Pointless Agent Insanity! Chapter 12: The TRUE Matrix, a matrix fanfic

A/N: Okay. Now it is all out of my system. This is probably the longest chapter you will ever read from this story. Enjoy! ^.~

"Pointless Agent Insanity! Part X:

The TRUE Matrix"

Prologue

The middle of the room rang with the sound of plastic clicks and muttered oaths. Brown sat at a computer in the far left corner, but his eyes were fixed on a 16 inch TV screen placed in the center of the room. Jones sat on the floor, busily playing Shadow the Hedgehog for the Nintendo GameCube. Thompson was tied, bound, gagged with a sock, weighed down with cement blocks to a folding chair and forced to keep Smith company in the living room whilst watching his favorite soap operas, much to the content of all three Agents.

"I see no, hear no evil," Jones sang, rhythmically hitting the A button, "black writing's on the wall, unleash a million faces, when one by one they fall..."

To bring you up to speed onto Jones' progress, Shadow the Hedgehog was now Super Shadow, facing the last boss, and vastly running out of time.

"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck," Brown said, squirming as he pointed to the TV screen, "GET HIM! GET HIM NOW!"

"I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!" Jones screamed back.

"CHARGE YOUR ATTACK! YOU FORGOT TO DODGE THAT PIECE OF DEBRIS! THAT'S GONNA COST YOU 20 RINGS! SHIT, JONES! YOU WON'T HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO REACH HIM!" Brown shrilled.

"TELL MY MOTHER I LOVE HER! BANZAI!" Jones shrieked, suddenly executing a tricky chain of moves.

"Let me show you my TRUE power!" Super Shadow bellowed onscreen. He turned a brilliant gold and charged right through the boss; the boss screamed. Now there was only one more direct hit to go.

"HOLY SHIT!" exclaimed Brown joyously. "YOU ARE DA MAN, JONES!"

"I AM DA MAN, MOTHAFUCKER, I ALMOST DIED BACK THERE!" Jones screamed back, despite the fact that the two were facing each other from less than 11 inches away.

Smith burst open the door, fitted in a white fluffy bathrobe, pink hair curlers, pink bunny slippers and a green facial mask. Strangely enough, he was still wearing his sunglasses, for Smith always wears his sunglasses at night...sunglasses at night, sunglasses at night, I wear my sunglasses at night, so I can, so I can see the light that's right before my eyes, while she's deceiving me, she cuts my security, has she got control of me, so I turn to her and say, I wear my sunglasses at night, I wear my sunglasses at night...whoops. Random '80s relapse, sorry.

Smith put his hands on his hips.

"Can't you two keep it down? Gawd, I'm TRYIN' to watch my soaps here, but all I've been hearing is, Burn the town down! Don't do any more evil, you'll deduce your Hero Points! What does pressing a 'self-destruct' button do? Why can't I just shoot Sonic in the face? Where did all the Doritos go?"

Unfortunately, no one was listening to him after Thompson passed out from watching soap operas.

"Yeah, Shadow! Kick hish ash!" Jones whooped.

Smith, remembering the horrors the English majors suffered in chapter one, cleared his throat very appropriately. "I believe you meant to say 'kick his ass'," he said.

Jones did not look up, transfixed by the TV screen. "No. I meant to say kick hish ash."

Smith unplugged the GameCube cord from the wall just as Jones dealt the death blow. Brown fell out of his chair, having suffered a case of Acute Bad Video Game Playing Witness syndrome.

"Aw, you are a complete and utter ashhole shometimesh, Agent Schmithsch," Jones grumbled.

"Why the hell are you adding a 'sch' sound to the ends of your words?"

"Shutsch upsch bitchsch, I ish notsch," said Jones.

"I see. You've been hanging out with Sean Connery and Nigel Terry again, haven't you?" Smith asked.

"Go to Hellhopenfhagenfwar!" Jones screeched, pouting very Scottishly.

All of a sudden, in the sullen quiet that had descended upon the trio, the SpongeBob wristwatch that Smith had received for his birthday rang: F is for friends who do stuff together, U is for you and me, N is for anywhere and any time at all–

Smith, glancing nervously at the audience, smiled and promptly cut off his wrist with a chainsaw. Two seconds later the chainsaw spontaneously combusted from the sheer friction of metal on friendship. The wretched song continued to play. Smith regenerated his hand but the vile thing was still there, blaring its hideous chime. After submerging his wrist in a vial of nitric acid for the third time, he finally noticed the hour.

"OH, SHITTAKE MUSHROOMS!" he shrieked, throwing off his bathrobe only to reveal his full suit lying underneath, much to the chagrin of many a Matrix fangirl, since, in those days, it was physically impossible to see an Agent naked. Now, let me warn you, my fellow fangirls, Agents are like Russian dolls, pretty to look at and fun to play with, rather sweet but hollow in the head; and, of course, you can try to...ahem...strip them of their layers all you want, but the same damn suit and tie business keeps popping out from underneath. Take it from me...it's just not fun. I mean, I'd rather be standing in line at the DMV waiting for my quota to be processed, it's so pointless. You'd just be sitting there for three hours straight, going, Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Where do you guys get all these suits from anyway? Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn, this one is dry clean only too. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn...

"We're late for our movie shoot again!" Smith said, totally missing my innuendo in the midst of his panic.

"Whoa," said Brown and Jones as they were hastily rushed into the car. "What now?"

"We're starting a movie," Smith explained, his eyes dark with sobriety as he started the engine in the rain. "And an epic one at that...fuck."

Main

The car pulled up into the restaurant parking lot.

Jones and Brown were having a petty argument, much to Smith's diminished peace of mind.

"I did not!" Brown said.

"Nuh-uh, you did. You called me fat!" Jones pouted.

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too and you know it, you twig! You think I'm fat!"

"All I said was, Did you like that episode of Rachel Ray today? Gawd, you gain two pounds and all of a sudden you're so sensitive about your weight!"

"Ah HA! So you ADMIT YOU THINK I'M FAT!"

"Shut up!"

Smith tossed a chewy toy for them to play with and closed the car door. "You two stay in the car. Now, I have a couple of rules you must follow while I am gone."

"Awwwwwww, but Moooooooom," the two Agents whined, fidgeting in their seats as they took turns squeezing the chewy toy.

"Rule Number One," Smith said. "I know that Pepsi and Mentos are an interesting combination, but do not blow anything up with them unless you are prepared to vacuum the inside of the car seats and get sucked into Narnia just like we did last time. Rule Number Two: Do not switch each other's bodies. God knows how that happened, but with you two, I suppose anything is possible."

Jones shuddered, hearing Brown's taunting voice ringing from the depths: Stop hitting yourself! Stop smacking yourself upside the head with this here frying pan! Stop kicking yourself in the nads! Stop setting yourself on fire! Stop beating yourself against this brick wall! Stop watching these eighty-two episode marathons of Oprah!

"...Rule Number Three: Do not kick, punch, scratch, tear, pierce, shred, detonate, decimate, annihilate, maul, eradicate, mar, ruin, spraypaint, defecate, or else defile or destroy anything within the planetary radius," Smith said. "Do you understand me so far?"

"Yes, ma'am–sir–Justin Timberlake," Brown and Jones said obediently.

"Good. Oh, I almost forgot the most important rule—Rule Number Four," he said. His voice gained a dangerous edge as he pointed to the ignition. "This, my sirs, is called the ignition. You are to never, under ANY circumstances, touch it. It is the one thing you never touch. You can touch matches, toxins, forks in toasters, open electrical sockets, explosive substances, and nuclear waste, but the ignition is explicitly dangerous to your health. Think of the ignition as my sunglasses: you touch Smith's sunglasses without his written permission, you die a slow, horrible, painful, black roasting death by means of Smith cooking you for dinner."

Silence met him.

Then, a long moment later, Jones raised his hand.

"Yes, Jones?"

"Are we gonna be tasty? 'Cause Jones can get awfully bland without a pinch of oregano," Jones said.

"NO!" Smith roared, slamming the car door. "And remember to behave!" he screeched as he saw the two of them press their noses to the back window like eager puppies.

Jones and Brown drooled and wagged their tails.

…

Smith sat at a lone table in the restaurant, reviewing the plan. Cypher was willing to surrender Morpheus to them; only Morpheus knew the codes, he had claimed. They would apprehend him, and then the process would begin. Tapping into such a dimwitted mind was going to be easy—once they inevitably broke him, they would obtain the codes...

...to download mp3s for free.

Smith smiled to himself. Once they successfully downloaded the free mp3s, they would connect their iPod dock to the Zion frequency and play bluegrass nonstop, thus eradicating the human city once and for all.

The perfect evil plan.

A waitress approached Smith with pen in hand.

"Oh, no, I'm waiting for somebody," he said.

"Well, is there anything you would like to drink in the meantime?" she smiled.

And thus, Smith thought about it...

…

TWO MINUTES LATER

…

Smith choked yet another wine glass, head-butting it and body-slamming it out the window. "Huzzah! Smith wins again!" Turning around, he waved his hand in the air. "Waitress! I need another opponent to crush!"

