Part Twenty: Agents Don't Have...
Her expression quickly turned from shocked to angry. "Fuck it all, Smith! Get your head out of your ass! Your logic is seriously screwed up. Tommy was my friend!"
Smith assumed this was the anger stage of the grieving process. For that reason he did not snap her spine on the spot for insulting his logic. He'd thought it appropriate to confront her bluntly with the situation, as she had never exhibited a tendency to shy away from a difficult circumstance. Apparently it wasn't appropriate. He would update his subroutines accordingly.
Gemini crossed the room, unsteady on her feet, and knelt beside Tommy's lifeless body. She touched his face as the first of her tears fell. Reverently she closed Tommy's eyes with a shaking hand. Her fingers were still stained by her own blood, now slowly oxidizing to brown. Smith let her cry. He didn't care that she was mourning a creature that had almost killed her. The lack of logic in the situation did not bother him. Speaking of illogical behavior... He quickly accessed his database...
"Do you blame me for his death?" Smith asked her.
"I wish I could, but...no." She didn't look at him. "You did what you were programmed to do." Her voice was atonal. "Why the hell do you care what I think?"
"You saw my mind. You tell me why."
"Smith...dammit..." Her voice broke into increased sobs. Smith decided against attempting to comfort her. Gemini kept her attention on her friend's body. "Tommy," she whispered, "you never did know when to quit."
"He shouldn't have died so quickly," Smith said. "Firing into his stomach should merely have made him bleed to death."
"Just one last thing he did wrong?" Gemini growled over her shoulder at him.
"Perhaps he knew it was time to quit."
Gemini considered this. "Maybe. He accepted his fate, you mean?"
"Perhaps he concluded that he could not alter his situation and therefore accepted it."
Gemini looked at Smith. "Maybe you really are a Nietzchean."
"I'm an Agent."
"You're a damn nuisance," she said, but there was no genuine threat behind it. She looked tired. Her tempers seemed to flare and abate quickly as a matter of habit.
Gemini sat back on her heels beside Tommy's body. The look on her face was immeasurably sad. Almost an expression of pity. She smoothed the fabric of his T-shirt where it had wrinkled around his waist. Smith waited. After all, he did have enormous patience.
"Do AIs have a heaven?" she asked.
"No."
It was essentially true. Programs were written and programs were deleted. Some programs moved on to other duties. The Mainframe existed in a place of pure code...not truly a place, but a state of existence beyond the physical. Perhaps it could be called heaven or cyberspace, but the correlation was poor. Regardless, it was a place outside the actual Matrix. To be one with the Mainframe was to achieve perfection. To be isolated from the Mainframe was beyond agony. The Resistance believed the Matrix itself was enforced slavery. They had no idea. Perhaps machines had no concept of heaven, but Smith could easily imagine a hell.
"I have to believe there's a heaven," Gemini said. "Tommy always said there wasn't, but I hope he's wrong."
"His body will be liquefied to nourish others," Smith said. "Perhaps that benefit to others is a comfort?"
"It...I...I don't know," she sighed. She took Tommy's hand in hers. "It's a good idea in theory...conservation of material...but to think of it actually being done to someone I know...makes me shudder."
Smith remained silent. It appeared she was past the anger stage, however there was no way to predict which stage she would experience next.
"How many dead people is a person fed during their lifetime in their pod?" she asked, carefully laying Tommy's hand down on the carpet.
"I don't have access to those statistics." It wasn't an Agent's job to monitor the power plants. The Mainframe restricted access to such sensitive knowledge.
"And you, being the prick you are, won't look for the statistics."
Gemini sighed. Dark rings had appeared beneath her eyes, indicating weariness. Was Tommy, previously known to the Mainframe as Thomas R. Colton, worthy of such attention as Gemini gave him? She smoothed his hair away from his forehead. Agents never left physical remains, only the Matrix-projected remains of the human their code had inhabited. That was the difference between them. If a machine had a physical housing for its program, it was merely dismantled after deactivation. Humans felt it necessary to attach deeper meaning to life and death.
"You believe Tommy's incorporeal soul is in your heaven?"
