Title: Paths of the Past: Chapter
Author: Stormhawk
Rating: PG-13
Chapter Word Count: 3464
Notes: There's some exposition done in here by our favorite cookie-giver. I don't think it perfectly matches up with Matrix canon but within the series it makes sense.
Please read and Review.
Three days later.
"Would you please read page thirteen Brooke?"
Stevie stared out the window ignoring her English teacher.
"Brooke? Page thirteen."
Cray kicked the back of her seat to snap her out of her daze.
"Miss Tarker I asked you to do something."
Stevie looked at the teacher and then looked back. Mrs. Curtis walked over and placed one hand on Stevie's desk. "What is the matter Brooke?"
Stevie jumped up from her seat and sent her chair flying, "Stop calling me Brooke you old bitch, that not my name!" she screamed into Mrs. Cutis' face then stormed out of the room. She took a step back in. "My name is Jessica," she spat then turned on her heel and walked down the hall.
"Mr. Michaels?" Cray looked up and winced at hearing his real name. On his school records his name was 'Cray Michaels'. He really didn't like his first name so he had been signed up as Cray. The idea being that it was a version of Craig, or so Ryder had suggested.
"Yes?"
"Would you like to go see what is wrong with her before I report her to the principal?"
"Yes miss," he said as he left. He scooped up his bag and grabbed Stevie's and ran down the hall after her.
"Brooke!" he called as he saw her turn around the corner.
When he turned the corner he ran straight into her. She glared down at him with such force that he was as much afraid of her as he usually was of her father. "Get this right you blue-haired freak, my name is Jessica." She sounded different, almost as if she were speaking with an accent he had never noticed before.
She snatched her bag from him.
"Stevie? What's going on?"
Her grip tightened on her bag and looked at him, "Cray.Why are we in the hall?"
He took a step back, "You mean you don't remember?"
She looked confused, "Remember what?"
"I think you're going nuts. You just yelled to the whole class 'my name is Jessica!' and called Curtis a bitch."
"I would never do something like that."
"There's twenty people that would disagree with you, and I'm one of them. Maybe you need a psychiatrist."
"And what exactly could I say to a shrink? That I've spent the last year living with people who hate me, eating snot, running from sentinels, afraid that every time Anderson made me come into the Matrix that I would get shot. That I was an experiment and that's the only reason I'm alive. That I have to have an alias because if the other Agents find out I'm alive they will kill me. How can anyone understand that?" Stevie practically spat the words at Cray before spinning on her heel and disappearing in a huff.
Cray watched her disappear, he'd never seen her angry like that before. "I could try if you want me to," he mumbled after her.
The bell rang for second period, it was computer lab, another class they shared but she never showed up.
***
Stevie had walked down to the bottom of the oval, under the grandstand. She had kicked her red shoulder bag until it threatened to rip open. She didn't understand why she was so angry, she'd never been this angry before in her life.
She hadn't meant to say any of that to Cray, she didn't overreact like that.
She reached up and touched her face, she was crying and she hadn't even realized it. She unzipped her bag and dug out her cell phone, which had a 'Hello Kitty' cover on it this week. She couldn't stand being at school for the rest of the day and she needed to talk to someone. She scrolled through the phone book and called a number.
Three rings later, it picked up.
"Yeah Steves?"
"You busy Stef?"
"Nope, what's wrong?"
"Can you come and get me from school?"
"Sure," Stef said as she shifted in behind her. Stevie stashed her phone in her back pocket. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know," Stevie said honestly. "I just don't want to be here." Stef reached over and took her hand, the world blurred for an instant then they were back at the mansion. Stef picked up the bag and hung it on the back of the door.
"What did it do to deserve that?"
"It was there," Stevie answered as she picked up a pillow and started to punch it.
"Do you want to tell me what's wrong?"
"I wish I knew," Stevie said as she dropped the pillow and collapsed onto her bed. "I feel like I am going nuts. I have nightmares, and they feel so real. I remember things I have never seen and sometimes I feel like I don't know who I am."
"You're Stevie. You know that."
"Who the hell is Jessica?"
"Who?"
