Infirmary II.

Nanu

"Will he be alright?"

Key puts away the last of her gadgets and begins to coil the wires she had plugged into Gavin's sockets. He is lying asleep on the infirmary bunk, his skin pale except for an ugly dark, dark bruise on the left side of his chest and shoulder. A white sheet is pulled up to his armpits.

"He had pretty bad internal bleeding, but aside from that and the bruise he should be fine."

Nanu turns to Gavin. He looks like he's been carved out of marble.

"Is the bruise from the bullet?"

"Yes, nasty isn't it, even though it wasn't real."

"Your mind makes it real."

"Sure thing Super-kid," Key holds out a hand, and directs Nanu's attention to the discoloured skin again. "You see that mark?" Where the bruise is darkest, there is a small irregularity in the skin, like a dimple, but deeper. "That's going to scar."

"Why?"

"God only knows, the effect of the mind on the body is still confusing the great brains of medicine. Nothing will leave a mark like that but a virtual bullet. It's a bit like a case I heard of before I got unplugged, a man could go into a trance and make the signs of the Zodiac appear on his skin."

"How?"

"By mentally directing the blood flow to one area so the skin was raised. This is similar," Key looks toward the mark again. "His mind was so convinced he was shot that it left a dent."

"Weird."

"Yeah," she closes the lid on the final bit of wire and goes for the door. "If you need any more pain-killer there's some in that cupboard. Just one pill."

"Okay."

"Keep an eye on Sleeping Beauty," the medic smirks.

Nanu smiles back, "Okay."

The door closes. Gavin stays silent and still, drugged with sedatives. Nanu climbs onto the other bunk and settles down to watch him.

Gavin

Pain. Dull now, where it used to be sharp. He can barely move. The air is cool, and it tastes metallic.

Real World. He's on the ship again. What happened? He got shot. He must be in the infirmary.

His eyes open. He's woken up to this view before; when Nanu was out cold.

"Good evening." She's sitting where he once sat, but she's not sleeping on duty. "I'm glad you're awake."

Recent events twist those words and give them deeper meanings. For an instant he can't think, then he manages to say, "Ditto."

"Ghost."

Scattered thoughts scatter further, "What?"

"That movie, that line is from Ghost. My turn now."

He shifts carefully. His head feels spacey from the pain-killers he's been choked with.

"'Guts will get you so far and then they'll get you killed.'"

"Um. Die Hard?"

"No."

"Speed."

"Right, your turn."

He manages to sit up a little, and blinks to focus.

"Umm, 'I can't see you but I know you're there.'"

She smiles slowly, "City of Angels."

"Your turn," he has to remind her. If silence descends they might just remember what happened before.

"'Close your eyes, start a journey through a strange, new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before.'"

He frowns. "No idea."

"Phantom of the Opera."

"That's not a movie . . . "

And their intentional avoidance of the real issue continues.

Neo

He sits on the bridge, hunched in the pilot seat. He rests one hand on the controls as the ship cruises through the tunnels. Mist whorls through the eternal twilight, cold shades of black and grey. The real world sewers have the palette of Picasso's blue period, depressing shadows and darkness.

Which is matching his mood right now.

All those people were fake.

How could he have missed something so obvious?

How had he not noticed Cunningham's approach?

Is the upgraded Agent better than Neo?

Only now, now, does he recognise the artificial people, a sea of monochrome, too many twins and triplets. As the scene replays in Neo's head he sees everything he should have seen before; the two women side by side in identical clothes and hairstyles, the man in the sailor suit, the policeman writing a ticket and the way he'd turned his head to look at Neo . . .

How could he have been so stupid?

He tends to do a lot of stupid things. He's made some dumb choices in the past, the biggest being to do with Cypher. He's never told anyone about that night, that drink on the Main Deck while Cypher was on Matrix watch.

"Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill?"

I should have seen it coming.

Four people had died that day, not including Neo. Almost four years later, and he can still remember them. He can still hear the way Switch cried "No!" when Apoc fell. He can still see the way she had reached out her hands across the divide and clenched at the material of his jacket like she could pull him back into a world that wasn't real anyway.

And then she'd died.

He'd been scared then, more than scared, convinced he was going to follow them. Even after all this time, Trinity hasn't told him what Cypher said to her on the phone. But Neo can guess. Her hair had fallen in her face as she looked at the two slumped figures, blinking fast and fidgeting a little. She had seemed, for those few moments, breakable.

He'd been selfishly glad when the phone rang; grateful he and Trin were alive. Yet he'd felt terrible for being alive while others weren't.

And he could have prevented it all. He should have spoken to Morpheus about Cypher. He should have been ready. Cypher was so obvious, on edge that whole day, smirking and twitching and barely covering his excitement with crap acting.

How could I have been so stupid?

"You've got to stop blaming yourself," a soft voice comes from the doorway. He looks around; it's Trin. "Everyone makes mistakes - "

"Mine just cost more lives."

"Neo." The way she says his name shuts him up. It's in that, 'Don't bullshit me' tone she reserves for telling off junior crew. He can remember the first time she directed it at him. "And since I am the ranking officer on this ship, if you don't like it, I believe you can go to hell." That was the same day as . . .

"Listen to me," she's beside him, a hand on his shoulder. "Nobody could have done anything. I knew Cypher for years and I could tell he wasn't happy, but how could anyone know he'd go to the AI?"

"How did - ?"

"Come on Neo, all you ever do is kick yourself over Cypher. But there's no reason to. Not even you can predict the future, nobody could have known. It happened, it's over, and you have to let it go."

He stays silent, looking away from her out the front window. After a moment she sits down and begins to talk a little gentler.

"Same with this morning. You were distracted, I know the Oracle said something to worry you. Besides, Nanu and Gavin were behind us. I asked Nanu, she said he got slowed up, and she waited for him she lost sight of us.

"If it makes you feel any better, she feels guilty too. She noticed something wrong with those people, but too late to stop Gavin being hurt."

He turns the ship left, into a tunnel that leads deeper underground. They're flying to Zion tonight.

"So?"

He glances over at her where she waits for a reply. "Where do you think the people came from?"

She's almost surprised, "What?"

"Didn't you notice anything about them?"

Her brows furrow, and from the corner of his eye he sees her fold her arms. "Like?"

"There were a lot of twins and triplets; duplicates of each other. And they pretty much all wore black and white. There was a nun," she's motionless, "and a guy in a white suit, like a sailor, and I think there was a bride."

"Sounds like the Agent training program."

"Just need the red dress."

"Wait," Trin's voice is suddenly urgent. "Nanu didn't see her did she? She saw the younger girl we made for Gavin - "

" - And didn't get time to replace, yes."

"The blond in jeans?"

"Yeah."

She swears. Trinity almost never swears like that. "Nanu saw her, the young blond. She told me it was exactly the same as in the training sim."

"That can't be coincidence, but how could the AI know?"

"They could have got the rest from Mouse, you remember that if someone dies in there some memories are accessible."

"Yeah I remember, but the young girl was new."

"So, that means the AI must have got her from . . . oh my God."

Neo swears loudly and speeds the ship up. "Morpheus has to hear this."

***