Yay! I now have occasional access to the Internet on a friend's computer. Hopefully I'll be able to upload relatively regularly from now on.
To da*mouse: Luchist represents no one from the Matrix. I added him myself sort of to be for Hao what Manta is for Yoh, mostly because I needed to get the Asakura bros on different ships. The whole thing is a little bit of a race, because to find the One would mean pretty much infinite honor (and bragging rights.) To be honest, in preliminary outlines for this story, Hao actually almost ended up on the Logos (from Reloaded), with Kanna as Niobe (for the Morpheus-Niobe tension, you know?) but I thought any reference to even a past Manta/Kanna relationship would be nothing short of an affront to Shaman King. ^_~
Yoh looked about at the new scenery. The dojo was gone, and he and Manta were standing on top of a building about fifty stories high. The entire scenery was a teeming metropolis, and several other buildings rose to similar levels nearby. "This is the jump program?" he asked.
Manta nodded.
This is what Hao was talking about. He said he made it on his first try. I guess I'll have to see if I can live up to that.
"You'll have to let go of any anger and frustration. You have to let go of everything. Free your mind." So saying, he turned, ran to the edge of the rooftop, and jumped.
Before Yoh had a chance to even cry out, Manta had sailed in a huge, graceful arc to the roof of the next building. There he stood, an impossible amount of meters away, waiting. Yoh stared. No way he could do that.
But Morpheus was waiting.
Hao had done it.
Taking a deep breath, Yoh braced himself. "Okay. Free my mind. Yeah. No problem." Biting his lip in concentration, he ran, racing toward the edge.
*
"He's going to make it," breathed Faust, still watching the screen with the rest of the crew clustered around.
"No way," said Ren. "It's not possible."
"What if he does?" proposed Pilica.
"He won't," replied Ren stubbornly.
"It's never been done," reasoned Silva.
Anna clasped her hands so hard her knuckles turned white and the skin beneath her fingers turned painfully red. "Come on…"
*
With a cry, Yoh flung himself into the air. He could see Manta, watching with concentration and suspense, could envision reaching that other edge.
And then he was falling, plummeting as the windows sped by, his stomach painfully clenched. He could see the black asphalt of the street flying up to meet him, and braced himself for the fatal impact.
There was no sickening crunch at the end, though. The road dented in response, cushioning his fall, and then bounced him back up as if it were elastic. When he landed the second time, it was solid. He lay there for a moment, his heart pounding in his ears, the adrenaline pumping through his system.
Manta came to his side and offered him a hand. "Everyone falls the first time."
Yoh nodded, though he was thinking of Hao.
"If you never know failure, how can you know success?"
Ask my brother that, thought Yoh with disappointment. He's the one who knows success.
*
The group around the screens began to disperse now that there was nothing more to see. "What does it mean?" asked Horohoro to no one in particular.
"It doesn't mean anything," said Faust quietly as Silva brought the Yoh and Manta back to the real world.
"Everyone falls, right Anna?" asked Lyserg. He turned to see her expression at Yoh's failure, but she was gone. No one had noticed her leave the Core.
Yoh opened his eyes as he let out a small groan of pain. Silva gently eased the plug from the back of his head, and then went to help Manta. Ignoring Horohoro's hand offered in help for the moment, Yoh stuck two fingers in his mouth and removed them coated in scarlet. "I thought it wasn't real," he said softly, looking at the blood. A thought tugged at his mind. "If you're killed in the matrix, do you die here too?"
Manta's lips thinned into a grim line. "The body cannot live without the mind."
*
True to Silva's promise, Yoh had no trouble at all falling asleep that night. He skipped dinner entirely, in fact, and went straight to his room. It was a blissfully dreamless rest despite his turbulent thoughts and concerns, one he badly needed.
Around eleven at night, the door opened ever so slightly, allowing in a thin spear of light from the hallway, framing Anna's silhouette. She entered noiseless, bearing a tray with a bowl and cup. "I saved you some dinner," she whispered, though she didn't expect a response.
Yoh did not stir, the steady rise and fall of his chest not losing its gentle rhythm. She placed the tray down on a small desk-like shelf protruding from the wall opposite his bed and pulled the rumpled mass of blanket from the floor. Shaking it out once, she spread it gently over him, then stood back, simply studying the youth before her.
He looked surprisingly young when he was asleep, innocent and untroubled by the state of the world around him. For a moment, he was nothing more than the boy who had blushed when he touched her. She smiled in spite of herself, remembering his untainted awkwardness, so different from the worldly self-confidence of his brother. She wondered if there was any significance in these observations. Perhaps it meant something. Perhaps it meant nothing.
