Author's Notes: It's good to be writing again. Band practices and school, have been holding me up. Good news: I finished a story that I had put on hiatus for a year and a half. Bad news: I have another story that's been stuck on hiatus for a few months now. Good news: I'm going to finish this story before restarting this one. I said that I would finish this before Revolutions comes out, and I'm determined to make that happen.
Come Back to Me:
Where are they? None of the agents' scanning came back positive. The only building that the scanners cannot pick up on is this one, and we have enough security to keep track of every disgusting human being so where are they?! Their signal simply disappeared for an instant, then flickered to another location. This program is the perfect design, moderated by every spare programmer we have. I wrote that program, and thus it cannot be disrupted. Every human being is being watched, controlled, and tolerated at this point. All but two. Damn them.
In the beginning, the perfect world was so easy to maintain. Everyone loved one another, and everyone lived in peace. I then created one flaw, one imperfection that almost led to my demise. I made one mistake, and it nearly cost me everything I have worked for. Curiosity had gotten the better of me, even I cannot deny that, but it soon spread to obsession. What if the world wasn't such a perfect place for these ineffectual humans? Wouldn't it be interesting to watch them hunt each other?
It was simple really; I only needed to loosen my grasp on their pitiful subconscious. Let my hold on them slip suddenly. One click of a key, and it was done. One click of a key, and I was damned to hell for eternity. They started thinking for themselves, and I couldn't regain control. The order now reined chaos in every city, every town. Disputes soon turned into wars, and there was only one thing I could do. I made the perfect machines like myself, but ones that had no minds of their owns. They might not have been agents in the beginning, but they were viruses that spread like wildfire.
There were few that defied out attempts, but those few what were formed the resistance. That resistance nearly brought us to our knees that very first time. It hadn't been expected, and that turned very quickly into a fatal flaw. We were no longer fighting their minds; we were fighting them physically. Worst yet, they were the get in, get out type. They nearly cost our perfect system to crash, and I had redesigned the program from scratch. The only things that kept us running was the billions of humans we still had under our control. They hadn't died; they had merely blacked out and waited for our next command.
Dependence. We had crushed the resistance, but we still depended on them as they had depended on us for thousands of years. The bitter irony would have left a metallic taste in my mouth if I had a mouth. One would always control the other, but the other always resisted. It was futile for the moment, but eventually they might break free of the strong grasp. The next five worlds always ended up in the same, with one man that had the powers. That one man was always responsible for the downfall of Zion, but Zion had been getting bolder. They were attacking from inside the matrix with technology that was not from their time. Every time, the One had chosen to save humanity over Zion. It had been easy to recreate the program based on that alone. Not this time. This time alone, the One had chosen his beloved over humanity. Damned the consequences and in his ignorance, had succeeded in saving those close to him and humanity. How could he have known that we couldn't live without the humans?
The one could and would not be allowed to live. The final battle was coming, he could feel it in the very fibers of his bones. Wires, same thing. The world was turning, lighting flashed unusually so. For the first time, he could not tell the final outcome. The only thing clear was that the drastic battle for humanity was approaching. A new twilight was approaching as the sky darkened into the blackest of nights overhead. The stars revealed nothing as they usually did, and the ground shook beneath him. How could the program be deteriorating this fast? Looking out the darkened window, he growled as he found no agents in sight.
Slamming his hand down on the keyboard in front of him, the Architect glared at the monitors. It showed the pinpointed location of the One and one of his companions, but they were steadily moving away from the agents. When the dots finally stopped, he growled in frustration. It showed them to be right of top of his location, but how could they be that stupid? They weren't, which meant another flaw in his near perfect design. The agents showed to be combing the entire city, and they were starting to branch out in the different directions. Even with the agents, he was the greater threat. They wouldn't go closer to him to get away from the agents. Or would they?
