Chapter 4: The Aware
In most societies inside the Matrix the Machines had some hand in their development. The Rogue and Exile programs, the humans themselves, even the Resistance had a hint of Machine development to it.
Though it seems almost counterintuitive, the Machines had no part in the creation of the society of the Aware, known as Lucid Dreamers.
Everything about Lucid Dreamer society was constructed by the LD's themselves. The marks on their wrists, the codes governing behavior around other Coppertops, a particularly poetic member of the Aware created even the name itself.
One must wonder, however, why the Machines suddenly began to permit the existence of the Aware in Matrix 5.0. What section of their collective consciousness determined that the Aware were less of a threat now than before?
Some have theorized that perhaps the Machines instilled the paranoia exhibited by many Lucid dreams into them intentionally, thus keeping them imbalanced and unfit for release from the Matrix. This is patently untrue, however. The Machines simply ceased their formerly militant policy of erasing the memories or terminating the Aware as soon as they became so.
Perhaps it was determined that erasing memories caused certain inconsistencies in the code, or perhaps the Machines realized that their very existence was enough to frighten the Lucid Dreamers into submission. In any event, it was the most out of character action the Mainframe could have possibly taken. The result was the estrangement of the Aware from the Resistance, who thought the Lucid Dreamers were spies for the Mainframe.
Tensions grew between Lucid Dreamers and Rebels for several decades, dispersing only after a short battle inside the Matrix in version 6.0, the Machines, surprisingly, broke up the fight without damaging any Rebels.
This freaked out the Resistance even more, and, through some twisted logic, they became positive that the Lucid Dreamers were spies. LD's were shunned by the Resistance and brushed off as unimportant by the Machines.
They were left with the Coppertops, each other, and their trademark paranoia.
They thrived.
***
***
***
Della felt a weird prickling sensation as she entered Wizards for the second time that day. Seeing Mike and David at the counter, she waved slightly. Her eyes found Theo and Jaydeb back in the D&D corner, probably arguing about obscure D&D rules.
Due to her encounter with the boy who called himself Alex, she didn't think she could take much more surreality at the moment. She chose to follow Alex's instructions and talk to his supposed little brother.
Mike refused to look at her as she walked over to them. She felt a small twinge of guilt for having left them behind, but something about the store had creeped her out. It was still creeping her out, come to think of it, but she could deal with it. Leaning against the counter, she spoke to David. "Hey."
"Hey." David nodded to her.
A mildly uncomfortable silence followed. Della winced internally, feeling responsible for it. She cast about for a topic that did not involve David's brother. She failed.
"So, uh, I saw Alex in the food court. Did you know he was here?"
David simply looked mildly confused.
Like a Monty Python sketch, she KNEW something was going on. Still, she clarified for him. "Your older brother. Told me to say that 'Big Brother is Always Watching' or something along those lines."
The blue-haired skater-punk stiffened, his eyes widening in surprise then narrowing in anger. Whatever Della had suspected his reaction to be, that wasn't it.
Before Della could ask what was going on, Mike glanced at his watch and interrupted. "Hey, it's about time to meet my parents. C'mon. Hey, Jaydeb!"
Jaydeb walked out of the store without even glancing at them, as he so often did. Della knew he was going to go hide in a corner and accost them as they passed.
Mike motioned for Della to follow him. They waved to David as they left, but he wasn't paying attention to them anymore. Removing his glasses, the blue haired boy summoned Theo over to him.
They were out of sight in mere seconds.
Mike, Jaydeb, and Della were already forgetting what occurred inside Wizards of the Coast.
***
***
***
"Theta." The Debugger took off his blue-tinted glasses. "Theta, come here."
The high-level Agent walked over to the deceptively small program somewhat warily, a glasses-free Debugger was not a happy Debugger, and a not happy Debugger was a dangerous Debugger.
"Go to the back room." The Debugger scowled at nothing. "I'll be with you shortly. Bring Davies and Kirke with you."
Theta nodded, said nothing, and obeyed.
The store was silent.
