CHAPTER FIVE

I've never seen a woman run as fast as Trinity does. Nor have I ever seen a woman look the way Trinity does when she's running. Her body is so slim, so nimble, so quick, that it almost seems like a graceful ballet rather than a full-speed escape. I know that I did not expect any of this to begin to happen to me when I woke up that morning three weeks earlier. I am still trying to absorb my surroundings when Trinity pulls me into a secluded alleyway, and yanks me behind a huge holding bin, where we crouch down. I pant and puff in agony from lack of exercise, but she doesn't seem to have any lasting ailments. Not fair! I think to myself. A woman is more buff than I am.

Even though she is not puffing or panting, I can hear her heart racing, and I can feel it pounding, as the upper quarter of my arm rests against her chest. There is little room to move into an alternative position. I feel uncomfortable, tired and quite dirty. The stench of days and days of discarded rubbish and food is making my head spin. Urrghh. I wish I were at home, curled in front of the television, eating Chinese takeaway and planning my next hack. Not this. This is all too difficult to adjust to, let alone respond to.

Trinity whispers breathlessly, and almost inaudibly. 'Don't move an inch,' she says, and I barely see her mouth move. 'Don't make a sound. There are people coming. People we don't want to see.'

'Who?' I mutter, attempting to be as quiet as she is, but she pokes me sharply in the ribs. I find myself shutting up. This woman knows how to seriously butt-kick, I think to myself. It's becoming almost endearing.

Trinity suddenly shrinks herself back against the brick wall, and so I do the same, not really sure why, but assuming I might not be around to consider the possibilities if I don't. She holds her breath. I do the same. Every move she makes, every breath she takes, is carefully and artlessly planned; and I follow wordlessly, unquestioning, knowing that she knows what she is doing, and knowing that this is enough.

Footsteps pass us; Trinity relaxes, lowers her sunglasses slightly, and focuses on a point in the distance I can't distinguish.

'It's all right now,' she says. 'We can talk.'

I sit, confused, and a strange emotion bubbling somewhere in stomach. I'm not entirely sure what it is, so I try to push it down. The corner of my mind, too, begins to spark something. Something is the right word – things are beginning to click, but in all the wrong places. All the patchy images are jumbled. I just need time to piece them together.

'Neo,' she says, 'your dreams.'

'What about them?'

'Well, they were real.'

I'm confused, and a little shocked. 'Excuse me?'

'I said, that your dreams were real. Everything you saw, everything you experienced, actually happened.'

'No, they didn't,' I say, shaking my head. 'Not that I remember them. But dreams don't come true.'

Trinity pulled off her sunglasses. 'Then how do you care to explain all the strange things that have been happening to you, Neo? How do you explain all these feelings you've been having? How do you explain your boss, the newspaper man, the smashed window – and how do you explain me?'

'I don't,' I say, honestly. 'I try not to explain any of it. Because if I tried, it would mean that I'm letting insanity into my life.'

'It's not insanity, Neo. It is the truth.'

'But how can it be the truth if I don't even remember the dream, let alone whatever else it is I'm supposed to remember?'

'Because you have to have faith.'

'That doesn't answer my question.'

'It does,' Trinity says. 'If you believe that it is the truth, if you have faith that I am telling you the truth, then you won't suffer any more denial.'

'Trinity,' I say. 'I don't know what all this is about, but can you please tell me, so I can go back home and forget about it, and get on with my life?'

She sighs, and pulls out her mobile phone. 'Neo, when you hear about this, you won't ever have a normal life. It's just the way it is. It's the way it has to be.'

'Then I choose it not to be,' I say, and while I am defiant and determined not to waver, in terms of my confrontational tactics, I find myself mellowing. I am unsure of whether it is the effect this woman has on me, as a female, or as a person, or whether tiredness is beginning to set in. Whatever it is, I'm not enjoying this lessening of authority. My life is my life, after all. If I choose to live a normal life, then I damn well will.

'Suit yourself, Neo,' she says. 'But this won't be the last you see of me. And it will only make things harder if you leave now without accepting the truth.'

'You haven't told me the truth yet, so how can I accept it?'

'Because you don't believe, Neo. You don't believe in anything except that which you know.'