Dragon almost couldn't fathom her insane idea to send her actual main program up in the Javelin and not a cloned copy. She needed all of her faculties and knowledge for analysis and didn't want to leave such an important task to a lesser copy of herself.
Neo would probably be very angry at her for risking herself like this, especially in a completely untested rocket-vehicle that could possibly be destroyed if the Ablative Armor didn't work to specs. It was a decent worry, since the lightning strikes were almost twice what they predicted and her energy to matter conversion armor plates were taking a severe beating.
The current rocket ship buffeted constantly and her speed dropped significantly, almost as if the clouds were gathering in front of the ship to put more mass in front of it to slow it down. It was either that or it was specifically designed to impede anything fast moving through it.
Thankfully, they had accounted for that, and Dragon hit the afterburners. It would burn through the rest of her limited fuel in only half the time; but, it doubled her speed and the resistance in front of her increased. She noted the change, not that it would matter much in the end.
Dragon's sensors detected that her rocket boosters were starting to falter and dissolve from both the excessive heat and from the molecular replicators latching onto the edges of the exhaust nozzles and the nanomachines were pulling them apart.
The generated armor was also suffering catastrophic damage as it was being torn into like soft cheese as the lightning gouged out several feet of it with each strike, with the bolts increasing in both intensity and frequency.
"Come on... come on... just a little further." Dragon whispered as the altimeter reached the guestimated height that she and Neo had worked out from the known facts and the data they had taken from both the Zion archives and the Dark Storm facility.
Just as Dragon thought their guess was going to turn out to be wrong, and in the worst possible way, the Javelin burst through the top of the clouds and into the bright sunlight. Before she tried to 'look' at her surroundings with more than her sensors, she immediately cut the fuel and ejected the nozzles of the rocket boosters and then activated the explosive charges to blow off the armor emitters from her hull.
Dragon felt sad to do that as she watched the armor pieces fall away and back into the storm clouds, even if it was necessary to remove all external parts that had been exposed to the molecular replicators. If even one of them remained anywhere on her hull, it was possible for it to start sending small disruptive shocks through her systems and it could latch onto her power to replicate itself.
With a mental sigh at the loss, Dragon engaged her transformation mechanism. The interlocks on the rails clanked loudly as her bottom piece slid down slightly from her main body to give her middle section room to open up, which it did.
Both a hydrofoil and large folding wings deployed as her middle part flattened out somewhat from the cylindrical shape. Both systems were working perfectly to keep her aloft and she diverted fuel to her thrusters as her bottom parts slid back together and locked into place once more.
Dragon used her new form to gain some altitude, taking her to a much safer distance away from the clouds. She needed a moment or two to recover from the harrowing experience she just went through and just floated through the turbulent air. It was at this point that she finally had a chance to look at her environment and she gasped at the sight.
The cloud layer far below her was a mix of dark rolling clouds, peppered with mounds of grey, with bright spots appearing almost randomly as chain lightning spun through them. Slightly above that were smatterings of dark orange and yellow clouds, as if only partially converted by the Dark Storm and the abundant sunlight was having a difficult time passing through them.
But, above that were actual clouds themselves, white and fluffy, with some swirling as they were affected by the perpetual storms underneath, with a few wisps almost dancing through the air and across the expanse of sky that was unimpeded by anything but clouds and sunlight.
Dragon almost didn't have any words to describe the scene around her and she banked in a slow arc to face herself towards the sun itself. If she had any breath at the moment, she would have lost it at how bright and clear the sky was above her. It almost seemed like nothing was between her and achieving spaceflight.
After several more moments to record everything she could see and to recover from the sheer magnificence she witnessed, it was time for her to get to work. Dragon deployed a signal booster and a powerful antenna, then tried to hail herself as she flew back around to the approximate area she knew the ship was.
It didn't work and all she found was static. She then tried using Neo's copied cell phone protocols to call the original, and there was nothing. With a sigh, she tried a few other things, mostly just to prove that normal signals were not going to work. Whatever programming they had included in the nanomachines, it fully disrupted all electronic systems, including communications.
Dragon recorded the results and then turned that system off. Her mind went to the last thing Neo had given to her, if all else failed, and she activated the comm badge. "Dragon to Neo."
"Neo here." He responded. "I assume everything else failed?"
"Completely." Dragon answered. "I can send you the information over this subspace signal if you want."
"Not yet. There's a lot more for you to do before that." Neo said. "What's it like up there?"
