AN: I don't think my computer likes me all that much. At the moment, I'm having problems staying online. This computer of mine has been nothing but problems since day one but you can't convince my father of that. He keeps taking it to be repaired and shelling out more and more money to get it "fixed." Of course, that doesn't always work out and it's back in the shop a few weeks later with a new problem. I figure we need a new computer. It's only a matter of time before someone else realizes it as well. Anywho, I hope everyone else is having a good time doing whatever it is all of you are doing! Being on vacation's alright but I'm starting to miss being in school. At least school work kept me busy…my own anyway. My sister's school work, well, that's a horse of a different color. Thanks to everyone who's out there reading this! I really do appreciate it. All of you are the best and you make typing this strange little misadventure up worth it! I'm always truly surprised to discover that people read anything I write.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the characters I made up and their Real World alter egos. I don't own The Matrix, The Animatrix, or any of that cool stuff. I'm broke and in graduate school studying biology. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"Everyone's watching, to see what you will do
Everyone's looking at you, oh
Everyone's wondering, will you come out tonight
Everyone's trying to get it right, get it right" (From "Working for the Weekend" by Loverboy)

A lone figure crouched in the darkness of a rooftop. She waited in the shadows, almost becoming one with them. That came part and parcel with the whole working at night and wearing black clothing on the job. That and the fact the figure was as still as humanly possible.

She only moved when she needed to shift her slight weight. Sitting in a catcher's crouch in boots for quite a while wasn't the brightest thing to do but she really did want to remain unseen. Though her hair was dark and braided down her back, her skin was pale looking. She was afraid that someone- or something- with good vision might be able to spot her.

That fear, as well as other silly fears, in place, she decided the best way to stay safe was to hunker down in the shadows. Make herself as small a target as possible. If that meant she had to crouch in her boots- not the most comfortable position given her footwear. Sitting in a crouch in her bare feet was actually something she enjoyed doing. - then she was alright with it.

Pixie, the lone figure crouched in the darkness, watched as the door leading to the roof opened and a shabbily dressed figure stepped out. The young woman could only hope that this was the person she'd told to meet her on the roof and not a false alarm. She'd told the individual known as Eurisko to meet her on the roof so he could learn the truth.

Of course, she failed to mention that he wasn't going to learn the truth from her. Pixie figured that might scare Eurisko away. For some strange reason, he only agreed to meet because she'd promised to come alone. Pixie figured she could add that to the list of strange things about Eurisko.

Topping her little mental list was the fact Eurisko would only speak with her and not some of the more famous- or infamous, depending on what frame of reference you were using- individuals she worked with.

The young woman, herself, was dressed in much the same way she'd been dressed the night before. Pixie was a creature all in black spandex; dancers clothing but she'd never been a dancer during her time in the Matrix. The short leather jacket she always wore over her clothing was heavier than normal because of the weapons she carried with her.

Pixie really hadn't been keen on going back into the Matrix so soon after her little initiation by fire. She knew she had to go back in as soon as possible, though, because the longer she waited the harder it was going to be for her to go back in. It was like falling off a horse or a bicycle, if you didn't get back on as soon as possible, you were never going to get back on. Pixie had never ridden a horse and had never been healthy enough to actually ride a bicycle while in the Matrix but the idea was still the same in her mind.

As much as she didn't like the idea, she was going to have to go back in.

Much to her surprise, since Pixie figured that she was just a small piece of a much larger picture, she'd found that she'd been given a new weapon, along with the knowledge on how to use it, of course. Tucked into a very small holster that fit just under the bell-bottomed leg of her unitard, pressing against her ankle in a rather uncomfortable way, was a tranquilizer gun.

From what was downloaded into her head, she knew that the weapon was small but powerful. Hypothetically speaking, it had enough power to knock back a large animal. She could only imagine what it would do to a person who was hit with one of its small darts. Still, knocking someone out was better than ending someone's life, virtual as it was.

At least that was how Pixie saw things. It may have not been the right way to see things but it worked for her. It got her to go back into the Matrix despite the fact she wasn't all that keen on going in.

The young woman watched the figure step from the doorway onto the darkened roof. In the rapidly shrinking light of the closing door, Pixie noticed that this was the person she was looking for. True, she'd never seen Eurisko face-to-face but she did know how to read the Matrix code like an Operator. She knew what the young man looked like despite the fact she'd never seen him in the flesh.

Though she was glad the person she'd been waiting for decided to arrive, Pixie waited a few moments more. She wanted to be sure that things were as safe as they could be, given the circumstances. Besides, watching Eurisko pace the length of the roof without straying too far into the shadows, Pixie figured there was no harm in making Eurisko just a bit more off balance. She remembered being distinctly disorientated and confused the day she was freed. Maybe that had something to do with why she took the red pill. Pixie wasn't entirely sure but she still figured that it was a good idea to let Eurisko wander around some and wonder just why the mysterious "Shieldmaiden" wanted to meet him on his roof.

