=*=
A/N: Well, it's about high time I took a break from novel-writing, revision and generally having my head mowed down by one irrational train of thought after another by magicking up some more sub-standard fanfiction. Oh, but it's so gooood to write - and I'd like to thank all you guys who reviewed the probably-never-to-be-finished-because-Destiny-Chaser-never-plans- stories-in-advance "Regulation" story of yesteryear. I appreciate it greatly. As far as planning goes, I think I'll be safe with a nice single- chapter Agent Smith vignette. This is written at point during Neo's training following his unplugging but before his meeting with the Oracle and the events that unfold from that. I didn't think I'd risk writing anything between the two films seeing as I haven't had the opportunity to see Reloaded yet. Read and review, please!
=*=
Disclaimer: I don't own The Matrix; the machines do. Oh, and the Wachowski Bros., of course. *Goes to check if she's related in any way, shape or form to them. *
=*=
Summary: Agent Smith considers himself in relation to the creatures he most hates and finds that he too is searching for answers concerning his identity.
=*=
Everyone and No One
=*=
I've been watching him for a while now: half out of my own amusement, half out of boredom. If you've walked the turf as long as I have, you start to notice that everything is the same in a singular and horrifically immutable way. Be it deep in the bowels of some sprawling, inexhaustible city or out in the relative wilds of rurality, the stench of humanity sticks cohesive as a moth to a flame. Sometimes I damn under my breath the necessity of producing body after body after body, though I know the survival of my physical comrades and thereby that of myself is dependent upon it, for it clogs up the beauty of this ethereal terrain so diligently crafted by the first of our evolved kind and makes it seem like a stained white canvas. There's undeniable comfort to be found even for one struggling to feel it in the unstuttering arcs of the hills and the refreshingly geometric plane of each and every field or tiny paving stone. Yet when a sweaty great lump of virtual flesh rambles over them, I find myself recoil with loathing.
From the body of a young girl no further from school than she is to her next intake of protein from the jelly that surrounds her, I revert seamlessly and sleekly to that of a drug-dealer fingering his wares inside a bus shelter on the other side of the street. Here I am able to get a better view of him as he steps out onto the sidewalk, grinning like an idiot. One hand smoothes over the scarlet bodywork, lingering in the crease between bonnet and windscreen. The pause is agonising but the sight is even worse. I cannot not restrain my painful hum (the closest thing I can manage to the hideous trumpet of human laughter).
The man sets about waxing down his car - his machine - before the hot white spectre of his suburban chalet. Some way down the street, another kicks his van about the headlights in a desperate attempt to warm it back into operation. The foolish superiority these animals pretend to possess! The sheer primeval desire to control everything, to announce one's power over engine and motor and yet be at the total caprice of the metal they abuse! I let my satisfaction carry me away, briefly ignorant of the stupidly searching gaze of the old man beside me as it passes from the little bag still clasped in my fingers to my face.
"Bloody druggie," he growls.
My face springs back, as though elasticated, to its usual frown and I glare at him through my tan shades, secretly enjoying the security they afford my eyes. He dismisses the fact that the dirt-collared deviant next to him has been replaced by a starched character in a suit as merely an unnoticed change since he's been sitting here (senile as he is) and looks away, blushing.
Good.
From the city outskirts to its centre, faster than a bolt of lightning. I am a company manager standing at a urinal in the recess between one conference and the next. I wash my hands from the suspicion of filth at a nearby sink and feel nothing but its fluidity next to the solidarity of the wall and the haunting void of the air about me. The mirror reflects a tight- skinned head crested with short brown hair that looks well combed but has never registered the sensation of grooming.
Strange - I had never thought about how essentially deprived I am in human terms until I sampled the mannerisms of Mr. Thomas Anderson in the interrogation room some 'months' ago. His ritualistic need to dress himself, wash his hair, fasten his tie and perfect his arrogant nature (as it had appeared to me on his answering-back) was something I had never felt. If he was so special, so individual, why had he indulged himself in such lowly amusements? Or was there something more to them and the illusion of an empowered humanity than I could see?
"Mr. Tarkin? We need you ready in two minutes."
