The Not-Particularly-Excellent Adventures of the Keanu-Spawn
Written by Anakin McFly
Night. A shortage of actual beds meant that a few of them had taken to making do at various spots in the supply-cum-common room. Kevin Lomax hogged the room's only sofa and adamantly refused to share, glaring at anyone who came within a metre of him.
The same group of four huddled in a corner behind the bookshelf engaged in their quiet game of cards. From somewhere near the floor on the other side of the room came the sound of muffled homesick sobs.
Only one light had been left on, just above the table in the kitchenette area where not-Tim sat. The card players were too engrossed in their game to pay attention to him. They did not see as he dropped his head down into his hands, long sleeves slipping a little to reveal a wrist tag that read: 206/964/REE.
In the safety of the night, he could drop the act a while and have the nervous breakdown that had been long coming.
Although he's only here because he asked to come. He could have been far away in the real world now, never getting the chance to see what it was like in here; heck, all he had to do was ask one of the staff, and he could get a free teleport out right now.
But he couldn't just leave the rest of them to die. He felt responsible for everyone on the fourth floor. They wouldn’t have been here in the first place if not for him.
Not that they suspected anything; he was just the somewhat drunk guy who for some reason knew them all by name without being told. Stranger things happened in Kenselton Hotel.
Not-Tim raised his head from his hands and gazed at the group of four playing cards, only to be besieged again almost at once by a feeling of extreme self-consciousness.
He felt terribly alone.
Keanu reached for another bottle of rum and tried not to think about it.
#
The door opened, and Alex Wyler walked in in search of a drink of water. He glanced briefly at not-Tim, head on the table either asleep or passed out from too much rum, and grabbed a glass off the shelf before going to fill it at the water cooler.
The cornflakes guy was curled up peacefully under the table, fast asleep and nuzzled against not-Tim's legs.
Alex heard the crying from the other end of the room. Finishing his drink, he walked over and paused before the trembling form of a teenager on the floor, his back to him.
"You okay?"
The crying abruptly stopped and was replaced by an angry silence. Lying on the carpet, Ron Petrie swallowed and tried to reclaim some of his dignity.
"Go away," he said, glaring at the wall and not turning to see who had come.
Alex duly complied. Ron was left on his own again, furious at himself for the tears and filled with a renewed passion of hate for this place that had cheerfully stripped him of his individuality and laughed in his face. All those years trying to be different, and now this...
Ron rammed a fist at the wall.
He hoped that the eighth floor really missed that rum.
#
Siddhartha never slept on the fourth floor. He spent all day and all night – the time in Kenselton Hotel being decided by the clocks – sitting in the cafeteria. Just what he did there, no one quite knew, although the more observant people noticed a fairly large quantity of discarded sweet wrappers in his vicinity.
#
One of the disadvantages of having the second-largest room – the only one other than the supply-cum-common room that had an attached bathroom, computer and television set – was that other people got the idea that they could come in as and when they liked, and stay there.
Taking into account the shortage of beds and his habit of staying up way into the unnatural hours of the early morning, Neo supposed that he couldn’t really blame Johnny Utah for hijacking his bed. All the same, he didn't like the way that his nice, peaceful, steady clicking of keyboard keys was being rudely interrupted by snores. It disrupted his concentration (and concentration was totally needed when playing Neopets and making fake Keanu MySpace accounts), and it was starting to get on his nerves.
On the other bed, further from the glow of the computer screen, Ted muttered something about disembowelled pelicans and rolled over.
Neo yawned. He closed the Internet windows, shut down the computer, got off the chair and spent several moments contemplating the possible consequences of pushing Johnny off the bed. Neo didn’t think it fair that he had taken his bed. Heck, there were three spare ones in the other rooms – the first rooms on both sides of the front stairwell door – that he was pretty sure didn't have anyone sleeping on them. The only occupants of those rooms were Bob Arctor and memories of the recently murdered; people avoided the latter because just because ghosts did not exist in some of their universes did not mean that the same held true at Kenselton Hotel. The blood-infused sheets probably had some part to play in that as well.
Neo wanted neither a brain-damaged dude nor dead people for roommates, and stood before his hijacked bed with increasing frustration.
Johnny slept on, blissfully unaware of the fact that he was at present the target of angry feelings from a guy who knew kung fu.
Neo gave up and left for the common room. The kitchenette light was still on; meanwhile, the card players had either returned to other rooms or had fallen asleep on various parts of the carpet. .
He contemplated pushing Kevin Lomax off the sofa, and had just started moving forward to do it, when he tripped over someone's leg and grabbed wildly at the table to break his fall. Neo's feet gratefully found ground away from the cornflakes guy. And then the numbers and letters on not-Tim's wrist tag – half-revealed by the violent table-hug and now inches from his face – finally registered fully in his mind.
206/964...
Neo's blood ran cold.
For a few seconds he stood frozen in that uncomfortable position too close to the table. His gaze moved slowly and nervously from the wrist tag to not-Tim's sleeping face. He was easily one of the oldest in here, in direct defiance of what the 964 suggested.
Neo swallowed.
He looked back at not-Tim's wrist tag, still partly obscured by the sleeve, and reached out a shaking finger to hook the sleeve further back-
.../REE.
Neo yanked his finger away to safety, his pulse racing. Gasping out a synonym for sacred faeces, he stumbled backwards, fell over, got back to his feet, fumbled with the door handle, got out, and hurtled down the corridor away from the common room on unsteady legs that refused to cooperate.
"Hi Bob," he managed to say seconds later after an unnecessarily clumsy entrance into the room. Neo made his way onto the top bunk, sleep suddenly far from his mind, and lay in the dark filled with tumultuous thoughts until fatigue finally caught up and dragged him unwillingly off to dreamland.
#
Neo was woken the next morning by the sound of the door opening. In his groggy state, it took him a while to remember just where he was. He peered over the side of his bunk; and then he was jolted fully awake by the realisation that the newcomer happened to be not-Tim with a tray of food.
Neo swore and immediately regretted it as not-Tim looked up to see where the sudden expletive had come from.
A pause.
"Good morning to you too, Neo."
Not-Tim glanced at Bob, saw that he was still asleep, and put the food tray down on the table. "I've never seen you in here before."
Neo pulled himself up into a sitting position, hands gripping the rails much tighter than was necessary.
"You can come down from there, you know," not-Tim suggested. He laughed. "I'm not a cannibal."
Neo tightened his grip on the bunk rails and started to engage in low-level hyperventilation.
"Are you feeling all right?" not-Tim asked, concern in his voice. "You don't look too good."
Neo felt decidedly not all right. He was dimly aware that he was trembling, and his eyes didn't seem to be focusing all that well. A sickening chill was making its way up the back of his neck – his dinner wanted out, and now.
Reflexes suddenly kicking in, Neo dropped off the bunk, pushed past not-Tim, went out of the door and broke into a mad dash for his room's attached bathroom where he fell to his knees and threw up violently into the toilet.
Not-Tim ran in after him, close behind and looking alarmed.
Spitting the last remnants of his stomach contents into the toilet, Neo backed away, stumbling slightly. "Stay away from me," he gasped.
"Okay, Neo, calm down-"
"I know who you are."
"Just take a deep breath, and-"
"NO!"
Silence.
Not-Tim shrugged. "All right then, I'll go."
He turned towards the bathroom door, outside of which both Ted and Johnny had been watching the exchange with general confusion.
Neo took a shaky breath. "Keanu-"
Not-Tim stopped. For a while he just stood there; then he turned around and looked at Neo for what seemed an eternity.
"Call me Chuck," he finally said, and left the room.
#
No one ever called him Chuck.
News has a habit of spreading fast, and through the twin efforts of Logan and Utah, not-Tim suddenly found himself repeatedly at the end of hushed whispers and uncomfortable stares that quickly led to averted eyes. Laughter had a habit of abruptly dying out whenever he entered a room. Tommy started going around with a crudely-constructed tinfoil hat ("You look like an idiot," he was informed. "You're just jealous that you don't have one and people can read your thoughts," Tommy replied), although not-Tim couldn't be sure if the teen's aforementioned headwear had anything to do with him.
Nobody really talked to him anymore.
