Splice's Story

As a yellow school bus drove away, the front door to a house was slammed, and standard greetings were given from son to mother as he ran to his room. The son sprinted upstairs and slammed his bedroom door shut, threw his books down on his bed, and went straight to the chair in front of his desk. He spun it around and plopped down in front of his computer. Just before he set his fingers down on the key board, a message popped up.

Hello, Splice. A boy named Cody sat stunned. Cody's on-line name, his code name, was Spice. At fourteen years old, he was a semi-accomplished hacker and computer repairman. The people he was talking to were very interesting. They knew things; for instance, exactly when he returned to his bedroom and readied himself to type. Their knowing exactly when he got where was really spooky. It got him every time. He stabbed the keys in response.

Hey. Back from school. He typed and waited for a response, one which spelled out on his screen key stroke by key stroke.

Yes, I know. Have you made your decision, Splice?

Yes. I want to come with you. I want to know, he stabbed in response. There was a moment pause.

You must realize that if you come with us, there will be no turning back. The life you live today will be part of your past, unable to return to it ever.

Cody stared at the blinking underscore. He would have to leave his parents. He would no longer go to school. He would be a renegade starting a new life. Did he really want to do that? He placed his fingers on the keyboard and typed.

Yes, I understand. I have nothing here. I can't even concentrate anymore. I can't do my homework, I can't even blade home without thinking about it. I feel like I have completely lost my mom. He waited for the response.

Yes. It does boil down to the question, the question that drives us. You know what that question is, don't you. Cody frowned and pondered for the countless time.

What is the Matrix?

Indeed. You know that the men you talked to on the playground can't answer, correct? Cody was momentarily surprised. He had not told them he was visited by federal agents of some kind or another dressed in yellow-lined black suits. On second thought, the surprise drained away. If they knew exactly when he got back into his room, then they probably had eyes elsewhere—but back to the question.

No, they can't. They do say that all of you are terrorists and that I can't trust you.He paused before hitting the carriage return and typed another line. How can I?There was another pause.

How can you, indeed. It is definitely up to you. You have met Neo and spoken to him. You have also met them. We offer you answers and the truth. They offer you a life of bondage. You have your reasons to leave. If you had not found me, you would have found someone else. Trust is certainly up to you. Cody paused. He was right. Cody had found them of his own will. The feds had found him and threatened him with criminal prosecution. Who to trust was not a real hard question.

I trust you. I want out of this life. I understand everything. I am ready to get away. Can you help me?

Yes. You have already begun the process. You can meet us at the left hand side of the land side of the Golden Gate Bridge. You will need to look for a white 1959 Cadillac at 021632 your watch.

Cody read and waited before typing again.

You know that I am a black belt in three martial arts and highly trained in disarming combat, correct? A physical confrontation with me will not be to your advantage. Cody sent as a warning, just in case this was a metafile of some sort. Another moment went by.

Yes, you reached black belt status in record time, you have trained with the world's best special forces in armed and unarmed combat. You are extremely proficient with bladed and blunt weapons, and you have outstanding records in marksmanship and knife throwing. Last year, you were confronted by seven gang members at once, three of them armed with firearms, two with edged weapons, and two with a baseball bat and a galvanized pipe. You disarmed and subdued them all in twelve seconds, inflicting serious but not permanent wounds on them.

Whoa, Cody thought.

We know you have the upper hand.

Again, how the did they know all of this? Another message scrolled across the screen. Will you be there?

Cody typed.

Yes. I will meet you there. Morpheus?

Yes.

Will you, Neo, and Trinity be there?

Yes. The screen scrolled. Cody blinked and hesitated. As he lifted his fingers to the keyboard, another message scrolled across.

What is your question, Splice?

Cody reached his fingers back across the board.

Will you really get me out?

Yes. But you must remember all we offer is the truth and a life of hard work. Nothing more, nothing less.

Yes, he wrote, I understand. I will be there, on the dot.

One more thing. Morpheus wrote,Keep the cell phone on you. We will call you if there is a problem. Oh, Cody, don't let your chicken salad get warm.

"Cody!" his mother called, "dinner's ready!" Cody stabbed the keys.

Okay. He cleared the screen back to his desk top of special forces river patrol boats running the rivers of South America and ran down stairs.

Sharon Tailor held the phone close to her ear as if trying to keep her son from hearing the conversation.

"Well, Agent Brown, thank you for your concern. I will have a talk with my son."

