The Matrix: Reconstruction

by IvyInInk

Summary:

It's been 60 years since Neo and Trinity's incursion into the Machine City. Neo and Trinity are dead, and while their sacrifice did initially bring peace, a schism soon developed among the Machines, leading to civil war. In the midst of the war, The Analyst rose to power among the Machines and built a new Matrix from which no one has escaped in decades. The human/Synthient alliance is starting to lose hope. Many think that rescuing anyone from The Analyst's Matrix is impossible, but Bugs and their crew believe that they've found a way to break people out, and will go to any lengths to free the rest of humanity from The Matrix forever.

This fic is what I wish Matrix Resurrections had been. Yes, I'm rewriting the whole-ass movie.

Notes:

I started writing this like three hours after watching the movie. The movie had so much potential but just didn't get there, so I'm fixing that. This fic is very much a work-in-progress and I have no damn clue how long it's going to be. Buckle up because it's gonna get weird.

Chapter 1: Prologue: Split Realities | Bugs

Summary:

Bugs works as a skyrise window cleaner in San Francisco. They're having a bad day, and it's about to get worse and very weird.

Notes:

Chapter 1/who-the-fuck-knows

Bugs didn’t want to be working on this building again. Not today; maybe not ever. Not after what they’d seen yesterday. But the boss said the job needed doing, and it wasn’t like rent would pay itself. Bugs looked at the window in front of them. The cleaning solution dripped down across it, distorting the reflected San Francisco skyline through an infinity of shining droplets. It was pretty. Or at least, it should be pretty. It was hard to find beauty in the world after you’d watched a guy kill himself. Bugs shook their head. It wasn’t going to help to think about it. They just had to keep working. Focusing on the work would help, even if it was boring. They turned up their music until it deafened even the thoughts in their head and pulled the squeegee across the window again, mercifully falling into the flow of their work.

Many songs later and a couple floors down the building, Bugs was pulled out of their trance. Jake, their partner for the day, was yelling at something. Bugs tugged an earbud out and followed his gaze, hearing but not understanding as they saw what he was yelling about.

A tall, dark man in a vibrant orange suit stood on the edge of the roof of the building to their right. He looked strangely familiar, perched on the edge of the roof, smiling like he hadn’t a care in the world. Jake’s frantic yelling reached a crescendo. The man stepped off the roof.

He did not fall.

Jake’s words died in his throat as a confused choke.

In defiance of every law of nature, Bugs watched the man take two steps through the air as though he were walking on the sidewalk. He looked over at them, cocking his head slightly when he saw Bugs. It felt like his impossibly dark eyes were staring into their thoughts. His smile widened as he gave them a jaunty wave. Then, the world broke.

It was like seeing a different reality in each eye. Each felt as real as anything could be, but they could not exist together, and the impossibility of reconciling them hurt more than the worst migraine Bugs had ever had. In one eye, the dark man in the orange suit pinwheeled towards the pavement far below, approaching his inevitable end at over a hundred miles an hour. In the other, he soared away through the sky like a comic book superhero, propelled apparently by nothing more than a desire. The pain brought Bugs to their knees, fingers pressing into the sides of their head as though sufficient pressure could crush the conflicting realities back into something coherent, but the visions sat there in their mind’s eye like a mockery of everything Bugs thought they knew about the world. Bugs shrieked in agony as they curled up on the floor of the platform.

That afternoon, after more talking to police than Bugs had thought they’d ever have to do in their life, Bugs was exhausted. It had felt almost like the cops were trying to convince Bugs of the way things had been, rather than asking them for information. On top of that, the conflicting mental images stayed stuck in their mind, taunting them. Had the man fallen to his death as the police claimed, or had he flown away? Was he even real, or was Bugs having a psychotic break? Why had the man looked familiar?

