Chapter Eleven: A Trip to the Oracle
For some reason Kami was always extra nervous when she jacked in to the matrix during the day. The harsh light of the sun strips away all sense of anonymity and seems like a spotlight pointing her out to the agents. But she had to go visit the Oracle.
Ajax had deemed her revelation about the agent having the face of her dead friend possibly critically important. After searching futilely through their records and conferring with the other captains, he decided it was a problem worth consulting the Oracle.
Also, it was about time for Sean's first trip back into the matrix, and a chat with the Oracle was traditional. Everybody had come along, but only Ajax, Kami, and Sean were going to the Oracle. The others were busy catching up with little side projects and interests. Kami knew for a fact that Chowder was off picking up a set of the latest DVD releases to take back to the ship and watch in the construct.
The three of them drove along the surface streets towards the Oracle's apartment. Sean was plastered to the window, predictably.
"It just... all seemed so real," he says, as they pass a coffeehouse with someone busking on accordion on the sidewalk in front. "But it's not. Nothing was."
"The people were," says Kami. She remembered Bill Gates. "Most of them, anyway."
"Are we really going to see the Oracle? Like, with cookies and stuff?" Sean says after a while.
"Yes. Cookies and all."
"Huh."
The car pulls into a shady parking lot. The Oracle lives in one of the buildings just off of it. The group walks through the run-down halls and up to her door. Ajax knocks.
Seraph opens the door. Sean makes a little 'guh' noise as he recognizes Seraph.
"Come in," he says. "She has been waiting for you."
Ajax nods in response and gestures for Sean and Kami to go in first. Kami pushes Sean through the door in front of her.
"You first," she says, pointing him in the direction of the kitchen.
Kami waits on the living room couch with Ajax and Seraph while the Oracle talks to Sean. When he comes out, dazed and holding a cookie, she doesn't ask what the Oracle said to him. Tradition, that.
"She— she says to go on in," Sean says in Kami's direction, while staring at the cookie in his hand. Kami jumps to her feet and walks past Sean into the kitchen.
"Hello again, Kami." The Oracle is sitting in her usual chair by the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette. "I hear you have a question for me."
"Don't you already know what I'm going to ask you?" Kami sits down in the other chair at the table.
The Oracle chuckles. "Oh, of course I do. I'm just being polite. You want to know why you saw your old friend in agent clothes and shooting at you."
"That wasn't Renee. It has to be some agent trick," Kami said flatly, "Renee's dead. It couldn't have been her." Kami looks away.
"Are you so sure about that? You yourself have a gravestone back in Glendale."
"That's different."
"Is it?" says the Oracle, "Are you an authority on how agents are made?"
"They're just programs." Kami remembers who she is talking to. "I mean, everyone knows they're made or programmed or whatever in the machine world. By the machines. Aren't they?"
The Oracle waves her cigarette in the air. "I'm gonna tell you something. A big secret, that I probably shouldn't be telling you. I think it's time for you to hear it, though."
Kami sits up straight and tries to pay as close attention as possible.
"Most agents are indeed pure programs, made the way you said. But not all."
Kami has a horrible suspicion that she knows where this is going.
"A very, very small number of agents are constructed on a human base. They're still full agents and programs, through and through, but they weren't always."
"Renee," Kami whispers, images of her friend being dragged away against her will and brainwashed or worse running through her mind. "They did this to her?"
"Yes." The Oracle stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray. "Not quite in the way you're thinking about it, though. She was given a choice, and a much more informed choice than you were given, by the way. She made her choice, same as you."
"No. Renee saw the movie. She knew what agents are, what the machines did to humanity. She wouldn't go over to their side."
The Oracle just looks at Kami, smiling slightly. "You'll just have to think about that one, I see. You know, in a way you were right when you came in here and just thought some agent had stolen your friends face."
Kami sits with her head down, trying to follow what the Oracle is saying, but mostly with her mind just running in circles about why it can't be Renee, but it is, but it can't be, ad nauseam.
"She is an agent now," says the Oracle. "Even has a new name. She's a program. Your enemy. Try and remember that, the next time you see her. It might make you feel better." The Oracle shrugs. "Or it might not. Your decision."
"But is it true?" says Kami, trying to get her head around the idea that it was Renee who had chased her and shot at her in that alley.
"It's true, that was an agent you met, yes. The rest is up to you."
"And is that it? There's no way to get her back?"
"Renee is dead, Kami. Even if you could force a red pill down her throat, there is nothing for you to unplug. And I highly doubt you'd be able to overcome her programming forcefully. She made her choice of her own free will. Though she lost that in the process, and so there's no way to take it back. She is an agent, just the same as all the rest. And that's how it is."
"You said something about 'when I meet her again'. When?"
The Oracle shakes her head. "I just know that you will. It's inevitable, I'm afraid."
Kami stands up, troubled. "Thanks, I think."
"A lot to take in, isn't it?" says the Oracle. Kami nods. "Now go on, get out of here. I know you want to go and think about this. Cookie?"
Kami nods, takes a cookie out of habit, says thanks and goodbye, and walks out of the kitchen. Ajax and Sean stand up as she approaches.
"Did you find what you came for?" says Ajax.
"I think so," says Kami. "I still need to think about it. I'll tell you back on the ship."
Ajax nods, and leads the way back out the door and towards the rendezvous.