Hey everyone, thanks for reading my story. Although you'd have to be pretty close to being a complete idiot to think that I owned The Matrix, I'll still tell you here that I don't. I'll write more of this story (maybe) if people review it. What's the point of writing something nobody reads, after all. So thanks a lot, and do try and enjoy....
Lickbum's Quandary
Caprice Henrich Lickbum III had many problems. The foremost, and often most painful, of these was that he kept getting beaten up. He didn't know why people liked to single him out and then commence ravage him; maybe it was because his first name sounded like a girl's or maybe it was that his last name was Lickbum. Lickbum, for Christ's sake. He'd found out very soon in life (but not soon enough, it would seem) that with a last name like Lickbum, you didn't last very long anywhere - especially if that anywhere included public schools.
Some of the other guys with promiscuous names had adopted nicknames and were only really shamed when an ignorant substitute called out their humiliation in full. Some of them had made a joke of their names and got known for their sense of humor, some of them had become good in macho things like sports and so made up for their shortcomings. But Caprice had ignored the problem completely and, in doing so, had made it ever so much worse.
But even if he hadn't had a funny name, Caprice would definitely have still been beat up. He was a geek. Not just any geek but The Geek as far as any of his classmates were concerned. Not only could he recall the names and species of the entire Star Trek cast, but he also had a vast collection of black socks, reeked of bad hygiene, and was skilled with computers. Quite skilled, actually, which would explain why he had picked the lock to the school computer lab at 12:03 Wednesday morning. He wasn't planning to steal one, he told the principal at a later date, he just sort of wound up needing it.
Okay, the reason Caprice liked to use the school computers is that they couldn't be traced directly to him. And for the kind of hacking he was doing on them, it was a very good quality, indeed. But at 12:03 on Wednesday morning, Caprice wasn't hacking into a government mainframe or changing his grades - he was tracing a rumor. It had been a rumor that was less than a rumor, really. A whisper overheard by chance, an idea which glinted and darted but was never really heard or seen. It wasn't a rumor because it wasn't something you spoke of, lest it disappear on the tip of your tongue and it wasn't a rumor because every time you got a hint of what was going on, the whispers would stop and the scent would fade. It wasn't a rumor, it was a murmur, but it was like the creaking of a mountain before an avalanche - something so small as a result of something so big it was hidden. And that avalanche was The Matrix.
"The Matrix." said a voice behind Caprice. In the movies, he would have spun around in his chair coolly (and he would have had a spinning chair instead of just a cheap school one) or arranged his face into an Oscar-winning inquisitive look. But this wasn't the movies, this was a dorky little boy who smelled like overcooked broccoli hacking into things that weren't meant for his eyes which breaking into his school and trespassing on state property.
"Eep!" squeaked Caprice dived under the desk. While Caprice Lickbum was a very smart person, diving under his desk wasn't a very smart thing to do. The desk had obviously not been designed for diving and he managed to injury his head, cut his leg, kick over his chair, and become entangled with so many wires that the computer toppled off of the desk and hit the for with a satisfyingly gut-wrenching crash. Plus it was dark down there and Caprice couldn't see his assailant, not that he'd be any less scared if he could.
He waited there, shivering in the cold and enveloping darkness for quite some time until he realized that there was nobody else in the room. This led him to make two conclusions: either there had never been another individual there with him and the voice had been totally imagined, in which case he really needed to stop being paranoid, or that the other person was still there and was just a really quiet breather. Or maybe they were deviously holding their breath, just waiting for him to become less suspicious, come out from underneath the table, and commence to get his head blown off. That's what usually happened. Caprice knew because it occurred in about every action flick ever created, and he wasn't about to fall for it.
There wasn't really another choice, however, because his legs were getting cramped and it was a little hard to breathe under the miniscule desk. Maybe he could take his assassin by surprise.
"AAA!" he screamed, leaping awkwardly out from under the desk and holding his hands in the approved Jackie Chan kung-fu stance. But no one was there. The eerie glow from the streetlight outside turned the darkness of the computer room into a series of shadows, but no one could be seen. What could be seen, however, was a very smashed, school-owned computer.
