-
Link examined the rows of buggy code flashing before him with growing concern. Being trained as a professional operator back home at Zion, he could generally understand the code that made up the rules and objects of the Matrix no matter how fast they flashed into his optic nerve. The only exception to his ability he'd ever seen so far was Neo.
Now, with Morpheus sitting beside him and tracking the code fluctuations with near-equal speed, he feared that this was another one of those weird exceptions. Even the untrained eye could tell that the code around Trinitywas going wacko just by watching the way the streams were crisscrossing each other, coming out in absurd patterns that made no sense at all to Link's experienced eyes.
He looked over at the NK meter and felt his eyes and head burning from staring too long. "Jesus. Boss, this is loco! It's not just Trinity and that Agent- everything around them is being affected as well. Try and contact her again, tell her to stop whatever it is she's doing- I can't even see the exit lineanymore!"
Slowly, as if he was equally amazed, Morpheus brought the headpiece to his mouth, speaking evenly. "Trinity. Whatever you're doing, it's making things worse. You have to stop. Try to calm down."
A deafeningshriek of static was his sole answer.
-
Neo did not need an Operator to tell him where the newest crisis had emerged- he could see it with the code or without from his vantage point, flying above the cityscape.
The code itself was being twisted and mutilated. He saw strands of it being blasted apart indiscriminately, then rearranged into new formations that made no sense at all even to a programmer's mind. The green coding that normally moved downwards in straight, orderly lines was running in endless circles and triangles, mashed together like the slop they ate on the ship. All of it was contained in a 30-yard radius at the moment… but it was spreading outward at a steady rate.
"Neo. You seeing this?"
"In more ways than one", he told Link, visibly shaken. "The buildings over there look like they're… melting. Is Trinity over there?"
"Can't lie, man. I think Trinity may be causing it."
No way. Unconsciously, he picked up the pace, flying over to the collection of buildings worst affected by the mysterious code-mutating force.
"I can seeher code in there", he shouted to Link over an odd buzzing noise. "It's intact. I'm guessing it won't affect humans. Going in."
"Be careful, man."
The buildings he strode through were painful merely to look at. Many had melted down diagonally as he had seen, and others held exposed pockets of pure nothingness- places where the code had been tossed away, or replaced with a different script texture. In more than one spot he saw, Neo knew he only felt sick to his stomach because he was a programmer- everyone else would just assume a thermonuclear bomb had fizzled in this part of the city.
Rounding a lamppost that was bent over into a spiral, his heartcried outas he saw Trinitystopped in midair, still held upright by the Agent he had missed. Both of them seemed frozen in time, but when he looked closer, he that was true for only the Agent- Trinity was simply petrified.
Her chest was moving- very rapidly, in fact... but the whites of Trinity's eyes seemed focused on oblivion. As Neo watched, inwardly terrified for her, a nearby hydro pole curled up, producing yet more of that high-pitched cracking noise that prevailed around this neighborhood. It sounded slow, yet unmistakably destructive, like the buildings melting into sludge around them were cracking in half piece by piece.
"Trinity!" Neo yelled to her, trying to break the spell along with the chaos Link had saidshe was causing. "Stop! Let go of it!"
Getting no response back, he tried in vain to move Agent Jones from where he was standing, still partially fused with Trinity's leg. He gasped with effort, still awestruck at the chaos being wreaked on the orderly code of the Matrix. He was The One… and he couldn't even lift the shades from the frozen Agent's eyes. At least he wasn't moving… "TRINITY!"
Finally, he'd had enough. The very concrete beneath them was now melting down into something more akin to quicksand. Flying to stay above the mire, he looked at the young woman in code instead of image, focusing on the one part of her- the one part of all humans- that couldn't be expressed in Matrix code. It was always expressed as a cluster of green bolts like electricity, and was often used by Link as a crude measure of neurokinetics.
Neo's hands plunged into that space. Moving beyond simple physical manipulation, their own code now scoured the massive green flare in Trinity's head, slowing winding it down into something containable by the skull outside of it.
