The Twilatrix
I do not own Twilight or the Matrix. If I did I would be minted—and I assure you that I'm not. No copyright infringement intended. This is just for fun.
Halfway there! Oracle cookies to everyone who is still reading along.
~X~
Bella follows Alice into a nondescript apartment building, across the foyer, and into an elevator. She doesn't know what she was expecting from a building that houses the all-knowing Oracle, but this dilapidated place wasn't it.
"So, is this the same Oracle that made the prophecy?" Bella asks.
Alice turns and smiles as they ascend. "Yes. She's very old—she's been with us since the beginning."
Confused, Bella's brow furrows. "The beginning?"
"Of the resistance."
"And she knows everything?"
Alice smiles at some fond memory. "She would say she knows enough." It strikes Bella that Alice and the Oracle must know each other well.
"And she's never wrong?"
"Try not to think of it in terms of right and wrong." Alice is thoughtful as she replies.
They arrive at their chosen floor and the doors open. Alice continues as they walk down a corridor, its walls dirty and marred with graffiti. "She is a guide, Bella. She can help you to find the path."
"She helped you?" The diminutive superior officer confirms Bella's question. "What did she tell you?"
Alice beams—brighter than the flickering neon lights above. "That I would find the One."
They pause at a door, identical to many others that they have passed on the way. Bella waits for Alice to knock for entry.
"I told you, I can only show you the door," Alice says dramatically. "You're the one who has to walk through it."
Another test? Bella's mind drifts back to the woman in the red dress. Hats off to Bree—she certainly knows how to program a memorable lesson.
Hands reach out for the handle, but before Bella can open the door, an olive skinned woman with dark hair pulls it wide open. Her eyes are amber.
"Hello, Bella. You're right on time."
For a moment, Bella takes in the woman in the doorway's exotic appearance and wonders If she's the Oracle, but then comes to the conclusion that she isn't. The guests are shown inside.
"Make yourself at home, Alice," the woman says. Her tone is warm and familiar, and Bella doesn't doubt that Alice has visited many times. The priestess, if that's what she is, turns to the newest addition to the Nebuchadnezzar's crew. "These are the other potentials. You can wait here."
As she leaves the room to inform the Oracle of Bella's presence, the girl in question looks around. She's stood in a room that reminds her of her gran's home—decorated as if it was still in the nineteen-thirties.
Bella and Alice are the only adults, though Alice's stature allows her to blend in. Children play, meditate, or concentrate—one girl levitates building blocks, and a small dark-haired boy sits cross legged on the floor, holding a spoon. As he looks on impassively, the spoon sways and twists, and Bella finds herself in the reflection on its metallic surface.
The boy notices his audience and his eyes snap up, as does the spoon that earlier seemed to flow like liquid. He holds it out for Bella to take.
Fascinated, she sits down in front of him and takes the remarkable spoon from his hand. Surprisingly, it feels solid.
He begins in his English accent. "Do not try and bend the spoon—that's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth."
As he speaks, Bella notices his angelic but serious face, and his red eyes.
"What truth?"
"There is no spoon." There is a mild hint of humor. He only seems to be around thirteen-years-old, but it's obvious that this child is wiser beyond his tender age.
Turning the item of cutlery over in her hands, Bella repeats his words, trying to understand.
"Then you will see," he explains, "it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."
Experimentally, she holds the spoon vertical in her fingers and stares. It isn't really there. All of this—the room, the other children sitting there, Alice standing by the door, the spoon—none of this is real. This is all computer code entering the brain, and if Bella can somehow disrupt the signal, the spoon will do what she wants it to.
The piece of metal drops and curls in Bella's hand, but then a voice behind her makes her jump.
"The Oracle will see you now," the Priestess informs, and Bella places her bent spoon down with the collection of straight ones in front of the red-eyed boy.
Following the Priestess, she steps through a beaded curtain.
No marble, no throne, no statues of deities or burning oil, just an old style kitchen. A woman with caramel hair, styled as if she too was from the nineteen-thirties, faces the opposite way in a corner of the kitchen, sitting on a stool. It seems like something in the oven has her attention.
"I know…you're Bella. Be right with you."
"You're the Oracle?" Bella asks.
"Bingo, but please, call me Esme." She turns around and smiles, the expression warm and motherly. "Not quite what you were expecting, right?" Her attention goes back to the oven. "Almost done."
