Family Part 2

I woke up in a very brightly-lit room, I had to squint my eyes, Tommy and Morpheus stood over the bed I was lying on.

"What's going on?" I whispered. Morpheus looked down at me.

"We're rebuilding your muscles, go back to sleep now. You'll get the answers you're looking for soon." He said.

I woke up in a room, a needle was in a.oh my God was that a hole, in my arm?! I pulled the needle out, I reached a hand back to touch the back of my head, it felt like something was there. Just as my hand was about to touch it, but I jerked it away as the door opened and Tommy came in.

"Where am I?" I asked him. I was scared, I had no idea what was going on, it had all happened so fast and I felt like everything had passed me by in a blur. I wanted something to calm my nerves, a drink, drug anything! He sat down on the bed next to me.

"The real world. It's not 2000 as you thought it was, it's closer to 2200. Come with me and I'll show you around." He stood up. For a moment I just stared at him, had he just said 2200? After a moment I followed him out of the room and up a ladder, when we got to the top he turned to face me, walking backwards.

"You are on the hovercraft the Nebuchadnezzar, this is the core, it's where we hack into the Matrix. Over by the console is Morpheus and Tank." Both turned at the sound of his voice and the one called Tank grinned, Neo walked over to a woman.

"And this is Trinity."

"The Trinity?! The one who hacked into the IRS d-base?" She asked. Trinity nodded.

"I always knew you were a chick." Neo laughed at that and Trinity grinned, then Morpheus came over to them.

"You want to know what the Matrix is?" He asked, I nodded. And he sat me down in one of the reclining seats. He held my head down as Trinity strapped my feet down.

"This will feel a little strange." He said. They shoved something into the back of my head, my mouth opened wide in a half scream, half yawn. Then I was inside what looked like a white room, a moment later Morpheus joined me, he sat down in one of the red leather armchairs, in front of an old television.

"This is the world that you know." He flicked the television on. Pictures of the world flashed by on it, after a few minutes he turned it off. He looked at me from behind his mirrored sunglasses.

"It's not real, it's the world that has been put there to keep humans happy. This is the world as it is today." He switched the TV on again, this time the pictures that showed were of a dark depressing place, then suddenly they were standing in the middle of it.

"Welcome to the desert of the real." Morpheus said, spreading his arms wide to encompass all that surrounded them.

"All of humanity celebrated when we created AI, they in turn created more and better AI. We are not sure exactly what happened, but what we do know for certain is that it was us that scorched the sky, the sun was their main energy source at the time and it was believed at the time that they could not survive without the energy of the sun. All throughout history we have used machines in our everyday lives." He looked up at the blackened sky.

"Fate it seems is not without a sense of irony. The human body generates more bioelectricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTU's of body heat, mixed with a form of fusion, the machines now have all the energy they will ever need. There are huge fields, hundreds of them, where human beings are no longer born, we are grown. I wouldn't believe it, until I saw the fields for myself, I watched them liquefy the dead so that they could be fed intravenously to the living. What is the Matrix? Control, it is a computer generated world, built to keep humans docile, so that we cane be changed into this." He held up a battery. Strangely, although a part of my mind screamed that this was impossible, I knew that he was telling the truth, calculating in my head was kind of hard, I had never been good at math.

"Thousands of people? All stuck in there?" I asked. He was about to reply when an alarm blared. Then I was sitting in the chair back on the Neb, Neo pulled whatever it was out of my head.

"Sentinels." Was all Trinity said. Morpheus rushed up to the cockpit after her, I followed Tommy over to stand behind Tank.

"What's a sentinel?" I asked.

"A machine, it's used to find ships and destroy them." Tommy whispered. Tank flicked a couple of switches and the monitors died. He opened a lid over a small red button.

"EMP armed." He said into his headpiece.

"EMP?" I whispered.

"Electro Magnetic Pulse, it's the only thing we have that will stop them." Tank explained. They waited in tense silence for a few minutes, then the sentinels apparently went away.

"Well that was great fun, Tommy. But I take it that these 'sentinel' things are not to be messed with." I said. He grinned at me and nodded.

"Stay away from them if at all possible and call me Neo, not Tommy." He said. I stared at him, then grinned. Neo turned to go up to the cockpit as Morpheus called him.

"Want a drink?" Tank asked. I swung around to face him. Hell, yes! I wanted a drink, but I wasn't so sure it was a good idea, as much as I hated the idea I could see myself going down the same path dad had.

"You read my mind." I said, grinning at him. Things would be different here, I could control how much I had, I nodded my head eagerly and took the cup he offered me, in one swallow I emptied it, then I coughed and gagged.

"Fuck! Is this stuff poison or what?" I asked, Neo came back to them, glaring at Tank.

"Good work, do you know how old she is? She's probably never even drank beer, never mind this sludge!" He said. Tank just shrugged his shoulders grinning, as I finally got my breath back.

"That's what you think, brother dear." I croaked, past the burning in my throat. I wanted more of it and I held out the cup for him to fill it up again, but Neo gave me a weird look as he took the cup from me.