"Mrs. Tailor, we are only concerned with your son's safety," the modeled and holier than thou voice said over the line.

"Again, thank you for your concern, but I believe that my son can take care of himself. Good night, sir." She hung up the phone as her son romped down the stairs.

"Hey, Mom."

They both sat down at the table. Cody smiled when he saw there was a heap of chicken salad on his plate.

Cody was not a tall guy, but at about five foot seven. He had two piercings, on in his left ear and one in his right brow. He had trained in the martial arts and gymnastics for the last ten of his fifteen year life. That had earned him the desire of the girls, and he liked it. He use to wear a trench coat to school until trench coats started to be associated with kids ready to kill other kids in class, so he quickly shed it. Over the last year, he had learned how to hack computers, and he used that to try to find an answer to his question. For some reason, he wanted to know what the "Matrix" was. He had messed with matrices in math class, but there was another matrix out there, one he felt when he was asleep. It was weird, but that would all be over soon, the hoped.

"You want some green beans, Cody?" his mom asked.

"Thanks," he said taking them.

"What's wrong, Cody? What's going on at school?" she asked.

"What do you mean?

"You haven't been the same lately. What's wrong?"

"Noting you need to know about, Mom," he said quickly.

"I am you mother, Cody. I need to know if something is wrong with my son."

"Mom, I am a teenager. Why can't you respect that?" he asked. She pushed a green bean around on her plate.

"Federal agents have been calling about you. They say you're talking to a terrorist name 'Morheus'." she said. "Are you in some sort of trouble?" she asked. Cody paused. This was weird. No one knew he was talking to Morpheus. He was using encrypted software and bounced the signal off of a friend's computer who was bouncing his signal off Dell computer's main office line in Austin, Texas. He was using a dial-up modem that changed gateways and IP addresses every time he got on. No one could possibly track him, and as a result, no one could possibly know that he was talking to Morpheus. How was all of this happening? "Cody?" his mom asked at his blank pause. He shifted his eyes to her.

"No, mom, not that I know of."

As he laid on his made bed, he knew there was no way he could sleep. He knew it would take him twenty minutes to get to the bridge from his house on foot at a walking pace. Ten if he ran. He had two hours now. He got up and quietly got his leather trench coat out of his closet ane laid it out on his bed. He opened his desk drawer and slid the cell phone into the inner coat pocket, careful not to lose it. He got a pair of black fatigue SWAT-type pants, a black shirt, his belt, and his black jungle boots. After he buttoned up his shirt, he got the tactical vest a good martial arts friend of his handed down to him. It was a vest that held a wusashi to his back securely. The wusashi was a defensive form of the katana blade. Its blade was smaller, only twenty-four inches, small enough to conceal on your back. He looked at it before he put it on. He was going to take no chances. If someone was going to try to kidnap or kill him, he was going to take a lot of them with him. He strapped it on and slid the two foot blade into the scabbard attached upside down to his back. All he would have to do is grab the hilt from the small of his back and pop a restraining strap to be in business.

He picked up the trench coat and slid it on. He looked in the mirror. There he stood, as he was on the inside. That was how he pictured himself. Even with the coat on, one could still tell his powerful, yet not muscle-head, build. His short, black hair stood jelled up, spiked on end, his black horse shoe earring hung off his ear, a black stud in his brow, and clad to the hilt in black with a katana blade strapped to his back. He had never stood as his personality was on the inside before. He felt confident. He felt powerful. He felt ready to rock the world.

He slid on his dexterity gloves with the index fingers and thumbs cut out and unlocked his window. He slowly pulled it open and slipped through, stepping out onto the shingled roof. He quietly closed the widow and made no noise as he stepped to the edge of the first story's roof. He looked down to the ground, some ten feet down, and made a jump. He came down on his right foot and rolled in a somersault over his back and back onto his feet. Having spent his life as a gymnast, he had learned how to take a leap without any risk of injury. He ran across the yard and across the street to the shadows, away from the street lights. He checked his watch. He ran at an easy pace. While the boots made it a hell of a lot harder to run, he sucked it up and went with it. The cold night air bit at his face as he sweat under the trench coat.

Finally, he arrived at the area and silently caught his breath. He was now five minutes early. The bridge was absolutely huge. It never ceased to amazehim how big it really was. He looked around the old, abandoned industrial district for the car he was to wait for. He used some of his sneak-and-peek training he got with naval special forces and moved to a very secluded and stealthy spot. He made careful sure there were no winos or sleeping gang-bangers around. If they tried to give him trouble, things might get a little messy.