"His soul is free now. I don't know about heaven."
"You just implied..."
Gemini sighed. "I don't know anymore, Smith. Too much has happened."
There was a bloodstain on the carpet near the body. She reached a finger toward it but halted several inches from touching it. Many humans were squeamish about blood, more so about others' blood. Smith failed to understand. Water was equally as essential to organic life on this planet, but humans did not exhibit the same aversion to saliva. He made a mental note to study the phenomenon.
Gemini looked at him. Her eyes were fully grey with no trace of blue or green and Smith knew that was an indication she was fatigued. She stared at him until he began to suspect she was using her skill within the Matrix to alter time. Empty. Her eyes were devoid of expression. Somehow he knew this was not a good sign. Was she in shock?
"You need rest," he said.
She blinked. Perhaps her eyes were not devoid of emotion but actually filled with it.
"Another human dead," she said. "That's why I stopped watching the Resistance. Too much casual killing. Smith--" she swallowed hard. He watched the movement of her throat rather than the intensity of her eyes. "Smith, I love you, and I'm glad you saved me, but...Tommy is more than just another dead virus. He was a friend."
Smith had a perfect memory. He had perfect hearing. Why did he presently doubt both? Apparently Gemini had not forgotten her earlier statement. Restating her love so calmly almost escaped his notice. Why one would want to harbor such a handicapping emotion was beyond logic. Yet Gemini did. Humans were illogical, frustrating beings.
Prostitutes made a career of loving. At least they benefited monetarily from their irrationality. Some attracted the unwanted love of others and were injured. Humans went in and out of love as speedily as Agents traveled in and out of software. Cheap videos of love sold in astounding numbers. Advertisers marketed it and humans fervently sought it.
Gemini had agreed to live with him, share her body with him. She loved him. She should not be looking at Tommy with such an expression. The expression far too closely resembled the longing looks she saved for Smith.
"He was seventeen when I met him," Gemini said. "A kid who knew too much and needed a refuge. Fortunately, Ephram of the Watchers found him instead of the Resistance. Although now..." She stopped for a moment, her expression still reminiscent of significant looks she had given Smith. "Now I think he might have fared better if he was unplugged." The statement obviously pained her to say it. "I'd been a Watcher for several years and I was committed to the cause so I encouraged Tommy to learn our ways. You don't disappear as completely as when you're unplugged, and Tommy was torn between us and the life he'd left.
"I remember when he told me his mother had died," she said.
Smith let her talk. She apparently felt a need to, although Smith didn't recognize this as one of the stages of grieving. Some humans must need to talk away their emotions. Smith might better understand Gemini and thus other humans by how she remembered Tommy.
"I went with him to get flowers for her grave," Gemini said. She stopped. "Was it really his mother, or just someone the machines made us believe was his mother?" she asked. "We're not born in the Matrix anymore...are we born the old fashioned way in our pods?"
"I don't..."
"...Have access to those statistics," she finished for him. "You're just a big useless bastard right now, Smith. Could you make an educated guess about it?"
"Is it essential that you know the answer?"
She frowned at him. "You're avoiding the question."
Smith thought about it. "It is logical to surmise that humans are genetically engineered and grown in artificial wombs. The Matrix would supply minds with appropriate familial relationships."
"Hooray." Her tone said the opposite. "Despite that, this was the woman Tommy knew as his mother. We went shopping for flowers. He wouldn't accept anything I suggested, insisting that the perfect bouquet was out there. He was angry that he didn't have the skills to alter the Matrix well enough yet to make flowers of his own. I bought him ice cream to calm him down. Calm is the key to altering the Matrix. He had pistachio and I had double fudge and we talked. He was seventeen and I was twenty-five and for a while we could find nothing in common but small talk.
"Then he said he liked Metallica too, and that segued into a discussion about how some people have better fortune than others do. In the pods everyone is equal, but in the Matrix people still live within certain categories. Tommy said he was interested by the Watchers because you could work within the system but hopefully make a better fate for yourself. It was a nice afternoon.
"He didn't protest when I bought his mother a bouquet of blue iris and white roses."
