Omega
By
Omega pulled her hair free from her rigid ponytail, unconsciously swinging her head back and forth in the sun, letting her hair become weightless and glide in the air. She titled her head to one side, and, closing her eyes, she felt the sun across her face.
And all at once realized it wasn't real.
Meg sighed and leaned back into the park bench, feeling the hard wood irate her sun-burned back. She let the splinters scratch her back because it was painful and even if the wood splinters, the bench, the sun, even her back weren't real, the pain still was. Or maybe it wasn't. But the point was, in the real world, there was pain, but there were no suns, no benches, no parks. So in that way, pain did exist.
She rubbed her eyes tiredly, wiping the sleep from the corners. Looking up, she noticed four teenagers, probably freshmen or sophomores in high school, she thought to herself ,making their way through the park, their backpacks slung hastily over their shoulders as they loudly talked, oblivious to the fact that people were resting on the benches and casting them dirty looks. Meg turned away. Once, she could have been able to be just as unaware as they were, but not any more.
One of the students noticed her and stared for a second too long. Meg noticed the eyes on her, and she turned her head to return the stare. The second she locked eyes with the student, she turned away, an upper class, over-privileged, slightly naive girl caught staring. Meg watched the students leave the park, her eyes still following them long after they were out of sight. She did not blame the girl for staring. She supposed she might have stared once, too. Who wouldn't stare at an eighteen year old orphaned high school drop-out with pale, cracked skin and nervous eyes?
Meg stood up carefully, feeling the effort on her unused muscles and sore bones. She picked her black bag and slung the strap over her chest. She walked swiftly down the sidewalk, eyes planted straight ahead, never moving an inch of course, her arms held stiffly at her sides and her hands held in determined fists. She wondered to herself why she even bothered to leave her crowded old apartment anyway- the street to her reeked of desperation and hostility. Sometimes, she could even smell the bland artificial- a almost non-existent smell that hung in hospitals and geriatric wards. She didn't like to look at the other people on the street- not because she was afraid she would turn and see an agent smirking at her, but because looking at the others trudging by her reminded her that was she was seeing was not real, and they were in fact held captive by invisible bonds.
And it reminded her that she was just as fucked as they were.
Meg looked down at her hands for a spilt second when she felt a strange warm liquid on her index finger. It was blood, forming around her nail where she had just pulled off a cuticle. She was tempted to stop and stare at it, to ponder it, to try to make her mind understand that it was not made up of proteins and cells as she had been taught all her life ,but instead it was made of numbers, an illusion. She kept going however, absentmindedly sticking her finger into her mouth.
Her fingers bled so easily lately. Every joint in her hands hurt, every nerve was on fire. Sometimes she wondered why exactly she had devoted her life to computer, especially after what happened to her father.
Meg liked to believe her father was among the first hackers, the industrialist ones who paved the way for every other future seeker of knowledge. Ever since she was a child, her father had been at some form of computer or another. Sometimes, she believed that the computer was her father's other child and she watched as the computer technology had aged alongside of her. While it had grown into a sleek, all-processing, powerful machine, Meg feared she had just developed into a lumbering form of jumbled nerves and over-complex emotions. The computer had always been the favored child in her father's life, and she hated that as soon as she has left her for it, she had become dependent on it to live.
Meg would never admit to having a normal childhood. Her mother had died in child birth and her father was a computer junkie, a hermit. She had been even cursed with an odd name. She didn't feel right around the other children her age, so they had just left each other alone. She wasn't picked on, and in return, she didn't bother anyone. As she would sometimes tell herself, she didn't live, she just survived. But thinking about that know, after everything she had learned, she supposed that it was the same for the rest of the enslaved population.
About seven months ago, her father disappeared. There was nothing ceremonious about it. She got home from school, and he was gone. She checked the computer for any messages, and found none. She then went to the refrigerator and fixed herself dinner and watched TV. And the next morning she got up again, looked a the computer one more time, and went to school. She did find it a bit odd that he was gone, since he couldn't bear to leave the house for a minute, let alone overnight. But then again, her father was odd, and odd behavior was characteristic of odd people.
