Night has fallen on the Dragon Slayer, or at least most of
the lights are off. Tapping at various screens and controls, Zelgadis
sits at Hawk's station, the green lines of Matrix code scrolling down
the three main monitors in front of him. Sighing to himself, he
catches something out of the corner of his eye and looks. Lina.
"Whoa!" She jumps a little. "Lina... you scared the bejesus out of
me."
"Sorry," she replied, pulling the blanket curled around her
shoulders a bit tighter.
"It's okay," he says, absently glancing around the vacant
deck and taps another button, all the screens going blank besides the
three center ones. Lina looks at the black screens then to the main
ones still on.
"Is that...?"
"The Matrix? Yeah." She leans a little closer.
"Do you always look at it encoded?"
"Well, you have to. The images translators work for the
Construct program, but there's way too much information to decode the
Matrix. You get used to it, I don't even see the code. All I see is
blonde, brunette, redhead," Zel notes as he points at each screen in
turn. Lina rolls her eyes. "Hey," the metal-haired man looks back at
Lina with a growing grin, "You want a drink?"
"Sure." He leans down and picks up a plastic jug from the
floor beside him, pouring some into a cup for Lina.
"You know, I know what you're thinking, cause right now I'm
thinking the same thing." He hands her the cup. "Actually, I've been
thinking it ever since I got here. 'Why oh why didn't I take the BLUE
pill'?" Lina watches Zelgadis a moment then takes a gulp from the cup.
Immediately it sets her throat on fire and she coughs, a bit surprised
at the potency. He chuckles and claps her shoulder with a blue-skinned
hand, "Good shit, huh? Gourry makes it. Good for two things:
degreasing engines and killing brain cells." She shakes her head,
looking up at Zel after taking another sip.
"Do you mind if I ask you something, Zelgadis?" He shakes
his head, though by his expression he already knows what she's going
to ask. "Why are you... like that? I mean, the hair and such." He
laughs shortly, crossing his arms as he looks back at the Matrix
screens.
"The short answer is I'm an experiment. The Dragons played
with my DNA and made me like this." He sighs, apparently still upset
about the idea. "As far as we know, they've done these experiments on
others, too. I'm the only one to be let out of the power plant who's
had them done."
"So inside the Matrix, your RSI is the same as if you never
were changed," she thinks out loud to herself.
"That's right." He sighs again then looks back at Lina,
"While we're on the subject, could I ask you something too? Did he
tell you why he did it? Why you're here?" She watches Zel then looks
down at her cup, hesitating before nodding. He doesn't like the answer
and looks up at the ceiling in disbelief, "Jeez-us! What a mind job,"
he mutters, then slides his gaze back to her, "So, you're here to save
the world. What do you say to something like that?" He leans back in
the chair, continuing. "A little advice. You see an Agent, you do what
we do: run. You run your ass off. If Xelloss says you can fly, I
wouldn't go jumping out any windows to find out if he's right."
She looks down at her cup, considering, and takes a last
drink out of it before handing it back, "Thanks for the drink." Lina
heads back to her room, Zel watching her go.
"Sweet dreams."
---
The view: magnificent. The food: extraordinary. The prices:
non-existent.
"Do we have a deal, Mr. Magnus?"
The patrons: unlikely.
Zelgadis cuts a cube of steak from his dinner and lifts it
up, and then he looks at it almost in wonder. "You know... I know this
steak doesn't exist," he begins, glancing over the savory meat across
to Valgarv sharing the table with him. "I know that when I put it in
my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy, and
delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?" He pops the
chunk of meat into his mouth and chews, thoughtful before releasing a
sigh. "Ignorance is bliss."
Valgarv watches through his sunglasses, face like stone and
revealing nothing. "Then we have a deal." Behind Zel, a waitress
squeezes skin lotion into her hand while he leans back.
