- Protector of Men Ch 2
Shade knocked on the metal door. There was no answer, and he took it as a cue to go inside. He first opened the door only a crack to make sure that it was all right to go inside. Zandra lay in her bed, facing away from him. She didn't look that different without those close-fitting clothes, and Shade paused before continuing, distracted.
Zandra did not acknowledge that Shade had entered the room, and continued to stare glumly at the wall. She was embarrassed that someone had run by to try and speak with her. Had she really made a scene? If so, she would have to explain herself - again. She sighed, and reluctantly switched sides to meet the guest. It was Shade; her hopes of a painless conversation were dashed. She would have to explain herself to him? Certainly she needed time to become truly comfortable around everyone, but it seemed like there was a barrier in front of him.
"Hey," he said quietly, sitting on the ground next to the door. Zandra smiled faintly.
"Hey," she replied, equally quiet. "I guess I made quite a scene back there,"
"No," he replied, shaking his head. Zandra scoffed unbelievingly.
"You just set too high of goals for yourself."
"That's what I've done all my life," she replied, "that's how I work."
"This is different."
"How?"
"Your old life? That wasn't real,"
"Well it was to me for twenty two years."
Shade was quiet. He hadn't been with Purgatory until days before she was out; he had no idea what her life had been like beforehand. This time, curiosity got the best of him.
"How did they end up getting you out?" he asked, and regretted it instantly. Zandra looked blankly at the ceiling. She took a lengthy pause before answering.
"It took a while."
"How long?" Again, he regretted opening his mouth. It was probably better to just be quiet, but he wasn't thinking.
"It was around a month before they finally took me out." She paused.
"Cover said that the system had begun to track me."
"So they took you out after a month?"
"Yeah. It would've taken longer, I was pretty reluctant for a while."
Both were silent for a moment. Zandra tried to run a hand through her hair, but remembered that she had none, and belatedly put her hand back on her stomach. It felt so unnatural.
"How did they contact you?"
"Actually Alias and Trim started to show up at my track meets, concerts, my physics class. It was kind of creepy, but they pretended that they were interested in a project of mine."
"A project?"
Zandra almost laughed.
"Yeah, it was actually kind of funny, I thought they were trying to recruit me for the army or something." She continued to laugh inwardly. It turned out they had been trying to recruit her for an army, but a very different army than she would have ever imagined.
Shade was quiet. Why in the world would they have found interest in a college physics project? He voiced his question to Zandra, but got an answer he did not expect.
"I was trying to prove that information in the universe could be thought of as bits of information - like everything could have an infinitesimal amount of one's and zero's in it."
"How would you have found that out?"
"Oh," Zandra replied, "Some physicist in Europe thought that the universe was just a 'hologram' – well, something along those lines - and I just expanded on that idea."
Shade was a little shocked.
"You found proof of the matrix?"
Zandra waited a moment before responding.
"Kind of, but you could only see it in black holes. Not many people listened to me."
Both sat quietly, digesting the conversation. Something was still bothering Shade. "So you never got into hacking?"
"No," Zandra replied honestly, "I did it once or twice to try it, but I never got into it really."
Silence again.
"You know what bothers me the most though?"
"What?"
"Not knowing what you can do in the real world."
It had been eating away at her for the past week: if she had bent the rules with her achievements in the Matrix, how much of it was real? She wondered how fast she could run in the real world, how well she could concentrate, even how different she looked to others versus the real world. How much of her life had been fake? She hoped that Shade would have empathy for her, hoped that he at least knew what she was talking about…
"Yeah," he sighed.
Zandra was relieved. That's all I needed. He then got up, intending to go.
"Seriously though," he said, reaching for the door, "Don't get down about that stuff. You're doing really well."
Zandra rolled her eyes. She should have known that this was coming. Soon her cheeks would be red again, and that was the last thing that she wanted.
"No, listen," he said solemnly, sensing her disbelief, "It takes time. It took me weeks to make the jump."
Zandra was silent. She hadn't heard anyone else mention their first few tries in an upload. Weeks? Shade left the room before she could reply, leaving her staring at the metal door, alone in the cold room, suddenly without anyone to talk to.
She continued to lay in bed, staring at the gray ceiling, scrutinizing the various spots of rust above her. It doesn't seem like the future, she thought to herself. She had always imagined that in the future, technology would be less obtrusive, more fitting with the environment. Purgatory seemed quite the opposite. With its thick bolted walls and weathered interfaces, the ship looked more like it belonged in the eighteenth century rather than the twenty-second. Everything seemed to be vintage; she pulled herself up from her bed and cracked her sore back.
She massaged her neck to try and soothe the dull pain, but stopped when she felt the plugs along her spine. It still was a little unsettling to feel them there - holes in her own body... Made by a machine... Don't think about it, she told herself.
Her legs ached with tenderness as she got to her feet. She guessed that it was from the 'run' she had done earlier - Cover had warned her that an injury in any program would cause the same in the real world - but how had her body created lactic acid to make her legs hurt? It was a mystery that she was not willing to investigate.
She stretched briefly before opening the door again. Zandra felt like wandering around, maybe she'd eventually get hungry and have to eat again.
"Zandra?"
Alias peered from around a corner, and smiled when their eyes met.
"I thought I heard you,"
"Yeah."
"So, ah," Alias started again, "I hear you did some more practice,"
"Yeah... yeah I did."
She felt another coddling session coming on, and almost dreaded to imagine what Alias would say next...
"Well then, it sounds like you're ready for some training then." Alias stepped into the corridor, now facing Zandra head-on.
"Training?" Zandra repeated. She thought that she had been 'training' all day. What could this be?
"Well of course," Alias replied, "how do you think we learn everything we have to do?"
Zandra was nonplussed. She spoke in a small voice when she replied, unsure of what to say…
"By practicing?"
Alias laughed.
"No, it's a direct upload!"
Zandra was silent, still confused.
"Come on," she continued, taking Zandra's wrist in her hand, "it'll only take a few hours."