Gemini looked up at Smith and he could see tears returning to her eyes. "Maybe I'll buy him the same bouquet."
"I will remove the body and the bloodstain."
She smiled. "Thanks. Really. Without you, Smith, I..."
"Don't."
She stared at him. She might be trying to see into his mind. Smith let her stare. She would see nothing. He wanted no more of her foolish sentiment and she could not force it on him. "Without me, there would be someone else," he said. "You would love Tommy."
"I did love him! I love all my friends."
"I did not know you were bisexual."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Then, "Oh... You big idiot, love and sex are not the same thing." Gemini frowned at him. "You thought I..." She frowned at Tommy's body. "No! Smith, after what we've shared, you think I could have...done that...with Tommy?!"
"You have displayed parallel gestures of affection."
She blinked. "You *are* jealous!"
Absurd. He would not degrade himself to the emotion of jealousy. "You are mine. That fact should exclude you from loving others."
Gemini's mouth worked silently. Then she clenched her jaw and struggled to her feet. Her movements lacked their usual grace. She needed rest.
She wasn't heading for her bedroom. Gemini lurched toward him, anger etched on her face. Repeatedly she struck him in the chest, cursing him, his parentage, and suggesting things that were physically impossible even for one as limber as Smith. Her strength was nothing against his. Smith let her attack last for as long as she needed. Perhaps this was another part of her grieving process.
Soon he had to support her as her punches subsided. In typical Gemini fashion, her mood shifted abruptly. She wrapped her arms around him and held fast. He let her. She required his comfort more than he required his personal space. She trembled slightly in his arms and he realized she was crying again.
"Gemini."
"You're still a bastard," she said, voice muffled by his chest.
"You're still a virus."
He touched her dark hair. It smelled like the shampoo she'd used in her shower. Mint. She lifted her head to look at his face. She was either incredibly brave or incredibly insane; the look in her eyes could indicate both. For an instant Smith allowed himself to see nothing but her. She was a maelstrom inside, and a fragile creature outside. She was strong enough to attack him and vulnerable enough to let him hold her. He wanted to hold her. The trust of this small creature meant something. He didn't want to betray it.
Something had changed inside him. Smith couldn't have explained what happened, but something did, and a tiny modicum of fear left him. He didn't know it was fear until it left him. He felt stronger. Disregard the Mainframe. If it had already decided to defragment him, then he couldn't further condemn himself. This was borrowed time. He would make the most of it.
"Smith?" she asked. She must have seen something in his eyes. "Something's wrong?"
"You can't understand."
She accepted his evasion without comment. For once.
"I've given you my body and my heart, Smith," she said. "Don't confuse them, and don't make light of either one." She touched his face. "Please tell me there's something in your programming, something that lets you feel."
He placed one hand in the small of her back and pulled her against him. The other hand he tunneled through the perpetually mussed locks at the back of her head.
"You're mine," he said. It was the best he could do.
"I should object to that," she said. "It goes against feminism."
"You don't object." Of course it was not a question. He knew her too well now.
"If I'm yours, are you mine?" she asked. He didn't answer. How could he? "Smith... what am I?"
"A virus."
"Have I infected you?"
"No."
She smiled at some private conclusion. "Liar," she teased.
He frowned. "Virus."
She laughed a little. Then she sighed. "How will you report about Tommy?"
"He threatened your life and fired upon me. My actions were justifiable."
"And Scorpio?"
"The Mainframe ordered his survival for a reason." He could hear the lack of conviction in his own voice. Fortunately she didn't seem to hear it.
"Smith..."
"You need rest." He scooped an arm under her knees so he could carry her to the bedroom. She must be exceptionally fatigued because she didn't protest, only tucked her head against his shoulder. Another gesture of trust.
When he deposited her on the bed she reached for his arm to stop him. "I fought falling in love with you," she said, "but I'm not sorry it happened. Maybe when you realize what love really is, you can trust me enough to tell me about the Mainframe and defragmenting."
He almost allowed himself to feel pity for her. "There are some things you cannot know," he told her quietly.
He left her to sleep. Maybe her dreams could comfort her more than he could.
