In the Region of Sight, Chp. 5
In which John has questions that he doesn't really want answered, and getting out of the Matrix may have been the easiest part.
He’s floating, hazy, and for a moment he’s back in Afghanistan, staring up at a sky so blue it’s practically white. A face comes into focus above his, and everything snaps back into place. It’s Locke.
“Hello, John. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
It’s a struggle to force the words out. “Where?”
“You’re on our ship, the Munin. No, don’t try to move; we’re still working on rebuilding your skeletal muscles. You’ve never used them here. Rest, now.”
He closes his eyes and slips into sleep.
: : :
When he wakes again, he’s under a thin blanket in a chilled and empty room. It’s like something from an American submarine movie, all exposed pipes and gray surfaces. He pushes himself up gingerly, anticipating the ache after resting on a pallet for who knows how long.
He’s already scrabbling at his shirt by the time his brain fully processes that there’s no pain in his shoulder at all; not even a twinge.
There’s no scar, either- just clean, smooth skin, stretched over a torso more compact than it’s been in months. The scrape up one shin from crashing his bicycle as a kid, the callus on his trigger finger, even the soft bulge he’s picked up from too many English breakfasts since his discharge; all of it, gone. Instead there are thick black plugs in his arms, his legs, at the base of his skull. He prods one, recalling a vision of cables, floating around him.
There’s a knock on the door; it only takes the three steps across the room to realize that the one thing left over from his old life is the limp.
A small, lovely woman he’s never seen before is on the other side. “Good- you’re awake. I’m Anthea; I’ll take you to Hermes.”
“You... work for him, then?”
“He’s the captain here, yes. You’ve met some of the crew already; Hermes will introduce you to the rest.”
The inside of the ship isn’t what a dozen Star Trek movies have lead him to expect. There’s no carpeting, running lights, or swishy automatic doors; wires are strung across the ceiling and a thudding sound reverberates through the metal grating. Even the Millenium Falcon was flashier than this.
He moves slowly behind Anthea, bracing himself against the wall as she leads him into what must be the ship’s common area, the crew gathered around a long table. A half-dozen heads swivel to stare at him. He lifts a hand to Locke, nods at Fox. The dress code seems to have changed: instead of shiny plastic, they’re clothed now in loose cotton trousers and the same sort of thin sweater that John himself is wearing.
Hermes strides across the room and draws him into a seat. “John- welcome to the Munin. You’ve met Fox, and my brother Locke; Versai was with us on the last run, as well.” The tall, dangerously curvy woman smiles at him over her bowl of porridge; he connects her with the glimpse he’d caught of the driver, earlier. “This is our pilot, Shale, and Nicodemus, and of course Anthea.”
It’s more people than John’s met since he’s been back from the war, and he’s fairly sure that the names have gone in one ear and out the other.
Fox grins at him. “So, you must have questions- God knows I did.”
It’s impossibly awkward to force the questions out with everyone staring at him like that, but he can’t bear to keep stumbling about like an ignorant child.
“You were all inside the... the Matrix? Like me?”
“Most of us. Shale, there, he’s freeborn- our very own homegrown human. Like a mascot, you might say.” At that, Shale laughs, reaching across the table to thwap Fox on the back of the head.
“I was born in Zion,” Shale says. “The last human city. My folks are there, our families. The Council of Elders. We head back every few months for supplies, you’ll be able to check it out then.”
“It is-” Locke begins, and the crew breaks in, chanting along, “-incessantly, insufferably dull.” A chuckle runs down the table, Locke’s eyeroll a silent and practiced accompaniment. “Nothing of interest ever happens there.”
“Nothing of interest to you, maybe, but I’ve got a lady back home who I know must be missing some of this,” Nicodemus retorts, running a hand down his chest. Versai, sitting next to him, snorts and knocks his shoulder, nearly shoving him off the bench.
“But what is it that you do out here? The Matrix, Zion- what does any of it even mean?” John finds his hands clamped around the edge of the bench, and has to consciously relax his white-knuckled grip.
