NOTICE: Unfortunately,I do not own any of the original characters from the Matrix trilogy. HOWEVER: All other characters in this fanfic do belong to me, as they're all products of my overactive imagination.
8. The Footbridge
So there was still hope.
She stood up again. Smith remained at the other end of the footbridge. The only sound was that of the cars speeding down the motorway beneath them.
Smith walked towards her. The agent took a step back at his approach, but he remained a small yet neutral distance from her.
"You still remember. The construct couldn't separate you completely from what you'd experienced".
Carlisle's voice was cold, "Remember what?"
Smith grabbed her by the shoulders, "You were human once. You became a hybrid, a fusion of machine and human".
Carlisle laughed metallically.
"It appears that you have more than one anomaly in your programming, Smith".
"Then we are both similarly flawed".
Carlisle scowled menacingly, but she knew that he was right. She just didn't like it.
"I may be flawed, Smith, but I know what the truth is".
"I'd forgotten how stubborn you were", Smith grinned.
"You didn't know me before, Smith".
"Are you so sure?"
Carlisle struck him with the dead force of her fist. Smith stepped back and sighed knowingly.
"Enough of the small talk, then, Miss. Carlisle".
Smith lashed out at her face, his arm swinging in a perfect arc at her jaw. Carlisle ducked the blow and began a brutal assault on his jaw, her arms repeatedly punching with the frightening speed of an agent, a speed only matched by Smith as he fended off her blows with similar ferocity and skill.
"Agent Carlisle" she scowled.
They fought tirelessly as the machines did, exchanging punch for punch, blow for blow, kick for kick.
Their fists circled in endless spheres, becoming blurs of white tipped knuckles. Carlisle leapt into the air and executed a sharp spin kick at Smith's head before landing perched on the narrow railing of the bridge.
She balanced calmly on the small surface area, cars rushing past at deadly speeds some feet below her.
Smith raised an expectant eyebrow.
"You can't beat me, Carlisle".
She frowned. Smith could almost sense the piercing look that she glared at him with from behind the dark lenses of her glasses.
"I was not programmed to destroy other agents".
Smith chuckled in spite of her tone, "Yes, but that's not what's stopping you from at least trying to...finish me off".
Carlisle blinked. Damn those memories that always emerged at the most inopportune moments. Those words were so familiar, so-it was a trick. He was tricking her, trying to make her more vulnerable so that he could attack her. The construct would not approve of her hesitation.
Carlisle jumped from the railing and descended from the space above Smith. She spun as she landed, kicking him squarely in the chest. She turned and backflipped, her feet kicking out at his head as she did so.
Standing up again, she drew out her gun and fired repeatedly. Smith dodged the onslaught of bullets with ease. He drew his and did likewise.
Carlisle dodged the oncoming bullets with similar detachment.
Till both their clips were empty.
She tossed her gun over the side of the bridge. Smith discarded his in the same fashion.
"I'd like to talk with you about something".
"We have nothing to discuss, Agent".
"Hmm".
"We don't".
There was a strain in her otherwise electronic voice. Something verging on desperation, as if she was trying to deny something she knew was true.
Smith noticed.
"You still have traces of memories, don't you? You can still recall images, fleeting
glimpses of people and events that happened before. You were not created by the construct. You were modified by it. They changed you, they made you into an almost complete sentient programme, but they couldn't erase everything you had once done, isn't that correct?"
Carlisle almost trembled. How did he know? How could Smith possibly know?
She still remembered. Faces. Feelings. Events. Words. Always the words.
"No. I recall no such things, Agent, and even if this were indeed possible, I have forgotten all these so called memories of which you speak". So she could lie, too.
Smith reached down for her hand and gripped it firmly in his, intertwining their fingers together.
"Maybe so. But you haven't forgotten this".
Smith pressed their palms closer together and let the file he had reopened copy into her system.
Carlisle froze. There was something familiar about that gesture, that bonding of hands. As if she had felt it before. Smith. She knew him. She had known him before. She had lived differently, she had been alive before, before she emerged into the Matrix as another agent, another machine. The thoughts gradually built up into a complex montage of memories that had previously been just fragments of images. A ship. The deck of a ship. Hers.
Her face took on a look of recognition.
Then the realisation hit her. It flooded through her like a tide of emotions and sensations.
She inhaled sharply.
Her hand, still in Smith's, began to glow around the tips of her fingers.
The power she used to have. That conflict in herself.
She had always been alone.
