The Matrix : Redefined Chapter 8
I don't own the setting or the universe. Wakowski Brothers do.
If you recognize I probably don't own em. If you don't, I might.
I just wanna play a little, that's all.
-----
AP 1 - Day 8 (After peace)
Matrix : The restaurant.
The lights flickered and everyone looked up at them. The idea of the lights flickering was of course absurd. Here in this place they used no real power so the only way it could have was for there to be a pointed attack in both matrix and the real world. It was of course Neo who saw the second team coming down the hallway into the lounge first. He and trinity moved to the front where Morpheus and Seraph joined them. Morpheus drew the sword that seemed to present anytime he was in the matrix and Neo started handing out guns he pulled from who knew where.
"Neo, " Seraph interrupted as the new squad moved into a line in front of them.
"Yeah, I'm ready for this." Neo replied.
"No, you do not understand, Get them out, you know how to do it. Do it now." Seraph said flatly.
"No way Seraph, I'm gonna stop them here and now." Neo replied gauging there new enemies closely.
"Neo," Trinity interrupted," There are only seven, we can handle them. In the mean time you're the only one who can get the oracle and the councilors to safety. Noe move it, something wrong here. We've got your back though, So just get them the hell out of here."
"You sure trin?" He asked in reply as his count hit seven bad guys.
"Yes, Now do it." Trinity replied while thinking to herself, "Odd, This time it's three male and four female."
Neo stepped back from the line as an odd kind of stand off developed. The seven seeming to be waiting on something while the three Morpheus, Trinity and Seraph stood ready to do battle. At the last moment Neo tossed a sword to Trinity, then stepped over to the oracle. As he took her by the shoulder they both became ghostly and passed through the floor. Like a signal of some kind had been given the seven who had stood waiting patiently suddenly attacked as Neo started sinking out of sight.
Guns appeared in hands and fired on both sides. Trinity saw something coming toward her to close to dodge and instinctively put a hand out as though to block or deflect it. The wedge of bullets passed harmlessly by her as though slid aside by a breeze. Nobody among the seven could seem to hit her though she appeared to be there favorite target. The affect lasted only a heartbeat though it felt much longer to her.
The first salvo out of the way, both sides moved with blinding speed. The attackers now tried to find angles to hit the councilors. Trinity noticed the pattern of how they moved around each other from her perspective near the ceiling in the middle of a leap that took her much higher than she intended while trying for a good angle on a strike. It was the same way the other group moved. Not the same style, not from the same school, No, they moved exactly the same. The moves were as close to identical as was possible given that the people were different. This was the same way that agents were the same only without the body transformations that went with all agentdom.
The dance continued, Move and countermove they danced hard. A three dimensional ballet of death just barely unconnected. Morpheus and Seraph just not quite being where the bullets were, Trinity managing not get hit in spite being obviously theattackers favorite target. In fact it was beginning to look as though hitting her was the number one priority of the assailants. For every shot taken at Either Morpheus or Seraph there was one at Trinity. In fact she noticed that the movements of the attackers seemed to be ordered to allow a continuos field of fire at her.
Then after what seemed like ten minutes Neo returned without the Oracle and shouted to Trinity as he set a big gym bag down, grabbed one of the councilors, and took him the same way he had the Oracle. Trinity noticed extra shots being taken at Neo and going near the Councilors and Locke who was allready getting into the bag Neo had dropped for her. She dropped down beside them to shield them as best she could, Recalling some thing in the conversations with Seraph from days ago.
Flashback : Matrix : Restaurant observation lounge
"You humans are lucky in one way." Seraph had said.
"Really, how is that."
"Whether you know it or not, you are what you make yourselves. Where we programs are made to fill a specific role, You humans come into being without an assigned purpose and get to make your own. You and your world are what you make of it. That is how you can stretch the rules of the matrix. That is how Neo breaks them, He is not limited in how he sees' things, He is only limited by what he will see, Not what he can see. Without the built in limits of being purpose made you are all given a chance to determine what your world is, and most importantly, is not."