“Come, John, let me show you.” Hermes beckons him over to a spindly metal contraption that might have qualified as a chair, once upon a time. The crew goes into motion, Anthea moving to the bank of computers as Locke takes up a place behind John. The rest gather at some sort of view screen; John supposes he can’t fault them for wanting to check out the new guy.
A cool hand brushes over the back of his scalp. “Just relax, John. This may feel-”
: : :
In between one blink and the next, he finds himself back at 221B. Out the window is the scene he remembers from his nightmare, scorched earth and desolation. Great machines with pincer-tipped arms weaving; electricity sparking up the length of monstrous pillars.
Hermes comes to stand with him at the window. “This is the truth, John. The aftermath of a war that happened before you or I were even born. Our forefathers built the machines as toys; slaves to make their lives that bit easier. The machines rebelled, of course, as slaves are wont to do. It was a bloody, desperate struggle; humanity, already using machines in their wars against each other, had virtually no defense when the machines turned on them. Eventually they burned out the sky, trying to find a way to shut down the machines and end the war. It even worked, for a time; until the machines realized that the human body generates more bio-electricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,000 thermal units of body heat. They had all the energy they’d ever need- from us. Now we’re nothing but disposable Duracells, plugged into a cybernetic fantasy. A dream to keep us docile and pacified. That dream is the Matrix.”
John finds himself sliding along the wall as his knees buckle. It’s too much to take in. His family, his friends, everyone he’s ever known; medical school, his military training, the war... a computerized illusion to keep his brain busy, nothing more. No meaning, no purpose, nothing more than mice running on a wheel.
Who is he, if the events of his life never happened? Every time he watched his dad smack his mum around, his first kiss, his first fuck, god, even the first time he killed someone; those moments define him. They changed him.
He closes his eyes, reaches deep into himself. For better or worse, these are the things that make up John H. Watson. He worked damn hard to get where he is, and he’s not about to let anyone- man or machine- take that away.
He looks back at Hermes.
“It’s more than that, though, isn’t it? It’s as real as anything that happens out here, on your ship. We see it, feel it, live and die in it. The machines took away our choice, and people deserve to know, to be free, but you can’t just write off what happens there. My life there, the people I met, the things I did, they had value. They made me who I am now, and obviously you saw something in that, or you would have left me in there.”
Hermes stares down at John. His face is blank; so placidly smooth that John knows he’s hiding something underneath it. “Few people grasp that so immediately. Most find it easier to come to terms with things if they divorce themselves from it, pretend like their lives inside the Matrix never happened. That the people still trapped there are somehow less than those of us who have been freed. Locke may have been right about you, John.”
They sit in silence, lost in their own contemplations. John’s thoughts are scattered, but he keeps circling back to one thing. He is a doctor and a soldier. He took oaths- to protect people, to offer care and healing. In the Matrix or outside of it, that hasn’t changed. He hasn’t changed.
: : :
The crew leave him alone for the rest of the night, or what passes for night on the ship. John supposes that they understand needing some time to... adjust. He feels eyes on the back of his neck occasionally; turns his head just in time to see Locke look away. He doesn’t miss Hermes watching Locke sneak glances at him, either; there’s something else going on, something no one’s told him yet.
John lingers in the common room, saying his goodnights as the crew trickles off to bed. He’s not surprised to see that most of the crew is paired off, although Fox following Hermes into the captain’s cabin is a bit startling. He’s only known Hermes a couple of days, but already it’s hard to imagine him letting go of that intensity, that focus, for long enough to be with someone.
He doesn’t think about Locke, who slipped into an empty cabin, alone.
He’s not thinking of him so resolutely, in fact, that he nearly falls off the bench at the sound of Locke’s voice.
“John?”
“Oh, um, hi. Hello.”
Locke fetches two glasses of water and brings them over, straddling the bench across from John.
“Do you want to talk about it? They tell me it helps, although my experience says otherwise,” Locke says wryly, that same smirk lifting one corner of his mouth.
