I went to bed very, very late that night, finally putting my foot down on Smith's protestations that I should stay on the couch with him. I found my ability to blush again the next morning. Smith asked me over coffee why my face kept turning red. I stammered the beginnings of a reply when I looked up to find him smirking at me. He knew exactly why.
Great. Now I had my very own agent with a sense of humor. I threw a piece of toast at him.
The week flew past. Our days continued much the same as they always had. While our evenings still started out on the couch with a movie, they now always ended on the couch with both of us entirely breathless, our clothes in a state of disarray, and Smith logically protesting that I didn't really need sleep, so I should just stay with him. I admit that, on a couple of occasions, I let him talk me into staying on the couch the whole night; he congratulated himself on winning me over with his flawless logic. Strange as it was to be thinking it about an agent, I had to admit to myself that in the 60 years I'd been trapped in the Matrix, I had never been this happy.
Saturday rolled around. I'd planned on going to the Oracle that morning, and Smith wanted to go with me. Having been in the Matrix for years since my "incident", I'd become well acquainted with the Oracle & Seraph among others. I knew the Merovingian and Persephone and most of the Exiles, though I made some of them uncomfortable; they were representations of humanity, while I had once been the real thing. The Oracle never seemed to mind, and she felt more like a real grandmother to me than anyone ever had in the Real. Sati never had to get used to me. The Oracle picked her protegés well.
Sati never had to get used to Smith, either. She'd gone with us to the park on occasion, happily holding Smith's hand and reminding him to look both ways before crossing the street. She had even "made the sky pretty" for us a few times, having extracted the promise from Smith that "he'd be good" from now on. When Smith wanted to come with me, I knew it wasn't the Oracle he wanted to visit. He wanted to visit Sati. I never would've guessed he'd develop such an attachment to the child-program.
I went into the bathroom to fix my hair. I suppose I should've been able to do it by thinking. Residual self-image and all. As a near-program, I could do small things about my appearance, like my toenail polish, but some things were thus far beyond me. I pulled my hair to each side & braided it, finishing it off with colored elastic bands. As he usually did, Smith watched me. "It's the same color as copper wire," he informed me.
"My hair?"
"Yes. I noticed it on Thursday when we were installing the speakers," referring to yet another one of my unnecessary technological purchases, which he'd helped me set up. He leaned over impulsively and put his nose to my hair. "I like the way it smells, too."
His breath on my neck nearly sent me through the roof. That was one of the tricks he'd discovered in our evenings on the couch, and he delighted in teasing me with it at random times. I gave my best glare, which was no match for that smirk he was giving me again. I made sure to step on his foot on the way out of the bathroom. I caught a glimpse of him changing his shirt from the corner of my eye and fled into the kitchen before I did something I'd regret.
Soon as he joined me, we left. I couldn't help but smile at him; he'd put on my favorite one: a red button-front shirt. He'd rolled the sleeves up. In a good mood, I put on his favorite, too: the green corduroy blazer that stopped just short of my knees. He gave me a knowing smile, just short of the smirk, and brushed his lips against mine, looking at me intently.
"Why do you do that?" I asked.
"Do what?" he asked.
"Look at me like that when we kiss?"
"I like looking at you." I arched an eyebrow. "And it seems to throw you off balance. I like you with your guard down." I opened my mouth, but couldn't think of a thing to say to that. "Like now," he said over his shoulder as he went out the door.
I brought a cake; it's only polite, as the Oracle passes out cookies left and right. It was from a bakery, as I wasn't much of a cook, but it was gorgeous and it had strawberries, Sati's favorite. As I took it into the sunlit kitchen to put it on the table, Smith sat on the couch in the living room talking to Sati, watching the kids bend spoons & float teacups.
"Good morning, Etna," the Oracle told me, kissing me on the cheek. "And how is he?"
"He's fine, nonna. In the living room with Sati." I didn't feel right calling her Oracle all the time, so I'd given her the nickname after my incident.
"And how is he adjusting?"
I blushed very slightly, remembering the nights on the couch. When I looked up from where I was seated at the table, I found the Oracle with a huge smile, arms crossed. "You...you know!" I gasped, blushing harder at the realization. It was like my grandmother finding out I'd made out all week on the couch like some teenager! With an agent, no less!
"I know what? That eventually it was bound to happen? It was only natural, Etna. He's always had the capability to feel." She turned to pour some tea into a delicate sea green cup. "I suspect it of all agents, really. Their AI is much too complex to stay that unattached..."
"You told me the day after he arrived that something would happen because you left him with me." There was an implied question.
"Yes," she told me. "The time is coming when he will have to make a choice, and the decision he makes will rest largely on his experiences with you. Whether they outweigh the experiences he had before."
