TITLE: Deja Vu
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? Cypher has trapped Neo, Trinity, Mouse and fatally injured Apoc in the Construct of their own ship. He's killed Tank and Dozer, so without him, there's no way out. The agents have Morpheus, and Cypher has a gun pointed at Neo's chest. What does Cypher want?
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I can't continue this further until I've finished The Best Homework Excuse Ever, the fiction I'm co-writing with my friend Lady Delerith, as some characters from that make appearances in this story.
And thanks to my reviewers.
Chapter three – Trapped
"I guess it would be," Trinity said coolly. Neo didn't like the way this was going. There was a gun pointed at his chest, and Trinity appeared to have faith that he would somehow dodge the bullets. And how was he meant to do that? He wasn't the One, but he couldn't say that now.
Cypher's finger squeezed the trigger, but Trinity viciously kicked the gun upwards, diverting the shot into the white distance. When he lowered the gun to try again, she stood directly in front of Neo, a shield. A crazy shield.
"You aren't going to kill him," she said in her commanding voice. "You're going to put the gun away and organise a deal like a civilised human being."
"Who's to say I won't kill you to get you out of my way?" Cypher asked. Him and his mind-games – they were both driving Neo insane.
"You're not done with me yet," Trinity answered simply. Cypher grinned.
"Clever," he said. He didn't put the gun away, but he lowered it to his side. "Here's the deal, Trin. You do a few things for me, and I do the same amount of things for you. Barter system. Savvy?"
"What?"
"Means, 'you get it?'" Cypher said quickly.
"I suppose I do," she decided carefully. Neo knew that she was under a lot of pressure to read between the lines of everything Cypher said. She was their negotiator – she was making the deals, and had to make sure she didn't agree to anything stupid.
"So what're you gonna do?" Mouse asked. He was standing right beside Neo.
"I'll let, say, one person live per thing you do for me," Cypher said easily.
"What about your stupid question? I'm guessing that since you were so desperate for my answer, you'd count that," Trinity said tightly. "What was that about, anyway?"
"Telling me where your badly misplaced loyalties lie gives you the reward of Mouse's life. He's gonna live."
Neo felt Mouse breathe a sigh of relief beside him.
"Now, I only want two more things... Hey, that means that only two more people can live..." Cypher said suggestively.
"Neo and Apoc," Trinity said without even the slightest falter. Neo had always admired her, but someone had to have a lot of guts to condemn themselves to death. He wanted to speak up but didn't.
"Got it. I should really have downloaded some chairs... Anyway, for Apoc..." Cypher's small blue eyes lit up as he got the perfect idea. "Apoc for a kiss."
"Excuse me?" Trinity asked disbelievingly.
"You heard."
"Me? Kiss you?"
"Too right."
"No. I won't kiss you," she said flatly. "That's vile."
"Okay then, you can kiss Apoc – when he's dead," Cypher said with a shrug, taking the gun out again. Immediately Trinity's eyes widened as she realised that he was going to die now.
"No, wait!" she said. Cypher turned back to her. Neo glanced at Apoc, lying wheezing on the ground. It would probably be more humane to kill the poor guy. He was in serious physical and mental pain.
Trinity boldly stepped forward. Cypher lowered the gun and stared at her as if all of his dreams had come true at once. She took a deep breath, and he closed his eyes. But Trinity turned her head to the side.
"I can't, it isn't right," she said, staring at the floor. She was shaking with disgust. Cypher had horrible leverage over her.
Apoc made a choking noise, and Mouse instantly dropped down beside him, taking the opportunity to ignore Trinity's bad luck eagerly. Neo moved slower, kneeling down but never taking his eyes from Trinity.
"We should just kill... the bastard," Apoc managed to whisper. "He won't let us live."
"If Trinity can keep, well, refusing, his time will be up and he'll disappear," Mouse murmured.
"He'll just come back," Neo said quietly. The three of them looked up at Cypher, who was looking at Trinity hungrily.
It was true – it wasn't right. But what was even worse was Trinity's broken pride.
Trinity felt his hand on her shoulder, felt it move quickly to the back of her head. She turned her face to look, and Cypher used it as an advantage and pulled her toward him, pressing her mouth against his. He held her only by the back of her head, but she couldn't struggle away.
