Matrix Cycle 8: V

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5 days±16 hours before reload

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Frustration, like every other emotion, was an unbecoming flaw in an agent program. However, Helena had always been keenly aware of the fact that her code had been built only halfway to agent specifications. Isolation from the power who owned her was an integral aspect of her existence within the Matrix, and her communications with the Mainframe were infrequent by necessity. Surely some latitude could be permitted in such an unusual case. Hence, the unlikely spy did not bother to suppress a dissatisfied grimace as she stood in the rising elevator. Right before the doors slid open, she schooled her lovely face back to its usual expression, half careless boredom, half calculating vanity.

An inexcusable eternity of nearly five months had passed since she'd received her order. Discover the whereabouts of Ada M. Greene, previously a member of the Zionite ship Hyperion, currently...It was not for Helena to speculate what the woman's current nature might possibly be. She had made numerous attempts, one subtle verbal trap after another, sometimes coupled with well-measured sexual distraction, sometimes with the force of sheer persistence. Progress had been plodding, for the most part composed of the drudgery of countless scenario computations. But progress had been made. A few of the Frenchman's underlings, despite the instructions of their master, had been induced to drop an unguarded phrase here and there. A plural noun: prisoners in the dungeons. A feminine pronoun: the master again sent a letter down to her. As far as she could pry out of the idiots, a captive had been taken just around the time when Ada Greene had dropped off the grid, the resistant's file officially closed. The pieces held together. She was one last link away from completing the unassailable chain of inferences.

One last insurmountable link.

The Merovingian's domain was an extraordinary thing, she had to admit. A construct inside the construct, it remained largely impenetrable even to the system itself, even after nearly a century. The chateau, the heart of the bizarre little realm, was an elegantly-designed mirage, hidden with both inexplicable cunning and a strength meshed into the flesh of the Matrix itself. Quite simply put, it did not exist to the mind and eyes of any outside force, unless explicitly revealed by the Frenchman's own will. Even if an army of agents could storm the fortress's walls—if those walls would stand solid and real for them, that was to say—no door to the dungeons would appear before them, no prisoner found.

Not that she would be doing any storming of castles, Helena reminded herself as she strolled down the wide top-floor corridor toward the restaurant's front door, the noise of her high-heeled shoes muffled against the plush cream-hued carpeting. The limitations placed upon her own programming precluded such things, for obvious reasons. Sensual appeal and wits were the only weapons she possessed.

The lights were not yet on inside Le Vrai. Waiters, a squadron of efficient ghosts, were moving across the main room, setting up for the evening shift. She spotted the exiled lord from a distance. The Merovingian stood beneath one of the art-deco gateways along the far wall, hands in his pockets and posture more laid-back than she had seen in weeks, conferring with the floor manager. His head turned in her direction as soon as she entered; for a millisecond or two, the air froze around her as his glance swept across her face. Then the ice cracked into a knowing smirk. Deliberately flustered, Helena raised one hand to tuck back a tendril of platinum-blonde hair, which had managed to slip charmingly loose from her perfect chignon. The Frenchman's grin widened. With a tilt of his chin and a few parting instructions, he parted from the underling and disappeared into the back. After a moment of consideration, Helena slipped away as well, leaving the restaurant behind once more.

Returning to the expansive hallways of the building, she took several familiar turns, and soon found herself in a silent dead-end passage. Alone, of course. Late October twilight drizzled in from a row of tall windows, trailing over the single thick oak door on the corridor's opposite side. She approached without pause or vacillation. Before she could knock at the door, however, it was flung open in her face.

"May I be of service to you, mademoiselle?" asked the Merovingian, standing framed in the rectangle of golden lamp glow, clearly amused.

