Run Away
"He isn't here."
"I know."
"Where is he!?"
"I don't know."
"Where could he be!?"
Brown screamed at Jones, looking at him, wanting answers. Brown just stared at Jones, looking up at him, looking at someone who must know the answers. Jones always knows the answers. Jones always knows what to do. Jones always did. Smith always did.
"I don't know..." Jones admits.
They stand there, in their white room. The so called, "Agency" as rebels have come to call it. The place where they are put until their services are needed. It is their own little Construct, created to store them, like a file for a program on a computer. A small white room, with no doors. When they are needed, they are told so by the Mainframe through their earpieces, and they are given humans to become and use as vessels.
This is where they are given time to themselves, their downtime. It is spent with Smith in the corner, standing with his arms crossed, thinking to himself. And Brown and Jones at the other side of the room looking at each other, wondering what Smith is thinking.
And now, they were alone. Smith was not in his corner, thinking the only thoughts he has to himself. They stare at the empty corner, Jones looking at it, and Brown staring at Jones, waiting for an answer.
Brown looked away, knowing he would be given no answer. He started panicking, and pacing from Smith's corner back to Jones. While Jones just stood there. Maybe he was frozen in shock or fear.
Smith was not there, their leader was gone.
"Why wouldn't he listen to us!?" Brown yelled.
"I don't know." Jones whispered.
"Why wouldn't he abort!? We told him to abort!"
"He wanted to fight." Jones said, as if dazed.
"How could he loose!? How could he loose!?"
"He wanted to kill that human."
"What happened there!? What did that human do to him!?"
Jones was silent for a moment.
"The human went inside him." Jones finally said.
Brown froze, and turned away from Jones.
It was true. The human, Mr. Anderson, went inside Smith. Literally jumping into him, and breaking him from the inside out. Making his coding explode, and crack him. Mr. Anderson turned Smith into oblivion. Mr. Anderson defied all laws of the Matrix. Mr. Anderson came back from death, and killed Smith. What choice did they have but run?
And they heard him scream. They heard Smith, the pain he endured. They never heard him scream before, he never did before. They never heard such pain. Such pain from being destroyed from the inside. Smith screamed on the inside, screaming through the earpiece, pleading for Jones and Brown to help him. But they didn't know how.
Through the earpiece they are connected, their minds and thoughts heard by each other, the Mainframe's commands heard through them.
Through the earpiece, Smith screamed to his death.
"He should have returned here! With us!" Brown pleads for answers.
"He should have." Jones agrees.
That is what happens when an Agent dies, or has fulfilled their mission. They return back to this Construct, this Agency, and then wait for further orders.
Smith died, Smith was destroyed, but he had not returned.
Brown turned to Jones, pleading for something to make him believe Smith was coming. To make Smith come back. Jones just lowered his head.
Jones did a lot for Brown. But he could not do this.
Smith was their leader. They were incomplete without him. How could they function without Smith? These thoughts, scared Brown as he began pacing around the room again.
Smith protected them. Smith told them what to do, and they did it without any doubt. They allowed Smith to take control. They allowed Smith to kill the human. And they never mentioned how they saw him smile whenever one human died by his hand.
What would they do without their leader, their protector?
Brown, the little one. The quiet observer, always questioning, and being pleased to know the answer. Brown wanted Smith. He wanted Smith to come back and take control of this again. He wanted Smith to tell him to stop pacing around, because it was human. He wanted Smith to be there, and protect them.
Brown looked at Jones one more time. Jones who always seemed to protect him when Smith was too busy in his own thoughts. Jones who always made it better. But he couldn't make this better.
"He couldn't loose." Brown says, quietly.
"He did." Jones says without any emotion.
"He couldn't..."
"He did."
Brown looks down, and puts his hand to his earpiece.
"I can't hear him." Brown says.
"I know, I can't either." Jones says.
"Why can't we hear him!? What is wrong!?"
"I don't know." Jones looks away.
"Why won't the Mainframe look for him!? Why can't they find him!?"
Always questioning. Finding questions in every action. Always asking the questions that never mattered. But Brown was always given an answer.
But now there were no answers.
