| Author's note: The storyline and characters of The Matrix are not my property, and I make no claims to them. The following work is intended for the free entertainment of Matrix fans and is in no way intended for profit or to harm the profits of Warner Brothers. The Matrix: The Apocalypse Virus Chapter 1
"Vince, go to bed." His mother commanded from outside his triple-locked door. "Whatever, Mom." "I'm serious. I don't want you staying up all night on that blasted computer." "Good night, Mom. Snore-snore-snore." His voice dripped with sarcasm. Bitch. You go to sleep. I don't sleep. I code. And Vince went back to coding his virus. Knock knock knock "Vincent get up and go to school." His mother commanded through his locked door again. "I can't go, I'm sick." "I knew this was going to happen, with you staying up all night on that blasted computer." "Computers can't make people sick, Mom, it's flu season." "Fine stay home. But I'm bringing your homework to you." "Okay Mom. Whatever." "I'm going to work." "Okay Mom whatever."
No sooner had he gotten within sight of the library than a man in his fifties started walking next to him. "Don't react. Just follow me into the library. I'm putting you in danger just by talking to you." "What kind of danger?" "The Matrix doesn't like people to know what it is." Vince stopped walking in front of the door. "Give me one reason to trust you before I go in there with you." "Hackers stick together, don't we? We're all on the same team. Trying to take down the computers that are in our way. A blow to one of us is a blow to all of us. We've been keeping track of you, Helios, and we need your help. It's a big challenge. I think you'll enjoy it." "You are familiar with the concept of entrapment?" The man laughed. "I don't blame you for being careful. Come on, I'll fill you in on the details inside. The third floor is empty and there's a phone if I need it." They walked the rest of the way in silence. When they finally sat down on the third floor, within arm's reach of a public phone, the man started talking again. "My name is Spectrum." "What's your real name?" "That is my real name, Helios. Your fake name is Vincent Hennigan. My fake name, the one I was given here, I prefer to forget. Have you ever heard of the Apocalypse Virus?" "Apocalypse? No, I can't say that I have. I certainly didn't write it. And I think I would have heard by now if someone else was working on it." "My team and I are writing it. We're going to use it to take down the world's largest computer system. Permanently." "The Matrix?" "Smart kid. Yeah, The Matrix. The problem is, we're stuck. We hit a roadblock and we can't get over it." "And you want me to help you because I wrote the ButtPlug virus that hit two months ago, right?" "You're arrogant and crass, but you're good. That virus was a work of art, Helios. It struck an estimated 500 computers on the East Coast but only took down your two targets, those Census Bureau computers. And then just to be an ass about it you distributed the cleaning program as freeware to get it off your non-targets, which essentially erased all the evidence. You're arrogant and crass, but you're good." "Yeah, that was me." Vince beamed. "So you're writing the most destructive virus the world has ever seen, and you want the best to help you get it done. Okay, I'm in." "There's a catch." Spectrum's face grew solemn. "Once you join our team, there's no going back. You're with us forever. Your whole world will be changed in ways you could never believe unless you saw it yourself. You can never go back, but you'll never want to either. Let me ask you something. Is there anyone you'll miss?" "Fuck no. My Mom's a bitch, my best friend gets beat up twice a week, and my dad ran off with some blonde whore when I was ten. And you're offering me a chance to ditch the rest of high school and write viruses for a living? If there's a catch, I'd like to know what it is." "Okay. I brought with me a red pill and a blue pill." Spectrum took out two pills that looked exactly like NyQuil and DayQuil. "Take the red pill and you can come with me, but remember there's no turning back. Ever. Take the blue pill and you can go home and forget everything we've talked about. Just prepare yourself for one, simple truth. Everything you know, literally everything you know, is a lie." Up until that second, everything Spectrum had been telling Vince was basically an entertaining story. At that second, when he heard the tone of Spectrum's voice, the reality of the situation came crashing down on him. Everything you know, is a lie. He was serious. "So, my world will be changed forever." He stared at the two pills, wondering if he really wanted to know what this guy was talking about. In the end his curiosity got the best of him. "This isn't acid, is it?" He asked. "Worse. It's the truth." "My world, changed forever. Aw hell, it can't get any worse." Before he could talk himself out of it, he popped the red pill in his mouth. "So what happens now?" "That pill was a tracking program. We're going to pull you out of The Matrix." "What do you mean pull me out of The Matrix? What does this giant computer system have to do with me?" "You'll find out in about five seconds. One piece of advice: before you fall, take a deep breath." Spectrum reached back and lifted the pay phone's receiver, dialing zero. "He's about to be flushed, get ready." Before he could ask another question