Many thanks to Raen for the Shakespearean know-how. Thanks to Perthro for the beta reading. *tosses Zion about* Wobbly jello Zion! Thank you Gypsy for the beta reading, and for "Neo and Trinity, polka dancing, wearing polka dots, in polka ville on Zion's polka-night." Hugs to Jie and Pinsan!
This fic is for Centaur at the moment, being mostly hers anyway. I don't have much heart to write after seeing Revo, but I'll keep it up for her sake. And anyone else's.
Chapter two
Frankly, you don't want to be here. From where you stood for your coronation of sorts, few recognize you up close as Neo, the One. That doesn't stop the girl with the two ponytails and unusually long eyelashes from offering you drinks, a sloppy smile on her face suggesting she'd had at least half the bar by herself. You'd taken one on the third offer and placed it in someone else's hand as soon as you could, but you weren't particularly looking forward to doing it all night.
Moving's not an option when it's between the bargirl and the dancing. At least no one has tried to pull you off your feet yet. You can deal with a few staggering teenage girls here and there.
It feels almost like being back in the Matrix, being lost in a foreign crowd of gleeful faces, nearly leering as they pass you by. These are people like people torn out randomly from a scrapbook, from a flashy fashion magazine, all thrown together into one risqué jamboree. It is Mardi Gras in the underworld, and it's everyone's party but yours.
You heard your name called out, following your new title, this is the One, Zion. The crowd roared like a furnace, and the sound echoes in your head, even now.
It's been six months since you arose to your heightened state. All this while, you never questioned that force that you know you felt reviving you, pulling you through when the world was all dark. You stopped bullets, you freed minds. You are essentially the hero they've been waiting for.
Yet it feels like there's something missing.
You absent-mindedly sip the drink in your hand – it's warm and tastes more like brine than anything else. You sniff it. Completely non-alcoholic. The barmaid must genuinely like you, then.
Your newfound abilities as the One never cause you doubt. Yet some days, like now, it feels like the only thing you want to do with wake up again, wake from this reverie and realize, why. Why you? How?
You know the answers are out there, somewhere.
Still, that's not all you've been troubled about.
You set the glass down, staring off into space, somewhere over the heads of the leaping crowds. These are your people, now. One dancer, perspiring profusely, drains the glass you left on the ledge. You observe that the glasses are filled with isotonic beverages rather than depressants, hence the salty taste. Not a bad idea.
"Neo?"
You glance up sharply, recognizing that voice. Trinity. The irony. You're in time to catch the curve of her lips, around your name. You've been watching that a lot lately.
"You're here, then."
She makes her way over to you, never once breaking eye contact. You never see her looking down. She walks as though she's floating, sometimes.
"Link is with Zee. Morpheus-" she blanches, "Morpheus was with Niobe a while ago."
And she's with you?
You can't say that.
"Do you want to sit down?" she asks, somewhat cautiously. She's not herself tonight. This is not the Trinity you've known, with sweat gleaming on her chest, carved in a lavish V; you don't recognize the wild beauty who a thousand men must have asked to dance with tonight.
You sit with her. You want to know the woman under the role she plays, right-hand man onboard the ever-sailing ship.
She chooses her words carefully as she looks out over the sea of people, where their dance is like a tide sweeping across the shore. She says what you least expect her to. "Do you ever think about your family, Neo?"
She must have been thinking of Link and Zee.
Trinity sits delicately on the bench, legs folded beneath her, resting her weight on one hand. You're distracted by the distance between her hand and yours, but you want to follow her gaze.
"They weren't my real family."
You manage five words without stumbling.
She shrugs lightly. Your gaze drops to her bare shoulders. "It was as good as it gets, wasn't it?"
"It's about… taking what you've got," you muse out loud. You've never thought of it this way.
"Everything you've been given," she counters. You've never thought of it that way, either.
You reply with a laugh, "You still can't choose your family, huh."
Trinity's even gaze holds you in your place and holds your tongue. "And then there are obligations."
