The world was an illusion: the loud and selfish voices, the engines of the passing automobiles, the whirring blades of overhead-passing helicopters, and the flow of the river; these are irritants and obstructions to the passersby and resting, but taken in the proper stride they prove to be sufficient white noise.
That was how Thespian, wearing the RSI of Kaezrer like it was an interchangeable mask, saw it. He meditates here often during high tide of distractions, serving to slowly chip at his focus and raise his disciplines. It is a roof of a mediocre building in the Magog neighborhood that's first floor is a small book store, coinciding with a bar just across the street, underneath the high pass.
Thespian always had to fight the reason he'd flee to here, every time. It couldn't be helped. He'd run his fingernails against his right cheek as it was his only sanctuary as a Bluepill. Everyone here has a story, and his wasn't any less. He had to quickly grow up to this truth, because he couldn't afford to fall behind by lucky upstarts. Julius thought like that, too, but when he was around it meant for something he thought was, as he put it, "a s**ting contest."
Thespian figured his presence of silence dismissed any bearing of interest toward himself by others, both in and out of arm's reach, especially when personalities like Darminian and Zeniph take the lead and manage the talking. "You ask, you asked for it," best described it. Even the former Scarlet Primes who knew him for the long while had a hard time completely understanding how a fractured mind survives. Ha, he thought, some of them probably still don't understand. The new recruits, he coughed a sigh with half a grin, most certainly wouldn't even come close to grasping the concept. He might have to spin their heads one day, for a quiet laugh, or a loud one if the reaction would fit.
Thespian achieved tranquility, the unfamiliar serenity in himself that devoured all the happenings within the simulation. With darkness around him for as far into infinite his mind could comprehend, he sought guidance; assurances that his choices were in some small degree correct. His mind was unwavering in this stalking, but his heart was always doubting, like an obnoxious conscience, that it couldn't be so easily satisfied. What more do you wish to hear, he asked his unconscious. What is it you desire so, and from whom do you wish speak it, he beckoned the darkness.
Like the echo of a droplet against the infinite, where nothing is the only ante, a presence had entered the darkness. Thespian felt a cold ripple from his fingers and toes, traveling upward toward his head. Tiny hairs rose as the wave passed them, as though chasing his warmth into the darkness. He winced at a burst of an unknown sensation in his head. He couldn't find any words or images to describe it, this enigma that was brought from a vast unknown. Neither a sound, nor a smell here... he could feel its presence, its warmth, as though it was always beside him.
"Damon?"
"Afraid not, I don't have that much hair, old friend," said a voice echoing in the darkness with a numbing nostalgia that cut through reason.
A figure began to piece itself before Thespian, through colored streaks that resembled the wind began to appear. The clothing, the posture, and that facial moniker that made him infamous throughout the Matrix, like the God of Sleep himself.
"No..." Thespian gasped in a whisper, "Phrack?"
Phrack grinned and replied, "In the..." He looked down at his body, garbed in glamorous scarlet: the red/grey-patterned vest combo, white-Pravea sunglasses, red-derin sheen pants, black-skaver short boots, and red-Avero trench. He glanced back at Thespian: "Would "flesh" be the appropriate term?"
Thespian raised his brow slightly, dour: "In here? You got me..."
Phrack turned his head from side to side, seeming to take in the darkness of the depths of Thespian's mind. He looked back to Thespian. "It's crowded,” Phrack said with a lifted brow. “You've got a lot on your mind."
Thespian lowered his head and laughed quietly: "Hm. Yeah, I do."
"So spit it out," Phrack said moving his right arm out, now garbed in resonating black: white-sector sunglasses, black-skaver short boots, the black-Machello prophet duster. "I know you've never been one for long conversations, but there's got to be a reason you drudged me up." He folded his arms. "What's bothering you?"
Thespian quickly exhaled a small breath as he kept his eyes low: "I'm in doubt, Phrack. I'm having doubts about my actions, my choices." He moved his hands inward to where he could see them. "I tell myself I know what I want to achieve, and I know how to achieve it, but I doubt about whether or not to actually achieve it.
"Why?" Phrack asked from a left profile stance with folded arms, dressed in scarlet. "Afraid there'll be consequences?" Phrack asked from a right profile stance with folded arms, dressed in ominous dark: black-Arisaki leather pants, white-Trea sunglasses, black bandana, black-Arisaki Konishi jacket, and black-skaver boots.