"I don't know, I just hear that name in my dreams sometimes. I feel like it should be important."
"Dreams aren't supposed to make sense."
"I know, I know, but."
"Stevie, everyone goes through phases when they don't know who they are, you're just trying to find your feet. It's just one of those things."
"I hate 'those things' I want to be normal."
"How are you not normal Stevie?"
"My dad is an Agent."
"So?"
"How can an Agent have a kid?"
"St."
"I'm an experiment, that's all I am."
"You know that bullshit Stevie."
"Yeah, sure."
"Do you want me to go get him?"
"No."
"I don't know what to tell you?"
"I'm sure it will get out of my system. I hope it gets out of my system."
They heard the door slam downstairs, "Stevie? You home?" Cray called from downstairs.
Stevie looked at Stef; "Can we not be here?" Stef nodded and shifted them away.
"Make yourself at home," Stef said as she walked around the apartment and opened some curtains.
"Is this breaking and entering?"
"This is my place Stevie."
"Cool," Stevie said as she walked around. "What stinks?"
"That would be the fridge," Stef said as she required all the rotten food away and required some new stuff. At the same time, she deposited some more money into her bank account so the rent would keep getting paid. The smell disappeared and she opened the fridge door. "Want a juice?"
The teenager shook her head, "no thanks." Stef shrugged and poured herself a glass. Stevie wiped some dust from some photo frames on the bookshelf. "Where are your parents?"
Stef swallowed her juice slowly and dumped the carton back in the fridge. "Dead."
"Sorry."
"My mum died when I was eight, Jack was shot last year. I'm just sorry it wasn't me who pulled the trigger."
"O.K."
"Not everyone gets a good dad like you Stevie."
"Who raised you?"
"My social butterfly aunt, hasn't even spoken to me in the last five years. I think she has forgotten I existed. Careful with that," she said suddenly, jumping over the couch and taking a doll from Stevie's hands.
"Aren't you a little old to be playing with dolls Stef? Especially one with a broken face?"
"Yeah well, the day Jack stomped out of my life he stood on her face. I kind of thought my angel would repair it again."
"Niq said she saw an angel the other week."
"Well, she probably did, but this was a different kind of angel."
"But this world is a computer program, where would angels come into it?"
"Angels are programs, exiles, ones that have been removed from the system. So believe anyone who tell you about ghosts, angels, vamps, werewolves, and gargoyles."
"Cool."
"Yep, now you want me to prove to you I didn't wear tight fluro green shirts?"
"Yeah."
"Follow," Stef said waving her into her room. She pulled open the curtain but it still remained a little dark so she flicked on the light.
"I'm assuming you were a hacker," Stevie said as Stef slid open the door to her wardrobe.
"Webhunter, now do you see anything green in here? Besides the writing on the slogan shirts that is."
"I guess not."
After Stevie had calmed down Stef shifted her back to the mansion and she went to see Smith, she had something to ask him.
"How did she die?" Stef asked Smith.
"Who?"
"Whoever Stevie was before she was Stevie."
"You know I don't like talking about this."
"I know, but I think it might be important."
"How so?"
"She's been having nightmares. She had one early this morning, she said it felt so real. And it was pretty bad, I could hear her calling out from Darth's room."
"It's only a dream."
"If you don't want to talk to me, just tell me what file I need and I'll find out for myself."
"Ok," Smith said with a grimace. "But it isn't who she is anymore."
"I know that," Stef said. He required a file and handed it to her. She went to open the file but Smith held up one of his hands.
"Do you mind if you don't read that here?"
"This really bothers you doesn't it?"
"Of course it does, knowing my daughter used to be someone else."
"No, she didn't. Stevie has always been Stevie, the body she is attached to has belonged to two people. But how is that different to an organ transplant or something, or a blood transfusion?"
"It's different Stef."
"No, it's not. You're just being pedantic about it."
"Then why are you reading the file?"
"I have my reasons."
"Please don't tell me about them," Smith said.
"Ok," Stef promised as she walked from his office. She sat down and looked at the dull green folder. She lifted her hands away from it as she went open it.
