Nanu's Story – Awake.
***Nanu***
She wakes up on a bed. She's cold, and the bed is hard. Nanu lies still for a moment, breathing in the scent and the taste of the air. It tastes like metal, cold.
She opens her eyes. Dim light. Metal ceiling, metal walls and, she turns her head, metal floor. She sits up; swing her legs over the edge of the narrow bunk and puts her booted feet down. There is a tug at the skin of her left forearm, and she looks at the IV drip in her skin. Plugged into her. She pulls it out, slowly, it hurts. The socket, it's familiar. She remembers an image in black pen, drawing it on at school in a boring class and then feeling, momentarily, that it was more real than every other thing she had ever known.
Her clothes are hand-me-downs, homemade, torn and faded. The boots were once someone else's, they are scuffed, scratched and worn.
She lifts a hand to her head, and is not surprised to find only a fuzz of hair. Her fingers continue to the back of her head, and she traces the shape of the plug, like the one in her arm, but bigger.
Nanu remembers other plugs, and feels through the thin material of her shirt; another on her right forearm, the upper part of each arm, her shoulder blades, down her spine, near her collarbone, her stomach; she knows they are everywhere, and they won't ever go away.
She stands, and reaches for the wheel on the door to open it. But it's turning already. The door opens, and Neo stands on the threshold, holding a folded blanket and a cap-hat thing.
"I should have known you'd be up already."
"How long have I been out of it?"
"Days," he shakes his head. "You ask the strangest questions."
"I feel like I've done some of this before, or, something. Some things make sense to be, others don't."
"What makes sense to you?"
"This," she pulls up her sleeve, shows him the plug. "Why you were scared when you saw my drawing of this. That you have them too, and everyone else who has been plugged into the Matrix. That there are people without them, people who have never been in the Matrix. That there have always been people outside, otherwise how did the first of us get out?" She stops, his face has an odd expression. He is surprised, confused and a little fearful.
"I was about to offer to show you what the Matrix is, but I don't know if you already know that too."
"You've told me already, it's a neural interactive simulation, people are plugged into it, and only the people outside know about it."
He looks at her, not saying anything.
"On the forum, remember that?"
"Yes I remember," he exhales. "It's just been a while since I wrote it. But I'd better take you up to the Main Deck, so you meet the crew," he smiles faintly and then gives her the cap. "It was mine, but it's yours now."
Nanu pulls it over her head; it's warm from his hands.
***
She climbs up a ladder through a hole in the floor. Everything everywhere is metal, or cables covered in tough plastic-y stuff. The Main Deck is amazing, like an unorganised mechanic's workshop crossed with the inside of a computer. Six, no, seven chairs, like re-made dentist chars with torn and patched seats, are set up in a circle, the feet of the chairs inwards toward a pillar that goes from ceiling to floor and beyond.
"This is the Core, where we broadcast our pirate signal and hack into the Matrix," Neo says the words like he's quoting someone.
There is a, desk?, at the gap in the circle of chairs; a set up with lots of screens mounted on a metal frame, several keyboards on movable arms, and a swivelling chair bolted to the floor.
"You've already met most of the crew," Neo gestures. "Trinity," the blue eyed woman doesn't look at her.
"Gavin," he smiles at Nanu.
"Key," is the woman with the phone, she has brown hair only just long enough to tie back.
"And Tod," is the red haired man, who looks taller and has shorter hair in real life.
"The ones you haven't yet met, are Tank," a guy with curly hair and thick muscles smiles briefly. "And Achi," she has dark hair in dred-locks, and she's a little smaller than Tank.
Neo comes up to the girl. "Time to find out the Truth Nanu, or at least what you don't already know of it." She can see Trinity in the corner; her face is impassive.
"Gavin – " Neo says, and the blond guy comes forward, takes the blanket from around Nanu's shoulders and helps her into chair three. She puts her head back on the rest, feeling cool air on the nape of her neck that the cap doesn't cover. Gavin locks her feet down to the chair, and she curls her fingers around the grips on the armrests. The chair hisses as Gavin pulls a lever and it tilts back, is raised higher. She breathes deeply. This isn't going to hurt; it will just feel –
"This is going to feel weird Nanu. Don't be scared."