Finally the glow, along with all the chaos it had caused, eased up simultaneously. Neo bent down, allowing Trinity's limp form to sag over his shoulder, and took off for the nearest intact exit. Four minutes later, Agent Jones regained his senses… but not his form. Not all of it.
-
They all sat around the ship's broadcast deck, casual. For once, no one was playing the Operator or being plugged back into the Matrix- they were well past broadcast depth, and well en route to Zion.
Disbelieving, Trinity looked at the concerned faces of friends around her. Morpheus, Link, Allison, and Neo. After reviewing the chaotic coding she had created by accident, she didn't know what to think anymore.
Morpheus drew closer, always the first one to ensure her safety. "You are certain this is the first time this has occurred, Trinity?"
Feeling sheepish around so much concern in their eyes, she nodded. "Positive. The Matrix is the last place I would want to drop into a temporary coma."
"What did it feel like?"
She bit her lip. Aptly describing what she'd felt would not be simple. "It was like… my mind was just on overdrive. I just felt this energy- it was like the time when we rescued you, and I felt every single bit of that chopper's code before it blew."
Across the circle, Neo blinked, remembering. "After that, we all thought for a while that you were The One. Even if you aren't, you're like the others we've freed- you can alter the code with your mind to a degree."
"But this was different", she said, looking back at Allison. "This was so much more than anything I'd felt before. It was… beyond what I could control. It just went crazy."
Brushing sweat form his scalp, Link nodded. "You could say that. The coding for that entire area went haywire. Like Neo's tricks, but different, more, well, chaotic. Nearly fucked up our operating system before I disconnected."
"Chaos in coding", Morpheus frowned in concentration. "The walls were melting."
Suddenly, Link got it. He looked back to the code, then to Trinity and Neo. "Wait a second. Sir, you didn't catch the Sentinel broadcast today, did you?"
Morpheus caught onto who Link was addressing by 'sir', and shook his head unabashedly. "I have no interest in what lies the machines have to tell their victims."
With another apologetic look towards Trinity, Link continued. "Well, the rest of us did. Trinity's mom died. They said it was because of heart failure or something. Name's Libby Peterson."
"So!" Trinity interrupted, far too loudly to be natural. "That doesn't have anything to do with my power over the Matrix. Besides, she's-"
"It's stress.", Neo whispered finally. Feeling everyone's eyes on him, he spread his arms. "Look, Morpheus, you're the one who first told me that the start of being able to alter the rules of the Matrix is to free my mind. Trinity knows that by now… but I use my mind to do that every time I fight in the Matrix, and so to the rest of you. If the mind is in chaos…" his voice trailed off, and he shrugged at Trinity.
"I am not stressed out", she contested loudly, the iron in that statement daring anyone to differ with her. "She was nothing to me. Nothing! I haven't even seen her damn face for twelve years, alright?"
"But she raised you for thirteen", Neo responded at last. "Human psychology 101: if you hide strong negative emotions inside yourself, they come out in other ways. This was one of them."
Despite her best efforts, even Morpheus seemed to buy that theory. "I understand. The chaos we saw on the outside reflects the state of the mind manipulating it. We should be grateful- it saved your life this time."
Her voice came back with its most dangerous edge, reflected in her alarmed eyes: "Are you… saying you think I'm insane?"
He rose, trying with every motion to get Trinity to calm down. "No. I simply think you have a great deal on your mind to take care of. We're almost at Zion, you can talk to our friends there, and heal. Until then, I suggest you avoid plugging in. That's all."
With that, he left, and Link followed him up to the ship's bridge, leaving only Neo and little Allison. She stared back at Neo, trying to find some way to see what changes this discovery had wrought in him. "Neo, please. I'm not."
He couldn't truthfully say yes. That was the big problem. He had walked personally through the melted buildings in the Matrix less than an hour ago, and knew beyond a doubt that the chaos could not possibly have been the work of a healthy mind. Instead, he shooed Allison from the room and embraced her right there on the deck.
"We'll find a way through this", he whispered to her with as much loving warmth as his bare skin. "No matter what happens, I'll be there with you. It's nothing to be ashamed of."
But Trinity rose up, out of his grasp after just a few seconds, and looked down at him with deeply frightened eyes just as they felt the ship dock with Zion. "It is. For me, Neo, it is."