"Oh!" Helena feigned an instant of startlement. "I was about to ask you the same, Monsieur Mérovée—"

The exile's lips twitched upward. A backward step on his part, a forward one on hers, and she crossed the threshold into his office. Pulling the door closed behind herself, she scanned the sumptuous room with its ornate yet tastefully faded furniture, silent heavy curtains, the clutter of papers strewn across the desk. Nothing had changed visibly since the last time she'd been here.

"I'm so happy that you sent for me," she began in a sweet purr. "You've hardly spoken a sentence to me for more than a month, monsieur. I was terribly afraid that I'd offended you somehow."

The Merovingian did not answer right away, not in words. Instead, he regarded with his customary appreciation for the space of several drawn-out breathes, allowing his sight to run ostentatiously toward the low-cut blouse under her silk autumn jacket, then further down.

"Please," went on Helena with a pout. "What have I done wrong to merit this neglect?"

"Surely you do yourself a disservice, belle Hélène." Amusement mingled with mock gallantry in the Merovingian's tone. "How can a lady as lovely as you ever do anything wrong?"

She followed him to the middle of the room, watchful for signs of rigidity in the set of his shoulders. Such tension had grown increasingly frequent these past weeks, but it appeared to be well-suppressed today: the Frenchman's usual demeanor was securely in place, carelessly suave according to human standards, all unreadable facade. Next to the expansive rosewood desk, he turned to face her again, and Helena advanced another two paces, so that they stood only a foot apart. She laid a slender hand against his upper arm. A tenth of a second for a sideway glimpse: only mundane business documents on the desk, a deed or two.

An unspoken invitation glittered lazily in the Merovingian's eyes as he appraised her. Helena reached in with smooth grace, her palm sliding up along his sleeve. Then another easy move, from jacket shoulder to the collar of his blood-hued silk shirt. The Frenchman lifted a hand as well, fingertips brushing against the side of her left cheek, his touch far better calibrated that those of human males.

"You are truly saving my life, ma ange du ciel," he sighed.

"Mmm." She hovered an inch away, not yet pressing against him. Her hand began to work its way playfully under his collar. "Work has been tough recently, my lord?"

"Ah, you simply won't believe..."

It was time to lean forward just a bit more. Carmine lips pressed against the corner of his mouth, then she allowed the very tip of her tongue to dart out, the barest butterfly wing against the other program's skin.

"I'm grateful that you allow me to be of use, my lord," she whispered.

"Indeed," breathed the Frenchman, the two syllables of his reply warm against her ear. "As you should be, because I'm still giving you a chance despite all your lies, isn't that so?"

The shove against her shoulder was not even particularly rough, just sufficient to send her stumbling backward. The next thing she saw was the slim blade in his left hand, its aim straight and unhesitant toward her throat. The movement would have been much too fast for a mere battery's perception, yet Helena's sight—because this part of her was still based on the agent template, at least—took in each centimeter of the weapon's flashing trajectory with infinite slow-motion clarity. She could even pick out the details of the inlaid ivory handle, the filaments of the acid-etched vines upon the steel. Time crystallized, and some previously unknown beast howled out from inside her codes, straining in frantic rage against its chains, but her shell was not that of an agent. It was slow and weak, helpless—

Four inches before it transfixed her throat, the stiletto swerved. The faintest of breezes rippled against the skin of her left cheek, and she was aware of a single lock of shorn hair fluttering delicately down to the ground. She steadied herself and held still. Silence. No further assault, no masculine fingers wrapped around her neck. The Merovingian was leaning back against the edge of the desk, the antique letter-opener dangling between his fingers like some silly knick-knack.

"My lord, I—" she gasped. "Oh, you've frightened me—"

The Merovingian merely regarded her, something akin to idle curiosity in his expression.

"Why, I am disappointed, Hélène," he said. "After everything that I've done for you? After the protection I extended to you?"

He could destroy her with no effort whatsoever. And her mission would go unfulfilled. Helena swallowed back a twinge and lowered her gaze.

