Title: Father

Author: Stormhawk

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: This all belongs to The W Brothers and Warner Brothers. And the Agents, don't forget the agents.

Notes: 'Agents' is required reading. 'Daughter' will help. Is set after both of those. If you don't read Daughter you won't know who Stevie is.

This is an update. Yeah, I agree Jack was too quick to accept the truth.

Word Count: 5229

Summary: Much to her disgust Stef's father reappears in her life. Jones' new recruit turns out to be a traitor who tricks the mainframe into decompiling her.

Please Read and Review.

Agent Mimosa was doing what she did best - killing rebels. The fact that she had been human once didn't stop her from destroying the rebel threat.

She heard a door open behind her, the back door to a restaurant opened and a man stepped out for a smoke. He saw the agent holding the gun.

'Dear me, don't shoot me please.'

Not being a threat she put it away and walked past him. His gaze followed what appeared to be a heavily armed young lady. He didn't understand the new generation.

A rebel flew at her from the shadows. He tackled her and her gun flew from her holster. She muttered an curse as she fought the man. The smoking man came running to her assistance.

She required a new gun and shot him. He fell down, taking a step back Stef slipped in a puddle. She did something embarrassing for an agent, fell down.

With nothing hurt but her pride she saw an assisting hand reach down to her. She batted it away and stood up. Her broken glasses fell from her face as the man looked at her.

'Stephanie?' the man asked her.

She leveled the gun at him, 'who are you?'

'Stef, it's me. Dad.'

'Dad?'

'Don't you recognize me?' he looked down at the gun in her hand. 'What is going on, who was that?'

Stef turned and walked away from him. Bastard, she thought once she had lost sight of him. She didn't need this. She didn't have to take it, she smiled and turned to walk back toward him.

'What are you doing?' Jones asked her, appearing from no where in communication mode.

Trying her best to sound like one of them, 'human saw me shoot a rebel, I'm going to eliminate him.'

'Unnecessary. Remember the briefing.' She sighed and pocketed the weapon, Jones nodded and disappeared. Damn geek, she thought. The briefing had been a week ago. The mainframe was worried that if another two million people either died or joined the resistance that there would be the danger of power shortages.

She disappeared into the matrix and reappeared in her room. Caught somewhere between human and agent though she only existed as code now most of the agents still treated her like a recruit.

She didn't have an office, she didn't need one. She did however did have one of the most powerful computers in the entire world. It was tied directly into the matrix but still appeared to be a normal, top of the range computer.

She didn't destroy her room like she usually did, it never mattered, a stray thought would repair it. She didn't want to show human frailties, her whole existence was still tentative. An experiment that would be deleted if deemed a waste of time.

She sighed out a deep breath and sat at her computer thinking of new ways to delete rebel forces and threats. Most of even her craziest ideas had turned into plans because she had thought them out.

She was determined not to let this get to her. She turned her computer off and went to the gym.

I'm not going to let this get to me, Stef thought over and over until it became a mantra in her mind. There was no other recruits at the moment so it was empty.

The balance beam stood in the middle of the room, separating the shooting gallery and sparring mats.

She usually didn't have to concentrate very hard. Today it took a little more focus than usual. Finally everything in her life.er.existence was going the right way and he decides to show up.

Stef's dad had left her and her mother when she was eight. Her mother had been dying, Stef had known that. Her father being a shallow bastard - this rocked her world.

She flipped in mid-air, fifteen feet above the beam. Silently, she cursed him as she descended artificially slowly toward the beam. She pushed her left leg down so she could propel herself forward.

She missed her mark by millimeters, cracked her head on the beam and fell what would have been painfully to the floor if she had felt pain anymore.

'Distracted?' Stef raised her head then stood.

'No, Agent Smith, I wasn't.'

'You fell.'

'I moved the beam over while in mid-air, I was practicing my balance.'

'The beam didn't move, I was standing here.'

'I wasn't distracted.'

'Did the reappearance of your father take your concentration away from your exercises?'

'No!' she said sharply. 'How did you know about him?'

'Jones relayed the information to me after he went to you in communication.'

'Why did he tell you?'

'Though you are an agent now you still fall under my jurisdiction as you were my recruit.'

'A distraction sure. I'm not going to let him get to me.'