There were exceptions, of course; the cornflakes guy for one continued to be oblivious as ever, and still held loyal thoughts towards the one who'd taken care of him and given him his first taste of rum. Bob Arctor knew no better. Hamlet in the broom cupboard had not heard the news; neither had those in the locked room or those who had wandered off to other parts of the hotel. Among those who knew, a few – mostly the older ones – remained civil, but all interactions were painfully polite. There were no more hyper rum raid expeditions to the eighth floor.
Meanwhile, Ted was plagued with guilt; he had not expected his little bit of news to have such results. Later that morning he found not-Tim standing to a side of the fourth floor corridor watching the world go by, and walked tentatively up to him.
"Mr. Reeves?"
"Yeah?"
Ted hesitated.
Then: "Dude, I'm sorry-"
Not-Tim hugged him.
Neo sat by himself in the cafeteria, poking at his breakfast and occasionally taking a bite. A random group of teenagers came up to him. One of the girls tapped him on the shoulder.
"Are those seats taken?"
Neo looked at her, communicating in that one gaze an immense amount of angst.
They went away.
#
Neo continued sitting in the cafeteria long after he finished his food. The empty plate lay in front of him; he had not stopped looking at it for a long time, lost in thought and general angst which he was busy trying to resolve.
Eventually he stood up – too many curious glances had been coming his way – and left the cafeteria.
He didn't return to Block F just yet. Hands in pockets, Neo strolled the corridors of the common block, past video arcades, shops full of free things, bookstores, restaurants, cinemas, and the other usual features of a regular shopping mall.
He needed the time to be alone and to work things out.
#
The breathless announcement at the door of the common room: "Keanu is fighting Neo!"
Soon one end of the corridor was filled with spectators entranced by the furious kung fu sequences between The One and the out-of-practice actor for whom it had been years since the last Matrix film.
You do not truly know someone until you fight them.
Neo was winning.
Not-Tim was starting to regret agreeing to the challenge, but there had been something about the look on Neo's face and the sight of his outstretched hand beckoning him that had just called for an attempted left hook or else. So the attempted left hook was given, resulted in a nearly-twisted arm, and it had escalated into this.
Not-Tim unsuccessfully dodged a fist and winced. One day he would show others the roadmap of pain that was his body, pointing out the various interesting medical features on it: "That one's from a motorcycle accident, that one's from another motorcycle accident, that one's from yet another motorcycle accident, and that one's from the time one of my characters beat me up-"
He was jolted painfully back to the present as Neo slammed him against the wall, one hand grabbing him by the neck and the other in a fist ready to strike; then Neo released his grip and stepped back, a faint look of triumph in his eyes.
"You're good," Not-Tim gasped, panting for breath. He slid down the wall and lay on the carpet, eyes closed and mouth open in search of more oxygen.
Neo dropped down next to him and sat there. He'd had his catharsis.
#
"If you want me gone, I'll go," not-Tim said to the assemblage of fourteen clustered around the end of the corridor. "I'm sorry if my presence disturbs you or-" A pause. "Tommy, take off that tinfoil hat. You look like an idiot."
"But then you'd be able to read my thoughts," Tommy pointed out.
"I can't read your thoughts."
Tommy smiled in triumph. "See, it works!"
Matt yanked the tinfoil hat off Tommy's head, chucked it to the ground, and refolded his arms.
"How do we get out of here?" Nelson asked.
"I don't know. They'll let me teleport out, but not the rest of you. I think that's the only way out of here."
"And where is 'here', exactly?" Conor asked.
Not-Tim shrugged. "They say it's an isolated bubble of hyperspace in an empty section of the multiverse."
Neo was still sitting on the floor. He was the only one on the floor. It made him feel special. ...Well, not really. He thought about standing up, but realised that doing so would probably just draw attention to himself. So he stayed on the floor even though it didn't really make him feel special.
"So we're trapped in this building, and in an isolated bubble of hyperspace," Eddie Talbot said. "Okay-"
A desperate weak thump sounded from the broom cupboard.
They turned.
"...How long has Hamlet been in there?" not-Tim asked.
After a brief but frantic search, Paul Sutton finally located the key hiding craftily in the lock in a brilliant example of cleverness that keys are not usually known to possess. The doors were pulled open to reveal Hamlet slumped in the bottom of the broom cupboard, looking half-dead from hunger and dehydration.
"Someone get him water!" Alex shouted as he helped Paul divest the broom cupboard of its largest living inhabitant. The requested liquid soon arrived courtesy of Ted, who somehow always ended up being the one doing errands like these. He passed the cup to not-Tim who passed it to Alex who began the arduous task of rehydrating the Prince of Denmark.
Not-Tim pointed towards the locked door. "Do those guys have food and water?"
"Who cares?" Johnny muttered, crushing Tommy's fallen tinfoil hat just for the heck of it. "They killed people."
"I care. I'm kind of responsible for their existence here, and it would be really nice if everyone stayed alive-"
"Yeah, they do," Alex supplied, handing the now-empty cup to Ted. "Should last them several days. Oi, Ted. Refill."
Unnoticed by most of them, the stairwell door at the other corridor end opened and a newcomer in his early twenties walked cautiously out.
Kip looked uncertainly at the small crowd at the other end. Recognition hit, multiple times. His breath caught. He fell over in a faint.
Neo looked dispassionately at the fallen Kip and decided that someone else could deal with him. He didn't intend to be getting off the floor any time soon. Sitting there didn't make him feel special, but it was a lot more fun than standing up.
#
Splash.
The sudden rush of cold shocked him into consciousness. Opening his eyes, Kip wiped the water off his face and wondered what he was doing on a sofa.
"Brilliant, Falco. Now the carpet's all wet and we'll have a mould colony there soon."
"How else would you have done it?"
"You could have got a bucket."
"Do you see any bucket? ...Hi. Welcome to Kenselton Hotel."
Kip looked dazedly at them, then at the hand that Conor waved in front of his face to check for signs of life.
"...What happened?" he finally asked.
"Well, it all started with this thing called the Big Bang-"
"You fainted," Conor said, interrupting Shane's impromptu science lesson.
"Where am I?"
"An isolated bubble of hyperspace."
Kip thought this over. "Oh," he said.
"You're taking this very calmly," Conor observed, attempting to dry the carpet by rubbing his foot over the wet spot. "See Kevin over there? He didn't take it calmly."
Kip gazed in the general direction of Kevin. His view was shortly obstructed by Conor waving a hand in front of his face again. He looked back at him.
"You don’t talk much, do you?"
Kip shrugged. "I do when I have things to say."
"Uh-huh. What's your name?"
"Kip."
"I'm Conor, that's Shane; over there's Kevin, Ted, Jjaks, Neo, Alex; and that's-" Conor gestured vaguely at not-Tim – "that's... you don't want to know. Trust me. ...Nelson, Tommy, Ron, Paul, Johnny, Eddie, Matt, uh, Hamlet, and that's the cornflakes guy."
Kip nodded. He decided that he liked this isolated bubble of hyperspace.
For the first time, he felt that he actually belonged.
#
On the top floor of Block F of Kenselton Hotel, a crude stack of boxes rose up to the ceiling, in which a dark rough square had been cut. The fallen plaster and concrete lay crumbled on the carpet. Faint powdery shoeprints marked the steps formed by the boxes.
Through the hole, on the roof, John Constantine stood and watched the void. He'd wanted to see it for himself. The darkness spread out forever; only a strange unknown light cast a glow on him and the dirty-white roof of the building. Elsewhere he saw the brief patches that were the roofs of the other blocks in Kenselton Hotel, islands of existence in this isolated bubble of hyperspace, the only place that was-
John squinted at a particular spot in the blackness.
He thought he could make out the outline of a door.
#
Hamlet's survival was eventually concluded to be a fairly high possibility. The pronouncement was given by an unhappy Dr. Mercer, who really just wanted to stay in his room with a good book rather than provide free health services for this bunch of freaks whose existence he preferred to pretend not to know about. He wouldn't even have come out of his room, if not for the fact that repeated loud door banging and cries of, "OI, JULIAN!" could get tiresome after a while.
