Hope you're all enjoying this! I liked writing it...

Chapter 9 - Revelations

Falcon opened his eyes and sat up. He was still in the apartment; where he'd been sitting ever since he'd come round that morning. He wasn't tied up or anything; what was the point when they knew that he knew the second he moved, they'd shoot him? Sitting in a chair next to him, curled up cat-like and examining her nails in an almost bored way, was a girl. This girl, he understood, was the same girl who'd caused them all that trouble a month ago, and very nearly killed them all. Even though he'd never met her, he knew it had to be her; she looked just like Asha. Calypso.

"Rise and shine," she said, glancing up and seeing him awake with a smile on her face. She'd look almost innocent, normal, but not many normal teenage girls had a gun in their hands. That, and a look of happy malice in their eyes.

"What the hell did you do?" he asked angrily.

"Well, you were being very boring," sighed Calypso, "It didn't seem that we were going to persuade you to just phone the Nebuchadnezzar under your own free will. Lucky I'd prepared for that, really. Be prepared, isn't that the Boy Scout motto? Were you ever a boy scout? Essential part of growing up, in my opinion."

"You didn't answer my question," said Falcon. She looked at him.

"No, I didn't, did I? Well, that's where my program-writing skills came in handy. I used a technique rather similar to your human hypnotism, actually – causes the same effect in the mind. So you were nice enough to reveal your ship's phone number. Not to worry, bird boy, your crew's on its way."

"They won't come," said Falcon, wishing he'd sound more confident.

"Oh?" said Calypso, sounding as though a little child had told her that they'd seen fairies at the bottom of the garden, "And why's that?"

"Because I'm-" He stopped. He'd been about to say 'I'm not important', but something stirred in his memory. Something the Oracle had told him when he first went to meet her. Could Calypso know about that? She didn't seem to. But the crew didn't know about it, and that was the important thing. "I'm not important," he said firmly, more to himself than to her.

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, as if to contradict him, the door was kicked open. David walked in. In his arms he was carrying the lifeless body of Asha.

Neo, Morpheus and Trinity returned to the Nebuchadnezzar, having successfully unplugged Elsa. Morpheus sat up, about to head up to the control deck to help Tank pick her up, when something caught his eye. That something was Asha in one of the chairs. "Tank, what's Asha doing?"

Tank didn't answer straight away, but went over to Neo's chair and removed the needle from the back of his head. This didn't do anything to allay Morpheus's fears. "Tank?"

Tank seemed to be considering his words. "We got a phone call from David," he said finally as he walked over to Trinity, "He knew where Falcon was. In Australia."

"Australia?" said Neo, unknowingly wearing the same confused expression that Asha had worn only a short time before. Tank pulled out Trinity's needle, and she sat up, quickly getting to her feet but stopping when she saw Asha in one of the chairs.

"Yes. He asked Asha to come and meet him, and that he'd help her to rescue him from whoever captured him."

"Tank," said Neo, dread rising, "Please don't tell me she went."

"She did," said Tank reluctantly.

"What!" said Morpheus, striding over to the computers, looking half angry and half worried. "What on earth does she think she's doing? Why didn't she wait for the rest of us to get back?"

"She didn't want to get the rest of you into danger," said Tank, now feeling that he shouldn't have let her go, "I tried to stop her, but you ordered me that she wasn't to be told about what the Oracle said-"

"I never imagined something like this happening!" said Morpheus angrily. He didn't sound angry at Tank or Asha, he sounded angry with himself. He was silent for a moment, running one hand over his head, looking agitated. He looked at Trinity, who looked back at him, her eyes silently pleading with him. "We've got to go and pick up Elsa," he said finally, "We can't leave her in the water too long, but we won't be able to hack in a new signal from the below the towers, there are too many sentinels around. But afterwards, Neo, you go in there and try and find out what's going on."

"Asha!" said Falcon, jumping to his feet, anger rising inside him, "What have you done to her?"

"Stop fussing," said Calypso, getting up and shoving him back into his seat. She walked over to Asha. She swept the hair off her face and looked at her, eyes closed, smiling. "Good. Where are the others?"

"There was no sign of them downstairs," said David, putting Asha onto the floor. For the first moment, Calypso looked slightly less composed.

"What? They didn't come?"

"Evidently not," said David, sounding the same as ever.

