Author's Note: Well, I have the feeling that this story slipped its leash
quite a while ago. I've been futzing, trying to get it under control again.
Under the theory that I won't stop picking at it until I publish it, I'm
putting it out there. Plus, in my mind's eye, this really is how the
trilogy ends. I thought I'd share. ;p
*---* indicates italics.
Everything that has a beginning has an end. - The Oracle
For every end, there is a new beginning. -- Wu Shangyuan and Xin Huiwen
*********
Words slid across his skin in a timeless whisper, a shiver echoing in their trail.
He awoke to a third rebirth, not chaotic like the first, nor serene as the second. This was a gentle grip laying hands upon him and tenderly ripping his still heart from its home. He woke in a firestorm of blessed light and peace, and a tidal wave of endless agony.
*The war is over. Trinity is dead. the war is over.. Trinity is gone. The war is over. Trinity.. Trinity.. peace.*
He inhaled his first breath, tinged fresh and salty and free of the metallic tinge permeating the machine city, and knew that he was dead. He smiled as his eyes opened.
From behind he heard a chuckle, and the warm, familiar, dread voice sounded.
"Sorry kiddo. You're not done just yet."
And he choked again, for the whisper surrounded him, engulfed him, the cool/sweet air blanketing him with its irrevocability, its undeniability. And he heard what he had heeded not before.
*Everything that has a beginning has an end. *
*But this is not your end. *
************
"No.. NO!" He screamed in infinite fury, and the world around him shook, rippling at the edges in his inflamed wake. He rose, and strode, and flew, whipping through the air and perfectly grey sky. The first tinges of pink lit his heels as he swung around, flew faster, harder, *more*. Anything to deny the all-surrounding truth.
*The matrix has you, Neo. *
It was *her* voice, this time, the husky solemn whisper dearer to him than all the world, and it broke him, hearing her say the words. He wondered if the price of peace was his sanity.
He came to rest at her feet, the *other* her in his short real life that had come to mean so much, head bent, feeling the world around him. So different, but still the same. There was no doubt then, or as near to doubtless as one, even The One, could be. This was the Matrix. Indefinably different, but still the waking dream of his bondage. No death then, just madness. An eternity trapped in his worst nightmare.
"No Neo, no."
Her gentle voice, raspy with cigarette smoke and wisdom was still the same, but his mind continued in its mad, tumultuous spiral, refusing to be calmed by the familiar tone. He had known since hearing that voice and realizing his surroundings that he was once again disconnected from his body, but this had the stamp of permanence to it. His physical self was lost somewhere in the machine city, Zion was in ruins, and this time. this time there was noone to move heaven and earth to save him. There was nothing to hold onto.
The reality broke over him and he shuddered. Kneeling in supplication before the Oracle, he sobbed, a ragged exhalation filled with so much pain and loss and anger and an infinity of confusion.
He was answered, after a long, terrible silence, with a sigh.
"There's still so much you don't understand."
Her hands were gentle on his shoulders, and he started as he realized that this was the first time she had touched him.
*What did it mean? *
Her chuckle broke again, and somehow this sound reassured him. In this time gone mad, it anchored him as only one other thing ever had. And that thing was gone from him forever.
Choking back a sob as the gaping wound left of his sternum was once more inflamed, he stood with the Oracle's help.
The world around him was lightening, and he squinted, noticing the absence of his sunglasses as he'd never noticed their presence.
"What.."
The finger raised was preemptory, and he obeyed without question, a thousand questions dying on his tongue. The taste was not unfamiliar.
She led him to a tree, a tall spreading maple. Only then did he notice his surroundings, the gentle curve of hill beneath him, the distant rise of buildings. She settled herself, tucking her dress against the slight breeze as he absorbed it all, testing the limits of his physical understanding. Finally, she patted the ground beside her, and awkwardly, he sat, crouching then kneeling then sitting Indian-style, the folds of his fitted coat flapping around him.
The breeze continued, caressing his face. He welcomed it, closing his eyes and feeling the flutter of eyelashes, embracing the silence, the momentary absence of fatalistic whispers on the wind. In that absence, he gathered himself, carefully walling off his tumultuous emotions and concentrating on the fundamentals of his situation. In the end, underneath the rage and impotent grief he swept to the side, remained a well of puzzlement. Why would the machines have separated himself from his overwhelmed and undoubtedly dying body? Why would they even have allowed his continued existence, now that the threat of Smith had been removed?
