Chapter 7
...
It's been two weeks since Neo waked up from his coma and, except for his memory, he's in an extraordinary good shape despite what he went through. He accepted quite well the absence of memories for now and he's trying to regain at least his previous skills. From the kung-fu training to ju-jitsu... he's trying to find himself once again.
Trinity is the one who's having a difficult time in balancing herself in that new life, instead. Difficult is to live near him like he's a stranger, like he's not the reason for which it worth waking up in the morning. One of the two reasons for which it worth waking up in the morning.
None in the crew is authorized to tell Neo about the events of his previous life, not to interfere somehow with his mind, giving him sort of false memories. Esc still thinks Neo's memory has been overwritten like a disk... data are not really deleted but just literally written over them, so that there's still a trace of them, just covered by the new data. So, maybe, his memories could come back, sooner or later.
About Trinity, she doesn't know if Esc is right, but she's determined to give Neo time. Neo's not ready, nor strong enough, to be back in Zion. To be back in a world where people will welcome him back like a God, a Savior... he doesn't remember anything of what he did, nor he remembers Zion.
And he doesn't remember her. She does instead, she knows him. And the last thing she wants now is having him back just because he feels compelled towards her (or worst, towards the baby she's carrying). It doesn't matter if she loves him, or how much she'd like to have him back in her life. She loves him enough for not wanting this for him. A girlfriend he doesn't remember. A child from a woman he doesn't remember.
It's definitely out of question.
Trinity looks at Neo's body. He's lying on his chair by the operator's station. On the screen it's running the jumping program.
"Link!"
Link turns to Trinity at the exasperated tone of the Captain, and he gives her an apologizing look. They both look at Neo's avatar as he tries the jump and falls face down against the concrete. Exactly like on that first time with Morpheus.
A minute later Neo opens his eyes, moaning as he tries to sit up, not succeeding in it, both for the pain coming from his stiffen muscles and for the hand which presses on his arm, keeping him exactly where he is.
Trinity.
Their eyes meet and he doesn't complain as she hands him a towel for his bleeding nose.
He moans again but succeeds in sitting up this time.
"What part of 'take it easy' you didn't understand?" Trinity glares at him, her tone is serious. And Neo just shakes his head.
"You sure you didn't confuse me with another 'one', Captain, right?" Neo asks making fun of himself and stressing that 'one', meeting Trinity's blue eyes. He likes how her eyes sometimes smile despite her apparently unperturbed features.
"Sure enough" she replies this time not succeeding in keeping back a little smirk "Everyone falls the first time"
One of Neo's eyebrows lifts.
"Did you?"
Trinity smirk grows larger.
"Definitely. More than once"
Neo stares at her. He can't image an uncertain and unskilled version of her. She's so self-confident and badass and... He has to look away to prevent himself from blushing as Trinity's eyebrows furrow this time.
"Don't you believe me?"
Trinity's tone is soft this time, not accusing, and Neo just shakes his head, giving her an awkward smile.
"I just can't imagine you as awkward as I am now. And actually," he pauses looking straight at her "you cracked the IRS database at least fifteen years ago, how old were you? Twenty?"
Her features soften and she shrugs.
"Fifteen"
"Jesus!" Neo feels somehow even more awkward "you're not just -," he stops swallowing the appreciative adjective which was about to slip from his lips and he clears his throat "I meant... that's cool!"
Another little smirk plays on Trinity's lip. Yeah, she well knows how that struck him on their very first encounter.
She has to think to someone else if she wants not to blush at the way in which he's looking at her now. And yet she can't help the intrusive memory which comes to her mind.
... "I've wanted to kiss you since the second I clapped eyes on you in that night club..."
... "On that night it wasn't just kissing me what you wanted, Neo"
She remembers herself making fun of him and his reply in her ear... her inner muscles tighten at the bare thought.
He used to say that to her, that he had fallen in love with her from the first moment they met. And he used to say he perfectly remembered the moment they met on the Neb...
... "... you took off your welder mask and moved a lock from your face... in that exact moment, you got me there, Trin, just with one look"
Actually on that time she hadn't noticed his interest regarding her. She was too focused in not letting him, or anyone else, to notice she had a crush on him. The first time she had a clue (but just a clue) had been after he saved her from the helicopter crash... the way he had looked at her there, on the rooftop... like he wanted to kiss her as much as she wanted to kiss him...
... "do you believe me now, Trinity?"
