The Matrix: Flying High (Short story collection)

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KMC presents
A story by SpikeSpiegel

THE MATRIX
Origin

Cloud brought his blade down on his foe; he had appeared from nowhere and taken down his team-mates. Cloud had been beaten up pretty badly before the fight, now his sword was getting heavier. He slashed at his opponent, cutting him across the chest, it wasn’t enough. He leapt backwards, avoiding several bullets as he did so. One hit him in the arm, he moved forwards again, the enemy hopped backwards, Cloud moved back into his position, keeping his eyes on his enemy, he was trying to think if he could run. Come back when he was stronger, that wasn’t an option. He watched, helpless as his opponent rushed towards him, slashing down at him. Cloud fell to the floor, unconscious. The words “Game Over” appearing over his body.

Miles dropped his controller and fell backwards onto his bed. He sighed, running his hands through his short blonde hair, before sitting up again. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, standing up and pushing the off button on his TV and Playstation. His gaze went to his laptop, lying open on his desk. A blank document sat awaiting him on it’s screen. He moved over onto the chair that stood before it, thumbing into the keypad the words:

“End of term paper: How the criminal mind works”

He sighed again and pressed the save button. He had another two weeks left to finish the assignment. He glanced outside at the night sky, then walked out of his dorm and down the short corridor to the fridge.
It was the 31st May 1999, a Monday. His final exam of his first year of University was a month away, but first he had to write one last essay. One of his friends sat at the table, eating a bowl of cereal.
“Morning Miles,” He said groggily. He had worked late at the local bar, and was now eating an early morning snack before he went to bed.
Miles looked at his watch; it was just after one in the morning. “Ditto, Connor.”
He opened the fridge door and pulled out an empty carton of milk. He glanced up at Connor, who simply replied “You could always have black coffee.”
“No, it’s too strong, I’ll go get some more. But you know I’ll be getting the full skimmed milk.” He went back to his room and grabbed his wallet and brown, leather jacket. He nodded goodbye to Connor and headed down the two flights of stairs to the universities campus. The 24-hour store was just around the corner; one of the reasons Miles would miss his current apartment when he was forced to live away from the university the following year.

Miles turned the corner and walked into the shop. A window shattered as a woman in a black trench coat and wearing dark glasses came tumbling through. A scared student came behind, being dragged out by a tall Arabian man, clad much the same as the woman. The man threw the student towards the woman, turned and fired back into the store.
Miles looked at the student, recognising him as Jamie Ballad, a friend from his creative writing. The woman grabbed Jamie, running towards Miles, then stopping. Something behind Miles had spooked her. A large man in a suit brushed past Miles, his shoulder feeling like a rock slamming into his arm. Miles stumbled forwards as the woman charged at the newcomer. A glint of a knife darting forwards. Jamie ran towards Miles, his hands dropping something into his pocket. Time seemed to slow for a moment as the two students stared at each other. Jamie moved off, running past Miles as the woman called after him. But she didn’t call him Jamie, she called him “Kronos.”
Miles looked back towards the fight at the shop before him. The man now ran to assist his friend, shooting at the man in the suit, who seemed to blur away as the bullets disappeared past him. The Arabian turned to Miles, something felt wrong, his whole body hurt on the inside, the Arabian looked at him for a few seconds more, mouthed two words and fired…

His body was numb, a think red liquid surrounded his body. Above him lay what looked like an infinite column of pods, each containing the same red substance and another body. The bodies above him were human, but they had metal cables dug into the skin. The leads ran up their spine, down their arms, legs and neck. Miles could feel the same leads in him. A spark of electricity ran through him and continued up the tower.
Fear gripped him. He could hear voices somewhere, a million miles away, perhaps from another life. He couldn’t tell for sure. His body wouldn’t move, his eyes darted around the pod he was in. His mind racing, trying to comprehend what was going on. A sound, came from below him, racing towards him. He panicked, his body wouldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything, he was helpless.
A large machine appeared before him, it seemed to stare at him, as if it was alive. The voices came again, “We’re losing him……doctor…………I have the bullets………” The machine reached towards him, towards the lead behind his neck. The world seemed to fade, the robot stopped, it’s red eyes blurring, merging, becoming one. A large crimson eye. And it was gone…

