Author's Note, placed distractingly at the beginning instead of the end:
So, I fell right off the wagon, for nearly two years. Two years is long on any time scale, but practically an eternity on the internet. It would be kind of silly to explain why, I suppose, given that it would take a bit of telling and besides, I am sure that precious few of the awesome people who always supported this little story have refrained from giving up on me. I will say, though, that I have always had this horrible tickle at the back of my mind that reminds me I've got unfinished business. Well, here's to finishing it. I already have another chapter in beta, and have started writing 14, so I can promise that no ridiculous delays should happen this time. I do hope that some of the people who I got to know a little when I started this are still around. I'd love to hear from you all, in review form or out of it. I feel kind of sketchy e-mailing after such a long absence or I'd do it that way. Here's hoping you notice I'm back from the dead. As a sort of half-apology (only half, because it was going to be in there anyway), in the next chapter there will be a kiss. And yes, an Agent Smith kiss, with all that now implies. (Don't worry; he isn't imminently going soft, but I guess you'll see.) That should be up tomorrow or the next day, but do e-mail if you'd like a little bit now while I get it properly edited.
Anyway, Revolutions went and drove this completely AU, but I'm OK with that because I was quite disappointed by Revolutions. This story's timeline is written to follow Reloaded; I never got the sense that Armageddon was, like, days away for Zion from the film, so this story assumes that it isn't.
"Dammit," Cat hissed as she fumbled with her French braid for the third time. She knew that she should just give in and plait it the old-fashioned way, but that seemed like a surrender. She'd been able to throw her hair into a more complex braid when she was in kindergarten, for God's sake.
But that was before she was yanked out of the Matrix and into the unforgiving world of ship life. There wasn't much point to topping a threadbare tunic with a tidy hairstyle. It had been much easier to throw her hair back and forget about it.
It was stupid. It was inconsequential. But, Cat thought as she rammed a brush through her hair, there was something awful and final about it. It was proof positive that this wasn't her place anymore - McDonald's and Diet Coke or no.
Diet Coke… That really would be just the thing right now. And the Coke that Smith had bought her was sitting in the fridge downstairs. Damn him, she thought, damn him for tainting even that with his association.
She let the brush fall onto her vanity and glanced at the clock. Three in the morning. Great. That "nap" had been nothing more than a thinly veiled excuse to avoid being conscious when he'd come home, and she'd known it when she'd flopped down to sleep in the first place. Time to face the music.
Cat tiptoed down the stairs, conscious that she was being ridiculous. Whatever agents did at night, she was sure that it didn't involve sleeping. And even if it did, they could probably hear someone Cat-sized going by, on tiptoes or otherwise.
Just as she'd suspected, Smith wasn't on the couch. He was in the living room, though, staring at a computer screen buzzing with a very familiar green code. Cat knew that he saw her come in, too; his jaw tightened just enough to be noticeable, even if he wouldn't look in her direction.
She hovered behind the couch uncertainly for a moment. What now? She half-felt she should apologize, but he had really been at fault as much as she had… It was hard to bring herself to believe he'd care anyway. He'd probably just add another "human weakness" to his list… But at the same time, it felt more than a little awkward just to ignore it. Something had happened, and she certainly hadn't taken all of the moral high ground.
She padded into the kitchen, grabbed for the refrigerator door. The cool blast was welcome against her bruises. A cold can was even nicer, pressed between her eyes to sooth her suddenly aching head. She was hiding. Again. Not like she didn't have a good reason for it. Smith was even more of a bastard than usual today, and she really, really, really didn't want to test him with Drew breathing down her neck. Any sort of conversation would do just that. It could wait for a while, maybe a long while.
But lurking around was not so much an option. She tried picturing Neo's face as she told him that she hadn't spoken to Smith for a couple of weeks because they'd had a tiff. Cat snorted; it was never hard to picture Neo's face. It was either going to be blank or kinda confused. Maybe Trinity had unearthed the mythical third expression, she thought, her lip curling up in a gesture she didn't so much associate with herself. God, I'm picking up his mannerisms, she thought. How disturbing is that?
In any case, staring into the fridge like it had all the answers wasn't going to fix a damn thing. God only knew what he was up to on the computer, anyway. Cat sighed. There was nothing for it. "I'm goin' in," she muttered, more to break the hush than anything.