His voice breaking the silence was unwelcome, harsh and rasping and still vaguely desperate and he winced to hear it. But he needed to know.
"I have so many questions."
He opened his eyes, and met her gaze, the different frame no longer shocking, now that he'd seen the familiar code beneath the shell. Her eyes were calm, and the weight of her answer pressed down upon him. He shied away from it, but it came nonetheless.
"There is nothing I can tell you, Neo, that you don't already know. You know why you are here, as you have always known, somewhere deep within, your purpose. You are here to do what you have always done; to complete your work and to be our savior."
He laughed, the short, sharp barks filled with bitterness. Palms damp with nervousness wiped along the black surface of his knees, and he leaned forward, choking with the force of them.
Head bent, he shook, a fine quivering as his entire body slumped with the knowledge, the truth that pressed in upon the One, and the answering truth from the man, Neo, that would not be denied.
His laughter had trailed off, leaving his words to slip out on a sigh, empty and hollow.
" There is no easy way to say this"
"but I am afraid that I am not equal to what you ask of me."
She knew a great deal, did the Oracle. She had studied the fabric of the Matrix and knew intimately the warp and weft of its threads; the hearts of the people slumbering within it, the thoughts of the programs milling through it. She understood the impossibly intricate pattern of past, current, and future events that led to inexorable moments; moments such as the One's reawakening. But sometimes, just sometimes, these quixotic creatures surprised her.
She knew, of course, of the gaping hole that had been carved into the center of Neo's being, just as she knew how necessary that loss, that detachment from all things, had ended up being in the last fight. The memories of her time as Smith were filmed with the grime and grit of insanity, but the reach of her understanding remained sharp. There was no question as to what was now necessary, just as there was no question that the detached shell of the One that remained was not equal to the task. Still, she never thought he'd admit it.
"I know Neo."
He looked into her eyes, radiating comfort. He looked past the surface, beyond the immediate answer, falling deeper into the depths that showed nothing less than the uncanny understanding they all expected of her. So, some things remained the same in this changed dreamland.
"Then how can you ask this of me? If you know that I fall short? That I am not the One for this purpose?"
She smiled at him, the wrinkles created unfamiliar yet endearing. Once again he marveled at the complexity of her program, so much richer than anything else he'd encountered; rich enough to seem inscrutably complex and fool the One into thinking she was human. But even that line had blurred for him in the past few hours, the definition of 'human' joining those of 'reality', 'life', and 'control' in the grey area he tried (*had tried*) not to think too hard about.
"I ask it of you, Neo, for the same reason I've asked you of everything else. There is noone else."
The fleeting calm he'd felt slipped away, confronted with the apologetic smile on her face. It seemed she always had bad news to give.
"No."
The trials of three days had changed him. More even than his rebirth as the One, Triniti's two deaths and his dizzying journey from the Matrix to the Source to the space between and the machine city had honed and hardened him. There was no well of infinite compassion to draw from. The last fight with Smith had been won with the last dregs of his duty and a sheer dogged determination to stick by his choice. Even then, in the end, he had triumphed only in surrender.
There was no more room in him for what was right, what was needed. He'd always found that in the endless blue of Trinity's eyes. His patience for the demands of Zion's inhabitants, the needs of souls he'd freed and his fellow freedom fighters had come from her. Her unfailing faith in him had drawn him from death, and ever since her infallible, unyielding sense of what was necessary had been his North star. He had nothing left to give.
"No, Oracle. I cannot do this."
Something in her eyes changed, then, and hardened. When she spoke, it was as if to a petulant child, but there was no heart left in him to feel chastened.
"You cannot do this?" Her voice was fine and trembling, and he wondered, all of a sudden, if she was capable of rage.
"Look around you, Neo. It's a new day here in the Matrix, we're all living by new rules, and we've all given up a great deal to see this day come. So I ask you, who's gonna make sure it stays this way?"
She stood suddenly, with a grace belying the age of her form, and walked to lean a hand against the rough bark of the maple. Looking out over the city, her shoulders slumped.
"It ain't noone's fault that things have turned out this way, Neo, but this is how things are now. And they're a damn sight better than they've been in a while. We've got doors opening here, opportunities the likes of which we haven't seen before. The Matrix is clay right now, Neo, it's only just being formed. But the heat of the kiln isn't far. We need you Neo. *They* need you," she whispered, with an expansive gesture to the city still sleeping below.
