First of all, for anyone who doesn't already know, The Golden Spoons are fanfic awards that are basically the Emmy Awards of Matrix fanfiction. And I, yours truly, was nominated for best Work in Progress!!! : ) Yes, I'm bragging, and yes, I know I'm bragging. But I never in my wildest dreams thought my story would be this popular, let alone get nominated for this (and after only three chapters!).

Thank you very much to whoever nominated me! :)

Revised version of chapter.

***

Death and Rebirth

Chapter Four

Stranger's Comfort

***

There was an old saying, "If walls could talk...." She had never heard anyone say anything beyond that part of it, if there even was anything beyond those four words. But, in her own mind, she had always assumed that it meant that they would tell the stories of things they had been witness to. Stories of birthdays and anniversaries. Of families and friendships.

And she often found herself wondering if the same held true of other things. Held true of old benches, of hills and endless trees. If so, then Central Park could tell of more memories than any house ever built.

That tiny island of green in the urban sea, it seemed, knew everything. It had been introduced to people from every corner of the world, as well as almost everyone in New York City. Some people only came here once in a very rare while. Others, however, made regular and frequent visits.

Trinity was one of them.

When she was little, her mother would take her on walks around the park. If she had made a little extra money in tips that day, they would get ice cream, or maybe go to the park's local zoo. When Switch had moved into the apartment building, they would make similar trips, alternating whose mother would take them. When middle school had arrived, bringing with it much more homework, the pair could be found at one of the picnic benches, working away.

And then, sometimes, Trinity just came her to think. To sort out her thoughts when they were almost at the point of overwhelming her. These were rare occasions, and she alone knew about them. Most often she knew the source and cause of her troubles. She could determine what was wrong and then fix it. It was just like a computer: you trace a problem to its source and then eliminate it.

But today was different. It was a nagging, undeniable and overwhelming depression, whose source she could not pinpoint. A virus that eluded detection and deletion, making itself known only through the disruption of programs.

It had been happening for days. She tried to ignore it, but to no avail. She found her mind uncontrollably returning to the awful feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something was wrong. It was spreading from herself into the people and world surrounding her... or maybe it was the other way around.... Nonetheless, the nagging continued to eat away at her.

And thus, she found herself on a bench in Central Park, overlooking a low, green field of playing children. She envied them. She found herself with the unusual wish that she was once again one of them. To not know that the world wasn't as perfect as they thought. To just play, without the deep-seated knowledge that something, some underlying aspect of the world, was wrong.

But she knew that she couldn't. You couldn't live a life of ignorance and oblivion.

Trinity barely noticed when she gained company beside her on the bench. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw an older woman pull a half-full bag of birdseed out of her oversized-purse. Her eyes and mind continued to wander as countless sparrows, pigeons and crows flew in to take part in the free-for-all.

"Interesting," said the woman after a while, a smile on her face, "isn't it?"

Trinity unnoticeably snapped out of her daze, quickly glancing around to see who it was that this woman was speaking to.

"The birds, I mean," she continued, with a note meant to say, Yes, I'm talking to you.

Trinity turned to face her, examining her carefully. She was black, with short, curly hair stopping a bit above her shoulders. Her clothes were old-fashioned, but they seemed to fit her. Very grandmotherly and friendly.

She continued speaking, watching the birds as she threw small handfulls of seeds at them. "They look for what they want, and then go after it once they find it. And the rest of them aren't sure what they want, but when they see it, they know it, and they'll do whatever it takes to get it."

Trinity began to turn around, thinking that the woman was just making small talk. She murmured a small, "Mm-hmm."

"A lot like you, really," she stated simply.

Trinity snapped back around to look at her, her every defensive guard coming up.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, don't act so surprised, dear." Her voice was calm, almost humorous. "You know what I'm talking about. Always have. You know exactly what I mean, even if no one else seems to."

There was something in this woman's voice and face, something that she couldn't pinpoint, that let some of Trinity's guards drop - she could trust her.

"... That something's wrong with the world?" she asked carefully.

"Bingo."

Alright. So they'd established that, somehow, this woman knew that Trinity felt something was misplaced. Now there was only one question:

"So how do you know about that?"

She turned to look the younger girl in the eyes for the first time, smiling kindly. "I know a lot more than you think, Trinity."

