Chapter 12

Trinity leisurely walks into the core at ten minutes to seven, reading over the ship's monthly inventory report with mild concern. They are running rather low on medical supplies. Plasma. Saline. Acetaminophen. She clucks her tongue twice while doing some quick accounting in her mind. "God, Neo. What a mess you've made of my budget."

It has become a habit of hers. Speaking to him when he isn't even around. Sometimes, Trinity can even imagine what his answer would be to her comments. 'Oh, I'm sorry Trin. Did I use up too many transfusions? Well, that was bloody inconsiderate of me.' She chuckles. He really is quite funny sometimes.

Trinity freezes when she glances up to see Mouse, Dozer, Switch and Apoch, all standing around the operator's chair, staring at her. "May I help you, crewmen?" she asks, willing the smirk off her face and arching an eyebrow.

"You were laughing." Switch says it as if laughter were the most objectionable sound in the world. Then her lip curls slightly. "Oh, yes, you were. And talking to yourself."

Trinity looks around at the other officers, who are all showing similar hints of amusement on their faces. This isn't good at all. "What are you all doing here?" she asks evenly.

"We heard that you're fightin' Neo," Mouse announces.

Ah, so that's it. "And from where did you hear that?"

Mouse bites his lower lip and looks away with a shrug. They both know he'd lingered outside the mess hall this morning to eavesdrop, and then ran to tell everyone that Trinity was finally giving in to Neo's repeated requests for a sparring match with the Red Queen. It's too bad, Trinity thinks, that they won't get what they came for.

"A shame you're all so busy tonight," she says. "But as I recall, you have those jobs I posted on the duty chart. Which may have gone suspiciously missing again, but that isn't a problem, because I memorized it this time."

None of them seem surprised, and Trinity catches a few eyes rolling as the men disperse. Switch lingers behind, her back to the others as she leans in close and murmurs, "Breaking your own rules, hm? You never spar with the newborns."

Trinity smirks and replies calmly, "You needn't give me that look. I have no intentions of fighting with anyone. It's my night off, you know."

She makes some final corrections to the paperwork and signs it, all the while aware that her friend is studying her knowingly. Between the only two women aboard the Nebuchadnezzar, there are many secrets, but their equally deep feelings for the men with whom they are in love are not among them. "What the hell have you got planned, then?"

"A Caribbean cruse."

"Uh-huh. You wish."

Trinity sighs. "If you must know," she whispers, "I've planned a very educational evening of mentally challenging exercises which are both instructive and recreationally stimulating."

"He won't be happy unless you fight him. They never are."

"You don't fight with Apoch. What you two do is just very rough foreplay." Trinity glances over Switch's shoulder to see Neo and Tank walking towards them. "And I'm sure once I explain my methodology to Neo, he will agree with me that my choice of activity is much more appropriate and fun than a self-gratifying tumble around the dojo. Which he'd ultimately lose, anyway."

"What's this about my losing?" Neo asks as he joins them, folding his arms across his chest and grinning smugly. "I think maybe someone is a little overconfident. And don't think I'll go easy on you because you're a woman."

"Sure you don't want to reconsider your plan?" Switch asks her. "I think he needs an ass-kicking as much as you need a self-gratifying tumble."

Trinity ignores the innuendo and continues to stare her cocky adversary straight in the eye. "No, I think I know exactly what this one needs." She turns and slaps the disk she's brought with her into their hard drive. "Tank. Load us up."

Trinity sits Indian-style in Morpheus' old red leather chair, rotary-dial telephone off the hook on the table in front of her. She has quickly grown annoyed by the ringing, which she'd programmed to be the default setting long ago, never imagining she'd have to listen to it for so long. She glances at her watch and sighs, rising to her feet to glance out the window of room 303. Down below, traffic is barely moving in the afternoon rush, which is made worse by the pouring rain. She opens the window and leans her head out under the awning, rapping her fingers impatiently on the sill for a minute or so until she finally spots a man pushing through the crowd on the sidewalk. He is obviously in a rush, bumping into almost every pedestrian, and causing a few men to curse at him, which he answers with a few creative obscenities of his own. He doesn't relent in his mad dash towards the building until he collides with a woman pushing a baby carriage, which topples over. The mother's cry makes him stop purely on instinct, and he hesitates for a moment before cursing again and sprinting away.

"Oh, Neo. Neo. What the hell am I going to do with you?"

It takes another minute or so for him to burst through the door behind her, soaking wet and panting. Trinity pauses the coach's stopwatch hanging around her neck and examines his time with disappointment.

"Ten oh-seven. That's twenty seconds longer this time from Greene and Pine to Wells and Lake."

He has his hands on his knees, a puddle on the floor beneath him. "It's raining this time."

