A/N: There is a little bit of what could be perceived as slashy overtones
in this fic, so if you can't handle that, don't read it. (Slash=shonen ai,
male/male relationships)
Disclaimer: The Matrix belongs to the Wachowski brothers. This particular fan universe belongs to Stormhawk, as does Agent Mimosa. Greer belongs to me. Yami was created by my friend Rogue, used with permission.
Green Eyes
By Overlord Mordax
Greer was lost in a duel to the death: punch, kick, punch, punch, shoot, handspring, double kick. The punching bag didn't stand a chance. He grinned, pushing the strands of hair that had escaped his ponytail out of his face.
"Recruit Greer," someone addressed him from behind. The young man turned to find Agent Jones standing there.
"Yes?" he replied, raising a heavy eyebrow. He expected to be sent on an assignment. Not a day had passed when he hadn't gone out on patrol and once or twice he's been given special missions.
"The mainframe has decided that all recruits will have three hours of recreational time in off the compound once a week."
This threw Greer, as previously they had not been permitted to leave except on assignment. The sudden, unexplained change made him vaguely suspicious.
"Why?"
"Recreation has been deemed necessary for human optimal performance," Jones answered.
"Ah." He nodded. "And I can take this any time?"
"Anytime you have no other orders. You will report in upon your return."
"Alright then. Thank you Agent Jones," He turned back to the punching bag to resume his exercises, but looked back before the agent could leave. He asked curiously, "Am I the first one you told this?"
He nodded slightly.
"Mn," was all the response Greer gave as he returned to his training.
Agent Jones was most often the one to bring him assignments and every so often Greer would catch him watching his bouts in the training room.
Greer often wondered about the amount of attention Jones paid him in contrast to the other recruits. Unlike Smith and Brown he seemed to spend more time working on his own than paying attention to what everyone else had to do. Was the Agent suspicious of him? If so he couldn't think of a reason. He'd killed more than his share of rebels and deterred many more from joining Morpheus. He had never in the little more than a month he'd been there done anything that was really unacceptable. There were a few times he'd lapsed into slang, but Brown seemed to be the only one who made a big issue of that.
And yet Jones insisted on watching him. Usually Greer could shrug it right off but sometimes it felt down right eerie.
Delivering one last high kick to his much-abused punching bag, Greer stepped back and gave his 'partner' a mocking bow.
Heading back to the bunks where the recruits were housed he wondered if he ought to wait a while before going out. If Jones was mistrustful of him then he didn't want to appear too eager to leave, it might make it look like he had some sort of hidden agenda. But the thought of the unsolicited free time had made Greer impatient and he decided there was no reason to postpone his outing. After all, he wasn't planning on doing anything illicit.
He stopped at his room only long enough to clean himself up and change into an outfit he 'required'. If any of the other recruits wondered why he was leaving in a dark blue, sleeveless turtleneck, grey, paramilitary-type pants and high black boots, as well as his accustomed sunglasses, none of them asked.
In fact although there was generally a good deal of subdued socializing among the recruits Greer rarely found himself a part of it. A large amount of the reason behind this was that he had deliberately distanced himself from them. To the other recruits Vincent Greer seemed very cold and aloof rather intimidating. After coming back from a patrol Greer had overheard his partner referring to him as 'agent junior', but that appellation wasn't nearly as used as 'his majesty'. Greer's fellow recruits were under the impression that he was stuck up.
He came to the first floor of the building and walked out onto the city street. It was a nice evening, warm enough for the shirt he had selected, but with a pleasant breeze. The sun hadn't quite set and there weren't a large number of people out and about since it was after work and before club time.
Greer walked down the street and returned to his private thoughts. It wasn't as though his detached attitude was anything new really, and he wasn't quite sure why everyone seemed to equate it with arrogance. He was a lone wolf by nature, generally uncomfortable with other people. Over the years there had been only one or two people he'd really connected with for any amount of time.
He sighed and shook his head. No one understood him. Greer chuckled darkly. Such a common sentiment that was a feeling of uniqueness and aloneness that everyone experienced at one point or another. But for most people it passed quickly. After all, so few people had anything really unique about them.
Greer opened himself up to the stream of words that ran constantly through the back of his mind.
/You HAVE to see my prom dress, it is soooo cute/
/I'll be home in hour honey, I promise/
/I can't Pete, I'm grounded/
/-consider switching your long distance carrier-/
He chuckled again. All these things people thought were so important in their lives, jobs, friends, family. Would it make any difference to any of them if they knew the nature of their existence? Morpheus and his rebels thought so. Morpheus would tell these people that none of these things was important because it wasn't 'real'; that the tree wasn't beautiful because it was 'only' a string of code. But in the end what was the difference between the computer code that made up the Matrix and the patterns of molecules and DNA that made up the 'real' world? Personally Greer didn't see one, except perhaps that the Matrix was less prone to degradation.
So occupied as he was in his own thoughts Greer had already tripped over and landed on top of the woman before he noticed she had been standing there.
"Well, hello there," the woman purred, looking up at him.
Greer shook himself and stood up. "I'm terribly sorry, miss-"he reached a hand down to help her up.
"Angela," she said, taking his hand and pulling herself up. Once on her feet she stood much too far into the recruit's personal space.
"Have a good evening Miss Angela," he said with a nod and stepped around her to continue on his way.
"Hold on," she said, grabbing his wrist and running her fingers up his bare arm. He froze. The woman was tall, wearing a leather skirt that barely covered her underwear, and a shirt that exposed more than her absent bra would have. She had an oval shaped face, heavily made up with special attention paid to the eyes and mouth. She had long, wavy, bleached-blonde hair and brown eyes.
"You want to have some fun?" she cooed. "Five hundred an hour just for you."
Greer noticeably paled. "W-what?" he managed, strangledly.
She sidled up to him and began to put her arms around his shoulders. "I've never gotten a complaint," she murmured.
He pulled away from the woman, regaining his shaken composure. "No. Thank you." He started to walk away but she pulled him back by the arm.
"C'mon, It'll be fun," she encouraged.
He took a deep breath and looked down at her coldly, removing his shades with his free hand and said, "I do not desire your...services, at this time. I would appreciate if you would please remove yourself from my person. Now."
The whore pushed him rudely away and her lips assumed a cute pout. "You're no fun."
"I never claimed to be," he said. He put his sunglasses back on and began to walk away.
"Asshole!" Angela called after him, but he didn't pay her the slightest bit of attention.
***
Jones sat in the sterile environs of his office surrounded by computer monitors of all sizes and types of readouts. For the moment his swiveling chair faced away from the Matrix's scrolling green code, his attention turned on one of the larger visual image displays.
Although no stranger to combat the agent's duties were more often focused on the technical aspects of the Matrix's defense. Monitoring all anomalies within the Matrix, pinpointing rebel portals in and out, locating the source of various glitches, and keeping files on all potential rebels and recruits were just a few of his tasks. Another was supervising the mainframe's occasional experiments and making sure nothing went awry.
The screen Jones was watching displayed a city street, following the movements of a single entity within the matrix. The entity was a human, male, just past the end of adolescence, tall and slightly built but well muscled. He walked casually but there was a hint of threat in his posture, he was clearly disgruntled. For the moment it was Agent Jones' duty to watch him, but he'd often done so on his own.
