Agents: Whitman

by Stormhawk

The question 'who is Carol Whitman?' is finally answered. After 54 years of half-existence in the Matrix code she's out for revenge. Can they destroy her before she destroys them?

Title: Whitman

Author: Stormhawk

Rating: PG-13. There are two rather graphic scenes in this fic. Not bad enough for an R rating but certainly much more intense than anything this series has had before.

Disclaimer: This all belongs to The Wachowski Brothers and Warner Brothers. And the Agents, don't forget the agents. Stef, Stevie and Carol are mine. Greer is Overlord Mordax's.

Notes: I have mentioned 'Carol Whitman' several times before. Here she finally comes out to play.

This is a sequel to 'Reality' and leads right into Overlord Mordax's 'You May Dream.'

To keep this universe constant I'm stealing Overlord's denote. [] Is something typed on a computer.

Word Count: 7203

New Word Count: 14099

Summary: Carol Whitman wakes up and decides to take her revenge. Stef becomes addicted to mainframe access and while the information is being purged from her Whitman shows her strength. Can they find and delete the ex- agent before she causes everyone's downfall?

Please Read and Review.

Fifty-four years ago.

A young blond woman in a stylish - for the times - set of clothes nervously walked into a building behind a woman called Magna who had promised to take her to meet a man called Zeus.

Not that his real name was Zeus but it was what he called himself. He promised to tell her the truth about the world. She was unsure of exactly what that meant but was nonetheless intrigued.

Magna took her to a room of a hotel that had closed down a few months ago. She opened the door and Carol walked in. Zeus was a tall man, his clothes were slightly strange but then again that was true of all great minds.

He asked her to sit and started to talk to her, she didn't understand most of it but before it could get to explain it a man in a suit kicked the door in.

Magna ran from the room but Carol was frozen to the spot. Zeus took one last look at her before running. The man in the suit completely ignored her and ran after Magna and her friends.

The man in the suit followed them into the next room. Carol heard a few gunshots before the man walked out of the room. For the first time he actually seemed to notice her.

Carol's legs started to work again. She jumped from the chair and ran out of the room. Smith checked the nearby rooms before running after her.

The young woman ran ahead of him, the head start she had rapidly diminished. She was human, he was an Agent - she had no chance. Her flat shoes allowed her to run quickly but her skirt restricted the length of her stride.

She ducked down an alley in an attempt to lose him. He used an old trick to stop her from running any further. He required a brick wall to place itself along the width of the alley they were in.

Carol skid to a stop as it appeared. "No!" she screamed as she heard his running footsteps. She slapped the wall and a fine pattern of cracks appeared. She didn't see this but tried to jump over the wall.

She jumped eight feet and caught the edge of the top. She held on precariously for a few seconds but she slipped back down.

With a painful thud she hit the ground. The pain in her back involuntarily made her flop backwards. She couldn't move as she saw the end of a gun in her face.

"Please," she begged. "I didn't do anything."

Recently they had started to work with several humans who had shown the ability to manipulate the Matrix in strange ways. These children were usually the progeny of inventors or writers. Those who understood machinery and were at least familiar with the concept of a computer; even if it was only from the comics they read.

The term 'recruits' had been coined. Humans who worked with the machines. The machines and rebels were both at a disadvantage when it came to finding allies; they were familiar supercomputers, virtual reality and hovercrafts while in the reality of the Matrix the world they had just ended the Second World War.

"Are you going to kill me?" Carol asked from the ground.

"Yes," Smith said without emotion.

"I didn't do anything."

"You were going to join the enemies."

"Enemies? The war is over and I'm pretty sure they weren't Germans."

So little she understood. He undid the safety of his gun with his thumb. Carol stood and he kept the gun trained on her.

"Please. I don't even know what's going on."

Perhaps she could be recruited. Perhaps she would even make it through the tests. That was of course if she was willing to work against her own people.

Carol backed away from him. The last thing she wanted to do was die. Ironically that was far from the last thing she would do.

"Would you like to know what's going on?"

Carol started breathing again. "Yes."

"It isn't easy for your kind to understand."

"My kind?"

He shifted them both to the Agency, more specifically his office. Carol looked around in disbelief and then pinched herself repeatedly to see if she was dreaming.

Self-mutilation was not an acceptable trait for recruits to display. "Do you do that often?" he asked in his monotone.

"Only when I think I'm dreaming."

"Dreaming. You don't know the irony of that word."

He explained to he in as simplest terms as he could use. With the birth of the recruit program they had started to use some of the rebel's metaphors, as humans understood them better than a bunch of scientific terminology.

"Do you understand?"

"I think so. What happens now?" Smith allowed himself a small smile. Maybe she would be a worthwhile recruit.

Recruiting her was a decision he regretted.

Fifty-four years later.

Somewhere in the infinite green code that comprised the Matrix a half- conscious being had floated. It was like being lost in a bad dream. Waking only for a matter of moments every few years.

Her cage was a nightmare without end. A trap, that's what it had been to her.

She was.had been.was the remnants of who had once been Carol Whitman. She now was only half-existing within the code of the Matrix because no one knew she was there.

If they ever found out that she was there they would try and kill her. Try and kill her like they had done all those years ago.

"Delete her," were the last two words she had heard in her life. Her existence. It couldn't be counted as her life as Agents aren't truly alive. At least not in the sense that most humans thought of it.

Carol Whitman had ceased to be human over half a century ago.

Over the last fifty-four years there had only been sparse moments when she was together enough to remember her own name. Sometimes she could recall memories but those moments were even more rare. Between those moments of true consciousness she had just existed as random thoughts and ideas.

Most of those thoughts were thoughts of revenge. Revenge on the Agent who had ordered her destruction and unwittingly sentenced her to this half-life she was living.

There were so many ways she thought of killing him, she just had to pick one. If she concentrated hard enough she could think, it was like a human experiencing a lack of oxygen; it wasn't quite all there and it hurt but the thought was what counted.

But for some reason a few months ago everything had become a hell of a lot easier. She had even been able to take a form and have sustained consciousness for more than a few minutes at a time. Though it was the mainframe's fault it had been quite unintentional.

The mainframe had used some almost forgotten subroutines. Subroutines that had only ever been used once before. That one use had been for her as a matter of fact. Somehow in someway the subroutine was tied directly into her. Whether or not this had been intentional or not it had been the means by which she had been woken.

It was the subroutine that turned a human into an Agent.

Besides revenge, which had been her ever-present state of existence Carol felt new emotions. Anger. Jealously.

She was angry that the new one hadn't been deleted yet. She was jealous that they had chosen to make another an Agent when so much had gone wrong with her.

It was a dual opportunity for revenge. Revenge on Smith for deleting her and revenge on the new Agent for the simple fact that she was an Agent. And maybe it was another opportunity to finish what she had tried to do fifty years ago.

*****

"How do you know that name?" Stef should not know that name. Whitman wasn't someone that was discussed or even thought of. She was a nightmare whom all did their best to forget.

"Who is Carol Whitman Smith?" She wanted answers and she wanted them now.

"It's nothing for you to worry about." Why can't she just leave it alone? Smith thought. Sometimes his recruit was too curious for her own good.

"I know she was like me. Where is she now?"

"Who told you about her? How do you know about her?"

"Just tell me."

"I have orders not to," as well as an excuse not to say anything it was the truth.

"Why? Agents don't tiptoe around anything. Anything. Why now?"

Smith shifted from the room. Even though he was under orders he didn't want to take the chance that the truth would slip out.

She followed him. She tried to anyway. He looked at her as she shifted into his office. Halfway through materializing she froze and didn't move. He wondered if it was another glitch.

Meanwhile, Stef was immersed in the code. She could morph or shift, she couldn't even move. She was stuck.

She looked around as she heard something. She peered into the code as something came toward her. Now she was starting to get a little frightened, except for Agents in transit there wasn't supposed to be anything that moved within the Matrix code.