She paused for a moment, regaining her composure as she let it sink in that this woman knew, not only her name, but her hacker name. Something only Switch and David knew.

"How?" she asked bluntly after a long silence.

The woman chuckled softly, returning her attention to the impatient birds. "Well, that I cannot tell you."

"Humor me." Trinity allowed the slightest bit of annoyance into her voice.

She full and outright laughed at this. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you, Kid."

Silence.

"Not yet, at least." She carefully looked over Trinity's face. "But, in a year or so...."

She did not miss the young girl's questioning stare. She was quite clearly not amused.

"Alright." She pulled her bag back onto her lap, returning the birdseed to it's place. She then pulled out what looked like a folded business card. "I'll get to the point." All joking was gone from her tone, and she was being completely serious.

"You know something's wrong with the world, something bad -"

"But I don't know what it is."

"- But you want to. Now, I won't lie to you, it will not be easy finding that out, but I can give you one piece of advice."

She handed Trinity the folded paper, which she took, albeit slowly and hesitantly. She did not open it.

"Find whatever information you can about this man. Chat rooms, hacking, whatever you have to do. Track him down. Find out as much as you can."

The woman stood, about to leave. But before she did, she said one last thing.

"You know there's something terribly wrong with the world, Trinity. All I can tell you is that that man can answer all of your questions about everything. If you can manage to contact him, you can help make it better." She smiled at her one last time, gesturing down to the card.

Watching the woman's face for anything out of the ordinary, Trinity slowly looked down to the paper and undid the lone fold, revealing a blank card with a single, hand-written name on it.

Morpheus.

She slowly looked back to the woman when she spoke again. "I know things haven't been easy for you, Trinity," she said sympathetically. "But that's no reason to loose hope."

Her face slowly changed into a smile as she turned to walk off, while Trinity looked back to the paper in her hands, reading over the name several times.

"You just have too much of that to give up."

She stared at the card, wondering at who this person could possibly be. When she finally did look up, she realized that she was alone. She was by herself, with no company save for the few children playing on the nearby hill.

***

"Yes?" said the voice over the intercom, one she had learned to recognize as his father.

"It's Amelia, is David there?" she asked quickly. "I need to use his computer."

"Yeah," said a new voice, "I'm here. Come on up."

She turned off the intercom and moved to press the call button on the elevator, ignoring the superior look she knew the concierge was giving her. She had come to recognize this almost immediately, as it was a stare he always gave both her and Switch whenever they came over. She shot him a death glare of her own as the double doors slid open, admitting her into the elevator.

"Twelfth floor," she said dismissively to the operator. She stood in the center of the floor with her perfect, business-like posture, watching the numbers above the door light up one by one and waiting impatiently for it to hit twelve.

When she heard the faint ding of a bell that signaled they had reached the appropriate floor, she stepped through the doors before they even had a chance to fully open.

She briefly nodded to David, who was standing just outside, waiting for her, before hurriedly walking off to his room.

"Hey, Amelia," he called, jogging slightly to keep up. "Slow down - what's the rush?"

She remained silent until they had reached his severely oversized bedroom, where she wasted no time in starting up his computer.

"Have you ever heard of someone named Morpheus?" she asked him curtly.

"Yeah, actually," he said, crossing his arms and looking at her cynically. "He's a terrorist."

Trinity's head snapped around to look at him over her shoulder. "A terrorist?"

David nodded. She slowly turned around, staring at nothing.

"That can't be right...." She said quietly.

"Well, Trin, you're usually qualified as a terrorist when you just attack random people and places with lots of guns and bombs and about half a dozen other people helping you."

"No," she said after a long silence, just above a whisper. "That can't be it."

***

But, apparently, it could be. Hacking into the databases of multiple newspaper computers, she found more than enough proof as to what David had told her. Dating back for years were reports of attacks, supposedly lead by Morpheus himself. Attacks on government buildings, military bases, businesses, apartments. And there were almost always casualties. Lots of them. SWAT team members and police, when they managed to catch up with him, but there were also regular, uninvolved people killed. People who had nothing apparent to do with the situation, other than the fact that they seemed to have gotten in the way. Those people were usually shot, occasionally stabbed.

