Protectress of Dalidon: That was actually one of my original ideas for the small showdown they had on the driveway, but I didn't think that Agents would make that type of mistake. Good suggestion, though! Also, I hope to get some other characters in next chapter, especially Tank because I love him.
Centaur: Thank you very much for your criticism, I hope I have fixed the problem in this chapter. I couldn't think of any other way to identify with either of them, since I basically made them twins and I found it too repetitive if I kept saying their names. Thank you very much for your review!
Emerald3: AWWW! I hope you're feeling better. Don't eat too much candy because it lowers your immune system (slips her a cookie discretely). Thank you! (hugs back).
Thanks to everyone who reviewed! I am so happy now!
Disclaimer: It belongs to the Wachowski's. That is all. Please, do not sue me.
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Chapter 8: There's Just Too Much That Time Cannot Erase
Dreams within dreams…the time passed quickly. So quickly that while she lay under the harsh glow of fluorescent lighting, wondering what the needles were doing under her skin she could only think. She could only dream.
Words couldn't describe what she saw. The past became the future and the future became the past in some cruel effort to keep her disoriented and praying that someday it would make sense. Her dreams were cloudy, fogged over with false details and the lies she'd been living under.
Someone was speaking. Trinity didn't necessarily care who. It hurt too much to open her eyes even a little bit. The words were slow moving, meant so she could comprehend them somehow. But they faded away as well. They just didn't mean anything anymore.
She dreamt she was sitting there, in her sister's bedroom. Quinn had lit incense and was kneeling on the floor. The two had nothing to the say, almost like the moment was sacred. It was Quinn who finally broke the silence, looking at her sister with a blank stare.
"Did any of it really matter?" She asked quietly, her voice solid and complete instead of choked back in her throat. Erica stared at her, their eyes meeting. She was wishing Quinn's stare would vanish entirely, leaving her alone, and she was sure that the other was wishing and begging for the same thing. The younger sister moved closer, hugging her sister and received no response. Erica couldn't bring herself to move.
"You wanted so much to wake up." Quinn said quietly, feeling her sister's palm on her head of black curls. "And now you have your wish." Erica breathed in, listening to her sister speak with the equivalence of Morpheus. There was a pause as they sat there, and Quinn turned her head, whispering in Erica's ear.
"But…Erica, you're still dreaming."
Erica separated from her sister, watching the eyes of ice and the frozen soul staring back at her. Quinn's eyelids lowered, her misty eye shadow making her seem almost divine in the way she sat.
"Wake up." She commanded.
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"Trinity?" She jerked a little, blinking with unseeing eyes as she looked to the door. Wraith peered inside, checking on her. The Australian gave a flippant grin, seeing her wake up. He stepped inside slowly, dropping on the edge of the bed and gave her a small shake. "You feeling better?"
"Yeah." She said groggily, getting herself propped up on one arm. The man smiled again, showing off his boyish nature for a second time. Inside the Matrix, he came off as some sort of pompous, angry, macho brat. Outside, he was actually kind of charming.
"Morpheus said you should try to eat something." He said, pulling a container of mush she hadn't noticed was hidden behind his back. She gave a small grin, hardly amused. She could feel her stomach doing flip-flops again. She took it from him, setting it on the floor. "Yeah. I agree. It does look like vomit."
"Wraith?" She asked him in her quiet voice, pondering how she would go about the whole questioning. He lifted an eyebrow. "What happened with the Merovingian?" He gave a small laugh, looking at her eyes that were glazed over with sleep. He sighed deeply.
"Well, he's a rather nice guy." Wraith began. Trinity could hear the sarcasm dripping in his voice.
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The Merovingian grinned coyly, Quinn shying away from him nervously as she sensed all the eyes fall upon her. She clenched her fist, blood falling to the floor and was absorbed by the solid stone beneath her feet. She heard the heavy footsteps of the man and his female counterpart climbing the stairs. She listened instead of watched, trusting her artist's eyes to catch the details of this place. The rest of her senses focused on her apparent rescuers, although she knew it was more out of pity for her then anything else.
It always was pity with her. There was never any compassion behind her sister's actions. They all just felt sorry for her because she was the orphan child of a whore and a child abuser and the sister of a drug addict. She came off so strong outwardly, but everyone seemed to know she was useless and couldn't keep out of trouble.
