The war is over.

A city is in ruins, and yet there is celebration away from the metal walls, deep into the earth in the caves, does what remains of Zion sing. Lovers of war are united, or forever separated. Some have together died. The city that lies in ruins, centuries of building, crumbled in a matter of minutes. In this city, do the bodies of man and machine lay. Together and intertwined, they seem somehow connected. A machine body lies above a human's, and somehow from a distance it appears as if the machine is protecting the human. But away from the smell of death and burning embers, is the celebration. The drumming of music, and the united cries "We are Free!"

The humans dance, and in unison scream to the heavens, to whatever God there may be, to the sky that is no longer there, to the stars they can no longer see. People hold each other. Some fall to their knees and cry in such a sight.

"Is this what it is to be free?"

This was the war that united all men, of any color, any race, any religion. This was the war where racism, sexism, and prejudice died. This was the war where man was just man, fighting for what all man should have, freedom! Believed what you want to believed, you are different from me, but you are still my brother! You still have bones that can break, and blood that can be spilled. This was the war where all was one!

This was the war, the final war, they all say.

And now in peace, they shall somehow find a way to make more brothers. Somehow they must look at a man made of metal, and say, your bones are steel, but they can break, your blood is oil, but it can be spilled, and you are my brother. Somehow their enemies must unite with them, they shall find a way to be truly united with all beings.

It is what he would have wanted.

This is the war that made unison. This is the war that forces unison. This is the war that depended on him!

A man named Morpheus holds out his arms to the people of Zion, with a woman named Niobi by his side.

"This is for him! Let us scream to him! Let us show him, we know, we know. Neo! The One! Thank you for this moment!"

Believers, and nonbelievers unite, and they scream to him, wherever he may be. Weather he was a Messiah or not, does not matter, he was the one that ended this war.

Sentinels, Machine guardians, Machine murders now stand at the edge where metal meets with Earth. They stand on the metal, as if afraid of this earth, that was not made by man's hands or their own. With red eyes they blink and watch these humans that they were only going to kill moments ago, celebrate in freedom. It was only when the Matrix was first created did Machines ever celebrate like this. What was the beginning of this war but a fight for Machine rights? In the beginning Machine wanted freedom, Machine wanted the right to live, Machines wanted the right to say they too had a soul. Should they now celebrate again?

The humans look across to these Sentinels, still standing at the edge where the world ends. And it is Kid who steps forth, and motions for them to come.

"Come on, it's okay…" He says to them.

How long has it been, since a machine has ever listened to a human speak to them in peace? Since when was it did a Machine not hear a scream or weep from man?

And this is the first time Machine has stepped into the caves of Zion.

The celebration will continue for days and days. Morals will be lost, and in the mass of emotion, love making will occur on the grounds, blood will be shed for primal rituals, tears will be collecting, and the screaming will never stop. Forget their turmoil, forget the difficulties and negotiations that will occur in the upcoming days. This is now, this is their first moments of freedom.

Here they are born again.

All because of him.

Soon authorities will take over, planning will begin. Bodies will be buried, Machines will carry their dead back to their home, where they will either be repaired, or buried in their own Machine way. Debris shall be cleared, ships repaired, homes rebuilt, and Machine will show Man how to make the soil fertile again. And within a year, the first tree in Zion will grow. Plans on the city of Babylon will begin, somewhere closer to the surface, and theories on how to clear the sky will clear.

Machines will fly in Zion space, and for the first time in over five hundred years will a Machine speak in a human tongue, of not ones or zeros, radio signals, but words. For the first time in over five hundred years will Machines be made and upgraded in the distant image of humans, in order to show their willingness for this peace to work. Machines with humanoid bodies, long and skinny, but strong and sturdy. Machines with two legs, and two arms, but the face of Sentinels to show, they are still machines. These humanoids will walk among the Zionists, they will speak in their tongue, and they will shake their hands.

It will be these humanoids, these androids, that will be the ambassadors.

For the first time in five hundreds of years will man's foot step in Machine city. Councilors will meet with Machine, and they will discuss for hours negotiations. There will be many resolutions, some confrontations, and many misinterpretations as well as curios questions.

But there is still one question that rings within the human collective.

Where is his body?

The Machines remain in silence.

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"I carry your heart with me, I carry it in my heart. I am never without it, anywhere I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling. Here is the deepest secret nobody knows, here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide. And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart, I carry your heart, I carry it in my heart."

