Death and Rebirth

Chapter Sixteen

Old Friendships

---

Switch readjusted the pillows behind her head, trying yet again to find a comfortable position to read in. It was getting to be ridiculous. She had already tried many different positions at the kitchen table, couch, every chair in the house, and still could not find comfort. And she had important reading to do. She had been behind in this class the previous semester, and she had promised herself that it wasn't going to happen again. She knew, though, that her problem had nothing to do with where she sat or how.

It was Trinity.

It had been nearly five weeks since she had simply shown up in her living room in the middle of the night, and she was starting to worry. She had tried not to - told herself a million times that if she could survive whatever she was up to for four years, she could certainly do it for another few weeks. But still.... It was a dream that had started it, really. She had gone nearly a week, somehow managing not to think of it much - consciously. Her subconscious, however, seemed to have different priorities, putting all the things Trinity had said together and trying to make some sense out of them. And, sure enough, it came up with something,

Switch barely remembered the dream, only the idea behind it, and now it was all she could do to keep the dream separate from reality in her head. Even that wall was slowly collapsing. In the dream, Trinity worked for the CIA. She wasn't able to tell Switch anything because it would put her life in danger. She was doing the right thing by helping Morpheus because she was helping the CIA track him, feeding them information, spying. And, in finding Switch, talking with her, she had made a fatal move, and her life was now at risk by Morpheus himself.

She tore her mind away from the very notion and forced her eyes onto the page, but they wouldn't focus. She sighed heavily and rubbed her eyes, hard, and then her temples. "Stop it, you're not helping anything," she grumbled to no one. "She's fine, she said it would take a while." The phone rang suddenly, startling her and nearly pushing her to the limit. "Go away."

"Hey," came her own voice from the answering machine after several rings. She slumped down low on the bed, textbook falling to the floor. "You've reached Kelly Miller - you know the drill."

"It's me." She immediately sat bolt upright, eyes fixating on the phone and ears listening intently. "I'm sorry it took so long. Go to the club on Minton, downtown. Blue Haven. Be there by eleven, wait for me at the bar."

The message ended, and Switch was already pulling on her coat.

---

She had not been waiting more than a few minutes, but she had already begun to grow impatient, taking only small sips of the drink she had ordered, frequently scanning the crowded club.

Trinity was late.

She checked her watch again - only 11:05. She leaned against the counter, drumming her fingers and again searched for Trinity. She was nowhere along the long bar, nowhere among the gyrating bodies on the dance floor, standing along the wall, nor at any of the small tables scattered around the edges of the room.

"Beer, please," came a voice to her left, barely audible over the din of the bar.

Switch smiled just a little, hiding it with the rim of her glass, instantly relieved. "I was beginning to worry about you."

"Now why -" Trinity leaned closer, taking her drink from the bartender, "-would you go and do a stupid thing like that?"

She laughed quietly and shook her head. "Five weeks," she said, barely looking to the other woman. "Plenty of time to think up a few very bad, very painful things that could have happened to you." She finally turned to see Trinity taking small drinks of her beer. It may have been years since they had really seen each other, but she could still see the hidden smirk in her friends face.

"Such as...?"

"Well," she said slowly, "it's long, and complicated, but I'll just say it involves terrorists, the CIA... you being some sort of double agent."

Trinity laughed. "Didn't I already tell you, Switch? He's not a terrorist."

"Mmhmm," she murmured, staring at the circle of condensation her glass had left on the countertop. "You did." Trinity was about to speak again, but she was cut off. "And don't think I don't know what you're doing. You're going to have to tell me what's going on sooner or later, it might as well be now."

She shut her eyes tightly and turned her head away.

"Trin."

She sighed heavily, but did not look up.

"Trinity, what's so bad about this? Why can't you just tell me -"

"Because we're going to be in enough danger over the next few hours as it is, I can't risk putting us in any more."

