
"As far as I can tell, she had a panic attack and fainted. She should be fine soon."