Unblinded

.

The human woman was foolhardy beyond every rational measure, assessed Rama-Kandra. How could she have run out into the night like that? Even if she somehow managed to avoid all the traps that lurked in the abyss—remnants of primitively designed creatures, long-deleted history, pocket dimensions that fluttered in and out of existence—she would inevitably expose herself to the attention of the Consciousness sooner or later. The best he could hope for was that the city's sentience would not track her path back here. To their home. He really should have prevented her from leaving.

Well, if she got herself killed, it would be her own fault. He had done what he could to warn her.

Some yards ahead of him, the wall of shadows billowed, rhythmic like a battery's heart rate on a hospital monitor, just on the verge of flatlining. With a rather brusque movement, Rama-Kandra pivoted on his heels and stalked back to the middle of the garden. He peered up at the patch of blue sky, but the dome's liquid radiance did nothing to reassure him. Neither did the music of Kamala's painstakingly handcrafted songbirds.

Aleph. That was her name, wasn't it? An unusual one for a denizen of the Matrix. Come to think of it, there had been a vaguely strange quality about her, something that he had been too excited to analyze while she'd been here. Nothing more than a very slight disquiet, which had crept over him when he'd looked at her...Not that it made a whit of difference any longer.

She had met Sati. She had seen his daughter, and understood.

What about that other program she'd talked about, then? The description of her fellow traveler had been frankly terrifying, not the least because he himself, too, understood. Her emotions were obvious to one accustomed to observing such things. However, even if he tried to help her, surely it would be of no use. The chances of rescuing the one she loved were slim to none. He could not afford to risk not only himself, but also—more importantly—Kamala.

A warm breeze rose, as gentle as his wife's fingertips. Rama-Kandra shook his head in resignation. Yes, their refuge would be instantly destroyed if discovered. For years, this piece of knowledge had quietly suffused each line and symbol of his programming, during each stolen minute of joy and affection; he'd grown to see it as a steady companion. The human female was a disruption, a new element of danger, from which the only course would be to steer away. In any case, he did not have much longer before needing to return to work in the fields. It was time to put her out of mind.

Sati was safe.

The unexpected flood of relief must have made him illogical. For five months, anxiety had flowed incessantly against his functions and subroutines, ever since the inexplicable tempest inside the construct, so soon after they'd sent Sati there. Involuntarily, the recycling plant manager shivered at the recollection: rows of bodies twitching inside their pods, indicator lights flashing wild across the field. That very same night, Kamala had been called into the Source to interrogate an exiled program, who'd warned obscurely of some hideous virus infecting the Matrix, about to utterly destroy it unless some deal was sealed...

As it happened, the Matrix had survived. And now, at long last, he had news that his daughter had survived. Aleph had laid eyes upon Sati, and told him—not nearly enough. Did she converse with his little girl? What were the words exchanged? What signs of the child's current thoughts and hopes did she catch?

How did this human female get into the city, anyway? How did she know the true state of the world? Rama-Kandra had some hazy awareness of humans who dwelt outside the Matrix and made war upon the machines, gleaned from disjointed ravings about 'crazies' and 'terrorists' from dying batteries, victims of such renegade creatures. Could Aleph have been one of them? She had not appeared hostile, however.

The question was completely moot. The encounter was over.

Maybe it was the light of Aleph's eyes that he'd found so uncanny. It was feverish and determined, all its despair well-hidden. Unlike everyone else in his admittedly biased experience, she believed that she could still do something.

Which, of course, was impossible.

Overhead, sweet sunshine hummed along as the birds trilled, testament to beauty and warmth of their secret life together, snatched directly beneath the Consciousness's sight. Dappled patterns of brilliance and shadow danced across the green turf. Rama-Kandra hesitated another interminable ten, twenty seconds. Then the verdant glow of his home dimmed about him. Darkness fell.

It took deep concentration to detect the very faint hint of humanity in the vast emptiness, especially as he was alone, without the data flow that always aided him in the course of his usual work. For a while, he was certain that no such hint was actually there. For another while, he was certain that it could be only a mirage born of his own imagination. Treat it as one of your subjects, Rama-Kandra told himself, and aimed the tendrils of his quantum operative states out toward the horizon. He thought about the pale young woman, the too-familiar tension of her voice, the conviction, the refusal to accept facts.

