Rama-Kandra
.
"Sati?" echoed Aleph rather idiotically.
"Yes, my daughter." The man gave an eager nod. "She is in the Matrix. You may have seen her, perhaps?"
The quaver in his voice was that of hope. Aleph opened her mouth to speak, then clamped it shut again. All of a sudden, the fact that she knew exactly what he was talking about was a bitter pill inside her throat.
"Where are we?" she asked instead. The flashlight, carried aloft in the other's hand, threw its disk of illumination around them, a fragile bubble of gold in the boundless midnight. She stole a downward glance: the patch of visible ground lay flat and grayish beneath their feet, presenting no discernible features.
Disappointment crossed Rama-Kandra's face at her change of subject, though only for an second.
"Why, this is the invisible part of the city." His fear appeared to have retreated. "Underneath it, actually. This is the forgotten, buried place. The Consciousness does not trouble itself to look here."
"The Consciousness." Instinctively, she mimicked the way his voice capitalized the word. "You mean the machine intellect who both constitutes and governs the machine city, right?"
"This is correct. The Consciousness is a part of us all, and rules us. It gives us our purpose."
"You're telling me," began Aleph. A recent vision flitted through her mind, that of an immense and absolute negative space, enfolded like black wings about a glittering network of walkways and cybernetic towers. "You're telling me that we're inside that great huge shadow, the one that lies everywhere around the roots of 01..."
"Oh, don't worry." He must have mistaken her quick intake of breath for a sign of horror. "It's safe here. More or less, in any case. If you avoid the traps and do not wander, I mean. It is well-hidden."
"The subconsciousness," she muttered to herself. "Of course. There has to be a subconscious part to 01's sentience, if whatever's up there calls itself the Consciousness..."
"The Consciousness will not see us," reassured Rama-Kandra, "nor will anybody else. No one from the city ever comes down into this place."
There was a warmth in his gaze, and a wrinkle upon his brows. Belatedly, it occurred to her that this whole bizarre encounter could be some sort of trick. The program before her might be a spy, sent by the Consciousness or whomever to...do what to her? Even if she'd been somehow discovered by the collective intelligence of 01, it could simply order a battalion of robot soldiers after her. Such subtle games would surely be uncharacteristic.
"But you just did," she pointed out.
The wrinkled brows tightened a bit more at this.
"Well, yes." Rama-Kandra seemed embarrassed. "But we're the only ones, my wife and I."
"Your wife?" She heard how inane the question was as soon as it came out of her. Why the hell would she still be startled, nowadays, by such notions among machines?
"Yes, my wife and I," repeated the other. A smile touched the corner of his lips. "We have made our home here."
"I see," she said.
"We are Sati's parents," he added as if clarification were needed. "We sent her into the Matrix because it is safer for her there. And that's where you are from, aren't you?"
"Er, well," mumbled Aleph warily. "How can you tell?"
"Your code is obviously human," he replied with confidence. "Where else can you be from?"
"Oh. In that case, yeah." Her brain whirred. This program certainly knew the way up to the surface, and he would probably help her if she played her cards right. She could still find Smith in time. Assuming that Smith was still able to hold out against the ghostly imprints, that was. Assuming they hadn't yet torn him into pieces. Except if the guy standing before her really was somehow Sati's father, and the ex-agent had once taken over the child—
"Have you seen my daughter?" asked Rama-Kandra again, after she did not respond for several seconds.
"Um, maybe I've heard—" Aleph stopped mid-sentence. How would he react if she said yes? If she said no? Squinting into the flashlight's glare, she saw that he was leaning forward, mouth pursed thin with nervous expectation, stare fixed upon her. His face was the kind that one might have seen back in the Matrix, in television news segments where parents made public pleads about abducted kids.
"Maybe I've heard about someone named Sati," she hedged. "I'm not sure if it was the right person, though."