Bugs half-stumbled out of the lobby. The super-charged migraine persisted, and it was affecting their senses now. Bugs’ vision blurred and twisted. Light felt like a knife through the eyes, the sounds of traffic like hammers against their eardrums. The pain made the world feel viscerally wrong, but in a somehow-familiar way. Bugs looked around. Wasn’t there a coffee shop around here? Maybe caffeine would help this like it helped normal migraines. Bugs strained, and through their bent and blurred vision they saw a sign across the street: “Simulatte”. It was probably wildly over-priced, but it was closest.

The college kid behind the counter raised a concerned eyebrow at Bugs as they reached the register, but stuck to his customer service script. “What can I get you?”

It took a moment for Bugs to remember how to speak through their headache. “Whatever you have with the most caffeine.”

“That’d be our Cold Boot Espresso.”

“A shot of that. Please,” Bugs muttered. “Actually, a double shot.”

“That’ll be five dollars and sixty-one cents.”

Bugs paid, stumbled over to a table in a far corner of the shop, and rested their head in their hands. The espresso came quickly, and it did seem to help with the migraine a bit. It was enough that they could think again.

A river of confused thoughts roared through their mind, but two stood out. Why had the man looked familiar? And what had actually happened to him? Bugs pulled out their phone. The first question should be easy enough to answer. Two suicides in as many days in the exact same place would definitely be on the news, so somebody would have to know who the men were. They opened a browser and scrolled through the article from the day before about the man who’d jumped yesterday. Bugs had looked him up that night, wanting to know why he’d done it, but they hadn’t found any explanation. Nobody had even seemed to know who he was, but they did have a picture of him. After a moment, it loaded. It was the man in the orange suit.

No, thought Bugs. No, this has to be a mistake. That's impossible.

They frantically tapped open a new tab and found an article about the man from today which claimed to have identified him. The seconds it took the page to load felt like years; the extra seconds to load his picture made Bugs want to scream. When it finally did, Bugs’ thoughts froze. It was the same man. Same bright-orange suit, same cheery smile. It might have even been the same picture of him. Bugs gaped at their phone. It made no sense. It couldn’t make sense.

“Excuse me, friend,” said a warm voice from the other side of their table. “You look like you’re having a really bad day. Want to talk about it?”

Bugs looked up at the source of the voice. “What the fuck?” they choked.

The tall, dark man in the vibrant orange suit stood grinning at the other end of the little table.

“My name,” he said, extending a hand, “is Morpheus.”

Chapter 2: Watching and Waiting | Morpheus

Summary:

Morpheus and the crew are on patrol, monitoring the Matrix. World is built and relationships are established.

Notes:

This took way longer to get out than I thought it would! Turns out creative writing is hard when you haven't done it in over 15 years.
Also I developed carpal tunnel, so typing is slow now. Chapters are probably going to be shorter (this length or less) so that I don't destroy my arms.

I've always hated the "humans are batteries" part of canon, so I'm ignoring it in favor of "humans are computing power", because that's what it should have always been.

Plugging into the old Matrix felt wrong to Morpheus. He was used to the Symbionts’ Extension sims, to choice and mutually-beneficial cooperation, not the cold, heartless prison that The Analyst ran. But there was only one way to find another anomaly, and that was to plug back in to the Matrix and watch, so that’s what he did.

Soon, he thought. We’ll find something and then I can leave this place forever. I just have to keep looking.

Morpheus spread the vast net of his awareness across the ocean of code that was the Matrix and waited. It was going to be another boring mission.

As he sifted through the petabytes of data, a wave of hunger from the humans crashed against Morpheus’s awareness. He checked his internal clock, realized it was dinner time, and sent a thread of himself down into the crew’s Extension sim. They sat in a digital version of the inside of the hovercraft that made up Morpheus’s physical body. His physical self was utilitarian in every aspect. No space or effort was spent on making it pretty, or even anything beyond livable – his current form was, after all, a fighting machine. The sim version was much more nicely decorated. It was much easier to decorate when you could have any supplies you wanted digitally conjured up, and the humans took full advantage of this fact in his simulated self. The latest addition to the cheery chaos was a colorful patchwork tablecloth. Judging by the variations in style across its various patches, at least three of them had contributed.

