Chapter 6

T'Pol faded in and out of consciousness for what seemed like endless moments of time. During her comatose state she heard voices that belonged to Archer and Tripp. Other voices she could not recognize.

"Do you think Archer is right? Do you think she could be the one?" Asked a british sounding male voice.

"It doesn't matter now. But if he's wrong ..." Said a woman's voice she did not recognize.

A few hours later T'Pol's eyes fluttered open. The first sight she saw above her was Tripp's face, he looked almost angelic in the luminescent glow that surrounded him.

"Am I dead?" T'Pol asked him.

"Far from it." Tripp answered her.

And it went black once again...

A few hours later she opened her eyes once more, this time she felt something tingling through her, She focused her eyes for just a moment and she saw her body pierced with several acupuncture like needles that were wired to a strange device. She heard a woman's voice.

"She's going to need lots of work."

"I know." Archer said.

The woman and Archer started operating on T'Pol. She was still groggy.

"What are you doing?" She asked them.

"Your muscles have atrophied. We're rebuilding them." Archer explained.

She looked up at the light, her eyes hurt just to look at it. Even her inner lids hurt.

"Why do my eyes hurt?" She asked him.

"You've never used them before." Archer explained.

He took off his sunglasses and placed them over her eyes. She laid back down on the table.

"Rest T'Pol, the answers are coming." He said in a soothing tone.

T'Pol awoke from her deep sleep in another room. She felt much better, she took a look at her attire which was a sweatshirt and shorts. She began to examine herself. She noticed that there were holes in her arms and she noticed a single jack in her forearm. She pulled it out staring at the grafted outlet. She reached up to feel her head, it was slightly fuzzy like someone had shaved her head. Her fingers explored her skull until she found a huge socket in the back of her neck. She started to panic and at that moment Archer walked through the door.

"What has happened to me? What is this place?" T'Pol demanded to know.

"More important is when?" He said.

"When?" T'Pol was now even more confused.

"You believe it is the year 2166 when in fact it is closer to 2366. I can't say for certain what year it is because we honestly do not know." Archer explained.

She felt like the wind had been knocked out of her.

"That is not possible." She shook her head in disbelief.

"I promised you the truth, T'Pol, and truth is that the galaxy you are living in is one big lie."

"How?"

"I'll show you."

T'Pol followed Archer out of her quarters and like a lost child, she followed him through the ship. Finally they reached the main deck where they were greeted by all of Archer's crew

"This is the bridge, you know most of my crew."

Tripp smiled looked towards T'Pol and nodded in acknowledgment.

"The ones you don't know. That is Malcolm and Travis.. The mother and son team are Beverly and Wesley."

The names and faces washed meaninglessly over T'Pol.

"And this is our communications channel. This is were we broadcast our pirate signal and hack into planet Matrix." Archer said.

She looked at the swamp of consoles and bizarre equipment. Vines of coaxial circled the bridge and stabbed into battery outlets, dilithium crystals suspended in containers all hooked up to one power source to keep the ship running. At the center of the bridge she saw three chairs which looked like ecto skeletons that were made of a poly alloy frame and each had a suspension harness attached. Near the chairs was a remote console where the whole network was monitored.

"Help her, Tripp." Archer said as he gave the order for his assistance.

She allowed herself to be helped into the center chair by him. Archer was now at her side as he spoke into her ear.

"Do you remember when I asked you about holographic technology?"

T'Pol nodded.

"It's right here."

He touched her head.

"And it's accessed here."

She felt him guiding a small plug to the back of her neck. She that it had some sort of cerebellum chip attached.

"Now this is going to feel a little ... weird." Archer told her.

She tensed up as several disturbing noises were made. Her eyes closed tightly. Her face tightened and her pointed ears popped. Finally she relaxed. She opened her eyes again and she felt weightless in this white open space. There was nothing.

"This is the construct." Archer told her.

She whipped around surprised to see Archer who was now standing in front of her.

"It is our loading program. We can load anything from clothes, to weapons, to training simulations. Anything we need." Archer said.

He walked past her and when she turned she saw two red velvet chairs like the ones from the hotel set up in front of a large view screen with flashing lights.

"Sit down." Archer told her.

She stood at the back of her chair while Archer took his seat.

"Right now we are inside a computer program?" She asked him.

"Pretty wild, isn't it?"