'My experiment child often observed that her friends at school became irrational and unpredictable when their parents divorced.'

'The divorce was over a decade ago.'

'Yet his appearance is still having an effect on you.'

'Only because I was ordered not to kill him.'

'Go demolish your room or whatever it is that you do. Do not let it distract you, your existence is still tentative.'

'Give me a couple of hours and it will be out of my system. I'll be fine tomorrow. Besides, Stevie's friends were human, I'm not.'

He removed his ear piece, she followed suit. 'Stef, are you all right?'

'Yeah Smith, I'll be fine. It was just the last thing I ever expected.'

'If he can get caught in a cross-fire, I will my best to eliminate him.'

'Thanks, that means a lot.'

'Code or not, your emotions still effect you. Don't let this man interfere with your life.'

'OK.' Smith turned and left.

*****

Stef returned to her room a little later, realizing that she wasn't really able to concentrate on exercising. There were no rebel threats, none to be questioned, nothing to do.

Memories from her life started to replay themselves. She tried to concentrate on something else but they wouldn't stop bothering her.

She searched her files, something she didn't often do. It was exactly like looking into a computer. She found a piece of editing software and opened it in curiosity.

As soon as she opened it she found herself in a green code-scroll room. It was similar to when she morphed from one body to another or went into communication mode but different.

A large screen appeared and her life was laid out in code. Memories were given file names. She used the keyboard and opened a few, as she opened each of them she was given the option to erase or forward the information as was required sometimes.

She pulled up a few memories of her childhood, she was ready to delete a lot of these, most had been painful times and she finally had a chance to get rid of them.

'Are you sure you want to do that?' Smith asked, appearing in the editing program.

'I want to be alone if you don't mind,' she said as an angry eight-year-old version of herself was frozen on screen.

'This is usually reserved for malfunctioning agents and for manipulating human memories.'

'You used that on my mum and my aunt didn't you?' She pulled up the memory of the first time she had seen Smith. She saw herself being held as a human shield for a coward rebel. 'Why didn't you use it on me?'

'Baby humans rarely remember what happens to them, it was deemed unnecessary.'

'That memory stopped you from killing me.'

'What if one of the memories you are going to delete could be of use in the future?'

'Smith, what if I been fighting rebels instead of exercising? If I delete these files then I won't get distracted anymore.'

'Once deleted they are not retrievable. It is not something to be taken lightly.'

'I'll keep that in mind,' Stef said angrily as he left. She turned back to the computer and sighed.

*****

Trinity and Neo walked down a street toward a club where they were to meet a possible rebel. On the street beside them a man was running a card game.

'You,' he said to them. 'Feeling lucky?'

'No,' they answered.

'Don't care to play Lucky Jack Mimosa's honest card game?'

'Mimosa?' they both said, stopping where they were.

'What did I do?'

'It couldn't,' Neo said to Trinity, 'it just couldn't.'

'Are you two going to let me in on the secret,' he said abandoning his cards.

'Are you any relation to a Stephanie Mimosa?' Trinity asked.

'She's my daughter. Have you seen her, I saw her the other day but what I saw didn't make any sense. I saw her disappear after killing a man.'

'Uh.there are some things you might want to know. It will be hard to accept.' Neo said.

They went to a safe building that Tank told them about. Jack sat down and looked up at them.

'Are you going to tell me what's going on? What's wrong with Stef?'

'What we are going to tell you won't make much sense but you have to believe us that it's the truth,' Trinity said.

'Has she joined some sort of cult or something?'

'If only it was that simple,' Neo muttered.

'Tell me what is going on,' Jack demanded.

'This seems like the real world doesn't it? You can see, hear, taste, smell and feel everything. Everything appears to be real.'

Jack's look turned incredulous, 'what drugs are you taking young man?'

'I am not on drugs Mr. Mimosa. This is a computer simulation.'

'You have to be joking me.'

'No, we wish we could joke about this.'

'This is the real world. It can't be what you say.'

'I did say believe it or not.'

'What has happened to Stef? Did you tell her this crock-of-shit story?'

'We found her on the Internet, she was searching for answers we gave them to her.'

'You gave her lies.'

'No we didn't. She was going to join us - the resistance, the only real chance that humanity has.'

'Tell the next guy just tell me where my daughter is so I can get her deprogrammed.'

