Disclaimer: I don’t own these
characters, I’m not making any money from this. These characters belong to the Wachowski brothers and I recognize
that they are not my own creation.
Kirstma, December 2000
Heroes for Ghosts
1. Who Will Hold Us
were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a
Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt.
I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were
different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us,
like Death, our death.
We returned to our places,
these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here,
in the old dispensation,
With an alien people
clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another
death.
-T.S. Eliot, "Journey of
the Magi"
Trinity sat alone in a room,
shivering and unclothed. The room was white and barren, stark and utilitarian.
She wanted her clothes back. She wanted to be through this, to be somewhere
else, she wanted her friends. All of them. Back again. She wanted --
The door opened. In walked two
doctors, one female and one male, the latter in the throes of middle age and
rapidly balding. "I’ve been deloused," Trinity said. "Can I have
my clothes back now?"
"They’ll be ready in a few
minutes," the woman answered firmly. She held a clipboard in her right
hand. "But first, have you been generally in good health?"
"Yes," Trinity
answered grudgingly.
"To the best of your
knowledge, have you, at any time since your last visit, come into contact with
any lethal substance or chemical, either identified or unknown?"
"Jesus Christ,"
Trinity said, trying her best to keep her breasts concealed from view. "If
my blood work came back okay, I must be okay."
"Just answer the question,
Miss Trinity," the man said, his voice hinting at severity.
Trinity twisted her mouth.
"No."
"To the best of your
knowledge, have you come into contact with any bacteria or virus since your
last visit, either identified or unknown?"
Only the flesh-eating one
that left me disfigured,
Trinity almost said. "No. Can I have my clothes back?"
The woman pursed her lips.
"Shortly." They both turned and left the room. Now she was alone
again, still shivering and smelling of the chemical shower. Shivering, not
because it was cold but because it was lonely and disconcerting to be treated
with such aversion.
She wondered about Neo -- about
how he was faring during his check-up and rehabilitation. "There is much
repair to be done on his muscles," Morpheus had told her as they rode to
the center of the earth aboard the Orion. Neo was resting. He wasn’t in good
shape. Of course, he wasn’t in terribly bad shape either -- but he’d withstood
a lot during his most recent battle in the Matrix. God, five days ago. It
seemed like it had been a year or two ago when she’d flown that helicopter
through the skyline, escaping just in time before it crashed into the side of a
skyscraper. And then, after that . . . well, no one had discussed it very much,
except for Morpheus who spoke reverently and thoughtfully about her revelation.
Those words that had simultaneously saved and shocked them all were fused with
silence. "Trinity, know you love him, but you must be very patient with
him," Morpheus had told her.
Morpheus was full of advice she
didn’t feel like taking.
Trinity missed Switch who,
during all of the previous trips to Zion, had undergone the same humiliating
inspection in customs that Trinity was enduring alone now. But when they’d been
together -- well, they could typically laugh it off as the usual Zion inanity.
But now -- without Switch -- it seemed so much more personal.
Without Switch. Without Apoc, or
Mouse or Dozer, dear God. . . . Trinity felt her face collapsing in a tense
statement of grief that was becoming exhausting to suppress.
The door swung open. Trinity
pulled herself together. "Miss Trinity, your clothes." The lady
doctor dumped them on the floor and left, the door closing with a resolute
clank.
After she was dressed in her
usual scrubs -- that now smelled faintly of something like moth balls --
Trinity quickly left the stark waiting room. In the surrounding areas that
resembled a doctor’s office -- though with none of the amenities -- Trinity
observed a nurse flipping through some charts. "Excuse me," she said,
"have you seen my captain?"
He turned to face her. "I
think the rest of your crew is still being processed." He was young and
beautiful, and Trinity noticed how his lips curved out a little. They’d never
been that attractive when she was young. Younger, that is.
He glanced over at her again.
"My, that’s a nasty bruise."
"Oh, yeah." Trinity
reached down to cover her arm with her ragged sweater. An RSI bruise that still
hadn’t faded.
"You want me to get you
some ice for that?" His eyes looked at her, brimming with kindness. She
hadn’t seen that kindness in any of them for a long time.
Before she could answer with an
irresolute no, the boy was already rummaging through an old icebox in the
corner of the room and gathering ice chips and wrapping them in an old towel.
He came to her, placing the pack carefully on her arm.
"Thank you," she said,
barely able to form the words with her shaking lips. She felt human again. She
couldn’t bring her eyes to meet his, afraid that one look from him might cause
one emotion to bubble to the surface of her face, then another, then another,
and soon it would be out of control like Pandora’s box. She took the pack and
carefully turned away.
* * *
Trinity ended up staying at the
military hospital that night which was connected to customs. Neo, as it turned
out, was to be kept under observation to ensure his full recovery. At least
that was what the doctors told Morpheus, and when anything had to do with Neo,
Morpheus took it very seriously.
The crew of the Orion was long
gone by then, released into Zion to frolic and play and do whatever it was that
normal soldiers did on their vacation in the city. Tank’s wound was being
treated with antibiotics, but he’d soon be released to join his family in Zion
-- and then mourn the loss of Dozer. Trinity, however, was just glad to
collapse on a make-shift couch that was put in the waiting room of the hospital
for her.
"I want to see him,"
she told Morpheus, whose own quarters were at a military hostel. Trinity was
encouraged to join him there, but she didn’t want to leave the hospital without
knowing more about Neo’s condition.
"He needs a lot of rest,
Trinity," Morpheus told her. "I don’t think he’s ready for anything
particularly draining."
Trinity faltered, growing a
little red. "I just need to talk to him."
"I know you do. But -- he
is the One . . . his being here is a miracle in itself. For now, we must treat
him very gingerly . . . this is a period of transition for him. And your
feelings . . ." He didn’t continue.
My feelings are secondary to
everything. My feelings don’t matter.
Trinity rolled over on her side
on the old, worn sofa. Few things were made of new material in Zion --
everything was recycled, organically grown, and somewhat shabby. Human luxury
was unimportant in the face of war, and most people wore their clothes until
they just about rotted off. Frivolity was considered wasteful -- almost sinful.
Vanity was some kind of horrendous crime.
And what about love? Is that
frivolous . . . vain?
She couldn’t sleep, thinking of
Neo in the hospital bed down the hall and of her imposing, breathless feelings
of love for him. They’d hardly shared a moment together in the last five days,
due to his fragile condition and the arduous chore of getting to Zion before
another sentinel attack. Those few moments after the EMP blast, after Neo’s
miraculous resurrection and hasty retrireview from the Matrix were fresh and
raw in Trinity’s mind. How they’d kissed then -- she running the tips of her
fingers over his cold cheek and reaching to tenderly hold his neck . . . the
taste of his salty lips and the instant connection between them . . .
When he tried to stand
afterwards, he collapsed. Trinity held him and Morpheus put him in bed,
covering him with the extra blankets of dead crew members. Trinity had given
him her blanket also, but then Morpheus found out and made her take it back.
And while they waited for the Orion to come and rescue them, Trinity slept on
the small space of floor beside his bed until Morpheus found her and made her
sleep in her own bed. But when she gazed at the empty quarters of her dead
friends, grief had floated to the top of her mind and settled there, a constant
fixture.
