Hey everyone! here is Chapter 2 of the new rewritten story. Being I have three stories I am working on currently, two of which are being rewritten, I just wanted to thank you guys for sticking with me and being patient. I know I'm updating slow, but before I post them here, I want to make sure that I'm happy with what's written because I don't want to give you guys bad content. Between college and writing, I am going to be uploading a bit slow, but updates should be coming more regularly since I finally found time to balance both writing and all the work I have to do. I edit my own work so please let me know if you see anything that needs to be fixed and I will correct it. I proofread before I post the chapters but I may have missed a few if there are any.
Robert32514: Thanks for being here for the ride! I really hope you liked the first chapter! Mika is one of the few characters I created that I feel like some people can relate to.
Chapter 2
"I don't know how you did it." Marcus told me when we landed the chopper back at the base.
"What are you talking about?" I looked to my copilot and tried to physically understand what happened. How did time freeze like that? Why didn't anyone else notice? As soon as I realized time froze I quickly strapped the woman to me and got us both to safety under my chopper. Time unfroze as soon as I was out of danger. What did this mean? Nothing made sense. Maybe I needed more sleep.
"One minute I see you about to meet your maker and then the next, you and the woman are safe waiting to be brought up."
All I could do was shrug. How do you explain something like that? I'd look like an idiot. Liam was benched from any further rescue calls until the board could figure out what to do. I couldn't have him freeze on the job anymore. As much as I liked being in the action, I couldn't keep leaving Marcus alone in the chopper. I was the pilot. Thankfully he took the punishment like a professional and agreed to stay benched for the time being.
Time didn't freeze again and with my shift done for the day, I decided I needed a day to stay in. I stepped out of the elevator and fetched my keys from my bag and unlocked my front door. I stepped inside, looking at the floor and noticing an envelope was there addressed to me. I didn't recognize the handwriting and when I opened up the envelope to look inside, all that was inside was a key with an address on a small slip of paper and a time to meet there.
I looked at the paper, not seeing where it was sent from. The question that first came wasn't who sent this, it was if I should really go… eight pm, which was only three hours away. Morpheus sent me that letter. I could chalk it up to me being insane, I could say that my gut feeling could be wrong, but deep down I knew he sent this. I touched the paper, thinking of my dream. We were in a hotel room in 1313, which was the same exact room number on the slip of paper. This couldn't be a coincidence, I didn't believe in those. I knew if I didn't go I'd regret it.
Making up my mind, I showered, rinsing the stress of the workday off of me. What was I going to wear? I stared at my closet as if it would magically speak to me and hand me an outfit. I decided that the more comfortable the better. I picked out my black tank top with my leather jacket and my jeans with my black boots. Rain hit my window and I knew it was going to be cold. I opened my nightstand, taking my two knives out and tucking them in my boot. My gun that was locked up in my closest was tucked into the back of my pants. Even if I was insane and Morpheus didn't send me that envelope, I wasn't going to walk into a place defenseless. I made sure I had my wallet and ID and decided I was ready to go. I checked the time one last time, only realizing an hour and a half passed, I was going to be early, but I really didn't care.
The hotel looked deserted. I stayed in the car, trying to see if I saw hints of life in the building but I saw nothing. The rain started coming down harder the closer I got to the hotel.
"This is ridiculous Mika." I looked through the windshield trying to talk myself into going back home. The closer I drove here, the less confidence I had. Was I being stupid? This was probably a waste of time. "You're dream guy doesn't exist….he's just in your head."
Someone sent me that envelope though. A clap of thunder echoed around me, and I got out of the car, making sure to lock it, and ran inside the hotel. There really wasn't anyone here. I had the key in my pocket, gripping it as if my life depended on it. I climbed the stairs to the first floor, only realizing the room number didn't match the floor. I looked at the map for the hallway and realized I had to go to the very top.
