Emerald03: You are not stupid! And even if you are I'll still wuv you. Have a cookie for being a good reviewer! (gives her a Rianbow Chips Ahoy Cookie, because, as we all know, the coloured chcolate chips are better then the regular ones).
Protectress of Dalidon: And here's the next chapter! Fresh off my Microsoft Works!
Alocin: I'm not sure having Smith in your dreams is cool. Course it is better then that Cary Elwes dream I had…but we're not going to discuss that! I'm not revealing if the ending is tragic, because I'm sampling various endings. I would love to have Quinn come into the real world with Trin, but I'd hate to change the Wachowski story!
Thanks again to all you people!
Disclaimer: It's the Wachowski Brother's characters and concepts.
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Chapter 4: Because Your Presence Still Lingers Here
Trinity opened her eyes madly, shivering wildly under the blankets. Morpheus held her still as she tried to jerk around on the bed. She was practically naked under the sheets, perspiration dripping from her forehead although not as quickly anymore. Morpheus was happy to say that the fever was close to breaking after the showers, and despite how much agony he had put her through, Trinity was improving. She curled up into a ball, trying to keep warm. Something cold was dripping over her skin, and Morpheus brushed the short lock of hair from her cheek, putting it behind her ear.
"You were dreaming." He stated calmly, trying to bring her heart rate down and allow her to relax. The pulsing her heart sounded like gunshots in her mind, weak and delirious she looked around again. "Very vividly, actually."
"It's nothing." She replied in a whisper, coughing harshly afterwards. Morpheus did not press for her to remember. Most of Trinity's past was her little secret anyways. "Just dreams." She seemed so sure of herself when she said that, even though she was drifting off into sleep again.
"Dreams remind us of who were are." Morpheus stated in the infinite wisdom tone of his. The tone he took when he was speaking about the prophecy of the One. "They're like scars, Trinity. They can help you become who you're supposed to be." Trinity shook her head, eyelids fluttering again. Morpheus's hand was on her forehead, feeling the unnatural heat rising from it. It was, however, less then what it had been. He withdrew the palm of his hand.
"Not these dreams." She said to him, coughing again. Morpheus nodded slightly to himself as she closed her eyelids. Everything was aching. Her eyelids were burning when they were open.
"Perhaps." He said, as she drifted off again, thick rolls of sleep rolling into her mind and weighing her down as she fell asleep. Morpheus sighed deeply, leaning back against the wall.
Her lips moved and curved with the dream, as the delirium made her eyes move quickly in her skull.
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Erica quickly glanced from Quinn to the two men approaching the house. She heard the alias from the man on the right, getting very afraid that they were from some government agency. That would be the last thing she needed is right here, on her aunt's front lawn, to be taken away in handcuffs in front of her little sister's eyes.
Perfect example for her.
Shut up!
"Take her." The man on Quinn's side said. "Kill the other." Erica could only assume who the other was, making a special glance at her tiny younger sister. Quinn moved a shaking hand to the roof of the car, watching the man in the suit very carefully as the man he drew a gun from his suit. The barrel was pointed right at her, glinting in the streetlamps. The man on the left moved for Erica, as Quinn stood very still and awaited the bullet, a thin tear moving down her cheek.
"Quinn!" Erica expected her sister to just awaken from her vigil. But the fourteen year old said nothing and her sister was snatched, taking her attention off the gun momentarily.
A loud explosion of gun powder was heard, and the man with the weapon dropped whipped around. His partner's attention was taken as well to the blonde haired man on the street, cocking his shotgun.
"RUN!" Erica commanded, taking her sister's wrist and running as fast as her legs could carry her. Quinn was slightly faster, her leg muscles developed rather then diminished from drugging herself into a coma. They wouldn't and couldn't look behind them.
The porch door opened.
"Shit." Erica picked up her pace as another one of them took aim. Quinn watched the barrel of the gun, some sort of yearning in her eyes as the bullet was fired again.
