Chapter 1: Wake-Up Call
The apartment was, of course, a mess. One of the mandatory requirements of having just left college is that your apartment be a mess, whether you live in the year 2002 or 2164. This apartment differed from most, however, in exactly the sort of mess lived in.
Piles of computer parts, machine parts, and the odd Reploid part were scattered all over the room. In one corner, instead of a pile of unwashed socks, was a pile of disks that hadn't been defragmented. A bookshelf had some disused technical manuals, and also a copy of Rememberance of Things Past, the sixteen-volume novel by Marcell Proust. The computer desk, of course, dominated the scene. In front of the computer was a chair; in the chair was a pair of blue jeans and a black T-shirt that said "All your base are belong to us"; and in these clothes was Neo Morpheus.
He was searching the Internet for something. Specifically, he was looking for a fanfic based on Final Fantasy 67. That game had been released over a century ago, and therefore it was a bit difficult to find any information on it. But he rather liked it, despite the fact that the main character was a complete jackass, and the fact that Squaresoft insisted on making every eleventh Final Fantasy game an online game, thus making the next game suck.
He finally found it: "The Complete Final Fantasy Fanfiction Archives." "All right," he said with a grin. He clicked onto it, scrolled to "67" ... There! Seven stories! He decided he liked the summary of the third one, so he clicked on it.
That's when things began to become odd. The first line of the story was, in capital letters, "THE FANFIX HAS YOU, NEO MORPHEUS."
"What the hell?" he said, not really expecting an answer. That was the only text visible on the screen, so he scrolled down a bit. The next line was "FOLLOW THE WHITE VOGON."
He blinked a few times and scrolled down some more. The next line visible was "KNOCK KNOCK, NEO MORPHEUS."
Immediately, the door knocked. Neo Morpheus jumped at the sound, then answered the door.
There was no one immediately visible at first, but then his friend Kain leaned into Neo's view and said, in as ludicrous a silly voice as he could manage, "TIMMAY!!!"
"I swear, if you do that again," began Neo Morpheus, but Kain waved it away.
"Hey, c'mon, Timmy, what got you on edge? You actin' like you saw a ghost." Kain was a bizzare-looking Reploid, talking punk and sporting dreadlocks and silver armor. Reploids were robots that could think and feel like a human. Occasionally, some Reploids broke the First Law of Robotics (which is far too well documented for me to repeat it) and went Maverick. Er, anyway, Kain's girlfriend, Dujour, walked into view at about that point, her night blue armor covered in decals and stickers of all sort, accompanied by a larger group of humans and Reploids.
"Well ..." Neo frowned. "Have you ever had a dream that ... It was so real, but you were sure you were awake?"
"'Course not," said Kain. "I'm a Reploid. Reploids don't dream! We defragment our memory cores!"
Neo winced. "Well, there goes that idea. What were you doing here?"
"I wanted to get that program offa you fo' hackin' into the Pentagon that you made," said Kain.
"If you've got the cash," said Neo.
Kain handed him two packs of hundred-dollar bills. "Two grand."
Neo took the money, then brought down the third copy of Remembrance of Things Past on the left and opened it, revealing several diskettes. He took out one of them and put in the money, then gave Kain the diskette. "There you go," he said.
"That's cool," said Kain, "but first, you got a spare night? We was goin' to the Rave fo' a night o' mind-numbin' insanity."
"Nah," said Neo, "I've got work tomorrow."
"Come on, it's gonna be great, man!" said Kain. "Won't it, Dujour?"
"Definitely," said Dujour, embracing Kain and revealing part of her back, which had several bizzare decals, including, on her left shoulder --
-- an extremely faded sticker depicting what should have been a green alien, but had long ago lost all the pigmentation other than black.
Neo felt the room tilt. "Sure," he said, "I'll go. What the hell."
Neo Morpheus was completely unsure about why he was there. He had never liked crowds, and getting smashed off his ass wasn't a stunt he was sure he felt like pulling, nor was bouncing up and down to heavy metal.
And that's what was going on at this party. Getting smashed, and heavy metal. Most of it was "composed" by Reploids, for which he did not fault them personally, but Reploids had the habit of composing, in Neo's opinion, both the best and the worst of the music that was broadcast around the world.
Besides which, the only reason he'd gone to the party in the first place was a bizzare message in a fanfic. That's it, he thought, I'm outta here.