But, now... now it's different. The last thing she wants is to misunderstand the signals he gives her, if there's signals to misunderstand actually. Most of the times when their eyes meet he seems to hurry to look away. And every time it happens she has to fight to keep her composure. A part of her would like to think that he's just intimidated by her, like he was when they first met, the other part of her knows she can't afford to delude herself.
... "They reset his memory, Trin, not his being. He's still the man you first met in that night club"
If just Ghost was right!
Neo is still looking at her intently, and she's the one who has to look away for a moment this time. A thought comes to Trinity's mind and she looks at Link, still there, and then back to Neo again.
"Do you want to try to enter the Matrix again?" She asks at one point as Neo's eyes widen in a 'what? Really?'
"With you?" He asks as she nods, nonchalantly. His 'sure!' follows a second later.
And a minute later they're walking along a very packed San Francisco street.
Neo looks at his own mirrored image on a shop glass. Sunglasses and a clean shaven face. A pair of black pants, a form-fitting grey shirt and a black jacket. Well, definitely better than what are now the worn-out clothes which make him feel even more uncool. Too bad this isn't real.
Trinity moves effortlessly through the crowded downtown street while Neo struggles to keep up, constantly bumped and shouldered off the path.
"The Matrix is a system, Neo, and that system is still our enemy. But when you are inside and you look around, what do you see; businessmen, lawyers, teachers, carpenters. The minds of the very people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of the system and that makes them our possible enemy"
Trinity doesn't turn to Neo as she speak, telling him the same words she had told to everyone she had trained during years... and that Morpheus had told Neo the first time he took him here.
A cop writing a parking ticket stares at Neo from behind his sunglasses.
"I thought the war was over" he asks with a puzzled look.
"It is. But we're not allowed to take people outside without their will. And you have to understand that most of these people are not ready to be unplugged... many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it"
Neo follows Trinity as she keeps walking fast and agile, through the crowed street. In her form-fitting polyvinyl black outfit and matching jacket she's... gorgeous.
Shit, she's distracting!
Neo's knows he can't be caught not paying attention to her words and he tries to speed his pace dodging people in turn. Men, women, children... a housewife holding shopping bags, a nun, a businessman... and a suggestive beautiful blonde in a red dress. She smiles to Neo as she passes by.
"Were you listening to me, Neo? Or were you looking at the woman in the red dress?"
Trinity turns to Neo, meeting his alert dark eyes, still focused on her.
"Who?"
Neo asks like he has no idea what she's talking about. She takes off her sunglasses too, and now his dark eyes stares at the blue of hers.
Her eyes are not the same shade of bright blue in here... somehow turning in a green-blue. From sky blue to turquoise.
Trinity bites on her lower lip this time and she tries to hold back a smirk, succeeding just partially.
"What woman in a red dress?"
Neo asks turning back this time and following Trinity's gaze. He can catch sight of a red dress moving away among the crowd and a second later an agent takes form in front of his eyes, leveling a gun at his face.
Trinity was supposed to freeze the training program there, but Neo's faster than she is this time. It's a chain reaction. Agent-danger-adrenaline-reaction. Neo has no time to think, he just acts on autopilot. So quick that Trinity has no time to see it coming. Neo grabs Trinity by her waist, making her bent down and pushing her throughout the front door of the nearest building.
Her blue eyes widen as she realizes what's going on and she ignores the vibration of the phone in her pocket.
"Go on!" She shouts (to Neo, or maybe to Link instead) as guards appear from nowhere... and everywhere.
Is she really doing this? Trinity meets Neo's eyes and there's something in his eyes, something she can't explain. Something she already saw once.
"Link!" She shouts "We need guns!"
Neo and Trinity's bodies hang motionless in their drive chairs as Link hits load. Guns appear on Neo and Trinity's belt, a knife in the sheath wrapped around their thigh. They both hurries to take one, and Trinity watches Neo as he checks the bullets in the magazine. He isn't supposed to know how a gun works since Oak hasn't load him the weapon program yet. Tank did... so long ago.
And yet, Neo is a blur of motion. In a split second, three guards are dead before they hit the ground. A fourth guard dives for cover, clutching his radio and calling for a backup! 'Send in the backup!'
Neo looks up as Trinity's kick floors another agent, and it's the last thing he sees.
The backup arrives. A wave of soldiers blocking the elevators. The concrete cavern of the lobby becomes a white noise roar of gunfire.
Weapons like extensions of their bodies, are used with the same deadly precision as their feet and their fists. Bodies slump down to the marbled floor while Neo and Trinity hardly even break their stride.
