Disclaimer: The Matrix and all its appendages are the brainchildren of Larry and Andy Wachowski and are carefully guarded by Warner Brothers. Enter the Matrix was developed by Shiny Entertainment and produced by Infogames. This is purely a piece of nonprofit entertainment. Cursum Perficio is the title of a song on Enya's Watermark CD. References to Final Fantasy and Stargate are intentional and certainly not of my making.
Chapter Three: Fortune Cookie
She awoke to the strange and new sensations of lying in someone's arms. Disoriented and slightly hungover, she did a mental check of her surroundings.
The room (and the bed) was completely unfamiliar to her, at least from her vantage point where she was nestled on the bed with somebody. A faint amount of light was emanating from somewhere behind her - she couldn't see because she didn't want to move - and when she raised her head to see who she was with, it started to come back with amazing clarity.
She was with Morpheus.
She recalled joining him and her fellow trainees in an impromptu celebration in a section of the Temple. They had all just completed their mandatory training, and were going to be assigned to posts in Zion and on its modest fleet of hovercrafts. Considering that they had spent the last year doing nothing but training, everyone had decided that a party was in order.
Everyone had been so happy to be finished, Thaddeus most of all. Not only was he thrilled with his performance in training, but he was even more elated with the fact that Jue, the girl with cat-like reflexes that he had been eyeing all year, had taken a liking to him. The fact that they were about to join the ranks of Zion's army, and had little chance of living to seventy-five as a result, seemed to be a world away, stuffed into the Matrix, or at least set aside for tomorrow.
About halfway into the night, after downing several of Zion's equivalent for beers (some sort of liquor derived from mushrooms, like almost every other foodstuff was), Niobe had reluctantly joined Morpheus for a dance. Everything after that was a bit of a blur, but she could fill in the details easily enough.
"Hey."
Niobe turned over sleepily, and ended up face to face with Morpheus, their heads only a few inches apart.
"Hey," she answered back, unsure of what to do next. It felt like it had been a lifetime since she had last woken up like this, and it made her nervous. Was she uncomfortable with him, or with that?
"Niobe..." he trailed off as he tried to think of the right words to use, "I want to explore this."
She fell silent at the offer, judging what her own feelings were telling her. The truth was, she had never felt any reservations when she was with him. Even when he had simply been just a friend with whom she joked about nonsensical things, or a tutor who spurred her and the others to push themselves farther than they thought they could go, she had never felt uncomfortable in his presence. Her attraction to him had never dissipated either.
Who the hell was she kidding? She'd have to be crazy not to at least give this a try. It felt right.
She frowned as Morpheus' face darkened due to her lack of a response, taking it as a sign that she wasn't happy with how things had turned out. With the atmosphere between them becoming more somber by the second, she sighed and leaned closer to him, whispering her thoughts into his ear.
"You do realize how many jokes people are going to make because of our height difference?"
Her efforts were rewarded with a deep baritone rumbling as Morpheus tried unsuccessfully not to laugh. Soon they were both laughing uncontrollably, at least until Niobe stopped them both by capturing Morpheus' lips in a deep kiss.
In hindsight, it was a bittersweet memory.
Three moderately loud raps on her door partially roused Trinity from her sleep. She drifted in and out of the real and dream world, and instinctively rolled over so she could be closer to Neo's sleeping form.
He wasn't there.
Again, another three knocks came from outside. This time, she woke up and rolled out of bed, snatching a discarded robe from a chair to conceal her naked body in case it wasn't Neo at the door, knocking because he had locked himself out again. Definitely a good idea, she decided as she opened the door and saw Morpheus on the other side.
"Morpheus," she addressed in her usual officer-like fashion despite her present attire. Spying Niobe behind her captain, she nodded gravely, recalling her conversations with Ghost and her mentor.
"I truly am sorry to disturb you two at such a late hour, but this cannot wait. The Oracle may summon Neo at any time, and if we must leave to speak with her, then there may be no one to interpret Niobe's code well enough to help her," Morpheus explained apologetically to Trinity.
"It's okay. I understand," Trinity replied softly, "but he's not here."
"Where is he?" Morpheus asked, clearly confused by this information. Niobe remained expressionless, unfazed.
"I don't know," Trinity answered, the darkness disguising her slight feeling of unease. She didn't know where Neo was, but she certainly knew why he had left. He must've had another nightmare...
"We'll return as soon as he comes back. Where will you be?" Morpheus asked.
Luckily for him, especially when he hadn't fully considered the possibility that Neo would not be available, nor prepared for the prospect of being alone with Niobe for the remainder of the night, he didn't have to worry. The sound of footsteps alerted the trio to someone approaching from the elevator shafts, the someone being Neo.
