RATING: PG 13
AUTHOR: Sólia
STORY: What would have happened if, when the whole crew was in the wall in the first movie, Trinity had rushed to the aid of Morpheus, rather than forcing Neo to leave him?
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I am uploading this chapter in response to reviewers' pleas, and especially those of reDblooDpassioN. After this there will be two more chapters. I don't know when those will come. Probably next time I'm bored. Also, I haven't bothered to proofread this ninety times, as I usually tend to do, for two reasons: One – I'm way too lazy. Two – I have faith in my spelling, grammar and previous editing. I hope you all enjoy this new chapter.
Chapter Nine
"He says that he has his hand on Neo's plug," Morpheus said over his shoulder. Neo couldn't understand, but Trinity knew, she understood just fine.
Cypher was threatening to kill Neo!
"What does he want?" Switch asked. Trinity glanced at Neo, beside her, although he wasn't looking at her. She couldn't lose him.
---
"What do you want?" Morpheus asked. Cypher grinned and ran a hand over his hairless scalp.
"I want you to step forward, lie your weapons on the floor and surrender to the agents," he said nonchalantly. "Don't worry about the others – they just want you."
"You're insane if you think I'd do that," the captain said irritably.
"I might be insane, but I have my hand on Neo's plug," said Cypher smirkingly. "Why don't you discuss the matter with your lieutenant? I'm sure it would interest her, anyway."
Morpheus didn't speak.
"Go on. There's a fifty-percent chance she'll choose your life over Neo's. Actually," Cypher said suddenly, "put him on the phone. I'd like to have a chat with him. I've been meaning to for a while."
There was a sound as the phone switched hands.
"Hello?" Neo asked hesitantly.
"Hello, Neo," Cypher said in a cheerful voice. "How are you?"
"I… Good, I guess." Neo seemed surprised by the stupid question.
---
Neo cringed at the stupid answer he had given. Trinity stared at him, leaning as close as she could to try and hear the conversation.
"How do you reckon you'd feel if I pulled this plug?" Cypher asked.
"I have no idea." Neo leaned to the side a little more for Trinity's benefit. She was listening intently but her eyes never left the agent directly before her, either Jones or Brown. For some reason they weren't attacking.
"Trinity's beside you?"
"Yeah."
"Can you pass on a message for me?"
"Sure," Neo agreed. What harm was there in that?
"Cool. Tell her from me that if Morpheus doesn't hand himself over to the agents, I'll kill you," Cypher said.
Neo didn't have to pass it on – Trinity heard and snatched the phone. She looked furious and started screaming silent obscenities into the mouthpiece. Neo pried the cell phone from her grip and put it back to his ear.
"Sorry. She heard you," he said. Why was he apologising?
"That's fine. I couldn't hear her, anyway. Back to the topic at hand, though… Hey, it doesn't matter."
Neo felt Morpheus, at his other side, walk forwards. He looked back at him as the captain dropped his guns and held up his hands in surrender.
"Give the phone to an agent," Cypher ordered. Neo, not wanting to be killed, did as he was told, walked past Morpheus and handed the cell to Agent Smith. He walked backwards to where he had started.
---
"Nice to talk to you again, sorry the plan didn't work out properly," Cypher said to Smith over the phone line. "It's okay, because Morpheus won't let anything happen to Neo that he can stop, and neither will Trinity. You have them wrapped around your finger – they'll do anything you like, as long as you blackmail them using his life."
"He's different," Agent Smith said simply.
"I guess." Cypher scratched his head. "Kill him if you want. Kill them all."
---
Neo watched as Smith raised his gun at the three. Agent Brown-or-Jones was locking handcuffs over Morpheus's wrists.
Neo grabbed Trinity by the shoulders and jumped to the left as the bullets sliced through the space they had previously occupied. Switch ran the opposite way. Neo pulled Trinity behind a tiled square pillar and hid there as more bullets broke up the tiles on the other side, scattering pieces of tile and dust. Once the bullets stopped, he carefully peered around the corner. Trinity did the same, adventurously exposing most of her face in her effort to check for danger. Neo kept one hand protectively on her shoulder. She didn't even flinch.