They were left in the dark. They had no idea what happened. How that human was able to do what he did. How he was able to kill Smith. Where Smith was.
Why wouldn't he return...?
Hours past. They are still trapped in their Agency, their Construct. Apart from the rest of the Matrix, apart from everything else. They have no idea what is happening just beyond their white walls. No updates on Smith.
"He was always like this wasn't he?" Brown asks.
Jones looks over at him, Brown has taken Smith's place in the corner.
"No. Not always." Jones says, and Brown looks up. "When we were first activated."
"We were all the same when we were first activated." Brown says.
"But he wasn't like this for a long time." Jones argues. "Not until that incident."
Smith was different from them, they knew that. That is why he began to become the leader. That is why they allowed him to. Smith was different. Smith was always different. Smith was the one that always killed the human.
And every time they knew he smiled. They saw it. They knew he enjoyed it. They knew he wasn't supposed to. But they said nothing.
But Smith wasn't always the leader, didn't always smile at the death of a human.
He wasn't until that incident.
"He was choking wasn't he?" Brown asks.
"He said he was suffocating." Jones says.
"On what?"
"The smells."
"Smells?"
"I think he meant the smells of the humans."
They both looked at each other, confused.
That incident, where Smith got out of the car ready to chase a rebel, then collapsed gasping for air. Jones and Brown try to aid him, but he just screamed and said he was choking. He just fell, and grabbed his neck, trying to breath. They thought something was wrong, but the Mainframe found he was functioning perfectly.
It was the first time Smith smelled the smells of the humans, the smell that would plague him for years to come. And Jones and Brown just didn't understand. Smith would scream at them, wondering why they didn't smell the humans like he did.
He would sometimes try to explain it to them, when they were in their Construct or in the car. But they could grasp the concept.
Ever since then, Smith was different. Smith smiled at the death of a human. Smith felt emotion.
But Jones and Brown never said anything.
Maybe they should have. Maybe the Mainframe would have repaired Smith. Maybe he would still be with them. If they said anything, Smith would have never gone after Mr. Anderson with just passion.
Smith would have never felt hatred.
Smith would have never died.
He would have never left them.
"Where is he?" Brown asked, following Jones.
Brown's voice growing more and more impatient.
The Mainframe had sent them to retrieve Smith, they had found him. After five days they found him. He was still in the very place he died. Within the Heart o' City Hotel, next to the door of room 303. That is where Smith was this entire time.
Jones and Brown were coming for him.
"He's here, he's here." Jones reassured Brown.
They ran up the stairs, ready to see Smith standing there, asking what took them so long. And they will reply, but their answer won't be enough for Smith, as he will push them aside, asking where they parked the car. Then they would return to their Construct, and Smith would be in his corner again.
"I can't hear him." Brown said, worried.
Jones ignored him, as he opened the door to a hallway.
Then Jones stopped, and put his arm in front of Brown, as if protecting him. They stared down the hallway, and were shocked.
Smith sits on the floor, leaning on the wall for support. He stares across from him, and looks at the blood on the wall. The spot where Mr. Anderson died, the spot where he killed him. And he slowly turns his head to Jones and Brown, and slightly smiles.
"Jones...Brown, you came..." He says, his voice his light and tired.
He doesn't sound like himself. No anger or authority in his voice. No power, no strength...
Brown passes Jones and creeps towards Smith. He sees Smith stare at him, his sunglasses and earpiece in his hands. Smith looks at the blood again.
"I killed him, Brown...I killed him, you said he was dead, you said he was gone." Smith says just above a whisper.
The voice so weak. A voice pleading for something. But Jones or Brown didn't understand.
"He was dead, Smith. I don't know how he did it..." Brown tries to explain.
This was not their leader.
"Brown...I killed him...I made more of the smells go away..." Smith says, weakly.
"Smith?" Jones walks closer to him.
"No one came for me... I've been here, waiting for so long..." Smith says looking at them. "No one came to help me...No one cared. I was all by myself. I couldn't hear the Mainframe, Brown. I couldn't hear it, I couldn't hear you or Jones. I was alone..."
"You are not anymore." Brown tries.
Smith looks at him.
"But I liked it." Smith says.