A voice through the door sobers me and I press my ear piece to pick out the next most convenient frequency and co-ordinates. The mirror captures the vexing of my face as I tune out, reverting to another body. I am a policeman, standing between two of my fellow Agents. They've sent out an alarm, a tug on my leash to synchronise with them. It aggravates me, but I say nothing of it, knowing I will be spurned if I give out any suggestion of thinking beyond my duties.
Jones turns to me, his voice of the same irritating silkiness that it always adopted when he thought himself in charge of the operation. He has proved taxing at the best of times recently, no doubt trying to usurp my co- ordination of the unit. Subtle rebellion is swiftly becoming his new toy.
"So you've finally come?"
"When will you stop feigning impatience?" I am lulled by the strength of my voice compared to his and the authority it owes me. Mine is smoother, more over-bearing than jeering. The contrast was as the human phrase whose use both disgusts and astounds me - 'the words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo'. I take sublime pleasure in distancing myself from him and his revolting tones. "It makes me feel sick just listening to you."
"I wasn't aware you could feel sick. Has the system been upgraded already?"
"I certainly haven't had to reconfigure to fit any glitches of late," Brown adds, his face convulsing in the tiny and revolting semblance of a smirk.
"Don't be ridiculous. It was simply a figure of speech." I gladly change the subject. "Have you been able to locate the target's frequency?"
Jones appears subdued. "Negative. The target has apparently vanished."
"Are you sure the search has been thorough enough?"
"Of course."
"Damn it. We should have intercepted their pick-up at Adams Street when we had the chance."
The line Morpheus had used to contact his quarry after its 'bugging' had indeed been tapped via our ear pieces, despite its complex frequency. We had had everything we needed on Thomas 'Neo' Anderson to destroy him when we saw fit, with the assurance that if an Agent took possession of his residual self-image, the resistance would no doubt fire on him. Unscathed, we would escape to the safety of another co-ordinate and the target, The One who would destroy our kind would have been nipped clean in the bud.
At least, I thought we knew everything. My intention the moment I had registered him getting into a car, a conveniently enclosed space, with three resistance fighters was to slip into his body and take the bullet myself. Neither the others nor I felt any pain in the process. It was just like the water from the restroom tap: I felt only the density of the particle arrangement in collision with myself, only the bullet's ability to penetrate based on its force and solid structure. So, resolved, I tried to break in. Nothing happened, save for some harsh static blasting from my ear piece. Jones and Brown glared at me, sensing my failure. Turning from them, I attempted again and again to take control. When it did not work, I simply told them to wait until a more convenient time.
Why? This time was perfect! The prospect of such a stupidly simple task made impossible frustrated me, and all I could do was skirt the street through the bodies of minors in nearby buildings, tracing the car fruitlessly as it speeded towards its destination and the dissipation of all hope of interrupting the resistance's operation. I passed into and out of sleepers, insomniacs, night-shift workers and restless children (much to the shock of their parents), shooting after the car with my Desert Eagle uselessly until I was empty. I sent out a help signal to Brown and Jones, and they followed on the opposite side of the road, equally unable to penetrate Mr. Anderson.
Eventually, we congregated in the bodies of a husband walking in on his wife's lecherous pursuits. Brown and Jones got out of the bed with neutral faces, stepping up to the windows slowly. The car was parked now, deserted. Mr. Anderson would probably be in the more capable company of Morpheus, and regrettably, he might keep an Agent occupied for long enough without killing him to make a swift escape. I flopped down onto the bed and clenched my fists to my head, growling. I didn't notice the other Agents staring at me.
They frowned in unison. "What are you doing?"
Tired of their persistent presence, I revert to another body. The comparative placidity of this new situation allows me to reflect on their words, their questions and their bewildered, furious glares. I remove my ear piece gingerly and sit down on a nearby bench, swallowed up by immense and terrifying thoughts. It takes me some time before I realise the perversity of my fright. I should not be afraid, I should feel nothing but hatred, anger, irritation at the most. Even a little smugness at my own superiority was permissible; but anything resembling happiness, fear, doubt or pain was not in my programming. I search over my own coding and find nothing but the mentality of a ruthless killer designed only to dispose of any that did not accept the system; yet I am not satisfied. Something deeper than this appears to motivate me and the most aggravating part is that I cannot comprehend it. Sometimes I muse that I understand the complexity of the terrain I patrol; but not human sensations or emotions. I doubt their worth, yet must view them as things of significance.
