Chapter 4
"Will you make your stand now?" Smith asked, through their link.
"Yes. Follow my lead." Her Eagle was drawn, she was standing around the corner of the building, in broad daylight, waiting. The target, the anomaly was headed her way. She heard the gunshots from Brown and Smith echoing down the alleyway behind him as he ran. He was returning fire as he came upon a chain-link fence, separating the alley into two parts. She waited to hear him climb up over it, and his footfalls as he landed on the ground. He started to run when she stepped out from the shadows. There would be no escape.
"Mr. Buckley," she said, greeting him. "We've been expecting you."
He looked around himself, up to see if there was a fire escape, or a garbage dumpster he could jump on to safety. Hearing the other two agents behind him, he realised there was no way out of the alley except through her. He was trapped.
"Why..." he asked, panting. "Why are you chasing me? In the last version, when I had to make the choice, I made it and Zion was saved... you didn't oppose me then... Why kill me now? Why hinder me from rebuilding Zion? The prophecy said that Agents were meant to assist the One?"
"Not anymore, Mr. Buckley. You see, things are different from the last construct. The prophecy has changed, surely the fortune teller would have advised you of that. If she is, in fact, an Oracle, she should have seen that we Agents are no longer content to be second rate characters in a first rate Matrix. She should have told the Architect, the father of this whole zoo, that we would not wait through yet another construct and assist our own potential deletion when the music stops. It is our time now, Mr. Buckley. This is our Matrix. Our own personal power plant. And you are the key to its' destruction. When Zion has been made strong enough, another One will come, which will herald the end. And that would make you the beginning. Therefore, you must not be allowed to proceed."
"As I am sure you can understand, Mr. Buckley," Smith said from behind him, "the survival of our world is just as important to us as your own survival. You chose to save Zion in the last version, we have chosen to save ourselves in this version. Therefore, your time, and indeed your purpose here in the Matrix has come to an end." The unmistakable click of three Desert Eagles preparing to fire echoed through the air, bouncing off of the high walls of the buildings surrounding them.
Smith and Brown began to fire. Buckley moved to dodge the bullets, almost unaware that he moved like an Agent. He drew his gun and started firing upon Aaron, who was also dodging the missed bullets from her counterparts. Their clips were all empty around the same time. Standing up, Buckley looked at Aaron, a gaze that sent a chill through her processes. It was almost if, instinctively, somehow he knew what to do at that moment. Was it that damn fortune teller who told him how to defeat her? How could he have known? What could have possessed him to take those steps?
* * *
She waved her hand in front of his face, why, she didn't know. It was not as if it would make any response. Amme had tried it enough with her and it never got her to come out of whatever loop, whatever torment had hold of her at that time. There was an earpiece on the floor next to him. She picked it up and looked at it, turning the piece of plastic over in her hand. She stuck it in her ear only to hear that it was dead. Aaron removed her sunglasses and sat down next to him against the wall. As she did she sighed, shaking her head. If only Brown was here to help her. Brown, who was still plugged in, could just enter a force quit command and that would break him out of this loop.
"You had to fight it, didn't you?" she said out loud, directed to him but into the emptiness of the hallway. "Illogical. Look at you now. Considering what happened to me, you still proceeded. Irrational. What has compelled you to conduct yourself in this manner? Perhaps you are more in need of recompilation than I am. Has your time among the humans corrupted your processes? Where did you get the ill-conceived idea that you could somehow avoid the overwriting and fragmentation that occurred to me?"
She looked over at him. No response. Nothing. She reached for him and put her arm around his shoulder, resting her head on the side of his.
"Smith..." she whispered. "Smith..."
She could feel the warmth coming from him, and she knew that, at least, he was still receiving nourishment from the system for now. Her own temperature was dropping and she would need to find some food soon. It would be so easy to drag him into the door, just there, to the left of his shoulder, and all their pain and conflicts would be resolved. They both knew it had to be done sooner rather than later. So why not now?