She realized a few days after her father's disappearance that she was going to have to get a steady job, and not a part-time one either. She dropped out of school, and began doing what her father did before he disappeared in order to support them. She hacked.
It came easily for her. Her father had never given her formal instructions on how to do it, but spending a lifetime around computers was more than enough practice. The computer was her sibling, she could understand it perfectly. She took her father's behavior as her own, complete with strings of sleepless nights full of downloading and selling of information. She had become a criminal, but she never even gave it a thought. She took it all in stride and you would never have suspected that her father's disappearance was sudden and unexpected. Nothing fazed her.
Nothing until the night of January 24. That was when her father had climbed up the fire escape and had broken into his apartment.
She had fallen into a light sleep at the computer and the slight sound of the window closing behind him snapped her awake. There he was, standing over her, wearing all black, and she wouldn't have noticed him at all if it wasn't for his pale skin shining in the moonlight.
"Dad?" she had said, cautiously. She was nearly positive she was still sleeping, or at least hallucinating.
"Hello Meg," he had answered, his voice both familiar and foreign at once.
"Is it really you?" she had asked, reaching forward to touch him.
He had leaned down so he was face to face with her. He had smiled, and his eyes shined at her with a liveliness she did not remember seeing for a long time. She gently touched his face, moving her fingers slowly down his cheek until she came to the are just above his chin. There she traced the scar that she had always associated with her father.
" Where have you been?" she had asked, moving back quickly. She was not sure if she was to hug him like so many actress had hugged their parents when reunited. She didn't want to hug him, she didn't want to feel the stiff uncomfort that she had felt so often with him.
He had preceded to tell her everything. She had never seen him so animated, and she had never seen him so talkative. He told her about searching for the answer, something that surprised her. She had known many people who were searching for the answer themselves, but her father had never even mentioned it. He told her about being contacted, about meeting Morpheus (she had shuddered at the name, it was enough to strike fear and respect into anyone) about being given the choice of the pills, about taking he red pill and the world it had opened it to him. He vividly described to her everything that happened to him, about waking up naked and bald and seeing hundreds of bodies stored in never-ending towers. She had been amazed and horrified, but not at all disbelieving. She had always sensed that there wasn't something right about the world, that there was something that was missing. She took all he said in. But then he started telling her the truth.
To be honest, it did not shock her in the way she had expected. That is to say, it did shock her, but not in the degree she had expected. However, when he started telling her about the real world, and how there was no sun, and starting describing the fields where human babies were grown, she didn't want to hear it anymore. She would have accepted the world she lived in to be only a simulation, but she would not accept the fact that the real world was, in her mind, worse than the false world that she inhabited.
She clamped her hands over her eyes and began repeating "I don't believe you, I don't believe you" in order to drown her father out. With one hand he reached up and pulled both her hands down and with his other, he covered her mouth. She was startled by his strength and did not move, slightly quivering. She did not want to hear the truth, but she had no choice. He had filled her with this horrible knowledge and then had left again, with the words "I'll see you again" thrown over his shoulder as he climbed out the window and out of sight.
Back on the street, Meg's eyes begun to tear. She wiped stubbornly at them with her sleeve, and pulling her hair forward to veil her face. She didn't like to consider a world worse than this one. She glanced quickly at the towering skyscrapers around her, trying to picture them submerged in a sewer. She found it all too easy.
Meg quickly entered her apartment building, walking up the eight floors to her room instead of taking the elevator. She had a general mistrust of any machinery not controlled by her, as if the machines knew that she knew the truth and might be a threat. She walked down the long hallway, and stopped at room 808. She reached into her pocket and produced the key with trembling fingers. The noise of the door unlocking was loud in the till hallway.
She slipped into her apartment and quickly sank into the chair facing her computer. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to regain her nerves. Just the simple act of leaving her drafty and dark apartment tore her apart. She rarely left her apartment, and she liked it that way.
She opened her eyes slowly, and looked over at the computer monitor. With excruciating slowness, words formed on the waiting screen.
Her mouth fell open. She could not move, she was frozen in place with her hand dangling slightly over the escape key.
She knew what comes after this, the pills, the choice, the truth, the real world with no sun and where the dead where fed to babies...
Omega turned off the computer and walked away.
