Chapter Text
“Are you coming, Lyr?” came the question over the cell phone’s speaker. There was a more than a hint of concern in the operator’s voice.
“Just give me a couple of minutes,” she replied evenly. “I’m at the park -- the one I passed through earlier.”
“Oh,” he said. “Well, OK, just try to keep it short. We have to get back to Zion.”
“Ten minutes,” she promised, trying to hide her annoyance. //You can at least spare me ten minutes of normality, after I spent all morning running from exile gangs and the Merovingian’s henchmen for you.// “I’ll be at the hardline after that.”
“All right. But no more than ten minutes.”
“No more,” she repeated, then snapped the phone shut, shoving it into her jacket pocket afterwards. She was determined to enjoy her brief moment of freedom -- she welcomed any chance to return to familiar surroundings, to forget the squalor of existence underground, if only for a little while.
She’d only taken the red pill a month ago, but she found herself wondering yet again if she’d made the right choice.
//Thanks a lot, Morpheus. Thanks a whole hell of a lot.//
Before she was recruited, she was fresh out of college with a degree in geology and an eye on graduate school. She’d wanted to get more work in before applying, but she’d never thought she would end up living beneath the surface of the earth she’d been studying. //Ironic, isn’t it?// she thought morosely. Once in the real world, she'd seemed like a natural for work in the huge caverns that held the human's underground city. However, her previously-unsuspected talents for both firearms and martial arts had made her a prime candidate for operative training…and since then, she’d been running missions for Zion, using every opportunity she got to return to the Matrix.
It was more real, and more pleasant, than anything she’d seen in the ruined world outside.
She sighed, leaning against the low stone wall that surrounded the greenery. She was close enough to smell the grass and the flowers, and she didn’t care that they didn’t exist in the physical world.
“Physical form has nothing to do with whether something’s real or not,” said a calm voice from beside her. “Thoughts aren’t material things; neither are memories, or emotions. And no-one says they’re not real.”
Illyria blinked. She hadn’t realized at first that she'd spoken out loud. “I beg your pardon?” she said, turning towards the source of the voice…and raising an eyebrow when she located it.
From out of nowhere, it seemed, an agent had appeared. “Hello, Ms. Dodson.”
“Hello,” she replied, almost automatically. She’d seen system agents before, of course, usually near hardlines or during missions. They usually showed up as disinterested observers or to offer unnecessary advice about the dangers of working in the Matrix. Most people had trouble telling them apart, but she didn’t; she’d seen this one during a mission to seek out a potential redpill.
“Your performance against the exiles this morning was impressive,” said the AI. “As usual. You fight quite well, for a human.”
She regarded him for a moment before speaking again. “Thank you.” She didn’t really know what to say. None of the agents had ever complimented her before, not even when she’d taken out three simulacra in front of one. This one, in fact.
“We’ve been watching you, you know,” he continued casually.
That was curious. “Really? Why?” It couldn’t be because she’d done something wrong or gone into a restricted area…she hadn’t been shot.
The agent didn’t answer. Instead, he gazed out over the lush vegetation, an island of nature in the middle of the city. “The Merovingian has been re-creating some of the worst of bluepill society among the redpills, don’t you think?”
Illyria shrugged. Inwardly, though, she agreed with him. The Merovingian appealed to certain people’s greed and lust for power -- the lowest common denominator. Redpills could be very powerful when they were back in the Matrix, and it was no longer just a rumor that some of Zion’s recruits had begun working for him. In her opinion, the rush to free as many people from the Matrix as possible had led to a dramatic drop in Zion’s standards. Anyone with a hint of Awakening was targeted, no matter their background or circumstances. The latest group of new redpills had included an embezzler and a car thief. But that didn’t seem to matter, to the people in charge.
“But it’s not just the Frenchman, is it,” mused the agent, still gazing out over the park. “Even without his influence, most of the negative aspects of human nature would still be present among your people.” He turned then, finally looking back at her. “Many of them still hate us, do they not?”
Illyria looked away, strangely uncomfortable at acknowledging what she knew to be true. But she had never enjoyed lying. “Yes, they do,” she admitted.
“Do you?” he asked.
“Do I?” she repeated. She certainly hadn’t expected a question like that from him.
He nodded once. “Do you hate us?”
“No,” she replied, again being truthful.
For a program, he seemed almost pleased with her answer, and he paused for a moment before speaking again. “As I said, we’ve been watching you. And we know that you haven’t been…happy…with your current situation.”
She didn’t bother to deny it. “How did you know that?” she asked. She’d always thought she’d done a good job of hiding what she was feeling from her neighbors and colleagues -- from the ones who hated the Machines with a passion to those who’d turned Neo into the icon of their new religion. Illyria had the reputation of being quiet, good-natured, easygoing…mainly because she’d never let anyone else know just what was going on inside of her head. She didn’t want to be executed, or banished above ground to die slowly of starvation or radiation poisoning.
“There are others who feel as you do,” the agent said. “And they watch for others like themselves. They offer a choice, different than the one you were given before by Morpheus, because this is an *informed* choice. A choice that perhaps some humans don’t want anyone to know about.”
Illyria frowned. “So why didn’t any of them come to me in the first place, if they knew how I felt?”
“Because you would have suspected them of secretly working for the Zion council, trying to root out possible traitors,” he replied. “A system agent, obviously, would have no such hidden motives, so I was asked to contact you. If you seek these people out, you’ll discover there are many who believe as you do.” He smiled, very slightly, but it was enough to convey his intent. “I can only show you the door,” he said, handing her a piece of paper. “It’s up to you to walk through it. We’ll be waiting for you on the other side.”
Illyria looked down at the paper; on it was a name and an address in the residential quarters of Zion. When she looked up again, the agent was gone. In his place was a rather perplexed young man, holding a newspaper and a cup of coffee.
“Excuse me,” he said, looking around in confusion. “Has the number 42 bus come by yet?”
“No,” she replied, glancing down at the paper again and then back at him. “It’s down at the end of the block, you just made it.”
“Thank you,” he said, still a little confused, and turned away from the park towards the approaching vehicle.
Illyria read the message again, committing everything in it to memory before hurrying back to the hardline. Once she’d returned to Zion, she’d have to look these people up.
//The Collective,// she mused. //Sounds good to me…//