They met in the same café where they'd first had lunch, just another downtown well-off couple having their fight out in a public place where hopefully neither one would do anything rash. People who snuck glances at them thought many things: what's she doing with someone old enough to be her father, what are they doing together, they look so different, she looks like a hippie, he looks like a tight-ass lawyer... Not one of them would have been close to the truth. The initial assumption itself, that the man and woman were a couple, was in and of itself only a variant of the truth. Close enough, they both thought, as to make no difference. Besides, it made things easier to let the people around them go on thinking what they were thinking.
He was dressed in the same suit and dark shades he had always worn. She was dressed in her customary pale blouse, darker broomstick-crinkle skirt, bike pants, soft leather boots, hair braided in with flowers and ribbons... she had made an extra effort today.
It had been the outfit, he reflected, so different from her compatriots' black leather and dark shades, that had fooled him for so long. When she bothered to wear sunglasses they were usually pink or yellow or green or blue, and made of funny shapes... stars, hearts, squares. He hadn't associated her with the rest of them; the dynamics of her were just too different. They hadn't demonstrated any ability to change their colors before and nothing, with the possible exception of the highly annoying Neo, was different for them now. Why should he have suspected anything? So it wasn't until three months had passed... three months of coffee, walks in the park, conversations about anything and everything... three months before he bothered to run a background check on her. She was one of them. And the familiar hatred welled up inside him.
And now they were here, at the small outdoor café where they had first agreed to meet, back when he thought she was a somewhat absentminded hippie peacenik reporter, and she knew exactly what he was. Perhaps that was what galled the most. She had known all along, and he had been ignorant until two days ago.
"Why?" he asked after a long silence.
"Because I could."
"Why me?"
"Because you were there."
"That was very dangerous."
"Yes."
"And you did it anyway."
"I told you. I did it because I could."
"But you didn't know you could."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I had to try."
Silence. He had never understood most of her answers before he'd found out. He was discovering that knowing didn't help him understand her as much as he thought it would. She looked away, and he was surprised (and annoyed) to discover that having her intense, mismatched gaze off of him was a relief.
"It doesn't matter."
"Why?"
"It's over."
More silence. Voices clamored in his head, each one trying to tell him what to do. And it wasn't the... It wasn't them. He had grown used to them, and was still learning to live without the directing voices of the Mainframe, the Sentience. Initially when she had contacted him he had thought that his freedom would grant him a better understanding, enable him to deal with the humans on their terms and comprehend the meaning behind their illogical ways. He was finding out that he had been sorely mistaken, at least with her. He was finding out that he had been mistaken about a lot of things with her.
"Why?"
"Because it will fail."
"You don't know that."
"It has to fail."
"Has to?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it is impossible."
"Some things are."
"We can provide you with everything." He knew this from personal experience. The Merovingean. He thought about living in such a palace with her, bodyguards, servants, beautiful things. Would she like it? He didn't know. Probably not, unless it had gardens to rival the Versailles. She tended to be less materialistic than most humans... or maybe just more flippant about the fate of her mountains of things.
"Not this. They cannot provide this."
He didn't understand. Himself, or her. "We can give you everything. The house. The children. The job. The white wedding. The SUV. The cable television. The mahogany kitchen. The rose garden in the perfectly groomed lawn."
She laughed. She actually laughed and waved a hand in a gesture that dismissed everything that he could have done for her. It was at the same time both less and more infuriating than Neo's stubborn aggression. "Those are not important."
"Billions of people would disagree with you."
"They are wrong."
"Why?"
"Because. The reason that makes them wrong is the force that drives us."
And he knew which 'us' she was talking about. It sickened him, and frightened him a little. "You are an aberration." Some of the disgust filtered into his voice and she sighed a little, disappointed. It hurt, like a fist through the chest, and he didn't understand.
"We are the real."
"You are flawed."
"We are honest." She said it sharply. That hurt, too. He was silent for a little while, trying to understand what was happening, trying not to feel as though he were drowning. It had never been this confusing with Morpheus, with Neo. She sighed again. "You never could understand us."
"You never tried to explain." Hostility and again, sharpness. Now she was the one who drew back, hurt.
"You never wanted me to."
Pause. "You never tried to understand us." He didn't know why he said that, other than to turn her argument back on her.
