Reason looked up into the eyes of the agent holding her and felt the first brush of real fear. Furious with herself for the weakness, angry at them for causing it, she struggled and fought free. She spun on her heels to face them, felt the fury build into something she could use, and it was good, it was amazing, this feeling, the fury, she could do anything she wanted in this moment, nothing they could do to stop her, nothing anyone could do. She stood and dared them to fight her, wanted them to try. They stood and stared back, they hadn't moved but something in the way they stood, a certain solidifying of their stance suggested that they were prepared for whatever she could throw at them.
********************
On the Neb, carefully monitoring the long traces of green code that represented everything on the matrix wise, Trank swore loudly.
"What the-?!"
Running at right-angles to the ever-moving code, a shock wave rippled through it all.
He'd never seen anything like it before.
Where it had been, things were different.
**********************
It was more than just a pain in her head now, it was like a physical blow, she felt as though she'd just been poleaxed, and she slumped sideways where she stood, and fell. The pain was like nothing else and yet too much like that which she remembered from before, dying and broken, separated in both cases from that which made her herself. She screamed and the sound echoed out through the whole mainframe. If she had been in any condition to see she would have seen the agents reel for a second as they felt it, a palpable force spreading throughout the whole of the Matrix. And all over the virtual world those with the potential for seeing it as it is were struck down, reeling as if from a blow. Across the city, far from where the girl Reason now slumped, Trinity staggered, uncertain in her stance and movements yet still unknowing of that which caused the change. And beside her Neo swayed as he stood and tilted his head as though listening to something. Which he was in fact doing.
*************************
Blearily the girl shook her head and peered about her. She couldn't anything much, just a sort of blackish greenish mist which made her head ache when she tried to look at it too closely. She held out a hand in front of her face and stared at it abstractly, turning it this way and that as she watched the green mist writhe through it as if it wasn't even there. A noise, alien seeming in this strange environment, alerted her to a foreign presence and she looked up. And blinked as her eyes met with the eyes of another - person. Almost painfully clear and crystalline, two eyes like deep sapphire stared back at her before turning away as if they found her of far less importance than the swirling mists. The eyes were attached to a head in a fairly orthodox fashion, and of course a body also, which was wearing a suit. The girl wondered whether to say anything to the mysterious figure in front of her, but a lifetime's experience of being, well, her warned her not to. He'd turned away for a reason, it said. Frowning, the girl turned the word over and over in her mind. Reason. Why did such a simple word feel so odd? After all, wasn't ... it ... her ... name? But no, it wasn't, was it? Her name was Elizabeth Stuward, and. A huge wall of blackness towered above her in her mind as she followed the logical train of thought. She was dead. Dead. The idea was simply too ridiculous to contemplate. She began to laugh, the sound whipping away into the thin nothingness of this place.
As the first sound broke free from her semi-hysterical shaking, the strange figure turned abruptly. He was male, and as he looked down at where the girl sat his upper lip curled in a sneer as if he smelt something unpleasant. He strode over to her, grabbed her roughly by her arms and jerked her upright. She gaped at him, shocked, all hysterics abruptly ceased as she looked into his face.
"Be quiet or I'll shoot you." His tone of voice held no emotion, but even in her current state Bet could see that he was only too capable of carrying the threat out. She frowned at him. His features were familiar, weren't they, or was it just that he had one of those faces which seem to be familiar to everyone. Generic, that was the word. Or manufactured. She looked up at him again, trying to see past the iciness of his eyes to the person within, and he looked away, dropping her arm as if it burned him.
He turned to stare as if engrossed at the green mist. Curiously Bet squinted at the mist, gapping as uncertain swirls of it changed and moved under her gaze, at some times appearing almost solid, other time flowing like water. Unthinking she reached out to it and it seemed to shrink back from her fingers. Fascinated she played with it like this for a little while, before asking the ultimate question, the question that has plagued mankind for centuries.
"What the hell is this stuff?"
"Code." The man didn't look up as he spoke to her, but he was the only other person there, so Bet reasoned he must have answered. "It's the code to the Matrix." Bet felt rather than heard the Capital letters slip into place on that one word, that one significant concept. She tried to think about it, truly she did, but her brain just seemed to shy away from it, like the death thing really, just too big for her to fully comprehend. She tried anyway.
"What are you doing with it?" Again he didn't move as he answered.
"I am trying to find anomalies which would tell me what they are trying to do with ... us. But I cannot continue if you do not cease this incessant questioning."
"Oh. Right." Bet sighed quietly and stared into the green mist intently. Anomalies, he said. So what would an anomaly look like anyway? Different from everything else, right. But each different bit of the mist looks different to the other bits, so an anomaly could be a bit that looks the same as another bit. Pleased with her reasoning Bet began to attempt to methodically search the mist for similar ... bits.
