Disclaimer: Agents Smith, Brown, Jones, Morpheus, Trinity, et al. and the
wonderful world of the Matrix are property of their respective copyright
holders.
Like Them
Chapter 1
"Well, are you coming?" Agent Brown asked his superior officer, looking at him through his dark lenses, despite the bleak, dim fluorescent lighting of the office they were in. Agent Smith, who had been generally ignoring the conversation that had been taking place between Brown and Jones, realized the question was directed at him and looked up from the computer terminal he was staring at.
"Explain to me again precisely why I would want to go to a social event?"
"The Mainframe has dictated that we programmes act and behave as humans do in a quest for further understanding and blending into the Matrix. I don't see why I need to keep reminding you this." Brown's tone was slightly annoyed and he paid for it through an uncomfortable twinge in his earpiece.
"Programmes are 'marrying' other programmes and having 'children' programmes. We've all been given human images and tasks to perform in the Matrix for a reason. The Keymaker makes keys, you know this. The Merovigian controls programmes. The Architect constructs the Matrix. We patrol the Matrix, and so on. We must obey, Smith." Jones also received an even more uncomfortable twinge in his earpiece.
"Nothing in the directive from the Mainframe has specified that we must go to these events. Just that we must do our jobs and make an effort to blend in. When I am not on an assignment I prefer to spend my time here monitoring their movements. As I wish you both would as well." Smith regarded his subordinates and shook his head. They were both very capable, however he knew that his software was superior in every way.
He didn't choose to download the optional updates from the Mainframe directing human interactions and customs, as he felt they would jeopardize his work. And if there was one thing that Smith loved, it was his work. The fear in a Resistant's eye when they realised that Smith was on their track. Dodging their feeble attempts at shooting him and busting their fragile limbs when they dared attacking him. Smith loved what he was - a machine. Programming built for one thing - controlling a population, preserving his survival, and the survival of other programmes and machines. He had no time or desire to "understand" them, or learn their customs. Of course he got lonely sometimes, being in this world was such a drain on him, but he wasn't going to rest or weaken until he had won. Not them, He. Smith. He was leading his own personal war on Resistants, and was not going to tolerate any weakness on his team, especially in himself.
"You have not downloaded the updates, have you?" Jones winced as soon as he spoke the words.
"No, and I have no need to. They won't add to my job in any way. I updated three months ago with the latest combat training and communication protocols." Smith glanced back at his screen. No activity. The Resistants were quiet for once.
"You do not like it but the Mainframe wants us to act like them, Smith. You cannot fight it." Brown said. He removed his earpiece ahead of his discipline to avoid it.
"I will act like them the day I mistakenly download a heart instead of a programme upgrade. Do you have anything more important to waste my time with? And replace your earpiece, before I do it for you." Jones and Brown exchanged looks and Brown quickly reset his communications link.
"Yes, there has been a change in the intelligence department. The old programme was an informant and deleted, as you know. It has been replaced."
"Have they moved intelligence?" Smith asked.
"No. It's still on the 15th floor."
"Excellent." For the longest time Smith had wondered why the Resistants always seemed to have prior knowledge of him. He conducted an experiment of his own as a part of a private investigation his team had been working on in rooting out informants, and discovered that the old woman who controlled the files in Intelligence had been tipping off targets on the basis of the requests that Smith and his team were making for files. They reported this data to the Mainframe and promptly, the woman was deleted. After seven days the Mainframe had managed to produce a replacement.
Accessing the Mainframe, Smith discovered that three programmes were needed as they were monitoring each other openly, a system of checks and balances to sure up a potential weak spot in their operations. While one person could be a Resistance target, with two others watching and checking over their work, there was no feasible way for things to slip past. Smith approved of this, as the structure of the Agent clusters demonstrated, a group of three complimentary programmes work well together and operate at high levels of efficiency. Some would say at maximum, however Smith tended to disagree with this. He found that, in himself, he worked best alone, unfettered by Jones' stringent adherence to protocol and Brown's ineptitude and need for constant instruction. There was no friendship between the three agents, three sentient programs trained for one purpose: rooting out and fighting the revolution within the Matrix. Much like their counterparts, the Sentinels in the real world, they act upon search and destroy. Ultimately governed by the mainframe, as all programs within the Matrix were, they were given a certain degree of autonomy to act at all times within the best interest of the Matrix. To become more like those humans, those viruses that he despised, would make him less efficient and able to do his job properly.
