Note: For anyone's curiousity, I'm picturing Enigma's alter look as Jamie Clayton.
26. Set And Setting
"You have the sight," an older woman spoke, pouring a milk on a small glass. "It is a rare gift. One that you never get by simple people."
A woman, wearing black tank top with short pants, leaning her cheek against her head, gives a kiss on the forehead while wrapping her in a hug. She looks like Tiffany, albeit 20 years younger than she recalled. "You don't have to say," she assured her in gentle voice. She can feels her fingertips touch her hands. "Tell me when you're ready, okay?"
They get closer and closer into a tall, metal building, hands still intact with each other. The impact crash them, letting out a hard gasp without any preparation...
Red and blue. Metal and water. She feels exposed, pain and loneliness emerge as something's entering her mouth. She wants to scream, wants the pain to stop. But the machines trap her, keep her awake despite her struggle, despite she hears shout from afar, calling her name while begging the machines to stop...
"I fly... or I fall," Thomas whispered as he leaps over the edge...
Alice pants as she wakes up from her dream. She takes a deep breath, rubs her eyes and her face, stuck between certainty and uncertainty. Her head still hurts despite taking those blue pills she doesn't like.
Her phone suddenly rings. She finds two messages. One from her father, telling her he needs to go somewhere for fresh air. The other from unregistering numbers, the same one from before, sending her a message to go to Deux Machina now if she wants answer.
"Shit," she cursed and rushes outside the apartment, not even caring if she's wearing green pajamas as the image of Thomas' standing over the edge of a building rewind in her mind.
To be honest, she still doesn't know what happened today. Why does her head keep hurting like hell. Why does she have these dreams and new memories circle her brain. However, instinct told her she would find those answers if she went to Deux Machina like the message said.
She sincerely hopes that's right.
Jude calls her many times. Alice always refused his incoming calls and keep walking into the Deux Machina's building via the ID card her father had given her as a backup in case something bad happened. Just as Alice arrives on the roof of the building through the north emergency exit, she found a blue-haired girl pulling Thomas from the edge of the roof, pushing him back while the south emergency exit gave off a blue light.
"Dad!" She said, running to him while frowning at the stranger. Her face looks familiar. Like she had already met her. Before the attack at Deux Machina or her dream a week ago. "Who are you?"
"You two won't remember me, but a long time ago, you two changed my life," she explained, gesturing them to not run away. Her eyes look at Thomas who looks warry at her, "when you leapt off another roof. Back then, I was just like any other coppertop, pretending my life... until I looked up... and I saw... you. It was a different you, but I saw the real you, just a second before... you leapt. And you never fell."
The party. The day Thomas stands on a roof, wants to fly. Alice remembered that story. It takes some time until he confesses the whole story after she wakes up. And how he cries afterward. "You're that window cleaner at the hospital," Alice finally remembered why this stranger looks familiar.
She smiles. "I remembered you looked at me before fainted out. I saw the real you... and it changes everything."
"Are you the one that hacked my Modal?" Thomas asked.
"Yeah," she admitted as his phone rang.
"That must be Jude," Alice noted as her phone also rings.
"He's not your friend. He's a handle, a program used to control you two. He's on his way here, and he's bringing Agents with him."
Just in case, Thomas accepts the call, making sure first. "Jude."
"Bro, I've been calling you and your girl all night. We have a major problemo."
He glances at Alice and the stranger. "Are you alone?"
"That's kind of a sexy question, dude."
Alice gestures to Thomas to cut off the call, which he does.
"They don't look like typical Agents. They use bots now, skinned as normal people, which means they're everywhere and you never know who to trust."
"Bugs, right?" Alice guessed and she nods, seems either shocked or happy when she calls her name. "If what you said is true, then why should we trust you?"
"Because if they open that door, we lose our hack. I will be caught and killed and you two will be put right back on that treadmill they designed for you two, just like they did the last time you tried to leap your way out," she looks at Thomas before looks at her, "and when you got your visions."
"My visions?"
"You started having those back at the attack. It stressed you out and had they didn't stop you with force blackout, you will remember everything. Your mind won't hurt right now," Bugs gently explained as she steps closer to Thomas. "I know why you left your Modal open. You needed someone else to free Morpheus. And it's because of him that we were able to get to you and your daughter. I know these things the same way that I knew one day I would find you two. And that when I did, you two would be ready for this."
Both Thomas and Alice look at Bugs' shoulder. At the white rabbit tattoo.
"Follow the white rabbit," Enigma mumbled, remembering that scene from the first game.
Bugs grins. "If you want the truth, Neo, Enigma, you're going to have to follow me."
