23. Modal

"Seq, I'm in," Bugs reported.

"Captain."

She looks around, finding herself inside an old building. "You were right. The skylight was a windowpane."

"I've got serious interference."

"Weird, it's some kind of modal."

"Looks like old code."

"It feels really familiar," she realized. As if she knows this.

"Drop a pin. I'll signal for backup."

"I'm gonna check it out."

"Bugs. If the general finds out we've been fishing..."

"A quick peek can't hurt," she hushed him, not even bothering if this is a trap of some kind. Maybe whatever this modal that Berg discovered might uncover their search. She needs to check this out.

Slowly, Bugs steps slower, finding some light in the corner of a dim room. The bluenette takes a closer look, gasps with what she sees now. Trinity raises her hands as police surround her. "Seq, you with me?" She whispered.

"This old code keeps crashing," Seq informed.

"Your projection's breaking up. Switch to audio."

"Bugs, this is a direct violation of the general's protocols."

"I know, I know. But something is happening here. Something important. Oh, fuck. We know what happens next. She kicks their ass."

Just like that, Trinity attacks all policemen in a quick movement.

"Now she makes a call," Bugs affirmed.

"The line was traced," Trinity spoke using an old phone.

"And then..."

"Then she runs for her life," Seq finished.

"Are there any agents?"

"We know this story," Bugs addressed. "This is how it all began."

"Goddamnit," Trinity cursed.

"This is where he began," the bluenette noted.

Seq frowns. "You're thinking this Modal is a loop? Or a treadmill? Some sort of sequencer evolving a program to do what?"

"I don't know. But I'm going to find out."

As Trinity runaway, Bugs follow from behind while being cautious. Seq guides her into the nearest building when Bugs can see the view from afar for safety. As she arrives at the top, she can see Trinity struggles fighting an Agent. "So deja vu and yet it's obviously all wrong," Bugs mumbled.

"Why use old code to mirror something new?" Seq wondered.

"I don't know."

They watch as Trinity lost the fight, surrounded by two Agents. "If that's supposed to be Trinity, that's not what happens," Seq pointed out, knowing that Trinity is supposed to jump into another building, across a broken window before escaping by the phone booth.

"Maybe this isn't the story we think it is," Bugs guessed.

"Bugs, you have to get out of here. It's gotta be a trap."

Like a cue, a helicopter approaches, shining its light in their direction. "Shit," Bugs cursed as Seq lost his connection to her. An Agent appears. She quickly takes her gun, but the Agent snatches it away and grabs her neck. Bugs respond by punching his face and using her hand to hit his hand, jumping to his back as she holds his neck using her legs, smashing the wall beside them.

She uses one of her legs to kick the wall, sending them both down towards two Agents and fake Trinity. "Uh," Bugs gulps, soaking wet, realizes that she's exposed. "You all carry on. As you were. I'm just gonna... see myself out."

The Agent tidies his suit. "Kill her."

She quickly rolls forward, firing her bullets before running across the building, landing briefly on the corner of the building, before jumping across another, grabs a signboard with her bare hands, grits her teeth with her hands are while she's slowly landing to the ground with the signboard crashes surround her.

Slowly, Bugs stands up, finding the Agents after her. "Oh, Seq!" She cried, running away as they fires bullets at her. Before that, she's vaulting over a halting police car as Seq creates a brief escape route a few meters away.

In a hurry, Bugs enters a key shop nearby. She looks at the window, finding the Agents and policemen are heading into the shop. Quietly, she's hiding at the cashier, simply observing while thinking of her escape route as they enter the key shop.

But suddenly, someone grabs her by force, taking her somewhere else. Bugs take her gun when she realizes her kidnapper is the Agent before while takes a breath. "Why did you save me?"

"You first," he insisted. "Who are you? Where did you come from?"

"Okay. My name is Bugs. As in Bunny," she introduced. "And tech that listens. Do you know this is a Modal?"

"What's a Modal?"

"It's a simulation used to evolve programs." Bugs frown. "Do you understand that you are... digital sentience?"

"I know what I am," he replied, circling Bugs, still aiming his gun at her. "Just like I know my job is to hunt down and destroy synthients. Like you." He pauses, slowly lowers it. "And yet..."

