|
BETWEEN ZION & HELL
* 4 *
"Paige!"
/She finally found me./
"There you are!" Isabelle smiled her superior smile, outside my little room of stone and steel... gasping like she ran from one end of Zion to the other...
With a sigh, I put down the worn-and-torn little book I've enjoyed rereading so many times... and sat up in my bed...
/What was it this time?/
"What news from the young masses?" I said politely.
Plopping into the lone chair, Isabelle played with the dirty-blond strands... a little longer than my auburn curls... that dangled about her fair face and shoulders...
"I was in the Kitchen with my friends..."
/What else was new?/
"...and we overheard some kids... we think they were Lowers..."
/Hmmm, Lowers... kids from the Lower Levels.../
"OK," I said, "What about them?"
"Here's the thing," she gestured, always gesturing with her hands, "they were talking about some 'virtue chair' or something..."
/A chair of virtue?/
"...some chair," she continued, "that supposedly gives free-borns like us, a rough idea of what pod-borns experience in the Matrix!"
/Hmmm, the Matrix... the world of the pod-born Elite.../
"Really?" I said politely, not really interested.
"Yeah!" she brightened. "It's down in the Lower Levels... Hitchhiker's Shop?... Ever heard of it?"
/Another crackpot... another fad... to pass the time away.../
"Not really."
"Neither have I... but that's where it is... Wanna go?"
/Go to the Lower Levels?/
"Hmmm," I hesitated... then decided, "I don't think so."
"You sure?... My friends are going."
"Yeah, I'm sure."
"OK." For a moment, Isabelle actually seemed disappointed, until she brightened once more. "Well, if you change your mind, my friends are meeting me at my door in an hour."
/Definitely not./
"Sure," I said. "Thanks, Belle."
"Hope to see you there!" she smiled and floated out the door as quickly as she floated in.
/A virtue chair? The Matrix?... For free-borns?/
Sounded like a load of crap.
I picked up my little book and laid back in my bed.
If Juliet lived in Zion, would she go down to the Lower Levels?
/Definitely not./
Not without Romeo.
Next>>
|
|