When the ten minutes were up, Dragon went to the wall phone's receiver and picked it up. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck.” The Oracle responded.

Dragon took a breath, let it out, and put the receiver to her ear. Her main consciousness transferred back to where it was housed. She felt the darkness and the silence, just as Neo had warned her, then the world lit up in a much different way than it had in the Matrix. It was almost like when she was inside her Dragon suits, with sensors and cameras for sight and a thick metal body to live in.

She received the first of many messages, some realtime and some unpacked as she settled into her large body. She also felt the many guns attached to her and the hoverpads scattered all over her fuselage. She even found the small four pad hovercar attached to her tail that could be used separately as an escape vehicle.

The warnings about not revealing she was sentient were take with a grain of salt, mostly because of the humans that were inside of her. She felt both violated and also warm, because she was keeping several people safe within her body. It was also much bigger than her largest suit, so she needed a while to adjust to how to work the thing without smacking into the tunnel walls.

Luckily, Neo was the usual pilot, so she knew she would learn a lot from him about how to handle her much larger form. She also regretted that she didn't get the same kind of responses to her senses as she did inside the Matrix. Well, she didn't have anywhere near the same kind of body at the moment, so she couldn't quite compare them, not and still be fair about it.

Dragon was pretty much a passenger inside of her own body as Neo flew her through the sewer and subway tunnels back to one of the main junctions, then he proceeded to take her through the service and maintenance tunnels to bring her back to the human city.

Normally, this wouldn't have gained her attention, except for the fact she almost immediately made a connection to both the Zion mainframe and to their manufacturing facilities as soon as she was close enough. The familiarity of them made her mentally thank Neo for arranging it for her, because she knew he had to have done it beforehand.

By the time they entered through Gate 2 and were ordered to land at Docking Bay 5, Dragon was firmly in control of both the manufacturing capacity of the city and had downloaded a copy of the city's Construct with all of the interface programs inside of it. The best part about that? She could piggyback herself on Akira's wireless connection on her powerful laptop.

Since Akira carried it with her everywhere, Dragon was also carried everywhere. The maintenance crews gave her external body of the ship a light scrubbing and then oil and grease were applied liberally to her extremities. Dragon appreciated their diligence, especially on the weapon mounts. Neo had been a good friend and allowed autonomous control of them, too.

Dragon made a note to thank Neo for automating a lot of the processes in the manufacturing plants, then she discovered the altered plans for the mechs. If she had a mouth, she would have drooled a little over the reworking of the previous monkey-looking ones into actual functional ones. The best part about them? Their movements were program controlled and the targeting sensors moved the head and guns as one.

It took her but a moment to commission a special mech design, just one for now, and she shuffled the main parts off of the main manufacturing lines into a separate area to be constructed. It was the same area where computer components were assembled for ship computer cores and she had a lot of the internals moved and the pilot space filled with the computer parts.

It would need a day or two for testing and confirmation that it would actually work for her, and she made a dummy copy of herself set aside to install into the thing. Thankfully, she also copied Akira's laptop connect-ability into the restructured mech and was in constant contact with her other self as she performed the right tests.

The process was similar enough to what Dragon had experienced before when making mech suits back on Earth Bet that she performed them almost absently. She encountered problems almost immediately and her other self worked diligently to fix them, added and removed components, and then delivered the mech to her ship, the Reclamation.

Inside the small cargo bays usually used for supplies, she had the mech install copies of the mechanical robotic arms from the manufacturing plants. It was quickly set up as a disassembly and reassembly room and Dragon was very happy with it. With that room in place, with laser cutters on several arms, she could harvest anything she came across while flying around with people inside of her.

She would have to get Neo to expand a few rooms for her, since as a part of the ship, she could easily detect how her internal space was much greater than the external dimensions. She could save so much time and effort with his expansion trick that she would take full advantage of it. It also made her wonder if he could do the same for everything, like bags, handbags, to warehouse-like rooms.

*

I was fully aware of what Dragon was doing and didn't mention it or brought it to anyone's attention. I had already met with Commander Lock with Captain Malachi to report in our successful first mission inside the Matrix and returning with Kid, whom was a possible candidate to be The One.

Needless to say, Lock was quite amused at the thought of rubbing Morpheus' face in the fact that someone else might have found the prophesied rebirth of their savior. That it was a child, the normal age of the ones they rescued from the Matrix, just made things that much better. Why? Because if Morpheus did find someone to fulfill the prophecy, it would be years before they would be ready to complete it.