"Okay," her father reacted as Bugs lead them into the shiny door. She takes her sunglasses onto her face and opens it, letting them enter first. As both of them enter the door, they're already entering a train.
"Whoa," Alice muttered, feeling a deja vu right now. "It's just like with the Keymaker."
"He inspires some of our route track," the bluenette spoke as she closes the door.
"Where are we?" Thomas asked, following her.
"Tokyo. A moving portal makes it harder to track us. Seq is the best of them."
"Portal's clean. Reading our shadows," Seq informed and Alice nearly stumbles back again when looks at him.
"I don't remember this," he recalled.
"We don't have to run to phone booths anymore, either," she explained.
"Door's on your right," he gestures and she opens a door. Both quietly follow her as they enter another location. Seems like an old building, judging from rough stuff left behind.
"Set and setting, right?" Morpheus asked with a grin.
"Oh, no," Thomas mumbled.
"It's all about set... and setting."
Alice looks around, finds two more people inside the building. A man and a woman with odd techs. She also notices the set has some familiarity with the Lafayette Hotel from the first game.
"After our first contact went so badly, we thought elements from your past might help ease you two into the present," Bugs alluded.
"Nothing comforts anxiety," Morpheus stands up, "like a little nostalgia."
"This is footage from your game."
Both watches the torn projection that plays the moment Morpheus and Neo met for the first time.
"'I imagine that right now you're feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole?'" Alice quoted, like already recite this scene several times despite only playing the game one time. Bugs and Morpheus observe. "'To you, what happened to you doesn't make sense. You want answers to the questions that are on your mind. But understand this. There is a price you have to pay if you want answers.'"
Thomas frowns. "That line isn't in the game."
"No, but it comes from her memory," Morpheus clarified with a hint of proudness, slowly lifting his arm, showing two red pills. "Time to fly."
He raises his hand. "Wait. If this is real, if I haven't lost my mind, does that mean," he stares at the screen, "this happened?"
"Which also means," she quietly stares between Trinity and her father... Neo. "My dreams lately, those visions during the attack... also real." Her mouth twitches, slowly processing this revelation. That she truly is Enigma from the game. "But if it did..."
"Then we... died," Neo finished, tenses.
"Obviously not," Bugs argued. "Why the Machines kept you two alive and why they went to such lengths to hide you are questions we don't have answers to."
"Hide us? I've been at a company making a game called The Matrix and most people know my daughter as the author of Cloud Atlas. Doesn't seem like they were trying to hide anything."
"We've been tracking that company for years. We screened every Thomas Anderson and Alice Lovelace/Anderson we found. What we didn't understand was that they could alter both your DSI." Bugs lead them into a mirror. "Pods generate your digital self-image through a feedback system called Semblance. This is how you two look to yourself." The mirror shows their current look. "Somehow they were able to alter your DSI loop. This is how everyone else sees you."
What the mirror shows now makes her chest rise and fall with rapid breaths. Right now, they see two different people in the mirror. An older man with white hair that was nearly bold and a woman with brown highlight on her blonde hair.
Slowly, Neo takes his beanie hat while Enigma touches her eyes. "20 years?" He frowns, looking at Bugs and Morpheus. "Why did it take 20 years to find us?"
"It took a lot longer than that," Morpheus said.
"It's been over 60 years since you, Enigma, and Trinity flew to one of the Machine Cities," Bugs revealed.
That statement makes Enigma looks back. "What?" She repeated, hoping that's not true.
"There's so much we don't know. Like why you two barely aged, or how many times they've altered your DSI."
"But based on what we do know, it appears no one found you because you two didn't want to be found," Morpheus added.
"That's not true," Neo disagreed.
"Maybe it isn't. Maybe there's no foundation to the rumors that you two disappeared because you were working with the Machines from the beginning."
"Morpheus, stop," Bugs snapped, sensing how tense, angry, and upset Enigma is as she folds her arms.
"All I'm saying is this is the moment, for you to show us what is real. If you want out, you'll take this pill," he shows the red pill. "But if you are where you belong, you can go back to this," he shows the blue one. "Every day. Over and over forever."
Both Neo and Enigma look at each other again, realizing their situation right now. "Fuck," he muttered while she mumbled. "Shit."
They reach the red one and eat it. Bugs grab something from a case her comrade gives and set it on their wrist.
"Keep the loop tight," Seq said.
"Cybebe needs that tower pin," Bugs told them.
"I got a signal."
"It's faint. It's definitely off-grid," the man informed.
