A past that never is

The Hammer was the last ship, bringing up the rear in case of an attack from behind. And while I had insisted upon being here, I had more of a feeling that I was in the way than anything else. I couldn’t move very fast, the cut on my chest seemed to be healing well enough. The wound to my leg was a lot deeper and I was still doing the crutch dance, which was boring, but on the other hand it really bugged the shit out of AK, so all was not lost. Everyone else was prepping the ship for battle, AK and I on the other hand had nothing to do but stare at the monitors, which were acting a little strange, to say that least. Every so often someone’s code would start changing, then go back to normal, at first we thought it was our feed, but after restarting the whole thing we knew it wasn’t. We also had no idea what the hell was going on, after a while it seemed to settle down a bit, but there was still something off about it. But we didn’t have much time to be worrying about the Matrix. Roland was in the cockpit with Colt and Mauser, and Maggie was down in the infirmary. We were nearing our destination, there was a kind of a weird feeling, of course that could just be me. The next thing I was sliding across the deck, AK caught hold of the chair with one hand and grabbed the back of my sweater with the other hand. For a few moments we just dangled there, and if I wasn’t feeling so strange about this whole mission I probably would have laughed. I could imagine how I looked, arms and legs hanging down as AK hung unto me. It too a while for the ship to right itself and when it did both AK and I crashed to the floor.

“Damn, I keep forgetting I can’t fly.” I muttered.

“What the hell was that?” He asked.

“Why are you asking me? I don’t know, do I?” I said. He rolled his eyes as he pulled the headset down over his ears.

“Captain...we’re fine. What happened?” AK asked. He apparently got his answer, because his face visibly paled.

“Jesus Christ! What are we gonna do now? Okay got it.”

“What is it?” I asked as soon as he finished. He turned serious eyes to me.

“An EMP went off, five ships are down.”

“One of ours?”

“We don’t know yet. But the Captain thinks so.”

“Shit. What we going to do?”

“The machines are already through, Captain says we’re going to wait for them to move one, then we’ll make a pass to pick up anyone who’s still alive.” I could come up with nothing to say after that and the two of us just sat in silence for what felt like hours. Until finally we felt the ship moving again, slowly so as not to attract the attention of the sentinels. We trawled for almost four hours and found only one survivor; Bane. He was in some sort of a coma, or so Maggie said. But no one could explain why it was that he was the only one the sentinels didn’t kill. We were now going in search of the Vigilant, Nebachadnezzar and the Logos, if we were to make any kind of attempt to save Zion we were going to need them. It took us over a day to locate the Neb, or at least her crew, seconds before we found them a sentinel bomb had destroyed the ship. Neo the one Morpheus thought was ‘the One’ was in a coma and he joined Bane in our infirmary. We continued our search for the Logos; Morpheus informed Roland that the Vigilant had been destroyed hours ago. And of course Morpheus, Roland and I finally got to have that discussion that I had been trying to avoid, we were in the mess hall.

“You couldn’t have told me this sooner?” Morpheus asked.

“So you could stick your nose in? No, believe it or not, Morph I’m supposed to be grown up now,” When did you ever have a childhood? I wondered.

“That means I get to make my own decisions. Whether or not you agree with them.” Roland curled his fingers around mine as I spoke.

“That isn’t what I meant.” Morpheus paused.

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe I’d like to hear something from you first? Rather than have it passed down through the grapevine.” I stood up suddenly.

“I knew this was a waste of time.” I muttered, then I turned to Roland.

“You see what he’s like? He’s worried that what I do will be reflected badly on him. Well guess what, Morph, I don’t give a shit. It’s about time that I did something I want to do, without having to ask you damn permission first! Believe it or not I don’t like Roland because I know it will annoy you, I like Roland because he makes me happy...No! Scratch that I love Roland, he makes me smile. When I’m not happy he’s there for me, the same as I am for him. And if it doesn’t suit you then that’s your tough shit!” After that I stormed out of the mess hall. I was starting to make that a habit, running away from things I didn’t like. The past is coming to pay you a visit sooner than you think ShapeShifter.

“What...?” I muttered. An agent had given me that name when I was first made to work for them, I had since shortened it to just ‘Shifter’. I shook my head, yeah my past was so intent to catch up to me it was using my old name. I headed up to the main deck, where AK was running a search for Niobe and Ghost; a few moments later we were joined by Roland and Morpheus.

