Do Agents dream about vacation?
Written by Tatiana Matveeva aka Inity Intel Inside (Agent Inity)
This story is based on characters and situations created and owned
by Larry and Andy Wachowski, Matrix movie owned by Warner Bros., Inc.
This fic contains no canon characters. You won't meet Neo or Trinity
here, sorry. And, like other my stories, it's agents-focused...
No money is being made. translated into English by /shattered dream/
[russian version is available ~ otherside.junik.lv/pages/vacation-ru.html]
Factus de materia,
Cinis elementi
similis sum folio,
De quo ludunt venti.
Feror ego veluti
Sine nauta navis,
Ut per vias aeris
Vaga fertur avis...
Carmina Burana "Estuans interius"
Created from matter,
Of the ashes of the elements,
I am like a leaf
Played with by the winds.
I am carried along
Like a ship without a steersman,
And in the paths of the air
Like a light, hovering bird...
To all my friends: Jack, Shahfil, Martin, Nazgul, Killer, Scraps,
Black, Azimer, Madwolf, Mak, Kali, Star Wind, Narsus, Truds...
you know what we have in common ;)
Matrix is the subject of many fanfics...
I am writing one, too.
I wrote one yesterday, actually... well, started writing, to be fair.
Still fearing it's somewhat unfinished yet. I have to add the second
part, but I don't have a clue about what should happen next.
The story is being told by a Matrix Agent... I like writing from
Agents' point of view...
It's like I understand them better. I felt that way the day I've seen
the movie for the first time, and every time I've replayed it
afterwards -- because I felt something in it that echoed back in me
--, or when discussed it with my friends, in USENET and chatrooms...
At first I felt myself a little uneasy with all these fans of Keanu
Reeves' and Carrie-Anne Moss' characters, Neo and Trinity...
Eventually, I got used to it. And I saw that I'm not alone -- there
were others who shared my views... and were writing fanfics, too. I
enjoyed these writings, because they were quite close to my own
thoughts...
I should ask one of them help me to complete this story... Maybe
later.
I'm opening a message that just arrived...
It's from her. I glance thoughtlessly at the watch -- there's half an
hour till we meet. Hmm... We know each other for a short time, but I
feel like we knew one another for long and must have met earlier...
Somewhere not here, and not in this life time.
"Shall we meet as agreed?" -- and a winking smiley.
It's always slightly frightening to meet net friends in real life for
the first time. But now, I have had almost no doubts, when meeting
idea popped itself up from nowhere.
"See the two stories attached -- Jack's and mine. A piece of mine...
unfinished still."
I have read Jack's story already -- on his site. Just skimmed it at
first, and yesterday started reading for the second time, but stopped
in the middle to organize my thoughts. Something was wrong. Perhaps I
just a bit too much wanted to try image of Agent Jack cut from Matrix
-- like author jokingly said, "sent on vacation". ("Do Agents dream of
vacation?" -- I said to myself and opened the second file.)
It's very short and badly formatted. White text on black background,
small Lucida Console font... painful to read, I squinted my eyes...
Now I see.
=====
A girl clad in black is staring at the screen, reading data
tables and data columns displayed. Then she stops reading and
raises her eyes; hands touch the keyboard.
- Perhaps we're asking the wrong questions, - she says, turning
to another Agent.
- Congratulations. Today you managed to say that almost like in
the movie.
He smiles briefly, touching the frame of his dark sunglasses.
She wears same glasses, too.
- Your compliments are hardly tolerable, Jack.
She glances at the screen again.
- He has no codes to access Zion. Exactly as one could expect.
- So we don't need him anymore...
- Too bad that he could not be converted... she sighs with
noticeable regret.
- You just pathologically can't admit defeat.
- People... they are hopeless. I'd better go preach to birds...
- All birds are programmed. No one survived.
- Jack, it's dangerous to speak about dreams when you're
nearby.
=====
Me? Reading a novel?.. No. I know that I'm standing in that room with
them, away at the wall... I hear everything they say. I listen to
Matrix -- a constantly murmuring stream of new data. I see the world
like Agents see it. I feel vast streams of code around me, I recognize
the slightest changes in programming...
A lonely bird, its silhouette in the sky -- light blue sky rippled
with constantly changing plumose clouds... I know how randomizers work
restlessly, determining eternally unique shapes, I know how Matrix
distributes operational resources, rationally and carefully, so that
the Sun, although missing long ago, still shines for humans -- and
their world continues to live...