The ship was cold and in
shambles. While they waited for the Orion, they were frightened that they’d be
discovered by another batch of sentinels, though they weren’t. And Neo was
feverish and moaning in pain, in need of medical assistance that they couldn’t
supply. The power had been lost, but the backup had come on so there was enough
to survive for a few days.
The Orion had arrived the next
day, its crew pausing to gawk at Neo’s existence. "He’s old for a
trainee," the medic had whispered to a few of his cohorts, and Trinity had
felt a sort of indignance that bounded to the surface of her mind. But they’d
worked on him then -- hell, they’d probably saved him. She had to be grateful.
Morpheus was adamant about
keeping Neo’s true nature and purpose a hushed secret. And for good reason,
because there wasn’t just one war going on. Cypher’s insidious betrayal hadn’t
been an anomaly -- just a symbol of something much bigger than all of them.
Trinity stirred, still unable to
sleep. Her thighs ached and the slight bruise on her arm still swelled. And she
wanted to see Neo.
Without really thinking about
it, Trinity sat up and slipped into her boots. Quietly, she made her way down
the hall in the dim hospital lights and sterile atmosphere. She reached the
room where she thought he was staying, and pushed on the door.
Two men jumped up caught her by
the wrists, forcing her back into the hall. She took note of their appearances
as they came into view -- one fat and the other very thin with dirty blond
hair. Their clothes were not as shabby as her own, but not nearly as tidy as
the clothes in the Matrix. They wore simple pants with dark shirts.
"What are you doing?"
the fat one hissed at her.
She jerked free. "I need to
see him -- "
"No one is allowed to see
the patient in there. Strict orders."
"Strict orders from whom?
Who are you?" Trinity felt her voice climbing in desperation.
One pulled out a slim wallet
with his credentials. "ZPA. We’ve been assigned to this man for the rest
of the week."
"Oh, you’re fucking kidding
. . ." Apparently the Zion Protectionary Agency had been assigned to Neo,
and without her knowledge or consent. "I’m his commanding officer,"
she said, "I have every right to see him."
"Not until morning then,
I’m afraid," the fat one said, his jowls waggling. "And not without
your credentials."
"Trinity?"
Trinity’s eyes widened -- Neo
was awake and calling her from his bed. She pushed past the officers, despite
their efforts to keep her contained, and crouched by his bed. She reached for a
small lamp on the table beside the bed and a comforting light made shadows in
the room. "Neo . . ."
"Trinity . . ." His
eyes, glazed from sleep, tentatively scanned her thin frame. She shyly slid her
hand into his.
"Neo, are you
alright?"
"Yeah," he whispered,
"I feel much better . . . where am I?"
"A hospital in Zion. Don’t
worry -- I’m sure you’ll be well enough soon.
"Who are those men?"
he said, his voice weak.
"We call them zaps. They’re
no one, just police men here to protect you."
"Protect me?"
"Yeah, and I’m down the
hall."
His grip on her hand tightened.
"They’re doing all these tests on me. Is it because I’m . . ."
She turned away, afraid that she
might cry. Then she looked back and reached over, lightly touching his
hairline. She hadn’t planned to fall in love, it’d just happened. And here it
was, with so much power and emotion that she didn’t know if she could take it
on without breaking. "Neo, I -- "
She felt a hand on her arm.
"Out." It was one of the officers. "You aren’t supposed to be
here. If we have to physically remove you, we will."
Trinity turned back to Neo and
thought about what that would look like to him. Then she thought about kissing
him, but decided against it. She squeezed his hand and left him without looking
back at him and waited until she was in the waiting room again before she let
herself weep.
* * *
The next day Trinity awoke and
went to the room to find Neo. He wasn’t there and his guards were gone. The bed
was empty and made, and there was no trace that he had ever been there.
Feeling stricken and a little
ill, she decided to venture into Zion. She had to walk a mile or so through a
tunnel in order to reach anything vaguely metropolitan -- the city had been
arranged that way for the purposes of protection. And when she emerged from the
tunnel, there it was -- noisier and more unattractive than any simulation of a
city she had known. Wires and metal tubing were in abundance; simple concrete
blocks formed the roads and ground. Buildings sprang up senselessly, with no
thought of organization or aesthetic purposes, and people jogged, walked, and
yelled to each other in the street. Trinity could hear the hovertrain roaring
in the distance. Though there were no cars or busses, there was the omnipresent
whooshing of air and the buzz of electricity.
When she looked up, she couldn’t
tell where the "sky" ended and Zion’s ceiling began. That was the
trick of it.
The people who jostled her in
the street were real ones. At least that was how they considered themselves.
They had no plugs and their clothes were different, neater. She knew that being
a soldier amid these civilians was obvious, but that day she didn’t care.
Trinity spotted a paper on the
ground, a newspaper. Zion had done away with most paper publications because of
the waste factor, and because they couldn’t grow many trees. But they kept
newspapers and published just enough of them, recycling the papers each day to
make a new batch the next. Most other publications were done electronically,
like books and songs and records.
She picked up the newspaper. The
Free Zionist -- a title that Tank always laughed at for its redundancy,
because a Zionist was, by definition, free. This was a New Humanist
publication, from a faction that was largely anti-war. The paper was a few days
old. Immediately the thought seized her -- had the Neb’s destruction made the
paper? And what about Cypher’s betrayal?
She tore through the paper, most
of the articles concerning the politics of expanding the city and taking more
resources -- which was evil according to the New Humanist point of view. And
there it was on the back page: "Sentinel Attack leaves five dead, one
wounded." "Oh, is that what they’re calling it?" Trinity
muttered to herself. She scanned the subtitle. "Nebuchadnezzar Captain
Morpheus waits to use EMP, Sentinels destroy ship." Angrily, Trinity threw
the paper down and continued walking.
That was just like the New
Humanists, always trying to destroy the reputation of the resistance. According
to that party, the war had gone on long enough. There was no legendary
"One" -- it was all folly. The best thing to do would be to call an
end to the war by destroying the machines’ database, and thereby destroying the
enslaved population of the earth. New Humanists did not like ex-slaves. Neither
did many other people.
It hit Trinity suddenly -- she
was starving. She hadn’t eaten since . . . well since the morning before last,
when they’d had breakfast on the Orion. There was a small place that served
food on the corner -- she’d been there before when she was younger.
She had no sooner entered the
door when a man sprang up from his seat and left the restaurant. Another man
followed. Another man -- supposedly the manager -- approached here.
"Sorry, we don’t have anything available right now. You might want to come
back later."
"Really," Trinity
said, enjoying the challenge. "Then why the empty tables?"
He turned around to look.
"We’re . . . we’ve got reservations."
Trinity turned and walked out.
Two young girls sat in a stoop a few paces away. One was reading a ragged book
and the other was swigging from something, probably a bottle of rotgut. One
look was all it took . . . Trinity knew they were Matrix born.
Then -- her name. In the street.
Trinity turned around to find Tank parting the crowd. "Trinity!"
"Tank!" They met each
other with a hug, drawing each other close. "Tank . . ."
"Yeah?"
Trinity pulled away. "Do
you know where Neo is?"
