RATING: PG-13
AUTHOR: Sólia
SUMMARY/ORIENTATION: Alternative universe – what would have happened if the black cat HADN'T deja-vu-ed itself? A completely different course of events... But will it lead to the same result as the movie? Neo and Trinity have escaped the building alive, and have met up with their crew, but where's Morpheus? And what's going on in the Construct?
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks to everyone who reviewed.
MircoChips: Sorry about that Cypher thing – I hadn't really noticed that. I just assumed that everyone would figure he'd gone with everyone else, since I don't really mention anyone up until then.
MistyX: Thanks for the suggestion. I might use that in a different fiction, but Déjà Vu has already actually been finished. I'm just unloading each chapter every week or so. Rather than all at once. Thanks anyway, though. I appreciate it. :)
Q, Kal Torak, November, Realitys Independence, whispering silence and Whispers of Death: I'm glad you liked it.
Chapter two – Construct
Cypher opened his eyes and stared at Dozer. He sat up, rubbing his bald head as though he was very upset by the capture of Morpheus by the agents. Of course, he was the one who had planned it, so no, he wasn't remotely upset. Unfortunately, none of his fellow crewmembers had been killed in the surprise attack, so he'd have to do it all himself. Oh, well. He got the crowbar he had left beside his chair that morning before they had hacked into the Matrix to take Neo to the Oracle.
Dozer, the gentle giant of the hovercraft, looked up in light surprise when he saw the crowbar in Cypher's hands. He barely saw it coming. Within the second, the heavy metal tool had collided with Dozer's head, knocking him senseless. Lying on the floor, the big, dark-coloured Zion-born man scrambled for something to defend himself with, but it was too late for him. Cypher slammed the bar into him again and again, until he was completely sure that he was dead.
"What have you done?" Tank asked in a soft, devastated voice from behind him.
"The same thing I'm gonna do to you," Cypher answered, swinging the crowbar around and hitting Tank, the younger of the brothers, in the jaw. Without a sound, the operator fell to the floor. Dead as a doornail.
It was done then. Well, at least, half-done. There was still Apoc, Switch, Mouse, Neo and Trinity to die yet. And those last two, he knew, he would definitely enjoying killing.
----
"Why isn't the phone ringing?" Mouse complained. Neo tried not to look at Trinity. She was now beyond furious – she was miserable, too. The agents had attacked the five escaping rebels as they'd climbed down from the building, eventually capturing Morpheus and almost killing Apoc before he and the others had gotten away.
"We'll get him back," Apoc said weakly. He had severe injuries, judging not only by his bad limping, bloody cuts and bruises but also by the way he kept spitting mouthfuls of blood into the corner of the dusty, tea-house-like cottage.
"Tank is getting slack," Mouse decided.
"He's just busy at the moment," Switch said irritably. "Maybe Cypher tripped over when he got out of his chair, and hurt himself? One can only hope..."
"That's silly," Trinity said, looking up. Switch went quiet, although it was obvious from her pale eyes that she couldn't believe that Trinity might stick up for Cypher. Neo couldn't, either. He had been sure that she was very unhappy with him, but maybe not...
"It would be better if he died," she said with a smirk. Switch and Mouse grinned at her surprising humour. No one had expected her to show it then.
"No," she added after a moment. "I shouldn't wish death on anyone."
----
Switch, the formidable looking white blonde woman lying in that chair, was peacefully unconscious, unaware. She could have no idea that Cypher was currently staring at her with dislike, recalling all the times she had told him that he would never be good enough for Trinity, that Trinity was meant for a higher purpose than the likes of him.
Even if she was right, there was no real need for her to remind him of that, right? It was cruel.
But she wouldn't do it again, ever. Cypher was going to kill her for all of those times she had dashed his hopes, for all the times she had smirked at him when Trinity had been with that Neo.
He reached behind her head and his fingers found the plug that connected Switch's body to her consciousness within the Matrix. It was the only thing connecting the two parts – body and mind – to one another.
He didn't want to wait another second. Pressing down the locks on the sides of the metal inlet, he ripped it out. Killing Switch instantly.
