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Chapter Text

Droplets of clear pearls drip down his dark hands, catching at the tips of his fingernails and falling away as quickly as it comes. It streams down his wrist to the bottom of the crappy excuse of a sink, rusting and dented.

There is no mirror for him to raise his head and brood on his appearance. There are no cold, white tiles lining the walls for him to observe the way light is reflected. No; no such thing exists in a freezing, sorry place like Zion.

Morpheus stares straight down the drain, unblinking. The water continues to flow, wasted with disuse; Water is a sacred thing in the last human fortress, and for a man that has spent his last 29 of his 42 years here, he knows full well that the wise thing to do is to turn the tap.

He doesn’t.

It forms two streams now, and contemplation hardens his dull eyes as they sweep over the sink. There is a saying, Morpheus now recalls, by a wise man: One man cannot step twice into the same river.

He was younger, the first time he’d heard those words. The him who could not fully comprehend the true meaning of the saying thought the following: The man could not step twice into the same river because the river had changed.

The river is an intriguing natural thing: constantly flowing and never stopping. Morpheus for his part has never seen a still river, and even if he did, he realises he would find that static river unnerving–– still rivers are dead rivers, and dead rivers are bad news.

This river constantly has different waters flowing through it. It changes, and changes, never stopping for anyone, and for better or for worse, it will continue to flow. So on this line of logic, Morpheus had thought, the reason the man could not step twice into the same river was because the unforgiving river had changed.

Then he’d grown slightly older, his shoulders had filled out his previously baggy clothes, he started growing facial hair, and he witnessed his first death; It was at this point in his life that his view on that saying had changed.

One man cannot step twice into the same river, because the river has changed, and so has the man. To be alive is to attend the thousand deaths and births of yourself, always maintained in the same shell but never truly the same. A man’s temperament constantly fluxed; and during those days, Morpheus never felt like himself. On some days he was a persona, others a dead man, then again a flimsy thin mask, but finally becoming something of a circus jester, then switching again.

All he knew was that he was never Morpheus no matter how many times that name was uttered in regard to him, and he could never become Morpheus again. The person that you are constantly changes and it is a horrible but natural part of life; and you must learn to accept the skins that you shed and don, no matter how fast or how slow it happens.

Then he met a beautiful woman. Her name was an enchanting “Niobe”, with an intense gaze and a feisty bite, and Morpheus fell madly in love. He finally felt like Morpheus, like a man whose purpose was clear, and whose own traits he could clearly outline. Miraculously, the hundred metamorphoses he had grown accustomed to suffering through had halted abruptly.

He was Morpheus, the captain of the Nebuchadnezzar, whose heart belonged to Niobe, who was headstrong, steadfast, and sentimental, and who was a believer.

Foolishly he believed that the man could not step into the same river twice, because life always presented you with different opportunities. You were never in the same place twice because you moved around and learned from your surroundings; Then, you would reach the end point of your journey and settle down there, never going back to any previous rivers.

To the Morpheus of the present, that was the single stupidest thing he’d ever believed.

His belief in The One took over his life. He knew his end point: Finding The One. The Oracle was his messenger from heaven, the closest thing to it. She held his hand and guided him by the river. His name was Morpheus and he was a believer, captain of the Nebuchadnezzar, and his heart still belonged to Niobe in fleeting beats and yearning, but hers didn’t belong to him anymore.

Then he took on an entirely new outlook.

You change. You always have, even if you never noticed it. It appears in the small things you do, the small ways you act, the tiniest details even in the way you breath and sleep. So does the world around you; because time and change waits for no one, and it is your god given duty to adapt and make the best of your situation.

The river and the man constantly change. But that, unlike what the juvenile version of him had thought, was not a bad thing. If only tragedies were brought by the river, was that not the fault of the man? The river simply existed there, something that would undoubtedly affect you: a man needed water to live, after all.

But then, if it is a water source, that is a positive thing. The river helps you survive and the river may even help you thrive; If you flail in the rushing waters and drown, that is because you foolishly splashed into the stream when you knew you could not swim.

The gift of the man is his intellect. You are undoubtedly able to deduce the good outcome and the bad outcome. The river and you constantly change; but that is not a bad thing. Indeed; for it is for the reason that the waters in the river constantly change that it remains a river. It is for the reason that Morpheus learns and adapts that he remains as Morpheus.

As the same thing in us is living and dead, walking and sleeping, young and old. For these things having changed around are those, and conversely those things having changed around are these.

The message of the good philosopher is as follows: Rivers can stay the same over time even though, or indeed because , the waters change.

But even when Morpheus thought he’d had it all figured out, revelation slapped him across the face and reprimanded him for his untimely arrogance. He did not understand; He had just assumed he had.

It isn’t that everything is changing. The point is, rather, that the fact some things change makes possible the continued existence of other things. 

That is the unquestionable truth of the world. But Morpheus didn’t understand. He didn’t understand truly until the man he’d spent his life looking for — never came back.

That man’s presence in his life had changed. For an agonising week, he mourned, swearing that Neo could not have died, because the man was special, the man was a god among his servants…

He never came back.

He was dead.

That man’s presence in his life had changed, so that Zion could continue to exist. He thought of Neo as his friend, as his comrade, as his saviour — so deeply that he forgot the simple fact that that philosopher’s rule applied to everything. No one was free of it, not even the one who’d freed men and machines from the deadlock of war.

The tap twists and the water stops flowing. It is a jarring change.

His name is Morpheus. He is the captain of the Nebuchadnezzar, strong hearted and steadfast, willing peace, whose heart belongs to Niobe and now Neo in two different ways, and he will utilise the chance Neo has given them for good, ready to draw water from the heart of the river.

They’re an odd pair. There’s a young Indian girl, no older than seven. She sits on a couch with colours and floral patterns that have been dampened from age.

Beside her is her companion, a guardian. He stretches non-existent wings over her figure in an attempt to shield her from nothing. That is what he is. A bodyguard. 

In her hands are a white plastic bag full of cookies. They smell like sugar.

She holds them up to the man. “Do you want some?” The girl asks, not smiling but her face oddly neutral, curious. 

“Okay,” Her companion agrees, drawing a cookie from the bag. All he does is hold it. 

“Eat it,” She insists, as blunt as all children are. He complies, taking a bite. Crumbs drop down onto his black pants, but they're gone with a wave. 

“Mm,” He says, mouth still full, “They taste good.”

“I know,” She nods, not smiling, “I added more sugar this time.” The man does not reply.

In the wake of Neo, this is how Sati and Seraph spend their days. They sit on the couch, accompanied only by the electrical hum of the fan, drowned in soft motherly colours. 

Sati bakes still. She bakes until she nearly falls asleep from the effort that it takes for her small hands to make batch after batch. Seraph always finds her, always carries her back to her room. He tucks her in, turns off the lights.

She bakes, and she asks Seraph to try some. Unlike what the Oracle makes, there are no special ingredients in her cookies. 

They really are just biscuits, and just that alone. The closest thing to it, atleast. 

It tastes dry and sweet in Seraph’s mouth. It crunches and it tastes good, but not artificially good. It’s a little burnt at the sides. Sati’s put them in the oven too long. 

