#pre-matrix

Agent Smith existed in a world of certainty and fundamental truth. The Matrix, he knew, was his purpose. He was its chosen guardian. He existed to stop the chaotic Zionists and their mission of liberated anarchy.

Humans, it seemed, were unable to behave in a manner that catered to their best interests.

And that was why the Matrix existed. The system to govern the humans, teasing them with the illusion of choice, while driving them all to complete their purpose. To power the machines.

There was order in his world.

A reason for everything.

Until there wasn’t.

Smith could find no reason for the abrupt change that he sensed on March 11, 1962. His counterparts didn’t seem to find anything different but Smith knew that there was something wrong in the Matrix. Something didn’t belong.

It was nothing he could recognize; nothing surface level.

But something was wrong and it was distracting.

He checked to see if there was an update he was missing; perhaps there was a glitch in his own software. An easy fix.

But no.

For some inexplicable reason, he was drawn to the Matrix Stats. A program that kept track of everything from the blades of grass within the simulation to the number of programs within the Matrix.

He checked it all but found himself staring at the population. 380,111 new babies had been born on March 11 while some 156, 916 had been taken away, their bodies recycled in the real world to nourish the little ones.

Yes, Smith acknowledged, things were different. But like an update, he learned to adjust. After a while, those little twinges that something was wrong became normal, easier for him to ignore. And that was just what he did.

It would be years before Smith thought about that day.

Year more before he would understand the significance of that day.

Six years pass and Smith no longer gives thought to the odd sensation. Or was it a feeling? 

No, he decided, not a feeling.

He wasn’t capable of that. It was not something assigned to anti-virus programs.

It’s a winter day when Hamann and his crew break into an apartment building to free some moron who thought life would be better in the harsh underground city. But Hamann and his crew weren’t as careful as they should have been.

They managed a trace, missed the warning signs of deja vu.

When the Agents arrived, it melted into chaos.

Their potential red pill was killed in the crossfire, along with another from Hamann’s crew.

The rest escaped, running in different directions.

And the Agents gave chase, each in pursuit.

Smith had chased Hamann, following him through the halls. The man burst into an apartment building and jumped through a window to the fire escape. He took the steps two at a time and Smith was gaining on him when a small child climbed between them, looking down at the older man who was running down the stairs. 

Smith barely stopped himself from crashing into the child.

Casualties, particularly young ones, were to be avoided by the Agent’s mandate. And while accidents happened, he tried to avoid casualties. 

In hindsight, he should have walked around the child and finished his pursuit. He probably would have caught up to the terrorist and managed to put him down before he reached an exit. 

Yet Smith couldn’t seem to look away from the dark-haired child, staring up at him with large brown eyes.

“What are you doing on my fire escape?” The boy asked.

Smith scanned the child.

Thomas Anderson.

Date of Insertion: March 11, 1962.

Age: six years.

The date struck him, freezing him in place as he regarded the young child.

A coincidence, he was nearly certain.

The boy was only six. He could hardly be the cause of the discomfort, the strange sensation that had once caused him pause.

Thomas, he thought. From the Aramaic To’oma. Meaning twin.

But humans, it seemed, rarely chose names based on their meanings. Thomas was an only child. There was no twin, no partner of sorts.

Just a lonely little one, as lost in the world as anyone else.

Anderson, Smith noted. Meaning son of Andrew. Andrew, of course, meaning man. Son of man.

Again, highly irrelevant.

Little Thomas might not know it but he was the child of machines, composed mostly of organic tissue but with enough mechanisms that he was no longer entirely human either.

“Sir? What are you doing on my fire escape?” The boy asked again. 

A flash of annoyance spread through the Agent and it startled him. Annoyance was intrinsically human and Smith was far from it. As distant as one could possibly be from a fickle thing like emotions.

Before the boy could ask again, he said, “You’re dreaming. Go to sleep.”

“I’m not dreaming!” Thomas insisted, looking angry at the assumption.

“Trust me: you’re dreaming.” Smith quickly walked off, unwilling to stand and address the flash of annoyance, the anger that seemed ingrained in his avatar’s bones. All the while, the thoughts racing through his head.

Emotions are human.

Jones and Brown were down the street when he caught up with them.

“The girl made it out.”

“As did Hamann.” Smith confirmed.

“Their gunner is dead.” Jones stated.

Something sickly starts to grow inside Smith that the confirmation. It was dark and made him uneasy, almost nauseous. Programs didn’t get nauseous, Smith thought, but then, they also didn’t feel.

It should have been me to stop him.

Me.

A personal pronoun, indicating identity of the individual.

Smith was not an individual. He belonged to a tripariate program. A collective with a single purpose: to stop Zionists from freeing people.

They had done their job. Had managed to kill a few Zionists while at it.

The matter of who killed who was unimportant, irrelevant.

So why did Smith feel as though the world was shrinking around him? As if it were becoming infinitely smaller, taking his focus away from the Matrix and projecting it onto himself. And yet, selfishness was inherently human.

The earlier programs could experience things such as emotions. The Merovingian was a prime example of abstract hedonism. The Oracle was known for her compassion towards the humans. Even the Architect was mired with complex feelings towards the slaves, giving him the insight necessary to design the Matrix to suit their needs. 

But Agents had no need for feelings.

He ran the possibilities in his mind.

Perhaps there had been a malfunction, in which case, he should report himself immediately and be taken to exile. A new Agent would be created, reprogrammed to fix the inherently human traits that seemed to be prevalent in Smith.

But no, he thinks. Exile does not seem… pleasant.

Self-preservation, however, was a human instinct.

He wondered if it was worse than he initially thought but Smith ignored it all.

He would discover, over the coming months and years, that it was not all that hard to cover up the occasional flash of feelings that rise to the surface when dealing with the Zionites. He did his best to eliminate any sign of the virus within the Matrix.

Years pass.

All the while, Smith feels his distaste for humanity growing. He hides it under a practiced mask if only to protect himself from deletion. 

A few hundred people are freed, a few hundred more die.

New captains and crews replace the ones that grow old or are eliminated. Most act in quiet desperation, trying their hands at stealth and trickery, hoping to avoid the attention of the Agents.

And then there was the Nebuchadnezzar.

Led by Morpheus, the entire crew seemed to be operating on a single brain cell. 

But then the message came through. A human willing to act as a spy in order to be placed back in the safety of the Matrix. While it wasn’t impossible, it would be a waste of resources to do such. But the human didn’t need to know that.

Instead, they agreed to the deal and were given a name.

The new bastard that Morpheus determined was capable of destroying the Matrix.

“We have the name of their next target.” Said Jones.

And Brown finished, “The name is Neo.”

Neo.

A scan of the information at hand brought him to the owner of the alias. A picture of a tall, clean-shaven man with dark hair and eyes appears, along with a name and a profile.

Thomas Anderson.

For a moment, Smith was aware of his every synapsis. The speed of every thought that went through his program. He could feel his very avatar like a cage surrounding him, trapping him.

Thomas Anderson.

March 11, 1962.

The day the Matrix turned. 

Smith had never given any thought to Morpheus’ mission to find someone capable of destroying the Matrix. Smith had deemed it impossible long ago. 

But now…

New feelings are creeping in.

While before, Smith found himself riddled with disgust over humanity, frustration at his own limitations, and annoyance in others, he finds something new growing inside him.

A new feeling plotting and working its way through him, consuming him.

Anticipation.

Finding Thomas Anderson, confronting him, capturing him before Morpheus is able…

He doesn't buy into the concept of the One but he couldn't deny that the man was special. 

Now was the time for planning. Tomorrow would be the time for action.