Matrix Reloaded

When she woke up, Shannon was laying on a rather comfortable mattress. Like, a feather bed, silky sort of thing – just the right mix between soft and firm to make her want to go back to sleep. But the ceiling wasn’t like her room, the smell wasn’t her house, and the cold – the biting cold that was creeping into her bones and making her shiver violently – wasn’t like the warm she was used to in her bed.

She flew to a sitting position, looking around wildly. The room was mostly white and devoid of any homey touches. Sink, cupboard space, counter space, bed, table, chairs, and a toilet, all blending against the walls and floor and ceiling so everything looked the exact same, like nothing was there at all. A white illusion, or a white lie; Shannon wasn’t sure which. There were no windows or doors that she could see. The light that was offered wasn’t the natural light that came from the window-walls like at her house, but instead came from flat squares connected to the ceiling. LEDs, the lights from years ago that would never pass a Human Health Inspector’s test these days.

Upon first glance, she thought she was alone and something like ice seeped into her mind. But a small cough made her ears prick and her eyes focus on a tiny pair of mostly-blind old eyes staring at her from across the tiny space, only a step or three away. She was an old woman, extremely small and fragile, with wrinkles and lines covering every inch of her old woman face. Her eyelids drooped over her white-blue eyes and her entire body seemed to sag and hunch over, like she was carrying some immense weight on her shoulders. Her hair was as white as the room around her long, weary, gaunt face; and wispy and thin, like the clouds Shannon remembered from when she was very little, before the Orbs were necessary.

“Welcome,” the old woman said. Her voice was as thin as her wispy hair. Shannon ran her dry tongue over her cracked lips.

“Where am I?” she croaked.

“Have something to drink, dear,” the old woman replied, motioning with one long, skeletal finger connected to a long, willowy hand and arm to the white cupboard over the white sink.

“Where am I?” Shannon repeated more forcefully. The old woman’s eyes bored into Shannon’s until the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

“You know,” the woman said.

“Prison?” Shannon questioned. Her voice was a high-pitched, nervous kind of whisper.

“See, you know.”

Shannon let out a cry and buried her face in the white mattress beneath her. How could this have happened? She never did anything illegal. Not yet, at least. With her position, she was perfectly entitled to be where she was. So how?

“This is a mistake!” Shannon cried in frustration, pounding her fist on the mattress.

“The government doesn’t make mistakes,” the old woman said.

“Like you know!” Shannon screamed. “How can you say that? You’re sitting in here too!”

“There is no mistake. They put you in here for a reason. They put me in here for a reason. We may not know what that reason is, but it’s still there,” the woman said, her voice never changing pitch. “The government believes it is always right.”

“Even when it’s not,” Shannon said bitterly.

“Even when it’s not,” the woman agreed. Shannon looked at her again, studying her aged features. She looked like the kind of person who could play Third Person Omniscient in a novel; all knowing and all seeing. Like the audience for a play; watching, completely enraptured, and knowing what the antagonist is planning, but instead of clueing in the protagonist, just sitting back and enjoying the dramatic irony.

“Who are you?” Shannon asked.

“Helen Gloria Cassidy” the woman replied in her wispy, thin voice. Shannon thought perhaps Helen Gloria Cassidy forgot how to show emotions. The younger woman wondered for a second when the last time this fragile old lady had any human contact.

“Helen Gloria Cassidy?” Shannon asked. She had heard that name before somewhere. “Helen Glor-“ she paused, impossible realization dawning on her. “H. G. Cassidy?”

“Those would be my initials, yes.”

“No, I mean, H. G. Cassidy. The author of Your Revolution is a Joke, the first ever government-banned book,” Shannon said, and then shook her head. “No, that’s impossible. That was banned at least a hundred years ago. Which means it was written before that too. You’d have to be around a hundred thirty or forty years old.”

“About that, yes.”

“What? That’s impossible!” Shannon said. “You were killed. I mean, she was killed. H. G. Cassidy was killed at a protest. She tried to kill someone; some government guy or something.”

“Is that so? I always wondered what they said happened to me,” she said, a crooked smile creeping across her crooked lips. “I remember that protest too. It was right after they banned my book, in 2140. They gathered copies from all across the US and intended to burn them, but some of my loyal fans and I staged a protest. I was arrested and brought here, where I stayed without trial or conviction for probably fifty or more years – that’s why I look so old – and then I stopped getting older. I’ve been like this since – how long did you say? A hundred years? My assumption is they used me to test some kind of vitamin that is intended to stop the aging process.” This subject was familiar to Shannon. She remembered that tiny, scrawling writing from Duck’s research journals.

“Not necessarily to stop it; just to pause it,” Shannon said. “Lady Minerva wanted it; I read that in a log book. She wants to be young forever. But it has some bad effects. I suppose they didn’t realize, because you’re so old, but the vitamin makes people infertile. Well, maybe just women, I’m not sure. But the Lady was pissed when she found out she couldn’t have any more children.”
“So she did have kids already?”

“Just one; a daughter, Lady Honey. But she wanted a son, you know? An heir. Now she has to rely on Lady Honey to give her a grandson. But of course Lady Honey wants to be forever young too-“

“Like mother, like daughter. You know what this means, my dear, don’t you?” Cassidy asked. Shannon paused for a long time, and then fear gripped her insides again. She was the next test subject. They needed a young body, a body like Lady Honey’s, to test on. That’s why she was here… Cause she knew too much and they needed to get rid of her. But why not make her useful before she was disposed of?

“My fiancée will… Guy will…” Shannon whispered, but couldn’t finish the sentence. Who would she be kidding? Guy wouldn’t come save her. He was Guy, he was the Every Man; the loyal government follower. “Oh, God…” And she once again buried her head in the mattress and cried.