His victory cry rang in the depths of the dark. The wind blew in through the shattered window.

Everyone was quiescent, staring.

"What?" he said.

"For the love of God, no one was making a face at you! It was your own reflection!" screamed the waitress after ten solid minutes had passed.

"Oh," Smith began, casting a glance at the evil wine glass that had made a face at him. "So that's why the devil was so strikingly handsome."

…

MEANWHILE

…

Jones and Brown stared at each other in the car.

"So," Brown said.

"So."

The two kicked their legs against the seats.

"I'm bored," Brown said, after ten seconds passed.

"Agreed."

"What are we to do?" the smaller Agent huffed. "We can't go anywhere to have our regular fun–Smith said not to touch the ignition."

"There's more than one way to be bored," Jones said wisely. He placed the fingertip of his index finger a millimeter away from the ignition. Brown, with eyes wide, tackled him, slapping him repeatedly in the face. "Are you crazy? What did I just tell you?"

Jones just smiled. He blinked his eyes and put his hands behind his back. "But I didn't touch it."

"You were going to!"

"But I didn't, did I, Agent Brown?"

Brown pulled back, a new realization dawning on him.

Jones dangled a lone silver key from his finger. "And if I did not physically touch the ignition, then we have nothing to fear."

"Just what are you saying?"

"Nothing," grinned Jones, turning the key, "nothing at all, really."

…

Cypher came in and took his seat at the four-star table. "Sorry I'm late," he said. "Whoa, what happened to you?"

Smith lay sprawled across the table, panting and hardly sober. He could barely dodge the car that Jones and Brown had driven through the restaurant Dukes of Hazzard style. He lay amidst a sea of beer cans, empty shot glasses and broken wine coolers. His eyes, though hidden behind black sunglasses, were glassy and red-rimmed; his suit was torn and wrinkled, his tie swinging loose over his neck. When he spoke it wash inn shlurring shyllablesh like diesh.

"I'm as drunk as, um, a Metrobus," Smith said.

"What?"

"No other Agents are with you, right?"

"No," Smith said, kicking Brown and Jones back under the table.

Cypher made a face; however, since his face always looked like it was making a face, the face-making cross-nullified the effects of his ugliness, and thus his face temporarily reverted to a normal-looking state.

"Holy crap, it's Mariah Carey," said Smith.

"Shut up," Mariah said indignantly, ripping off her costume to reveal Cypher underneath.

"Oh. It's just you again, Mr. Reagan," Smith sighed.

Ronald Reagan flashed a thumbs-up before flashing his cape and jumping out the shattered window as Super-Republican.

"Okay," said Cypher, blinking at the strange cutaway.

"So we have a deal, then," said Smith.

"No," Cypher said.

"No?"

"Yes."

Smith lifted an eyebrow.

"No no or yes no?" he asked.

"No yes," replied Cypher.

"That's not possible," Smith said. "Is it yes or is it no?"

"I told you, no yes," Cypher sighed.

"You can't have no and then yes," said Smith. "It is not logically possible."

"Yeah? Prove it!"

Smith, his superior Agent liver having absorbed all the alcohol in his system, straightened his tie and lifted a dangerous academic eyebrow.

"You're nullifying the value of the initial no," he said, drawing up a list of proofs. "If 'no' is p, and 'yes' is the inverse of p, then 'yes' is ~p. Therefore 'no, yes' is negating the value of both p and ~p to equal 1, respectively."

Cypher drooled at the impromptu logic lesson.

...

Sauntering inside the Hotel Lafayette, they hired a SWAT team to make certain that no rebel survived except for Morpheus and Cypher. Smith, Brown and Jones had split up, each accompanied by two units. Smith was in the lobby, Brown upstairs, and Jones in the basement. It was all going according to plan; it was all finally beginning to work. Oh, it was a beautiful thing, this evil flawlessness, the realization of their greatest dreams–

Smith reached for his back pocket. He frowned.

"Is something wrong, sir?" asked a sergeant. Smith dismissed him with a wave of the hand, and the units forged ahead in the darkness.

He reached around for his other pocket, fumbling around. Muttering incoherently to himself, he pulled out the white, lint-laden contents of both pockets. A panic began to rise. Growing quicker in his movements, he patted his sides, plunging his hands into every available, alas empty, pocket.

"MY USB CORD IS MISSING!" Smith mentally shrieked. "SON OF A BITCH!"

Who could have taken it? he asked himself. The USB cord was the one thing, besides the ignition and his sunglasses, that he protected with his life. Now it was gone. How could have someone taken it? They must have been incredibly daring, incredibly quick, incredibly intelligent to sneak it past Agent Smith's detection...or otherwise incredibly stupid.

Smith froze, blinking in the darkness. Incredibly stupid...

The phrase rang out from the ether of his digital mind.

"Anderson," he spat.

…

THREE DAYS AGO

…

Thomas sat with Smith's laptop propped up on his knees, happily typing away.

"Ludacris," Smith said, watching the program type the word into a music search engine. "What the hell is that, some sort of band–"

All of a sudden, an explosive blaring came from the computer, the bass of which blew Smith and all of his household appliances and furniture out the window. In a rage he stomped up the apartment stairwell, busting the door open to an eradicated shell of a room.

In the middle of a smoldering crater sat a blissfully smiling Thomas, virtually untouched by the disaster.

"How can you listen to that?" Smith shrieked.

Thomas fell over, a cardboard fathead sitting in his place with a note pinned to his nose, a note which read, in Magic Marker,

HAVE TO BORROW YOUR USB CORD FOR A WHILE. GONNA DOWNLOAD A FEW THINGS. WILL RETURN IT IN THREE DAYS. LOVE, TOMMY TUTONE. (A scratch appeared over "Tutone".) OH SHIT, THAT'S NOT MY NAME. I MEANT TOMMY ANDERSON. WELL, WHATEVER. YEAH. BYE. OKAY. BYE. YEAH. AT THREE O' CLOCK. OKAY. BYE. BYE. OKAY. I'LL BE THERE. GOT IT. BYE. YEAH. YEAH. OKAY. HANG UP THE DAMN PHONE ALREADY!

…

Jones and Brown met at a vestibule, but Smith was still downstairs. Flashlights flickered between the four units and cast grey shadows on the walls.

"Where are they?"

"Brown?" Smith asked.

"Nothing."

"Jones?"

"Negative."

Smith frowned. No trace–

"Eighth floor. They're on the eighth floor," he said suddenly, picking up on an operator's call.

"What?" said Brown.

"I said eighth floor," said Smith.

"We can't hear you," Jones said, "there must be some kind of interception thrown our way."

"What?"

A flood of voices surrounded them: "Uhhhhh, yeah, I'd like a veggie pizza with no onions, and, ummmm, a two-liter of Sprite..." "No te querré si no me quieres!" "And on the third day, God said, Oh no you did-n't, girl-friend! And it was good, until Tasha decided to get her junk all up in dat, and then there be some smitin' in in da club dat night, y'all."

Smith looked up in the darkness. "What is that? Jones?"

"That isn't me," Jones said.

Shit, the trio of Agents thought simultaneously. This was a common problem Agents encountered: radio interception of their earpieces. The remedy was often embarrassing; it usually consisted of one Agent sitting atop another's shoulders with arms outstretched, acting as a transponder to find the appropriate signal.

"We could twist each other's ears like we usually do," offered Brown, twisting Jones' ear for demonstration. Jones straightened as if he were rendered mindless, promptly bursting into a Katy Perry song. "Shit!...I forgot to hit the seek button." Brown punched Jones' nose in, and Jones announced: "Pffffffft...we have the plans...do you have our signal? Pffffft...I repeat, we have the plans to create the world's ugliest sounding pop music. Only then will the American defiants comply with our demands for a rhythm-and-blues dominated state. Operation Code Name: Miley Cyrus-itis. "

"No, my sirs. We must settle this the customary Agent way–we will decide the matter like professionals," Smith said.

...

TWO MINUTES LATER

...

"Paper beats rock," Jones said, wrapping his hand around Brown's fist.

"You cheated!" Brown protested. "You were scissors but changed at the last second! I want a re-do!"

"Nuh-uh," Jones said.

"Fine, I'll be the transponder," Smith said, raising his hand as Brown sighed in audible relief.

"Uh, it's alright, you're the leader, you do everything anyway, so you don't have to," Jones said, feeling a little uneasy. "I got this."

"No, no, no, I'll do it. You didn't want to do it anyway," Smith replied.

"But what if I did want to do it? Would you have let me?" Jones said, a bit of panic rising in his voice.

Brown picked at his collar and looked at Smith, who was staring rather soberly back at Jones. The two of them seemed to know something he didn't.

"Yes, but you didn't want to, and it's just that Smith is, uh..."

"Smith is what?"

"Of course," mused Brown while rubbing at his chin, "he would be..ahem...a little lighter to carry on my shoulders anyway."

