I don't own the Matrix, but, in this one instance, I am using the Matrix
and my character Mara to take revenge on my new and loathsome principal and
an old hated science teacher. I think this chapter, and the next, are not
as well written as the others, but they are hugely gratifying for me.
And I think the premise of the Architect watching schools is valid. I thought this one up when I saw the Animatrix-the skateboarder kid part. I really did try hard to make this fit in, I hope it does. You can picture me sitting in the cafeteria with the look on my face that says "I so can't believe this shit. Just when I thought this school couldn't get any weirder!"
Mara worked her way through all the small towns on the way to NYC. She felt old reflexes, old power coming back online.
She had finally been ready for some bigger prey.
Find the rebels, and you find the agents.
Since the rebels, generally, didn't take anyone much over the age of sixteen that made schools a fair place to watch for rebel activity. The rebels liked hackers and while hackers didn't like school, most governments required anyone under the age of sixteen to attend some kind of school.
Mara thought it was because it provided the machines a convenient way to monitor the majority of the rebel recruiting pool on a daily basis for seven hours or more. It sure wasn't for the quality of education. Plus it fit in with the machines plan of reducing or eliminating the humans need to question. Christ, that was sort of the point of public education.
So Mara had registered to be a substitute teacher with several schools. At least one of the teachers would be an agent. Killing an agent would be a little like sending up a red flare: HERE IS DARK to the architect, but she figured the architect would look the other way like he had for, well, forever.
It had just been a long time, and she liked the anonymity.
School agents were sort of like minor agents, in the sense the agents were gods and these were minors gods. Both were dangerous, one was just a little bit less dangerous.
She'd work her way through a couple hopefully, then move on to the big game. She didn't much like preying on humans, although that serial killer she'd just caught had been sweet.
He'd been a squealer, and he'd lasted a while. She had to practice her persuasion skills on somebody-sometimes she had to weaken prey in order to skim their thoughts more effectively. The more distracted by pain someone was the easier it was to rifle through his or her memories and thoughts.
Sweetly disgusting. She was a little disgusted with herself for how much she'd enjoyed it.
She had a job as a month long sub for a pregnant literature teacher. This was her second week at this school and while she wasn't sure, she thought the science teacher was an agent. For one thing, the guy never yelled, yet all the students in his class were eerily quiet. He always wore a suit and called all the students Mr.____ or Ms. ____. He was also a perfectionist, a neat freak and according to the school records she had hacked into he had never, in twenty years, taken a day off for anything. Never sick.
And he had no friends. He was a sarcastic and demeaning to his students in true agent fashion-constantly pointing out, enjoying to point out, their frailties. Hell, she'd off him even if he was human. She walked pass his class on the way to hers. Today she could hear him taunting some poor student:
"Good morning Mr. Tomlinson. Would you like me to fetch you some coffee or would you prefer to sleep through the review and fail this test like you have the other two?"
"Huh. I was awake for all those classes.."
"Ah. Your recollection astounds me Mr. Tomlinson. If only you could recall your studies. But, you do make a good point. Sleep on Mr. Tomlinson, since it appears it makes so little difference, your thick skull being wondrously impervious to knowledge."
"I try Mr. Wilson. I mean I'm only."
"I know Mr. Tomlinson. You are only human."
The last was said with such revulsion that Mara KNEW it had to be an agent. Hmmmm.
Library or cafeteria?
Cafeteria.
Mara figured if she was going to send up a red flare, well, hell, do it in style. She liked the body she had chosen for this task. She was five feet tall and weighed nearly four hundred pounds. She had an enormous head of red curly hair that she teased into an unmoving mass on top of her head. She wore pink blush, purple eye shadow and red lipstick. She had a high- pitched squeaky voice.
There were two ways to be unnoticed-be truly un-notable or be so very notable that no one pays you any serious attention.
Fat people are rarely taken seriously and since the system never takes a fat form it never occurs to the programs to guard against another program in a fat form. Who would pick a form like that? With luck she could cut off its head before it could say boo!
Mara had gone to high school several times on a variety of missions and all the teacher cafeteria tables were the same:
There was always a snack machine, usually an ice cream machine, behind the teacher table; as if the teachers were too tired to walk a few feet to the line which, honestly, they often were. The location of the teacher section varied, but it was always situated as far from the students as possible.
Like an agent, Mr. Tomlinson had positioned himself facing the cafeteria, back to the snack machine. From here he could watch the entire cafeteria, except for the narrow strip of linoleum next to the snack machine and behind him. Mara made a point of brushing against him everyday on her way to buying a fudge bar. Tomlinsom hated it. The first time he had spun around like he was going to attack, and then told her with an irritated tone "Please keep your corpulence to yourself!" She looked at his chair, the wall, her stomach and then mumbled "Scoot up please. I can't fit through. I'm sorry." He snarled at her, then scooted forward when the other teachers glared at him.
Now it was a routine. When she pushed herself up from the table, he squeezed closer to the table without even thinking. It was routine, just like she wanted it.
The fat sub, I mean the fattest sub anyone's ever SEEN, is standing behind the science teacher everyone hates holding a samurai sword you could swear just slid out of the fat palm of her hand. Swish and his head topples into the principal's salad and blood geysers out of the slumping body spraying the table and all the teachers seated at it with big sticky red splats. Those closest to him are covered.