But, in truth, there was no pattern to it. Not to the locations of the attacks, nor the methods used. Not to the people killed, to when or where. And even stranger, he had never been caught. Both he and the small group that always accompanied him seemed to vanish into thin air after every attack. They weren't seen or heard from again until the next attack.

But that made no sense, and she knew it couldn't be true. Though she had no idea who the woman at the park was, nor how she knew all of those things. She knew only that she spoke the truth, and that she could be trusted. Trinity did not know how she knew this, but there was not a thought in her mind to suggest that her trust was misplaced.

There had to be another side to this story. There just had to be.

***

"Trinity, it's getting late," David said groggily, rubbing his eyes. "You should get going before my parents kick you out."

She looked at the clock on the wall above the computer. He was right. It was almost ten, and she had been on the computer for hours, searching. She had ransacked the databases for every national newspaper and news show. She had been in at least a dozen chat rooms, asking if anyone knew anything about Morpheus.

But, she supposed, it probably was time for her to be getting home.

***

If nothing else, she had at least gotten more information than the newspapers had provided. A number of people in the chat rooms she had visited had heard of Morpheus. Few knew very much, but she had gathered a few things.

Many of the people she had talked to considered him to be, not a terrorist, but some sort of rebel fighter. There were a number of theories as to what the rebellion was against, but the most common thread was that it was against something known as the Matrix. That, in and of itself, had even more theories to it than Morpheus did.

On a fellow hacker's suggestion, she switched her search to the Matrix, hoping that would provide more answers. In the few short hours she had been on-line, she had gathered several things about it:

If there in fact was a resistance to it, it must be a bad thing. That she had determined on her own.

She had found a number of forum postings on the subject. They all contained brief messages, all of them cryptic.

"The Matrix is everywhere."

"The Matrix has you."

"The Matrix is the world that you know."

But one message stood out in her mind. The longest one she had encountered, and the most confusing. "The Matrix is as Pandora's Box: it is the source of all that is wrong with the world." She had no idea what that could possibly mean, and, apparently, neither did anyone else she had talked to.

Everyone seemed to agree that the Matrix was some sort of computer program, but exactly what kind was highly controversial. Some believed that it was a kind of top secret AI program, being developed by the government for reasons that were anybody's guess. Others thought it to be a program used for massive surveillance, but the how and why were still unknown.

That was all she had been able to find out in her short tine in the chat rooms.

***

"Where were you yesterday?" Switch asked as they sat down under a tree a nearby park. "You didn't get home until really late. What happened?"

Trinity ran her hands through her short hair a few times, thinking over her reply. "I'm not exactly sure."

Switch watched her closely, patiently waiting for her reply.

"I went to Central Park after work, and this woman came to sit next to me...."

"Did you know her?"

"No," she said slowly, as if still trying to process the information herself. "But from what she said, she knew a hell of a lot about me."

"... What do you mean?"

"I mean," she said in a frustrated tone, "that she knew about the dream-world thing, the one I told you about."

Switch nodded.

"And she knew that I think something big is wrong with the world." She stopped for a moment, recalling the previous day. "She knew that my name was Trinity," she said in disbelief.

Switch, just as shocked as her friend, leaned back against the tree trunk. Both were very secretive about their names, Trinity especially, as she was the hacker. As far as they knew, only people she had met online knew the alias, and none of them could put it with her face. Few of them would even think to put it with a girl. So, understandably, this came as quite a shock. Neither moved or spoke for nearly a minute.

"How could she possibly know all of that?" Trinity asked, more to herself than anyone else.

After another brief silence, Switch, trying to lighten the mood, suggested, "Well, maybe she's some kind of oracle."

"This isn't the time for jokes. Anyway..." she pulled the folded card from the pocket of her jeans, and handed it to her. "About knowing that something's wrong with the world, she said that he -" she indicated the name on the card "- could tell me what it was. And if I found him, I could help make it better."

Switch looked over the card, reading the name over and over again, much as Trinity had done.

"So..." she looked up. "Did you find anything yet?"

Trinity let out a long breath. "You have no idea."

***

Trinity carefully looked over the map one last time, tracing the route she intended to take, imbedding it in her mind. Westchester was pretty far away, and it would take them a good half hour to get there, if not longer. But, after all, wasn't getting there half the fun? Especially on your sixteenth birthday, when you finally had the means to get there on your own?