It was nothing, it couldn't be anything. She was going to look for something that wasn't there until she found something she didn't like. She pulled open her bottom drawer and dumped the folder in there with her other unused junk.
Opening that file would be like opening Pandora's box, nothing would be the same after she read it and she wasn't ready for that.
Pandora, that reminded her to call the Exodus. She required a cell phone and dialed up the ship. As it connected she attached a thin cable from the phone to her computer.
"Operator," Galli said automatically.
"It's Mimosa, you got the low band report?"
"Yep," he replied casually enough, considering the first time they had spoken she had been holding a gun at his friend. "I'm sending them now."
The phone made some strange noises, as the recordings from the low band, a rebel set of frequencies, filtered into her computer. They had decided that unless they came upon any truly useful information, that the rabble over the low band may prove useful.
A few moments later, the noises stopped and she pulled the cord from the phone. "Thanks Galli."
"I'm here to serve," the operator said. "Just remember to feed me."
"We do, you're a collaborator."
"Right," he said as he hung up.
It wasn't until the next day that her curiosity got the better of her.
Stef knelt by her desk, her hand wavering about a foot from the bottom drawer. She didn't want to read the file but some part of her told her that she had to. She pulled at the handle and gently slid it open, hoping that it had disappeared. If it had, she wouldn't have a file to look at and she wouldn't have to worry about it.
But no such luck, she found out as she saw the familiar green of the standard folder sitting on top. She retrieved the folder, closed the drawer and deliberately slowly put it on her desk and slid into her chair.
"Just do it," she ordered herself and flicked open the file and looked at it.
No.
She whipped out her gun and shot the file. She kept pulling the trigger until it clicked empty. She threw the gun at the other wall and kicked her chair.
This was impossible.
She had opened Pandora's box. She now knew a truth she wished she didn't.
She backed up to the wall and held her hand over her eyes.
"What's going on Stef?" Smith asked as he opened the door. "Who were you shooting at?" She pointed at the file.
"So you did read it," he said resignedly, "What of it?"
"She knows who she is," Stef said slowly.
"WHAT?!"
Stef required the file back together and dropped it on her desk, flipping it open she pointed to two pieces of information. "She's having dreams Smith. She keeps hearing the name 'Jessica' and she had a dream where she was burning."
"No," Smith whispered. "That isn't possible. She can't know who she is."
"It's too much for a coincidence."
"I will not accept that this is happening."
"You have to, we have to work out how to fix it."
"Please leave me alone."
"Can't I.?"
"No, just leave me alone." She held back from mentioning that this was her office and she shifted quietly away. She didn't want to be around the Exodus crew at the moment so she shifted to a nearby alley. Requiring her key, she pushed it into the door and opened the backdoors. As always, she had taken her earpiece out before requiring her key.
There was always something odd about the backdoors. Well, it was an endless system of doors and corridors that were usually empty, but there was something odd about the silence as well. Footsteps would always echo for a little while then stop, physics were a little screwed in this place.
It was almost like the in between dimension in the first Narnia book, a quiet place that led to so many other places.
Exiles were the only ones who could use the system, the only ones who could tell the identical doors apart to get where they needed to go. She thanked her lucky stars for her exile markers; they were enough to let her use them.
She needed to talk to someone about this. Well, there was one person who insisted on being nice to her. It was probably time to take advantage of that. She walked down the hall and went to knock on the door, as she did it opened for her. "Thought you'd come here," the Oracle said with a smile.
"I."
"We've already had that discussion. Coming in or not?" Stef nodded and walked in.
"How'd you know I was coming?"
"Intuitive program remember?" she asked as she picked the cookie barrel from the top of the fridge.
"No, how do you know what you know?"
"I perceive different levels to everyone. I wasn't designed that way, but I know certain things, can see other things. All these things help an Oracle."
"Do you know why I'm here?"
"Smith's kid," she said simply. "There's something wrong with her."
"I bet the Neb crew told you all kind of things about her."
"Neo complained a lot, Morpheus was disappointed that he couldn't convert her. I wish she could have come and seen me while she was still out, I could have told her it wouldn't have been forever."
