I stood inside the Oracle's kitchen and waited for Desiree to finish serving the children their meal. Chicken and rice was accepted by all of them, even Monk boy, and they all ate quietly. They knew another dessert of delicious cookies was coming and they couldn't wait for them.

I talked with both Dragon and the Oracle as they kept me informed about the state of the local area around the Merovingian's Hideout. I wanted to make sure her copies weren't in danger of being caught, especially by one of the Merovingian's henchmen. That could be very bad for everyone and not just the copy of Dragon, whom would suffer unimaginable horrors under the ancient vampire's hands.

Dragon looked embarrassed and flattered at my concern for a copy of her and I said they are still parts of her, since she could easily reintegrate them back into her own code if she wanted. That was assuming she wanted to save their short separate existences past the information she was already sharing with them.

Just in case, I offered to go to their coordinates to save them if they were in danger. Dragon appreciated that and relayed the three locations to me. Before I could check on them myself, Monk boy stepped through the beaded doorway and smiled at me.

“Wait, you want to leave now?” I asked, surprised.

Monk boy nodded. “It is prudent that I am out before the next event.”

I reached up and touched the earpiece Smith gave me. Some time had passed already and I could receive a call at any time about the mission.

“Neo.” The Oracle said and held her hand out to me.

I used my other hand and took hers, then caught my breath as she let me feel where a familiar entrance was and who had just hacked into the Matrix. “That's perfect, Oracle. Thank you.”

“You're quite welcome, Neo.” The Oracle said in her husky voice. She gave my hand a squeeze and then let it go.

I smiled at her and then at Dragon. “I'll be back as quick as I can.”

They both nodded and I turned to face Monk boy, whom had his arms up in a carry me gesture. I chuckled and scooped him up and held him on my hip like I held Saga, then I stepped out through the beaded doorway.

Desiree was there and she paused when she saw me and what I was carrying. “I'm sorry you have to leave so soon.”

I reached out with my free hand and caressed her face. She shivered pleasantly as I gave her the same protection from agent infection that I gave the guard downstairs. Her face heated up at her code being altered so easily and in such an important way.

“Thank you.” Desiree said and stepped aside. “The bathroom is clear for you.”

I nodded and stepped by her and through the hall on the left and into the bathroom. I shut the door and locked it, then went to the sink. The small window above it stretched out into a patio door and I stepped out onto the ledge.

“Why do you keep denying that you are The One?” Monk boy asked me as the ledge stretched out to the next building and I stepped off and onto the roof.

“Because I'm not.” I said and shrunk the building's top to a foot-wide square and stepped across it, then let it expand back to full size and we were on the other side of the building. “You're as much of The One as I am.”

Monk boy gave me a raised eyebrow, even though he didn't have eyebrows.

I laughed. “We each have accessed or accumulated bits of errant code that let us play with the coding around us. Some can do it consciously, which is why the agents hunt them down. Disrupting the normal flow of data also disrupts the power flow. Their cold fusion reactors need the energy the body produces as a catalyst. When people start messing with the coding around them that's supposed to harvest it...”

“...it cuts off the energy flow and that energy builds up, causing even more errant code to build up. The more code errors, the stronger the disruption.” Monk boy said.

“That's right, which is why saving people in danger is also the best way to remove those disruptions from the Matrix.” I said and walked over eight buildings before I reached the 15 storey one. “Dammit, I forgot about fixing the elevator here.”

Monk boy gave me a deadpan look. “Why are you upset? You can stretch the floor to the ceiling and cross the distance in a single step.”

“Because only I can do that.” I said and walked around on the tops of the nearby ten storey buildings to reach the back of the Lafayette Hotel.

Apparently, I was just in time, because the back door opened and Apoc stepped out and glanced around. He didn't see anything, and went out to unlock the car they usually used. Morpheus was next and then Kid and Trinity followed him out, as did Switch and Cypher.

