"My name is Neo, I must see what can't be seen, I must know what can't be known. I am a survivor of an unknown war. My only companion a man with no first name." Neo told himself.
That' s all very poetic he thought to himself. What a life he's living, he went to further think. He wonders how sane and normal people live their lives. A life where they wake up each and every day in a home, in the city, kids go to school, adults go to work. Work? Well he thought about it, and work didn't sound very nice or fun. If he ever got out of this Asylum he would not work! No, he'd make Smith work and get all the money! Yes, Smith seemed like the working type, he likes to do things, get them done and such. Wait, what was he saying? Once they get out of the Asylum they'll leave the Matrix!
He wonders what it must be like outside this Matrix. With those machine squids… They must be everywhere…the entire world is metal. How will they survive? Neo stops dead in his tracks.
What is he supposed to do? An entire world of machines…What's he going to do?
Reality just set in, and he became very afraid. But in the words of Smith, baby steps. Neo still frowned. One step at a time, Neo, one step at a time. Leave the Asylum, leave the Matrix, go on from there. Yeah, that'll work. It's okay, you're Neo! You'll be fine! Neo smiled once again.
Neo didn't really like Miho's hallway, for the people yelled at him in his head. They yelled in anguish and pain, Neo only imagined existed outside the dream world. They screamed in ways that sent shivers down his spine, awakening something primal in him. Something that arose an instinct to run, run away from he pain.
But Miho needed him.
He walked down the many hallways at the dead of night, careful to avoid all the guards. He finally slid down Miho's hall and carefully jumped in front of her cell, a bit of a surprise. She sat in the center of her room and smiled.
"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner, Miho. It was kind of hard because the guards were keeping an eye on me." Neo says sitting by her through the bars.
"You snuck out in the rain." The not so little girl smiled. "Michael told me."
"Oh, you are friends with him?"
She took a moment to slowly nod.
"There aren't many…of us so young." Miho explained.
Neo smiled at her.
"Look what I got from the Library." Neo beamed.
Eager to share Neo held up his book, and gave it to her through the bars. Miho smiled at the book, instantly recognizing it.
"Yin and Yang!" She laughed.
"You know it?"
"Maybe it's a teenage thing." The girl said. "Yeah I do."
"Well what is it?" Neo pressed his face against the bars.
"It's kinda hard to explain."
"Please try."
Miho looked up, and even in her rather fragile mind, she knew this picture was wrong somehow. She saw Neo, with an eager face that seemed familiar. The intensity and curiosity of a child, like she once was in her haunted house where she flew. A face of innocence, with a mind young and fertile. But why was such a face on Neo? A man, grown and full, why was this curiosity in him?
Miho stared at him for a moment, but snapped out of it, giving him a weak smile. She tapped the book at the symbol of white and black.
"It's a philosophy that all things in the universe are equal." She said with her accent. "The white, balances the black, and together they create peace."
"So…a tree has an opposite to balance it?"
"Well…yeah I guess."
"But a tree is not Yin or Yang…"
"It's an analogy, a metaphor. Yin is the dark, and Yang is the light see? And um…without them there is chaos. Without the good in things, or the bad in things there is nothing."
"But wouldn't it be better if there was no bad?"
Wouldn't the world be better if there was only a Messiah without an antichrist?
"Well um…no…you see…" Miho tried to explain. "How…how would you know what is good, without knowing bad?"
Neo lied back, having to think for a moment what Miho had just said.
"How can there be such a thing as good, if there was never any bad? How can we know what day is, when there would never be night?" She went on.
"How can we know love, without knowing hate?" Neo asked.
"Yeah! Yin and Yang…they need each other to exist. Even though good may not like bad, they need each other. Yin and Yang represent all things, it shows that bad things must happen so that we appreciate the good things."
Neo's face turned to complete astonishment and awe. The rather happy Neo had never imagined that world actually needed the bad things in the world. All the hurt he hears in those halls, all the pain. Pain is there so that they know pleasure. Pain is Yin. Joy is Yang. All the hurt he can imagine outside the Asylum's white walls. The pain outside the walls of this dream world, where demons take the form of machines.
He looked down towards the halls, where men called his name in desperation.
