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.
8. Liking It.
Persis watched on the Apollo with a small degree of satisfaction. Smith was understandably unnerved by the emotion she'd displayed in his construct. Want. Yes, that was what she had shown him. To ability to want something. She'd played with the anomalies in him and developed the barely concealed ability to want in him.
She'd made Smith able to feel an emotion.
She realised that Smith had given her purpose. After years of going through life in the real world aimlessly, she had real reasons for living, for entering the Matrix.
Exhaling slowly, she made her way back her cabin. Time, she thought, would only tell if Smith would respond to the want she had. How strange, how strange that the only thing she had truly connected to was a machine, a sentient programme, and that was even before she had undergone the drastic transformation.
She realised that imprinting part of herself onto him had drained her. Wearily, she sank into her bunk and began to dream.
She could still taste him on her tongue. That strangely comforting plastic/metallic taste. Her mouth missed it already.
Persis realised that she liked it.
* * * * * * *
Neso, the Apollo's operator, swung round to face her. Persis leaned, comfortable, at ease on the arm of the seat. Neso cleared his throat.
Persis looked at him. "D'you mind if I try out a sparring programme?"
Neso grinned. "You think you need training?"
Persis grinned back. "I've spent too much time in the Matrix. I need a good old-fashioned sparring programme to sink my teeth into".
Neso nodded. "Anything specific?"
Whirr. Whirr. The humming of the drive being set up always made Persis feel at ease-it was something familiar, something she knew. Hearing it was like coming home and hearing the voice of someone you know, she thought.
Clamp in. Programme up.
Persis opened her eyes. She stood at the entrance of a long corridor. Glass cabinets filled with various historical and valuable artefacts lined the walls. Some individual pillar-like cabinets were free standing at points around the centre of each section of
the corridor. She noticed a pair of fingerless gloves lying on top of one of them.
"Smash and grab, huh, Neso".
The doors at the end of the corridor opened and a hooded figure stepped into the light.
Persis put the gloves on.
"Want me to use my fists or did you include weapons in this?"
In answer to her question the corridor screened itself off with authentic looking Chinese screens with dragons on them. Then the screens disappeared. Persis looked at the walls, now hung with almost every sharp weapon known to man. Mostly Oriental blades and staffs. Persis bounded onto the wall. Defying gravity, she stood at a right angle on the vertical surface while she selected a weapon.
It was a long, dark wooden pole similar to a kendo staff. Possibly mahogany. Inserted in the grooves of the wood were lines of metal. Iron. So that was why it was heavier than she expected. At the end of the pole was a wickedly sharp blade, slightly curved like a sabre, but with a width to its middle more like a cutlass, ending in a finely honed point. An elegant blade, she admired. She dropped to the floor.
Twirling the pole expertly, Persis spun it in front of her and tossed it spinning above
her head before catching it , crouched in a low stance, the pole held above and behind her, the blade almost touching the marble floor. She remained in this position, one
leg stretched out parallel to the pole. She looked up, a challenging look in her eyes.
Persis waited.
The figure removed its hood and lifted its head up. Your average training programme opponent. Typical warrior character. Nondescript hair, menacing eyes, a scowl on his face and scarred profile.
Persis tilted her head up in acknowledgement.
The warrior ran to meet her. She remained crouched till he came within centimetres of her, his broadsword swinging down in a deep stroke to slice her in two. Persis swung the pole round and swinging upwards, blocked his stroke with her blade. The clash of metal rang in the stillness. Persis sprang up and twirled the pole round expertly, swiping at the warrior's stomach as he backed away, fending off the vicious sweep of the blade.
He lifted his sword arm up to strike again. Persis crouched low and stabbed at his legs. The blade impaled his ankle. She drew it out quickly, toying with him. The warrior examined the blood seeping out onto the floor in a small pool. He gave an ear piercing war cry and swung his sword at her unprotected ankles. Persis jumped and the sword struck the marble, shattering into large slivers of metal. Persis hit the floor with the flat end of the pole and holding onto it sideways by her hands, kicked out at the warrior with both legs in the air. He staggered back and Persis skilfully whipped the pole round, dropped on her knee in one fluid movement and plunged it blade first into his chest, her free hand held out to her side to steady herself.
Persis gripped the pole in both hands and lifted the warrior up by it, throwing him over her head in a wide arc. He broke away from the blade from the momentum of the swing and slid across the smooth floor in a heap of robes and blood. Persis tossed the pole backwards, did a backwards somersault and rose up to catch the pole again in her hand.
"Too easy, Neso".
The warrior got up. Persis raised an eyebrow. His exterior quivered and shattered like pane of glass, revealing a lithe black clad woman ninja. Persis leapt up to avoid the spray of spiked ninja stars the woman flicked out at her.