This Morpheus and his friend Winter were no different then her mother and Erica.
"Well…it seems as if my plan is successful." The Merovingian stated, smiling at his own voice. "Since we are all friends here, this is my wife, Demeter." He emphasized the woman next to him. Demeter said nothing, keeping that 'I'm nothing but a trophy wife' smirk plastered to her face. Quinn didn't like her the moment she laid eyes on her. "And now…" He picked up his drink. "What would you like to talk about?"
"We…" Morpheus began, but never finished. The sounds of the doors below opening a gunshots ringing out over the crowd caused panic to flood the upper balcony. Morpheus and Winter had guns out, but Quinn could now sense more then twenty gleaming gun barrels trained on her. Wraith stood below, holding out his weapons and making sure the crowd stopped moving. The Merovingian rolled his eyes.
"Y la raza humana que lo supuso ser más lista entonces nosotros (And the human race it supposed to be smarter then us)." He said, the two albino twins looking at the human with a mischievous gleam in their eyes. Quinn wanted to die. She would have paid any of the bystanders to pull the trigger and drag her out of her misery. "Another one of Morpheus's freedom fighters?"
Wraith didn't move. His gun was outnumbered by about five or so.
"Just give her to us, and we will leave." The Merovingian didn't even think about it.
"No." He said finally, watching Morpheus in the circle of his men. Quinn glanced over at him, hearing every word he said in Spanish. "I don't want to. I find I am actually enjoying her presence." Morpheus sighed very deeply. Quinn looked around with just her eyes, not moving her head. The sight of Wraith below, fighting. The sight of Morpheus and Winter, standing armed and dangerous. She really was useless. She couldn't even stop this attack on her account.
"Come now Morpheus." The Merovingian said, the same amount of humour in his stare. "What's her real purpose? Ella es inútil (She is useless)."
That did it. Quinn snatched the hand gun and twisted it into her hand. Morpheus and Winter shot down four threats as the small girl took aim and fired clumsily at his head.
"¡Yo no soy inútil (I'm not useless)!" They were at a stand still once more, Quinn's finger shaking on the trigger. The Merovingian said nothing, watching her with an interest that didn't seem to fade. She clenched her teeth, so close to pulling the trigger.
"Great." Wraith said with a groan that Quinn could hear from where she was standing. She steadied her grip with her other hand.
"Ahora, tenemos una elección. Todos podemos morir, el derecho ahora mismo. O usted andemos lejos y se olvida que esto sucedió jamás. Yo no estoy atemorizado morir. (Now, we have a choice. We can all die, right here and now. Or you can let us walk away and forget this ever happened. I'm not afraid to die.)" The final was said with a morbid sureness, voice not faltering as the program had seen so many do. Morpheus kept composure as the Spanish rolled off her tongue. Quinn was starting to feel thankful she had taken it as a course, now. Wraith couldn't move, still watching the scene.
The Merovingian looked at his men. The sound of their guns being holstered did not cause the three to back down at all. Quinn couldn't move, even as the threat passed. She saw Morpheus's eyes on her and she lowered the weapon slowly, her fist still tight around the barrel.
"Da las gracias por la buena vez (Thanks for the good time)." She spat as the three departed from the upstairs. They so much as stepped on the stone dance floor when the Merovingian stood up.
"KILL THEM!"
Wraith was distracted, firing angrily at the men above. Winter and Morpheus barely made it to the hallway. Quinn slid by Wraith, delaying for a moment as she went up in the elevator.
"Come on!" Winter shouted, the three taking off before the albino twins could do anything about them. The elevator doors were closed, and the sounds of footsteps were drawing nearer. Wraith fumbled in his pockets.
"What is it?" Morpheus asked. Wraith came to the realization.
"That bitch has my keys!"
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Trinity pieced it together, nodding lazily to herself. Wraith sighed deeply, trying to think of anything he missed. The black haired woman looked at the wall.
"You miss her don't you?" Wraith asked, making Trinity move her eyes back to his. He could see it right there, inside her irises that looked too much like her younger sister's.
"She wasn't real." Trinity said. "None of it was."
