A/N: Sorry! Many apologies for taking so long with this most recent chapter! I have a good excuse, though. And it can be summed up in three words.
Matrix. Revolutions. Previews.
I saw the first one a couple days after putting up the most recent chapter of this epic-length story. My first thought was, to be honest... "Damn. I should have written this story in the four years it took them to come out with the sequels." And then I started thinking about how I could rewrite this to take place between Matrix and Reloaded/Revolutions, in the six months (apparently) that passed.
I'm still working on it. I've no idea how Smith gets from the mellow sort of person he seems to be becoming (although as you'll see in this chapter he has some issues with denial) to the psychotic little self-replicating power-mad fiend in the previews for Revolutions. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Meanwhile, since it comes out in a month, I've decided to just keep putting up chapters and hope a solution presents itself. There may well be another hiatus after I see Revolutions, but that one at least will be marked with "RECONFIGURATION! RECONFIGURATION!" all over the story summary so that you, my beloved readers, will know what is going on.
And now, on with the drama!
-
-
-
-
He still didn't know what was happening to him, and the situation was becoming more and more complex with each passing day. He was understanding meanings of human phrases that he had never given much consideration before, such as the use of the image of a drowning man in so many phrases. That was what he felt like... as though he was drowning, as though there was nothing for him to cling to that would stop him from a slow and inexorable death.
And yet there was no visible threat, nothing he could strike out against.
The former Agent Smith stared out at the rain that poured down in sheets against his patio doors. Solace had fallen asleep on the couch, lulled by the sound of the rain and the comfort of human (or so she thought) warmth. It was probably for the best. She looked as though she hadn't slept in weeks, although her actual energy level seemed not to have diminished at all. They had watched the film she had been referring to, some ridiculously silly fantasy piece called The Princess Bride, and it did at least explain why she had laughed the other day. Humans were so given to references and memory triggers.
The thought triggered a memory in him, as well. The memory of the incident yesterday that had led to his comment and her laughter. It wasn't right, he knew that. It couldn't be right. All the little clues that he had been missing (ignoring) over the last several weeks, all the little hints and slips that she had tried to mask... successfully, he had to admit, for the most part. It was all adding up, had all added up in the collection of algorithms and processes that passed for his mind, and yet it all pointed to a conclusion that was in direct opposition to what he knew of her to be true and very full of proof.
Smith glanced over at the sleeping woman with a scowl that would have seared her where she lay, if looks could kill. She was such an enigma, an illogical impossibility, and he hated illogic.
It wasn't right, any of it. The Resistance, down to the last man, woman, or child, dressed in black or white, or occasionally gunmetal or red. They dressed in leather, in vinyl and plastic, or when they had to in denim and lycra. They talked and walked and acted and looked the part of any other member of that strange counterculture; presumably they hid among the (ironically ever-growing in number) outcasts of society because the outcasts already behaved strangely. If they were ever caught, it wouldn't matter. Their behavior was strange enough for humans, and had put them beyond the pale.
Solace dressed casually, comfortably, in all colors and shapes. She wore her hair loosely or in braids, strung together with all manner of beads or feathers or whatever else she happened to pick up along the way. He had seen her pick up pieces of string off of the street, bits of balloon ties or feathers from passing crows, and weave them into her hair. Her behavior reflected the whimsy of an entirely different, past counter culture. And it reflected a sense of peace or at least calm that no one else in the Resistance had been seen to possess.
The Resistance hated the Agents, and feared them. They were the natural enemy of the Agents, the very reason the Agents had come into being in the first place. The only thing a member of the Resistance would do when confronted with the enforcer AI programs was run. In rare occasions, if cornered, the Resistance member might actually put up some sort of a fight. Never, in all of Smith's recollections (and he could recall everything that had happened to every Agent ever created, thanks to the Mainframe), never had a member of the Resistance attempted to befriend an Agent. In any iteration of the Matrix. It was unthinkable, to either side. It was... his own mind rebelled against the thought. Why would a Resistance woman knowingly and of her own free will walk into a situation that could very well mean her death? And why would she constantly put herself into that situation?
Memories returned, fast, constant, a series of blows rained down upon him, only this actually hurt. Closer to an actual, tangible, physical pain than anything he had ever experienced. The first memories, how she had approached him with casual diffidence when he was at work with Agents Brown and Jones. The first interview, the philosophy that had followed... and the philosophy made sense now that he thought about it in this context, everything seemed to flow together with sickening ease. Her responses to his hesitant lies, her questions, her voice, her face, her touches, her actions. Memory after memory after memory crashed down upon him in waves of confusion and an almost tangible ache.