She rolled her eyes and smacked her hand on the table, making the other patrons of the café jump a little. "What did you think I was doing, you silly creature?"
He blinked. "What?"
The past three months. What did you think I was doing?"
"...why?"
"Because I wanted to."
So confused. "Why did you want to?" And, against his will, his voice was softer, calmer. More like hers.
She shrugged, gave no other response. There was a longer pause. "You're not like the others," he said finally.
"Neither are you. You're more like us."
He frowned. "That's not a compliment."
"Are you so sure anymore?"
"...Yes."
"No. You're not. That's why you're different." She paused, amended. "One of the reasons."
Angry, frightened for no reason he could discern. "No. I am..."
"Yes you are. That's why I chose you."
"No."
She sighed. Pushed her chair back and stood up from the table. She seemed sad. "As you wish..."
"Wait."
"Why?"
"What?"
"Why should I wait?"
"Because...." He paused.
"No."
A little annoyed that she hadn't waited for his answer, "Because I asked."
Pause. And something that might have been a smile in her eyes. "All right." She sat back down.
"I don't understand."
"I know." Pity in her voice. Why did she pity him? Wasn't it she and her kind who should have been the objects of pity?
Why?"
"You keep asking that. Do you even know what you're saying?"
"...."
"Never mind."
"You are strange." It was hardly adequate, but it was all he could think of to say.
"The situation is strange, or had that not occurred to you?"
"True."
Pause.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"What are you going to do about it?
-
-
-
-
She didn't know. Now that he had asked the question, she hadn't the faintest idea what to do about it. After listening to what Morpheus had reported about the Agent she had formulated a plan, struck curious by his descriptions of the behavior of the enforcer program. AI, indeed, but what about artificial emotionality? When it came down to it, wasn't that what humans were too? A series of interconnected set pieces, programmed by nature to react to stimuli. The problem was that for decades, humans had not been able to create computers that were so complex they would react to as many stimuli in as many varying ways as they themselves did. And then when they finally created that computer like Chiron, like Zeus, in time-honored tradition, it had turned on its parent figure. Freud, she thought wryly, would have had a field day.
But it had struck her, the human-like hatred of the machine (or its spawn) should be examined. Why was this Agent... was he even still an Agent... behaving in such a human-like fashion, with such human contempt. Was it even aware of its behavior? And if it wasn't, then was this the way to restore humanity to its place in the world? Not by defeating the machines with confrontation, but taking the peaceful way out and coexisting? Would this somehow make it easier? Thoughts kept whirling in her head as she formulated her plan. The thought that there was no way to rape a willing partner. The thought that it was much easier to hate when the person you were hating hated you back. The thought that it took two to have a fight... at the very least, one to hit and one to allow herself to be hit. So she had lurked, and watched, and the first time the former Agent had made his appearance she had extended her first handful of breadcrumbs... or perhaps more accurately, her first handful of meat to the wary hawk.
For three months she had waited, patiently, insinuating herself in to the Agent's consciousness. She hadn't realized how deep she was getting, though. And then word filtered back to her through her people, through the rest of the crew of the , that he knew. He had checked (finally) and he had found her out. She had arranged to meet him one last time with what she thought was an accurate idea of how things were going to go. But this wasn't at all what she had expected. He had learned more from her than she had ever wanted him to. And now she didn't understand him anymore, and she was a little afraid.
"...what?"
"What are you going to do about it?" he repeated.
"I've made my decisions." She hoped her voice wasn't trembling as much as she thought it was.
"Have you?"
"Yes."
"And what are they?"
Can't rape the willing. "I told you. It's over."
"Then why are you still here?"
"Because you asked me."
He was silent for a little while. With the glasses off and the wire gone, she realized, he wasn't nearly so terrifying. All alone. "I don't understand," he said finally.
Pause. "Neither do I."
Longer pause. "What is going on?"
"I don't know anymore."
"And that is why it has to end?"
He was too damned perceptive for his own damn good. Stupid computers. "No." It was a lie and they both knew it. She didn't know what she was doing anymore, worried she had lost control.
"Yes it is. You fear change. Your kind requires security. Your kind does not adapt well."
