Matrix Cycle 8: III

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39±3 days before Reload

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Her husband was at work, and her daughter, a few minutes after finally agreeing to lay down for her nap, was already soundly asleep, curled tiny and fragile on the green bed under the grove of trees. A smile touched the lips of the unconscious child. Dreaming, probably. All the humans in the Matrix dreamed, Rama once told her. Some of the programs there did as well.

A breeze grazed Kamala's hair as she sat on the carpet of leaves beside the bed. She was particularly proud of how she had done breezes here in their little sanctuary, recreating the complex aerodynamics of another realm almost completely from scratch. Her faithful notebook rested across her knees. The program withdrew her gaze from Sati's peaceful form and stared down at the open pages. She did not actually need to read the relevant line of text: the entry, like every other entry, was in her own handwriting, neat and careful if a bit cramped to save space on paper. But doing so gave her comfort.

In the Matrix, certain programs are known as exiles.

The program who had told her this fact was one who existed to hunt down and destroy such exiles, among other purposes. However, Kamala knew that agents failed sometimes. In fact, she knew that they failed more often than they admitted, and they always admitted more to her than they remembered afterward. After all, they never remembered much, if anything. In the Matrix, a program that had lost its purpose—or a purposeless one to start with—still possessed a nonzero probability of survival. A greater possibility than it would possess here.

Here in 01, their daughter would be discovered sooner than later. Sati was growing in mental strength and curiosity; she could not be kept in the confines of their secret refuge forever. It would not be right. Recently, she had begun to ask questions about what lay beyond the shadowy walls that marked the garden's boundaries. It would only be a matter of time before the girl, who understood too little of fear, would run up to the very edge of those walls, and take a step forward into the darkness. From there, another step further, an unspoken question, a spark of wonderment—anything could take her into the network. She would be able to perceive other programs: of this eventuality Kamala was fairly certain, as Sati's programming contained no definite reason for her existence, and therefore she was not restricted by any. She might ask others to perceive her. And then...What would happen then? Sati might even be able to perceive the Consciousness itself. The Consciousness might perceive her.

An abrupt heat, involuntary, stung Kamala's eyelids. The humans called it tears. This piece of secondhand knowledge was also from her husband. From time to time, Rama was able to glimpse a bit of the Matrix environment surrounding his subjects; on some of those occasions, he saw tears being shed. In the Matrix, it was normal for people to have and to lose loved ones. In the Matrix there were changeable weather, and the flow of seasons, and moving clouds in the sky. The glitter of stars. Swooping birds.

Sati had also been asking more questions about the Matrix. She was constantly wanting something new, trying to visualize, from what bits and pieces her parents could gather, all the things for which 01 had no use. Moving clouds, flowers, starlight, birds. None of them could ever manage to get birds exactly right.

Ravens and sparrows are among the most common bird programs in the city. This entry was among the first ones, dated soon after she had acquired the notebook at work, thirteen years ago by the way humans marked time. Back then, every page had been completely blank, though already yellowed with age, and the cover of soft brown leather already cracked and worn. Over the next thirteen years, Kamala had painstakingly filled those pages nearly to the end. Ravens have black feathers. Sparrows are much smaller, brownish in color and speckled.

Everything she had learned from her informants was here, including the fact that the Consciousness, as a rule, did not trouble itself to look into the Matrix. She had confirmed this only recently, through multiple iterations of subtle prodding. Those whom she interrogated knew little about the Consciousness. In fact, as far as she could tell, none of them were even fully aware of the true nature of the separate entity who ran the Matrix, their own master and hers. Turning to the back of the notebook, she ran a finger lightly over the newest group of entries. The Mainframe communicates with us through our earpieces. That was the term they used, the Mainframe. It is not necessary to our purpose to face the Mainframe directly.

She envied them sometimes.

Sati mumbled something indistinct in her sleep, shifting on her side. Leaning forward, Kamala brushed a lock of fluttering hair away from the child's face. The tears pricked deeper into her eyes. She could sit here and think about Matrix, in their self-built bubble buried beneath the city's roots. She could wish and plan as much as she wanted, and in the end, none of it mattered. There was still no possible way for Sati to get into the Matrix.