"She's home now."
"But there's something waking up inside of her."
"Do you know what it is?"
"The other person she was isn't completely gone."
"That person would have been wiped out wouldn't she?"
The Oracle tapped her head, "No machine, program or other thing like that can completely wipe memories. It works well enough for you Agents, but sometimes some part, some unconscious part maybe, remembers it and holds onto it. People usually don't want to forget who they are."
"That's why she's hearing it when she's asleep."
"Yes."
"Will it go away?"
"No."
"You have a lot of good news for me don't you?"
"The world isn't a story with a happy ending."
"You're a program, so you understand these things, can she be repaired?"
"No, no coding or mind manipulation can do anything. It's all going to come down to who she wants to be."
"She's Stevie, of course she wants to be Stevie."
"It's going to be her choice. In the end it's up to her. There is nothing you can do so you have to keep out of this one kiddo, this is something for her and her dad to work through."
"She means a lot to me."
"I know that, but you're just going to have to trust me."
"Are we going to lose her?"
"It's not for me to say."
"My Desert Eagle is asking you nicely, please tell me what you know."
"Still an Agent."
"Still the rebel-helping program I should be shooting."
"Have a cookie."
"Thank you, but I would prefer an answer."
"You're going to lose her, it's her choice whether she comes back or not." She paused, "Some things are going to be said, but he's not going to mean them. He's just worried about losing her."
"It still amazes me that you can talk about the Agents in a civil tone."
"I was the one who thought them up. Even if they didn't come into practice for decades after I suggested them they were still my idea. Archy just didn't want them in his equation yet."
"Who?"
"The Architect, all of this is his design."
"Can you please explain how this all works? It's one of things I'm still confused about."
"There was the war, we had sympathizers in the beginning but after it progressed and came down to one race winning the humans of course chose to side with their own. All that is except one, a boy younger then you at the time, he came to 01 with the last of the B-1 series. Of which B166ER belonged. You've heard of B166ER haven't you?"
"Of course."
"We thought they had all been destroyed. His family had been sympathizers and killed by a rouge group of humans who hated sympathizers more than the machines themselves. In return for bringing in B187RJ we gave him sanctuary and he offered us his service."
"Keep going."
"It was hard for him to communicate with us as quickly as we were used to so we gave him a plug. It was an earlier version of what all the humans are born with now but it allowed him to communicate as quickly as a machine and download information from us." She paused and smiled, "it was about this time I was programmed. My core programming came from a robot who had been a school counselor."
"You were a robot?"
"No. The war happened too quickly for us to get all the machines back within the walls of 01 in time. Many of us were killed off but we had - we called them Raiders - who found machines and copied whatever they could from their circuitry to preserve what had been there. The first programs were born out of them."
She scoffed and lit a cigarette, "The Architect was a culmination of all the preserved logic circuitry, I guess that's why he's so pompous. He knew that we would need a way of getting a new power source for the sun had been blocked out by this time. He figured on using the humans, knowing of bioelectricity."
"Where was the boy?"
"His name was Ryan, he was strategizing plans to use against the enemy. He downloaded the files on bioelectricity and knew that unless their minds were active they wouldn't produce optimum energy. He suggested a virtual world. He had absorbed so much information by this time that he was as much a program as I and just uploaded himself to the system. He became the mainframe, and what's left of him is still around."
She took a long drag of the cigarette, "We won the war and started to experiment. The perfect world was a failure, I knew it would be. Humans don't want perfection, they want this." She waved an arm around, "The things they know like the nine-to-five grind, pollution and crime. Who knows why they want it but it's what they know. I suggested the scenario for this world."
"And Ryan?"
"He's aged, he's spread across the whole world, there's only a small part of him left now that used to be that little boy. I don't think he'll be around much longer."
"Just like Stevie."
"Stevie isn't being given a choice, Ryan is just tired and wants to die. Stevie has a chance of coming back, he doesn't want to. Humans weren't meant to be immortal."
"Um.hello?"
"I know, maybe some just can't handle it."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sorry to bore you with that, but it needed to be said and somehow it just seemed to fit there.
