10-11-97
When she walked into the canteen, Switch startled the hell out of Mouse. His spork went flying when she wrenched the door open behind his turned back. He retrieved it, not even wiping it off before resuming his meal.
"Hey."
"Hey," she returned the greeting with a dip of her head and seated herself across from him. "Quit slouching."
"Yes, ma'am," he intoned sulkily, sitting up. By no means his surrogate mother, Switch knew she enjoyed no small amount of authority over their youngest crew member. She returned his adulation with a patient tenderness she extended to precious few; consequently, when she noticed the bags under his eyes, she took it to heart.
"Hey."
"What now?"
"You losing sleep, kid?"
"Don't call me that," he pouted. A mischievous glint was in his eyes. "You could say that, though."
"Neighbors?"
"Yup," Mouse smiled around a spoonful of slop. Switch rolled her eyes at him; he was cute, but his obsession with sex, specifically the sexual activities of his crewmates, was pathetic. "Been arguing again. That guy is loud."
Switch nodded, stood, and poured herself some water. Lord, she wished Dozer's moonshine was in the canteen, but Morpheus only turned a blind eye to the contraband so long as it was out of sight. Which meant Dozer hid it in caches, his room, the engine room, a few select pockets in the Core; it only flowed freely at parties, of which there had been precious few.
"What about?"
"I never hear her side of it," Mouse affected disaffection, but his eyes flashed as he shared the gossip. "He thinks she's too frigid, not open with him, blah blah blah." Mouse shoveled more slop into his mouth. "Doesn't realize how lucky he is," he muttered.
"Surprise of my life, that," Switch chugged her water, imagining the biting metallic taste of the cup to be the alcoholic sting of moonshine.
"The guy's lasted pretty long, all things considered," Mouse shrugged.
"Meaning as another one of Morpheus' proteges?"
"There's nothing different about him, and it's been months, Switch."
"Relax, I agree." And that was the thing about their relationship-she said 'jump,' he made like a frog. He relaxed back into a slouch until he caught her eye. When next she brought her cup up and down for a sip, she saw the glint had returned to his eyes. "What?"
"He was gonna go to Morpheus about her."
Switch nearly spat water into Mouse's face. With great difficulty, she swallowed, gagging, coughing, and sputtering. Mouse watched with his largest, goofiest grin. She took a moment to recover then tossed him an incredulous look.
"What kind of stupid bastard is he?"
"That's what I wanna know."
"About what?"
"Her dissemination of information to coppertops," Mouse pronounced the words slowly, enunciating carefully, nose screwed up in concentration. It was a fair imitation of Lucid, she had to concede.
"He presumes he knows better?" Switch wasn't by any means Trinity's best friend, but she trusted the second-in-command a lot farther than a fuzz-head free not even half a year.
"She's been dabbling where she shouldn't, you know," he confided conspiratorially, leaning over the table towards her. "I come on after and I check the logs. She's been trolling the net, spreading the gospel."
"No harm done there," Switch shrugged. It was part of their job to do that much and more. The only disclaimer was that such activities were regulated, and, at the very least, reported to the captain of the ship. There were plenty of little things everyone pulled, operating just below the radar while Morpheus ran around with his head up the Oracle's ass.
"He seems to think she's been talking to some passovers." Passover was just a technical term, like coppertop, and every bit as derogatory. Once a candidate was determined to be unsalvageable, he was a dead file, a 'passover.' It was too dangerous to go back for them, lest their prior interest tip off the Matrix's Agents. If the Agents hadn't noticed last time, the odds were good they would the next, so there never was a next time. Talking to them, if unethical, wasn't strictly off-limits.
"Still, not a crime."
"I think," Mouse's voice dropped lower, "I think he's jealous."
"That," Switch smiled over the lid of her cup, "I can understand. He say who she's been talking to?"
"Nah," Mouse waved his hand. That trivial information wasn't important; rumors thrived on intrigue, not facts. Switch nodded and said nothing, giving it a thinking-through. How many passovers were on the Neb's list? Not too many. While Morpheus focused on those he wanted to be the One, most of the candidates were passed to other ships, where they were subsequently freed or killed. At least, that she knew of-Apoc had a hard on for collecting pointless information like that and sharing it with her. Passovers, she mused, passovers.
"I don't think he's our guy, Switch."
"You and me both."
"So, what do we do?"
"Nothing." Switch slipped from the bench, tossing her cup into the sink. She turned back at the door hatch. "I'm supposed to do a run with him in an hour. This gonna affect his performance?"
"I don't think Trinity had any complaints about his performance," Mouse waggled his eyebrows.
"Thanks," Switch snorted and stepped out through the hatch. Going into the Matrix was no fool's errand, and she'd rather not have anyone going with her in anything less than top form. Worry that Lucid's inability to handle Trinity's emotional distance would complicate her run dogged her heels all the way up the ladder to the Core. Cypher was at the monitoring station looking bored. He swivelled in his chair when he heard her clanking along the floor.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"God, tell me you're coming to relieve me early."