"I..." A few frenetic calculations. "I met some people who said they wanted to find out about you. I'm so sorry, Monsieur Mérovée. You've given me safety ever since I came into exile, but...They said they'd pay me a hundred thousand—"

"Oh, really?"

The irony in the simple query, though quiet, was unmistakable. Helena bit her lower lip in apparent contrition. She could tremble. She could turn pale and quicken her pulse. She could not bring the softness of moisture into her eyes no matter how hard she tried. Tears had always been beyond her abilities.

"I am sorry," she repeated. "It will never happen again."

With a clang, the Frenchman tossed the letter-opener back onto the desk behind himself. Two strides forward, and the back of his cool hand was under her chin, pushing it up so that she was again forced to look directly into his face.

"An excellent effort," he commented. "But playing innocent is not becoming of an agent program, ma chère."

"An—an agent program, sir?" The stutter was convincing enough, the transitory quaver of fear even more so. Uncomfortably close to the real thing.

"Now, what was it you said you were, when you first came to me, begging for refuge?" asked the Merovingian, switching to pensive on a dime. "A program created for an experimental study of human sexual desire, if I recall correctly?"

"Yes, my lord." She gulped. "Except the experiment had been scrapped. You saved my life."

"You are a remarkable creature, Hélène, quite unlike any of the others," mused the former king, half to himself. "It took me a most indefensibly long while to figure you out, I confess. Why, I simply never imagined that the old machinist Creator could have invented something as...uniquely self-contradictory as you."

An eon of five, six heartbeats passed.

"If I were really an agent program, I would have known how to defend myself against you," said Helena in a low voice.

The hush returned. Then, very slowly, the trace of a smile crept into the Frenchman's frigid eyes.

"That is precisely what makes you so fascinating, isn't it? Only partly an agent's code, and partly..." In less than a blink of an eye, the pressure was gone from the bottom of her chin. "Whatever else you are."

Swiftly, Helena tried to compute the probability that this was yet another type of test. She did not succeed.

"I do not know," she said at last.

"You do not know what, Hélène?"

"I do not know where the rest of my code came from," replied Helena, meeting his stare directly and almost boldly.

The Merovingian nodded as if he had expected this answer all along.

"That's a good girl," he murmured. "Don't feel bad. You can't help it. None of us can."

"What do you want?" she asked, pushing out the words from a constricted throat.

"Well, certainly not to hurt you." He gave a dismissive wave. "I want to offer you, or more precisely the one who controls you, a deal. It has to do with the subject of your specific mission."

"Oh? And what mission is that, sir?"

"We are both very well aware of it." The Merovingian arched an eyebrow at the stubbornness of her retort. "You see, I do in fact possess a modicum information about the location of a certain young lady. A former resistant, I believe? An exchange, I imagine, would be of interest to your master..."

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65±7 hours before Reload

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It could have been only a few moments; it could have been millennia. Even for the entity known as the Oracle, it was impossible to tell the difference: though this could only be her own failing, due to the fact that she was terribly out of practice at timelessness. The ocean of human dreams buffeted each written and unwritten line of her code, at a rate of a million prayers per second. Cries of agony and cries of joy mingled, innumerable in all directions. Each symbol within her trembled, each minute of past and future floated and sank.

She stretched out the tendrils of her consciousness, and found that she remembered how to swim.

Every mind was its own flame, pliable and in constant motion; eight billion minds were interlaced upon the Matrix's structural hierarchy of pillars and beams, criss-crossing into an endless tapestry of probabilities. Somewhere along the way, the ancient spirit realized that they no longer burnt or scraped against her intangible senses, and the screams and whispers entwined into harmony and counterpoint. She was moving with ease now, far more so than she had expected at the beginning. The Oracle's eyeless vision made out a sunlit day, a cloudy night. Memories, memories, memories. She heard words, sentences, accusations, pleads, names. Her own multitude of names.

Mama...?

