DISCLAIMER: Matrix-orientated wonders belong to the Wachowski Brothers, I hope they notice this before they consider taking legal action.

THREE

"DON'T YOU SHOOT HIM DOWN

HE'S ABOUT TO LEAVE HERE

DON'T YOU SHOOT HIM DOWN

HE'S GOT TO STAY HERE

HE AIN'T GOING NOWHERE

HE'S BEEN SHOT DOWN TO THE GROUND

OH WHERE HE CAN'T SURVIVE NO NO"

Jimi Hendrix - Machine Gun

Smith was apparently unaffected by this revelation.

Urban legend dictated that there was no going back from this place, that having entered the Machine Graveyard there was no returning to the Matrix. The other programs, hollow and static, they were the machine equivalents of ghosts in the dump yard of the obsolete. But Smith was no longer slave to the Matrix.

He had been to the Real World. He had escaped the confines of the Matrix and existed, for a time, within the body of a hapless rebel called Bane. It had repulsed him, how human lived. The weakness in the flesh he occupied, its fragility to anything and everything, its vulnerability to fickle things, emotions, pain. Every moment inside that human frame he loathed in the same air as the other unassuming rebels, feeling bones, muscles, skin, nails. It was a quagmire of traps, it was a miracle that mankind had evolved to the stage where its creations became their own captors, but yet that was to be expected. How could these pathetic beings control subtle life forms, thought patterns, pulses of intelligence and rational that zigzagged through a superhighway and took on more corporeal forms as a mere pretence? How could they indeed.

Yet now there was his own safety to consider. Since arriving the winds had picked up, sweeping indiscriminately over the dusty plains and knocking over everything and anything that stood in their path. The Machines were emptying their trash, and apparently on a regular basis. Even now Smith felt the impulse like a gunshot in his head that soon these winds would accelerate, pick themselves up and comb over the Graveyard like an invisible scythe.

Smith got to work.

He had discovered that any abilities he had possessed within the Matrix were void in the Graveyard. He could not copy himself. He could not defy gravity or physics. His speed was gone. There were no other entities to clone into him. And he could not use his Desert Eagle to shoot at the wind, that much was certain.

But there was still a reasonable chance. Smith did not appreciate the odds of his escaping the Machine Graveyard, rather he chose to ignore them. Something in him sparked, a fuse ignited at the moment he realised where he was. It was a drive, an incomprehensible urge to continue existing, and importantly; to get out. This was different from the compulsion he'd had to escape the Matrix, this new - new inspiration, he supposed, was to get out and regain his abilities, his status. Suddenly he was invigorated, a gritty determination showing in his blue eyes. His teeth ground together behind closed lips.

Smith took off his jacket. Discarding the impractical garment in a neat folded pile on the ground, the former agent rolled up his shirtsleeves and walked off into the desert. Finding what he was looking for he returned, a large sheet of battered metal in one hand. Scanning his surroundings with a critical eye, Smith alighted on a suitable location to start building his only means of defence against deletion. Between two solid looking banks of rock and packed sandy dust there was an indentation large enough for a man, or a program in human form, to shelter. Picking up his jacket in his other hand, the tall figure walked quickly to his new fortress. Smith worked quickly, pacing back and forth between the scattered hills of scrap metal and old technology, irregular shaped pieces returning with him. His mathematical brain created a strong structure, which he tested out, running through worst-case scenarios as he worked to test whether it would prove sufficient. In this alien environment Smith felt again the pressures of being in a human body. He had to survive. He had to get back to the Matrix. He had to confront those who sent him here.

Most of the time he used his bare hands to pummel the sheets of metal and twist the steely cords into shape. By the time he had completed his shelter it was as he designed it; compact, strong, and durable. He'd plunged metal poles into the dry ground, stabbing downwards again and again until the breath in his lungs recreated the sounds of heavy physical labour and he thought he felt his arms complain at the exertion. His fists were bruised and a knuckle threatened to split and ooze blood. Such was his weakened state in the Graveyard. Consequently Smith was more human than he could have ever imagined he'd become.

"But not for long" he growled to no one as he thrust the last segment of heavy metal into place.

There were no gaps, a minimal decimal of almost unnoticeable weaker areas, and a strong foundation. Smith turned, looking over his shoulder as the eerie howl came from somewhere in the distance. The winds were coming. Sparing no time, he retreated into his new abode and sat inside, drawing the bolt he'd made from iron rods and a large collection of plates and hinges across. And waited.

Odd, how in the dark things seemed less real.

Then it came. The noise grew, almost thunderous in its intensity. The ground vibrated beneath the onslaught, dust teetering on top of dust and grains of sandy earth danced along the surface. The howl became a roar, and Smith found himself clenching his fists in the dirt, willing the winds to stop their furious destruction. His ears were filled with the unrelenting sounds from outside, and his shelter shook a little, but held firm. As the winds swept round the bank Smith felt his eyes close in a useless reflex, as if he were in denial at what was happening. He opened a single blue eye when he realised he was hugging himself, arms thrown tightly around his chest to reach his back.

Fear. So this was what it was like, the fear of deletion.

Smith felt his eyes open and widen as what felt like several earthquakes passed overhead and made him tremble. Him - Smith, the most efficient agent of his version, the only program ever to return from being destroyed, the equal of the One, was afraid. He was afraid of the roof ripping off his shelter and being sucked into oblivion. He was afraid of ceasing to exist, becoming one of the shells of programs that haunted this place.

He was afraid that there was no tomorrow.

Smith's face contorted into a defiant scowl. Not yet, not yet, he muttered to himself. As if agreeing with his unelaborated vow, the winds travelled away, leaving him safe and still in one piece within his metal cocoon. Smith dropped his hands and felt the ground he sat on, running his bruised fingers over the hard earth, grounding himself. So the bastard son of the Matrix had survived this trial, then. The thought gave him confidence, and Smith stretched his legs as far as his self-imposed confines would allow him.

He had been afraid, and he had conquered his fear. No one would ever guess he had ever experienced it at all. There was something about having a secret, Smith mused, it made one possessive and guarded at once. He'd avoided being deleted, a talent that would be put to the test again the next time the winds came around, which was an indeterminate amount of time from now.

Now he had to find away to get out.