The Door Made of Dark.
The Fifth One walked through the door on the right, after learning what he really was. His mind awash with guilt, hate, disgust and most of all, the feeling that he'd failed. The Architect's words still rang in his head, about his being both the savior of Zion and the harbinger of it's doom as well. "But what could I have done?" he thought. If only there was someone that understood what this all meant, and even if the answers came, could I have even done anything about it? Would the Oracle even level with him, now?
The door swung open, and inside was a computer terminal, already turned on to what looked like a search engine. The room was immaculate, not a blemish, nor a speck of dust to be found, and thankfully, the chair was rather comfortable as 5 sat down to make his choices, to search for 'the salvation of Zion', a phrase that tasted like vomit in the back of his throat. Each name that came up in his search, accompanied by a picture, not unlike a drivers' license photo brought the waves of guilt back to him. How could he have been a part of this? How could he cooperate with this, this blatant stab at his very soul? Did he even have a soul anymore? Wasn't he supposed to be Zion's savior? He didn't take part in it, but he was just as responsible for the death of a quarter of a million people as the machines that invaded their…his home.
5's search eventually brought him the required 23 people that he was told he needed. What would he tell them? That he was some kind of messiah? Messiahs tend to save, not kill, and he had to do it, all over again. He had to save them, not from the machines, he had to save them from himself, but he couldn't anymore. "Some things change" he thought. But how could he change it?
5 decided to put off his visit to the first person on his list, an architect, oddly enough, he thought. What would the Oracle tell him, after this? He had to know. She'd give him the run-around of cryptic messages and gentle prods in the direction she needed him to go…or would she?
The Oracle was just as he'd remembered her, before he learned the truth, the kind & gentle looking woman, she could have been his mother, anyone's mother, there in her warm and inviting kitchen. As 5 started to open his mouth, the Oracle held up a hand to stop him. "I know how you must feel right now. I used you. I had to get you to where you needed to be."
Taken aback by the Oracle's honesty, 5 saw an opening and took it. "What if I'd chosen the other door?" "What do you mean?" she replied.
"Well, if I'd chosen to go back to the Matrix, and try to save them, could I have done it?"
"No" said the Oracle, in an impassive and cold voice, that was very unlike her usual demeanor. "To save them, to stop the machines from killing everyone both inside and outside, you would have to have been able to offer the Architect something. Something that only you would have been able to stop with your unique abilities. There's nothing out there that could threaten us like that, not yet, at least, and certainly nothing that would be a match for you"
Taken back, 5 asked, "Us? Not yet? What do you mean?"
"Well, let's just say I've got more than a few tricks up my sleeve, if you can play along a little bit more. What would you say if I told you there might be a way to stop this from ever happening again, with a bit of prodding, in the right direction?"
5's guilt about his role in the genocide made him an easy target now. To be manipulated like this, now, after his betrayal of his friends, his loved ones, the inhabitants of Zion was sickening. How could he possibly face another person that looked at him as a savior, when he was nothing more than another part of the system that kept them in line, not to mention a willing participant in the wholesale slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people?
"This is going to happen again and again?" 5 said.
The Oracle took her opening, noticing 5's seemingly painful internal struggle. "It already has. Have you got your list of the first 23?"
"Yes."
"Let me see it."
She took the folder from 5, thumbed through it and pulled a few pages out, wadding them up and discarding them. She took a pen out of the drawer next to her, and wrote a few more names on the remaining pages. "Take these instead, bring the first three to me, and we'll see if we can't shake things up."
Continued soon.