Mimic
Brown and Jones have an interesting, albeit
strange, proposal for the exiled Agent Smith.
But what of the cost of entering the real world to
assassinate Neo?
Warning: Ahead might be some spoilers. Don’t know…haven’t read any. The possible explanations for the Matrix are
only speculations that I decided to form into this story. But I thought I’d warn you, just in case, if
you don’t want any preconceived possibilities for Revs, don’t go on.
~~~~~~~
A
slow rhythmic melody coursed through the interior of the car as Smith
considered the humans surrounding him.
The real world, this rebel had said and the fact that she said it so
freely made him contemplate, wondering if she said that to all the
inductees. He watched her a moment as
she watched him, both weighing the other with concealed thoughts. The car turned down a dark road that bled
away from the rushing night life and he inhaled deeply. “The real world?” he repeated, pretending to
taste the phrase and the possibilities.
Of course he would be called upon by trickery to have no answer. “What do you mean?”
The
corner of her red lips tugged upwards into a crooked smile. She hesitated reflectively and he fought off
irritation at the slow coming of a fact he was already aware of. “I mean what seems to be is not really
there. Would you consider believing that
this world around you is not real?”
Smith
stole a glance out the windshield ahead, playing the game as he thought a human
would. “Not real. I suppose that would depend on what that
meant.” He knit his brow and looked to
her for the guidance she so willingly would offer.
Psyche
looked him over, then reached out, taking his
hand. He expected some sort of gentle
caress, something to draw him with her charms to the choice he must make and
was abruptly surprised when she took the flesh between her fingers and twisted. He did not have to pretend to be annoyed;
yanked his hand away and frowned upon her mischievous little grin. She continued despite that and he wondered
then also if she harmed every other individual they interviewed. “What if I told you just then that I had not
really pinched you? That I had not
really touched you at all?”
“Get
to the point,” he suggested impatiently, rubbing the flesh more out of anger of
what that pain represented rather than any real upset about the actual
feeling. He hated that these humans
could so manipulate his senses and each other’s with little more effort than a
touch.
“So
angry, Mimic,” she observed in reply. “You may find it is misdirected. What I mean is this. What you see is not real. You had talked about a “mind-sim” and that is precisely what you are taking part in
right now.”
Smith
effectively looked at her with a dubious, if interested, expression. His response was weighed, then
spoken. “All right. So, who is responsible? If what you say is correct, tell me then, how
many are affected? All
of
Psyche
shook her head softly, eyes invisible behind those dark shades and therefore
her thoughts hidden as well. Yet he
could well imagine what she would be feeling now. Pity that she had to tell him the grand
scale, that nearly the whole of their pathetic race had been enslaved into a
life he viewed better than whatever could be out there in the dead breadth of
the earth. “There is no
That
would not be immediately believable to any human hearing it for the first
time. He grunted at the idea, appearing
as though he were trying to divine whether or not she was insane or lying. He selected his reply from pop-culture’s
current explanation for the unknown. “The entire world?
You’re not going to try and sell me some lurid tale of
extra-terrestrials are you? If so, you may stop the car now.”
She
laughed at that. “No, our slave masters
are quite indigenous, I’m afraid.” Her
tone decreased as she mused sadly, “Made by our own hand. Every God’s children run astray.” Matthew Pryce mixed
with Smith would have rolled his eyes if the software part of him would have
allowed such a human gesture.
The
car eased to a halt, but because of the tint on his window Smith could not see
where they had stopped. Humans would turn themselves into the martyred
divinity, the creator that mourns his creation.
He turned to her with a measured degree of interest and disbelief. “Let’s say I believe you. What then?”
At
this prompting, her small hand disappeared into the pocket of her leather
jacket, then returned with a little, non-descript bottle from which she removed
something. Two somethings
he saw soon enough. She turned her palm
up, opened her hand and there were two little capsules there, gleaming red and
blue. “The blue pill will make you feel
sleepy. While you are unconscious it
will alter your memories…cloud them, if you will. You may remember me, you may remember
nothing. We will see you safely home and
that will be that. The red one will
allow us to find you.”
