A/N: Okay, just for copyright reasons, etc... and because I'm entirely too paranoid.
Tanathir, I'm sorry to say I don't think I've ever read your fic. I did skim through it after you mentioned that, and it looks pretty good. But no, this fic was actually inspired by copious amounts of philosophy classes and a good heaping of Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. Sol and Smith were never actually supposed to get involved; that was a later development to facilitate the plot of the next epic (and very very AU) Matrix fic.
Anyway...
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Solace typed a mile a minute on her computer, fingers moving with preternatural speed over the keyboard. Well, not really preternatural. She had logged in to the Matrix at a payphone near to the office building, walked the two minutes it took to get to her office, sat at her desk and just started working. Julian had come down from his law firm a couple times to see how she was doing. It was eating at her that she couldn't tell him what she was really thinking, feeling.
What had happened to Smith? Why had he ... one minute it seemed as though he was coming to her for help. But there were no questions, no entreaties, no signs that he wanted to talk to her or ask her to do anything for him. She should have, she thought wryly and with more than a little sadness, asked him what was wrong. She should have tried to find out what was going on a little harder. But there had been something... less human in his eyes. More of the Agent, less of the compassion in him. It had been nearly two months since she had first approached him in the park. Two months over which she had watched him grow, change, develop... the changes had been so gradual she hadn't noticed them until they were gone.
It was the little things. The way his blue eyes had softened from child-molester cerulean to the color of a faded sky without losing any of his intensity. The way his gestures had gone from being battle-ready and quick on the trigger to calm, at ease, relaxed. His actions had become considerate, solicitous, even kind. He had loosened up, unbent, become more easy around her... around humans in general, she thought. And then, all of a sudden, it was all undone.
What had caused the sudden change? It had to have been something to do with the other AIs he had gone to speak to. That had been the direct precursor, it had to also be the cause. But she didn't know who he'd gone to speak to, or where they were located. And she could hardly show up there in either her mild-mannered reporter guise or her Resistance Fighter guise and demand to know what they had said and done to Smith.
She didn't know what to do. Her protective instincts were threatening to take over, driving her to seek out the people, or person, who had upset Smith so gravely and return the favor. Her sense of self-preservation was screaming at her not to get involved, to back out, pull out of the experiment, abort while he still knew her only as a human and not as one of the unplugged. Her mind told her to stay, find out as much as she could about what happened, gather the right information. Her heart told her to find Smith and shake him till he told her what was wrong, then hug him till it was all right again.
And he was an Agent. And she was Resistance. The ultimate Romeo & Juliet. What was wrong with her...
"Sol..." Julian rapped gently on her desk, startling her. She jumped, a little, recovered, and rolled her eyes at him.
"Don't sneak up on me like that... you nearly gave me a heart attack."
Julian chuckled. "Sorry. Next time I'll announce my approach with a fanfare, brass band, the works." He paused. She looked down and shuffled some papers on her desk aimlessly. "Still thinking about Smith?"
She nodded. "I can't stop wondering what happened... why he... well, went crazy."
"Maybe he didn't go crazy. Maybe he always was crazy, and now he's just showing it." Julian perched on the edge of her desk, watching her hunch over just a little bit more. "Okay, maybe not crazy. Maybe just..."
"A little unwell?"
Julian chuckled.
"I don't know. He's never given any sign of being disturbed or unwell. He's always been very straight-laced... but I think that's more because of his job than anything else. He can be very compassionate, very caring... in his own way." Part of her couldn't believe she was saying this about an agent.
"Sol... are you hearing what you're saying?"
Yes, she thought. And you have no idea how strange it sounds to me.
"You sound like a classic abuse victim."
Solace opened her mouth to retort and paused. Did she? God... that was the last thing she ever wanted to be. And yet it was true... he had never struck her, never even struck out at her. He had never done more than say some unkind things before, after which there had been apologies on both sides. And those were arguments, the kind of spat that any two people could have had. There had been no abuse.
She shook her head and said as much to Julian. "He's never hit me before, never tried to hurt me. We've hardly even had any arguments. And I know something was wrong... he got laid off, went to see some old co-workers about a position... I think they said something to him, or did something, or maybe he ran into his old boss..." Did Agents even have a boss? That was a strange thought. "That made him upset. I don't think it's... any kind of abuse."
