The Challenge.
Nanu
She comes into the Home mess hall, looking around for her crew. Key spots her and waves. Nanu waves back then makes for the servery. She collects a bowl of slop, water and a few biscuits, then goes to join Key, Tod and . . . Gavin.
Conversations float around her, voices are raised and faces are animated as people talk, discuss, debate. Most of them are aged in their twenties or thirties, but a few teens follow their older crewmates around and the rare child sits with a parent.
She sets down her tray, exchanges greetings.
"Morning Nanu."
"Hi Key, hi Tod," then a pause. "Hi Gavin."
He looks up at her. "It's today isn't it?"
"Yes, it's today."
"What's today?" Tod looks from one of them to the other. Key stops eating.
"Nanu? What's going on?"
Still standing up, the girl takes a mouthful of water before answering, "I'm meeting someone today."
"A challenge?"
"Yeah."
The medic looks more worried than angry, "Nanu, they're not allowed. There are laws against fighting in Zion."
Nanu picks up the hard biscuits, feeling she'll have to leave soon.
"Is it in or out of a sim?" Key asks.
"Does it matter? You're against it either way."
"Nanu - "
But she leaves, ignoring them.
Gavin
Key pulls Tod back down to sit again. He mumbles something that sounds like "Troublemaker" before glaring balefully at the untouched bowl of slop still sitting on Nanu's tray. The buzz of activity continues around them.
Gavin gets up from the bench.
"You'll keep an eye on her?"
"As well as I can."
Pirate
From a corner on the other side of the hall, a pair of wolf eyes watches the white hawk follow the grey cub.
Then Pirate shoves away from the wall and follows Gavin following Nanu.
Zillah
The shadows move, although the lights are steady. In her hiding spot, Zillah crouches. And she watches.
The girl is young for a jack. Her hair is very short, her clothes are too big. If she is afraid of being down here alone, she shows nothing of it.
How well can she fight? She looks frail and thin in this world, but there is a rock-hard quality to her golden brown eyes that Zillah can see for strength of mind.
Maybe she'll put up a good fight. The woman smiles, a flash of white. She does, after all, enjoy a challenge.
"I can't see you Zillah, but I know you're there."
Gavin
Around the corner, he pauses. He smiles slowly, and whispers; "City of Angels."
Nanu
She turns at Zillah's voice behind her; "You're here."
"Did you think I wouldn't show?"
The woman just smiles again.
"Where's the sim?"
"Right this way," she smiles in that neat, precise accent. It doesn't seem to fit in this rough world.
Gavin
He moves after them, quiet as he can.
But someone hears him.
Hands clamp over his mouth, arms drag him down. He struggles, but there are three of them.
Nanu
Two clumsy jack-in chairs rest side by side. Excessively simple, they're at a permanent thirty-degree tilt, with only a belt around the waist for restraint. There are no moving parts.
Mongrel straps them down, and plugs them in, none too gently.
"Where are the rest of your guards?" Nanu asks Zillah.
"Not where we're going, and that's all you should be worried about."
But as the construct loads, Nanu is struck with a sudden feeling that Gavin is in pain.
Gavin
One hard fist turns his head to the side, and he sags, held up only by his arms twisted behind his back.
Three against one. Not fair.
He tries to get his legs straight, to open his eyes for the next blow, but it doesn't come. Someone yells in surprise, and then a figure in a red shirt is wrestling with the guy who was hitting him.
"Alloy, Alloy damn you, you bastard, it's me, dammit - "
I know that voice.
The puncher goes still, "Pirate?"
"Yeah it's me."
"Well get off me then you prick."
Gavin blinks, bringing the scene into focus. Pirate gets up, pulling the other guy to his feet.
"Since when did you get back?" someone asks from beyond his field of vision.
"Few days ago. And what the hell do you think you're doing to my friend?"
Friend?
"Friend?"
"Yes Ruck, my friend. Let him go."
"Zillah - "
"Told you to keep away anyone following the girl. That doesn't mean you kill him. So Jet, let him go."
The hands that hold Gavin loosen. He shuffles his feet and tries to keep his head up.
"Let him go I said."
Gavin falls as Jet drops him.
Nanu
"So what is this?" she asks. "A fight to the death?"
"We go on until you cry mercy."
"How much time do you have?"
"Plenty."
They move, pacing and circling around each other. Zillah's denim jacket creaks, Nanu is silent in her customary grey and brown.
Shadows move.
Nanu watches Zillah, trying to catalogue the potential hazards and advantages of the construction site in the low, orange light that flickers like flames.
