Thank you to my first two reviewers of this story, Kal Torak and richard the pedantic, I hope you like this chapter as much as you liked the first one. Constructive reviews welcomed. Enjoy!
Oh, and I've just realised, from re-reading the brilliant story 'Legacy' again from my favourites list, that the idea for the dolls actually came from Dark Puck, so I really should say thank you to you, and advise anyone who reads this to read this persons works, because they are brilliant!
Morpheus stood in the room and waited for the boy to materialize. Niobe had informed him straight away about her newest crewmember, and about the request made in the Matrix Angels' message.
It had taken five days to get the boy into a fit state after unplugging, and a further couple to download him with everything he needed to know and test that knowledge. And now, it was his first trip to the Oracle. Morpheus was taking him alone, as one person was enough to accompany someone to the Oracle's apartment these days.
The boy materialized in front of him, scared and anxious as his name suggested. Thankfully, Niobe had shown him what Morpheus looked like, so he would at least know that, but Rabbit was still as anxious as ever he was.
Morpheus led the boy down the street and into an old, decrepit looking building, pausing to look behind him at Rabbit every so often to make sure he was still with him. Rabbit had stopped before entering the elevator, picking a piece of paper off the floor that had caught his eye. Morpheus had ignored it at first, believing it to be the usual rubbish that littered the building, but he changed his mind when he saw Rabbits face when he was looking at it. He seemed to be surprised yet intrigued looking at the paper, and his face lit up into the faint glimmer of a smile. Morpheus tried to discreetly look over the lad's shoulder at the paper, but was confused to only see only a logo-like drawing with the words "good luck" in scrawley writing underneath it.
The drawing was of an equilateral triangle, pointing upwards. Inside there were three letters, an 'N' and a 'T' at the top, and an 'S' at the bottom, filling up almost all of the room inside. Morpheus didn't understand whatever message the boy had picked up, but then he reminded himself that he didn't necessarily need to, but the drawing plagued his thoughts until he reached the Oracle's door.
The door was opened for the two visitors by a figure that came up to Morpheus' waist. Morpheus smiled and crouched down until he was eye level with the girl.
"Hello, Sati. How are you today? May we come in?"
The girl gave an adorable laugh. "Hello, she said it would be you here. She's been waiting to see you two."
Sati moved away from the door, allowing the visitors inside, and made her way into the living room, which was littered with Barbie-like dolls. She picked up two them as she said, "Oracle wants to talk to Rabbit first. You will stay with me, wont you? Do you want to play?" She said holding up a doll in his direction as she gazed upwards into Morpheus' eyes, her soulful brown ones looking up innocently.
Rabbit got a shock when hearing the girl, as he spun around and found him face to face (or well, face to cookie tray,) with the Oracle. The old lady gave a loving laugh, and moved the tray towards Morpheus, who took one, and then she lowered the tray towards Sati, who took three cookies. The little girl was stuffing one in her mouth when the Oracle turned around to go back inside her kitchen, indicating Rabbit to come with her with a loving hand on his shoulder, guiding him. Morpheus always assumed the child program liked 'being' a six-year-old, and didn't want to grow up. It was her own personal Never-Land, and she never wanted to leave.
Morpheus looked down at the crumb littered floor, and then looked closely at the dolls around her. Almost all of them were dressed in black in one form or another. He picked up the one she had offered him, one with a white coat, and studied it. It looked remarkable like Seraph. He picked up dark skinned doll, this time wearing a leather coat. He examined this one very closely, trying to verify what he thought he saw. It was him.
He looked at them all, except for the three Sati was playing enthusiastically with, and recognised them all. The Oracle, Niobe, Ghost, Kid, the Merovingian, Persephone, Cain, Abel, and several other of the Merovingian's minions. He looked at the two dolls remaining in Sati's hands, the third lying just below on her lap. He moved forward and took then from the little girl's hands. She didn't mind; she just smiled sweetly as she let her favourite toys go. Morpheus studied the dolls for a while like he did with his own, although at one glance, he knew he didn't need to. Long black wool coat- Neo. Shiny black outfit, short black hair- Trinity.