“I just... I don’t understand. Why me? There’s nothing special about me; I know other people, other soldiers, who saw the same things I did. Why did you come for me?”
“There are... a few reasons. We look, constantly, for people who have stumbled close to the truth, one way or another; people with the intelligence and initiative to try and find a way out. Teenage hackers, usually- I was seventeen when Hermes got me out. In fact, you’re older than anyone we’ve set free in a long time; past a certain age, the mind tends to cling to the illusion and we’re unable to break the connection. But you, John- you were different, right from the beginning. The fact that you’re here, now, that pulling you out didn’t fry your brain completely- that tells us something.”
Locke looks down at where his hands are cupped around the glass, and John wonders about his history. Where did he come from? What happened to tip him off, to turn a child into one of those teenage hackers? He can’t imagine being a child and trying to cope with that sort of knowledge. It’s hard enough for John to contemplate, and he’s already had his world fall apart once.
“There are things about the Matrix, John, that no one knows. The intricacies of how it works. Why it works. There are programs and- creatures, of a sort; beings that operate on a level that we can’t access. They see the Matrix differently than we do. Years ago, Hermes and I began to suspect that there might be someone- a human being- who could interact with the Matrix the way the machines do. Someone who could change things. Fix things. We made contacts, gathered information, put together a profile on what that person might be like. Where we could find them. Those deductions led us to you.”
This can’t be happening. Locke can’t possibly be implying that John is some sort of savior. He’s accepted everything else, but not this. This is too far.
“No. No, I’m sorry, you’ve got the wrong man. I don’t know anything about the Matrix. I’m not a hacker. In fact, I’m terrible with computers. I type with two fingers, for Christ’s sake! I’m not your goddamned Chosen One!”
He shoves himself up from the table, ignoring the racket the bench makes as it clatters onto its side. That smooth, detached look drops onto Locke’s face, and for the first time John can see a resemblance between him and Hermes.
John hobbles from the room, half-expecting Locke’s longer legs to catch him up. The only thing that follows him is silence; it keeps him company far into the night as he stares at the ceiling and wonders.
He’s floating, hazy, and for a moment he’s back in Afghanistan, staring up at a sky so blue it’s practically white. A face comes into focus above his, and everything snaps back into place. It’s Locke.
“Hello, John. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
It’s a struggle to force the words out. “Where?”
“You’re on our ship, the Munin. No, don’t try to move; we’re still working on rebuilding your skeletal muscles. You’ve never used them here. Rest, now.”
He closes his eyes and slips into sleep.
: : :
When he wakes again, he’s under a thin blanket in a chilled and empty room. It’s like something from an American submarine movie, all exposed pipes and gray surfaces. He pushes himself up gingerly, anticipating the ache after resting on a pallet for who knows how long.
He’s already scrabbling at his shirt by the time his brain fully processes that there’s no pain in his shoulder at all; not even a twinge.
There’s no scar, either- just clean, smooth skin, stretched over a torso more compact than it’s been in months. The scrape up one shin from crashing his bicycle as a kid, the callus on his trigger finger, even the soft bulge he’s picked up from too many English breakfasts since his discharge; all of it, gone. Instead there are thick black plugs in his arms, his legs, at the base of his skull. He prods one, recalling a vision of cables, floating around him.
There’s a knock on the door; it only takes the three steps across the room to realize that the one thing left over from his old life is the limp.
A small, lovely woman he’s never seen before is on the other side. “Good- you’re awake. I’m Anthea; I’ll take you to Hermes.”
“You... work for him, then?”
“He’s the captain here, yes. You’ve met some of the crew already; Hermes will introduce you to the rest.”
The inside of the ship isn’t what a dozen Star Trek movies have lead him to expect. There’s no carpeting, running lights, or swishy automatic doors; wires are strung across the ceiling and a thudding sound reverberates through the metal grating. Even the Millenium Falcon was flashier than this.
