I don't have an excuse this time, except one of the scenes was hell to write, and my Muse jetted off to Hawaii without telling me again. And one more thing: You people need to chill out about Switch. I haven't forgotten about her, and she will play a very major role in my master plan. So don't worry, she'll show up in a few chapters.
***
Death and Rebirth
Chapter Twelve
Agents
***
On the bright side, the incident had taught him something: never fight Trinity on someone else's request without finding out why. He found out the hard way that it would only leave him with many bruises on his real world body, and a soreness he could not banish, even within the Construct.
She had finally finished him off, jumping straight up kicking him squarely in the chest with an eagle-like maneuver. Now, Ghost slumped against the wall with a quiet groan, Trinity so restless that she only paced back and forth in front of him.
"So I'm your designated personal punching bag now?" He barely noticed when the corner of her mouth pulled up the slightest bit. He waited, but beyond that, she made no response. His eyebrows drew together in worry. "Are you okay?" She slowed... "Do you want to tell me what happened?" ...and sat beside him.
"I found out who the Oracle is," she began. "She... knows pretty much everything... about everything."
Ghost waited, not pressing her to speak any faster. He could tell that she hadn't figured it all out yet, and telling him before she had would only make it worse. So he sat patiently against the wall, watching her features carefully.
"And when you go to see her, she tells you what's going to happen in your life. Supposedly."
A long silence stretched out before them, Ghost measuring her words. He broke the stillness a while later. "You don't think she's telling you the truth?"
She was pacing again. "I don't think anyone has the right to tell me what's going to happen in my life before it actually does."
"So what's the matter, then?"
Trinity had reached the end of the dojo, and found herself standing before the rack of swords. Fingering one's intricate carving, she debated with herself about how much she really wanted to tell him. Finally making up her mind, she pulled the sword from it's sheath and said with a sigh, "This isn't the first time I've met her." Swinging the sword deftly from hand to hand, she steeled herself and jumped right in. "Little over a year ago, I was in Central Park, and out of nowhere she comes and sits down next to me and starts feeding the birds." She sighed angrily, spinning the sword a bit more fiercely.
"What happened?"
"She's the one who told me about Morpheus in the first place. I didn't know what the Matrix was at the time. Bottom line is, I didn't have the faintest idea what she was talking about, and she told me that I would in a year. And here I am."
She leaned one shoulder against a wooden pillar, running her finger through her hair in frustration, in anger for acting this way. Anger that she war so openly displaying one of her more detested weaknesses. Anger that she was not listening to her own logic and disregarding the Oracle's words, and anger because it was that same logic that made her believe them.
"What did she say this time?"
Heavy sigh. "She told me -" But she when she looked to him, she froze. In the back of her mind, she was telling herself that she was being absurd. She may not have known him more than a few weeks, but she knew that she could trust him. He wouldn't laugh at her, wouldn't look down on her, wouldn't repeat her words to anyone else. And yet, somehow....
Trinity shook her head, and turned away. "Nothing. It's nothing important."
***
Trinity made her way into the Core silently, and seated herself in one of the jacking chairs across from the operator's chair and Tank. It snapped him out of a daze - he seemed to be sleeping with his eyes open. He blinked several times, and glanced at the screen.
"You don't have to be out here for another fifteen minutes."
"I know," she replied. "But I woke up before my alarm went off and I couldn't get back to sleep." She leaned back and pretended for a moment that she was sitting in an old recliner. "Four and a half months and I still can't get used to two a.m. watch shifts."
He smiled sleepily. "Yeah, it takes a while to get used to it. Unfortunately, the only good chance you'll get to catch up on sleep is in Zion."
"When are we docking anyway?"
His brow furrowed in concentration, trying to remember accurately. "I think it's supposed to be in a week or two. That's what Morpheus said this morning."
"'Bout time," she muttered gratefully.
"Getting sick of the place?"
"Hell yes. I never was one to stay in the same place too long." She sat up and faced him. "Out of curiosity, how long do ships usually stay out?"
"Batteries last about six months if they're fully charged, but they usually head back to recharge long before that. There's not really any set time frame for how long they stay out, it just depends on what the captains want to get done and when."