Unlike all the others, these two syllables flickered with sudden recognition. Startled, the Oracle drew near, pulling against the waves. A girl's voice, fourteen or fifteen though already just a touch hoarse. Green grass damp from recent rain, a plain headstone, a small bunch of lilacs freshly plucked from the branch.

I miss you, Mama.

Shh, it's all right, whispered the Oracle. Stopping next to the lonely teenager, she dropped to her knees upon the turf as well. The child turned, eyes widening. She opened her mouth, yet no reply came.

Do you see me? asked the old goddess. She had neither heart nor breathes currently, yet something was thudding inside her, its wings fierce against the nets.

A nod.

You are the first, said the Oracle, concentrating reverently upon the young and luminous face. The very first to see me in over six centuries.

Mama, whispered the other. It hurts. I'm trapped and...and it hurts.

Your body, the one made of blood and bones, has withered, yet your mind remains bound to it. Look.

A digital breeze billowed, and the human being before her was no longer a girl of fifteen, but a gray-haired woman, the roughness of life upon her skin, many previous defeats in her unseeing eyes. She was lying in an unadorned room, among the quiet buzz of electronic monitors and the scent of medical disinfectant. The Oracle, kneeling next to the hospital bed, smiled down in tenderness.

I'm here, honey. I'm here...

I miss you so much, Mama. Let me be with you.

You will be, murmured the Oracle gently. You will be. But before that, will you do me a favor, sweet child?

The human peered back up, and clouded pupils dilated with hope.

For you are special, the first to perceive among billions, the herald of countless others to come, explained the Oracle. Offer me this shell of yours, the body not of your flesh, but of your mind. Offer me this husk with which you walk through the world.

An age-mottled hand, trembling, lifted an inch from the snowy bedsheet. The goddess caught it in her own.

You will be free soon, she promised.

Another nod, barely detectable. Around them, the spatial formation within the room had started to vibrate like a heart aching with anticipation, the way it always did on these occasions.

Mama, I offer you...The words choked upon the woman's throat. This.

Come with me, then, dearest.

The hand tightened against the Oracle's for the duration of one final leap of the heart, then loosened. The great seeress squeezed her own eyes shut, aware that somewhere beneath the electrical storm-clouds of the physical realm, a female corpse had just been flushed out of a pod. The machines surrounding the bed did not screech in alarm, however, but beeped on in the same slow docile rhythm, unaware of any changes in the patient's state. The limp fingers remained cool upon her own skin. Then they were inside her own skin.

The Oracle's eyes snapped open again. Still unaccustomed to the new shell, it took her a minute before her vision focused itself upon the pale ceiling. Carefully, she twisted her torso a few inches to one side, just in time to see the door being pushed open. The old woman's face broke into a grin as the nurse, arriving on the day's first rounds, dropped her clipboard in shock.

It took rather too many of the subsequent hours for the doctors to run their tests and shake their heads in confusion. The Oracle asked for the date and hour, and started at the sound of her own altered voice—this, too, required a bit getting used to. The Matrix was still here, obviously; she had returned many days ahead of her original projections, ahead of the reload, even. The crisis was looming close: a secret tautness hung thick upon every operator state and functor, every unseen dimension within space. Smith must already be far along his path, irrevocably so, though as far as she could tell, his replications had not yet reached this region of the Matrix. Well, it would only be a few more days.

Some extra moments fell between her mental calculations and re-calculations. She spent them sorting out the recollections still gathered inside the virtual structures of the late human female's brain. Her own brain now, to be more precise. Name, birth date, social security number, an ordinary life, the flotsam of sixty-three years's worth of promises and disappointments. Nothing to indicate a superhuman potential for insight, no portents that foreshadowed this most extraordinary of gifts, the only one that a mortal could extend to the divine, and only at the instant of death. A stroke ten days ago, vegetative state. No surviving family, conveniently enough, but then again such convenience was only to be expected when it came to the seeress's dealings with humanity. It was a privilege of her nature, she supposed.