She's as serious as she ever was. It seems that every time you try to make her smile – that's all, just to see her happy, once in a while – she pins you down again. You wish you could explain.
"I was thinking of some aunt I once had," you add sheepishly. Trinity looks at you again. "I saw her every Friday for tea, she used to pinch my cheeks and stuff me with jam cookies."
She doesn't answer right away, but you're certain you see the corners of her mouth twitch. People keep passing the bench to stare. You must look familiar to them. At least four amblers have passed before Trinity speaks again.
"You know," she licks her lips, "I used to have a sister."
She's studying your expression like she's trying to read a map.
"Quiet, kept to herself mostly. She was a bit like you."
You swallow. Your hand hasn't moved an inch, but surely you're two inches closer to Trinity than where you were.
"What happened to her?"
She shrugs again. Beautiful. "She fell in love with someone, and didn't say a word to him. She smiled when he was around, and when he wasn't."
So she had a lot of smiles.
"She learned to smile at her grief."
You don't know where those words came from.
Trinity looks at you curiously.
You ask, "Then what happened to her?"
"I don't know. She…" Trinity hesitates. "She… she wasn't freed."
You want to hit yourself. Of course Trinity had lost contact with whomever she had known before. "I'm sorry."
Trinity shakes her head. "I should be sorry. I shouldn't be burdening you with stories… you have enough to deal with already." Her gaze burns into you, even when you look down at your lap.
There's a light pressure on your right hand. You are startled to find Trinity's hand resting on yours.
She regards you evenly as usual, but her today her eyes are not ice. "You still can't sleep?"
You try not to look suspiciously at her. "What do you mean?"
"Half the ship can hear you walking around at night, Neo."
You recall the one night you actually tried walking around wearing only your socks, and almost froze to the deck of the ship. After that you'd kept your boots on, at night too.
"If you're afraid of something…" Her hand loosely holds yours.
"Of what?"
She fidgets. Her eyes keep darting over your shoulder, as if to look at someone behind, but there are only a few girls who've been there for the past hour or so. "Sleeping. If the captain hears that you sleep one night a week-"
"It's not sleeping I'm afraid of," you admit wearily. "I've been… they're… they're just dreams."
You carefully avoid Trinity's gaze this time, but you don't move your hand.
The same bargirl drifts by again, brandishing her wares and cooing. You signal to Trinity that you want to leave. She doesn't seem to get the message. Finally you tug gently on her hand, and she gets up with you. Blindly you push through the crowds, trying to remember where you saw the other cluster of empty benches.
Your insides lurch suddenly as you realize that you've just pulled her onto the dance floor.
The ground quivers with the thousands of gyrating crowds. The cave looks like one enormous salad bowl, with its people being tossed around. You feel Trinity squeeze your hand gently, fingers interlaced with yours.
If I've just asked you to dance with me, Trinity, I'm sorry… Please don't take this the wrong way, but-
Jostled by the crowd, you inadvertently take another step towards her. Your shoulders touch. Her skin feels like it's on fire…
"Do you know that girl?" Trinity asks carefully. She means a girl from the group earlier, the one with the waist-length brown hair who's just pointed excitedly in your direction.
"She's scaring me," you mutter. Someone knocks into you and your shoulder hits Trinity's again.
The whole group of teenaged girls – around six – begins giggling. You catch a strain of their conversation.
"… I don't know who Neo's dancing with, do you think he'll dance with me?"
Trinity shoots you a disgusted look. You can't tell if it was meant for you or for them. "I don't know them," you say hurriedly, "but they were clustered there before you came."
She shakes her head. "Fangirls." Her gaze drops. "Good move, they won't follow you here. Most just come to stare."
The same girl is definitely staring at you with enormous brown Bambi eyes under glimmering eyelids.
One of them catches sight of Trinity at long last and says, rather audibly, to the first, "You think she's with him? What a slut! Do you think I'll be able to get rid of her?"
