Thankings once more to reviewers. Replies are at the end of the chapter. A shit load of snow has come to Martham. (I had to tell someone.)
Chapter 7: Strange places
The tube that I had been flying down for the last minute o two at some incalculable speed deposited me into mid air above a pit of foul smelling water with century's old, and a century's worth of shit festering on the surface.
The smell or risk of disease didn't really bother me. What did bother me was the sharp pain I felt as I charged involuntarily into the small swamp. Pain engulfed my whole body as I hit the 'water', and what little strength I had in my limbs was soon gone.
'This is it,' I thought as I went under, 'I'm going to drown.'
I also uttered some choice words, (in my mind of course, I was using what strength I had to keep my mouth closed so as not to ingest the God-forsaken water I was bathing in. Pretty pointless I guess but at the same time, why not?)
Anyway, I uttered a few choice words for the 'ascended ones'. I could see it all now. The bastards take unsuspecting victims, tempt them with offers of magical powers, fur or some such shit, and then they laugh as they get un-plugged, flail about in fear for a while and drown.
I couldn't help but feel stupid; I'd followed Manticore even though my instincts had warned me against it. It seemed useless to make excuses at the time, so with my remaining strength I wondered what a squid with glowing red eyes was doing staring at me before I passed out.
*******************************************************************
The next day, I decided to go for a walk.
Much of the Destiny remained unseen by me, and to the best of my knowledge, I had nothing better to do. I also lived in hope that it would help banish my feelings of guilt.
The first door I tried deposited me in a conventional men's room. A rather disappointing start, I memorised the design of the door whilst I was there however, as I felt it was sure to be a room I would visit quite often in the future.
And then it hit me, I hadn't had, or needed a piss for almost two days. The shock at discovering this wasn't as powerful as I would have expected it to be. Not that I thought about it that often.
After further thought, I discovered that I hadn't eaten or defecated in the last two days. I didn't feel at all hungry, and my bowls, or the digital equivalent, were blissfully quiet.
I attributed this to my new program like existence and separation from my body.
I shuddered at the thought of my body. Dragon had told me that it would probably have been declared dead due to a system malfunction, melted down into a liquid form, and fed to one or more of the motionless human corpses within the Matrix. It was the thought that I was being eaten more then anything that disturbed me.
Anyway, I closed the door and wondered briefly why they needed a toilet before moving on to door number two. The contents of the room beyond were a little different then what I had just seen.
The room was a lot like the construct, there seemed to be an awe inspiringly bright light that covered the whole room and spilled into the bar. The room was far from empty however, there were words almost everywhere. All of which were of varying sizes, fonts and colours. Some remained motionless, some flew about in random patterns, skilfully dodging and weaving around the others.
One of the words came to an abrupt halt in front of me, I read it, it said 'words'. I was tempted to tell it that I had noticed, but I decided against the idea.
"I see you've found the library." I turned to see the face of Hawk staring at me.
"A library is it?" I asked, half expecting to receive more pedantic psychobabble.
"Not really," she replied instead, "but we had a choice between calling it a library or a neural interface document archive and, well…"
She shrugged and I nodded in understanding. I felt an involuntary grin break out on my face.
"What?" She asked after noticing the grin.
"Nothing really, I just expected you to tell me that I was still thinking with the limited views of the conventional matrix dwelling human."
A grin broke out on her face.
"Manticore been giving you an endless ascension speech has he?"
"Manticore, Hydra and Dragon. You can't have a conversation with them without having your speech corrected in every other sentence."
"Tell me about it," she walked into the 'library', followed by me a few seconds after, "it was like that with me for the first fifty years. I'm afraid it will be the same with you, probably."
"Oh joy." I said with a mixture of irritation and humour.
*******************************************************************
I heard voices above me. It was all I could sense. I couldn't see, the lights were too bright for that, and I had a sharp pain in my eyes for some reason. I couldn't move, my strength hadn't returned, I could barely breathe, and my attempt to speak resulted in an incoherent wince.
Their conversation went something like this:
"It doesn't make any sense."
"They told us he wasn't on the scheduled un-plugging waiting list."
