"Ah, you see 'nearly' is the important word, Ares!" says Dallas. "That's what life is like with me, almost to the jaws of death... but not quite! And we see who has the guts to follow us there. Like I keep saying, everything works out just fine! Ok... err... what was I doing again?"
"A way out of there..." calls over Ariadne.
"Oh yeah! Well, yup, that's going to be difficult... but I am sure you guys can do it!"
"Removing rubble could be dangerous..." says Dallas. "So hey! Good idea. But you don't want to dig your way out. There is a supporting beam that fell across a little below ground level; the rubble settled on top and around but not just under it. You might be able to crawl your way through that channel out of that basement... but you have to get to it first."
"Oh, they're fine," says Dallas. "But we have a lot of bases to cover, so they can be getting on with other things."
Ok, here is the conversation, roughly, that was had with Medea by the Philosophy guys (after Medea revealed she came to help them without Jericho's permission). She had also revealed that Melitus was very much not human- but some sort of programme that was Renegade from the System.
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Well..." she says. "It started... I mean... things had been going badly for a while. We had a load of missions go wrong with us; we lost one of our crew. And Jericho had been getting downhearted as well. He's been fighting this war too long. But he never told any of us what he knew. It's the same thing I guess none of you have been told."
"Jericho is a smart guy, he was one of Zion's best captains. He has a great talent- he's always been able to empathise and reason like a machine. He knows how to think the way they do, and he was Zion's expert in Game Theory- he was the head of the Strategic Planning Group."
That is something you guys did not know. Alongside Locke- who really just administrates things- the SPG is a small group of Captains who decide future strategy. While Locke and the Council decide what your day to day Assignments are, it is the SPG who formulate the strategies upon which those Assignments are based.
Dallas and Marduk are on it, as is Morpheus. You didn't know Jericho headed it. That pretty much made him the foundation of all Zion strategy.
"Jericho spent years upon years predicting machine strategy, their next move, their overall goals. And his lifetime's work came to one conclusion.
"Zion will lose this war."
Heph asks Medea about Neo at this point, when it becomes clear that she does not know who Neo is- Bounty went missing before Morpheus found him. Medea is intrigued by the idea that the One miught have been found, but says she will not believe it unless she sees it
Fire asks if she is saying that they have defected
"Don't be ridiculous," says Medea. "If we had defected we wouldn't be running around like this, would we? We wouldn't have been after the Machine's codes. And by now Zion would be already destroyed- Jericho knows enough info about Zion to compromise it totally. And just because we think we will lose does NOT mean we want to join the winning side- that price is too high and why would I want to damn humans personally?
"And you say 'just because'... you seem to dismiss it. You don't understand, this isn't mere supposition, this is fact. No-one could deny anything Jericho said, no-one could raise any objection. It was a decision based on all information, looking at all possible options and future scenarios. It is inevitable. There is nothing we can do to hold off the machines in perpetutity. Sooner or later with their superior resources they will amass an attack force capable of destroying Zion. No matter how many people we free, no matter how many operations in the Matrix we disrupt, the Machines WILL win.
"No-one wanted to listen to him, of course. No-one wants to hear the truth. Everyone knew he was right, but no-one wanted to listen. Every Captain knew he was telling the truth. Well, all except two, and they're both insane."
Azrael asks her to continue
"Well," says Medea, "Jericho's comments were censored. The Captains were forbidden to tell anyone what he had said, and Jericho was going to lose his command. So he put his plan into action.
"I don't know how he met Melitus, but he had been talking with him in secret for some time. He knew Melitus was a machine. Melitus gave Jericho an alternative to dying for Zion. He said he would offer Jeirhco sanctuary in the one place that the Machines would ALWAYS keep safe- the Matrix.
"Jericho convinced us all one by one to go wiuth him. He was our Captain, we believed him and trusted him. Like I say, morale was low. And there was nothing for us in Zion any more.
"We took the Bounty out on a test flight, no Operators. Then we went ahead with what we planned. We faked our distress signal. We created the wreck out of parts from previously destroyed ships and sentinels. It looked very convincing, and who the hell would be suspecting we would fake our own destruction? We knew Zion would do what they always do- find the wreck at the last known site of trnasmission, and head home before more sentinels turned up. And that's what happened, everyone thought the Bounty was destroyed."
Azrael asks, in that case, where Bounty is and what it is Jericho and the others actually do for Melitus
"I don't know how... but Melitus gave Jericho the real world co-ordinates to head to. Melitus... he has the ability to hide things. To remain invisible. Inside the Matrix... and in some way outside as well. Inside the Matrix he shields himself and us from the System. He lives in a place that doesn't seem connected to the rest of the Matrix. And he knew where Jericho could take the Bounty to without it being found.
"I don't know where it is. I just know we were flying for a long way... a long, long way., Way beyond our range, we would never get back to Zion. And then we found it... a broadcast point. It was weak, but stable. No-one knows of it, neither Zion nor System. And... Melitus seems to have some real world resources. I don't know how it all works. But Machines refuel and re-power our ship, and bring us food and water.
"And so we went to work for Melitus. As I say, he is no friend of the System. As well as widening his underworld power base, we've been running missions against the system as well. It's just the same as before! Fighting the Machines. But now we have a chance of survival. It seemed a good deal.
"But at the airport... when I saw you people there... and it all went wrong, we were worrying so much about you that they found the cleaner we'd tied up. And the the Agents turned up. And then I finally realised... that what we were doing might be HURTING Zion... and I can't deal with that. But Jericho... he doesn't seem to care any more. He wants you dead, he set up that spammer without a second thought. I didn't sign up to fight other humans. I just wanted... a chance to live."
Medea leaves soon after. She reveals that, because Jerichpo does not 100% trust his crew, only he and Khali know the re-dial code to re-enter the real world on the Bounty. Jericho and Khali check, feed and water the real life crew every week, but Medea never leaves the Matrix. So he HAS to go back to Jericho- if he finds out she has betrayed him this way, he will simply pull the plug on her.
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So, now you know...
There is also an interesting sidetrack about who the two Captains that did not believe Jericho were.
"Good idea, but Dallas said to wait a bit. Dallas, call us when we should get out..." Ares says, hanging up and putting the phone on vibrate, should anyone be near enough to hear the phone ring.
"Well, that was sure a blast," Ares says, looking around at the crumbled mess. He sits down on the ground, back against the remaining wall, propping up his shotgun next to him.
"Still, better than having your spine snapped into little pieces by an Agent or filled with lead by a SWAT team," Ares said, cleaning one of the bullet holes in his side and binding it. "And certainly much better than having a Agent be able to use your body to fight with. Happened to me once, back before I was unplugged. One day, just walking to school, the next, in the middle of a massacre with a broken arm."
"Yeah, really...at least we managed to make it out of there alive...three agents and who the hell knows how many SWAT guys against us, that was a nasty situation we were in back there and nearly getting blown up is a lot better than what would have happened if we hadn't blown the place." San said. "And now, we wait, while they look for us."