NOTICE: I do not own the following characters: Agent Smith, Agents Jones and Brown, Neo, or the location Zion. HOWEVER: I do own the characters Persis, Calyx, Priest, Aei, Seefa, Sol, Titus, Neso, Echo, Syenes, Syllis and the ships Antigone and Apollo.
4. Persephone.
Voices. Muffled and indistinct, but voices. Still dark, but-warm. Persis dared to think of Smith as her skin acknowledged the heat in her surroundings. She was too tired to care what it meant to think of an agent in that way. Am I dead? She felt the sensation of a face turning to look at her. She thought it replied in the negative before the darkness engulfed her again.
"She's coming round".
"I know, darling".
"Shall I tell her that you have done something wonderful for her?"
"No-she might not take the adjustments I've made too kindly".
"Cheríe, always so modest".
"Hmm-I did what I could with the emotions I drew from her".
"And?"
"Strangely machine orientated. No, not machine-programme".
"Intriguing, you must tell me more later...Persephone, are you coming?"
"Yes darling".
Persephone.
Who was she? What had she done? Why-
The Apollo drew in near the mountain of rubble. Her captain, the battle weary Sol, gazed in a mixture of sadness and curiosity at the tomb of the Antigone.
"This her last known location?"
"Her last broadcast came from here, sir".
Sol sighed. The Antigone was a fine ship, experienced in numerous battles and had been a key part in defending Zion's mainframe from agents and sentinels alike. She was as stoic as her captain, the enigmatic Persis. She of the fathomless eyes and the thousand mile stare. He remembered the last time he saw her at a meeting with the
Council. Detached, arresting in her beautiful features, the dark tentacles of twisted, black hair reaching down past her shoulders in two thick sets of multiple plaits. To lose such a valuable and able captain, along with her crew and ship, was a tragedy not yet realised in its significance.
"Let's bring her crew home".
"Yes sir".
Persis recalled the fading image of a beautifully painted domed ceiling. An almost exact copy of the Michaelangelo painting depicting God and Adam reaching out, their index fingers touching.
The Apollo scanned the rubble for the heat emissions which would signify the still warm bodies of her crew. Suddenly Sol looked up.
"Sir, there's a weak broadcast coming from the Antigone".
"What?"
"Someone's still hooked into the Matrix. Whoever it is sure isn't dead".
In disbelief Sol consulted the readings. Yes-a pirate signal and a high temperature reading came from the deck of the Antigone. Someone was alive to tell the story of its final broadcast. There was hope yet.
Persis woke up on the hard shoulder of a freeway. As her eyes adjusted to the surroundings, she stared at the lanes next to her, the cars rushing past. She stood up. Scanning her location she noticed a dark limousine pull away from the hard shoulder some feet away from her. There were two figures in the back. Squinting to pierce the tinted windows, Persis thought she saw a face framed by dark, lustrous hair. A beautiful face. But one that she was not entirely sure she liked. She reached for her phone.
"Operator".
Silence. Then, a faint humming.
"Calyx".
What had happened on the Antigone? Persis exhaled in exasperation. Looking upwards, she espied a multilevel apartment building on the side of the freeway. She braced herself for the jump.
"How is she?"
"Stable. We've yet to find an exit for her-its becoming near impossible to get a lock on her, the broadcast is so weak".
Sol looked down at the sculptural figure of Persis. She was still in the Matrix. They had spent hours pulling her from the remains of her ship, painstakingly duplicating the transmission from the Antigone's computer on theirs, fusing the cord, thus wiring her up on the deck of the Apollo . Now they had to pull her back into the real world.
Persis jumped. Or rather, she shot into the sky before sailing, like winged seraph, her
coat tails fluttering out behind her, onto the roof of the building. Breathless and shocked by this new development in her powers within the Matrix, she fell to her knees among the shards of broken tile around her. What had happened? She had been in the Matrix for some time-where were the agents? They would have had her location by now, surely. Why did no-one know she was here? She gazed at the turquoise blue sky and white clouds. A beautiful day. But somehow frighteningly empty.
