DISCLAIMER: The only thing I own is the poem ¡®Dirty linen¡¯.
Your dirty linen is sunning
How will you get away?
Tell me you weren¡¯t thinking of running
That¡¯s far too much of a clich¨¦.
D¨¦j¨¤ vu, chapter four: The Matrix
Holding his hand makes her feel strange, so she stops. He won¡¯t let go, though, so it makes no difference. It feels strange anyway. She¡¯s not entirely sure if she likes the feeling.
The room is immaculate, a hollow metal cube with space for all of them and nothing else. Voices echo around this room. Even though it¡¯s nearly thrice as big as normal rooms, the ceiling is low enough to make her feel claustrophobic. Reversed vertigo. Trinity feels as if she¡¯s underwater. She can¡¯t breathe, suddenly. Walk away, something tells her, leave.
Where?
Zion. From a bird¡¯s eye view, these hundreds of tiny metal cubes set in a grid form a¡ matrix. Metal is practical, strong and plentiful. All the hovercrafts they¡¯re melting down now are going to come in handy.
The group leaves the room and enters the next, entirely identical but for one point: there is no floor. The walls and ceiling are still slurry sheet metal, but the ground is warm earth, the natural terrain of Zion. Next to the stark silver, the earth is moist.
A long time ago, Neo ¨C Neo, damn ¨C had asked about this place. Were they trying to grow something? Were those labels for the crops, those scored tablets embedded only halfway in the earth?
They were labels, but of a different kind.
It was interesting that Neo had managed to glimpse this place before. Zion officials, stuffy as they were, rarely allowed anyone in. Children were banned completely. Interesting that there was only one condition.
Tank held Trinity¡¯s hand tighter when they stopped at a final tablet. They read the inscription, considerably shorter than the others:
The One. He destroyed The Matrix and brought freedom to our people.
They don¡¯t stay long - return to the first room, the one before that, the one before that. It¡¯s like hearing through water and walking through treacle: breath like cotton candy, that thick. Trinity stops and sits down - quite suddenly - knees brought up to her chest. Her eyes are shut, her head leans against the wall. Metal scrapes bitter metal. A matrix.
There is nothing to say.