I was taken aback. "You mean to tell me that my taking him to the park and feeding him ice cream and watching movies and kissing him on my couch is supposed to keep him from...from what!" I stood up, feeling like she'd hit me with a hammer. I dropped into a whisper. "From becoming again what he was before?" My voice was panicky, I knew.
"What keeps you from losing your mind, Etna?" she asked me, crossing her arms. How could she stay so calm? "When you've lived years beyond half the people you know from Outside, what keeps you sane?"
I blinked while I thought about this. "My attachments here, I suppose," I said carefully. "My attachments to you and Seraph and the kids..."
"Then are you saying that your emotions, in the form of your affection for us, keep you from becoming something you might otherwise be?" She took my hand. "Program or human, child, your affection for us is real. Why shouldn't his be?"
"But he's...he's...an AGENT," I protested lamely, knowing that meant nothing. Given such high level AI, there was no one who could say what he was capable or incapable of learning, including emotional attachment. His own frustration at that reality was proof enough. As if I needed proof after the way he acted this entire week. He was always truly disappointed when I decided to go to bed, and I didn't believe it was only because he liked kissing. He really hadn't wanted me to leave. The Oracle must've thought my protest was as lame as it sounded. She rolled her eyes at me.
There was a commotion from the living room as the doorbell rang and one of the kids answered it. It was obvious someone had come to see the Oracle. I was heading toward the kitchen door when the yelling began.
"You!" I recognized the voice of Ghost, a redpill I knew vaguely. It was only then that I realized they would recognize Smith sitting on the couch. I vaulted from the kitchen door into the den, stopping squarely in front of the sofa, and whirled to face the door. Instead of the door, I stared down the barrels of several handguns. One tall bald man with both ears hung thick with earrings and two women: a solid, redheaded black woman who looked almost bored and a tiny Asian girl with a superior sneer.
My instinctive action caused quite a few surprised blinks from the redpills, but none lowered a weapon. "You don't understand the situation," I said calmly.
"I am not sure much needs explaining, Etna. There's a Smith behind you."
"I know, Ghost. I brought him here."
That brought an indignant outburst of creative curses from the pierced man.
"So, what? You're a program now?" he spat. "Are you working with them?"
"Oh, as though you people have ever treated me any differently from one anyway." I knocked Ghost's gun away from my face. "Who is 'them', anyway? Aren't we all on the same side now?"
"Like hell," said the girl.
"Shut it, Haruka." Ghost hadn't raised his weapon again; I took it as a good sign.
"Look, Ghost," I said. "The Oracle is a program. Sati is a program. You going to gun them down, too?"
"They're not agents," said the redhead dispassionately.
"Neither is he," I snapped. "You see a suit or an earpiece or a gun?"
"I see a gun," she pointed out rationally.
I turned my head just enough to see Smith's hand holding my own Browning 9mm over my right shoulder, aiming squarely at Ghost's forehead. Carrying it was a nervous habit from the days when I was still on the run from agents. I never expected to see it used in this room. "Smith..." I half-asked, half-warned.
"I would appreciate it if you would tell your men to stop pointing those at her," he told Ghost crisply. Hearing his voice take on the "agent tone" froze my blood.
"Fuck you," said the pierced man.
"Lucius..." Ghost hissed warningly.
The Oracle saved us all the trouble of killing each other in her living room. "I'd rather you all just sat down and had cookies," she told us from the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe. She looked supremely unworried.
Almost as if they were embarrassed, the redpills dropped their weapons immediately to their sides, and Smith tucked my gun into the back of his waistband, albeit grudgingly. I took it back out & put it back where it had been, in the back of my own jeans. I looked at him flatly.
"So why are you here?" I asked Ghost.
"Just delivering news," he said. "Phaedra died last night."
"Oh gods," I thought. "Not Phaedra." Oh, Phaedra. Phaedra had been unplugged by the same ship and the same crew as I. Only days apart and near the same age, we'd grown as close as sisters. We lived together in Zion and taken positions on the same ships until my incident. Even after that, she'd jacked-in sometimes just to talk to me. She always volunteered for runs when I was the informant. She'd stopped jacking-in years ago, too old to crew a ship. She still sent me messages every time a ship headed out with a Matrix-bound crew. She was on the Council, now. Or had been.
I sat down hard on the edge of the couch. Lucius glared at me. "What do you care?" Ghost grabbed his arm, but I was inches from Lucius' tattooed face in a flash. I flew into a rare fury.
"What do I care? How about that Phaedra had only been out for days when the same ship unplugged me? How about that we served on the same ships until that freak accident landed me here? She was a sister to me, you little--"
"He didn't know, Etna," Ghost said apologetically. "He doesn't know anything about you."
