He said he killed an Agent

Chapter 7: Make up your own damn mind

Gannon was the first to come out of the Matrix, and as soon as the needle was pulled from his head, he hurriedly got up from his seat, and grabbed a heavy piece of weaponry from the wall of the Mnemosyne, one that shot blue electricity and fried anything it touched. These weapons were normally used for fighting sentinels when the EMP failed, but Gannon took it and pointed it in the direction of Nighten, who had not been pulled out yet.

" When Nighten comes out," Gannon ordered, " keep him strapped down. I've got some questions, and he won't leave that chair until I'm fully satisfied with his every answer.

Hermes nodded, still confused about what he had seen from the code.

Pandora was the next to come out, and Hermes unhooked her.

" I'm worried Gannon." Pandora said, and then eyed the large gun in Gannon's hands. " But not that worried."

" He lied to us, Pan." Gannon said without taking his eyes off of Nighten. " He marched around this ship like any other crew member, and he never told us what the hell he was capable of in the Matrix. He killed two Agents! He had one begging for his life! He's dangerous. I knew I should have trusted my instinct."

Dial was now out.

" Whoa!" He said, eyeing the gun pointed at Nighten. " Easy, Captain. I'm mad too, but really, he saved our asses. You said it yourself."

Gannon shook his head. " I can't have a person on my ship that I can't trust."

" Should I bring him back now, Captain?" Hermes asked.

The long-haired man nodded.

When Nighten woke up, he was slow to open his eyes, and when he did, he still had the Maniac's smug smile on his face, even in spite of the fact that there was a large weapon pointed at his face.

" Is this really necessary?" Nighten asked.

Gannon shook his head 'yes', trying not to pull the trigger, and fry the liar.

" Okay." Nighten said, nodding slowly. " I guess you're a little confused, and mad...but..."

" Question one." Gannon said, cutting him off. " Who are you, really?"

The crew member being questioned looked confused. " Well, in this world, I'm Nighten of the Mnemosyne."

" And in the matrix?" Dial asked.

" Then...I'm a Maniac."

" Why do you look different?" Pandora questioned. " Your hair turns white, and it looks like you're bigger in the Matrix, stronger."

" That's a longer story." Nighten said.

" We'll get it to, trust me." Gannon told him. " Question two: were you really a Captain?"

Nighten sighed with frustration. " Gannon, everything I've ever told you is true. Zion has my records, of course I was a Captain." Gannon didn't respond. " But I couldn't tell you everything, not right away. You wouldn't have let me on the ship."

" So you're saying I should have a reason to kick you off?" Gannon asked.

" Not at all." Nighten replied. " If I had told you everything...you wouldn't have let me on. You wouldn't have believed me. But I needed to be onto a ship to get into the Matrix, so I can do my job. Agent killing. I picked your ship, because I saw how close you are to your crew. That night, when I fought the Agents on the busy street, and saw you come after Pandora, I knew that I wanted to be a part of your crew."

Gannon handed the gun to Dial, and moved in closer to Nighten, not taking off the straps that bonded him to the chair.

" Fine. Question three: what's in your suitcase? I could barely pick it up."

Nighten frowned. " The same thing that Dial has in his hands right now." He said, referring to the large electric gun.

Gannon's face contorted. " And why would you bring an unregistered weapon secretly onto my ship?"

" It was from my ship, The Centaur." Nighten answered. " I figured we could use it."

" Against who?" Pandora asked. " The war is over, Nighten, Sentinels don't fight anymore."

Nighten shook his head. " Well, I still have trouble trusting Sentinels, but perhaps against other humans. Are you familiar with the Bane situation?"

" The Bane situation?" Dial asked.

" It was during the war." Gannon answered, nodding his head. " Agent Smith found a way to get into the real world."

The rest of the crew's eyes went wide.

" How?" Pandora asked. " And why haven't we heard about it?"

" Only Captains were informed." Gannon answered. " Incase we noticed any other suspicious crew members." Gannon directed that statement directly at Nighten, who seemed indifferent.

" Smith could copy himself onto anything hooked into the system." Nighten explained. " He would use other Agents, innocent people, and eventually he got his hands on one of us, a man named Bane."

" Smith took over Bane's body right as he was about to reach an exit." Gannon continued the story. " And apparently he answered the phone, and was brought into the real world."

" But he still looked like Bane?" Dial asked. " That's not right..."

" Could it happen again?" Pandora asked.

" These Agents can't spread themselves into other people." Gannon told her. " Only Smith could do that, because of his relationship with Neo."

" But they've already found ways to create new Agents." Nighten said. " And I think their next goal is to achieve Smith's power of cloning. And if that happened, any or all of the Agents could be brought into the real world."

" So that's why you're killing them?" Dial asked.

Nighten put his smug smile back on. " There are a lot of reasons why I'm killing them."

Gannon nodded. " Okay, Nighten. I get the feeling its story time. Question four: How the hell are you able to kill Agents?"