"Oh, man..." he said, knowing it was bad, because now he was talking to himself, "Right, now if I can manage to get it home somehow, I can hide it in my closet until I can fix it. Or buy it." This plan sounded optimistic enough, until he stared down and viewed the extent of the damage. The monitor looked like it had been simultaneously involved in a nuclear blast and trampled by enraged zoo elephants.
He hoisted the wreckage back onto the desk and surveyed it.
"I am so fucked?" he asked of no one. Oddly enough, the computer seemed to be working despite it's recent mauling. To the left of the screen, in small white letters, read: "You are so fucked." Just like that. It was rather rude, Caprice thought. First mysterious voices, and now his computer was swearing at him. The computer was right, though.
"Yes," he said, a little bemused, "I suppose I am."
The cursor blinked sullenly for a second, then spelled out. "So am I."
"Well, I should think so, I did drop you on the floor for a second, there. I'm surprised you're still working, to tell you the half of it."
"Not the computer, you idiot. Me."Caprice nodded like he understood completely.
"Ah," he said meaningfully, meaning nothing at all.
"What you find is what you seek," the computer blinked dully, "Follow the orange armadillo." The screen flickered and died with a lonesome "Bloop." and Caprice arched a bewildered eyebrow.
"Right. If anyone cares to know, I am officially insane," he said to himself. He searched around the room looking for a broom for a while until his cell phone rang urgently from his back pocket. Caprice thought about not answering it, just in case it was his dad realizing that his son wasn't in bed. But something made him answer it and so he picked up cautiously.
"Hello?"
"There's a broom in the closet to your left." It was the same voice that had frightened him before, but now it seemed as if he had almost expected hearing it.
"Oh, right. Thanks."
"Hurry up already, will ya? This leather is really chafing me."
"What?" said Caprice, back to being confused. But the person on the other end had already hung up. Caprice was once again shocked at the rudeness of the world.
He turned to his right, got the broom out of the closet, and swept up the broken monitor glass on the floor. There were still some bits and pieces, but he really was trying to hurry, so Caprice picked up the monitor with some effort (watching Star Trek doesn't really tone the muscles) and hurried out the door and into the night.
Lickbum's Quandary
Caprice Henrich Lickbum III had many problems. The foremost, and often most painful, of these was that he kept getting beaten up. He didn't know why people liked to single him out and then commence ravage him; maybe it was because his first name sounded like a girl's or maybe it was that his last name was Lickbum. Lickbum, for Christ's sake. He'd found out very soon in life (but not soon enough, it would seem) that with a last name like Lickbum, you didn't last very long anywhere - especially if that anywhere included public schools.
Some of the other guys with promiscuous names had adopted nicknames and were only really shamed when an ignorant substitute called out their humiliation in full. Some of them had made a joke of their names and got known for their sense of humor, some of them had become good in macho things like sports and so made up for their shortcomings. But Caprice had ignored the problem completely and, in doing so, had made it ever so much worse.
But even if he hadn't had a funny name, Caprice would definitely have still been beat up. He was a geek. Not just any geek but The Geek as far as any of his classmates were concerned. Not only could he recall the names and species of the entire Star Trek cast, but he also had a vast collection of black socks, reeked of bad hygiene, and was skilled with computers. Quite skilled, actually, which would explain why he had picked the lock to the school computer lab at 12:03 Wednesday morning. He wasn't planning to steal one, he told the principal at a later date, he just sort of wound up needing it.
Okay, the reason Caprice liked to use the school computers is that they couldn't be traced directly to him. And for the kind of hacking he was doing on them, it was a very good quality, indeed. But at 12:03 on Wednesday morning, Caprice wasn't hacking into a government mainframe or changing his grades - he was tracing a rumor. It had been a rumor that was less than a rumor, really. A whisper overheard by chance, an idea which glinted and darted but was never really heard or seen. It wasn't a rumor because it wasn't something you spoke of, lest it disappear on the tip of your tongue and it wasn't a rumor because every time you got a hint of what was going on, the whispers would stop and the scent would fade. It wasn't a rumor, it was a murmur, but it was like the creaking of a mountain before an avalanche - something so small as a result of something so big it was hidden. And that avalanche was The Matrix.