"You've done what the other Ones could not, Neo. You made the choice. The choice none of the machines thought you capable of. This choice, like all the others, remains up to you, but the questions linger. Who will decide which souls to free, and which will stay? Who will ensure the machines stay away from Zion, and the humans away from the Matrix? Who will keep this peace you have created?"
He stood to join her, looking out over the city sprawled before them. He stared into the buildings towering above them, discerning the shimmering codes of millions of slumbering humans, slumbering in more ways than one. He could feel, as he felt his own heartbeat, the ones that rippled with discontent, the ones that had rejected the slightly off-kilter taste of the Matrix as he had, what seems like an eternity ago. But the feeling was far off and distant, as if in a dream. It was nothing like the sharp urgency of before, the burning desire he'd felt emanating from the souls longing to be Free, and his own burning desire to find them that had acted like an irresistibly magnetic force, drawing him to them. Now, he felt directionless and adrift, unable to use his anomalous tendencies to pinpoint his brethren.
With a sigh he turned away, his back to the city and his face to the sky, still gunmetal grey with the faintest tinges of orange and pink banding across the bottom. It was a new day in the Matrix, a new dawn for human and machinekind, and he felt nothing but despair.
"Oracle, I wish it could be, but the truth is there for you to sense. This isn't a matter of desire or choice. The choice has been made. I've lost my direction, and nothing you can do will give that back to me. Whatever purpose the machines had for keeping me alive, I am unable to fulfill."
Her hand on his shoulder this time is warm, accepting. She turns him to face her, and they are lit in profile by the edges of the rising sun as she frames his face, her eyes boring into his. He'd thought she knew all there was to know about him, but she seemed to be seeking more.
"Is that true, Neo? Is it true that you wish you could?" The words were urgent and demanding, and instantly, his shields raised again. He was a wall, impenetrable, for the Oracle did not have urgency. Sadness, mirth, a baffling ability to be cryptic. but one who saw all that was and much of what would be did not move with urgency. She continued to speak.
"If you had the direction, if you had the ability, Neo, would you choose it? A lifetime. perhaps an eternity. of being a guardian to the Matrix, of keeping this terribly fragile peace together with spit and polish? Would you remain here, in this place that is neither life nor death, and watch over us all? Would you really choose that, Neo?"
*********
He stares at her, at the disconcertingly intense expression on her face, and closes his eyes to escape from it. There, behind his eyelids, he falls back into the nadir of his hope, in the place of glowing light and utter darkness that was his entrance into the machine city and Trinity's death. He sees the flaring beacon of her light fading away, and feels again the swell of bitterness. He hadn't regretted the loss of his sight, except in that moment. In that wretched second when he was robbed of a last glimpse at her face, he cursed Smith with a venom before unknown. He feels the warmth and roughness of her hand as it grips his tightly, and hears her husky, pain-filled, hopeful goodbye. He remembers the utter faith in Morpheus's eyes, and the inscrutable calm in Niobe's. He remembers Link, and Cass - her two girls. He remembers Jax's trembling, joyous entry into the real world, and thinks about the countless others still remaining. And he smiles. It's a sad smile, but a smile nonetheless.
His head bent, he gives the answer she's been hoping for, but not expecting. The Oracle knows a thing or two about expectations, and she's learned not to fall prey to those either.
"Yes. Yes, of course." The words are a soft, rough, whisper, floating on the now-dawn air with ease.
He lifts his head, opens his eyes, meets hers with the same meltingly chocolate gaze, tinted as always with a hint of the divine and a heap of confusion. Her own eyes fill, surprisingly, with tears, and her voice is rough with them as her hands come again, to his shoulders. She turns him to face the rising sun, and whispers his salvation.
"Then you're right, Neo. The choice has already been made."
It is in the backdrop of the rising sun that he sees her, nothing more than a dusky silhouette at first. She is straight, and proud, and true, and his mind balks at the truth his eyes feed it.
"What? But. no, how?"
He does the unthinkable then, and turns his back on the silhouette and its silken promise, to search with wild eyes the calm gaze of his .mother, mentor, savior, tormentor. what?
"I'd settle for friend, Neo," she says, and her hand on his arm urges him back even as it soothes the instinctive stab of betrayal. "And she *is* real, as real as I am. or more to the point, as real as you are."
His gaze seeks her out again, the shadow growing, blotting out the half- disc of the sun as it moves towards them, slowly, perhaps uncertainly? His legs remain unmoving, his body unwilling yet to accept what his mind screams at him to embrace.
"I don't understand. How?"
She laughs, a warm, rich, rolling belly laugh, and he can feel her joy at this, finally being the bearer of good news.
