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
