Agent Tseung walked slowly down the halls of the mysterious corridor, the
'backdoor' to the Matrix. The eerily perfect whiteness and the utter
silence would have unnerved a human, but Tseung was unaffected.
Although all the doors looked the same, Tseung knew exactly where to go. He stood in front of the door, and gripped the doorknob. His grip slowly tightened, getting tighter and tighter, his hand shaking violently with the tension, when his hand slipped into the door.
Tseung's body followed soon after.
Agent Tseung entered the Source, his face impassive as he passed the thousands of television screens showing bits and pieces of the Matrix. He didn't know why the Architect chose to surround himself with these visions of human weakness. But then again, it wasn't his place to ask about it either.
The Architect, creator and ruler of the Matrix, sat relaxed in his large black chair, watching as his soldier approached. Humans would have gone through a long ritual of praise, but they did not need to. It was yet another proof of the superiority of the machines.
The Architect was quick and to the point. "Agent Smith."
The agent nodded slowly. "He is...an interesting case. I did not anticipate that he would be so dangerous."
"He nearly caused your destruction."
"Yes..."
"Do you have any understanding of his new ability?"
Tseung looked at the perfectly polished floor. "It seems he has the ability to rewrite the Matrix's code concerning individual beings. He can alter their presence and actions within the program."
The Architect nodded. "Indeed. As it stands, Agent Smith poses a grave threat to our reality. He has gained the ability to transform the code of the Matrix itself as he wishes. He controls the strengths of all the beings that he incorporates into himself. Vis-à-vis, he is well on his way to becoming quite powerful."
"A god."
"Please. I hope that you are not beginning to integrate those inane human idiosyncrasies into your own speech patterns."
Tseung shrugged. "It appears to be the only term that fits."
The Architect settled back. "As it would seem. There is only one other anomaly similar to Agent Smith."
"The One."
"Yes. As low my opinion is of this human need for a hero, the One seems to be the only being in existence that is remotely even similar to Agent Smith. They are actually very much the same. More than they know. Consequently, they may be similar to such a degree that analysis of one will lead to understanding of the other. Such knowledge would surely prove invaluable quite soon."
"Yes."
"You know the course of action to take."
"Yes."
Tseung left.
Neo was jostled awake. "What...?"
He looked up through blurred eyes into the face of Trinity. Her face was tense. "Get up Neo. Phone call."
He stumbled into the main room, where Link, the operator, was waiting, holding out a headset to him. "You might want to hear this."
Neo slipped it on. "Who is this."
A low, controlled, slightly rasping voice came from the other end. "Neo Anderson."
Neo nodded. "Yeah."
"You are needed inside the Matrix. Now. Enter, and everything will fall into place."
The phone hung up. Neo looked at Link. Link shrugged and gestured to the seat. "Well, I guess...you're the One, you can handle anything, right?"
Neo walked over and jacked in.
Neo's mind materialized inside the Matrix, and he was surprised to find himself inside the martial arts training program. No, it was different. The scrolls on the wall were different. The roof was open to the sky, which was a stormy white, the sky just before rain. The wood was darker, the pillars thicker with lightly carved designs. Dragons and mountains.
A man appeared in the room, coming through a door that led nowhere. A man wearing loose white martial arts pants, no shoes, a tight white muscle shirt, and a black martial arts jacket hanging open and loose. He walked into the middle and faced Neo.
On the man's face was a pair of sunglasses. Rectangular, and slightly curved.
Agent's glasses.
The man looked slowly around the room, making his long black hair shimmer. Finally he looked at Neo.
"Mr. Neo Anderson. Welcome to my personal training compound."
Neo looked down to find that he was dressed in a simple white gi, similar to the one he wore to fight with Morpheus long ago when he first learned about the truth of his reality.
He looked up at the man again. "Who are you?"
The man simply cocked his head slightly. "You're the One, aren't you? Can't you read my code? Can't you understand it all immediately?"
Neo nodded slowly. "But I've never seen you before."
"No, I doubt you haven't. Most humans never come in contact with me."
"This is your training compound?"
"Being a program I don't really need to train. However, this is where I test out new combat algorithms, try to utilize and activate the best fighting programs for my use as an enforcer in the Matrix."
Suddenly the code made sense to the One. "You're Agent Tseung. The agent hunter program."
The man smiled thinly. "Congratulations. You're correct. I am indeed Agent Tseung."