On the thirteenth floor, I opened the stairway door. All these floors looked identical, it's a wonder no one ever got lost in this place. Not a single person was roaming the halls. This place looked abandoned. I took my hand and kept it behind my back, ready to use my gun if I had to. Finally, 1313 came into view and I stood outside the door. My hand, just above the handle. "You can do this….you'll regret this if you don't."
I took a deep breath, slowly opening the door. It was small, with nothing in it but a small round table, and three brown leather chairs with a box television. The rain outside hadn't let up. If anything it sounded worse. I was alone with my thoughts. Nothing stood out in this room. It was a normal hotel room from the looks of it. So why am I here? Why was I brought here if no one was waiting for me?
I lost count of how many minutes passed as I stared out the window watching the rain slide down the window. No one was coming. I looked at my watch and it was almost the time the slip of paper was said to be here. Who was I supposed to meet?
The door suddenly opened and when I turned to see who the mysterious person was, I felt frozen. It was my dream guy. He wasn't supposed to be real. He shouldn't be real. He was just someone everyone kept telling me was just in my head. I couldn't believe my eyes. I had to be dreaming. I pinched my arm, only I didn't wake up, I just felt pain.
"Hello, Glitch." His voice was just like my dream. Low, authoritative, and just calm. His voice was always so soothing to me. He could have told me a family member died and I wouldn't even feel anything but just soothed by his voice. "At least, we finally meet. We're just waiting for one more."
I didn't say anything. I couldn't say anything. I knew I was in shock. I knew I should say something, anything, but when I opened my mouth, nothing came out.
"I know. You have a million questions. I will answer them when our last guest has arrived." He walked over to the window I was leaning against, leaving a little space between us. I could still feel the heat he radiated off his body. I was trying to come up with something intelligent to say.
I wasn't stupid, not by any means. I was the top of my class throughout my school years, I had photographic memory with a high IQ and a thirst to be perfect at anything. My love life sucked, I could barely keep a goldfish alive. I had my dream job, helping people while I flew in the sky. This man, who has been in every dream I had, who I just found out a few seconds ago, was in fact real, made me feel like I would spout something incredibly stupid at at moment.
I was just about to try and say something to him, but the doors opened again, and a woman entered. She had short hair, something I wouldn't be able to pull off but for her, it worked. She smiled at me and nodded to Morpheus before she left through the side door in the room. It must have been her room.
"As you no doubt have guessed, I am Morpheus." He walked over and sat down in the leather chair, gesturing for me to sit as well. I silently obeyed, taking a seat across from him. I couldn't relax, I was too on edge.
"Do you know who I am?" this wasn't the first question I wanted to ask, but it was a question that just randomly came out. I wasn't sure if he had similar dreams as I had. I knew exactly who he was. I knew not only his name but his character.
"Your name is Glitch, but in this life, you are Mika Anderson. Younger sister to Thomas Anderson who is a quiet programmer for MetaCortex in what you know as Chicago. You haven't met your brother and until just now, you had no idea he existed."
I scoffed thinking this man was crazy. I was attracted to a psycho.
"I don't know who you think I am, but I'm not Mika Anderson. I am Mika Philips, I was born in Chicago on a full moon to Lily and Erik Philips on July 19 at eight-thirty in the morning. I was at the top of my class in school and graduated from college when I was twenty. I took a job as a helicopter pilot that is a part of the rescue team five years ago and tomorrow I turn twenty-five years old." I rambled going about a hundred miles per minute. If he was keeping up I was impressed. "I was an only child, before me my mother had one miscarriage and she always calls me her miracle. I have been seeing a therapist since I turned five because I've had dreams that I woke up from thinking they were real." I looked Morpheus in the eye as I repeated my words. I was an only child. My parents died in a car crash when I started college and since then I have been on my own.
"That is what they wanted you to believe." He leaned back in his chair, putting his hands in front of him. "You've experienced things when you were younger, things you couldn't explain, and for years you have been told that none of it was real, it was in your head. Yet, a part of you still believes that some of what you imagined was real. Including me."