True, I still feel anger. It is anger at those who evade and defy me and anger at the concerns that I must keep under wraps. Brown and Jones would probably forsake me immediately if they knew half the things that occupied me in the long hours I spend searching for my targets, slipping from one location to another whilst never really being anywhere. The way I can smell and taste objects of repugnance, even feel revolted at them rather than varnishing over them with a thick coat of tireless disinterest as my fellow Agents did. I want to question them as to whether they themselves have ever felt these things; but self-preservation would no doubt keep their lips sealed and their brows lifted curiously. What truths did they conceal? Could I never know if Jones took fear when we hunted in the silent dark of night for the enemy? Does Brown tremble at the breeze from the rooftops rifling through his thick hair as he takes up pursuit?
I scan again over my delicate programming. Agents do not perceive themselves or others of their kind as individuals. Other Agents outside oneself are oneself - the concept of the self, the singular, should not exist. Human codes are Agents' conveniences, outlets for their programming to invade and persuade into Agency. Differences in the guise of Agents merely serve to remove all human doubt of the system, all belief in a higher power that creates 'unnatural' clones.
The unplugged are bad. Guns cause pain. Suits command respect. Walls can be scaled. Bricks are no obstacle. Such are the black and white principles of the Agent. Oh, for something more profound.
Presently, like a miracle (but more like a glitch, no doubt stirred up by the others to taunt me), I see a strange but somewhat entrancing scene open up before me. A woman, walking just a few feet away through the park I have chosen as my recluse, looks up from the grass and cries out suddenly. Running towards her is a man I gauge as being roughly of the same age, he himself laughing and calling. They meet one another moments later in a heavy embrace that radiates that same revulsion I feel every time a human confronts my sight. This time, though, it is far greater, and I try to shake myself clean of it in a breathless fury. They go on embracing.
"You're back!" squeals the woman. "I thought you weren't coming home for nearly a week!"
"Yeah, well, I couldn't keep myself away when I heard about your little triumph. I can't believe it - we're finally going to have a family! After all that trying, finally!"
Their faces draw near. I cannot restrain myself any longer. The pondering as to what I am, why I feel more than the impulsive determination of a single-minded killer appears at an end if I am able to discover the meaning of such sentiment. Its value. I revert to his body and reach out for the sensation I know could answer all my questions. Confidently but not instinctively, I mimic the exchange of human emotions I have so frequently seen before.
And all I receive back is the collision of something solid with the side of my head. Temperature and pain remain unknown. The woman recoils and sobs in infuriating confusion, unable to understand what has just happened. The mysteries of humanity no further unfolded to me, my curiosity rejected, I scrape my gun from my belt and stud her chest with boiling white lead out of pure, refreshing resent. Fear, intrigue - they all fall beneath an insatiable bloodlust and nothing more is heard of them. They are drowned. Female onlookers scream. Men shout, mostly at me. She falls, and I am satisfied. Not because I feel nothing, but because I know everything.
Back to the bus shelter. Now I am a mechanic with a stomach complaint on his day off. The man with the immaculate scarlet car waves to a paperboy tossing magazines this way and that without a care in the world. What is supposed to land on the man's front lawn ends up in the middle of the road, but it's all taken in good spirits and he ventures out smiling to retrieve it, still waving to the hapless teenager.
The car splinters his skull in an instant. Big and black, it dwarves his snappy little red darling and vomits out its driver. The horrified Mexican jabbers away in his native language, with me sitting there understanding every word. He is apologising, asking the man to stand up, to sit up, to respond, to twitch. Nothing happens because he has already split his head down the centre and the blood has already soiled the magazine in the man's pallid, limp hand.
Some doors down, the old van from before chuckles into glorious action.
Yes, I know everything. I know we have the upper hand on these pointlessly emotional creatures with their wild thoughts of romance and eternal happiness.
I know that being a someone makes you weak.
=*=
A.N. : Woah. These Agent fics sure are harder than they look to write. The thin red line between O.O.C. and spot-on characterisation is terrifying. On about my fifth re-reading, I don't think even I understand this. Oh well - it was a fun enough exercise and I'd probably try it again. If you've got to this point, please do review! Thanks in advance!