Neo looked at Trinity, Jack didn't know the irony of the word he had just used. 'We were going to free her from this prison but something went wrong. One of our enemies got to her. She joined them instead.' This was a nice way of skipping around the real truth. The truth being that they had abandoned her in favor of saving their own lives.

'Enemy? What another cult?'

'For the last time Jack this isn't a cult. The enemy are the agents, they work to control the people within the matrix - what we call this simulation - and Stef joined them. They are sentient programs who want to destroy this resistance.'

'What would a program want with Stef?'

'We don't know much all we know is that they have started to recruit humans to help them. We are finding more information everyday but at the moment our knowledge is limited.'

'I still think you're on drugs.'

'Trin? If you would?' Trinity displayed a wide range of kicks and tricks only possible within the matrix. Jack was struck dumb at the sight of the logic-defying display.

'See, we were telling the truth.'

'Can we get my daughter back? Can we save her?'

'Even if she wanted to come back we couldn't save her. Even if she wanted. She was one of their recruits but now she's one of them. She's not even human anymore.'

'How?'

'We don't know but your daughter is gone, all that remains is a soulless program.'

'She's a traitor,' Jack said. 'How could she do this?'

'Things like this happen,' Trinity said.

'Fine. How do we kill her?'

'You can't kill an agent, we've tried many times.'

'I want to help you, my daughter has sided with the enemy, I want to help you.'

'We can't take you into the real world, you're too old. You can be an informant for us. It is dangerous though, we have to warn you of that.'

'I fear nothing.' Jack said bravely.

'You'll quickly learn to,' Neo said truthfully.

*****

Stef sat thinking, the fact that she was sitting fifteen feet in mid-air seemed to help her concentration.

'Hey up there,' a voice called. Stef opened her eyes and looked down. A guy her age was standing just into the gym.

'Hello, who are you?'

'The new recruit. My name's Reuel.'

'Agent Mimosa,' Stef said tiredly.

'I know, he told me you'd be in here.'

'Who?' she asked, hoping he wouldn't say Brown.

'Jones, I'm his new recruit.'

Stef sighed and dropped down. 'Have I been relegated to a tour guide?'

'I guess, sorry.'

'Not your fault Reuel, come on, I'll show you the place.'

*****

'Another one?' Stef asked, Smith simply nodded. 'This does get boring but it gets the job done.'

'Sometimes useful information is even retrieved.'

'Sometimes.' Stef sighed, thought for a moment and a couple of requirements later she appeared to be a bruised and bleeding rebel.

They walked from the office and down toward the cells. The other agents had all but stopped trying to force information of out rebels when they sang like drunks to Stef. They almost always believed her to be a rebel and spilled their secrets freely.

Fifteen minutes later, about half the time it usually took the squids to find a ship once they had started tracking it Smith appeared at the cell door.

'Rebel attack,' he said to Stef unlocking the door.

'The rebels will win you filthy piece of code.' The rebel said to the agent.

'Filthy?' Stef echoed, requiring a gun and shooting her. She followed Smith as they morphed out near an exit for first-timers.

It must have been a rebel recruiting field day, there were at least twenty recruits and a dozen rebels.

It took Reuel a little while to arrive as he had to use conventional means. By the time he had started to arrive half the rebels and recruits were dead.

It was then Neo chose to show up. Reuel hesitated for a second when he saw him. Neo took the opportunity to pick him up by the collar and throw him toward the wall.

Reuel's flying body sent Stef flying in the other direction. She landed beside a table and saw an injured rebel. She drew her gun to shoot her but stopped when she saw it was Stevie.

Stef jumped to her feet and started to fire at some other rebels. She leapt up and over a table, careful to knock the ringing phone down to Stevie.

After all the rebels and rebel recruits had either died or fled Neo also left, as always he had avoided being killed.

As Stef was putting her gun back in her holster someone's leg shot out and tripped her. Landing on her back she looked up to see Reuel. Before she could get up he planted his foot on her throat to stop her getting up.

'Agent Jones?' he called to his recruiter. Stef didn't wait to see what was going on so she morphed out of the human body and appeared back in communication mode.

'What was that for?'

'Agent Jones, Agent Mimosa hesitated and failed to kill a rebel and she was allowed to escape.'

'Mimosa?'

