Chapter 9: The Intrinsic Smith
"Thought is real, physical is the illusion. Ironic, isn't it?"
~What Dreams May Come
After Bane's transfer to the brig, Link went back to analyzing Smith's file logs. Something had caught his eye earlier, but he had forgotten all about it when it was discovered that Bane had been "possessed."
Poor Bane, Link thought as he slowly shook his head. His fingers rattled across the keyboard. There was no way to bring him back. Once they put the Smith copy into the blank construct, they would be left with a dead, mindless body. Link shivered at the prospect, his typing momentarily interrupted.
What a terrifying death that must have been.
There it was again. An abstruse bundle of code flashed momentarily on the screen. He was reviewing data and command subroutines. The bits should have looked clean and uniform. However, every few seconds, what appeared to be groups of error indicators would flicker.
Link leaned forward. No, they weren't errors…
"What the…" he muttered to himself. He paused the stream and sent several frames of bits through the translator. His brow furrowed in disbelief when the resulting subroutine command was listed.
' Call function with parameters
Sub func1 ( )
View "func1 started"
End sub
Sub func2 ( ) .25deg acrimony
Func2 = .25deg acrimony
End sub
Link scowled. Acrimony?
"What the hell is that?" he blurted out. He accessed his dictionary. Acrimony was a synonym for anger.
Point two-five degrees of anger? But wait…it wasn't an originally programmed command. Upon further investigation, Link found that not only had Smith acquired new indoctrination from apparently nowhere, there were also thousands of degrees relative to a plethora of other emotions.
.82 degrees of anxiety
.74 degrees of delectation
1.5 degrees of complacence
Just for kicks, Link watched Smith on the monitor and tried to activate one of the anxiety subroutines. He was given an 'access denied' message. Damn. Those were read-only as well.
*****
Smith wasn't an idiot. He was not oblivious to Link's actions at all. He knew that his enemies had made certain detections. He could feel them probing about his system, prying into his quintessence. He had been exposed. It was all a question of what exactly and how much they had unearthed. For once, he was unsure. He was unsure of what exactly they had found and how they were going to react to it.
When he had first discovered how volatile his emotions could actually be, he knew he needed to find a way to control them…to subdue them. When he was angry for long periods of time, he found that he would become weary and tired out, exhausted almost. Which of course was absurd, since machines did not tire. It took him awhile to realize that the magnitude of feeling that he was experiencing took a large toll on the mechanical systems supporting his program. He researched methods in which humans dealt with emotional issues in order to better control himself. During his studies of human habits of dealing with anger management, he found that the act of painting was quite an effective method for dispersing his antagonism.
He now sat in his cell of no walls or bars, almost doing nothing but paint. He was surrounded by a variety of landscapes that had emerged from his own growing sense of creativity. It was almost as though was trying to construct his own little world.
*****
Morpheus, Roland, Link, and Trinity were gathered around the operating console. They stared at the subroutine commands that Link had uncovered. Three of the four of them were confused and concerned about the ordeal of spontaneously generated subroutines, but Morpheus was ecstatic.
"Don't you see?" he said, excitement building in his voice. He pointed at one of the screens. "There are so many different levels of emotion here. Sentient artificial intelligence is not programmed to that extent. Nowhere near that amount. It's amazing Smith even has enough memory to support it all. It is true that artificial intelligence programs have the ability to learn and develop, but the levels of which he is at…" he trailed off as a look of awe passed over his face. He had come to a realization, and now pointed to the screen displaying Smith in his cell, diligently working away on another painting.
"…He is becoming human."