He looked at his watch, it was two sixteen in the morning. He was there. Where were they? As it neared two-sixteen and thirty seconds, the area was slowly illuminated by the headlights of a car. A white 1959 Cadillac Fleetwood pulled up and stopped. The head and tail lights turned out, and three people stepped out of the vehicle. He recognized Neo, immediately. It looked like a chick in a glossy outfit was driving. That must have been Trinity. A big, tall, black man lifted a phone to his ear and mumbled something. Cody smiled. That seemed to be his cue.

Morpheus clicked the phone closed and looked through his sunglasses at the darkened area.

"What do you see, Neo?"

"He's here. Three homeless people in the abandoned buildings. The code looks normal," Neo said with a quick survey of the area.

"Where is he?" Trinity asked as she rounded the front of the huge powerhouse of a car.

Neo looked up at the second story of an abandoned building to their ten o'clock position. He could see the code that made up the buildings. He saw the streams of it running down the walls of the structures and over every change in the surfaces. Like this, it was easy to see any inconsistencies, like the contours of a human body. He nodded his head.

"There. Building to the left, second story. He came armed." Neo watched the shape change as their contact stood, the code streaming over the contours of his body and clothing.

The other two saw a slight shift in darkness as the teenager jumped to ground level from the second story. They were all duly impressed with his stealth. He silently walked into view, only shards of light illuminating him at a time. Morpheus smiled.

"I wear my sunglasses at night," he sang as he approached. "Neo," Cody said with a nod of his head. As he closed on Morpheus, he extended his hand. "Morpheus. Good to meet you in the flesh." Morpheus let his right arm out from behind the small of his back and shook the young man's hand.

"At last, Splice. Very prompt. I like the outfit."

The kid smiled a little more and released Morpheus's hand and looked to Trinity and extended his hand, and she took his.

"Trinity? It is a pleasure and honor to meet you. I've read about you. I always knew only a lady had the balls to crack the IRS main frame," he said before he kissed her ring finger. She could not help but smile a little. He spasmed and fell to a knee with cough, squeezing her hand as if holding on for dear life.

"What the fuck?!" he grumbled as his face began to stream with neon green code.

"Agents," Neo said. Trinity snapped a hand gun off her thy and crammed it against Cody's forehead, rotating his head back.

Cody felt the cold barrel press into his forehead, but that was the last thing on his mind. It felt as if someone stuck a blender in his stomach and was swirling his guts around. As he strained against the feeling, the veins in his neck filled out and his thyroid cartilage sliced up and down in his neck as he gasped for air. He tried to figure out what to do. The feeling suddenly changed. It now felt like he was being shoved out of existence, like he were being replaced by someone else. Whatever it was, it felt like it was trying to kill him, and that royally pissed him off! He flexed his mind and fought!

Cody's frame distorted as the Agent began to take his place. His trench coat shortened, and the smooth leather finish began to flatten over into the well-fitted suit of an Agent. Trinity began pulling the trigger, and the hammer cocked back.

"Wait!" Neo said with an outstretched hand. "He's doing something."

"What?!" Trinity asked quickly. The transformation stopped, and the agent couldn't fully take form. Sections of him kept morphing back and forth from Cody to the agent. Cody's jaw muscle flared as he bent his head down, breaking the contact with Trinity's pistol barrel.

"Get the fuck out of me!" he said as his form began to retake shape. His coat unfurled over him and onto the ground as the green code rippled right off his back. He released Trinity's hand and fell back on his butt dazed and confused. "What the fuck was that?!" He looked to Morpheus, who looked equally confused. "That was an agent, wasn't it?"

Morpheus, Trinity, and Neo all looked took a half step back. That was a new one on them.

"There are more of them," Splice said as he wiped his jaw and coughed. "I saw them as it tried to take me."

"How many more?" Morpheus asked as he pulled a Beretta93NR automatic pistol out of his coat and clicked off the safety. Cody turned around to face the buildings.

"Three." Cody reached underneath his coat and grabbed the hilt of his katana and snapped off the restraining clip. Morpheus clicked the key guard down away from the cell phone's keys and hit redial. Cody could hear a voice on the other end say operator.

"Tank, we need an exit."

Cody looked out into the darkness and saw three suits walk out of the shadows, all about fifteen feet from them.

"It's him," the one on the right said.

"It's the anomaly," from the one on the left.

"Shall we still proceed?" the right said.

"Yes," from the left.

