A/N: 100 Reviews! Yay! Thank you to all my beloved readers, all you who've stuck through this with me. I couldn't have done it without you.
I'm lagging behind a bit in my usual pace because, while I have the entire story generally plotted out, I'm actually running out of things for Smith and Sol to do between big events. So, to my dear readers, I ask you for suggestions! What kinds of silly little things do you want to see them doing day to day? Little one day adventures, like hiding out from the rain in the coffee shop or singing in the park with her friends. I'm sure you all have suggestions, and I'd love to hear some of them!
But for now, on with the show...
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He really needed to find something with which to occupy his days that didn't involve waiting for Solace to show up in the park. It seemed forever until she decided to take a lunch break, and then forever again until she actually made it to their clearing. Joe had been giving him sly looks on the side, knowing looks that Smith wasn't sure he liked. It was as though the crazy man had plans for Smith and Solace, plans that didn't include either of them actually knowing what was in store for them. Perhaps it was a quirk of his programming, but Smith definitely favored having a good idea of what was coming rather than being surprised.
He watched, relieved, as she crossed the street and walked sedately over to his bench. And it had been... how long? Thirty nine days since their first meeting. A long time to become accustomed to the presence of a human. Not just any human, not 'a' human. Solace.
He scowled slightly.
"Rachel had me doing the new-kid tour all morning," she said by way of explanation and apology. "Mike's apparently hired some new blood, and Rache isn't too happy about it."
She reached out and took his hand without a second thought as they turned to walk down one of their usual paths. .Her fingers were warm, laced through his, natural and easy. It was becoming too comfortable. Why?
"Penny for your thoughts?"
He temporized with part of the truth. "I am... wondering what to do with myself, now."
"With all the free time?" she smiled. "I could wish I had so much free time. Did you have any hobbies?"
He smiled without humor at the thought of an Agent with hobbies. "No..."
She either didn't notice or didn't pay attention to the sickly grin on his face. "Well, now would be a good time to find some. Volunteer work, maybe... I'm not sure where but there has to be someplace that could use your talents..." He gave a little laugh, derision and hysteria mingled, and she squeezed his hand gently ... a gesture of concern? Probably. "We'll figure something out."
"I hope so," he muttered, much less sanguine about his prospects than she.
And she must have been able to hear it in his voice, because she stopped and turned around, effectively preventing him from walking on as well. One hand reached up to stroke his hair, so soft a touch that he barely felt it. His breathing slowed, calmed.
"We'll figure something out," she repeated, her voice low, quiet, and yet forceful. "There are hundreds of thousands of places that all need volunteers. There are any number of hobbies you could try, at least some of which you would probably enjoy. There's a whole world out there to explore, to see. We'll find you something to occupy your time... if you want to be useful, we can do that. If you want to see and do new things, we can do that too."
It was, he discovered then, annoyingly hard to stare down her overwhelming optimism. More so because she was right than because she was forceful; there were still a number of ways he could be useful, depending on how much he dared risk the Agents coming down on him and trying to delete him. "Remember, I cannot operate..."
"On their radar, I know." Her hand slid down over his cheek, and he flinched. She either didn't notice or ignored it. "It'll be okay. You're not useless, and you're not rudderless. Your work may have been your life at one point, but it doesn't have to be anymore."
Smith stared at her. It was perceptive of her, and narrowly pierced the heart of the matter. He was an Agent, created to enforce the Matrix and prevent the population at large from discovering and perhaps rebelling, and now that he was stripped of that status he had effectively been stripped of all purpose. There was no longer any reason for him to exist, and though something in him rebelled at the thought of being deleted, he didn't understand why. He didn't understand what was making him stay and therefore had nothing to fill the suddenly gaping void in his being. But how did a human understand something like that?
"What now?" he asked after a long silence. His voice was raspy, harsh, as though from disuse.
"We can keep walking," she said, her voice slow and careful. It almost seemed as though she was afraid he would break if she handled him too roughly. It was both infuriating and welcome. "We can have our usual walk through the park. Or we can try and figure out what to do. It's up to you."
There was a long silence. Time spun out, and he seemed to have forever to make his choice. Maybe he did; for all he knew she was perfectly prepared to spend the rest of eternity standing there waiting for him to decide. She had certainly given that impression. She hadn't moved an inch.
