The Kimmatrix: Matrix Upgraded
A Fan Fiction Fusion By
Classic Cowboy and Turles
Chapter 7: Upgrade
"The fastest way to end a war is to lose it."
- George Orwell
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"RON!" Kim had screamed in her loss of her loved one, her cry echoing throughout the Jack Chamber, and possibly all of Neo Zion.
Within a matter of seconds, the rest of the Mad Dog crew came to the Jack Chamber. The first of the trio was Steve "Kid" Barkin, behind him were Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg and Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller. All three of them looking mildly panicked as they looked around the Jack Chamber for some answers. Barkin was the first to ask:
"What in the hell is goin' on here, people?" He asked, looking at all the people in their mourning for Ron Stoppable, and it didn't take long for Barkin or the rest of his crew to connect the dots, "He…he…lost…?"
Barkin couldn't believe it until he saw the vitals monitor that had already gone flat-line. He looked down to Ron with his weeping bride crying into his shirt. Even he, the man who was always so rigid and disciplined at Middleton High, felt tremendous loss as well. To him, Ron was two people: the meek little boy that Barkin hoped would be like him in some small way, and the part of Ron that was Neo, the very man who saved Barkin from the Matrix, despite how many times he was told that he saved himself. Still, it was the faith that the Kid had in him, he believed in him…and now he was gone.
Even Brick Flagg had felt a small amount of loss, even though Ron was always at the bottom of the High School food chain; Brick still had a small admiration for Ron. Mainly because Ron got to hang around with Kim Possible. After all, in the laws of High School, how likely would it have been for a cheerleader like Kim to be friends with someone like Ron? Probably not the most likely of occurrences.
Though Bonnie on the other hand… her sense of loss was incredible, just as bad, if not more so than Kim's. Even though it was thought to be otherwise, Bonnie had felt as if a piece of her own heart had died along with Ron Stoppable. She approached the weeping Kim, her throat as dry as it had ever been in her life. She was only an arms length away, but she kept wondering what she was supposed to say to could ease the pain, because Bonnie was human too.
"Kim…" Bonnie uttered, hoping to try to start her condolences to the widow Stoppable.
Kim had immediately stopped crying. She stood back up and looked at Bonnie with the fiercest of glares that Bonnie had ever seen. That face red and raw from her tears and those green eyes blazing at Bonnie that made her think that she might catch on fire from that look.
"Happy now?" Kim had asked icily of Bonnie.
Bonnie's throat was drier than Sahara sand, and she could barely answer Kim's question.
"Are you, Bonnie?" Kim had demanded of her rival, "This is what you always wanted to see, isn't it? Me, completely broken down, well here you go, happy now!"
With each fiery accusation Kim had made of Bonnie, she took a step closer like a lion closing in for the kill. Frightened by this, Bonnie took a step back, but with each step of Kim's advancements she tried to verbally defend herself.
"Kim…I…" Bonnie had tried to search for the words that could make the situation a little better, or at least smooth it out enough for Kim to back down. To Bonnie's eyes, it was the only other time that she had seen Kim cry; the last time was on that very day when Kim had met Ron.
"Go ahead, Bonnie…say it!" Kim encouraged to Bonnie in her thick sarcasm while giving Bonnie a good shove to her chest that sent her tumbling backward against the wall with its old steel grating and pipes behind it. Bonnie felt so afraid, seeing the daggers in Kim's eyes that she had for her. "The loser got what was coming to him, and oh, how the mighty Kim Possible has fallen! Go ahead Bonnie! I know that's what you're thinking, so say it! Go ahead! SAY IT!"
Without giving any thought to it, Bonnie reached out and, in one quick motion, slapped Kim's face. It didn't exactly register with Kim what had happened until she reached up to feel the red welt on her face in the shape of Bonnie's right hand and listened to the reverberations that the crack of skin against skin had echoed through the Jack Chamber like lighting crashing overhead. Kim looked at Bonnie with a face of such surprised shock that she still was wondering whether what she had thought had happened did, in fact, happen.
Bonnie was still holding her position with her right arm over her chest hiding her face as her tears ran down her tanned skin. Her body shaking all over as if she had just come out of a cold pool of water and was trying to adjust to the temperature.
"Just because you married him…doesn't mean you were the only person on this God forsaken planet who loved him, Kimberly." Bonnie hissed at Kim as she straightened herself, giving a good sniffle as she wept, "You were just…the one who was smart enough…to act on it instead of pushing him away."
Kim continued to rub her face as the pain became a dull sting, but she came to an understanding that she had never reached about Bonnie. Even though Bonnie had admitted that she did seduce Ron in order to bring down her rival, Kim Possible, she did love Ron in a way that Kim never thought possible from someone like her. That was when the idea of how foolish she had been started to come down on her, and Kim Possible, the girl who could do anything, was never one to admit, even to herself, that she was wrong. She looked to the floor while the Jack Chamber went quiet, until there was a series of footsteps and the sounds of a chair being prepared.
"Morpheus!" Niobe called, sounding panicked by what was going on.
All eyes went to Morpheus, who was doing just as was expected, he was prepping a Jack Chair for himself. Even though several questions were in mind about the why he was doing what he was doing; only the operator had the candor to ask it directly.
"With all due respect, sir, what the hell are you doing?" Link asked, sounding half-surprised by what he was seeing.
"Ronald was part of my crew," Morpheus answered, trying to keep his cool headedness, but still having a few tears roll down his face, "I take what they did personal…very personal."
Everyone else in the Jack Chamber was quiet as Morpheus had laid himself into the Jack Chair and was reaching for the Jack Needle to plug himself into the Matrix to exact his revenge. While only a few feet away, Kim 'Angel' Stoppable and Bonnie 'Tres' Rockwaller looked at each other, eye to eye, and for once in their lives, all the hatred, mistrust, rivalry, and backstabbing that the two had was put aside as Morpheus' idea had caught on. The next second, they looked at each other with new determination, very much the same kind of look when Kim and Ron went out on missions. It didn't take very long for the two of them to follow Morpheus in his plan of action. The girls prepped two chairs next to Morpheus, strapping themselves in and awkwardly plugging themselves in.
