Chapter eight.
The ship travelled for a good six hours in the maze of sewers before they found a place vast enough to set her down.
"Do we actually know where we are going? I heard a story when I was a kid that it is impossible to reach Big Brother." Olivio stated, remembering her childhood in yellow district.
"Well, that before was true, but with this new technology we will find a way to get to him." Kamador replied, positively.
"So we have no strategy whatsoever?" Martyn chipped in.
"I wouldn't say that. There is a programme known as Gelmir Bullet, he is as old as the…oh I remember that you don't like her…he is nearly as old as the matrix itself and I am sure knows how to get to Big Brother. But he is somewhat hard to get to. Every six hours he copies himself and flees into the matrix as to keep people from discovering him. He is the third most wanted programme in the system."
"Is this the first or the second matrix we are talking about here?" Martyn asked, confused himself.
"The first, meaning that we will have to plug ourselves into the matrix to find him." Kamador said.
"And this Gelmir Bullet programme, is he on our side?" Olivio questioned.
"Definitely not!" Boone exclaimed. "At the gates of Zion he disarmed the gates and allowed the sentinel armies to come right through. He betrayed us. Which is why he is wanted. He will be heavily guarded, but we know where he is, which people haven't been able to do for over seven years. We have just over four hours to get to him. So we are going in…now!"
Everyone got out of his or her seats and streamed towards the uploading system.
"Lorelai, I am going to need you for this one. You can't stay here; you have to come with us. Sanitea can act as operator."
"Why? I can act as operator from within the matrix."
"Remember what I said before, how many agents there are in the matrix now. If you die, as our only way out inside the matrix, we all die. So pass over the duties to Sanitea who will stay behind. We need your combat skills."
"Okay." She said, hurt by Kamador's bluntness and shocked by the danger that the matrix held. She walked over to her monitor and pocketed a small device, which rather looked like a marble.
Sanitea watched and smiled a crooked smile once they all lied down and she pushed the needles into their sockets and they all flew in the matrix. She sat down back at the monitor and waited for smith to give her the orders.
The six of them flew threw the green code and materialised next to a phone that run incessantly in a dark room, probably an old, abandoned apartment building. Kamador picked up the phone.
"We're in Sanitea; I've got my mobile on for when we are ready for an exit." He rang off.
He walked out of the room and down the dismal hall.
"Where are we?" Martyn asked Kamador, trying to keep up with his pace.
"We are in the computer fabric of the matrix X08767654R or what the unplugged would call New York City."
He opened the door and stepped out onto the sky-scraping street. It was a rainy day in the matrix and not a lot of people were about. It was quiet and Olivio re-encountered the feeling she had on the ship. It was an eerie hollow feeling and she stepped dead in her tracks and listened to the simulated wind. She could hear Sanitea's song again, following her, even though she was separated from her body.
"This doesn't feel right." She whispered.
"What doesn't feel right?" Boone turned on her.
"I've got an awful feeling."
"Oh its just first time nerves."
They carried on walking down the rainy boulevard and saw eventually a stairwell leading down to dimly lit underground tunnel that connected on side of the street to the other. There rocking in the middle, with no adequate clothing on, was Gelmir Bullet.
Olivio reached for her sci-fi handgun. Kamador pointed his rifle at the tramp.
"Get up, we know its you!" He shouted.
The tramp chuckled and spoke in a coarse voice.
"By the time I get to my feet, you will all be dead." Gelmir laughed louder. His laugh became a deafening echo in the tunnel and at either end of the tunnel, two agents appeared, smiling. They ran to the centre of the tunnel where the group stood. They waited, trapped in their surroundings, with the deafening laughter of Gelmir.
"How come we didn't see them? Why didn't Sanitea warn us?" Boekbhav shouted.
"No time for explanations now…we need to find a way out."
The agents ran faster towards the group and time was running out. Martyn reached for a plasma grenade in his pocket left over from the assault at the strange gate of Veiled Dungeon.
He squeezed the spot and threw it up to the ceiling and the group ducked. Creating a hole in the road and roof above.