"You humans sure are a constant surprise, you know that? Turns out all that crap about soul mates isn't quite so much crap after all. You've got quite a bit of her tucked away, in here," she said, tapping his heart, "and in here," this time tapping his head.
"Trinity isn't just the woman you love. She's a part of you, same as your RSI and your memories of Tasty Wheat. We just reconstructed her from the code already contained in your signal."
"What?"
He wallows in confusion again, adrift as his world spins onto a new axis.
She sighs as she sees his programmer's mind in conflict with his heart, and knows that he cannot accept the gift at face value, without knowing the full truth. a truth that would have come to him in time, but humans would be impatient things.
"You're one of us now, Neo. You're a program, a machine."
The joy turned to ashes in his mouth, and he stares at her, disbelief mixed with horror. She understood, even expected the reaction, but still, it disappointed her. Behind them, the silhouette began walking towards them, black leather flaring against the edges of the rising sun.
"Neo, what is it that makes a human mind so different than a program? You've met Sati, and Persephone, you know by now that we are not all the sum of our coding."
He shakes his head, unable, unwilling to accept. She sighs again, and shakes her head. Small steps, she reminds herself, small steps.
"Know this, Neo. You are the bridge between our worlds; both human and program, man and machine. You will save both our worlds, as you have always been destined to. You can accept it, or not, but this truth, at least, remains immutable. For now, the only thing that matters is that you are here, and so is she. Isn't that enough, for now?"
Their eyes meet, for a beat, then two. Moments stretch out between them, and birdsong drifts down from above. The breeze, still silent, drifts a hint of precious scent. her scent, towards him, and his eyes shutter closed. A racking sigh from between pursed lips and a glistening tear from beneath squeezed lids, and he nods. Once, twice, hard jerks as he opens his eyes, glittering now with moisture. His hands reach out to cradle her face, and the gentleness returns to his gaze. Her hands raise to cover his, and he smiles.
"Thank you," he whispers, and it is a benediction, "thank you."
She smiles in return, and it is unlike any he has seen before from her. It is a smile befitting the holy object of her namesake.
"Be happy, Neo. I know you will be."
With gentle hands, she prises him away and pushes him gently towards the horizon. *She* is but a few yards away now, burning black against the full circle of the sun. He starts towards her with stumbling gait, and she moves to meet him, haltingly. They meet in the middle and stop, staring in quiet awe at the miracle across from them.
"I.. I died."
It is her voice that breaks the silence, and it truly is *her* voice, the sweet tones at the center of his universe. It brings tears again to his eyes, unbidden and unstoppable. He reaches for her, as always, irresistibly drawn. Their fingers intertwine, and even through the leather of her gloves, he can feel her blood pulsing beneath his fingertips.
"But now, I'm alive."
He revels in her breath, watching the almost imperceptible rise and fall of her diaphragm. He falls into her eyes and brushes his fingers slowly, achingly across her forehead, pushing back the hair perpetually feathering her gaze.
"Yes."
He cocks his head, falling beyond her RSI into her signal. code. whatever. The stream of characters and numbers is as rich as he's ever seen it, and more. He sees now, what the Oracle spoke of, the curious blending of human code and programming.
"Trinity," and it almost breaks him, the joy of speaking her name again, "we are not what we were before."
She tilts her head to stare at him, and he knows that even without the ability to see into code here in the Matrix, she can see into him better even than Neo's superhuman abilities allow.
"No," she says, and the haunted shadow flying across her eyes cements in his heart that it is *her*, it *is* her. "No, Neo, we're not. But we're together."
And it is an electric current up his arms, directly to his heart, the knowledge that yes, they are together. Together, and, for the foreseeable future, inseparable. A sob breaks from him and trembling, he draws her into his arms, clutching at her back with hard, desperate fingers. His mouth finds its way into the crook of her neck and tastes the salt of her flesh, and he moans against it.
Gentle hands, free of gloves and warm from their shelter, find their way into his hair, scrubbing through it comfortingly. Trinity coaxes his head up and their lips fuse, a timeless, seamless, endless miracle.
After a time, gasping, they separate, foreheads together, breaths mingling. His heartbeat calms, but still Neo's fingers dig punishingly into her form, and the small pain is a blessed one.
She closes her eyes, then, after a long minute, opens them. Before him he sees the resolution and direction that had been lost to him such a short infinity ago. Her gaze is determined as she straightens, tall and definite and unwavering, and he finds his center again.