"Why am I here?"
"You're here because we need to talk. But first," said Tseung, giving the Shaolin salute and dropping into a fighting stance, "We have a few formalities to take care of."
Neo settled back into a fighting stance, thumbed his nose. He felt the strength of the code all around him.
Tseung leapt forward, bringing up his lead leg to swing it down in a crushing outer crescent. Neo dodged to the side, the leg barely missing him. They stood there for a moment, and Tseung snarled.
He spun, swinging his leg into a high hook kick, then a low sweeping hook. Neo dodged, jumped, front kick! Tseung moved his body to the side and then slammed his shoulder into Neo's leg, swung his leg to wrap around Neo's neck, and brought the One crashing to the ground.
The agent withdrew, looking at the human impassively. Neo laid there for a moment, and then rose straight up.
He landed lightly on the floor, and rolled his shoulders. He cracked his knuckles, and then settled into his low stance.
Tseung charged, swinging his legs a series of kicks too fast for human comprehension. Roundhouse, axe, hook, inner crescent, low-high side, spinning heel, 360degreeroundhouse,sidekick,axekick,frontkick,lowhook,highsweep,outercresce nttriplesidekickdualcrescentshadowkickroundhousequadruplefrontkicksweeperdra gonwhipspinaxeaxeaxe...
Tseung stood there, his knee held up in the air, his leg swinging like a pendulum from side to side. Neo stood, his body slightly turned to one side, impassive, his arms hanging next to his body.
The agent studied his opponent.
Not a scratch. Not even part of his gi was ruffled.
The agent put his leg down slowly, and approached Neo.
The One was silent, watching his enemy approach. Tseung stood close, less than a foot away, his eyes invisible behind his sunglasses.
He cricked his neck.
"Well done, human."
Neo allowed himself the slightest grin. "Not so bad-hurk!"
Agent Tseung smiled to himself as he drove his knee deep into Neo's stomach, then kicked out his legs from under him, front kicked Neo high into the air, jumped up even higher and sidekicked the One into the ground.
Neo crashed through the mat of the training program. Beneath the digital straw matting there was digital concrete.
Agent Tseung landed easily; stretched and cricked his back. "Only human."
Neo looked up, and then floated to his feet, 'standing' three feet in the air.
Tseung snarled.
The One flew through the air, ripping up mat and concrete behind him in a human whirlwind, charging the agent.
Tseung had no time to react, and the full force of the entire room slammed hard into him, crashing him through the back wall. His howl of rage was swallowed up in the howl of the wind.
Agent Tseung stood up, looking around. Neo had knocked them both out of his virtual training room and into the Matrix code itself.
Tseung smiled. Here he was king.
He looked through the strange amalgamation of darkness and green code, and saw a small patch of abnormal code, rushing straight toward him. Tseung extended his control to wrap around the code and crush it, and then hurl it back into the training program.
Neo rolled on the ground in intense pain, groaning, tears leaking out of his tightly shut eyes. Tseung stood nearby.
"You humans," he said thoughtfully, "Capable of so much, and yet, you have surprisingly little control over your own abilities. It's ironic, and rather sad in a way. You could have destroyed me in this room, Neo, this place, where you are a god. Instead you decided to knock me into the code. Foolish."
Neo gasped, "Not foolish."
Tseung cocked his head. "No?"
"No...feel..."
Tseung looked, intrigued, at his left arm, and touched it with his right.
It passed through.
As he watched his arm bent backwards like a rubber toy, curving back and turning, spiraling. He saw his other arm follow suit, and then his chest.
Neo staggered to his feet. "You...see? I win..."
Tseung's lip curled in hate. "All right. Enough."
No sooner had his body returned to normal before he jumped and kneed Neo in the face, sending him flying into the far wall.
Neo floated out of the dust of the splintered wall. "Why am I here? Are you going to try to kill me?"
Tseung watched as the walls behind Neo began to warp and pulsate like a reflection in a pond. He remembered his mission. "No."
He turned and looked around at the room. "I apologize. My programming is to delete all anomalies within the Matrix. And you understand, the king of all anomalies would be..."
"Me."
"No. Agent Smith. You are his yin."
Neo shrugged and slowly came down to the floor. "I get it. But what do you want?"
"To...talk."
"But you attacked me."
Tseung shrugged and bowed. "Again I apologize. You do not truly know someone until you fight them."