Trinity ignores them, this time. It's clear she's not the least bothered. She catches you looking at the first girl.
"A little young for you, don't you think, Neo?" she comments dryly.
You can't tell if she's joking or not. Someone lands crushingly on your foot. Holding hands almost feels a bit silly with so many gazes boring into you.
"Shh, he was looking at Joo just now!"
The girl with the waist-length hair blushes but brightens. "Maybe he'll dance with me!"
You feel uncharacteristically nervous as the girl starts making her way over to you through the crowd. "Trinity," you mumble, "I'd better leave."
Without a word Trinity turns and heads in the opposite direction of your pursuers, pulling you along. Maybe she's used to this, or maybe she just knows Zion better than you do. So far, you've only devised one definite route to your room, and you don't even know if that's where she's taking you. Several men brush aggressively close against Trinity as you follow her – most probably on purpose – but she somehow endeavors to remain relatively unscathed. Her hand is warm, reassuring, holding on to yours tenaciously, yet she glances back often, expression suggesting that you're stalking her and she can't shake you, though most likely the look isn't directed at you.
"Where are we going?" you finally manage to say, as Trinity slows her pace. You've made it to the other side of the thundering crowds. The ground shakes under your feet and the cadence of the drumming is everywhere in you.
"There'll be more of them outside your room," Trinity mutters grimly, "and if you're unlucky, inside your room too."
You probably pale, but then Trinity's grip on your hand tightens. Joo has crept up behind you and is barely two meters away. She has a shy smile pinned to her face. Adorable though she may be, she's really not your type. And if she asks you to dance, the rest will follow.
Where are all the teenaged boys in Zion?
You sink into a half-crouch, but everyone has seen you already. You're near enough to whisper into Trinity's ear, "Where are the nearest stairs?" You figure you can put a good distance between the girls and yourself, if stairs are really that difficult to climb in a dress.
Trinity, though, has other ideas. "The stairs we have are unsafe, and for emergencies only," she whispers back. You're aware of her hand, more on your waist than your shirt hem, carefully steering you backwards through the crowd.
By now, Joo has caught up. "Neo, I'll dance with you!" she proclaims.
You stare.
"Nobody has danced with you at all, Neo," she giggles, "you must be so lonely."
Trinity stares. She still has her hand on your waist. This must be an awkward situation for her.
"We- I was just leaving," you mumble.
Joo visibly wilts, like a plant that hasn't been watered in a week. "Oh… but you're coming back, aren't you?"
You hope not. Inadvertently you take another step back. "Maybe later."
Joo recovers instantly, brushing hair away from her face and smiling at you. "Oh, great!"
She runs back and you distinctly hear her squealing, "He says he'll come back and dance with us! He talked to me!" Her voice is glazed with sugar.
Trinity stares stoically ahead, gazing at what looks to you like a dark tunnel somewhere across the floor. "Do you still want to go?"
She takes your silence as consent and you walk with her, side by side. If she ever had to deliver a package in the Matrix, she would undoubtedly play the soldier and you, the cargo. You know now why few others on board find her iron discipline unnerving. It's a part of who Trinity is.
The passageway is dim, but you recognize it to be similar to the one you entered Zion by. The two of you are painfully alone in the deserted corridor. Trinity keeps glancing at you out of the corners of her eyes. Her hand slips off your waist after a while. Your heart slips into your stomach. It feels now as if she was only keeping it there as long as necessary.
The corridor narrows, and you still haven't thought of anything to say to her. The dancers you left behind long ago, but you can still hear the rhythm of the music, which you realize that, in an odd way, you had been following. In a completely crazy way, you think, almost laughing, until she released you, you'd been dancing with Trinity.
You pause to catch your breath, Trinity stopping to stand beside you, breathing ragged from the run. You can just make out the sweat shimmering on her skin in the faint light. You can tell she's about to say something, but she's cut off by an unearthly screech.
"Neo!"
