>>Only Human<<

You Never Know Someone Until You Fight Them

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I couldn't stay away from Neo. Not anymore. That's all I'd done since I'd arrived, and now I had him.

He said he loved me.

If I was to believe that was true, how in the world could I lose him?

The plug was inserted into the back of my head and I was on a street corner. Bill and Neo were both there.

"Are we getting my father today?" I asked Neo, looking around.

"Morpheus is going to handle it," Neo explained. "He's always been... persuasive."

Bill was looking around wildly. I assume this was his first time in the Matrix that wasn't a training program.

"Woah... what am I doing here? I thought this was training?" Bill asked.

"It's training of sorts," Neo stated.

Bill nodded. He gave me a little once over and smiled. We hadn't talked much since he had arrived, given my predicament with my mother, but then again, I hadn't talked to really anyone.

The thought of my mom made my throat tighten up and the backs of my eyes burn.

Neo put his hand on me gently and changed the subject. I would talk more about this later.

"Bill, I'm going to take you through the agent training program. Walk with me," Neo said easily, making the transition.

I followed behind the two of them, watching the way they talked. They knew each other well. Obviously. Sometimes, I preferred to hang back and let Neo be Neo. I stuck close behind him, tempted to reach for his hand, but decided to let him guide Bill instead.

I listened keenly to his words. It was the first time even I had heard some of this.

"The Matrix is a system, Bill," Neo was saying, "You look around and you see all these people who have yet to be saved. That's the problem: until we break them from the system, they have the potential to be overtaken by the agents. You met one of the agents: Smith. He was tracking us right before you took the pill.

"Agents are strong, way more powerful than most of us. They're nearly impossible to beat. They can dodge bullets and overtake us easily. Only I have ever been able to combat them evenly,"

"Woah," Bill breathed. I found myself echoing that. I knew he was good, I just had never heard that before.

Neo went on to explain, walking Bill and I through the streets of New York, through a busy crowd of people who had no time for us, no clue.

A curvy woman in a flattering red dress walked by and gave Neo and Bill a good, long once-over. I started feeling a bit of jealousy, watching her over my shoulder as she passed. Bill's eyes followed her every move.

"We're you two even listening?"

I turned around to face Neo, about to tell him about the girl who was checking him out, when I found myself staring down the barrel of a gun. Agent Smith was holding it.

In the instant it took to hear the click of the gun, I screamed and pulled back, but then the world around me froze. Nothing moved.

"The key to the Matrix is always to be prepeared, and focused," Neo stated, pulling me out of harm's way and the frozen gun, as though even the idea of me in front of a gun made him nervous.

"Anyone not unplugged is potentially an enemy. You have to be ready,"

The world around us shifted, and Bill looked around wildly.