Matrix verse fic - getting out

[psychette]

For new verse with knowskungfu and follows this.

Wet. Confused and wet, that's the two words that stuck with her from all that Neo had been trying to tell her those last few seconds. The rest had gotten lost as she was pulled so far away, it seemed to take forever and no time at all in the same moment.

And then it was over.

Jackie tried to open her eyes and move but she felt distinctly like she was under water. Her hands reached around as if in slow motion, trying to find something....and found a tube stuck to the side of her stomach. Everywhere her hands moved, there were tubes or something similar and they all seemed to be attached to HER.
There had to be a way out of here, she didn't even know how she got in here in the first place. She could barely move, she felt so weak all over, but there was no way she was staying here. Her hands found the top of some sort of membrane, scratching at it and trying to get it open.

Something else broke it, not her. A giant metal claw reached in, puncturing the pod and pulling her out by the neck into the cold air. Jackie struggled against it in vain, blinking her burning eyes against the light and trying to make out the impossible robotic shape in front of her. She was choking against something down her throat.

It happened so fast, there was a hum of a drill and Jackie got the most incredible uncomfortable feeling right in the back of her neck before the robot dropped her back into the soup as if it was done with her. She choked and gagged, finally able to pull out the tube down her throat and breathe on her own.

She was having a hard time sitting up in the slippery pod being that A: she had no clothes and B: she was sitting in a slightly warmer than the air pinkish soup of sorts. Jackie tried to keep low with it up to her neck, shivering as she tried to look around.

....next to her was a person. In the same pod as her. And beyond it another. And another. Whole rows of people all hooked up. It stretched up so far she couldn't even see the end of the...building? they were attached to.

Coughing, she said hoarsely, "No...way..."

It was then that tubes started popping off of her arms and legs and the pod purged everything inside of it. Jackie managed to catch a breath before she went under again. The sides were too slippery on the tunnel, she couldn't get a grip.

And then she was falling....straight into freezing cold water. Hypothermia, that's all she could think of. Fighting the urge to panic, she remembered what her uncle told her about what to do if you fall through the ice and curled herself into a ball, still holding her breath. Amazingly, it worked, she floated to the surface slowly but her lungs ached, she thought she would never get there in time.

Something splashed into the water with her, grabbing her...Jackie couldn't help it, she panicked thinking it was another robot and accidentally inhaled some of the water.

Next thing she could remember was someone giving her mouth to mouth and waking up coughing on a very hard floor, shivering under a blanket.

Comments

I always had a hunch that was like some pre recorded welcome speech :) but I could be wrong

[psychette10.livejournal.com]

"Code? You mean this is all some sort of.....html page???" Jackie kicked the side of the wall for good measure, hopping up and down while holding her foot. "Ow, ow, ow...one realistic html page."

She had this really sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that she was trying to disprove in her head. Neo couldn't be right. It just didn't make any sense...and yet it made too much sense. She was even wearing the clothes she left in, down to the way she'd tied her shoes that morning.

"So we're back? I mean...this doesn't look like Santa Barbara."

It could be!

[knowskungfu.livejournal.com]

"It feels real because you believe it's real. This is a construct," he tried to explain it the best way that he could. "A program humans designed to mimic the Matrix. To give people who've just come out time to get used to it. To learn. It's safe. Safer than the Matrix."

Okay, now he sounded like Morpheus. But where Morpheus was eloquent, if not always clear, Neo was not. Words got tangled up and confused and misunderstood. He preferred action to words.

Turning around once more, Neo moved to the edge of the roof. He glanced over his shoulder, gave Jackie a measured look, and then stepped off the edge. He didn't fall, and he didn't fly. He simply walked out onto empty air, stopping only once he was clear of the building. Then he turned and held out his hands.

"In here, and in the Matrix, we decide what's real and what's not."

some CD somewhere labeled "Morpheus' Exposition Speech" for the newbies

[psychette10.livejournal.com]

Jackie dashed forward when Neo made to walk off the building... "No, wait!" Except he didn't fall. Her jaw on the floor again, Jackie rubbed her eyes to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was seeing. "That's..." Looking down the insanely long drop from the top of the building. "That's impossible."

And there is no way she's following him out there. No way. She staying on the nice solid supposedly pretend roof.

It would save everyone so much trouble. He really needs to do that.

