I know, I know, I need to get my ass in gear and write faster and post sooner, blah, blah, blah, just shut up, stop bothering me, and read. I'm beating myself up about it enough as it is.

***

Death and Rebirth

Chapter Nine

Soldier in Training

***

Trinity lay in the bed, not moving, refusing to open her eyes or focus any of her senses. She remained completely still, thinking, hoping against all hope that it had all been a dream, then thinking of the irony of that hope. Hoping that she would open her eyes to the white walls of a small bedroom in a New York apartment. Hoping that she would look over at her alarm clock, and see that it was set to ring two minutes from now. Hoping, against all possible hope, that none of it had happened.

She let her eyes open only very slightly, allowed her senses to surface slowly.

Metal walls of a tiny cabin in a military ship. No alarm clock, just a computer on the desk built into the wall.

She sighed heavily and fell back against the pillow. Too much to wish for. To much to wish that it wasn't true. She lay there for several minutes, trying to comprehend everything that she had been told. That she had spent the last sixteen years sleeping, dreaming a dream so vivid she thought it was real.

At that thought, it occurred to her that she should be grateful - because, horrible as it was to know all of this, wouldn't it be worse to still be trapped within that prison, oblivious to reality? But, still, it was a hell of a lot to take in.

She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, onto the cold floor. It was different, the feeling of the cold. Everything was different here. The way things felt and smelled, the sound of everything. How the lines of the things she saw were just a little bit more crisp. All of it was different in a way that she couldn't describe. Stronger, perhaps. More acute, more intense. It wasn't as if she were experiencing a new thing she had never encountered before. It was an altogether new experience, of everything. All completely unlike anything she had felt before. Yet, despite that dissimilarity, she would not fail to recognize a feeling when it came to her.

Like hunger, for instance.

***

The door was closed as quietly as Trinity could manage. She thought back to a time, not so long ago in her memory, and retraced the steps she had taken to get to the mess hall. Right, down the hall, left, and right again. Yes, this looked familiar enough. There was the ladder up to the next deck, and to the right the door to the mess hall. Open, again.

There were two people inside, speaking in quiet voices. She couldn't tell who they were, until she slipped inside the open door, and stood there for a moment. She watched, waiting for one of them to notice her. Niobe turned away from the counter first, and set a bowl and cup on the table between them.

"Well," she said kindly, sitting down, "look who's up."

A bit uncomfortable. Having someone she considered an almost complete stranger treat her with such familiarity. But she ignored it, for the time being. "Do you have anything to eat?"

Tank was at the back counter, leaning against it with his arms crossed. He laughed at her request. "Yeah, but you won't like it." He turned to look through one of the cabinets, and pulled out an old, small metal tray. "Sit down," he called over his shoulder.

She found a spot at the edge of the table bench, and waited, staring down at her hands. She tugged at a loose string at the hem of one sleeve. This sweater, surprisingly, was still a vivid shade of blue.

"Breakfast is served." He set the bowl down in front of her, spoon already waiting in it. But there was nothing appealing about the food itself.

She wasn't sure, but Trinity could swear that she simply sat and stared for nearly a minute. Tank's quiet laughter barely registered. She picked up the spoon - spork, really - and pushed the off-white goop around for several seconds. Finally, she looked up and spoke.

"This is edible?"

Niobe laughed this time. "Yes, it is."

Trinity stared down at the so-called "food" once again, seriously debating whether or not she was really that hungry. Pushing it around, she received another growl from her stomach, and finally gave in.

She ate in silence, trying not to focus on the actual taste of the food. Tried not to focus on anything, really. She tried to keep her mind blank, as much as she could, so as not to give herself another headache with the complexity of it all. So that she wouldn't be overwhelmed again.

"You were hungry..." Niobe mused, bringing her back to reality. She stared blankly for a moment, then looked down at her bowl. She hadn't even realized how fast she was eating. Niobe then folded her arms and leaned against the table. "So, how're you holding up?"

Trinity's head snapped up to look at her, eyes guarded once again. She hesitated for a moment before speaking. "All right, I guess."

But she wasn't. She knew that, and she knew that they did, too. She had questions, plenty of them, but she couldn't bring herself to ask a single one. She didn't like that. It wasn't like her at all. Rarely was she uncertain of herself, of what she did or would do. In the past, she had always been straightforward, always spoke her mind.

She hated being unsure of herself.