Why? If she was Resistance, why in the name of all that was machine had she done such a thing? Why did she continue to do it, day after day? Why was she even now asleep on his couch that she must know was a construction, a fabrication, a pretense like everything else about this damn world? She must know. She must... everything made sense if she knew. It made absolutely no sense... but then, if she didn't...
It just didn't make sense. Period.
She stirred on the couch, dragging his attention back to her physical form. Was she, like all the rest, plugged into a series of machines on a ship somewhere? Was her physical body not supplying power to the Matrix itself like all the rest, but apart from it, out of it, free to do what she wanted.
Smith was startled to find that he actually hoped so. Further frightened to discover that he was actually wondering what life was like on the outside, for her, if she really was unplugged as he was starting to realize was only logical. He was actually wondering what life must be like for the members of the Resistance when they weren't fomenting sedition and insurrection. Did they have homes, heat and light and food and water out there? They must... the Agents had seen and found recurring humans over a period of years. They must have some means of survival... then what was the rest of their life on the outside like? Was it a never-ending struggle for survival, or did they have recreation, leisure time, enough of a surplus of resources that occasionally they could take some time for themselves to contemplate the meaning of... whatever?
He wanted to ask her. And at the same time he wanted to crush her skull for lying to him. He could do either so easily while she slept.
She had to be a member of the Resistance, or at least know of them. Had to be. Kerr was certainly of the Resistance, Smith had found out that much when he had applied to the Merovingian for a full-on dossier about the irritating man. And Solace hadn't seemed at all surprised at the faster-than-human combat that had ensued when Kerr had appeared in the lobby of her building. It just was too much to be coincidence. All the sideways and backhanded references, the lack of surprise, the complete and total acceptance of Smith's own strange ways. She had to know. She had to at least know, if not be a part of the unplugged bastard children of the Matrix.
And... what was he going to do now? His hands were clenched into fists as he looked at her; by all rights he should turn her into the rest of the Agents, or deal with her himself. Turning her in for interrogation... especially if she was a ship's captain, with the Zion codes... it could result in his reinstatement. He allowed himself to hope for a moment, and then was overwhelmed with self-loathing. The very emotion was so wrong on so many levels, chief among them because it was an emotion, and because it was a betrayal of all her trust.
And yet hadn't she betrayed him? Her secret. Her lies. She had lied from every moment, with every breath and gesture...
Had she?
He had never asked. He had never even though to ask, he had assumed that what she was... was she? He had looked in the Matrix, there were records. She was really employed where she said she was. Leading a double life, perhaps? Was that what she was doing, so that both lives... neither of them were entirely a lie and she hadn't lied at all but simply by omission led him to believe...
What?
What did he believe?
His thoughts were chasing themselves around in circles. He had never felt so cut off as he did now, cut off from everything that was familiar and safe. He was outcast from the Agents, from the Matrix, purposeless and wandering. And now the one person who he had thought was still an ally was gone... or was she?
If she was Resistance, why was she doing this? Why had she stayed? What was she doing, and why? So many questions he wanted to ask her, and yet he dared ask nothing.
She couldn't be Resistance, he decided. Resistance did not act this way. Resistance humans did not curl themselves up like a sleeping child on the make-believe sofas of the Agents and sleep as though they were safe from everything dangerous in the world. They did not trust the Agents, they did not hold them or talk to them or weep in their arms. They did not, he remembered with the faintest glimmerings of a smile, dart across lanes of traffic in their pajamas in the rain and nearly get killed by a hydroplaning vehicle in order to apologize to an Agent. No matter that she had to have seen Kerr and himself moving faster than the human eye could follow, no matter that all of her actions and words told him that she had to know at least something of what he was, she couldn't be one of the unplugged.
And because there were no humans who knew of the Matrix who weren't unplugged (the AIs had seen to that) she couldn't know. His own (shameful) secret was safe; reality restored itself. The algorithms and processes in Smith's mind reshaped, reworked themselves until the world made sense once again. It was all just some strange coincidence. She was, after all, more accepting of things outside the norm. More things on heaven and earth, as a human writer had said, erroneously but humans did love to repeat it so. Smith closed his eyes, and the world seemed to shift around him until it was safe and ordinary once again.
When Solace finally opened her eyes again the former Agent was standing and watching the rain again, watching as it slackened to a light pitter-pat on the patio floor. His hands were loose and open at his sides, his posture relaxed. No sunglasses, not even the Agent suit, today he wore loose and flowing clothing that had the look of old sweats two sizes too large for him, sweatshirt tied loosely around his waist, t-shirt hanging about his gaunt frame like a tent. A reassuring sort of a fashion, he had discovered. And more suited to her own casual attire than the uniform he no longer really had a right to wear. He glanced around as she sat up, brushing her hair out of her still slightly dazed eyes, and briefly thought about smiling.