A voice wails down the tunnels, echoing around the corridor, especially ominous. You wonder if Zion ever celebrates Halloween.
"You didn't say when you'd be back, Neo!"
This time, you clutch Trinity's arm, steering her along like a jealous husband. You can barely make out her expression, but is resembles one of surprise, unsurprisingly.
Blindly you stumble down the tunnel. You can hear the girls behind you, and you frankly can't care less where this passageway goes. You can just see brighter lights, quite a distance away. You speed up.
Just in time to crash into a wall.
You thrust out a hand in time to stop yourself from ramming into the wall head on, scraping your palm on the sharp, uneven piping jutting out of the wall. Trinity crashes into you from behind. It's a strange tango, where you attempt to fling your partner into the nearest obstacle but miss. Just for an instant, her chest presses into your back, her head leans on your shoulder, her lips are too close to your neck and you're too distracted by her heart beating to move.
The sensation evaporates like alcohol on your skin as you begin pulling Trinity along again, groping your way along the wall with your cut hand to avoid missing sharp turns. You wonder if she should be leading – she could probably navigate Zion in her sleep – but she seems quite content to let you handle it.
Two more sharp left turns and you're still running. Your breath comes quickly and your throat is dry. The lights are getting brighter. Your left hand stings until it has almost no feeling, and your right hand feels as if it is about to pop from its socket from holding Trinity's for so long – the palm of the hand doesn't mind. You turn right. What you see makes you stop again.
Ships, rows and rows of hovercrafts, like wheat fields. To your eyes, it seems that thousands of ships are moored to their homeland tonight. You can almost hear waves lapping as the sea gently rocks the ships to sleep, safe in their harbor.
You stutter, "Whoa."
Trinity seems unaffected by the sight, just mildly interested and somehow grim. You wonder how many of these ships will return again. You marvel that there are so many left. The glass if half empty and half full. Behind her, Joo and the others have caught up. You scan the area nervously in search of a hole you can crawl into. You don't feel up to playing hide-and-seek amongst the ships.
You're completely at your wit's end, almost resigned to dancing with teenaged girls half your age when Trinity turns to them calmly.
"You're not allowed here," she shoots to the group. "Soldiers only. We're here to check on our ship. Urgent repairs, no need to bother anyone else."
"I'll come right back… later on," you add hastily. "Give me… an hour."
Trinity gives Joo a glare she usually reserves for when she's feeling really pissed about something. You feel suddenly rather sorry for the group as they leave, positively quivering. You're alone with Trinity again.
"So… do you want to look at the Neb, soldier, or do you just want to go back?" You ask Trinity. Right at the corner of the shipyard, you spot the familiar pair of gray doors you have so longed to see. "There's an elevator over there," you point out. You wonder how Trinity could have missed it.
"That's- an elevator. We might as well go back," Trinity agrees. She'd hesitated, you can tell. Still, you carry yourself by the magnificent rows of ships over to the elevator at the corner. There's an enormous ramp leading up to the elevator, it's presumably a cargo lift, from its rough but durable, industrial-sized appearance. The doors grind open sluggishly and you step in, hitting the button for your floor. Both of you are on the fourth floor. You move to the back of the elevator, Trinity following suit.
You have no idea how long this will actually be.
---
The lit cranks up cantankerously, heaving uncertainly, as if torn between going up and going down. You watch the numbers above the elevator doors lighting up in turn. Second floor.
Trinity looks down at the floor. She seems to enjoy looking at floors whenever you look at her, yet you don't quite know why. You've never found joy in counting the cracks in the floor.
The number two flickers off, and three lights up. The elevator rumbles and the floor of the elevator actually shakes. You look at Trinity again, but she seems completely unperturbed by the elevator, like she's expected all of this. Perhaps most of Zion's elevators worked this way. Trinity's barely spoken since her lecture to the girls. You find yourself wishing she would look back at you.
The number three winks. You wait for the number four to come on, and for the elevator to come to a stop. The four never does. Instead, the elevator scrapes and screeches, metal clanking against metal. Jolting several times, it finally came to a stop.
