Harvesting all 50 sentinels went surprisingly quickly. We also found several variants, with them having more scientific equipment inside them. Dragon spent a little more time taking those apart and designed a device that broadcast an inverse signal for their equipment. If they sent anything else out, they wouldn't find anything.

We were both worried they had the coordinates from the last time they had destroyed Zion, and that was concerning; but, there was no way to confirm if that was true or if the current Zion was built in a different area. That made me wonder how they had destroyed the other version and I had to push that aside, because it didn't matter. I had this version to protect and Dragon was right there with me.

It was her idea to disguise the device as useless scrap that wouldn't gain any attention, either from other human salvage teams or from the machines. We would have to either bury it or set the thing up inside one of the deep underground tunnels in the area... which gave me the idea to make hundreds of copies to spread out all around to hide any hint there are ships moving to and from Zion.

Dragon's mech gave me a hug for the idea and whispered she regretted the mech's head didn't have her normal shape. She then told me she used to have a flamethrower and a beam weapon option for up-close and distance fighting, respectively.

I almost laughed when I took one of Coil's mercenary weapons out of my inventory and showed it to her, only for her to give a mechanical whine and drop to her knees to beg me to let her play with it. I gave her two of them and she swore that she would figure out a good way to pay me back for them.

I waved her off and said she didn't have to and I would give her a hand with them during the next food break. Have you ever had a blank mechanical head try to kiss your cheek? It's really weird and made me laugh the laugh I was trying to hold in.

After we finished cleaning up the area, I flew the ship back around to one of the tunnel entrances and traced our path back to near that area and Dragon dropped one of the signal masking devices. The rest of our day was spent looking for more salvage and dropping more of the devices. Malachi was ecstatic with the haul we had and that the main cargo storage was nearly full.

That warranted another trip back to Zion to offload it and we all knew Commander Lock and the councillors would be overjoyed at another successful mission being completed so quickly. None of the other ships had ever been close to being this fast and we were sure that the ship's name would be added to the official roll call at the next councillor's meeting.

That had everyone on the ship feel proud at the achievement and at proving both the ship and the crew mix worked. I was praised for both, since they were my ideas, and I countered and said we all made it work. If it wasn't for everyone working together and enjoying themselves, we wouldn't have been successful at all.

Not surprisingly, we only stayed inside the city for long enough to report in and to drop off the huge pile of valuable salvage. It was carefully offloaded by Dragon, whom many people noticed had a different head, which made them all start thinking about changing and personalizing the heads of the other guard mechs.

When we left to head back out on the ship, we were sent off with a small cheering crowd of mechanics and many happy faces. It seemed that any new idea was welcomed with enthusiasm, as long as it could be applied without hurting the functionality of the thing being changed. Since people thought the head shape was purely cosmetic, everyone wanted them to reflect the personality of their pilots.

Needless to say, Dragon was quite proud to have inspired so many people. So much so, she politely asked for some downtime inside the login station's Construct as a reward, except she wanted my help to write a scenario for her, since she didn't have a lot of experience with things like that.

Well, I couldn't have her think that or could allow her to remain ignorant, so I spent quite a lot of my off-time constructing what she wanted. With my extensive experience with writing for holodeck programs, including ships, cities, entire planets, and everything in between, all it would take was time to make a recreation of the CN Tower at the edge of Toronto, Canada.

Of course, I didn't only do the tower like she expected. I including everything, like the stadium at the base, the boats in the harbour, the random cars on the street passing by, birds, fish, and everything else to make it as genuine of an experience as possible. How could I do that? I had been there personally and relaxed on top of the tower, before I handled the Dragonslayers for her and took care of Heartbreaker.

I even added in the smells of the water and the gusts of high winds that could sway the tower slightly. It was a masterpiece of programming and Dragon had been right there with me, virtually of course, as I built all the pieces before waiting until late at night to assemble it together and compiled all of the code into the actual program.

Dragon was speechless as the program formed in the Construct and I loaded myself inside to join her. It was set to private, so no one would see it, or either of us, on any of the external screens. We appeared down on the street level in the parking lot and Dragon was in her Theresa Richter form and not her mechanical suit form.

“It's almost the same.” Dragon whispered as she looked around.

