Amie opened her eyes slowly, feeling hard metal and lumpy fabric below her. Feeling dizzy suddenly as she looked up at a grey ceiling that was not her own, she put out a hand to steady herself, flinching as it hit more cold metal. She blinked a few times, wondering why she was here, in this strange bed in a strange room. She could remember only fragments; the gang of teenagers near her apartment, the phone call from Talon, the snake, the pills... the mention of the Matrix. Then nothing. She frowned, struggling to remember more, but nothing came into her mind, no explanation of what was happening, nothing.
As her senses became more alert, she slowly became aware of some sort of disturbance around her. The room seemed to be rocking and moving, and she could hear shouting just outside the room. A faint red flashing light came to her under the door of her room - what was happening? She sat up carefully, wondering at how weak she was, and hugged her knees, waiting for the panic to subside. That doesn't look like happening anytime soon, she thought wryly.
"Charge the EMP!" A shout echoed through the walls of - wherever she was - as the red light flashed more regularly. After a moment, there was a bang, making the room shudder and rock more violently for a few seconds, during which the light went out. Amie bit her lip, curling up as she sat on the thin mattress in the pitch-black room - there didn't seem to be any other light source around. It must be night.
Slowly, she heard a faint clicking sound, and the light in her room flickered back on. She could now hear hushed voices outside the door, and hurried footsteps. Watching the door, she saw it open slowly, a woman's head poking into the room to look at her. Seeing that she was awake, the woman smiled and entered the room, sitting on a small chair next to the bed.
"Oh good, you're awake." She smiled at Amie again, kindly. "I'm Enigma."
"Um... hi." Amie felt slightly awkward, having no idea what was happening or where she was. After a short pause, she spoke again, asking, "What just happened?"
"Oh - there was a sentinel attack," Enigma replied, completely forgetting that Amie would have no idea what sentinels were. "But it's over now, it's ok."
"What are sentinels?" She paused, thinking of a better question. "Why am I here?"
Enigma frowned, standing up. "You don't remember?" At Amie's mute shrug, she sighed and reached out to take the girl's hand. "I think I should take you to see Talon."
As Amie allowed herself to be led out of the room, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and stopped walking, shocked. Along her bare arms and lower legs were several black sockets, standing out slightly from her skin. She raised her hand to touch them, feeling the cold metal that seemed to be welded into her skin with a frown. She was distracted, however, by the second startling sight in the mirror. Before her encounter with Talon, she had had long, bright red hair... and now it was gone. Entirely and completely gone - not even fuzz remained, like it did when people shaved their heads. She stood, gazing at her odd reflection, until Enigma turned round, having noticed that her charge had stopped, and took her hand gently again. "Talon will explain everything," she assured Amie, leading her along a corridor towards a large room.
Everything seemed to be metal - the walls, the floors, the equipment. Amie gazed around the large room with interest, until a man approached her from behind a wall of computer monitors... Talon. He was no longer wearing the clothes she had seen him in last, but he too was smiling kindly. "Shadow," he nodded at Enigma, who crossed the room to stand with a small group of people. "I'm glad to see you're feeling better."
Amie watched him doubtfully. She was still feeling weak and confused, even if she was physically healthy - or so she supposed. Why is he still calling me Shadow?
Talon, oblivious to Amie's thoughts, started to walk across to the group, beckoning for her to follow. "This is my ship, the Horus," he said as they crossed the room. "It's a hovercraft. This room is called the Core, and it's where we jack into the matrix - but I'll explain that soon. I'd like you to meet my crew, first." He had led her over to where the small group were standing. It was composed of mainly women, with only one other man in addition to Talon.
"This is Glance," he gestured towards the man, then turned towards the five women. "This is Scathach... you've met Enigma... That's Byte - the crazy one," he smiled as Byte grinned widely at Amie. "And this is Blitz - our operator, and Toriye."
After Amie had been introduced to the crew, Talon led her to the ship's cockpit, allowing her to look out onto the wasteland. "What is this?" she asked, stunned that such destruction could exist anywhere.