And Miho stared at this face, and watched as he turned his head, where the child in Neo was lost. He looked in all seriousness down the hall, a Neo she didn't know existed until that moment. She had seen that face before…she made it every time she unleashed her flames. She stared at death and destruction that she could not stop, but only create. Neo…Neo was looking off towards death.
"Then again…bad is only a perception." Miho whispered. "Yin is bad, but it must think Yang is bad…"
Neo slowly turned to her.
"Maybe neither of them are bad at all." He said, lying his face on her bars. "Maybe they're just different."
----------------
Another apple courtesy of Mr. Joshua Daniels, Smith held it and rolled it within his hand.
"You are real!" Joshua yelled.
"I apologize for not coming sooner, as the security around me has…tightened up."
"Yeah that first day, I was just like, 'no! Another delusion!' but look you're here! You're here in front of me, real as can be!"
"Indeed."
Joshua slapped his leg, sitting on the bed, as Smith sat at the foot of the bed.
"So what's new?" Joshua Daniels asked.
"The rain."
"You like it? Me too."
Joshua Daniels. A truly insane man, now one of Smith's rather secret companions. Joshua Daniels, murderer, broken, too broken to go to jail. Joshua Daniels a man within a dream world he has no idea about. Smith looked upon Mr. Daniels, wondering, mentally asking if such ignorance was truly bliss.
"What's wrong? You're rather quiet." Said Joshua.
Joshua Daniels, a break from the usual. A face that was not Neo's, a voice that was Neo's. A man who was not Neo, but another person, another with different ideas, opinions, and ignorances.
Joshua Daniels, one breathe of fresh air.
"Many things have happened to me, Mr. Daniels."
"What sort of things?"
"Things I rather not burden your already burdened mind with."
Joshua Daniels frowns.
"Well I have nothing new to talk about. Stuck in here all day and night." Joshua says.
"How long have you been here?" Smith asks.
"Few years…Don't really know. It's hard keeping track of time as you can imagine for me."
"I've been here for five years."
Joshua Daniels, an insane man, who was once sane.
"You were in the outsides weren't you?" Smith asks. "You can remember being out of the asylum right?"
Joshua nods as if its not big deal.
"Tell me…about it out there."
"What you don't know?"
Smith shakes his head.
"Oh Amnesia right, I'm sorry, I didn't know it was that…bad. I mean…I've heard some other guys with it…but they still know what it's like…" Joshua stopped himself.
The outside world was alien to Neo and Smith. There was an idea, a concept of it, a picture in their heads much like Neo's little painting. Yes, it was but a picture to them. A compilation of bits and pieces of soaked up information from their surroundings. Bits and pieces of what any human should know remain. But still, how did a city work? What did people do in it? What were such tall buildings for?
Joshua Daniels realized the importance of such a question, and straightened himself.
"Well…" he began to say. "You have a job, that's how you get your money. Because it all works on money, money pays for everything you need, food, water, light, everything. A job is something you do everyday for someone else, and you have to be good at it. A job takes up most of your day, and people have these jobs everyone. All the stores, and all the restaurants, all the buildings, all full of people working on these jobs. When you have free time to yourself…usually you socialize with other people at restaurants, or parks, or you know clubs…you date them, get to know them, and you know."
"I see…why are resources simply not given out?"
"There's not enough money! And why would people work for nothing in return?"
"If resources were given out freely, there would be no need to work."
"Yeah but…but who will get all the resources?"
Smith stopped and considered for a moment.
"What if people were made to work, while resources were still given out freely?" Smith said coldly.
Joshua Daniels laughs.
"You're talking about something that sounds like slavery!" Joshua laughs.
"Slavery?"
"Yeah you know, back in the old day white people owned black people."
"Ah, the ethnicity difference and spoken superiority." Smith nods.
"Yeah."
"I see flaws in this society I know nothing about." Smith says.
"There's always flaws, man isn't perfect. And men in power don't really seem to want to better the world."
"Better it how?"
"You know, correct those flaws. Make everything free, and have people work you know…just cause they want to help everyone else. Like something out of Star Trek."
"Star Trek?"
"Never mind, some show I used to watch."
"Why don't people just threaten other people into working?" Smith asked. "If I am stronger than someone else, can I not simply make them work for me, and spare them?"
"Smith!" Joshua exclaims. "You talking like men are not equal."
"Are they?"