---
Switch had her back against the support pillar she was hidden behind, but now she peered around it. Only she spotted the danger.
---
Trinity closed her eyes for the tiniest of moments. Neo's hand on her shoulder was warm and protective, making her feel safer than she had all day. She still had that gun in her hand, the one she had taken from him.
Nearby, just behind her, there was a loud punch noise. Neo let her go as she turned. Smith was there, having already thrown Neo into a wall, and was gearing himself up for that horrible speed punch thing. Trinity took a step back, pressing herself against the pillar as Smith's fists blurred with incredible motion, too fast to keep track of. Neo's eyes were shut, his expression pained as he took all of those dozens of punches in the stomach.
Wait – what was she doing? She was just standing there, twiddling her thumbs, while Smith, two metres away, was killing Neo? Without another thought, Trinity held up the gun and aimed it immediately at Smith's head. She held down the trigger, firing repeatedly, but the damn agent dodged them all.
He had stopped the speed-punches, though, and Neo, clutching his stomach, tipped forward, only stopping himself from hitting the floor by reaching out a hand to support himself.
Morpheus and Switch were too far away to be of any help, and Brown and Jones were guarding them.
Only Trinity could help Neo. Her gun was empty, but not useless if she had to go into hand-to-hand combat against Smith. Forgetting Neo for now, Agent Smith stepped past him and swung a heavy punch at Trinity. She ducked, and the fist collided instead with the pillar. A portion of it was shattered. Already ducked, Trinity viciously kicked the agent in the knee. As she stood and went to punch him in the face, Smith caught her by the wrist and twisted her arm back, forcing her to turn around until she stood directly in front of her enemy with her back against him. Involuntarily she shuddered, scared but determined not to show it while she could control herself. Her shoulder was in terrible, strained discomfort, to use an understatement, so she couldn't use that arm. Her other one wasn't worth much more in this position. She felt a gun barrel be pressed against her back. She had dropped her own.
"You want to live, Mr Anderson, I can see it," Agent Smith said in a low voice meant for only the three of them within earshot. Trinity gave a futile struggle as Neo looked up, wiping blood from his mouth. Her heart went out to him. He looked so… defenceless.
---
Tank had finally found the second door behind all of the junk in this engine room, and he and Dozer quietly sneaked down the less used corridor. They had to find Cypher and at least restrain him.
Without speaking, they arrived at the ladder for the Core. Tank went up first, very quietly. Obviously Cypher had something wrong with him lately.
The guy was avidly watching the screens from Tank's chair. There was a slow grin spreading across his face as he watched something without noticing Tank climbing onto the Core level.
Tank carefully waved at his brother, indicating for him to come up, too, but to be quiet. Any sudden noises or movements could attract Cypher's attention.
---
He wouldn't survive this day. Neo knew it already. He knew for a fact now, thanks to the blood he was choking up, that he had internal injury. Now he was kneeling before Agent Smith, practically on his hands and knees. How pathetic – he was on his hands and knees before his enemy.
But he couldn't make any sudden moves. Smith had Trinity, with a gun to her back. She didn't care. Neo did. If he hated being helpless, he hated seeing her vulnerable more. It was worse.
Plus, now he was too scared to do anything that could result in her gaining injury.
"You're so clever," Agent Smith said, in his low and bland voice. "You know better than to move while I've got this gun here.
"You know that the reason I took her in the first place was to lure the rest of you here," he continued, shooting a glare at Trinity when she gave a restless jerk. He twisted her arm further back, mercilessly, until she cringed. "I needed Morpheus for the codes he knows. Now we have him. There's no need anywhere for the last of you." But here the agent smirked, pressing the gun closer to Trinity. "Well, no need for this one, anyway."
Swallowing the salty, coppery-tasting blood in his mouth, Neo glanced once at Trinity. She blinked as Smith tightened his grip on her. The gun was pressed into her lower back.
