8.

a fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi

Sphinx plotted from the darkness. It was easier where eyes could not see and mark her, where the humanity that surrounded her crawled against her skin with its hateful pressure. There was no way to dominate the world without existing in it, but it was vile and unnatural. The Matrix was fluid and mobile, forever changing and adaptable, but as a human she could barely affect her local surroundings much less the earth shattering changes that Nue wrought.

Instead, she confined herself to the places that the others passed by. Her behavior wasn't marked as strange. The girl that Sphinx had been, now a slight data shadow that barely clung to life, was being punished for disobeying some man. Sphinx accepted the punishment. Barrier from the ships and from the push to Agartha was no punishment. She still needed to consolidate her power and establish which locations would weaken Zion. Then and only then would she advance to the empty city and awaken the dormant powers that waited there. It tickled her sense of humor that they'd gone so eagerly into their own deaths. Although it also meant that she would lose the capture of them herself, like a cat denied a toy.

"I understand what you're saying," the deep voice came from further down the corridor but pricked her attention. Sphinx rolled the heavy dagger between her fingers, marveling at its sense of concreteness.

Morpheus' baritone was unmistakable. "But the Council must prioritize every request. And men to train for an APU core we do not have is…"

Commander Lock's voice burst through his words. "You cannot weaken Zion any further! We must be ready if the truce breaks."

They were closer now. Just on the edge of her vision.

"We have won this peace. Why can you not admit that it might hold?"

"It's not my job to admit those things. It's my job to make sure that we're prepared for whatever comes."

"A warrior without a war." Morpheus' voice had the sound in it that he understood the loss of purpose.

Sphinx tensed and leapt from hiding. The dagger flashed down. It carved a path through the air with such speed that she expected to see code trail away from the sharp blade. Sparks should have matched its entry point but she was surprised to feel something strike her in the face as she drove the knife down. Blood. It marked her physically as her arm raised high again to drive the dagger into his heart.

Blood. And it was sweet.

Mirielle touched the statue, her hand pressed down through the heavy dust until it found the marble beneath. The connection between her skin and the stone were tenuous as though neither were bound firmly to the world. She'd quit breathing as her fingers trailed along the stone, it had a sense of precipice that she did not fully understand. Others behind them still moved as tiny spots of light throughout the bay but her attention lay only on this thing.

Look deeper.

The command made her shiver, even half remembered from the middle of the blinding supernova. The man, so dark, as though all the light in his world had gone out. So much sorrow weighed down his shoulders even as she knew the truth. He'd accepted the burden, he'd had to, but that did not ease the weight of it. And that weight was what tied him and this stone together. They'd both made a choice although she barely understood what Neo's had been. And what could a machine possibly give up that would give it the look that she saw here, of unimaginable sorrow and loss.

"Miri?" Niobe called softly. "Do you know what this is?"

"Look deeper." She did not answer to them, but to herself. "But what is deeper than stone?" Her hand continued its path, raising dust in a glistening cloud wherever she moved. Across Seraph's leg and higher, as she traced her fingers came across the head of the serpent-beast, and as the dust cascaded she would have sworn it blinked. The movement made her jerk free and in the abruptness of the movement, she stumbled.

Roland caught her.

Even as she regained her feet, he was there. His hands guiding her back up and their weight was so welcome. She couldn't tell him the truth. He would think her so young if she betrayed her feelings to him. Their ages were not so distant, but their lives, light years apart. He had lived for so long outside of the Matrix while she had lived her entire life in naivete. But truth did not twist her lips, only the same steely resolve that had kept her alive while the Virii twins tortured her. This thing that beckoned her, had to be done alone no matter how much she needed someone else beside her.

"I'm okay." She shivered again as she looked at the twins. Malice rose off their statues with a physical presence. "I am, really."

"You said something." Niobe pressed forward. Her size was dimunitive next to the statue but she didn't look daunted by the way it towered over her. "What did you mean by it?"

Miri weighed her words carefully. They'd gained her the hero worship of the Kid and while she liked him, his constant possessiveness of her was irritating. In some ways, she understood how Neo must have felt at the beginning, when everyone else was sure of his abilities before he'd had a chance to discover them. She still didn't know what they expected her to do. Find the fallen. But the only fallen was here, right in front of her.

"We were wrong." It came to her in a flash. "The Oracle said that I would find the fallen. But she didn't mean the people. She meant here. The fallen."

Niobe didn't look convinced but Miri ignored her for the moment. Maybe it all did make sense. Seraph. The beasts. The fallen. She just had to look a little deeper.

Without any hesitation she reached up, and on tiptoes managed to place her hand flat against the bare stone of the statue's navel. It was smooth. Featureless. An angel that had not been born but made, and thus had no need of the umbilical that bound humanity together. Yet it was here. How Neo could have known it was frightening but now she believed Kid, the man she'd seen in the Matrix could be no other. Neo was alive somehow. He'd known she'd come here. And that she would know enough to tie the two independent thoughts together.

The omphalos, the navel of the world where the Oracle had sat to gain her visions of the future. It was the deepest spot in the Oracle's temple. And here, on the Oracle's guardian, on the Fallen - there was no navel.

"Wait." Roland snatched her hand away before she could apply any pressure. His face despite its apparent severity was a thing of fluid emotion. The mask he wore was one from long practice but Miri could see the concern beneath it, and the depth of it startled her. "You don't know what's going to happen."

"Do we ever?"

Noise came from behind them. Shouts made tinny by the vast distance that separated them.

"Oh my god." Niobe said the words as a curse. "Everybody get down!"

Something rose from the pit of the dock. Glowing eyes shuttered once and then opened in the hazy light of the human fleet. They looked like the precursors of Sentinels, without the mechanical fluidity of the latest models. These things crawled on legs multiply jointed and surged over the edges of the catwalks. A faint sound preceded them and Miri felt it catch in her stomach with the force of memory behind it. She'd grown up on the east coast, at least in the machined memory of it, and she remembered the sound that the cicadas had made as they rose from a seven year slumber. First one, then another, and another, until the trees throbbed with the buzz of millions.

The dock reverberated with the same sound.

Look deeper.

"I'm afraid." She admitted to herself as she pulled away from Roland and the security he offered.

Both of the Captains ignored her. Niobe was talking furiously into her comm. about setting off an EMP while the humans on the dock backed slowly away from the encroaching flood.

"Are they Sentinels?"

"Wardens." Miri was surprised to realize that she had spoken. "They're wardens."

Roland's eyes sprang wide open as he saw where she was. "Miri! Don't!"

She pushed the door of the world open and looked deeper.

Latin translation: A precipice in front, wolves behind