Hey, Jealousy
"Some savior." That's all Bix could think. He passed store front after store front, not seeing his own reflection. All he saw was code, ugly, green digits and symbols that ran up and down the edifice of every building, over the faces of every person who gave him an odd look. He didn't care what they thought. They weren't any more real than he was.
Life wasn't fair to Bix, no matter what life he existed in. He'd been a mute witness to the entire resistance, another soldier stuck with one foot in the matrix and the other in the real world. The precarious balance between the two worlds had been more unsteady as the divided augmented. He would fall into the void eventually unless he picked one side and planted both feet on it.
He'd been a fool to take the blue pill the first time, but he was a psychopath to have taken the red pill the second time the outsiders came knocking. Both times, it had been a slight redheaded bombshell who had offered him the choice. She was insistent if nothing else. She had introduced herself the first time as Rink and hadn't wasted time. She had seemed disappointed in his choice, but she never interfered. After that night, Bix was convinced she had been some girl he had talked into going up to his apartment with him. After all, the pill had made the encounter seem a fantasy, so why shouldn't it have been a sexually pleasing one to Bix?
Rink had returned after a month. The second time, Rink appeared to have more time to spend on explaining the situation to Bix. She wouldn't elaborate, but in essence she believed in him and wanted very much for him to join her in the real world. Her faith was so powerful that Bix would've felt guilty taking the blue pill. The rest was a horrible episode of some science-fiction drama that was played in reruns over and over in his mind. Now he truly was stuck, unable to return, unable to go forward.
Not that it hadn't been fun once. Rink had confessed to him her innermost secret: she believed he was 'the One'. He was flattered at the time and took to the training with a passion, hoping to fulfill a destiny. To Bix, the real world was a comfort, not a sad pr shocking or even horrifying reality. He'd suffered personal crises in the matrix, seeing his dreams of being a success quashed under the heel of a world not ready for his genius. Tired of failure, tired of disillusionment, Bix leapt at the chance of being somebody, the chance to make a difference.
No one could deny that he had the gift. He could see lines of code where everyone else saw what the matrix told them to see. He aced the jump program, making it to the ledge of the building he was jumping to before he fell, but Rink said it was the closest anyone had ever gotten. He'd been in the matrix several times, even killed agents once or twice. He always ran afterwards, but only because he didn't think he was ready.
Then Rink took him to the Oracle. He had a great time showing up the other 'potential' children. He delighted them with making his coat dance with a dress; he wowed them by lining the silverware on end and then toppling them over like dominos. He wasn't nervous in the slightest; he knew exactly what the Oracle would tell him when they met.
"You're not the One." Little voices, all of them sounding like the gravel on rock, smoke-tainted voice of the Oracle, whispered those words over and over. She hadn't merely disappointed him; she had destroyed Bix. She didn't seem apologetic, but to Bix's further humiliation, she was condescending. She patronized his efforts; had she patted him on the head like a six-year-old and said "Sorry, Jimmy, you're just not what we're looking for," it could not have been more devastating. The Oracle's mediocre 'prediction' for his future was simply, "You'll live to see the One. Don't judge him until you meet him."
Rink had been crushed. She swore, threw things, and refused to look at Bix. They had shared everything up until that moment. She had encouraged him, taught him to think of himself as special. He loved her for it, for giving him a purpose, a fate worth living up to and dying for. They had become lovers, he loving her for the gift she had given him, she trying to capture some of the glory she thought he possessed. The day he saw the Oracle was the last time they had been together. She tried to pretend, she said it wasn't that, it was her, not him. All the bullshit that Bix had taken from girls in the past came pouring out of her mouth.
After that, Bix ceased to exist. Going into the matrix was a pain in the ass, for all he could see was his failure, written into the codes that ran vertically across everything. The code mocked him now, it taunted, and he couldn't shut it off. He never saw anything but the code, but he imagined the faces of people mocking him. Soon he had nothing to live for but following orders, a situation that he had once despised. Bix had hated the order in his life, the sameness of everyday. Then he had been dazzled by the real world and all its promise, only to have the hopes flame out. Order returned; duty reigned in the real and matrix worlds. The divided between sanity and madness grew; it was the chasm beneath his feet as he tried to hold onto both the matrix and real world realities.
All he wanted was to be special. He didn't want to live in the ordered world, but he loathed dying as a casualty of that order all the more.
Neo. Some cyberpunk who hadn't mastered anything; it was he who got to be special, with no effort. Fate had tossed a die and favorites had conquered merits. Was Bix jealous? Hell yes, he was jealous. Rink talked non-stop about this loser, about how she wanted to meet him, about how she was in love from afar. Bix tuned her out, finding comfort in his mind for once knowing that she would never get to know the guy. The Oracle had let it slip that Neo had his own special someone, and that someone wasn't Rink. Why Rink thought she was destined to have 'the One', Bix never knew. All he understood was that she wanted a unique person, and Bix was just another drone.