Everything was as it should be.
If not necessarily as it was.
Matrix. Revolutions. Previews.
I saw the first one a couple days after putting up the most recent chapter of this epic-length story. My first thought was, to be honest... "Damn. I should have written this story in the four years it took them to come out with the sequels." And then I started thinking about how I could rewrite this to take place between Matrix and Reloaded/Revolutions, in the six months (apparently) that passed.
I'm still working on it. I've no idea how Smith gets from the mellow sort of person he seems to be becoming (although as you'll see in this chapter he has some issues with denial) to the psychotic little self-replicating power-mad fiend in the previews for Revolutions. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Meanwhile, since it comes out in a month, I've decided to just keep putting up chapters and hope a solution presents itself. There may well be another hiatus after I see Revolutions, but that one at least will be marked with "RECONFIGURATION! RECONFIGURATION!" all over the story summary so that you, my beloved readers, will know what is going on.
And now, on with the drama!
-
-
-
-
He still didn't know what was happening to him, and the situation was becoming more and more complex with each passing day. He was understanding meanings of human phrases that he had never given much consideration before, such as the use of the image of a drowning man in so many phrases. That was what he felt like... as though he was drowning, as though there was nothing for him to cling to that would stop him from a slow and inexorable death.
And yet there was no visible threat, nothing he could strike out against.
The former Agent Smith stared out at the rain that poured down in sheets against his patio doors. Solace had fallen asleep on the couch, lulled by the sound of the rain and the comfort of human (or so she thought) warmth. It was probably for the best. She looked as though she hadn't slept in weeks, although her actual energy level seemed not to have diminished at all. They had watched the film she had been referring to, some ridiculously silly fantasy piece called The Princess Bride, and it did at least explain why she had laughed the other day. Humans were so given to references and memory triggers.
The thought triggered a memory in him, as well. The memory of the incident yesterday that had led to his comment and her laughter. It wasn't right, he knew that. It couldn't be right. All the little clues that he had been missing (ignoring) over the last several weeks, all the little hints and slips that she had tried to mask... successfully, he had to admit, for the most part. It was all adding up, had all added up in the collection of algorithms and processes that passed for his mind, and yet it all pointed to a conclusion that was in direct opposition to what he knew of her to be true and very full of proof.
Smith glanced over at the sleeping woman with a scowl that would have seared her where she lay, if looks could kill. She was such an enigma, an illogical impossibility, and he hated illogic.
It wasn't right, any of it. The Resistance, down to the last man, woman, or child, dressed in black or white, or occasionally gunmetal or red. They dressed in leather, in vinyl and plastic, or when they had to in denim and lycra. They talked and walked and acted and looked the part of any other member of that strange counterculture; presumably they hid among the (ironically ever-growing in number) outcasts of society because the outcasts already behaved strangely. If they were ever caught, it wouldn't matter. Their behavior was strange enough for humans, and had put them beyond the pale.
Solace dressed casually, comfortably, in all colors and shapes. She wore her hair loosely or in braids, strung together with all manner of beads or feathers or whatever else she happened to pick up along the way. He had seen her pick up pieces of string off of the street, bits of balloon ties or feathers from passing crows, and weave them into her hair. Her behavior reflected the whimsy of an entirely different, past counter culture. And it reflected a sense of peace or at least calm that no one else in the Resistance had been seen to possess.
The Resistance hated the Agents, and feared them. They were the natural enemy of the Agents, the very reason the Agents had come into being in the first place. The only thing a member of the Resistance would do when confronted with the enforcer AI programs was run. In rare occasions, if cornered, the Resistance member might actually put up some sort of a fight. Never, in all of Smith's recollections (and he could recall everything that had happened to every Agent ever created, thanks to the Mainframe), never had a member of the Resistance attempted to befriend an Agent. In any iteration of the Matrix. It was unthinkable, to either side. It was... his own mind rebelled against the thought. Why would a Resistance woman knowingly and of her own free will walk into a situation that could very well mean her death? And why would she constantly put herself into that situation?
Memories returned, fast, constant, a series of blows rained down upon him, only this actually hurt. Closer to an actual, tangible, physical pain than anything he had ever experienced. The first memories, how she had approached him with casual diffidence when he was at work with Agents Brown and Jones. The first interview, the philosophy that had followed... and the philosophy made sense now that he thought about it in this context, everything seemed to flow together with sickening ease. Her responses to his hesitant lies, her questions, her voice, her face, her touches, her actions. Memory after memory after memory crashed down upon him in waves of confusion and an almost tangible ache.
Why? If she was Resistance, why in the name of all that was machine had she done such a thing? Why did she continue to do it, day after day? Why was she even now asleep on his couch that she must know was a construction, a fabrication, a pretense like everything else about this damn world? She must know. She must... everything made sense if she knew. It made absolutely no sense... but then, if she didn't...
