Left (continued)
In 1987 I was sixteen. To me the year was significant. 1987 -- not one of those numbers repeated themselves. Because I knew numbers, I realized this early on in the year. It was the last year of the century where no numbers in that four-digit sequence repeated themselves. Last year until 2013, to be exact.
I was living with the Stevensons then. I'd been with them for a year and of my three foster families, I liked them the best. Glen Stevenson was a construction worker who laid down sections of 101 in the warm spring weather. Diane Stevenson worked at a shipping dock when she wasn't home watching after their baby.
These people didn't ask too much of me. I could live there without talking about my life or my feelings. They didn't expect me to "make something" of myself. "Get a good job at a bank," Diane often told me. "A girl like you, good at numbers, you could go far at a bank."
Of course, I had no intention of going into banking. By then I'd already discovered computers. But that was the great thing about Glen and Diane -- they didn't give a shit. When I was thirteen I moved in with the Rappaports who wanted me to talk and cry and go through therapy. When I was fourteen I was placed with the Sheas and their four other foster children. Though the rest of the kids were troubled and prone to skipping school, the Sheas had heard things about my academic record. They thought I should try to succeed. They pushed me to get A’s. They cajoled me to try harder. "You're a genius," Mr. Shea told me. "You ought to be in college already, take tests to see if they’ll let you matriculate early. You think any of these other kids would shrug off the talent you take for granted?"
Yeah, I figured they would. Because if they had the talent in the first place, they would take it for granted just as I did.
Then there were the Stevensons, the blue collar folks from that south side suburb. At Glen and Diane's house, we ate hamburgers in front of the TV and had Kentucky Fried Chicken every weekend. Glen drank beer and watched sports, but he wasn't an alcoholic, unlike Aunt Sarah's boyfriend. He was just a normal, working class guy. These people didn't pry. They didn't care. All I had to do was stay out of trouble, get passing grades in school, and take care of the baby in the evenings. Piece of cake.
Well, almost. Like I said, there were computers.
I attended the large, unruly public high school nearby. By some stroke of wonderful luck, Cecilia's foster home was in the same district as mine. For several hours each day I was able to spend time with my sister. We ate lunch together and passed each other in the hallway. She was beautiful by then, attracting stares of older boys. Fifteen, with long legs and hair that hung down her back. She wore dresses to school. She told me she liked her foster family. They bought her clothes, and Cecilia was always eager to have new clothes.
In the afternoon I left the high school and went to the local community college. There they let me take extra math classes for free. I was long past high school math -- now into advanced Calculus and linear algebra. At the college I took my first computer class. The instructor strolled around in a wrinkled shirt and jeans. He ate lifesavers all the time. "The first thing you must know about computers," he told us on the first day, "is that computers are stupid. A computer will never be able to do half the things you could do when you were an infant. Always remember this. If there's one thing you take away from the computer class, it's that computers are dumb. They don't think, they operate. You can always tell a computer what to do and it won't object. It won't talk back."
So I worked hard and kept that in mind. Soon I made that computer my bitch. It was doing back flips for me. There was a purity about working with computers, some kind of purity I'd been looking for in math. No messiness, no emotions. No natural scientific nonsense about controls and variables and human mistakes. Only what I wanted.
But I still didn't think about a future. My future was blank, like the Kansas landscape after the harvest. Nothing there, nothing on the horizon. Just a wide space of unwritten emptiness.
One afternoon, on a brilliant day in the middle of March, I boarded the bus near the community college and road back to the high school. I usually didn't go back in the afternoon, but Cecilia told me to be there. "Moral support," she said. "After school I'm trying out for the play."
"What about your other friends?" I asked. Unlike me, Cecilia was popular. She was able feign normalcy, where I seemed to wear my scars openly. No one would have taken her for a foster kid if she hadn't said anything in the first place.
"I need you, Reese," she said. "My other friends will just tell me I'm great. You'll be honest with me so I can improve before next time."
I let myself into the high school theater and sat in the back row. I held an unlit cigarette between my fingers, itching for a good smoke. I was hopelessly addicted to nicotine by that time, sweat crawling at my hairline when I didn't have my cigarettes at regular intervals. My black clothes always smelled like cigarettes. Glen and Diane, of course, didn't care. They allowed me to smoke in the private room I called my own.
The directors sat near the middle of the theater. "We have to recite a poem or a monologue from memory," Cecilia had told me. "They want to see how much feeling you can put into a piece you've already rehearsed. Cold readings are for call-backs. I hope I get a call-back!"
I shrugged to myself. She was already a cheerleader, and now she wanted to star in the play as well. She was also the vice president of her class and the head of the environmental club.
"Cecilia Martindale," the director called. Cecilia smiled in the wings and stepped to the center of the stage. "What will you be performing for us this afternoon?"
Cecilia stood still and tucked her hands behind her back. "I'm going to do 'Daddy' by Sylvia Plath."
The three directors mumbled something, I craned my neck to see what was going on. The smile dropped off Cecilia's face.
"Cecilia, are you sure you want to do that?" said the woman director.
"I'm sure," Cecilia asserted. Her face darkened for a moment. She stepped forward and began reciting the poem.
"You do not do, you do not do
Anymore, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
"Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time. . . ."
I felt something sear into my brain, push behind my eyes. The maturity in Cecilia's voice, the raw anger. I felt something burning in my blood. I felt faint, and then realized that I'd been holding my breath. I exhaled slowly, my limbs tingling. Daddy.
She and I never talked about it. Did she really hate our parents, after all?
"Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you."
I thought of my father in the field, on the tractor, the sun shining through his dirty blond hair, his skin dark from the sun. He was smiling at me and I was coming to help him. He'd let me ride on the tractor in his lap. In the dark theater, I dropped my cigarette and reached up to wipe a tear away from my mouth.
Cecilia finished and paused for a moment, then stepped back. The directors clapped politely. "Thank you, Cecilia Martindale," the fat one said. "Look for the call-backs on Thursday. They should be posted on the bulletin board outside the theater."
