AUTHOR'S NOTE: All original characters from the Matrix trilogy belong to Warner Bros. and the brothers Wachowski; I'm just ad-libbing.
alocin-Well, I like the back stories too, and funnily enough there is some stuff in this chapter about Seraph's rather vague past, and just when you were asking for it as well!
Dark Puck-Hi! Great name; Paradise Lost is generally considered to be quite dense..it's a HUGE poem by Milton, like a retake on the creation on the world, the origins of sin, etc. I just found that a lot of extracts from it epitomise these two characters.
Exobiologist-Yep, I was not a little intrigued by the Seraph-Smith thing 'back in the day' ^^I do like Seraph though, even if he is so damned elusive and irksome to a certain agent...
Selina Enriquez- Thank you! I shall indeed endeavour to keep writing. Thanks for the review.
Morithil.
SERAPH
"For spirits that live throughout
Vital in every part, not as frail man,
In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins,
Cannot but by annihilating die."
- Paradise Lost (bk. VI, l. 345) [Immortality]
So this was the leader, the superior of the trio of sentient programmes following his faint trail.
They are all the same, except this one. This one is different, barely so, but the variation was intriguing to Seraph. That said, the variation was shifting from human to human with alarming speed, growing closer to him with every carriage.
Each human merely an empty shell for this agent to pass through until each had served its purpose, cast aside as he continued.
Seraph got up from his seat and fled softly through each carriage, anticipating the moment when the train would halt at the next station and he would disembark. He jumped the distance from each carriage to the next, stepping lightly as he deftly closed each door he vanished behind. The agent was gaining on him, but Seraph was not alarmed. He had existed so far without the gap between them closing to a dangerous minimum, and as his serene face belied, the intense state of meditation he spent extensive amounts of time in did not allow him to experience an anxiety that would cause him to panic.
He was, however, somehow familiar with the agent pursuing him.
Seraph did not waste time dwelling on this unusual revelation, but instead leapt smoothly from the still moving train as it pulled up at the station. Not even the flutter of his white shirt disturbed his wingless flight from the side of the train to the barriers, a huge jump by any standards. Vaulting effortlessly over the barriers, deaf to the warning cries of the station guards, Seraph flew down the winding passages leading to the populated streets, where it would be easier for the agent to follow him, but equally easier for himself to disappear and be lost in the crowds.
There was an inner peace that he found in meditation. He found that it helped him focus on his fighting skills and to anticipate attacks before they were executed. After knowing the inner peace that he had once possessed before the first Matrix was dismissed as a disaster, Seraph had worked long and hard to regain something of it in the present version of the Matrix, the seventh version of the perhaps the greatest simulation ever created. Yet in his mind, Seraph always looked fondly on the first Matrix, monumental though its downfall was, even though its failure resulted in painful repercussions for him.
Wingless. Seraph, void of his wings. Grounded, unable to fly.
It had been some time since he'd considered his literal grounding. He had served his original purpose and when what he had so tirelessly protected proved to be worthless, he had been cut loose. Humans did not accept perfection without scepticism. If Seraph had been a proud individual, the loss of flight might have resulted in his downfall. But Seraph knew the power of acceptance.
Knowing who you are, what you are. Wings do not define an angel. Neither does a fiery sword. Shorn of both, he was still first and foremost a programme designed to protect. Until his termination, he would exist.
Immortality, as humans saw it. During his time in the various versions of the Matrix, Seraph had learned to adapt. He could no longer stand solemnly before closed gates to defend what mattered most. Now, there was running and hiding.
I fight, only when necessary, only when I am as ready as my opponent and he as I.
Turning a corner, Seraph brushed the unsuspecting agent, who, as Seraph had ensured, had been unable to lock onto his rapid appearances and disappearances in various stages of the passage, and who was as unprepared for this collision as Seraph was ready.
SMITH
"But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to? who aspires must down as low
As high he soar'd, obnoxious first and last
To basest things."
- Paradise Lost (bk. IX, l. 168) [Ambition]
If agents possessed the technological equivalent of a tether, then Agent Smith had reached the end of his.
Unlike his compatriots, Smith seemed to have taken advantage of the benefits that possessing a drive has. On the surface, this particular agent had an ambition which drove him to perform better, faster, more efficiently than the other sentient offshoots, the Jones and Brown versions.
There was a reason for this. This ambition was not blind.
Smith was claustrophobic. The Matrix never stopped enclosing on him. Just as his awareness assumed that it could get no closer to being suffocated by what was around him, the next day the Matrix would be as broad and open as it had been when he first entered it, and the process of diminution would begin again.
Somewhere, in the depths of the artificial mind, there was the beginning. There was the beginning of a burgeoning desire to break free, to escape. It was barely existential for now, and the agent himself was not completely aware of it, but it was not difficult to see this growing.
And now Smith was startled.
He had left the train, pushing the doors apart as the train stopped. He had tracked the programme Seraph down a winding passage, which connected other platforms together, but then the process had become challenging. His lock on Seraph had faltered. His target seemed to be able to appear and disappear at will from one section of the passage to another completely unrelated section. At times Seraph had been in front of, and then in the space of seconds, behind Smith, out of visual range, but close enough to vex the agent into allowing another frown to fracture his normally bland expression. Since the discovery that this programme had been associated with the 'Oracle' and had been frequently visiting the much scrutinized programme of late, Smith had been curiously irritated by it. Seraph was beginning to aggravate him, for Smith could not make out any viable reason for his activities.
And now, totally unprepared, Smith had allowed Seraph to literally brush shoulders with him, passing him as he had progressed round a corner as if he had been simply another human.
Blank with shock, Smith had locked gazes with the other programme, whose calm exterior and almost respectful nod of the head had baffled him. The programme Seraph had acknowledged him silently before walking swiftly away from him, and by the time that Smith had come to terms and accepted what had just happened, the enigmatic being had slipped onto another train and was hurtling towards another place entirely.
Inwardly, Smith cursed his slowness. This had never happened before. He had never been found deficient in executing his duties. Jones and Brown would suspect.
As if on cue, the other agents appeared in the passage and approached Smith, looking slightly confused.
"He got away".
"What happened?"
"You allowed him to escape". An accusation from Brown. Smith icily deflected it.
"Neither of you were in the vicinity at the appropriate time. I may have required assistance"
Jones and Brown looked at each other, so visibly abashed that Smith nearly indulged in a laugh. The two agents fleetingly resembled humbled human offspring post-lecture. He was indeed their superior.
But why had the renegade passed him? Why had this Seraph avoided what was, to Smith, an inevitable confrontation? Why delay what was inevitable?
Back inside the dark leather interior of the Audi sedan, Smith could not deny the theory that Seraph considered himself in some way superior to him.