What if your life was just a program? What if everything you knew was a bunch of numbers and symbols on a computer chip? What if everyone you knew -- your wife, children, and friends -- were nothing but files?
Greg Anderson, husband of Amy Anderson, is a victim of a terrible car accident. He awaken within another world called "The Matrix", a virtual limbo. He meets a man by the name of Xavior (pronounced Zay-v-er), and the two are lead onto an adventure where Greg's true past is finally revealed.
The lead scientists, Dr. Timothy Gerald and Dr. Jillian De Foe, code-named "Mother" and "Father", find out that Greg has passed into the Matrix. They send soldiers into the Matrix to destroy Greg and Xavoir, but are met with high resistance from the two. Leading on a wild goose chase into the far reaches of the Matrix.
Forget all that you know. Prepare to enter The Matrix.
Note: This story is told from Greg, "Mother", "Father", and Captain John Marshall. The story is told as if they are describing it. I do not own anything I mention in this book, if I am doing something illegal, give me a polite warning so I can fix it (I'm only 14).
Chapter 1: The First Day
James walked into his parent's bedroom, as quietly as possible. The sun glistened out of the small cracks within the drapes overlooking the now quiet, but soon to be crowded, streets of Crystal Tokyo. The room was filled with furniture, cluttered desks, electronic equipment and all other kinds of things. Greg was a Nuclear Physical Engineer for the Japanese Navy's Civilian Corps of Engineers, JNCCE. And Amy was a doctor in Pediatrics with her own practice in Downtown Crystal Tokyo. She had many patients in so many hospitals, she even her services free to the children's parents who had little or no insurance, or didn't qualify. It didn't matter how much she made, Greg was getting his mortgage and 50% of his bills paid for by the JNCCE. And Amy still made $160,000, they lived an excellent life. By everyone else's standards.
James suddenly walked up to his mother, Amy, and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned away, eyes barely open, to see her son James, age 7, holding out a tray of food. Breakfast in bed, she deserves it. He even made arrangements for someone else to take care of the flu shots being given out at the hospital and her practice. She had credentials on side up and one side down, she had every flat out degree Harvard could give. She graduated top of her class with a 4.0 average, and everything had fallen into place after that. Now, we transfer from my point of view to Greg's…let's continue.
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Finally, it's morning. Was I waiting for it? Who knows? But I knew I had things to do, visit the base, register for the day and take a trip around the U.S.S. Oklahoma for inspections. Damn sailors, getting drunk and destroying my work. Forget them. If I weren't a civilian I would have things to say to them.
But still, I would have to put all that behind me, had to go to work. I got out of bed, as Amy began eating breakfast, and took a quick shower. As I got out of the shower and shaved, I combed my hair and put on my khaki pants, blue, buttoned down shirt, white socks, shoes, and took off my Japanese Navy lather jacket from the coat rack. I then headed downstairs hootin' and hollerin' and making my way to the kitchen. I saw Amy preparing breakfast for the kids as I hugged her and kissed her upon her head. "Is it O.K. to kiss the cook?" I asked as she turned around and I kissed her again. It ended when our lovely daughter, Cindy, walked into the kitchen.
"Get a room you two." She said as she
giggled and grabbed an apple from the fruit basket on the kitchen counter. I smiled back at her as she took a bite from the apple, her long black hair in a ponytail. With her earrings and bracelet she got from her boyfriend, Tony, Annapolis student who was out on leave in the States. I approved of him, he wasn't like the other sailors. He respected my daughter and her space. Their first date was to the movies, one of the movies was called "Saving Private Ryan" and it was a big military movie. He wanted to see it, but he went to see something called "Shakespeare in Love" with her instead. He didn't even grope her, made her feel special, she knew he had feelings. Maybe I'm talking too much, but, nonetheless, it was off to the races.I took my keys and began to walk out of the door as Amy was sitting on the couch and watching "Discovery Health". She always had something to say about the topics talked about and discussed. But she leapt off of the couch and grabbed me by the waist. "What is this all about?" I asked. "Oh, nothing, just grabbing you by your love handles." She replied
"You've been reading that John Grey book again, haven't you, Hun?"
"Yes, you could say that."
"I love you, Amy."
"I love you too."
We exchanged another kiss as I began to head out of the door to my 2000 Mustang. She waved good bye as I waved back and approached the car. I hit a button on my keypad as the "Beep-beep" sound played. Showing the security was down, as I reached to open the door. I stepped inside the car ad closed the door as I started the car and backed out of the driveway.
I was driving along the road, traffic was busy as usual. The cars lined up heavily today. You could walk on foot faster than the cars could move. But none-the-less, I persisted. I then saw a shortcut through another car and began to drive through it. But then, I saw something. From out of nowhere was a loud, roaring red streak coming at my side. In the split second I had to react all I could do was pray as the car hit my side, shattering the glass as my eardrums exploded. Blood began to pour form my ear, hot, steaming and seeping blood. The sizzling heat was unbearable as I could feel my legs being crushed under the heap on crushed metal and the glass tarring through my skin, on my neck, my face, all over my body. Suddenly, I began to loose breath and control of my body. All started to go black as the blood began to mesh with twisted chrome.
Chapter 2: The Unknown Reality
"Mother, there is a problem. Our subject has been attacked, possibly killed."