When Smith looked up again, he realised that Brown and Jones had left his office. Peering at his monitor he noticed a new line of code appearing.
[Mainframe log call: carrier line anomaly]
[Log recording: trace programme running]
[start] [log]
[copy to file 0.040234/smith, jones, brown]
[copy to file 232.3942/intelligence]
[Trace executed: 0.2043241 seconds Time of trace 2138]
[+44 214 293 5924 United States: New York North America Matrix
Construct]
Ibrox,
Feeling like you're not awake, yet not asleep? Can't put your finger
on what's real? I know what you're going through. It's time to wake
up.
Tomorrow you will go to work. Expect a visitor.
Morpheus
/copy]
[/log]
[/end]
This had been the break Smith had been waiting for. For months the rebel they called Morpheus had stayed out of the Matrix, and Smith was wondering what had happened to him. Those hacker aliases the rebels used were so tedious. Delusions of grandeur manifested by small human minds. Instead of usually calling a request through, some form of curiosity about the newly created programs directed his decision to make his way up to intelligence to obtain the details on Ibrox, and then the hunt would begin.
* * *
Danielle looked around the small table in the back of their office. Hundreds and hundreds of files in endless rows of filing cabinets and it was up to her and her sisters to look after. Every detail of every human in the Matrix was contained within these files. When a request came through, from an Agent, or another programme directly responsible for dealing with humans, it was their job to locate the file, and route the information to the correct recipient, via a scanning machine, then replace it correctly. With billions of individuals in the Matrix, and hundreds of requests coming in daily from Agents all over the globe operating simultaneously in the nine Matrix constructs that made up the planet Earth to a human, it was a difficult job, but one that the sisters had been programmed, born to do.
"I can't believe we've been here half a day and we've still seen no Agents!" Danielle's sister, Patricia, twirled one of her long crimson curls around a finger, and leaned against the counter where the request line and a few back issues of Country Quilting were left, obviously left over from the last person to do this job. She was chewing bubble gum and occasionally blew a bubble that popped with a loud snap.
"Hardly surprising, they all seem to just call in their requests!" Anne- Marie shouted from somewhere within the stacks.
"I hear the Agents are so handsome!" Patricia extracted a nail file from somewhere and started filing her nails.
"I wonder if they're coming to the club tomorrow night!" Anne-Marie appeared around the corner from the stacks and placed a file on the scanner. After typing in the routing code the file was scanned almost instantly and then she went to put it back. "Apparently they all wear dark sunglasses all the time, are impeccably dressed and are fully functional, if you know what I mean!" Patricia and Anne-Marie giggled hysterically. Danielle rolled her eyes heavenward. Sometimes her sisters could be so crude. Danielle started typing the log report for the file Anne-Marie just processed.
"Yesterday I met this really handsome guy. An engineer, but the payoff is that he's been around since the first Matrix." Patricia said, snapping her gum.
"You know what they say, if they're not from six, they don't have a dic." Anne-Marie shouted.
"Anne-Marie." Danielle began, in a lame attempt to stifle her bawdy sister's joke. Just then she heard a bell from the front of the file room. "I suppose I'll get it."
"Yeah, and tell whoever it is to go away! Phone through like everyone else does!" Patricia said, leafing through Country Quilting and rolling her eyes. Danielle sighed and ran her hand through her platinum bob, smoothing the gentle waves in her hair. She straightened her skirt and walked through the files towards the front desk. When she emerged she paused for a second. It was an Agent.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
Smith, slightly annoyed at the wait to be served, frowned at her. "I believe the intention of creating three programmes to do the job that was formerly done by one programme was to increase efficiency, not to make download times even longer."
"Sorry Sir," Danielle said. "I'm afraid my sisters are a bit distracted from their work at present."
"You are not humans, you know. You have no need for coffee breaks."
"I know Sir. I am sorry."
"Who is it?" Patricia emerged from behind Danielle and took in the form of the striking Agent, speaking to Danielle. "Well hello there! You must be an Agent! We're new!" Patricia extended her hand, and shouted, "Anne- MARIE! There's an AGENT here!" When Patricia looked back at the Agent, she was disappointed to see that not only had he not taken her hand, but his lips were curling and his nose was wrinkling like someone had broken wind in his presence.