You're just feeling grateful when the lights flicker and go out.
"Oh, crap."
This fic is for Centaur at the moment, being mostly hers anyway. I don't have much heart to write after seeing Revo, but I'll keep it up for her sake. And anyone else's.
Chapter two
Frankly, you don't want to be here. From where you stood for your coronation of sorts, few recognize you up close as Neo, the One. That doesn't stop the girl with the two ponytails and unusually long eyelashes from offering you drinks, a sloppy smile on her face suggesting she'd had at least half the bar by herself. You'd taken one on the third offer and placed it in someone else's hand as soon as you could, but you weren't particularly looking forward to doing it all night.
Moving's not an option when it's between the bargirl and the dancing. At least no one has tried to pull you off your feet yet. You can deal with a few staggering teenage girls here and there.
It feels almost like being back in the Matrix, being lost in a foreign crowd of gleeful faces, nearly leering as they pass you by. These are people like people torn out randomly from a scrapbook, from a flashy fashion magazine, all thrown together into one risqué jamboree. It is Mardi Gras in the underworld, and it's everyone's party but yours.
You heard your name called out, following your new title, this is the One, Zion. The crowd roared like a furnace, and the sound echoes in your head, even now.
It's been six months since you arose to your heightened state. All this while, you never questioned that force that you know you felt reviving you, pulling you through when the world was all dark. You stopped bullets, you freed minds. You are essentially the hero they've been waiting for.
Yet it feels like there's something missing.
You absent-mindedly sip the drink in your hand – it's warm and tastes more like brine than anything else. You sniff it. Completely non-alcoholic. The barmaid must genuinely like you, then.
Your newfound abilities as the One never cause you doubt. Yet some days, like now, it feels like the only thing you want to do with wake up again, wake from this reverie and realize, why. Why you? How?
You know the answers are out there, somewhere.
Still, that's not all you've been troubled about.
You set the glass down, staring off into space, somewhere over the heads of the leaping crowds. These are your people, now. One dancer, perspiring profusely, drains the glass you left on the ledge. You observe that the glasses are filled with isotonic beverages rather than depressants, hence the salty taste. Not a bad idea.
"Neo?"
You glance up sharply, recognizing that voice. Trinity. The irony. You're in time to catch the curve of her lips, around your name. You've been watching that a lot lately.
"You're here, then."
She makes her way over to you, never once breaking eye contact. You never see her looking down. She walks as though she's floating, sometimes.
"Link is with Zee. Morpheus-" she blanches, "Morpheus was with Niobe a while ago."
And she's with you?
You can't say that.
"Do you want to sit down?" she asks, somewhat cautiously. She's not herself tonight. This is not the Trinity you've known, with sweat gleaming on her chest, carved in a lavish V; you don't recognize the wild beauty who a thousand men must have asked to dance with tonight.
You sit with her. You want to know the woman under the role she plays, right-hand man onboard the ever-sailing ship.
She chooses her words carefully as she looks out over the sea of people, where their dance is like a tide sweeping across the shore. She says what you least expect her to. "Do you ever think about your family, Neo?"
She must have been thinking of Link and Zee.
Trinity sits delicately on the bench, legs folded beneath her, resting her weight on one hand. You're distracted by the distance between her hand and yours, but you want to follow her gaze.
"They weren't my real family."
You manage five words without stumbling.
She shrugs lightly. Your gaze drops to her bare shoulders. "It was as good as it gets, wasn't it?"
"It's about… taking what you've got," you muse out loud. You've never thought of it this way.
"Everything you've been given," she counters. You've never thought of it that way, either.
You reply with a laugh, "You still can't choose your family, huh."
Trinity's even gaze holds you in your place and holds your tongue. "And then there are obligations."
She's as serious as she ever was. It seems that every time you try to make her smile – that's all, just to see her happy, once in a while – she pins you down again. You wish you could explain.