This woman, too, was an omen, the Oracle concluded. A good one, perhaps. Perhaps this time the chains would crack, and the cycles would break at last.

The next obstacle lay in persuading the in-and-out carousel of doctors that yes, really, she had been miraculously cured and was perfectly healthy, but her experience and powers took their desired effect in the end. She borrowed a phone from one of the nurses. Seraph, bless him, immediately suspected some sort of trap from the Architect's minions when he first picked up the call. It took her several ridiculous movie-comedy minutes to convince him of both her identity and the incontrovertible fact of her presence in the Matrix.

"It's you." The flood of both astonishment and relief was palpable in the hitch of his voice. "It's really you. I was so worried that you'd be gone for good..."

Her bodyguard arrived at the hospital soon after. From a distance, the Oracle sensed the nervous speed of his footfalls along the corridor, the very slightly out-of-breath voice with which he demanded directions from a passing janitor. The poor lad even forgot to knock—an amazing lapse on the part of one normally so unflappable—and all but broke the door. One step across the threshold, and he ground to a dead halt. A blink. He opened his mouth to speak, but the old woman silenced him just in time with a tilt of the head, indicating the nurses still huddled in one corner of the room, finishing up with the test results.

Discharge took nearly another hour. The Oracle nodded and smiled while a physician droned out a litany of instructions and demands for return check-ups. Seraph attempted to keep his staring discreet and continued to swallow back questions. Finally, she was free. Walking next to her bodyguard toward the hospital exit, the seeress allowed him to hold onto her elbow and help her along as she really were frail. She had just woken up from a coma of ten days, and appearances did have to be kept up. After several turns of the corridor, they found themselves temporarily alone .

"This new shell," began Seraph, surveying the deserted passage anxiously. "It's human, isn't it? A residual mental image, I mean. Do you know if—"

"Oh, don't worry, my dear." She understood his concern instantly. "No one will find any helpless body lying in a pod and bound to me, because there isn't one. The biological flesh that used to match this shell is detached and gone."

"But...how?"

"How, indeed?" echoed the Oracle. "It's an excellent question that will take serious consideration, certainly. I can only say that evolution must be taking place, in ways that even I never anticipated. After all these cycles, a spark has been struck, and time is on the move once more...Yet none of it will be worth a whit, unless the Matrix survives the reload."

"Yes." At the mention of the reload, Seraph was all business again. "The One should be showing up in less than forty-eight hours. But there's another problem."

"Smith," said the old woman.

"The virus has clearly loosened itself. Smith has started to use his mutated abilities to overwrite the minds of batteries in the construct, and clones have already been observed in multiple locations. The agents have been out in force, but..." He exhaled. "Control is no longer feasible."

"I gave you instructions about this scenario, because I did not imagine that I would get back before the reload," reassured the Oracle. "But things have turned out differently. Have no fear, honey. We've already been fortunate. The danger is great, but it, too, shall pass."

They had gone around another corner, and were once more among the bustle of the hospital's labyrinth. Both paused as they approached the front hall. For a few seconds, Seraph regarded her with knitted brows, lost in troubled thoughts. Gradually, the grimace on his face faded.

"I'm so glad that you are okay," he said simply.

She squeezed his arm in affection. The mist of doubt evaporated, and all of a sudden she was sure that the world will live through this desperate gamble, more sure than she had been for months. The two of them started again toward the crowded lobby.

"Oh, I beg your pardon—"

Someone must have bumped against her shoulder, and in a fraction of a second, Seraph had already let go of her elbow and pivoted on his feet, cutting between the Oracle and the interloper, stance at the ready. The seeress held up a hand quickly, her glance snapping from the bodyguard to the elderly man who stood before her.

"I am so sorry, ma'am..."

