The second chapter is now up (obviously). The next chapter will finish up the story, as I would like to finish this before leaving for 6 weeks this summer. Enjoy! It's rather long.
Crocodile Rock
Chapter 2
Wake up, Neo.
Neo awoke with a start and fell onto his keyboard at the sight of the words on his computer screen, thus sending his mysterious friend a message that resembled something like
SBUIgfnojirbdikkrb245 .
There was a long pause before the reply came.
The matrix has you.
Neo looked around and took the earphones off his ears, utterly confused.
"What the hell?"
Follow the white rabbit.
A now nervous Neo glanced around nervously, expecting a white rabbit to leap out of the shadows of his closet and lead him somewhere. However, the only thing that happened was the abrupt demise of Neo's tower of CDs. Hardly noticing the pile of CD's on his floor, he turned back to the screen and saw:
Knock, knock, Neo.
Neo looked at the screen as it went blank. He sat there for a minute. Then two. Finally, four minutes and fifty-three seconds later, just as Neo was getting ready to give up and go to bed, there came two knocks on the door.
Neo waddled over and pulled open the door. In the hallway stood Choi and his girlfriend, Dujour. Dujour, despite being a crocodile, was barely visible underneath her layers of makeup.
"You're a week late." Neo stated.
"Yeah, I know. It's her fault." He said, motioning to Dujour with one claw.
"A week." Neo emphasized.
"Look, here's the money." Neo turned around and waddled over to his bookcase, pulling out the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and opening it. Inside the hollow book was Neo's stash of drugs, aloe vera hand cream, and costume jewelry. He reached inside, took out a suspicious-looking package, and waddled back over to Choi.
"You're my savior, man. My own personal Jesus Christ."
"I'm atheist."
"Right. Here's the two grand." Choi managed to quickly change the topic.
Dujour looked over at Neo. Despite being a croc, he looked unusually pale.
"Hey, man, you look pretty pale. Wanna come to the club with us? Or did you just become albino?"
Neo had quick memories of the last time he went clubbing, and most of them involved some form of either wrestling with rabid dogs or an absurd amount of profanity (or both at the same time.). He shook his head, wondering why he would even consider asking.
Dujour leaned her head against Choi's and said, "C'mon, it'll be fun."
Neo opened his mouth to say no again when he caught sight of the white rabbit sticker attached to the piece of toilet paper stuck to Dujour's foot. So, essentially, what came out of Neo's mouth sounded not unlike "No- I- Uhh- OK, sure."
15 minutes later, Neo left a car packed with giggling crocodiles and ridiculously loud Barry Manilow music, only to enter the club. The club itself was decorated in such a way that it resembled a federal penitentiary (hence the club being named "Alcatraz"). He found a nice table in the corner where he could wait, trying to stay as far away from the alcohol as possible (crocodile bar fights have a tendency to get extremely messy), when he was approached by another croc.
The crocodile joining Neo was wearing some very tight, very shiny leather that was making it hard for her to walk. She sat down and faced Neo in a businesslike manner.
"Neo, I know all about you. I know why-"
"Excuse me, " Neo interrupted. "Er, would you mind moving over a seat? The light from the lights is bouncing off your leather and blinding me."
A miffled-looking Trinity scooted over a seat and leaned over into Neo's ear, whispering "It's the question that drives us. It's the question that brought you here. You know what the question is, don't you?"
Neo racked his brain for the question, but he couldn't think of any.
"Uhh... can I buy you a drink?"
A glare from Trinity was enough to tell Neo he was wrong.
"Uh... how... can I... get mortgage on my apartment in 3 simple steps?"
Trinity sighed.
"What is the matrix?"
Trin's face lit up like a neon sign. "Exactly. We'll meet again, Neo."
A puzzled Neo left the club, not bothering to ask Trinity why she hadn't answered his question at all.
--- The following morning... ---
Bzzt! Bzzt!
Neo flung himself out of bed with surprising flexibility for a crocodile and headed towards the door, murmuring a string of expletives all the way.