"Six months, huh?" she asked, eyebrow raised.
Tank tried to grin through a yawn. "Not the twentieth century anymore, Trin. Technology has improved since then."
There was a long pause, and Trinity fought to keep a slightly pained look off of her face. "Don't call me Trin."
She was immensely thankful when he didn't ask her why.
"Listen," he said several minutes later. "First time a new recruit gets to Zion, they get issued a room in the military quarter. They're hell if you've never lived on your own before, or if you don't know your way around the city yet. If you want, you can stay with my family for a while."
Trinity stared at him with a mix of shock and gratitude on her face.
"Just until you get a feel for the place."
"Sure.... Thanks." She gave him one of her rare, true smiles. "What are they like? Your family?"
"Well, other than Dozer, it's his wife, my mom and dad, and my sister. They're all pretty nice. Except my sister loves to pick on me."
Trinity snorted at the way he said it. "She's your sister, she's obligated. Little thing we like to call 'sibling rivalry'."
Just then, a quiet alarm sounded from the console. Trinity automatically rose from the jacking chair and moved to stand beside Tank. "Go get some sleep. You need it."
He stood from his seat, barely awake, and she took his place to start her shift. She had curled her legs up into the chair, and he was almost out of the Core when a thought suddenly occurred to him. "Oh, um," he rubbed his eyes, forcing himself to remember the details accurately. "Morpheus is taking you into the Matrix in a few days."
Trinity spun in her seat, staring at him wide-eyed. It took her a moment to remember how to speak. "What?"
"Yeah. He just wants to give you a feel of how things work before we head back."
"... are you serious?"
"It surprises you that much? Yes," he said finally, turning away again, "I'm serious. G'night."
Her eyes followed him as he descended the ladder without another word, and she found herself stunned into silence.
***
After two days, she had started to wonder if Tank had spoken the truth, or if he had merely imagined it in his half-conscious state. But the previous night proved that idea wrong, when she found herself alone with Morpheus in the mess hall. She had barely been able to fall asleep that night, but eventually convinced herself that she would need the sleep.
Her excitement grew all through the morning, though she couldn't quite say why. Maybe it was just that she was finally going to start taking an active role in the war, or maybe she had been training for too long with no real way to use her new skills. She didn't know.
She spent the entire morning damping down any signs of her anticipation, but after several hours she had become more than a little flustered. She had been assigned to fix a wiring problem in the cockpit, and she was barely able to control her fingers enough to do it properly.
"Trinity." She jumped a little and found Morpheus standing in the doorway. "We're going in now." She hurriedly reconnected the last wire and closed the cover in the wall., She had descended the ladder into the Core an instant later, and Morpheus ushered her towards the chairs. Tank was waiting to plug her in, and snickered at how quickly she sat down.
"Somebody's excited." She glared briefly before her eyes closed and reopened to the white expanse that was the Construct, waiting for Morpheus. Waiting, and waiting.
And waiting.
She stared up above her head, where the sky should be, as if she expected him to fall from it. Instead, she was startled by a ringing phone in her pocket, which she answered on the second ring.
"Morpheus is gonna be a while. He has to talk to the captain of another ship."
"What about?"
"Captain stuff, I don't know exactly." Oddly, he seemed not to care, either. "Something got relayed from Zion or something. Anyway, I'm supposed to send you in ahead, and Morpheus'll be there in a few minutes."
Trinity stood in silence. Send her in? "By myself?"
"Yeah, don't worry. Pretty low traffic area for Agents. They don't watch it very closely."
"Are you sure?" Something wasn't right.
"Positive. Now, what kind of motorcycle did you have?"
"Triumph," she muttered automatically. "Speed Triple, black." She blinked and found herself in a back alley, the bike leaned against a dumpster.
"You go out the alley and left, you'll hit a park about five blocks down. Morpheus wants you to wait there." Click.
Trinity stared blankly at the phone. Something was wrong. He was being too nonchalant, too vague for her comfort. Too... careless. Like he was hiding something, and poorly at that. But there was nothing she could do, really, no way of calling him on it without being denied if she had no idea what was going on. And, she told herself, whatever it was, it was probably nothing she really needed to worry about.
