"…and in that critical moment, she stared defiantly, uncompromisingly, into the eyes of the Beast – and it stared back. It stared back… and for an instant… the Monster hesitated. It was that hesitation, that brief syllable of time that meant Neo's life. He is alive today because Trinity confronted the Great Evil – she challenged the fiery rubies encrusted in hard steel without fear … and she won."

This is the first version of the story I ever heard, and it's still my favorite. But I must inform the reader that it is probably not historically accurate. Firstly, by my mother's own admission, she was "absolutely terrified by that sentinel", and you would "have to be crazy, or Morpheus, or both, not to be". Moreover, she still holds to this day that the "Monster" hadn't hesitated, but had rather paused to scan the core for its intended victims.

Nevertheless, Morpheus is still adamant that he'd seen the "Squid-like Beast" falter just long enough for my father to reach the Exit. "A moment longer, and the EMP burst would have killed him". Absolutely captivated, I memorized the story word for word by age 6, and I can tell you that not a syllable of it has changed in the past 12 years. And I wouldn't ever want it to.

From as early on as I can remember, I vehemently rejected my mother's rather anti-climactic annotations to all of Morpheus' stories. I remember Dad would smile through the arguments I had with her at bedtime. And the argument was always the same. I wouldn't go to bed until she told the story "properly". Invariably, the end result was her telling the story how she remembered it, interrupted by my correcting her all the way through.

For reasons that are plainly obvious, I have developed a keen interest in the History of the Resistance. In particular, there is a great oral tradition that has been preserved by the generation that came before me, which I would like to honor. In addition, the many historic documents, including books, photographs, interviews, ships' logs, and newswire articles tell their own stories about the Great War, and the lives of those who fought it. As one may imagine, much of the information is redundant, or contradictory, and much is still left to speculation.

Of course, the most tragic fact of my life is I have never seen the Matrix. I've never seen my father stop bullets in midair, and I've never seen him fly. And I have never seen my mother dodge head-on traffic while straddling a motorcycle. But I've heard many versions of these stories, each with their own unique set of details. For instance, I recently heard an argument break out among some workers in the dock regarding the type of motorcycle my mother used while saving the Keymaker from deletion. To satisfy any curiosity on the part of my readers, I will tell you that my mother reluctantly admitted to me (with a stifled flicker of mischief on her face) that she is "quite certain it was a black Ducati". But this, of course, is off the point.

It is not my intention, reader, to merely report the facts of the War. Rather, this is a tribute to the lives of my parents, and to those who fought beside them. It is a story of great feats of bravery and huge leaps of faith. But most of all, it is a love story. Not just the love between two people, but also the love that binds together a community, and the love that can reunite two great races, torn apart by generations of war. I do not intend to tell the story exactly the way it happened, but rather the way it is remembered, and the way it is felt in the hearts of our people.

Aurora-Eon of Zion, circa2219