AUTHOR'S NOTE: Warning. Much angst lies ahead.
Morithil.
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.
14. Exiles.
Narada closed his books at the end of what had been an extremely long evening. He gathered his soft, somewhat worn robes around him before leaving his office. He plucked idly at the sleeve of his tunic, which had begun to lose threads and was growing at least a couple of millimetres shorter every hour.
There had been a meeting with the Council just a few hours previous, when he had been attempting to get all the records up to date. Why, he didn't know. With possible battle on the docks of Zion approaching with every second, it seemed nothing short of ridiculous to be concerned about book keeping. But, still; in case the world didn't end, his office would be waiting for him, as organised and tidy as it always was. And it wasn't as if the fate of Zion was completely decided, after all. There had been a message from Neo.
The Council had been called together; he had been summoned, as had every captain of the fleet's numerous ships.
The Exodus had been discovered. It had been thought that the disc had been destroyed by the sentient programmes the fighters called the agents. As it turned out, the disc had been in the possession of an agent all this time.
The agent that had once been Persis. A face from the past.
My brother's past, Narada shook his head, not mine. It had been difficult keeping up with the abundant information that the man believed by some to be the One had sent. Persis had been dead. For some, inexplicable reason, the machines had resuscitated her body and plugged her back into the Matrix, at least, that was the theory. Somehow she'd recovered her memories of who and what she had one been and now it appeared that she was willing to help set the countdown to the destruction of the Matrix.
It was all too much to take in during two hours.
Firstly, that there was a disc with the power to set in motion a self destruct mechanism from within the Matrix. Secondly, that the superiors in Zion had been plotting to retrieve the disc to destroy the Matrix. After that, the entire condensed version of the reappearance of Persis into the Matrix and her time as a sentient programme, for the greater part. And after that, it got even more complex, the twists and turns in the progression of events that even Narada found challenging to keep up with. Another agent-no, wait, Neo had stated that-what was its name? Smith, was no longer an agent of the system and effectively a rogue programme, had reinstalled the details of Persis' life as a human, and as a hybrid of human and programme into her system, completely restoring her memory and reverting part of the process used to make her an agent. For what reason? Narada closed the door and clicked the latch into place. And now, her memory recovered, Persis, back from the dead, back from the ignorance of her sentient existence, back as a hybrid, had offered to activate the disc within the Matrix herself and destroy the lie that was the simulated reality of the world the machines created to enslave mankind.
It was small wonder that the leaders were skeptical of her motives. The woman was still, for all appearances and purposes, an agent. Part programme. She had retained most of the features of a sentient programme and was still considered dangerous. What to believe? Who to believe? But Neo had accepted her proposal. So that made her offer legitimate. Didn't it?
Narada wandered down towards the direction of the docks to check up on another patient. Bane, another of the soldiers from the fleet, had two deep cuts across the palm of his hand that ran the risk of infection. All in a day's work, Narada thought.
But when would it ever end?
********
Persis ran up the steps leading to the motel room she and Smith had been occupying. She noticed that the door which Johnson had broken had been replaced with a new one, so new that the safety tape left by the workmen who had installed it still hung from the corners in tatters.
She pushed the door open gently.
Smith stood in the centre of the room, the pale morning sky obscured by the drawn curtains covering window, his back to her. The room was darkened. Persis closed the door behind her softly to give herself more time to take in his form as he stood facing away from her. For no apparent reason, she remembered leaving the room the last time she'd been in the Matrix as a freed mind. She'd told Smith then that she couldn't stay with him. She'd found herself crying and smiling by the time she'd reached the exit. Tears of joy and sadness. She cleared her throat pointedly.
Smith looked partly over his shoulder at her. She saw the dark octagonal outlines of his sunglasses. Misgiving gnawed a hole in the back of her mind. She'd felt the same after getting in the car after seeing-
"What?".
She voiced the question assertively but predicted she would spend the next few moments either talking her way into submission or fighting for more than just her own existence.
"I trust you had a pleasant conversation with Mr. Anderson".
"Smith-"
"I always understood that humans were full of little contradictions, nuances in the make-up of their personalities, their characters full of undesirable traits, different shades of their morals-"
He turned slowly round to face her, hands clasped behind his back. Persis fought to quell the tiny voice begging her to throw down the disc at his feet and make him stop addressing her in the icy manner normally reserved for others. Not her.
"-negatives to their alleged good attributes. However-", and here he paused for maximum effect, "-I never considered dishonesty to be one of yours".
Persis gripped the door handle behind her hand and for a second the brass threatened to give way and disintegrate beneath the sheer brute strength in her clenched hand. Oh, but that cut. Hearing him say that had the same adverse effect as being slit to the bone with a sliver of metal.
"Do you question my loyalty?"
Smith actually laughed. But, and Persis noted it with a degree of guilt, it was a sharp metallic sound shot through with bitterness and disbelief. Oh Smith, she thought, you opened that file and suddenly you're the one being betrayed.
"No, I do not question your loyalty, Miss Carlisle, because it appears you have no loyalty. You flit between sides, man and machine, with a remorselessly haphazard attitude that even a double agent would be proud of. No pun intended".
He was being deadly serious. His mouth was firmly held in a line of resolve.
"What about the Matrix?" Persis asked, her voice sounding small and insignificant in the face of Smith's contained but potent fury.