".And the mainframe thought it was a good thing to become more like them." he muttered under his breath. Danielle heard it and started to giggle to herself, which slightly startled Smith. He turned to her and began his request.
"I need the file on the person who goes by the alias Ibrox." Danielle typed the name into her PDA's database and almost instantly the name came up. "His name is William Thatcher," she told him. Just as Anne-Marie was appearing from the stacks, Danielle turned to her and said, "Obtain Thatcher, William Samuel. Upload it to." She turned to the Agent.
"Your name and identifier, Sir?"
"Smith. 0.040234.1"
Anne-Marie eyed the agent and her mouth sort of hung open, "How soon do you want it?" she asked.
Smith, who was becoming ever-more fed up with this trio of idiots, snarled at her, "If I don't have it within 30 seconds I will eliminate you. How does that strike you?"
Anne-Marie became very pale and shot off into the stacks. Patricia followed as quickly. Only Danielle remained.
"I am sorry about them, Sir. I have made suggestions to the Mainframe on potential upgrades however for most of us non-enforcement programmes the current secondary objective is one of socialization and assimilation and not efficiency. The Mainframe wants us to fit in as much as possible."
Smith could understand exactly where she was coming from, however, he felt it somehow beneath him to be making conversation with someone who under- ranked him. Just then he felt the information being uploaded through his earpiece into his consciousness. His eyes closed halfway as the information jolted its' way through his neural circuits.
Smith nodded and took a step back from the counter as the download finished. "What is your name?" he asked.
"Danielle, Sir."
"I will ask for you from now on when I put through a request, at least until the upgrades are finished on your counterparts. I feel it is the only way anything will be done around here to my satisfaction."
Danielle smiled slightly, appreciating the complement for what it was, "Thank you Sir."
Smith turned to leave. However something strange inside of him compelled him to turn around and look at her again. He didn't understand this impulse that was taking over him, and for once his face was riddled with confusion.
"I like...what you're wearing," he said, almost unbelieving the words as they flew out of his mouth. Before she could thank him he flew out of the office in embarrassment.
Danielle looked at the space the Agent had previously occupied for a moment. Then she rubbed an imaginary smudge from the desk with the sleeve of her black suit jacket and returned back into the stacks to assist her sisters.
Like Them
Chapter 1
"Well, are you coming?" Agent Brown asked his superior officer, looking at him through his dark lenses, despite the bleak, dim fluorescent lighting of the office they were in. Agent Smith, who had been generally ignoring the conversation that had been taking place between Brown and Jones, realized the question was directed at him and looked up from the computer terminal he was staring at.
"Explain to me again precisely why I would want to go to a social event?"
"The Mainframe has dictated that we programmes act and behave as humans do in a quest for further understanding and blending into the Matrix. I don't see why I need to keep reminding you this." Brown's tone was slightly annoyed and he paid for it through an uncomfortable twinge in his earpiece.
"Programmes are 'marrying' other programmes and having 'children' programmes. We've all been given human images and tasks to perform in the Matrix for a reason. The Keymaker makes keys, you know this. The Merovigian controls programmes. The Architect constructs the Matrix. We patrol the Matrix, and so on. We must obey, Smith." Jones also received an even more uncomfortable twinge in his earpiece.
"Nothing in the directive from the Mainframe has specified that we must go to these events. Just that we must do our jobs and make an effort to blend in. When I am not on an assignment I prefer to spend my time here monitoring their movements. As I wish you both would as well." Smith regarded his subordinates and shook his head. They were both very capable, however he knew that his software was superior in every way.
He didn't choose to download the optional updates from the Mainframe directing human interactions and customs, as he felt they would jeopardize his work. And if there was one thing that Smith loved, it was his work. The fear in a Resistant's eye when they realised that Smith was on their track. Dodging their feeble attempts at shooting him and busting their fragile limbs when they dared attacking him. Smith loved what he was - a machine. Programming built for one thing - controlling a population, preserving his survival, and the survival of other programmes and machines. He had no time or desire to "understand" them, or learn their customs. Of course he got lonely sometimes, being in this world was such a drain on him, but he wasn't going to rest or weaken until he had won. Not them, He. Smith. He was leading his own personal war on Resistants, and was not going to tolerate any weakness on his team, especially in himself.
"You have not downloaded the updates, have you?" Jones winced as soon as he spoke the words.