It just didn't make sense. Period.
She stirred on the couch, dragging his attention back to her physical form. Was she, like all the rest, plugged into a series of machines on a ship somewhere? Was her physical body not supplying power to the Matrix itself like all the rest, but apart from it, out of it, free to do what she wanted.
Smith was startled to find that he actually hoped so. Further frightened to discover that he was actually wondering what life was like on the outside, for her, if she really was unplugged as he was starting to realize was only logical. He was actually wondering what life must be like for the members of the Resistance when they weren't fomenting sedition and insurrection. Did they have homes, heat and light and food and water out there? They must... the Agents had seen and found recurring humans over a period of years. They must have some means of survival... then what was the rest of their life on the outside like? Was it a never-ending struggle for survival, or did they have recreation, leisure time, enough of a surplus of resources that occasionally they could take some time for themselves to contemplate the meaning of... whatever?
He wanted to ask her. And at the same time he wanted to crush her skull for lying to him. He could do either so easily while she slept.
She had to be a member of the Resistance, or at least know of them. Had to be. Kerr was certainly of the Resistance, Smith had found out that much when he had applied to the Merovingian for a full-on dossier about the irritating man. And Solace hadn't seemed at all surprised at the faster-than-human combat that had ensued when Kerr had appeared in the lobby of her building. It just was too much to be coincidence. All the sideways and backhanded references, the lack of surprise, the complete and total acceptance of Smith's own strange ways. She had to know. She had to at least know, if not be a part of the unplugged bastard children of the Matrix.
And... what was he going to do now? His hands were clenched into fists as he looked at her; by all rights he should turn her into the rest of the Agents, or deal with her himself. Turning her in for interrogation... especially if she was a ship's captain, with the Zion codes... it could result in his reinstatement. He allowed himself to hope for a moment, and then was overwhelmed with self-loathing. The very emotion was so wrong on so many levels, chief among them because it was an emotion, and because it was a betrayal of all her trust.
And yet hadn't she betrayed him? Her secret. Her lies. She had lied from every moment, with every breath and gesture...
Had she?
He had never asked. He had never even though to ask, he had assumed that what she was... was she? He had looked in the Matrix, there were records. She was really employed where she said she was. Leading a double life, perhaps? Was that what she was doing, so that both lives... neither of them were entirely a lie and she hadn't lied at all but simply by omission led him to believe...
What?
What did he believe?
His thoughts were chasing themselves around in circles. He had never felt so cut off as he did now, cut off from everything that was familiar and safe. He was outcast from the Agents, from the Matrix, purposeless and wandering. And now the one person who he had thought was still an ally was gone... or was she?
If she was Resistance, why was she doing this? Why had she stayed? What was she doing, and why? So many questions he wanted to ask her, and yet he dared ask nothing.
She couldn't be Resistance, he decided. Resistance did not act this way. Resistance humans did not curl themselves up like a sleeping child on the make-believe sofas of the Agents and sleep as though they were safe from everything dangerous in the world. They did not trust the Agents, they did not hold them or talk to them or weep in their arms. They did not, he remembered with the faintest glimmerings of a smile, dart across lanes of traffic in their pajamas in the rain and nearly get killed by a hydroplaning vehicle in order to apologize to an Agent. No matter that she had to have seen Kerr and himself moving faster than the human eye could follow, no matter that all of her actions and words told him that she had to know at least something of what he was, she couldn't be one of the unplugged.
And because there were no humans who knew of the Matrix who weren't unplugged (the AIs had seen to that) she couldn't know. His own (shameful) secret was safe; reality restored itself. The algorithms and processes in Smith's mind reshaped, reworked themselves until the world made sense once again. It was all just some strange coincidence. She was, after all, more accepting of things outside the norm. More things on heaven and earth, as a human writer had said, erroneously but humans did love to repeat it so. Smith closed his eyes, and the world seemed to shift around him until it was safe and ordinary once again.
When Solace finally opened her eyes again the former Agent was standing and watching the rain again, watching as it slackened to a light pitter-pat on the patio floor. His hands were loose and open at his sides, his posture relaxed. No sunglasses, not even the Agent suit, today he wore loose and flowing clothing that had the look of old sweats two sizes too large for him, sweatshirt tied loosely around his waist, t-shirt hanging about his gaunt frame like a tent. A reassuring sort of a fashion, he had discovered. And more suited to her own casual attire than the uniform he no longer really had a right to wear. He glanced around as she sat up, brushing her hair out of her still slightly dazed eyes, and briefly thought about smiling.
Everything was as it should be.
If not necessarily as it was.