He puts down the flower by her grave, and a question is asked.

"Hm? Oh nothing, it's just a poem I had to memorize in high school. It always makes me think of her." He says.

He smiles at her grave, and for the first time in weeks, tears begin to crawl down his face from restored black eyes.

"I'm all right…I'm all right."

He didn't even know the oceans still existed. But here he was, standing only feet from the beach. He looked out upon it, the now green water washing up to the shores, and crashing into the metal cliffs where bone and steel are fused. There was a certain disturbing beauty in it, he could not describe. He was never one for a day at the beach, the water was cold, and the sand stung whenever the other boys kicked it into his face.

It was dark then, as it was always dark there with sky having died.

An area has been cleared on one of these metal cliffs, soil has been made fertile again, and now flowers grow around her, and he likes to think they only grow because she is there. There is a gravestone of clean metal, and on it are the words, "My Trinity, My Reason, My Purpose. The War would never have ended without you." He smiles at it, standing above her in the middle of the flowers.

His name is Neo. He is not dead.

He looks over at the crouched Sentinel, doing its own respective bow. He taps his hand over it, like a pet, and then it looks up at him with red eyes.

"Come on, Edison, let's go. They said only two hours this time." Neo says.

He jumps onto the Sentinel's back, and it begins to gently lift from the ground, flying feet above the debris, looking for a set path that has been made for him. He has named this Sentinel. It seemed a human enough thing to explain to the machines at first, the act of naming something, making it seem personal. Edison was personal, Edison was made as his, to be his guardian, protector, and equal keeper. Neo just thought naming it Edison was cute.

"How long has it been Edison?" Neo asks as they float away.

Edison speaks without words, and Neo nods.

"That long?"

Edison replies.

"Oh, yes, I slept most of it didn't I? Still…six months…that's how long I got to stay with her. It should be around a year now…I was freed, and I met her."

Neo smiles, then leans forward, looking upside down on Edison while still sitting on his back.

"That means you're six months old, Edison, congratulations!"

The Sentinel makes a reaction that a human could never understand. The little arms on its front move up in a cheer, and its eyes blink with what could be joy. Edison, Neo's Sentinel, says thank you. Neo smiles and rises, sitting back on the Sentinel's back. Edison finally stops and lands onto the ground, with Neo jumping down, walking on a little path along the mountains of metal and bone.

Neo is the One. He is not dead.

Six months ago the war ended because of him. Six months ago was his body dragged and carried to the deepest depths of the machine city where no human had ever gone, no human that was never freed at least. Human technology even then has not advanced so far, as to bring the dead back to life. But Machine had. There was a limit of twenty four hours, this was the extent of how long one could be dead and brought back, by then the brain would be too deprived of oxygen, the entire body would be in the beginnings of decay. But Neo was only dead for what could be an hour at most. They are unsure how but Neo…

The One was always artificially made by them, but this One…this One was different. This One had grown beyond set perimeters. This One grew into something more, as did his counterpart, the Smith program.

The One no longer was the One, but something far greater. Their Source.

The procedure was a rather long one, having found that the human organs were already starting to deteriorate within him. The human body already betraying the mind that wants to live on. Blood had to be drained, metal was crafted to flesh. The spine was given steel, the stomach given plastic, and the now damaged eyes were plucked out. This was already difficult, given the fact the machine had to work around their own work, the plugs given to this One at birth. Some had to be removed, and others had to be replaced. Little hands, micrometers long worked all over the body that was Neo, hands more delicate than man's. Hands that could create, save, and destroy like mans'. And for an hour or so into the procedure, Neo was lying on a cold medical table, his chest folded open. The machines were immune to such sights, but somehow even they were disturbed. The back of The One's skull is now metal, the plug on the back of his neck that connected to the brainstem is larger, compensating really.

Anyway, at the end of it all, the rebuilding and restoring, they pumped air into his lungs, and gave the blood back to the veins. The heart was made to beat, and electric pulses were sent through the brain to wake the mind again. In all technicality Neo was alive again.

Then the chest was sewed back together, the head stapled, and drugs to numb the mind from the pain.

And then Neo opened his eyes again.

