7-14-97
Lucid's even breathing was keeping her awake again. It never ceased to amaze her how a little thing like the comforting warmth of another body could royally fuck up her sleep cycle. The bite of cold air moving through your lungs, the shiver you couldn't suppress even in your sleep...these were the creature discomforts that you missed when you slept with someone. It's only been a week. Give it time, Trinity. She tried to will herself to sleep, but there was nothing doing.
Not one for dramatics, she slipped stealthily from the narrow bed; Lucid rolled into the permanent sag in the middle. She paused to consider his sleeping form, shook her head and reached for a second shirt and her sweater. Lucid was naked beneath her tattered blanket, still flush with the warmth they'd generated together. She thought he was nuts, lying exposed to the frigid air--until the heat drove her to an insomniacal retreat. 25,000 BTUs, she snorted to herself, and all of them coming down from orgasm. No wonder it feels like an oven in here.
Escaping to the frozen stillness of night outside her room--was it just her imagination or was it less humid out here as well?--Trinity let her feet take her off in the first convenient direction. Instincts were to be rewarded, given as much leeway as possible just short of letting them get you killed. Her instincts drove her to work, to leave the messy inconsistencies of a personal life behind with her slumbering lover, and, finally, to collapse in a chair in front of the monitors in the Core.
Lover. The word had come unbidden, and she shuddered. I don't get to have 'lovers.' I get love or a fuck. For what was not even the first time that day, she cursed the Oracle. Lovers were for heroines of romance novels, women with breasts larger than their IQs, who were rescued by handsome strangers that--miraculously--found them more attractive than their plain-Jane supporting character. In the drama of her life, who would be the mousy best friend?
You don't have any friends.
That wasn't true, she frowned, half-heartedly settling herself into a position she might be able to tolerate for however long it was she couldn't sleep. She had friends--as far as such things went in the real world. The real world didn't have friendships so much as arranged partnerships characterized as being neither sexual nor familial in nature. Sex and family were easier bonds to identify because they were definite, either you fucked or you shared blood. Friendships were only the absences of these things. Absences were always hard to describe--how did you describe the lack of something? Not something missing or negative, just never there to begin with?
Maybe allies is a better word. She would die for her crew--Morpheus' crew--if she had to, but she'd also leave one behind if it meant more would survive, herself included. She had an unfair advantage, however; it was all well and good to say she would die for them when she knew that wouldn't happen, at least not until the One showed up. Easier to be brave in the face of possible sacrifice if you knew it wouldn't be asked of you.
So, where did that leave her? Not knowing sucked. It was what had driven every member on the Neb's current roster of rebels out of their safe, sheltered pods and into the cool drink of the real world. She stared accusingly at the Matrix feed, the only incoming data stream that, save for sentinel brushes, was never turned off. And this onboard a ship which had to cycle through the amenities of lighting and heating in order to stay outside of Zion for more than a week at a time. Everywhere the code showed a million coppertops living without knowing and getting along just fine. An emotion, perhaps best classified as jealousy, flared in her gut.
A single code flickered midway down the screen, overwriting a previous entry by replacing a few symbols and backing up the rest of the string. A deja vu, she scanned it to see what had been rewritten, just in case it was an ally in trouble. The signature wasn't one she recognized; it was just a routine cleaning program. The Matrix, for all its intricacies, was far from perfect. The machines understood this and did regular sweeping, like virus checking for glitches in their reality, which they then fixed with a temporary suspension of said reality--using a glitch to solve a glitch.
This glitch was rewriting an editorial in the Chicago Sun-Times, one, she noted with a start, delving into the security problems at the IRS. Trinity startled herself with a genuine laugh, unmarred by irony or bitterness. All those years she'd spent preparing, studying, and practicing for what now seemed a systemic problem for the IRS: hacker access. From the ship, she couldn't read the contents of the article, just the few details that could be pulled out of the overlaying code.
She glanced over at her chair, running a finger over her lower lip. Tempting. Morpheus frowned on unsupervised solo runs, especially as, given how many people lived aboard the Neb, there was bound to be someone around who had the time to play operator. Yet this seemed justifiable--Morpheus might even get a kick out of knowing why she'd gone in. It was just a personal thing with her. I am the Trinity, after all. How nice of someone to have finally picked up on the hacker pilgrimage she had started years and years ago.
Calling up an automatic exit program wasn't too difficult; Cypher had written one he stored in the general files. Trinity's hand floated over the keyboards, fingers darting over without looking at the touch screens, loading an entry just inside the Balbo St. El Station. One of the few places where the El ran underground, in a rough neighborhood to boot, they'd never had a problem with anyone lingering around the hardline.