"This is the Earth," Talon answered sadly, gazing through the strong glass onto the rubble. "You see Shadow, life as you knew it doesn't really exist. It did once, but that was a long time ago, and now - the world looks like this. Come with me." He led her through the ship and down a metal ladder, into what looked like a mess hall. They sat down, Talon offering Amie a glass of water. "You'll need it," he nodded as she accepted it, sitting opposite her.
"You think it is the year 1999, but in reality it is more like 2199. No one is quite sure of the date, but at least two centuries have passed since the beginning of the war." He paused, watching Amie's set face for a reaction. "The war began when humans began to create AI - Artificial Intelligence. We used robots to serve us, to take over the jobs that we didn't want. For a time, this was good; humans and robots co-existed peacefully, and had an understanding with each other. But eventually, our thirst to be powerful went too far. We created robots that were too intelligent; intelligent enough to think and act for themselves. And one day, something happened that would change the world. One robot, named B166ER, attacked and killed his master. No one knows why, but he did. And after that, humans became afraid. We tried to rid our world of the robots, dropping them into the sea or burning them. But of course, the robots didn't want to be destroyed. They fought back and disguised themselves as humans. And soon it became a full-scale war, with humans and robots fighting so much that they began to destroy the world. Whole cities were torn down, thousands of people and robots killed. But still, neither side was prepared to give in. The robots, of course, were able to reproduce themselves and we could not - we were outnumbered a thousand to one. Eventually, we tried the last course of action that we could see."
Talon stopped talking and sat back to watch Amie. She was sitting still and silent, stunned by what she was hearing. "Go on..." she murmured.
"We planned to destroy the sky. It sounds impossible, ridiculous maybe, but it was the only thing we could think of. The robots were solar powered you see, and if we blocked out the sky then they would not be able to function - or so we hoped. But it didn't work like that. To cut a long story short, we lost the war - obviously, but the machines had to find a new source of energy. They turned to humans. We had everything - energy, heat, any source of power they wanted. So they used special machines to harness our energy, through these - " he stretched out an arm, indicating the sockets that were positioned over his muscles. Amie felt a flash of relief that it wasn't just her. "We call them plugs. Through these the machines could get our power, and they could also feed us, because they kept us imprisoned in pods full of goo. Of course though, we would have found some way to break free, and maybe even rebel against them, so they put another plug in the back of our heads, leading right into our brain. And through these they controlled what we saw. They made a new, programmed world, making it appear just as it did before the war, so that we all thought no time had passed; nothing had happened. And humans accepted it - except for a few, like you and me. The first one to get free learnt about the matrix and the war - I have no idea how - and freed the first of us. Since then we have built our own city, Zion, and made up a community of ships like this one, in which we travel across the surface and through the earth, occasionally plugging into the matrix to try and fight some of the agents. The agents are like the police of the matrix, only they are not like the police we knew when we were in there. They are programmes, designed to destroy the Resistance - us."
He stopped talking suddenly, looking at the pale Amie. She was close to tears from both exhaustion and shock; her whole world had been torn away; everything she had thought was real had been a lie. She didn't know what to think any more. Noticing this, Talon stood up and reached out a hand to help her up. "You should sleep now - you'll still be tired from the work we had to do on you, and it's a lot to take in. I'll tell you more tomorrow."
He started to walk back to Amie's cabin, allowing her to stumble along behind him, yawning slightly. As he helped her back up the ladder, she thought of something. "What work did you do on me?"
"Oh..." he paused, shrugging. "Your muscles had atrophied from seventeen years of non-use; we had to re-build them. You've been unconscious for five days, so we've been doing it then. Today was the first day you've woken up since we freed you."
Amie nodded as they reached her cabin, bidding Talon goodnight. She walked in alone, sitting on the bed in the semi-darkness.
Amie had never existed. A machine had given her that name - but she wouldn't be controlled by a machine anymore. Amie was dead. Shadow was Amie no more.
A/N: Whoo, probably one of my longest (and fastest written) chappies yet! I like this one, but it took a while to work out how to explain the matrix to Shadow. In the fic, I'll be calling her Shadow from now, as that's how she thinks of herself - just so no one gets confused. Hope you liked - reviews and CCs welcome!