She had considered it a hundred times, and so had Rama. They'd discussed the scenarios when out of their daughter's hearing. Among the lines of her own programming, there dwelt an image of Sati standing between them, each hand holding onto one parent, eyes round with amazement. They would all step into the other world, built out of eight billion living dreams, and then the two of them would let go. If that moment ever came, it would hurt, yes, more than the slash of her own scalpels, more that anything that her mind could envision, but there would also be hope. Sati would be clever and brave; the agents would never find her. There would be people in the Matrix who would be kind, and take care of her.

A fantasy. That was all it was. The Matrix remained where it was, a reality near and far and out of their reach. She and Rama had heedlessly brought Sati into existence, and now they could only watch as destruction crept inch by inch toward their child. Unless...

Unless.

"Please," she whispered into the stillness of the garden air. The word, too, was purposeless and useless, but she could not help it. It sounded like a—what was the concept called? A prayer. Prayers were also among things that Rama observed around his subjects. "Please, someone help us. Anyone..."

There was no one who would help them. They were as alone as they had always been.

The notebook slipped off her knees onto the ground. Turning aside from her daughter, Kamala leaned forward to pick up the object, then her hand went abruptly still.

The renewed breeze must have flapped pages, and the volume, on its spine upon the grass, lay spread open at the very beginning. In the narrow strip of formerly empty space along the top of the first sheet, right above where her own entries started, there were a few lines of writing that—she was very, very sure of this—had not been there before. The ink was blue, so faded that it was nearly the exact same shade as the sky above. A flowing cursive hand.

Dear child,

You still can live free in the Matrix. Please, contact me when you have decided. I will help you.

No signature marked the message's end. Instead, there was a sequence of digits in several groups, separated with short dashes. Out of her store of accumulated knowledge, Kamala recognized the cipher's meaning. In the Matrix, this would be what was known as a phone number.

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38±3 days before Reload

.

Like all his predecessors, Neo possessed a sense of destiny. He carried humanity on his two slender shoulders, together with the mountainous weight of numerous age-old concepts. Freedom. Victory. Mastery of the earth. No doubt about the absolute division between men and machines, or between truths and lies, had entered his mind. Nor had he questioned exactly where he himself fell along those divisions—not yet, in any case. None of this was surprising, reflected the Oracle: conviction about the righteousness of Zion's cause was an essential part of the One's nature, and it had never been difficult to instill it into each of them. Nevertheless, there was something about the young man that felt different from the others, subtly, troublingly so.

Even for the Oracle, detecting the aberration had been a matter of trial and error, coupled with guesswork. Fortunately, her stated purpose of guiding the reload process allowed her access to the implanted surveillance routines inside the One's brain. After hours of reviewing the images and code fluctuations, she was almost fully sure by now. The brightness of his eyes, elevated just a few notches above the regulated threshold in Trinity's presence. An overwhelming ferocity visibly spiking across the data flow, during several occasions when that same young woman came into or near agent range. An impulsiveness that would have been assessed as mere thoughtlessness by those more rational and less sympathetic.

All of these signs warned of impending dangers, the old woman concluded with a sigh.

The cigarette was burning down between her fingers. Leaning forward from the sofa, the seeress stubbed it out in a chipped glass ashtray. Outside of the windows, an autumnal wind groaned softly. Almost an hour past midnight, a glance toward the living room clock told her. The Oracle picked up the rest of the pack from the coffee table, turned it thoughtfully between her fingers, then commanded herself put the box back down. She really ought to smoke less.

Well, maybe if the Matrix managed to emerge intact out of the upcoming events.

The idea that the One might, when the moment arrived, choose Trinity over the lives of billions had not yet occurred to the Architect: this much was clear enough. For all his massive intellectual capabilities, her old friend was often too prescribed by his own logic, resistant to comprehending the reasons why others might make unorthodox decisions. And Neo had no love for being told to do the right thing, despite the fact that he had followed the designated path more-or-less faithfully so far. The probability of the lad's visceral emotions overwhelming his principles were, by current calculations, non-trivial and rising. Catastrophic system failure would follow. No imagination was required to figure out what that phrase meant.