Cecilia smiled again and stepped down from the stage. At the back of the theater I was gripping myself, arms crossed over my chest, trying not to shudder. My sister grabbed her book bag and walked over to where I stood. "Wha'd you think?"
"Good," I said and looked away quickly. I didn't want Cecilia to see that I'd been crying.
"I thought so," she said, smiling broadly. "You can never go wrong with Sylvia Plath, Reese. You know how she died? Suicide. She put her head in the oven. Reminds me of someone nearer and dearer to our hearts." She smirked. Cecilia was no child. At certain moments, her cynicism consumed her entire personality. She may have been able to act like a normal girl in front of other kids, but around me her mood grew sneaky and dark. She was a cheerleader and an actress, but deep down inside these titles were peripheral, petty. More than anything, Cecilia was an orphan with no money, a girl who had nearly starved when she was twelve.
We stepped into the hallway and Cecilia pulled some fliers out of her book bag. "Wanna help me put these up?"
I took a handful of fliers and some tape. Save the whales. Save the rainforest. Stop South African apartheid.
I had stopped blaming our mother for her suicide and our destitution. My mother had simply panicked, that was all. The money had run out, her husband was dead. As far as the IRS was concerned, we were all damaged goods. So she flipped out and killed herself. I understood that now. When Wayne was skulking around outside the bathroom, pounding on the door and swearing he'd have me, I understood my mother's sudden, sweeping despair.
And I had gone back to my old theory about bad luck. Bad luck had killed my parents, luck that seeped in the crack beneath the door and leaked from the kitchen faucet.
"Are you coming this weekend?" Cecilia asked me when we were done. She sat on the stairs and pulled out a juice box and a textbook.
"Where?"
"Reese, don't you live in the world? To protest the building of that nuclear reactor, that's where. I've got half the school signed up."
I shrugged. "I'm not really up for it."
"What? You'd rather sit around that house with trailer park Joe and camel toe Cammy?"
"They're not that bad," I told her. "Compared to some of the other anal retentive freaks I've had to stay with, they're halfway nice." I tucked a piece of my short hair behind my ear. "Besides, I'm working on something."
"Ooh, that secret project of yours?" Cecilia sneered and opened her textbook. "If you ask me, Reese, you need to date. Get a boyfriend. Maybe you could hook up with someone at the protest."
I started digging through my pockets to find another cigarette to fiddle with. "To tell you the truth, Ceel, I don't give a damn about nuclear reactors, whales, or redwood trees. That's all your thing, and at times I wonder if it all isn't some act. I don't give a shit about boys either."
Cecilia shrugged and stared at her textbook. I could tell I'd upset her but I didn't care. After that awful poem, I didn't care about anything.
She took out her notebook and began her homework. I sat apart from her on the steps, allowing myself to zone out. Diane didn't have to work that night, which meant I wasn't responsible for looking after Susie. The baby was cute, nine months old, with curly brown hair and blue eyes. Luckily for all of us, she didn't cry very much.
"Reese, what's forty-six times twelve?"
"I'm not your personal calculator. Do the math yourself."
"'Do the math yourself'," she mimicked. She slid over to sit closer to me. "Guess what? I'm going to a Bon Jovi concert. Angie's dad is getting us free tickets."
"That's nice," I said, though I felt a surge of envy. At sixteen I'd never been to a concert.
"Jon Bon Jovi's hot. Maybe we'll even get backstage. Do you want me to see if I can get another ticket?"
I shrugged. "If you want."
"Or maybe two other tickets," she whispered to me. "Will you just look at that guy over there?" She nodded to a boy who stood near the lockers, staring at one of the posters we'd taped up. "Rob Lowe look-alike all the way. He's been checking you out, Reese."
"Has not," I said. I could feel myself reddening.
"At times like this, don't you wish you'd done something with your hair?" She reached over and smoothed the left side down. "It makes your head look too big for your body."
"Don't touch me," I said and tried to squirm away.
The boy was coming toward us, though he showed no apparent interest. If he was on to anyone, it was my sister. I'd only be in the way.
Cecilia stood up, stretched, and dropped one of her notebooks. Papers spilled everywhere. "Oh Reese, look how clumsy I am!"
She bent forward and scrambled to pick up her papers. "Reese," she said loudly, "will you help me pick up my stuff?"
"You're on your own," I muttered and glanced down at my watch. I figured I'd head back to the bus stop.
The boy strode over to my sister. "Need help?"
"I'm so clumsy," she told him. "There isn't a thing I can do well. Right Reese?" She looked in my direction and gave a surreptitious wink.
"Reese?" the boy said. "Is that for Reeses Peanut Butter Cups?"
I rolled my eyes. "Funny," I said in a bored tone. "You should be on Johnny Carson."
"Her real name," my sister said, standing with her mess of papers, "is Maria Therese. She's my sister."
The boy narrowed his eyes and stared at me. "Maria Therese," he repeated then smiled. “You don’t look like a Maria Therese. Are you a little Catholic girl, Maria Therese?"
I shot him an angry look.
Cecilia gave a forced, unnatural laugh. "Our mother was Catholic. She named us after saints. That's why my name's Cecilia Frances. Awful, isn't it?"
The boy raised his eyebrow. He was good looking but sly; his boyish features had a devious tinge. "Was Catholic? She's not Catholic anymore, you mean?"
"No --" Cecilia began.
"She's not alive anymore, she means," I blurted out.
"Oh," the boy replied, but he didn't seem surprised. "I'm sorry to hear that. How did she die?"
"Ovarian cancer," Cecilia said quickly. "Very sudden." I realized that for Cecilia acting wasn't a hobby but a natural instinct.
I picked up my book bag and started to leave. "I have a bus to catch."
"Reese, wait for me," Cecilia said and bent over to gather her things.