Neo cocked his head. "Where did you hear that?"
The agent gave a rueful scoff of a laugh. "A friend, a long time ago."
Although all the doors looked the same, Tseung knew exactly where to go. He stood in front of the door, and gripped the doorknob. His grip slowly tightened, getting tighter and tighter, his hand shaking violently with the tension, when his hand slipped into the door.
Tseung's body followed soon after.
Agent Tseung entered the Source, his face impassive as he passed the thousands of television screens showing bits and pieces of the Matrix. He didn't know why the Architect chose to surround himself with these visions of human weakness. But then again, it wasn't his place to ask about it either.
The Architect, creator and ruler of the Matrix, sat relaxed in his large black chair, watching as his soldier approached. Humans would have gone through a long ritual of praise, but they did not need to. It was yet another proof of the superiority of the machines.
The Architect was quick and to the point. "Agent Smith."
The agent nodded slowly. "He is...an interesting case. I did not anticipate that he would be so dangerous."
"He nearly caused your destruction."
"Yes..."
"Do you have any understanding of his new ability?"
Tseung looked at the perfectly polished floor. "It seems he has the ability to rewrite the Matrix's code concerning individual beings. He can alter their presence and actions within the program."
The Architect nodded. "Indeed. As it stands, Agent Smith poses a grave threat to our reality. He has gained the ability to transform the code of the Matrix itself as he wishes. He controls the strengths of all the beings that he incorporates into himself. Vis-à-vis, he is well on his way to becoming quite powerful."
"A god."
"Please. I hope that you are not beginning to integrate those inane human idiosyncrasies into your own speech patterns."
Tseung shrugged. "It appears to be the only term that fits."
The Architect settled back. "As it would seem. There is only one other anomaly similar to Agent Smith."
"The One."
"Yes. As low my opinion is of this human need for a hero, the One seems to be the only being in existence that is remotely even similar to Agent Smith. They are actually very much the same. More than they know. Consequently, they may be similar to such a degree that analysis of one will lead to understanding of the other. Such knowledge would surely prove invaluable quite soon."
"Yes."
"You know the course of action to take."
"Yes."
Tseung left.
Neo was jostled awake. "What...?"
He looked up through blurred eyes into the face of Trinity. Her face was tense. "Get up Neo. Phone call."
He stumbled into the main room, where Link, the operator, was waiting, holding out a headset to him. "You might want to hear this."
Neo slipped it on. "Who is this."
A low, controlled, slightly rasping voice came from the other end. "Neo Anderson."
Neo nodded. "Yeah."
"You are needed inside the Matrix. Now. Enter, and everything will fall into place."
The phone hung up. Neo looked at Link. Link shrugged and gestured to the seat. "Well, I guess...you're the One, you can handle anything, right?"
Neo walked over and jacked in.
Neo's mind materialized inside the Matrix, and he was surprised to find himself inside the martial arts training program. No, it was different. The scrolls on the wall were different. The roof was open to the sky, which was a stormy white, the sky just before rain. The wood was darker, the pillars thicker with lightly carved designs. Dragons and mountains.
A man appeared in the room, coming through a door that led nowhere. A man wearing loose white martial arts pants, no shoes, a tight white muscle shirt, and a black martial arts jacket hanging open and loose. He walked into the middle and faced Neo.
On the man's face was a pair of sunglasses. Rectangular, and slightly curved.
Agent's glasses.
The man looked slowly around the room, making his long black hair shimmer. Finally he looked at Neo.
"Mr. Neo Anderson. Welcome to my personal training compound."
Neo looked down to find that he was dressed in a simple white gi, similar to the one he wore to fight with Morpheus long ago when he first learned about the truth of his reality.
He looked up at the man again. "Who are you?"
The man simply cocked his head slightly. "You're the One, aren't you? Can't you read my code? Can't you understand it all immediately?"
Neo nodded slowly. "But I've never seen you before."
"No, I doubt you haven't. Most humans never come in contact with me."
"This is your training compound?"
"Being a program I don't really need to train. However, this is where I test out new combat algorithms, try to utilize and activate the best fighting programs for my use as an enforcer in the Matrix."
Suddenly the code made sense to the One. "You're Agent Tseung. The agent hunter program."
The man smiled thinly. "Congratulations. You're correct. I am indeed Agent Tseung."
"Why am I here?"
"You're here because we need to talk. But first," said Tseung, giving the Shaolin salute and dropping into a fighting stance, "We have a few formalities to take care of."