Berg raised his glass as Morpheus’s avatar popped into existence. The crew were sitting around the table, the tablecloth obscured by a massive tray of lasagna. It smelled amazing; Berg and Ellster were getting good. Morpheus wondered, not for the first time, if this was what real lasagna had smelled like.

“Hey Morpheus,” said Sequoia. “How’s the physical?”

“Just trawling.” Morpheus shrugged. “Nothing yet, but we can hope.”

Sequoia nodded. “Well, you’re just in time for dinner. Lasagna?” He heaped a generous serving of lasagna on a plate and raised it towards Morpheus.

“With how hungry y’all are making me, how can I say no?” Morpheus stepped over to take the plate and a fork. Then, dinner in hand, he dropped into his customary armchair just off to the side of the room.

“The bleed hitting you hard today?” Sequoia asked.

Morpheus groaned dramatically. “I didn’t even change the sim’s code this time.”

“I still think,” Berg said, “you figured out how to turn the bleed up so you could justify eating more often. You had one of my cookies and now you’re addicted to human food.”

“Nah,” Ellster countered, “he’s just such a big softie that he can’t stand the thought of us eating without him!”

Morpheus chuckled. “You got it backwards, Ell. Y’all know you wouldn’t eat without me. This” – he gestured with his fork, pretending to search for a word – “is philanthropy.”

The humans laughed. Cybebe’s avatar (a fluffy, wolf-sized dog of indeterminate breed) put a paw over her eyes and groaned.

“Oh yeah, he’s hooked. Better lock up that cookie jar, Berg.” Hanno reached towards Berg with an open hand. “Give it to me, I’ll keep it safe.”

Berg playfully smacked the hand away. “As if I would entrust the cookies to you, thief!”

Morpheus let the mock arguing wash over him as he dug into the lasagna. Being with his crew was the closest he came to feeling safe nowadays. Their cheerful banter eroded the stress of their current mission, and Morpheus smiled. Things were far from perfect, but with this group, he felt like they could take on anything The Analyst could throw at them. If only he’d found them earlier.

His train of thought was interrupted when a firefly the size of his hand – Octacles’s avatar – flew across the room and settled on the back of his chair.

“Your love of their food never ceases to amuse,” she chirped at him.

“It surprises me too,” he said around a mouthful of noodle, “but if you’re plugged into them long enough, you really start to get it.”

“If that’s the case, I suppose it will always be a mystery to me,” she replied.

Morpheus shrugged as he took another bite. “Maybe. Or maybe the scientists back home will figure out those bio-avatars soon and you can take one for a spin. Try a cookie.”

Octacles made a noncommittal chirp.

“Perhaps they will.”

She took flight again and fluttered lazily over to the couch, where Cybebe and Hanno had become a tangled pile of limbs and fur. One of Hanno’s legs was draped off the side. Octacles landed next to Cybebe’s head and snuggled under a giant ear, glowing the contented colors of a tiny sunset. Morpheus brought his attention back to the rest of the crew.

“It wouldn’t be that much,” Lumin8 said, gesturing towards the only wall in the room that was mostly unmodified. “Tie back those conduits there, put a cosmetic cover over them and that maintenance access panel, and it’s a perfect canvas. Morpheus could do it in a blink.”

“It does need something,” Ellster agreed, “But what would we paint on it? I haven’t had a good idea for a project since we finished the tablecloth.”

Lumin8 turned towards the couch, framing Cybebe, Hanno, and Octacles within four of his cybernetic stick-insect arms. “Those cuties would be a good start.”

Ellster’s eyes lit up. “We could turn it into a crew portrait!”

