Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters seen in my story, with the
exception of Aero, Raine, Iron, and Clique. .......Matrix Movie and its
characters are the property of The Wachoskis and Warner Bros. No
infringement is intended, and the author is making no money off of this
story. Please don't sue a poor gal!
Aero's Story
Okay, so I'll be the first one to admit it. I thought that they were out of their minds when they approached me in the library that day. I mean, what reasonable girl is going to just smile and nod when a mammoth body- builder type and a little wisp of a woman in black leather and an Oriental- looking trench coat stroll up to her terminal and start a conversation with, "We can show you the truth, if you're ready to hear it."?
No, I was sure they were either insane, or some New Age religious types. Or maybe both. All I knew was that I definitely wasn't ready to hear it. My day had been going pretty strangely as it was. "Terribly sorry, but I'm a nun." Which, of course, I most certainly am not. I think that the incongruous fishnets and combat boots I had chosen to don that day probably derailed any notions that I was on sabbatical from a convent. I hoped that they would get the idea.
They didn't. The woman, who had been the original speaker, just smiled sadly at me and waited silently. The hulk remained standing, looking down on me in a way that I was sure was supposed to be intimidating. I don't take intimidation very well. So I saved my data to CD, popped it out of the drive, and stood abruptly. I turned to find myself staring directly into the big guy's chest. I'm 5'9", close to six foot with those boots on, and to say that the top of my head barely reached this guy's armpit probably makes my case right there.
I looked up, and met him dead in the eye. "Excuse me."
He looked to the woman, who gave a slight nod. He reluctantly stepped aside, and I brushed past. The woman said softly, "We'll see you soon."
I spun and met her eyes coldly. "No, you won't. Look lady, I'm not in the mood."
The smile still played about her features as I went for the door. Weird as the encounter was, with the kind of day that I had been having, it really didn't bother me all that much.
My day had started with my usual jog through the park, breakfast at a corner café with my laptop, and a few too many cups of coffee. The café was great; one of the first of the so-called cyber-cafés in that section of the city. Plus, they serve a great cappuccino. Halfway through my third cup, I felt that familiar urge to click the little short-cut icon that I really should have been smarter than to actually install. The little white and red emblem that, with one simple click of the mouse, takes me back to the world of computer criminals and geniuses. Of introverts and brilliance. The world that well-to-do citizens with respectable jobs aren't supposed to know or care about. The world of the hacker.
So I suppose I ought to introduce myself before we get any further. My name is Marie St. Charles. I am the only child of Jacques St. Charles, a French multi-millionaire international business magnate, and his American wife, Catherine. I was born in Paris, but spent my early years traveling with my parents all over the world. I was seven when they divorced; although the marriage was over by the time I was old enough to understand the word. My mother moved back to New York, and I went with her.
She died of an aneurysm while I was a sophomore undergrad, and my father followed in a car crash two years later. Not that my father's passing particularly mattered to me. It wasn't like he ever came to see us or told me he loved me. He sent the obligatory expensive presents on birthdays and Christmas, but I hadn't seen the man in over three years when he died.
Oh, look at me. I'm wasting perfectly good time on something that doesn't really matter, so I'll just stop there.
I have a B.S. Computer Science Degree from Columbia, as well at the M.S. and PhD that my advanced dynamic programming algorithms project helped me earn. I finished school by the time I was 23. Being a mathematical genius has its advantages.
And its disadvantages. The NSA and Army Intelligence recruited me heavily during my last two years at school. Aside from my interest in algorithms, I was also excellent with AI systems. Not the AI that I now know exists, but AI as it was defined at the beginning of the third millennium. Problem reduction, means-end analysis, heuristic searching, predicate calculus, and other variables that went into building intelligent computer systems. How I wish now that those in my field had been less ambitious.
I was then 26 years old, a well-paid systems analyst and integration expert for a major French corporation, and totally independent from the money inherited from my father. What funds of his I've been able to access thus far have gone to UNICEF. Chalk it up to unresolved issues with the guy. Whatever. What mattered was that I didn't work for that money; I didn't need his money, and sure as hell didn't use it to get through school or anything else.
But I digress. Submerged in my all-consuming pastime, fingers flying as I accessed areas that so few of us actually even realize exist, I lost track of time. My contact was dropping even more tantalizing hints about his relationship with the hacker-god himself, Morpheus. I was getting close.
