The silence in the sparsely furnished room was broken by a low chuckle. Brown frowned and looked at Jones. “Yes?” Jones queried. “I told them so.” Smith said, pronouncing each word carefully, with relish, as he turned to the other Agents. No sooner had he turned, making no effort to hide his gloating, then he felt a system sweep move through his code. Somewhere, far off, he could hear two voices indistinctly… not that he could see the source anyway, something akin to a dead screen was blocking his visual field. Smith tried to fight it for an instant. He didn’t want to be reabsorbed by the Mainframe, couldn’t deal with the disappointment, the pity he’d find there… But it wasn’t his choice to make.
Even the normally stoic Jones was shaken by the figure of Lucifer staring back at them from where Smith had been standing only seconds ago. Taking in their frozen faces, Lucifer smirked slightly and choose not to explain. Having been deconstructed by the human, the Mainframe had sort out the quickest, most efficient means of restoring him into the Matrix… Smith had been that means. Already heading out of the room to find a terminal, Lucifer didn’t need to see to anticipate the confused looks on Brown and Jones’ faces as a synthetic scream began to sound down their communication channels. “Shut up, Raphael.” He muttered as he began to walk down the corridor.
Aboard a ship, floating somewhere in the sewers of a ruined city, two humans were watching a bank of monitors.
“What is he doing?”
“Having a coffee?”
The first speaker glared at the other. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m not trying to be. That is what he’s doing.”
Another glare. “Why hasn’t he called for an exit?”
“Don’t know. Maybe something to do with that system shutdown earlier?”
“You said it looked like Agents… Then why is he still alive?”
“Agents and something else.”
“Something else? Like what?”
A shrug was the answer. “We couldn’t get a fix on it. Code shifting too fast. What!?”
Both were staring intently at the screen.
“What the fu-“
“The same?”
“Yeah, but how the hell did it come back? Neo took it out!”
“You sure it’s the same?”
“Fucking well hope it’s not!”
The operator hammered away furiously at the keyboard while the other watched, face drawn with worry. It took them a moment to notice that their main monitor had frozen. Then it began to run code again… backwards. A single phrase spelt itself out of the code… “Vae Victis”. The two watchers stared in disbelief.
“What does-“
“It’s German, derived from Latin… Vae Victis… Suffering to the conquered.”
Still sitting in the now almost deserted café the rebel finally broke his, apparent, contemplation of his now cold coffee. He stood slowly, stretching his stiff limbs, savouring his humanity almost. He’d made his decision. Somewhere during the hours sat in the café the though had crossed his mind, that perhaps neither side was right. But perhaps they thought they were. Perhaps the rebels thought that everyone wanted the right to live freely, on a desolate planet and perhaps the AI thought that all that humans needed was the security of the Matrix. All it needed was understanding really, a small compromise.
As he began to walk away from the café a sadness settled over him, his friends, rebel friends wouldn’t understand what he was doing, they’d think he’d turned traitor. He sighed. There was every chance that the AI wouldn’t understand either.
“What are you doing?” Jones enquired off his counterpart, as he watched Brown standing by the windows, one hand extended, fingertips lightly touching the glass.
“I am… mourning?” Brown questioned the validity of his own actions.
“For Smith?”
“Yes, it would seem so.”
“I did not know that you cared.” Jones delivered the line without any of the required humour.
“You are not funny, Jones.”
“Perhaps, I am not trying to be.” Jones came to stand next to Brown, by the window.
Silence passed between them.
“It is strange that you have formed some attachment to…” Jones trailed off.
“And you have not?” Came the questioning reply.
“All units of 0.2.8 are inter-related.”
“Ah.”
“Ah?”
“That would be the suitable response.” Brown replied, an almost smile hovering about his lips. Jones simply looked at him, questioning by gaze alone.
Brown’s gaze returned to the skyline. “He was… interesting.” He finally answered.
In another room, Lucifer chucked at his own cleverness. His transmission should have reached the rebel ship by now. “Vae Victis”. The medieval German war cry should cause panic aboard the ship, once translated. Lucifer didn’t think too much on it. ‘Suffering to the conquered’, it meant, but surely by definition shouldn’t the conquered be suffering anyway simply because they were conquered. At least it would produce the desired effect of spreading panic. For a war fought on every front, every means had to be employed. Yet, he couldn’t help wondering about his choice of phrase… since he didn’t particularly wish suffering upon the conquered, not that he considered the humans conquered in any case. After all, how many supposedly enslaved races lived their lives out without any knowledge of their conquerors or their slavery…
Lucifer was aware of Raphael trying, unsuccessfully to use the communication channels to contact him. He ignored it. Sulking Raphael was not something he wanted to deal with just yet.
A sudden communication from the Agents called Lucifer back into the other room, to find the rebel human waiting for him.
“Yes?” he enquired politely, even managing a slight smile, for the human’s sake.
“I’ve had time to think.” The human paused, looking nervously at Brown and Jones.
“Go on.” Lucifer prompted, gesturing for the human to take a seat.
The human sat down, still very nervous. “And I think… I think you might be right.”
“Really?” Lucifer hid his condescending tone, almost successfully.
“Uh, yes. I’d… that is… I’m… prepared to help you. If it ends this war.”
“Wonderful!” Lucifer smiled outright, clasping his hands together in front of him.
Hours later, Brown and Jones were fiddling with the equipment required for direct conversion of human to Agent. Brown, checking the syringe with the transmission fluid, noticed that Jones was performing his task reluctantly… He’d taken to typing with only two fingers. “Jones?” There was no reply; Jones didn’t even look up from the screen.
“Jones, is something wrong?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Then you do not have a problem with the fact that Lucifer will replace our Command unit with a… human?”
Jones stopped typing but didn’t look away from the screen. Brown stared at him.
“Brown?”
“Yes.”
“I hope he gets run over by a train.”
Their conversation was cut short by Lucifer and the human entering the room. The human took the seat that Lucifer indicated and Brown moved to inject the transmission fluid that would suitably alter the human’s code, effectively killing him in the real world.
Somewhere on a ship in the real world a human body shuddered and then lay still. The ships crew frantically tried to unplug their crewmate but it was too late. Only their operator noticed that within the Matrix, where the indicator for an unplugged human should have been glowing, there was now an Agent.
He would have had a headache by now, if he were human, Lucifer reflected. It was beginning to annoy him, having to block out Raphael’s constant attempts at a ‘re-dial’. It took a moment before Lucifer realised that something had gone wrong. He quickly crossed the room, long strides setting him in front of the human, who was unaccountably slumped in the chair. A sharp look at Brown and Jones confirmed that they had not tampered with the human. Lucifer grabbed the human’s chin and jerked his head up… only to find himself staring into a pair of dazed blue eyes.
“Huh?” was all the Command unit of 0.2.8 managed as Smith tried to re-engage his speech program, without ending up sounding like Anderson in the process.
Lucifer opened the communication channel that Raphael had been using to try to contact him, only to find that Raphael thought it amusing to re-rout the sound of a disconnected phone.
And that’s that.
But what will Lucifer do about Raphael subverting his plans? How are they going to combat Neo, when he can deconstruct AIs? And what further plans does Raphael have for his ‘perfect’ Agents?
Oooh…
Guess I’ll just have to write another fic.
Narsus
15:11, 05/04/02