Chapter one: Determination

And there was darkness. Nothing, but only darkness. Neo didn't even know that he was still alive.
His head was hurting, as if someone had put sharp needles into every little area of his skin.
He couln't see anything. Anything? No, there was something: A little light coming from an object that looked like a computer beside him.

Where am I?, he thought. As more of those lights in shape of different robots appeared around him, he realized that he was still lying in Machine City.
He remembered that he had fought Smith, and that somehow, the machines had kept him alive. But how long had he been asleep? It felt like waking up from a long, comatose state.

As he could only see electrified machine beings, he tried tapping around with his hand to find out where he was. There was some cloth under him and he was lying on some kind of bed. The electric items around him seemed like medical items; and feeling a terrible pain within his whole body, he assumed that he was in a kind of hospital. The machines were farming humans, so they had to be experts of the human body.

Neo went on tapping around and started to feel something warm and soft beside him. Another human body had to be lying beside him, but there were lots of plugs and wires stuck into it.
It went like a shock through his head.

Trinity!

She was dead. The love of his life had died in his arms. He remembered that he left her lying in the hovercraft as he went to fight his last battle against Agent Smith.
Trinity had been the only other human being who ever got to Zero One. It had to be her body lying beside him!

But why would the machines bring her dead corps here?
He felt wires on the same places in her body as when he had left her. Her body was still warm, so it couldn't have been a long time ago that he had lost his conscience.

Neo silently started to cry.

"Why?", he mourned, over and over again. "Why you, Trinity?
And why am I still alive?
Why did they save me?", he whispered at the world around him.
"I only asked for saving Zion, not for saving me!
I don't want to keep on living without the one that I loved...
Why didn't you grant me some peace?

Am I still needed here?"

"You are", a female voice commented his self-talk behind him, while he heard footsteps hitting the floor. Neo got up surprisedly. Who was that? Was he going to be insane? He always thought that no human being had ever made it to Machine City before him. And that was correct. As he turned around, he could see the shape of a beautiful woman, made of pure golden light like all the other machines he had met here.

"So you finally have gained human apperance?", Neo asked. "Smith had not been the first one to download into flesh and blood, am I right?"

"You are", the women said. "You're both right and you also are the first one who did that... I mean... your series."

"You're kidding me!", Neo answered and felt like meeting the architect to hear more of his bullshit. But now, all that he had heard there finally started to make sense.

"Your wrong", the machine women commented him now. "Both wrong because I'm not lying to you and because in some way Smith was also the first one to do this... Because he is a part of yourself. A part of your program. He and you are one. Like twin brothers that have now melted back into the one being they decended from."

Neos head was aching terribly and he had to sit down. This was too much. Too much information for his head, too much stress for his hurt body, and far too much for his wounded human soul to take.

"Since you are still needed, Mister Anderson", his visitor went on with no compassion for his state of mind, "I have an offer to make to you."

"Not now", Neo gasped.

"But this will be of interest to you."

"What do you want me to do?"

Neo could not imagine that the machines could have anything to offer him, since all he had ever wanted was gone forever. But he was afraid that the war might still not be over and that Zion was not save yet. So he was ready to do whatever they wanted him to. Since Trinity had died, he felt like his own life had no real purpose anymore but serving mankind.

"Let us first talk about what we have to offer", the woman went on in a proud way.
Neo listened ennervedly.

"You're not the only model that was designed as a combination of artificial and biological intellegence."

"I see. You're one of us, too."

"I am only a prototype of an artificial human body. Not an apropriate one. But the model called Trinity is."

"What does that mean?", Neo wanted to know. Now, he was interested.

"Well, since she represents a maybe even more important experiment for us than you are, we might be able to call her back. But we need you to do this. That is why we brought her body here. It was too precious to be thrown away. She is still in the Matrix, doing her job very well..."

"What job?"

"Let's come to this later. What we want you to do is, go back into the Matrix and convince her of reconnecting to her body as soon as we have prepared it."

"Why?"