Tank stepped back and frowned.
"The hospital. Dr. Holdzapfel wanted to run some more tests. But don’t
worry, he’ll be fine."
Trinity’s gaze slipped to the
ground. "This isn’t going to end, is it? They want to find out what makes
him tick."
Tank didn’t answer her.
"Let’s get out of here. This isn’t our type of neighborhood, if you know
what I mean. One of my sisters has a flat on the upper east side, but she’s
working in the agricultural district so she said I could stay there."
A few minutes later Trinity was
on the hovertrain, letting the motion rock her back and forth. She glanced over
at Tank. There was a lot he wasn’t talking about -- like Dozer. How had his
family reacted? Trinity wanted to be with them to offer her condolences, but
she knew that this was private time, family time. They all wanted to be alone.
Tank’s sister’s flat was in a
dingy area -- their type of neighborhood -- a place called Lestrygonia. They
had to walk up five flights of stairs and pull back a shoddy metal door before
they reached the small, dark apartment. One main room, a bedroom, a porch overlooking
a concrete courtyard where dirty children played, and a small kitchenette. The
place held only a few pieces of furniture -- a chair, a table, a mattress on
the floor that served as a bed.
"You want some water?"
Tank offered.
"Sure," Trinity said,
watching as he turned on a spigot and let clear water filter into a jar. It
tasted good. "Damn, I almost forgot how sweet Zion water is."
Tank grinned affably. "I
know. Everything on the ship has that metallic edge to it."
"I saw some girls
today," Trinity began. "One was drinking some kind of grain alcohol.
On the street. In a store front. They were with the resistance."
"What?" Tank’s eyes
grew large.
"I mean, they must have
been with the resistance at one time. Now they just look displaced. They were
pretty young. I think I might have known them."
"They could have been
freeborn," Tank pointed out. "Some people leave their kids in Zion
because they’re in the resistance. And then they die or something, and the kids
are totally destitute. Story of my life."
"They seemed like soldier
types."
Tank moved into the bedroom. He
came back and set some pot down on the table, then began to roll a joint.
"You want?" he said, without looking up.
"Might as well,"
Trinity said.
* * *
Getting high was great, but it
hardly did anything to solve Trinity’s problems. It didn’t open either one up
to talking, either. They sat against the wall, passing it back and forth and
talking lazily about how long it would take to fix the Neb or how they were
going to get a new crew.
Then Tank said: "So you
really love him?"
Trinity felt herself blanch. She
tried to reply, but there was no air left in her lungs. Finally she managed a
few gruff words. "I -- I don’t know what it is."
Tank smiled sadly. "I know.
You can’t describe it. It’s just there. He probably feels it too."
"Oh I don’t know,
Tank." She looked down at herself. "How could he . . . how could
anyone . . ."
"Love you?" Tank said.
He reached over and put a hand on her shoulder, which rested against the wall.
"I don’t think it’s so difficult to believe."
She bent forward and shielded
her eyes from view with her right hand. "I don’t think I can do this . .
."
"I’m here for you,"
Tank said. He removed his hand from her shoulder. "The funerals are tomorrow.
For everyone."
Trinity drew her knees to her
chest. Without meaning to, she had begun to cry.
"Hey kid," Tank said,
"wanna talk about it?"
Trinity managed to shake her
head. "Hey, it’s okay," he said. "You’re not a bad person for
surviving. Neither one of us is. I wish it had been me instead of Dozer, but
it’s not our fault . . ."
"I just want to
sleep," Trinity said. "Do you have a bed I can sleep in?"
* * *
Trinity didn’t know why the need
for sleep overtook her the way it did. Now in Zion, she had the feeling that
she could sleep for days and still want more; it was insatiable and
intoxicating. She crashed on the dirty mattress in the bedroom, and when she
awoke Tank was gone and it was nearly dark. In Zion they gradually phased out
the light to simulate a sunset in the evening. The clock told her it was past
seven.
She stood up and shuffled back
into her boots, deciding that it would be better to simply leave now. She left
the apartment and made her way through the crooked streets, boarding the hovertrain
and allowing herself to be transported back to the spot where Tank had found
her. She wanted to go back to the hospital and see Neo for herself. Would they
release him?
But when she reached the
familiar strip, still bustling with human activity, she knew what had brought
her back. Those two girls. And they were still loitering against a store front,
one slumped against the steel siding, the other bent eagerly over a book.
Trinity walked over to them and then simply stood there.
The girl with the book looked up
and smiled tentatively. She was plain but pleasant, and had long, unkempt brown
hair. She was tiny -- she couldn’t have been more than seventeen. She looked
down at the book and began to read: "When the Lord restored the fortunes
of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, ‘The
Lord has done great things for them.’ The Lord has done great things for us,
and we rejoiced."
She looked up and smiled again.
"Those are pretty lines, aren’t they?"
Trinity nodded. "What --
what is that?"
The girl continued to smile.
"The bible. I’m Temple. What’s your name?"
The other girl stirred and
awoke. She narrowed her eyes in tiny slits.
"I’m Trinity. I’m sorry,
but I think . . . this is crazy, but I think I know you."
"Nothin’ crazy about
that," Temple said. "We all know each other. See, I’m like you."
She pulled back her sleeve to reveal a tiny plug. "I used to be a fighter,
just like you."
The other girl hunched forward
and spat at Trinity’s feet.
"Don’t mind her,
ma’am," Temple said. "She don’t know what she’s doing."
This all was bothering Trinity
very much. She wanted to know why the girls were sitting on the street rather
than minding their duties on a ship. It was disturbing.
The man who owned the store was
sweeping the sidewalk. "Alright kids," he said. "I’ve let you
loiter long enough. No more. Get up and get going to somewhere else."
"You can’t make us!"
the other girl erupted. She tried to stand up but fell over.
The man laughed. "You
drunks! If you had any sense, you’d pull yourselves together and stop begging
from the rest of us. Now get out of here."
Trinity bent over toward Temple.
"Can I get you something to eat?"
* * *
The pub was poorly lit and
dirty, serving awful food that was most likely left over from some other time
and place. Trinity had never enjoyed Zion food. She had long ago decided that
having tasted Matrix food was a curse, and it was something that never left her
mind. She’d wake up at night craving the most mundane things -- a hamburger, an
egg, spaghetti.
But Temple seemed to enjoy her
soy milk and dry bread, slathering the bread with hummus and eating hungrily. She’s
starving, Trinity thought as she quietly ate. Trinity should have been
hungry, but couldn’t muster any excitement for food. And the other girl ate
solemnly and with less vigor.
"So, we were on the
Aeolus," Temple said between mouthfuls.
"And what happened? Did it
crash?"
"No ma’am, taken by
sentinels. Everyone died but the two of us."
Trinity put her fork down and
stared. "Everyone died . . . but how did you . . . how did you
survive?"
"Oh ma’am, I don’t know. We
hid. We thought they’d get us anyway, but they didn’t. So we waited and waited.
Took days for someone to find us. Yeah, we were all hurt and stuff. They
brought us here to help us get better. I liked it at first. It’s warm
here."
The other girl stopped eating.