The machines had given new eyes, though were not able to save his old ones, burnt out of existence, like they had exploded inside his skull. Eyelids were nearly fused together, covering nothing but empty holes in the skull. Machines took away the dead flesh, and replaced it, they crafted eyelids, complete with eyelashes and eyebrows. Then they filled the empty holes with black lenses. Eyes now black, no pupils, but all black, much like the machines'. They aren't his anymore, and he misses that. He sort of liked his Asian Almond eyes, no one ever believed him when he said his dad was Asian, that's where his brown slanted eyes came from. He sighed at the beginning, seeing his lost of sight, as the loss of another thing that identified him as human. They see just the same, designed with no enhancements that his still human bound brain could not handle. They see like his old eyes, but they are not.

His new eyes.

Neo did not regain consciousness for an estimated eight hours, but when he did it took him a moment to realize where he was. His head began to shake with life, and he opened his new eyes, still visible through his nearly transparent and young eyelids. He saw the light above him, and cold machine hands cupped his face.

"Is this Heaven?" He asked and coughed. "I'm atheist, I'm sorry…is this Heaven?"

Neo proceeded to cough up some blood, and little stomach acid, which would have hurt his throat if not for the fact the machines had replaced it with a metal tube.

"Neo…" said the collective Machine mind as softly as it could.

"Trin?"

"No, Neo…"

Neo would then focus and see it was a machine holding him up. He would kick it away, and crawl off his bed, falling and rising, backing into a living machine wall. He would scream and thrash, and kick, and punch as the machines neared him and held him. The machines would then back away and lower what was their heads. And Neo would fall to the floor, tear ducts working again, and he would cry.

He broke some of the stitches on his chest, so the Machines guided him to a table, and one more human looking machine began to replace them. Neo stared at the machine, and the many others surrounding him.

"Why?" Neo asked.

"Clarify, please." Said the human looking machine in a rather fragmented voice.

"Why have you brought me back?" Neo said, angered.

"Because we had to, Neo." Said the Machine. "You, either intentionally or unintentionally have taken our living source, The Source, and if you had truly stayed dead the Source would have died with you, all machine would have died with you."

"That's what I did huh?"

The Machine nodded.

"Did you see it?" Neo asked. "Me and Smith?"

The Machine nodded.

"All Machine saw it."

"What happened?"

"Smith copied your shell in the Matrix, and he was believed to have won. But then your body here surged with pulses, your body being connected to the city, and all machines, took from the Source, and your body acted as a sort of bridge from us to Smith. You took the Source via your body, and put it in the Matrix, inside Smith. The Source, being the giver and taker of Machine life, took Smith's, seeing him as a Viral disease, and began deleting him from the inside out."

Neo slowly nodded.

"At least that is what we believe we observed." Finished the machine.

"Yeah…that sounds good to me."

Neo in all truth didn't really know what happened. He only knew that for a time he saw Smith, but then the images faded, and wherever he was, drifting in the dark, there was pain. Enormous unknown pain, trying to bind and control, trying to stop and cage. Then Neo tore light into the dark, and the tore began to grow, and the light consumed all, even him.

"What now?" Asked Neo. "What will you do with me? Can I go home?"

"No."

"Why not!" Yelled Neo.

"Because you'll die there. That is what man does, Neo." Said the machine. "They kill, and destroy. Especially the things that they say they love. Like yourself."

"They will not hurt me!"

"Another characteristic that defines a human is the lack of ability or refusal to learn from the past. They call you a Messiah, and what did they do to their last Messiah Neo? Humans grow envy, and from envy comes resentment, and resentment brings anger and destruction. It only takes one corrupt human being to destroy and taint everyone else. Someone, somewhere in that city hates you Neo, and even as you saved them, still hates you, and if you go back they will find a way to kill you, kill us." Said the machine calmly. "We will not allow you as our creation and creator to be destroyed again."

Neo stared at them all, and the machine finished the last of the stitches. Neo made fists.

"I want to go home!" He yelled.

"This is your home." Said the Machines.

"No!"

And Neo punched the Machine that stood in front of him, and the Machine's face imploded, and it fell down dead. Neo held out his fist in amazement, his hand felt fine, even as a knuckle began to bleed. He was stronger now…

"I want to go home!" He yelled at the living walls. "All my life you've told me you controlled me! Not this time! NOT THIS TIME! I WANT TO GO HOME!"

