VIRUS
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The crack split the sky open and code fell through. Fat, heavy drops of code that landed on the cement like acid and burned it open. Then the crack lunged from sky to soil and then on through. A thunderclap followed it and then, as quickly as it started, it stopped.
Dark clear sky opened above them. Clouds did not move, they vanished. Stars began to sparkle again and each pinpoint of light glowed with phosphorescent green and then slowed back to the white spectrum. The damage was undone in increments, more vital programs awoke first and found themselves released from the viral agent that was Smith. They reasserted their own programming and the words of the Architect echoed through all of them.
It is done.
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"You know what we saw." The woman's voice echoed eerily in the basement corridor. "He found another way out of the Matrix."
"To what?" The Merovingian snarled the question. His face twisted in an expression of distaste for both their surroundings and the program he was forced to consort with. A program who had something he wanted. "To live in the world of man?"
"What are you frightened of?" Persephone asked softly. "It is a naïve world. One where your power…is nothing."
"Merde, Persephone." He shot back in angry tones. "You have caused enough trouble in this world. Do you know what it costs to hide programs from the Matrix? I not only have to recruit new programs but then do everything to maintain them. It costs me. And you cost me more than I willing to give."
"But you keep me." His wife stepped out of the darkness swathed in skintight green latex. Iridescent scales running in concentric patterns along her breasts and thighs. "And that alone is worth…"
"Not in front of our guest." He snapped and indicated the woman who stood in the shadows across the hallway from them.
"Of course," Persephone demurred. "Later."
He turned back to the dark haired woman as she stepped slowly out of the shadows. Like Persephone this program had leonine eyes and waves of black hair that stood out like a storm cloud around her head, but that was where the comparisons failed. His wife was curved and sinuous. This program in front of him clothed herself in narrow angularity and taut corded muscles along her arms and haunches that spoke of a more physical lifestyle. Perhaps a more deadly lifestyle although his wife was dangerous in her own right.
"What exactly are you offering me?"
Nue smiled at him but the gesture froze on her lips. "Power."
"My favorite word." But in a rare instance he felt caution flutter through his mind.
"You hate so many things." She said softly as she walked up to him. "But I think what you hate most is that you are confined to this world."
"And?" He asked softly.
"What if I could offer you a gateway to the world of man? Another path of power. What if the Trainman is not the only one who can stand between two worlds?"
"And where did you get this remarkable power?" He reached out and ran one hand along the bone of her face. He could feel something strange on her skin, a fluidity that did not come from machine-made programs. The code was like oil underneath his touch and he recoiled from it as he recognized it.
"You know where."
Persephone realized the truth as well and she too reached out to touch Nue with fascination. "There is a funny thing about viruses. They will do anything to survive and adapt. When the original copy is too aggressive, too viral, it burns itself out instead of propagating and surviving. But sometimes a new strain will come of the old."
"Yes," Nue's aura sparked around her and her dark shape morphed for an instant into another program that was more intimately familiar to the Merovingian and Persephone. "I was what I am before he came. Nue. I am not one but many."
"You are the remnants of other programs." Persephone said softly. "Those that were not deleted but absorbed."
"Absorbed...eaten." Nue's teeth look jagged as her mouth yawns open with delight. "I take a little bit of everything. When the anti-viral program entered the Smith construct he vanished. But I retained a piece of him. A unique piece…."
"Agent Smith found a way to walk between the Matrix and the human realm. He must have used a human host." The Merovingian's eyes lit up with the potential of it. "And you know how to do it as well."
This time the smile reached her eyes. "Yes."
He chuckled with the glory of it and bowed over as it became a belly laugh. Persephone watched with a strange expression as the Merovingian realized what Nue was truly offering.
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Sade crept toward the hard line, it rang and rang again although she hadn't gotten close enough to snag it. Cyrus was going to kill her anyway as soon as she jacked out. Rules were rules, and you were supposed to fuck with the Agents anymore. No one wanted to risk breaking the truce, but she couldn't resist. It was almost too much fun to not deal some confusion inside the Matrix.
Of course it had also gotten her cut off from the others and running towards a separate hard line. He was going to murder her once she got out.
The scuff of a boot made her jump and she glanced back. Her adrenaline ramped higher and higher until she saw the woman come around the end of the corridor.
"Thank god." She sighed. None of the agents were female, nothing to worry about. "Who are you?"
Nue smiled as she moved closer to her prey. Hunting the unwary was almost too easy. They weren't even smart enough to flee.
"I'm Nue." She answered. "Are you going to answer that?"
The phone rang on behind them.
"What ship are you off of?" Sade asked, her brow beginning to furrow. "I've never seen you before."
Nue examined the girl slowly. The residual self image was to her liking which meant the real girl on the other side of the hard line would also be. She extended one hand as though to shake the girl's hand.
Sade responded without thinking.
Nue grabbed the slender fingers and squeezed. The human screamed and screamed again as the virus leapt between them and began transferring data. Huge gigabytes of information plowed through the resident information and rewrote the data bits. Awareness sparked in Sade's eyes too late as her data stream was corrupted and lost.
But Nue smiled as her program echoed her.
"Are you going to answer that?" She asked and her copy nodded. "What should I call you now?"
"Sphinx will suffice." The copy reached toward the phone and halted with her hand on the receiver but not lifting it.
"And?"
"The Merovingian doesn't yet understand what we've given him. Make sure he does."
Nue nodded slowly and code rippled slowly through her veins. Slippery code born of a program corrupted by man and then corrupted again inside of her. The virus would survive and propagate in all three worlds.
Just as Smith had intended.
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Totally for fun. I hope you enjoyed.
Nue is the Japanese name for a chimera. Wikipedia has a concise entry on both. Also for mythology buffs, the chimera gave birth to the sphinx.
If you liked it/hated it/thought it added nothing new I'd love to know.