"Don't count on it," she muttered. "I'm going in soon. I wanted to be sure our drop was clear."
"I'm saying this for the last time: the drop is clear."
The exasperation in his voice brought her up short. Cypher wore an extremely vexed expression, that of a man on his last nerve. It took her all of a second to deduce why.
"Lucid's been here."
"Oh, Lucid's been here," Cypher threw his hands up in frustration, "and been here, and been here, and been here one more time on top of all that." He ran one hand from the back of his bald head towards the front, an angry twitch of his. "I swear, he comes in here one more time, I'm gonna break his legs and set up his drop at the bottom of the ocean." He did a pantomime of a phone with one hand and shouted at it, "That clear enough?"
"Knock it off," Switch managed through a few hurumphs of laughter. "It's my neck on the line in there with him, not yours."
"Ah, even better," Cypher smiled, "you can off him in the name of saving your own skin at the most convenient time. I'd stay on monitor duty an extra few hours for that."
It was a joke, but she couldn't bring herself to share his mirth. Given the depressing rate of turnover on their ship, any sort of joking about death was in especially bad taste. Cypher had never been known for his good taste, but even he had limits, surely. Switch's mood soured with the thought of Lucid attempting any of the stupid moves that had gotten previous potentials killed-if I so much as smell an Agent on a coppertop...
All they had to do was make an appearance in Edinburgh-her old stomping grounds-so Lucid could be seen with her. No one would recognize him, but her notoriety might augment his by association. Everyone needed a following. And to get one, you needed to stay alive. Given that Lucid was fresh off a tiff with Trinity and bound to be distracted, she did not appreciate Cypher's humor. He resumed looking bored in a hurry as she glared at him. His expression only changed when he turned at the sound of footsteps on the ladder; Cypher groaned audibly when he saw who it was.
"What!?" Lucid cried defensively upon this reception.
"It's clear. It's so clear it's cloudy, get it? Buzz off, why don't you?"
"Switch is here," Lucid answered evenly. On the whole, Lucid wasn't an awful guy. Something about him had to appeal to Trinity. Maybe it was his naivete, who knew? At the moment, however, Switch was having a very hard time understanding Morpheus' new policy of 'extraordinary things in ordinary packages.'
"Yeah, it's my first time. Makes a big difference for the person doing the scanning, Lucy."
"Don't call me that, please," he sighed. It was an unfortunate moniker Cypher coined months ago, reserved for just such occasions where he deserved being taken down a peg. And he knew it, and so softened his approach. "I'm just not sure about this. Whether I'm ready to be famous, and all. Not like you guys."
"You'll get used to it," Cypher called over his shoulder; he'd returned, dutifully resuming his task. It took balls to admit you were scared, especially in the real world where the majority of one's time was spent pretending that was exactly not the case.
"Relax," she waved off his concern, "nothing too extreme, not yet. Just a bit of cat and mouse in a dive or two, and we exit. Won't take but half an hour, a full hour at most."
"This really helps you appear uncatchable?"
"Helps fan the flames," Cypher supplied, "you know, romanticizes this bullshit."
"Ignore the cynic," she instructed Lucid. "He's got a point, but this is about keeping our profiles high so people keep looking. Do you know how many appearances Morpheus had to put in to get where he is today?" Switch knew-hundreds. Morpheus had practically invented the ghosting run; it confused the Agents, threw them off the track to have a rebel appear somewhere for apparently no reason, and it did lend them an aura of mystery that provoked the questions that needed asking.
"Don't remind me," Lucid rolled his eyes.
"Ooh, had a fight with the missus?" Cypher teased. Switch bit her lip to keep from commenting. It took a woman to notice these things, usually; men typically preferred Trinity over her-for which she admitted some jealousy-giving her plenty of time for introspection. She assumed she was the only one-Trinity included-who knew how jealous Cypher was of Trinity's sporadic lovers during his tenure on the Neb. Most were gone, staying just long enough for Morpheus to transfer them off or to jump ship of their own volition. A few were dead because of no more than the law of averages and rotten luck.
"Knock it off." Lucid grumbled without finality. Cypher's throwaway comment was the intro he needed to get whatever it was off his chest. "It's just that she's always reminding me how famous he is. Morpheus this, and Morpheus that. God, am I missing something? She used to be his girlfriend before he got wedded to this prophecy nonsense?" Switch fought a knowing smile. Only one so ignorant of his own position in that 'nonsense' could have made such a comment.
"Nah, never been like that. Admires his work, that's about it. That's all she ever really admires," Cypher looked Lucid over coldly, "well, usually." He stretched, patting her on the shoulder. "If you've got problems, ol'Doc Switch here is keen to hear them out. Busy work, you know, keeping an exit clear," he emphasized.