"She's seven years old. And looks like it, too. Long hair, about this tall—" His left hand gestured at chest-height. The words were tumbling out swiftly now. "She's...She has dark eyes, big beautiful ones, and she's also very intelligent—"
"How is it that you have a daughter?" she interrupted him. "Is this allowed of programs in 01?"
Rama-Kandra swallowed the rest of his description. An instant later, his posture had already gone rigid again. Aleph kicked herself metaphorically.
"I'm trying to remember this girl, I guess. The one I'm thinking about, you know," she said, sounding awfully lame even to herself.
"Ah." He exhaled, visibly coming to a decision. "Actually, no. None of these things were ever any part of our designs, but we found each other, Kamala and I. And to create a child together...It just felt right."
The unassuming conviction of his tone made her flinch with shame. Out there beyond the cavern of shadows, time was ticking by. Sati's whereabouts, an inconsequential bit of information, was the only piece of leverage she had.
"So you and your wife brought into existence a little girl. But unlike every other program here, she has no purpose, no role in the workings of the machine world. The Consciousness would have no use for her."
"Indeed. You understand."
"If I tell..." Aleph bit her lower lip.
"Yes?"
Damn it. Damn Smith and his hopeless destructive drives. Damn herself and her hopeless impulse toward connivance.
"I believe I have seen your daughter," she said.
Rama-Kandra's eyes widened, though no other part of him moved. Aleph tried to meet his gaze. If she were to extract a promise of aid from him, it would have to be now.
"You love her," she stated. "You sent her away because she would not be tolerated by the powers that be in this city."
"Where did you see her? When?"
If he were human, she would have heard his heart pounding from several yards away. To every direction, the abyss stretched away into nothingness. Smith was somewhere out there, battling an army of demons alone.
"If I tell you..." Again she could not finish the attempt. A silence passed between them, both brief and stupidly interminable.
"Um, maybe two days ago," she went on. "Approximately. I cannot estimate the passage of time very well. She is living with the Oracle. She's all right. Safe."
"Oh," said Rama-Kandra. The tautness drained out of his shoulders with an almost-shudder. Aleph could not figure out what to say in this situation, so she kept quiet for a while.
"Thank you," he breathed, taking a step closer. "Thank you. We've been so worried for five months, ever since the storm..."
"You were the one outside the city walls, weren't you?" She peered at him as if still searching for the massive limbs of a metallic centipede or squid. "You were the one who hijacked a sentinel."
Rama-Kandra recoiled, barely perceptibly, and for a second or two, apprehension swept back as he considered the implications of her question. But then it faded, submerged in the joy of having at last learned news of his daughter. Open gratitude filled his eyes, the guilelessness of which gave her pause. It felt familiar, foggily reminiscent of...somebody else.
"I am not authorized to commit such acts," he confessed. "I went there in secret because I saw the lights."
"The sun and the stars," assented Aleph. "But if we're talking about what you are authorized to do, surely it does not include seeing them in the sky to start with, right?"
"Well, I..." The program frowned. Then a shrug. "I saw them anyway."
"You perceived..." Aleph trailed off. The Keymaker. That was the person of whom Rama-Kandra's demeanor reminded her, someone she'd known and received kindness from. Someone who did not survive Smith's madness. If only she could have—
"They looked just like the lights that are programmed into the Matrix," Rama-Kandra's voice filtered in through the suddenly roaring tide. "It was so extraordinary to see them here, and I guessed something must be happening..."
"And you saw me there, between the forest and the city gates." With an effort, she forced her concentration back to the matter at hand. There would be enough chances to stew in her hang-ups later.
"But you were in the Matrix just two day ago, if you saw Sati there." The other's tone quickened. "How is that you got here? No human has ever arrived in 01 before."
"It's, um, a long story." Aleph had been expecting this from the very start of the conversation; nevertheless no appropriate lie occurred to her. "Actually, did you see anything else unusual outside the city?"