Switch, now slightly stunned into silence, simply watched her oldest friend for several minutes as she clearly wrestled with her own thoughts. Her nervous habit of running her hands through her hair had not left her. She noticed that it was longer now - closer to her shoulders, rather that cut short as it had been the entire time they had known each other.

Trinity finally made up her mind, and began to speak slowly. "Okay." She sighed. "You're going to come with me and some friends of mine, and... when we get there, you're going to have to decide whether you want to come stay here in New York, or come with us. Come with me."

She processed this quietly for a moment. "That doesn't sound like such a big deal."

"Believe me, it is."

"...so what's the catch?"

"The catch is, whatever decision you make is final." She drank a little more of her beer, and continued. "There's no turning back either way. If you stay here -" She spoke these words with a hint of sadness and worry in her voice, "- we will probably never have any kind of contact with each other whatsoever for the rest of our lives. If you decide to stay, everyone I know will know the choice you've made, and it will never be offered to you again."

There was a long silence between them. Neither looked at the other the entire time. "And if I go with you?"

"Then you would be giving up everything." Her tone was many times graver than it had been before. "Your whole life, this entire world. School, family, friends, work, over-sweetened coffee, all of it. The only way out of the life you'd end up in would be suicide."

Switched laughed quietly, nervously. "It's that bad?"

"For some people," she admitted softly. "Probably not for you. But it is... quite a change."

"You're making it sound like I'd be better off staying here...."

She didn't seem to be listening, and instead stared at some distant point on the wall. "Almost everyone in the world would be. But most people who feel what you feel, what I felt -" Trinity caught Switch's eyes to emphasize her meaning "-would tell you that the trade-off is well worth it."

They watched each other for a few moments, until Trinity suddenly turned away and pulled back the sleeve of her coat to check her watch. Switch caught a glimpse of it's face and saw that it was not even 11:30. "We need to get going." She stood and left some money on the counter, enough for both of their drinks. "I know it's not fair to you, but you won't have a long time to make your decision." As she spoke, she was already heading for the back-alley exit.

With only slight reluctance, Switch followed.

They slipped silently through the alley to an old, dark sedan waiting towards the end. Two men were waiting by it, one sitting on the hood, fiddling with his keys. The other was waiting farther into the alley, closer to the back door of the bar. He was the one who spoke.

"Trinity, how long does it take to just go in a bar and bring somebody out?"

She glared. "Get in the car. I'm not in the mood."

Trinity slid into the back seat on the drivers side, and Switch followed her into the right. When the two men were in the front seats, the car was started, and they drove out of the alley and onto the busy streets.

---

She turned her head slightly and looked at Switch out of the corner of her eye. She sat perfectly still, her arms folded tightly over her chest. Trinity couldn't see her face, but she knew she would find a look of intense concentration and thought if she could. Trinity slowly turned back, and her eyes fixated themselves onto the back of the driver's seat. She squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to ward of a sudden tightness in her chest, and as she did, she realized that she was absolutely terrified.

Trinity's first four years of freedom, the longest years of her life, had been spent alone in the real world. She had spend months establishing new relationships with everyone she met, a task that had proved to be anything but easy. She had become close to those people - they were practically family by now. She knew she could talk with them, confide in them, trust them with her darkest secrets, with her very life. But even so, it had not taken her long to realize what she had lost when she had left Switch years ago. There was simply something about them, about their friendship that she could not find in anyone else. Her attitude, insight an d the bond that had formed between them over six years was unique to Switch and no one else. She would never know how much the loss of that bond had changed her life these past four years.

Trinity honestly had absolutely no idea which pill Switch would choose. For the first week or two after she had found out she was one of the Resistance's new prospects, she had thought she knew. First, she was sure it would be the blue pill. It was before she had learned of her friends revelation, after all - and almost no one who didn't feel the error of the world would have taken the red pill. Even if it meant being with Trinity again, the sacrifice wouldn't have been worth it to her.