As it came closer she could discern some form to it. It looked like a distorted human face. Stef felt like she was on some 'haunted' ride at a theme park or cheap carnival.

It barreled into her. It hit her with such force that she was thrown clear of the code and into Smith's office. The force was so great that it threw her right across the office and she landed behind his desk.

"Shit!" Stef exclaimed as she shook her head and picked herself up off the floor.

"Mimosa? What was that all about?"

"I have no idea. Does the Matrix have gremlins?"

"Are you making another cultural reference that I don't understand?"

"Actually you would. You saw Gremlins with Stevie and me. But no, I was actually talking about real gremlins."

"The small fictitious," he saw her shudder at his last word. "What?"

"If possible, could you avoid saying the words, 'fictitious' and 'fiction' at least for a while?"

"Small mythological creatures that humans blame for problems in machinery?"

"Yeah them - does the Matrix have any sub-sentient rouge programs?"

"Not that I am aware of. What did you see?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it."

She turned and went to open the door but heard the lock click; she turned and looked back at him. "What?"

"What exactly did you see Stef?"

"I'm not even worried about this. Why are you?"

"What did you see Agent Mimosa?" His tone was the one Stef had learned to obey. He rarely used it but when he did she did whatever he was requesting knowing that it was important.

"Follow me and I'll show you." Stef shifted from his office and into the memory-editing program. A second later Smith appeared.

"You could have just transferred the memory."

"I know but I like this better." Smith sighed softly but she heard him anyway. She sat at the controls and pulled up the memory of the shift from the code-scroll room to his office. It hadn't been this room, all the code- scroll rooms were the same but this one was specifically made for editing memories, the other just had access to the software.

She played the memory. Sure it had been weird but it was no reason for him to be acting as strange as he was. She stole a glimpse back at him but his expression was unreadable.

"Again."

"Sure, whatever you say." She replayed it and froze it when the thing she had seen was right in the center of the frame.

"That looks like a face doesn't it?" He stared past her; all of his existence was concentrated on the screen.

"Smith - what is going on?" He either didn't hear her or chose not to answer.

Not in the mood for uncooperative co-agents, she stood and snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Hey! Wake up!"

"I am perfectly conscious Mimosa."

"What's going on? I know you know something. I know that look."

"Leave Mimosa."

"Why?"

"Don't question me. That was an order."

"What is going." she never got to finish her question, he raised his hand and banished her from the room. She found herself in one of the Agency's many similar corridors.

Smith called Jones and Brown and replayed the memory so they could see it for themselves.

"Whitman," Brown said straight away, though his voice wasn't as flat and emotionless as it normally was.

"Yes. Whitman. It appears that she isn't as dormant as was believed."

"Can she be deleted?" Brown asked Jones.

The tech Agent shook his head. "No. The mainframe cannot even locate the relevant data or she would have been disposed of years ago."

"Then what do we do?" Brown asked.

"Nothing. There is nothing we can do Brown," Smith said.

"Are you going to tell your recruit?"

"No. I have orders not to."

"Good. It might be dangerous if she found out the truth." Smith nodded in agreement. They were all cautious that if Stef discovered or was told the truth that she might choose follow the same path as Whitman.

Maybe it was an unsubstantiated fear but it was not worth the risk.

*****

Carol had wanted to scare Mimosa. That little trick was all she could think of at the moment. It had been a little crazy. Someone had once called her insane.

She had begun to think he was right. He was Herbert Wellington. She had been in love with him before Magna and Zeus had contacted her. As far as she had known he had loved her as well.

It started when she became a recruit. Noticing how emotionless the Agents were she decided to adopt a similar manner. She never displayed any large amount of emotion. She was a good actress. In fact before all of this had happened she had been planning on going to Hollywood and lighting up the screen by becoming a star.

The only time that she really felt and displayed emotion was in battle against the rebels. When she fought she lost all control and killed with a blind and burning fury. She only really became aware of the details of the fight after the fact, when she was standing and all her victims lay around her feet on whatever had turned into the impromptu battlefield.

There had been one emotion that she hadn't been able to leave behind her. Love.

She still loved Herbert even though she was now working for the agents. Then again she hadn't known he was a rebel.

She had taken time off without their knowledge. She had skipped the surveillance work she was supposed to be doing to pay him a visit. She had found him easily enough and told him the entire story.

Then he had drawn his gun on her and told her that he was a rebel. She had become angry with him that he hadn't told her the truth. She had required her gun and tried to kill him.

He was faster and stronger than her. He had shot her first then left her dying as he ran for an exit. As she lay bleeding on the polished timber floor she blamed both sides.

She blamed the machines for telling her the truth. She blamed the rebels for exposing her to the truth. She blamed the machines for the rebels. She blamed the humans for the creation of the machines. In short, she blamed both sides. She wished she had never learned any of it. Ignorance had been her bliss.

They had made her into an agent. It was unexpected to say the least. Though she betrayed nothing on the surface, every spare moment of time was spent on planning the perfect revenge. She was going to destroy the machines for destroying her life. The she would start on the humans.

She would take care of the Agency first.

She had sought the rebels out and told them most of her plan. She did leave out the fact that she was also planning their downfall. They were suspicious to say the very least but she promised by the end of the next day that she would have dealt with the Agents.

Fifty-four years later the sentiment was still as strong as it had been back then. The machines would pay then humanity would pay. Carol didn't care at all; she didn't belong with either group anymore.

She accepted the fact that maybe there was something wrong with her psychologically; she also blamed the machines for this. Before she had come into contact with them there hadn't been anything wrong with her. She had always found someone to blame everything on.

*****

Stef paced in her room. She was trying to think of any ideas to help defeat the rebels. Not that it really matters, she thought bitterly. She stopped pacing and scolded herself and pushed her dark thoughts away.

Finding out the Matrix was in fact a simulation within a simulation had been mind blowing. She hadn't been sure how to react when she had found out so she wasn't sure how to act now.

She hadn't told anyone else. She had decided not to - not that most of the people she knew would believe her anyway. There was no need for anyone else to share her misery. She had chosen not to debate the nature of existence and reality. It would just leave her more confused than she was now.

She sat down at her computer and started to type aimlessly. Sometimes she came up with good ideas when she did that. She heard the almost nonexistent noise of someone shifting into her room.

"Smith how many times do I have to remind you that using the door is traditional?"

"This is more efficient."

"Trust you to say that."

"Carol Whitman," he said, he had his own subtle way of bringing topics up.

She swivelled in her chair and raised her hands in submission before letting them flop down to her sides. "I understand. You've got orders and you have to follow them. I'm not stupid, I do understand."

"Good. Would you answer a question?"

Stef shrugged, "sure. Ask away."

"How do you know of her in the first place?"

NO! Why did he have to ask her that? There was no way in hell she was going to answer him. "I can't tell you."

"I order you to answer my question."

"I refuse to comply," Stef said with conviction. "You couldn't understand the answer."

"Try me."

Stef thought for a few seconds on how to reply. She almost completely suppressed a smiled when a plausible lie came to her.

"A glitch."

"Excuse me?"

"I heard the name in a glitch."

"I find that highly unlikely."

"Unlikely but not impossible? Right?" she needed to know there was a chance that this lie could appear to be the truth. He slowly nodded a few times. Glitches were utterly impossible to predict.

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few extended seconds. "New topic. Why are you smarter than me?" Stef pasted a false smirk on her face as her real one didn't feel like appearing.

He didn't answer right away, unsure if it was a trick question or not. "Please elaborate Mimosa."

"You know everything."

"No. I merely have access to all the files that the mainframe does."

"You didn't teach me that."

"I know. There was a perfectly logical reason for that. It's dangerous."

Sitting back in her chair she required one for him. "How so?" He sat in the chair.

"If you access it for extended periods of tome you can experience a code overlord. You could destroy yourself."

She snorted, "You make it sound like a drug."

"It isn't entirely dissimilar."

"Teach me."

"You have been warned. Do not take this lightly."