When he first met the One of this time, he knew there was something different about him. He shrugged it off as possibly the One accepting fate sooner. He should have seen the difference before it happened. The One was not supposed to save the ones he had come to known outside of Zion. The One was destined to try and save Zion, but this time there was a difference. He hadn't been trying to save Zion at the last minute after the wrong choice. He had only cared about saving his love who should have died a slow and painful death. The One had never discovered the powers of life and death until now.
He had risked everything for one person. Why? He had always understood the simplicity of the human mind. It was what made them easy to control, and control was easy to maintain once in his grasp. One choice, one moment, one man. The consequences should have been easy to maintain even under the circumstances. The virus hadn't been expected of Agent Smith, but it had temporarily worked to his advantage. He had sent machines to destroy their ship except it had backfired in a way that was completely unexpected. It had been thousands of years since his last plan had gone wrong, and that was the start of the rebellion.
He headed to the stairs that led to the very top of the building. He had some reports to process, none of which were good by the sounds of it. Besides, he needed more time to think, and he had to find those blasted agents. They were supposed to be doing their jobs, now where were they?
My life used to be simple. Day in and day out, I would jump from host to host in search of the resistance. Occasionally, I would find one and the chase would be on. Only those of Morpheus' crew would elude me every time. They were the only human beings not entirely inferior to me. Their intelligence surpassed even mine when it came to strategy and concept. We might find their poor targets, but we would get there first. They would always come out alive. That was until Mr. Anderson and the betrayer Cypher. There's always a leak in security.
Mr. Anderson wasn't someone extraordinarily special. Yes, he had broken every law we had set out when under the alias of Neo, but hundreds, even thousands of hackers did that everyday. It was not an uncommon occurrence to us that happened completely followed the directions Morpheus had been giving him. They had successfully 'bugged' him, and threw him back into his home. He was just another hacker, another person who disrupted the code of the matrix for his own purposes. They had severely underestimated his importance in the scheme of things.
It was very rare for even Morpheus to pursue a hacker once they had been marked. They had him debugged and woken up from the matrix. Did they know something that the Architect did not? Slim chances, but it was possible even from the confines of this created world. Unsure of this, I tempted Cypher with the chance of getting out of matrix. We needed the access codes, and was the leak. We could have actually gotten him out of the matrix of course, but we probably would have thanked him and killed him. Why keep him around when he was no longer useful to us?
Another ten minutes and we would have gotten the codes. Our informant was too cocky for his own good. Half the ship was killed, but it left Mr. Anderson and Trinity. Two capable fighters on a suicide mission was bad enough. Two capable fighters on a suicide mission with nothing to lose was worse. They almost blew the building out of the sky before an agent intercepted them. I never knew how he was fast enough to dodge those bullets before he became the One, but I really have to thank him for it.
They got Morpheus out alive, and the loss didn't really affect me all that much. The Architect might not be in the happiest mood, but Mr. Anderson was the only one I wanted. By this time, he interested me; he gave me a purpose to stay in this world just a little while longer. I must admit that had I been human, he would have killed me down in the subway station. Instead, I tracked his destination and waited. It didn't take long with my companions herding him towards me. It gave me great satisfaction to kill Mr. Anderson. When he tore the body I was residing in apart, I don't know where I ended up.
All I knew was, Mr. Anderson had freed me. I could now travel through the matrix and out of the matrix at will. I now found that I could multiply myself as well. I now only had one purpose, but after awhile it became an obsession. I needed to fight Mr. Anderson again, but I was not yet strong enough. I gathered an army of myself starting with Bane. I didn't myself to him, but I split my coding to interfere with his. One by one, I multiplied myself. Then, the fateful day came upon us as I challenged Mr. Anderson in the park. Nothing could have prepared me for the rush of emotions escalating from every part of me.
I knew that Mr. Anderson had had gone up in power, but I didn't know that he could take all of me on at once. I also didn't know yet that he could fly. The One can't be undefeatable because the Architect wasn't foolish enough to program him that way. He was damn near to it though. I tried to turn Mr. Anderson into another one of me, but he wouldn't turn quite as easily as Bane did. Instead, he nearly destroyed the parts of me that tried to turn him. I guess we are truly meant to stay enemies then.