But after their meeting, after finding out that she had sensed it, after seeing how happy she was that they could see each other again - there hadn't been a doubt in her mind that the choice would be red.

The more she thought about it, though, the more she realized that she was only looking at the most obvious factors in her friend's choice. Even if she had not realized the lie of the Matrix, there may still have been reasons for her to pick the red pill. Perhaps she would have wanted to find out where Trinity had been all these years and what could have compelled her to leave. Then again, she had established a life of her own since the last time they had met. It wouldn't be easy to leave that behind, even if the world was illusion.

Trinity thought that her mind would eventually settle on one possibility or the other, but she soon realized that it would not happen, as her thoughts and conclusions changed ridiculously often, even as much as several times a day. It had been driving her mad these past weeks. She simply could not keep her mind off it.

The car stopped suddenly and Trinity saw in her peripheral vision that Switch, too, had been lurched from thought. Both turned to each other almost simultaneously.

"Come on."

They stepped from the car into a motel parking lot. The motel was completely deserted, rundown. It was well off towards the edge of the city. It was a simple two level building running in a U-shape around the parking lot. In silence, both women walked side by side through the small lot and up the nearest staircase. They walked a little farther along the balcony, and Trinity stopped before one of the doors, her hand precariously resting on the knob for a moment.

"This is your decision, Switch," she whispered, almost more for herself than her friend. "I can't make it for you." As she swiftly opened the door, time began to blur as the fear seeped further into her consciousness. Switch followed a half step behind her. Morpheus introduced himself. The two women locked eyes briefly, and the next thing Trinity knew she was pulling the door shut again and walking down the balcony to the corner of the building. Inside the first room, the rest of the crew was preparing for the unplugging. She glanced back through the door as she closed it and began helping - slowly - with some random parts of the setup process.

Several times over the next few minutes, she finished or simply stopped what she was doing and pulled back the tattered curtain not more than an inch - only enough to see, over and over, that no one was coming, that they were not finished and the choice had not yet been made.

"Trinity," Cypher called from across the room. "You gonna help or not?"

She said nothing and let the curtain fall back into place. She moved to the dresser on the far wall, where several last-minute wire connections had yet to be made. Somehow, she had enough self-control to keep herself there, working, at least for some length of time. Then, finally, just when she was sure she would rush back to the window or lose her mind, the door squeaked as it opened. She did not turn, but simply looked to the mirror above the dresser.

When Switch looked as well, she smiled.

---

Earlier that day, trinity had asked Dozer when he thought Switch would come out of her comatose state. She had been moved from the infirmary after a week, adn they now continually checked up on her in her cabin. He had told her that it would only be a day or two, maybe less.

Trinity had kept closest watch over the past ten days, both in the infirmary and Switch's cabin, had been second only to Dozer when it came to tending to her. He had called her on it, but in his true brotherly fashion, had let the subject drom when she had made it apparent that she was not interested in explaining herself.

Trinity rolled over in bed and propped herself up on an elbow to see the digital clock on the wall above her desk. Late, but not time to check on her friend. Nonetheless, she decided now was as good a time as any, and slipped into her boots and sweater.

She plodded around the corner to the tiny cabin and slowly, so not to make a sound, turned the wheel and opened the door. She lay motionless on the small cot, still unconscious, the IV still attached to the plug in her arm. Trinity hadn't been expecting anything else, but has simply wanted to check on her friend. She leaned against the beaten dresser for a minute or two, watching, waiting for nothing in particular. Finally, she was somehow satisfied that Switch was in as healthy a state as before, and pried the door open again. This time she was not as careful, and it did make a sound. Just as she had opened it far enough to slip through, she heard the faint ruffling of the sheets, and a hurried, confused, "Trinity?"

She back-stepped into the room to find Switch awake, upright, and staring at her. A moment later, she quickly scanned the cabin. "Where are we?"

Her mouth opened and closed several times. What should she say? Was it really the best idea to tell her now? "I -"

"Trinity," she interrupted, seeing the same look she had see every time she asked what was going on. "Where are we?"