She lumbered back into the living room and propped herself up on the couch arm so that she had a clear view of Smith's profile. Green glare from the code flickered over his sharp features, heightening the aura of malice he seemed to ooze so gleefully. Did she look like that, in the operator's chair? Nah. Her jaw line was soft, her mouth round and her nose rounder. The hard lines of typeset wouldn't look right on that kind of face. Smith's hard angles and ever-compressing lips matched the hard lines of the letters, precise like only a something a computer cooked up could be. Maybe, she thought, it made sense that he looked so natural bathed in code. After all, that's what he was.
Cat shook her head with a little more care than usual, still mindful of her injuries. The silence must be getting to her, making her think crap like that. She longed to tap her foot, or shift, or something, make him look at her, make something other than the long fingers tapping intermittently at the keyboard move in the room. She was suddenly half-afraid to move, breaking what seemed like an eternal hush even though she knew she'd disrupted it by entering seconds before. She couldn't help but hold that unnatural still for a while, her calf muscles straining to keep her from teetering off the couch edge as she stared at Smith. Maybe he'd say something, or at least acknowledge her presence before he strained his jaw muscles. It's a wonder she couldn't hear bones crack.
Cat snorted softly, breaking the silence she'd been so keen on keeping a moment before. She was being ridiculous, and she knew it, but honestly. The silent treatment was something that twelve year olds did. Hell, not even modern kids did it. What worked for Beaver Cleaver does not work for deadly machine enforcers. But Smith seemed determined to stick with it, staring straight ahead as though he was quite alone. It was sort of fun, irritating him without putting any work into it. Cat tried to school herself to stillness just to watch him try to ignore her. Still, lips could only be pressed together so tightly. Maybe she should knock it off before his irritation reached failsafe levels. "What are you looking at?"
Smith's only reply was to further tighten his straining jaw. Jesus Christ, he must have been pissed off by her little show earlier. Cat sighed and hauled herself off the couch. Stubborn bastard, she thought, eyeing the Agent as she came up behind him. His shoulders were tightening as she drew closer, and the frown that so often crossed his face was etched in more deeply than usual. Perhaps now was not the time to press.
Still, it couldn't be that threatening to look at the computer. After all, he was sitting here in the living room looking at it, and hardly seemed inclined to hide it from her. Even if he was, she'd almost welcome the chance to fight. It had to be better than this creepy silence.
Cat glanced at the screen, bit her lip and leaned in to take a closer gander. There was a little déjà vu in that screen… Scratch that, Cat thought. A lot of déjà vu. The code flowing in front of her was very familiar indeed. Jesus, she thought, it's the entry and exit points of the Matrix.
What could this possibly mean? No one had seen Smith anywhere near these places, let alone been killed by anything that hadn't been clearly identified as an Agent. But maybe this was new. Maybe he figured it out somehow from her, some offhand remark or something her brain that let him fine-tune the program, and oh God if the real Agents got ahold of this private code…
Smith shifted his shoulder, forcing a grunt from Cat. She couldn't remember pressing into it in the first place. She took a step back anyway, eyes fixed on the code and nausea ripping through her. "What do you want this for?"
Her stomach plummeted as the code in one corner of the screen rippled and changed, making room for the binary representation of a Resistant. Ohmigod, he could see them, see everything… "You're not going to… Are you going to…"
Smith didn't answer, but Cat couldn't tear herself away from the screen. Little dots, someone's crew, someone's Binary about to meet a sticky end like hers had and oh, God, some poor operator would have to pilot the ship home in the still and growing reek of death and failure and silent accusation, accusation made articulate by the hard stares or averted eyes of the people who'd help her land.
She was panting now, shaking, and, she dimly realized, pressing into Smith again to get a little closer to the screen, as if she could press herself into the scene and warn whoever it was, or at least die beside them instead of slinking back home with the awful knowledge that it really was her fault.
Her vision swam a little and she closed her eyes hard to clear them. When she re-opened them again the code was gone, missing. Dead, dead, dead, and she hadn't even been dutiful enough to watch this time.
Smith's elbow was pressing painfully, pointedly into her soft belly. Oh, God, she'd plastered herself against his back to stare at the screen. Back up, back off, she though, moving back from the chair in a haze. But she couldn't quit looking at the screen.
Cat drew a shuddering breath, not quite ready to look away yet. Think, she screamed at herself. Whoever it was, they can't be dead. They've just gone off the screen. If they were dead, there'd be Agents, there'd be something.
