Disclaimer: I do not own the Matrix, I just live here
Disclaimer: I do not own the Matrix, I just live here. Seriously, it wouldn't be fan fiction if I owned the matrix. It would just be cannon. I'm not going to put this at the top of every chapter, so please don't forget.
Synopsis: The war is over, but only in code. The machines are trying to prevent hoards of humans from defecting from the Matrix. In response, the rebels are smuggling them out in a slightly unorthodox way. Our narrator is caught in the middle of what is right, what is comfortable, and what his actions mean for the future of both races.
Author's note: I have been writing this story off and on for four years, so if the tone shifts a bit, that's probably why. Sorry. But it has to be written. It won't go away. So somebody, please review because I won't go through the trouble of finishing it unless someone is actually reading it. I was going to give up on this story, but I enjoyed it so much, it needed an audience. Hope you enjoy it too. There will be some profanity. Come on, the movies were full of it. Also, I have borrowed some ideas from other works and took them in different directions. If you think you see something that might have arisen from your work, remember I have been working on this for four years so I might have actually come up with it first, and that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Ch. 1 The Chase
I had decided three nights before that I simply was not going to get up in the morning or the one after that or the one after and so forth in that fashion indefinitely. It had seemed like an easy enough conclusion at the time, wound up in my own misery and quite oblivious to my surroundings. I was stuck at a point and the best I could tell, that point was where the equation ended. I had nothing, simple as that, and was so absorbed in that notion that I could not find anything to want that would ever be afforded me. So lying there until I met a million very similar ends seemed the optimal solution. And it had gone precisely as planned for the first three days, staring up at my cracked ceiling from the couch, ignoring the creak of the building, the sounds of motion in the apartments adjacent to and above mine, the shaking of the floor whenever a door was slammed or someone clamored up the stairs. But the morning on the forth day tested my resolve and it, like so many other things in my life, failed. When I heard footsteps stop at my door early that morning, I was jarred from my self-pity.
I do not remember making a choice to do as I did. Whether it be by instinct or force of habit, I launched myself to my feet, in the process grabbing the loaded gun on the coffee table. More footsteps were following in the soft purposeful way commonly utilized to surround an unsuspecting victim. In my mind, the small mob outside my door was forming a number of visitor combinations, all quite likely and with the same intention. I edged my way silently from the living room to the balcony in the back, but knowing very good and well that they would have to be quite stupid to leave my only other exit completely unguarded.
I heard whispers in the hallway, barely audible, but there was no mistaking the words, "are you sure this is a good idea?" At least they were indecisive. That might give me a few extra milliseconds, and I knew from experience that milliseconds were all that were required to completely change the outcome.
Judging from their shuffling, I guessed there were about eight with a standard deviation of one accounting for the possibility that one member of their team might be either exceptionally still or exceptionally antsy.
I was at the balcony now. I looked out the sliding glass door. I saw no one on the balcony and flattened myself against the wall to peer down to the bottom of the fire escape. I saw no one, but from this angle it was impossible to tell. They really couldn't be so stupid as not to guard both exits… I chose the unknown, feeling rather certain that no one would be stationed on top of the roof, so at the very least I would have options once outside. I could not stay where I was at since I would most certainly run out of ammunition before I ran out of foes.
I tried to quietly open the sliding glass door. Unfortunately, I had never gone out on the balcony of this particular apartment before and so did not think to WD-40 the hell out of it so it would not squeak and alert my gathering attackers that I was trying to make a run for it. Shit. For a microsecond I was surprised with myself that I had not yet learned to do this. Then my front door burst open, and I threw the sliding glass door open with abandon and hopped onto the balcony. I mentally kicked myself. I had chosen this particular apartment because in the floor plan I had noticed that the back door was not visible from the front door. Whole hell of a lot of good it did me now. But at least they would have to go around a couple walls before they could get at me.
I quickly glanced down the fire escape. There were three people waiting at the bottom. I was beginning to think I had it right with just lying there on the couch and letting it come. Would have been a whole hell of a lot easier.
A man dressed from head to toe in black leather called out to me. "Hold it right there!" I was tempted to yell back at him, "How goddamn stupid do you think I am?!" but decided against it.
I heard the others thundering through my apartment, heading my way. I could take aim and try to shoot the people on the ground, but that would take up precious escape seconds and I could not see them well in the early morning twilight. The chances of me hitting all three fatally in the few seconds I had were not good and I did not want to waste my ammunition. I could go down, kill those three assholes, but by the time I did, their seven friends upstairs would have made it to the balcony and begun to put a number of bullet-sized holes in me. Not exactly the look I was going for. I would take my chances against the three on the ground and pulled myself up the cold, dewy ladder of the fire escape.
Now I may not have made that decision had I known ahead of time that my annoying neighbor two stories above me, who hit on me in the Laundromat incidentally, was going to pick that morning to water her plants. Who waters their plants at six in the morning? It was barely daylight! She looked rather surprised to see me climbing up to her and I assumed she was wondering who climbs up the fire escape at six in the morning, or up the fire escape at all considering its degenerative state.
"Get inside!" I hissed.
For a second she looked as if she had taken this as a return of her advances until a shot aimed for me hit one of her potted plants. She quickly obeyed.
I continued to pull myself up the ladder, hoping that the laws of probability would not work against me any further that morning and another neighbor interrupt me in my quest to get the hell away from the crazy people with guns. A couple more shots hit the building and I heard my uninvited guests clang loudly as they crowded out onto the balcony. One more story… I heard them shouting directions to each other, but did not pay their commands much heed as I desperately clamored up the slippery ladder. There! The roof! It would be easy from here.
And then something I did not at all expect happened. As I popped my head above the brick wall along the edge of the roof I was greeted by a shovel, a rather rusty shovel I might add. I was not in exactly the most maneuverable of positions with one foot already airborne, reaching for the one above, the hand with the gun flat on top of the wall and the other hand keeping me from falling backward onto the street below. So when the shovel came swinging at the side of my head with incredible force and speed, I did what most people in such situations would do. I gawked at it. As it connected with my head, I was terribly angry with myself. Done in by a simple gardening instrument. Certainly wasn't how I had pictured my final moments. I flew through the air, nineteen stories of air to be exact, and made a quick calculation of my force of impact. No, I could not hope to break my fall at that speed and knew full well that though the fall would not kill me, I would be quite unconscious when I hit, coupled with a slug to the head that would have killed most humans. And then the leather-clad people on the ground could have their way with me, which I was pretty sure had something to do with the heavy automatic weapons they were carrying. Staying on the sofa would have been so much easier.
Author's Note: Hopefully that wasn't too painful for you. Chapters will average this length because that's about how long my attention span is. I will be updating a couple times a week until I get to where I have no more story…and then it will be slower. Loved it? Hated it? Please review!