scarstar – Hope I didn't make you wait too long! It's not going to be clear for a while, but I'll keep updating, never fear (hugs). Thanks for reviewing!

Sydney Andrews – That is such a scientific theory, and absolutely in sync with the rest of the Matrix universe…and it's not right (malicious laugh). Oh, I'm evil, aren't I? Your theory about the third part of the Trinity was so good though, I may have to work that in somewhere…And I'm so glad you liked my Trin/Kes moment. It's so easy to make it cheesy, but I like writing them, and if I'm doing them well, I'll try to work some more in. Kes' life is kind of lonely…but that's a whole other chapter (hugs). You just keep giving me ideas for chapters! Thanks for reviewing!

Bagpipes5K2 – Yep, they're definitely going to get close. It just makes my job of writing about them easier…Thanks for reviewing!

Hope you all like this instalment! I'm really tired and swamped with work, so I'd kill for some reviews. Okay, I'm a review whore. Is it really that much of a surprise?

The free e-cookies still stand…I think some of you are getting close, but it's quite complex. Trust me to come up with plots so complicated even I can't keep track of them!

Thanks, as always, to Bagpipes.

Chapter VII: Preparation

Kes had walked out of Kiana's cabin the night before completely wracked and shaken. She fled to her own cabin and flung herself on her bed, staring at the ceiling in her habitual pose as she tried to collect her thoughts. There was one simple concept that kept recurring as she thought back.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Buggering shit-arsed fuck.

She tried to move past that never-ending stream of profanity. , and actually think about the problem at hand.

Okay, focus, Kes…I didn't even notice her eyes. Not one fucking time. Why didn't I notice this before?

Kiana's eyes weren't unusual or particularly distinctive. They were just eyes. Windows to the soul.

Dark brown, almost black. Large, expressive, emotive.

The same as her own.

Oh shit…

Kiana woke up disorientated – a feeling she'd been getting used to lately. A part of her still expected the first thing she saw to be her own dark blue ceiling, with the hand painted silver stars decorating it. Seeing the blue-grey metal, a little rusty and stained in parts, made her feel even more out of place.

She sat up, and felt like she going to faint as she realised how starved she was. For the first time in the Real World she actually felt hungry.

Unsurprising, since I lost my stomach contents all over my lap…

Kiana looked down. She was only wearing her paler blue undershirt now, her dark, navy blue sweater was nowhere to be seen. Her trousers were a little stained with her own vomit, but she was glad, because she couldn't remember how she'd got back to her room after that, and strange people changing her vomit-soaked trousers for her would definitely verge on the side of insane and frankly, a little creepy.

Standing up, she managed to keep herself on her unsteady feet as she tried to stop her head spinning. She felt almost as bad as she had done after her first rock concert, where she had ended up by the speakers for two and a half hours. She hadn't been able to shift her tinnitus for weeks, though she pretended to have it for longer, just so that she had an excuse not to talk to anyone.

Kiana wandered back up onto the main deck of the ship. She remembered the way instinctively, but ...when she reached the cool metal grille of the Core's flooring, Kiana had no idea how she had gotten there. The monitors at the operator's station immediately caught her attention, green Matrix code spilling downwards on almost every screen.

The characters. . .

"What is that?" she asked. Kiana's voice was quiet, but Link jumped slightly in his chair.

"Sorry" he apologised. "You get kinda immersed in it"

"What is it?" Kiana asked, staring at the scrolling green lettering.

"The code of the Matrix" he explained. "Sorry, didn't get a chance to introduce myself. I'm Link"

Kiana nodded in a sort of greeting. "So this is the coding of…everything?" She couldn't think of words to describe the Matrix.

"Basically, yeah" Link said vaguely. "Good thing you came up here. Morpheus sent me to find you"

"Find me?" Like I can go far Kiana thought, but wisely didn't say. "Why?"