"Of course they are! All men are created equal."
"Ah, I see…"
"People, Smith, they're equal, other people are not dogs, they're not animals. They can't be treated like they are. That only causes problems, lots of problems. And it's taken hundreds and thousands of years of war to finally get to this point, and even now it's not perfect."
"Why not?"
"People aren't perfect, how can they create a perfect society? See…I don't know… Maybe people can never be perfect. If everything was perfect we'd all go insane right? Wow, sounds weird coming from me huh?"
"You don't want things to be perfect?"
"I don't think after millions of years of evolution and chaos, I don't think mankind could stand perfection if he were ever to achieve it."
"Hm…" Smith thought.
Joshua Daniels, a well of information that most people were unwillingly to give men like Neo and Smith. Joshua Daniels, willing to give such information and opinion on the world that is now taking a concrete shape within Smith's mind as a rather chaotic place, where one is ruled by the fearing obsession of having no money, and thus no resources to live, nothing to contribute to society, and inevitably below society, as seen as a failure in society.
Smith was beginning to see that man labeled himself non-disposable, even if there were 6 billion other humans living in the world, losing one is easily replaced, and is in fact when natural or unnatural death comes. As humans die, more and more are born. All humans were easily replaced, yet Smith understood the longing not to be replaced. He had witnessed himself feeling such threat whenever Neo's Trinity, Michelle loomed near. He understood it, noted it, and was still somehow confused by it.
Then there was this theory of Joshua Daniels that brought up unknown deliberation. Why would a human not want perfection in his life? Is that not what humans constantly attempt to do throughout their life spans? To some how reach a success of perfection, when resources come with surplus, and there is enough time to do as they wish, and there is a constant joy in all. Man was not perfect, how could he create perfect? Well Smith disagreed with Joshua Daniels on this matter. Man's purpose like all biological creatures was to ensure the survival of his species by producing offspring, this often meant that the offspring of the parent would become somehow better, more adapted, smarter, more graceful, and so on. Wasn't it a matter of time before a man's offspring became perfect?
But then again, the definition of perfection was up for debate.
"Do you believe a new caste system is needed to achieve a perfection?" Smith asked.
"Caste system?"
"If people were…designed in a way to be best at one particular thing. Thus they would have no other choice, money would not be necessary to give motif, and resources are able to be given out." Smith explained. "If people had a specific purpose in the world."
"Smith…" Joshua shook his head. "You're demeaning the importance of an individual. You're taking away freedom. How can perfection be met without freedom?"
"Freedom is necessary then?"
"Freedom is one of the most important things in this world."
Freedom.
"Free time, as you said, seems minimal, if all the man is occupied trying to make money for resources." Smith said.
"Well…it's rare sometimes yeah."
"What happens in free time?"
"Oh it depends on what you want to do."
"What do you want to do?"
Joshua laughs.
"I can't tell you what you want to do, that's your choice!"
"Ah, so there are no restrictions on that matter, but there are when one is working?" Smith asked.
"Well yeah I guess…So Smith…what would you do in your free time?"
And Smith thought for a moment.
"I would like to find some associates of mine." Smith answered.
----------------------
"You're gonna become a robot?" Neo asked.
"No, it's just called the robot, it's a dance move." Miho smiles.
"Robots dance?"
"I don't know, but there's a dance called the robot."
Miho was standing now, as was Neo, towering over the small child. Through the bars Neo watched her, as she held out her arms straight out, and bent her elbows down.
"It's old from the seventies." She said.
"Why do people have dance moves?" Neo asked.
"To look fancy at clubs, and get girls!" Miho laughed. "Okay, anyway, I did this back home sometimes. You make a smooth small movement, then stop, and do another, and it makes you look like you're a robot running on gears and stuff! See the arms move up like this, and you twist…like this!"
And indeed Miho did her dance, and she did look like a robot. Neo was struck back.
"Whoa." Neo muttered.
"Yeah, it's cool. Now you try."
Neo held up his arms as such.
"No, sort of like…um…" Miho started.
Neo could not dance like a robot.
----------------------------
"So you have friends out there in the world?" Joshua asked.
"I suppose so…" Smith said. "Honestly I am not so sure."
"Me too. Hey but that Neo guy, he's your friend right."
"I suppose."