"Yes sir," she said in a tone that conveyed her utter and total boredom.

Smith sighed before speaking. "The process is just a requirement. Just think: Require, mainframe access."

"I'm jacking straight into the mainframe?"

"Precisely."

She tried it; she required the access and reacted. "Cool," she was barely aware of being in her room. She was seeing the raw information pass before her eyes. It was going to take a while to learn to control the flow.

"Stef?"

"Huh?"

"Mimosa are you listening to me?"

"Uh-huh."

"Are you actually a rebel traitor?" He knew she wasn't listening to him.

"Sure, yeah. Whatever." He almost rolled his eyes; he was slowly starting to pick up a few of her traits. He required her access to be severed.

Stef had to blink a few times as her vision came back into focus and she was once again aware of her room. "Why did you do that?"

"Do not use it for long or it will become dangerous. I asked you if you were a rebel and you said yes. Had Brown or Jones asked that question you would have been deleted by now."

"Ok, ok. Get off my back." Dangerous, she thought, I can control it. It was the most amazing thing she had ever experienced. The ability to know anything.almost anything. It was nothing sort of incredible. There were a few files the mainframe kept hidden from her but she really didn't care about them.

This was a useful distraction. It was something new to explore she decided not to worry about Carol Whitman for the moment. She was sure if she really needed to know about her then they would tell her. Orders were orders and she had a mainframe to explore.

Smith had been right when he said it wasn't dissimilar to a drug. Stef found that she needed to keep constantly looking up useless data or she would experience what would qualify as withdrawal symptoms.

Having the direct access to the mainframe was life changing and mind- boggling for Stef. There was no way in hell she was ever giving it up.

Smith had threatened to cut her access off once already. All she had done was fail to answer some unimportant question. After he had asked the question three times he had severed her access and threatened to do it permanently.

There was only one other person.Agent that Stef thought could be able to help her.

She needed more access to the mainframe. She likened the need to having a 56k modem and needing to have broadband access. Smith wouldn't help her; Brown hated her so the only one left to ask was Jones.

She shifted to outside the outside of his office door. She had never seen the inside but now was as good a time as any. She paced for a good twenty seconds wondering what approach to take. Maybe she could appeal to Jones' good side - if he had one that was.

She could always try lying to him. Deception was a powerful tool.

Before she could have time to map out exactly she was going to say the office door opened. The tech agent looked at her curiously.

"Mimosa?"

"Hi Jones."

"I presume you want something."

"Yeah. I need your help."

"Explain."

"Can I at least come in?"

He sighed but stepped aside and allowed her in. Stef was surprised with what he saw. Sure Jones was the tech agent of the three, the geek, the nerd. But Stef was still hadn't been expecting his entire room to be nothing but computers and monitors. One wall was a giant screen showing the ever-flowing Matrix code.

"Explain," he repeated.

"Look, I just found out about the direct access to the mainframe."

"Yes," he said evenly, unsure of where it was going.

Time to do or die. "I need faster access."

"Nanoseconds aren't fast enough?"

"Do you understand what I mean or not?"

"Yes," he said resignedly.

"Can you help me get faster access?"

"Has this been approved Mimosa? It can be dangerous."

"Yeah - of course. Smith said it was fine."

"He didn't inform me."

"Rebels, he's had a lot of rebels to deal with. He'll get around to it."

Jones stared at her for a few long seconds. Usually he was informed before he did something like this. One of the other Agents or at least the mainframe. The again - Agents didn't lie to other Agents; there was no need to be suspicious.

"Sit."

Stef looked around his office; the only chair in the room was his behind what appeared to be the center computer. "Where exactly do you want me to sit?"

"There," he replied, pointing as a chair appeared from thin air. He sat at his desk. His nimble fingers danced over the keyboard and suddenly Stef wasn't aware of anything.

It took her a second to wake up and when she did she didn't believe what she was seeing. She was floating in a coded wonderland. She was inside the information. She was swimming in the immeasurable amount of data that comprised the mainframe.

"Holy shit," she commented, unaware that she had spoken out loud.

"I take by that.comment that the speed of the new access is acceptable?"

She nodded, unable to think clearly enough to speak.

*****

She walked out of his office and realized that she was supposed to be doing surveillance work. She shifted from the Agency then walked down the busy city street toward the Internet café where they had heard rumors of kids searching for the truth.

She was lucky she had the Agents' autopilot ability otherwise it would have been highly likely that she would have been hit by at least half a dozen cars and walked into many dozens of people.

There was so much to learn. There was so much to see when you had access to everything. She could do anything when she was jacked into the mainframe. She could access any human's thoughts or memories, see any file. She could do anything.

As she walked down the street someone deep in a conversation to a cell phone almost walked into her. She calmly sidestepped him and kept walking.

Neo trailed off and stopped talking as he realized whom it was that he had almost walked into. He stopped walking and turned and watched the Agent walk down the street as if she hadn't seen him.

"Neo?" Tank asked on the phone.

"Did you just see that?"

"Yeah, I did. What's going on?"

"No idea. Find me an exit in case I need it." He ran a few steps and caught up with Stef. No Agent would pass up the opportunity to kill him so he wanted to know what was going on.

He tapped her on the shoulder. "Do you have the time?" it was a pathetic question but it would get her attention.

She turned and behind her sunglasses Neo could see her eyes weren't really focused and he could have sworn he saw a faint trace of the Matrix scrolling through her eyes.

"In which time zone?"

"This one," he said uncertainly.

"10.43 am and 14 seconds."

"Um.thanks."

She turned away from him and walked into the street. A garbage truck barreled into her.

Neo stared in disbelief as the body sparked green as it they always did when an Agent died in a human. The green glow died away then flared up again.

Stef was caught. Morphing was an automatic action when a human host died but she was having trouble leaving the dead man.

The body convulsed, Stef was still half-stuck in there. She concentrated and threw herself free.

She floated for an unknown amount of time in the green code that every Agent saw when morphing or shifting. She tried to morph into another human but she couldn't even begin without feeling pain in her head so she just shifted to her room.

It felt like swimming through mud to get out of the code-scroll but she found herself in her room. For a few moments she saw nothing but green.

After putting a firewall around her room as to not be disturbed she collapsed on her bed and plunged herself into the comfort of the mainframe once more. This time she felt like she was lost, the other times it had felt like swimming but this time it felt like drowning.

She tried to exit but she was stuck. She was barely aware of her own name as the information threatened to wipe her out.

*****

In Smith's office Jones dealt out a boring report, anomalies he had found, numbers of rebel-posts on the Internet he had discovered and the like that was his job when he wasn't in combat.

"Two more rebel exits were found and terminated. Mimosa's mainframe access speed was upgraded. Another four anomalies were repaired."

Smith looked at the other agent suspiciously. "What did you say?"

Jones repeated himself slowly, "Four anomalies were."

"Before that."

"Mimosa's mainframe access. You authorized it."

"I did no such thing. How faster?"

"The next speed. Complete access."

"How long ago?"

"An hour."

Smith looked away from Jones for a second. Require, location of Agent Mimosa. The answer came less than a second later.

*****

Stef was the mainframe. She breathed the code and existed as the information. She couldn't break the connection. She felt her code threatening to shatter apart as terabytes more of information flooded in every second. She was approaching the overload limit; agent codes are only designed to handle a certain amount of data. Go over that set amount and the code would disintegrate.

She couldn't even control the flow of data before. She could control it when she first got the original access but had been unable to handle Jones' faster access. Half and hour ago she would have said it would take time to learn - now she was worried for her own digital integrity.

The information was beautiful. The information was deadly. She was addicted and if it killed her she wouldn't give it up willingly. As she drowned in bits and bytes she wasn't sure she wanted to be pulled from the code.

Someone was trying to break in. Her barely conscious mind was aware of that fact if nothing else. Someone was trying to get into her room. They were going to cut her access.

