Chapter 6: The Archive.
"Hey, spoon boy!" shouted AK. "Are you all rested up?"
Gabriel sat up from the bed, alarmed. The looked for Pablo, but he was already gone. "W--What did you call me?"
"You're name's Lespüne, right? I saw it on the Newcomers list."
"Y--yes." He gave a dry, hacking cough.
AK patted his back. "Geez, are you all right?"
Gabriel frowned. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?" He muttered.
Roland stood right behind the operator. "AK, what are you doing? We're due to send in more pod-borns, and I told everyone to wait outside the ship until I came."
"Sorry, sir," said AK. "But I wanted to show Spoony here something before we left. I guess I just couldn't get him to wake early enough."
"'Spoony'?" said Roland. "That's the alias you're giving him?" He turned to Gabriel. "Heh. I think I called him that, too. You know, it kinda fits him."
"I was already given a name by my creators," said Gabriel, feeling a bit agitated.
"Who?" said AK. "Your parents?"
"The machines," corrected the child. "Without them, I would not exist."
"Well, that's certainly a way of putting it," said the captain. "AK, the Hammer has only 40 or so minutes to go until it's fully recharged. I expect you to be back before then."
"Of course," he said. He grabbed Gabriel's hand. "Come with me." AK led him out of the room and toward a stairwell into the lower levels. "So, aren't you excited?"
"For what?" said Gabriel, still a little groggy.
"Your going to be jacking in for the first time since you popped through the placenta."
"What--?" he said before being yanked suddenly to his left.
There were three doors lined up in front of him. AK checked a chart placed between the first and second. "Guess this one's available," he said.
They entered, and Gabriel saw two chairs similar to the ones he had seen onboard the hovercraft, as well as all of the convoluted equipment that spread around them.
"You take the left," he said. "I'll use this one."
As soon as Gabriel sat down, an automated something or other began measuring the back of his head, gently tapping the jack in his skull.
"You'd better hold to something," said AK. "This won't be the most enjoyable feeling in the world..."
Gabriel wasn't quite sure what he meant until a sharp hum entered the back of his brain. His mind felt like half-warm jelly: not quite wobbly, yet thick. He could feel his pupils whiting out -- or was it just his surroundings?
A hand.
A hand waved in and out of his shortened peripheral vision.
"Hello?" said AK.
The child tried to rubbed his eyes, but didn't seem to have any hands to do so.
"Uh oh. What the hell? How did you--?"
But at that moment, everything seemed to finally come together. Gabriel stood in what looked like an open-roofed Greek sanctuary, stretching out in all directions. Bleached support pedestals lined the halls, each with a numerical touchpad and screen.
"Welcome to the Zion Archive," said AK. "Where we store the records of mankind. We've got pretty much everything -- the combined histories of the real and the simulated."
Gabriel was stunned.
"Cool, huh?" He stepped up to a pedestal. "I was going to run a training program for you, but it seems I'm a little short on time." AK pressed a screen. "Come here, and see this."
Gabriel went over and stood beside AK. He saw him press another button, and the wide open sky above them turned an ugly gray.
"Don't get scared, now," he said as the ground abruptly fell away, leaving them to float on nothingness, hundreds of yards in the air. "I'm sure you're familiar with 'the desert'..." He then pointed to a strong, fiery glow in the distance. "But have you ever seen that?"
He shook his head.
"That's where you were created, just like me, Roland, Colt, and several thousand others that freed themselves from the machines."
Gabriel suddenly found his voice. "But... if was created by the machines, then I'm not really being freed, am I?"
"Excuse me?" said AK.
The boy took a few wobbly steps backward. "If I am a child of the machines, that must mean you stole me away from them."
"Hey, hey. It's certainly not that simple, Spoony."
"Please stop calling me that," he said, and he walked off.
AK chuckled. "Where are you going? You can't run away from people inside a program! No matter how far you go, you'll still be right next to me in the public processing chamber."
Gabriel didn't seem to care; he was beginning to dislike being toyed with -- at least where his mind was concerned. His mind: that's what he most wanted to have to himself.
"Hey," said AK. "Hungry? You haven't even eaten yet." He began to jog across the sky, trying to catch up with him.
"I already told you, I'm fasting." He was getting aggravated.
"Oh, yeah, sorry. I forgot for a second."
"I hope I don't have to remind anyone else whe--" and then something happened. It felt natural, yet perfectly bizarre at the same time. Gabriel began to fall.
The air suddenly whipped into his face as he dived downward. The ground raced furiously toward him and his mouth contorted into a maddening, frozen scream.
The processing unit shut off. The jack retracted, and Gabriel quickly jumped out of his chair.
AK stared. "I... I've never seen that happen before." His jaw flapped around as he searched for the right words. "Your own... perception of reality just manifested itself into the program. Heh, I don't even think Neo was able to do that on his first try!" He rubbed his forehead. "Heck, you weren't prompted to do so."
Gabriel said nothing.
"Lets just keep this under our hat, okay?" said AK, and they walked out of the chamber, where two other researchers were waiting their turn to enter the archive.