The Matrix: Legacy
Eleven
Librarian
"Gunner, mi amigo, are you sure you're all right?" Horizon asked her burly friend.
He sighed. "I'm just worried about Avvy."
She nodded. "I am too, but what can we do? We're good, but neither of us would last very long against his bodyguards, especially if those rumours are true like you said."
"Hey, all I know is that I shot two of them between the eyes - one of whom had already taken the entirety of one of my clips to the chest - and both of them got up afterwards. Then I shot at another two and they fucking dematerialised. And then I was on the opposite side of the city by walking through two doors."
Horizon sighed. She would have blamed this memory on drug-induced hallucinations, but she knew well that know matter how connected he was to the drug cartel he said he wasn't, Gunner did not use them. He wasn't about to leave any trail for the cops to use.
And as Gunner never lied this outrageously, she knew his story had to be true, amazing as it was. "Don't worry," she reassured him. "Avvy's a smart kid. She'll get herself out of that mess. Now help me with this box."
Gunner seized on the new topic gratefully as he pulled a heavy box from the U-Haul. "Horizon, are you sure about this move?" he asked.
By now, this conversation could have been scripted. In fact, Avalon had taken to reciting it along with them in sign language.
Horizon grinned at him. "For the nth time, Gunner, yes, I'm sure."
"But I don't like you being in this part of town. It's not exactly the best place for pretty girls, especially young ones."
"Gunner, I'm nineteen years old and a black belt in aikido, as well as a dead shot with those Inoxes you gave me. I think I can handle myself." The conversation continued as Gunner carried the box of books upstairs, Horizon right behind him with her smallish TV. It was interrupted as Gunner's cell phone went off.
Horizon snickered at the expression on his face when he realised that it was playing the hokey-pokey. "God damn it, stop hacking the rings on my cell phone!" he told her before answering. Horizon could see by the tightening of his dark face that the call was not a social one. "All right, I'll be right in," he said at last before hanging up.
"Horizon-" he started, but she shushed him.
"Go do your job. I'll be fine on my own. You already got the furniture in."
He nodded and got on his motorcycle, revving up and racing away. Horizon sighed as he left. "Get out of there, Gunner," she said softly, mostly to herself. "It's gonna end up killin' you if you're not careful."
She set the TV down in her new apartment and dragged the box of books in as well before going back down for more boxes. She was almost done unloading anyway, Gunner had helped her with the important stuff. Horizon giggled as she recalled that her mother still thought she and the much-older Gunner were an item and that Gunner was her bitch.
In truth, while she and Gunner were good friends, they were also nothing more. Gunner seemed to be asexual, while Horizon herself was single and not, at the moment, looking. She was well pleased with the way her life was going: sophomore year of college, month two of her part-time job as librarian's assistant at a local elementary school, and still no sign of the FBI on her tail over her other job.
There was a reason why she'd moved to a lesser-income area of the City.
Horizon managed to drag her boxes of clothes upstairs - the elevator was out, she'd been told, again - before returning for the last box, another one of book. A look inside made her groan as she realised that they were mostly hardcover.
After a lot of struggling, she got it inside. Resting for a moment, she eyed the stairs with trepidation before sighing and starting to battle the box once more. Horizon made it almost to her floor before the box shifted, throwing the petite woman off-balance. She toppled backwards with a sharp cry-
Only to feel a strong arm encircle her waist, holding her up straight. Another arm prevented the box from flying downstairs and potentially killing anyone climbing up. Wide-eyed, adrenaline pumping through her veins at her close call, she peered around the box to see her saviour: a very cute Chinese man.
He helped her the rest of the way and set the box down for her. "Are you all right?" he asked her, concern in his tone.
Horizon's legs had given way, and she was sitting on the stairs, recovering from that close call. "Pienso que estaré en un minuto," she said, not even realising that she was speaking Spanish. Fortunately, he seemed to understand her anyway.
"That is good. I am glad that Sati saw you downstairs, or else you might have been seriously injured."
She offered the man a weak smile. "Thanks for helping me out."
He gave her a polite bow. "It was my pleasure, Miss...?"
"Miss Seferino!" a child's voice cried happily as a little girl sprang upon the woman to give her a hug.
Horizon blinked in surprise, then grinned and hugged the child back. "Hey, brat! I didn't know you lived here." Sati drew back to smile brightly at her and nod.
"You two know each other?" the man's polite, accented voice asked.
Horizon nodded. "I'm the assistant librarian at Sati's elementary school. Her class I call the brats, the other class I call the twerps. Helps me tell 'em apart."
Sati's nod confirmed this. Obviously she and her classmates didn't mind being called 'brats'. "Sati is quite the little reader," Horizon added to him.
He nodded, smiling. "Yes, she has a voracious appetite for books. Sati, why don't you go see if those cookies are finished?"
"Okay!" she cried happily and ran off.
Man and teen exchanged tolerant smiles before Horizon offered him her hand. "I'm Betsabé Seferino, Sabé to my friends and Horizon to my very close friends." To her utter surprise, instead of shaking her hand the man drew it to his lips.
"Then I hope that we will be friends, Miss Sabé. I am Seraph, Sati's guardian," he said after kissing her hand.
Horizon blushed. "It's just Sabé, Mr. Seraph," she said quietly.
"Then you must call me Seraph," he countered, and she agreed. Then he released her hand. "Will you allow me to help you with that box?" he offered.
"Yes, thank you," she answered, still a bit stunned by the kiss. Seraph easily picked it up and asked her to lead the way. Horizon snapped out of her Seraph-induced stupor and showed him into the apartment. Once Seraph had set the box down, she had pounced on it and had it open, checking to make sure that the near fall hadn't harmed her precious books.
Seraph chuckled as she looked them over. "I'll shall take my leave of you now, Sabé," he said. "If you need any assistance, please do not hesitate to ask. Sati and I are three doors down from you."
"Thanks for the offer," Horizon grinned. Seraph bowed and left, then Horizon got around to settling in, pushing her furniture where she wanted it. "Now a man like that," she mused to herself, "I wouldn't mind marrying somewhere down the road."
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When Link and Sparks received their gifts from Sati, Sparks soberly proclaimed, "I am going to find some way to get in the Matrix and give that girl a big hug and as many dresses as she wants."
On Spark's disk was a program capable of seeing inside the backdoors of the system; on Link's was a program to crack the encryption surrounding the Merovingian's château and make communications possible. Both operators set immediately to making copies for the other operators and put out a call to the Mjolner so they could give AK his.
"I wonder if she knows how much easier she just made life for us operators," Link mused.
Ghost considered the P229 S that Sati had given him, the speedy little sedan she had given Niobe, and the gifts to the two kids. "I think she does," he said after a moment.
"I wonder why she's making these for us," Danaë said softly. She was bandaged from the effects of her battle with the Twin, but her injuries in the real world were much less severe - she had, however, gotten a talking-to from Niobe about remembering that the Matrix was not real so that her injuries would not harm her physical body. Niobe was privately convinced that Axel's wound from the Agents two years ago had been part of what had lost them the Vigilant: Axel had needed a heavy leg brace after the airport incident, and Commander Locke had been telling Soren for a year to get his rusty catwalks fixed.
She blinked back tears at their memory and said gruffly, "Because she likes us. What more reason does she need?"
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lehorin-- Yes, it is, and yes, it does. You see, the words for Neodämmerung came from a Hindu holy text. -nods-