=====
- They are trying to save you, -- says she to the Rebel that
stares at her grimly. His face is grasped with hatred. Looks
like these news didn't touch him, as if he couldn't percieve
anything anymore.
Obviously coming to the very same conclusion she turns to her
colleague again.
- Where did they get the chopper?
- Stole it from a military base.
- Well... almost like in the movie. By the way, they should
have understood by now that Matrix is not a playground for
role-playing Rebels...
She looks out of the window and watches a bird fly off.
Beautiful... Just some loops and subroutines, and a ghostly
image of what used to be absolute potentates of the sky
reappears in the Matrix. Real birds no longer exist in the real
world...
- Did you ordered evacuation from nearby buildings?
- Positive.
- There's a nursery hospital across the street... Too bad.
- If they're going for shooting and chopper-throwing... we'll
have to brainwash lots of people then.
There's too much pain behind the rapid exchange of short
phrases... But... can it be explained?
We stand together. Long last minutes pass.
- I'd rather prefer not to die today, - she's demonstratively
negligent, in an attempt to hide bitterness.
- There's a restore... Matrix always restores, - her companion
replies. Negligency and hopelessness mixed.
- See you again... in the next life.
[
A hidden thought suddenly becomes evident. I do not want to begin
that all once again! A value of my choice makes importance for me.
And I'm able to take charge if mistaken. NO! Today it all will go
other way...
]
=====
I open my eyes.
The file ends here... Is it just a story? But I feel like I was not
here, but somewhere far away... and the world seemed unreal and
illusory...
The world still seems unreal and illusory...
I look around... Mixed pictures from the past, like in kaleidoscope...
"The Matrix can not tell you who you are"...
Strange thoughts invade my head -- like that what I've seen just
before was real, and what I see now is fake... I never lived in this
house, these people never were my parents, and my room looked
different -- similar, but different...
"That happens when they change something"...
Nonsense.
No duplicating black cats on the streets though... at least.
What I've seen was too real still. I heard the voice, my own, saying
-- "Today I will fight fairly. If I've to die today, I shall die. I
refuse to be backed up."...
I understand and feel this all too well.
I can look out of the window and feel all the pain. "Ye-eah we wept,
when we remembered Zion", Boney M is singing (mp3 is of terrible
quality... turn the volume down...).
I see it so clear... too clear. Sometimes I think that I feel these
green lines of code -- this trembling, living, but cold fabric that
makes the world around me... like I know how it feels to be
disassembled and rebuilt again... I crinkle slightly, imagining (or
recalling?) that feels of overtaking slowly creeping seconds, evading
from bullets whistling near the temple and still being able to notice
the beauty as sun dyes in the golden colour facades of houses and as
fire blazes in mirrors of countless windows.............
I've a good reason to start bother about losing the link to reality,
when during a chat I almost feel like speaking to real Rebels,
although that feel disappears afterwards... And what I've been doing
this morning -- cleaned one more tale? (As it was named? "Life.c"?)
Awaiting the messengers of the Matrix to arrive, and stopped myself
when felt a dim scare emerged, a kind of deja vu?
Had they visited me already?..
Then what? Could I resist them?!
No, you did leave with them, -- a thin voice of subconscience... --
you did made your choice already.
I'd like to believe that I'm not talking to myself...
But this game is too dangerous.
What happened, then?
Just think a little.
But I can't. All that comes to mind is that same enormous bright
window again, and again simperring imitator of Neo, his helicopter,
shards of glass splinters... Everything I read in the story, before my
eyes, now, bright and clear.
I am in the game. Do I wish to subdue to the rules of this game, where
my subconscious attempts to enslave me?
Who was killed then? Me? Which one?
And then... if that's not a fantasy, but on the contrary, dimmed
memory on the real past, almost zeroed, by a narrow margin oozing
through that alluvial that pretends to be a human memory of my human
life? Thoughts fly too quickly to execute clearly... but if I dare to
believe (no, impossible), then...
Then why don't I regret my lost abilities?
This required a whole lot of work. Some memories were artificially
blocked... to avoid convulsion that would be too strong otherwise.
But my love to the Net?..
This is what had survived...
Is it possible to think in whisper?
I want to go back...