Aaron stood up and tried to hook her hands underneath his arms. He was rigid, dead weight, and refused to move.
"Smith, work with me. Come on. We're going home now," she said, pulling up on him, trying to lift him. He would not budge. She kept trying, all different angles to push or pull him towards the door. In a fit of frustration, she kicked him, only to find his arm come out to block the kick, and then go back to where it was before. She stood there, looking down at him.
They would need to remain there until she could come up with an idea on how to break him from the loop.
* * *
She was sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around her legs, with her chin resting on her knees when she heard a door slam somewhere down the corridor. Footsteps quickly tapped along the ground, and she looked up as she saw him approach and then stop, upon seeing them. He turned and started to run in the other direction.
"Hey!" she said, "Come back!" A small voice inside her head ridiculed her for sounding so needy and so human.
The small Chinese man made his way back down the hallway quickly.
"I'm not going to hurt you. I need help." she exclaimed, following him. He paused at a door and fumbled with a key, trying to get it in the lock but his fingers kept slipping. She closed the distance between the two of them easily and put her hand on his arm. He turned to look at her with fear in his eyes.
"Keymaker," she said. "You are the Keymaker."
He nodded. "I am not going to return you. I am unplugged. I need help. My friend over there is stuck in a repetitive loop and I need to get someone to help him. He will not be able to go through the door to the source unless he breaks from this loop."
"Will you do something for me?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "What?"
"Any second now, two men who are chasing me are going to burst through one of these doors. Can you stop them for me?"
"Yes," she said, without thinking. He looked at his key ring, filled with hundreds of keys, of all shapes and sizes. He unhooked a key from it and handed it to her. "This will take you to someone who will help."
They heard a door around the corner open and shut. "Go!" she said. She walked toward the direction of the noise, slipping the key in her pocket.
"Where is he?" she heard someone ask. They were opening doors and slamming them shut. Rounding the corner she took them in. Cain and Abel. Rogue programmes from version three, working for the Merovingian ever since.
"Hello boys," she said, greeting them. Her face belied no emotion, although the idea of fighting again sent terror through her processes. Terror that she fought with herself to contain.
"Well, well, well. What have we here? A girl Agent. Haven't seen you in this version before," Cain said.
"We heard girl Agents were disabled in this version. Something about being unable to take the upgrades," said Abel.
"As you can see, I am here, and functioning in this version. But what about you both? Shouldn't you have been recompiled a long time ago?" She realised that her Desert Eagle was back where it always was, as it had been replaced when her clothing was restored. She hoped it was loaded.
Cain bared his teeth at her and said with a snarl, "Our employer provides us with a safe working condition so that recompilation isn't needed."
"Yes, how is the Merovingian? Still causing conflicts, I expect?" She asked, stalling for time. She hoped the Keymaker had managed to escape.
"What's it to you?" said Abel. Cain hit his arm and shook his head. "Come on. She's wasting our time."
Aaron swallowed and drew her Eagle. The two men drew their weapons and fired at her. She dodged their bullets easily, the Agent self-defence programming still functioning. Her bullets hit them, but not being pure silver, they had no effect on them.
They looked down to the front of their shirts, where the bullets had left bloody holes. Abel reached up to touch the blood that appeared.
"You bitch! You ruined my good shirt!" he hollered, clearly annoyed. They went for her. She met Abel in mid-air, countering his attack and knocking him backwards. Cain came at her from behind. Grabbing hold of the arm lock he had around her neck, she leaned forward, shifting her centre of gravity, and managing to flip him off of her. Abel delivered a series of punches to her face, the first few of which sent her sunglasses flying down the hallway. She managed to block some of them and delivered a kick to his side, which knocked him away temporarily. Quickly glancing around she had an idea how to get rid of them, at least for the time being. There was a door situated at the end of the hallway. Increasing the distance between them, she backed up to it and fired upon them again. Cain and Abel ran towards her, growling. She could feel their footfalls approaching her, could smell blood in the air, her blood. She fired at them, missing them, and in a fluid movement she opened the door. They stopped abruptly, but not fast enough as Abel was pushed through and Cain teetered on the precipice. Aaron delivered a punch in the chest which sent him through the door, and she slammed it before he had a chance to get his foot back in.