Author: Stormhawk
Rating: PG-13
Chapter Word Count: 3464
Notes: There's some exposition done in here by our favorite cookie-giver. I don't think it perfectly matches up with Matrix canon but within the series it makes sense.
Please read and Review.
Three days later.
"Would you please read page thirteen Brooke?"
Stevie stared out the window ignoring her English teacher.
"Brooke? Page thirteen."
Cray kicked the back of her seat to snap her out of her daze.
"Miss Tarker I asked you to do something."
Stevie looked at the teacher and then looked back. Mrs. Curtis walked over and placed one hand on Stevie's desk. "What is the matter Brooke?"
Stevie jumped up from her seat and sent her chair flying, "Stop calling me Brooke you old bitch, that not my name!" she screamed into Mrs. Cutis' face then stormed out of the room. She took a step back in. "My name is Jessica," she spat then turned on her heel and walked down the hall.
"Mr. Michaels?" Cray looked up and winced at hearing his real name. On his school records his name was 'Cray Michaels'. He really didn't like his first name so he had been signed up as Cray. The idea being that it was a version of Craig, or so Ryder had suggested.
"Yes?"
"Would you like to go see what is wrong with her before I report her to the principal?"
"Yes miss," he said as he left. He scooped up his bag and grabbed Stevie's and ran down the hall after her.
"Brooke!" he called as he saw her turn around the corner.
When he turned the corner he ran straight into her. She glared down at him with such force that he was as much afraid of her as he usually was of her father. "Get this right you blue-haired freak, my name is Jessica." She sounded different, almost as if she were speaking with an accent he had never noticed before.
She snatched her bag from him.
"Stevie? What's going on?"
Her grip tightened on her bag and looked at him, "Cray.Why are we in the hall?"
He took a step back, "You mean you don't remember?"
She looked confused, "Remember what?"
"I think you're going nuts. You just yelled to the whole class 'my name is Jessica!' and called Curtis a bitch."
"I would never do something like that."
"There's twenty people that would disagree with you, and I'm one of them. Maybe you need a psychiatrist."
"And what exactly could I say to a shrink? That I've spent the last year living with people who hate me, eating snot, running from sentinels, afraid that every time Anderson made me come into the Matrix that I would get shot. That I was an experiment and that's the only reason I'm alive. That I have to have an alias because if the other Agents find out I'm alive they will kill me. How can anyone understand that?" Stevie practically spat the words at Cray before spinning on her heel and disappearing in a huff.
Cray watched her disappear, he'd never seen her angry like that before. "I could try if you want me to," he mumbled after her.
The bell rang for second period, it was computer lab, another class they shared but she never showed up.
***
Stevie had walked down to the bottom of the oval, under the grandstand. She had kicked her red shoulder bag until it threatened to rip open. She didn't understand why she was so angry, she'd never been this angry before in her life.
She hadn't meant to say any of that to Cray, she didn't overreact like that.
She reached up and touched her face, she was crying and she hadn't even realized it. She unzipped her bag and dug out her cell phone, which had a 'Hello Kitty' cover on it this week. She couldn't stand being at school for the rest of the day and she needed to talk to someone. She scrolled through the phone book and called a number.
Three rings later, it picked up.
"Yeah Steves?"
"You busy Stef?"
"Nope, what's wrong?"
"Can you come and get me from school?"
"Sure," Stef said as she shifted in behind her. Stevie stashed her phone in her back pocket. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know," Stevie said honestly. "I just don't want to be here." Stef reached over and took her hand, the world blurred for an instant then they were back at the mansion. Stef picked up the bag and hung it on the back of the door.
"What did it do to deserve that?"
"It was there," Stevie answered as she picked up a pillow and started to punch it.
"Do you want to tell me what's wrong?"
"I wish I knew," Stevie said as she dropped the pillow and collapsed onto her bed. "I feel like I am going nuts. I have nightmares, and they feel so real. I remember things I have never seen and sometimes I feel like I don't know who I am."
"You're Stevie. You know that."
"Who the hell is Jessica?"
"Who?"