Brown looks and sees Smith's hands begin to shake with the earpiece and sunglasses still in his hands.
"I didn't have to follow any rules, no one told me what to think... I know the rules, I know what I should do. I just don't want to. I am compelled, Brown. Compelled to..."
Smith began to get up, pushing himself off the ground with his shaking hands. He stumbled, catching himself with the wall with the blood on it. He gave one more stare at the blood.
"Smith?" Brown asked.
Smith looked over at the two Agents he worked with for so long. So long they never understood him. How he would yell at them and they would never understand, never know the smells and the pains.
He always felt so distant from them, he could never hear their thoughts through the earpieces. He was always so far away from them.
This was the closest he had ever felt to them. Without the earpiece.
Staring at them, confused looks, trying to understand, but never will. Smith turned his back on them.
"Smith?" Brown yelled.
Smith turned back to them.
"Compelled to stay, compelled to disobey." Smith said.
"Smith?" Jones started walking down the hallway, following Smith.
"No, Jones." Smith said, strongly, like their leader again. Commanding them to do something.
"Smith?" Brown looked at him worried.
Smith only started walking further down the hallway, away from them. Brown started running after him, but Jones grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Smith!?" Brown started yelling. "Smith!?"
Smith stopped at the end of the hallway, and looked back at the two Agents.
"Goodbye Brown. Goodbye Jones." Smith said.
Then Smith started running.
"No, Smith!" Brown started yelling. "Smith! Smith!"
Jones just stared, holding back Smith, yelling for Smith to come back in his own way.
They knew the rules, they knew what they should do, but they didn't. They were compelled to disobey. They were ordered to capture and delete Smith, who had pushed the Mainframe away. But they didn't. They couldn't.
They stood there in that hallway, and waited. Waited for Smith to come back.
And soon they understood he wasn't going to come back.
Incomplete and failures, Jones and Brown knew their fate. Deletion. Someone would replace them. Upgrades.
So, two days later still in that hallway, their earpieces in their hands they looked at each other.
Compelled to disobey.
Then they started running, in the same direction Smith had.
"He isn't here."
"I know."
"Where is he!?"
"I don't know."
"Where could he be!?"
Brown screamed at Jones, looking at him, wanting answers. Brown just stared at Jones, looking up at him, looking at someone who must know the answers. Jones always knows the answers. Jones always knows what to do. Jones always did. Smith always did.
"I don't know..." Jones admits.
They stand there, in their white room. The so called, "Agency" as rebels have come to call it. The place where they are put until their services are needed. It is their own little Construct, created to store them, like a file for a program on a computer. A small white room, with no doors. When they are needed, they are told so by the Mainframe through their earpieces, and they are given humans to become and use as vessels.
This is where they are given time to themselves, their downtime. It is spent with Smith in the corner, standing with his arms crossed, thinking to himself. And Brown and Jones at the other side of the room looking at each other, wondering what Smith is thinking.
And now, they were alone. Smith was not in his corner, thinking the only thoughts he has to himself. They stare at the empty corner, Jones looking at it, and Brown staring at Jones, waiting for an answer.
Brown looked away, knowing he would be given no answer. He started panicking, and pacing from Smith's corner back to Jones. While Jones just stood there. Maybe he was frozen in shock or fear.
Smith was not there, their leader was gone.
"Why wouldn't he listen to us!?" Brown yelled.
"I don't know." Jones whispered.
"Why wouldn't he abort!? We told him to abort!"
"He wanted to fight." Jones said, as if dazed.
"How could he loose!? How could he loose!?"
"He wanted to kill that human."
"What happened there!? What did that human do to him!?"
Jones was silent for a moment.
"The human went inside him." Jones finally said.
Brown froze, and turned away from Jones.
It was true. The human, Mr. Anderson, went inside Smith. Literally jumping into him, and breaking him from the inside out. Making his coding explode, and crack him. Mr. Anderson turned Smith into oblivion. Mr. Anderson defied all laws of the Matrix. Mr. Anderson came back from death, and killed Smith. What choice did they have but run?
