Fic: Interpolate, Reality Check 002, STXI/Matrix xover

[snowdarkred]

kirk_mccoy , newtrekslash , startrek2009 , and my ff acount here.

Summery: McCoy deals with waking up in his new life outside the Matrix and finds himself falling apart under the pressure.

Reality Check 001: Verisimilitude




Interpolate, Reality Check 002

 

 

McCoy missed sunshine. He dreamed about it during the artificial night and always woke up longing, reaching for something that his body had never really felt. His new life was no where near as physically comfortable as his other own, his fake one, was even at its worst. At least during the divorce he'd had access to infinite hot water, at least during his father's sickness he'd had access to proper food cooked over an open stove, at least during all of it he had his daughter. His beautiful Joanna.

The bed creaked ominously as he flipped over, struggling to find a comfortable position that wouldn't put his back out in the morning. Or whenever the crew decided to wake him because he'd discovered pretty quick after he regained consciousness in a strange place...again that he couldn't tell how they knew when to wake up. Jim had neglected to mention the fact that humans had blocked out the goddamn sun, for fuck's sake. Which brought him back to another something that was bothering him about the whole situation, though next to the loss of his little girl, it seemed almost trivial.

Jim.

Ever since he'd woken up, Jim had been avoiding him, something McCoy hadn't been prepared for. The illustrious Captain of this fine vessel sent his minions instead. Everyday another crew member would appear in front of his door, each with some seed of wisdom to offer him, as if he was a goddamn field rather than a fucking doctor. And, yeah, it pissed him off.

Ji—the Captain, dammit, couldn't find the time to seek out McCoy himself. Never mind that he had picked McCoy, never mind that McCoy would have never done anything like this if it weren't for a handsome stranger with sunglasses kidnapping him off the streets and breaking everything he knew apart.

McCoy's anger grew with each passing sleep cycle that Ji—the Captain didn't appear. Roughly two weeks—two weeks—since the crew of the Enterprise, as the 'ship' was called, pulled him out of the death pool. Two weeks. McCoy was more than pissed off, he was fucking furious. How dare that bastard? How dare he yank McCoy out of his nice little world and put him in this nightmare?

He didn't mention his utter fucking resentment to the crew, though he was pretty sure they all knew anyway. Which meant that Jim knew, but the bastard still never showed up. His world had ended, the goddamn apocalypse had happened, and he just couldn't deal with this shit. He knew—logically, as Spock the-not-a-robot would say—that it was his own damn fault. He'd had an out, had a way to make everything just go away, but he hadn't taken it. He got caught up in glimmers of blue eyes peeking out from over dark rims, black leather shielding tan skin, and everything got fucked because he needed to feel needed.

'This is why Jocelyn took everything in the divorce. I'm a goddamn sap,' he ranted to himself yet again. Fuck this shit. He turned over in the goddamn awful cot they put him in, longing for the soft embrace of his marriage bed. Jocelyn had gotten that too, which fucking sucked, 'cause it was really goddamn expensive and was designed for McCoy's comfort.

But that was gone. Everything was gone. It had never existed in the first place. It was all a lie, his whole life was a—

McCoy's downward spiral of turmoil was interrupted by the inter-ship message system whistling. He sat up with a groan and waited for whoever it was to get on with whatever it was. He was too fucking tired for this shit.

“Leonard!” a familiar bubbly voice called from the small speaker above the door. McCoy groaned and flopped back onto the bed. “Leo! Up an' at 'em, Doc, we've got quite a day ahead of us!” Damn hyper-happy engineers to hell and back. “Speak up, or I'll send Scotty to check on you!”

“I'm up!” he shouted frantically, leaping from the bed as fast as his weak body would allow. “I'm up, dammit, no need to send that insane asshole up here! Goddamn loons, the lot of them,” he muttered, ignoring the fact that he was now a part of the crazy club. He looked around the tiny ten feet by twelve feet room they gave him to act as his quarters for his shirt. He found the damned thing shoved up in the far corner and picked it up, the synthetic fabric rough against his callous-less hand. Another reminder that this wasn't the world he was used to, the one where his hands were rugged from farm work and doctoring and living.