"Here we are," she commented, doing the same.

"Here we are."

"The other agents don't know about this room?" He shook his head. "How'd you find it?"

"No one was ever in the key shop, so I started looking."

"More you looked, the more you found. Story of my life," she stated, looking at the room they're in. Like before, a sudden deja vu tingles inside herself.

"What?" The Agent asked, not understanding Bugs' reaction.

"I feel like I know this room," she admitted, looking at a blinking monitor of an old computer. Her eyes spot an ID of Metacortex's employee and an old photograph beside a keyboard. "Holy shit," she breathed upon the person at the ID and the photo. "This is his apartment."

"You mean Thomas Anderson's?" The Agent inquired. "I searched everywhere. He doesn't exist."

"He-He stopped being Thomas a long time ago, but maybe you know him by his real name," she stares at him. "Neo." He looks stunned. "You do. Oh, okay. Uh... I can't believe this, after all these years. You see," Bugs takes the ID and the photo, put those inside her leather jacket, "most people think that Neo and his daughter are dead..."

"His daughter?"

Bugs show him the old photo. Of a young blonde girl with blue eyes, looks between 4-5 years old. "This girl," Bugs alluded. "You know her?"

He slowly nods. "I found that photo from a burned house by one of the doors," he gestures outside. "There's nothing left at the house except that photo and her name. Alice Thomasin Lovelace." He frowns. "But that's not her name, isn't it?"

"Her real name is Enigma," the bluenette shared, gripping the photo tight. "For the longest time, I know neither of them is dead. Because I've seen them."

Curious, the Agent let go of his earpiece. "Where?"

"It's not something I can explain easily, but," Bugs smiles. Her mind flashes the day she cleans a window at a tall building, before looking at a man who steps at the edge. Then, her mind flashes the day she spots a woman with a wheelchair inside a hospital building, who looks at her before fainting out. "But the moment he looked at me... the moment she looked at me... I felt something... unlock my mind."

"Okay," he said, believing her words. "Something like that happened to me. I saw this pattern," he began, remembering witnessing that while wiping his face on his mirror. He tries to wipe those off, but it is still intact, "and it was everywhere. We can't see it, but we're all trapped inside these strange, repeating loops. Somehow I saw it in the mirror. Just a flicker, but it was like you said. And suddenly I understood."

"This is not the real world."

"For the first time, I felt real purpose. I knew who I was and what I had to do."

"Who are you? What do you have to do?"

"I am... Morpheus. And I have to find Neo and Enigma."

Bugs grab him, suprise beyond anything. Morpheus, the legend himself. The man who aided Niobe during the last battle of Zion. The captain of Nebuchadnezzar and comrades of Neo, Trinity, and Enigma. "Morpheus," she whispered before letting go. "Okay. Okay. Oh, my God! I have to get you out of here. I need to figure out who built this Modal." She grabs two pills she always carries around. "Okay, come with me." She shows him the red one. "You have to be ready to leave. You have to be really ready." She shows him the blue one. "And if you're not, if you think that this is where you belong..."

Morpheus stares at two pills. "You call this a choice?"

"Oh, honestly, when somebody offered me these things, I went off on binary conceptions of the world and said there was no way I was swallowing some symbolic reduction of my life," she blurted. "And the woman with the pills laughed 'cause I was missing the point."

"What point?"

"The choice is an illusion. You already know what you have to do."

Morpheus takes the red pill. "Truth," he denoted and eats it.

"Okay. There's an old building with a skylight and lots of stairs..."

"The Lafayette. One of the four back doors leads there," he gestures before suddenly feeling dizzy. "Oh."

"Don't fight it."

"Whoa, what's happening?"

"Keep breathing," Bugs suggested as she opens the door, letting him out first. "Extraction works pretty much the same for humans and programs." Then, she takes her sunglasses at him so he won't feel much dizzy. Experience speaking.

"Hey," he called.

"Hey."

"I've never worn different glasses before," he pointed out.

"Yeah, looks good. Which door?"

"It's gotta be..."

"Okay," Bugs nod and let him lead the way. But then, she curses when realizes he's entering the wrong one.

"Agent White," Morpheus greeted.