"Enough! You need to get some sleep tomorrow you start training." He said. I glared at him and for a moment I actually hated him. But I shrugged my shoulders and walked away, I knew that I'd be back later, when he was asleep. But after I made my way down the ladder, I knew I needed something more. On our tour Tomm-Neo had showed me the medbay, they'd be sure to have something in there. I made my way down there, no one was in there and I snuck over to the medical cabinet, which wasn't locked. Inside I found what I was looking for, a box of valium, glancing back over my shoulder to make sure no one there, I slipped them up the sleeve of my sweater. Then I went to the mess hall and grabbed a cup of water, went back to my room, where I put a bunch of them in my mouth and swallowed them with the water. After about fifteen minutes I could feel them working and I lay back on the bed, feeling totally relaxed, but after about an hour I wanted nothing more than to get some more of that drink that Tank had given me earlier, I pulled myself to my feet and made my way back to the core. The only one there was Tank and I stumbled over to him, he turned at my approach, I ignored his look, as I slung one arm over his shoulder. "Got anymore of that wonderful drink?" I asked, except the way I was it came out sounding more like.

"Gf aymur o ta wnnful drik?" He stared at me.

"I think that you've had enough, Black." He said. At his words, I lurched away from him and glared at him.

"You don't think I can handle it?! You want it all for yourself!" I shouted. I pummelled him with my fists and then landed a good one to his eye.

"Give it to me!" I screamed at him. I grabbed the cup that Neo had set on the edge of one of his consoles and drank that, then seeing that he was trying to hide the jug I grabbed it from his hands and made my way back to my room, taking swallows out of it as I went, when I got back to my room I collapsed on my bed and drank the rest of it. Then I laid back and went to sleep. I woke to someone banging on the door, I rolled over. Jesus, I felt like my mouth was filled with sand. I tripped over the jug on my way to the door. Where the hell did that come from? I wonder. I opened the door and winced as it creaked loudly, Tank stood outside, a grim look on his face and sporting a black eye.

"Shit! What'd you do to yourself?" I whispered. He opened his mouth as if he was going to answer, then he obviously changed his mind.

"Time for training, come on." Was all he said. I followed him up to the core where he plugged me in. I don't remember it hurting this much the last time. Tank didn't say anything as he loaded me up, shit it hurt, like a thousand needles being driven through my skull at once, as my mind was gilled with more information than you can imagine. My eyes opened and for a moment I sat there then I lurched upward, pulling the spike in my head, holding one hand over my stomach and one over my mouth, I leaned over the edge of the chair. Tank brought a bucket over and put it next to the chair, then he went back to his seat and waited for me to finish puking my guts out, then I collapsed back in the chair.

"Christ! One cup of that stuff does this to me?! Why did you let me drink it?" I asked him. He shook his head.

"If you're going to drink it you have to be prepared for the consequences, I know I did." He said. I couldn't identify the look in his eyes.

"What consequences? You're the one who gave it to me, why am I the one who's dying?"

"Ready for the next round?" Was all he said.

"Like I have a choice." After another few hours, Neo joined us, he stood over me, grinning down at me.

"Show me what you've learned." He said. Then we were both inside a dojo like room, Neo stood in front of me.

"This place is just like the matrix, what you need to know is that just like a computer program the rules can be bent, some can even be broken. Now hit me.if you can." He said. Ok, hit him and you can go back to your room and die in peace I thought. But he seemed to know what I was going to do before I did it, he stopped me in my tracks every time. Then I did what I'd been threatening to do since I'd woken up that morning, I vomited all over him. For a moment he stared down at his shirt, then at me.

"I think that we should continue this tomorrow." He said. Then we were sitting back in the chairs on the Neb, now that my stomach had calmed down a bit, my head felt like it had a million voices screaming in it. I knew that if I could get some more of that drink, or some more lithium then it'd stop, Neo and looked at me for a moment.

"First thing in the morning, we do this again." Was all he said, as I left the core, to go back to my room passing by the mess hall to get some water. As soon as I got back, I searched for the package of lithium when I eventually found it, I all but ripped it open to get at its contents, just as I was about to put them in my mouth a voice interrupted me.

"Do you really want to do that?" It asked me. I whirled and nearly fell over, as my head didn't catch up to me fast enough. Tank stood behind me, he had that look in his eyes again.

"Why does it matter to you what I do?!" I snapped angrily. Was this ship filled with nosy people, or what? He walked toward me and held out his hand. I didn't know what he wanted me to do, until he spoke again.

"What are you going to do when there all gone? Steal some more, how long do you think it's going to take for someone else to notice them missing? You asked me earlier what happened to my eye. Well you punched me, last night, after taking some of those, you wanted some more to drink and you wouldn't take no for an answer." He said.

"After it's gone I won't need anymore, I'll be fine. Just this one and I'll be fine. It's just been a tough few days." I replied.

"How many times have you told yourself that it's 'just one'? When has it ever been 'just one'?" He asked.

"What would you know about it?! I'm not like the others, they can do this, I can't. You don't know what it's like. They get up in the morning and everything's fine, I get up in the morning and all I want to do is kill myself. I doust if you've ever felt like that."

"Actually I have. It might have been a while, but not so long ago I wanted to kill myself to. You don't have to go on like this. So I'm going to ask you again if you really want to take them?" He said gently. After a moment, I shook my head and put the caps into his outstretched hand, then I sat down on the bed, he joined me.

"Why is it so hard? What am I going to do tomorrow?" I whispered to him.

"Don't worry about tomorrow, all you need to think about is today. Take it one day at time, today is more important than tomorrow. Now try to get some sleep, my shift is over and my rooms just across the way from you. If you need anything, something to eat some water, to talk or even if you just want the company just come on over. Ok?" He said, as he stood up. I nodded as I lay down on the bed, amazingly, even though my head still ached I felt better than I had in a long time.

"All you have to do is ask." He said as he left my room.