he had the sensation he just woke up from a dream when he thought he was awake the whole time. He tried to move and found two things disturbing. One, he was crouching in a fetal position in a warm puddle of goo. Two, his back was pressed up against something cold and hard, preventing him from sitting up. With a hiss that sounded like a subway train the cold, hard lid opened up. He sat up as quickly as he could and ripped a plastic and metal device away from his mouth. He took a deep breath and immediately coughed out the thick, polluted air. He wheezed a few times and wiped the goo away from his eyes. He immediately wished he hadn't. It was dark, not quite night, but like an extremely overcast day. He was sitting upright in a small black pod of some sort, filled with pink slime. There were rows and rows of identical pods stretching out as far as they eye could see off to the left and right. He felt weak, the same feeling as he'd always imagined someone would have after waking up from a ten year coma. His muscles barely responded, just moving was painful. Looking down at his arms, he saw several cables sticking into round ports in his flesh. He panicked, ripping away at them, pulling them out. As he did, another, larger cable pulled itself out from the back of his head. He was starting to wonder if the red pill he took really was some kind of hallucinogen. That was when the pink slime started swirling below him, draining through a hole in the bottom of the pod. It pulled him down with it, threatening to drag him into whatever it was draining into. His arms lashed out wildly, trying to grab a hold of something, anything to keep from falling down. He failed. He felt himself falling down a long, smooth tube of some kind, then the horrible sensation of free fall. It was just a fraction of a second, and he fell into a deep pool of disgusting water. He tried to swim, but he was too weak, and too tired from his failed attempt at saving himself. His head went under again and again. He started coughing up water. There was nothing to hold on to, no bottom to stand on. He felt he was going to die, and lost consciousness. He woke up on a hard, smooth table. He tried to open his eyes but the light hurt too much. "Hello?" He coughed out weakly. "Who's there?" "Finally, you're awake. Don't try to move, you're okay. You're on my ship." He thought he recognized the voice. "Spectrum?" "Yes, it's me. Dim the lights." His command was followed by someone, but Helios' eyes still hurt too much to open them. "I know you've got a lot of questions. So did I when I was pulled out of The Matrix. But I can't tell you what just happened, not yet. I need to show you. And we can't get to that until we've finished rebuilding your muscles and getting your eyes adjusted to light for the first time. It will all be clear in a moment. Can you see yet?" Helios opened his eyes, very slowly. He had to blink a few times, but he could open them. "It's dark." "Your eyes are still too sensitive. We'll keep the lights dim for a little while." "Why are all these needles in me?" "We're sending electrical impulses directly into your muscles to repair them. You see, you've never used them until just now. You've never used your eyes, your ears, your mouth... everything you thought was real was a dream. Or rather a nightmare, as I'll show you when we're finished here. Right now, just try to sleep." For the first time in his insomniac life, Helios had no problem doing just that. "He's waking back up." The voice was not Spectrum's. Helios had to blink a lot just to open his eyes, but when he did he found himself in a dark metal room, with tubes, cables, panels, and other equipment lining the walls. There were several people in the room with him, including Spectrum. He found that he could move now, albeit stiffly. "Where am I? And what just happened?" Spectrum answered him. "You just woke up. Come with me to the observation deck." "You said I was on a ship, you mean like a boat?" "A hovercraft, actually. The Light Bringer." Spectrum answered him as they walked down some hallways, all following a similar theme to the room they were just in. Dark metal, with tubes and cables strewn about. "Look out the window." "Holy shit!" Helios pushed both hands up to the glass. In front of the ship he saw the rows and rows of pods, just like the one he woke up in. "What are those things? How did I get in one of them?" "The life you were living was a lie, Helios. You were born in one of those pods. You lived for fourteen years in one. Feel the back of your head. That hole in your skull is an input/output port, sending you signals, making you believe that you were walking around in a fictional world, created by the world's largest computer network. That network, The Matrix, is the system that we need you to help us take down." Spectrum turned to a woman sitting at a console. "Mako, turn the Light Bringer 90 degrees port." The ship started to turn. "Look over there, at the remains of that city. Years ago, mankind developed a highly advanced artificial intelligence. Computers running that AI ran networks, controlled traffic, operated industrial robots, explored Mars, even upgraded and reprogrammed themselves. Some people started to get scared, the computers were getting too smart, they were trusted with too much. "No one remembers who fired the first shot, but war erupted between the machines and mankind. Look at the sky, we did