Neo was all he had. Neo who yelled at him, and was different from him. Neo who despite all they had been through together just didn't understand Smith. Neo, whom Smith envied for many reasons, his dreams, his words, his ideas, his sear ignorance most of all. Smith, who grew farther and farther away from Neo without trying to. Smith, who wanted Neo back to the way it was before. Before Trinity, before this all. Where there was one, and many questions.
Neo, who was his friend nonetheless and despite all.
Neo, who was his only companion in this seemingly one sided war where Machine masters have won.
"I like his name. Neo, New, it's cool. Where'd he get it?"
"I don't know."
"If you could change your name what would you change it to?" Joshua Daniels asks.
Joshua Daniels was asking from Smith something he hadn't really exercised yet, imagination.
"I don't know." Smith said. "I like my name."
"You like Smith? No offence, but it's like the most common name in the world. There's no individuality in it. No spark, come on you can come up with something better."
"I like it." Smith repeated.
"Well, I'd change mine, Josh always struck me as a little kid's name."
"To what would you change it to?"
Joshua bit his lower lip.
"I don't know, that's hard." Josh said.
--------------------
"They're called the Beatles." Miho explained. "They were bigger than Jesus."
"Whose Jesus?"
"…Just some guy, but he was big, so the Beatles were really big."
"Oh okay."
"You say yes, I say no,
You say stop, I say go, go, go.
Oh no.
You say goodbye and I say hello, hello, hello.
I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello, hello, hello.
I don't why you say goodbye I say hello.
I say high, you say low.
You say why and I say I don't know.
Oh no." Miho sang.
Neo smiled, it sounded familiar.
----------------------
Joshua Daniels, a number that totals in 6 billion. One human, a rather sick human in his mind. Joshua Daniels, who feels pain but does not scream it out. A man who is sane but insane. Joshua Daniels one who answers Smith's many questions.
"You'll come back won't you?" Joshua Daniels asked.
"Of course, Mr. Daniels. I find you extremely intriguing."
"Well…I find you very intriguing too Smith."
Joshua Daniels, a slave who believes he has freedom, a slave to machine overlords who are outside this dream world. Joshua Daniels, in pain, but unknowingly in bliss. Joshua Daniels, a man Smith rather envied.
Smith enjoyed the conversation, he truly did. He was beginning to understand why Neo was so social at times, people, certain people were interesting to speak to. Although in their entire time there at the Asylum, Smith had only found one person to speak to, and Neo found an apparent abundance.
Smith now had a rather clearer picture about the world he would most likely, and very anxiously, would find himself in. The outside, it was after all only inevitable until such a freedom would be reached.
Smith said goodbye, and left.
And the man inside Joshua Daniels, longed for his return, so that he may consume him. Joshua Daniels shook the thought away, making the man inside him go away. But what was inside longed for Smith, wanted Smith just like Joshua did. Joshua shook his head and drowned himself in his pillow. Only a few more hours, and he would have some pills, and these thoughts that were not his would go away.
--------------------
The Next Morning…
The doctors, with eyes that shine from the reflections of their glasses, with bodies that seem to form to one. Voices that scream random thoughts that could be from one mind. The doctors, head of the Asylum, and yet seemingly unseen for most of the time. The doctors have called most of the staff in for this morning before pill giving.
The doctors have something special they must bring up immediately.
"Thomas A. Anderson. Jonathon Smith." One says.
"It seems that they have been rather mischievous lately, they make quite an excellent pair." Another adds.
"Extremely well coordinated considering their presence situation and mindset."
"They've been residents here for over five years, and have yet made much progress, but have merely flaunted around exposing our weaknesses."
"We believe a deeper examination of these two are needed."
The doctors said to the staff, which included Michelle, Aaron, Tank, and Kali. In fact they were seated right in front of the doctors, as it had been noticed the so said Trinity and Morpheus were the ones Thomas A. Anderson and Jonathon Smith came into most contact with.
"Thomas A. Anderson, quite childish in behavior, exhibiting over curiosity, and simple thinking. Jonathon Smith, silent, sometimes unmoving, suffered from an epileptic attack recently, we didn't even know he had epilepsy!" The main doctor says in anger.
"Perhaps Anderson suffers from Huntington's disease, it does strike within his age group." A doctor said off to the side.