They exchange just glances from time to time, their moves in a perfect synchrony... one begins where the other ends... in unison... like two parts of the same thing.
"Trinity!"
Neo leads Trinity to the elevator as she lets him doing it. Another wave of agents runs toward then and both Neo and Trinity stop there in front of the opening sliding door as the guns fire a myriad of shots into the air. And once again there's no time for thinking, just for instinct. Neo grabs Trinity's arm once more, pulling her behind himself. He stretches both hands in front of himself blocking the bullets midair. They fall down, bouncing on the floor as Neo pushes Trinity inside the elevator.
Once inside, she stares at him, speechless. And he stares back at her. Trinity's throat gets dry... it's the same look he gave her on the top of another elevator... he had clamped onto the elevator cable and wrapped her waist pulling her closer to himself... she still remembers the feeling of Neo's body against hers as the cable snapped yanking them up through the shaft as the elevator fell away beneath them, as they seared to the top.
This is the Neo she knew. And exactly like back there, part of his skill had come when he hadn't had time to act by thinking. Once again it's like adrenaline activates a half-asleep part of his cerebellum like when you suddenly brake to avoid an unexpected sudden obstacle. No thinking. It's pure instinct.
"It looks like you didn't lost your touch after all" Trinity says as Neo just stares back at her.
He just dodged bullets and stopped them midair, and he still acts like he's watching someone's else life.
Trinity's phone vibrates in her pocket again and she answers this time.
"Trinity, you're pushing him too much,"
It's Ghost's voice this time, not the operator, and Trinity glances at Neo as he just gives her a questioning look.
"Put Link back on line!" she just orders, ignoring Ghost's words. She knows what she's doing and there's no time for one of her brother's lectures.
A fraction of second and she can hear Link's voice in her ear.
"Gimme an exit. Protocol 4"
… "Trinity..."
She sighs at Link's uncertain voice from the other side of the line.
"Just do it! I'm not asking, Link, I'm ordering!"
Neo's eyes look curiously at her and for an instant she has the feeling he's somehow intrigued by her authoritative tone.
"Do you always order people around?" He asks voicing the look in his own eyes.
"Not always" She just stares at him "But here, I'm the Captain" she fights against her facial muscles to keep back a smirks. And she has to fight harder to push away the memory which is trying to insinuate in her mind.
.
… 'who's in charge now, Lieutenant?'
… Neo's body traps hers against the mattress and his knee insinuate itself between her legs, parting them. The tip of his cock grazes her slickness, but he just stops there making her moan both in anticipation and frustration.
… "Oh God, just do it" she moans, trying to push her pelvis against him as he pulls back an inch instead.
… 'this time ordering isn't gonna help you, I want to hear you pleading" he whispers on her mouth, sucking on her lower lip, hard enough to make her moaning again, panting harder.
… 'oh God, please. Neo, please..."
.
She has to look away as she feels the redness raising along her neck. Trinity, control! She just orders to herself, and swallows, her features as unperturbed as before.
The elevator door slides open and they both get out.
"What's the plan?" Neo asks looking around as it's clear the apparent calm isn't going to last "Where's our exit?" He looks around again but it's just another rooftop and it seems like a dead end to him.
Trinity's eyes move and stop on the building at the other side of the street. She points to a little open window.
"What? Are you kidding?"
From the look in her eyes she's not kidding at all. She just walks toward the edge as Neo follows her. He looks down and then again at the city skyline all around.
They just stand there and he looks at Trinity again. She's right in front of him now, her back to the city.
"Beautiful, right?"
Trinity just asks calmly in a soft and warm tone.
"Yeah, beautiful"
Neo whispers back in a such warm and low tone that for a second she doubts he's talking about San Francisco landscape.
Once again they just stand there, just staring at each other. Brown eyes in green-blue eyes.
"I know you can do it, Neo. But the key it's just in your mind. Faith is not a matter of reasonability. I do not believe things with my mind. I believe them with my heart. In my gut. I can help you, but I can only show you the door. You have to step through."
Her words somehow reminds him of someone else telling him the same, in a time and space he doesn't clearly remember, but he knows it happened.
... know Thyself...
"... being the One is just like being in love..." Neo whispers to himself, closed-eye. His words are not low enough that Trinity can't hear it, due to the total silence around them "... nobody can tell you are in love. You just know it. Through and through. Balls to bones..."
Trinity just stares at him and her lips lightly parted at the Oracle's words from Neo's lips. Shit! He's not supposed to be able of remembering the Oracle...