Once the young woman decided enough time had passed- about two or three minutes by her own internal clock- she, softly, called, "I'm here."

Eurisko jumped at the sudden intrusion of sound, earning him a ghost of a smile from Pixie. Of course, he didn't see the smile as it was carefully tucked away by the time he located the owner of the almost whisper like voice.

"Are you the Shieldmaiden?" he asked, ogling the black clad figure he'd found melting into the roof's shadows, "Why'd you ask to meet up here?"

"I would be the Shieldmaiden," she informed the male in as stern a voice as she could muster, "but you can call me Pixie. I know you call yourself Eurisko and I've asked you to come up here to make you an offer. One I think you'd be rather interested in."

Eurisko was a tallish man of nearly twenty. He had stringy blond hair and squinty, pale blue eyes that peeked out from under thick black rimmed glasses. He looked, for all the world, like the atypical hacker with his unkempt appearance and his almost milky white pallor. The latter feature was, affectionately, nicknamed the "computer tan" by some in Zion.

"How do you know my name?" he questioned, sounding slightly stunned.

Pixie wanted to say something to the effect of "Because I've been talking to you for a few weeks now trying to get you to head in the right direction" but she knew that answer lacked tact. In her head, where she ran through almost everything she wanted to say before she said it, that sounded downright rude. Since she didn't want to seem rude, lest Eurisko decided to take everything she said with a grain of salt and not give her the attention her offer actually warranted, Pixie decided to change her tune.

"It's my job to know these things," Pixie answered, her answer purposefully vague and mysterious sounding.

"I've been talking to you all this time," he mumbled, speaking just loud enough for Pixie to hear and shaking his lank haired head.

His hair looked like it hadn't been washed or brushed in several days or weeks. His whole appearance spoke to an obsession with the truth he was seeking instead of the world he was living in. Pixie immediately noticed the difference in appearance between Eurisko and Wheeler, the only other hacker she could think of with hair that earned its very own set of adjectives.

Eurisko's hair looked dirty. It made her want to put her hands in the pockets of her short, leather jacket just so she wouldn't run the risk of touching it. Wheeler, with his distinctly scruffy, unkempt looking hair- She knew he did take care of it though. No matter what he did to it, Wheeler always looked like he'd just rolled out of bed without bothering to brush his dirty blond hair. - looked clean. For some very strange and rather unexplainable reason, in her opinion anyway, she wanted to run her hands through Wheeler's hair just to see how it felt.

Shaking herself free of her own reverie, Pixie gave a very small, childlike giggle and asked, "I'm not what you were expecting, huh?"

"I was expecting someone…I don't know…bigger, I guess. You talk a big talk but you're not all that big yourself," he replied, with a shrug of his slouchy looking shoulders.

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight but the fight in the dog," Pixie commented, speaking softly, "Anyway, we don't have a lot of time for small talk. You wanted to find out about the truth, didn't you?"

Though it may have been a bit of the paranoia sneaking in, Pixie looked around the roof, as if expecting an Agent or two to appear at any moment. She leaned forward, making it seem like she had to tie the laces on her boot, and pulled the tranquilizer gun from its holster. Doing her best to close the item in her fist, she placed it in the pocket of her jacket.

"Just in case," she, mentally, mused, "better to be safe than sorry."

"That's why I came up here. I want to know the truth about this Matrix thing. Are you going to tell me the truth?" Eurisko wanted to know, still looking at Pixie as if she was less a person and more something out of a comic book.

"I'm not going to be the one to tell you the truth, sorry. I can take you to someone who can, though. I'm just the messenger here," Pixie answered, telling Eurisko just enough to keep him curious but keeping things vague just in case he bolted.

An uncomfortable sort of silence crept over the roof as the two young people tried to figure out what to do next. Eurisko was busy staring at Pixie in a way that was making her very uncomfortable- Aside from Hawk's occasional glance, Pixie wasn't entirely use to being stared at like she was some sort of piece of meat.- while the young, black clad woman was just looking for a quick exit. She was, mentally, kicking herself for deciding on such a open location for this meeting

"Eurisko's Greek, isn't it? Means something like 'I discover things,'" Pixie stated, breaking the painful silence and trying to decide the best way, the safest way, to get off the roof.

Eurisko shrugged, looking baffled. Pixie gave the young man a curious look, silently asking for him to go on with just her eyes. Though Pixie had earned her name in a very strange and silly way, she figured everyone else had a reason for taking a new identity. There had to be a reason for picking the names they'd decided on.