"Hey! I found one!" Bet's excited shouting sounded oddly muted in the strange non-place, kind of thin and empty. The besuited figure turned sharply at this, but Bet was too engrossed to notice.
"Look, this bit here," she gestured at a particularly curly bit of mist. "Looks just like this one. And I'd swear they're getting more similar all the time."
He stared over her shoulder and she once more tried to search his face for any sort of reaction. He showed none.
He looked at her.
"DO you have a mobile phone, laptop computer or any other kind of digital technology about your person?"
"Huh?"
"I said, do you have-"
"Uh, no, no I don't think so." Staring at him intently Bet wondered if she couldn't spot just a teensy little smidgeon of disappointment in his expression. Suddenly realising that she must look pretty dumb squinting at this strange guy with the suit, she changed her expression to one of mildly concussed surprise. "Uhm, why would you need one?"
"They're attempting to separate our different codes. If they are unsuccessful the two codes will be damaged beyond repair."
"Oh." Bet peered forlornly at the strange twisty 'anomalous' misty bits. "That's bad, is it?"
He turned a look onto her reminiscent of a particularly sadistic maths teacher. "Yes, 'that's bad'. In fact, it couldn't possibly be any worse. That's bad doesn't even come close to where we are now. In fact, we passed that's bad quite a while ago and are now accelerating at an exponential rate into-" He stopped ranting for a second, turned and poked the offending mist accusingly.
"That was my program corrupting." Bet did the bewildered thing again.
"Sounded like sarcasm to me." He ignored her, still glaring furiously at the mist.
"So, uhm, what's that bit doing? Only it looks a bit-"
**********************************
"-strange". Bet blinked as harsh white fluorescent light flooded her world, wiping away all traces of the soft pleasant green from before. She sat up. Okay, sheets. That meant a bed. Fluorescent meant it wasn't her flat, and probably meant hospital. Strange dreams about getting shot and talking to people in suits about mist, and a really cute guy trying to kill her probably meant the Psychiatric Ward, which meant...
She scrambled out of the bed and blinked around. Several more beds lay next to hers, all surrounded by the same odd looking monitoring equipment. At least, that's what she assumed it was.
Some of the other beds were occupied.
A sudden jab of strangely localised headache occurred directly above and behind her left ear made her flinch and yelp quietly, and one of the occupants of the other beds sat up sharply.
It was the guy with the suit from her dream.
He stepped down onto the floor and adjusted his suit, then looked over at her. A lightly puzzled frown crossed his features for a second, and he reached into a pocket in the suit jacket.
And.
Pulled.
Out.
A.
Gun.
In seeming slow motion Bet watched him draw it out and point it at her. She wondered if she had time to run, then chided herself for her ridiculousness. Of course you don't. You can't outrun bullets, after all.
There was a click.
Bet sighed. Surprisingly she felt very calm about her impending doom.
The man in front of her spun around as if on a turntable, allowing Bet a clear view of what lay beyond him.
Another guy, in another suit. Same slicked down hair, 'generic' appearance and very similar features. He drew up his lips in what seemed a very familiar sneer.
"Stand down Agent Smith and prepare for decompilation." The new guy smirked at the other one, who Bet presumed, was Agent Smith.
"Where are Jones and Brown?" Agent Smith looked vaguely puzzled and perhaps a touch put out. Somehow, Bet had expected a furious explosion, but this was just - exceptance.
"Your question is unnecessary. You will be decompiled. The human is to be eliminated, and Jones and Brown are not involved at any point."
Smith glared at him, then turned so that his gun was pointed at the other agent. Who raised his eyebrows in a condescending manner. "I wouldn't bother, if I were you. There have been a number of upgrades issued to newer models such as myself." His manner became almost unbearable as he smiled unpleasantly. "You're obsolete, Smith."
He raised the gun again, and fired. Smith dodged it with insolent ease, not even bothering to move his feet as his body twisted like a hug cat.
Bet watched the bullet streak towards her, when a sudden thought occurred to her. Something so big, so mind boggling that she almost forgot about the bullet.
She was already dead.
She was dead. Dead dead dead, deceased, extinct, and entirely, well, dead.
And you can't kill someone who's already dead.
*********************
There you go, sorry for the shortness and the writer's block, I promise another chapter soon.
Enjoy the matrixy goodness!
Incidentally, the sequel comes out in the USA on May15 2003, the matrix reloaded. There's this totally ace site, www.whatisthematrix.com that has release dates and stuff on it. And games. Wow.
Thankyou to all you wonderful reviewing people, I WILL be replying in the next chapter, which WON'T take me three months to write.
Honest.