Force of habit, she checked house-cleaning duties left for the next operator. It might win her a few points should Morpheus take this flimsy excuse to indulge in vanity with less humor that she might like. Hardlines destroyed: none. Possibly compromised exits: Wells and Lake--a drunken pair of college kids had been stumbling through last time Cypher'd used it; he didn't think they'd seen him, but it merited a double-check. She set a timer for that exit, planning to use it when she was finished by means of a test, and set a second timing algorithm for an alternate exit--otherwise, if Wells and Lake was a bust, she'd be stuck until an operator came along. At three in the morning, or even five--if she stayed in that long--that might take some time.
Potentials to be scanned: none. Passovers to clear: one--Neo. Morpheus should have removed him months ago, reported Neo a lost candidate, and moved on. Ultimately, it was his call, and while he was distracted by trying not to mention anything at all about the One to Lucid, no one had called him in to clear out Neo's file. The post-investigatory report showed no reason to keep him on, either; if Neo had been mediocre before, he was beyond their concern now.
Still...A shiver ran up and down her spine. Even now, months later, she remembered him, remembered their one and only non-interaction more vividly than she ought to have. Remembered his smile. Unconsciously, she ran her tongue over her upper lip, humming throatily. Half her attraction to Lucid was his smile, but as attractive as it was, it didn't haunt her like Neo's had. Morpheus had no clue how easy it was to pretend Lucid wasn't the One; he had never seen that smile.
I could clean this up while I'm in there.
No harm in that was there? Closure was a good thing. She reset the exit programs to give her a little more time inside and strolled over to her loading chair. Jacking herself in, she closed her eyes, opening them only when the broken rhythm of random clanking morphed into the sharp ringing of a telephone. A cursory sweep confirmed, as ever, that the Balbo St. Station was clear; she picked up the phone and dropped it back into its cradle.
Pre-dawn light tinted the streets and buildings a melancholic blue-gray, which chased over the curves of her body in highlighted streaks on the smooth patent leather. A cigarette fell from the lips of a vendor not yet old enough to be unappreciative of such a woman appearing on his corner. A bemused smirk fixed on her lips, she turned her hips resolutely to walk towards him. He gaped at her like a landed fish, blinking as she bent for a paper and held out a twenty to him.
"For the paper."
"Uh-yuh." He made no move to take the money from her, so she let it fall, about-faced, and strode towards an anonymous alleyway. A sigh of pleasure escaped her lips as she disappeared into the dingy side street; she ran one hand along the smooth black finish on the bike that seemed to have just rolled off the assembly line and into the alley just for her. It had, technically, but it didn't lessen her delight with it. On a bike like this, she felt like she could fly. A helmet hung from the left handlebar, a default programmed along with the wheels. Befitting the playful reason she had entered the Matrix, Trinity back-flipped, kicking out at the helmet and sending it flying upwards. It landed several feet away, thanks to the extra horizontal momentum she provided it with a silenced .45. No sense in waking the locals.
Feet firmly on the pegs, she revved the bike, tingling as it roared to life between her legs. Her thoughts fled at the intensity of the illusion, the simple pleasure it brought; she had to forcibly drag back rationality from where it had disappeared into unadulterated bliss. She glanced at the paper in her hands, trying to ignore the rumble of the motorcycle and search for the editorial. Ah, fuck it, I can get another. She tossed it over her shoulder, spun the back tire to reverse herself and took off.
The only problem with returning to the Matrix for such delights was they were never without risks, and minimizing the risk inevitably meant minimizing the fun. No speeding was a given; this conflicted with her natural inclination which boiled down to two prime directives: go fast and go faster. Losing the helmet was about the only risk she took--at least that way, the wind could tug at her hair and allow the Matrix to create the illusion of the illusion she was going faster than she was.
Wells and Lake was farther away than the last apartment they had listed for Neo. Trinity pretended practicality--and not a certain nagging voice--dictated that, logically, she make Neo's place her first stop. Typically, these things were done from the outside, but, if anyone caught her on the ship, she had the perfect excuse. Morpheus started it. And, as crazy as it seemed, no one ever 'physically' investigated potential recruits before the one and only meeting. You watched from the ship or piggybacked on the person's activities with downloaded hardware in the Matrix. Then you met, through pills at them and let them choose. End of personal interaction.