When he awoke, he was lying on a strange bed, in a strange room. A television rested in the corner of the room. It was talking about a murder and a robbery at his university. His mind rushed, trying to wake itself up faster. Everything was still a blur. Miles raised his head, needles dug into his arms. A machine made a long breathing sound next to him. It’s long tube running down his throat. Miles gagged, reaching to pull it out. A hand stopped him. He glanced up into its owners eyes. Deep blue eyes, much like his. A strand of blonde hair lay across her face. A black-blue mixture smeared down her cheeks, ruining her perfect image.
“Julia…” He whispered, trying to talk over the tube in his throat.
“Don’t try and talk,” She said, still weeping. “That tube’s there for a reason. It’s breathing for you…I……I thought I lost you…”
“You did for a minute…” Came another voice from the room, “You were officially dead for two minutes there, bud.” Miles placed the voice as Connor, “What was it like?”

Miles’ mind returned to the pod. To the thick red liquid, to the electricity, to the machine with the crimson eyes, to the dark tower, full of people reaching up eternally onwards. It then returned to that night at the 24-hour store. To Jamie, and the fight between the men in suits and the two who fought against them…and the man who had shot him. What had he said? The Arabian man had said something before he had nearly killed him. He could picture the movement of the lips, but not the words.

He opened his eyes again. The room was empty, the television off. At the door a doctor was speaking to a man in a suit. Miles’ eyes went to the watch next to his bed. It showed the date as the fourth. But the fourth of what? His eyes closed again.

When he awoke for the third time that he could remember the nurses were removing the tube from his throat. He was strong enough to breath on his own again. Julia came back that day again. He suspected she had come back every day, he just couldn’t remember them.
Julia was a music student at the university. She and Miles had been dating for just over three months, was it still three months? He had lost all sense of time since the shooting. His mind kept replaying the moment, trying to remember the words the man had said. Julia confirmed that it was now June, just six days after the shooting. She also said that he would be free to leave the hospital two days later, and that she and the other music students would be playing at the Olympus theatre on the nineteenth, performing three classical pieces in front of a live audience and receiving their grades based on that. It was lucky that Julia was a confident person, she wasn’t worried about the show at all. She just wanted Miles to get better and be there for her. Miles promised he would be.

Miles went back to his apartment at the university two days later. He glanced at his laptop, it had run out of battery several days before. He moved slowly into his room, his friends on his floor were all out. He had wanted to get back while he knew they were all out, he needed to rest and he didn’t want anyone fussing over him. He picked up his diary from beside his bed and wrote in on the 19th June, 1999 about Julia’s performance. He then flicked forwards two months to the entry on his Birthday and smiled. He slid his diary underneath the book he was reading – Stephan King’s Wizard and Glass. He wished that he would get a move on and finish the final three books.
He slumped down into his chair and plugged his laptop into the power socket in the wall. He shrugged off his jacket and threw it onto the bed. A small object fell from it and dropped to the floor. Miles picked it up, his mind flashing back to the shooting. Jamie had run into him on purpose, he had dropped it into his pocket and run off. Miles wondered where Jamie was now, then remembered the first time he had woken up. The television’s sound had been a blur, but it had mentioned a murder. He thought about it for a second and booted up his laptop, checking the universities newsletter for information.

“In memory of Jamie Ballad”

The top of the page read. Miles again rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger. His mind raced back to the tower full of pods again. He went to Google and typed in “machine, pods, red” the three main things that he remembered about his nightmare. He glanced at the top results. All about coffee machines, and 5,340,000 results.
Again he sighed, before trying another search. He looked at the first entry. It was entitled, “Is this the real world?” He clicked it. A “Page not available” popped up. He tried the second link, a forum entry spoke of how someone was trying to silence someone for what they knew. They claimed they had seen people leap over rooftops, dodge bullets and survive what no man could. Miles’ mind rushed to the day of the shooting. To the man in the suit who had blurred away as the bullets approached him.
Slowly he scrolled down to a link, posted by a user named Kronos. Miles recognized the name as what the woman had called Jamie. He clicked the link and looked at a website which appeared to contain a magnitude of news clippings from world wide. It showed pictures of men and women in leather coats and cat suits. It showed emergency services with men in suits circled, the same men appearing in different cities, different countries minutes apart. One spoke of a man who had rushed through the streets of a city, shot by a man, who had seemingly appeared from no where. After the articles came the words:

“Is this real? Who are these people? The truth is out there…”

Miles read this for a minute…he thought, for a brief second everything he had witnessed merged together, he understood everything. He could see the past, present and future colliding and knew what it all meant. Then it was gone.
A knock came at the door. He spun around in his chair, half expecting it to be one of the suited men. The “Agents” as one article had called them. It was Connor.
“Hey man, I was just checking you got home OK.”
“Yes…thank you.” He said slowly, “I just wanted to get some quiet rest, I still feel weak. I don’t want anyone fussing over me…” His hands subconsciously hid the object that had fallen out of his jacket.
“I understand…” Connor said nodding, “I’ve got something for you though…” from behind his back he pulled out a carton of skimmed milk. The two men laughed…

It was now the 16th, Miles had taken Julia out on a date to prove he was still strong enough to do that. He had finished his final assignment off, not accepting the extended deadline he had been given. He kept the small device that had fallen from his jacket with him at all times. He felt like he needed it with him, fate wouldn’t let him leave it anywhere. He didn’t want it, it felt dangerous. He now sat alone in his room looking at it. It looked like a small stick, a USB connection on one side. It looked. Like a normal USB stick, but there was something about it that gave Miles chills.
He booted up his computer, meaning to check what was on the device. The machine froze at the boot up screen. Miles gently pressed F2, trying to enter the set up. The screen faded to black. A green block appeared, moving across the screen and leaving letters in its wake.
“You have something we need…”
Miles pushed himself and the chair back from the table where the laptop lay. He touched the keypad slowly. Entering the words “Who are you?”
“A friend. We need the device you were given. You must not use it.”
“What is it?”
The green block didn’t move for a while. Then slowly it said, “Surveillance”
“Of what…?”
“You don’t need to know…yet…we will come for it in three days…if you want to know the truth you’ll need to trust in us…only us…trust no-one else…”
The screen faded to black again and the windows screen appeared. Miles looked around the room, shaken. He quickly went to one of the forums he had so often visited, looking for new information. The forum had been deleted, another “this page could not be found” lay in front of him. He tried the other places he had frequented, the same. Someone, or something was preventing him from finding out the truth.

He found a new forum, begging it’s readers to remember what they had seen, not to be silenced. Saying that the agents were always watching. Miles slipped the device into his jacket. And clicked the register button. The screen popped up asking for a user name. Miles thought for a second. He looked around his room and finally out of the window. A cloud blew past the set of flats opposite him. Cloud…he though, thinking of the game he had played less than a month before, on the night it had all begun. Had he not died in that battle, he would have gone to the store later. It seemed right that he should choose it as his name.
Miles, or Cloud as he was known to the other people on the website, looked through the list of members. Most of them listed their home as a place called Zion. Miles checked up on this and found it to be the name or a US national park. He also found about a place called Zion, hidden from all those who would search to find it. His chest hurt again, he turned the computer off and collapsed onto his bed.
He closed his eyes and tried to make sense of everything he had seen. From the man in the suit blurring into nothing, to the city, hidden away from everyone. His mind thought about the conversation with the stranger. How he had been told they would show him the truth in three days – the 19th. Everything seemed to be leading up to that one day…

It was the morning of the nineteenth. Miles awoke first; he glanced over at Julia, who lay next to him. Slowly he heaved his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was still feeling weak. He glanced at his laptop and saw in the same green writing the time “9:19PM.” There was nothing else. No place, just the time. He glanced up again and it was gone, the machine turned off.
He wondered how it was that they had found him and yet the agents had not. Maybe they couldn’t see the device he was carrying for the people from “Zion.” He threw on a pair of jeans and a shirt and walked through to the kitchen. He made breakfast for himself and Julia and took it back into his room. He gently woke Julia and together they ate the meal.
“What time are you playing tonight?” He asked her, he knew the answer before she had told him.
“My group are going to start at about twenty past nine. We’re going to start with Boccherini's Minuet. I’ll be playing violin.” Julia played a magnitude of instruments; it seemed to Miles that she could just pick them up and instantly know how to use them. It was one of the many reasons he loved her.
Julia left for a practice just after ten. Miles went to the computer again and logged into the forums as Cloud. There was no new posts. The forum seemed to have gone dead, there was no-one on-line apart from him. He closed his laptop, turning it off as he did so. Whatever was going to happen tonight, it would be silent until then. He turned on his television and playstation, he would play until the middle of the afternoon.