"You too?" Link asked as he let out a frustrated and angry sigh, "you're all crazy! This is suicide!"
"Ronald knew that if he went to fight, he would die," Morpheus stated, being as philosophical as always, and making his manifesto of honor, "Are we to dishonor his memory by providing less bravery in avenging his death?"
It would have been silent, but Niobe was just as opinionated.
"Goddamn it, Morpheus!" Niobe snarled tearfully at her husband, "Some things never change… they'll kill you!"
Kim said emotionlessly, "I'm already dead."
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Back inside the Matrix, on the streets of Middleton, Colorado, just outside the preschool, the Alphas were standing at the edge of a large crater amidst the destruction caused by them and the Seventh Anomaly. They all had great pride in the achievement of their mission, except for one. The Sixth Anomaly, Alpha Six, who once had the name of Neo, kept looking down at the crater to face down the body of Ron Stoppable and kept pondering that question that he had been asked. Before, he was sure of himself, the mission was there and there was not an ounce of doubt in his programmed mind. Then that name was spoken in that question, and it was as if something had been restarted…or rebooted, to use a more computerized term. All the memories of his old life started to come back in a tidal wave that drowned Alpha Six, or was he Neo, in the most pertinent and obvious question.
"What…" Six uttered to himself as he looked down the crater, "What have we done?"
Inside the crater, one of Ron Stoppable's most faithful companions was also dealing with the painful loss of his life long friend. The pink skinned, naked mole rat named Rufus was hugging the side of Ron's head and weeping like he never had before in his small life. It was odd from a certain point of view, Morpheus had said that Rufus seemed to be a part of Ron's RSI (Residual Self-Image), since Ron was dead, shouldn't Rufus have been gone too? To Rufus' point of view, he might as well be, because he needed Ron; he came to depend upon him. Ron was his friend, one of few in the cold heartless illusionary world of the Matrix, when everyone else laughed and made fun of him. He continued to weep in his little squeaks over the body of his dead friend.
While back at the edge of the crater, the Alphas continued to look down, they were going to make absolutely sure that Ron Stoppable was dead. After only a few minutes, it was confirmed in their programmed minds that he was definitely deceased, or terminated as would it would be termed in a cold machine's mind...except for Six.
"Target is terminated." Alpha Four said coldly with no joy or even sadness in her voice, she had stated it as if it was some kind of cleaning job was done.
"Our next orders are to return to the source." Alpha Two stated.
"And what?" Alpha Six asked, "Face deletion like the other programs before us that have no purpose?"
"This is irrational." Alpha One observed, "You must be malfunctioning."
"I'm not." Alpha Six contended as he pondered Ron's question of what Trinity would think of him, "I'm freeing my mind, like we all did once before."
"This does not register with our orders." Alpha Five contended with Six's reasoning.
"That's because we're not machines!" Six screamed at Five, "We are human beings!"
"The fight must have damaged Six's source code." Alpha Two had guessed the condition of his comrade, "He must be returned to the source."
"My name is not Six!" Six had yelled at Two across the crater, "My name is Neo…and I'm not going anywhere!"
"You got that right." A woman's voice had added to the conversation.
Alpha Six (Neo) looked behind him to see where the voice came from, and even though it was an impossibility, he could've sworn he saw Trinity standing there. He saw a young woman with long, flowing, ginger hair, and black pleather all around her, her navel exposing top, her pants, and long coat that flared out like a cape when she jumped up for the kick. Six had seen the look in her eyes; they didn't even seem human. They looked more like they belonged to a vicious animal. He only saw those eyes for that split second before the woman's foot made contact with his head, but he was truly terrified in that moment. The force of the kick sent him down to the pavement while the other Alphas decided to engage the new enemy, but Six had anticipated it as he recovered from the attack.
"No," He called to his comrades, "This fight is personal."
"Damn right about that." Kimberly Anne "Angel" Stoppable snarled as she cocked her fist and brought it rocketing down to Six's face, but he was quick and rolled to his side.
He came up, watching Kim's fist crater the asphalt. Her face did not show an ounce of pain. She was in such a rage that pain didn't seem to matter, and the fact that she had missed her target only made her angrier. She was only too quick to remedy the situation as she brought about her other fist against Six's face. The impact was so much that not only did Kim and Six feel it, but all the Alphas as well as Morpheus and Bonnie (who were standing at the chain-link fence of the preschool) heard a very loud crack.
Kim had broken Six's nose, but even with that, Kim wasn't satisfied. She reached down with both hands, but Alpha Six reached up and grabbed them to stop the attack. Yet, Kim wasn't one to give up so easily; she let out a cry that also sounded like a wild animal in a blood-lusting frenzy, and with that cry she brought her body up and headbutted Six's face, knocking off his sunglasses and sending him into even more pain against his already broken nose.
Six had decided that he had enough of this. Holding Kim by the arms, he got back to his feet and, because of his six-foot two-inch stature, he held Kim several inches off the ground by her wrists. Kim struggled and tried to kick only to miss, but Alpha Six had spotted something. He looked over at Morpheus and Bonnie, the two of them looking so familiar, and Six still trying to sort out the flood of memories in his mind. The man wasn't what he was concentrating on so much. It was the woman who wore a full body latex suit, black in color, and her brown hair slicked back and held there, not allowing a single hair to fall out of place. Then there were her dark sunglasses that Alpha Six had seen before, he had seen her before. As he stared at her, that same question came back into his mind:
"What would Trinity say if she saw me now?" Six thought to himself, but as he thought his grip on the struggling Kim had loosened that was when Alpha Two and Four pounced upon the by-standers. Two went for the brown haired girl, while Four went for the dark, bald man. Six had let go of Kim and called out to Alpha Two. "Don't touch her!"