She smiles up at Neo, "You know I'm not."
Then white noise fills her head. Her eyes shut then open and everything is silent and white. And Nanu knows she has definitely been here before.
She turns around, looking at the blinding emptiness. Neo has come in after her; he stands like a dark shadow in the space.
"This, is the Construct."
"A computer program right?"
"Yes. We can load everything we need in here, weapons, equipment; all that kind of thing."
"This works the same way as the Matrix? Into my brain?"
"Yes." He shakes his head, hands in his coat pockets. "What don't you know about the Matrix?"
"Who is controlling it and why they're doing it. And what it means to be the One."
"Easiest to show," Neo says, "but as for the second part I barely know myself. Turn around Nanu."
She does so. Behind her are the two red leather armchairs and a small TV. Neo picks up the remote from one chair and clicks a button. The screen snaps on.
Nanu sees her city, the skyline, the bridge, subways, roads. People, minds, souls.
"That is the world you knew," Neo speaks carefully, looking hard at the screen. "The world as it was at the beginning of the 21st century."
He clicks the remote again, and the image changes, then is suddenly all around them. Nanu glances around, is this the Real world? She sees a ruined city skyline on the horizon; the whole world is grey and black. Roiling clouds in the sky cast a gloom over the ground. She and Neo are in a hollow in the scarred and rocky slope, and the world is still silent.
But no – it's not real. They're still in the Construct; they've loaded something else.
"Is this what it looks like outside the ship?"
"On the surface, yes."
"So," she leans on the back of the chair. "Who made the Matrix?"
"The AI."
"AI? You mean Artificial Intelligence?"
"Yes. We don't know much, but we know that we created AI near the end of the 20th or early in the 21st century."
"But isn't that now?"
"No, it's actually closer to 2202 than 2002 as you think it is. The Matrix is set on a time loop every twenty or so years."
"So did the AI rebel or something? How, why?"
"We don't know that Nanu, I'm sorry. It's cruel that we cannot answer what you ask, but we just don't know enough."
"Do you know what the AI made the Matrix for?"
"Yes. But before the Matrix, there was a war. At the time the machines, the AI, they needed solar power to survive. Mankind struck what was thought to be a crucial blow; they scorched the sky.
"What was done, we do not exactly know, but the effect was that of a nuclear winter."
"Or when a huge volcano erupts, and the ash fills up the sky."
"Yes, that's right. Only it has lasted for almost 150 years."
"What did the machines do for power?"
"The Matrix. Where you woke up, we call that a power plant."
Nanu frowns.
"The human body generates more bioelectricity than a 120-volt battery, and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the machines had found all the energy they would ever need."
The TV is flickering through images of towers, pods, people. Then it changes, and Nanu sees fields.
She moves around the chair slowly, sits down with her hands clasped. She stares at the screen.
"We are no longer born then," she whispers. "We are grown."
"Yes."
"And the machines use humans for power, like batteries."
"Yes."
Nanu shuts her eyes.
"So as long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free."
Silence, she opens her eyes and the Construct is white again. He is looking at her. There are tears in her eyes.
"Can I get out now Neo?"
***
The crew are standing around her as she opens her eyes, looking like they are waiting for something to happen, waiting for her to do, what?
She doesn't move. She can see Gavin looking confused beside her and Achi on her other side. Then she hears Neo speak –
"Let her down Gavin."
The seat hisses again as it is lowered to its normal position. Gavin pulls the plug gently from her head, and Nanu sits up. He undoes the locks on her feet then steps back. She glances around. She feels very conscious of her tears, and she tries to wipe them away. Looking up, she sees Trinity watching, and she feels worse. Now she's too young, not a hacker, and a crybaby.
Then Neo's hand is on her shoulder and he's helping her down from the chair. He takes her back to her cabin and pauses in the doorway.
"Rest Nanu," he says softly. "Try to sleep, and if you can't, come up to the "Deck and Tank will keep an eye on you."