Neo settled back into a fighting stance, thumbed his nose. He felt the strength of the code all around him.
Tseung leapt forward, bringing up his lead leg to swing it down in a crushing outer crescent. Neo dodged to the side, the leg barely missing him. They stood there for a moment, and Tseung snarled.
He spun, swinging his leg into a high hook kick, then a low sweeping hook. Neo dodged, jumped, front kick! Tseung moved his body to the side and then slammed his shoulder into Neo's leg, swung his leg to wrap around Neo's neck, and brought the One crashing to the ground.
The agent withdrew, looking at the human impassively. Neo laid there for a moment, and then rose straight up.
He landed lightly on the floor, and rolled his shoulders. He cracked his knuckles, and then settled into his low stance.
Tseung charged, swinging his legs a series of kicks too fast for human comprehension. Roundhouse, axe, hook, inner crescent, low-high side, spinning heel, 360degreeroundhouse,sidekick,axekick,frontkick,lowhook,highsweep,outercresce nttriplesidekickdualcrescentshadowkickroundhousequadruplefrontkicksweeperdra gonwhipspinaxeaxeaxe...
Tseung stood there, his knee held up in the air, his leg swinging like a pendulum from side to side. Neo stood, his body slightly turned to one side, impassive, his arms hanging next to his body.
The agent studied his opponent.
Not a scratch. Not even part of his gi was ruffled.
The agent put his leg down slowly, and approached Neo.
The One was silent, watching his enemy approach. Tseung stood close, less than a foot away, his eyes invisible behind his sunglasses.
He cricked his neck.
"Well done, human."
Neo allowed himself the slightest grin. "Not so bad-hurk!"
Agent Tseung smiled to himself as he drove his knee deep into Neo's stomach, then kicked out his legs from under him, front kicked Neo high into the air, jumped up even higher and sidekicked the One into the ground.
Neo crashed through the mat of the training program. Beneath the digital straw matting there was digital concrete.
Agent Tseung landed easily; stretched and cricked his back. "Only human."
Neo looked up, and then floated to his feet, 'standing' three feet in the air.
Tseung snarled.
The One flew through the air, ripping up mat and concrete behind him in a human whirlwind, charging the agent.
Tseung had no time to react, and the full force of the entire room slammed hard into him, crashing him through the back wall. His howl of rage was swallowed up in the howl of the wind.
Agent Tseung stood up, looking around. Neo had knocked them both out of his virtual training room and into the Matrix code itself.
Tseung smiled. Here he was king.
He looked through the strange amalgamation of darkness and green code, and saw a small patch of abnormal code, rushing straight toward him. Tseung extended his control to wrap around the code and crush it, and then hurl it back into the training program.
Neo rolled on the ground in intense pain, groaning, tears leaking out of his tightly shut eyes. Tseung stood nearby.
"You humans," he said thoughtfully, "Capable of so much, and yet, you have surprisingly little control over your own abilities. It's ironic, and rather sad in a way. You could have destroyed me in this room, Neo, this place, where you are a god. Instead you decided to knock me into the code. Foolish."
Neo gasped, "Not foolish."
Tseung cocked his head. "No?"
"No...feel..."
Tseung looked, intrigued, at his left arm, and touched it with his right.
It passed through.
As he watched his arm bent backwards like a rubber toy, curving back and turning, spiraling. He saw his other arm follow suit, and then his chest.
Neo staggered to his feet. "You...see? I win..."
Tseung's lip curled in hate. "All right. Enough."
No sooner had his body returned to normal before he jumped and kneed Neo in the face, sending him flying into the far wall.
Neo floated out of the dust of the splintered wall. "Why am I here? Are you going to try to kill me?"
Tseung watched as the walls behind Neo began to warp and pulsate like a reflection in a pond. He remembered his mission. "No."
He turned and looked around at the room. "I apologize. My programming is to delete all anomalies within the Matrix. And you understand, the king of all anomalies would be..."
"Me."
"No. Agent Smith. You are his yin."
Neo shrugged and slowly came down to the floor. "I get it. But what do you want?"
"To...talk."
"But you attacked me."
Tseung shrugged and bowed. "Again I apologize. You do not truly know someone until you fight them."
Neo cocked his head. "Where did you hear that?"
The agent gave a rueful scoff of a laugh. "A friend, a long time ago."