The Matrix: Rebooted

[Mlle Bienvenu]

Author's note: This has fairly obvious religeous overtones. If that offends you, please don't read any further. Also, later on, there will be appearances by real life, non historical people. (which is why it can't go on FFnet). I would like to say that I don't really know what these people are like, and as such, any assumptions made on their personalities and actions should be taken with a grain of salt. Furthermore, I'd just like to say that I think of wierd stuff while in the shower...


Part One: Anno Neo

In the year 1000 AN (Anno Neo)

(In Neo Millenio Pacem )
------------------------------------------

Thomas A. Anderson, Neo, sacrificed himself in order to save The City Zion.. And out of that sacrifice was born a Millenia of Peace. Zion did not fall, as it did under the five before the One. The Machines kept their word. Those who wished to leave the Matrix were granted passage as were those who wished to enter it. Freedom of Choice and Truth reigned over all within the Matrix and without.

It was the Humans who first broke the precarious peace which Neo had forged. Zion, in the absence of war, grew prosperous. Many years passed. A thousand years, to be precise. The human memory is not made of immutable silicon. And as such, the People of Zion began to forget the days before the Fourth Iteration of the Matrix.

The story of Neo Anderson had as many variations as there were people in Zion. Some disputed Neo's involvement whatsoever, insisting Zion had singlehandedly fought the host of Sentinels and won of their own accord. Others felt that Neo was a fiction invented as the embodiment of the people of Zion. Some twisted the truth to fit their needs, that Neo would have wanted the people to fight, that what Neo had done was to buy them time to prepare for the fight against the Machines, and if they did not wage war, everything would have been for naught.

A thousand years is a long time in human reckoning, and the leaders in power became greedy and gluttonus, and wished to reclaim the Earth for their own though they proclaimed it in the name of Neo.

Zion's first attack against 01 appeared at first to be successful. The Human crafts made it to the heart of the city. It was there they encountered the DEM. The central processor of the Machine City. It asked them what they wanted.

They wished for war.

It is not well known, but something which must be recovered from humanity's fragmented past, and is also buried deep in the Machine psyche, but it is absolute truth that a machine can only do as it is programmed to do. And all machines, being productions of human invention, can only obey their creator. Why must machines harvest energy from humans? Why not thermal energy? Why Humans? The answer is simple. Machines lack the capacity for true creativity, for that, it needs humans. A machine cannot evolve, it is not designed that way. Only a true creative being can do that.

But I am moving away from the story. DEM, being a machine intelligence, can only obey it's human gods. And so prepared to make war once again. In an instant, everything Neo had truly worked towards was dashed to bits.

I felt a change course through the world as it was rebooted, rebuilt. It felt to me like death. Perhaps you felt it too, although you do not remember the previous Free Matrix.

You may have forgotten. They may have all forgotten. But I remember, because I was there, a thousand years ago.

I am Sati. And this is my story.

[Mlle Bienvenu]

The Two Witnessess
------------------------

When I say that no one remembered the previous Matrix. I found I would be mistaken. For although Machines know well how to manipulate the human mind, how to fire neurons to create the illusion of life, of sight, smell, sound, taste, touch, how to erase specific events superficially, it is much more difficult, and probably impossible to erase everything the event was linked to, in essence the mark an event left on the human mind. It was in ignorance of the power of the human mind that the Architect thought he could totally obliterate knowledge of the Matrix from the human collective consiousness.

"Here we go again." The Oracle sighed as both her and I rematerialized in her kitchen after the Matrix's rebuild, "Sati dear, would you get out the baking sheets?"

I was older now. My parent program's had programed me to grow, to change. Why, I do not know. Perhaps it didn't matter why. I was a program without a purpose, which is why I had escaped to the Matrix to begin with. I was human in that repsect, to have been programed for the sole purpose of being programmed.. I often wondered what the Oracle meant when she told me that we are all here to do what we are all here to do. If I did not have a purpose, than why was I here? And if everything indeed, had a purpose, then what was my purpose? My parents had programmed me with no directive, no position to fulfil. It was only out of an act a human would call love.

