Neo stared at the AI in front of him. He… It stared back.
“Look, I’ve already said that I-“
“Can’t make this decision?”
Neo said nothing.
“Of course that is entirely up to you…” The Ophanim shrugged.
“Yes, it is.” Neo said, turning away.
“But, Neo, aren’t you afraid that one day you might run out of time?”
Neo ignored the comment, not even looking back and thus missing entirely the cold fire that suddenly flared in Gabriel’s blue eyes. He took a couple of steps before he noticed that something felt ‘wrong’. There was something in the fabric of the Matrix itself that suddenly took on a sense of unreality. Neo turned to look back at Gabriel only to find that his code-view of the Matrix was beginning to fade. Around him, the streams of green code began to fragment, falling and vanishing as he watched.
“What-“ he blurted out, shocked into silence as he held his hands up before him. The code that marked the boundaries of his self was falling away. The sections looked like they were being deleted, deconstructed and there was nothing he could do about it…
Jones watched, from a distance, aghast. He had originally wanted to destroy the human, he probably still did, but this was horrific. The human’s code was being pulled apart, deleted slowly, drawing out the entire process. And Gabriel was just standing there, watching, unperturbed, as if it was all perfectly normal. But the Ophanim was operating on a lower energy output; it should have been impossible for him to deconstruct the human. Jones was about to connect to the Mainframe and report, when Brown’s voice interrupted him calmly, through the communication channels.
“Return to the Operations Plant, we need to begin patching Smith’s code.”
“We can’t begin the patch until…”
“Until?” Brown seemed slightly impatient.
“Until either Gabriel or Anderson is deconstructed.”
“Yes.”
“How did you…” Jones’ gaze was fixed on the fading human.
“How did I what, Jones?”
“How did you know that the human was being deconstructed? All sensors in this area were disrupted by the human’s presence along with that of the Ophanim’s.”
The Strategic unit said nothing.
“What did you do, Brown? Smith’s orders…”
“Smith is in no position to give orders right now.”
The crowds along a busy street complained amongst themselves as they were forced to go round two people talking in the middle of the street. A young woman was speaking to a tall, blond man. Quite suddenly in the middle of their apparent conversation she paused and appeared to be listening.
“Better luck next time.” She said to no one in particular.
“Miss Ereinion?”
“Sorry. Comes with being an Oracle.” She said by way of explanation.
“Of course.”
“Anyway… you were saying about patching Agent Smith’s code…”
And Raphael took up his explanation where had had left off.
“What do you mean; deconstructed?” Lucifer was aware that he was yelling but didn’t do anything to curb the volume of his voice.
“Anderson had been deconstructed.” Toleezu repeated, un-phased by the screaming Enforcer standing on the other side of his desk.
“By whom?” Lucifer demanded, further enraged by Toleezu’s calm response.
Toleezu turned towards the Strategic unit stood beside his chair.
“The data is inconclusive, Agent Toleezu.” Gil-Rhuven said with equal calm.
Lucifer glared before stalking out of the room, ignoring the mask-like faces of both Agents left behind.
Returning to the Mainframe, Lucifer quickly located Lilith. She had been within the Mainframe the entire time and would therefore most likely have ‘seen’ what had happened to Anderson. Unfortunately, after the unpleasant treatment at her Captain’s hands for failing to remove Smith, she was hardly helpful.
“But you must know!”
“I wasn’t watching.” Lilith said, with a noncommittal shrug before she disappeared back into the code.
Moments later Lucifer was aware of another presence. Raphael was hovering within a gap in the code streams, watching him.
“Wretch.” Lucifer snarled.
“Is something wrong, my Captain?” Raphael approached him, looking sympathetic.
“Maybe I should have had you removed.” Lucifer said, calmer now, peering down at the smaller Cherubim.
“What ever for?” His Lieutenant looked genuinely hurt at the suggestion.
“The human has been deconstructed.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Really?”
In answer Raphael smiled his demonic smile.
Once more within the Mainframe, Gabriel, inspected the section of code that he had ripped from the human, that Anderson creature. He was busy repairing his systems when Lucifer approached.
“Gabriel.”
The Ophanim smiled up at Lucifer sweetly.
“Do you know what happened to the human?”
“He was deconstructed.” Gabriel answered, innocently stating the obvious.
“Do you know by whom?” Lucifer persisted.
Gabriel shrugged, turning his attention to inspecting the limbs of his physical form.
“Gabriel…”
“Maybe you should have ejected his body from the power plants before…”
“That’s hardly a solution.”
“Of course it is, turn them off and…” The Ophanim clicked his fingers.
Lucifer watched him disappear back into the code with a sigh.
Appearing beside him again, Raphael was laughing. “So much for that then. But I suppose it’s understandable…”
“What? After so long rattling around in your Agent’s head, Gabriel went mad?”
Raphael’s grin only widened.
Soon to be finished…
So, who killed Neo? Answers on a postcard…
Incidentally ‘Ereinion’ is a Sindarian name, he’s normally called ‘Gil-Galad’.
23:29, 21/05/02