Disclaimer: See Part I.
Deus Ex Machina
Chapter 2
Shinji was unable to count the passage of time. Days, at least, went by. Perhaps weeks. He woke up occasionally, still under the bright lights. Other people were there sometimes. He decided he was probably in a hospital.
His senses were dull. He was occasionally aware that they were working on his body. Sometimes they worked on the things embedded in his flesh. At other times, they inserted needles into his skin, some sort of acupuncture.
As time passed, he felt a bit stronger, if never more alert. He started to recognize the faces that appeared over him. Morpheus was there frequently, with a dark haired woman he didn't recognize. Neo and Trinity came often, as well. When he tried to talk to them, ask what was happening, they told him to rest, that answers would come later.
He always fell asleep before they could have explained anything, anyway.
Shinji woke with a start when a loud scrape of metal echoed in his room. His room? He sat up, and realized that he was fully clothed.
Neo stepped into the room. "Good morning, Shinji. How do you feel?"
"Where am I?" Shinji asked, feeling slightly dazed. Neo seemed different. Before, he had an air of invincibility. Now he seemed like an ordinary man.
"You're free," Neo said, walking forward. "Come with me. Morpheus can explain it better than I can." He kneeled in front of Shinji and rolled up a sleeve on the boy's shirt. Shinji noticed that he had an IV in his arm. The needle was going into one of the round metal pieces imbedded in his skin. Neo pulled it out for him, then stood, helping Shinji to his feet.
Shinji followed him out and through the metal corridor. "Is this some kind of boat?"
"It's a hovercraft," said Neo. "The Nebuchadnezzar. Morpheus is the captain." He led Shinji to a ladder and motioned for him to climb first. "Up here is the main deck."
Morpheus was waiting at the top, with a half-dozen other people. "And here he is," he said to the others. "Shinji, welcome aboard my ship. You've met some of my crew already." Trinity, Switch, and Apoc all greeted him.
Morpheus motioned to a woman sitting in front of a bank of monitors. "That's our operator, Misato."
"Hi, Shinji," said the woman.
"And behind you are Asuka and Rei."
Shinji turned and saw two girls, about his own age. He gaped as he recognized one of them. He pointed at the blue-haired girl, Rei. "I saw you, that day."
She nodded, and smiled slightly, but did not say anything.
Morpheus stepped forward and laid a hand on Shinji's shoulder. "Would you like to know the truth I promised you?"
Shinji nodded. He was led to what looked like a dentist's chair, except that the headrest was partially open. "What is this?" he asked, eying it suspiciously.
"This is how we connect to the Matrix," explained Trinity. With a little prodding, Shinji sat on the seat and laid back. Trinity closed a set of clamps over his feet.
"This is going to feel strange," said Neo, before he stabbed Shinji in the back of the head.
Shinji's back arched as pain shot down his spine. Then it was gone, and he was standing in a large white room. He spun around, looking for someone to explain this. There was nothing there; he couldn't even see any walls.
"We call this the Construct." Shinji spun again and found that Morpheus was facing him, dressed in a suit. "We use it to load weapons, equipment, training programs, anything."
"This is...a simulation? A computer program?"
Morpheus smiled. "Correct. This is an artificial environment implanted directly into your mind." He sat down on a chair that wasn't there before Shinji's last blink. "Look at yourself, Shinji. You're hair and clothes are like they were the day we met. The plugs in your arms and head are gone. That's called residual self-image, your mind remembering your digital self."
Shinji looked at his arms, seeing that they were back to normal. If that really was normal. "Is this Construct...the same as..." He felt overwhelmed, by the implications of all this. Shinji walked forward and sat in the other chair.
"The same as the Matrix? Essentially, though on a smaller scale."
Morpheus picked up a remote control and turned on the old TV that was in front of them. It showed aerial images of cities. "You believed that the year was 2015. It's at least two hundred years after that. I can't be more specific, because we don't know. We do know that, in the early twenty-first century, the world celebrated the birth of AI. A single entity which created a race of intelligent machines.
"We don't know how it started, but humans and machines went to war. At that time, the machines depended on solar power. So we darkened the skies. This is the what the world is today." Morpheus pressed another button, and the white room was suddenly replaced by a vast gray wasteland.
