I set my alarm, even if I didn't really need it, and counted out the money I had. It came out to be a bit more than I expected at nearly 60,000 dollars. I laughed and stripped off down to my underwear, put the money into a plastic bag, sealed of course, and added it to the toilet tank. I took a shower and banged my elbows on the shower wall four times before I felt frustrated at the enclosed space.
A small pulse came from me and the stall expanded by several feet and was now a normal sized shower. I blinked my eyes at the change, then shrugged and continued to wash myself. I left the bathroom dripping wet and grabbed a towel from the pile of clothes, dried off, and dug through the pile to pull out a pair of bright green pyjamas with dollar signs on them.
I laughed and stared at them, pretending I didn't just create them, and put them on. They were comfortable and I climbed into bed with a smile on my face. As my mind started to drift to sleep, I suddenly realized I had used some of my powers to alter my clothes without thinking, expanded the shower, and even used telepathy a few times to touch the minds of a few people.
They shouldn't have worked inside of a simulation, even if it was somehow programmed up to allow it. I didn't have access to it and shouldn't have been able to change things, at least as far as I could remember. Those thoughts kept me awake for the rest of the night as I mulled them over, and I didn't get one wink of sleep as I tried to figure out why they would or could work.
My alarm went off at the right time and I climbed out of bed. I took off my pyjamas and went to a different pile of clothing to put on the remnants of a nice suit. It was the only one I had in my possession and was under a pile to keep the thing pressed and looking sharp. A quick shower and I was dressed and out of the apartment.
I helped my landlady take out the garbage and the pretty older lady gave me a hug and thanked me for it. I couldn't help but feel her breasts press against my chest through my thin white shirt and she gave me a look that told me she knew what I was thinking.
I could do nothing but smirk at her and bent down to kiss her cheek. She laughed and pushed me away, told me to stop being so fresh, and went back inside. I walked to the bus stop and rode it to work, making it in plenty of time. My boss gave me an odd look when I passed by his office and I saluted him. He huffed and went back to work.
I went to my cubicle and loaded up the latest project. It was a government contract for software development and my section was for education development and accessibility. I quickly read over my notes on the thing and the changes needed, with options for adding new modules later, and I started typing up new code to fill in the gaps my notes said needed to be filled.
I was there for two hours as I happily typed code and kept working. At this pace, the project would be finished weeks ahead of schedule. Every update I added to the server had several people send me thank you messages and I responded in kind. If it wasn't for them doing the majority of the base code, my own work wouldn't have slotted in so well.
A short time later, I felt someone enter my area. There wasn't a ding from the elevator, so they must have come up the stairs. I paused typing the line of code, made a note of where I was and what I was doing, and turned off the monitor. I didn't want anyone not working there to see what I was working on. I turned around and faced the opening of my cubicle just as someone stepped into view.
"Mr. Anderson?" The FedEx employee asked.
"That's me." I said and he held out a large packing envelope and a clipboard. I put the envelope on the desk and signed the delivery form.
"Have a good day." The man said and walked away.
"You, too." I said and looked the envelope over. There were no markings on it by my name, so I wondered how the man had known to come here to deliver it to me.
I thought about leaving it closed and not checking it until later, then silently chuckled at forcing them to wait. The envelope was opened and I slid the contents out onto the desk. It was a flip phone, similar to the one Trinity had the night before. It rang and didn't startle me.
I hit the release button and it flipped open. "Tom here. Hit me."
The line was silent for a moment, then the deep voice spoke. "Hello, Neo." He said. "Do you know who this is?"
"Nope. Not a clue." I said and leaned back in my chair and put my feet up on my desk. "I've never heard your voice before."
The line was silent again for several moments. "My name is Morpheus."
"Morpheus!" I exclaimed. "Are you the one Trinity warned me about last night that was watching me?"
Morpheus sighed. "I feel like I should apologize on her behalf. She only meant to reassure you that she was familiar with you."
"Without my knowledge or consent. Got it." I said and he sighed again. "So, why are you calling me out of the blue now? I've been searching for you for years and suddenly I'm all interesting? Why? I didn't do anything special to gain your attention."
Morpheus was quiet for several seconds. "It's because of us they are searching for you."
"They? Who's they?" I asked, knowing who he meant.
"If you'd like to know, then stand up and have a look for yourself." Morpheus said, a little snarkily.
