Sherin felt tears welling in her eyes as she walked past all the yellow ribbons tied up around school and her neighborhood.  Em had been "missing" for almost three weeks now.  Sherin was torn up inside.  As soon as she got home she ran to her room and threw herself onto her bed.  She tried to cry but the tears wouldn't come now.  She'd already shed all she could muster, so she sobbed dryly into her blankets.  There'd been pity calls, and pats on the back, but she'd hung up on them and shaken them off.  She was still holding out hopes that they would come for her.  That she would be whisked off to wherever Em had disappeared to.

Anywhere but here. She thought, her sobs subsiding.

She remembered that Morpheus had told her, quite firmly, that they'd come back for her.  That she wouldn't be alone for long.  "As soon as humanly possible" he'd said.  Maybe it was that they just hadn't been able to come for her yet.

She wondered if they'd ever come, or if Em would just vanish without a trace into the mists, nothing more than a memory…

…………………………………………………….

My nickname, "Mouse", as Morpheus predicted, caught on quickly, and soon Em was abandoned completely.  I was learning fast, mostly from Tank, who became a good companion, all about The Matrix and the things it entailed.  I woke up one morning to my first day in the chair.

"Relax sweetie." Said Tank in a feminine voice.  "We're gonna have some fun."

I heard him clicking away on the computer and then Trinity was above me.  "This might feel strange for a moment." She said, putting a cool palm on my forehead. And then with a scraping noise I felt the strangest sensation of my life.  It was as if someone had inserted a knife into the back of my head, but it didn't hurt.  I just suddenly was completely aware of the absence of matter in that void.  It felt cold and uncomfortable for a moment and then all of the sudden I felt my eyes fly open and I was not lying down anymore.  I was standing in a very empty space.  White. All around me.

I walked a few feet in all directions before I was distracted from my exploring.

"Welcome to the construct." Morpheus's voice said behind me.  I twisted around to see him standing in very nice suit, with the same sunglasses on that he had worn when we'd first met.  He looked powerful.

"The what?" I said, slowly, tearing my eyes from him to look around at the vast void about me.

"It is a program." Morpheus explains.  "Much like the one the machines started with.  Their palette on which they painted the matrix.  Only we have our own, that we can manipulate in any way we like.  You've already done something, without even knowing."

"What's that?" I say, looking around me, puzzled.

"Look down." Morpheus smiles.

I look down at my shoes. And realize, they're my old shoes.  And I'm wearing my old jeans.  And a t-shirt I'd liked.  I run a finger through my hair, and find my old mop is back.  I twist a little hair around my finger, thinking of Sherin.

"This is what we call your residual self image." Morpheus explains. "Your brain still has memories from the matrix.  What your voice sounded like.  What style of hair you had.  What your clothes looked like.  When we plug into the construct, the computer picks this up and dresses us accordingly to what we remember ourselves as.  For instance, notice in your arms and head, that all your plugs are gone."

I feel the back of my head through my hair and nothing is there but scalp.  My arms and back too, are bare of metal.

"This is not the only thing that we can have though.  We also can make things appear with programming.  For instance…Tank." He says, addressing an invisible operator. "Chairs."

Two leather upholstered chairs appeared out of nowhere beside us.

"Gun." He said.  Suddenly there was a gun, sitting on the armrest of the chair nearest to him.

"These are all just items, though.  We also have programs with entire backdrops…Party."

I felt my hair lift off my face and suddenly I was surrounded by other people, Morpheus standing in front of me.  Music was playing and people were dancing and drinking.

"All of them?.." I say, trailing off as I look at the crowd.

"Programs." Morpheus finishes plainly.

"This is very useful for training.  You're going to begin combat training soon, and gunmanship.  This is all extremely concentrated though, and the construct isn't needed for it.  Instead, the construct is used for sparring programs between more than one person within the ship.  Or for acquiring items which we can then take into the Matrix.  Back." Morpheus says, and we flash back to the white plain backdrop.

"For example, if I need a gun, Tank can make one appear for me in here, and then I can take it with me into the matrix if I choose."

I nod, taking this all in. 

"It's sort of like cheats in a video game, right? Loading in weapons and things?"

Morpheus smiles.  "Exactly Mouse.  Which leads me to my next point.  You know, as a hacker, that rules of programs can be easily bent.  And some of them broken.  The matrix is full of little programs that make it into a mock-reality.  Things like, oh…gravity."

He smiles at me briefly, and then interjects. "Tank.  Load the jump program."

I feel my hair whip about my face once more and then suddenly I'm standing on the rooftop of a building. 

"You have to remember that this isn't real.  You aren't on a rooftop.  You're sitting on a chair on a ship underground.  Once you realize that, you can free your mind.  Once you free your mind, you can do this."

He turned from me, and began to run.  Once he reached the edge of the building, not slowing down a pace, leapt off, and instead of plummeting downward, he flew, like a bird soaring, over to the next building, and landed. 

I looked over at him with squinting eyes.  He was now a tiny figure on the building across the four lanes of traffic below me.  And he was motioning for me to do the same.

I felt fear welling up in my stomach. 

How was I supposed to do this? I didn't know what was going on…I barely knew anything about anything.  Now I was supposed to just automatically…

I stopped.  I took a deep breath. 

"I'm in a chair on a ship underground."  I breathe to myself, and then I close my eyes and start running.  I open them when I get near the ledge, and then I jump up onto the ledge and thrust myself forward.  

For a moment I feel like I've done it.  Like I'm going to make it.  And then fear it seems, catches up with me midair.  I look down, and suddenly gravity takes a firm hold on me, and the ground is racing toward me.  I land on the ground and it caves in below me, as I continue to fall, and then elastically, it springs back up, like an asphalt camouflaged trampoline, and I fly back into the air, not quite as high.  Then with a dull thud I land on the pavement.  This time feeling very much like pavement.

With a flash I'm back in the chair and I feel the plug being slid out of the back of my skull.  My knees and face hurt, and I feel warm salty blood in my mouth.  I taste it uncertainly.

"Your mind makes the injuries real." Morpheus says, standing before me and answering my unspoken query.

"I failed." I say, feeling ashamed. 

"Don't worry," Dozer says from behind me, his hand on my shoulder, "Nobody makes their first jump."

This encourages me slightly, but I run my finger through my hair, recalling that now it's just fuzz again, and I feel a wistfulness in the pit of my stomach.

……………………………………

I stand on the roof of the school.  Em and I used to creep up here and make out, I recall. It seems like years ago that he was with me though.  I take a deep breath, looking down.   It's got to be…three stories.

I swallow hard, my eye focusing staring hard at the pavement below me, but it's fading in and out of vision as my tears blur my eyes.  A burst of wind behind me tilts me close to the edge.  I realize how stupid I'm being.

 Biting my lip for the millionth time since that night, I finally break the skin and blood spills into my mouth.  I suck my lip gingerly, remembering the day Em and I met.

The search parties are coming up empty.  Sweeping through the woods behind his house, combing alleyways in the area. 

Going into the city and asking around.  Putting up posters.  I even saw him on the news.  It was a picture from a Christmas party at his house last year.  He's smiling.

I saw his parents at the mortuary on Sunday.  They were picking out an empty casket to bury his memory in.

The blood tastes salty and metallic.  I sniff my nose and rub my burning raw eyes.   It's cold, and the wind is whipping through my hair and biting my neck and face.

I step down off the ledge slowly, and then back away.  I run all the way home and I don't look back.

…………….

A/N: that last bit is from sherin's perspective—for anyone confused.

I know I can be that way sometimes.  Reviews greatly appreciated!!! :-D