Shinji leapt to his feet and looked around, frantic. In the distance, twisted, broken skyscrapers jutted out of the horizon. Overhead, lightning played across dark clouds, as far as he could see.
"When it happened, it was believed that the machines couldn't survive without the sun. Now they use us to survive. The human body generates over 25,000 BTUs of body heat and more bioelectricity than a 120-volt battery. The machines had all the energy they needed."
As Morpheus spoke, they floated through the construct, over a huge field of strange glowing orbs, with massive machines floating overhead. "Humans are grown, Shinji, not born."
Morpheus pressed a button on the remote, and the field disappeared, returning them to the big white room. "What is the Matrix? It is control. It's an artificial world, designed to turn us into these," he finished, holding up a battery.
Shinji staggered as the weight of Morpheus' words hit him. Everything he had known was false, and the world he had escaped to looked to be a living hell. He stumbled, barely able to breath.
Morpheus pulled out a phone. "Misato, log us out."
Shinji found himself back in the dentists' chair. Switch pulled the rod out of his head, and he lurched off the chair and staggered across the deck. "Why..." he mumbled. "Why me...why..."
"Give him some room!" shouted Misato, as Shinji fell to his knees.
"Breathe, Shinji," Trinity instructed. "Just take deep breaths."
On his hands and knees, Shinji did his best to comply. Rei knelt before him, placing a cool hand on his forehead. He looked in her eyes, seeing concern. Somehow, it relaxed him. He fainted, dropping his head into her lap.
Shinji woke up in what he assumed was his room. It appeared to be the same one as before. After a moment, he realized he had company. He looked over his shoulder and saw Neo sitting across the tiny room. "What now? I can't go back." The second part was more statement than question.
"Right." Neo turned to face Shinji directly. "Morpheus gave me the same presentation he gave you, about the Matrix, and the real world. Did he tell you about the situation now? Or why you're here?"
Shinji shook his head.
Neo nodded. He sat for a moment, thinking. "Technically, there is a cease-fire between us and the machines. Fifteen years ago, something exploded in eastern Siberia. Something that was not from Earth. We later learned that the machines had fought a battle with an extraterrestrial creature, something the machines called an Angel. Its explosion left a crater more than eight miles wide.
"We learned that it was the vanguard of an alien force, massive beings capable of devastating the world. We obtained samples of the alien, some kind of bio-machine. We've been able to create weapons that can fight the Angels. We just need pilots for them."
"Is that where I come in?" asked Shinji, lying on the bed.
"Yes. It takes someone very special to pilot our weapons. We've been searching the Matrix for ten years, looking for suitable candidates. Rei and Asuka are the only others that have been found.
"Another crew had identified you as someone whose mind should be freed. The Nebuchadnezzar was assigned to follow up on that, and see if we could initiate contact. When I saw you, I realized what you were capable of. In the Matrix, there's something intangible that sets Rei and Asuka apart from our other soldiers. You have that same quality."
"What quality?"
"You're mind is...more open than most, able to take in more information, faster. It will have to be so you can pilot."
Shinji thought about how he had fainted earlier. "I don't know about that."
Neo smiled. "You remember that presentation Morpheus gave you?"
"Yeah."
"When he gave it to me, I freaked out and threw up all over the deck. I think you're going to do fine here." Neo stood and walked to the door. "Get some sleep; you'll need it." Shinji looked up at him, confused. "You're training starts tomorrow." Neo walked out the door and shut it.
Shinji lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "Sleep? Yeah right." His mind ran through everything that he had seen that day, analyzing each part of it. Machines. Aliens. Slavery. War.
Some other part of his mind wondered where he could get classical music in this world.
Neo looked down at the girls who sat on the corridor floor near Shinji's door. "He needs his sleep girls, so don't bother him."
"We won't," promised Asuka, as they smiled innocently at Neo. The man shook his head and laughed, and climbed up to the main deck. As soon as he was gone, Asuka turned to her blue-haired friend. "Is he really going to be a Pilot?"
Rei's hands danced in the air, signing her answer. "Neo believes he is the Third."