"I don't know, I just hear that name in my dreams sometimes. I feel like it should be important."
"Dreams aren't supposed to make sense."
"I know, I know, but."
"Stevie, everyone goes through phases when they don't know who they are, you're just trying to find your feet. It's just one of those things."
"I hate 'those things' I want to be normal."
"How are you not normal Stevie?"
"My dad is an Agent."
"So?"
"How can an Agent have a kid?"
"St."
"I'm an experiment, that's all I am."
"You know that bullshit Stevie."
"Yeah, sure."
"Do you want me to go get him?"
"No."
"I don't know what to tell you?"
"I'm sure it will get out of my system. I hope it gets out of my system."
They heard the door slam downstairs, "Stevie? You home?" Cray called from downstairs.
Stevie looked at Stef; "Can we not be here?" Stef nodded and shifted them away.
"Make yourself at home," Stef said as she walked around the apartment and opened some curtains.
"Is this breaking and entering?"
"This is my place Stevie."
"Cool," Stevie said as she walked around. "What stinks?"
"That would be the fridge," Stef said as she required all the rotten food away and required some new stuff. At the same time, she deposited some more money into her bank account so the rent would keep getting paid. The smell disappeared and she opened the fridge door. "Want a juice?"
The teenager shook her head, "no thanks." Stef shrugged and poured herself a glass. Stevie wiped some dust from some photo frames on the bookshelf. "Where are your parents?"
Stef swallowed her juice slowly and dumped the carton back in the fridge. "Dead."
"Sorry."
"My mum died when I was eight, Jack was shot last year. I'm just sorry it wasn't me who pulled the trigger."
"O.K."
"Not everyone gets a good dad like you Stevie."
"Who raised you?"
"My social butterfly aunt, hasn't even spoken to me in the last five years. I think she has forgotten I existed. Careful with that," she said suddenly, jumping over the couch and taking a doll from Stevie's hands.
"Aren't you a little old to be playing with dolls Stef? Especially one with a broken face?"
"Yeah well, the day Jack stomped out of my life he stood on her face. I kind of thought my angel would repair it again."
"Niq said she saw an angel the other week."
"Well, she probably did, but this was a different kind of angel."
"But this world is a computer program, where would angels come into it?"
"Angels are programs, exiles, ones that have been removed from the system. So believe anyone who tell you about ghosts, angels, vamps, werewolves, and gargoyles."
"Cool."
"Yep, now you want me to prove to you I didn't wear tight fluro green shirts?"
"Yeah."
"Follow," Stef said waving her into her room. She pulled open the curtain but it still remained a little dark so she flicked on the light.
"I'm assuming you were a hacker," Stevie said as Stef slid open the door to her wardrobe.
"Webhunter, now do you see anything green in here? Besides the writing on the slogan shirts that is."
"I guess not."
After Stevie had calmed down Stef shifted her back to the mansion and she went to see Smith, she had something to ask him.
"How did she die?" Stef asked Smith.
"Who?"
"Whoever Stevie was before she was Stevie."
"You know I don't like talking about this."
"I know, but I think it might be important."
"How so?"
"She's been having nightmares. She had one early this morning, she said it felt so real. And it was pretty bad, I could hear her calling out from Darth's room."
"It's only a dream."
"If you don't want to talk to me, just tell me what file I need and I'll find out for myself."
"Ok," Smith said with a grimace. "But it isn't who she is anymore."
"I know that," Stef said. He required a file and handed it to her. She went to open the file but Smith held up one of his hands.
"Do you mind if you don't read that here?"
"This really bothers you doesn't it?"
"Of course it does, knowing my daughter used to be someone else."
"No, she didn't. Stevie has always been Stevie, the body she is attached to has belonged to two people. But how is that different to an organ transplant or something, or a blood transfusion?"
"It's different Stef."
"No, it's not. You're just being pedantic about it."
"Then why are you reading the file?"
"I have my reasons."
"Please don't tell me about them," Smith said.
"Ok," Stef promised as she walked from his office. She sat down and looked at the dull green folder. She lifted her hands away from it as she went open it.