"You'll need a light," the boy said. He tossed me a lighter. His voice grew quiet. "I didn't expect you to be a smoker."
"Excuse me?" I stared angrily at him, but his intense gaze stifled mine.
He stepped forward. "Conformists smoke. Addicts smoke. Ladies with crack babies smoke. But I didn't think you'd be a slave to the tobacco companies."
Cecilia wasn't listening. She was off to the side, cramming her books and notebooks into her backpack.
The boy got close enough to take the lighter from my hand. "The answer to your question is yes."
"What question?" I muttered. My pretenses were gone. I was shapeless as air in this boy's hands.
"Yes, Maria Therese, there is such a thing as the Matrix."
I dropped my cigarette from my hand for the second time that day. He stooped over and picked it up. "You're on the right track," he said. "By the way, my name's Zach Jacobs, but you can call me the Prophet. Everyone else does. If you need anything, ask for me down in Hollywood. The Prophet." He handed the cigarette back to me, then passed me and headed for the doors.
Cecilia came up behind me. "You're whiter than usual these days. I keep telling you to get a tan. This is California, you ought to have a tan. So, did he as you out?"
I looked down at my cigarette and shook my head.
Outside Cecilia reached over and gave me a tentative, one-armed hug. That was rare. Neither one of us was very fond of sisterly displays of affection. "Thanks for coming today."
"It was no big deal," I said and shoved my hands in my pockets.
"You know, Reese, after everything that's happened I'm just glad things are normal. I know I'm going to wake up tomorrow and it'll be okay, you know? After everything, I think we're going to lead normal lives after all."
I nodded and tried to smile, but inside I cringed. It was what I feared the most.
Six months previously, I spent an afternoon in West Hollywood. I cut my college classes to go down there, eat a sandwich, and watch the day slip by. But I found something else instead, a gathering in the middle of a side street. People were handing out fliers and I took one. "The Matrix has you," the paper read in large, block letters. "What is the Matrix?" it said in smaller letters, still all caps. "We're not sure what the Matrix is, but we know it's something that threatens us all. We're not supposed to know about it. We're not supposed to talk about it. Just thinking about you can land you in trouble. Scores of people disappear each year after they publicly question this thing called the Matrix."
I stepped forward to see what the people were looking at. Some guy was shouting something. I read further down on the paper. "The Freedom Society has been hoping to find out exactly what the Matrix is. We only know that it controls many facets of our lives. We believe we can find the answers to our questions with the help of a man named Morpheus, and his partner, Gabriel Reyes. These two computer terrorists have managed to successfully hack several top-secret databases. They are fighting a war against the Matrix and all of us are a part of this war, whether we like it or not."
"It has us!" the man cried from the center of the small circle. "We're all in danger!" He was bald and aging, wearing no shirt so I could see how prominently his bones outlined his slim, pale form.
"Yeah brother, you said it!" someone shouted. Another guy laughed.
"They don't want us to know about the Matrix," the man continued. "The Matrix is the single most powerful thing on the planet. It exists everywhere. It makes us do things we don't want to do!"
Another man in the crowd stepped forward, a bored college kid with a goatee and a backpack. "I heard it's all a bunch of crap. The Matrix doesn't exist. That guy Gabriel Reyes is just trying to start a war against the government."
"You're wrong!" the old man cried. "I've seen the fields with my own eyes!"
I closed my eyes and thought of Kansas.
"Morpheus and Gabriel Reyes are Libertarians," a thin girl said. She had short, spiky hair. "And I think they might be onto something. I heard they found out about how the government is keeping all sorts of records on us."
"Yeah, tax records," a woman said and a few people tittered.
"No, seriously," the girl said. "Surveillance. They know everything, watch everything we do. It's scary."
"The Matrix is a fancy word for the establishment," someone spoke.
"The Matrix is the world beyond cyberspace," another man said.
The old man started in again. "The Matrix will lead to our eventual destruction. We're slaves! We must free ourselves from these terrible shackles!"
Business men, obviously only there for entertainment purposes, laughed and walked away. The people who stayed were young people, probably college kids. They passed more fliers around. I heard thunder and looked up. That was odd; they sky had been clear before and now clouds were gathering.
The old man was talking quietly, almost whispering. I poked my head through the crowd so I could see him, and managed to finagle a spot in the front row.
He looked up and stared at me. Our eyes locked, and his were wild and furious and tinged with something that looked like guilt. I tried to look away but everything about me had gone numb.
"My God," he said. "I never thought I'd see you again." He began to walk towards me; I tried to shrink myself. "It's you, it's really you."
"Who?" someone whispered.
"You've come back. You're here . . . You're the one who can save us all."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I muttered and tried to move away. The crowd blocked my passage and the man grabbed my arm. I looked at him and said, "You've mistaken me for someone else."
"No, no! La Rosa Blanca, how could you forget yourself?"
"Leave her alone," someone said. "She's just a kid."
The man pulled me closer, his fingers pressing into my thin wrists. "You may look different, but your eyes are still the same. You know things. You've been here before!"
"You're hurting me!" I whispered and jerked my wrists away.
The man let go of me. "You can't ever forget destiny!"
Some of the students were laughing. I pushed through the crowd and took off running down the street.
"They're looking for you!" the man called after me. "You can't run from destiny!"
I rounded the corner and the sky opened. Police cars pulled up and a few overweight officers got out. I figured they were going to break up the crowd and kept running. I didn't stop until I reached the bus stop. The bus pulled up at the right time, but I was drenched. I sat down in the back seat and tried to stop shivering.
I turned the damp flier over to read the back. "You're a part of the Matrix and the Matrix is a part of you. Join us in the fight against this devious tool of oppression and surveillance. The key to unlocking the Matrix is in cyberspace. Join us. The Freedom Society."
