He was reloading his gun, like he always did, tossing the gun from one hand to the other and picking his pockets for more shells. Young brown eyes from the back seat of the car stared and watched, collecting the courage to speak up. The words began to gurgle in his throat, mixing with the snot that had slid down his throat from his stuffy nose from his growing tears. He didn't know how to say it, he didn't know how to tell him.

He just sat in the back seat, listening to the gunfire outside the car. Seraph had already jumped the hood out of side with only the sound of his machine guns left. And the young boy watch in horror, this was the third time in the last two hours. The third time they had come under fire, the third time someone had tried to kill him. And he could not stand it any more. Was this his life now? Was this all it was going to be? Avoiding cross fire? This wasn't what he wanted, he grew up wanting to be an engineer that's all, a simple dream, he had a knack for drawing and he thought he could improve upon ship designs, that is when he was unplugged from the Matrix, scheduled a month after his fifteenth birthday if he chose to do so. But was this it? Hiding all his life, what was he supposed to do anyway? What more was there to do?

So the boy watched the man in the suit, the man who had been there from his very birth, the man he saw as a guardian, and knew from the history books he was taught in school what this man had done. And he gurgled and tears came down, and he didn't know how to say it.

"Smith…" the young boy started. "I'm scared."

"There's no need to be." Smith told him in a monotonous voice, free of that thing called fear.

"What if you don't get them?"

"I will."

"Why?"

"Because that is what I do, Mr. Anderson."

"My name is not Thomas Anderson!"

"Would you prefer Neo?"

The boy tearful shook his head.

"That's what I thought." Smith said.

And Smith stepped out of the car and that boy heard six shots and a moment of silence where all he could hear was his own pathetic tears. And he thought to himself he couldn't be him. Neo would not cry like this. Neo would not be afraid. He couldn't be, he couldn't be Neo. Neo was a hero, he was the One, and if he was not the Messiah he still saved the all of humanity. He was the man people prayed to at night, or prayed for. He was not this man. He was just some kid, that's all he was.

That was when Seraph and Smith returned to the car, Smith wiping something that appeared to be blood from his fist and continuing onward. Smith turned to the boy in the back seat and offered him a tissue for those tears.

--------------

Over a century ago the Exile Program known as Agent Smith was found floating within the ethos of the Matrix, lacking the code necessary to form a permanent shell or much of a memory database, he was badly injured, and living between the seen Matrix and the unseen Matrix. Taken from this limbo he was repaired. Physically his code was repaired. Mentally he was taught to speak again, quickly learning his colorful vocabulary once more. Once all this was done his trial under the Zero-One Zion Council now including half mechanical and half men members. Screens were set up so that their Matrix living programs could as well testify and Smith could face his accusers.

There were a list of prosecutions against both machine kind and man kind, but only four people testified in Smith's favor. The Oracle, the Architect, Agents Jones, and Agents Brown.

Upon the question of why he did it, there was a defense that he malfunctioned. "The goal of an Agent is to purge the Matrix of threats, upon Smith's new found individuality coinciding with this programming it can be said his judgment was impaired." The Architect said. "I program the Agents very strenuously, they are key opponents to the Matrix, and I did not want them developing what Smith developed. He was not able to handle what was given to him, I believe a human would say it is like trying to put a camel through the eye of a needle."

"Why did you do it?" Zion and Zero-One finally asked Smith.

"Because I chose to." Smith answered, simply, looking beside him to the Architect.

"You chose to?"

"I wanted to."

"You did?"

"I hate you." Smith said flatly. "I may stand here and you in reality, but I hate you, and I want you to die. I chose to attempt to kill all of you, because I hate you, and because of that I wanted to."

There was no more talk of inevitability, there was no more talk of purpose. Agent Smith died after believing that he was merely doing his purpose, and upon his resurrection he saw the error of his ways. It was not purpose that drove him to such extremes, it was not faulty programming, it was himself.

But it was the Oracle who gave the final word over Smith's judges. She looked to Smith and she asked him,

"When did you smell those smells?" She asked him.

"March 11, 1962." Smith said, like a machine.

"Do you find anything odd about that date, Smith?" She asked.

And for a moment everyone was silent.

"That is when Thomas A Anderson was born." Smith finally said.