She and Switch had been wanting to go to this club for ages. It was supposedly the best in the state, and it supposedly put every other club the pair had been to to shame.

Trinity smiled slightly to herself, remembering how their latest hobby had started out. She had been bussing tables at the cafe months ago, when she overheard, not completely by accident, one of the customer's conversations. Having just turned twenty-one, he was reviewing to his friends the clubs he had been going to every night for the past week. Apparently irritating them in the process.

"Coolest. Thing. Ever," he said for what could easily be the twelfth time. "I'm telling you, the place was awesome, and the dancing's a total head rush."

A head rush. Now that was something Trinity knew. A little something she had learned when she was still just a child. Something she had nearly forgotten the past few years, but had been reminded of by the words of the woman in the park. She had always described it as "feeling the minds around her." She didn't remember exactly how she had learned of it, but she did remember how it made her feel.

It made you feel - know, really - that you weren't alone in the world, that, no matter how much you may feel like it, there were others. Other people you could lean on, depend on for support.

She had found out, at a very young age, that if you really let yourself go, sank into it, "freed your mind" as Switch had once called it, you could tell that there were other people around you, connected to you, whether you knew it or not. It wasn't that you could see them, or hear them, or feel them, it was that you knew that they were there, beyond the shadow of a doubt.

The woman in the park had reminded her that she knew something was horribly wrong with the world. She had also reminded her of what she always used to do when she felt that way. When she did that, she knew that she was not alone. Whatever was wrong with the world, she didn't have to worry - everything would turn out alright in the end. If she couldn't fix it, then there was surely someone in this vast world of billions who could.

People always talked about the weaknesses humanity had, as a whole. How easily they were corrupted, how easily they turned against each other. How easily they did so many other horrible things. How human they all were.

And that, Trinity felt, was exactly it. True, humans may do stupid things, but, when it really counted, wasn't all of that washed away? Wasn't it exactly the fact that they were, indeed, human, that made them so hopeful in the first place? Made them so willing and determined to see it through the bad times until they became good again?

Remembering what she had not thought of for so long, remembering what had always served to bring hope back to her, she had made the decision then and there to go to the club they had been talking about.

It had turned out to be well worth it.

***

Switch, however, had used the opportunity to nag her best friend, non-stop, for several days.

As best friends, the two had an on-going contest to see who could best upstage the other. Trinity's preferred way was being able to do pretty much anything, and do it well. Switch's domain, among other things, was annoying the hell out of everyone.

She learned of her friend's little adventure the next morning over coffee on the fire escape. Although she had wanted to make little comments throughout the retelling of the story, she managed to keep her mouth shut until the end.

She just shook her head sarcastically. "You know, I never thought my best friend, of all people, would be doing so many illegal things," she joked.

"It's not as if I'm hurting anyone," she said, playing along. "And unless I'm mistaken, you haven't called the cops yet."

Finally, with a little strategic coaxing and the promise that they would leave if she wanted, Trinity had finally convinced her to tag along the next night.

It had been a regular weekend activity for them ever since.

***

Trinity kneeled silently on the fire escape outside the open window. Why exactly it was open was beyond her. October 28th was no time for any sane resident of New York City to have their windows open. They had already begun getting snowflakes.

"Kelly," she called into the living room, using her real name because her brother was there. She turned around, closing her history book and putting it on the table.

"Hey. What's up?"

"Why are you doing homework?" Trinity asked accusingly. "It's Friday. It's my birthday. Besides..." she opened her hand, palm down, revealing a key hanging from one of her fingers. "I have something much more interesting we could be doing."

"What's that for?" Billy asked, nosy as ever.

"None of your business," Trinity said, glaring slightly. She then shifted her focus back to Switch, and said calmly, emotionlessly, "I'll be waiting for you."

She stood and turned to leave, heading back along the catwalk to the stairs by her bedroom window. She stopped, however, when she felt a hand pulling at her wrist.

"Trinity -" she turned around to face her friend, whose voice had become more than a little excited. "You got it?"

"Just got back from Manhattan," she said, twirling the key around her fingers on the ring.

"So?" Switch smirked. "Where are we going?"

"Westchester. We can finally get up there." She smirked, and clutched the key in a fist. "How long do you think you can get your curfew extended?"