"What's going on?" he asked, still bleary-eyed from the lack of sleep, but very much awake and concerned. Trinity regarded him worriedly, but chose to try and talk to him about his insomnia at a more appropriate time. Morpheus stepped towards him to explain, but Niobe grabbed his arm and pulled him back, taking charge for herself. "I need you to look at my code and tell me what's wrong with it," she explained.
"Well, sure, if you want," Neo answered uneasily, "but how do you know something's wrong with it?"
Niobe opened her mouth and exposed her teeth for Neo, showing him her protruding upper canines, which had grown much longer and slender since he had last seen the rebel captain. Neo leaned in closer and blinked several times to be sure that his eyes were not deceiving him.
"Now there's something you don't see every day."
Neo and Niobe settled themselves into tow loading chairs connected to one of Control's training constructs for new recruits. The late hour had not posed a problem for them, at least not for the one, the legendary Morpheus, and Commander Lock's significant other. The guard on duty had been more than happy to let them in.
"Are you sure you don't want us to bring Ghost and Sparks here?" Trinity offered. Niobe shook her head.
"No, let them sleep. Besides, I'm still pissed with them for telling you two. They should've kept their mouths shut."
Morpheus picked up the metal spike behind Niobe's chair and gently inserted it into her skull. I for one am happy that they did," he told her as he pressed the loading button on her monitor, loading her consciousness into the construct program. He hovered over her just long enough to watch her eyes close and then joined Trinity at the operating station. His first officer entered the necessary commands to load Neo and Niobe into a basic construct, and shut off the screens.
"I don't think she'll want us watching," Trinity said to Morpheus in explanation, nothing the dismayed look on his face.
"...Of course," he answered quietly after some hesitation, recomposing himself. Trinity continued to watch him as he took a sear near the station, still gazing at Niobe's seemingly sleeping form in a mesmerized fashion.
"Do you believe Neo will be able to help her?" Trinity pressed, trying to distract her superior officer from worrying needlessly.
"I hope so..."
The hacker narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing Morpheus' uncharacteristic show of fear and wavering faith over Neo's abilities. She had seen this look before, and knew all too well what it meant. How could she not? The look on his face was unmistakable.
"Oh no, Morpheus."
"What?"
"You're still in love with her."
She watched as his expression tensed, the lines in his once youthful face deepen as he furrowed his brow. It surprised her that she noticed for the first time how tired Morpheus looked, as if the years of fighting an endless war alone had suddenly eaten away at his spirit.
"Yes. I am," he admitted, "but my feelings do not matter. I would do this for anyone, not just her."
"You don't think telling her is important? I've seen the way she looks at you. It's like nothing has changed in the past four years. If there's a chance she still loves you, why you don't take it?" Trinity persisted, still perplexed.
"There isn't any chance of that," Morpheus asserted, "and she's with someone else that makes her happy. That is enough for me. I am not about to disturb that, at least not now. There are more important things to be concerned about right now. The war. The prophecy."
He finally turned to face his protégé, expecting a challenging glare to his statement. Instead, her face was serene, as if what he had said had caused her to reminisce about something close to her own heart.
"Sometimes all those things are intertwined, and ignoring them can be the mistake of your life. You taught me that Morpheus," she said thoughtfully as she looked at Neo.
Niobe blinked several times in an attempt to clear her vision after being loaded into the Construct, but to no avail. Even with her default RSI of her usual Matrix-gear and sunglasses, she couldn't stand to keep her eyes open more than a sliver.
"Jesus, it's bright!" she swore, squeezing her eyes tightly shut to stop the burning sensation. She could still sense the brightness even then!
"Sorry," Neo's disembodied voice apologized from somewhere in front of her. A few seconds later, she felt the brightness recede, and opened one eye testingly, blinking several times to gauge the intensity of the Construct's revised lighting. The hot white light that normally filled the entire program space had been reduced to a faint glow that provided just enough illumination for her to make out Neo's RSI, clad in his usual woolen trenchcoat. Finding herself experiencing no immediate discomfort to the new settings, she opened both eyes completely and relaxed.
"Any better?" Neo asked. Niobe nodded.
"Yea, thanks. Can you still see me, though?"
While she couldn't clearly make out Neo, she could've sworn that he smiled faintly at her question. "Darkness, light...it's all code to me," he pointed out.
"Right. Sorry."
"Just...stand still for a few minutes."
"'Kay."
For several minutes, Niobe simply scrutinized her (or, rather, her code), barely blinking an eye. It made her feel extremely uncomfortable despite her best efforts to shrug it off. She felt like a very patient hawk was watching her.
"...And?" she eventually pressed.
"Well...something about your code has drastically changed since I last saw you. It looks like some kind of computer virus that's spreading from a point of origin - your neck," Neo told her, apparently still mentally sifting through it.
"Can you fix it?"