And there's the sub, grinning, a fat grinning blood soaked psychopath.
And I think the premise of the Architect watching schools is valid. I thought this one up when I saw the Animatrix-the skateboarder kid part. I really did try hard to make this fit in, I hope it does. You can picture me sitting in the cafeteria with the look on my face that says "I so can't believe this shit. Just when I thought this school couldn't get any weirder!"
Mara worked her way through all the small towns on the way to NYC. She felt old reflexes, old power coming back online.
She had finally been ready for some bigger prey.
Find the rebels, and you find the agents.
Since the rebels, generally, didn't take anyone much over the age of sixteen that made schools a fair place to watch for rebel activity. The rebels liked hackers and while hackers didn't like school, most governments required anyone under the age of sixteen to attend some kind of school.
Mara thought it was because it provided the machines a convenient way to monitor the majority of the rebel recruiting pool on a daily basis for seven hours or more. It sure wasn't for the quality of education. Plus it fit in with the machines plan of reducing or eliminating the humans need to question. Christ, that was sort of the point of public education.
So Mara had registered to be a substitute teacher with several schools. At least one of the teachers would be an agent. Killing an agent would be a little like sending up a red flare: HERE IS DARK to the architect, but she figured the architect would look the other way like he had for, well, forever.
It had just been a long time, and she liked the anonymity.
School agents were sort of like minor agents, in the sense the agents were gods and these were minors gods. Both were dangerous, one was just a little bit less dangerous.
She'd work her way through a couple hopefully, then move on to the big game. She didn't much like preying on humans, although that serial killer she'd just caught had been sweet.
He'd been a squealer, and he'd lasted a while. She had to practice her persuasion skills on somebody-sometimes she had to weaken prey in order to skim their thoughts more effectively. The more distracted by pain someone was the easier it was to rifle through his or her memories and thoughts.
Sweetly disgusting. She was a little disgusted with herself for how much she'd enjoyed it.
She had a job as a month long sub for a pregnant literature teacher. This was her second week at this school and while she wasn't sure, she thought the science teacher was an agent. For one thing, the guy never yelled, yet all the students in his class were eerily quiet. He always wore a suit and called all the students Mr.____ or Ms. ____. He was also a perfectionist, a neat freak and according to the school records she had hacked into he had never, in twenty years, taken a day off for anything. Never sick.
And he had no friends. He was a sarcastic and demeaning to his students in true agent fashion-constantly pointing out, enjoying to point out, their frailties. Hell, she'd off him even if he was human. She walked pass his class on the way to hers. Today she could hear him taunting some poor student:
"Good morning Mr. Tomlinson. Would you like me to fetch you some coffee or would you prefer to sleep through the review and fail this test like you have the other two?"
"Huh. I was awake for all those classes.."
"Ah. Your recollection astounds me Mr. Tomlinson. If only you could recall your studies. But, you do make a good point. Sleep on Mr. Tomlinson, since it appears it makes so little difference, your thick skull being wondrously impervious to knowledge."
"I try Mr. Wilson. I mean I'm only."
"I know Mr. Tomlinson. You are only human."
The last was said with such revulsion that Mara KNEW it had to be an agent. Hmmmm.
Library or cafeteria?
Cafeteria.
Mara figured if she was going to send up a red flare, well, hell, do it in style. She liked the body she had chosen for this task. She was five feet tall and weighed nearly four hundred pounds. She had an enormous head of red curly hair that she teased into an unmoving mass on top of her head. She wore pink blush, purple eye shadow and red lipstick. She had a high- pitched squeaky voice.
There were two ways to be unnoticed-be truly un-notable or be so very notable that no one pays you any serious attention.
Fat people are rarely taken seriously and since the system never takes a fat form it never occurs to the programs to guard against another program in a fat form. Who would pick a form like that? With luck she could cut off its head before it could say boo!
Mara had gone to high school several times on a variety of missions and all the teacher cafeteria tables were the same:
There was always a snack machine, usually an ice cream machine, behind the teacher table; as if the teachers were too tired to walk a few feet to the line which, honestly, they often were. The location of the teacher section varied, but it was always situated as far from the students as possible.
Like an agent, Mr. Tomlinson had positioned himself facing the cafeteria, back to the snack machine. From here he could watch the entire cafeteria, except for the narrow strip of linoleum next to the snack machine and behind him. Mara made a point of brushing against him everyday on her way to buying a fudge bar. Tomlinsom hated it. The first time he had spun around like he was going to attack, and then told her with an irritated tone "Please keep your corpulence to yourself!" She looked at his chair, the wall, her stomach and then mumbled "Scoot up please. I can't fit through. I'm sorry." He snarled at her, then scooted forward when the other teachers glared at him.
Now it was a routine. When she pushed herself up from the table, he squeezed closer to the table without even thinking. It was routine, just like she wanted it.
The fat sub, I mean the fattest sub anyone's ever SEEN, is standing behind the science teacher everyone hates holding a samurai sword you could swear just slid out of the fat palm of her hand. Swish and his head topples into the principal's salad and blood geysers out of the slumping body spraying the table and all the teachers seated at it with big sticky red splats. Those closest to him are covered.
And there's the sub, grinning, a fat grinning blood soaked psychopath.