Title: The Best Homework Excuse Ever
Rating: PG-13. The language here isn't any worse than you hear in the movies.
Disclaimer: I do not claim to own the Matrix trilogy, the canon characters, story or anything related. I can only wish that I did. I make no profit from this – I am merely exercising my writing skills for the reading pleasure of readers. However, I own this story. I own the character Chase, and Lady Delerith owns Ari.
Authors' notes:
Solia: Sorry for the wait! This chapter was really difficult to write for some reason. I couldn't work out how to end it, and even my chapter-Nazi-ing wouldn't force an ending out of Delerith. So we had to improvise and just end it where we got up to.
YAY the real adventure is starting. Jai/Stark has entered the plot! He is a MAJOR plot device that the entire story originally centred off before we got more creative and attached to our respective characters. NOTE: That means we've been planning to add this character for more than two years and have spent all that time planning and building up to it.
(As people tend to enjoy getting offended over all kinds of things, I'd like to add that I have no intention of insulting any person or minority group by my use of the word 'Nazi' before. It's just a term I use.)
Lady Delerith: Lady Delerith: Hey, my fault. When school work finally eases up again, (if there ever is such a thing) I'm gonna try and write another chapter… If Solia lets me Thanks all.
THE BEST HOMEWORK EXCUSE EVER: Chapter 17
"Well, that was fun. At least we got some sight-seeing in."
Chase ignored Ari's attempts to be cheerful. She had her forehead rested against the backseat window of the car as Glyph drove them back. Whenever they went over bumps, Chase's head smacked into the glass, but she didn't care. Learning that your best friend didn't (or wasn't going to) care about you as much as you at first thought was pretty harsh knowledge.
And being told by someone like the Oracle that Chase could never see Carrie again… That was worse. Because Chase had almost convinced herself that once she was older, she'd be able to go back and free Carrie, too. She had Ari, who was almost like a sister, but Chase felt like she had a serious void. She knew that it was due to the fact that her other half was still here in the Matrix, alone and without her.
"I take it that didn't go too well," Glyph said apologetically. Despite her attempts at cheeriness, Ari must have been in a sour mood, too, because she sighed in annoyance.
"No, Captain, it went great," she said sarcastically from the front seat. "That's why Chase is banging her head into the window back there." Glyph gave up and kept driving. Ari turned in her seat. "You're doing it all wrong. You've got to smash the window harder than that if you want sharp shards on your lap to work with."
"Ari," Glyph said warningly, but Chase laughed and stopped. Ari was good at breaking tension like that.
"I'll remember that," Chase said. She leaned forward. "I can't believe that woman. Are you sure that she was really the Oracle, Glyph?"
"Of course she was," the captain said in confusion.
"I reckon she was lying," Ari said, turning again to Chase.
"Or she was wrong."
"She's never wrong," Glyph said with a light laugh.
"She must have been wrong," Chase said. "What she implied was completely impossible. In fact, I can't believe she'd even say that to us. How dare she accuse you of being a backstabber?"
"Yeah!" Ari was getting into the one-sided argument, too. She offered her hand to Chase. "We'll never let her be right."
Chase shook her hand and smiled.
"Don't be stupid," she agreed. "The mere notion that our friendship could be jeopardised by a job is ridiculous."
Minutes later, the adventure was over. They'd been sucked back through the phone lines to their chairs in the Nadir. They fully intended to go back to their lives as though nothing had happened.
But as Chase attempted to slink out of the Core unseen, Glyph called her name.
"Yes?" she asked, turning back. Glyph was standing beside Lunar, who was sitting in her operating chair, watching the Matrix code falling sedately down her screens. Ari was there, too, watching as well, leaning over the operator's shoulder. This was Chase's best friend. Was it possible that what the Oracle had said could come to pass?
"I'd like you to see this, too," Glyph said calmly, indicating the screens. He turned to look, turning his back on Chase, obviously trusting her to come when asked. She walked over, feeling resentful.
"What is it?" she asked, keeping her feelings out of her voice.
"Because you and Ari work so well as a team, I want the two of you to share the responsibility of this project," their captain said outright. "This will be your first job – I'm trusting you girls with this young man's mind. You will study him, tempt him, meet with him and finally free him."
Chase, all thoughts of the stupid Oracle's words fleeing her mind, shared an excited and apprehensive look with Ari. Their first project!
"You will have one week to study him, learn everything you need to know," Glyph said seriously, "and if at the end of that time you know enough, you will be able to make first contact. Your subject has been on-and-off chasing the Matrix since he was twelve, so he's getting frustrated. We were put onto him by another ship, the Logos. Captain Niobe watched him for a while before deciding that he's not talented enough for her time, and doesn't seem interested enough. But, I think with the right… persuasion, this guy might be perfect for you two to start with."
Now Glyph leaned down a bit to look both girls straight in the eyes.
"If either of you think you need any help at all, or aren't sure about something, make sure you come to me or to someone else," he said. His voice was serious but gentle. "Not everyone gets it right the first time. Not everyone gets their own projects to start with. But I think you two have observed long enough; I think you two are very talented people who work exceedingly well, especially together. I also think that you will be fine. You're in charge of this young man's fate. Good luck."
