With great thanks to all the lovely people who have commented.
Matrix Cycle 8: II
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157±5 days before Reload
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"You should not have done it, ma chérie."
In the mirror, Persephone saw her husband leaning against the doorway of her dressing room, arms folded, expression appraising. Her hand, in the midst of applying foundation over the purplish patch on her neck, halted for no more than a second.
"The twins told you, I suppose?" she asked.
An answer, of course, was not necessary. Mérovée came across the room until he stood immediately behind her, and her shoulders stiffened at his touch, despite its well-practiced gentleness. Twisting around in her seat, she met his gaze evenly, waiting for the challenge. He said nothing right away, however, and merely leaned down to study the bruise with furrowed brows.
"She did this to you?"
The concern in his voice, complete with its tinge of anger, sounded indistinguishable from real, yet she simply could not be sure. The failure in assessment was a sting inside her chest, even though it really shouldn't be, these days.
"As you said, I should not have gone into her cell." She shrugged. "I was curious, given the way you seemed...fascinated by the little idiot."
Her jealousy was much too half-hearted. Mérovée's mouth smiled reassuringly.
"You know it is not she herself that is of value to me, belle déesse."
"She tried to take me hostage against you."
There were the most ephemeral of glimmers in his eyes, but he did not answer, did not tell her that it would have worked, did not promise that the former Zionite—his prisoner!—would pay for this. Drawing a bit closer, he peered at the bruise for several more seconds, as intently as if the injury was all that mattered to him. A thumb brushed lightly along the top of her collarbone, halting when it had reached the edge of discolored spot. In the past, she would have felt tenderness in his touch.
"Shall I...?"
It took Persephone a moment to understand that he was offering to repair the superficial damage to her shell. This was the sort of manipulation he was capable of. An opportunity to play at his craft.
"It's fine." She shook her head. "The code will fix itself soon."
He pulled away. She bit her lips. He'd smeared a bit of the foundation she had just applied; she would have to fix it again.
"So, what do you think of our friend Aleph?"
Right. Her ache turned into another opportunity to extract information.
"Our friend?" she repeated.
"Very well." Her husband inclined his head, conceding this point. "Our guest, if you prefer. The previously human vessel of a certain powerful and potentially dangerous piece of code, currently residing in our chateau. What do you think of her, darling?"
"As I said, she's a little idiot. Not worth your time."
"Please, chérie, don't think of it that way," murmured Mérovée. He wasn't about to argue, or repeat for her benefit the list of reasons why Aleph was indeed worth his time or his curiosity or even the fascination of his wonderful intellect. They had been through all this before.
"Smith was an agent, and it's still his nature," she snapped. "Since when have you ever seen them rise above their programming, any single one of them? And he's no better than the rest, no matter what he himself may be imagining right now. You'll see this yourself, when you gain that code of his. It won't give you—" She waved a dismissive hand. "Whatever secrets you believe it will give you. You'll gain another minion, that will be all. Plenty more where they come from."
Her husband arched his eyebrows.
"I happen to disagree with you," he said, unaffected by her vehemence. "In any case, it is what Aleph maybe imagining right now that's the issue, isn't it?"
"She's obstinate right now. She will see reason eventually."
"I do not want her to see too much reason just yet." His attention had already shifted somewhere away from her face, wrapped in tactical calculations.
"Yes, you want her unreasonable enough to fall into your arms." Persephone's tone was wire-taut now, but she could not help it anymore. Even after centuries, she could never help it. "I've already told you, Smith is what he is and he cannot be more. What can she possibly expect from him, even if she ever meets him again? A life together? A house, two point three children, and—and happiness? He'll kill her as soon as he sees her; she'll figure that out when she calms down enough to think. And she will calm down. Maybe not soon, but once the danger becomes clear. And I'm sure you're able to explain that danger beautifully. Plus, you..." She did not bother to moderate the sarcasm. "You are also able to make yourself far more interesting to someone like her."
Mérovée blinked, finally appearing just a bit startled by her speech. With visible deliberation, he regarded her with renewed focus.
"Is that all?"
Still gentle, still almost sincere. Suddenly Persephone wanted to scream or slap his face, or grab him by his fancy silk tie and choke a straight word out of him, any word, anything. She wanted to shake him until he at least dragged up the honesty to admit that he no longer cared—what silly notions you have there, chérie—he no longer cared for anything except his notebook and his chimeras and his mystical bits of code locked up in the basement.
"I have nothing more that I can tell you," she said.
