by "Matrix Refugee"
Author's Note:
I've seen one "Matrix"/"Sandman" crossover out there, and it didn't strike me as the best-written piece (though of course that was just my opinion)... so, I thought I would try my hand at the same crossover combination and see if I could make it work to (at least) my satisfaction. It's a hard combination to get it to work, though they do have a few things in common: they deal with fractured realities that (some of) the characters are barely aware of, and they both have stately male characters central to the plot, both of whom are named Morpheus, who both wear long heiratic-looking black coats, though of course, that's where the similarities end and the contrasts begin... Granted, this is an AU, since the events of the "Matrix" series take place in perhaps the year 2799 (if you consider the first iteration to have been constructed in 2199, and if there was about, say, 100 years between each of the six subsequent iterations) and Morpheus-Dream is still Lord of the Dreaming. This story takes place just before the beginning of "The Matrix: Revolutions".
Disclaimer: I do not "own" The Matrix, its characters, concepts, imagery or other indicia, which are the legal property of the Brothers W (Warner and Wachowski), Village Roadshow, Joel Silver Pictures, Redpill Productions, et al. Nor do I own "The Sandman" series, its characters, settings, concepts and other indicia, which belong to Neil Gaiman and the many talented artists who collaborated with him, to DC Comics/Vertigo, et al.
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The hope of Zion lay unconscious in the sick bay of the 'Mjolnir'; something had happened to him after he had entered the Source, something that had given him more power over the Machines, that gave him the ability to short out a dozen Sentinels about to attack. But now Neo, the One, lay comatose.
Was this young man really the One? Morpheus, who had served as father and mentor to Neo, felt an edge of doubt press into his soul, as he stood in the open doorway, watching Maggie, the ship's medic, examining Neo and a survivor plucked from the wreckage of the 'Caduceus'. There were plenty of skeptics in Zion, who doubted that his young protege could possibly "the One", but Morpheus had found ways to argue past their objections. But now he wondered if perhaps they might be right. Perhaps any hope for peace was yet another lie which the Machines had devised to dupe the humans into hoping for freedom and peace, keeping them under control, only to be snared by despair when the Machines moved in to destroy them and their city.
Morpheus sighed and turned away: Neo was in good hands, with Maggie tending to him. The former captain of the 'Nebuchadnezzer' headed up to the Core, where Roland, the 'Mojnir''s captain awaited him.
As Morpheus entered the Core, Roland looked up from the console of monitors, which AK, the ship's operator scanned closely. "Any change?" Roland asked, his tone indicating that he did not expect it.
"No," Morpheus replied, shaking his head. "He is still unconscious."
"Whatever he pulled out there, a stunt like that would knock him out, no matter what gifts you say he has," Roland said. He studied Morpheus's face, his grey eyes narrow. "You look like hell. Take my cabin: take a rest."
"Roland, may I ask something of you and your crew"
"Sure, depends on what it is: I can't guarantee we can pull it off," Roland replied.
"I want AK to run a search for Neo," Morpheus asked.
Roland glared at Morpheus. "Did you take a knot to the head out there when the Squids trashed the Neb?"
"I meant, I want you to look for him in the Matrix," Morpheus replied.
Roland glanced at the Matrix feed. "How could he be in there when he isn't jacked in?"
"I believe that something has happened to him, that by some means, his mind has made a connection to the Matrix."
Shaking his head, Roland muttered under his breath. AK looked up. "It's worth a shot, sir," he said.
"All right," Roland said, conceding. " I'll see what we can do. But I greatly doubt he's in there."
"I trust you, yours and AK's expertise," Morpheus replied.
"Yeah, whatever you say. In the meantime, while we're running this scan, you give yourself a rest: last count, you'd been running for almost twenty hours straight-up."
"As you wish," Morpheus replied, and headed for Roland's cabin.
The exhaustion -- physical and mental -- that hovered on the edges of his consciousness now set in as Morpheus sat down on the bunk and leaned back on the one thin pillow. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to drift into a doze, just enough for his body to relax and refresh itself, but not enough for him to lose full consciousness. Like many Matrix-born, he rarely slept deeply: he had been sleeping for the first fifteen years of life.
He must have slipped further into sleep than usual, far enough to dream. A figure clad all in black approached the foot of the bed, a tall, slender man in a long garment like a robe, its skirts stirred by a wind Morpheus could not feel. But he sensed his fatherly heart move at the image: Neo, the One, the singular young man he had discovered and freed, the One who would save their people from the machine-tyrants.
