Sydney Andrews – That's a really neat theory. It makes sense, because in this situation you could say that Kiana is 'Neo' and Kes is 'Trinity'. It actually makes a lot of sense…which is why you're completely right. But no-one in the story finds that out for quite some time…so pretend you don't know, okay? ;) I think you're right, Kes is pretty hard, but she has lived a very dangerous life, and I kind of assumed that it had evolved from her difficult, and yeah, very military life. You're also right, it definitely rattles Trin and Neo – more about that in chapter 12! I'm glad you liked Kes' little insight, I think both Kes and Kiana have got some psychological issues that I am definitely going to play with. I'm callous, aren't I? Anyway, thanks for reviewing!

Arhazivory – Yeah, I think Kes is a lot more vulnerable than she lets on. I was trying to make that chapter pretty suspenseful – glad to know I had you wondering! Thanks for reviewing!

Bagpipes5K2 – Oh, you bet…Thanks for reviewing!

scarstar – Oh yes, I am the queen of sarcasm! Seriously. Thanks for reviewing!

twiggie – Thanks! I'm really glad you like this story, and thanks for reviewing!

I'm sorry that I didn't get the chance to update last week, but I think that will have to be a permanent arrangement. From now on I will be updating this fic every other week. I'm really sorry, but I think it has to be this way because I've only got one more chapter written after this one, and I've got my GCSEs in two months, so I need to be revising. I'm really sorry, but I think it has to be this way. If I ever get an epiphany and suddenly have a lot written in advance, I will of course update.

I don't know if I said this before, but I've got a new My Own Private Idaho story up, and if anyone's a fan, I'd love to hear from them.

Oh...a warning about some pointless language in this chapter. It's not totally unnecessary - I had to put one of the characters through a lot of pain for it!

As always, thanks to Bagpipes for betaing.

Chapter X: Theories

The Logos wasn't that warm, but compared to the chill of the sewers, it felt like heaven to Kes. As soon as they were inside, and the doors were closed, Link asked the question that everyone had been thinking.

"So what was all that?"

"We blew the EMP" Ghost explained. "We saw the sentinels coming on the radar, and when we saw you, it was clear that there were far too many sentinels for you guys to sit down and blow your EMP, so we blew ours"

"And that's why we fell" Elysia stated baldly. "All our power went, so we plummeted like a stone"

"Better than having to deal with all those sentinels" Niobe said in her usual, sharp manner. "There were at least five thousand on your ass"

"That's impossible" Link said incredulously. "Why would there be five thousand sentinels just roaming the sewers? They never patrol in numbers that big"

"Unless they were sent" Morpheus added quietly. "They knew that we would be watching the Matrix, and how the code was changing, so they thought that we would not be watching for sentinels"

"Maybe they even thought we'd be Inside" Trinity said, with a glance at Niobe.

"You saw the mad, screwed-up code, right?" Sparks asked. "What do you think happened?"

"They're changing the foundation layers of the Matrix, but it doesn't read differently" Link recapped. "I'd say something really big is going on"

"What was it like Inside?" Elysia asked Niobe curiously. "And how did you get out?"

"Screwed up" she replied simply. "It reads normally but it doesn't feel right. And they either cut all the hardlines within a mile simultaneously or the code stopped reading exits. It was like it was rejecting all attempts at either infiltrating it or escaping it"

"Were there any Agents?" Morpheus asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing. Nada. It was eerily quiet"

"Good thing we ran into you. We were going to make a drop, giving you the minutes of the Zion meeting" Niobe glanced up at Morpheus. "I need to talk to you about that"

Kes' smashed nose chose that moment to ache painfully, and she knew that she needed to get some medical attention. "Can we hold off this conversation until I can breathe through my nose?" she asked. "Because I really want to know, but my face is covered in blood and I think I need to go to the med bay"

"Come on" said Elysia. "I can fix it"

Really?

That retort sprung to Kes' lips, bursting to break free, but she pressed her lips together and controlled the urge. After all, Elysia was a decent medic. It just wasn't her natural occupation.