He remained stolidly silent.
"Take your glasses off, Smith"
"For what purpose?"
"Because I want to see your face".
He removed the dark glasses slowly and pointedly before returning his gaze to hers. Persis could see the glimmer of threat in the cold blue orbs. She almost sighed.
"What about the Matrix?"
"I used to marvel at it, its detail, its beauty, its genius. That changed".
"Humans".
"Yes. You came, you settled, you bred like locusts and spread out across the planet abusing your resources as you did so. I hated you".
"Do you hate me Smith?"
He momentarily dropped eye contact.
"I suppose that leaves me alone. So much has changed". - Persis almost spat, feigning scorn when all she could feel was pain, "You were the splinter, Smith. And you know something? You stuck in me, right here, under my skin".
Smith looked incredulous.
"Am I right in assuming that you sought to include me in this attempt to save the remaining humans left in that festering wound that calls itself Zion? You grievously misunderstand my purpose-"
"What purpose, Smith? You exist to destroy Neo, to destroy the One, and what then? Even if you do succeed in your personal vendetta against him what does it leave you with? You will still be here, Smith, you will still be trapped here, in the Matrix. What will you be fighting to destroy then? The whole world with you in it? WHAT WILL YOU BE FIGHTING THEN, SMITH, WHAT? WHAT WILL BE YOUR PURPOSE THEN?"
"What is the purpose of humanity?" Smith returned scornfully, as he paced slowly around her, dissecting her with his piercing glare, "You destroy what you create, you forge the foundations of your own destruction and then you have the audacity to blame the intelligence you have made yourselves. You brought your doom on your own heads, time and again you prove yourselves to be incapable of ceasing to be wasteful, destructive, ignorant or repeating your mistakes which you refuse to learn from. Humans are a disease, a virus of this-"
"And what am I, Smith? A disease? A virus in your system? Tell me, I'd appreciate the knowledge of what you consider me to be".
Smith's previously tight-lipped expression turned into a snarl. He turned away from her and stood facing away from her questioning look. Persis realised that he was practically sulking. How much had opening the file on her changed him? Smith was certainly acting like a person betrayed-but then, he was. She had helped his nemesis, Neo, and Smith was almost certainly hurting because of that.
She stepped towards him, standing next to him, taking in his profile but not touching him, much as she wanted to. She could feel his breath quicken and her eyes began to smart as she beheld how much more human and much more powerful he had simultaneously become. He was a striking contradiction. But then so was she.
"We're exiles, Smith. You and I. We don't seem to belong here. The only difference between us is-is that you're intent on destroying both worlds, machine and the Real. Don't tell me otherwise, Smith. I know you. I know you're powerful enough to do that. You want to destroy two worlds. I want to save one. I may not fit in with other humans, particularly now, but I feel I have a duty, I can't deny what part of me still is. I'm not asking you to help me. I never expected you to, for obvious reasons. All I hoped is that you would try to comprehend why I'm helping them".
"Why must you help them?"
"Because it's the right thing to do. I can't abandon the rest of humanity to be annihilated by the sentinels, nor can I leave the rest to eke out existences that aren't real. I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do."
"Define right".
Persis was silenced. A look of intense concentration she put on to veil her true emotions stole across her calm face. She admitted defeat.
"You are unable to define what it is. You expect me to allow you to carry out this move to aid the rebels when your reason is neither logical nor remotely concrete. You are unable to explain why because the reason, if you could call it that, is inexplicably human, intangible and cannot be relied upon ".
"Define love".
She doubted even Smith was unable to feel the air between them spark with electricity. Point taken. Smith turned to her and grabbed her face aggressively in both hands, looming over her, unable to keep from venting his frustration, his anger at so many things; why was she doing this? Why did it affect him so strongly, and why did that amazingly painful sensation keep returning when he saw the effort she was putting into keeping tears at bay?
" Why must you stand in my way? Why must it be you that is my only obstacle in obtaining my freedom? "
Persis shook her head as far as the tight grasp he had on her face allowed. For the longest time Smith had been the only thing that was real to her. But there was a lot more at stake than this. There was a world, a population that needed saving, needed one last chance. Who was she to deny them that? This was her only chance at forgiveness for what she had done. Her words flooded back to her.
Yes, my motives are purely selfish.
Could an act be selfish and selfless at the same time? She had to choose between freeing Smith and freeing all humans. She had made that choice when she'd left him in the dark of the early morning. She looked up, stricken.
"Why don't you just HATE ME , SMITH? WHY? HATE ME! MAKE THIS EASIER TO DO THAN IT IS, YOU CAN KILL ME NOW SMITH, WHY DON'T YOU? WHY CAN'T YOU JUST HATE ME AND MAKE THIS PAINLESS FOR BOTH OF US? HATE ME! DON'T-DON'T-"
Don't love me, Smith. Don't say you can reciprocate that. Because love impedes your judgement, your resolve wavers. You lose everything.
With great deliberation Smith lowered his hands from her face. He replaced his dark glasses and made for the door.
Persis heaved back a wrenching sob, feeling her very being turn to iron, feeling herself grow cold and distanced. There was no going back now. She had made her choice. She donned her dark glasses as well, so that it in the relative darkness it became near impossible to watch him go.