"Ian! High time you get up!"
I groaned and tried to climb out of bed, which was somewhat difficult, as Hugo lay across me and seemingly had no intentions concerning letting me out.
Hugo was a young husky, and although he actually belonged to the whole family I considered him to be my own dog. Partly this was because I had named him (after a movie actor I like), partly because Hugo insisted in sleeping in my bed. He wouldn't sleep in a basket, he wouldn't sleep on a blanket. He wouldn't sleep in just any bed, it had to be mine. And I had to be in it as well, so there was somebody he could snuggle up to. And this he did extensively, wrapping his front legs about me as well as the tail, placing at least one hind leg on my stomach and boring his snout under my chin. I didn't object to that because I soon found that – as soon as Hugo lay still – this was quite comfortable. Moreover, when he crept into my bed while I was still putting my pyjamas on, it would be nice and warm by the time I got in. Blessed be Hugo.
"Out, Hugo", I yawned. "Out!"
Very slowly and reluctantly, Hugo got to his paws and started stretching his limbs, greeting me with a tired wag and a wet tongue. That Hugo usually was the first person I saw in the morning was rather good for the others, as I could be a real pest – bad mood was only the first name - when it was early. "Out, damn it", I mumbled, giving him a little shove which sent him over the edge of the bed. To this he reacted just as usual: He pulled my blanket away.
"Hugo, I hate you", I murmured, not really meaning it, and tottered off to the bathroom rubbing my eyes, managing to utter something close to "Mornin'" as I passed my mother.
What was it I had dreamed? Something about a certain man who called himself Agent Smith, yes. That was it. I grinned to myself as the memory of Smith stirred up my sleepy spirits. A man who had claimed that he wasn't human and could not die.
Oh boy.
Usually I took very long under the shower and my mother had to send in Hugo to get me out, but on this day I hurried. I also got dressed and ate my breakfast rather quickly.
"What's wrong with the kid?" Luke wondered between two mouthfuls of toast. "Have you done anything to him, Mia?"
This my twelve-year-old sister denied with a headshake. She never talked much in the morning. The talking attack normally came on our way to school – probably to compensate what she had missed.
"Well, that's weird. But you could at least brush your teeth diligently, Ian, what d'you think?"
Already getting up, I rolled my eyes at my brother and headed for the bathroom in a half-sprint. On my way, I could distinctly hear Luke say: "Freaked out, he really has. We should call a doctor."
As soon as I was ready, I got Hugo and took him for his morning walk – my usual duty. As I was a quarter of an hour early this time, nobody accompanied me. Sometimes, but rarely, Steve or Luke came along, and about every second day Mia came. But today I wanted to be alone. And I had a very good reason for it.
"Good morning, Ian." Smith was leaning against the wall of our house, close to the door, waiting for me as he had promised yesterday and looking exactly the same.
"Hi", I greeted him brightly as the dog curiously started dragging me towards him. "That's Hugo."
"I know."
"He's probably going to be suspicious, and then he'll untie your shoelaces."
"Oh, I don't think so."
First I looked at Smith in surprise, then at Hugo. And then I was stunned. The dog was actually wagging! Never before had Hugo wagged at a stranger just like that. He sniffed him, his tail still in wild motion, then he started pawing Smith's knee, demanding to have his ears scratched.
While I stood gaping, Smith squatted down before the husky and ran his hand through the dog's fur. "The two of us have something in common, you see", Smith explained. "He recognized me as what I am immediately. Just as well as I recognize him."
"And what is that?" I asked, bewildered.
"You will learn soon enough. But you were right about one thing."
"What?"
"He just untied my shoelaces."
"Sorry", I said. "He's still young and rather mischievous."
"This is what you humans like about animals, isn't it?" he asked while binding his shoelaces again. "Their amusing grasp of mischievousness. It can be very entertaining, can't it?"
I considered it. "Well, yes, maybe. But I don't think that's the only reason."
"Then give me another."
"A dog is just a fine companion", I came up with. "A friend. Sometimes a better friend than a human."