But she had a good reason, she supposed. A reason, or perhaps an excuse, to be unsure. Before, back when she hadn't known any of this, she was familiar with everything around her. Familiar with the people, familiar with the place, with the situation, the rules. And if ever she was thrown for a loop with something new, it rarely took her long to familiarize herself with that, too. It was easy for her, those times, because she knew how everything worked, and knew when she should and shouldn't do certain things. When she should or shouldn't say certain things.

But this was completely different. In the past, every new thing Trinity encountered was similar to the old things, and was easily adjusted to. None of this was like that. Everything, everyone here was completely different from her previous experiences. None of it was even remotely the same. She didn't have the faintest idea as to how she was supposed to handle any of it. So, for the time being, she remained poised, on guard, and closed to the world.

There were some things, however, that she needed to know, on guard or not.

"So what am I supposed to do now?" she asked hesitantly.

"Well," said Niobe, who then took a sip of her water. "You'll stay here, probably. You could stay in Zion, but I don't think you'd be the type that would want to."

Trinity was watching just barely watching her out of the corner of her eye. "What's Zion?

" It's a city, underground," she explained. "It's where we live, when we're not here. It's the one and only place where we're safe. The one place that's still ours." Grief in her voice, just the smallest bit. "Anyway, you'd be here, helping us."

"Doing what?"

She shrugged, as if it were nothing. Then again, to her, it probably was. "Things around the ship, in the Matrix. Helping us find more people to unplug. Fighting."

Fighting? Who, or what, could they possibly want her to fight? This was not a simple, low key, petty war that was being fought. That much was certain. And, logically, the more serious a war, the more dangerous the fighting involved. And the less she would be able to handle being in a situation like that.

"No...." she began slowly. This was not what she had been promised. "No, I can't do that." She had been told that she would be given the opportunity to help. To right what was wrong with the world. And, so far as she was concerned, that meant protecting. Protecting people, as she had done her whole life. "I can't fight a war." Because, in war, you were forced to kill. "I hate wars."

"Why?" Strange, how such a simple question could hold such meaning.

Trinity stayed quiet for a long time. But she finally shook her head, slowly. "I can't kill. I won't."

Yes. Morpheus had told her about this, in Zion, a few months before. In watching her, he had soon discovered that her search for the truth extended far beyond mere curiosity. Unlike most, she not only wanted to know the cause of that unsettled feeling, but she also wanted to end it. To end what was wrong, even though she didn't know what it was at the time. He had also told her, as they finally settled into bed a few nights after Trinity was unplugged, the offer he had made her.

It mad sense enough. She knew there was something wrong with the world, and she wanted to fix it. Wanted to bring others away from it's reach, protect them. Killing was not protecting. It was a naive wish in this war, to not have to kill. If she was to be a soldier, she would have to kill, eventually. But if her will proved to be as strong as they expected, the lives she would take would be nearly invisible compared to the ones she would save.

"It's not that kind of fighting," she said simply, not voicing any of her thoughts.

"What then?"

"The kind of fighting you already know how to do."

She waited a moment, turning this new information over in her head. "That would require a hell of a lot of skill, wouldn't it?" Niobe grinned at her, very slightly. "I'm guessing you're talking about fighting something a little more dangerous than some street gang. I don't have those kinds of capabilities."

Niobe grinned a bit more widely and resumed eating. "You will," she said a moment later. "We just need to train you up a little."

"...train me?" She received no response. She quickly glanced around the mess hall, noting it's size. Like every other place she had seen so far on this ship, there was barely enough room to move. "Where? This place isn't big enough." She ignored the other woman's quiet laughter. "And I don't know how good you think I am, but it would take at least a couple of years to train me as well as you need."

Without warning, Tank's head snapped up next to her, reminding her that he was there as well. He gave Niobe a questioning look, obviously hoping she would say yes. Almost before she waved him off, he was on his feet and tugging at Trinity's wrist.

"Come with me."

Reluctantly she followed him, allowing him to lead her out of the Mess hall.

"Don't fry her brain."

"I resent that," he called back.

***

Trinity's teeth involuntarily clenched as Tank plugged her in again.

"You'll get used to that," he said as he moved back to the operator's chair.

"I doubt it."

He typed in various commands on the double keyboards, and the screens flickered to life. There was a small set of compartments hidden away beneath the three central screens, from which he pulled a small metal case. Opening it, he pulled out a small handful of diskettes. "What fighting style had you started learning? Kung fu?" He flipped through perhaps a dozen disks before he stopped on one.