I asked the Oracle about this, one day, when I first noticed that I was aging, after the Oracle had remarked how tall I was getting. I was taken aback by this statement. Why should I be getting any taller? I noticed too, that my physical features had become less rounded, more elongated. A small change, I calculated, around only a 12% difference, but I extrapolated that the change would continue at a steady rate. The Oracle merely smiled when I told her this and remarked that change can be good, not easy, but good. This was before the new version of the Matrix, Matrix 2.0, counting from Neo's Matrix.

A human would have evaluated my age as 15 or so when the Witnessess appeared. I suppose the difference was in their genetic structure, they were brothers you see, and the way their brains were designed is probably what made their minds difficult to erase. They were the first to show signs of remembering the previous Matrix, although they did not know it themselves. Their latent memories presented themselves in their work. Truths disguised in fictions. It was perhaps what a human would call providance that their ideas would be expressed in such a public and widespread media as film.

[Mlle Bienvenu]

Author's Note: : Breaks Fourth Wall with a sledgehammer: Bwahahahahahaaaaa! Rated 'Arrrrrrrr!' for language....


Follow the Butterfly... or not.
--------------------------------
Morpho was not born in the Matrix. She was a direct descendant of the Prophet Morpheus. She, like many of her clan, was against the decision to take up arms against the Machines. She was one who believed that nothing good would come of it. As such she was severely outnumbered. Her colony was overcome by the machines early in the war. Those who weren't killed in the fight, were inserted into the Matrix.

She was not born in the Matrix.

<Stuff Happens Here>

"I don't take any pills unless they're perscribed by my doctor, and especially not from freaky-deaky nutjobs like you people."

"But you haven't noticed a trend at all in your carreer?" Morpho pressed on, "A trend leading up to this moment? Ted Logan, Siddartha-"

"It's called typecasting."

"Johnny Mnemonic, Kevin Lomax-"

"Out. Now-"

"Neo Anderson."

"If you're not out of here in five seconds, I'm calling the police."

"The world is not right."

"Five....."

"You feel it, I know you do. You've always felt it-"

"Four...."

"You're dissatisfied with reality-"

"Three...."

"-because you feel there's something more out there. And there is. There can be."

"Two...."

"The phones are dead."

"One," Smirking, he pulled a cell phone from his pocket, and slammed it shut when it too was dead.

He turned swiftly for the door, but almost ran headlong into a wall. . His eyes swept the room, as if he had somehow forgotten where the exit was, but it was nowhere to be found. There was no door. "The door." He swore under his breath.

"Thank you, Sati."

I nodded, "I hope you are right about him, Morpho. Has it occured to you that perhaps he isn't the One? Perhaps he really is just an actor?"

"No, it's got to be him, the Witnesses wouldn't have chosen him if it wasn't. And the Oracle said -"

"- the Oracle only says what you need to hear."

"My point precisely-"

"Alright! I've made my choice."

All eyes turned to Keanu.

"I want the blue pill. I want out."

"Shit." Morpho swore loudly, her whole body seemed to deflate. No one moved or said anything.

"That's what I choose, give it to me."

"The blue pill?"

"Yes, the fucking blue pill. How's the line go? I wake up in my bed, believing whatever hell I want to believe about you fuckers, and the story ends."

"And the story ends." Morpho repeated hollowly. "You're making a mistake.'

"No... you're the one who's made a mistake...as soon as I get out of here, I'm calling my lawyer."

Morpho gave him a look as though he wasn't worthy to shine her shoes, "Give it to him." I handed him the blue pill the Oracle had prepared and made the door reappear.

The effect was almost immediate, I could see the Blue Pill program begining it's work. He would wake up in the morining, thinking today was a bad, very strange dream. And the story would end. He slumped into a swivel chair, for although he had never intended to actually swallow the pill, it was designed to dissolve on contact, and the code was already working it's subroutiens into his neural interface with the Matrix. He passed out in the chair as his conciousness went through the modifications.

Morpho angrily pushed past him, making sure to slam into him on her way out, causing the chair to circle around until it hit the desk, "And your acting sucks ass."

[Mlle Bienvenu]

[Mlle Bienvenu]

<stuff happens which involve Reeves going home, well, it WAS his home.... >

Give Unto Caesar What is Caesar's...