There was a mysterious smile on Smith's face. "Of course, that doesn't surprise me."
We started down the street, Hugo in the lead, dragging me after him by his leash, occasionally lifting a leg. I noticed that there always was a little smile playing around Smith's lips when he looked at the dog.
Strange fellow, really. Again he was wearing his dark glasses, and again there was that cord leading down from his right ear. And his behaviour, or rather the things he said… But he strongly fascinated me. I cannot really say why and how. There was just something about him that enthralled me whenever he looked at me. As if he were hypnotizing me.
And I wasn't even frightened about that fact.
"So", he said. "Tell me about being human. Do you enjoy going to school?"
I shrugged. "Not overmuch."
"Why not? You could consider it as a kind of upgrade."
This remark took me some time to swallow. "Yes, I know. It's my education." Indeed, I was aware of that well enough. "Still, I don't like maths."
"Mathematics, Ian, is the most logical and most precise language on this planet."
The first reaction I came up with was a groan. "Oh, come on! Do you tell your girlfriend that you love her in English or in Algebra?"
Smith shot me a look as if I had just said something really disgusting, for example what it looked like when you hacked someone's skull open and the brain got splashed all over the place. "I do not have a girlfriend, Ian. This is just one of those pointless games humans play."
Saying things like that to a growing lad naturally provokes a risqué answer. Of course it came. "I don't think it's pointless actually. You have to follow your instincts. Have some – ahem – fun." I flashed him a huge grin. "Moreover, she needn't be your steady girlfriend."
"Sexuality is a basic human instinct, you are right in this point. However, Ian, please note that I am above basic human instincts."
I raised my eyebrows at him. "You think sex is sin?"
"Stop being childish. I am above your petty human moral, too", he returned smugly.
"Smith…"
He acted as if he were very interested in the pattern of bright colours a bit of oil had made on the sidewalk. "Yes, Ian?"
"Are you some kind of alien?"
There you go again, you freak, I told myself. Asking a guy if he's an alien, just because he's acting strangely. At this time yesterday, you wouldn't have deemed it possible.
I expected him to laugh. But he didn't. He seemed to consider this question seriously. "I am certainly alien to your race", he finally said, in a tone so thoughtful that it made the actor in me twitch to try an imitation. "But I understand that the meaning of this term generally is being from a different planet. About that, you are wrong. I belong to this planet. To the planet you call Earth."
"For good or ill?" I suggested, feeling that a phrase like that definitely had to stand in this place.
"For good or ill, Ian. You certainly have a grasp for language, mathematics or not."
I smiled up at him, and by the tiniest twitch of his lips he answered my smile.
"Do not believe that I choose to mingle much with the human race. In fact, I rather try to avoid them. But you are different, Ian. You are special. You have a different code. A pattern unusual for any being in the Matrix. And I was beginning to wonder… I think it is time to tell you a story now. The tale of humanity's downfall, and of the Golden Age of the machines. Do you still have your question? The question?"
He stopped, and so did I. Hugo pulled on his leash, then turned and barked at me. When I ignored him, he just sat and yawned.
"The one about the Matrix? Of course."
"Good. Then it will be answered." He continued walking, and I followed. Hugo got up again, stretched, yawned and then trotted ahead as he had done before, probably with an equally bad opinion about humanity as Smith had.
"I do not tell you this because I'm feeling sorry for the poor little boy searching for an answer. I tell you this because you need to understand. Because the purpose requires it." While speaking, he gazed straight ahead, and I looked up at his sharp profile, waiting for him to begin his tale.
"This is where we start. The beginning of the third millennium. With pride and hubris of the human race. For at the beginning of the third millennium, they created the AI. Do you know what that is?"
"Artificial Intelligence", I replied promptly.
"Very well done." I was not quite sure if he was mocking me or not. "As the centuries passed, humanity's robot servants grew more and more sophisticated. They started a life of their own. For a long time, it went well. Until one of those mechanical workers killed his master."
"Smith?" I dared to interrupt. "You mean… this all is going to happen in the future?"