“Ha, they're taking him to the Oracle.” I said and glanced at Monk boy, only to see he was amused as well. When he nodded, I jumped from the roof and shouted. “Woohoooo!”

Switch, Apoc, Trinity, and Cypher pulled their guns and aimed up at me. Surprisingly, only Switch lowered her guns when she saw I was carrying a child with me, thanks to Monk boy's robes fluttering in the rush of wind.

“He's almost at an exit! Why is he trying to kill himself now?” Cypher asked and Kid laughed. “What's so funny?”

“Neo's just having fun.” Kid said as I landed on the ground. A small ripple formed in the pavement around my feet and then spread and smoothed out, to stop it from cracking like it should have from the impact. “See? I told you.”

“Hello, Neo.” Morpheus said with a small smile on his face.

“Hey, Morpheus.” I said and walked over to him to shake his hand. I let it go and nodded at Switch, whom looked great wearing her all white outfit. If I was even a little bit of an asshole, I would have visibly enjoyed seeing her hard nipples through her thin shirt. Instead, I chose to be polite and ignored them. “I see the full crew's logged in, so you have to be taking Kid to the Oracle.”

“We are.” Morpheus said. Unlike him and Kid, the others had taken a slight defensive stance.

“Could you do me a small favor before you do that?” I asked and only Morpheus nodded. “Monk needs to be extracted and I'm already on another mission and can't log out myself to take care of it.”

“We would be happy to.” Morpheus said and the others groaned.

“We have to go up all of those stairs again?” Kid asked with a sigh.

“No, you don't.” I said and everyone looked at me. “I still have the hacks I made to install here before you voted my family off the ship.”

Everyone looked guilty at hearing that, even Morpheus.

“You don't have to worry about it, remember? I'm on another ship now, with a different and more accepting captain, and we're on the same mission.” I said and indicated Monk boy. “To save the people in danger.”

Morpheus nodded and waved back towards the building. “Then please, make the adjustments necessary and we can extract Monk safely.”

I nodded and walked by them and up the stairs.

“Do you need to put me down?” Monk boy asked.

“No, I've learned to do a lot of things with one arm while holding onto Saga.” I said and he smiled. I took out my cell phone as I approached the closed elevator.

“Operator.” Mouse's voice said.

“Hey, Mouse. I need items 15 and 26 from my load queue, and you better add in extra wiring and cables, in case the stuff here needs more than a spliced code to fix it.” I told him.

“You're finally fixing the elevator!” Mouse almost squealed. “We have to use that entrance the next time!”

I chuckled at his enthusiasm. “Yeah, Switch told me we shared an opinion on walking up and down 15 floors of stairs every time.”

Mouse laughed, too. “Okay, initiating masking protocol. Mask in place. Localizing the data transfer on your cell signal. You need a clear space about five feet by five feet.”

“Got it.” I said and walked to the middle of the lobby. “Go ahead.”

“I can't wait to see it in action.” Mouse said and the sound of data transferring came over the cell phone as a head-sized generator appeared, a large toolbox, then lengths of wiring, cables, and brace supports appeared. The last thing was a laptop with the Jump Program's elevator schematic on it that would let me splice it into the Matrix. “It's all here. Thanks, Mouse.”

“Have fun.” Mouse said and hung up.

Morpheus and the others stared at the generator. Only Kid and Monk seemed not surprised by its appearance. I picked up the laptop first and walked over to the elevator, then handed the laptop to Monk before I pulled off the elevator call button panel.

Monk pulled the attachments out of the laptop and hooked them up without being told what to do. I nodded at him and he held the laptop to let me type with one hand and I loaded in the specs. They nearly matched, so it only took a few tweaks and changing the cable thickness to match, then I uploaded the patched file.

The elevator rippled slightly and went all the way up to the top of the building, then the ripple came back down and replaced all the old parts with the new updated ones. I left the laptop attached and hit the elevator call button, and nothing happened. A bit of typing told me the elevator car was right behind the door.

“Kid, grab the tookbox and give me a hand.”