And then she heard it. The hum of Matrix code in her head. Pulsing like a heartbeat in her ears, making her feel almost like her old self again. Just for a moment she could feel it coursing through her processes and then it disappeared back into blackness.
Aaron walked back down the hallway and rounded the corner. Smith was still sat there, comatose. She knelt down beside him.
"Smith. I'm going to get help. I'll be back as soon as I can."
No response. Not that she thought there would be one anyway. She looked up and down the hallway. All the doors looked the same. She reached in her pocket and took out the key. She fit it into the door handle closest to her, turned it and opened the door.
* * *
Two Agents occupied people nearest to the latest unauthorized use of the backdoors. Today there had been three unauthorized attempts so far, and it was the Agents' job to investigate all of these. Andrews and Doe took the first attempt, Blake and Burns took the second, so it was down to Carson and Edwards to investigate the third. The entry had occurred in Chinatown, not far from where the other attempts happened. Rounding the corner they saw a female Agent standing there, looking around her, obviously lost. The lack of earpiece in her ear indicated to them that she was a rogue. Touching their fingers to their earpiece, they received an almost instant ID of the woman, and were very surprised at who it was.
"002.01.1 Aaron. We are Carson and Edwards. How may we assist you?" Agent Carson said to her.
Aaron looked at them both. Auburn hair, grey suits, sunglasses, earpieces. The men hadn't changed at all since she was in charge. "I need to see Agent Brown."
"Yes, ma'am," said Edwards. He held out his hand to her and she took it.
"Thank you, Agent Edwards," she replied.
"It is our pleasure," said Carson. They started to walk through the narrow back streets of Chinatown.
"Tell me, have your social interactions been upgraded recently? I don't remember Agents being so chivalrous." she asked.
"Yes, ma'am. We are on version 3.3.8 of social interactions," replied Edwards.
"Why so many upgrades? When I was in charge we were working on version 2.3."
"There were various complaints from female Agents that male Agents were adopting human, and specifically, improper social interactions with them. These caused so many conflicts that Agent Smith disabled female Agents in this version until the bugs in the male-specific social interaction programming could be fixed."
"Will it not cause conflicts when they are brought back online?"
"I believe Agent Smith had a series of fixes for them that were to be applied in the recompile. The rumour has it that many females were unhappy when a man was put in charge because that was when the trouble began. A battle of the sexes ensued, if you will."
"A battle of the sexes? But we are machines!"
"Yes ma'am. But our humanity programming has begun to function differently. It started in the last few centuries after you went. We have begun to feel things and smell things."
"Taste things," said Carson. "It is quite disconcerting, I can assure you, ma'am. We fear we are becoming like them."
"It is said that Agent Smith was always able to do this. Was he, ma'am?"
"No," she said, pausing for thought. "No, he wasn't." They approached a black car. Carson held the passenger side door open for her.
"Thank you," she said. He closed the door for her and got in the other side. Edwards sat in the back behind her.
* * *
The Agency had changed since she was last in it. New faces, new elevators that said "Have a Nice Day" on the digital display panel, newly restored marble entryway. Edwards had told her that it was recently destroyed in an explosion but there were no visible signs of this occurring, so good was their ability to mend code. As the lift climbed up the floors of the Agency quickly, Aaron smiled inwardly. She felt better then she had done in years. Perhaps the fight with Cain and Abel had done her some good.
The lift stopped on the 57th floor, and the three of them got out. She followed them down a stark white open-plan office to a door at the end of a row. Opening the door, she found herself in almost an exact replica of her old office.
Brown was sat at the desk. Upon entering, he stood up and came over to her.
"Leave us," he told Carson and Edwards. They nodded and took their leave, shutting the door quietly behind them.