It wasn't long before not-Tim once again found himself being largely avoided and ignored. Most of the others had discovered that being in his vicinity seriously threatened their already-overly-fragile sense of identity, and a stable sense of identity was a vital commodity in Kenselton Hotel. Some still had questions, but they could wait.
Not-Tim wandered off sadly.
The television set was showing Spongebob Squarepants, and nobody quite knew why. Kevin Lomax was mortified to realise that he found the talking yellow sponge strangely amusing to watch. Nelson did likewise but pretended he was not interested, sneaking surreptitious glances in the direction of the TV from behind the cover of a book.
The regular card-playing group of Perry, Jjaks, Shane and Conor had meanwhile hijacked the common room's table and shifted it to a more central location, whereupon they sat around playing poker for unnatural lengths of time. More enthusiasm in the gambling aspect was involved now; while previously there had been an unspoken assumption that none of them were ever getting out and would thus have no use for cash, the revelation of not-Tim in their midst had – despite the overall negative reception of the actor – seemed to re-kindle that dying hope. Some were once more thinking of home as a place that they might yet see again.
Alex had discovered a comfortable corner and was engrossed in a book he had pulled off the shelf.
Most of the teenagers had grouped up and run off to the games arcade, with the notable exception of Ted, who had got it into his head that it would be tremendously fun to follow Neo around.
"Stop following me," Neo said, annoyed at his inability to execute a perfect U-turn without Ted getting in the way.
Ted looked disappointed. He trudged off in search of not-Tim, whom he discovered sitting in the broom cupboard thinking about life.
"Dude, what are you doing in there?"
Not-Tim looked at Ted for a long time in the way that an alien might contemplate its latest human specimen.
"Sitting," he finally answered. "Want to join me?"
Ted blinked.
Not-Tim shifted his legs out of the broom cupboard to make room for Ted. Seeing nothing better to do, Ted got down next to him.
Time passed in silence. There aren't many things that one can do in an open broom cupboard, and Ted quickly grew bored. He had the feeling that he should say something, but he didn't know what. Not-Tim meanwhile seemed perfectly content to just sit and stare into space and occasionally at Ted.
Ted found a dead cockroach in the broom cupboard. It made him sad. He wondered how it had died, and if Hamlet had killed it, and if its family missed it, and-
"I wouldn't touch that, if I were you."
Ted's fingers stopped in their path towards the dearly departed. He withdrew his hand with a sigh.
"What are we doing in here?" he asked.
"Sitting," came not-Tim's prompt reply, packaged with a smile in its wake.
The answer wasn't helping. Ted considered just getting up and leaving, but that would probably be kind of rude. He regretted ever sitting down in the first place.
The stairwell door opened and the bulk of the fourth floor's resident teenagers stumbled through, bruised and bleeding in several locations as the result of a gang fight in the games arcade which they had lost. They managed to make their way into the common room, where they found a nice secret place behind a shelf to discuss new and better fighting strategies that might or might not involve using the remaining rum to make Molotov cocktails.
#
Neo typed furiously away at the computer, trying to erase the evidence of his trigger-happy hacking exploits. He re-channelled the cash that he had generously donated all over the world back into Keanu Reeves' bank account and hoped that the once-benefactors wouldn't mind.
The bank balance in Mr. Reeves' account no longer reading 42 cents, Neo allowed himself to breathe a little. Now for the fake MySpace profiles...
After second thought, he handed the passwords to a random guy he found on the Internet. The accounts had since been friended by people; he didn't like the idea of disappointing them. Especially Tom, who looked like a nice guy and shared the same first name as him.
Having spent the past few days with random people who had been attempting to crawl their way upside down out of Kenselton Hotel to look for generators, Jack Traven finally returned to the fourth floor and was greeted at the common room door by the sound of exploding rum, followed by a burst of angry yelling, ringing alarms, and running feet.
"Hijack," said a miscellaneous teenager whose face was covered with exploded rum. "Welcome home."
"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE?"
"All right," Conor said. "You kids put out that fire, clear up this mess, and get out. NOW!"
"It was his idea," Jesse said, pointing at Tommy as Matt grabbed a cup, filled it up with water and tossed the liquid at the flames.
"You trust a guy with a tinfoil hat?"
Tommy looked sad and misunderstood. He decided that it might not be the best time to remind them that he no longer had his tinfoil hat with him. He got down on the floor and helped Eddie pick up the shards of broken glass.
"Some help with the fire?" Matt asked testily, giving them a glare and throwing another miserable cupful of water at the conflagration.
Not-Tim handed him the fire extinguisher. Matt looked at him, muttered a brief thanks, then took the fire extinguisher, opened a spray of white stuff on the young fire and put an end to its once-promising future. The alarms shut up.
Not-Tim joined in the task of getting the glass bits off the floor.
"Don't try to make Molotov cocktails again, okay?" he suggested.
Tommy gave him a fearful glance, edged away from him and wished desperately that he still had his tinfoil hat, his trembling fingers struggling to capture a small glass shard.
Ted meanwhile was just happy that the explosion had finally drawn not-Tim out of the broom cupboard, where things had been getting most heinously boring. He went off to find Neo, whom he eventually discovered sitting at the computer doing what looked like important work.
"Why do all those smiley faces keep dying?" Ted asked.
"Go away," Neo said.
#
There were steps forming, inexplicably, in the darkness – black steps, practically invisible in their path from Block F to the barest crack of light that marked the location of the door. It wasn't the only door, as John soon saw – the roof of each block had a similar backdoor exit, steps materialising between each and the roof.
He got on the steps and made his way up.
The door was a little stiff (and also an interdimensional portal), but a good kick burst it open and John suddenly found himself blinking in the sunlight in a dingy-looking back alley, out for the first time in the real world.
#
"Get everyone in here in fifteen minutes," Jack said. "I heard there are fire exits from the roofs. We need a meeting."
"Three of them are at the bar," Conor said. "They won't be happy."
"Or sober," Alex added, but no one heard him except not-Tim, who was the only one paying attention to everyone else.
"I don't care. Go get them." Jack snapped his fingers at Eddie and Tommy. "You two. Go get whoever's in the other rooms."
"What about the ones behind the 'No Entry' sign?"
"Uh... okay, not those. Just the rest."
The two teens left. Seconds later, cries of, "OI, JULIAN!" filled the air.
I bet this has something to do with that explosion, Julian thought sagely. "What is it?" he asked through the locked door.
"Officer Traven says to get out of there. He says there's a meeting in fifteen minutes."
"And what happens if I stay here?"
"Then Mr. Reeves says he'll make movie sequels in which we all die."
Not-Tim blinked. "I said what?"
"Who- ...Oh." A click of the lock, and Julian exited his room looking vaguely traumatised as the teens proceeded next door to begin the daunting task of separating The One from his beloved computer.
Neo was still engrossed in an expert level Minesweeper game. He had yet to win a single one since arriving at Kenselton Hotel. Lulz noob. Behind him, Ted had been hit by a burst of literary creativity and was currently in the midst of writing a script for a hypothetical remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.
"Neo?"
"Mgg."
"How do you spell 'disintegrate'?"
Neo accidentally clicked on a mine and swore. Ted never knew that that was how you spelt 'disintegrate'. Then the door opened and Eddie yelled at them to get out of there.
#
Not-Tim gave a nervous laugh. "No," he said. "You're not taking me hostage, okay? You can't do that-"
"We can do whatever we want," Jack pointed out. "There are twenty-two of us in this room and only one of you."
Not-Tim was disappointed. "That sucks," he said.
From the other side of the room, Eddie pulled out a rope from a box. "Is this long enough?" he asked, walking over.
Not-Tim looked at the rope warily and wondered just how things had come to this, because this was definitely not a situation he had ever imagined he would be in.
He shook his head. "There has to be another way."
"We're sorry," Conor said. "But the best chance we have of getting back home depends on how much your fans want you to stay alive."
"Okay, I get that! But you really don't need to tie me up-"
"You might escape," Jack said.
Not-Tim grimaced. "Look, I could have escaped at any point in the last few days if I wanted to. I'm still here. Doesn't that at least say something?"
"Do you have any other suggestions?" Alex asked quietly.
