Losing My Religion

[CoZ]LostProphet · 02/27/2006 01:21:04

Nel eyed Agent Gray suspiciously as she stood with him and Baku in the small office in Kedemoth.

"Thanks to the data you've provided us with from the opening of that door, we've traced remnants of code at an exit point to what went through it. Mr Hirst should be in Edgewater, at this point." he pointed to a map on the laptop that they had on the desk.

Baku nodded and pulled a phone from his pocket.

"We will mobilise our Agents." Gray intoned and rapidly exited the room.
"Operator," Baku said as he was connected, "Edgewater. Get everyone there now. Right now."

**

Prophet felt as if his eyes were going to explode out of his head as the blood was forced and constricted by the chains and he tried to think of a way out of the situation.

"Time for a little ride!" the old man called, taking hold of another lever and wrenching it hard to the right. The motors above started to whirr and Prophet began to skim through the air, picking up speed as he raced towards the far end of the warehouse.
He braced himself for the impact, but crashed into the wall with a sickening crunch. He groaned and emitted a gurgled yelp of pain as he took the brunt of the crash with his left arm and heard the old man laughing, then a click as the lever was pushed the other way.

The wall rushed towards him, the items below just a blur as Prophet tried to position himself for the best possible impact. He concentrated, pushing his legs out in front of him, ready to cushion the blow ... and a moment later felt searing pain and again heard the sound of breaking bones.
As his mind fought against the pain, tried to think of survival, the motors in the roof clicked free, and he plummeted towards the ground, his broken body twisting in a useless attempt to break the fall.

He crunched onto the desk, demolishing the ancient wood, sending oily papers and disks skidding across the floor, and stared up at the ceiling as the phone began to ring nearby.

The man picked it up, listened for a moment, then hung up.

"Well," he said, "I hoped we'd have a little more fun, but it seems that my time here is up."

Prophet felt a hand dip into his outer pocket and withdraw the disk as he lay on his back, surrounded by debris and a pool of his own blood. His right leg was twisted savagely underneath him, his arms broken in five places.
He repeatedly tried to move but only succeeded in spreading the blood further over his brown duster and sending agonising signals of pain to his brain.

Through blurred and bloody eyes he could see the outline of the warehouse around him, the half-built cars blocking all views into the building from the road outside.

Prophet let his head roll to one side to look towards the crackly sound of the radio that had just been turned on and shuddered - creating more lightning bolts of pain - as the sound of footsteps echoed around the warehouse.

Life is bigger
It's bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to

"And so here we are," the gravelly voice said over the introduction and first lines of the song, "All our work has come to fruition."

The distance in your eyes
Oh no I've said too much
I set it up

"Ironic, don't you think?"

The sound of the single explosion from the barrel of the 9mm filled the neighbourhood, and LostProphet knew no more pain.

*

Baku and ten other Children of Zion heard a gunshot echo out and knew they were nearly there. As they turned towards it, an Agent sailed overheard, landing in the road below. Three warehouses away, the sound of an engine starting could be heard, then the screech of tyres as it sped away.

They reached the warehouse a moment after Agent Johns.

"Operatives ..." he began, but they ran past him, all stopping as they saw the carnage in the far corner, the crushed and crumpled body of their comrade.
Luneran reached him first and checked his pulse, standing back up with a look of shock on her face. A call to the Cerberus' operator confirmed it.

"He's dead."

TBC ...

Message Edited by [CoZ]LostProphet on 02-27-200609:21 AM

[CoZ]LostProphet

White light. Blurred shapes faded in and out of view, somehow familiar yet not.
"Do we have a stable signal?" said a voice, floating whimsically as the shapes around him bobbed and weaved and melted into one another.
"Not yet. We're running another pass. Now."

The blurred, dreamy vision corrected itself with a sudden jerk and LostProphet felt a sharp kick in the stomach.
His body spasmed briefly in the chair and rattled the restraints. A searing pain burnt through his skull, finding the centre of his brain and sitting, pulsating, malevolent.

"The procedure is exceedingly uncomfortable for a human mind. I apologise that we weren't able to sedate you, but time was of the essence."

Prophet look to his right at Agent Gray, then back at his restraints. The Agent waved a hand at two men in white lab coats, their backs turned, but the restraints popped open. Prophet massaged his wrists.

"It was for your own protection." Gray said simply.
"Right. Now ..." he ran a hand over his face, pulled it away suddenly as he felt something unfamiliar, "...what the hell ..."

Gray reached for something behind the chair and came back with a small circular mirror. Prophet gazed into it, unable to comprehend what he saw.

"Some time ago, an Agent of the system caused extensive damage to your neural jack, correct?"
Prophet nodded almost imperceptibly.
"Your appearence was altered irrevocably - hair, face, build."
"You're stating the obvious here," Prophet whispered, still running his hands around his beard, "I want to know how I got it all back."

Gray shifted uncomfortably on the spot. Despite extensive dealings with redpills over the last year, this sort of interaction still didn't come easily to him.

"This will not be easy to hear. You are dead, Mr Hirst. The Merovingian's gatekeeper destroyed your body in the Matrix and the resulting trauma caused a massive cardiac arrest in the real world."
"So how the hell am I here?"
"When you jack into the Matrix, you become - in essence - a program. We were able to extract the core runtime elements from your RSI and bring you here. The only thing distorting your self image was the damage to your neural jack. Now you are no longer tied to that body, your original RSI has been restored."