That winter, low-iron blood made it hard for me to get out of bed in the morning, let alone ditch class and go exploring to find the Matrix. I buried myself in the library, digging through large, detailed computer manuals. After Christmas, I rose to meet the streets in our unimaginative suburb, thinking and planning. One day, I looked up to find myself in front of a garage sale. I sifted through the bins in the yard and the boxes of old shoes. Aunt Sarah would be proud that I hadn't lost my scavenging instincts.
But I didn't come for clothes or books or shoes. Instead, I was attracted to something on a shelf in the garage.
"That thing? It's not even for sale," the owner of the house said. Stomach rippling under his shirt, he looked up at the shelf. "I'm throwing it out. It's old. It doesn't work."
I licked my lips. We'd see about that.
He gave me the old CPU for twenty bucks. I hauled the huge, outdated thing back to the Stevensons under my arm, sneaking it upstairs to pry it open. There was something beautiful about the insides of a computer, like a dissected heart with all of its chambers intact. As I thought, it needed a shitload of new parts.
"Dear mother, keep me safe," I whispered during those afternoons when I ducked into tech stores. That's about as close to praying as I got. I came home with stolen computer parts, but it was harder to pull off than I imagined. The computer really was hopelessly out of date. I used an old TV for a monitor, but I couldn't really get the computer to do much more than spit out senseless codes and make insulting noises. I was about to give up.
How could I get beyond cyberspace if I couldn't even get online? I dragged myself back to Hollywood to find the man and the people who had handed out those fliers, but there was no trace of any of them.
The day I met the Prophet, I came home with a throbbing headache and a strong desire to pick the computer apart and start again. But Diane had other plans for me.
"Here, take the baby," she said, handing the kid to me. "She needs a bath. Can you do that for me?"
"Yes, ma'am." I carried the baby down the hallway and tried not to sulk too much. This was supposed to be my night off, the night I could watch TV and do my homework without changing diapers and heating formula. But Diane didn't care about that. I was there, after all, and she and Glen were providing for me. It was really the least I could do.
Diane told me that Susie had been unexpected. After years of trying to have children, they gave up and decided to take in foster kids. The house was really too lonely with just the two of them, she said. But after they stopped trying? Bam. A kid of their own. "The most wonderful thing," Diane said. "Our little miracle."
Bah. I filled the tub with warm water I set the baby inside. She sat there in the shallow water and looked up at me with her large, bright blue eyes. "You always smell like babies," Ceel told me with distaste one day when we were eating lunch together. "Like baby wipes and formula."
I gently washed Susie's back and chest with soap and a washcloth. She splashed in the water and eventually got soap in my eye. "Damn," I whispered and got up to wash my eye in the sink. I watched the baby in the mirror. I wondered what would happen if I left her alone and she fell backwards into the water and drowned. God, Glen and Diane would kill me.
After I was done, I dressed her and placed her in the crib. She didn't cry but just looked at me. A good baby, I supposed, better than most.
In my room after dinner, I flipped on the computer and tried a few commands. Much to my surprise, it was working. Strange. A knock at the door. "Come in," I muttered.
Reggie, the other foster kid, quickly stepped in and shut the door. "My God, Glen and Diane are driving me crazy. Hey, you got that piece of crap working?"
"Apparently so."
Reggie moved over to take a better look at the screen. He was thirteen and had arrived at the Stevensons just three months before. "You know, you'd be better off getting a job and just buying your own computer."
"It would take years to get enough money for a decent piece of equipment," I told him.
He smirked. "Glen and Diane are suspicious of you. They think you're building a bomb."
"I don't care what they think. They let me have my own room. This is the first time since I was a kid that I had my own room."
"Do you wanna stay here?"
I stopped typing and sat back in my chair. "It's nice having my own room, but . . ."
"But what?"
"When I turn eighteen," I said, "I just want to move out and get on with my life."
"What will you do?" He went over and sat on my bed.
"I don't know. Get a job and my own apartment."
He was quiet for a second. Then he said: "I got half an ounce. You want to smoke a bit of it now?"
I turned around in my chair. "You don't mind sharing it?"
"Nah. It's no fun getting high by myself." He got up and left the room and came back a few seconds later. We opened my window and climbed out on the roof. It was clear and bright and cool. We passed the joint back and forth.
"What do you think Glen and Diane would do if they caught us doing this?" Reggie asked.
"Not much," I said, slowly exhaling. "Tell us to get down and go to bed. Man, what a sky. You can see Orion near the horizon."
"Where?"
I pointed out the constellation to him. "It has the three stars real close together, see? That's his belt. Those two bright stars there are his knees. He's kneeling, you know. Weird for a hunter."
Reggie laughed. Must have been the pot.
"And see that backward question mark, real faint? That's Leo."
"I only know the Big Dipper," he said.
"You can find Polaris by using the Big Dipper." I pointed at the sky. "Those two pointing stars lead you to that dimmer star over there. It's always in the north. If you get lost, you'll know how to find your way by looking at that star."
"Geez. You know a lot."
I shut my eyes. "Farmer's daughter. I spent a lot of time outside in the field."
"Oh." I waited for Reggie to ask what happened to my father, but he asked about aliens instead. "Do you think there are, like, other civilizations out there?"
I sighed, enjoying the light humming feeling in my head. "Probably. We haven't even scratched the surface of the universe yet. There are probably a lot of things out there." At that moment, I felt close to greatness.
"I figured that was what you were doing with your computer. Contacting different worlds, you know."
"Nah," I said. "I just want to use the computer to talk to people."
"How do you do that?"
"Hook it up to the phone lines. There's an old government project, something started by the military. If you have the right stuff, you can get on the computer and talk to other people around the world."
"Wow. And all this time I just wanted a Nintendo."
"Computers are great." I took another drag.
"Reese, I think you're great," Reggie said quietly.
Now it was my turn to laugh.
"No, really," he said. "Do you think we can . . . Is it against the law if we . . ." I could tell he was blushing in the dark. "I really like you."
Oh boy, I thought. "I'm an old woman," I said. "Sixteen. You'd be better with someone else. I have nothing going for me. Shit Reggie, I don't even have a driver's license."
