NEO
I woke kicking a screaming in a bed. I was still panicked and shivering. I looked around to see where I was. I was in my bed, in my apartment. When did I get here? How did I get here? Thunder rumbled outside, and I looked to my window. I rubbed my stomach. It had all been a dream. A really fucked up dream. I flopped back in bed relieved.
Riiiing!
I looked up. The land line phone on my desk was ringing. I slowly went to it and started at it. Wait…had this all been a dream? Or was it some sort of jump cut?
Riiiing!
I picked up.
"This line is tapped so I must be brief." Morpheus! "They got to you first, but they've underestimated how important you are." I bit my lip. I was a nobody; how could I be important?
"If they knew what I know. You would probably be dead."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"You are the one, Neo."
I scoffed.
"You see, you may have spent the last few years looking for me…" I blinked. I'd been telling myself that my feelings and new behavior had started a few weeks ago but, weeks had turned into months; months had turned into years… had I always been this obsessed with the Matrix? How had I managed to keep it a secret from my work for so long if my ability to care about my job had been decreasing for years?
"But I've spent my entire life looking for you." I stood there. "Now, do you still want to meet?"
"Yes."
"Then go to the Adam's St. bridge."
I waited just under the bridge since it was pouring outside. I paced nervously. What if I was being punked? What if the men in black came back? A car pulled up next to me. I jumped away from it. I had psyched myself out. The back door on the passenger side swung open.
"Get it." Trinity said. I looked at her in disbelief. This was really happening. She smiled at me. "Please." I climbed in and sat next her. The car rode off. As I got comfortable in my seat the woman sitting next to the driver turned and pointed a gun at me. I flinched away.
"What the hell is this?" I demanded.
"Neo." Trinity pleaded. "It's necessary for our protection."
"From what?" I asked. "From me?"
Trinity looked at me her face full of concern. I realized that she had seated herself as far away from me as the car allowed. "Yes." They were afraid of me.
"Take of your shirt." The woman in the front ordered. I turned to her.
"I'm sorry. What?"
She rolled her eyes. She glanced to the driver. "Stop the car." He nodded, and the car screeched to a halt.
"Listen up, Coppertop." The woman hissed at me. "We don't have time for a game of twenty questions. Right now, there's only one rule. Our way or the highway."
I looked to Trinity. She looked unsure. I frowned.
"What if I decide the highway?" I said, threatening to open the door.
"Neo, please." Trinity said quietly. I turned to her. "Please trust me. I know you've been down that road, Neo. You know exactly where it ends. I know that's not where you want to be. It's where I don't want you to be." I sat in stunned silence for a bit, then I took my hand off the door. Trinity nodded to the gun wielding woman and she prompted the driver to move.
"Apoc, lights." Trinity said. Apoc killed the lights. Trinity reached down and picked up a funky looking machine. "Lie back. Lift up your shirt." She positioned the device over my belly button. Flash backs of the scorpion looking things popped into my head.
"What is that thing?" I asked hesitantly. Trinity did not have any hesitations. She lifted my shirt and pressed the tube part of the machine against my skin.
"We think you're bugged." She answered distractedly. Apoc picked up the lighter cable attached to the machine and pugged it into the cigarette lighter. His passenger glanced at him.
Trinity started fiddling with the machine. "Try and relax." She instructed. This made me tighten up and become not relaxed. Little arms sprung out of the machine. I winced. I was scared.
"Come on." Trinity muttered to herself as she looked at a screen attached to the machine. She shifted the device around to get a better angle. As she did that I felt an uncomfortable twinge in my abdomen. Oh God! That whole thing with the men in black hadn't been a dream!
"It's on the move." The woman noted.
"Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!" I whimpered.
"Shh." Trinity said calmly. "I've got you."
"You're going to lose it." The woman barked.
"No, I'm not." Trinity said, as smile playing on her lips. "Clear." Suddenly my body was charged with volts of electricity. I felt my body arch back and something inside me got sucked out.
"Jesus Christ!" I screamed. I looked at the machined. A beaker like part had popped out of the machine and inside it was the scorpion thing from my nightmare. "That thing was real!" I sat up. I felt my stomach. Like last time, it didn't hurt. Trinity took the beaker and tossed its contents onto the street.
We drove in silence the rest of the way. I went over everything that had happened the past few days in my head. I barely noticed when we arrived at a building, when we walked into the rain, when we climbed the spiraling staircase. I focused up when we got to a double door. I looked around at the people around me. Trinity was standing next to me. She blushed.
"This is it." She said. I looked and Apoc and the other woman. They were holding hands. I turned to the doors and sighed. I was about to meet with a known terrorist; this should go great.
"Any last-minute advice?" I asked sarcastically.
"Be honest." Trinity answered. I turned to her. She was looking at her hands. "He knows more than you can imagine." That was unsettling. With that I opened the doors.
At the end of the room, facing the window, was a bald man in a black leather trench coat. He turned to me.
"At last."
I walked towards him cautiously. The room was relatively small. There were two cushion chairs facing each other. Next to them there was a round table with a glass of water on it.
"Welcome, Neo." Morpheus walked confidently to me. "As you have no doubt guessed. I am Morpheus."
"It's an honor to meet you." I whispered. Morpheus stuck out his hand. I slowly put mine in his and he shook.
"No." He said. "The honor is mine. He gestured to the chair facing the window. "Please, come sit." I thumped down. I kept an eye on all the people around me, assessing how much danger I was in. Trinity went and closed the door we came in through; Apoc and his… girlfriend…wife… friend were flanking me.