By
Omega pulled her hair free from her rigid ponytail, unconsciously swinging her head back and forth in the sun, letting her hair become weightless and glide in the air. She titled her head to one side, and, closing her eyes, she felt the sun across her face.
And all at once realized it wasn't real.
Meg sighed and leaned back into the park bench, feeling the hard wood irate her sun-burned back. She let the splinters scratch her back because it was painful and even if the wood splinters, the bench, the sun, even her back weren't real, the pain still was. Or maybe it wasn't. But the point was, in the real world, there was pain, but there were no suns, no benches, no parks. So in that way, pain did exist.
She rubbed her eyes tiredly, wiping the sleep from the corners. Looking up, she noticed four teenagers, probably freshmen or sophomores in high school, she thought to herself ,making their way through the park, their backpacks slung hastily over their shoulders as they loudly talked, oblivious to the fact that people were resting on the benches and casting them dirty looks. Meg turned away. Once, she could have been able to be just as unaware as they were, but not any more.
One of the students noticed her and stared for a second too long. Meg noticed the eyes on her, and she turned her head to return the stare. The second she locked eyes with the student, she turned away, an upper class, over-privileged, slightly naive girl caught staring. Meg watched the students leave the park, her eyes still following them long after they were out of sight. She did not blame the girl for staring. She supposed she might have stared once, too. Who wouldn't stare at an eighteen year old orphaned high school drop-out with pale, cracked skin and nervous eyes?
Meg stood up carefully, feeling the effort on her unused muscles and sore bones. She picked her black bag and slung the strap over her chest. She walked swiftly down the sidewalk, eyes planted straight ahead, never moving an inch of course, her arms held stiffly at her sides and her hands held in determined fists. She wondered to herself why she even bothered to leave her crowded old apartment anyway- the street to her reeked of desperation and hostility. Sometimes, she could even smell the bland artificial- a almost non-existent smell that hung in hospitals and geriatric wards. She didn't like to look at the other people on the street- not because she was afraid she would turn and see an agent smirking at her, but because looking at the others trudging by her reminded her that was she was seeing was not real, and they were in fact held captive by invisible bonds.
And it reminded her that she was just as fucked as they were.
Meg looked down at her hands for a spilt second when she felt a strange warm liquid on her index finger. It was blood, forming around her nail where she had just pulled off a cuticle. She was tempted to stop and stare at it, to ponder it, to try to make her mind understand that it was not made up of proteins and cells as she had been taught all her life ,but instead it was made of numbers, an illusion. She kept going however, absentmindedly sticking her finger into her mouth.
Her fingers bled so easily lately. Every joint in her hands hurt, every nerve was on fire. Sometimes she wondered why exactly she had devoted her life to computer, especially after what happened to her father.
Meg liked to believe her father was among the first hackers, the industrialist ones who paved the way for every other future seeker of knowledge. Ever since she was a child, her father had been at some form of computer or another. Sometimes, she believed that the computer was her father's other child and she watched as the computer technology had aged alongside of her. While it had grown into a sleek, all-processing, powerful machine, Meg feared she had just developed into a lumbering form of jumbled nerves and over-complex emotions. The computer had always been the favored child in her father's life, and she hated that as soon as she has left her for it, she had become dependent on it to live.
Meg would never admit to having a normal childhood. Her mother had died in child birth and her father was a computer junkie, a hermit. She had been even cursed with an odd name. She didn't feel right around the other children her age, so they had just left each other alone. She wasn't picked on, and in return, she didn't bother anyone. As she would sometimes tell herself, she didn't live, she just survived. But thinking about that know, after everything she had learned, she supposed that it was the same for the rest of the enslaved population.
About seven months ago, her father disappeared. There was nothing ceremonious about it. She got home from school, and he was gone. She checked the computer for any messages, and found none. She then went to the refrigerator and fixed herself dinner and watched TV. And the next morning she got up again, looked a the computer one more time, and went to school. She did find it a bit odd that he was gone, since he couldn't bear to leave the house for a minute, let alone overnight. But then again, her father was odd, and odd behavior was characteristic of odd people.
