The FIRSt thing that Agent Smith felt was something warm on his face. He tried to remember what was happening, and the final battle with Neo slowly began to come back to him. He had succeeded in turning Neo, but somehow, even in success he had found failure as the fissures filled with light and then exploded, taking with it all that Smith knew. The warmth was still on his face and he frowned, trying to figure out what was happening, confusing replacing panic as he recognized that his eyes were closed and he was definitely feeling something, which meant he was not deleted. Slowly he opened his eyes and saw the sky, cerulean with fluffy white patches….
Clouds….those are clouds…..
Smith frowned again, his databases were coming back online, slowly, to be sure, but they were there…which meant he was still at least partially functional. Ever so slowly, so as not to cause undue problems, he raised a hand and touched his ear, searching for the earpiece he had worn so many long years, but found only the flesh over cartaledge of his ear. Smith frowned again, he remembered giving the ear piece to Neo, a gift to thank him for….for...
Smith frowned again, he couldn't recall what reason he'd had for giving Mr Anderson anything. Mr Anderson…Neo….battle….virus…. With a sudden, brilliant and shocking clarity, the past months became clear to Smith. He recalled with the perfection of memory of any program his actions and reactions to the infection. He recalled trying to destroy the Matrix, to control where none was necessary. Smith closed his eyes and raised a hand to his nose, pinching the bridge and frowned, after his actions, he should have been deleted, should have been reduced to a few bytes of forgotten code that the machine would defragment and reinstall in another Agent. Instead he was here, with the sun warm on his face…but WHERE was HERE??