"Switch, I -"

"Don't give me any of that shit, Trinity." She had swung her feet around to the floor, and was very angry. "I want a explanation, now. Everything you haven't told me. You owe me, you promised."

She was right. She had promised. And there was no talking her out of it this time, no, "I can't tell you now." She finally moved away from the door, to the bed, and picked up Switch's left arm. Switch, who had apparently noticed the IV but had not paid close attention, glanced around the room again as Trinity pressed the sides of the needle in, twisted and pulled. Switch yelped and tried to pull her arm away, but Trinity - by far the stronger of the two here - held her forearm firmly and removed the rest of the needle form her plug. Switch examined it closely. Trinity reached into the dark corner only a few feet away and set a pair of boots on the bed. "Put these on." Switch pulled her attention away from the black metal in her arm and slipped the boots on, tying them quickly. "And this," she said as she dropped a hat into her lap. She complied, not worrying much about her lack of hair. With some slight trouble standing at first, she made it into the hallway with Trinity, and they started off down the corridor.

In the mess hall, Trinity filled each of them a mug of water and they sta across from one another at the table.

It was several minutes before she spoke. "I'm not even sure I know where to start," she murmured.

"You can start by telling me what you put in my arm."

"No," she said, slowly shaking her head. "No, we didn't put that there, or any of the others." She didn't see the confused look from Switch, but explained further anyway. "There's another near your shoulder, the same thing on the other arm." Switch pushed up the other sleeve, and sure enough, found a matching plug in the same place. "There's three on each leg, two on your chest, two on your abdomen. Four on you back , about a dozen up your spine, and a larger one in the back of you head."

Her hand flew to her neck and found the cold, grooved circle of metal. She stared back at Trinity, wide-eyed.

"I have them, too. So does Morpheus and everyone else you met the other night. We didn't put them there," she repeated solemnly. "You were born with them."

For a moment, Switch's eyes stayed locked with Trinity's, and she was speechless. "What?" she finally managed to whisper.

Trinity sighed. "The one in the back of your head is used to transmit false sensory signals to your brain. So you think your seeing or hearing something or whatever, but you're not." She said this with her head down, and very cautiously looked up, and could see a hint of fear in her eyes. She remembered that fear all to well. "Everything you've known for the last twenty years, every single sense has been fed to you by a computer program. All of it, New York, your apartment, the food you ate, it was just an illusion."

"But... you -"

"Yeah, it's... it's basically one huge virtual reality. Your body was just a computer image based on scans and DNA analysis. Everyone else there is the same - they exist, but all you ever saw were minds controlling virtual bodies."

She was going to fast, getting ahead of herself. She didn't need to see Switch's face to know that, although her look spelled it out quite clearly. Trinity was quiet for a moment, trying to think of a way to rephrase this without confusion or misunderstanding.

How did Morpheus do this every time they freed a mind?

Just go from the beginning. "It's not the year that you think it is. We don't know the real date - our best guess is that it's about 2192." She wasn't entirely sure what to do with her hands. Somehow, holding the mug felt awkward. "About two-hundred years ago, they were able to invent artificial intelligence programs, use them in robot/ But they were pretty much treated like slaves, and they started to figure that they deserved better. They pretty much broke off form humans, started their own society. But that didn't help, a war eventually started. We were using nuclear weapons, but they didn't work, and we were loosing. So... some genius got the brilliant idea that since they were solar-powered, all we had to do to win was cut them off from the sun. So, somehow, they created a global storm to block out the sun. Still exists, too."

It was still an unbelievable truth, but at least Switch seemed better able to comprehend her this way. "Unfortunately that just gave them the perfect opportunity to come up with a way to kill two birds with one stone. They figured that they could use the bioelectricity from human nervous systems for power. Majority of them only needed minimal energy to run, so a few billion humans was more than enough." Each word she spoke became more and more difficult to say. It was almost as if, in saying the words, she was experiencing them. "The humans who survived the war were given the same plugs up their spines that you have, to collect the energy. To keep us from fighting and trying to escape, they created the Matrix, which is the program you've been living in all your life."

