It's not fair. Even I think it's not fair, and I'm the one whose personal mantra was 'Life's not fair'. I learned that from hard past experience. If life was fair, then I wouldn't be where I am now doing what I am doing right now. If life was fair, we wouldn't be fighting this 'war' of humans versus machines. If life was fair, none of this would have ever happened. There would be no matrix, no deception, no control, no lies…

But I can only wonder…If life was fair…and none of this ever happened…then what would have happened? If I wasn't risking my neck nearly every other day to take down the machines, what would I be doing instead? If I wasn't living where I'm living now, where would I be living in this other world in this other time? What sort of person could I have become in this hypothetical 'other world'?

But…I guess I'll never know because in a few seconds, my life will be ended and in a rather pathetic way, too. In just a few seconds, in just another heartbeat, in just another breath, suddenly I will just slump to the pavement like a marionette whose puppeteer has just released the strings, dead of an unknown, 'mysterious' cause. 'Mysterious'…Hah…You don't exactly have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out why I died. It'll be obvious to the Others…if they manage to last longer than I'm going to…

Of course, the Agents will probably think they've shot and killed me and run on without giving me a second thought. They don't care how I die. To them, a dead human is a dead human; it doesn't matter how they are killed. It just matters that they are killed, no more and no less.

That's the way it always is with machines, isn't it? That's the way machines are built, right? Do the job, do the job efficiently, get it done, and then move on and do it again…Again and again and again…Don't question your programming. Don't question your purpose. Don't question your worth. Don't question what you're doing, and you sure don't question yourself…

But then again, now that I think about it, that's the way it is with Us, too. Sure, we 'freed' our minds, freed ourselves from the machines that enslaved us, freed ourselves from their control.

But we're not really all that free, now that I think about it. We got freed from one system just to get imprisoned in another system, a never-ending system of fighting and killing the machines in this perpetual war for humanity's freedom, and we're virtually programmed to do it again and again, fighting and killing, fighting and killing, never questioning our purpose, never questioning the worth of what we're doing, whether all our sacrifices will really mean anything or not in the long run…Just like the machines.

Now that I come to think of it, maybe we're not all that different, after all…

Running…Run…ning…

Heart pounding…so hard…

It hurts…

I suppose the only thing that separates us from the machines is the fact that we can make our own choices or at least have the illusion of making choices. We're not completely programmed to a strict, iron code that dictates our every move, our every action, our every decision. To some degree, we have control over ourselves and our own destinies…or at least we'd like to think we do. Sure, our minds have been manipulated and instructed in a certain way to influence our behavior to some extent.

But there is still some part of our mind that isn't hard, coded instructions. There is still a part of our mind that is made up entirely of variables, ever-changing variables that are all subject to change because of the cause-and-effect variables of the 'world' around us.

And these variables allow us to make our own choices, to make different choices at different times, to make different choices in similar situations and get a different outcome each time…Or at least I think so.

And these variables allowed our operator, that psychopathic, back-stabbing sadist, to make his decision, to choose to sell his soul to the machine Devil that we've been fighting, to pull the plug on all of us for a cheap, quick penny and the promise of a life lived in sweet, ignorant bliss…

The real kicker, though, is that all he has to do to earn it is just pull that plug. Just one quick, easy jerk, and it's lights out, game over, for all of us. It's like wringing the neck of a chicken…but I'm sure that the chicken suffers a whole lot less. At least the chicken knows when the end is nigh. The chicken can see the butcher rolling up his sleeves and preparing the chopping block; it knows when it's going to die.

I, however, do not have that convenience of knowing exactly when I'm going to die. I have a strong suspicion that it's going to be some time within the next matter of seconds. He's probably just biding his sweet old time, toying with my mind before he kills me, the sadistic, homicidal maniac. After all, he's going to have all the time in the world after he pulls that plug. It will only take a second- not even that –to pull that plug, and then he'll have a whole, long, blissfully ignorant life ahead of him.

Eternal damnation was never so quick and easy, huh?

Run…ning…Run…ning…

Can't breathe…Can't breathe…

Oh, God…He's doing it. He's doing it right now. I can feel it. Eerily tingling, icy currents of electricity are racing up and down the back of my neck like the Grim Reaper's icy breath, concentrating on the spot where the plug would be back in the real world as he grabs the plug-

Stumbling-

Staggering-

This can't be…happening…

The world is blurring before my eyes like an only half-remembered, yet horrifyingly vivid nightmare-

Wake…up…

This can't…be…happening…

I'm stumbling…crashing…falling-

My body…What happened?

Severed from my mind-

Lungs tight, can't breathe-

Blurred vision fading to black-

Oh, God, help me…This can't be-

The plug is pulled.

~*FIN*~