that. The machines used to run on solar power. We thought that by blacking out the sun we could shut them down. We didn't expect them to find a new power source quickly enough to survive. That's where the pods come in. The human nervous system generates several volts of electricity, the body generates its own heat. With enough rows of humans born, raised, living, and dying in those pods the machines could generate enough power to keep running. Running off a clean, renewable resource. People live out their lives in The Matrix, believing the world around them is real. An entire false civilization, the ultimate charade, dedicated to one thing, Helios, and one thing only. To turn a human being, into this." He pulled a battery out of his pocket. The horrifying, awful truth of The Matrix summed up in a two inch copper-topped cylinder. Helios looked out the window, silent for several minutes. "And that's why you pulled me out. So I can help you write the Apocalypse Virus and take down The Matrix." "Exactly. Without their artificial world to live in the humans in those pods would die. The machines would lose a major portion of their power source, and we could mount a full offensive, hopefully retaking the world in the name of mankind." "And that's it? All those people die?" "They're already dead, Helios. All 6 billion of them. They were never alive, they just don't know it. But this isn't the first option, come over here." Spectrum and Helios walked over to a computer. Spectrum pulled up a couple files. "This is Morpheus. He runs another one of the ships." "He looks kind of like Laurence Fishburne." "Yeah, he gets that a lot. The woman is Trinity." "You mean the Trinity? The one who cracked the NSA server?" "That was a long time ago, but yes, that's her. Morpheus pulled her out of The Matrix shortly after that." "I was wondering why it seemed she just fell off the face of the Earth... I guess she really did. What about the other guy?" "That's Neo. I'll tell you more about him in a bit. These guys are the high-profile group. They're working toward the ideal solution to the problem, trying to take everyone out of The Matrix. We'll get to that later too. Right now I'm going to show you what we can do with that port in the back of your head." "Whoa, whoa, hold on a minute. This is going really fast here. Just a few minutes ago I was a kid in The Matrix. Now I'm part of a resistance group on a hovercraft fighting a war against killer robots. Don't I at least get to meet everyone else?" "Sorry." Spectrum smiled. "I guess I was getting ahead of myself. I'm just eager to get you trained so we can continue work on the Apocalypse Virus. The woman at the helm there is Mako. She's my first officer." Spectrum gestured to an attractive young woman sitting at the far wall. She looked Hispanic, but the first thing Helios noticed was the absence of an I/O port in the back of her skull. "It's because I wasn't born in the Matrix." She answered the unspoken question on his face. "There's one city left, called Zion. That's where I was born. I can't go into The Matrix, I just fly the ship and run the Simulators." Spectrum continued, pointing down the hallway to two men sitting at a table eating a disgusting white slop. "And over there in the mess hall are our resident deviants, D-Mac and Lyninux." They waved. "Pendragon is asleep right now, she's taking first watch at night. You'll meet her later. And Format C: is around here somewhere. She keeps to herself, you'll meet her whenever she decides to turn up." "Why does everyone go by their handles here?" "Because those are the names we gave ourselves, not the names given to us in The Matrix. It makes us feel like we're not pawns of the machines anymore. Come on, I promised I'd show you what we can do with that port in your head." A few hours later Spectrum walked back into the room. Helios was laying on a bench jacked into the computer, being fed information at an incredible rate. Everything they knew about The Matrix's code, everything they could teach him about armed and unarmed combat, detailed schematics on the Light Bringer's computer systems, controls, weapons... and he was soaking it all up like a sponge. "How's it coming along, Mako?" He asked. "Pretty good. We pulled him out nice and young, he hasn't been in The Matrix long enough to put up the mental barriers that keep him from accepting all this change all at once. He's learning fast." Spectrum unplugged Helios from his couch. "I want to put you in the Simulator now. We're going to show you some things." He tilted his head to look down a hallway. "Lyninux, get in here." In a moment, one of the two guys Helios saw in the mess hall walked into the room. He didn't seem to like talking much. "We're going to hook you up into the Simulator with Lyninux here. He's going to teach you how to manipulate The Matrix, things you'll need to know when you go back in." "You mean you're going to put me back in one of those pods?" Helios asked. "I just got out, I don't want to go back in." "No, no. We can jack into The Matrix from the ship, it's a lot safer. You're going to need to go see some things for yourself, understand how The Matrix works, before you can help us destroy it." "I'm still not sure about bringing down The Matrix like that, Spectrum. All those people just... well, dying. It doesn't really sit well with me." "It's only going to happen as a last resort, if the Morpheus's crew fails