Chapter 2 Morpheus should have stuck with Neo

Ok, to start with, I will say that I do NOT own The Matrix. There, I said it.

If you read this and get confuzzled, check Chapter 1 again, or tell me what's confusing in a review and I'll get right on it!

The very first thing that Sachima noticed was that he felt colder than usual. Sure, he lived so far from the equator that he saw sun less than a month a year, but the palace was usually kept warm.
The second thing he noticed was that Mushei (his wife) wasn't next to him. Suspecting the worst, he opened one eye. He was in a smallish, grimy, metal room with a door at his feet. He sat up and looked around. He was getting used to this sort of thing, so didn't so much as bat an eye.

The room was bereft of any decorations; there was a sink by the door, and a bunk upon which he was sitting. He regarded the ragged clothes he was wearing with disgust and was about to stand when he noticed something on his arm.
On his left forearm was a black, cylindrical . . . thing. He touched it—it was firmly embedded in his flesh. A little disturbed by the foreign object, he quickly looked for others. When he found the one at the base of his head it suddenly dawned on him what these things were for.
"In the name of Gamaje . . !" (Good ancestors . . . the North Elves revere a goddess, falcons, and their ancestors)
The door jolted open and Sachima nearly jumped out of his skin. A familiar tired, kind face with a goatee and a brand appeared through it.
"Awake at last!" Ganamo grinned.
"Ganamo!" Sachima said, relieved. He then realized something.
"Ganamo, you look like you normally do—"
"Yeah, this time we're not supposed to be someone else. Oh, and before you freak, the plugs on your arms and head are for . . . well, interfacing with a computer matrix," Ganamo chuckled to himself, "no pun intended."
"What are you babbling about?" Sachima snapped, "Where are we? What's going on?"
"Hold your horses!" Ganamo smiled good-naturedly (Sachima hated him when he did that), "First I think you should meet everyone. Morpheus likes explaining all that sort of thing to people."
'What the H*** kind of stupid name is that?' Sachima thought to himself as he followed his cousin out of the door.
"Is he awake yet?" asked a grey-skinned humanoid with a long, slender tail. Ganamo nodded and introduced Sachima to Ethryn.
"Nice to meet you at last!" Ethryn said, "Ganamo has told me so much about you. Like what a dick head—"
"Anyway!" Ganamo interjected, frowning at Ethryn, who curled his tail playfully. Sachima shot Ganamo a death stare but followed him nonetheless.
"Where are we?" Sachima asked, looking around at the metal grated floors, and rough walls. It reminded him of a dirtier, grimier version of a submarine he had been on.
"The Nebuchadnezzar," Ethryn informed him, "a hovercraft which is navigating the sewers of long-lost cities."
"What happened to them?" Sachima asked.
"The cities?" Ethryn shrugged, "Dunno. I think they were destroyed, or whatever."
Sachima suddenly suffered a flashback of the destruction of Pontan (Ganamo's home country), which he had overseen. He changed the subject.
"Where are you from? I've never seen anyone like you."
"Engal, baby!" Ethryn punched the air weakly, "Best planet in the system. My guess is we're nowhere near yours, you're not on our star charts, and from what I've heard, we're not on yours."
"Oh," Sachima said, confused, "So you're . . . an alien?"
"To you guys, sure," Ethryn shrugged.
"Ganamo!"
"Hey there!" A short boy ran up to Ganamo and hugged him briefly. Sachima rolled his eyes, Ganamo was already finding someone to "father". Ganamo introduced Kurill and Sachima, then Akane.
"Oh, and there's another guy here, but you'll probably never see him. He only comes out of his quarters when Morpheus tells him to, or meal time. Oh, and don't get him mad. He's not pleasant when he's mad."
Sachima snorted.
"No more unpleasant than I am."
"You can say that again, dragon boy."
Sachima glared at Ganamo.
"Ah! There's Morpheus."
Sachima turned around slowly, ready for anything. Fortunately Morpheus didn't seem too strange, just his name. Sachima looked the dark- skinned man over briefly, and proceeded to fold his arms and tilt his head back (Sachima rarely expresses emotions other than sadness or anger, so this is his way of saying, "all right, inferior entity, what do you want?—and make it quick or I'll rip your lungs out.")
