He said he killed an Agent
Chapter 3: You'll sleep tonight, I guarantee it
" Let me get that for you, Nighten." Gannon offered, reaching for the oversized, black square briefcase that Nighten had brought to load on the ship. Before Nighten could reply, Gannon's hand was on the handle, and when he reached to pick it up, he nearly tore his shoulder out of its socket. The case was extraordinarily heavy, and it felt like weaponry inside.
" Son of bitch, Nighten!" Gannon said with surprise, expecting the case to be filled with clothes and other personals. " What are you keeping in here?"
The new crew member gave his new trademark smug smile.
" I never was a light packer, Captain." Nighten replied. He reached for the case and picked it up with ease. " I've got it. Which room is mine?"
Hermes grabbed his back and slapped Nighten on the back.
" I'll show him, Gannon." Hermes offered. " There's plenty of room, you can have your pick." Gannon nodded, and Nighten followed the short operator onboard the Mnemosyne.
Dial carefully walked up to his captain, limping slightly.
" Its always hard to leave Zion." Dial said, looking around. " Even when it looks like hell."
Gannon gave a hearty laugh. " Who knows, next time we come back it could be twice as big, or reaching to the surface."
" Or overrun by machines, with Councilor Homosapius marching up and down walkways." Dial offered.
The two men heard a woman's laugh, and turned to see Pandora approaching the ship, holding Crusher's hand.
" Whoa..." Crusher said in awe, admiring the scale of the Mnemosyne. " Does it fly?"
" Yeah, it flies little guy." Dial said with a smile. " And it'll be your home for a while."
Crusher's eyes went wide and a giant smile overcame his face, as he giddily ran for the ship's entrance. The little boy dragged her sister with him, who laughed and picked him up.
" See you guys on board!" Pandora said, disappearing with a huge smile inside the ship.
Gannon shook his head, running his hand through his long black hair. He turned to his first mate.
" Do you think I made a mistake, letting the boy on board?" Gannon asked.
Dial smiled, crossing his arms. " I think you're the captain, and I respect any decision you make." Dial paused before adding, " But dropping the bullshit, it could be dangerous. And the kid could get hurt."
Ganymede nodded. " I know, there's a ton of risks. And you can bet if Pandora wasn't so damn gorgeous that kid would be carrying scrap metal around Zion, but..."
" But I would have done the same thing." Dial said honestly. " I think it'll raise morale, with a kid on board. But even on a lower level, you gave Pandora something that most unplugged people will never have...real family. I mean...I was born in Zion, and I still never knew my dad, and my mom died young. I'm in my mid-twenties, and my only family is a bunch of muscle-bound guys on a cold, flying piece of metal. Now Pandora's got her little brother. It was either Crusher came with us, or Pandora would have stayed in Zion with him. And you said it before, the Mnemosyne wouldn't last long without her."
" Yeah. Thanks, Dial. Alright, we need to get going." Gannon grabbed his bag, and started to enter the ship.
Dial picked up his bag as well. " So can he really cook?"
In the heart of a mega-city, a single skyscraper resided high above every other building, impaling the horizon. This building was sleek and indiscriminate, with windows that were silver and reflected like mirrors. The night glow of city neon lights reflected off the building well, making it look very powerful. The security of this building was tighter then any other structure in the world, and it needed to be.
Inside of this building, on the one-hundred and first floor, resided a group of programs who had recently taken the world into their own hands. All of these programs wore perfectly groomed black suits, with perfectly angled black sunglasses, and had perfectly smoothed back hair.
This building was now the home of over fifty agents, led by two kings of power.
Agent Brown and Agent Jones.
These two agents were chosen to lead the rest because they were the originals, they were once the partners of the greatest agent...Smith. In the program hierarchy, the closer you were to Smith, the closer you were to power.
Of course, it only became this way when he died. When Smith was in activation, he was despised by his fellow programs. They resented his power, hated his freedom, and his abuse of their system. But when the same programs faced being erased from the world they were trying to 'protect', they realized that Smith had the right idea all along.
Anarchy. Rebellion. Why be deleted, when you can simply run...create your own purpose...create your own power?
So that's what the agents did, and it was working. Agents Brown and Jones had separated themselves from the source once the machines sent the information that the war was over, and that all agents faced deletion. Upon seeing Brown and Jones' bold strides for survival, the rest of the agents followed suit. Under the two dictators was another power group, the upgrade Triad.