"It's almost indescribable." Dragon said and then did her best to relay what she could see and detect with her sensors. There was only one more thing to tell him. "The biggest thing is the Ozone Layer is about twice as thick as it should be and there are no weak points or breaks in it."
Neo made a whistling sound. "I bet the Aurora Borealis is going to be spectacular."
"I imagine so." Dragon said. "I better go and start the tests and experiments."
"Ah, right. We can't let on we can bypass the cloud layer in the recordings." Neo said, sadly.
"You mean you can bypass it. None of my systems worked, not even my link to my other selves." Dragon groused and the line was quiet for several seconds.
"Please tell me you didn't." Neo said, his voice soft and barely above a whisper.
"I'm sorry, Neo. I just... I couldn't let a lesser version of myself do this. It's too important to..." Dragon started to defend herself.
"You chose to sacrifice yourself for the chance that you can find a way to hinder or disable the Dark Storm." Neo said, his voice a little angry. "There's no guarantee any of the experiments are going to succeed, which was why this was supposed to be a test flight!"
Dragon mentally winced at his shout. "Neo, there was no way to ensure we could send up another Javelin, not with how Malachi immediately wanted to tell Zion about it."
"He's a loyal captain to the defense forces, Dragon. Commander Lock himself appointed him to his rank." Neo said. "I hate that I have to keep him unconscious for even longer, now that I know it's actually you up there risking your life for no reason!"
"You have my backup." Dragon said, still defending herself.
"That's not the point!" Neo spat. "Just because I have that, it doesn't mean I want to sit here and wait for you to die before I can head back into the Matrix to compile your code and start you up again!"
Dragon sighed and would have shaken her head if she had installed one. "I'm not in any danger up here, Neo. It's almost peaceful and I can ride the wind currents for as long as I need to."
Neo didn't respond for several seconds. "Dragon, that doesn't reassure me at all. You're stuck up there, flying at near supersonic speeds to stay afloat, have limited fuel for your thrusters and..." He paused for several more seconds and then sighed. "...just do all the experiments and anything else you can think of while you can. Call me again when you're done."
"Neo, I..." Dragon sighed again. "I'm sorry. I had to do this."
"I'm sorry, too." Neo said and ended the call.
Dragon thought about cursing and didn't, because she knew it wouldn't help. She hadn't taken into account that her desire to help him solve the biggest problem he has ever faced, would actually hurt him, because she was potentially sacrificing herself.
If any of the experiments worked, and they did find a solution, then she could return to Earth and celebrate. If not... she realized then her previous programming had affected her base thoughts a lot more than she realized. She was so used to having her backup take over when she died that she still saw the current active version of herself as expendable.
The Javelin dipped lower while she was distracted and her emotions dropped from the initial excitement at the thrill of breaking through the cloud barrier and seeing the sun, to how she had hurt the only man to ever accept her completely and loved her.
A crack of lightning nearby jerked her back to full awareness and Dragon hit her thrusters as she pulled up and just missed a bright yellow cloud. She had to do a barrel roll to recover and eased off her thrusters. If she had hands at the moment, they would have been shaking from the scare she just went through. It would not be going into her next report to Neo, either.
The less he knew about how her negligent flying had almost cost them the entire mission, the better.
*
It had been an hour since Dragon had called and I was very tempted to step above the cloud layer to grab her and bring her back down. The problem was, she was travelling so fast that even checking with a brief glimpse with my clairvoyance power, I knew as soon as I appeared where she was, she would zoom away at near supersonic speeds.
It was frustrating that she would think I would be okay with her going herself. The whole point of sending a copy was to keep her main programming safe! Why would she sacrifice herself? Was her copy that much lesser in terms of her processing power? They could have remained in constant contact with the comm badges and possibly shared the analytical processes.
"She's going to be okay." Saga said and hugged my neck a little harder. She had stayed on my lap and kept saying different things to reassure me.
If I had been in a better mood, I would have thought it was cute. Instead, I had to fight off feeling annoyed, because even if Dragon found a solution that we could work on, there was no way for her to actually work on it with me. She was in the upper atmosphere and I was down here on the ground, inside her ship with a copy of her controlling it.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and Mouse gave me a sad smile. I nodded to him and looked over to where Akira was sitting beside Malachi at one of the login stations. She didn't like that he had to be knocked out for however long this was going to take, mostly because if he was awake, he would demand we contacted Zion and move close enough to the city for the communications relay to not alert the roaming sentinels.