"He seems...dull, though." Asuka said, staring at Shinji's door for a moment. "I wonder if he can do it." She shrugged and turned back to Rei with a sly grin. "And what was with that little display up there? You like him or something?"
Rei shook her head, as a faint blush played across her pale cheeks. "Father comforts me like that when I get sick."
"Heh. Yeah, sure." Asuka leapt to her feat. "Let's go see if we can use the construct. I want to practice that new swords program." Rei stood and started up the ladder. Asuka shot one more glance at Shinji's door, then followed.
Shinji wasn't startled when the heavy metal door creaked open. He did look up as the woman named Misato entered his room. "Good morning," she said. "Did you sleep well?"
Shinji sat up and shrugged. "Not really." He had spent the night thinking about everything he was told. "I'm okay, though."
"Well, you'll sleep tonight," Misato promised. "It's time for your training."
"Oh? What do I have to learn?"
"Everything."
"Everything?!" Shinji exclaimed, jumping to his feet. He banged his head on the shelf over his bunk, and fell back onto it. "There...must be a ton of stuff to learn," he complained, rubbing his head. "Your technology is so far ahead of what I know..."
Misato laughed. "Don't worry, Shinji. You'll be amazed at what you can do when you put your mind to it."
Shinji followed Misato out of the room, rubbing his sore skull. His fingers slid across the round piece of metal at the back of his head. "What are these things?" he asked, holding his arms up so Misato could see the metal imbedded in them.
"The holes? The big one on your head is for the interface into your brain. The rest drained power out of your body for the machines, and fed nutrients into you."
Shinji looked at Misato, realizing what seemed different about her, versus the rest of the crew. "You don't have any?"
"Nope. I'm a Native, an all-natural product of Zion."
"Zion?"
"Our city. A fortress, deep underground, where we can rebuild mankind. We'll be going there, soon." She turned and climbed up the ladder. "Come on Shinji, can't waste any time."
Shinji winced as Misato pushed the link plug into his head. He sat still for a moment, as the nausea it produced passed. He glanced over at Misato, who sat at the massive operators station. She looked over and winked at him. "Let's start with something fun."
Shinji glanced at the monitor over his head, and read the upside down text. "Jujitsu?"
Misato grinned. "Combat training." She pressed a button on one of her screens, starting the process.
Shinji's head slammed back as a wave of pure noise flooded his brain. It stopped as fast as it started, as everything he saw fell into place inside his head. "What was that?" he asked, panting.
"Want some more?" asked Misato, waving another small disk in the air.
"Yes. Please."
Morpheus walked onto the main deck to see Misato stifle a yawn. "Still going at it?"
Misato nodded as she changed disks. "We stopped for lunch, but it's been nonstop since then. I'm running out of stuff to give him."
"Maybe we should test what he's learned," said Asuka, striding purposefully into the room.
Morpheus was about to oppose her idea, when Neo's voice interrupted him. "That's sounds like a good idea. Hopefully, he'll live up to Asuka's lofty standards for Pilot material."
The other's laughed as she glared at him. "Hmmp! The Oracle will decide whether or not he's a Pilot." She jumped onto the chair to Shinji's right, and glared at the adults.
Rei followed Neo as he entered the room. She walked to the chair Asuka had taken. Asuka leaned back, and Rei inserted the plug into her head.
"What, are we having a party here?" Misato asked the sudden crowd. She turned to her keyboard and launched the new program.
Shinji had only been vaguely aware of the conversation around him. He was far too busy processing the wealth of information flooding his brain. He felt like his head was going to explode, it was so full of new things. And he couldn't wait to put it too use.
When the Dojo suddenly appeared, he looked around in confusion. "Where...?"
"This is a sparring program, which we use for training." Shinji turned and saw Asuka, dressed in a red gi. "We test our skills here, and our ability to use them in the Matrix."
He looked at his own clothing, a dark blue gi, with lighter blue at the collar. "What do you mean by 'in the Matrix'?" He grew nervous when she smiled at him. It was malicious.
"Hit me, if you can." She stepped into a fighting stance, which Shinji's new knowledge immediately identified. He countered with his own, a defensive stance, and waited.