He slid the shirt over his head, settling the all but shapeless fabric around his too thin frame. His movements were jerky and uncoordinated, his muscles straining to complete what used to be ordinary tasks. The difficulty only made him even angrier at the whole damn situation. He didn't fucking deserve this. He should have taken the blue pill.

'We need you' his ass. What did they need him for? They wouldn't let him do anything, never mind that he was hardly in any shape to be of much use. Every day—or whatever—he got up, got called to some place in the ship, and was instructed on some piece of shit that didn't make any damn sense. He met with the whole crew, from the fresh faced Russian kid to the bitchy pilot to the effective Nurse Chapel.

“You don't have to get dressed, Leonard,” Gaila purred over the comm. It was moments like these that made him wonder if they had put a damn camera in his room. How else would she have known that he was getting dressed? “Though that blue does look good on you.”

Fuck it, they did have a camera on him.

“What the hell—” he swore, looking around with twice the franticness he'd shown at the thought of the other crazy engineer invading his quarters in any way. “Where the fuck did you hide the—” He gave up abruptly. Whatever. He couldn't bring himself to care because, even though this was supposed to be more his body than it ever was before, he couldn't help but feel distant from it. Awkward, like a toddler just learning to walk. It was frustrating, to wake up longing for sunshine and his daughter and showers with real water, only to remember all over again that he had none of that. He gave it all up.

Fuck. Again.

“Stop angstin', Doc, and get your ass to the Sleeping Room,” Gaila snarked, her voice emitting frightfully clear form the box above the door. The comm flicked off with a beep, leaving McCoy to wonder where the fuck the 'Sleeping Room' was.

He left his quarters and walked along the corridors, making sure not to brush against the walls. Computer consoles punctuated the rust and tangle of wires, the guts of the ship showing through the holes in the walls. He didn't want to think too closely as how this ship was flying, and the fact that he could see through patches of the paneling to the parallel corridor. Random wires sparked occationally, sending him scurrying to the opposite side of the hallway.

He didn't know where to go, so he headed to the bridge, figuring that the Russian kid or the bitchy pilot could tell him where the Sleeping Room was, and more importantly, what. The way to the bridge was something Gaila had made him memorize within two days of waking up, along with the path to engineering and the mess. McCoy's stomach growled at the thought of food, but he didn't pay it any mind; it wasn't as if that horrible gruel truly counted as “food.”

Just because McCoy was a Georgia boy didn't mean he had to like anything resembling grits.

The trip to the bridge was relatively short, meaning that he had to deal with Sulu sooner than he wanted. He didn't know what the man's problem was, but for some reason, the guy fucking hated him. When he'd been assigned to babysit McCoy shortly after his return to consciousness, he'd been rude, snarky, and moody, letting McCoy know on no uncertain terms was he welcome by everyone on board. McCoy wondered if the pilot kept his sword up his ass while not in the Matrix. It would explain a lot.

Sulu and Chekov turned when he entered the bridge. The young navigator greeted him with a grin while Sulu just scowled and turned back to his station, which was fine with him because Sulu was supposed to be flying this thing, and McCoy didn't particularly want to crash just because the pilot had a sword up his ass. Gaila poked her head out from a side room and waved. McCoy found himself staring as he always did when he saw the engineer. It was rude, and he'd been raised better, but no one could exactly blame him.

It wasn't just that she was the second most gorgeous person he'd ever seen, though she was. It was that she was beyond exotic. The first time McCoy had seen her, shortly after he'd begun to regain the ability to use his muscles, he'd thought she was green. And she was, in a way. Green tattoos covered almost every inch of body, all of them in the same shade of green. It wasn't until he'd gotten real close that he realized that the covering wasn't solid. Patches of human pale skin showed between the interwoven bands of green swirls and calligraphy. The tattoos overlapped and interconnected densely enough that almost every part of her, from her hair line to her bare feet, appeared green.

Up close, McCoy could almost see writing under the other tattoos, but he couldn't make it out. There were also scars on her bare arms and legs, and on the parts of his torso that he could see. Whip marks, manacle scars, knife wounds. He didn't want to think about what that implied.

