A Grand Tour
Gavin
He climbs slowly up the ladder, favouring his left arm. The iron is cool to the touch, and he smiles at its familiar feel as he climbs off the ladder onto the bottom level of Home.
"Gavin!" a voice calls from directly above him, and he looks up. Dangling upside down from the framework, Nanu waves to him. "You're better."
"Looks like it," he grins back.
She swings like an acrobat, grabs another iron bar with one hand, then hooks her legs around a vertical pole and slides to the grille floor. Her cheeks are flushed, and her hair has grown in the few days since he's seen her.
"This place is awesome."
"Have you seen much of Zion yet?"
"Not much actually, Trinity was worried I'd get lost."
"It's very possible."
"We went to the traders the other day, BC needed new shoes and the shirt Detox gave me was too small."
"I've never got anything that fits from Detox."
"Where are you staying?" she asks as they begin toward the next set of stairs.
"Level three, room nine."
"That's next door to me."
Home looks like a prison building that isn't entirely finished yet. Rooms are hewn out of the rock walls, and there are steel balconies around the walls at each level. Gangways cross and recross from one side of the cavern to the other, held up by lattices of steel frames.
"Where's your stuff?" Nanu asks.
"Tod will have taken it up for me. There's not much anyway, just my sketcher and a change of clothes."
"Sketcher?"
"It's a hand held thing, you can use it to edit or read code, or you can draw with it."
"Like, a cross between a palm pilot and a magi-doodle board."
"Yeah sort of."
They continue walking for a few moments in silence.
"I wish there were elevators here," she sighs.
"Ditto."
"Ghost."
He has to smile. "Your turn now."
"Um, 'Can you lean back a second?'"
"Hmm. True Lies?"
"Bulls eye!"
And the game continues.
Neo
He sits down, pulling his coat around him as Morpheus sits down opposite.
"It's good to see you again Neo."
"It's good to see you too sir."
"What's on your mind?"
Neo takes a deep breath and begins. He recounts the strange appearance of the people in the street after Nanu's trip to the Oracle, including the girl in the red t-shirt. He also tells Morpheus about the upgraded Cunningham model finding them on two occasions, and about the time Biosa got caught with Radar and Pirate.
Morpheus listens without interrupting, his arms folded in his sleeves.
"Well," he says when Neo is fnished. "The issue with Cunningham seems simple; he's been upgraded."
"But agents never find us that fast."
"He's been upgraded particularly well. He is, by your report, the most advanced Agent yet. I'm more concerned with this girl from the training program. When was she written?"
"When we first targeted Gavin. Since we didn't think we'd go through with Nanu we never got around to changing the program."
"Had anyone seen her but Gavin, Nanu and yourself?"
"Nanu saw her in the Matrix the same as she did in the sim, I never saw her in the Matrix."
"So you believe the AI accessed her mind?"
"I don't know where else the girl could have come from. I'm fairly certain it wasn't coincidence."
"Hm, this is new." He reaches for a small wooden talisman on a cord around his neck, smooths his fingers over it while thinking. "But why would the AI generate the crowd in the first place?"
The younger man shrugs. "Not sure. Maybe it was to make us easier to separate, then," a pause, "attack."
"Perhaps. Perhaps it was to confuse and distract you, but there are easier ways to do that."
"For example?"
"An accident, an explosion, coppertops creating a disturbance like a robbery, the AI can arrange, that as you know."
"So why copy information from Nanu's mind?"
"Perhaps they're showing off."
"Showing off?"
Morpheus spreads his hands with an uncharacteristic shrug "That's all that comes to mind right now."
Neo doesn't say anything. After a pause, Morpheus changes the subject.
"Nanu, that's her name isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Nanu," he says again, pronouncing it carefully, with the stress on the a, like the a in car. Her name seems to sound more important when he says it, but then, most things do. "What does it mean?"
"I'm not sure."
"I'll have to ask her when she comes."
Neo stands up, "When would you like to see her?"
"I have all the time in the world Neo, you know I'm not going anywhere."
Nanu
"Arnie was in True Lies with Bill Paxton who was in - "
" - Titanic with Kate Winslett who was in - "
" - Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson - "
" - who was in Much Ado About Nothing with Kenneth Branagh who -
" - was in Hamlet with Robin Williams - "
"What?" Gavin pauses, frowning. "Who was he in Hamlet?"
"Wasn't he the gravedigger?" Nanu reaches out and traces the hem of a shirt on a table.
"I can't remember," he comes up beside her to look at the shirt. "This is a rarity."
They're on level 5, sector B, just off the main atrium. At the traders.
"It's red." Around them, people move and voices are raised as customers haggle with the table keepers.
("You're saying this is worth three extension cords and my boots?"
"Maniwala ka.")
"So it is, you reckon red is my colour?" he picks up the shirt. It's been patched in several places, a wide piece of dark blue forming a pocket on the front. There is a smaller hole on the left side of the chest, and the armholes are frayed.
"No." Nanu doesn't touch the shirt again. "Put it down." She doesn't like Gavin holding it against him for size like that, the hole is over his heart.
"Okay," he doesn't seem to notice her mood. Almost as soon as he puts it down, another hand snatches up the old cloth.
A guy about Gavin's age, with dark blonde hair and light brown eyes, has taken the shirt and is critically looking it over. Reaching a decision, he hails the table keeper.
"What'll you take for this?" he asks, his eyes shrewd and his voice quick.
"Nuthin yore wearin mate," the keeper drawls. "This's worth more'n Detox gear."
"Well, sure it's red," the guy reasons. "But it's thin and the edges are fraying and it's got two almighty big holes in it. It's not worth all that much."
Gavin is about to move on, but Nanu lingers, wanting to see the end of this transaction.
The older man and the younger man banter back and forth, eventually agreeing to trade the red shirt for the grey one the guy was issued in Detox. The guy changes on the spot, shrugging the too-small shirt off and handing it to the keeper.
Nanu inhales sharply. Tattoos of code and symbols chase each other around the plugs in his upper arms, shoulders and back, disappearing under his singlet. Gavin gives a low whistle.
The guy turns around. Light is caught in his eyes, and they gleam with a yellow tinge.
Wolf eyes.
"Must've hurt getting those done," Gavin comments. The guy shrugs, and doesn't say anything. The noise and bustle of trading goes on around them.
"What's your name?" Nanu asks. The wolf eyes turn to her, and she sees the slightest bit of emotion behind them; recognition.
"Pirate."
Nanu's breath catches again, but she doesn't let either of the men see.
"Pirate," she holds out a hand. "I'm Nanu."
After the briefest pause, he takes her hand and shakes it. Gavin quickly steps forward and introduces himself.
"You're from the Solomon?" Nanu asks.
"And you're from the Nebuchadnezzar." It's a statement.
"How long are you here for?" Gavin tries to draw more conversation from him.
"Few weeks," his tattooed shoulders shrug. He stands like some wild animal, resting for now but alert and poised to run.
"We'll, uh," Gavin seems put off by Pirate's attitude. "We'll see you 'round then."
But at that sign of their leaving, some other quality rises in his eyes, his eyes that catch the light in a similar way to Neo's eyes. And Bobcat's. And the Oracle's.
And her own.
. . . you've got the gift . . .
"We're just going to be wandering around," she says. "But if you want you can walk with us."
Pirate looks at her as critically as he examined the frayed hems of his newly acquired shirt. "Three's a crowd," he says, in that sharp, quick voice, then he slides away through the traders and dealers.
Nanu loses sight of him instantly.
***