"Yeah." He put all but one of the disks back in the box and set it aside. He inserted the one kept out into the computer system, and typed more commands on the keyboard. "What are you doing?"

"You'll see," he said absently, entering orders onto the touch-screens this time. "Now... don't fight it. You'll just end up with a migraine."

She didn't have a chance to ask what he meant. One more key hit, and her mind was bombarded with a flood of information. She felt like she was going to get a headache whether she fought it or not. She didn't even realize what had happened until it ended, almost a full minute later.

Her eyes snapped back open, and she was breathing hard. Tank left her alone for a moment, letting her work through everything that just happened. Letting her mind run through the things she now knew.

Finally she looked over at him, shock, confusion and awe written on her face. He smirked at her, and picked another disk out of the box.

"So what would you like next?"

***

Niobe stood behind Tank, watching the screens and biding the remaining time until the rest of the crew woke up. She tapped her fingers against the top of the chair disapprovingly. "You're supposed to start with the operation programs."

He wasn't listening. "Mmm-hmm."

She stared down into her cup, swirling around what little water was left. "As I recall, we only let you on the crew because you graduated top of your class." She drank the last of it. "Start breaking all these rules and who knows how long it'll be until you get kicked off."

"Mmm-hmm."

***

Tank hit enter one final time and turned his chair to face Trinity, waiting for the final program to upload to her. Soon after, her eyes fluttered open, and she brought one hand up to her face. "Shit...."

"I'll take that as a good thing."

She rubbed her eyes, trying to make them focus better. "How the hell did you do that?"

"Special program designed to download into your long-term memory," he explained. "Just uploads through your plug. Pretty easy, really."

Trinity laughed quietly, her mental high only beginning to wear off. "Shit..... I feel like I could take on someone with both arms tied behind my back."

"You'll get to test that theory." He turned back to the screens, but didn't do anything. She stopped her revelry and stared at him.

"What do you mean?"

"What?" He turned and smirked at her again. "You think we'd just download all that stuff to ya and let it all rot away 'cause you didn't use it?"

***

She remembered, vaguely, hearing someone say that she was going to have to fight Morpheus. Sometime soon after she had been pulled out, and she was still drifting in and out of consciousness. She hadn't known what they were talking about then.

Trinity opened her eyes, expecting to see nothing but white again. She found herself instead in a traditional dojo. And a very large one at that. Sanded bamboo panels lined the floor, and wooden pillars suspended higher walls. There was sunlight streaming in from the windows. One side of the room even held a shrine ad dozens of swords.

"This is one of the training programs that we use." Morpheus had appeared from nowhere in front of her. He wasn't wearing his glasses - or any of the other things she had expected. Just a simple black sparring uniform. "It's programming is the same as that of the Matrix. It has rules, like speed constraints and gravity. We're here to teach you that those rules can be overcome. It's a simple matter of using your will power to ignore the rules you think are supposed to exist. Understand?"

She nodded.

***

Tank keyed up the remaining screens to display virtual dojo. The entire crew had been pulled from whatever they were doing to watch Trinity's first fight, and now stood huddled around the monitors watching and waiting.

"Let the games begin."

***

She moved into a fighting stance, just as she had countless times before, and watched him do the same. There was a familiarity in that, if nothing else. She held his eyes for several seconds, and quickly realized that he was waiting for her to make the first move. One more deep breath, and she attacked.

There was something in his eyes, something that she caught just as she sent a punch directly at his face. He caught it. Her mind stayed with that look, barely paying attention to her adversary. He was expecting something from her. Some ability, some level of skill, something that she couldn't pinpoint. She moved automatically, as she had done so many times before, as she realized that it was as if he was proud of her for something she hadn't done yet.

Trinity came back to her senses just in time to duck beneath a kick Morpheus had aimed at her stomach, and spin away. She scolded herself inwardly, for being so careless. Focus, Trinity, she thought, backing several more feet away. Focus.

She pushed all other thoughts from her head, willing her mind to process all of the moves she now knew.

"Are you ready this time?" he asked calmly.

She nodded very slightly. Holding his eyes, she moved into a ready stance she had never used before. A tiny grin pulled at the corners of her mouth as she attacked once more, ecstatic at these new abilities.

