Thanx for the review Amber! ) Always appreciated.

See 1st chapter for disclaimer.

5. Questions and Answers

We were shaking as we walked up the isle. We both knew it was Trinity standing there. We didn't know who she was, what she was doing here, or whether she really did know anything about Tom. For all we knew, she could be about to kill us. But we thought it unlikely that she would do anything violent in a cathedral with witnesses, so we trusted to fate and took the risk.

She stayed perfectly motionless as we approached. Then, when we were about 2 metres behind her, we stopped, and she turned around. She had a long coat with a glossy finish, black sunglasses, and short dark hair.

The three of us stood regarding eachother for a few long, silent moments. We were speechless with awe, all of us. Neither side was aware of it, but both had been waiting for this meeting for longer than they cared to remember – and here it was, happening. We were all looking for Neo, and each party saw the other as their key to finding him. Strange how things work out sometimes.

It was a good few minutes before Hannah got up the nerve to speak.

"Trinity." It wasn't much, it wasn't clever, but it was enough. She took off her shades, and looked at Hannah, then at me, replying,

"Artemis. Apollo."

I suppose it should have unnerved us that she also knew our individual hacker aliases, but we were too stunned to really notice. Neither did we think twice about the dangers when she asked us to come with her, and left the cathedral. The whole thing was so surreal that we just blindly followed.

She lead us down streets and alleyways that we didn't even know existed, and we've lived here since we were born. Tom used to live here too, before our parents broke up and he went to America with our dad. He'd probably know where we were going if he was here now, I thought.

Don't say that, thought Hannah, we have other things to think about.

But it was too late. We had both been reminded of him and were already starting to miss him again.

If we persist with Trinity, we might find him. We hardly dared to hope it, but it was with that thought in mind that we entered a dark and dilapidated building in her wake.

The pursuit took us up 4 flights of stairs, and ended outside a door. It would turn out to be the last time we ever saw the world the same way again.

--

Trinity stopped next to the door, her hand resting on the handle, holding it slightly ajar.

"Now we can talk." She went inside, and we followed. Hannah shut the door behind us and we looked around. The room was very dimly lit, and thinly furnished. There were double sofas facing eachother with a coffee table in-between. On the table were 2 glasses of water. There was nothing else. There was another door in the opposite corner.

Hannah and I glanced around us, now shivering uncontrollably from a mixture of anticipation and adrenaline.

If this goes horribly wrong, which door do we run through? I thought.

The one we came through. We know where that one goes, Hannah replied. I nodded, and we braced ourselves as Trinity began to speak.

"Sit down," she said. We exchanged glances before complying. She seated herself across from us, sitting up perfectly straight and looking like she was here to do business. "First thing's first. What are you looking for?"

"We're looking for our brother," we said together. She raised an eyebrow.

"And?"

"And nothing. That's it," Hannah said. I decided to let her do the talking. That's how it always has worked and always will – I do the thinking, Hannah does the talking.

"You're looking for something else as well, something you should find before you find Neo."

"What are you talking about?"

"Is there anything else that you've had to hack to look for?"

We looked at eachother again, unsure what to say – rather, unsure what to reveal.

"There is one other thing."

"And another person – apart from myself and Neo."

How does she know this?

Hannah looked down and twisted her fingers together, then took a deep breath and looked back at Trinity.

"Before our brother went missing, he was looking for a man called Morpheus. He was also trying to get information about something called the Matrix. We don't know what it is, but we've been trying to find out for a long time." Trinity nodded in an unsettlingly knowing way. "We wanted to know what interested him so much. But the more we searched, the more we became intrigued ourselves…" She paused.

Don't get carried away, we don't want her to know too much, I warned. Hannah bit her lip. "We heard that it holds answers – that Morpheus knows answers – that's all. That's all we're looking for, it's nothing you can help us with."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that."

Now we were really suspicious. Tom almost drove himself mad searching for this 'Morpheus', trying to find out what this 'Matrix' is. Like we'd be able to find the answers this easily and this quickly?

This has got to be a trap, I thought.

Wait, replied Hannah, just wait a bit longer. Let's see how much we can find out before things get nasty.

I shifted nervously; my hand automatically went to my coat pocket where it found my kubotan1.

"Wh..what do you mean?" Asked Hannah.

Trinity sketched an experienced smile. "Let's just say I know more than you think." She stood up. "I probably know more than you can imagine."

She moved over to the other door. "In fact, I'd like you to meet someone who definitely does."

She opened the door, and a man stepped slowly and assuredly into the room. He was slightly taller than Trinity, black, and had a shaved head. For reasons of which I am to this day unaware, he immediately struck me as being unusually perspicacious, and I began to worry about what we might say.

I couldn't decide if it was a good sign or not that he had a trenchcoat very similar to mine. The 4 of us must have been quite a sight, all in our black overcoats and solemn faces. He broke the trend with a small smile.

"Good evening," he said, in a low voice. "My name is Morpheus."

----

1 A kubotan is a small weapon – I was introduced to them through ninjutsu but I think other martial arts use them aswell – that is basically a short stick of metal (e.g. aluminium). It can look a bit like black bamboo and you can carry them like keychains – but trust me, if you use them right, they hurt. (For a picture, go to http/shop.store.