When I brought the coffee to my lips a few moments later, I was shocked to realize it was stone cold. A glance at my watch told me that I was already going to be late for work. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.
Hell, I was going to be very late. By the time I could get back to my apartment four blocks away, shower, and dress before biking to work, I would be nearly two hours late. Why did I have to put that damned icon on my screen? I sighed and snapped my laptop shut.
So what about the fishnets, you say. No well-paid, respectable PhD would go to work wearing combat boots and fishnets in fashionable upper-crust Paris, right?
Therein lied my fascination with doing the unexpected. Being the paradox. It must have been the drama queen in me that occasionally wanted to come out and play. Rather than fight it, as most grown-ups did so well, I chose to indulge it. Life's too short to deny yourself the pleasure of seeing the wealthy and elite socialites of the City of Lights shocked out of their prim social moldings enough to gape. A little sensationalist, sure; but hey, that was me.
Anyway, I was going to be terribly late to work, but they wouldn't fire me for it. Not a chance--the work I was doing for them was good. Very good. They couldn't finish without me. I was the only soul who knew the system well enough to integrate the new software complex they were acquiring via merger. So, with my job safely assured, I dug out the green fishnets and beat-up combat boots that I had found so rebelliously perfect in my mid- teen years. Amazing that I hadn't lost them. More amazing that they still fit.
Apparently my boss didn't appreciate my fashion statement. He was not the sort to brush off blatant provocation. I received a very long lecture on the importance of being on time, followed by an even longer one on proper workplace attire. I suffered through both without comment. In truth, I paid attention to not a word that was said. I was still mulling over the name that my contact had dropped this morning.
Raine. I had been fascinated by one of the most evasively clever hackers the world had ever seen ever since I first started my...hobby. He or she or it was considered a foremost cyber terrorist, at or nearly on the same level as Morpheus, even. I personally believed that Raine was probably the more dynamic and brilliant of the two, just from some of the incredible hacks that I had been lucky enough to catch wind of. Raine just didn't receive the publicity. A good thing, for those of us in the biz. Not such a good thing for one as driven to track the hacker down as I was.
It was strange. I'd known I was supposed to be looking for an elusive something for a long time. It was only once I started hearing about Raine that I realized the hacker was part of it. For several years I had tried every trick I knew to make contact. For several years I had been rebuffed without reply.
Evidently, Raine had a link to Morpheus as well. All the more reason that I needed to find him. A former colleague of mine had helped me locate a link who apparently knew more than I did about both of them. When I discreetly dropped hints that I knew they were working on hacking the Matrix, my shy contact had chosen to break off. Blunt as always, I couldn't help it. Sometimes dealing with people whose entire lives are in binary code frustrates the hell outta me.
As far as I could tell, despite the strangely frequency of the term in both my research and my conversations with others in my field, the Matrix was some type of massive intergovernmental project to catalog and classify every human being, every computer, security system, access code, every single bit of electronic information available on every person and thing on Earth. A sort of all-encompassing global database. It was enough to make even the most blithe programmer paranoid, which is to say that conspiracy theorists (such as I assume I must have been) made it an obsession.
With my boss finally winding down, I was summarily dismissed for the day. Which was fine with me. I really had nothing important to do at the office. I decided to head for the library terminals. It never hurts to use a public IP address, right? Especially with the kind of low-tech stuff I needed to get done. Re-routing my source codes through and over hundreds of computers in multiple networks was an option, if I needed more security.
I was deeply engrossed in a global news search when my search screen blacked out suddenly. I was about ready to reboot when green letters flashed onto my screen in English.
'It is time, Aero.'
I stared for a moment, dumbstruck. Someone had traced a trail that wasn't there. There was no way anyone could know that I was sitting at that computer unless they were in the room with me. I stood and looked around the small room. It was just two college kids and myself. Both screens were well within my view. The blonde girl with the designer handbag had a popular fashion magazine's homepage pulled up. The boy with the spiky green hair and black makeup was typing a paper on a word processor. Neither were messing with me. I blinked before setting my fingers hesitantly to the keyboard.
[ WHO IS THIS?!? ]
'You don't already know?' I just about jumped out of my seat. My mind froze for a second.
[ Morpheus? ]
'No, but you're close.'
[ Jesus Christ. Raine? ]
'The latter.'