She nods, and then he shuts the door and leaves her alone with her thoughts.
***Trinity***
"You can't tell me that didn't mean anything Trin."
"So she didn't panic and throw up, big deal."
"Read the recordings, just do that and if you still think she's nothing out of the ordinary, then nothing will change your mind. Just do that and I won't say anything else."
"Alright, alright, go away and I'll read the damn recordings!"
Neo leaves the room, closing the door behind him. Trin flops on the narrow mattress, throwing her arm over her head, covering her eyes. She lies still a moment, breathing slowly. When she is calmer she sits up. Neo will take her duties for the rest of the day, giving her time to read what he wants her to read. It's not fair to not do as he asks.
She takes a small gadget, a reader, from the drawer in the base of the bunk, slides in the disk Neo left. It's a recording of the coding of his discussion with the girl, when she was offered the pills. He has decoded the dialogue code for Trin, she could have done it herself, but she may have made a mistake, and it would be time consuming. Neo is very fast with decryption.
Trin reads the conversation quickly. Then again, slower. There is nothing astounding, the girl made no incredible leaps of insight, and overall she sounds a little slow off the mark. But there is something in her attitude; she accepted the idea of a virtual reality very quickly. And her questions, she had not asked how it was possible, or even for an instant rejected the idea, but said she had wanted to know who was in control.
And she had worked out the Oen/Neo thing. Not that it was rocket science, but it showed she could think.
Trinity frowns and reads the beginning of the transcript again. She hadn't been the slightest bit afraid of Neo either. Odd. Sixteen and gullible to Matrix propaganda, she should have been terrified.
Trin removes the disk and enters the second one. It's the code of the Neo's revelations in the Construct. She has to sift through irrelevant code, like the description of the landscape, to get to the decoded, by Neo, talking. He has done this quickly, it's obviously very important to him that Trin get the words exactly right.
She reads through it, noting, in the extra coding, Nanu's lack of surprise at the Construct, the loading of the armchairs, then the revelations of the power plant and foetus fields. She had become upset, but upset for the people still trapped inside.
Whenever someone is shown the truth, they invariably reject it. Neo had done so more violently than most, passing out for hours. Nanu had been calm, in tears, but calm. Very odd.
Someone knocks at the door, five short taps. The way Neo always knocks.
"Come in," Trin says, and the door opens slowly.
Nanu stands there, looking awkward. Trinity looks at her.
"Sorry, I was trying to find Neo," Nanu begins to close the door.
"He should be up on the bridge, but why?" the last part slips out without her meaning it to.
"I . . ." Nanu pauses. "I just wanted to know where he was."
Trin frowns. "Did you want to ask him something?"
"No, I don't think so." Nanu stands still, with her hand on the doorframe, just looking at her feet. Trinity is disturbed by her calm attitude.
"You could be angry, or something," she says, almost accusingly. The girl looks up.
"Why should I be angry?"
"You've just find out your entire life was a lie, that you were nothing but a battery, that every person you have ever known is still lying in a pod in a power plant."
"Then if I'm angry, I should be angry for them, not me. I should be happy, now I'm out."
"So what are you? Not anything at all?"
"Numb. Just numb and useless."
"Useless?" Trinity asks, although she can guess at the answer. "Why?"
Nanu spreads her hands and shrugs. "I know nothing. About anything. Everything on this ship depends on computers or engineering or something with technology. I can't do any of that."
"You'll learn," Trin finds herself saying. "No matter what we know in the Matrix, it doesn't really apply here. Being a hacker or something helps, but it's only ever background knowledge."
"No IRS bases here right?"
Trinity stiffens, "How do you know that?"
"In the lab, when you and Neo were, uh, talking. I was awake."
"Oh."
"Please don't be mad at him for unplugging me. He looks so upset when you won't talk to him."
Trinity stays very still. After a pause, Nanu steps beyond the threshold, into the room.
"I know you think I'm a liability," she says very quietly. "I know you don't like me because you're afraid. You're afraid I'm a danger to the crew and to Neo. I don't know why Neo thinks I'm special and I don't know why he unplugged me.
