The Matrix: Legacy
Twenty-Six
Krsna

"Krsna Aatmik, I must ask you to accompany us to the brig."

The man seemed to pale some, but suspiciously demanded, "Why?"

"A matter of security was brought to our attention," Locke replied, "and some research was done to confirm our suspicions. You hide your tracks well, Aatmik, but we know the truth now."

"What 'truth'?" Ghost demanded.

"He's a program."

The moment those three words left Locke's mouth, Krsna dropped his bag and bolted, pushing past two of the soldiers and trying to lose himself in the crowd. "After him!" one of the soldiers yelled, and they took off after the Indian. Locke did not chase after him; he remained to take the brunt of Niobe's anger.

And he took it like a man.

Niobe yelled a lot, mainly on how the hell could he think Krsna wasn't loyal after the dock battle. During the tirade, Danaë snuck off unnoticed, except by the one who never missed her departures. Finally, he'd had enough and grabbed her by the shoulders. "It was out of my hands, Niobe!" he told her. "I'm doing this for his safety!"

"How the hell will he be safe in the brig!?" Sparks demanded, forgetting protocol at this logical fallacy.

"It will prevent others from murdering him because of what he is," Locke snarled back. There was startled silence from the rest of the crew.

Locke sighed, running a hand over his hair. "By the time I found out about this, some of those who have had... bad encounters with programs were forming a lynching party. I had to take action, and I had to do it fast. I'm sorry."

Ghost nodded. "It makes sense, unfortunately. Niobe, can you delay takeoff until Danaë gets back with whatever information she gets from him?" Niobe blinked, then realised that the little redhead had indeed vanished. Locke frowned, but Ghost explained, "Those two disappear every once in awhile. They each have their own hiding spot that only the other knows about."

Locke muttered something under his breath and said, "I'll stall for as long as I can. I suggest you do the same until your medic gets back. I'm doing everything I can to keep this from reaching crisis levels."

"If that boy dies or is grounded," Niobe breathed dangerously, "something will reach crisis level."

"Kris?" Danaë called softly. She was back on the engineering level, outside one of the places where only she or lean, lanky Krsna could fit. It was a lot bigger on the inside than it looked, so when the long-fingered brown hand emerged from the shadows, she accepted it and let the bomber pull her in.

The shadows hid his face, but she knew he was scared. But then, after the bomb Locke had dropped, who wouldn't be? "It's not true," Krsna said quietly, a slight tremor in his voice. "Not entirely, anyway."

"So tell me."

And he did; told her about his upbringing in New Delhi with his grandmother Shyama after the death of his parents at the hands of Agents hunting down the Aatmik family. Shyama managed to hide him and teach him to use the ability he had inherited from her: Invisibility. Due to the three-quarters of him being human, however, his talent had limits. He couldn't be invisible for more than an hour straight, and then he needed at least another hour before he could vanish for another hour. Like Shyama, he could make things invisible by touching them which fortunately didn't tax his limits, but he could also make people become invisible with him, and that cut his time by fifteen minutes. The more people he tried to take with him, the less he could hold it.

He also told of their flight to Germany, when Shyama had let the Agents catch her in order to allow her thirteen-year-old grandson to escape. Krsna hadn't seen her since; he assumed she was dead. He had wandered in Germany until a family on the outskirts of that part of the City had taken him in out of pity. They taught him the language and took care of him, and they became a family of sorts.

Then people came looking for him.

Krsna had heard of the Merovingian thanks to Shyama, who had once worked for the Frenchman, and it didn't take the boy, now sixteen, very long to figure out that these men worked for him. When he realised that the Merovingian was offering him a position, he refused, saying that he'd already found acceptance.

The Merovingian did not take refusal well.

The next day he had come home from school to find his foster family dead. He knew immediately that the Merovingian would not be taking 'no' for an answer from him. Krsna vanished then, popping in and out of visibility randomly, always making sure he had some strength for vanishing in case of emergencies, and eventually made his way to the Core Network... aka Agent Central.

That was where the real trouble began.

He'd seen an Agent chasing down a young man and had calmly drawn his gun, becoming invisible, wondering idly if Agents could dodge what they couldn't see coming.

Apparently not. His first shot had caught the Agent in the leg, though the rest missed completely; Krsna had never claimed to be a good shot. For good measure, he had also taken out a homemade grenade and thrown it near the suited man, then made himself scarce.

A month later, he'd finally been tracked down by a man named Neo and had been freed. Krsna paused when he mentioned this. "I'm still not quite sure why I took the red pill," he said. "It could have killed me. Hell, it nearly did kill me."

Danaë was startled. "How?"

The Indian smiled. "I'm not entirely human. A part of my consciousness is program. I don't know how the hell it works, but it does. That red pill just about deleted the program part of me. I don't know what unplugging is like for others, but it was extremely painful to me. It felt like part of my mind was being ripped out of my skull. I'm convinced that if the One hadn't been there, I would have died. He knew. He knew what I was, he could read it in my coding. I don't know what the hell he did, but it saved my life." He grinned a bit sadly. "He really hated losing potentials."

"Can you still use your programming?" Danaë asked him softly.

"Only in the Matrix," Krsna replied, "and even then, the old rules still apply. Ask Sparks and Link, they saw me do it."

Danaë smiled at him. "What will you do?"

"I figure I'll just stay here for awhile," Krsna said. "The Oracle told me this would happen, you know. There's someone like me in Zion... and I don't think he or she has Zion's best interests in mind."

"I know," Danaë said, then told him about Asmodeus and the conversation she'd overheard.

"Moody 'Modeus? Figures. So the other guy calls himself D'Artagnan, eh? All for one, my ass." Krsna then launched into a long tirade in his native Farsi with some delving into German before commenting, "You know, I don't really see this as being Modey's style. Stabbing someone in the back literally, sure. Clobbering them upside the head, why not? Subtly driving them to suicide, no problem. But this? No way. Not his style at all."

"Why not?"

"No challenge. No fun."

Danaë smiled, and Krsna ruffled her hair. "You better run on back," he said softly. "Niobe'll get pissed if she has to leave both of us behind." She nodded and ran off.

Krsna watched her run off and sighed. Damn it....