Sati kicks her small feet. She’s so short it barely reaches the ground, suspended mid air. She’s bored; It’s written all over her face. 

She jumps off the couch, sidling over to the curtains. That’s another new addition to The Oracle’s household. Large windows, at the behest of Sati. 

The young girl throws the curtains open, and all over again, Seraph knows why she requested to have them built. 

A beautiful array of warm colours burst into their home, flaming red and sea blue, absolutely vivid. It’s untouched by that sickly rotten green Seraph had grown so accustomed to. The golden rays bounce off Sati’s dark skin, making it shine. 

“It’s beautiful,” She says matter of factly. “Yes, it is,” Seraph agrees. They both stare outside. Even the greys of the towering buildings have life to them nowadays. 

He envies her, he thinks. He envies that she will grow old and be deleted in this kind of environment. That only so many years of her life have been marred by vomit green. Seraph is so much older than her. His systems will never let him forget it, or push it into the very back of his mind. 

He finishes his bag of cookies. There is nothing for him to do except fulfil his duty. So he does; he sits and he watches Sati. 

It didn’t feel like waking up. His eyes did not slowly flicker open, trying to pry open gummed together heavy eyelids, eyesight going in and out of focus. It was instead a simple spontaneous activation, of a suddenly rushing consciousness to yourself. He realised himself in no time at all, an abrupt wave of clarity, with his back on the ground.

The white world bloomed open before him like a lotus. He found himself right in the middle of nowhere. The only thing for miles was a gleaming bright white, no end in sight. He stood up with an easy grace and swiftness that seemed to come naturally to him. He moved like his body was weightless. He moved not with muscle, but with mind. Had he still been chained by doubt his left hand would have come up to cover the area on his chest underneath which his heart lay, and he would have felt the hot beating of red blood, but he did not do so.

This was because he knew, completely and truly. He was the centre— he knew everything and anything. Everything passed through him at once and forever. It felt like ribbons flowing through a translucent version of himself, weightless and free of a bodily burden.

He stood where he was, hands by his sides easily, deciding just to look at his surroundings. It wasn’t really looking. It was the processing of a code built area with his eyes that were not truly his own eyes. But he could not say he owned eyes now— he did not even have a heart, for he had outgrown his body in favour of the mind. Pools of guileless brown swept over stark white nothing. It was all you could see for miles, this milk white forever, with not a trace of anything in it, no colour or life. Had a lesser man seen this he would have undoubtedly gone insane.

He tilted his head as he realised he heard something in the distance. He tuned in on that frequency, focusing on the rushing abundance of voices he could hear. All of them were startlingly young, and charged with hope and some budding sort of spirituality. They spoke to him of mundane things, of their day and their beliefs, of their escapades and their new findings. He listened with a peaceful smile on his face, his shoulders relaxed but not slumped.

Neo, I believed, they said, and Neo basked in their speech. He did not reply, for he could not, but he was always listening. He understood the pleas of the people— and he could be their guiding light, but it was ultimately up to them and themselves only to enact their cries and beliefs. Yet Neo knew that if he heard them, they were already on the right path, and they believed in him and he believed in them.

He looked down and saw that he was naked. He willed unto himself some clothes; a familiar black cassock wrapped itself around him spontaneously, the cloth rustling. The long cloth fell around his legs, and he reached back and found that his back was bare, a diamond shaped opening in the cloth. He smiled. Upgrades. He liked that. 

He pulled out his pair of sunglasses from his pocket, and threw them away. It flickered into a burning spark of white nothing, and it no longer existed and really never had. He didn’t need those anymore.

And he had a name, that he knew. He did not need this name either, but others needed it, so he kept it. Neo, his name was. Neo let out a soft sigh and stretched leisurely, hands high above his head. He did this purely just to feel the boundaries of his mind, and he felt through it and realised that the boundary he searched for did not exist. He was limitless, and so was this spiritual heaven, because he was this heaven and this heaven was him. He had become the Source, he understood. That was why his mind was still here.

Then he took his single, first step. His shoe clad feet stood steady mid-air on top of nothing. But the space around his shoes rippled like miniscule waves of water generated when stepping in a puddle. They spread out in repeated circles, then were eventually swallowed back by the puddle. Neo watched these ripples with great delight, holding out his hands and feeling rain pattering onto his nose and palms, but it wasn’t raining. Neo licked his wet lips and tasted nothing. How incredibly absurd; Neo laughed, loud, warm and clear like the ring of a bell, and it repeated continously in the white nothingness.

Yet if he was here, then he had to be as well. Not truly here, the real him at least, but he had left a piece of himself inside of Neo, and Neo could speak to that piece. It was a part of him in the same way that the very man himself, his entire separate being of seemingly never closing bared teeth and coal black suit, was part of him. He knew that he was together with that man in life and in death, and so he had to find his way to him.

“Smith,” He called, and with the usage of his lips so did his mind pull hard at their link, gasping out for a connection, and he found him. The exile appeared in front of him out of thin air in fiery gold code that gave way to charcoal black. For just a millisecond a storm of emotions unleashed themselves all over his opposite’s face, primarily hate, then fear, and then pain, and then confusion, and utter desperation. As quick as it appeared it went, melting off his face to give way for his typical neutral— a mouth set in a clearly defined frown, lines jutting out on his forehead. Neo felt his mouth open slightly to show his teeth in that same neutral way almost everyone did, simply observing the one in front of him.

The other met his gaze challengingly. “Mister Anderson.” A long time ago Neo would have corrected him immediately, but now he simply accepted that name and it washed over him like water. No anger or denial came to him at those familiar syllables— Mi sss ter An der son, he always said, with that same fluctuating cadence and hissing elongation.

And the Smith before him looked far more relaxed than Neo knew him to be, but Neo recognised that this was only because this was only a fragment of the true complexity of his whole being. This was only a rubber shaving of the entire personality that Smith had developed, of the hatred and burning emotional turmoil Smith harboured internally. But this served him still. He needed to have a conversation with a part of Smith that would still respond similarly like a simple functioning person, and not one addicted to the idea of Neo’s own death.

Ironically enough it was Smith’s chest that rose and fell and not Neo’s. He said after a hard exhale, with ice blue eyes that shot bullets through his own sunglasses, “I do not underst and. ” His voice filtered out into static at the final part, a glitch. It was the equivalent to the human voice breaking. The appropriate response would have been pity, but Smith would hate pity, and so Neo did not pity him.

“I know.” Neo responded, almost under his breath, incredibly softly. He used the same tone that he used in the belly of the Nebuchadnezzar, buried in private rooms encased with red and blue wire and hard gleaming steel. Yes, Neo understood. Smith had died in agony, unlike Neo. And Smith did not even understand agony. He hated, he hated everything and everyone and he hated himself. He was still in pain now and he would likely be forever. He also did not understand that he was trying to understand, and what his own effort to understand even meant. He had made a choice he could not look past, but understanding one’s own choices was not as easy as it sounded.