'The rebel in question was injured, I saw it more efficient to deal with the able bodied rebels first. That is no excuse for an unprovoked attack Reuel.'

'That is true recruit.' Jones said before disappearing.

'Hesitation can be a sign of sympathy Mimosa,' Brown said before following Jones.

'Leave,' Mimosa commanded Reuel. He did as he was asked.

'Did you see her Smith?' Stef asked, removing her ear piece as she turned.

'No.'

'Stevie was here, Anderson probably thought it would be a kind of insurance.'

'Was she.?'

'Weren't you listening? My hesitation allowed a rebel to escape.'

'That was dangerous.'

'Freeing her was dangerous. The mainframe has decided that I'm useful enough haven't they?'

The other agent didn't answer her. 'My existence isn't still tentative is it?'

'It is. Sometimes you a little too human for the mainframe's liking.'

'Why didn't you tell me this?'

'Orders,' he said simply.

*****

Jack stood in the dark alley, waiting for his contact. He heard someone approach. 'Hello?' he asked of the black night.

'Jack Mimosa?'

'That's me, come closer so the whole world doesn't hear what you're here to tell me.'

Jack gasped as the figure stepped into the small pool of light, his contact was an agent.

'Oh shit,' Jack said.

'Don't run, I'm on your side.'

'You're an agent,' Jack said, looking for a way to escape.

'A recruit actually. I'm also a rebel.'

'You are?'

'If I wasn't you'd be dead.'

'That's comforting.'

'I'm here to tell you that they know about the attack that's planned for tomorrow. They have to pull it off or they will all die.'

'I'm supposed to trust you?'

'Yes, I will return soon.' Reuel said simply before turning and going off into the night.

As he reached the top of the alley, Stef stepped out of the club she had been assigned to watch that night.

'Reuel, I thought you were assigned to the other side of town?'

'There was no rebel threat there.'

'What are you doing here?'

'Nothing Agent Mimosa, nothing at all.' After he left Stef walked halfway down the alley and heard someone leaving.

'A rebel an agent,' Jack said to himself, 'who'd a thought?'

Stef muttered a curse to herself, she had known something was strange about Reuel, he was too nice for a recruit. This was why, he was a rebel. Instead of chasing the rebel she morphed out of the human she was in and appeared in the agent building.

As soon as she appeared a pair of strong hands grabbed her. She spun her head and saw Brown as he pushed her along.

'What are you doing?' she asked him, he didn't say anything.

Stef struggled to get free, if he had been human she could have easily killed him but since he was an agent as well it brought things back down to the human level. He opened the door to an office and shoved her in.

Brown joined Jones, Smith and Reuel. 'What is going on?' she asked them.

'As if you don't know,' Jones said. He pointed to a computer which was replaying a forged video. Stef watched herself telling her father that the agents knew about the rebel attack. The screen went dead.

'That wasn't me.'

'There is no use in trying to deny it. We have the evidence right here.'

Stef turned to look at Reuel, 'you,' she spat. 'It was him,' she said to the other three. 'I was coming back here to tell you. I saw him leave the alley then I heard someone leave.'

'She's lying,' Reuel said. 'If she was telling the truth, why didn't she kill the informant?'

'I thought it was more important to reveal a traitor than to kill a human.'

'Is that true Agent Mimosa or is it that the human in question was your father?' Smith said.

Stef glared at him, was he trying to get her killed?

'Agent Jones will tell you that I was prepared to kill him when I encountered him a week ago.'

'That may have been true a week ago but we have evidence that says otherwise.'

'You can't believe that. I'm an agent, take a took at my memories.'

The three agents looked at each other, Smith went to say something when Jones interrupted. 'The mainframe has decided what to do.'

Stef looked at him, 'do I even want to know?'

'Your program will be decompiled.'

'What do you mean decompile me?'

Brown stood as still as a statue but Jones answered her, 'your program will be taken apart byte by byte.'

'I didn't do anything.'

'Stop it Agent Mimosa. They don't believe you.' Reuel said. 'From what I have been told you were unstable before you were converted to code. You are getting what you deserve.'

'You did it not me.'

'Bastard,' Stef spat at him.

'Human behavior, you should have given that up, it's what got you into trouble.'