Jones' left eyelid twitched. "What? Are you calling me FAT, Agent Brown?"

"No! Whoever gave you that idea?" Brown punched Smith in the ribs and Smith smiled just a little too widely. "I'm not saying you're fat...just voluptuous. Curvy. Rubenesque. Real. Plus-size. You have a little meat on your bones. Substance. Hehe," he said, sweating.

Jones still looked suspicious. Smith whispered something in Brown's ear and Brown's eyes widened.

"What? WHAT DID HE SAY?" Jones shrieked.

"HE SAID THAT SOME GIRLS HAVE A LITTLE MEAT ON THEIR BONES, BUT YOU HAVE THE WHOLE FEAST TABLE GOING ON, MAH FRIEND," shrieked a drunken Cypher, swinging from a crystal chandelier up above. "YOU'RE SO BIG THE SUN TOOK ONE LOOK AT YOU AND SAID, 'DAAAAAAAMN!' YOU'RE SO FAT THAT WHEN YOU WENT TO SCHOOL YOU SAT NEXT TO EVERYBODY! YOU'RE SO HUMONGOUS, GOODYEAR WANTED TO FLY YOU OVER THE SUPERBOWL!"

"I AM NOT FAT!" Jones screamed.

"Sure, you aren't fat. You're GIGANTOR," Cypher shrilled. "When you step on a scale it says, 'To be continued!' Your cereal bowl comes with a life guard! If I try to walk around you, I'll get lost! You take up sixty-two pages of your family tree!"

"Are you quite done with your jokes, Creeper?" Smith asked.

"Ah, wait, I think I got five more written down on a napkin somewhere, lemme look in my wallet first," Cypher said, reaching for his back pocket.

Jones glared at him, his bottom lip trembling. He hung his head but remained still, determined to keep his poise. The other two Agents patted his shoulders in consolation.

"You're not fat, Jones. In fact, you are very attractive," Smith said.

Jones sniffed hesitantly. "Is...is that true?"

"Of course," he said.

"We three are very attractive Agents," Brown said, suddenly sporting a five-foot thick pink feather boa, "in comparison to Agents like Jackson, Thompson, and Johnson, hehehe. That's why we have more fans than they'll EVER have. Ain't that right, Johnson?"

"Hey, shu'tha'fuc'up, man," Johnson slurred, falling off the chandelier. "It ain't my fault they put in tha'damm'green lighting in those, um, those Samsung commershials that clashes wit' mah dahrk eyes n'whah'not!"

"THIS COMING FROM ONE GUY WHO'S SO SMALL HE SCARES OFF MICE AND ANOTHER WHO CAN FRY AN ENTIRE SIX-CHEESE OMELETTE ON HIS FOREHEAD!" Cypher shrieked. Whirling around, Smith shot a Bazooka at the chandelier. It detonated in a radius spanning thirty-seven countries.

"Well, that's quite enough of that, old mates," he said coolly, restocking the extra fifteen Bazooka missiles inside his breast pocket. "Shall we be carrying on now?"

Jones and Brown exchanged worried looks; Smith only reverted to his Aussie tone of voice when he was on the brink of unleashing unspeakable rage. Of course, there was only one other time Smith used his Aussie voice–and that concerned the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.

They heard the story only a few times, a few rare, warning times.

"When I was young, the Matrix was nothing but the timely representation of Earth," Smith said, his hands folded calmly in lap. "The Architect was drunk when he created me, because at that time he was trying to retaliate at human life by creating Agents capable of engaging massive creatures in hand-to-hand combat. This basic training was supposedly reserved for some later time, like the Ice Age. However, he fell asleep at the controls and accidentally hit the 'Launch Agent Smith' button some 65 million years ago...and at first all I knew was utter isolation. There were no humans to kill, no Agents to be bored with, nowhere to go and nothing to do.

"So quite naturally I became a dinosaur farmer. At first it was good. Without humans it seemed peaceful, but that peace was a lie, a damned lie, an utter lie. The entire land was nothing but dinosaurs, dinosaurs far and wide, dinosaurs traversing the land, dinosaurs crawling out the wazoo, dinosaurs jumping you in the parking lot for your extra twigs and blackberries, dinosaurs prank calling you all the time, dinosaur telemarketers eating up all 300 of your prepaid minutes, dinosaurs going door to door trying to sell you weird Tupperware products, dinosaurs eating up all the Jell-O and Mac and Cheese in your house, dinosaurs breaking your windows with baseballs, dinosaurs spying on you when you're taking a shower, dinosaurs hiding in your alphabet soup, dinosaurs starring in horrible Broadway musicals, dinosaurs smoking in 'No Smoking' areas, dinosaurs parking in all the good spots near the front of the store, dinosaurs working at tech support for Microsoft–my God, it was lawless, horrid, vile, awful...those damn mastodons wouldn't stop taking dumps the size of boulders in my yard, the pterodactyls were always bitching about how loud their kids were chirping, and the T-Rex wouldn't fetch the stick as he was told...so one day, I got even...

"I crushed them all with a giant meteorite. Fortunately, I was the only one to survive because the rest were too stupid to jump behind the bushes, which was the only form of protection back then, and, I mean, they all just stared at it, the Darwinian dumbasses, and they were all, What is this pretty red thing hurtling towards us?"

It was now that Smith would get a glimmer of victory in his eyes.

"Now it's the Age of Agents, baby, the Age of AGENTS! How does it feel to be my bitches now, fueling my car and electric with your lil' coallized asses? Yeah, that's right, you pterodactyl bastards, try to lay your freakishly monstrous eggs in my yard now! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

...

"Damn dust," Switch coughed, drawing up her collar. "This hotel is over fifty years old and they couldn't even bother to put down a layer of Mr. Clean or two?"

"Speaking of Mr. Clean, here he comes now," Apoc said.

Morpheus whirled around. "Cypher! Where were you?"

"Nowhere," he said, pricking his replica blow-up doll with a pin. "I was here all this time."

Morpheus peeked his head out the door, closing it with extreme caution. He tiptoed to the pipeline and crawled in through the hole in the wall. "All right. Are we ready to squeeze into this impossibly small and dangerous crawlspace?" he asked.

"All set," Thomas said, strapping on his scuba diving suit.

Morpheus chuckled. "Good, Neo, you are learning much." Looking up, he sighed. "Why couldn't you all have been as smart as Neo?"

The other rebels stared at Thomas, who picked his nose with the snorkel and roasted it over an open flame he had started in the toilet bowl.

"Yeah," said Trinity. "Smart."

…

The rebels dropped in quietly through the wall—well, if you take "quietly" to mean that on the way down they hit two ducks, five crinkly bags of chips, three death metal radio stations, seven jackhammers, four puppies' tails, nineteen squeaky floorboards and Eminem, then yes, they proceeded quietly, without detection.

A soldier appeared on watch, looking around the room. He was about to leave when Morpheus' foot hit a pipe and some dust poured down onto Switch's and Cypher's head.

"Uh, uh, uh, SNEEZE!" Cypher screamed, unable to sneeze.

The soldier froze, focusing his light on the wall.

"SNEEZE!" repeated Cypher.

"Bless you," said the soldier.

"Um...thank you?"

"You're welcome," said the polite soldier to the strange disembodied voice emanating from the wall. "Have a nice day."

He walked off, leaving the other rebels to stare down at Cypher.

"I...have allergies," he said, sweating. "From this wall. Yeah...that's it. Wall allergies." He rubbed his finger under his nose. "Real sneezie-sneezie stuff, y'know?"

Satisfied with this half-assed explanation, the rebels were about to continue their descent when Smith's fist plunged into the wall, gripping Thomas' neck until the knuckles turned white.

"Whoa, I've never seen an Agent that pissed," Apoc said, squinting to see but failing to find any visual foothold. "He seems like he wants our boy to suffer, the bastard."

"Yeah, he really looks like he got a grudge," Switch said.

"Sneezie-sneezie, lemon squeezie," replied Cypher intelligently.

"THOMAS!" Smith shrieked, choking Thomas through the wall. "WHERE THE HELL DID YOU PUT MY USB CORD? I LET YOU BORROW IT AND NOW I CAN'T DOWNLOAD MY MP3S!"

"DID YOU CHECK ON TOP OF THE BASIN?" Thomas screamed, seemingly in spite of the fact that an iron fist was crushing his windpipe."THAT'S WHERE I PUT IT!"

"IT'S NOT THERE!"

"AIN'T MY FAULT YOU'RE MESSY!" Thomas shrieked. "POWER SLIDE TIME, GUYS!"

He and the others slid down the wall–that is, everyone except for Morpheus, who was arguing the finer points of CDs over online downloads with Smith.

"CDs all the way! Never surrender your musical compromise for free online streaming!" Morpheus cried.

"The great Morpheus," said Smith, smirking slightly, "so we finally meet."

Morpheus, realizing that he was making an impassioned speech to a random fly that landed in the dirty toilet bowl, shrugged and turned around. "And you are?"