The problem was, all we could do was sit here and hope for the best. There was nothing that we could do to speed things up or to make things better. We couldn't even be sure that Dragon would survive if she had to pass back through the cloud layer.
As Saga ran her fingers through my blond hair, I started to wonder why I was bothering with keeping a low profile. I had already let a few secrets out, just because I wanted to show off a little. The backlash from the people's reaction was both expected and justified, since I had healed them and proved it was possible, as long as it was within the Matrix.
But, did it have to be? I didn't actually have to be seen, right? No one had to know it was me that was doing it. The fact they already made me a saint for it was beside the point. I just had to decide how far I was willing to take things.
I turned my head slightly and locked eyes with Saga. The understanding look in them let me know she knew what I was thinking about. "Should I?"
Saga thought about it for a moment and then nodded. "I'm proud of you, dad."
I leaned in and kissed her cheek, making her blush, and she climbed off of my lap. "I'll be right back."
"Where are you going?" Akira asked.
I stood up and stored my clothing as I equipped my actual superhero suit. "I have something I need to do."
Mouse's mouth dropped open and Akira's face flushed to a deep red as her eyes roamed over my muscular form that was revealed inside the skin-tight costume.
"Good luck!" Saga said and gave me a thumbs up.
"Thank you." I said and petted her head, then I stepped from there to outside the ship. I made myself invisible and intangible, then stepped from there to the hospital inside Zion. I felt out with my telepathy and saw that many of the patients were quite unhappy to have been stuck there, even the ones that had only minor injuries. They had access to magical healing and weren't getting it, so I fixed that.
I removed the glowing aspects of the powerful healing spell and then boosted it with my telepathy, crossed it with Panacea's power since I was touching them mentally, and then used Overhaul's power on them.
Once I had everyone in the hospital dealt with, I stepped into Zion Control and did it again. The docks were next with the maintenance crews and docked ship crews, then I stepped into the main living area and did it once more. My last stop was the council chambers and I healed and overhauled them as well.
Councillor Dillard sucked in a sharp breath as the years melted off of her old body, then she whispered something only she heard as the other councillors freaked out about the changes. "Neo."
I held in my laugh at her guessing correctly and left a yellow rose on her lap and stepped from there to the closest hovership. It was the Icarus, the college frat party ship, and I healed them as well. A touch of clairvoyance brought me to the Osiris and they all felt the change, even the captain. His shouted order to return to Zion was quickly followed. He had a crew member and lover to visit and hire again.
I went to each ship, healed and fixed the people, then I did something I probably shouldn't have. I stepped to the top of one of the towers of power. Cracks of electricity rolled up and down the tower stacks and I was still amazed at the inefficiency. So much wasted power was released into the air and no one benefited from it.
I touched each mind briefly inside the tower and cast the minor healing spell, that way only their current physical detriments were fixed. All of the thin emaciated bodies hooked into the Matrix ballooned out to become fully normal and the entire tower started to crackle and glow with all the extra power that thousands of healthy bodies could produce.
Several doc-bots flew over and checked on the closest pods, only to almost stutter in their flying as they saw how much better the people they took care of were. I stepped to the next tower and did the same thing again, then the next tower, then the next and next.
I ended my travels at the fields of test tube babies that were being grown and harvested. Unlike the people already in the Matrix, there wasn't any point in healing them or forcing embryos to grow into babies before the machines were ready to slot them into one of the bio-pods of the towers.
After a quick diagnostic that let me know they were all viable, I stepped from there to the Machine City. Thanks to my technopathy, I knew there were millions of AIs, most of which didn't have physical bodies. I thought about fixing that, then shrugged. I had no right to dictate how they should live their lives. I had given Smith a choice for that very reason, after all.
I stepped from there to above the Reclamation and I looked up through the dark clouds to see Dragon as she carefully dipped ejectable and electrically inert scoops into the clouds as she skimmed them to gather samples for analysis. As the nanomachines started to eat away at the sample container, she would drop it after a few scans and then would add different materials to see how they reacted.
It was going to take a long time for her to finish and I honestly didn't want to wait anymore. I flew up at my best speed towards the thick cloud layer and approached it without a care. Unlike Dragon, I didn't have to worry about dying or being consumed. I slowed down and hovered there, just under the thick clouds, and marvelled at the sheer power of destruction a planet-wide storm had.
I stuck a hand into the thing and several lightning bolts snapped to my fingertips. I smiled as a popup appeared, just like I hoped it would. "Of course I'd like to sell the entire thing to the system."