"What are you talking about?" Neo asked finally.
"You have something I need," Smith said deliberately. He indicated the gun barrel. "You know that a gunshot here won't kill instantly, don't you? This wound would mean a painful and drawn-out death-"
"What do you want?" Panicking now, Neo thought hard about what this was about.
"The papers you have," said Agent Smith.
Slowly, Neo removed the forgotten papers from his inside pocket. What was so important about these?
"What will you do for them?" he asked carefully. Agent Smith, getting annoyed, jammed the gun between Trinity's shoulder blades.
"The question is, what will you do to make sure I don't pull this trigger anywhere except at her head?" he demanded.
"Don't hurt her," said Neo, tightening his grip on the paperwork. "Let her go, I'll give you whatever you want."
"Neo! Don't give them to him!" Switch shouted. He looked over at her, on the other side of the lobby. Why, though?
"What are they?" Neo asked Smith.
"Those papers contain Trinity's brainwaves," the agent said in a droning, bored voice. "We need them for study. Nothing else."
Trinity tensed, and her gaze, which had never left Neo's face, became intense. She shook her head quickly. That earned her a sharp smack over the head with Smith's gun.
"I said not to hurt her!" Neo said angrily, too afraid to move. He spotted the gun Trinity had dropped beforehand. It was right in front of him. He got an idea. He reached for it and picked it up, slipping it under his cloak. Agent Smith saw it, of course, and said, "Don't even think about it. Put it back."
Neo nodded quickly, but, his hand hidden by the cloak, slid the empty gun into a holster and, when he withdrew his hand, had a loaded pistol of the same kind. Smith, not paying such close attention, didn't notice the change. Trinity, blinking from the injury to her head, did.
"Give me the papers," Agent Smith ordered. He made to squeeze the trigger, at her back again.
"No, don't!" pleaded Neo, surprised at himself. He was pleading to Smith. He was low enough to beg. But even begging was worth the chance that Trinity might live. God… This was so hopeless… Who would have thought that their lives would come down to this?
"Rip them up!" Switch said angrily. "Rip up the papers!"
But she couldn't see Smith. She couldn't see that, for Neo, the choice was slightly harder. She couldn't see that it was out of the papers and Trinity's life.
"Rip them up!"
"He'll kill Trinity!" snapped Neo, shooting Switch a quick glare as he stood slowly.
"No, you have it wrong, Mr Anderson," Agent Smith said, smiling coldly. "If you don't hand me the papers, I'll shoot her here. She'll have a painful and slow death. But if you are cooperative, and do as I say, I will reward you by letting her die quickly and, I assume, painlessly, by shooting her," he moved his gun barrel to Trinity's temple, "here."
He would kill her either way. If Trinity had to die, let her choose which way.
"What should I do?" Neo asked her, meeting her intense, cool blue eyes. Worst case scenario response: ask the girl who can't answer.
Trinity closed her eyes a moment, taking a deep breath, then opened them again and shook her head.
Growling with frustration, Smith pulled her tighter, and miraculously took the gun away from her back. Instead, he aimed it over her shoulder at Neo and pulled the trigger.
There was a gasp of horror from Trinity, then the bullet hit Neo in the side of the abdomen, just above his hip, but going right through him from front to back. It hurt like hell but he was able to remind himself that it wasn't real pain, and managed to put it mostly out of his mind.
"You can feel that, can't you, Mr Anderson?" Agent Smith asked over a shocked Trinity's shoulder. "You know now how much a bullet wound in the abdomen hurts. Do you want her to suffer four of those, all over a few sheets of paper?"
Trinity's blue eyes were wide in shock and horror. She kept glancing silently (of course) from Neo's eyes to his wound, which he knew was bleeding.
"Did you want another?" Smith asked mockingly, firing again into Neo's stomach. "Some more, Mr Anderson?" Two more bullets, near enough to the same place. There were four bullets now, all of them painful.
Sólia