Chapter 2 – Fragments of a Shattered Soul (Event: The Race to Find "The One", Part 1)
Thomas Anderson was lazy. I don't care if he was the savior of the Matrix, I don't care how many lives he saved. Sure, I didn't get the full story, but when I knew Tom, he was lazy as lazy can be. I met him twice. Once during my inspection of the corporation in the HQ building and the second time when I saw him get carted away by the police. I smiled and waved the second time I saw him. I was disappointed when he didn't smile and wave back, but then I realized his hands were handcuffed.
I should have realized what kind of world I was living in right then. Why would anyone want to arrest a little shrimp like Anderson and make it look like they were taking a dangerous criminal into custody? When I spoke to Reinhart, Anderson's boss, he just guessed it was computer hacking. Apparently the guy was really into it. Whatever. As long as we didn't employ him, I didn't care.
Of course, looking back at it, the days went as smooth as sunshine. In fact, I almost can't remember what happened in the couple months after that. Of course, now I know my memory got wiped by the machines, attempting to cover up Tom's wreckage of the system. God… that's a creepy thing to think about when you actually consider it. I wonder what happened to me during that entire showdown? Was I hit by the Smith virus? I guess I'll never know, but I'll just assume yes.
But, as far as I was concerned, Anderson was dead to me after I saw him get arrested. I didn't even think about him again after that point. Little did I know that I would get to meet the amazing Anderson, or Neo, many called him, after he was already dead.
Coraxian and I stood up in the front of the bland church and stared at Flood, who finally pulled his heels off of the pew and began to walk towards us. Flood was always dressed well, a very fine pale white vest, gray tie, and white shirt and black pants. He had to dress well though; he was second in command to the Merovingian himself, and our mission controller. A lot of people saw very few of Flood, as he kept to himself. Zionists speak of him in whispers, and from what I hear the Machines do the same thing. They're the lucky ones though, I see him too much.
"How are the meatbags today?" asked Flood, chuckling to himself as he finally approached us.
"Flood, just shut up and give us the envelope. Now is not a good time," Coraxian said.
"Fine. Just thought I'd start up a little friendly conversation. You redpills always think you're better than us," Flood replied.
"That's because we are, honey. But look at the bright side, we work with you and not against you anymore," I said.
"You know I could have you thrown out of this organization for incompetence, Return!"
"And what would the Merovingian say… hmmm?"
"He'd agree with me. We don't take in those who don't give back."
"If I didn't give back honey, I wouldn't be a commander of a faction. Nor would I be trusted with the Merovingian's sensitive business. So save your threats for the newbies. They might actually quiver for you."
Flood kept a cool composure for once, instead of lashing out against Return. He handed the envelope over to Return's waiting gloved hand and she quickly began to open it. "Inside of the envelope are your new assignments for your faction. This information is very important and it is being assigned to all Merovingian factions. Make sure that this falls into the hands of no Zionist and no Machinist. Did I make myself clear to the two of you incompetent fools?" We both nodded our heads and Flood sneered once more in response. "Then I will be removing myself from your presence. I hate churches."
Without a further word or a "good bye", Flood turned around and marched out of the church. "I'm glad he knows when to make himself scarce," Coraxian chuckled to herself.
My eyes scanned over the orders, but I was very much confused. They were scarce, indirect, and generally… general. "Keep your eyes open… strange disturbances… odd occurrences… report everything you see." That was the gist of the entire letter from the Merovingian. I handed the letter over to Coraxian, who also had an equally bewildered look on her face after reading it.
"What is this garbage? These aren't orders, they're more like suggestive guidelines for a search," she complained.
"A search for what… that's the question," I replied. "Do you want to go back to your ship and see if you can get your operator to find these 'odd disturbances' in the code, or do you want me to do that?"
"No… I'll take care of it. You keep the recruiting drive up, we need more members, and perhaps you might come across something."
"Right. Good luck in your search, I'll meet up with you later. I'll go take a look at Westview, perhaps find something in the mess over there."