That undefinable oddness about the formation of her code, just a touch of...Translucency? Fluidity? Had he not been so distracted, surely he could have identified it earlier. It was one more conundrum that tugged at the back of his mind and refused to be placated.

The muted trace of human consciousness strengthened. Rama-Kandra pushed his detection abilities, part and parcel of his purpose, to the very limit. He had to keep searching.

Her body. She had none. No flesh and blood had existed behind Aleph's pulse and breathing, no form, no function inside any physical locatable pod. Despite what she had looked like, she was not human after all—

Without warning, space gyrated and slid apart. The sensation of another's presence congealed to a palpable force, finally incontrovertible in its reality. Then the weight of the Matrix crashed down upon him.

A blast of wind slammed into Rama-Kandra's face; automatically, he held up an arm in an attempt to shield his eyes from the dust cloud. Somehow, he managed to brace his other hand against something solid, and kept himself from falling. A brick wall.

To every direction, flames reddened the air. He knew what these phenomena were, having had to deal with batteries who died by them. Straightening, Rama-Kandra turned his head from side to side in shock. Eventually, his eyes returned to focus; he was on a sidewalk by a narrow deserted street, in the middle of a city of jagged walls and half-collapsed towers. The vista was far more expansive than any he had ever glimpsed before: his vision extended all the way down the road and to the vanishing point. Piles of detritus clogged the pavement, and fumes swirled upon the wind, astringent against the skin of his shell. He must have strayed into one of the ancient files that had been shoved down here, one of some terrible calamity that had once befallen the world. No living things stirred.

Aleph was definitely in the vicinity, near enough that he could make a fair estimate of her location. Squinting through the smoke, Rama-Kandra started to make his way along the street.

If he possessed his true physical form, clambering over the hills of rubble would have been much easier. But the spatial arrays of this record were indistinguishable from those of the Matrix, and he appeared to be locked into the human shape of his observational shell here. As such, he had to scramble past shattered concrete and bricks on two legs instead of fourteen, stumbling several times and nearly tripping over a protruding beam. After rounding a corner, he emerged onto a wider street, and immediately caught sight of Aleph in the distance.

"Oh, there you are," he cried, panting from the exertion. "I thought I'd better come and search for you after all. I was worried that you had gone and gotten completely lost in the night—"

She regarded him with open-mouthed astonishment.

"Rama-Kandra? How did you get here?"

"I followed your code. It still looks awfully human, actually." He shrugged with relief. "It's a good thing I found you."

"Oh," said Aleph. She frowned, then turned her head briefly sideways, though no one was beside her.

"Please, come back with me." Belatedly, Rama-Kandra noticed the way the minutes were slipping by. "I must return to the pod farm soon, but you'll safe in our home for a while. You still have not told me everything about your meeting with Sati. And my wife will be so glad to see you..."

"Er, it's all right," she said in a constrained tone.

"We need to get out of here right away," he insisted. "It looks like a record of the Matrix, but we don't know where or when it was from. There may be things here that...would be bad to run into. There's not much time left. Please."

"It's just someone I met recently," muttered Aleph. "He doesn't know. What does it matter?"

A tremor ran across him as realization fell. The bonfires vibrated, filling his olfactory sense with a thick acrid scent. The closest one burnt only a short ways from them, yet it gave no heat.

"Who are you talking to?" he asked.

"Oh, nevermind. No one. I'm sorry, Rama-Kandra. I really appreciate your kindness, but I don't think I..."

"Who is there with you?" He walked a pace toward her.

A silence passed. Aleph's back stiffened as if about to pounce. The chill of dread expanded through all of his processing algorithms; Rama-Kandra shuddered, but held his ground.

"Do you remember..." said Aleph at last. "Um, do you remember how every aspect of you used to be bound to your purpose? How you could not even see, or notice in any way, things or people that were outside of that purpose?"

