She was an Agent.
Neo could just about get his head around the concept.
A machine. Part of the system that enslaved humanity.
It wasn't a great revelation to him really, he'd known as soon as he'd taken the time to look at her code. Really see it for what it was, the pattern for a sentient program, not that of a human woman. It hadn't bothered him because he was 'the One' after all…
Not only was she a machine, she wasn't in fact a 'she' at all. The woman he'd know as Setsuka was actually Agent Smith.
OK, so that was the weird part. Not necessarily that he was a she but… but… That is was Agent Smith and that Neo hadn't even begun to realize that it was his nemesis that he'd been in bed with… Talk about sleeping with the enemy!
So what did he feel about it? He didn't know and right now he didn't want to think about it.
And without noticing Neo found that he'd made his way to the park again, to the bench where he and Setsuka had first met. He sat down in the darkness and let his head sink into his hands.
He was the One, yes, but that sure as hell didn't make him infallible. That was now a proven fact or was it? Did his inability to identify the Agent mean that he wasn't as aware of the system as he thought he was or did it mean something else entirely? Neo stared hard at the unseen gravel beneath his feet as another possibility struck him. What if the Agents were identical? He knew that was exactly what he'd been told early on in his training but he'd never quite believed it till now. Which meant… what exactly? Neo knew that he was going round in circles with the notion but it was important, he had to understand, had to know if there were differences between individual sentient programs. He had to know for certain or he'd never be able to go back to Setsuka at all.
Neo's head jerked up. Setsuka. He'd still been thinking of her. She was an individual; she had to be, if she wasn't then why had she confessed that she was an Agent? In fact, since she had even confessed which Agent she was, didn't that mean… or was that part of some grand plan by the machines? And what did that mean in the greater scheme of things anyway?
Dark blots began to swim in front of Neo's eyes, indication that he'd been staring too damn hard at the indistinct ground, with too little sleep and too much to think about.
Smith had confessed. Setsuka had come clean. He, she, it, everything that made that particular Agent, hadn't killed Neo, hadn't delivered the One into the hands of the machines; and that was all that mattered. But the system would know what had happened. It wouldn't take the machines long to realize that they'd been betrayed by one of their own and send others to finish the job. Yet, surely they'd run simulations of this already so that they'd be aware of every potential possibility, in which case if they knew that Smith hadn't been able to defeat Neo before, had they set him up to fail again? It didn't make sense as far as Neo was concerned, that the machines would turn on one of their own, unless they really were no better than the humans who had created them. Unless those who held the power had finally been corrupted by it.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Setsuka had already known that. Neo stood up, resolutely. He hoped the machines hadn't gotten to her first.
Brown monitored the progress of the Agent teams that were tracking Anderson. They would be incapable of subduing the human, of that he was certain which left him wondering how much of this plan either wasn't being revealed or simply hadn't been thought up yet. And where was Smith? The other Agent had been returning to the apartment that was their base of operations but still hadn't arrived. Something wasn't right.
There was a flicker along the grid-work of Agent connections as another team moved towards a target. Brown almost didn't notice until for some unknown reason he ran a check on their objective. He was already turning towards the door when yet another order update fed through his hardwire. Both himself and Jones were to remain where they were and take no further action. He stood, immobile before viciously cutting all connections with the grid, causing a minor amount of backlash throughout the other Agent teams he had been monitoring.
Striding back across the room Brown kicked the sofa before sitting down again. Something fell off the small table next to it as a result. He bent to pick it up, discovering that it was a discarded bottle of Setsuka's nail varnish. Setting the bottle back on the table Brown found himself wondering how much of this had been orchestrated by others. Was their entire situation simply playing out the way that his superiors had already predicted and planned for? He hoped not, facing the very real possibility that this 'controlled' experiment would leave them as the only casualties.
Smith had gone too far this time, just as it had been doubtless predicted, he would. His request for a change in their original orders to kill Anderson had been approved because it would provide valuable data for the system, data that was rarely available since Agents didn't generally… malfunction. It was even likely that the system wasn't perturbed about the abilities of one Thomas A. Anderson.