It was wrong. She should be kissing Neo, not Cypher. It was Neo she knew now that she loved; Neo that she wanted to be close to. Not Cypher. She couldn't love someone like this.
His kisses were desperate and hungry, passionate and sloppy. It was disgusting. Maybe he found it romantic to be kissing a woman who was trying to pull away and was thinking entirely of someone else, but this wasn't sexy or romantic or anything close. It was about as sexy as a stage kiss.
Cypher kissed her deeper, harder, hotter, but it made no difference except to make her want freedom even more. This man was a murderous traitor. He went to roughly draw her closer by pulling her by her waist, but unfortunately he put his hand exactly over her broken ribs.
With a scream Trinity pulled away as hard as she could. Her ribs burned with pain, and she doubled over, her hands on her injury. Neo was instantly on his feet.
"What the...?" Cypher muttered, taking one step away, then stepping back up to her. He reached out one hand to touch her shoulder. He was very surprised when he discovered that she did have a lot of strength left. She drew back her fist and punched him in the jaw, very, very hard.
He jumped back with a yell and she stumbled back herself. She was worried she might trip, but then someone caught her with welcome hands and steadied her on her feet.
"Are you okay?" Neo asked her quickly. She nodded once. Cypher righted himself.
"What was that?!" he demanded. He stormed up to her, but Neo pulled her back with him.
"She's got broken ribs, you ass," he snapped.
Trinity found it so sweet that he'd stand up for her like that, even if he didn't love her like she did him.
"The exchange is done," she said, still catching her breath and regaining her composure. She would have liked to pretend to be hurt all day, just so that Neo would hold her lightly, but she really shouldn't.
"Exchange?" Cypher demanded.
"Apoc for a kiss. He lives," Trinity said, making a point of wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Mouse looked up from doing something with his phone. Apoc didn't look healthy. His eyes were closed, blood was dripping out of his mouth and his chest was heaving.
"Whatever. Get over here if you want your precious hero to live," said Cypher. Very hesitantly, she left Neo's side and moved over to her enemy, although she wouldn't come within a metre of him now. He handed her a gun. "Kill any one of my little hostages and the rest of you go free."
"What? That was never a part of the deal!" she said angrily. "The deal was that for everything I do for you, you let one of them live."
"Yes, but now one of the 'things' is for you to choose one to die. Funny, init?" Cypher smirked. He knew what power he had over her. "Go on, take your pick." He turned her around. "Should we kill old Apoc, put him out of his misery?" He went to move her arm to point the weapon at Mouse, but she jerked away. "Maybe Mouse? He's just a kid, no real loss there. Plenty more where he came from." Cypher took her wrist and pointed the gun directly at Neo. She had never known anyone who actually enjoyed submitting young women to psychological torture. "Or Neo, perhaps? Should we kill your beloved Neo? Go on, entertain me. Let's see if you can do it. Can you? Can you look into his eyes and pull the trigger? You've always pretended to be so ruthless, so cold." He dropped his voice to a murmur and leaned close to her ear. She never removed her gaze from Neo's unwavering eyes. "Were it anyone else, you could do it. You could look them in the face and say, quite easily, goodbye, before killing them. But not now. You like this guy, you can't do it. You're weak."
"I'm bloody furious, but I am not weak," Trinity muttered.
"You have to kill one, might as well be him," Cypher said softly in her ear.
"No."
"Do it!" he said angrily.
"I'd rather kill myself."
"There're two bullets in the gun. One each. Help yourself. You might as well, Trin. I'll just kill him myself otherwise. You know I will."
Yes, he would. But Cypher would kill him slowly and painfully. One well-placed bullet could make sure all of that pain was avoided. Neo wouldn't suffer...
But she couldn't do it.
"I can't! If you were capable of falling in love you'd understand," Trinity said miserably. All four men went silent. Neo stared at her in shock, but then realisation dawned and he seemed to understand something. She had no idea what it was that he was realising, but he looked happier, so she left it be. She'd known her feelings for so little time and already they were out in the open.