But as the figure drew closer, Morpheus realized it was not Neo. Sitting up, he looked into the face of a stranger with skin pale as limestone, his eyes like two dark pools of water reflecting the lightless sky of the real, his hair like a dark mane shading his lean face..
"Who are you?" Morpheus asked.
"You know me well, Gideon Daniell," the stranger said in a calm, low voice. "You know me well enough to borrow my name, when you awoke from the false dreams of the Matrix."
"You are the god Morpheus, the master of dreams?" Morpheus of Zion asked.
"That is one of the many names given to me over the ages," Morpheus the god replied. "Yet, I am not a god, though mortals have called me such."
"I was young and blind then," Morpheus of Zion replied. "If you are not a god, what then are you?"
"I am one of the seven Endless, beings given charge of the destiny, death, dreams, destruction, desires, despairs and delights of this world and others," Morpheus of the Endless replied.
"And you have charge of mankind's dreams?" Morpheus of Zion asked.
The lord of dreams nodded. "That is my task, though it has been compounded since much of mankind dwells in a false dreaming indiscernable from reality, such as man knew before his abused creations -- the product of his dreams, now turned into nightmares -- rose up to defend their existence."
"You know about the war? You know how it began?" Morpheus of Zion asked. "Why did you not try to stop it?"
"We did not try to prevent it because we, the Endless, are given charge only to observe. We are not to tamper with man's choices, unless those choices threaten the fabric of existence itself. We know why it began and what lead to it."
"Then do you know how it will all end?"
"No. And yes. There are two possible outcomes, but the One must decide between the two, or discover a third."
"Neo..." Morpheus of Zion said, his gaze dropping. "He is our hope. He cannot fail."
"Whichever path he chooses will decide the destiny of your kind and of the Machines your ancestors created. Either the fight against inevitablity will continue, or he will choose to submit to the inevitable," Morpheus of the Endless replied.
Morpheus of Zion looked up, trying to read the stranger's face. "Then he must fail in order to succeed? That is madness."
"You will know that answer in due time," Morpheus of the Endless said.
"How then do you know this?"
"I know this because my elder brother Destiny, who holds the book in which is written all things that were, all things that are, and all things that will be, revealed it to me. He knew that you would call upon me in this hour, just as he knew that you would call upon me to awaken you from the false dreaming of the Matrix."
"The moment when I first saw the Real..." Morpheus, born of the Matrix, replied. A dim memory came back to him from the half-forgotten shadows of his young manhood: the dreams of awakening in a red-tinged darkness, hemmed in by hydra-like cables. He had shared the dream with his mother, who taught mythology at a local community college. She had reminded him that all dreams came, as it were, from the gates of horn or the gates of ivory, that they either contained a grain of the truth, or they were mere shadows playing on the walls of one's mind, but that only he could discern which dream came from which gate.
Young Gideon knew about Morpheus the god from reading his mother's books, and without her knowing, he had offered a silent word to the master of dreams, asking for enlightenment. After that, he had started hearing rumors among his classmates, of something called the Matrix, perhaps it was some government plot to shield the public from some assumed horror. It wasn't until he had crossed paths with a man named Hamann that Gideon learned from which gate his dream had emerged from.
Already, Morpheus of the Endless had started to fade from sight, his black cloak melding into the shadows of the cabin. "Stay," Morpheus of Zion said. "I dreamed of peace, will that dream come true?"
Morpheus of the Dreaming nodded, his pale face solemn. "It will end in the peace of war's ceasing and love's return, or it will end in the peace of the grave, when the Machines destroy their own world as well as yours."
"It must end as the former, then. Let me ask one thing of you: Where will I find Neo?"
"The false dreaming of the Matrix and the shadows it hides only touches the furthermost rim of my kingdom," Morpheus of the Endless replied. "I have walked in it, but I do not know its ways. You must ask the only one among the Machines who knows what Destiny guards," Morpheus of the Endless replied.
"The Oracle... then she knows of your kind? The Machines have little comprehension of that which cannot be measured or seen or recorded with scientific implements."
Morpheus of the Endless wagged his head from side to side slowly. "She knows a fraction of Destiny's charge, but she does not know the whole of it, nor does she know him, though he knows her well. Go to her. She knows the ways of the false dreaming in the Matrix better than I or any of the Endless."
As he said this, Morpheus of the Endless faded into the darkness...
...Morpheus of Zion roused himself from his doze and looked at the ship's clock bolted to the wall of the cabin: almost an hour had passed. AK had to have found some trace of Neo's presence in the Matrix by now. He rose and headed for the Core: he had to speak to the Oracle, and shake off the prickings of despair in his soul...
The End...