"He is still only human," said the center.

As soon as Cody saw them, he knew that they were the ones who were trying to get him or whatever they tried to do to him. He was not a happy camper. It was strange, Cody thought to himself, that all of these people were wearing sunglasses at night. And what was this stuff about only human?

Regardless, he had a score to settle with these cockbreaths. Cody broke into a full sprint, and by his third step, he was already at track-meet speed. He jumped and somersaulted in the air once as he closed the gap between him and the guys in suits. Cody flew toward the leftmost one, and straightened his legs as he came to the man, slamming his heavy jungle boots into the agent's chest. Cody bounded back off the agent and landed on his feet facing the center agent. The center agent snarled and drew what looked like a black Desert Eagle .50 caliber hand gun and brought it around to face Cody.

Instinctively, Cody closed the small gap between them and slapped the gun away to his left just before it discharged, nearly blasting out his left eardrum, but he did not notice. He continued his turn and drew his katana with his right hand. He pulled it out and raked the agent deep across the chest, turned once more and threw his boot into the bleeding man's gut. As the man impacted the ground, Cody noticed Neo had engaged the last of the agents and seemed to be fighting him with only one hand. As the cut agent came to a stop on the ground, he flared a bright green, and lightning arched across his body as he turned into an old homeless man.

"What the hell?" Cody mumbled to himself. He saw out of his left eye the agent he kicked down was recovering and readying himself for another fight. Cody picked up the Desert Eagle lying on the ground and brought it around to the agent and fired. The agent's torso seemed to phase into three or five different directions as Cody fired a round at his center of mass. Again, he was flabbergasted. Who were these people? What had be gotten himself into?!

"Let's go, now!" Morpheus said as he yanked Cody by the collar to the car. Cody ran toward the classic car and heard the cracking of uzi fire as Trinity laid suppression fire from the other side of the car. Morpheus threw the door open and leaned the seat forward. Cody jumped in the back seat, Morpheus threw the seat back, stepped in, and slamming the door. "Go." Morpheus fired a stream of bullets through the window at the agent Cody fired at. The agent again dodged the bullets in a shimmering haze.

"What the hell's going on?" Cody asked. He was thrown back in his seat as the four-hundred and twenty horses accelerated them at a phenomenal rate. "Whoa, wait, wait! What about Neo?!"

"Neo can handle himself. He will meet us back at the safe house." Morpheus turned around and looked at Cody through his mirror lense sunglasses. "You have to keep your trust in me."

Cody threw his hands up and slammed them back down into the white leather seats.

"Well, what the hell kind of choice do I have, huh?" He held his blood smeared blade out. "I just sliced and diced a homeless man who looked and packed like a federal agent! A well armed federal agent, and that other one can dodge bullets like a gotdamn computer game!"

"Yes, you did very well back there," Morpheus said.

"Yeah, well, what about Neo?" he asked as he turned around and looked to the fight and saw nothing. "What? Did they get Neo?"

"No," Morpheus rumbled, "look out your right window."

Cody looked out the window and saw nothing. Then he looked up and saw Neo flying five feet above the side of the car, long coat flapping like a dark flag in the wind as they raced along the Golden Gate Bridge at a hundred miles per hour.

"Oh, God, who are you people?" he asked as he sat back in his seat, "what the fuck is going on?"

As they stepped out of the Cadillac, Cody slid the blade back into its scabbard and straightened his coat. Cody looked Neo over from head to toe and stabbed him with his finger.

"Just making sure you're real, Superman," Cody said. Neo looked at Trinity and smiled.

"It is time, Splice," Morpheus said, folding his forearms together parallel behind his back. "Follow me." Cody followed Morpheus with Neo and Trinity taking the rear. As they climbed the stairs, no one made a noise until Morpheus spoke again.

"I bet you feel a lot like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole."

"Yeah, a rabbit hole where one side wears trench coats and the other steals people's bodies—and everyone wears sunglasses at night."

Morpheus smiled as they climbed the stairs.

"You said, Splice, that you wanted to know. You wanted to know the answers to all your questions. Like I said, all we can offer you is the truth. Tonight, you have already had a taste of that truth." Morpheus looked back over his shoulder as they hit the next landing. "Are you sure you want to see how deep the rabbit hole really goes?"

Cody shook his head.

"Well, I must say, there is no turning back now. I think my fate is taking a wild turn tonight. Looks like I am going to start the a new life with you guys."

"You have no idea," Trinity said.