"That’s Nala," Temple
said. "She don’t like to talk so much."
Nala pushed her plate away and
glared at Trinity. She was much prettier than her friend, but with a savage set
of brown eyes. She folded her arms across her chest and continued to stare.
"So then what did you
do?" Trinity asked.
"Oh, we waited for them to
reassign us, but they never did." Temple finished eating and looked
longingly at Trinity’s plate.
"You want this?"
"Oh ma’am, I didn’t want
you to think I was begging, but. . . ."
Trinity pushed her plate forward
and Temple took the food excitedly. "Thank you, ma’am."
"Why didn’t they reassign
you?"
Nala pounded her fist on the
table. "I need some more money." She held a shaking hand out to
Trinity, her eyes twitching a little.
"For what?" Trinity
said. "You haven’t eaten. You think I’m made of money?"
"I need five
krummens," Nala said. "You don’t understand."
"She need it, ma’am,"
Temple said. "She need liquor like some people need pills and
things."
"Oh, that’s it,"
Trinity said. "Well, I won’t give it to you. The less you need it,
the better."
Nala lunged at Trinity grabbing
for her neck but Trinity caught both of her arms, spun her around and held her
arms behind her back. She was strong both in and out of the Matrix, with good
reflexes that rivaled her mental abilities. And Nala, caught by surprise,
limply fell to the ground.
Temple leapt to her feet.
"Don’t hurt her!"
Trinity stood back and brushed
herself off. "I wasn’t planning on it. She came at me -- not the other way
around."
Temple began to cough. Trinity
bent over and tried to help Nala, but she swiftly turned her head. Temple
continued to cough, now laboring over each gasping breath. She pulled a cloth
out of her pocket and coughed wretchedly into it.
Blood appeared in short spurts
on the white cloth. Trinity backed away. "Temple? . . . Jesus . . ."
Tuberculosis. Words ran through her head. It’s how Chekhov died. Now I’m
going to die like that.
Nala scrambled to her feet and
whimpered a little. She rushed toward Temple, throwing her arms around the girl
and sobbing silently.
"What’s going on
here?" Trinity said. "You’ve got tuberculosis." She backed away
a little and hated herself for it, but she didn’t want to catch it. No, not now.
Especially not now, not with everything that had just happened.
Temple calmed herself and pulled
away from Nala. "Yes, Miss Trinity."
"What are you doing
here?" Trinity said. She looked up to find the bartender eyeing them with
heavy suspicion. He moved into the other room. "You know you could spread
this to the population. It’s illegal for you to be out here -- you’re supposed
to be in a sanatorium."
"Oh ma’am! I was in one,
you see." She folded the blood stained handkerchief and put it back in the
pocket of her ragged pants. "It was horrible, I finally had them think
that I was well and they let me out. Oh ma’am, I don’t ever want to go back! I
ain’t made anyone sick, I swear!"
"Okay, okay," Trinity
said, trying to quiet the girl. Temple exhaustedly collapsed into her chair,
and Trinity noticed how sick she looked. Why hadn’t she noticed it before? The
girl’s cheeks were sunken and dark rings appeared below her eyes. Trinity had
surmised that it was hunger.
"Please don’t turn me
in," the girl begged.
"You shouldn’t be out among
the rest of the people," Trinity told her. "You’ll make the others
sick."
"Huh!" Nala said,
crossing her arms in front of her chest. She flounced into a chair.
Trinity ignored her and
continued. "And, and you need to be somewhere with doctors, where they can
help you."
"Help me!" the girl
shouted, anger rising up in her light voice. "Is that what you
think they do?" Heads turned in their direction. "Is that what they
told you when they put your friend there to die? Ma’am, that’s all it is --
just a place for us to die. They put us six or seven, maybe eight in a room an’
there’s hardly any food to go around . . . sometimes someone’ll die and they
won’t take the body away for a day . . ." Her voice broke off with a
slight choke. "That’s how I met her. Your friend Harmony."
Trinity felt something digging
into her palms, and realized that it was her own fingernails, leaving their
succession of crescent moon marks. Her knuckles were white with frustration.
She hadn’t thought about Harmony in a long time. Harmony, the young crewmate
who'd been on the ship just before Neo was freed . . ."Was she . . . was
she treated . . . badly?"
No one said anything.
Trinity felt her breath catching
in her throat. "Was she . . . alone?"
The doors burst open and in
walked two men wearing dark clothing. Their gazes leveled to take in Trinity,
Nala and Temple, and then they sharply turned and made their way to the three
women. Cool as machines . . .
"Young lady, you’re to come
with us." They surrounded Temple. They grasped her upper-arms and the girl
rose to her feet solemnly.
"Miss Trinity, she just
knew. She knew about the One --" The men began to cart her away. "She
told us stories ’bout how she’d seen him! In my book! My book!"
Nala was wailing, though Trinity
hadn’t noticed until then. The men were struggling to keep Temple in tow,
dragging her roughly through the door and into the street.
Trinity’s mouth was dry. The
book. She reached for Temple’s bible.
Nala, still crying, swatted at
Trinity until Trinity reached for her arm and pushed it away. "Fuck you! I
hate you!" she cried, and turned and ran out of the pub and into the
street. Trinity was alone again.
* * *
It didn’t occur to Trinity until
later that Temple meant something inside the book, rather than a
biblical passage that alluded to the present moment. On the Hovertrain on her
way back to military headquarters, she flipped through the tattered pages and a
slip of paper fell to the ground. It was folded and unmarked. She picked it up
and opened it carefully.
In Harmony’s careful scrawl was
the word Neo. So she had known about him, had seen him briefly through the haze
of sickness. What followed was a poem that spanned the length of the entire
page.
1.
When the world frothed with
unhappiness
I could trace the source of
my dismay
by putting my hand
at the base of my skull,
letting my blue tinged
fingers
kiss the cold metallic ring,
mark of slavery.
Head bare, eyes in pain --
ripped from the arms of my
mother
and placed in the womb of a
stranger --
I knew no comfort.
They come in to tell me my
progress:
Congratulations. You weigh
eighty-five pounds.
2.
When you came into my world,
I didn’t understand that our
time together
would smother
the whiteness from your head.
Your eyes are questions
or songs in a foreign tongue.
How I clamored to see your
birth!
Yours was the first to come
after mine
and you were pink
with the frailty I no longer
remember.
3.
This ship holds us.
She is our mother, and we
are in her womb.
Her milk sustains us --
white, tasteless, plain
and thin with waning memory.
We are waiting for this war
to end so that we can be born,
but our birth will be a death
-- and who will hold us then?
Touch this mother, for she
is the only mother you will
ever know.
4.
In a world that seems
familiar
I walk on webbed concrete,
pull apart its strands like
thin lines of cotton,
test its pliability
with heavy combat boots. In
this world, I am not
a girl. I am a giant, I am a
gangster.
I kill children, see smoke
blood rise from their heads.
When I kill people, they burn
out quietly, their screams
fused with silence. Like
little children, they die
while sleeping -- preserved
in a jar labeled ash,
still and black as the world
above.
But I don’t want to die while
I sleep.
I go see the oracle.
She says, You will not grow old.
5.
On this ship, there is more
than humanity
between us.