Calypso looked at Asha on the floor. "Well, she can tell us why then." She pulled out a small syringe; Falcon suddenly understood and got to his feet, but Calypso had already injected it into Asha's arm. To his great relief, she groaned slightly and opened her eyes. She looked around in surprise at David, but then saw Calypso. Her face hardened.

"Hello, Asha," said Calypso brightly, "By the way, you're not just looking at a talking mirror. It's me!"

"Actually, me," said Asha angrily. She made to jump to her feet, but David had already grabbed onto her shoulders and hauled her to her feet. "Why do you always choose to look like me?"

"Well, for a human, you don't look completely horrendous. Though I have taken the liberty of being a couple of dress sizes smaller. Lay off the synthetic protein, eh?" she grinned, winking at her.

Asha growled and tried to shake off David from holding onto her arms. He didn't let go. Resigned, Asha's eyes flicked around the room, looking for any possible escape. She saw Falcon. "Falcon! Are you-"

"I'm fine," he said quickly.

"Where are the others then?" asked Calypso, "Covering your back? Don't tell me they decided to send the second hope to deal with this?"

Asha's mind was working rapidly. Calypso had wanted all of the crew to come. If she realized that the others didn't know what was happening, and were most likely on their way, then she and Falcon would just be used as more bargaining material.

"They didn't come," she said fiercely, "They didn't consider one little program to be a threat. Besides, they don't think I'm necessary any more, do they? I've done what I was meant to."

"They figured out that it was a trap?" said David, "I feel so untrusted."

"Of course they did," snapped Calypso, "Asha has an annoying habit of doing things like that."

"You killed my best friend," said Asha, feeling any leftover fear in her changing swiftly to anger, "You made me watch him die, right in front of my eyes."

"I killed him?" said Calypso, slightly amusedly, holding up her hands in mock self-defence, "Hey, don't blame me. You could have stopped me any time you wanted."

"You knew that I couldn't," said Asha, trying to keep her anger in check, even though she knew that it was true.

"You had the vial. You had the deal. What more did you want?" said Calypso, "Well, you seemed to have learnt this time. First Jon, then Falcon... To kill one friend could be forgiven, but two seems to be careless..."

Asha lashed out with both fists at once, but David's grip on her arms tightened, and he held them at her sides. Calypso didn't even blink, but smiled and wandered away across the room, picked up the gun from where she'd left it on the chair. Asha stopped fighting, feeling the storm of anger that had hit her subsiding into a tight ball of hatred inside her chest. She glanced over her shoulder at him and glared.

"I thought you'd changed," she said, "But you hadn't, had you? You were with them all along. It was all just another trick."

"A good one, apparently," shrugged David. Asha couldn't bear to look at him any more, so reluctantly she turned back to Calypso. Right then, she couldn't tell who she hated more.

Calypso seemed to be thinking. "Actually..." she said, thinking aloud and turning back to face Asha, "Actually, this is even better. Better than I could have thought of."

"Even better?" said Asha, "What do you mean, even better? I'm not useful any more, remember? They're not going to risk themselves just to save Falcon and me. We're not important, my part's played. Now I'm just a little girl who happens to be on the Nebuchadnezzar and descended from the fifth system anomaly. Not important anymore." She felt a slight pang as she said it, but that vanished when she saw the look on Calypso's face.

"Yes, even better," said Calypso, a smile starting to spread across her face, "Because they will come and rescue you, with the right... incentive."

"Incentive?" echoed Asha, doubt stirring at the back of her mind.

"Incentive," said Calypso. Then, with one swift movement, before Asha could react or even think, she raised the gun and shot Asha through the chest.

"NO!" shouted Falcon and jumped to his feet. Calypso span round and pointed the gun at him.

"Sit down, hero boy, or you get the same," she warned.

Asha knew as soon as the bullet entered that the wound was fatal. Amazingly, this fact didn't alarm her as much as she thought that it would. It felt like when Agent Smith had tried to turn her into him, except somehow more peaceful; as darkness filled the corners of her brain, she felt David release her and she slowly fell to the ground.

The time it took them to pick up Elsa must have set a record at being the most hurried in the history of Zion. As soon as she was aboard, Tank had turned the ship around and raced back down the tunnels as Neo and Trinity carried her to the medical bay. To Trinity's relief, there didn't seem to be any complications, and they could leave as they ran back to watch what was happening on the monitors. After a couple of minutes though, as the scene got steadily worse, most of them wished that they hadn't watched.