"That's okay," he said quietly. "Maybe in a few years?"
"Mmm, yeah," I said quickly. I didn't want to dwell on the topic.
We clamored back into my bedroom and I sent Reggie on his way. I doubled back to turn off my computer, but stopped. There, on the screen, were white words. A sentence. Then two sentences. I gasped and almost called out for Reggie again, wanting to know what was up with that bud. Then I went closer.
It was great meeting you today, the message read. Morpheus and GR are looking forward to meeting you. I'll contact you again when the time is right. Guess who.
My mind seemed to instantly switch gears. But I hadn't even been online -- how was it possible? I looked behind my computer, and sure enough, the cord wasn't even plugged into the wall.
Days later I came home from school and took the baby to the park. Watching little kids on the swings, I was wishing two things: that I could be that age again, or that Susie could be that age so she wouldn't require as much maintenance. But it was a beautiful day and that was all I could hope for. I put on a pair of sunglasses and let the baby crawl in the grass.
"That yours?"
I turned around to find the Prophet standing behind me. He pointed at Susie. She sat up and stared at him.
"What the --"
He walked around and sat next to me on the bench. "Little young to start a family, aren't you?"
"Shut up," I said and took out a cigarette. "You've been screwing with me."
"I wish." He smiled broadly. "I told you'd I'd be seeing you again."
"Oh, that was you on my computer?" I said, feigning boredom. Beneath my cool exterior, I was dying to know how he'd accomplished such a feat. But he'd been playing games with me, and I was pissed. "I thought it was just the residue from a bad acid trip."
"You do drugs?"
I exhaled a long breath of smoke. "Obviously."
He nodded and looked a little disappointed. "I supposed it's natural to want to escape this milieu."
"I suppose so."
He reached down and picked up the baby, then placed her in his lap. "She's difficult," he said to Susie, who reached out to touch his face. "A difficult woman."
I rolled my eyes. "What did you expect? You waltz into my life and drop cryptic little clues to the thing I've been trying to figure out for six months, and I'm supposed to give you a hero's welcome?" Behind my sunglasses, I was devising a plan to scar him in some permanent way. "What do you want? A blow job? A quickie in the bushes over there? Is that what you're hoping for?"
The smirk dropped off his face. "Jesus," he whispered. He put his hands over Susie's ears. "Don't say that in front of the kid. Babies remember things."
"Don't act like some prude. Don't pretend like that's not why you came here."
"But it's not why I came here," he said. Now he was serious. "They said you'd had a rough time. Damn. This is just my first job as a recruitment officer, I don't know anything. It's not like they give us sensitivity training where I'm from. No team building, no puzzle solving, no building houses out of furniture."
I tossed my cigarette onto the grass and smashed it under my foot. "You know, you're not the only one who can do shit on the computer. I'm onto you. Zach Jacobs. Either that's not your real name or you're not a student at the high school."
"You hacked the school's mainframe?"
I sat back and was silent.
"Listen, Reese, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna come to your house and ask you out on a date. For real. Then I'll take you to a club in Hollywood. And then you'll get to meet some new people."
"Fat chance you'll get me to go along," I said. Now I had the faint impression that Zach Jacobs, or whoever he was, only knew how to press my buttons. He didn't know anything about the Matrix. He just wanted to get laid.
He gasped and put his fist against his chest. "So young, and so untender."
"Damn straight." I took Susie out of his lap, set her back on the ground, and began gathering my things.
"Whether you like it or not, you've already started down the yellow brick road. You aren't in Kansas anymore. It's only a matter of time."
"Get lost," I said.
"Maria Therese Martindale. Doesn't that name feel odd to you? Like it isn't your own?"
"A lot of things feel odd about this life. I'm getting over it."
"For instance," he continued, "don't you find it odd that your dad was charged with tax fraud? You knew the man. You saw his records, comprehended them more than any other child could. And you know he never stole a penny in his life. I'll tell you this: the whole entire thing was a set up."
My mouth went dry. "How do you . . . ? You -- you've been looking at tax files. You must have hacked the IRS! How dare you use this against me?" I lifted my fist to punch him.
He grabbed both of my arms. "Listen. I've done nothing of the sort. It's just what I've been told. No one hacks the IRS and lives to tell about it!"
"Then how did you know?!" I shouted. Susie began to cry.
"I know a lot about you!" he said, now clearly flustered. "I've been watching you."
"Watching me?!" I tried to break free of him but his fingers were latched around my wrists. "You're sick!”
"Listen, Reese. The Matrix has you. It's had you all along, since the day you were born, and there's nothing you can do about it."
Finally I broke free of him. I was crying by then and deeply startled by my emotions. "I'll have you lynched."
"You can't do that," he said with a dark chuckle. "You need me. I'm your last hope, your lifeline out of this place. Your Harriet Tubman on the Underground Railroad."
"Shut up," I gasped, shivering.
"Morpheus and Gabriel Reyes will meet you. They always get their way."
"What does the Matrix have to do with my father?" I asked. I reached over and picked up the baby again. Now I had to rock her back and forth to calm her.
"Everything and nothing. It's hard to tell how deep it really goes. Your father's farm was worth more in the hands of big business. Records were fabricated. Other records were thrown away. Is that directly linked to the Matrix? I don't know, but somewhere, somehow, everything is inextricably linked to the Matrix."
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. "Where is the Matrix?"
Now he smiled again, more broadly than before. "Where is God, little Catholic girl?"
I wasn't Catholic. "God is dead."
"Poor faithless thing. God is everywhere. And so is the Matrix. But thankfully, while it’s impossible to escape God, it is possible to travel beyond the boundaries of the Matrix. And that's what I'm going to help you do. You want that, right?"
I hugged the child fiercely.
"I'll come for you then. We'll go out on a date like I said before. Don't worry, it won't be too dreadful." He turned to walk away.