Nighten took a deep breath.

" The short answer is: my grenade launcher." Nighten answered. The crew just stared at him, apparently looking for more than the short answer. " Bullets are too small, and they're used to dodging them. But explosives hurt. Three successful hits from a grenade, and an Agent will die."

Pandora shook her head. " I've see an Agent fall off a building. When he hit the ground, there wasn't a dead Agent. There was a dead repairman. Agents leave their hosts, and don't die."

Nighten inhaled deeply. " That's true, but...I can prevent that. You saw it yourself, with the blonde Agent."

Gannon shrugged. " I don't know what I saw. I sure as hell didn't think I was looking at you. How can you stop an Agent from aborting his host?"

" If I'm touching them, I can stop them." Nighten answered reluctantly. " That's why when I grabbed Agent Williams, he couldn't escape."

" Okay," Pandora said, " but how did you get this ability?"

" I discovered it by accident." Nighten told her. " It was the day the war ended. I was jacked in, looking for the Oracle."

" How were you in the Matrix?" Dial asked. " If you were a captain of a ship, you should have been on the dock."

Nighten rubbed his head, thinking of how to say what he needed to say.

" I was tired of the war." He explained. " I knew it was going to end, I had heard reports of the Sentinels coming. I knew, one way or another, Zion would either be free or perish that night. But it was driving me crazy. I had to see the Oracle. I wanted to know how it was going to end."

" So you abandoned your ship?" Gannon asked him.

Nighten shook his head. " I took my ship, and left my crew in Zion. They...wouldn't come with me. They didn't feel safe. The Centaur is probably the smallest ship of our fleet, so I left Zion before lockdown, and went to broadcast depth."

" And you didn't run into Sentinels?" Dial asked.

" I had to be careful, but I left in the opposite direction. Nearly every Sentinel was by the drills that day. Those roaming the tunnels, as it turns out, ended up chasing Niobe and Morpheus. So I went into the Matrix."

" The Matrix was crawling with Smiths." Pandora pointed out. " Jesus Nighten, even if you left before the battle for Zion started, Smiths would be in nearly every house, nearly every street corner..."

Nighten shook his head. " It hadn't gotten that bad yet. Smith still hadn't reached the Oracle. But I did run into one. I was close to her apartment building, when he stepped out of the shadows, and stuck his hand in my stomach."

" I knew it." Gannon said angrily. " Dial give me the gun! He's a Smith!"

" I not a damn Agent, Gannon!" Nighten contended. " He didn't copy himself on me. I received some help. The Agent trying to copy onto me was kicked out of the way, and all of a sudden, I found myself face to face with... The One."

The crew's eyes went wide.

" You met Neo?" Pandora said with amazement.

Nighten nodded. " He's the one who gave me my grenade launcher. He told me I would need it. I told him I didn't understand, and he just smiled. He said to me...he never understood either, but that the sooner I believed, and realized that nothing was real, I would be fine. And then, he flew off, straight up into the air. Apparently, he was on his way to see the Oracle as well."

" And so all of sudden," Gannon said, " you're The Two?"

The man with short brown hair gave a short chuckle. " Not really. That's just what the Agent's started to call me. They label anything they don't understand an 'anomaly'. But I didn't know what I was capable of then. All I knew what that the Agent Smith was back on his feet, and coming after me again."

" So you shot him with your grenade launcher?" Dial predicted.

Nighten shook his head. " He was four feet away from me. I thought I would be blown to hell with him. So I panicked, turned around, and started to run." Nighten paused, looking to the ceiling of the Mnemosyne. " I can still hear the sound of his gunshots, and feel the excruciating pain as four bullets tore through my back."

The crew cringed.

" But..." Nighten continued, " I was too mad to accept death. I didn't start believing anything, and I certainly didn't think I might be dying, I was just so angry at the Agent that I turned around and started shooting. He was far enough away that I was only knocked down, and so I just kept on shooting. When all the smoke cleared, I saw Agent Smith, lying on his back, with his Desert Eagle in his hand. But he wasn't moving. I had killed him."

Nighten paused before continuing. " I looked down...at my chest...and saw four bullet holes. They had gone right through me. But...the pain had passed, and...I wasn't bleeding anymore. I was...fine. Suddenly, I realized that it wasn't me that had been shot, it was my RSI that had been hit with computer bullets from the computer generated gun of a computer program. I guess that's when I hair went white, after that first explosion. It stays brown in the real world, but it's white every time I enter the Matrix."

" Did you end up meeting the Oracle?" Gannon asked, starting to believe the man's story.

He nodded. " But not after being attacked by more Smiths. I don't know if they were tracking me, or following Neo and had just ended up seeing me, but I had only gone ten feet when a dozen Smiths came after me. I did what I had to do, and kept firing, as they closed in on me. Eventually I was firing inches from my face, and my body was being rocked by the explosions too. The only difference was, every three shots, at least one of them would die. I never did."