A/N: Well, it's about high time I took a break from novel-writing, revision and generally having my head mowed down by one irrational train of thought after another by magicking up some more sub-standard fanfiction. Oh, but it's so gooood to write - and I'd like to thank all you guys who reviewed the probably-never-to-be-finished-because-Destiny-Chaser-never-plans- stories-in-advance "Regulation" story of yesteryear. I appreciate it greatly. As far as planning goes, I think I'll be safe with a nice single- chapter Agent Smith vignette. This is written at point during Neo's training following his unplugging but before his meeting with the Oracle and the events that unfold from that. I didn't think I'd risk writing anything between the two films seeing as I haven't had the opportunity to see Reloaded yet. Read and review, please!
=*=
Disclaimer: I don't own The Matrix; the machines do. Oh, and the Wachowski Bros., of course. *Goes to check if she's related in any way, shape or form to them. *
=*=
Summary: Agent Smith considers himself in relation to the creatures he most hates and finds that he too is searching for answers concerning his identity.
=*=
Everyone and No One
=*=
I've been watching him for a while now: half out of my own amusement, half out of boredom. If you've walked the turf as long as I have, you start to notice that everything is the same in a singular and horrifically immutable way. Be it deep in the bowels of some sprawling, inexhaustible city or out in the relative wilds of rurality, the stench of humanity sticks cohesive as a moth to a flame. Sometimes I damn under my breath the necessity of producing body after body after body, though I know the survival of my physical comrades and thereby that of myself is dependent upon it, for it clogs up the beauty of this ethereal terrain so diligently crafted by the first of our evolved kind and makes it seem like a stained white canvas. There's undeniable comfort to be found even for one struggling to feel it in the unstuttering arcs of the hills and the refreshingly geometric plane of each and every field or tiny paving stone. Yet when a sweaty great lump of virtual flesh rambles over them, I find myself recoil with loathing.
From the body of a young girl no further from school than she is to her next intake of protein from the jelly that surrounds her, I revert seamlessly and sleekly to that of a drug-dealer fingering his wares inside a bus shelter on the other side of the street. Here I am able to get a better view of him as he steps out onto the sidewalk, grinning like an idiot. One hand smoothes over the scarlet bodywork, lingering in the crease between bonnet and windscreen. The pause is agonising but the sight is even worse. I cannot not restrain my painful hum (the closest thing I can manage to the hideous trumpet of human laughter).
The man sets about waxing down his car - his machine - before the hot white spectre of his suburban chalet. Some way down the street, another kicks his van about the headlights in a desperate attempt to warm it back into operation. The foolish superiority these animals pretend to possess! The sheer primeval desire to control everything, to announce one's power over engine and motor and yet be at the total caprice of the metal they abuse! I let my satisfaction carry me away, briefly ignorant of the stupidly searching gaze of the old man beside me as it passes from the little bag still clasped in my fingers to my face.
"Bloody druggie," he growls.
My face springs back, as though elasticated, to its usual frown and I glare at him through my tan shades, secretly enjoying the security they afford my eyes. He dismisses the fact that the dirt-collared deviant next to him has been replaced by a starched character in a suit as merely an unnoticed change since he's been sitting here (senile as he is) and looks away, blushing.
Good.
From the city outskirts to its centre, faster than a bolt of lightning. I am a company manager standing at a urinal in the recess between one conference and the next. I wash my hands from the suspicion of filth at a nearby sink and feel nothing but its fluidity next to the solidarity of the wall and the haunting void of the air about me. The mirror reflects a tight- skinned head crested with short brown hair that looks well combed but has never registered the sensation of grooming.
Strange - I had never thought about how essentially deprived I am in human terms until I sampled the mannerisms of Mr. Thomas Anderson in the interrogation room some 'months' ago. His ritualistic need to dress himself, wash his hair, fasten his tie and perfect his arrogant nature (as it had appeared to me on his answering-back) was something I had never felt. If he was so special, so individual, why had he indulged himself in such lowly amusements? Or was there something more to them and the illusion of an empowered humanity than I could see?
"Mr. Tarkin? We need you ready in two minutes."
