4بخش

Trinity.

No!

Welcome back to the real world.

Trinity.

What’s up, Doc?

His vital systems have been meticulously maintained, but it doesn’t look good.

We’re losing him.

Cold boot could shock him.

Do it.

I remember this.

The Construct.

In between everything and nothing.

Welcome to the Crib.

I’ve been chilling here in the ship network learning all about you.

And me.

Careful.

It’ll do your head in.

Are memories turned into fiction any less real?

Is reality based in memory nothing but fiction?

As to my role in all this, my best guess is that you wrote me as an algorithmic reflection of two forces that helped you become you,

Morpheus and Agent Smith.

A combo pack of counterprogramming that was.

Let’s just say, more than a little bit crazy-making.

But it worked because here we are.

Now, for the bad news.

Your brain is hooked on this shit the Matrix has been force-feeding you for years.

Hooked bad.

You’re going through major withdrawals.

Docbots are giving you crap odds for surviving.

But, see, they don’t know you like I do.

I know exactly what you need.

You gotta be kidding.

Uh-uh.

No joke.

Could be this is the first day of the rest of your life.

But if you want it, you gotta fight for it.

No.

I’m done fighting.

Are you?

What the hell is he doing?

Oh, yeah.

They taught you good.

Made you believe their world was all you deserved.

But some part of you knew that was a lie.

Some part of you remembered what was real.

You don’t know me.

No?

Ooh.

I know you, because I know the only thing that still matters to you.

I know it’s why you’re here, why you’re still fighting and why you will never give up.

Come on, Neo!

This is it.

This is your last chance.

You gotta fight for your goddamn life if you want to see Trinity again.

Come on, Neo!

Fight for her!

Holy shit.

Fight for her!

Hey.

Hey.

Mind if I.

How are you doing?

If this plug is actually real, that means they took my life and turned it into a video game.

How am I doing?

I don’t know.

I don’t even know how to know.

That’s it, isn’t it?

If we don’t know what’s real we can’t resist.

They took your story, something that meant so much to people like me, and turned it into something trivial.

That’s what the Matrix does.

It weaponizes every idea.

Every dream.

Everything that’s important to us.

Where better to bury truth than inside something as ordinary as a video game?

That sounds like the Oracle.

Heard so much about her.

She was gone before I was free.

Gone?

When this new version of the Matrix was uploaded, there was a purge.

They promised peace and they gave us purge.

No.

No, there was peace.

You made it possible, and it changed everything.

Doesn’t feel like it changed anything.

The Matrix is the same or worse.

And I’m back where I started.

It feels like everything I did, everything we did like none of it mattered.

All of it mattered.

I can show you.

This is my crew.

Our operator, Seq.

Sequoia.

But everybody calls me Seq.

Nice to meet you.

Dad loved redwoods.

When he escaped the Matrix and found out they no longer existed, it almost killed him.

Lucky, he met Mom and here I am.

This is Lexy,

Berg and Ellster.

Hi.

You knew my grandfather, Captain Roland.

Roland was your grandfather?

He always laughed, joking how he never believed in you.

But, in private, he said that you freed his mind a second time.

Uh, not to fanboy out here, but this is kind of a huge moment for me.

Berg is our resident Neo-ologist.

A what?

There’s a lot of people out there like me who are a little bit obsessed with your life.

I would never have recognized your Modal if it weren’t for him.

Whenever you’re feeling up for it, I’ve got, like, a million questions.

Me too.

Starting with them.

It’s okay.

Come meet him.

This is Cybebe.

That’s Octacles.

That’s Lumin8.

Machines are on our side now?

They are synthients.

It’s a word they prefer to “Machines.”

Your contact with the Synthient City had a huge impact on their world.

That’s what I meant.

What you changed that nobody believed could ever be changed.

The meaning of “our side.”

Cybebe and Octacles risked their lives to help get you out.

Thank you.

But why?

Not all seek to control.

Just as not all wish to be free.

What is that?

An exomorphic-particle codex.

It’s pretty new.

It gives programs access to this world.

Within limits.

Limits are the domain of the limited.

Morpheus.

Thank you.

It was my honor.

Wow.

How does it work?

Paramagnetic oscillation.

If you want, I can download the codex manual for you.

Sure.

Downloading used to be fun.

Now it’s all manuals and diagnostics.

Can I ask them something?

When you unplugged me, there was another pod?

Yes.

We’ve analyzed the data.

It could be Trinity.

It’s her.

I figured we were going to have this conversation.

Look, you were not a typical flush-and-grab.

You were in this weird tower that Cybebe had never accessed, and she’s now exiled.

We burned our one shot for you.

Even if it were Trinity and she wanted to be free, we have no idea how to do it.

Yet.

Nobody believed we’d ever find him, but we did.

Okay.

We don’t know how to get her out yet.

Captain, we’re approaching security clearance.

We’re here.

Zion?

Have a seat.

This is Hanno.

Best pilot in our fleet.

Quite a few synthients deserve that title before me.

Mnemosyne, you are cleared for landing.

Welcome home.

Thank you, Control.

Um, we’re about to crash.

General realized we were never going to beat the Sentinels, so we just got better at hiding from them.

Welcome to Io.

Io.

Wow.

That looks real.

Bio-sky.

Works kind of like grow lights.

It’s way more complex than that.

It pulls water from the crust, hydronating the air.

It balances the ECO and our SRI cycles.

Plus it is pretty to look at.

As opposed to that.

I guess the general sent us a welcome party.

God damn.

It is you.

Niobe?

A few more wrinkles and a few less teeth, but wise enough to know I don’t know anything.

I sure as shit never saw this coming.

Neither did I.

I told you he was alive.

Captain, you and your crew have been grounded.

General, if you’d just let me explain.

The protocols are put in place for everyone’s protection.

I’m sorry.

I saw an opportunity and I was afraid we’d lose him.

But, General, people have been waiting for so long.