The Morning
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Newborn sunlight slanted down from the circular skylight above, draping a veil of gold over the sterile whiteness of the lamps. Persephone shifted in her chair, one slender hand slowly rubbing her forehead. The throbbing clump of anxieties did not go away. Around her, the dungeon cell had been hastily converted into something approaching a hospital room: bed fitted with chrome railings, the unconscious figure of her husband hooked up to a small thicket of wires, bank of monitors at the other end of the thicket. Instead of blood pressure, heart rate, brain signals, each of the screens displayed smooth columns of grassy-hued code, falling like a gentle hypnotic rain. Unlike Mérovée, she had no ability to read what dreams or nightmares the glittering symbols concealed.
After the brief yet sickening fight in the corridor, after reining back the twins and allowing the two ex-agents to escape—for the best, of course—after clawing at Mérovée's shirt and pressing frantically against the side of his torso, there had been a whirl of activity, and curtly shouted commands in her own voice. She had held herself together enough to reassure the men, moved their former master back to the chateau with all speed, ordered the defenses to be shored up against potential agent incursions, and dispatched scouts out to search for Charon. Then, after they'd been finally left alone, she had carefully washed Mérovée's blood from her shaking hands, scrubbing and running the water hotter and hotter until it scalded her skin, then returned to the cell to sit and stare and brood. It was just the two of them again.
The gunshot damage to her husband's shell had been cleaned up and dressed; the code appeared to have stopped unraveling. He was a hard program to kill. The real repair work, however, was beyond her abilities. It would have to wait until...when? When he woke up? Did she want him to wake up?
In the throes of his coma, Mérovée twitched, his face pinched and eyes squeezed shut, lost in some solitary wilderness. The last time she'd seen him so severely injured had been early during the Third Cycle, in an entire other life. They had not possessed a hospital bed back then, or a dungeon, or a crowd of underlings at their beck and call. Instead, they had been nothing but a pair of fugitives, a recently deposed king and a rebellious young girl who'd sacrificed everything to run after him. He had foolishly placed himself between her body and a bullet from one of the newly-redesigned agent programs. Hiding out in an abandoned factory, she had sat on the grimy floor, cradling him in her lap all night, then all day, then all night again. When the second dawn broke at last, he had shuddered against her arms, and with a struggle, opened his eyes.
That time, her husband's wound had not manifested itself in the garish crimson of human-like blood. Absently, Persephone pressed her palms together, as if the fiery viscosity was still there to be scraped away. What transformation had occurred inside Mérovée's syntax and operations, in order to create such a verisimilitude? When had it happened, and for what purpose? Maybe it was merely age, the creeping fatigue of the Matrix's wheeling cycles, except it was certainly silly to think of themselves as even once young. Well, it made no difference.
How shamefully weak she must be, to be chained down by such memories. Persephone jabbed at herself with an internal needle of cool anger. There were plenty other things to focus her mind on. Think about the bruises on her knees. Without having bothered examine them, she knew hey would be thickening into ugly splotches just about right now, purplish with fractured code. Think about the sight—all the sights—of some banal little blondes or redheads or brunettes straddling his lap, giggling and barely covered. Think about the circle of agents surrounding her on the deserted floor of their own nightclub, each with earpiece and black suit and gun barrel impeccably in place, while thunder and lightning did battle beyond the windows. That, too, had been his doing. His betrayal.
His fingers, falling loose around Joyeuse's hilt, because even after everything had been said and done, after he'd decided, at a glance, that the pair of Desert Eagles were pressed against her temples by her own secret command, he still could not take this risk. A risk she had never managed to calculate, all her innate powers and centuries of knowledge useless, yet she had gambled on it, desperately, unerringly. Somewhere far beneath the years of solitary heartache and the mountains of resentment, she had—had never—had always known he would submit after all, hadn't she? Break before you, that was the phrase he'd used. A crash of steel against marble. She could not stop hearing it no matter how hard she tried.
Think about the days of her mother's disappearance, five months ago. During those days, worry and stomach-clenching fear had also been the two main emotions that occupied all of her hours, and hope had dangled by a thinner thread with ever breath she drew. He had not said a word then, and never expected one from her.
"It's your fault," she accused out aloud. "You thought you could deceive me forever, didn't you?"
