Protector of Men Ch 109… almost done….
THANKS TO REVIEWERS YOU MADE MY WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Everything had quieted down in the small town that the Richards had taken refuge in. There were no more homicides, no more suicides, no more bomb threats. The constant screaming had long stopped and already it seemed that the world had righted itself. Outside, a man had paused next to the drug store, dressed in jeans and slowly pulling himself on top of a wooden crate. A crowd was quickly amassing. They all listened; he had answers to give.
He explained that something was wrong with the world – they weren't going crazy as some had assumed. There was no terrorist, no biological attack, no nuclear warfare.
They didn't have to ask why reality seemed to be failing.
Reality was failing, he said in a quiet, passive tone, simply because their world wasn't reality. Unhurriedly, tenderly, he told them that what they thought was the world was really only a simulation of it.
That was the oppression – that was the source of their uncertainty and fear. Everyone easily accepted the fact that this place wasn't real. After the things they had all endured over the past days, it was a relief.
They were allowed to go into the real place, the man assured them, but he also warned them that perhaps they'd want to wait a while. The real world had just finished a long war and was still healing, so life might be hard. Maybe unreality would be good enough for them – for a while.
But the choice was theirs, he asserted. The choice was always theirs.
Around the world there were lectures very similar; across every continent every human being was being told the truth; unaltered, undiluted, unbiased. The Matrix had finally been fully exposed. The machines had feared that day since it's glorious inception, expecting attacks on the mainframe, hacks into reality, violence against those who had no feeling nor life. But the attacks never came – it seemed like life had disintegrated so fully in the Matrix over the past days that any reality was better accepted.
For now, there was total peace in both worlds.
"There was a war," the man explained, "Between those of us who governed your world, and those who live outside."
The war, he said, lasted many years, and many people died. But some were still alive, and perhaps there were still those inside the Matrix who yet remembered them.
"They might have been called terrorists," he continued, "Killers, or traitors."
Yes, there were many of those in the world. But some of those who had been labeled so unfairly, he told them, had merely escaped the illusion of the false world that they currently stood in. Many had escaped over the past thirty years or so – estimated at roughly twenty-five thousand. He promised that lists would be posted of those released during the war's duration.
"For now," he advised, "Enjoy what you have here. Outside is a war torn world."
He stayed around a few minutes after he had finished his speech to answer questions, though neither William nor his mother had any to ask. They stood silent on the sidewalk, digesting what the machines had assumed was deadly information.
And everywhere the same thing happened. People looked to the sky, wondering what those in the real world were going through, what it was like, how it was different. But it was just wondering – harmless, hate-less.
William wondered if he would go into the real world. Would it be worth it? After all that had happened, did he want more to remind him of the torment he lived through? Certainly his mother would prefer living at home, and certainly he would do anything to stay with her. They were a fraction of a family, and they had to keep together to survive.
They would change their mind once they saw the list of rebels.
The matrix was going through a multitude of repairs. Once the machines were in the position to cater to their prisoners' needs, they realized that masking the Matrix's framework wasn't their top priority. Instead, they moved to put on life support those who had aborted the program prematurely and were stuck in their pods, unable to breathe. They made plans to create transport ships for when Zion was ready to accept new citizens. It was a different environment now, and everyone had to adapt. Many bugs were being fixed so that the future could be secured.
Perhaps, with time, even the sky could be repaired.
A/N – again, sorry for time delay. I had a choir show that took up all of my time and then getting ready for the end of school… let's just say I graduate on Saturday and I can't wait.