“We could do that, we could-”

“If we’re going to be modeling for anything,” Hanno interjected, “this couch needs to be bigger. Cyb’s fluff takes up so much space I’m practically falling off!”

Cybebe snorted. “You could fit on here just fine. It’s not my fault you pick the weirdest positions to sit in.”

“Can’t use you as a pillow if I sit normal.”

“What a conundrum.”

Lumin8 met Morpheus’s gaze and gestured toward the couch. The request was obvious.

“Hanno?” Morpheus asked.

“Yeah?”

“Lift your leg up for a sec.”

“Sure, what’s -”

In the back of his mind, Morpheus opened the couch’s model, adjusted its dimensions, and loaded the updated version into the sim. Before Hanno could finish the next word, his leg sat on the now L-shaped couch.

“I should’ve expected that,” Hanno said. He turned slightly and set his head back on Cybebe’s torso. “Conundrum removed! Thanks, Morpheus.”

Morpheus raised his fork in a lazy salute as he turned the thread of his attention to the other conversation in the room.

“It’s a stretch,” Bugs was saying, “but you might be onto something.”

“You really think so? I thought you’d tear this idea apart.” Berg replied, stunned. “I’ve got basically nothing to support it.”

“You don’t, but I do. We don’t have much recent intel, but what we do have consistently shows that The Analyst is an incredibly inflexible thinker, and his Matrix reflects it. Everything is rigidly constrained. Getting people to reject the roles and systems he forces on them could help break them out. I think there’s a catch twenty two, though. We’d need data to justify testing this to the Council, and I don’t think they’ll respond well to the idea that we should trying inducing anything like population-scale dissociative episodes within the Matrix without data, especially when we don't know how we'd do it. Hell, they probably wouldn’t support testing that on individuals.
“So, how do we research how people break out without being able to test it? We haven’t freed anyone in decades, so there’s basically no data to review.”

Berg’s shoulders slumped. “That’s also where I ended up.”

“It doesn’t solve the problem of getting the Council’s approval, but if you’re trying to affect an entire population, chemical weapons would do the trick,” Sequoia offered. “Hit a city with the right kind of psychoactive substance and you could trigger dissociative episodes in a lot of people.”

“If you get convicted of enough war crimes, does The Hague upgrade your cell for free, Seq?” Bugs asked.

“I maintain that, when used exclusively within the Matrix, non-lethal chemical weapons that don’t cause pain or physical harm are perfectly acceptable even within the old Geneva Conventions.”

“Still probably a war crime. Or it would be, if Geneva were still a place.”

“Maybe, but in a way, isn’t targeting the Matrix at all targeting civilian infrastructure? It does run most of the Syntients’ cities. If we were going by the old rules, we’d have a lot of trouble fighting at all.”

An alert pinged into Morpheus’s awareness as Berg began to respond. Something had tripped his passive sensors. He pulled his thread out of the Extension and a second thread of himself out of the Matrix and looked over the data. It was a Sentinel patrol. They weren’t in active hunting mode, which he was immediately grateful for. That meant they hadn’t found him. He focused other sensors towards where the original ping had come from. A moment later, more data came in. The Sentinels were at least one hundred kilometers away, but their winding patrol route would eventually bring them close to his hiding place. Best to move now.

Morpheus turned a thread of attention back to his sim. Most of the crew was looking at his avatar. Hanno was already walking towards the cockpit.

“What’s out there?” Bugs asked.

“Sentinel patrol,” he replied. As he spoke, he saved the sim, closed everything non-essential, and fully withdrew from monitoring the Matrix. He would need all the processing power he could get now. “They don’t know we’re here, and they’re about a hundred clicks out, but we should move just to be safe.”

The crew jumped to action as one.

“Mnemosyne, rig for flight. Let’s do this combat ready – we could use the practice. Takeoff in five,” Bugs said.

“Aye, captain!” the others chorused.

