Yes, it is taking longer to update. Blame work overload and short-circuiting brain cells. But I honestly do apologize.
According to my irascible muse, I will, for tension's sake, be making two people related in this that aren't in the canon SK. Will that profoundly irritate anyone?
The crew escorted Yoh to a large but cluttered room full of wires and screens. It looked like room 1312 multiplied by fifty and just as organized. "This is the main deck," said Manta with obvious pride, noting the look of awe on Yoh's face. "And this is the core." He gestured with his arm, taking in the most concentrated area of electronic equipment and a circle of chairs like the one Yoh had sat in by the mirror.
"From here," said Lyserg, running his hand over the top of a screen, "we broadcast our signals and hack into the matrix."
"Have a seat, Yoh," said Horohoro, pointing to the chairs.
Yoh obeyed, wondering what would happen this time.
"This is basically turning virtual reality into reality," said Silva, as if that answered everything. Yoh watched him walk to the chair in front of the screens as if it was all routine for him.
"And," put in Ren, "it's all accessed right here." He tapped the plug opening left in the back of Yoh's head.
Anna pulled out a large cord with a single, thick, ten-centimeter long needle protruding from the end. "This'll feel a little weird." So saying, she pushed the spike into the opening in the back of Yoh's head. He tensed from surprise and momentary pain, his eyes squeezing shut.
He opened them to find himself in the middle of nowhere, literally. Everything was an expanse of blank whiteness with no sky or horizon.
"We call this the Construct," said Manta from behind him.
Yoh whirled around to find himself eye to eye with the boy. He jumped back in surprise. "You…grew!"
"And you changed clothes," shot back Manta without blinking an eye.
Yoh looked down. Indeed, he was no longer wearing the rough, simple gray clothes he had woken up in, but his usual jeans and open pale blue shirt.
"It's RSI…residual self image. It reflects how you picture yourself because we are, in fact, in a mere computer program."
"So you picture yourself as being taller than actual?"
"Not actually. I've learned to manipulate the imaging, and can appear at any size I want. Not many people bother to learn, but I found it useful. For the purpose of blending in, I take on an average size when in the matrix…what you used to know as the real world."
"But…when we met…"
"I wanted to be completely honest with you and thus appeared in my normal size."
"Oh. So I could make myself blond?" he asked, running his fingers absently through his hair.
"It's not easy. You might not be able to if the image of one's self is too strong. Anyway, this is our loading program. We can load anything you can imagine: clothes, weapons, simulations…" He walked over to a pair of chairs that seemed to have materialized while Yoh wasn't looking and sat down. Yoh instinctively took the place beside him.
"So this isn't real?"
Manta seemed perfectly at home. "But what is real?" he asked with a complacent smile. "What your senses tell you is real?"
"Can you ask some easy questions for a change?" sighed Yoh, half sulking and slouching down in his chair.
Manta laughed and pulled out his enormous book again, this time quickly finding his page. "I'll give you a little history lesson, all right?"
"'bout what?" A lesson did not sound highly appealing to Yoh at the moment.
"Just pay attention."
He opened the book and put in on a table before them. "This," he said, pointing to a picture of a teeming metropolis, "is the Chicago you know, the one from the beginning of the 21st century. It currently exists only in the neural-interactive simulation known as the matrix."
"Wha…?"
"What is fed to your senses in the matrix by the machines."
"Oh."
"And this…" he turned the page "…is Chicago today."
Yoh recoiled from the picture. It was clearer than any photo he had ever seen, and seemed to be moving as if he were there. The image was a false mockery of a city, a mere corpse of what it once was. Now the skeletons of buildings stretched above filth-ridden streets toward a turbulent and darkened sky.
Then, it was all around him, as if he and Morpheus were standing on a barren, charred plane gazing at the city.
"The desert of the real," said Manta quietly. "We are, with the Nebuchadnezzer and all its crew, miles below the earth's crust. It is the only place humans can survive outside the matrix."
"But…why…?"
Manta sighed, and turned the page, returning them to the blank whiteness of the Construct. "Early in the 21st century, mankind celebrated the birth of new technology, of AI."
"Artificial intelligence," said Yoh, returning to his customary slouching position.
"Right. But it was not exactly as we had hoped. We don't know who struck first – us or them – but soon mankind was engaged in an epic war with its own creation. We do know, however, that it was us who darkened the sky. We thought that without an energy source as vast as the sun, the machines would have nothing to run off of and would eventually stop."
Yoh stifled a yawn.
"So the machines sought out a new energy source – are you listening?!"
Yoh jumped and looked about guiltily. "You were saying?"
Manta seemed affronted. "This is important! Highly, highly relevant to what is happening in the world today!"
"Sorry. I'm not good with lectures."