and we can't get everyone out." Spectrum put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "We're Plan B, the only contingency plan. If you go soft on us, those 6 billion slaves will live and humanity, as free people, will become extinct." Helios looked out the window. On one side he saw the ruins of whatever city that was. On the other the rows of pods that reached out to the horizon. Above it all, the overcast, smoke filled sky, blacking out the sun. "Yesterday I was a high school student. Today I'm the last backup plan for the survival of the human race. It's a bit much to take in." "You don't have to decide now. We still have a lot to show you about The Matrix. Right now, let's put you in the Simulator." Helios looked around, all he saw was white, pure white, as far as the eye could see. No walls, no floor, no ceiling. He heard a sound and looked toward it, not believing his eyes. A wire frame model of a man was being generated next to him, starting rough, adding detail, finally fleshing out and adding skin. It was Lyninux. "This is the Simulator. We can put you anywhere, add any details, any props. Movie producers would kill for this technology." Spectrum's voice came out of nowhere, but everywhere. Let's try that Kung-Fu you just learned." As Helios looked around a hard wood floor appeared under his feet. Then walls, bleachers, basketball nets, the place looked like a high-school gymnasium. Lyninux, who had seen it all before, began stretching. That was when Helios noticed they were both wearing martial arts uniforms with the world Zion embroidered over the left front pocket and across the back "Hi." Helios walked over to Lyninux. "We haven't really met. I'm Vince... I mean Helios. I used to be Vince." "H-hu-hu-hi." Lyninux stuttered out. "I'm Lyninux. Th-They said you w-wuh-were a g-good hacker." "Yuh-Yeah." Helios stammered, mocking Lyninux's stutter. "I'm ruh-really guh-good." Lyninux glared at him, obviously not amused. "Helios!" Spectrum's voice snapped at him, making him jump. "We're working as a team here. That means we have to get along. You weren't our first choice, you know. You're interpersonal skills are abysmal. But you're going to have to learn how to deal with people. If you can't, we really will put you back in a pod." "All right, all right, I'm sorry." Helios replied, sarcastically. "What happens now?" "We start your training. Attack Lyninux." Lyninux kicked high twice to finish stretching, then assumed a defensive martial arts stance, one foot forward, both arms blocking high. He was easily a head taller than the 14-year old boy. "Go." "Aaaarrrgghhh!" Helios rushed forward, trying to body tackle Lyninux. The next thing he knew, his neck and stomach hurt, and he was tumbling through the air backwards. He landed hard on his back. "Damn it, Helios, we just taught you Kung-Fu. Use it!" Helios got up, mad. He tried a roundhouse kick to the air just to see how it looked. He liked it. "All right... here we go." He rushed Lyninux again, this time launching himself into a straight-leg jump kick aimed at his head. Again, the next thing he knew his leg was twisted around and he was falling face-first to the floor. "Ouch! I didn't even see him move." "That's because Lyninux is our unarmed and non-lethal combat expert. He hasn't lost a fight in the Simulator in two years." Spectrum's voice said. "Well that's about to change." Helios got up. This time he didn't charge Lyninux, he approached him slowly. Then, suddenly, he threw a series of punches and kicks, each one looking like it was thrown by a professional kickboxer who had been training for years. Lyninux blocked them all, one after the other. "You're no... not f-f-fuh-focused. Hih-hit through your t-tar-target." "If you taught me Kung-Fu, how come I'm not as good as Lyninux?" "Because we can only download knowledge into your brain, not experience. That's what the Simulator is for." Helios was slowly making Lyninux walk backwards as he threw his attacks, even though they were all being blocked more or less effortlessly. He grinned, he had a plan for when he backed him into the wall. Unfortunately, that plan died when Lyninux got within three feet of the wall. He jumped up, higher than any man should have been able to, into a back flip. He planted his feet on the wall seven feet up, pushed himself off, and flipped into a half-gainer, landing solidly on his feet behind Helios, facing him. Helios turned around in shock. "How the fuck did you do that!?" "Tha-thu-that's wh-why you're t-training." Lyninux answered him. "Whu-w-once you realize it-it-it's all ju-just a dream, you can b-buh-b-b-bend the ruh-rules. Th-That's wuh-why you n-nuh-nee-need t-to be here." "And once I know how it works, I can help you bring it down." "Exactly." Spectrum's voice answered. "Let's try something new." The floor of the gymnasium started moving, like it was a stretched rubber sheet with something trying to push its way up through it. When it succeeded, it was some kind of jungle gym, a bizarre series of metal bars, supports, platforms, and the like. "This is the obstacle course. Lyninux, show him how it's done." Lyninux took off at a sprint, planting both hands firmly on the first bar, he flipped head-over-heels though the first part, landing on a platform. Then it got impressive. It almost looked like he was flying through the metal structure, he was going so fast. He used his feet to push himself off of