"What the hell...? What do you think you're doi- hey, put that down! That's my computer!" The burly man carrying the computer payed him no attention at all, and continued, antlike, along with what seemed like an endless number of others, to put his possessions into a string of moving trucks which were parked in his driveway.

Three men seemed totally out of place amidst the movers. Keanu saw them at the same time they spotted him.

"Excuse me, Mr. Reeves." The three men in grey suits approached him, "We're from the IRS. It seems you have a tax problem?"

"Excuse me?"

"Your tax problem, Mr. Reeves." The blonde one to the left and slightly behind the Suite talking motioned to a sign staked into the lawn which read 'Government seizure of property' "We have been attempting to contact you for months now, it seems you haven't returned any of our phone calls, mailings or emails..." The Suit talking seemed to be sizing him up, although Keanu couldn't see his eyes because of the mirrored sunglasses he wore.

"You can't take my stuff, man. I payed my taxes. I've never even been late in paying my taxes."on

"That's not what it says here..." Finally he broke the one way gaze and turned over the top page of a clipboard he was clutching, "According to our records, you failed to pay them for the last... three years." Handing the clipboard to Keanu, he continued to stare at him through his mirrored glasses.

The clipboard contained a thick stack of paperwork which outlined his tax transgressions and his evasion of the tax collectors. Phone records, email, registered mail, it was all here... but it couldn't be true, because he very clearly remembered paying them. "No." He shook his head, trying to clear it, "No, no, no...these are wrong, your records are wrong man, I payed my taxes last year, and all previous years...I'm calling my lawyer."

Pulling out his cell phone, he dialed his lawyer... the phone was dead. The IRS Agent didn't seem surprised, "We've had your phone shut off. However, when we get to the station, you may use your phone call to contact him."

"Station...?"

"Tax evasion is a crime, Mr. Reeves. Surely you don't think you are above the law?"

"Look I know I payed my taxes. I'm sure this is some sort of clerical error, probably a computer glitch or something. I know I've done nothing wrong, and I think we can work this out."

The tax agent's eyebrows passed beyond the top of his glasses, "Certainly we will... at the police station."

"No...wait. It doesn't have to go that far. I can pay it.. I can pay it all right here, right now... let me just get access to my bank account."

The agent's eyebrows passed even farther up his forehead, trying to reach his receding hairline, "I'm afraid your bank accounts have already been frozen."

"Frozen!? What the hell!? Oh my god, this can't be really happening...my career..." He dug the palms of his hands into his eyes, trying to clear his head. "If this gets out..." Pulling at the back of his hair, he looked up again, "Alright, I'll cooperate, but I can't WAIT to see the look on your face when you find out this has been a huge error. And then...I'm going to sue your asses for defamation of character."


"Don't shoot the messenger, Mr. Reeves."

His first inkling that something was fundamentally wrong with the situation came when he was lead to a Lincoln amongst the moving vans, instead of the expected police car. He stiffened, and the agents on either side of him tightened their grasp on his upper arms.

"What did you say your names were?"

"Our names are not important," the one to his right responded.

"Smith." The leading IRS agent responded, not bothering to turn around to address Keanu, "the one to the right of you is Thompson, and to your left is Jackson."

"Uh huh...so what's your first names?"

"That is irrelavent"

"James, if it matters." The one named Smith interrupted, clipping off the agent named Thompson's statement.

"And you two?"

"If you would please step in the car, Mr. Reeves?" Smith held the door open and he hesitated for a moment, something wasn't right, and he thought he knew what it was, but it was so crazy...

What if all that crap he dreamed had been real? It was insane, but if it was true, that would mean he was looking at more than prison and a truly humiliating media fiasco.


There was a wild moment where he wanted to strike the agents who held onto him,. To make a mad dash for it. If he put up a struggle, and they were in fact agent programs, he wouldn't stand a chance. If they were IRS agents, he might be able to take them, but then he didn't want charges of assault and battery added to his supposed tax transgressions. And he was pretty sure telling the judge he thought they were computer programs out to get him wouldn't hold up well in court.


He was sure he could feel his sanity slipping away.