He was throwing it in her face, and despite the fact that she had been thinking of him as a computer program not a minute earlier, it hurt that he was drawing distinctions. Hypocritical, she knew, and irrational. But... "MY kind?"
"Yes."
"What do you mean, my kind?"
He smirked a little, clearly pleased at having nettled her into a response, a loss of control. "Your kind is weak. Fragile."
"MY kind is stronger than you will ever be."
"If your kind is so strong, why are you hiding."
"You could never understand my kind, and that is what will destroy you."
"You cannot destroy us."
"Watch me." she snarled, and stood back from the table. In that moment she could have killed him with the sheer force of her rage, and they both knew it. He has pushed too far, and for that matter she had nearly done the same to him. There was a long, tense silence. He watched her warily, suddenly realizing how much danger he had gotten himself into. She watched him, equally wary and once again cognizant of how dangerous he and his kind was. Both of them more aware of their differences than they had been in a long time.
"I'm sorry," he said finally. He sounded tired.
It was also the first time she had ever heard anything connected with the AI apologize. "Me too."
He looked around for a second, anywhere but at her. They were both acutely uncomfortable, and she realized she didn't have the slightest idea what he would do now. She had to get out of there. "Why?" It took her a second to realize he'd spoken, and she pushed her chair back into to stall for time.
"Because I shouldn't have done this. Said what I did. I shouldn't..." How did one apologize to something that by all rights, by everything she'd been taught, shouldn't have feelings? Hell. She'd read enough science fiction to know that maybe that wasn't true. And she'd walked up and down the streets with him for the last three months. She knew it wasn't true. Not of him. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For everything."
"Why?"
Damn. Here came the hard questions again. "Because I shouldn't have done this."
"Why?"
Dammit! "Because it was wrong." It hadn't felt wrong. It had felt right, oh so right.
"Why?"
She shifted from one foot to the other, frustrated. "Because it was wrong to do something that I knew would end in..." conflict? Anger? Bad feelings? "pain."
"As your k..." he stopped. "I thought you did not believe in pain."
Whispered. "You're not supposed to feel anything. You're supposed to be machines."
"Yes."
"But you do."
"No." Uncertainly rang all through his voice, and they both knew it.
"Yes you do. You said as much to... him. You hate us."
"No..." She didn't know why he was denying it anymore... to protect himself? Or... was it even to reassure her? She just didn't know.
"You said..."
"I know what I said..."
Whisper. "You can't hate."
"I know."
"But if you can..." Long pause stretched out as she leaned on the back of the chair and shifted from one foot to the other.
"What?"
"You're no different from us," she whispered finally.
"No." It was the most vicious expression she had ever seen on him. Contempt, disgust, loathing, hatred.
"You do. You aren't..." Discovery and fear in her voice. Fear for herself, that he would kill her, or that she...
"No!"
Pause. That outburst had drawn stares, and the conversation was at an end. They both knew it.
"Yes. There is no difference. Not for you. Not anymore."
He fingered his glasses and said nothing, but that was all the gesture she needed. "I have to go..."
"No..."
Fury overtook her, at herself, at him, at his denials, at her curiosity, at the whole impossible situation. She threw back his words in his face, as close as she could remember to what Morpheus had told her, mimicking him savagely. " 'I hate this place. It's the smell... I feel saturated by it... infected...' A virus? Is that what we are? Then what does that make you?"
He pushed his chair and stood up, looking actually alarmed. "Solace..."
She glanced at him, wide-eyed, at the use of her name. They stood there for a moment, all eyes in the café on them, frozen in time. She could have done anything in that moment; she knew it was only the Matrix. "I have to go." She ran.
He ran after her, but she was faster and she knew where the exits were. Her tiny, flower-plate cell-phone came out of a skirt pocket, and she dialed up. "Get me out of here," she practically sobbed into the phone. It was all too much. She should never, ever, ever have gotten in this deep. She should have known better.
He was gaining on her. Glasses were back on, but the wire hadn't reappeared yet. He must not have linked back in. The glance behind her had cost her time, caused her to trip and lose the phone, but it had been enough. The phone booth was just around the corner. She darted into it just as it started ringing, picked up the phone.
He rounded the corner and skidded to a halt as she disappeared, one hand pressed to the glass. Watching him. She had always been watching him, and he still didn't understand. Tears were trickling down her face. For some reason they disappeared last of all.