"Who are you trying to convince?" He asked her, making her eyes move back to the floor where the gruel was sitting. After going for a long time without food, it was starting to look appealing. Wraith tapped her waist again.
"See yah, Trin." He said, getting up and leaving the room. The woman on the bed felt her muscle twinge and she sat up, pulling the food from the floor. She detested people analyzing her that way. Morpheus never did it, he was pretty good about keeping her business simply that. But Wraith wasn't scared of her. He was afraid of Agents. But he wasn't afraid of her.
She started eating the food slowly.
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Erica was allowed to leave the hospital two days later, after some fast talking from her mother saying that she wouldn't be a harm to herself anymore. Other then that, her mother had nothing to say. She and Tom were silent on the drive home.
Erica climbed the stairs, a plastic bag in one hand with her fist clenched around it. It was filled to the brim with the clothes her 'family' had brought over, but she could tell it was all stuff from the laundry that hadn't been washed anyways. Most of it she had worn that week.
She tossed the bag across the floor. It slid to the wall, near her laundry pile for that week. None of it had been moved or touched. I love my family. My stupid, useless family. I slit my fucking wrists and they don't even do my fucking laundry. The bandages were still there, stitches still holding the flaps of skin. Sadistic thoughts passed through her mind of breaking the stitches 'by accident' or blame it on that brat Quinn.
Speaking of Quinn… She thought, moving to the bed as she found a manila envelope lying on her pillow. Beautiful cursive made Erica's name on the cover, and it was sealed properly and neatly. Curious, she picked it up and ripped open the flap, pouring out the contents.
Polaroid pictures tumbled from within, falling to the comforter of her bed. Erica picked them up, finding maybe nine or ten in the pile. The final photo was a home developed photo, courtesy of her younger sibling's closet.
There she lay, immortalized in the pictures, lying on her floor as blood fell from her broken wrists. Erica's eyes widened, not recognizing herself. Quinn had snapped nine to ten pictures of her suicide, as if she was determined to catch a portrait of her sister's spirit. It moved like a cartoon, the pools of blood growing in some adult film on satellite TV. It was like a movie.
The final picture was in black and white, with good reason. The pools of blood looked like a demon growing around the unconscious body. It was what Erica considered to be her final moments, watching her with devilish undertones of charcoal.
She bit her bottom lip and felt her gut clench itself and crush her insides. She picked up the pictures frantically, tossing them back into the envelope. Angrily, she stormed down the hall to Quinn's room and opened the door, throwing the envelope inside. Her younger sister stared at her, watching her sister slam the door and storm back to her room. She looked back at her old Barbie doll lying under the red light of her desk lamp, wrists slit with artificial blood she had concocted in the kitchen.
Erica slammed her own door, breathing heavily as she lay on her bed and curled up. DAMN HER! She thought. Damn her to Hell! It was more out of embarrassment then fury. Erica lost herself in her thoughts, trying to figure out who she was trying to punish: Quinn for being a perceptive and bratty preteen, or herself for not even being able to commit suicide properly.
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Trinity had stopped eating. She couldn't force anything else down her throat. She looked at her wrists, half expecting the scars to linger. Instead, she realized once again that nothing in that world was really real. It was all a game of make believe, a role playing card game where the machines are playing and dealing the decks. Her analogy was so depressing she went as far to think that maybe Quinn wasn't real at all.
"How could we really even be called sisters?" She asked herself angrily, still clutching the half full dish of mush. "We were grown in the same place. That's all we have in common. Aside from a few falsified memories and pictures, Quinn was no more real then the blade I tried to take my life with."
Trinity's thoughts lead her on a wild goose chase.
"Then the emotions weren't real either, and I was prepared to kill for her."
"But she was prepared to die for you. Isn't that also true?"
"But she wasn't real! She was placed there by the machines and programmed as my sister. She was programmed to share my eyes and have my hair colour. Just like she was programmed to watch me lie there and die. It was all programming!"
Trinity hit her head against the wall once, forcefully enough tot stop the obnoxious debate between the various lobes of her brain. Swiftly, she stood up and allowed her strength moments to return before walking out of the cabin.
"It wasn't all programming."
"Shut up." Was all her mind wanted to reply.
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Next Chapter I hope to add in some other various characters on the Neb. Please, for now, review.