"I was thinking of some aunt I once had," you add sheepishly. Trinity looks at you again. "I saw her every Friday for tea, she used to pinch my cheeks and stuff me with jam cookies."
She doesn't answer right away, but you're certain you see the corners of her mouth twitch. People keep passing the bench to stare. You must look familiar to them. At least four amblers have passed before Trinity speaks again.
"You know," she licks her lips, "I used to have a sister."
She's studying your expression like she's trying to read a map.
"Quiet, kept to herself mostly. She was a bit like you."
You swallow. Your hand hasn't moved an inch, but surely you're two inches closer to Trinity than where you were.
"What happened to her?"
She shrugs again. Beautiful. "She fell in love with someone, and didn't say a word to him. She smiled when he was around, and when he wasn't."
So she had a lot of smiles.
"She learned to smile at her grief."
You don't know where those words came from.
Trinity looks at you curiously.
You ask, "Then what happened to her?"
"I don't know. She…" Trinity hesitates. "She… she wasn't freed."
You want to hit yourself. Of course Trinity had lost contact with whomever she had known before. "I'm sorry."
Trinity shakes her head. "I should be sorry. I shouldn't be burdening you with stories… you have enough to deal with already." Her gaze burns into you, even when you look down at your lap.
There's a light pressure on your right hand. You are startled to find Trinity's hand resting on yours.
She regards you evenly as usual, but her today her eyes are not ice. "You still can't sleep?"
You try not to look suspiciously at her. "What do you mean?"
"Half the ship can hear you walking around at night, Neo."
You recall the one night you actually tried walking around wearing only your socks, and almost froze to the deck of the ship. After that you'd kept your boots on, at night too.
"If you're afraid of something…" Her hand loosely holds yours.
"Of what?"
She fidgets. Her eyes keep darting over your shoulder, as if to look at someone behind, but there are only a few girls who've been there for the past hour or so. "Sleeping. If the captain hears that you sleep one night a week-"
"It's not sleeping I'm afraid of," you admit wearily. "I've been… they're… they're just dreams."
You carefully avoid Trinity's gaze this time, but you don't move your hand.
The same bargirl drifts by again, brandishing her wares and cooing. You signal to Trinity that you want to leave. She doesn't seem to get the message. Finally you tug gently on her hand, and she gets up with you. Blindly you push through the crowds, trying to remember where you saw the other cluster of empty benches.
Your insides lurch suddenly as you realize that you've just pulled her onto the dance floor.
The ground quivers with the thousands of gyrating crowds. The cave looks like one enormous salad bowl, with its people being tossed around. You feel Trinity squeeze your hand gently, fingers interlaced with yours.
If I've just asked you to dance with me, Trinity, I'm sorry… Please don't take this the wrong way, but-
Jostled by the crowd, you inadvertently take another step towards her. Your shoulders touch. Her skin feels like it's on fire…
"Do you know that girl?" Trinity asks carefully. She means a girl from the group earlier, the one with the waist-length brown hair who's just pointed excitedly in your direction.
"She's scaring me," you mutter. Someone knocks into you and your shoulder hits Trinity's again.
The whole group of teenaged girls – around six – begins giggling. You catch a strain of their conversation.
"… I don't know who Neo's dancing with, do you think he'll dance with me?"
Trinity shoots you a disgusted look. You can't tell if it was meant for you or for them. "I don't know them," you say hurriedly, "but they were clustered there before you came."
She shakes her head. "Fangirls." Her gaze drops. "Good move, they won't follow you here. Most just come to stare."
The same girl is definitely staring at you with enormous brown Bambi eyes under glimmering eyelids.
One of them catches sight of Trinity at long last and says, rather audibly, to the first, "You think she's with him? What a slut! Do you think I'll be able to get rid of her?"
Trinity ignores them, this time. It's clear she's not the least bothered. She catches you looking at the first girl.
"A little young for you, don't you think, Neo?" she comments dryly.
