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Nanu's Story - The Armoury
***Trinity***
Why her? Trinity sits on her bed, blanket around her, leaning against the wall.
Nanu. She knows things. There is something different about her, but Trinity doesn't know what.
"God, what is wrong with me?" her voice echoes in the cold dark silence.
Trin is worried. Neo was foretold, it was one thing to witness his miracle when she had known he was the One. She had been waiting for him.
But there was never a mention of another like him. Trinity doesn't really understand what it meant to 'have the Gift', but people like the Oracle's potentials aren't common. Does Nanu have the Gift? She may be more than Neo. She had made her first Jump, and she hadn't even jumped it.
How can someone walk on air?
Jumping involves a flexing of the rules, a bending of them. Nobody really knows how it's done. Tank had once asked Trin how she leapt rooftops and ran up walls, she hadn't been able to explain it very well.
Some people never really let go of the idea that the Matrix was real. Any discussion about whether the Matrix was a sort of real or not tended to lead to headaches.
A subconscious realisation and understanding,(knowing not thinking) that the rules can bend is what allows them to jump. It gives a Jack extra speed, extra strength, power beyond what the Matrix decrees.
Neo can do what he does because for some unknown reason the rules don't apply to him.
He can fly for god's sake.
But walking on air?
That's more than a momentary flexing of the rules. It's more like making new rules.
And Trinity doesn't know what to think about that.
She wants to confront Nanu, ask her again what happened.
And for some strange reason she finds herself opening her door and making for Nanu's cabin.
***
She pauses outside, then taps on the door with one knuckle, five times.
Quiet. Then –
"Come in Trinity."
She opens the door, enters, then closes it behind her and stands with her arms folded. A single globe shines in the wall above Nanu's bed. The girl is sitting up with her hands on her knees and her legs crossed. She looks like she's meditating.
"Why aren't you asleep Trinity?"
"Why aren't you?"
"My head hurts."
"Why don't you see someone about it? Key's the medic."
Shrug.
"There should be painkillers in the locker behind you," she points.
"Why did you come here?"
"I," Trinity frowns, disliking being put on the spot. "I wanted to ask you something."
"What?"
She has a question in mind, but other words come out.
"Do you know why you're different?"
"I think so."
"How?" Trinity prompts.
Nanu meets her eyes directly. They almost glow, but yet, there is nothing significant about the girl. She's not remarkable at all.
"Go ask Neo. He knows."
"I'd rather you told me."
Nanu heaves a deep breath. "I'm not going to explain it all to you, I'm tired. But sit down and I'll tell you something."
Awkwardly Trin sits down beside her on the bunk, at an angle, half facing her. Her sceptical mind is ready to reject whatever Nanu says; the way she talks reminds Trinity of a fortuneteller.
"What was the name you were given?"
"Linda Brandon. Why?"
No answer. Nanu closes her eyes, and her breath begins to slow.
Trinity sits motionless, and waits.
***Nanu***
Memories in this mind are buried deep.
They lie haphazardly like dusty photo albums, hidden in a steel vault.
Linda.
Images come to light, arguing with her father, overhearing adults talking about her, spending hours on her computer until light returns to the sky and the stars fade and the cat comes back home.
Deeper.
Climbing in a playground with other children who call names, fighting with children older and bigger than her, learning to tie her shoelaces.
Then Nanu finds a door.
Within, a memory buried beneath all the others, something Trinity has kept under wraps for years.
She is nine years old. Her father has been out all night drinking the dole money, and Linda is out looking for him.
Blur . . .
With the money she has stolen from her father, Linda hurries home.
Wait. Something is wrong. She's lost. In her own city. Lost. Walls of grey and black reach up into the gunmetal sky. The air is thick in the hot summer night.
Blurr . . .
Three of them. Older boys who are not so old but they loom over the little girl.
Bluuurrrrrr . . . . pain . . . dark . . . loud . . fists . . . blood . . she fights back, scuffles, bites . . . lashes out but they're gone, gone . . . gone and she's alone, kneeling in the gutter with the money gone . . .
But Linda gets to her feet and tries to follow after them, she needs the money or they'll lose their home and that's happened before and she doesn't want it to happen again so she staggers through the crowds but then . . .
Blurr . . . she's alone again. In an old decrepit part of the city where the warehouse windows are boarded up or smashed and the crumbling walls are full of doorways.
A voice out of the dark. A young man, in his early twenties.