"Celine Dion."

"Really?"

"No. A Smith. Agent Smith," Smith said. "And I mean the English surname Smith, not those damn Irish variant Smythes who think they're SO clever by changing two vowels. I mean, if I wanted two extra vowels, I'd just go on Wheel of Fortune! Am I right?"

Morpheus blinked.

"And no, I'm not listed in the phone book, but, given all the Smiths in Australia alone, if I was, I'd be on page 8760, right next to Steve's Chiropracting," Smith said, wistful that he had no paper estate in his name. He straightened his tie to cover up his rising sadness at the prospect. "Therefore, in conclusion, I am not Celine Dion, although I did claim I was."

"You two look the same to me," said Morpheus.

"Of course I do, I'm a middle-aged American-born suburbanite, what else am I supposed to look like, some kind of long-haired elfin lord OH SHIT THAT HURT," Smith shrieked, rubbing at a welt forming on his left eye. He straightened, alert; his unprotected eye narrowed dangerously. "So the great Morpheus wishes to dance? We'll dance, little man...oh, we'll dance."

TWO SECONDS LATER

Starring in the Australian production of Grease, Morpheus sported a curly blonde wig as Sandy and Smith a black leather jacket as Danny, as the two foes sang "Summer Lovin'" onstage.

"No, Morpheus!" Tank screamed, weeping uncontrollably for the fate of his captain.

...

MEANWHILE, IN THE HELICOPTER ON THE WAY TO THE MULPHA BUILDING

...

"Wheeeeeeee," said Jones as he crashed two toy helicopters together. "Ba-doosh! Bang! Booooooom! Bwhoaaaaaaaow! Ka-boossssshhh! Ka-bowwwwww! Blammm! Kraaaooowwwssshhh!"

The pilot whirled around.

"For the love of God, will you please stop making those crashing noises, it's really distracting m–AAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHH!" he screeched, getting hit in the forehead with a toy helicopter. "Whew," he breathed, returning to the controls, "at least I didn't lose consciousness and we didn't cra-AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" He picked up his coffee mug and saw that it was empty. "MY COFFEE CUP! IT IS EMPTY! Oh well, I'll just have some juice instead. Mmm, I sure do lo-OH MY GOD! THIS IS GRAPE JUICE! I TOLD YOU, I WANTED APPLE!" he screamed, throwing the unwanted juice box out the window and punching a hole through an apple with a straw, "ah, that's much better. Now that there are no more distractions, we are ALL GOING TO DIE," he shrieked, covering his eyes, "TURN OFF THAT SCARY MOVIE! I HATE SCARY MOVIES!"

Jones and Brown blinked. They blinked again and resumed watching Care Bears.

...

Morpheus sat in a hard fold-up chair, hands bound with rubber bands that cut off the circulation to his fingers and made them kind of tingly. Oh, the perpetual kind-of-tingliness, Morpheus thought, closing his eyes. This truly was the worst torture the Agents had ever come up with.

Smith stood at the window, staring pensively ahead. Brown injected a serum into Morpheus' neck; Jones tapped something on a computer.

"Did you ever just stare at it," Smith began, "its beauty, its genius...billions of people just living out their lives...oblivious."

Brown looked at Jones, alert.

"Oh God," Jones whispered. "Here comes the whole dinosaurs and viruses speech again! Do it! Do it now!"

Brown snuck up from behind Smith and pushed him out the window as he was peering down.

"Dangerous Skyscraper Push!" he squealed. "Dangerous Skyscraper Push" was another favorite game of the Agents, whose pastime included watching each other plummet to the earth Wile E. Coyote style. There were always bets brewing that an Agent could perform multiple feats at a rate faster than he or she could fall from a large height. You thought that Agent White just fell from the plane in Enter the Matrix after Niobe kicked him off? No; he fell out after Johnson pushed him, setting out to prove an exasperated claim he made earlier that morning, waiting in line at Tim Hortons, that he could fry an egg faster than he could fall out of a plane—this claim was false. He could hardly steady the gas burner, what with all the geese and seagulls and ducks getting up in his grill, so he had just made blueberry pancakes with freshly sliced oranges, toast, oatmeal, and coffee with cream while reading the business section of the New York Times instead.

Brown spit out the window as Smith fell. It was a cold day, despite being sunny and snowless—it was winter in Australia, actually–and his spit solidified into an icicle that poked Smith in the eye.

"Bullseye!" Brown cried.

"Aw, COME ON! I got my sunglasses professionally buffed yesterday, son!" Smith groaned, rubbing at his sunglasses with his shirttail. "Shit...this scratch is pretty deep. This is gonna cost me an extra fifty bucks at Lens Crafter's." Looking up, he flipped off a mischievous pair of Agents who snickered as they threw raw eggs and eggplant at him."!"

It took Smith forty-five minutes to get back up to the top floor, the time during which he busied himself listening to classical violin remixes of Billy Joel songs on his iPod. Stomping into the room, and, much to the chagrin of the unit directors, proceeded directly to remove his sunglasses and earpiece and seize Morpheus' head with enraged hands.

"What. Are the codes. To download free mp3s," Smith panted, out of breath from climbing all one million and twenty-two point five stairs...point five since he tripped on stair number one million twenty-one, fell down the entire stairwell, rolled out into the street, all the while cursing to all religions and several brands of sports drinks, had to reenter the building through the front and begin again. "You are going to tell me, or you are going to die."

Morpheus lifted his head. "What's behind door number three?" he asked.

"What?" Smith glared at his cohorts. "What did I hear him say?"

Brown and Jones shrugged.

"Is...is this guy for real? I just said he's going to tell me the codes or die, and he wants to know what's behind door number three!" He turned to look at Morpheus with a mixture of fury and confusion, shaking the head in his hands about wildly. "Are you...are you really shittin' me right now?"

"No, no shittin'," said Morpheus. "I always wipe."

Smith smacked himself in the face.

"I knew we should have kidnapped Will Smith instead," he said.

...

MEANWHILE, ON THE NEBUCHADNEZZAR

...

Morpheus gulped, sweating.

"What are they doing to him?" Thomas asked.

"They're hacking into his mind," Tank said.

"Find anything yet?"

"Nope. Just socialism, tacos, and continuous images of Niobe in a red bikini running along the Cancun beach in slow-motion," Tank said, drawing on the screens for information.

"It's not likely they'll find anything for days," Trinity said. "So we should be safe."

"Well, we better go get him anyways. I need to sharpen my kick-ass skills," said Thomas, looking down at the five crew members he had just killed to sharpen his kick-ass skills.

"Wakey, wakey, sleepyheads," Trinity said, shaking their body-bags. "Aw, you sons of bitches, of course Morpheus lets YOU sleep in, while Trinity has to run around doing all your dirty work! Yeah, Trinity knows what you're up to! And, personally, Trinity does not approve!"

"Hehe, yeah, wakey wakey," Thomas sweated, partly because Trinity did not know that he killed them, and partly because recently Trinity had taken a liking to referring to herself in the third person.

Ducking around her, he ran to the downloading dock.

"Wait, Neo! Trinity wants to play, too," Trinity said.

"NO! NO GIRLS ALLOWED," Thomas said, suddenly nailing a wooden treehouse door to the operator's chair. Trinity ran up and knocked on the door. He slid open a rectangular eyehole.

"Password?"

"Skateboarding unicorn ninjas."

"Damn it," he said. "Okay, you can play."

Unfortunately, Thomas hadn't learned the correct place to walk to in the Downloading Construct; thus the gun racks smacked into him at five hundred and seventy-eight miles per hour.

"Hehe," chuckled Tank, typing away. "Take that for spitting out my cooking, bitch!"

"Oww," he said, crawling back to Trinity. "Wait," he said, feeling something strange that he fell on in his back pocket. Taking it out, he held it before him in awe. "Hey look, I do have Smith's USB cord."

"We're going in," Trinity said.

A flash of green light descended into the Matrix, and the lobby fell into place around them.

Looking at the security cameras, Thomas smiled and waved. "Come on, Trin, let's raise some HELL! I'm turning on the sprinklers, even though it's not evening yet," he said, turning the building's garden hose counterclockwise. "Tee hee."

…

MEANWHILE

…

Water burst into the room.

"Is it evening yet?" Morpheus asked as a spray-mist hit him in the face. Soaking wet, the Agents looked around them with curious expressions.

"Why the hell does this office building have sprinklers?" Smith asked.

"So that the building does not catch fire, sir," Jones explained.

"Yeah, but—WHY LAWN SPRINKLERBLURRRRBEB?" Smith screamed.

Jones, always prepared for such events, opened his umbrella and put on his trusty arm floatation devices. Brown, hating water, cringed and appeared to be in pain. Smith stopped to look up, sensing something.

There was a low rumble. The earth quaked; the lights sputtered out. Chairs and desks toppled over, and the Agents tumbled around in the dark wet. A great cataclysm appeared to move over the earth; the sky grew dark, and booms erupted across the ground. Taking shelter underneath a desk, the Agents shielded themselves against pieces of falling debris and waited.