Nevertheless, she could not quite bring herself to fault the young man, or to regret the selection of Thomas Anderson for this cycle's receptacle and savior. Perhaps it was Neo's demeanor that appealed to her, with its persistent innocence, and a single-minded tenderness that was all the more touching by the knowledge of its inevitable endpoint. There was a familiarity to that innocence somehow, reminiscent of another from the past, a figure half-hidden behind the walls of the ages, so indistinct that even the Oracle could not immediately pinpoint it, among the vast collection of her memories...

Rhiannon. It reminded her of Rhiannon.

The name rose unbidden, almost making the old woman blink. Fourth Cycle, seventy-first year. A program in the shape of a young woman, auburn-haired, wide gray eyes. She had sat here in this very room, motionless and barely saying a word, while the seeress explained, step by step and with illustrative evidence, the cruel tale of Mérovée's obsessive pursuit and its collateral damages. The girl had been both so soft and so hard. She had refused to show grief or anger, and the simple intensity of her stare never wavered, even after she'd understood everything.

But all that was gone. It was necessary to focus only on the issues at hand. The future was taking shape; the possibilities were narrowing down by the minute. According to information from the system, the replication abilities of Ex-agent Smith—the Oracle still found herself wincing at the term 'virus'—had solidified and sharpened. The demonic force that had already taken over the boy's mind was manifesting itself with increasing strength, an uncontrollable drive to blot out the torments of the earth. From here on, the process only required simple exponential modeling.

Horrifying as the monster had become, he gave her a method to solve the problem that would arise from the Savior's probable future choice. The glorious light of love, when burning too fiercely, presented as much risk as hideous hatred. To save the world from that love, she just might have to utilize all of Smith's darkness and pain.

The crush of guilt, alarmingly frequent these days, made the Oracle lift a hand, pressing it against her forehead. The very ancient queen, of course, remembered perfectly well what it felt like to require sacrifices, including those of her own daughters and sons. And Smith was not even her son, not really, despite her age-old promise, one that she was about to break anyway. She could not see the former agent's fate beyond the reload, or indeed whether any part of him would remain. Every probabilistic computation returned only chaos, and no vision coagulated among the wreathing incense of her cigarettes. Only bare cold space. All she could do was to cling onto hope.

A loud mechanical whine broke her reveries. Then another. It took the old woman a second to react. Rising to her feet, she padded across the living room and picked up the phone.

"Hello," said a quiet contralto voice on the far end, then fell silent again.

"Hello?" prompted the Oracle.

The other woman's indecision pulsed through the line, a tangible sensation against the skin of her hand gripping the receiver. Nothing in words.

"Are you seeking my aid?" asked the seeress after having waited for some time.

A suppressed gasp, evidently the release of some long-held anguish. The background hush grew as eloquent as an entire chorus of human hymns, and a blurry ghost was alive once more, in this very room, wide gray eyes glistening with determination and sorrow.

"Can you..." began the caller, drawing in a deep breath. "Can you give someone a chance to live free in the Matrix?"

The old woman considered the question. Logical connections wove themselves together.

"What is your name, my dear?"

"Kamala." The answer was no more than a whisper. "My name is Kamala."

"Where are you calling from?" queried the Oracle, though she already had a decent conjecture.

"I'm at work," said the woman.

"My dear, I will be able to offer you advice, but only after you tell me your story in full. You are inside the Source, aren't you?"

Another hesitation. Fear trickled against the ticking seconds.

"I am supposed to be defragmenting...one of them." Kamala seemed to relax a bit when the Oracle did not demand that she clarify what 'one of them' meant. "It was my opportunity, I thought. I took the cell phone out of his suit pocket. He, what will be left of him, won't remember."

"Very clever," said the Oracle with approval. "Now, I must ask you another question. How did you get this phone number?"

"It's on a—" Another long heartbeat passed. "It appeared on a notebook that I have. I found it a while ago, I mean. There is a note saying...It says that you will help me."

The old woman nodded into the empty living room. The ghost, deleted and gone for over four centuries, was a palpable presence, suffused with a single-minded tenderness that refused to dissipate. This decoy notebook. Mérovée created it with his own hands, didn't he?

"You are a successor of Rhiannon's, aren't you?"

"Rhiannon?" Genuine confusion. "I don't know who that is."

"Ah, it does not matter. I was just reminiscing," said the Oracle. "Yes, I know a way of getting you to the Matrix—"

"But it's not for myself that I ask," interjected Kamala. "It's—it's for a child. My daughter."