The eighteen year old pushed her sister ahead, as the bullet grazed by her cheek. Erica winced painfully, her blood splattered on the driveway.
Another shotgun bullet was fired. Quinn stared at the blonde haired man at the end of the driveway as he fought off one of the two men. The man on the porch ran off the steps and was coming at them again.
The man stepped out of the hedge was like a shadow as he fired his own weapon. Erica wiped the blood off her cheek, bringing Quinn closer to her instinctively. The fourteen year old was shaking softly, watching as the body dropped to the ground and crackled with electricity.
Their wish had come true. Miranda was dead.
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Erica's fingers moved over the piano apprehensively, hovering the proper keys and the improper ones. The four year old was staring at the sheet music, watching the black notes blend together to create a song that she could not, for the life of her, play correctly. Everything just seemed too out of reach.
The babysitter was in the other room on the phone, talking about something very forgettable to her boyfriend on the long distance bills. She rolled her eyes as another sugar coated giggle and played the C scale again, staring sadistically at the sheet music.
Frustrated, she banged on the keys and got up from the bench, throwing the book across the room. "What was the use anyways?" She asked herself. "I'll never get it. They'll always be that one note that I can't get."
The door was being opened in the front foyer, and the babysitter was giving a frantic goodbye to Matt. Erica knew her place. Come watch TV in the living room and make the babysitter look good.
"Not today." She thought with an evil grin, and stayed in the kitchen colouring as her parents came in. The babysitter, Gillian, made a fast recovery by coming in through the back and plopping down next to her. Shit, the four year old thought, the word coming from her mind flippantly. She'd heard her mommy and daddy use it non-stop. What was the harm in a word?
"We're home!" They said loudly, the two laughing. Erica knew it was fake. The second they got the baby upstairs under her watchful eye it would be bitch, bitch, bitch about everything all over again. The babysitter laughed and got up to greet them, getting her bag and coat from the door, collecting the money from her mother and walking out the door with a too sweet wave at Erica. The small girl gave a wave, watching Gillian walk out the door.
The second the door was closed her mother handed the baby to her.
"Erica." Her mother said, leaning down to her height and handing the fairly heavy package to her. Erica hopped off the stool in the kitchen and nodded. Her father moved into the kitchen silently. "Take your new sister upstairs and show her your room. Daddy and mommy need to talk." The 'daddy and mommy' statement was slightly more forceful, telling Erica to do as she was told. She took the precious package with her in her arms. Lord, the baby was tiny. Erica noticed this immediately as she took her new sibling upstairs.
The door was closed and the shouting started. Erica rolled her eyes in disgust. For Christ's sake! She'd heard her parents say that too, and was not entirely sure she had the right terminology of it, but assumed so. She set the bundle of blankets on her bed, looking at the baby with a look of confusion. So this is Quinn, she thought, not entirely impressed with her sister as of that moment.
The yelling escalated downstairs and the baby started to stir. Erica looked at the door, glaring at it with a cruel stare. She looked back at the baby, the scrawny thing jostling about and whimpering.
"And I guess you want me to tell you everything's okay, do you?" The four year old asked, half expecting the baby to do something amazing at that moment. After all, as far as Erica was concerned, she felt that this baby was just some other baby. More then likely one that her careless parent picked up in the nursery in replacement of their own, normal baby.
Erica groaned as the baby started to wake up. She crossed her legs on the bed, took the baby in her arms and like a doll, began to rock the near screaming kid back and forth in her arms.
"It's okay." She said nonchalantly, watching the infant relax again as the yelling and arguing subdued. Erica didn't even catch a word of it this time as the baby's eyes blinked. Her blood ran cold, scared to death that the baby would cry.
But the baby didn't. It just stared at Erica with eyes that belonged to her older sister.
And didn't cry.