"Yeah," I replied bitterly. I could feel the tears welling up. Ah, Phaedra. I dropped Lucius' collar. "I suppose I'm not exactly textbook material in Zion. I'm the leper they'd rather forget, right?" None of the crew members said anything. "Right. I'm leaving. You coming with me, Smith?"
He was behind me now, and answered by touching my arm silently. We left as I always left a group of redpills, an awkward silence in my wake.
On the street, I broke down. I sat on the nearest bench and sobbed, elbows on my knees and my face in my hands. With every death of every old friend Outside, I understood again why immortality wasn't all it was cracked up to be. After a few minutes, I realized Smith was watching me quietly. I sighed, face still in my hands. I didn't raise my head.
"I'm sorry, Smith. It's just hard for me every time I hear about one. There were people I loved Outside."
He seemed to be at a loss, then suddenly understood. "Grief." I nodded silently. "And when I feel something because you feel it, that's empathy."
I looked at him, a little surprised. My eyes were stinging. "Wow, Smith. I...I haven't been giving you enough credit." I smiled through my tears. "You're getting really good at this 'rogue agent program with illogical feelings' thing. Better than I am, I'm afraid." His lips quirked in a half-smile. I laid my face against his shoulder, still wondering a little that only weeks ago, his very presence scared me witless. I felt his breath in my hair as he laid his face against the top of my head and ran his fingers along the braid behind my ear. He started to say something, but before he could get the words out, we were interrupted.
"Crying on the machine's shoulder," Lucius sneered. He, Ghost, and the other crew members had come out of the building. I snapped. I roared over the back of the bench and grabbed Lucius by the lapels.
"Stick to your own business, bitch. It's less dangerous," I whispered into his face. I was provoking him and I knew it. I was looking for a fight, I guess. Stupid, but I was angry and frustrated and grieving. I got my fight. Lucius broke my grip and punched me in the jaw. As if from a distance, I heard Ghost yelling at Lucius to stop and felt, rather than saw, Smith leap over the bench. I laughed darkly, and then I punched Lucius squarely in the sternum.
He couldn't have been expecting the force. They don't talk about me much in Zion or on the ships. Like I said, I'm an uncomfortable topic. That's why no redpill is ever quite prepared to realize that I am no less formidable than an agent. I was a redpill myself once, but it had been a very long time since I found myself trapped here, and I'd had time to learn much more than they ever would. The list of redpills that could've taken me in the Matrix was short. And this Lucius was not on it.
His head rebounded off a lamp post about 2 yards back from where I'd hit him. I followed faster than he could gather himself. Knee to the groin, elbow to the side of the head. He punched me hard in the kidney, and I hit the pavement. I bounced up boots first and took him under the chin with a jabbing kick, unbalancing him. That allowed me to pick him up bodily by the throat and throw him into the stoop of the building closest to us. He stayed down. Rock chips & dust were still falling from the impact as I crouched down beside him and whispered. The words stuck in my throat, raspy from sobbing, but they sounded loud in the silent street.
"I've lived here for 60 years, brat. I was stuck in here before the order came down to grow your sorry little carcass in the fields. I have been here more time than your entire crew has jacked in--combined. Almost 90 years old--can you even wrap your feeble mind around that? The people I loved have lived their lives and had their families and are dying their deaths while I am trapped here, like this. There is no red pill for me anymore. And you ask me why I care that Phaedra is dead? What do you care where I find my comfort?" I choked and my voice broke. I stood and delivered a kick to his ribs that sent him to the other side of the stairs. "Stick to your own business. It's. Less. Dangerous." I turned on my heel, and started to walk back to where the others were standing. Ghost looked embarrassed, Haruka looked terrified, and the redhead looked impressed. I ground my teeth as I walked past them, aware of Smith looking at me in a very calculating way.
Ghost stopped me with a hand on my arm. "I'm sorry, Etna. For what it's worth, I know you & the Councillor were friends. And..." he looked me in the eye, for a wonder. "Well, I'm sorry."
"Take him home, Ghost. He's okay." I smiled wanly. "And run him through the agent training program again." Ghost nodded.
I fell silently in beside Smith, who was already walking in the direction of home.
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Author's Note: Etna's nickname for the Oracle, nonna, is Italian for grandmother. Etna is not Italian, but being named after an Italian volcano, it seemed to go with the theme.
Also, wanted to reiterate: Etna's hand-to-hand prowess isn't the result of only her training programs back in the day, or from some inherent awesomeness. She's been a very long time in the Matrix, and has had much longer to figure out how to bend the rules of physics. As a scientist, it stands to reason she'd learn as much as she could out of simple curiosity.