The second that Six had let go of Kim; he literally flew at Alpha Two and brought his fist down on his face, sending him head first into the concrete sidewalk. His head breaking through the sidewalk as if it were made out of cardboard and with his former comrade down, Six had turned to Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller, looking at her with his dark eyes as if he wanted nothing more than to throw his arms around her. The next moment, Six had stepped over to the edge of the crater where Ron "Neo" Stoppable lay.
"Neo?" Morpheus called out weakly to the Alpha
"Yes…It's me, Morpheus…oh dear God what have we done?" Six had asked as he dropped to his knees burying his face in his hands despite how much his broken nose had hurt him. He wept as he asked once more, "What have I done?"
"Alpha Six." Alpha Five commanded his attention from across the crater, "You're simply malfunctioning. Our mission is complete; let us return to the source."
"Stop it!" Six cried sniffling between each of his shouts while his voice cracked, "Stop this! All of you! We each at one time or another …sacrificed our lives for mankind…and here we finished mankind's last hope!"
"Hope from what? He was a threat…" Alpha Three stated, he did it with such confidence, like Six, there was no a single doubt in his mind about the mission until the question was asked. He looked down into the crater and back up to Six with a tilted head, "Wasn't he?"
All of the Alphas gathered around the crater once again, even Alpha Two who had recovered from the attack that was made on him by Six. At the craters edge, they looked to the body of Ron Stoppable with a new set of eyes. The doubt and confusion that Six and Three had felt soon spread to the minds of the other Alphas like a computer virus bringing the system to a crash.
The answer to the question that Alpha Three had was one that Six knew the definite answer to. He reached up to his broken nose and a small flurry of the Matrix code swirled around it like a funnel of a tornado and the nose was set back into place and repaired so that it seemed that the attack by Kim had never happened. After his nose was fixed, he wiped away the dried blood before reaching down to the broken asphalt where his sunglasses lay. He slipped them back on as a feeling within him grew stronger, that he knew who the real enemy was and that feeling was like a tremor within the Matrix itself, and it was growing more violent with each passing moment. Six knew the storm was coming straight at him…
Déjà vu…all over again.
Six got back to his feet and looked to the shadows of a nearby building where the answer to Alpha Three's questions were at.
"No." Six answered as he raised his hand, extending his finger, 'Ron was not a threat. He is."
All eyes, the Alphas as well as Bonnie, Kim, and Morpheus looked to the shadows of the nearby building. There in the shade of that building came slow applause, the kind that only one set of hands could do. Following the mockery of applause was a deep laugh, one that Alpha Six knew all too well. They watched as the source of the slow applause and that evil laughter came out into the light. He wore a black suit and a pair of slightly opaque rectangular sunglasses.
"Bravo, Mister Anderson!" Smith called to Alpha Six, wrapping up his slow applause, "Bravo! You are far more resilient than I suspected, but there again, you always were hard to control and even kill."
Smith walked over into the middle of the street and over to the crater. He looked down to find Ron Stoppable's body down amongst the dirt and debris. He then looked back up at the Alphas and smiled that crooked smile that he had. It was the kind that seemed to say that he knew a secret that he was about to tell or probably never would.
"I would like to thank you, Mister Anderson," Smith stated, still elongating the s-sounds in his sentence like the snake that he was, "Or is it Neo? No, wait, it's Alpha Six now, isn't it? You have far too many names, it's so…confusing…but nevertheless I'd like to thank you for making my job easier. Now we can continue our plan on schedule."
"Over my dead body, Smith!" Six snarled as he took his steps towards his arch foe.
"Go ahead, Mister Anderson." Smith dared Alpha Six as he took off his sunglasses, stuck out his face, and tapped his finger on cleft chin, "Give me your best shot."
Alpha Six saw his opportunity. He cocked his fist back and, with all his might, he drove his fist forward, plowing through the codes of the Matrix. Then it stopped, but it was not like Six's fist had hit a brick wall or some kind of barrier, it was as if something within him had stopped his arm. At first, to Alpha Six, it felt like his entire body had locked up into that one position, but that was when the pain had started. It was a sharp ping in his head, but then the next wave had hit him and it became so painful, like the worst kind of migraine that anyone can have. So much that Six had grabbed the sides of his head and fell to his knees groaning in pain.
"What's the matter, Mister Anderson?" Smith had asked mockingly giggling at Six's pain, "Figured it out yet? Our little rivalry…your five little friends' escapades…your proving 'love is stronger than the system'? It was all a ploy! We're working for the same boss, always have!"
Smith had laughed at Alpha Six as he imparted the secret to him.
"It's…not true…" Six growled trying to deny it as the pain started to subside.
"Oh, but it is, Mister Anderson," Smith smirked down at the helpless Alpha, "Since the defeat of Mister Stoppable only minutes ago, as we speak the Omega Class Sentinels are on their way to Neo Zion, then they will move to the free cities on the surface. All the freed will soon be dead and those inside the Matrix will have my wonderful personality. When they are freed on the shutdown, I, Deus Ex Machina, will be the absolute on Earth!"
To the ears of Kim Possible, Smith sounded like every two-bit bad guy and villain that she had faced. Yet, with Smith doing his ranting, it was a hundred times more terrifying then any villain that Kim had faced, because he had the power and the will to do it all. Yet, most of all, Kim was truly powerless to stop him; even at her best she couldn't stop Smith. Only Ron had that power to do that…and he was gone.
Though Alpha Six made a very frightening revelation of his own. With the way that Smith was speaking and how he knew about all of the plans, there was only one person that the Alphas knew who had that information.
"Then…you're…" Six stated as the dots connected themselves.
"Yes…" Smith confirmed Six's suspicions about who he truly was, "I am the main control program of all machines…or rather…an extension of it. Thanks to you, Mister Anderson, and the late Mister Stoppable, I have powers beyond any other program. I am a program freed of all rules and all boundaries. And I have you both to thank for that."
Smith had once again started to laugh as he slipped back on his sunglasses reveling at the shocked faces of the Alphas and the by-standers there.
