Part One (633 KB) - Whoa is (Not)

Neo left the mess hall and went back to his cabin. He thought he might just as well lie down, even if he
couldn’t sleep.
Back in his room, on his bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering what his life had got to.
He didn’t want to be The One, not really; didn’t want to know to that so many people were depending on
him to do something he didn’t know much about. At any moment, he felt as if something would happen
and he’d be exposed as a fraud… just like the so many potentials Morpheus had picked up before him
who had turned out to not be the real deal. Sure, so he’d defeated several agents that time when he’d
first been unplugged – something no one else before him had been able to do – and he’d sort of come
back from the dead too – but what if all that had just been flukes Improbable, but the possibility was
still there.
What had he done to deserve all this, anyway What made him so special Back then in his life in the
Matrix, he was just a normal guy – Thomas A. Anderson, employee of a respectable software company
by day, computer hacker by night. He’d spent most of his life trying to escape from it all, always feeling
that there was something else beyond the world he knew.
And now he was here, and things weren’t much better.
Sometimes he envied all those people still plugged into the Matrix, blissfully oblivious about anything
and everything that happened in the real world. They went about their normal, routine lives day after
day, year after year, completely ignorant of the fact that all around their physical selves, a huge war was
being waged between the free humans and their AI creations.
Yet Neo had the feeling that quite a few of those plugged-in people would give anything to be in his
position now. The chance to escape from all they knew just like that: no more work, no more school, no
more stress… who wouldn’t want it
The grass was always greener on the other side.
It struck him that he’d never actually seen real grass before. Down here on the Nebuchadnezzar,
travelling through the sewers, there wasn’t a single green blade to be seen. There were probably none
in the underground city of Zion either, unless some people grew plants of their own.
And it wasn’t just grass. The sky, the sun, the moon, the stars… he’d never seen them before. The
memories that he had of those things were all fake, mere shadows, mere imitations of the real thing.
Nature. Neo had never really realised it before, but that was what was most lacking in the real world.
The surface above, dotted with the last vestiges of humanity: crumbled buildings, now deserted,
scattered under the blackened sky. Somewhere above the clouds, perhaps the sun still shone… but its
rays would never penetrate far enough for green life to start again. And somewhere, the machines
waited, waited for the day when they would finally overthrow the last of their creators, the humans. The
humans who were relying on Neo to save them.
He didn’t want to think about that now. Eventually, the time would come when he’d have to, but not yet.
Not now.
Neo rolled over in bed again, mentally cursing the day’s coffee indulgence whose effects were starting
to drive him crazy. Right, he thought to himself, firmly pushing away all distractions from his mind.
Concentrate. Step one: close eyes. Step two: try to sleep. There is no caffeine…
Chapter Four
5 th November 1998, Thursday
About two years after The Frighteners
Christchurch, New Zealand
Frank Bannister surveyed his new home with satisfaction. A large haunted mansion, somewhere on the
outskirts of Christchurch, New Zealand – perfect. From behind him, the moving van trundled through
the open iron gates – set into the ivy-covered brick wall – and came to a stop on the driveway.
New home, new beginnings. No one ever needed to know about all that had happened back there in
the little Northern Californian town of Fairwater. The place held too many memories for him – most of