[knowskungfu.livejournal.com]

"In the real world, yes," Neo agreed. "But this isn't real. It's virtual reality. If you believe it's real, you'll fall. If you know it's not, you won't."

He crossed back over to the building, waited until his feet were firmly planted before speaking again. "I'm told that there are some things only I can do here. Part of being the One. But I don't believe that. In here, you're only limited by what you let yourself be."

[psychette10.livejournal.com]

She stepped backwards as he made his way back onto the roof, almost subconsciously keeping her distance...trying to process all of this. Her head was whirling, trying to resolve the conflict between what she had known and what he was telling her now. Virtual reality and robots and somehow she'd become part of this crazy for real video game. "I....this....and everyone...doesn't know that they're all...stuck? How??"

[knowskungfu.livejournal.com]

"Some people know. Subconsciously. They can feel it. Like a splinter. They just don't know what it is."

He didn't try to close the distance between them. It took time to process it. Even longer to accept it. Morpheus hadn't had time to introduce him to it slowly, but they weren't that desperate any more. There was time.

"Most are born into it. Told it's the way things are. They don't know, so they don't question it."

[psychette10.livejournal.com]

"Born into it??" Jackie was incredulous. "How exactly did everyone get in in the first place?" She covered her mouth at a thought, "Oh mylanta, Shawn...and Mom...and my cat, my cat's not real????" She wasn't gonna freak out like she did before but this was quite the realization.

[knowskungfu.livejournal.com]

"We're not really sure. Most of our history was lost in the war. But we do know that the machines won. They breed us in processing plants, use us as batteries. Most people live and die in the Matrix without knowing anything else."

Neo had never had a pet, hadn't had any friends, and family was a thing of the past. But he still thought about the people he'd thought he'd known. Still wondered about them. Not often. Not regularly. But sometimes. His expression was sympathetic, understanding if not the immediacy of the loss, then the fact of it.

"The people themselves might be real, but they're like actors in a play they don't even know about. The animals are programs. There aren't any animals left in the world anymore."

[psychette10.livejournal.com]

That sick feeling was back as she listened, backing up slightly and hugging her arms to herself...and over her stomach. Sinking to her knees, she said, "Think I need to sit down..."


"...cept I'm already sitting down..." Outside the construct. She was still going to sit down here on the roof, not feeling very well. Everything might have been too much, too quickly and it was catching up with her. She looked a little green.

[knowskungfu.livejournal.com]

The first time back in never went well. It was too much to take in, and it was too soon. But if there was a better way to handle it, to ease someone into it, none of them knew what it was. Still, Neo recognized the signs of information overload. He'd been there. He knew how overwhelming it was.

"Tank." They were being monitored, and it wasn't like this was the Matrix. A phone wasn't necessary. "Get us out. Now."

The disconnection would be as seamless as the insertion. When Jackie opened her eyes, Tank would already be there, withdrawing the plug so she could sit up.

[psychette10.livejournal.com]

She almost opened her mouth to say no, no she didn't want to move yet...didn't want out yet. But she didn't get a chance, Jackie was still a bit distracted with trying to process all of this...

...and with a jolt, she was back. Back to the world of dim lights, computer equipment...and no hair. Then it came out, like a delayed reaction. "No wait...not yet..." Tank gave her a slightly confused look but she ignored him. Getting up out of the chair, she pushed past him, hugging her arms to herself and a muttered "excuse me" to Neo as she walked out of the room.

She wanted to be alone for a bit. And possibly get herself lost in this ship. It was probably rude to run off without warning but she felt like she needed to breathe.

[knowskungfu.livejournal.com]

Sitting up, Neo shook off the disorientation of stepping out of the virtual world in time to see Jackie's brief exchange with Tank. He rose from the chair, but it was too late. She was already leaving.

If he hadn't been there himself once before, he would have chased after her. Would have tried to help somehow, even if he didn't know how. Yet even he knew there was nothing he could do. She needed to adjust to it on her own, at her own pace. To her credit, she was handling it better than he had.

A moment's uncertainty, and then he headed over to a nearby console. He'd get some work done, and when she was ready to talk, he'd be waiting.

[psychette10.livejournal.com]

[ooc: seems like a good spot to finish this "scene" :3 figuring she can meet other peoples now that she's officially out]