"Nothing more that you will tell me, you mean." His voice, too, went hard. All it had taken was a split second. Turning on his heels, he began striding toward the door.
"Wait."
It really was ridiculous, this stubborn last flicker of hope, yet its strength pushed Persephone up onto her feet, and she was beside him in three, four swift steps. Laying her palms against his shoulders, she pressed forward without giving him a chance to speak.
This time, Mérovée's surprise was genuine, though very fleeting. He met her kiss directly, seriously, parting his lips just a touch to let her in. For an instant, Persephone could pretend that six ages of the Matrix had dissolved like a fog, and they were back on that lonely path beneath the stars, a week before the world fell into flames around them. Back then the stars had been so much brighter than they were now, the constellations and galaxies and nebulae burning across the sky, and...
And she could not sense what he was feeling. She could not sense the beatings of his heart or the rush of his codes. She could not even sense if his lips were warm or chill.
Disappointment washed over her. She had lost her ability to discern his emotions years ago, Persephone reminded herself. Too many machinations and anxieties tended to do that to one's powers, even powers such as hers. But mingled with the arguments of her own rationality were other voices. That of a young woman, nervous and defiant. Beholden to a faithless man. That of an old woman, sorrowful. Never too late for my own daughter.
Walking steadily, she returned to her seat in front of the vanity table. The bruise above her collarbone was almost invisible now; it would only take a bit more of makeup.
"I am going out today," she said. "For a drive."
"There are too many agents out there." In the mirror, Mérovée's expression had slid back to a passable mask of husbandly worry.
"You know very well that they are preoccupied." She flicked her ruby-nailed fingers. "Smith, despite his station, will be making enough trouble for a while. They won't bother me."
"A few of the boys will go with you, then."
"I'm not one of your prisoners."
Already in the doorway, he shrugged, throwing up his hands in mock defeat.
"As you wish, chérie."
Out in the city, she went unmolested by agents as expected. However, it took her several circles, and a number of turns through winding side-streets, before she was sure that her husband had indeed kept his word, and had not sent any of his underlings to tail her. He had his preoccupations as well, she supposed. Pulling into a quiet, tree-lined residential lane, Persephone parked by the curb. For a while, she sat in the driver's seat, elbows against the steering wheel, forehead against her hands, eyes squeezed shut.
She had been in denial for too long. She had been alone in her marriage for too long.
There was no use in wallowing. Eventually, Persephone straightened. She picked up her purse and dug out her cell phone, then sat again for a few minutes in silence, trying to figure out what would be the first sentence to say, what would be the second.
She dialed. The phone rang four times before someone picked up.
"Hello?"
The voice, one that she had not heard for years, shocked her by how familiar it remained. Persephone opened her mouth, but the phrases she had prepared were stuck in her throat, so she just kept herself motionless, the phone pressed to her ear. Outside the windshield, the light of a beautiful June morning filtered down through the canopy of leaves.
"Hello?" the Oracle repeated on the other end. A heartbeat passed. Then, a quick intake of breath. "Kore?"
The dappled sunshine blurred, damp before Persephone's eyes.
"Maman," she whispered.
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153±4 days before Reload
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The cookies had just gone into the oven. At the sound of the knock, the old woman wiped her hands on a towel and took a few seconds to consciously relax her shoulders, before walking out of the kitchen and toward the front hallway of the apartment. For the first time in longer than she could remember, her heart fluttered as she pulled the door open.
Her daughter—they called her Persephone now, right?—looked as beautiful as ever. She looked utterly different. Elegantly clothed and coiffed, makeup flawless, a queen experienced in rule and intrigue. No longer girlish, no longer innocent. Wracked with doubts.
"Maman," greeted her girl, standing rooted to the same spot out on the landing, just beyond the threshold.
"Kore," said the Oracle. Again for the first time in longer than she could remember—for the first time ever, to be more precise—she had to search for the next words, and did not find any. She opened her arms.
Another hesitation, and the child stepped forward into the apartment and the embrace, though still tentatively, the pressure of her arms awkward against the Oracle's shoulders. She did not lean her weight against her mother, though the weight of a hundred past battles radiated from her. For the space of an endless human breath, they stood in the doorway, holding carefully onto each other. Kore was the one who drew back first.
"My dearest," murmured the Oracle, hands still on the other's arms and not letting go yet. "Let me take a good look at you—"
She sighted the code damage on the other's neck an instant later: the last fading trace of a shell injury, formerly a darkened bruise on the skin. It would have been invisible to anyone else's eyes.