----
"Why not wish death on someone who haunts you like Cypher does?" Switch asked defiantly. "I'm not afraid to die. I never have been and I never will be. Death is just another path."
She suddenly crumpled to the worn peach carpet without a sound, and lay still in the most awkward, uncomfortable position possible. Neo wondered how she could stand to lie like that.
"Switch?" Mouse asked uneasily. The woman dressed in white, lying perfectly still on the floor, didn't respond.
"Is she okay?" Neo asked, looking around at the others. Trinity said nothing, but stared down at her crewmate. Very slowly, Apoc knelt down beside Switch and touched her arm worriedly. He gave her a gentle shove, but she still didn't move.
"What's wrong with her?" Mouse demanded in a scared voice. He was young and as non-knowledgable as Neo, and instantly Neo felt a kinship with him – they were both new to this, unseasoned, and hopelessly lost.
"Switch?" Apoc murmured, rolling her onto her side. Her pale face was slack and unmoving, and her equally pale eyes were still and staring. She wasn't breathing. "Switch?"
"I know what happened," Trinity said softly, very slowly. All eyes turned to her, but she didn't say nor do anything else, except to share a disbelieving, almost haunted look with Apoc, who also knew whatever it was.
"Feel free to share this revelation with us at any time you find appropriate," Mouse said in annoyance. The phone, beside him, rang. "About time." With a final scared look at Switch, he answered the exit. He disappeared into the line, his RSI being transported away. The phone hung loose on its cord. When the others made no move to do so, Neo hesitantly hung it up onto its cradle.
He wanted to ask what was going on, but the two longer-serving members of the crew just held each other's horrified, knowing gazes. After a few seconds, however, Neo felt a need to interrupt.
"What happened to Switch?" he asked awkwardly. Trinity's cool blue eyes flicked to Switch, lying still on the floor beside Apoc.
"She's dead, Neo," she answered, without so much as sparing him a glance. He knew that she wasn't as shocked as he had at first expected because of her perfectly even tone and the fact that she addressed him in her answer.
The exit, a little, old-fashioned phone on an antique table, rang again. Apoc, standing but never taking his brown eyes from the dead woman on the floor, reached to answer.
"Stop!" Trinity said sharply, causing him to draw back his hand. "You know just as well as I do that something is going on here. Tank never takes this long between calls."
"Trinity, if I wait that long again, I won't have the strength to answer it," Apoc said, only slightly joking.
"I'll find out what's going on," she said. Neo knew she would never want to put any of her crewmembers in danger. She would rather put herself in it first. She moved toward the phone, but Apoc grabbed it and held the receiver above his head, out of her reach.
"I'll find out what's going on," he said. He spat his mouthful of blood into the corner. "I'm expendable."
Neo watched silently as Trinity tried to grab the phone, but Apoc held it to his ear and held her back with one outstretched arm, then disappeared, his body dissolving into individual coding at a time. The phone dropped and bounced on the curled cord. With an exasperated sigh and a muttered curse, Trinity bent over, picked it up and slammed it onto the cradle. She was under a lot of stress.
Frustrated and angry, she started pacing the small room, acting as though the body of Switch, or, indeed, Neo, didn't exist.
"Trinity?"
At his hesitant word, she turned instantly, so quickly he thought she would lose her balance. But she never lost her balance.
"Yes?" she asked. She sounded too normal for someone who had watched her friend and work partner die, and who had earlier assisted in killing someone. Assisted him. For the first time, Neo actually thought about that. He had killed someone today, in self-defence, yes, but still, he hadn't even given it one guilty thought. What kind of person had he become?
"I killed him," he murmured under his breath.
"What?" He had forgotten that he had gotten Trinity's attention.
"What happened to Switch?" Neo asked, louder so that she would hear.
"She was unplugged," Trinity answered, turning and continuing her pacing. "Someone took out the plug without exiting her from the Matrix first. It's a sure way to kill someone. And a sure way to land yourself in the prison in Zion."
"Who-"
"How should I know?" she asked, not angrily. Her head snapped around to the phone as it rang again. She checked her pocket for her mobile phone. "Um... I don't..."