Link pulled out a handful of small disks, like minidisks, from a box under the counter. Each one had a small label on it, but Kiana couldn't see the writing well enough to read it. "Training" he said simply.

"What for?"

"Everything you're going to need"

"Am I likely to lose my stomach contents in the process?" Kiana asked with reservation.

Link cracked a smile, but shook his head.

"Then I'm game" Kiana said. "What happened? Do I have to read some really heavy manual or something?"

"Little quicker than that"

Kiana was lead to one of the chairs, and she tried not to wince as the jack was thrust into her head. To her surprise, she didn't end up in the Construct. It appeared to be like switching a laptop on, you could have it working without being connected to the Internet.

Suddenly, her brain was flooded with information, it was almost too much, and she thrashed around as it invaded her senses. It wasn't that she couldn't cope with it, it was her body aching to try some of the moves and martial arts techniques she was seeing flash before her eyes.

Suddenly, she was back on the ship.

"What the–" she began.

"Intense huh?" Link replied. "Ready for some more?"

"Why not?" Kiana replied, and felt information force itself into her brain.

Kiana's eyes struggled to focus as she came out of the fog, partly because her mind was struggling to cope with the transition between the limbo of uploading information and the Real World, and partly because she had one killer headache.

She groaned slightly, sitting up as she did so, as a primal instinct told her to curl up. The jack in the back of her head prevented that, but her whole body felt like it wanted to curl up and shut out the rest of the world.

"Kiana?" she heard a familiar voice ask. "Are you alright?"

She hadn't noticed Morpheus in the room, but, to be frank, she wasn't up to sensing much at the moment. Her head felt like a knife was pushing through her temples, and the back of her head, around the bio-port physically ached.

Kiana started to uncurl, sitting up more normally and trying to appear as though her head wasn't splitting. Surreptitiously, she placed a hand to her bio-port, around the jack, and gently rubbed the skin, trying to relieve the pain.

"Kiana?" Morpheus asked again.

The pain was going, diminishing.

"I'm fine" she lied. "What's next?"

With a shock, she noticed that Morpheus was sitting, waiting, in one of the chairs that seemed to resemble dentist's chairs from hell. He looked across the half-circle of chairs to meet her eyes.

"Are you ready to put what you have learned into practice?"

The pain was gone now. Kiana barely even remembered it. She nodded, expecting to get more of an explanation, but all that happened was that Morpheus lay back, Link put the jack in his head, and then turned back to the Operating station.

"What's happening?" she asked Link.

"All self-explanatory" he said cryptically. "Have fun now"

"Oh I will" Kiana said with biting sarcasm, lying back down.

She entered the now-familiar construct coma, but it was a different place from last time. This place was artistic, light and airy, decorated in a very natural, wooden style, though it was sparse and spacious. It was definitely Oriental, like a dojo.

Kiana looked down. Her pale grey gi and loose pants, bordered in black, were a perfect fit. Not so long that she could get tangled in a sleeve or trip over a hem, but not so tight that she couldn't stretch. It struck her that these were clothes designed for movement.

Morpheus was wearing similar attire, and looked very much at ease in this place. He started to explain.

"This is a sparring program, similar to the programmed reality of the Matrix. Consider this your first lesson"

Morpheus assumed a fighting stance.

"Attack me"

"You are angry with me"

Kiana, still trying to get her breath back and at the same time convince herself that none of this was real, looked up. Somehow Morpheus always had a way of surprising her with the way he said things.

"Um…maybe" she supplied. She couldn't bring herself to lie to Morpheus. She was angry. She was always angry. Anger gave her support, kept her moving. She always felt the simmer of rage beneath her skin, and now, after feeling like a deity with the new knowledge inside her head and then getting beaten time after time, that anger was close to the surface.