"Are you going to kill me?"
He laughed to himself. "Let's hope not. You're very special. She said so, you know. Very, very special."
"Who?" I asked, but he strolled away whistling and didn't bother to answer my question.
"I'm cutting you off about now," Neo says to Nala. He takes the jug of moonshine vodka and puts it beneath the center counsel. "You've had way too much to drink."
Nala just laughs and hurries to finish the last of her drink. "I'm just celebrating our success. Four agents erased, along with part of Canada. Yeah!" She picks up my cup and swallows the shot down in one gulp.
In a complete change of plans, Neo had managed to do something we didn't think possible. He deleted a desolate, unpopulated section of Canada. Small, but significant for us nonetheless. It shows that he can routinely erase parts of the Matrix if he chooses. Of course, the hard part is freeing the people in the Matrix without erasing them as well. Now we have to see how soon the machines can restore the lost slice of the world.
"You did good," I tell Nala. I take my cup away from her.
Neo leans over and whispers to me that he's going to put Nala to bed to let her sleep it off. "You should have been there today," he tells me, and I wonder why I was not.
Morpheus is in the cockpit. Link is shuffling around the corridors. Neo leads Nala from the core and I sit down with Tank.
"She's fast," Tank admits. "Like you."
I smile. "More like Switch."
"Yeah," Tank says. He punches a few commands into the keyboard. I notice that he's been playing solitaire.
Several disturbing instances in the Matrix have made it difficult to let myself be strapped to the chair and latched into the Matrix. First we lost Mouse, Switch and Apoc, which was tragic, but not an insurmountable misfortune. But one day I went in with Neo and got trapped in a car seconds before the thing exploded. I managed to get myself out of it, but sustained multiple RSI injuries that lasted weeks. My left leg is still weak, both in and out of the training sims. I feel as though I've lost my mojo, my combative touch. "You'll go back in again," Morpheus said before I could walk again. "There's no keeping you from the Matrix. It's not your job, it's your calling."
I'm not sure about this. I worry that my presence might cloud Neo's judgment. Last time he was distressed about not getting to me in time. So what happens next?
Tank sits back in his chair. "I remember the day I met you. I was seventeen. Morpheus brought us into the mess hall for a briefing."
I nod. "You had just joined the crew because Morpheus had become captain of his own ship. You sat across the table from me and kept kicking me in the shins. You were staring at me."
Tank laughs. "I knew you were the best. I could tell by the way everyone treated you. You might have been the youngest, but man, they let you sit right next to Morpheus."
"You were awful," I say with a grin. "When we got done, you said, 'You stink. Don't they teach you Matrix people how to bathe?' I was horrified."
Tank laughs harder. "I know. But you did stink."
"I'd been cleaning the engine, I remember."
Tank takes out the jug again and pours himself a drink. "I don't know. The ship still seems empty, doesn't it? It's been nine months, but I can't get past how quiet this place is."
"Yeah," I whisper. I feel my vision slide out of focus. If I try hard enough, I can almost see blurry images of people sitting in the empty chairs. I struggle to keep my vision out of focus. "Maybe it was always this quiet."
Tank sighs. "Trinity, it's okay to miss people every now and then."
I bring my eyes back into focus so there's just one of him. "Miss one person and you miss them all."
"Are you okay?"
"No. I feel useless," I confess to him. I know he won't tell anybody, not Morpheus or Neo or anyone else.
"No," he says, studying me. "I'll tell you what you feel. You feel powerless."
"It's my job to keep people alive. I couldn't do it. It's like being the best swimmer but not able to keep others from drowning. Stretching my hands across the water, and I couldn't hold on."
Tank peers closer at me and I look away. "If you keep thinking that way, it'll eat you alive."
"I know," I say.
"You'll go back," Tank says. "You're the strong one, remember? You can't stay away."
"Want my advice, Maria Therese?" the Prophet said. "Lose that atrocious name of yours."
I turned to look at him. We were inching along the freeway in heavy traffic. "What's wrong with my name?"
"It simply does not suit you. It's the name the Matrix gave you."
"My parents gave me my name. I don't care if you don't like it."
He snickered and changed lanes. "You should pick the name of a great sinner. Hackers are terrorists -- we don't have saints' names. Hmm," he said and scratched his chin. "Cardinal Wolsey. Oliver Cromwell. You'd make a good Cromwell, you know? Or an interesting Atilla."
I rolled my eyes.
"Names from literature and mythology work well. Persephone. Hera. Cordelia. Come, let's away to prison. We two alone will sing like birds in a cage." He turned to smile at me.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
He'd come to my house that afternoon and asked Glen and Diane if he could take me out. Impressed by his car and wardrobe, the Stevensons agreed immediately to let me disregard my chores and go out. It didn't take much to impress them.
I went only because the Prophet had information that I wanted.
We pulled up in front of a Denny's and he got out. "What are we doing here?" I asked.
"Eating."
"I'm not hungry."
"You will be," he said. "Plus, I have to get you prepped to see Morpheus and Gabriel Reyes. I have to warn you that these next few days will be the hardest for you. This is a transition period -- you'll be living in one world but being prepared to jump to another. Don't be afraid. I'll be with you the entire time." He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. I hastily pulled it away.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't like to be touched."
Inside the restaurant, the Prophet ate a huge dinner and gobbled down most of mine as well. He acted like he hadn't eaten in a few weeks.
"Do you always eat like this?"
"Most of the time I don't eat at all," he told me. "This is just indulgence. In this world, you could go hungry all of the time and not starve one bit. Too bad you didn't know that a few years ago." He raised his eyebrows at me.
"That's not funny," I said, still disturbed by how much he knew about my life. "We went hungry all of the time. It was painful."
"You went hungry because you thought you weren't eating. In fact you were. But the mind is a strange thing, easily swayed by suggestion. You depended on what you could touch and taste as food, and therefore, when you lacked it, you thought you were starving. Conversely, the person who constantly gorges himself perceives himself as obese when he really isn't eating any more or less than the next person."