"You were looking for this?" he holds out a wad of notes. He is tall and straight, like a human shadow in his dark leather coat and – shades?
"Who are you?" the little girl's voice blurs through a cut lip.
"Morpheus."
And Nanu thinks, of course. Who else?
She opens her eyes.
But she is reluctant to tell Trinity of what she has seen. Only this memory will convince her, but it is so full of pain Nanu doesn't really want to remind her of it.
"You were nine when you first met him."
"Who?" nerve endings bristle.
"Morpheus."
Silence. Trinity stares. "How did you find out about that?"
"Go ask Neo. He knows how."
Slowly, Trinity gets up. "Would you know where he is?"
"The armoury."
Trin leaves, and Nanu, head pulsing, lies down, turns off the light and pulls the blanket over her head.
***Trinity***
He's not asleep. He's curled up on the floor under a workbench in the back corner but he's not asleep.
"Neo?"
He sits up too quickly and hits his head on the underside of the bench.
"Ow!" he swears, "Trin?"
"Are you awake now?"
He crawls out into the open, "I can't be certain I'm not still dreaming. What are you doing here?"
"I need to talk to you about Nanu."
"What about her?" he clears a space on the bench and hoists himself up. Trinity folds her arms and stays where she is.
"What exactly can she do?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I'm talking about Neo. What has she done, and what more can she do?"
His face changes, he's seeing her differently.
"She read your mind didn't she?"
"She told me something nobody could have told her, something I'd almost forgotten." A consideration . . . "What did she tell you?"
He looks at his hands, thinking. When he looks back to her it's clear he's made a decision.
"When I was a kid, about four, my mother woke me up in the middle of the night and drove us away from my father. I don't remember him, and she never spoke about him. I guess he wasn't a nice guy and that's why she left." He swallows. "I'd forgotten. Nanu reminded me."
"How?"
"I'm not sure. She said she saw my memory."
"Could she see anything else?" Trin moves closer, speaks quieter. "If she wanted to, could she hack your mind? Or mine?"
"Yes."
"Jesus."
"But she won't."
"How do you know?"
"She said. I believe her."
"Oh."
He looks at her closely. "Do you want to tell me what happened, what she reminded you? It may help."
She hesitates. They've never talked about their pasts. There was never time. It was always work, sentinels, agents, viruses, new recruits and near escapes. For almost four years. They know very little about each other.
She moves forward and hoists herself up beside him on the bench. Their knees and shoulders brush, they haven't been so close in weeks.
To think that one choice of an inappropriate target could make them start to sleep at different ends of the ship. But it is more than them at stake. There is always more at stake these days.
She inhales. "My dad," she begins, the words slowly coming together to form a pattern she's never spoken. "He drank. He'd collect the dole money and then go spend it in bars all over the city. He wasn't a bad guy, just weak. My mother was never around. I don't remember her at all.
"Anyway this one night he'd gone out, and I was afraid he'd drink the money we needed for rent. I found him eventually and picked his pocket. I had to steal from my own father.
"I was on the way home when I got lost. Three older guys came across me and they took the rent money."
Carefully he takes her hand. She continues talking.
"I tried to follow them but I lost them. Then Morpheus found me." She smiles, no more than a softening of her eyes.
"Somehow he had the money, and he showed me the way home."
"Had you heard of the Matrix then?"
"No, but I still didn't believe the world was real. I heard the term 'Matrix' about three years later. Then Morpheus was really famous, or infamous, and I guess that's when I got the idea he could help me again." She turns her head, then asks,
"So when did you start looking for him?"
"I was twenty or so – "
"A late developer."
" – and I read an entry of his on a hacker board. He came on an asked 'what is the Matrix?' and most people couldn't even guess. One person thought it was a rumour being spread to advertise a computer game."
They sit for a moment in silence, remembering.
"I don't know much about you," Trinity blurts out.
"What do you want to know?"
She shrugs "Anything. But I don't like it that I've known you four years and I only just found out you never knew your father."
"Did you ever have a dog?"
"What?"
"I'm finding out about you," he smiles. "Did you ever have a dog?"
"We always lived in an apartment block, so no, but I once had a black cat."
"Named?"
"Noir."
He laughs softly, his head tilting back. When he laughs he always reminds her of how he looks when he's sleeping – innocent. When he laughs she wants to protect that innocent part of him.
"What about you? You ever have a pet?"
And they talk about nothing in particular for a very long time.
***
Keep an eye out for the next chapter of Nanu's Story;
Trouble and Implications