She tucked the phone back into her coat pocket, and pulled out of the alley on the Triumph.
The street ran right through the lush, well grown park, where she parked on the side of the road. She could swear that it was a part of Central Park, that she had seen those exact tables before, that very walkway leading deeper into the park, that same restaurant across the street. But she could see none of the landmark buildings she knew so well, and resigned to wondering where she might be that this would look so similar to New York.
She quickly grew impatient, trying to bide her time watching everyone who went by. There was no one out of the ordinary - men and women in well-tailored business suits, carrying heavy briefcases or coffees-to-go. A few people in simple blue jeans, enjoying a day off. Parents with their children, a few teenagers here and there. All of them perfectly normal, not a thing out of place. Too normal, almost. The more people passed by on the sidewalk, the more Trinity saw a certain uniformity to them, in their clothes, postures, and - the closer she looked - in their too-plain, unsmiling faces. As if - hadn't she see that woman walk by a minute ago?
Her attention snapped away from the passing crowd at a sharp ring. It rang once more before she reached into her pocket and answered the phone. About time.
"Took you long enough -"
"Not about that Trinity, you have to get out of there."
She froze, all of her senses automatically going into overdrive. "What?"
"There's Agents after you -"
"I thought you said -"
"I know what I said Trinity, but they know you're there, and you have to get out," he rushed. "You can't get out from the same hardline, they've cut it, you have to get to another one."
"Where is it?" She swung a leg over the bike, turning the key in the igniter.
"Go straight down the street until you get to Priest, then left until Canyon, and right until Newport, it's in an abandoned apartment building there. Got it?"
"Left at Priest, right at Washington to Newport." She pushed the kickstand up with her heel.
"I'll call you when you get there." She hung up, and sped off.
She deftly wove between cars, changing lanes only as quickly as she thought she could without drawing much attention. She narrowly avoided one red light, then another before she saw the first turn in the distance. Again she increased her speed, praying that she would make it. Stay green, stay green... yellow... not yet... and just as she cleared the light, she heard a bullet whiz past her ear.
"Shit!"
Trinity raced forward, not caring if anyone noticed, as she had already been spotted. The briefest of glances showed her three agents in an old pickup, speeding after her, drawing numerous honks, screeches, and minor crashes from cars trying to get out of its path. One eye was kept on her mirror, enough to tell her that they were gaining. Fast. On impulse, praying that she wasn't doing something stupid, she sped two lanes to the right and down a small side street, making a car screech to a halt, being rear-ended by the one behind it. Down the center lane of that road, and left on the first cross-street, and right at the next. She didn't look back to see if she was being followed - her only goal right now was to get away. She turned one more left, slowing slightly until the signs above the intersection read Washington.
Don't go so fast, she told herself as she turned down the street. If no one sees anything unusual, they won't know you're here. She glanced at her mirrors several times within only a few blocks, more than a little nervous. But sure enough, there, behind several small shops, was her salvation - four abandoned apartment buildings. She sped the rest of the way to an alleyway, stopping the bike well inside. She had pulled her phone out and answered almost before it had rung, running down the alley.
"Okay - it's the building farthest from where you are, room 214. I uploaded you some guns in the Construct -" Trinity unconsciously reached to her side, and indeed felt several guns she had not noticed before, "- and extra magazines. Go around - get down!"
On instinct she ducked behind a dumpster, another bullet whizzing past just as a gunshot sounded through the air. Instead of her, it hit a brick wall farther down the alley, shattering off countless pieces. Everything else suddenly gone from her mind, she pulled a gun from the back of her belt and leapt from behind the dumpster. Before the Agent could raise his gun to shoot her again, she had fired several shots at him. She fled down a side alley as he was busy dodging the bullets.
Farthest from where you are. The building farthest from where she had been. She had passed the first building, across from the Hardline. So this one would be directly next o it.