He
looked down at the little programs, each written to do a separate task and yet
tied together by necessity. He wondered
at the red coloring of her chat font, thinking perhaps she chose that color to
entice the subconscious into making the desirable choice. “Find me,” he said, meeting her steady
gaze. “Will I wake up somewhere else?”
Psyche
nodded once, then tapped the driver’s shoulder. Instantly Smith’s window began to
descend. Outside was an abandoned
building with the word ‘truth’ spray-painted in white on the unwashed brick. Humans were so utterly inane. “If you choose the red pill, I will tell you
that you are taking the harder road, Mimic.
I won’t lie to you. If you feel a
pleasant falsehood more preferable to the truth, take the blue. I’ll give you water and you can forget the
questions, forget the Matrix and forget me.
But if you want understanding, take the red and we’ll go into that
building.”
A
wry smile wound its way onto his mouth, an expression he felt appropriate. “When you open the door, what will I see?”
“There’s
one way to find out.” She cocked her
head and waited.
Of
course he took the red pill. Psyche
halted him from taking it right away, motioned towards the building and opened
her car door. Almost absently Smith
pictured his enemy in this position, pictured the young Thomas Anderson
stepping out of a car, perhaps with a silent Morpheus
leading the way. He wondered then what
had gone through
Psyche’s
underlings disappeared into the building, momentarily leaving him alone with
her. Her face was grave as she removed
her sunglasses and looked him up and down with that same weighing look she had
when she thought she had recognized him.
“Go in. They will take you to
where you should be. Tell them I’m
making a call. I won’t be a
moment.” She opened the door for him, never taking her eyes from his face as he walked passed
her.
When
the door shut behind him, he wondered if he had not sealed his own doom. Who would she call at a time like this?
~~~~~~~
A
form nearby threatened his attention with glittering eyes that he knew without
looking were upon him. The bedroom was
dark aside from the light bleeding from his terminal and the delicate tiffany
lamp turned on low upon his desk.
Persephone was lying there on their large bed, her arms crossed beneath
her cheek and a sheet carelessly draped across her feet. The Merovingian pulled his eyes away from the
screen and slid them down the soft, silken form of her back, on up into her
face. She did not smile when he smiled,
did not change expression at all beneath his deadly scrutiny.
Exhaling,
he looked again at the screen, monitoring the Agent program he had so
meticulously altered. He had wondered
what the effect would be, should he alter this one, this chosen one he would
change into an anomaly. He had sought to
disturb the delicate balance that the Architect had established and it had
turned out quite interestingly. The
Architect…thinking of him brought a sneer to the Merovingian’s
lips. Two could play god, but in the end
only one would win and he planned to be the victor.
So
the humans believed whole heartedly that they had escaped the Matrix. They chose freedom and assumed they left the
lies the Architect constructed for them.
Merovingian had found it very amusing once upon a time, their dreams of
freedom, handed to them even as they were never truly given. What they saw as their Real World was nothing
more than another simulation—a fact only the highest or smartest of programs
were aware of. Merovingian had learned
quite easily when he had begun to study the Matrix and the percentage of humans
that rejected it. And it was a simple
answer that the Architect had created to this problem. Give them a choice—fool them into believing they made that choice. When he had learned the Real World was not
real, he had laughed.
Now
he simply wanted to change his age-long duty.
To test and to watch, for such was his nature. He enjoyed causing and manipulating, creating
and destroying. It had become his
passion ever since he had been altered by the one the humans whispered of, this
first incarnation of a Messiah that could alter the Matrix at will, this one
they had waited for to be reborn into Neo.
The irony was that Smith was not the first artificially intelligent
software to be altered by communion with a human being. Of course the difference was the first time
had been an accident. The second had
been an afterthought of a hope after Merovingian had changed Smith and drove
him to be discontent. Neo had given
Smith what had been given to him once upon a time—a spark of life, or so he
called it. The human had taken what had
been done to Smith a step further and Merovingian was eager to see what effects
this would have.
He
wondered also when the Architect would call him on meddling with the balance.