"Give me that, Jenkins!" Mother hastened to tale the large mound of papers in his hand. Father looked over them as well as people scampered around the room trying to locate Greg. They lost total contact after the accident, they knew something was wrong because they could not find him within the Computer Processed Reality, or CPR. Father was trying to locate him by overriding the systems, but still no use. Greg was not found"Dr. Gerald, you're telling me that we lost Greg?"
Colonel Peterson asked with a stern look in his eye, but Gerald had no fear, he wouldn't dare touch him. Only he knew the other half of the procedure to do…well…everything needed."That's what happened, just after we programmed disasters back into the system."
"Disasters…again Gerald!" the colonel shot back, "You know and damn well remember what happened last time we had disasters in the system. We got viruses and Greg and Amy almost got killed. Not to mention the whole CPR being destroyed if it weren't for the Inner Senshi Firewall System."
"Yes, but everything did work well and he would've gotten suspicious about if his world was real. Besides, we'll find him…sometime."
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(Greg)
I slowly opened my eyes as I felt the blood hiss and ooze out of the open orifices of my flesh. By bones felt shattered, especially my legs, and my muscles felt soggy and limp like a wet napkin. I opened my eyes some more to see myself, in a bed, in the middle of a large white room. The white color was plain and bright, it seemed infinite thought yet it had an end. I got up from my bed to see a large mirror. I walked up to the mirror and placed my fingernail to it. A test to see if it was an "I see you and you can't see me" mirror. (What I did, they saw because they could see me, but I couldn't see them. Like a regular mirror, but different). And suddenly, it flexed and bent, putting an ooze-like film on my finger. I put my whole arm in, in went through. So I took a few steps back and charged forward, diving into the mirror, falling through.
I hit the ground, hard, but got up to see another white room. But it had an old, Medieval market place looking surrounding. People were walking around buying things from the stands, I decided to walk to a stand. I went up to a dealer in large Nectarines, named Mah'rek. I asked him my question. "Sir, can you tell me where I am?"
"I'm sorry lad, I can't."
"Why not."
"Because, I don't know. But maybe the user can."
"The user?"
"The ruler of the Matrix, he knows everything about this place."
As I was talking to the man, another tall, black man was walking toward me. He had no hair, clean cut dark brown face with black sunglasses. He wore a dark black, leather trench coat with black jumpsuit, black boots, and I could see his holstered gun. He kept walking my way until he finally stopped in front of me and put a hand on my right shoulder.
"Follow me, Greg, my child."
How did he know my name? Maybe I should just follow him and cut the hassles. So many questions and no time to answer them. He continued to follow the man as the people bowed as he walked by. "He must be this "user" I heard about from the dealer at the fruit stand", I thought to myself as I followed him to a large temple. It was tall with over thousands of stories in height, but triangular shaped with large blue, grew, and reddish color morphing effects like a thick liquid being swirled around a boiling cauldron. The man then stepped through the wall, as I looked around and felt someone yank me through the wall. I tripped to the floor as the man I followed was sitting in a chair with other people at a large circular meeting table.
"Finally, you've come home."
The man I followed proclaimed. "I am Xavior, ruler of the Matrix. These are my twelve advisors. We've rejoiced in your arrival.""What was he saying…
I thought to myself…This isn't home, Crystal Tokyo is. This must be heaven, or hell, I pray it's heaven, please let it be heaven!""Greg, please calm yourself, we are only here to help."
"This is heaven, I'm dead, aren't I."
"You were never organically alive. This is the Matrix, a military Computer Processed Reality, or CPR. This is where we experiment with life plans and procedures. We know that you must have been created as a program here, but we do not know who programmed you. That is what we are here to find out."
"It's not true, this is some kind of dream, and I will wake up any second now."
"Don't pinch yourself. Kansas is gone Dorothy. You either accept your existence now or "they" will kill you."
I looked into the sunglasses Xavior was wearing
"Who is "they"?
"The True Reality warriors, from the outside. Once they find out you are here, they will send troops to take you off-line for good. You have one of two choices. You can trust us and start your life over. Or you can leave and die at the hands of the outside warriors. Which will it be?"
I didn't have many options, so I had to ask one more question.
"Will I never see Amy again?"
Xavior then looked at down at the floor as my mouth began to part and I began to shake my head in disbelief. My eyes began to water.
"I'm sorry."
"No…no…no!"
I fell on my knees and put my head in my hands, on the floor, as I beat on the floor and started to cry. Tears were flowing through my eye like the blood from my ears during that car crash. I would have to leave Amy as well. My heart belonged to her and only her. She is my love, and I would have to leave my children. Why, Lord! WHY! I finally looked at Xavior, with red eyes I spoke to him in a low, soft and sorrowful voice.
"Fine, I'll go."
"A wise decision, now, you must learn how to use the Matrix."
I then thought about not the things that would be ahead of me, but the things I would leave behind. I then closed my eyes and thought of Amy, her eyes, her hair, her smile. I then took felt around my pants to find my wallet from Earth. I took out the charred but fairly visible picture of Amy, Cindy, and James, from the wallet. I looked at her picture, and watched as a tear left my eye, but suspended and seemed to stay still in time, in mid-air. Xavior picked up the tear with his finger and put his free hand on my shoulder, as I kneeled upon the ground. He looked at me and said.
"This, my child, is the true power of the Matrix."