It was said by the Oracle, that there is something between Smith and Neo, this program and The One, unimaginable by human and unaccounted for by machines. From the birth of The One Smith began to undergo a change that would lead him here. They are somehow intertwined, perhaps by code, or a more important level. And due to this apparent connection to the One it would be wrong to kill him, for we may be destroying The One's gateway back into this plane of existence. It was questioned what then if not kill him, what would they do with the program that nearly wiped out all life. The non-believers of Neo however would agree that a greater punishment than death was life in a world Smith despised, the Matrix, of which he attempted so hard to escape.

Thus life was granted to Smith under the condition of complete surveillance at all times and limited access to pretty much anything. The Architect was told my Machine Government to create "barriers" in Smith's coding that would prevent him of anything that could pose a threat to anything. He was given to the Oracle for safekeeping and was to check in with both a Machine representative and Human representative each week.

Incidentally Smith attempted to kill himself within the first week of his punishment. The Oracle had woken upon Sati's cries of fear at the deaf of the night. She entered the kitchen where nearly all the floor was covered in blood and saw Smith nodding to sleep from lack of blood with a knife in his hand and cuts on his wrist. Again he attempted a second time by jumping off the building making sure he'd land on his head, with Seraph catching him and throwing him into their apartment. Thirdly he drank some plumber fluid and went into shock. Fourth he tried to steal a gun from Seraph, but found Seraph had taken all bullets.

When asked why by the Oracle Smith stared at her.

"I will not be used." Smith said. "I will not be his door. I will not even give him the chance to come back." He said.

However it is a wonder how one can get over it after a few decades. Smith adjusted well after the first twenty years to his newfound life upon the prompting of what he would call friends Brown and Jones, who were retired from their lives as Agents by then, and under the protection of the Zion Safe House for Exiles.

It was then a side agency of man and machine was created for the specific purpose of searching for The One. Here the Oracle, Sati, Seraph, and Smith due to his connection, often worked.

They would bring each of them Potentials and with their insight they would judge weather or not it was The One or not.

It was in this manner that the Boy was found. The Boy was one of the higher potentials and thus was visited by either of the four them continually for a time along with others until it could be proven he was The One or not. For this The Boy has known Smith, Seraph, Sati, and the Oracle for all his life.

----------------

But this was the first time he had ever been to the Oracle's home in her small apartment in the bad side of town. He was at the moment getting prepared for bed, munching on a cookie, musing on the past gunfire with contempt. And there he walked over to the bedroom as saw Smith standing in the dark on the balcony. There the Boy walked over to Smith, and stood in obedient silence until the man in the suit acknowledged him.

"What?" Smith said full of frustration.

"…Want a cookie?" The Boy asked.

"No." Smith shook his head.

The Boy stood in the awkward silence.

"Are you sure it's me?" The Boy asked, hopeful there was a mistake.

"Yes." Smith said flatly.

"It could be a mistake…" The Boy tried.

"It is not." Smith told.

The Boy walked out further onto the balcony than where Smith stood, gazing at the Matrix that was before him.

"But I don't see the code, I see a building, Smith, it's right there!" The Boy was desperate and pointed, and Smith stood unmoved. "Even when you came over…I didn't want it to be me, I didn't want it to be me!" The Boy said.

The Boy's eyes filled with familiar anger that Smith knew so very well, and he merely stood in the night with his sunglasses on. The Boy stared at those dark glasses and panted in frustration, knowing that there was no way out of this now. There was no use fighting it. He could never been an engineer, he had to be Neo.

"Did you all always know?" The Boy asked.

"I did." Smith said. "From the moment I saw you."

"How?"

"I could smell it."

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

"Because the others did not believe me, they did not want me to tell you prematurely. But I knew." Smith said.

The Boy looked to Smith with pathetic eyes, begging for him to lie about this all, begging for ignorance that he would be denied. For it was the One who saw all, and knew all, and knew not of blissful ignorance, and this fact scared the Boy more than anything.

"May I ask you a question?" Smith said and the boy nodded. "Do you like me?" The boy nodded. "That alone is evidence enough that you are Him. No one likes me. I am the bane of existence and all machine and man kind." Smith said with a hint of pride in his voice. "Now, why do you like me?" Smith continue.

"I don't know, you're like a dad to me…" The Boy tried. "You seem sad."

"Why?"

"What?"

"I have never given you that implication yet you assume it based off a perception only the One could possibly have. You like me, Mr. Anderson, because I am familiar to you, because within me is a part of what was once you. And it is instinctive now, you cannot comprehend it yet, but there is a connection between you and I, Mr. Anderson that shall forever enact as a binding mechanism between us, weather we wish it to or not. Not even I can completely see it, or understand it, but I feel it, like I smell you, Mr. Anderson."