"Just listen! It won't take to long. I'll keep it short, okay?"
Yoh grinned. "Okay."
With a sigh, Manta returned to his lesson. "As I was saying, the machines needed a new energy source. And they had one." He turned the page again. "The human body generates more electricity than a 120 volt battery and over 25 000 BTU's of heat." The image on the page came alive again, and Yoh could see rows and rows of humans in red capsules like his had been, tended and harvested by the machines.
"That's…"
Manta did not let him finish, but continued relentlessly on. "We're recyclable: the dead can be liquefied and fed to the living. The only problem was the matter of how to occupy the mind of their crops."
Feed on the dead? The fairy tale just turned into a horror story. Yoh could say nothing.
"And so, they built us a prison from our pasts, wired it into our brains and turned us into slaves."
Yoh stood abruptly. "You're joking."
"I'm not," said Manta sadly. "It's all true."
Yoh covered his mouth as if he were ready to be sick. "It's not," he whimpered, backing away. "It's not…it's not…how can it…?"
Manta stood too. "I know it's hard, but you have to take it –"
"Let me out!" Yoh gasped, as if he couldn't breathe. "Let me out of this place! Let me go!"
The white nothingness vanished in an instant, and he was back in the Core of the Nebuchadnezzer. Anna and Horohoro were nearby, one removing the plug from his head as soon as he opened his eyes. He bolted up from the chair and backed against the walls, feeling cornered.
"Look, Yoh…"
He heard little. Bright lights were bursting in his vision, filling his eyes and obscuring his sight.
"It was too much for him, too soon!" said Ren tersely. "The stress—"
"Yoh-kun! Just breathe!"
"Hold on!"
But everything went black.
*
Yoh came to in the same dim room that had greeted him after he had been freed from the matrix. All was quiet in the hall outside, and a thin blanket covered him. Still, he sensed someone else nearby. "I can't go back, can I?" he asked. It was more of a hopeless statement than a question.
"No," said Anna. "But would you really want to, even if you could?"
Silence.
"Morpheus wanted me to explain to you. He really felt awful about today."
"Then why didn't he come himself?" asked Yoh softly.
"He's not sure how you took all he shared with you. He thought another voice might be better for you at this time. You see, we almost never free a mind when it's reached a certain age. It has trouble letting go; it turns against itself. We've seen it happen."
An involuntary shudder seized Yoh momentarily.
"Morpheus broke the rules because he had to."
Quiet, as everything sank in.
"When the matrix was first built, there was a man who could change what he wanted, remake what he perceived at his will. He freed the first of us and taught us the secret of the war: control the matrix, and you control the future. When he died, the Oracle predicted his return and said that it would herald the end of the war. Freedom, Yoh. So we have spent our lives searching for him. Morpheus believes you have a special purpose to serve."
But you? Do you believe in me at all? "I told him I don't believe in fate," blurted Yoh.
"Morpheus does, and right now, that's what counts."
She stood.
"Well, get some rest. You'll need it."
Yoh sat up. "For what?"
"Why," she turned to him with a slightly sadistic glint in her eyes, "for your training."
*
Morning was when the lights came on. Yoh was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling when the knock on his door came. "Come in," he called.
The man called Silva entered. "Morning, Yoh. Did you sleep well?"
"No," said Yoh. Too much had happened the day before to allow decent rest.
"You'll sleep tonight," said Silva with a grin. "Anna guarantees it."
"She said so?" groaned Yoh.
"Oh, no. But she'll be overseeing this all; I just run the programs. My sympathies. Good luck, kid." He held out his hand.
Yoh shook it half-heartedly, his heart sinking. Then he noticed something unusual. "You don't have…" he gestured at Silva's arm.
"Nope," said Silva cheerfully, "no holes. Me 'n' Chrom, the other tall, black-haired guy here, we're pure. Born free. Genuine children of Zion."
"Zion?"
"The place. It's the last human civilization. You'll see it someday, all we have left. To be honest, I'm excited to see what you're capable of. I mean, if Manta is right and all. We're not supposed to discuss it, but…" He trailed off, looking at the youth before him with a half smile. "Well, we've got lots to do. Let's go."
To be continued…To answer various questions:
-Apple-chan, excellent guesswork, but I'm not at liberty to tell you that yet. (Horohoro: It means you're right, you know. ^_~)
-da*mouse, well, I'll have to kill some of them off, but maybe not all of them. If worse comes to worse, maybe I'll pull names out of a hat. If there's someone you really DON'T want to die, let me know and I'll try to make it fit.
-elisabeth the ultimate harry/u, slight YoNa, but not extreme. I have to keep Anna in character, after all. As for a "nice" YoNa moment, I guess that'll depend on your point of view. ^_^