He shrugged nervously and stretched out an open hand towards the bitemark on her neck, closing his eyes in the process. Niobe felt absolutely ridiculous. Their situation was playing out like a bad Christian conversion movie, with her playing Saul and Neo playing the Savior. She started to wonder why she had let Morpheus talk her into this. Neo wasn't some superhuman. She didn't believe that any more than she believed the legends about the One. Sure, his abilities were uncanningly superior to even the most seasoned rebels, but that didn't make him Jesus.
"Look, forget I asked," she started, deciding that this wasn't working. She absently rubbed her eyes underneath her sunglasses, feeling like she was going to get a headache at this rate. Oddly enough, Neo didn't seem disheartened by her reaction.
"I made the lights brighter," he told her lightly.
"What?" she asked, actually taking a moment to judge the brightness for herself. It did feel brighter, but her eyes weren't burning anymore.
"My eyes don't hurt anymore...but I honestly don't feel any different other than that," Niobe confessed. Neo nodded, his tone becoming serious again.
"I don't think there was ever something physically wrong with you. Your mind just thought there was. I think the virus transmits false information to your mind to influence it. I think I have it blocked. You should be okay, at least for a while."
"You mean this is only temporary," she said for him.
"To be honest Niobe, in some places I don't really know where the virus ends and you begin. Some of the things it does are obvious, like how it was telling your brain to react to light. But a lot of it is subtler than that, and I just don't know you well enough. I don't think I want to try going beyond this. I would wind up hurting you. Hell, I think I could give you brain damage."
"So...now what? Am I going to start changing again, or am I just stuck like this?"
"I don't know. But there is someone who might."
Niobe frowned at the suggestion. "You aren't serious, are you?"
"I really don't know any more than you do, Captain. I'm not Superman. But I do know that she knows a lot more than me," Neo explained.
She shook her head, feeling like she was being pulled into a huge Fun House, crazy mirrors and all. "Wonderful. You're saying my best hope is a grandma who talks like a fortune cookie."
"Are you going to see her?" Neo asked as a telephone on an antique table materialized a few feet away from them and began to ring.
As she went for the phone and picked it up, Niobe stopped to answer, but changed her mind pressed the receiver to her ear and jacked out.
She did not believe in the Oracle's overblown portents.
But she knew firsthand that she was capable of seeing through you as if you were made of glass.
The Oracle was reading a book on her sofa when Niobe first met her, years after she had been unplugged. She smiled lovingly at the young woman, clearly quite pleased that she had arrived, and nodded to the priestess who had shown her in. The priestess inclined her head and quietly padded out of the room, her robes swishing along behind her.
"I had a feeling I'd be seeing you. You want to know what I told him," the Oracle noted, placing her book face down on the table in front of her.
"No, I want to know what you did to change him, and why," Niobe replied sourly.
"I did nothing." Through the window, Niobe could see the branches of a tree swaying in the wind, its leaves creating misty shadows inside the parlour room. She chose to focus on them, knowing that she'd blow up if she had to look directly at this woman any longer. She refused to let herself be fooled by the seemingly benign appearance the Oracle and her home had. There was nothing benign about her, and Niobe would not be lulled into a false sense of comfort.
"Don't give me that!" Niobe snapped back, "Morpheus spent less than ten minutes in here with you. He came in thinking this was all a joke, and he left as your apostle!"
The Oracle regarded Niobe sternly, the shadow of the tree outside playing over her face and all around her. "Niobe, nobody can make someone change like that in the blink of an eye. You believe that just as much as I do."
"What are you saying? That you told him something that made him realize that he's been changing for a long time now?"
"That's you talking, not me. It could be true, but you don't want to think that, because that would mean you never knew Morpheus as well as you thought you did. Or worse, it would mean that you refused to recognize that he was changing."
She paused here, following Niobe's fleeting gaze to the window, and the tree outside.
"Truth is, nobody can make your choices for you except yourself. I can't force you to do anything no more than I can stop you from not looking me in the eye. I just help people understand who they are."
"Why?"
"It's what I do. It's who I am."
Niobe snorted. "Whatever you say, Delphia."
The aging woman smiled. "Someone told you about the sign I have in my kitchen. I guess you must remember quite a bit of Greek and Roman mythology from school."
"I remember a little," Niobe replied offhandedly.
Leaning forwards towards the table, the Oracle slid the book she had been reading towards Niobe. It was still face down and open from when the young woman had come in. There was no title. Still glaring at the Oracle with hawk-like eyes, the future captain picked it up and looked at the pages.
With deadly arrows, Apollo slays the seven sons and Diana the seven daughters, even though the now humbled Niobe pleads for the life of her smallest daughter. Weeping, the once obdurate Niobe turns to stone - a transformation appropriate to her "hard" line. Even today, tears trickle from the stone.
"You're a proud woman Niobe, just like your namesake. But unlike her, I don't think it's in your nature to beg for mercy. Which leaves one question: why are you here? Are you begging for me to give Morpheus you knew back to you?"