"So we can decide if the glass is half empty or half full" Trinity had asked.
"No, you can decide what the glass is and whether or not there is a glass at all. These are what you can decide eventually." Seraph had replied.
"So then reality in the matrix is what we make of it?"
"Yes, that is how Neo does what he does. To borrow a vernacular from the late twentieth century in it's proper place, He has decided that the matrix is a game and he has the cheat codes for it. Sao he can do as he wishes with anything not directly plugged into the mainframe."
"Then where did he get the 'cheat codes' as you call them?" She had asked.
"I can't tell you that. Though you may one day find out for yourself. Neo is after all a very good teacher," Seraph replied, "And you are following in his footsteps quite closely lately."
"Would these 'cheat codes' be related to the backdoors you use to get around?"
"Perceptive of you miss trinity." He replied smiling.
"Why do you do that?" She asked.
"Do what?" Seraph replied in an obviously falsely confused voice.
"Make a reply that is both ingratiating and fails to answer the question, or even worse deliberately misleads the questioner." Trinity asked.
"Guiding is part of my job along with safeguarding the oracle."
"So you just wander around making sure the oracle is safe and misleading wayward souls along the way? For what, fun?" She asked in reply.
"No, I mislead no one, I merely tell them what they need to know in order to understand the answer when it comes along."
"Then I will eventually be able to do everything Neo does?"
"No, Not exactly." Seraph replied, "Exactly what happens for each person is as individual to them as a reading from the oracle is."
"Like different versions of the same thing?" Trinity asked.
"Not exactly," Seraph had replied thinking carefully before continuing, "Think of the most basic of programs 'Hello world.", It can be written in any language and be displayed on any hardware. Depending on the language and the compiler and the hardware you run it on there are any number of possible ways it can be displayed. No matter how it ends up being displayed though, it is still recognizably the same program doing the same thing. What Neo does is that way. Though he has many of the typical abilities of the one, exactly what he does and how he does those things is highly individualistic, the same as if you were the one then you're abilities would much the same though with you're individual flavor to them if you will. Just like almost all birds can fly though some only glide and some squirrels leap mightily, though there are a few who glide like some of the birds do. This does not however make the squirrel related to the bird, It's just the squirrels take on the bird flying."
"So even if I had the same abilities as Neo, I wouldn't really be able to do the same things as he does, just really close in some ways and not even close in others?" Trinity asked with all seriousness.
The smile Seraph had answered her with was genuine. The type of smile one normally reserved for very bright children when they grasp something fundamentally new. The ramifications staggered her.
Flash forward : back in the lounge.
Niobe stood with the councilors at the ready to defend them if any of the attackers made it past the three main defenders. She watched Neo do his ghost thing and just wondered. She had heard about what the twins had been able to do and been stunned by the concept. To watch Neo do the same thing was to say the least disturbing.
What actually disturbed her worse was watching Trinity. Neo she could understand doing some weird things, He was the 'One' as had been prophesied by what she had just found out was a program designed to help make and keep the peace with the humans the machines needed as a power source. What she thought of that she was still deciding. It was watching Trinity though that was doing the most harm to her peace of mind. The way she took her usual high kick and floated with it was as nothing compared to what Niobe saw Trinity doing now. It had been bad enough watching Neo those few times, To see Trinity just hanging there and not even seeming to be aware of it was, in a word, Disturbing. The way she just danced around ignoring the bullets flying around her though was enough to unnerve anyone even it seemed, the mighty unflappable commander Locke and the councilors of Zion.