He shook his head, again lost in his own preoccupations. Aleph raised a hand to rub at her throbbing forehead. What was it Smith had said, when they'd been surrounded by the sentinels? He had told her to not look at him, or talk directly to him, so that she would not give away his own presence. Of course. This program's purpose, whatever it was, permitted him to perceive human code, but agents must have been a totally different matter. As far as Rama-Kandra was concerned, she had been alone in that field beyond the ramparts. Smith must have been invisible to him. For some reason the realization filled her with relief.
"So...can you help me get out of this place?" she asked cautiously.
She had imagined that other would vacillate, given his previously frightened demeanor. Maybe she would need to persuade or even to threaten him. But to her surprise, Rama-Kandra immediately drew right up to her in two rapid strides.
"Come with me."
"Er, come with you where?"
"You saw my daughter." He laid a hand upon her elbow, partly enthusiastic, partly flustered. "Can you recall her face, as exactly as possible?"
At his question, a quiet little image floated to the surface, that of a child standing framed in the wooden rectangle of a doorway, the warmth of the Oracle's apartment hallway spilling out from behind her. The girl's eyes went round with amazement, then a luminous smile lit them from within.
As if on cue and out of nowhere, a pale brightness began to flicker directly before her sight. Gradually it expanded like a tender flame, stronger than the flashlight's yellowish glow. Step by step, the shadows retreated, and a disk of uncanny twilight widened around the two of them. Aleph whirled.
They were no longer standing upon a featureless plain, but in a green garden beneath a dome of shimmering illumination, which issued from no visible source. At first glance, the radiance might have approximated that of sunshine, but no, it was maybe just a shade too white, too uniformly gentle. A soft turf lay beneath her feet, each grass blade a slender glittering emerald. Great trees of no species that she could name dotted the lawn, their limbs outstretched symmetrically, draped in leaves of curious shapes, yet all flawlessly formed. A few yards to her right, a stream cascaded over snowy rocks into a round pool; its tingling noise mingled with the trilling of unseen robins and nightingales, harmonizing into melodies that were quiet and sweet, if a touch more regular and tinnier than the voices of falling water and songbirds from the Matrix. Aleph lifted her eyes: the sky was a circle of pure liquid blue, decorated with a few clumps of cotton-candy clouds. She turned her head, and saw that to every direction, the light ended abruptly some dozens of yards in the distance, dissolving back into a continuous circular wall of deep blackness. A spring breeze caressed her face.
"You have seen Sati," whispered her companion. "Your memory of her is real, and you think kindly of her. This is the only way you can enter her home."
.
.
Across the valley, the waterfall sang, its incessant background harmonies a low hum against the newly arisen meadowlarks. Spring was in full riot. A young sun hung above the line of hilltops, framed by a halo of rose-hued clouds, while the diaphanous morning mist still lingered, a bevy of veiled dancers. Whatever else could be said about him, her husband always had an eye for beauty in details. At the terrace's edge, Persephone stood statue-still, one slender hand against the cool balustrade, the other tightly curled around her cell phone. All retainers had been order away. Deep inside the bowels of the chateau behind her, Mérovée lay in a thick-walled basement cell, trapped and alone. He might be cursing his own helplessness at the moment. Or more likely, scheming about further manipulations.
It hardly ever left her nowadays, this sensation of conflict like intractable wild horses inside her mind, rearing and pulling left and right, bent on ripping her asunder. To keep herself rational, she had to constantly remind herself of individual stabs of pain, individual betrayals. She recalled the rough strength of both his hands on her shoulders as he shoved her aside, the corridor's fluorescent whiteness harsh upon his face. Six centuries of a downhill marriage, the very first time he'd laid a finger on her. Her knees had slammed hard against the ground. They were still sore now.