There is silence,
startled only by mere breath.
You Neo, my hope for war’s
death --
I forget most things about
myself
but about you? Some things
stay with me --
The wet, glistening shine
of your newborn skin,
the rasp of your first,
timeless words.
All of us here, circling
round you,
the prickling silence of hand
in hand.
2. Flight
What are you now? If we could
touch one another,
if these our separate identities
could come to grips,
clenched like a Chinese
puzzle. . . . yesterday
I stood in a crowded street
that was live with people,
and no one spoke a word, and
the morning shone.
Everyone silent, moving. . .
. Take my hand. Speak to me.
-Muriel Rukeyser, "Effort
at Speech between Two People"
The light came in slowly, like
the light fades into the corners of a painting. Trinity opened her eyes and
recognized nothing. Desperate, she searched her memory for a piece of something
that would bring her to the present moment, but found nothing. She struggled to
sit up.
"Don’t get up so
fast."
Trinity slowly turned her head.
She flopped onto her back and stared at the white ceiling that loomed above.
"Morpheus . . ."
"You were lucky that you
were in the hospital when you fainted. Most people never get to pick where they
pass out."
"What?" she gasped.
Her head throbbed. "What the hell happened to me?"
Morpheus hovered over her,
trying to help her into a sitting position. "You’ve been very sick for the
past couple of days."
Then it hit her. She put a hand
to her chest. "Morpheus, you shouldn’t be near me. I need to be tested for
TB --"
Morpheus held up his hand.
"It’s already been done. Don’t worry, you’re fine."
Trinity exhaled. "Then
what’s wrong with me?"
"Just a nasty virus. You’re
lucky it happened here. On the Neb you would have been in bad shape, without a
medic to help. Here, drink this." He handed her a small cup of juice and
she took a tiny sip.
"A couple of days? Shit, I
missed the funerals." Her eyes fell to her lap. "I never got to say
good-bye, then or now."
Morpheus stood. "I’m just
glad you’re going to be alright. That’s what I’m thankful for." He
lingered for a second and frowned, like he wanted to say something more.
"There’s someone else who’s been worried about you. I’ll send him
in."
Jesus, Tank, Trinity thought as Morpheus left the
room. He’d probably been running around in circles when she didn’t go back to
the apartment. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d organized a search party.
Instead, Neo appeared in the
doorway, smiling shyly and holding a bunch of sad-looking flowers. He stepped
inside. "You look a lot better than you did yesterday."
"You look better too,"
she said. He looked so much different than she remembered . . . stronger, more
confident.
He handed her the flowers.
"When they showed me the agricultural caverns yesterday I managed to grab
these. They were going to recycle them."
She made room for him on the bed
and he sat down. "Thanks. But you shouldn’t come near me. I’m probably
still contagious."
Neo shrugged and looked down at
himself. "That’s what Morpheus said. But I don’t care. The doctors fixed
me up as good as new. In fact, I feel better now than I’ve ever felt in my
life."
A wave of self-consciousness
overtook Trinity. She looked away from Neo, carefully weighing her next move.
"So . . . so how are
you?" he asked in his quiet voice, leaning toward her a little.
"I’m okay," she said,
staring into his eyes for a brief moment and then looking away. Whenever their
eyes locked, she felt that she was at risk of losing her own identity -- an
identity she’d spent years fashioning. They’d all had their own strict roles.
Tank was the funny one. Mouse was the emotional teenager. Apoc was the cool
guy. Switch was the clever bitch. Cypher was the whiner. Dozer was the
confidant. And Trinity had been the strong one -- never the one to falter under
pressure or let emotion shake her from her duties.
"Have you seen much of Zion
yet?" she asked cautiously.
"Yeah. Morpheus and Tank
showed me some things yesterday."
Secretly her heart fell. She’d
been hoping to show Neo Zion before anyone else.
"The food is awful,"
he said, making a face of disgust. "I was hoping that they’d have
something decent here, but I guess not. That must be why everyone’s so
thin."
She nodded. "It’s all
vegan. They can’t raise livestock. But the liquor’s okay." She turned away
again. "Um, I sort wanted to . . . I have to change now . . ."
"Oh!" Neo said, rising
from the bed.
She looked over to see a slight
look of hurt cross his face. "I’ll see you . . ."
"Later," he finished,
his mouth forming a slight frown.
* * *
Dressing was the most exhausting
thing Trinity had done in a long time. She was out of breath by the time she
pulled on her pants, and could barely reach around her back to fasten her bra.
By the time she was dressed, she felt like crawling back into bed.
She was up just in time for an
important meeting at military headquarters. Dr. Holdzapfel presided, along with
Morpheus. The crews of the Orion, the Blue Streak, and the Dragonfly were in
attendance. As Trinity sat in one of the long rows, she found it increasingly
difficult to keep her mind on the subject at hand. She twirled a pencil in her
fingers as the doctor debriefed them on the latest advances in hovercraft
technology.
"He looks a lot stronger
than before," she whispered to Tank. She couldn’t take her eyes off Neo,
who sat closer to the front.
"They’ve been working on
him," Tank muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
"Well. I’m glad he’s
better."
Tank rolled his eyes and shook
his head. "You guys are doing this backwards."
"Huh?"
"Well, think about it. You started
out by declaring your undying love for him. Then you kissed him. Now
you’re talking to each other in fragmented sentences and barely making
eye-contact --"
"That’s not true!"
Trinity whispered harshly. She caught the eye of the doctor who glared at her.
She sat back in her seat and resigned herself to staring at the edges of a note
pad.
After it was all over Trinity
quietly spoke to Morpheus. "Have you told anyone yet?"
"Only Dr. Holdzapfel. And a
few resistance leaders. That’s it. You, Neo, Tank and I are about the only ones
who know the true extent of his powers."
"If the New Humanists got a
hold of the information they could destroy us," Trinity said.
"The New Realists could be
worse," Morpheus said. "They’d make him a poster-child, and for all
the wrong reasons."
Trinity observed Neo over by the
long, metallic tables. He was probing some odd looking sandwich they’d put out
for everyone.
"He needs to get out of
here," Morpheus said. "I want you to take him to some other part of
the city."
Trinity looked at Morpheus
questioningly. "I thought you and Tank showed him everything
yesterday."
"It’s a large place,
Trinity. I’m sure he’ll appreciate a different perspective."
Shit, even Morpheus was trying
to throw them together now! Oh, for a place that had attempted to keep them
apart for the first several days, it was certainly trying its hardest to push
things along now.
"He’s under too much
scrutiny here," Morpheus said. "Even those who don’t know the truth
know he is different from them. He’s older. And Dr. Holdzapfel can’t stop
experimenting with him. He needs a break."
Trinity nodded. "Shall I
take Tank with us?"
"No, no," Morpheus
insisted. "Go alone."
* * *
"You know, I can um, I can
fly now."
Trinity looked up. She felt a
pang of jealousy in her chest but squashed it. She knew she should be happy
that he could do all of things she couldn’t accomplish in her twelve years with
the resistance. "Not bad for a guy who freaked out at the thought of
climbing a scaffold." She smiled over her cup of coffee. They were in a
small cafe that overlooked Zion’s main square. Trinity had never dreamed that Zion
could be so cozy.
