Midnight's Trinity > Weakness

Weakness

From the moment I first laid my eyes on her, I knew that there was something about her. She barely spoke a word as we stood before the Merovingian, but I could tell straight off what kind of person she was. But that was exactly the thing: she wasn't even a person. Just a program. A stuck up, arrogant, prissy vampire of emotions. For one flash of a second, I almost pitied her. But that emotion left as soon as it came when I realized what she could do.

She vaguely reminded me of the kinds of conceited rich girls I used to know and hate in my life in the matrix. There was just something odd about her, something out of place. It unnerved me how she stared at us in silence. Her eyes scanned over the three standing before her, trying to get a first impression, perhaps. Her piercing brown gaze met my sunglasses, and I was more appreciative than ever for the secrecy, the distance between me and others that the mirrored glass provided. It had taken me years to learn the power of staring in one's eyes. The pure emotion you could read from someone's eyes was amazing. Eyes were like the window to one's soul. It wasn't until I met Neo that I learned that.

Maybe that was one of her problems. She was a program. She had no soul. Her eyes were empty and cold. But there lingered something almost artificial, a long-forgotten feeling that she had never even felt in the first place. I could see it in her eyes.

She continued to look us over. Her gaze stopped on Neo, and stayed there just a moment too long. The difference was nearly imperceptible, but I saw it. How couldn't I? I wanted to kick her ass, right here, right now.

I took a small, calming breath and directed my attention back to what the Merovingian was saying.

"The question is, do you know why you are here?" he said.

I heard Morpheus speak up beside me. "We are looking for the Keymaker."

Obviously.

I had no idea where the Merovingian was going with this. He knew what we were looking for, just as we did.

"Oh yes, it is true," the Merovingian said. "The Keymaker, of course. But this is not a reason, this is not a why. The Keymaker himself, his very nature, is means, it is not an end, and so, to look for him is to be looking for a means to do... what?"

Neo's voice, the one I had heard so many times, the one voice in the world that always brought me comfort, spoke exactly what I was thinking.

"You know the answer to that question," he said calmly.

"But do you?" the Merovingian asked. "You think you do but you do not. You are here because you were sent here, you were told to come here and you obeyed." He laughed, a false, bone-chilling, chuckle that could only be one of a program. "It is, of course, the way of all things. You see, there is only one constant, one universal, it is the only real truth: causality. Action. Reaction. Cause and effect."

Morpheus' wisdom again rang in my ears. I knew what he was going to say before he even said it.

"Everything begins with choice."

Another lesson, only recently learned. But I now believed it with all my heart.

"No," the Merovingian said almost gleefully. "Wrong. Choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those without. Look there, at that woman."

I looked. She was just an ordinary woman, very beautiful, but ordinary nonetheless. She reminded me a little of one of the women in Mouse's programs.

Mouse...

God I missed them.

"My God, just look at her," he went on. "Affecting everyone around her, so obvious, so bourgeois, so boring. But wait... Watch -- you see, I have sent her dessert, a very special dessert. I wrote it myself. It starts so simply, each line of the program creating a new effect, just like poetry. First, a rush... heat... her heart flutters. You can see it, Neo, yes?"

I knew Neo was watching her Code. I just stood and stared at the woman, unable to see the Code for myself. It was like being a child caught between two adults...not understanding what the hell they were talking about and therefore feeling horribly rejected. But I didn't feel rejected. I didn't feel anything. This was the matrix. Emotion was something reserved for the Real World. In the matrix, it always seemed distant, like the machines didn't know how to program it quite right. Especially love. It was there, to be sure, but Neo's lips never quite tasted the same here as they did in the Real World. Besides, emotion gives you weakness. I was a soldier, a warrior. I had no room for weakness.

The Merovingian continued. "She does not understand why - is it the wine? No. What is it then, what is the reason? And soon it does not matter, soon the why and the reason are gone, and all that matters is the feeling itself. This is the nature of the universe. We struggle against it, we fight to deny it, but it is of course pretense, it is a lie. Beneath our poised appearance, the truth is we are completely out of control. Causality. There is no escape from it, we are forever slaves to it. Our only hope, our only peace is to understand it, to understand the why. Why is what separates us from them, you from me. Why is the only real social power, without it you are powerless. And this is how you come to me, without why, without power. Another link in the chain. But fear not, since I have seen how good you are at following orders, I will tell you what to do next. Run back, and give the fortune teller this message: Her time is almost up."

The Oracle...her time was almost up? What was that supposed to mean? Were they going to kill her? Whatever he was talking about, it couldn't be good. I was starting to hate this Merovingian. I hated his puzzles, his backwards logic, his arrogance. He had power, he had control now, he knew it, and he knew that we knew it. And me, well, I didn't like being helpless. I wanted to be in control. He knew that our fate depended on him. He took advantage of that fact, and I hated him for that.