vertical supports, at times almost looking as if he was sticking to them like a bug. He used his hands to spring off lower horizontal supports and swing under the higher ones. He finished with a front flip, landing in a three point stance. "Nuh-nuh-now y-you try." He challenged Helios. "Ju-just remember, you're b-b-b-buh-body w-will do whu-what you tell it to, if you b-believe it will and unders-st-stand how The Matrix wu-works." Helios tried a back flip, and succeeded. "Cool... okay, let's see if I have this." He took off at sprint toward the structure, doing a front flip just before getting to it. From the front flip he launched into a very high jump, catching the top most bar of the course. Then he swung around until he pulled enough momentum to get his feet over it, and launched himself onto the rest of the course. He ran across the top of the structure, as sure-footed as a mountain goat, bypassing all the platforms, just stepping on the horizontal bars. He finished by jumping down from the highest bar at the end of the course, landing solidly on both feet from fifteen feet in the air. "That was incredible! I love this thing." "Mako was right." Spectrum's voice answered. "You are learning fast. Just remember you couldn't have even begun this before we downloaded the necessary skills into your mind. Now try that fight with Lyninux again. Be creative, bend the rules. They no longer completely apply to you." "I don't have to play by the rules anymore..." Helios muttered to himself. He launched himself at Lyninux again, leaping into an identical looking jump kick to the one that failed before. This time, however, before Lyninux could try to throw him around he switched around in mid-air, striking his opponent in the face with the other foot instead. Lyninux stumbled backwards, smiling. "Guh-good. N-nuh-now I-I'm going to ruh-ruh-re-really show you s-s-s-some-something." Almost two hours later the crew was gathered in the mess hall. "So what's for dinner? I feel like I haven't eaten, well, ever." Helios asked when a small metal tray was slid in front of him. "Actually, it's probably easier to eat if we don't tell you." D-Mac answered as Mako came around with a pot and a ladle. She started scooping a slimy, lumpy, white substance into everyone's trays. "Just, try to pretend it's a thin soup." Helios stared at his tray in disbelief. "This is... disgusting! I can't eat this shit!" "That's all there is." Spectrum answered him between bites. "You eat this or nothing. The machines took over just about everything on the surface. We can't exactly grow corn and raise cattle. This is going to be your breakfast, lunch, and dinner until either we win the war or the geneticists at Zion come up with something more palatable." "No, there's got to be something else." Helios got up. "Anything, I can't eat that." "Sit down, Helios." Spectrum glared at him. "No way. I'd rather go hungry than eat this." "Fine, more for us." D-Mac answered, pulling Helios' tray toward himself. "I'll be in my bunk." Helios stormed out of the mess hall. "Snotty little shit, isn't he?" Mako asked no one in particular. "He'll eat when he gets hungry enough." Spectrum answered her. "We need him." Spectrum and Helios were walking down a street, bustling with people. "Aren't you glad you finally ate something?" Spectrum asked the boy. "Well, now that you mention it," Helios started for dramatic effect, "no. It was just as disgusting as I thought it would be." "You get used to it. Just try to stay away from your favorite foods in the Matrix. It tends to make you homesick." "So what do we now that we've finished installing the hard line?" Helios asked. He finally noticed that even though they were speaking out loud in broad daylight on a street with hundreds of people all around him, nobody was paying any attention to what they were saying. They were just going about their business, unconcerned with the conversation between the two. "We go back. This is just your first run through, so we're starting slow. All I wanted to show you was how to install one. We all have to do it from time to time, they're our only link to the Matrix, and the more we have the better." "Okay so how do we find one to get out?" "Pick up your mobile and dial zero. Mako will answer 'Operator.' Just address her by name and ask her where the nearest exit is. Anyone on the ship can keep an eye on us on the displays." "Keep an eye on us? From those monitors with all the cascading green symbols on them? How?" "Once you get used to the code, you don't even see it anymore. You see people, places, even things that are about to happen by recognizing patterns and doing a little simple math. Go ahead, call Mako." "Operator." Mako answered. "Uh, hi, Mako?" "Ha-ha! Yeah, it's me. What do you need?" Mako answered with a friendly laugh. "Um... where's the nearest exit?" "End of the block, turn right, there's a pay phone at the end of the street." "Thanks, bye." Helios hung up. "You don't need to be quite that polite." Spectrum told Helios as they turned the corner. "Especially in an emergency, Mako's watching us the whole time, it's not like talking on a normal phone." "Okay, I'll get the hang of it. Is that the exit?" Helios asked, pointing at the pay phone at the end of the street. "That's it, you first." Helios walked up to the pay phone and picked up the receiver, dialing zero. He jumped when he felt something grab the hand he was holding the