Turning in the air, Persis landed on the side of a wall, again defying the rules of gravity. The ninja did likewise, tensed to spring on the column opposite.
Like birds in flight they took off at each other.
Persis pirouetted in the air, her weapon held out at a right angle from her body, spinning in a protective ring around her. The ninja took out a length of chain and lassoed the pole.
They dropped to the floor, the chain wrapped out the pole. The ninja tugged violently, but Persis, anticipating the action, let the force pull her as well. She slid to the floor, her legs straight out in front of her, and, on her back under the ninja, pushed her feet into the ninja's stomach and, lifting her above her in an aeroplane like move, pulled her weapon, point first downwards. The blade scratched the floor by her ear as Persis loosened one hand to viciously punch her opponent's throat in, and the ninja landed, ungraciously on the floor behind Persis' head.
Persis brought her feet up to her chin, and sprang upright via a perfect Chinese flip. Turning, she watched the ninja's hand slip from her bruised throat and go limp.
This time, Persis expected the change. The ninja morphed into a long haired, long robed figure. Still in black. Persis drew herself up into a preparatory stance, one leg bent at the knee, the foot balanced on the knee of her other leg. One arm held out behind her, set at a right angle, her palm pushing the air. The other holding out the pole, blade first at her opponent's neck.
The figure moved. Persis lunged forward, dropping onto both feet, the questing point of her blade darting at the figure's throat and face.
Quite unexpectedly, the figure drew out a small vial from its robe and, throwing it on the floor, promptly vanished.
Persis blinked. Then, an invisible force that she assumed was a fist hit her square in the ribs, then kicking her upwards, spinning and knocking her down, slightly winded.
Her eyes narrowed.
Sol wandered over to Neso, who sat back in his chair, surveying the ongoing carnage and voicing his approve with occasional chuckles and whoops. Sol leaned over his
shoulder.
"Neso".
The operator practically jumped.
"Sir!"
Sol smiled knowingly. "How is she doing?"
Recovered, Neso wiped his brow and elaborated. "She's surpassed my expectations, anyway, sir-that programme has been the thorn in everyone's side since I wrote it, and she's moving through it like its a fairground attraction".
Sol nodded as if he had expected the outcome.
"I'd like to do a little training too, Neso".
Springing up, Persis bounced from one wall to the opposite one. Balancing cooly on the far wall on one foot, she leaned over and removed a scarf of material tied to the hilt of an ornate sword. Holding her weapon under one arm, she tied the scarf around her head, covering her eyes. Then, securing the knot, leapt blindly from the wall and landed on the floor, the marble rippling around her.
Persis stood silently, and slowly circled the room with her unseeing eyes.
Then, as if hearing an imperceptible sound, perhaps a whisper of material, a rustle of garment, she whirled around, and fiercely stabbing the air first in four points, lunged the blade into the centre of the invisible cross she had outlined and swung it around with some effort at one of the free standing glass display cabinets.
As if hit by a large, invisible flying object, the glass shattered on impact and the shelves in it collapsed. Slowly, the robed figure became visible, lying crumpled in a heap amidst the broken glass.
Persis removed the scarf from her head and smiled, looking upwards.
"Thanks for that, Neso".
A metallic sound behind her made her whip around and slash downwards.
Sol blocked her swipe with an upward stroke of his short pike.
In surprise, Persis paused, mid swing.
Sol took advantage of her temporary shock and cut slyly upwards at the middle of her
weapon with a small dagger, cutting some way into the middle of the pole.
Persis cartwheeled backwards to examine the damage.
Frowning at the cut, Persis savagely broke the pole in two over her knee and held up the two pieces, one with a smoothly pointed blade, the other with a splintered end, a fusion of iron and wood.
She raised one knee up and brandished the implements defiantly.
Sol looked at the floor momentarily, laughing quietly as he did so.
He felt a sensation like a rushing wind in both his ears.
Sol opened his eyes to find himself pinned to a wall by his shoulders. The fabric of his shirt was neatly pierced by the two sharp points of Persis' weapons. He could feel the blade and the keen edge of wood rub against his skin. He expelled a loud breath in shock at the speed and accuracy of the attack.
Persis relaxed. She walked over, and kicking up Sol's discarded pike, tossed it at him. He reached out and caught it, still pinned to the wall. Persis approached him and yanked the fragments of her weapon out of the wall. Sol straightened, rubbing his shoulders as if to make sure they were still intact.
"I take it surprise is the most effective form of attack, huh?" Sol ruefully grinned.
Persis blinked, at a loss. Hearing Smith's words from Sol's mouth made them sound disembodied.
"It is".
"Someone teach you that?"
"Yes, not so long ago", Persis walking slowly away now.
"Well, it looks like they were telling the truth."
Persis turned back to Sol and made to speak. No words came. She looked upwards and continued walking to the door.
"End programme".
* * * * * * *