Neo smiled a little. "I know.
As trite as this sounds, it’s amazing what you can do if you put your mind
to it. I mean, I look at life in a whole different way now."
"There is no spoon?"
"Right. Exactly. And -- and
I’ve been thinking a lot about what the oracle told me. She didn’t tell me I
was the One, but didn’t really tell me I wasn’t either. She made me say
what I thought. Really, it was brilliant. I don’t think she knows anymore than
the rest of us. She just knows how to phrase things."
Trinity shook her head.
"Mmm, I don’t think so." She knew he wanted her to elaborate, but she
lowered her eyes and remained silent.
"What is it?" He slid
his hand across the table and gently took hers.
"Nothing," she said,
looking up but not removing her hand from his.
"Are you alright?"
"I’m fine," she said.
"You want to go for a walk?"
The central square of Zion was
by far the most decorative thing in the whole city. Hell -- it had actually
been planned. Canals of water used to irrigate the city flowed through concrete
passages below them, underneath panels of glass. There was even a fountain in
the center of the square. They ambled along, not touching, and paused there.
"What are these factions I
keep hearing about?" Neo said.
Trinity sighed. "There are
the New Humanists and the New Realists. In truth, both parties comprise only a
small percentage of the population. But most people, if you question them
carefully, will reveal a preference for one party over the other."
"What do they represent?"
"The New Humanists want to
end the war, which sounds right and good, but they want to end it at all costs.
They believe that by fighting within the Matrix we’re concentrating on an
unattainable goal, and we should concentrate on simply fighting the machines at
a ground war level. Cutting off their energy supply. Killing the enslaved
population."
"Jesus."
"They believe in getting
back to basics. They want to see us become less dependent on technology in
general."
"And the New
Realists?"
"Are technology lovers.
Most are Matrix born like you and me. They want to use technology to further
the war effort, even by studying the machines if possible. By using them to
fight their own war."
Neo cleared his throat.
"Which category did, uh, Cypher fall into?"
"Neither. He was just -- I
think he just lost it."
"To put it nicely," he
said, jamming his hands in his pockets. Trinity didn’t say anything.
"So there’s a war here
too," he said.
"In a way," Trinity
said. "Sometimes this place feels more unreal than anything I’ve ever
experienced."
Neo looked up. "That light
feels almost natural."
"It’s supposed to be just
like sunlight. But don’t worry, it can’t burn us."
Neo laughed lightly.
"That’s what I was wondering." He took her hand again and they
walked, and Trinity let herself feel a certain comfort that she’d only thought
about. She almost approached euphoria a few times, but pulled back at the last
moment.
* * *
Whenever Neo ate, he became
sick. He apologized profusely because he was never quite able to predict when
and where he might throw up. "I’m so, so sorry," he told Trinity
while he was bent over and retching into a gutter. "This is awful, I
know."
"It’s okay," she said.
"It happened to all of us. The shock of eating solid food after a lifetime
of receiving things intravenously has its downside. And you never did have a
strong stomach."
"I’m so sorry," he
said again, wiping his mouth and standing up.
"Really, it’s
alright." He amused her. He seemed so innocent about a lot of things -- it
was rather touching. "Stop apologizing."
"The food here is
disgusting. I don’t know why I eat it."
"I know," Trinity
said. "I miss real bread and noodles, and not the imitations here made
without milk or eggs or anything else."
"Yeah. I miss a lot of
things, even though they weren't real." They began to walk again.
"Sub sandwiches," she
suggested.
"Steak."
"Did you ever try BLT
pizza? It’s a lot better than it sounds."
"You know," Neo said,
"when I was in college, a friend of mine gave me a jug of this liquid
stuff called beefomato as a gag gift. It was totally disgusting at the time,
but I bet I’d drink it now." He paused. "Well, I don’t know if I’d
drink it now -- it still sounds pretty disgusting, actually."
Trinity laughed, she couldn’t
help it. "You don’t seem too sick anymore."
"I’d hold you right
now," he said quietly, "but I’m really revolting. I’ve been puking
all evening. You’ll have to forgive me for that. Hey, where are we?"
Trinity looked up. She didn’t
recognize any of the tenement houses that surrounded them. The light had gone
from Zion which made it even harder. "I -- I think we came from this way
over here." They changed directions and passed between two metallic
buildings. "Well, maybe not."
"Are you saying you don’t
know?" Neo smiled. He was clearly enjoying this unrehearsed bit of comedy.
Trinity wasn’t as relaxed. Zion
was a large place -- like Chicago. But virtual Chicago was more familiar than
this. "If we can find the hovertrain . . ."
"I haven’t seen it in a
while," Neo said.
A group of people stood on the
corner, speaking in a different language. Trinity tried asking directions, but
they didn’t understand.
"Shit," Trinity
muttered. She led them down a different passageway lined with old pieces of
scrap metal that formed uneven buildings. Don’t get excited, don’t let on
that you don’t know where you are . . .
"Hey!"
Trinity turned around. A group
of teenage boys stood at the mouth of the alley. They’d been behind a heap of
scrap metal so she hadn’t seen them before.
"What do are you people
doing?" a tall one asked. He had a slightly different accent -- typical of
English-speaking people who were born and raised in Zion.
Another boy jumped down from the
heap of scrap metal. "This is our patch. Take your coppertop selves somewhere
else."
"What’s wrong with this
one?" A red-haired boy began to jab Neo. "Fuckin’ bald guy with a
plug so big it could hold eighty krummens."
"Let’s get out of
here," Trinity whispered to Neo. She took his arm and turned.
A stout boy flanked them and the
tall one obstructed their passage through the alley. The tall one reached out
and whipped Neo across the base of the skull. Neo took the blow and stumbled
forward then danced around to face the boy, still holding his hand across the
back of his neck. Trinity could tell that he didn’t know how to react. He
looked to her. In the Matrix he was the One -- but in Zion he was simply
another soldier at the mercy of gang violence.
The red head stepped in front of
Trinity. "Seen any real combat? Seen any real combat like this?" He
reached out to grab her and she blocked him, raising her leg and kicking him
squarely in the abdomen. He doubled over.
"Run Neo," she said,
before taking a punch to her jaw. She reeled from the shock, then came back to
deck another boy. But there were too many of them, and strong through she was,
this wasn’t the Matrix. She was thrown against the metal siding of a building
before collapsing to the ground, taking a series of kicks to the face and
throat. She felt despair for the first time in weeks. What was happening to
Neo? Was he taking it as bad as she was?
"ZPA!" a loud voice
bellowed. "Don’t move!"
The boys who had been holding
Neo let go and ran. Those who had been surrounding Trinity retreated and were
not chased by the agents. They’d get away with it, as always.
Trinity couldn’t see anything,
but she could tell that the agents were busy helping Neo. Then they turned and
bent over her. "This is bad," one of them said.
"I’m fine," she
groaned, clenching her abdomen and trying not to shudder from the pain.
"What are you doing here?" She squinted to see their faces and
realized they were the same agents who had been staked out in front of Neo’s
hospital room all of those nights ago. "Neo . . ."