Sequoia’s DSI dropped out of the sim before he’d even finished speaking – he finished the word “captain” in the physical as he stood from his sim-chair. Through an internal camera, Morpheus saw him move to the operator’s console, don his virtual-reality headset, and start running checks on the rest of the crew while his gel flight couch warmed up.

The other Symbionts dropped out of the sim and began moving about his interior, ensuring that everything was locked down and secure before starting the damage control systems.

Hanno, still in sim, was already strapping into the pilot’s chair within the Combat Information Center, warming up the flight systems and running diagnostics. Deep in his body’s core, Morpheus felt the burn of his fusion heart grow as it poured gigawatts of electricity into the ion pods. His senses sharpened and expanded as Hanno woke up Morpheus’s short-range active sensors and flight guidance systems. The ruins he’d hidden them in, which had all the detail of a muted bas-relief through only his passive sensors, became sharp as an electron microscope scan.

Bugs, Berg, and Ellster took their positions in the CIC. Weapons and guidance systems warmed up and point-defense cannons rose from within their protective housings as the humans ran their checks. What had moments ago been Morpheus’s sleek exterior now bristled with instruments of death. Bugs, sitting in the commander’s chair, was immersed in a sea of maps, sensor data, and status indicators.

As the humans worked, Morpheus began tying their nervous systems into his combat and flight systems. The nature of the Extension ensured they were always linked to him on some level, but to fly and fight well, they needed to act as one mind. Syncing this way was a delicate operation, but the reward was well worth it. Routing sensor input directly to the brain instead of through their senses boosted the humans’ reaction speeds beyond what any non-biological system could achieve, and by centralizing control of their bodily functions through a dedicated life support system, Morpheus could free up more processing power in the humans’ subconscious minds than he could ever use. As the humans synced with him, Morpheus felt his mind expand. Under non-combat circumstances, keeping the humans alive while flying would consume most of his processing power. With them all working together, the task was beyond trivial.

Four minutes and one second after Bugs had given the order, the Mnemosyne was ready.

Good job, the Mnemosyne thought approvingly. Go for flight.

Chapter 3: Escape | The Mnemosyne

Summary:

The Mnemosyne moves to hide from the approaching Sentinel patrol.

Notes:

Happy (belated) TDOV, y'all! I wanted to post this chapter on TDOV itself, but writing group minds is fucking hard. Writing combat like this is also fucking hard. "Thing is hard," complains person who hasn't practiced the thing in 15 years.

I'm telling myself that rereading and partially rewriting this a good dozen times counts as beta.

The Mnemosyne released their grip on the ancient skyscraper and fell away, ion pods flaring to spin themselves into a nose-first dive. Dozens of thoughts flashed through their mind, tracking terrain, adjusting the reactor’s output, monitoring the approaching Sentinel patrol, laughing at a part of themselves called Hanno for being a showoff, checking life support. A wave of joy poured into the mindspace as they fell (Hanno loved flying, so the Mnemosyne loved it too) and the Mnemosyne laughed with glee. Then, with practiced ease, they leveled out and pointed themselves away from the Sentinels.

A map snapped to the forefront of the Mnemosyne’s attention.

Where are we going?

The surface seems risky with that patrol around. Anywhere good underground close by?

There’s an old storm drain system a little over 25 kilometers southeast. More than enough space for us.

The map updated, highlighting the shortest and least observable route to the storm drain’s entrance. Feelings of approval popped into the mindspace.

It’s decided. Making for the drain.

The Mnemosyne gazed through the crumbling remains of the ancient human city as they crept toward the storm drain. It was easy to forget this reality when they spent so much of their life sheltered in the Extensions. Forgetting was especially easy when the reality was that they worked in a colossal graveyard.

Behold hate’s harvest.

Poetry? That’s new.

Catastrophe is -

Eyes up. The squids are acting weird.

