Chapter Fifty-Seven – Nothing Happens
The Doctor, lying on the floor, lifted his head from beneath the raised floorboards and looked at the numerous static screens filled with green characters that covered the wall. Brilliant, it was all going to plan - he'd stopped The Matrix, and, along with it, his captors, so now he could just wander back to the Tardis.
"You're moving?" said a disbelieving voice from behind him. "Then you're not part of The Matrix. You are who you really say you are - you are The Doctor!"
The Doctor turned his head around to look at the owner of the voice. "That's right, I'm The Doctor, and that's why I'm still moving. But that doesn't explain why you still are."
The Architect smiled. "You've stopped The Matrix's main software, but there are uninterruptible subroutines that can never be stopped - I am one of those, as are the monitor programs who should be arriving any time now."
"Monitor programs?"
Suddenly two suited agents entered the room and grabbed hold of The Doctor, pulling him up from the ground.
"Don't kill him," requested The Architect. "Not yet. I want him to know what he's done first."
"Done?" asked The Doctor.
"Didn't Rose tell you about The Matrix, Doctor?"
"She mentioned it was called The Matrix - although I thought she'd just made up the name - but that was about all she said before we were captured."
"So you don't know how The Matrix works?" asked The Architect, a smile appearing on his face.
"It's an artificial reality," replied The Doctor. "Just data."
"But data can get corrupted, especially if it has to interface with humans," explained The Architect. "They've contaminated the place. Garbage in, garbage out. That's the real reason The Matrix is full of anomalies, but my programming restricts me from removing the obvious flaws from the system. Still, now you've sorted that problem out for me. In a minute or so, all of those biological inputs will be dead."
"No, it can't be," The Doctor said, his face turning pale.
"Don't worry about them, Doctor," said The Architect dismissively. "They're only human."
Lex Luthor, who was inhabiting Chloe Sullivan's body, looked at the inert bodies of Morpheus, Neo and Trinity and found himself reminded of the mannequins at his favorite Metropolis fashion store Any Color- So Long As It's Black. Suddenly he was distracted from his thoughts by Lana's voice:
"I've got to go and find The Doctor."
"I'll come too," offered Clark.
"No, it's too dangerous for you, Clark, and I wouldn't want to have to worry about protecting you. No, it's best if you stay here."
"But you'll need help finding him," protested Clark.
"Trinity told me where he was when we were in the dressing room… Hey, what's that look on your face? Don't worry, Clark, I'll be okay. I don't need anybody to protect me."
"But…" started Clark … but it was too late, Lana was gone.
"So, she just sped off and left you standing there," observed Chloe (who was really Lex). "Some people."
"We have to go after her," said Clark, walking towards the Tardis' door.
"She can do it on her own Clark. She's The Zero now."
Clark, not listening to Chloe, pushed the Tardis door open to reveal the burning wreck of a helicopter outside, its flames frozen in the air. Everything else he could see was also frozen in time, including countless raindrops hanging stationary in the sky - the only exception being a group of agents writhing in pain on the ground.
"Who are those guys?" asked Clark.
"The bad guys," explained Chloe. "They must have encountered Lana."
Clark looked at the raindrops that had been scattered in Lana's fight with the agents, leaving behind an air sculpture of the event, and nodded.
"Lana's more powerful here than me," Clark lamented. "All because I've been lying all of these years, suppressing my powers. No wonder my father Zod beat me so easily in that fight - he hasn't been holding his powers back all of these years, pulling his punches. Who knows what I could have been like if I'd just been me and not pretended?"
Chloe (who was really Lex), was growing tired of Clark's super-moaning and felt obliged to comment. "There's no point dwelling on the past, Clark. Maybe if you'd not tried to blend in, lived up to your full potential, you'd be omnipotent now, flying through the Universe, thinking so fast that the world to you would appear as frozen as this one… but you wouldn't be human then … you wouldn't be Clark. You've got the perfect mix, Clark - the Kryptonian and the human, the fantasy and the reality, the red pill and the blue pill…"
"Huh?" asked a confused Clark.
"Forget it, it's a Matrix reference."
"Oh, okay," said Clark, thinking about Chloe's words. "Thanks, Chloe."
"That's what friends are for," replied Chloe (who was Lex (who was suddenly feeling very nostalgic)).
Yet more agents leapt up in front of Lana, but with balletic grace she somersaulted through them, her legs and fists delivering them excruciating pain on the way, and finally she was at the skyscraper holding The Doctor. With a single bound, she leapt to the top of the building, and then she raised her fist and drove it down onto the roof.
"Going down."
"I thought you'd take it better than this, Doctor," said The Architect. "You must be used to races dying by now."
"There's still time," snarled The Doctor, restrained by the agents, as he struggled helplessly to get free, to correct the mistake he'd made… and then he stopped struggling and a smile suddenly appeared on his face. "Do you hear that?"
"What is it," asked one of the agents, as he heard the loud crashing sounds from above and felt the building shaking around them.
"Neo?" gasped The Architect, "but he should be in a halted state like the rest of this reality."
"It's not Neo," shouted The Doctor, struggling to be heard over the noise. "It's not a bird or a plane either. No, this is a job for…"
At which point, a vision in pink came crashing through the ceiling.
"…Lana Lang?" finished The Doctor.
"That's right, Doctor. I'm here to save you."
The agents, seeing Lana before them, let go of The Doctor and started to attack. Lana beckoned them on with her fingers and inwardly cursed her enhanced senses that made it seem like they took an hour or so to reach her. When they finally arrived, she flicked them through the walls with her fingers and turned her attention to The Doctor.