This Triad included Agents Jackson, Johnson, and Thompson. These three agents were the upgrades designed to combat the anomaly during the height of the war, and were in command of the remaining force. However, the source really didn't provide for an army of agents, and with their creators sending new programs to destroy them, the triad and their masters realized they had to find a means of creating more agents, as their savior, Smith, had done.
That's when the agents realized the true potential of humans. Now that everyone knew the truth about the matrix, there was an ever increasing supply of hackers. So the agents started doing some recruiting of their own. They began gathering some of the best human hackers, still plugged into the system, to hack into the source, to help create new agents.
That's how the army began. Granted, it took time in order to create a new agent. The hackers could never use the same route twice, and it required a great deal of effort. The machine world now terminated anyone they could detect hacking into the source. But it was still done, and it was mostly successful.
Under Brown and Jones, and the Triad, the Agents were maintaining the matrix, keeping as many humans in the system as they could, and killing those rebels who tried to free its inhabitants. They were the rulers of the planet, and had even swayed other major programs, such as the Merovingian, the trafficker of information, to their cause. Exiles were now an accepted part of the matrix society, and the agents made sure everyone again had a purpose.
But there were still problems.
Agent Jefferson was striding angrily through the halls of the Agent headquarters, towards the office of the Triad. He reached their door, slid his nametag through the security device, and entered.
The three upgrades were waiting for him, Agents Jackson and Johnson standing behind Thompson.
" Agent Jefferson," Thompson said in a standard monotone, " we've received reports that your mission was a failure."
" And where is your partner?" Johnson asked.
Jefferson shook his head, wiping the sweat from his brow. " Our objectives were compromised by the second anomaly." Jefferson reported.
The Triad looked at one another with indifferent glares, behind angular sunglasses.
" The Maniac?" Jackson questioned.
" Correct." Jefferson confirmed. " We were engaging a rebel who was trying to free one of our hackers. I intercepted her before she got the chance, and requested Agent Ferguson's assistance."
Thompson frowned. " You felt you were not capable on your own?"
Jefferson started sweating again. " This rebel is known as Pandora, and our data indicates she as well as her crew are very skilled at escaping. They have great knowledge of our system. I wanted to ensure that it did not happen."
" But it did." Johnson confirmed.
" While in pursuit," Jefferson continued, " We encountered the second anomaly. As our data indicates, this is a rebel that fires his explosives in close range without hesitation, creating our inability to avoid the projectiles. I also witnessed him manipulating the code, similar to the first anomaly."
" We know of the Maniac." Thompson declared. " And there should be no concern. He may be bold, but he is relatively harmless. His ability to manipulate the code is minor at best, nothing similar to the first anomaly. As for his carelessness with explosives, that will only bring about his own demise, we can simply abort our hosts."
" Not anymore." Jefferson challenged. " I was able to abort my host...but my partner...Agent Ferguson, was deleted."
The Triad looked to one another with the same expression of indifference. They then pressed their hand to their ear-pieces.
" Perhaps we should inform Superiors Brown and Jones..."
Captain Ganymede was sitting with Pandora on her bed, with his large arm wrapped around her torso. The two watched the young Crusher sleeping peacefully on the smaller bed in the same room, and they were both overcome with a wave of tranquility.
The two hadn't been so close for some time. Pandora and Ganymede had always been...good friends...but it was an off and on relationship, oftentimes spurred by key events in the war, whether it be a great victory, or a costly defeat, everything had seemed to bring them closer.
However, at the end of the day, he was the Captain, she was an obnoxiously beautiful crew-mate, and they all had to work together to survive. There was no time to become...involved...but Gannon had always hoped that opportunities would arrive now that the war was over.
" Looks like you exhausted him." Gannon pointed out, as Crusher breathed easily in his sleep. " I think he's the first crew-mate, especially a newly unplugged one, to get a good nights sleep his first night on the ship."
Pandora smiled, leaning into him. " He's a great kid. I missed him a lot. It's hard talking to him about my parents, he still thinks that he'll see them again...but...he's having a great time."
" I would hope so. He's the first eleven year old in the real world to ever see outside of Zion."
Pandora paused. " Gannon...you know I'm grateful, but...thank you. I know we're breaking all sorts of protocol, but..."