Not-Tim looked at him. Alex looked away.
"We can all get out of here," not-Tim said. "Together. Come on."
"We don't want to get out," Eddie said. "We want to get home. Or do you just not care about that? Because, hey, why should that matter to you when you can just get out of here in some... pretence at a team effort, and then hire hitmen to get rid of us while you return to your multi-million dollar home and pretend none of this ever happened?"
"Ed-"
Eddie threw the rope onto the floor. "Why'd you even come here in the first place?" he yelled. "Some kind of ego-trip? Or to laugh at us? To let us know that the only reason some of us have such f***ed up lives is because you were getting paid for it?"
"Ed-"
Eddie lunged out suddenly at the actor, grabbing him by the shoulders in an attempt to tackle him to the ground. Knocked off-balance, not-Tim stumbled back; Alex caught hold of his arm to break his fall, as Jack pulled the teen away.
"That's enough, Eddie."
Eddie wrenched himself out of Jack's grip.
"I hate you," he said to Reeves; then he stormed out of the room and slammed the door.
Silence.
Ted looked as though he wanted to say something; but then the moment passed and he returned somewhat forlornly to writing out his script for the remake of TDTESS.
Matt tossed the rope at Jack. "Tie him up."
"Just lock him up in a room," Alex said. "The rope is a bit too much."
Not-Tim nodded his thanks. Alex didn't acknowledge it. He stuck his hands into his pockets and walked off behind a bookshelf to continue reading his book.
#
The bolt shot home on the other side of the door.
"...Hi," not-Tim said, not quite liking the way that Donnie's eyes were narrowed suspiciously at him.
Griffin peeked out from his vantage point on the upper bunk. "Hey, you're that rum guy, right?"
"Yeah," not-Tim said. "Yeah, that's me. Name's Chuck. Uh... got any ideas how to get out of here?"
Muffled banging noises came from the small room's closet.
"Don't mind him," Griffin said, gesturing at it. "He started spouting Shakespeare so we locked him in there. What're you in here for? Killed someone?"
Not-Tim shrugged. "I guess they just didn't like me very much."
Griffin broke into a grin. "Welcome to the club."
#
Human beings have a strange tendency to mistreat their creators, either intentionally or unintentionally. At the one extreme, they nail them to trees and leave them to die; at the less extreme they simply lock them up in rooms and hold them hostage. What exactly in human nature causes this kind of behaviour is as yet unknown. A sense of threatened identity, perhaps, or the idea that your life is being decided by someone or multiple someones you know next to nothing about.
On the fourth floor of Block F of the Kenselton Hotel, it was among its little group of dangerous outcasts that not-Tim finally found a much-yearned for acceptance.
Jack repositioned the cornflakes guy by moving his cornflakes bowl to another part of the room. Jack wanted the table to be clear of cornflakes and people eating them. "Okay," he said. "Now we need a way to tell everyone about the hostage situation. The problem is, we don't even know who's running this place."
"I could find out," Neo offered helpfully. "Just let me get back to the computer-"
"All you do there is play the game with the dead smiley faces," Ted said.
"-And I can put up announcements on his fan sites," Neo continued, surreptitiously stomping on Ted's foot to shut him up. The teen winced and hobbled off to the sofa.
"Yeah, good idea," Conor said.
"What do I say in them?"
"Hi, we are holding Mr. Reeves hostage. If you are interested in supporting his continued lack of death, please help us contact the relevant authorities who can send us home."
"We need to give them a deadline," Jack said, not looking too happy with Johnny's suggested message.
"Tomorrow?"
"Too soon. Two days should do it."
#
"You don't want to drink that," Donnie said. "That's pee."
Not-Tim hurriedly returned the bottle to its original position on the carpet. "What?"
Griffin spread his arms wide. "Do you see a bathroom in here?"
Not-Tim lowered his head into his hands and wondered how he had got himself into this mess.
"What am I doing here?" he muttered in rhetorical despair.
"I believe it's called 'imprisonment'," Griffin replied a little too cheerily.
"Argh!" Not-Tim raised his head and bashed his fists against the door. "JAAAACK!"
"He won't come," Donnie said.
"OFFICER TRAVEN!" not-Tim yelled, ignoring him.
"He's not going to come," Griffin said. "We've tried that-"
The door opened and Jack stood there, holding the rope and looking faintly annoyed. He pointed at the rope and raised an eyebrow. "Prefer this?"
"OH COME ON!"
Jack shrugged. "Suit yourself." He shut the door, then opened it again on afterthought. "And keep the noise down. We're having an important discussion out here." The door closed again and bolted shut.
Not-Tim stared at the closed door.
"I hate this place," he said.
#
"May I sit here?"
Eddie looked up. He nodded, and Perry sat down on the other half of the open broom cupboard.
For a while they said nothing. Then:
"It's not his fault, you know," Perry said.
Eddie just stared at the carpet in silent mutiny.
"Two hours," Perry continued. "Probably less. That's all the part he had to play in your life. Everything else – it's all you."
Eddie said nothing.
"You, your life – it was all there before the script was even written. You remember your childhood, don't you? And history: World War I, World War II... They weren't Mr. Reeves' fault either. Bad things just happen sometimes. It's part of life."
Eddie swallowed. "But what if the script had been different?" he asked in an unsteady whisper.
Perry looked at him. "Then you wouldn't be you," he said. "And it would be someone else talking to me now."
They sat in silence for a while longer, then Perry patted Eddie on the back and returned to the common room.
#
Kenselton Hotel did not strip residents of their weapons.
They thought it would be more fun that way.
#
Alex returned his book to the shelf. He had problems concentrating on anything much, seeing as how Jack Traven and company were busy having highly audible discussions that involved the possible murder of their creator.
He sat against the bookshelf thinking about life, the universe, and everything, when a glint of dark glass near the ceiling caught his eye. Alex temporarily froze, looking at it; then he got up and walked over to Traven and co.
"Hey," he said to catch their attention, then pointed at the small, convex lens on the ceiling. "Cameras. We're being watched."
They looked at the cameras.
The cameras looked back at them.
Jack took out his gun.
The sound of gunshots and shattering glass rudely jolted Kevin out of his nap with a yell.
#
In the locked room, not-Tim heard the gunshots and the yelling. His heart sank. They were killing each other in there and he couldn't do anything to stop them.
"This place is going to get crowded," Griffin said.
Not-Tim shook his head. "It's Jack," he said. "He's the only one with a gun, I think." A pause. "He wouldn't just shoot for no reason. Either... someone else took his gun, or he had a good reason to-" He broke off.
Donnie was busy looking for an empty bottle because he really needed to go.
"They're probably just killing each other," Griffin said. "Nothing to worry about. That's exactly the kind of thing that might get us out of here. The less united they are, the better for us, right?"
Not-Tim just looked sad.
Griffin concluded that he was one strange dude; but at least he was better company than Donnie, who had just located an empty bottle.
#
The rest of that day passed with little event. All they could do now was wait.
Not-Tim hoped that the door would not open in the night and crush his head where he lay on the ground, having decided that it would not be a good idea to fight Donnie over the bed.
David Allen Griffin always took the upper bunk, because according to Dharke he rules, and his ruling must not be questioned.
Not-Tim hoped that someone would remember to feed Bob.
The small desklight was on; in this room of no windows, there would be no daylight to disperse the pitch black of night. A sliver of gold illumination peeked through the bottom of the door, but that alone was not enough to see by.
The sound of repeated bumping noises eventually got not-Tim off the floor and over to the room's closet, where Don John was tiredly trying to get into a viable position for sleep.
Not-Tim spent several moments just standing there by the closet debating over whether it would be a good idea to let him out. He wanted to, but it didn't seem to be wise to get Griffin and Donnie mad at him, especially in this confined space.
He decided that he didn't care. Don John had been stuck in there for the crime of spouting Shakespeare at people, and he wasn't spouting Shakespeare now.
Not-Tim unlocked the closet and let him out.
The once-closeted was half-asleep but sufficiently alert to regard his rescuer with suspicion.
"And who may you be?"
"A fellow prisoner." Not-Tim gestured at the ground. "Get some sleep."
He got back to his own private spot of carpet and eventually dozed off.