"No," she answered harshly.
"Then why are you here? Did you expect to hear some fortune telling? I suppose it's only fair if I give you some then," the Oracle huffed. She stood up slowly, gingerly pressing a hand into her back as she walked up to Niobe and looked her in the eye, scrutinizing her.
"The planet weaves a cruel fate for all of us, Niobe. You will either turn to stone from your losses, like the Niobe of legend, or you will change how her story ends. Which path you take is completely up to you."
"What the hell do you mean you're going with Morpheus?" Lock yelled. Shortly after asking permission from Councilor Hamann to disembark, Niobe had reluctantly gone to Lock's office to inform him that she would be going with them. He had been angry enough to hear that the Councilor was going over his head to let the Nebuchadnezzar leave. Niobe's unexpected announcement threw him completely off the wall.
"Have you not been listening to me? I need to find out what's happening to me!" she answered vehemently, squaring off with him across the table.
"What, this bullshit about your code being fucked up? I don't believe it for a second, and I can't understand why you do!" Lock pressed his fingers to his forehead and tried to calm down.
"Look," he said slowly, trying to control his temper, "I know that you've been under a lot of stress. You lost your best friend. You had to organize the entire recall. You barely escaped to Zion with your life. You're stressed out, and I'm sorry I haven't been as supportive as you'd like, but this is all just ridiculous. You're not turning into a vampire. The Matrix isn't real, vampires aren't real, and even if there were vampires in the Matrix, their bites aren't fucking real either! And the Oracle can't help you! You of all people know that! You've never trusted her, and I don't understand why you do now all of a sudden!"
Niobe walked around Lock's desk and purposely bared her teeth, partly because she was angry and partly to give him a chance to see her extended canines up close.
"Normally, I would agree a hundred percent with you Jason. But there are some things that I can't explain, and you're looking at one of them. End of story."
He shook his head disbelievingly. "There has got to be a more reasonable explanation to all of this."
"I'm sure there is. I'm just not going to find it if I sit around and do nothing. If there's any answers, I think they're going to be in the Matrix."
"Fine," Lock spat, "Go. Go and put all your faith in a walking, talking horoscope and her motley crew of worshipers. But don't come running back to me if it doesn't work out!"
"Trust me. I wouldn't even dream of it," Niobe sneered in return, storming out of the office and slamming the door behind her. He stared blankly at the door for a few seconds before sitting back down and putting his head in his hands, realizing that this may have been the argument that split them up for good.
Four figures emerged from one of Zion's elevators into the docking bay in the early hours of the morning. Neo and Trinity walked side by side, Neo still clutching the bent spoon Kid had given him in one hand and grazing Trinity's palm with the other. Link trailed behind them, still reluctant to leave, but intent on doing so anyways. Niobe kept her distance from them, walking on the opposite side of Morpheus, her face sallow but hardened. At the centre of the team was Morpheus, holding the three otherwise separate subgroups together like glue as he strode confidently to the Nebuchadnezzar, now fully charged and ready for action.
And waiting for them at the doors of the Neb were none other than Ghost and Sparks, one perched on a nearby box and the other pacing back and forth across the area. When they noticed the group's arrival, both stood to attention.
"What are you doing here?" Niobe asked, raising an eyebrow. When Ghost and Sparks appeared to be in relative agreement with one another, she got concerned. The last time it had happened, it was because they had tinkered with one of the engine fuses of the Logos and had altered its balance axis. Niobe had been able to detect the change after an hour of piloting, and had rewarded them with a short tirade. The lesson: No one touched the Logos' engines without her permission. If they did, and they screwed it up, there would be hell to pay.
"What? We're not allowed to see you off? I mean, we just wanted to make sure you were going, because, you know, it would probably help, not that you have to go or anything...Aah! Ghost, you try," Sparks complained in a huff.
"I think what Sparks is trying to say is that we were hoping you were going to start taking care of yourself," Ghost offered eloquently, grinning at his crewmate's inability to string a coherent sentence for a change. Niobe raised her eyebrows at them and frowned.
"You're both still in deep shit for mouthing off about me," she warned.
"Hey, I'm no fan of wading through shit, Captain. But I'll take a live Captain over a dead one, thank you very much. Makes my chances of survival higher," Sparks said, shrugging. Link raised his eyebrows at Sparks' snarky comments and eyed Morpheus.
"I'm going to go ready the ship," he announced to him, striding up the ramp into the Neb, nodding to Sparks and Ghost as he passed. "Ghost, Sparks, take care."
"Yea sure you betcha!" Sparks answered gleefully, waving to Link as he disappeared into the ship. Ghost inclined his head slightly as a farewell.
Niobe stepped up the ramp towards Ghost to say her farewells.