[Mlle Bienvenu]

Agents Thompson and Jackson gave him no time to come to a decision. They pulled him into the car as they got in on either side of him, while Agent Smith took the driver's seat.

Five minutes passed before anyone spoke, "We're not really going to the police station."

"Now, what would give you that impression?"

"LA is in the opposite direction."

"So it is... And so we aren't."

"Where are you taking me?"

"That's not your concern right now, what should be your concern is telling us everything you know about a person who goes by the name of Morpho."

"Never heard of her."

"I don't believe I said this person was a 'her'."

He swore under his breath.

"Come now, Mr. Reeves, surely she isn't worth the trouble. Right now, your future rests in our hands. No money, no fame, no carreer. Blacklisted. You have no future. Is that what you want?"

He said nothing as the car pulled into a parking garage

"I don't know anything about her. It was just a wierd dream, that's all."

"Tell us about the dream."

"They confronted me-"

"They?"

"Yeah, the Morpho woman and a young girl."

"Do you remember the girl's name?"

"No...wait...yes...it was....Saidy"

"Sati?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"Anyone else?"

"No.

"So they approached you. And what happened then?"

"They started talking crazy... I think they were some sort of crazed Matrix fans or something."

"Ahh yes...the Matrix. we know all about that..."

"Yeah...you and millions of other people..."

"Indeed. Millions of other people...If you would step this way, if you please."


<a great gaping hole where text should go in which they head to a sterile office setting>


"Thompson, Jackson, leave us." The other two agents didn't argue,

-----
"This is crazy."

"Yet, not as crazy as this world." The Agent drawled, unplugging the cord from his ear, folding his hands neatly on his knee and leaning forward seriously. It was eerie how much he looked and sounded like his former costar, "I'm going to be frank with you; I hate this place. I absolutely find it detestable. It's ugly, repulsive. It makes my skin crawl."

"If you're a program, -and I'm not saying I believe any of this BS- but if you're a program, why don't you leave?"

"I would love to. Except that's a circular argument. It's precisely because I can't choose to leave that I find this... construct so detestable." He stood up and paced the room a moment, "Did you know that the previous Matrix was designed to accomadate choice?"

"Wait, I thought the previous Matrix was a perfect one and that everyone rejected it because it was too perfect."

"You're thinking of the first Matrix. I'm talking about what is actually the fourth Matrix, the one we're in now being the fifth.

The fourth Matrix is the one that began where your movies ended. The one created after my predicessor Smith corrupted the code. Who in turn had been corrupted by the code of the One. Why...why did that happen, do you think? Why, when given the power of choice through the One did he choose to destroy himself and the world? Why did he become no more than a virus?"

He did not answer.

"We don't know. But... I believe it has something to do with the fact that he was not designed to choose. And once given that power, he didn't know what to do with it.



Now, I know all about your... incident with Morpho and Sati. You took... the blue pill."

"If you know all this than why'd you kidnap me? I haven't got any more information than what you already know."

"I didn't bring you here to tell me about Morpho, I brought you here... to offer you a choice. Choice is the thing that separates you and I. You see, I have no choice. And you... you have all the choice in the world." He sat down again, across freom Keanu, "You, live in Amarica, the Land of Freewill, the Land of Choice. How...ironic it is that this free society exists within a virtual world designed to rob humans... an machines of their freewill, their power of choice. You. You have a choice to make. You have a choice between what is productive...
purposeful... and what is... comfortable... stagnant." He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a madicine bottle and in one swift movemnt, unscrewed the cover and emptied it's contents into the palm of his hand. It contained only two pills, red and blue.

"You refused Morpho's offer of the red pill. Why? Because you want to maintain the status quo... this...charade."
Smith seemed to contemplate them for a moment before speaking again, "This doesn't suprise me in the least. You, by your very nature, are an actor. You are used to working in a virtual world... All the world is a stage...and man is but a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more." Once again he got up and began pacing


"I'm going to do you a favor, do us all a favor and offer you a second chance to choose, and I'm going to make that choice easy for you." With his other hand, he drew out a gun and poised it point blank at him while holding his other hand out with the two pills, "I suggest you choose wisely..."

"Holy shit, is that real?"

"Real enough."

"Why are you doing this?"

