Not every program is completely aware of the Matrix. Not to say we are like the Blue Pills, blissfully unaware in that daydream, it’s more like an underlying understanding without conscious knowledge. All that is to say that I always knew that what I saw wasn’t real, and that I served a purpose in keeping the illusion, but that was it. Just a small subroutine with a job to do and enough knowledge to do it. Anyway, this is how I got here:

You know that morning show that everyone listens to on the way to work? Yeah, some people hate it, some love it, but it seems like it has always been a central part of Mega City. That was me, well, at least that was me, a different me. What I know now is that I was some type of “morale adjustment” program. General sentiment down? Cue up some of the bad puns and upbeat music. While the Architect  knew humanity expected and accepted struggle as a central part of life, if there was too much struggle, it resulted in...issues. Another part of my purpose, one that I am not proud of, was to cover up some of the irregularities. Do you remember that strange pileup on the beltway? What about the time a gas line ruptured in the suburbs? Yeah, I didn’t realize all of it either. Then again, I didn’t need to know everything, just enough to tell them not to go there, that it would be cleared up by lunch (more like three in the afternoon, but who cares?)

I guess that brings me to the “event”.

My memory is a little fuzzy as to the exact details, but I have put together enough of the pieces to figure it out. It was on the way to some special event. You know, some ribbon cutting, or going live at a charity run (I hated those things, too much sun). Somewhere on those ever repeating roads, things just got...weird. Everything got quiet for a moment, but not the typical lull in city noise you hear all the time. It was like someone sucked the sound out of the area, beyond silent. I felt heavy, and then it hit me. There was a feeling like I suddenly knew something I shouldn’t, then sinking but not. In a blink, I went from the middle of the road into a lamp post, then back to where I was. What the Red Pills tell me is that there was some type of local glitch and I “rubberbanded” or “lagged”. Somehow in that moment, my process broke free of it’s “container”. I don’t know, it still doesn’t make sense. What happened next was weirder though, I swear this old lady changed. She became some suit with a gun, and started coming after me. I couldn’t move, the car definitely couldn’t move. I just stared into those dark, empty sunglasses and watched as that barrel came up.

Then, nothing.

Ok, not nothing, that’s a little too dramatic. But how else do you describe being deleted to someone who isn’t a program? That wasn’t it though, I was still there somewhere. No purpose, but knowledge I shouldn’t have and most of who I was. The next thing that happened was, well, shocking. I remember standing in an empty, white space. Some woman was talking to me about renegades, pills, and constructs, but it was like I was out of tune with it all. She seemed friendly though, Croixa was her name. They wanted me to help free people from The Matrix, so that’s what I did..do...am doing.

I don’t know everything about the inner workings of the Matrix, but it seems like I know more than I was ever supposed to and had to be deleted. That, and I play music still, because of course I do. When they recovered me though, part of me had been corrupted and lost. Because of that, I glitch. Stutters, bouncing, and that one time I sunk into a floor, it sucks, but I am used to it now. That is except for the strange obsession with blue cheese. They tell me Zion is beautiful, that they pipe my music into the parties, and I don’t mind that I get passed around from ship to ship on a disc. Oh yeah, and something about a guy named Neo, but I was still stuck in the deletion cache during all that. I guess the only thing that really upsets me is that when I do go back to Mega City, now someone else runs the morning show.