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"We have to leave." The man said. Erica opened her mouth at him. This was Morpheus. That gut feeling in her stomach told her it was. She stared at him a moment, fixated on him as the blood of her aunt ran over the snowy ground. But that man, stood there, awaiting on Trinity (as if they were two different people). He looked at the two girls, Quinn's eyes focused on her aunt's dead form, the bullet right between the eyes.
She reached into her pocket for her camera, but Erica grabbed her hand and they walked away from the scene, following Morpheus.
His partner, the blonde man put his gun back in the holster and ran back to the car, looking up and down the street like a hawk.
"I apologize for the way things turned out." He spoke clearly, opening the back door for the two of them. Quinn didn't question it as she was dragged into the back of the car with Trinity. The man didn't either as he shut the door and got into the front seat. "There always seems to be some kind of obstacle in our path."
"What's going on?" Quinn asked silently, confused by the whole situation.
"Don't ask questions." The blonde one said.
"Wraith." Morpheus said in defence, stopping the possible altercation before it happened. Quinn looked at Erica who was clutching her bleeding knuckles rather tightly and causing blood to move down the seats.
"Sorry." He said, pulling out into the street. Erica looked at her hand as the warm liquid flowed over her fingers and released it quickly. Quinn took it into her lap and wrapped it in her sweater. Wraith made occasional glances into the back seat, just as nervously as before. Morpheus was fingering the hilt of his gun.
"Did you punch one of them?" the blonde asked, a little shocked by the fourteen year old girl's injury. She shook her head, tightening her grip on the sweater over the wound. Wraith looked at Morpheus, who said nothing, but had some sort of bemused grin on his face. Trinity brushed the blood off her cheek.
The car came to a stop outside an ancient looking office building. The snow was coming down heavier now, covering the sidewalks and streets before vanishing with the salt, or making already large piles of snow larger on the ground. Morpheus got out of the car, but stopped his partner.
"No Wraith. You stay down here with Quinn." He looked at Trinity who glanced at her sister. Quinn had no reply as her sister got out of the car and stepped onto the street, following Morpheus. The two walked into the building, Quinn trying to stop the bleeding on her hand. Wraith made a glance into the mirror, his icy blue eyes gleaming in the night.
Erica was left behind at the door, but Trinity continued through, following Morpheus as he walked to the door on the left.
"I realize that tonight has been a rather inopportune night to meet." He began, opening the door into a dishevelled room with two, high backed leather chairs to her right and boarded up windows on the far wall. A small night table was in the centre, a glass of water standing tall on it. "However I could not delay this meeting any longer."
Trinity said nothing, watching Morpheus turn and gesture to the chairs.
"Please, have a seat."
Trinity said nothing as he sat. She, on the other hand, did not. He watched her movements, pulling a small silver box from his pocket.
"I know how you feel right now." He spoke with a sort of wisdom to him, like he knew what she was thinking. "I know that throughout your entire life you've felt something. You can't explain this feeling but you know it's there. And it won't leave you alone." She moved slowly now, into the chair, as if some sort of force had pulled her there. "It was this feeling that lead you to me."
Trinity sighed deeply, watching his glasses with interest at her own reflection. The blood on her cheek was coagulating and scabbing rather quickly. She touched it gingerly, as Morpheus waited for the question.
"What is the Matrix." She finally said, making him smile again.
"Yes." He said deeply, spinning the silver box unconsciously within his fingers. He finally opened the box, dropping two pills into his hands. "It is unfortunate that one must be shown what the Matrix is." He set the box aside, holding out the pills in his hands. Trinity stared at them, the blue pill and the red pill embedding themselves in memory.
"This is the turning point." He began slowly, making she understood. "After this, there is no going back. There is no turning around." Trinity nodded softly. "Take the blue pill and you stay in dreamland. You wake up in your bed and continue as if none of this ever happened. As if this too is just a dream." The blue pill was almost like the security blanket of her heroin. The assurances she would just stay the same.
"If you take the red pill, the dream ends. You wake up and face the world with knowledge of this moment and find out what the Matrix really is."