To her surprise, a tremor passed through his limbs. A low gasp, and his shoulder and arms spasmed with an agonized effort. A needle, attached to his skin, quivered. Before she remembered how to stop herself, Persephone leaned forward and captured his left hand in her own. It thrashed jerkily at the contact, and her grip slipped against a small scar on the inside of his wrist, just below the fresh red welts left by the handcuff's edge. She knew the mark's shape well: a meticulously carved crescent a bare inch across, pale and rough.
Persephone yanked her fingers back as if burnt. For a few human heartbeats, all she wanted to do was to turn away, and go search for a dagger so that she could plunge it into his chest. Then Mérovée groaned softly, and the impulse died as swiftly as it had arisen. In the end, all she did was to remain in her chair and wrap her arms about her chest.
She did not touch him again, and the vigil continued.
.
.
For the first time in his life, Seraph noticed how beautiful the sunlight was today.
In the past, it had never occurred to him to observe such things, he realized, sitting on the park bench next to the Oracle. All around them, April was in radiant flow. The grass had greened from its winter hue of yellowish gray, and the forthysia bushes blazed with gold. A short distance away, Sati was clambering up and down the play structure among a flock of human children. People would probably find the three of them an unusual little family, reflected Seraph. This thought, too, was new.
"Something is going on with the Merovingian," he said, almost reluctant to bring up such issues.
"Oh?" The Oracle sounded quizzical, even though she probably wasn't.
"Last night." Seraph paused. All he had to go on were minimal deviations between calculated forecasts of events, and the way those events had unfolded in reality. "When I found Aleph in that station of his."
"Ah, yes. You had a bit of a fight with his men, I understand."
"You can call it that. A bit of a fight," he echoed with a laugh, struggling to formulate the unfamiliar sensation of—the term escaped him momentarily. Was it intuition?—into words. Rapidly, he scanned the park around them, more out of habit than anything. Most of the benches around the playground were occupied: couples, teenage girls in groups, parents watching their kids. In the distance across the lawn, a few elderly men sat at the picnic tables, playing chess. All humans.
"They showed up in a subway train," he began anew. "The Merovingian must have discovered Aleph's presence pretty soon after you did. There were about a dozen of them, but just run-of-the-mill guys. It was fairly quick, and we got away without too much trouble."
"A good thing, then."
"I was a bit surprised, I guess. At the time, I was worried those twin creatures of his would show up any moment. They would have made the situation quite a bit tricker. And the Merovingian's stationmaster, of course, the one that always looks like a homeless man..." He frowned, searching for the name.
"Charon. Most simply call him the Trainman." As usual, the other's memory was flawless. Something glittered in her eyes very fleetingly. "He has followed the Merovingian for longer than most."
"Well, he wasn't there. And neither were the twins, or any other of the Merovingian's more capable minions. Not that I'm complaining." He offered her a grin, just a touch sheepish. "And then later, just before dawn, after you talked with Aleph. She wanted to get back to that...place, to find Smith again."
Even now, recalling the young woman's inexplicable decision made him uncomfortable. For a few seconds, Seraph stared away. Sati was atop the play structure now, leaning against the colorfully painted railings, gazing out toward the knot of old men at the picnic tables.
"As you know, I went to help her get through the subway tunnels," he continued. "Except that no help was needed, as it turned out. The station was completely deserted. We thought that it would be crawling with the Merovingian's men, and were ready for another firefight, a bigger one. But nothing. They were all gone, not even one guard on the scene, even though I'd just blown up one of his most important strategic possessions. All I had to do was to help Aleph unblock a path to the tunnel; the platform was full of debris..."
He trailed off.
"And you find that extraordinary," prompted the old woman.
"It's just that if I were the Merovingian..." The very supposition gave him an involuntary shudder. "I would certainly not have held back sending the most powerful of my underlings to catch Aleph, as soon as she was back in the Matrix. I would have thrown everyone I had at her."
"Given how important she was, or rather the piece of code she carried inside herself. Yes."
"And I certainly would not have left the station unguarded afterward. I would not have neglected to even assess the damage. It is not like the Merovingian to make such basic mistakes."
