CHAPTER EIGHT
"Adele," says Smith. "Adele." He taps his pen on the side of the chair next to her bed.
She ignores him, staring at the ceiling.
It is the next morning, ten minutes into the session. The preliminaries have been exchanged. 'Dr. Jacobsen' doesn't write on the clipboard like Dr. Warner did; instead he asks open-ended things and waits for her to respond. Like I'm going to play along.She is flat on her back in the bed. Strapped down, defenseless. A white butterfly pinned to the mat.
This time, however, he seems to be demanding action. Trinity swallows. "What?"
"Adele, let's try something new. I want to ask you a question. What do you recall of your life before you left it?"
She doesn't answer---I owe you nothing---
---but Adele remembers becoming Trinity very well.
IIIIIIIII
It was tenth grade that made her what she is today. Not the classes, but instead those dim after-school hours in the basement, multiple searches running on her three salvaged computers until her father came home from work. When he walked in the front door, Adele had to watch herself to make sure she only spent an hour or so down there. They would worry otherwise.
They worried anyways. Or at least her mother did obviously; her father was more the angry type. Once in a while, if she forgot and stayed down for more than usual, he exploded. That was why she watched herself. If he erupted because she had ignored them in favor of machines, those machines would get unplugged, her data scrambled and hard drives gone. Couldn't happen, of course. A lot of important things were on them.
(Or were they really that important? Could those hours in the basement have been a sign of mounting insanity, an obsession? Could her father's rage really have just been misplaced fear for his daughter's life? No---He's always been angry---)
In his rants, aside from Adele, modern technology, and himself, he would blame Jeremy.
He was in her English class, a punk who sat in the back row. He was ironically gregarious for a Goth. Oh, teachers hated him. Of course he was intelligent, he was a smartass. He had sarcasm mastered, which was why they hated him. But if you earned his approval…if he liked you, people were happy to befriend him, because he was too good for them and the world.
That was, of course, what attracted him to the girl beside him.
Adele sat in back too. She had moved through ninth grade like a shadow. Farther and farther away from the world, desperate to escape it, she was distanced from everyone. Jeremy took the desperation for coolness, since she had always been good at composure. He started hitting on her. Could not crack the ice, which intrigued him more. Then finally one day she caved when he saw her lips curve upwards slightly at a mocking joke he'd made. He knew he had her.
But he was mistaken. She had him.
Over at his house during the summer, they spent long hours in his basement. Not kissing, (well, scarcely ever) he showed her his world.
Hacking was the springboard out, he told her, you can screw the man over and win. You know you're different from all these shitheads here because at home you have a secret. A little secret tucked away in plastic, Adele. Watch…
And then when he had shown her all she needed, she dumped him.
It wasn't that, actually, that he had been useful but now wasn't. It was more, just, him. He insisted that the world is meaningless, life sucks and then you die. She would mentally rebut that. No, the world has meaning, just not here, somewhere else. This is too mundane, Jeremy. Too boring to be the true meaning of the world. So she told him goodbye one day and then dodged his calls and spent the next year in her own basement. Searching and watching.
What did her parents think? That she had been iced by him and was resouling herself through computers. Or, alternately, that once she hadn't been bored with them but now was. They had it half right. It was more that she'd always been bored with them, actually.
And they were fully right about one thing, that it was all Jeremy's fault. Of course it was.
He had, after all, taught her how to manipulate the world...
IIIIIIII
Smith shifts in his chair. He waits.
Finally she speaks, not the answer he was hoping for. "What's it to you, Agent?"
"Perhaps I should explain," he says. "If you cooperate and tell me your version of the events before your breakdown, we can show you how unrealistic that version is. I believe that you, a logical person, will then see the light, so to speak— the true reality. So, are you willing to be cured?"
"I don't need curing," she says harshly. "I know what's real, and it's not this."
He sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. "I was afraid of this response. Very well, then, let's try a less-interactive tack. Simply listen to me."
"No."
"I am sorry, but I do not believe you have a choice. Now. If I remember correctly, you believe that this world is nothing but a simulation, and that the rest of us are completely unaware of this. You, however, have been sucked out of it and are residing in a "real" world. How plausible is that theory, I must ask you?"
"It's real. I don't give a damn whether it's plausible or not." She closes her eyes. If she doesn't connect his voice with his face, she can keep responding and not be paralyzed by helpless fear.
"But you see, that's all that matters really."
"What is?"