His deep dark eyes open on hers. She's caught by surprise by that, and in that moment of distraction she doesn't hear the door to the rooftop getting slammed as at least 4 guards run toward them and shot. Neo suddenly turns instinctively, but they're already too close. He has just the time to dodge a bullet and to try to push Trinity away from the trajectory of a second one. He succeeds just partially and his eyes widen as the bullet tears up the black polyvinyl of Trinity, just below her shoulder. She loses her balance and Neo's not fast enough this time, distracted by how her pupils suddenly dilate in her blue irises. She falls back, like in a backward dive.
And in a far part of his brain he sort of has a 'flash' of this either.
... Trinity's eyes widen as she feels the bullet entering her midsection. Her guns suddenly silent, as she falls away soundlessly, her expression softening into one of astonishment and loss... until she's about crashing onto the roof of a parked car...
"Shit!"
Neo doesn't need to be told that he needs to let it all go (fear, doubt, disbelief … and blah blah blah) and free his mind this time. Once again he has no time to act by thinking. A rush of adrenaline fills his veins again and he dives in the empty space, dropping with her at full speed. As fast as he can. Unnaturally fast. And he grabs Trinity just before she can hit the ground.
He holds her in his arms then landing atop the highest building around. He stands there for an instant, still holding her just enough to realize what he just did. He somehow remembers this, holding her exactly like this, and yet he doesn't, his mind's unable to catch that piece of memory... if somehow is really there. He looks at her and awkwardly lets her go.
Looking around he realizes just now that everything around them has been frozen, except for the Captain and himself.
"This is not the Matrix" Neo whispers still out of breath as Trinity shakes her head.
She puts one foot on the floor of the rooftop, then the second one, giving him a very mischievous look this time. The black polyvinyl has been tore off in the exact point the bullet hit her, but he can see just a bruise under it.
"Shit. You're out of mind!" Neo glares at her, but she can't restrain another smirk instead, and this time even her eyes 'smile'. Neo can't help it, and his features soften.
"It's just a training program, I can't really get hurt, nor you" she teases "but, thank you anyway" she says as he blushes "and I think I get another point"
They open their eyes back on the ship. Neo is the first one sitting up as soon as Link unplugs him, and he turns to look at Trinity as she gets unplugged in turn. They're eyes meet a fraction of second but she turns to the operator instead, glaring at him.
"Did you enjoy yourself?" She asks still glaring at him as Link gives her a half amused half embarrassed look.
"Yeah, sorry, maybe I got carried away a little too much with all those guards " he lets out a chuckle but Trinity doesn't smile.
Neo is still looking at Trinity as she nods. She's still lying on her chair, she inhales deeply and closes her eyes for a second. A whining escapes her tight lips as she sits up and Link gives her a very guilty look this time.
"Shit! You didn't tear off your stitches, right?"
Trinity shakes her head and rolls her eyes at him.
"It's been months, Link. Don't be apprehensive, please. I've just been beaten quite hard by your damned multitude of guards"
Link's looks is still guilty, but it's clear she's making fun of him this time.
"Neo," Trinity turns to him, meeting his eyes, and for an instant he feels like having been being caught with his hands in the cookie jar... Her eyes are no more annoyed but caring instead "Esc will give you a lotion for your stiffen muscles" she just says.
"No need, I'm fine" he replies as she lifts both eyebrows instead.
"Believe me, ask him that lotion" she just says again, looking at him until she's forced to look away by Ghost's voice, which called her by first name.
"You look whatever but fine instead-" Ghost says as Trinity gives him a glare which stops the words in her second in command's throat. And she moves away the hand which was unconsciously holding her own left side, swallowing in order to prevent another whining from finding its way throughout her lips.
"I don't remember having hired you to babysit me, Ghost"
He's the one glaring at her this time, and it's clear there's confidence between the two of them. Even more when she rolls her eyes at his glare, it's not just a Captain-soldier relationship.
"Did it worth at least?"
Neo stares at the two of them. Ghost stands by Trinity as she stands up, like he's afraid she's about collapsing. She doesn't obviously. Why should she? She's definitely tougher than Ghost and himself put together. And yet Trinity doesn't push Ghost away when he touches her arm. Friends. There's a chance they're just friends.
Neo meets Trinity's blue eyes. Yeah, they're definitely bluer here than they were in the Matrix-like program.
Shit! Caught in the act once again.
How long was she staring at him?
Piercing blue eyes.
"Definitely"
Trinity just replies at Ghost's question, and this time Neo knows she's keeping back a smirk.