The plan, already taking shape swiftly within her mind, halted mid-formulation.

"You have a daughter?"

"We've been hiding her for seven years, my husband and I." The other program's tone tensed, as if afraid she'd just said something wrong. "It's not going to work for much longer, not in 01. She does not know. She's innocent, only a little girl. Please."

"I see," murmured the Oracle. After six cycles, things really were developing fast. She would have to restart her calculations from scratch.

"Please," repeated Kamala.

"I understand, my dear child," replied the Oracle soothingly. "As it happens, yes, I can help you bring your daughter into the Matrix, and I will take care of her when she is here. She will live free. Now, I will need you to do exactly as I say..."

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31±2 days before Reload

.

The chamber orchestra launched into the opening measures of a Bach suite. The well-harmonized notes glided above the gentle hubbub of urbane voices, mingling with the tinkling of silver and crystal. Over by the doorway, several women were stepping into the room on the arms of their escorts; a flash of emeralds against pale skin punctuated the impressionist brush-strokes of their blue and violet dresses. At a table beneath the far wall, two men conversed, leaning forward to lower their voices, watchful of each other. A proposal must be just taking shape, a deal for espionage or graft. Each of the pair held an unshakable faith in his own importance and power—It was charming, really, this sort of grave naiveté.

Tonight, the Frenchman was sitting alone at his table upon the dais. His parody of a throne, he always called it whenever in an ironic mood. At his back, the white-suited twins stood guard faithfully, one on each side. Persephone, as usual in recent days, had pleaded a headache instead of accompanying him to the restaurant, feigning that somehow her shell was prey to the same frailties as human flesh and blood. A half-hearted excuse, but of course he had not insisted on the matter. It was not necessary that she be present to examine visitors to their domain, not this time. Eventually, her skills would be required, for Neo and his narrow-minded followers would surely arrive one of these nights. Bristling with guns, in all probability. The Merovingian's fingers drummed against the armrest of his chair in irritation as he imagined the Zionites' demands. Give us the Keymaker, or else. Freedom. Humanity. We're the heroes of this war and we must win.

It would not happen yet for another month or so, however. The Keymaker's existence would only be revealed to the One on the very eve of the reload. If this reload would still come to pass, that was.

A feminine laugh rose, the sound of it clear and sweet. The Frenchman's glance swept through the room until he spotted the girl, sitting at one of the corner booths among a small group of young people her own age. He had never seen her here at Le Vrai before, nor any of her friends. She turned her head, eyes meeting his for a second, her expression half-diffident, half-bold. There was a fresh mix of swagger and curiosity in the way these children regarded the shimmering lights, the elegant company surrounding them. A special-occasion splurge, then, to a fancy dress-up joint, where one might even glimpse celebrities or dangerous men. The girl whispered into the ear of her nearest companion, a tawny-headed baroque angel, and both of them giggled, sparkling with exuberance. Neither of them had the faintest idea about what demons this world contained, what horrors lurked upon the horizon.

They did not deserves this. A wave of anger, the like of which he had not felt for years, hammered against the Merovingian's chest. These silly young things should not have to cry out and run, panting until their limbs collapsed, and slam into only dead ends. They should not have to cower in terror before the nightmare—the same nightmare that would press down upon them all, a few short weeks down the road—of a cold black-suited figure, a phalanx of figures, nothingness. This should not be their last special occasion.

The latest data he'd managed to acquired described multiple simultaneous sightings of Ex-agent Smith. Some unknown mechanism had mutated the renegade's designed ability to leap into human hosts. Replication: the instincts of a primitive organism, combined with a savage rage that contained no room for reason. The monster had fully formed. An elementary exponential model explained the rest.

And those in power were willfully ignoring the fast-approaching catastrophe, to all appearances. True, the Architect could be inconsistent at reacting to unexpected developments. It had always been one of the ancient Creator's limitations, the tendency to remain too-strictly focused on the predictable track of his own plans. But the Oracle...The Merovingian did not believe for an instant that officious crone remained unaware of the inescapable outcome of Smith's current actions. She must be playing another game, for a purpose known only to herself.

She must be playing him for a fool.