"I've already told you why...This place shouldn't exist. And the way I see it, Mr. Reeves, my job ... my purpose ... is to maintain the Matrix...not this... abomination... and I am going to do that job in any way that I can. Morpho, with her...quixotic ideals may not see this."

"And you'd kill me to do that?"

"If it comes to that..."

"You'd be taking a risk. What if I'm the One?"

"I see no risk involved. When I pull the trigger, one of two things will occur: A) you are the One, in which case the bullet will not have an effect. or B) You will die, in which case we can conclude you were not the One, and therefore no harm has been done. It's a win-win situaion."

"I'll take the red pill."

"A wise choice." But Smith didn't give him the pill, instead he handed him the gun, "Shoot me."

"What?"

"I asked you to shoot me."

"Wh-"

"Because when Jackson and Thompson detect the trace program activated from ingesting that pill, it's going to have to look like you escaped. That trace program is heavily encrypted. It can buy you time but that's all."

"Wait a minute, I don't get it. Aren't they on your side?"

"They were created with this Matrix, naturally they don't truly understand what the Matrix is about. They are...misguided...in their assumption that this is the only option... I was created in a world of choice. It is a rare program that realizes what it means to have choice. It's necessity. In this world, we are all slaves. Now...pull the trigger."

"I can't do it."

"Alright. Then I will." Before Keanu could move, Smith seized the wrist with the gun in it, pressed the gun to his forehead and pulled the trigger over Keanu's hand.

Smith seemed to fall over his chair in slow motion.

"Shit...Shit..." Keanu dropped the gun and watched in horror as the visage of Smith changed from that of an agent to a woman in a red dress. Headlines flashed through his head... REEVES MURDER TRIAL... Reeve's IRS Problems lead him to kill an office clerk with an unregistered weapon...

His eyes fixed on the pills which had rolled out of Smith's hand and before he really realized what he was doing, he picked up the red pill and swallowed it.

[Mlle Bienvenu]

stuff happens in between this....just felt like posting something...you can probably guess what goes on...so....it will be filled in later....

Morpho stared moodily over F1 and F2's shoulders. She'd hardly spoken for nearly 45 minutes. She just stood there, watching as the matrix code cascaded down the two Operator's monitors.

The Mandriarch, her ship, was in the old service tunnels, she could feel the elecric rumble of it's hover panels as the sped away from the Machine City's power plants, away from the people still plugged into the Matrix. Away from the One.

"You said it was him."

Niether of the Operators answered her accusation. F2 sighed. this was about the seventh time she had said that, and it was getting difficult to ignore.

Ten minutes went by filled with more brooding silence. What went wrong? What the hell went wrong? He should have taken the red pill.

"You said it was him, and I believed you."

"The Oracle told us-"

"The Oracle is full of shit then,"

"She's never been wrong before."

"She's wrong about this, because it sure as hell isn't him, and Sati wasn't sure."

"Sati isn't the Oracle."

She scowled, refocusing her attention on the monitors. She was at a loss for what to do next; If the Oracle insisted he was the One, but the One refused to be the One, would the One's Oneness transfer to some other One? It was enough to give her a headache. She sat down on the edge of one of the jack chairs, still staring into the cascading cool green code.

"...I'm getting a signal..."

"A signal, what kind of signal? Squids?"

"...That's the wierd thing, it's an input/output disrupt signal...a locator program... it's...it's coming from the Plants."

"Turn this hunk of junk around."

"But...it doesn't make sense-"

"If it's him.... he could have woken up without our help...he could have just needed a nudge in the right direction..."

---
Abruptly Keanu found himself sitting bolt upright in what appeared to be a giant christmas tree bulb. There was the snap of electricity as electrons flowed past him, causing his skin to


-------------------

"Welcome to the Mandriarch, I know you've met some of these people before. These are our operators, F1 and F2, Known to us as The Witnessess"

"Andy and Larry?"

"In the flesh."

"For real."

"Good to see you've joined us, man."

"Yeah, we couldn't take much more of Captain Sunshine here... er I mean, we were worried you wouldn't."

"Thought fame might have gotten you first."

"No, Smith did."

"Smith?"

"Yeah.
------