What did he want? On the one hand, she had certainly shown acute comprehension of the problem. He wasn't very hopeful that she would be able to come up with a viable solution, but there was always the chance. On the other hand... did he really want to think about this right now? Did he really want to think about it at all? Maybe it was easier just to give into apathy, not think about it, just spend the rest of his days... doing what? Wandering around a park? Unacceptable. But then, he would have to come up with something else to do, something else to be. He couldn't be an ex-Agent for the rest of his existence...
She was still standing there, frozen.
"Lets walk..." He stepped around her, and she turned and came with him, not letting go of his hand. "We can discuss it as we go along."
"Walking and talking. I can live with that."
He glanced over at her sharply, but there was not a hint of smile or humor. If she was poking fun at him she was doing it very delicately.
"Do you have any idea what you want to do? Even in a general sense... travel the world, raise money for some charity, star in a movie..."
He repressed a shudder at that last idea. That was by far and away more publicity than he would be able to deal with. "I don't have enough sympathy for the human race to engage in volunteer work," he said finally. It was a pared-down version of the truth.
Solace chuckled. "I guess I can see your point, even if it's an attitude I try not to share. All right, how about travel? See the world? There are ways that you can tour Europe on a very modest budget... you could spend several months abroad. You might even figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life over there."
The Agent glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, intrigued by the dispassionate tone in her voice. "Is that what you recommend?"
She wouldn't look at him, although she kept walking beside him, hand in hand. "There's certainly enough to do in Europe... enough to occupy anyone for a year at least. If you're feeling at loose ends, it'd be a good place to spend some time. Go to the theatre, walk along the beaches, that sort of thing."
"Yes. But, what do you think?"
No response. They kept walking, and Smith didn't press the issue.
"We could ask Julian or Richard if they know of anything you could do... or Rain or Lily. I don't know if they're still looking for more security at the school where Rain teaches... But she might know of a place where they are. It's always hard to find good personnel to work at schools." Solace rushed past the travel plans, which made Smith cock a curious eyebrow at her.
"Perhaps..." The idea of working with small children, tiny humans... he couldn't say it was appealing. On the other hand the prospect of getting to know some of Solace's other friends was intriguing. His knowledge of them was almost entirely confined to their names, occupations, and one or two trivial facts. Actually meeting them... "How do you find such oddly named friends in the first place?"
She chuckled. "Holdover from the sixties and seventies... more the sixties... when everyone was naming themselves silly things like Moonchild or Sunflower. Most of my friends either have parents who were the real die-hard hippies, or they're going along with the new age pagan phenomenon that says you have to have a magical name," she drew air quotes around the phrase, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. "Personally, if I had a magical name, I wouldn't tell anyone."
"Why?"
"Names have power over things. You don't have any choice in the name you're given at birth, but if you're picking a magical name it should be something that is very much a part of you. If you give that to someone else, you're giving them power over you. It's one of the oldest forms of magic in myth and legend."
Smith thought over some of the names that the Matrix had dubbed its denizens. Largely functional, but he could certainly understand where the correlation and conclusion might be drawn. The Architect, the Guardians, the Keymaker, even the Agents. Even that damned arrogant AI in his tower of dark glass and champagne had been named appropriate to his function.
"I suppose that makes sense..." he said after a while.
"Lily ... well, Lily is her real name. And it sort of suits her, she has that willowy build and the pale complexion. Rain's real name is Michele Lansford, and Star's real name is Jenny Donovan. In Star's case, I think she just wanted something a little more flashy."
Smith shook his head, chuckling. Solace glanced over at him, startled but pleased, underscoring the oddity of the Agent AI being amused at something so simple as a young woman's choice of names. He let the chuckle die, uncomfortable.
"Do any of these ideas sound like fun?"
"Fun?" For a second the word didn't make sense, even in context.
"Enjoyable? Does anything sound like something you would want to do?"
He was silent for a long while, thinking. He wondered if other exiles had to go through the same thing, if there was maybe some sort of bizarre AI support group. Exiles Anonymous. Hello, my name is Smith, I was formerly an Agent of the System. Hello Smith. The thought actually made him laugh out loud, and it wasn't until Solace stopped him in his tracks and bodily turned him to face her that he realized he was doing a damn good imitation of hysteria.
"Sorry..." he sighed. Took a deep breath, tried to get a grip. His logic, his rationality seemed to be sliding further and further away. Maybe he should be deleted. "I was just thinking of the possibility that there might be some sort of clandestine support group for others in my situation."
"Other government employees of top secret branch organizations who have been sacked but not yet... er..." she trailed off, and smiled weakly. "It's possible. It might even be worth looking into, and you'd know where to start on that more than I would."