And they heard him scream. They heard Smith, the pain he endured. They never heard him scream before, he never did before. They never heard such pain. Such pain from being destroyed from the inside. Smith screamed on the inside, screaming through the earpiece, pleading for Jones and Brown to help him. But they didn't know how.
Through the earpiece they are connected, their minds and thoughts heard by each other, the Mainframe's commands heard through them.
Through the earpiece, Smith screamed to his death.
"He should have returned here! With us!" Brown pleads for answers.
"He should have." Jones agrees.
That is what happens when an Agent dies, or has fulfilled their mission. They return back to this Construct, this Agency, and then wait for further orders.
Smith died, Smith was destroyed, but he had not returned.
Brown turned to Jones, pleading for something to make him believe Smith was coming. To make Smith come back. Jones just lowered his head.
Jones did a lot for Brown. But he could not do this.
Smith was their leader. They were incomplete without him. How could they function without Smith? These thoughts, scared Brown as he began pacing around the room again.
Smith protected them. Smith told them what to do, and they did it without any doubt. They allowed Smith to take control. They allowed Smith to kill the human. And they never mentioned how they saw him smile whenever one human died by his hand.
What would they do without their leader, their protector?
Brown, the little one. The quiet observer, always questioning, and being pleased to know the answer. Brown wanted Smith. He wanted Smith to come back and take control of this again. He wanted Smith to tell him to stop pacing around, because it was human. He wanted Smith to be there, and protect them.
Brown looked at Jones one more time. Jones who always seemed to protect him when Smith was too busy in his own thoughts. Jones who always made it better. But he couldn't make this better.
"He couldn't loose." Brown says, quietly.
"He did." Jones says without any emotion.
"He couldn't..."
"He did."
Brown looks down, and puts his hand to his earpiece.
"I can't hear him." Brown says.
"I know, I can't either." Jones says.
"Why can't we hear him!? What is wrong!?"
"I don't know." Jones looks away.
"Why won't the Mainframe look for him!? Why can't they find him!?"
Always questioning. Finding questions in every action. Always asking the questions that never mattered. But Brown was always given an answer.
But now there were no answers.
They were left in the dark. They had no idea what happened. How that human was able to do what he did. How he was able to kill Smith. Where Smith was.
Why wouldn't he return...?
Hours past. They are still trapped in their Agency, their Construct. Apart from the rest of the Matrix, apart from everything else. They have no idea what is happening just beyond their white walls. No updates on Smith.
"He was always like this wasn't he?" Brown asks.
Jones looks over at him, Brown has taken Smith's place in the corner.
"No. Not always." Jones says, and Brown looks up. "When we were first activated."
"We were all the same when we were first activated." Brown says.
"But he wasn't like this for a long time." Jones argues. "Not until that incident."
Smith was different from them, they knew that. That is why he began to become the leader. That is why they allowed him to. Smith was different. Smith was always different. Smith was the one that always killed the human.
And every time they knew he smiled. They saw it. They knew he enjoyed it. They knew he wasn't supposed to. But they said nothing.
But Smith wasn't always the leader, didn't always smile at the death of a human.
He wasn't until that incident.
"He was choking wasn't he?" Brown asks.
"He said he was suffocating." Jones says.
"On what?"
"The smells."
"Smells?"
"I think he meant the smells of the humans."
They both looked at each other, confused.
That incident, where Smith got out of the car ready to chase a rebel, then collapsed gasping for air. Jones and Brown try to aid him, but he just screamed and said he was choking. He just fell, and grabbed his neck, trying to breath. They thought something was wrong, but the Mainframe found he was functioning perfectly.
It was the first time Smith smelled the smells of the humans, the smell that would plague him for years to come. And Jones and Brown just didn't understand. Smith would scream at them, wondering why they didn't smell the humans like he did.
He would sometimes try to explain it to them, when they were in their Construct or in the car. But they could grasp the concept.
Ever since then, Smith was different. Smith smiled at the death of a human. Smith felt emotion.
But Jones and Brown never said anything.
Maybe they should have. Maybe the Mainframe would have repaired Smith. Maybe he would still be with them. If they said anything, Smith would have never gone after Mr. Anderson with just passion.
Smith would have never felt hatred.