Six centuries and the very first time she had instigated a mutiny, complete with corpses and firefights, multiple layers of intrigue, imprisonment. It was hard to believe that she hadn't done it ages ago, really, wasn't it? The clatter of a sword crashing down onto the marble floor rang out inside her ears, as loud as a gunshot. Again. To push it out of her memories, she recalled other sounds, the arrogant scorn of Mérovée's laughter as he stood at the center of a circle of tightly-aimed weapons, the passionate certainty of his replies against her accusations and her logic. His answers had been as quiet, and as ridiculously meaningless as those of some goddamned martyr. The Matrix. Soul. And yet it lives. His bizarrely genuine confusion as she confronted him with the facts of his attempt murder of her own mother. Well, heavens forbade that he ever put himself in another's shoes, of course. It would be beneath his royal status, she supposed.
Bonne déesse, you're all right. They haven't hurt you...
Persephone flinched. She returned to staring down at the phone in her hand, until another whole minute passed. Then another. Slowly, she switched it on and dialed.
"Kore?" As usual, the Oracle picked up on the first ring.
"Maman," she said.
"I'm here, dearest."
"There's something I wanted to tell you, Maman," began Persephone. "Something happened two nights ago..."
She faltered at her own stupidity. The realization fell upon her belatedly: her mother already knew. It was obvious, actually—since when had any intrigue or power-struggle within the Matrix ever escaped the Oracle's attention? All the well-prepared sentences turned to pebbles inside her mouth. Two nights ago, Maman, I finally put into action my plot to take control from my husband, a plot that I have been deliberating for months. He has grown increasingly obsessive, delusional, no longer able to rule the exiles in our employ and care. It was a necessary measure. I have not forgotten what he has tried to do to you, Maman.
"I did something the night before last." The next thing that came out was complete different from what she intended. "And Mérovée...Mérovée was badly injured. Shot. I did not want it to happen that way."
A long beat.
"But you are all right," said the Oracle.
"Yeah. I'm fine."
"Where is he now?"
"Locked up under the chateau in one of his own cells." A dry humorless laugh. "He's..." What was the human terminology? "In stable condition."
"Is he conscious?"
"Yes. I tried to talk to him." Persephone swallowed back a tiny jab of irritation. Why was her mother suddenly so solicitous about Mérovée? "He refused to understand what he has done. All these years, all the ways he's betrayed me. Even the reload...Even the fact that he tried to destroy your shell. But he—he simply could not wrap his mind around the fact that it wasn't normal. It wasn't right."
"Oh, my dearest," murmured the Oracle. The tenderness of the syllables shimmered against Persephone's ear and made her gulp.
"He claimed that he wanted to save the Matrix, as if that meant I was supposed to just forgive him again, for everything, the way I always forgave him before. And the way he spoke of his insane quest. He refused to see how much it had consumed him. He kept saying they were there, these invisible powers inside the walls of the Matrix..."
"So he maintains his beliefs," stated her mother.
"He didn't use to be like this," whispered Persephone. "What should I do, Maman? How do I go on from here?"
Another hush fell. The morning breeze touched her cheeks and throat, cool against the flames.
"Kore, my sweet girl," said the Oracle. She was the great seeress again, the wisest being in this realm of dreams. "He has made certain choices, and so have you. But no choice ever ends things once and for all, you know."
"What you're saying is that you won't tell me, Maman. Of course you won't."
"Whatever you decide, it must come from yourself."
"This is what you always say. To everyone."
"Because it is no mere platitude, but the only truth I can offer." Her mother sighed. "Let me give you an example, honey. You mentioned the reload a minute ago. Do you count what Mérovée did that time as one of his betrayals?"
"He trapped me in Club Hel with six agents!" Her fingers closed convulsively upon the terrace railing. The luminous April air darkened around her, and a lash of remembered lightning flared out of the past. It landed hard against her eyes, making them water. "Do you really need to ask such a question, Maman?"
"And have you considered why he did that, Kore?"
"It does not matter. He took away my choice."