You can't tell if she's joking or not. Someone lands crushingly on your foot. Holding hands almost feels a bit silly with so many gazes boring into you.
"Shh, he was looking at Joo just now!"
The girl with the waist-length hair blushes but brightens. "Maybe he'll dance with me!"
You feel uncharacteristically nervous as the girl starts making her way over to you through the crowd. "Trinity," you mumble, "I'd better leave."
Without a word Trinity turns and heads in the opposite direction of your pursuers, pulling you along. Maybe she's used to this, or maybe she just knows Zion better than you do. So far, you've only devised one definite route to your room, and you don't even know if that's where she's taking you. Several men brush aggressively close against Trinity as you follow her – most probably on purpose – but she somehow endeavors to remain relatively unscathed. Her hand is warm, reassuring, holding on to yours tenaciously, yet she glances back often, expression suggesting that you're stalking her and she can't shake you, though most likely the look isn't directed at you.
"Where are we going?" you finally manage to say, as Trinity slows her pace. You've made it to the other side of the thundering crowds. The ground shakes under your feet and the cadence of the drumming is everywhere in you.
"There'll be more of them outside your room," Trinity mutters grimly, "and if you're unlucky, inside your room too."
You probably pale, but then Trinity's grip on your hand tightens. Joo has crept up behind you and is barely two meters away. She has a shy smile pinned to her face. Adorable though she may be, she's really not your type. And if she asks you to dance, the rest will follow.
Where are all the teenaged boys in Zion?
You sink into a half-crouch, but everyone has seen you already. You're near enough to whisper into Trinity's ear, "Where are the nearest stairs?" You figure you can put a good distance between the girls and yourself, if stairs are really that difficult to climb in a dress.
Trinity, though, has other ideas. "The stairs we have are unsafe, and for emergencies only," she whispers back. You're aware of her hand, more on your waist than your shirt hem, carefully steering you backwards through the crowd.
By now, Joo has caught up. "Neo, I'll dance with you!" she proclaims.
You stare.
"Nobody has danced with you at all, Neo," she giggles, "you must be so lonely."
Trinity stares. She still has her hand on your waist. This must be an awkward situation for her.
"We- I was just leaving," you mumble.
Joo visibly wilts, like a plant that hasn't been watered in a week. "Oh… but you're coming back, aren't you?"
You hope not. Inadvertently you take another step back. "Maybe later."
Joo recovers instantly, brushing hair away from her face and smiling at you. "Oh, great!"
She runs back and you distinctly hear her squealing, "He says he'll come back and dance with us! He talked to me!" Her voice is glazed with sugar.
Trinity stares stoically ahead, gazing at what looks to you like a dark tunnel somewhere across the floor. "Do you still want to go?"
She takes your silence as consent and you walk with her, side by side. If she ever had to deliver a package in the Matrix, she would undoubtedly play the soldier and you, the cargo. You know now why few others on board find her iron discipline unnerving. It's a part of who Trinity is.
The passageway is dim, but you recognize it to be similar to the one you entered Zion by. The two of you are painfully alone in the deserted corridor. Trinity keeps glancing at you out of the corners of her eyes. Her hand slips off your waist after a while. Your heart slips into your stomach. It feels now as if she was only keeping it there as long as necessary.
The corridor narrows, and you still haven't thought of anything to say to her. The dancers you left behind long ago, but you can still hear the rhythm of the music, which you realize that, in an odd way, you had been following. In a completely crazy way, you think, almost laughing, until she released you, you'd been dancing with Trinity.
You pause to catch your breath, Trinity stopping to stand beside you, breathing ragged from the run. You can just make out the sweat shimmering on her skin in the faint light. You can tell she's about to say something, but she's cut off by an unearthly screech.
"Neo!"
A voice wails down the tunnels, echoing around the corridor, especially ominous. You wonder if Zion ever celebrates Halloween.
"You didn't say when you'd be back, Neo!"