"I don't know. I picked it because it sounded cool. I got it from this X-Files episode called 'The Ghost in the Machine.' The company in the episode was called 'Eurisko' and it just sounded cool to me," the stringy haired man replied, answering Pixie's unspoken question and giving her the reasoning behind his name.

Pixie gave an internal laugh at the reason behind the stringy haired male's name. It wasn't exactly what she'd been expecting as a reason. She knew a member of the resistance who called himself Ghost and made a mental note to someday ask him why he chose that name. Perhaps, it had to do with the actual "Ghost in the Machine" theory some of the more intelligent hackers brought up. From what she understood of the theory, it had something to do an artificial intelligence creating the most basic soul since it had intelligence.

"Follow me," Pixie ordered with an exasperated sigh, "We'd better get going. I don't want to keep the person who's going to offer you the truth waiting."

The young woman led Eurisko to the building's fire escape and had him begin climbing down. She figured that, at least if he started down and began to transform into an Agent, she'd have a good chance of hitting him with a tranquilizer dart. That and she figured it was safer for her to go second. If she'd gone first, Eurisko- or Eurisko-as-Agent- might be able to get the jump on her and that was something Pixie didn't want.

Despite all of her precautions and mental planning, the pair got to the alleyway between the buildings without an issue. No one turned into an Agent and there was no need for anyone to have a tranquilizer dart put in the fleshy part of their neck or arm.

"Walk to the mouth of the alleyway and wait for me there," Pixie told the young man, her eyes trying to take in everything about her surroundings.

If the young, lanky haired male thought Pixie's requests were odd, he didn't say anything. Eurisko did as he was told, watching Pixie as he did so. There was something rather interesting about the young woman who claimed to know the "truth," whatever that was, in his mind. Now that he could see her in the harsh glow of the streetlights, he figured he had to say something to her.

"Let's say you and me forget this cloak and dagger stuff and go back up to my apartment. I have some data you might like," he called from the mouth of the alley, looking back at the slow moving Pixie.

Pixie made a disgusted face. It was always the same story when a female went to pick up a male potential. She contemplated somehow scaring Eurisko on him just to get him to stop leering but decided against it. That was just something she wasn't apt to do.

"No thanks," she, coolly, declined, coming up to stand next to Eurisko, "I'd rather not. Besides, our ride is pulling up anyway. You can turn back now, if you'd like."

As she spoke, a long black car, very much like the one she had ridden in when going to see the Oracle, had pulled up to the alleyway. She climbed into the front seat on the passenger's side, watching Eurisko curiously.

The young man hesitated for a fraction of second as car's back door opened. He couldn't see if there was anyone else in the back seat and, truth be told, he was more than a little scared. Still, he wanted to learn the truth and he wasn't about to be shown up by a girl who looked younger than he was. Steeling his courage, Eurisko climbed into the back seat of the car.

Pixie gave a small nod of greeting to the driver, Apoc, and the other person sitting in the back seat, Cypher. As they began to drive towards their destination- The young woman wasn't entirely sure where they were headed. – Pixie slipped her tranquilizer gun out of her pocket and trained it on Eurisko. She felt bad doing such a thing but she knew the reasons behind it. It was part of the job and it wasn't her place to question why.

Eurisko's watery eyes went as wide as saucers as he saw the weapon being pointed in his general direction. Looking to the other person sharing the backseat with him, he found yet another gun trained on him. Cypher gave Pixie a look when he noticed that she was holding her tranquilizer gun instead of a normal fire arm. The young woman shrugged, not bothering to give him a verbal answer. If she got in trouble for her strange move, she'd explain it to Morpheus and Trinity later.

"What's this about?" Eurisko asked with a quaver of fear in his voice.

"Just a little insurance, to keep us safe from you," Cypher answered, a small and greasy looking- if a smile could be greasy anyway- smile on his face, "Don't worry, I'm sure the little lady won't do anything to you. It's me you have to watch out for. Sometimes my finger slips."

Pixie shook her head at Cypher's comment, noting that Apoc was doing the same as he drove. There was no need for his sarcastic comments at this point in time. As a matter of fact, there never seemed to be a need for such comments. True, the world they lived in wasn't the best of places but there was no call to be that sarcastic.

"Don't worry," Pixie stated, speaking as if she was talking to a small and frightened furry animal, "you're in no danger unless something very bad starts to happen."

"Hopefully," she added in an undertone, "it won't happen and we won't have to worry."

An old sugar refinery was their destination of the quartet. The three males and one female stepped out of the black car and walked, carefully, into the crumbling building. Pixie's hands were in her pockets, slipping behind Apoc as they walked through the wreck of the once busy refinery.

"Where are we going?" Eurisko asked, looking to his three companions for answers.