"My point, Adele, is how do you know what's real? Your senses are telling you that there is another world, because you have experienced it. But couldn't they be lying? Because if you're right, Adele, then that means that my senses are lying to me too. We're both hooked up to a machine somewhere telling us that what we see now is real--"
"No, you're not hooked up," she says. "You're a program doing a good job of acting."
He barrels on. "—and so plausibility is the key. If you cannot in fact distinguish between what might be real and what is real, you must form a theory that makes the most sense. And the theory that makes the most sense right now is that you have in fact been insane! You have imagined the other world. It is a sheer fabrication. Holding onto it is shielding your eyes to truth!"
"I experienced it, didn't I?" she says, grasping at straws. "How could my imagination be that good, Smith?" But her defenses are coming down. Finding the truth was my whole life. What if I wanted to be special so badly that I created my own kind of truth?
"Don't we make up dreams? And at the time, those dreams are as real as what you think is your world…but the dreamer usually realizes upon awaking that those things never happened. Wake up, Adele. It was only a daydream."
"No," she says desperately. "How could it have been---"
"Please! See my point!" he says. "For one instance, shut your eyes to the fantasy you've created and see! I am not an Agent, you merely projected me into a world of your own. You imagined the man 'Morpheus' and your war against evil. You…imagined…all of it."
His words eke through the cracks. She focuses on her breathing, looking anywhere but at him.
"Adele," he says. "Let me tell you about the day you were committed." Smith leans forward, nailing in the coffin, his breath on her ear. She does not look at him. "You were seventeen. You left your house at four o'clock on a rainy Sunday." He flips through the file on his lap. "There had been some sort of dispute with your parents, I believe? You ran outside, and they became worried that you were gone forever. You took no clothes, no belongings, but fifty dollars.
"You rode in a taxi to outside an abandoned building. Paid the cab driver an enormous fare and told him to, ah, 'get the hell out of here'…Your parents phoned agencies searching for you until finally they found the driver. He took police to the building where he had left you. They ran upstairs until they found you. You were sitting in a chair, talking to thin air. When they took you to Briar, you didn't fight it, but went peacefully. Talking all the way."
He closes the file. "Now, is your version of events more likely than this? Or is being delusional less likely than there being another world?"
Trinity doesn't answer, her drive to resist finally gone.
IIIIIIII
The title of the short story she thinks about after he leaves is "The Lady or the Tiger?" Another memory from tenth grade, but this time from English class.
The story takes place in a country ruled by a barbaric king.
He has built a coliseum that is both entertainment and court system. In this arena, a man will be led forth after committing a crime. He faces two doors, one of which he has to open, not knowing what is behind them. Both are soundproof and identical.
The only difference between them is what is ready to spring out. Behind one door is a vicious tiger, giant teeth and claws, ready to maul whoever it sees next. Behind the other door? A lady, beautiful, to which he will be immediately married. It doesn't matter if he already loves someone, or is engaged or partnered--- he will still be wedded and installed in a new home. Either choice is funny for the crowds, and nobody can argue with the method of justice…for doesn't the man have his choice of endings?
In the story, a young man falls in love with the daughter of the king. The king is outraged when he finds out, and sentences him to the arena. When he is in there, he looks up where she sits.
She knows which beast is behind which door. She has for a sleepless night. Meeting his gaze, she jerks her hand just the slightest bit to the right. He instantly springs forward and opens that door.
Now, the writer asks his audience, what comes out of the door? Can the man trust his lover?
The lady--- which the one the princess loves will be swiftly married to? Or the tiger, who will kill him, but he will die eternally faithful?
Two answers to the equation where there can only be one---
But this time, she finally chooses the tiger.
IIIIIII
So she's decided for real, I guess. Stupid Smith.
Bagpipes 5k: Yeah, you could say that...Wow, I do enjoy imperiling Matrix characters, don't I?
Cinn: It was something like how cool insane people are, methinks. Sorry if the shoutouts don't make sense-- written without caffeine....
SapphireNight: I love Agent Smith, so of course he was going to show up in this one. (The other hot male Matrix character puts in an appearance in Chapter Ten. And no, it's not Cypher.) Glad you liked the chapter! Here's another one, and faster too.
sleeping awake: Aha, twisting and turning plot devices are so useful....heh heh. Not a lot happened in this chapter, but I hope you enjoy it. Action is kind of overrated anyways, isn't it?
Note to self: do not post chapters on days right before the server is down....
Anyways, next chapter is even more fun, what with a broken window, more crazy dreams, a hint of song and an internal monologue. Hang on for a lovely ride.
