Birth of a Legend

-----I don't know the real name of this hero of The Matrix, if he has one, so I am giving him an arbitrary name. Just so you'd know.-----

Mr. M rolled over, and got out of bed. As he had fallen asleep right after work, he noticed he was still wearing the day before's clothes. Oh well. His other clothes were all much worse than this.
"Same ol', same ol'," he muttered, turning on the TV. Something was on about a carjacking. Division Six agents had apparently "handled" the situation.
He adjusted his stone-washed jeans, and looked at himself in the cracked, human-sized mirror that was attached to the wall of the bad Motel 6. He sighed. Back to the beat, he thought.
He walked out. It was cold and rainy, like it usually was recently, and some cars splashed him indifferently with side-of-the-road puddle water. He fixed his hat and went on.
Soon he met Bob, Frank, and Ted at the truck, at their meeting spot in front of the Bob Evans. It was where they had left it--off the road, tires slightly embedded in the mud. They were all black, as he was, and were all the victims of unjust racial discrimination. They greeted him.
"Hey, guys."
Ted slapped Jack (Mr. M) on the back, hard. "How ya doin', Jack? You tell me now."
"Same old thing, Ted." Jack laughed.
Frank offered Jack a Ball Park...well, frank. Jack was ravenously hungry, and accepted it. He devoured it in several seconds.
Bob honked the horn, scaring Jack (as usual). "Hey, Jack! We got ourselves another job!" He had to shout over the motor. The car/pickup truck was a junker. The metal scaffold held a rusty metal "Little Giant" ladder on the left side, as well as an improvised crane/drill found by junkyard search, eBay, and lucky finds and/or gifts, also rusty. Various implements lay in the truck bed and on the scaffold. The truck itself was yellow, and was marked (in black lettering) Brothers' Various Services. Various bumper stickers and graffiti marked the truck.
"Septic tank rupture?"
"I wish. Car repair."
"This'll be just fun."
They piled in the car, Bob finishing what was left of a McDonald's Fish Filet, and drove off.

The two smartly-dressed people in the black Audi watch intently as the foursome drives off.
"Operator."
"I think I see him."
"Who?"
"The one that will find deliverance. The one the Oracle spoke to me of."
"You mean the One?"
"No, no...But the one who will find him."
The Operator sighs. "Look, K, I don't know what to believe about this, and you know what I think about that."
"Z.D...."
"Oh, come on, K."
A pause. Then, K says:
"What if I'm right?"
No one speaks.
The words continue to ring in the Operator's head.
What if I'm right?
What if I'm right?
What if I'm right?
What if I'm right?
What if I'm right?
What if I'm right?
What if I'm right?
What if I'm right?
What if I'm right...
-------------------------------CONTINUED-------------------------------

The sun set, and it started to rain.
The four men stopped off at a Steak 'n' Shake. They were followed by the Audi. Jack sat in the back seat, singing along to the Elvis CD inside the player. The Audi lost them on the highway, so they jacked out of the Matrix. They didn't need to worry. They had time.

"You keep saying that he's the 'One' you're going to find, K. Frankly, I don't give a--"
"Unless the next word is 'care,' shut up. Morpheus is not the One; he will merely find him. The Oracle told me."
"'The Oracle' this, 'the Oracle' that, 'the Oracle' told me to jump off a cliff like all the other lemmings living in Zion!"
Pause. "Oh, shut up! The Oracle is never wrong. And anyway, the lemmings don't do that normally. They were just abused by the movie crew--"
"Take your...your...Oracle...and shove it where Zion can't help it! In the Machine world!"
"The Oracle is in the Machine world."
"What?!"
"Yes...from a point of view."
"Look, that is enough! I don't know what happened in there, but the Oracle whacked your head up! Is that even you in there? Did she lobotomize you and put this insane, suicidal robot in there?"
"I am who I am. I am me."
"You see! That's what I'm talking about!"
"I can't change the facts, Z.D."
Z.D. sighs. "Very well. You've got delusions, and I can't seem to supress them. I don't care how old you are, or how respected you are in Zion. I hope you get elected to the Council. Maybe then we won't have to suffer anymore."
K spoke in a hushed, stern tone. "You believe what you want to believe. I believe what I want to believe. I can't force you to change, just as you can't force me to change. But I know that when I find who I'm looking for, I'll set off a chain reaction of events and they cannot be altered once they start. Do you understand?"
Z.D. is silent for a minute. "Well," he said finally, "Just be sure to remember your Noisy Cricket."
----------------------------------CONTINUED-----------------------------

LMFAO @ Noisy Cricket reference...
Interesting...this has promise...sounds like a "Finding Morpheus" story. I like it so far!

