Life in Death, Part 2
by noiseforyoureyes

disclaimer: the Matrix owns me.

Set between The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded.

***

The cold of the sewers, miles beneath the surface of the earth, seeped through Neo's skin and settled into his bones. His flashlight searched ahead, slicing dully through the gloom, meeting other crewmembers' beams at intervals. The slight crunch of metal beneath their feet was the only sound that broke the stillness.

As they crossed the distance between the Nebuchadnezzar and the prostrate form of the hovercraft Transient, it seemed obvious what the bane of the ship had been. The massive coiled tentacles of a Sentinel still gripped the hull, like the memory of a nightmare. Up close, Neo thought, they were twice as big and twice as creepy. Ducking under one low-hanging arm, he followed Trinity and Morpheus inside. Tank had stayed onboard the Neb to keep watch, lest any scouting Sentinels take advantage of their vulnerable position.

When Morpheus's flashlight found the first body, the air around them seemed to grow impossibly colder. A man lay still jacked in, prostrate in his chair with an expression of anguish - or was it concentration? - on his face, skin already darkening, blood stopped in his veins, and the slight odor of death hanging about him. With a jolt, Neo recognized himself in that man; himself without Trinity there to bring him back. He felt suddenly and intensely unnatural. The life that flowed in his own veins; why was he more deserving of it than this man here? Who had probably fought his entire life, challenged far more without the gift that came with Neo's title.

He felt Trinity's breath warming his face. She put a hand on his shoulder. How does she always know? Even (especially, it seemed) when he tried hardest to hide it, she would immediately sense his discontent. Her nearness somewhat grounded his tension, though it did not leave him.

Morpheus took upon himself the unsavory task of counting bodies elsewhere about the ship. No one had exchanged a word or made a sound since entering. This was a sacred place, not to be disturbed by the frivolous whispering of those who yet lived. Neo and Trinity found two more bodies in the Core, each showing signs of Sentinel impaling. The feed station was black with the operator's blood. Neo found his flashlight returning to that one freedom fighter in the chair, who alone was untouched by the devastation all around him, yet remained just as equally dead.

Trinity brushed against him, and he looked at what she had illuminated; the operator's hand on the keyboard, clutching what looked like some sort of disk. Carefully, delicately, she slid it out from under his fingers. It was smudged with dark blood. Both were thinking the same thing. Could this have been what caused the Transient's desperation? Something the agents didn't want exposed, information of such vitality held within a battered piece of metal and plastic... could this Sentinel attack have been more deliberate than they'd guessed?

They heard Morpheus reenter the Core, and both swung their flashlights around to face him. He shook his head, once. No one left. The ship's scanners had been right. That was the thing about machines. They were always right, no matter how much Morpheus might venture to distrust their calculations.

He looked down at what Trinity placed upon his palm, and they exchanged a look. At his gesture, the three carefully picked their way outside - none desired to discuss what had been discovered in the presence of the dead crewmembers. They left the gravesite as they'd found it. Dark, cold and alone.

***

An EMP had been blown, of course. But far too late to save even the person pulling it. The situation must have been dire, indeed, for them to forsake the life of the man still jacked in. Tank was working on decrypting the disk; it would take a few hours, at least.

Neo's plague of restlessness had not been helped by the Transient encounter. He sat staring at Tank's computer screen, watching the monotonous decryption sequence play out, until Tank finally offered him his mug. Shaking his head, Neo impulsively decided to plug into the Construct for some sparring practice. If it could even remotely ease his mind...

As Tank set the parameters, Neo leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes, exhaling a deep breath. After a few moments he felt the familiar sensation of the needle entering the back of his skull and opened his eyes to find...

Wait. This wasn't the sparring program.

This was empty white space and a black leather easy chair sitting in front of him. "Tank?" C'mon, I'm not in the mood for games...

He looked about to see nothing but more white until suddenly Trinity was there, in an identical chair opposite him.

"Have a seat." He did. To be honest, he'd known this was coming eventually. He also knew it was his fault for delaying it and forcing her to be the one that brought it up. He looked down, feeling slightly guilty. Not for the conviction he knew was imminent; she wouldn't blame him. But he wondered if somehow his recent disquiet was so intense that it prevented her, too, from sleeping.

She stared at him for a long time before saying anything. So long Neo wondered whether he was supposed to be doing the talking.

Then, "Neo, you haven't slept four nights straight. I know something's wrong." She paused. "And you know you can tell me." Her face softened; silence hung. "I just wanted to remind you of that."

He looked up. His throat seemed to have closed from lack of speech these past few days. Using it seemed a foreign exercise. "Thank you," was all he could manage, but she read the depth of his gratitude in his eyes. She marvelled at the ability of the system to translate even a nuance so subtle as that. His eyes. Holding everything he left unsaid.

Tank's voice interrupted their session. "Hack's complete. Neo, Trinity, we'll need you on this."

***

"Took a lot faster than I expected, really. It's a pair of coordinates - warehouse I think - ain't one of our usuals." Tank hit a key. "Looks clean. Almost too clean." He turned to see three familiar, worn faces hovering above him. "All of you going?" He remembered when 'all' used to encompass a lot more than those that stood beside him now.

Morpheus nodded. "Load us up."