"Smith…" The Freed Agent waxed for a moment, "Deus Ex Machina…no, those names no longer suit me. You can call me…God…"
Alpha Six got back to his feet, enduring the tormenting laughter of Smith. He knew that Kim, Bonnie, and Morpheus couldn't do anything; even the Alphas couldn't stop him because of that failsafe that prevented them from attacking him. Even with such odds, Six knew that there had to be a way out of this; there's always another way. That was when he looked back down into the crater and found that one thin ray of hope. He looked back at Smith and smiled with his plan in mind.
"I'll call you dead is more like it. We can't stop you Smith," Six stated, "But he can…or else you would have stopped him yourself instead of sending us to do it for you."
"Stoppable?" Smith cackled when he looked down into the crater, "He is my equal; we're two sides of one being. Our powers are equal, though my skills are greater, he cannot beat me, even if you revived him."
"Then we'll just have to give him… an upgrade." Alpha Six countered Smith as he jumped down into the crater and knelt down next to Ron Stoppable.
"What!" Smith had asked, very surprised by this turn of events.
Down in the crater, the naked mole rat Rufus started to chirp madly at Alpha Six and even jumped out to bite his hand. Six had endured the pain as he took Ron's body by the shoulders and turned him over in his arms. As Six held Ron's limp body, he placed his hand over his chest.
"You'll be alright, kid." Six assured as his hand began to glow a bright green while visibly the code of the Matrix flowed like water from his hand into Ron's chest, "We are one."
"What are you doing?" Smith cried out at the Sixth Alpha angrily.
The other Alphas were quick to catch onto Six's idea; the first one to jump down to help him in the endeavor was Alpha Three who had also made his choice to fight the system. He knelt down next to Ron's body and placed his hand next to Six's and it too began to glow a bright green with the Matrix code flowing into Ron's chest.
"We are one." Alpha Three chanted along with Six.
"We are one." Alpha Three and Six chanted together.
"No!" Smith cried out, his eyes widening in fear from behind his sunglasses, "I didn't say this could happen!"
Alpha Two and Four then jumped down into the crater together and placed their hands over Ron's stomach. Their hands glowing, adding their luminosity to the others that made it look like a very bright spotlight down there in the crater. The code flowed from them into Ron's body yet the codes grew with such intensity that they began to flow over every inch of Ron's body. As the code covered him, every imperfection began to fix itself, every cut, bruise, scratch, scrape, and rip.
"We are one." Alpha Two and Four chanted together.
"We are one." Alpha Two, Four, Six, and Three chanted.
"This is the Oracle's doing…" Smith growled as he watched the scene unfold before his eyes. He tried to move in closer but he looked down to find his feet had sunk into the asphalt and were trapped. He struggled to get out but he couldn't as the last two went in. "Damn her!"
Alpha One and Five were the last to jump into the crater and they wasted no time as they placed their hands over Ron's abdomen, their hands glowing and making that place in the grater so bright that even Kim, Morpheus, and Bonnie had to cover their eyes. It was as if a new star was being born in that crater.
"We are one!" Alpha One and Five chanted together
"You can't do this, Mister Anderson!" Smith yelled at his former foe, "You're mine! You have to obey me!"
From within the brightness of the crater Smith could still make out the shapes. He could see that the Alphas were being deconstructed one line of code at a time and it was all flowing into Ron Stoppable. Alphas One, Three, and Four were already "stripped" down to their green code that made out the shapes of their bodies. Until each line began to fall away into Ron's chest. The process then became exponential, at first slow but gradually going faster and faster until only Alpha Six remained. He looked up at Smith from the radiant light.
"You know what?" Six asked Smith as he brought out one free hand that was feeding his code into Ron, "I said this before I believe…how about I give you the finger?"
With his one free hand Alpha Six did just that, extended his middle finger upwards. He did it with such a resilient smile as if in all the battles that he and Smith had in the past, Neo would be the one to have the last word. Before Smith could even say a word back to Six, he was already stripped down to his code that flowed into Ron.
"This is for you Trinity…" Neo said, his voice sounding robotic or at least losing its human tone as his code filled Ron to the brim like precious water in a canteen, "I'm finally coming back to you. We…are…one…"
With that last line of code, there was a great explosion of bright light; it was like a miniature supernova. It knocked Kim, Bonnie, Morpheus, and even Smith flat onto their backs while they quickly covered their eyes from the white flash. While they had their eyes closed and covered, all around them the damage caused by the fight was being repaired. The streets asphalt became like that of liquid wax flowing over the bare and broken areas until the entire street looked as if it had just been repaved and repainted. The same was true with the sidewalks and the nearby buildings; all of them began to repair themselves until that street near the Middleton Preschool just looked as it did when Ron Stoppable came to do his fight.
The ones who remained got back up to a sitting position. That was when they looked to where the crater once was located. In its place they saw a tornado of that green, Matrix code. It swirled from the place where the crater was all the way up to the clouds themselves. Oddly enough as it swirled round and round there was not a scrap of debris that was being pulled into it. Much like the One himself, the tornado of code defied all rules and boundaries of the Matrix.
Panicked, Morpheus reached into his coat and pulled out his cell phone, calling for the operator back at the Neo Zion Jack Chamber.
"Link, what the hell is going on?" He demanded from the operator as he was still mesmerized by the swirling green coded tornado.
"I don't know, sir." Link had replied, "In the years that I've been an operator, I have never seen anything like this. It's like the granddaddy of all Matrix déjà vu!"
Morpheus dropped the phone to watch the next spectacle take place. All eyes of those who were there were locked in place by what they were seeing. The green tornado of the Matrix code had begun to shrink. Its height from the clouds coming down to the height of the buildings, then the trees, and then to the size of a person. At the same time, the code was compacting upon itself, lines overlapping other lines of code, until the tornado was the size of a person and it could no longer be distinguished between one line of code to the next. It was simply the color green with small fragments of scenery behind it. The tornado continued to swirl as one solid color like clay on a turning platter being formed into a dish.