Like the jump. Faust had said it meant nothing, but she couldn't be quite sure. She turned and left the room, closing the door softly behind her.
The moment the latch clicked shut, Yoh started awake, for a moment unsure of where he was. Then he relaxed as everything came back. Turning on the small bedside light, he sat up. Oddly enough, he didn't feel sleepy anymore.
Looking over his narrow, Spartan room for something to do, he caught sight of the dinner. He wasn't hungry though, and passed it by without a second glance as he left his room. Perhaps he could find wiring to repair or something.
Yoh wandered the halls, hoping vaguely that he didn't get lost as he had that afternoon. The halls were darker, and some passages were barely lit at all. Feeling his way by lightly brushing his fingertips along the wall, he walked through the shadows, still feeling as if it was all perhaps a dream.
A green glow from a branch of the hall caught his eye. He followed it, and found himself in the Core once again. It was empty and still now, except for a lone figure, sitting in front of the forever scrolling command screens.
"Lyserg?" Yoh ventured.
The boy jumped and spun around, then relaxed. "Oh. Yoh, you scared me."
"Sorry," he said, leaning on a large metal box of discs.
"It's all right," said Lyserg, turning back to the screens.
"What're you doing?"
"Midnight watch."
Yoh leaned closer to the screen, studying the flowing streams of numbers and symbols. "Is that…?"
"The matrix? Yeah. You get used to it. I don't see the numbers anymore; I see people, buildings, trees…" Lyserg took a reflective sip from the cup he held. "Want a drink?"
"Sure."
Lyserg poured some unidentifiable liquid into another cup from a jug he had nearby and handed it to Yoh, who took a sip. He pulled a face, studying the contents of his mug. "What is this?"
"Not bad, eh? Faust makes it. It's the closest thing we have to proper English tea here. Grows on you, but I kind of miss the original stuff."
"Are you English?"
"In the matrix, I suppose I was," Lyserg said softly. "But I guess we're all Zion's now."
"Yeah."
"Did Morpheus tell you why he freed you?"
Yoh scratched his head. "Sort of, I guess."
"He thinks you're the One," said Lyserg, not looking away from the screens. Their green luminescence looked uncanny reflecting off his emerald eyes. "The one who will deliver humanity from the machines and free us all."
"Big job," said Yoh, his heart sinking.
"Yes. This…isn't the first time Manta's thought he found the One. Just thought you should know."
"Yeah," said Yoh. "Thanks." A pause. "So you think it might be someone else? You know, not me?"
Lyserg shrugged, a glint of pain in his eyes. "I can't say. But you, you haven't met an Agent face to face in all their fighting form and when they know who you really are. Things…things change when that happens. You get a taste of real life." He took another sip. "Sometimes it's kind of bitter."
"Have you run into any Agents?"
The green-haired boy took a sip from his empty cup. "We all have. Some more than others, though." His voice stopped for a moment as if on its own accord. "It's not something I would wish on anyone."
Yoh felt a shiver grip him.
"Everyone comes away scarred in one way or another. We've all lost something to them. Or someone. I've…lost friends to the Agents."
…Agents. They don't play games. They kill you. Yoh flinched, the echo of Anna's voice reverberating in his mind. Why was it always her voice he heard? "I'm sorry," he said quietly.
"It's the real world," said Lyserg quietly. "Like mothers always say, life's not fair. They never tell you how really ugly it can be too."
"Or beautiful."
"Neh?"
"People also say that life is beautiful. Have you heard that one?"
"I have. But sometimes I wonder if they're just dreamers."
"I think it's beautiful," said Yoh, a vision of soft skin and golden hair rising in his mind. He hurriedly pushed it away. "She's – I mean, it's not something I'd want to lose, not something I'd give up readily."
Lyserg gave him a curious glance, perhaps wondering at the slip of words. He chose to ignore it, though. "I suppose you do have a point there."
There was a moment of quiet as the topic seemed to die, and they searched for something new. "Ah…is it usual for siblings to be on the same ship? I mean, Horohoro and Pilica are brother and sister, right? And Silva and Chrom…"
"Same family, but not brothers. Second cousins or something, I think. But Horohoro and Pilica are siblings. I suppose it might be a little unusual. Being ready to be freed is not always something that runs in the family. Sometimes we leave people behind. A lot of them leave parents because adults are harder to free. Like Morpheus said, they have trouble letting go."
"Oh… Did you…?"