She caught her parents' eyes. She could see their dilemma; if they were going to discuss something, as crewmembers without any significant injuries they were theoretically meant to be there. Morpheus was a good captain, and an unorthodox one, but it was almost an unspoken rule on the ship that it would save a lot of trouble if everyone abided by the rules. Kes had never been involved in anything when she was aboard the Neb, but it was common knowledge that Lock would take any opportunity to get Morpheus kicked out. It was almost a game, the crew versus Lock – the objective being not to give him any reason to demote Morpheus.

"It's okay. I'll be fine" she said, trying to smile reassuringly at her parents, but since doing so let the dried blood that was caked on her face split, she figured she must look more terrifying than reassuring.

She got up and walked out towards the med bay, feeling a little apprehensive. What could actually be done to her nose? She had a little medical knowledge, but this nugget of information had slipped her mind. She hoped it didn't involve injections. For most pod-borns, injections could be administered via an IV line through one of their (numerous) plugs. For her, being freeborn, she had to have it delivered in an old-fashioned way directly under her skin. Given everything she'd seen and the fact that she knew the grizzly truth about the world when billions didn't, it seemed almost ironic that she was afraid of injections. She hoped it wouldn't be painful, anyway.

"Ow! Fuck!" Kes swore violently as her broken nose was set.

"Sorry, sorry" Elysia apologised. As part of her training, she had to use her uploaded medical knowledge in a practical situation, and resetting Kes' shattered nose was a perfect opportunity.

"It's okay" Kes said through gritted teeth. The bone and cartilage made a terrible noise that she could hear echoing right inside her skull, and it made Kes feel like she was either going to scream or vomit. She locked her jaw and swore to do neither.

"There, it's done"

Kes stood up. "Thanks. I owe you one" She gently ran her forefinger down the bridge of her nose. "Is it a different shape or something?"

"There's too much swelling to tell. I guess it's possible"

"I never thought I'd say this, but I'm rather attached to the old shape of my nose" Kes said lightly. "Anyway, thanks again"

"It's okay. Here" Elysia threw a strip of cloth at Kes. "Get the blood off your face, you look like something out of a Stephen King novel"

Kes' face was as blank as she felt – though that was partly down to her numbed nose and stitched lip. "What?"

"Oh, sorry. Never mind"

Kes turned and left the Logos' med bay as fast as she could, because at that moment she felt like punching something and she honestly didn't want to hurt herself anymore. She knew Elysia had just forgotten, most pod-borns did, but it pissed her off.

Instead of getting rid of her anger by violence, she forced herself to take a few deep breaths and wiped the dried blood off of her face as fast as possible. When she was sure that she looked alright, and her eyes stopped watering from her impromptu nose sculpturing session, she set off down the corridor, towards the mess hall of the Logos. Not that she was hungry – during her treatment, her stomach felt like it was prepared to reject all of the food she'd consumed over the past year – but as soon as everyone was patched up appropriately, Niobe wanted everyone to meet in there.

Kiana looked around. Morpheus and Niobe were talking at one end, and her mother was with Ghost, both of their expressions carefully blank. Her father was sitting at one side of the table, and she went over to join him, feeling conspicuous. The blood was rushing back into her nose, and it was hot as hell. It felt like she was blushing, though instead of feeling her whole face flush, she felt a concentrated area of her face positively blaze.

"Hey Dad" she said, trying to look more healthy than she felt. "Did I miss anything?"

"Not yet" her father replied. "Are you okay?"

"Let me put it this way; I'm in less pain than I was earlier" Kes responded quickly. "Though I probably wouldn't say that if you asked me ten minutes ago" She looked about the room, noticing the one absentee in particular. "Where's Kiana?" she asked.

"They left her in one of the cabins. She's fine, just concussed"

Thank you, God.

With no outward indication of the silent thanks she had just offered up, Kes nodded and sat next to Neo, and almost instantly she felt her father's comforting arm around her. Normally, she would have moved away slightly, just enough so that he would take the hint, not enough so that she would offend him. But now she sensed that this was as much for him as it was for her. Kes always felt as though her parents worried about her disproportionately, but after what had happened, she had to admit, she couldn't blame them. Also, though she felt very young and naïve saying so, at times like this, it felt good to have her parents being protective of her. It made her feel as though what had happened wouldn't happen again. It made her feel secure.