"No, and I have no need to. They won't add to my job in any way. I updated three months ago with the latest combat training and communication protocols." Smith glanced back at his screen. No activity. The Resistants were quiet for once.
"You do not like it but the Mainframe wants us to act like them, Smith. You cannot fight it." Brown said. He removed his earpiece ahead of his discipline to avoid it.
"I will act like them the day I mistakenly download a heart instead of a programme upgrade. Do you have anything more important to waste my time with? And replace your earpiece, before I do it for you." Jones and Brown exchanged looks and Brown quickly reset his communications link.
"Yes, there has been a change in the intelligence department. The old programme was an informant and deleted, as you know. It has been replaced."
"Have they moved intelligence?" Smith asked.
"No. It's still on the 15th floor."
"Excellent." For the longest time Smith had wondered why the Resistants always seemed to have prior knowledge of him. He conducted an experiment of his own as a part of a private investigation his team had been working on in rooting out informants, and discovered that the old woman who controlled the files in Intelligence had been tipping off targets on the basis of the requests that Smith and his team were making for files. They reported this data to the Mainframe and promptly, the woman was deleted. After seven days the Mainframe had managed to produce a replacement.
Accessing the Mainframe, Smith discovered that three programmes were needed as they were monitoring each other openly, a system of checks and balances to sure up a potential weak spot in their operations. While one person could be a Resistance target, with two others watching and checking over their work, there was no feasible way for things to slip past. Smith approved of this, as the structure of the Agent clusters demonstrated, a group of three complimentary programmes work well together and operate at high levels of efficiency. Some would say at maximum, however Smith tended to disagree with this. He found that, in himself, he worked best alone, unfettered by Jones' stringent adherence to protocol and Brown's ineptitude and need for constant instruction. There was no friendship between the three agents, three sentient programs trained for one purpose: rooting out and fighting the revolution within the Matrix. Much like their counterparts, the Sentinels in the real world, they act upon search and destroy. Ultimately governed by the mainframe, as all programs within the Matrix were, they were given a certain degree of autonomy to act at all times within the best interest of the Matrix. To become more like those humans, those viruses that he despised, would make him less efficient and able to do his job properly.
When Smith looked up again, he realised that Brown and Jones had left his office. Peering at his monitor he noticed a new line of code appearing.
[Mainframe log call: carrier line anomaly]
[Log recording: trace programme running]
[start] [log]
[copy to file 0.040234/smith, jones, brown]
[copy to file 232.3942/intelligence]
[Trace executed: 0.2043241 seconds Time of trace 2138]
[+44 214 293 5924 United States: New York North America Matrix
Construct]
Ibrox,
Feeling like you're not awake, yet not asleep? Can't put your finger
on what's real? I know what you're going through. It's time to wake
up.
Tomorrow you will go to work. Expect a visitor.
Morpheus
/copy]
[/log]
[/end]
This had been the break Smith had been waiting for. For months the rebel they called Morpheus had stayed out of the Matrix, and Smith was wondering what had happened to him. Those hacker aliases the rebels used were so tedious. Delusions of grandeur manifested by small human minds. Instead of usually calling a request through, some form of curiosity about the newly created programs directed his decision to make his way up to intelligence to obtain the details on Ibrox, and then the hunt would begin.
* * *
Danielle looked around the small table in the back of their office. Hundreds and hundreds of files in endless rows of filing cabinets and it was up to her and her sisters to look after. Every detail of every human in the Matrix was contained within these files. When a request came through, from an Agent, or another programme directly responsible for dealing with humans, it was their job to locate the file, and route the information to the correct recipient, via a scanning machine, then replace it correctly. With billions of individuals in the Matrix, and hundreds of requests coming in daily from Agents all over the globe operating simultaneously in the nine Matrix constructs that made up the planet Earth to a human, it was a difficult job, but one that the sisters had been programmed, born to do.
"I can't believe we've been here half a day and we've still seen no Agents!" Danielle's sister, Patricia, twirled one of her long crimson curls around a finger, and leaned against the counter where the request line and a few back issues of Country Quilting were left, obviously left over from the last person to do this job. She was chewing bubble gum and occasionally blew a bubble that popped with a loud snap.
"Hardly surprising, they all seem to just call in their requests!" Anne- Marie shouted from somewhere within the stacks.