"You have no idea what you're talking about." I took up to start pacing around the room in front of him. I was starting to freak out. I couldn't just listen to nonsense.
"I imagine right now you two feel a lot like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole. " I glared at him, but I knew he was right. I honestly did feel like that. "Ironically, this is not far from the truth. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Can you tell me why you're here?"
"You sent an envelope to my apartment." As if that sentence alone could prove my point.
"Yet you knew it was from me and came." he smiled, "Even though I never put my name. Just your name, a time and a place and a key."
"Just because I knew you sent the envelope doesn't mean anything." I fidgeted with my fingers as I continued to pace the room. How did I know that Morpheus was the one who sent the envelope? His name wasn't on it. How could I have known, How is he even here right now?"
"At the age of two, you had cried because it was time for your nap and you turned the time back a few minutes so you could have more time to stay awake. At age four you made time speed up so that you could return home from school. At age five you stopped time when your parents were fighting over sending you to boarding school. Like any frightened child, you told your parents about it and they told you it was just your imagination. Then you had nightmares about machines killing your parents and since then they put you in therapy to deal with these nightmares that keep recurring."
"How do you-"
"It's all a lie. You were told these things so that you couldn't remember the truth." I stood in front of him, wanting answers. How was it possible he knew all this?
"Am I being pranked?" I started laughing, looking around every nook and cranny for a camera. "I'm being pranked right? This is just some sick joke?" I looked at the Tv to see if I saw anything, but I couldn't find anything. "Let's all make fun of Mika because she has no love life instead of pining for a dream guy that doesn't exist.
"Then explain how I knew your childhood history. Explain the reoccurring dreams you have of machines killing every living thing. Explain how I am in front of you right now, having this conversation."
I sat back down in the chair because I had no answers for him. I couldn't give him any. Somehow I knew he was telling me the truth. He was real. He was in front of me. That I could come to terms with. I didn't believe in things I couldn't see.
"Do you believe in fate?" He suddenly asked, and I could only look up at him and scoff.
"You mean like soul mates? No. I don't believe in things that I can't see. I'm in control of my life, no one else is."
Morpheus smiles. "Your brother gave me the same answer." He leaned forward, his face suddenly becoming more serious which only made me pay attention more. "Let me tell you why you are here. You came here because you know something. What you know you can't explain but you can feel it."
That sentence got me. This was the same conversation I've had with him in a dream. Morpheus smiled as if he knew it too. I know something is wrong with me, I've known since as far as I can remember. I was told therapy could help, I was labeled to be borderline schizophrenia. I had delusions of time freezing, which made me take medication constantly. The dreams would be real when I woke up and I was told my symptoms were getting worse.
"It's like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?" He was worried. I could tell he knew I was about to freak out again. I felt so on edge that I couldn't sit still. I was fidgeting with my jacket sleeve trying to come to terms with that this was my dream. I had to be dreaming again. One word stood out to me. It was a name I haven't said in years because everyone told me it wasn't real.
"The Matrix?" I whispered, feeling my heartbeat so loudly that I was sure Morpheus could hear it as well. I felt like it was going to come out of my chest.
"The Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us, here even in this room. You can see it when you look out your window or on your television. You can feel it when you go to work or go to church or pay your taxes."
"I was told it wasn't real. You are literally explaining things that shouldn't be real." I felt my head, feeling one of my migraines start to come. This was the last thing I needed.
"No one can be told what the matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."
Leaning forward, he takes a silver case out of his jacket. He put something in his hand and sat the case on the table in front of me, and a glass of water appeared at the same time. Morpheus revealed a red pill in his right hand and a blue pill in his left hand.
"What are those?" I looked at the pulls in his hand wondering what he was offering me.