Again, she looked over at the unoccupied space next to herself, as if listening to words that he could not hear. Rama-Kandra took in a sharp breath. Another presence coalesced into focus, as yet invisible, an apparition bare inches beyond the boundary of his perception. There was a ferocious intensity to it, an uneasy energy that he was unequipped to read. Not human.

"But you have changed," continued Aleph. "Your awareness has developed beyond what was necessary for the tasks assigned to you, I know this because of, well, everything you are now. You are no longer blind, and...and now the only thing that remains is to open your eyes."

"The one who came into 01 with you." He lowered his voice for some reason, forgetting his haste. "He is here."

She nodded. Rama-Kandra blinked at her in confusion; the shard of reality shimmered, and abruptly there was a program standing next to Aleph, in the shape of a tall man in a battered black suit. Dried blood splotched across the front of his shirt, and a long spike of broken metal was gripped tightly in his right hand.

"You are Sati's parent," said the stranger, not loudly, but Rama-Kandra took a backward step. Neither the man's voice or expression was readable. A pair of icy blue eyes stared across the smoggy air unwaveringly.

.


.

"Mr. Diaz always said that you should never move your queen so early in the game," declared Sati, sitting cross-legged on the living room rug, chin propped up on both fists. Cloud-streaked sunlight drizzled in from the windows to drape over her form: blue checkered seersucker dress, a pair of thick dark braids, earnest expression on her face. From her seat at the room's other end, the Oracle could not suppress a smile. Even now, five months later, the fact that the Matrix had survived its latest reload—intact, alive, evolving—still felt outright incredible at times.

"Ah. I still haven't gotten the hang of these pieces yet, especially the queen." Across the chessboard spread upon the coffee table, Seraph grinned. "Your turn."

The girl chewed on her lower lip, lost in thought. Slowly, she reached over and pushed a pawn one square forward, then hesitated again.

"Mr. Diaz is going to die soon, is he?" she asked.

Seraph's hand, on its way toward the board, froze mid-air. Even the Oracle's eyes widened, though barely perceptibly.

"What makes you say so, honey?"

Sati looked up. Her eyes were glistening, incongruously serious.

"Um, I heard you guys talking about Mr. Diaz yesterday," she confessed. "You were whispering in the kitchen and I didn't mean to listen because I knew I wasn't supposed to. But I couldn't help it. And you said, hospital. My dad knows all about hospitals." A small hitch of breath. "People who go there die."

"Well, that's not exactly true, not always," said Seraph. "You dad, perhaps, because of his job, tends to observe just one aspect of how these things work..."

He trailed off. For all her youth, it was difficult to lie to Sati. No one spoke for a while. Rapidly, the Oracle conducted an information review: the old man's current location and status, which Seraph had recently extracted from a data sweep of multiple medical centers in the city, two months' worth of friendly conversations in the park, each word analyzed and cross-referenced against both systemic documentation and human experience. The evidence of her own ancient insight and unshakable sense of foreboding. A sea-change was upon the winds, and ordinary battery that he was, Arturo Diaz would have a role to play yet. He would be among the first to...do what? She did not know, except that not much time remained.

"I am so sorry, my dear," she said instead.

"I don't see why." The girl's tone wobbled.

"Hey," cut in Seraph quickly, leaning in to shift a chess piece along the board. "Here's my move—"

"Why Mr. Diaz has to get so sick," clarified Sati without glancing down at the game.

"Oh, none of us do," replied the Oracle quietly. If she sighed at the thought of having chosen a dying man for the child to befriend, it was inaudible. From the very moment when she'd met Arturo five months ago, the necessity of keeping an eye on him had been as clear as day. It was imperative that she did not allow him to slip back into the crowd.

"I wish...I could see Mr. Diaz again. Just one more time."

"Perhaps you will, honey." Beneath the placid reply, a dozen intuitive mental algorithms burst into activity. "Perhaps you will. Mr. Diaz is a very special person, you know."

"A special person, huh?" jeered a raspy new voice from across the room.

Everyone turned. In one fluid motion, Seraph pushed off from the floor and was on his feet. In the doorway, Charon stood leaning against the wall, arms folded about his chest.