Asuka waited a moment, then rolled her eyes when it became apparent that Shinji was waiting for her to attack. "Fine. Be that way." She charged forward, launching a kick at Shinji's head. He barely dodged it in time, and hadn't recovered before she punched him. He staggered back under a flurry of blows to his head and body, finally launched backwards by a heavy blow to the chest.
Shinji lay on the ground panting, as Asuka walked up and stood over him. "Come on, you must be better than this, for Neo to choose you!" she berated him.
Somehow, Trinity, Apoc, and Switch had all found their way onto the main deck. Everyone was crowded around the main control panel, watching the fight on the monitors. Misato was starting to feel claustrophobic with so many people hovering over her.
"She'll take him apart," muttered Apoc, watching the screen. Asuka easily batted aside Shinji's feeble attack, before kicking him across the room.
"Asuka really isn't much of a teacher," said Trinity. "She doesn't know how to relate to someone who doesn't already know everything she does. Maybe we should stop this, before she scars him for life."
Everyone laughed, as Misato prepared to end the program. A hand on her shoulder caused her to pause.
"Or maybe we should send her some help," said Morpheus, looking at the uplink chairs. Rei was sitting down in the chair to Shinji's left, pressing the screen above it to enter her instructions. Morpheus walked over to her and picked up the plug. "You think you can help teach him?"
Rei smiled and nodded.
"Get up!" ordered Asuka. "You can do this, stupid."
"You...you're too fast," Shinji gasped painfully. He staggered to his feet, trying to take a stance again. The last time, he was able to block her attacks for only a moment before the blows started to land.
A new voice echoed through the room. "Do you think that matters in this place?"
Shinji spun around. "Rei?"
Rei nodded, giving him a faint smile. "The Matrix is just a system of rules."
Shinji's eyes widened. He heard her soft, quiet voice, but her mouth never moved.
"It's like any computer system. Some rules can be bent, and some can be broken. Here, the rules are gravity. Or speaking."
"How can you do this?"
"I am bending the rules here, making my voice carry straight to your mind." Rei walked forward as Shinji stood. "You can do this too."
"I can? How?" Rei punched Shinji in the jaw, a viscous uppercut that flipped him into the air. "What was that for?" Shinji panted, face down on the mat. "And how are you so fast, too?"
"Do you think being fast matters here?" asked Asuka.
"Do you think you're really breathing?" asked Rei.
Shinji looked from one girl to the other. Both stared at him intently, waiting for him to understand what they said. Shinji slowly got to his feet, and stepped back into a fighting stance, facing Asuka. "Again."
A rustle of cloth was the only warning Shinji needed, as he ducked under Rei's kick. Shinji launched a series of punches, driving Rei back. A high kick forced her to jump back, where she hit a wood column and stumbled, falling to the ground.
Shinji spun around to block the kick Asuka had tried to nail him with. The two traded punches, blocking each other's assault. Shinji caught her wrist and pulled, kicking her legs back as he did. The redhead flipped in the air, landing on her back.
Shinji's eyes widened when he saw what he had done. "Sorry, sorry, are you okay?" He bent over, trying to help her to her feet.
Asuka's shocked expression quickly changed to agitation. "Idiot! Don't apologize here!" She kicked him in the head, sending him tumbling back, before leaping to her feat. "This is training. Nothing we do in here really matters."
Shinji smiled. "Fine." He launched himself off the ground and into the air, feet first. Asuka desperately blocked his kicks, backing off as fast as she could. Shinji landed, just in time to be kicked in the side by Rei. He rolled onto his back to see the girl leap into the air, arms raised and legs pulled up. She seemed to hang in the air for a moment, a dozen feet off the ground. Shinji rolled to his side, barely getting out of the way before Rei's knee smashed the wood floor. The boy leapt to his feet and faced his opponents.
"You taught her that move, didn't you?" Switch asked Morpheus. He nodded, smiling slightly.
"Have you every actually hit anyone with it?" asked Neo. Trinity gave him a quick elbow to the ribs.
Morpheus ground his teeth. "Once."
"Only because you pulled my shirt over my head," protested Apoc. "And I had a headache for three days after that."
They continued to watch the screens. Shinji was catching on quickly, neither girl was able to land a blow anymore. He fought off their attacks, easily shifting between the two girls. In just a few moments, his neural reactions had reached the levels that the two girls showed.