"Now I have some real business to do, I will say adieu and goodbye," he said.

"This isn't over," Neo said, calmly again.

"Oh yes, it is. The Keymaker is mine and I see no reason why I should give him up. No reason at all," the Merovignian said.

Goddamnit.

We would just have to do this the hard way.

The Merovignian got up from his chair.

"Where are you going?" Persephone asked. It was the first time I had heard her speak.

"Please, ma cherie, I've told you, we are all victims of causality. I drink too much wine, I must take a piss. Cause and effect. Au revoir," he said, and started to leave. As he walked past me, his hand came too close for my taste.

"Touch me, and that hand will never touch anything again," I spat at him.

He left.

Good riddance.

As Morpheus, Neo, and I left the restaurant for the corridor, Neo spoke.

"Well, that didn't go so well."

He noticed? I thought sarcastically.

"Are you certain the Oracle didn't say anything else?" Morpheus asked him.

Of course he was certain. He would have told us long ago. But why didn't this work?

"Yes."

"Maybe we did something wrong," I suggested.

"Or didn't do something," Neo said.

"No, what happened happened and couldn't have happened any other way," Morpheus said in his wise, authoritative voice.

Again, Neo said just what I was thinking. "How do you know?"

"We are still alive," Morpheus said simply.

When the elevator doors opened, the last thing I was expecting to see was Persephone.

"If you want the Keymaker, follow me," she said shortly. I looked over to Neo and Morpheus. There was nothing we could do but follow.

Persephone didn't strike me as the kind of person who would choose to meet with someone in a men's room. I didn't trust her, I didn't trust her at all. But we followed obediently, knowing that this could be our last chance to find the Keymaker. Everything depended on it.

"Get out!" she yelled to a man pissing not far from where she stopped. He obeyed, zipping up his pants and scampering out of the washroom as fast as he could. He looked scared out of his mind.

"I'm so sick of his bullshit," Persephone started. She could only be talking about the Merovingian. "On and on, pompous prick. A long time ago, when we first came here, it was so different. He was so different. He was like you," she said to Neo. I highly doubted that. It seemed unimaginable that the bastard we talked to earlier could have ever been anything like Neo. Neo was too noble, too brave, too kind, too loving. I knew inside, no matter what Persephone said, that no one in the world would ever be like Neo. Especially the Merovignian.

"I'll give you what you want," she said, still speaking mostly to Neo. Her gaze, the glint in her eyes...it was not allowed. Not if I had anything to do with it. If things went my way, I would make her burn in the pits of hell.

Don't let your feelings get in the way, I reminded myself. We need her. This war, the fate of Zion depends on getting Neo to the Keymaker.

"But you have to give me something," she said to him. By you, it sounded like she meant Neo.

Of course. How could I think that it would be that easy? Of course we had to give her something in return. It made sense, but I had a very bad feeling about this. What could she want? Well, whatever it was, I knew it wouldn't be good. Not good at all.

"What?" Neo asked, hesitance creeping at the edges of his voice.

The pause after Neo spoke seemed to last forever. It couldn't have been that long, it really couldn't have. But each second dragged on in my mind, seeming like an eternity. I kept running terrible possibilities through my head.

She wants us to help her escape, she wants us to kill the Merovignian, she wants us to tell her the entry codes to Zion, she wants...

"A kiss," she stated simply.

I would have fallen over backwards in disbelief.

"Excuse me?" I said incredulously. Anger was starting to bubble over inside of me. I didn't even try to stop it.

"I want you to kiss me as if you were kissing her."

I wanted to die. How dare she, how dare she even try? I didn't want Neo to say yes, but I didn't want him to say no, either. I knew Morpheus would want him to do it, for the sake of the mission. But I thought it would kill me to have to stand here helplessly and watch as Neo kissed her.

It almost did.

"Why?" Neo asked. He sounded as afraid as I did. But Neo was The One. He was never afraid. For him to feel fear...it scared the living shit out of me.

"You love her. She loves you. It's all over you both. A long time ago, I knew what that felt like. I want to remember it. I want to sample it. That's all, just a sample," she said smoothly. I resisted the temptation to smack her across the face.

No emotions, Trinity, I thought again. Emotions are weaknesses. But it was too late for that. Everything I felt at that moment--anger, fear, jealousy, and more anger--were starting to take over my body. I couldn't move, I could hardly think. All I knew was that I was beyond wanting to kick Persephone's ass. I wanted to kill her.

But then we would have no Keymaker, now would we? the rational side of my brain started to think.

I didn't care. I cocked my gun and held it to her face.

"Why don't you sample this instead?" I said bitterly.

"Trinity," Morpheus said warningly. I reluctantly lowered my gun.