-
In the privacy of the Metacortex, Agent Brown stared at the right arm of his surviving colleague- or rather, what was left of it- with an acute sense of morbidity. "This is unheard of."
Agent Jones followed his gaze, eyes always squinting, even behind his shades upon viewing it. His right arm was no longer a solid object, but rather a random arrangement of jittery gray textures floating around where the arm should have been. Rapidly shifting position and image, they swarmed around the raw ending of his side like maggot flies over dead flesh, still unable to pull themselves together into anything resembling a solid arm.
"The anomaly's destruction of 66S was also unheard of, until we saw it", Jones contended simply, trying not to show that he was perturbed by the chaotic phenomenon. "It was the girl who did it."
"The one called Trinity."
"Yes. Likely, the corrupt data will be removed and refreshed with the next system update. Until then, we must maintain a cordon around it."
"And the anomaly and his allies still live."
Jones grimaced with anger. "Yes, though the target was eliminated. We will continue your plan after my code has been refreshed."
Disrupting their perpetual state of agreement, Brown rose from his chair. "It is not enough. The anomaly must be silenced."
But Jones remained seated, emotionless next to his partner's sullen anger. "We are without means to that end. We must not engage him until a solution is found."
Brown wasn't done- he knew exactly what Jones' speech entailed. "Our previous meetings show that I have calculated the optimal solution 56.3 percent of the time. You expect me to develop another solution to the anomaly."
Unable to lie, Jones said nothing and raised his disabled arm, letting Brown continue to simmer, now utterly boiling. "Inadvisable. I have already exhausted all resources and viable solutions for-"
A dull thump coming from below interrupted his rant. Surprised and further irked, both Agents peered down out of the office window to see their visitor knocking on the glass security door. He bore a jet black brush cut that appeared only as a moving circle of black to them, along with a mauve civilian trench coat.
His arm still on the fritz, Jones sighed dismissively. "A human. Security will be purged for this."
Yet to his shock, Brown was once again thinking on a different wavelength. That had never happened twice in a row before. "We will speak to him. Perhaps he is another informant."
Jones politely snorted in his chair. His own initiative to spread awareness of Zion and Morpheus to the walking batteries outside had made Morpheus the enemy of every grown man or woman in the Matrix, but the chances that it would persuade another of the Zionites to defect was astronomical... in the 5-digit alphanumerical exponents, at least.
"We may as well. Until a new solution is found, and my program restored, we cannot initiate further action against the anomaly."
"Agreed."
-
The men had brought him to a completely square room, padded almost like the cell of an asylum except with clean linoleum tile covering the floor. One of the spooks shared a table with general Peterson, while the other shied away from actually entering the room or exposing his body all the way.
The one with him opened what the general guessed to be his personnel file and military service records. Not exactly hard to find- his house had a copy, along with several of the organizations he'd worked with over the years. He had little to nothing to hide.
"You requested our attention, General Peterson", the brown-haired man droned slowly across the blank table. "You have apparently withdrawn from the service with honors, seventeen years before a guaranteed retirement. We cannot help but wonder… why?"
"A change of objective, so to speak", he replied eagerly, removing his coat. "I have done my time in service to this country. New priorities now."
"And those would be…?"
By Christ, the CIA sure can pick 'em. I've heard Email alerts with more emotion. "I know why it is that my wife died. I also know that you've been assigned to tracking down the man responsible for that. Put simply, I want to help."
It was difficult to pick any trace of feeling from behind the spook's mirrored shades, but to his own annoyance, general Peterson though he saw a hint of amusement.
"Your enthusiasm is… appreciated, Mr. Peterson. However, this is not the type of situation we can afford to bring civilians to assist with. Morpheus is the most dangerous man alive. He has killed hundreds of men by hand, including one of ours."
The general placed both hands on the table, none too gently. "Then you know why I'm here. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to put this sunofabitch on ice. Just give me a position. I may have stepped off center stage for this, but I'm still a very important man, sonny."
