Family Part 3

I felt like I'd been tossing and turning all night, eventually I realised that I wasn't going to get any sleep and Tanks words came back to me, I walked across the way and knocked on his door, almost instantly he opened it, when he saw it was me he stepped back.

"Come on in." He invited. I just stood there, why was he being so nice to me? Especially after I'd punched him.

"Can't seem to get to sleep." I mumbled. He pointed to one of the two chairs in the room.

"Yeah, that happens. Want to talk about it?" He asked. I shook my head and stared at the floor.

"I don't know what's going on, I kind of feel like I've been taken out of a sinking ship, only to be put into a sinking life boat and that I'm given a bucket to bail the water out, instead of bailing though, I'm wondering how the fuck I'm supposed to make the bucket work." I said.

"That's how I felt to, at the start. All you've got to do is ask for help with how to deal with all this and you're doing that now. I won't lie to you, the first few days are going to be really hard, but you'll come out the other end a stronger person because of it. Instead of taking a drug or a drink you talk to someone about how you're feeling, even if you think it's stupid." He paused for a moment, as I glanced up at him.

"Trust me it isn't and when you talk about it, you'll feel better about it. You were right though, what you said earlier, about people not understanding, unless they've actually been there they won't. I want you to know that I have been there and done that, so you can always talk to me about anything." He glanced at the ancient clock on the wall, as he stood up.

"I've got to up, got the next shift. Want to join me?" He asked. I nodded and followed him up the ladder. But a part of me wanted to know what he wanted in return for his helping me through this, I didn't want to ask though. Neo sat behind the console, with a blank look on his face, he didn't even seem to be looking at the monitors. When he saw us, he stood up.

"I was beginning to wonder if you'd forgotten." He joked.

"By the way, if you do anything to her I'll kill you." Then he climbed down the ladder.

Tank pulled up a second chair for me and sat down at the console, the green symbols that were on the screen made no sense to me, but he seemed to know what they meant, he gestured to it.

"That's the Matrix, people minds, houses cars, building etc." He said.

"So where did you get your name from?" He asked.

"From an ordinary playing card the Queen of Spades. Tommy - I mean Neo thought me how to play that game. So I took a name that I thought I'd like." I replied, I clenched my hands into fists, hoping that he wouldn't notice that my hands were shaking.

"How about you, how'd you get your name?" He grinned at me for a moment.

"My father got to name my brother Dozer, and my mother named me. After earth machines, I guess they wanted people to know that we were fully home grown or something." He said.

"I didn't know that you had a brother. Does he work on another ship?" I asked. He looked away for a moment, then back at me.

"He died, a few months after we got Neo out of the Matrix, a guy called Cyphur who was part of the crew betrayed us to the agents. He killed two other members of the crew, pulled their plugs while they were still in the Matrix, Their names were Switch and Apoc and another was killed in the Matrix, his name was Mouse and he was our programmer."

"I'm, sorry, I didn't mean to."

"It's ok you didn't know. So what is between you and Neo anyway?" He asked

"He's my brother, or was, in the Matrix I mean." I said. He stared at me for a moment.

"I didn't know that. That explains it."

"Explains what?"

"Why he wanted to get you out so badly, he kept telling Morpheus that you were an excellent programmer and that we needed a new one after we lost Mouse." For a while we just sat in silence, then I had an idea, I took one of his many disk, this one a blank and put it into one of the drives in the computer he wasn't using. I began typing furiously, a few hours later I was ready. I handed over the disk to him.

"Can you load me into the construct?" I asked him.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" He said. I nodded, grinning.

"Yeah, I get the feeling that I can build it up a lot easier on the inside."

"Ok, what is that you're going to do?" He asked as he plugged me in.

"I'm going to just assume that as the operator you've been watching me for a while now, so you probably know that I like to rollerblade. So I want to go in and build the perfect rollerblading place and then I'm going to teach them how to rollerblade." I said, as he loaded me up. The I was inside the construct, wearing jeans, t-shirt and a pair of state of the art rollerblades and good ones at that. I took out my mobile phone and flipped it open.

"Now this is going to be fun, load up that disk I gave you, Tank." I said. A moment later, runways and ramps appeared around me. I hung up the phone and then I ran down the long runway I was on, building up speed, remembering what Neo had told me earlier, the rules in here can be bent, so I just got faster and faster as I headed toward the first ramp, which wasn't that high, it was just the buildup to bigger and better ones. I shot over it and then I was in front of the next one, picture a rollercoaster rails in your mind, that's what this was like, just one big ring, I grinned as I thought about going on it. By the time I was finished, I was absoulutely breathless, I wanted to go again, but I stopped and flipped open the phone again.