Switch turned over her shoulder to the open apartment window. "Well..." she pondered. "Considering that it's a weekend, that it's not only your birthday, but your sweet sixteenth, which calls for celebration.... One." She turned back to Trinity. "Longer if they don't find out that we're going all the way up to Westchester."

"Well then, we'll just have to make sure they don't." She smirked, and turned to walk back along the catwalk. "I'll be waiting for you," she repeated. "Good luck."

***

She slowly sat down on the second step, locking the window to her bedroom. She examined her hands carefully as she brought them back into her lap, flexing her fingers slightly in her new gloves. They were black vinyl, and fit her perfectly.

Twisting and flexing her hands, to see how the light would reflect on them, she stopped when she heard quick, muffled footsteps behind her.

Not waiting for her to say anything, Trinity held up one of the two motorcycle helmets to her, a smirk of triumph on her face.

"Welcome to the Dark Side."

"Come one," she replied, taking her helmet from Trinity. "I want to see this thing."

A look of childish excitement on her face, Switch followed her down the fire escape steps. As soon as they were on the ground, she almost had to run to keep up, being lead around to the front of the building. Parked just against the curb was a brand new, black Triumph Speed Triple. Mint condition.

"And it's all mine," Trinity said slowly, crossing her arms over her chest as she walked up to the bike, admiringly. Switch was slowly circling it, doing the same.

"You do know how to ride this thing, don't you?"

"They wouldn't have given me my license if I didn't," she said in a slightly obvious tone, looking at her out of the corner of her eyes. But that look faded and was quickly replaced by a small grin as she tossed the single key in her hand. "First joyride. This should be fun."

***

"Hey," Trinity said, leaning in Switch's bedroom window. She looked up from her desk, where she had been taking notes from her science textbook.

"Hi."

"I'm going up to Manhattan, you said you needed to get something there. I'm going to work - you want to come with me now?"

"Sure." She closed the book and put on her jacket as she climbed out the window.

"What did you need, anyway?" Trinity asked when they had made it down to the street. She pulled out her keys and tossed them in the air a few times.

"I need to get a Christmas present for the Billy Goat," she replied distastefully. "There's a toy store right by the coffee shop."

"You never did tell me why you always call him that," Trinity mused, taking her seat on the front of the bike.

"He was obsessed with animals when he was little, and I just thought up the name one day when we went to the zoo. It stuck. And it annoys the hell out of him, so that's an added bonus."

Ah, sibling rivalry, she thought, rolling her eyes. It was quite strong between Switch and her little brother, and often served to reminded her of the good things of being an only child.

***

It seemed that, since even before the two had met, Trinity had a number of highly annoying habits. Not the usual of nail-biting, hair-twirling, or pen-clicking. Those were normal people's nuisances, and Trinity was anything but normal. Her habits were subtle little things that only someone who knew her very well would notice.

Like now. If, for whatever reason, there was something stupid that you did, that you could control and knew was stupid, but you did it anyway, she would rub it in. To make matters worse, she wouldn't do it in an obvious, sarcastic and condescending way. She would merely point it out casually, as if she were telling about the weather. Only someone very close to her could detect the bemusement and tormenting in her voice.

***

"I need caffeine," Switch said tiredly, rubbing her eyes. "I was up way too late last night."

"Ya know," Trinity said quietly, pocketing her keys, beginning the short walk around the corner to the cafe. She kicked up bits of November snow as she went. "Caffeine makes you stay up really late. And then you have to get up early, and you're exhausted because you didn't get any sleep. So you drink more coffee, and you're up late again...."

"Oh, shut up," came the groggy reply just as they turned the corner. "I'm getting coffee, then I'm going to the toy store, then I'm going home and sleeping."

Both stopped short as they were about to enter the cafe, looking into the windows for the first time. It was not unusual for there to be a large number of people there at one time, but this was ridiculous. They were more crowed that she had seen it in over a year of working here, and, judging by the fact that only three of the four registers were open, understaffed.

"Or," Switch said again, suddenly waking up without her coffee, "I could go to the toy store now, and let you deal with the huddled masses over there. Good luck." She patted her friend on the back before moving on down the block.

Setting a determined look on her face, Trinity hurried inside, already unbuttoning her denim jacket as she did so. Just as she was heading for the back room, Sarah, who had only been working there a few months, spotted her.