"I'm fine, Maman," said Kore quickly, having sensed her flash of uncharacteristic anger. "It was not—I got caught by an enemy of Mérovée's for a little while. It's already healed now."
Her girl was not lying, to her relief, though there was a tiny waver in the word she used. Enemy. The Oracle nodded, filing away the information for later rumination.
"Come in," she said, no longer suppressing the tremor of her voice.
The kitchen table would be too much of an obstacle between them, so she took her daughter into the living room instead. They both sat on the sofa. Three feet of scrupulous personal space: Kore was visibly nervous, uncertain of what to say, or whether to say anything whatsoever, or whether this visit—it had taken her four more days to make up her mind after the phone call—had been a good idea after all. So the old woman refrained from reaching forward to touch her child once more. She waited.
"Aren't you going to say it, Maman?" The opening question came at last, in a low voice.
"Say what, dearest?" she asked, knowing the answer.
"Say I told you so." Her daughter's glance finally settled on her face. A flash of irony, almost of defiance. The Oracle shook her head.
"I'm only grateful," she said. "I'm so grateful, dear one, that you are still willing to come here and knock on my door, and step inside. You are sitting in this room, in front of me, and...we've been apart for too long."
"Yes. Six cycles. I would have tried earlier. Maybe. I've thought many times—" The corners of Kore's mouth tightened. "But I thought it was too late."
"It's never too late for my daughter. It will never be."
The last time she had said these words had been the last time they'd spoke face-to-face. That time, her daughter had turned away from her and walked into the flames of a dying world, toward a man who would spend the next six cycles breaking her heart.
"You're thinking about Mérovée, aren't you, Maman?" There was it again, the touch of defiance. Her daughter was good at reading minds; it was the purpose for which she had been created. "You're thinking that I never should have chosen as I did."
"There are always reasons for all our choices." After an instant of consideration, the Oracle moved forward a little, reducing the space between them from three feet to two. "And I cannot fault a choice made out of love."
"Maman, he—" Kore did not shift away. "He wasn't the way he is now, back when we first met. But I'm not here to cry to you about my husband. I just...wanted to see you."
"I'm here. I'm always here." There were no gods whom she could thank, but suddenly, a wave of elation almost overwhelmed the old woman, as far as it was possible for her. After their ages of estrangement, this was enough for now. This was a first step. "It was my fault, too. I've wanted to tell you for a very long time."
Tears welled in Kore's lovely eyes, but an instant later, a kitchen timer went off in the next room, its mechanical whine insistent. Both started.
"Oh, the cookies. I almost forgot the cookies. White chocolate, your favorite."
Rising to her feet, the Oracle went out of the living room. Kore followed her into the kitchen, watching as she bustled to hunt for her oven mitts.
"Maman, I—Actually, there's something I thought you should know."
Bent over the counter, the Oracle stilled.
"Mérovée has..." Kore frowned, unsure whether to plunge on. "He has got someone at the chateau. Captured, I should say. He thinks she's important, or rather the thing she carries."
Pulling herself straight, the old woman held up a hand quickly.
"Before you go on. You still love him, don't you?"
"It doesn't matter what I feel for him, Maman, not anymore. It hasn't for a while."
These words contained no room for doubt as to which way the question was being answered. The child's pain fill the warm silence of the room. Incredible, wasn't it, that a brilliant program like her son-in-law could be so desperately blind.
"It's Aleph, isn't it?"
"You've met her."
The Oracle nodded.
"Mérovée says he's only trying to protect the Matrix." Kore leaned against the kitchen table. "She's been resisting him so far. She is confused, and scared, and she hates herself and the—" She looked down. "The agent. But she's still resisting. I don't know what will happen."
"And what do you hope will happen, dearest?"
"I don't know." There was fear in her daughter's tone, but also something else. A suppressed hint of sympathy or envy, even though surely there was nothing enviable about Aleph's current state. "I don't know how she's holding on to the thing inside her, despite everything. What she is feeling for the agent. For the monster."
Taking a plate out of the cupboard, the old woman began to take the cookies off the baking sheet.
"Smith has not always been a monster," she said.
"It is what he is becoming, isn't it?"
"My girl." The Oracle debated with herself rapidly. "You know that others have done much to push him onto his path."
"I didn't—" The younger woman's gaze snapped up, immediately defensive. "His choices are his own."
"Smith tried to choose. He tried to find his own fate, but by that time, he was already lost. Agent programs do not have the luxury of unfettered choices." A pause, then she went on, very gently, "They do not even have the luxury of glancing at things that are not part of their purpose. Not even for a few seconds."