receiver with. He looked, seeing the receiver metamorphasizing into a human hand, the cord turning into an arm, the stand into legs, the whole damn pay phone was turning into a man! He grabbed Helios around the neck, lifting him off the ground. "Mako! Freeze program!" Spectrum commanded. Instantly, the man froze. Helios wiggled his way out of his grip and stumbled to the ground. "What the hell was that!?" He demanded. "We call them Two-points. They're the Agents of the Matrix, version two-point-oh." Helios took a good look at him. The agent was in his late thirties, dressed like a costume party secret service agent. Helios almost expected him to have sunglasses and an earpiece, but he didn't. "Remember this exercise, Helios. They can be anywhere, they can be anything. They strike without warning. They're stronger than us, they're faster than us, and they're dangerous as Hell. You see an agent, you run. Don't bother shooting at them, they can dodge bullets. Don't try fighting them, they will win. Just try to get to an exit as fast as you can, and God help you." "So, we're not even really in The Matrix? You tricked me, we're in the Simulator." Helios observed. "I had to, this is how we show new recruits the dangers of the Two-points. I went through this too, only my first tumble was with version one-point-oh. Just when I though it couldn't get any worse The Matrix upgraded the damnable things. Watch this." Spectrum pulled a .357 magnum out of his jacket and took aim at the Two-point's head. One shot splattered his brains out the other side. As the Two-point fell, its body turned into water, splashing into nothing more than a puddle when it hit the ground. "If you do manage to hit one, and that almost never happens, The Matrix recycles the code into water. Waste not want not. Then they try to find about 180 pounds of raw material to build a new body." Spectrum pointed his gun at a mailbox on the corner, which was morphing into the same agent that just died. He got up from a crouching position and just stood there. "You can't kill them. They just keep coming back. The best you can hope for is to slow them down, and you can't even do that for very long. The only one who can kill an agent is Neo, remember I was going to tell you about him? They call him 'The One.' The One who is prophesized to defeat the Agents, take down The Matrix, and free humanity from their enslavement. So far he seems to be living up to his destiny. Neo can do all these things because he doesn't just bend the rules like you and I do. He writes his own. He modifies and re-codes The Matrix with a thought, that's what makes him The One." "Wait, prophesy? Destiny? You command a high-tech hovercraft and deal with the most advanced technology ever seen on the planet, and we're relying on a prophesy to save humanity?" "Zion shares your concern, Helios. That's where we come in. If the prophesies of the Oracle fall through, and Neo can't free the slaves, we release the Apocalypse Virus. We bring down The Matrix, all the slaves die, the machines loose a major portion of their power source, and Zion mounts a final offensive on the weakened machines. Winner take all. You can see why we'd rather go with plan A." "And this Oracle... are the prophesies working out so far? What else has it predicted?" "She, Helios, not it. Everything she's ever predicted has happened. Everyone who is recruited by the Resistance and pulled out of The Matrix goes to see her as soon as possible. Everyone, except us. Zion doesn't want us to be swayed by the Oracle's prophesies. We are to continue as planned, we must finish the virus, and be ready when and if the shit hits the fan. They can't let us see her." "So, what's the next step then?" Helios asked. "The jump. Mako, run the jump for Helios." In response, the two felt like they were experiencing an earthquake. The entire city changed before their eyes, some buildings sank into the ground, others shot up from the streets like plants growing in fast-forward. The last, and tallest, skyscraper to appear was right under their feet, bringing them up with it. Spectrum remained calm, shifting his weight slightly to keep his balance. Helios kept standing in a significantly less dignified manner. "This is the jump, Helios. Nobody goes back into the Matrix until they can make the jump." At that, Spectrum turned his back to Helios and leapt into the air. He just kept going and going... it was hard to judge but Helios guessed Spectrum made it about twenty feet up before he started coming back down. When he finally landed, it was on another skyscraper's rooftop, three city blocks away. "COME ON, HELIOS! IT'S EASIER THAN IT LOOKS!" Spectrum's voice was small but carried surprisingly well at that distance. Helios looked across the distance between the two skyscrapers. He saw the vast distance between the two, and nothing but low buildings between them. And very, very busy streets. "Okay, if I can make it through that jungle gym... I can do this." He took a deep breath, let it out, backed off a few feet, and took a running start. He jumped as high as he could, he jumped as far as he could. It was an impressive leap for anybody, but he found himself plummeting Earthward. Windows flew past him at incredible speed as he saw the ground rushing toward him. He screamed. He'd never felt so out of control, never felt so terrified that he was going to die. He braced himself for impact, for all the good