Ch. 7 The Oracle's Prediction

"And what exactly did the Oracle tell you? I have to admit you have gotten me rather curious as it is not in my nature to help humans and yet it has been foretold that I will. Unless…unless you are lying to me, in which case I will be very…displeased." The Glitch Manager gave Morpheus a ruthless look lest he doubt her seriousness.

Morpheus did not falter in the least. "I went to her to ask her what could be done about our aforementioned problem. She gave me directions for finding him…" He pointed at me. "Picture, name and such, and said that those who could help us would then find us."

The anger was rising in me again. I did not like being a pawn in a game I did not know about. I did not like being a tool to gain something better, as I had always been. So I had been brutalized to get to her. I was once again a cursory figure in the equation. I hoped that somehow the Oracle had misled him. I hoped that the Glitch Manager would kill him for his impudence.

The Glitch Manager laughed.

"Simple as that, huh? Well, I don't know what to tell you, except that you are shit out of luck. Now some other insane program may barge in and vow allegiance, but it ain't gonna be me. I do not know enough about humans to know if you are lying, but your tale seems impossible. That old woman is the one and only program who would ever consider helping you. Even exiles have enough sense to distrust humans."

The Glitch Manager stood up.

"I think this meeting is over. I am tired of listening to you and I do have other things to do. So if you'll excuse me. Oh, and Charlie, you might want to come with me. You looked rather ridiculous bound and bleeding."

"Wait." Morpheus held up his hand.

The Glitch Manager stopped, but I continued to walk toward her.

"We are prepared to make an offer to you in exchange for your cooperation."

The Glitch Manager and I were both perplexed. I could feel her growing irritation. Who did this man think he was trying to bribe her? It would have been bad to try to bribe me, an exile with nothing to loose, but she was part of the system. She had a lot to lose and nothing to gain. She could have the agents here in less than a minute to dispose of this presumptuous little human. Of course, I was there and would not have liked to be present when the agents arrived, but if she could just record it for me…

"What could you offer me? You do not even know who I am! You have no idea what I could even do for you!"

"I know you are quite powerful. You would not have come to his aid if you did not have the ability to do so without interference. You materialized a chair out of thin air. I wonder what else you could do?"

The truth of the matter was, she could do a great deal for him, but there was no reason he should know that. Somehow I doubted he would believe that she was just a representative of Ethan Allen. But she could tell him she was a loading program. They had loading programs of their own, hence the AK47's.

"That really is none of your concern. You have nothing that I want. I am a goddess here. I have everything I want."

"Oh, but you don't really have anything at all. You are a program living in a dream world. You have nothing. We could give you reality."

I truly did not see where Morpheus was going with this. We were programs in the Matrix. This was our world. We were not interested in the physical, it was just as alien to us as it was to those asleep. I was curious, yes, and I imagined she was too, to know how accurate our world was. But it was all an abstraction, like a dream.

"What do I care about reality? It is nothing to me."

"Oh, I'm sure it means something to you. You would care if the machines lost the war."

"What war? There is no war! You are a rebel, fighting against the very system that keeps most of your species alive! You are no threat! There are no concessions because you are an annoyance at best!"

"Then why do you care whether or not we persist?"

"Because your perseverance is unnerving. You are potentially dangerous. If your numbers grow the way you wish them to, then maybe you might become a hazard. You are destructive, you are deceitful, and now that you have finally become manageable, you will be so maintained! So if you are trying to sell me some insurance in case things do not turn out as planned, you can forget it!"

"I would not presume to be so bold. I do not offer safety, but freedom. Freedom from this artificial world."

I was feeling sick again, only this time it wasn't from fear. It was from a memory I wish I didn't have. That tactic would have worked on someone, but not the Glitch Manager, who was now quite furious.

"Look, asshole, this may be a cage for a primitive human that is never satisfied with what it has, but as far as I'm concerned, you live in your own little cage of steel and the worst part is that you put yourself there."

She was not going to stand there and be insulted any more and I wasn't going to let her leave me with them. They might have more shovels. She pushed past the rebels and out the door, vanishing the poofy chair behind her as she went. I followed her closely as the rebel weapons did me. It pained me to leave them with such a large score to settle, but I saw no alternative that did not end with bullet holes throughout my body, and as I mentioned before, such a situation was firmly tacked on the "bad things" list.