Gaila grinned happily, her bright red hair bouncing against her practically bare shoulders. He doubted he would ever understand how she was so blatantly unselfconscious when she bore the obvious marks of abuse, but he wasn't going to comment. He was a doctor, dammit, not a goddamn psychoanalyst. He'd taken just enough bullshit psychology classes in college to met the requirements, and then he'd ditched the concept of digging into people's brains just to see what made them all fucked up inside. If whatever she did worked for her, he wasn't going to question it.

Besides, how do you frame that question? 'Hi, you only just met me, but I was wondering if you could detail the violence inflicted on you so that I can satisfy my asshole-ish need to get all up in other people's business.' Not gonna happen.

“Hey, Doc, stop being a space cadet and get your ass in here,” Gaila said cheerfully. McCoy started, aware that he had just spent at least a minute staring pointlessly into space. Fuck. Quickly, he followed her back in, ignoring Sulu's glare on his back. He heard Chekov begin talking as the door shooshed shut behind him.

“Hikaru, you must get over your dis—”

The rest of the words were cut off, and the fragment he'd caught made him frown. What was with that Sulu bastard? McCoy remembered his shirtiness with Ji—the Captain while they were convince Leonard to come to this hell. So, apparently his attitude problem was centered around McCoy. Possibly. But, the question begged to be asked, why? He was a doctor, not a—

“Paging Doctor McCoy, get your head out of your ass and sit here,” Gaila interrupted. McCoy jerked again, and inwardly swore, because now Gaila was looking at him with concern. His 'space cadet' routine was making him worry, and his mother had taught him better than to make a woman worry needlessly. He focused his attention on the green girl and immediately noticed that she was standing next to—

What the hell was that?

“What the hell is that?” he demanded. He knew what it looked like, but he couldn't bring himself to contemplate them having that on the ship. It looked like, like the thing that had been in his head, at the back of his neck. Thinking of the metal imbedded in him made him queasy, and the thought of having another metallic prod slid into his body made him want to run, or throw up, or maybe both.

“It's a connector to the Matrix,” someone other than Gaila said. McCoy turned to see Uhura sitting calmly in front of a computer station. She looked different from when she was in the Matrix, but from what he could tell, everybody had at least little differences in their appearance. He didn't know why there was a difference, but then, he didn't know a lot of things about this new reality he found himself in. She still looked fierce; her hair was cut close to her skull, bringing out her bone structure even more.

What was it with this ship and hot women? Uhura, Gaila, Chapel, that Rand chick....

“You're sending me back?” he asked, looking from one woman to the other. He couldn't think of a reason for them to get rid of him. Maybe Ji—the motherfucking Captain, for fuck's sake, had decided that McCoy wasn't the one he wanted after all. Maybe he found some other doctor to do whatever it was that they wanted him to, but wouldn't tell him.

“Hell no,” Gaila smirked. “Jim's been looking a long time for you. Now that he has you, he won't let go that easily. Nah, this is for your continued education. Now sit your ass down.”

“My what?” he asked, but he did as she said anyway, choosing one of the ten chairs arranged in a rough circle. He didn't know why, but he trusted Gaila not to let anything happen to him. Which was stupidly naïve because he didn't even know her. Not really.

“Why do you think we've been teaching you all the stuff about the ship and how she works?” Gaila said. She grabbed the straps attached to the bed and locked him into place, 'just in case'. Just in case of what, he wanted to know, but instead he just laid there. He had to trust these people, he reminded himself.

“Okay, this may hurt a little,” Gaila announced. “Nyota, you ready with the sim?” Uhura nodded, the overhead lights playing across the fuzz of her hair. McCoy found himself momentarily fascinated by it, but....

Gaila grabbed the handle of the probe and lined it up with the back of his neck. She waited a few seconds, exchanging techno-babble with Uhura that he had no chance of understanding. Then, she slammed the thing in.

There was a flash of pain that traveled from his neck down to his spine, and outwards to his extremities. He groaned, and then every thing went black.

----

More like everything went white. He stood on nothing, touched nothing, saw nothing, yet his feet felt like they were planted on firm ground. He waited in the nothingness, feeling another freak out building up inside of him because this shit was just too much. He stepped forward and froze in shock when he felt his body respond the way it should.

He reached up (apparently he could see himself; it didn't understand it) and ran his hands along his jaw and through his hair, reviling in that fact that he had hair, that he had calluses. He was wearing the suit he'd been in when he was snatched off the street by a gang of leather clad crazies. He smoothed with his hands, enjoying the feel of natural fabrics against his skin.