"Forgive me if I'm a little bit suspicious," he said wryly, "But I'd rather hear that from Smith's mouth than yours.
Solace sighed. "I know. 'cause there's nothing else I can really say that will convince you."
"Bullseye."
"I just... I really think he's going through a tough time right now. And, as scary as he was at the fire, I don't think he'd really hurt me ..." she winced. Bad choice of words. "I don't think he'd try to hurt me in a situation where he knew I couldn't fight back. I don't think he'd try to destroy me, or ruin my life, or make me completely dependent on him, or turn me into an emotional wreck."
"Sol, honey... you haven't had the best track record. I... well, all of us... we just want to make sure this isn't going to be a repeat of the Kerr incident."
She laughed. "Could you say that with a few less capital letters?"
"Sol, I'm serious."
She stared at him. He really was. Had he seen something... had someone else seen something in Smith that she missed? Suddenly she was struck with an unreasoning terror, that she was doing the wrong thing, that Smith had known all along what she was doing... or even that he had reverted to his Agent mentality and no longer had any human feeling. "I'll be fine," she told him, but she wasn't sure she believed that anymore. "I don't..."
Julian sat very still, as though he sensed he'd gone over the limit, managing to worry her perhaps more than she needed to be. "Sol... I do trust your judgment. Directly preceding comments about your ex-husband to the contrary. I do think you've learned better, and you're right. From what you've told me, Smith's been nothing but absolutely sweet. I just..." he sighed. "I want you to be sure."
Sol nodded. "I appreciate that." Her voice came out thick, forced, even to her. She took a deep breath and tried again. "I just... I don't know what to do. This really all was very unexpected. I mean... he got laid off..." What a quaint term to put to an AI who had just been rejected by the Mainframe. "...from a job he had worked at all of his life... he has no friends outside of work." He has no friends, her mind snarked at her. "He doesn't have any idea what to do with his life."
"..." Julian said eloquently, then sighed. "Okay, I take it back, that does sound rough. You said he'd been laid off, I guess I just didn't think it was that bad."
Solace shrugged. "To be honest, I don't know that it's that bad. But I think that's a lot of what it is. I guess... I should call him." She stared morosely at her phone. "I should try and talk to him, ask him what's going on. But I'm not sure I want to pry."
Julian inched further forward on her desk, took her shoulders in a firm grip, and stared into her eyes with supportive intensity. "Sol, honey, let me tell you something about men. We're fragile. We're easily broken. Our self-esteem isn't much better than women, we're just obligated by society to hide it better. If what you're talking about is true, then he probably is feeling very vulnerable and very alone right now."
An AI feeling vulnerable. An Agent. The mind boggled. "That... would make sense."
"But even so, be careful of violent tendencies."
Solace smiled. "Yes, Julian."
"Don't let him take advantage of you."
"Yes, Julian."
"Remember, you're stronger than he..."
"Julian!"
They laughed. He slid off the desk and stepped back a pace. "I'd better get back to the offices. You give me a call if you need anything, you hear?"
She nodded. "I will. Thanks, Julian."
"Anything for my baby," he kissed her on the cheek, hugged her briefly, and was out the door.
Solace sank back into her seat and stared at the telephone as though she could telekinetically raise it to her ear and dial his number. It didn't work.
What Julian said had rung true, at least for most men. With Smith, she just didn't know. There was so much he didn't know about Smith, so much that she couldn't tell him. Or, for that matter, about Kerr. There was so much about her and her life and some of her friends that she couldn't tell anyone, and it made all the advice they had given her or could give her ... just a little bit useless. Or maybe not useless, maybe the word was skewed.
What was she going to do now? Was it possible that Julian was right, not just about men in general, but also about Smith? She didn't dare think that he was right about Agents because, really, Smith wasn't an Agent anymore. He hadn't been for a long time. Not when he had been ranting to Morpheus about humans, not when he had been trying to kill Neo with every data-pulse of his being. She sighed. At least Julian had given her a place to start, a few ideas.
She sighed, reached out to the phone. Froze in mid-reach as the phone rang. Of all the eerie occurrences, this one was made particularly disturbing because she was in the Matrix. Then sanity reasserted itself. It had been a busy day or week or so, it was probably just a source calling her back.
"Solace Tremain..." she tucked the phone between shoulder and ear and reached for a pencil.