"Okay." I said and stood up just as the elevator dinged. I turned that way and saw two agents and several police officers step out. "Oh, shit! It's the FEDS!"
Every person in every cubicle stood up and looked over at me, as did the agents and the cops.
"This is not how I had planned this scenario out." Morpheus said in my ear.
"Sorry, mom! I gotta go. The nice and not violent police are here to take me into custody." I said and hung up, then I twisted the phone with my hands and crushed it. I dropped it into the trash can and stepped out of the cubicle as the agents reached me. "Good afternoon, gentlemen. I'll come along peacefully."
The two agents had surprised looks on their faces as I held my hands out to the officers and they clapped the handcuffs on my wrists. I was led back to the elevator and I was put at the back and stood in front of. It would be easy to kill them all from here, since my hands were in front and their guns were well within reach.
The third agent was in the lobby waiting and the three of them nodded at each other and we all went out as a group through the front doors of Metacortex Headquarters. I was loaded into the back of the traditional sedan the Feds used and we were off to the Fed building in the middle of the city.
I went through the security checkpoint easily, since I had nothing on me, and I was led into a nice interrogation room by one of the officers, then he took off the cuffs and asked if I wanted a coffee. I politely declined and sat at the table that was on an angle to the room and not near the wall, for some reason.
The three agents came in and one sat down with a thick folder and the other two stood on either side of me and didn't quite crowd me. It was a close thing, though. Menacing and intimidating was what they were going for and they would have succeeded if I was anyone else.
Agent Smith made a bit of a show of looking through my folder before flopping the pages back into order. "As you can see, we've had our eyes on you for some time now, Mr. Anderson." He paused dramatically. "It seems you have been living two lives."
I didn't openly react by nodding or shrugging.
"In one life, you are Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, you pay your taxes, and you help your landlady take out her garbage." Smith said as he looked at me through his dark sunglasses as he grimaced. "The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias Neo, and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for."
I barely held in my laugh at the neat pun of virtual crime, since we were inside the Matrix.
"One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not." Smith said with finality. "I'm going to be as forthcoming as I can be, Mr. Anderson. You're here because we need your help." He took off his sunglasses and revealed his face fully. "We know you have been contacted by a man that calls himself Morpheus."
The two agents shifted their weight and tensed up as if readying for an attack.
"Now, whatever you think you know about this man is irrelevant. He is considered by most authority figures to be the most dangerous man alive." Smith said and leaned forward and indicated the other two agents. "My colleagues believe I am wasting my time with you, Mr. Anderson. But, I believe you wish to do the right thing."
I glanced at the other two agents and they gave me interesting looks.
Smith almost looked satisfied as he sat back and pushed the thick folder aside. "We're willing to wipe the slate clean and give you a fresh start. All we're asking in return is for your cooperation in bringing a known terrorist to justice."
"You know, that sounds like a really great deal." I said and Smith smiled slightly and nodded as if agreeing with me. "I'll take it!"
The other two agents looked surprised as Smith smiled fully.
"I'd be a fool to pass up a chance to work with such professionals." I said and stood with a smile on my own face. "Thank you so much for this opportunity to make things right."
"I knew you would see reason if approached honestly, Mr. Anderson." Smith said and stood as he put his sunglasses on. "We just have to place a tracker on you and then you're free to go."
"That's all? Shouldn't I have a phone issued or something?" I asked, pretending to be confused.
"No, there's no need. Once you have this on you, we can find you anywhere." Smith said and took out a small metal case with three things in it that looked like tiny electrical beacons. "Lift up your shirt."
I did so and he picked one of them up and hit the button on the side of the thing, then he placed it against my belly button and it disappeared. "Hey, where did it go?"
"It's concealed, so don't worry about it." Smith said. "Have a good sleep, Mr. Anderson."
"Sleep? Why would I..." I stopped talking as a pulse of something washed through the room and over me. I blinked my eyes at the weird sensation and looked around, only to see I was all alone in the room and the agents had disappeared. "Yeah, not being affected by a reset is still odd."
I tucked my shirt back into my pants and left the room. Surprisingly, the door wasn't locked and I walked out of the completely empty facility. I knew I should have been shunted back to my apartment and woken up, like I should have been after the goth club and meeting Trinity last night. However, mind altering things like that didn't work on me.