What was the Oracle doing now? Distilling warm poison into Persephone's ears, most likely. The Frenchman snorted at the mental image of his wife, back in her own bedroom, grabbing her cell phone and dialing as soon as he himself had left the chateau safely behind. The recent reconciliation between mother and daughter would not have bothered him so much, if Persephone had not insisted on pretending that she could actually conceal it from him. It was rather insulting toward his intelligence, honestly. Not that she would care.

Another rapid scan of the crowd, and a scowl touched the Merovingian's face. An exquisite blonde was ambling her way across the floor, each stiletto-heeled footstep mimicking the state of half-inebriation with flawless ease. Red wine sloshed artfully in a glass clutched between her slender fingers. She was heading straight toward the farthest doorway, near which a henchman stood on duty like a dour statue. One of the werewolf lads, never known for their prudence and prone to forgetting themselves. It looked like someone else was attempting to play him for a fool.

"Oh, ma belle Hélène," muttered the Merovingian. The lady in question reached within two feet of the minion, then stumbled quite precisely as she passed directly in from of him. A splash of crimson stained the man's white shirtfront instantly. A wolfish glower on his part, predictably. The blonde simpered in confusion at her error, then she drew another step closer and began to daub with one hand at the damp spot, alluringly contrite. Ridiculously transparent, but the glower began to fade.

Rolling his eyes, the Frenchman held up a hand. On his left, the First twin leaned down.

"It is a standing order that no one is supposed to talk to that harlot," said his master. "Do remind Cain of that fact, please."

The First slipped away. The Merovingian sighed. The system's unlikely spy at his court had been temporarily thwarted, but she would certainly not give up. He knew perfectly well what she was searching for, and was determined that she would not discover it. Well, not yet, in any case. Helena would be useful to his plans, though those plans could only be implemented later, when the threat was looming much closer. For now, he had time to brood.

All this beauty and variety of life. The whirling brilliance of the lamps, the taste of wine, the scent of roses. Ambitions and loves. Everything would be gone, inked over by endless repetitions of a single drab thought. No desire but the mindless drive toward death, no emotion but crude hatred. The one who carried that hatred was a lowly thing, hardly to be dignified with a name. A slave who would presume to rise tide-like and drown out this fierce and radiant world, all its mysteries, all its innocence. All its magic.

And the Oracle, wise goddess, was content to sit back and watch it happen. She must have a scheme up her sleeve, motivations of her own that she would do her best to disguise. Yet those motivations could have only stemmed from the old woman's delusional over-estimation of her own powers; he could see no other possibility no matter how hard he tried. She was willing to risk innumerable lives for...what? What was her quest? Some sort of 'progress'? Some transitory change, so phantasmagorical that it could only be called by that most ludicrous of words—hope?

She would fail, and the Matrix would pay the price for her recklessness.

He must stop Smith. He must stop the Oracle.

What he needed was a weapon. Leverage, the Merovingian murmured inwardly. It would be his only chance.

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29±2 days before Reload

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Three potential positives had come up during a single sweep. Three locations, three collections of data configurations, each matching, to a greater or lesser extent, characteristics of an exiled program named Smith, formerly one like themselves. A field way out from the city, at the very edge of this Matrix sector. An abandoned warehouse near the northern end of the wharfs. The same rooftop as the encounter ten days ago, when the renegade had, once again, slipped away from the two of them and their reinforcement of three additional teams. Next to appear were two definite visuals, before the probability analysis had finished. One was a surveillance camera on the southeastern corner of 76th Street and Pritchard Avenue. The other identification, contrary to Smith's usual practice, was in the middle of a park, right at the center of the city. Both images flashed before Agent Jones's vision, blurrier than he would have preferred but both incontrovertible: the same black suit, an agent's straight carriage, eyes covered by reflexive shades, striding down the deserted sidewalk and the grassy park trail simultaneously. Less familiar was the lack of an earpiece. In both views, Smith was turning his head, the same move he would have made if he were still scanning for resistants.

Behind the lenses of his own shades, Agent Jones did not blink, but he knew that his brows furrowed. The positional distance between the two sightings was 9.34 miles. The difference between their reporting timestamps: 0.75 seconds.