We both ran to the Camon Heights Central hardline and grabbed the phone there. She left while I used it to hardline jump over to Gracy Heights, in the lower part of Westview. Well, the bluepills call this place Westview, I'm also prone to still calling it Westview. But many more redpills have affectionately renamed the place to "The Barrens".
The Barrens is an appropriate renaming too. When I was still a blue, I avoided this place at all costs. Buildings are all condemned, gangs run violently in the streets, the old Westview highway is literally crumbling down and falling into old buildings beneath… It's a literal warzone. The exiles fight here all the time for power and control, although I have yet to figure out what's so desirable in this section of the city. The code is all screwed up here, that's why the buildings are falling apart. Most of the place is being deleted, which is why all the trash lies freely in the streets. And the place has this odd reddish orange dust in it… it's disgusting. Sometimes it gets to the point where even the green sky turns orange from the dust of the decay. And before you ask, the machines don't care about the upkeep of Westview. All they care about is keeping Downtown as pristine as possible.
Why was I going there, you ask? Well, I knew of these two guys down in Gracy Court, which was by the Gracy Heights Central hardline. After stepping out of the phone booth and adjusting my dress, they were the ones I wanted to see.
I waited by the bus stop for the traffic to die down, and I absentmindedly looked over and saw a newspaper machine sitting next to me, holding today's edition of "The Sentinel". I checked around to make sure no one was looking, and I removed one of my gloves. Concentrating for a brief moment, I coded together two quarters. That was one of the fun parts of being a redpill; you realize how meaningless money really is. (Note to self: Code up 1 million dollars and throw it into the middle of Richland, into Moriah Projects specifically, and watch the bluepills create a riot. Perhaps I'll bring popcorn.)
Inserting the money and pulling my new paper out after I put my glove back on, I scanned it as I waited for rush hour to die down. I sat down at the bus stop next to a few blues, who looked over at me in my purple leather dress, black gloves, purple glasses, and purple knee high boots. I ignored them and just casually flipped through the paper, learning what I could about today's bluepill culture.
My usual first stop was Andres Bonifaciaeo's column on the front page, usually because it was a laugh a minute. He keeps trying to get into "redpill culture" and he keeps failing miserably. Usually we come off as "too philosophical" for him. Oh… if only he knew. This time, Andres was talking about how we redpills didn't respond to street trends, but we had a trend of our own. Our trend was to constantly wear expensive and hard-to-find clothing, and then shoot and kill one another. Then again, according to him, redpill factions were nothing more than street gangs who pushed dangerous drugs. Once again, if only he knew.
His column did bring up something interesting to me though, and that was this new PDA trend. Apparently, everyone was getting onto this PDA bandwagon and buying these new PDAs equipped with red LED lights. I hesitated and looked up, and the PDA frenzy just happened to be the main story this issue. The cover picture was a woman using her new PDA next to a billboard advertising the new item.
The screeching of brakes from in front of me distracted me for a moment and I glanced up. Some dumbass driver thought it was a good idea to try and run a red light. I don't know why Neo tried to save us all – some people just aren't worth saving. I looked back down and another article caught my attention. This one made me giggle to myself and turn the page, it was a whole article dedicated to the investigation of the death of Morpheus. What a good one! Apparently they thought that "…the great terrorist Morpheus died in an explosion inside of the Network Media Tower, downtown…" That was too funny.
The screeching of brakes caught my attention again and I looked up. Some dumbass driver thought it was a good idea to try and run a red… It was the same car, the same driver. I put down my paper quickly and turned to the people next to me, they were gone. I looked up in a panic, and I noticed that rush hour was gone, all the cars were gone. All there was left was a bag blowing in the street and the wind blowing around me. I was standing in the middle of a trap.
That's when I saw the Agent. He had walked out from a small alleyway between two buildings about 50 feet from me and stood in the middle of the road. I threw down the paper and stood up, adjusting my dress and my bra a little. I smiled, and put my hands at my sides. "You want me, honey? What can I do for an agent of the system today?"
