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Morpheus met her as she came up to the main
deck.
"We're almost ready to take you in to see
the Oracle."
"Oracle? Like the Greek fortune teller?"
"She doesn't so much tell fortunes as help
you choose your future, if you will."
"And she's human?"
"Yes, very much so." Morpheus put a hand on
the girl's shoulder and steered her towards one of the chairs. "She's extremely
old. She's been with us since the beginning of the Resistance. She was
the one who told me I would find Neo."
"So she knows everything? Is she ever wrong?"
"Try not to think of it in terms of right
and wrong. She is a guide. She can help you to find the path for your future."
Morpheus helped the girl into her chair and then walked behind her to get
into his own. Tank secured the foot restraints over her boots and then
took the connector needle down from the holder over the girl's head.
"See you on the other side." Mouse said, grinning
from the chair next to hers. Tank pushed the needle into her head.
Blackness.
The old hotel again. Sunlight streaming in through the heavy ripped curtains. The dark man was the first one in this time. He looked from side to side as the others appeared around him- the dark hared woman straightening her sunglasses, the other man, long coat fluttering in an almost-dead breeze, the boy, looking around nervously from behind a pair of dark glasses, and then, a new one-a girl, short, curly hair a stripe in the front dyed bright purple. She blinked and looked around her, then looked down at herself.
Trinity stepped up to the phone in the middle
of the room and lifted the receiver.
"We're through."
*Have fun* Tank told her. She grinned and
hung the phone up again, nodding to Morpheus.
"Very good."
Neo opened the doors, holding them as the
others headed out. They opened onto a sort of porch-like area, a loading
zone. There was an old-looking big black car parked a little ways away.
Morpheus headed for it. Flux looked behind her. Neo was coming out of the
doorway. He grinned.
"It's okay. The first time in is always a
little weird."
"More than a little weird.... Where's Mouse?"
she looked around. "I didn't see him come out."
"I don't know." Neo opened the door again.
Flux looked in. Mouse was standing on the stair landing above, gripping
the banister with both hands.
"Mouse... come on!" she called. He shook his
head.
"I can't do this."
Flux looked back at Neo.
"Tell Morpheus to wait for a minute."
Neo nodded and let the door swing shut. Flux
started up the stairs.
"Mouse, I'm coming up, okay?" There was no
answer. She reached the landing he was on and leaned on the banister next
to him. "You all right?"
"This... here.... is where the... the Agents..."
he dropped his head and closed his eyes. "The only reason I made it last
time- when we came to get you- was because Morpheus was there... and I
wasn't going to let myself break down in front of him."
She put her hand over his. "Where?"
"Third floor... Second room."
"Do you want to go up there?"
He didn't respond.
"You don't have to, but it might help."
"Okay." Mouse whispered, nodding. "I'll go."
He let go of the banister and took Flux's hand. They started up the stairs.
As they got to the landing on the second floor, Mouse started to shiver.
Flux put her hand on his back.
"You don't have to."
"Yes, I do." He took a breath and opened the
second door. Eyes closed, he stepped inside. He was almost crushing Flux's
hand, but she stayed silent.
"Here." Mouse pushed aside the drapery over
what seemed to be a window, revealing a brick wall. There were bullet holes
through the bricks and red stains smeared down the walls and the floor.
Mouse put both hands on the wall and bowed his head.
"God... I thought I was dead." he whispered,
dropping to his knees. "I thought I was dead." A single tear dripped from
his eye. Flux knelt and embraced him. He turned around and put his arms
around her waist, sobbing quietly into her shoulder.
They stayed that way for a good five minutes
before Mouse sighed and sat back, wiping at his eyes.
"I don't know why this affects me so much."
"You almost died. You're entitled to it."
"I guess so."
"Do you feel any better?"
"Actually... yeah, I do. Thanks... a lot."
Flux smiled, a little embarrassed.
"No problem." She stood and helped Mouse to
his feet. "Should we go down and join everyone else?"
"I guess so." He took her hand and they went
down the stairs together. Flux squinted against the sunlight as Mouse opened
the door.
"It's bright out here."
"No, it's just dark in there."
Flux looked up at him. He grinned, obviously
in a better mood. The car that had been out in front of the building was
running. Neo stood up from where he had been sitting in the open door,
gesturing for them to get in.
Even though the car looked like it should have
had room and then some to spare, it was crowded with five people in it.
Trinity was driving, and Morpheus sat shotgun. Neo was in the back with
Flux and Mouse. Flux watched the outside world go by through the windows.
"Hey." She pointed to something outside. "That
was my favorite CD store. It wasn't even real, was it. I just thought it
was. All of the stuff I though I had done, the memories I've got...none
of it's real."