She didn't want that to happen. She didn't want it to be taken away. As parts of the firewall gave way she plunged herself deeper into the information than she had ever gone. She was prepared to lose herself rather than lose the access.

*****

The door finally gave up and crashed to the ground. The firewall in place stopped them from shifting in so they had to break in the old fashioned way.

Agents have vital signs. They have their own versions of them that monitor thought activity and the integrity of the code. Both of Stef's were erratic.

The information was killing her. In a matter of minutes it would shatter her apart at the seams. Already the process was beginning. Smith, Jones and Brown could see faint traces of the Matrix-code scrolling down her face and hands.

"Cut the access." Smith ordered in a monotone, he spoke it out loud as a warning to the other two agents as he required it of the mainframe. The results were going to be pretty. The access was cut.

Stef's world went black. She felt like she was dead for a moment. It seemed like her oxygen was gone. Her head felt like it was tearing itself apart. The closest pain she had felt like this was when Jonas had pulled her into the real world. But this was worse.

She screamed, the noise was horrible; inhuman it was more the sound of a high-pitched digital whine.

She felt herself being pulled from the place where she had accessed the mainframe back into the Matrix.

Trembling and shaking she couldn't even control her blinking as she tried every possible way to reestablish her connection to the mainframe. Seconds later she didn't even feel she had the strength to fight the lack of access.

She felt weak, much weaker than an Agent ever should. Her eyes stopped blinking but her vision by blurry and obscured by what looked like a still of the mainframe code.

She could just make out the forms of three people. "What did you do?" she demanded in as stable a voice as she could manage. Her hands were shaking like a junkie in need of fix; which was exactly what she was.

She would surely die without the access. It had become her life. She had been cut off less than twenty seconds and was already experiencing withdrawal symptoms.

"We cut your access off Mimosa," Smith said.

"Let me guess," she said haltingly as she brushed her short hair off her forehead. "You're going to delete me for becoming an addict?"

Her eyes focused on her hand as it dropped. Just below the skin she could see frozen letters of code like strange tattoos. What the hell did I do? She thought, he first coherent thought in an hour.

"No, deletion is not necessary but you have been denied access to the mainframe from now on."

"I need it." Stef spoke what she thought was the truth.

"No. You don't need it." Surprisingly it was Jones who had spoken.

"What the hell would you know? You're an Agent - you haven't gone through this," Stef the addict accused.

"I would actually know a lot Mimosa," Stef tried to focus her eyes on the tech Agent. He didn't volunteer any more information so Stef looked for answers - she couldn't handle being confused at this point in time.

"Agent Jones went through the same thing. The same addiction. The same overload of code. He has also been from direct mainframe access."

"Is that why you're always using a computer?" Jones nodded in the affirmative and Brown looked as though his opinion of her had been lowered even further - something that Stef hadn't believed to be possible.

"Well. If I'm not going to be deleted what's going to happen?"

"You need to be purged of all the unnecessary data you have collected," Jones replied.

"Fine," Stef said listlessly but she knew it was important. And for the first time since she had been given the mainframe access she was ready to give it up and get over it.

*****

Stef was so sick of the stark white room she was in she thought she was going stir-crazy. She had been there twice before in the short months that she had been with the Agency. Once when she had woken up as an Agent. The other was after her code had been put back together after she had almost been completely decompiled.

The purging was going to take a couple more weeks. They had to 'flush' all the bits and bytes that she had become saturated with.

For the first week or so she hadn't even been really conscious as the major part of the flushing was taking place. Now she had nothing to do but wait as the last vestiges of the foreign code was removed.

She knew she would have gone insane if the room had been completely white. At least the floor and the small row of cupboards were gray. The cupboards were at the other end of the room. They gave her something to look at.

Agents aren't as unaffected by humans as they appear and pretend to be. Stef wasn't wearing her suit; she was wearing a long sleeved hospital-type gown as white as the walls of the room.

She was utterly bored. If the Agents had accepted some old human traditions there would have been some outdated magazines for her to read but there were none. If her mid-brown hair had been a little longer she would have braided it but it was simply too short.

There was only one other thing in the room. A monitor that displayed the flowing Matrix code. But that was the last thing she wanted to see that the moment.

The fluorescent lights of the room dimmed for a second before flickering back to normal. Stef sat up and hopped of the bunk. The Agency's lights didn't dim for any reason at all.

She looked around for danger and wished she could require a gun. As part of the purging she couldn't require, morph or even use communication.

She ran over to the cupboard and tore open the cupboard at the end of the room. Her suit was hanging up, ready for her when the purging was done. In a carton at the bottom were her shoes, socks, earpiece and gun.

She reached down for her Desert Eagle. She was shocked when she saw a drop of blood fall onto the gun. She suppressed a shriek when she realized that the blood was her own and it was coming from her right arm.

Surely that wasn't normal. How could it be? She pulled up her right sleeved and saw a long cut on her arm. She looked on in horror as it cut got longer by it's own accord.

That's when the pain hit her.

She started to scream as more cuts opened her. The gown that had been white only seconds ago was now soaked in crimson blood. The gray floor was slick with blood.

She tried to take a step but slipped in her own blood. Half of her knew she was going to die, the other half just feared it. Both halves were screaming for mercy from whoever was doing this.

Stuck down in this dungeon of a recovery room they would never hear her screams. She tried to think straight enough to grab her earpiece.

Her left hand swung up and groped around in the carton for the object. She clutched it as a spider's web of thin cuts spread over her hands. She held it and hoped they could hear her.

She screamed louder as some of the cuts opened more and cut deeper into her. Screaming on the ground she could see the bones in her forearm. The eternity of seconds passed and she began to believe that no one was coming.

She heard a dull thudding. It could have been her slowly beating heart as it pumped blood from all of her wounds but it wasn't. Somehow the door had been locked to they had to break it down.

As her vision was obscured by her own blood she wasn't sure they had come in time.

A new sensation was being intermingled with the pain. If her body hadn't been going through hell she would have had the time to wonder what it was.

New cuts stopped appearing but the old ones didn't stop bleeding. She hadn't stopped screaming but now sobs were intermingled with the. She didn't care if Jones and Brown saw her cry. At this point she would have welcomed deletion.

If she hadn't been holding onto consciousness for her life she would have collapsed. She didn't want to go unconscious because she was afraid if she did she wouldn't ever wake up again.

Two pairs of hands helped her up but her mutilated legs would not support a fly let alone her weight. She thought she was going to fall over but someone picked her up and set her gently on the bunk.

"I don't want to die." Stef wasn't sure if she was thinking the words or speaking out loud.

"You won't," she heard Smith say as she blacked out.

Brown had watched on helplessly since he had entered the room. Emotion wasn't a part of his programming but he had been disturbed by what he had seen. It was too close to the nightmare of memory he had.

He took a moment and played it for himself. He needed to remind himself of what she was capable of.

***

He heard himself chewing out a recruit for failing to kill any rebels during the last altercation with the rebels. The fact that the boy had been shot less than a minute into the fight made no difference to the Agent whose main function was combat.

Suddenly, the boy had begun to cough. He coughed until he doubled over in pain and started to throw up blood. Bloody patches appeared on his suit as if he had spontaneously developed several large wounds.

Brown looked down in an impassive horror. He couldn't understand what was going on.

The boy had looked up at him imploring for his help. Brown pressed two fingers to his earpiece to call the doctor but had found himself unable to contact anyone. The boy convulsed for several seconds before he stopped moving.

He picked up the recruit and started to walk toward the morgue. He would have shifted but was also unable to shift or morph. As he turned a corner in the corridor he stopped walking.

The section of corridor was littered with dead and dying recruits. One girl was screaming because both of her arms had fallen off. He dropped the dead recruit and backed away from them.

"Oh. You aren't going anywhere." Said a voice that came from everywhere and nowhere all at once said.

"Who's there?" Brown asked of the corridor.

"Your worst nightmare," the voice answered from behind him.