Was I plugged in? Yes. Was my brain getting information directly from the machine's system? Yes again. What that meant was I was living through their alterations in real time and not the jumbled up skipped versions they intended. It was another long walk home and I entered my apartment. I changed out of my suit and put on normal clothes, then sat down at my computer.
A quick search showed me that all records of Neo and the crimes I had committed, were all gone. I had to laugh at the change happening so fast, since it was probably just a single variable that the system changed to make it all disappear. That also probably meant it could be given back just as quickly and I'd become a criminal again.
With a shrug, I pulled up the backup of my work computer and saw my program access had been temporarily suspended upon review. I laughed again and used the boss' password, that he had me set for him last month, and I undid the change. The various stages of the project populated my screen and I saw several notes and additions by the other programmers.
Now that I wasn't constrained by being at work, I flew through the last part of the program addon I had worked on that morning and added it to the upload queue. It wouldn't go through until whatever time variance the machines added for the reset came to an end and the Matrix resumed operation again. It was almost funny that I was still allowed to function with everyone else's connection briefly suspended.
I pushed that thought aside and continued to work, modifying some code, replacing other parts, and making the project jump ahead far above what everyone else would expect. I added notes to the log files to let everyone know I'd done the work after I had been arrested. I was never going to be known as a slacker, that was for sure.
I even intercepted a message sent to my boss explaining I was only brought in for questioning over another case of computer fraud and I was helping them solve it. That really made me laugh and I deleted it, because it didn't matter in the end if he knew the truth or not. They could just change his perception and he'd never know I was ever suspected of being a criminal.
I made a nice meal, even though it was fake. I could only assume the machine's system fed me regularly, since they needed everyone to stay alive. But, the quality of life was the main difference between a homeless man on the street and my boss. Take away his money and job and he'd be just as downtrodden and depressed as the homeless guy.
No, I didn't do that. I easily could, though. A few keystrokes and his life would change drastically. I wasn't that kind of person and would confront the problem head-on, to my own detriment sometimes, too.
I continued to work, just to keep my mind busy as I waited for the evening to come and for the Matrix to end the reset parameters. It did make me wonder what the outside people were doing for all this time. Were they just sitting there and watching the Matrix go through a pile of programming cycles as the machines cleaned up their own code? Or did they do something else while they waited?
My telephone rang quite loudly and I knew they must have hacked it. The normal volume didn't go that high. I walked over to the old fashioned desk phone and picked the whole thing up, flipped the little switch on the bottom, and set it back down.
I picked up the receiver and put it to my ear. "Hello, Morpheus."
"How did you know it was me?" Morpheus asked.
"No one uses my home phone. Everyone else has my cell phone number." I answered and he fell silent for a few seconds. The best part? The cell phone was beside my computer still in the box and hadn't been used, because no one ever called me.
"This line is tapped, so I must be brief." Morpheus said.
"Naw, don't worry about that. I hacked this thing years ago as soon as I moved in." I said and he fell silent again. "Did you know you can get unlimited phone coverage and never pay any fees if you whistle a certain tune and type in the 128 digit pin number that unlocks the cell company's mainframe at the same time?"
Dead silence answered me and I started humming the tune to Jeopardy's theme going into the final round, just to see if I could annoy him. It kind of worked when he let out a frustrated sigh.
"They got to you first; but, they've underestimated how important you are." Morpheus said. "If they knew what I know, you would probably be dead."
"But, if they knew what you knew, why would they ever bother with me?" I asked.
"You are The One, Neo." Morpheus said as if I hadn't asked a question. "You may have spent the last few years looking for me; but, I have spent all of my life looking for you."
"Again, that's pretty creepy and also a dick move. You should have called and ended my search years ago." I commented.
Morpheus sighed. "Do you still want to meet?"
"Sure, the goth chick from last night wouldn't give me her number, so I've got nothing better to do tonight." I replied, cheerfully. "She sure could suck like a champion, though."
"Just go to the Adam's Street Bridge." Morpheus said and hung up.
"He didn't even say goodbye." I said and put the receiver down, picked the whole phone up, and flipped the switch back. "Hmm, what should I wear to a clandestine meeting in pissing rain with lightning and thunder crashing down?"
My eyes saw my money pattern pyjamas and I laughed and shook my head. That would just piss them off for no reason. I grabbed a change of clothes and had a quick shower, dressed, and grabbed an umbrella. It was a pretty far walk to the bridge and I was sure my feet were going to get soaked along the way. It was just a feeling I had.