6بخش

Art, films, books were all better!

Originality mattered!

You gave us Face-Zucker-suck and Cock-me-climatey- Wiki-piss-and-shit!

I still know kung fu.

Neo!

Just like old times.

Neo.

I’ve been thinking about us, Tom.

Look how binary is the form, the nature of things.

Ones and zeros.

Light and dark.

Choice and its absence.

Anderson and Smith.

You’ve lost something, Tom.

You’re not what you used to be.

It’s true.

Nice one.

Thanks.

Come on, Neo.

Captain.

You okay?

Yeah.

Where’s Neo?

Smith is killing him.

Where?

I feel bad about this, Tom.

After all, you are the one who set me free again.

So, you, more than anyone, understands why I can’t go back.

You should have listened to me.

Now you’ll never see her again.

What was that?

That was Neo.

Mojo rising.

You all right?

Yeah.

It’s gonna trigger a response.

I got multiple exits ready.

This is not over yet!

Our sequel franchise spinoff!

We should go.

I can’t.

I have to talk to her.

Neo, those Exiles were older than you, and we barely handled them.

You really wanna do this now?

I mean you look like shit.

Oh, my God.

What?

What happened?

An accident.

Kush!

Call a doctor.

It’s fine.

I don’t have a lot of time.

I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.

After we spoke, I realized my life wasn’t a life.

At some point, I think I gave up searching for something real.

Wait.

Something happened.

I looked for you at the coffee shop.

I began to wonder if I imagined you.

And then last night I had a dream.

In the dream, you were surrounded by police, then they started chasing us.

Us?

You were on my bike with me.

How did it end?

Not good.

I’ve had dreams that weren’t just dreams.

You mean a dream that came true?

Finally, we can talk like adults.

I hate lying.

I do.

It exhausts me.

Tiff and I have been waiting for you like, forever.

Deja vu, right?

Oh, no use.

You can’t beat time.

This rewind is happening faster than you can blink.

You gave me the idea.

Allow me to sum up our goal in a single word.

“Bullet time.”

I know.

Kind of ironic, using the power that defined you to control you.

I kept such a close eye on you and still you found a way out.

Clever monkey, using that Modal.

Call me an optimist, but this could all be for the best.

The skin’s not looking too bad this time.

I know some of this will be difficult for you to hear, after everything you went through.

All that pain and suffering, only to learn the world doesn’t end when you do.

Surprise.

I was there when you died.

I said to myself,”Here is the anomaly of anomalies.”

What an extraordinary opportunity.

First, I had to convince the Suits to let me rebuild the two of you.

Why her?

Getting there.

And don’t worry, she can’t hear me.

Resurrecting you both was crazy expensive.

Like renovating a house.

Took twice as long, cost twice as much.

I thought you’d be happy to be alive again.

So wrong.

Did you know hope and despair are nearly identical in code?

We worked for years, trying to activate your source code.

I was about to give up, when I realized.

Trinity, it was never just you.

Alone, neither of you is of any particular value.

Like acids and bases, you’re dangerous when mixed together.

Every sim where you two bonded.

Let’s just say bad things happened.

Neo!

However, as long as I managed to keep you close, but not too close, I discovered something incredible.

Now, my predecessor loved precision.

His Matrix was all fussy facts and equations.

He hated the human mind.

So he never bothered to realize that you don’t give a shit about facts.

It’s all about fiction.

The only world that matters is the one in here.

And you people believe the craziest shit.

Why?

What validates and makes your fictions real?

Feelings.

Allow me.

Kush, here, is one of my handlers.

They’re everywhere.

Such a pain, cloning Agents over a coppertop.

Far more effective just to saturate a population.

And, bonus, swarm mode is sick fun.

Ooh!

Nicely done.

You ever wonder why you have nightmares?

Why your own brain tortures you?

It’s actually us, maximizing your output.

It works just like this.

Oh, no!

Can you stop the bullet?

If only you could move faster.

Here’s the thing about feelings.

They’re so much easier to control than facts.

Turns out, in my Matrix, the worse we treat you, the more we manipulate you, the more energy you produce.

It’s nuts.

I’ve been setting productivity records every year since I took over.

And, the best part, zero resistance.

People stay in their pods, happier than pigs in shit.

The key to it all?

You.

And her.

Quietly yearning for what you don’t have, while dreading losing what you do.

For 99.9% of your race, that is the definition of reality.

Desire and fear, baby.

Just give the people what they want, right?

She’s the only home you have, Thomas.

Come home before something terrible happens.

Bugs!

I hear him.

Trinity!

You shouldn’t call me that.

I’m sorry.

I have to go.

But I’ll be back.

Neo!

Time to go.

Sentinels?

Worse.

General ordered me to look after the ship.

So you shadowed us?

Check your long-range scans.

Squids are combing this area.

He’s right.

You can stay here and die, or come back and face a court-martial.

And you call that a choice?

Sheperd should have left you to the Squids.

I’m too damn old to sit through some boring-ass trial.

Niobe, don’t blame Bugs.

Do shut your mouth.

Do address me as General.

And do not rob my ex-captain of her agency, which she exercised with her own particular brand of shortsighted stupidity.

Shortsighted?

You care more about growing fruit than freeing minds.

We are not going to have this argument again.

It’s not an argument.

It’s a fact.

You gave up on people.

I tell you what I’m going to give up on and it’s you!

Sheperd, get her out of my sight!

General.

Disarm!

Kujaku’s a friend.

Hello, friend.

Okay.

Him?

General.

Thank you for seeing me.

I figured if there was anyone who could make sense of this mess, it would be you.

Hello, Neo.

I know you.

I tried to keep my eye on you.

Why?

We met a long time ago.

Good morning.

Sati.

My father knew we’d meet again, though he would have wished for happier circumstances.

His inadvertent role in what happened to you was the greatest regret of his life.

I don’t understand.

My father was the chief engineer at the Anomaleum.

The what?

My father designed the resurrection pods where Neo and Trinity were imprisoned.

I’m sorry.

You knew what happened to him?

You knew that he and Trinity both were alive and you didn’t tell me?

There were times I doubted my decision, Niobe.

But Io needed you.

This city needed to be built for your people as well as mine.

If I would have told you everything, you would have had a very difficult choice to make.

My friends let me make my own choices.

If it was a mistake, you have my deepest apologies.

Why are you here now?

Neo’s escape has destabilized the Matrix.

The Anomaleum draws its current from Trinity alone now.

A fail-safe has been triggered to reset the Matrix back to the previous version.

But The Analyst halted the reset.

He’s convinced the authorities that you will soon return voluntarily.