"Yes, I see that."

"Why does it have to be raining while I do this?"

"It's a rainy time of year in Chicago."

"Jesus Christ, Trinity!"

"What? You think agents take the rainy days off?" she raises her voice slightly, which is unlike her. But they've been at this all evening, and he isn't getting it. "And stop being so concerned with the goddamned pedestrians. They. Aren't. Real."

"In the Matrix they are."

"Anyone still connected to the System is potentially an agent. God, isn't Morpheus teaching you anything? Or are you two too busy sword-fighting? It's all bullshit unless you can get your ass to an exit in one piece."

He wipes water from his face and takes off his heavy wool coat, shaking it a few times. "Well, I've been running from exit to exit for over an hour now, Trin. And I haven't seen a single agent."

"You aren't ready for that yet. You can't even make it past the baby carriages. And let this be a lesson for your RSI. Don't wear absorbent clothing. Waterproof always. Rubber-soled shoes. Lightweight weapons. You're carrying around your body weight in ammo. It's useless, don't you get it? Speed. Stealth. Cunning. That's what will keep you alive in there."

"Speaking of RSIs, I like how you dressed up for me."

Trinity looks down at her comfortable black cords and cotton T shirt. She also wears a tattered red baseball cap with a Montreal Canadiens logo on the front. "It's my night off. I perfected my footwork a long time ago."

"Brilliant."

He is pacing now, and she slumps back into the armchair, equally exasperated. "Again. You'll do it again until you get it right."

"I'm calling Tank. I want out."

She feels her face burn. If there is one thing she hates, it's a quitter. "Look, if you can't handle this-"

"And maybe I can't! Maybe I'm just not cut out to be the warrior you're all expecting. Is that my fault? Do I even have a choice? Excuse me if I'm not up to saving everyone's asses in this goddamned war!"

His voice booms through the room and Trinity doesn't flinch, or even blink as he yells at last words at the top of his lungs. She hates whiners, too. And self-pity. Especially from him. Her Neo is so much more than that.

"Save every one else's ass?" she says softly, evenly. "I've got news for you, soldier. I don't need you to save my ass. My only concern is that you can't even take care of your own. Forget the Prophecy, if that's what's fucking you up. Because I swear to God, Neo, if you die on me in there, I'll kill you."

They stare at each other for a long beat at it occurs to them both that what she'd just said didn't quite make sense. With her eyes, she dares him to laugh. He doesn't, but his expression softens, the unspoken humour alleviating much of the tension between them.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I know you're trying to help."

She wishes she could stay angry at him for longer than ten seconds, but the sincerity of his apology and sentiment in his voice does something to her over which she has no control. If it would do him any good, she'd run the whole damn thing for him twenty times over.

"Look," she sighs, leaning back in the chair. "I don't know what the hell Morpheus and the crew have been telling you. But here it is. You're human. And nobody is born knowing how to do this shit. You learn; you start with the basics. You need to walk before you can run."

The corner of his lip curls. "I am running."

She smiles back. "Then, you need to run before you can fly."

"Fly?" He raises his eyebrows. "Is that where you're going with this?"

"The sky's the limit, solider."

They look at each other for a long time, sharing a comfortable silence. "Run with me," Neo says finally. "It gets lonely by myself."

She shakes her head. "You wouldn't be able keep up with me."

"I've had a lot of practice tonight."

"I've been practicing for ten years."

This seems to give him an idea. "So my goal is to match you?"

"I'd be damned impressed if you even came close."

"Enough to give me a passing grade for the night?"

She frowns. "If you think I'm letting you out early…"

"No, no. Tank lets us out at midnight." He checks his watch. "So in about an hour. If I beat you, then no more running, and we get to do whatever I want for the rest of the time. If not, I'll run the entire circuit through a snowstorm."

"You won't win."

"Then you should have no problem with shaking on it?"

It is the second time he holds out his hand to her that day, and this time she takes it. Trinity then makes a phone call to ask Tank to clear up the weather. Off Neo's look, she shrugs and explains, "I'm not wearing my PVC. And I have no intentions of running down the street in a wet T-shirt."

"I should have worded that into the deal."

"Hey, if you win, you can do what you like. Drench me," she says, wholly unconcerned. "Now, the exit is on the thirty-third floor of the skyscraper on Clint and Main, east side. Suite twenty-four. Sound familiar?"

"Tom's work address."

"Yes. I'm giving you the home-team advantage. Use any and all means to get there. Feel free to take risks, because the construct safeties are all on. So if we're automatically booted out, I'll know you got yourself run over by a stroller or whatever."

"Or you were shot in the back with exactly my body weight in ammunition."

She chuckles. "The phone will be in your cubicle."

"Tom's cubicle."