"The Matrix can do a lot of things," Neo explained.
" but it can't tell you who you are. You have to decide that yourself."
The car pulled up outside a shabby apartment
building.
"Come, Flux." Morpheus got out of the car
and took the girl inside the building.
"I hope the Oracle's easier on her than she
was on me." Neo muttered.
Inside the building, Morpheus pushed the elevator
up button and then ushered the girl inside. They rode to the third floor
in silence. Morpheus got off first and led the girl to a door. Room 303.
It looked the same as any of the other doors lining the hall.
"I can only show you the door, Flux. You have
to open it."
Flux looked at him for a moment, then reached
out towards the doorknob. Before she touched it, the door swung open. The
kind face of one of the Oracle's 'priestesses' greeted her.
"Hello, Flux. You're right on time. Morpheus,
make yourself at home. Flux, come with me."
Flux followed her into the living room of
the apartment.
"You can wait here, with the other potentials."
The priestess moved off, down the hall. Morpheus was nowhere to be seen.
There were others in the room, her age or younger-a young bald boy in a
toga-like garment was sitting on the floor behind a row of mangled spoons.
Two girls were juggling blocks in the air, never once touching them. The
boy in the corner who looked to be the closest to her age looked up from
the book he was reading to glance at her. He looked from her head to her
feet and back again. Flux smiled at him, but there was something condescending
in his eyes that she didn't like. He returned to his book. Another of the
priestesses touched her on the shoulder.
"The Oracle will see you now." She was pointed
towards the kitchen. Looking up at the beaded doorway hanging, she went
in.
There was a plump African American woman sitting
at the kitchen table wearing half-glasses and squinting at a needlepoint
frame on the table in front of her. She looked up as the girl came in.
"Flux. Welcome."
"You're the Oracle?"
The Oracle smiled.
"Not what you expected, huh?"
"I don't know. I didn't know what to expect."
"Smart girl. You were expecting one of those
Greeks draped in a bedsheet and sitting in a marble chair though, weren't
you?"
"Well.... kind of." Flux looked down, somewhat
embarrassed. The Oracle chuckled.
"Girl, that's one of the more flattering things
I've been imagined as. I'll take it as a compliment. Now then, you
have no clue why you're here, don't you."
"Morpheus said you saw the future-you were
a guide, and helped people choose the way to go."
"Morpheus was right." She put a few more stitches
into the needlepoint. "You have a thing for that Mouse boy, don't you."
"Well..." Flux stalled.
"Don't hide it, girl, I can read you like
an open book."
Flux turned red and looked at her boots.
"There's nothing wrong with it. Just be careful.
He'll be there when your life takes a turn. Can't see if it's for better
or worse, though, and if it's for worse, there's no telling what he'll
do. You kept him sane today... he knows it, and he's ready to do the same
for you."
Flux's face was fire-engine red, and if she
stared any harder at the floor, it was going to start smoking.
"Hey, girl." The Oracle got up and put an
arm around Flux's shoulders. "Don't be embarrassed. I see you doing great
things. Great things, girl. You're gonna get out there and do what even
Neo hasn't attempted."
"Neo's done-"
"-a darn lot, I know. But what you're gonna
do he's never even thought of trying."
"Is that good or bad?"
"I don't know, honey. I honestly don't know."
The Oracle gave her a squeeze, then went over to a cow shaped cookie jar.
"Take a snickerdoodle. You'll feel better when you get outside, trust me."
Flux took the cookie, and turned to go.
"Keep your chin up, Flux." the Oracle called
after her. "Always look to the light." Flux smiled. The beaded curtain
in the kitchen door clicked as she exited. The Oracle smiled and shook
her head, returning to her needlepoint.
Morpheus met Flux as she came out of the kitchen.
Sensing she was about to speak, he stopped her.
"The Oracle's words are for you and you alone."
Flux shrugged and bit into the cookie. She
slowly finished the cookie in the elevator ride down. It was dark outside,
and streetlight reflections shone in the paint of the shiny black car.
Flux slid into the backseat next to Mouse again. Neo had moved up to shotgun
to talk to Trinity; he got out and moved into the back, relinquishing the
seat to Morpheus.
"What time is it?" Flux asked. Trinity looked
at the dashboard clock.
"7:07."
"Hey... Millennium's open," Mouse commented.
"He's right... anyone for clubbing?" Neo looked
around.
"Uh.. slight problem." Flux waved her hand.
"Unless you guys have a lot of pull, you're not gonna get me in. I'm still
only fourteen."
Neo pulled something out of his pocket and
handed it to her.
"You're not fourteen. You've been eighteen
for the last month."
It was a laminated ID card, dated a month
ago, with her picture and date of birth... 1982.
