The Certificatrix

 @circa 2010, credits to Veenaaponavan 

Thomas A. Anderson is a man living two lives. By day he is an average computer programmer and by night, an organism-studying-for-certification as Neo. Neo has always questioned his technical knowledge but the truth is far beyond his imagination. Neo finds himself targeted by the certifications, when he is contacted by Morpheus, a legendary certification dumps creator who has taken the same certification innumerable number of times. Morpheus awakens Neo to the real world, a ravaged wasteland where most techies have failed and their minds imprisoned within an artificial reality known as the Certificatrix. As a rebel against the certifications, Neo must confront the certification, a super powerful computer program devoted to failing him and the entire techie population.   Morpheus & Trinity have found Neo in his cubicle playing Minesweeper, even when there is only 2 days left for him to clear the certification. They begin to sensitize Neo about the hideousness of the thing that is the Certificatrix.   Trinity: My name's Trinity. Neo: *The* Trinity? Who cracked the Java certification exam? Trinity: That was a long time ago. Neo: Jesus... Trinity: I know why you're here, Neo. I know what you've been doing... why you hardly sleep, why you live alone and why night after night, you sit by your computer. You're studying for it. I know because I was once doing the same thing. And when I took the exam, I was told I didn’t pass. I was looking for the dumps. It's the question that drives us, Neo. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did. (But not the answer) Neo: What is the Certificatrix? Trinity: The exam is out there, Neo, and it's looking for you, and it will fail you. Neo: I thought this certification wasn't real Morpheus: Your job makes it real Neo: If you're killed trying to take the certification, you get demoted here? Morpheus: The job cannot live without the promotion Neo: What is the Certificatrix? Morpheus: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Certificatrix is. You have to attempt it for yourself. Neo: But why do I have to take the certification? Morpheus: Throughout our technical jobs, we have been dependent on certifications to prove how adept we are at taking irrelevant certifications. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. Neo: How is certification useful to me? Morpheus: To deny the certification is to deny the very thing that makes us techies. Neo: Will you help me with the certification? Morpheus: Remember... all I'm offering is the certification. Nothing more. Neo: Is it possible to pass? Morpheus: What is "pass"? How do you define "pass"?   Neo begins his training. Morpheus: How did I pass the certification? Neo: You... you're too fast. Morpheus: Do you believe that my attendance or dress code has anything to do with my brains in this place? Do you think that's a certification you're taking now? Neo: But I know Java. Morpheus: [eyeing him, hand on chin] Show me. Morpheus humiliates Neo with his superior debugging skills and Neo admits defeat. Neo: Am I certified? Morpheus: Far from it. Morpheus exits and meets Trinity in the hallway. Trinity: What's he doing? Morpheus: He's beginning to study.   Neo approaches Tank to brush up his skills. Tank: So what do you need? Besides a miracle. Neo: Questions. Lots of questions. Tank: We're supposed to start with these certification material first. That's major boring. Let's do something a little more fun. How about... the dumps? Neo: Dumps? I'm gonna learn from the dumps. [Tank winks and loads the dumps] Neo: Holy dump-o-mania! Tank: Hey Mikey, I think he likes it. How about some more? Neo: Hell, yes. Hell yeah.   Meanwhile, certification agents are discussing on the appalling failure rate of certification takers. Agent Brown: Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions. Agent Smith: Never send a DotNet resource to do a Java certification   Trinity & Neo are attempting a mock run of the certification. Neo: Whoa. Déjà vu. Trinity: What did you just say? Neo: Nothing. Just had a little déjà vu. Trinity: What did you see? Neo: A question I just attempted, and then another that looked just like it. Trinity: How much like it? Was it the same question? Neo: It might have been. I'm not sure. Morpheus: Switch! Apoc! Neo: What is it? Trinity: A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Certificatrix. It happens when they change the questions.   Neo returns after miserably failing his first certification attempt. Spoon boy is a disillusioned techie who has exhausted all his attempts and hasn’t still been able to clear the certification. Spoon boy approaches Neo, who is in deep study. Spoon boy: Do not try to clear the certification. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. Neo: What truth? Spoon boy: There is no PASS. Neo: There is no PASS? Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the PASS that bends, it is only yourself.   Neo returns after successively failing his second attempt. Neo: I didn’t make it. Morpheus: What are you waiting for? You're faster than this in choosing the wrong answer. Don't think you can’t, know you can’t. Come on. Stop trying to flunk the certification and flunk the certification. Neo: I just wish I had more time! Morpheus: I'm trying to help you clear your certification, Neo. But I can only give you the dumps. You're the one that has to clear it. Neo: Why do my brains hurt trying to study for this certification? Morpheus: You've never used them before. Neo: What did the Oracle tell you? Morpheus: That I cannot help you with Java certification Neo: What is happening to me? Morpheus: You are the One, Neo. You see, you may have spent the last few years taking certifications, but I have spent my entire life preparing dumps. Neo: What is the purpose of Certificatrix? Morpheus: What is the Certificatrix? USELESS! The Certificatrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a techie into this. [holds up a Certification Guide] Neo: No, I don't believe it. It's not possible. I can’t even take printouts of the material. Morpheus: Neo, sooner or later you're going to realize just as I did that there's a difference between studying the dumps and studying the certification material. Neo: But you said you would help me. Morpheus: I didn't say it would be easy, Neo. I just said it would be the truth. Morpheus exits and allows Neo to continue his certification study.   Neo is shockingly captured by the Agents, when he goes on a coffee break. Agent Smith: We're willing to wipe the slate clean, give you a fresh start. All that we're asking in return is your cooperation to fail the certification. Neo: Yeah. Well, that sounds like a pretty good deal. But I think I may have a better one. How about, I pass the certification? Agent Smith: Only human. You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson. You believe you are special, that somehow the certification does not apply to you. Obviously, you are mistaken. Neo: You can't scare me with this Gestapo nonsense. I know my rights. I want my dumps. Agent Smith: Tell me, Mr. Anderson... what good is the dumps... if you don’t know the technology? Neo: But... but… Agent Smith: I'm going to enjoy watching you fail the certification, Mr. Anderson. Neo is later rescued by Morpheus when the agents are distracted in attending to a rare case of a certification-taker shouting in jubilation after clearing his certification. But in doing so, Morpheus is captured by the agents. The only way to free Morpheus is to clear the certification. But without Morpheus, Neo does not have access to the latest dumps.   Neo begins preparation for his third and final attempt. Trinity: Please Neo, you have to trust me. Neo: Why? Trinity: Because you have been down there Neo, you know that certification; you know exactly where it ends. And I know that's not where you want to be. Neo: But I have to do this. Trinity: Neo... nobody has ever done this before. Neo: That's why I am going to pass. Neo approaches the certification test center. [Neo walks through a metal detector in the lobby and is approached by a security guard after it goes off] Security guard: Could you please remove any items you may be carrying, keys, loose change... [Neo opens his trench coat to reveal the certification guide & the dumps underneath] Security guard: Holy Cheating! [Neo knocks the guard down and runs] Neo courageously makes his way to the desktop where he has to take the certification. He commences the test and quickly begins keying in the answers. But as bad luck would have it, Agent Smith catches up with Neo.   Agent Smith: Did you know that the first Certificatrix was designed to be perfect? Where none passed, where everyone would be miserable. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Some believed we lacked the questions to test your technical & domain skills. But I believe that, as a species, techies define their reality through dumps & certification material. Which is why the Certificatrix was redesigned to this: to flunk all of your techie civilization. Neo: Not this time… Agent Smith: You hear that Mr. Anderson?... That is the sound of failure... It is the sound of your death... Goodbye, Mr. Anderson... Neo: My name... is Neo. Neo presses the “Submit” button and the screen goes blank. The monitor blinks to life, “Congratulations! You have JUST passed the certification with 70%” Agent Smith: Nooooooooooooo…….! [disintegrates]   In the Certificatrix world, Neo closes the browser. He looks at the mindless masses around him, picks up his ID card, puts on his glasses and then looks up.     *All characters & events appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons or events, living or dead, is purely coincidental.