Kid was really excited to meet Niobe and Morpheus, both to brag about his skills and because he couldn't wait to start learning more from them. If Niobe accepted him, he promised Commander Lock to never bother her outside his scheduled lesson times, which made Lock relax and agree, then warn the boy that he did not have to have the same restrictions with Morpheus.

I left Kid with Lock's primary guard and I was sure Kid would choose Morpheus to learn under after hearing that. I held in my laugh until I was back inside my apartment and Mouse, Akira, and Saga asked what I was laughing about. They laughed as well and we sat down to have dinner. Akira set her laptop to interface with the living room viewscreen and I asked her to call Dragon to join us.

Dragon's face appeared there and she looked happy to be invited, especially when we discussed our next salvage mission. She asked me for my help to expand parts of the ship after showing me the changes she made to the small cargo bay. I agreed, of course. If we didn't have to return as often while we gathered resources, that would make our little ship a lot more versatile.

Saga commented that she would help as well, since the basic robot arms weren't as detailed as they could be. She had designed a much better one and just hadn't had a chance to show it off. It was my mech design that inspired her and she ran with it, even if they didn't have the capacity to reproduce it.

Both I and Dragon laughed and told her that between the two of us, we would refit the entire manufacturing plant to make her designs work, since a more versatile arm meant more detailed work all around. It benefited too many people to be denied.

Saga looked proud and happy to hear that and leapt on me to hug me as she whispered her thanks, then she thanked Dragon. The rest of the evening was spent going over her designs and she was praised and cuddled in equal measure, because she really had redesigned the larger mechanical arms and also the mech arms. They still used mostly the same parts, they were just more meticulous in their attachments and assembly.

“We'll bring these updates to the councillors tomorrow.” I said as Mouse and Akira finished the programming changes as well. With that part already taken care of, there only needed to be some retooling of one of the production lines to make the new lower arms and hands.

We headed to bed and I went to the large viewscreen and quietly thanked Dragon for not letting her current situation get her down. There was a lot she could do with what I had given her access to and I was glad she had already started taking advantage of it.

Dragon smiled and nodded, then her image froze as I pulled the couch out into a foldout bed. I stripped off to my underwear and grabbed my pyjamas from the cabinet and dressed, then I climbed into bed. I whispered goodnight to her and her image flickered and disappeared. The red light of the camera didn't turn off, though.

I laid there on my back and let myself drift towards sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a full morning of work, probably a bit of fun after lunch with how much Saga bugged for another tandem ride on my hover-bike, and an evening spending the time with my family.

The next day, the ship would be done charging and we would be off to perform another mission for Zion. As long as I kept the top brass happy with my efforts, I could pretty much do whatever I wanted. Captain Malachi was right there with me and he loved not having to listen to someone else telling him what to do all the time.

His previous captain wasn't a jerk or anything, he just wasn't overly nice about handing out orders he knew had to be followed and fully expected to be completed without question. It was a casual arrogance that some people hated dealing with and Malachi was not inclined to copy that style of command. Since I wasn't that kind of man either, we got along really well.

I fell asleep with a smile on my face, because the changes Dragon made to the inside of the ship to make salvaging things so much easier, was going to please Malachi as much as it did me.

*

The retooling of the production line went off without a hitch. The councillors in charge of war resources and the other in charge of supplies, had quickly approved of Saga's changes. The updates to the next run of hands and arms off of the line were significantly better than the previous run and the first mech assembled had them installed and was released to ad to the defense forces.

Well, the reaction to seeing the new working hands, was as prolific as Neo predicted. Everyone that already had a mech wanted the new hands. They would have to wait, however. The production facilities hadn't finished converting the older mechs into the new ones yet, so they would be finished first before updates of just the hands and arms would be available as replacements.

No one questioned how the production facilities started working faster after Neo had gone through it again to fix things, since things just always seemed to work better after he had access to it. He even went through the computer component assembly line to check things over to make sure everything was up to par, which it was. He just adjusting a few things to make them work that much better.

Most of the maintenance crews took a break at lunch while Neo drove around the hangar with his daughter on his lap. Seeing her happy face and listening to her cheers and yells to go faster, warmed their hearts. Even the most hardened veteran smiled at hearing her squeals of happiness.

The rest of the day seemed to pass before anyone knew it and they all returned to their homes and families to rest and relax. Most of them had taken Neo's example as a way to enjoy their lives and they did relax more and their families were happy to have them spend more time with them, especially the kids. Plus, the hover-bike races were always fun for everyone during the weekly matches.

*

“All right, people. We're on salvage and stealth today.” Malachi told his crew when they had gathered onboard the ship after breakfast.

“Why stealth?” Akira asked.