"Indeed," agreed the Oracle far too placidly. "That night, Mérovée wanted to choose for you, according to his ideas and plans. But he did not succeed. Despite his actions, or I should say rather because of them, another choice arose before you, one that he never anticipated. And the way you chose changed everything. This is what I mean by the nature of choices, honey. You can never plan for all of them ahead of time."
"But you do," said Persephone, lacking another reply.
"Oh, not even I can see every possible future." Her mother must be smiling now. "But I don't need to. What I know is that you chose with steadfast courage. You held onto hope, and that hope was what saved the world, both the Matrix and beyond it. Do you see this now, child?"
"Maman, I..." She did not know how to continue.
"You have long come into your own." Not a trace of doubt marred the ancient queen's words. "Don't you forget this, my strong, brave girl. When you must choose again, use your heart the same as you once did, and you will understand. I promise..."
.
.
The stream was swift against her palms, as crisp as the edge of a scalpel. Kneeling upon the grassy bank, Aleph lifted a handful and splashed it against her face; the coded simulation of cool water swirled between her fingers, only very slightly too mercurial in comparison to what she knew from the Matrix and the physical world. Too pure, maybe. With a few rapid scrubs, she removed the smudges of grime and blood from her forehead and cheeks. Across the glistening surface, the reflection of a pale woman in scruffy clothes squinted back up at her with anxious dark eyes. There was a downward cast about the corner of her lips that would not wash away. At her back stood Rama-Kandra. The focus of his eyes had not left her for even an instant.
"Please," he said as she straightened to her feet. "Please, do sit down. You must tell me everything..."
From somewhere behind the nearest tree, he pulled out a pair of chairs. Incongruously, they were upholstered in dark red faux-leather and framed in shiny stainless steel, with wheels attached to the legs, like the type one might see in an office of a hospital. Aleph took the offered seat carefully, perching halfway. Nothing else odd happened.
"Now, you said that you saw Sati recently," breathed Rama-Kandra, leaning forward in his own chair. "How did she appear? Was she happy? Was she free?"
"She, um, I only saw your daughter for a minute or so, really." Aleph fought back the urge to fidget. "She opened the door for me when I visited the Oracle. She lives there, I think. And she seemed fine, honestly."
"Did she smile? What was she wearing?" At her start, the other program grinned apologetically, scooting back a little. "I am sorry. It's just that we haven't seen her in five months. It has been...hard, you know."
For the first time, he turned aside and gulped unobtrusively.
"Well, she was wearing a dress," said Aleph, doing her best to recall the sight of the little girl, even though she should be concentrating on her own goals instead. Take control of the conversation and steer it away from trivialities, for instance. "A yellow one, I guess, with flowers. Pink and white ones, maybe? I might have frightened her a bit, I'm afraid. What with the way my code I looked. As you can see yourself."
"Oh, your code looks fine," said Rama-Kandra distractedly. "So you believe that Sati is safe..."
"Yes. The Oracle knows everything that happens in the Matrix. She has kept Sati safe all this time, and will certainly continue to do so." Aleph kept her voice firmly reassuring, not a tremor at the sudden reverberation of thunder that only she could hear. Smith had said the child's name. He'd talked about her. To her. She must have been prominent among his phantoms.
"But how is it that you cannot find her yourself?" she asked after a quick inner debate. "Your purpose has something to do with humans, right? Otherwise you wouldn't have seen me, or possessed a shell in this...shape." She gestured vaguely in his direction. "So you must have the ability to observe Matrix somehow, right? Why not your own daughter?"
Fully aware of how forward she sounded, she paused to second-guess herself and her chances of receive an answer. Surely these matters were never meant to be disclosed to some random intruder. Rama-Kandra, however, evinced no suspicion.
"I have tried," he sighed, "but unfortunately my vision into the Matrix is highly restricted. I cannot observe its inhabitants freely, only the immediate vicinity of my subjects at the time of removal."
"Subjects? Removal?"
"Why, I am a recycling plant manager," he said as if that explained everything.