Smith would have never died.
He would have never left them.
"Where is he?" Brown asked, following Jones.
Brown's voice growing more and more impatient.
The Mainframe had sent them to retrieve Smith, they had found him. After five days they found him. He was still in the very place he died. Within the Heart o' City Hotel, next to the door of room 303. That is where Smith was this entire time.
Jones and Brown were coming for him.
"He's here, he's here." Jones reassured Brown.
They ran up the stairs, ready to see Smith standing there, asking what took them so long. And they will reply, but their answer won't be enough for Smith, as he will push them aside, asking where they parked the car. Then they would return to their Construct, and Smith would be in his corner again.
"I can't hear him." Brown said, worried.
Jones ignored him, as he opened the door to a hallway.
Then Jones stopped, and put his arm in front of Brown, as if protecting him. They stared down the hallway, and were shocked.
Smith sits on the floor, leaning on the wall for support. He stares across from him, and looks at the blood on the wall. The spot where Mr. Anderson died, the spot where he killed him. And he slowly turns his head to Jones and Brown, and slightly smiles.
"Jones...Brown, you came..." He says, his voice his light and tired.
He doesn't sound like himself. No anger or authority in his voice. No power, no strength...
Brown passes Jones and creeps towards Smith. He sees Smith stare at him, his sunglasses and earpiece in his hands. Smith looks at the blood again.
"I killed him, Brown...I killed him, you said he was dead, you said he was gone." Smith says just above a whisper.
The voice so weak. A voice pleading for something. But Jones or Brown didn't understand.
"He was dead, Smith. I don't know how he did it..." Brown tries to explain.
This was not their leader.
"Brown...I killed him...I made more of the smells go away..." Smith says, weakly.
"Smith?" Jones walks closer to him.
"No one came for me... I've been here, waiting for so long..." Smith says looking at them. "No one came to help me...No one cared. I was all by myself. I couldn't hear the Mainframe, Brown. I couldn't hear it, I couldn't hear you or Jones. I was alone..."
"You are not anymore." Brown tries.
Smith looks at him.
"But I liked it." Smith says.
Brown looks and sees Smith's hands begin to shake with the earpiece and sunglasses still in his hands.
"I didn't have to follow any rules, no one told me what to think... I know the rules, I know what I should do. I just don't want to. I am compelled, Brown. Compelled to..."
Smith began to get up, pushing himself off the ground with his shaking hands. He stumbled, catching himself with the wall with the blood on it. He gave one more stare at the blood.
"Smith?" Brown asked.
Smith looked over at the two Agents he worked with for so long. So long they never understood him. How he would yell at them and they would never understand, never know the smells and the pains.
He always felt so distant from them, he could never hear their thoughts through the earpieces. He was always so far away from them.
This was the closest he had ever felt to them. Without the earpiece.
Staring at them, confused looks, trying to understand, but never will. Smith turned his back on them.
"Smith?" Brown yelled.
Smith turned back to them.
"Compelled to stay, compelled to disobey." Smith said.
"Smith?" Jones started walking down the hallway, following Smith.
"No, Jones." Smith said, strongly, like their leader again. Commanding them to do something.
"Smith?" Brown looked at him worried.
Smith only started walking further down the hallway, away from them. Brown started running after him, but Jones grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Smith!?" Brown started yelling. "Smith!?"
Smith stopped at the end of the hallway, and looked back at the two Agents.
"Goodbye Brown. Goodbye Jones." Smith said.
Then Smith started running.
"No, Smith!" Brown started yelling. "Smith! Smith!"
Jones just stared, holding back Smith, yelling for Smith to come back in his own way.
They knew the rules, they knew what they should do, but they didn't. They were compelled to disobey. They were ordered to capture and delete Smith, who had pushed the Mainframe away. But they didn't. They couldn't.
They stood there in that hallway, and waited. Waited for Smith to come back.
And soon they understood he wasn't going to come back.
Incomplete and failures, Jones and Brown knew their fate. Deletion. Someone would replace them. Upgrades.
So, two days later still in that hallway, their earpieces in their hands they looked at each other.
Compelled to disobey.
Then they started running, in the same direction Smith had.