Instead
of deleting a defective program as he possibly could have done in the
beginning, the Architect had decided the Merovingian could be used to his
advantage. Thus he created the Path of
the One, modeling each after the first anomaly that had manipulated the Matrix
and sending each one here. Five previous
times had this chosen one been directed to the Merovingian to gain the Keymaker and he was quite plainly tired of it. So he warned the Oracle not to send Neo here
and so he altered Smith, wondering what effect this pebble in the stream would
have upon the balance. It could possibly
destroy the Matrix…or it could do nothing.
Outwardly, he did not care.
Somewhere inside though, he wondered if he might just want total
destruction. The
ultimate effect.
“You
have been awake all night. Will you ever
come to bed?” Persephone’s voice called to him.
He looked up again, made love to that body with his eyes and this time
was rewarded by a smile. So dangerous their love had become. Cold and yet not without a
flame of fun. She was becoming
too interested in his more secret doings, too afraid to incur the wrath of the
precious Architect. He wondered if she
had guessed the inner-most workings of his mind. He would not put it past her. She rose up with a sultry smile that meant
nothing. The only real passion they
experienced now was the challenge between them.
Merovingian
turned back towards the terminal, watching as the Smith program was traced by
the humans. “Go to sleep, Persephone.”
He
became aware of her stepping from the bed and walking his way. Irritated, he turned the screen off and
swirled his chair around to face her approach.
Her eyes lingered on the black face of the monitor, then
found him with an equally cool expression as she had given that lifeless piece
of code. “You play a dangerous game, my
love.”
A
grin spread across his lips as he leaned forward, took her hands and kissed
them. “What do you think I am playing
at, my dear?”
“You
don’t think the Architect knows you are disrupting the Path of the One?” She pulled her hands away. “What do you think will happen if this is not
played out the same way as it has always been?”
He
looked at her with a bored expression.
“What do you think will happen?
Apparently you have some sort of cataclysmic conclusion. Tell me.”
Persephone’s
brow knit. “You evade me by answering
questions with questions.”
Unexpectedly
he slammed his fist down onto the desk, then glared up
at her, angered by this ridiculous prying on her behalf. “Damn it, Persephone, I ask these things to
make you think! What do you think will happen? Do you think I have not considered all
possibilities? Do you think the humans
are the only form of intelligence that this forgery of a world has enslaved?” Her eyes washed over him as she carefully
considered and catalogued his response.
The Merovingian sat back in his chair, turned the screen back on and
turned his back on her with a question.
“Are you working for him?”
Her
voice was harsh with resent, yet he placed no value in her response. “You would accuse me of that. Don’t be foolish.”
It
would be revealed in time whether or not she sided with the Architect or with
him. Right now it mattered little. Let her run back to him with information if
that was what her game was. The damage to
the Path of the One had already been delivered.
Watching the Matrix feed Smith with a fantasy of waking up in the crop
yards, he ignored her until her presence retreated back to the bed.
A
knock at the door furthered his agitation, hardening his voice as he snapped,
“Come in!”
Two
forms entered, two beings and not three, and Merovingian’s jaw clenched as he watched them
approach. The Twins could see his
displeasure immediately, but did not hesitate to report. “We lost the backup copy of the Agent,” said
one.
“He
escaped with a car,” finished the other.
He
knew of it. He had seen most of the
fight on the security camera he monitored.
Merovingian folded his hands and regarded them, then let his thoughts
drift off into the realms of possibility.
There was no use in reprimanding them for their sloppy work. Both knew their wrong and both were valuable
enough to be saved from termination. Now
he turned his thoughts on planning. “Escaped with a car.
Where will he go, I wonder?”
The
Twins exchanged glances and he could tell there was more news to be heard. “There is something we think you should
know.”
Merovingian
looked up. “Yes?”
“He
has stolen the subroutines to replicate himself from us.”
That
was certainly unforeseen. He glanced at
the screen before him, seeing another Smith within his mind. This new Exile would have to be tracked and
watched. The possible effects of that
particular outcome were boundless. A
slow smile spread across the Merovingian’s lips. “Interesting.”
~~~~~~~
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