"An exit, and…" You paused, staring at the stairway. Feeling each moment until agents arrive tick by. "Somewhere safe to lie low with a program."
"Safe not easy to come by here, I'll do my best," Vector replied. You heard furious typing on his end, and could just hear Chrysalis in the background talking about something. "Uh, the city's lighting up. There's an old safehouse but it's the opposite direction of your exit, might be safest to stay on teh move. Why can't this program stay put?"
It was obvious to you that wasn't going to work. Lexi wasn't a combatant, she had nothing like training or determination to fight. But now that you'd had time to think on it, it was unimaginable abandoning her to the Agents, just on a level of pure emotion. Your rational brain could catch up to it later.
"...Is there a way to bring a program out of the Matrix, temporarily?" you asked. You could feel everyone in the room turn and stare at you.
"Uuuh… okay, one second," Vector replied. There was a short, muffled conversation, a scratching sound and pressure in the microphone, then Chrysalis' voice came through.
"There's not
a way, but I have an idea," she replied. "Start making your way toward the exit on Huron street, I'll get it prepped. I need a minute."
"Thanks," you hung up the phone and pointed to the Librarian. "You're going to be fine with the Agents?"
"I'll tell them it was two groups of Exiles fighting each other," he said. "What about-"
"I'll be taking Lexi, I'll bring her back. We need to move, now," you said, heading downstairs quickly. The sirens were getting closer.
"Je
sus, who put her in charge?"
"Quiet, Sprite."
Lexi was still sitting when you arrived, not huddled in the corner but crouched against the desk. She froze like a deer in headlights when she saw you.
"I'm sorry, I'm out of your way, please-" she started to babble.
"Agents are coming. Your father will be staying, he's fine," you explained, approaching slowly. "But it isn't safe here for you."
You held out a hand to her.
"Come with me if you want to live."
She stared at you, trembling, but took your hand. You pulled her to her feet and started toward the back door.
---
Your escape was not difficult, though only by a narrow margin. You made your way through the thick rain to an apartment building, perhaps two blocks away. Sprite and Enigma huddled under an umbrella, which helped to conceal how both of them were leaning heavily on each other. You circled around back to a door you were assured was unlocked, stepped in through a laundry room past an old woman folding her clothes, and there on the wall was a very old payphone.
It rang, and at Engima's prompting, Sprite took it and held it to their ear. You'd not seen this happen yet, watching as they seemed to fade away, revealing to you just for a moment the artifice behind it, inside their RSI. The phone dropped loose, knocking loudly against the wall.
One of the people in the lobby turned and stared at the source of the noise as Engima hung the phone back up. He paused, then drew out and handed you his phone. The pay phone rang, he took it, and he was gone.
You flipped the cell phone open.
"What's the plan?" you asked.
"No, one fucking second, Coda. They have your phone, a fucking
Agent answered," Chrysalis exclaimed, the stress evident in her voice. "Jesus
Christ. Okay, okay. Right, so, we can't take a Program out because they need a medium to run on, and they
not set up to run on one person. We also can't store them dormant because I don't have their access codes.
You are going to be the storage medium. You okay with that?"
"Cool," you replied, not really sure how to process it.
"I'm
basically sure this is going to work, we do stuff like it all the time with Frag, but it's going to be weird. To protect the ship, you're going to be loaded straight into an isolated instance. Both of you need to pick up the phone together, okay? Pick up now."
The phone rang, and you put your hand on it and indicated for Lexi to do the same. Then you lifted and held it between the two of you, and the room fell away.
Your hand was empty. You were standing, alone, in a blank white room. Shit, it didn't work. Where am I? The Construct. What is it? The loading program used to bring new items in, why was that confusing? Why did you feel so strange?
You lifted the cell phone still gripped in your other hand.
"Chrysie? It didn't work," you said, fighting a feeling of horror rising in your chest. "I can't see her."
"... oh
shit," she replied, tapping furiously. "Uh, okay, not what I expected. Um, what was this program's name?"
"Lexi," I said. "I'm Lexi."
What? You're Coda. Alice. Alice Lovelace.
"Ooooh
boy, alright. Lexi, good, we got you… can I talk to Coda?"
"You're talking to her! What's going on!" you practically shouted, your voice echoing off the vast nothing of the Construct.
"Lexi's running on your brain, just uh… a bit more directly than we'd intended," she explained. "Fuck, I should get Page and Thrash in here, but they're busy."
"Like them?" you asked. You stared at your hands. "I'm still me." Alice, Coda, what's going on, what's happening? You don't know! How would you know?
"Okay, stay calm. I know it's weird, but this is more normal than you'd think. Page and Thrash's little switcharoo act is something they practised, it took them
years. You're going to be okay, alright?"
"Okay," you said, trying to stay calm. "Can I get, uh… a chair, something to drink, this is too much." You turned to see a well cushioned leather recliner, a table next to it with a glass of water. "And a book, maybe?" You said. Why would you read? Reading helps me relax. My father programmed me to love books.
You sat, and beside you was a shelf with several leatherbound volumes. You stared at it, feeling incredibly strange, and took the first book off the pile.
Alice in Wonderland. I've read that one, but I could read it again.
"Cute," you said into the phone. "Thank you. Chrysalis?"
"Yeah. Can you hold down the fort? We gotta get the rest of the team to their exits. I'll set the voice recognition so you can pull objects, just make sure you speak clearly."
"... I'll be alright," you replied, and you closed the phone. You stared at the water. I'd prefer a lemon tea, maybe? You could do that.
"Hey, Construct. Lemon tea," you said aloud. It was there on the table, like it had always been there. You raised it to your lips mechanically, and shivered as you drank. Like cold water running down your spine.
The hand that put the tea down didn't quite feel like yours. It felt like mine.
"Thank you, it's lovely," I said, looking around the blank white space. "My father told me that the train station looked like this. Do you prefer Alice or Coda?"
You weren't sure.
"I'll go with Alice," I said. "I don't know if talking aloud helps. I feel very strange."
You could agree with that. Holding on to your thoughts was difficult right now, they felt slippery. I'm sorry, I thought, I don't know how this works. You didn't either.
I opened the book to the cover page, but hesitated. I worried if I started reading, I would lose my train of thought, distinct from Alice. You would prefer if that didn't happen either. The feeling of confusion, of being unsure who was you, was uncomfortable.
I wondered how long we're going to have to stay here, like this. You were pretty sure it would just be an hour or two. Chrysalis would let you know.
I closed the book, setting it aside. I had so many questions.
So did you.
---
Okay, spoiler: you're going to go back into the Matrix,
Here is your Charge.
⚅⚅⚃⚂⚁
Here is a chance to use Prompt, a new move added to the game. When you ask a question about the world to somebody in the know, and they are inclined to answer, you can discard dice of any value. One die per question. The best way to prepare for a fight is to ask the enemy to lecture you, this is the Matrix after all.
So, plan vote: how many questions do you ask, and what are they?