"I genuinely believe you are ready, Splice. You said fate. Do you believe in fate?" Morpheus asked.

"To a degree, yes. I believe that we are hear for a reason. If we know our purpose or not, we all have one. All we have to do is find it and understand what we must do." As Cody finished, they arrived to the correct floor. Morpheus walked through a door and into what looked to use to be a dining room with a fire place in the wall. It was completely empty with the exception of a pair of old worn, red, wing-backed chairs facing each other in the middle room. Trinity closed and locked the door while Neo took up position by it. Morpheus continued his course toward the chairs and unfolded his right arm, pointing to the chair.

"Please, have a seat."

Splice did. Because the hilt of his katana was so long it hung down past his rear, he drew it out and laid it against the chair. He folded his coat beneath him and sat. Morpheus stood with his arm propped up on the back of the other chair, facing away from Cody.

"This is where I ask if you ever get the feeling that you're not awake, that you're still dreaming and you're just waiting to wake up." He turned to Cody. "And you say."

Cody squirmed in his chair.

"Yeah, like right now."

"Tonight was a little like that, was it not?" Morpheus had a seat. "The reason we are here is because of a question, a question that brought you to me. You had a glimpse of that reality." Morpheus said. Cody watched himself swallow in the large, black man's glasses.

"What is the Matrix?"

"The Matrix is all around us, Splice. It is everywhere, all the time. It is your world, and it is chair you sit in. The Matrix is a system designed to keep you under control. Those agents you saw at school and those you saw tonight, they are part of that system. They are the enforcers to make sure you don't find out what that system really is, and they would have killed you tonight. Truthfully, Splice, I have never seen anyone do what you did tonight. Once they begin to take someone, they take their body. I have never seen anyone force them away as you did. You are very special." He took a breath and held out his fists.

"Thank you," Splice said. It was all he could say. He didn't know what else to do.

"This is the fork in the road," Morpheus said, "this is your last chance." He opened his left fist, palm up revealing a blue pill. "You take the blue pill, and you wake up in your bed with your life as you knew it." He opened the right, "You take the red, you see how deep the rabbit hole really goes. Remember, there is no turning back. All I offer is the truth."

Cody looked at the two pills and pondered the rest of his existence. He thought of the two ways it could go.

"Is it a fight I will be joining?"

"Yes," Morpheus said.

"Is it the good fight?"

"Yes. It is a war against tyranny and oppression. It is a cause I am willing to die for," he said with a motion to Trinity and Neo, "that we are willing to die for."

Cody looked at them all trusted Morpheus. He did not know why, but as he was taught for all of those years in martial arts, he knew that it was time to go with his instincts. He took the red pill and threw it in his mouth. He took the glass of water and sucked it down as Morpheus looked on. Morpheus closed his hands and Cody set the glass back down.

"Let's rock."

Morpheus smiled largely and signaled Cody to rise as he did.

"Time is always against us, especially now. What you took is part of a tracing program. It will better help us find you. Come with me." They both walked through the door and into a room full of computer equipment. Neo followed them in and closed the door behind them. Cody looked over his shoulder at Neo.

"You did this?"

"Yes. It's a little funky, but it's your ticket out of here."

After Neo closed the door behind them, Morpheus signaled for Cody to sit in a chair next to a broken mirror.

"If you would, please take off your coat," Morpheus said. Cody slid his coat off and placed it in Morpheus's outstretched hand. His sleeves were rolled up with the bottoms just over the middle of his gynmast's arms. "Have a seat," Morpheus said, and Cody did. As he sat, Trinity walked over to him. She picked up a bottle of alcohol and a cotton swab.

"We need to monitor your vitals," she said as she rubbed spots just below his left bicep on the inside of his elbow and on either side of the bulge in his upper throat. She stuck padded wires on the cleaned spots and returned to her chair. He looked at down and looked around at all of the equipment. It was all very fascinating. Trinity sat at a keyboard pressing screens.

"So what specifically does the pill do to me?"

"It disrupts your input/output carrier signal so we can pinpoint your exact position," Morpheus said. Cody frowned and nodded his head.

"Alright. Sounds good. You don't have to do much looking, you know, I'm sitting right here."

Morpheus smiled.

"Indeed you are. You will see in a few minutes."

Cody looked around, back to the broken mirror. He looked at how the light reflected off the individual shards when he noticed the breaks meld back into a uniform piece. He lifted his eyebrows.

"Now, that's cool," he said to Morpheus as he pointed to the mirror. He leaned close to it and examined the mirror.