A spilled coffee and bizarre bus ride later, Neo arrived at work. Waddling in as fast as possible, he felt the hope rush through him. He was going to make it to his cubicle on time today! For the first time in a month!
So it was a very disappointed Neo who arrived at his cubicle (late) to find his boss standing there, looking as though he had swallowed a lemon (and a sour one at that, too).
"Er... good morning, Mr. Rhinesto- Rhineheart!"
Mr. Rhineheart, Neo's boss, who's biggest pet peeve was Neo, and second biggest pet peeve was being called "Rhinestone" (by Neo, no less), gave Neo the Death Glareā¢. "Follow me, please."
A few minutes later, Neo exited his boss' office looking meek and covered in bruises. The other employees, who had heard the crashes coming from the office during their meeting, turned around and ran when Rhineheart followed Neo out.
Returning to his cubicle, Neo was surprised to see a FedEx package sitting there on his desk. Confused, he looked around, wondering if this was a stupid prank. You could never be too sure, especially after last year's office party and the strange shenanigans that went on then... However, that was another story entirely.
Ripping off the top, Neo reached inside and pulled out a cell phone. To his astonishment, it began to ring immediately.
Turning it on, Neo said, "Hello?"
"Neo."
"...Mr. Rhineheart?" Guessed Neo, hoping to God (despite being an atheist) that Rhineheart wasn't stalking him now.
"No, Neo. This is Morpheus."
"Mor...phe...us..." Neo sounded out the name carefully. Whoever the hell this Morpheus character was, Neo was already slightly unnerved by him.
"Neo, they are coming for you."
"Who?" Neo looked around cautiously. The other crocs in the office suddenly seemed extremely suspicious. Especially Frank by the water cooler, with his shifty eyes and-
"Look up and see for yourself."
Neo spent the following three minutes trying to get on top of his desk in order to obtain a better view, and when he did, all he saw were a few top hats.
"Who are they?" Neo asked as the top hats disappeared beneath Neo's view.
"Agents. Neo, you have to get out..." Morpheus trailed off, and when Neo turned around and fell off his cubicle desk, he saw why. Three Agents, all wearing custom-made silk top hats, were standing there, looking grim. Neo gulped and put down the cell phone.
--- After 20 minutes of wrestling Neo into the car outside... ---
Trinity glanced back over her shoulder, looking at Neo being driven away.
"Shit." She swore, revving up her motorcycle. She slammed on the gas and was immediately thrown off the back of the bike, which zoomed ahead a foot or two before slamming into the curb.
"Don't ye hate it when yer wiped off?" Remarked an old croc, chuckling as he passed Trin. Trinity only responded with a glare, then got back up on the bike and carefully secured her seat belt, driving off moments later.
--- Back to the Agents... ---
Neo sat in a small room with nothing but a window and small table. It was absolutely silent until the door slowly creaked open, revealing three Agents, who calmly waddled in. Neo pretended to act cool. After all, they were wearing top hats, and, as everyone knows, no one in a top hat can really be taken seriously.
"Mr. Anderson," Began one of the Agents, the one called Smith. "We have had our eye on you for some time now."
Neo was tempted to say Oh, you share an eye, do you? and then coolly flip him the finger and walk out. However, what came out instead was:
"Oh."
The Agent cracked his knuckles and then continued. "You see, we know that you are a computer hacker. And we would be willing to wipe the slate clean for you- Destroy all evidence of previous hacking crimes, that is."
Neo looked at the Agent long and hard, trying to look cool and not to wet his pants at the same time. "Look, how about we do this. I give you the finger... and you let me get a phone call?" Oh, he was cool. No, he was more than cool- he was... suave.
Agent Smith sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is giving me the finger... if you have no fingers?"
Neo's suave-ness disappeared as he looked down and was reminded that he was lacking fingers on both of his hands and his feet. "I... uh..."
"It was a rhetorical question, Mr. Anderson." Smith said, exasperated.