"Agent Smith?" The man from the other side frowns, which causes Morpheus to laugh like a drunk man. Bugs quickly grab him as they both run away. They get into a door, where they're moving outside some sort of cinema.

"Seq! Can you hear me?" She called again.

"Bugs! I thought I lost you!"

"Can you get us to the window pane?"

"Bugs! Bugs! He's an agent!" He pointed out while they're keep running.

She let Morpheus enter first, firing her gun at them before entering too. Her head fuzzy a little when she lands on an upside-down floor.

"That window! Go hard!"

Bugs quickly stands up, protects Morpheus as she fires again at two Agents while running on a wall, leaping around the room as she dodges the bullets.

She and Morpheus crash into the window as they leap out of the building...

▪︎1001▪︎

Alice slowly opens her eyes. Slowly sits up at her bedroom that she's just resided for a year.

A year has passed. But it felt like yesterday Alice found herself waking up in the hospital with a stiff body. She's still having a hard time processing the reality she had to face in the present. Her doctor said that this is normal, especially for patients who have awakened from a persistent vegetative state. "Many things have changed in 15 years," he spoke when helps her with muscle training.

Alice forced herself up from the bed and looks out the window. San Francisco's sky shone with birds moving in unison. The clock on her bedroom's wall shows 8 am. The girl realizes that she forgets to turn on the alarm on her smartphone. Luckily today was Saturday, so Alice doesn't have to do much other than work.

There are so many things Alice had to get used to since woke up from the hospital. Starting from pursuing education, adjusting her mind state, to earning her money. It was a bit odd, considering Alice was 30 years old. But she had missed her education due to an accident that happened 16 years ago. Her father, Thomas, provides homeschooling while she's not working. Even though Alice doesn't need to study - and her father agrees that too, consider he's rich enough to finance their life - society certainly wouldn't accept Alice Anderson as an uneducated woman without a job. He did offer her a job at Deus Machina, but she rejected it, preferred to have her own job.

She opens her desk drawer, clutching a vial containing dozens of blue pills. After waking up from the hospital, Alice has had some very strange dreams, both good and bad. Some made it difficult for her to live, having constant blackout that made her question her surrounding. Her father, bless him, tries to help as best as he can to ease her. He was never fond of medicines, but the doctor who treats her at the hospital insists for her to take one, considering she had blackout many times before, drifting between reality and dream.

Funny thing is, it looks similar to the medicine her father had. And for some reason, Alice feels uncomfortable while taking the medicine. Her intuition keeps refusing these pills from entering her mouth. But she had no choice. If they know she had another blackout... well, it won't be good.

Alice takes one as she puts the bottle in the drawer again, takes the uniform of the snack shop she works at, and moves her legs into the bathroom while humming White Rabbit she always loves to sing. The lyrics don't make sense, but it makes her in peace like she's at home. Her father did mention how often she hummed that song as a child. But when she asked why, he doesn't know either. She never presses him much about her past or his, since it never bothers her much.

Not even with his history of suicide attempt. So what if he wants to fly away? She believes that, as crazy as it sounds and there's no logical reason behind it. Heck, she often dreams of him flying across the sky while holding him at his back. If only people can be more accepting of insane possibilities, then he won't eat those pills and pondering his sanity. He won't always be worry about the authorities, that his right on adopting her will strip away for good.

Alice shook her head. "You're drifting again," she mumbled to herself as she takes her cereal and eats it with fresh milk. No cookies, thought, which is a shame. She loves cookies. Oh well, she can make more at work. Making snacks is her speciality.

While walks into outside, out of the apartment building, she saw a flock of birds flying in the sky with strange movements, as if they were moving like a squid in the sea. Her right hand moved to cover the sun that's dazzling her blue eyes. Her gaze focused on the movement of the bird that… stopped? Alice narrowed her eyes to focus. Yes, they stopped right above the clouds! But the next second, they were flying again, this time heading north, making Alice unable to see them anymore.

That was very weird.

Did it really happen... or was she just imagining it? Thomas did say she had a strong imagination like him. That's what made him and Alice able to create the concept of The Matrix game without outside help. Or maybe, there's more to see... like a splinter in her mind...

The woman shook her head, trying to forget those thought. Right now, she needs to go to work. That's what matter.

After all, she had a feeling... today's gonna be a great day.