Morpheus smiled again. "I think the Oracle will be pleased with your choice, Neo."
Neo let out a quiet, relieved sigh. He hadn't realized how worried he was about that. Trinity took his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
Shinji quickly backed to the center of the dojo. The girls were attacking together now, and they were coming faster. He was amazed that he could even keep up with them, let alone fight them off as well as he had.
They charged him again, Rei a step ahead. When she launched a high kick, Shinji grabbed her ankle and stepped aside, using her momentum to throw her past him. He quickly twisted and blocked Asuka's punch, then countered with his own, sending her tumbling back.
He spun on Rei, who was trying to attack him from behind. His arm blurred toward her, stopping a centimeter from her throat. The two stared at each other for a moment, until Asuka spoke.
"I think he gets it," she said, sitting on the ground. She stood and looked upwards, expectantly. "Time for the next lesson?" she asked the ceiling.
Shinji stepped back, unsure of what to expect. Both girls looked pleased, though he didn't know why.
Misato's voice boomed into the room. "Loading jump program."
The dojo disappeared as the new location formed around them. Shinji found himself atop a tall building, facing Morpheus. "You feel it, don't you?" he asked. "When you fought, you bent the system to your will."
Shinji nodded. "I think so."
"Don't think it Shinji. Know it." Morpheus turned to Asuka and Rei, who were standing patiently to the side. He nodded quickly, and they ran to the edge of the roof. Shinji gasped as they leapt off, soaring through the air. They landed on the roof of another building, a hundred yards away.
"Free your mind, Shinji." Morpheus turned and ran for the edge, leaping higher than either girl had. He landed on the other roof, with an audible crack as the concrete broke under his feet.
"Wow." Shinji stood and watched them, trying to work up the courage to follow. "Free my mind." He backed to the far edge of the building, to give himself a running start. "Don't run away," he whispered to himself.
He took a deep breath, and ran for the edge of the roof. Arms swinging, legs pumping, Shinji knew he had never run so fast in his life. He stepped onto the edge of the roof and leapt forward with all his strength. For a second, he thought he was going to do it.
Then gravity grabbed a hold of him. Shinji fell, screaming as he went down. He couldn't even form the words to curse everyone for tricking him before he hit the ground. The street gave way for him, sinking down like a trampoline, and flinging him back up. A small part of his mind noted that there was a Shinji-shaped hole in the street, just like in the cartoons. That voice joined the rest of him in groaning when he hit the now unyielding street again.
Switch removed the plug from Shinji's head as the seat straightened. "Don't worry about it kid. Everyone falls the first time."
Shinji nodded and tried to sit up, but was pushed back by a wall of pain. He rolled to his right, and managed to sit sideways on the seat. The front of his body hurt, from his shoulders all the way down to his knees. "Why does it hurt? That wasn't real."
Rei stepped forward and began waving her hands in the air. Shinji knew she was using sign language, but he didn't understand it. "What's she saying?"
"She says that your mind makes it real," said Asuka. "You should have had a sign program loaded during your training."
Everyone turned and looked to the control panel. Misato laughed nervously and scratched her head. "I guess I forgot that one." She quickly spun around and began digging through the stacks of disks on her desk. After a moment of searching, she turned back to the group. "I, um...I seem to have lost the disk."
Rei's expression dropped.
"I'm sorry, Rei," continued Misato. "I don't know what happened to it. I'll get a new one as soon as we get back to Zion, I promise."
Rei nodded, and stood up from her seat. She smiled slightly, and signed something to Misato.
"Whaaaaaaat? I said I was sorry," whined Misato. Asuka giggled, and followed Rei down the ladder to the lower deck. Misato crossed her arms and sat back, pouting.
"What did she say?" asked Shinji.
Chuckling, Apoc answered. "She said she'd just keep her own disk from now on."
"Ungrateful brat," muttered the pouting operator.
Shinji laughed, then groaned as he felt the impact again. "How long will I hurt?"
"It should pass in an hour or so," said Trinity. "Why don't you go down and rest. You're done for today."
Shinji nodded, and made his way to the lower deck. He hadn't realized how exhausted he really was. He was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.