"How did Commander Lock take all of this?" Ghost asked her quietly. He couldn't have been too enthusiastic about her going with Morpheus.
"The same way he takes everything he doesn't like," the ship captain answered matter-of-factly.
"Are you okay with that?"
"Not really, but there's nothing I can do about it. Take care of my ship," she ordered, changing the subject.
"Of course," Ghost said, nodding as Sparks did a mock salute.
"We promise not to screw with the engines this time!" the operator added. The ship came to life a few seconds later. Niobe smiled at her crew and continued her way into the now powered-up ship with Morpheus. While Sparks retreated to a safe distance from the ship, Ghost stayed to stay goodbye to his sister.
"Take care of yourself Ghost," Trinity said warmly as she hugged him.
"I will. Godspeed," he answered as he let her go. When she was out of earshot, he caught Neo's eye. "Take care of her. She doesn't tend to do that herself."
"I will," Neo assured Ghost, shaking his hand, "I promise." Feeling that he was hanging around a bit too long to be considered appropriate, Ghost backed away from the Nebuchadnezzar as its hatch closed and it rose into the air in a haze of electrostatic. After it reached a proper altitude, it sped along to the nearest gate. Ghost and Sparks stayed to watch it leave.
"Oh, they're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz..."
"Shut up, Sparks."
It was noon on a weekday and Chinatown was practically buzzing with activity. Vendors hawked their imported wares to tourists and locals alike, all hoping to come away with a great deal or something quick and tasty to eat. The sound of dozens of Asian languages mixed with English filled the air, practically drowning out everything else, from radios to bells on bikes that were navigating the crowd.
Like two shadows, Neo and Niobe wove through the crowd. People got out of the way without consciously realizing that they were doing it, a skill that all rebels had honed by their first mission inside the Matrix. They walked unopposed towards a secluded teahouse on Wu Ping Avenue and entered it without speaking a word.
Inside, Seraph, a man of deceivingly serene and unthreatening demure, sat cross-legged on a table sipping his tea. He glanced up at the newcomers and rose to his feet, stepping off the table as he set down his cup.
"I bid you welcome," Seraph said, bowing slightly to the new arrivals.
"And you are?" Niobe asked suspiciously.
"I am Seraph. I am the guardian of the Oracle," he answered simply.
"The Oracle's guardian? Why haven't we ever met you before?" Neo wondered aloud. Niobe concurred; she knew she had never encountered him. Judging from Neo's reaction, as someone who had probably listened to many a tale about the Oracle from Morpheus, this was new to him as well.
"On the contrary, I believe both of you have," Seraph remarked cryptically. He tapped his sunglasses lightly on the bridge of his nose and smiled.
Confused, Niobe thought back to her previous visit in an attempt to bring up an image of Seraph, but her efforts were fruitless. Neo's on the other hand, appeared to come up with something tangible.
"You were the old man in front of the elevator," said Neo, the realization dawning upon him.
Huh? Niobe did remember seeing an old man with a cane by the elevator at the Oracle's apartment. His hair and beard had been growing white as snow and he had been wearing a dark ratty trenchcoat and -
- And the same pair of sunglasses that Seraph was wearing.
"For a long time, I have not needed a shell such as this one. Now I must be this way. Things are changing," he explained.
"What for?" Niobe questioned. Something wasn't right. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand on their ends, and there was a strange scent in the air, one that was putting her on edge.
Seraph raised his hands and bowed respectfully to Niobe and Neo. "I must apologize. I need this form for this."
She placed the scent half a second before Seraph leaped into the air like a cat. It smelled like a fight!
Both Neo and Niobe snapped into a defensive stance as Seraph somehow managed to assault them both. Neo recovered more quickly than Niobe due to his enhanced abilities, and started to effortlessly come back at Seraph, forcing the guardian to focus all of his attention on him. Niobe took the opportunity to back off a few paces, leaping backwards over a table to set herself up as support if Neo needed it, although she seriously doubted that he would. For the next few seconds, they appeared to be an even match. For every hit that Seraph managed to land, Neo got one in as well. Their spar was sending chopsticks and tableware flying as they knocked chairs and tables out of their way, or used them as high ground.
Neo aimed a high kick at Seraph's head, and the mysterious character ducked to evade, crouching into a squat. The next thing Niobe knew, Seraph had soared into the air high above Neo in a form akin to the one Morpheus favored, and was heading straight for her. She skirted backwards to give herself some more breathing room, but realized all too late that she had just cornered herself against a wall, and Seraph had already closed the space between them.
She managed to block most of his moves, but he tripped her with a sharp kick to her ankle. Before she could even start to focus on what she was doing to the point where she could tap into her enhanced powers, she used her sudden change in momentum to dive into a cartwheel, sidestepping Seraph in the process. When she got back on her feet, she went at him with full force.
