Chapter 2 - This Is Real

This Is Real

“What are you doing?” He whispered.

He couldn’t remember what had happened to him. He didn’t realize where he was, what was happening, and who were the people standing above him.

He couldn’t move.

Agent Smith lay on a cold metal table, and bright light shined in his eyes. He turned his head away from the light, to see someone grab his arm. He couldn’t make out who it was, he only saw a blur.

Then he started gasping for air.

“You’re having trouble breathing, we need to put a tube down your throat to help you.” A woman’s voice.

Help?

He closed his eyes still heaving.

But he was Smith he didn’t need help. Where were his copies? Where were the city and the rain? What were these people doing to him?

Then someone injected something in to him.

“No!” He yelled, snatching his arm away.

What were they doing to him!? What did they do with his copies!? Did they kill them? Were they killing him? Where was the noises and smells? Where was Mr. Anderson?

“What happened!?” He yelled, thrashing.

They were killing him! He couldn’t let them! He was Smith, the Agent, the Virus. Nothing could stop him! He couldn’t die, not now. He was so close!

“Get away from me!”

He tried getting up, but he couldn’t. He only kicked, and thrashed his arms. He was trying to kill the things that did this to him. He could kill them, he was Smith. He was Smith!

He felt people grab him, and he couldn’t move. He couldn’t lift them, what was wrong with him?

And he felt someone push on his chest, and someone leaned closer to him.

“No. . .” He whispered.

Was this death? Did the Mainframe delete him? Or was Mr. Anderson toying with him.

He still couldn’t see clearly, he didn’t know he was inches from his face, but he pleaded for life. He didn’t want to die.

“It’s okay, everything is going to be okay.”

Then everything went black for Smith.

He huddled up on his bed. He dressed in rags, no longer his formal suit. He faced the corner, not wanting to see the world around him. The world that was his home. The Real World.

It had been days since he’d been freed, he didn’t bother counting. He didn’t really want to know. Days ago he was still in the Matrix, still planning for the death of Mr. Anderson. The time of his rise. When he would rule all. But that day would never come now. He was human. Only human.

Agent Smith was human.

He hid from the others. He hid from the people of this ship, he didn’t bother to learn their names. The very people that freed him, and healed him, he now hid from. He didn’t want to speak with them. He didn’t want them to tell him the truth. He wished he’d been given a choice. He would have surely taken the blue.

Agent Smith found himself in pain. His world had been a lie. His life was nothing. He was never an Agent. He was not A.I. He was the very thing he hated. He was a virus, a human. And he found himself thinking like them. He hated that. . . He felt emotions that he wanted to never experience. Sadness, fear, depression, exhaustion. Things that were flaws. Things a program would never have. But he was only human, right.

In a way Smith hadn’t accepted the truth. He still wanted to believe that this wasn’t reality. He was still a program. He made up excuses, the Mainframe was testing him. This was what deletion was like. This was the Source. But the truth was, he was human. And he couldn’t deny that much longer.

Beyond Smith’s room stood two humans. He didn’t know they were watching him, he couldn’t even hear their whispers.

“Should I help him?” A woman asked.

“No, leave him be.” A man replied.

“But look at him. . .”

“Give him time, that’s all he needs. Remember who he was.”

She nodded, and stared at him from afar. Stared at the Agent.

Three days later, Smith hadn’t moved an inch. He wasn’t going to either. But the others wouldn’t let him.

A woman stepped through the door, food in her hand. She was cautious, as Smith didn’t even glance at her. She knew who he was. She knew what he might do. But she still sat on a chair across from him.

Smith didn’t look. He didn’t want her there. He didn’t want anyone.

“You have to eat sooner or later, you know. You have a human body now. . .” She said.

Smith twitched at being called human. He then turned his head towards the woman.

“Have you ever eaten before?” She asked.

Smith did not answer, merely stared at her, keeping his back turned. But she didn’t leave him. She sat there in silence for a long time.

“I don’t want to eat.” Smith finally said.

“You have to. Or you’ll die.”

“I don’t want to eat.”

The girl lowered her head, and left the tray of food by his bedside. She came back a couple of hours later, and it still was there.

Smith wasn’t going to allow himself to lower to such a level. He didn’t need to eat. He never did, and he will never need to. But even then, he felt a pain in his stomach.

The girl came back the next day, and left a new tray of food for him, while he still didn’t bother to look at her.

Then the girl lowered her head, and left him alone. Smith waited a minute, and quickly turned to the food. Without hesitation he grabbed the spoon and ate as fast as he could. He was human now. He had to give up to his human needs. In reality he was starving. He had never eaten before, and felt it strange for something to go down his throat. He started coughing, and almost throwing up the food. The food did not have a pleasant taste, but Smith had nothing to compare it too. He hated being this weak, and having this weakness. He actually had to eat. . . Humans were so dependant on things, and now he was too. He turned as he ate his food, breathing deeply as he ate it. He was starving, and even came to lick his fingers. Then when he was done, he placed the tray neatly in the corner, as far away from him as he could make it. And he went back to his bed, and laid there. He hated eating. He hated having to eat.

He was only human now.

No matter how hard he tried, he didn’t seem to leave this place. This place he could feel the cold. He never could leave this place. He wasn’t a program, an Agent, Exile, Virus. He was nothing more than one in six billion. Nothing. Nothing, except what he hated.