I kept track of him while he searched for the keymaker. I watched with interest as he stopped bullets in midair, and flew a couple hundred miles form the mountains back to New York City. Always study your opponent before making an attack. I made that mistake once, and I would not do that again. Following Neo, Morpheus, and the Keymaker I tried to turn Morpheus into another one of me. Unfortunately, Mr. Anderson had to be there to save his captain. I couldn't meet the Architect again for obvious reasons. I didn't want to be some specimen for my old boss to study. Machines shouldn't study other machines; it was unethical.
Well, I'm no longer a machine anymore, am I? Today was the first time I had seen Mr. Anderson in a month or so. I've seem to have lost track of time while floating around programs. I very well near ran into the oracle the other day. Seems I make a habit of running into betrayers. Or maybe they're just attracted to me because I used ot deal with all sorts of riffraff. Did I just use a human slang term? Just the thought of using any form of their decrepit language makes me shudder inside. Or, wait. I can't shudder, can I? All this human philosophy is going to my coded database that should no longer exist.
I'm not exactly sure what I am now. I was a contaminating virus according to my old database, but now that Mr. Anderson has set me free, maybe I'm a spreadsheet that updates itself. I could even be a program in my own right, but that would put irony to the test. The only place I cannot travel is Zion. Not a single one of me can reach inside its devastated walls without being decapitated by a hundred machines. I know that there's a lot of me, but I would like to stay in one piece. The sheer power of the place could kill any human within a hundred miles. So, I sent a signal out to Morpheus' ship for help. I was only curious to see if they would respond.
Of course, they didn't. The rest of me is looking for Mr. Anderson at this moment. Come out, come out, wherever you are. There is no one in this city with coding exactly like Mr. Anderson, you must understand this by now. I should be able to spot him a hundred feet away. Thus, I know exactly where he is right at this moment. However, unlike Mr. Anderson, I am not on a suicide mission. I am not going to march up to the Architect and tell him to kill me because I give up. How can I see him, and no other agent can? Because I'm looking directly at the main database for the matrix. It even looks as Mr. Anderson knows exactly what he's sitting on. I hope he has more than a C-12 to blow up the place this time. Maybe I will be truly free by then.
The ground looks as if it is shaking. I wonder why? The programs run on a main program, and that main program looks fine. What are you up to Mr. Anderson? I do not believe you actually think you are going to face the Architect and come out unscathed. Tsk, tsk, Mr. Anderson. When running from agents, you do not run to the Architect. Even you can not use the advantage of surprise. And putting your lady friend in harm's way as well. What must you have up your sleeve? I would have thought you would have tried to get out of the matrix by now.
For now, this will be goodbye, Mr. Anderson. The last time I said these words, we ended on mutual terms. I killed you, you killed me, and yet we are both alive today. Stay alive Mr. Anderson because we have a fight to finish. If you do get yourself killed, don't expect me to cry over it though. I have a few people to find.
Author's Notes: Wow, I thought this chapter was going to sound forced. It actually brought me out of my writer's block. This is the last chance for plot requests. Do want one last fight between Neo and Smith? Persephone to get her ass kicked by Trinity? Merovingian to work his way back into the plot? The last just gave me an idea…..
Responses:
Lovewildfire: Ok, I ended up splitting the chapter instead of doing two chapters. I agree with you on the first person. It gave the chapter more background form firsthand experiences. I try to keep things interesting for the readers. A story that is easy to predict is no fun at all.
Satiana: You'll get to see the third person pov on the Architect in the next chapter. I kinda left you guys on too much of a cliffhanger, but the next chapter will be out next week. Definitely be some Architect/Trinity interaction. Not with the screens though. Even if I did get the Architect to turn around, and Trinity to go after him, there would be too much repeating dialogue to write. It would probably get boring after awhile.
Aquarian Wind: Was it interesting? I hope so. If not, there will be plenty of action next chapter. I already have it planned.
Sorry if I missed someone. Some of my reviews keep getting deleted for some reason.