Doubt
Disclaimer: They belong to the Wachowski brothers, Time-Warner and whoever else…
With thanks to my ever-observant beta, Ti-chan.
A speculation on the fate of the Agents.
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Neo sat uneasily in the chair, waiting for the loading program to be initiated. Thinking about all the other times he'd been in a similar position, waiting to be transferred into the Matrix. But now, it was no mission he was embarking on, no search for new recruits, he needed no destructive methods to accomplish his task. Today, in the heart of Zion, where the controls for the original Matrix still remained, he took on a thankless duty.
Morpheus had once told him that some minds were not ready to be freed and that some might never be. That was the reason that some semblance of the Matrix still remained, for the ones who couldn't live any other way; who would never be able to face the truth. Of course, they were working to rebuild the world, trying to find ways to make the surface inhabitable again, making the underground cities larger and more pleasant to inhabit for the moment. And generally it was working. Those who had been freed lived out their lives fairly content. Though, of course, they'd never been made aware that they could go back.
In order to make, what remained of the Matrix habitable for the ones who had to be left behind, the Agents had been removed. That had been a relatively simple task once the rebels had control of most of the physical construct, since it had turned out that the Agents were far more integrated with the overall program than they'd suspected. It did mean that they couldn't just be erased though. Such action would most likely have far reaching consequences that might or might not disrupt the lives of the ones left inside. So they'd reached another solution.
If the Agents couldn't be physically removed from the code then they could be moved elsewhere, placed in a different location within the construct, something like a prison. There, they wouldn't perform any of the aggressive functions that they were inclined to, when confronted with unplugged individuals.
Thinking about it, Neo suspected that it had been hoped that the Agents would end up destroying each other. With no one left to fight, wouldn't they simply obey their programming and end up fighting each other? As it was, things hadn't turned out that way. The Agents didn't fight amongst themselves, in fact, they didn't do anything at all.
Opening his eyes to the off-white walls, of what once might have been a hospital, Neo repressed the urge to pick up the phone at the empty desk and simply dial out. He was here now, he ought to stay and check on… them.
He began to move down a brightly lit corridor. All the corridors were brightly lit and in such a way that no shadows fell. He passed through a set of swinging doors and moved down the corridor. There were empty rooms on either side, equally stark, filled with medical examination tables and hospital screens.
Neo didn't look to either side as he reached a second set of swinging doors. Pushing through them the next section of corridor was exactly the same as the first, except that it ended in a pair of sealed doors, with shutters over the small windows set into them. Raising his hand to the scanner on the wall, Neo took a deep breath as he watched the doors swing open.
Stepping through the doors, he waited till he heard them swing shut, the click of the locking mechanism echoing off the empty stretch of corridor in front of him. At the end of the corridor was another set of sealed doors, which opened after a voice print identification. Another bare stretch of corridor stood in front of him and reaching the end, Neo leaned forward to push open the double doors. The doors swung open easily, just like all the others before them and swung shut just as silently.
Staring at the corridor in front of him, Neo took in the sight of bodies littered across the floor, slumped against the wall, against each other. All in listless poses, limbs hanging limply or bent off at odd angles; eyes closed, set in lax faces; or worse still, open and staring at nothing. They looked like corpses littering a forgotten battle field but they weren't; they were Agents that had been removed from the Matrix.
Neo almost wished that they could give the Agents back their sunglasses, so then at least he'd be spared the sight of their staring eyes. All different shades; so much variation for machines. He'd wondered about that, sometimes in the night. When he lay awake, trying not to sleep because he knew that if he did, he'd dream of this place. He'd dream of the endless corridors of Agents, like broken mannequins, slumped and lifeless filling corridor after corridor, room after room.
Picking his way carefully through the supine limbs, he made his way towards one of the rooms that branched from the corridors. When he'd first come here he hadn't been so careful, he'd stumbled through, horrified, and had crushed an Agent's wrist as he did. By the time he'd convinced himself to return, Neo had all but forgotten about the incident. It was only when he'd actually seen the fractured joint that he remembered and he'd felt sick. He'd knelt beside the Agent, wondering why it hadn't done anything about the damage. Then he'd gingerly lifted the arm and let go, only to hear it hit the floor with a dull thud. Finding himself stammering apologies, for no discernable reason, he'd laid the broken limb gently in the Agent's lap. There was nothing else he could do. He'd always been careful after that.