Jones reached down to a keyboard and pressed a few keys. Suddenly Stef felt different, the pain was far away but it felt similar to when her real world body had been dying.

'Why don't you just delete me?'

'The mainframe wishes to give you time to contemplate what you did. Four hours until you loose coherence.'

'Four hours?'

One by one they left the room until Stef was in the room by herself. She hadn't done anything, it had been Jones' recruit that had given information to the rebels. Still being on shaky ground the mainframe had quickly formed the opinion that Stef was a danger to them.

Stef went to her room and was not surprised when Smith appeared. 'Four hours, that's all I have.'

The other agent didn't say anything. 'I have four hours to prove my innocence.'

'Your fate has already been decided, why bother?'

'Fates can be changed. You of all pe.you of all people should know that.'

'This is different.'

'If I bring him in I can beat a confession out of him. They would have to believe me.'

'A confession gained under duress?'

'You've never had a problem with them before.'

'Stef.' Smith began.

'Mimosa. Agent Mimosa, for the next four hours that is still who I am. I plan on having time to be Stef again.'

'I want you to know there was nothing I could do. I found out it seconds before you appeared.'

'I don't care, excuse me.' She walked past him and tried to appear out in the matrix.

'I can't morph out,' she said worriedly.

'It's the first to go when the decompile starts.'

'How am I supposed to clear my name if I'm stuck in here?'

'You can't.'

'Clever, what the hell am I supposed to do?'

'I thought you were the one with the quick thinking mind.'

'Not when I'm about to die.'

'You have on other occasions.'

'Yeah well not now. Can I leave the building without morphing into a human?'

'Yes but you will be as weak as one of them. If you die.'

'I'm have to anyway. I'm going.'

'Do you even know where to look for the informant?'

'No. I don't care, I need to find him.'

'There is a human quote, I don't know if you would know it. Why teach a jumper how to land?'

'Are you saying it's suicide?'

'Yes. Without being in a human body it's only one step further than communication. You thought humans were weak? They are strong compared to a decompiling agent not in a human body.'

'So what? You want me to sit around and wait to die?'

'Absolutely not, I was just pointing out the danger.'

*****

Stef had nothing more to go on than the alley she had seen Reuel come out of . Not being able to require a car to drive she had to walk. It took her three and a half hours to reach the alley, all the time she could feel pieces of her falling away. She walked down to the end of the alley and heard her father waiting for Reuel to return.

'Is that you?' He asked of the dark. She walked out of the dark straight toward him, 'After you cause all the misery in my life you had to stick one more dagger in my heart didn't you?'

'How did my beautiful daughter become an agent?'

'Decompiling agent. You are going to clear my name if I have to beat you to the brink of death.'

'You don't have the strength to do that Stephanie.'

'Don't call me Stephanie.' She drew her gun and took a step toward him but stumbled when a chunk of her code fell away. She landed on one knee but her gun fell from her trembling hand and skid across the wet cement to her father.

He picked up the weapon as she stood. She watched as if the world was in slow motion, she felt like she couldn't move. He cocked the trigger and walked toward her, he pressed it to her forehead. If she had had blood it would have frozen in her veins.

'This is for your own good.'

'Please no.'

A shot rang out behind him, he fell forward from the injury and knocked Stef down. She looked up to see Smith. Not surprised but glad she looked at the advancing agent.

'Don't kill him.'

'Why not?'

'He has to clear my name first.'

'He will do that?' Smith asked as he helped her up.

'Yes. If I have to kill him he will.'

'He had to pour salt over old wounds again?'

'What's with the quotes? It's more like acid on a bullet hole.' Stef winced as she felt her program reaching breakdown.

'Seventeen minutes,' Smith said. 'What if they don't stop the process even with the confession?'

'They have to,' was all Stef said.

Smith reached down and dragged Stef's dad by his leg toward the car. 'Don't be gentle with him,' she said as he threw him into the back seat.

'If they do stop the process and restore you will you still continue to work against the rebels?'

'Of course.'

'Even though they are decompiling you as we speak?'

'That is Reuel's fault, it's just a mistake. I'm still loyal.' She tried to open the car door but her hands were shaking too much.

Smith opened it for her after slamming the back door. Stef slumped in the car as more of her program fell away.

'Aren't you taking a risk by helping me?' Smith didn't answer her.