Kicking off of a bile of unused bricks, Trinity vaulted over the alley wall to the back of the old apartments. She swiftly kicked open the first door she came to, still running when she got inside. Silently she prayed that Morpheus had been right in telling her that she would be safest indoors - that buildings had enough twists and turns to elude an Agent. Further down the hall, she came to what was once the lobby, stairs at one end, and all three upper levels opening down to the round floor. She stopped for just a moment, planning, before she ran and jumped again, this time flipping over the railing of the third level. From there it was down the nearest hall, stopping only when she reached the end and had hidden around a corner.
Okay, Trinity, she told herself, stay calm, don't panic. Her breathing was heavier, she noted as she examined the situation, even though she knew none of it was real. Okay. T-shaped hallway, mirror hanging on the wall, while she hid around the left corner. Three Agents, spread out God knows where, the exit in the next building. Both ends of the hall - clear.
The mirror showed most of the hall she had run down, clear from what she could see. She looked briefly around the corner, to be sure. Instantly, she regretted it, and was already running when bullets shattered the glass of the mirror. Down the hallway, through an open door on the right, out the window on to the fire escape. Ascending the ladders and ducking behind an AC unit, she suddenly found herself grateful for so many years of experience with fire escapes.
Okay, to that building, find the room and get out. Reloading her gun with surprisingly calm fingers, knowing full well that the Agent was right behind her, she ran blindly towards the next roof.
Almost before her feet made contact with the roof, Trinity turned, just in time to see the Agent jump across the gap. With inhumanly fast reflexes she fired three quick shots. One missed... one hit his right shoulder... and - thank God - the last lodged itself in his stomach. She barely caught a glimpse of him morphing back to the host body before another Agent climbed up from the fire escape, and sent her running again.
Inside the stairwell, she took the steps four and fie at a time, then by sixes when she heard the door at the top open. Several bullets rebounded off the walls and railing, though she barely felt the one that grazed her left shoulder. She cleared the last flight of stairs in one leap, and, finding it to be locked, sent the second story door nearly flying off it's hinges with a well-aimed kick. On the wall just inside the hallway, it listed apartment numbers - 200 to 206 on the right, 207 to 215 on the left. She dashed down the left hall and around the corner, glancing over her shoulder every few yards.
Further down, the hallway split, going to the left, and continuing straight. Despite the fact that she knew there was an Agent not very far behind her, something made her stop at the corner and check the left hall. Shit. The third Agent. She couldn't go forward - she'd be seen - and she couldn't stay there - the other was closely following her. Something, anything, she thought, glancing over her shoulder once again, happen. Then, just as she peeked around the corner again, the Agent looked into an open apartment, looking for her, and she ran.
The phone. She could hear the phone now, faintly, through the door of the last apartment. Just a little farther....
She nearly lost her balance when even more bullets whizzed past her, both Agents now chasing her. One grazed her hip, painfully, but a graze nonetheless. She turned the fall into a tumble and pressed herself up against the wall opposite the door of 214. She ran straight into the door, forcing it open with her uninjured shoulder, and saw the ringing phone - salvation - on a little table beneath a window. She had it pressed to her ear in an instant, and just saw the Agent run to the door, before there was only blackness.
***
Her eyes snapped wide open the instant she felt herself return to the real world. A bright light hung above her head, but in her terror, she didn't think to close her eyes against it. She quickly glanced around, just to reassure herself that she was safe. Only hen did she close her eyes tightly, trying into block out everything. She pulled her hands form the armrests to cover her face, and found them to be clenched so tightly against the fabric that moving them sent pains through her forearms.
She lay back in the chair for several long minutes, berthing hard as she waited for the adrenaline to wear out of her system Finally, she forced herself to sit forward, but she kept her face in her hands, resting her elbows on her knees. She flinched when Morpheus put comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Are you alright?"
Trinity nodded once, slowly. She finally put her hands down, laying her arms across her knees. The adrenaline was fading quickly, and sit left her exhausted. Her eyes moved to each person in the room, a frown growing deeper and deeper with each grinning face. "What?" The grins grew wider.
"Trinity." Morpheus, still standing beside her, was smiling more than anyone. "So you remember the test I told you about, to stay on the ship?" She nodded, ot understanding his implications in her state. "You just passed it."