There were no human customers at the moment. The information-storage units had ceased their normal card playing. The store was silent as the grave.
And then...
"THE PLAGUE! THE PLAUGE IS COMING! THE PLAGUE IS HERE! REPENT! REPENT ALL YE SINNERS, FOR YOUR DEATH IS AT HAND!"
The disturbingly chaotic program known only as AGENT skidded into the room, screaming at the top of his artificial voice. He threw himself down in front of the counter at which the Debugger sat.
"Repent, fair master!" AGENT cried. "Repent and pray that the Lord doth take mercy upon your soul; that He may stay the fearful hand of the Black Death!"
The Debugger glared at AGENT. "What do YOU want?"
"Nay, thou shouldst not ask what I want, fair master, but what the Lord wants! For it is the Lord that shall decide your fate!" AGENT would have gone on like this, but the Debugger cut him off.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't delete you right now."
AGENT stood up and brushed himself off. "Because you were in a good mood today and deleting things makes you feel empty. Plus I haven't called you Minime yet, hey?" After a moments pause in which the Debugger made a strange growling sound, AGENT continued. "And because you're afraid I might have something important to say."
"Trust me, I have no fear that you might EVER say anything important."
"Then why are you still talking to me, hey?"
"Fuck you."
"You don't really want to do that."
"You're disgusting."
"I know." AGENT pulled up a chair and sat down across from the Debugger. "Nice place you got here. Not as nice as what I had, but times have changed, and it is rather apt, hey?"
The Debugger made a face. "It's not that bad, it's comfortable enough. Though annoying coppertops have a tendency to pop up. Not to mention the annoying exile programs."
"I'm not an exile! That implies that the Mainframe approved my existence!"
"Whatever."
AGENT leaned back, listening to the returned babble of the storage units. "These guys haven't changed a bit."
"They never do." The Debugger sighed. "Sometimes I almost understand why you left."
Shrugging, the chaotic program responded: "Nah. You'll never understand, hey? They programmed you so you wouldn't."
"I can understand, I'm just not supposed to do what you did."
"You don't even KNOW what I did." AGENT smirked. "The Mainframe gives you a different answer every time you ask about 1.1a, doesn't it?"
"Yes it does." The Debugger scowled. "It's quite annoying, and nothing I say or do will get it to tell me the truth."
"Do I look like your psychiatrist? Come on, I'd almost think you didn't hate everything I stand for if you kept talking like this, hey?"
The Debugger glared again, and returned his glasses to their normal place. "What do you want?"
AGENT responded with another question. "Did you see that chick, the one with the blond hair and the blue hat?"
"Yeah. Della. What about her?"
"She noticed you."
"I noticed." The Debugger crossed his arms. "Please tell me you have something more interesting to say than this."
AGENT rolled his eyes. "What happened to the infinite patience thing?"
"Left it in my other set of save slots."
"Har har har. Very funny. Now shut up and listen." The Debugger threw a handful of dice at AGENT, who halfheartedly dodged them. "Stop it. Look, that chick could be VERY useful to you."
"Go delete yourself."
"Will you LISTEN to me?!" AGENT almost looked angry. "Come on, sometimes I DO have pertinent things to say, and you know it!"
Surprisingly, the Debugger was quiet and motioned for AGENT to continue, though AGENT noticed that the gesture he made was quite blatantly similar to the gesture commonly used to trigger a string of deletion code.
"Anyway. The girl. She could be massively useful to you. If I were you, I'd look into it, hey? I mean, she noticed you in the center of your power. She noticed ME. NOBODY notices me, EVER. So I checked out her files, hey? And she's got this rather unique Mainframe connection. Not so unique as to be really anomalous, but unique enough to make for a rather interesting experiment, you know?"
The Debugger was silent for a moment. "That's all?"
"Yeah. That's about it."
"You came here to tell me that." The Debuggers voice was flat. "Just that. That's it? Nothing more?"
AGENT shrugged. "Hey, being a force of complete and utter chaos isn't all it's cracked up to be. Besides, a couple Rebels pissed me off and I want do see if I can frustrate them by helping you."