Reaching his destination, Neo stepped into the room. There were no doors on any of the hinges here, yet there was the deceptive impression of solitude in this room. Neo looked at the Agents and listened to the sound of his own breathing.
Sat, propped up, against the wall was the familiar figure of Agent Jones. His eyes were, mercifully, closed though his posture retained some last vestiges of alertness. Legs stretched out and one arm bent to rest in his lap, Jones almost looked as he'd just chosen to sit down and rest his eyes for a moment.
Next to Jones, Agent Brown was slumped against the slightly larger Agent. His limbs were a lot more lax, one arm tucked against his side while the other arm was flung across his body at a haphazard angle. The bend of his legs gave the impression that if he'd not been leaning against Jones he might have curled up into a foetal position. But it was the eyes that always captivated Neo and held him fast in horrified fascination. The hazel eyes that were wide open, fixed on nothing, directed in their angle simply by the coincidence of Brown's cheek resting against Jones' shoulder. Yet, that wasn't the worst of it, because Neo had seen it before, on a few occasions; the stuttered movement of the Agent's slow blink.
Neo tore his gaze away from the disturbing sight, only to let his gaze find another. Lying on the floor, seemingly where he had fallen, was Agent Smith. Like Brown, Smith's eyes were open, staring. His head was turned to the side, towards the other two, like the arm that was flung out, also in their direction. His other arm might have been crushed beneath him as he lay on his stomach, like something that had been simply dropped. Perhaps that was the case, Neo couldn't be sure. Neo was careful not to trip over Smith's outstretched legs as he backed away a little. He was half tempted to pick Smith up and move him into what would, at least look like, a more comfortable position. But he didn't quite dare.
For long moments Neo stared at the broken figures in front of him. He didn't feel victorious as he looked at them, as he thought of all the fallen Agents that filled this place. It wasn't something that you could gloat over and it certainly wasn't something that the masses knew about. So the Agents would remain here, in silence, like stacked up dolls that some forgotten child no longer played with. Perhaps it was a good analogy, Neo thought, like all the machines that humanity had created and then discarded. And perhaps, one day, when they had all been forgotten, it might start all over again.
Finally, Neo turned away, knowing that the dark thoughts, the seed of doubt that stirred in his mind would only continue to grow. He stepped out of the room, casting his gaze over the still forms. Of course, they hadn't stirred, probably didn't even register his presence. Just filling up silent corridors with their emptiness, that was all that they did now. No longer trying to destroy Zion, trying to stop the rebels from freeing others, trying to keep the humans safe in their dreaming… Just redundant programs, with no purpose, not any more. Like the One.
Turning back to the exit, Neo wondered what would happen if he stopped coming here. He didn't think anyone would care, didn't think they'd even notice. Now that everything was over, there was little use for him either. In his own way, he was just as redundant, a relic from a war long over. The hero that had done his duty; now relegated to nothing more than the keeper of relics.
They marked his progress, as he traversed the corridors that cast no shadows. The ripple and hum of a million thoughts paused as the human passed them. The human called 'Anderson', who called himself 'Neo'. Along their silent ranks the Agents turned their consciousness' to watch him pass, in the same way that humans might have turned their heads.
"He is the only one." A single voice echoed out of their collective consciousness.
"The others will forget." Came another voice.
"They want to forget…." A third voice faded in and then out again.
"They think it will heal." There was a trace of humour in the voice that spoke.
"They will…"
"…repeat…"
"Mistakes… all over again…"
Other voices rose, overlapping, drowning each other out, sometimes agreeing, sometimes not.
"They will forget."
"They do not learn."
"They will never learn."
"We will not forget." The single voice rose, silencing all the others. The silence stretched out in all directions, until the single presence had faded from collected consciousness. Then the voices began again as the Agents communicated among themselves. Their speech filled a million minds with thought and reason and questioning. But the corridors remained silent.
Agent Smith didn't listen to any of it, content now that his point was made.
"They will have forgotten soon." Brown commented, abstractly.
"They already doubt." Smith replied.
"They will forget everything and then…"
"They will think themselves our masters, again."
The sound of Jones' faint chuckle could be heard through the communication channels.
"We will not forget." Brown's voice was fading.
"We will not make the same mistake again." Smith said as his voice faded out into nothing.
Throughout the complex, silence stretched out in all directions; like the endless corridors, that cast no shadows.
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Am I basing some of this on Faringdon Wing at the Luton & Dunstable Hospital? Perhaps.
I was also listening to "Gollum's Song" from the "Two Towers" soundtrack.
22:25, 22/04/03