"Why would he be? He's too old, he'll probably snap by the end of the week."
"That's not always the case, remember Neo?"
"No", the voice was sarcastic, "I've completely forgotten."
"Not now Magellan."
"Sorry."
"Do they know who he is?"
"Eric Drexler, your bog standard human. He has, or had, a job, a house and a typical life."
"Nothing special about him then?"
"Not that we or the machines can see."
"Well, whoever he is, we have to patch him up."
I didn't feel or hear anything after that, I think I fell asleep. I had a very pleasant dream in which I had my hands around Manticore's throat. I remember promising myself that I'd exact vengeance assuming I didn't go insane or become confined to a wheelchair.
They started speaking again, or they continued speaking whilst I was unconscious. A fourth person had joined them.
"How is he?"
"He'll be fine sir, once we sort out the basics."
"I want to know the second he's able to talk. With any luck, he'll be able to answer some questions."
I could hardly wait. I think I tried to say that but I just ended up wincing again.
"What was that?"
"Sir, it would be helpful if you left us to it. He's not going to say much more then that for a while."
"Very well doctor, but contact me the second he's conscious."
"Yes sir." There was irritation in the voice.
"What an arsehole." I heard muttered from who was probably Magellan, probably after he who was 'sir' had left.
"The last thing this guy will need is to be sprung upon with a thousand questions."
"Well, you know how it is; the council's terrified of anything that is even slightly unexpected at the moment. They're fearful of another war to the point of insanity."
"Well you can't really blame them. I men just look what almost happened with the last one."
"I guess."
I think I passed out again.
To be continued
Right, now for replies.
Tai Wilson: A simple misreading on my part squire. Anyway, I'm guessing you've figured out what the situation is so I won't go into that. Thanks for reviewing.
Angel-of-lightness: Oh. Well in that case my speaking of the dreams will rob them of their premonitionness. Shit. Anyway, thanks for reading/enjoying/reviewing.
Agent Josey: You should have said something to that effect in the afore mentioned review; I would have included you in the last chapter's replies. Snowmen can be used to kill Seagulls. Whether or not the opposite is true I do not know. Thanks for reviewing.
Chapter 7: Strange places
The tube that I had been flying down for the last minute o two at some incalculable speed deposited me into mid air above a pit of foul smelling water with century's old, and a century's worth of shit festering on the surface.
The smell or risk of disease didn't really bother me. What did bother me was the sharp pain I felt as I charged involuntarily into the small swamp. Pain engulfed my whole body as I hit the 'water', and what little strength I had in my limbs was soon gone.
'This is it,' I thought as I went under, 'I'm going to drown.'
I also uttered some choice words, (in my mind of course, I was using what strength I had to keep my mouth closed so as not to ingest the God-forsaken water I was bathing in. Pretty pointless I guess but at the same time, why not?)
Anyway, I uttered a few choice words for the 'ascended ones'. I could see it all now. The bastards take unsuspecting victims, tempt them with offers of magical powers, fur or some such shit, and then they laugh as they get un-plugged, flail about in fear for a while and drown.
I couldn't help but feel stupid; I'd followed Manticore even though my instincts had warned me against it. It seemed useless to make excuses at the time, so with my remaining strength I wondered what a squid with glowing red eyes was doing staring at me before I passed out.
*******************************************************************
The next day, I decided to go for a walk.
Much of the Destiny remained unseen by me, and to the best of my knowledge, I had nothing better to do. I also lived in hope that it would help banish my feelings of guilt.
The first door I tried deposited me in a conventional men's room. A rather disappointing start, I memorised the design of the door whilst I was there however, as I felt it was sure to be a room I would visit quite often in the future.
And then it hit me, I hadn't had, or needed a piss for almost two days. The shock at discovering this wasn't as powerful as I would have expected it to be. Not that I thought about it that often.
After further thought, I discovered that I hadn't eaten or defecated in the last two days. I didn't feel at all hungry, and my bowls, or the digital equivalent, were blissfully quiet.
I attributed this to my new program like existence and separation from my body.