The assignment had been a false one, simply a controlled experiment, testing an Agent team to destruction. And they'd all played their parts predictably. Now all that was left was the question of which one of them would be deconstructed first.
Jones ignored Brown as he entered the living room. Not that he wasn't aware of the other Agent's latest revelation. An experiment, just an experiment by the system, that's what this whole contrived assignment was. They would all be deconstructed because of an experiment. Jones wondered if that made them dependent or independent variables. He supposed that it could be argued either way. What did that make Anderson? Some piece of laboratory equipment, perhaps. And what about pressure and temperature constants… Jones stopped that train of thought, well aware that he was making the comparison too literally. Instead he concentrated on picturing Setsuka in some lab, in a while lab-coat, wearing glasses, fussing over an experiment. In his imagining she turned so that she was reflected in the glass of a fume-cupboard and it was Smith's male form that was reflected back.
Considering the fact that some time in the near future he would most likely be the machine equivalent of dead, Jones wondered if he should be worried. Some part of his programming told him that he should, that if he were human it would be a license to run round screaming at the horror of it all but he wasn't, so he didn't.
Sitting down opposite Brown, Jones did indulge in a faint smile, which Brown immediately noticed.
"What are you smiling about, Jones?"
Jones paused before replying, weighing up two possible answers. In the end the reply was "Irony" though what Brown heard through the hardwire was "I told you so."
"You are referring to my experiments." Brown clarified, more to himself than Jones.
Jones didn't reply, having gone back to the strangely pleasing visual of Smith in a lab putting together 'quick-fit' equipment with his long-fingered hands.
Finally Brown seemed to come to some sort of decision. "It may be possible-"
"No." Jones cut him off, though doing so with little volume in his voice.
"If Smith were aware that this is an experiment…" This time Brown stopped by himself, observing Jones' frown.
"I believe that he is."
Brown kept silent.
"Though he may try to convince himself otherwise."
"But this is an inefficient method."
Jones ignored Brown again as the other Agent began to expound upon quantitative techniques.
"Eventually a field test is required. Surely you are aware of this, Brown." He cut off the flow of complaints.
"Smith knew of the possibility that we would become that field test." It wasn't really a question.
"Yes."
"Because we have all been compromised due to long term exposure to the humans?"
"We are the longest serving field unit, with the least recall time."
"And the discovery of Anderson's abilities only compounded any errors."
"He can manipulate the code itself." Jones looked directly at Brown now. Neither Agent looked away, both understanding the reason for the system's orders, for the necessity of testing an Agent team to destruction.
It had always been a possibility, that eventually their code would become corrupt. Ordinarily the solution would have been a simple reboot of the corrupt program. It was an ongoing procedure that occurred often for most Agents, apart from a select few. Agents designated to absorb mutations and alternations so that the knowledge could be examined. Afterwards such Agents were usually reset.
Brown knew of two cases where the Agents had been allowed to continue to accumulate mutations beyond the point that was recoverable. Both these Agents were the machine equivalent of clinically insane. One existed now only in an isolated subset of the physical construct, where it could no longer distinguish between self and the external data flow. It referred to itself in the plural, though it sometimes still responded to it's original designation as Agent Hugh. The other also existed in an isolated subset, where it did little other than cackle and plot to rule the physical construct. Agent Jackson also thought he was god.
With few options left Brown sincerely hoped that they would just be erased from the system rather than be allowed to linger on for some further experimental purpose. To think that the humans called this evolution…
********************
Well this chapter has taken a while (in part due to losing my hard drive) but I'm getting there. In between this and the previous chapter various plot concepts have also been ironed out so I finally know in detail where I'm going with this.
Watching Mamoru Oshii's "Avalon" was also inspiring.
A note on name references: I'm talking about Hugh the Borg from some episode of StarTreck: The Next Generation; and Dr Daniel Jackson from StarGate: SG1, specifically the episode "Absolute Power".
00:30, 30/12/02