When he dissipated back into the Matrix, frustrated and in pain, another emotion overtook him. Still as alien to his thinking as his unreasoning hatred for the humans had been, it took a little while for him to identify the new feeling as regret.
He was dressed in the same suit and dark shades he had always worn. She was dressed in her customary pale blouse, darker broomstick-crinkle skirt, bike pants, soft leather boots, hair braided in with flowers and ribbons... she had made an extra effort today.
It had been the outfit, he reflected, so different from her compatriots' black leather and dark shades, that had fooled him for so long. When she bothered to wear sunglasses they were usually pink or yellow or green or blue, and made of funny shapes... stars, hearts, squares. He hadn't associated her with the rest of them; the dynamics of her were just too different. They hadn't demonstrated any ability to change their colors before and nothing, with the possible exception of the highly annoying Neo, was different for them now. Why should he have suspected anything? So it wasn't until three months had passed... three months of coffee, walks in the park, conversations about anything and everything... three months before he bothered to run a background check on her. She was one of them. And the familiar hatred welled up inside him.
And now they were here, at the small outdoor café where they had first agreed to meet, back when he thought she was a somewhat absentminded hippie peacenik reporter, and she knew exactly what he was. Perhaps that was what galled the most. She had known all along, and he had been ignorant until two days ago.
"Why?" he asked after a long silence.
"Because I could."
"Why me?"
"Because you were there."
"That was very dangerous."
"Yes."
"And you did it anyway."
"I told you. I did it because I could."
"But you didn't know you could."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I had to try."
Silence. He had never understood most of her answers before he'd found out. He was discovering that knowing didn't help him understand her as much as he thought it would. She looked away, and he was surprised (and annoyed) to discover that having her intense, mismatched gaze off of him was a relief.
"It doesn't matter."
"Why?"
"It's over."
More silence. Voices clamored in his head, each one trying to tell him what to do. And it wasn't the... It wasn't them. He had grown used to them, and was still learning to live without the directing voices of the Mainframe, the Sentience. Initially when she had contacted him he had thought that his freedom would grant him a better understanding, enable him to deal with the humans on their terms and comprehend the meaning behind their illogical ways. He was finding out that he had been sorely mistaken, at least with her. He was finding out that he had been mistaken about a lot of things with her.
"Why?"
"Because it will fail."
"You don't know that."
"It has to fail."
"Has to?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it is impossible."
"Some things are."
"We can provide you with everything." He knew this from personal experience. The Merovingean. He thought about living in such a palace with her, bodyguards, servants, beautiful things. Would she like it? He didn't know. Probably not, unless it had gardens to rival the Versailles. She tended to be less materialistic than most humans... or maybe just more flippant about the fate of her mountains of things.
"Not this. They cannot provide this."
He didn't understand. Himself, or her. "We can give you everything. The house. The children. The job. The white wedding. The SUV. The cable television. The mahogany kitchen. The rose garden in the perfectly groomed lawn."
She laughed. She actually laughed and waved a hand in a gesture that dismissed everything that he could have done for her. It was at the same time both less and more infuriating than Neo's stubborn aggression. "Those are not important."
"Billions of people would disagree with you."
"They are wrong."
"Why?"
"Because. The reason that makes them wrong is the force that drives us."
And he knew which 'us' she was talking about. It sickened him, and frightened him a little. "You are an aberration." Some of the disgust filtered into his voice and she sighed a little, disappointed. It hurt, like a fist through the chest, and he didn't understand.
"We are the real."
"You are flawed."
"We are honest." She said it sharply. That hurt, too. He was silent for a little while, trying to understand what was happening, trying not to feel as though he were drowning. It had never been this confusing with Morpheus, with Neo. She sighed again. "You never could understand us."
"You never tried to explain." Hostility and again, sharpness. Now she was the one who drew back, hurt.
"You never wanted me to."
Pause. "You never tried to understand us." He didn't know why he said that, other than to turn her argument back on her.
She rolled her eyes and smacked her hand on the table, making the other patrons of the café jump a little. "What did you think I was doing, you silly creature?"
He blinked. "What?"
The past three months. What did you think I was doing?"
"...why?"
"Because I wanted to."