#
The Next Day
In the real world, the news spread quickly out from the fan sites to the newspapers to the public, and a representative of Kenselton Facility was forced at mike-point to admit that, yeah, they had sort of let an actor in there, because a hostage situation had been one of the last things they had expected, and it was coffee break time so could he go now?
"Besides," said a coffee-intolerant Kenselton staff member who took over from his colleague, "the whole thing might have been Reeves' idea, for all we know-"
(Whereupon the Keanu SWAT Team went wtf do you know what a stupid risk that would have been, seeing as how many people already want him dead?)
"-but we won't know for sure either way until we find and watch the surveillance footage."
Meanwhile, the Wachowskis heard the news and its method of initial digital revelation through fan site hacking, and decided that they had a pretty certain idea whose work it had been.
Their eyes brimmed over with pride.
"Good job, Neo," Andy said softly.
#
Somewhere on the Internet
"Why'd they give them Internet access in the first place?"
"Apparently they didn't. They just gave them computers for entertainment purposes."
But Neo had computer mad skillz, and the security guards had wireless communications with the real world, and the two went well together.
#
Elsewhere on the Internet
"Screw Reeves. I just want Dr. Mercer."
#
The Keanu SWAT Team were unhappy at the number of people who were not interested in supporting Mr. Reeves' continued lack of death, and who were making bad jokes about it that mostly revolved around the word 'lifeless'.
The announcement at lunchtime that day rang out from hidden speakers all over Kenselton Hotel:
"This is an announcement to those of you holding Keanu Reeves hostage on the fourth floor of Block F. Please release him, and then we'll talk about why we cannot let you go home. To show that we are serious about this, we have halted all food and water supplies to Kenselton Hotel.
"To everyone else, if this makes you unhappy, you know what to do: Go get 'em."
Silence.
And then angry noises and the sound of running feet erupted all over Kenselton Hotel.
"BARRICADE THE DOORS!" Jack yelled, once the announcement and its suggestion of imminent danger sunk in.
Kevin was tipped off the sofa as three of them lifted it up and managed after several tries to squeeze it out of the common room and shove it across the front stairwell door.
The back stairwell door started to open; Conor threw himself against it and hollered for reinforcements as clawing hands found their way through the growing opening, only to be painfully crushed as backup arrived in the form of Matt, Jjaks and Neo.
Neo mostly just sat in front of the door and braced it. It made him feel special, sitting on the floor.
People were standing on the sofa at the other end of the corridor, it having proved to be of insufficient weight to withstand the combined strength of angry people who wanted lunch.
Meanwhile in the locked room, Griffin and Donnie were regarding not-Tim with a new suspicion. Not-Tim buried his head in his hands and wondered for the umpteenth time just how things had ended up this way.
Donnie pointed at Don John, remarkably still asleep – it had been a while since he had been able to stretch out fully.
"What's he doing out here?" he asked.
Not-Tim looked up. "It's not very comfortable to sleep in a closet," he said.
"Right," Griffin said warily. "Your good deed for the day? So how did a nice guy like you get put in here?"
"Who are you?" Donnie demanded.
Griffin hopped off the chair. "What do you think will happen if we shoot the hostage?" he asked, gaze fixed intently on not-Tim as he approached him.
Not-Tim scrambled to his feet and backed against the wall. "Look, I really don't think that'll be a good-"
The door swung open.
"Jack says all of you get out of here," said Tommy, looking nervously at the four prisoners.
#
"We were just trying to get home!" Conor yelled at the mob trying to break down the rear stairwell door.
"And we're just trying to get lunch!" yelled an unidentified male on the other side.
"YEAH!" yelled the mob.
Eddie ran out of the common room towards the front stairwell door, rolling the tabletop from the dismantled table and carrying the table leg. "Put this in between the sofa and the door," he suggested
"That means we'll have to move the sofa," Tod said. "Kind of risky – hey, pass me the table leg."
The table leg was passed over, and proved extremely useful for whacking any arm that got through the opening, giving them enough leeway to try to squeeze the tabletop in between the sofa and the door. The doorknob however proved problematic and had a tendency to get in the way.
"Look, if we get them to send us home, they'll send you home as well!" Jack was shouting. "We're all in the same boat here!"
They gave up and instead attempted to squeeze the tabletop through the opening of the door and into the mob.
"You heard what they said!" yelled an unidentified female mob member. "They're not letting any of us out any way!"
"YEAH!" yelled the mob.
"So the least you can do is let the hostage go and get us our food and water back!"
"YEAH!" yelled the mob.
Griffin clapped Jack on the back. "Hi, Jack," he said.
"Get out of the way – Neo! Get back on the computer, and, uh..."
"We're all going to die, aren't we?" Julian observed calmly.
"...and tell them to leave everyone else out of this. Then we'll get out of this place through the roof with Reeves, and we can talk with them-"
"We are all going to die," Julian concluded.
Jack was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and pronouncements of certain future death by people in the medical profession really weren't helping.
"It was nice of you to let us out, Jack," Griffin said, who didn't plan on leaving him alone for quite some time.
Alex was sitting on the sofa. It was a pretty comfortable spot to be.
"You're not going to achieve anything from getting in here," he told whoever had not yet been knocked into unconsciousness by the tabletop on the other side of the door. "What're you gonna do, kill all of us? What if you accidentally kill the hostage?"
Scott poked his head out of the common room. "Jack? Do we really need the kitchen sink out here? It's not coming off the ground."
"Okay. Forget the kitchen sink-"
"All right."
"Hey, Jack-"
Officer Traven finally lost it. "I CAN'T THINK WITH ALL THIS NOISE!" he yelled, and nervous breakdown -ed against an innocent door.
Not-Tim grabbed hold of his shoulders and shook him. "Calm down, Jack," he said. "Look at me. Look at me. Calm down. It's okay. Just breathe. Breathe, Jack. I'll take over from here, okay? Just sit down for a while, take things easy, and let go of my arm-"
Jack wouldn't let go of his arm.
Not-Tim sighed. He patted Officer Traven on the back to calm him down.
This was the strangest week of his life.
The speakers suddenly came on again, and another voice boomed through the hotel and caused the mob to temporarily stop in their attempts to break down the doors.
"We have an important announcement to make. Please listen carefully."
They listened carefully.
Rick Astley music blared through the speakers.
"YOU ALL JUST GOT RICK ROLL'D!" yelled the announcer in unrestrained glee. "HAHAHAHAHAHA..."
From the background came another voice: "Jerry, please turn that off, step away from the microphone, and get back to sweeping the floor."
#
"How's it going?"
Neo jumped at the sudden voice, and did not calm down much when he saw that it belonged to not-Tim.
"I, uh, posted the message," he said anyway. "On all the major news sites that I could get into."
"That was fast," not-Tim said, looking impressed.
"Thanks." Neo wondered just how much of his computer mad skillz Keanu was responsible for.
"I don't own a computer," not-Tim said, and Neo involuntarily jerked in his chair, partly from the sudden paranoid thought that perhaps it might be a good idea to wear a tinfoil hat after all, and partly from the content of the statement itself.
He looked at not-Tim in disbelief. "What?" he choked out.
"Relax, Neo. You're always so tense. I can't do anything to you; you beat me, remember?"
Neo wasn't going to let him change the subject so easily. "How can you not own a computer," he said, trying to restrain himself from yelling.
"Well, they aren't exactly essential for survival."
Neo could not believe the blasphemies he was hearing. He turned pale and put a hand on the computer mouse for comfort.
The speakers came on again. "Well, that's really noble of you," the voice said. "But we're afraid that, no, we're not going to tell them to leave you alone. Cheers."
The speakers went off.
From behind the rear stairwell door, the sounds of screams and strange buzzing noises suddenly filled the air. The pushing suddenly stopped.
There was a knock.
Conor and Jjaks looked at each other in bewilderment.
The voice that came through the door sounded highly pissed off, but was still sufficiently recognisable as belonging to one of them.
"It's John, assholes."
John Constantine gave the barest of glances to the ones who opened the door to let him in. Beyond him they temporarily saw the gruesome remains of those who had not got out of John's way when politely requested to do so.