Trinity's mouth was suddenly very dry, and she drank nearly half of the water in her mug.

Minutes passed as Switch processed this new information. "Sow how was I born with... like this?"

"No one in the Matrix was born naturally," she sighed. "There are massive fields where we're... grown, basically." She cringed inwardly at the harshness of the word. "Plugs and all, and then we're put into the Matrix. Most people never leave. We do free some people," she continued, speaking very quietly now. "But we can't get everyone. Most people wouldn't want to leave, anyway.

Switch didn't need to ask why that was. She knew. And Trinity had been right, about what she said at the club.

"You don't believe me," Trinity finally said many long, long minutes later.

"I..." Did she? Could a false world really be constructed to be so convincing that almost no one would ever know it was a lie? Everything she had just learned made sense. It all added up. But... it went against everything any sane and rational person - Switch herself especially - would think was within the realm of possibility. "I don't... I'm not..."

"I know," Trinity said kindly. "Everybody's in denial at fist. It'll sink in eventually."

She scoffed quietly. She wasn't sure if she believed that either.

"Just give it a few days. In the meantime," she went on, getting up, "get some sleep. It'll help."

Switch tensed suddenly as she felt Trinity wrap her arms around tightly her shoulders and rest her chin on the top of her head.

"You'll be fine, Switch," she murmured soothingly, stroking her shoulder gently. "You trust me, don't you?"

That was the first time she had said that since they had been reunited. She had asked Switch to trust her, but not if she trusted her. She hadn't thought about it, but knew the answer anyway. "Yes."

"Get some sleep." She released her, and walked with her back to her cabin, pointing out her own on the way, just in case she needed her. She then made her way back inside her room, and crawled back into bed for a few more hours' sleep.

Somehow explaining the past to Switch as she had made it seem much more real, and seemed to dispel the tiny, lurking doubt that all freed minds had at first that could sometimes last for years. Everyone she knew who had been free for any real length of time - Morpheus, Niobe, Aurora - had always said that, sooner or later, it would hit you - really hit you. And as Trinity slipped off, she realized that, for her, that time had finally come.

---

When she met them, Switch was less than comfortable with the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar. She was simply polite to them at first, not speaking more than was necessary, and only carrying on real conversations with Trinity. Her first experience with the crew had been very much the same, she said. She had spoken to them little, and it had taken a few weeks to become comfortable with them, longer to really consider them confidantes and friends. Switch would come to trust them, in time. She did, and sooner than Trinity by her own account. Some became her friends quicker than others, but it did not take long for all of them to be in good standing with her.

They first docked in Zion about two weeks after her first night of consciousness in the real world. There she met Ghost, as well as Tank and Dozer's family, along with several other people from the Resistance.

They did not train her during those first two weeks. Generally, they said, training did not begin until after your the visit to Zion, so that she could make the choice of whether to join the crew, or stay and work in the city. Switch was quite certain, though, that she already knew what she wanted to do. Living and fighting as a soldier had been much of what she spoke about with Trinity, and later, the rest of the crew. But she did agree to reserve her decision until after she had seen Zion. But of course, it did not change her mind. It had not taken her long to realize that, although living on a cold, cramped ship with the same people for months on end would be far from easy, she could handle it much better than being stuck in a city doing little of real value for the rest of her life.

After three weeks in Zion they returned to the ship, and Switch began her training. They started off with combat, as usual. It went well enough, and she did have the ability to fight, but when she began her weapons training, it became apparent that that was her real talent. She was one of the better shots on the crew, and each time she went into a training simulation, she did better and better.

