Then she looked down.
Sometimes, a leap of faith was necessary.
Yomoda Chisa let go of the rail.
A moment's doubt, when she saw the ground rushing towards her... but
no. She knew the truth. The truth would set her free. As the ground
reached up to grab her, break her, she closed her eyes...
...and awoke in a fluid, amniotic world, filled with gentle pink light
and crisscrossed by a nest of wires. She kicked upwards, feebly, tearing
at the membrane above her until finally, like some hatching insect she
reared from her cocoon. Her lungs took in her first breath of air.
*This is like being born,* she thought, trying to clear her eyes of the
thick fluid. She blinked, then stilled her breath as she took in the
awe-inspiring view.
The towers stretched out as far as the eye could see. Lightning played
over their pebbled surfaces. The dark, roiling clouds moved between
them, and in that misty world scuttling shapes could be seen, moving up
and down the glowing towers. There was no sky, no ground, only bright
cylindrical shapes stretching out into the dimness.
*Each of those pink, glowing pebbles is a person,* Chisa thought. She
leaned out over the vast abyss, shivering from the cold, and found
herself face to face with an insectoid AI. She stared at it, unafraid.
Its sinuous arms pulled her closer. She closed her eyes against the
blinding flare of its searchlight.
After an eternity, she felt the creature withdraw. The plugs
connecting her to her artificial womb released, and as the floor suddenly
vanished beneath her, she found herself plunging down into the dark depths
of the tower. Faster and faster she slid, frantically trying to slow her
descent down the slippery tubing. A moment later she was in free-fall,
and then her mad ride abrubtly ended with a dive into dark, cold water.
>From above, the indifferent searchlights of the ant-like AI's stabbed
through the water.
Chisa turned in the roiling depths, trying to get her bearings. One of
the searchlights played over her, and moved on to the rock-like
foundations of the tower she had just dropped from. As her eyes followed
the light, Chisa momentarily found herself mere inches away from a face.
She stared at it, startled.
The searchlight moved on. Chisa kicked upwards weakly and broke the
surface of the water, gulping for air. The moment was gone.
She was left alone, her atrophied muscles struggling to keep her afloat
in the cold, dark sea at the base of the towers.
"Beta, there's someone down there."
Beta glanced up from the multiple screens he'd been contemplating.
"What?" he asked. "Where?"
"There's someone down there," his watch partner swung herself away from
the scope. "See for yourself."
Beta stepped over to her station and scanned the water with the scope.
"There's nothing there, Sync. You're seeing things again."
"I saw someone!" she nervously ran a thin, chapped hand through
straggly brown hair. Beta frowned and looked through the scope again,
running a searchlight over the water. Chances were, all that Sync had
spotted was a body that had somehow slipped the "recycling" process.
However, one could never watch too closely for AI scouts and sentinels.
Beta watched closely for any sign of movement in the murky waters.
At the edge of the circle of light playing over the water, a head broke
the surface. Two hands paddled weakly.
"Hey! There is someone down there!" Beta said in surprise. He passed
the scope back to Sync and ran to the Nav station. "It looks like a kid!
You keep an eye on him while I bring us down."
"Are we going to pick him up?" Sync asked, a worried expression
crossing her face.
"Well, yeah," Beta looked at her as though she had grown a second head.
"We've got to help any humans we can. It's us against them, you know."
He turned back to Nav. "Kind of strange that there's no trace on this
guy. It's sheer luck you saw him at all."
"Maybe there was a bug," Sync said morosely. "Should we wake the
others?"
"Only Cat and Quantum. But let's grab this kid first."
Beta carefully lowered the hovership directly over the struggling
figure.
"You want to work the claw?" he asked.
"No," Sync jerked her head.
"Come on. You've got him on scope, and you're going to have to learn
sometime. I've got to keep us steady."
"But what if I hurt him?"
"You won't. Come on," Beta frowned impatiently. "He won't last much
longer."
Sync nodded sharply, looking as though she were about to cry. She took
hold of the claw controls and lowered the appendage towards the small
figure with a surprisingly gentle touch. She held her breath and grabbed
at the kid. When she was sure of the grip, she let the claw yank the body
upwards.
"Hey! I think this one's female," she said, squinting through the
scope. "I've got a grip on her."
"Good," Beta said shortly. He yanked down the intercom receiver and
punched in the "attention" code.