"But I do know I don't want you to hate me. I don't know what I have to do to pass your test or whatever, but I will do the best I can to pass it regardless."
The sixteen-year-old girl stares at Trinity, the cap on her head slipping to one side because it's too big, her light brown eyes large in a pale, thin face. Her mouth is set in a hard, straight line.
Trinity drops her gaze. Staring at the reader, she hears the door close quietly. And again, she reads the words; 'Can I get out now Neo?'
***Neo***
Neo opens the door. Empty. Nanu's room is empty. Tank hasn't seen her, she isn't on 'Deck, on the bridge, or talking to anyone he had spoken to. But he not yet asked Trinity.
He goes down the hall, knocks on the door of the room they shared.
"Come in," he hears her say. Neo opens the door, steps in.
"Have you – ?" he breaks off as her sees her damp eyes. She's sitting on the bed, cross-legged, holding the reader before her like a prayer book.
"What is it?" he shuts the door and moves closer, going down on his knee before her.
"What were you going to say?" Trin lifts her chin, eyes freezing over again.
"I can't find Nanu, have you seen her at all?"
"She came in here about ten minutes ago, looking for you." She holds up the screen. "Interesting reading. She's certainly odd."
"What do you mean by that?"
"She wasn't at all phased by the Construct. I can remember being freaked out by that alone. And she seemed to know so much already."
"Did you notice anything else?"
"Only that she's too damn intuitive for her own good. And she's a mix of innocent and all-knowing all together," Trin looks hard at Neo. "She's weird."
"What exactly did she say to you when she came here?"
"That I shouldn't be mad at you because 'you look so upset' when I won't talk to you."
Neo goes still. She tilts her head back, laughs faintly.
"It should be funny."
He stays quiet. Is he that obvious?
"And now you don't know where she is?" Trin asks, business again.
"No idea, no one but you has seen her since she went to her room."
"Did you check the galley? She may be hungry."
"She doesn't know where that is."
Trin raises her eyebrows. "I wouldn't presume to guess what she does or doesn't know, not if I were you."
"The galley then," he gets up, steps back. "Thanks."
And then he goes again.
***
Nanu is sitting on the table, cradling a tin mug in her hands; an empty bowl set to one side. She doesn't acknowledge Neo as he enters, just continues to swing one foot like a pendulum as she frowns at nothing.
"Nanu?"
"Yes?" she focuses on him, expectant.
Neo suddenly has no idea what to say. After a pause he motions to her bowl.
"How did you like the goop?"
"My stomach's not empty any more, that's the main thing."
"How did you know where the galley was?"
She shrugs –
"It's not a very big ship."
"What have you seen so far?"
She puts down the cup, stretches a little. "All of it I think. Except the bridge. And I think I woke Gavin up by accident, he was in his room with the lights out."
"He's on sentinel watch tonight. But you might already know about that."
"Now that you mention sentinels," she frowns, "I, remember . . . something . . . " she trails off, clenching her hands together.
"Squiddy – " she looks up. "A killing machine designed for one thing; search and destroy." Her eyes look at Neo but she doesn't seem to see him. "And the ship is so cold when the power is offline . . . " she whispers, barely making a sound.
"Nanu?" he moves forward, raises his hand, and touches her cheek. It's cold, very cold. "Nanu, wake up, come back," he whispers, not wanting to scare or startle her. Slowly, her breathing begins to return to normal, becoming shallower, and her eyes come back to reality. Neo sees colour return to her face, and very gradually her skin warms.
She blinks, and her eyes move, connect with his. She frowns, and he moves back.
"What happened just then?" he asks her. He remembers the words she spoke; he'd heard them himself an age ago. "You went blank for a moment, what was it?"
"I," Nanu looks down, "I don't think I know." She seems about to speak again but Tod comes into the room and she stays silent.
Tod glances at them, hesitates at the scene they make, Nanu sitting on the table, Neo only a step away.
But, without a word, Nanu slides off the table, and without a glance at either man, leaves.
Neo stands a moment looking at the floor, and then he exits the galley through a different door.
Tod stands still, wondering.
***