Again, that faint hint of arrogant amusement shone through, stronger this time. "Mr. Peterson. We understand that the death of your wife and abduction of your daughter may have caused you to become… emotional…. in regards to this situation. We cannot simply accept a recruit from another branch of the service, untrained-"
"That's why I left!", he fairly exploded. "So I could avenge-"
"-No, Mr. Peterson. I suggest you return to your home and leave this to the professionals." Jones followed that with three quick taps on the metal table- a common code to signal the end of any meeting.
Seeing the other spook move to escort him from the room, now revealing that he was wearing a cast on his right arm, general Peterson hatefully looked up at Jones' soulless eyes, now only partly concealed by his shades. "You haven't heard the last of this, son."
And Agent Brown, in spite of everything, knew that he had not.
-
Zion. Balconies and walkways all about the ship and the dock it had rested on, lights emitting from each. To their newest arrival, the city might look as though they were standing in the center of a mad carousel of lights. Neither the bottom nor top of it could be seen from where they were.
Neo walked Allison out onto the gantry step by step, careful not to let her fall. "This is Zion. I know what you're thinking. I'm still not completely used to it either, but I know it's better than the ship's cots."
Alice stared at the tens of thousands of lights, letting them fill her reflective eyes. "It's pretty. My mom and dad won't be here, though, will they? They're… back there."
Feeling a pain hit his heart at the mention of 'there', he smiled. "Afraid not. We should pay my room a visit first- Link probably wants his own private time with Zee and the kids before we barge in."
Moving with her along the walks to the perimeter of lodgings, he blinked in confusion. He'd never exactly been talkative, in or out of the Matrix, but the words had poured from him like someone more sociable was borrowing his voice.
He saw Trinity come out of the ship alongside Morpheus, and remembered the other major reason they were here. After giving their report, Morpheus and Trinity would be paying a visit to the infirmary- the only one Zion had.
Ahead of him, there were a great many faces. Some he knew. Most he did not, though those ones almost always looked on him with a strange flare of confidence in their 'savior'. If not that, then they were looking friendly towards Alice, still holding on tightly to his hand, totally out of place here.
Trinity. He saw her again, ascending a ramp to a higher level. There had never been any question from the start they had a… thing for each other. Now, with Allison by his side, it was almost like a peek into the unexpected future. He'd never even considered having kids. He'd be a terrible father. Software designer, hacker, The One... She never considered it either, at least not until the Matrix is vaporware.
That could well be a long time coming. Neo ran the numbers in his head, and nearly banged it on the door to his quarters. He had never really considered how many other Hovercraft were out there, broadcasting that signal that allowed them to free and locate young captive minds. He knew a few of them- the Logos, the Circa, the Mjolnir… say, 100 for argument's sake.
Allison finally separated from his grasp and looked around at the new space she'd been brought to. "Big", she remarked pleasantly. "Do you stay here alone, Mr. Neo?"
"No, usually Trinity comes by. And anyone here would be willing to share a bunk. I'm just going to rest here for a few minutes, okay?"
"Okay."
He flopped on the ratty bed, resuming his calculations. The Nebuchadnezzar had just returned to Zion from a four-day voyage, bringing back exactly one new free person with it. If every hovercraft out there managed to free one person per trip, one trip per week, times 100, times 52 weeks in a year…
He stared outside the window in shock, running the numbers through his head in despair. The human population of the Matrix was 6.5 billion at last count. To free even a thousandth of that number, Zion would be at this for 12500 years.
There had to be something he was missing, something the rest of these people knew would eventually happen. Oh wait, yes there was. They expected him to single-handedly bring down a computer system of computing power no number could describe. It was an odd thing to realize that he had found it easier to figure the approximate number of calculations made by the Matrix computer mainframe per nanosecond. Then again, he was a coder first and foremost.
All 'The One' had to do was figure out how to crash it.
Suddenly the prospect of being a father didn't seem that overwhelming at all.
-
Morpheus had waited through all of the tests, all of the scans. While it was true Zion had had to build its infirmary up entirely from scratch, they had managed to salvage a great deal of technology more advanced than anything found in the Matrix. In particular, the medical ward catered to mental injuries rather than physical ones, simply because there was so much that could go wrong when a hovercraft's crew was hacking into the Matrix on a regular basis.