"Oh... awesome!"
"You and Mouse both have one. We've changed
your birth certificates and records temporarily too. You'll stay 'eighteen'
until you actually have your eighteenth birthday, and then you'll start
aging again. It's so you can get into places with us or without us if something
weird happens." Neo explained.
"Of course, it also comes awfully in handy
when you get carded at clubs." Mouse whispered to her.
Trinity pulled the car into a gravel parking
lot behind a row of low brick buildings. Flux pulled at the door handle,
trying to figure out how it opened. Mouse leaned across and opened it for
her.
"Ohh.... I get it." It was a suicide door....
no wonder she had been having problems. She slid out and straightened her
jacket. It kept getting hung up on the velvet of the shirt she was wearing.
Mouse stood up behind her and closed the car door. Neo crunched over the
gravel towards the low silver dome on the other side of the lot.
The line to get into Millennium was short,
and the group reached the front almost immediately. The bouncer waved Trinity,
Morpheus and Mouse through and then paused, looking at Flux.
"You don't look-"
Flux cut him off, holding up her ID card between
two fingers. At the same time, Neo moved in closer behind her, making it
more than obvious that they were part of the same group. The bouncer took
the card from her and looked at it, glancing from the picture to her face
and back again. Flux gave him her best impatient look. The bouncer turned
around and tapped another man on the shoulder, showing him the card. They
exchanged brief words, and the other man nodded.
"Okay, go on." The first bouncer sounded less
then happy with his counterpart's decision.
"Thank you." Flux took her card back rather
sharply, and with Neo headed inside.
The air was hazy... partially with cigarette
smoke and partially from the dry-ice fog they were pumping in for 'atmosphere'.
Flux paused for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the semi-darkness.
Neo took her elbow and steered her towards the other side of the dome where
Trinity and Mouse had commandeered one of the low tables. Morpheus was
nowhere to be seen.
"Pretty cool, huh?" Mouse said into her ear.
She turned, grinning.
"Yeah... pretty darn cool."
There were lasers and strobe lights and stage
lights in all colors suspended from the top of the dome, the lasers cutting
through the smoke to project colored squiggles on the walls. The stage-type
lights pointed in all different directions, flooding different sections
of the dome with all colors of the rainbow. The music pounded from hundreds
of different speakers, surrounding you in an envelope of noise and making
it hard to communicate.
"Both of you okay?" Trinity asked. Flux and
Mouse both nodded. "No alcohol, remember. There's only so far I'll push
the laws. Oh... Flux." She dug into her pocket and pulled something out.
Taking the girl's hand she dropped a small green crystal on a chain into
her palm. "It's a tracking device-so Tank can tell where you are. The transmission
signals fluctuate so the Agents can't use it to find you." She smiled.
"Everyone wears them differently, but I thought this might be the easiest
for you." She and Neo moved into the crowd, heading for the bar.
Flux sat on the carpeted tabletop and shrugged her jacket off, hooking
the crystal around her neck.
"My parents would so kill me if they could
see me now."
"The thing is that they're genetically not
really your parents." Mouse pulled the chair at the back of the table out
and sat down, putting his feet up next to Flux and taking his sunglasses
off.
"What do you mean?" she scootched around to
face him.
"I mean that the people you thought you were
living with aren't really your parents. Everyone's born in a test tube
now, and the machines just make the couples think that it's their kid.
You could actually be the offspring of some Canadian and an Australian.
That's why these days, a lot of kids don't look a darn thing like their
parents."
"That kinda makes sense... I didn't look like
either of my 'parents'." She made quotation marks in the air with her fingers.
"Of course, it made it easy for them. They could just claim I wasn't theirs
when I got into trouble."
"Which you did a lot."
"Which I did a lot, yeah." She chuckled and
swung her legs over the other edge of the table so she was sitting face
to face with Mouse. The song changed, transitioning into a jazzed-up and
synthesized version of Britney Spears' "Baby One More Time.' Flux made
a gagging noise.
"Even technology can't help this song. Or
Britney herself. 'Hit me baby one more time'" she warbled in a mocking
falsetto. "Blonde silicone enhanced bimbo... your type of girl, Mouse."
Mouse glared good-naturedly at her.
"That wasn't funny."
"Oh, yes it was."
"How do you know what type of girl I like?"
He leaned forward.
"The Pamela Anderson clone you programmed
kind of gave it away."
"Maybe that's just one type. How do you know
I don't think short girls wearing black with partially purple hair are
hot?"
Flux grinned, twisting the purple stripe in
her hair around her finger.
"Are you calling me short?" she asked.
"Are you saying I like Britney Spears?" he
countered.
"No."
"Then I'm not calling you short."
