Link: Operator… trace program running. Let’s find our new redpill.
The Oracle: Save your knuckles. You’ll need them for other work.
The Oracle: Life’s too short. That’s not a prediction.
The Oracle: All finished out there, young lady?
Sati: Yes, Ma’am. But it’s funny.
The Oracle: What’s funny?
Sati: When I’m working, the sun doesn’t stay put. It’s jerky.
The Oracle: Guess there’s a few glitches in the system yet, since the Smith business. Nothing ever goes right. Especially not peace.
Seraph: A good jump, Morpheus.
Morpheus: Good thing you weren’t standing three feet closer.
Morpheus: Is this where he did it?
The Oracle: You might say, where I did it. You are what you eat, they say.
Morpheus: I suppose this is where you offer me a cookie.
The Oracle: I’ll make the predictions around here.
The Oracle: You’ve worked all your life for this. You found a savior, trained him, guided him, and he did the impossible. The thing you dared dream of, when so many would not, could not.
Morpheus: We thought… I thought… we could win this war or lose it. If we won, yes, millions would die in their pods, but our days and years would be spent saving those we could, and reclaiming the surface. Instead, we have peace. Neo found a way to save them all. Why won’t they give up his remains? They say they haven’t recycled them! They belong in Zion, in a holy place! He saved us… he saved them… he saved saved the Matrix!
The Oracle: Sounds like you’ve found your purpose.
Morpheus: But is it right? Will I be successful?
The Oracle: One doesn’t necessarily go with the other, does it?
Anome: It wasn’t us. You have as good a chance of finding out who killed him as we do.
Anome: They’re lying, Niobe!
Niobe: We’ll see. And we’ll see justice done.
The Sentinel Newspaper: Some say last week’s sunset was the most spectacular the city has ever seen.
Andres Bonifaciaeo: Most of us got over this solipsistic fantasy at about age fourteen, when we realized the adult world we’d be grappling with the rest of our lives was affected not a whit by our wishes. It yields only to backbreaking effort, careful planning, lucky breaks, cultivated friends, and clear-eyed analysis. These jokers seem to think you can take a highly toxic, deadly pill and avoid all that.
Andres Bonifaciaeo: I sure won’t take one of those pills. I like my mind alteration in liquid form, thank you, with labels spelling out its provenance and proof.
LeVar: This city never sleeps. I love the moonlight, which often seems slightly green to me. I call it the green world. And there are more people about than you might expect. Some very curvaceous babes, let me tell you.
LeVar: This freaked me out. I was forking up a dumpster, which I do a hundred times a day. Once it’s up, I see this guy in a trench coat, just standing there behind it. Staring at me. And he’s wearing a mask right outta that movie, Eyes Wide Shut. We just looked at each other while the dumpster emptied, then I put it down… I’ve seen him five, six times since. Never moves, always lurking around dumpsters or trash cans. I’ve shouted at him a couple of times, you know, ‘who are you?,’ but he just stands there or walks away.
Andres Bonifaciaeo: Still, down at Wally’s place, word filtered in about the mayhem. Some street creep named “Invalesco”, I’m guessing at the spelling, was using his juice to mount some kind of coup, but according to the rumors, went down hard. Maybe he shouldn’t have chosen a street handle that sounds like a credit-check firm.
Andres Bonifaciaeo: One of these “Redpill” hipsters came into the bar and shared his experience. Apparently he’d been in the fight of his life and needed time to recover. I asked him what was going on out there, and he gave me a tale full of bizarre names and creatures of the night that I couldn’t follow any better than I could a schizophrenic’s rant. I think these people live in another world.
Andres Bonifaciaeo: He’s using roman candles or something to punctuate the sermons about “we won” or “the one” or “the bun,” or whatever. Proving that an infinite number of lemmings on an infinite number of typewriters would still use punctuation, I guess.
Andres Bonifaciaeo: Even with the unusually spectacular sunsets we’re having, the city seems darker these days.
Andres Bonifaciaeo: I noticed on the way in a bunch of those “Redpill” hipsters were hanging around a phone booth near the church. Ever notice how much they love phone booths? This, even though I see them using cell phones constantly. I stopped trying to understand them after fifty or so cryptic answers to my questions. Short version: they live in a different world than we do.
Andres Bonifaciaeo: For these people, it seems like life is just a game.
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