"I got it, I got it," Lucid held his hands up in a gesture of defeat.
"Go get some food before we go," Switch offered.
"I'm really nervous." Lucid sounded it, too.
"Good, that means you're taking this seriously." She crossed her arms. "Go eat. You get sick, you'll just feel better."
"You've got to be kidding."
"I'm in charge when we're inside, and I'm pulling rank here. Go."
Off he went. Switch waited till the loud scraping of the mess hall door signaled that Lucid had followed her orders. Then she tilted her head to throw a look at Cypher, who guffawed at her exaggerated features.
"Glad I'm not going in with him."
"Lucky you." She shook her head. After a moment, she asked, "You know anything about Trinity talking to passovers recently?" Cypher met her gaze for all of a second, but it was enough. Guilty, she smirked triumphantly. Mouse kept an eye on Trinity because of his overactive imagination and underused sex drive. Cypher wasn't too far removed from that; his fixation on Trinity was simply more specific.
"I check the logs, yeah."
"So it's true?"
"She keeps using that Red_Queen alias."
"Ah," Switch said, not sure how to respond. Certain all-purpose aliases-ones not directly connected to their real names-were used to prod candidates along the path. Red_Queen was one that Morpheus and Trinity had shared until Morpheus bequeathed it to Trinity as her very own. It was the one Trinity used on her first solo recruitment. It went belly up when an Agent possessed the recruit; it was kill or be killed at that point, and Trinity never even flinched when she chose her own survival.
"She and Morpheus have this real hang up on Alice in Wonderland," she wondered aloud.
"As far as books about bad trips go, I always liked The Wizard of Oz better."
"Right, so tell me, TinMan, what's Red_Queen up to? I thought she dropped it after that first run."
"Don't ask me," Cypher yawned, "I just read logs, not minds."
"Who's she been talking to?"
"Just this one chat group a couple of months ago, a few hacker check points." He tried to pass off this rather detailed summary as one disinterested; it didn't work because she knew better. "Leaving little clues, you know, 'eat me,' 'drink me,' 'through the looking glass.' God, I hate that one. They start talking rabbit holes, I'm moving to Zion."
"Anyone we know in these areas?" Another guilty look crossed Cypher's face. Ah-ha, she seized on the expression, Trinity's been talking to some one he recognizes, a name we've passed over. "Well? Out with it. I don't want to be the last one in the loop." A smug smile rested on her lips-for once, she'd have something to tell Apoc first.
"So, maybe I cross-checked who was accessing the chats. Couldn't do that all the time, some were just a single posts about the Matrix, you know?" Sure, she did; they were ones rebels made all the time. Fanning the flames. "Can't keep track of who's come by billboards and encryption pockets all the time, right?"
"But?"
"But the chat group was public. About as low tech as you get." Cypher nodded at her severe frown. That might be cause for alarm, justifiable, perhaps, enough even for a neophyte such as Lucid to consider warning Morpheus. Spreading the truth to the uninitiated could lead to one of two things: panic or disbelief. It might scare people towards the truth, but it was twice as likely to make the Matrix seem a scam, like one of the infinite number already polluting the current incarnation of the internet in the Matrix.
But why would she risk it? Switch thought for a moment. Wait...
"Who do we know who was in that group?"
Cypher smiled. Bingo. "A passover."
"I know, I know, but who?" Switch's eyebrow twitched impatiently.
"Name's Neo."
"That guy Morpheus looked at before Lucid?" Cypher nodded. "He was old. No way he merits even a regular pull. He'd have a..."
"An aneurysm before he even got an exit? Yeah, probably."
"Anything change with him lately?" If anyone had done their homework on Trinity's extracurriculars, it was Cypher. Unless, of course, they were real world extracurriculars, for which she'd go to Mouse a more likely candidate; he'd listen in on Trinity and Lucid's noisy box springs if only to get himself off. It was why she made it very clear, given their closeness, that he dare not think of doing the same to her and Apoc. Kid brother surrogate or no, she'd tear him a new one. Returning to Cypher, who still waffled about telling her, "Out with it."
"I won't lie. He's gotten much better lately."
"Define 'better.'"
"Dunno," Cypher shrugged, "he was so-so before, but after we passed him, post-surveys showed he'd backed off, gone legitimate or at least dropped overtly criminal behaviors."
"And now?
"I'd be lying if I said he wasn't pretty good." He took in her no-bullshit posture for a moment. "It's kinda eerie, Switch."
"How's that?"
"He's gotten better than he'd been in a space of I'd say about a month, if Trinity's logs are correct." As if he'd just admitted something he shouldn't, Cypher's eyebrows jumped in surprise.