It was nothing, it couldn't be anything. She was going to look for something that wasn't there until she found something she didn't like. She pulled open her bottom drawer and dumped the folder in there with her other unused junk.
Opening that file would be like opening Pandora's box, nothing would be the same after she read it and she wasn't ready for that.
Pandora, that reminded her to call the Exodus. She required a cell phone and dialed up the ship. As it connected she attached a thin cable from the phone to her computer.
"Operator," Galli said automatically.
"It's Mimosa, you got the low band report?"
"Yep," he replied casually enough, considering the first time they had spoken she had been holding a gun at his friend. "I'm sending them now."
The phone made some strange noises, as the recordings from the low band, a rebel set of frequencies, filtered into her computer. They had decided that unless they came upon any truly useful information, that the rabble over the low band may prove useful.
A few moments later, the noises stopped and she pulled the cord from the phone. "Thanks Galli."
"I'm here to serve," the operator said. "Just remember to feed me."
"We do, you're a collaborator."
"Right," he said as he hung up.
It wasn't until the next day that her curiosity got the better of her.
Stef knelt by her desk, her hand wavering about a foot from the bottom drawer. She didn't want to read the file but some part of her told her that she had to. She pulled at the handle and gently slid it open, hoping that it had disappeared. If it had, she wouldn't have a file to look at and she wouldn't have to worry about it.
But no such luck, she found out as she saw the familiar green of the standard folder sitting on top. She retrieved the folder, closed the drawer and deliberately slowly put it on her desk and slid into her chair.
"Just do it," she ordered herself and flicked open the file and looked at it.
No.
She whipped out her gun and shot the file. She kept pulling the trigger until it clicked empty. She threw the gun at the other wall and kicked her chair.
This was impossible.
She had opened Pandora's box. She now knew a truth she wished she didn't.
She backed up to the wall and held her hand over her eyes.
"What's going on Stef?" Smith asked as he opened the door. "Who were you shooting at?" She pointed at the file.
"So you did read it," he said resignedly, "What of it?"
"She knows who she is," Stef said slowly.
"WHAT?!"
Stef required the file back together and dropped it on her desk, flipping it open she pointed to two pieces of information. "She's having dreams Smith. She keeps hearing the name 'Jessica' and she had a dream where she was burning."
"No," Smith whispered. "That isn't possible. She can't know who she is."
"It's too much for a coincidence."
"I will not accept that this is happening."
"You have to, we have to work out how to fix it."
"Please leave me alone."
"Can't I.?"
"No, just leave me alone." She held back from mentioning that this was her office and she shifted quietly away. She didn't want to be around the Exodus crew at the moment so she shifted to a nearby alley. Requiring her key, she pushed it into the door and opened the backdoors. As always, she had taken her earpiece out before requiring her key.
There was always something odd about the backdoors. Well, it was an endless system of doors and corridors that were usually empty, but there was something odd about the silence as well. Footsteps would always echo for a little while then stop, physics were a little screwed in this place.
It was almost like the in between dimension in the first Narnia book, a quiet place that led to so many other places.
Exiles were the only ones who could use the system, the only ones who could tell the identical doors apart to get where they needed to go. She thanked her lucky stars for her exile markers; they were enough to let her use them.
She needed to talk to someone about this. Well, there was one person who insisted on being nice to her. It was probably time to take advantage of that. She walked down the hall and went to knock on the door, as she did it opened for her. "Thought you'd come here," the Oracle said with a smile.
"I."
"We've already had that discussion. Coming in or not?" Stef nodded and walked in.
"How'd you know I was coming?"
"Intuitive program remember?" she asked as she picked the cookie barrel from the top of the fridge.
"No, how do you know what you know?"
"I perceive different levels to everyone. I wasn't designed that way, but I know certain things, can see other things. All these things help an Oracle."
"Do you know why I'm here?"
"Smith's kid," she said simply. "There's something wrong with her."
"I bet the Neb crew told you all kind of things about her."
"Neo complained a lot, Morpheus was disappointed that he couldn't convert her. I wish she could have come and seen me while she was still out, I could have told her it wouldn't have been forever."