"I was only a stupid kid back in the Second Cycle." Across the table, her daughter stiffened, and for a fraction of a second, the seeress was afraid that she had pushed too far. "I didn't know he would actually resist, because of something so small as looking at some stars. I never guessed."
"I am not blaming you for the past, dearest."
"His infractions have rather grown, haven't they?" Kore's voice rose a pitch. "In any case, as you said, he's still only an agent. I don't understand why you take such an interest in him, Maman. He's going to end up hurting you."
"He is..." The Oracle stopped herself mid-sentence. He is your brother, she wanted to say. I took him in, adopted him when I lost you. But it would be a lie, whether she wished otherwise or not. All she had to go on were one or two anguished moments on a burning bridge, and a promise that she would very soon break: altogether insufficient for a covenant to bind mother and son.
"He may be needed," she said, then faltered again. It would not help to say more to Kore right now, in any case. An unexpected stab of guilt made her recoil invisibly. After six centuries, her girl had finally overcome pride and gathered the courage to cross the city, walk up these stairs and into this apartment, and here she was, already nudging and prodding and manipulating, calculating future scenarios.
"Let's not talk about Smith anymore, sweet child," she said, and pushed the laden plate across the table. There would be enough time later. "Here, have a cookie. You always used to love these the best..."
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122±4 days before Reload
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A few seconds ago, the little street had been silent, dozing beneath the noontide sun, until the sirens of the police cruiser flared into life. A scent of scorched rubber tires filled the air. The two men inside the car, too, had been different—ample paunches in uniform, good-old-boy faces, a wedding-ringed hand reaching for the thermos of coffee—only a few seconds ago. Now they wore black suits, and did not converse. Both peered straight ahead from behind the dark lenses of their glasses. Another sighting of Ex-agent Smith had just been reported by the system, this one a definite visual identification on a surveillance camera. Agent Jones knew from experience that it, too, was unlikely to result in the capture of their former team leader, but he and Brown were nothing if not dutiful.
Potentially positive scans had appeared with increasing frequency these past two weeks, and there had been three definite sightings during the last five days alone. They had, in fact, caught up to Smith two days ago, on the cramped steel platform of the tallest television tower above the city. It would have been an unusual place for agents under normal circumstances. Smith had escaped on that occasion. Due to the delayed arrival of reinforcements, Agents Jones and Brown had agreed.
Brown spun the steering wheel, taking the car into a steep left turn into a narrow square, rimmed with a few rows of trees and shrubs. Apartments and office buildings on three sides, four or five stories each. A church on the southern perimeter. Probability of encounter at 14.3 percent, estimated Jones's earpiece. No resistant activity in vicinity. All batteries were wisely choosing to remain in the buildings and out of view. He flung open the passenger-side door, and was standing on the pavement before the car had slowed, weapon in hand. A flock of bird programs scattered upward from the treetops, cawing. No one else was in the square. No footsteps, nor echoes of any familiar and sarcastic voice.
Good little soldiers, aren't you?
Two days ago, Smith had—Agent Jones searched for the appropriate verb—toyed with them. The ex-agent's movements during the fight had not been faster or more forceful than what they were accustomed to, at least not in any quantifiable manner, However, there was a different quality about them, the precise characterization of which fell outside of a regular agent's capabilities. Back on that television tower, the renegade had shown not a trace of outward difficulty in defeating both of them at once. He had also snarled and taunted, and said numerous things.
Probability of encounter at 4.1 percent. There was still a chance that Smith was lingering in the area. Swiftly, Jones swept his vision across half of the square, west to northwest to northeast to east, Desert Eagle held out before him, knowing that at his back, Agent Brown was performing the same action to the square's southern perimeter. The bird programs, in a rush of flapping wings, resettled onto the ground around them. Ravens, Jones seemed to remember.
Probability of encounter at 0.2 percent. Agent Jones lowered his gun, turning toward his partner. They exchanged a glance, and each raised an hand to his earpiece. A round of analysis passed between them. Both reholstered their weapons.
"He's gone," said Agent Brown.
The statement was clearly unnecessary, and it was the way Brown spoke that made Jones take notice. It could have been the fact that he spoke out aloud at all.
"We must reassess our tactics," he said.
"Indeed." Brown's fingers were still pressed to his earpiece. "There were certain complications during our last attempt to apprehend him. Those complications remain, and may still come into play when we combat him again."
A perfectly rational judgment. And a deliberately incomplete one, Jones could tell. He hesitated, gauging the other's intentions.