Trinity slides her sunglasses on and looks out at the bright, sunny sky. "Are you gonna talk all night, or what?"

She turns back to look at him with a condescending arch of her eyebrow, but much to her chagrin, Neo is already gone.

Trinity scowls. "Okay, cheater." And rather than following him down the hall, she climbs out the window and onto the fire-escape, executing an elegant back flip to land herself in the ally behind the hotel. She scans the street quickly. Come on, Motorcycle. Motorcycle.

Seeing none, she curses and then rushes around the block, colliding with Neo as he comes around the same corner in the opposite direction. "Hey, Trin. Do you know what time the bus comes?"

Trinity can't suppress a laugh at this as he comically checks his watch and rushes away, sprinting down the sidewalk and into the crowd. "You'll be doing it in snowshoes pretty soon," she says, again speaking to him as if he were still standing there. When she spots a dark purple Ducati parked right in front of the hotel entrance, she shakes her head at him. "When this is over, I've got to teach you to always look for the bikes first."

Trinity is infamous for her driving, as much as Niobe is for her piloting or Ghost is for his gunning. Even if Neo does find himself a ride, he'll never catch her. Agents can't even catch her on a motorcycle. And so she is quite relaxed as she swings her leg over the seat and when the owner rushes over, yelling at the top of his lungs, she breaks his neck and takes the keys. "Pansy," she comments, wondering what kind of a man buys a purple bike. She makes a mental note to change this inconsistent detail in the program, revving up the engine and speeding towards the freeway.

She is just boarding the onramp when she hears sirens behind her. "What the?" Trinity turns, surprised the police have caught up to her so quickly. She is ordered to pull-over, which is of course ridiculous, though when they begin to shoot at her, she wishes she'd thought to grab the matching purple helmet her victim had clipped to his belt.

Her cell phone rings. Weaving in and out of traffic, she reaches into her back pocket and answers, thinking it's Tank calling to give her help. Surely, he is on her side.

"Hey, Trin."

It's Neo. A bullet shatters rear view mirror and she cuts between two SUVs, causing one to swerve and smash into a truck. Neo's next words are lost in the deafening racket of a five care pile up.

"What? Neo, I can't talk. I'm a little…" She is almost embarrassed. "What do you want?"

"I missed the bus, so I hailed a cab." And Trinity glances over when she hears a car honking at her from two-lanes over. Neo waves from the backseat as the cabby drives almost as recklessly as she is. She curses herself for being so anal about her program's being authentic. "Anyhow, I noticed your little run in with the law. Too bad about that. Some concerned citizen must have ratted you out."

A few more bullets zoom by her head and her heart sinks. "You called the cops on me?"

He laughs.

"You son of a-"

"Hey, look out!"

She gasps, only barely avoiding a concrete divider. "Bitch!" she finishes her thought. "When I'm done with you, you'll be hypothermic, Neo!"

"I wouldn't be so sure. You know, you might want to pull over onto the shoulder before you stall in the middle of the road. I wouldn't want to see you run over."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, I knew you'd grab that bike, right? So when I left the hotel, I used some of my ample firepower to shoot a few holes in your gas tank. I'm not sure how much is left, but you're leaking gasoline pretty bad from what I can see out here."

Trinity checks her instruments. The fuel gauge is reading less than empty. "You… you're trying to kill me!"

He laughs again. "No, of course not. I only want you arrested. Fingerprinted. Maybe a mug shot as a memento. If we get booted out, I won't get my sparring match, so don't go dying on me. Or I swear to God, Trin, I'll kill you."

She practically growls at him though the phone, but he continues as if he hadn't even noticed. "Anyhow, it occurs to me I'm late for Tom's weekly staff meeting at Metacortex. You know, I think I'm gonna shoot all my coworkers when I get there, just to celebrate."

He hangs up, and Trinity is so angry she yells out and throws the phone. She can practically hear Tank laughing at her from the core. If anyone else is watching this, she would kill Neo. She'd underestimated him, she realizes, shaking her head and struggling to maintain control of the motorcycle as the engine begins to give out. Soon she is surrounded by police officers, her hands in the air. She counts quickly, twenty five. This is going to cost her at least five minutes.

Police motorcycles are made better, anyway, Trinity thinks as she dons a helmet and presses her old Dr. Martin to the foot clutch of one of the dead officers' bikes. In a few fluid, dare-devil manoeuvres, she makes up for lost time, weaving through oncoming traffic to reach the quickest route to Clint and Main. She is remarkably effective when riding on a full tank of gas, and is pleased to arrive at the entrance to the tower just as Neo's cab screeches to a halt across the street. She watches Neo jump out from the back seat, and he is about to run towards her when the huge cabby also gets out and appears to give him a hard time about the fare. Neo shoots him and Trinity rushes through the revolving glass doors. Neo's cold blooded murder was committed more in desperation that anything else. She has already won.