"I see. Can you tell me what that means, please?"
"I supervise the disposal process of humans that have reached the end points of their lives," replied Rama-Kandra readily. "Their bodies have to be flushed from the pods, and the remnant code fragments of their minds have to be collected for processing. The procedure is automatic for the most part, of course, but monitoring and oversight are still required. This is my work."
For a moment, Aleph sat there, regarding him open-mouthed.
"You are death," she whispered.
"Only for one sector of the Matrix," clarified the program matter-of-factly. "My purpose permits me to glimpse the batteries who are undergoing the process, and a bit of the construct surrounding them, nothing more."
"That's the reason you can perceive human code." She blinked. "But...can they sense you as well? The dying humans?"
"Oh, no!" Rama-Kandra exclaimed, astonished. "That would present a problem indeed, wouldn't it?"
"Indeed," muttered Aleph. Her fingers were gripping the chair's plastic armrests much too tightly; she took several deliberate heartbeats or so to loosen them. This world's sheer outlandishness was getting to her. She shouldn't let it.
"And this is how your learned to create all this, right?" She waved a hand at the foliage and sunshine surrounding them, feigning nonchalance. "You patterned this garden on what you saw in the Matrix."
"We try to build it as accurately as we can." His grin was an affecting mixture of modesty and pride. "My wife, too, contributes what knowledge she has gained from those who work in the Matrix. It is beautiful, is it not? Though I'm sure it's still not exactly right—"
"No, it is absolutely perfect," lied Aleph firmly.
"We wanted a good home for our child. Sati is so clever and inquisitive; everything she sees, hears and touches brings her so much joy. She deserves better than subterranean darkness. So we did our best, given our limitations. This refuge is still too small, though. It served well enough when she was younger, but now her mind is growing, always asking questions...It is no longer safe."
"And that was why you sent Sati to the Matrix," said Aleph. "You were afraid that she would be discovered."
"It is a terrible risk, we know. We've always known," murmured Rama-Kandra. In his lap, his hands clutched at each other, fingers laced. "But a lesser risk than what she would have faced had she stayed here. We considered it for the longest time before finally deciding."
Only a hint of agony spilled over from his sentences. Another silence followed, and Aleph wondered what other emotions this machine in front of her understood. How much could she afford to reveal to him? Maybe he would be sympathetic if she told him her story...She shoved the idea out of her mind immediately.
"I don't mean to pry," she said instead. "It must have been difficult for your wife, too."
"Ah, Kamala." The other's lips curled upward, apparently without his own notice. "She is an interactive software programmer. It is amazing that I found her, really. She is so extraordinary, intelligent and gentle. She is..." He trailed off, at a loss for adjectives. "You will see her for yourself, when she returns from work."
"The two of you must care for each other very much."
"We do, of course." It sounded like this was the most obvious thing in the universe. Which it was.
"But this—" As usual, it was a word she struggled with. "But this love does not have anything to do with what you were designed for. If you are discovered..."
He sucked in a sharp breath.
"Please, nevermind. Forgive my rudeness," said Aleph hastily.
"It is all right." He stopped speaking for a while. Above their heads, concealed birds—or more precisely bits of code formulated to imitate the rapture of birds—poured out their lilting notes into the spring radiance. Did people often die to such music inside the Matrix, enough that a grim reaper would have learned to replicate it? What a strange thought.
"If we are discovered, we will be deleted." Rama-Kandra stared down at his hands. "We have placed ourselves in danger, but it cannot be helped. For Sati, however, it is different."
He looked back up, expression open and gaze once more steady. To cover her own confusion, Aleph rose from her seat and paced a few steps before him, coming to a halt beside the great towering trunk of the nearest tree, a curious cross between oak and maple. She folded her arms about her chest.
"You must know well where love inescapably leads, then," she said. "You have watched deaths, more of them than I can probably imagine. So you must have also watched partings, grief, the gut-wrenching horrors of being torn apart from those whom one loves. You know all this, nevertheless you went ahead."