"If you take the red pill, you stay in wonderland and I'll show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. I can give you back the memories that are buried in your head. But if you take the blue pill, your story is over. You'll wake up in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe. You'll probably go to therapy tomorrow and explain how you dreamed about this moment again. They will up your medication and tell you it was all just a dream. None of it was real."
"So you're telling me," I took in a deep breath, preparing myself to voice what I was afraid of. "That I have a brother out there somewhere. That my therapist who is like family to me, put false memories in my head and made me believe that I have a mental disorder because she was trying to keep me away from you?"
"Yes." Morpheus looked down at the pills in his hands. This is your last chance, after this, there is no going back."
I wanted to know if what he said was true. I hesitantly grabbed the red pill. I needed to know if my entire life was a lie. I needed to know if I knew something when I was younger. I needed to know if what I felt was right, could actually be true. I really was Alice who fell down the rabbit hole. "Does this make you the white rabbit or the Cheshire Cat?"
All Morpheus did was smile as he stood up from the leather chair, motioning for me to follow him. As I stood up, he grabbed my hand, and I felt small standing next to him. I was just over five feet as it was, and my hand was so much smaller than his. We walked through the door that I saw the woman enter earlier.
Instead of leather chairs and a television, there were two chairs and high-tech equipment with a bunch of monitors in the room, making the already small room look even smaller. The woman who I saw earlier with white hair put something in my ear as a bunch of wires came around me. Another woman with black kneeled in front of me attaching the wires to the front of me. A new face, a man with a ponytail and glasses dressed in black as well, was in front of the monitors.
Morpheus walked over to the man in front of the monitors, "Apoc, are we online?"
"Almost." the man answered, never taking his eyes off the screens.
I felt Morpheus move the one woman away to put a weird patch on my neck.
"Time is always against us." he whispered to me. I was really confused. This was the first time I met him. What did time have to do with it?
"Definitely the white rabbit." I whispered, earning a smile from him. The metaphor suited him. He was a mystery to me right now as were all these people I didn't know.
Morpheus guided me to sit down in the chair as he rubbed my arm to try and calm my nerves. That definitely wasn't going to happen. My nerves were shot and my headache was getting worse.
"The pill you two took is part of a trace program." Morpheus announced, "It's designed to disrupt your input and output carrier signals so we can pinpoint your locations."
If I wasn't so confused before, I definitely was now, "Location for what?"
"It means that you need to buckle up, cause your Kansas going bye-bye." a man guarding the door interrupted. He must have a short fuse because he looked like he was about to blow a gasket.
"Oh, that's a relief because I was told I was in wonderland." I shot back, The room erupted with small chuckles and I looked to Morpheus to see if he would explain further but I didn't get anything.
All the people in the room were busy doing their jobs as I sat and waited patiently. My headache got increasingly worse to the point where I had to hold my head with both my hands. I didn't have my medicine with me. It was back in my apartment. It started getting bad to the point where I was whimpering from the pain. I felt like my head was going to explode and I leaned forward further only to fall out of my chair. I opened my eyes for a brief second to see Morpheus come to my side and put me in his lap.
"My head feels like it's going to explode!" I screamed to no one in particular. I just wanted the pain to stop.
"Going into replication!" someone announced
"Apoc?" Morpheus' voice echoed as I felt him rub my head to try and soothe me.
"Still nothing."
"Please just make it stop!" I begged but nothing happened. It started when Morpheus told me my life was basically a lie, full of false memories. It just got increasingly worse. Everything went silent for a few seconds, then I heard all the loud noises.
Morpheus sounded closer as he informed someone named Tank that he needed a signal soon. "Mika you need to stop messing with time, we are going to get you out, don't worry."
"I got fibrillation! She's going into arrest" A woman panicked. Something wet ran down my face as I kept screaming.
"Shit! Apoc?"
"Lock! I got her!"
All the voices became so distant. I didn't hear anything else. It all kept fading in and out as I fought to stay conscious, but in the end, I wasn't able to.