Flux crossed her legs and propped her heels
on the arm of Mouse's chair, remembering what the Oracle had said about
him. She cocked her head to the side and looked at him.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Just thinking."
"Something the Oracle said?"
"Yeah." she rubbed the side of her nose. "It's
no big deal."
In a techno riff, Britney Spears disappeared
into Eiffel65.
"Oh gods, I love this song." Flux started
singing along. "-that lives in a blue world and all day and all night and
everything he sees is just blue like him inside and outside." Flux stood
up and pulled Mouse to his feet, dragging him out onto the dance floor.
"Oh, come on...." he protested.
"Don't give me any crap about not being able
to dance."
"Well, I can't!"
"Then you'll just have to learn." She grabbed
the front of his shirt and pulled him in close to her, putting one arm
around his neck. "Just move. Don't think."
Mouse found out quickly that he could dance, and in fact rather liked it.
The song ended, morphing into an even more
popped-up version of Right Said Fred's 'I'm Too Sexy.' Flux immediately
started mouthing the words, making Mouse laugh. She started to giggle,
and then it was all they could do to make it back to the table before collapsing.
Flux put her head down on the table and tried to catch her breath.
"Whooo..." Mouse breathed.
"And you said you couldn't dance." Flux looked
up at him from the tabletop.
"Maybe I lied."
"Maybe you shouldn't lie. It could get you
in trouble."
"Ooh..." Mouse raised an eyebrow at her.
"Sicko." She swatted at him, putting her head back down on the
table. He caught her wrist and pulled her up.
"I... uh... never got to... thank you for
what happened earlier.... so I guess... thank you." He leaned forward and
kissed her gently on the lips, then pulled back, watching for her reaction.
"Well then.... you're welcome." She kissed
him back, then smiled. "Would you believe I've never kissed a guy before?"
"If you'd believe I've never kissed a girl
before." He smiled back, and put an arm around her, letting her rest her
head on his shoulder.
"Here's to the blind leading the blind," she
joked.
"Hip-hip-hooray." Mouse gave a quiet cheer,
and they both laughed.
Trinity and Neo came back to find them around
10:00. Flux was half asleep, tired from her training that morning and then
the excitement of meeting the Oracle, and was dozing on Mouse's shoulder.
"Time to go, you guys. There may be trouble
coming in." Neo said. Mouse nodded, and nudged Flux.
"Wake up... time to go."
"Mmmpph.." she complained, and opened her
eyes. "I heard him." She pushed herself up out of the chair and put her
coat on, following Neo and Trinity out the back door. The car was waiting,
in the rain, Morpheus in the driver's seat. She slid into the back
seat after Mouse and shook her damp hair out of her eyes, pulling the door
shut. Morpheus stepped on the gas and the tires ground on the loose gravel
as the car turned and sped away.
"What kind of trouble?" Flux asked.
"Tank said there were three agents getting
too close for comfort." Neo explained. "We decided it was better to be
safe than sorry."
"Which is usually a good policy." Trinity
added. She twisted the knob on the car radio, and it sputtered to life,
playing the GooGoo Doll's 'Iris'
"Ooh... good song." Flux put her head back
on Mouse's shoulder and closed her eyes.
The ride back to the old abandoned hotel was
uneventful at best. Flux was jostled awake again as they pulled into the
loading zone. Morpheus killed the engine and everyone climbed out, squinting
against the rain. Inside, Flux shook her jacket off, leaving a series of
small puddles in the entryway. As the group climbed the stairs to get to
the hard-line on the second floor, Mouse looked up to the third floor then
took Flux's hand. She looked up briefly too, then squeezed his hand gently.
Morpheus pushed the double door open, holding
it for the rest of the group. Almost on cue, the old-fashioned phone
rang. Neo lifted it to his ear. He was covered in.. no... he became a wireframe
image, then disappeared from the bottom up. Trinity hung the phone up again.
It rang immediately. She picked it up again, and offered it to Flux. The
girl took it and put it to her ear, watching Trinity. The room became a
wireframe model for a split second, and then there was blackness.
Her eyes opened. She was back on the Nebuchadnezzar,
and Tank was *hello!* taking the spike out of the back of her skull. He
leaned over and spoke into her ear.
"So you chose Mouse over me, huh? I'm hurt."
"You little..... aagh!" she smacked him on
the shoulder. He grinned and thumped her on the back.
"No.. hey. I'm happy for ya, Little Sister."
She smiled, a little embarrassed. Neo was
grinning from the other side of the room, unhooking Trinity. Tank caught
the girl up in a big bear hug, and she laughed.
"All right... thank you, Tank!" Climbing down
from the chair, she yawned and headed down to the lower deck and her room.