Legal Stuff: I don't own Enter the Matrix, the Matrix Trilogy, or any of its characters.
This is a short little chapter, but a longer one is on the way. Please R&R!
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Deep Freeze
Chapter 2
Niobe poured the last of the goop in her bowl, her eyes darting quickly between Sparks' hunched form on the table and the goop. She sighed sadly in resignation, and slid the bowl in front of him. "Eat up, Sparks," she said, patting him on the back as she walked by.
His eyes opened a bit, having fallen asleep at the table. "Ahh...what?" He rubbed his eyes for a moment and sat up, looking up at Niobe. "But...that's the last--."
"Shut up and eat it," Niobe cut him off quickly. "And take the extra blankets back to your cot and get some rest."
Sparks looked confused for a moment. "But you and Ghost won't have a blanket."
"We're going out in the sewers to look for anything that could be of use." Niobe poured a small glass of water and sipped on it slowly. "Its our only hope...surely there's something in that trash out there."
Sparks' hand shook slightly as he took a bite of the goop. "It's below zero out there, Captain. You'll freeze."
Niobe stared at her glass for a few moments before answering him. "We'll freeze in here. What's the difference?"
He didn't answer, his eyes downcast at the table. "So, when are we going?"
"Ghost and I are leaving in a few minutes. You're staying here."
He looked over at her suddenly. "What? No! I can't--," he started, but suddenly broke out into a fit of coughing. Once he regained his breath, he tried to finish, his voice sounded a bit strained. "I can't just stay here while you guys are gone."
Niobe half-smiled at him. "You're sick, Sparks. You need to stay here and rest." Her smile faded a bit as his he turned away from her. She closed her eyes, thoughts of failure dancing in her head. Their lives were her responsibility, and here she was, accepting that death was imminent for all of them.
Sparks was silent, his face eventually conveying acceptance after a few moments. "What...if you don't come back?"
Niobe frowned. "Then...do what you will. There's three doses of morphine left in the med bay..." She let her voice trail off, her conscience screaming at her.
He finally turned back to her, his eyes defeated. "Is that an order, Niobe?"
Niobe snickered bitterly. "No. It's...permission." She gulped down the last of her water. "Ghost and I should be back within three days. I just know--oh, dammit it all to hell..." She groaned, raising a hand to her head, fighting back a wave of emotion. This just wasn't Niobe--this wasn't the kickass Matrix warrior everyone had come to know and fear by name back in Zion. She was never overcome by emotion. Never. But then again, these were not normal circumstances. She took a deep breath and continued.
"Fuck..." she muttered again. "I just know...I wouldn't want to wait around to die all alone... And you've said as much to me before."
Sparks took another bite of the goop silently. "You're not coming back." It was more of a statement than a question.
She shook her head. "Probably not. But there's always hope, right?" She looked back over her shoulder at him. "We might find something out there we can use."
Sparks half smiled. "Yeah. See you...later, then."
Niobe smiled sadly at his words. They felt strangely...appropriate. "Yeah, later then." She shut the door behind her, grabbing the nearby coat as she walked to the hatch, where she knew Ghost was already waiting.
Ghost stood silently, his eyes far away as she approached. "Are you ready?" he asked. It never ceased to amaze Niobe how acute his senses were.
"Yeah. Let's go."
They manually pushed the hatch open and shut it behind them, fighting the shock of the much-colder air. They silently looked around for a few moments before Niobe took off in one direction, Ghost wordlessly following her. Twisted, broken metal could be seen in every direction, most of it trash from the old cities that used to reign the skies above long before the war even started.
They walked for hours through the monotonous metal graveyard, their hopes slowly dying as they saw that there really was nothing out there. They climbed what seemed like an endless incline, the strength of both slowly giving out, when Niobe suddenly stopped at the top.
"What the hell...?"
Ghost pulled himself the rest of the way up and looked down, his face squinting. He turned to Niobe, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "A ship."
She looked back. "It's got to be. Come on, lets go have a look."
The ship had been there for a while, Niobe judged, looking at the cobwebs and it's general state of decay. It was probably an old hovercraft that crashed years ago. It was huge, about the size of the Nebuchadnezzar or the Hammer, she noted as they stepped through the narrow opening where the hatch once stood. It had a musty smell inside--a smell of death and decay. Spider webs were everywhere--over every door, in every corner.
"Lets check the cockpit," Niobe muttered, shivering against the cold. The layout of the ship seemed unusual to Niobe, but then again, she was used to the Logos, which was a very small ship indeed. Eventually, they found their way through the maze of hallways to the cockpit.
Inside, laid in strangely odd patterns across the floor, were three very old skeletons. Not a trace of clothing or flesh remained--only bone and cobweb.
Niobe frowned intently. "They've been dead for a while."
Ghost knelt down to examine a patch of dust on the floor beside one of the skeletons. Rubbing at it gently, he looked back up at Niobe, a bit of confusion in his eyes. "Niobe, these people have been here at least a hundred years..." He pinched a bit of the dust between his fingers and held it up. "It coarse, meaning it was clothing at one point in time. The synthetic cloth we use is supposed to last for an entire lifetime."