[ I have so many questions! ]
'I have the answers you are looking for. It is time, Aero.'
The screen went black again.
Aero's Story
Okay, so I'll be the first one to admit it. I thought that they were out of their minds when they approached me in the library that day. I mean, what reasonable girl is going to just smile and nod when a mammoth body- builder type and a little wisp of a woman in black leather and an Oriental- looking trench coat stroll up to her terminal and start a conversation with, "We can show you the truth, if you're ready to hear it."?
No, I was sure they were either insane, or some New Age religious types. Or maybe both. All I knew was that I definitely wasn't ready to hear it. My day had been going pretty strangely as it was. "Terribly sorry, but I'm a nun." Which, of course, I most certainly am not. I think that the incongruous fishnets and combat boots I had chosen to don that day probably derailed any notions that I was on sabbatical from a convent. I hoped that they would get the idea.
They didn't. The woman, who had been the original speaker, just smiled sadly at me and waited silently. The hulk remained standing, looking down on me in a way that I was sure was supposed to be intimidating. I don't take intimidation very well. So I saved my data to CD, popped it out of the drive, and stood abruptly. I turned to find myself staring directly into the big guy's chest. I'm 5'9", close to six foot with those boots on, and to say that the top of my head barely reached this guy's armpit probably makes my case right there.
I looked up, and met him dead in the eye. "Excuse me."
He looked to the woman, who gave a slight nod. He reluctantly stepped aside, and I brushed past. The woman said softly, "We'll see you soon."
I spun and met her eyes coldly. "No, you won't. Look lady, I'm not in the mood."
The smile still played about her features as I went for the door. Weird as the encounter was, with the kind of day that I had been having, it really didn't bother me all that much.
My day had started with my usual jog through the park, breakfast at a corner café with my laptop, and a few too many cups of coffee. The café was great; one of the first of the so-called cyber-cafés in that section of the city. Plus, they serve a great cappuccino. Halfway through my third cup, I felt that familiar urge to click the little short-cut icon that I really should have been smarter than to actually install. The little white and red emblem that, with one simple click of the mouse, takes me back to the world of computer criminals and geniuses. Of introverts and brilliance. The world that well-to-do citizens with respectable jobs aren't supposed to know or care about. The world of the hacker.
So I suppose I ought to introduce myself before we get any further. My name is Marie St. Charles. I am the only child of Jacques St. Charles, a French multi-millionaire international business magnate, and his American wife, Catherine. I was born in Paris, but spent my early years traveling with my parents all over the world. I was seven when they divorced; although the marriage was over by the time I was old enough to understand the word. My mother moved back to New York, and I went with her.
She died of an aneurysm while I was a sophomore undergrad, and my father followed in a car crash two years later. Not that my father's passing particularly mattered to me. It wasn't like he ever came to see us or told me he loved me. He sent the obligatory expensive presents on birthdays and Christmas, but I hadn't seen the man in over three years when he died.
Oh, look at me. I'm wasting perfectly good time on something that doesn't really matter, so I'll just stop there.
I have a B.S. Computer Science Degree from Columbia, as well at the M.S. and PhD that my advanced dynamic programming algorithms project helped me earn. I finished school by the time I was 23. Being a mathematical genius has its advantages.
And its disadvantages. The NSA and Army Intelligence recruited me heavily during my last two years at school. Aside from my interest in algorithms, I was also excellent with AI systems. Not the AI that I now know exists, but AI as it was defined at the beginning of the third millennium. Problem reduction, means-end analysis, heuristic searching, predicate calculus, and other variables that went into building intelligent computer systems. How I wish now that those in my field had been less ambitious.
I was then 26 years old, a well-paid systems analyst and integration expert for a major French corporation, and totally independent from the money inherited from my father. What funds of his I've been able to access thus far have gone to UNICEF. Chalk it up to unresolved issues with the guy. Whatever. What mattered was that I didn't work for that money; I didn't need his money, and sure as hell didn't use it to get through school or anything else.
But I digress. Submerged in my all-consuming pastime, fingers flying as I accessed areas that so few of us actually even realize exist, I lost track of time. My contact was dropping even more tantalizing hints about his relationship with the hacker-god himself, Morpheus. I was getting close.
When I brought the coffee to my lips a few moments later, I was shocked to realize it was stone cold. A glance at my watch told me that I was already going to be late for work. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.