John put the deactivated lightsaber back into his pocket. "Where is he."
"Who?"
"Reeves."
Scott pointed. "He went into that room."
John stalked off towards it.
"Don't kill him!" Conor shouted, just in case John did not quite know how hostage situations worked.
"Shit," thought not-Tim as he saw John come in, but all John did was toss a communicator onto the computer desk.
"Talk to them," he said. "I got that off a guard."
Then he turned and walked back out the door, digging in his pocket for a cigarette as he spotted a nice smoking spot near Dr. Julian Mercer.
#
Somewhere in the Kenselton Hotel, an interdimensional walkie talkie crackled to life.
"Hello?"
A bored looking temp staff unhappily closed a game of Minesweeper and picked up the walkie talkie. "Yeah."
"Uh... who's that?"
"What?"
"Is that, uh, Kenselton Facility?"
"Yeah duh."
The sound of a brief struggle and "give me that", and then the same voice, but different: "Okay. I don't care WHO you are. Just get whoever's in charge and let us talk to them right now, or those guys will pull the trigger and you'll never see Mr. Reeves again."
A pause.
In Kenselton Hotel, Neo looked at not-Tim. "...Did you just talk about yourself in the fourth person?"
Not-Tim grimaced. This place confused him. "I don't know."
Meanwhile, the temp staff wondered if the threatened lack of sight of Reeves was supposed to be a bad thing, because it was a lame geek fish in its spare time
#
The speakers came on.
"All right, what is it now?"
The voice was different from that which had made the previous announcements. The fish had indeed got hold of the authorities.
"Leave the rest of them alone," not-Tim said into the communicator, where his voice was picked up from the other side and transmitted back to Kenselton Hotel through the speakers for everyone to hear. "Let them have their lunch. They have nothing to do with this."
"Of course they do. Hunger is a great motivator. You probably can't keep them out for long. They'll rescue the hostage, send him back to us, and everyone can be happy again."
"Not if we shoot the hostage first," not-Tim pointed out.
"Then we'll just leave you all to starve in there."
"But the hostage would be dead," not-Tim reminded them.
"And so will you. You have one life in your hands; we have thousands. Think about that, Mr. – who am I talking to?"
"...Jack Traven," not-Tim said.
An incredulous yell erupted from outside the corridor. Not-Tim glanced nervously at the door and wondered if it might be a better idea to lock it.
Neo was regarding him with a new fear. He slowly edged away, and then left his side for the bathroom.
"You can't starve us to death," not-Tim continued. "We've found a way out. I don't think you want a stampede in L.A."
"Yeah, right. There's no way out of there." But the voice didn't sound all too certain, for its owner was busy wondering if perhaps his affair with the architect's wife had been a bad idea after all. "You're in an isolated bubble of hyperspace, Jack."
People were shouting outside in the corridor, snatches of words audible through the closed door:
"YOU SHUT UP!"
"Jack, put the gun away. He's not worth it-"
"Are you going to shoot me, Officer Traven?"
"No. No he's not, no- Jack. Jack, liste- NO!"
The thump of bodies hitting carpet, and then everybody heard the gun go off.
Things froze for a while.
Then it was with a growing panic that not-Tim sprang out of his chair and hurtled out the door to see Alex Wyler lying motionless on the carpet, and Jack, trembling and wide-eyed with shock, stumbling to his feet, dropping the weapon and backing against the wall-
"WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?" hollered their correspondent at Kenselton Facility, but no one was listening to him.
"NO!" not-Tim shouted, dropping to the side of the fallen. "No... No! Alex...!" He grabbed a wrist, felt for a pulse – nothing. "Alex. No!"
"It was an accident," Jack said, his voice cracking. "I didn't... he jumped on me. He was trying to..." Jack looked at Griffin, down on the carpet staring ashen-faced at Alex and knowing that that could have been him.
And not-Tim wondered why he cried for those whom days ago he'd never known existed.
Perry came over, placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, as around them continued the sounds of those trying to break down the doors, and the screaming that came through the speakers declaring that the hostage had better still be alive or else.
In the temporary solace of the blocked-off corridor, blood seeped into the carpet. Alex's blood. Keanu's blood. Their blood.
Then the doors finally burst open, and they were upon them.
The mob surged through both doors on both ends of the corridor; they were forced towards the centre to make their last stand; some ran into rooms and locked themselves in; at the fringes they were pulled forcefully away from the others and gang-beaten and yelled at. Neo ran out of his room and much increased their overall defence capabilities, but outnumbered and outside the Matrix, his powers were limited.
Tommy noted how they were largely ignoring Alex and promptly fell over and played dead. John fingered his lightsaber, but in such close quarters there was too much risk of team kills.
Some woman had Nelson in a half-nelson because she thought it would be funny.
"Hi," Jesse said, as he turned his head in his hiding spot under a bed to find the cornflakes guy trembling next to him. The cornflakes guy didn't like all the noise.
Not-Tim fought alongside Neo, when the latter felt a tap on his shoulder.
"Found you."
Neo ducked a fist, connected his foot with a stomach, and turned, unable to believe his eyes. "Trinity?"
Trinity kung-fu-ed a rabid six-year-old Dakota Fanning character who was about to ram Neo with an innocent chair, and gave a small smile. "You think I'd miss the fun?" She kicked another guy in the crotch. He doubled over, yelling in pain and sudden impotence.
Kevin leant against the closed door of the broom cupboard, shaking slightly as his imagination put pictures to the noises he heard outside. He wanted an aspirin.
Some blond kid pushed his way through, yelling for Ted, whom he finally discovered unsuccessfully ducking blows as he tried to convince the dude with his hand around the teen's neck why they should totally stop all this heinous fighting and just be friends.
Bill S. Preston Esquire grabbed a piece of broken tabletop and broke it over the strangling-dude's head. "Leave Ted alone, you evil fictional dickweed!" he yelled.
The evil fictional dickweed released Ted and stumbled back in pain as Ted broke into a delighted grin at the sight of his best friend. "Bill!"
Bill grabbed his arm. "Let's bail, dude."
"I can't just leave them-"
"I believe that they will be able to handle- Hey, how's it hangin', Neo?"
"WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?" Neo screamed, dodging an uppercut and delivering one of his own.
"Right. Catcha later, dude. C'mon, Ted."
And now it was becoming clear that not all who came through the doors had hurtful intent; an increasing number turned out to be family or friends who really did not appreciate being attacked when all they were trying to do was locate husbands, sons, boyfriends, brothers, or friends and get them out of the madness and to safety. Shouted names filled the air.
Not-Tim felt all alone. No one was calling for him. Then again, it was hard to think about things like that when pieces of furniture were flying about, and also taking into consideration that most of the attackers had him as their objective, only firstly they were having trouble identifying him and secondly they didn't even know if he was still alive.
Down by Alex's body, a woman was sobbing. The wrist tag hadn't been sufficient; Kate had needed to be completely sure; finding his wallet, flipping it open, driver's licence, ID, and a small photo of the three of them – Alex, Kate, and their young son smiling at the camera. That had been all the confirmation she needed. She sat there against the wall, cradling his head and crying.
Jack caught sight of her face and couldn't stop staring. And he couldn't bring himself to tell her that it had been his gun.
Things were slowly quietening down. Those who weren't friends were friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends of friends.
Six degrees of separation is a beautiful thing.
#
Everything had settled. Jack – having somewhat regained his composure – climbed up to stand on the sofa, using it as his own personal soapbox as he tried to get people's attention over the noise.
"We can get out of here," he said from his soapsofa. "There are exits from the roofs. Go to the top floor, break through the ceiling and get out-"
Someone randomly threw a megaphone at Jack. They missed and hit the sofa instead.
"Ow," thought the sofa sadly.
"There are stairs on top of the roofs that lead out of this place," Jack continued, ignoring the megaphone.
"How would that help us get home?" someone asked.
"It's better than starving to death in here," someone else said.
"Which of you is Reeves?" asked some guy whom we shall call Jeff, though his really name very probably isn't Jeff.
Several of the Keanu-spawn pointed. Not-Tim winced, remembered names, and made a mental note to make sequels in which bad things happened to them.
"Please leave," not-Jeff told not-Tim.