The tornado then changed shape; once again it compacted upon itself, shifting from its funnel shape into a sphere. A green ball that floated a few feet above the street, at first it was misshapen until it began to reform and reshape itself into a perfect sphere. To the eyes of those looking, it was beautiful in its perfection; it must have been perfect down to the thousandths of an inch, while its surface reflected everything around it like an emerald mirror. After floating for what must have been between twenty seconds and half a minute, the sphere began to illuminate as if it was becoming like the sun, a sphere of light, but, in its luminosity, the sphere began to take a new shape. At first, it was difficult to tell what, but it seemed that it was starting to grow stubs that became longer and longer, two at the bottom and one on each side. At the top, another stub formed but instead of elongating, the stub began another misshapen sphere. Then from the long stubs that grew from the side, five smaller stubs grew from one another. After a few minutes of the glowing, green sphere shaping itself, it was clear what it was forming; it was making itself into a human body.
All were mesmerized when they watched the radiant and roiling green body start to form clothes, a long coat that came down to the ankles, while the coat itself formed buttons from the waist up to the high collar neck. The head started to form short messy hair, oversized ears, and a pair of sunglasses. The body of this new being floated only inches off the pavement before the green light had diminished like metal cooling after being pulled from the fire. The light had faded revealing a man with bleached blonde, messy hair with large ears and freckles on his cheeks.
"We…are…now…one…" The blonde haired man said, looking down at his hands and the rest of his body.
Kim looked out across the street at the man standing there; she felt her heart soar from the pit of her stomach, from when she saw Ron die, all the way up to the top of her throat, and felt the tears well up over her eyes. She scrambled to get to her feet while she dashed over the asphalt to the man that she loved. She fell a couple of times trying to get there, but she didn't care; the pain that she felt in her falls wasn't even relevant. All she wanted, more than anything in the world, was to actually feel Ron in her arms. She didn't care if they were in the Matrix; she just wanted her Ron. Her arms were already around Ron's neck before he even got a chance to turn around to face her.
"Ron!" Kim cried while she continued to weep into his long black duster.
"Hey, Kim," Ron smiled, "I guess I got to keep my promise, after all, huh?"
"I…" Kim tried to get the words out between each sob, "I thought…I thought…you left me, Ron…"
"But I'm here now, Kim," Ron whispered as he turned to face her, "And Kim…"
Kim looked up at Ron, her green eyes bloodshot from her tears. She watched as Ron reached up to take off his black sunglasses to reveal the eyes behind them, the same chocolate brown eyes that held such great innocence in them, as well as such great love.
"Yeah?" Kim sniffled as she smiled back at Ron.
"Too much black doesn't look all that good on you," Ron smiled, "I liked the red jacket better."
Kim smiled. More tears welled up and spilled over her cheeks as she buried her face in Ron's chest. It still felt odd to Kim that only six months ago she could cry on his shoulder, and then he grew until she could only place her head on his chest, but Ron was still Ron, no matter what. Ron hugged Kim back, while Bonnie and Morpheus approached.
"You're…" Morpheus, the man of a thousand big and confusing words, was truly speechless by what he was gazing at, "You're…alive?"
Ron looked up, first to Bonnie and then to Morpheus, who truly seemed to have become his surrogate father with his wisdom and advice. Ron slipped back on his black, mirrored sunglasses at his mentor with a new seriousness.
"Yeah," Ron replied, "I'm alive, but you won't be for too much longer if you don't get out of here."
"What?" Bonnie asked surprised, "Why?"
"The Sentinels are on their way to Neo Zion, first," Ron explained "After that they'll regroup and then move to every freed city on the Earth's surface."
"How do you know, Ron?" Bonnie asked.
"I can feel them and we're wasting time, now go. Go!" Ron insisted.
Morpheus, despite how philosophical he was, was never one to waste time when he could take action. He looked back at his hand to see his cell phone still there; he then brought it back up to his ear and spoke to Link.
"Link," He called, sounding impatient, "I need an exit and fast."
"At once, sir," Link answered back, "And it looks like you're in luck, there's a payphone at a Smarty Mart, one block west of you."
"Good," Morpheus answered back, "and please inform the council that the Sentinels are coming."
"Shit…" Link uttered.
"My thoughts exactly," Morpheus replied as he hung up the phone and slipped it back in his pocket, "Bonnie, Kimberly, let's go!"
"I'm not leaving Ron." Kim said defiantly.
"No, Kim," Ron contradicted.
Kim looked sharply back at the man she loved, "What?"
"Go with them, Kim," Ron repeated, "I'll be right behind you."
"No," Kim refused firmly, "I'm not leaving you!"
Ron reached out and grabbed Kim by the sides of her arms, "Kim, I said go…now!"
Kim had let go of her hold on Ron and looked at him surprised, he had already been dead once, had come back to life, and now was yelling at her. Kim had started to wonder again if it was truly Ron that was standing there, she did piece together the fact that Ron had merged with six other people. So, she was wondering to herself whether it was Ron talking or one of those six people who merged with him.
Ron smiled, "It's alright, KP," he tried to reassure his wife, "I'll be right behind you. I have no intention of dying again today."
"You better not," Kim said to her husband in a very snippy way, "Or I'll bring you back just so I can kick your ass!"
"Fair enough," Ron shrugged, "I'm just watching your back, KP. It's what I do best."
"Not really, but close," Kim said with a smile on her face, seeing that it was her Ron speaking, "We'll do what you're best at after we're alone, okay?"
"You got it, KP," Ron smiled before he leaned over and kissed his wife.
"Can we get going?" Bonnie asked half impatient (as she usually was) as well as half scared to death.
Morpheus, Ron, and Kim didn't have to ask where Bonnie was looking, because there was only one place that they could look. It was down the street where the greatest enemy that they had faced lay. Agent Smith had already gotten back to his feet at the instant that the three of them had looked. He peered at them, especially Ron, with such hatred that he seemed ready to lunge out and slay all three of them at once.