"Like you?" I pointed to the food.
"No, I've mastered the art of separating mental actions from physical ones."
Confused and feeling like my head would explode, I set my elbows on the table and began massaging my temples. "How does one go about hacking the IRS?"
"Keep your voice down."
"Why? There's no one here."
"They may be listening, you can't tell." He inched closer to me and lowered his voice. "You've hacked other things. Your school. City police records. But the IRS? That's big. The only advice I can give you is this: be pragmatic. Then get ready to get the hell out. They'll find you."
"Where will I go?"
"I'll take care of that," he said, pulling away and going back to his meal. "Be careful about certain people. Don't ever let a man in a black suit and sunglasses approach you, even if you suspect he may be harmless."
"Wow, that narrows the field," I said. "Should I avoid teenagers in jeans as well?"
"If it makes you feel better."
I thought of Cecilia. I didn't know anything about my destination, but I had a feeling that she'd be left behind.
Outside of the restaurant, the Prophet opened his trunk. "Don't be frightened," he said.
"Why, are you going to put me in there?"
He held up a syringe. "I have to get a sample."
I started to inch away. "You're going to take my blood? What for?"
"Standard release procedure. Just have to make sure that you've never been tinkered with before." He approached me and took my arm and rolled up my sleeve. "Your blood is a powerful thing, you know. Walk a bleeding virgin over a field and the crops will grow."
I sneered in disgust. "Shut up. I'm about through with this."
He tilted my arms towards him. "That's what you think. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave, remember? Now, be a good martyr and smile for the sword."
"Jesus, I could catch something."
He snickered and plunged the needle into my arm, ignoring me when I cringed. "Hopefully I won't have to fetch fire to thaw thy blood."
He didn't even give me a band-aid. I stood there with my finger over the puncture in my arm. "I hope you're happy."
He reached over, took my head in his hands and kissed me on the lips. Shocked and horrified, I stood there until he finished. "Thank you," he whispered when he pulled away. "I feel much better now."
But I didn't. "I knew it."
"I knew it too. You're it. The One." He smiled, redness rising to his cheeks, and went around to unlock the car door.
I crossed my hands in front of my chest and scowled. "What 'One' are you talking about?"
In the car, he said, "I can't take you to meet Morpheus and Gabriel Reyes now. Just as I suspected, you're not quite ready. But you will be soon. I'm going to take you home."
I brushed my hair out of my face. I didn't appreciate getting mauled by a cocky head-case in a Denny's parking lot. I'd figured this much about Zach Jacobs -- he was like all other scumbag guys, and his knowledge of my private life frightened me.
When we pulled up at the house, he grabbed my hand. "Do what you have to do, Reese. The IRS. It's hard but not impossible. I'll come for you again."
Before I could tell him not to bother, he threw his car in reverse and shot out of the driveway.
"He didn't even walk you to the door?" someone called out. I turned to see Diane behind me, standing at the threshold. "Young men these days ain't got much respect."
For the Prophet, respect was too much to hope for. I just wished he'd come off his distant planet and start making sense.
I thought of Kansas, its plain mysticism, the way the sky bled colors of rose and orange at the end of a summer day. I remembered my father as he rode his tractor along the horizon. He hadn't stolen anything, and here I was, a liar and a thief. I cried in bed, hugging my knees to my chest.
I knew that the Prophet had done something to my computer to make it work since it had never given so much of a sputter before. Now I cut my college classes and came home early, eager to begin another day of searching. Sometimes I even faked sick so I could remain at home. Morpheus, I learned, was a figure to be both courted and reckoned with over the internet. Gabriel Reyes was equally dangerous -- a man with thirty-two acts of terrorism to his credit and the ability to disappear from crime scenes and reappear within minutes in another city.
And slowly I began to hack the IRS.
The Prophet would send me messages: You might never find out the truth about your father. That's okay. You can't do everything.
One night I fell asleep at my computer and was awakened by someone throwing objects at my window. I rushed over and opened it to find the Prophet outside. "C'mon," he said. "We've got places to go and people to see. Oh, and congratulations about getting into the database, Trinity. That's your name now, right? Trinity?"
"Quiet," I said. "You'll wake up the whole neighborhood."
"Come down here and we'll continue."
I looked behind me to make sure I'd closed the door to my room. "I can't leave."
"Sure you can. I've seen you climb out here and sit on the roof a dozen times."
Something in my mind gave a funny twinge. He always knew what I was doing. "No," I explained, "I'm already in trouble because they found out I've been ditching school."
The Prophet shrugged. "Don't you understand that it doesn't matter?" He stepped closer to the house and lowered his voice. "You're leaving. To them, you'll vanish without a trace. No one will know where to find you and they'll probably assume that you died."
My mind froze. Cecilia. I wouldn't have minded all that if it weren't for her. What would she do if she thought I died? Shrug and go to cheerleader practice? No, she'd get angrier. Maybe she'd drop out of school or run away. But most likely, she'd hide her anger and frustration, as she always did, until it congealed in her veins.
"You're coming, right?"
I opened my window wider. "Are you going to kill me?"
"No," he said quickly, as if he'd been asked that question before. "I love you. I would never kill you, or allow anyone else to hurt you. But indeed, you will begin a new life."
I stepped out on the roof, scampered to the edge, and grabbed hold of a tree. I swung off the roof and dangled for a few seconds before I managed to get my feet to another branch. Then I climbed down a few branches until it was safe to jump to the ground.
"How did you come up with the name Trinity?" he asked, guiding me to the street.
I shrugged. "Who cares? I just came up with it."
"Oddly religious, isn't it? But it suits you much more than your previous name." He put his arm over my shoulder.
"Why do you say you love me?" I asked.
In the dark, his face seemed shocked and blank. "Because I do. I've loved you since the day we met. Love is all we have, you know. It sets us apart from machines."