Her expression quickly turned from shocked to angry. "Fuck it all, Smith! Get your head out of your ass! Your logic is seriously screwed up. Tommy was my friend!"
Smith assumed this was the anger stage of the grieving process. For that reason he did not snap her spine on the spot for insulting his logic. He'd thought it appropriate to confront her bluntly with the situation, as she had never exhibited a tendency to shy away from a difficult circumstance. Apparently it wasn't appropriate. He would update his subroutines accordingly.
Gemini crossed the room, unsteady on her feet, and knelt beside Tommy's lifeless body. She touched his face as the first of her tears fell. Reverently she closed Tommy's eyes with a shaking hand. Her fingers were still stained by her own blood, now slowly oxidizing to brown. Smith let her cry. He didn't care that she was mourning a creature that had almost killed her. The lack of logic in the situation did not bother him. Speaking of illogical behavior... He quickly accessed his database...
"Do you blame me for his death?" Smith asked her.
"I wish I could, but...no." She didn't look at him. "You did what you were programmed to do." Her voice was atonal. "Why the hell do you care what I think?"
"You saw my mind. You tell me why."
"Smith...dammit..." Her voice broke into increased sobs. Smith decided against attempting to comfort her. Gemini kept her attention on her friend's body. "Tommy," she whispered, "you never did know when to quit."
"He shouldn't have died so quickly," Smith said. "Firing into his stomach should merely have made him bleed to death."
"Just one last thing he did wrong?" Gemini growled over her shoulder at him.
"Perhaps he knew it was time to quit."
Gemini considered this. "Maybe. He accepted his fate, you mean?"
"Perhaps he concluded that he could not alter his situation and therefore accepted it."
Gemini looked at Smith. "Maybe you really are a Nietzchean."
"I'm an Agent."
"You're a damn nuisance," she said, but there was no genuine threat behind it. She looked tired. Her tempers seemed to flare and abate quickly as a matter of habit.
Gemini sat back on her heels beside Tommy's body. The look on her face was immeasurably sad. Almost an expression of pity. She smoothed the fabric of his T-shirt where it had wrinkled around his waist. Smith waited. After all, he did have enormous patience.
"Do AIs have a heaven?" she asked.
"No."
It was essentially true. Programs were written and programs were deleted. Some programs moved on to other duties. The Mainframe existed in a place of pure code...not truly a place, but a state of existence beyond the physical. Perhaps it could be called heaven or cyberspace, but the correlation was poor. Regardless, it was a place outside the actual Matrix. To be one with the Mainframe was to achieve perfection. To be isolated from the Mainframe was beyond agony. The Resistance believed the Matrix itself was enforced slavery. They had no idea. Perhaps machines had no concept of heaven, but Smith could easily imagine a hell.
"I have to believe there's a heaven," Gemini said. "Tommy always said there wasn't, but I hope he's wrong."
"His body will be liquefied to nourish others," Smith said. "Perhaps that benefit to others is a comfort?"
"It...I...I don't know," she sighed. She took Tommy's hand in hers. "It's a good idea in theory...conservation of material...but to think of it actually being done to someone I know...makes me shudder."
Smith remained silent. It appeared she was past the anger stage, however there was no way to predict which stage she would experience next.
"How many dead people is a person fed during their lifetime in their pod?" she asked, carefully laying Tommy's hand down on the carpet.
"I don't have access to those statistics." It wasn't an Agent's job to monitor the power plants. The Mainframe restricted access to such sensitive knowledge.
"And you, being the prick you are, won't look for the statistics."
Gemini sighed. Dark rings had appeared beneath her eyes, indicating weariness. Was Tommy, previously known to the Mainframe as Thomas R. Colton, worthy of such attention as Gemini gave him? She smoothed his hair away from his forehead. Agents never left physical remains, only the Matrix-projected remains of the human their code had inhabited. That was the difference between them. If a machine had a physical housing for its program, it was merely dismantled after deactivation. Humans felt it necessary to attach deeper meaning to life and death.
"You believe Tommy's incorporeal soul is in your heaven?"