Neo looked at him and shrugged. "I knew that."
Then everything went black.
--- The following morning... ---
Neo awoke in his apartment, sitting up with such a start that his tail lashed out and knocked over a pot of coffee. He sighed and tried to relax. After all, it was only a dream. And it really was no worse than the one where he was dancing with the Pope-
The ring of the telephone interrupted Neo's train of thought. He reached over and picked it up.
"Hello, Neo."
"Morpheus?"
"Yes, that's me. Meet me under the Flowered Bridge in ten minutes."
"Are you stalking me or what, man?"
Fortunately, Morpheus had hung up by then.
--- Ten minutes later... ---
Neo stood underneath the Flowered Bridge, which provided a nice contrast to it's surroundings. The Bridge was covered in assorted flowers, vines, and colorful drawings, while the sky was a dark, stormy gray and the rain had never poured down harder.
A black car pulled up and the door was flung open with a hard kick from Trinity's tail.
"Get in."
Neo looked around. "You talkin' to me?"
Trinity reached out and pulled Neo in with her claw as the car sped off.
Safe inside the car, Neo started to become curious. "This car got power windows?"
The driver, Apoc, glanced back at him. "Yeah. Side impact airbags, too."
An impressed Neo looked around the car. "Ooh, a removable center console."
"Yeah, I love that. You know what else it's got? A-"
Switch spoke for the first time, eager to finally end the technical conversation. "Shut up. We think you're bugged."
A terrified Neo managed to eek out a "Bugged?" before Trinity was on top of him with what looked like a giant Cuisinart. Apoc glanced back at the two crocs and tried to keep from laughing and crashing the car.
Neo's shrieks, however, wiped the smile off of the driver's face as Trinity lifted the de-bugger off of his stomach. "Ah-ha!"
"That doesn't look like a bug, Trin." Said Switch, looking worriedly at an unconscious Neo.
"Shit," said Trin. "I think I got his liver."
--- 20 minutes later... ---
After the liver was replaced using some surgical skills and high-tech bugging equipment, the car pulled up to an abandoned warehouse. Neo exited the car and entered the building, shaking slightly from the intensity of the recent de-bugging.
"Sorry," Said Trinity, catching up to Neo. "Guess you weren't bugged after all!"
The walk to the room at the top was quick, and Neo was grateful to enter the room and sit down. A large crocodile walked over and whacked him in the face with his tail. The gesture of whacking someone's face with your tail, by the way, is a common gesture used to greet people with, as crocs cannot shake hands (and if they could, they would lose their balance and fall).
After the greeting, Trinity was dismissed as Morpheus and Neo prepared to talk.
"Neo... I bet right now you feel a bit like Alice, tumbling through the rabbit hole."
Neo, who had never been very interested in books, responded with an "Uh... no."
Morpheus blinked once and continued. "I can show you what the matrix is, Neo. Would you like to know what it is?"
Neo nodded and Morpheus held out both of his claws. The left claw contained a red pill, while the right one held a blue pill. "Your choice, Neo. The red pill will give you access to the truth about the Matrix." Morpheus felt miffed about omitting his trademark 'Alice in Wonderland' reference, but he realized it would be best not to confuse the poor croc. "Take the blue pill, and you'll wake up, back at home, safe in your bed. The blue pill has also been known to cure some minor allergy symptoms." He added as an afterthought.
Neo didn't waste any time reaching for the red pill. However, getting it into his hand was slightly more difficult...
--- 10 minutes of fumbling pills later... ---
Neo threw the pill down his throat and swallowed. "Done!" He shouted cheerfully, waking up Morpheus, who had been dozing peacefully.
"Good. Follow me." Morpheus led Neo into an adjoining room, where a lot of computer equipment was set up, and surrounding it was a large group of crocodiles. Neo was escorted to a seat.
"Neo, have you ever felt like you were in a dream that was so real, that you couldn't tell the difference between the dream and the real world?"