He turned and saw Carol Whitman. Smith's recruit to his and Jones' surprise had become an Agent like them. It had seemed like a strange decision but it was a worthwhile experiment as she had been a good recruit.

He looked at the blond ex-human. "Did you do this?"

"Of course," she smiled a vixen's smile. "It's your turn now."

"You can't hurt me," he was speaking what he believed to be the truth.

"Of course I can," she smiled again. She sidled up to him and placed a hand on his chest. "Would you like me to demonstrate?"

Brown took a step back, truly unsure if she could harm him or not. She caught his tie and held it. "I am going to hurt you."

He tried to run but she wouldn't let him. "You aren't going anywhere!" she screamed as she started to tear his program apart. Brown had never felt pain before but what he was feeling now was sending him beyond the worst tortures of hell.

He looked at himself; similar mutilations that the recruits had experienced were now appearing on him. He had never learned to yell out into pain; it wasn't a subroutine that any of the Agents possessed but he screamed.

He heard his own cry of pain as the world had died away.

***

Brown blinked and left the room with Jones as the doctor tended to Mimosa.

*****

Stef was asleep. Agents didn't sleep; it was the only thing that bugged her about existing as code. She was able to sleep now because with her Agent abilities gone she was basically human. She was human - without a real world body.

Smith watched her sleep. He was going to wake her soon if she didn't come around by her own will. There were things she needed to know, the mainframe had cleared him to tell her about Whitman. They would be hard to accept but it was for her safety.

They had taken a chance by turning her into an Agent. A chance that they had ever only taken once before. It had gone horribly wrong.

Beyond Stef's scarred form her mind was safe in a deep, dreamless sleep. Smith took a moment to remember the events that had turned Carol Whitman into Agent Whitman into the monster she had become.

Mimosa shifted in her sleep. She looked over to see if she was waking yet, she was far from awake. He slowly shook his head; there hadn't been that much difference between Stef and Carol. A required wall had trapped them both after a short chase. They had both begged for their lives. He had spared both and regretted one.

Carol had seemed to be a strong human. She had been strong enough to pass the tests and become a recruit. Smith hadn't really expected her to pass but she had. The mainframe insisted upon the tests; they separated good potentials from the ones that would die or go back to being batteries with no memory of the tests.

The blond girl named Carol had exceeded all of their expectations. She had been the best recruit they had ever had. Then she had died.

A rebel had shot her. Investigating the matter they had discovered that she had known him before she had become a recruit. He had felt betrayed and killed her. Recruits died. It was an accepted fact. They were, after all, only human. But Carol had been different.

The mainframe separated her thoughts and memories from her dead real world body before they flushed it. It had taken a while but they had reconfigured it and transformed her into an Agent. She was nothing but pure code. They had thought she would be the perfect recruit without the human frailties that had always hindered them in the past.

The only problem would be her emotions. Not that Carol had showed many as a recruit she still had them. As a recruit she would rarely show emotion except in battle. As an Agent she showed even less.

In battle she killed rebels with frightening speed and fury that none of the Agents could match. After the fight was over she would regain her composure and show as little emotion as she had done before the skirmish.

Over the weeks Smith had started to notice her faltering, lapses when she showed emotion. He had confronted her and she had confessed that she still had her emotions but was afraid to show any trace in case that warranted her deletion. Smith had assured her that as long as she didn't show too many emotions and they didn't affect her performance than it didn't matter.

She had thanked him and had actually smiled.

The next day she had tried to destroy them all.

She had started with the recruits tearing them apart from the inside. Then she had killed Brown; she had remembered his comments about humanity and taken them as personal offence. She was going to kill all the Agents but she had taken pleasure in destroying him first.

Then she had come for Smith and Jones.

There had only been one logical course of action to take. She spoke the last two words that she would hear her and haunt her throughout her whole impending half-existence: "Delete her." After he had given the command she had disappeared for what they thought was going to be forever.

They had never thought any humans - besides rebels - could be that dangerous. The Agents has stopped recruiting for a full year but then they had remembered the reason behind starting the recruit program. To use humans against humans. They had started to recruit again.

They would never turn a human into an Agent again. That was not a risk they would take again.

Recruits were found and recruits died. There was nothing more to the picture except for the occasional traitor.

No human had ever been seen to be worth the risk until Mimosa came along.

Recruited under similar circumstances reminiscent of Whitman's discovery Stef was in some ways reminiscent of the other human. She same detachment from humanity; the same need to protect the world they had grown to know and love and some the same manner.

Then Stef had died. He had killed her; it had been her request as he had made the offer only hours previous to that. She didn't want the slow death and pain that a dying real-world body promised. A gunshot later her body had been taken to the morgue.

He had contacted the mainframe and petitioned to have her tuned into an Agent. He wasn't exactly sure why he had done it, he had had many other recruits but he had had a.feeling that Stef was worth the risk. The mainframe had unnecessarily reminded him about Whitman. He informed the mainframe that was perfectly aware of the events but promised that Mimosa was different.

Transferring a human into an Agent is not an easy process but a month after she had died Agent Mimosa had taken her first steps in the Matrix.

This decision he didn't regret.

For the past several months Jones had reported unknown anomalies and errors in the Matrix code. No one was sure what it had meant. It had meant Whitman had come back. Fifty-four years of floating around in the mainframe had not made Carol Whitman any weaker.

That had explained the anomalies but there was one missing piece to the puzzle. He still wondered how Stef knew of Carol Whitman in the first place. He didn't believe for a second the lie about hearing it in a glitch. He had checked she had only ever experienced one glitch. There was something she was keeping from him and he wasn't happy about it. One day he would find out what it was.

He was also certain that neither Jones or especially Brown would have mentioned the name. They were all too afraid for it to happen a second time. The mainframe files pertaining it were code locked away and the Agent's own memories were inaccessible by anyone but themselves and the mainframe.

Stef started to wake up. Without opening her eyes she came into consciousness. She was unsure if she wanted to see what she was sure to see when she opened them she opted to sit up instead.

She didn't want to see her bloodstained limbs. Every part of her still ached. Before she could raise halfway a hand gently but firmly pushed her back down until her head was back on the soft pillow.

"Open your eyes," Smith said gently. Ever so slowly, Stef opened her eyes and found herself in the medical facility. She was surprised it wasn't the morgue. She hadn't died; she allowed herself a smile of relief.

"What happened?" She asked, even though she wasn't sure she wanted to know. She needed to know the truth she just wasn't sure she was ready to handle it.

"Wake up first."

"I am perfectly conscious Smith." She sat up and this time he didn't stop her. She adjusted the pillow so she could sit upright. In her sleep one of her sleeves had pulled itself up. The whole of her arm was one long scar.

She pushed the sleeve down but pulled the other up, her left arm was in the same condition.

There wasn't a patch of smooth, unmarred skin on her hands but she was grateful that there were no bloodstains that she could see. "What happened?"

Smith leant back in his chair and took a minute to answer. "I lied to you when I said you were the first."

"Carol Whitman. I know."

What he wanted to know was how she knew. "Let me finish. You must understand her to understand what happened to you. It was fifty-four years ago when we realized that humans might actually be of some use to us. Whitman was the first to become a true Agent - or at least as close as a human can become."

"Was she too human? Or couldn't she handle it?"

"The latter and to say the very least. It sent her insane. Part of it was a code failure, we had never transferred a human to pure code before but most of it was her own mind. She broke down - both mentally and digitally. The mainframe tried to delete all traces of her but evidently some trace has remained of her."

"What so there's a ghost in the mainframe?"

"Yes. Without the supernatural connotations."

"I thought the mainframe was all seeing and all knowing. Can't they delete it?"

"First of all, the mainframe is not all seeing and all knowing to use your words but almost all seeing and knowing. When you were human were you aware of a single flu germ?"

"I see your point."

"No. Not yet you haven't."

"What are you talking about?"

"It isn't pleasant but you need to see this."

"Pleasant?" she said echoing him. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Now you are scaring me Smith. Agents don't tiptoe around things."