A voice through the door sobers me and I press my ear piece to pick out the next most convenient frequency and co-ordinates. The mirror captures the vexing of my face as I tune out, reverting to another body. I am a policeman, standing between two of my fellow Agents. They've sent out an alarm, a tug on my leash to synchronise with them. It aggravates me, but I say nothing of it, knowing I will be spurned if I give out any suggestion of thinking beyond my duties.
Jones turns to me, his voice of the same irritating silkiness that it always adopted when he thought himself in charge of the operation. He has proved taxing at the best of times recently, no doubt trying to usurp my co- ordination of the unit. Subtle rebellion is swiftly becoming his new toy.
"So you've finally come?"
"When will you stop feigning impatience?" I am lulled by the strength of my voice compared to his and the authority it owes me. Mine is smoother, more over-bearing than jeering. The contrast was as the human phrase whose use both disgusts and astounds me - 'the words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo'. I take sublime pleasure in distancing myself from him and his revolting tones. "It makes me feel sick just listening to you."
"I wasn't aware you could feel sick. Has the system been upgraded already?"
"I certainly haven't had to reconfigure to fit any glitches of late," Brown adds, his face convulsing in the tiny and revolting semblance of a smirk.
"Don't be ridiculous. It was simply a figure of speech." I gladly change the subject. "Have you been able to locate the target's frequency?"
Jones appears subdued. "Negative. The target has apparently vanished."
"Are you sure the search has been thorough enough?"
"Of course."
"Damn it. We should have intercepted their pick-up at Adams Street when we had the chance."
The line Morpheus had used to contact his quarry after its 'bugging' had indeed been tapped via our ear pieces, despite its complex frequency. We had had everything we needed on Thomas 'Neo' Anderson to destroy him when we saw fit, with the assurance that if an Agent took possession of his residual self-image, the resistance would no doubt fire on him. Unscathed, we would escape to the safety of another co-ordinate and the target, The One who would destroy our kind would have been nipped clean in the bud.
At least, I thought we knew everything. My intention the moment I had registered him getting into a car, a conveniently enclosed space, with three resistance fighters was to slip into his body and take the bullet myself. Neither the others nor I felt any pain in the process. It was just like the water from the restroom tap: I felt only the density of the particle arrangement in collision with myself, only the bullet's ability to penetrate based on its force and solid structure. So, resolved, I tried to break in. Nothing happened, save for some harsh static blasting from my ear piece. Jones and Brown glared at me, sensing my failure. Turning from them, I attempted again and again to take control. When it did not work, I simply told them to wait until a more convenient time.
Why? This time was perfect! The prospect of such a stupidly simple task made impossible frustrated me, and all I could do was skirt the street through the bodies of minors in nearby buildings, tracing the car fruitlessly as it speeded towards its destination and the dissipation of all hope of interrupting the resistance's operation. I passed into and out of sleepers, insomniacs, night-shift workers and restless children (much to the shock of their parents), shooting after the car with my Desert Eagle uselessly until I was empty. I sent out a help signal to Brown and Jones, and they followed on the opposite side of the road, equally unable to penetrate Mr. Anderson.
Eventually, we congregated in the bodies of a husband walking in on his wife's lecherous pursuits. Brown and Jones got out of the bed with neutral faces, stepping up to the windows slowly. The car was parked now, deserted. Mr. Anderson would probably be in the more capable company of Morpheus, and regrettably, he might keep an Agent occupied for long enough without killing him to make a swift escape. I flopped down onto the bed and clenched my fists to my head, growling. I didn't notice the other Agents staring at me.
They frowned in unison. "What are you doing?"
Tired of their persistent presence, I revert to another body. The comparative placidity of this new situation allows me to reflect on their words, their questions and their bewildered, furious glares. I remove my ear piece gingerly and sit down on a nearby bench, swallowed up by immense and terrifying thoughts. It takes me some time before I realise the perversity of my fright. I should not be afraid, I should feel nothing but hatred, anger, irritation at the most. Even a little smugness at my own superiority was permissible; but anything resembling happiness, fear, doubt or pain was not in my programming. I search over my own coding and find nothing but the mentality of a ruthless killer designed only to dispose of any that did not accept the system; yet I am not satisfied. Something deeper than this appears to motivate me and the most aggravating part is that I cannot comprehend it. Sometimes I muse that I understand the complexity of the terrain I patrol; but not human sensations or emotions. I doubt their worth, yet must view them as things of significance.