Silence.
"Look, it's already busy, so speak or get off the phone, kiddo. This ace reporter doesn't have all day." And the longer she put off calling Smith, the more nerve she was going to lose. "All right, last chance."
"No, wait..." She dropped the phone from her shoulder as she straightened up, eyes wide. Her hand reached up and caught the phone by reflex, no thought required. Smith. Oh god... what was she going to say? "Solace...?"
She took a deep breath to make sure her voice was going to work. Suddenly she had so many things she wanted to say to him... she wanted to throttle him, she wanted to hug him, she wanted to slap him, she wanted to cry on his shoulder... "Smith?" Well, that was a start.
"I... would like to see you. If you are willing."
She didn't know what to think of that. It almost sounded like an invitation for a date, except that ... no, she just didn't know what to think of it. She didn't know what to say, and she knew she wouldn't know what to do when she saw him. Hell... for that matter... she hadn't realized it until that moment, but for a while there it had seemed as though she wouldn't really see him ever again. And now he wanted to see her...
What was going on?
"I would like to apologize..."
Solace winced, thinking that he really did sound like an abusive personality. But then, even a non-abusive person would have had to apologize, after a performance like that. She should at least give him the benefit of the doubt, give him the chance. And besides... he was so incredibly alone... what must it be like for him? "All right..." she said slowly. "In the park?" Maybe the familiar setting would help them both.
"At a restaurant...I will meet you there." Solace breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that at least if things went south she'd have her own way out. "Tomorrow night? Seven o'clock?"
"All right..." Suddenly she just wanted to go home and get some rest.
"I will see you there."
"See you there."
Long, awkward silence.
"Thank you."
She blinked. That... of all the things he could have said, that was both the most comforting and the most disconcerting. "You're welcome..." she murmured, wondering if this sudden chill was shock setting in. "See you tomorrow..."
She hung up the phone, sat down, and stared at it for a very long time. All around her the noise and bustle of the bullpen seemed to fade, to disappear into the background. Her thoughts swirled around in her head, confusing her, sense and reason eluding her. The rest of the day went by on autopilot, and she unplugged as soon as she left work, trying to make sense of the past week.
It didn't work.
Tanathir, I'm sorry to say I don't think I've ever read your fic. I did skim through it after you mentioned that, and it looks pretty good. But no, this fic was actually inspired by copious amounts of philosophy classes and a good heaping of Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. Sol and Smith were never actually supposed to get involved; that was a later development to facilitate the plot of the next epic (and very very AU) Matrix fic.
Anyway...
-
-
-
Solace typed a mile a minute on her computer, fingers moving with preternatural speed over the keyboard. Well, not really preternatural. She had logged in to the Matrix at a payphone near to the office building, walked the two minutes it took to get to her office, sat at her desk and just started working. Julian had come down from his law firm a couple times to see how she was doing. It was eating at her that she couldn't tell him what she was really thinking, feeling.
What had happened to Smith? Why had he ... one minute it seemed as though he was coming to her for help. But there were no questions, no entreaties, no signs that he wanted to talk to her or ask her to do anything for him. She should have, she thought wryly and with more than a little sadness, asked him what was wrong. She should have tried to find out what was going on a little harder. But there had been something... less human in his eyes. More of the Agent, less of the compassion in him. It had been nearly two months since she had first approached him in the park. Two months over which she had watched him grow, change, develop... the changes had been so gradual she hadn't noticed them until they were gone.
It was the little things. The way his blue eyes had softened from child-molester cerulean to the color of a faded sky without losing any of his intensity. The way his gestures had gone from being battle-ready and quick on the trigger to calm, at ease, relaxed. His actions had become considerate, solicitous, even kind. He had loosened up, unbent, become more easy around her... around humans in general, she thought. And then, all of a sudden, it was all undone.
What had caused the sudden change? It had to have been something to do with the other AIs he had gone to speak to. That had been the direct precursor, it had to also be the cause. But she didn't know who he'd gone to speak to, or where they were located. And she could hardly show up there in either her mild-mannered reporter guise or her Resistance Fighter guise and demand to know what they had said and done to Smith.