"No." Replied Neo truthfully.
Dammit, I'm running out of metaphors, thought Morpheus, but instead said "What if you were unable to awake from that dream? How would you know where you were?"
An aggravated Neo replied, "I told you, man, I never experienced that befo-"
Morpheus, his glasses trembling on his snout from frustration, nodded to Cypher. And then everything went black for Neo.
---
"Where... am... I?" Neo whispered. He was still confused as to what he had been through, but he could remember it involved pink goo and seeing lots of crocodiles in pods. Kinda disturbing, too.
He was in a white room, a very white room. "Am I dead?"
The face of Morpheus appeared above his. "Far from it." He replied sagely.
Neo blinked once, registered the fact that he looked like a gigantic pincushion, and feel asleep.
---
When Neo woke up, he was lying down on a bed in some kind of ship. He sat up and looked at his claws, arms and legs, noticing that they all had plugs. And his tail- his lovely tail had a metal hole in it. Neo let out a piercing shriek.
Morpheus flung open the door at the same time and managed to get an earfull. Noticing his guest, Neo stopped and looked at Morpheus. "Sorry, but... there's a hole in my tail."
Morpheus nodded. "Perfectly normal! C'mon, lemme show you around."
A bewildered Neo followed Morpheus out of the cabin and onto the main deck. "This is my ship, the Nebbercadutagaflet." He paused to sigh contentedly. "My pride and joy."
Neo nodded, eyebrows furrowed. Morpheus pointed to the various crocodiles on the ship. "This one is Apoc." Neo nodded at the croc with long hair fashioned in an updo that resembled one of Thomas Jefferson's wigs.
"This is Trinity." Neo gaped at the sexy, welding-helmet-wearing croc, who looked even more fabulous in clothes she was able to move in.
"Switch, Mouse, Tank, Dozer, and Cypher." Morpheus rattled off the names of the rest of the crew, pointing a finger in their general direction. After a while, Morpheus knew, it could be hell on your nerves introducing everyone to everyone else.
"Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi." Neo tried to recognize everyone, but Morpheus was practically pushing him along and onto a chair.
Lying down on top of the chair, Morpheus approached him with a plug in his teeth. "This many feel a little strange." He warned, before plugging the wire into Neo's tail.
You know, when he carries the plug in his teeth, Thought Neo, he looks like a pirate! Ha, ha! Ha! Ha ha ha h- AAAAAHHHHH!
---
Neo was in a room, and it was white. Really white. White like clouds. Or a carnation. Or milk! Or-
"Neo, this is the matrix." Somehow, Morpheus had appeared behind him while he was thinking.
"White like milk." Neo stated his thoughts out loud.
If Morpheus' eyebrows had gone any higher, they would have fallen off his face. "Neo, the matrix is a computer-generated world."
Neo nodded understandingly. "You understand?" Morpheus asked hopefully.
Neo's nod quickly turned into a shaking of his head. "No, not really."
Morpheus sighed and handed Neo a brochure entitled 'Everything You Wanted to Know About the Matrix But Were Afraid to Ask!'. "Aren't you going to explain it to me?" Inquired Neo.
Morpheus shook his head, knocking his glasses off onto the floor. Neo squinted and looked hard at the brochure. "Morpheus, this has big words. I can't understand it."
"Neo, that word is 'machine'." Morpheus replied, placing his glasses back on his snout.
"Oh."
Ripping the brochure from Neo's hands, Morpheus began to explain. "It all started a long time ago. The machines grew bitter with their longtime enemies, humans. The machines eventually killed all of the humans and replaced them with elephants. However, the elephants were too big and cumbersome, so the machines switched to crocs. Crocs were much easier, partially because they fit their pods so nicely."
"Oh." Neo stated simply.
"That's all you have to say? You've been living in a dream world for your entire life and all you have to say is 'Oh'?"
"The machines did a good job with creating our cuisine." Neo said thoughtfully.