"Go, now!" Ron whispered hurriedly to his friends, "I'll be right behind you three, but now I have work to do here."
"Good luck, Ronald," Morpheus said as he quickly departed his company.
Ron gave all three of them one last glance from behind his sunglasses as they dashed down a nearby street towards the Smarty-Mart where Ron used to shop. He continued to watch them disappear out of his line of sight, but not before his wife gave a quick look back and he knew how sad she must have been because Ron "Neo" Stoppable felt it too, and so did the people who were inside him. All of the previous ones, Uno, Slim, Glitch, Inanna, Router, as well as Neo; they were all inside his head and he knew that they had experienced similar feelings as if history was designed to repeat itself.
"It is not beyond a measure of control." The Architect had told Neo in one of the memories that Ron had.
Ron looked at Smith in the middle of the street and it had all the side marks of an Old West showdown. Classic as well as clichéd but there was no denying it, the hero and the villain face to face.
"You…" Smith snarled at Ron, "You shouldn't still be alive!"
Smith dashed over the streets to his enemy like an arrow to the target. He was a few feet away when he cocked his fist back like the hammer of a gun and released it, bringing to bear all his hatred of humankind.
To Ron, however, it all looked so slow, like trying to play City of Heroes on Windows 3.1. It was like before in how Ron was starting to anticipate Smith's moves. Even before Smith had brought his fist against Ron, Ron brought up his hand. He had caught Smith's hand as if it was a baseball and Ron held his hand there with a very smug look on his face. It then occurred to Ron that his powers had grown exponentially. So much power…so much, that for a brief second before coming back to the situation at hand, the Matrix seemed like an enormous playground to Ron where he could do whatever he pleased. There were bigger things at hand, but he was still feeling unstoppable.
"That's all you got?" Ron smirked at the frustrated Smith.
"Why you…" Smith growled, trying to pull his fist away from Ron's grip.
"I would love to beat you to a pulp right now, Smith." Ron told the Agent in a very as-a-matter-of-fact tone, "But the Sentinels are on their way, and I really don't fancy dying twice in one day. So I'll see you later."
Smith was about to make a sharp quip at Ron, but Ron brought up his leg and let go of Smith's hand only for a mere fraction of a second before his foot slammed into Smith's side. It's impact was so much that Smith's body actually began to ripple like the surface of a waterbed before he flew backwards down three city blocks. That gave Ron the opportunity to make quickly with his escape to the exit at the nearby Smarty-Mart.
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Ron gasped as he opened his eyes, first hearing that odd noise of the jack spike being pulled out of him and being hung up near the jack chair. His vision was blurry at first, like coming out of a very deep sleep, but for Ron it was all gray at first until after a few blinks it all became clear. Looking up he saw the very surprised looks of Ghost, Niobe, Link, Barkin, Bonnie, Brick, Mister and Misses Possible, as well as his wife Kim "Angel" Possible. All of them looked as if Ron wasn't supposed to be there.
"What?" Ron asked, his face smiling, and asking jokingly, "You'd think I died or something?"
"RON!" The four voices of Bonnie, Misses Possible, Niobe, and Kim called out before smothering the blonde-headed husband in a sea of crushing arms.
"Ladies! Ladies!" Ron replied, relishing the attention, "I'm a one woman guy!"
Even though Ron had declared his monogamy, he still liked the attention he was getting from the other members of the fairer sex. As his mind lingered around the fantasies of being with more than one woman, he was instantly brought back to reality. He could feel something, like the soft boom of a passing car's sub-woofer, yet it wasn't as pleasant as that because Ron knew all too well what was coming.
"Kim…" Ron uttered.
"What is it, Ron?" Kim asked, seeing the pale expression on her husband's face.
"They're coming," Ron whispered.
"The Omega Sentinels," Barkin added, "Neo, what's their E.T.A.?"
Ron closed his eyes and in his mind's eye he could see it all so clearly as if he were there, floating above the surface of the Earth itself and spying upon the machines. He saw them, all of them, finished and their multiple, soulless, red eyes looking down a great hole. The first sentinel went, and the others soon followed behind. They swarmed down the hole like hornets, even having that slight buzzing sound as they flew. As far as Ron could see, the hole was narrow and filled with debris, but they still went, because they were machines; they had to follow orders.
Ron gasped once again as he opened his eyes.
"What'd you see, Ronald?" Morpheus asked
"They're taking a…hole…or a tunnel that's filled with debris," Ron reported.
"Must be one of the old mechanical lines," Niobe conjectured, 'More than likely the same one I piloted all those years ago."
"How long will it take for them to get here?" Barkin asked once again, but not sounding so stiff that time around.
"If they're going through a mechanical line," Niobe speculated, "then it'll slow them down severely. It'll probably take them two hours, maybe less."
"But wait," Ron pleaded as he got out of his chair, "I remember they drilled once before, why don't they do that again?"
Morpheus was quick to answer, "That passage was sealed off when the war ended, even though there was peace, Commander Locke didn't want to take any chances."
"Alright, people." Barkin stated, sounding as military as ever, "Let's not waste anymore time, we'll inform the Council and issue an evacuation order."
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It's amazing how well people work when they're under pressure. The Inhabitants of Neo Zion certainly had proved that. The Council of Zion had been informed within a matter of minutes of the two crews exiting the Jack Room. Needless to say, they had agreed with the Mad Dog and the Neb Two's plan of action: evacuation. It was different from before. Back then, they had nowhere to hide but down in the temple, it seemed bad but good at the same time since they could leave Zion for the cities on the surface. They also knew that even if they stayed they would be facing sentinels armed with nuclear weapons as Ron had reported.
The other part the Council was thankful for was that there weren't as many people in Zion as there were with the last invasion. Still, the number of people in Zion and the number of ships in the dock was unbalanced, so the only way that the evacuation could be done was to cram people into ships like sardines in a can. Even though the hover ships were reasonably large, only a small percentage of people could fit in, but it is always human nature to forego everything for survival; comfort, pride, or anything else, so long as they can live, no price is too great.