"What good would that do?" Perry cut in. "Do you want to stay here forever?"
"If it means I'm alive, then sure!" not-Jeff said. "How can we survive out there? We have no jobs, no homes, no identification, no money. It'll come down to either a life of crime, or death."
"Not if all of us get out there," someone else said. "There are about 20,000 of us in total. They can't just ignore us like that."
"Uh," said the voice from the speaker, "what's going on in there?"
"Everybody, just leave," not-Tim said. "Get out of this place while you can. Tell everyone else to go. We can work things out later. It's not safe in here. I'll talk to them and see if I can stall them a little."
No one was moving much, save several half-hearted attempts out the stairwell door.
Jack picked up the megaphone. "YOU HEARD THE HOSTAGE!" he yelled. "MOVE! GET OFF OUR FLOOR!"
Back in Neo's room, not-Tim sat down by the computer and picked up the communicator. "Hi," he said into it.
"WHAT THE F*** IS GOING ON THERE?" the Kenselton Hotel representative bellowed.
Perry grabbed Nelson's arm as the latter made to leave. "Not you," he said. "We stay here."
"What?"
A sudden telepathic message broke into all their minds, courtesy of a helpful resident of Kenselton Hotel: <There are exits through the roofs. This is our chance. Everyone, get out.>
"We don't leave until he leaves," Perry continued, gesturing at the room in which not-Tim sat.
"Well," not-Tim was saying into the communicator, "several people died, for starters, thanks to you. Oh; and I think some furniture got broken..."
The KH rep struggled to regain some semblance of his dignity. "Is the hostage still alive?" he asked.
"...Yeah, uh, we're not too sure about that," not-Tim said, randomly checking his pulse just for fun. "Lots of bodies lying around, and apparently some of them aren't even dead. What's the hostage look like?"
"Er. Six foot one, black hair, br- DON'T PLAY GAMES WITH ME! THIS IS SERI-" The voice broke off as it was interrupted by a fainter one in the distance. "What? ...WHAT D'YOU MEAN, THEY'RE BREAKING OUT? ...Well, if it's just the Hulk, that's not really- wait, THEY AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO GET OUT OF THERE"
Rants about some moronic architect filled the speakers. Not-Tim put down the communicator and looked up as a handful of Keanu-spawn wandered in to see what was happening.
"Why're you all still here?" he asked quietly.
"Moral support," said Johnny in a way that suggested he would rather be escaping with everyone else.
"All of you?"
Johnny shrugged. "Most. Some blond kid dragged Ted away before anyone could stop them."
The KH rep hadn't turned off the connection in his distress, and as he made a private phone call to the moronic architect he had been ranting about, everyone in Kenselton Hotel got to hear the conversation:
"I SAID THAT THERE WASN'T TO BE ANY WAY OUT, YOU SON OF A-"
"Yeah, I know," came a lazy drawl from the other side. "But, well, fire regulations, you know. Apparently you need quite a few of those for a facility that size, and there must have been some fire somewhere in the hotel that activated the escape system-"
Loud swearing filled the speakers. Several kids in Kenselton Hotel learnt some interesting new words that day.
"Also," the architect calmly continued, "there's also the matter of that little affair you had with my wife-"
"YOU TWO WERE ON A BREAK!"
Not-Tim got up from the desk and went out into the corridor. Several in the room followed him out, with the notable exception of Neo, who headed straight for the computer and sat there, just looking at the screen.
He placed his hand on the keyboard and hit several keys. A final 'Enter' shut down the computer for the last time; and The One continued sitting there, hand gently gripping the mouse, looking somehow as though he were fighting back tears.
Kate Forster was still there outside, quiet now as she sat by dead!Alex. Not-Tim crouched down next to her.
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault."
Several seconds of silence.
"We've got to get out of this place," not-Tim said. "They might find a way to cut off-"
"Okay."
The stairwell was empty now, the lower floors all cleared. Those who had lacked the foresight and taken the lift found themselves stopping on every floor, only to be met with people who wanted to get in but could not for lack of space, whereupon the doors shut and the lift proceeded to the next floor for the same procedure to be repeated.
"Let's go," not-Tim said, and they left, slowly at first, then faster as they realised that they would have over sixty floors to cover by foot.
Jack, Neo and not-Tim brought up the rear; Jack and not-Tim because they were responsible that way, and Neo because it had taken a while for him to finish saying goodbye to his computer. The One wiped away a tear as he closed the door of his room for good; walking past a dismantled table, a sofa, and a room whose two beds were soaked in blood as he ran up to join the others.
The journey upwards was unexpectedly easy. Those in Kenselton Hotel endowed with magical powers or special abilities had done what they could to speed up the escape; a burst of energy here and there, the occasional escalator replacing several flights of stairs, a helpful tailwind, lowered gravity, or even just cheerful banners of encouragement that assaulted them at various landings and occasionally suffocated someone.
The KH rep and the architect's private argument continued to sound throughout the place.
"IT'S BECOMING A STAMPEDE OUT THERE! SEE WHAT YOUR FIRE EXITS LED TO?"
"Mmm-hmm. ...Hey, Spiderman just swung past my window! Cooool..."
"MAKE THEM STOP GETTING OUT, YOU F***ING ASSHOLE! ISN'T THERE ANY WAY YOU COULD DO THAT?"
"What? Oh. That. Er, yeah... possibly. I guess I could just sever the connection between the two portal... door thingys. Might be a little tricky, though..."
"JUST DO IT!"
"That's not very polite of you, is it? Say 'please'."
"PLEASE!"
"And apologise about what you did with my wife."
"YOU TWO WERE ON A BREAK!"
They reached the top floor behind the last of the other Block F escapees, where the crude stack of boxes that John had initially piled up had since been increased in size and charmed to stay completely still and firm and as steady as regular steps, leading up to an enlarged hole that looked out into the blackness of the void.
People streamed up out onto the roof and along the barely-visible flight of free-floating black steps leading up to the patch of rectangular light that was the fire exit and the real world and freedom.
All over, in the distance, they could see similar sights happening on the other ten blocks of Kenselton Hotel. Some had already been completely evacuated of its couple of thousand residents; others were down to the last few.
It was eerie out here; or would have been if not for the constantly moving and pushing crowd. There was no sound in this isolated bubble of hyperspace other than that they made themselves. The broadcast conversation faded away, held captive by the light and warmth that was Kenselton Hotel.
The void stretched on forever, an infinity of unending blackness up down left right all around surrounding the impossible islands that were the several blocks of Kenselton Hotel and their queer, flimsy connections to that other world beyond.
And now they were the only ones left, as the last of those on the other blocks exited through the doors.
Kevin was the first of Block F's fourth floor to make it through into the sunlight, the others following closely behind into the alley and out into the main street where already Los Angeles had turned to chaos under the pressure of thousands exiting through doors all over the city.
At the rear, not-Tim turned to face Neo. "You first," he offered, and then felt the sudden jerk on his leg as Jack grabbed him in panic, the black connecting steps suddenly gone and the rectangles of light winking out all over and he was falling off the roof when Neo grabbed his shoulder, grasp slipping down his arm to his wrist before it tightened securely, Neo yelling as he tried to brace himself flat against the roof, right hand clawing desperately for purchase, something to grab onto as he too started sliding inexorably towards the edge, pulled down by more than twice his body weight-
Not-Tim's foot found the top of a ledge – a pathetic lip no more than an inch wide, but it took some weight for the moment; until his foot slipped off again and tried once more to regain its footing on the tiny area-
"Jack, climb up. Climb up-"
Jack's gaze was fixed upwards to the roof, where Neo was still sliding towards the edge, body desperately scraping the coarse cement-
"Jack-"
A sudden flash of decisiveness crossed Jack's face.
He let go of Keanu's leg and fell into the void.
"JACK!"
Sixty floors of white concrete whooshed past in a blur, still-lighted windows into deserted corridors seeming to beckon him towards firm footing and safety-
And now Block F was far above his head, the far-off shouts as distant as in a dream-
And Jack fell into the void, and the void took him.
#
Jack opened his eyes. He was lying face-down on a floor; a fairly nice floor with polished tiles, albeit one that felt slightly damp.
