There are times when I think back to those days, and I wonder what drew me to her?

Was it her elfish qualities? The way her eyes sparkled in that virtual sunlight? The way her hair flowed down her back so like woven silk? Maybe it was her pixie like face, one that just defined every word associated with beauty…right?

No.

I knew for a fact that physical beauty did not hold my heart… but it was the innocence of this girl. She was the perfect blue; she knew nothing of the outside world, the real world. All she knew, was her friends, her school, her family, and her happy little fake life.

But her life wasn’t as normal as one would think.

Despite all those things going for her, there was something wrong with her code. I had the Angel check it for me to verify. Indeed, her code was all sorts of funky, nothing like either of us had seen from any other battery. Angel started rambling off about how it could be a potential, the reincarnation of The One. Sure, Neo saved us, and I had all sorts of appreciation for it, but he was dead; case closed. I didn’t have time to put hope and dreams into a dead man, so when Angel got all EPN on me, I rolled my eyes. I didn’t wanna hear that s**t, and believe you me, neither did The Brock.

Whatever this girl was, I knew I had to set her free.

She was Japanese, a native from the Shibuya in Tokyo. Now, I’ll clarify this right now; I didn’t just stumble upon her by sheer chance. I was investigating weak points in the Matrix for potential use against the Machines, when I noticed strange things afoot in Shibuya. People were dying left and right, without reason, cause, culprit or clue… as if the whole event around the deceased was glitches. Déjà vu? Didn’t seem to be the case, as the Machines don’t go around randomly killing. Either way, a lot of the victims were students at Shinyo Academy… which is where she went to school. I had first saw her in her school uniform, walking alone slowly to school that hot morning. I was right there watching, jacked in and from a vantage point on the bridge ahead of her. I was taking in the area for myself, seeing if I noticed anything strange when I noticed her. I stopped working to look at her and leaned on the railing. She merely talked silently on her cell phone, eyes cast to the ground. As she neared the bridge, however… those sparkling eyes of hers cast upwards at me, and a smile came across her face.

Angel said I was obsessed. Bulls**t. She was just another pretty face in the sea of thousands…

I jacked back in when I heard there was another killing. I blended right into the crowd watching as the police carted out the body of a teenaged girl. My eyes followed the body as it passed through the crowd, and strangely enough , I found myself looking into her eyes straight ahead of me… looking into that smile…

We went out, had a bite to eat as we talked. I asked her about the deaths at her school, and some about herself just to seem like I was interested in her; keep blue status appearance up, you know? Soon, worked turned into an actual conversation between people; we joked, laughed, shared some things about ourselves, but alas, it was destined to end. Angel blew up my cell phone calling like crazy, so I had to hit the hardline and beat it. I promised her we’d meet again soon, even though I had a feeling I’d never see her again.

If you didn’t know about The Brock, you didn’t know s**t about anything. Captain Brock, or The Brock as we called him behind his back, trained with Lock in the militaristic aspects of survival and combat in the real world. Some thought that Brock would take command instead of Lock, but Brock declined the offer, just because he didn’t like having to answer to the council directly. He liked being out on the front, doing things for the Matrix by his own hands instead of telling people what to do. Lot of people say he reminds them of a samurai from old times, but I say it’s because of the way he has his ponytail up and the eye patch from the war…kinda looked like an old Jubei Yagyuu. That’s the type of guy he was… hands on. And if you disobeyed his orders, that’s the type of guy he was… hands on.

I can remember meeting with him after I had jacked out. Lot of grumbles, lot of gripes, couple of pops to the back of my head, but ultimately I wasn’t in trouble. He just didn’t like me gallivanting off in the Matrix like that. That was the even flow; I did things, The Brock yelled at me, Angel made fun of me for getting in trouble, and it’d circle around from there. We were our own close knit family on that small hovercraft. I wouldn’t even call it a craft, honestly… hoverRAFT is more suitable. The Brock had plucked us both from Shinjuku, me and Angel, and he had trained us himself. It was like he was our father, but we didn’t treat him like it… only like a real strict uncle. After I walked out from The Brock’s room Angel was ready to dig into me. I took the usual mockery, but I asked a favor of her.

“Keep a lock on her for me… just for me, ok? I want to make sure she’s all right.”

Maybe I was infatuated… sue me. I’d been away from Zion for months. I haven’t gotten laid since Brock kicked me off the ship for messing up during training, and I had to bunk up with Camille from the Phalanx. It was a good thing I asked this of Angel, because it wasn’t too long passed that I’d be hearing of her again.

“She’s gone! What do you mean she’s gone??”

Angel clicked away on her keyboards, her fingers nothing but blurs as she kept her eyes on the screens. “I told ya, loverboy. I had her one minute, and the next thing I knew… poof. Vanished, she did.”

“So is she dead? I mean, look around! Tell me what happened! Where was the last place you saw her?”

Next thing I knew, I was down on one knee holding the back of my head.

The Brock glared down at me, looking back up at the screens. “Trace.”

Angel gave a confused look, but did as she was told anyways. Her eyes widened as she managed to get a lock on something. “I… have her? But how--”

How indeed. I stood up, looking at Brock with curious eyes. He merely folded his arms over his broad chest and stared at the screen. Angel punched in the coordinates as I jumped into the **bleep**pit and streamlined for them. Good thing the ship was small, cause I was cutting corners at every turn. I wanted to get to her before she got lost down there.

I got to the coordinates Angel gave me and climbed out of the chair. Brock was already on the crane, lowering the claw to pick her up. Pins and needles I was on, Angel standing on the chair behind me watching curiously with her hands on my shoulders. Brock finally pulled her up, and with the bay doors closed, she dropped with a sticky thud in front of us. I kneeled down next to her and placed my hand on her shoulder softly.

“Hey, are you all right? It’s me… Hiroyuki. Do you remember me?”

I watched her nod slowly, and the smile came at same speed.

“Good, now do you remember your name?”

Another nod brought the smile closer. Her lips parted as the name hissed out on weak winds.

“Ma… son… na…”

That wasn’t her name… but I couldn’t say no to that face.

Brock picked her up and carried her into the infirmary, Angel following behind to help rehabilitate her. I stood up and watched as she lay in his arms. Her eyes stayed on me as she leaned her head on Brock’s shoulder, all the way into the other room.

Masonna…

Even now as I stare into the face of death… she is all that I can think about…