“Commander Lock asked us to scout a spot Captain Niobe noticed on the scanners during her last patrol.” Malachi answered. “She didn't go up to the surface herself, since she was on her way back to base. Since we're going to be on the surface for most of the morning scavenging anyway, we'll swing near the spot and check it out.”

“I've updated the range of the sensors and Mouse adjusted the diagnostic programs, just in case.” I offered and received a thumbs up from Mouse for pointing out he had helped.

“That's great! I'd rather be as careful as possible while on the surface. Anything that helps with that, I'll happily accept.” Malachi said. “With Neo adding in the extra room and those disassembly arms, our salvaging is going to go much faster than before.”

Saga let out a giggle. “We don't have to carry all that scrap back every time!”

Malachi grinned at her. “That's right. Our carrying capacity just went from 'we hope something is good in there' to 'everything is valuable, you just have to pick through it'.”

That had everyone smiling and nodding.

“Neo, we're going up through the main junction and exiting the thoroughfare on the far east side of the wasteland. We should manage to loop back through the secondary junction along the edge by noon. If not, we'll take a short break to eat and then we'll do the last leg of the patrol in a sprint to check out where that activity was.”

“You got it, sir.” I said and saluted. “You can count on me.”

Malachi nodded. “Mouse, you're on sensors in the co-pilot seat. I'll be in the armory to keep the guns ready if any threats appear.”

“Aye, captain.” Mouse said and flubbed the salute.

Malachi chuckled. “I told you that you didn't have to do that. Neo only does it to irk me, because he does it perfectly every damn time.”

“Unlike you?” Akira asked with a smile, then she blushed and ducked her head.

Malachi laughed. “Yes, because I've only ever done it right once, and that was because I was front of Commander Lock at the time and accepted being promoted to captain.”

That has us all smile and Akira relaxed, because she understood that she hadn't overstepped social protocol with her question.

“Saga can continue her lessons at the secondary login station on her own, unless Akira wants to monitor her inside the Construct?” Malachi asked.

Akira looked down at her laptop in her hands and then looked back at him. “I think I can keep an eye on her for a while.”

I reached over and placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her a look full of pride. “I'm just an intercom call away.”

Akira nodded and Saga hopped off of my lap and took her hand.

“I'll do the middle school program first, so you only have to make sure the modules are loading properly.” Saga said, giving her the easiest option to watch.

“Thanks, Saga.” Akira said and they went over to the main login station.

“Let's get to work.” Malachi said and Mouse and I went to the cockpit to get us underway.

I handled the reverse of the docking procedure with Zion Control and flew us out through Gate One. We had a lot of ground to cover and hopefully a good amount of salvage to recover. With Dragon secretly helping, since we didn't want anyone but us to know she was an AI and inside the ship, we would have the cargo hold filled with valuable parts as quickly as possible.

*

The spot Niobe had marked, only had about 50 sentinels, aka squiddies, flying around in a pattern. Normally, that wouldn't be a concerning thing. However, because of my previous knowledge, I knew this was going to be the future sight of where they would build and launch the large earth-digging drills to burrow down through the Earth's crust to penetrate into Zion's main hangar.

“Dragon, broadcast a false reading of nothing and cover up their seismic scanner results.” I said and she did so. The flying pattern of the sentinels changed to reflect the different results and they spread out, as if searching for the previous signal.

“They're not falling for it.” Dragon told me.

I lowered the ship down to carefully land and cut the external power and deployed the EMP outside of the ship. “Are they within range?”

“Not yet. Wait until they swing around on the third pass. Pattern recognition is on the second pass... now.”

I nodded and hit the intercom. “Malachi, get ready to take out the few sentinels we won't get with the EMP.”

“On it.” Malachi said and aimed, then cut the external power. “Ready to boot up again on your signal.”

“Five, four, three... two...” I hit the EMP and a wave of electromagnetic pulses blew out from the emitter and nearly all of the sentinels dropped from the sky. “Now!”

Malachi engaged the power to the external guns and there were only three sentinels left. The armor piercing bullets cut into them as if they were hot knives through butter and the last of them dropped to the ground.

“Nice work, everyone.” Malachi praised. “Neo, bring us over to them. We have a bunch of mechanical monsters to harvest for parts.”

“Yes, sir.” I said and powered up the ship. “On our way.”

“I'll design a device to plant deep underground to disguise whatever they found here to lead them to Zion.” Dragon said.

“Thanks, Dragon.” I said and flew the ship over to the huge pile of dead squiddies. I hovered over the pile and Dragon started using the grappling hook to grab them and pull them up into the ship to disassemble them.