His hand was slowly reaching for the last doll in Sati's hands, this time clad in a similar shiny black outfit, but with long black hair, when the girl spoke, bringing him back to reality.
"The Oracle will see you now. Get me another cookie, will you, please?"
Morpheus opened his mouth to say something, but nothing remotely intelligent came to mind. He silently found his way into the kitchen, passing Rabbit on the way, accompanied by a woman with long red hair and startling green eyes, who also looked strangely familiar to Morpheus, but he knew he had never seen anyone like her in his life. He tried to straighten his mind out with all of this curious information, but he just succeeded in giving himself a light headache. He heard the woman say something in a familiar sounding voice to Sati, but then the Oracle brought all attention back to herself as he entered her kitchen.
"Don't try to decipher it, Morpheus. It will only make your headache worse."
Okay, sometimes it was just creepy the way she can know things like that. The Oracle continued to smile eerily at him, slowly lifting the cigarette in her hand to her mouth, breathing in and then exhaling the smoke in what looked like slow motion. She blinked, and then lowered the cigarette into the ashtray, laying it there. She looked intensely at him again, and then started talking.
"Well, it's been a while, hasn't it?" she paused again, reading his face, before continuing.
"I thank you for coming. What I needed to talk to you about is a matter of great importance, yet it is not necessarily urgent." She picked the cigarette up again, and took another drag, before looking seriously at Morpheus.
"Some friends of mine are going to be in contact with you again, in the very near future. They want you to unplug someone. Someone very special to them, and to me."
Morpheus realised whom she was talking about with surprise, but then scalded himself for his ignorance. The Matrix Angels, programs who worked on their side would of course have regular contact with the Oracle, the major program defending the human race.
"I want you to look after her. She is much more special than ordinary unfreed minds, and you need to understand that. She holds many surprises, and is certainty not what you would call normal," the Oracle said with a laugh, "but she knows more than you could imagine. Don't dismiss her because of her age, or newness, she'll prove you wrong. Stand by her side, she's had friends surrounding her all her life in this world, she is going into an environment virtually alone." She sighed.
"You must let your instincts guide you once again, Morpheus. And who knows, you might find lost friends." She smiled again.
"Here, take a cookie. You might as well take another for Sati; she has a sweet tooth, the little beauty. Mull it over for a while, but don't worry, nobody is meant to know everything, especially a secret that has been kept for exactly 18 years now. I imagine I will see you again soon. At the main park on the eve of Remembrance Day? Sati has promised me that she will make the show very beautiful this year. Who knows, she might make the Annual Sunrise as beautiful as it was when she first found her propose." She laughed again, mainly at the look on Morpheus' face as he realised what the Oracle was saying, and what Sati's real purpose was.
The Oracle nudged at the plate on the table, and the now completely confused man picked up two cookies, and exited the kitchen.
He walked up to Sati, who was sitting on the floor, waiting for him. Rabbit was sitting on the sofa beside her. There were no dolls on the ground now. Morpheus passed her a cookie, and she said sadly, "Auntie told me to put them away. That I shouldn't play with them around guests." She suddenly brightened up, and said, "I'll see you again soon. At Remembrance Eve. I'm making an even better sunrise this year, in honour of them." Morpheus knew who 'them' was. Remembrance Day was the day of celebration of the end of the Great War, and of remembrance of those who lost their lives fighting it. Especially Trinity, and Neo, who ended it ultimately. It was common knowledge now that on the eve of that day that there is a magnificent sunrise in the Matrix, in honour of the day. And now Morpheus knew who the little program was that was responsible for it was.
Morpheus, his head still cluttered with ideas and all the information he had just received, motioned to Rabbit. It was time to go.
Morpheus made his way through the building, down the elevator, and to the ground floor, when something caught his eye this time.
One of the tramps that usually slept on the row of seats was reading a newspaper. Morpheus moved towards it, hardly believing that he was seeing was he was. He half expected to wake up in his small hard bed in his quarters. But no. He knew he was awake. The Oracle had told him not to disbelieve what he sees, and it was the main reason he had noticed how artificial and unreal the matrix reality was.
And there in front of him, was the news headline, in enormous letters that spanned the whole page, screaming at him.
TRINITY HACKS AGAIN!