He turned to go and almost ran into a woman in a black dress. "Hello, Neo Morpheus," she said.
Neo's jaw dropped. "How do you know that name??"
"I know a lot of things about you," she said. "I even know what you did last summer. My name is Trilogy."
"Whoa, whoa, wait a second," said Neo. "The Trilogy?? The Trilogy who hacked into the FBI's website? The Trilogy who disabled the missiles on both sides during that 'conflict'? The Trilogy who caused every single porn site to crash simultaneously??"
"Not every single porn site," sait Trilogy. "Nor was the FBI a particular challenge. And that was a long time ago."
"Sheesh," said Neo. "It's guys like you who give us hackers a bad name."
"I'm not a 'guy,'" said Trilogy.
"Hey, that was you, wasn't it?" said Neo. "You messed with that fanfiction story?"
Trilogy nodded. "I can't explain everything to you. I'm sure that it's all going to seem very strange, but I brought you here to warn you, Neo Morpheus. You are in a lot of danger."
"What?" asked Neo. "Why?"
"THEY are watching you," said Trilogy ominously, and the music chose that moment to play out a jarring chord. At least, it jarred Neo Morpheus.
"THEY?" said Neo. "You mean Big Brother et al?"
"Something like that," said Trilogy. "THEY're watching you. Something happened and THEY found out about you. Normally if THEY find out about one of our targets, we let them go. But in this case, we'll make an exception."
Neo Morpheus cleared his throat. "Is it because I'm supposed to fulfil some sort of destiny, or is it because you think I'm hot?"
Trilogy glared at him, but let it slide. "You came here because you wanted to know the answer to the H4X0R's question."
"What is the Fanfix?" said Neo.
"The truth is out there, Neo Morpheus," said Trilogy. "The man who can answer the question is looking for you, and he will find you, if you happen to feel like it. That's all I can tell you for now. Goodbye, Neo Morpheus." She turned to leave.
"Wait!" said Neo, trying to follow her. "Who are you talking about?"
"Who do you think?" said Trilogy, and then left.
Neo Morpheus grimaced. "Of course," he muttered. "I suppose a worse question would be --"
"--WHY did the system break TODAY??" exclaimed Neo Morpheus as he raced down the stairs at nine fifteen in the morning. He arrived at the FanfixTech building too little, too late.
"Mr. Anderson," said Brianheart, his boss, "I was beginning to get a little worried there. When you began to arrive on time for two weeks straight, I was afraid something had happened to you."
Neo squirmed, grimacing. He watched the two window cleaners on the scaffolding outside the office.
"This company is one of the most successful software companies blah blah blah part of a cohesive whole blah blah blah you seem to think the rules don't blahply to you. Do you have anything remotely resembling a reasonable excuse this time?" asked Brianheart.
"Will you accept the alarm clock system in my building having gone on the fritz this morning?" asked Neo.
"If you can prove --" began Brianheart, but his computer beeped. He tapped a key. "Yes?"
"Sir, the alarm clock system in Apartment Complex 21-B was on the fritz this morning," said a voice from the computer.
Brianheart rolled his eyes and he turned back to Neo Morpheus. "Try to be on time from now on. Please?"
"I'll do my best, Mr. Brianheart," said Neo. He went back to his cubicle.
A man from UPEx unexpectedly showed up. "Timothy Anderson?"
"That would be me," said Neo Morpheus, looking up. He took the package and signed the computer-type-thing.
"Thank you," said the UPEx man. "Have a nice day."
Neo opened the package and found, to his surprise, a cell phone. Immediately, it rang. Neo Morpheus jumped and flipped it open.
"Hello, Neo Morpheus. Do you know who I am?"
Neo almost dropped it. "Nebulus!" he muttered.
"Yes," said the voice on the other end. "I had hoped that we would be able to converse under less stressful conditions, but we can't count on hope, can we?"
"Uh, no," said Neo.
"I've been wanting to meet you and I'm not sure you're ready to see what I have to show you, but we've run out of time. THEY are coming for you."
"Who?" asked Neo.
"Stand up and see for yourself."
"Now?
"Now." Neo did so. "Slowly. The elevator."
Neo stood up. He saw two Secret Service-type-people at the elevator, flanked by a group of police officers. He sat back down. "Holy shit," he said.
"Yes," was Nebulus's response.
"Will it help if I hide in the cubicle across from me, then make a daring escape via the scaffolding outside to the rooftop?" asked Neo.