Niobe had never been the greatest hand-to-hand fighter. Speed and fast reflexes had always been her strength. She could most certainly hold her own against almost any kind of law-enforcement that Agents could throw at her, but she had nowhere near the same level of proficiency that more seasoned rebels such as Roland and Morpheus did. But this time was different. She felt like she could beat even them into a pulp if she tried. She was even faster than before, and needed to focus less to make her hits count.
Seraph seized one of her wrists and twisted it fiercely. She feigned a high kick but couldn't connect as he started to flip her over. Niobe allowed herself to be flipped and rolled over his arm as if she were swinging around a bar with one hand, and landed back on her feet in time for Seraph to punch her in the stomach and send her flying backwards. To her surprise (as well as everyone else's), she landed crouched on her feet on the wall, which shook ominously with the force of the impact before she launched herself back towards Seraph, who was at the other end of the building. As she stood poised to retaliate, Seraph raised his hands in surrender.
"Enough! I believe I have answered your question to your satisfaction," the guardian declared before continuing, "Again, I apologize for the deception, but I had to be sure of who you are, and you do not truly know someone until you fight them."
"Oh...kay..." replied Neo in a slightly confused fashion. Niobe stared dumbfoundedly at her former opponent, unsure of how to take all of this.
"Please, come with me," Seraph said to Neo, heading for the door as he withdrew an old key from his sleeve. Confused but prepared to go along with it, Neo exchanged looks with Niobe before following suit.
"Hey! What about me?" Niobe demanded hotly, lifting her arms up in the air with exasperation.
"The Oracle asked that I only being Neo. I will escort her to you with they are finished," Seraph explained. He turned away from the rebels to unlock and open the door, which now revealed a barren white hallway instead of the bustling streets of Chinatown. Niobe recognized the hallway immediately. It was the one the Keymaker had led her and Ghost into when they had been ambushed in the sewers!
Neo walked into the strange hallway, looking around the new area with immense interest. Seraph took up the rear and reached for the door.
"Please make yourself comfortable. Help yourself to some tea," he advised Niobe brightly before shutting the door. It locked with an audible click and Niobe didn't bother to try and follow. She already knew that the door had been reset to exit to its usual location. Instead, she sighed, sat down at the nearest undisturbed table, and waited for Link to call and demand an explanation as to where Neo and Seraph had gone. All she knew was that her gut was telling her that this wasn't going anywhere good.
She recalled the most botched-up mission she had ever had the displeasure of participating in that had taken place inside the Matrix. Her captain had sent her inside to make contact with Captain Tiresias, who had sent a distress message through the fleet's drop point system. It was supposed to be a simple job - jack in, find out what was keeping Tiresias, and jack out.
Niobe chose the university campus to be her contact point. There were hundreds of phone lines, both public and private, and it would be nearly impossible for anyone to trace her accurately. After requesting a change of outfit to something more appropriate for a university student to wear, her commanding officer jacked her into the Matrix.
"Be careful Niobe," he cautioned before hitting the execute command.
"I will, I will. You worry too much," she responded as she slipped her sunglasses on while stuffing a pair of knives into a holster under her pants. The only downside of going incognito was that she wouldn't have any guns on hand if something went wrong.
But nothing's going to go wrong, she assured herself confidently.
Niobe had no problem getting on the campus unnoticed, and was able to get into the library and locate a set of phone in a secluded location with just as much ease.
She inserted a quarter into the nearest one and dialed the phone number hacked to broadcast to Tiresias' ship. It rang several times before the answering machine picked up.
"This is the Center for Ancient Studies. Unfortunately, no one is here to take your call. Please leave your name, number, and a brief message, and we'll get back to you."
"Damn it Tiresias, where are you?" Niobe whispered to herself before clearing her throat and leaving a coded message.
"I am calling to confirm that your presentation concerning Homer's Odyssey is-"
There was an audible click as the recording device was cut off and someone came on the line. "This is Tiresias. Who is this?"
Niobe sighed a breath of relief. "It's Niobe. We got your distress call. What's going on?"
"Distress call? What distress call?" Tiresias echoed, sounding ridiculously confused. Niobe felt her blood turn ice cold. This was bad.
"We picked up a package through the drop point yesterday. The details said that your ship's engines had died and you needed to make contact to arrange a meet with another ship," Niobe told him.
"Our engines are fine, Niobe..." This was bad.Very bad.
The payphone next to the one Niobe was using started to ring, causing a few people in the library to lift their heads in curiosity. Niobe stared at it, her heart rate already quickening.
"I've gotta go," she breathed, replacing the phone on its receiver. She grabbed the other one in mid-ring while checking her surroundings. There were no hostiles in sight, but there were certainly plenty of places to hide in a library. Deciding that she couldn't draw any more attention to herself, she pressed the receiver to her ear.