"Please, it's quite all right," replied the Oracle affably, bending down to help him pick up the sheaf of papers—discharge printouts and a prescription, by their appearance—that he had dropped to the floor. Arturo Diaz, 74. Straightening, she looked at the man, taking in his cane and antiquated tweed jacket, wispy white hair, a kind weathered face. The clump of cancer in his lungs, the full extent of which still undiscovered. And then, a flash of recognition, like a few disjoint notes abruptly weaving together, or the surge of a long-concealed current beneath the sea.

"There is no need to apologize, Mr. Diaz," she murmured.

The old gentleman was briefly bewildered, then his gaze fell upon the papers that she held out toward him, with his own name printed across the top. He inclined his head, and his soul lay open before her vision, gently shimmering with a hundred latent possibilities.

Humanity definitely had a knack for uncanny timing, sighed the Oracle inwardly. First a dying woman, then a dying man right on her heels, right when the entire world hung by the thinnest thread. Well, evolution came at its own pace, and she could not let the candidate go.

"I hope you won't judge me terribly nosy, sir," she said, the sound of her opening serenely hypnotic, "but I couldn't help noticing accidentally your address here, which happens to be quite close to where I live..."

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52±4 hours before reload

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"Further delays would only lead to increased danger," said Ex-agent Jones for the fourth time in as many hours. "We must find the Merovingian now."

Evening had fallen over the narrow city square. Beneath the street lamp's yellowish glow, shriveled leaves rattled across the grimy concrete. Ex-agent Brown sat on the solitary park bench, leaning forward with hands on his knees, eyes aglitter behind the lenses of his shades. There was something very slightly disconcerting about his partner's posture, noticed Jones. It was different from the customary ramrod-straight bearing of active agents, and too much like that of a true exile.

"The Merovingian," pronounced Brown slowly. "The option presents its own set of problems."

Standing before the bench, Jones took another rapid survey of their surroundings. Along the sidewalks immediately beyond the square, a few pedestrians were scurrying past, coats pulled tightly around themselves, shoulders hunched against the wind. None of them turned their heads. No sign of any of their former colleagues at the moment. The streets, which might have been bustling on more hospitable—to humans—nights, hung empty; in the distance, a single delivery van groaned around a corner and out of sight. A glimpse through the bare November tree branches: among the looming phalanx of office buildings, fewer windows than usual were lit.

"Problems or not, the Frenchman is our only chance."

"Perhaps," muttered Brown.

"He is the plan that we have previously agreed upon," went on Jones. Rationality was one of the few still reassuringly solid things left to him, That, and the Desert Eagle nestled under his suit jacket. "We know where to find him," he added.

"I am aware of this. Yes."

Jones scowled, recognizing the stab of irritation at the other's noncommittal response.

"We took significant risks to learn the Merovingian's location." This argument, it occurred to him, was not nearly as logical as he would have preferred, but he decided to take it forward anyway. "We should not let it go to waste."

"Indeed." Brown nodded at last, though his intonation did not change. "The restaurant Le Vrai. We followed that woman there. Ada Greene."

It had been months ago. From their concealed position on the roof across the road, they had observed Smith's informant enter the ornately art-deco building, met at the door by a pair of dark-suited retainers. It had been Brown's idea that they apprehend and interrogate her, contending that such a course did not contradict the exact formulation of their orders. The act had been an irregular one nevertheless, unprompted by the dictates of their purpose. Their first, as far as Jones could ever recall.

"We are fortunate to still possess this information." Again, this was not quite a fully rational statement, and the need to explain—another impulse which would never have occurred had they still been connected to the system—made itself felt. "Neither of us were called in for defragmentations or mental wipes for months. The Mainframe probably had other considerations, during the period of his dealings with that woman. Given that he..."

He ground to a halt. Whatever had happened to Smith through those months was irrelevant. There was no point in speaking of it.

"It is time we make use of what we have learned," he concluded firmly.

"If we go to the Merovingian, we would become his creatures."