"Because... We want the two of you to be our ambassadors for the peace process with the human race."

"I can't believe this. What have you done to her? And what happened to her body?"

"Unluckily, we were only able to save her code. Her body is not restored yet. It was harmed seriously. But we're still trying to repair it..."

"Repair? You want to tell me that her mind is still alive in the Matrix, that we're both robots and that you want me to... Whatever...? This is too much for me. If this is true... Well, if it's not, I don't care, because my death won't matter... Even if there's the slightest chance to see her again, I guess it's worth giving it a try... But I still can't believe it. Why was I created if you knew that this would happen?"

The woman gave him no answer.

"Did... you... now that this would happen?", he asked once more jokingly, knowing that he had brought his own unforseeable part into the equation."

"You have twelve hours", the woman finally said before she left the room, not regarding his comment.

Twelve hours.

Twelve hours that could mean wasting his life for the purposes of the machines, or saving the woman he would have died for without even thinking about it! That was an easy choice, even if his chances were only little. If this was a trap, it would have made no difference. Without Trinity, Neo felt like his life had no meaning anyway. The only risk he saw in this was that he could harm mankind during his operation. But if this was the case, he could still put his life an end while being on the way. He had no idea what he was supposed do, but he spoke out loudly that he was ready, hoping that someone would hear him.

Just in the same moment, an army of little robots appeared helping him to log back in to the Matrix, as if Neo was their master. But he did not feel like that anymore when he woke up between garbage boxes on a backstreet in the ghetto of Megacity. Couldn't you have treated me a little nicer?, he yelled now once more at this other world around him, rubbing his still hurting head.

"Never ever! We brought you as close as possible!", a tiny little voice was whispering into his ear. That was the moment when Neo discovered that he was wearing earplugs, like Agent Smith had done before. And not only this, he was also wearing a black suit instead of his rebel clothes.

"Am I supposed to be an agent now?", he asked the little voice in the plug. "Yes indeed. Not only that you're now operating for us; Smith's and your code has merged as you defeated him."

Neo realized that he had access to Smith's memories. All the secret pathways he had known could now be used by him. And he felt a mental strength inside like never before. He knew now that Smith had been searching for this state of mind since he had become a person of his own agenda, and Neo saw now why: Smith had always been a part of his own code that had now returned to him. He remembered now that he had agreed to the seperation of his code, before he had been sent into a human body... It had enabled him to understand both sides of the equation. Now that he knew who he really was, there was one more question to be solved:

"Who... are you?" He asked his secret whisperer.
"You know me!", the friendly voice said, sounding like child.
"Sati?"
"Correct. You are quick whitted, Mister. You know it all now, don't you?"
"Oh yes."
"So what's your decision?"
"You know that."
"I know. You want to find your beloved. And live with the humans.", Sati said smilingly. "That's good. We need an ambassador. And we both think you've earned yourself a life of your own."
"Both of you?"
"Yes. The old lady, and me... The Oracle!
Neo, get on your feet now! Time is rare.", she said in her cute children's voice with Indian accent, though the issue was so serious, "You have to find the the head quarter of a secret organization which is called 'The Oligarchy'. Those people are very dangerous, but you've got secret knowledge yourself now. In the pocket of your jacket you'll find a map. If you're lucky, you'll find Trinity there. We'll give you further instructions then!"
"What in the world is your plan?", Neo asked. The Oracle was now on the line:
"We can't explain that to you now. Like always, Neo, you have to trust us. We can see a future... We see a dark future, a future that does not necessarily have to happen, now that WE have found you. We need you Neo, to help us. Because you and I know that there's another way and we also both want that, isn't it so?"

"It is."

Neo still did not entirely know what was lying ahead of him, but he got back this feeling of determination, that most of the time had been accompanying him.
Knowing that Sati and the Oracle had also survived somehow made things easier for him.
But he thought that he'd never forget the following twelve hours... Twelve hours, that would seem to him like 12 days. Or 12 weeks. Or even month.