I really hope I'm doing this right - I'm a Lyric Wheel virgin! Be gentle with me...
Dana gave me the song "On the Outside" by Sheryl Crow from
Songs in the Key of X, and it seemed to fit rather eerily well with
the odd little Trinity/Duncan scenario I'd been wanting to write
forever. This is really just a couple of scenes from a monstrously
long novel that Bone and I outlined about a year ago, and that I
promptly abandoned as being Too Scary and Full of Plot to face.
Hopefully, this part makes sense on its own. As for the rest of the
story, it may well never get written, but one never knows.
* * *
On the Outside
by Killa
"I'm not afraid any more. The Oracle told me
that I would fall in love and that that man...
the man that I loved...would be the One."
-- Trinity, The Matrix
"There can be only One."
-- Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod
* * *
I was thirteen when I hacked the IRS database. I don't say that
because I'm especially proud of it -- most of us who've made it
this far were cracking government dBases by the time we were old
enough to type alt.2600. Thinking in code is second nature to us.
Our survival depends on it.
The trouble, Morpheus says, is that because of the way we're
'born' into the real world, because of the means by which we find
our way out of the illusion that imprisons us, we're all too much
alike. Neo. Switch. Trinity. Our hacker names, handles we gave
ourselves as kids, names we went by in a virtual world we called
cyberspace, never knowing that our imaginary playground was
more real than anything we could see or touch. The result is that
the ultimate fate of humanity rests in the hands of a resistance
force that's more or less made up of the most introverted, non
aggressive, inherently antisocial computer geeks the human race
ever produced.
Cypher was the perfect example.
That's what makes Morpheus so valuable and why most of us
would give up our lives for him. I think Neo would. Even
knowing what we know, about what Neo can do, I think we both
know Morpheus is just as important to us in his own way.
That's one of the things that drew me to Neo. He saw from
the very beginning that Morpheus had something special.
Wisdom. Strength. And something else I can't understand or
explain, can only believe in because I know how it makes me feel,
how it makes me want to push every limit I have, makes me want
to follow him anywhere, into any kind of danger. That's not a
program you can download or something you can learn from a
computer. That's something that comes from inside. Morpheus
has it. Until a few days ago, I would have said there was no one
else like him, not in the real world, anyway.
But then, a few days ago I hadn't met Duncan MacLeod.
His name still feels strange to me. I haven't called anyone by a first
and last name like that since I was fifteen and Morpheus handed
me a little red pill and called it the truth. I want to ask him about
it, about why he would want to keep a name that was given to
him by an imaginary, machine-generated construct, but so far I
haven't had the nerve. He's friendly enough, but something tells
me that he would close up tight if I pushed him to answer too
many questions.
The man is...unnerving to me in more ways than one. I know that
I've been alone too much lately, with Dozer and Switch and the
others gone, with Morpheus and Neo away and only Tank for
company, but it's not just that. And it's not just those eyes, that
mouth, either, though I won't pretend I don't look a little.
But it's something deeper in him that cries out to me, something
I've never felt before, not like this. All of us here have our scars. All
of us have our friends that we've lost, our pain that we carry with
us. Switch had been with me for almost eight years, and I miss her
like a sister. But the sorrow I see in his eyes, the pain I feel from
him, is so much deeper, so much bigger than any one person
should have to bear. I don't know what's happened to him that he
should carry so much. It makes me want to take care of him,
somehow. To help.
Which is a joke, really, considering that he saved my life today,
and Tank's, and probably the Nebuchadnezzer, too. I said when I
met him that if I believed in God, I might have thought He'd put
Duncan MacLeod in my path. Well, let's just say I'm a little closer
to believing.
The machines are looking for us now, harder than ever. That's
part of the reason Neo has to keep on the move, why he and
Morpheus have gone to try and gather reinforcements. Neo is a
powerful weapon, but he's still only one person, and in the real
world he has no special powers. In the real world he's just as
vulnerable as the rest of us. Sentinels are everywhere now,
hunting us -- hunting him -- and today was too close.
I wish Morpheus were here.
I wish Neo were. I see his face, late at night when I lie awake, like
now, wondering if there's ever going to be a time when I stop
being afraid. I think about what it would be like to feel his arms
around me. With Neo, I am always the strong one. I am always the
one in control. What would it be like, just for once, just to let go
and let him keep watch for a while, let him comfort me when I
wake from my own dreams of the life I left behind?