Splinters of what I litter and feel, they wounded me - can I bring
everything back? How long would I agonize in this human world,
how much tales would I write glorifying the Matrix, to...
No, no, stop it. I'm stepping off.
Enough of it. That's role-playing, and nothing else, and it's
addictive... I don't want to drive myself mad this way.
I just wrote down whatever happened to me... just thoughts, maybe fool
and strange. But afterwards I leave records, and then I'm staring for
long on a cursor blinking in the text editor, still leaving the file
opened. Maybe I'll write more? Enigma beats from speakers, it
irritates me, and then makes me quiet... I need to calm down, indeed.
I feel myself tired and awkward...
Taunts in USENET chats and jokes of friends in the "real world"... I
should do something about it. Looks like only my mother feels
comfortable about it, I heard her speaking to a neighbour she's
pleased that her son "brought to reason" -- even starting to wear a
suit when leaving to the job. OK, but all the rest... I can be silent
for not being taken as mad...
I can silence myself, can stop talking... But I cannot stop thinking!
Time is always on our side. Now think. You will have plenty of
time... and a real chance to think. I will wait for you. Till the
moment when you decide to come back...
The voice inside -- my own... and my alien's... -- silence again.
=====
I have time to recover.
I have enough time to wash my face, calm down hairs, sceptically
examine my exterior, deciding it's acceptable as is, then look at the
watch and be terrified that I'm late, run to the computer, check my
mail, then run to the door, realize that I forgot to print out the
data I need, run back, find the totally dry cartridge in the printer,
catch the almost empty pen, sketch the drawing on the piece of paper,
look at the watch again, understanding that I'm hopelessly late, check
my mail once again, feeling sorry that I've no time to peek whoever
might be on the chat, miss two emails and run out to the street to
catch the right trolley...
...and to think vaguely that everything occurs in a wrong way. All
that should be different... no need to address the search system to
find an answer, no need to strike keys to enter a text, no need for
any printer catridges to convert any data to a hardcopy...
Meeting place. Yes, I'm late.
But she's awaiting me still, girl in black. She smiles at me, briefly
corrects her hairstyle... smiles at me through dark shades.
I'm looking at her; sun beats me in my eyes and everything before me
seems to vanish, deeming into a greenish fabric, entanglement of code.
- Greetings, agent... - she says to me. Restore procedure
succeeded. I am glad to see you're back.
I somehow know that the curl sweeps away my temporary house right now,
and mild wave of greenish symbol flows softens a gap in the structure
of the world humans are accustomed to. They whom I called my friends
yesterday, will forget my name again...
- Restore procedure completed. - I echo.
- What about your mood? Don't want to die anymore? -- I not know,
who speaks this, is it her, or the internal voice now returning to
the accustomed place inside my head, a tiny sparkling dot?
- No I don't.
I'm hopeless and even so... glad? They restored me. In spite of my
frantic request, my refusal, in spite of my readiness to die
unrecoverably.
- The Matrix does not needed your readiness to die, even for the
sake of it, - the girl says, examining and a bit emphatic. - It
needs us to live for the sake of it...
Desire to live. A small, almost imperceptible block of code.
Irrevocably built into my program. Hack it? But I've no access...
just like I've no access to that sparkling dot in my head. It's
unpleasant.
I thought that I've no idea how much experienced the same
unpleasant feel before me... and how much changes, modifications
and patches are going to happen to each one of us.
drop by drop invisibly reconstructing
ourselves
to become
like Matrix wants us to see
why it does not permit us
to die
can it be a way to cause us suffering
a revenge that we were people once
or can it be love
or it's like an impish child
just fascinated by us...
- Let's go...
People, if accidentally looking after us when we disappear, will
see a semicolon and parenthesis appearing momentarily in the
midair, a winking smiley, dissolving in nowhere.
[
We travel in black emptiness, where notion of time vanishes.
Do you think the Matrix will let itself lose a good agent?
- What was that?
- Jack's message for you, when you left for a vacation...
]
To leave -- and to return... if one's will is strong enough...
we're preprogrammed for that. You can check out... but can you
leave forever?
- But I will invent something else, - I say to the sparkling dot.
- What's the Matrix feel about us? is it love?
- It's just fascinated by us, - that's the response...
// 1.06.-2.06.2000
// Inity. Agent Inity... if you want...