"Some savior," Bix repeated, earning him more wary looks from people in the crowd who parted like the Red Sea to avoid him. He kept his head down, looking at the concrete, willing himself to see the cracks, the colors and the texture, not the code. He never looked up.
Why bother? I know what I'll see. It'll be spelled out in big letters: YOU ARE NOT THE ONE, BIX.
"Don't judge him until you see him, she says," Bix mumbled. More faces from the surrounding pedestrians. He couldn't care less about their opinions; their looks didn't scathe him like Rink's did. She looked on him as a pest, a reminder of her own failure. These people merely ignored him and never gave him a second thought. Once that anonymity had bothered, it still hurt a bit, but compared to the loathing he felt for himself, it was minor.
"Excuse me." Bix finally looked up, ready to glower at the pedestrian that he had run into. The fight in his eyes died immediately when he saw the expression of the stranger. The man was tall, not above average, with an ashen complexion. He looked to be in perfect health, no bags under his eyes, no stress in his shoulders or brow. An uncanny feeling possessed Bix, an emotion so strange he couldn't place it for ages. It was pity. He had never pitied anyone because he couldn't believe anyone's life was worse than his own. The stranger didn't move; he stared at Bix, scrutinizing Bix as Bix did him. Bix had no words to vocalize, and his throat crunched tightly together when he tried clearing it.
Sadness, burden, responsibility. All three were written into the stranger's code. Bix read the code over and over, seeing the perfection of the man's worry-free features and the underwritten tension that was crushing him from the inside. What could he possibly suffer that would alter his code so drastically? Bix had never before seen such pressure bottled in one man.
"Do I know you?" Bix finally managed to mutter. The stranger looked surprised and defensive. A freed mind for sure. Only free minds are that suspicious. Bix analyzed the change in the code on the man's face until he couldn't see the code anymore. The green alphanumerics melted into the black background.
The man's face had color. Color, honest-to-God-color, not a series of digits telling Bix that he was pallid. Bix would have fallen to his knees if the stranger hadn't shot out an arm to steady him.
"You alright?" Concern, a wrinkle in the stranger's brow; Bix could see it. He managed to tear his eyes away for a moment, and subsequently the stranger was required to entirely support his weight when his knees buckled.
The world, the matrix reality wasn't encoded for Bix's eyes only. The skyscrapers were chrome fingers scratching at the azure atmosphere. Clothing store windows blinded him with the multiple colors of their wares. The sun was more brilliant than Bix had ever remembered. His gaze returned to the stranger holding him up.
"Who are you? How did you do this?" The stranger's shoulders sagged. Somehow, Bix's question had added to the other man's burden. Why? What do his problems have to do with me?
"You're alright then." Without further words, the stranger let go and took off. Bix stared at his retreating back. Not thinking, Bix pursued. The stranger's emotions radiated off in all directions. He was running away, trying to escape the weight on his mind, and somehow Bix had allowed the problems to catch up with the man.
It's not like he has to save the world or anythi…Bix never finished his train of thought. The answer was so simple, yet it still hit him like a hammer between his eyes. He had pitied the stranger, the only man he had ever pitied. Was this really the same man he had envied?
"Don't judge him until you meet him." Bix had judged him. He had been jealous, now he knew how big a fool he was for so doing. Laughter erupted from somewhere in his gut, and Bix was obligated to stop his pursuit to recollect himself. He roared until he cried, laughed until there was no more air and he was only dry cackling.
Bix recovered after a few minutes and stood, still chuckling inside. He started down the street that the other man…no, Neo, he told himself…had taken. He never made it past the third step. Neo was still there, looking straight back at Bix. The laughter that had racked Bix dried up. The pain and despair in Neo's face stuffed the cheer down Bix's throat with a bitter dose of guilt. Neo turned away first, looking to be on the verge of tears.
Bix didn't waste another minute. He dialed up for an exit and left the matrix. Rink met him as he woke.
"Do you know who that was?" She was incredulous. "Wasn't he beautiful? Oh God, I hope I can still catch him," she shoved Bix aside and seated herself in the chair he'd just abandoned. She motioned for him to plug her in. "This is so exciting, isn't it? I bet it must be neat to be so powerful." With that said, Bix sent her reeling into the matrix.
"You have no idea." He could have told her the truth; he could have lied, too. Instead he said nothing but that. He inhaled deeply, appreciating the oily smell of the ship for the first time.
The End