The way Trinity slid around the bullets in the air was as graceful as it came. When Trinity flipped backward though and landed just in front of them and put her hand out toward the assailants was just plain weird. The other hand reached down into the bag Neo had just dropped and started grabbing weapons. Watching her just stand there inviting fire while calmly taking pot shots was scary. Her right hand held up toward the assailants in what looked like a pleading gesture while the left tracked targets and took whatever shots came in to her field of fire. Seeing the return fire somehow miss her and thus those standing behind her, meaning Niobe and company, was unnerving to say the least. Though what Trinity was doing became obvious quickly to Niobe, How she was doing it did not though. Her fire at the attackers on the other hand was not entirely pointless.
By the time Trinity had the hit fourth female center of mass the fifth time it was obvious there was a problem. After ten more hits the Attacker had finally fallen down. By this time though, The councilors were all gone as well as locke. Only Niobe and Morpheus remained of those from Zion.
As though they had been waiting for a signal, Morpheus and Seraph both started cutting down there opponents rapidly. In about thirty seconds six of the seven
Were down and out for good. They all now surrounded the surviving attacker.
"Who are you?" Neo asked with deceptive calm.
Silence met them along with a calm smile.
"well then, What do you want?" Neo asked after about ten seconds of silence.
This time there was more than silence in response. The body of the attacker seemed to go through the same transformation as when an agent took a plugged in body over. The face slowly resolved this time into not any agent they had ever seen, but to a face they had seen all to much of.
"Hi ya trin." Cypher's face looked up at them grinning.
Murmuring was the first reply any of the assembled defenders of Zion made. At first no one spoke because no one knew how to even reply to this logical absurdity. A dead man overlaying an unplugged human the same way an agent did.
"Cypher?" Trinity asked unable to keep her voice entirely free of emotion.
"Morpheus," Cypher said smiling, "Long time no see. How's the neber these days. Little drafty now isn't she. Must be that whole sentinels learn and you don't thing. Sucks don't it."
"How?" Neo asked clearly confused.
"We'll worry about that later." Cypher replies with all his usual disdain for the free. "Right now I'm supposed to tell you that the oracle is in danger. My boss is going to remove her. I was just told to make sure you knew it was going to happen and that you can't stop it. There is no part of the matrix she can go in safety."
"Why does your boss want us to know?" Morpheus asked grimly.
"So that you know you're end is coming. That this shell game is about to be over for all of you." He replied, "And that there is nothing you can do about it. He just loves the idea of you knowing the end is coming before it does."
"So who is your boss?" Morpheus asked.
"Well you see it's this way. I ain't gonna tell you. I might tell Trin there, but, I ain't gonna tell any of you. So trin, yuh wanna persuade me?" Cypher replies with a distinct leer.
"I could shoot you somewhere not quite lethal." Trinity replied with a smile.
"You could try it Trin, I think though you might not like the result. I feel pain and I just jack out. I feel something I like and I might talk to you. You know a little light pillow talk maybe." Cypher replied still leering.
While Trinity and Cypher continue trading small talk Neo studies Cypher. So intent is he that one of his old habits of standing with his head slightly tilted can be seen evidencing itself. Eventually Neo just reaches over and takes Cypher by the shoulder. The smart alek response by cypher was cut off as they both phased, Cypher was left with his feet phased in the floor when Neo let go.
Cypher just stood there with the most puzzled look on his face. Everyone else was just shocked. Neo finally broke the silence.
"Let's see you have that pillow talk now." Neo said flatly.
"Oh very good Thomas, You pinned me , at least until I decide to jack out."
"We'll track you down you know. You can't hide from me." Neo replies.
"Oh we'll see about that." Cypher replies, "So trin, you wanna get me to talk."
Neo and the others left them to talk. Seraph went to begin the tracking of the signal Cypher was using. The rest of them just stood back as Trinity tried to get the information out of Cypher.
Matrix : Hallway of doors.
"Seraph" a voice spoke quietly from a door barely cracked open.
"Yes, Can I help you." Seraph replied stopping at the door.
"I have a message for the one." The voice continued without opening the door.
"I can take it to him when I am done here."