"I know you, Fortune-teller." The edge of his mouth twitched. "Ain't ever gonna find you so much as notice anybody who doesn't have some special use for your schemes, right?"

"That's not true," protested Sati.

"And I was imagining that even someone such as you would be capable of a shred of gratitude," said Seraph, advancing a pace. "I was wrong, it appears."

"Aww, don't pretend, ma'am." Ignoring him, Charon tilted his chin toward the coffee table. "The likes of me are just chess pieces to the likes of you. Nothin' more."

The Oracle appraised Mérovée's most loyal servant as he shambled into the room. The stink of booze had partly dissipated from his clothes, or an attempt might actually have been made to scrub it out. His hair, though, was as untamed as ever. Bloodshot eyes squinted at her in brazen challenge.

"You have rested well, I hope?" she inquired, a mild opening.

"Why, I'm already as good as new." He spread his hands, injecting a full dose of sarcasm into the simple gesture. "Well?"

"Well what, my dear?"

A snort.

"You wouldn't have done nothing for me if you didn't have some sort of plan of your own all mapped out, right? And for my lord. So out with it, Fortune-teller. What the bloody hell do you want?"

"Watch your language," snapped her bodyguard. Two forward strides, and he had already positioned himself to the man's left side, just within striking distance.

"There is no need to discuss such matters in front of Sati," said the Oracle, unperturbed.

"I'm not a baby," piped up the little girl, sounding rather offended. She, too, had scrambled to her feet, and was peering boldly at the strange program from behind Seraph's back. "You don't have to be so upset all the time, you know."

The stationmaster tossed her a sideways scowl.

"Be happy that you don't understand the least of it, kid."

"You're the one who brought me here, aren't you?"

"What?"

"You drove the train that took me into the Matrix," said Sati as she approached another step. Seraph grabbed her hand, pulling her next to himself.

"Er, yeah," mumbled Charon in evident confusion. A shrug.

"Thank you," said Sati evenly.

"Well, not that the Matrix turned out so much better just then," grunted the stationmaster. "What with the fu—" He bit back on the profanity. "What with the virus and all."

Seraph's eyes went cold, and the seeress flinched, though none of the others saw it. It was uncharacteristic of her, this dangerous vulnerability born of personal feelings. All it took was the same old epithet, and the heaviness of her broke promise was already a surging tide. Pallid sunlight darkened into an unnatural midnight, punctuated by lightning. Mom. It had been the one and only time Smith had called her this.

"It's okay," soothed Sati, face upturned so as to meet Charon's stare. "Everything turned out okay."

"Yeah." He let out a dry laugh. "I bet it did. For you."

"Were you scared, too?"

The question was almost astonishing in its bluntness, but their disreputable guest merely shook his head.

"Nah. I was fightin'."

"Oh, really," grumbled Seraph.

Charon stiffened. The two men faced each other for a stretched-out moment.

"This little apartment can't handle any of your violent impulses," remarked the old woman. "Please do refrain."

"I fought to the end, as Messire ordered." For the first time, the stationmaster's syllables were neither slurred nor caustic. "I stayed just where I was, right in the middle of that white corridor, even though he, I mean they kept coming. No matter what we did they just kept coming. But we didn't retreat, until—"

He cut himself off. Seraph frowned, seemingly at a loss.

"That's...really brave," breathed Sati, eyes as big as saucers.

Charon's back slumped again as he pivoted back toward the old woman. No threat or even defiance was visible in him anymore: the fires had faded as swiftly as they had blazed.

"I told the lads, hold your positions, 'cause that was what the master needed them to do. They didn't need to figure out what it was about." A jerky wave of the hand. "And the boys kept themselves together. I saw each of them fall to the virus. Got taken and turned. None of 'em cut and ran."

"Sati is right," said the Oracle. "You were brave, both you and the rest of the men."

"So why did they do it?" The cry burst, a thunderclap. "They were true and right, five months ago. And now—now in peace they had to go and betray Messire. Why?"

"My dear—"

"Why? Can you tell me that, if you understand the heart of every living thing in this blasted world? What changed? Our master was doing everythin' he could to save the Matrix, don't they get it? Why did they fall apart into a bunch of blind cowards?"