He took her hand and they appeared in a code-scroll room, once she was steady on her feet her let he go. The code disappeared and the corridors of the agency appeared. "Where, when are we Smith?"

"A memory. Fifty-four years ago. This is what you need to see."

In the corridor ahead of them, a memory-version of Smith shifted to the corridor and walked around the next corner. Smith looked down at his recruit. "Follow me."

She nodded slowly and trailed him, albeit a few feet behind him. He followed his memory-self around the corner. Stef took in a sharp breath before following him. She stepped around the corner, not exactly sure to expect.

The next section of corridor was littered with the maimed bodies of dead recruits. It was so horrific that Stef thought she was going to stop functioning. She ran backwards looking for a way to get out.

"Let me out. I want to get out. Let me out!" With every word she said her voice rose higher and higher until she was screaming. Smith dropped his head and the memory faded away.

Once free of the horror Stef was still backing away. She collapsed into the chair at the controls of the memory-editing controls. "I'm going to throw up." She informed him as her skin took on a sickly and unnatural greenish tinge.

Instead of arguing that it was impossible for an Agent to throw up he quickly required a bucket and handed it to her. She hung her head over the pail and threw up.

A few minutes later after puking twice more a paler and definitely disturbed Stef looked up to the Agent who had become her teacher. "What happened to them?"

"It was her. Shortly after she became an Agent she killed the other recruits."

"Killed doesn't cover what I saw in there. What did she do to them?"

Require, chair. Smith thought as he sat beside her. He pried the bucket from her hands and made it disappear.

"I don't want to weigh you down with the details. You can access your own files for the detailed information later if you want. It is enough to say that when a human becomes a recruit they are a lot more dependent on code. More integrated with the Matrix than an ordinary human is. This allows them to require and such."

"I do assume you're coming to some sort of point."

"She took them apart from the inside. Tearing at whatever pieces of their code she could get her digitized hands on. It manifested as what you saw in there."

Stef paled another shade and took a moment to speak, "is that what she was trying to do to me?"

He didn't want to disguise the truth from her. "Yes." Stef felt like puking again. The cuts had been bad but the other recruits had been mutilated. She shuddered as she realized that she might have been found in the same condition if they hadn't gotten to her in time.

"If she was the first and this happened with her why take the chance with me? Weren't you afraid it would happen again?"

"Yes. That is why we didn't tell you of her. But you were different."

"Was that Brown I saw in there?"

"Yes. He fell victim to the same fate as the recruits. The Brown you know is a Version 2; a mix of his recovered memories and a clean copy of his original code."

"No wonder he hates me."

"He was the one most opposed to you becoming an Agent."

"Was Whitman one of his? Is that why she went after him?"

"As you have observed Agent Brown isn't quiet about his opinion of humans. She took it as personal offence so she didn't spare him. I assume myself and Jones would have been next had we not deleted her."

"If she wasn't one of his.was she one of Jones'?"

Smith shook his head slowly and shamefully. "No. She was one of mine."

"Yours?"

Smith heard the change in Stef's tone so he felt obligated to explain further. "She wasn't insane to begin with. In fact there was little difference between you and her - as humans at least. It was after she became an Agent that she slipped."

"Please don't ever make me think about what I saw ever again."

"They were the first lot of recruits ever recruited that made it through the tests and lasted more than a few days against the rebels. Their deaths are my fault."

"No, it wasn't your fault. It was her fault, just because you recruited her doesn't mean you are accountable for her actions."

"This is why humans don't become agents."

"Isn't there some way of totally erasing her from the system? I don't think I'll be able to sleep knowing about this."

"Mimosa - you don't sleep. Though you will soon."

"What do you mean?"

"She tried to kill you - you are her next target. You are still in danger by being here. You are as disconnected from the mainframe as it is possible to be within the Matrix but by being here you still draw far too much attention to yourself than you want at the moment."

"What are you saying?"

"You are going to masquerade as a human."

"Human?" Stef almost spat. Nothing good ever happened to her when she was 'human.'

"It is only temporarily. It is the safest option until Whitman has once again gone back to semi-existence in the mainframe."

"How long will that take?"

"There is no certain time frame. It could be days, it could be weeks."

"If I'm human I can't fight the rebels. If I'm human I can die." She stared at him when she said the last statement. The last time she had been 'human' she had died. He had killed her. Somehow she had come back, she hadn't known how until a couple of weeks ago.

Jonas had sent her back. Apparently she was too amusing and he hadn't wanted her dead just yet.

"Would you stop acting human Mimosa? And act like an Agent? There isn't a backup copy of your code - you are the only copy. If she destroys it there won't be a Version 2."

"Ok. I'll do it."

"I'm glad to see you approve but you never had a choice in the matter."

"That's nice," she said sarcastically.

"You have to realize that you won't remember any of this. It will be as though you never gone to that meeting with Morpheus."

"You're going to delete my memories?" she asked worriedly, "You said you can't."

He raised a hand and she stopped. "No. They will merely be locked away. The less you know the less attention you will draw to yourself."

"Can I ask you a favor?" He nodded, she didn't speak she just held up her hands showing him the ugly scar tissue.

As her skin started to shift back and become smooth again she went to thank him but never got to form the words.

*****

Stef woke up in her bed. She had been having a strange dream. Hundreds of images had been flashing before her eyes but none had made any sense to her. She surrendered to the logical half of her brain - maybe she should get more than a few hours sleep each night.

She rolled out of her bed. She pulled her quilt back up to some semblance of neatness, which was as close as she ever got to making her bed; trundled over to her desk and turned the computer on.

As her modem dialed up and connected to the Internet she walked into the kitchen and made a cup of weak coffee.

She opened her inbox and checked them as she sculled half the coffee. She had over three hundred unread messages which made no sense at all, she had checked her email only hours ago.

She looked at the dates on them, they made even less sense - they were months into the future. Then again, Stef reasoned as she drained the rest of her coffee and set the cup down, most of these are from hackers. Her hacker friends had a habit of making something as everyday and mundane as email seem interesting; besides loading them with viruses that was.

Her chat window opened, Cat_au_lait was online. Stef turned on her web cam so her friend could see her.

[Where you been Stef?] Cat asked her.

[What do you mean? I spoke to you yesterday? Where's your web cam?] Stef was confused, by her memory she had spoken to Cat less than twenty-four hours ago.

[I spilt some coffee over it. It's being repaired. Where have you been?]

[I spoke to you only yesterday. I just told you that!]

[No you didn't. You haven't been on line for months.]

[Get some sleep. You sound like you need it more than me]

[Stef? When did you make up with your dad?]

Stef frowned, regretting ever discussing her father with Cat; it was still an open wound. [I didn't. I haven't seen that bastard for years.]

[Seeing an older man are we?]

[What are you talking about Cat?]

[Then who is in your house?]

[No-one]

[Turn around]

Stef spun in her seat but as she expected there was no one there.

[There's no one here. Stop trying to scare me Cat.]

[I swear by my 56k that there was someone there]

Stef closed the chat window. At the best of times Cat was a little strange; then again anyone with an alias that was a mix of felines and coffee was bound to be a little off-the-wall. Stef thought she had a more witch-like than cat-like appearance, which wasn't surprising as she always listed her religion as 'Wicca.' The black hair and reflective green eyes had made her decide on 'cat' but Stef still ran with the witch theory.

Deciding that maybe she needed the sleep as much as Cat did she shut down her computer. Just in case Cat had really seen someone Stef pulled a baseball bat from her wardrobe and set it down within an arm's reach of her bed.

She didn't see the man that Cat had seen but as she pulled her blanket up a large black crow landed on the tree outside her window.

As she fell asleep she tried to remember if crows were good luck or bad. In either case they were also a symbol of death. Too tired to debate superstition she fell asleep.

The black crow stared unblinkingly into the little apartment. In his office Smith watched through the crow's eyes. The idea had been inspired by a Christmas present Stef had given Stevie.