You definitely didn't pick the lock on their door, bother them at work, or talk to them prior to freeing them. Or climb their fire escape. She cursed herself for not making a more thorough check on Neo's location before jacking in; spying was her only resort. And he would have to live on the first floor. Which was why she had to prop herself against the lower most rung of the fire escape ladder that dangled just beside his apartment window. Upside down. If anyone were awake at--she checked the watch she'd downloaded set to Chicago time--five in the morning, and looking down the alley beside Neo's apartment complex, it might have been quite a sight.
The only one who seemed to be awake besides her, however, was Neo. His computer station faced parallel and ninety degrees away from her, showing the sides and backs of some of his monitors. An impressive though dated stereo system occupied a prominent place next to his hardware, complemented with the overly large but high-quality headphones Neo wore. Expensive equipment for what she knew he made on his meager salary. It might explain why the rest of the apartment more closely resembled the living quarters of a squatter instead of a paying tenant. Why Neo himself wore a ratty t-shirt with a collar sporting several rips and holes at the collar.
It was, in all, a very different setting from the one she and Morpheus had encountered him in a few months ago. Nonetheless, the man was the same; he sported an identical bland, indifferent look. At least Neo managed to appear intent on his screen, small blue rectangles of light reflected in his wide brown eyes. They were his sole feature that showed any interest or emotion. His eyebrows twitched occasionally as he scanned what he was reading. Long minutes passed between each time he blinked. Assuming his absorption, she risked shifting her position by walking along the top edge of his sill with her hands then pulling herself up onto the tiny ledge just on the other side. To anyone else, it might only have seemed wide enough to support a pigeon; to her, it was a mile-wide foothold, and she flipped up onto it with the poise of a supremely confident cat.
Great minds, she laughed, surprised at how easily another fluid smile flew to her lips. He was reading the editorial she'd come for at the Times' website, the headline alone large enough for her to read at this distance. So, he hadn't totally given it all up. Doesn't matter. He's still too old, and he's still too inexperienced. Disappointment flared with this admission, as did a contrary emotion she couldn't place--defiance? Hope? Routing for the underdog, are we?
Shut up.
But she didn't leave. Couldn't drown out that voice that hadn't died months ago but had only been subdued. You like the scrappers, Trinity. You're a fan of the little guy. Look at Lucid. Yes, there was a brilliant idea. In the midst of a mission to wrap up the file on a passover, by all means, take the time to have a soul-searching regarding your love life.
Not my style.
No? Damn that voice.
No. If the Neb's crew knew that she even had to have this conversation with herself, they'd be floored; Teflon Trinity expected the best and didn't tolerate anything less. Fan of the underdogs, my shiny ass.
And Lucid is what, then exactly? Knight in shining armor? That much she didn't need to deny. She didn't need a hero. She was the best there was, and she didn't need anyone's help. The words 'damsel in distress' had never, would never refer to her. This set the inflammatory voice to cackling, her denial not repressing it in the slightest. Tough girl, you are. No cowboy with silver spurs, no debonair super-spy for you.
But? Oh, she knew there was a big 'but' coming.
But that doesn't stop you from adopting a puppy or two.
She snorted at that and at the debate itself. Get a grip, Trinity. You're starting to lose it. This sobered her somewhat, though her voice of contention seemed to fade away with a chorus of canine panting. She looked back at Neo, raising an eyebrow as she pictured him as an overly large puppy. It didn't do much to improve her opinion of him. He did seem to have the singularly focused attention span of a small dog, though, staring at his screen like an obsessive-compulsive terrier focusing on a tennis ball.
His lips moved. A word. As before, the moment he opened his mouth to speak, she stopped breathing.
Woof.
Shut up! She barely had any attention to spare to her cheeky conscience. Her lips tried to imitate the motions of his, to reproduce physically the syllables she couldn't hear so she might decipher them. No good; she was no lip-reader. Looked like maybe three syllables, starting with some puckered sound followed by widening the mouth for two more sounds. Damn. He repeated it, shook his head, hit the power button for his monitors, and rose. Without thinking, she leapt upwards into a handstand, propped up on a still slimmer outcropping of bricks lining the top of his window. Only once safely out of sight did the rest of her brain catch up with her instincts--she had moved because Neo was heading for his bed, conveniently located just below the window.
Cautiously, she bent her elbows, leaning down to see into a mere corner of the window to ascertain the likelihood he would wake if she moved back to the fire escape ladder. She could jump it--the ground was a lot closer than many a jump she'd made before--but it would mean risking passing the window in the first place. Better to get to the side where there was no chance of that happening.
Sure it is. Woof.