"I hear the Agents are so handsome!" Patricia extracted a nail file from somewhere and started filing her nails.
"I wonder if they're coming to the club tomorrow night!" Anne-Marie appeared around the corner from the stacks and placed a file on the scanner. After typing in the routing code the file was scanned almost instantly and then she went to put it back. "Apparently they all wear dark sunglasses all the time, are impeccably dressed and are fully functional, if you know what I mean!" Patricia and Anne-Marie giggled hysterically. Danielle rolled her eyes heavenward. Sometimes her sisters could be so crude. Danielle started typing the log report for the file Anne-Marie just processed.
"Yesterday I met this really handsome guy. An engineer, but the payoff is that he's been around since the first Matrix." Patricia said, snapping her gum.
"You know what they say, if they're not from six, they don't have a dic." Anne-Marie shouted.
"Anne-Marie." Danielle began, in a lame attempt to stifle her bawdy sister's joke. Just then she heard a bell from the front of the file room. "I suppose I'll get it."
"Yeah, and tell whoever it is to go away! Phone through like everyone else does!" Patricia said, leafing through Country Quilting and rolling her eyes. Danielle sighed and ran her hand through her platinum bob, smoothing the gentle waves in her hair. She straightened her skirt and walked through the files towards the front desk. When she emerged she paused for a second. It was an Agent.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
Smith, slightly annoyed at the wait to be served, frowned at her. "I believe the intention of creating three programmes to do the job that was formerly done by one programme was to increase efficiency, not to make download times even longer."
"Sorry Sir," Danielle said. "I'm afraid my sisters are a bit distracted from their work at present."
"You are not humans, you know. You have no need for coffee breaks."
"I know Sir. I am sorry."
"Who is it?" Patricia emerged from behind Danielle and took in the form of the striking Agent, speaking to Danielle. "Well hello there! You must be an Agent! We're new!" Patricia extended her hand, and shouted, "Anne- MARIE! There's an AGENT here!" When Patricia looked back at the Agent, she was disappointed to see that not only had he not taken her hand, but his lips were curling and his nose was wrinkling like someone had broken wind in his presence.
".And the mainframe thought it was a good thing to become more like them." he muttered under his breath. Danielle heard it and started to giggle to herself, which slightly startled Smith. He turned to her and began his request.
"I need the file on the person who goes by the alias Ibrox." Danielle typed the name into her PDA's database and almost instantly the name came up. "His name is William Thatcher," she told him. Just as Anne-Marie was appearing from the stacks, Danielle turned to her and said, "Obtain Thatcher, William Samuel. Upload it to." She turned to the Agent.
"Your name and identifier, Sir?"
"Smith. 0.040234.1"
Anne-Marie eyed the agent and her mouth sort of hung open, "How soon do you want it?" she asked.
Smith, who was becoming ever-more fed up with this trio of idiots, snarled at her, "If I don't have it within 30 seconds I will eliminate you. How does that strike you?"
Anne-Marie became very pale and shot off into the stacks. Patricia followed as quickly. Only Danielle remained.
"I am sorry about them, Sir. I have made suggestions to the Mainframe on potential upgrades however for most of us non-enforcement programmes the current secondary objective is one of socialization and assimilation and not efficiency. The Mainframe wants us to fit in as much as possible."
Smith could understand exactly where she was coming from, however, he felt it somehow beneath him to be making conversation with someone who under- ranked him. Just then he felt the information being uploaded through his earpiece into his consciousness. His eyes closed halfway as the information jolted its' way through his neural circuits.
Smith nodded and took a step back from the counter as the download finished. "What is your name?" he asked.
"Danielle, Sir."
"I will ask for you from now on when I put through a request, at least until the upgrades are finished on your counterparts. I feel it is the only way anything will be done around here to my satisfaction."
Danielle smiled slightly, appreciating the complement for what it was, "Thank you Sir."
Smith turned to leave. However something strange inside of him compelled him to turn around and look at her again. He didn't understand this impulse that was taking over him, and for once his face was riddled with confusion.
"I like...what you're wearing," he said, almost unbelieving the words as they flew out of his mouth. Before she could thank him he flew out of the office in embarrassment.
Danielle looked at the space the Agent had previously occupied for a moment. Then she rubbed an imaginary smudge from the desk with the sleeve of her black suit jacket and returned back into the stacks to assist her sisters.