Author's Note: Okay, let's see how you like this part.

Title: Memories of Times Past

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Some later, maybe. Of course, it's a movie, so you should have seen it before reading about it...

Summary: Switch and Apoc's lives before and after they were freed—before Neo.

Disclaimer: If I owned the movie, do you think I'd be wasting my time doing this?

Setting: This story is set before the movie, of course.

*** = setting change

italics = thoughts

italics = emphasis

~Typical~

*Apoc's Point of View*

I didn't care for my "life" in the Matrix. My life right now isn't great either, but at least I'm free. When the mystery of the Matrix made an appearance in my life, I welcomed it. How could I possibly know that figuring out the Matrix would lead me to find one of the best things in my dreary existence? How could I know?

***

My mother abandoned my father and me when I was five. Why? I don't know. Dad never had anything to good to say about her after she left. I can only remember a few things about her.

Anyway, after she left, Dad started drinking. Half of the time, he didn't even go to work (I still can't figure out how he never got fired). He always had a terrible hangover. Most of my memories of him are of him being drunk in front of the TV. In other words, my family life was crappy. Sometimes Dad would get so drunk that he would hurt me. I tried to convince myself that it wasn't him, that it was just the alcohol, but I knew, deep down, that the violence had to come from somewhere.

I was a pretty average student in school. I was just like everyone else. I was no one special, and I didn't care. The only thing I was good at was logical stuff. That and P.E. I could figure puzzles out faster than anyone else I knew could. Little did I know that that ability would serve me well in the future.

When I was eleven, my dad lost his job. He had some money in a bank (most of it from when he and my mom were still together), but I knew that he would use it for beer and food. My dad didn't care about anything. He knew that there was something wrong with him, but he didn't care, just like I didn't care that I didn't care that my dad was having problems. That was the one thing I inherited from my father—my indifference.

On my thirteenth birthday, my dad was out of town (I can't remember why). Anyway, I was staying at home by myself for a few days. I had just plopped down in front of the TV when the doorbell rang. I groaned and went to answer it.

I opened the door and saw a woman there. She wasn't pretty, but she wasn't ugly either. Average. Like me. At first, I couldn't figure out who she was. Then I looked at her face. At her eyes. They looked so familiar. They looked like—they looked like the eyes that I saw whenever I bothered to look in a mirror. "Mom," I said, stunned.

"You recognize me?"

"Yeah."

"Can I come in?"

"Sure, I.. guess."

She walked into the house and seated herself at the kitchen table. I stayed standing. "I imagine you have some questions for me," she said.

"Yeah. Like 'what are you doing here?'"

"I just thought I'd come by for a visit."

"A visit? You left—you left me—eight years ago and now you're back to 'visit'?"

"Yeah."

"I can't believe you."

"Honey—"

"Where have you been?"

"Around."

"Around where?"

"The country. I moved to California. The weather's nice there."

"You abandoned me for nice weather? Do you know how bad it's been since you left? Dad is constantly passed out drunk over there, and I—sometimes he hurts me."

"Honey, I'm sorry."

"Is that all you have to say?"

"What else can I say? Your father is your father. There's nothing I can do about that."

"Why did you leave me?"

She closed her eyes for a second, then looked back up at me. "I thought—I thought I could handle it. But I couldn't. Being a wife—being a mother—I couldn't do it. So one day, I just packed my bags—"

"—and left," I finished for her.

She looked down. "Yeah."

"How could you do that to me?"

"I don't have an answer for that."

"Then you might as well leave, because I don't need you. Not anymore."

"Sweetie—"

"No! You lost the right to call me that the day you walked out on us—on me!" I was so angry right then. My mother had basically just told me that she abandoned me on a whim. "Just get out!"

"But—"

"No! I don't want to see you again! Go away! I hate you!"

She gave me this look then, a really sad one. "Okay, if that's what you want." Then she left, saying, "I love you."

I just stood there for a few minutes, gripping the edge of the table to keep myself up. I remember thinking, Typical. If she loves me so much, then why did she leave? Again! I don't need her. I don't need someone who doesn't care enough about me to even try to contact me—for eight years, no less! She's not my mother. Real mothers don't do that to their kids. I don't need my dad, either. He's a stupid drunk who doesn't even try to do anything meaningful. I don't need anyone.

I think that was the point in my life when I stopped caring.

After that day, I usually stayed out after school until I absolutely had to go home. Sometimes if I had some change, I'd go to the arcade and play games. I liked the shooting games the best. I turned out to be pretty good at them too. I didn't know that would be important, either.

One day (when I was fifteen, almost sixteen) at school, I met this guy named Alan. He was new at school and he invited me over to his house. I figured, What the heck? So I went.

Turns out the boy had a computer. He let me try it out and I poked around and did some stuff. I didn't really know how to use a computer yet. My so-called father used any extra money that we had to buy beer and stuff. Over the course of the next year, Alan and I got to be pretty good friends. I went to his house—almost everyday—to hang out and sometimes I would mess around on the computer. His parents were nice, too. His mother especially, always with the cookies.

Before I met Alan, I thought that I didn't need anyone at all. But then, once we became friends, I realized that I did need a friend. I never told him my deepest fears or my hopes and dreams or anything specific about my "family". Nothing that deep. I just needed someone to hang out with. But I think that somehow he knew my life was messed up. Sometimes I would catch him looking at me like he could see through me. It felt like he could see everything I felt, everything I wanted, everything I hated. It was kind of scary. But then, Alan always was a little on the strange side. Still, I knew that he could be a real best friend, someone I could trust, someone I could confide in. But I didn't tell him everything, because that's not the kind of person I was. I'm still not like that.

Anyway, a year and a half after I met him, I discovered something strange. Something called the "Matrix". I don't know what happened after that. I just kept going over to my best friend's house and turning on his computer and trying to figure out what the Matrix was.

I had started going to a community college. When I was nineteen, I got my own computer with the money from my job (it cost me a lot). It wasn't a very good computer, but I didn't care. I just needed one so I could figure out the Matrix.

And one day, I did. Someone called Morpheus contacted me. He told me to meet some people in an alley somewhere. I wasn't sure that was such a good idea, but for some reason, I went.

I was standing at the end of the alley when a car pulled up. Someone told me to get in, and I did. A girl about my age was sitting next to me, and a guy was driving the car.

The car pulled up in front of a building. The two led me inside and into a room to meet Morpheus.

Morpheus told me to choose between a blue pill and a red pill—to live in ignorance or to learn the truth about the Matrix.

I chose the red one.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Author's Note: I know I haven't updated this in like, half a year, and I'm sorry… I was just… busy… and high school… and SAT classes during the summer… hectic. Please review (if I still have any readers left).