And how could Smith have understood, entirely on his own? Neo had been able to come to his own conclusion, but the path of the one had been influenced by the many— Namely, he had had help.  And Smith, Smith was alone. Smith had no one but himself, and perhaps that was an advantage at certain points in time, but it was of no use to him now. At some point in time the entire world that he knew was filled only with him, and he was going to fill the world outside of his own with himself as well. He had never had anyone else but Neo— and now Neo had no one else but him. They needed each other, and that Neo could understand, but could Smith?

There was a notable advantage in the fact that Smith was a program and that the Smith he was talking to was not truly Smith but only a small fragment of himself, and so Neo was perfectly honest with him. “I want you to understand,” Neo said, point blank and completely sincere. He felt joy course through himself at those words. For even if Smith did not understand, Neo had said what was important.

And it seemed Smith didn’t. The program was completely silent and was standing still as static, and Neo knew that Smith was not even formulating a reply because it simply did not know what to reply. Yet this was a false response; the true Smith would have responded with a long winding, scathing remark full of personality and snark, with thick pungent denial and anger and fury. Neo knew him in and out. So he knew he had to continue, or this piece of Smith never would.

“I’ll show you what I mean.” Neo said, softly again, so as to not be too harsh on Smith. He turned his head away momentarily and with only a single thought the white around them sprung up with flowers, covering his feet. They appeared as little colourful dots among the lush green grass that further stood out against the brown-black dirt. An earthy smell floated to his nostrils and the endless white sky took on a gleeful baby blue, soft and easy on the eyes, painted in little white clouds. The endless white had transformed itself into an endless garden.

“I have seen everything there is to see,” Smith said, not tearing his eyes off Neo for even a second. That was how he was. Smith was intense, Smith was all-consuming. Beyond that Smith was not held back by certain human trivialities— he often did not care for, need or want human embarrassment or human social protocols.

“You have,” Neo agreed, “But did you learn anything from it?” Smith had indeed seen everything; that was a fact undeniable. After all, Smith had been everyone. He had been everything. He had their experiences and their feelings all stored neatly into his head in accessible digital folders. But that brought up the point Neo wanted to make— had he produced any conclusion of value from seeing and being these experiences?

“Yes, I did.” Smith replied, smooth and dark.

“And what’s that?” Neo responded, closing his eyes and kneeling down amongst the nature of his garden, feeling the blades of grass tickle his hands. How green it all was. Previously he had regarded the colour green as sort of a stench that you could not get rid of even if you scrubbed your hands raw trying to wash it away, but now it seemed so pleasing on the eyes and on the mind.

“That the purpose of all life is to end.” Smith said simply, easy and confident, raising his eyebrows and making gestures with his head.

“Tell me,” Neo said as he leaned down to pluck an oddly lotus shaped flower from the ground, raising it to his nose and inhaling silently, his eyes relaxing, “Do you truly believe in that with everything that you have?”

“Yes, Mister Anderson.”

Neo still held the flower in his hands, but he was looking up from it now with a faraway look in his eyes. “I gave up my truth so many times, Smith. It will be hard. But I know you will understand. I did, after all, so you have to. Actually, you’ve already chosen to. It won’t be easy…. But nobody said it would be. You have nothing to be scared of, Smith.”

Smith remained silent.

“Where are you? I’ll come for you.” Neo promised softly, finally glancing back at Smith and keeping his eyes on him, laying the lotus-like flower back down in the grass.

Then the fragment of Smith began to tremble again, almost violently, his fists clenched so tight his skin was turning pale there, his teeth chattering so hard they clacked against each other. It sounded almost painful, and Neo knew Smith could experience pain. “Why,” Smith burst, loud and hoarse, “Why, Mister Anderson? Why do you want to help me?”

“Because I choose to.” Neo told him, his voice running like water, with an instantly soothing effect to it.

There was that dark black emotion on Smith’s face again, tearing apart the code that made up every little pixel on the most emotive part of his whole RSI, painting it all red with overpowering hate and fear and fury. But among them was this overwhelming pure emotion, just purely emotion, and it made Smith’s eyes go wide and his legs tremble. He was barely holding himself together. He looked away, not baring to be able to meet Neo’s eyes suddenly, and his response did not come in the form of words.

Neo instead received a sudden knowledge, a knowledge of Smith’s whereabouts. It flared together with their connection. He looked inside himself and felt their link. He trailed his fingers up this golden chain and found at the end of it a room, labelled 303.

Neo came back to the moment. He didn’t say anything, because he had nothing to say. He knew that Smith was already gone—- it did not hurt him. Smith was gone because Neo now had to find him, and Smith had already told him where to. First… he had to exit this place.

Neo watched as train tracks unfolded over the wide expanse of greenery and crushed it under metal and stone, rusty and complete with an occasional flattened coin. A horn sounded in the distance, and he could hear the rhythmic chugging noise characteristic of a train, together with rail squeals. His ride was here.

It generated a strong wind, blowing off Neo’s cassock behind him like a stroke of lengthening black ink on a painting canvas. Neo stayed where he was; and when the train itself finally stopped in front of him, its doors opening and no one inside, not even a conductor, he stood. His body was the very definition of poise and elegance as he stepped swiftly into the train, never looking behind him even as the doors slid shut, for he had a place to be. 

Zion needs a lot of work. Pipes have burst, the filtration system still isn’t working, dead bodies are still found littered across the streets and crammed in the strangest nooks and crannies, cold rotting hands clutching cannons, bazookas, and weapons.

But the worst aren’t the dead bodies, because they’re still bodies. No, the worst must be the ones who were ripped apart, or the ones who are now nothing more than a few stains in the rusty metal.

Morpheus always spends a few minutes in silence in these places where he remembers what these Zionites stood for.

The med bay is overloaded, and what little nurses and healers they have left are worked to the very bone. A month in Matrix time after the war ended, people are still dying.

People are still dying, and Morpheus has to stop it. He knows.

Whatever measly time Morpheus has, he uses it in the mechanical levels, screwing in new bolts into old broken metal, praying to whatever forsaken god is still out there for the water filters to keep on working, because the damage sustained to it in the battle had made the following days devastating.

Every so often; A woman in the market breaks down crying holding a lifeless baby in her arms, having fallen ill from all the dirty water they’d had to make do with, or a man wandering the housing levels going from door to door to beg for food nobody had, ribs jutting out against painfully thin skin, eyes dead, like rotten olives.

The real world isn’t glamorous. It never was.

The weak, like Cypher who’d betrayed them all at his lowest point, the ones who weren’t born to be survivors, would eventually succumb. They’d crumble before the perfect illusions the Matrix proposed, crying to be let in, wishing more than any other weakling because ‘they couldn’t take it any more’, admitting their flaw in the face of thousands of survivors.

No matter how many times Truth reared its ugly head and showed Morpheus true disgust, he wouldn’t give up. Zion was home. Zion was truth, and most importantly, Zion was his, not in the sense of ownership like how one would own a pen, but in the sense that Zion was his to care for, his to love for, his to look after, his to nurture and feed and watch grow.

It did not look good now; But it would in the far future.

And Morpheus was a patient man. Maybe he’d never even get to see that future, but he knew it existed, and that was enough to give him all the power to keep on moving.

The priestesses do what they can, with weekly handouts of bread. The amount fluctuates. Sometimes they are generous enough that one person can get a whole loaf, yet on other days an entire family only gets a singular crumb.

And Morpheus? Morpheus is grateful for whatever he can get.

Zion has its ups and downs. But Morpheus knows this, and he won’t let it get to him.

So he is here now, amidst his comrades, his brothers and sisters, laughing heartily and guffawing jovially, smiling all the way like it will clear the smoke clouding the sky, melding things together and letting sparks fly.

“So he was all like, what’s up? And I was like, the ceiling!” The kid grins toothily, his youth showing through dimpled cheeks. Next to him, Zee, with her hair tied back and arms deep in some malfunctioning circuits, groans. “That’s the corniest joke I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s a good one, though,” He insists. Morpheus just listens amusedly, not giving much of his thoughts on the joke, until suddenly called upon. “What do you think, Morpheus? Not bad, huh?”

Morpheus’s previously mildly amused but still neutral expression morphs into one more suitable for a cool uncle bemused by his young nephew’s attempts to impress him, and answers, “It’s not bad, but I’ve heard better.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?” Kid asks. “Like this. Ready?” Morpheus plays along. “Let’s hear it!” Kid claps his hands together.

 “Who won the neck decorating contest?” The ship captain doesn’t usually allow himself to indulge so, but he just can’t suppress the growing grin on his face, looking at the boy as if he was a mouse that had just fallen into the cat’s trap.

Zee just sighs, pressing back the urge to shoot Morpheus an unimpressed look. “Seriously?” She says. Kid looks ready to burst with glee. “I don’t know, who?”

“The tie.” Morpheus waits a few beats for the joke to land. After those few beats, Kid flops onto the floor, his loud laughter echoing and probably waking up any sleeping person in the vicinity. “ Hahaha! That’s! Ha! Ha-ha! That’s good!”

“That was even worse than Mike’s dumb joke.” Zee ties together two ends of a split red wire. Kid is hitting his feet against the floor now, in a fit of seizure slash laughter. “Hee-hee-hee! ”

“And you, stop that. It’s getting creepy. And annoying.” She reprimands. “Get me that wrench,” Zee continues, for the sake of getting Kid busy.

Morpheus watches them interact, his chest warm. Only a month ago, had he or Kid tried to talk to Zee as believers, he believes she would have driven them away. Zion born as she is, she’d never experienced the surreal, and so, it was harder for her to believe in a ‘surreal prophecy’.

He suspected she still had her doubts, but what mattered was that she believed in Neo now, even if she didn’t believe in The One. Morpheus had a soft spot for women who thought that way.

Neo had really united all sorts of people, human or not.

“The 9421st session of the Zion Council is called to order,” Councillor Dillard’s strong voice rang out against the hard metal walls, accompanied with a bang of her gavel. Even at this age her eyes were sharp like razor blades, and her demeanour, as commanding as it was compelling, begged respect from every attendee.

“The provisional agenda for this meeting is maintenance of international peace and security,” Councillor Dillard continued, “Upholding the purposes and principles of the Zion and simultaneously Zero One’s charter, through effective multiple lateralism, maintenance of peace and security of Zion. The agenda is adopted.” Another bang of the gavel. “Without further ado I invite Councillor Tuchman to the floor.”

Councillor Tuchman continued. “Thank you, Councillor Dillard. As we know, there has been no progress made on the official signing of the truce, or any official signing for that matter. Our scheduled biweekly sending of a human representative to Zero One will be commencing once again in a week and three days time. We will need to decide on the election of the representative, and what to discuss.”

“Previous sessions with the absence of non council members have come to an agreement that a treaty for a state of civil relations with the nation of Machines would be in everyone’s best interest.” Councillor West followed up. “We have tried for this treaty for a month. We still do not have it. Something must be done.”

Another councillor, third last to the left, piped up. “Perhaps a treaty is not the answer. It is a sensitive matter.”

Locke’s jaw was clenched incredibly tight. Morpheus glanced at him haphazardly. 

Councillor Hamann shook his head. “Not quite. Our history must be acknowledged. We cannot avoid sensitive topics forever.”

Councillor Dillard’s face was that of complete discipline. “Order,” She called, and everyone fell quiet,  “I quite believe the council has driven this topic into the ground. We have attendees today for a reason. Would any other council members like to have the floor before we proceed?”

Recognising the cue, Morpheus steeled himself, recalling exactly what he meant to say in a rolling script in his mind. Locke meanwhile looked troubled— and at least to Morpheus, he seemed about ready to jump right out of his seat and scream what was on his mind.

The council members were silent. Dillard hummed. “Commander Locke, the floor is yours.”

Locke stood, not unprofessionally, but the jut of his jaw as he clenched it may as well have amounted to a neon sign screaming, ‘I am IRRITATED!’. It was almost comical how he stood to attention almost on pure instinct. Only a Zion born could be as disciplined and militaristic as him. Morpheus watched on with his fingers to his lips, in that contemplating way of his. “Council,” Locke began strongly. “Might I advise that it should be top priority for the Council to get the upper hand in this matter. We do not wish to be outright hostile to the machines, but I believe some form of insurance will suffice if this hypothetical peace backfires.”

Dillard closed her eyes momentarily. “Always a careful man, Commander Locke. While I appreciate that you have a recommendation, might I remind you that we are looking for ways to ensure that this peace lives, and not backup plans for if it does not?”

Locke was a professional, taciturn man, but it was no secret he wasn’t a big fan of the Council’s decisions, not even to the Councillors themselves. Councillor West raised an eyebrow at the way Locke’s chest expanded with a particularly irritated breath.

“Of course, Councillor, but I just wanted to reconfirm that we will be mindful of them.” Locke continued, jaw set. “Besides that, a peace treaty or at least a non aggression pact is crucial. We must fight for it. That is the only logical way for things to progress. We will present them with our terms, and if they present theirs, we will negotiate until a beneficial treaty for Zion is produced. And I believe physical proof of this treaty or pact is instrumental in Zion’s safety. A plaque, of some sort, would suffice. I believe, Councillors, that a treaty in of itself is not offensive, but a treaty in the style resembling the one they presented to us would be.”

“Thank you for the reminder to be cautious, Commander. We will keep that in mind,” Councillor Grace piped up. “I rather agree with Commander Locke. It is the sentiment of the treaty we should be mindful of, not the treaty itself. That is how humanity has always done it; Physical proof of alliance. I see no reason why it should change.”

The room temperature suddenly dropped a few degrees as she opened her mouth again. “It is as sensitive a matter for them as it is for us. This sensitive treaty in question had no problem becoming the source of the demise of a million of our brothers and sisters.”

“Remain civil,” Dillard reminded sharply.

“Thank you, Councillor Grace,” Locke pointedly didn’t thank the councillor that spoke after her, “That is all I have to say.”

Like that, they continued on with the ranks below Locke, going through all the captains. Generally, they agreed with Locke, never recommending anything other than a continuous pressing for a concrete treaty, occasionally tacking on a few points to negotiate on, such as: more representatives from the humans, someone who could bargain well perhaps, collaboration on technology to improve the quality of life, as the rusty bucket of bolts they’d been running on for years now was not cutting it, and lastly, official apologies from both sides.

And Morpheus didn’t want to look down on his fellow captains, but he felt none of them were truly looking at the bigger picture.

Finally, Councillor Dillard called for him. “Now, Morpheus? What recommendations do you have?”

Morpheus arose slowly, knowing every word would count. He was Morpheus, captain of the Nebuchadnezzar, a lover, a leader, even a father to some, and he was a believer, a Zionite, a human.

“I believe, Councillor Dillard, if you would excuse my rudeness.. That none of these recommendations are what we’re really looking for.” Blunt and simple. Every head in the room turned to look at him.

“As we all know, humans and machines have had a tumultuous history. Our shared history has been bloody, it has been violent, it has been unforgiving and unfair. And most notably, and I think most importantly, it has been ingenuine.”

“When the two robot ambassadors came to us, with an apple for peace, what did we do? We hid behind masks that let us do every ugly thing we wanted to. We were scared, and we wanted control, and we were animals. We attacked and we bared our fangs and we played dirty.”

“While today in this council many imprecise recommendations and remarks have been made, I believe a singular one was spot on. That being, we shouldn’t do anything too reminiscent of the past. But what exactly shouldn’t we do?”

“Well, we shouldn’t be ingenuine. We don’t need anything like an upper hand,” And Morpheus could feel the heat radiating from Lock’s glare across the room, “We should speak our mind. Isn’t that the ultimate show of trust? Don’t hide things, just reveal them at the right time. If anything worries us, say it, instead of letting it fester, or dealing with it through gunfire and ships and violence.”

“If we trust them, the possibility of them trusting us goes up higher. When someone has nothing to hide, but everything to lose, you’ll find it usually forges a stronger, firmer bond. But I know what you are thinking:  They are machines. What do they know about trust, and about love?”

“Neo once asked me,” And Locke visibly groaned at Morpheus’ mention of the saviour, “a night before the war, how do we attack these machines without a shred of mercy, how do we not think of them as living things, when they do everything that qualifies them as living?”

“And I told him: ‘It is easier if you don’t think about it.’ But I was a fool. Think about it, ponder about it as hard as you can. How do we kill these things that we do not think of as living things, when they fought so much to be alive that it instigated so long a war? How do we treat these beings as emotionless things, when you have to fight someone to know someone, and we have been in a deadlock of war for centuries? Do we, machines and humans, not know how cruel and how disgusting we can both be? I think, my friends, you all know the answer to that.”

“But the question is, they have not seen how good we can be. We have not seen how good they can be. They are alive, we are alive, and by that connection, are we not brothers? Are we not one of a kind? Tell me, have we not been fighting all this while for the same reason: To be alive?”

“So give them their chance. So give us our chance! Good men and good women have sacrificed their very lives for this moment, children die at this very second in light of this chance we have been given to save Zion, save ourselves, and save Machines. A glorious occasion warrants only a glorious alliance, so a treaty on a plaque rotting with the scent of deja-vu and mistrust just won’t do the trick.”

“Look not to the past, but to the future. We will give them a token of our acknowledgement, a gift, something that shows our humanity. Does this not convey everything we want to? Trust, a strong bond, an alliance, co-existence between something human and something metal, but all the while proud of who we are, and never bending to bow to the other party?”

“So what I strongly suggest, Councillors, is that we give them something only a man can do. Something like art, maybe. A monument, made of scrap metal. I’m sure we can think of something. It doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, the more imperfect, the better. We are showing them our humanity, after all.”

“A what?” Locke voiced in disbelief, a hair’s breadth away from exploding like a grenade.

“Commander Locke, you will remain professional!” Councillor Hamann immediately called out.

“Forgive me, Council, but this is utterly insane. The last thing you want is to appear childish to the enemy! Not everything can be solved with love and humanity! And if it did, it’d be a miracle!” Locke shouted, clearly fed up with Morpheus’ way of doing things.

But Morpheus had the wits of a god. “I will remind you, Commander Locke, that the last miracle I believed in came true.”

Locke hastily shoved his hands behind his back, his eyes burning hard, trying to regain professionality even in the face of utter frustration. Morpheus’ fanaticism should have ended together with the war— and while Locke could admit that his fanaticism had its uses in war morale, now that it no longer had that added benefit to it, familiar irritation licked at his heels.

“And if my miracle succeeds, imagine the things man and machine under one umbrella could do. We could clear the skies. We could improve healthcare. We could go back to a surface warm and lit, we could be given a chance to start over. We could be given a chance to be alive, not to survive.” At this point, Morpheus was just hitting a dead man in a fight he’d already won.

Councillor Dillard chose this moment to speak. “While I can see how this would be a … strange plan, I think it lines up perfectly with the logic which the council wished to utilise in dealing with Zero One.”

Councillor Tuchman nodded. “A way of dealing with the machines that is for once humane.”

Councillor Grace shut her eyes. “”Treat others the way you want to be treated”? What fairytale have you all jumped out of? How is this moral value even significant at all in the face of politics? There are many, many ways I can see this going wrong. We can be as genuine as we want, but it will never work if the opposing side is ingenuine.”

“I think,” Councillor Hamann began, “the first step to truly being politically able is to stop thinking of the Machines as the ‘opposing side’, Councillor Grace, with all due respect.”

“What?” Locke burst, exasperated. “Commander,” Councillor Hamann warned. “Forgive me for speaking out of turn again, Council, but this is madness. Ideals have no place in politics.

“On the contrary, Commander Locke, an ideal is a necessity in every political battle so as to have a clear end goal to strive towards. Gifts have, historically, been given between nations as a show of good will. It’s not too far off of an idea.” Councillor Grace looks towards Morpheus. “That speech of yours, Morpheus, was a little…. Much, but I don’t think it was necessarily bad advice. Just that it needs to be filtered slightly through the lens of harsh reality.”

“Damn right,” Locke grumbles.  Morpheus simply raises a single brow.

“Permission to speak?” Echoes a female voice. Heads turn to look at Captain Niobe, still languidly seated in her chair.

“Granted, Captain Niobe.” Councillor Dillard says cordially.

She stands coolly. “Thank you. Council, I know a few artsy people here and there. I can direct you to them,” Morpheus suppresses a smile.

“ Captain?” Locke whips around to gape at her, his hissing sounding more like a condescending scolding than a lover’s whisper.

No, Morpheus scolds himself, don't start now.

“What are you doing? ” He seems to mouth at her.

“What I can,” She answers easily, with all the swagger in the world, as if she was born with it.

“It’s not going to work.” Locke shoots back, flatly. Distantly, Morpheus thinks, had he been in Locke’s place, he would have answered with an equally as easy smile, a smart comeback, a… Shit. Stop.

“You don’t know until you try,” Niobe leans forward slightly. “Just let me, Jason. I got this.”

‘Jason’ vibrates where he’s standing with lots of intensity, but the need to keep his position shuts him up. He grumpily sits back down, anger now just simmering instead of bursting.

Councillor Hamann grins, warmly. “I see, Captain Niobe. That’d be incredibly helpful. After the council concludes, you can meet me in my office.”

“Of course, Councillor Hamann. The only thing now is, how to transport it to Machine City, the deadline, the materials, all that jazz.”

“Yes, yes, I see…”

Morpheus knows his job here is done.

Neo sat to a side, two hands splayed out on his thighs. He looked through a window, looking at the world outside that passed him by. Grass, flowers. It was beautiful as it was peaceful. His eyes drooped, but he was not tired.

The wheels of the train roared loudly, and perhaps it should have been deafening, paired with an assailing litany of voices in Neo’s head, but the noise passed through Neo like sand through a palm. It was loud, but not unpleasant, perhaps comparable to a musical instrument. Neo listened to them simultaneously: The voice of the human— the people telling him they believed; and the voice of the machine— the way the handrails shook, the way they were programmed to.

He hadn’t been on a train since the fiasco of Mobil Avenue. In a way it was almost a parallel. Where he had previously taken a train back to the Matrix, so was he now. But for two different reasons. And now he was ready. Two different times, two different trains, two different purposes. It sounded a lot like providence.

Depthless brown eyes continued to stare over lush green fields that rushed by. A jarring difference from the mute grey of subway tunnels or architecturally identical cities. This was different, and for that difference it was beautiful. No, Neo did not have any attachment to this garden— he had virtually no attachment to anything but his Opposite now, who's attachment he would never be able to sever— but he had still taken his time to appreciate it, noting the way the flower petals rested over blades of grass and sprung up beneath them like flecks of coloured paint.

Neo’s eyes finally lifted from the endless garden, looking up instead. He could feel it. He was close. The source gave way to something far less idealistic. There came the sound of a mechanical, digital squelch, distorted and terrifying, utterly broken. The sky in particular struggled; Parts of it stretched and parts of it turned colours, like a malfunctioning screen. It trembled, dangerously, before finally being swallowed by an utterly impenetrable coal black, simply a solid wall of pure colour and no dimension.

Neo’s body tensed abruptly, his chest pushing out and his head raising, a whole-bodied shiver running through him. There was a white hot surge inside him, like the full sliding of a plug into a socket, an electric spark flaring somewhere within him, sensitivity spreading all across his skin until it forced you to close your eyes. The entirety of his RSI faded out of view as if he would disappear, white-blue lines drawing itself across him like protruding nerves. His mouth clenched, then unclenched— His body faded back in, and he shrunk into himself like a dead flower, exhaling hard, before straightening back up.

When he focused his gaze again on the window, the ink black bubbled like boiling paint, and gave a final screaming aneurysm before it was subdued. Numbers began to carve itself out over the background, together with an alphabet that Neo had long ago learned to read. They came in the shapes of buildings, parks, and houses, before finally melding together into the interior of a tunnel, and that tunnel rushed by so fast it became a blank grey.

The train rattled hard, and the wheels squealed. The lights in the train flickered and all the hand railings flew sideways, but its singular passenger remained unphased, sitting, truthfully, unbothered atop his cushioned seat. The train slowed to a sluggish stop— the lights lit themselves— and when the door slid open softly with a hiss, Neo was already striding swiftly through it.

When his two feet settled on the platform, he didn't need to run a search to find out where he was. He recognised this place; He raised one thoughtful eyebrow. It was the old train station where he had first fought Smith. He could see them, his old self in a tight black shirt with his arms raised above his head, and the first Smith, his teeth bared in a scowl, running fast at him. He could envisage the fight as it played out in his head, for he remembered all their moves. He looked at the dusty floor that told a story of the way they had pointed empty guns at each other’s heads, at the ceiling with a cobweb crack that spelled out the time Neo had pushed Smith backwards into it, to the still hanging bullet ruined telephone in the booth that swayed back and forth like a pendulum, and the empty cardboard bed in the dark bug infested corner, crude graffiti right above it.

He turned his back to these intrigues. They were of the past. With a grace signature of him he stepped up the stairs, footfalls light. He’d never come back here again— he stepped from the darkness of the train station into the white light, but stopped right in his tracks, his eyes widening ever so slightly.

Everything in him compelled him to stop and stare.

This… was his world , Neo realised.

It was Neo’s world and it was incredible. Smith had had his turn, and now it was time for his own. And his world was beautiful. He would have lost his breath, had he any need for oxygen. He marvelled at the world; how very white, how very golden. It seemed the first of the two was a colour he would not be able to escape now. Everything gleamed, as if polished. The resolution of the new Matrix was incredible. The sky was not only blue; it looked like chemical soap in water, reflecting points of mixing colours in it, changing depending on the direction you were perceiving it. It was as if the sky was iridescent, shining down at him. 

He held out a hand, and felt the sunlight collect in his palm. It was wonderfully warm, like being wrapped in a large furry blanket in the middle of the Saharan desert. It was a comforting type of warmth, like the type you got from cuddling another person. It was like a big bear hug. Neo smiled to himself, a close-lipped one but still a beaming one nonetheless. 

And everything had so much colour . It was no longer washed over with an unremovable vomit green. The dull greys of the towering skyscrapers were so grey he even felt he could appreciate it. 

And Neo finally understood. So this was how he had felt, standing in a world of his own doing. This was what his entire path and choices and life had led up to. This was the culmination of his own work, the fruit of his efforts. And this fruit was juicy and crunchy, like a large red apple. It felt like it would never be marred by the touch of rot, and all worms would be repelled by the mere presence of it. 

“This is my world,” He murmured, recalling the furious face of a man bursting out of the ground, pieces of the road falling all around them. With those words he felt at peace.

After just a moment more to linger, and to admire, Neo knelt to the ground, his left arm coming to the front of his body with a tightly clenched fist and a tensed elbow, the other going behind. The ground rippled around him outwards from the force of his foot pressing into the ground—then his body straightened completely and he sprang up into the sky like a black streak, his cassock flying wildly behind him like the feathers of a bird's wing. 

Up he went, until he penetrated a layer of cloud, and it dispersed around him. When he was at an appropriate height, far higher than the tallest skyscraper in the entire city, he twirled around and came to a stop, just floating in the sky, and stared down at his world. The people became dots and the cars became miniature plastic toys. From this view he could see everything.  Of course even normally he could see everything, but this made it easier. He stayed in the sky, one foot raised higher behind the other, hands at his sides and cassock billowing, brown eyes flitting around in its sockets until he identified his destination near immediately. 

He wasted no time, his whole body leaning forward in a dash, black cloth serving as his wings as he sped down rapidly in a set direction, hands at his sides, palms out. The wind blew hard at his face, but his hair stayed in place. Yet it was as if the wind was carding its own hand through his black hair. Neo let the wind blow him relaxation and peace, and then finding himself with a large grin on his face, this time with teeth showing, he spontaneously turned and twirled away from his path as if he were in a large tumbling ball, his body rotating and flipping, and Neo pumped out two fists above his head and screamed childishly, “Wooohooooo!” 

He laughed heartily and childishly to himself at that, still hurtling around in the air in a random direction of his own choosing, then spun himself upright at the same speed, before dipping back downwards again electric fast in his set direction. He smiled so hard until his cheeks hurt— he was sure no one had ever seen him make this expression, and he hadn't known it was a feat possible for him either.

He straightened one leg and let the other bend, all while his hands were tucked at his sides, beginning to twirl in a straight line down as if he were a comet pummeling down to the green earth. He made a streak across the sky in clouds and sunshine, and finally just a distance away from the ground he unfolded and flipped himself upright, landing on the ground with catlike grace, and stood, not a trace of dizziness to be found. 

He could remember these streets well. Before ascension he often spent nights reminiscing and contemplating this place, the place that could be considered a starting point for their story, though the values they stood for had existed since the very beginning of time. 

He found a door and stepped inside, sunlight no longer reaching him. He looked upwards, then took to the stairs, a step at a time effortlessly with a hand on the railing. His fingers caught on grime and the stairs shook off dust every time his foot fell. The entire place reeked of age and rot. It was unbelievably dark, gloomy, and smelled like abandoned concrete.

All the while the chain inside him churned and shivered. Closer, hotter, ever closer. He took his final echoing step and turned into a black hallway. There was a broken window at the end of the hallway, scattered and sharp glass shards right beneath it on the floor. And beside him was a familiar background. It was this place that had given him his first ever view of the world with rippling green code running down the walls. Like the illusion of the world had finally been peeled away. 

He continued on. 305. 304. Even hotter. 303. Neo stopped. The wall and floor outside was still stained with blood. And beneath it the words were scratched on: “I hate you, Mister Anderson.” It looked like a corrupted version of perfect Arial font, the sharp set lines unusually elongated and wobbly as if the carver’s hands had been shaking.

Neo’s eyes were dark, and he was still looking at the blood when his hand came up to rest on the doorknob. He seemed to blink away that muted emotion and looked back to the door. His wrist turned and the old stained rotting door opened, creaking.  A part within him sang at the proximity. Before it would have been an unsettling bubbling feeling in the gut, opening its black maws, but he’d accepted that, and it didn’t bother him now. He didn't focus on it; He hadn’t any need to; and so it didn't exist. 

This time he deigned to speak first. There was the clack of the bottom of his dress shoes against a bare, unfurnished floor. “Smith.” He said.

Complete silence met him. He could not pretend forever; They both knew that even beneath the black shadows and concrete, Neo was completely capable of seeing him in quivering green rain. He saw clearly the shape of a man, one with unnaturally neat hair and a jet black suit and tie that blended together and created a terrifying silhouette. 

“I’m here,” Neo announced, even if it was redundant— even if they both already knew it, if only to cement the fact that no, he would not let Smith pretend that this was not happening, and he would not let him run from reality. 

For a moment it was just the two of them, One and Opposite, reunited at the very place it all began, both of them carefully still. Neo still stood by the door, one hand on the handle. Then finally he performed an action,  stepping further into the room and locking the door behind him with one finalising click.  

Smith was on the floor, carefully still. To Neo and perhaps only to him, he shone and illuminated the whole room in gold. His program was fine, completely untouched. It was still running diagnostics, still processing and interacting with things the way it should, but it had almost been reduced by that function to the mind that it belonged to. Smith was not even moving, not even breathing. He had shut down as many of his subroutines as possible. His head lolled, unsupported, hands and legs loose and sprawled about his sides. Eyes that were made blind stared blankly straight ahead, fixed on a certain point on the wall.

Neo strided forward again, a single pausing step, only sensed through the sound of cloth rustling in the dark. There was the barely visible outline of the dead, faint light that bounced off the top of his combed back hair. No longer was there a glint of emotionless, impenetrable sunglasses blending in with the black background. Neo looked down, and then slowly, like any unpredictable movement might scare Smith back to life, bent down very, very slowly, like any sudden movement would scare Smith away, the ends of his cassock sweeping the floor like a blanket.

The exile maintained completely still. Neither of them moved. They were like inanimate dolls in a teahouse, with smooth plastic eyes that should have betrayed nothing. Yet because they were who they were, and they were here to do what they were here to do, they knew everything about each other, what they were thinking, what they were doing. Neo thought he might see dust in the crease of Smith’s mouth if he moved in close. He knew intrinsically, intimately just by looking that Smith had been sitting here for a long time, loading, loading, loading. Trying to go over all of it again. Trying to make it make sense. Trying to know how he’d been tricked.

Smith almost looked like a corpse. Eyes that didn’t blink, nor need that function. Fingers that didn’t twitch, nor were compelled to. Legs that didn’t twitch, even if they were stiff and fixed in the same position for hours on end. The very thought of Smith having a corpse was unnatural. Smith didn’t die that way— Neo would know.

“Smith,” He whispered, like silk falling from his mouth, the name sacred in the way he pronounced it. Still the man addressed kept himself limp. There was no acknowledgement, because Smith did not want to acknowledge him, but he had already chosen to acknowledge him. He didn't understand that choice, and consequently so suffered from it. Neo could see it behind eyes that were glossed over, a dead sheen to it, the way lines of green etched themselves out. Smith was thinking a mile a minute. How? Where? When? Most importantly, why? 

He had a disgust at the world that just would not quell, and it ate at him, and rendered him incompatible to joy. He was taking himself apart, trying to understand something he could not understand, like reading the same lines on a page over and over. 

“I know what you're trying to do,” Neo said, eyes melancholy, “You're trying to be dead.” 

Smith said nothing and it was enough. The silence answered for him. Neo spoke softly, “You won’t be able to die as long as I'm here. You’re here to do something. I can help you.” 

Once again, radio silence. Neo spoke again. “I want to help you because I need you. I want you to understand why you cannot understand. I want you to understand why you've chosen to understand.” 

Instead of silence now Smith’s eyes spoke for him. They welled up with that unmistakable burning hatred so palpable and thick that it clogged the air around them. They did not look at Neo, and there was no disgusted turn of ice blue irises into him, but Neo knew. He recognised in that moment his one true opposite.

He recognised hatred. He recognised Smith. He recognised his adversary. He recognised himself. This was Smith, the god, the deity, the all consuming hatred, the Smith who had killed, died then lived, and killed again just to die, only to live. This was Smith, who could not understand, who hated, and who feared. 

It was like watching a fish tank be slowly filled to the brim, watching the way the water curved at the surface, biting your fingernails and shaking with anticipation or dread at what you knew was to come, and then finally, with relief or regret, watching the water finally overflow and rush down over the glass walls unforgivingly, protesting and screaming against these same walls until they cracked and splintered and spread apart.

Smith’s eyes burned themselves from bright blue to what looked like ink black in the darkness, charred with complete fury and detest. Like time was slowed down Neo watched as Smith’s eyelid twitched in almost slow motion, that utterly miniscule jump of muscle, like the meniscus of water, and braced himself. 

Too fast to even process; Smith unfurled to his full height, powered by a black gurgling pot of abhorrence in his gut, and lunged at Neo monstrously, face so deformed and hideous with hate that he existed simultaneously at his least and most recognisable. He seized Neo by his shoulders, fingers like knives digging into flesh and pulling fabric so taut it might tear, and slammed them both skidding headfirst into the concrete wall behind them. 

They burst out into the hallway, the wall crumbling down all around them into a pile of dust and smoke, pouring white powder all over their ink black clothing. Jagged pieces of severed concrete rained down upon them, and one cut Smith right on the cheek. Where his wound slit open grotesquely into mushy red flesh, so did Neo’s cheek be marked with a scar, although Neo had never been hit by any piece of concrete at all. 

Those pools of endless brown widened just momentarily, before melting back into relaxation. Smith had Neo pinned down beneath him with incredible strength. Smith so high above was like a god, bursting with the want to devour, to maim and to kill. But the prey was comfortable beneath his violence, not a hint of rejection or repulsion in his body language, utterly languid. Glinting eyes swept momentarily over the other’s face, taking in that twisted monstrous face that managed to convey only pain and a suffering unthinkable, bleeding with confusion. What a painful, cruel existence it must have been.

Holding Neo so hard it would undoubtedly bruise, Smith shouted aloud his first words since being alive, and they fell like thunder upon Neo, hoarsely: “I hate you!” 

Neo’s eyes were lidded. He felt no surprise whatsoever at these words. It was the driving force behind them. And he knew it to be true— after all, that was their connection, a connection that ran deeper than anything else Neo had ever possessed in his life. They needed each other, they couldn't live without each other. Was not that a connection as profound as hate, and as its sister, love? 

“I know,” Neo breathed, his tone dark and quiet, his face falling to the side. He laid sprawled out, completely relaxed as he drowned underneath the face he looked into and interpreted as himself. Raw fury seized Smith’s face and he opened his mouth to a wailing shriek, pulling Neo hard by the collar, “No! You know nothing, Mister Anderson, you believe in an illusion, in a vagary of perception! You perceive, you believe in something that does not exist and never will. I hate you, Mister Anderson, I hate you! I hate all of you, I hate this world! I hate it! I hate it! I! Hate! You!”

Smith slammed Neo back onto the floor with wild abandon, another scream ripping itself from his throat painfully. The back of Neo’s head exploded in fireworks of pain and Smith’s hands flew to his own head in disorientation, the action immediate. Neo’s mouth fell open, but there was no gasping breath, for all his senses and human functions were dead, shed from his new skin. Smith recovered just when Neo did— they locked eyes in a blurred frenzy— and Smith’s blood ran cold.

Unbidden, a memory rushed back to him. Neo laid on a piece of the road, utterly dead to the world, his head tilted up to stretch out a pale neck, water droplets sliding down his face…. A hybrid of a choked sob and a scream erupted from Smith and he stumbled back blindly, hands up over his own face as if to shield himself from the world.

“ NO! No, no, nonono!” He cried, his feet unable to find purchase, staggering over himself. Pure fear seized him— it contorted his face uglily, and those damning blue eyes came wide open and he turned on Neo, lips split crudely open to reveal teeth and gums, the veins on his forehead bulging with effort.

Neo blinked at this. As if his body had a peculiar heaviness to it Neo shakily propped his torso up on his elbows, raising up his head, then in a clamouring of fingers, slowly brought himself up to a proper seating position, legs still sprawled straight out on the floor. His eyes never left Smith’s— and Smith, seeing this, pressed his back flat to the locked door, teeth chattering. Where one ran, the other had to pursue, and so Neo simply reminded himself that now more than ever he knew and believed thoroughly that there was no spoon. In just a second he stood without any issue at all, graceful as a swan, body light as a feather.

“ Ha,” It seemed to take a gargantuan effort for Smith to unfreeze his lips for that wheezy, uncharacteristically nervous laughter, “Yes, I knew it. I was right. You want to fight me, don’t you, Mister Anderson? Because you choose to. And then I’ll crush you like the bug that you are. You want to keep fighting, you choose to keep fighting, even though you must see that it’s pointless. No, that’s irrelevant. You are pointless, Neo. Everything you do is.”

“Smith,” Neo murmured, and the room fell hauntingly quiet. His voice was flat, but not emotionless or cold. It sounded like the sinking of an anchor to the seabed. “I’m above that now.” He said, his words infallible.

“Liar!” Smith’s baritone voice bellowed, shoving himself further into the door, further into ink black shadow, trying to run but failing to, and the shaking of the hinges almost seemed to call for reason, for action, for Neo to hurry and— “Fight, Mister Anderson, I know you want to! ”

Neo gave him a pointed, purposeful look and shook his head.  “No.” He whispered back.

And Neo can hear the word before it is even uttered, in the way Smith’s scowl deepened with a potent mixture of fear and fury, in the way the rain came drizzling down from the sky and in their very nature, “ Why!” 

His response flows out of him like water, rolling over soothingly across his tongue. “You know the answer to that question.” Saying that, his chestnut eyes roved over Smith’s face to stop right on the side of the other’s cheek. Drip.

Cold hard fright like Smith had never known bit into his veins, comparable only to their last encounter. He could feel his hands begin to shake uncontrollably, though he knew he had control over everything, but somehow that was contradictory. How could it possibly be true, all at once, both that his hands were shaking and that he had complete control over them? One was a false truth, one was the antichrist to the christ. Irrationally he wanted, suddenly and uncontrollably, that he wanted to saw off his hands and leave them as bloody stumps.

“It’s okay, Smith.” Neo spoke, hushed. “Look down. I know you can.”

To Smith that voice sounded so far away but it urged him. Like peeling open a bandage, unable to look at the wound underneath and unable to bear the pain of the pull of elastic on skin, his head lowered itself down mechanically and methodically, utterly precise, yet his eyes were imperfectly wide.

A little red dot on the floor met him. Smith did not gasp, but distantly he heard the muffled, underwater sound of something falling hard on concrete and registered absently that his knees had buckled, unable to respond to him. There were warm, enveloping hands suddenly, covered in gold light, reaching out around his shoulders to steady him. But Smith did not stop for a second to consider this, shocked to the core. His reaction looped itself over and over, not knowing what to do at something so unexpected.

His RSI now bled. That was blood. It was not really blood, no, rather the construct of it in a digital simulation, but for all intents and purposes, it was indeed blood. And it was his. In that moment he felt as though he had slipped a single finger over the line of reality and virtuality, and that line blurred so much he felt sick to a stomach that he did not have.

“It’s not real,”  Smith gasped, unable to move his eyes from that horrifyingly captivating sight, from the perfect circle of the splatter, “This isn’t right. This can’t be right.”

“No. This is real, Smith.” Neo said, his voice hardened, dousing Smith in icy reality, “Then softer, with an almost smile, “Your RSI is bleeding.”

“No,” Smith choked on a gargle of a sob and a scream, “No, no, no. It’s not real. It can’t be.” Blood. Blood! There was blood in him, now, flowing right through him. If now he had blood, did he too have a heart? His vision swam before him. He did not want or need a heart, but he may have it anyway. At the thought of a rotting, shuddering, beating piece of meat inside of him, such an insipid fragile design, pumping fruitlessly away to support a body that was only meant to die, at something so disgustingly weak within him, Smith bent down and hurled— and nothing came out.