"Of course." Thespian scowled at Phrack, but the fire behind the glare was directed towards himself. "But I should be above that by now. I couldn't handle my own problems when I was a child, and from that grief I created two people who never should have never been forced to carry the turmoils I couldn't.” Thespian lowered his accusing stare onto himself: “But I've grown up; I'm not a little child anymore." He slowly clasped his hands together. "I should always be doing what my heart tells me, but it's like that's not enough for it anymore."
"Three hearts are hard to fill," said, in one overlying voice, the three Phracks, dark on the left, black in the middle, and scarlet on the right, staring with angle-folded arms at Thespian. "Three minds are hard to follow," said the three Phracks, showing their backs to Thespian with their heads turned to the left. "Things have never been simple, Doc." Dark Phrack turned around to face his body to Thespian. "Especially here," said scarlet Phrack with a short exhale. "And to add to that, there's always consequences." Scarlet Phrack turned around to face his body to Thespian. "I should be a perfect example of that for you." Black Phrack turned around to face his body to Thespian.
Thespian glanced at each carnation of Phrack that he knew, then with a shamed brow and stinging eyes lowered his head: "...yeah, you would be, wouldn't you..."
Dark Phrack spoke, as though leering over Thespian's shoulder, "The ends justify the means. Hasn't that always been my way?"
"Yes," Thespian said raising his head and turning it toward the Phrack behind him, "but have you ever thought back to 'what if'?"
Thespian blinked, and dark Phrack turned into scarlet Phrack with his back facing Thespian. "Every day. But look around you. There's too many variables in this equation." Thespian blinked again and Scarlet turned to Black. "Too many places you could say 'What if' at. In the end, it's just an exercise in futility."
Scarlet Phrack suddenly appeared before Thespian, standing in a proud and regal posture: "What if Morpheus was standing beside us right now?" Phrack said. "What if all the things that have happened had turned out differently?" Thespian's head lowered again as he continued: "We wouldn't be where we are, and we're a lot further down the road than most people think."
"You're right about all that," Thespian admitted. He brought his clasped hands to his brow. "I know you're right about all of that, and despite how much I tell myself that it doesn't really convince me."
"Why? Because we've suffered?" said dark Phrack adjusting his white glasses.
Thespian, glaring, raised his head to look at him. "No," Thespian replied, "everyone suffers in their own way even if they can't taste it." Thespian's eyes glanced down at his hands. "But I have this cloud of uncertainty that I can't dispel. We're doing the right thing, Pluribus Neo and the other E Pluribus Neo factions. I know that," Thespian's voice quieted, "but I can't convince my heart."
"Then what would convince you?" Scarlet Phrack asked with a wrinkled brow. "Maybe if things were simpler?"
Thespian raised his head a nudge and glared into the darkness ahead: "Maybe... that's another 'what if' I'm trying to pass right now. It doesn't need to be, it shouldn't have to be simpler to make me have complete confidence."
"Self-doubt is a tool of the machines, Doc. We were Zion, once. Before all of this. You remember that well, don't you?"
"Of course."
"And what is your opinion of Zion now?" Phrack's body darkened as his eye line brightened.
Thespian closed his eyes, and eased his mind. "...that they've wavered from the right choices that could keep their truce intact," he said. "That their leadership is dumbfounded by the going-ons in the Matrix."
"The truce is lost," said black Phrack leaning with folded arms against the darkness. "You know that, even if they don't quite see it yet. Even if it hadn't been used against them, it won't exist much longer. Zion's stepped on the toes of the Merovingian, and they've paid for it. Not as much as they will pay, though, I'm afraid."
"And I'm torn there." Thespian raised his hands to eye level, both visible but out of focus. "My head tells me that they created this neck-high mess on their own and that we shouldn't get involved with it," he glanced from his right hand to his left, "but my heart wants to fix their problems, not because they're negligent towards us, but because they're human, like us."
"Morpheus lived for the salvation of mankind, the salvation of Zion," said scarlet Phrack, looking to the right as the darkness created a nostalgic silhouette. Thespian saw it, and slowly lowered his hands while his eyes widened. "Maybe it's time EPN extend a hand to our family in the quicksand?" Phrack reached towards it, and as he shifted to walk towards it the silhouette broke into brightly-colored streams and returned to the darkness.