"Please don't call me that."

"Why don't you like it?"

The Boy shook his head.

"Does it remind you of what happened, Mr. Anderson?"

"Stop it."

"How I shot you in the chest and emptied my gun. How I stabbed fire into your eyes until they burnt away."

"Stop it, Smith!"

"How I held you by the neck, forced you back to the ground, and took over your mind, body, and if there is, your soul."

"STOP IT!" The boy cried.

"Is everything all right?" Seraph asked stepping onto the balcony.

"Yes." Smith told him. "We are just bickering, as can be expected." Smith gave a bit of a grin to Seraph who nodded.

"You tell me if there is any trouble." Seraph told the boy as he left.

Smith turned again to the Boy who was looking very discontent.

"You don't have to remember that all, if you don't want to. You have a choice." Smith said. "If you want to know about it, you may ask me."

"What was he like?"

"What were you like?"

"No. Him." The Boy was precise.

Smith paused for a moment as if recalling it all, then he began to slowly approach the boy, grabbing a lawn chair for him to sit upon. He made it critical to sit to the level of the Boy's and that is when he took off his sunglasses, and for the first time the Boy saw those blue eyes and was somehow filled with fear.

"Thomas A Anderson, the A did not stand for anything, it was his middle name. I do not know the motivation for this name, however I have noticed that it makes his name mean 'A Son of Man.'" Smith grinned to this. "File number 3809940TAA, Born March 11, 1962, in lower downtown central city, son of Michelle McGahey and John Anderson, exceptional student in mathematics and science, some skills in history and English, and quite the sportsman. However his mother died early and due to a then alcoholic father Thomas A Anderson experiences trouble with authority figures and has an impaired social life, finding refugee in a life of computers. Within him was the Source Code of the Matrix, and he was predestined and planned out to return to the Source and begin an initial restart of the entire system." Smith said.

"But…what was he like?" The Boy asked again.

Smith took another moment to consider.

"He was in love." Smith stated first. "Deprived of such a thing I suppose in life he relished to the point of selfishness in his love for that woman."

"Trinity."

"Yes. Trinity. He was strong willed, as if attempting to prove himself to someone, probably me really I did talk down to him quite a bit. He did not like being The One, he was confused, and he did not like having control over his life. He did not like the sense of purpose as I embraced it. He was aware of his Messiah status, and he did not like it, for he feared becoming a religious figure as such he was often avoiding of Zion inhabitants that believed in him. He was angry and frustrated at the world for doing this to him. And in the end when he had nothing left, did he go far beyond any other human in consciousness, to a point only I can speculate, where he said he had a choice, and he chose to do what he wanted."

Then Smith leaned in.

"And I feel him, within me, a burning desire, a raging longing, a feeling that often gives me emotions I would otherwise not have. It is a burning desire for freedom, made more intense by his coding. I feel a calmness as well, a very human sense of relaxation at times, an easiness of my mind that a mechanical creature should not have. And I have a sense that I am close to the Source, and for some reason I have the idea that it is warm." Smith told him.

But the boy shook his head.

"I'm not that, Smith. It's not fair." The Boy said.

"No it is not, but it is our purpose." Smith said.

"But we are not free. From it, the purpose."

"We are always free, Mr. Anderson. It may be our purpose, yet it is our choice to carry it out or not."

To this Smith stood and walked over to the edge of the balcony where he laid his hands down over the edge. The Boy went over and joined him.

"Will people always try to kill me?" The Boy asked.

Smith turned down to the young child and put his hand over the Boy's shoulder, rubbing it in a rather loving manner.

"Of course." Smith said. "But I will protect you."

"I thought you hated him." The Boy said.

"True. However, I choose to fulfill my purpose, and that requires you, Mr. Anderson." Smith said.

"What is our purpose?" The Boy asked.

"Who knows anymore?" Smith said.

"I thought you weren't allowed a gun." He said.

"There are exceptions." Smith grinned. "Soon I will take you to a construct, and I will teach you to fire a gun. And I will teach you the martial arts." Smith said.

"You will?"

"Of course, The One should know how to defend himself."

They heard the Oracle's voice calling for the Boy, and he looked over up to Smith, who nodded and prompted him to go with a push. The Boy walked off, looking back at Smith who turned his gaze back out towards the world.