"Leave my parents? No." Lyserg poured himself another cup of pseudo-tea. "I was an orphan years before I was freed."
"That's tough," said Yoh with genuine sympathy.
"I don't really remember them."
"I know how that is. When I was one, our house burned down. My mom got my brother and me out, but my dad didn't make it. I guess I never appreciated it like I should have, but it must have been hard being a single mom trying to raise twin boys. My grandparents helped some too, but still."
Lyserg nodded. "I spent most of my time in foster homes, moving from family to family." He closed his eyes momentarily. "I stayed the longest at the last home, even dared to hope I might be adopted. I wouldn't be the first. The family had one son, almost ready for college, but they had also adopted a daughter pretty close to my age."
"Sounds like a good place," said Yoh.
"Yes," he replied softly, wistfully. "It was one of the few places I really felt loved. But…" He swallowed. "But the Agents took my foster sister and brother a little before I was freed."
He knows what it's like to lose a brother more than I do, realized Yoh with a jolt. "I…I'm sorry," was all he could manage to say, though the condolences sounded so useless.
Lyserg was silent.
"Hey, um, thanks for the drink," said Yoh, placing his cup back down. "I'll be going back to bed now."
"Sure," said Lyserg. "Oyasumi." He said no more, immersed in the memories as Yoh's footsteps faded into the darkness.
~~~
"I can't get this to work," said the little boy, his green eyes bright and excited as he held out the contraption of wires.
The person he had been addressing, a youth of about eighteen, looked up from his book on the Crusades. "What is that?"
"I'm making it! I want it so that when I put in batteries, that lever will move, see?"
"Lemme have a look, Lyserg," said the older boy, sitting down on the floor and examining the object. "I think I can fix it."
"Really?"
A casual nod.
Lyserg laughed, pleased. "You're the best brother I ever had, Marco!"
"What about me?" asked a voice from the doorway.
Lyserg looked up and grinned. "And you're the best sister, Jeanne!"
"Are your parents home, kid?"
Lyserg gazed up at the two men in pale grey suits standing on the doorstep. "Yeah…"
His foster parents came quickly at his call. The men showed them a pair of official-looking badges, and Lyserg caught something about computers. He followed timidly as they walked to the back room, where they found Jeanne typing avidly, her eyes focused on the screen, though she glanced at the strangers with dislike.
"She likes to write little stories or play the elementary learning games we have," explained his foster mother, obviously nonplussed by their unexpected visitors.
The pale-suited men did not respond. "Young lady," said the first man, "I need you to take your hands off the keyboard for a moment."
Quietly, Jeanne obliged; Lyserg noticed her hands shaking.
"How old are you?" asked the second man.
"Eight," said Jeanne quietly.
The first man studied the screen, his face grim. She had obviously neither been writing a tale nor playing children's games. Not according to what he saw there. "Do you know what you were doing?"
She paused, and then shook her head.
"Do you know what you were looking at?"
Another shake of the head.
"These are confidential government files. How did you get to these?"
Her mother covered her mouth. Jeanne said nothing.
"Answer the man," urged her father, his voice shaking slightly.
"I don't know."
"Has anyone shown you how to do this?"
"No. I just was pushing buttons. I was pretending I was driving a spaceship."
Faced with the hard facts of her age, the man was forced to accept her excuse for the moment, though he obviously was not convinced. They left with a warning for the parents to monitor computer activity more closely.
"You have to be more careful next time! That was too close!"
Lyserg stood unnoticed in the doorway as Marco chastised Jeanne.
"They won't catch me," said Jeanne quietly.
"It's too dangerous. I don't want anything happening to you, or for Lyserg to get dragged in."
"Urghh, Lyserg, you're too heavy!"
"No, boost me up a little farther! I can almost reach the platform!"
Marco stood back as his foster brother scrambled up to join Jeanne on the platform in the big tree that grew in their back yard. "Okay up there?"
"Yeah! Come on up!"
"I can't!"
"You can climb the rope ladder! Come on!" urged Jeanne, letting her hair drape over the edge as she looked down at her older brother.
"I'm too big," laughed Marco. "I'll break the tree!"
Lyserg
snorted. "No you won't."
So Marco made his way up,
snapping several thin branches in the process, but eventually succeeding in
joining his younger siblings. "Nice view
up here."
"Yeah," said Lyserg. "I can see the roof of our house three meters away."
"Cynical," teased Marco, leaning back against the trunk of the tree. "Lovely day, though, isn't it?"
Jeanne nodded. "But don't you feel like it's not real?"