And in my imagination, Neo's arms become Morpheus', and
then, because I've been alone for so long, they become Duncan's,
and he holds me and says my name in that deep, rich voice that
first told me he was a man to be counted on.
* * *
It doesn't help. An hour later, I've given up trying to rest and am
prowling the lower decks, no closer to sleep than I have been for
days.
We got off lucky in the attack, but that doesn't mean there isn't
work to be done. Duncan and I got the hover systems up and
running again, so at least we're not dead in the water, but the rear
stabilizers need recalibrating and there's hull damage we'll have
to get parts for tomorrow. I don't know what I'm going to trade
for them. "Be creative," Morpheus would say. I'm too tired and too
wired to handle the stabilizers by myself, so I'm down in the hold
going through some of the crates of components, looking for
anything I can pass off as potentially valuable, when the tiny
contact sensor on the back of my neck stabs a faint prick of
electricity into my skin.
For a second, it doesn't quite register what that means. Then it
does, and suddenly the ice sinking down my spine has nothing to
do with any sensor.
I never wanted another Cypher. That's why I installed the alert
system -- so I would know if anyone tried to access the Matrix
without authorization the way he did. So we could never be
betrayed like that again.
Someone's in the system.
Someone I trusted.
Maybe Tank, needing to check something, needing to fix
something, working on a training simulation, any one of a dozen
reasons I can think of.
Only, Tank would have cleared it with me, and somehow I know,
moving fast and silent towards the hatch that leads to the main
deck, that it's not Tank I'll find when I get there.
* * *
He's beautiful, even now. I can't help noticing that as I quickly
arm myself, then go about setting a trace program to capture a
record of his session. Even tired and worn, his face slack as his
mind lives another reality somewhere, his body hidden by grey,
ill-fitting layers of threadbare fabric -- Duncan MacLeod is
beautiful.
Maybe that's why I trusted him the way I did. That expressive,
deceptively kind face, those straight, strong shoulders that spoke
to me of honesty, of dependability. My finger twitches on the
trigger of the rifle, belying the calm I try to will upon myself. I've
only known him four days, but the betrayal still hurts, more than
it should.
Moving fast, hoping to stop him before he can get to an agent, I
touch the control to end his session and turn to face him, muzzle
of the gun raised, waiting for Sleeping Beauty to wake.
It looks like it hurts him, this waking, something wounded in his
dark eyes as they open, glazed, trying to separate fiction from
reality. Disoriented, it takes him a second to register the charge
rifle I have aimed at his chest; when he does, it isn't fear that I see
in his face. Wariness, regret, maybe, but no fear.
He sits up, moving slowly as if he doesn't want to spook me. Wise
man. "Trinity, I--"
"That's far enough. And I suggest you start by telling me why the
hell I shouldn't shoot you right now."
Pain and weariness in his face, and so much sadness in his eyes.
And still no fear, nothing but honest appeal. "It's not what you
think."
"Don't bulls--- me. It's a waste of breath. I'm decrypting your
session as we speak."
That sparks something, but he hides it well, almost no flicker in
his open, honest gaze. Funny how you see the truth when it's too
late.
"You're not gonna find anything," he says wearily and sinks back
in the chair, resigned to waiting.
"Why, because I stopped you in time?"
"Because there's nothing to find."
"Well, we'll see, won't we?"
We wait. After a few minutes without the proximity alarms going
off, I relax a little. If we were going to be attacked, they would
have been here by now. But I keep the gun trained on him, careful
not to let my guard down for an instant. Something tells me he
could take it from me in a second if I gave him half a chance.
He watches me, face lit by the blue glow of the monitors, secrets
and lies that I didn't want to see behind those compelling dark
eyes.
* * *
The decryption routine finishes, a still image appearing on the
monitor above his head. It's not what I expect.
"A *library?*"
On the screen, Duncan's residual self-image is sitting quietly at a
desk, scanning microfiche, late afternoon sunlight streaming in
through a window nearby.
"Afraid so." The real world Duncan smiles a little, as if in
sympathy for my confusion. "I told you it wasn't what you
thought."
"What were you doing there?"
"Just what it looks like."
"No, I'm sorry, I can't believe that--"
"Trinity, I swear to you, I haven't done anything to endanger you
or your ship. You have to believe me."