There was a sign just in front of him with words on it. Slowly, he raised his head to read what it said:
'Caution: Wet Floor'.
Jack blinked and got slowly to his feet. There was music playing softly from somewhere, the words just audible:
"Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down..."
Jack looked around. There was someone sitting behind a desk, feet propped up on it, face partly hidden beneath a baseball cap and partly hidden behind a book entitled 'The Five People You Meet On Earth'.
Jack walked cautiously up to the desk. He opened his mouth to say something, then noticed the short FAQ tacked on the desk:
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: Am I dead?
A: Yes.
Q: Really?
A: Yes.
This put his brain off-track for a while.
"Uh, hi," he said instead.
"Mmm."
"Am I supposed to go somewhere?"
A sigh. The person behind the desk put down her book and took her feet off the desk. A nametag identified her as Fhille.
"Name?"
"Jack Traven."
Fhille hit a bunch of keys and scanned through the results on the computer screen. "Yeah, you're listed here. Oh, you killed someone today. That's bad, that is."
"It was an accident!"
"Mmm. I doubt that mattered to Alexander Wyler. He came in a while ago. Nice chap. ...Okay, it says here that you apparently saved two lives when you died, names Keanu Charles Reeves and Thomas A.* Anderson-"
(Fhille squinted at the footnote: "* no one knows what the 'A' stands for.")
"Yeah," she continued, "looks like that act saved you from your initial fate of being boiled in a pot of bolognaise sauce for eternity. And... er, yeah, that's it. Looks like they accidentally deleted the rest of your life's history prior to this week. It's been happening a lot lately since IBHA decided to move all our computers onto Windows Vista..."
"IBHA?" Jack asked.
"Isolated Bubble of Hyperspace Afterlife," Fhille explained. "We don't normally get much business, at least not until recently when that hotel thing opened up. So the administration's kind of shoddy. That's why that floor there is always wet, see-"
"What's going to happen to me?" Jack interrupted.
"Sheesh. Relax, dude. There's no hurry. Er... yeah; says here that you're getting spared from the pot of sauce, and instead you're gonna get... uh, reincarnated as Alex's dog. Yep. 'Cause you killed him and all, see..."
Jack spluttered. "What?"
Fhille sighed. "Don't worry, I'm sure he's a good master. Just go to that room over there and wait. Unless of course you prefer the eternal bolognaise..."
Jack didn't prefer the eternal bolognaise. He went along like a good boy.
#
Neo knew that there were times when it was best not to speak.
"Thanks," not-Tim said quietly when they were both safely back on the roof and sitting on its edge, Neo studiously avoiding the other's gaze and acknowledging the gratitude with a simple nod.
More awkward silence followed as they looked out into the void, the steps to freedom no longer there.
"What do we do now?" not-Tim asked.
Neo finally looked at him, then looked away again.
Eventually, not-Tim got to his feet and went over to the opening that led back down to Block F. He made his way down the steps of boxes. Neo followed after him some distance back; speeding up slightly towards the lift as not-Tim held the door open for him.
The descended towards the fourth floor.
"What do I tell them?" Neo asked after several seconds of silence.
Not-Tim hesitated. "If you tell them that I'm still in here, they'll try to get me out. But they might leave you behind." A pause. "Just see if you can find out what the situation's like out there."
Neo nodded.
The lift dinged and opened its doors on the fourth floor, deserted once again except for dead!Alex. Not-Tim closed the stairwell door once they were both through, plunging them into the eerie quiet of the corridor.
Neo made a beeline for his beloved computer.
Not-Tim paused momentarily in the corridor, then went to the nearest room and dragged a blanket out of it. He draped it over Alex's body, covering it, then went off to the common room.
The light was still on, the door still open; no one had bothered about saving electricity in the mad rush of escape, and electricity was probably infinite in isolated bubbles of hyperspace.
Not-Tim entered, side-stepping the empty overturned crates that had once held stolen rum, glancing briefly at the interesting variation of tools lying by the sink from an unsuccessful attempt at prying it off the ground, identical fingerprints marring the shine of the handles of screwdrivers and crowbars and sledgehammers; half a cup of coffee that Scott had given up on was sitting on the counter, and not-Tim picked it up and finished it after a moment's consideration.
A pack of cards scattered on the floor where they had fallen when their table had been hurriedly pulled away; a shattered camera on the ceiling, its sight forever darkened. A stick. Down by a corner of the wall, a bored scribble in his handwriting: get me out of here.
This was his room, not-Tim thought, fingering a strand of dark hair he found on the sofa.
This was his floor.
#
"HEY!"
The others turned at Jjaks yell, to be greeted with the sight of the lack of steps behind the door. Where the portal had been was now a regular dingy-looking corridor that led off to boring places.
"I wasn't the last one," Jjaks added hurriedly. "There were others."
Conor gripped the doorway and peered into the boring corridor. "Who?"
"Jack, I think. Yeah. And-"
Conor released the doorway and swivelled around. "DON'T GO YET!" he yelled. "HEADCOUNT!"
"How many of us are there?" Shane asked, as Scott grabbed Tommy and Jesse before they could escape to get a better look at the cool Sith slicing things apart.
"I don't know," Conor said with a grimace. "We never really counted... OKAY, WHO'S MISSING?"
"Jack."
"Neo's not here," Perry said. "And Keanu."
"Alex... no. Ah-"
"Where's Ted?"
"Ran off earlier."
Conor nodded. "Okay. Anyone else?"
"I don't know. You all look the same to me," someone muttered, and shut up before they could find out who it was.
Sirens were sounding in the background above the din created by several thousand hungry people being where they had not been several moments ago.
Eddie gazed up at several helicopters making their way towards the breakout.
"What are they trying to do?" he asked.
"It doesn't look good," Julian said.
Then the sound of helicopter gunfire raked through the air.
"Get back in!" Conor yelled, but no one save the suicidal needed to be told, pushing into the corridor, all Keanu-spawn at first until the rest of the earlier-out crowd caught up, shoving to get into what looked like the only escape-
Orders yelled through megaphones; something about ceasing fire because there were civilians about, to just focus on King Kong because he was big and trying to eat everyone dressed in yellow, and was everyone listening oh crap no one was listening to him man his job sucked and no one cared anymore and he might just as well sit in a corner and wear guyliner and cut himself-
And then a switch was flipped somewhere at Kenselton HQ, and the corridor changed.
They were in the void again, only this time with no rooftops in sight, just a strange, shifting black mass beneath their feet that suddenly started to crack, separating them and drifting apart; people at the doorways coming to a sudden stop as they saw no more reliable floor to step on, the momentum of the shoving crowd nonetheless causing several to fall over and into the void-
Tommy doing a running jump away from strangers towards one of the three groups of his floormates, grabbing Shane for support as he landed, pulling both of them down, but still safe; Eddie Talbot too far from any of them on an island of his own, people yelling at him to jump; his attempted starts, then panicked stops as the distance grew from two metres to three, then four, and it was too far to jump and the teen could only just stand there looking desperately towards them as he drifted away into the darkness-
An unexpected bright green anti-Shakespeare robot appearing out of nowhere, accompanied by screams that they wondered about until Hamlet and Don John were sucked up into the belly of the bot and taken away goodness knows where, but this is the kind of thing that happens when the Infinite Improbability Drive is turned on, and I can't write Shakespeare anyway so I'm not complaining-
And then the black islands started disappearing with the people on them, winking out of sight seconds apart from each other, as the previous residents of Kenselton Hotel were hit by the sensation of interdimensional travel, felt only once before and hoped to only feel again with home as the destination.
Somewhere in Kenselton HQ, someone cursed. "WHO OPENED UP ALL THE PORTALS AND THEN LEFT FOR THE BATHROOM?"
Somewhere in Kenselton HQ, someone hit a hurried selection of computer keys and buttons.
The winking out stopped. But there were only the dregs left, the majority of people all gone, and Eddie realising that he was the only one of his floor still around in the void- And then he saw the rooftop of Kenselton Hotel, Block C, materialise just below him and jumped down in relief at finding steady ground again.
Some others were less lucky.
But we don't care about them.
Chapter 15 »
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