"Time to leave this place, Tank." I said. I was grinning as he plugged me out.

"That was great, man you should have been there!" I swaid excitedly.

"I think watching was bad enough, I was sure you were going to fall off that big one, how'd you pull that off?" He asked.

"Build up enough speed and I remember what Neo said, the rules can be bent or broken." I stopped speaking as Morpheus came up to the core.

"Build up enough speed for what?" He asked.

"Rollerblading, you ever tried it?" I asked. I could hear Tank trying to stop his laughter, I knew what he was laughing at, I couln't quite picture Morpheus on them. When he shook his head, I gave a vicious grin.

"Tomorrow you're going to learn." Then I added his favourite words.

"Someday it could save your life and you know I'm right, you never know, you might even have fun." I said. He didn't look so sure, but he couldn't disagree with my reasoning and he knew it. Neo and Trinity joined us.

"Ready to go again?" Neo asked me.

"Yes and after we're done I have something that you're going to do, been working on it all night." I said. He looked at Morpheus in confusion for a moment, Morpheus just shrugged his shoulders.

"If I have to do it, then so do you and Trinity." He said. Tank plugged us both in and we were in the dojo again, instantly I leaped at him and once again he knocked me aside, but I was up again in a second. We fought for a while, then he stepped back, indicating that we were finished.

"Tank, load the jump program." He said. The dojo disappeared and a building rushed up beneath our feet. He turned to look at me, from behind his glasses. "Fear, doubt, disbelief, let it all go." He said. Then he ran at the edge of the building and leaped, his trenchcoat billowing out behind him.

"Ok, you must think I'm insane. Wait I know that's already true, ah what the hell, the worst that can happen is I get my guts splattered. What you can do, I can do better." I muttered. Then I ran at the edge of the building and jumped, or tried to my foot caught on the raised up edge and I fell, straight down, I40 floors and I screamed all the way, the ground stretched as I hit it and spat me right back out, when I crashed back to earth it felt like I'd been hit by a bus. A moment later neo stood next to me.

"So does this mean I fail?" I asked. Then we were back on the Neb, Morpheus was giving me one of his looks.

"Well at least I tried, I'd just like to point out that I don't usually do something this suicidal, like jumping from one 150 floor building to another and whatever you do DO NOT look down." I replied, they laughed.

"Now that all that's out of the way, it's my turn." I said. Morpheus sighed, he had obviously been hoping I'd forget. Tank loaded us all in, a huge grin on his face, once more we were inside the construct, albeit a very changed construct. Tank had even added in rollerblades and safety equipment for the others, I held up a pair.

"Put these on, then we'll get started." I said.

"How do I put this on?" Neo asked me, holding up a pair of knee protectors. I shrugged my shoulders.

"I don't know, you never saw fit to actually introduce me to safety equipment, just the blades, remember?" I smirked as he struggled to get them on, eventually though Trinity who had figured it out a while ago helped him get them on. The three of them, tried to keep their balance, on the rollerblades, as I skated around them.

"The first thing you need to learn is how to balance on them, when your just standing. Like so." I demonstrated how I wanted them to do it and it took them a few minutes before the got that one right. Then we moved on up from there, eventually I had them doing a fairly easy roll on them, but they still had to learn how to turn and stop. I ran away from them, then turned sharply and rushed directly back at Morpheus. He didn't move, but I could see the look on his face and Neo and Trinity's faces. With a slight skidding sound, I came to a stop my face inches from his.

"And that is how you stop. You put one blade sideways on the ground, behind the other one. NOT in front, unless you want to break your neck. To if you want to go left, you turn your right foot, slightly in that direction and use your left foot to move, and vice-verse." I said. Then I stepped back and watched them fall around the place for the next hour, it took them a while to learn that if you wanted to stop, u didn't try to make you foot one with the ground, but rather did it gently.

"If you want to slow yourself down, but not stop, you do the same as if you were going to stop, except you touch and then lift your foot of the groud a few times until you get the speed that you want." I demonstrated that one as well and then let them try it, a LOT of times.

"Ok, I think that's enough for now." I said, after Trinity crashed into a wall for the umpteenth time. Tank was sniggering as he unplugged us.

"OW! That hurt." Neo said. I glanced at him.

"I told you how to stop, I even showed you. But noooyou had to do it your way, I didn't know that you had a thing for Morpheus." I said, grinning.

"What? I don't!" He said.

"Oh really then why did you keep trying to tangle yourself in his embrace?!" I asked sarcastically.

"I don't think Trinity knew either." Trinity, Tank and Morpheus were in stitches at the bantering back and forth.