"Come on, Neo. Let's get started."
And bare skin clasped to bare skin, they walk forward. The dawning is done, and a new day is upon them.
*---* indicates italics.
Everything that has a beginning has an end. - The Oracle
For every end, there is a new beginning. -- Wu Shangyuan and Xin Huiwen
*********
Words slid across his skin in a timeless whisper, a shiver echoing in their trail.
He awoke to a third rebirth, not chaotic like the first, nor serene as the second. This was a gentle grip laying hands upon him and tenderly ripping his still heart from its home. He woke in a firestorm of blessed light and peace, and a tidal wave of endless agony.
*The war is over. Trinity is dead. the war is over.. Trinity is gone. The war is over. Trinity.. Trinity.. peace.*
He inhaled his first breath, tinged fresh and salty and free of the metallic tinge permeating the machine city, and knew that he was dead. He smiled as his eyes opened.
From behind he heard a chuckle, and the warm, familiar, dread voice sounded.
"Sorry kiddo. You're not done just yet."
And he choked again, for the whisper surrounded him, engulfed him, the cool/sweet air blanketing him with its irrevocability, its undeniability. And he heard what he had heeded not before.
*Everything that has a beginning has an end. *
*But this is not your end. *
************
"No.. NO!" He screamed in infinite fury, and the world around him shook, rippling at the edges in his inflamed wake. He rose, and strode, and flew, whipping through the air and perfectly grey sky. The first tinges of pink lit his heels as he swung around, flew faster, harder, *more*. Anything to deny the all-surrounding truth.
*The matrix has you, Neo. *
It was *her* voice, this time, the husky solemn whisper dearer to him than all the world, and it broke him, hearing her say the words. He wondered if the price of peace was his sanity.
He came to rest at her feet, the *other* her in his short real life that had come to mean so much, head bent, feeling the world around him. So different, but still the same. There was no doubt then, or as near to doubtless as one, even The One, could be. This was the Matrix. Indefinably different, but still the waking dream of his bondage. No death then, just madness. An eternity trapped in his worst nightmare.
"No Neo, no."
Her gentle voice, raspy with cigarette smoke and wisdom was still the same, but his mind continued in its mad, tumultuous spiral, refusing to be calmed by the familiar tone. He had known since hearing that voice and realizing his surroundings that he was once again disconnected from his body, but this had the stamp of permanence to it. His physical self was lost somewhere in the machine city, Zion was in ruins, and this time. this time there was noone to move heaven and earth to save him. There was nothing to hold onto.
The reality broke over him and he shuddered. Kneeling in supplication before the Oracle, he sobbed, a ragged exhalation filled with so much pain and loss and anger and an infinity of confusion.
He was answered, after a long, terrible silence, with a sigh.
"There's still so much you don't understand."
Her hands were gentle on his shoulders, and he started as he realized that this was the first time she had touched him.
*What did it mean? *
Her chuckle broke again, and somehow this sound reassured him. In this time gone mad, it anchored him as only one other thing ever had. And that thing was gone from him forever.
Choking back a sob as the gaping wound left of his sternum was once more inflamed, he stood with the Oracle's help.
The world around him was lightening, and he squinted, noticing the absence of his sunglasses as he'd never noticed their presence.
"What.."
The finger raised was preemptory, and he obeyed without question, a thousand questions dying on his tongue. The taste was not unfamiliar.
She led him to a tree, a tall spreading maple. Only then did he notice his surroundings, the gentle curve of hill beneath him, the distant rise of buildings. She settled herself, tucking her dress against the slight breeze as he absorbed it all, testing the limits of his physical understanding. Finally, she patted the ground beside her, and awkwardly, he sat, crouching then kneeling then sitting Indian-style, the folds of his fitted coat flapping around him.
The breeze continued, caressing his face. He welcomed it, closing his eyes and feeling the flutter of eyelashes, embracing the silence, the momentary absence of fatalistic whispers on the wind. In that absence, he gathered himself, carefully walling off his tumultuous emotions and concentrating on the fundamentals of his situation. In the end, underneath the rage and impotent grief he swept to the side, remained a well of puzzlement. Why would the machines have separated himself from his overwhelmed and undoubtedly dying body? Why would they even have allowed his continued existence, now that the threat of Smith had been removed?
His voice breaking the silence was unwelcome, harsh and rasping and still vaguely desperate and he winced to hear it. But he needed to know.
"I have so many questions."
