The Matrix: Legacy
Sixteen
Runaway
Tiger was the first to realise something was wrong. "Hey, Seth?" he asked. "Mm?" asked his partner, who had his nose stuck in a book by someone called Ian Fleming.
"It's been an hour and a half."
"Mm."
"She's not back yet."
"Mm."
Tiger rolled his eyes and changed tactics.
"Rebels have invaded the castle and made off with the princess."
"Mm."
"The Twins are cross-dressing and making out."
"Mm."
"Rosebud's the sled."
"Mm."
"Persephone's pregnant."
"Mm."
"I'm pregnant."
"Mm."
"What the hell are you reading?"
"Thunderball."
"Good book?"
"Mm."
"Vlad and Cujo have been secret lovers for years."
"Mm."
"The ELVIS program has been rebooted and he's going on tour."
"Mm."
"Smith is back and he's here to assimilate us."
"Mm."
"There's an Agent behind you."
"Mm."
"He's got scissors and he's going to cut your hair."
"NEVER!!!!" Seth screeched, rising out of his chair as one hand protectively yanked his long ponytail over his shoulder.
Tiger rolled his eyes. "Now that I have your attention," he told his partner, "It's been over an hour and the girl isn't back yet."
Seth considered this for .007 seconds. Tiger rather thought he'd done that on purpose. "That's not good."
"No. It's not."
"If she's gone, we are royally fucked."
"Yes. We are."
"Where are the wolves?"
"Where else?"
Tiger and Seth found Cain and Abel and explained the problem; Cain went into the girl's room and searched. He was back quickly, the makeshift rope in his hand. "She's gone."
The four programs stood in silence for a long moment, considering their options. "We're screwed unless we get her back," Seth muttered.
"Yup," Tiger said.
"Outside," Cain ordered. "It's snowing; she's bound to have left some tracks behind somewhere."
Four very amused humans watched the programs troop outside to track down Avalon. Krsna had talked his way into upsetting their tracking and was busily hacking the Matrix... a part of it, anyway. "And... voila" He pushed a button.
"Here are the tracks!" Tiger cried gleefully, bounding to them. "She slipped here... got up... and went...."
The prints vanished.
Tiger stared at them, then looked to the sky. "If this is your idea of a joke, it isn't funny!" he howled.
"Rebels," Cain growled. "They're covering her tracks."
"I can track her," Abel said calmly.
Cain sniffed the air and nodded. "Vanilla. We don't get that scent much up here."
Abel's stomach rumbled audibly, and the others stared at him. He looked sheepish. "... I want some cookies...," he muttered.
"What is it with you and cookies lately?" Cain demanded of his cousin. Abel shrugged.
Seth rolled his eyes and handed Abel a box of sugar cookies. "Three left. You owe me. Now find her!"
Abel gulped down the cookies, then fur started crawling over his body.
Cain stopped him. "Nuh-uh, no way. Too close to harvest moon," he said seriously. "You'll lose control."
"I won't," Abel replied, "and it's the fastest way for us to catch up. Plus the cold won't bother us as much." Cain shot him a glare as black fur also spread over his body.
Within moments, Cain and Abel had turned into a pair of sleek wolves. They both sniffed the air, then the smaller wolf took off, Cain hot on his heels.
Seth and Tiger exchanged glances.
"We're screwed."
---------
It.
Was.
Bloody.
Cold.
Morgain walked.
And walked.
And walked.
And, for a change of pace, walked some more.
She'd stopped to layer up, but she was still freezing. Maybe this hadn't been the brightest escape plan in the world... but in her opinion, freezing to death was better than being used as bait.
She kept walking.
---------
They were catching up, but Abel was rapidly losing control of his right mind. Cain kept a careful watch on his cousin, mentally cursing the girl's timing. It was dangerous for Abel to change this close to the time of his Enforced change. It was harder for Abel to defeat the lupine instincts, to ignore the call of the snow and the prey, to avoid the wolfish mind.
Cain saw his cousin veer off and yipped to remind him of his task - too late. Abel was gone, and the vampires were out. Source damn it, he snarled mentally, loping off after Abel. Screw Avalon. Abel was a danger to himself.
---------
Morgain didn't realise how close a call she had just had with the werewolves she didn't know were hot on her trail. She just kept walking, taking occasional swigs from one of her bottles of Mountain Dew, lamenting the fact that it wasn't the real Mt. Dew Davis sang about. Alcohol would have given her the illusion that she wasn't cold. As it was, the caffeine kept her awake and gave her the energy she needed to keep going.
By now, she figured that at least one of her hands would be lost to frostbite, so she kept that one on the bottle and the other one in her pocket. She would have loved to have ordered gloves from the computer, but that would surely have tipped off even the idiots watching her.
She didn't know how long she'd been walking, but it had been well after midnight when she'd left the château, and it looked like false dawn was coming up on her, so it had to have been at least four hours. And it was still bloody snowing.
Then she saw it.
A road.
Almost crying in relief, she made her way to it and started following it down. Eventually it would lead her to someplace with heat, right?
---------
The three rebels sighed in relief when Avalon found that road. "It leads to a rest stop and a diner," Krsna said. "She'll be safe there."
"No, she won't," Sparks disagreed. The others turned to look at the operator, who'd displaced Krsna and taken his seat back. "Am I the only one on this ship who remembers the Freeway Massacre? Okay, granted, those two," he pointed to the teenagers, "were in Zion at the time, but God, Ghost, you saw the after-effects of that! These guys don't care about innocent bystanders!"
"Yes, but they were trying to kill the ones they were chasing. For some reason, these programs want Avalon alive," Ghost replied evenly.
"That won't stop them from gunning down the entire diner!" Sparks argued.
"Why don't we let Avalon handle it?" Danaë suggested. "She's doing a good job so far."
"Sounds good," Krsna added. Ghost and Sparks backed down, remembering that they had to set an example for their younger crewmates. Preferably a good one.