"Right, are we getting on with this?" Niobe asked in her own direct way. "All of this aside, there are some bigger problems"

"Bigger than the Matrix code restructuring?" Trinity asked in her quiet, but intent way.

In Niobe's left hand, she held a file – something Kes hadn't seen. She let it drop to the table and slide across its smooth surface so that it was almost exactly in the centre of the table. "Minutes from the Zion meeting" she said, keeping her tone neutral, though her eyes did flicker to Kes once. "Commander Lock didn't give away details, but he did hint that there has been some indications of something big coming"

"Big – how big?" Link asked.

Niobe shrugged. "No-one's saying anything official yet, but Lock did let on that they reckon the balance of power within the Matrix is shifting"

"What?" Elysia exclaimed. "What can that mean?"

"It could be nothing – or something. We've all got orders to stay at broadcast level, watch the code, and act normal"

"But wait, what evidence do they have?" Link asked curiously.

Niobe pointed to the file. "Transmissions from the Icarus and the Caduceus. They were at broadcast level when their codes went haywire. The Icarus lost two crewmembers who were trapped inside. Apparently the codes just froze them out, and by the time they got back in, Jet and Sphinx were dead"

"Mother of God" Kes heard Elysia barely breathe, the words coming out like a whisper.

Niobe took a pause before she continued. "There have been others too. Sightings of sentinels acting strangely, some are staying away from Zion, some are attacking it whenever they feel like it. Lock wants all the ships to dock at once to defend the city, but the Council overruled him, and so four ships are staying out" Niobe shook her head. "It's like bedlam. They know something's wrong – everyone knows it – but they don't know how to fix it. It's like the Matrix is rejecting us"

A second of silence followed after Niobe's speech, and it was a silence no-one was prepared to break. Kes looked around surreptitiously. Her father was outwardly relaxed, but she could feel the tenseness of his grip. Her mother was tight and drawn. Morpheus was, as ever, unreadable. Everyone seemed to be unwilling to continue this conversation, as if it was something they didn't want to know.

Morpheus finally broke the silence. "We cannot do anything about this until the Nebuchadnezzar is operational" he stated. "I suggest start work on it as soon as everyone is rested"

With the finality of his tone on the final syllables, it was clear that the meeting was over. Kes got to her feet with everyone else, but as she did so, a wave of tiredness overcame her, and her head swam. She hadn't realised until then how shattered she was.

She followed her parents out, and said goodnight to them, spontaneously giving each of them a hug. Kes wasn't always hyper-affectionate, but she knew that though they didn't show it, they were both shaken up by what had happened today. And though she found their protectiveness suffocating at times, she knew that today showed that they sometimes had cause. She also knew that it was divine intervention that had saved them today, and it was that very act – putting your trust in a higher being – that stopped her from biting her hands off instead of her nails every time they entered the Matrix. She'd learned to have faith. But that didn't mean that she didn't cherish these sorts of moments because a tiny part of her – okay, a large part of her – worried herself to death and sometimes couldn't sleep because her nightmares came back to haunt her. Kes tried to have faith and cherish the time that she had. But that wasn't always easy, and as she held on to her parents, trusting in them to protect her like they always had done, she suddenly felt very old and very tired.

Once she had broken away, Kes stumbled through the empty cabins – even though the Logos could take a crew of nine, it only took three to run it, and Niobe apparently preferred smaller crews – and collapsed, only thinking at the last minute that it would be far more sensible to collapse on her back to protect her sore nose. She performed a twist that would made a ballet dancer proud, and landed squarely on her back, looking up at the ceiling. It was scarily similar to her own room back on the Neb, but bigger. Her room on the Neb was just a shoebox compared to this.

You know what they say, one ship's like another…

Her eyelids were falling, and a sense of weariness descended upon Kes. She rested her head on her arm as she always did, but on her right arm, the burn which had been forgotten until now protested, and she gently rubbed it with her fingertips in the hopes of soothing the skin. When it felt vaguely human again, she switched arms, lay down and didn't remember falling to sleep.

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