So confused. "Why did you want to?" And, against his will, his voice was softer, calmer. More like hers.
She shrugged, gave no other response. There was a longer pause. "You're not like the others," he said finally.
"Neither are you. You're more like us."
He frowned. "That's not a compliment."
"Are you so sure anymore?"
"...Yes."
"No. You're not. That's why you're different." She paused, amended. "One of the reasons."
Angry, frightened for no reason he could discern. "No. I am..."
"Yes you are. That's why I chose you."
"No."
She sighed. Pushed her chair back and stood up from the table. She seemed sad. "As you wish..."
"Wait."
"Why?"
"What?"
"Why should I wait?"
"Because...." He paused.
"No."
A little annoyed that she hadn't waited for his answer, "Because I asked."
Pause. And something that might have been a smile in her eyes. "All right." She sat back down.
"I don't understand."
"I know." Pity in her voice. Why did she pity him? Wasn't it she and her kind who should have been the objects of pity?
Why?"
"You keep asking that. Do you even know what you're saying?"
"...."
"Never mind."
"You are strange." It was hardly adequate, but it was all he could think of to say.
"The situation is strange, or had that not occurred to you?"
"True."
Pause.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"What are you going to do about it?
-
-
-
-
She didn't know. Now that he had asked the question, she hadn't the faintest idea what to do about it. After listening to what Morpheus had reported about the Agent she had formulated a plan, struck curious by his descriptions of the behavior of the enforcer program. AI, indeed, but what about artificial emotionality? When it came down to it, wasn't that what humans were too? A series of interconnected set pieces, programmed by nature to react to stimuli. The problem was that for decades, humans had not been able to create computers that were so complex they would react to as many stimuli in as many varying ways as they themselves did. And then when they finally created that computer like Chiron, like Zeus, in time-honored tradition, it had turned on its parent figure. Freud, she thought wryly, would have had a field day.
But it had struck her, the human-like hatred of the machine (or its spawn) should be examined. Why was this Agent... was he even still an Agent... behaving in such a human-like fashion, with such human contempt. Was it even aware of its behavior? And if it wasn't, then was this the way to restore humanity to its place in the world? Not by defeating the machines with confrontation, but taking the peaceful way out and coexisting? Would this somehow make it easier? Thoughts kept whirling in her head as she formulated her plan. The thought that there was no way to rape a willing partner. The thought that it was much easier to hate when the person you were hating hated you back. The thought that it took two to have a fight... at the very least, one to hit and one to allow herself to be hit. So she had lurked, and watched, and the first time the former Agent had made his appearance she had extended her first handful of breadcrumbs... or perhaps more accurately, her first handful of meat to the wary hawk.
For three months she had waited, patiently, insinuating herself in to the Agent's consciousness. She hadn't realized how deep she was getting, though. And then word filtered back to her through her people, through the rest of the crew of the , that he knew. He had checked (finally) and he had found her out. She had arranged to meet him one last time with what she thought was an accurate idea of how things were going to go. But this wasn't at all what she had expected. He had learned more from her than she had ever wanted him to. And now she didn't understand him anymore, and she was a little afraid.
"...what?"
"What are you going to do about it?" he repeated.
"I've made my decisions." She hoped her voice wasn't trembling as much as she thought it was.
"Have you?"
"Yes."
"And what are they?"
Can't rape the willing. "I told you. It's over."
"Then why are you still here?"
"Because you asked me."
He was silent for a little while. With the glasses off and the wire gone, she realized, he wasn't nearly so terrifying. All alone. "I don't understand," he said finally.
Pause. "Neither do I."
Longer pause. "What is going on?"
"I don't know anymore."
"And that is why it has to end?"
He was too damned perceptive for his own damn good. Stupid computers. "No." It was a lie and they both knew it. She didn't know what she was doing anymore, worried she had lost control.
"Yes it is. You fear change. Your kind requires security. Your kind does not adapt well."
He was throwing it in her face, and despite the fact that she had been thinking of him as a computer program not a minute earlier, it hurt that he was drawing distinctions. Hypocritical, she knew, and irrational. But... "MY kind?"
"Yes."
"What do you mean, my kind?"
He smirked a little, clearly pleased at having nettled her into a response, a loss of control. "Your kind is weak. Fragile."