Niiice story starter. Are the men wearing black?

Jack gazed up at the clouds, as was his usual custom during the day (or when the stars weren't out).
He wondered like he'd always had: That this reality didn't seem real, and he wanted to know what was.
Tonight, a car pulled up by his Motel 6. A man asked to see him. Since he was from the real world, and not the Matrix, he had all the information he needed, and the clerk waved him and his partner in.
The door knocked.
"Come in?"
The door opened. A figure stepped in. He appeared to be in his late 40s or early 50s, and has slightly grayed hair.
He spoke. "Hello. My name is K. You must be Jack." He shook his hand. "Nice to meet you."
"You--know my name," Jack said. "Did you get a referral?"
K smiled, admiring how Jack put business as his way of meeting people. "Does that really matter? Come, we have much to discuss."
They got in the black Audi. K drove them to the coast.
"Did you ever feel as if this world is not real...just an illusion?"
Jack was shocked. "Well...yes, I have...but what does that have to do with our serv--"
"Nothing. But I can free you of an illusion, and take you down the rabbit hole."
Jack was puzzled, and showed it.
"You know--from Alice in Wonderland?"
"Oh."
They got out and sat on a bench next to a fence on a pier.
"You want out?"
"What's out?"
"Freedom. Not having to know how each day's fake."
"You say that each day is fake. What do you mean?"
K explained about the Matrix. He told Jack that he knew wrong. He told Jack about the benefits.
"What's the catch?"
K sighed. "The catch is it's a little bit rougher. No one but us will know you exist, except as an illusion, a figment, or an untraceable, mysterious man."
Jack stared.
"I'll give you till sunrise to think about it. Meet me...here." He handed Jack a business card with an address and name scribbled on it. K got up to leave.
K had walked a short way when Jack turned and said, "Hey!"
K turned.
Jack continued. "Is it worth it?"
K said, "Yeah!" and walked away. He stopped and turned again, and said, "If you're strong enough."
Jack sat on the bench till well after sundown, looking at the lights of the buildings across the channel that led into the sea. He gazed at the stars, and wondered something different tonight: Not why the world didn't seem real, but whether he should leave it.

(Words by a friend:)
Where have all my feelings gone
why have they left my shell
why have all my feelings gone
to leave me in this hell
when did all my feelings leave
the time I let them go
to whom have all my feelings gone
I really wish I'd know

"And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks long into you."
-Friedrich Nietzche

K dialed Z.D.
"I think we got him."
Z.D. said, "I hope you know what you're doing."
K replied, "So do I."

----------------------------CONTINUED------------------------------
End of line.

-Snoopy

Is this MIB or Matrix? It's interesting how you tie the two together, though.

Jack went to the address shown on the business card.
It was a tall building; white marble, but it looked like it hadn't been used in ages.
He opened the door. A large chamber with two fans in it was behind it. A man reading a tabloid talking about an "Interview with the Rebels" greeted him.
"'Sup, Homes?" Jack said.
He entered an elevator. K greeted him.
"So you've decided to leave this façade?"
"Sure." A pause. "Tell me what's real."
The elevator dinged.
"Step out here."
The doors opened.
There was a cavernous, empty room, empty save for a few people, a chair, a mirror, and a computer/telephone setup.
"This is your last chance, Jack."
"For what?"
"To choose your destiny." He held out two pills--a red, and a blue. "Take the red pill, you go down the rabbit hole, and find out what you're missing. You take the blue pill, and you wake up tomorrow, and you'll not remember anything." Jack reached out. "Remember...I can only show you the door. You must open it."
Jack took the red pill. He swallowed it. K led him down to the chair.
K explained the pill. "The red pill was a tracking program designed to find where you are in the Machines' power cells. When we do, you will be transported out of the Matrix and into the real world."
The mirror suddenly appeared cracked...How had it done that? Before Jack's eyes it reformed, smooth and untarnished. Jack reached out and touched it. It rippled, and his hands were being covered by some spreading silver liquid; in fact, it spread farther up his arm.
"This...the Matrix...?"
"Yes, Jack."
"Got him," one of the women at the telephone said. "Positive lock."
"Oh...and one more thing. You need a name. 'Jack' just seems so..."
"Tacky," said one of the other men.
"Hmm...How about...the dream guy from legend...what was his name? M...M..." The silver had spread to almost his entire body.
"Now! Dial him out!" said the other man.
"MORPHEUS!" he said.
"Just as the Oracle foretold."
Just like that, Morpheus was free of the Matrix.
--------------------------------CONTINUED-------------------------------
End of line.

-Snoopy