"What's the matter, Doctor?" she asked, seeing the look on his face. "Not used to being rescued by a girl."
"No, that's been happening all the time lately," replied The Doctor, rushing towards where the floorboards had been pulled up.
"Is it that old guy with the beard?" she continued, as The Doctor disappeared beneath the floor.
"No, forget about him, Lana. He's all talk."
"So, what is it?" she asked, as she suddenly noticed the complete silence outside being replaced by the noises of the city, and the green characters starting to tumble down the screens on the wall
"Nothing, Lana. I just had to save the whole of mankind."
"That must be nice."
"Yeah, it's great," said The Doctor, climbing out from under the floor. "You'd think it'd get boring after a while, but it never does."
The Architect decided that now was the time to speak. "So it seems you've won, Doctor. You restarted The Matrix just in time. A shame really, but I guess those humans will stop the place from becoming predictable. Anyway, no hard feelings. Maybe we could do lunch sometime."
"Maybe not," said The Doctor, replacing the last floorboard, "we've still got to find Rose."
"Maybe your friend could just punch her way through the remaining floors," suggested The Architect.
As Lana raised her fist, The Doctor grabbed hold of her and pulled her toward the door. "Bad idea, Lana."
Morpheus, Trinity and Neo stood disorientated in the Tardis, wondering where Lana, Clark and Chloe had disappeared to. As they walked towards the Tardis' door, they met Chloe Sullivan coming in.
"Where did you go?" asked Neo.
"Out," replied Chloe (who was really Lex), "but then it started raining so I thought I better come back in. Clark decided to stay outside, waiting for Lana to get back."
"So The Zero went to rescue The Doctor," proclaimed Morpheus, "just as The Oracle said she would."
"Yeah, that's Lana," said Chloe. "Predictable as always."
"Let's go and wait with Clark," said Neo, thinking that he'd look really cool standing outside in the rain.
"No, our work here is done," announced Morpheus.
"But what about The Zero?" asked Trinity.
"No, her work here is also done," replied Morpheus. "She will soon be leaving for another reality."
"So, we just leave?" asked Neo in disbelief.
Morpheus nodded.
"So what difference have we made here," asked Neo.
"No difference."
"And what difference has Lana made to things."
"To us, her arrival in this reality has made no difference."
"So, nothing's really changed," summarized Neo.
"Exactly," said Morpheus sagely. "When The Zero is added nothing changes. The Zero's visit was completely pointless... just as The Oracle predicted."
Neo shook his head in disbelief. "Okay, I guess we better go then."
Chloe (who was really Lex) searched in her bag for her cellphone.
"Here, use this," she said, passing it over to Neo. "You really should invest in one. It'd save you lots of running around."
"Thanks," said Neo, still depressed that his excellent adventure had turned into a bogus journey.
Suddenly the cellphone started ringing and a second later Neo was gone, followed shortly thereafter by Trinity.
Morpheus picked up the cellphone that had fallen to the floor.
"Nice to have met you, Lex," he said.
"How did you know?" asked Chloe (who was really Lex).
"The Oracle tells me everything," replied Morpheus as the cellphone started to ring.
"Even that you end up getting Neo and Trinity killed?" asked Chloe (who was really Lex, who delighted in the look on Morpheus' face just before he disappeared).
"Guess not."
Clark saw a pink blur rushing toward him, which suddenly skidded to a halt just in front of him.
"Hi, Clark," said Lana, putting down The Doctor and Rose. "Are the others back yet?"
"No, they're …" began Clark, but then he saw a black blur rushing toward them, which again skidded to a stop just before them.
"Sorry we're late," said General Zod, setting down Ursa and Lex, "but Ursa insisted on playing with the statues."
The Doctor looked around. "What about Jimmy and Chloe?"
"They're both inside," replied Clark.
"Looks like it's time to visit another reality then," said The Doctor. "That will be the last one before we reach Jimmy's reality."
"About time," said Ursa, saying exactly what all of the others were thinking.
Once inside the Tardis, Lana turned to Clark. "I've got to get out of this stupid outfit now. Being all-powerful was fun at first, but then I began to feel like some sort of freak, so different from everybody… are you okay, Clark?"
"Sure, Lana," said Clark, looking at Lex, "you just go ahead and change. There's something I've got to do."
In his room, Jimmy had been flicking through the various DVDs they'd collected back in Rose's reality. Unfortunately one of those DVDs had sent him to sleep, and that DVD was still playing when Lana started approaching.
Chloe (who was trapped in Lex's body) suddenly found herself being dragged through the Tardis' corridors at super-speed and being shoved roughly against a wall. At first, in her confusion, she thought it must be Zod, but then she looked up and saw Clark standing over her, fire in his eyes.
"Clark? What are you doing?"
"Don't play innocent with me, Lex," said an angry Clark. "Chloe told me what you said about Lana, back in the hospital room."
"What did I say?" asked a confused Chloe, scared for her life (wondering if even Lex's immortal body could survive Clark's wrath).
"You said…" began Clark, and then disappeared, his super-hearing picking up Lana shouting his name from elsewhere in the Tardis.
Chloe, alone, put her hand in her pocket, took out the lead-lined wooden box from within and stared at it for a long, long time.
Jimmy Olsen woke up to Lana Lang shouting Clark's name, and suddenly, realizing what had happened, rushed over to switch off whatever DVD had been playing.
"It's too late, Jimmy," said Lana, just as Clark appeared by her side. "I've seen enough."
"Lana…" began Clark.
"I know everything, Clark," said Lana, tears in her eyes. "Everything."