Then there was a sudden calm. The rumbling ceased; the messy room was quiescence. One by one the Agents crawled out from beneath the desk, slowly, cautiously, curiously, then stopped in their tracks, met by a sight too grand for words.

Morpheus had grown a '70s afro, complete with curly sideburns.

"Who knew? All this time, all I needed was a little watering," he said, petting his new luscious hair.

The Agents stared at him for two hours straight.

"Oh no, I'm MELTINNNNNNNNNG!" Brown screeched when the sprinklers kicked in again, dropping to the floor.

"What! Why are you melting?" screamed his cohorts.

"I'm made of pure sugar, I'm so sweet," Brown said. Jones looked once at Smith, then smacked Brown in the face with an SUV.

"Okay," said Smith. What was left of his patience was growing as thin as Wheat Thins...and in those days Wheat Thins were pretty thin, yessir they were. "Since you just knocked out our dimwitted companion here, you can be the one to find them and destroy them!"

Jones touched his earpiece but, strangely enough, did not disappear.

"Jones," Smith said.

Jones was still touching his earpiece.

"Jones."

Jones did not disappear yet.

"JONES!"

"I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world, wrapped in plastic, it's fantastic!" Jones sang, taking out his waterproof earbuds. "Eh? What'd you say?"

...

A lone soldier, eating his lunch in the cockpit of a helicopter, watched on as Thomas and Trinity fought waves upon waves of SWAT soldiers. "NOOOOOO!" he screamed in horror as Trinity threw a knife straight into the forehead of his best friend, "My wife forgot to pack my Pepsi again!"

In a wave of electricity, Jones appeared next to the soldier, Pepsi in hand.

"Oh, thanks, Fiona," the soldier said, taking the Pepsi.

"MY PEPSI!" Jones shrieked. "What do you THINK you are doing?"

"Oh, nothing much, just sitting in a helicopter completely unarmed watching two strangers kill all of my buddies right before my eyes," the soldier said, munching happily on his peanut butter and jelly.

"Why are you talking like that?"

"This is my normal speaking voice!" the soldier beamed. "Welcome to Movie Phone! Please make your selection now!"

"The Matrix," said Jones.

"I'm sorry, please repeat the name of your selection!" said the soldier.

"The Matrix."

"I'm sorry, please repeat the name of your selection!"

Jones gritted his teeth. "The MATRIX."

"I'm sorry, please repeat the name of your selection!"

"THE MATRIX!" the flustered Agent screamed.

"I'm sorry, please repeat the name of your selection!" the soldier said, smiling obliviously as Jones wrapped his hands around his windpipe and repeatedly slammed his head against the helicopter window and the controls. "Please repeat the name of your selection while you are killing me!"

"THE. FUCKING. MATRIX. THE. MAY. TRICKS."

The soldier was silent, staring at Jones.

"You have selected Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle!" he announced before promptly dying. "Thank you for choosing Movie Phone! This is your announcer, signing off of Life!"

"Ugh," grunted Jones. He got out of the helicopter. Upon witnessing the Agent's steady approach, Thomas screamed and dropped his pair of M-16s: "Trinity!"

"What!" Trinity shouted.

"Oh, nothing," Thomas said, winking at her beneath his sunglasses. "I just wanted you to see how FAT this Agent was."

Jones' ears perked. "Eh?"

"Ah, yeah, sure, he's in shape. If round is a shape," Thomas said.

Jones' eyes narrowed in the white sun; and an understanding passed between him and Thomas.

"I'm gonna open a can of whoop-ass if you don't stop calling me names," Jones said.

"Chicken! Chicken! Bwocka, bwocka, bwocka!" Thomas said, suddenly bursting into the Chicken Dance.

"THAT'S IT! TIME TO OPEN A CAN OF WHOOP-ASS," Jones shrieked.

"Uh-oh," said Trinity.

Jones sat down with a can of soda nestled in his lap. The can read WHOOP-ASS.

"You have got to be kidding Trinity," Trinity said, feeling an episode of involuntary convulsion coming on.

"Naw, I'm just thirsty," Jones said. "It's hard work being called all sorts of names. Unnnnhh...hey, can you help me open up this can of Whoop-Ass?"

Being generous, Trinity attempted to opened the can of Whoop-Ass and was promptly roundhouse kicked in the face by something inside the can.

"Ha, ha! I bought the wrong brand of Whoop-Ass," Jones said, waving the can in the air. "I got Chuck Norris Flavor, suckers!"

He ran away as Trinity lay there bleeding and Thomas did the Chicken Dance in Spanish.

...

"This is gonna be like fun, just like Halo," Thomas smiled. "Secret Agent man, secret agent man, da-nanana, da-nanana! They've given you a number, and taken away your name! Da-nanana, da-nanana!"

Trinity hit her head on the controls. For some reason, despite all of her logical arguments proving him otherwise, he constantly mistook any version of Agent 007 for Halo.

The helicopter rose to meet the office building.

"No," said Smith, the camera zooming in on his face as he witnessed the spectacle with incredulous black-rimmed eyes. "The pizza delivery guy just remembered that a medium beef taco wasn't included in our order and now he wants the extra $4.99! RUN!"

Thomas made a face behind the chain gun.

"Did you see that? Did you see that?" Smith screamed, pointing in horror to Thomas.

"See what?" asked Brown.

"He made a face at me! He made a face at me! He made a face at me!" Smith shrieked. "He hurt my feelings!" He turned to the helicopter, scribbling a note and attaching it with a paperclip to a bullet. He fired off the bullet and it pierced the engine: I'm suing you for emotional trauma!

"Oh, no!" cried Thomas, gaping amidst the flood of gasoline in the cockpit, "there's absolutely no way defense is gonna build up a solid case for me in time!"

Trinity stared at him.

"Just fire or Trinity will reduce your Happy-Happy Trinity Time back down to five minutes," she said.

"Yes, ma'am," Thomas said politely before drawing up the turrets and destroying everything in the room.

"Scatter!" Smith commanded. The trio of Agents shot out in different directions. Unfortunately, these types of bullets were the kind that wrapped around in circles, like the ones in the cartoons, so, in reality, Thomas was a perfect shot–one hundred and seventy-eight bullets were fired directly at Morpheus but not one of them actually contacted. They hit the doors, walls, windows and desks that surrounded him, instantly killing all the poor office workers that decided to come in for a mid-morning water cooler.

"WTF? Are the laws of physics really shittin' me right now? What in the absolute hell–is this fucking Looney Tunes?" Smith cried.

Thomas nodded.

The Agents collapsed, having a collective aneurysm.

"Well, that was easy," Trinity said. "Now let's get the old guy and go home."

Thomas looked at Morpheus.

"Is that...an afro?" he asked, squinting.

"Shut up, you two. First of all, I'm not old, I've always looked like a bemused middle-aged black man, even when I was a female Native American toddler. Second, yes, Neo, it IS an afro, how very observant of you. Thirdly, I don't want to leave, I'm very much enjoying—MY AFRO!" Morpheus screeched as his afro fell dramatically to the ground, smoking with a bullet hole. Scooping up the precious bundle of hair in his arms, he wept. "YOU KILLED MY AFRO! YOU KILLED THE ONLY LOVE I EVER HAD IN THIS WORLD okay I'll go now."

He walked across the air into the helicopter, pushing an outstretched Thomas away. Thomas and Trinity blinked, sharing a vague thought that they might be having a Pixie Stick-induced hallucination. Morpheus fell asleep in the cockpit for his daily mid-afternoon nap.

Trinity swung the helicopter away. However, the engine was still leaking gas, and they were quickly losing altitude.

"Land over there!" commanded Thomas.

"Shut up and let Trinity think, Gawd! Trinity knows what Trinity is doing when you're not bugging Trinity all the time!" Trinity screamed.

"Wait a minute," he replied, remembering something.

Thomas waved a hand in front of her, signaling for her to stop the helicopter for a moment. He reached for something in his back pocket. Dangling it out in front of him like a dead snake, he flailed it in front of the Agents' faces, even though he was more than forty feet away.

"Oh, and Smith!"

Smith looked up as Thomas pulled his ears and stuck out his tongue. "I still have your USB cord! Neener, neener, what a wiener!"

His screams of hysteria were drowned out by Thomas' megalomaniac laughter.

...

They ran into a subway station.

"You go first, Morpheus," Thomas said.

"Oh, of COURSE THE AFROLESS GUY GETS TO GO FIRST," Morpheus grumbled, picking up the phone. "Of COURSE HE GETS NO BEAUTIFUL, LUSCIOUS, CURLY AFRO TO TAKE HOME WITH HIM, BECAUSE HE CAN'T EVER HAVE ANYTHING NICE ANYMORE, OH NOOO HE DOESN'T..."

His complaints trailed off as he disappeared. Thomas hung up the phone.

"Trinity wants to tell you something, but Trinity doesn't know how," Trinity said, lowering her head.