"What?!" she whispered furiously, "I have a cell phone you know! One that vibrates!"
"They've jammed the mobile phone system! This was the only way I could get a hold of you!" the captain declared in an equally angry tone. He didn't allow Niobe any further chance to interrupt him. "The nearest hardline's been cut. Take the south exit and head for the subway. Take the green line to Berry and use the hardline in the closed convenience store. And hurry! They're converging on your position! Please, for God's sakes, get out of there now!"
"Okay! I'm going! Thanks Jason," she said quickly as the call ended. She dropped the phone and it dangled on its cord while the dial tone sounded, slipping towards the southern exit as instructed.
She tried her best to look inconspicuous as she exited the building and headed for the crosswalk. Jason's instructions were proving to be accurate so far, although she suspected that someone - or something - had overtaken the library from every other access point and was scrutinizing her abandoned phone right now. While she waited at the curb for the light to turn green, her heart stopped.
It was an Agent, accompanied by several police officers. And they were headed towards her, although it didn't look like they'd spotted her just yet.
Just stay calm, Niobe. Just keep your cool, she thought, forcing herself to wrench her eyes away from them and stare straight ahead at the road. The light turned green, and she walked casually across, mustering as much willpower as she could to stop herself from kicking into a sprint. Unfortunately, by the time she crossed the road, she realized that playing pretend wasn't going to help her anymore. She had been spotted, and they were briskly walking towards her.
Frantic, she looked around for another escape route. The main subway station was two more blocks down, at least to the best of her knowledge. A quick scan of the vicinity proved to be a saving grace; the bank just a few meters away had a subway sign underneath its logo, indicating that its lower levels connected to a station. She dashed for the door without hesitation, and took the nearest escalator down, skipping the steps as she went. Once she hit the lower floor, she took off running. Her only chance was to outrun the Agent, lose him in the station, and hope that she did not appear odd to any bystanders. If she did, then the Agent would reappear, and she would be screwed.
The tunnel connecting the bank and the subway was a barren stone hall, with small metal doors leading off to back rooms and parking lots. Above her, Niobe noticed cameras logging her presence as she sped past them. As she turned a corner, she saw the Agent running after her in the corner of her eye.
Run faster! She commanded herself, pumping her legs harder and pouring all of her mental energies into increasing her velocity. The entrance to the station was only a couple of meters away, and it looked like no one was attending the turnstiles. Niobe jumped over them and dashed down a staircase to the platform whose train was going in the direction she needed to go. She ducked into a small depression in the wall near the end of the platform and tried her best to catch her breath.
Niobe shuddered as she watched the Agent enter the station on the walkways above her, jump over the turnstiles, and slowly start to determine where she had gone. Watching him cautiously look around was enough to drive her crazy, especially since he seemed to get closer and closer to her by the second.
Her heart rate skyrocketed as he strolled down onto the opposite platform, scrutinizing every passenger on both his side and hers as he navigated his way down towards the opposite end. He would spot in mere seconds if something didn't happen.
As she started to panic (for the second time today), she heard the sound of an oncoming train approaching the opposite platform, and realized that this was going to be her only opening for escape. It screeched to a halt, obstructing the Agent's view of her side, and she took the few precious seconds of cover to decide what she was going to do. Glancing down the open and dark tunnel leading to the station she needed to get to, Niobe decided she was going to try and make a run for it and beat the next train. After slowly walking towards the barrier blocking the walkway, she looked back at the rest of the people on the platform to ensure that they weren't paying attention, and got around it, breaking into another sprint after she was a few paces away.
Niobe had no idea how long it would take until a train would overtake her, but she did know that when it did, it was going to be a very tight squeeze. Ignoring this very possible eventuality, she pumped her legs as hard and fast as they would go, but she knew that her pace was starting to lag. She'd been tapping into her mental resources for nearly ten minutes straight now, and she hadn't paced herself at all in hopes of outrunning her assailants. If she didn't stop to rest soon, then she would collapse from exhaustion. Nonetheless, she compelled herself to continue pressing onwards. From what she could remember about the subway system, another line ran parallel to the one she was currently running along. If she was lucky, there would be an access tunnel connecting to it before the next station…
A strange noise caught her attention as she continued to run. The tracks were jerking back and forth, causing them to make a clicking noise. From behind her, she could feel the rush of a speeding air current approaching, and knew that the telltale whine of a subway wasn't too far behind. But that wasn't all she was hearing.
Amidst all the other sounds being amplified in the tunnel, Niobe perceived footsteps coming from in front of her, very Agent-like footsteps. It had figured out where she had gone!