He blinked at her. "You're serious?"
"Dead serious, if you'll pardon the phrasing. If it happened to you, then it's just that much more likely that it might have happened to someone else. And if it happened to someone else..." she shrugged. "You see what I mean? And they would probably be able to help you more than I could, I'm just shooting in the dark here."
The Agent stared at the woman who, without knowing it, had given him his solution. It really was the obvious thing to do, even if he couldn't think of anyone offhand who he actually wanted to talk to. Still, there had to be more out there, and perhaps one of them would be willing to help, as long as he made sure not to phrase it in that way. He knew exactly where to start, too: in that damned tower. The foppish excuse for an AI kept himself surrounded by Exiles. One of them would surely have at least some idea of what the protocol was for this situation.
The burden of choice being lifted from him was like being born again, like ecstasy, like every overwhelming human emotion he had never thought to feel. He grabbed Solace by the shoulders and would have hugged her had she not let out a startled yelp and stared at him as though he'd gone mad.
"Solace, you are a brilliant woman," he told her gravely, brushing his lips across her forehead in the barest imitation of a kiss. A suitable gesture of gratitude given their relationship and their history together, and in light of her very good advice, he told himself. He even thought he might have convinced himself it was true. She smiled a little, relaxing slowly as he took her hand again and they walked on with no further startling interruptions.
"So... what do you want to do for the rest of today?"
"Dance." He said it gravely, but he pulled her into a spinning whirl, the opening of a tango he had seen performed once at the theatre. He was giving into whimsy, and he knew it, but for a little while he decided he was beyond caring. The System had rejected him, he was no longer an Agent, so why exactly did he have to behave like one? There was no logical reason. And one afternoon dancing in the park was a suitable reward for her efforts and would not result in him becoming as irrational and erratic as a human. One dance would not, as the saying went, corrupt him.
"Dance?" She laughed with clear delight, picking up on his moves gracefully if not always correctly and somehow managing to fumble her way around the footpath.
"Of course. It is a beautiful day for it, is it not?"
She looked up at the sky, around the sun-dappled trees, the grass, the birds and the squirrels that chattered irritably at the intruders onto their grounds. She looked back at him, smiling with what he was starting to realize was equal relief at having solved their most difficult problem. Their problem? Perhaps it had been.
"Of course it is."
And so they danced.
I'm lagging behind a bit in my usual pace because, while I have the entire story generally plotted out, I'm actually running out of things for Smith and Sol to do between big events. So, to my dear readers, I ask you for suggestions! What kinds of silly little things do you want to see them doing day to day? Little one day adventures, like hiding out from the rain in the coffee shop or singing in the park with her friends. I'm sure you all have suggestions, and I'd love to hear some of them!
But for now, on with the show...
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He really needed to find something with which to occupy his days that didn't involve waiting for Solace to show up in the park. It seemed forever until she decided to take a lunch break, and then forever again until she actually made it to their clearing. Joe had been giving him sly looks on the side, knowing looks that Smith wasn't sure he liked. It was as though the crazy man had plans for Smith and Solace, plans that didn't include either of them actually knowing what was in store for them. Perhaps it was a quirk of his programming, but Smith definitely favored having a good idea of what was coming rather than being surprised.
He watched, relieved, as she crossed the street and walked sedately over to his bench. And it had been... how long? Thirty nine days since their first meeting. A long time to become accustomed to the presence of a human. Not just any human, not 'a' human. Solace.
He scowled slightly.
"Rachel had me doing the new-kid tour all morning," she said by way of explanation and apology. "Mike's apparently hired some new blood, and Rache isn't too happy about it."
She reached out and took his hand without a second thought as they turned to walk down one of their usual paths. .Her fingers were warm, laced through his, natural and easy. It was becoming too comfortable. Why?
"Penny for your thoughts?"
He temporized with part of the truth. "I am... wondering what to do with myself, now."
"With all the free time?" she smiled. "I could wish I had so much free time. Did you have any hobbies?"
He smiled without humor at the thought of an Agent with hobbies. "No..."
She either didn't notice or didn't pay attention to the sickly grin on his face. "Well, now would be a good time to find some. Volunteer work, maybe... I'm not sure where but there has to be someplace that could use your talents..." He gave a little laugh, derision and hysteria mingled, and she squeezed his hand gently ... a gesture of concern? Probably. "We'll figure something out."
"I hope so," he muttered, much less sanguine about his prospects than she.