He stared impassively at the screen, his sunglasses placed on the desk beside him as the recruit made his way further from the prostitute. The mainframe was busy recalculating the experiment that had deviated from the projected outcome. Natural human urges dictated that recruit Greer would accept the woman's offer, yet he had objected most strongly; the mainframe was currently analyzing this data. The experiment was supposed to bring insight into the connection between human reproductive instincts and the emotion of 'love'.
On the surface Jones appeared to be waiting for the mainframe to proceed, underneath that, he was making analyses of his own. Since the first day that Smith had brought the recruit in for training something about the young human had drawn Jones' attention. He thought perhaps that it was a scientific interest as to the recruit's unusual abilities within the Matrix, and the possible danger that it presented that had caught his notice, but if so, why had he not requested that Greer allow him to further investigate the phenomenon? Jones was having trouble evaluating his own motives. There was something in the way that he felt the need to watch the recruit that was not purely logical and Jones was aware of this. But if it was not logic that validated his actions regarding Greer than what was it?
Smith was sometimes prone to act in ways that were not completely logical. In regards to the rebels he often seemed to display characteristics of 'anger' and 'vindictiveness'. Though his was usually careful not to exhibit these traits in company Jones had witnessed him falter several times and extrapolated from this known data that Smith could be successfully hiding more. Smith also showed elements of what could be considered 'protectiveness' and 'affection' when in the company of Agent Mimosa. As Mimosa had once been human Jones might have guessed that Smith's behavior was due in part to her influence, except that it had begun before that.
Similarly Jones could have blamed his own conduct on the fault of the recruit but he knew that this was not the case. He realized that he had been behaving somewhat erratically long before recruit Greer's arrival; it was not nearly that recent, although previously it had crept out in ways even he had been largely oblivious to. It had begun, he speculated, with his code addiction.
It had been in the early years of the agents' existence, Jones wasn't aware as to the exact timeframe, the entire period was a blur to him, and he did not deem it necessary to look the information up. The Agents then were not quite what they were now, their programs had next to no subroutines; there were no recruits, there were no elaborate plans for the rebels' destruction, they preformed exactly within the parameters of their programming; they hunted and killed those who attained awareness of the matrix. It had been Smith, naturally, who had discovered direct access to the mainframe during a rebel hunt in a complex location. He had informed his co-agents of the experience.
Smith had seen this access as a tool, Brown had seen it as an unnecessary complication of their mission parameters; Jones hadn't been sure what to make of it until he'd done it for himself. Then he was certain he knew what humans called 'beauty'. It was like nothing he had ever experienced; the rush of data had been his first real sensation in a previously numb existence. He had needed to feel it again, to be absorbed within the code, submerged his being seemed to stretch on forever with the mainframe's and there was practically nothing he could not know. He stayed hooked in longer and longer until it was nearly impossible for him to perform the simplest of his duties, everything but the mainframe had become meaningless.
It had taken them much longer to discover his addiction than it had taken them to discover Mimosa's. After all, it had never occurred before. When the other agents did become aware of the situation they were unsure of how to proceed. Brown had wanted to delete him. Smith was offered an alternative, he cut Jones' access. At first Jones had thought deletion would have been preferable, he contemplated requesting such a course of action until just after he had been purged of all the stray data he'd collected.
Standing in the white room he'd felt hollow. There had been so much and now there was nothing; he would go back to the simple routine of his prime functions without the experience of everything that the matrix was. If he had known that his access would be cut he would have limited himself, better than to be cut off entirely. But he hadn't known, and he most likely would not have been able to resist the pull even had he possessed this knowledge.
He'd looked around the nearly bare room until his vision rested on one of its few features, a small computer that displayed the ever-scrolling green code. And he'd realized something; this was a representation of the mainframe. Everything in the matrix was a piece, a small representation of that whole, jumbled and mixed together in vivid disarray. The information that he'd had direct access to was still there to be discovered and accumulated indirectly. Stepping forward he put a hand on the screen.
'The monitor is cool,' he observed. And then he'd required something.
The mainframe indicated that it was done analyzing its data, which jarred Agent Jones from his memory. It had come to the conclusion that the woman was somehow unsuitable to the human's preferences, another female would be utilized, the experiment would continue.
Jones nodded and watched as recruit Greer entered the flashy, neon lit building.
***
Greer walked into the arcade with a deep feeling of relief. The incident with the whore had been, unexpected and irritating. He had gone out to relax on slightly more human terms than usual, but that hadn't been what he had in mind. This wasn't the most popular arcade he knew of, or one he had come often to, but that meant he was less likely to run in to any one he knew and explain where he'd been for the last month. Here he could relax undisturbed and do something both familiar and entertaining. He required a large number of quarters.
He grinned pushing his hair out of his face and stood in front of the newest version of Mortal Kombat. The characters were smoother, the movements more natural. It had received top reviews, it was just the sort of innovation hardcore gamers were always pushing for. 'Any closer to real and you'd have bruises!' one magazine had raved. Greer chuckled. If only they knew. He dropped a couple of quarters in the slot, flipped his glasses back up onto his head and grabbed the joystick.
Greer played as Sub-Zero, his favorite character. As he left opponent after digital opponent frozen and defeated, with more than a few 'Fatalities' he became aware that a number of people were watching him. He grinned, and made his moves a little flashier. Ten levels later the end screen came up and his impromptu audience broke into spontaneous applause. He turned around and gave all the gamers a bow.
"You did not just beat the game," a girl said incredulously. She was mid- height and had curly black hair with bits dyed candy-apple red, her eyes were black.
"Oh yeah?" he smirked, entering the initials VNG into the list. He'd gotten the high score. "I'm pretty sure I just did."
"You're pretty smug about that." She crossed her arms.
He raised an eyebrow. "I'd think I have a right to be, don't you?"
"So you're good against computers, I bet you couldn't take on a real opponent if your life depended on it. I've seen guys like you before, all you do is memorize the patterns."
"You think so?" he nodded to the machine. "Fight me then."
"Not so fast," she grinned and gave him an appraising look. "I win and you take me out to dinner."
Greer rolled his eyes. No way that was happening. "I'm only agreeing because I know I'll win."
The girl looked affronted.
"And if I win, I want...hmmm," he looked her over, "your earring."
It was a silver colored metal affair, slender coils entwined like sakes around her dangling off her ear and ending in an image of a dragon's head with a red crystal eye.
The girl stared at him, and then gave him a determined look. "You're on. I'm only agreeing because I know I'll win," she shot back at him.
The small crowd murmured with excitement.
"What's your name?" he asked sliding two quarters into his side of the game.
"Yami," she answered, paying for herself. "You, hotshot?"
"Greer."
3...2...1...Fight!
And they began, both handling their digital avatars with masterful ease. Greer played as the Lin Quay ice ninja again and his opponent used Katana. The first round went to the agent recruit as he pinned Yami's character against the wall delivering a series of kicks and finishing her off with a deep freeze.
The gamer glared daggers at him. "I will beat you," she growled.
"We'll see."
It was close, but she did beat him in the second round, though one more punch and Greer would have had her. The third round would be the last.
She smirked at him. "Not so hot after all, are you?"
He just smiled.
The difference in the two opponents was obvious to all spectators in the final round. Greer kept his composure and fought calmly, seemingly in an almost Zen-like state. Yami on the other hand was sweating, a look of manic determination on her face. The recruit was winning. The further in to the match they got the more apparent the outcome became. Greer continued to hammer her with lightning fast attacks, and all her energy was spent on dodging and blocking without any time left to counter attack. Ten seconds left in the match, their life bars were even but either one could still pull off a victory. Four seconds, three; Greer was about to deliver the final blow. But Yami was desperate, she couldn't lose. One hand left the control panel grabbing Greer and pulling him toward her into a frantic kiss, while the other blocked his punch on the screen and delivered one of her own.