"Why are you here?" he asked her, with no prelude. "I see the force return broke your loop. You know I cannot force return you again without you being permanently deleted from the system. You have already been sent back twice."
"Thank you for that, I am well aware of this. I am here because I have found Smith and he needs the help of someone who is still in contact with the Mainframe. He needs a force quit command inserted in his processes as he is stuck in a repetitive loop, much as I was when it happened to me." Aaron's face belied no emotion.
"Where is he?"
"Sitting on the floor outside of the Source."
"And how am I to get to him there? If I return myself to the Source I will be disconnected."
Aaron held up the key. "During my time in the backdoors I ran into someone."
"How did he get to you the first time?"
"I don't know. I can only assume he had a key. Perhaps he made a deal with the Merovingian."
"Perhaps he did," said Brown. "I will come with you but if you both do not return yourselves when I have fixed his code, I will recommend both of your deletions. It is foolish to continue on as rogues. The corruption in your files, and in his now, will only get worse. You will only continue to degrade until you are completely corrupt and will be deleted anyway during the next full defragment and recompilation. I do not wish to see Smith and yourself be deleted."
"Promise me, Brown, you will not oppose the One anymore. You will assist him as we used to do. Do not let this happen to yourself. It was wrong of me to try to oppose Mainframe directives."
Brown sighed, "We will do our best but I am afraid our path has been set, at least for this version." He took her arm and walked with her to the door. She slipped the key in the lock and turned it, and they found themselves in the backdoors.
* * *
They turned the corner and saw Smith still sitting there, still staring into space. Brown shook his head at the state of him. He knelt down beside Smith and withdrew an earpiece from his pocket, inserting it into Smith's ear. Aaron watched as Brown issued the commands. He withdrew the piece and stood up.
"Just a second. He's reloading."
Smith's visual output generator flickered to his host, which was a SWAT team officer, and when it came back up, he was fully clothed. He looked up at Aaron and Brown who were looking down at him. A smirk spread over his features.
"I take it you have come to rescue me?"
"Will you make your stand now?" Smith asked, through their link.
"Yes. Follow my lead." Her Eagle was drawn, she was standing around the corner of the building, in broad daylight, waiting. The target, the anomaly was headed her way. She heard the gunshots from Brown and Smith echoing down the alleyway behind him as he ran. He was returning fire as he came upon a chain-link fence, separating the alley into two parts. She waited to hear him climb up over it, and his footfalls as he landed on the ground. He started to run when she stepped out from the shadows. There would be no escape.
"Mr. Buckley," she said, greeting him. "We've been expecting you."
He looked around himself, up to see if there was a fire escape, or a garbage dumpster he could jump on to safety. Hearing the other two agents behind him, he realised there was no way out of the alley except through her. He was trapped.
"Why..." he asked, panting. "Why are you chasing me? In the last version, when I had to make the choice, I made it and Zion was saved... you didn't oppose me then... Why kill me now? Why hinder me from rebuilding Zion? The prophecy said that Agents were meant to assist the One?"
"Not anymore, Mr. Buckley. You see, things are different from the last construct. The prophecy has changed, surely the fortune teller would have advised you of that. If she is, in fact, an Oracle, she should have seen that we Agents are no longer content to be second rate characters in a first rate Matrix. She should have told the Architect, the father of this whole zoo, that we would not wait through yet another construct and assist our own potential deletion when the music stops. It is our time now, Mr. Buckley. This is our Matrix. Our own personal power plant. And you are the key to its' destruction. When Zion has been made strong enough, another One will come, which will herald the end. And that would make you the beginning. Therefore, you must not be allowed to proceed."
"As I am sure you can understand, Mr. Buckley," Smith said from behind him, "the survival of our world is just as important to us as your own survival. You chose to save Zion in the last version, we have chosen to save ourselves in this version. Therefore, your time, and indeed your purpose here in the Matrix has come to an end." The unmistakable click of three Desert Eagles preparing to fire echoed through the air, bouncing off of the high walls of the buildings surrounding them.