"...I'd like for that to happen," Thespian glanced back to Phrack as he lowered his hands and turned his head back towards Thespian. "But really, my desires don't belong with any group's leaders. Unless Zion is on its hands and knees I don't believe Michael would put EPN behind them."
Dark Phrack extended his arms outward to his sides and said, "And that's Michael's decision. This is ours. It's on the tip of your tongue," Phrack raised his head, keeping his eyes on Thespian's, "even if you don't remember it, old friend..."
"Tip of my tongue?" Thespian scowled with thought.
"The Omega Directive," said the three Phracks at different intervals. Dark Phrack was standing in front of him the former regal posture, black Phrack was just barely inside his peripheral vision, and scarlet Phrack was a translucent image in his mind's eye. "...Omega...Directive..." Thespian muttered.
Black Phrack appeared in front of him as scarlet and dark vanished, pointing as his own temple, "Memories locked away from long ago. Not just for you, either. For all the formers."
Thespian, appearing to want to stand, said: "Memories, when they're released, will I be able to have assurance in myself?"
"You'll have assurance that you haven't had since the old days," scarlet Phrack replied. "Sometimes it takes being reborn to grant us such a luxury," he shrugged. "It's already begun, Doc. You'll be there when it happens."
"Will I?" Thespian felt and appeared more at ease. "I'd like that... yeah, I'd like that a lot."
"Then so it will be. You should look for access to the Zion Mainframe. You forgot how many secrets I housed there, from long ago."
"The Zion Mainframe... where do I look for access to it?"
Dark Phrack's head slightly rose; he had to be grinning underneath that bandana. "The bluepill internet," he said, lowering an open hand. Swirling green numbers and letters were almost dancing on the darkness inches above the hand. Thespian motioned to receive it, but was hesitant to reach until he looked back to see black Phrack smiling. Thespian felt assured in himself, and took Phrack's hand. The green glistened through his hand, and then raced upward his arm. Thespian pulled his hand back as the glowing green climbed his neck and found home in his head. He could see the green luminescence shine and glow brighter through his eyes, but there was no pain from the light, and as quickly it had become magnificent it dissipated into tiny green streams gliding into the depths of darkness. Thespian had been given a memory, something he had forgotten months before.
"I... see..." Thespian said wide-eyed and with a shorter breath, "and I'll find the start of my path there?" He looked at dark Phrack who was gesturing with open palms.
"Don't ask me," he said. "You're the one talking to himself."
Thespian's eyes dulled as he slightly sneered: ". . .tch, even when it's your turn to be a figment you still have the upper hand." He lowered his head and grinned. "I guess I can't imagine it any other way."
Scarlet Phrack grinned, "Nor would you want to." He began to turn his back toward Thespian. "I'll be around, old friend."
Thespian was suddenly quiet. This change caught Phrack's attention, and he stopped turning. He glanced in Thespian's direction, even though he shouldn't have been able to properly focus on the sitting man. Thespian scowled while looking up through his eyebrows:"...you're not dead, are you?"
Black Phrack turned his head a little more, so that Thespian could barely see his eyes and the right lens of his white glasses, and said: "The Merovingian would say such things are mere contrivances." Phrack shrugged where he stood. "Me, I don't know such big words."
Thespian eased his stare and smiled with an affirmative noise, "Hm. Me neither."
Scarlet and dark Phrack slid out of black Phrack in the same stance. "May Neo watch over you," they all said, one after the other.
They turned around, at the same time, to Thespian. Scarlet Prime Phrack lowered his glasses with his right index finger to halfway down his nose, and winked. Pluribus Neo Phrack lowered his glasses with his right index finger to halfway down his nose, and winked. Dark Lotus Phrack lowered his glasses with his right index finger to halfway down his nose, and winked.
Thespian blinked. The sun was shining brightly in the cloudless afternoon, as cars and people below continued on with their audible presences. Calmly, Thespian glanced from side to side, confirming that he was still in Magog, on the roof of the bookstore. It felt more surreal to him than the first time he jacked in as Thespian, and he decided that he had had enough Matrix meditation for today. He coughed up a wry smile and muttered, "Tomorrow's session is just going to be pitiful now."
