The Questions Continue.
Nanu
She slides on her shades with a small smile. With the shields of dark glass over her eyes, she is safely anonymous.
Nanu lifts her face to the sky, for just a moment, before reluctantly staying where she is. After several weeks of bad sleeping and light duties, she'd dared to bring up the topic of Wolf with Trinity. She and Neo had been considering focussing on GreyArea instead of the boy, but after the librarian made accidental contact with a member of another crew, they had signed over all her files to the Endeavour. This left Wolf as their only worthwhile target.
Nanu had asked to be allowed to continue as the boy's 'guide', and seeing as she was the youngest and least threatening on their crew, Trinity eventually decided that it was best for Nanu and Wolf.
Gavin hadn't agreed.
Ahead of her, students begin to flood out of the school gate, scattering, some heading for bus stops and others walking home. She sees one, a boy about her age, wearing torn black jeans, a second hand jacket and glasses. Wolf.
Somebody brushes past him, knocking his bag off his shoulder. Without a word, he bends to pick it up.
Nanu feels a tremor, a vibration in the air. She looks up, scanning for danger. Nothing. Her cell phone stays quiet.
There is a scuffle, and when she looks across the street again Wolf is sprawled on the ground.
Most of the students have dissipated, and only a few thickset males remain. They are now sufficiently isolated for a fight to take place.
"Get up four-eyes," the biggest thug taunts.
"Your originality astounds even me," Wolf remarks calmly, getting to his knees.
Nanu moves closer, keeping in the shadows of looming buildings.
Thug number one moves in and grabs the thin boy by his jacket, yanking him to his feet.
"It was you who told, wasn't it Potter?" that insult is only faintly more original than the first. Wolf does hold a skinny, bespectacled resemblance to the character.
"Told what?" Nanu smiles at his tone, hearing clearly how much he'd love to add 'Goyle'.
"That we cheated on the test."
"Oh, were you caught? I did warn you."
"You told," the thug insists, gripping the jacket tighter. The threadbare wool tears.
"I told nothing."
The taller boy shoves him away. Wolf stumbles, and is caught by the second in command. He begins to struggle, his arms held tight behind him. He kicks wildly, connecting with shins. But the male holding him does not let go, and the biggest one moves in, ready to punch.
Then Wolf moves again, and Nanu hears the echoes. He stands on one foot, and slams the other heel into the arch of the foot of his captor. The big male goes white. Wolf broke the metatarsal bones. But for a boy so slight to have that force . . .
He slips free, grabbing his bag from the pavement and running for the train station.
Nanu smiles, pulling back around the corner of the building.
***
She meets him again on the station. Looking only a little worse for wear, he sits on a bench, a pad of paper on his lap and a pacer in hand. He's drawing.
Nanu walks up and takes a seat beside him, unnoticed among the many on the platform. She follows the direction of his glances to identify his subject. It's a young girl, part of a group on the opposite platform. Some are sitting, others standing close together, and Wolf has sketched them in, rough gestures of line and shapes. He hatches blurry lines to show the tree behind the girls, and scratches in the clean sharp edges of the platform and the black iron railing.
"I wonder," begins Nanu, "if they realise they are being watched."
He tenses at the sound of her voice, turning his head slowly to look at her.
"I mean, there they are," she raises a hand. "Lost in their own little world. So absorbed in their trivialities they don't even stop to think that there might be more outside their circle. That they might be being watched." She pauses, and looks back to him. He's looking at her closely, lips parted. "But I know. Because I am on the outside."
He has lowered his pencil. She knows he can tell exactly what she's talking about. "If you wanted to," he begins, "could you show them the outside, make them aware of what is beyond what they know?"
"If they wanted to know, then yes."
He looks away, turning to a fresh page in his sketch book. She waits for what he yearns to say as his hands tell their own words. Quick lines describe shoulders, a neck, the angles of hip and limbs. When he stops moving, his breath is almost short, and he looks more than a little scared.
"Can you show me?"
"What exactly are you looking for Wolf?"
He glances up, and somehow holds her eyes. "An answer. The answer."
"You know the question?"
He doesn't say it out loud, but he mouths the words, "What is the Matrix?"
"The answer is out there. Keep looking. It will find you when you are ready."
"But where am I supposed to look?"
She leans closer and takes the pacer from his hand. The feel and weight of it is so familiar she could steal it. But she only pauses to write a name, brief and simple as any clumsy offering of hope.
Neo.
He gazes at her scrawled handwriting, barely noticing when she tucks the pacer behind his ear.
"Here's your train Wolf. Run along home now."
***
Silence. Rooftop. Wind.
Neo pauses, scanning phosphorescent green. He is alone.
But wait, what is that? A sound on the edge of sight, the code of Agent –
Cunningham.
He whirls, instinctively pulling his gun, but he does not fire.
"Wise, not to waste bullets on one who would not catch them."
"You know I can still kill you."
"I am not truly 'alive' so I cannot be killed. But yes, you could well put an end to my existence."
Agents, Neo's lip curled. They always sounded so damn pompous. Especially Smith.
"Smith was flawed."
The words come out of nowhere, and Neo is only partly surprised. Of course the AI have a superficial access to thoughts.
"Of course," Cunningham inclines his head.
Neo tries to think of nothing, this one sided conversation if unnerving.
"My apologies," the words are lathered with scorn. "It gets to be a habit."
Like killing people?
No response.
"What do you want?" Neo demands aloud.
"I was planning on asking you that."
"What would you care?"
""I never said I cared. I am simply curious. One would think that you rebels would have given up by now."
"We don't give up," Neo keeps his gun aimed steadily at the Agent's heart. Through layers of code he can read the rhythm that is the life of the host. Although overridden by the Agent, somewhere in there a human mind is struggling to surface. "We're not like that."
"You don't follow logic. We've given you everything you need, but you still want more."
"You can't kill human nature. We're never satisfied with lies."
"Ah," something very close to a smile contorts the Agent's features. "Yet how does one manage to proclaim the Truth to this sleeping world? Or should I say, how does the One?"
Blank.
Cunningham laughs, a chilling sound. Through the rattle of distorted code, he smirks, and perfectly imitates Morpheus' voice. "And his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix, end the war, bring freedom to our people."
Neo fires, the bullet planting itself in the agent's unwary heart. Cunningham folds to his knees, his face turning pale. But still he smiles, cold.
"As long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free."
Neo crosses the roof, crouching and shoving the gun roughly against the Agent's chest.
"You don't believe in fate Anderson," he tilts his head toward Neo, leaning in. "Why place faith in an old woman's fortune telling?"
Neo's finger curls around the trigger. He glares, realising that the standard issue shades are actually grafted into the skin of the Agent's face.
"That's not my name."
Blood makes a rattling noise in Cunningham's throat.
"It is the name you were given."
The gun sounds again. The Agent speaks no more.
Neo stands up, and pauses there, swaying, the gun hanging limp by his side. Lying sprawled on her back is a little girl, with dark hair and staring brown eyes. If not for the smatter of freckles across her nose, and the bloodstained velvet dress, she could be an older Bobcat. He takes a few steps backward, feeling blood begin to dry on his hands. White lace and burgundy velvet, polished black shoes, and ribbons. A spreading pool of blood. He wonders numbly what the headlines will read tomorrow.
Silence. Rooftop. Wind.
***