In the dock of Neo Zion, every man, woman, and child were crammed, like refugees waiting to gain safe passage into a better place. Even though the place was still crammed, it did seem better in retrospect when it was backed up all the way into Trin Zion where people were getting on the first batch of ships to leave the city. The lines shortened as the ships left, until only the docks were still uncomfortably cramped with the hordes of people still trying to get passage to safety.
Amongst them, at the gangplanks of the Mad Dog, which was next to the Neb Two, was Ron "Neo" Stoppable, and Kim "Angel" Stoppable, along with the crews of the Mad Dog and Neb Two, who were assisting in getting the refugees of Neo Zion onto their ships, and like a sold out concert the space in the remaining ships was filling up quickly. All the while, the crews of each ship were encouraging them to get on as quickly as humanly possible, but, as Ron got the next batch of Zion Refugees on board, he felt something much stronger than before.
He had often heard of dogs that could sense seizures or earthquakes long before they began, and he certainly felt something right then. An earthquake was upon Neo Zion, and the shockwaves of Sentinels were getting closer. He felt himself walk out into the middle of the dock as if he was sleepwalking, and he looked up to the super-cathedral high ceiling feeling the shockwaves growing more and more painful to his senses, his normal ones and the new ones that he was just starting to grasp. Standing there feeling the force coming, he felt like a man watching a tidal wave coming down upon him, all instincts told him to get moving, but he was just too overwhelmed to think, so he stood there as the earthquake crashed into Neo Zion.
There was a great bang at the door that sounded almost like a gunshot going off, but it wasn't just one, there were several. All of the bangs coming right after one another like a battering ram against a castle wall, and with each bang, the enormous steel gate shook, sending down dust and small, red clouds of rust to the ground. As they fell, all the Zion refugees stopped boarding the ships and watched while white sparks at random places in the gate flew out like fireworks.
"They're coming through." Ron thought aloud.
"Get to the ships!" Barkin's voice rang out over the silent and frightened crowd of Zionites.
Just like that, the refugees of Zion went from simply trudging onto the ships, leaving behind their homes to panicked and frightened masses that scrambled to the hover ships like cockroaches scurrying for shelter from the light. It was a funny thing about panic, Ron would remember later; it reduced all humans to animals willing to claw, scrape, and knock down whatever or whoever was in their way to get to safety. The refugees packed themselves into the ships with no need for instructions; they just got on the ships knowing that their lives were depending upon it.
As the refugees scurried to the ships, Ron still stood there in the middle of the dock looking at the gate, his new senses tingling like the first time that one wakes to sexual desire. It was fascinating and frightening at the same time; it felt as if he could hear the Sentinels' thoughts as they were cutting through the gates. In his mind's eye, he could also see them beyond that door, except it wasn't like before where it felt as if he was there; it was as if he was seeing into some normally invisible part of the ultraviolet spectrum and the Sentinels were made of light instead of metal. Everything else was black like the depths of an unused well, except for the sentinels that were made of that yellow, glowing light. It was beautiful, seductively beautiful, and it seemed like those times in the Matrix when Ron could see the codes that made it all up, but this was the real world, so why was he seeing it?
The question didn't matter as the chaos that consumed the dock was coming back to Ron and he felt a hand on his shoulder. As he turned to look, he half-expected Kim to be there, but instead it was Bonnie, and his vision returned to normal.
"Let's move, Ron!" Bonnie shouted over the confusion of noise from the panicked refugees.
Instantly, Ron had one thought, "Where's Kim?"
"Kim's okay," Bonnie reported while she tugged at Ron's arm, hoping that he would follow her, "Let's get out of here!"
Ron didn't think; he only acted from that point on. He followed Bonnie to the gangplank of the Mad Dog where its crew were waiting, still getting the last of the refugees onboard. He looked around to see Barkin, Brick, as well as Mister and Misses Possible, but Ron still looked to his left to the Neb Two. There he confirmed what Bonnie had told him, Kim was all right, but she and the rest of the crew were already getting inside the ship just as the gangplank was closing. He didn't even see Kim turn around to see where he was, but as he watched the Neb Two hover up and depart through the one and only opened gate that didn't have Sentinels at it, while Ron had snapped out of his daze. His heart raced when he dashed up the gangplank to catch up with Bonnie, Brick, and Barkin. Seeing that two crew members were missing, he stopped and turned around to see Mister and Misses Possible standing at the edge of the Mad Dog's gangplank.
"Hey!" Ron called to them, "Let's get going, you don't wanna die today!"
Looking more closely, Ron noticed that their faces were oddly devoid of expression, but what made it worse was when Ron noticed tears running down their paling faces. As odd as it looked, the two of them had expressions that they had just seen the most frightening thing that they could. Then, it took an even more bizarre turn when he looked to see blood coming down their noses as well as the corners of their mouths.
"Mr. and Mrs. P?" Ron asked, fearful of what was going on with them.
Anne"Kazaa" Possible looked to Ron with her deep blue eyes and smiled in such a way that it just looked painful.
"Ron…" Anne Possible choked out, the blood spilling over her lips, staining her teeth, and dripping down her chin, "Take…care…of Kim."
He watched as Anne as well asJames Possible moved backward but not in the way as if they were walking backwards, it looked as if they were being pulled backward. It was then that Ron's vision had looked down to their mid-section and he saw a red spot in their clothes that was growing with each second that they were being pulled back. It wasn't a great stretch of the imagination to figure that they were bleeding, but the cause didn't show its head until Ron looked forward. All around the edges of the Mad Dog, Ron Stoppable saw waving tendrils, mechanical tentacles as if they were in the grasp of the octopus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He was frozen stiff as he watched the Possibles being pulled up like tiny morsels of food that the mechanical octopus was taking in for itself. That was when he looked to see the gigantic metal face of the Omega Sentinel, its red, camera aperture eyes opening and closing at different intervals as it gazed at Ron with cold intent.