Smith pulled up in a black sedan onto the hard shoulder of the freeway. He was-piqued-if such a thing were possible, at the events following his fight with Persis. But then Smith had always known he was different, there was something fundamentally wrong in the way he acted and how his train of consciousness worked. Jones and Brown did not comprehend this, naturally. They were puzzled at his adherence to working alone. It defied all sentient programming codes. But back to the human. She had flickered in the booth, half in the Matrix, half out, and then she had collapsed, somewhat unexpectedly, into his indifferent arms, devoid of any signs of life. Suddenly, Smith felt a slight hum in his head. That was normally the signal of another agent being in the vicinity. Even without being wired in he had developed his abilities and retained this locative device. He scanned the freeway. Nothing. Then he looked up. High on the roof of an apartment building crouched a figure. Her dark hair and cream outline contrasted sharply with the blue sky. It was Persis, but why-
Persis got to her feet. Her mind was in turmoil. Who the hell was Persephone, why had she done this shit to her and why was she so-so alone? This was a new sensation to Persis, she who was always solitary and relished the comfort of her own company,
suddenly felt the dead aching of being alone. She felt cut off. Strangely accurate, considering the events on the Antigone. Then, as if a tiny alarm bell went off in her head and hummed into her brain, she felt the presence of an agent.
"Smith".
"-Yes".
The agent looked curious, puzzled even at her statement, made without turning
around or hesitating, as most of these humans did. How did she know? Why had he registered her as an agent? An anomaly in his programming, surely..but that was what Jones and Brown would have said about his other somewhat undesirable characteristics..was this-real? Was the human an agent? Impossible-
"You've come to finish me off properly this time, then".
Smith considered this suggestion. "I don't-"
"You don't-", Persis blurted.
She could've sworn that Smith looked embarrassed. However, the agent soon recovered and resumed his normal dispassionate exterior.
"Something has changed about you, Miss. Carlisle".
Persis blinked, startled. So he had noticed it too. How did Smith know? What had he seen happen to her in the phone booth?
"I had come to the same conclusion, oddly enough".
Smith considered the possibilities. Something exceptionally complex had happened to the human's genetic make-up. He adjusted his shades and peered at her through the dark lenses. Yes-she was not only human. She had changed-she was part human, that much was true-but running intertwined with the vessels in her bloodstream (signified by the streams of green Matrix characters) were the definite streams of the code that his own structure and programme consisted of. She was his alter-ego, his equal, his female counterpart, completely-if not for the fact that she was still-and it made him blink in wonder to think of it-still part human. Still hooked into the Matrix via her ship's computer. Still vulnerable. Strange though it was, Smith had the sudden hankering to press her against him, moulding her to him; his half-twin, his-
"What's happened to me?"
Smith looked at her questioningly. Of course she could not comprehend the full extent of the changes in her very being. He decided to show her.
"Miss. Carlisle, you intrigue me".
"Does that mean you don't know-", and here her eyes narrowed,"-or that you won't kill me?"
Smith walked slowly towards her. She stepped back, tensing her frame, preparing to defend herself, though she didn't raise an arm or shift her stance. In an odd way, it
endeared her to him-although-and he shook the sensation off dismissively-that was impossible.
"Sir, we got trouble".
Sol strode over to the screens.
"An agent".
"Yes. We still haven't pinpointed her exact location, but he's definitely in the same area".
"Get her out of there as quickly as possible"
Sol knitted his brows. This was harder than he had thought.
"You have become unique, Miss. Carlisle, if such a thing is possible within such a perfectly constructed simulation as the Matrix".
"What do you mean?" Persis watched him, slightly turning her head to follow him as he paced frustratingly slowly around her, examining her, occasionally tilting his head to study a particular part of her body. It was a distracting sensation, having Smith take in her features so neutrally.
"You have become a most peculiar..hybrid".
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