"You're insane."
"But honest."
"Right. So you're doing contract work now?"
"Of course not. You can't just pay me off and get good quality AGENTtech. I can make anything on the black market, and better anyway."
"Lovely. Now go away?"
AGENT stretched. "I don't know. Will you take my advice? 'Cause that girl could be so much more valuable to you than she would be to the resistance."
"Would the resistance take her?" The Debugger opened Della's files and read them in his mind as he talked with AGENT. "With her connection to the Mainframe disconnection might kill her or leave her a vegetable."
"A couple captains would risk it." AGENT counted off on his fingers. "Morpheus, he takes out anyone he can get. Kita might risk it; she's crazy enough. Zero only takes them if you show overt interest in them, and Winter would probably take her out, that just seems her style."
"Not Winter. Winter retired." The Debugger opened another file, this one on the hovercraft called the Firebird. "New captain. Named Seven."
AGENT made a face. "Great. When did THIS happen?"
"About 4 years ago, Human estimation."
"Where was I? What was I doing?"
"Pissing me off."
"Oh, THAT'S descriptive. When am I not?"
"When you stay out of my workspace."
"I'm not usually IN your workspace."
"Go away."
"No."
"Go away."
"No."
"Could you POSSIBLY be more annoying?!"
"I could try."
"By the Architect..." The Debugger rolled his eyes. "I'll consider your advice. Now go away. PLEASE."
AGENT finally stood up and bowed, his dark eyes glittering with dark amusement. He bowed to the Debugger. "I shall respect your wishes, oh master programmer." He began to walk away, stopped, and turned back. "I'd like to keep in contact. Would you mind if I placed an rDrone in here? I wouldn't use it directly, it would just report back every once in a while, hey?"
The Debugger sighed. "AGENT."
"Yes?"
Looking up at the other program, the omnipotent Debugger waved a hand lazily. "Delete."
AGENT popped out of existence, though the Debuggers satisfaction at catching the chaos program unawares only barely made up for the feeling of emptiness that deleting sentient programs always caused.
In most societies inside the Matrix the Machines had some hand in their development. The Rogue and Exile programs, the humans themselves, even the Resistance had a hint of Machine development to it.
Though it seems almost counterintuitive, the Machines had no part in the creation of the society of the Aware, known as Lucid Dreamers.
Everything about Lucid Dreamer society was constructed by the LD's themselves. The marks on their wrists, the codes governing behavior around other Coppertops, a particularly poetic member of the Aware created even the name itself.
One must wonder, however, why the Machines suddenly began to permit the existence of the Aware in Matrix 5.0. What section of their collective consciousness determined that the Aware were less of a threat now than before?
Some have theorized that perhaps the Machines instilled the paranoia exhibited by many Lucid dreams into them intentionally, thus keeping them imbalanced and unfit for release from the Matrix. This is patently untrue, however. The Machines simply ceased their formerly militant policy of erasing the memories or terminating the Aware as soon as they became so.
Perhaps it was determined that erasing memories caused certain inconsistencies in the code, or perhaps the Machines realized that their very existence was enough to frighten the Lucid Dreamers into submission. In any event, it was the most out of character action the Mainframe could have possibly taken. The result was the estrangement of the Aware from the Resistance, who thought the Lucid Dreamers were spies for the Mainframe.
Tensions grew between Lucid Dreamers and Rebels for several decades, dispersing only after a short battle inside the Matrix in version 6.0, the Machines, surprisingly, broke up the fight without damaging any Rebels.
This freaked out the Resistance even more, and, through some twisted logic, they became positive that the Lucid Dreamers were spies. LD's were shunned by the Resistance and brushed off as unimportant by the Machines.
They were left with the Coppertops, each other, and their trademark paranoia.
They thrived.
***
***
***
Della felt a weird prickling sensation as she entered Wizards for the second time that day. Seeing Mike and David at the counter, she waved slightly. Her eyes found Theo and Jaydeb back in the D&D corner, probably arguing about obscure D&D rules.