I want to. I really do. I need someone like him that I can count on,
more than I even realized. The honesty in his face is either
genuine, or he is the best liar I have ever met.
"Why?" I hear myself asking, before I can stop the word. "Why in
secret, without an operator? Why not just ask me?"
An old, old grief shadows his face now, and he leans forward,
entreaty written all over him. "I'm sorry. I would tell you if I
could, but--"
"Not good enough."
"Trinity--"
"No." I make my voice as cold as I know how. "You can't ask me to
trust you and deny me the same trust."
We stare at each other for a long minute. Waiting. Weighing.
Impasse.
"You're right," he says at last, the tension easing from his body,
resistance giving way, grudgingly, to acceptance.
Then he smiles, like a peace offering, one that's hard to resist.
"You got anything to drink in this place?"
* * *
I don't quite know how we got here, sitting across the table from
one another in the night-dim mess room, drinking the antifreeze
that passes for alcohol around here. But I have always trusted my
instincts, and they are telling me that I was right that first day,
that I *should* trust him, in spite of his secrets, that there's more
riding on this than either of us knows. The one sip of liquor I've
taken is burning in my stomach. I'm so used to being cold, the
heat feels like heaven.
Curiosity is killing me, but I keep quiet and give him time,
watching those big, square hands as they cradle the plastiform
cup and trace patterns on the tabletop.
"Something happened here, didn't it?" he says at last, his voice
husky with the late hour. "Something that's made you afraid to
trust me."
My eyes lift to his, against my will. He seems to see into me, and I
find myself wanting to tell him everything. Not just about
Switch, and Apoch, and Dozer, but about how scared I am all the
time, how alone I feel with Neo and Morpheus gone, how I
imagine what it would be like to feel his arms around me. I love
Neo, but there is something about this man that makes me long
for things I never even knew existed, that makes me think he can
understand things about me that no one else can. Something that
makes me think maybe he could be something just for me --
something I wouldn't have to share.
"Someone betrayed us," I confess, the first of many confessions I
want to make to him. "People I cared about are dead because of
him."
"I know how that feels," he says softly, and I can see that he does.
I can't keep looking into those eyes. I don't know what will
happen if I do. I look down at my distorted reflection in the metal
tabletop, trying to remember who I am and that I can't afford to
let him see the thoughts I'm having about those hands of his.
This was a mistake. I was much better off with the gun between
us. I make myself meet his eyes again, knowing I don't have a
choice.
"Plugging in without an operator is dangerous, you know."
"I know."
"What if you didn't make your exit? Anything could happen. A
car accident. A subway train derailment."
"I had a backup exit programmed."
"You thought of everything, didn't you?"
He shrugs, lips quirking upward. "Not quite. I didn't count on
you having an alarm on the system." He takes a drink and makes
a face. "Ugh. Now I remember why I don't drink this stuff."
I refuse to let him distract me from what I need to know. "What is
it that you didn't want to tell me, Duncan?"
He sighs and puts the cup aside, folding his hands on the table.
He studies them for a long moment, seeming to search for the
right words. "Trinity, I want you to be able to trust me. But if I tell
you what I was doing in that library, it could be dangerous. To
you, as well as to someone I... someone that I care about."
Intuition sparks, and I hazard a guess. "Someone who's still
inside?"
He goes still. Finally, he nods, once. "Someone I hope is still
inside," he says.
"What do you mean?"
He doesn't answer right away, but takes another drink, a deeper
swallow this time. And this time, he doesn't seem to notice the
fumes.
At last he looks up, the sorrow that always shadows his eyes
surfacing now, the welling of some years-deep grief. "I lost track of
him, this friend of mine, many years ago. I can't be sure if he's still
alive, or if he is, whether he's inside, or if he's somehow gotten
out."
"Can't you just track him through the system?"
"If he is inside, he'll have changed identities a dozen times by now
-- or a hundred. He knows about the Matrix; he'll have done
everything he can to avoid creating a recognizable pattern that an
agent could trace. But he may not be able to get out on his own."
The thought of that, of being trapped inside the Matrix, knowing
that everything around you is a trick of the mind, a lie, that at
any moment an agent could find you and you'd be unable to
escape -- the thought makes me sick to my stomach. It's the
worst nightmare I can imagine. It's on the tip of my tongue to ask
how something like that could happen -- but then it occurs to me
that that's exactly what would have happened to me and Neo if
Cypher had killed everyone on the ship and just left us inside the
Matrix to rot. Without an operator on the other end of the line,
we could have been stuck there indefinitely.