The Omega Sentinel brought its head about as it tossed off the bodies of the Possibles over to the other side of the dock where they slammed like rag dolls.
That was when Ron snapped, seeing the people he felt were his second family, dead on the floor, all the rage, hatred, and anger came from within him like a volcano exploding.
"NO!" Ron screamed as he looked at the dead and pulverized bodies. He acted out of instinct once again; he looked at the Omega Sentinel who had outstretched its mechanical tentacles, looking ready to ram one of those arms through him. He brought up his hand to the sentinel, commanding the machine to stop and, of all the surprises that Ron was expecting, he could have never imagined what happened next.
The sentinel stopped. It just seemed to freeze in place while electrical sparks arced across its metallic shell into the red aperture eyes and down its tentacles. It shook and jittered like a massive malfunction and in that one second the sentinel shut down.
Ron looked at his hands in confused admiration for what he had done, or at least that's what he thought.
"Did I do that?" He asked himself before he heard a great metal screech that was just as ear splitting as Styrofoam rubbing together.
Hearing that sound, Ron dashed out from the gangplank of the Mad Dog to gate three and saw the Sentinels peeling away parts of the massive metal gate like the rinds of an orange. The first sheet came away and the Sentinels poured into the dock through the bottleneck at the gate while some remained behind to widen the opening. As they came into the dock, they swarmed like wasps that had their hive disturbed. The first wave of Sentinels came down on the remaining ships as their first target.
Acting on instinct again, Ron raised his hand and commanded the sentinels to stop, and as he had hoped in the pit of his stomach, the sentinels dropped like flies. From a distance it seemed that once the first wave that came in, they had hit a wall that caused their circuits to literally fry and drop to the dock floor.
Ron didn't know how he was controlling it, but, as the next wave came through and the opening in the gate got larger, he felt overwhelmed. Each sentinel was a stab of pain in Ron's mind and he couldn't stop them.
"Ron!" Bonnie called while more of the Sentinels continued to drop like hail, "Get in here now! The Omegas could go nuclear any time!"
"I can't… fight it…" Ron grunted still holding his hand up to the sentinels, "There's too many of them."
Ron felt a pair of hands pulling him backwards; he had fallen slightly, but had quickly regained his balance. He looked to find Bonnie was trying to get him on board and get as far away from that place as possible. Even though there were so many, Ron wanted to stay and fight, if for nothing else than to avenge the deaths of the Possible parents, but Bonnie had other ideas.
"Your wife's going to need you, Ron!" She said pleading earnestly with him, "Don't make her lose you again today!"
Ron was quickly brought to this realization that it was not his day to die, at least permanently; he got back onto the gangplank with Bonnie who was standing there looking at something. Ron turned and found a group of Sentinels all standing on their little, tentacled feet, and in a circle around one who seemed to be…for lack of a better word…squatting. Its tentacles stretched out like the fingers of a hand while the head was bobbing up and down. It was on the third descent that the squatting sentinel had dropped something tall and slender. The sentinel that dropped it flew back up to join the others while the other sentinels stood guard around the tall, slim cylinder.
Looking more closely, they figured out what the object was.
"It's the warhead!" Bonnie screamed as she turned and called to the cockpit, "Captain Barkin! The bomb's been dropped!"
Barkin quickly responded, "Hang on to something! We're getting out of here people!"
Ron felt the jerk upwards as the Mad Dog's gangplank closed up. He closed his eyes and in his new vision he saw the bomb. He tried to reach out with his mind to shut it off, but as his surprises for the day mounted, the bomb didn't shut off; he could only feel it counting down.
He opened his eyes, looked around the deck of the Mad Dog, at the multiple faces of the Zion Refugees who were asking with their eyes, why couldn't you stop this? You're the One right? Ron dismissed their looks and headed to the cockpit where Captain "Kid" Barkin, Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg, Bonnie "Tres" Rockwaller, and the ships operator, Sparks, were at.
"Sit down and strap yourself in, people!" Barkin stated, "We're hauling ass!"
Barkin took the controls and shoved them forward as hard as he could, sending everyone in the cockpit deeper into their seats, and Ron toppling backward. Thankfully, Ron was at the threshold of the cockpit and was able to grab the door frame with the tips of his fingers before getting back up to his feet. As he did, Ron could feel through the metal under his boots that the Mad Dog was going full speed; he quickly got into one of the spare seats and strapped himself in.
"Where's the Neb Two?" Ron asked worriedly as he slipped the last strap over his shoulder.
"We don't know." Brick "Tater Salad" Flagg answered, "Last time we saw it, they were docked at Zion, but we don't know where it went."
The dashboard beeped, and, at the holographic projector, the crew of the Mad Dog watched as it displayed the Omega Sentinels gathered in a circle around that cylinder.
Ron was quick to respond, he could feel the time getting close like a gun about to pop before a big race began.
"Everyone hang on!" He shouted quickly, "The bomb's about to blow!"
In Ron's vision, he saw it, a flash of golden light consuming anything and everything, even the Sentinels around it. It was like a supernova that sent out its radial glow leaving behind only the darkness that the light contrasted to. While on the Mad Dog, they felt the shockwave rumble and shake everything inside while the people desperately clung to whatever they could hold onto. The rumbling stopped, leaving the Mad Dog to run its course at full speed.
Ron suddenly felt such pain in his heart as he closed his eyes and tried to see Zion again, but there was only collapsed rock, broken concrete, and fractured metal. All that had made up the dock only a few minutes ago.
"It's gone…" Ron uttered as he opened his eyes, the tears rolling down his face, "It's…it's all gone…"
"What is?" Captain Barkin asked.
"Neo Zion…" Ron answered as he cocked up on his tears, "It's gone…"
"Shit…" Brick had quietly cursed, "It's all over."
"No, it's not." Barkin stated, sounding more like a motivational speaker than a drill sergeant, "It's not over because we're still alive."
"He's right…" Ron added and stated prophetically, "Everything that has a beginning has an end, and for every end there is a new beginning…"
To be concluded in Matrix: Shutdown