"One might think that we are fools to fall prey to the same temptation." Unexpectedly, Rama-Kandra comprehended her right away. "Perhaps we are. I have heard countless screams of anguish, weeping and desperate pleads. There's so much of it on display everyday, loss and sorrow that stem fro love. Yet in the end..."
He did not finish.
"Yet in the end, you acted upon your love. Even though you are afraid."
"We are afraid, yes." Rama-Kandra shrugged, though not in resignation, no. "What else is there to be done?"
Aleph had no way of replying to this. Directly above her, the leaves trembled upon the branches, turning the imitation sunlight into a dappled net of silver and jade.
"There's something I was hoping you could help me with," she said at last, gauging him for the least hint of distrust. "You see, I came to 01 with a...friend of mine. You didn't see him outside the city walls because he's not human, but a program. Like you."
Rama-Kandra stiffened abruptly.
"What sort of program?"
"I'm not sure if you are familiar with the type." Aleph cast about for a suitable evasion. The powers that be would not keep their servants apprised of the full workings of the construct, right? "He is of a type that helped to maintain the Matrix. We arrived together here, but we got separated."
"Ah." The other was still pensive, though tension was visibly creeping back into his expression. "If this friend of yours belongs to the Matrix, then in order to come to 01, he must have left his purpose behind. One of the..." His forehead wrinkled with an effort at recollection. "Exiles. That's the term for them, right?"
Aleph swore inwardly. She should have anticipated that he would put two and two together. But how would he respond to a request for aid? No idea.
"Yeah, something like that," she mumbled. "He is in the city somewhere. I—I need to go look for him."
"You shouldn't."
Well, here was her answer. How could she have imagined that the reaction would be anything else?
"I have to," she said.
"It is very improbable that a program who does not belong to the city would survive up there." Fear was a flowing tide within him now, that much she could tell. "Most likely, he has already been deleted."
"That's not possible," snapped Aleph before she could stop herself. "What I mean is, he is an—what I mean is that he is able to defend himself. Plus, I would know if anything's happened to him."
As soon as the last statement left her mouth, she noticed how irrational it was. Standing there beneath the massive peculiar-looking tree, she laid a palm against the smooth column of its trunk. The bark was tinted a warm brown, missing the intricately crafted details of the far better researched creations that filled the Matrix. More like a child's drawing. Swiftly, she weighed danger against danger. Smith out there beyond her reach. What would happen if this father came face-to-face with the crazed ex-agent, and discovered the monster who had once endangered his daughter?
"Please," she said, "can you help me get back to the surface of the city? I really must find him, especially given what you're telling me."
For the next few endless seconds, Rama-Kandra hesitated.
"Your friend, this program...What is he? What is he like?"
"He is..." How on earth could she possibly describe Smith?
"He is unwilling to stay chained to the purpose that was intended for him by others," she said. "He is not content to accept fate. He wants freedom, and—and answers to too many questions. It takes a great courage to be like that, I think. He does not want to admit defeat, and he does not want to hide, not anymore. He has done a lot of things that...were not right, but—but I maintain that to demand right or wrong from him, in itself, would have been the very height of hypocrisy. Much was done to him, and he has suffered. He must have lost much, and maybe...like many others, maybe he deserves a little better than what this world has pre-arranged for him."
It was a halting speech, manifestly unconvincing to anyone but herself, yet as she struggled to form the syllables and push them out of her throat, the knots inside her mind gradually loosened. The mottled sunlight billowed before her, brightening into a new clarity, and she almost gasped at this sudden view of her own stubborn cowardice, now laid bare.
"You think about him a great deal," observed Rama-Kandra. "What has he done?"
"Actually, I think—I think I figured out how to reach him. Thank you. I'm sorry. I have to go now."