"Love? Ha!" Cypher laughed. "What would you know about love, Trinity? I was in love with you for years, and you never gave it a thought. You never stop to think about how your refusals and nasty rebukes hurt everyone else. You're too cold and practical to fall for someone. You can't love."
"Right, so explain this," Trinity snapped furiously, turning on her heel, tossing the gun in the air and marching up to Neo. Cypher caught the gun and watched. She took Neo's cheek in her hand and leaned in immediately. She meant to kiss him beside his mouth, but somehow she found her lips meet his in a deep but quick kiss. Neo was obviously surprised, but instead of leaving his mouth slack, he kissed her back lightly for the two seconds before she broke away and faced Cypher defiantly.
"Stupid bitch," Cypher hissed. "Bleed in hell!"
Neo, still recovering from the shock kiss, watched in worse shock as Cypher held the gun up and fired the two shots in Trinity's general direction before he disappeared. Seven minutes was up. The first bullet just missed her head but the second went straight into her shoulder, just under her collarbone. She fell back into Neo's arms with a quiet moan of pain.
"Is she alright?" Mouse asked, frightened. He was still sitting beside Apoc, with his phone in his lap.
Trinity's hand was covering the wound, so Neo couldn't see the extent of the damage, but the blood was seeping between her fingers and down her black-clad arm. Her hand wasn't enough pressure to stem the bleeding. Neo used one hand to attempt to pry her fingers away from the gunshot wound.
"Trinity, show me, please, I need to know how bad it is," he said.
"It isn't bad," she insisted, her eyes squeezed shut. Having a thought, Neo checked behind her wound, on the back of her shoulder. The bullet had gone right through, and was lying a few metres away on the white floor. The blood from the hole in Trinity's shoulder was running worse from the back, and Neo clamped his hand over it. Instantly the warm, sticky liquid covered his hand. He knew that it probably wasn't exactly life threatening right now, (thankfully it was on the opposite side to her heart) but he had no idea how long they would be trapped in the Construct without medical attention and bandages. She would die of blood loss eventually.
"Where's the shot?" Mouse couldn't see properly.
"Shoulder. Not too bad, but bleeding heaps," Neo answered. With his free hand he firmly pushed Trinity to the floor, then pressed it against hers to help stop the flow of blood. "How about Apoc?"
"Not good. His breathing's really irregular. We have to get him out soon, or he'll die."
"How will getting him out help?"
"The injuries have only happened to his RSI – that's the Residual Self Image, as I guess you know," Mouse explained. He was actually more knowledgeable than he seemed. "So when he gets out into the real world, he's fine, but he'll feel like crap and he'll have a whopper of a headache."
"Oh." Neo felt Trinity's hand move, and he looked down at her to see her removing her hand from the wound.
"Don't bother," she murmured. "Cypher's going to kill us all in a second anyway. Like he killed all the others." She looked up at Neo sadly, her pain mainly evident in her eyes. "I didn't say that Cypher killed Tank and Dozer, too, did I? He killed them and then pulled the plug on Switch."
"I figured he must have done something to them, because you were taking heaps of shit from him," Mouse said, checking Apoc. "If he wasn't our only chance of escaping you would have killed him."
"I wish I had," Trinity muttered. "Stop it, Neo. You're wasting your time." She jerked her shoulder away, but Neo grabbed her blooded hand with his own and held it to her bullet wound.
"If Cypher was going to kill us, he would have done it by now," he answered firmly. "We don't how long we'll be here, so if you don't mind?"
Mouse jumped as his phone rang. He stared at it as if he didn't know what it was, then answered it.
"Hello?" he asked shakily. He was silent as he listened for almost a minute. Then he frowned in anger and burst out with, "You arsehole! He's our captain! Why are you doing this?"
"It's Cypher," Neo said in realisation. Trinity nodded.
"Yeah, well, good riddance. You won't be missed," Mouse said angrily into the phone's mouthpiece. "I hope they double-cross you... I'd rather be stuck here until I die than see your ugly face again, you shit... Are you kidding? She doesn't want to talk to you."
"Give me the phone instead," Neo said. Mouse threw the phone to him. "Cypher?"
"Tell Mouse he's getting blind if he can't tell the difference between you and Trinity."