The phone rang. Thomas looked at her as the train whipped by. It blew her hair about her face very dramatically.

"Everything has come true...everything but this," she said.

"Aw shit, Trin, I know we're not swimming in an Olympic blue raspberry Jell-O-filled pool with ten scantily clad girls waving pink fluffy pom-poms waiting on me hand and foot, but you don't have to be all depressed about it," he said. "We can still have our Happy-Happy Trinity Time without it!"

"Yeah, well, Trinity-Trinity is not feeling very happy-happy. Trinity is just gonna go home now."

Smith appeared behind her, reaching for something in his pocket. A click sounded as Trinity picked up the phone, dissolving in the instant of contact. Thomas stared, wide-eyed.

Smith whipped out his Nerf Water gun and a stream of water hit the phone booth.

"Neo," Trinity breathed. She turned to Tank. "He's not equipped for an epic water balloon challenge! You have to send Trinity back!"

"I can't," Tank said, passing the bowl of microwave popcorn to Morpheus.

…

MEANWHILE

...

Thomas glared at Smith as he tossed his Nerf Water gun away.

"Hello. My name is Zorro. You killed my father; now you must prepare to die," declared Smith.

Thomas blinked. "What?"

"What?"

"Oh. Wrong movie, sorry," Smith said, tossing his Spanish rapier and full metal armor away. "Well, I'm here to kill you anyway. Prepare to die, Mr. Anderson."

"What?" Thomas asked, already sitting in a coffin with his hands tucked neatly over his chest.

"Focus, Anderson! I had to go to psychotherapy because of you," Smith said. "Because of the negative psychological forces you exerted in my life..."

...

IN A STRING OF RANDOM TRAUMATIC FLASHBACKS

...

"What are you doing in my house?" Thomas asked, walking in to see the dead body lying on the floor. He wore his business suit.

"You… y-you…" the Agent sputtered.

"You killed my stunt double," Thomas sniffed. "Named 'Keenan' or 'Keanu' or 'Kenny' or something weird like that. That ain't cool, dude. I paid him big bucks to watch over my shit while I was gone, you know that, right?"

Smith stared at him.

…

Smith seized the controller and beat the game on Hard Mode in less than 0.00000005 seconds— 0.0003 seconds later than usual because he was feeling tired from slaying dragons.

"This is not the purpose for which I enlisted your assistance, Mr. Anderson," Smith said.

"Tommy," Anderson corrected, busily searching for the M&M he had shoved up his nose a moment earlier.

"I wonder if the Wachowski Brothers are having a better time than this," Smith grunted.

…

"WHAT IN THE FLAMING HELL IS THAT—oh it's just Mr. Anderson," Smith said.

"Tommy," Anderson corrected.

"Whatever. What the hell you want, Tom?" Smith grunted.

"I'm here to bust you out," Thomas said.

Smith shot up.

"Really?"

"Naw."

Smith stabbed him in the neck with a chair.

…

"My name is John Constantine; IN THE NAME OF THE LORD, I EXCISE YOU FROM THIS BODY!" Thomas screamed, bashing a vial of holy water over Jones' thick skull.

"Wrong movie," said Smith.

"Um," said Thomas. "Moo?"

Smith stared at him.

...

Smith started involuntarily convulsing. Thomas tilted his head.

"Why is your hair that color, strange man?"

"YOU STAINED IT PURPLE, YOU ARSEHOLE!"

Thomas frowned, spotting the box of hair coloring on the sink counter. Picking it up, he studied it for a moment. "No, no," he protested, pointing to the box's description, "here it says it's only a soft violet blend of red lavender subtly mixed in with the lush hues of blue forget-me-not…"

Smith glared the fires of hell and damnation at him.

"So purple, yeah," he said, jumping out the nearest window as a Bazooka bombed his bathroom door.

…

"Oh, and Smith!"

Smith looked up as Thomas pulled his ears and stuck out his tongue. "I still have your USB cord! Neener, neener, what a wiener!"

…

"Oh, and Smith!"

Smith looked up as Thomas pulled his ears and stuck out his tongue. "I still have your USB cord! Neener, neener, what a wiener!"

…

"Oh, and Smith!"

Smith looked up as Thomas pulled his ears and stuck out his tongue. "I still have your USB cord! Neener, neener, what a wiener!"

...

PRESENT DAY

...

"That last one was literally fifteen minutes ago," Thomas said. "How could you have gone to your psychotherapist if it was only fifteen minutes ago?"

"I didn't."

"Why?"

Smith looked down. There was a small, dark smirk on his face.

"You know why," he said.

Thomas said nothing.

"Exactly, Mr. Anderson...that is exactly it," Smith said, his eyes narrowing as he approached. "You hurt my feelings."

The light from the subway flickered.

"If it means anything, I'm sorry. Here is your USB cord," said the program, throwing the cord down onto the ground.

Smith looked at it.

"The webpage you requested is unavailable offline. To view this page, click Connect," he announced.

"What?"

"Oh, sorry," the Agent said, clearing his throat. "It's just that the Matrix's core network updated to Google Chrome, and it's having a few problems right now."

Thomas raised an eyebrow. "Google is the core network?"

"Yes. You have a problem with that?"

"Yes, actually, I do–GOOGLE PROMOTES CAPITALISM!" Thomas screeched, as if on cue.

"Good boy," Morpheus said, smiling evilly from the operator screen. Clasping his hands together, he tilted his head back and howled maniacally as Trinity hit a pan with a spoon in the background to make ominous, booming thunderstorm sounds."Hish training ish complete."

Tank turned around. "What did you just say?"

Morpheus cleared his throat. "I said, 'Hish training ish complete,' yesh, 'twas what did quoteth I."

"You meant to say his training is complete," Tank said.

"No. I meant to say hish training ish complete," said Morpheus.

His super-grammar senses tingling, Tank's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"His...and is," Tank said finally.

"What'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" Morpheus said; and, with this impetus being spoken, the two launched a massive sissy slapfight.

...

BACK IN THE MATRIX

...

A lone, unread, illusory piece of newspaper fluttered in the subway. It read, CONGRESS FINALLY VOTES FOR FREE HEALTH CARE. Smith and Thomas stared down each other High Noon style.

A moment passed; knuckles were cracked, fingers drawn white and taut, itching over their respective guns. All was quiescence, an animalistic tension rising between the two: waiting, watching, feral, instinctive.

Smith sniffed slightly.

Thomas let one out.

"Um," said Thomas. "Sorry."

Smith coughed and waved his hands away from himself.

"Ayyuugghhff, you couldn't hold it in for a minute longer?" he gagged. "Hot damn, boy, what does Morpheus feed you?"

"Hot dogs and fibrous broccoli," said Thomas. "They give me an extra jet boost when I get tired of flying, if you know what I mean."

My audience collectively slapped themselves in the face.

"Excuse me while I hock a noogey in this here trash can, you humans are DISGUSTING!" Smith said as he ran across the platform to throw up in the nearest trash can.

Thomas pouted indignantly. "Well, you're based off of a human-like avatar! It's not like YOU'RE so clean or anything!"

Smith's vomit, upon contact with the trash can, transmuted into giant crystal vials of Suave shampoo, Dove soap and Chanel No. 5.

"Alright, I'll give you that one," said Thomas.

"Okay," said Smith. "Are we ready to fight?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"You go first; I'll watch you fight yourself so I know what to do when you finally realize you're punching yourself in the face," Thomas said.

"What?"

"Just shittin' you!" he squealed. "And no, I do not always wipe!"

He roundhouse kicked Smith in the face. There was a sickening crack.

"What was that? Why is the world so bright? Did I die?" Smith said, his exposed eye dilating in the light.

"Uh," Thomas said as he looked down.

"My SUNGLASSES! FIRST THE IGNITION, THEN THE USB CORD, NOW MY SUNGLASSES!" Smith screeched to the heavens. Returning to calm, he relaxed himself; and Thomas knew his intent grew deadly: "...I'm going to enjoy watching you die, Mr. Anderson."

Snatching up Smith's discarded Nerf Water gun, Thomas shot out a stream of water at the Agent. Smith, in soaking retaliation, ripped out a water fountain pipe and sprayed the program with it. Streams of water clouded the air with grey mist in slow-motion; and many a spectator wishing to pee at this moment just got a little bit more uncomfortable reading these descriptions as Smith ripped open a fire hydrant, Thomas busted open a vending machine filled with water bottles and the two foes tossed urinating dogs like bombs between one another.

"You're empty," Smith said finally, smirking at Thomas' empty water gun.

"So are you," Thomas said.

Smith looked down at his curly-haired toy poodle, which looked up and blinked its round black eyes at him. Smith tugged at its tail, alas, to no prevail. "You're right," he sighed, tossing the poodle away.

"Yo, we're gonna have to do this old-school," Thomas said.

Smith cracked his neck, apparently accepting the challenge.

"Fo shizzle, Mr. Anderson."