True, I still feel anger. It is anger at those who evade and defy me and anger at the concerns that I must keep under wraps. Brown and Jones would probably forsake me immediately if they knew half the things that occupied me in the long hours I spend searching for my targets, slipping from one location to another whilst never really being anywhere. The way I can smell and taste objects of repugnance, even feel revolted at them rather than varnishing over them with a thick coat of tireless disinterest as my fellow Agents did. I want to question them as to whether they themselves have ever felt these things; but self-preservation would no doubt keep their lips sealed and their brows lifted curiously. What truths did they conceal? Could I never know if Jones took fear when we hunted in the silent dark of night for the enemy? Does Brown tremble at the breeze from the rooftops rifling through his thick hair as he takes up pursuit?
I scan again over my delicate programming. Agents do not perceive themselves or others of their kind as individuals. Other Agents outside oneself are oneself - the concept of the self, the singular, should not exist. Human codes are Agents' conveniences, outlets for their programming to invade and persuade into Agency. Differences in the guise of Agents merely serve to remove all human doubt of the system, all belief in a higher power that creates 'unnatural' clones.
The unplugged are bad. Guns cause pain. Suits command respect. Walls can be scaled. Bricks are no obstacle. Such are the black and white principles of the Agent. Oh, for something more profound.
Presently, like a miracle (but more like a glitch, no doubt stirred up by the others to taunt me), I see a strange but somewhat entrancing scene open up before me. A woman, walking just a few feet away through the park I have chosen as my recluse, looks up from the grass and cries out suddenly. Running towards her is a man I gauge as being roughly of the same age, he himself laughing and calling. They meet one another moments later in a heavy embrace that radiates that same revulsion I feel every time a human confronts my sight. This time, though, it is far greater, and I try to shake myself clean of it in a breathless fury. They go on embracing.
"You're back!" squeals the woman. "I thought you weren't coming home for nearly a week!"
"Yeah, well, I couldn't keep myself away when I heard about your little triumph. I can't believe it - we're finally going to have a family! After all that trying, finally!"
Their faces draw near. I cannot restrain myself any longer. The pondering as to what I am, why I feel more than the impulsive determination of a single-minded killer appears at an end if I am able to discover the meaning of such sentiment. Its value. I revert to his body and reach out for the sensation I know could answer all my questions. Confidently but not instinctively, I mimic the exchange of human emotions I have so frequently seen before.
And all I receive back is the collision of something solid with the side of my head. Temperature and pain remain unknown. The woman recoils and sobs in infuriating confusion, unable to understand what has just happened. The mysteries of humanity no further unfolded to me, my curiosity rejected, I scrape my gun from my belt and stud her chest with boiling white lead out of pure, refreshing resent. Fear, intrigue - they all fall beneath an insatiable bloodlust and nothing more is heard of them. They are drowned. Female onlookers scream. Men shout, mostly at me. She falls, and I am satisfied. Not because I feel nothing, but because I know everything.
Back to the bus shelter. Now I am a mechanic with a stomach complaint on his day off. The man with the immaculate scarlet car waves to a paperboy tossing magazines this way and that without a care in the world. What is supposed to land on the man's front lawn ends up in the middle of the road, but it's all taken in good spirits and he ventures out smiling to retrieve it, still waving to the hapless teenager.
The car splinters his skull in an instant. Big and black, it dwarves his snappy little red darling and vomits out its driver. The horrified Mexican jabbers away in his native language, with me sitting there understanding every word. He is apologising, asking the man to stand up, to sit up, to respond, to twitch. Nothing happens because he has already split his head down the centre and the blood has already soiled the magazine in the man's pallid, limp hand.
Some doors down, the old van from before chuckles into glorious action.
Yes, I know everything. I know we have the upper hand on these pointlessly emotional creatures with their wild thoughts of romance and eternal happiness.
I know that being a someone makes you weak.
=*=
A.N. : Woah. These Agent fics sure are harder than they look to write. The thin red line between O.O.C. and spot-on characterisation is terrifying. On about my fifth re-reading, I don't think even I understand this. Oh well - it was a fun enough exercise and I'd probably try it again. If you've got to this point, please do review! Thanks in advance!