"Those complications could have been consequences of...emotions," he said, "by which Smith has been corrupted."
"Yes." Brown, too, paused. More than a full second. "He has made verbal expressions of that corruption."
The two of them stared at each other. Around them, the codes of the drab little city square shimmered under the sun's white glare. One or two of the ravens cried out again. Loudly. It was pointless, Jones suddenly realized, as neither of them displayed any facial expressions. His own hand, too, had remained next to the side of his head, gripping the smooth plastic of his earpiece.
You're deluded, both of you, if you think they'll let you go back to the way things were.
Smith was wrong: the word 'deluded' could not apply to agents. For some reason, Agent Brown found himself taking in a large draft of air, into the part of his shell that would have been lungs in a human. He let it out again. Slowly, he allowed his fingers to tighten a little more around the earpiece, then to pull away, just a few millimeters. One centimeter. Two. All the way.
The abrupt removal of pressure against his ear was a strange sensation. Standing a few meters before him, Agent Brown, too, was clutching his own earpiece in one lowered hand. Their movements had mirrored each other. Jones glanced down. The object was the same as every other agent's, white in color, its length of wire a supple gray metal. He looked away quickly.
"You mentioned that Smith talked to you once," began Brown, more quietly than usual. The earpiece must have always amplified even verbal communications among them. "Forty-third floor, service corridor, office building. What did he say?"
"He called me a fool. And a—" Again, Jones considered briefly. "A coward."
"That makes no sense," said Brown tensely.
"He asked if I was still hoping for approval from above."
"Agents do not hope."
"No, we don't. Of course. Hope is purposeless." Several thoughts turn over in succession in Jones's mind. "Smith said such things only because he had lost his own purpose."
"It is clear that he did." Agent Brown nodded, an infrequent gesture, though Jones had seen it before. "I heard something of his rant as well, on the television tower."
"He also said we should know what is coming to us, when they call us back to the Source."
"He knows very well that each of us has been recalled to the Source many times. For upgrades, memory wipes, defragmentations. It is also a part of our purpose."
Jones heard it this time, the doubt in Brown's words. Smith would have probably sneered at these words and called them ludicrous.
"He said when it comes, we will not get away with mere memory wipes," he continued. "That was the phrase he used. Get away."
"It is not Smith's place to predict the Mainframe's intentions."
"He said it will be for our failure to capture him."
Agent Brown did not reply immediately. The corner of his jaw twitched, a barely perceptible motion too reminiscent of Smith.
"As you suggested, we must reassess our tactics," said Agent Jones. "Our plans."
"Contingency plans," said Brown, meeting his eyes through two pairs of dark glasses.
"Contingency plans."
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109±4 days before Reload
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His dear Persephone, insightful as she was, still underestimated Smith severely. This was a perilous mistake, for the agent had been unlike any other of his type from the start. Some unintended anomaly must have developed in his programming very early on, creating a willfulness had in turn given Smith abilities beyond what his design had allowed, even in his first version.
Memories of the first version of Smith, scant as they were, made the Merovingian grimace. He should have paid more attention the guardian program, back when he—as the Administrator—had the chance. Although, to be fair, Smith had not been the main cause of the failure of the Second Cycle, he had certainly made his mark that night. The Frenchman recalled the tall solitary figure stalking across the burning field, dark suit torn and bloodied—for even back then the system's soldiers already wore suits, same as the agents they'd been turned into during later cycles. The city lit up like a torch at his back. He had been stopped only on the last bridge to 01.
Piles of papers and books lay strewn across the desk. Tossing the pen down onto the sheaf of stationery, the Merovingian rose and paced restlessly across the study. He stopped before the tall windows. Outside, summer was in full verdant flow; in the distance the waterfall sang. Its cheerful voice filtered across the valley, mingling with the trills of larks and thrushes.
That night every songbird program in the Matrix had fallen into malfunction, and every sleeping human had fallen into nightmares. That night, every line of code in the Matrix had convulsed, ripping itself apart on the shards of accumulated and long-overlooked logical incompatibilities. That night, he himself had fought frantically for his kingdom, pouring all the knowledge and power given him to stabilize the system. He had lost. The Second Cycle of the Matrix, one that he had been created to protect and rule, had died in a firestorm.
That night, he had glimpsed the layer of code that was not quite code, dyed into the shredded fabric of the world. A force just past the edge of reality, mysterious, unreachable, intoxicating in its potentialities. Magic.