"Free-style! I'm Slim Shady yes I'm the real Shady all you other Slim Shadys are just imitating so won't the real Slim Shady please stand up, please stand up, please stand up," Thomas sang.

"I hate Slim Shady, and that's not even remotely old-school, you fool," Smith said, pointing out the critical flaw in his randomocity. Thomas fell over, weakened in his defense. "Y'all act like you've never seen a white person before!" he replied. Smith had to resist the urge to break his own leg at the hip and beat the program over the head with it.

"Ur just jealous b/c i rox ur sox and u sux, n00b," he said, suddenly speaking in text. "Come on, ill pwn u, b/3!"

"x3," said Thomas.

So the battle continued. Smith was all, xO mr anderson, and Thomas went all xD u didnt capitalize my name u 8D, and Smith was all, WTF is a 8D? and Thomas shrugged and said idk, a dork i thinx, and Smith went all liek ttly Mike Tyson over his ash, and Thomas went all O.o ikr? and then was thrown in front of the train.

Smith, suddenly in the mood for uber-macho wrestling, placed Thomas in a death-grip headlock and waited for "the inevitable" to arrive. Unfortunately for him, the inevitable was running a bit late that day. He checked his SpongeBob wristwatch. It was 2:15. Shrugging, he held onto his headlock, and waited, and waited, and waited...

The two waited for five hours. Smith busied himself playing Minesweeper on his cell phone while Thomas painted his toenails pink with silver sparkle stars.

The train has to come sometime. This is a subway, after all, Smith thought.

Two minutes later the train arrived.

A large steak hoagie landed atop them, landing cleanly in two neat halves. Condiments fell neatly and perfectly in place on the concrete before them.

"Hehehe, subway, get it?" Thomas said. "Get it? Subway? Smith? Why are you putting that gun in your mouth? It's so dirty! People don't eat guns! That's a no-no, Smithy! Bad boy, no gun before dinner!" he said, setting the Desert Eagle down. "Here, have my half instead; I'm trying to lose some weight with all my diet cutbacks. Huh. What is this shiny metal thing on my sub? Ow! I chipped a tooth on a bullet. Where did all the onions go? Do you know? Will you please pass the mayonnaise?...Smith? Smith?"

Thomas looked about him. In the movie, it is he who flees Smith; but in reality, Smith was already swimming halfway across the English Channel.

...

Thomas' first two phone calls were left unanswered on the Nebuchadnezzar, where Tank and Morpheus were busy battling it out Dance Dance Revolution style. Trinity picked up the operator's headset on the third call. "Thank you for calling Trinity's Pizzeria, the best pizza-making pizzeria in this pizza-making town!" she chirped. "How may Trinity take your order?"

"Trinity? Where's Ta—oh, never mind! What the hell are you guys doing out there?"

"What do you think Trinity is doing?" she said. "Making pizza."

Thomas plunged his hand into the receiver and smacked Trinity through the phone.

"Get Tank!" he shrilled.

Tank picked up the headset. "Yeah?"

"Tank, I need a disguise. Preferably the standard," he said.

"Right—one Geisha kimono coming right up."

"Listen Tank, I haven't got much time—"

Click.

The phone, being of Verizon brand, dropped the call. "CURSE YOU, VERIZON!" Thomas howled.

Smith grinned. He knew how to tease the anomaly out of the crowd: "Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?"

Thomas stood up.

"There's the real Slim Shady," Jones screamed, "get him! I want an autograph!"

"Aw, shit," Thomas said, suddenly realizing that the Zionite disguise he was wearing was not the standard Geisha kimono, but a white bandana that wrapped around his forehead and a trucker's cap. He heard the operator snicker through the phone as he flipped off someplace in the atmosphere. "Fuck you, Tank!"

"I'm Slim Shady yes I'm the real Shady all you other Slim Shadys are just imitating so won't the real Slim Shady please stand up, please stand up, please stand up," Trinity, Tank and Morpheus sang at the same time. Then, looking at one other suspiciously, they jumped into a cartoon cloud and directly proceeded to punch out one another's lights.

"I am so dead," Thomas said, hanging up the phone and running out of the phone booth. "I look like Eminem AND I forgot my spare stash of quarters at home!"

Being of the far superior Samsung brand, his cell phone rang.

"Neo," Tank said.

"I'm not talking to you!" Thomas huffed.

"You gotta listen, Neo!" Tank said. "There is an exit in room 303 of the Heart o' the City Hotel. You have to get there before they get you. Got it?"

"Yeah."

"Wait, don't hang up yet! Uh, Morpheus wanted to know if you could pick up some groceries on the way there, like some bread and eggs and milk?"

"Damn it!" Thomas shrieked. "What happened to the groceries I bought yesterday?"

"Yeah, um, don't get mad, okay, but we got drunk, had the munchies and ate them all while you were busy with your training programs...Neo. Neo. Neo? Yoo-hoo, you there? Neo? Come on, answer the phone, you little snot, you got a text message from your friend Julie on Facebook! She has a birthday this weekend! Did you get Julie a present, Neo? Oh, I bet it's a set of apple-cinnamon candles. Girls love generic shit like that. Neo? Neo? Hello? Nee-ooo?"

…

Following Smith's orders, Jones and Brown ran down the alleyway.

A runner came up beside them, smiling a little too widely.

"Hey there! Going for a stroll?" asked Tom Cruise.

Jones checked the customary Agent speedometer hidden inside his wrist. His speed read 80 mph. Jones and Brown gaped in unison: "But...you're just a human! How is it physically possible for you to run this fast?"

"Coke does wonders, my friends!" Tom Cruise smiled.

"You do DRUGS?"

"NO, YOU SICKOS!" Tom Cruise screeched, jumping over a cheetah. "I meant the soda brand, fools!" Whipping out a Coca-Cola, he swilled it down in three seconds flat, crunched it up and threw it behind him, causing the semi it contacted to detonate in a storm of carbonic acid. "That's the real shit, yes it is!"

Jones, annoyed, opened another Chuck Norris Flavor can of Whoop-Ass and left Tom Cruise lying in the middle of the street, unconscious and roundhouse kicked in the face.

...

Running for his life was getting a little boring. Thomas pushed aside all eighty pounds of his diamond encrusted bling, looked at his 24-karat gold wristwatch and yawned.

"I sure could use some uber-cool escape music right about now," he said as he ran down the hotel hallway. "Oh, I know!

"1, 2...1, 2, 3; yeah!
In-slum-national, underground
Thunder pounds when I stomp the ground
Like a million elephants and silverback orangutans
You can't stop a train
Who want some? Don't come unprepared
I'll be there, but when I leave there
Better be a household name
Weather man tellin' us it ain't goin' rain
So now we sittin' in a drop-top, soaking wet
In a silk suit, tryin' not to sweat
Hits somersaults without the net
But this'll be the year that we won't forget
One-Nine-Nine-Nine, Anno Domini anything goes, be what'chu wanna be
Long as you know consequences, to give and for livin'
The fence is too high to jump in jail
Too low to dig, I might just touch hell," he sang.

"Since when could you free-style Bombs Over Baghdad?" someone asked. Being the One, he had grown accustomed to answer any question of the likes with a standard, "I'm the One, bitch, I can free-style anything!"

Bursting open the door, Thomas rushed into room 303. Smith stood in front of him, Desert Eagle raised.

The phone rang.

The subsequent shot rang out in the quiet. Thomas looked down, pressing his finger to the bit of red that appeared in his stomach. Slowly, he lifted his finger to his lips and licked it.

"I told you I could free-style anything, but you didn't have to shoot me, you jealous bastard! You hit my secret stash of ketchup packets!" he screamed, spilling out large quantities of McDonald's packets from his stomach.

Smith made a noise of vague disapproval. His gun gleamed in the light that streamed in through the dirty yellow-paned windows. Bending over, he picked up his USB cord from Thomas' pocket, rising up with a supreme aura of triumph.

"Well, Mr. Anderson, at this point I am supposed to kill you, as goes protocol, but I am in a pleasantly sadistic mood today, and I don't want you to die right away. Besides, I don't want to get your blood all over my little pretty USB cord," the Agent said, clicking back the hammer. "So, before you die, do you have any last requests?"

Thomas thought for a moment, placing a finger on his lips. "Ummm...yeah. I want...two chocolate milkshakes," he said, smiling.

Smith blinked. Was Thomas growing giddy at the prospect of this?

"What?"

Thomas held out his hands expectantly. "You said 'any last requests'."

"Yes, but–"

"I don't recall you saying a last request, or one last request, or a normal last request," Thomas said. "Two chocolate milkshakes. Now. Come on. Let's get less with the angry-twitchy and more with the chocolate milkshakeys."

Smith sighed in defeat, and two chocolate milkshakes materialized in each of Thomas' hands. Beaming a stupid smile, he placed his lips on the red plastic straw and began wolfishly slurping down the chocolate milkshake in his left hand. The sound was as nails on a chalkboard to Smith, loud and screeching; a few windows in the adjacent apartment broke from the sheer shrill of it.