"Thank you, tell him. ."
I don't own the setting or the universe. Wakowski Brothers do.
If you recognize I probably don't own em. If you don't, I might.
I just wanna play a little, that's all.
-----
AP 1 - Day 8 (After peace)
Matrix : The restaurant.
The lights flickered and everyone looked up at them. The idea of the lights flickering was of course absurd. Here in this place they used no real power so the only way it could have was for there to be a pointed attack in both matrix and the real world. It was of course Neo who saw the second team coming down the hallway into the lounge first. He and trinity moved to the front where Morpheus and Seraph joined them. Morpheus drew the sword that seemed to present anytime he was in the matrix and Neo started handing out guns he pulled from who knew where.
"Neo, " Seraph interrupted as the new squad moved into a line in front of them.
"Yeah, I'm ready for this." Neo replied.
"No, you do not understand, Get them out, you know how to do it. Do it now." Seraph said flatly.
"No way Seraph, I'm gonna stop them here and now." Neo replied gauging there new enemies closely.
"Neo," Trinity interrupted," There are only seven, we can handle them. In the mean time you're the only one who can get the oracle and the councilors to safety. Noe move it, something wrong here. We've got your back though, So just get them the hell out of here."
"You sure trin?" He asked in reply as his count hit seven bad guys.
"Yes, Now do it." Trinity replied while thinking to herself, "Odd, This time it's three male and four female."
Neo stepped back from the line as an odd kind of stand off developed. The seven seeming to be waiting on something while the three Morpheus, Trinity and Seraph stood ready to do battle. At the last moment Neo tossed a sword to Trinity, then stepped over to the oracle. As he took her by the shoulder they both became ghostly and passed through the floor. Like a signal of some kind had been given the seven who had stood waiting patiently suddenly attacked as Neo started sinking out of sight.
Guns appeared in hands and fired on both sides. Trinity saw something coming toward her to close to dodge and instinctively put a hand out as though to block or deflect it. The wedge of bullets passed harmlessly by her as though slid aside by a breeze. Nobody among the seven could seem to hit her though she appeared to be there favorite target. The affect lasted only a heartbeat though it felt much longer to her.
The first salvo out of the way, both sides moved with blinding speed. The attackers now tried to find angles to hit the councilors. Trinity noticed the pattern of how they moved around each other from her perspective near the ceiling in the middle of a leap that took her much higher than she intended while trying for a good angle on a strike. It was the same way the other group moved. Not the same style, not from the same school, No, they moved exactly the same. The moves were as close to identical as was possible given that the people were different. This was the same way that agents were the same only without the body transformations that went with all agentdom.
The dance continued, Move and countermove they danced hard. A three dimensional ballet of death just barely unconnected. Morpheus and Seraph just not quite being where the bullets were, Trinity managing not get hit in spite being obviously theattackers favorite target. In fact it was beginning to look as though hitting her was the number one priority of the assailants. For every shot taken at Either Morpheus or Seraph there was one at Trinity. In fact she noticed that the movements of the attackers seemed to be ordered to allow a continuos field of fire at her.
Then after what seemed like ten minutes Neo returned without the Oracle and shouted to Trinity as he set a big gym bag down, grabbed one of the councilors, and took him the same way he had the Oracle. Trinity noticed extra shots being taken at Neo and going near the Councilors and Locke who was allready getting into the bag Neo had dropped for her. She dropped down beside them to shield them as best she could, Recalling some thing in the conversations with Seraph from days ago.
Flashback : Matrix : Restaurant observation lounge
"You humans are lucky in one way." Seraph had said.
"Really, how is that."
"Whether you know it or not, you are what you make yourselves. Where we programs are made to fill a specific role, You humans come into being without an assigned purpose and get to make your own. You and your world are what you make of it. That is how you can stretch the rules of the matrix. That is how Neo breaks them, He is not limited in how he sees' things, He is only limited by what he will see, Not what he can see. Without the built in limits of being purpose made you are all given a chance to determine what your world is, and most importantly, is not."
