THE LUCIFER OPTION
Nine months ago, I finished writing a story called A Mad Mad World. This is kind of a sequel. (Please don't let me scare you away…I think you can survive without reading it for this story. And anyways, if I made you read it, that would be mean.)
All you need to know is this:
An alternate universe happened somewhere between the first movie and the second. And Trinity's gone bananas. Neo is crushed, if there is even a Neo. What did they do to her to make her doubt her own boyfriend exists?
Specifically…who are they?
Prologue
She was naked, she was cold, but this time around she knew what was coming. That was what made this birth different from her other. Still, goosebumps prickled her milky skin, and her muscles felt weak from weeks of confinement, although not, this time, completely unusable.
So Trinity treaded water patiently, calm exterior belying the pit of excitement in her stomach. And now instead of panicking, she waited--- just floating. The water numbed her skin and slowed her nerves. Tiny bits of mucous residue would pass by and over her, giving the sensation that the dark pool was not a waste dump but a dank ocean filled with toxic, active fish.
This time she had time for observation. The last time she'd been in here, she'd freaked. Now, of course, she knew what was going to happen, and that took the fear away. Knew it beneath the veneer of exhilaration that occupied her mind, beneath the bubble that burst later.
And it did happen. As before, a circle of light appeared above her. Trinity smiled. The mechanical claw dropped down, and she grabbed onto it eagerly, reaching up towards the hole like a baby would. She was out of the water, again.
Then, ten minutes later, she realized something that sucked the fun out of the whole situation.
I never quite got how small the Nebuchadnezzar is, before. Every space … just large enough for whatever needs to happen there, and that's it. It's basically a tin can full of people. We're sardines. It's just like that, isn't it? (Isn't it?)
Or…
Or, was it bigger before.
You know, you know, I think it was bigger. I think that the walls didn't used to swallow me like this. They didn't used to close in on me at night. But maybe that's just me.
And they were simpler too. They weren't filled with tubes and shit, right? There was space?---
Oh! Oh, I'm imagining that. Shut your eyes, Trinity. Trinity, shut them. Breathe. In, out. In. Out. Okay. The walls did NOT just…grow because I wanted them to. They didn't. They can't. This is real and real things don't grow like that, they don't grow because you asked them to. This is real. This is real this is real this is real this is real is this real is this real…
Jesus! What am I doing! Why do I think I need to say that? Ade--- Trinity---you can just stop that voiceYou can. Do it. Right now. Replace it with--- Replace it with I know that I'm not hallucinating! I know that I'm not somewhere else dreaming of something I never experienced! And I know I'm not some schizo because….
because…
God damn it. I forgot.
I forgot that I know what the answer is, and it's not an answer at all, because it's "I don't." And that, see, that is their best mindfuck of them all. The machines did their job well, didn't they. See, whatever I find that I think proves it, that thing could just—be—something—inside—my—crazy--head.
I bet you're wondering, how I got this way? What do they do to Trinity to make her like this? And that's the best part of it all; it's that I don't know. I don't know, I don't know, how do they expect me to know…
If Morpheus were inside my head, I imagine that this is how he would say it. He after all is much better with words than I am.
"A month ago something happened. We are still not clear on what, exactly, did. Certainly, our Trinity was taken from here, and replaced with someone much loopier. But two stories have emerged as to how she got that way. So, therefore, we are also not clear on what exactly did the taking.
Here is Scenario 1.
The only person the One ever loved was kidnapped. Our ship was attacked and she was reinserted into the Matrix, where the machines placed her self-image in a mental hospital. She awoke to find a program of her parents standing over her. They told her that she was a paranoid schizophrenic—that anything except their world was a delusion. They told her that she hadn't been living in the Real World for ten years--- that in fact she had gone over the bend as a teenager, and that there never was a Matrix. We found her and brought her home, but the machines did do a successful job of readjusting her mind, enough so that she can't truly believe the world now around her is real. Horrible.
Or…Scenario 2.
Adele Serena Dubois woke up a month ago, when they thought she would never recover. Nobody at the hospital was positive why; all they knew was that it was nearly a medical miracle. She lived in the real world for several weeks, superficially successfully. Unfortunately, despite heavy medication, her mind did insist on clinging to a fantasy which it had built ten years ago; a fantasy that made her special, a fantasy that created another, "more Real", world for her to live in. She nearly jumped out a thirty-story window to prove this fantasy and died… had she not imagined that her fictional boyfriend came to save her. Thus she fully immersed herself into her dream once more. But now she has experienced the real world once, so there is a chance she may leave her delusions again. I suspect she must choose to, however."
….
This is what I've come up with so far. And as I lie on this bed with a thousand needles in me, there isn't available data to prove it either way. Either the machines hacked me pretty well, or I hacked my own world. I should warn you that you will hear "either" a lot, if you keep reading.
I lie here and I imagine.
Opposing sides do battle in my head. Scenes start off as fantasies to keep me amused, to keep me from going nutsier. Then I drift off and they take off into dreams. Opposite worldviews: universes that cannot peacefully coexist. One cannot live without destroying the other. I indulge one. I flip to the other. Flip…flop. Flip…flop. I hurt different people every time I do it.
God, I'm good at that.
The truth is out there and I have to find it, but I'm not sure how, and if I choose wrong, someone else gets hurt in the process. If there even is someone else. Who am I even talking to?
Oh, lethal, classic Trinity. First they cripple you, then you cripple everyone else. With their minds.
And that's what really pisses me off…because it wasn't even a bullet.
Next chapter: What happens when Trinity leaves you?
And...um... I desperately need encouragement. Please? Hit the button and say something?