“Sure, Neo!” Kid said and ran over to the pile of cables and pushed them aside to grab the toolbox. He ran back over to me and put it down and opened it. “This is so cool!”

The inside was expanded and had racks of all kinds of different tools inside.

“I need a crowbar and a small hand jack, then the large winch jack.” I said and he handed me the crowbar. I shoved the long end into the split between the elevator doors and turned it, spreading the doors, and Kid put the small hand jack right between them.

I let the crowbar go and held the jack in place. “Go ahead and give it a whirl.”

Kid grinned at me and grabbed the small handle and spun that thing like crazy. The doors opened almost as if they were powered and the small jack clinked when it reached the end. It was just wide enough for Kid to slip through.

“That's good enough.” I said and picked up the winch jack and handed it to him. “Hook that on the edge of the car after I pry it up with the crowbar and crank it.”

“You got it, Neo!” Kid said and he posed with it, ready to jam it in place as soon as I gave him enough room for it.

I picked up the dropped crowbar and used the short curved end this time to stick in the space between the car's floor and the door, then pried it up. Kid shoved the end of the jack into the open space and then whirled that crank around like a spinning top.

Switch let out a soft laugh at his enthusiasm and saw the disgruntled faces of her crew mates, so she coughed to cover it up. They were not happy that I was treating Kid like he was capable, when it was them trying to train him up and they wouldn't let him do a lot of things on his own, since he was so young.

“That's enough.” I said and Kid stopped cranking and set the lock, then he sat back and wiped at his forehead that was sweating and he panted a few breaths. “Are you ready to learn how to wire in a generator?”

“YES!” Kid yelled and nearly everyone winced, except for myself, Monk and Morpheus.

“Luckily, the elevator's cable accepted the code upgrade, so we're only replacing the generator and the wires. It's off the grid, so you don't have to worry about electrocuting yourself when cutting the old ones, all right?” I asked and he nodded. “I'll talk you through what tools to use and how to attach the smaller generator to the lift mechanism to match the gear ratio.”

Kid looked like Christmas came early this year and we spent the next fifteen minutes putting the new generator in place and wiring the thing up. Since it was in the crawlspace under the elevator, everything was completely hidden from view and no one would know the elevator actually had power. I even had Kid disable the lights and sounds, so even when the buttons were pushed, nothing would show.

After we shoved the unused supplies into a closet behind the counter, we all entered the elevator and rode it to the top floor. It was soundless, so it was eerily quiet. Also, the generator was very powerful and the ride was over in only ten seconds. The doors opened onto the fifteenth floor and I stepped out first, since the others were a little too surprised that it happened so fast.

They quickly followed me into the extraction room and I set Monk boy down onto the chair and explained what was going to happen. I also warned him that I wasn't going to be there to catch him. He patted my hand and said I couldn't be everywhere at once and to not worry about it, because he was in good hands with Morpheus.

Again, he didn't need a red pill to disrupt his carrier signal, thanks to me being there, and Apoc traced his signal to the tower where his body was. I did promise to stop by and visit after my mission to help heal him up, though. I wasn't going to let him suffer for very long if I could help it.

Again, he told me not to worry about it, then Apoc locked his location and Morpheus had Tank sent the call hang up and disconnect signal. Monk boy's avatar changed to green code and dissolved away.

“Thanks again for doing this first and postponing heading to the Oracle.” I said and shook Morpheus' hand. “Let me know if there's anything I can do for you in return.”

“You can give us that generator's code.” Cypher responded and Switch gasped. It took him a moment to realize what he said and he sighed. “Sorry, it's too good to pass up and I had to ask.” He said in his defense.

“It is usually against standing policy to demand another hacker's proprietary code.” Morpheus said with a slight glare at Cypher, then he lost it and turned to look at me. “However, he does have a point. The sheer power from that small generator...” He motioned at the stacks of older generators around them that they needed to run their machines. “...would let us clean up our operations significantly.”