"Nothing, nothing, tra la la," she gasped, half-hysterical, quoting something although she wasn't quite sure what. Something, anything, to fill the silence that suddenly reminded her of the Sekh after… Well, just after.
Think, goddammit. If he'd had it for a while… Well, there hadn't been an unusual death rate lately or anything. What he could have done… Clone upon clone, more than enough Smiths to keep a couple at each exit at all times. If she hadn't already felt queasy, Cat was sure she'd start now.
Cat closed her eyes and drew in a few slow breaths. God, she was always freaking out at the stupidest times. Right now, when she ought to be staring at that map to see whether there were Smiths or regular old Agents or whatever haunting that map. Figure out why they weren't slaughtering everybody if they were there… God, the damage they could do…
Cat shook her head hard. None of those thoughts, not when she was trying to get a grip. One more breath, in then out. Ok. She opened her eyes and looked back at the screen. There were Agents here and there, but nothing concentrated. Nothing unusual.
Cat took her tongue between her teeth. Something just didn't add up. So Smith wasn't sharing with the other Agents. Fair enough; it wasn't like there was too much love lost there. But he'd said something… God, what had he said? All of his doubles were in the one place? Not out tracking Resistants, that's for sure. It didn't seem very Smith-like to ignore a weapon in his hands… Think, Cat, she admonished herself. He's not ignoring it if he's watching it at three in the morning in the living room. Oh. OH. God, this obsession was worse than she thought. "You're not looking for Resistants. You're looking for Neo," she said, voice flat. He didn't respond, but then she hadn't really expected him to.
The silence was pressing in on her again. Cat tried to grab hold of the calm she'd cobbled together, gnawing her bottom lip to distract from the rising panic. It was too much all of a sudden, sitting here, looking at the code, with a goddamn Agent, no less. Maybe Trinity was right, maybe she wasn't cut out for operating. She'd looked at it since, that screen, and not been reminded of the little blips going out, four three two one until nothing was left at all except bodies in the cockpit she'd been terrified to touch, even to bring them to their bunks and so they'd sat behind her, shriveling and stinking as she piloted the ship back to Zion.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and began rocking back and forth, let herself get lost in the feelings like she had so often after she'd landed the ship and the steely, shocked calm that had kept her fit to pilot had cracked.
Smith turned his head, then, and she stopped mid-rock. His eyes – when did he start taking off his glasses himself, she wondered, a small part of her noting that she must be hysterical to think such things at this time – pinned her in place, made her aware of the squeaks slipping out of her mouth. His mouth was compressed into a thin, white line where his lips should have been. Cat's breath caught, silencing all noise in the room, the potluck of guilt and pain and whatnot she liked to wallow in driven out of her head by naked terror. Smith was very, very annoyed indeed.
She stared at him for a few stuttering heartbeats as his mouth turned up at both corners and then he was up, out of the chair and across the room almost faster than she could see, lifting her up off the couch arm by her throat, crushing it. "Don't… he'll… see…" she forced out, going rigid as he only squeezed harder. He's going to kill me, she thought, and the thought froze her. "Drew…"
The hand relaxed fractionally, and she felt her toes just hit the ground so she could just balance on them if she strained, keep from choking to death. Cat longed to gasp, make up for lost air, but Smith's hand was crushing her far too hard for that. She was dangling in front of him, staring into his frigid eyes and terribly aware that a small move could tip her over and cut off the little air she could draw in this awkward position. The grin was gone, and so was the evening's tenseness. His voice was as neutral as his face as he asked, "Who is Drew?"
Somewhere inside, Cat knew she was panicking. It felt distant, though, like somebody else's frantic fright. "Neighbor," she gasped out.
Smith lowered her a fraction more. Now the balls of her feet made contact with the ground, she could almost balance, almost breathe…
"What is… Drew's relevance?"
God, he was so calm, so calm and about to kill her… "Thinks… you… beat… me…"
The hand tightened a bit more. "And where did he receive that impression?"
Godohgodohgodohgod... "He… doctor… defense… wounds.." Smith's hand loosened again. She had to keep talking, convince him… "Says… he's… watching… us." She gasped between each word, staring him in the eye, willing him to make sense of her half-sentences. Oh, God, the hand was tightening again… "You… kill… me… he'll… call… police… Johnson…"
Harder, the hand was crushing harder and her vision swam, and she thought that it looked the tv on a channel you couldn't get with those little black and white dots chasing each other.
Then there was black.