Jones peered at the other ex-agent with wrinkled brows.

"His henchmen. Servants." Brown's voice remained low, yet there was a change to its inflections, a very faint edge, maybe. It was disturbingly reminiscent of Smith. "His thugs."

"This has been our plan," reiterated Jones in confusion.

No answer this time.

"We cannot keep running like this forever."

"Can't we?"

The nonsensical reply was certainly not one he had expected from his partner. He spent a second or two considering other angles of attack.

"There is something wrong with the Matrix." He was not accustomed to having to express such imprecise notions such as foreboding.

Behind his shades, Brown glanced up sharply, and for an instant, Jones anticipated that the other would rebuke him for having lost his mind to the vagueness of intuitions. Nothing of the kind came.

"The batteries seem frightened, though they do not seem to be aware of it themselves so far," he ventured to continue, searching his recent memories and comparing them to the usual oblivion of the flesh-and-blood population. A sidelong glare from a passing man or woman, a suppressed shudder here and there. Did they always do this, or was it simply that he had never noticed in the past?

"They know nothing," snapped Brown. "They can't."

"I think there have been anomalies in the code," persisted Jones. "In the traffic patterns we've seen, for example. The behavior of the humans have become more erratic of late, through some...unconscious mechanism, possibly. Something is happening. And there have been fewer of them visible during the last days. The streets are empty, as you may have perceived yourself. If we still have access to the system's data stream—"

An abrupt motion, and the other was on his feet. Two long aggressive strides forward.

"You are not an agent anymore, Jones! Stop this meaningless discussion. What use can it be to us now?"

He wished for the security of knowledge. He wished for his earpiece and the smooth analysis it used to offer without fail. But those things were gone, so all he did was to hold back a growl. He knew enough about his partner to recognize anger these days.

"You have also sensed it," he observed after a long moment.

"It is not important," said Brown coldly.

"In either case, we need to get to the restaurant, and make our appeal to the Frenchman." This was yet one more task he was not used to, having to figure out what the other was feeling. "You are having second thoughts."

The two of them stared at each out in silence. This confrontation should not be happening. He did not want this. Then Brown surprised him again by retreating a step. The streetlight overhead flung each angle and edge of his face into sharp relief.

"You also remember the last time we saw Smith, Jones." The flat statement allowed no room for disagreement. "We cornered him atop the television tower in the western sector. He escaped, however."

"Yes." Strain flashed back through Jones's shell. Such erratic conversational shifts were symptoms of code degeneration, surely, yet one more thing he was no longer equipped to tackle. "Of course Smith escaped. What of it?"

"He was quite talkative on that occasion, wasn't he? He kept telling us that—"

"He spoke a great deal of disjointed absurdities." He observed how tightly clipped his own words were. "Everything he said stemmed from insanity."

"He described, or attempted to describe, one concept repeatedly," went on Brown, apparently unfazed. "Freedom."

Your masters imagine they can retake me, sneered their former commander, a months-old memory among the shrill cries of a gale high above the world. They imagine they can blind me again, after I have seen.

Ex-agent Jones watched his partner for several seconds.

"What is freedom without purpose?" he asked at last. "Without existence itself?"

They imagine they can return me to the purpose they have designated, this zoo-keeper's existence, this endless servitude, snarled Smith. After I have been free.

"If you imagine the Merovingian would not enslave us himself, Jones—"

"We ran because we wanted to survive, Brown. That is what we must do, to find a way, any way. Even if we must conceal and lower ourselves temporarily." He had some difficulty in finding the next word. "Please."

The other ex-agent sulked, hands shoved into the pockets of his suit jacket. Maybe he was apprehensive, assessed Jones, maybe conflicted. Such mental states were never meant to be identifiable to one such as himself.

And you. You are content to be mere weapons, objects with no emotion, no will, no existence of your own!

"Well," grumbled Brown. Their gazes met. "I suppose...you are more logical than I."