Shocked into submission Greer didn't think to break the kiss for a second two, until two gruff words were uttered from the game console.
"Katana Wins."
He pulled away quite sharply and glared at her.
She grinned. "You're some kisser hotshot."
The crowd they'd accumulated was whispering and hissing. Cheating wasn't something to be taken lightly and they were waiting to see how the offended champion would handle it.
"So I guess you owe me dinner. Or we could skip that and go straight back to my apartment."
Greer's expression darkened even further. "You cheated. I do not owe you anything."
"Oh yeah? I don't remember establishing any rules."
"Using outside stimuli to distract a player is always considered cheating. You ought to know that." He ran a hand through his now slightly disheveled hair.
The gamers murmured their agreement.
"Okay, okay, it was low, I'll admit it. Hey, how about I take you out to dinner? My treat."
Greer rolled his eyes. "Sorry. Not interested." He held out a hand. "Give me your earring."
She looked horrified. "What?"
"You cheated. Therefore you forfeit, therefore I win. Give me the earring."
Someone in the crowd spoke up, a dusty haired young teen with big glasses. "Yeah lady, you bet him, now pay up."
"Cheater!" someone else said.
Yami's eyes smoldered and she practically ripped the jewel from her ear and put it Greer's waiting hand. "There; take it you stupid prick face."
Greer raised an eyebrow as he fastened the serpent into his ear, quickly requiring a piercing. "You don't play by the rules, Miss Yami. Someday someone may call you on that, and that day we might meet again. I hope for your sake that it's under the right circumstances." He flipped his shades down.
The black and red haired girl tensed even further. "Is that a threat?"
"No, it's the truth." He turned and walked out of the arcade.
***
Jones had to smirk at the way Greer handled the young woman. Once again it had not been the outcome the mainframe had projected, but it had left out the possibility that the woman might cheat. Had she not, Greer would have won and should have then accepted Yami's offer of dinner. The mainframe also insisted that he should have taken the offer regardless of her cheating. The woman had been of nearly exact specifications of his ideal as far as it could discern.
[Perhaps he does not desire a mate at this time.] Jones suggested.
[Negative, analysis shows that recruit Greer is in optimal mating phase.]
[Then the mates are not suitable?] He typed.
[Females are of highest human standards.]
[Greer is a recruit.] Jones pointed out.
[He is still human biologically.]
[Psychologically?]
[Processing data.]
Jones sat back in his chair and watched the monitor with Greer on it. The recruit was checking the time and realizing that he had little more than an hour left. There was something reminiscent of Smith in Greer, perhaps stemming from the fact that Smith had been the one to recruit him. Whether it had been there previously or had come into existence under the agent's influence was unknown; nor was Jones able to define exactly what the similarity was. Perhaps it was in the fusion of his human and agent-like behavior.
[Processing complete. Agent Jones will operate human construct for final stage of experiment. Set physical parameters for construct.]
Jones blinked. He was going to interact with the recruit? As a potential mate. [What if recruit fails to reach hypothesized conclusion yet again?]
[Then experiment will end incomplete. Define construct.]
***
The bar had been specifically selected for three things, he could walk back to the compound in ten minutes from it, it had an atmosphere he was comfortable in, and he was not a place that the rebels generally recruited from. Greer walked into 'Monkey Boxing'; the place was an odd amalgamation; a tech junky club with an ancient Japan theme. Suits of fake samurai armor sat in the corners, women dressed like geishas served drinks and lanterns hung from the ceiling while techno geeks swapped everything form spit, to stolen codes, to fan subbed anime, to stories of their own victories. Greer wasn't sure why the rebels never recruited from here, but they didn't. Maybe it was its close proximity to agent headquarters; maybe it was because these didn't feel like the kind of people who'd march off in a war to destroy so much as a Game Boy or a Honda robot, let alone a global virtual reality system or a race of sentient machines.
So Greer was able to sit down in comfort on one of the tatami mats by a low table and wait for a serving girl to bring him a drink menu. He knew he didn't have all that much time left, though, and required a watch, which he set to go off ten minutes before he had to be back. The service was prompt and the recruit soon found himself sipping a very good sake.
"Do you mind if I join you?"
He looked up; standing beside him was a tallish woman with curly chestnut brown hair down just past her shoulders. She was wearing extremely baggy black pants with all sorts of unnecessary buckles and straps on them, and a tight fitting cream colored shirt with various rips and tears in the long sleeves.
Greer rolled his eyes. This was just getting ridiculous, there had to be some kind of conspiracy going on. Sure he'd dated before and women found him reasonably attractive but three different really attractive girls hitting on him in one night? Maybe the recruit had a low opinion of his own sharp features but still...
The woman hadn't said anything more, apparently waiting for his response. Unusually polite of her, Greer thought.
He sighed. "Sure, why not? You probably wouldn't listen if I said no anyway."
The brown haired woman sat down on the mat on the other side of the table. "Why would you say that?"
He shook his head. "Never mind, just...forget I said anything."
They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a moment, which was odd. In Greer's experience, women who randomly came up to you in bars had some idea of what they wanted to say at least. The eeriness of it made him feel the need to start a conversation, if only to distract himself from the stare of her intent green eyes.
"So, what's you name?" he asked.
"Katrina, what's yours?"
"Call me Greer. Do you come here often?" He shifted uncomfortably.
"No, not really."
"Me neither. You play video games?"
"Some," she said uncertainly.
"Play Legend of Zelda?"
"Yes."
Well, that was encouraging, the recruit thought. "Which ones?"
Katrina paused.
***
Back in his office Jones almost smiled to himself. Of all the human topics that the recruit could have brought up, he chose the one Jones could actually answer. He made various studies of human computer games, partly to make sure that humans did not come up with anything close to VR or AI, and partly because the subject interested him, the way human 'gamers' were constantly searching for more immersive and entertaining games. Games that felt more like 'reality'. In some ways these were the people that were both the most and the least aware of the matrix.
"Ocarina of Time I've beaten," he replied through the woman's lips. "But I'm working on a copy of the original two I just got."
"Huh. Not many people I know into gomi," Greer remarked on screen, taking a sip of his sake. "Outdated systems," he clarified. "Junk.
"So called 'obsolete' platforms are not 'junk," 'Katrina' protested. "The differences between old games and new ones are really quite interesting. On the one hand, the newer systems have more complex stories and features, on the other hand, the old 16 and 32 bit are more game like and in many cases, more challenging. It's not really a case of superiority as it is one of diversity."
***
Greer blinked. "Finally someone who agrees with me! I've been saying for years that video games were losing sight of the 'game' part. Everyone I talked to was always talking about how one day you'd 'be able to feel the weight of the master sword in your hands', and 'smell Ganon's breath as you face him'. Who'd want to? I told them you'd get the same effect by joining a fencing team with an instructor who didn't brush his teeth, but they looked at me like I was crazy."
Katrina smiled. "You are hardly crazy. They don't understand what they're asking for. In a true virtual system they would be hurt every time they got hit. Many wouldn't be able to lift the master sword, much less wield it effectively. And so they sacrifice the enjoyment of their games for unchallenging playable movies looking for a dream most wouldn't like if it was realized."