The elevator chimes open and she steps inside, smiling and waving at Neo as he enters the lobby and yells out, "Hey, hold the elevator!" She chuckles as the doors whoosh shut, and she presses number 33. Trinity is still smiling by the time the lift hits floor 20, but just then, the ascending sensation abruptly stops, and the lights flicker.

"No. What did you do?" She punches the button to open the doors, but she is trapped between floors. Then she hears the fire alarm. "No, no, no!"

To add insult to injury, the sprinkler goes off, drenching Trinity in her T shirt before Neo has even declared victory. She laughs at the irony, hands on her hips, and then jumps up to knock the tile from the roof of the elevator. In short order, she is in the shaft, climbing the emergency ladder to exit via the next floor. She rushes through office cubicles and follows the crowd of equally wet accountants to the main stairwell. In her haste she bursts through the door and collides again with Neo, who is also on his way up.

"You!" she screams out, lunging at him. "Come here!"

Neo chuckles and doges out of the way, taking three stairs a time and he only barely escapes her wrath. Both of them are now determined to win, and Neo and Trinity remain nearly side-by-side, pushing, clawing, shoving and laughing their way to the thirty-third floor. They practically tumble over each other as they tear through reams of evacuating people heading in the opposite direction, hearing the phone ringing as they arrive at the software programming department of Metacortex Inc.

The entire floor is now empty, except for the two of them, perfectly in step as they sprint for the phone. They fight and scramble for it, and the eventual outcome is Neo holding up the receiver in victory, and Trinity clinging to the rest. They are both panting and soaking wet, and they stare at each other as the sprinklers continue to rain down on them.

He begins to laugh in earnest, and she isn't far behind.

"I won," he yells over the alarm.

"I've got the hard-line!" she says back, holding up the cable.

"No, I'm talking about your top."

She gasps, and peels the thin cotton from her chest, leaning forward in an ineffective attempt at modesty.

"And I think I've earned my sparring match."

She nods. "Oh, I think so." And faster than he can react, she grabs his arm and twists, striking him hard in the stomach. "Jerk."

He answers with a punch of his own, which she blocks, and manages another hit, flowed by a kick, performed as she gracefully leaps into the air and holds position, a technique Neo has yet to master. He flies into the wall, falling to the ground in a heap. He's still smiling, but holds up his hand to signal surrender. Trinity arches an eyebrow, surprised he would give up so quickly. Indeed, now she really wants to fight with him.

"Let's get out of here," he says, looking around the ruined office. "I hate this goddamned place."

She agrees, and when they step out of the building into the welcome heat of the mid afternoon sun, Neo checks his watch. "Well, we have half an hour."

Adrenaline pumping through her veins, Trinity takes on a fighting stance. "Okay. You won. Come on, then. Show me what's got Morpheus all excited."

"I won? I thought you had the hard-line."

"No, no. The receiver is what counts. Congratulations. You wanted to spar with the Red Queen? You got it, Neo. Right here, right now. You and me. To the death."

"It's because I called the cops on you, isn't it? That's why you're mad?"

"Mad? No, I'm not mad… I'm furious!" But even as she says it, she is smiling. "But only becuase I didn't think of it myself. Goddamned genius."

"I was inspired."

"By?"

"A nice swift kick in the ass. By a good friend of mine, who wouldn't let me quit. And provided… other motivations as well, but… anyway." He smiles boyishly. "You know her, I think. Beautiful woman. Bit neurotic. Eats with a bent spoon."

She looks away, heart in her throat, not able to look at him in the eye, not able to believe what he'd just said to her. 'Oh, no. Neo, please don't,' is all she can think. 'Don't ruin this by reminding me of what we can't have. What I can't let myself feel.'

"I'm sorry," he mutters. "I shouldn't have said that… Trin?"

Trinity checks her watch. "Running out of time," she says, not able to look up at him. "We can have Tank load the dojo if you'd like."

She can feel him studying her as he says slowly, "The deal was we'd spend the remaining time however I wanted, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Well…" He waits for her to meet his eyes again before continuing, "You want to grab a cup of coffee? My treat."

She is confused at first, not sure what he means. "Here?"

"Yeah. You did program the cafés to make coffee, right?"

"Well, yes. But…" She trails off, unsure how to respond to this bizarre invitation. It is utterly ludicrous, of course, to spend the next twenty minutes with him in a nonexistent café drinking nonexistent coffee in what was supposed to be a training sim. Still, she can't bring herself to say no. She doesn't want this to end.

"Sure," she hears herself say, as if she has no control over her own voice. "I'd love to."