The agent's cold expression stayed. He cracked his knuckled and stared into me, piercing me. My smile slowly wiped away as I realized that he meant business, and my face reached a stoic expression. "You are not authorized to be in this area," he said in a monotone voice. "Redpills are limited to the Richland district only. Leave now."
"I have a right to be here, just like all of the blues. Besides… how did you find me…? I am not causing a disturbance to these people," I said firmly, but I was still nervous. I knew what damage an agent could cause. I tensed up a little, getting ready to grab the phone that was 10 feet from me. At least I had the advantage in this situation.
He just kept staring at me, and I just kept staring at him. He didn't respond to me, and he slowly began to draw his gun. I should have started running at that point, but something didn't seem quite right. He seemed too… too slow. He should have been shooting at me by now. And his glasses, his eyes… Something wasn't adding up. "What's your name, Agent?"
"I am the program Agent On… White. Agent White." He leveled the gun at me. "Leave now or die."
He slipped up. I never heard an agent slip up. Never. They don't do that. And that's when it came to me. I wasn't staring at an agent.
He fired the gun and I quickly moved out of the way, the bullet barely missing. I recovered from my dodging spin and lunged forward, tackling him to the ground. In that brief moment, I was face to face with him and I looked into his eyes through his sunglasses. What I saw surprised me. I saw a red light behind his glasses; a vibrant red light emanating from where his eyes should have been.
I flipped off of him and got into my resting stance, akido style. He got up and brushed himself off and threw the gun away. "Not bad," he said softly. Quickly, in a surprise move, he lunged at me with his fist. I backed off to the side and grabbed his arm, quickly twisting it and throwing him to the ground. I backed off and he got up again and tried the same thing. This wasn't an agent program for sure now; he wouldn't have done the same thing twice.
This time, I grabbed his arm and gave him two punches to the face, breaking his nose. I threw him to the ground, letting him hit hardly into the asphalt face first. Then, as he was still lying there, I brought my heel up and around, and pounded my platform heeled boot onto the back of his neck with precision. I heard the sick crack of his spine breaking, and I brought my foot up and away.
I flipped the body over and was halfway ready to watch as the agent left the body of the bluepill he possessed, as I've heard from others who know about this stuff, but he didn't. This was his body, and he certainly was not an agent program. I rooted around in his jacket pockets and was quickly rewarded. First a couple data disks in his right pocket, then a black PDA from his left pocket.
I picked up the PDA and looked at it… same model as was advertised in the Sentinel. A chill ran thought me as I looked it over and checked out the red LED light on top. It was a perfect match to what I saw in the paper. What was going on here?
I put the data disks and PDA off to the side of the body, and began to check the inside pockets. The left one was empty, but the right one was a very different story. I reached inside and I felt something. Something… something that felt like a shard of glass. It wasn't sharp, but very smooth. I pulled it out of the pocket and opened my hand. What I saw surprised me.
It was beautiful. I held smooth shard that had bits of data running through it, emitting a soft green glow. I could hear the digits run through it; a soft clicking and buzzing that could lull a person to sleep. I held it in both hands, but it had no weight. I pressed into it, and it briefly bended to my touch, but then reformed to its original shape after I stopped pressing down onto it. It was beautiful, mysterious, and odd.
I removed my right glove with my teeth as I kept the shard in my left hand. I had to feel what it felt like on my skin. Just as I placed it into my hand though, a shock of pain ran though my body. I doubled over in pain from my kneeling position on the street and the shard emitted a bright green glow as I held it in my hand. So much was coming over me, so much pain and emotion. My body was quivering in the pain that I felt and I began to cry, because I was intensely sad.
My mouth opened in a silent scream and I gasped out a single sentence. "Trinity… this is for you…" I let go of the shard finally, and immediately all of my pain and emotion went away. I was left alone lying in the middle of the street, the shard and PDA lying next to me, and I had more questions than answers.