Trinity was at a stand still. Red pill equals free from all this. Blue pill equals another day of hell. She couldn't help but just sit there. Morpheus didn't seem to be in a hurry at all, his whole body rigid as he provided the two paths in front of Trinity.
"I don't believe this." She said quietly, making Morpheus smile again.
"That is a choice in itself." He replied in his fatherly voice. The eighteen year old stared at the pills some more, throat dry and doorway behind her beckoning her to go back downstairs.
"I…" Trinity said, rubbing her eyes and temples.
"I never said that it would be easy." He said quietly, Trinity leaning forward again and wincing as her head started to flare in pain. She shook her head quickly.
"I can't do this." She said silently. "I can't." Trinity got up and walked out of the room.
"Trinity." His voice was still there, and now he was standing. "I can't let you walk out of this room." She turned, feeling that degree of control constricting her to this place.
"Watch me." She replied quickly and walked from the room as fast as her feet would carry her.
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Erica reclaimed herself, looking at the door wistfully. Wraith got out of the car, looking shocked as Trinity ripped open the back door and grabbed Quinn's wrist, dragging her from the safe confines of the car and out onto the sidewalk.
"Come on." She ordered cruelly, dragging Quinn down the street. The fourteen year old looked back at Wraith, wanting him to do something. The blonde haired man looked at the doors as Morpheus came back out. Trinity took off in a run down the street.
Wraith moved back into the car and grabbed his gun off the seat. Morpheus raised a hand in protest, the blonde haired man putting the gun down as his mentor grabbed his cellular device.
"Tank. Get us an exit."
"What about her?" His operator asked, setting up some form of a way out.
"Don't worry." Morpheus replied. "I'm not giving up yet."
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"Where are we going?" Quinn asked as she and her sister came to a slow stop at the lights. The traffic light turned red and they ran. The eighteen year old kept walking at a quickened pace.
"You still want to get out of here?" Erica asked. The smaller of the two opened her mouth, looking strangely around as she was pulled. The eighteen year old heard sirens start up in the distance from their house and she stopped short.
"Erica." Her older sister obviously was not listening and was searching for a place to hide. "Erica?" Still, nothing. Quinn doubted whether or not her sister's adrenaline would allow her to listen. "ERICA! LOOK AT ME!"
The eighteen year old peered downward at the smaller version of herself, her sister's eyes looking at the sirens moving closer.
"What's going to happen?" She asked. Erica looked at the ground, shaking her head in confusion.
"I don't know." She finally admitted. "I just don't know."
Quinn wanted a better answer then that as the sirens came closer. Erica looked around, just hoping that an escape route would have planted itself in her way. She looked into the alley, finding the cast iron escape route within running reach.
"This way." She said. Quinn was staring at the oncoming police cruisers. "Quinn! Look, right now we have to fucking run? Okay?" The smaller girl nodded and followed her into the alley, climbing up the ladder first.
The cruisers screeched to a halt, and uniformed officers got out. Erica pushed Quinn upwards, not following. Her smaller sibling looked down.
"Erica!" She said loudly.
"Erica Parker!" The loudspeaker boomed. The older of the two watched the large amount of officers pointing weapons at her. "Step out of the alley with your hands in the air."
"Erica!"
"GET OUT OF HERE QUINN!" Erica ordered. The fourteen year old saw the officers moving in. They could be on the roof. She looked at her sister.
Slowly, her arms were raised in defeat and she started to walk out of the alley. Quinn couldn't move.
"RUN!" She ordered. And Quinn finally found her feet, not looking back as two of the uniformed men grabbed her sister and shoved her into the cruiser. The one looked up at her as she ran away.
"Should we pursue her?" One asked the other. The strongest one shook his head.
"No. Later." He ordered, getting into the car.
Erica watched her sister's silhouette bound across the rooftop. She looked back in the car and wished she had taken the red pill when she had the chance.
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