"They want the idea of Virtual Reality, not the realization of it, obviously. If I went up to that guy over there," he nodded to a teen with a game boy, "while dressed like Lu Kang and punched him in the face. You know what he'd do? He wouldn't leap up with a battle cry and retaliate. He'd be upset, to say the least, and he'd bruise. But they think that somehow in their virtual world pain wouldn't hurt."
"Perhaps they believe these things would hurt less?" the brunette offered.
"Then they'd complain the realism was lost." He shook his head. "They couldn't handle virtual reality any better than they handle reality; they need their screens to keep them safe."
***
Jones looked around the room dominated completely by screens. It hadn't always been that way, not quite. But it had been since the end of his addiction.
"Maybe they are searching for something," he said.
"For what?"
"Something different than what they're used to."
"Different doesn't always mean better," Greer said.
"The grass is always greener," Jones mused.
"True. Hell, if you gave me the chance to cross swords with the evil king, I'd take it. Just to see what it was like."
The Agent as Katrina nodded. "It's the nature of humanity to want what it can't have."
"Yeah. Everybody makes their life more complicated then it has to be," he grinned. "But without complications, what fun would life be, ne?"
"I suppose that's true." Complications could indeed be pleasurable, preferable at least in some degree to monotony. But monotony brought safety, and complications inherently held a risk factor.
"You know Katrina; I think I've found somebody I can connect with."
Greer was leaning closer to Katrina, and had shed the stressed aura he had projected upon entering the bar. Jones came to the realization that he was going to kiss 'her'.
The recruit's watch went off.
***
Greer swore fluently as he turned the alarm off. "Damn it!" He rolled his eyes and turned to her. "I'm sorry Katrina, I have to go; I have... an appointment."
She nodded. "I understand."
"I'll probably be hanging around this club a little more often. Will I see you here?" He stood up, and looked down at her.
"Maybe," she said uncertainly. "I enjoyed talking with you."
He grinned. "The feeling is mutual. I'll catch you later." He turned and walked out of the bar into the night.
***
Jones took the construct into the bathroom and switched her off. In his office he turned off the visual monitor he'd been using to guide the avatar and turned to the mainframe's input screen.
There were words on it. [Experiment end. Compiling data. Hypothesis justified, further research will be carried out.]
Jones blinked. But the experiment hadn't reached its projected end. [Require clarification.]
[Experiment one pertaining to human affection complete. Further testing necessary to refine results. Follow up may proceed without Agent Jones.]
[?] The mainframe almost never conducted experiments without his supervision.
[Agent Jones is not necessary for limited follow-ups. Agent Jones will be otherwise assigned.]
[Understood.]
He turned away from that monitor too, and faced his swiveling chair to watch the scrolling green code of the matrix. There was something wrong with his programming, why else would he be acting this way? His addiction had started a slow decay, manifesting first as his need to isolate himself within the monitors and displays. Slight, nearly imperceptible changes in his actions and reactions had brought him to this point. He had enjoyed talking with Greer. He wished to do so again.
Brown would delete him. What would Smith do? But it didn't matter; he was so much better at hiding it than Smith was. He was so good at hiding it that he hardly noticed it himself. As long as it did not interfere with his duties as an Agent, did it matter that he felt? Did it matter what he felt. Humans felt, recruits felt, Mimosa felt, Smith felt and now Jones felt. What about Brown, was he subject to this foreign contamination, or was had he alone stayed the perfect program that they had been?
Jones heard someone knock on the door. He looked up at the monitor that displayed the hallway. It was recruit Greer. "Enter," he said, swinging his chair around to face the door.
It swung open slowly and revealed the recruit standing there, back in the pristine uniform that they all wore. "You told me to report back sir."
Jones nodded. "Thank you. I trust you had an enjoyable experience?"
"Yes."
"Good." Jones paused. He could dismiss the recruit now and go back to combing the Matrix for anomalies. He could immerse himself in the endless scrolling code that made up his world. Things would be as they always were. He didn't want to do this. "Agent Greer, I would like to request your permission to conduct further research pertaining to your unusual telephonic capabilities. I believe it may be more, complicated, than it appears."
Greer raised an eyebrow. "Certainly, agent Jones. Whenever you want me..." he shrugged.
"Is now acceptable?"
The recruit looked surprised. "Alright."
"Close the door behind you," Jones instructed. He required more lighting, and the non-vital monitors off. He also required a chair for Greer. "Sit."
"Thank you," the recruit said, positioning himself stiffly in the chair.
"You may relax, Greer. This is not a combat situation." He smiled just slightly.
He seemed vaguely surprised, but adopted a more casual posture.
"That is an attractive ornament," Jones remarked, nodding to Greer's newly acquired earring.
The recruit reached his hand up to his ear. "What, this? I won it while I was out and forgot I had it on. I can remove it..."
"That is unnecessary," he replied.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Of course," he replied, wondering what question he had.
"Do you think I'm a traitor, Agent Jones?"
Now it was Jones' turn to be surprised. "You have given me no cause to. Are you a traitor?"
"No!"
"Then why would you think that I would think that?"
Greer shrugged, obviously feeling very awkward now. "You're always well, watching me. Smith and Brown are always around monitoring our training, but you usually don't. I thought maybe something was wrong."
Jones picked up his sunglasses from off the desk and toyed with them. "Recruits are recruits. They pass the tests, they deter and fight rebels, and they eventually die. You however are not typical. You posses a gift that is quite nearly unique in the matrix, there is only two other persons documented who possessed the same ability that you do."
The young man looked intrigued. "Smith said it was rare, but..." he mumbled. "Who were they, Agent Jones?"
"Rebels, twins. Claire T. Edmund and Nicholas M. Edmund. They went by the alias' 'Frag' and 'Defrag'."
"By the fact that you're speaking in the past tense I assume they're dead?"
Jones nodded. "You are perceptive. They have been dead twenty-one years. The details are unclear but it is appears that they attempted to infiltrate and destroy this building. They killed many human guards and a large number of recruits, both were acting extremely erratic and irrational. In the middle of the third floor corridor Nicholas began screaming and lashing out at everything that got in his way, people, furniture...his sister. We were regrouping our forces when I got the report that they were fighting each other. It was savage, brutal. They were not acting human. I witnessed the end of the fight myself. He ripped her throat open with his bare hands, and then he fell to the floor, trembling and convulsing."
Greer paled. "But, why?"
The agent shook his head. "I do not know. After the murder of his sister Nicholas went catatonic, he would respond to no outside stimuli. It was as though some force had shattered his mind. I terminated him one week later."
The recruit swallowed. "And you think it might have something to do with this power they had? That I have?"
"It is a possibility. That is why I would like to run several tests."
Greer nodded. He looked up at Jones and he noticed something. "Huh."
The Agent gave him an inquiring look. "Is something the matter?"
"It's nothing. Just something Mimosa mentioned to me. She said that all agents had blue eyes for some reason. But I just noticed yours are green."
Jones nodded. "Mimosa has not seen me without my sunglasses. But she is right. All agents are created with blue eyes."
"But then how come-"
"I required them. It was after my code addiction. Green is the color of life. It is the color of the matrix, I needed to remind myself of that, do you understand?"
Greer nodded once. "I believe so, agent Jones."
"Good. Now tell me, what happened when you first began intercepting telephonic signals?" Jones leaned back comfortably in his chair and waited fro the recruit to respond. The agent was at ease with himself for the moment, the situation just felt right.
