((The intent of this story is to blend media to create a more vivid depiction of the scenes. The reader listens to the song provided while reading to gain a somewhat better picture in their mind of what is happening, as well as the general mood. This idea was originally utilized quite effectively by Midori Megami and so the credit for coming up with this idea goes to her. This is my attempt at replicating the technique. I hope you enjoy =) ))
1830 6 May
Mega City International Airport
Song: "Welcome to the Sucky" by Thomas Newman http://media.putfile.com/questions-40
He sat nervously at the bar, glancing around him at the Bluepills walking here and there, to and fro, on the floor of Mega City International airport. He never understood how a bar could be allowed in an airport. In a world where people feared terrorism and acts of violence, plenty was done to make it so easily possible. Offering alcohol to a nervous wreck before a flight seemed utterly idiotic to Austrian.
But he was not here to take a flight. He had been brought here, to this imaginary place that served as a gateway to business, pleasure or both for so many still plugged into The Matrix, to find some answers to his questions. Unfortunately, now that he was here, he was not sure what to do next. He had a rough plan but he didn’t like it. So he’d stopped at the bar for two reasons: obtain some “liquid courage” and scout out the lay of the lobby.
Two security guards stood by the door that drew his curiosity. The one marked “Security only”. His sources had provided him with photographs and files full of information on the airport. He knew the names of all the staff and he knew which were Bluepills and which were simple security programs placed to guard this strategically important location in The Simulation from the likes of Austrian. Well, not exactly the likes of him. More along the lines of the likes of most Zionites and Neonates. Austrian was quite often a friend of The System. He’d helped Mega City Police Department obtain publicly violent Zionites before. He’d fought side-by-side with Department of Energy employees to protect power lines from Pluribus Neo fanatics. He’d saved Bluepills from a Truth they were not ready for or did not wish to know. And all of that was still not enough…
He had requested an audience with an Agent many a time. He had asked, with the support of well-connected Machine sympathizers, to receive the answers to a few burning questions that gnawed at him incessantly- denying him his own personal peace while he fought for one that could be shared by all. But still they would not answer. They ignored him. They refused to tell him what Austria was, if it ever existed, where he was from, whether the German language existed before or after Humanity was forced into the pods; none of it. They denied him his answers. They denied him his identity and his home and left him alone in the cold. Why? Because he was tainted. He was an “Exile sympathizer”. For protecting those guilty of only being deemed “obsolete” by a morally challenged civilization of computers, his punishment was to be refused his request to know what he had a right to know.
And that was why he had come to the airport. He had come to find out what was on the other side of that door marked “Security only” so that when he came with guns and friends, he would be able to take his answer by force. In a little over a week, an Austrian Airlines flight would be stopping in Mega City on its way to Vienna. He intended to be on that flight, ticket or no ticket.
The problem was his conscience. He couldn’t harm a Bluepill. He even despised allowing them to see an act of violence, let alone making them a part of one. And if he thought no Bluepills would be hurt in the crossfire between the Redpills who would come to help him and the Machine Programs defending the airport, he was lying to himself. People would be hurt. Lots of people, no doubt. And it would be selfish to make them suffer just so he could find out where his memories of growing up in Graz, studying in Paris, or romancing in Varna came from. It would be the same selfishness and egoism that made him loathe so many Awakened that he was sometimes tempted to leave them to kill one another just so he could say “I told you so” to all those who thought him a mockery for speaking out against the senseless killings in Mega City.
He got up from his stool at the bar and headed for a nearby exit to the airport. There had to be another way…