Apoc was her best match in skill, so, more and more, she trained with him, rather than the other crewmembers. She started off as merely his student, and then became the competition. But over several weeks, they became friends. And although she said nothing to Trinity or anyone else, after a few more weeks, it began to develop further. It continued this way through her second stay in Zion, though she did not act on her feelings, even upon their return to the Neb.

It was at that time that Morpheus decided that she was ready to go back into the Matrix. It was a relatively simple mission for Switch, Trinity, Morpheus and Niobe, and although it ended in a confrontation with local police - and a few Agents - they all made it out unharmed. That evening, Trinity came into her room to congratulate her on her first run. She came with two cups of some bitter-tasting alcohol for a toast, and apologized for not having something better. They stayed there for a long time, talking, mainly of Trinity's first return to the Matrix - and how it really wasn't the Matrix at all. She told Switch how afraid she had been during the test simulation, how angry she had been when she found out it wasn't real, what she had done. She had wondered, then, why Trinity had been trained right when she was unplugged, while Switch had been advised to wait. She simply answered that Morpheus and the others knew that she would want to become a soldier, and she had said things to that extent more than once.

"Still," Switch pressed her, "why the rush?"

"Morpheus just thought that I..."

"What?"

She shook her head. She didn't want to say. Instead, she only said that Morpheus thought she had a lot of talent, and pushed her a bit farther and faster than he should have. A short while later their conversation finished, they said goodnight and Trinity went off to her own cabin. Things continued normally after that.

And then came the day, a week before she was to return to Zion for her third time, when Morpheus announced that he would be taking her to the Oracle.

---

"Who is the Oracle, anyway?" Switch asked Trinity as they waited to jack in. "She's not a real oracle, right?"

"Actually, she is. Well... supposedly, anyway."

"You haven't seen her?"

"No, I've seen her," she corrected. "Twice." She thought back on both meetings, shaking her head at both the woman's audacity and at her enigmatic words.

"Do you remember what got us into this mess?" she asked. "How I even found out about Morpheus?"

"Crazy old Bird Lady in Central Park," she replied, remembering the image she had conjured in her head from Trinity's description.

Trinity raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. Switch's eyes immediately widened. "She was the Oracle?"

Trinity nodded. "She said she told me about him because I would make a good addition to the Resistance, and -" She stopped short. She trusted Switch, but this.... It was just so... so impossible, among other things.

"And what?"

"Nothing." But then, why not tell her something ridiculous and impossible?

"What is it? Tell me."

"Most people generally keep what she tells them to themselves," she said, very evenly.

Despite her curiosity, Switch took the hint and began the setup as the rest of the crew trickled in.

"And don't worry if you have no idea what she's talking about," she added. "It takes some people years to figure it out." Both women sat back in their chairs along with the rest of them, and Dozer came around to plug each one in.

---

Morpheus had offered to let Trinity take Switch up to the apartment. But, with a look of apprehension Switch could barely see, she opted out, and Morpheus took her. In the elevator, she wondered at her friend's discomfort. What had she been told that was so bad that she couldn't tell her? Why didn't she want to come up? She wasn't the one who would be speaking with her. In the end, though, she decided to leave it alone - Trinity could take care of herself. She knew what she was doing - whatever that was.

They stepped out of the elevator and she followed Morpheus down the hall. She was surprised when a door opened only a moment after they stopped, and before they had even knocked. They stepped into the apartment, and Switch made her way to the living room while Morpheus and the woman at the door exchanged brief salutations.

The thought of a temple seemed impossible in the middle of a city - she wasn't sure what she had expected. Perhaps an elaborate Victorian house overrun with vines and a dozen trees on the property. But even though that had been proved wrong, even though they were in an apartment, she had expected something more... She wasn't sure what word would describe her mental image. But she thought she would see, if nothing else, incense, dark rooms with heavy curtains, statues of Greek gods. A crystal ball in a corner, at least. Instead she found a living room, like any other, filled with forty-year-old furniture. If she wasn't mistaken, her grandparents had that exact coffee table.

