Update. New characters...
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Two days later
Morpheus walked into Preston’s quarters, and stood silently just inside the door. Preston, quietly reading an ancient bound book that one of the crewmen had found outside in the wasteland, finished his passage and carefully inserted a strip of cloth into the book to mark his place. He stood in a fluid motion, and nodded to Morpheus, who then spoke.
“Cleric, do you remember your training mission?”
At Preston’s acquiescence, Morpheus continued in his resonant voice, “This time we shall make a true mission, into the Matrix itself. The Construct was but the beginning of your training; this shall mark whether or not you are truly the One who shall rescue us. We are going to see the Oracle.”
Plugged In. 1138 hrs EST
Preston and Morpheus materialized in a great crowd of people, milling about in the city that centuries ago had been known as Boston, in the Massachusetts region of the continent of North America. Morpheus turned his eyes, hidden by his ubiquitous silver sunglasses, to the Cleric and spoke.
“This is the city in which the Oracle currently lives. She is not like a human; she understands the Matrix in a way inherently different than that in which we understand it. She can tell us our futures, but most importantly, she tells us who we are, and why we are here. She tells each of us what we need to know, at that precise moment. This is why I am taking you to see her, Cleric-- so you will know what you need to know.”
Preston narrowed his eyes, but nodded. They proceeded forth, walking through the city, till they reached an dilapidated apartment area. Up stairs, down long halls, and finally they stood before a door in a graffiti-encrusted corridor.
Morpheus stood beside the door, and looked directly at Preston. He motioned to the door and said, “Cleric-- this is the door. I cannot make you enter it. Nor can I ask you what the Oracle tells you in there, unless you are willing to tell me. But only you can open the door for yourself.”
Unhesitatingly, Preston reached forth for the knob, and turned it.
The door opened to show a small child, looking upwards trustingly through small wire-framed glasses. She lisped, “Hello, Mr. Morpheus. Hello, Mr. Preston. The Oracle told me to wait here for you. She’s in the kitchen, making cookies. She told me to tell Mr. Preston to come right in, but I’m so sorry, Mr. Morpheus, you’re supposed to wait outside.”
Morpheus smiled benevolently at the child and said gently, “Don’t worry, I’ll be just fine outside. Tell the Oracle that I’ll look forwards to some of her cookies.”
She grinned impishly and closed the door as Preston stepped in. She reached up and calmly took his hand, and led him to the living room, which was full of small children, their heads shaven, wearing rough clothing. One small boy looked up at him wide-eyed, and held up a spoon to Preston.
Without warning, the spoon suddenly bent itself into a Moibus strip; at the Cleric’s start of surprise, the boy laughed. He whispered, “Do you want to know my secret?”
Preston leaned in closer and nodded. The boy bent forth conspiratorially and whispered, “There is no spoon.” He then gave the Cleric a spoon.
Preston looked at the boy, then at the spoon. He blinked slowly; when his eyes opened again, the spoon was not. In its place was the slow scroll of the green characters of the Matrix’s coding; with a thought, Preston spun the spoon into a helix. The coding faded away and the spoon returned, and the boy gave him a quiet smile of pride. The Cleric, a distant look on his face, likewise smiled.
The little girl came back into the room, motioned to Preston, and lisped, “The Oracle says come now.” Preston handed the twisted spoon back to the boy, patted him on the shoulder, stood straight and calmly strode into the kitchen.
The delectable smell of baking cookies welled forth into his nostrils; a large, dark-skinned woman, perhaps African-American or Hispanic, was bent over and taking a tray of cookies out of the oven. More cookies rested on a rack on the counter, and there was a plate of them already on the table. She stood up straight, holding the tray and looking satisfied. She looked directly at Preston.
And her eyes widened, her mouth opened in a round O of shock, and suddenly nerveless fingers dropped the cookie tray. Preston’s muscles tensed, ready to move in any direction. She whispered, “No… no… this cannot be… so much power? Already? Madre de Dios, what hath Morpheus wrought?”
And screaming issued from outside, as the Oracle grabbed a knife from a nearby drawer, shouted “Seraph! The children! Keep them safe! And you, Cleric-- stay right there!”