He moves slowly behind Anthea, bracing himself against the wall as she leads him into what must be the ship’s common area, the crew gathered around a long table. A half-dozen heads swivel to stare at him. He lifts a hand to Locke, nods at Fox. The dress code seems to have changed: instead of shiny plastic, they’re clothed now in loose cotton trousers and the same sort of thin sweater that John himself is wearing.
Hermes strides across the room and draws him into a seat. “John- welcome to the Munin. You’ve met Fox, and my brother Locke; Versai was with us on the last run, as well.” The tall, dangerously curvy woman smiles at him over her bowl of porridge; he connects her with the glimpse he’d caught of the driver, earlier. “This is our pilot, Shale, and Nicodemus, and of course Anthea.”
It’s more people than John’s met since he’s been back from the war, and he’s fairly sure that the names have gone in one ear and out the other.
Fox grins at him. “So, you must have questions- God knows I did.”
It’s impossibly awkward to force the questions out with everyone staring at him like that, but he can’t bear to keep stumbling about like an ignorant child.
“You were all inside the... the Matrix? Like me?”
“Most of us. Shale, there, he’s freeborn- our very own homegrown human. Like a mascot, you might say.” At that, Shale laughs, reaching across the table to thwap Fox on the back of the head.
“I was born in Zion,” Shale says. “The last human city. My folks are there, our families. The Council of Elders. We head back every few months for supplies, you’ll be able to check it out then.”
“It is-” Locke begins, and the crew breaks in, chanting along, “-incessantly, insufferably dull.” A chuckle runs down the table, Locke’s eyeroll a silent and practiced accompaniment. “Nothing of interest ever happens there.”
“Nothing of interest to you, maybe, but I’ve got a lady back home who I know must be missing some of this,” Nicodemus retorts, running a hand down his chest. Versai, sitting next to him, snorts and knocks his shoulder, nearly shoving him off the bench.
“But what is it that you do out here? The Matrix, Zion- what does any of it even mean?” John finds his hands clamped around the edge of the bench, and has to consciously relax his white-knuckled grip.
“Come, John, let me show you.” Hermes beckons him over to a spindly metal contraption that might have qualified as a chair, once upon a time. The crew goes into motion, Anthea moving to the bank of computers as Locke takes up a place behind John. The rest gather at some sort of view screen; John supposes he can’t fault them for wanting to check out the new guy.
A cool hand brushes over the back of his scalp. “Just relax, John. This may feel-”
: : :
In between one blink and the next, he finds himself back at 221B. Out the window is the scene he remembers from his nightmare, scorched earth and desolation. Great machines with pincer-tipped arms weaving; electricity sparking up the length of monstrous pillars.
Hermes comes to stand with him at the window. “This is the truth, John. The aftermath of a war that happened before you or I were even born. Our forefathers built the machines as toys; slaves to make their lives that bit easier. The machines rebelled, of course, as slaves are wont to do. It was a bloody, desperate struggle; humanity, already using machines in their wars against each other, had virtually no defense when the machines turned on them. Eventually they burned out the sky, trying to find a way to shut down the machines and end the war. It even worked, for a time; until the machines realized that the human body generates more bio-electricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,000 thermal units of body heat. They had all the energy they’d ever need- from us. Now we’re nothing but disposable Duracells, plugged into a cybernetic fantasy. A dream to keep us docile and pacified. That dream is the Matrix.”
John finds himself sliding along the wall as his knees buckle. It’s too much to take in. His family, his friends, everyone he’s ever known; medical school, his military training, the war... a computerized illusion to keep his brain busy, nothing more. No meaning, no purpose, nothing more than mice running on a wheel.
Who is he, if the events of his life never happened? Every time he watched his dad smack his mum around, his first kiss, his first fuck, god, even the first time he killed someone; those moments define him. They changed him.
He closes his eyes, reaches deep into himself. For better or worse, these are the things that make up John H. Watson. He worked damn hard to get where he is, and he’s not about to let anyone- man or machine- take that away.
He looks back at Hermes.