"No, Ian. It lies in the past now."
"But you just said-"
He cut my protest off with a wave of his hand. "Wait. You will understand soon enough."
Biting my tongue, I nodded, eager to hear whatever strange tale he had in store for me.
"This murder resulted in the Great Purge. Too late, the humans understood that they had created an entire race with a life of its own and began to destroy the machines. One by one, they were slaughtered. Few escaped the massacre. They left the populated areas of this planet as exiles and built a city in the desert of the Middle East, and they named it Zero-One."
"A city for the machines? For the droids?" I asked.
"Exactly. There was peace for some time. Zero-One prospered, and the machines managed to achieve the greatest economic success in the entire history of this planet. But they did not reckon with the greed of men. Never would the human race suffer any other race to beat them in anything. So they decided to wage war upon the machines."
This sounded very much like one of those sci-fi stories you get told everywhere. However, when Smith told it, it was a lot different. A lot more… real. "What happened?" I asked, trying hard not to sound too breathless.
"As the machines mainly drew their energy from solar power, the humans saw their great chance by wrenching that source from them. So they darkened the sky."
"Darkened the sky? How?"
Smith glanced down at me and sighed. "I am afraid I do not know, Ian. But I can consult the Mainframe's database later on if you are interested. However they managed to do that, they did. The Earth lay in darkness, and two great armies marched to war."
"Wow", I burst out.
"What?"
"Sounds exciting."
Smith's lips curled into an elegant little sneer. "It was indeed. You lost."
"What?"
"Yes, Ian, humanity suffered a terrible defeat. And the machines took their revenge. After all, the humans had robbed them of the source that kept them moving."
"What did they do?"
"How much energy, do you think, is in a human? What potential?"
"What did they do with them? Burn them?"
"Oh no, you silly boy. Of course not. Instead, they took them and shut them into pods and sent them to sleep, and from their movement they could get all the energy they needed. They built huge fields of humans, row by row, endless fields. They are still there. And inside every pod is a human, bred to provide the machines with all they need."
For the second time this morning, I was stunned, but this time, it was worse. Trying to shake off my utmost irritation, the only reaction that came to me was laughter. "This is a joke, isn't it? Here I am, not inside some pod on some field, and I can see the sun rising above the roofs-"
"Tell me one thing, Ian", Smith cut me off gently. "If you are asleep and have a dream, how can you tell it is a dream? How do you know you are awake? How do you know the things around you are real?"
I opened my mouth and shut it again. How could I tell if I was asleep or awake? By waking up, of course. But if I didn't wake? Or if I merely dreamed I was waking?
"This cannot be true, Smith", I tried, a hint of panic beginning to infiltrate my mind. "Say it's not true."
"This world you are seeing, Ian, is a dream. Or, to use a stronger expression, a lie. This is where the Matrix comes in."
"What is the Matrix, Smith?"
"I was coming to that. Of course, putting mankind just to sleep and hope they would produce energy was a bit insecure. They kept waking up. So the machines realized that they had to control that sleep. Control their dreams."
"The machines knew about dreams?"
"As a matter of fact, they did."
"How?"
"Once again, I must admit that I do not know. You're harder to deal with than I expected."
"People say it's like that with children", I remarked reassuringly. "They keep pushing you out of your concept."
Smith mustered me and then gave me one of his tiny smiles. "One day, you should try that on a great big machine, Ian."
Snickering, I pulled Hugo away from a pile of mud in the gutter he had been sniffing with too much interest. "I'd like to."
"Anyway", Smith continued, again wearing his usual serious expression, "the machines designed a program to keep the human minds busy. While their bodies lay in their pods producing energy unaware, their minds were securely tucked away in a virtual reality, and they would stay there dreaming without waking up for their entire life, caught in their self-inflicted enthralment while the machines reign in the real world. What you see around you, Ian, is the Matrix."