This time, you clutch Trinity's arm, steering her along like a jealous husband. You can barely make out her expression, but is resembles one of surprise, unsurprisingly.
Blindly you stumble down the tunnel. You can hear the girls behind you, and you frankly can't care less where this passageway goes. You can just see brighter lights, quite a distance away. You speed up.
Just in time to crash into a wall.
You thrust out a hand in time to stop yourself from ramming into the wall head on, scraping your palm on the sharp, uneven piping jutting out of the wall. Trinity crashes into you from behind. It's a strange tango, where you attempt to fling your partner into the nearest obstacle but miss. Just for an instant, her chest presses into your back, her head leans on your shoulder, her lips are too close to your neck and you're too distracted by her heart beating to move.
The sensation evaporates like alcohol on your skin as you begin pulling Trinity along again, groping your way along the wall with your cut hand to avoid missing sharp turns. You wonder if she should be leading – she could probably navigate Zion in her sleep – but she seems quite content to let you handle it.
Two more sharp left turns and you're still running. Your breath comes quickly and your throat is dry. The lights are getting brighter. Your left hand stings until it has almost no feeling, and your right hand feels as if it is about to pop from its socket from holding Trinity's for so long – the palm of the hand doesn't mind. You turn right. What you see makes you stop again.
Ships, rows and rows of hovercrafts, like wheat fields. To your eyes, it seems that thousands of ships are moored to their homeland tonight. You can almost hear waves lapping as the sea gently rocks the ships to sleep, safe in their harbor.
You stutter, "Whoa."
Trinity seems unaffected by the sight, just mildly interested and somehow grim. You wonder how many of these ships will return again. You marvel that there are so many left. The glass if half empty and half full. Behind her, Joo and the others have caught up. You scan the area nervously in search of a hole you can crawl into. You don't feel up to playing hide-and-seek amongst the ships.
You're completely at your wit's end, almost resigned to dancing with teenaged girls half your age when Trinity turns to them calmly.
"You're not allowed here," she shoots to the group. "Soldiers only. We're here to check on our ship. Urgent repairs, no need to bother anyone else."
"I'll come right back… later on," you add hastily. "Give me… an hour."
Trinity gives Joo a glare she usually reserves for when she's feeling really pissed about something. You feel suddenly rather sorry for the group as they leave, positively quivering. You're alone with Trinity again.
"So… do you want to look at the Neb, soldier, or do you just want to go back?" You ask Trinity. Right at the corner of the shipyard, you spot the familiar pair of gray doors you have so longed to see. "There's an elevator over there," you point out. You wonder how Trinity could have missed it.
"That's- an elevator. We might as well go back," Trinity agrees. She'd hesitated, you can tell. Still, you carry yourself by the magnificent rows of ships over to the elevator at the corner. There's an enormous ramp leading up to the elevator, it's presumably a cargo lift, from its rough but durable, industrial-sized appearance. The doors grind open sluggishly and you step in, hitting the button for your floor. Both of you are on the fourth floor. You move to the back of the elevator, Trinity following suit.
You have no idea how long this will actually be.
---
The lit cranks up cantankerously, heaving uncertainly, as if torn between going up and going down. You watch the numbers above the elevator doors lighting up in turn. Second floor.
Trinity looks down at the floor. She seems to enjoy looking at floors whenever you look at her, yet you don't quite know why. You've never found joy in counting the cracks in the floor.
The number two flickers off, and three lights up. The elevator rumbles and the floor of the elevator actually shakes. You look at Trinity again, but she seems completely unperturbed by the elevator, like she's expected all of this. Perhaps most of Zion's elevators worked this way. Trinity's barely spoken since her lecture to the girls. You find yourself wishing she would look back at you.
The number three winks. You wait for the number four to come on, and for the elevator to come to a stop. The four never does. Instead, the elevator scrapes and screeches, metal clanking against metal. Jolting several times, it finally came to a stop.
You're just feeling grateful when the lights flicker and go out.
"Oh, crap."