Waking Nightmare: An Metalogic Story

[Metalogic]

Chapter 4: Darkening

The next few days was, chaotic. Normally we would be out in the tunnels for months at a time, only coming back to Zion to recharge our batteries and to resupply. I would often try to get some bread and baked goods when back in Zion, anything that resembles actual food instead of the goop that I first encountered when I was freed or forced out of my pod.
However, we were back in Zion because of the death of Morpheus at the hand of something called The Assassin. A lot of rumors and hearsay going around the last human settlement, not a lot of fact or verifiable information. The first couple of days were a haze, I just went through the motion of my job on the hovercraft and unloading, going back to my apartment in Zion. It felt like I was going through everything on Autopilot, and that’s probably a good thing.

If my hovercraft crew knew my true feeling, if anyone in Zion knew my true feeling, I would most likely be thrown into the brig. I don’t feel any sadness or sorrow from the death of Morpheus. In all honesty, I feel like he had it coming. Planting code bombs, disrupting the working of The Matrix, ruining bluepill lives…ruining my life. If The Assassin hadn’t put a bullet in his skull, someone else would’ve done it.

My mind snapped back to reality when the captain came into the mess hall. He cleared his throat, “We are approaching Broadcast Depth. Our team will be divided into two sections once we reach Church of The Disciples when we come out of the hardline at Mannsen Park. “Nikko and I will attend the service. There will be security detail around the parameter of the church. Metalogic and Amity, you two will help out with the security.” I raised my eyebrow and then just grunted. It was probably a better idea that I worked security outside of the church rather than be inside of the church.

Jacking into The Matrix is a weird sensation. You feel like you’re falling asleep, but you feel static electricity all over your body and then you “wake” up inside MegaCity. I’ve been told that MegaCity isn’t the only city within The Matrix. It was just the location of the machine’s core, the heart of The Matrix. Tonight, there was a thunderstorm at the core of The Matrix.
Heavy rain poured down on all of us as we approached the church. A security team had the front entrance on lockdown. Our hovercraft crew walked up to the team and Captain Kobalt handed them a strange looking electronic device. One of the security officers pulled out a large, crudely made PDA. The officer took the electronic device and plugged it into the PDA. He looked through the screen and then nodded to Captain Kobalt as he handed back the device. Kobalt and Nikko walked in while Amity and I were stopped at the entrance. A younger operative showed us to the back entrance. He pointed to me, “since you’re the new guy, you can work this area. Since you’re on his hovercraft, you get to babysit him” he finished, pointing towards Amity. We both nodded and made our way to the back of the church.

The Church of The Disciples is nestled into a small block within Westview, flanked by run down storefronts and apartments run by slumlords and the intercity highway system. The back of the church was right up against the slumlord’s apartment building. I found a little refugee from the rain by leaning against the back wall of the church and holding my head underneath the roof overhang. Amity took a spot right in front of a couple of dumpsters and just started monitoring our surroundings, looking left to right, and right to left.
Everything seem to be calm, so I rested my back against the walls of the church as Amity took out a cigarette pack. His gloved hands pulled a stick out, he place it in his mouth. With a movement of his hands, he had a lit cigarette in a thunderstorm. He looked at me, watching him. He shrugged, “When you free your mind, you can do almost anything,” he spoke with a Russian accent.

He leaned back against the dumpster and took another drag of his cigarette, his gun hung from the strap on his shoulder. He took a drag from his cigarette, “You know, my family lived in Soviet Russia for a long time. In a little village in Siberia. Growing up, we were taught how great the Soviet government was. We were told we lived in the greatest country on Earth. On and on it went, then the walls fell. I traveled outside of their system of control, and when I did that, I saw the truth. The horrible, ugly, naked truth. So, when I was offered the pills, the choice was easy for me. Now, I know the full truth.”

I leaned back & rest my head against the back of the church. I could feel a slight vibration of singing coming from inside the church. With a sigh, “You were offered a choice, I was forced out by the bald asshole who’s everyone is grieving for inside of that church.” In a gentler tone Amity replied, “In Russia, especially in the rural areas, we just accepted what God gave us. Call it sin, karma, whatever, it happens to us regardless and it’s our choice in how we handle it.” All I could do was give him a polite smile as we went back to our guard duty.

The service lasted for one or two hours, pretty typical church service length. Escorting everyone back to the hardlines was fairly easy. The escortee, including myself, had to put down a few exile gang members. I was told they were on the bottom rung of the exile world’s hierarchy & shouldn’t expect any retributions from more powerful programs.
My crew was the last one to leave The Matrix. That’s when I saw it. It was a mother and her children walking down the street. They were happy, the children were laughing and running. The mother had a smile on her face as she carried two bags of groceries. I walked away from my post next to the hardline.

Something just took over me as I walked back towards the church. Flashes of memories of me with my own family played before my eyes as I slowly walked towards the church. I tucked my shotgun in the holster across my back and I pulled my handgun out of my side holster. The rain has picked up, it was coming down like a shower of bullets, lightning danced across the sky of MegaCity as thunder boomed in my ears. I was soaked from head to toe by the time I entered the church, droplets of water dripping down onto the carpeted floor. The church was dark, I could only see the pews from the flashes of lighting and thunder. I slowly walked down the isle of the church, my right hand gripping my handgun. There laid before me was the casket that held Morpheus’ RSI. I rested my left hand on the closed lid, I was about to open it when I heard a familiar voice.

“Don’t do it Meta,” my captain ordered me from behind. I closed my eyes and let out a growl before dropping the handgun, I slowly turned around and held my hands up, looking directly into the eyes of my captain.

“That’s right, just come with me, and we’ll sort all of this out back at Zion.”