Comics 1-4: Goliath
Comics 1-6: Butterfly
Story & Art by John Van Fleet
From concepts by the Wachowskis
The main character, Eight Ball, is a redpill hacker visiting a Catholic orphanage inside the Matrix, following the Oracle's cryptic instructions to find a girl with some kind of incredible special ability ("...and the child would be our hope"). He finds that the orphanage had been burnt, but Charon (his operator) can find no record of any fire with phone calls to police/fire, nor are there newspaper stories about it. Suspecting a setup, Charon tells Eight Ball to get out right away.
Eight Ball stays and continues searching for the girl, while ironically referencing (several times) St. George, legendary dragon slayer. Just as he says he is "burned" (by agents), he is killed in a fire.
The crew's captain is absent, and the crew (Charon, Duncan, Pilot and Link) discuss what to do next. Do they wait one day for their captain to get back and possibly allow the currently-running tag program to lead sentinels to their hovercraft, or do they forget about the tag program and leave? Link goes back in to find her, and he figures out the Oracle's puzzle: the name of the girl they're looking for is Hope ("...and the child would be Hope").
Charon suspects a trap and tells Link to come back, but Link stays because it doesn't make sense that the girl is still alive if the girl were so gifted - she couldn't outrun the agents. He encounters a man, the man runs, and Link pursues and loses him. Then he encounters a woman who says "The dragons [agents] are coming." Both the man and woman are Hope, because it turns out Hope's ability is that she can change her RSI, not to mention she "knows" about the Matrix on her own. Five-year-old Hope again changes to a man over 6 feet tall. "She" is carrying a stuffed white rabbit.
Agents pursue both of them while Charon tries to guide them to an exit. Trapped on top of a building, they are finally able to escape when Link and Hope "fly" off the building.
The story leaves the "flying" to the imagination of the reader. Perhaps Hope can even change her RSI to that of a giant bird. Perhaps she can also fly like Neo. Or, more simply, maybe since she knows about the Matrix, this allows her to bend rules enough to where landing won't kill her (like how in a simulation Morpheus is able to jump 100 feet above a building, crack the pavement when he lands, and somehow be just fine).
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| Comics 1-4: Goliath | Comics 1-6: Butterfly |