Niobe's eyes closed for a brief moment, a frown forming on her face. "That can't be right. Humans have only been outside of the Matrix for a hundred years, and there were no ships until about fifty years ago..." She looked around at the panels--definitely foreign, a pattern to them that she did not understand. "Look at this, Ghost..."
He stood and examined the panels with her, his eyes full of questions. "Perhaps we should check the Core?"
Niobe nodded. "Yeah."
The Core was not as difficult to find as the cockpit, as it was just a few hallways away. It looked just like any other ship's core. An operator's station, four chairs for jacking in, and a shelf full of basic programming. Ghost blew some of the dust off, and reached for one of the disks.
"Matrix Feed Program," he read softly.
Niobe walked over and looked at the disk. "That can't be right. The ships never carry these basic programs on disks. They download them from other ships after they blow the E.M.P.'s."
Ghost nodded. "Yes. If the machines were to get access to our mainframe communications programming..." He trailed off, setting the disk back on the shelf.
Niobe was searching around for the ship's plaque, which always had the hovercraft's name and signature on it. Eventually she found it, drilled into a pillar near the opposite end of the room.
"The Saturn, Mark IX, Made in the USA in the year..." she stopped short. "2146?"
Ghost frowned as he looked it over. "2146...how is that possible? Humans weren't even out of the Matrix at that time."
Niobe shook her head. "I don't know... But I do know one thing. Only about twenty ships were ever made in Zion," she said, frowning, "and I know there wasn't a 'Saturn'."
Ghost didn't respond to her statement. "We should look and see if the power core is still viable."
They descended down the nearby ladder to the core's room, looking around carefully. It looked just like any other core they'd ever seen before. But they knew something wasn't right about this ship...
Niobe investigated the core carefully. It seemed to be undamaged, if a little dusty. "The power connectors look like they were destroyed in the crash," she muttered, ducking under a fallen metal bar. "If that's the case, there may still be some power left in it." She stood, looking over at Ghost. "But this is a damn small power core... If it's as old as those people, any power left may have seeped out over time."
Ghost studied it from the other side. "Our cores are designed to hold their electric charges for three hundred years. But this doesn't quite look like one of our cores." He walked around the structure to stand beside Niobe. "Its smaller than it should be for a ship this size."
She frowned. "I noticed that." She crossed her arms. "We could drag it back to the Logos and see if it'll work."
Ghost frowned. "Its too heavy. We're a solid day's walk from the Logos."
"We don't have any other options. Here, let's see if we can pull it out."
She started to unwind cords and such from the tangled mess, and he did the same, until finally they were able to pull it out of its place. Both grunted with the effort--it was indeed heavy.
"It'll take days to get this back." Niobe groaned. "But we've got to try."
Ghost grabbed the opposite end of the core. "Sparks may not last that long..."
"...Then we'll get this thing out of here now. We should make it back in a day and a half." Niobe's conviction had returned just a bit--she had to look out for her crew, after all.
"We should get those disks. We will need those programs." Ghost grunted with the effort of pulling the delicate core up the ladder, Niobe pushing it from below. Finally, they succeeded in heaving the large object above the lower deck, both panting with effort. "This won't be easy," he muttered.
She nodded. "I know. Come on, lets get out of here." She looked around slowly, taking in the familiar sights. "Something is definitely wrong here..." she muttered. "There have to be answers here, somewhere. Maybe in the Captain's log." Niobe rolled to her feet, helping Ghost up afterwards. "If we can get the Logos started again, we need to come back."
After a bit of struggling through tight hallways and a few ladders, they finally emerged from the wrecked hovercraft, both carrying the heavy energy core with strain. They set it down momentarily to take a break. No, this would definitely not be easy...
"It's not likely to have any power left."
Niobe fought a frown. "How can you be so calm? We're going to die, don't you know that?"
Ghost's back was towards her as they sat on a long, metal bar of some sort. "Death is inevitable. Everything that is born must one day die." He frowned, unseen by Niobe. "But death is not the end... Hume teaches us that we are all reborn, along with those we loved and cared for in this life."
Niobe shook her head. "I wish I could believe that..." She stared off in the distance.
Ghost smiled. "Aren't you going to be surprised once we're on the other side..."
Niobe laughed--a good, full laugh, something she hadn't done in weeks. "I'd be surprised as hell." She pulled herself to her feet, grabbing one end of the energy core. "Come on, let's hurry."
Ghost nodded and knelt down to pick up the opposite end, but not before glancing back at the broken hovercraft behind them.
"Rest in peace, Saturn," he muttered under his breath.
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If you haven't already figured out, the Saturn is a ship from one of the
previous Zions (according to the Architect's little speech...). Just thought I'd clarify that...
And another thing that might have confused you: There is a difference between the Core and the energy core. The former being the area of the ship in which they monitor the Matrix and jack in, the latter being the actual source of the ship's energy (a brief shot of the Neb's core is shown powering down during the first squiddie encounter in M1).
So, is the energy core any good? Are they all going to die? Anything's fair game here... R&R and tell me what you think! ^_^