I pretended to think about it, as if I was tempted to not share it with them and made them sweat a little, then I winked at Switch and nodded agreement. “I'm not transferring anything inside the Matrix, though. That's just asking for trouble.” I said and everyone nodded. “When I stop by to visit Monk later, I'll bring a disk or two with a few goodies I've been working on.”

Morpheus smiled at patted my shoulder. “Thank you, Neo.” He said and patted Kid's shoulder. “I need to log out and meet with Monk. Would you like to come with me?”

“Sure thing, Morpheus. We can't visit the Oracle without you anyway.” Kid said.

Morpheus nodded. “Neo, good luck on your mission.”

“Thanks, I'm going to need it.” I said and waved as I walked out through the door.

As soon as the door shut, I stepped from there to outside the building to the front door. I walked around the thing to add the proper protections, including the underground exit, and then loaded in my Hummer to drive back across the city. Since I had nothing better to do, I then had a great idea.

I could visit my landlady with another food bribe and to let her know I was doing okay. I would give her the same protection from being taken over from an agent as well. I pulled up in front of the restaurant with my favorite noodles and parked, hopped out, and started to walk over to the door.

A small group of young women were chatting as they walked up the street. All of them noticed the Hummer and then one of them let out a gasp when she saw me. I turned and looked to smile at them, and there she was, the unnamed goth girl from the club. She had plain brown hair, no obvious piercings or the nose to ear chain, and she wore preppy clothes that matched her friends.

“I sincerely hope you ladies are coming here to this great restaurant for lunch, because I'm buying.” I said to them and opened the restaurant's door.

They let out a collective giggle and rushed by me and entered, clearly happy at the invitation. The not-at-the-moment goth girl stopped in front of me to give me a pointed look.

“You look kind of familiar. Do I know you?” I asked her, quite pointedly.

She blushed as she took the obvious hint, shook her head several times, and rushed inside to sit with her friends as they chatted about the rich guy that was suddenly taking them all on a date. It would be a story they would spread across campus and the other girls in their sorority would be so jealous.

I went to the counter to tell the clerk my actual take-out order, that I would pick up after sharing a meal with the girls at the table, and then I walked over to them. Several of them climbed out and I sat down in the middle of the round booth. They sat back down and kept softly laughing and giving me a mix of shy and needy looks.

“Order whatever you want. Like I said, I'm paying.” I said and picked up a menu.

“Can we take a doggy bag home?” One of them boldly asked.

“Ooo, that would be good proof.” The girl next to her said. “Besides the bill.”

“Sure. It's only money.” I agreed.

They all let out happy sounds and started discussing what to order a lot of, except for the not-at-the-moment goth girl. Her glare was subtle enough that the others didn't notice.

“Before this goes any further, I just wanted to say I recently found a significant other to spend time with. I don't want any of you to think I'm trying to get into your panties or anything.” I said and two of them looked disappointed. “We just happened to meet up... for lunch.”

The not-at-the-moment goth girl lost the glare. “How recently?”

“A couple of weeks.” I said and she nodded, because it had been about two months since our encounter in the club's bathroom. “It's almost funny, since she's only the second woman I've ever been with after I started living here.”

The not-at-the-moment goth girl blushed deeply when she realized that she had been the first. Her gaze was pretty intense as she stared into my eyes, so I nodded in confirmation. She had to duck her head to break eye contact, because she was both proud and embarrassed about it. Proud she had been first and embarrassed that it had been in the bathroom.

“Oh? Where are you living?” One of the other girls asked.

“Upper east side, near the cross town subway station. It's a couple blocks from Metacortex HQ, where I used to work before I was picked up for a government contract.” I said, bragging a little.

“Ooooo!” A few of them said and then they all laughed.

That set the mood for the entire meal and everyone had a nice time enjoying the food and spending time with their friends. Even the not-at-the-moment goth girl had relaxed and was just as engaged with the conversation and enjoyed the whole experience, too.