Swelling with pride and excitement, Chase and Ari watched Glyph leave, his blonde ponytail disappearing from sight, before turning to each other with a squeal and hugging.
"There you go," Lunar said, standing and waving a hand at the computers. "Take a seat and I'll show you everything I'd found on Stark."
"Who?" Ari asked excitedly, taking Lunar's vacated seat. Too lazy to find another chair, Chase sat down on her armrest.
"His name's Stark," Lunar explained, pointing at the one screen that did not show the Matrix in its serene, falling code state. "Open that folder. That's the stuff Niobe sent us."
Ari did as she was told.
"Open the profile."
Ari clicked on the file, and a page sprung onto the screen. There was what looked like a school photo of a teenage boy, along with what looked like pages of information.
"Mm-mm, hottie," Ari commented, leaning closer to the screen to admire the photo. Chase did the same, glancing at 'Stark's' stats.
Jai Kieran Matthews was two years older than Chase and Ari, according to this information, if it was accurate. Chase examined his photograph. It was two years old, taken in his last year of high school. He had tan-brown skin, black hair and a nice-shaped face. Chase tried to decipher the exact shade of his eyes – they looked like light brown, but could be hazel. No. They weren't hazel, she thought. Just brown, but Jai Matthews' eyes were a nice cocoa brown.
Yeah. Jai – or Stark, whatever – was very attractive. But Chase would reserve her overall judgement until she met him, and told Ari this when asked for her opinion.
"I guess," Ari said, then, smirking, she added, "I mean, this picture doesn't show what his body might look like, does it? And he mightn't be so gorgeous now."
Chase giggled.
"I'm talking about his mental and emotional state, Ari," she chided. "He could be a complete nutcase – or he could be a chauvinistic pig."
"That's right," Lunar agreed, looking relieved to see that not everyone in the worldseemed as shallow as Ari. "Or, he could be homosexual."
"Oh," Ari said, looking crestfallen. Chase, smirking, skimmed through the rest of the information, scrolling quickly.
"I feel like a stalker," she admitted, reading through the list of Jai Matthews' previous residential addresses. He lived in the USA, and had never moved outside of Los Angeles, California. Further down the page, Chase found a list of Jai's household members, closest friends, and then a list of ex-girlfriends! "He's not gay, Ari!"
"Ah, yay! How do you know?" Ari asked eagerly, reading what Chase pointed at. "'Julia Abbot, Emily Rayner, Melinda Brody, Tahlia Brody, Andria Miguel, Lisa Windsor…' This list just goes on. This is all ex-girlfriends?"
"Looks like it. 'Lola Atwood, Kathy McKinnon, Natalie Miguel, Emma-Lee River…' What a player!"
"Well, he is gorgeous – can you blame him?" Ari reasoned. "Besides…" She counted names. "Twenty-two girlfriends isn't so bad. By now he's got to be nineteen or so, right? So say he went out with this Julia Abbot girl when he was like twelve or thirteen, but I mean, seriously, he was like twelve, or how serious can that be? Same with the next five. By that point he would have been about fourteen, and from then there's still sixteen…"
"Sixteen girlfriends in five years," Lunar said sceptically.
"That's only three-point-two per year, which isn't bad," Ari said, doing the maths in her head. Chase used to be able to work out mathematical stuff that quickly.
"Maybe he has commitment problems?" she suggested. "Or maybe he's hard to get along with."
"Don't ruin him before we even meet him!" Ari told Chase off. "Let's assume he's sweet and gorgeous and he always goes out with girls on the rebound, so they get over him too fast?"
Chase smiled.
"Nice fantasy," she said, scrolling down the screen. "He has a messed-up family, Ari. Look at this."
"House residents: Tom Asbury, Judy Asbury, Jai Matthews, Jessica Matthews, Chris Short, Max Asbury. Why does everyone have different surnames?"
"Half-brothers and step-fathers and the like," Chase said, reading intently as Lunar wandered off to find more interesting people.
"I can handle him having a messed-up past and bad family relationships," Ari said with a bright smile.
"I'm sure you could," Chase answered with a return smile. She went back to the photo and the two friends silently gazed at the attractive face for a long moment.
"He is hot," Ari mentioned finally. "You can't argue with that."
"I won't."
"I wonder if he'd like to be called Stark, or if he's too used to being called Jai? I mean, he's nineteen. We were only fourteen."
"Well, if everyone who was freed from the Matrix kept the name they were used to, we'd have no one called Glyph or Citadel or Teardrop and Cinnamon, would we?" Chase reasoned.
"Teardrop and Cinnamon could have been called those names as nicknames when they were kids."
"Except we know they weren't."
"Yeah. I wonder if Glorious's parents called her Glorious when she was little, or if they just called her 'dumb bitch' like the rest of us do?" Ari said offhand. Chase giggled.
They fell silent again, staring once again at the school photo of Jai Matthews.
"Yeah, you're right," Chase said after a while. "He really is hot."
Ari smirked.
"Told you."