"So we can decide if the glass is half empty or half full" Trinity had asked.
"No, you can decide what the glass is and whether or not there is a glass at all. These are what you can decide eventually." Seraph had replied.
"So then reality in the matrix is what we make of it?"
"Yes, that is how Neo does what he does. To borrow a vernacular from the late twentieth century in it's proper place, He has decided that the matrix is a game and he has the cheat codes for it. Sao he can do as he wishes with anything not directly plugged into the mainframe."
"Then where did he get the 'cheat codes' as you call them?" She had asked.
"I can't tell you that. Though you may one day find out for yourself. Neo is after all a very good teacher," Seraph replied, "And you are following in his footsteps quite closely lately."
"Would these 'cheat codes' be related to the backdoors you use to get around?"
"Perceptive of you miss trinity." He replied smiling.
"Why do you do that?" She asked.
"Do what?" Seraph replied in an obviously falsely confused voice.
"Make a reply that is both ingratiating and fails to answer the question, or even worse deliberately misleads the questioner." Trinity asked.
"Guiding is part of my job along with safeguarding the oracle."
"So you just wander around making sure the oracle is safe and misleading wayward souls along the way? For what, fun?" She asked in reply.
"No, I mislead no one, I merely tell them what they need to know in order to understand the answer when it comes along."
"Then I will eventually be able to do everything Neo does?"
"No, Not exactly." Seraph replied, "Exactly what happens for each person is as individual to them as a reading from the oracle is."
"Like different versions of the same thing?" Trinity asked.
"Not exactly," Seraph had replied thinking carefully before continuing, "Think of the most basic of programs 'Hello world.", It can be written in any language and be displayed on any hardware. Depending on the language and the compiler and the hardware you run it on there are any number of possible ways it can be displayed. No matter how it ends up being displayed though, it is still recognizably the same program doing the same thing. What Neo does is that way. Though he has many of the typical abilities of the one, exactly what he does and how he does those things is highly individualistic, the same as if you were the one then you're abilities would much the same though with you're individual flavor to them if you will. Just like almost all birds can fly though some only glide and some squirrels leap mightily, though there are a few who glide like some of the birds do. This does not however make the squirrel related to the bird, It's just the squirrels take on the bird flying."
"So even if I had the same abilities as Neo, I wouldn't really be able to do the same things as he does, just really close in some ways and not even close in others?" Trinity asked with all seriousness.
The smile Seraph had answered her with was genuine. The type of smile one normally reserved for very bright children when they grasp something fundamentally new. The ramifications staggered her.
Flash forward : back in the lounge.
Niobe stood with the councilors at the ready to defend them if any of the attackers made it past the three main defenders. She watched Neo do his ghost thing and just wondered. She had heard about what the twins had been able to do and been stunned by the concept. To watch Neo do the same thing was to say the least disturbing.
What actually disturbed her worse was watching Trinity. Neo she could understand doing some weird things, He was the 'One' as had been prophesied by what she had just found out was a program designed to help make and keep the peace with the humans the machines needed as a power source. What she thought of that she was still deciding. It was watching Trinity though that was doing the most harm to her peace of mind. The way she took her usual high kick and floated with it was as nothing compared to what Niobe saw Trinity doing now. It had been bad enough watching Neo those few times, To see Trinity just hanging there and not even seeming to be aware of it was, in a word, Disturbing. The way she just danced around ignoring the bullets flying around her though was enough to unnerve anyone even it seemed, the mighty unflappable commander Locke and the councilors of Zion.