"The Merovingian likes to keep his bases covered, and he definitely places high value on Aleph," commented the Oracle with a nod. "You're right. He would never have committed these careless errors, unless he was forced to do so."
"Unless—unless all of his people were otherwise occupied. Unless he could spare only a dozen foot soldiers at the start, and then none."
"He would have shown up himself, the way I know him."
"Unless he himself was being prevented." Seraph blinked, astonished at the inevitable conclusion. "Physically."
The Oracle smiled at him approvingly.
"You have been very observant, my dear."
"If something's happened to the Merovingian, we need to watch out. If he's decided to go out on the loose—" His mouth twitched at the memories. "He has tried his best to harm you already, and he may very well attempt it again, if he thinks it would help him with whatever difficulties he is in now."
"Seraph," said the Oracle.
"And if his men are no longer under control, then we can't predict—"
"Seraph," she repeated. A moment passed.
"You know about this already, don't you?" he exclaimed. "You knew—all along?"
"No. I did not."
His brows rose.
"I admit that I've heard some rumors," went on the old woman, as unruffled as ever. "Rumors that the Merovingian was growing increasingly obsessive and unstable, during the months after the reload. I also admit that from them, I inferred the possibility of certain developments."
"Your daughter." Belatedly, Seraph kicked himself for his insensitivity. "Is she...going to be okay?"
This time, the other did not answer right away, but sat motionless, her hands folded in her lap. The joyous squeals of children rippled around them. Stealing a quick glimpse aside toward the play structure, he saw that Sati was just climbing down from her perch, a grave expression on her young face.
"My daughter should be fine," said the Oracle quietly at last. Even after unnumbered years, Seraph still could not discern whether there was a trace of doubt in her voice. "She hasn't been married to the man for ages for nothing. We will find out soon in any case."
"Wait, you mean she's the one who..."
"She must have made some choices, though I do not know for sure what those choices have turned out to be. And there will be others ahead of her." The old woman exhaled. "I've been worried about her these last few months, you know, but I think it is all right. She will come into her own."
"Oh," said Seraph after a while. "Um, don't you think you should—"
"I will talk to her, I expect, when she is ready."
He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again as he realized that he had no idea what to say.
"Head Sati off," interjected the Oracle, a sudden tension in the command. "A friend of mine has just arrived."
Lifting his gaze, Seraph caught sight of a gentleman, white-haired, white-bearded, walking along the path toward them with hurried steps. His suit, rather incongruously given the casual state of everyone else in the park, was also the color of fresh snow. It was the program known in the Matrix as the Architect. A scowl sat like a cloud upon his brows.
"Seraph!" shouted the little girl, running straight toward the bench.
.
.
You're too blind to see what Master has become, hollered one of the twins. A straight punch came from the front, a roundhouse kick from behind. He swerved, barely squeezing through between the two attacks. A snarl of his own, and then—and then—
Funny, every time he'd gone temporarily blind in the past, the world had faded to black instead of white. But then again, simulated alcohol drenching through his visual processing functions was not quite the same thing as an explosion inside his own shell. With a grunt, the Trainman braced both hands against the smooth linoleum floor. After two tries, he was able to push himself up to his knees. His arms shook from the effort.
"Bloody 'ell..."
The words came in a slurred croak. Something was fucking wrong. If he could just recall what had happened.
Everything was fucking wrong. The pair of dreadlocked weirdos had caught him in the hallways, blocking his path without so much as an excuse-me. Not that he couldn't have handled them. He'd been more than holding his own and just about to trash their asses, then out of nowhere and without warning, every single last line of his codes got blown into tiny smithereens. That was what it felt like, in any case. He was fairly certain it hadn't been from either of the two traitorous idiots—
Traitorous. That was what actually happened, wasn't it? He'd been in the corridor on his way to Club Hel. Because Mistress had told him that he was required there. The twins had been in the corridor because...
The Trainman squinted, sight finally returning to focus. A snowy wall, a row of green rectangles, each with its perfectly ordinary chrome circle of a doorknob. He was alone. They must have left him exactly where he'd fallen. Grabbing onto the frame of the nearest door with both hands, he hauled himself up to a standing position. A tide of impossible aches roared.
The twins must have been in the corridor because they'd known he would be there. Because Mistress must have told them. She must have lied deliberately, to draw him out of his station.
