The MATRIX: The One

6 - Peeta is given answers

Peeta POV

I wake up next to her. Katniss.

Okay. This. Here. Now. Best day of my life. Ever.

And then I remember the rest of it. The bright light. The unceasing roar of the engines. The needles that had been inserted into every muscle group on my body to stimulate growth.

The fact that my whole life is a lie.

I've never carried a sack of flour. Never decorated a wedding cake. Never driven a car. Never gotten lost in the rain when I tried to walk home from school instead of taking the subway so I could give the extra pocket change to the Mockingjays busking in the tunnels during the morning rush. Never had my leg crushed beneath the wheels of a train.

"I never saved you."

Katniss' eyelashes flutter open. She lifts her head up from the mattress, inhaling sleepily. "What?"

I feel myself flush. God, I'm an idiot. "The subway. That wasn't real. I never helped you at all."

"You did," she insists. "I'll show you."

"Today?" I ask hopefully.

"Squeeze my hand as hard as you can."

I comply.

She gives me an encouraging smile. "Not today, but soon."

It takes time – how much I'm not sure since there are no windows or calendars in the medical bay – but it feels like it takes a long time before I can sit up on my own, feed myself, stand. Walk.

I haven't walked properly in eight years. No. Scratch that. I haven't walked properly ever. I'm still not convinced that this isn't the dream.

Katniss takes me on a tour of the ship as she'd promised. I ask a lot of stupid questions, I'm sure, but she lets me get it all out of my system. "It's my first hovercraft," I explain with a crooked smile.

She affectionately pokes me in the side.

Over the course of those first few days, I notice that Katniss doesn't really touch anyone else. She lets Finnick put an arm around her shoulders; she lets Gale tug on her braid; she lets Rory playfully shove her arm… but she touches me. I wrap an arm around her waist even though I don't need the support. She never appears to mind when I do things like this.

"Where are your boots?" I eventually ask. "The cool ones with the laces?"

She chews the inside of her cheek and looks down to study the clunky, heavy things she wears on her feet. When she'd pulled me out of the way of that truck, she'd been wearing clothes and shoes of obvious quality. Now her stretched-out sweater is layered over a threadbare shirt. Her pants are baggy and unflattering. I don't understand.

"Um. I guess now's a good time to answer a few more of your questions." She leads me over to a deck of reclining chairs. There are monitors nearby each with an intimidating assortment of cords and strange plugs. I don't think I'm ready for this. Whatever "this" is.

"Hey, Rory," Katniss calls, beckoning Gale's younger brother over to us, "set us up for a session in the Construct."

He nods and turns toward an array of computer monitors. From here all I can see around Gale's shoulders is endlessly scrolling code on the three central displays, characters moving without pause from top to bottom. Like the rivulets of a trickling waterfall.

"I'll go in first," Katniss tells me, placing a hand on my arm. Another touch. I try not to let it distract me. "This is going to seem a little weird, but it's really okay."

"Okay."

Her smile is almost a grimace. I watch with an iron grip on my trepidation as she climbs into the nearest seat and straps her boots to the footrest. Then she leans back until her skull is flush with the hollowed-out headrest. Rory picks up the largest plug and moves behind her. Before I can call out a warning, he thrusts the thing into the back of her head.

"Load it up, Gale!" he calls out… as if he hadn't just speared his friend's brain with a four-inch-long metal needle.

I try to breathe.

"Hey. Peeta. She's all right," Finnick soothes me, coming up on my side. "See? Here are her stats on the screen. Heartbeat… respiration… Katniss is fine."

I nod mindlessly.

"Never keep a lady waiting!" Gale calls out very seriously from the operator's deck.

Rory waves at me from the next station over, holding up the plug that's meant to fit inside my head. I lift a hand to the back of my skull, running my fingers over the receptor site. Katniss had explained its purpose. It's the jack through which I experience the Matrix.

I glance at Katniss, taking in the slight frown of concentration on her face, then her vitals on the monitor before I shuffle over to the chair and sit down. Finnick straps my feet in. Rory coaxes my head back. "You don't even know how lucky you are," the kid says with a wily smirk, "going into the Construct with Katniss. Shit man, anything can happen in that place."

