Chapter 3:
I looked around for a sign from God, which was useless, because all I saw was the empty bus stop and everyone scurrying along, getting to their destination, trying to live life unnoticed. But there was one woman who stood out in the crowd, across from me on the other side of the sidewalk. She had short black hair, and was dressed in black leather, similar to Neo's attire.
I turned around to look at her, spotted her, blinked, and she was gone. Everything was going in slow motion in my head. I turned once more, suddenly in the same position as seconds before, spotted her, and blinked, but this time she kept walking. "Deja-vu." I said to myself, suddenly becoming dizzy. She turned her head to look at me, as I lost control of my body and fell to the ground unconscious.
My vision was blurry when I woke up. I was lying down in a bed. I looked up to see my father staring down at me. His expression was hard to read. It was neither happy that I was alive, nor angry that I was missing school. He looked different to me. This was the first time in ages I had taken a good look at him.
He had brown thin hair, with a receding hairline. His eyes a deep blue, but with no emotion in them. He was wearing a black suit, like he does every day, but he didn't seem human to me. His stern voice startled me. "I'm glad you are awake." He said it so monotone, like a robot, not even caring about, or listening to the words coming out of his mouth. I said the first words that came to mind. "Where are we? This doesn't look like a hospital." I sounded smaller, less confident, which was surprising even to myself.
My father put on sunglasses, which confused me, because the room wasn't even well lit, and he smiled, not even a genuine smile of content. It was an evil smirk. Suddenly a feeling came out of no where and possessed my whole body. A feeling of being tiny and helpless, small, weak, in the hands of a monster. This monster was my father. He towered over me. I curled up in a ball, and buried my head under my arms, still lying on the raised platform bed. Three men walked in the room, startling my father. Both of us looked up at the same time, and to my surprise, they all looked exactly like my father, only with slight differences. "What were you doing?" One asked him. The other two said in unison. "He doesn't know."
My father pulled out an earpiece attached to a phone chord, and put it in his ear. "Know what?" He said curious. All three of the other men looked at eachother and smiled. One stepped forward and said in the same monotone voice that my father had. "We told you to leave it be." Some of my confidence coming back I said out loud. "Okay, so now I'm just an it, no gender?" I sat up and looked at all four of the men, who glared at me and without another word pulled me off the platform and dragged me into another room.
My heart pounded as I saw what room I was entering. It was the room from my dream! Everything was the same, table and chairs, off-white walls, video camera, and mirrored window! I skid my feed across the floor squinting my eyes and pulling back with all of my might to back out of the room. The men weren't even trying to keep me moving forward, but they did with no effort on their part. "NO!" I tried to scream, but nothing came out of my mouth. The weak feeling, the sense of hopelessness came over me again. The two men that pulled me into the room pushed me into the metal chair and backed up against the wall. My father and the last man walked in. My father sat down across from me at the table, and the other man joined the two at the wall.
I squeaked, not knowing what that would accomplish, but it was the only thing I could think of doing at the time. My father slammed a thick green folder down in front of him on the table, and began to flip through it. At first I had no idea what was in it, but then I recognized photographs of my room. Photographs of my computer even photographs of me. There were also printed documents of my search on Morpheous, and documents of my Hacker ID my incomplete homework, report card, pictures of my teachers. Then I saw pictures that I hadn't seen in a long time. My mother, pictures of me with my mother. I looked up at my father, who was already staring at me, he seemed to be reading me, like a book, trying to understand all of it's pages.
I gulped unsure of what was going to happen next. I knew that he was probably furious, because of my long past of hacking, but his expression was so nonchalant. He put his hands in front of him and opened his mouth to speak. "It looks like you have been living a second life, outside of home and school. My colleagues and I have known about this life for as long as it has been existent. We have been watching you very carefully. In this second life, you go by the alius name Cyane, and are guilty of most of our great country's laws against hacking. Unfortunately, because you are a minor, you can't spend time in jail, but we do know that you were contacted by a fellow hacker." I interrupted him. "Neo?" He smiled. "Yes, we need your help in catching him. I'm willing to erase your bad record, if you will cooperate in helping us bring down a computer criminal, at large.
The overwhelming feeling of helplessness overcame me. I sunk down into the chair. What was I ever going to do? I couldn't do anything. I'm just fifteen. "No." I said with the last bit of courage I carried. "I won't help you." When my father smirked, and put back on his sunglasses I wanted to take back everything I had said. "You are going to help us, weather you want to or not." All three of the other men came up to me and held me still, one at both of my arms, and one holding my head up. Thoughts flashed through my head of my mother and me when I was young. Just old memories, that were dead and long gone. My father stood up and walked around the table to me. "Since you are my daughter, I am going to do this with the least pain possible." He took a syringe full of clear liquid, and attached a needle. Then quickly stuck it in my neck, the next thing I knew I had fallen into a deep sleep, contaminated with nightmares.