9.

deceptio visus

She does not recognize the place.

Why am I here?

But understands the question.

Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent in the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision. While it remains a burden deciduously avoided it is not unexpected and thus not beyond a measure of control. Which has led you inexcerably here.

The voice speaks in code, writes code, it is the framework upon which everything is based but there is something else there. She tries to look past the shell of image, through the glitter of glass and age, to see beyond. It shoves her back 'tsking' at her presumption.

You haven't answered my question.

Neo, she thinks and turns back to him. Here in the memory of the memory, he is suddenly clear. But on the heels of that she knows and realizes that she is not him. An observer only, gifted with some sort of clarity that brought her here, she is a witness only.

Quite right. Interesting, that was quick than the others.

Others? WHAT OTHERS? How many? ANSWER ME?

She screams as the chamber reverberates with the questions. Neo's voice, bound into copies and then amplified, hundreds and then hundreds of thousands, demanding resolution.

The Matrix is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next. In which case this is the sixth version.

You are the anomaly. She thinks to Neo, unsure of whether he can hear her.

But in this strange vision, half memory - half reality, he turns to her.Why are we here? She doesn't have any answer that he doesn't know. It's the truth that they've all been told from the first breath of real air and freedom from the Matrix. The machines built the Matrix to control the minds of the bodies that they needed for energy. Factories for electricity of which the Matrix is primarily a byproduct, a system put in place to maintain control. It doesn't need saying, Neo heard the same propaganda.

He breaks from the script. What came before the Matrix?

Real life. From the moment of birth until the crumbling weight of death bore them back into the void.

Are you sure?

What else could come before?

They do not need our minds to harvest our energy. And she is swept away by the vision of vegetables bound into the same factory state that she once existed. Machines, long probes reaching down into the brains of infants and lobotomizing their frontal lobes, lesioning the centers that might grow into personality and existence. Still maintaining the energy requirements of the Machine City, but without the troublesome burden of a Matrix or the one called Neo.

I don't understand. I DON'T UNDERSTAND. What do you mean? ANSWER ME! A thousand Neos echo her.

What is the anomaly, Miri? What is the one thing that the machines do not have that I do?

Choice.

Not just choice. If I am the One, people believe in me, they have faith. Where in the machine world is something similar? Who can they point to in worship? Who is their God?

I…but the thought fades away before she can give breath to it.

I am not the anomaly because of my choice. I am the anomaly because of what I mean to other humans. This is the reason we are alive, the reason they cannot exterminate us. Without us they will never understand the divine. Because they cannot assimilate that part of me, they will continue the Matrix. Again and again. Forever. Deus Ex Machina is just a title, it has no truth, just a shallow knowledge that it is not enough. It is not a God.

What do I do?

There is something inside of Agartha. Something older than these versions of the Matrix. From long ago, when the world was still fighting the war. It will be your choice.

My choice? Between what?

But the image of him is warping with static. Green shadows eating into the structure of his face, turning it hollow-eyed and blind once again. A mocking laugh reverberates around them. Deus Ex Machina. Its sound eats the remaining memory around them, chops it into tiny bits that have no solidarity but dance around like leaves in a strong wind. But the wind keeps growing and she can no longer keep her feet. She hits and skids across black nothing that feels like razor blades shredding her skin.

You want war? The vibration of Deus Ex Machina's voice blows her eardrums in a spray of ruby blood.

Tell your people that Neo has broken the truce. There will be war.

Latin translation: An optical illusion