She waited there, along with several others, who she didn't pay much attention to. Instead she wondered what the Oracle would say to her, but she really didn't have the faintest idea. For a while, she watched the kids go into a hallway, and reappear a few minutes later. Some other people arrived and waited as well.

Eventually, the same woman who had opened the door came up to her. "She's ready for you now." She directed her to the short hallway off one end of the room, and motioned her to follow it to the next room. It did not lead to any room like she had pictured early, but instead it took her to the kitchen, and aside from a bead curtain at the entrance, it matched the rest of the apartment in it's normalcy.

The Oracle had her back turned to the doorway, and was making coffee at the counter. Anyone who saw her wouldn't look twice - she looked like a stereotypical grandmother who played Bingo every Saturday.

"So you're the one responsible for this, huh?" she asked casually, staying in the doorway.

"Yep. That'd be me."

Switch looked around a bit more carefully, examining both the kitchen and the Oracle herself. It was all too average, too every-day. There was no way this woman was going to tell her a prophecy about her life.

"Yeah, I know," the old woman said. In response to what? "That's about the same reaction I get from everybody. This isn't anything like what you were expecting."

Switch stared, startled that she knew what she was thinking - until she realized, everyone must picture something like what she had, or at least something other than this. It was an easy guess; and she said herself that she got that reaction all the time. "Yeah," she said. "Sure."

"But then, we can't go around judging things by appearance, can we?" Her tone was meaningful, as if she had heard the last thought as well, and a shred of belief slipped back into Switch's mind. Stranger things had happened to her in the last two months than a psychic woman.

She tried to ignore it, though, habit and old beliefs overpowering the woman's tone. "Look, there's a lot of other people outside who I'm sure are looking forward to this a hell of a lot more than I am, so just do your little prophecy bit and lets get this over with."

"I've got all the time in the world," she said, coming up and handing her the mug she had prepared earlier. "Plenty of sugar in it for you."

She eyed the Oracle, more suspicious and nervous now, and slowly took the coffee from her hands.

"You shouldn't be so quick to mistrust, Switch. Doesn't do anybody any good."

"I'll decide that."

She took a cigarette from the pack on the counter and lit it. She smiled a little, secretive smile. "You know," she said, "a lot of people come in here with some pretty strange assumptions about what I'll say to them. Not necessarily about what I'll tell them is going to happen, but about what it means." Switch drank her coffee and shook her head. "They think that they'll do something important or something completely worthless, or that what I say will happen no matter what, or that something horrible will happen if they don't somehow make it come true."

"I'll bet they do," she said sarcastically. All the hype around you, I'm not surprised.

"Those ones worry too much. Fact of the matter is, things just have a way of working out, so long as we're willing to help them along a little."

Switch rolled her eyes. "Is there a point somewhere in this speech?"

The Oracle simply smiled.

"Because I think you should probably know that I don't appreciate anybody telling me what'll happen to me when I don't even know myself. I especially don't like them telling me what to do."

"I'm not here to tell you what to do, I'm just here to help end the war, do my part. Same as you'll do yours."

Switch put her half-empty mug down on the table and stood by it, folding her arms. "Did it ever occur to you that some people might be better off figuring out what to do on their own?"

"Oh, I know that. Some people just need a push in the right direction and they'll manage just fine from there. Others need a lot of help on some things. Lot of support." She left her cigarette resting on the ashtray at the table and sat down across from where Switch still stood. "But I'm sure you'll be up to giving that support."

"So I'm supposed to be the Neb's resident therapist?"

The Oracle laughed.

"I'm going to be a soldier, when do you propose I find time for that?"

"Oh, I don't mean for everyone. But there will be someone you love, very much. The most difficult time of their life will end up being by far the most crucial. Anyone would need a hand in a situation like that.

"But like I said," she smiled, taking a drag of her cigarette, "I think you'll be up to the challenge. Other than that," she finished, putting the cigarette out, "you're free to find your own way."