“I got nothing, sir. No sign of Niobe or Ghost. Nothin' but blue pills.” AK said after a moment.

“Should we jack in and try to contact them?” Mauser asked.

“It wouldn't matter. My gut says they're down.” Roland replied.

“Then we should start back.”

“No. If that ship can still fly, then we need it.”

“I was afraid you were gonna say that.”

“Search every pipe, every hole, every crack we know. Sweep as wide as possible, as fast as possible.

“Captain, these lines are crawling with calamari.” AK said. Roland turned to him

“Then the sooner we find them the better.” Roland told him. AK turned back to the monitors.

“Roland. I’d like to run another search through the Matrix.” Morpheus said.

“For what?” Roland asked.

“For Neo.” Morpheus replied. Both AK and I turned at that, then gave each other strange looks.

“How can he be in the Matrix, sir? He’s not plugged in.” AK asked.

“Please, for me.” Roland turned to AK and me and nodded once. A few moments later AK shook his head.

“The big bubkis. Nada. He's not in there.” He said.

“Sir, we've got the projections!” Colt said, jumping down of the ladder.

“How long?” Roland asked.

“Based on the point of entry and the speed it looks like the machines will be inside of Zion in just under 20 hours.”

“Jesus H. Christ.”

All right, let's move with a purpose. AK, get upstairs, I want you on holographics. Mauser, I want forward and aft guns manned at all times. And make sure we are running on as few pads as possible.

“Yes, sir.” Colt said. I took AK’s place at the monitors, just as the phone started ringing.

“What the...?” No one was in the Matrix at the moment. I pulled the headset on quickly.

“Operator.” I said. Everyone still on the deck turned around when I said that. I turned to look at Morpheu and held out the headset.

“Some guy called Seraph.” I said. I looked at Roland who shrugged his shoulders uncertainly. As soon as he was done talking Morpheus turned to Trinity and then to me.

“We need to go in and speak to the Oracle.” He said.

“Now way! You can’t go in there now.” Roland said. Morpheus turned away from me, to face Roland.

“If we want Neo back we have no other choice.” He said. Roland glared at him for a moment.

“Two hours. If you’re not out in two hours we pull the plug. We don’t have time for this.” He said. Link plugged Trinity and Morpheus in.

“This is insane.” I muttered, but I did it anyway. We continued looking for the Logos, as Morpheus and Trinity went to see the Oracle. Meanwhile I was trying to ignore Link who seemed to be talking about everything and nothing all at once. Then the phone rang and Link answered it.

“Almost, sir. They got some pretty ancient hacks here. We're working on it. Did you find Neo?” He said. I turned to look at him; he was lucky AK wasn’t here, talking about ancient hacks like that.

“No, sir. We were reading something but I couldn’t tell what it was.” He turned back to me after a moment.

“Neo is going to see the Oracle.” I stared at him.

“You mean he’s really in the Matrix?” I asked surprised.

“Unless it’s some guy that looks just like Neo.” He said.

“Then you better go tell the captain.”

“I think Morpheus already knows.”

“In case you didn’t notice Morpheus isn’t the captain of this ship, Roland is.” I glared at him. Perhaps my current dislike of Morpheus was letting me rule what I was saying. Link stood up and went off to tell Roland that they had found Neo, or to tell him I was being a little bitchy, I didn’t really care. I looked back at the monitors, a few moments later Maggie and Roland brought Neo up and Link and I plugged him in and after a few minutes his mind seemed to connect with his body, or at least in the way an operator would recognize it. Before leaving again Maggie took a look at me.

“You look like you could do with some sleep.” She said.

“I’ll be fine, not that tired.” I told her.

“Yes, and those black shadows you have under your eyes are meant to be there, right?” She smiled at me. I know that some things are worth fighting for, but I’d recently learned that it’s best to let the small things slide.

“Fine just as soon as we’re finished here.” I said.

“You are finished here.” Roland put in pointedly.

“Of course I am. After I fini-”

“If you don’t get some sleep you’re probably going to collapse. In case you didn’t notice, Shifter, you’re not fully healed yet. Go get some sleep, now.” Maggie said forcefully.

“Why’s everyone want to gang up on me?” I asked no one in particular, as I hobbled my way over to the ladder and tossed first one crutch then the other down the hole. Then I grabbed the sides of the ladder and slid down it, I figured it was the fastest way of getting down there, what I hadn’t expected was part of the ladder to come away in my hand and I fell the last few inches to the floor.

