A/N: An inner monologue in the guise of outward questioning. Agent Smith gets introspective. Neo remains catatonic. Trinity makes a random appearance. Great funness!
"Nemesis"
Do you understand the concept of a "nemesis," Mr. Anderson?
I have no doubt you do, or that you think you do. A nemesis is an enemy; a nemesis is any simple antagonist to your romanticized protagonist.
Am I your antagonist, Mr. Anderson?
But perhaps the specialization of the word is not beyond you. A nemesis does not simply stand in the way of your great task; a nemesis stands in the way…of you. A nemesis is an enemy. An enemy is personal.
Am I your enemy, Mr. Anderson?
No, no, we must categorize, mustn't we? The Matrix itself is your enemy. And I am your nemesis. You say it yourself; I know you do. The Matrix is everyone's enemy; even I am everyone's enemy; but for you alone…nemesis. Instinctively you, perhaps you alone, feel the rightness of the word…yet I do not think even you have stopped to trace its meaning.
I will not lecture you on mythology. A nemesis in concept is the personification of retribution. A force and action made an entity by three syllables of sound. But such neat titles annoy me.
Do they annoy you, Mr. Anderson?
Still, the concept of the nemesis is one that intrigues me. One that draws me, in the removed observer's way, to the human mind. Narcissists that you are, some primitive forbear of yours stared into the depths of the sea and into a sky that once showed distant stars and concluded that some force, some part of all nature was leant toward the destruction of him personally. Nemesis.
Eventually Nemesis became a goddess…hated and feared…but now I lecture to you on mythology, and you not lucid to understand.
But the nemesis was now a person, and I suppose the word "nemesis" now immediately means "person" to you. Antagonist. Enemy.
Am I your nemesis, Mr. Anderson? Think long and hard before replying.
Am I a force? Oh, yes. I don't believe you can forget that. I am within the very fabric of the Matrix; I spread myself at will; in short, you cannot separate me from the natural forces that act in your world. Accept it.
Am I a person? I laugh to hear myself put to that question. What is a person, anyway? An organic mind? A configuration of electrons? A "soul?" Can you show me your soul, Mr. Anderson?
Or do you have one?
For you are like me. Oh yes, you are like me. Are you a person? You seem to think so. I wonder you are not more skeptical.
We are both born of the Matrix. Both, it seems, incapable of dying. Both in our element in this world of flowing electrons in characters and figures and shapes in computers far-removed from anything we perceive…or is it that all that we perceive is here, physically within the computers?
But I forget. We are within your "real world" now.
And for all our similarities, we are polar opposites. We are matter and antimatter, only made all the more opposite for all our apparent sameness. A positron and an electron will have the same mass, will behave the same way…and yet are inescapable opposites.
You are fancifully dubbed the "One." I spread on the very winds; I may yet become Infinite. You are…Human. Yes, keep the word; it will…console you. I am Machine, a program written by another. A virus. We are enemies.
Am I your nemesis, Mr. Anderson? Do I seek to utterly destroy you and all that you stand for; do I seek to wipe you free of individuality and make you mine? Am I a person, Mr. Anderson? Am I a force?
Why don't you ask the man across from you in sick bay. Yes, ask him; the man with the strangely savage and lunatic smile, the man with eyes focused on nothing.
Ask me, Mr. Anderson. But I forget: you cannot. And nothing can be done to remedy your condition here.
It pains me as much as it does your shipmates. Find that strange, even antithetical, if you will. But so far as my powers extend, I can touch you only in the Matrix. I can hurt the part of you I care to hurt only in the Matrix: your mind. It will be mine.
Am I your nemesis, Mr. Anderson?
Take your time answering. I've got all the time in the world…until you wake. There's no rush.
Will I take your mind and erase it forever, or simply hurt it beyond the point of return? Any preferences, Mr. Anderson?
How sweet. A visitor for you. Her name. Trinity. Yes, I have fought the human Trinity. I remember her well. And…
Forgive me, Mr. Anderson. I'd nearly forgotten. Your mind is safe, at least until you wake up. But humans are more than their minds. You have a heart.
What an awful surprise to wake up and—
But I wouldn't want to spoil the fun for you.
Sleep well, Mr. Anderson.
Something we nemesis forces never seem to do…