"No!" shouted Morpheus, at the exact same moment Falcon did in the Matrix. The crew of the Nebuchadnezzar watched in horror as the Asha on the screen fell to the ground; at the same time, the Asha on the ship jerked, and then was still again. Neo ran and checked the monitor.

"She's still alive," he said, "But if I'm reading her vitals right, she's losing blood fast. She hasn't got much time."

"Tank, are we far enough away from the towers?" said Morpheus.

"Few more seconds," said Tank over the intercom, "There's a hole in the tunnel up ahead that should be a good place to hide from any passing sentinels."

"Then get in there and get down here!" called Morpheus.

"Be careful," said Trinity quickly, "Asha deliberately didn't wait for you to get back before going in. She doesn't want you to endanger yourself."

"Well, I don't think she particularly wanted to get shot either," said Neo. He turned to go, but quickly turned back and held Trinity in his arms. "I thought I could have lost you today," he said quietly so that only she could hear, "Don't go doing things like that again." Then he walked over to the chair, as Tank came running down the ladder to load him up.

Falcon stared at Asha lying on the ground in shock. Calypso was smiling – David's face looked as passive as ever. Falcon wanted, more than anything in the world, to rip that gun out of Calypso's hands and shoot her until she felt as much pain as she caused. Calypso turned to look at him. "Getting ideas, bird boy?" she said, as if reading his mind, "Don't worry. Your friend Neo will be along soon."

"Why did you do that?" he said, barely able to keep his voice from shaking – whether it was from anger or horror, he couldn't tell. "Why did you kill her?"

"Would you rather I'd killed you?" asked Calypso, raising her gun and pointing it at Falcon's head. "Because I would have, believe me. I'm not keeping you alive voluntarily. Smith insisted, for some reason. But if I told him that you'd asked nicely..." An evil smile appeared on her face.

Falcon stared at the gun, mind racing with what she'd just said. Smith had told her not to kill him. Did that mean Smith knew? Knew about what the Oracle had told him? If Smith knew, then...

Calypso held the gun there for a moment, not blinking, the smile fading into an almost hungry expression; but then it returned, and she lowered it to her side, seeming to take the sudden fear that had appeared on his face to be fear of being shot. "But as a matter of fact, she's not dead. That's the mistake she made herself. She immediately assumed that bullet equals death. No, she's not dead... yet." Falcon felt a faint glimmer of hope. "But unless Neo gets here soon, she will be."

"Why would Neo come?" said Falcon, "You heard what she said. We're not important."

"Are you sure?" said Calypso.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't you know?" said Calypso, sounding delighted, "You mean Morpheus hasn't told you two?"

"Told us what?"

"Can you believe that, David?" said Calypso, a smile lighting up her face, "He hasn't told them!"

"Well, he always did have her 'best interests' at heart," said David, also smiling.

"Told us WHAT?" said Falcon angrily – the suspense was killing him.

"There's – there's – oh, you tell him David, I can't bear it," said Calypso, looking like she was trying not to laugh.

"Why, thank you," he said, turning to Falcon with a smile that, while as large as Calypso's, seemed to Falcon to not have as much pleasure behind it. For a moment, Falcon thought he heard a voice in his head, but then it was gone. "There's more than one prophecy about Asha."

"... What?" said Falcon.

"There's more than one," said David, "And the second one concerns you as well."

xxx

(ducks missiles from cliffy-haters)

Im a Brandybuck – I'm not usually either. Eh.

Yoda Clones – I'm working on fight scenes, I really am. They should be better before there are any more... and I think you're right with that bad feeling...

TBI – I heard. But I couldn't think of anything else I could use, dangit...

Trinity144 – I've actually got the next twenty or so chapters written... yep, this is going to be a long one...

Nina Hikari – I do try to, but it calls me... away from such important things as Latin homework...

Shadow-Spider – I'm saying nothing. (evil grin)

Calliope-Elven-Agent – I know what a poppet is! And David's more fun evil.

Misao, Demon Master – Cheese and pointy knives are cool. And don't worry, last evil cliffie has been resolved... but now there's another one! BWAHAHA! I am the QUEEN of evil cliffies!