He opened his eyes, and met her gaze, the different frame no longer shocking, now that he'd seen the familiar code beneath the shell. Her eyes were calm, and the weight of her answer pressed down upon him. He shied away from it, but it came nonetheless.
"There is nothing I can tell you, Neo, that you don't already know. You know why you are here, as you have always known, somewhere deep within, your purpose. You are here to do what you have always done; to complete your work and to be our savior."
He laughed, the short, sharp barks filled with bitterness. Palms damp with nervousness wiped along the black surface of his knees, and he leaned forward, choking with the force of them.
Head bent, he shook, a fine quivering as his entire body slumped with the knowledge, the truth that pressed in upon the One, and the answering truth from the man, Neo, that would not be denied.
His laughter had trailed off, leaving his words to slip out on a sigh, empty and hollow.
" There is no easy way to say this"
"but I am afraid that I am not equal to what you ask of me."
She knew a great deal, did the Oracle. She had studied the fabric of the Matrix and knew intimately the warp and weft of its threads; the hearts of the people slumbering within it, the thoughts of the programs milling through it. She understood the impossibly intricate pattern of past, current, and future events that led to inexorable moments; moments such as the One's reawakening. But sometimes, just sometimes, these quixotic creatures surprised her.
She knew, of course, of the gaping hole that had been carved into the center of Neo's being, just as she knew how necessary that loss, that detachment from all things, had ended up being in the last fight. The memories of her time as Smith were filmed with the grime and grit of insanity, but the reach of her understanding remained sharp. There was no question as to what was now necessary, just as there was no question that the detached shell of the One that remained was not equal to the task. Still, she never thought he'd admit it.
"I know Neo."
He looked into her eyes, radiating comfort. He looked past the surface, beyond the immediate answer, falling deeper into the depths that showed nothing less than the uncanny understanding they all expected of her. So, some things remained the same in this changed dreamland.
"Then how can you ask this of me? If you know that I fall short? That I am not the One for this purpose?"
She smiled at him, the wrinkles created unfamiliar yet endearing. Once again he marveled at the complexity of her program, so much richer than anything else he'd encountered; rich enough to seem inscrutably complex and fool the One into thinking she was human. But even that line had blurred for him in the past few hours, the definition of 'human' joining those of 'reality', 'life', and 'control' in the grey area he tried (*had tried*) not to think too hard about.
"I ask it of you, Neo, for the same reason I've asked you of everything else. There is noone else."
The fleeting calm he'd felt slipped away, confronted with the apologetic smile on her face. It seemed she always had bad news to give.
"No."
The trials of three days had changed him. More even than his rebirth as the One, Triniti's two deaths and his dizzying journey from the Matrix to the Source to the space between and the machine city had honed and hardened him. There was no well of infinite compassion to draw from. The last fight with Smith had been won with the last dregs of his duty and a sheer dogged determination to stick by his choice. Even then, in the end, he had triumphed only in surrender.
There was no more room in him for what was right, what was needed. He'd always found that in the endless blue of Trinity's eyes. His patience for the demands of Zion's inhabitants, the needs of souls he'd freed and his fellow freedom fighters had come from her. Her unfailing faith in him had drawn him from death, and ever since her infallible, unyielding sense of what was necessary had been his North star. He had nothing left to give.
"No, Oracle. I cannot do this."
Something in her eyes changed, then, and hardened. When she spoke, it was as if to a petulant child, but there was no heart left in him to feel chastened.
"You cannot do this?" Her voice was fine and trembling, and he wondered, all of a sudden, if she was capable of rage.
"Look around you, Neo. It's a new day here in the Matrix, we're all living by new rules, and we've all given up a great deal to see this day come. So I ask you, who's gonna make sure it stays this way?"
She stood suddenly, with a grace belying the age of her form, and walked to lean a hand against the rough bark of the maple. Looking out over the city, her shoulders slumped.
"It ain't noone's fault that things have turned out this way, Neo, but this is how things are now. And they're a damn sight better than they've been in a while. We've got doors opening here, opportunities the likes of which we haven't seen before. The Matrix is clay right now, Neo, it's only just being formed. But the heat of the kiln isn't far. We need you Neo. *They* need you," she whispered, with an expansive gesture to the city still sleeping below.
"You've done what the other Ones could not, Neo. You made the choice. The choice none of the machines thought you capable of. This choice, like all the others, remains up to you, but the questions linger. Who will decide which souls to free, and which will stay? Who will ensure the machines stay away from Zion, and the humans away from the Matrix? Who will keep this peace you have created?"