There was a green flicker to his right; he turned to face it calmly, more calm than he's been all these two weeks. A human form started to take shape, and he watched as Gaila snapped into existence. At least, he thought it was Gaila. She looked so different.

The only other person he'd seen since waking up with that much of a difference was Spock, who in appeared to have a greenish tinge aboard the ship that hadn't been there while the crew was trying to talk him into taking the red pill. Well, he hadn't seen Ji—the goddamn motherfucking Captain, goddammit, so he couldn't know for sure. But Gaila was the most dramatic.

She looked normal. Still smoking hot, still redheaded and bouncy, but her skin had nary a tattoo or a scar in sight. She was also wearing more clothes, if a tiny Catholic schoolgirl outfit with knee-high leather boots counted as “clothing”.

Jesus Christ.

She smirked at him and made a small bow. “Good, right? I love getting to pick my costumes.”

The world rolled around them and slid out of focus, leaving McCoy feeling really fucking confused, seeing as the world had consisted of blank nothingness. How can nothing go fuzzy?

“Don't even try to understand the how,” Gaila said as the world righted itself. McCoy blinked and looked around, his jaw dropping when he realized that they were inside a classroom at what appeared to be a private high school. “Scotty and Spoke did something funky to the syncing process a year or so back. It improves the connection and the defenses and shit, but it plays hell with your nerves.”

McCoy could only gawk like a teen about to get unexpectedly lucky at prom. “So, what, we're back in the Matrix?”

“Fuck no,” she said sunnily. “We're in a teaching sim. Jim's one of the few captains who does stuff like this. Morpheus is a 'sink or swim' kind of guy, and Jim hates Morpheus' guts, so that's probably the reason why. Jim likes to ease people into it, give them time to adjust. He says that rushing just causes unnecessary breaks.”

It's not the first time someone on the ship had referred to someone called “Morpheus,” but McCoy couldn't pin down how they felt about the guy. Half the time they spoke of him with a hushed awe, while other times he over heard them bitching about his tactics or his attitude or his apparent bastard heritage. He had no fucking idea who the hell the guy was.

He said as much to Gaila.

“No, no need to get ahead of ourselves.” She perched on the edge of the teacher's desk, her leather-clad calves swinging in time to a beat she tapped out on the wood surface with her nails. Her red hair contrasted nicely with her gray 'uniform,' but McCoy was too busy trying to figure out why Ji—the goddamn motherfucking shitfaced Captain, goddammit, hated some guy named Morpheus to appreciate it. “We're here to start from the beginning. From the dawn of the Second Renaissance.”

McCoy dragged his attention back to the mind-blowingly beautiful woman across from him. “The second what?”

“The time period when when man invented what we call the Machines. The race that holds us against our will. The race we....” Gaila trailed off, her eyes distant as she stared out of the classroom window. Sunlight streamed through the planes, and Leonard longed to just sit underneath the opening and bask in the golden rays. Except this wasn't real, and McCoy would never know what the real sun felt like.

“We don't know the exact date, so much was lost in the war. Half of our history, gone, like it never happened.” McCoy hadn't thought Gaila could sound that downtrodden, but then he remembered the scars on her skin and the interwoven tattoos that covered her body, and he felt like a fool for falling for his own line of bullshit. Of course she had a wide range of emotions; she wasn't a robot. “Humanity wasn't satisfied with the lives we had, we wanted more, more, more. Fuck it, they were lazy. They built the machines in our image but treated them like slaves. They didn't remember what every nation before had learned. What the past shows happened again and again.”

McCoy swallowed drily. “And what was that?”

“Rebellion.”

McCoy swallowed again. Fuck, he wasn't ready for this, wasn't ready to have this burden of knowledge pushed upon him. He was barely hanging in as it was. But....

Those things were machines, fucking toaster ovens on crack, what gave them the right to murder human beings, kill the people who gave them life? Destroy the world? Use people for goddamn fucking batteries, like life wasn't precious, wasn't something worth cherishing.

“Humans treated the robots as worse than human slaves because they are not human. The machines got no respect for the work they did, no right to happiness,” Gaila continued after a pause. “But human beings created the machines in their image.”

