REAL WORLD: PART THREE Homeward Bound ... - Whoa is (Not)

10:31 pm
Room 31-02A, Lone Pine Hotel
It felt good to be home, Marty thought as he lay in bed. Well, maybe he wasn’t technically at home yet, but
he was at least in the correct universe and correct town. It was just like another one of the many time
travelling adventures he’d gone on with Doc. He was on familiar ground once more, and the feeling was a
comforting one.
Tomorrow he’d be home again, if all went well – which he hoped it would. Home… Keith and all that Back to
the Future stuff seemed so far away. He missed Frank, but even he might have never happened. The past
few days felt sort of surreal; memories that were already starting to fade with time.
Doc had fallen asleep, and was snoring slightly on his bed. Next to him on the extra bed, Verne rolled over,
murmured something, and was silent again.
For the first time in a long while, Marty felt safe.
He’d be home tomorrow.
Chapter Twelve
9 th November 2030, Monday
12:27 a.m.
Room 31-02B, Lone Pine Hotel
Hill Valley, California
“I don’t want to go back,” Neo said quietly to no one in particular as he lay in the darkness.
In the other bed, Ted rolled over to face him. “What”
Silence for a while. Through the walls came the sound of someone flushing the toilet in some other room.
“I want to stay here,” Neo continued. “I don’t want to go back underground. I’ll never see the sun again if I
go back. I never saw it before, not really, until Keith took me…”
Ted sincerely hoped that Neo wasn’t going to start angsting away. The teen had enough problems of his
own at the moment, the largest of which at present was the song ‘So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish’
running in his head.
“But don’t you want to go home, dude”
“It doesn’t feel like home,” came the barely audible reply.
Ted tried to ignore the sound of dolphins singing their final farewell song in his head. “Then what does”
Neo hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said after a while.
Your world’s about to be destroyed; there’s no point getting all annoyed… “Where were you born”
“In a computer simulation,” Neo replied distantly. “It’s called the Matrix.”
“Whoa,” Ted remarked. “Sounds like some movie.” Lie back and watch your planet dissolve around you…
“It is,” came the dry reply.
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry, dude.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“People say Keanu Reeves can’t act,” Neo said. “So what’s that make us… less than human”