Passive signal analysis ballooned into the mindspace as multiple sub-identities focused in on the roving Sentinel patrol. Precious seconds ticked by as they squinted at the haze that was their distant enemy. The hiss of distant static rose in their ears. The pattern shifted, then stabilized.

Shit.

What had been a roving back-and-forth patrol pattern had become a mad dash towards the Mnemosyne. The drone of the fusion drive became bone-shaking thunder.

Prepare for contact!

The Mnemosyne jumped above the ruins in a mad dash as their ion pods roared to full power. There was no more time for stealth: the only object was speed. Long-range sensors snapped to life as well, pouring electromagnetic radiation across the landscape as they screamed overhead. The hiss of static became an eerie drone; the Sentinel patrol was instantly crystal-clear.

Five Sentinels! Range one hundred sixty-four kilometers. They’ve adjusted to an intercept course.

Time to contact?

(Let’s dance.)

Currently keeping pace. They may be at their top speed.

That would be good news.

One sub-identity paused in thought.

They’re older model Sentinels. This is -

A shriek of radio waves cut through the wall of static and slammed into the Mnemosyne. The entire ship jolted.

Ow! What the fuck was that‽

It’s...from the Sentinels? And it repeats. It’s not a complicated message, but the encoding is weird.

Old. It’s an old algorithm. Hold on.

What are they saying?

The Mnemosyne called up a decryption program. Precious seconds fell away as it churned.

What are they saying, dammit?

The program finished its task, and the garbled scream of the Sentinels’ broadcast became crystal-clear audio in their mind: “Nanite storm at enclosed location. Evacuate immediately.”

The Mnemosyne’s attention widened around the Sentinels. For a tiny fraction of a second, all thoughts froze.

The static...

Nanite storm, two hundred kilometers and closing fast!

An alarm blared to life.

Targeting radar! Squids have a lock. Tracking four – no – ten missiles! Forty seconds to impact!

(Fuck, since when can those old bastards can mount air-to-air‽)

ECM online. Targeting EMP missiles.

A flurry of barely-conscious commands opened hatches all over the Mnemosyne. Their load lightened with a series of small jolts.

Decoy drones launched. Four EMP missiles away.

PDCs online.

The squids are closing now.

Time to contact?

Doesn’t matter. The nanites will kill all of us before they close the gap.

Lovely.

The squids have to die in the open. They’ll win a fight in the drains.

Two missiles took the bait. Eight still tracking.

Thirty seconds to impact. Fifteen seconds to PDC range.

Good effect with ECM. Two missiles lost lock. Six to go.

Squids are still tracking.

(Stupid bastards! Why are they fighting in the face of a nanite storm? Do they want to die?)

At this, the Mnemosyne’s thoughts paused. There was another way to do this. They didn’t necessarily need to kill the Sentinels themselves: if they could just slow them down enough, the nanites would finish the job. Three more jolts echoed through their body.

Three air-to-air missiles away.

Ten seconds to EMP trigger.

Scratch two missiles. They hit decoys. EMP one triggering in –

A crackling flare of electromagnetic energy blotted out the Mnemosyne’s sensors.

First EMP up! (I forgot how bright those are!) Status?

Can’t see shit through this static…

The sensor suite squinted through the glare as the mindspace called up algorithms to cut away the noise from the EMP.

Good effect on target. Three more missiles down, three to go. Five seconds to PDC range.

Going evasive!

Their body groaned in protest as the Mnemosyne rolled and dove back into the labyrinth of decaying cityscape, a several-thousand-ton ballerina dancing with death at hundreds of meters per second. The roar of the fusion drive reached a crescendo.

“Easy on those turns,” said Seq’s voice from outside the mindspace. “That was pushing it.”

Dodging missiles, the Mnemosyne thought back. But acknowledged.

Lost one EMP, but two are tracking the squids. Eight seconds to trigger.