"Oh, thank God, Amelia, you're here," she said gratefully. She still had a little trouble with getting all the different machines to work. "They're pure evil," she had once said. "I'm telling you, this world is run by machines, and we're all their slaves and no one even realizes it!"

She hurried to the wall of employee lockers, quickly spinning her combination as she took off her two sweaters and gloves. She had barely put her things in and taken her apron out when she slammed the door shut again. She wasted no time in getting out to the main shop and starting up the last register.

"I can help some people over here," she said, looking up only briefly as she waved them over.

***

"Go take a break you guys," Trinity said nonchalantly over her shoulder as she gave the last person their coffee-to-go, "you deserve it."

"You're an angel, Harper," John said, hugging her gratefully around her shoulders.

Her face and voice turned lethally cold. "Don't touch me."

"Okay," he said timidly, letting go instantaneously. Only an idiot would say no to that voice.

She let her eyes wander around calmly, taking everything in. The long lines that had been there not more than five minutes ago were now completely diminished, half the people having left with to-go drinks, the other half sitting around, talking with friends or reading.

Her gaze then moved to a man coming up to the counter. He had been there a while, waiting at a small table by the door. He seemed too tired to be waiting in the long line, so had simply chosen to wait it out. She looked him over carefully as he came over.

He wasn't much older than she was, not more than two or three years. Judging by the size of and obvious weight of the backpack he had with him, he was in college. He was a few inches taller than she was, though in her combat boots, she could almost look him straight in the eye. Eyes that were, she noticed, a deep shade of brown. His hair, on the other hand, was jet black, like her own. Had she been anyone else, she would have thought he was... cute. She did, of course, in her subconscious. But she wasn't about to admit that to anyone, even herself.

"You handled that pretty well," he said reverently, smiling at her.

"I'm good at this," Trinity said, staring him in the eye with an unwavering gaze. A gaze that she allowed to be a bit more kind than she normally would for a complete stranger. "I've been working here for a while."

"Get promoted yet?" For some reason that she could not determine, she felt like going along with his small-talk.

"No. But life's never liked me too much." It didn't bother her, though.

"Well, it should." He smiled at her, almost sympathetically. There was something in his words that she didn't often hear. He was flirting with her, quite obviously, as most guys she came across did. But it was more the way he did it. It wasn't the usual tone of someone who hit on every attractive girl he met. It was the tone of someone who didn't have all that much luck or interest in women, but was genuinely sweet to them when he came across one he liked.

"So what do you need?" she asked, straightening up.

"Oh, uh," he stammered, coming back to his senses. He held up an empty thermos, "Just some coffee."

She took it from him, noticing for the first time in the conversation his clothes.

"You're not from around here, are you?" She noted, turning to fill the thermos.

He laughed slightly. "Is it that obvious?"

"You don't dress warm enough for New York," she commented, looking over her shoulder. He was pulling out his wallet, slightly goofy grin on his face.

"I've noticed." This reply was a bit more gloomy than the rest. "I'm here visiting my grandparents for the weekend - I guess I didn't pack enough. Oh," he said as a thought struck him, "is that -"

"Yes, it's got loads of caffeine. You need it." She screwed on the lid and moved back to the counter, taking the money he handed her.

"So, um," he spoke hesitantly, as if unsure if he wanted to ask his next question. "What's you're name?"

"What's yours?" she retorted, handing him his change.

"I asked you first," he smiled, glad that she didn't seem upset.

Trinity stood still for a moment, watching his face. Well, what harm could giving him her name do?

"Amelia Harper," she said quietly.

"Tom." He reached for his coffee, but she put her hand over the top and pulled it back.

"Tom what?"

"Anderson," he replied, smiling at her yet again. "Thomas Anderson."

She slowly slid the thermos back to him, and he left, looking back at her one last time before he disappeared out the door.

***

My trip went wonderfully, for anyone who cares. I got some wonderful new clothes (I start high school in less than three weeks). I also got a book called The Matrix and Philosophy ($17.95) and a little blue pin that says "Question Reality." Now am I obsessed or what? :)

So, any guesses as to who this unknown person is? It should be pretty obvious. If it's not... get some sort of mental evaluation.

R+R! :)