"You wanted answers. We're taking you to someone who can provide them," Pixie answered, speaking quietly.

Pixie followed closely behind Apoc, trying not to imagine what was crawling all over the floor. She heard the occasional squeak and the pattering of small feet, indicating that there were mice or rats living here. It wasn't that she was afraid of vermin. It was more like she didn't want them running over her boots or sinking their sharp, little claws or teeth into the flesh of her leg.

It seemed like an eternity before they reached a junction in the hallway. It was sort of a T-shaped junction, with hallways running in either direction. Since they were stopping, Pixie figured this was where she'd be handing Eurisko off to someone else while she went to go set up the machinery used just in case he decided to take the red pill.

"Pixie, take Eurisko down the left hand corridor. Cypher and I have some equipment to set up," Apoc told the medic-in-training, offering her a small flashlight.

Pixie was quiet surprised that she was being allowed to take Eurisko to Morpheus. Still, she composed herself and nodded her head to show she understood what she was being asked to do. Flashlight in hand, she beckoned Eurisko to follow her down a long and darkened length of hallway.

"How old are you?" Eurisko asked, making nervous conversation now.

"I'm eighteen, nearly nineteen really. I know you're about twenty," Pixie answered, with an unseen smile.

"You're just a kid," he exclaimed, "what are you doing with a gun?"

"When you're in my line of work, it's not really safe to go without one," Pixie commented, not giving away too much information.

Silence reigned again, as Pixie found the only door along the hallway. It was heavy metal and opened just a crack. She led Eurisko into the room and took her exit as Morpheus sat the young man down.

She trotted along the hallway, heading down the right hand corridor, her flashlight a bobbing beam on the walls and floor. Pixie was a little more than excited about what was going to take place. She'd never taken part or even seen an unplugging. Her first, and only, experience had been her own and that didn't really count. After having her glasses taken away, she hadn't seen much of anything until she woke up in her pod and even then everything was a huge blur.

Her first real, clear images of her new world had come after she'd been rebuilt. Pixie had never asked what Morpheus and the others did to her eyes in order to get them to work better. Whatever they did, she was thankful for it. Being without her glasses had been odd at first but now it was almost as if she'd never worn them.

She banged on the door, demanding to be let in. She wasn't quite sure what role, if any role was left for her, she was going to play if Eurisko took the red pill. All Pixie knew was that she had to get home somehow. It made sense to head towards the rest of her team in order to do just that.

"It's the kid," Cypher commented, peering out a crack in the door.

"Which kid?" a voice behind him called, "The new kid, already?"

"It's me!" Pixie called, "Let me in, Cypher."

The older rebel groaned and opened the door just wide enough to let Pixie squeeze in. The room, old crumbling stone and mortar, was filled to bursting with make shift mechanical equipment. Nothing made a sound but everything seemed to be sparking with life.

"You're over there," Cypher pointed, going back to the machine he was calibrating.

Pixie followed his finger and found herself behind, what looked like, a plain old computer and keyboard. She recalled that she was supposed to be putting in the parameters for a human male, age 20. That information had been imprinted into her mind, back before she had taken her three tests.

She was still inputting parameters, when Morpheus led a wide eyed Eurisko into the room. Pixie assumed he had taken the red pill. The room became a flurry of motion, everyone working to get a lock on Eurisko's position in the power plant.

Pixie sat at her computer, staring at the screen. It looked almost like one of the monitors in the medical bay. The type of monitor that showed heartbeat and other vital signs. She guessed that her role was going to be akin to the one she was being groomed to play. That was, she was being asked to be a medic.

Someone called out, taking note of Pixie's monitor, that Eurisko was going into cardiac arrest and Morpheus was asking Tank, who was taking part via the phone, a series of questions. Pixie wasn't really listening all that intently. All her focus was on the monitor in front of her. His stats had taken a dramatic downturn; making her wonder if he was going to come out the other side brain dead.

Then the room went deathly quiet. Eurisko's form seemed to have vanished from the old swivel chair it had been sitting on.

"What now?" she asked, feeling both profoundly stupid and profoundly confused.

She realized that, with the new person coming on board the ship, she was going to have several hours of new work on her hands. There'd been whispers that a time was growing dangerously close and everyone needed to be prepared. Eurisko, as cruel as it sounded, was what Dozer was going to use to teach Pixie the art of rebuilding somebody.

"We get to an exit and pick up that kid before he drowns," Cypher said, pulling Pixie in front of him.

She shrugged out of his grasp and started to walk on her own. The last thing she wanted was for Cypher to direct her towards their exit. She could walk; she could stand on her own two feet. Pixie didn't need Cyper's help and, with a small smile, she realized that she wasn't so scared anymore.