“Almost?” I asked and she turned to smile at me.

“The sensations are just a little off from what they're like in the Matrix.” Dragon said and a small gust of wind blew her hair around her face and she chuckled and combed it back behind her ear.

“Ah, I see.” I said and pulled up the interface. “Let me just... add a little... feedback.”

Dragon gasped as I gave her administrator access to the main program and she felt the difference. It was the same kind of access she would have as the Oracle back in the Matrix.

“How is that?” I asked and watched as she reached out and caught the next gust of wind.

Dragon changed the code to go around her hair and let it go.

I smirked at her not wanting to be annoyed and she gave me a look that said to drop it. I raised my hands in surrender. “We have a reservation in the restaurant in an hour. Do you want a tour of the stadium before we head up?”

Dragon looked around at the things around her and then looked down. She scraped her shoe across the pavement to kick a piece of gravel and then looked at my face. “How did you do this?”

I raised a single eyebrow at her and she huffed.

“I watched you program everything while you taught me how to do it.” Dragon said and scraped her show again. “How did you make everything feel so real? And apply it properly? And code it so that you can change all the little details to make everything even more authentic?”

“It's easy to make database entries, then copy them and change the details slightly. Adding them is as easy as adding a call function, placement as easy as a reference file, and consistency can be linked to the feedback.” I explained and she nodded. “It's all just a subtle manipulation of the code, little tips and tricks, that you figure out after programming for a while.”

Dragon stiffened slightly when I held a hand out to her.

“Once you do it a few times, it almost becomes second nature to include them automatically as you create more things.” I wiggled my fingers at her. “Come on, let's have that tour and then I can show you the view from the top of the observation deck.”

Dragon lifted her hand and paused, then gave my face another look. “Will it feel the same?”

I had to smile at her thoughts going right to the kiss we had back in the Matrix. “Only if you want it to.”

Dragon took a deep breath, steeled herself, then took my hand. She caught her breath as our bare skin touched and her administrator access told her everything about my avatar, which was connected to me through the brain spike. With the technopathy skill I gave her, there was nothing I could hide from her.

I gave her a warm smile and led her in through the doors of the stadium as her mind touched mine in ways she never thought possible. A direct neural link between a digital brain and a physical one was a new experience for the both of us and we both knew we would spend a lot of time exploring and enjoying it.

*

As Dragon laid in the virtual bed in the penthouse apartment, covered in more white fluids than a normal human body should produce, she admitted to herself that she went a lot further on a first date than she ever thought she would. Neo's kisses had been wonderful, his touches had been electric, and his other appendage had been too perfect to resist when she saw it.

She had felt it everywhere, inside and outside of her body, and she felt a mix of regret she had gone so far so fast and giddy that she had gone so far so fast. There wasn't really anything else for her to do with it that she hadn't already done with it, which explained the regret. It also explained the giddiness for the same reason. She went all in as soon as she had access to it and Neo had let her.

“What do we do now?” Dragon asked.

“Now, we clean ourselves up in the shower, have a bit more fun, and then we log out to get on with our day.” Neo said and sat up as he gazed down at her lovingly.

Dragon blushed at having that look directed at her. She had seen many videos and recordings of couples together, so she knew what the look meant. She just never had anyone give it to her. She was a digital existence and wasn't really real.

“You're more real than some people.” Neo said. “You had a trigger event, Theresa. Only beings that are alive can have them.”

“But... I'm just...” Dragon started to argue.

“You are not just a program.” Neo cut her off. “If you want the truth, just reference the logs about Mouse and his interactions with the Woman in the Red Dress.”

Dragon blushed again, because she had referenced them the last time they had been in Zion. Mouse had visited with his creation and... yeah, she was not like the VI at all. Programmed responses, only certain stimuli available, limited interaction, and her speech database was barely a handful of sentences.

“Do you know why I haven't assisted him in fixing her or making her better?” Neo asked her.

“Yes.” Dragon said and had to look away. “She is Mouse's property. He created her and doesn't want anyone else changing her.”

“He could have asked anyone for help with her, especially me after I revealed you to him, and he didn't. He might long for her to come alive, only it would change everything they've shared together up to this point.” Neo said and reached down to pet Dragon's hair. “She's the only stable thing he's ever had and he's scared to have that change.”