"My dear," she repeated. Behind the man's back, Seraph grimaced at her, trying his hardest to convey some unspoken message. "I believe you can find the answers if you but search for them. Do not blame your old colleagues."

"You said you're gonna aid me. Well, I'm recovered now. It's high time for me to go rescue my master."

"There's no need for haste," replied the seeress. She took a few seconds to penetrate her sight through the layers of his code, and was startled to find that the damage had indeed repaired itself for the most part, despite the short span of time since his injury. What had it been, forty-eight, fifty hours? A conjecture took shape almost instantaneously, one that she would have to consider with care.

"Sati," she called out past Charon's shoulder. "You said you wished for a chance to see Mr. Diaz again, didn't you?"

"We'll have to discover which hospital Arturo is in," lied Seraph smoothly, picking up on her hint. "And those places won't let people wander in at just any random time for a visit, I bet."

The child's gaze passed from the old woman to their guest, then finally up to at the bodyguard holding her hand.

"I'm going to do a bit of research, and maybe make some phone calls." He smiled reassuringly at her. "Would you like to come with me and help?"

Sati nodded, and he started to lead her away. In the doorway, she paused and twisted around to face Charon once more.

"Bye," she said kindly. "You'll make up with your friends later, I'm sure."

The unlikely pair of programs watched as warrior and child exited.

"So, what is it, Fortune-teller?"

The Oracle did not answer immediately. For a while, she stared over at the abandoned chess game spread upon the table. The pieces were gathering, visible and invisible ones, including the man currently standing in her living room and regarding her with wary eyes. It was her turn to move, yet a rare reluctance had stretched out its claws and taken grip, holding her in silence.

"What do you want from my master?" demanded Charon again.

"I see that you have healed, rather more efficiently than I anticipated," she said at last. All indecision fled: it was too risky to get Kore further involved. She had manipulated her daughter enough. "As for your master, I only want to meet and talk with him."

"Is that so?" Suspicion all but radiated from him.

"It's going to be an uphill battle, frankly, if you wish to rescue Mérovée," she pointed out. "Why, to give just one example, how do you propose to breach the dungeons of that chateau of his, may I ask?"

The man's brows rose, suddenly and fleetingly, though he offered no retort.

"He did me a favor the last time we met, you see. One that allowed me to gain certain extraordinary insights." The Oracle relaxed back in her chair, as serene as ever. "When you see your master again, you can tell him this. I believe that he will be interested in what I have to say."

.


.

The child's name slashed the inside his mouth like a scalpel. The other man—gray suit, longish black hair, a timid expression—gaped at him in fright. At least this program had the courage to perceive him, admitted Smith. In itself, this was already far more than could be said about every other machine in 01 so far.

"Sati," murmured the newcomer. He gulped. "Do you know her?"

"Actually, Rama-Kandra," interjected Aleph, sounding curiously tense as well, "I was one who mentioned your daughter to my friend here—"

"You are Sati's parent," reiterated Smith.

"I, well, my name is Rama-Kandra," said the man. His hands clutched and unclutched at his sides. "My little girl is in the Matrix, and I am wondering if you might have...I've been search for news of her for months, you see."

Worry battled with hope in the halting sentences. Smith would normally have despised such obvious weakness, but for whatever irrational reasons, he could no longer quite muster up the contempt. It might have been the recent fight, or the fading echoes of an ancient feminine voice whispering promises into his ears, suffused with a power that was both infinitely tender and infinite powerful. That voice, too, had been that of a parent. You shall be my own son.

You are a bad man, piped up a small child from the back of his head, but unlike all the other times he'd heard it before, the statement contained no note of accusation. None of the other phantoms joined her.

"Smith, I met Rama-Kandra earlier when was looking for you," Aleph began again gamely, glancing over at him. "I informed him how I ran into Sati just a day or two ago. She opened the door for me when I went to see the Oracle, you know." Sensibly, she skipped over explaining their prison and the circumstances of her recent and short-lived escape. "She is well. Perfectly safe and happy. The Oracle is taking wonderful care of her, as I've said to Rama-Kandra already..."