"Come on let's go!"
They all jumped up onto the road and started to run. They all turned around and watched as the agents followed up the hole.
Kamador reached for his ultra-Uzi and fired bullets at the agents who dodged every one. Olivio shot sci-fi pellets at them too and Martyn threw EMP grenades that he had been given back on the ship; however no weapons held them back for very long.
Kamador grasped his mobile phone and dialled the operator Sanitea.
"Find us an exit, quick Sanitea!" He screamed over gunfire.
"Yes, captain. There's one real close, an office building to your left. Second floor, office six."
He rang off. And ran towards the dark grey building. There were security guards as they ran into the building.
"Security, drop your weapons!"
Without a second though Lorelai fire two bullets into each head with dazzling speed. They darted up the stairs and down the corridor, only just missing a wave of bullets.
They ran by office one, two, three, four and five but still could hear no phone ringing. Office six.
They all bolted in one after the other and there was a small, piggish man who looked alarmed to see all these people.
Lorelai put a bullet in his head and looked for a phone on the desk. There was one, but it wasn't ringing. Martyn threw a grenade into the corridor and the blast caused the ceiling to collapse and the rubble blocked them in. It would buy them a minute. He closed the door and locked it.
The phone finally rang every chime like a dose of relief in their hearts. Kamador answered the phone.
"Quickly Sanitea get us out of here!"
"Hello Captain." Sanitea said calmly over the phone.
"What are you waiting for Sanitea, get us out of here."
All the time they could hear the agents shifting the rubble outside and gunfire as they killed any bystanders.
"I think I'll wait…I'm sorry it had to be this way Kamador. We were never going to win. You were never going to win."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"We have no future. What are we trying to do? We were all happy in Veiled Dungeon, why are we trying to stop him. Big Brother and Smith will always win. I will win."
"You! You're…you're smith!"
"Oh god!" Boone whimpered and a tear dropped from her eye.
"It took you that long to figure it out. If you had been quicker you might have been able to save her."
"Save who?"
"Boekbhav."
At that moment, Boekbhav's eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fell lifelessly to the floor with a hollow dark thump. She was dead. Instantly they all knew and the movement from outside joined with screams from the inside mangled their minds.
"Fuck you!" Kamador screamed down the phone.
"I'm sorry. This is the way it has to be. The only way. Everyone has a purpose in life and my purpose is to see the light. Smith is right. Smith did suffice. And your purpose Kamador is to die along with all your friends, all at once. That is your purpose, not a total waste. But do you know what a total waste of purpose is…Boone. What a waste of time, inside those labs, trying to find a way to let the human race survive, only to die trying."
Kamador's eyes looked at Boone, whose face was struck with horror as she fell spinelessly to the ground too, next to Boekbhav's body.
Lorelai screamed, but then remembered something.
The small marble in her pocket was the matrix-operating device. She could make her way back onto the ship. She squeezed the tiny marble and evaporated into green symbols.
Back on the ship, the heart monitors of Boone and Boekbhav sounded a flat note signifying their death. Sanitea was still on the phone to Kamador and circling Olivio's body holding the plug that kept her alive.
Lorelai reached for a gun attached to the wall of the deck and walked closer to Sanitea who had changed since she last seen her. She was dressed in a black suit as the agents were but it was her sweet voice down the phone and her hands pulling the plugs. Only a metre away now Lorelai stood aiming the gun right at Sanitea's small head.
"And who but the brave Olivio, who spent her life in fear of us. Now she will embrace us."
"Embrace this!" Lorelai shouted and pulled the trigger, killing Sanitea before she even knew what hit her. The phone that she was holding slipped out of her hand and Lorelai grabbed it and spoke down to her captain.
"Kamador, it's me Lorelai."
"Lorelai, are you alright?"
"Yes I'm fine."
She hit the upload button and the four remaining crewmembers stood over the dead bodies, letting their tears dilute their friend's blood.
They lay at rest now and before the crew stopped crying they heard the end of Sanitea's song over the code of the matrix, leaving them in a silent darkness, as the green code rained down forevermore.