There was no reply to this; her mental breath caught again when she peered into Neo's window. In the space of maybe fifteen seconds, he'd covered the distance to his bed and passed out on top of it. Face down, his head had missed the pillow, one arm bent so that his hand rested next to his face, the other thrown to his side, one leg only half on the bed that seemed too small for his frame. A few hairs flopped over to cover his forehead, casting shadows above his eyes to match the dark circles underneath. She indulged in this one of her few weaknesses--fascination with people sleeping. They always seemed so different, better somehow, less hard. When she saw her own face, she saw only steel, could never imagine it softening like it did for everyone else. Neo appeared passive, lethargic, and blank while awake. Now, he seemed...
Beautiful.
Woof.
She swallowed once then cartwheeled off the sill towards the ladder, bracing herself against the rusted metal and paused. Her head snapped back to Neo's window. Nothing. A tumble to the ground, another tensed spring-back, still half-expecting Neo to appear, or worse, to morph into an Agent. And still, nothing. The walk back to her Ducati left her fluttering no matter how many times she jerkily shook out her arms. Get a grip.
Painful though it was, she ditched the Ducati ten blocks before Wells and Lake, preferring not to draw attention to the location by driving through on a smooth but reasonably loud machine. En route, she passed another news kiosk, one whose attendant paid her attire considerably less attention than the last one had done; this was about the right hour and right place for goth clubbers to slink back home from a night out. He didn't blink as she left him a twenty for the paper either, presumably because many a doped-up, strung-out, or just plain tired customer had done the same at that hour.
Casually, in no real hurry as the timing program wouldn't be set for a while yet, she thumbed through the paper to the editorial section. It was a shame she didn't have the original to compare the article against, seeing as the deja vu had cleaned up the article--no doubt along with the mind that had written it--before she'd jacked in. As was, for an outsider job, the author seemed pretty spot-on. His complaints were reasonable--why should honest citizens trust an organization as riddled with problems as the IRS, especially when anyone with just enough savvy could pop onto its servers and screw it up more? It was a historical article more than anything else, documenting the numerous known system breaches; his italics, too, meaning he suspected--correctly, she mused--there had been many more unknown break-ins.
In this humble author's opinion, the minute the database in Kansas City was breached twelve years ago, the whole system should have been overhauled. Taken offline, if necessary, to protect the citizens of this country from vicious data pirates bent on creating more trouble for an organization that really needs no help on that score. In a way, we owe that anonymous pirate--one might call him a hacker pioneer--a thank you for showing the IRS the vulnerability of their system. Thanks on delivery when the IRS gets its act together. Until such time, wherever you are, masked avenger, thanks, but no thanks.
That must have been the change, she figured. Her name. The Matrix operated using complex logic patterns--Artificial Intelligence implied just that: it was intelligent. As such, it could not cause the article to unexist entirely. There would be a problem of too many questions, too many memories to wipe out or modify to prevent people like her taking advantage of it. Instead, they edited out names, consigning hers to the void in hopes that time would take care of her infamy. It ought to have irritated her, but Trinity tossed the paper carelessly into the next curbside rubbish bin. In the war for the truth, one person's name meant nothing. And those who looked hard enough could always find traces. The reporter had found the evidence of her most legendary hack, so it stood to reason there were others who would do the same. Pass on the information like precious treasure.
Wells and Lake. A block away, the phone already ringing. Shit. Someone had overridden the timer, which meant that someone was awake, watching for her to round the corner and be in sight of the phone. To any god that would listen, she prayed it wasn't Morpheus or Lucid. Lucid might get the wrong idea; they were too new in their relationship for him to know better. Morpheus, well, Morpheus would want a credible explanation. And she had one, she did. She could afford to leave out the article, say she intended to test the phone, make the final closing on Neo's file...
Trinity stopped short of the phone booth. If she told Morpheus Neo was as dead a file as he'd assumed....he'd delete the file. An unwelcome roll of her stomach protested against this idea. Simply, she didn't want him to do that. A million and one excuses flooded her brain, excuses she had to sift through to find one that would sound credible enough to justify Morpheus' continued oversight of Neo's file. Maybe Neo wasn't totally hopeless. He still lived the lifestyle in a way, kept up with current events even if he didn't partake. He read the news, didn't he? Paid it special attention? Maybe he knew what words had been glossed over in the editorial, could read between the lines...
Her hand clenched around the phone, but her arm muscles refused to lift the receiver. Her heartbeat was in her ears, louder than the insistent, accusatory ringing. She lost the image of a suspicious captain or irate lover waiting back on a frosty ship for her consciousness to return to her. All she could envision were Neo's lips, laughably exaggerated by awareness, forming the shape of three syllables she knew like the back of her hand.
Trin-i-ty.
"Fuck," she breathed out, wondrous.
She picked up the phone.