" A grenade launcher holds nine grenades." Dial said. " How could kill twelve Agents, plus the one that attacked you before, on nine grenades, if it takes three direct hits to kill them."

" It never runs out of shells." Nighten said plainly. " I don't know if that's because of me, or a gift from Neo, but I've got unlimited ammunition."

Gannon leaned forward. " Tell me about your visit to the Oracle."

" That was my next stop. I had met the Oracle before, when I was newly unplugged, and she had told me that I didn't have the balls to be a Captain of a ship, and that I should stay as far away from a control panel and an EMP as possible." Nighten smiled. " Back then, it was exactly what I needed to hear."

" So what did she tell you the second time you saw her?" Gannon asked.

" She said I was too young to have white hair," Nighten said with a laugh, " And I told her she looked different, too. She smiled, and then started to make cookie dough, saying that they were for her next guest. And then...she went on to tell me that as long as I didn't accept being killed by a program, then a program would never kill me."

" So you're invincible." Gannon said, obviously not believing him. " Then you won't mind if I try out this gun, and zap you for a few minutes?"

" I am every bit as human as you are, Gannon." Nighten told him. " It is in the Matrix, that I can't be killed. In the real world, I would cook if you shot that gun at me."

Pandora stood up. " Let's load up the construct. Give me a gun, and I'll shoot him. Then we'll see if he's telling the truth."

" It doesn't work that way, Pandora." Nighten explained. " I have to accept being shot by another person, even in the Matrix, or another program like the construct. It's programs that can't kill me."

" And what if I gave you a gun," Gannon said, " and told you to shoot yourself? Would you die, then?"

Nighten nodded. " That's suicide. Me killing me. I'm not a program, so I would die."

Gannon stood up, enraged. " And how is shooting a grenade an inch from your own face not suicide?"

" Because I am not trying to kill myself, I am directing the blast only at my enemy. And as long as I believe that...I won't be killed." Nighten sighed. " It took me a while to accept, too. Really, when I kill an Agent, I am killing the host, and the Agent gets trapped inside. It's unfortunate, but the only way."

Gannon rolled his eyes, handing the gun back to Dial.

" Any other powers I should be aware of, Maniac?"

Nighten paused. " I can interact with the code, to a small degree. I can repair things, like my weapon, and that's how I'm able to keep Agents in their hosts. If I can touch them, then I can alter their code, and trap them."

" So what happened with Morpheus and Niobe?" Pandora asked.

" Like I said, I knew they would need me." Nighten explained. " So I had to jet ahead of you guys. Hermes did an excellent hack, but as soon as I got in, I altered my drop off point. If we would have had this conversation inside the Matrix, the whole operation would have failed. I knew the kidnapping was a plan to draw me out. So, I helped Morpheus and Niobe get the girl out, and then started battling the Agents."

" Morpheus trusted you?" Dial wondered.

The brown haired man nodded. " He knew I could help them. And I did. Listen, all of you... I'm not a savior, and I know it. I've been given a gift, and I plan on using it to the fullest extent. I want Agents to fear us, and I'm tired of it being the other way around."

" Last question." Gannon stated. " What happened to the rest of your crew?"

The second anomaly paused, before looking up with a stone face.

" Dead to the last man. They died bravely in the battle for Zion. And that was their choice."

Gannon hesitated for a long moment of silence. Sitting in front of him was a man who could guarantee safety on nearly every Matrix operation he would ever go on again. Sitting in front of him, was a man who could destroy Agents, which would mean a much easier time freeing minds. And then again, sitting in front of him was a man who had hidden something from him, and abandoned them in the Matrix to go kill Agents. It was a choice fit for only a Captain to make.

" Dial, unhook him." Gannon ordered. Dial obeyed, taking off the straps from Nighten's wrists and feet. As soon as Nighten was free, and standing up, the Captain of the Mnemosyne approached him again.

" Nighten, I'm sorry." Gannon apologized. " I'm grateful for your help, and very grateful that you chose to use your talents on my ship. But from now on, I need to know everything you know. This ship doesn't go far without honesty and trust."

Nighten nodded. " I realize that, Gannon. I regret not telling you. But, it was my only option." The Captain nodded, and the two men shook hands.

" Why is everybody yelling?" Came the small voice of Crusher, who was rubbing his eyes, having just been rudely woken up from his nap.

" Don't worry, Crusher." Pandora said, picking her little brother up and letting him sit on her lap. " We were just fighting over who gets to eat that new flavor of slop you've been cooking up."

The Crusher looked around with wide eyes. " Oh, it's not done yet..."

" You can practice your cooking later, kiddo." Gannon said with a grin. " Didn't you tell me you wanted to learn how to... sword fight?"

(End of Chapter 7)

In response to reviews:

Basia Adami- Plenty more Crusher to come, I promise! And see? I told you Pandora was good! And thanks for the site, I'll be sure to check any names I take from planets with their mythological counterparts from now on!

Nathol- Glad you're having fun with it, I know I am. And don't worry, those chapters are on their way!