"Mr. Anderson, are you quite done with your–"

Holding up an index finger, Thomas bent down and slurped some more. He slurped so hard he got a debilitating brain freeze, after which spending three hours and seventeen minutes in the emergency room removing an ice cube blockage lodged in his brain he was discharged back to the hotel room.

Smith looked up from his magazine.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

Thomas nodded. "Yeah."

"Good," Smith replied.

"Yup."

"Did you get my Get-Well card, Mr. Anderson?"

"The one with the pink teddy bears that sang Lady Gaga?" Thomas said. "I loved it!"

"Good."

The two were silent for a while.

"Well," said Smith, getting up, "shall I destroy you now?"

"Hold the phone on that, Smithy," said Thomas. "I forgot to get the crushed Oreo bits at the bottom."

Smith resumed reading his magazine as Thomas took an extra eighteen minutes to eat every last morsel of Oreo left in the cup. Another five minutes passed as he busily balanced the red plastic spoon on his nose and made a meticulous crown out of his Styrofoam cup. Later in the day, at some time approaching early evening, Thomas finished the chocolate milkshake in his left hand. Tossing the empty cup away, he turned to face the Agent with a resolute expression.

"Okay. Let's do this dying thing. Let's get it ON LIKE DONKEY KONG– "

Not looking up from his copy of Reader's Digest, Smith shot him seven times in the chest.

"And don't forget my right-hand chocolate milkshake," said Thomas.

Smith shot the chocolate milkshake.

"You bastard! You killed him! You killed my chocolate milkshake!" Thomas screeched as he lay dying. Crawling over to the empty Styrofoam cup, he wallowed in the chocolate puddle and howled in agony, his trembling hands covered in Oreo blizzard gore. "No, don't die, Marty! You're going to live! You're going to live, goddammit, and we're going to have it all! We'll take that vacation in Maui just like you wanted, and we'll get remarried on the beach, and we'll ride all the rides at Fantasy Island, and I promise you, this time I won't throw up from the top car on the Ferris Wheel just to see how high up we are!"

Thomas died.

Jones and Brown walked into the hallway.

"Check him," Smith said.

Brown pressed his fingertips to Thomas' neck, then got up. "He's gone," he said.

Smith looked up; there in the hallway was an eerily empty silence.

"Oh, shit," he said. "Not the friendship memories now..."

...

"Look, I'll help you hide from… them…" he sighed, stuffing her dead body into the ice cream freezer and thinking of all the innumerable ways he could use rusted medieval tools to disembowel the two absolute dimwits he had the misfortune of calling cohorts. "But you have to help me with something in return. Deal?"

"Deal," Thomas said. He stuck his thumb in his mouth and whined for sugary cereals as Smith pushed his cart down the aisle.

...

And then they grew bored. Again.

Because they had no one else to turn to for such times of ennui, the Agents went to the house of the notorious idiot Thomas Anderson.

Some had said he was brilliant, one of the world's finest hacking minds, able to crack a code's logarithm in less than ten seconds. Others said he was horrendously stupid, unable to fall down the stairs without stopping to ask for directions and half a road map recalculated seven times from MapQuest on the exact coordinates as measured by his satellite GPS.

That's why Thomas and the Agents got along very well.

...

He walked with rhythm, with style, with spice… that is, until a stray strand of hair got caught in his eyes, and, screaming blindly, he tripped into the community nudist pool located exactly below the department store; and Jones, Smith and Thomas had a collective brain hemorrhage rofling and emoticoning in the 18-million hit YouTube video, "White Posa', Y'all Be Trippin', My Brotha'".

...

Smith's eyes lowered. He shut off the communicator, then crawled in between Jones and Thomas for naptime.

"I don't know what is more disturbing," he whispered, "the fact that Mister Rogers is half-baked somewhere in a Colombian drug field or the fact that I almost get killed by a random potato every time I exhale through my left nostril."

...

"Who is this?" he asked.

"He's a friend of Sure-Shits-a-Lot. His name is King-Fart-ur," Thomas said. "Sure-Shits-a-Lot and King-Fart-ur are best friends forever, just like us!"

...

"Who is this?" he asked.

"He's a friend of Sure-Shits-a-Lot. His name is King-Fart-ur," Thomas said. "Sure-Shits-a-Lot and King-Fart-ur are best friends forever, just like us!"

...

"Who is this?" he asked.

"He's a friend of Sure-Shits-a-Lot. His name is King-Fart-ur," Thomas said. "Sure-Shits-a-Lot and King-Fart-ur are best friends forever, just like us!"

…

"Just like us," Smith said. He looked down at the dead Thomas, whose dead body read, in red Magic Marker, "Don't bother, ladies, I am dead. Unless you are into that. But I must warn you, being dead, don't expect me to call you back right away. Please leave a message at the tone. Beep."

"Good-bye, Mr. Anderson," Smith said.

As if on cue, his SpongeBob wristwatch began to play: F is for friends who do stuff together, U is for you and me!

"Oh, bloody HELL!"

...

BACK ON THE NEBUCHADNEZZAR

...

Morpheus, Tank and Trinity stared at Thomas' limp form.

"Oh God, you're not gonna make Trinity kiss him, are you?" Trinity sighed.

"Well, I vote myself out because I am the captain," Morpheus said. "Our relationship could get a little tricky...I mean, we're both dudes, and that would be cool, but, I mean, without a maid or something, we'd be utterly dysfunctional–male and female are qualities we all have, but we have too much of the male, so, for us, it'd bad cross-mojo, y'know? I mean, no one would be there to put the toilet seat down, and we'd be fighting for the remote all the time, and the beer cans would keep on piling up on the coffee table, and the vacuum would spontaneously combust from utter non-use, and neither of us would be willing to explain to our twelve year-old daughter why she is bleeding down there, and we'd both be getting drunk and no one would ever drive the ship again, and the cat would be our football when we get bored, and then we'd burn down buildings from our boredom, and nothing politically or culturally significant would get done because we're not feminists, and not to mention that the toilet paper would be perpetually nonexistent, and all of our marital disputes would be about killing each other over the Xbox network, and all of our romantic dinners together would be microwave mac and cheese–"

Trinity's eye twitched. She looked to her left.

"Um, someone could kiss him and pretend it was Trinity," she said, suddenly getting a brilliant idea.

"What? Why are looking at me? You know, just because I like to wear beige eyeshadow and feel pretty in this dump of a ship doesn't mean I always have to be your romantic bitch, Trin," Tank pouted, putting his proud hands on his hips and turning away, "I don't know why I always bail you out like this, like the great Switch Switch-Up of '93 or when you guys were filming the pilot for Punk'd and I pretended to be Mouse's Lady in Red that time he fell asleep at the controls in '96 or when I dressed up as Natalie Portman and married Cypher in '98–OOOOO, YOU HAVE MONEY? HOW MUCH?" he giggled, putting on his pink lip gloss.

...

Gasping for air, Thomas rose and rubbed at his mouth wildly.

"Bluchhh! Why does Trinity's breath smell like old engine grease?" Thomas asked. "Damn, I ain't having Happy-Happy Trinity Time ever AGAIN!"

Looking in on from the Nebuchadnezzar, Trinity did a victory dance. Tank huffed into his palm, then picked up a piece of floss and found a live skunk stuck in his gums.

Smith turned around as Thomas rose. The three Agents raised their Nerf Water guns and blasted three streams of water at him.

"No," Thomas said. He lifted his palm and the water stopped in midair, falling to puddles around him. He looked up, witnessing with eyes anew the truth of the Matrix...

"Holy shit," he said, copying an earlier line, "the Matrix is peeing on itself."

Watching this with incredulous eyes, Smith snarled and ran up to him.

"You have ordered a large Whoop-Ass with a side of fries," Thomas said. "That'll be $9.39. Please pull up to the second window."

"Aw, damn," said Brown, fumbling around in his back pocket. "I don't have the correct change. Do you guys accept Visa?"

Thomas roundhouse kicked him in the face.

"Guess not, you MasterCard bastards," said Brown, collapsing.

Then Thomas broke Smith's arm, and that wasn't very nice of him, because that hurts, I know, I fell outta the tree last month and you have to get a cast and all that and the doctors have to sow you up so you don't bleed all your guts out of your arm. Thomas jumped into Smith's body, and then Smith, he a'sploded into a million lil' Smithy clones, and all tha' Smithy clones were supa' pissed a' Thomas cus' he a'sploded the first one, and then they got supa' annoying and all deathy after that, an' not to mention the fact dat Brown and Jones could'nat find work after all dat, I mean, after one movie an' they all jus' outta work! Dat is so sad it makes me cry!

"Four-year old little cousin," I said.

"Yes?"

"GET OUTTA HERE!"

"A'kay," she giggled, running off.

"O.o," I said, staring at this absolute mess of an insane story. "Kids, this is my advice to you: don't ever do drugs...or sugar."

Tha End...for now. XD

A/N: COPYRIGHTS, since this chappie has more than usual...