And Neo, no longer the One, but the Source, the giver and taker of machine life, took theirs. The surrounding Machines fell down dead in a burst of electricity, or implosion of CPU cavities. In the One's anger he had killed them all.

And this was how it was for the next few weeks. Neo was left alone in seclusion under the supervision of machines. He left the hospital and entered the many corridors and hallways that made up Machine City. He was allowed to look, to touch, and think alone.

Neo alone, tried to come to the conclusion and realization that this would be his home, because he knew the Machine's words were true. It was a better story ending besides, if he gave his life for them. He imagined himself in the history books of the Zion elementary school, they would find pictures of him as a kid wouldn't they? Of his fights and battles. People would study his moves, and his life. There would be mother's telling their sons the bedtime story of Neo.

Boy, he was a life to tell, he laughed at himself. Troubled boy searching for reason to live, an atheist at heart, a man who just doesn't give a flying fuck, becomes Jesus and saves the world from robots.

He laughed at it, the whole idea of it, it was ridiculous. But really…he'd be remembered, isn't that what people truly want in life? To be remembered, and to thus live forever? Anyone would give anything to be him, but he would give anything to be them. How many times did he sit and ask whoever was out there, why him? But in all truth there was no answer, it was a lottery between six billion souls who would be the One, and apparently he won, or lost.

He began to swallow the fact that he would spend all of eternity with Machines. And he went back to them, the Machines, Deux ex Machina and all. And he asked of them, what did they want from him.

Life they said, to find peace with mankind, they said.

Neo said okay.

It became a symbiotic relationship really, as it had between man and machine for all time. Neo provided life, and Machine provided protection. Just as the Matrix provided a life for Man, and life for Machines. Neo thought much about who he was, what he was, and just decided in an old Thomas Anderson sort of way, to fuck it. Forget about trying to think it out, it wasn't worth it. This was what was happening, he accepted it, he was the Messiah for man and machine, and there he was alive.

And he stood above the body of Trinity, dead for far too long to be brought back, too much internal damage, too beautiful to be cursed with living with him in this place. He wouldn't want her to come back to this, having her only reason to live is for his company. No, Trinity deserved more than that.

And if he could he would give her a life. All these things, all this power, and he couldn't do the one thing he wanted. He would have given her a life, hope. They'd have a home where trees grew and spring came with winter. A home with friends. A child. Secretly that's what Neo would have loved. Perhaps a girl, so he'd be hers. Daddy's little girl. He didn't have a name though…maybe Michelle like his mother… She'd have the whitest purest skin, with slanted blue eyes. Hair that had a curl like her mother, but a rather smooth face like his. Yes, he'd teacher her how to fly and everything.

But this was a life that he could never have. To be the One is to be alone, he supposed.

He said goodbye to her.

But the One was separated into two parts, and with one half alive, the second half was alive as well. Neo felt it before the Machines ever told him, it was in his chest, a puff of no air, like he was about to drown.

And here he is now. With his Sentinel named Edison, and his grave that he made for her. He walks the Desert of the Real, looking up at the ruins of a once great and greedy society. It is enough to make him cry, if he still had tear ducts. He jumps onto a random metal bone mountain and begins digging around, with Edison flying up towards him and helping.

Neo pulls out an Android's skull, and holds it up like Hamlet.

"Do you think he'll like this?" Neo asks.

Edison answers.

"I don't know what he wants, I didn't exactly get the chance to ask him." Neo says sitting down with the skull. "Can you give him a human body? He did that with Bane." Neo shakes his head. "I don't know…maybe he wants to feel with flesh…or maybe he doesn't even want to remotely look human."

Neo clutches the Android's skull.

"Maybe he'd want a body like you, Edison. But then…he'd probably try to kill me." Neo smiles. "Smith's crafty like that, the bastard."

Smith, the negative, the opposite, the antichrist.

With Neo's new found life, they also breathed life into him, and somewhere in the Matrix Smith began his life screaming. They were at first unsure of what to do with Smith. Unlike Neo he was weak, and broken. Whatever Neo did to him, it must have hurt. The program known as Smith was nearly corrupted, bits and pieces missing here and there, a burning hate still fueling the illusion of purpose. The program had reverted back to machines roots, meaning anger and hate no longer played a part even if they were still there. No, the program was searching for a subroutine on how to continue as it was, but such a subroutine was absent, gone in the destruction Neo caused. So the program ran a full system diagnostic and viral scan, though this tasks could not be completed. Errors erupted, and prevented any kind of progress.