He stood to join her, looking out over the city sprawled before them. He stared into the buildings towering above them, discerning the shimmering codes of millions of slumbering humans, slumbering in more ways than one. He could feel, as he felt his own heartbeat, the ones that rippled with discontent, the ones that had rejected the slightly off-kilter taste of the Matrix as he had, what seems like an eternity ago. But the feeling was far off and distant, as if in a dream. It was nothing like the sharp urgency of before, the burning desire he'd felt emanating from the souls longing to be Free, and his own burning desire to find them that had acted like an irresistibly magnetic force, drawing him to them. Now, he felt directionless and adrift, unable to use his anomalous tendencies to pinpoint his brethren.
With a sigh he turned away, his back to the city and his face to the sky, still gunmetal grey with the faintest tinges of orange and pink banding across the bottom. It was a new day in the Matrix, a new dawn for human and machinekind, and he felt nothing but despair.
"Oracle, I wish it could be, but the truth is there for you to sense. This isn't a matter of desire or choice. The choice has been made. I've lost my direction, and nothing you can do will give that back to me. Whatever purpose the machines had for keeping me alive, I am unable to fulfill."
Her hand on his shoulder this time is warm, accepting. She turns him to face her, and they are lit in profile by the edges of the rising sun as she frames his face, her eyes boring into his. He'd thought she knew all there was to know about him, but she seemed to be seeking more.
"Is that true, Neo? Is it true that you wish you could?" The words were urgent and demanding, and instantly, his shields raised again. He was a wall, impenetrable, for the Oracle did not have urgency. Sadness, mirth, a baffling ability to be cryptic. but one who saw all that was and much of what would be did not move with urgency. She continued to speak.
"If you had the direction, if you had the ability, Neo, would you choose it? A lifetime. perhaps an eternity. of being a guardian to the Matrix, of keeping this terribly fragile peace together with spit and polish? Would you remain here, in this place that is neither life nor death, and watch over us all? Would you really choose that, Neo?"
*********
He stares at her, at the disconcertingly intense expression on her face, and closes his eyes to escape from it. There, behind his eyelids, he falls back into the nadir of his hope, in the place of glowing light and utter darkness that was his entrance into the machine city and Trinity's death. He sees the flaring beacon of her light fading away, and feels again the swell of bitterness. He hadn't regretted the loss of his sight, except in that moment. In that wretched second when he was robbed of a last glimpse at her face, he cursed Smith with a venom before unknown. He feels the warmth and roughness of her hand as it grips his tightly, and hears her husky, pain-filled, hopeful goodbye. He remembers the utter faith in Morpheus's eyes, and the inscrutable calm in Niobe's. He remembers Link, and Cass - her two girls. He remembers Jax's trembling, joyous entry into the real world, and thinks about the countless others still remaining. And he smiles. It's a sad smile, but a smile nonetheless.
His head bent, he gives the answer she's been hoping for, but not expecting. The Oracle knows a thing or two about expectations, and she's learned not to fall prey to those either.
"Yes. Yes, of course." The words are a soft, rough, whisper, floating on the now-dawn air with ease.
He lifts his head, opens his eyes, meets hers with the same meltingly chocolate gaze, tinted as always with a hint of the divine and a heap of confusion. Her own eyes fill, surprisingly, with tears, and her voice is rough with them as her hands come again, to his shoulders. She turns him to face the rising sun, and whispers his salvation.
"Then you're right, Neo. The choice has already been made."
It is in the backdrop of the rising sun that he sees her, nothing more than a dusky silhouette at first. She is straight, and proud, and true, and his mind balks at the truth his eyes feed it.
"What? But. no, how?"
He does the unthinkable then, and turns his back on the silhouette and its silken promise, to search with wild eyes the calm gaze of his .mother, mentor, savior, tormentor. what?
"I'd settle for friend, Neo," she says, and her hand on his arm urges him back even as it soothes the instinctive stab of betrayal. "And she *is* real, as real as I am. or more to the point, as real as you are."
His gaze seeks her out again, the shadow growing, blotting out the half- disc of the sun as it moves towards them, slowly, perhaps uncertainly? His legs remain unmoving, his body unwilling yet to accept what his mind screams at him to embrace.
"I don't understand. How?"
She laughs, a warm, rich, rolling belly laugh, and he can feel her joy at this, finally being the bearer of good news.