Gray shifted again as Prophet sat silently for a moment.

"I'm dead, but not dead," he finally said, louder now.
"Yes."
"Do CoZ know?"
"No. There is no way for us to restore your program into your body - it has ceased to function. We believe ..." he coughed, "It was decided that it would be easier for them to mourn your passing, rather than complicate matters in this way."
Prophet swallowed heavily, "So where do I go from here?"
"You will be reinserted into a body at our discretion and freed from the Matrix, if you wish. However, you will have to work for us."
"And if I don't want to?"
"You are dead, Mr Hirst. You are here at our leisure, and I will take this opportunity to point out that the memory engrams and other associated faculties you currently possess are temporary. We cannot and will not keep you here indefinately, and we consider your allegiance to us to be ... as you might put it, a fair trade."

Prophet glared ahead and said nothing.

"You will be treated fairly. I anticipate you will enjoy your freedom in significantly higher levels of comfort than you are accustomed to from our Zionist friends. I will give you ten minutes to decide. We only have a certain window of stability which we can use to reinsert your runtime into another host."

TBC ...

[CoZ]LostProphet

"It is time." Agent Gray intoned, placing a hand on LostProphet's shoulder - he had seen Agent Pace use such a guesture as a measure of comfort, for what it was worth.
"There's nothing to stop me from just turning right around as soon as I get out and going back to Zion, is there?"
"No. But we kept to our word when the truce was brokered. We hope, given your openminded views on the human/machine situation, that you will do us that same honour."

Prophet looked up at Gray, inscrutable behind the glasses, and realised that his point was a good one.

"Okay," he finally said, "Let's do this thing."

"We have secured a host body. A twenty four year old male that never survived the ... Smith encounter. He has been in a coma since the reset, and all tests run by us indicate that his mind is dead. The brain, however, is still viable. We can insert you."
Prophet stared incredulously.
"Our understanding of the human mind and body far surpasses your own." Gray said. Not bragging, it was a simple fact.

The two scientists finally came over to him. They were humanoid shapes, but instead of faces merely had a smooth, metallic-like surface.
No need for human touches in a place like this, Prophet guessed.
They reattached the restraints and also attached one to his head, then returned to the apparatus that was now almost out of his field of view.
Gray leant over the chair.
"I must attend to other business, but I'm sure we will speak soon."
"Yeah," Prophet said, his voice deflated, "See ya around."

There was silence, for a number of minutes. Prophet lay with his eyes closed, trying to relax, when there was a hot flash of pain that spread from his lower back and rapidly consumed his entire body. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. He opened his eyes but only saw darkness. A moment later, he was unconscious.

****

LostProphet eased his eyes open then shut them immediately as burning white light flooded in. He turned his head to one side and tried again. He took in his immediate surroundings - it looked like a Zion hovercraft but ... new.
Somebody placed a hand on his forehead.
"Where am I?" he whispered.
"On a machine vessel. Do you remember your name?"
His brow furrowed for a second, "LostProphet ..."
"Yes, yes, good. Do you remember what happened?"
"No. No, I ... the last thing I remember is ... I .. nothing. I can't think of anything! Why can't I think of anything?!"

His voice rose to a hoarse cry and he struggled pathetically to get up. Hands held him down, though there really was no need.

"There was a problem, with the reinsertion. Your program destabilised ... they said you may have ... memory holes. But the important thing is that you woke up at all."

"Reinsertion? What? I don't understand!"

"Hush now - rest. The machines will look after you. You'll find the Recursion instance to be a good home."

The End

**Sphairo**

That was amazing, LP.. your a really talented writer and the story was jus brill!

[CoZ]LostProphet

Thank you

I hope that Recursion and my new Machinist taskmasters will offer up some new creative opportunities! SMILEY

**PBlade**

The wind howled angrily through the desert of the real, as the Children of Zion operatives braved the ferocity of the elements, not with fierce defiance, but with a sombre numbness.

The small crowd stood, simply veiwing the laid out body of their fallen comrade. The body of LostProphet was dressed in a tattered military uniform, the jacket adorned with awards and medals from his time as a Zion operative and captain. A man who had fought so bravely and gallantly most of the time, snatched from existance in a cruel, underhand manner, stereotypical of the Merovingian.

There was little more the group could do than watch in silence as the wind whipped around them. Baku's hair blowing around him, caught in the pandemonium, his face stern and neutral, as was everybodys.

They had spent enough time here. With a flick of hands, the captains summoned thier crews back to each respective ship. The crowd broke into smaller clusters and boarded thier hovercrafts. The wind jumped up as repulsor pads ignited, thier blue electro-discharge casting a blue hue over the surrounding area, LostProphets body looking more dead than ever.

The ships filed away, one by one, back into the tunnels, it had only been under express O1 consent that they had been allowed to stay for the amount of time they did. As they exited, dust and dirt began to pile up along the side of LostProphets body. No matter how he died, he was definitely in another place now....

As the hovering behemoths vanished back to the sewers, other machines appeared on the horizon, present to clear out the garbage created...

:smileysad: