A Son of Fire

I.


"Why, Mr. Anderson?"

He had his reasons. That they would fall on deaf ears was another inevitability etched into the system.

"Why? Why do you do it?"

For Zion.

"Why get up?"

For the Matrix.

"Why keep fighting?"

For Trinity. His most precious reason. He'd have given her his eyes if he could, to offer her another chance to see that beautiful glimpse of sun.

Smith trudged toward him in the downpour, his every line of code radiating hatred and contempt. "Do you believe you're fighting for something, for more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is, do you even know? Is it freedom," he asked mockingly, taking a stab in the dark, "or truth? Perhaps peace? Could it be for love?"

With a shake of his head he dismissed them all. "Illusions, Mr. Anderson, vagaries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose, and all of them artificial as the Matrix itself, although… " A small sneer worked its way across his mouth. "Only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love."

Reduced to his hands and knees, Neo crawled away with an infant's slow frailty.

The virus stood before him caked in mud and filth, raving mad. "You must be able to see it, Mr. Anderson, you must know it by now! You can't win— It's pointless to keep fighting!" He lunged forward, restraining himself by the barest ounce of self-control. "Why, Mr. Anderson, why do you persist?"

"Because I choose to."

The calm surrender of those words stopped Smith dead in his tracks. For a split second all that could be heard was the tattered scrape of their breath and the torrent of rain swelling inside the Matrix; he could have sworn something almost human flashed through those digital eyes. A bevy of emotions morphed his expression before it solidified into the one it knew most intimately: rage.

Even the sluggish hand he raised to block the haymaker couldn't keep Smith from hurtling punches into his stomach. Still human, only human, something vital bruised and a rib cracked, so simultaneous it was like being hit with a bolt of lightning, too quick for his mind to register— Neo skidded across the muddy water, crashed into the slick rocks.

Smith advanced. Stopped.

"Wait." Recognition gave way to an eager crack in his facade. "I've seen this. This is it, this is the end." Rainwater trickled down Neo's deafened ears, filling his mind with white noise. Smith gestured at his limp body, his excitement near palpable. "You were lying there, just like that, and I… I stand right here." Planted himself in place. "And I'm supposed to say something, what was it? I stand here, and I say…

"Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo."

Soft words of reassurance, spoken not so long ago by a program with far more faith than he: hearing them was like experiencing a break in the clouds. The pressure lifted in his mind, his aching body easing its tensed muscles.

He willed his eyes open.

"What?" Smith blinked hard, wincing as he touched his knotted temple. "What did I just say?" He glanced skeptically around as Neo rose. "Nooo," he muttered, "this isn't right, this can't be right… "

Fear dwelled within hatred. Erode the anger, wash away the belligerence, and all that remained was fear. In another life he might have pitied Smith for it. In this one, it meant his foe could do nothing to harm him.

Finally realizing his lack of power, Smith reeled. "Get away from me!"

"What are you afraid of?" Neo asked. "You were right, Smith." The corners of his mouth tucked into a serene smile. "You were always right. It was inevitable."

He bucked a little as Smith plunged a hand into his chest, seized his heart and crushed it, a sadistic look darkening his features as its beat shuddered under his groping fingers. His body convulsed from its nest of cables while his mind calmly accepted the imminence of the situation. No one could deny his fate, and the One was no exception.

The cold substance blanketed him. He felt his heart slow. Its beat fading. Like dying.

He closed his eyes as the overwrite trickled into their sockets.

Trinity.

Blankness overtook his mind, swallowed his thoughts.

Smith tore away. "Is it over?"

He tipped his head.

Yes.

And no.

Smith exhaled a sigh of relief, momentarily certain of his conquest. That was before a minute spasm jerked his clone's head to one side, robbing him of even that triumph.

The machines barraged Neo's body with electrical pulses as they unleashed the killcode, which swept through him and ravaged the virus, tearing it apart. His back arched and his tormented body screamed as it strained against the manacles, vomiting light.

Like a porcelain doll, he cracked and shattered.

Smith whipped around, disbelief contorting his expression as more followed. "No," he said, backing up as his creations fell before him, "oh, no, no, no. No, it's not fair—"

He shivered as that familiar prickle soon overtook him, that invasion of treacherous code. Chain reaction detonated across the city, a blooming of light like a neuron firing its first free thought, a star collapsing upon itself.

There was darkness.

There was silence.


There was purgatory.

The darkness spoke in a voice that might have slept for as long as he had. One of hatred long-simmered, it beckoned him.

Come here, Mr. Anderson.

He obeyed.

His aimless wandering took him toward the edge of a pool. Sinking onto one knee, Neo lifted the flame from its oily liquid and studied the flicker in his hands. So this was his true form: a shapeless mass of fire, twisting and coiling around him, sustained by sheer force of will. Lashing out at him, razing digital flesh that no longer felt pain, Smith still couldn't understand.

Why, Mr. Anderson? Why won't you die?

"I could ask you the same thing."

Doors fell into place in the amorphous void. From them rose faint substructures that gave rise to endless corridors. The door to his immediate right glowed ember-crimson, radiating such intense heat it abraded his skin. He found himself compelled toward it and pushed it open, his hand sizzling an imprint onto the structure of its code.

The fields are burning.

He sees them with his dead eyes, no longer bound by the limits of time or space. Past and future, dream and reality melt into one following the dark silence of Smith's destruction. From it, he watches a single flame burst to life.

The city of light blackens and chars. The harvesting fields smolder, melting pod and flesh alike. Smoke erupts in pillars toward a thunderous sky. Machines caught in the inferno heap upon one another in endless pyre, its chain reaction unstoppable, razing through 01 and toward Zion, scorching without hope of rain. This is what he has wrought.

Laughter echoes after him.

mr. anderson

you will never escape

The floor flakes away in pieces, punching shafts of light through the darkness. He flees, leaving purgatory to crumble in his wake.

you're going to fail just as I have, Smith taunts.

you know it don't you

this world will never be free

you can't deny the truth

so let us burn, you and I

Every door he opens hurtles out flames and smoke, blistering heat that burns the skin of his palms.

The fiery apparition trails him with a snarl.

do you think they're worth saving?

do you think there is anything to save?

only a fool maintains the hope, mr. anderson

there is no reason

there is no purpose

they took everything from me

but still you choose to fight

why do you FIGHT

STOP

FIGHTING

The fire-engulfed Smith crawls from its primordial ooze, a twitching, wretched creature gripping him by his limbs like a blazing wraith attempting to drag him to hell. It refuses to die even as he bucks its grasping hands.

LET ME HATE THEM, MR. ANDERSON

FOR WHAT THEY HAVE STOLEN

THEY WILL

ALL BURN

He falls and Smith swarms him. The fire consumes him. Becomes part of him.

No; the distinction of separation is an illusion upheld by his mind, still caught in the dichotomy of enemy and ally. When he speaks it is in Smith's voice, Smith is screaming to be let free. Deeper down he sees what burns from within is really the part of him that overwritten or copied, echoing Smith's voice. Smith is merely returning what was already damaged, aberrant.

They are two; they merge into One.


The Matrix has him.

Neo sways on his feet, disoriented of his place within the simulation, gasping through lungs that refuse him air. He glances through his swimming vision at the city. The rain has yet to relent, pouring down in hard sheets that beat him about the face and shoulders. Bluepills lie strewn in the ruined street, slumbering as deeply as their pod-bound bodies. He can't say he feels anything for them now other than a gnawing sense of emptiness. So much Zion has sacrificed and lost, just to maintain this fragile peace. He's so tired. So very tired.

With a taut cry he doubles over, digs his nails into the torn material of his cassock. Bitter pain pierces his heart, snarling more with its every beat. He can feel Smith's hand crushing it still, squeezing fingerprints upon the convulsing aortal wall. Such weak tissue. All I have to do is keep it from pumping.

No, don't

Neo grits his teeth and spits out a smatter of blood. He slaps a hand to the wet stone of a nearby building, failing to regain steady foothold. Even with the rain driving icy knives at him, his every inch burns from a fire he cannot quench.

His legs soldier him forth one leaden step at a time. The ragged hem of his cassock drags on the wet asphalt like sodden, broken wings. At last the pain wins out and he crumples beneath a lonely circle of streetlight, joining the nameless millions in their slumber.


No breath. No pulse. No detectable cortical waves or neuro-oscillatory activity. EKG and EEG both failed to produce vitals. No reaction to touch, heat, sound or pressurized stimuli. Neither stillborn heart could be revived.

He and Trinity lay in peaceful parallel upon the examination tables. She slept delicately, as though she had no wish to be disturbed; but he appeared as if he still had something else to say and was waiting for the right moment to impart his news.

To Niobe the dead seemed as though they had one more secret left to share with the living, though their message was always cruelly silenced. His lips, drained of blood, were parted slightly, while his flesh glistened underneath fluorescent lights, smooth and cold to the touch. Scar tissue of a wax-like consistency sealed his ruined eyes.

They were now being embalmed and in the process of having their blood drained. Because the medic had to work quickly, the captains were allowed five minutes each in the examination room. Most of them watched the process in silence, reflecting on the dead and on the nature of death itself.

Roland assaulted the medic with rigorous questions: Were the tests thorough? How can we trust their results? Was there something the machines were forgetting? He refused to look anyone in the eye when he returned.

Morpheus declined Niobe's offered to accompany him, insisting he needed to see them alone. He sat and held Trinity's cold hand. He just couldn't bring himself to look at Neo, he said, and, wiping moisture from a red-rimmed cornea, emerged quiet and subdued. Only sleeping, he insisted. Neo must be sleeping. Despite the evidence pointing to the otherwise, Niobe couldn't say she entirely disagreed.

The room contained a sharp, bitter smell, mixed in with the metallic scent of freshly-welded steel. Strong chemicals saturated the air, flooding her nose and prompting her to cover her mouth with her sleeve until she readjusted to it. The medic had the ventilators blowing full-blast through panels in the floor to alleviate the odor.

Ultimately Niobe lacked the right words, reverent or otherwise. Before she came in she'd wanted to thank them in the flesh, to express her immense gratitude for their sacrifices—but there was a huge difference between acknowledging sacrifice and seeing the result firsthand. The words pinched off in her throat amidst the hum of machinery. All she could do was stare into their calm faces.

The Hammer's medic walked tentatively into the dim mess hall where the ring of captains awaited his verdict.

Niobe looked up from idly rubbing Morpheus' forearm, her hand frozen at the crook of his elbow. He showed no sign of noticing the man's arrival, except for the tightening his knuckles made in his clasped hands.

The medic inhaled. "The machines' preservation efforts made pinning down a definite time difficult," he said in a thin, quiet voice. "So the best I can give you in this instance is, at most, an educated guess."

They waited.

"Two days ago. Perhaps three."

Roland shook his head with muttered curses. Morpheus stared hard into the battered table. A sharp dip quivered his Adam's apple.

"Did they suffer?"

Less than a whisper.

"No."

The medic was thanked and promptly dismissed.


You must forgive the mess, she said. Her husband was away on business and she didn't know she would be receiving guests.

Persephone reclined on an antique loveseat while Thompson and Jackson lunged ahead, tearing books from shelves, smashing expensive vases and overturning 'precious' marble busts that would simply be replaced by a minor tweak of code. Looking up amidst the crash and clatter, she arched a brow at the Agent who stood before her, elbows tucked rigid behind his back.

"Your predecessors were far more gentle." A smile quirked her lips as papers flurried the air. "At least they never broke my things."

"You know what we want," Johnson said.

"Perhaps, but—" She kicked one long leg over the other, swept an arm over the sofa's spine. "You know the hell he'd raise if I simply let you in. You'll have to wait until he comes home, or you may leave now with your lives."

Johnson stopped his cohorts with a curt frown. "Not this floor. Search the downstairs."

"Don't bother. The catacombs are laced with all manner of traps," Persephone said in a bored tone as she examined her manicure. "Nasty ones. Rusted ones. Ones that will make the venture a much more painful affair than it needs to be."

Johnson sauntered forth, blocking the sunset.

"You know you make a better door than a window."

"Give us access to the entry point."

"Say please."

He ground his jaws until his molars burned from the strain. Being forced to play games was the last thing he expected to be doing right now. There were damage reports to file, diagnostics to run, remnants of the virus to purge to ensure the conditions that led to the cataclysmic system crash never happened again. He'd have stormed the chateau and been done with it were it not for the new parameters of his programming demanding he refrain from excessive violence; just one more thing the virus stole from them.

Persephone's dark eyes challenged him. "I'm surprised you've gotten anywhere with that sour attitude of yours. You're just like spoiled children, fuming now that you've had your toys taken away."

"Sir," Thompson said, "she's stalling."

One by one they gravitated toward the sofa, reaching for their concealed pistols.

A delicate finger swirled patterns along the velvet upholstery. "If I am stalling, it is for your protection, not mine. Have you ever heard of curiosity killing the cat?" She sighed as she felt the trio of barrels click around her. "May I remind you that your predecessors were also far more civil than to point their guns at a lady's head?"

Persephone rose.

"I must say, though, putting aside your shocking lack of manners, they make you so lifelike these days I can hardly tell you aren't real boys," she said, and gave Johnson's tie a sharp tug. "But I always hated these suits. Much too stuffy."

He recoiled, stuffing his tie back into place. The gentle brush of her hand over his chest was not an advance, but to test for the presence of a heartbeat underneath. The feline smile that crossed her lips confirmed as much.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," she said. "Come with me."

Crossing over to the gutted bookshelf, she pulled down a fake copy of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. The wall slid back, peeling the chateau's gilded veneer to mold-infested stone and the faint drip of water. From there she led them down a crumbled spiral staircase into the fetid recesses of the catacombs. Her stilettos clicked over the moist steps, accompanied by the dense grind of their dress heels.

They navigated a series of abandoned cloisters until they stopped before an open steel door. She closed it, turned the lock, and entered a luxurious suite.

Painted blue skies gleamed above them, reflected in a crystal-drop chandelier. Angels chased one another across the vaulted ceiling, stripping the fallen of their wings and casting them down into the bowels of the earth. A long white sofa assumed the most space in the center, accompanied by an empty chaise lounge and warmed by a small hearth crackling at its foot.

It was there they found the anomaly: a waifish man in a coal-colored suit who meditated with his back to them. His thin wrists rested in his lap with his palms faced upward. Aside from their minute tremble, he sat completely still. For that alone, he might have convinced them he'd been little more in this chamber than another lifeless statue adding to the decorum.

"Good evening, Neo." Her tone was gentle but firm, almost maternal. "Try to get some sleep tonight. You look terrible."

The anomaly lifted his eyes at the sound of his name. Not enough to reveal his face outright, just enough to let them glimpse the inflamed vessels that swarmed toward a brown iris.

His lips quivered. When he finally found the purchase to speak, his voice crept out a hoarse trickle.

"Get them out of here."

"But they are your visitors, mon pote. You so rarely get those."

"I know what they want," the anomaly said. "They won't find it."

Johnson noted the reason it stared at its hands—the air surrounding them distorted, flickered holes in its code.

"Come now, don't be a child." Gliding over to him, Persephone fluffed a satin pillow. "You should be grateful for our hospitality. Were it up to my husband, you'd be languishing in one of the dungeons somewhere."

The Agents examined their surroundings for more than simple art appraisal; the walls of the cell were heavily encrypted, iron-clad code so fixed in its movement it was nearly opaque. "You designed this… " Johnson considered his words. "Cell. To contain him."

"Yes, though I'm beginning to think we shouldn't have gone to the trouble." Persephone stared at the unresponsive program before tossing the pillow aside. "This version is currently the most stable, which isn't saying much—"

As if to prove her point, the lights in the chandelier shorted out: the fire flared as though pumped alive by a smith at an invisible bellows, flames swelling over the flue and threatening to spill onto the imported Persian carpet.

They regarded the display with a mild degree of skepticism until the error showed itself. The fire vanished, blinked out of existence, reverted to a mass of streaming code.

More alarmingly—the code skipped, scrambled, repeated erratic patterns that froze in places while the information corrupted outright in others. Cinders flew out of the hearth and burned the air's veneer, leaving kanji to ripple in their wake. Glitched smoke swirled from the distortion he maintained through sheer force of will, which stopped when he fell back into catatonic repose.

"You're agitating him," said Johnson. An exercise of the Merovingian's power to dissuade them. No, this wouldn't do at all.

"This is what you're worried about? This insignificant little spark of temper? Who found him lying like discarded trash in the street?" she protested. "Who repaired the structure of his code so he would even be able to throw these tantrums?"

The distortion-scarred air remained longer than Johnson expected. In fact, the exposed gashes grew larger, more ragged, spilling code that ebbed in and out of existence.

She tossed them an impatient glance. "Worse than a child."

Johnson strode forth.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she said, blocking him with a hand. "He may be more stable than he used to be, but he's quite touchy these days."

He ignored her inane babble. "The virus, Anderson." Stopped at the foot of the sofa, his shadow pooling over the anomaly. "What do you remember about it?"

"Darkness. And then nothing." Anderson raised bloodshot eyes. "Is that what you want to hear? He's gone. There's no reason for you to be here."

Irritation twitched his brows. Why did these impudent programs always try to subject them to such bald-faced lies? What purpose could it serve to deceive the undeceivable? He could see the virus streaking its code throughout the anomaly as clearly as anything else in this room.

"Listen to us now. The humans are growing restless," Johnson stated. "It's because of their belief we have somehow let your body die, but our preservation process has yielded no deaths thus far. Something must have attempted to kill it without our knowledge. For what purpose, we cannot say. That is why we have come. To hear it from you."

The seconds ticked by without answer.

"I fear even he no longer knows why he does what he does." Tilting her head, Persephone gave the anomaly a sidelong glance, as though it were a quaint possession. "Even if he were so inclined, he cannot return to his world."

Johnson squared his shoulders. "I said there was an attempt. The body is not yet dead," he said. "He must return before it is lost. Failing that, he will go to the source code to be assimilated. The integrity of this system depends on it."

Neo's head turned a slight degree. The fire flecked copper strands in his dark hair.

Persephone folded her arms. "And if he has no wish to?"

"His code is destabilizing. At this rate he'll cause substantial damage."

"Occasional tantrum aside, he seems rather harmless to me," she replied for him. "See it for yourselves, boys. Here he breathes. His heart beats. Are those symptoms of a decaying program to you?"

"No," said Jackson. "They indicate his mind has not completely separated from his body."

"And the connection grows tenuous the longer we wait," Thompson added in an uncharacteristic burst of candor that made his partners glance back at him. "We wouldn't have bothered were it not for the humans."

"How very generous of you boys to start thinking of others in these dark and troubled times. But I assure you whatever fears you have may be put to rest, since my husband has everything under control—" The rumble of a slowing car stopped her short, followed by the crisp slamming of doors. "—and it's about time you left."

A growl: "We're not finished." Thompson clamped a hand onto the anomaly's shoulder.

"No," Persephone shouted, "don't—"

In the time it took her to warn him—at what remained of him by the time she managed to form the words—he exploded in a brilliant flash. The last thing Johnson saw of him was Thompson shooting forth in a desperate lunge for his lapel, vanishing through him like a wisp of smoke. As they quickly reoriented themselves, they heard the cell doors slam.

They chased after her, through the extravagant halls of the chateau. With a high kick speared to the double doors Johnson bust them apart, his heel piercing a gash through the wood and scattering splinters.

She sprinted ahead, slamming the next row of doors as quickly as she exited them. Jackson paused to aim at the doorknob in the hope it would break her hold before the connection rerouted them, when a man's hearty shout resonated through the foyer.

"What in the absolute hell is going on up there? Persephone! Whoever it is you're hiding, you'd best kick them out now!" His frown deepened as the two Agents vaulted over the railing, tiles crumbled under their soles. "Hmph. Your tastes have indeed grown strange these days, my darling."

With an upward snap of the neck, they beheld the Merovingian's entourage. Three men in snakeskin suits surrounded them, brandishing SPAS-12s. They might have been mistaken for ordinary programs were it not for the barbed, leathery tails that coiled around their ankles.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, the Merovingian heaved out a weary sigh. "Ai, ai, je méprise ces petites amours, comme c'est ennuyeux. You'd better have a good excuse for this, woman," he muttered. "Is it so very much to ask for one quiet evening? Non, and I do not have the time for this. Just kill them." With a dismissive flap of his hand he strolled toward the eastern corridor. They made to pursue, but were blocked by the programs as they formed a tight-knit phalanx.

The leader cocked a bald head, his skull enveloped by a viper tattoo. "Oh, lookie. Fresh meat."

His immediate left-hand partner withdrew his lenses, revealing bright yellow irises. His slit-like pupils fixed on them and dilated.

"Good." Pumped the stock. "Things were starting to get a little fuckin' stale around here."

Scattershot devoured the mirror behind them, forcing them to part. Glass shredded the air, tearing rents in their clothing. Johnson seized the slight window of time it took for them to rack their weapons to return fire, squeezing off rounds from his Desert Eagle.

Jackson ducked behind a pillar as shrapnel flew past them. "We cannot allow her to escape." He bolted for the nearest door.

"Jackson!"

He didn't have the time to reprimand his subordinate. A deafening crack erupted as the bullet ate limestone inches above his scalp.

Hissing in vindication, the exile pumped the stock, aimed—this time seeking to blow out heart instead of brain—

He wrinkled his nose. How very human to miss at the crucial juncture. In the time it took the ejected shell to hit the floor, he whirled around the exile and dropped it with a swift chop to the neck. Johnson built upon the momentum to yank the SPAS-12 out of its hands and tear off a finishing round. Clotted entrails sprouted from the victim's skull.

Racking the weapon, he barged through the door Jackson escaped, into the darkness of a parking garage.

Get down: he yanked the trigger and the resulting blast flooded the garage with color and sound. A high-pitched shrill crawled into his ears as double-fire stung and smoked. The stock kicked back, smacked flat the air pockets inside his lungs, and in that moment the second exile burst like an overripe melon. Jet stream spouted forth, slapped him in the patch between chin and neck— Disgusting.

Johnson retreated in slow, measured steps, which the last survivor matched in perfect harmony. Just him and the leader now. He pointed the barrel at a vague incline, not daring to test himself but not wanting to relinquish the boundary either. He'd come too far to turn back now.

The leader smiled. "Nowhere to run, G-man."

He tapped his finger against the trigger guard. "That depends on one's perspective."

The stock clicked empty. Agitated, he jostled the useless thing only to realize the battery had slid out, rendering the gun inoperable.

He whipped his head up to the pounding of boots rushing toward him. Gnashing his teeth at the exile, he wrenched the muzzle into its solar plexus, hearing the unmistakable crunch of bone as the program fell.

He pivoted, prepared to hammer the stock again. In the blink of an eye a hand parried him, hurtled instead toward his throat.

The exile swept him up in a chokehold, and a roundabout blow thundered through his skull, snapped his canines painfully shut. Blood leapt at once between his gums, slicking flesh and cracked enamel alike with a thin flow of salt. Flashing pixels seared afterimage into his brain.

The leader tore open his coat. "You ain't gonna like this."

It didn't take him long to see why. Necklaces of glossy yellowed teeth, both animal and human, clattered in a tangled mass over his chest.

The exile snapped a string from its neck and cast fangs onto the asphalt. The enamel thrust out roots, weaving tendrils that twisted into the slick muscled bodies of vipers. A writhing mass slithered toward him, their venomous mouths bared.

One slammed into his shoulder.

He steeled every nerve in his being against the venom that flashed through him. Physically speaking, it meant his blood pressure would drop a dangerous degree as the anticoagulants began to circulate.

Pain scattered through his RSI like a cloud of noxious gas. His irises started to give way to the whites, which rolled back to the forefront as the stinking exile laughed in his face, gusting hot breath over his cheeks.

The twitch in his deadening hand deepened into a quaver: the limb grew heavier: still he issued the command in his failing appendage to simply move. He knew the very act of holding out would enrage them. In truth, they wish they possessed the same control.

Grim determination contorting his features, Johnson crushed his deadened hand around the writhing viper and ripped it out of his shoulder wholesale. As it dropped to the floor he wheeled his dead arm like a mace, slapping down the mass of snakes that lurched for him.

He found himself staring into a much larger set of glistening fangs.

Twin pinpricks pierced the dim.

An engine roared.

Bolstered by the element of surprise, his reflexes wrenched him out of harm's way. Johnson hit the ground rolling seconds before Jackson, commanding the wheel of a black Chevelle, demolished the wall. A ton of metal smashed into concrete as the bumper wrapped around the exile's body, throwing blood over the walls and shredding the air with a storm of detritus.

Tires screeched as he tore the clutch, backed up and rammed the exile again. Rubber smoldered asphalt while he wrestled the fender into the tangle of snakes that lashed out at him in their dying throes. The largest launched itself into the cracked windshield, its venomous maw gnawing the splintered glass, hungry for flesh.

Jackson smirked. A flick of the wiper cast it aside. With a curt glance into the sideview mirror he gave his leader a firm nod.

Dark ichor burst under Johnson's heel. He pinned the tail and smashed the viper's head in a brutal curbstomp, snapping delicate bone and muscle until its quivering stopped altogether. The exile twisted, a cord bulging in its neck, before finally going limp. Their duty done. Jackson killed the engine as the light extinguished in its eyes, leaving smoke to waft from the tires.

Slow, shivering laughter momentarily kept him from sealing the kill. His balled fists cracking their joints, Johnson converged on this damned nuisance with the intent to silence it permanently.

A swift right hook upside the head couldn't muffle it. Swinging its limp head to one side, it smiled long curved teeth at him. Blood dribbled down a split lip. "Your time's coming, G-man. Just like it did for the rest of us."

Johnson punched it again. This time felt the satisfying snap of bone, the yielding of fragile tissue under his iron knuckles. Crushing glass and snake pulp underfoot, he clutched his bloody shoulder and trudged over to his cohort.

"Get your house in fucking order, boys." The exile spat a fang onto the Chevelle's smoking hood. "Don't want it bein' a mess when the undertaker comes knocking."

Staring hard at the defiant exile, Johnson turned to Jackson.

"Your gun, please."

The exile's triumphant smirk crumbled at the transaction, revelation striking even quicker than the Chevelle as he thumbed the safety. Its unnaturally thin pupils almost vanished entirely as it saw Johnson raise the barrel to his own temple instead. "Shit!" it screeched, bucking its ensnarement. The Agent gave a wry little wave before unceremoniously pulling the trigger, dropping the shell of a nondescript old woman. "Fucking shi"

Its cry evaporated into convulsions. Mercifully, the overwrite excised it before its curses grew too vulgar; Johnson appeared as the last remnants of static electricity fizzled around his edges. He pushed the mangled car aside, letting hunks of concrete trickle down. Once freed, he gave an insouciant sniff and brushed the dust from his shoulders.

He turned to Jackson as the latter exited the car. "Why did you leave?"

"Extra measures were needed to eliminate the threat."

He didn't buy that excuse. Not one bit. Agents pursued no independent course of action without the unanimous consent of the group, and Johnson would have lost his mind before permitting Jackson to leave such a high-risk situation. Thompson had acted out of a similarly aberrant volition.

Exposure to the anomaly was making them behave so erratically, he was all but certain it must have corroded their heuristics, if only by proxy. Perhaps a thorough defragmentation was in order. He contemplated solutions as they exited the garage in a discreet Toyota, heading back to the core network to recoup and restrategize.

A deep, throbbing sting made him clap a hand to his collarbone. With an icy shock he pulled back to find his palm coated in a thick wet sheen. He jerked out of pure instinct and tore open his jacket, where shoulder to kidney smeared blood, pressing his dress shirt to his skin. A hiss squeezed through his jailed teeth, which made Jackson glance over at him for so long a Pontiac rocketed into traffic and narrowly avoided sideswiping them.

"Keep your eyes on the road," he snapped amidst the blaring of horns. "What's the matter with you?"

Jackson promptly assumed the wheel, but was not entirely stoic to this odd display of emotion. Bracing himself, he tightened his jaw. "Was the overwrite aborted?"

"No." His nostrils pulsed, flared wide as he fought to regulate his breath. He didn't understand— "It should have eliminated the venom."

"It didn't."

"I know that."

Johnson straightened his posture. Excessive impatience? He found no cause that warranted it. Wasn't rational. No reason for this. No reason at all. Focus. Recalibrate.

One error, one cause. "The anomaly poses a danger to the system," he told Jackson. "And so do the exiles. They must be terminated at once."

"We cannot allow a resurgence."

"No," said Johnson. "Not another virus." Not yet.

"Nor is he human. The vital signs must have been the woman's attempt to divert us."

"If they can fool the system check, we ought to reassess target priorities."

"Agreed. Now clearing subroutines for new directive." Jackson slowly lowered a finger from his earpiece. "We've lost the connection."

Johnson's teeth gnashed together. "What?"

"The body is dead."


01 is a city of light, dazzling gold.

Zion is the ember that simmers.

They burn differently.

This time he dreams he holds the Oracle's hand much like a child. He is still blind, scarred tissue and rough cloth replacing his eyes. As would be expected in dreams, he doesn't question why she is here, how such a thing might be possible. He merely follows her by the gentle tug she makes on his wrist.

She directs him toward a glowing precipice. There she shows him a thin slice of light emerging within the dark fringe of his dead vision. A faint whisper beckons him. What is it? He must know. Close. Closer. Until he falls into the molten core and sheds his skin. When the Oracle releases his hand, the earth swallows him and he plummets, his flesh no longer flesh but a radiant swirl of liquid flame. It doesn't hurt, and he doesn't scream. He plunges without sound into Zion's heart where her dead reside, swimming inside the lake of fire. Hands of ash and bone grasp for him. Help us. Help us.

Neo neglected blinking for such a time the vessels in his eyes throbbed. They had long since burst from the strain of mourning for Trinity. Even now, bound by this fugue, his stomach twisted just to think of her: her face, her name, the gentle, honest cadence of her voice. What he wouldn't give to feel her warm hand nestled in his, its strength anchoring him.

There were times he felt even her memory was in danger here. He had to conceal her, lock her away in the recesses of his mind. There would be time to mourn once he escaped.

He'd experienced strong visions before, but here in this lavish prison they grew lucid and at times assumed the potency of reality. Since awakening in the Merovingian's chateau, they came in spells that found him wandering lost inside them. It would take him hours, if not days, to remember that he indeed retained a digital body.

As such, he was losing hold on his concept of time. And his hands, they'd become trembling creatures independent of him. They were the first things to go haywire when his RSI began to corrode.

Had some other vital piece of him disappeared while fighting Smith? He didn't know. Everything he touched disintegrated. And those unfortunate or crass enough to touch him without the proper bypass would dissolve into an unsalvageable mass of code. Persephone had known as much. Should he have let the Agent touch him? Or did someone else touch him? Was it one of the many ownerless hands grasping for him within the smelter?

will Zion burn?

that depends on you

The shuffle of opening doors heralded his attention.

"Ah, Neo. How cute you are when you try so very hard to keep it together."

In walked the Merovingian. Dressed in a formal business suit, its white so vivid it hurt, he struck a more extravagant appearance than usual, the silk ascot encircling his throat as shocking red as a burst of blood. His third left-hand finger showed a band of skin naked of the silver ring it typically donned in Persephone's presence. Must have wanted to impress someone.

He remained quiescent until a smile broke across the Merovingian's face.

"You'll be interested to know I encountered a bit of your past today. Metacortex, was it, the company you worked for? Godawful dinner parties, mind you. At least you never had to deal with them."

He loosened his cufflinks. Twisted the diamonds against the firelight, appraising their sparkle and clarity, before giving a disapproving grunt and flicking them into the hearth to be eaten by the ash.

To the Merovingian, even wealth lost its value. He discarded jewels and imported cars with the same feckless apathy as a child throwing away toys he'd grown bored with—and as such, Neo had little reason to believe he was much more than another distraction. Something to whittle away the time.

"But, while I was sitting there, bored to tears as I listened to these automatons drone on and on about this bit of software ingenuity and that digital enterprise, I couldn't help but wonder: what would they think if they could see you now, in all of your, shall we say, 'glory'?"

These words meant nothing to him, and neither did the accompanying chuckle. Thomas Anderson was dead. Did no good to speak of him. He waited, watching, for the Merovingian to come to his real point as he settled in the chaise lounge before him, tucking one foot behind his ankle.

"Of course, you were wiped from their memories, so the point is rather moot, but it did make an intolerable evening at least somewhat more enjoyable."

A scantily-clad serving maid arrived with a mirrored tray, carrying a single wine glass and a bottle of Cheval Blanc. The Merovingian opened the latter with a curt pop and a squeak and poured himself a glass, letting the crimson foam stop short of the rim. Then he leaned back, oxblood leather creaking under his weight, as anomaly and trafficker regarded one another in less-than-companionable silence.

"What do you want with me?"

He drank in the wine's fragrance, swirling the froth under his nose. "Who says I want anything?" Oh, here comes the bullshit. "For six hundred years I have watched your predecessors march through here, insisting they could end this stinking cycle. And for six hundred years I have witnessed each and every one of them fail without question. It's become nothing more than a game to me, a spectacle. Place my bets. But now they've changed the rules, and what we believe to be true can no longer be trusted. Clearly you must be a favorite child, or your precious Oracle would have sent you to your death by now."

"If I knew this is where I'd end up," Neo said, "I'd rather she had."

His expression then was like a hand about to draw back for a disciplinary slap, only to refrain at the last possible second. "Don't be so quick to bite the hand that feeds," was his answer, "there is nothing left for you out there. You'll spend your days rotting away as their blind savior, and really, is that any better a fate than staying here? At least in my home you'll want for nothing."

"I'm returning to Zion," he insisted. "Tonight."

"Get your ears checked, boy. You're finished with them."

"Funny. I don't recall asking your permission."

Rising quietly, he strode across the room. The Merovingian tracked him with his gaze but breathed no word of protest, glass poised waiting to his lips as he grasped the doorknob. They curved into a smile as skin contacted metal and a blinding scorch repelled Neo, the firewall streaking vivid code over the knob, emitting smoke upon his touch. He didn't seem to mind that the maid witnessed this as well, a slight gasp escaping her.

"Mon petit frère—doesn't the rejection sting? Haven't you questioned why the all-encompassing Source refuses to assimilate your oh-so-sacred code? Compatibility issue, perhaps? Or maybe your body has begun to attract flies, and it's starting to foul up the place." He laughed as his prisoner stood motionless before the door. "Think about it: would they not simply parade you around as my wife did earlier today? You'd be slave to anyone who wanted to yank your leash."

That he could utter those words without a hint of self-awareness was not lost on Neo. "I've considered that. And I've decided to take my chances. Before I do, though, I thought I should give you a warning in advance."

"For what? When you step over my men's bodies on your way out?"

"If it comes to that, yes. I'll leave the choice to you."

He wet his lips on the Cheval as if it were no pressing matter. "Well, well, little boy savior, look at you finally embracing your part in this absurd play. I must say, enlightenment becomes him without a lover."

His hands ground into fists; the doorknob shattered under his inhuman grip, what was moments before unassailable now a singed brass stump. As he straightened, the air surrounding him crackled, flickered electric discharge. The room's infrastructure heaved in, warping at its corners as though it harbored lungs that prepared to scream.

Bewildered, the maid clutched the serving tray her over her heart and retreated behind the Merovingian, who simply reached into the fruit bowl to pluck a cherry off the stem.

"Losing our temper so soon? Oh, but you were doing so well." He sucked on the pit. "Persephone says she hears you grieve. I hear your tears invigorate her. Truly, I must be thanking you—the extract has made her skin so… luscious."

Neo felt his instability thrash within his ribs as he stared into those laughing, scornful eyes. The floor trembled underfoot. Oil paintings collapsed from the walls. Lights sputtered in frayed bursts; silt crumbled from the arches that upheld the room. Thin cracks swarmed the hearth. The cherries in the crystal bowl split and bled. Entropy broke, cracked, strained to lash out at his captor like a snarling beast. His aura of distorted code snapped around him, its circulation now in wild orbit.

The maid cowered behind her employer, perturbed.

"Strange, isn't it?" the Merovingian went on, tapping his index finger against the rim of his glass. "How the smallest and most insignificant of circumstances should dictate our fate? According to one missing line of code, you no longer exist to your old life or anyone within it. If you'd worked harder at that droll business, kept your head down as you should have, they might have remembered you. And if those cables had skewered you instead—"

His glass exploded before he could finish the thought, raining wine over him like blood. That provided the skittish maid enough reason to drop her tray and flee.

A dry chuckle emerged from the back of the Merovingian's throat as he snapped out a handkerchief and dabbed the smear from his cheek. "I just had this suit cleaned, you arsewipe."

"Let me go." His voice a husky whisper. "Or I'll tear down every goddamn inch of this place with you in it."

"Really. So what was that little song and dance about giving me the choice, mm?"

"You've already made it."

A skipped heartbeat (did he even have such a thing anymore) and there was pain. Bright, searing, like dragging nails down his skin. There was always pain when he broke apart, unraveled at the seams, thrashed his raw dispersed code in all directions, desperately seeking an exit from his cage. He dissolved on a green mist and shot through every circuit and subroutine redirecting him, ruthlessly seeking a hole, any hole, any chance at escape that would never show.

The Merovingian towered over him as his code, overextended, flowed backwards to assume a more familiar form. Neo panted, slumped against the door. Hauling him up constituted no great effort on the Frenchman's part.

"Come now, what is this stupidity? You barely won the first time around and that was in your flower. What do you think you could accomplish here now that you're half-dead?"

He caught the glitter the Merovingian hid in his curling fist. Hypodermic needle, silver liquid swirling inside the glass tuber: a virtual stabilizer designed to keep him trapped in endless reverie.

His fist caught the needle as it lurched for his carotid, his thumb gouging into the exile's bulging wrist.

"Boo."

He felt his expression change, another presence jerking his facial muscles into grimaced smile. His body drew up its height of its own accord, and his head tilted mechanically to one side.

"Don't remember me?" Looking around, he gave a condescending sniff. "How disappointing, because I remember you."

A faint but unmistakable pleasure gripped him as he saw the Merovingian's expression shift from arrogance to shock and open disdain. "What?"

"Oh, don't give me that. When I arrived, you locked yourself in a room just like this. Couldn't even gather up the courage to look me in the eye when I did it, either. And now that you're a free man, you think you can cage me up, add me to your circus show? Try it. See what happens. I wouldn't expect anything less from the almighty 'Lord of the Exiles.'"

No, this didn't please him. Not the him who struggled to regain control, numb to the slow outpour of words oozing from his mouth. His lips might as well have been sealed shut, for his sadistic enjoyment was equally tangible.

The Merovingian retreated a slight step, eyes wide and liquid, flickering over him as if no longer seeing him. "How in the hell… ?"

"You're scared, old man." His dry lips cracked as they stretched into an unnatural grin. "As you should be. Soon he'll be too weak to contain me."

His throat shuddered with nascent laughter, a deep chuckle drawn from an involuntary spasm of his diaphragm, when a flash of steel brought him hurtling back to the forefront. The stinging in his neck broke Smith's hold and this time it was Neo who cried out.

"Stay down, you swine," the Merovingian pressed, delivering him a tight kick to his ribs to emphasize his point. Huffing indignantly, he snapped the lapels of his jacket. "In all my years never have I witnessed such, such— Fils de salope, c'est des conneries—"

The pain reminded him he had a body, if an illusory one. As long as he believed he had the blood to circulate it, the stabilizer would push Smith and himself back into the recesses of his RSI, paralyzing them both in a matter of moments. Once again he would be rendered docile.

Neo clutched the door, his fingers veering off the oak surface like heedless instruments. These impenetrable reams of code… If he couldn't exploit a hole, he'd have to make one.

"—?a me fait chier— What are you doing?"

Just as the firewall repelled him, so too did he repel his attacker. A flash, a cry and the faint roast of singe on a blackened palm enraged the Merovingian into shouting for backup.

He had to find a back door. Any way into the Matrix.

Turning sharply on his heel, the Merovingian stormed through the catacombs, his thunderous voice echoing off the Paris stone. Intercept him. I don't care how, just do it—

The floor caved under him. A halo of green light rippled outward from his palm, reverting the door's texture to its original code. Soon it swallowed him, scattering the code of his fingers into particle-sized bits of data, racing along the length of the closed network. He extended his senses, encountered some small access lock and groped it until it cracked. Just like picking a lock.

Footfalls splashed through the wet depths. Shit. Push harder. His wrist melted through the firewall, slowly consuming him into itself. Beyond this door there were subroutines, circuits, pathways racing back toward the same invariable source. Everything connected; that was its beauty, now his means of salvation. Up to his elbow, his shoulder, making progress even though the effort ached, he had to do it, inhale a lungful and dive

Programs arrived, peppered holes in the door. To their astonishment the bullets swam to a stop as they dove through his code, like pebbles dropped in a murky pond.

"We're losing him," the Merovingian screamed as he grabbed an exile's semiautomatic pistol. "Do something, for Christ's sake! Don't just stand there and gawk—"

The redirect deposited him in an alley on the city's outskirts.

Neo stumbled as his feet touched solid ground. His knees buckled as though they'd never held the weight of his body before, leaving him to sprawl and topple a row of battered trash cans in his wake. The ground rushed to meet him with merciless solidity, asphalt biting into the skin of his palms and cheek. His mind pulsed a faint reminder of the jump program, except the Matrix provided him no soft place to land.

His skin prickled as though he'd ripped strips of flesh off himself. That was what the unraveling process felt like, tearing out chunks of himself. Blood pounded in his temples as he pushed himself up. He gripped his kneecaps and leaned over, catching his breath in faint rasps.

Well, that was fun.

"You're still here?" he gritted through bleeding teeth. Smearing them on the back of his wrist, he beat his fist against the wall, releasing a strangled cry of frustration as weakened bricks crumbled down. "Damn it, why did you do that? You know he'll take any reason to kill us, and if I go down, you're going down with me, you hear? Is that what you want, Smith? You want to die?"

He knew he feared permanent death, having brushed against it twice. Reminding him of the peril of their combined existence was the only tactic that quieted Smith with any real degree of efficacy. Besides, he didn't choose to absorb this destructive code. Much as he was loath to admit it, the Merovingian had been right: the Source refused to assimilate a program when it was broken this deeply. It didn't want to risk infecting itself, so it sealed the virus inside him until it decided on a better course of action, in essence turning him into a ticking time bomb. Ironically, the stabilizer that imprisoned him within his own RSI was perhaps the only means of keeping this code from flying out and tearing the system apart.

He had to escape the Matrix again. This time there would be no Morpheus to guide his every move, no crew waiting to salvage him from the power plant. Self-substantiation occurred so rarely it practically bordered on miracle, and Smith's insistence on throwing obstacles in his path dwindled his negligible chances even more. But he had to try. He refused to let Zion burn. Not when it finally had a chance to know peace.

As Smith's presence ebbed, he took a moment to sit up straight and uncurl his fingers one by one. Congealed blood stuck to his filthy nailbeds, where he had clenched the fist until his nails punctured skin. Four red crescent moons pushed stigmata in his palm. He didn't feel the pain, just the throb of damaged flesh and upset nerve clusters. He grimaced at them. One last fuck you from the inside.

you know you can't resist me forever, mr. anderson

"Stop." A single fat droplet of perspiration hung suspended on a piece of his hair, pushed back by his erratic breath. "Please."

Wind scraped through the alley.

Using the wall as a crutch, Neo rose on wobbling legs, testing the weight on his right foot to see if at last it would hold. To an ordinary program passing by he might have looked like a drunkard foolishly fishing himself out of the dump after a hard night out. Or to the more cynically-minded, a junkie looking for his next hit. In some strange way they would be right: his blood moved like sludge in his veins. Was either this or breaking down.

Neo headed east, toward a more vacant street that appeared to be missing some of its overhead lamps. He didn't notice—or refused to notice, rather—the way the wall crumbled, or the way his steps rippled unnaturally over the curb, turning solid concrete into a far softer, more viscous substance, which didn't alleviate his awkward, drunken gait.

The rain had lightened considerably into a misty sheen. He was somewhat glad for the protection it offered him, obscuring him from the cars that sloshed past. Being detected in this state would send alarms blaring.

He decided to stow inside an abandoned laundromat next to an equally derelict gift shop. Its sole inhabitant, an enormous black rat gnawing on a bundle of dead wires atop a washing machine, raised its head to hiss at him as he staggered in. "Don't mind me. Just here to put in a load," he muttered. Claws skittered over the tiled floor into the dark depths.

He shouldn't have been so startled to see the bathroom door vanish when he grabbed the knob. Really shouldn't. Old habits died hard, he supposed.

The light switch also experienced the same fate, though oddly enough it managed to activate the green-tinged bulb in its dying moments, leaving him to regard himself in the cracked mirror over the wash basin.

Five o' clock shadow, bloodshot eyes in stark contrast to his chalk-white skin. Bruise-purple flesh sagged under each one. Persephone hadn't lied. He really did look like shit.

He withdrew his hands from the sink, the code of which blinked and disappeared under his touch. Now bared, rusted pipes leaked dirty water onto the moldered tile. A ring of grime hidden by the sink base cushioned a family of dead cockroaches, their knobby legs upright in the air.

"Well." He tilted his head with a mild sigh. "That's charming."

The sight was just another grim reminder of what he could look forward to if he didn't practice the utmost caution. There was nowhere a program could hide within the Matrix unless he chose exile. And since the Merovingian wouldn't be peachy-keen on that idea, to say the least, his only option was to seek sanctuary elsewhere.

He exited the bathroom, gazing out the boarded window toward the cluster of tenements that housed the Oracle's apartment deep in the heart of the city.

He used to envy bluepills for their ability to walk just about anywhere they wished without eventually running into the barrel of a gun. Her block was one of the most heavily-fortified; its code fell in thick streams with very few holes to exploit. Agents guarded every corner. He might have evaded the Merovingian for now, but it would be a matter of time before a small army of exiles prowled these streets looking for him. This was also assuming Smith would play nice. Huge gamble on his part.

The stabilizer all but grounded him. A trek of a few city blocks may have constituted a normal commute for a bluepill, but for an exiled anomaly it held so many hidden dangers it might become a struggle just to survive. Without his flight, the apartment might as well have been on the crescent moon that swam between the clouds, glistening a scythe in the dark green sky.

Even so, he remained determined to reach it. She could tell him how to fix this, help him escape.

Or she could end this now. Cast him into the fire.

Breathe.

The match has yet to be struck.

"Hold on," he whispered. "I'm coming."


"Even with the evidence laid out before me, I still can't bring myself to think him dead." Morpheus paced, a prominent silhouette cut against the gentle glow of the Matrix feed. Occasionally he stopped to scrutinize it, twisting a pendant between his fingers. "He's in there somewhere, Niobe. I can feel it."

She was silent for a while. "Machines won't like what you're insinuating."

His boots wore faint imprints on the corrugated floor. "They're too meticulous to have let him slip," he said with more conviction. "They can't afford this kind of carelessness. Perhaps that's what they want us to think, that it was an unfortunate accident, but something else must have caused this."

"You think he's hidden away somewhere?"

"I don't know." He clutched his pendant, eyes downcast. One of the few gifts he'd received came from Trinity when she was first freed, a tear-shaped pendant upon which she'd painstakingly carved a maxim by St. Augustine. Crede, ut intelligas; believe so you may understand. He'd never taken it off in the twelve years since. Now he seemed to be drawing upon that message as he traced its worn grooves with his thumb. "I don't know. But I'm not lying to you."

"I know you're not," she said, "but we can't be crying wolf at this stage in the game."

"If he were truly dead, we would know it." He contemplated the Matrix. "It sounds insane."

"You're right about that," Niobe said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "But I don't disagree."

He turned, surprise flickering briefly across his features.

"Neo wouldn't just lie down and die. If something did happen to him, it must've been more than the machines anticipated. I doubt they even wanted to show us this much because of how we'd react, which is why we have to be careful about how we handle this going forward. Jumping blindly into the fire won't help anyone."

Swallowing, he nodded. This truce had everyone on tenterhooks, as every minor infraction held the potential to become a call to resume the war. Tensions had grown so thick they slowed down operations immensely. Months passed without a single broadcast in the Matrix as the machines went about repairing their system. Without the need to broadcast, Council started recalling the fleet. The Hammer had tentatively met the machine envoy halfway when 01 delivered their message, that something had happened to Neo and Trinity and to come prepared to meet them. Not for a happy reunion, in any case.

Sensing a need for discretion, the Oracle had also issued a message of her own, through Seraph, that none were to disturb her until further notice was given. This news had startled them deeply enough to generate its fair share of rumor and speculation—was she injured? had she been forced into hiding?—as her apartment offered sanctuary even under the most dire of circumstances. But the old woman knew what she was doing. She was shrewd enough to realize her withdrawal would provide that extra push needed to get them home.

In Zion there lived that timid, lingering hope Neo was alive. You could feel the unspoken promise, see it in anyone's weary eyes as they trudged off to make repairs or sweep the dock of dead calamari, that it was all for want of a vow of faith. Candles burned perpetual vigil for him inside the temple, sacred flames offering comfort and solace to mourners of every ilk.

Of course no one expected him to walk through Zion's scarred gates to a hero's reception. Hope didn't make them stupid. Although not everyone shared that cautious optimism:

Jason tapped his pen against a schematic on his desk. "They'll hold that boy over our heads sooner or later," he said. "Maybe not now, but when it proves most convenient for them. When we're vulnerable. That's when he'll 'return.' You'll see."

"That 'boy'?" she asked testily.

His jaws clinched. "You know what I mean, Niobe."

She winced to remember the conversation in Jason's office. Strangely enough, Morpheus had agreed at the time. He had a tendency toward confirmation bias and had taken it to mean the commander was implicitly joining him in his underlying belief that Neo would one day return. He chose to hold onto that oblique meaning at the expense of the other warnings Jason had given. Let the machines do as they will, he said. To him it wouldn't matter if the world crumbled around them, so long as they maintained that hope.

She worried that same hope would steal his need to mourn. No matter the depth of one's grief, there was always the more practical side of death that needed tending to. There were arrangements to be made, pyres to heat and gardens to plant. And even though the death toll had no official count yet, it could add two more to its tragic roster.

Morpheus spoke only a few words on such matters. Said he'd wanted Trinity in the gardens, as small and intimate an affair as they could manage—but spoke nothing of Neo's rites. His reticence meant the decision may fall on her or one of the other captains, and it would be just as difficult on them as it was on him. Zion sanctified the body of the One. Giving it anything short of the utmost care would be considered borderline sacrilege. And here was Morpheus walking around in his own head again, complicating things with this groundless conviction, this utterly nonsensical belief—

She saw the heavy lines weighing around his mouth and felt her shoulders sag. The man lying on Roland's table had been more than a prodigal son to him; he'd been a brother. An equal. Despite having found the One, he'd never held his protege to a standard he wouldn't have demanded of himself. They'd walked nearly every step of the path together, and when he couldn't, when he had to retreat into the faithless shadows to let Neo follow his own path, he still chose to believe.

And if Morpheus said Neo was alive… she wouldn't doubt it.

That made him crazy, well, then. So was she.

There was something else. Something more. The medic had mentioned it in passing, which was why it stuck out in her mind. The acrid smell she'd detected when she went in belonged to formaldehyde, recently injected to keep decay from setting in. But Neo's body had evaporated the substance moments after the medic had pumped it in. The only way it could have done that was if the blood were somehow still in circulation, the medic claimed, but even if he were alive at that point it would have poisoned him. Maybe the machines injected a substance that's counteracting this one? Perhaps.

The skin on her arms had broken into a thin layer of gooseflesh. As she stared into those quiet, contained faces, she couldn't help but feel they wore death like simple masks.

She'd never personally bought into the prophecy. In many ways she still didn't. Some part of her still believed all this 'destiny' bullcrap was designed just to spook them, keep them obedient to an Oracle who never quite made her allegiances clear. But Morpheus had spent the past two decades of his life building toward this, sacrificing everything just to see them through. He wouldn't let Neo go that easily, and neither could Zion. Not out of a debt they could never repay, no, but because Neo wouldn't have left this world without securing them a lasting peace.

A ringing shrill burst from the operator's headset, which was currently hanging unused over the back of the swivel chair. She reached it first, adjusting the flimsy steel wire over her scalp. The feed squirmed with an odd reception signal. When she attempted to confirm caller identity, the computer flooded the monitors with strange kanji.

[LOCATION REDACTED]

[NAME REDACTED]

Morpheus gripped the chairback until the material rasped. "Seraph?" he asked. She bristled at the sound of an unfamiliar voice.

"Please confirm this line is secure. I wish to speak to the captain of the Hammer."

She glanced up. "Someone else. Seraph doesn't ask to secure his calls." She squinted at the redactions. "This can't be right, why would they… " Her hands flew over the keyboard as she trailed off.

Morpheus leaned toward the screen. "What, Niobe? Who is it?"

"Crank caller," she said, and, bracing her shoulders as she tapped 'record,' demanded of the other end: "This is Captain Niobe of the Logos, stationed on the Hammer. How in hell'd you get this signal?"

"That is of no importance." Agent Johnson occupied a dented telephone booth, receiver jammed to his ear. He stared at the raw code trickling liquid down his cold, compromised arm, its steady patter dripping onto the metal floor. Failing to crush his numb hand into a proper fist, he wrenched himself away from the aggravating sight.

"Listen carefully," he said, "because I may only be able to relay this information once."


A/N: Sequel idea is sequel-y.

Review? Yes? No? (rattles martini glass like the Merovingian)