She came screeching to a halt, spotting the well tailored sentinel about two hundred meters in front of her. The subway was only a minute or so behind them. Assessing her options, Niobe noted a bright blue light overhanging what looked like an access tunnel from her vantage point, but she wasn't entirely sure. Unfortunately, it looked like her best hope. Against her better judgment, she broke into a sprint towards it. The Agent also broke into a run, and started to cover more distance than her with his unlimited stamina and higher speed. And the subway continued to get closer and closer, the sound of it now overwhelming the entire tunnel. At the last possible second, Niobe jumped towards the Agent and angled herself so she could use him as a springboard, bouncing off his chest towards what she hoped was a tunnel. She was right – it was a tunnel, and she tumbled safely to the ground. Thrust backward by the force of her jump, the Agent lost his footing and only regained it in time for the subway to run him over.
Niobe blinked in shock as the cars sped past her, barely processing the fact that she was still alive, and sprang back to attention at the sound of a telephone ringing somewhere down in the walkway. She dragged herself to her feet and jogged towards it, hoping to God that Jason had managed to hack a hardline closer to her.
When Jason proudly recounted the story of his cunning and Niobe's daring escape to everyone on their shore leave in Zion, Thadeus frowned and swore that he would never trust a Drop Point again if they were that easy to hack. He was true to his word until the day he died.
"It's been a while, hasn't it?" The Oracle asked Niobe, patiently ambling over to where the troubled woman was sitting and joining her on the wooden bench. Seraph shut the door to the teahouse quietly and turned his back to it, standing guard over his charge. Niobe took a sip of her tea from the tiny cup before setting it back down on the table and looking up at the newcomers.
"Where's Neo?" she asked, confused by his absence.
The Oracle chuckled. "Don't you worry about him. He's in a bit of a pickle right now, but he'll be fine. Now then, let's talk about you for a change."
Reluctantly, Niobe sighed and nodded. "I suppose I don't need to fill you in on the details."
"Some of them," the elderly woman insisted, pulling out a cigarette from her small black purse. "Do you mind?" she asked, gesturing to it. Niobe shook her head, and the Oracle lit up and took a long drag before beginning.
"So, you've been bitten."
"Yes."
"And something was transmitted from the bite into your code. A virus, by my guess."
"Right."
"And it's changing you, even though Neo tried to delete it."
"Yep."
"Are you sure it's the virus?"
She looked at the program in confusion. "I don't understand."
The Oracle set her cigarette down on the table and looked at Niobe pointedly. "What if I told you that there was no virus, that this was all in your head and had been triggered by exactly what Jason said had caused it: stress, the death of a friend, and a near-death experience?" she suggested off-handedly.
"Then I'd say that you were wrong. What you're saying doesn't explain everything," Niobe responded, shaking her head. "Like my teeth, for example."
"Sure it does. Your mind thinks it's real, and so it's reacting accordingly. Isn't all of this in your head? Are you not reacting to the wind, to myself?" the sibyl pointed out while gazing at the surrounding park.
Damn. She was always able to pull the rug from under Niobe's feet, no matter how hard she tried to stay grounded. "So what do I do? I just try to cure myself like they do in fairy tales?"
"You do whatever your mind thinks needs to be done. That is, if you want to do anything," the Oracle said cryptically.
"What makes you think I don't want to do anything?" Niobe demanded incredulously.
The Oracle regarded Niobe bemusedly. "Seraph described to me the outcome of your spar. You were more in your element than you've ever been. Deep down inside, I think you liked the fact that you had been bitten because it had enhanced some of your abilities. Anyone in your position would be tempted by that." She leaned closer to her companion and took off her sunglasses. Niobe jerked away, squinting at the increased light.
"Until you decide whether or not you want to stay this way, you won't be able to do anything, no matter how hard you try," she warned.
"Gee, thanks. That's very helpful," Niobe sneered.
"Hey, that's the simplest I can put it," the Oracle retorted lightly as she extinguished her now finished cigarette and placed it in one of the plates. "But since you seem to be a little slow with your noodle today, I'll be nice and point you in the right direction. Go with Morpheus to see the Merovingian."
"The Merovingian? You mean the French bastard whose house I barely escaped from alive?" Niobe repeated, her mouth gaping wide open in shock by the mere fact that the Oracle would suggest something so crazy. "And what the hell do I do?"
The Oracle stood up and slung her purse carefully into her hands, nodding to Seraph. "It's like Morpheus always says, honey. I can only show you the door. You've got to walk through it."
Niobe felt whatever hope Morpheus had instilled in her for a simple solution quickly fading away. She was trapped in a complex web of invisible strands like a helpless insect, and the harder she tried to escape, the more tangled she became. Her only apparent option was to look in the direction the Oracle was pointing and try to free herself strand by strand. The only problem was that she still didn't trust a damn thing the Oracle said. How could she trust her when she wasn't even human?
The passage about the myth of Niobe and Latona is from Latin Via Ovid, by Norma Goldman and Jacob E. Nyenhuis, 2nd ed.
Last edited July 6, 2004.