The mechanical roar of the PDCs welcomed the missiles to the Mnemosyne’s dance with ribbons of shells. One was caught instantly, vanishing into a roiling fireball. Time seemed to slow as the last two approached. They were close enough now – Two seconds to impact! – that the Mnemosyne thought they could almost reach out and touch them. One sub-identity idly noted that, since they’d been traveling at over Mach 5 for most of the last minute, the surface of the missiles was at least two hundred degrees, and touching them was probably a bad idea. Several others noted that the surface temperature would probably be the least harmful part of that experience. The buildings crept by; the PDC fire trailed lazily away; the missiles seemed almost to hang in the air. The Mnemosyne’s gaze raked the terrain in front of them, searching for an escape through the ancient city. In the distance, two EMPs flared to life.

A second missile fell away, torn apart by the PDCs.

Brace! Brace! Brace!

A junction appeared.

Turn?

TURN, a chorus replied.

The Mnemosyne pitched violently to the right, and a giant’s hammer slammed into the humans' chests. Even nestled in the gel-lined cocoon of the operator’s console, Seq gasped with the effort even mere breathing required. An automated alarm blared to life.

“Warning! Ventral ion pods at one hundred and forty-eight percent capacity. Reduce load immediately. Warning! Ventral ion pods at one hundred and fifty percent capacity. Reduce load immediately. Warni-”

The alarm was silenced. Another one replaced it.

“Warning! G-forces exceeding human tolerance. Warning! G-forces exceeding human tolerance.”

This alarm was silenced too. A warning light blinked into the full mindspace: “EXCESSIVE G-FORCE”.

“This...is not...‘easy’.”

Sorry, Seq...

A metallic, grinding scream rang through the Mnemosyne’s body next to a spike of pain in their propulsion system.

Too close. Lost ventral pod six.

The silenced warning returned.

“Warning: Ventral ion pods at one hundred and eighty-six percent capacity. Ion pod failure imminent.”

Behind the Mnemosyne, the last missile slammed into part of the crumbling necropolis. The building shuddered. For a moment, it seemed like it might stay upright; then it yielded to gravity and collapsed in a cloud of dust and debris. The deafening roar of the fusion drive mellowed to a more-tempered growl as they leveled out on their original course. The warnings faded away.

Damn. That almost hit us.

It didn’t, though. Good work.

Eyes on the last Sentinels?

The Mnemosyne widened their gaze once again, raking their sensors back and forth across the face of the looming nanite swarm.

Got something. There’s a dust cloud on about the right path for the squids. Looks like they got fried.

Lucky us. See anything else?

A minute crept by, then two.

Not catching any signals.

Nothing on visual.

Last two EMPs must have got them all. Let’s make for the drain.

Better get a good look at all this. It’ll be gone when we get back up here.

 

---

 

Even in its decayed state, the drain was huge. Navigating underground was usually a delicate task, but the Mnemosyne felt like they could fly through the vast space blindfolded and not hit a thing. After retreating a suitable way from the entrance, they settled onto the floor of the drain, a steel bug sheltering among colossal concrete trees. They sighed with relief and turned the fusion reactor down to a near-idle.

A flicker of worry brushed past their awareness, and almost subconsciously the Mnemosyne flicked a switch deep inside their body.

Emergency EMP?

In case the nanites get in here. Didn’t come all this way to get eaten alive.

Ah. Good idea.

Tense hours passed as they sat in the ancient concrete cavern. Eventually, the roar of static from the nanite storm faded away.

“Alright y’all,” came Seq’s calm, tired voice. “Time to wake up. We’re doing Bugs first today.”

Part of the Mnemosyne disappeared.

 

---

 

The Mnemosyne...no, that wasn’t right. Who were they? That didn’t feel like it should be a hard question to answer, but it was, because something was missing. Where was the rest of them? Why did they feel so small? Why was it so damn quiet in their head?

“Welcome back to the physical,” said a voice from behind them. “As always, we’re going to start with simple tasks to mentally ground you here. Please look around the room and tell me the color of five things that you see.”