And she must have been able to hear it in his voice, because she stopped and turned around, effectively preventing him from walking on as well. One hand reached up to stroke his hair, so soft a touch that he barely felt it. His breathing slowed, calmed.
"We'll figure something out," she repeated, her voice low, quiet, and yet forceful. "There are hundreds of thousands of places that all need volunteers. There are any number of hobbies you could try, at least some of which you would probably enjoy. There's a whole world out there to explore, to see. We'll find you something to occupy your time... if you want to be useful, we can do that. If you want to see and do new things, we can do that too."
It was, he discovered then, annoyingly hard to stare down her overwhelming optimism. More so because she was right than because she was forceful; there were still a number of ways he could be useful, depending on how much he dared risk the Agents coming down on him and trying to delete him. "Remember, I cannot operate..."
"On their radar, I know." Her hand slid down over his cheek, and he flinched. She either didn't notice or ignored it. "It'll be okay. You're not useless, and you're not rudderless. Your work may have been your life at one point, but it doesn't have to be anymore."
Smith stared at her. It was perceptive of her, and narrowly pierced the heart of the matter. He was an Agent, created to enforce the Matrix and prevent the population at large from discovering and perhaps rebelling, and now that he was stripped of that status he had effectively been stripped of all purpose. There was no longer any reason for him to exist, and though something in him rebelled at the thought of being deleted, he didn't understand why. He didn't understand what was making him stay and therefore had nothing to fill the suddenly gaping void in his being. But how did a human understand something like that?
"What now?" he asked after a long silence. His voice was raspy, harsh, as though from disuse.
"We can keep walking," she said, her voice slow and careful. It almost seemed as though she was afraid he would break if she handled him too roughly. It was both infuriating and welcome. "We can have our usual walk through the park. Or we can try and figure out what to do. It's up to you."
There was a long silence. Time spun out, and he seemed to have forever to make his choice. Maybe he did; for all he knew she was perfectly prepared to spend the rest of eternity standing there waiting for him to decide. She had certainly given that impression. She hadn't moved an inch.
What did he want? On the one hand, she had certainly shown acute comprehension of the problem. He wasn't very hopeful that she would be able to come up with a viable solution, but there was always the chance. On the other hand... did he really want to think about this right now? Did he really want to think about it at all? Maybe it was easier just to give into apathy, not think about it, just spend the rest of his days... doing what? Wandering around a park? Unacceptable. But then, he would have to come up with something else to do, something else to be. He couldn't be an ex-Agent for the rest of his existence...
She was still standing there, frozen.
"Lets walk..." He stepped around her, and she turned and came with him, not letting go of his hand. "We can discuss it as we go along."
"Walking and talking. I can live with that."
He glanced over at her sharply, but there was not a hint of smile or humor. If she was poking fun at him she was doing it very delicately.
"Do you have any idea what you want to do? Even in a general sense... travel the world, raise money for some charity, star in a movie..."
He repressed a shudder at that last idea. That was by far and away more publicity than he would be able to deal with. "I don't have enough sympathy for the human race to engage in volunteer work," he said finally. It was a pared-down version of the truth.
Solace chuckled. "I guess I can see your point, even if it's an attitude I try not to share. All right, how about travel? See the world? There are ways that you can tour Europe on a very modest budget... you could spend several months abroad. You might even figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life over there."
The Agent glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, intrigued by the dispassionate tone in her voice. "Is that what you recommend?"
She wouldn't look at him, although she kept walking beside him, hand in hand. "There's certainly enough to do in Europe... enough to occupy anyone for a year at least. If you're feeling at loose ends, it'd be a good place to spend some time. Go to the theatre, walk along the beaches, that sort of thing."
"Yes. But, what do you think?"
No response. They kept walking, and Smith didn't press the issue.
"We could ask Julian or Richard if they know of anything you could do... or Rain or Lily. I don't know if they're still looking for more security at the school where Rain teaches... But she might know of a place where they are. It's always hard to find good personnel to work at schools." Solace rushed past the travel plans, which made Smith cock a curious eyebrow at her.
"Perhaps..." The idea of working with small children, tiny humans... he couldn't say it was appealing. On the other hand the prospect of getting to know some of Solace's other friends was intriguing. His knowledge of them was almost entirely confined to their names, occupations, and one or two trivial facts. Actually meeting them... "How do you find such oddly named friends in the first place?"