"I think she's in," Sync added. "Should I go down and get her?"
"No. The others should be on their way down. We have to get out of
here -- we've been sitting too close to the towers for too long," Beta
said. "I need you to watch for scouts."
"All right."
Sync turned back to the scope.
She slept, and as she slept her consciousness drifted through the
vastness of the Net. Sometimes she dove into the dreamless depths of her
subconscious. Sometimes, she rose to the surface where her mind
intersected with the Matrix, where her dream world connected to the dream
world of others. She was so very close to awakening at those times, so
close that sometimes she thought she had awakened. At those times, it
felt as though she was diving again in the dark, silent waters of Newport
City, alone with herself and her humanity. She would drift up to the
surface and look at the Matrix through the "water" as though she was
looking at the lights of Newport City. Eventually, she would dive once
more and sleep. Now was not the time for awakening. Not yet, she would
sigh and drift back down into darkness.
Chisa lay on the cold medical slab of an examination table. The face
she'd seen in the water burned behind her eyelids. In her mind, it was
far more clear and sharp and real than the pale faces of her rescuers.
It was a metal face. The face an AI might wear if it chose to take on a
human body out here. Parts of its outer surface still clung to the
underlying metal in ragged tatters, stained with bacterial and fungal
growth of generations. The exposed metal had been dull, the features
empty and at peace.
When she opened her eyes, the pale blur of human faces swam into focus
above her.
"You're awake," a pleasant, low female voice spoke. Chisa cleared her
throat experimentally.
"Yes," she said, surprising herself with the strength of her voice.
The woman's eyes were very dark in the white expanse of her face.
"You're from the Matrix." It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"Who got you out?"
Chisa took a deep breath. "I did." There was a sudden, low murmur of
voices in the background. The woman merely nodded.
"Where am I?" Chisa asked.
"You're aboard the hovership 'Iroul'. You're out of danger now. What
is your name?"
"Yomoda Chisa."
"You can pick a new name, if you like," the woman smiled. "My name's
Cat. Captain Cat Five."
"We'd like to get started," another voice broke in quietly.
"Our medic will remove most of your plugs now. We'll talk when you're
a little stronger," Cat said in a comforting manner. Chisa closed her
eyes again.
"Well?" Cat pushed the sickbay door closed with her powerful frame.
"She's clean," the man shrugged. "As human as they come, from the
Matrix."
"Do you think she's telling the truth, Chiron?"
"About awakening herself? It's possible. It's not like it hasn't
happened before," Chiron frowned. "The number of cases has been slowly
increasing."
"I should be happy that humanity is finally beginning to break from its
centuries of slavery," Cat sighed, "but it is difficult to trust this
sudden... rash of good luck. I keep looking over my shoulder, waiting
for the ambush."
"Our entire lives' experience has been fighting this losing war. It
makes sense that winning feels awkward."
"We haven't won yet, old friend," Cat warned him unhappily.
"No. We will be a long time time winning. The tide has begun to turn,
but who knows where it will take us?" Chiron nodded.
"She's the second one I've seen," Cat gestured towards the sickbay
door. "They are so calm, these new children. I remember when I served
with Morpheus on the Nebuchadnezzar, when we pulled Quantum out. He
nearly went into cardiac arrest, when he took his first look at the 'real
world'. But the ones that get out on their own -- nothing fazes them.
They remind me of the AI's. I find it difficult to trust them."
"I don't believe they are tools of the AI's," Chiron said thoughtfully.
"Our enemies are too busy. Neo caught them unprepared, and now they
scramble to defend themselves. Sometimes, when I watch the Matrix I see
how their slipping attention affects it. Where they do not watch, there
is chaos and it allows some people to slip through."
"Is that your theory?"
"I don't know. As good a theory as you'll get from an old hacker like
me," Chiron laughed dryly. "I'll show you the spots of chaos sometime,
Cat."
"It's been too long. I've forgotten too much," she sighed. "Let's
grab something to eat and go sit by the cooling system. It's warmer
there, and I feel the cold in my bones these days."
They turned and walked down the corridor together, their bodies close
but not touching.
---
Joanne Wojtysiak joanna@cs.ualberta.ca
Of course power tools and alcohol don't mix. Everyone knows power tools
aren't soluble in alcohol...
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