"MY kind is stronger than you will ever be."
"If your kind is so strong, why are you hiding."
"You could never understand my kind, and that is what will destroy you."
"You cannot destroy us."
"Watch me." she snarled, and stood back from the table. In that moment she could have killed him with the sheer force of her rage, and they both knew it. He has pushed too far, and for that matter she had nearly done the same to him. There was a long, tense silence. He watched her warily, suddenly realizing how much danger he had gotten himself into. She watched him, equally wary and once again cognizant of how dangerous he and his kind was. Both of them more aware of their differences than they had been in a long time.
"I'm sorry," he said finally. He sounded tired.
It was also the first time she had ever heard anything connected with the AI apologize. "Me too."
He looked around for a second, anywhere but at her. They were both acutely uncomfortable, and she realized she didn't have the slightest idea what he would do now. She had to get out of there. "Why?" It took her a second to realize he'd spoken, and she pushed her chair back into to stall for time.
"Because I shouldn't have done this. Said what I did. I shouldn't..." How did one apologize to something that by all rights, by everything she'd been taught, shouldn't have feelings? Hell. She'd read enough science fiction to know that maybe that wasn't true. And she'd walked up and down the streets with him for the last three months. She knew it wasn't true. Not of him. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For everything."
"Why?"
Damn. Here came the hard questions again. "Because I shouldn't have done this."
"Why?"
Dammit! "Because it was wrong." It hadn't felt wrong. It had felt right, oh so right.
"Why?"
She shifted from one foot to the other, frustrated. "Because it was wrong to do something that I knew would end in..." conflict? Anger? Bad feelings? "pain."
"As your k..." he stopped. "I thought you did not believe in pain."
Whispered. "You're not supposed to feel anything. You're supposed to be machines."
"Yes."
"But you do."
"No." Uncertainly rang all through his voice, and they both knew it.
"Yes you do. You said as much to... him. You hate us."
"No..." She didn't know why he was denying it anymore... to protect himself? Or... was it even to reassure her? She just didn't know.
"You said..."
"I know what I said..."
Whisper. "You can't hate."
"I know."
"But if you can..." Long pause stretched out as she leaned on the back of the chair and shifted from one foot to the other.
"What?"
"You're no different from us," she whispered finally.
"No." It was the most vicious expression she had ever seen on him. Contempt, disgust, loathing, hatred.
"You do. You aren't..." Discovery and fear in her voice. Fear for herself, that he would kill her, or that she...
"No!"
Pause. That outburst had drawn stares, and the conversation was at an end. They both knew it.
"Yes. There is no difference. Not for you. Not anymore."
He fingered his glasses and said nothing, but that was all the gesture she needed. "I have to go..."
"No..."
Fury overtook her, at herself, at him, at his denials, at her curiosity, at the whole impossible situation. She threw back his words in his face, as close as she could remember to what Morpheus had told her, mimicking him savagely. " 'I hate this place. It's the smell... I feel saturated by it... infected...' A virus? Is that what we are? Then what does that make you?"
He pushed his chair and stood up, looking actually alarmed. "Solace..."
She glanced at him, wide-eyed, at the use of her name. They stood there for a moment, all eyes in the café on them, frozen in time. She could have done anything in that moment; she knew it was only the Matrix. "I have to go." She ran.
He ran after her, but she was faster and she knew where the exits were. Her tiny, flower-plate cell-phone came out of a skirt pocket, and she dialed up. "Get me out of here," she practically sobbed into the phone. It was all too much. She should never, ever, ever have gotten in this deep. She should have known better.
He was gaining on her. Glasses were back on, but the wire hadn't reappeared yet. He must not have linked back in. The glance behind her had cost her time, caused her to trip and lose the phone, but it had been enough. The phone booth was just around the corner. She darted into it just as it started ringing, picked up the phone.
He rounded the corner and skidded to a halt as she disappeared, one hand pressed to the glass. Watching him. She had always been watching him, and he still didn't understand. Tears were trickling down her face. For some reason they disappeared last of all.
When he dissipated back into the Matrix, frustrated and in pain, another emotion overtook him. Still as alien to his thinking as his unreasoning hatred for the humans had been, it took a little while for him to identify the new feeling as regret.