I shuddered at the thought of my body. Dragon had told me that it would probably have been declared dead due to a system malfunction, melted down into a liquid form, and fed to one or more of the motionless human corpses within the Matrix. It was the thought that I was being eaten more then anything that disturbed me.
Anyway, I closed the door and wondered briefly why they needed a toilet before moving on to door number two. The contents of the room beyond were a little different then what I had just seen.
The room was a lot like the construct, there seemed to be an awe inspiringly bright light that covered the whole room and spilled into the bar. The room was far from empty however, there were words almost everywhere. All of which were of varying sizes, fonts and colours. Some remained motionless, some flew about in random patterns, skilfully dodging and weaving around the others.
One of the words came to an abrupt halt in front of me, I read it, it said 'words'. I was tempted to tell it that I had noticed, but I decided against the idea.
"I see you've found the library." I turned to see the face of Hawk staring at me.
"A library is it?" I asked, half expecting to receive more pedantic psychobabble.
"Not really," she replied instead, "but we had a choice between calling it a library or a neural interface document archive and, well…"
She shrugged and I nodded in understanding. I felt an involuntary grin break out on my face.
"What?" She asked after noticing the grin.
"Nothing really, I just expected you to tell me that I was still thinking with the limited views of the conventional matrix dwelling human."
A grin broke out on her face.
"Manticore been giving you an endless ascension speech has he?"
"Manticore, Hydra and Dragon. You can't have a conversation with them without having your speech corrected in every other sentence."
"Tell me about it," she walked into the 'library', followed by me a few seconds after, "it was like that with me for the first fifty years. I'm afraid it will be the same with you, probably."
"Oh joy." I said with a mixture of irritation and humour.
*******************************************************************
I heard voices above me. It was all I could sense. I couldn't see, the lights were too bright for that, and I had a sharp pain in my eyes for some reason. I couldn't move, my strength hadn't returned, I could barely breathe, and my attempt to speak resulted in an incoherent wince.
Their conversation went something like this:
"It doesn't make any sense."
"They told us he wasn't on the scheduled un-plugging waiting list."
"Why would he be? He's too old, he'll probably snap by the end of the week."
"That's not always the case, remember Neo?"
"No", the voice was sarcastic, "I've completely forgotten."
"Not now Magellan."
"Sorry."
"Do they know who he is?"
"Eric Drexler, your bog standard human. He has, or had, a job, a house and a typical life."
"Nothing special about him then?"
"Not that we or the machines can see."
"Well, whoever he is, we have to patch him up."
I didn't feel or hear anything after that, I think I fell asleep. I had a very pleasant dream in which I had my hands around Manticore's throat. I remember promising myself that I'd exact vengeance assuming I didn't go insane or become confined to a wheelchair.
They started speaking again, or they continued speaking whilst I was unconscious. A fourth person had joined them.
"How is he?"
"He'll be fine sir, once we sort out the basics."
"I want to know the second he's able to talk. With any luck, he'll be able to answer some questions."
I could hardly wait. I think I tried to say that but I just ended up wincing again.
"What was that?"
"Sir, it would be helpful if you left us to it. He's not going to say much more then that for a while."
"Very well doctor, but contact me the second he's conscious."
"Yes sir." There was irritation in the voice.
"What an arsehole." I heard muttered from who was probably Magellan, probably after he who was 'sir' had left.
"The last thing this guy will need is to be sprung upon with a thousand questions."
"Well, you know how it is; the council's terrified of anything that is even slightly unexpected at the moment. They're fearful of another war to the point of insanity."
"Well you can't really blame them. I men just look what almost happened with the last one."
"I guess."
I think I passed out again.
To be continued
Right, now for replies.
Tai Wilson: A simple misreading on my part squire. Anyway, I'm guessing you've figured out what the situation is so I won't go into that. Thanks for reviewing.
Angel-of-lightness: Oh. Well in that case my speaking of the dreams will rob them of their premonitionness. Shit. Anyway, thanks for reading/enjoying/reviewing.
Agent Josey: You should have said something to that effect in the afore mentioned review; I would have included you in the last chapter's replies. Snowmen can be used to kill Seagulls. Whether or not the opposite is true I do not know. Thanks for reviewing.