"Trinity? Are you
okay?" Neo crouched down beside her, cupping her face with one hand.
"Jesus . . ." He found her hand and squeezed it.
"I’m okay," she
whispered. She stared at the men beyond Neo. "You were following us!"
"Your captain’s orders,
ma’am," he said. Trinity tasted blood.
* * *
Back at the military hostel,
Morpheus was on the rampage and the target of his fury was Trinity. "How
could you?" he yelled, shut in a room alone with Trinity who was tending
to a mess of cuts and bruises on her face. "With everything you know . . .
how the hell could you get yourself and Neo in such a volatile situation? Do
you have any idea what might have come of this? Do you have any idea what could
have been lost?"
"You had us followed!"
Trinity countered, her voice breaking.
"And it’s a good thing,
too! Jesus, this is something I would have expected from . . . from someone
else, someone young like Mouse. How . . ." His voice grew quieter but with
no less seriousness. "How could you be so irresponsible?"
"We just . . . got lost,"
she said faintly.
"You should have known
better."
"It won’t happen
again." Trinity bit her lip and turned away.
"You’re damn right it
won’t." He got up and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind
him.
After what seemed like a very
long time, Trinity finally found the strength to leave the room and stagger
down the hall into her own private room. Neo was already there.
"Trinity, my God . .
." he said, staring at her face. Her eye would be swollen shut by the next
day. "This shouldn’t have happened --"
"It’s not your fault,
Neo," she said flatly, avoiding his eyes at all costs.
"I think it is. You -- you
were trying to protect me. It shouldn’t be that way. It should be the other way
around --"
"Oh God, go to hell,"
she said. "I can’t believe what I’m hearing. You of all people."
"I’m the One," he
said, as if that explained everything.
"You’re right, you
are," she said, trying to hide her face. "And the rest of us have to
be willing to do anything to keep you safe. I let you down. You were my responsibility
and I failed --"
"Bullshit!" he said.
"You think my life is worth more than yours?"
"Yes! What do you think
this is about? Of course your life is worth more than mine. It’s worth
more than all our lives put together! Why do you think Morpheus gave himself to
that agent? And Tank waited to use the EMP? You’re the One! You’re our last
hope . . ."
Neo stepped back. Trinity could
hear his ragged breathing. "That . . . that’s not . . ."
"I want to be alone,"
she said with her back toward him.
Neo didn’t move. "You’re
shaking."
"I’m fine."
"You’re in terrible shape
--"
"I’m fine, goddammit!"
Neo grew very quiet. "Stop
saying that," he whispered hoarsely. "You’re not fine. I’ve never
seen anyone farther from fine. You’re not telling me the truth. You owe me the
truth."
Trinity’s shoulders were
shaking. It took her a few moments to realize that she was crying. Neo came up
from behind her and put her arms around her. She let him, slowly relaxing
enough to turn around and wrap her arms around his waist. Neo’s hands fluttered
up to her shoulders and the back of her head. He whispered something. She could
feel him touch the ring at the back of her neck and clutch her more tightly.
Several minutes later Trinity
was sitting on the bed with Neo. She had let him take the ice pack from her and
hold it to her face. Other than that, she couldn’t do much of anything.
"I’m numb," she said, holding onto his arm.
"You’re not numb," he
said. "Numb people don’t cry for extended periods of time." He
massaged her shoulder. "I thought maybe you resented me."
"You? Why would I resent
you?"
He sighed. "The crew. I
feel like . . ." He drew back, searching for the words. "I feel like
it was my fault. Like they died for me. I guess they did. I guess they did die
for me. And . . . if I had done things differently . . . like if I had paid
more attention to the oracle, perhaps --"
"The same thing would have
happened anyway. Cypher wanted us dead. He would have killed them anyway, if
not then, then later. It was inevitable."
"Maybe," Neo said. He
put his arm around Trinity’s waist. "You told me you loved me . . . how
did you know?"
"I just did," she said
with a reluctant smile, though her tears were stinging some of the wounds on
her face. "There wasn’t any scientific explanation about it. And I do love
you. I’ll always love you, even if you don’t love me back --"
"Trinity," Neo said,
touching her chin. "I love you."
They curled up together on the
bed intending to go to sleep. Trinity held tightly to Neo, afraid that
everything was a dream, another reality from which she would be pulled out of,
and Neo ruffled her hair and kissed her softly. Then they were kissing more
frequently, coming to grips with a need that suddenly seemed to run through
them both. They were lifting each other now, holding each other up and making
love with an intensity that shocked them and bound them together at the same
time. And Trinity, always afraid that she might never really know anyone,
realized that she had let Neo reach a part of herself that she never knew
existed.
* * *
The days that followed were not
easy ones. The council called for a special investigation into Cypher’s last
actions, and Trinity had to testify before a select assembly. Testimony was
dragged out of her about Cypher’s character and motives. After a particularly
grueling day on the stand, Trinity came back to the hostel and collapsed.
"That asshole," she sobbed to Neo, not quite knowing if she meant
Cypher or the council member who cross-examined her.
"Go ahead and cry,"
Neo said. "This is the only the time we’ll be able to afford to cry."
The case continued and no one
knew what was going to come of it. Eventually it became clear that the council
had no real objective; they were simply using the tragic deaths on the
Nebuchadnezzar to fight a political battle. It was a profane abuse of the
system.
"We’re leaving soon,"
Morpheus told his remaining crew members in a meeting one day. "They’ve
got nothing to detain us."
"That’s a relief,"
Tank said. "I never thought I’d be so happy to get out of here."
But Trinity felt like there was
something missing. One day she ventured into Zion to purchase new ship
supplies. The Nebuchadnezzar had been repaired, but they lost many of the
things they’d taken for granted. As Trinity haggled over the price of a new
frequency detector, she heard a shout go up and saw a dark blur sprint past
her. It was Nala.
"Nala!" she cried.
Nala turned once but continued
running down the next street. Trinity dropped everything and ran after her.
Minutes later she found the girl huddling in a doorway.
"Nala, come with me."
"I stole this," the
girl said, holding out her hand to reveal an apple. "I won’t give it
back."
"No, of course not,"
Trinity said. "But I want you to come with me."
"No. I hate you. You’ll
turn me in. I won’t go with you." Her dark eyes glared up at Trinity.
"I won’t turn you in. I
want to get you out of here. Don’t you want to get out of this place and do
something for a change?"
Nala laughed humorlessly.
"I’m happy where I am." She took a bite out of the apple.
"There she is!"
Trinity turned to find a grocer
heading for them. "Come on! Let’s get out of here!" She pulled Nala
to her feet and dragged her down the street and into the tunnel.
* * *
Trinity watched as Nala slept in
the military hospital. She was hooked up to an I.V. and a few other things that
were supposed to get her system back to normal and clean out all of the nasty
substances. Nala slept through everything, oblivious to the fact that she was
being cared for by the people she once despised.
"Where’s Neo?"
Morpheus asked as he approached the glass window.
"Oh, he’s with Tank,"
Trinity said.
"Good. I hope Tank’s
teaching him how to maintain the ship engines."
Trinity smiled and glanced at
Morpheus. "Oh, I think Tank’s giving him quite a time." They laughed
a little.