Switch sensed that the conversation had ended, and after studying the Oracle for a moment, she turned, all to happy for the encounter to be over.

"Do me a favor," the Oracle said, and Switch paused. "Tell Trinity not to worry so much, will you?"

She stayed quiet for a second, then continued through the doorway. "Sure."

---

Trinity quickly pulled on her shirt as she rushed to open the door. Switch waited on the other side, and peeked in as Trinity hurried back to her dresser, pulling a few things from a small metal box on top.

"You ready?"

She hurriedly clasped a bracelet around her left wrist, and an anklet around her right ankle. "Yeah." She thought for a moment, and thought of something else. "Come here."

Switch met her at the dresser as she pulled out a necklace from the box, and clasped it around her friend's neck. It was nothing more than a simple chain with a polished stone pendant, but it suited her.

"Are you sure this is basically a mass rave?" she called to Trinity, who was combing her hair in the bathroom. "I've heard people mentioning speeches."

"Those are only during the first few minutes." She slipped on a simple pair of sandals, and they headed out the door. "These things last for hours, you'll have plenty of time to dance."

They closed the door behind them and followed several other people around to the central elevator. When they reached it, they joined another group, also waiting to go down. The pair leaned against the railing as they waited.

"Just so you know, I always dance with Ghost whenever we're docked at the same time. And Tank, and a few other people I know."

"And?" Switch prompted as the doors slid open and they stepped into the elevator.

"And I was just wondering if you knew who you wanted to dance with while I'm with someone."

"I'm a big girl, Trin," she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "I can take care of myself."

She grinned very slightly, but managed to hide it well enough. "You don't have anyone in mind then?"

Switch let her breath out slowly. Trinity wasn't usually this... was there a word for what she was being? "If you have something to say, say it."

The grin became just barely visible. "I'm just saying that if you have anyone in particular that you want to dance with, you should just ask them. They'd probably say yes." Switch sighed. She knew what Trinity was getting at. "But I wouldn't bet that they'd be willing to ask you if they wanted to dance. So you'd have to do it."

She glared at Trinity out of the corner of her eye. That was one of the few downsides to a friendship like theirs - if there was something either wanted to keep secret from the other, it was nearly impossible.

They rode the rest of the way down in silence, Trinity only speaking a brief greeting to Ghost when he stepped into the elevator. The doors finally opened at the lowest level and they entire group made their way to the massive stone entrance to a cavern. She was instructed to take off her shoes and set them down with all of the others. As she was doing so, she saw Trinity go up to Ghost and whisper something to him quickly. They then broke apart; he went in, and she waited for Switch. They made their way inside and found a place near the back, off toward the edge. They listened rather impatiently to several people give speeches, which they paid little attention to.

Ten or fifteen minutes after they arrived, the speeches ended, and a cheer rang up as the drummers started playing. "Finally," Switch said, turning to Trinity. But Ghost had just reached her, and she heard him ask Trinity to dance, and she followed him into the crowd. She turned back smiling and nodded towards something behind her friend just before she disappeared.

Switch grumbled something and turned to scan the area behind her. She began to grow impatient when she could not see what she might possibly have been motioning at - and saw, among a group of people she did and did not know, Apoc.

She shook her head. "Trinity, Trinity," she muttered. "So pushy."

She watched him talking, and debated for a moment. The very thought of asking him... it made her so anxious. Made her nervous. At the same time, though, she knew she really had no reason to be. Like her, Apoc had dropped several hints over the last few months that would suggest something a little more than friendship. If, somehow, those hints had not been what she thought, he did not have anyone to dance with, and neither did she. If necessary, she could pass it off as a simple dance between friends. With that, she steeled herself and slipped through the thin groups of people and stood behind him.

"Dance with me?" she asked, loud enough to be heard over the drums. He turned, a little surprised, and was met with a genuine smile. After a moment, he grinned back, and they made their way into the dancing masses.