"Such emotion over something so small," Persephone said. "It's just a kiss."

It may have been just a kiss to her, but it meant the world to me.

"Why should we trust you?" Neo asked skeptically.

"If I don't deliver you to the Keymaker, she can kill me," Persephone said.

With pleasure, I thought.

I waited for Neo to speak. Even with his sunglasses on, I knew Neo was looking at me out of the corner of his eye. Seeking permission, perhaps?

I couldn't look at him for very long before I felt like dying again.

I waited for him to speak. Part of me, somewhere deep inside my heart, wanted him to say no. To stay true. To come over and kiss me instead.

But Neo was too noble to let that happen.

"All right," he reluctantly agreed. I felt my heart sink a little. It seemed so much more final coming from him.

Oh, Persephone's gonna pay for this, she's gonna pay...

"But you have to make me believe I am her," Persephone reminded him.

That was painful to hear. I knew what it felt like when Neo kissed me. Even in the matrix, I could always feel his warmth, his devotion, his undying love flowing from his lips to mine. It made me forget my pain. It made me forget the war, the past, the future...anything except for the here-and-now, the sensation of his soft lips slowly making their way across mine, the taste of his mouth, the feeling of his fingers in my hair. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world, and it was all mine. It was ours. I didn't want Persephone to have any part of it.

"All right," Neo said again.

I cried out to him in my mind, hoping he could hear me, but knowing that he couldn't.

Please Neo, I love you, I love you so much...

He slowly inched closer to her. It seemed to take forever before his lips touched hers.

When they finally did, I wanted to cry out in pain. But instead, I maintained my composure. I may have looked somewhat collected on the outside, but inside I was dying. And seething. Seething with rage.

It must have gone by quicker than it seemed, it must have. But each second of that kiss was pure pain for me. We had kissed more passionately than that before, but it still hurt. So this was weakness. I had never truly felt it before. I felt vulnerable, I felt weak, and I didn't like it at all. I hoped to God that no one else could see.

After what seemed like an eternity, Neo finally pulled back.

Okay, that was it, we can go now... I thought.

But of course it wouldn't be that easy.

Persephone wasn't satisfied.

"Terrible. Forget it," she said.

I wanted to kick something. After all that...it was completely worthless? That was plenty, she didn't need any more than that. But I knew that she was right. That wasn't how Neo kissed me.

Neo was quick to respond.

"Wait. Okay." He took off his sunglasses, exposing his deep brown eyes for all to see.

I swear that I could see her smile.

Neo looked like he was preparing himself.

The One was always strong. But he looked so hurt.

He leaned closer to her again. I didn't know if I could watch this again. And if things went Persephone's way, this kiss would be much, much different.

I tried to remind myself of the reality of this situation. This was the only way that we could get to the Keymaker. Without the Keymaker, Neo wouldn't be able to get to the Source, and we would lose the war.

It was funny how something so huge depended on something like this.

We aren't even here, I reminded myself. Mental projection of digital self.

The real Neo was lying in a chair aboard a ship in the Real World, far away from this programmed "reality". He was only kissing her in his mind. I was only watching them in my mind.

Then why did it feel so damn real?

Besides, Neo still loved me. He loved me more than he could ever love Persephone...

...right?

Neo's lips met with hers again. Already I could tell that this was different from the last kiss. I didn't know that that pain could get any worse.

Weakness.

His hand gripped her arm. I looked around for anything I could hold on to, anything to keep me from falling over. Or from passing out.

Nothing.

I desperately wanted to look away, but I couldn't. Time slowed to a stop. I watched as his lips clashed with hers again and again. It was like watching the world move in slow motion.

I bit my lip and tried to remember the good things. How his arms wrapped around my waist, his breath hot on my neck could lull me to sleep. The taste of our first kiss. How good he felt inside of me. All the things he whispered against my skin that night in Zion...

I love you Trinity...I love you more than life itself...

It took all my self-control not to cry out in pain right there. I didn't know how much longer I could take it.

Neo... I called out to him in my mind.

I'd like to think that he heard me, because it was then that they pulled away. Neo's eyes snapped open, Persephone's more slowly. She looked more than satisfied. I wanted to wring her neck. Neo looked like shit. He may not have shown it very much, but I could see it in his eyes.

"Ahh, yes," Persephone spoke, in a voice of deepest contentment. "That's it. I envy you. But such a thing is not meant to last. Come with me."

Not meant to last?

What was that supposed to mean? I tried not to think about it. We had bigger concerns right now.

Morpheus, Neo, and I followed Persephone out of the washroom.

Neo caught my gaze on the way out.

I'm so sorry, he mouthed so only I could see.

I turned away from him.

It was the only thing I could do.

fin.

End of Transmission

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