The woman moves without warning, striking with a flurry of martial arts punches and blows. Nanu blocks her, skipping back, around and out of reach until they move into another standoff.
Pirate
He hauls Gavin to his feet, holds him up. The hawk is about his age, maybe a year older.
"What are you doing here?" Gavin asks through a split lip.
"I was keeping an eye on Nanu."
"She's on my crew," he glares, sounding possessive.
"She's like me," Pirate whispers, "in a way you'll never understand." He turns away to Alloy. "You shouldn't have hit him so hard."
"Like you're an angel Pirate. You taught me how to hit like that. If I didn't know better I'd say the AI had turned you soft."
Ruck and Jet laugh on cue. Gavin steps apart from them, leaning against the tunnel wall.
"You guys didn't used to do this. Why'd you start?"
"Gets damn boring when you're grounded sailor boy." Alloy sneers, "Not that you'd know."
"And when was the last time you applied to join a crew? There are ships that don't fly any more because there's no one willing to get on them. You're all jacks - "
"Don't start, sailor boy. We're past that."
He shoves his thumbs through his belt. "Where's Zillah anyway?"
Jet points down the tunnel, "With the rookie."
"You wanna watch 'em, Pirate?"
The hawk looks over to him. Blonde hair falls in his eyes.
"Sure," Pirate shrugs. "Why the hell not?"
Zillah
She darts forward again, quickly, aiming for Nanu's gut with her fists. But Nanu dodges her, quicker still.
"Are you going to spend all your life running from danger?" she looks around, but she can't see the girl.
"What would you have me do?" the reply comes from above, and she whirls.
Nanu is crouched atop a half constructed wall, smiling catlike. As she springs for Zillah the air flickers, and for an instant the wall fades as if is had never been.
But then Zillah is knocked down, flat on her back, and by some chance she manages to push the rookie off her and over her head and send her flying with her own momentum and computer enhanced force.
Nanu hits the ground hard, her shoulder crunching against concrete rubble and brick.
Zillah climbs to her feet, looking at the still form on the ground. But then, slowly, the rookie picks herself up, grey with dust but unharmed.
Gavin
At the screen, he cautiously resumes breathing. Pirate spares him a glance, then looks back to the low resolution black and white image.
Zillah
She doesn't allow time for a reaction, diving forward again and catching Nanu off guard. A flurry of punches knocks the girl's head back, but she just steps away and flicks her hair out of her eyes. Zillah hits faster, harder, and her blows make Nanu double over, unable to retaliate for the moment.
But then she raises her eyes, her gaze clear and unblurred by pain, and Zillah realises she might as well be fighting an Agent.
She steps back and pulls a gun from beneath her jacket.
Gavin
He swears and moves toward Mongrel at the desk, but Pirate catches his shoulder.
"Nanu will be fine."
Muscles tense, "How in hell do you know?"
"I just know."
Nanu
She stares. The very end of the gun barrel is in sharp focus. "You said unarmed combat."
The woman shrugs, flashes a smile, "I lied."
"No," she shakes her head. "I'm not going on with this until you get rid of that."
"What, are you afraid?"
"I'm not afraid of being shot, if that's what you're asking."
"So what are you afraid of?"
"I don't know how stable the programming is. If I try to change it, this sim could crash."
Pirate
He sees Mongrel frown and adjust her headset, as if she's not sure what she's hearing.
Nanu
"Change it?"
"Just lose the gun."
"No."
"Then it seems we have a stalemate. I'm not going to fight you unless you lose the gun, but you refuse to. So what's going to give, Zillah?"
There is a pause. Uneven light casts uneven shadows.
Gavin
They wait, Mongrel at the operator's desk, and the men, Gavin, Pirate, Alloy, Ruck and Jet, all with their eyes fixed to the motionless figures on the screen.
BANG!
Gavin
He makes some strangled sound, staring as the small grey figure of Nanu collapses. He falls to his knees, hands over his ears so he won't hear that hard, dead sound of an ECG flatlining.
Zillah
She drops the gun, staring as the air begins to flicker and solidify around her.
She hadn't meant to hit the girl, she had meant to fire off over her shoulder, just to scare her . . . just to scare . . .
But Nanu is crumpled face down in the concrete dust, blood running out of her from somewhere near her neck.
Pirate
Mongrel hits keys, trying to shut down the program and send them back to the construct, but the screens are screaming garbage at her.
"Bloody hell - "
"What is it?" Pirate leans over her shoulder.
"It's overloading, I don't know. But she's changing it and I don't know how but the program's going to stall and - "
"Who's changing it?"