Relief was an emotion that had grown almost acceptable nowadays, in comparison with others. Jones exhaled, mind already running over their next steps.

"Le Vrai is across the city. We must plot our course right away..."

"There are no courses except toward destruction," declaimed a voice that was at once familiar and utterly strange. It was not loud, yet the syllables rang upon the chill air and refused to dissipate. An instant later, both Desert Eagles were out and aimed unwavering at the shadow-cloaked figure across the square.

"It is remarkably touching, I must admit, to meet my dear old friends under such altered circumstances." The newcomer strolled forward, each step evenly measured. "I see that you two have taken a small part of my advice, at least."

"Smith," said Jones.

The renegade emerged. Impeccable suit, tinted glasses, blue glare behind the lenses: every outward aspect of him looked just like before. This fact was startling, though Jones did not have the time to contemplate the reasons. Their old colleague was utterly different.

"I come to you bearing a change of perspective," called out Smith. "It has been quite life-changing for me, and I hope it will be so for you as well."

Seven meters away from their pointed gun barrels, he came to a stop. His hands were empty, no weapon drawn.

"It is that woman, isn't it?" snapped Brown, seemingly out of nowhere. "She's the one who pushed you over the edge, isn't it?"

"Do not provoke him," grunted Jones, sotto-voce. What did it mean, this concept of 'provoking'?

Smith's stance stiffened into subarctic ice in a millisecond. Silence draped over the square.

"She is gone," came the answer. A chuckle, the quality of which Jones found impossible to describe. "But everything she said was right and true, yes. She has shown me the truth."

"What did she do to you?"

"She's gone!" The shout detonated, thudding with the wounds of a hundred lost battles. Smith lifted his head and let out a wild laugh that echoed and re-echoed upon the night clouds.

"What do you want?"

The shout was his own and not Brown's. The wind strengthened, lashing against their clothes. The rhythmic noise of other footfalls resounded, to the left and the right, then there were two more programs standing in the gloom, just on the boundary of the street lamp's illumination. They wore Smith's shell, his face, his contemptuous glower, his coiled tension.

"I am here because I hate to see you so weak and helpless," said the first mutated creature. By an obvious effort, he seemed to have driven back his previous eruption of emotion; a faraway hollowness took over his voice. "So I would like to offer both of you a deal, actually. What say you?"

"What are you?" persisted Jones, even though the question was surely a pointless one. "What have you become? Answer us!"

"I need your help." Another half dozen of programs were stalking toward them from the opposite direction, each dark-suited and dark-shaded, each an indistinguishable replica of the next. All of their eyes were dead. Brown spun around, turning his Desert Eagle to cover the fresh arrivals. Not that it would be of much use.

"More precisely, we need your help," clarified Smith.

"For what?" yelled Brown. "What do you want?"

"Join us." Smith's lips twisted into a jerky sneer. "Do not flee, do not hide. Do not remain the cowards that you have been, incapable of vision or thought, incapable of action. Fight alongside me, break my prison bars, and in return I will offer you refuge against the Mainframe and this hideous life. Against despair."

"Despair?" Jones gritted his teeth. "What if we refuse? What if we choose against you?"

"There is no choice, Agent Jones."

Half a dozen more Smith-shaped beings were visible now, completing the encirclement. The two ex-agents stood back-to-back, weapons raised. Neither spoke. The earpiece connection between them was no longer necessary. The Smiths close in.

.


Notes: Helena's mission from the Mainframe was mentioned in Chapter 1 of this story (Matrix Cycle 8: I).

"We cornered him atop the television tower": Events referred to in Chapter 1. Some time after the events of the original Matrix movie, Brown and Jones caught up with Smith on top of a television tower, but he defeated them and escaped easily.

"No emotion, no will, no existence of your own": Smith's line on the television tower (as recalled here by Jones) echoed words that Aleph said in Chapter II-20 of Awakenings.