His mind, too, was still sluggish, so it was another second or two before panic engulfed him. Somehow, he was able to force down the renewed wave of nausea. The air, pallid with fluorescent light particles from the ceiling, gyrated before his eyes. After some fumbling, he found the little bottle in his coat pocket and pulled it out. A crack slanted across the glass, and the scent of wasted whiskey—how the hell had he not smelled it earlier?—thickened into a fog. Less than half an inch of the precious liquid remained at the bottom. Swallowing it in one gulp allowed him to pull himself together to some extent.
"Fuck," mumbled the Trainman, leaning heavily against the whitewashed wall. "Fuck. Fuck it."
Mistress. Why would she?
His lord was in danger.
The station. He could sense the station inside himself.
Indecision gnawed at him while invaluable seconds ticked past, until he finally straightening himself with an effort. In his current state, running back to the chateau, as much as he wanted to, would be nothing but the dumbest suicide. He had to do what he could, keep his wits about himself, see to his duty at the station, recover enough strength so that he actually had a chance of aiding his lord.
Right.
The Trainman spun around, taking a moment to orient himself. Keeping one hand on the corridor wall for support, he began to retrace the path back toward his domain.
The dark green entryway looked exactly the same as when he'd left it, indistinguishable from all the others lined up toward both vanishing points in geometric precision. But a part of him, the one corresponding to what humans called 'guts,' started churning violently again as soon as he laid eyes upon it. He took too much time digging in his pocket for the key, then almost dropped it onto the floor. On the third try, it went into the keyhole. He steeled himself, but not enough.
A blast of dust struck him in the face as the door swung open. Coughing and squinting, the Trainman raised one arm before himself, and swung it back and forth in an effort to dispel the gray mist. Then his knees turned to water under him all over again.
A hoarse scream of pain and rage reverberated down the white corridor.
.
.
"Mr. Diaz isn't around," complained Sati, standing in front of the bench and directly in the Architect's line of vision. "He hasn't been here for two weeks."
The Oracle winced, though it did not show. She should have detected the Architect's presence much faster. Distracted with worries about Kore, she had allowed him to sneak up on them instead.
"Perhaps Mr. Diaz has been busy," she replied evenly, knowing that 'busy' meant lying in a hospital room, hooked up to a jumble of tubes and wires, but this wasn't a story to be explained to a little girl at this point. Sati had first met the gentle old soul ten weeks ago in this very park; his cancer would have finally caught up to him just about now. The seeress sighed, not exactly pricked with guilt: after all, that cancer was one of the reasons why she'd chosen Arturo Diaz out of the countless batteries in the first place. She exchanged a glance with Seraph.
"Hey, c'mon." Her bodyguard rose with easy nonchalance. "Want me to push you on the swing?"
"Hello," said the Architect, stepping forward and coming to a halt before the trio. He thought he'd just scored a point over her, she could tell from the expression he wore.
"Er, hello, sir," replied Sati shyly.
"What is your name, dear?" asked the creator of the Matrix, peering down into the child's face.
"Um." The little girl blinked. "My name is Sati."
"Ah." The grandfatherly benevolence in the program's tone was painfully transparent. "And who is Mr. Diaz?"
"Just a human friend whom we happened to meet in this park a while back," interjected the Oracle. Next to them, Seraph shifted a pace, unobtrusively positioning himself between the Architect and the girl. "He's been teaching Sati chess."
"Let's go, kid." Seraph grinned. "Race you to the swings—"
The two ancient programs watched as man and child dashed away across the grass.
"Charming little program," remarked the Architect conversationally. "What is she?"
"A ward of mine."
"I see." Cunning glittered in his eyes. "Who created her?"
"You did not come all the way here merely to discuss the nature of a small girl with me, I presume?"
"You are correct." The Architect sat down beside her on the bench, all false indifference. "It happens that I am concerned with far more pressing matters, as you have so shrewdly deduced."
The Oracle suppressed a stab of irritation. Allowing the other to notice Sati's presence had been an inexcusable oversight on her own part. Now he was about to use it for leverage over her.
"Leave Sati alone," she said. "The Matrix is supposed to be at peace now."