"I want to remember nothing." He glances at the Dragon,
making sure, "Nothing. Do you understand?" Valgarv lowers his head
slightly. Zelgadis closes his eyes as the waitress starts to rub the
lotion into his face, another content sigh leaving him. "And I want to
be rich, you know, someone important... like a legendary celebrity."
"Whatever you want, Mr. Magnus." Zel thinks for several
moments more as the cream is rubbed into his face. The feeling of
normal skin again distracts Zel from the memory of his true form still
on the Dragon Slayer.
"Okay... You get my body back in the power plant, reinsert
me into the Matrix, I'll get you what you want."
"Access codes to the Sairaag defense net," Valgarv responds
with a dark smirk. Zel's eyes pop open as he looks at the Dragon
again.
"No, I told you, I don't know them. I can get you the man
who does..."
"Xelloss." Zel hesitates and glances at the Dragon, then
closes his eyes once more and allows the massage to resume.
---
"There you go, Lina, breakfast of champions." She looks
down at the bowl Hawk slides in front of her. The contents look like
creamed corn that's been put through a blender set to liquefy.
"If you close your eyes, it almost feels like you're eating
runny eggs," Phibrizio remarks helpfully.
"Yeah, or a bowl of snot," Garv mutters. Eris, beside him,
smiles a bit. Seraya, the last person on Lina and Phibrizio's side of
the table doesn't comment.
"Do you know what it really reminds me of," Phibby asks no
one as he looks up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Tastee Wheat. Did you
ever eat Tastee Wheat?" He looks back at Lina with the question.
"No, but technically neither did you," Eris answers for the
redhead.
"That's exactly my point, exactly," the boy exclaims. The
wheels are already turning behind his eyes, as this is something he's
thought a lot about. "Because you have to wonder, how do the Dragons
really know what Tastee Wheat tasted like? Maybe they got it wrong.
Maybe what I think Tastee Wheat tasted like, actually tasted like, uh,
oatmeal, or tuna fish. It makes you wonder about a lot of things. You
take chicken for example, maybe they couldn't figure out what to make
chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything. And
maybe they--"
"SHUT UP!" Eris rubs her ear after Garv sits down following
his outburst.
"It's a single-cell protein, combined with synthetic
aminos, vitamins, and minerals. Everything the body needs," Gourry
informs Lina about her breakfast.
"It doesn't have 'everything the body needs'," Phibrizio
grumbles in a mocking tone then looks towards Lina who's slowly but
surely eating her bowl of runny eggs/Tastee Wheat/snot. He scoots
closer with a knowing grin. "So, I understand that you've run through
the Agent training program." She nods. "You know, I wrote that
program." Seraya groans from her corner of the table.
"Not this again, Phibrizio," she begs the boy as the others
exchange knowing looks. He ignores the blond woman.
"So, what did you think of her," he asks with a sly grin.
"Of who?"
"The woman in the white dress. I designed her," he informs
Lina proudly. "Her name's Zelas. She, ah, she doesn't talk very much,
but if you'd like to meet her, I can arrange a much more personal
milieu," he grins and winks at Lina, who's staring back at him in
disbelief.
"The digital pimp hard at work," Eris comments as she rolls
her eyes.
"Pay no attention to these hypocrites, Lina. To deny our
own impulses is to deny the very thing that make us human," he notes
wisely then smiles brightly, going back to his breakfast. At the
impulse comment, Seraya glances up to Phibrizio and Lina sitting on
the same side of the table. The redhead, on the other hand, has
snapped out of her horrified expression and jumps to her feet.
"What impulses are you talking about, you little--" The
door squeaks loudly open, protecting Phibrizio from Lina's wrath.
Xelloss looks in.
"Gourry, when you're done, bring the ship up to broadcast
depth. We're going in," he informs the crew, glancing around at all
their faces. "I'm taking Lina to see her." He disappears from the
small dining room, and Lina looks down to Hawk still sitting across
the table beside Eris.
"To see who?"
"The Oracle," the operator replies quietly. Seraya's gaze
rises up to look across and meet Zel's eyes.
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