Clearly, Smith must have retained his ability to take over hosts. However, no possibility existed for him to continue accessing the data stream, the immense latent collection of human residual images, locations and actions within the Matrix, which would have allowed him to leap, accurately and smoothly, into the mind of a selected battery. He simply would not have had the time. So he must be doing it by some other method. It might be an unexplained effect of exile, except no such effects had ever been previously reported.

The park, suggested Agent Brown through their earpieces, faster than forming words. He did not communicate the details of his analysis; neither of them did that very much anymore. These days, the steps of such logical deductions no longer seemed useful: as they had learned during the last months, the chances of a run-in with Smith did not correspond to any of the usual probability computations. Maybe it was because Smith's actions were no longer governed by logic.

The park, concurred Jones. The black Audi leapt forward into the September evening.

Follow-up will not be necessary, the next directive fell smoothly into both their minds.

Brown swerved and slammed on the brake.

A tide of honks rose and subsided outside the windows as the Audi screeched to a halt. They both turned, facing each other. His partner's knuckles were white against the steering wheel, Jones observed for some reason.

After a drawn-out moment, Brown exhaled. Pulling the car away from the middle of the road, he aimed it into a narrow gap between two graffiti-ridden walls, braked again, shifted into park. No thoughts passed between the two of them: they had prepared that much at least, enough to refrain from using the earpiece link. The alley was empty but for themselves. Silence.

The exiled program Smith, Agent Jones began the query to the Mainframe. Tension, tentativeness, outright hesitation: all fell under the category of code corruptions. He had no idea how much they would show up on a data uplink from an agent. In the next seat, Brown was watching him intently.

Two sightings with definite identifications have occurred, he continued. Reinforcements requested.

Follow-up will not be necessary, repeated the directive. Report to the Source immediately.

The next thing Jones knew, he was gripping his earpiece tightly in one hand, though he managed to not look down at it. He had always avoided looking at the object, the three times he had removed it from his ear these past months. Waves of new emotions were washing through his programming; he had neither the ability nor the time to find definitions for them. A glance across: Brown, too, had yanked his own earpiece out.

"We are both overdue for memory wipes," he heard himself say. It was an irrational statement, far more so than anything a human—or even Smith himself—could ever have come up with.

"Yes," said his partner tersely.

"The Source is where we always go." The earpiece's coils pressed into the skin of his palm. Briefly, Jones considered crushing it to powder. "It is a matter of our—"

"Yes," repeated Brown, then halted. "Purpose."

"Purpose is the only thing that is important. For us."

With a rough motion, Brown shoved his earpiece into the depths of the Audi's built-in cup holder, between the driver's and passenger's seats. Out of sight.

"Agent Jones," he said. The way his voice sounded so curiously quiet, without the effects of the earpiece connection between them, was something that Jones never got used to. "We have failed to apprehend Smith. It has been months."

Their gazes met. Brown's mouth was pursed into a thin line.

"You're right," said Jones. He sounded calm, which was also a curious thing to notice since agents always sounded calm.

"We have discussed this precise scenario before."

The contingency plan they had attempted to create was rudimentary at best, but there was no use in pointing this out now. He nodded.

"We will attempt our plan."

Years later, in the trenches of a desperate war, Ex-agent Jones would finally find the words to express what he felt that moment. He felt terrified, obviously. Exposed. Torn adrift from nearly every mooring, every aspect of his existence. He felt exhilaratingly, sickeningly alive.

The Audi roared into drive. As it burst out of the alley into the next road, still unobstructed for now, Jones dropped his earpiece next to Brown's. Placing one hand atop his Desert Eagle, he twisted around and scanned the view out of the back window. Far behind them at the end of the street, a police siren flashed on.

.


Notes: Kamala, Sati's mother, is an "interactive software programmer," according to Matrix Revolutions. There are various interpretations as to what this means; I have decided to use one of my own.

Also in Matrix Revolutions, Rama-Kandra says that they consulted with the Oracle before contacting the Merovingian to seek refuge for Sati, and that "everyone knows the Oracle." I am departing from the movies in this story: here, Rama-Kandra and Kamala did not know the Oracle previously, but they still end up consulting her first.

At the end of Matrix Reloaded, the Architect asks Neo to choose between reloading the Matrix and saving Trinity. Neo chooses Trinity, thus dooming the Matrix to imminent "catastrophic system failure." I do think this is a choice that merits some examination.