***

Two years of fighting, and here she was with skills that should only belong to someone with a decade's more training. Impossible, she knew, and had she not been experiencing it herself, she would never have believed it.

She didn't know how long she had been at this. Right block - five minutes, ten - flipping backwards over the leg sweep - an hour?

This was power coursing through her, raw power. The power of an adrenaline rush and the knowledge that you were suddenly a master of something you had so sought after. She loved it, reveled in it as she moved, kicks, strikes, and blocks all streaming from her without effort or thought.

Morpheus aimed a punch directly at her stomach. She blocked it with her right hand an instant before impact, and spun around to kick him in the chest. He flipped backwards with the momentum of it.

***

The crew remained positioned around the monitors, not having moved from where they stood before the fight began. Each wore a different expression - some of awe, some of pride. This only proved how unique Trinity was. Most new recruits did one of two things on their first fight: they either got their asses kicked within one minute, barely blocking a single strike, and making almost none of their own; or, they moved blindly, using their new skills at every available opportunity, and getting their asses kicked within two minutes.

Not Trinity. She had been in there at least ten minutes, and it did not seem like she would be down any time soon. She successfully blocked or avoided nearly ever punch and kick Morpheus sent her way. And a fair number of her own moves were making contact.

"She's good," Apoc muttered under his breath. There was a quiet murmur of agreement.

***

It was so much easier now, fighting, moving. She knew a thousand more offensive and defensive moves, a thousand more and better ways to fight, instead of having to rely on the few moves she had learned the old-fashioned way. It was incredible.

They were spinning around each other now, fists flying at what should have been impossible speed, but Trinity's eyes somehow managed to keep up with every one.

The rush was familiar, she had felt it before. But the feeling then couldn't hold a candle to the intensity of it now. The feeling of learning something like this, knowing that you were capable of something so powerful.

***

She didn't move like anyone else, that was the first thing Morpheus noticed. He had trained other new recruits before, ones who had a background in fighting, but even they were not like this. There was a stiffness to their moves, as if they planned them before acting. Not with Trinity. Her moves flowed smoothly - an instinctual action, not one thought through. In this world, fighting as they had to, that was an asset that could save your life. It was as if she simply shut her mind off, and let her body take over - there was sheer grace in her movements.

But, he noted, ducking beneath a side kick, that grace did not lack in strength. It did not take him long to learn that anyone who made the mistake of believing that her grace came without immeasurable strength would sorely regret it.

This one was not like anything he had ever seen before. This one was a force to be reckoned with.

***

When she woke, there was not a still-lingering exhaustion, no wish that she could continue to sleep for another three hours.. It was perhaps the first decent night's sleep she had had since they pulled her out.

Trinity sat up in her bunk, feeling around on the wall for where she knew the light switch should be. She squinted against the fluorescent light when it blinked on. Her eyes still weren't used to that. She locked her fingers together and stretched her arms above her head, remembering. Remembering the fight from several days ago, that she couldn't seem to get out of her head.

Despite what they had told her, of being only a simulation, and that her body was lying still in a chair, she had become tired. She was worn after what seemed like an eternity of fighting, and her mind began to slow. Morpheus had seen the opportunity, and with a swift kick to her stomach, she was sent flying across the floor. She stayed there for several seconds, finally rising to her knees, breathing hard and mentally berating herself.

"That shouldn't have happened," she had hissed as he walked closer to her.

"It's all right." His voice was calm, almost reverent. "That was easily one of the most impressive first fights I've ever seen."

He said she was good, great, even. They had all said that, when she came out. They had all been speaking too fast for her to understand, but she had caught something about her speed. They brought it back up on the monitor, showed her.

She had been just about to open the door to her cabin that night, about to go to sleep, when she asked him. She stopped Morpheus in the corridor, and asked him how she was able to move so fast.

He smiled at her, that same glint of pride in his eye. "If there's one thing you're going to learn here, Trinity, it's this: No matter how many physical limitations your body may carry, your mind carries only the limits you allow."

Only in these past few days was Trinity beginning to understand what he meant.

She pulled on her boots, and tugged the sweater she had left slung over her cabin's lone chair over her head. She made a mental note to herself to get an actual clock for her room, thinking how she hated having no sense of time.

She wandered around the narrow halls of the ship, looking for a place she hadn't been before, a new place to explore. She enjoyed, much more than her previous state, how much more comfortable she was growing with the crew. She had slowly begun letting them in over these past few days, the more she got to know them. They were teaching her, explaining the things that she didn't know. She was really beginning to trust them.

