Hey everyone. I haven't been updating as often as I'd like to be updating, but I'm having some major writer's block. If you want me to update more often, then review because I could really use some suggestions.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Matrix. The Matrix is the sole property of the person/people who own the Matrix (I don't know who exactly, probably Joel Silvers and/or the Wachowski Brothers). I did not use that much from the 96 draft of the Matrix script for this chapter, but I did get the character Gizmo from it. Some of the quotes are from the movie, and obviously the characters and setting and such are from the movie. The rest is mine.
And now, on with the story.
I went to sleep that night after hours of tossing and turning as usual. That night I dreamed of the day they finished rebuilding my muscles and I first learned the truth about the Matrix.
"This is my ship, the Nebuchadnezzar. You already know Flash, Gizmo, and Trinity. These are our ship's operators, Dozer and Cas." Morpheus said.
I stared at Trinity, who was standing by the chairs we use to jack into the Matrix. She was more beautiful in real life than she was in the Matrix. And she was pretty fucking gorgeous in the Matrix. She was really young then. She had just been unplugged six months before me, but she was sixteen so Morpheus just had her train on the ship. She was already on the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar. I, on the other hand, was going to have to go train in this fucking academy place down in Zion.
Morpheus noticed me starring at he, but he thought I was looking at the chairs
"I'll bet you're wondering what those chairs are for? he said, pointing to the chairs I saw Trinity standing by. I decided to go with that rather than say "No actually I was checking out Trinity." so I nodded.
"Those are for jacking into the Matrix." Morpheus replied.
"But you still haven't told me what the Matrix is!" I yelled impatiently.
"I'll show you right now." he said trying to calm me down. "Come sit in this chair." I did what he asked. "This will feel a little weird." he said as he shoved that thing that makes me think of an oversized needle into my head. It hurt, but I couldn't yell in pain because my mouth wouldn't move. The oversized needing thing was stopping all the signals to my body except for my heart and lungs. The pain soon stopped, and I was in a completely white room.
"This is the loading construct, where we can load anything from clothes to weapons to training simulations…" Morpheus went on and on explaining to me how the machines were controlling us and the reality of the Matrix and all that bull shit. He said everything in an extremely calm manner without the least bit of compassion. He went on about control and blah blah blah.
"…The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control." He must've said control five times in less than five sentences in a row. "…in order to change a human being into this." He then shoved a battery in my face. I just stood there and starred at him blankly. He was joking right? Right? I half expected someone to yell "April Fools!" And then it all sunk in. That was the only time I ever remember wishing Morpheus would talk cryptically and not straightforward. I wanted to pretend it all wasn't true.
"I…I don't believe it." I said.
"I didn't say it would be easy. I just said it would be the truth." he said, still in an extremely calm, uncompassionate voice.
"Let me out of here!" I yelled. They pulled the oversized needle thing out of my head, and I was back in the real world with full control of my body. "Why did you take me out?" I shouted.
"Because you deserve to know the truth." Morpheus said.
"I don't wanna know the truth." I cried. I couldn't take it. I threw up almost immediately all over the floor. No one seemed concerned at all. Apparently, this happened all the time.
That was the last time I ever cried. The Nebuchadnezzar brought me back to Zion, where I trained in an academy to become a soldier. I soon became cold and emotionless, like everyone else. That's how we were trained to be. No feelings could reach the surface. Everything had to be kept inside. That's why we always wore sunglasses in the Matrix, and that's why I always preferred lighter color sunglasses. I couldn't stand it. It was so unnatural. The same questions kept coming up in my mind over and over again: Why had they taken me out? How was this any more "real" than the Matrix? How was this "free"?
I suppose I should explain all the changes in the crew on the Nebuchadnezzar between when I was first unplugged, and when Neo came along. Switch was training to be a soldier with me, but she was way ahead of me. She graduated shortly after I began training and immediately started working on board the Nebuchadnezzar. Apoc had already graduated. He was on board the Logos, Niobe's ship. Morpheus was still with Niobe at the time and the two ships would switch crew members often while they visited each other. That's how Apoc knew Switch at first. He started seeing her after about six months or so. About two years later, Gizmo died and Flash switched ships because he decided Morpheus was in fact crazy, Morpheus needed more crew members. Apoc was eager to join, and since this guy called Ghost had started working on the Logos, Niobe was okay with it. I joined the Nebuchadnezzar crew around the same time as Apoc, but everyone knew Apoc a lot better than me because he had visited it so often. Because of this, everyone was too busy talking to Apoc to bother with me. Aside from that, Trinity had become first in rank after Morpheus since Gizmo's death, and everyone was very excited for her. No one bothered paying much attention to me. I started feeling resentment towards everyone, and soon the feeling became mutual.
A year or two later, Cas and Dozer got married. Cas and Dozer had already been together for a while, but never bothered to get married. Few people did. Most people just knew they loved someone and that was enough. But then Cas got pregnant. After that, she stopped working on the Nebuchadnezzar so she could take care of their daughter (they had a son a year later). She started working in Zion, and Dozer's little brother, Tank, started working for the Nebuchadnezzar. Dozer became much more responsible. He had been a real party guy, but babies tend to make you change. He wrote a will, and he spoke with his sister's boyfriend, Link, about taking over on the Neb if anything should happen to him.
A little while later, Morpheus decided to take on one more crew member so he took on Mouse. Mouse was only seventeen at the time. He soon caught on to everyone's attitude towards me. That's how everyone came to dislike me so much.
There was one person who I was friendly with in the academy. A guy called Sparks. He was pretty cool. He was about the same age as me and everything. He had been born in Zion. He was in the academy to please his parents pretty much. He didn't really like the thought of fighting in our "war." He ended up becoming an operator on board the Logos, Captain Niobe's ship. After Morpheus and Niobe split up, the Nebuchadnezzar crew and the Logos crew saw less and less of each other, and I lost touch with Sparks except for the rare occasion that the Logos and the Nebuchadnezzar were both in Zion. I think Morpheus may have intentionally made it so that we were almost never in at the same time as Niobe's ship so he wouldn't have to see her. It was too bad. Sparks was the only guy I really liked.
Okay well there it is. I tried to give everyone a reason why they didn't really like him. Please tell me wacha think. As always constructive criticism is welcome. However, "you suck" does not qualify as constructive. If you think this sucks, you have two options: 1) tell me how this story sucks so I can improve it for you next chapter or 2) not read it.