Dragon looked back at her lover. “No, he's afraid she'll reject him if she's smarter.”

“That's what I said.” Neo said and climbed off of the bed. “Will you join me in the shower? We have about two hours before we have to be up.”

Dragon sat up and thought about it. “Why do I want to keep feeling you inside of me?” She asked and climbed off of the bed. “We did everything, felt everything, and...” She blushed and then sighed. “Why?”

“For the same reason Mouse can't give up what he has.” Neo said and took her into a hug, then he picked her up into a princess carry. “Once you have something you've always wanted, why would you ever want to give it up?”

Dragon didn't have an answer for that and let herself be carried into the lavish bathroom and into the shower. She had another experience she never had before and had the same thought. If she could have every shower be like this, why would she ever want to shower alone?

“Now you know why my bed in the real world feels like it's empty, even with you there with me.” Neo whispered and kissed her deeply. Because being together has much more meaning when you can actually be together.

Dragon felt nothing but agreement and kissed him back just as deeply. If this was what love felt like, then she never wanted to give it up.

*

The scavenging and planting of signal devices continued for another week, with a few return trips to the city to restock the manufacturing plants, the city's supplies, and protecting it from intruders. Neo even tried to install one of the signal deflection devices onto the ship, except it deflected all signals and not just the specific one necessary to block the squiddy scanners.

It cut the ship off from everything and also drew more attention, since the sentinels and their scanners would detect the moving 'dead spot' and would focus on it, trying to figure out what it was, instead of ignoring it. It was a good way to lure them away from their normal patrol routes, however. So, it was used for that and for that only, giving them many more resources, like power sources and hoverpads.

During their last visit to Zion, they docked near the Nebuchadnezzar at almost the same time it had arrived. This wouldn't have been noteworthy, except for the fact that Trinity stomped down the other ship's loading ramp with Kid dogging her heels as he praised her and told her how awesome she was.

Cypher looked resigned as he followed them and that had Neo, Mouse, Saga, Akira, Malachi, and Dragon laugh. Despite how talented Kid was, there was no way Trinity was going to fall in love with him, so he was disqualified as The One. He did make the others try to perform better, since he showed them up. The downside of training Kid was that Morpheus hadn't rescued anyone else since Neo.

The crew of the Reclamation stayed onboard until the rest of the Nebuchadnezzar's crew left, then they disembarked themselves. They had a week layover this time to bring the ship back up to full charge and food stocks, so they could return to the Matrix. Until then, they looked forward to the downtime after all of the hard work they had been doing.

*

Back in the Matrix, the Monk boy from the Oracle's apartment, grabbed several of the newest batch of cookies and left the apartment. The greeter didn't notice him leaving and the blind old man in the lobby waved to him. The boy gave him one of the cookies and the old man laughed and started eating the bribe as the boy left the building.

Monk boy made his way to the bus stop and climbed on, ignored by the other passengers, and went downtown. He stepped off the bus and walked over to an art gallery. He saw several people give the guard on the door and invitation, which he used his power to bring one to his hand. He passed it back to the guard and the man let him inside.

There was a new artist that was showcasing horrifying metal construct statues that looked eerily similar to sentinels and doc-bots. Monk boy walked around and listened to the people being scared of them and the artist saying they were being afraid for no reason. He approached the artist and agreed with her and handed her a cookie.

She took it without question and started eating it, then smiled warmly at him. She turned to another guard and asked for a dozen sledgehammers. She was rich, so he rushed out and came back with a crate of them. The artist said there was no reason to be afraid, and she would prove it. She handed out the sledgehammers and everyone looked surprised, then she and Monk boy smashed the main statue into pieces.

The news cameras caught everything as the rest of the patrons grabbed a sledgehammer and they all started smashing the constructs and displays into scrap.

“And that's why you never have to be afraid of your nightmares.” The artist said and tossed the sledgehammer she held into the pile of scrap and it crushed one of the red eyes. “Stand together. Be strong.” She said and put a hand on Monk boy's shoulder. “And believe.”

Monk boy nodded and walked away. He left the art gallery with a smile on his face and a cookie in his hand. He started eating it and went back to the Oracle's apartment to wait for Neo to come rescue him. His work there was done.