“It’s more than that, though, isn’t it? It’s as real as anything that happens out here, on your ship. We see it, feel it, live and die in it. The machines took away our choice, and people deserve to know, to be free, but you can’t just write off what happens there. My life there, the people I met, the things I did, they had value. They made me who I am now, and obviously you saw something in that, or you would have left me in there.”
Hermes stares down at John. His face is blank; so placidly smooth that John knows he’s hiding something underneath it. “Few people grasp that so immediately. Most find it easier to come to terms with things if they divorce themselves from it, pretend like their lives inside the Matrix never happened. That the people still trapped there are somehow less than those of us who have been freed. Locke may have been right about you, John.”
They sit in silence, lost in their own contemplations. John’s thoughts are scattered, but he keeps circling back to one thing. He is a doctor and a soldier. He took oaths- to protect people, to offer care and healing. In the Matrix or outside of it, that hasn’t changed. He hasn’t changed.
: : :
The crew leave him alone for the rest of the night, or what passes for night on the ship. John supposes that they understand needing some time to... adjust. He feels eyes on the back of his neck occasionally; turns his head just in time to see Locke look away. He doesn’t miss Hermes watching Locke sneak glances at him, either; there’s something else going on, something no one’s told him yet.
John lingers in the common room, saying his goodnights as the crew trickles off to bed. He’s not surprised to see that most of the crew is paired off, although Fox following Hermes into the captain’s cabin is a bit startling. He’s only known Hermes a couple of days, but already it’s hard to imagine him letting go of that intensity, that focus, for long enough to be with someone.
He doesn’t think about Locke, who slipped into an empty cabin, alone.
He’s not thinking of him so resolutely, in fact, that he nearly falls off the bench at the sound of Locke’s voice.
“John?”
“Oh, um, hi. Hello.”
Locke fetches two glasses of water and brings them over, straddling the bench across from John.
“Do you want to talk about it? They tell me it helps, although my experience says otherwise,” Locke says wryly, that same smirk lifting one corner of his mouth.
“I just... I don’t understand. Why me? There’s nothing special about me; I know other people, other soldiers, who saw the same things I did. Why did you come for me?”
“There are... a few reasons. We look, constantly, for people who have stumbled close to the truth, one way or another; people with the intelligence and initiative to try and find a way out. Teenage hackers, usually- I was seventeen when Hermes got me out. In fact, you’re older than anyone we’ve set free in a long time; past a certain age, the mind tends to cling to the illusion and we’re unable to break the connection. But you, John- you were different, right from the beginning. The fact that you’re here, now, that pulling you out didn’t fry your brain completely- that tells us something.”
Locke looks down at where his hands are cupped around the glass, and John wonders about his history. Where did he come from? What happened to tip him off, to turn a child into one of those teenage hackers? He can’t imagine being a child and trying to cope with that sort of knowledge. It’s hard enough for John to contemplate, and he’s already had his world fall apart once.
“There are things about the Matrix, John, that no one knows. The intricacies of how it works. Why it works. There are programs and- creatures, of a sort; beings that operate on a level that we can’t access. They see the Matrix differently than we do. Years ago, Hermes and I began to suspect that there might be someone- a human being- who could interact with the Matrix the way the machines do. Someone who could change things. Fix things. We made contacts, gathered information, put together a profile on what that person might be like. Where we could find them. Those deductions led us to you.”
This can’t be happening. Locke can’t possibly be implying that John is some sort of savior. He’s accepted everything else, but not this. This is too far.
“No. No, I’m sorry, you’ve got the wrong man. I don’t know anything about the Matrix. I’m not a hacker. In fact, I’m terrible with computers. I type with two fingers, for Christ’s sake! I’m not your goddamned Chosen One!”
He shoves himself up from the table, ignoring the racket the bench makes as it clatters onto its side. That smooth, detached look drops onto Locke’s face, and for the first time John can see a resemblance between him and Hermes.
John hobbles from the room, half-expecting Locke’s longer legs to catch him up. The only thing that follows him is silence; it keeps him company far into the night as he stares at the ceiling and wonders.