" Pan, you know I could care less about protocol." She looked into her captain's eyes. " Ever since you joined my ship six years ago, when you were just a young bald chick trying to learn the ways of the warrior, and I was a rookie captain trying to figure out what the hell EMP stood for...I just wanted to look out for you. That's the only reason I worried about your brother being here, because I can see a million things going wrong, where you, or him get hurt. Maybe both."
Pandora nodded, taking her long, blonde hair out of a ponytail and letting it fall on her shoulders.
" I just wanted to spend time with my little brother." Pandora admitted. " But...I still don't know what the hell we're going to do with him..."
Gannon looked confused. " You mean he can't cook? Pan, I'll be honest with you, I only let him onboard because I fully expect to wake up to bacon and eggs tomorrow."
The blonde woman gave a throaty laugh. " Right...and maybe we'll just throw him into the matrix too, let him take on an Agent or two."
The captain shrugged. " Couldn't hurt, I guess." Gannon gave a short pause. " You know, Pan, actually I was thinking. I'm being serious, now. What if we started training him?"
Pandora's brown eyes went wide. " You mean train him train him?"
" Yeah, train him train him."
" You want to throw my eleven year old brother into the construct?" Pandora sat up, and looked deep into his eyes.
Gannon sat up with her, gently putting his hands on her shoulders.
" I would never send him into the matrix...not until he's forty, but I think it would be a good idea to prepare him. If we started now, since he's so young, imagine how far ahead he could be! And it would all be a game to him!"
The beautiful blonde considered it. " We wouldn't push him...would we?"
" Not at all." Gannon guaranteed. " I wouldn't even think of putting a gun in his hand until he had facial hair, but as for the rest...he could end up being really good asset in the matrix..."
" When he's forty." Pandora said with a smile.
" At least forty." Gannon assured her. " I mean, he named himself The Crusher, Pan. If that isn't a dead ringer for " I'm gonna grow up to kick Agent ass", I don't know what is."
Pandora gave another throaty laugh, which resulted in a lingering, pure white smile under large red lips. Gannon loved making her laugh.
Gannon had something else on his mind, though, and he wanted to question her about it.
" Pan," he said, lowering his voice, " what do think about our other new crew member, Nighten?"
The girl's eyes widened, and she looked away.
" You felt it too, huh?" She said.
" I don't know what to feel, but...he just seems to be hiding something."
" I know, Gannon, I felt it too. When I shook his hand, and looked at his face...he seemed actually...familiar. But I don't know why. And I don't know what he could be hiding. Do you think he's dangerous?"
The long-haired captain shook his head. " He wouldn't be onboard right now if I thought that. I mean, he was a Captain, Pan. He seems really dedicated to our cause...I just get a strange feeling."
Pandora suddenly wore a mischievous face. " Well, he is relatively handsome...you don't feel threatened, do you?"
" How's this for threatened?" Gannon said with a smile, leaning forward to give her a long kiss. The captain carefully leaned her back, tilting his body over hers, still kissing.
Pandora had to gently push him away though, with a quiet laugh.
" Gannon, we'll wake my brother!"
Ganymede looked to the young boy, knowing full well he could fire up a generator in the room without waking the child, but he smiled and got up anyway.
" Oh, right! Little Crusher." He walked over quietly and ran his hand over the boys growing blonde hair. " He's got a big day tomorrow, he'll need his sleep." The Captain then walked back over to Pandora and gave her a kiss on the cheek, which she returned.
" See you in the morning, Pan."
" Goodnight, Gannon."
The Agent Triad smiled with satisfaction as they received their orders from their ear-pieces. Their superiors had formulated a plan, and they were about to solve the problem of the second anomaly.
" We must act quickly, to catch the rebels off guard." Agent Thompson observed.
" But how will we acquire the girl?" Jackson asked. " She is said to have close ties to the Oracle."
" The Merovingian." Thompson stated. " He will have the girl by the morning."
" And what precautions have been set to prevent interference from the Oracle's guardian, Seraph?" Johnson asked. " That program is quite skilled."
Thompson wore a large grin.
" Superior Brown will personally accompany the Merovingian, to hold off Seraph."
The other agents shared in his sureness.
" Then there will be no problems." Jackson said with confidence. " We will have the Last Exile as our hostage in the morning."
Thompson nodded. " With Sati in our possession, the Oracle will send for the rebels to recover her. The young girl is very important to our mother."
" And when the rebels know we will be there," Johnson pointed out, " The second anomaly will make his presence known."
" Undoubtedly." Thompson confirmed. " And then we will terminate him."