Ones and Zeros
Thomas A. Anderson isn't going to say he has a problem. He isn't going to say he's an insomniac, or that he's obsessed, or antisocial. He isn't going to say he skips meals, hacks his company's mainframe, or falls asleep at his desk.
He doesn't go to work hung up on coffee or soda, doesn't stare at blank computer screens and wonder. Doesn't feel weird or restless. Doesn't feel like he's stuck or afraid to go to sleep, like he'll never wake up. He isn't nervous or paranoid.
He's on time for work, he supports his business, he gets his suit pressed, his shoes polished - he does whatever everybody ever had to do to be a nobody.
He doesn't have a problem.
When he first hears about Trinity, he's with people he doesn't know. In a bar, on his fourth drink, fixing to get wasted. Out of some ominous nothing, hazed over with cigarette smoke and alcohol, someone says Trinity's in with their company's programming. He's incorporating nasty viruses, deleting files, bringing them down. They say he's the best hacker you'd ever have the misfortune of meeting.
He, because 87% of all women online are really men.
Out of curiosity, Thomas spends his days off looking up anything about Trinity. A hint, a word, a paragraph. He sifts through websites, prints out documents, sits through chatrooms, pulls all-nighters.
When he finds one blurry picture after a year of nothing, he doesn't stare at it for hours. He doesn't wish Trinity had been facing the camera so he could see his face. Doesn't think of Trinity outside this room, doesn't touch the computer screen like he expected to feel something real.
He isn't obsessed.
He's just gotten in and sat down, when someone he doesn't know the name of starts asking him about the hacker guy. Trinity. Rumours going round. It feels like he's been pushed out in the cold. Like the blistering Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand is voided and set aside. A whoosh. He's awake for once, breathing, blinking.
He says he doesn't know anything, and doesn't think about black hair or black leather for the rest of the work day. He doesn't call in sick or fake a cough the next day.
He has a studio apartment on the seventh floor of a decrepit brick building, where cave and comfort meet. There are empty soda cans spread out, open and unopened cereal boxes, cords duct-taped together, bowls with milk still in them, broken down and gutted computers, piles of already worn clothes, year-old magazines, buried cardboard boxes.
Your regular single-guy jungle. A shower in a wall, a kitchen around a hung blanket. Home, sweet home.
He's invited to a party down the hall, and goes because it's either that or hacking pin numbers and changing bank accounts. He clings to walls, clears lights, refuses drink. When he's grabbed by the arm and dragged into a separate room, he doesn't struggle. He doesn't retaliate when the Whoever asks his name and he gives it as Neo. He doesn't stutter or interrupt when a hand with cool fingers wraps around his wrist. He doesn't twitch or shy away when a mouth comes in and collides with his own.
He hadn't realized the room was dark until a light snaps on to blind him. The Whoever leans out, sharp grip staying behind. Breath wheezes hot against his neck, moist.
"You're all locked up," the Whoever says.
Thomas wants to laugh. Wants to keep kissing, wants to go home, wants to sleep. Only he can't find his voice, and then he's alone. He doesn't tell the next person who asks what you do for a living to fuck himself, or slam the door while he's leaving.
Hours and days and weeks out of society, of ducking out of crowds, of burning fingertips hot against computer parts, of sleeping sporadically. Of the question.
Just what is the Matrix?
On searches, the name came up with Trinity, then in chatrooms, and on message boards. It's repeated and repeated with that question mark stuck right at the end. Always. Never an answer, no confirmation, just the question.
People think it's mind-control. The government. A spoof. Maybe it's a sort of advertisement for a new game, or even better, some new movie. Then people shut down websites, grow wary. But Thomas doesn't. He can't.
He prints the picture of Trinity out, sticks it between the pages of a Popular Science issue, and doesn't look at it every night. Doesn't grow more anxious. Doesn't want to find out what the Matrix is so he can find out who Trinity is.
He likes to think he'll never get caught. He'll never sit ramrod in a court chair, never deny breaking laws, never not take working a desk job for granted. He'll be Neo, he'll do his thing. He'll get piss drunk, pass out, and have the freedom to do it again. Rinse, repeat.
Sundays he'll be piling plates and silverware in the sink, like he's not going to wait another week to wash them. Sundays he'll go to more bars, stay home, sleep in late, and have suspended moments of peace away from you-name-it.
He's not going to lie about it. He sees thousand dollar suits, hears a certain song, a certain phrase, and he's back to scratching that itch. The Matrix. It's your universal puzzle. Your universal mind job.
Radicals build up underground cults, mobs, enforcements. Say they're about answers, the answer, and plan not-so secret orgies, and picket clinics. Everyone knows something, nothing.
Then people start turning up dead. In gutters fifteen stories down from an open window. Shot up, stabbed, anything and everything. Thomas distinctly remembers opening a newspaper and finding something new everyday. Everyday for a week. Then it resets, disappears, and goes back to weather and business numbers.
That lights a figurative fire.
He's fired from his job on his birthday, and he doesn't even realize it until the cute girl from downstairs gives him a card. All my best wishes. She's one Thomas thought he'd like to date. Blonde, slim, great smile. But instead of asking her out right there, he throws his cell phone out the window. He sends his expensive loafers off a bridge, and drops his tie in the trash.
He can stop this anytime. It isn't an obsession.
Water in the cramped shower stays warm from anywhere between five to fifteen minutes long. Just enough time to not relax and wash the world clean. Just enough time for necessity.
Necessity is what was telling Thomas not to go to work, not to programme, not to make a living. Necessity says he should sit there, at his desk, every night, and kill curiosity.
Curiosity has a voice a lot like necessity. Only necessity is a guy you don't know, in some company you don't know, compiling numbers you don't understand so you can have electricity. Necessity is the box around the cereal. Necessity is impersonal. Curiosity has claws, and digs in deep. It has an addictive touch.
So Thomas keeps listening. Keeps looking, keeps staying online longer, and longer.
There are four knocks on his door before he realizes it's his land lady wanting rent. He doesn't answer it, he doesn't take his eyes off the screen, he doesn't breathe. He's as dead as anything could ever be. That's in society's eye. The one eye it has, and it's blind.