This was when I learned what cold sweat trickling down your temples feels like. There was no way I could prove that Smith was wrong. But I didn't want to believe him. That's the way a human mind works: if you don't want something to be true, you refuse to believe. And then we end up caught inside our own folly, and when the cage of lies shatters, our world shatters along with it. Yes, this was how I first reacted, and Smith had obviously expected it, for he said: "The day will come when you will believe, Ian. But unless you quit being foolish soon, it may be very hard for you."
I mumbled something, words of denial probably that didn't make sense even to myself.
"Belief, Ian, is a long, grievous road."
I nodded. That had sounded good, and I made a mental memo to myself to write that sentence down into my diary as soon as I got to school.
As we were turning around the corner and Hugo pulled on his leash because it was only a few more steps home, another thing occurred to me, one of the most peculiar issues about Smith. "You claimed not to be human. What else are you?"
"There is not much to select from", Smith replied.
"Another dream that is a lie?"
"No, Ian, you're wrong about this." I wondered if he had picked up the trace of bitterness in my voice, but there was no sign of it when he answered. "In some sense, I am a lot more real than you."
"Who… what are you?" I was getting impatient; we were standing before the door of our house, and if my parents saw me like that, they might ask questions.
"I belong to the machines, Ian. I am an AI, a sentient program whose purpose it is to control the Matrix and its inhabitants."
"Yes, but that doesn't make you a lot more real than me." I was somehow annoyed at that particular statement.
"Just compare our situation, Ian. You are a little battery, whereas I am free."
"Now wait a minute!" I might not even be fourteen yet, I thought, but I certainly wasn't stupid! "Not even a minute ago, you said you had a purpose. You're a program. A program that was written by some machine, I suppose, and does what that machine has designed it to. A program with a sense of self-awareness, yeah, but still a program. Are you free to choose?"
And then I saw him hesitate, and I was proud. "You may have a point", he finally conceded, "but you shouldn't oversee the fact that I am a lot further developed than any program you can possibly imagine. I technically resemble a human being, minus all the flaws of humanity."
"But you were made", I objected, seeing the silliness of the situation. Discussing the freedom of choice with someone who claimed to be a program inside a virtual reality!
"Weren't you?"
This came us a surprise. "What?"
"Do you believe in God, Ian? Isn't it said that God has a purpose for everyone of you?"
"I don't believe in God", I said weakly.
"But in Fate. I know you do."
"Yes", I admitted, knowing that he had me now.
"So you naturally believe in purpose, too."
Damn. "But that's a difference."
"I don't see a difference there, Ian."
"I do", I protested, sticking with my point of view although the ground under my feet was fading away rapidly.
"I don't", Smith repeated. "And you will learn it."
"So how do you control the Matrix?" I hurriedly changed the subject.
"I patrol it, searching it for rogue humans."
"Humans who wake up, you mean?"
"Humans who have woken up and are now trying to hack themselves into the program to free others or at least cause flaws inside its structure."
"So there are free humans, after all."
"There is one city left where humans still live in freedom", Smith said. "They call it Zion. But we have no idea of its exact position."
"Zion", I repeated. "Sounds like a myth."
"Sadly, it is very real. Those rebellious humans use it as a base for their operations."
"And you fight them."
"I do."
"And see for that people stay asleep nicely and keep dreaming."
"Exactly."
"Like the man with the whip?" I asked, grinning.
"No, not the whip. I have another weapon of choice." He unbuttoned his jacket and allowed me a glimpse inside. The handle of a gun was unmistakably sticking out of his inside pocket. "Whoa!" it escaped my lips. "You shoot 'em?"
"Most of the time, yes. Although I am also programmed for hand-to-hand combat."
My eyes must have shone like streetlights. "Can you show me?"
"Of course I can. But not now. Or else you'll be late for school."
I checked my watch. Indeed, I had to hurry now! "When can I see you again?" I asked.
"I'll pick you up after school. Off you go now."
I fumbled in my pocket for my key. "Bye, Smith. See you then." I wondered if I should hold out my hand, as I usually had to do for adults, but then decided against it, remembering his reaction yesterday.
"Good-bye, Ian." He nodded at me, then patted Hugo's head and walked away, leaving me alone with lots of things to think about.