It had been a perfect little puppy. Gentle unless someone threatened its master. The crow was no different and it was an unobtrusive way of keeping an eye on his recruit.

Stef had a series of strange nightmares, none of which had been very clear but the random shards of images had disturbed her. As she pulled a bottle of orange juice she hadn't realized that she had had from the fridge she reasoned that she needed to get a life.

She looked around the apartment. It's walls were a calming peachy cream compared to the black or green most of her friends had. The rest of the rooms were comforting. Her room's walls were a slightly different color; then again she couldn't see most of the wall. It was covered in posters and printouts. Her room was her sanctuary, no one else was allowed in there without her permission.

It wasn't like she was poor or anything. She had access to a large trust fund that her parents had been building for a long time before their divorce and she had inherited her mother's money.

Go to college. Some part of her thought, it wasn't like she hadn't been considering it but she hadn't thought seriously about it until just now. In that second she had decided her fate.

She ate her breakfast, got dressed and walked from her apartment toward the computer college on the edge of the city. She dumped her keys into her backpack; it was less than a half hour's walk so she didn't need to catch a bus.

As she walked down the busy street she had distinct feeling that someone was following her. She turned and looked but she didn't recognize anyone and no one appeared to be looking at her. What she didn't see was the crow flying high above her. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, everything appeared to be normal.

She walked across the beautiful campus ground. Some people gave a second look like maybe they recognized her. Or maybe they were just trying to be nice. She walked into the office and got an application form.

The next intake of students as in about a month. Perfect timing, it gave her four weeks to get used to waking at a normal hour and going to sleep before one in the morning. That was of course, if she was accepted in.

She stuffed the application form into her bag and pulled her Discman from the front pocket. She pressed the earphones into her ears and turned the volume all the way up. As Evanescence's 'Tourniquet' ended and 'Bring me to life' started she felt like she was being followed again.

She looked back into the sea of faces but there was still no one that looked familiar or dangerous.

"Call my name and save me from the dark," she muttered along to the song as someone walked straight into her. She fell back and smacked her head on the pavement. "Ow," she groaned. She made sure she could see straight. She didn't have a concussion, she had something worse - the Discman had fallen open and her new CD had been scratched.

The man in a long black trench coat - obviously a Goth looked down at her through very dark sunglasses. "You just wrecked my new CD!" she screamed at him. He seemed frozen to the spot, she looked up - his stare was quite unnerving.

Stef sat up and picked up her CD from the ground. She closed her Discman and looked up at him in distaste. "You are going to pay for that."

In one quick movement he kicked her with his right leg. Stef was propelled into the wall behind her. Looking up at him she rubbed her head and shoulders - this guy was strong. He probably did kung fu or some martial art at least. Several people stopped to watch.

"What's your malfunction?"

"What's your game Mimosa?"

"What are you talking about? Hey! How do you know my name?"

"You seem to be one malfunctioning." He smiled wickedly and drew his gun and aimed it down to her.

"Don't shoot me. I didn't do anything. Help!"

"What are you doing man?" someone asked from the crowd of people that was gathering. Neo wasn't fooled - it was no more than an agent's trick. Stef was too scared to move. Everything seemed to have stopped.

Smith's crow dove from the sky and started to attack Neo. Someone helped Stef to her feet and she ran like hell. The crow only stopped pecking at Neo when the rebel shot it.

He shot his death-look at the crowd. They disbanded and let him through.

Stef was running for her life. She rounded a corner toward her apartment and ran into someone else. She screamed, she had thought it was the man in black. No, as her heartbeat slowed back to normal, this guy was wearing a suit.

"Sorry," she mumbled as she stepped to the side.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah - I'll be fine." She walked around him and walked quickly back to her apartment. She locked all the locks and propped a chair under the handle so the only way to get was to break the door down.

*****

Stef finally fell asleep that night, she had decided that the man in black had simply been insane and wasn't something for her to worry about.

She didn't dream; she woke up in a strange place. It was a room made of scrolling green code. Her mind hurt as her memories came flooding back in. She looked around and saw another human - correction, someone who looked human - waiting there for her. There was a dangerous glint in the blonde's eyes.

"Who are you?" Stef asked even though she had already guessed the answer.

"Carol Whitman," the blond said confirming Stef's worst thoughts. She looked around she really needed to escape. NOW!

"What do you want with me?"

"Hmm.. you're still very human aren't you? You like being an Agent?"

"Yes," Stef answered simply. She was not at all afraid to admit that she was terrified of Whitman. After what she had seen and been through she had good reason to be afraid.

"Wrong answer little one. It is a corruption. It isn't natural."

"Natural? This world is a computer simulation - what exactly is supposed to be natural?"

"Exactly right. It's all wrong."

"You're insane." It wasn't a question. It was a statement.

Carol bobbed her head. "Yes, I am. And I've had fifty-four years to form very strong opinions. Then you come along."

"What do I have to do with anything? It's not like I have been the only recruit."

"As a recruit you were nothing special. When they made you an Agent it woke me up. You have presented me with an opportunity that I wouldn't have had if they had let you stay dead."

"Have you spent fifty years practicing bad dialogue?"

Carol walked up and stared Stef down. Being a couple of inches taller it was easy to do, her glare matched Stef's. "You are going to help me whether you want to or not."

Stef turned to run, not that she would have got very far. Carol grabbed her shoulder and dug her long nails in. Stef tried to pry her hand off but stopped and watched in horror, as Carol's other arm became a stream of code.

Carol grinned evilly as she plunged her code-arm into Stef's chest. Stef screamed as Carol poured herself into her.

It took Whitman a few minutes to take over completely. Once in she had utter and total control of Stef. She had access to everything. Stef was a prisoner in her own body; she couldn't block Carol's access. Carol felt Stef resign herself to darkness.

Stef wouldn't let Whitman of all people see her memories; there were far too many dangerous ones.

Carol Whitman was back in the game and ready to do damage.

She shifted from the code-scroll room and for the first time since she died she took steps in the Matrix. Her walk was a little uneasy and her mannerisms were a little off but otherwise she was functioning perfectly.

Two days later there was a sharp knock at Stef's apartment door. She undid the lock and wasn't at all surprised to see Smith.

"Smith," she hissed. The last two words she had heard when she had been an agent was his voice saying, 'delete her.' There were so many ways she had envisioned killing him. The only problem was choosing one. Not yet, Carol told herself. Soon. The other agent looked at her in confusion, she wasn't supposed to remember anything.

"How do you.?"

"My memory came back."

"Oh." Was all he had to say. It was very strange that she had gotten her memories back but the way her code had been mutated by the information made way for the slight possibility of an error that would have allowed for her memories to be returned to her.

"Can I go back to work now?"

"Whitman seems to have disappeared once again. It should be safe." Carol was ready to laugh in his face. She was standing right in front of him.

*****

Carol shifted back to the Agency with him. He had work to do but since Stef didn't she left and found her way to Stef's room. On the way she passed Brown and Jones.

No one could understand how much she had loved making the taller Agent afraid. She had taken perverse pleasure in destroying him the first time; she couldn't wait to do it again.

That would come soon, for the moment she could creep them out a little. She smiled, half to them, half to herself. What showed on her face was the most enigmatic expression they had ever seen. Part sphinx and part Mona Lisa the combination was indeed unsettling.

Jones was unperturbed but Brown almost stopped walking. He thought he recognized the expression but he reasoned that since the smile was on Mimosa's face it could merely be a human thing.

Satisfied for the moment at least she continued to Stef's room. She was going to finish what she had started fifty-four years ago.

*****

Carol shifted from the Agency and morphed from a rebel recruit in a warehouse. Three seconds later all the weapons in the room were trained on her. Before even they could react Carol whipped out Stef's Desert Eagle and threw it down on the ground in front of her.

"Hear what I have to say first."

Neo stepped forward and the other rebel recruits backed away from the Agent. "What do you want Mimosa?"