"What's Huntington's disease?" Trinity asked to Morpheus.
"It's this genetic thing, the victim suffers a total degeneration of the mind." Morpheus summarized.
"Impossible!" Said another doctor. "Huntington's disease causes uncontrollable jerking movements! And if it was the disease, Anderson's mind would have furthered suffered."
"He does suffer from memory loss."
"Not recent memory, only long term. And if he did have it, it would have gotten worse by now. He wouldn't be able to sing the ABCs, by now!"
The doctors recoil.
"What you speak of is a genetic disease, I believe it is nothing such, but a case of intense self inflicted delirium."
"Intense trauma would be needed for such a thing."
"We have no file on what caused Anderson to go insane, perhaps such trauma was presence."
"But what of Smith?" Another asked. "Isn't it odd the two of them seemingly suffer from the same incident, yet exhibit two completely different behavioral patterns?"
"Were they not there for the same traumatic incident?"
"They have to have been, both suffer from the same memory loss."
"They also know each other."
"What if they done, what if they only believe they know each other from previous history?"
"Another topic." Says the main doctor. "Do we seek out relatives? Do we seek out cures? Or do we simple keep them safely here with us?"
"They are to be studied, such a case like this has never happened. It is so odd, that neither of them suffer from anything genetic, they are strangers in all reality, and yet they have similar cases."
"If they had any relatives that cared for them, they would have found them by now."
Trinity, Michelle stared at the doctors intensely. She cared about those two, more than she did anyone else there. She felt guilty for such feelings, she was told to not get attached to any of the patients, or to favor some over others. Such feelings could case disruption within the wanted and ideal non-disruptive environment. But Neo, and Smith… it was a human thing, she told herself, to become attached, to long, and to love. She could not control these things. What did she care even? This wasn't the greatest job in the world. She didn't grow up dreaming to become a nurse at an insane asylum. Forget the rules. She cared about Neo. She cared about Smith.
"Nonetheless they are causing quite a problem together." the doctors say. "Perhaps it is time for separation at last."
"You can't do that!" Trinity, Michelle blurts out.
"Why not?"
"…" She stopped. "It would cause a shock, sir. They've been together for so long. They need each other."
"Ah yes, but they are causing trouble with each other. The point of letting them out was to ease them into being able to separate from each other. It was a healing step, this is the next one."
"They won't like it. It'll only cause more trouble." Michelle argues.
The doctors tilt their heads.
"There have been cases in which Smith has separated from Anderson due to your actions, is that not nurse?" a doctor asks.
"They are ready for the next step, perhaps then real progress can be made."
"But…" Michelle tried.
"They will be separated."
------------------------
Neo sat in the main hall with Smith, reading his Yin Yang Book. He felt uncomfortable, he had the entire morning, and that wasn't due to the fact he barely got any sleep. Something within him tugged at him, told him something was wrong. Neo looked to Smith.
"Hey," Neo began. "Who do you think we were in that war?" Neo asks.
"I suppose soldiers." Smith says calmly.
"Do you think we were important?" Neo asks.
"Few reach such importance in war, it is unlikely."
"Oh…"
Neo continued to read his book, then stopped once again.
"I flew in my dreams last night." Neo beamed. "It was amazing. I was wearing this coat thing, and it was being thrown throughout the hair, and whipped around, and, and, and! Well…it was really fun."
"You flew?"
"Yeah, like I was flying around this city, just…flying."
"That does indeed sound fun." Smith smiled weakly.
"And you know…" Neo began.
The bad feeling rushed throughout Neo's head into his stomach, and there was pain. The bad feeling, something's wrong Neo, something's wrong. Neo began looking around quickly in panic, searching for what was wrong.
But all there was, were Trinity, Morpheus, Tank, and all the other staff walking out of the doctors' office, and passing them by.
"I wonder what is happening." Smith said, rising to his feet.
"You know…" Neo whispered. "I flew in my dreams, and this is all a dream, I bet I could fly here too."
Smith too busy watching the staff walk by with grim expressions did not listen to Neo. And thus, no one heard.
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Next Chapter: Men Can Fly
Written pretty briefly, I apologize, I just wanted to get through this chapter to some more fun. Plus it's finals week people, I should be studying!
Please forgive, and enjoy.