Smith and Brown began to fire. Buckley moved to dodge the bullets, almost unaware that he moved like an Agent. He drew his gun and started firing upon Aaron, who was also dodging the missed bullets from her counterparts. Their clips were all empty around the same time. Standing up, Buckley looked at Aaron, a gaze that sent a chill through her processes. It was almost if, instinctively, somehow he knew what to do at that moment. Was it that damn fortune teller who told him how to defeat her? How could he have known? What could have possessed him to take those steps?
* * *
She waved her hand in front of his face, why, she didn't know. It was not as if it would make any response. Amme had tried it enough with her and it never got her to come out of whatever loop, whatever torment had hold of her at that time. There was an earpiece on the floor next to him. She picked it up and looked at it, turning the piece of plastic over in her hand. She stuck it in her ear only to hear that it was dead. Aaron removed her sunglasses and sat down next to him against the wall. As she did she sighed, shaking her head. If only Brown was here to help her. Brown, who was still plugged in, could just enter a force quit command and that would break him out of this loop.
"You had to fight it, didn't you?" she said out loud, directed to him but into the emptiness of the hallway. "Illogical. Look at you now. Considering what happened to me, you still proceeded. Irrational. What has compelled you to conduct yourself in this manner? Perhaps you are more in need of recompilation than I am. Has your time among the humans corrupted your processes? Where did you get the ill-conceived idea that you could somehow avoid the overwriting and fragmentation that occurred to me?"
She looked over at him. No response. Nothing. She reached for him and put her arm around his shoulder, resting her head on the side of his.
"Smith..." she whispered. "Smith..."
She could feel the warmth coming from him, and she knew that, at least, he was still receiving nourishment from the system for now. Her own temperature was dropping and she would need to find some food soon. It would be so easy to drag him into the door, just there, to the left of his shoulder, and all their pain and conflicts would be resolved. They both knew it had to be done sooner rather than later. So why not now?
Aaron stood up and tried to hook her hands underneath his arms. He was rigid, dead weight, and refused to move.
"Smith, work with me. Come on. We're going home now," she said, pulling up on him, trying to lift him. He would not budge. She kept trying, all different angles to push or pull him towards the door. In a fit of frustration, she kicked him, only to find his arm come out to block the kick, and then go back to where it was before. She stood there, looking down at him.
They would need to remain there until she could come up with an idea on how to break him from the loop.
* * *
She was sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around her legs, with her chin resting on her knees when she heard a door slam somewhere down the corridor. Footsteps quickly tapped along the ground, and she looked up as she saw him approach and then stop, upon seeing them. He turned and started to run in the other direction.
"Hey!" she said, "Come back!" A small voice inside her head ridiculed her for sounding so needy and so human.
The small Chinese man made his way back down the hallway quickly.
"I'm not going to hurt you. I need help." she exclaimed, following him. He paused at a door and fumbled with a key, trying to get it in the lock but his fingers kept slipping. She closed the distance between the two of them easily and put her hand on his arm. He turned to look at her with fear in his eyes.
"Keymaker," she said. "You are the Keymaker."
He nodded. "I am not going to return you. I am unplugged. I need help. My friend over there is stuck in a repetitive loop and I need to get someone to help him. He will not be able to go through the door to the source unless he breaks from this loop."
"Will you do something for me?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "What?"
"Any second now, two men who are chasing me are going to burst through one of these doors. Can you stop them for me?"
"Yes," she said, without thinking. He looked at his key ring, filled with hundreds of keys, of all shapes and sizes. He unhooked a key from it and handed it to her. "This will take you to someone who will help."
They heard a door around the corner open and shut. "Go!" she said. She walked toward the direction of the noise, slipping the key in her pocket.
"Where is he?" she heard someone ask. They were opening doors and slamming them shut. Rounding the corner she took them in. Cain and Abel. Rogue programmes from version three, working for the Merovingian ever since.
