Thanks to my sole reviewer LiMiYa, your support helped me get motivated to
update so quickly.
The only one to ever kill an Agent was....
The potential's apartment, 1 night earlier.
Icon's head was being pulled in a hundred different directions at once, and it was starting to hurt. She reached up and rubbed her temples with her fingers while trying to figure out what had happened. The last thing she remembered was fighting three Agents inside of the kid's apartment. She remembered fighting them, then there was a blur and she remembered all of the Agents lying dead on the ground. But she hadn't killed anyone, she pulled her gun out of its holster and checked, yep, still all eight bullets. So it wasn't, no couldn't be her that had killed those Agents. As a matter of fact, no one has ever killed an Agent, well maybe not entirely. Sure there had been Agents killed but they had come back, those Agents, on the other hand, never came back for her. The only one to ever kill an Agent was....
"Neo," Icon jumped when the voice came out of the darkness that surrounded her, "he killed an Agent, first one to be able to send an Agent back to the source before their deletion date." She still couldn't trace the voice to a location or match it to any person she had ever talked with. The voice continued, this time from somewhere to her left, "It was surprising though, that Agent didn't get deleted though, he went rogue, inserted himself back into the Matrix and began to hunt Neo down, you remember his name, don't you?"
Icon started to sweat, that name had haunted her and every other resistance fighter since they had been freed and even more so since he almost killed Neo. She didn't want to say his name but it came out, like it was meant to come out, "Smith, Agent Smith," Icon said.
"Bingo, you're pretty smart, do you know that," the voice replied now from directly in front of her near as she could tell, "but do you know the most interesting part of the story?" All that Icon could do was shake her head, her brain was racked with so many questions, who was this voice, where was she, how did she get here, and who killed those Agents, but right at the moment, for some odd reason, she felt the need to ask, "What is the most interesting part?"
"None of the machines did anything to stop him. Yes they put their Agents up against him, but they weren't really trying were they? They wanted to see how far he would go, how close he would come to doing the one thing that no other Agent or program had ever done," came the voice, but now it felt like the voice was everywhere, in every space of the room, covering every inch of her body, filling every breath so that she couldn't block out the sound.
"They wanted to see if he could stop Neo, because if they could stop Neo, then he could stop anything," Icon replied trying to answer the voice so it would leave her alone.
"Correct, but it was more than that, they wanted to see if his code changed over the experience. See if it evolved into something else, see if it changed itself so that it could rewrite its programming to accomplish its mission, and do you know what? It did, each time he cloned himself the code changed and the files that held his program back in the real world grew in size until an entire section of a field and two separate power plants were needed to hold him. When ever a certain park of him failed, his code rewrote that part of the code to be more efficient and this process kept taking place until he couldn't be stopped, but they didn't want to stop him, they didn't want to delete him either."
"But Neo stopped him, Neo brought him back to the source and had him deleted, we know because...."
"The machines told you. The machines told you that Neo had saved you and that Agent Smith had been deleted. But look at it this way, what if the machines had decided to keep a part of that code, isolate it, study it, and rewrite it back into another program, a program that they could control, a program that would do anything they wanted to without question. It would be like Agent Smith's legacy never died and that he still lived?
Icon became horrified, "Agent Smith is ALIVE?!?!?" she screamed at the voice, not wanting to be right.
"Don't worry child, he's not. Agent Smith was deleted. Well, almost completely deleted."
Icon drew a slow breath, she didn't like the sound of "almost completely deleted", she spoke up, "What do you mean almost completely deleted?"
"Well, when Neo brought him back to the source and the Machines destroyed his shell and all of the physical aspects of that program, they kept some of the code to study. Once they finished studying it though, they had it deleted but since the file was so large and spread out over the entire world and sections had to be replaced, they missed a few strains of code. About 2% of his code was missed to be exact. But don't worry, it wouldn't be enough for him to sustain his shell again and become a full Agent another time."
Icon almost breathed a sigh of relief, but something was still bothering her.
"Yet, enough of his code remained for his essence to be preserved. So technically he isn't alive, but you might see him once and a while. He is what you would call, a demon, able to possess anyone and make anyone do anything he wants and since he does not have a physical shell you will have to find out how to kill him. Remember though, in trying to kill a demon, make sure you yourself do not become a demon also."
And with that Icon was back in the potential's apartment lying on the floor. She was trying to figure out what had just happened; was it all a dream, was there really a voice telling her about Agent Smith. Was Agent Smith still alive?
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK
Icon's heart skipped a few beats; someone had knocked on the door. She stood up, and as she did her head began to spin again. She reached forward and grabbed the door knob and started to twist the knob; she then opened the door.
