Red was put in the cell with Peg because the brig only had four cells. There had to be thousands on this ship. Peg was impressed that a ship so large only needed four cells, but then considered this may not be the only brig.
After the guards that brought Red down left the room and sealed the door behind them, Peg looked to her friend. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
“No. They never laid hands on me. Just pointed their rifles and herded me down here. It’s like they were afraid to touch me.”
“They believe we’re machine weapons, I think.” Peg sat back. “We have to convince them we are on their side. They have tech on this ship that could turn the war in our favor. We need them as allies.”
“I am not certain of that, Peg,” Red answered. “This ship is the source of all the noise I was experiencing on the Enoch. And they have firewalls, unlike anything from within Zion or the machine network.”
“The virtua-pods,” Peg realized. “They’re broadcasting themselves wirelessly into the matrix. Their security would have to be solid.”
“Everything here is broadcasting. Defense systems. Signal-scrambling tech that makes this ship invisible to the machines. Even life support. It’s like everything is just an extension of the Grigori’s nervous system and a single brain controls it all.”
“Spectacular!” Quan quipped from the next cell over.
“I’ve never seen tech this advanced,” Red uttered.
Peg was as amazed as Quan. Obviously, the natural evolution of human technological knowledge would outpace the machines if only they had not been imprisoned and brought to the edge of extinction by their machine overlords. “These people have never been slaves to the machines.” Peg was excited. She felt like she was looking at the key to ending the war without relying on superstition and the return of the One.
“There are secrets here,” Red warned.
This gave Peg only momentary pause. “Can you access their wireless network? Can you enter the matrix through their system?”
Red closed her eyes and scanned in the back of her mind. “I believe I can.”
“Good. I want you to piggie-back on their system and follow them in. I want to see what they do in there.” Peg thinks for a second and adds, “But stay subtle. I don’t want them to take our presence there as a threat. We need these people.”
Red considered pushing back against her friend but wiped it quickly. This was an order from her captain and she knew not to cross that line with Peg. She closed her eyes and began to meditate again. Her eyes moved quickly behind her eyelids as the router implant whirred to life.
Peter approached a large set of white-painted steel double doors adorned with the Grigori’s large red sun icon. He knelt in front of them bowing his head and forming a circle by making Cs with his hands putting them together holding them above his head as an offering.
As he stood, two guards that flanked the doors stepped to the center and pull them open enough that he could step through. The doors closed behind him.
Wall sconces illuminated the room with a dull, yellow glow. The walls of the large room were smooth and clear of blemish. Embedded within the wall across from the doors was a large monitor.
The only thing other than the monitor and the wall sconces was a single padded kneeler in the center of the room facing the monitor. It was painted white and the sun logo was carved out of the vertical structure leading from the padded base to the padded elbow rest. Peter walked to it. He knelt and placed his arms in a prayer formation on the rest. He bowed his head and waited.
After a few seconds, Peter heard the sound of the monitor and the computer driving it to come on.
“Samyaza.”
The monitor blinked to life and was filled with an old man’s face. “Peter. How are my Grigori?”
“We are well.” Peter paused before continuing. “We have landed and taken on… passengers.”
“There is nothing that happens on my ship of which I am unaware. One of our them is accessing the matrix as we speak.”
Peter was alarmed and stood. “My apologies, Patriarch. I will send guards…”
“No need. She is simply observing. They see hope in us. And, they present opportunity for us.”
Peter protested. “Mighty Patriarch, I don’t understand. They are born of the machines. They are spies. Blasphemers. Their lives are a heresy against the righteousness of man.”
“Perhaps.” The soothing voice of Samyaza calmed his head priest. “Still, God provides.” Samyaza allowed silence to hang in the air before continuing. “Their captain mentioned a program they use to load into the matrix. We are aware that the machines’ agent programs operate within the system to defend against highly-armed, highly-skilled terrorists. We have assumed these were minds within the matrix subconsciously reacting to the enslavement accepted by a majority of the fetals.” Samyaza pauses. “What if, instead, they are these liberated fetals of Zion coupling their minds with skills and weapons constructs invading the system?”
Peter contemplated this. “You believe this load program enables them to do this?”
“What a wonderful weapon God will have provided if this is true.”
“How can we use a weapon forged by these abominations? Would that not be open defiance of God’s design?”
“Look around you, child. We have been made strong by the Will. The tools of the machines serve our struggle against the Enemy. God has presented us with a gloriously powerful weapon in our holy war. Bring this Pegasus to me. We must speak.”
Red walked unseen through a crowded city street. Her residual self image was tall and muscular wearing her burgundy hair braided into Viking warrior locks. Around her was a mist of untranslatable, foreign code similar to but slightly different from the code of the matrix.