There was a pause. "Pretty much, yeah," said Nebulus.
Neo snuck into the cubicle across from his and hid against the wall. After a moment, the two Agents approached and looked into his cubicle. They shrugged and sent an officer to search the bathrooms.
"The best way to get to the scaffolding is via the last office on the left," said Nebulus. "It's empty. Stay as low as you can."
Neo Morpheus shrugged and raced to the last office on his left, staying as low as he could. Almost there ...
He went in. Nobody was inside.
"Open the window and drop this cell phone, then get to the scaffolding," said Nebulus. "Then jump onto the passing hoverbike."
Neo opened the window and dropped the cell phone. He thought he saw heard Nebulus say "Cowabunga" over it, but he couldn't be sure. He climbed up onto the window ledge. Hanging onto the frame, he stepped onto the small ledge.
"This is insane," he said. "Of course, that's probably why I'm doing it."
He inched his way along the ledge, then looked at the scaffolding, which was past a columb that stuck out all the way to the ledge. "Oh, a stunt, eh?" muttered Neo. "Nyuck nyuck nyuck nyuck."
He swung around and was on the next ledge. He dashed over to the scaffolding and jumped on. The scaffold shook; he looked around and saw a --
Behind him, the office door opened and the two Agents entered. Agent Elrond began, "Mr. Brianheart, we -- oh."
"What?" said Mr. Brianheart. He turned around, just in time to see Neo Morpheus jump off the scaffolding and onto the passing hoverbike. Mr. Brianheart fainted.
"Let's go," said Agent Elrond.
"I hate it when these parodies don't hold true to the original," muttered Agent Shinra.
"Whee, that was fun," said Neo as Trilogy landed the hoverbike in the alley. "Now when do I meet Nebulus??"
"Shortly," said Trilogy. "Come on."
She led him up to a black sedan. (No, it isn't the same one as in the prologue.) Inside were two others: a green-haired woman and a swarthy man, both not much older than Neo and both wearing black leather. The car started up and the woman turned around and pointed a gun in Neo's face. "What the hell?" exclaimed Neo Morpheus.
"This is for our protection," said the woman.
"From what?" asked Neo.
"You," said the woman. "Take off your shirt."
"You have GOT to be kidding me," said Neo.
The woman rolled her eyes in annoyance and said, "Stop the car." The car stopped. "Listen, there's two ways of doing this," she said. "Our way, or the highway."
"Okay, then, the highway it is," said Neo, reaching for the door handle.
"Hey," said the man, "what about those 'agent' guys?"
"Okay, then, your way it is," said Neo, taking off his jacket and shirt.
The man started again and took out a bizzare-looking machine attatched to a laptop. "Here we go," he said, giving it to Trilogy.
Trilogy hooked a wire from the machine to Neo's navel. She typed in something on the laptop, and a message appeared saying "Please do not press this button again."
"Uh-oh," said Trilogy. "He's been bugged!"
"What the ..." said Neo Morpheus. He looked at the laptop screen as an image of Z from Antz appeared in one of the windows. "What the hell's that!?"
"A bug," said Trilogy. "What does it look like?"
More images of insects from various movies appeared as Trilogy frantically typed away. "Oh shit, he's got a wounded mosquito!"
"Come on, work fast!" said the woman.
"Clear!" said Trilogy.
"What the --" began Neo, right before getting a nasty shock to his navel. "Gaah!"
"Again!" said the green-haired woman.
There was another zap, a smiley face appeared on the screen, and Trilogy removed a disk from the laptop and threw it out the window.
"Now that was weird," said Neo Morpheus.
The green-haired woman smirked. "You ain't seen nothin' yet."
The car pulled up to the forgotten Hotel Lafriggingit. It had been abandoned for a long time; it was a center of putrefying elegance and a prime example of what happens when the budget in a first-class hotel gets cut.
"Here we are," said the man.
"Thank you, Alexin," said Trilogy.
"Alexin?" muttered Neo Morpheus.
"You heard of me?" said Alexin.
"No, I ..." Neo Morpheus shrugged. "I remember hearing it in an FF1 fanfic ..."
Alexin grinned. "Yep, that'd be it," he said cryptically.
They got out of the car. "Let's go," said Trilogy. "He's waiting."
Trilogy led Neo Morpheus to room 666. "Figures," said Neo Morpheus.
"This is it," said Trilogy.