The previously still body encased in a pod miles away, on of millions in the human fields, began to stir. The machines had kept it alive, resuscitated it when it had fallen through the gaping hull of the ship Apollo, reprogrammed its memory, and attempted to recreate it as one of its own. An agent. Her past life blocked out.
But some things could never be forgotten.
Carlisle gripped Smith's hand tighter to aid the flow of memory. Yes, she thought, yes I want to remember who was the human was I her was I human before all this was I able to feel did I ever love anything-
And then, all at once:
Captain Persis of the Antigone reporting for duty..Priest, get the tail guns manned and quickly..Calyx are we online?..Seefa watch out for agents in there and be careful..Aei what the hell happened in there is everyone out..
..Calyx I need an exit...That was damn close, Sir..yes I know..you're an agent...nothing's inevitable...don't let me go this feels like I'm being torn..I feel corrupted...Persephone....how could you possibly understand Sol...thank you Titus...Now there's an emotion present that you can feel...you'll want to see me again Smith...Are you sure?...he's different, he's becoming more human...HE CAN'T LOVE YOU PERSIS!..HE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN THE FIRST UNABLE TO EITHER!..Neso,...Please, Smith, don't...it's a shame I have to take it back..I'd wandered aimlessly without knowing..why I was here and you-
Carlisle closed her eyes in pain. It was overwhelming. From having no feelings to experiencing this blizzard of every human emotion possible was an almost unendurable pain.
Pain. She'd known that before. Pain. Loss. Loneliness. Despair. Hope. Want. Guilt. Death. She'd known-
-CALYX PRIEST AEI SEEFA HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN CALYX HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN PRIEST AEI SEEFA HE'S A KILLER A KILLER AND SO ARE YOU SO ARE YOU PERSIS YOU'RE THE SAME AS EACH OTHER EVEN MORE SO NOW YOU'RE A KILLER YOU MURDERED YOUR CREW YOU BURIED THE ANTIGONE CAPTAIN PERSIS SMITH IS YOUR EQUAL YOU'RE PART OF HIM
BOTH OF YOU YOU'RE LIKE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN JUST ADMIT IT PERSIS YOU LIKE HIM YOU THINK HE'S SOMETHING MORE THAN A MACHINE YOU THINK HE'S SPECIAL DIFFERENT YOU WANT TO FIGHT HIM
AGAIN BECAUSE IT MAKES YOU FEEL ALIVE IT MAKES YOU FEEL THAT YOU'RE NOT ALONE-
The suffering she'd undergone was so great.
She was Persis. Persis. She had killed everything she'd worked for. She'd lost everything. Because of Smith.
The scene before her dimmed out and suddenly she was encased in a pod filled with a grotesque pinkish gelatin substance. She pressed frantically against the unforgiving sides of the transparent prison, registering the horrible truth that the machines had kept her alive, prolonging her existence to continue their experiment. She looked wildly around her and saw the millions of humans similarly caged, slaves to the Matrix.
She fell onto one knee, still holding onto Smith's hand as if her life depended on it. Ironic, she considered, given that she had been dead for years.
"Agent Carlisle", Smith's voice had a questioning air.
She pushed him away and stumbled against the railing before gradually rising.
She pulled her shades from her face and threw them over the side of the bridge to be crushed by the cars below. The sights and images of the scene before her returned.
"I-I.."
"-I was- I'm not an agent I'm not an agent I'm still human Smith what have they done to me what-"
She collapsed to the ground. Smith realised that tears were running down her face as if for the first time in years, a look of intense anguish imprinted on it.
"WHY AM I STILL HERE?? I WAS DEAD I WAS DEAD, SMITH WHY DID THEY BRING ME BACK WHY DID THEY DO IT? I WAS DEAD I HAD-I HAD DONE ENOUGH I WAS-I WAS-"
Her voice trailed off from the tearing, broken cry.
Smith walked to her and helped her up. She was weak now, and clung to him as if for comfort.
"Alive".
His voice comforted her, calmed her. She inhaled slowly.
"Why Smith, why? I was human, I was no use to them.."
Smith shook his head. "I don't know".
Persis looked at him. "I can't do this anymore".
The agent nodded.
Persis gently pulled his sunglasses off. She looked into his eyes as if for the first time. That day on the roof. She could almost feel the breeze that had fanned her face.
"What do you want?"
She smiled through the painful tears at him, the dried blood of the rebels she'd killed running in rivulets down her cheeks.
"Too much, it seems".
And with that she turned on her heel and ran as fast as she could away from him, ran away from the bridge, away from what she couldn't face and disappeared in the distance.
********