"The Matrix." said a voice behind Caprice. In the movies, he would have spun around in his chair coolly (and he would have had a spinning chair instead of just a cheap school one) or arranged his face into an Oscar-winning inquisitive look. But this wasn't the movies, this was a dorky little boy who smelled like overcooked broccoli hacking into things that weren't meant for his eyes which breaking into his school and trespassing on state property.
"Eep!" squeaked Caprice dived under the desk. While Caprice Lickbum was a very smart person, diving under his desk wasn't a very smart thing to do. The desk had obviously not been designed for diving and he managed to injury his head, cut his leg, kick over his chair, and become entangled with so many wires that the computer toppled off of the desk and hit the for with a satisfyingly gut-wrenching crash. Plus it was dark down there and Caprice couldn't see his assailant, not that he'd be any less scared if he could.
He waited there, shivering in the cold and enveloping darkness for quite some time until he realized that there was nobody else in the room. This led him to make two conclusions: either there had never been another individual there with him and the voice had been totally imagined, in which case he really needed to stop being paranoid, or that the other person was still there and was just a really quiet breather. Or maybe they were deviously holding their breath, just waiting for him to become less suspicious, come out from underneath the table, and commence to get his head blown off. That's what usually happened. Caprice knew because it occurred in about every action flick ever created, and he wasn't about to fall for it.
There wasn't really another choice, however, because his legs were getting cramped and it was a little hard to breathe under the miniscule desk. Maybe he could take his assassin by surprise.
"AAA!" he screamed, leaping awkwardly out from under the desk and holding his hands in the approved Jackie Chan kung-fu stance. But no one was there. The eerie glow from the streetlight outside turned the darkness of the computer room into a series of shadows, but no one could be seen. What could be seen, however, was a very smashed, school-owned computer.
"Oh, man..." he said, knowing it was bad, because now he was talking to himself, "Right, now if I can manage to get it home somehow, I can hide it in my closet until I can fix it. Or buy it." This plan sounded optimistic enough, until he stared down and viewed the extent of the damage. The monitor looked like it had been simultaneously involved in a nuclear blast and trampled by enraged zoo elephants.
He hoisted the wreckage back onto the desk and surveyed it.
"I am so fucked?" he asked of no one. Oddly enough, the computer seemed to be working despite it's recent mauling. To the left of the screen, in small white letters, read: "You are so fucked." Just like that. It was rather rude, Caprice thought. First mysterious voices, and now his computer was swearing at him. The computer was right, though.
"Yes," he said, a little bemused, "I suppose I am."
The cursor blinked sullenly for a second, then spelled out. "So am I."
"Well, I should think so, I did drop you on the floor for a second, there. I'm surprised you're still working, to tell you the half of it."
"Not the computer, you idiot. Me."Caprice nodded like he understood completely.
"Ah," he said meaningfully, meaning nothing at all.
"What you find is what you seek," the computer blinked dully, "Follow the orange armadillo." The screen flickered and died with a lonesome "Bloop." and Caprice arched a bewildered eyebrow.
"Right. If anyone cares to know, I am officially insane," he said to himself. He searched around the room looking for a broom for a while until his cell phone rang urgently from his back pocket. Caprice thought about not answering it, just in case it was his dad realizing that his son wasn't in bed. But something made him answer it and so he picked up cautiously.
"Hello?"
"There's a broom in the closet to your left." It was the same voice that had frightened him before, but now it seemed as if he had almost expected hearing it.
"Oh, right. Thanks."
"Hurry up already, will ya? This leather is really chafing me."
"What?" said Caprice, back to being confused. But the person on the other end had already hung up. Caprice was once again shocked at the rudeness of the world.
He turned to his right, got the broom out of the closet, and swept up the broken monitor glass on the floor. There were still some bits and pieces, but he really was trying to hurry, so Caprice picked up the monitor with some effort (watching Star Trek doesn't really tone the muscles) and hurried out the door and into the night.