Neo Morpheus heard his heart pounding.
"Let me give you one piece of advice," said Trilogy. "Be honest. He knows more than you can imagine."
"Oh, great," said Neo Morpheus. "And I suppose you also expect me to relax."
They went in. A dark figure wearing a dark coat and dark glasses stared out the dark windows. He turned, and his grin seemed to light up the room. "At last," he said. He strode up to Neo Morpheus and shook hands. "Welcome, Neo Morpheus. As you have no doubt guessed, I am Nebulus."
"I'm honored," said Neo.
"No, Neo Morpheus," said Nebulus. "The honor is mine. Come, sit down."
Two lawn chairs with a small table between them sat incongruously in the room. Neo Morpheus and Nebulus sat down across from each other. "Thank you, Trilogy," said Nebulus, and she bowed and left.
"I imagine, right now, you must be feeling a bit like Arthur Dent, teleported up to the Vogon ship?" said Nebulus.
"Something like that," said Neo Morpheus.
"I can see it in your eyes," said Nebulus. "You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up." A razor-thin smile curled at his lips. "Ironically, that is not far from the truth. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Can you tell me, Neo Morpheus, why you are here?"
Neo shrugged. "Well, if you're asking me it like that, you probably have an answer that's a hell of a lot better than any I could come up with."
"Indeed," said Nebulus. "You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it all your life. That feeling that something was 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. Do you know -- Wake up!"
"Huh?" Neo Morpheus shook himself. "I'm awake. It's the Fanfix, isn't it?"
"The Fanfix is everywhere. It's in this room. It's all around us. You can see it out your window, or on your television. You can feel it when you save the world, or go to church, or pay your taxes."
Neo Morpheus frowned. "Save the --"
"Unfortunately," continued Nebulus, "no one can be told what the Fanfix is. You have to see it for yourself." He took out a small palmtop computer and put it on the table in front of them. He pushed a key, and the word Click here! appeared in blue. "This is your last chance. After this, there's no going back. You take the blue link, and the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe." He pushed another key, and Click here! appeared in red. "You take the red link, and you stay on the galactic hitch-hike, and see just where this Vogon ship goes."
Neo Morpheus reached for the palmtop computer and clicked the red link.
Nebulus smiled that glass-cutting smile again as if he'd known which one would have been clicked. "Follow me," he said, getting up.
Neo Morpheus followed, getting a strange feeling in his head. They arrived in what appeared to be a generic supervillain's hideout: computers were everywhere, and a bizzare-looking chair lined the wall. Trilogy, Alexin, the green-haired woman, and three others were already there.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," said a blonde-haired man wearing a grey overcoat with a strange, red cross-like symbol on each arm, working at some hovering goggles.
"Haven't I always told you, Seifer," Nebulus said to him, "not to let your fears control your life. Alexin, are we online?"
Neo heard the sound of a modem dialing up. "Almost," said Alexin.
"Neo Morpheus, time is always against us," said Nebulus. "Will you take a seat there?"
Neo shrugged and sat down in the chair. "Can we get on with this?" he said.
"Yeah, sure," said Nebulus as Trilogy put a bizzare headset on Neo's head. "Let's just skip a couple lines. Just relax."
"Oh, sure, yeah right," said Neo Morpheus.
"The link you clicked was part of a trace program," continued Nebulus. "It's going to pinpoint your exact location in the Fanfix."
"What does that mean?" asked Neo.
"It means," said Seifer, looking up from his goggles, "fasten your seatbelt, Tidus, 'cos Zanarkand is going bye-bye!"
The strange sensation became more and more intense. Neo Morpheus felt himself shaking. On second thought, it was the world that was shaking. The vibrating sensation took on a new level ...
"Alexin?" said Nebulus.
"Still nothing."
A strange glow permeated the world. His vision blurred. Wait, it wasn't blurred ... it was pixellated ... "This can't be ..."
"Be what?" said Nebulus. "Be real? Have you ever had a dream that you were so sure was real? What if you could never wake up from that dream?"
"It would SUCK!" snapped Neo.
Nebulus pushed a button and spoke into a microphone. "Thinks, we're gonna need that signal soon. Stay calm, Neo Morpheus."
"Yeah, right!" snapped Neo, his voice sounding bizzare.
And then, right when the world was at 600x800 resolution --
This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.
If the problem persists, contact your software vendor.
-- everything went blank.