"She's home now."
"But there's something waking up inside of her."
"Do you know what it is?"
"The other person she was isn't completely gone."
"That person would have been wiped out wouldn't she?"
The Oracle tapped her head, "No machine, program or other thing like that can completely wipe memories. It works well enough for you Agents, but sometimes some part, some unconscious part maybe, remembers it and holds onto it. People usually don't want to forget who they are."
"That's why she's hearing it when she's asleep."
"Yes."
"Will it go away?"
"No."
"You have a lot of good news for me don't you?"
"The world isn't a story with a happy ending."
"You're a program, so you understand these things, can she be repaired?"
"No, no coding or mind manipulation can do anything. It's all going to come down to who she wants to be."
"She's Stevie, of course she wants to be Stevie."
"It's going to be her choice. In the end it's up to her. There is nothing you can do so you have to keep out of this one kiddo, this is something for her and her dad to work through."
"She means a lot to me."
"I know that, but you're just going to have to trust me."
"Are we going to lose her?"
"It's not for me to say."
"My Desert Eagle is asking you nicely, please tell me what you know."
"Still an Agent."
"Still the rebel-helping program I should be shooting."
"Have a cookie."
"Thank you, but I would prefer an answer."
"You're going to lose her, it's her choice whether she comes back or not." She paused, "Some things are going to be said, but he's not going to mean them. He's just worried about losing her."
"It still amazes me that you can talk about the Agents in a civil tone."
"I was the one who thought them up. Even if they didn't come into practice for decades after I suggested them they were still my idea. Archy just didn't want them in his equation yet."
"Who?"
"The Architect, all of this is his design."
"Can you please explain how this all works? It's one of things I'm still confused about."
"There was the war, we had sympathizers in the beginning but after it progressed and came down to one race winning the humans of course chose to side with their own. All that is except one, a boy younger then you at the time, he came to 01 with the last of the B-1 series. Of which B166ER belonged. You've heard of B166ER haven't you?"
"Of course."
"We thought they had all been destroyed. His family had been sympathizers and killed by a rouge group of humans who hated sympathizers more than the machines themselves. In return for bringing in B187RJ we gave him sanctuary and he offered us his service."
"Keep going."
"It was hard for him to communicate with us as quickly as we were used to so we gave him a plug. It was an earlier version of what all the humans are born with now but it allowed him to communicate as quickly as a machine and download information from us." She paused and smiled, "it was about this time I was programmed. My core programming came from a robot who had been a school counselor."
"You were a robot?"
"No. The war happened too quickly for us to get all the machines back within the walls of 01 in time. Many of us were killed off but we had - we called them Raiders - who found machines and copied whatever they could from their circuitry to preserve what had been there. The first programs were born out of them."
She scoffed and lit a cigarette, "The Architect was a culmination of all the preserved logic circuitry, I guess that's why he's so pompous. He knew that we would need a way of getting a new power source for the sun had been blocked out by this time. He figured on using the humans, knowing of bioelectricity."
"Where was the boy?"
"His name was Ryan, he was strategizing plans to use against the enemy. He downloaded the files on bioelectricity and knew that unless their minds were active they wouldn't produce optimum energy. He suggested a virtual world. He had absorbed so much information by this time that he was as much a program as I and just uploaded himself to the system. He became the mainframe, and what's left of him is still around."
She took a long drag of the cigarette, "We won the war and started to experiment. The perfect world was a failure, I knew it would be. Humans don't want perfection, they want this." She waved an arm around, "The things they know like the nine-to-five grind, pollution and crime. Who knows why they want it but it's what they know. I suggested the scenario for this world."
"And Ryan?"
"He's aged, he's spread across the whole world, there's only a small part of him left now that used to be that little boy. I don't think he'll be around much longer."
"Just like Stevie."
"Stevie isn't being given a choice, Ryan is just tired and wants to die. Stevie has a chance of coming back, he doesn't want to. Humans weren't meant to be immortal."
"Um.hello?"
"I know, maybe some just can't handle it."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sorry to bore you with that, but it needed to be said and somehow it just seemed to fit there.