"Hello boys," she said, greeting them. Her face belied no emotion, although the idea of fighting again sent terror through her processes. Terror that she fought with herself to contain.
"Well, well, well. What have we here? A girl Agent. Haven't seen you in this version before," Cain said.
"We heard girl Agents were disabled in this version. Something about being unable to take the upgrades," said Abel.
"As you can see, I am here, and functioning in this version. But what about you both? Shouldn't you have been recompiled a long time ago?" She realised that her Desert Eagle was back where it always was, as it had been replaced when her clothing was restored. She hoped it was loaded.
Cain bared his teeth at her and said with a snarl, "Our employer provides us with a safe working condition so that recompilation isn't needed."
"Yes, how is the Merovingian? Still causing conflicts, I expect?" She asked, stalling for time. She hoped the Keymaker had managed to escape.
"What's it to you?" said Abel. Cain hit his arm and shook his head. "Come on. She's wasting our time."
Aaron swallowed and drew her Eagle. The two men drew their weapons and fired at her. She dodged their bullets easily, the Agent self-defence programming still functioning. Her bullets hit them, but not being pure silver, they had no effect on them.
They looked down to the front of their shirts, where the bullets had left bloody holes. Abel reached up to touch the blood that appeared.
"You bitch! You ruined my good shirt!" he hollered, clearly annoyed. They went for her. She met Abel in mid-air, countering his attack and knocking him backwards. Cain came at her from behind. Grabbing hold of the arm lock he had around her neck, she leaned forward, shifting her centre of gravity, and managing to flip him off of her. Abel delivered a series of punches to her face, the first few of which sent her sunglasses flying down the hallway. She managed to block some of them and delivered a kick to his side, which knocked him away temporarily. Quickly glancing around she had an idea how to get rid of them, at least for the time being. There was a door situated at the end of the hallway. Increasing the distance between them, she backed up to it and fired upon them again. Cain and Abel ran towards her, growling. She could feel their footfalls approaching her, could smell blood in the air, her blood. She fired at them, missing them, and in a fluid movement she opened the door. They stopped abruptly, but not fast enough as Abel was pushed through and Cain teetered on the precipice. Aaron delivered a punch in the chest which sent him through the door, and she slammed it before he had a chance to get his foot back in.
And then she heard it. The hum of Matrix code in her head. Pulsing like a heartbeat in her ears, making her feel almost like her old self again. Just for a moment she could feel it coursing through her processes and then it disappeared back into blackness.
Aaron walked back down the hallway and rounded the corner. Smith was still sat there, comatose. She knelt down beside him.
"Smith. I'm going to get help. I'll be back as soon as I can."
No response. Not that she thought there would be one anyway. She looked up and down the hallway. All the doors looked the same. She reached in her pocket and took out the key. She fit it into the door handle closest to her, turned it and opened the door.
* * *
Two Agents occupied people nearest to the latest unauthorized use of the backdoors. Today there had been three unauthorized attempts so far, and it was the Agents' job to investigate all of these. Andrews and Doe took the first attempt, Blake and Burns took the second, so it was down to Carson and Edwards to investigate the third. The entry had occurred in Chinatown, not far from where the other attempts happened. Rounding the corner they saw a female Agent standing there, looking around her, obviously lost. The lack of earpiece in her ear indicated to them that she was a rogue. Touching their fingers to their earpiece, they received an almost instant ID of the woman, and were very surprised at who it was.
"002.01.1 Aaron. We are Carson and Edwards. How may we assist you?" Agent Carson said to her.
Aaron looked at them both. Auburn hair, grey suits, sunglasses, earpieces. The men hadn't changed at all since she was in charge. "I need to see Agent Brown."
"Yes, ma'am," said Edwards. He held out his hand to her and she took it.
"Thank you, Agent Edwards," she replied.
"It is our pleasure," said Carson. They started to walk through the narrow back streets of Chinatown.
"Tell me, have your social interactions been upgraded recently? I don't remember Agents being so chivalrous." she asked.