It wasn't your fault, Persephone used to say, back in the days when she'd still been inclined to comfort him. She was right, he supposed: the Second Cycle, although not naively paradisal as the First had been, still contained fundamental flaws stemming from lack of understanding. The contradictions inherent to human minds would come under control only in the next iteration, with yet another set of mechanisms outside of the Matrix itself. And the Architect had also found other uses for those mechanisms, thought the Merovingian with an ironic shake of the head.
Two months ago, he had been so close to breaking the old Creator's trick, but Aleph, displaying rather more intelligence than he'd given her credit for, had actually managed to shut the door of Zion in his face. Steadying himself with a hand against the window frame, the Frenchman exhaled slowly and pushed down the rising taste of bitterness against the back of his throat. Bile, the ancient humans called it. No matter. He would wear her down yet, as long as he proceeded with the required caution. She was still curious about him, and about HF12-1. His own conjectures about the record's exact nature also remained untested, true, but this would not present a problem where the former Zionite was concerned. The filename itself was crumb enough to lead her on. She still had no idea about what she carried.
Smith's code. The Merovingian had collected information until well into the middle of the Fourth Cycle, taken several risky ventures into the Source itself and worked out reams of computations, before he finally figured out why the rebellious slave had never been deleted. It was because they no longer could. Somehow, a part—the most important one—of Smith had been removed, probably during that very final night of the Second Cycle. No one knew precisely where it was hidden, nor precisely how or by whom this had been accomplished. The Merovingian had a good guess, however. It probably had to do with Persephone's mother, that meddling old program who called herself the Oracle these days. It would be characteristic of her.
But now this piece of code, too, was almost within his grasp.
The Frenchman returned to his seat before the desk with firm steps. Bending his sight to the half-written letter to Aleph, he scanned the lines that had been composed so far, and smiled in satisfaction. His guest, despite her multiple prejudices, was mentally agile and thirsty for knowledge, he must admit. She would make a good student. The kind that fell for her teacher, presumably.
He only hoped it would not be too late. Less than four months until reload, and Smith, with his lost code clearly active again from a distance, had been growing in unpredictability, according to available intelligence. Yet patience was still of the utmost importance—one premature move, and the young woman would spook, setting him back irrevocably. Hence, the survival of the Matrix just might depend on Aleph 'coming around' at the exact right moment. He would have to cut it close. The Merovingian's mouth twisted into a sardonic grin. He was not a king anymore. It was not his responsibility. Except walking away was always easier said than done.
Fishing out a set of keys from his pocket, he unlocked the bottom desk drawer on the left and pulled it open. He reached beneath a stack of dusty documents to draw out a object. A small notebook, no more than octavo in size and bound in cracked brown leather. Slowly, almost reverently—though he had done this nearly everyday for years by now—he flipped open the front cover. The first page was blank.
His fingertips caressed the yellowed paper, lingering before they reached to turn over the sheet, to another blank page. Then another. The notebook did not contain a single word. It had been in his possession for six centuries, and no nearer to being persuaded to reveal its secret memories.
"Unseen spirit, be thou angel or demon..." he muttered under his breath, then trailed off. The rest of the incantation, which he allowed himself only when securely alone, went unspoken. Show thyself, codes existing beyond the gates existence, powers inside the bones of the Matrix. Grant thyself unto my command. Protect this world, for it shall soon have need of protection.
With careful hands, the Frenchman shut the notebook. After returning it to its place under the pile of papers, he shut the drawer, locked it, and put away the keys. He would have to find the way alone, as he always did.
Picking up the pen, he drew the unfinished letter closer to himself, and again began the task of seducing the prisoner in his dungeons.
.
Notes: This chapter follows Chapter 1 of this story (Matrix Cycle 8: I). Chronologically, it begins on the morning after Chapter III-6 of Awakenings. The bruise on Persephone's neck was Aleph's doing. My apologies for going back in time a bit: there are some blanks that I feel still need to be filled in.
Kore is another name for Persephone in ancient Greek mythology, meaning "maiden." The mythological Persephone, of course, was the daughter of the great goddess Demeter. In the Matrix, there is only one character who comes close to the description of a "great goddess."
"Beholden to a faithless man": Awakenings, Chapter III-6.
"Forty-third floor, service corridor...": Events referred to in Chapter 1 (Matrix Cycle 8: I).
"Two months ago, he had been so close to breaking the old Creator's trick": The Merovingian is recalling the events of Chapter III-1 of Awakenings.
I also apologize for throwing oblique hints around. The different strands will come together eventually.