End
...for now
Disclaimer: The Matrix belongs to the Wachowski brothers. This particular fan universe belongs to Stormhawk, as does Agent Mimosa. Greer belongs to me. Yami was created by my friend Rogue, used with permission.
Green Eyes
By Overlord Mordax
Greer was lost in a duel to the death: punch, kick, punch, punch, shoot, handspring, double kick. The punching bag didn't stand a chance. He grinned, pushing the strands of hair that had escaped his ponytail out of his face.
"Recruit Greer," someone addressed him from behind. The young man turned to find Agent Jones standing there.
"Yes?" he replied, raising a heavy eyebrow. He expected to be sent on an assignment. Not a day had passed when he hadn't gone out on patrol and once or twice he's been given special missions.
"The mainframe has decided that all recruits will have three hours of recreational time in off the compound once a week."
This threw Greer, as previously they had not been permitted to leave except on assignment. The sudden, unexplained change made him vaguely suspicious.
"Why?"
"Recreation has been deemed necessary for human optimal performance," Jones answered.
"Ah." He nodded. "And I can take this any time?"
"Anytime you have no other orders. You will report in upon your return."
"Alright then. Thank you Agent Jones," He turned back to the punching bag to resume his exercises, but looked back before the agent could leave. He asked curiously, "Am I the first one you told this?"
He nodded slightly.
"Mn," was all the response Greer gave as he returned to his training.
Agent Jones was most often the one to bring him assignments and every so often Greer would catch him watching his bouts in the training room.
Greer often wondered about the amount of attention Jones paid him in contrast to the other recruits. Unlike Smith and Brown he seemed to spend more time working on his own than paying attention to what everyone else had to do. Was the Agent suspicious of him? If so he couldn't think of a reason. He'd killed more than his share of rebels and deterred many more from joining Morpheus. He had never in the little more than a month he'd been there done anything that was really unacceptable. There were a few times he'd lapsed into slang, but Brown seemed to be the only one who made a big issue of that.
And yet Jones insisted on watching him. Usually Greer could shrug it right off but sometimes it felt down right eerie.
Delivering one last high kick to his much-abused punching bag, Greer stepped back and gave his 'partner' a mocking bow.
Heading back to the bunks where the recruits were housed he wondered if he ought to wait a while before going out. If Jones was mistrustful of him then he didn't want to appear too eager to leave, it might make it look like he had some sort of hidden agenda. But the thought of the unsolicited free time had made Greer impatient and he decided there was no reason to postpone his outing. After all, he wasn't planning on doing anything illicit.
He stopped at his room only long enough to clean himself up and change into an outfit he 'required'. If any of the other recruits wondered why he was leaving in a dark blue, sleeveless turtleneck, grey, paramilitary-type pants and high black boots, as well as his accustomed sunglasses, none of them asked.
In fact although there was generally a good deal of subdued socializing among the recruits Greer rarely found himself a part of it. A large amount of the reason behind this was that he had deliberately distanced himself from them. To the other recruits Vincent Greer seemed very cold and aloof rather intimidating. After coming back from a patrol Greer had overheard his partner referring to him as 'agent junior', but that appellation wasn't nearly as used as 'his majesty'. Greer's fellow recruits were under the impression that he was stuck up.
He came to the first floor of the building and walked out onto the city street. It was a nice evening, warm enough for the shirt he had selected, but with a pleasant breeze. The sun hadn't quite set and there weren't a large number of people out and about since it was after work and before club time.
Greer walked down the street and returned to his private thoughts. It wasn't as though his detached attitude was anything new really, and he wasn't quite sure why everyone seemed to equate it with arrogance. He was a lone wolf by nature, generally uncomfortable with other people. Over the years there had been only one or two people he'd really connected with for any amount of time.
He sighed and shook his head. No one understood him. Greer chuckled darkly. Such a common sentiment that was a feeling of uniqueness and aloneness that everyone experienced at one point or another. But for most people it passed quickly. After all, so few people had anything really unique about them.
Greer opened himself up to the stream of words that ran constantly through the back of his mind.
/You HAVE to see my prom dress, it is soooo cute/
/I'll be home in hour honey, I promise/
/I can't Pete, I'm grounded/
/-consider switching your long distance carrier-/
He chuckled again. All these things people thought were so important in their lives, jobs, friends, family. Would it make any difference to any of them if they knew the nature of their existence? Morpheus and his rebels thought so. Morpheus would tell these people that none of these things was important because it wasn't 'real'; that the tree wasn't beautiful because it was 'only' a string of code. But in the end what was the difference between the computer code that made up the Matrix and the patterns of molecules and DNA that made up the 'real' world? Personally Greer didn't see one, except perhaps that the Matrix was less prone to degradation.
So occupied as he was in his own thoughts Greer had already tripped over and landed on top of the woman before he noticed she had been standing there.
"Well, hello there," the woman purred, looking up at him.
Greer shook himself and stood up. "I'm terribly sorry, miss-"he reached a hand down to help her up.
"Angela," she said, taking his hand and pulling herself up. Once on her feet she stood much too far into the recruit's personal space.
"Have a good evening Miss Angela," he said with a nod and stepped around her to continue on his way.
"Hold on," she said, grabbing his wrist and running her fingers up his bare arm. He froze. The woman was tall, wearing a leather skirt that barely covered her underwear, and a shirt that exposed more than her absent bra would have. She had an oval shaped face, heavily made up with special attention paid to the eyes and mouth. She had long, wavy, bleached-blonde hair and brown eyes.
"You want to have some fun?" she cooed. "Five hundred an hour just for you."
Greer noticeably paled. "W-what?" he managed, strangledly.
She sidled up to him and began to put her arms around his shoulders. "I've never gotten a complaint," she murmured.
He pulled away from the woman, regaining his shaken composure. "No. Thank you." He started to walk away but she pulled him back by the arm.
"C'mon, It'll be fun," she encouraged.
He took a deep breath and looked down at her coldly, removing his shades with his free hand and said, "I do not desire your...services, at this time. I would appreciate if you would please remove yourself from my person. Now."
The whore pushed him rudely away and her lips assumed a cute pout. "You're no fun."
"I never claimed to be," he said. He put his sunglasses back on and began to walk away.
"Asshole!" Angela called after him, but he didn't pay her the slightest bit of attention.
***
Jones sat in the sterile environs of his office surrounded by computer monitors of all sizes and types of readouts. For the moment his swiveling chair faced away from the Matrix's scrolling green code, his attention turned on one of the larger visual image displays.
Although no stranger to combat the agent's duties were more often focused on the technical aspects of the Matrix's defense. Monitoring all anomalies within the Matrix, pinpointing rebel portals in and out, locating the source of various glitches, and keeping files on all potential rebels and recruits were just a few of his tasks. Another was supervising the mainframe's occasional experiments and making sure nothing went awry.
The screen Jones was watching displayed a city street, following the movements of a single entity within the matrix. The entity was a human, male, just past the end of adolescence, tall and slightly built but well muscled. He walked casually but there was a hint of threat in his posture, he was clearly disgruntled. For the moment it was Agent Jones' duty to watch him, but he'd often done so on his own.
He stared impassively at the screen, his sunglasses placed on the desk beside him as the recruit made his way further from the prostitute. The mainframe was busy recalculating the experiment that had deviated from the projected outcome. Natural human urges dictated that recruit Greer would accept the woman's offer, yet he had objected most strongly; the mainframe was currently analyzing this data. The experiment was supposed to bring insight into the connection between human reproductive instincts and the emotion of 'love'.