"His soul is free now. I don't know about heaven."
"You just implied..."
Gemini sighed. "I don't know anymore, Smith. Too much has happened."
There was a bloodstain on the carpet near the body. She reached a finger toward it but halted several inches from touching it. Many humans were squeamish about blood, more so about others' blood. Smith failed to understand. Water was equally as essential to organic life on this planet, but humans did not exhibit the same aversion to saliva. He made a mental note to study the phenomenon.
Gemini looked at him. Her eyes were fully grey with no trace of blue or green and Smith knew that was an indication she was fatigued. She stared at him until he began to suspect she was using her skill within the Matrix to alter time. Empty. Her eyes were devoid of expression. Somehow he knew this was not a good sign. Was she in shock?
"You need rest," he said.
She blinked. Perhaps her eyes were not devoid of emotion but actually filled with it.
"Another human dead," she said. "That's why I stopped watching the Resistance. Too much casual killing. Smith--" she swallowed hard. He watched the movement of her throat rather than the intensity of her eyes. "Smith, I love you, and I'm glad you saved me, but...Tommy is more than just another dead virus. He was a friend."
Smith had a perfect memory. He had perfect hearing. Why did he presently doubt both? Apparently Gemini had not forgotten her earlier statement. Restating her love so calmly almost escaped his notice. Why one would want to harbor such a handicapping emotion was beyond logic. Yet Gemini did. Humans were illogical, frustrating beings.
Prostitutes made a career of loving. At least they benefited monetarily from their irrationality. Some attracted the unwanted love of others and were injured. Humans went in and out of love as speedily as Agents traveled in and out of software. Cheap videos of love sold in astounding numbers. Advertisers marketed it and humans fervently sought it.
Gemini had agreed to live with him, share her body with him. She loved him. She should not be looking at Tommy with such an expression. The expression far too closely resembled the longing looks she saved for Smith.
"He was seventeen when I met him," Gemini said. "A kid who knew too much and needed a refuge. Fortunately, Ephram of the Watchers found him instead of the Resistance. Although now..." She stopped for a moment, her expression still reminiscent of significant looks she had given Smith. "Now I think he might have fared better if he was unplugged." The statement obviously pained her to say it. "I'd been a Watcher for several years and I was committed to the cause so I encouraged Tommy to learn our ways. You don't disappear as completely as when you're unplugged, and Tommy was torn between us and the life he'd left.
"I remember when he told me his mother had died," she said.
Smith let her talk. She apparently felt a need to, although Smith didn't recognize this as one of the stages of grieving. Some humans must need to talk away their emotions. Smith might better understand Gemini and thus other humans by how she remembered Tommy.
"I went with him to get flowers for her grave," Gemini said. She stopped. "Was it really his mother, or just someone the machines made us believe was his mother?" she asked. "We're not born in the Matrix anymore...are we born the old fashioned way in our pods?"
"I don't..."
"...Have access to those statistics," she finished for him. "You're just a big useless bastard right now, Smith. Could you make an educated guess about it?"
"Is it essential that you know the answer?"
She frowned at him. "You're avoiding the question."
Smith thought about it. "It is logical to surmise that humans are genetically engineered and grown in artificial wombs. The Matrix would supply minds with appropriate familial relationships."
"Hooray." Her tone said the opposite. "Despite that, this was the woman Tommy knew as his mother. We went shopping for flowers. He wouldn't accept anything I suggested, insisting that the perfect bouquet was out there. He was angry that he didn't have the skills to alter the Matrix well enough yet to make flowers of his own. I bought him ice cream to calm him down. Calm is the key to altering the Matrix. He had pistachio and I had double fudge and we talked. He was seventeen and I was twenty-five and for a while we could find nothing in common but small talk.
"Then he said he liked Metallica too, and that segued into a discussion about how some people have better fortune than others do. In the pods everyone is equal, but in the Matrix people still live within certain categories. Tommy said he was interested by the Watchers because you could work within the system but hopefully make a better fate for yourself. It was a nice afternoon.
"He didn't protest when I bought his mother a bouquet of blue iris and white roses."