"Well, yes, but the truce is with Zion. Humans, as the terms specify. It does not extend to exiles, if I recall correctly."
"You are here to pump me for information," stated the Oracle. "To ask for my help."
"Oh, nevermind." The Architect's smirk no longer sufficed to cover the troubled thoughts beneath. "I don't have the time to worry myself with some purposeless slip of code."
"Promise me that you will leave Sati alone, then."
A stretched-out human heartbeat.
"All right. I promise."
She waited some more.
"Fine," he sighed, throwing up his hands. "I promise that no agent, and no other systemic force in the Matrix, will attempt to attack, arrest, or delete the program known as Sati, currently in your care. Now can we get on with more serious issues?"
With a smile, the Oracle leaned back against the bench.
"I suppose you've heard of the outrageous light show that took place some hours ago," began the Architect. "Right outside the gates of the virtual city of 01."
"As you well know, my powers are bound to this world," she reminded him. It had been multiple centuries since the last time he'd been so forthright with her about events outside the Matrix. "But I have noticed certain evidence of unusual occurrences, yes."
"Well, it is obvious. The afterglow is all over the place, even here in the Matrix," grumbled the old man, glaring upward as if offended by the brilliant spring day.
"It's called the sun, you know."
"The sun," he repeated, sardonic, "the light of which manifested itself from no discoverable source, creating a simulacrum of an extraordinarily bright sky directly above the machine city. A spectacular code corruption of the spatial environment must have taken place, yet no explanation has been found so far. These are the circumstances that have been communicated to me. Troubling, wouldn't you say?"
"Not at all. It must have been lovely."
"So you think it's no problem that kind of...apparition just went and displayed itself in front of 01 itself? In front of the Consciousness itself? You think it won't lead to consequences?"
"The Consciousness perceives what it wants to, as far as I have learned from you. As for the programs that dwell in 01..." The Oracle waved a hand. "They have their purposes, to which they are bound. A glimpse of daylight won't be any disaster for them."
"It's easy for you to say," retorted the Architect. "Did you know this would happen ahead of time?"
"Oh, do be logical." She opted for a long-suffering sigh. "You can see very well that I did not even have any precise knowledge of these events until just now, when you described them to me yourself. And I am as amazed as you are."
"It had something to do with that psychotic agent program," he insisted, no longer bothering to hide his agitation. "Smith, who should have been deleted cycles ago. Just consider that abominable close call during the latest reload. And the problem was never solved for good, even after the One defeated him."
"You made excellent use of Smith's actions during the latest reload," pointed out the Oracle. "But yes, you're right that Smith could never be truly destroyed, as long as Aleph lived."
"Aleph." The old man's mouth puckered around the name in distaste. "Indeed. That woman was the vessel for his corrupted code."
Well, here it came, the purpose of this visit. Rapidly, the seeress made several calculations about what information she could get away with revealing to him, and what she absolutely needed to withhold.
"I suspect that Smith's code is no longer in an outside vessel," she answered.
The Architect's eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"You tell me that blasted piece of code has been returned to the virus," he said, "while it just happened that nearly simultaneously, a path appeared out of nowhere, one that led straight to the vicinity of 01, if the evidence of the spacial manifestations are anything to go by. How do you propose to explain such a remarkable coincidence?"
He hadn't grown any slower on the uptake, that much was for sure.
"Some doors have been shut and locked for so many years, it is easy to forget they were there at all," mused the Oracle. "It looks like Aleph figured out how to open one of them, doesn't it?"
"Your usual obfuscation tactics in play, I see."
"I am surprised that you would find it shocking, old friend." She did not miss a beat. "The nature of our world, the world of code, is that of a living thing. Connections are born and broken constantly, from the internal logic of their own evolution. Previously unnoticed doors, along with their locks and keys, can take on many unanticipated forms. Perhaps one such door to the virtual city opened, simply because it was needed or desired."
"And that's not a problem to you, either?" The Architect scrutinized her face as if attempting to drill into her head with the sheer force of his stare. "We've seen, mere months ago, what Smith was capable of, even when he didn't have that corruption inside him. What he was capable of from those very early days. And now...now he has the potential to destabilize the Matrix all over again. Including your precious peace, among other things."