There followed a long, dead silence. Trinity's eyes remained downcast, focused on a small hole in the knee of her pants. She did not notice when the grins of the rest of the crew quickly disappeared.
"What?"
He was obviously too proud at that moment to notice her tone. "With flying colors, I might add."
She slowly lifted her head to meet his eyes, rage quickly burning stronger and stronger in them. "A test?"" she hissed, fighting to control herself. "As in it wasn't real?"
"No, it wasn't, you don't have to -" She bolted from her chair before he could finish, making eye contact with non on as she stormed towards the ladder to the lower deck. She heard Morpheus and a few others running to catch her, unsurprisingly. "Trinity -" He put a hand on her shoulder when he caught up, trying to make her stop.
She shouldn't' have done it; some part of her knew that even as she did. And under any other circumstances, she would have had the self control not to. But not now, not after she had narrowly avoided what she though was certain death. Now, her self control was worth nothing, and when he touched her shoulder, she spun around with lightning speed to deliver a high kick, aimed straight for his chest.
He just barely moved in time, and her kick only sent him back a few feet more. For a long moment, she looked him squarely in the eye with a lethal glare, and finally descended to the lower deck.
***
Her legs had cramped a good two hours earlier., and her arms had to have been stiff for three. She'd been in her cabin since they pulled her out of the simulation, sitting in various positions on her bed. For now, her back rested uncomfortably against the wall at the foot of her bed, next to the door. Her arms were crossed over her chest, legs bend with her heels digging into the mattress.
She had been there all afternoon, sitting and wallowing in her anger - not sleeping as she thought she would be after the adrenaline fall-off, or working through her anger, or even ignoring it to do something productive. She just sat thinking only of what had happened, over and over, moving neither forwards nor backwards in her thoughts. Nor did she make a sound when someone knocked softly on the door.
Trinity closed her eyes, not wanting to speak to anyone. Still, the door opened as silently as possible, and Tank's careful footsteps entered. He must have been trying to tell if she was asleep, she reasoned.
"You've known about it all along."
He sighed heavily and flopped carelessly into the desk chair. "Yeah." Her already sore jaw clenched tighter. "Look, Trinity..." She glared at him expectantly, barely raising her head. "I'm sorry, it wasn't my idea - personally, I think it's ridiculous. If I had it my way... it'd be different." She stopped glaring and closed her eyes again, and he ran one tired hand over his head. "But I don't get to call the shots, and that's just how they do this."
"And why the hell is that Tank?" she hissed viciously, more so than she'd intended.
He opened and closed his mouth several times, wringing his hands, before mumbling, "Morpheus could probably explain it better."
She shook her head angrily, staring at a spot on the wall beside her. Then - speak of the Devil - a knock on the frame of the open door.
"Tank, could I speak with Trinity for a moment, alone?" Tank left without a word, closing the door behind him, and Morpheus took his place, jumping right in. "Trinity -"
"Don't even start."
"Trinity," he repeated, more forcefully. "I'm sorry about what happened. But that's how the test has always been done, it's the best way -"
"How the fuck is almost killing me the best way to test me?" she snapped, as usual not caring than he was her superior officer.
She could tell when he sighed that he was trying to stay calm. "If you know it isn't real, you'll act differently. This way, we can see a genuine reaction to pressure and stress." He barely heard a low growl come from her throat. "And the program would have stopped before you were seriously injured, you were never in any real danger."
Trinity let out a long, low breath and stood from the bed, much more calm than she seemed. With one hand, she pulled up her shirt, and hooked the other in the waist of her pants, revealing a large, dark, fresh bruise that had formed on her left hip. "Real fucking harmless, Morpheus." She sat back again sat the wall, legs crossed this time, leaving her arms at her sides.
"Trinity -"
"No, you know what? Just..." She shook her head, not wanting to deal with this at all. "Just leave."
And finally, he did.
***
Again, sorry for the wait. A lot of it was the chase sequence. It gave me a really hard time. If you don't mind, I'd like some honest opinions of it, because I don't think it was that good. And if you can think of any good examples of action fics that I could read, I'd love to know about them. Oracle cookies for anyone who can show me a good one.