As the minds within the matrix passed through her apparitional form, Red focused her thoughts and looked at the strange new code. She had piggie-backed a broadcast into the matrix and was positive she was seeing the residual signal from whomever she followed. The code wafted through the “air” like a cartoon aroma and she decided to follow it.
Unlike the hard-line loads from Zion ships, this wireless load was unfocussed. She was used to targeting secret entrances programmed into the code with predetermined locations outside busy traffic patterns. This disorienting upload dropped her into an alley just off a busy sidewalk in a city center at the peak of evening traffic. After inspecting her surroundings, she realized she was in Chicago.
She followed the code trail deeper into a club district and to a club she knew was a frequent spot for inner-matrix meetings between ships. Slipping through the door, she followed the code until she saw its source.
A familiar man stood sipping a drink at the bar. It was the nurse she had watched speaking with the doctor in the medical bay. He was out of place wearing the white scrubs of the Grigori. His eyes hinted at a near-panic beneath the surface. He stared intently across the club. When Red followed his gaze, she immediately recognized crew members from at least three different ships seated together in a booth talking and oblivious of their stalker.
A woman, equally out of place in the same white scrubs in a loud club full of scantily-clad partiers, slid to the bar next to the nurse and ordered a soda.
“Easy, Marcus,” she said to the nurse. “You’ll burn a hole in them staring like that.”
“Look at them,” he answered. “Completely enthralled with themselves and unaware of the comings and goings around them. And they’re so obvious, too. How have we never recognized them before?”
“Now that we know who they are, they are very easy to spot. It speaks a lot of the machine mind that they miss the obvious.”
“Perhaps the machines know that these abominations are no real threat. Or, perhaps their terrorism is encouraged by the machines to keep the rest of their unholy creatures docile and compliant. They are, after all, the machines’ creations.” Marcus seethed as he sipped again from his drink. “Maybe the machines need their rebellion to maintain this world.”
“Maybe,” says the woman. “But the machines won’t be a factor much longer.” Both Marcus and Red turned to the woman.
“What do you mean?” he quizzed placing his glass on the bar and signaling for another.
“Word is spreading. The Patriarch’s plan to end the matrix and deliver the planet is finally becoming possible. Zion is the key.” She motions toward the crews meeting before taking a deep gulp of soda and speaking again. “How are your patients?”
“They are taken care of as ordered.”
“Good. I would recommend you disconnect and do nothing to upset Samyaza’s plans. The matrix will soon burn in the fire of a thousand suns and be cast into a grand winter of judgment that rids the real of the machinery plague returning it to the hands of the Holy and the righteous return of man’s domination.”
She finished her drink and left the club. Red remained with Marcus and tried to process what she had said.
Peter and an armed guard entered the brig and approached Peg’s and Red’s cell door.
“Is she alright?” Peter asked looking at Red.
“Sleeping,” Peg lied. “She has always had trouble sleeping laying down.” Peg stood and approached the door. “I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot here. I think our peoples can help one another.”
Peter held up a hand to stop her. “I was hasty in my reaction. You and your people are unlike anything I have ever known. My first duty is to the protection of my people.”
Peter motioned to the guard who quickly unlocked Peg’s cell door. “Our Patriarch agrees with you and would like to speak.”
Peg slid past the guard and looked up into Peter’s amber eyes. “And my crew?”
“Safe,” Peter assured her. “They have to remain here until Samyaza approves their release.”
Peg considered for a split second and realized she understood that order. “Hold tight, guys. This alliance will make both Zion and the Grigori stronger and we’ll be home before you know it.”
Pegasus followed Peter out of the brig and up several flights of stairs before coming to the large double doors with the red sun icon. Before entering, he turned to her. “Samyaza is very old and very wise. He has been guiding us since the beginning.” His gaze seemed to plead with her for reverence as the two sentries next to the door moved to pull them open. Peter stepped through the doors and ushered her in.
“Wait,” Peg realized as she entered. “You said the Grigori was thirty generations old. There’s no way…”
“Greetings, Captain Pegasus.” The voice boomed from the monitor across the room as Samyaza’s face lit the screen. She could see his every deep wrinkle cutting through his face on the high-resolution screen. Still, six hundred years is an impossible age. “Thank you, Peter,” Samyaza spoke before Peter nodded to Peg and backed out of the room ensuring the doors were closed behind him.
“Today,” Samyaza continued before Peg could speak, “has been a very interesting day for us all, has it not?”
“It has,” Peg responded inspecting the view screen. There was no discernable background to try to place this Samyaza’s location. Then, “I thought we would be meeting face-to-face. That all of the Grigori lived on this ship.”
Samyaza chuckled. “We do. And we are.”
Peg looked confused.