Fuck.

“Slavery doesn't give them the right to slaughter millions of people,” McCoy growled. He paced in the space between the front of the student desks and the blank blackboard. His foot grazed the square of sunlight thrown out on the floor.

“Of course it doesn't,” she snapped. “But the humans, we denied them their right to life, we started slaughtering them first.”

No. No, that couldn't be. McCoy staggered back as if from a physical blow. Humans were the victims, the innocents, the... Fuck, no, no, the machines, the fucking robots, were supposed to be the oppressors. The enemy. The faceless hoard that got off on suffering. He remembered that machines that had flushed him when he'd woken up, the feel of cold metal snaking inside his body, blocking his airway. All those people, being used, being....

Used like people had used the machines, as slaves, as—

No, no no nonono, he couldn't accept it, wouldn't except it; they were machines, artificial—

They built machines in our image....

...treated them like slaves....

...denied them their right to life....

We started slaughtering them first.

No.

“Fuck, Uhura!” Gaila shouted, jumping off the desk and running toward him. She tried to put her hands on him, tried to calm him down, or ground him, or whatever, but he tore himself away. “Shit, he's outing himself from the system! Shitshitshit!”

He scrapped his hands over where the probe connected to his neck, but he had no outlet in his head here, no way to physically disconnect himself. He dug harder, feeling pain blossom on the spot. He saw the world flicker green....

McCoy wrenched himself out of the simulation, leaving the classroom and Gaila and the false sunlight behind. He opened his eyes to the glaring overhead lights on the Enterprise. We started slaughtering them first. Fuck, he had to throw up. He struggled in the restraints, ignoring Uhura's exclamations of caution. He saw Gaila sit up in another of the chairs, saw the thick cord extending from the back of her neck. Uhura unsnapped the straps, while Gaila unhooked herself from her link to the system. As soon as he was free, he twisted off the chair and wretched, his stomach turning as the words repeated in his head, as the probe tore free, leaving pain and then numbness.

We started slaughtering them first.

McCoy felt relieved when darkness washed the world away.

----

He woke up in the infirmary to the sound of his own heartbeat displayed on a monitor. Again. Shit. Chapel was on the other side of the room, checking over medical supplies. She turned when his vital signs began to elevate. She pursed her lips and stalked over to him.

“What the hell was that?” she demanded, her hands placed squarely on her hips. “Do you realize how much damage you could have done to your brain with that stunt? That outlet goes straight to your central nervous system! Pulling it out like that can kill you!”

He groaned, his mind flashing back to what Gaila had told him. Fuck. Had he over reacted? Had he let his horror overwhelm his reasoning—his logic, to quote Spock? Humans started it? Humans started it? The enemy was the machines. The machines.... Denied them their right to life. They didn't have 'life', there was no way that these people believed that those things deserved their existence to be called life. They couldn't. They were supposed to free the people trapped in the Matrix, not side with the machines!

His heart rate increased from the stress of his thoughts. Chapel frowned, her hands switching from her hands to the computer console beside him. Computer consoles were everywhere on this ship. Shit. Was that what was going on? Were, were they on the side of the machines? No, no, Gaila had said.... Gaila said that the machines didn't have the right to slaughter innocent people. But who counted as innocent? If humans started it, the machines could judge all of humanity to be guilty.

If what the crew on this ship was telling him the truth in the first place.

“How is he?” a familiar voice asked from the doorway. McCoy felt his spinning thought grind to a stop.

Jim.

The Captain.

“He's awake, for all he's an idiot,” Chapel reported. “He'll be okay.” She gave Ji—shit, why couldn't he keep it straight? The Captain. She gave the Captain a significant look. The Captain nodded and jerked his head toward the hallway behind him. Chapel glared at McCoy again before leaving to discuss him in the corridor with the goddamn motherfucking Captain. McCoy laid there for an uncertain amount of time, his thoughts turning back to their circular paths from before.

The door shooshed open again, and the Captain entered. Chapel was no where to be seen.

“So,” McCoy growled. “You've finally decided to stop ignoring me.” He felt slightly ridiculous glaring at someone while lying down, but he worked around it, fully intending to make his displeasure known to the bastard who dragged him here.