'Thank you my teacher,' she said quietly as they drove from the alley.

'Fifteen minutes, do you have anymore ideas in case you fail to get a confession from him?'

'I have fifteen minutes left to live and you want me to spend thirty-two seconds of them thinking of another plan?'

'It may help to save your existence.'

'I only thing I regret is never getting a chance to kill Mr. Anderson.' she trailed off. Smith looked over to her, he knew the smile that was on her face.

'That was only eighteen seconds Agent Mimosa.'

'Who would be the one person guaranteed to make any traitor reveal themselves?'

'Anderson.'

'Yes. All I have to do is.Just get us to there.' She winced in pain, no longer far away it was real and in her face. They got to the agent building three minutes later. Smith dragged Jack to a cell while Stef lagged behind, not able to go very fast.

He failed to beat a confession out of him so he was left dying on the cell floor.

'Plan B?' Smith said to Stef.

'I've got five minutes left. Give me a minute, I can't think straight.' Stef held her head in her hands, it had been ages since she had felt pain.

'Stef,' Smith said softly. She didn't answer him so he slapped her across the face.

'What the hell was that for?'

'Do you want to die?'

'No.' She made a few requirements, including a security camera so that the events that were to take place would be recorded.

'Call Reuel,' Stef said Smith.

Smith pressed his ear piece and called Reuel down to the cells. Reuel came the traditional way, when he opened the door to the cell door he saw Neo fighting Smith. Smith was knocked to the floor and he disappeared and Neo set about opening the lock.

Neo looked up when he heard Reuel, he stopped working on the lock and spun, training the gun on the recruit.

'Neo, it's me. You risked your neck for Jack?'

'No you fool,' Stef said through Neo's mouth. Neo's image dwindled away and Stef was standing there.

'You,' Reuel said.

'There's no way they won't believe me this time.'

'Yeah, where's the proof?' Stef pointed to the security camera.

'Bitch,' he said.

'Human behavior, you should have given that up,' Stef said - mimicking his own words. Her smiled died away when she realized that she couldn't stand anymore. As she lay on the floor unable to move she saw her arms go see through.

'Thirty seconds Mimosa, it's too late.'

'I don't think so,' Smith said as he entered the cell block flanked by Jones and Brown. 'We saw everything.'

'It was a trick, a deception.' he babbled, knowing he was going to die. Jones drew his gun and shot his recruit.

Somewhere Stef heard a voice count down. Why hadn't they stopped the process? They had shot the real traitor. Seven.six.five.four.I don't want to die, Stef thought. Two.everything went dark.

For the longest time she didn't see, hear or feel anything. Slowly she regained consciousness. It wasn't like when she had come online as an agent, that had been quick - like turning on a light switch.

She heard a voice 'was too much code lost?'

'No. Most of it is retrievable.'

It all went dark again. Slowly she became aware of a voice, it was giving instructions that she was following. 'Lift your right arm, now the left.' She did the mundane exercises as she came into consciousness. She opened her eyes and found herself in the same place as where she had woken when she had become an agent.

'Do you retain all your files?' the tech agent asked her. She concentrated for a moment, she seemed to remember everything. She nodded numbly.

She sat up and looked around, glad to be able to do that.

'Ninety-nine point eight seven percent of your code was retrieved.' Smith said, dismissing the tech agent.

'What about the rest?'

'General files that were easily copied and integrated with your code. Good thing you had a plan B Mimosa.'

'What happened to him?' She didn't need to say who

'I killed him. Would you like a copy of the memory?'

Smith thought for a moment and sent the memory over. Stef smiled as she played it. On the fifth replay she saw something interesting. She paused it as the weapon came into view she realized that it wasn't Smith's hand.

'That's my hand Smith.'

'You were off line at the time so I took the liberty of taking on your appearance while I killed him.'

'Sounds like something I would do.'

'I thought you would approve Agent Mimosa. Also, thanks to the trick you played on Reuel, there is another test added for the recruits.'

'Anderson?'

'It will save time when seeking true loyalties.'

'Speaking of loyalties are they going to decompile me again?'

'I would think not.'

'Good. And if any of my relatives show up ever again I am just going to shoot them and save myself the trouble.'

'Fine by me,' the agent smiled, 'your aunt is waiting to see you.'

The End.