He wasn't alone, either. While he had claimed to be here to watch another member of his own crew, the man sitting across the room from him betrayed his concern with his eyes. While not as old as Morpheus, he was no longer in the same bracket as Neo or Trinity either. Like the woman he had separated himself from, and still cared for under everything else, Ghost was a man of few words and many actions, especially on missions. Morpheus had yet to see a better marksman in any other human.
The chief medic, a lean, sallow-faced man who would look more at home in a prison hospital, opened the rustyhatch and made certain to close and lock it.
"How is she, Patch?"
His darkly-cornered eyes not giving anything away, Patch closed his up coat and pulled up a seat at the other end of one of the medical tables, closer to Morpheus than the man who had called his name. "The best thing I can tell you is that I've seen it all before."
The older man's eyebrows arched, and he spoke for the first time in hours. "The commander wants us out of here in less than 30 hours. Will she be ready?"
Patch didn't flinch, even against someone famous- or in some cases, infamous- as Morpheus. "Let me break it to you step by step", his gravelly voice came on slowly. "Your Operator made the right call about her mother. I think that may have been the foundation of it."
"I'll have to give Link a pay raise-"
"-Don't joke", he warned sternly. "You have to understand that I'm under directorders from Commander Lock to take a more lenient tack to diagnosing the crews of those hovercrafts actively on missions. The trauma of separation from the life they once knew, coupled with the stress from dangerous activities only theycan undertake does not promote stability. You and the others get shot at every day."
"That's not a problem for her", Ghost interrupted in absolute certainty. "I know her. She knows what needs to be done."
But Patch just sighed at himin derision. "You plug-heads are all alike. You think that because you're part machine, you're immortal and emotionless asthey are. Well I hate to break to you gentlemen, but your first-mate Trinity is a human. And, typical of humans, her mind can sometimes run in circles on her."
Ignoring Patch's blatant slur against 'plug-heads'- against all humans like himself who had been cloned in the machine city-, Morpheus regained his composure and extended a palm in a kind of truce. "Continue."
"She told me the details you wanted her to", Patch said gruffly. "I have no doubt she feels responsible for her mother's death and her father's grief, assuming he's still alive. She's angry with herself. But she doesn't like or want to show emotion because certain people expect her not to. That makes her angrier because she knows she is still feeling those emotions inside... Which makes her angry with herself all over again."
Starting to understand how Patch had gotten his job, Morpheus looked over at the door. "A cycle without beginning or end."
"If there's one thing that girl hates", Ghost seconded, reminiscing, "It's being a burden on the rest of us. Even if she's not."
"Exactly. Couple that to the demise of our dear traitor friend Cypher, and the fact that she is, well, shall we say… dans amour… with a certain someone I have sworn not to mention, and you have one very emotionally burnt-out out lady. With partial control over the Matrix coding. Seeing what that did just piled more grief on top. Now she's in denial."
"How can we help her?"
Contrary to Morpheus' expectations, Patch did not dismiss Ghost's request or fire off another remark about plug-heads. If anything, his gaze softened. "Your compassion is understandable. Keep her the hell out of the Matrix, for one. Even if she goes with you in the end, you must keep her out. Meditative exercises of any kind would be a great asset."
"I can help her with that", Morpheus replied.
"Yes. But more than anything, the easiest cure for this kind of injury is time. In time, she will learn to deal with the reality of it, just as you did, Morpheus. Just be careful."
With a motion to Ghost, he walked over and wheeled open the door so that his final words to Patch could be heard by Trinity. "I intend to."
-
M: In regards to the continuity gaffs outlined in my first review, I have nothing to say to the first one except ARRRRGHHH. Definetly should've double-checked the lore before posting. Still, I was certain I had it right- in Reloaded, Link and Zee really act more like lovers than abrother and sister. I suppose Zion is a bit more lenient on inbreeding than we would expect, since they really are the minority population.
As to the other point, I always figured anyone who knew Trinity as a friend would call her 'Trin',because it's such an easy shortening of a nameto make. Strangely, I've never heard Neo call her that in any of the movies...
Thanks for your interest.