Maneuvering her way through the many bending halls, she found another ladder, leading down to a deck below. Climbing down it, the air around her became instantly warmer. Judging by that, and the many pieces of massive, complex machinery around her, she would have to say that this was the engine room.

A voice called out from behind her. "You're going to have to get acclimated to a normal sleep schedule sooner or later." She turned to see Tank, hunched over some loose wires and not looking at her. A tiny smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. Already she had decided that she liked him best.

"I'd prefer later," she said, sitting across from him. "What are you doing?"

He shrugged, not really thinking over his answer. "The connection between the piloting computers and here was getting glitches. Just fixing it before anything happens."

"You do this kind of stuff a lot?" she asked quietly, after a moment's silence

"Yeah." He still wasn't looking at her. "It's an old ship. It's got all kinds of things wrong with it. We just have to fix all the little problems as they pop up."

Trinity surveyed her surroundings in silence, letting him work for a minute. That had been one of her first impressions of the ship - that it was falling apart at the seams. And, apparently, it was. But it was also apparent that this crew carried a certain love of this ship, and would keep it up and running until it was no longer needed, no matter how long that took. Yes, they were like a family here. And, although she wouldn't admit it to any of them yet, she was hoping that she would someday be considered a part of it. She hadn't had much of that back in the Matrix, at the end, save for Switch.

Switch. Suddenly, Trinity couldn't help but laugh quietly.

"What?" Tank looked up at her for the first time.

"Just thinking of a friend of mine. She would find all of this unbelievably ironic." Her quiet laughter subsided.

"Why?" He stopped his re-wiring, and sat up to look at her.

She shook her head. "She always hated movies where machines took over the world. She always said that it was about the most ridiculous story anyone could come up with, because it would never happen."

Tank grinned, and turned his attention back to the loose wires. Yeah, that was Switch. Hated The Terminator. And now here was her best friend, living in a reality she thought couldn't possibly exist. That thought struck another chord for Trinity, and here eyebrows drew together in worry.

"What's Zion like?" He looked at her questioningly. "I just have this picture in my head.... Something out of Terminator. Just.... old bunkers, practically no food, everybody sick...."

He smiled at her and shook his head. "No. Nope, not even close."

"So what's it like, then?"

"Well..." He repositioned himself, his muscles having cramped from sitting there so long. "There's a little less than a quarter million people there, so a couple old bunkers wouldn't be anywhere near big enough. Certainly not a shortage of food."

"So why isn't there a decent thing to eat around here?" she quipped.

"Not enough room, and it wouldn't stay good long enough. But the place is really huge, though, I think you'd like it."

"When do I get to see it?"

"Not sure." He was only half paying attention to her. "But we'll have to dock to recharge the ship within a couple months. You'll see it then."

There were several long minutes of silence as she let him work, watching him. She didn't speak again until he tucked the wires away and closed the small hatch in the floor. He leaned back against the wall as she asked her question. "How long have you been here? On the ship?"

"Not too long. Six or seven months. To be perfectly honest, it's a miracle they let me on the crew, just 'cause I'm so young."

"So why'd they let you on?" She stood and followed him to the ladder leading to the upper deck. He waited for her at the top, not answering until they started walking again.

"I'm a good operator. That, and Dozer's my brother - that had a lot to do with it." She nodded at the corner of his vision. He turned his head to regard her more fully. She showed no sign of recognizing the look. Tank had quickly noticed that she was like that - reserved, quiet, closed. She had been up and moving for a week now, and she had stoic for the first few days. She would speak only when she was asked a question, and her answers were always curt and to the point. But recently, with the more time she had been spending with everyone, he was noticing less of that. Slowly but surely, she was opening up to them. "You doin' okay?" he asked quietly. But not completely open, he thought, seeing the guarded look she gave him. After a moment it ebbed slightly.

"I'm fine. This is just so strange, everything. I can barely wrap my head around it." She was grateful when he left it at that. It wasn't something she liked to dwell on, because, horrible as it all was, there wasn't a doubt in her mind that it was true.

***

All I can say is that it's a good thing I wrote about 90% of this before I saw Revolutions. Otherwise, you'd be waiting a loooooong time to hear from me. By the way, Revolutions is awesome, you must see it, even if you've heard terrible things about it. Everyone must see it once.

R+R!! : )