She didn't know what to do. Her protective instincts were threatening to take over, driving her to seek out the people, or person, who had upset Smith so gravely and return the favor. Her sense of self-preservation was screaming at her not to get involved, to back out, pull out of the experiment, abort while he still knew her only as a human and not as one of the unplugged. Her mind told her to stay, find out as much as she could about what happened, gather the right information. Her heart told her to find Smith and shake him till he told her what was wrong, then hug him till it was all right again.
And he was an Agent. And she was Resistance. The ultimate Romeo & Juliet. What was wrong with her...
"Sol..." Julian rapped gently on her desk, startling her. She jumped, a little, recovered, and rolled her eyes at him.
"Don't sneak up on me like that... you nearly gave me a heart attack."
Julian chuckled. "Sorry. Next time I'll announce my approach with a fanfare, brass band, the works." He paused. She looked down and shuffled some papers on her desk aimlessly. "Still thinking about Smith?"
She nodded. "I can't stop wondering what happened... why he... well, went crazy."
"Maybe he didn't go crazy. Maybe he always was crazy, and now he's just showing it." Julian perched on the edge of her desk, watching her hunch over just a little bit more. "Okay, maybe not crazy. Maybe just..."
"A little unwell?"
Julian chuckled.
"I don't know. He's never given any sign of being disturbed or unwell. He's always been very straight-laced... but I think that's more because of his job than anything else. He can be very compassionate, very caring... in his own way." Part of her couldn't believe she was saying this about an agent.
"Sol... are you hearing what you're saying?"
Yes, she thought. And you have no idea how strange it sounds to me.
"You sound like a classic abuse victim."
Solace opened her mouth to retort and paused. Did she? God... that was the last thing she ever wanted to be. And yet it was true... he had never struck her, never even struck out at her. He had never done more than say some unkind things before, after which there had been apologies on both sides. And those were arguments, the kind of spat that any two people could have had. There had been no abuse.
She shook her head and said as much to Julian. "He's never hit me before, never tried to hurt me. We've hardly even had any arguments. And I know something was wrong... he got laid off, went to see some old co-workers about a position... I think they said something to him, or did something, or maybe he ran into his old boss..." Did Agents even have a boss? That was a strange thought. "That made him upset. I don't think it's... any kind of abuse."
"Forgive me if I'm a little bit suspicious," he said wryly, "But I'd rather hear that from Smith's mouth than yours.
Solace sighed. "I know. 'cause there's nothing else I can really say that will convince you."
"Bullseye."
"I just... I really think he's going through a tough time right now. And, as scary as he was at the fire, I don't think he'd really hurt me ..." she winced. Bad choice of words. "I don't think he'd try to hurt me in a situation where he knew I couldn't fight back. I don't think he'd try to destroy me, or ruin my life, or make me completely dependent on him, or turn me into an emotional wreck."
"Sol, honey... you haven't had the best track record. I... well, all of us... we just want to make sure this isn't going to be a repeat of the Kerr incident."
She laughed. "Could you say that with a few less capital letters?"
"Sol, I'm serious."
She stared at him. He really was. Had he seen something... had someone else seen something in Smith that she missed? Suddenly she was struck with an unreasoning terror, that she was doing the wrong thing, that Smith had known all along what she was doing... or even that he had reverted to his Agent mentality and no longer had any human feeling. "I'll be fine," she told him, but she wasn't sure she believed that anymore. "I don't..."
Julian sat very still, as though he sensed he'd gone over the limit, managing to worry her perhaps more than she needed to be. "Sol... I do trust your judgment. Directly preceding comments about your ex-husband to the contrary. I do think you've learned better, and you're right. From what you've told me, Smith's been nothing but absolutely sweet. I just..." he sighed. "I want you to be sure."
Sol nodded. "I appreciate that." Her voice came out thick, forced, even to her. She took a deep breath and tried again. "I just... I don't know what to do. This really all was very unexpected. I mean... he got laid off..." What a quaint term to put to an AI who had just been rejected by the Mainframe. "...from a job he had worked at all of his life... he has no friends outside of work." He has no friends, her mind snarked at her. "He doesn't have any idea what to do with his life."
"..." Julian said eloquently, then sighed. "Okay, I take it back, that does sound rough. You said he'd been laid off, I guess I just didn't think it was that bad."
Solace shrugged. "To be honest, I don't know that it's that bad. But I think that's a lot of what it is. I guess... I should call him." She stared morosely at her phone. "I should try and talk to him, ask him what's going on. But I'm not sure I want to pry."