"Welcome, Sachima."
Sachima didn't react.
"I'm sure that you have a lot of questions, but all will become clear soon."
Sachima blinked, but didn't move otherwise (Translation: "Tell me something I don't know, worm"). Ganamo rolled his eyes (Translation: "Oh, why don't you just grow up! [under breath] Spoiled Royal Brat.").
"Come, I'll show you," Morpheus gestured towards a row of chairs with monitors nearby.
Sachima eyed them warily, but let himself into one anyway.
"This may feel a little weird," Morpheus warned.
"What is—Holy S***!"
A slight burning sensation in his head, a massive wave of disorientation and something completely indescribable shot through his brain and Sachima found himself standing in a completely white . . . space.
"What the F*** is this?"
He whirled around and saw Morpheus . . . standing in white space.
"What the H*** is going on here? Where is this?"
"This is a loading program," Morpheus gestured mysteriously at the white nothingness, "from here we can upload anything we want, weapons, clothes, anything."
"Weapons?" Sachima asked eagerly, "What kind of weapons? Big weapons?"
Morpheus paused, mouth half-open. Sachima had totally killed his train of thought.
"We'll get to that later . . ." Morpheus tried to think of a way to recapture the authoritative, mysterious mood that he liked to use on people, "First, why don't you have a seat?"
Sachima noticed that two worn, leather chairs had appeared from nowhere.
'Why is everything here gritty and old? Is it that hard to clean here? How come Ganamo hasn't been going insance?' Sachima thought to himself. He walked up to the chairs, and ran a finger over the arm of one experimentally.
"Feels real, doesn't it?" Morpheus asked. Sachima raised an eyebrow.
"Isn't it? I mean, look at the wear patterns. Definitely real. Not high quality though."
"No, I mean the chair feels real," Morpheus clarified.
"That's what I just said. Real leather."
"No, I mean that it feels like a real object."
Sachima raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
"What if I told you that that chair is really an artificial construct generated by a computer program, and your mind is interpreting it as real?"
"What?"
Morpheus was getting annoyed. Ordinarily he could keep the "I am all- knowing, wise, mysterious Morpheus. Stand back whilst I awe you" air going during these sort of conversations, but Sachima was really throwing off his "wa" (the balance of the universe, or the environment around you).
"As we speak, your body, the real one, is seated in the chair in the hold of my ship. Your mind, however, is now plugged into a computer system—an artificial reality."
Sachima slouched in the chair as he let that sink in.
"You see," Morpheus began, trying to salvage the "wa" as best he could, "On this planet the entire human race has been enslaved by machines . . . blah blah blah." Sachima tuned him out. He sense a long monologue coming up, and didn't have any inclination to listen to this wack job.
'Besides,' Sachima thought, 'What do I care about humans? They smell bad.'

"Would you give it a rest?"
"for the hundredth time, no. This place is disgusting."
Ethryn shook his head.
"You're hopeless."
He hopped nimbly down from his perch from an overhead pipe and walked past Ganamo, who was desperately trying to clean an especially dirty bulkhead armed with nothing but an old sock (not many cleaning materials on these ships).
"I can't believe that military people would let their ship get so disgusting," Ganamo muttered, wiping furiously with the sock.
"What are you guys doing in here?" Akane asked, walking up to them.
"He's on a cleaning spree again," Ethryn explained.
"Freak," she shot, pushing past Ethryn and Ganamo.
"I'm going to go eat, it's lunch, you know."
"Right behind you," Ethryn skipped after her. Ganamo noticed out the corner of his eye that Ethryn was checking her out (which must have taken a lot of imagination. She was Asian, and was wearing some of the most unflattering clothes he had ever seen). He shook his head.
"Some people," he muttered, "Can be so weird."

Ok, I admit that this wasn't exiting, or funny. But bear with me, this is the intro! The next one is where it gets funny. (Sachima discovers their food, Morpheus reveals that he thinks that Sach is "The One"). Anyway, bear with this! It will get better!