Hell, I was going to be very late. By the time I could get back to my apartment four blocks away, shower, and dress before biking to work, I would be nearly two hours late. Why did I have to put that damned icon on my screen? I sighed and snapped my laptop shut.
So what about the fishnets, you say. No well-paid, respectable PhD would go to work wearing combat boots and fishnets in fashionable upper-crust Paris, right?
Therein lied my fascination with doing the unexpected. Being the paradox. It must have been the drama queen in me that occasionally wanted to come out and play. Rather than fight it, as most grown-ups did so well, I chose to indulge it. Life's too short to deny yourself the pleasure of seeing the wealthy and elite socialites of the City of Lights shocked out of their prim social moldings enough to gape. A little sensationalist, sure; but hey, that was me.
Anyway, I was going to be terribly late to work, but they wouldn't fire me for it. Not a chance--the work I was doing for them was good. Very good. They couldn't finish without me. I was the only soul who knew the system well enough to integrate the new software complex they were acquiring via merger. So, with my job safely assured, I dug out the green fishnets and beat-up combat boots that I had found so rebelliously perfect in my mid- teen years. Amazing that I hadn't lost them. More amazing that they still fit.
Apparently my boss didn't appreciate my fashion statement. He was not the sort to brush off blatant provocation. I received a very long lecture on the importance of being on time, followed by an even longer one on proper workplace attire. I suffered through both without comment. In truth, I paid attention to not a word that was said. I was still mulling over the name that my contact had dropped this morning.
Raine. I had been fascinated by one of the most evasively clever hackers the world had ever seen ever since I first started my...hobby. He or she or it was considered a foremost cyber terrorist, at or nearly on the same level as Morpheus, even. I personally believed that Raine was probably the more dynamic and brilliant of the two, just from some of the incredible hacks that I had been lucky enough to catch wind of. Raine just didn't receive the publicity. A good thing, for those of us in the biz. Not such a good thing for one as driven to track the hacker down as I was.
It was strange. I'd known I was supposed to be looking for an elusive something for a long time. It was only once I started hearing about Raine that I realized the hacker was part of it. For several years I had tried every trick I knew to make contact. For several years I had been rebuffed without reply.
Evidently, Raine had a link to Morpheus as well. All the more reason that I needed to find him. A former colleague of mine had helped me locate a link who apparently knew more than I did about both of them. When I discreetly dropped hints that I knew they were working on hacking the Matrix, my shy contact had chosen to break off. Blunt as always, I couldn't help it. Sometimes dealing with people whose entire lives are in binary code frustrates the hell outta me.
As far as I could tell, despite the strangely frequency of the term in both my research and my conversations with others in my field, the Matrix was some type of massive intergovernmental project to catalog and classify every human being, every computer, security system, access code, every single bit of electronic information available on every person and thing on Earth. A sort of all-encompassing global database. It was enough to make even the most blithe programmer paranoid, which is to say that conspiracy theorists (such as I assume I must have been) made it an obsession.
With my boss finally winding down, I was summarily dismissed for the day. Which was fine with me. I really had nothing important to do at the office. I decided to head for the library terminals. It never hurts to use a public IP address, right? Especially with the kind of low-tech stuff I needed to get done. Re-routing my source codes through and over hundreds of computers in multiple networks was an option, if I needed more security.
I was deeply engrossed in a global news search when my search screen blacked out suddenly. I was about ready to reboot when green letters flashed onto my screen in English.
'It is time, Aero.'
I stared for a moment, dumbstruck. Someone had traced a trail that wasn't there. There was no way anyone could know that I was sitting at that computer unless they were in the room with me. I stood and looked around the small room. It was just two college kids and myself. Both screens were well within my view. The blonde girl with the designer handbag had a popular fashion magazine's homepage pulled up. The boy with the spiky green hair and black makeup was typing a paper on a word processor. Neither were messing with me. I blinked before setting my fingers hesitantly to the keyboard.
[ WHO IS THIS?!? ]
'You don't already know?' I just about jumped out of my seat. My mind froze for a second.
[ Morpheus? ]
'No, but you're close.'
[ Jesus Christ. Raine? ]
'The latter.'
[ I have so many questions! ]
'I have the answers you are looking for. It is time, Aero.'
The screen went black again.