On the surface Jones appeared to be waiting for the mainframe to proceed, underneath that, he was making analyses of his own. Since the first day that Smith had brought the recruit in for training something about the young human had drawn Jones' attention. He thought perhaps that it was a scientific interest as to the recruit's unusual abilities within the Matrix, and the possible danger that it presented that had caught his notice, but if so, why had he not requested that Greer allow him to further investigate the phenomenon? Jones was having trouble evaluating his own motives. There was something in the way that he felt the need to watch the recruit that was not purely logical and Jones was aware of this. But if it was not logic that validated his actions regarding Greer than what was it?
Smith was sometimes prone to act in ways that were not completely logical. In regards to the rebels he often seemed to display characteristics of 'anger' and 'vindictiveness'. Though his was usually careful not to exhibit these traits in company Jones had witnessed him falter several times and extrapolated from this known data that Smith could be successfully hiding more. Smith also showed elements of what could be considered 'protectiveness' and 'affection' when in the company of Agent Mimosa. As Mimosa had once been human Jones might have guessed that Smith's behavior was due in part to her influence, except that it had begun before that.
Similarly Jones could have blamed his own conduct on the fault of the recruit but he knew that this was not the case. He realized that he had been behaving somewhat erratically long before recruit Greer's arrival; it was not nearly that recent, although previously it had crept out in ways even he had been largely oblivious to. It had begun, he speculated, with his code addiction.
It had been in the early years of the agents' existence, Jones wasn't aware as to the exact timeframe, the entire period was a blur to him, and he did not deem it necessary to look the information up. The Agents then were not quite what they were now, their programs had next to no subroutines; there were no recruits, there were no elaborate plans for the rebels' destruction, they preformed exactly within the parameters of their programming; they hunted and killed those who attained awareness of the matrix. It had been Smith, naturally, who had discovered direct access to the mainframe during a rebel hunt in a complex location. He had informed his co-agents of the experience.
Smith had seen this access as a tool, Brown had seen it as an unnecessary complication of their mission parameters; Jones hadn't been sure what to make of it until he'd done it for himself. Then he was certain he knew what humans called 'beauty'. It was like nothing he had ever experienced; the rush of data had been his first real sensation in a previously numb existence. He had needed to feel it again, to be absorbed within the code, submerged his being seemed to stretch on forever with the mainframe's and there was practically nothing he could not know. He stayed hooked in longer and longer until it was nearly impossible for him to perform the simplest of his duties, everything but the mainframe had become meaningless.
It had taken them much longer to discover his addiction than it had taken them to discover Mimosa's. After all, it had never occurred before. When the other agents did become aware of the situation they were unsure of how to proceed. Brown had wanted to delete him. Smith was offered an alternative, he cut Jones' access. At first Jones had thought deletion would have been preferable, he contemplated requesting such a course of action until just after he had been purged of all the stray data he'd collected.
Standing in the white room he'd felt hollow. There had been so much and now there was nothing; he would go back to the simple routine of his prime functions without the experience of everything that the matrix was. If he had known that his access would be cut he would have limited himself, better than to be cut off entirely. But he hadn't known, and he most likely would not have been able to resist the pull even had he possessed this knowledge.
He'd looked around the nearly bare room until his vision rested on one of its few features, a small computer that displayed the ever-scrolling green code. And he'd realized something; this was a representation of the mainframe. Everything in the matrix was a piece, a small representation of that whole, jumbled and mixed together in vivid disarray. The information that he'd had direct access to was still there to be discovered and accumulated indirectly. Stepping forward he put a hand on the screen.
'The monitor is cool,' he observed. And then he'd required something.
The mainframe indicated that it was done analyzing its data, which jarred Agent Jones from his memory. It had come to the conclusion that the woman was somehow unsuitable to the human's preferences, another female would be utilized, the experiment would continue.
Jones nodded and watched as recruit Greer entered the flashy, neon lit building.
***
Greer walked into the arcade with a deep feeling of relief. The incident with the whore had been, unexpected and irritating. He had gone out to relax on slightly more human terms than usual, but that hadn't been what he had in mind. This wasn't the most popular arcade he knew of, or one he had come often to, but that meant he was less likely to run in to any one he knew and explain where he'd been for the last month. Here he could relax undisturbed and do something both familiar and entertaining. He required a large number of quarters.
He grinned pushing his hair out of his face and stood in front of the newest version of Mortal Kombat. The characters were smoother, the movements more natural. It had received top reviews, it was just the sort of innovation hardcore gamers were always pushing for. 'Any closer to real and you'd have bruises!' one magazine had raved. Greer chuckled. If only they knew. He dropped a couple of quarters in the slot, flipped his glasses back up onto his head and grabbed the joystick.
Greer played as Sub-Zero, his favorite character. As he left opponent after digital opponent frozen and defeated, with more than a few 'Fatalities' he became aware that a number of people were watching him. He grinned, and made his moves a little flashier. Ten levels later the end screen came up and his impromptu audience broke into spontaneous applause. He turned around and gave all the gamers a bow.
"You did not just beat the game," a girl said incredulously. She was mid- height and had curly black hair with bits dyed candy-apple red, her eyes were black.
"Oh yeah?" he smirked, entering the initials VNG into the list. He'd gotten the high score. "I'm pretty sure I just did."
"You're pretty smug about that." She crossed her arms.
He raised an eyebrow. "I'd think I have a right to be, don't you?"
"So you're good against computers, I bet you couldn't take on a real opponent if your life depended on it. I've seen guys like you before, all you do is memorize the patterns."
"You think so?" he nodded to the machine. "Fight me then."
"Not so fast," she grinned and gave him an appraising look. "I win and you take me out to dinner."
Greer rolled his eyes. No way that was happening. "I'm only agreeing because I know I'll win."
The girl looked affronted.
"And if I win, I want...hmmm," he looked her over, "your earring."
It was a silver colored metal affair, slender coils entwined like sakes around her dangling off her ear and ending in an image of a dragon's head with a red crystal eye.
The girl stared at him, and then gave him a determined look. "You're on. I'm only agreeing because I know I'll win," she shot back at him.
The small crowd murmured with excitement.
"What's your name?" he asked sliding two quarters into his side of the game.
"Yami," she answered, paying for herself. "You, hotshot?"
"Greer."
3...2...1...Fight!
And they began, both handling their digital avatars with masterful ease. Greer played as the Lin Quay ice ninja again and his opponent used Katana. The first round went to the agent recruit as he pinned Yami's character against the wall delivering a series of kicks and finishing her off with a deep freeze.
The gamer glared daggers at him. "I will beat you," she growled.
"We'll see."
It was close, but she did beat him in the second round, though one more punch and Greer would have had her. The third round would be the last.
She smirked at him. "Not so hot after all, are you?"
He just smiled.
The difference in the two opponents was obvious to all spectators in the final round. Greer kept his composure and fought calmly, seemingly in an almost Zen-like state. Yami on the other hand was sweating, a look of manic determination on her face. The recruit was winning. The further in to the match they got the more apparent the outcome became. Greer continued to hammer her with lightning fast attacks, and all her energy was spent on dodging and blocking without any time left to counter attack. Ten seconds left in the match, their life bars were even but either one could still pull off a victory. Four seconds, three; Greer was about to deliver the final blow. But Yami was desperate, she couldn't lose. One hand left the control panel grabbing Greer and pulling him toward her into a frantic kiss, while the other blocked his punch on the screen and delivered one of her own.