Morpheus nor any of the other rebels tried to stop us or spoke to us at all as we departed. Surely they would not give up so easily. Yet their options seemed just as limited as my own; there was no way to convince a program as powerful as the Glitch Manager of anything she did not wish to be convinced. She held the door open for me to exit and then closed it behind me with a creak, but the door did not click shut.

The hallway was nearly as dark as the room had been with only a single fluorescent overhead light in the entire stretch of hallway that produced little more incandescence than the fire exit light. The walls we lined with the sample diagonal-patterned wallpaper, but the floor was a threadbare mauve carpet. Doors lined both sides of walk, one every fifteen feet or so, with nothing more than the door number and a simple peephole.

We walked to the end of the hallway, the Glitch Manager in the lead since I did not know in exactly which of a million hotels we were located. It looked familiar, but after all this time, they all seemed familiar. She lead me to an elevator and I pushed the down arrow, once and then firmly again when the light did not immediately come on. After a couple of minutes, the elevator stopped on the number 11, apparently our floor because the doors opened with a shudder.

The general decrepit nature of the building made me nervous, not because I was afraid of what might lie behind those doors, but because I was not certain of the safety of the elevator and after that morning was not in a hurry to fall another dozen or so stories. Sensing my reservations, she pushed me gently into the elevator and came in behind me.

It was I who selected the first floor on the panel inside the elevator. When no one else came, the doors closed slowly, as if it took an enormous force to do such a simple task and we began our descent.

She said nothing to me the entire way down and I wondered what would happen when we reached the bottom. The truth was I did not want to leave her after having been so isolated for so long. I could not go back to my apartment lest the rebels try something again. I didn't imagine the owner would let me stay after that mornings shooting spree, but I at least would not ever have to see that annoying girl again. There was nothing there I wanted enough to retrieve, nothing I wanted to endure countless questions and prying looks over. I could go anywhere, do anything and yet I felt more limited than I ever had before. It would not matter where I went, they would find me and I would find nothing. Who "they" was didn't matter any more than where because the intentions were almost always the same. They were programs that managed any number of things, the weather, system maintenance, interfacing, the winning lotto numbers, that had simple existences and purposes and could not forgive me of mine. We're all here to do what we're all here to do. I seemed to remember that from somewhere and yet I could not remember those words ever having been said to me. As the rebel Chernobyl had told me less than an hour ago, most of them would like nothing better than to kill me. The rebels did not worry me as much because they were human after all and as such were much more direct in their methodology. An attack from say the Merovingian would be nowhere near as obvious or obtuse. It would be artistic and full of irony since he had been denied what he felt were his due rights with my brothers. I was stirred from my thoughts as the elevator door opened with a ding and the Glitch Manager pulled me out by the arm as though I were not capable of it on my own.

The lobby was just as bad as the rest of the building, mauve carpeting as far as the eye could see. Their interior decorator really needed to be taken out and shot.

A pair of glass double doors led to the bright, outside world and I noticed for the first time that I was missing my sunglasses. I never left them behind. Never. And yet that morning I had grabbed my gun and not my glasses sitting right next to it. It was uncharacteristic behavior on my part and unsettled the calm that had overcome me once I had realized we were back on the ground floor. I need my glasses, the light will surely blind me, I thought.

The Glitch Manager pushed open the door on the right and held it open, all the while keeping her grip on my shoulder, not the one that had been shot, the one on which she had laid her head.

Just where would she take me? Or would she leave me here on the sidewalk? Please don't leave me.

Once outside, I squinted at my surroundings to gain my bearings. I immediately recognized where I was. They had only taken me a few kilometers from my apartment. Lazy slackers. The sun was high in the sky and the weather warm. No chance of rain at all.

I was going to ask the Glitch Manager what she intended to do now, but she yanked me off to the left and I submitted. What did she have planned?

"Where are we going?"

"To the park, I think."

"Why the park?"

"Why not the park? It's not like you have anything better to do, unless you have another kidnapping appointment today. Besides, the ducks amuse me nearly as much as the people feeding them."