---
The next thing Neo knew, he was waking up back in his chair on the Nebbercadutagaflet. Morpheus was fuming, angered at Neo for being such a 'prick'. Well, that's what Tank was able to decipher from his vehement mumbling.
"That was fun." Neo said, with a goofy grin. Tank raised his eyebrows and concluded that their was now officially no chance in hell for Zion's survival if this was the One as the rest of the crew left them alone for training.
"So, you're Neo? Are you ready to begin your training?" Tank inquired.
"Training?"
Tank smiled and plugged Neo in. A few seconds later, Neo awoke, his mind full of jujitsu moves.
"That was freaky." Neo stated simply, then cheerfully added, "I know jujitsu!"
--- 10 hours later ---
Morpheus entered the room to see a very tired-looking Tank. "How's it going?"
Tank looked at Morpheus with pleading eyes. "10 hours straight. But every time he finishes, he says-"
"I know kung fu!" Neo interrupted.
"...That." Tank finished wearily.
Morpheus raised his stubby arm to pat Tank on the shoulder, but instead fell down. When he got back up, he used his tail to tap him on the shoulder. "I'll take him into the sparring program now."
Suddenly, Neo sat up straight, eyes shining. "I know kung fu!"
Morpheus nodded. "Show me."
Neo lunged out of his seat and attacked Morpheus with his tail. Morpheus dodged it and said "In the program! Hold on!"
--- In the program... ---
Morpheus looked at Neo, who was trying out his new moves on no one in particular, shrugged, and ran forward as fast as he possibly could (seeing as he was a crocodile, that wasn't terribly fast, of course.). Neo sensed his coming, leaned back, and tripped him. Morpheus went flying into the wall.
"I beat you!" Neo called out cheerfully. Morpheus brushed himself off and glared at Neo before calling, "Tank, load the jump program."
Seconds later, Neo and Morpheus were standing on the roof of a tall building. Morpheus, angered at losing to Neo in the sparring program, was determined to make Neo fail. Or look like a fool. Or possibly both! Morpheus thought. Bwah ha ha- Morpheus quickly stopped his mental evil laughter and looked back over his shoulder at Neo. "Free your mind."
And with that, he jumped up off the ground and leaped to the building across the street. Landing on the other side, he made a huge show of brushing off his coat with his tail. However, Neo didn't seem very impressed.
"HOW DO YOUR GLASSES STAY ON?" He yelled from the rooftop.
Morpheus sighed and yelled back, "FREE YOUR MIND!"
Neo backed up a few steps. "Free my mind. Right." He ran to the edge of the building and jumped, feeling the cold air rush past his head.
"Morpheus, I'm flyyyyyyy-iiiiiiiiiiiing!"
Morpheus smirked and watched as Neo crashed to the ground.
"Tank, get us out of here."
--- Back in the Nebbercadutagaflet... ---
Trinity unplugged Morpheus, who had a grin the size of the Neb itself plastered on his face.
"What happened?" She inquired.
"Neo fell." He answered, before breaking into throes of maniacal laughter.
Trinity walked over to Neo, unplugging him.
"Y'know, Neo, I think he likes you."
Suddenly, an alarm went off. Lights began flashing and Tank and Trinity rushed to the front of the ship. Morpheus managed to get his laughter under control and followed them.
"Sentinels," Said Tank. "Two of them."
"Shit." Trinity declared.
"What are Sentinels?" Neo asked.
"They're killing machines, designed for only one thing."
"What?"
"Well, killing... duh." Dozer broke in.
In front of them, two giant machines appeared and began to look around. "Ssh." Ordered Morpheus.
"What, you think if we'll be quiet, they'll just... go away?" Neo chuckled.
"Actually, I do. Now shut up." Morpheus retorted.
The Sentinels approached the ship and began to look around. After a few minutes of finding nothing, they left.
"You have to be kidding me. Wow, Morpheus, you were right." Said an amazed Neo.
I was right! I was right and he was wrong!
This time, Morpheus didn't bother to keep his laughter under control.