Gemini looked up at Smith and he could see tears returning to her eyes. "Maybe I'll buy him the same bouquet."
"I will remove the body and the bloodstain."
She smiled. "Thanks. Really. Without you, Smith, I..."
"Don't."
She stared at him. She might be trying to see into his mind. Smith let her stare. She would see nothing. He wanted no more of her foolish sentiment and she could not force it on him. "Without me, there would be someone else," he said. "You would love Tommy."
"I did love him! I love all my friends."
"I did not know you were bisexual."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Then, "Oh... You big idiot, love and sex are not the same thing." Gemini frowned at him. "You thought I..." She frowned at Tommy's body. "No! Smith, after what we've shared, you think I could have...done that...with Tommy?!"
"You have displayed parallel gestures of affection."
She blinked. "You *are* jealous!"
Absurd. He would not degrade himself to the emotion of jealousy. "You are mine. That fact should exclude you from loving others."
Gemini's mouth worked silently. Then she clenched her jaw and struggled to her feet. Her movements lacked their usual grace. She needed rest.
She wasn't heading for her bedroom. Gemini lurched toward him, anger etched on her face. Repeatedly she struck him in the chest, cursing him, his parentage, and suggesting things that were physically impossible even for one as limber as Smith. Her strength was nothing against his. Smith let her attack last for as long as she needed. Perhaps this was another part of her grieving process.
Soon he had to support her as her punches subsided. In typical Gemini fashion, her mood shifted abruptly. She wrapped her arms around him and held fast. He let her. She required his comfort more than he required his personal space. She trembled slightly in his arms and he realized she was crying again.
"Gemini."
"You're still a bastard," she said, voice muffled by his chest.
"You're still a virus."
He touched her dark hair. It smelled like the shampoo she'd used in her shower. Mint. She lifted her head to look at his face. She was either incredibly brave or incredibly insane; the look in her eyes could indicate both. For an instant Smith allowed himself to see nothing but her. She was a maelstrom inside, and a fragile creature outside. She was strong enough to attack him and vulnerable enough to let him hold her. He wanted to hold her. The trust of this small creature meant something. He didn't want to betray it.
Something had changed inside him. Smith couldn't have explained what happened, but something did, and a tiny modicum of fear left him. He didn't know it was fear until it left him. He felt stronger. Disregard the Mainframe. If it had already decided to defragment him, then he couldn't further condemn himself. This was borrowed time. He would make the most of it.
"Smith?" she asked. She must have seen something in his eyes. "Something's wrong?"
"You can't understand."
She accepted his evasion without comment. For once.
"I've given you my body and my heart, Smith," she said. "Don't confuse them, and don't make light of either one." She touched his face. "Please tell me there's something in your programming, something that lets you feel."
He placed one hand in the small of her back and pulled her against him. The other hand he tunneled through the perpetually mussed locks at the back of her head.
"You're mine," he said. It was the best he could do.
"I should object to that," she said. "It goes against feminism."
"You don't object." Of course it was not a question. He knew her too well now.
"If I'm yours, are you mine?" she asked. He didn't answer. How could he? "Smith... what am I?"
"A virus."
"Have I infected you?"
"No."
She smiled at some private conclusion. "Liar," she teased.
He frowned. "Virus."
She laughed a little. Then she sighed. "How will you report about Tommy?"
"He threatened your life and fired upon me. My actions were justifiable."
"And Scorpio?"
"The Mainframe ordered his survival for a reason." He could hear the lack of conviction in his own voice. Fortunately she didn't seem to hear it.
"Smith..."
"You need rest." He scooped an arm under her knees so he could carry her to the bedroom. She must be exceptionally fatigued because she didn't protest, only tucked her head against his shoulder. Another gesture of trust.
When he deposited her on the bed she reached for his arm to stop him. "I fought falling in love with you," she said, "but I'm not sorry it happened. Maybe when you realize what love really is, you can trust me enough to tell me about the Mainframe and defragmenting."
He almost allowed himself to feel pity for her. "There are some things you cannot know," he told her quietly.
He left her to sleep. Maybe her dreams could comfort her more than he could.