Lyserg looked at her quizzically. "What do you mean?"
"Like it's just some sort of setup. Like there's more. Like we don't belong here."
The boys were silent for a moment.
"Yeah…" said Marco quietly.
"Where do we belong then?" asked Lyserg.
Jeanne looked away, studying the intricate veins on the leaves around her. "I don't know."
"Check this out!"
Lyserg and Jeanne came to see what Marco was looking at. He pushed the screen of his laptop back a little so they could get a good view. He had been watching a hacker chat room, and something interesting had cropped up.
Someone, screen name Ashcroft53, was claiming to understand the words "matrix" and "Agents."
"It says," paraphrased Marco for his younger siblings, "that Agents are pure data, that they can take over almost anyone by a rearrangement of that data, and that they can do things people would think impossible." His eyes held an enraptured light. "Don't you see? This is power!"
"You can't be an Agent, Marco," said Lyserg, a pleading tone in his voice, frightened by the growing obsession in his foster brother. "You said they're pure data! We're human!"
Marco put his forehead in his hands. "I know, Lyserg, but have you heard what Agents do? They protect and preserve the world as it is now! Their strength is incredible; it outweighs anything in history! I could learn, but I can't seem to contact anyone that can help me!"
"Aren't you happy with us?" asked Jeanne. "Do you have to look for a chance to run off and be a hero? Must you bring the Agents down upon us?"
Marco looked at her oddly, contemplating what she had just said. "Bring them…" He snapped his fingers. "That's it! They came once before, came to us. Called by…" his eyes swept over Jeanne, the light in them making Lyserg grasp her hand protectively "…you."
"No more, Marco, please," begged Lyserg, helping Jeanne ice her bruises.
She said nothing, but sat stoically, her eyes blank.
"You're improving," said Marco to his sister, approval in his voice. "It was already extraordinary that you didn't break anything on your first jump from the tree house, and now it's looking more and more like a graceful jump than a fall. You're learning to control what's around you as well as yourself."
"Why can't you learn yourself!" demanded Lyserg. "Why can't you leave Jeanne out of this?"
"Because," said Marco, "She has potential I can only dream of."
"And I am learning," said Jeanne quietly, her eyes fixed on the roll of gauze nearby. Slowly, as she concentrated, it unrolled itself and wrapped itself around her scraped knee. "I can manipulate what I see."
"Like you can manipulate a computer," said Lyserg, the pieces falling impossibly together.
"Yes."
As Marco had predicted, the Agents did come, drawn by the increasing power the three children had toyed with. Though Jeanne was still strides ahead of both her brothers, Lyserg and Marco had also begun to learn to influence their surroundings little by little.
But the Agents would not be swayed. "Look, kid," said one of the two who had come, "we can't just make you an Agent. You're human."
Lyserg watched, uneasy about Marco's dealings, reluctant to stand next to him as Jeanne was. Both seemed so different from the people he had once known.
"You aren't my only option," said Marco coldly. "There's still Zion."
The Agents exchanged glances. "Zion is only death."
"Chances are, though, I know a lot more about Agents than almost anyone in Zion. That could be a problem for you."
A pause. "You know that should we choose to take you over as an Agent, you will lose all you once were, memories included."
"I don't care."
Lyserg flinched at these words and was about to run to his foster brother when a hand caught his arm. He turned to see a boy of about his size with short, light brown hair. "Don't," said the boy. "They're not your brother and sister anymore. It's too dangerous."
"What's happened to them?" asked Lyserg, strangely afraid.
"You'll understand later, but it's not safe here or now. You have to get away from them as soon as possible. My name is Morpheus; will you trust me?"
Lyserg looked around the corner again.
"They have already become mostly data. They will join the Agents," said Morpheus quietly, a touch of sadness in his voice. "I cannot save them, but there is still hope for you."
Lyserg turned back to him. "How do you know all this?"
"I know the truth, nothing more. We are running out of time."
"Okay," said Lyserg quietly.
"Will you trust me enough to leave them behind?"
Already, the atmosphere was changing. They could feel the presence of the Agents, suddenly forbidding and unfriendly. "Yes."
Morpheus opened his hand to reveal two capsules. "Then take the red pill. We have no time."
~~~
Lyserg shivered and downed another sip of tea. The crew of the Nebuchadnezzer was close enough to family, but there was still a painful void they could not fill.
To be continued…This is kind of a longer than usual chapter – which is sad considering how much so many of you excellent writers can put into a single chapter. *coughApple-chancough*