Life in Death, Part 3
by noiseforyoureyes
disclaimer: the Matrix owns me.
Set between The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded.
The green code cascaded in infinite methods and arrangements, the artificiality of the prison so clearly evident to Neo yet still so lethal. Its lies could kill. Even a free mind had precious little defense. And here he was, privy to the innermost workings of the lie: exposed before him, Neo could follow its patterns, recognize them for what they were, and change them. It was a frighteningly liberating power, one he was only beginning to harness. A hacker's dream and nightmare, all at once.
But here inside the empty warehouse, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. The code activity seemed routine, untampered with as far as he could tell. The only thing moving was an erratic wind from the north entrance that picked up the scattered dust particles around him and carried them away. Neo stared down, his vision alternating between code-sight and normalcy. A crackpot abstract film that only he could see.
It was as Tank had said: too clean.
Morpheus and Trinity had split up to take the perimeter. Neo remained to stake out the precise coordinates on the disk, in case something... someone, perhaps? returned.
It was understood without resentment that Neo could handle the unexpected far better than the rest of them could.
Still, he felt claustrophobic, waiting here for 'the reason' to sneak past the boundaries of his senses, to reveal itself, justify the Transient's doom. He hoped and prayed it was justifiable. The dead man in the VR chair would not erase itself from his mind...
Something, then. A flicker. A inaudible whisper, felt more than heard. He tensed, glancing quickly around himself.
Of course. There, on the upper level. Loops of code: weak, fading in and out, almost unnoticeable. Neo found the stairwell and, keeping firmly locked onto the source of the disturbance, made his way up. The creak of rusted metal and rotten wood seemed deafening in the stillness.
Something was scratched into the wall to his right. Looking at it even with his normal vision, it ghosted, there and not there, indecisive in its appearance.
They were numbers. Sixes, scrawled crudely over and over again, covering the small space. Flickering. Neo stepped closer, entranced despite himself. A knife lay on the uppermost box, curved and wicked-looking, obviously the source of the marks. But unlike them, it remained steadily there, refusing to glitch, never doubting its existence.
It was a disturbing scene, and as Neo gazed at it, perplexed, he felt his skin begin to crawl.
Behind him, a voice pierced the silence.
"How do you like it?"
He whirled, and came face to face with something less than a man.
There could be no greater contrast between the two figures: Neo's impeccable, towering, black-clad presence, compared with the hunched, ragged form of the one who had spoken the words. Dead eyes peered up through his sunken face. There was no threat, no malice in them. Neo stared, finding no worthy reply.
"Being the One? How do you like it?" He coughed, and wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. When Neo still did not speak, he smiled: it was the most chilling smile Neo had ever witnessed.
"I was like you, once. Had no idea."
Neo's throat felt dry. He swallowed. It finally came: "What are you talking about?" His own voice sounded alien to him. He looked back at the numbers on the wall, but they were gone. The knife remained. None of it made any sense.
"No soul... you've got no soul. You and me. We're walking dead men."
His haunted eyes stared straight through Neo's sunglasses, and despite his every effort to fight it, the memory was creeping upon him, unbidden, the feeling of the first bullet ripping through his skin...
The man was shaking his head, sadly, a manic edge rising in his voice. "It goes on and on... over and over... you're part of it... I'm part of it..."
"What?" Neo heard himself saying, the question breaking from him in desperation. Suddenly the face of the man before him had become the face of the dead rebel aboard the Transient... it was wholly a product of his own imagination, and he knew it, but it was still completely paralyzing. He felt like Thomas Anderson again, suffocatingly lost.
And in that moment, the dead man came alive, and the knife was gone from the top of the box, and was buried in Neo's side.
You are nothing, Neo told the pain screaming inside his head. Let go. He fought for control over his mind, his hands grasping the wrists of the man who was attempting to choke him to death, pulling them off his neck, keeping them at bay.
"It's a cycle. Can't you see?" The man's eyes were wild and intense, boring into Neo's. "The only way to break it... is to break you..."
Finally Neo mastered himself, banishing the Matrix's insistence that he was seriously wounded, and hurled the man with all his artificial might against the far wall. He crashed into the splintering wood. Silence prevailed, broken only by Neo's heavy breathing, which he forced down, furious at himself for allowing the Matrix to gain so much influence over his mind. He pulled the knife out of his side and tossed it away.
But the man was not finished. He crawled back to his feet across from Neo, blood dripping, glaring now with open hatred. "The sixth," he spat. "Paving way for the seventh. How much longer?"
Neo composed himself, and said, as evenly as he could through the cloud of pain that threatened to suffocate him, "I don't understand."
"Of course you don't. I didn't either. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you be a man, and end it yourself." He gestured towards the bloody knife that lay mere feet away from Neo. "Pick it up and end it."
The bewilderment was evident all over Neo's face, despite his eyes being masked. The man was growing more agitated by the moment. "Pick it up, or it goes on!"
A shot rang out then, echoing loudly in the confined space of the warehouse. For a heartbeat, Neo was sure he was having another flashback, that it was Smith standing there in the distance, and that the bullet was for him.
But no... the dead man across from him dropped like a stone, and Neo saw Morpheus at the top of the stairwell, holding an automatic, with Trinity behind him.
His heart sounded loud in the quiet that followed. Shut up, he ordered it. The blood seeping out of his side was virtually invisible on his black coat, and he hoped Trinity wouldn't notice, but her eyes flicked to the knife, and she made the connection, and was at his side in seconds.
"I'm fine," he insisted. "I can fix it."
She nodded, but did not let go of his shoulders. They trembled almost imperceptibly as he worked at rectifying the code within his own RSI. The sheer force of will needed to both change it, and to block the pain it was causing, was exhausting.
But within moments, it was done. She helped him to his feet, and they faced a concerned Morpheus.
"Neo, what happened?"
He shook his head. "I couldn't tell you."
"Who was he?" Trinity asked.
Me, said a voice in his head. It made no sense at all, and yet, he felt the grain of truth in it. Why? He couldn't put name to the dread that had settled deep in the pit of his stomach, a more tangible fear of the path before him than he'd ever felt before. I wish I knew what I'm supposed to do.
"Tank has an exit ready for us. I'm afraid we've already compromised our broadcast point." He did not say how.
The unspoken thought on all their minds lay heavy in the air between them: was this all they could do for the Transient?
But the Sentinels would be coming soon, and they could certainly do nothing better dead.
And so they left the warehouse, and Neo dared not look back at the corpse of the man who had challenged him, which lay in a widening pool of crimson, utterly extinguished save for his words that Neo feared would never leave him. It's a cycle, can't you see? The only way to break it, is to break you...