"I prefer machines. They're rational and predictable. They don't mix instinct with principle and come up with betrayal and unhappiness. If everyone acted like a machine, there'd be no war or chaos or starvation."
He laughed and tightened his arm around me. "Don't say that in other company, okay? If everyone loved the way I do, there'd be no war or chaos either."
"Yeah right."
He led me back to the car and opened the passenger side door, though I said I could do it myself. "What did you find in the IRS?"
"Nothing," I said. "Nothing that I really cared about."
"Don't get stuck caring about these things, this concept of revenge," he told me. "Trinity, where you're going, there's no revenge -- just survival. And you can never come back. I want you to know that now. Nothing in this world will matter to you anymore, but you'll know the truth about the Matrix, and you'll be free. But your life will be completely different, as dramatic as the difference between winter and summer or poverty and wealth. Do you understand?"
I nodded. I was numb.
We road through the city and the Prophet hummed to himself. I stared out the window and watched the lights flashing. "What's the One?"
"The One is what we've been looking for. I've found it in you."
I turned to look at him. "I still don't understand."
"It was prophesized that someone would come for us, come to free us from this chain of slavery. That's you. You're special. She told me that you were special. And I love you."
I tried not to cringe. "Who told you? And what does your loving me have to do with it?"
"An oracle told me. It was prophesized that the One would only be accessible to the world through the love of someone else. I'm that someone else."
I felt bad that I didn't love him, but I figured he was crazy anyway with his talk of oracles and prophesies. I had the feeling that I was being led down a shit road, but I didn't have the power to stop myself. One way or another, I'd end up in the same place. I'd been three different people -- the girl in Kansas, the sullen orphan in Los Angeles, and now this hacker, this Trinity. Three different lives, three different people locked away inside me. But when did each of those lives begin? Or end? They all seemed to run together, like the colors of a modern painting.
"One thing you must remember," the Prophet said, "is that you have to mind yourself when you're with Gabriel Reyes. With him, you must either be very hot or very cold. If you're lukewarm, he will spit you out of his mouth."
We reached our destination: a club in Hollywood. The Prophet led me past the bouncers -- they seemed not to see him -- and into the dark unruly club. "How old are you?" I asked.
"Three, but in Matrix years I'm nineteen."
The Prophet went over to the bar and I scuttled into a corner where a thin girl with stringy hair tore off a square of acid and handed it to me. I placed it on my tongue then went to join the Prophet at the bar. "You want a drink?" he asked. I shook my head.
"Gabriel Reyes and Morpheus will be along shortly," he said. I was more interested in Morpheus. According to the people on the internet, he was the poet, the philosopher of the movement. Gabriel Reyes just wanted to blow up the goddamn world. Morpheus could teach me things, be straight with me, unlike the Prophet.
"The Matrix," I said to myself and giggled. Now I was high. The people on the dance floor looked like butterflies flapping their wings. They had golden, flaking skin. When I looked up, I could see straight through the ceiling and find Orion slipping through the sky. I looked at the Prophet. Strangely, he looked normal, but even more beautiful than I remembered him. "Okay," I said and reached over to pull his face against mine. His lips surged with waves of heat. He wasn't lukewarm. I felt his hand against my right breast. "That's enough," I said and pulled away.
"You okay?" he whispered.
I licked my lips and watched people leave trails of colorful motion.
I don't know when Gabriel Reyes showed up. It felt like hours. He sat next to us at the bar. "Morpheus can't come," he said. "I'm stuck with this one by myself. So who is this girl?"
"She got into the IRS," the Prophet explained.
"Really." Gabriel Reyes ordered a drink. I was on the other side of the Prophet. I leaned against the bar and faced the dance floor where people were whirling around like hoodlums.
Apparently Gabriel Reyes had been trying to talk to me, but I'd been too entranced with the effect of my acid trip to really noticed. I glanced up to find them looking at me. "Jesus Christ," Reyes said. "She's high as a hovercraft."
"What?" The Prophet jumped off his chair and waved his fingers in front of my face.
"You know damn well we can't unplug anyone in this state!" Reyes got up and grabbed his bag. "You brought me here to waste my time."
"No," the Prophet said. His philosophical pretensions had vanished. "She's special. I know she is!"
"She's like every other kid in this goddamn place. Half dead already. If we take her, she'll be dead within a few months."
"Morpheus wants her," the Prophet protested. "Trust me. We need her."
"Morpheus isn’t the captain, I am. Maybe some other time," Reyes said, his lips curling. He pushed past the other people at the bar and made his way to the door.
The next day I found myself sitting in a car outside of the Stevenson's house. The Prophet's car. I looked over to the driver's side, but he was gone. Mashing down my hair, I sat up and pulled myself out of the car. Everything was back to normal -- they sky and the trees had their usual hue. But it was already hot, a fierce, liquid heat that made me feel like I was living in slow motion.
Then I looked at the porch. Glen and Diane were there, watching me make my way across the lawn. I could tell they were pissed.
My social worker took me to school that morning. The Stevensons had contacted her when I didn't come home. "Out half the night. Doing drugs, drinking, and with other children in the house!" She took a drag on her cigarette then tossed the butt out the window. "Don't you know a good thing when you see one? The Stevensons are decent people. Good middle-class people. And you. Running around like a hooker. They'll toss you out, and you'll spend the rest of your two years in detention."
I felt awful. Not because of the Stevensons, but because of Gabriel Reyes. Maybe some other time, he said. Some other time? What did that mean? I couldn't hold on much longer.
At school I sat at my desk with my head down, desperately trying not to cry. It was a hot day in April. By noon sweat had already soaked through my shirt, and I wiped a combination of sweat and tears out of my eyes. When the bell rang, I barely heard it. Finally I dragged myself to my feet.
I passed by the window and something caught my eye. The Prophet. He was standing on the baseball field, and he mouthed a word to me. Soon, he said before turning and running away. Soon.
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