The only one to ever kill an Agent was....
The potential's apartment, 1 night earlier.
Icon's head was being pulled in a hundred different directions at once, and it was starting to hurt. She reached up and rubbed her temples with her fingers while trying to figure out what had happened. The last thing she remembered was fighting three Agents inside of the kid's apartment. She remembered fighting them, then there was a blur and she remembered all of the Agents lying dead on the ground. But she hadn't killed anyone, she pulled her gun out of its holster and checked, yep, still all eight bullets. So it wasn't, no couldn't be her that had killed those Agents. As a matter of fact, no one has ever killed an Agent, well maybe not entirely. Sure there had been Agents killed but they had come back, those Agents, on the other hand, never came back for her. The only one to ever kill an Agent was....
"Neo," Icon jumped when the voice came out of the darkness that surrounded her, "he killed an Agent, first one to be able to send an Agent back to the source before their deletion date." She still couldn't trace the voice to a location or match it to any person she had ever talked with. The voice continued, this time from somewhere to her left, "It was surprising though, that Agent didn't get deleted though, he went rogue, inserted himself back into the Matrix and began to hunt Neo down, you remember his name, don't you?"
Icon started to sweat, that name had haunted her and every other resistance fighter since they had been freed and even more so since he almost killed Neo. She didn't want to say his name but it came out, like it was meant to come out, "Smith, Agent Smith," Icon said.
"Bingo, you're pretty smart, do you know that," the voice replied now from directly in front of her near as she could tell, "but do you know the most interesting part of the story?" All that Icon could do was shake her head, her brain was racked with so many questions, who was this voice, where was she, how did she get here, and who killed those Agents, but right at the moment, for some odd reason, she felt the need to ask, "What is the most interesting part?"
"None of the machines did anything to stop him. Yes they put their Agents up against him, but they weren't really trying were they? They wanted to see how far he would go, how close he would come to doing the one thing that no other Agent or program had ever done," came the voice, but now it felt like the voice was everywhere, in every space of the room, covering every inch of her body, filling every breath so that she couldn't block out the sound.
"They wanted to see if he could stop Neo, because if they could stop Neo, then he could stop anything," Icon replied trying to answer the voice so it would leave her alone.
"Correct, but it was more than that, they wanted to see if his code changed over the experience. See if it evolved into something else, see if it changed itself so that it could rewrite its programming to accomplish its mission, and do you know what? It did, each time he cloned himself the code changed and the files that held his program back in the real world grew in size until an entire section of a field and two separate power plants were needed to hold him. When ever a certain park of him failed, his code rewrote that part of the code to be more efficient and this process kept taking place until he couldn't be stopped, but they didn't want to stop him, they didn't want to delete him either."
"But Neo stopped him, Neo brought him back to the source and had him deleted, we know because...."
"The machines told you. The machines told you that Neo had saved you and that Agent Smith had been deleted. But look at it this way, what if the machines had decided to keep a part of that code, isolate it, study it, and rewrite it back into another program, a program that they could control, a program that would do anything they wanted to without question. It would be like Agent Smith's legacy never died and that he still lived?
Icon became horrified, "Agent Smith is ALIVE?!?!?" she screamed at the voice, not wanting to be right.
"Don't worry child, he's not. Agent Smith was deleted. Well, almost completely deleted."
Icon drew a slow breath, she didn't like the sound of "almost completely deleted", she spoke up, "What do you mean almost completely deleted?"
"Well, when Neo brought him back to the source and the Machines destroyed his shell and all of the physical aspects of that program, they kept some of the code to study. Once they finished studying it though, they had it deleted but since the file was so large and spread out over the entire world and sections had to be replaced, they missed a few strains of code. About 2% of his code was missed to be exact. But don't worry, it wouldn't be enough for him to sustain his shell again and become a full Agent another time."
Icon almost breathed a sigh of relief, but something was still bothering her.
"Yet, enough of his code remained for his essence to be preserved. So technically he isn't alive, but you might see him once and a while. He is what you would call, a demon, able to possess anyone and make anyone do anything he wants and since he does not have a physical shell you will have to find out how to kill him. Remember though, in trying to kill a demon, make sure you yourself do not become a demon also."
And with that Icon was back in the potential's apartment lying on the floor. She was trying to figure out what had just happened; was it all a dream, was there really a voice telling her about Agent Smith. Was Agent Smith still alive?
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK
Icon's heart skipped a few beats; someone had knocked on the door. She stood up, and as she did her head began to spin again. She reached forward and grabbed the door knob and started to twist the knob; she then opened the door.