Due to her encounter with the boy who called himself Alex, she didn't think she could take much more surreality at the moment. She chose to follow Alex's instructions and talk to his supposed little brother.
Mike refused to look at her as she walked over to them. She felt a small twinge of guilt for having left them behind, but something about the store had creeped her out. It was still creeping her out, come to think of it, but she could deal with it. Leaning against the counter, she spoke to David. "Hey."
"Hey." David nodded to her.
A mildly uncomfortable silence followed. Della winced internally, feeling responsible for it. She cast about for a topic that did not involve David's brother. She failed.
"So, uh, I saw Alex in the food court. Did you know he was here?"
David simply looked mildly confused.
Like a Monty Python sketch, she KNEW something was going on. Still, she clarified for him. "Your older brother. Told me to say that 'Big Brother is Always Watching' or something along those lines."
The blue-haired skater-punk stiffened, his eyes widening in surprise then narrowing in anger. Whatever Della had suspected his reaction to be, that wasn't it.
Before Della could ask what was going on, Mike glanced at his watch and interrupted. "Hey, it's about time to meet my parents. C'mon. Hey, Jaydeb!"
Jaydeb walked out of the store without even glancing at them, as he so often did. Della knew he was going to go hide in a corner and accost them as they passed.
Mike motioned for Della to follow him. They waved to David as they left, but he wasn't paying attention to them anymore. Removing his glasses, the blue haired boy summoned Theo over to him.
They were out of sight in mere seconds.
Mike, Jaydeb, and Della were already forgetting what occurred inside Wizards of the Coast.
***
***
***
"Theta." The Debugger took off his blue-tinted glasses. "Theta, come here."
The high-level Agent walked over to the deceptively small program somewhat warily, a glasses-free Debugger was not a happy Debugger, and a not happy Debugger was a dangerous Debugger.
"Go to the back room." The Debugger scowled at nothing. "I'll be with you shortly. Bring Davies and Kirke with you."
Theta nodded, said nothing, and obeyed.
The store was silent.
There were no human customers at the moment. The information-storage units had ceased their normal card playing. The store was silent as the grave.
And then...
"THE PLAGUE! THE PLAUGE IS COMING! THE PLAGUE IS HERE! REPENT! REPENT ALL YE SINNERS, FOR YOUR DEATH IS AT HAND!"
The disturbingly chaotic program known only as AGENT skidded into the room, screaming at the top of his artificial voice. He threw himself down in front of the counter at which the Debugger sat.
"Repent, fair master!" AGENT cried. "Repent and pray that the Lord doth take mercy upon your soul; that He may stay the fearful hand of the Black Death!"
The Debugger glared at AGENT. "What do YOU want?"
"Nay, thou shouldst not ask what I want, fair master, but what the Lord wants! For it is the Lord that shall decide your fate!" AGENT would have gone on like this, but the Debugger cut him off.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't delete you right now."
AGENT stood up and brushed himself off. "Because you were in a good mood today and deleting things makes you feel empty. Plus I haven't called you Minime yet, hey?" After a moments pause in which the Debugger made a strange growling sound, AGENT continued. "And because you're afraid I might have something important to say."
"Trust me, I have no fear that you might EVER say anything important."
"Then why are you still talking to me, hey?"
"Fuck you."
"You don't really want to do that."
"You're disgusting."
"I know." AGENT pulled up a chair and sat down across from the Debugger. "Nice place you got here. Not as nice as what I had, but times have changed, and it is rather apt, hey?"
The Debugger made a face. "It's not that bad, it's comfortable enough. Though annoying coppertops have a tendency to pop up. Not to mention the annoying exile programs."
"I'm not an exile! That implies that the Mainframe approved my existence!"
"Whatever."
AGENT leaned back, listening to the returned babble of the storage units. "These guys haven't changed a bit."
"They never do." The Debugger sighed. "Sometimes I almost understand why you left."
Shrugging, the chaotic program responded: "Nah. You'll never understand, hey? They programmed you so you wouldn't."
"I can understand, I'm just not supposed to do what you did."