“Tell the sentinels to piss off home, I don’t need them to come and finish me off I can kill myself.” I called up the ladder, before hopping my way back to our bedroom and curled up on the bed without even getting undressed first. I was asleep within seconds. A few hours late Roland was shaking me awake.

“You’re having another nightmare.” He said. I blinked sleepily up at him.

“It was a very strange dream. But I don’t think it could happen.” I told him smiling a little.

“Oh? What was it about this time.” He sat down on the bed next to me.

“That an agent was after taking over one of us and was hunting us down one by one.” He raised his eyebrows at that.

“See, I told you it was crazy.”

“Niobes given her ship to Neo. He’s decided he wants to go to the Machine City.”

“Is he crazy? He’ll never get anywhere near there.”

“He thinks he can. What it is he’s planning to do exactly I have no idea. And we’ve questioned Bane; he doesn’t seem to remember much about what happened. Don’t know if he has VDT’s or what’s wrong with him. We’re just about ready to move on, Niobe is going to pilot us back to Zion.” He stood up and held out one hand to help me up.

“I think I’m going to go see Maggie.” I said.

“Is something wrong.”

“My leg is just a little sore, not to bad though.” I told him as we came out the door and he went up to the main deck and the cockpit and I went to the infirmary.

“Maggie you got any-” I broke off as something slammed into me sending me crashing backwards against the wall. I heard him say something that made my blood freeze, then blackness overtook me.

I came to a while later, I don’t know how much later. And I slowly dragged myself to my feet and went into the infirmary.

“Maggie? Shit!” She was lying on the floor with a scalpel in her stomach. I knew by her sightless gaze that she was already dead. I made my way to the radio by the wall.

“AK? You better get down here.” I said into it.

“What is it?” He asked.

“Smith, he killed Maggie.” There was silence on the other end for a moment.

“I’ll be right down.” He said. Within moments he and Colt were down there.

“We’d better get the captain down here.” Colt said. I sat down on one of the chairs, after telling Roland what had happened, they moved Maggie’s body to one of the tables. I wasn’t really surprised when Morpheus came down with Roland.

“What happened down here?” Roland asked.

“It was Bane, sir.” Colt explained.

“I want a search down for him. Are you alright?” He turned to me. But I didn’t answer, I was still trying to figure out where I’d heard those words before, the words that Bane had said to me before I’d been knocked out.

“Shifter?” His voice brought me back to the present. I looked up at him questioningly.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I mumbled the answer.

“Tell me what happened, the full story.” Roland ordered AK.

“Bane stabbed Maggie, and then presumably on his way out of here he ran into Shifter. Why did you say it was Smith?” AK looked at me.

“Smith? What makes you think that?” Morpheus broke in. I looked at him for the first time.

“He said that he was right that I would burn to death in metal and fire.” My words were numb.

“But I don’t understand, how could he be here? He can’t leave the Matrix, can he?”

“I didn’t think so, but anything is possible. Dammit!” AK and Roland were looking between us.

“What are you two talking about?” AK finally asked. Morpheus glanced at me, one eyebrow raised in question, I shrugged.

“Roland already knows most of it.” I told him. Now AK looked even more confused, but I think Roland might have some understanding about what was going on.

“Seventeen years ago when I took Shifter from them Agent Smith was the one sent to stop us. His last words to her were that she was a traitor and that she would burn to death when this world ended in fire and metal. Just as a traitor deserved.” Morpheus said. Those words that had been the last thing I had ever heard from the agent who had taken great pleasure in my suffering.

“Traitor? What? I don’t understand.” AK said. I thought I was going to be sick.

“That’s not important now.” Morpheus said.

“Yes it is.” I stood and looked him straight in the eye. I knew that he had said that to save me from any pain talking about this might cause. Then I turned to AK.

“Morpheus didn’t free me from the Matrix, he freed me from the machines.” I explained. AK still looked totally confused.

“They took me out of the Matrix. They wanted a human agent, they trained me to fight, to shapeshift...” They raped and abused me for years and I still fear them. Even more so when I find out that the worst of them can now leave the Matrix. I didn’t say this out loud of course, but I wanted to prove that I wasn’t like them. I felt Roland put his hands on my shoulders, giving me his silent support. But I could see the look in AK’s eyes, one of revulsion, as if I had chosen to work for them, like I had wanted to. Without another word he turned and left the infirmary. Roland came over and put his hands on my shoulders.