"It's alright. It's natural"

"What's natural about it?" Kiana asked, rubbing away a small streak of blood at the side of her mouth. She'd, honestly, been enjoying herself in a weird way, because of the exhilarating release that came with being able to do the things she could now do, but she'd been getting increasingly annoyed with Morpheus, who had been able to block every single punch she'd made and deflected every kick with five of his own. "I feel better though" she said, surprising herself with what she said, and the honesty in it.

"Good, good. Anger is a gift, but it is a heavy one"

Kiana raised a pale blonde eyebrow. Morpheus smiled, and called to the ceiling.

"Link, load the jump program"

Link nodded, even though he knew Morpheus wasn't there consciously, and rummaged through the box of tiny disks kept under the Operating station, looking for the jump program disk. It seemed heavier than the others, partly because it was one of the oldest disks there, and partly because of the anticipation attached to it. There was always some sort of general wondering whenever a new recruit was taken through it, questioning whether this one would be able to make the first jump.

Kes came up on deck, determinedly watching the coding of the Construct even though she knew the image translator screen was right next to her.

"How's she doing?" she asked Link, sliding into her usual seat beside him.

"Good. She just fought Morpheus"

"And?"

Link shrugged. "She's doing okay"

Kes leaned in, and watched for a second. "How many disks did she run through?"

Link shrugged. "About thirty. Why?"

Kes shook her head. Most people had to run through over seventy disks to get up to a decent level. Thirty was nothing. "She should have taken more"

"Kes, you know as well as I do that you can't force the mind–"

"But she's eighteen. Her mind should be ready for the lot, not just thirty disks"

"She's eighteen?" Link repeated in surprise. "Shit. I thought she was younger"

"So what, you stopped her, or she couldn't take any more?" Kes knew she was being annoying and pedantic, but she had to know, for reasons that felt strange even to her.

"No, she really couldn't take anymore" Link replied, his mind now occupied with loading the program.

Kes watched the code with narrowed eyes, feeling a deep sense of suspicion come over her.

Kiana stared at Morpheus in disbelief. The man had told her a lot of things recently, all of which she had accepted, even if she had lost her stomach contents in the process, but this was a joke.

"You're telling me, I should be able to jump this gap" she stated. "You're telling me I even should try?"

Morpheus nodded. Kiana gave him what she knew was her 'alright-crazy-man' look.

"You have to let go of all that anger, Kiana" Morpheus explained to her. "Anything that will weigh you down, you must release. You must let go of everything. You must empty yourself to free your mind"

Morpheus ran deftly to the edge with a lightening movement that Kiana didn't see coming. He jumped, and sailed through the air, his coat billowing out after him. He somersaulted once, and landed on the rooftop across the street.

Kiana raised her eyebrows.

"Shit"

She looked helplessly up. The blue sky beckoned, clear and calm. She took a deep breath, focusing on that blue, and ran. She was consciously aware of the sound of her feet on the concrete, and as she focused on that she lost her concentration on the sky.

She knew she was falling before her body could properly take in what was happening to her. She knew that she was going to hit the street

She struck the concrete hard, but it merely buckled gracefully under the pressure and threw her back up.

On her back, she heard a small sound as Morpheus landed next to her. He stood over her, watching her attempt to move.

"Sorry" she whispered, her body feeling broken, and her voice coming out like a cracked undertone.

"Everyone falls the first time" Morpheus informed her. That information didn't make Kiana feel any better though. "If you never knew failure, how would you know success?"

Kiana looked up at him from her position on the floor, her body aching, but the higher part of her brain already detaching itself from that, and she brought herself to an upright position.

"With difficulty?" she hazarded, and then realised how silly that sounded. She was actually being serious though; she didn't know. It sounded like the question about whether she was awake or asleep. She hadn't realised for a while that there was no answer.

There should be an answer she thought to herself as Morpheus called Link to order him to jack them out.

Okay, I do not like the ending to this chapter, but I couldn't think of a better one.

Part of the dialogue between Morpheus and Kiana is from the original Matrix script, from Neo's training. Some bits were interesting, so I used them. Does it work?

Please review!