The quick flow of her patter reminded him of the early days of their acquaintance. She always did have a tendency to start talking this way while nervous. By now, Smith was well capable of picking up on the ridiculous hint she was trying so frantically convey. But it would be beneath him to hide behind falsehoods. He was not afraid of the girl's father.

"Yes," said Smith, meeting the other's gaze directly. "I have met your daughter."

"Ah," breathed Rama-Kandra, eyes round. "Where? When? How did she look?"

"Oh, I forgot to introduce my friend, how rude of me," persisted Aleph, "Smith used to, er, work inside the Matrix, so he's met a lot of people there. Programs and humans. It must have been quite a while back. I am sure you don't remember all the details, right, Smith?"

He threw a quick glare of irritation over at her. What did she think he was?

"To the contrary, I remember—"

I'm not scared of you, declared Sati with conviction. 'Cause you are scare of me. You think you can hurt me, but you can't, not really.

Despite himself, Smith recoiled, and did not finish. The hush thickened into awkwardness around them.

Your mom would want you to stop this, went on the little girl, patient instead of angry. It was as if she were talking to another child, one even younger than herself. Without warning, something cried out from each open wound within his own programming, each hollowness between the ragged pieces of past and self. He did not want to call it an ache.

"I remember your daughter very well," said Smith, much more quietly than he intended. After a taking a fraction of a second to assess the situation, he loosened the fingers of his right hand and allowed the makeshift spear to clatter to the ground. He was not accustomed to the need for a less intimidating appearance.

"Um, weren't you just saying that you have to get back to work, Rama-Kandra?" Yet one more valiant attempt on Aleph's part. "Maybe you should go ahead, don't be delayed on our account. We wouldn't want you to get into trouble—"

The man started, evidently torn by indecision.

"We are very grateful that you've done so much to help us out, really," she followed up in a rush, "but we're hoping to get out of this place, and, um, we'll be on our way if you'll just—"

"I have a few more minutes," interrupted Rama-Kandra, turning his eyes back toward Smith. "If Sati said anything to you, I asked that you tell me. It's...very important to us, you see."

Why did you make it rain so hard,anyway? wondered Sati, precociously pensive. I mean, I like rain, but not all the time, and not when it's icy cold like this. It's like needles on my skin when the rain is so cold. It hurts.

"I am not someone whom you should ask about children," said Smith.

"Please," implored Aleph.

"She was very brave."

To his amazement, Rama-Kandra beamed.

"Yes, yes. She's still young, certainly, but she's already grown quite strong-minded, that much is for sure. You could see it right away, couldn't you?"

If you wanted rain, you could've let it be gentler, reasoned Sati. Just...normal, you know. Like in the spring when the water falls like pretty silver threads, and all the grass leaves reach upward, grabbing at them...

Maybe Aleph was right after all, the bewildering idea materialized from the gaps between the girl's sentences. Maybe he could at least wait a short while before telling this father the truth.

I wish my mom and dad can see more of the Matrix, and every beautiful thing in it, the grass and the sky and the rain.

"You care about her a great deal, do you not?" he asked.

"Smith," whispered Aleph, half-choked. It was impossible for him to explain.

Our home has sunshine, but Mom said that she was still working on rain. Sati's mood was brightening, now downright cheerful. The grass and flowers are like in the Matrix, but not exactly the same. Look, I'll show you.

As if in response to the silly child's words, the dead city shivered around them, exactly once. No dust rose, yet the ruined walls dropped away to both sides of the street, and the fires dissipated. The light flickered from dull crimson into the pale blue of a balmy spring day, and beneath their feet, rough asphalt softened to a green lawn. The three of them were standing at the center of a circle of tall trees, their trunks of varying thickness and hue. A liquid glow poured down among great outspread boughs and glittered upon the grass. The shift of environment was far more rapid—he might have said far more confounding—than any he had experienced so far in this bizarre city, and Smith whirled, arms already raised into fight-ready stance. He should have anticipated it, the cunning trap sprung by a single uncontrolled thought—

"It's okay, Smith!" yelled Aleph. "This is Rama-Kandra's home!"