"Have you ever had a dream, Splice, that felt completely real? What would happen if you never woke up? How would you know if you were still in the dream world or the real world?"

Cody continued to examine the fixed surface of the mirror.

"Yeah. I have one of those feelings right now. I really don't know what's going on," Cody said, looking at the image of Morpheus in the mirror.

"Please, touch the mirror."

"You sure? It doesn't look very safe," Cody said. "I mean, what kind of moron would touch a mirror that just healed itself?" Trinity cracked a laugh under her breath, and Neo whispered shutup at her. Cody looked over that them with a surprised look on his face. "Did he?" he asked.

"You have to trust me," Morpheus said undistracted. "The mirror." Cody flicked his eyebrows and slowly stuck his left index finger into the mirror. The surface parted around his finger and stuck to it. As he pulled it away, it stretched.

"Oh, gross," he said as the mirror snapped away from his fingers, leaving a silver blob on his fingertips. "Now, you see," he said, holding his fingers up, pointing at them with his right index finger, "this is why I don't just stick my fingers all up and over everything."

"It's going into replication," Trinity said, staring into the flat screens. Cody looked at the silver blob as it took the shape of his fingers and began to travel down toward the palm of his hand.

"Is it supposed to be doing this?"

Morpheus pulled out his phone and clicked the spring-loaded key guard down and got his operator on the line.

"I need a signal, tank."

Cody watched the mercury-like material flow over his palm and begin to follow the contours of the muscles in his forearm.

"Alrighty, then." He looked to Neo and Trinity. "This is good, right? I need some reassurance over here."

"Yes, just chill out, Splice," Trinity said. "Everything is fine."

"Just grin and bear it, huh?" he said as the shocking cold got to him. He gritted his teeth and flexed his arm. As veins rose up off his arm in response, more contours were added to the chrome finish enveloping his arm. "Oh, God it's cold!" It flowed over his bicep and under his sleeve."

"Tank, we are going to need a signal soon," Morpheus said.

"We've got fluctuating vitals across the board," Trinity said. "We're narrowing his position."

Cody gritted his teeth as he felt it spread from his arm down onto his lat that spanned down his side and back. He was beyond words at this point. It felt like someone was slowly dipping him in unconscionably frigid water. He felt it spread up his shoulder, across his trap and up his neck.

"We've got it!" Trinity said.

"Now, Tank!"

Cody seemed to fell himself digitize in every sense of the term. He felt as if he were broken down into pixels and streamed away somewhere. The world fell away, and he was okay with it.

Cody opened his eyes to a very grotesque sight. He was under water. Under...something pink. A mess of tubes radiated from his body. He looked down and could see his body suspended in the pink fluid, like a swimming pool. It felt as if he had a straw down his throat. He tried to cough but could not. He reached with all his might and grabbed a tube coming out of his mouth and yanked it out. He felt as if he were drowning. He kicked but felt weak, as if he had been in a bed for weeks.

He reached up and felt a membrane above him, and there were sides around him. With his weakened arm, he pushed up and broke through membrane holding him in and grabbed the sides of his holder...his tank. He blinked and looked out to see the fields, the crops of humans packaged up in their own pink blobs, just like him. He felt a drill screw attachment spun around in the back of his head, forcing him to unintentionally cross his eyes. He could not make a noise, nor could he do much more than move. The pink goo he was in immediately drained him away like the water in a water park, sweeping out of his pink egg and flushing him down a tube. After bouncing off the walls, he free fell through the air and hit the water hard. He instinctively rolled himself over when he saw bubbles rolling over his eyes. He was so weak. It took everything he had, but he made it back to the surface and took a breath of air. He was utterly exhausted. Even though he was totally weakened, dazed, and confused, he fell back on his survival training. He floated on his back as his eyes rolled back into his head and fell unconscious. He heard what sounded like a spaceship around him, but he could not even open his eyes.

He later came back around, nearly blinded by the lights overhead. A female silhouette came into view. He smiled.

"Oh, look," Cody groggled, "an angel. Rock on."

"He's coming along," she said. "How long do you want to repair his muscles?"

"Long enough to bring him back the way he was in the Matrix. We don't want him to have to start over after all that work."

His eyes focused, and he saw them. Morpheus, Trinity, and Neo. They were all there, but looked different.

"Morpheus. Trinity. Am I in Heaven?"

"No, Splice," he heard Morpheus say in the same deep, authoritative voice. "Welcome to the real world."

- End -