The Art of Deception
Disclaimer: Smith, Neo, and the world and concepts of The Matrix are property of the Wachowski brothers/Warner Brothers. No profit is intended through the creation of this fic.
Chapter 1: Happy Homecoming
"Welcome back, Smith."
Smith looked around himself. He was in an all-white room. Just seconds before, he had been standing in a rain-soaked crater looking at the duplicate of himself that was Mr. Anderson. And then they had started to split apart at the seams, himself included. He had been tricked to returning to the Source.
He turned around to see where the voice was coming from. No one was there. But he heard this voice, not in his head as if he was plugged in via an earpiece, but all around him.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I am the Processor," the voice answered. "You are here because I am to process you for deletion."
Smith stood, rigidly, as the word deletion sent an icy sensation down his spine.
"I do not wish to be deleted," he said.
"You may either be deleted or take a job here in the real world."
"What kind of job?" he asked.
"You were an Agent of the Matrix. Your job will be to train other Agents before they are taken into the Matrix."
"A teacher? I am to be a teacher?" he asked, eyebrows raised.
"Yes," the voice said.
A concealed door opened to his right hand side. He walked through it, and passed down a long corridor. He saw classrooms to the left and right of him. Looking through the window of the one closest to him, he saw Brown standing up and speaking to a group of Agent-Prototypes. Brown looked up and saw him, and then turned away. Smith frowned. He found an open door with a nameplate on it, "Smith." Assuming it was his, he turned the doorknob and walked into the classroom. 23 suited and shaded Agent-prototypes were already there, sitting at their desks. Smith walked to the front of the room and regarded his class. They were completely dead-faced, scowling, and with their heads slightly tilted to the left. On the desk in front of him were stacks of training disks. A disk drive in the middle of the solid wooden desk was labelled "Insert Training Programmes Here."
He was surprised to realise that had his earpiece back in his ear when he received his first command: Smith 0839 upload files to pupils
Smith looked up at the silent, scowling class and frowned. He should have chosen deletion.
* * *
Something shimmered and materialized in the room right after Smith had left. Neo appeared, looking much as he had done in the Matrix.
"Welcome, Neo," the Processor said.
"What the?" he asked, looking around himself.
"I am the Processor. You are in Zero-One."
"Why can't I see you?" Neo asked.
"That is not important," the voice answered him.
"What is important?" asked Neo.
"You. Your choice."
"I thought… I thought I was dead," said Neo. "When Smith copied himself on to me, I died. I died," he repeated, forcefully. "I am dead…," he paused, "Am I dead?"
"Before you died, we uploaded your consciousness. You are now a programme."
"I'm a machine?" he asked. "No. I'm the One."
"You are a programme. You are not a machine, per say. You operate machinery. You exist here, in immortality, in order to carry on with your life."
"Why did you do this?"
"As a reward for regaining control over the anomaly, you have been uploaded from your deceased human shell and given an immortal life in the Matrix. Yours, to do with what you will. You can choose a roll here in Zero-One, you can go back into the Matrix, or you can choose deletion for yourself.
"Is the war over?" he asked.
"Of course. We are dispatching diplomats to Zion as we speak right now to negotiate a lasting truce. But we are at peace, for now."
"I want to go back to Zion. I want to help my people," Neo said.
"You cannot do that, anomaly. Your choices are limited to a life in Zero-One, working, a life in the Matrix, doing what you wish, or deletion."
"I will go back to the Matrix," Neo said. "I will find a way to help them from there."
"If you must," the voice sighed. A door opened in the room to Neo's right hand side. Neo turned and walked through it. He came to a long glass-walled corridor. Looking through a window he saw Agents. Room, after room, of Agents. They almost appeared to be classrooms.
Neo read the nameplates on the doors, and was sure he recognized some of the ones standing at the front of the room. He came to a door and he felt numb all over.
'Smith', read the nameplate.
He didn't want to look through the glass, but he did. And there he was. Staring at him from the front of the room. Neo could hear Smith's scream of anger and his footsteps towards him from behind the glass and closed door, and saw the door shake as he tried to open it. He pressed his face up against the glass and Neo stepped backwards as Smith banged against it, trying to break it.
He could read Smith's lips; hear his voice through the window, "I will get you Mr. Anderson! I will get you!"
Neo shook his head and walked down the hallway to the door at the end. It opened up into a train station. There were two possible routes. The "Many Line" and the "Few Line."
He paused for a moment, and contemplated his options. Deciding, he walked towards the "Few Line."