DISCLAIMER: Matrix-orientated wonders belong to the Wachowski Brothers, I hope they notice this before they consider taking any legal action…
LOST IN PURGATORY
ONE
"...well its too bad
that our friends
can't be with us today
well that's too bad
'the machine
that we built
would never save us'
that's what they say
(that's why they ain't coming with us today) "
Jimi Hendrix - 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be).
It's a sunny day in the Matrix, and Seraph is enjoying the rays that bathe his serene face as he sits on a park bench.
It's been a long time coming, but there is now a truce; an albeit tenuous agreement between the humans and the machines. The sentinels, as Seraph has rightly guessed, are now suspended, hanging in the Real World like bizarre jellyfish. Immobile. But not demobilised. He spent some time there, originally standing like the silent guardian he so often is, straight and half-smiling as the Oracle and Sati admired the glorious sun over the trees, blazing between the buildings, talking about Neo and making cat's cradles with worn bits of string. The Oracle had invited him to join them in this activity, but at his almost sheepish blink she had merely looked at him over the lowered lenses of her glasses and smiled knowingly to herself.
Their existence, purpose within the Matrix is as suspended as the sentinels are. Things feel static, and Seraph, for all his relief at the postponed annihilation of the population of Zion, cannot help but feel the mild itch of uncertainty, misgiving, that this peace will prove all to brief. He had shifted his feet, attempting to remove the thought from his intelligence, provoking another knowing look from the Oracle. Sati had played happily on the grass, skipping in her dress, hands raised, her small fingers dancing in the sunlight in some unknown dance. Here were three powerful images; a yellow sun, green grass, and a girl in a pink dress moving over the lawn. Seraph did not try to analyse his reactions to the combination of the images; he did not try to test his susceptibility to that potent human emotion; happiness. His mild, patient calm, the feeling that pervades him, is enough to suffice him for now.
Sati had stood still for a few moments as the sun of her own devising sunk slowly below the horizon. For all its simulated nature, Seraph could not help but appreciate the solemn beauty, the simple journey of the orb down, as if into the bowels of the earth, before ascending the very next day. An endless cycle. He debated whether he could grow tired of such a sight. As if reading his thoughts, the Oracle had beckoned Sati with a wrinkled hand, and on receiving the child's small palm in hers, said her good-byes and politely refused his offer to accompany them home. Sati enthusiastically invited him to come and visit, only on the promise that he would have one of the cookies she baked with the Oracle.
Seraph was left alone with his gently roaming theories. He wonders now, he has discovered he can do so without having to provide extended reasoning and solutions to his questions, and uses this new-found ability well. He wonders if Neo will ever return. He doubts it will be in any corporeal form acceptable to humans. He had enjoyed their fight, his test to determine whether this pale faced rebel was the One. Their movements complimented each other, and even though the brief flurry of combat split wooden containers and scattered incense sticks across the floor, Seraph found himself quietly occupied in replaying the sequence as he swept a simple twig broom across the interior of his sometime residence.
Perhaps he will accept a cookie when Sati next offers him one, her digital image dusted with flour and an apron, its ribbons tied several times around her tiny form. Humans, he knows, are prone to the addictive qualities of chocolate. Seraph tries to imagine developing a liking for the substance, something like the Oracle's attachment to candy. He laughs softly to himself at the unlikelihood of this, and a passing human, a mother leading her errant child away and home, looks at him curiously.
They do not know, Seraph muses; they do not know what battles have already taken place for their benefit. A bird swoops down from a tree, gliding over the evening landscape, chattering as it flies. There is program written for you too, the face behind the tinted glasses murmured. A program for everything you, even when you sing. He makes an active choice to wonder again.
Seraph wonders if the Matrix will provide a simulation of snow in the winter months. He wonders if the blue-eyed agent ever wondered about the same thing, and if, as he himself did, tried to forget the look that had passed between them.