"I imagine that right now you're feeling a bit like Alice." Morpheus moved to sit in the chair in front of mine but didn't actually sit. "Tumbling down the rabbit hole, hmm?"
Was he making a joke? I nodded politely. "You could say that."
"I can see it in your eyes." Morpheus turned away from me and moved to behind the chair. "You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, this is not far from the truth." I looked at my lap.
"Do you believe in fate, Neo?" He asked me. I looked up to him. He wanted an answer.
"No." I answered.
"Why not?"
"Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in charge of my life." I admitted.
"I know exactly what you mean." Morpheus said while gesturing to me. He sat in his chair. "Let me tell you why you're here." He fiddled with a little box in his hands. "You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life that there's something wrong with the world. You don't' know what it is but it's there like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me." He paused. I sat silently. I didn't have anything to add to that.
"Do you know what I'm talking about?" Morpheus asked.
"The Matrix." I breathed.
"Do you want to know what it is?"
I nodded. I was afraid but curiosity trumped my fear.
"The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."
I was shaking. This all made sense. I did feel something, everywhere, all the time. But…
"What is that truth?"
Morpheus leaned forward in his seat. "That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste of touch. A prison… for your mind." He leaned back afterwards. Seemingly satisfied with his explanation. I sat, dumbfounded, I didn't know what he was talking about.
"Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is." He continued. I watched as he opened the little box he'd been fiddling with. "You have to see it for yourself." He dumped the box's contents into his hand and placed the box on the table next to us.
"This is your last chance." He leaned forward, and I leaned away from him. I was… intimidated. "After this, there is no turning back."
He opened his left hand to reveal a little blue pill. "You take the blue pill, the story ends; and you wake up in your bed believing whatever you want to believe.
He opened his right hand to reveal a little red pill. "You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland; and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
I stared at the pills. I looked into his reflective sunglasses.
What do I do?
Which should I pick?
I reached for the red pill to…
"Remember." Morpheus' voice stopped me. I looked at him. "All I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more."
I took the red pill and swallowed it with a swig of water. I heard a sigh of relief from Trinity. Morpheus got up.
"Follow me." He ordered. I obeyed. He led me to another room with multiple computer screens, a record player looking thing, multiple goggles suspended with wires. He handed something to a man standing by the door.
"Apoc. Are we online?"
Apoc sat down in front of the computers. "Almost."
"Time is always against us." Morpheus gestured to the wooden chair next to a mirror. "Please, take a seat there." As I approached the chair Apoc's girl removed my jacket. Trinity attached electrode to my arms and neck. She smiled at me. Everyone was doing so much, it was hard to keep track of everything. There was a phone they took off the hook. The bald guy was looking into some goggles of some sort. I became very nervous. I gripped the chair arms and closed my eyes tight.
"Don't worry." Trinity whispered to me. I opened my eyes. "I did all this too. It's not that bad."
"Ok." I breathed.
"The pill you took is a part of a trace program." Morpheus explained. "It's designed to disrupt you input/output carrier signal, so we can pinpoint your location."
I frowned. It sounded like I was a computer.
"What does that mean?" I murmured.
The bald guy at the goggles looked to me. "It means buckle your seat belt, Dorothy, because Kansas is going bye-bye."
I looked around at everyone at their stations. They had clearly done this before. I looked at my lap. I had so many questions. What had I gotten myself into? What was waiting for me? Was I really so ready to leave this world behind? I sighed. I knew the answer to that last question: yes. Yes, I was. I looked at the mirror next to me. It was cracked. That's odd. It wasn't like that when I came in. I looked closer and it started repair itself. Like the cracks were ripples vanishing form the surface of a still pond.
"Did you- - " I turned to the crew of people. They were all busy. I turned back to the now fixed mirror. I stretched my hand out to it and poked it. I felt thick and gooey, liked pudding. I pulled my hand back but the mirror's surface became impossibly sticky.
"Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real?" Morpheus asked. "What if you could not wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world, and the real world?"
I pulled my hand away from the mirror and eventually it unstuck from my hand and sprung back to the mirror. But, like actual pudding, part of the reflective goo was stuck on my finger and it began to crawl up my hand. I shook my hand, trying to get it off but it kept expanding.
"It's going into replication." Trinity noted.
"Apoc?" Morpheus asked.
"Still nothing." Apoc answered.
"It's cold!" I cried. I was up my arm and spreading down my chest. It engulfed my body. I shifted, trying to get it off! "It's cold!"
"Tank, I'm going to need a signal soon." I heard Morpheus say.
"I got a fibrillation!" Trinity said.
"Apoc." Morpheus barked. "Location."
"Almost there." Apoc said.
The mirror crawled up my neck and began to cover my face.
"He's going into arrest!" Trinity sounded panicked.
"Lock!" Apoc said triumphantly. "I got him."
"Now, Tank. Now!" Morpheus exclaimed.
The mirror covered my face and poured down my throat! I screamed! I couldn't see anything I must have fallen out of my chair because I was on my back. I tried to open my eyes and was surprised to find that I could.
I was naked. I felt something down my throat, I instinctually shot up and threw up. I had to help it along by grabbing the mask that held it in place and pulling. The plugs and tubes that were connected to my body popped out. I gasped for air. When I looked around I saw row and rows of little red pods; like the one I was in right now. What the fuck!? Was this all a dream? Was I awake now? Was I asleep before?
Before I could think a creature of Lovecraftian horror dawned upon me. I tried to scream but my lungs didn't work. It grabbed me with claws and threw me down some drain. I tried to stay afloat, but I was in such shock all knowledge about swimming failed me. I blurred out of consciousness. I was sure I was going to die.