She reminds Bella of the old black and white photos of gran as a child. For a brief second, she wonders whether gran actually existed—whether she was a real person in a pod somewhere or just a program designed to seem that way. Bella's arms fold across her chest, and she hunches in on herself at the possibility.
"Smell good, don't they?"
Bella forces the corners of her mouth up and says, "Yeah."
"I'd ask you to sit down…" Esme opens the oven and pulls out the tray of cookies. "But you're not going to anyway. And don't worry about the vase." She walks across the kitchen, tray in hand.
"What vase?" As Bella turns to look around, her elbow catches something, and a vase crashes to the floor.
"That vase."
"I'm sorry."Bella says, panicking at the sight of the ceramic shards and bunches of fake flowers on the floor. She is mortified at her clumsiness.
Esme's smile is sympathetic. "I said don't' worry about it. I'll get one of my kids to fix it." The care in her voice as she refers to her kids tells that they mean the world to her. Bella can see why Alice likes the Oracle so much—it's hard not to.
"How did you know?"
Esme takes off her apron and pulls out a cigarette. "Oh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything."
That sounds exactly like something Bella would wonder about, and she is amazed. Or is she only going to think about it because Esme has planted the seed in her mind?
Cigarette in hand, she points it in Bella's direction. The Oracle takes a seat in a creaky chair close by. "You're cuter than I thought. I can see why he likes you."
"Who?" Bella is puzzled.
"Not too bright though."
Bella likes this woman and smiles at her cheeky insult. They share the humor.
"So, what do you think? Do you think you're the One?"
Bella says what's on her mind. "I honestly don't know."
The cigarette points out a wooden plaque above the door, and all eyes follow it.
"You know what that means? It's Latin. Means 'know thyself'."
Bella ponders its meaning, until Esme pulls her focus back.
"I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Being the One is just like being in love. No one can tell you you're in love, you just know it. Through and through. Balls to bones."
Bella looks down awkwardly. She doesn't feel like the one. Other than the lack of need for breathing, the stillness of her digital chest, and the knowledge stemming from taking the red pill, she feels the same as she ever did.
"Well, I'd better have a look at you." The Oracle gets to her feet and walks over, taking a hold of Bella's face with both hands. "Open your mouth—say 'Ahh'."
Bella complies and Esme finishes her inspection. "Okay, now I'm supposed to say, 'Hmm, that's interesting,' but then you say…"
"What?"
"You already know what I'm going to tell you." Esme sits back down and stares Bella in the eyes.
"I'm not the One." Something inside of Bella's chest sinks, hope that she hadn't realized was there. She feels stupid for allowing herself to get caught up in other's misguided beliefs.
"Sorry, kid. You've got the gift, but it looks like you're waiting for something."
"What?" Bella begs for clarification.
"Your next life, maybe? Who knows? That's the way these things go."
As she thinks back at how easy it was to persuade her that she was the savior of the human race, she laughs. "Carlisle and Alice…they almost had me convinced."
Instead of amusement, Esme's face drops. "Poor Carlisle…poor Alice. Without them, we're lost."
"What do you mean, without them?"
Her eyes look at Bella with concern. "Are you sure you want to hear this?"
Her reply is a nod.
"They believe in you, Bella, and no one—not you, not even me—can convince them otherwise. Alice believes it so blindly that she's going to sacrifice her life to save yours."
Struggling to comprehend what she has just heard, all Bella can manage to say is, "What?"
"You're going to have to make a choice." Esme explains. "In one hand you'll have Alice's life, and in the other hand, you'll have your own." She pauses. "One of you is going to die—which one will be up to you."
The idea of such a thing is a shock to her system that Bella has to turn her head away.
"I'm sorry, Bella, I really am. You have a good soul, and I hate giving good people bad news." The Oracle's voice has dropped to almost a whisper.
Bella stands there, saying nothing.
"Oh, don't worry about it. As soon as you step outside that door, you'll start feeling better." Esme's comforting smile returns. "You'll remember you don't believe in any of this fate crap. You're in control of your own life, remember?"
She gets to her feet and holds out a plate of cookies.
"Here, take a cookie. I promise, by the time you're done eating it, you'll feel as right as rain."
Bella takes one, its heat warming her hand. Once she exits the kitchen, she wanders across the living room in a daze.
Alice sees Bella's stunned expression and comes to the wrong conclusion.
"What was said was for you, and you alone."
Bella allows herself to be led, though the Oracle is right—as soon as Bella has eating the cookie, she feels right as rain.