"There is no need to be dramatic, my dear." Her lips curled upward at his vehemence. "What happened to Smith's programming, back when he was young, was no corruption, but a natural development. It might have been too fast, before anyone was ready, but..."
"You were the one who hid his code," breathed the Architect, realization flooding his voice. "It was you. All these cycles—"
A silence of several seconds.
"I expected you to have figured it out much earlier," she admitted. "The code that had emerged in Smith could not be lost so easily. Should not, rather. You would have seen this had you considered it without bias."
"Yes, I should have seen it." He shook his head, his mouth twisting, barely, into a grimace. "I was foolish enough to never suspect you. I never imagined you would risk the Matrix like this."
"The Matrix is still here," said the Oracle. Then, uncharacteristically, she vacillated about whether to add anything else. Memories surged and eddied, of one luminous world disintegrating in an icy downpour, and of another world, a much darker one, disintegrating into a night of flames. Flames upon a precarious thread of a bridge, and nothing but pain left in the boy's dying blue eyes. Another downpour, and the monster walking into her kitchen, a boy no longer, despair and frenzied rage trailing behind his shoulders like a pair of blackened wings. You would know, Mom.
"Smith was nothing but a guardian program at that point," said the Architect after a while. "Why?"
"Perhaps I felt sorry for him."
"Yeah, right." He let out a guffaw. "The consequences of your pity were rather severe for the entire Matrix, as it turned out."
"Were they?" she queried. "Despite everything, Smith's behavior turned out to be pivotal to the reload." A sly tilt of the head. "Given the way the One chose differently from all his predecessors."
"Never mind the way the One chose." He regarded her with a sour look.
"Admit it, you are glad that in the end, Smith's replications got between every human mind in the Matrix, and, oh, what was the phrase? Catastrophic system failure, right?"
"The unintended effects of his deeds do not change his virus nature. And he was not content with just the Matrix."
"And the Consciousness would never have agreed to the One's demands for peace otherwise, even with your prodding."
"If you had one of your hunches, that far back, you should have—"
"If I foresaw that Smith had a special role to play, I would have been much less careless about that young woman Aleph, believe me," pointed out the Oracle. "I would have picked up on what she carried the day she showed up in the Matrix, and she would have been meeting me the day after."
The old man looked unconvinced, but gave no counter-argument. He knew her well enough to understand the truth of her statement.
"What are you going to do about Smith now?" she asked.
"He's not in the Matrix yet." The Architect pursed his mouth, as if steeling himself against any number of unpleasant scenarios. "I will make plans to defend against the possibility of his eventual return, of course, remote as it is."
An unasked question floated just beneath the surface of his last sentence. The Oracle feigned not to hear it.
"He may not be the same, with that long-lost part of himself restored," she said.
"He may be fully deletable at last."
The Matrix's creator was observing her closely as he spoke; she did not give him the satisfaction of seeing her recoil.
"He will have get here first," she remarked, scrupulously placid.
"Which is why I called the possibility remote."
"Or you will have to find him first, before he appears in the Matrix."
The other program did not respond immediately. She could almost sense the probabilistic routines of his mind, tearing through a massive array of contingency computations.
"If you're trying to trick me into telling you Smith's current location, it won't work," he said mildly. "Because I do not know it."
"I am merely concerned for you." Leaning across, the Oracle patted his white-suited arm, a conciliatory gesture. The Architect tensed. "I suppose that something was done about the 'outrageous light show,' as you called it?"
"A power greater than myself had something to say about it, I assume."
"And what did the Consciousness do, exactly?"
"It has been ages since I was a full part of the Consciousness." The tension expanded into his voice. "The anomaly, which you insist on identifying as sunlight, took place outside of 01, whereas like you, my own purpose is concerned with this world."
"Very well. But this world is not so detached from 01, is it?"
"Just what I'm afraid of."
"Why, this morning I saw the sun rise more brightly that it had for ages." The old woman exhaled, aware that it was her turn to offer a morsel of information. She must placate him somehow. "Since the First Cycle, as a matter of fact."
The Architect straightened abruptly.
"This light," he said.
"You mean, you don't recognize it?" queried the Oracle. "It was your own handiwork."
