The Matrix: Legacy
Thirteen
Not Unlucky
Abel whirled and ran for Tiger and Avalon, returning to his normal human appearance as he did so. Cain followed suit, trying to get the blood off his face and spitting out more of it, muttering in German. Abel snatched Avalon from Tiger's arms, cradling her close to his chest and putting a hand against her neck, checking for a pulse.
It was there, but fading. "Scheiße," he whispered, laying her on the floor and praising whoever had uploaded that first-aid regimen into him so many years ago. "I'm not letting her die," he said to no one in general as he gently tilted her head back, revealing rapidly bruising marks on her neck, and opened her mouth. He hesitated for a brief moment, then leaned forward, covering her mouth with his, and forced air into her lungs.
After a few breaths, he drew back, breathing for himself, and pushing on her chest to force that air out of her lungs. Tiger and Cain watched helplessly; Tiger, unable to take it, moved to where his friend's limp body lay to check on him. Rage burning in his brown eyes, Tiger turned on the Agent battle.
Jackson was doing better now that he was against a single Agent of an earlier version, but Brown was holding his own. The white-clad vampire simply rose and joined in the battle with no warning, determined to avenge the fallen Seth. Of course, Seth would simply be rebooted, but that wasn't the point. It was the principle of the thing.
The scent of blood was not improving the situation as far as both Cain and Abel were concerned. Their lesser, animal selves were reacting to the blood, especially Abel's: the time of his transformation was near. Abel was forcing air into Avalon's lungs again, drawing away again and panting; he wasn't taking enough air for himself. Cain pushed his cousin aside and gave her a solid thump to the chest, violently expelling the air from her lungs. About to yell at him, Abel stayed his tongue when Avalon drew in a shuddering gasp.
"Avalon!" He reached out and took her into his arms, cradling her against his chest. Her eyes opened, looking at him dazedly. She reached up, as if needing to be sure she wasn't having a death-dream, and touching his cheek. His eyes widened as hers closed and her hand fell to her side; she'd lost consciousness.
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"Score one for the Exiles," Krsna murmured. "They do a good job of keeping their hostages alive, don't they?" There was no answer, and he turned to where Ghost had been. Nothing but the empty chip Ghost had been holding when they'd first entered: It had been snapped in two, and Ghost's blood stained the cracked edges.
In awe, Krsna picked up the pieces and looked at them closely. "Damn," he said softly. He's losing it.
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Jackson was down, and it didn't look like he'd be getting up any time in the near future. Possibly the distant future. Apart from the missing chunk of his arm, he'd lost a good deal of "blood", mostly through a pair of holes in his neck.
That was how the Merovingian found them: trashed room, trashed body of a rogue Agent, broken body of one of his bodyguard programs, two more of those bodyguards with blood on their faces, mainly around their mouths, an ex-Agent staring at the vampire with an expression bordering on awe, and the other bodyguard holding the unconscious body of his prisoner in his arms.
"What in ze hell 'appened here!?" he demanded.
It was Tiger who answered, wiping the blood from his mouth with the sleeve of his red-stained jacket, anger and pain in his dark eyes. "An Agent, sir."
"I can see that," the Merovingian replied slowly, already at the end of his patience. Brown seized the conversation and took it farther, explaining the case of mistaken identity that had nearly had fatal results for Avalon. Once he'd finished, a muscle under the Merovingian's right eye was twitching rapidly.
His blue eyes fell on Tiger's fallen partner, and a slew of French curse words passed his lips. "Get him rebooted," he snapped at Brown and Tiger, then whirled on Cain and Abel. "As for you two, get her somewhere she can't run away from while ze room is fixed."
The four programs moved swiftly, Brown and Tiger grabbing Seth by his feet and arms and carrying him out while Cain and Abel made themselves - and Avalon - scarce. The Merovingian had a temper, and they wanted to be far away when it let loose.
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Danaë had kept Sparks from killing Link over that fourth scare and sent the two of them away when Ghost came in, blood pooling in his hand. Much to the first officer's relief, she didn't ask him how he'd gotten hurt, just silently cleaned the deep, jagged cut and bandaged it with her small, cool hands.
"Thank you," Ghost said softly when she tied off the bandage. He caught one of her hands as she withdrew. "Danaë... are you going to be returning to the Matrix at all?"
She shook her head. "Only if Niobe orders me to," she told him. "I was taken on as medic, not as back-up." She smiled a bit bitterly. "Deadbolt didn't want to let me on in the first place, you know."
Ghost allowed himself to be distracted. "Why?"
She shrugged. "I'm not a hacker." He knew that was bullshit, but didn't press her. People didn't like to talk about their lives before being unplugged to the point of not telling others their real names. For the podborn, telling someone their real name was a sign of strong trust.
Krsna and Locke were, as far as he knew, the only exceptions, and Krsna's name sounded like an alias, so nobody really knew the difference.
Down the ship, they heard Sparks shriek and then yell, "Niobe!" Danaë giggled. "Looks like Niobe couldn't resist scaring him." Ghost nodded. In his mind, though, the fight still replayed. At least he was seeing Avalon now, not Trinity.
He turned to leave, but Danaë caught his wrist. "Ghost, promise me something."
"What?" he asked curiously, looking at the redhead once again.
"Can you remember that she's not Trinity?"
"What?"
Danaë repeated her query, looking at him seriously, then added, "Forgetting that might get you killed." She was worried, he could read it in her eyes. And she was right.
He put on a reassuring smile for her sake and told her, "I'll do what I can."
She smiled back. "Thanks, Ghost." He ruffled her hair and turned to go.
"And Ghost? Just because I'm not going into the Matrix doesn't mean I won't invade your Zen place when you start moping."
Ghost laughed then. "You just want to be beaten down again."
"I need training. I keep betting with Sparks, I get more programs uploaded."
"True."
"And I get the practice I need."
"I concede the point," he told her, ruffling her hair one more time before quitting the medbay and returning to the operating room. He needed to talk to the enigmatic Krsna.
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The troupe had retreated to Cain and Abel's rooms after dropping Seth's body off to be rebooted - and after Cain and Abel remembered where it was. "When was the last time you two were in here?" Tiger asked in disbelief as they finally got the door open via Brown's shoulder.
The werewolves thought about it. "Not since the Invasion," Cain said at last.
Tiger stared at him. "That was during the fourth Matrix!"
"Ja," Abel answered, wandering to the dust-covered laptop and initiating a program to clear the room of dust before setting Avalon down on one of the beds.
Brown blinked. "You two don't use your room?"
"They're infamous for it," Tiger told the confused ex-Agent.
"We sleep where we fall," Abel shrugged as Cain added, "which is generally the library." Brown shook his head, and the werewolf cousins grinned. "It's the wolf in us," Cain said easily, Abel chiming in with, "plus we're used to roaming."
At this Tiger rolled his eyes. "You two stopped roaming a week before the turnover into the third Matrix, and you know it."
"But we grew up doing it," Abel pointed out.
Brown was intrigued. "Grew up? They started you off as child programs?"
Cain and Abel exchanged glances. "We don't know. We.. woke up, I guess, with no memory of ourselves except our names and that we were somehow related. We didn't look too much alike, so we called ourselves cousins. Then people came in and tried to kill us, we discovered we could turn into wolves, and we killed them and fled," Cain explained.
"We wandered for awhile until the Merovingian found us, and wound up here," Abel added, then grinned. "And how we caught his attention."
Tiger scowled. "You just had to bring it up, didn't you?"
"What do you care?" Cain asked. "You weren't there," Abel put in.
Tiger grumbled in Chinese and the werewolves grinned at each other.