it would do. But instead of the hard pavement he saw beneath him, it felt like a stretched rubber sheet. He sank deeply into it and it bounced him back up like a trampoline, about four feet. He flipped halfway over in mid-air and landed on his back, this time actually feeling the impact of hard asphalt. Helios opened his eyes as D-Mac pulled the plug out of the back of his head. He felt something warm and wet, and touched his lips. Blood. "What's this? How did this happen?" Spectrum got up from the unit next to him. "Everything in the Simulator, and The Matrix for that matter, is very real to you. Your mind and body react as if it were real. When you hit the ground, your body reacted, you twitched and jerked in the real world just like you would falling in a dream. When you hit, you bit your tongue. Don't worry about it, nobody expected you to make it. Nobody makes the first jump. Nobody." Helios got up from his unit. "You know, I'm getting kind of sick of these misdirection games. I haven't been given a straight story since I got here. You spoke in riddles to me over my computer, you wouldn't tell me the whole story when you gave me that red pill, you told me practically nothing before I got into the first Simulator, and just now you tricked me into thinking I was in The Matrix, tricked me into getting caught by that Two-point program, and then you tell me to make this jump and get my hopes up and you know I'm not going to make it, and you scare the Hell out of me doing it and now I'm bleeding out the mouth! I'm really, really sick of this already. You hired me on because you saw my talent, now start being straight with me!" "Hey, watch it there." D-Mac cautioned Helios. "This is your commanding officer you're talking to. We all had to go through this. There's a lot about The Matrix you need to be shown, we have to run it this way. Don't think we're picking on you. Everyone on this ship went through the same initiation." "Well look, if you want my help then it ends now, okay? No more tricks." "It is over, Helios. Your initiation is passed. As soon as you can make that jump, we're going to take you into The Matrix, for real this time, and show you what we've got so far on the Apocalypse Virus. But now, we eat. It's time for lunch." "Wait a minute, I want to try that jump again." "No, Helios. Later. After lunch." "No, now! I can make it. Put me back in." "I said after lunch, Helios. No more arguments. You're a part of my crew and you're going to have to learn how to do things like everyone else. Don't think you're something special. If you can't work with us, we'll just pull someone else out who can." Spectrum and the others turned and left, headed for the mess hall. Helios just stood there, angry at the world, angry at how unfair everything was. Why didn't they respect him? Was it because he was 14, the youngest on the ship by seven years? They didn't seem to feel like he deserved to be treated like an adult. He just stood there getting angrier and angrier. "SHIT." He finally said, and kicked the Simulator chair as hard as he could. After a few more tries, Helios finally did make the jump. Spectrum unplugged his I/O port and he was thrown back into the real world again. "I finally get it." He said. "I finally understand. It's more than knowing, isn't it? It's something deeper." "Now that you understand that," Spectrum told him, "you're ready to go into The Matrix." Spectrum, Lyninux, and a woman Helios hadn't seen before (and surmised was Format C:) walked over to another set of chairs, looking just slightly different from the set that took them into the Simulator. Lyninux and Format C: sat down and plugged themselves in. Spectrum gestured for Helios to sit at a third chair. "Now for the part that we've all been waiting for, Helios. We're going to show you the Apocalypse Virus. You'll see where we're stuck, and hopefully, you can help us fix it." "It's about time!" Helios took his seat and plugged himself in, as did Spectrum. Mako swiveled her chair around and called down the hallway "Here Trackball, come'ere girl..." In response, a large brown rat with a white stripe down one side of its face came scurrying down the hall and climbed onto the control panel. "Send them in, Trackball." The rat sniffed her hands a few times, and pushed a red button. The warehouse had been abandoned for years. Nobody wanted it anymore, it was a lawsuit waiting to happen for the next buyer. Nothing was up to code, and some old, unmarked barrels of chemicals had been leaking for at least two years. It would cost three times as much just to clean the place up as it would to buy the property. It would be virtually impossible to turn a profit with it. That was exactly the reason Spectrum's crew used it to enter The Matrix. They could be sure no one would ever be there. The one and only thing that worked was the phone and hard line they installed themselves. One minute the warehouse was empty except for the few rats who had learned not to eat the chemical spillage. Two minutes later Spectrum, Helios, Lyninux, and Format C: were standing there next to the phone. Spectrum wore khakis and a button-down, faded red shirt. Helios had on blue jeans and a Metallica T-shirt. Lyninux was dressed in blue jeans and a nondescript T-shirt with a black windbreaker over it. Format C: had black jeans, a blue T-shirt, and a black jacket with red trim. "Why are we dressed like this? Shouldn't we be in, I