"She's been cataloging his progress?" No wonder Lucid was prepared to go over her head to Morpheus. They had dropped all recording on this Neo guy. What had they missed that Trinity was willing to go behind Morpheus' back to keep track of?
"Shh!" Cypher hissed, tossing a fearful glance over his shoulder.
"Jesus, Morpheus' gonna have a shit-fit."
"Maybe," Cypher chewed his lip. "But maybe that's the point."
Now, he'd lost her. "What does that mean?"
Cypher rolled his eyes. "Switch, if Trinity'd wanted to, she could have kept this all a secret. Blanked or forged her logs, or at least locked us out of them." He held up his hands as she threw him an incredulous look. "I know, I know, ship full of hackers wouldn't leave any locked box unopened, or at least un-meddled with, but she could have done it."
Recognition dawned. "She's leaving it for us to find?"
"Maybe us," Cypher scratched his goatee, "or maybe for the big guy."
"Why would Morpheus care?"
"He thought the guy might be, you know, our guy." Cypher always did have trouble using the most ridiculously unpretentious title that Zion used for its supposed savior. "Maybe Trinity did, too, and disagreed with him when he passed up the chance."
"She doesn't get to make that call." Plus, as Cypher well knew, as they all did, given Morpheus' dogmatic insistence upon it as fact, Morpheus was going to find the One, not Trinity. The key ingredients of their 'produce-a-savior' diet consisted of following Morpheus' gut, allowing the inner nature of the One to appear without their interference, and moving away from the past systems of failure. Trying to force the case for a potential was off the menu.
"That's why she hasn't told him," Cypher tapped his nose, letting her in on the secret. "She leaves it here, he does a thorough review one day-" he ignored her snort of derision; Morpheus did thorough reviews everyday, he just usually assumed Trinity's were all in order. "He does a review, sees this stuff looking out of place..."
"Why wouldn't he call her on it?" Cypher threw her a look. "Okay, okay, he never calls her on anything, but this?"
"It's got just enough mystery for him to go snooping a little bit more, and maybe he gets his 'gut feeling.' Pretty clever, if you ask me. Subtle. Not like her," Cypher didn't sound pleased about that. Switch tried to decide how she felt about it. For one thing, it meant Cypher was equally if not more devious to have figured it all out in the first place. And he had figured it out. The simplest answer wasn't always the truth; wasn't the Matrix a testimony to that fact?
"Mouse knows, Lucid knows, Apoc'll know soon, and then it's Tank and Dozer, and they'll catch it from Mouse. How the hell can Morpheus not know?"
"No one's telling. Just rumor, baby," Cypher winked. Switch staggered at the genius of this plan. Until he looked at the data specifically, Morpheus would assume it was a rumor, Lucid's jealous rant, or Mouse's fanciful creation. And Cypher wasn't keen to let on just yet that he had figured it out, so, thus far, rumor was the only way anyone-besides her, she realized-would hear about it.
"Why tell me?"
"C'mon, Switch, am I really gonna go blabbing to Lucy? He's halfway there, he's just falling for the wrong ruse. And Mouse? Are you kidding? You know that kid couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it." Switch bit her tongue to suppress instinctual defense of her 'pet' crewmate.
"Why not Apoc?"
"Hasn't asked. You can tell him, if you like."
"I don't think we should call attention to this. Wouldn't that be like doing her work for her?"
"Oh, trust me," Cypher spoke like a co-conspirator, "the levels she worked into this? It's gonna work whether we say nothing or everything."
"Why him?"
"Beats me."
"She didn't say anything when we passed him over before."
"True." He scratched his goatee. "Maybe she kept track of all the passovers, and this guy's the only one who's made a turnaround."
"Huh."
"Whatcha thinking?"
"I don't like this."
"You and me both."
"I mean," Switch struggled to find the words to convey her unease, "I don't like the underhanded way she's gone about it. Something doesn't feel right."
"Yeah," Cypher agreed, his voice echoing none of her concern.
"Something's different here."
"Different," Cypher prompted.
"I don't know. Like maybe this is actually coming to an end."
"What," Cypher grinned, "you mean we've found our guy?"
"Lucid?"
"Well, maybe, but maybe it's this other guy, Neo."
"I don't know," she repeated, hating how empty it sounded, how confused this all felt in so short a time. "I have a bad feeling."
"About what?"
"That Trinity's doing something that's going to get us killed."
Cypher relaxed, genuine amusement in his grin. "Switch, I think we both know there's nothing Trinity's doing that's gonna kill us. Lucid, on the other hand, well, he's your problem today."
"Thanks." Switch laughed and walked out of the Core for hers and Apoc's room to escape and maybe, just maybe, to let him in on the conspiracy.
"No problem," Cypher called after her.
It was only when she got to her door that it struck her that the pity in Cypher's eyes was particularly off for the smile he'd been wearing. She shook the image. Why would he pity her?