Shocked into submission Greer didn't think to break the kiss for a second two, until two gruff words were uttered from the game console.
"Katana Wins."
He pulled away quite sharply and glared at her.
She grinned. "You're some kisser hotshot."
The crowd they'd accumulated was whispering and hissing. Cheating wasn't something to be taken lightly and they were waiting to see how the offended champion would handle it.
"So I guess you owe me dinner. Or we could skip that and go straight back to my apartment."
Greer's expression darkened even further. "You cheated. I do not owe you anything."
"Oh yeah? I don't remember establishing any rules."
"Using outside stimuli to distract a player is always considered cheating. You ought to know that." He ran a hand through his now slightly disheveled hair.
The gamers murmured their agreement.
"Okay, okay, it was low, I'll admit it. Hey, how about I take you out to dinner? My treat."
Greer rolled his eyes. "Sorry. Not interested." He held out a hand. "Give me your earring."
She looked horrified. "What?"
"You cheated. Therefore you forfeit, therefore I win. Give me the earring."
Someone in the crowd spoke up, a dusty haired young teen with big glasses. "Yeah lady, you bet him, now pay up."
"Cheater!" someone else said.
Yami's eyes smoldered and she practically ripped the jewel from her ear and put it Greer's waiting hand. "There; take it you stupid prick face."
Greer raised an eyebrow as he fastened the serpent into his ear, quickly requiring a piercing. "You don't play by the rules, Miss Yami. Someday someone may call you on that, and that day we might meet again. I hope for your sake that it's under the right circumstances." He flipped his shades down.
The black and red haired girl tensed even further. "Is that a threat?"
"No, it's the truth." He turned and walked out of the arcade.
***
Jones had to smirk at the way Greer handled the young woman. Once again it had not been the outcome the mainframe had projected, but it had left out the possibility that the woman might cheat. Had she not, Greer would have won and should have then accepted Yami's offer of dinner. The mainframe also insisted that he should have taken the offer regardless of her cheating. The woman had been of nearly exact specifications of his ideal as far as it could discern.
[Perhaps he does not desire a mate at this time.] Jones suggested.
[Negative, analysis shows that recruit Greer is in optimal mating phase.]
[Then the mates are not suitable?] He typed.
[Females are of highest human standards.]
[Greer is a recruit.] Jones pointed out.
[He is still human biologically.]
[Psychologically?]
[Processing data.]
Jones sat back in his chair and watched the monitor with Greer on it. The recruit was checking the time and realizing that he had little more than an hour left. There was something reminiscent of Smith in Greer, perhaps stemming from the fact that Smith had been the one to recruit him. Whether it had been there previously or had come into existence under the agent's influence was unknown; nor was Jones able to define exactly what the similarity was. Perhaps it was in the fusion of his human and agent-like behavior.
[Processing complete. Agent Jones will operate human construct for final stage of experiment. Set physical parameters for construct.]
Jones blinked. He was going to interact with the recruit? As a potential mate. [What if recruit fails to reach hypothesized conclusion yet again?]
[Then experiment will end incomplete. Define construct.]
***
The bar had been specifically selected for three things, he could walk back to the compound in ten minutes from it, it had an atmosphere he was comfortable in, and he was not a place that the rebels generally recruited from. Greer walked into 'Monkey Boxing'; the place was an odd amalgamation; a tech junky club with an ancient Japan theme. Suits of fake samurai armor sat in the corners, women dressed like geishas served drinks and lanterns hung from the ceiling while techno geeks swapped everything form spit, to stolen codes, to fan subbed anime, to stories of their own victories. Greer wasn't sure why the rebels never recruited from here, but they didn't. Maybe it was its close proximity to agent headquarters; maybe it was because these didn't feel like the kind of people who'd march off in a war to destroy so much as a Game Boy or a Honda robot, let alone a global virtual reality system or a race of sentient machines.
So Greer was able to sit down in comfort on one of the tatami mats by a low table and wait for a serving girl to bring him a drink menu. He knew he didn't have all that much time left, though, and required a watch, which he set to go off ten minutes before he had to be back. The service was prompt and the recruit soon found himself sipping a very good sake.
"Do you mind if I join you?"
He looked up; standing beside him was a tallish woman with curly chestnut brown hair down just past her shoulders. She was wearing extremely baggy black pants with all sorts of unnecessary buckles and straps on them, and a tight fitting cream colored shirt with various rips and tears in the long sleeves.
Greer rolled his eyes. This was just getting ridiculous, there had to be some kind of conspiracy going on. Sure he'd dated before and women found him reasonably attractive but three different really attractive girls hitting on him in one night? Maybe the recruit had a low opinion of his own sharp features but still...
The woman hadn't said anything more, apparently waiting for his response. Unusually polite of her, Greer thought.
He sighed. "Sure, why not? You probably wouldn't listen if I said no anyway."
The brown haired woman sat down on the mat on the other side of the table. "Why would you say that?"
He shook his head. "Never mind, just...forget I said anything."
They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a moment, which was odd. In Greer's experience, women who randomly came up to you in bars had some idea of what they wanted to say at least. The eeriness of it made him feel the need to start a conversation, if only to distract himself from the stare of her intent green eyes.
"So, what's you name?" he asked.
"Katrina, what's yours?"
"Call me Greer. Do you come here often?" He shifted uncomfortably.
"No, not really."
"Me neither. You play video games?"
"Some," she said uncertainly.
"Play Legend of Zelda?"
"Yes."
Well, that was encouraging, the recruit thought. "Which ones?"
Katrina paused.
***
Back in his office Jones almost smiled to himself. Of all the human topics that the recruit could have brought up, he chose the one Jones could actually answer. He made various studies of human computer games, partly to make sure that humans did not come up with anything close to VR or AI, and partly because the subject interested him, the way human 'gamers' were constantly searching for more immersive and entertaining games. Games that felt more like 'reality'. In some ways these were the people that were both the most and the least aware of the matrix.
"Ocarina of Time I've beaten," he replied through the woman's lips. "But I'm working on a copy of the original two I just got."
"Huh. Not many people I know into gomi," Greer remarked on screen, taking a sip of his sake. "Outdated systems," he clarified. "Junk.
"So called 'obsolete' platforms are not 'junk," 'Katrina' protested. "The differences between old games and new ones are really quite interesting. On the one hand, the newer systems have more complex stories and features, on the other hand, the old 16 and 32 bit are more game like and in many cases, more challenging. It's not really a case of superiority as it is one of diversity."
***
Greer blinked. "Finally someone who agrees with me! I've been saying for years that video games were losing sight of the 'game' part. Everyone I talked to was always talking about how one day you'd 'be able to feel the weight of the master sword in your hands', and 'smell Ganon's breath as you face him'. Who'd want to? I told them you'd get the same effect by joining a fencing team with an instructor who didn't brush his teeth, but they looked at me like I was crazy."
Katrina smiled. "You are hardly crazy. They don't understand what they're asking for. In a true virtual system they would be hurt every time they got hit. Many wouldn't be able to lift the master sword, much less wield it effectively. And so they sacrifice the enjoyment of their games for unchallenging playable movies looking for a dream most wouldn't like if it was realized."