She was having some sort of internal debate. She couldn't decide whether to risk him by leaving him here and finding out what was happening on the ship or risk him by sending him back first.
"You choose," she decided finally. Neo stared at the phone as he lifted it off the cradle. Should he answer it, or hand it to her? He heard a car pull up outside and urgently thrust it at her. Trinity glanced at the door with a calculating look, then pushed his arm away. When Neo still refused to answer it, she grasped his hand and forced the phone against his ear.
"Just go," she ordered as he left her.
After being sucked along the phone line, Neo expected to wake up in the Nebuchadnezzar, but instead, he found himself standing in the never-ending whiteness that was the Construct with the bewildered-looking Apoc and Mouse for company.
"What's going on?" he asked. Mouse didn't answer. He was impatiently waiting for someone to answer the call he was making on his mobile phone.
"No one's answering," he said. He hung up the phone and dropped it back into his pocket. "I don't get it. Tank called me to warm me of the hardline being cut, so he was social then, but where he is now, I have no clue."
"Cypher isn't here," Apoc pointed out dejectedly. He was sitting on what had to be the floor, although there was no way to distinguish between the walls, the floor or the distant ceiling of this infinite place. "He might have been the one to kill Switch. I can't believe she's dead. Right after she said that little thing about not being scared to die, too." He was taking it hard.
"So she 'died''?" Mouse demanded. "How? It was like she just got some disease, and then all of a sudden – dead. What happened?"
Apoc stayed silent.
"Trinity said that Switch was unplugged," Neo told Mouse. The boy's eyes widened.
"Christ," he muttered. He looked around. "When is she joining the party, anyway? She always knows what to do."
"Next. I wish we could contact her to tell her what's happening. She's pretty stressed out," Neo said.
"I'll call her before she gets stuck here, too," Mouse said suddenly. Apoc didn't answer. His breathing was a little laboured, and his eyes were closed. If they didn't get him out soon, he'd die.
----
So the little captives in the Construct were trying to contact Trinity in the Matrix. Cypher had to get her out anyway, or the police who had just pulled up in the driveway of the cottage'd catch her. That would ruin his drawn-out punishment plans for her. The trouble was, he wasn't very fast at taking people out of the Matrix and working with the phone, unless he was organising a timer, like he would later on.
He rang the exit. He watched her on the screen, his eyes glued to the array of green coded symbols that represented Trinity. She didn't answer right away. She was uncertain. Then the door burst open and she grabbed the phone before the police could see her.
"Perfect."
----
She appeared right beside Mouse, who was still dialling her number. Neo looked glad to see her, but she knew that he didn't want her stuck in the Construct, too.
"Great. What's going on?" she asked. Her eyes took in everything, from the infinite whiteness and Mouse's mobile phone, to Neo standing beside the dying Apoc.
"No clue," Mouse answered. Normally he was really bright and cheery, but now he was worried and dull. Poor boy. Neo looked just as confused and worried. She didn't like seeing him upset. He didn't look as cute.
"Why are we here?" Trinity asked. No one answered, because her phone rang. She answered it quick as a flash.
"Hello, Trinity." Cypher?
"Cypher? Where's Tank?" she asked into the phone. Neo looked up at her, and Mouse and Apoc went silent.
"You know, for the longest of times-" Cypher began, but she wasn't in the mood for long-winded answers.
"I asked a simple question," she snapped. He was silent for a moment. Then:
"Dead."
"What?" Trinity demanded.
"Dead, like Dozer and Switch," Cypher said. He sounded gleeful, the sick ass.
"How could you?" she accused.
"Hey, I never actually said I did it." But it sounded like it. "I just said they were dead. I trust that you already know about Switch?"
"Get us the hell out of here," Trinity told him. He gave an honestly amused laugh.
"Why would I want to do that?" he asked her delicately.
"It's an order," she said harshly. Apoc looked up. He knew that she never asserted her leadership unless she had to.
"An order? Whoa, wait one second while we sort out our priorities," Cypher suggested. "I'm the one with the power here. If I were so inclined, I could just press these locks down... and remove this here plug, right from your head."