"What is this about Morpheus? Why are you doing this to us?" Neo demanded.
"Because he's a selfish shit." Trinity tried to move her fingers of her injured arm but she wasn't very successful.
"Because the machines are gonna reinsert me into the Matrix and all I had to do was give them Morpheus and kill you suckers. But I have a better idea. I'm going to leave you all in there until you starve. Apoc won't last fifteen minutes and that little bitch in your arms will bleed to death eventually," Cypher told him. "Or at least, I'm hoping so."
"And you asked why she never loved you back," Neo said angrily. He readjusted the position of his hand on Trinity's collarbone.
"What's he saying about me?" Trinity asked angrily. Neo didn't answer.
"Hey, I'd love to spend all day chatting, but that sounds like my ride has arrived outside," Cypher said cheerily. "Don't worry, the sentinels won't kill you. They can't destroy the ship – they need Morpheus alive. Enjoy the time you've got. Jesus, I actually pity you, Neo. You're stuck with Trinity until you die."
With a laugh, Cypher hung up.
"What an ass," Neo growled, throwing the phone back to Mouse. The boy didn't seem to care that it was covered in Trinity's blood. After all, it didn't really exist.
"What's happening?" Trinity demanded. Apparently bullets going through her shoulder weren't enough to change her personality.
"Cypher gave Morpheus to the agents," Mouse said in a downcast voice. "I have no idea why they'd want him alive, but apparently they do."
"They want the codes to Zion," Trinity answered, matter-of-fact. "Every captain is given them."
"Oh, of course." Mouse nodded. "Yeah, and Cypher's going to leave us here to starve while the sentinels take him away on a little sled thing, from what I figured. That's instead of killing us himself."
"He'd almost be gone by now," Neo pointed out unhappily. "I guess we'd better settle in, then?"
"Not quite," the boy answered with a slight smile. He held up the phone. "I called our Core's computer and sent a distress signal out. Any ships within a certain radius should immediately come to our aid."
"How long will it take for someone to arrive?"
"Depends," Trinity said. "The other ships could be miles away. Or there could simply be no one within the radius."
"I meant, will anyone get here in time for him," Neo said, nodding meaningly at Apoc. She gave him a silent look that said it all.
"Get comfy, they might be a while," Mouse said a few minutes of staring at Apoc later. He gave the dying man an awkward pat on the shoulder, then stood and approached Neo and Trinity. "How is it?" he asked, pointing at her wound.
"Just peachy," she answered sarcastically. She glanced at her jacket pocket as her phone rang. "Damn you, Cypher, I'm not interested," she muttered, answering it. Her face brightened instantly. "Captain Niobe, thank God... Yes, we did... No, no, we have much worse problems than those sentinels outside... Couldn't get a hold of Tank or Morpheus? That's because Tank's dead and Morpheus is being held by agents – I think." She paused and listened. "Be careful, but please hurry. We have one wounded crewmember, critical..."
She didn't mention her own pierced shoulder.
"I can't explain over the phone, but we're all stuck in the Construct with no way out. Everyone else is dead... Yes, thanks."
She hung up and turned to Neo and Mouse.
"Well?" Mouse asked, nervous but excited.
"The Logos is waiting not far off, but they've turned nearly everything off because there's a small crowd of sentinels just outside our ship," Trinity explained, trying but failing to flex her shoulder. She stopped with a wince and moved her red fingers. "Once the sentinels leave, they're going to come aboard and help us out. They got our signal immediately and they've been trying to contact us but obviously no one's home, so they called me. And they should be in here in about five to ten minutes."
"Apoc?"
"Will be fine if they get here in time," she said, watching her fingers as she moved them weakly.
"Who is Captain Naomi?" Neo asked, taking his hands away from her to wipe the blood on his leg. He quickly replaced his hand, keeping tight pressure. No one knew how to help Apoc, with his crushed insides.
"Niobe," Trinity corrected. "She's an old... friend of Morpheus. And me, I guess. She's a hell of a driver."
Apoc made a severe choking noise, and she winced again, but on his behalf.
"What happened to him?" Neo asked in a very low voice, leaning past Trinity to address Mouse.