Her fingers pressed urgently against the fabric of his sleeve. He waited for a full second, then another, then another, but every last one of his ghosts kept resolutely silent. None surfaced to egg him on.

It's nice here, isn't it? Sati sounded innocently proud. Do you like it?

"You are able to enter our garden." Rama-Kandra had backpedaled several steps, yet behind the alarm upon his face, a grin was spreading. "You are telling me the truth."

Another moment of deliberation. Smith lowered his fists, surveying the new spatial formation surrounding him. This place, in any case, was certainly not the Matrix, but an imitation, limited to a region about seventy meters in diameter, screened all around by a circular wall of impenetrable blackness. The emerald grass blades carpeting the ground was two or three hues over-saturated, and the disk of azure sky above was just a notch too pure. No flower petal displayed any blemish; the white stones lining the stream did not contain enough visual texture. Inexplicably, he found no ability to disparage any of these flaws.

"Explain what do you mean by this," he commanded, recapturing a fragment of his former authority.

"Oh, this is how we have secured our little refuge." The other program's smile widened. "We built it down here deep inside the abyss, out of the Consciousness's attention, but in order to make it absolutely safe, my dear wife constructed another layer of code over it. A lock, so to speak, which takes advantage of the nature of this world."

"The virtual city of 01 is a space of the mind." Aleph's brows crinkled with dawning comprehension. "It has an innate tendency to interact with the thoughts of anyone who arrives, and this tendency must be amplified in the subconscious part of the city. You made use of it."

"Absolutely." Rama-Kandra nodded. "Kamala, amazingly creative as she always is, conceived the idea of using the knowledge of our child as a key to our lock. Not merely knowledge, but emotion as well."

"You said that I thought kindly of Sati, and that was the only way I could have gotten in," said Aleph. "But that means..."

"A very clever method indeed," Smith cut her off, "which will ensure that no enemy will ever learn of this place's existence."

"You are correct. This humble sanctuary will only reveal itself to those who hold sympathetic feelings about our daughter," said Rama-Kandra. "So the fact that you have just entered assures me that you are no enemy, but a friend."

He ought to laugh at the terrible irony. Smith met the other's guileless eyes, except that a human heartbeat later, he discovered that the strengths of both rage and insanity had deserted him. He was alone inside his head.

"You wanted to save her," he stated instead, "even though you were afraid. You found courage that you did not previous possess. How?"

"Well, Smith, I don't know if we should..."

"I can tell you much about our love for her," assented the poor trusting fool with enthusiasm. Then he froze briefly. "Oh, but the time! I must hurry back to check on the pod farm now, or I'll really be late. Please, do stay here while I am gone. For outsiders like you, it is far safer that you do not stray into the darkness, and when I come back—and so will Kamala—we'll ask you all about your encounter with Sati—"

"Very well. There are also some matters that I wish to ask you about," said Smith. The abrupt absence of his tormentors was uncanny, akin to the chill of a wintry river against his shell, or of plunging from great heights. The humans had a term for it. Vulnerability.

"Of course, of course," replied Rama-Kandra, already preoccupied by the demands of his purpose. He turned away, and the air's digital arrays started to quiver about him. Just before he disappeared, Smith caught an ephemeral glimpse of the program's true shape, no longer a meek fearful man but a creature of powerful gleaming steel, its many segments flexing and twisting beneath the artificial sunlight. Then he was gone, and the two travelers were left alone in the secret garden.

.


Notes: Arturo Diaz is a human whom the Oracle and Sati befriended two months ago, as mentioned in Chapter 8 (The Morning).

"Breach the dungeons of that chateau of his": The Oracles found out the Merovingian's whereabouts in Chapter 16 (Rama-Kandra).

"You shall be my own son": In Chapter 17 (Enter the Demonic), Smith remembers a powerful entity saying this to him at the end of the Second Cycle, as he lay on the bridge between the Matrix and 01.

"You said that I thought kindly of Sati": In Chapter 16 (Rama-Kandra), Rama-Kandra says this to Aleph after she entered his home for the first time.