She realized a few days after her father's disappearance that she was going to have to get a steady job, and not a part-time one either. She dropped out of school, and began doing what her father did before he disappeared in order to support them. She hacked.
It came easily for her. Her father had never given her formal instructions on how to do it, but spending a lifetime around computers was more than enough practice. The computer was her sibling, she could understand it perfectly. She took her father's behavior as her own, complete with strings of sleepless nights full of downloading and selling of information. She had become a criminal, but she never even gave it a thought. She took it all in stride and you would never have suspected that her father's disappearance was sudden and unexpected. Nothing fazed her.
Nothing until the night of January 24. That was when her father had climbed up the fire escape and had broken into his apartment.
She had fallen into a light sleep at the computer and the slight sound of the window closing behind him snapped her awake. There he was, standing over her, wearing all black, and she wouldn't have noticed him at all if it wasn't for his pale skin shining in the moonlight.
"Dad?" she had said, cautiously. She was nearly positive she was still sleeping, or at least hallucinating.
"Hello Meg," he had answered, his voice both familiar and foreign at once.
"Is it really you?" she had asked, reaching forward to touch him.
He had leaned down so he was face to face with her. He had smiled, and his eyes shined at her with a liveliness she did not remember seeing for a long time. She gently touched his face, moving her fingers slowly down his cheek until she came to the are just above his chin. There she traced the scar that she had always associated with her father.
" Where have you been?" she had asked, moving back quickly. She was not sure if she was to hug him like so many actress had hugged their parents when reunited. She didn't want to hug him, she didn't want to feel the stiff uncomfort that she had felt so often with him.
He had preceded to tell her everything. She had never seen him so animated, and she had never seen him so talkative. He told her about searching for the answer, something that surprised her. She had known many people who were searching for the answer themselves, but her father had never even mentioned it. He told her about being contacted, about meeting Morpheus (she had shuddered at the name, it was enough to strike fear and respect into anyone) about being given the choice of the pills, about taking he red pill and the world it had opened it to him. He vividly described to her everything that happened to him, about waking up naked and bald and seeing hundreds of bodies stored in never-ending towers. She had been amazed and horrified, but not at all disbelieving. She had always sensed that there wasn't something right about the world, that there was something that was missing. She took all he said in. But then he started telling her the truth.
To be honest, it did not shock her in the way she had expected. That is to say, it did shock her, but not in the degree she had expected. However, when he started telling her about the real world, and how there was no sun, and starting describing the fields where human babies were grown, she didn't want to hear it anymore. She would have accepted the world she lived in to be only a simulation, but she would not accept the fact that the real world was, in her mind, worse than the false world that she inhabited.
She clamped her hands over her eyes and began repeating "I don't believe you, I don't believe you" in order to drown her father out. With one hand he reached up and pulled both her hands down and with his other, he covered her mouth. She was startled by his strength and did not move, slightly quivering. She did not want to hear the truth, but she had no choice. He had filled her with this horrible knowledge and then had left again, with the words "I'll see you again" thrown over his shoulder as he climbed out the window and out of sight.
Back on the street, Meg's eyes begun to tear. She wiped stubbornly at them with her sleeve, and pulling her hair forward to veil her face. She didn't like to consider a world worse than this one. She glanced quickly at the towering skyscrapers around her, trying to picture them submerged in a sewer. She found it all too easy.
Meg quickly entered her apartment building, walking up the eight floors to her room instead of taking the elevator. She had a general mistrust of any machinery not controlled by her, as if the machines knew that she knew the truth and might be a threat. She walked down the long hallway, and stopped at room 808. She reached into her pocket and produced the key with trembling fingers. The noise of the door unlocking was loud in the till hallway.
She slipped into her apartment and quickly sank into the chair facing her computer. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to regain her nerves. Just the simple act of leaving her drafty and dark apartment tore her apart. She rarely left her apartment, and she liked it that way.
She opened her eyes slowly, and looked over at the computer monitor. With excruciating slowness, words formed on the waiting screen.
Her mouth fell open. She could not move, she was frozen in place with her hand dangling slightly over the escape key.
She knew what comes after this, the pills, the choice, the truth, the real world with no sun and where the dead where fed to babies...
Omega turned off the computer and walked away.