She chuckled. "Holdover from the sixties and seventies... more the sixties... when everyone was naming themselves silly things like Moonchild or Sunflower. Most of my friends either have parents who were the real die-hard hippies, or they're going along with the new age pagan phenomenon that says you have to have a magical name," she drew air quotes around the phrase, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. "Personally, if I had a magical name, I wouldn't tell anyone."
"Why?"
"Names have power over things. You don't have any choice in the name you're given at birth, but if you're picking a magical name it should be something that is very much a part of you. If you give that to someone else, you're giving them power over you. It's one of the oldest forms of magic in myth and legend."
Smith thought over some of the names that the Matrix had dubbed its denizens. Largely functional, but he could certainly understand where the correlation and conclusion might be drawn. The Architect, the Guardians, the Keymaker, even the Agents. Even that damned arrogant AI in his tower of dark glass and champagne had been named appropriate to his function.
"I suppose that makes sense..." he said after a while.
"Lily ... well, Lily is her real name. And it sort of suits her, she has that willowy build and the pale complexion. Rain's real name is Michele Lansford, and Star's real name is Jenny Donovan. In Star's case, I think she just wanted something a little more flashy."
Smith shook his head, chuckling. Solace glanced over at him, startled but pleased, underscoring the oddity of the Agent AI being amused at something so simple as a young woman's choice of names. He let the chuckle die, uncomfortable.
"Do any of these ideas sound like fun?"
"Fun?" For a second the word didn't make sense, even in context.
"Enjoyable? Does anything sound like something you would want to do?"
He was silent for a long while, thinking. He wondered if other exiles had to go through the same thing, if there was maybe some sort of bizarre AI support group. Exiles Anonymous. Hello, my name is Smith, I was formerly an Agent of the System. Hello Smith. The thought actually made him laugh out loud, and it wasn't until Solace stopped him in his tracks and bodily turned him to face her that he realized he was doing a damn good imitation of hysteria.
"Sorry..." he sighed. Took a deep breath, tried to get a grip. His logic, his rationality seemed to be sliding further and further away. Maybe he should be deleted. "I was just thinking of the possibility that there might be some sort of clandestine support group for others in my situation."
"Other government employees of top secret branch organizations who have been sacked but not yet... er..." she trailed off, and smiled weakly. "It's possible. It might even be worth looking into, and you'd know where to start on that more than I would."
He blinked at her. "You're serious?"
"Dead serious, if you'll pardon the phrasing. If it happened to you, then it's just that much more likely that it might have happened to someone else. And if it happened to someone else..." she shrugged. "You see what I mean? And they would probably be able to help you more than I could, I'm just shooting in the dark here."
The Agent stared at the woman who, without knowing it, had given him his solution. It really was the obvious thing to do, even if he couldn't think of anyone offhand who he actually wanted to talk to. Still, there had to be more out there, and perhaps one of them would be willing to help, as long as he made sure not to phrase it in that way. He knew exactly where to start, too: in that damned tower. The foppish excuse for an AI kept himself surrounded by Exiles. One of them would surely have at least some idea of what the protocol was for this situation.
The burden of choice being lifted from him was like being born again, like ecstasy, like every overwhelming human emotion he had never thought to feel. He grabbed Solace by the shoulders and would have hugged her had she not let out a startled yelp and stared at him as though he'd gone mad.
"Solace, you are a brilliant woman," he told her gravely, brushing his lips across her forehead in the barest imitation of a kiss. A suitable gesture of gratitude given their relationship and their history together, and in light of her very good advice, he told himself. He even thought he might have convinced himself it was true. She smiled a little, relaxing slowly as he took her hand again and they walked on with no further startling interruptions.
"So... what do you want to do for the rest of today?"
"Dance." He said it gravely, but he pulled her into a spinning whirl, the opening of a tango he had seen performed once at the theatre. He was giving into whimsy, and he knew it, but for a little while he decided he was beyond caring. The System had rejected him, he was no longer an Agent, so why exactly did he have to behave like one? There was no logical reason. And one afternoon dancing in the park was a suitable reward for her efforts and would not result in him becoming as irrational and erratic as a human. One dance would not, as the saying went, corrupt him.
"Dance?" She laughed with clear delight, picking up on his moves gracefully if not always correctly and somehow managing to fumble her way around the footpath.
"Of course. It is a beautiful day for it, is it not?"
She looked up at the sky, around the sun-dappled trees, the grass, the birds and the squirrels that chattered irritably at the intruders onto their grounds. She looked back at him, smiling with what he was starting to realize was equal relief at having solved their most difficult problem. Their problem? Perhaps it had been.
"Of course it is."
And so they danced.