She grabbed her purse sitting on the table, and left hastily. Suddenly, gunfire rang forth from the corridor; Preston sprinted to the door-- observing on the way that no trace remained that there had ever been any life in the apartment, and all the children were gone-- and opened it, to catch Morpheus as he reeled backwards through the door, blasting away at the distinctively suited form of an Agent in the distant part of the corridor.
More Agents suddenly appeared, and Preston made a decision. He grabbed Morpheus by the shoulder of his trench coat, shouted “Jump when I say!”, and the two of them sprinted towards the end of the hall in the apartment. The Cleric suddenly thrust his hand forwards; the wall before them erupted outwards in a shower of plaster, brick and reinforcing rod; and with a bellowed, “JUMP!”, the two of them lanced forth into the empty air.
Suddenly the material of Morpheus’ coat slipped through Preston’s sweaty grasp; Preston spun around and tried to grab Morpheus, but he had vanished from view. Tumbling, he fell through the sky, but suddenly, he remembered…
Closing his eyes, the Matrix suddenly shuddered, and he froze in midair and then slowly drifted to the ground inside the T-junction of two alleys.
He smoothed his coat, and turned to leave. And an Agent, holding his Desert Eagle casually by his head, was standing at the end of the alley.
Never taking his eyes off the Agent, he stepped around, and snapped his eyes towards the other end of the alley. A second Agent, drawing his gun, stood there. He looked directly before him, down the stem of the T, and a third Agent was ready to fire.
The Desert Eagles bellowed forth.
And the Cleric’s coat billowed in the wind of his motion as, gracefully, he avoided the powerful .50 caliber bullets, held forth his hands, and his modified Berettas slapped into his palms. Bullets cracked back and forth within milliseconds, their shock waves funneling through the air as Agents blurred in bullet-dodge and John Preston gracefully stepped around the bullets’ paths.
Before he knew it, the slides of his pistols locked back, magazines empty. He cast the guns aside as his eyes rolled up into his head, and green coding suddenly rippled as he held his hands out towards a dumpster.
The garbage container jerked, and awkwardly lifted into the air, as the Agents paused and looked on in shock. The Cleric’s normally emotionless face creased with strain as he lifted the dumpster higher; coding began streaming through his legs, upwards from his feet, drawn from the ground.
And the basic laws of the Matrix’s physics were torn asunder, and John Preston’s feet sank into the solid concrete as though it was quicksand. Hastily he flung aside the dumpster; it crushed one of the Agents who was too distracted by Preston’s sudden sinking into the ground to notice the dumpster except at the last moment-- when it was too late.
The remaining two Agents looked at each other, and then gave Preston feral grins. One of them put up his gun, and advanced slowly upon the Cleric, stretching his hands forth.
As Preston resigned himself to death, knowing that he had reached the limit of the Matrix’s fundamental laws, he looked upwards to the sky. Outlined against it, standing atop the apartment building across from him, were two young men, wearing dark pea coats and sunglasses. One of them reached up, plucked a cigarette from his mouth, and flung it aside. They looked at each other, nodded, and the other one reached into his coat. He came forth with a silenced Beretta. He pointed it downwards, at Preston… and let it drop.
With a sudden explosion of energy, Preston warped the code of the concrete he was buried to the knees in, and was flung upwards, as the young men-- apparently brothers-- charged down a fire escape, pulling pistols out from their coats and opening fire upon the Agents. The Cleric grabbed the Beretta in midair, and spinning, let the gun bellow its snarling song of death and destruction.
Six empty cartridges clinked to the ground as Preston landed; The Agents, perforated from the bullets coming at them from three separate attackers which had foiled their bullet-dodging, slumped to their knees and collapsed to the ground. The brothers rolled the Agents over, collected their guns, then performed a ritual odd to Preston-- they took out copper pennies, placed them upon the Agents’ eyes, and then knelt, crossed themselves, and chanted a short prayer, holding rosaries--
“And Shepherds we shall be
For thee, my Lord, for thee.
Power hath descended forth from Thy hand
Our feet may swiftly carry out Thy commands.
So we shall flow a river forth to Thee
And teeming with souls shall it ever be.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.
Amen.”
They then stood, and held out their hands to the Cleric. “You good, man? Fuck, if that wasn’t some fucking awesome shit you did there with the Dumpster-- I’ve fucking never seen that done before, man! Oh, I’m Connor MacManus, and this is me bro Murphy. Pleased to meetcha.”
It's a strange world. Let's keep it that way.