He didn’t say much as they pulled him out of bed. Only a comment of such a weak human body. They made him follow them. They made him see his home. They made him accept the inevitable.

And as Smith looked around with his blue eyes, he realized something. He couldn’t smell them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’m not human.” He said.

“Yes you are.”

Smith turned away.

“I can’t be.”

“You are. There is. . . A Matrix in a Matrix.”

“No.”

“A lie to lie to the liars.”

“No.”

“They make the strongest of us programs.”

“No.”

“Neo is the Agent, and you. . . You are human. And this is the Real World. This is real.”

“No!”

Smith screamed at the captain, Goliath. There, in the Gallery of his ship, Smith sat, and listened to the inevitable.

“There are machines, there is a war. They couldn’t contain you any longer. You were becoming too powerful for them. Even as a program you were destroying them. They had to make another Matrix just to contain your copy of Bane. You were becoming too much for the. They were going to kill you.” Goliath continued.

“And we saved you.” Serenity interrupted.

Smith lowered his head, and gazed at the girl.

“Why?” Smith asked. “Why save me? What for? For this!? This place worst than the Matrix!?”

Save him? They killed him. They opened his eyes to a reality he never wanted. This place he was nothing. He had no purpose, he had nothing to be. Save him and kill him? And like in the Matrix, Smith was asking why.

“We saved you, because we had to.” Orion said.

Then there was silence.

“I’m not human.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He was running, running through hallways familiar to him. Running from something he didn’t even know. He only knew he had to pick up the ringing phone. And he pushed the door to room 303, and a gun fired.

He froze and stared at Mr. Anderson. Mr. Anderson hid his eyes with sunglasses, and he smiled as his Desert Eagle Gun was aimed at him. And then pain. He looked down at his chest, and he knew he was going to die. Blood dripped from his chest, as he looked at the blood on his finger.

Then he looked back up at Mr. Anderson, and he fell to the wall. He felt his life leaving him, and hear more gunshots. Mr. Anderson emptied his gun, and his blood smeared on the wall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Ahhh!” Smith awoke.

He panted and looked at the world around him. He awoke from a nightmare to another. He had been dreaming. He hadn’t gone to sleep for days. He didn’t even want to go to sleep. Sleep was a weakness, sleep was human.

“Are you alright?”

Smith turned to his door, and saw Serenity. Smith said nothing, and only nodded.

“A nightmare?” She asked.

Smith stared only at the wall in front of him. He wanted her to go away. Leave him, leave him alone. But she only walked closer to him.

“I don’t like dreaming.” Smith finally said, still not looking at her.

“Dreams tell us things.” She said.

“I don’t like it.”

Serenity sat down on the floor, and tried to get him to look at her. But he wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to, he wasn’t going to look at the inevitable, avoid the truth until it goes away.

She wanted him to look at her. She wanted him to allow her to help him. She knew who he was. She had heard stories about him all her life. The legend that was Smith. The Agent that killed, the Exile, the rebel. She wanted to help, she wanted to know. But she had no idea what he had been through. No idea how much he hated what he truly was.

“What is it like?” She asked.

Smith looked away. He wasn’t going to answer her, as he sat on his bed. He wasn’t going to answer the things that brought him here. The things that wouldn’t allow him to die.

“What was it like being part of the system? Dodging bullets? What is it like being an Agent?” She asked him.

In the corner of his bed, in the shadows of his room, Smith didn’t answer.

And she tried to find the words to help.

“Why, Mr. Anderson? Why, why? What are you doing? Why get up, why keep fighting?” She said.

Smith looked up at her in shock.

“It is purpose that created us, purpose that connects us, purpose that pulls us, that drives us, that guides us. It is purpose that defines, purpose that binds us.” She continued staring at him.

Smith opened his mouth, and tilted his head. His words spoken by a human. His words, his words full of hate, said slowly and skillfully. His words now spoken perfectly from her.

“How do you?” He asked.

“We’ve been watching you.” She said. “We’ve monitored you.”

“Why?”

“Because we have to.”

“Why?”

But Serenity never answered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“This is the jump program. You have to let everything go here. Forget what you were, and free your mind.” Orion said.

Then Smith watched as Orion jumped just as he once could to the next building.

Smith stood, showing no emotion. He finally wore his suit again, and he straightened his tie. His eyes could be blocked by shades. But something was wrong. He could feel it. As he gazed into the horizon of the fake city, he knew this wasn’t the Matrix. He could feel it. The codes were different, this was only meant for a simply thing. Jump. And Smith had to, he was human now.

But Smith couldn’t let go, he couldn’t forget what he was, and he could free his mind. He jumped, and as he fell to the coming grown he knew he was never going to let go.

Smith huddled up in the air, then opened his arms. Then he stopped in midair. Smith was still Smith, and here he could fly. And he stayed there for a moment, between the buildings, only floating. He stared at his reflection in the glass. His reflection looking like he used to. There he was an Agent, a Virus. Then he looked to his hand, and knew it was all a lie.

Smith started to fly upward, and Orion stared at him in midair high above him. And everyone in the Real World stared at the code. They all smiled.

While Smith showed nothing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Next, and final Chapter: The One

Back by popular demand, Only Human!! This story will act like a trilogy, with only three chapters. And the next one, Smith will return to the Matrix, see the Oracle, and return to Mr. Anderson

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