"So... just touch it, right?" Enigma queried Neo. He nods as the mirror keeps changing between their current look and their alter look. She notices her appearance flickers between her 8-years-old, 30-years old, alter look, and even changes into a man.
"Captain. I'm tracking a whole lot of weird," Seq said from afar as they touch the mirror, creating a ripple. Just as their hand enters the mirror...
"Thomas? Alice?"
The therapist stands in front of them. Oh ow.
"Oh, God," Neo mumbled.
"Oh, no," the blue-glasses man muttered.
"You," Enigma hissed, her eyes glaring. "You...!"
"Thomas, none of this is real. You are in the midst of a serious psychotic break."
She backs her hand and Neo's from the mirror. "Don't touch him," she warned her father.
"Thomas? Thomas, please. This is not a game."
As the therapist takes Neo's hand, Enigma grabs his other hand. "Let go," she growled, tries to keep Neo in here. Her eyes look at her hands, noticing the liquid of the mirror already taken over her left hand like Neo did during his first awakening. Her heart's beating faster.
"Feel my hand. This is what is real. Stay with me."
"No. No," Neo cried out.
"Stay with me."
"Don't you dare!" Enigma raged, hears a SWAT team entering the building. The mirror starts cracking as she shouts, "Don't you dare take him away!"
More cracks and she can feel cold from her left hand, slowing her strength and focus. Bugs quickly pull Neo away from the mirror and leads them away back to the train. The cold already enters her stomach and left leg.
An explosion happens behind her, causing chaos. She feels dizzy in her head again. Oh great.
"Bots are being activated," Seq informed.
"It's a swarm," Lexy, the woman, realized.
"What's a swarm?" Enigma asked, feeling her legs lose their function to stand up as she catches all passengers' eyes turning black and proceed to attack them.
A hand suddenly pushes her behind. She spots a woman in a green mask choking her. Desperately trying to concentrate, she grabs her shirt and smashes it against a chair nearby. Lexy and Morpheus use their gun so she died permanently.
Everything turns into complete chaos. Maybe it's the effect of the pill, maybe it's the liquid that slowly covers her body, or maybe these bots are gone completely cuckoo. In any case, Enigma's head just spinning around like merry go round add roller coaster at once.
"I think I'm drunk," she blabbered as she sees her father also having a hard time focusing, even trying to make some kung-fu gestures he often does in their spare time together. "It feels awful."
Lexy helps her stand up, bringing her and Neo inside a toilet Bugs gestures.
"That mirror," Seq pointed out the small mirror.
"What?" Bugs gaped. "We'll never fit."
"You gotta fit, 'cause I don't have another way off this train."
"Just imagine it like the TARDIS," Enigma mentioned, thinking of her favorite TV show. Her head's fuzzier now, to the point Bugs grabs her body to stabilize. She looks at both hands, already covers with liquid. "It's bigger on the inside than the outside. I did that with a smaller mirror during my first awakening, since the mirror was shattered to pieces by stupid Agents. Also, I'm cold."
Seq nods. "Think perspective. Closer you are, bigger it gets."
Neo watches her as the liquid already reaches her cheeks. "Enigma..."
"She'll be okay," Bugs assured him, putting Neo in front of the mirror. "Okay, come on. In you go."
The last thing Enigma sees is Bugs and Morpheus pushing Neo into the mirror.
▪︎1001▪︎
The first time Enigma woke up in the real world, she was terrified by the sight she witnessed. From dark skies, millions of humans sleeping in pods, terrifying machines that move, to her body that full of holes.
Waking up for a second time also gives a similar effect.
She's still in shock from all the wires going into her body, with the back of her head that connects to not one, but two holes. However, all of that isn't surprising when she sees two pods in front of her. One on the left, one on the right, while red light shone her surrounding.
She sees Neo awake in the right pod. Their eyes met with disbelief before moving on to the other pod, where someone was sleeping inside.
Trinity.
Enigma gulps. The three of them are somehow still alive and re-enter the Matrix for 60 years. Even now, she can't believe it.
She forces her legs to move closer to the end of the pod. Her hand tries to reach Trinity, as Neo does the same. They didn't know how to wake Trinity, but they both had the instinct to approach her.
Before that happen, suddenly Enigma comes face to face with a machine. She froze, tries not to look scared at all. Even as this machine grips her neck, she tries to remain calm even though the wires in her body began to unravel in pain.
Her vision began to fade as another machine approached his father from behind. Enigma quickly sees the machine take him upstairs. As the machine that released her approaches her again, Enigma tries to stand up straight so it can carry her body. She sighs as her body float in the air with a chill from the grip of the machine.
She looks at her mother one more time before losing consciousness.