“My apologies. Allow me to explain.” As he spoke, the wall surrounding the monitor slid open slowly. “I am very old. When it was time for my body to die, my people worried for their future. The machines were becoming sentient and our world was on the cusp of spinning out of control. The technology was there to save my soul, but not my husk.”
Once the wall had slid away, the monitor was revealed to be the oversized face of a mechanical suit that stepped from its cubby into the room to face Pegasus. She could see a brain suspended in liquid behind glass wired into the center of the body. Her breath caught in her chest. “What are you?”
“I am Samyaza. Or, at least, him at more than six hundred years old.” The machine man was careful not to move too close to Peg so as not to seem threatening. “My people needed me, so I gave up Heaven to remain with them. And God has blessed us ever since.”
“Do the Grigori know?”
“A select few. Most look to Peter for daily leadership, but they know that I am with them always.” The face of the old man on the monitor was soft and kind despite his cold, mechanical body. “I understand that Zion is led by a very old guide, no?
Immediately, Peg recalls the smiling face of the Oracle.
“We have heard rumors of this Oracle during our time within the matrix, but have never been so fortunate as to have met her.” Samyaza parked his body across the room from Peg and continued. “Is she the one who teaches you how to fight within the matrix? The one who arms you in your rebellion?”
Peg recognized the innocent curiosity behind the old man’s LED eyes and was disarmed. “No. She is more of a guide. We typically pick up our fighting and survival skills through the construct program. Somewhere we can go to import those skills into our memory mastering them.”
Samyaza guffawed gleefully. “So, if you want to become a master chef or artisan, you simply load the skills into your mind and, poof, there you go!”
“I suppose,” Peg chuckled at the old man’s excitement. “However, baking isn’t very effective in the struggle against the machines. We typically learn fighting, weapons, and survival skills. Things that will keep us alive long enough to free others.”
“And such a noble mission it is to release your people from bondage. The construct program also gives you access to weaponry?”
“No. The matrix is too complex. We can’t mirror that code. We use a load program as a sort of lobby before we launch into the matrix. That load program allows us to outfit and equip our digital avatars.”
“Wonderful,” Samyaza responded mesmerized. “Any weapon you can think of, and you walk into the matrix ready to battle. And, how many machines have you destroyed?”
Peg looked to the floor. “The weapons are generally used to defend ourselves if we’re backed into a corner. The agent programs within the matrix are very hard to kill. Impossible. Our goal is to identify those we can free from the matrix and bring them to Zion.”
“The overseers are never easy to kill,” Samyaza comforted her.
“But your people made quick work of those sentinels. I am very impressed with your ship.”
“Thank you. This ship has served us well. It is amazing what our minds and hands can accomplish when we are not separated from the Divine. And the machines will serve us again. As soon as we bring them to their knees and return mankind to his place of Earthly dominion.
“You see, we do not believe technology itself to be evil,” he pre-empted Peg’s questions. “But man lost his way and longed to be gods, not to serve Him. In their ambition and lacking divine foresight, they created an intelligence far more destructive than they could contain. It has decimated the world. But, together I feel that we could turn this war and retake this world for humanity.”
Peg smiled. “I’m not sure about technology not being evil, but I agree with you. An alliance between our people would be the machines’ worst nightmare. If every ship of Zion was outfitted with just one of those electromagnetic cannons, we could take the fight straight to the machine source and lay waste to those… those demons.”
The bloodlust neared the surface. Samyaza seemed to study her face behind his thin smile for a while before speaking again. “Wonderful. We are in agreement.” The metal man stood and made his way back to his behind-wall nook.
“My crew,” Peg blurted.
Samyaza turns back toward her with his warmest old-man smile. “Of course. I will have Peter order their release.” As the walls closed around him, he continued. “I will have to ask that you all remain on board this ship for the time being. We have been steadily working to repair the damage to your ship. Once it is repaired, we will work out the details for the Grigori’s meeting with Zion.”
Peg nodded in agreement as the doors behind her opened.
“Peter,” Samyaza said. “Please make sure Pegasus’ people are released. With the gruel they have been eating, I’m sure they would enjoy a fresh meal prepared in our galley.”
Peg focused hard on not letting her smile falter as the weight of that statement sent a cold chill up her spine. His people were not only repairing the Enoch; they were investigating it enough to have been in their supplement supply.
“Absolutely, Patriarch.” Peter nodded to one of the guards who stepped forward.
“With me, ma’am,” the guard grunted. Peg followed him toward the brig.
Peter remained in Samyaza’s chamber.
“Praise the Almighty,” Samyaza crooned. “I knew their load program was powerful. God has delivered unto us the weapon I believed he would. Have the teams search their computers and bring it to me.”