"While the rest of us watch," Finnick reminds him and warns me.

Rory grins and shrugs unapologetically. I struggle to think of a witty response. And then there's a pressure at the back of my head, a strange friction – too hot or too cold I'm not sure which – and suddenly I'm looking at—

"Katniss?"

"This is the Construct," she tells me as I drink her in. The high-collared tunic is back. It presses against her every curve with the affection of a sleek and adoring pet cat. Her leggings outline shapely, muscular legs. The boots – thin-soled and gleaming with mink oil – lace all the way up to her knees.

When she gestures to the space surrounding us, I force my attention to shift. Katniss isn't the only amazing thing: the place itself is a marvel. Indistinct surfaces of nothing but white as far as the eye can see. As I turn in a complete circle, I'm surprised to discover a pair of chairs when I finally face Katniss again. Those had not been there before. Neither had the vintage television.

"Where did those come from?"

"Coding. Gale put them in here for us."

"Gale?"

She nods. "If it had been Rory, we would have gotten a vibrating bed."

I laugh. It's either that or blush. As I raise a hand to absently comb my fingers through my hair, I realize that the black plugs along my arms are gone. I'm wearing my favorite T-shirt and a pair of old jeans. My sneakers look newer than I remember, but they're still mine. I take a moment and check to see if— yes, I have my muscle definition back. These arms can lift a hundred pounds easily. My belly, hips, thighs… all normal again. I reach up and grin when I realize I have hair. The plug at the back of my head is gone. I'm me again.

Which reminds me.

I reach down and hesitantly lift up my left pant leg.

My heart thumps in my chest at the sight of the prosthetic. How can this…? Didn't I…? The accident wasn't real, right? So, what is this?

"Shh, Peeta. It's okay." Her fingers curl around my upper arms.

"Why is my leg gone?"

"Because this is how you still perceive yourself."

I stare into her eyes, fumbling to lock onto the reassurance in her voice.

"You still expect to see it, so it's there."

But… "This isn't real," I guess. "My leg isn't really gone."

"No, it isn't." She glances down and I quickly release the denim from my grasp. "Did you ever get what they call 'phantom pain' in your leg?"

"Yeah. All the time."

"Well, stop ignoring it, okay? Stop telling yourself it's all in your head because it's not. That's your real leg that you're treating like a piece of plastic."

"Damn," I breathe.

"What?"

"That makes so much sense it's scary." I take a step back with my right leg and concentrate on curling my toes upward inside my left shoe. With my fake leg, this would be impossible, but I grit my teeth and strain until the canvas ripples. My real toes are in there, I just have to believe it, trust it, and it becomes real. I still can't stop myself from checking: "This is real?"

Katniss tilts her head to the side. "Yes and no. We're really talking right now even though our bodies are still aboard the District Twelve."

"But the chairs and TV?"

"They exist here as strings of code. It creates impulses that the brain translates into something we recognize, something we can sit in." She illustrates this by plopping down into her chair and crossing her legs.

"The Matrix is like this?" I ask as I slide into my own chair.

"Much more complex, but yes."

I trail my hands over the worn upholstery, testing the resistance and examining the texture. Incredibly enough, this chair is totally real inside my mind. "So… when my mind was in the Matrix, where was my body?"

Katniss' lashes flutter down. Her lips compress into a thin line. "Shit. I wish Finnick were here to do this part. I… He eases into it with a little spiel that's logical and, you know, doesn't make you want to freak out."

"I promise not to freak out," I bravely vow, wringing a laugh from her.

"You'll freak out. Everyone freaks out. Consider this a free pass."

I curl each finger around the end of the armrest with exaggerated motions, making a show of bracing myself in my chair. "Okay. Hit me with it. I can take it."

She gives me a long look and a reluctant smile. I wait as her expression sobers. She takes a deep breath and then suddenly blurts, "Did you know that the human body produces energy? Like, a lot of energy."

I shake my head and wonder at the sudden change of subject, but I trust her so I don't interrupt.

"Machines need energy to survive."

"Survive? Don't you mean function?"

"When we're talking about artificial intelligence, 'survive' is a better word."