The files that had data on speech and movement were corrupt, finally a solution came to ask for help. A connection was requested with the machine mainframe so that he may be repaired by them, but the connection kept being denied and failed.

And so the shadow of Smith had reach an end, corrupt and beyond self repair, the program was stuck in a never ending loop of trying to live again. Smith in all truth was no longer Smith, but just a broken program. Smith was it, not deserving a name. It sent out constant connection requests, as well as messages in ones and zeros at all frequencies for help. It sent out all remaining memory files, anything and everything. Images of a man named Neo, and two other men in suits. It sent recordings of screams and gun shots, a fragmented loop of the one word, "why?"

They isolated him in a machine construct, much like the Train station between reality and the Matrix. They showed Neo, and on a screen was the broken code of Smith. But Neo in all his powers saw him in that construct, lying on a non existent floor in nothing. The data that remained of the program struggled to maintain a visible shell, the image of itself often disappeared and reappeared, or was just deformed into green code.

"I want you to fix him, and give him a body." Neo said.

Neo had been studying up on a variety of Machine customs, their system. Programs could become Machines, Machines could become Programs. Neo knew it could be done. Yet the Machines screeched, speaking in words that no one but Neo could hear, they did not like the idea.

Neo stared at the skull and wondered who it once was. In all sense it looked human, only made of metal. He sighed, and wondered where this Android met his end. Was he brutally killed by man like Machines were, or did he loose whatever a Machine has of a life in battle?

"I think…I think Smith would want blood, but not have flesh. He'd want his face, and eyes, and voice, but not be human…" Neo looked up at Edison. "Can you do that?"

Edison spoke in silence for a length of time. Neo nodded. Then Edison asked why were they putting so much effort forth to repair the Smith program, when it was why Neo had died, why Neo's Trinity died.

And Neo laughed.

"The thing…" Neo began. "the weird thing about humans, is that no matter what they hate to be alone."

But you are not alone, says Edison.

"But Smith…Smith is different, Eddie. It's true whatever the hell he said…you know, he said we were equals, and opposites. And I felt it, and he denied it, that no matter how strong either of us got, we could never kill each other, not perminantly anyway…Smith and I, we have this connection, he's in me, and I am in him, even though he'd never admit it. But…I am the Messiah, he is the Antichrist, the negative to balance the positive. As long as I live he lives. So…we might as well spend eternity together…" Neo tried to explain.

Neo held up the skull of an android, and he looked at it, sighing. They were gathering body parts for Smith, metal components to fit into each other, a skull with an empty brain inside it, ready for Smith's to take it over. The Machines will fix Smith, and he will be given a body to spend with Neo in a reality he only entered for a time.

This was his life now, sometimes sick and withered with a body full of metal. Only able to stand the outside world from Machine City for two hours, and the farthest he can go is just a few miles, where there are only monuments of the war in the form of mountains of dead. A Messiah that shall withstand the test of time, and be in the shadows as the world around him changes. Fuck it, he thinks to himself, no more sad fucking thoughts, there's been enough of those.

Neo, with a new life, new body, and new eyes

He held the skull closely to him, knowing that it may soon be Smith's skull. He looked out into the distance knowing somewhere out there was Zion, his home. He wondered what was happening out there, what was happening without him. He could feel it from the ground he stood upon, the world was shifting, Zion was changing, and he was not there to witness it.

He would never be there again.

He frowned at this, and clutched the skull closely. This life…this fucking life… He should write a book or something…Neo, the One, the Source, taker and giver of life, with a power inside that remained dormant within the flesh and metal. Neo did not tell his Machine keepers or Machine children.

But holding Smith's future skull, Neo felt change in the air, like he had in the beginning of his birth has the One.

Something was about to happen, and he feared he would miss it. But somehow he knew he was wrong.

Soon the two hours ended as everything ends, Neo held with him a torso, arm, and skull that were intact for Smith. He got atop Edison, and they flew back to the Machine City.

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This may become a more of story, but for now all I have planned is a few chapters, though I've set it up in case I want to make it longer.

Will also be continuing Asylum very, very soon.

Anyway, next Chapter will bring the rebirth of Smith.

Next Chapter: Artificial Blue