"First of all I am not that pathetic excuse for an Agent." Carol thought for a second and changed her physical appearance back to what she really looked like. Her blond hair shimmered as it fell to the middle of her back and her cerulean blue eyes shone forth with a life they hadn't experienced in all those years. Her china doll face pinched itself into a smile.

"I'm Carol Whitman who the hell are you?"

"Come on Mimosa. This is a cheap trick."

"Wait Neo," Trinity said holding him back. "What did you just say?"

Slowly pronouncing every word Carol repeated herself. "I am Carol Whitman. Who the hell are you?"

'So where have you been for fifty years?' Trinity asked.

"Half conscious in the mainframe mostly. How do you know about me?"

"Morpheus told me about you. What do you want with us?"

"You talk to the god of dreams.O-kay, the rebellion has changed since my day."

"He leads our ship. Why are you here?" Neo asked, not knowing who Carol was and still expecting one of Stef's tricks.

"I want to finish what I started fifty-four years ago."

"Which was what exactly?"

Carol looked up to Trinity to explain it for her. "She almost brought down the Agents by herself. She was one of their recruits and she almost succeeded in killing them all."

"You want to try again?" Neo asked.

"I have spent whatever time I could thinking of what I could do to them. You have no reason to complain, it's helping you as well." She looked away.

"They're looking for me. I will come back tomorrow, be here." Carol morphed from the recruit and shifted to the inner city where another band of rebels were trying to escape her 'fellow' Agents. Carol resumed Stef's normal appearance as she morphed from the nearest available person.

She was going to help the rebels by killing the Agents but she was also going to destroy as much of the rebellion as she could so killing a few rebels now would give her a head start.

She required another gun and shot two dead. She saw a young girl with reddish-brown hair break away from the melee and run down a nearby alley. Carol ran at Agent speed and screeched to a stop in front of the teenager.

The young rebel screamed and backed away as Carol raised her gun.

"Stef what are you doing?" Stevie asked in as loud a voice as she dared to use with the other Agents only meters away. Carol had no idea what was going on but started to pull the trigger.

Carol didn't even hear the footsteps before she was tackled to the ground. Stevie took her chance and ran. Carol flung Smith off but he hauled her to her feet and slammed her into the nearest wall. She tried to kick him but he either didn't notice or didn't care.

"What the hell were you doing Stef? You were going to kill my daughter."

Carol smiled her own smile. "This is perfect." She waited for the words to sink into him and she saw his expression change as he realized he wasn't talking to Stef. If he had been human he would have uttered, 'oh god.'

He let one of his hands go and he gripped her face with it. He pulled her head forward and slammed it back into the wall. "Get out of my recruit."

"I don't think so. Not when I have spent all this time thinking of some way to get you back for what you did to me. Forget my ideas, this is perfect."

She shifted out of his grip. "Damn!" he screamed, smashing a hole into the wall before following her.

He appeared in the Agency; Whitman was running down the hall, he followed her. She ran into a room and called Brown and Jones while locking the door to prevent Smith from getting in.

As the other two agents appeared Smith was trying to kick the door down.

"Hey boys," she said to the other Agents.

"Mimosa?" Jones said.

With an almighty crash the door, part of the frame and some of the wall finally gave. Smith stepped over the rubble.

"It's Whitman," those were the only two words he needed to say. Brown took a step back.

"Are you still afraid of me?" She cooed at Brown as she sidled up to him. She wrapped both her arms around his right one. She stood on her tiptoes and whispered, "I'm just going to hurt you," she said as she roughly pushed him back with one hand. She turned and pointed to Smith. "I want him first."

"Delete her," Jones suggested but the three of them were frozen to their spots in fear. Besides Neo Whitman was the only one who was capable of hurting them.

"No!" She said sharply, "I want to bargain for my existence."

One of them made the needed requirement and Carol became human. Smith drew his gun and aimed it at her.

"You want to kill your recruit too?"

"Better than a prisoner."

"Prisoner? There's no thoughts here, when I first got in here I could see her thoughts but no there's nothing. I guess she just accepted it and went to sleep."

"Get out so we can delete you."

She turned away from Smith and started to talk to the other two agents. "There is something you should know about him.." She started to say.

^Do it^ he 'heard' someone say.

Smith fired, the bullet traveled through her back and exited from her chest. Her blood landed on Brown and Jones. Before she died Carol uttered one word, "Stevie."

Smith closed his eyes as a note of regret. But it had been necessary, not only to protect Stevie but also to protect himself and the other agents and anyone else that Whitman had wanted to destroy.

"Why is the word 'Stevie' so important?" Jones asked him.

Convulsing strangely Smith didn't answer. Something jumped from him. A being of pure green code stood in front of them. It head looked down.

"Oh." It flicked its hands and Stef appeared.

"I can answer that," Stef said "Stevie - a nickname for Stephanie was the name of Agent Smith's experiment child. Whitman must have thought the name of some finished experiment was important for some reason. Then again she was insane.." She trailed off when she realized that all three Agents had their guns raised at her.

"What?" She would have backed off but an Agent blocked every direction.

"Who are you?" Smith demanded.

"Whom do I look like?"

"Appearance doesn't matter."

"You think I'm Whitman? You just shot her Smith." Stef looked down at 'her' dead body. Somehow seeing it should have greatly disturbed her but for some reason it didn't.

"Prove it." Jones said.

"How exactly? It seems Whitman had you guys fooled so how exactly do you want me to prove it?"

They looked at each other. They weren't sure of that themselves. Brown took a few steps away and started to whisper to Jones. Stef looked at Smith. She stared at him, her gray-blue eyes asked him to accept the truth of her identity.

Even before Whitman had gone insane she had never been able to look him the eyes, few people were able to. Smith nodded ever so slightly as he stared back at her, he believed her.

Stef smirked, she knew he would accept it before the other two. She nodded at the as if to say 'how do we prove it to them?'

As she heard Brown mumble the word 'recruit' Stef decided that she had been enough for a few days without having to deal with Brown's arrogance.

She walked over to him snarled, "for the last time Brown it is 'Agent' not 'recruit' got that?" She stopped herself before she said anything else, usually she could control her temper. It was integral to her existence that she didn't appear to be too human. The mainframe detested Agents showing human qualities.

She felt like an idiot but didn't back down. She was an Agent and Brown had to recognize that. She wasn't afraid of him. She glared at him; surprisingly all of the suspicion, but none of the contempt, left his expression.

Smith accepted it and Brown accepted it so Jones accepted it.

"How did you.?" Jones started, his curiosity breaking through the uncomfortable silence.

"I pushed all of my conscious thoughts from my body and have been swimming around in the mainframe for the last couple of days. I reasoned that if Whitman could do it so could I. Then I hijacked Smith's code so I could exit."

"A good plan," the tech Agent commented.

"Is she really gone this time?"

All three nodded in unison. "Good," Stef said, "she was one annoying bitch." Just this once she let slang slip in front of Brown but for once he didn't bring it up. He exited the room with Jones. Smith realized that he was still holding his gun quickly he put it away.

"You enjoy shooting me don't you?" Stef asked and Smith just smiled.

*****

Stef sat at her computer looking for recruit possibilities. There were half a dozen fresh recruits in the gym right now. Stef wondered if Smith's statistics were a little off but considering that they had been recruiting for fifty years they were probably right.

Her computer, though it appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary top-of- the-range was in actually one of the fastest in the world as it was tied directly to the mainframe, top speed access without the danger.

She typed a few more keys before it beeped an alert at her. She smiled as the file appeared on the screen. It had located a suitable recruit.

Stef required a physical copy of the file and shifted to Smith's office.

"Another recruit?" he asked, looking up. Stef nodded and dropped the file in front of him.

"Morpheus has already contacted him."

"I see. We would have to move quickly then."

"Their meeting is tonight." Smith rose from his desk signifying he was ready to leave.

"What's his name?"

"Vincent Greer."

The End.