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</div><br/><br/>The runners sprinted around the red rubberized track.  The frontrunners were the pride of the Zero City Community College's Women's Track and Field Team, and they were already destined for high-profile collegiate teams once they transferred to their chosen four-year schools.  Behind them came the rest.  Leading them was a slim girl of average height, her blonde ponytail swishing madly as she crossed the finish line.<br/><br/>The track coach checked her stopwatch.  "Good time, good time!  "I think that's a new record for you, Iris."<br/><br/>Iris took a cooldown jog then bent over to catch her breath.  She wasn't surprised.  Ever since she woke up she could feel the power of the Matrix tingling in every fiber of her being.  It strengthened her in every way.  She straightened and stretched, and then she saw her.<br/><br/>Emmy.<br/><br/>She was leaning back on the hood of a Mustang.  Iris had long since stopped trying to figure out what Emmy was trying to say with her little poses, because they all meant the same thing:<i>I'm better than you.</i><br/><br/>Iris waited for Emmy to make the first move.  It rarely took long.  Before Iris left the mansion, there was always a demand, a task, something to be done, another little dance for Iris the marionette to perform to satisfy Emmy's compulsive need to tell her what to do.  She exhaled and reminded herself that it was probably just Emmy's way of dealing her life being upended, all their lives.  She couldn't control what happened, so she had to settle for controlling everything left around her, including Iris.<br/><br/>Then Emmy gave her a cryptic nod, just one nod, and got back in the Mustang.  Iris furrowed her brow and watched the cars taillights until Emmy turned a corner back onto the main thoroughfare.<br/><br/>"Curiouser and curiouser," she murmured.<br/><br/>The Power.  It had to be.  Iris felt it.  Of course Emmy would know about it.  The Matrix, the Cabal, the Mansion, it was her whole world.  And what was a boss girl without a team to boss around.<br/><br/>It was just around dinnertime when Iris pulled up to the gate to the Mansion's grounds in her rattletrap Honda Civic.  She stared at the access keypad, lost in memory, then punched in her code.  She watched the gate open and a host of repressed memories welled up in her, but she shoved them down again.  The Civic coughed and sputtered, but she revved the engine and took it slowly around the drive.  She couldn't help but admire the Mansion.  The graceful beauty of its architecture always had a calming effect on her, even at the worst of times.  She drove around back, and saw a few other cars and a motorcycle.  She grimaced and parked next to them.  She got out, hiked up her jeans, smoothed her oversized collegiate hoodie, then closed the car door.  She walked across the back courtyard to the one of the rear entrances.  Everything was so familiar.  The scent of the forest, the cool coastal breeze, even the crunching of her trainers on the courtyard stones, all of them seemed about to transport her back in time.  She hopped up the few slate steps to the entryway and stood before the stout wooden door.<br/><br/>She paused a moment, took a deep breath, then spoke.<br/><br/>"Blue."<br/><br/>The door's electronic lock clicked open.  She slipped inside, and closed it behind her.<br/><br/><br/>The Mansion was just as she remembered.  She followed its corridors and passages to the entrance of what she called the Underworld.  Mother had built it all by herself, so the story went.  She spoke her codename again, and descended into its depths.  She was so close now.  She could feel Matrix pulsing, its strong regular rhythm resonating throughout her body.  She quickened her pace without thinking.<i> What hollow lives the normies live</i>, she thought,<i>what shabby little lives.</i>She felt a momentary pang of shame.  Her parents, her<i>real</i>parents, were normies, she supposed.  She would find them one day, and be normal with them, and it would be beautiful.  But she couldn't think of that now.  The Matrix lay ahead, resting in its containment field.  In a few more steps she stood before it.  Its power caressed her like the hands of a lover, like the eidolon of a goddess, a goddess that chose her.  She closed her eyes and spread her hands, luxuriating in its invisible radiance.<br/><br/>Her lips parted in an almost imperceptible whisper.<br/><br/>"I missed you."