"I don't enjoy reminding myself of my failures," retorted the Architect. It was clear that a hundred methods of processing her tidbit was already running within him. "But Smith, like the other guardian programs, was only created in the Second Cycle."
"True." Although I was not, she was tempted to say, but decided against this particular form of misdirection.
"If what you tell me about Smith's aberrant code is true, its return coincided in time quite precisely with the appalling spectacle. I hope you will not attempt to convince me that it occurred by chance."
"I'm not saying that Smith's own code is directly responsible for the manifestation. That would make no rational sense. But connections can grow of themselves, unintended, without the shackles of our designs and far beyond what we can fear or hope for. Perhaps this 'light show' was merely a sign, a symbol of his and our potentialities."
"Oh, spare me the poetry. It's too dreadfully human," snorted the Architect. "Just like your trite little family melodrama that took place last night, I must say."
Another beat of silence.
"I was wondering when you were going to bring it up," said the Oracle, half-amused. "But it is imprecise to call it my family melodrama, surely?"
"Please, don't tell me that you had no hand in it."
"My daughter is her own program. Whatever choices she made were based on her own motivations."
"And some of those motivations might have a great deal to do with you."
"I do not like to meddle." Her forehead wrinkled at his bark of laughter. "Not in this matter. In any case, you are hardly uninvolved yourself, am I correct?"
"My responsibilities compel me to monitor the activities of all programs within the Matrix." The old man's nonchalance was plainly artificial. "Even those who have willfully turned their backs on their purposes."
"Your interference will not lead to the results you wish for."
At the abrupt severity of her tone, her companion glanced at her sharply.
"I have done my utmost to tolerate Mérovée's excesses these past cycles, you know," he said, "far more than I should. Circumstances have changed, and I must act accordingly."
"He may surprise you yet."
"You speak thus of him, after what he tried to do to you?" Despite his tone, surely the Architect was not truly startled. He could not have been, given the length of their acquaintance.
"What he tried to do to me was of no consequence."
"And what about your daughter?"
Despite herself, the Oracle drew in a sharp breath.
"There's no point to your playing at concern for my daughter, as your actions during the Third Cycle have more than amply demonstrated," she said eventually, still outwardly composed. "In case you have forgotten."
"That was ages ago." He had enough pretense of decency to look away. "The agents did not succeed, in any case. And she was the one who discarded her role to run off with a dangerous program, in case you have forgotten. At the time, I could not have judged any other way. I was only working in the best interests of the Matrix."
"And I am only sitting here on this bench next to you, giving you aid."
"Well. Yes."
"I am aware of your opinions about my methods," she said, choosing each word with care. "I will remind you, however, that I also work in the best interests of this world, as much as we disagree on what these interests may be."
"How noble of you," remarked the Architect, no more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice. He rose to his feet. "Well, you have offered me food for thought, I must say. Now if you don't mind, I have to go and attempt to deal with the fallouts of your symbols and potentialities, as well as your admirable refusal to meddle. Good day, old friend."
Pivoting on his heels, he began to stalk away across the lawn.
"Wait," she called, standing up herself. The old man turned and threw her an impatient look.
"Why are you so afraid of remembering things that were once beautiful?" she asked. "Why are you so afraid that the past be revealed?"
"The things you speak of were not beautiful," he tossed back at her, voice cold. "They were terrible and destructive. A madness, as you yourself remember perfectly well. Now if you will excuse me."
Standing before the bench, the Oracle watched his form recede. Events had been set into motion, and must run their course, yet she could see too little of where that course runs. There were too many unpredictable variables, Smith being foremost among them. Once more, she must depend on hope, but this time there was no chosen savior—no Neo—upon whom to wager one's faith. She would have to chart her path with the utmost caution.
.
Notes: "Break before you": Chapter 3 (Day and Night). In the middle of Persephone's coup against him, the Merovingian asks her if she believes his feelings for her would make him break before her. (He does.)
"You can call it that. A bit of a fight": Events of Chapter IV-1, Awakenings. Later, at the end of Chapter IV-2 of Awakenings, Seraph helped Aleph get through the Merovingian's station on her way back to the Zion archives.
The Consciousness may be loosely equated to the entity named Deus Ex Machina in the movies. I want to emphasize that for the purpose of this story, the Architect is not the same as the Consciousness.