T'Pol ran her hands over the soft velvet and shook her head.

"This is not real?" She asked as she looked at him.

Archer turned to the screen.

"Computer, show San Francisco circa 2166."

The screen showed San Francisco in the time she knew it.

"What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about your senses, what you feel, what you taste, smell, or even see, then what you are talking about are the electrical signals that are sent to your brain."

They looked toward the screen showing present day San Francisco.

"This is the San Francisco that you know. San Francisco as it was in the middle of the 22nd century. This San Francisco only exists as a part of a neural-interactive simulation on a machine planet that we call the Matrix."

The screen started to change as he continued to speak.

"You have been living inside an illusion, inside the map, not the territory. This is the San Francisco that exists today."

She saw the sky as an endless sea of black and green bile. It was scortched and it smelled of burnt flesh. The scene spread out from the screen until they were both standing in the wasteland.

"This is the universe now." Archer said.

She looked and saw stars exploding, whole planets being destroyed until there was nothing left. All major cities on every planet in the Federation looked like blackened ribs from a long-dead corpse.

"We are right now, on breathable and liveable M-class planet miles away from earth. It is the only place were humanoids of every species can survive away from planet Matrix."

"T'Pol felt dizzy. She looked up at Archer.

"What happened?" She asked him.

"It happened in the mid 22nd century. Artificial intelligence was all over the galaxy. Finally they became a singular consciousness, that spawned an entire race of machines. Even the borg could not stop them in time."

She looked at his sunglasses and saw clouds forming.

"At first they wanted to be treated as equals, entitled to the same rights as any humaniod, Whatever they were given, it was not enough."

She continue to look at the reflection in his sunglasses as explosions erupted in the reflections.

"We don't know who struck first. Us or them. But sometime in the middle of the 22nd century, the battle was joined."

She continued to see the war in his shades as it unfolded.

"This war raged for generations and turned the face of galaxy from bright and hopeful to eternal darkness."

She then saw the sentinels in his glasses, they were octopus like machines that wiped out Borg, Romulans, Klingons, Andorians, Vulcans and even Orions. They didn't care what alien race their targets were. They were programmed to kill anything that even resembled a humaniod. Blood of all colors splattered across the field as she watched in horror.

"It scorched and burned our solar systems. Without the suns, the machines sought out a new energy source to survive." Archer said.

She continued to look at the scene in disbelief above her. She could not believe what she was seeing or even what she was hearing.

"They discovered a new form of fusion. All that is required to initiate the reaction was a small electric charge. Throughout history, every race in this galaxy has been dependant on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony."

The scene changed to what looked like a field of cocoons. Every alien race that she could imagine was sleeping peacefully in their gelatin fill sleep chambers.

"An organic being can generate more bio-electricity than a warp core at full power which is equivalent to a 120 volt battery and over 25,000 B.T.U.s of body heat."

The scene now switched to where they were inside of the fields. She continued to look around in shock and in horror. She still could not believe her eyes.

"We are an energy source, easily renewable and completely recyclable, the dead liquified and fed to the living."

She continued to watch as the pods were being harvested like crops by the machines.

"All they needed to control this new battery was something to control the mind."

The scene changed to an alien fetus, it's skull was already growing a brain jack. T'Pol felt like she was going to be sick at the sight.

"So they built a prison out of our past, wired it to our brains and made us all slaves."

They were now back in the white room with only the chairs and the view screen. T'Pol shook her head.

"I do not believe it! It is not possible! It is not logical!"

"I didn't say it would be easy T'Pol. I just said it would be the truth."

T'Pol felt like a caged animal looking for a way out.

"Stop! Let me out! I want out!" She screamed.

She thrashed in her chair and her eyes snapped open, she was back on the bridge. She tried to rip the cable from the back of her neck.

"Get this thing out of me!" She screamed again.

"Easy, T'Pol! Easy!" Tripp said as he tried to console her.

Wesley held her down as Tripp unplugged her. She fell to the floor and tried to get away from the crew.

"Don't touch me! Get away from me!" She had sounded like a wounded animal as she screamed at them.

She was on her hands and knees the room spun around her. Sweat poured off of her as she leaned on all fours. Pressure built up inside of her skull like her head was about to explode.

"She's gonna pop." Hoshi said.

And then it happened, T'Pol lurched forward and threw up violently into the grating of the bridge and then she blacked out once more.