Julian inched further forward on her desk, took her shoulders in a firm grip, and stared into her eyes with supportive intensity. "Sol, honey, let me tell you something about men. We're fragile. We're easily broken. Our self-esteem isn't much better than women, we're just obligated by society to hide it better. If what you're talking about is true, then he probably is feeling very vulnerable and very alone right now."
An AI feeling vulnerable. An Agent. The mind boggled. "That... would make sense."
"But even so, be careful of violent tendencies."
Solace smiled. "Yes, Julian."
"Don't let him take advantage of you."
"Yes, Julian."
"Remember, you're stronger than he..."
"Julian!"
They laughed. He slid off the desk and stepped back a pace. "I'd better get back to the offices. You give me a call if you need anything, you hear?"
She nodded. "I will. Thanks, Julian."
"Anything for my baby," he kissed her on the cheek, hugged her briefly, and was out the door.
Solace sank back into her seat and stared at the telephone as though she could telekinetically raise it to her ear and dial his number. It didn't work.
What Julian said had rung true, at least for most men. With Smith, she just didn't know. There was so much he didn't know about Smith, so much that she couldn't tell him. Or, for that matter, about Kerr. There was so much about her and her life and some of her friends that she couldn't tell anyone, and it made all the advice they had given her or could give her ... just a little bit useless. Or maybe not useless, maybe the word was skewed.
What was she going to do now? Was it possible that Julian was right, not just about men in general, but also about Smith? She didn't dare think that he was right about Agents because, really, Smith wasn't an Agent anymore. He hadn't been for a long time. Not when he had been ranting to Morpheus about humans, not when he had been trying to kill Neo with every data-pulse of his being. She sighed. At least Julian had given her a place to start, a few ideas.
She sighed, reached out to the phone. Froze in mid-reach as the phone rang. Of all the eerie occurrences, this one was made particularly disturbing because she was in the Matrix. Then sanity reasserted itself. It had been a busy day or week or so, it was probably just a source calling her back.
"Solace Tremain..." she tucked the phone between shoulder and ear and reached for a pencil.
Silence.
"Look, it's already busy, so speak or get off the phone, kiddo. This ace reporter doesn't have all day." And the longer she put off calling Smith, the more nerve she was going to lose. "All right, last chance."
"No, wait..." She dropped the phone from her shoulder as she straightened up, eyes wide. Her hand reached up and caught the phone by reflex, no thought required. Smith. Oh god... what was she going to say? "Solace...?"
She took a deep breath to make sure her voice was going to work. Suddenly she had so many things she wanted to say to him... she wanted to throttle him, she wanted to hug him, she wanted to slap him, she wanted to cry on his shoulder... "Smith?" Well, that was a start.
"I... would like to see you. If you are willing."
She didn't know what to think of that. It almost sounded like an invitation for a date, except that ... no, she just didn't know what to think of it. She didn't know what to say, and she knew she wouldn't know what to do when she saw him. Hell... for that matter... she hadn't realized it until that moment, but for a while there it had seemed as though she wouldn't really see him ever again. And now he wanted to see her...
What was going on?
"I would like to apologize..."
Solace winced, thinking that he really did sound like an abusive personality. But then, even a non-abusive person would have had to apologize, after a performance like that. She should at least give him the benefit of the doubt, give him the chance. And besides... he was so incredibly alone... what must it be like for him? "All right..." she said slowly. "In the park?" Maybe the familiar setting would help them both.
"At a restaurant...I will meet you there." Solace breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that at least if things went south she'd have her own way out. "Tomorrow night? Seven o'clock?"
"All right..." Suddenly she just wanted to go home and get some rest.
"I will see you there."
"See you there."
Long, awkward silence.
"Thank you."
She blinked. That... of all the things he could have said, that was both the most comforting and the most disconcerting. "You're welcome..." she murmured, wondering if this sudden chill was shock setting in. "See you tomorrow..."
She hung up the phone, sat down, and stared at it for a very long time. All around her the noise and bustle of the bullpen seemed to fade, to disappear into the background. Her thoughts swirled around in her head, confusing her, sense and reason eluding her. The rest of the day went by on autopilot, and she unplugged as soon as she left work, trying to make sense of the past week.
It didn't work.