The Matrix: Legacy
Nineteen
The Year When Nothing Big Happens
... yeah, right....
'You still have boxes lying around?' Morgain signed to Horizon in exasperation. Horizon laughed nervously, copying a classic anime pose by placing her right hand behind her head with her elbow sticking up. Morgain rolled her eyes and gave the Hispanic girl a gentle thwack upside the head. 'Jeez, Horizon. Your computer is so organised it puts the writers of those self-help books to shame, but when it comes to something non-virtual....'
She poked the air four times to convey the 'dot effect'. Horizon laughed. "What can I say?"
Morgain shook her head sadly. 'You really need someone to organise this place for you,' she said.
"Well, I'd ask you to do it, but with your overprotective madre and your job hunt, you're too busy."
'I've got to get out of there!' Morgain signed. 'I can't do anything without her hovering over me! That stupid Frenchman destroyed my social life!'
"So that's why you haven't been over at the Freedman's lately. I was wondering," Horizon mused. Then she grinned. "Y'know, Avvy, you could always move in with me? I've got that extra bedroom, you can pick up half the rent and half the bill; we can get to the college easily...."
Within a month, Morgain had found a job and moved in with her best friend. A week after she'd moved in, she was settled in, unpacked, and starting to unpack Horizon's boxes. That was accomplished in a week, then she started on the bills.
'Sabé?'
"Yeah?"
'You have a cell phone, right?'
"Yeah."
'So why do we need a phone line? We have cable internet, so we're just wasting cash.'
Horizon cancelled the phone service.
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Gunner only fell deeper into the entangling web of the organisation. He had a harried look these day as more and more people died or vanished, some of them people he had known well and respected, if not considered friends. He was trying to get out, but they were holding onto him tighter, even threatening Avalon and Horizon.
Davis had been missing for three years now, and that bothered Gunner. He would have heard if the younger man were dead.
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Seraph ran into Horizon several times over the course of the year: Picking Sati up from school, getting groceries, at the Laundromat (it seemed as thought Seraph had to do a lot of the chores), and even in a book store, where they discovered they had nearly the same taste for books, though Horizon had a passion for manga Seraph did not share.
Seraph offered to teach both girls another style of martial arts, Tai Chi. Morgain declined - she was taking a Jujutsu class - but she talked Horizon into studying with Seraph. Neither noticed the mischievous glint in her blue eyes.
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A young man, battered and bruised, was dragged before the Merovingian. "Ah, D'Artagnan," the Frenchman mused, "It has been some time."
"Was this really necessary?" he asked, pulling from his 'captor's' grips and brushing some of his hair from his eyes.
"We 'ad to make it look authentic, did we not?"
"You could've just called. I did send you my number."
"Vlad... lost it, I'm afraid."
D'Artagnan rolled his eyes. "He just can't accept the fact that I was unplugged and survived."
"It took you some time to contact us, mon petit espion."
"I haven't been able to get out of Zion until now. The new captain of the Gnosis is slightly paranoid due to the Cypher and Bane incidents, so all watches are double-watches."
"I see. Zen it is good zat we 'captured' you, non?"
"I guess. But did you have to send the Gemini to do it? Cain and Abel woulda been just as efficient."
"Stop complaining. At least zey had orders to keep you alive and conscious."
"All right."
The Merovingian gave his spy his orders, then let him go.
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Cain was starting to worry about Abel. His young cousin wasn't getting enough sleep, and he seemed oddly depressed. At least his little cookie obsession had stopped. Had Cain been the type to notice details, he would have realised that the depression coincided with Avalon's clean escape.
Tiger and the only loner of the Merovingian's bodyguards, a prankster extraordinaire commonly called Red - mainly because no one could pronounce his other name, Poitin - noticed, however. They made it their business to notice the minor details for future pranks.
However, both decided that teasing him about Avalon wouldn't be a very good idea, mainly because in his last encounter with Cujo, when Cujo had implied that Abel had let the girl escape because she traded her body for it, Abel had calmly set Cujo straight with his fists, pounding the much bigger werewolf with an alarmingly serene expression on his face.
Messing with Abel was not the brightest of ideas at the moment.
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Ghost was falling further into depression over Trinity. Danaë did her level best to help him out, but it was doing no good and dragged her down as well. Krsna was spending much of his time in the Construct, making something with the highly explosive program Sati had given him. Link didn't go out with the Logos often, opting to spend more of his time with his wife now that Zee was pregnant with their first child. Niobe tended to divide her time between brooding, her racing program, getting exasperated with her soap-opera of a ship, and thinking about Morpheus.
Sparks appeared to be the only one unaffected.
"Hey, did you hear the latest from Zion?" he asked, ignoring the silence of the galley. Niobe shook her head as Krsna went for seconds on coffee. "Apparently, programs can breed with humans and come up with half-human/half-programs. And they can be unplugged, though dangerously. In fact, according to the 'bots down at 01, one's already running around in the real world."
There was a crash as Krsna's coffee mug bounced on the floor. Danaë noticed that the young man's hands were shaking. Ghost was lost in his own little world, and Niobe was staring at Sparks. "Sparky, if you're lying I swear I'll string you up myself!"
He made an 'x' over his heart. "Would I lie? I'm dead serious, Niobe. There's some part-program in Zion." Danaë picked up Krsna's mug and looked up at him. His naturally dark face had paled to an unhealthy ashen pallor.
"You okay?" she asked. She had to ask again before he looked down at her.
"What? Oh, oh no, I'm fine, really."
Danaë arched an eyebrow. He gave her a weak grin and left the galley. Danaë sighed and went to see if she could get Ghost to respond.
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And so the year passed.