"What’s going to become of
her?" Morpheus asked, pointing at Nala.
"I don’t know,"
Trinity said, touching the glass. "They’ve got no programs to care for
people like this. As soon as they turn her loose, she’ll go back to the same
things all over again." She shook her head.
Morpheus studied Trinity and his
mouth was set in a firm line. "I don’t think they’ll turn her loose,"
he said carefully. "I think she’s coming with us. God knows we need
her."
Trinity glanced up skeptically.
"Morpheus, are you sure? This girl has real problems . . . and Jesus,
we’ve had our fair share of those."
Morpheus smiled. "I don’t
think she’ll be too much of a handful. She reminds me of you, the way you had
that glint of hostility in your eyes. The way you’d flinch if anyone came too
close."
Trinity looked up, startled.
Then she shook her head. "I forgot."
"I think we forget most
things about ourselves. It’s easy to remember things about the others." He
paused. "And besides, Tank will grow tired of Neo. He’ll need someone new
to boss around."
Trinity’s heart felt light for a
change.
"I’ve been hard on
you," Morpheus remarked.
"You’re kidding,
right?" Trinity said casually.
"It was wrong of me to have
your followed without your knowing it," he said. "And I apologize for
that."
Trinity nodded, unsure of what
to say or how to act. "I used to be the best. I was always the best. At
everything. Now everything is different and it’s better this way."
Morpheus squeezed her shoulder
before walking away. "You might still be the best." Behind the glass
Nala awoke.
* * *
When Nala awoke, she didn’t
speak for a long time. She simply followed Trinity around the room with her
eyes.
"Nala," Trinity said
softly, "what happened to Temple?"
Nala’s weak answer came an hour
later: "She died a week ago."
"In the sanatorium?"
She nodded. Trinity went to see
for herself if Nala was correct. She was not allowed in the sanatorium, so she
had to discuss things with a nurse through a narrow window. "Miss, we had
the body burned after she died. There’s nothing to see."
"Did she leave anything
behind?"
"No." The nurse went
to shut the small window.
"Wait," Trinity
pleaded. "There was someone else here. From my crew. A girl named Harmony.
Do you remember her?"
"No."
"Could you check to see if
she left anything?"
The nurse frowned. "Miss,
we don’t keep things around. It’s not good for the public health --"
"But this girl was a
poet."
"It doesn’t make any
difference," the nurse said. "We get rid of everything."
So that was it. Trinity took
comfort in the fact that she had Neo and a new crew member to look after, and
the fact that they were finally leaving Zion. What was supposed to take two
weeks had lasted nearly a month. A month away from the war. That was the
longest Trinity had gone without being on a ship, or without being in the
Matrix, for that matter.
* * *
Another newbie joined the ranks
-- a pale freeborn named Link. He would be the new medic. "Looks pretty
sickly for a medic," Tank whispered to Trinity and Neo as they prepared to
leave Zion. They all tittered a little, but Trinity couldn’t help feel a pang
for Dozer, who had been the absolute picture of perfect health.
And Nala wasn’t really talking,
but she seemed rather content with her private quarters. She seemed for
comfortable with the crew. "You’re a nice girl," Tank told her while
she helped him run wires from deck to deck.
"Shut up, fuckhead"
she replied. "I hate you." It was fitting.
Trinity tried not to let the
noises of the old ship haunt her too much. Now she had Neo to wake up with in
the morning, his warm breath on her cheek and the back of her neck, his hands
wrapping around hers, moist and damp with a mixture of sweat. Get the ring.
The ring was in sight. She could almost touch it.
One day Trinity was clearing
through some things in her old quarters when she came across items that she
hadn’t seen in a long time. She wasn’t even sure how they’d gotten placed in
her quarters, but they stared up at her from the pile and she handled them
reverently, and felt something touch her deep inside. Mouse’s hat. Switch’s
deck of cards. Two books, probably either Morpheus’s or Harmony’s. One was an
old, fading book about North American birds, and the other was a tattered
collection of Chekhov’s short stories.
Trinity didn’t like to read
because it seemed like a complete waste of time, and because you couldn’t
change a book the way you could change a computer program. But now she let her
eyes skim the words and take everything in. She liked one story in particular,
for the end seemed rather poignant: And it seemed as though in a little
while the solution would be found, and then a new and glorious life would
begin; and it was clear to both of them that the end was still far off, and
what was to be the most complicated and difficult for them was only just
beginning.
* * *
They had been in flight for a
week when Morpheus, Link, Trinity and Neo were in the mess hall together and
Morpheus was talking about what they had to do now that they were getting
back on track. "We need at least two more members to have a complete
crew," he said. "They’re going to have to come from the Matrix. This
is the first thing that needs to be done."
A loud voice came from the
hallway. "No I won’t! You can’t make me!"
Link chuckled. "They’re
fighting again."
"I’m not doing anything to
you!" Tank shouted.
"You’re sick, really sick!
You know that?" came Nala’s voice.
Morpheus sighed and closed his
eyes. "Who’s on duty?"
"Nala’s supposed to
be," Neo replied. "But I can take her shift."
Morpheus shook his head. "I
almost forgot how wonderful it is to have young people on this ship. How could
I have missed this?" He left to break up the fight.
Link smiled shyly at Trinity and
Neo. Then he got up and left, which Trinity thought was awfully considerate of
him.
"There’s a lot we have to
do," Trinity said to Neo. "Starting with the extra shift you just
picked up."
"You’ll have to show me how
to take it all on and retain some sanity."
"Oh believe me, this is
just the beginning," she said.
Neo got up and accidentally
knocked Trinity’s book from the table, sending loose pages fluttering about the
room like a soft explosion. "Oh my God, I’m sorry."
Trinity laughed and they both
bent over to collect the scattered pages. "How will we ever get these in
order again? Boy, it’s useless."
"Wait -- what’s this?"
Neo was bent over. He flipped something over in his hand that had fallen from
the book and landed near his boot. It was a photograph. "Trinity?"
"What?" She got up and
crouched beside him, draping an arm around his back and threading her other arm
through his.
"This is -- it’s --"
Trinity inhaled slowly. The
photograph was about ten years old. The whole crew was there, but mostly a
different crew, a crew that was long gone. The photograph was an official one,
probably taken for record purposes in Zion, and what it was doing nestled in
the book was a mystery.
Morpheus was the same, his
staunch attitude reflected in the photograph. Tank was so young and innocent
and grinning off to the side. Trinity recognized the other crew members -- they
stared solemnly into the camera with age-old expressions of longing and candor.
They believed they were doing the right thing, and none of them had expected to
die that day or the next day or the week or month after that. This was before
Switch and Apoc came, before Mouse -- even before Cypher. And she recognized
all these people, could hear their voices calling to her in the corridor and
fading quietly with the roar of the engine.
And there she was, with the same
stoic demeanor as the others, her eyes catching the camera with a mischievous
light. You’re the best, he’d told her, and she believed him and she
lasted. She had lived.
"My God," Neo said in
a choked whisper. His eyes, wet and astonished, met Trinity’s. "That --
that’s --"
"Yes Neo," Trinity
said. "My God, I know."
December 2000