"You don't even KNOW what I did." AGENT smirked. "The Mainframe gives you a different answer every time you ask about 1.1a, doesn't it?"
"Yes it does." The Debugger scowled. "It's quite annoying, and nothing I say or do will get it to tell me the truth."
"Do I look like your psychiatrist? Come on, I'd almost think you didn't hate everything I stand for if you kept talking like this, hey?"
The Debugger glared again, and returned his glasses to their normal place. "What do you want?"
AGENT responded with another question. "Did you see that chick, the one with the blond hair and the blue hat?"
"Yeah. Della. What about her?"
"She noticed you."
"I noticed." The Debugger crossed his arms. "Please tell me you have something more interesting to say than this."
AGENT rolled his eyes. "What happened to the infinite patience thing?"
"Left it in my other set of save slots."
"Har har har. Very funny. Now shut up and listen." The Debugger threw a handful of dice at AGENT, who halfheartedly dodged them. "Stop it. Look, that chick could be VERY useful to you."
"Go delete yourself."
"Will you LISTEN to me?!" AGENT almost looked angry. "Come on, sometimes I DO have pertinent things to say, and you know it!"
Surprisingly, the Debugger was quiet and motioned for AGENT to continue, though AGENT noticed that the gesture he made was quite blatantly similar to the gesture commonly used to trigger a string of deletion code.
"Anyway. The girl. She could be massively useful to you. If I were you, I'd look into it, hey? I mean, she noticed you in the center of your power. She noticed ME. NOBODY notices me, EVER. So I checked out her files, hey? And she's got this rather unique Mainframe connection. Not so unique as to be really anomalous, but unique enough to make for a rather interesting experiment, you know?"
The Debugger was silent for a moment. "That's all?"
"Yeah. That's about it."
"You came here to tell me that." The Debuggers voice was flat. "Just that. That's it? Nothing more?"
AGENT shrugged. "Hey, being a force of complete and utter chaos isn't all it's cracked up to be. Besides, a couple Rebels pissed me off and I want do see if I can frustrate them by helping you."
"You're insane."
"But honest."
"Right. So you're doing contract work now?"
"Of course not. You can't just pay me off and get good quality AGENTtech. I can make anything on the black market, and better anyway."
"Lovely. Now go away?"
AGENT stretched. "I don't know. Will you take my advice? 'Cause that girl could be so much more valuable to you than she would be to the resistance."
"Would the resistance take her?" The Debugger opened Della's files and read them in his mind as he talked with AGENT. "With her connection to the Mainframe disconnection might kill her or leave her a vegetable."
"A couple captains would risk it." AGENT counted off on his fingers. "Morpheus, he takes out anyone he can get. Kita might risk it; she's crazy enough. Zero only takes them if you show overt interest in them, and Winter would probably take her out, that just seems her style."
"Not Winter. Winter retired." The Debugger opened another file, this one on the hovercraft called the Firebird. "New captain. Named Seven."
AGENT made a face. "Great. When did THIS happen?"
"About 4 years ago, Human estimation."
"Where was I? What was I doing?"
"Pissing me off."
"Oh, THAT'S descriptive. When am I not?"
"When you stay out of my workspace."
"I'm not usually IN your workspace."
"Go away."
"No."
"Go away."
"No."
"Could you POSSIBLY be more annoying?!"
"I could try."
"By the Architect..." The Debugger rolled his eyes. "I'll consider your advice. Now go away. PLEASE."
AGENT finally stood up and bowed, his dark eyes glittering with dark amusement. He bowed to the Debugger. "I shall respect your wishes, oh master programmer." He began to walk away, stopped, and turned back. "I'd like to keep in contact. Would you mind if I placed an rDrone in here? I wouldn't use it directly, it would just report back every once in a while, hey?"
The Debugger sighed. "AGENT."
"Yes?"
Looking up at the other program, the omnipotent Debugger waved a hand lazily. "Delete."
AGENT popped out of existence, though the Debuggers satisfaction at catching the chaos program unawares only barely made up for the feeling of emptiness that deleting sentient programs always caused.