"The rookie."
Nanu
Her eyes squeezing shut, Nanu tries to overcome the lie.
I'm fine, I'm not bleeding, my body is safe in the real world in a shoddy jack-in chair, and Gavin's with me -
Gavin.
Gavin
He grips her hand, almost not believing. He can feel her pulse throbbing beneath her skin, see her mouth open and heaving in air.
Nanu is alive. Like a mantra he repeats that in his head, over and over. Nanu is alive.
Zillah
She stands rooted to the ground as Nanu raises her head, slowly.
"Help me up."
But she shakes her head, as if refusing to help a ghost.
"This program is on the verge of crashing, if you don't help me up right now we'll both die for real."
Haltingly, the woman in denim moves forward, holds out her hands, and awkwardly pulls Nanu to her feet.
Balanced precariously, Nanu holds Zillah's shoulders, and bows her head.
Nanu
Quiet, make everything quiet, and calm and stable and normal and safe.
Peace. Be still.
She lifts her head. The air is breathless, the light is even. Illogic no longer flickers in and out of vision.
A deep, unreal inhalation. "Mongrel, you can bring us out now."
***
Eyes open. There is a click and whisper of metal on metal as Gavin removes the plug from her neck.
She turns her head slowly, hurting. She can taste blood on her tongue.
"Gavin?"
He squeezes her hand again, tighter.
"I thought you had . . . " his voice is a murmur, his head is down. Nanu is suddenly aware of the fullness of the room, and the fact Gavin is struggling not to cry. She swallows, and sits up carefully.
"Gavin," she puts her head closer to his. "I'll see you at home."
He hesitates. She can see bruises showing under pale skin, and his lip is bleeding.
"Go."
Without a word, he climbs to his feet, and leaves the small dark room.
Pirate
There is an uncomfortable silence. Then the girl looks to Zillah.
"You said unarmed combat."
"I - "
"Why Zillah? Both of us could have died. Is a little more fun worth that?"
"I'm . . . sorry."
"Sorry?" Alloy's hands clench, "You almost killed her!"
"Um," Mongrel fidgets beside Zillah's chair. "I thought she actually did."
Stunned silence. Nanu turns to Mongrel with eyes like a cornered deer.
"There is a story," he begins, talking slowly. Nanu turns her frightened gaze to him. He knows she knows what he's going to say. "A man was killed, but awoke unharmed. In the Matrix."
Jet and Ruck stare blankly at him, Zillah frowns and Alloy laughs nervously.
"Come on Pirate, that's different. That was the One, not some rookie."
Nanu slides out of the chair, and takes a step for the door. But she sways, and it is only Pirate's hand on her arm that stops her from falling. Without another word, the two of them walk carefully away.
Nanu
Pirate takes her arm and leads her through the tunnels, through brown stone lit with orange lights. But then he takes a wrong turn, veering away from the main atrium and the barracks of Home.
"Where are we going?"
"My place."
She stops short. "What?"
"It's closer. You're asleep on your feet; you won't be able to climb another six stories, and I don't fancy carrying you."
"You sure?"
"Yes. It's about a minute down this way," they go on again.
***
Pirate's 'place' is small, spare, like a bomb shelter. Concrete and stone walls contain a metal table, one chair, a narrow bunk and a locker against one wall.
"How come you have your own quarters?" she asks, looking around.
"Special grant for services to Zion. I came up with a new design for a weapon in the real world, a thing that can fry a small machine's system with electricity. First year I was out. So I got given this place. Not that I use it much."
"Why not?"
"Too quiet."
"How long have you been out?"
"Five years."
"But you're only young."
"Twenty. I got withdrawn at fifteen. Like you in a way."
"In more than one way."
She sees him smile. He tilts his head to regard her closer as he leans against the closed door. "You know too."
"You've got the gift."
"Not much. Not nearly as much as you. I couldn't save myself like you did."
She looks away. Her shoulder is aching, pain threading down her back and up her neck. She had healed partially while in the sim, but she'll still bruise a lot. And the entry wound will scar.
"Do you want to sit down?"
"I'm fine - "
"No you're not.
"Fine, I'll sit," she has to smile at him.
But she falls asleep almost as soon as she lies down on his bed.
Pirate
He watches her relax, watches her begin to breathe deeper.
She's like me.
He smiles again, wider this time, then sits down on the ground with his back to the wall, watching her sleep.
***
I would just like to say that I blame this chapter on Zillah. I'm sure I neither wanted nor planned for her end up with a gun. But I think unplugging unhinged her just a little bit.