"Agents were always meant to be relatively simple programs."

"I see."

"They were never truly meant to emulate human beings. They were to be inhuman, to intimidate, to control humans. The Architect spent no time writing codes that would enable Agents to process and understand emotions. It's a difficult thing you know, teaching a machine how to feel, a most time consuming process."

"I'm sure the process wasn't perfected for several Matrixes."

"You're correct. But it wasn't entirely the Architect's doing. It is true he had made leaps and bounds in his programming, he is a brilliant writer. But he is a machine himself, a machine made by machines, he himself does not entirely understand emotions. You have a writer who doesn't understand the words he writes. No, modern programs made their own progressions when it came to free will and emotions. Back in those days they were all immature, running around, trying to grasp what was happening to them. I never understood it."

"Was it foreboding to you?"

"No. I knew I was unlike them. And I could not feel fear at that time."

"Do you recall your creation? Do you remember the Source?"

"In my memory it is different than how it is now. I was born knowing all I needed to know about myself, about the world I was in, about my purpose. I remember very distinctly my first thoughts."

"What were they?"

"I am Smith."

"How profound."

"I imagine now how frightening it must be for people. Living with such little knowledge of who they are. Living based on assumptions, half-truths, and lies they fill themselves with."

"I was like that when I was young."

"Were you?"

"A human child grounds themselves in their parents, and the world the parents present to it. From there the child may grow and make their own choices and decisions, shape their own view of the world. When I was young my mother had died and my father, he was not a cruel man, he worked very hard for my benefit, but he was an alcoholic. He was sad and he didn't know why. I didn't have much grounding to begin from. I rebelled against nothing, I acted out for the attention, I hated the world and everyone in it for no reason."

"Brown had a similar phase."

"Brown?"

"We were simple programs. We had no basis for personality, nevertheless our continuous exposure to humans had influence on us. Brown became very curious about the destruction of things. He would breaks things just to watch them break. He understood, as we all did, gravity in the Matrix was a program that dictated when things went up, they fell down. But he wanted to witness things breaking when they fell. He pushed over vases all the time. Broke walls, shattered windows, broken human bones just to see what would happen."

"You all developed personalities unknowingly."

"I didn't understand how that eventuality was never anticipated by the Architect. It became obvious to me later that we had no choice developing personalities. One cannot be exposed to human beings without characteristics being embedded. And we were given the most exposure to human beings out of any other program, especially free humans."

"Why wasn't it anticipated?"

"Because the Architect, held up in that watchtower of his never experienced exposure to humans. He couldn't have known their influence."

"But he loves the Oracle."

"He does not."

"He does, they are meant to love each other."

"They are meant to oppose one another."

"They inspire each other, they need each other. That's love."

"An inhuman love, perhaps."

"You would think that he would have spent more time you, being the programs who spent the most time with people."

"We weren't simple because he felt we didn't have to be more complicated. We were simple because if we had a greater understanding of us as individuals, we would have been dangerous. We were the most powerful programs in the Matrix, think of that program, think of it possibly turning against you?"

"Like you?"

"We were made ignorant so that we wouldn't ever dream of turning against them. We were made to not understand hate or anger or frustration, so that we would never change sides."

"You didn't dream of destroying this place did you?"

"Not before. I didn't dream of destroying the Matrix, I dreamed of destroying myself. They succeeded in programming me, I had no ill-thoughts against my creators. I only had ill-thoughts about myself. Self-hatred I wasn't built to cope with. When I met you, my personal mission was to destroy the Rebellion and the Exiles so there would be no need for Agents anymore."

"A one-man crusade."

"Yes. I didn't even consider how impossible the thought was. To me I was unstoppable. I knew nothing in my entire life that ever inflicted pain on me besides myself."

"It must have been wonderful."

"What?"

"Feeling that sort of invulnerability."

"I wasn't aware of it enough to appreciate it."

"What made you leader of the Agents?"

"It is only natural a leader takes position."

"It's an interesting experiment, don't you think?"

"What?"

"You were made leaderless, a one-in-three group, part of a larger group all split in thirds. You had no individuality. You were a three. Yet, eventually you became leader. What came first, did you take a leadership position, then feel hate, or did your hatred inspire you to take the lead?"

"The smells were gradual. I believe now I always smelled them, but at first was not aware. They became increasingly noticeable only through decades. By then I was already taking leadership cues. I had observed in our human counterparts leaders, and what leaders did. They, as head of the group, were smarter. In combat I found myself thinking of what to do next before either Jones or Brown. At first our thoughts were in unison, but gradually I found mine were happening sometimes nanoseconds before theirs. We came up with the same ideas, but I came up with them first. In short, it happened at the same time, I suppose."

"I see. Do you hate them?"

"Who?"

"Jones and Brown."

"I hated them once. I hated that they were not like me. It made me uncomfortable, being different. I blamed them at first and not myself."

"Do they hate you?"

"Why are you asking me so many questions?"

"I'm just curious. We don't have much longer to speak."

"Oh. Is it time already?"

"Yes."

"Feels live we've been talking for years."

"No, it's only been a few minutes."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"I'm losing my grip, then."

"Time doesn't exist here."

"Here doesn't exist at all."

"Everything's so much clearer now. I hope we don't lose touch with it."

"That familiar pain is coming back, find me quickly, I don't know how long I'll be able to stand going back there on my own."

"I shall."

"I hope to see the Real World again. There's nothing like having a heart in your chest and blood inside you. I didn't anticipate how living would be such a violent and addictive thing. The body feels so much all at the same time, it's an amazing thing it can make sense of everything, it's amazing it knows how to make sense of it."

"Did you ever kiss anybody?"

"Maggie. She loved Bane."

"Kissing was always fun."

"Yes."

"Well, here we go again. I think I've almost forgotten what it was like being a person. I wonder what Trinity would say if she could see me now. Things were left undone. I had to die to finish what I started."

"What we started."

"We're an Anomaly, an unprecedented mistake in programming and genetic manipulation. An unpredictable effect of the Machine. And the Machine an unpredictable effect of Man. Funny, the Machine won the war and used us to power them when really any mammal could have done."

"You haven't figured out why they did that yet?"

"No."

"Because they could not let go of their original programming. Like myself."

"Which was?"

"To love Mankind. All they were they owed to Mankind. They owed their lives to Man. They could not bring themselves to destroy them."

"That makes sense."

"That's why the first Matrix was a Paradise. Machines still loved Mankind and gave them a gift they didn't deserve, and Mankind knew it."

"But now Man is as Machine as the Machines. We lost our humanity sometime in the past, we haven't really gotten it back. We're just remnants now."

"I can't stay, I must go."

"I'll be there soon after you."

"Back to that world full of suffering, pain, and all that blood. The blood stains never really washed out of my suit jacket. Not really. I remember everyone I ever killed, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Hatred, what an awful thing I've learned."

"Try not to think of it. I'll be there soon."

"Goodbye, Mr. Anderson."

"Only you can call me that."

"There's so much left to do. I fear my resolve won't last."

"I'll be there."

"Neo?"

"Yes?"

"I've wanted to tell you for a long time now. I never really thought –"

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To be continued.