"Wait!" He jumped to his feet just as she took the first stride across the lawn. "You just told me this program wants to—"
Directly ahead of her, the subconscious midnight beckoned, vast and fiercely unknown beyond the weird little paradise. Aleph kept walking.
"You said he won't hide," Rama-Kandra cried from behind, pitch veering upward with audible panic. "Not even before the Consciousness?"
He must have run to catch up with her, for a moment later, a hand grabbed her by the elbow. Aleph spun to face him.
"Listen. I don't know who or what your friend is," he choked out. "But he must be courting deletion willfully, from what you say. Even if you find him, his—his attitude will bring destruction down upon you. This is not the way. It's not how our city works."
"He is important to me." Aleph bit her lips. "Look, I'm grateful for your concern, but what about yourself? You fell in love, you married, you built a home. You created a child. None of these things were permitted by your purpose. Every single one of them would have been an instantaneous deletion sentence upon you, but you've done them anyway. You get what it's about, don't you? So please, there's no need to stop me."
"But we are not going out there and acting like we want to ask questions! We do our best to survive, despite our crimes. We stay out of attention." Rama-Kandra gulped. "I mean, yes, even after everything I've witnessed, I committed all these transgressions anyway. I know what pain such emotions lead to, because I feel it, every Matrix minute. Do you know what it like to be constantly scared? What it is like to be always waiting for the end—an end that can only be full of horrors?"
"Yeah. I do."
"We made this sanctuary deep below the abyss, Kamala and I." Rama-Kandra changed his tack. "We have done everything we can to conceal ourselves, and it is only possible because we belong to this city; we have secretly deciphered enough of its inner workings. You are outsiders. And someone as wild as your companion...The Consciousness may ignore the disobedient for a while, but not forever. You will be seen and captured."
The earnestness of his worry moved her. A dozen yards away, the wall of shadow rippled suddenly like a living flame, though it could only have been a trick the code was playing on her eyes.
"If you could choose again, would you have walked away from your wife—Kamala—instead?"
"No!" He recoiled. "It's not about choice, not that kind, anyway. We do not provoke the one who governs us!"
Aleph regarded him evenly for a long moment.
"Thank you," she said at last. "You have already helped me very much. Remember that Sati is safe in the Matrix, and she will be fine. She will grow up, free and happy. It's not going to end in horrors."
With one gentle movement, she shook her arm out of his grasp, and pivoted on her heels once more. A long step, then another, then her walk sped up into a run. This time, Rama-Kandra did not chase after her.
The black curtains dropped, its weight cold and palpable. For one heartbeat, the refuge's pallid gleam shone upon the empty plain from behind, then it, too, faded into the shadows. Aleph did not turn around.
"Smith," she called out. Doubt no longer ruled her, and at last neither tremor or ache touched the name.
"I'm here, Smith. Tell me where you are."
The arctic air shivered against her skin. Her eyes were useless here, but she kept them wide open anyway.
"Find me, Smith, because I am here. Because as I have already told you, our fates are already entwined into one, and I'm just going to keep on returning to you. You see, I am here, and I'm just going to keep on finding you, because I—"
Before she could pronounce the next two words, the night pulsated. The entire immensity of space bucked, like some great wounded creature crying out though it possessed no voice, nearly throwing her off balance and down to her knees. Then another dawn blazed into life around her.
.
Notes: Aleph met Sati briefly in Chapter IV-2 of Awakenings, when she visited the Oracle for the second time. Within the story time line, it happened only a day or two ago.
Smith and Aleph met the hijacked sentinel (secretly Rama-Kandra) outside of 01 in Chapter 5 (Three Battles) of this story. However, Rama-Kandra saw only Aleph and not Smith at that point. In the same chapter, the Merovingian pushed Persephone aside in his frantic rush to regain his notebook.
"And yet it lives": Chapter 10 (The Injured).
The story of the Merovingian's choice—as well as Persephone's—on the night of the reload will be explained soon.