"Get away from me!" she shouted. Mouse, Apoc and Neo jumped.
"Listen here. I'm going to set a timer on this computer and come and pay you guys a visit. That means that I'll automatically wake up in, say... five minutes." She could hear him tapping a key five times. "Maybe seven." Two more distant taps. "Keep in mind that if you were to kill me, you'd have no way whatsoever of getting out of there, so don't touch. We'll arrange a deal in my visit. Clear?"
"Crystal," Trinity answered scathingly. She hung up and pocketed the phone, turning away from the others so that they wouldn't question her.
----
Cypher double-checked the timer and other settings. In seven minutes he would be out of there. He could arrange some kind of half-ass deal with them, which would result in them dying. As much as he would like to have Trinity to himself, it would never really happen, so, yes, after one kiss, she, too, would die. Unless she could kill one of the others and answer his question – did she believe that Neo was the One?
He was glad that after pulling the plug on Switch he had reminded himself to wait before killing the others. He wanted to see Apoc suffer first, for that time he had actually threatened Cypher for 'stalking Trinity'. Mouse was just a stupid, annoying boy, but he was going to die, too.
And Neo was sure gonna get it...
He laid himself down in his chair and retrieved the head-jack needle from behind his headrest. Very carefully, he slipped it into his head and left it when the locks held it. He reached up to the touch screen beside him and pressed 'load', and then the real world disappeared. He opened his eyes inside the Construct next to Neo.
"Honey, I'm home," he said with a grin. Neo and Mouse glared at him, Apoc did nothing, but Trinity strode up to him.
"What the hell is going on up in here?" she demanded, tapping him hard on the forehead. "With Morpheus gone, you obey MY orders."
"No, baby, you got it all wrong," Cypher said with a smile. "You see, power isn't a rank. Power is the ability to take life. So right now, I'm the one with the power."
"True power is when you are given the chance to take a life but you choose not to," Trinity snapped. She was furious. Even Mouse and Neo were watching her rather than Cypher now, perhaps figuring her to be the more dangerous. "If that be the case, then you have no power whatsoever."
She always knew just how to tick people off.
"Whatever. I've just come to cut a deal with you 'powerful' people," Cypher said with a smirk. She narrowed her eyes. She was funny when she was mad.
"What do you want?" she asked. Obviously all of her self-control was going into this effort not to hurt him.
"Oh, many things," he answered, starting to circle them carelessly. "And if you want to live, you're going to do exactly as I say. Clear?"
"Crystal clear," Trinity said again in the same tone as last time.
"First thing. Hand over your guns," he said, opening one hand to them. Apoc, breathing heavily and painfully, yanked his guns free and slid them along the floor. Cypher picked them up and pocketed them. "Anyone else?"
The others shook their heads – well, at least, Neo and Mouse did. Trinity just glared daggers at him.
"Good. Next thing. Trinity." He turned to her. "I asked you a question once, and you never answered me. It didn't matter then, but now your life depends on it. Yes or no, darling."
He waited for her answer. Did she believe that Neo was this all-powerful One? She had never believed anything so ludicrous before, but maybe this was different. She had a definite, obvious interest in the guy, one that really got to Cypher. But her answer...
"I'm not sure I understand," she said smoothly, in her maddeningly calm voice. Cypher took one threatening step forward, but it would take more than that to intimidate her. She understood just fine.
"I think you do. Yes or no – do you believe in all of Morpheus's crap about the One?" At the mention of this, Neo blinked. "Do you believe that this guy could possibly be some fairytale hero? No lies."
Everyone, even Apoc, stared at Trinity. She was silent, and her expression was perfectly even, but she was doing some serious thinking.
"Yes, I do," she said after about thirty seconds.
That complicated things. That gave Neo an advantage in this war for Trinity, not that he seemed to know that he was a contender. It was a messy love triangle as it was – Cypher wanted Trinity, Trinity wanted Neo... Neo just wanted to get out of there.
"Right then," Cypher said, taking out one of the guns. "Then I guess it would be impossible for me to pull this trigger?"