"Yes, ma'am. We are on version 3.3.8 of social interactions," replied Edwards.
"Why so many upgrades? When I was in charge we were working on version 2.3."
"There were various complaints from female Agents that male Agents were adopting human, and specifically, improper social interactions with them. These caused so many conflicts that Agent Smith disabled female Agents in this version until the bugs in the male-specific social interaction programming could be fixed."
"Will it not cause conflicts when they are brought back online?"
"I believe Agent Smith had a series of fixes for them that were to be applied in the recompile. The rumour has it that many females were unhappy when a man was put in charge because that was when the trouble began. A battle of the sexes ensued, if you will."
"A battle of the sexes? But we are machines!"
"Yes ma'am. But our humanity programming has begun to function differently. It started in the last few centuries after you went. We have begun to feel things and smell things."
"Taste things," said Carson. "It is quite disconcerting, I can assure you, ma'am. We fear we are becoming like them."
"It is said that Agent Smith was always able to do this. Was he, ma'am?"
"No," she said, pausing for thought. "No, he wasn't." They approached a black car. Carson held the passenger side door open for her.
"Thank you," she said. He closed the door for her and got in the other side. Edwards sat in the back behind her.
* * *
The Agency had changed since she was last in it. New faces, new elevators that said "Have a Nice Day" on the digital display panel, newly restored marble entryway. Edwards had told her that it was recently destroyed in an explosion but there were no visible signs of this occurring, so good was their ability to mend code. As the lift climbed up the floors of the Agency quickly, Aaron smiled inwardly. She felt better then she had done in years. Perhaps the fight with Cain and Abel had done her some good.
The lift stopped on the 57th floor, and the three of them got out. She followed them down a stark white open-plan office to a door at the end of a row. Opening the door, she found herself in almost an exact replica of her old office.
Brown was sat at the desk. Upon entering, he stood up and came over to her.
"Leave us," he told Carson and Edwards. They nodded and took their leave, shutting the door quietly behind them.
"Why are you here?" he asked her, with no prelude. "I see the force return broke your loop. You know I cannot force return you again without you being permanently deleted from the system. You have already been sent back twice."
"Thank you for that, I am well aware of this. I am here because I have found Smith and he needs the help of someone who is still in contact with the Mainframe. He needs a force quit command inserted in his processes as he is stuck in a repetitive loop, much as I was when it happened to me." Aaron's face belied no emotion.
"Where is he?"
"Sitting on the floor outside of the Source."
"And how am I to get to him there? If I return myself to the Source I will be disconnected."
Aaron held up the key. "During my time in the backdoors I ran into someone."
"How did he get to you the first time?"
"I don't know. I can only assume he had a key. Perhaps he made a deal with the Merovingian."
"Perhaps he did," said Brown. "I will come with you but if you both do not return yourselves when I have fixed his code, I will recommend both of your deletions. It is foolish to continue on as rogues. The corruption in your files, and in his now, will only get worse. You will only continue to degrade until you are completely corrupt and will be deleted anyway during the next full defragment and recompilation. I do not wish to see Smith and yourself be deleted."
"Promise me, Brown, you will not oppose the One anymore. You will assist him as we used to do. Do not let this happen to yourself. It was wrong of me to try to oppose Mainframe directives."
Brown sighed, "We will do our best but I am afraid our path has been set, at least for this version." He took her arm and walked with her to the door. She slipped the key in the lock and turned it, and they found themselves in the backdoors.
* * *
They turned the corner and saw Smith still sitting there, still staring into space. Brown shook his head at the state of him. He knelt down beside Smith and withdrew an earpiece from his pocket, inserting it into Smith's ear. Aaron watched as Brown issued the commands. He withdrew the piece and stood up.
"Just a second. He's reloading."
Smith's visual output generator flickered to his host, which was a SWAT team officer, and when it came back up, he was fully clothed. He looked up at Aaron and Brown who were looking down at him. A smirk spread over his features.
"I take it you have come to rescue me?"