don't know, black S.W.A.T. team outfits or something?" Helios asked. Spectrum answered him. "That's not our job. Morpheus' team is the high-profile group. They are the ones who attract all the attention. We can't do things like that, we need to blend in. We have to look nondescript. We work during the day, melting into crowds and fading back out of existence when we're done. We almost never see a Two-point thanks to that. And when we do we lose them fast. Generally. Forget everything you ever saw in a spy movie, it's more important to look like everyone else. Now Trinity, Neo, they run into Agents all the time. Of course, Neo can handle himself." "Jeez, when you start talking you just keep going." Helios replied accusingly. "Would you rather I continued giving you half-answers like before?" Spectrum shot him back. "Alright, alright, jeez. What do we do now?" "We've been setting the virus off about a mile from here. We haven't been able to inflict any permanent damage yet though." Spectrum answered, brushing off Helios' attitude. "Come on." Moments later the four were at a highway overpass. It was just after rush hour, and the highway and the street below were mostly empty. "This is where we've been setting it off. We hit it randomly so the Agents don't have a pattern to trace and catch us doing it. Actually, we're not really sure they know we've been running tests at all." Format C: took a small silver box out of her jacket and handed it to Spectrum. He continued talking as he taped the box to the support pylons of the overpass. "Inside the Matrix, the virus looks like a bomb going off. What's supposed to happen is the explosion grows and spreads instead of dropping off with distance, and eventually engulfing the entire network. The world ends in fire. Unfortunately, that's not what's actually happening." He finished setting the bomb and walked back over to the others. "Would you like to do the honors?" He asked Helios, handing him a remote control. "All right! Ten minutes in The Matrix and already I'm setting off bombs." He grinned. "Um... shouldn't we stand back or behind something or something?" "Not really necessary. You'll see, you'll probably think this is pretty cool." "Um, right. Real radical, dude." Helios rolled his eyes at the 50 year old man's statement. He pushed the button. The virus went off, looking for all the world like a bomb. The support pylons gave way, not shattering but simply dissolving. The bridge above began to buckle, unable to hold its own weight without the supports. Suddenly, the flames stopped advancing. The explosion looked like it ran in reverse, flames pulling themselves backwards and the support reforming itself, pushing the bridge back up to where it should be. Everything was just like it looked before, except the silver box was gone. "Whoa!" "Dramatic, isn't it? But for all the sound and fury, it doesn't actually do anything. That happens every time and we don't know why." "So, what do we have to work with here." Helios asked, still staring at the bridge supports, still not believing his eyes. "Mako recorded everything from the Light Bringer." Spectrum answered. "Now we go back, look at the data, compare it to past experiments, and see if we can figure out what's going on. This is why we pulled you out of The Matrix, Helios. This is what's holding us back from completing our mission. We were supposed to have this finished before Morpheus found The One. We're embarrassingly behind schedule and we need you to help us finish it before anything bad happens. If the prophesies are not true, and Neo is not The One, he will die fighting the Agents of The Matrix, just like everyone else who's stood up to them. The Apocalypse Virus must be finished before... if... Neo dies." "Kind of a vague deadline." Helios replied, sarcastically. "Hopefully one that will never actually arrive. But we can't take that chance. Do you think you can do it?" "No problem. I've fixed bugged code before. I've helped out dozens of loser hacker wannabes, rewriting the most pathetic excuses for a virus. No offense. Most of them have no idea what it was I did to fix them. I started getting a few kicks out of it after a while, hiding messages in my patches. After a few guys got insulted, people stopped asking for my help." Helios had a shit-eating grin on his face. "Well we've got a lot of work ahead of us. We have to get moving. If we stay here much longer the Two-points will show up. If they even know something happened here. It's entirely possible The Matrix fixed the problem and ignored it. Kind of insulting but it works out in our favor. We've got to get back to the ship." "Can't we stay here for just a little while? I'm dying for a pizza." "Sorry, Helios. Like I told you, we have to stay away from hedonism in The Matrix. It tends to make people homesick for their prison." "Come one, just one slice, then we can go." "I said no!" Spectrum shot back, nearly losing his temper. "We're heading back out." Helios looked shocked for a second, then saddened. He was getting yelled at a lot. |
The Apocalypse Virus
By: Byl Glinka
If Neo dies, Zion still has a back-up plan.
Rated: Fiction K+ - English - Adventure - Chapters: 5 - Words: 40,659 - Reviews: 47 - Favs: 2 - Follows: 1 - Updated: 2/3/2001 - Published: 9/29/2000 - id: 82811
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Full 3/4 1/2 Expand Tighten
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