"There must be an easier way. Everyone in the Matrix has a
unique identifier. There has to be some way to trace him, even
without knowing his location."
"Believe me, I've tried. But I... lack the hacker mentality. That was
more his specialty, I'm afraid."
It's on the tip of my tongue to tell him that he's come to the right
place, but the voice of reason intervenes. We're in enough trouble
already. Help him, and I might risk everything. "How were you
separated?" I ask instead, knowing that the answer is at least part
of the grief he carries.
But he sighs deeply, shaking his head. "It's a long story, and you
wouldn't believe me even if I told you. I just... I need to find him,
or at least find out what happened to him. But I'm afraid that by
looking for him, I could be putting him in danger. That's why the
sneaking around, why I couldn't ask for your help. It's dangerous
for all of us, if I get you involved."
His eyes ask for understanding, and I can't help feeling for him,
for the obvious love he bears his friend, and the dogged
determination in his careworn, handsome face. "How long has it
been?" I ask him at last, wondering if there's really any hope that
his friend could still be alive.
A painful chuckle escapes him, and he looks surprised by the
question. It seems to take him a while to able to answer. "A long
time," he admits finally. "But if anyone could have survived this
long, it's him."
We sit for a while like that, nursing the last of Dozer's awful home
brew while I think about what he's told me, weighing duty and
risk against this overwhelming need I feel to help him.
And finally, when I find no answers in my own head, I ask myself
what Morpheus would do, and suddenly everything seems
simple.
"Tell me one thing." He looks up, brows raised in a question. I
don't really want to hear the answer, but I have to know. "Was it
just the core you needed? Our pirate signal? Was that why you
came with me?"
That question, it's plain, is one he didn't expect. His mouth
opens, then closes again. To my surprise, a faint bloom of color
appears on his pale cheeks.
When he finds his voice at last, there's a warm note there that I
haven't heard before.
"That wasn't the only reason."
His eyes never falter, holding mine steadily, no seduction there,
just the simple truth, and maybe something more. A weight
lifts as the realization comes that I have decided to trust him, that
he's given me something real to fight for while Neo and
Morpheus are gone, that there is someone who needs my help
after all.
What is said in the silence that follows his confession, I can't be
sure. Only after a while, for some reason, he seems to be smiling.
And for some reason, in spite of how long it's been since I've felt
like smiling, I am, too. Unbelievably, my own cheeks are warm.
Must be the alcohol.
"There is something you should know about me," I tell him,
pouring us both another measure of the clear, pungent liquid.
"If we're going to be working together, that is."
"Oh? And what's that?"
"Have I mentioned that I happen to be a very good hacker?"
* * * end * * *
"When the Matrix was first built, there was a man
born inside who had the ability to change whatever
he wanted. To remake the Matrix as he saw fit. It
was he who freed the first of us. Taught us the truth:
As long as the Matrix exists, the human race will
never be free. The Oracle prophesized his return, and
that his coming would hail the destruction of the
Matrix. End the War. Bring freedom to our people.
That is why there are those of us who have spent our
entire lives searching the Matrix, looking for him."
-- Morpheus, The Matrix
"Come on, Joe. Methos doesn't exist. The oldest
immortal? He's a legend!"
-- Duncan MacLeod, "Methos"
* * *
and the lyrics I was given:
On the Outside
Sheryl Crow
I stood close enough to hear you say
"Do as the beautiful ones did"
Tore out my picture from its frame
I just wanted to be one of you
Standing on the outside
Lookin'
Lookin'
Funny how you see the truth
But the feeling does come back
To you
She's crazy as anyone can be
That's what they say
They say of me
Wanting love can make one do
Isn't my fault
Heredity
Standing on the outside
Lookin'
Lookin'
State of grace
State of sin
Standing on the outside
Lookin'
Lookin'
I cannot feel a single thing
But the feeling does come back
Again
This morning feels like yesterday
Yesterday follows me around
Where do you go where no one cares
Six feet under
Underground
Standing on the outside
Lookin'
Lookin'
State of grace
State of sin
Standing on the outside
Lookin'
Lookin'
I cannot feel a single thing
But the feeling will come back
Again - again
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