The way Trinity slid around the bullets in the air was as graceful as it came. When Trinity flipped backward though and landed just in front of them and put her hand out toward the assailants was just plain weird. The other hand reached down into the bag Neo had just dropped and started grabbing weapons. Watching her just stand there inviting fire while calmly taking pot shots was scary. Her right hand held up toward the assailants in what looked like a pleading gesture while the left tracked targets and took whatever shots came in to her field of fire. Seeing the return fire somehow miss her and thus those standing behind her, meaning Niobe and company, was unnerving to say the least. Though what Trinity was doing became obvious quickly to Niobe, How she was doing it did not though. Her fire at the attackers on the other hand was not entirely pointless.
By the time Trinity had the hit fourth female center of mass the fifth time it was obvious there was a problem. After ten more hits the Attacker had finally fallen down. By this time though, The councilors were all gone as well as locke. Only Niobe and Morpheus remained of those from Zion.
As though they had been waiting for a signal, Morpheus and Seraph both started cutting down there opponents rapidly. In about thirty seconds six of the seven
Were down and out for good. They all now surrounded the surviving attacker.
"Who are you?" Neo asked with deceptive calm.
Silence met them along with a calm smile.
"well then, What do you want?" Neo asked after about ten seconds of silence.
This time there was more than silence in response. The body of the attacker seemed to go through the same transformation as when an agent took a plugged in body over. The face slowly resolved this time into not any agent they had ever seen, but to a face they had seen all to much of.
"Hi ya trin." Cypher's face looked up at them grinning.
Murmuring was the first reply any of the assembled defenders of Zion made. At first no one spoke because no one knew how to even reply to this logical absurdity. A dead man overlaying an unplugged human the same way an agent did.
"Cypher?" Trinity asked unable to keep her voice entirely free of emotion.
"Morpheus," Cypher said smiling, "Long time no see. How's the neber these days. Little drafty now isn't she. Must be that whole sentinels learn and you don't thing. Sucks don't it."
"How?" Neo asked clearly confused.
"We'll worry about that later." Cypher replies with all his usual disdain for the free. "Right now I'm supposed to tell you that the oracle is in danger. My boss is going to remove her. I was just told to make sure you knew it was going to happen and that you can't stop it. There is no part of the matrix she can go in safety."
"Why does your boss want us to know?" Morpheus asked grimly.
"So that you know you're end is coming. That this shell game is about to be over for all of you." He replied, "And that there is nothing you can do about it. He just loves the idea of you knowing the end is coming before it does."
"So who is your boss?" Morpheus asked.
"Well you see it's this way. I ain't gonna tell you. I might tell Trin there, but, I ain't gonna tell any of you. So trin, yuh wanna persuade me?" Cypher replies with a distinct leer.
"I could shoot you somewhere not quite lethal." Trinity replied with a smile.
"You could try it Trin, I think though you might not like the result. I feel pain and I just jack out. I feel something I like and I might talk to you. You know a little light pillow talk maybe." Cypher replied still leering.
While Trinity and Cypher continue trading small talk Neo studies Cypher. So intent is he that one of his old habits of standing with his head slightly tilted can be seen evidencing itself. Eventually Neo just reaches over and takes Cypher by the shoulder. The smart alek response by cypher was cut off as they both phased, Cypher was left with his feet phased in the floor when Neo let go.
Cypher just stood there with the most puzzled look on his face. Everyone else was just shocked. Neo finally broke the silence.
"Let's see you have that pillow talk now." Neo said flatly.
"Oh very good Thomas, You pinned me , at least until I decide to jack out."
"We'll track you down you know. You can't hide from me." Neo replies.
"Oh we'll see about that." Cypher replies, "So trin, you wanna get me to talk."
Neo and the others left them to talk. Seraph went to begin the tracking of the signal Cypher was using. The rest of them just stood back as Trinity tried to get the information out of Cypher.
Matrix : Hallway of doors.
"Seraph" a voice spoke quietly from a door barely cracked open.
"Yes, Can I help you." Seraph replied stopping at the door.
"I have a message for the one." The voice continued without opening the door.
"I can take it to him when I am done here."
"Thank you, tell him. ."