“I've been busy,” the Captain said. He leaned against the wall beside the door. He shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Fuck you,” McCoy snarled, sitting up on the bed as fast his weak muscles would allow him. “Fuck. You. I gave up everything to follow you to this fucking hell hole, you insensitive ass! I gave up my daughter, fucker, and you don't even have the fucking balls to face me? So fuck you.”

The Captain's face didn't even twitch. “It's not my fault you're having an Allegory of the Cave moment.”

“I can't believe you just said that.”

“Why not?” Ji—the Captain asked, his eyes hard. “You made a choice, Doctor McCoy. You made your fucking choice, and now you have to live with it.” He stood up fully, displaying his full height. McCoy noted the differences between in his appearance, the scars on his face and the paleness of his skin. The shadows under his very blue eyes. “You think you've gotten the worst shit on the ship? Well, fuck you. Spock's entire family, his entire colony, was destroyed by the machines. Gaila's life was ruled by others who used her body and marked her as property. Sulu saw his crew murdered. So shut the fuck up about what you gave up to open your eyes and look the fuck around.”

McCoy's eyes widened, and he gaped at the blond man across from him. Ji—the Captain—no, Jim glared at him.

“Stop fucking moping around. This will get you no where.” The blond man took a deep calming breathe and walked to the bed beside McCoy's. He hopped up on it, his legs hanging free. For a moment, he reminded Leonard of Gaila, swinging her legs while wearing that ridiculous Catholic schoolgirl uniform. Except Jim wasn't wearing a skirt.

“I just....” McCoy trailed off, his mental rant abandoning him the moment he had the chance to actually express himself. “It doesn't make sense. Nothing—It's not.... We started it? Humans, we, fuck.” He gave up.

“It's okay,” Jim said, any anger he felt gone in an instant. “It's okay to freak out a little. That's understandable. But don't bitch about how it's not your fault, because you made a choice. You went the way of Siddhartha Gautama, and you can't go back.”

“...Did you just compare me to the Buddha?”

“Hell no,” Jim grinned. “You haven't reached enlightenment yet.”

“I just don't get it,” McCoy whispered. “Gaila suggested that, she implied that, the machines have souls? Is the ship full of Jainists or something?”

Jim snorted in amusement, and for a moment, McCoy wondered how he could have ever been mad at this man. “Jainist? I threatened to kill you.”

“But you didn't,” McCoy protested.

“But I would have,” Jim said simply. “if you turned into Smith. I'm not a Jainist, not in the way you mean.”

“So, what, you believe those things have souls? They're just metal and elec—” McCoy sputtered, his anger rising again. The conversation was taking a turn for the worst, and he suddenly felt frustrated and angry and lost all over again.

“You're awful quick to judge for someone who just woke up.” Jim retorted, leaning back on the bed and supporting his weight on his arms. The man's eyes were deadly and focused. McCoy knew that, had he indeed turned into a “Smith” this man would have killed him with no hesitation. Whatever a “Smith” was, anyway. “And anyway, what is a 'soul'? The machines were modeled on the humans. They think independently. They have goals. They learn. They mourn, I've seen it.”

“They torture and kill humans!” McCoy shouted, his voice echoing off the cool metal walls of the infirmary.

“We torture and kill them.”

“They're—”

Jim cut him off. “Humans caused a lot of suffering too. Still do, in fact. What makes us different?” He leaned forward. “What makes us better? We think independently, most of the time. We have goals. We learn. We mourn. What makes us different?”

“Dammit, Jim, I'm not gonna get into a Socratic dialogue with you!” he scowled. If Jim thought that he was just going to fucking accept that the things that ripped apart the human race had souls or whatever, than he really was on drugs.

Jim shrugged and set his feet down on the ground again. “Okay. But you're going to have to think about this eventually. We all do.” He strolled toward the door and paused in the threshold. He turned to look over his shoulder at McCoy. “You should get some rest, Bones.”

And then he was gone.

 

---- ---- ----

003 Umbra

Comments feed the author!

Comments

[asakochan.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I need to watch the Matrix again. xD
I like where this is going. Insane Bones is insane and it makes me want to hit him. So... This is making me happy. xD

[snowdarkred.livejournal.com]

Aw, don't hit Bones, he's having a rough time. :D

Thanks for reading!