"They want the idea of Virtual Reality, not the realization of it, obviously. If I went up to that guy over there," he nodded to a teen with a game boy, "while dressed like Lu Kang and punched him in the face. You know what he'd do? He wouldn't leap up with a battle cry and retaliate. He'd be upset, to say the least, and he'd bruise. But they think that somehow in their virtual world pain wouldn't hurt."
"Perhaps they believe these things would hurt less?" the brunette offered.
"Then they'd complain the realism was lost." He shook his head. "They couldn't handle virtual reality any better than they handle reality; they need their screens to keep them safe."
***
Jones looked around the room dominated completely by screens. It hadn't always been that way, not quite. But it had been since the end of his addiction.
"Maybe they are searching for something," he said.
"For what?"
"Something different than what they're used to."
"Different doesn't always mean better," Greer said.
"The grass is always greener," Jones mused.
"True. Hell, if you gave me the chance to cross swords with the evil king, I'd take it. Just to see what it was like."
The Agent as Katrina nodded. "It's the nature of humanity to want what it can't have."
"Yeah. Everybody makes their life more complicated then it has to be," he grinned. "But without complications, what fun would life be, ne?"
"I suppose that's true." Complications could indeed be pleasurable, preferable at least in some degree to monotony. But monotony brought safety, and complications inherently held a risk factor.
"You know Katrina; I think I've found somebody I can connect with."
Greer was leaning closer to Katrina, and had shed the stressed aura he had projected upon entering the bar. Jones came to the realization that he was going to kiss 'her'.
The recruit's watch went off.
***
Greer swore fluently as he turned the alarm off. "Damn it!" He rolled his eyes and turned to her. "I'm sorry Katrina, I have to go; I have... an appointment."
She nodded. "I understand."
"I'll probably be hanging around this club a little more often. Will I see you here?" He stood up, and looked down at her.
"Maybe," she said uncertainly. "I enjoyed talking with you."
He grinned. "The feeling is mutual. I'll catch you later." He turned and walked out of the bar into the night.
***
Jones took the construct into the bathroom and switched her off. In his office he turned off the visual monitor he'd been using to guide the avatar and turned to the mainframe's input screen.
There were words on it. [Experiment end. Compiling data. Hypothesis justified, further research will be carried out.]
Jones blinked. But the experiment hadn't reached its projected end. [Require clarification.]
[Experiment one pertaining to human affection complete. Further testing necessary to refine results. Follow up may proceed without Agent Jones.]
[?] The mainframe almost never conducted experiments without his supervision.
[Agent Jones is not necessary for limited follow-ups. Agent Jones will be otherwise assigned.]
[Understood.]
He turned away from that monitor too, and faced his swiveling chair to watch the scrolling green code of the matrix. There was something wrong with his programming, why else would he be acting this way? His addiction had started a slow decay, manifesting first as his need to isolate himself within the monitors and displays. Slight, nearly imperceptible changes in his actions and reactions had brought him to this point. He had enjoyed talking with Greer. He wished to do so again.
Brown would delete him. What would Smith do? But it didn't matter; he was so much better at hiding it than Smith was. He was so good at hiding it that he hardly noticed it himself. As long as it did not interfere with his duties as an Agent, did it matter that he felt? Did it matter what he felt. Humans felt, recruits felt, Mimosa felt, Smith felt and now Jones felt. What about Brown, was he subject to this foreign contamination, or was had he alone stayed the perfect program that they had been?
Jones heard someone knock on the door. He looked up at the monitor that displayed the hallway. It was recruit Greer. "Enter," he said, swinging his chair around to face the door.
It swung open slowly and revealed the recruit standing there, back in the pristine uniform that they all wore. "You told me to report back sir."
Jones nodded. "Thank you. I trust you had an enjoyable experience?"
"Yes."
"Good." Jones paused. He could dismiss the recruit now and go back to combing the Matrix for anomalies. He could immerse himself in the endless scrolling code that made up his world. Things would be as they always were. He didn't want to do this. "Agent Greer, I would like to request your permission to conduct further research pertaining to your unusual telephonic capabilities. I believe it may be more, complicated, than it appears."
Greer raised an eyebrow. "Certainly, agent Jones. Whenever you want me..." he shrugged.
"Is now acceptable?"
The recruit looked surprised. "Alright."
"Close the door behind you," Jones instructed. He required more lighting, and the non-vital monitors off. He also required a chair for Greer. "Sit."
"Thank you," the recruit said, positioning himself stiffly in the chair.
"You may relax, Greer. This is not a combat situation." He smiled just slightly.
He seemed vaguely surprised, but adopted a more casual posture.
"That is an attractive ornament," Jones remarked, nodding to Greer's newly acquired earring.
The recruit reached his hand up to his ear. "What, this? I won it while I was out and forgot I had it on. I can remove it..."
"That is unnecessary," he replied.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Of course," he replied, wondering what question he had.
"Do you think I'm a traitor, Agent Jones?"
Now it was Jones' turn to be surprised. "You have given me no cause to. Are you a traitor?"
"No!"
"Then why would you think that I would think that?"
Greer shrugged, obviously feeling very awkward now. "You're always well, watching me. Smith and Brown are always around monitoring our training, but you usually don't. I thought maybe something was wrong."
Jones picked up his sunglasses from off the desk and toyed with them. "Recruits are recruits. They pass the tests, they deter and fight rebels, and they eventually die. You however are not typical. You posses a gift that is quite nearly unique in the matrix, there is only two other persons documented who possessed the same ability that you do."
The young man looked intrigued. "Smith said it was rare, but..." he mumbled. "Who were they, Agent Jones?"
"Rebels, twins. Claire T. Edmund and Nicholas M. Edmund. They went by the alias' 'Frag' and 'Defrag'."
"By the fact that you're speaking in the past tense I assume they're dead?"
Jones nodded. "You are perceptive. They have been dead twenty-one years. The details are unclear but it is appears that they attempted to infiltrate and destroy this building. They killed many human guards and a large number of recruits, both were acting extremely erratic and irrational. In the middle of the third floor corridor Nicholas began screaming and lashing out at everything that got in his way, people, furniture...his sister. We were regrouping our forces when I got the report that they were fighting each other. It was savage, brutal. They were not acting human. I witnessed the end of the fight myself. He ripped her throat open with his bare hands, and then he fell to the floor, trembling and convulsing."
Greer paled. "But, why?"
The agent shook his head. "I do not know. After the murder of his sister Nicholas went catatonic, he would respond to no outside stimuli. It was as though some force had shattered his mind. I terminated him one week later."
The recruit swallowed. "And you think it might have something to do with this power they had? That I have?"
"It is a possibility. That is why I would like to run several tests."
Greer nodded. He looked up at Jones and he noticed something. "Huh."
The Agent gave him an inquiring look. "Is something the matter?"
"It's nothing. Just something Mimosa mentioned to me. She said that all agents had blue eyes for some reason. But I just noticed yours are green."
Jones nodded. "Mimosa has not seen me without my sunglasses. But she is right. All agents are created with blue eyes."
"But then how come-"
"I required them. It was after my code addiction. Green is the color of life. It is the color of the matrix, I needed to remind myself of that, do you understand?"
Greer nodded once. "I believe so, agent Jones."
"Good. Now tell me, what happened when you first began intercepting telephonic signals?" Jones leaned back comfortably in his chair and waited fro the recruit to respond. The agent was at ease with himself for the moment, the situation just felt right.
End
...for now