Miles stood at his wardrobe, picking out clothes to wear for the performance, now only an hour away, and just over an hour until he would find out the “truth”. He picked out a pair of smart black trousers, and a navy blue shirt. Sifting through his clothes he found his leather jacket; he threw it on and grabbed the USB stick from his jeans. He would need it. His destiny was rushing towards him at full force.

Miles sat in the passenger seat of the L-reg Ford Escort. Julia was driving, Miles hadn’t driven since before he had been shot. He hoped he could drive again soon. It was only four miles to the theatre. They parked in the car park behind the place. Miles looked around, there weren’t any suspicious looking vehicles around. They walked in and Julia went to quickly talk to the rest of her group, kissing Miles on the cheek before she went.
Miles looked around, he couldn’t see anyone who looked suspicious in a suit, nor anyone wearing the trench coats and dark sunglasses. He glanced at his watch 8:55, five minutes until the show started. Julia showed him to his seat, it was up on one of the balconies, a perfect view of the show. Other people had taken up the other balconies when they had arrived, but Miles’ special circumstances had provided him with special privileges. He kissed Julia on the cheek and wished her luck.

Twenty minutes passed, Miles had listened to a pianist play Beethoven, and a string quartet play Tchaikovsky. Julia was up next, he glanced at his watch, the seconds were ticking down to 9:19.
5…4…3…2…1…
“Boo…” Came a voice from behind him, it made him jump. An arm wrapped around his neck, holding him in the chair.
Another voice spoke, “You want to know the truth? You want your questions answered. We’ll help you if you help us, where is the device?”
“Who are you?”
“Not until we get the device”
“I’m not going to trust you until you tell me who you are, you can kill me, but then you won’t find it.”
The Arabian man moved forwards, taking a seat next to Miles. “It’s not our intention to kill you. Not unless we have to. It’s always been that way, I didn’t last time, did I?”
Miles’ mind rushed to the shooting again, he could hear everything this time. The words he couldn’t know before – “Trust me”
“It’s under your seat.” Miles said, indicating the chair he was on. “Now tell me what I want to know…What is this “Matrix” I’ve read about?” It was a term he had read on the forums.
Julia and her group had stepped up, they began to play the Minuet.
The man sighed, “This…this is the matrix. The world you know as real, everything you have been led to believe in is a lie. Beyond the confines of this…simulation…is the real world. A world where machines store humans as a method of protection, the matrix is a prison. Keeping everybody locked away, those of us who have escaped come here to disrupt the machines plans, and to free all those who want to help us. Your friend, Kronos, discovered the Matrix, he wanted to become free. We came in to rescue him and recover some surveillance data we had been working on. In the ensuing chaos, Kronos got his hands on this and panicked. The machines didn’t know about this, they were just worried that you had seen too much, but the doctors apparently told them you were delirious. Kronos slipped you the data, and ran. The agents got him before we could reach him.” The paused for a minute, “And now Cloud…it is your choice.” He pulled out his hands, a pill in each, one red one blue. “If you take the red pill you can be free, you can help us save these people, help us save everyone. If you take the blue pill, you will forget this. You can believe what you like, you can stay a prisoner.”
Miles thought about it, San, the woman holding him to the chair said quietly, which is it going to be… “Miles…or Cloud…?”
Miles looked down at the stage, down at the woman he loved. He looked back at the two pills before him. He felt it was his duty to help free the prisoners in the Matrix. He didn’t want to forget, but he couldn’t leave her. He closed his eyes and reached out, leaving his choice up to fate. He stuck his choice in his mouth and swallowed.
He opened his eyes again, looking at Marduk. And watched as the world seemed to melt away, fading to red…Then he vanished…