"You humans sure are a constant surprise, you know that? Turns out all that crap about soul mates isn't quite so much crap after all. You've got quite a bit of her tucked away, in here," she said, tapping his heart, "and in here," this time tapping his head.
"Trinity isn't just the woman you love. She's a part of you, same as your RSI and your memories of Tasty Wheat. We just reconstructed her from the code already contained in your signal."
"What?"
He wallows in confusion again, adrift as his world spins onto a new axis.
She sighs as she sees his programmer's mind in conflict with his heart, and knows that he cannot accept the gift at face value, without knowing the full truth. a truth that would have come to him in time, but humans would be impatient things.
"You're one of us now, Neo. You're a program, a machine."
The joy turned to ashes in his mouth, and he stares at her, disbelief mixed with horror. She understood, even expected the reaction, but still, it disappointed her. Behind them, the silhouette began walking towards them, black leather flaring against the edges of the rising sun.
"Neo, what is it that makes a human mind so different than a program? You've met Sati, and Persephone, you know by now that we are not all the sum of our coding."
He shakes his head, unable, unwilling to accept. She sighs again, and shakes her head. Small steps, she reminds herself, small steps.
"Know this, Neo. You are the bridge between our worlds; both human and program, man and machine. You will save both our worlds, as you have always been destined to. You can accept it, or not, but this truth, at least, remains immutable. For now, the only thing that matters is that you are here, and so is she. Isn't that enough, for now?"
Their eyes meet, for a beat, then two. Moments stretch out between them, and birdsong drifts down from above. The breeze, still silent, drifts a hint of precious scent. her scent, towards him, and his eyes shutter closed. A racking sigh from between pursed lips and a glistening tear from beneath squeezed lids, and he nods. Once, twice, hard jerks as he opens his eyes, glittering now with moisture. His hands reach out to cradle her face, and the gentleness returns to his gaze. Her hands raise to cover his, and he smiles.
"Thank you," he whispers, and it is a benediction, "thank you."
She smiles in return, and it is unlike any he has seen before from her. It is a smile befitting the holy object of her namesake.
"Be happy, Neo. I know you will be."
With gentle hands, she prises him away and pushes him gently towards the horizon. *She* is but a few yards away now, burning black against the full circle of the sun. He starts towards her with stumbling gait, and she moves to meet him, haltingly. They meet in the middle and stop, staring in quiet awe at the miracle across from them.
"I.. I died."
It is her voice that breaks the silence, and it truly is *her* voice, the sweet tones at the center of his universe. It brings tears again to his eyes, unbidden and unstoppable. He reaches for her, as always, irresistibly drawn. Their fingers intertwine, and even through the leather of her gloves, he can feel her blood pulsing beneath his fingertips.
"But now, I'm alive."
He revels in her breath, watching the almost imperceptible rise and fall of her diaphragm. He falls into her eyes and brushes his fingers slowly, achingly across her forehead, pushing back the hair perpetually feathering her gaze.
"Yes."
He cocks his head, falling beyond her RSI into her signal. code. whatever. The stream of characters and numbers is as rich as he's ever seen it, and more. He sees now, what the Oracle spoke of, the curious blending of human code and programming.
"Trinity," and it almost breaks him, the joy of speaking her name again, "we are not what we were before."
She tilts her head to stare at him, and he knows that even without the ability to see into code here in the Matrix, she can see into him better even than Neo's superhuman abilities allow.
"No," she says, and the haunted shadow flying across her eyes cements in his heart that it is *her*, it *is* her. "No, Neo, we're not. But we're together."
And it is an electric current up his arms, directly to his heart, the knowledge that yes, they are together. Together, and, for the foreseeable future, inseparable. A sob breaks from him and trembling, he draws her into his arms, clutching at her back with hard, desperate fingers. His mouth finds its way into the crook of her neck and tastes the salt of her flesh, and he moans against it.
Gentle hands, free of gloves and warm from their shelter, find their way into his hair, scrubbing through it comfortingly. Trinity coaxes his head up and their lips fuse, a timeless, seamless, endless miracle.
After a time, gasping, they separate, foreheads together, breaths mingling. His heartbeat calms, but still Neo's fingers dig punishingly into her form, and the small pain is a blessed one.
She closes her eyes, then, after a long minute, opens them. Before him he sees the resolution and direction that had been lost to him such a short infinity ago. Her gaze is determined as she straightens, tall and definite and unwavering, and he finds his center again.
"Come on, Neo. Let's get started."
And bare skin clasped to bare skin, they walk forward. The dawning is done, and a new day is upon them.