And I have to believe her what with the tale she tells me about a world run by intelligent machines that had rebelled against their human masters. And when humans had foolishly destroyed the climate, clogging the skies with enduring clouds of dust and ash, the machines – rather than "dying off" – had turned from solar power to—

"Fields, Peeta. Fields of people."

I stare at the television screen, my mind whirling and stomach churning at the sight of so many tanks, towers of tanks, each unit large enough for a single person to lie in – to dream in. It is a prison they will never escape from, never even realize exists.

"This is where we found you," she whispers. "Where Finnick found me. Where Mags found Finnick. The pill you took helped us trace you so we could hack the system and flush you into the sewers. It's lucky we were within range already. We don't usually hang around there. Too risky."

I grimace, leaning forward and bracing my elbows on my knees. "You pulled me out of the sewers?"

"We pull everyone we hijack out of the sewers."

"Hijack?"

"That's what we call it when we free someone from the Matrix, when we steal them from the machines. We hijack their energy source."

"So, it's like… Is this war? The rebellion…?"

"Never ended. Peeta, this isn't 1999. This war has been going on for a long time."

"Decades," I muse.

"Centuries."

I pause. For some reason, this is what tips the scales for me. This is what makes my hands shake. I'm caught off-guard and, in my shock, I wonder why the thought of spending my entire life encased in a glorified fish tank and being subjected to virtual reality hadn't weirded me out before now because suddenly it does. Suddenly, I understand what Katniss had told me about all the people in the Matrix. They're real – my father and older brothers, my nephew and niece, my sister-in-law, even my mother – they're all real and being held prisoner by machines milking them for their life force.

Oh my God.

My fingers curl against my scalp. I will not lose my shit. I will not freak out.

"Can't we do anything to help them?"

"Six billion people?" Katniss asks softly. "Where would we put them? How would we feed them? Our only city is deep underground. A quarter of a million people live there and – trust me – when you see it, you'll understand why we can't just open the gates to everyone. It's impossible."

"So why me? Why take me? I'm nobody special."

"You are. Peeta, that day in the subway – you saved me. Finnick and Beetee found me in the hospital right after that and…" Her shrug eloquently concludes that chapter of her story.

But I can think of something she might have deliberately left out: "Did they give you a choice?"

"I was twelve years old, Peeta. What kind of choice could I have made?"

"Are you angry with them for hijacking you?"

She blows out a breath. "Sometimes. But they only did it because they thought it was the right thing."

"Was it?"

The look she gives me is so utterly broken that I find myself pushing up and out of my chair so I can kneel in front of hers. I wrap my arms around her waist and tug her closer, tucking her knees under one arm and up against my side.

"I've got you, Katniss. I promised to help you, and I will. Whatever you need."

Her arms loop tightly around my shoulders. She buries her face in the T-shirt fabric at the base of my neck and lets out a long, shuddering breath. I haven't forgotten that Finnick and the others could be watching us right now. I just don't give a damn.

Notes:

In the second Matrix movie (Matrix: Reloaded), one of the counselors of Zion talks about having slept for the first eleven years of his life and that line has always stuck with me. How could they unplug a child that young? It seems rather horrifying and traumatic to me. So that's why Katniss has a moment here with Peeta.

Yes, the Matrix (for those of you who haven't seen the movie) is a neural, interactive program – a virtual reality – designed to keep people docile so that their energy can be harvested by machines (who are artificially intelligent). (I have no idea how this is actually done. I guess, in the distant future, it's like gathering solar power. Or whatever.)

In the movie, they "unplug" people, but in this fanfic, I thought the term "hijack" could be used instead as a nod to the books.

What Peeta does when he psychs himself into believing that he still has both legs – transforming his prosthetic into an actual leg while he's inside the system – is kind of a big deal because something like this never happens in the movie. And I kind of wonder why not. I mean, if you are only limited by your imagination and the "rules" of the system, why can't you "think yourself" taller or change physical aspects of yourself just like you can make yourself stronger or faster or whatever? I feel that the movies underestimate the power of human imagination, but maybe that's just me.

So, there's lots of speculation on exactly who is "the one" here. ("The one" is the person destined to kick ass and bring down the Matrix, thereby ending the war and freeing humanity from the machines.) Is it Peeta or Katniss? We will find out!