"Agents. Punched him up pretty bad," the boy answered. "He tried to protect Morpheus."
For six minutes, they waited quietly, barely saying anything at all now that all questions had been answered. Then Trinity seemed to think of something.
"Neo, about before," she said uncertainly.
"Before? When?" he asked, confused. He checked the bleeding.
"What I said... before, about you to Cypher. And what I did."
The kiss.
"Oh, that. Forget it, it's fine. I understand," Neo assured her.
"You do?" she said, brightening.
"Yeah, of course. I stand by what I said earlier."
It was her turn to be confused. "What did you say earlier?"
Neo thought it was sweet that she had chosen him for her 'I-love-someone-else' skit.
"I said you would have made a good actor," he reminded her. She stared at him, as though she wondered what that had to do with anything, but then her eyes dulled and she looked disappointed.
"Yeah. Right, I remember," she said, turning her head away from him. What had he said wrong?
Then Apoc disappeared.
"Hey!" Mouse said, sitting up before disappearing himself. Blinking, Neo stared at Trinity beside him, but then he opened his eyes in the Nebuchadnezzar, in the real world. An attractive woman with coffee-coloured skin and curly dark brown hair was standing beside him now, hanging the head-needle up. He sat up and looked around. Apoc was smiling weakly and leaning against his chair, his hand on his forehead. Mouse was shaking hands with a young Zion-born man who had just taken his head plug out. An oriental man from the Matrix was still removing Trinity's head-jack from her skull. Neo watched her until her cool blue eyes fluttered open and her breathing deepened, then turned back to the woman.
"Captain Niobe," she said before he could speak. She extended a hand, and Neo accepted it.
"I'm Neo," he said, sitting up and glancing at the others in the Core. Switch was lying dead and still in her chair, and right beside Neo's own chair lay Dozer, having been beaten to death by some hard object.
"Dozer?" Trinity asked, ignoring the Asian man's offered hand and sitting up unassisted. Her shoulder was fine here. She walked up to the body and stared down at it. Silent.
"Trinity, I know I'm not your captain, but you need to order your crew to take a rest," Niobe said firmly. Trinity looked up after a few seconds.
"Apoc, Mouse, Neo, go take a rest," she commanded. "I'm going to get Morpheus back."
There was a lot of negative response to this.
"No, you've had a difficult day, and you need your rest," Niobe ordered.
"I'm not tired!" Mouse said in annoyance.
"It's too dangerous, you have no idea where he is or anything," said the Zion-born guy (an operator, no doubt, although a very worrying one).
"If you're going in after Morpheus, I'm coming with you!" Apoc said angrily. Trinity ignored all the others and spun around to him.
"There is no way I'd even consider letting you come along in your condition," she said briskly. She turned back to her crowd of unhappy people. "Listen, I know we can do this. All of us, working together as a team – it can work. Sparks, help yourself to the operator's station. Niobe, Ghost – I could really use your help. I won't be able to do this alone."
"But you won't be alone," Apoc interrupted. "You'll have us."
"No. You're not in shape and Neo and Mouse aren't experienced enough."
"It could work if we had all of us, including them," Niobe said doubtfully. "I don't think two or three people would be able to infiltrate something guarded by the agents." She glanced over at the unconscious, sweating Morpheus, whose eyelids were flittering with mental strain. "No, it wouldn't work. There simply isn't enough manpower."
The Zion-man, Sparks, glanced over at the operator's computers, maybe noticing something the others didn't. He hurried over and jammed the headset on while they all watched in surprise.
"Yes, this is the Nebuchadnezzar, and yes, they did send out a distress signal a while back," he said after a few seconds. He looked over at the crowd of onlookers and looked around. "Four alive and well, three dead, one still plugged in and one gone off somewhere." He glanced back at Trinity. "Yeah, she's alive, kid... Well, the Logos is here in assistance, but one second." Sparks spun around on the swivel chair and glanced between Niobe and Trinity.
"What is it?" they asked in unison. They had the same stubborn, commanding tone, Neo noticed.
"There's a girl here claiming to be from the Nadir," he said. "They're offering their assistance. Do we want their help?"