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.

10. Finding Out What's Real.

She sat up and found Neso looking at her fearfully. Titus stood, unsure of himself, next to the monitor above her, still holding the clamp. She wiped her moist eyes. Sol stood a little way in front of Neso, his arms folded, his face like a thundercloud.

She slowly rose from the chair and turned to where Neso's gaze was being distracted. On the monitor above her was a freeze frame of the damning image.

Smith and herself locked to one another.

Persis turned to look at Sol. They'd been watching the whole time. Thinking back, she realised. The communications block must have lifted while she and Smith-

She looked at Sol. Fury, plain fury blazed at her from his eyes. He stepped forward menacingly.

"What the HELL did you think you were doing, Captain?"

Persis warily stood up as the lie left her lips, "I was attempting to win one of the agents over to us to ensure that-"

"THE HELL YOU WERE!" Sol shouted.

Persis gave up the pretence, " Smith's different, he's developing human characteristics, he's capable of feeling an emotion just like a person-"

"A PERSON?? HE'S NOT A PERSON, GODDAMMIT PERSIS HE'S A MACHINE, A GODDAMN MACHINE DESIGNED TO KILL US ALL AND YOU-YOU WERE-"

Sol spluttered, unable to finish his sentence due to total incomprehension of her actions.

Persis defended him, yes, she thought, even here, "That's not true-he's not wired in anymore, he doesn't work in conjunction with the other agents or the construct, he has EMOTION, SOL, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS?"

Sol muttered before drawing a bead.

Persis' face was a mask of torment-and...love. And he couldn't stand it.

Sol punched her brutally in the face. Persis fell to her knees on the cold metal floor. Slowly getting up, she looked at him, blood trickling from her lip. Titus made as if to help her up. She waved him away with a hand, her eyes acknowledging his kind

gesture of help.

She lashed out at Sol with the back of her right fist, sending him flying into the solid pipe on the far wall. He looked at her, momentarily in a daze.

Then Sol exploded.

"HE CAN'T LOVE YOU PERSIS!!"

"HE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN THE FIRST UNABLE TO EITHER!!" she screamed back in a terrible voice.

Sol looked abashed, "Persis, I-"

Feeling the tears welling up in her eyes, Persis marched to her cabin and slammed the door . The ship floated before her as the tears suffused her vision.

The secret was out.

* * * * * * *

Days had passed in heavy silence on the Apollo. Her crew were stolid and yet everything carried on as normal. Titus and Neso were often found talking in low voice in the engine room.

They talked mainly about Persis.

Neso and Titus liked her. They admired her bravery, her fighting prowess, her

strength in accepting everything that had happened to her. She was a great captain, this they knew from the Antigone. No crew, no matter how brave, would have waited for their captain to get to an exit for that long, in the face of that much danger, if their captain were not worth half the trouble. She had pulled her weight on the Apollo too, manning the tail guns along side the rank and file crew members and volunteering to deliver messages to the drop off points to notify Zion. She was, as Titus frankly put it, one of the guys, one of the old school.

"He shouldn't have hit her".

"I know".

Titus massaged a stiff wrist, his tough, honest face wrinkling in a frown. "I don't care if its in the Matrix or a sparring programme or whatever. Even if she was as tough or tougher than him; you just don't hit a woman."

Neso sighed reluctantly. "Can't do anything 'bout it now".

"How is he?"

"Captain's been in his cabin for the last three days. No-one's seen him at all. He's just running on plain fury right now".

"Captain Persis?"

Neso wiped his brow. "She's just retracted into herself, man, it's like nothing around her exists anymore".

Titus nodded understandingly, "Well, nothing does, really."

Neso looked up questioningly.

"Well, look at her situation, Neso; her ship's destroyed, all her crew are dead, she's practically-well, she should really be dead instead of running around right now..nothing she earned for herself in the real world exists anymore. The only thing that's real now is-"

"The agent".

"Yeah".