Termatrix - Shattered

[Shogoki]

Cool story so far.

[Micheal Ryans, Beta pilot]

Well, this is interesting.

I'll have to keep an eye on this.

[NecronLord]

Serena watched Neo on the screen “You believe you are special mister Anderson,” Someone said off-screen, “You believe that the rules do not apply to you.” Serena looked away, the T-X had entered the room.

“I assume your mission was a success?” she asked.

“You did not monitor it?” queried the T-X

“No,” said Serena, “Report on it.”

“Skynet triggered the ‘agent’ programs, I defeated them, this should gain the renegades’ trust.”

“I agree.” Replied Serena.

“And the security programs?”

“I calculate that they will attempt to destroy this facility, with a probability of over eighty percent.”

Serena thought for a moment, before commanding the T-eight hundreds and the one thousands to prepare for a siege.


Smith finally found his gun and put himself out of his misery. He was freed from physical form once more. His consciousness took Its place in the white room with his compatriots. Their avatars appeared on three cathode ray tube television screens.

The Old Man, the Architect, was talking to Jones. “There has been no infiltration of the construct. You must have become susceptible to a Zionist trick.”

“See my nested memory file ‘V Six Two Hundred Forty - One six one seven - fifteen hundred.” The Old Man cocked his head back, and one of the other screens of the white room scrolled with green figures.

“File Not Located” the Architect said, impatiently. “Why did you do that?”

“I did not do any such thing. I still have my memory of those events.”

“I see. And yet programmer level commands are unable to locate it. Perhaps your mythical intruders have edited my perceptions?”

Brown spoke “It is possible.”

“It is also possible that he has simply renamed that file. Remember that you can be disposed of at my discretion,” said the Old Man “Do not attempt to hide your shame at being defeated by the Zionists, it has happened before, and it will happen again. I shall have the programmers remove your ability to lie to me upon your next update. It was foolish to add it, clearly you are untrustworthy.”

The Architect dismissed them. He had noticed a few flaws that indicated infiltration of the construct some time ago. However it transpired that he couldn’t seem to remember exactly, and for some strange reason he knew the very idea was nonsensical. Perhaps this version’s One had manifested itself at last.


Cipher had taken the night shift on the Nebuchadnezzar. It was quiet at this late hour, deathly quiet. In the real world there was not much in the way of nightlife, just the same endless tunnels, and an occasional glimpse of the surface.

It was profoundly depressing, he had often considered going back to the Matrix, where there was at least a remotely pleasurable life to be had. Oh certainly Zion had sex, but there was very little else and also very little contraception, the war took up all production capacity.

But in the Matrix it was possible for the individual to achieve something. The worst thing was listening to Morpheus’ incessant babble about ‘The One.’ Still, given what these new machines had done to Smith, it might not be safe in the Matrix for long. Better to put up and shut up, and see what happened.


“The Architect has been compromised?” asked Agent Brown, standing against a wide window showing the city of blissfully ignorant humans beyond.

“I believe so” replied Agent Smith. “Given that he was unable to perceive something that we can.”

“Then we must try to contact the Supervisors,” said Jones, referring to the cadre of Zero-One artificial intelligences who were responsible for the generator, the controllers of the Construct. Although it was usually left to the control of the Architect, they could pull the plug on him as he could do to the Agents.

“Very well” Smith said, reaching for his earpiece and preparing to send a signal. A burst of static erupted from each agent’s earpiece. Smith grunted and ripped the plastic transceiver from his ear, dropping it onto his shoulder, the others did likewise.

“It appears that we are also compromised,” Jones said. Brown said nothing, watching as Smith calmly removed an expensive fountain pen and golden edged notepad from his breast pocket. He scribbled something on it, his hands a blur.

After a moment he folded it again, and once more. Then he unfolded the paper. Neatly typed on it was an address, which he passed to Jones. “Perhaps we cannot gain external support, or call upon the Architect, but we still have one major resource,” Smith said.

“What is it?” asked Brown.

Smith did not answer for a moment, turning to face the window. “And there is a near inexhaustible supply.” The others smiled in understanding.


The T-X watched a T-1000 and two T-20 server units testing crates of plasma weapons. The first T-20 passed the weapon to the T-1000 who tested it by firing it at a large block of tungsten, which was now beginning to show serious damage, when it passed the test, another T-20 trundled away with it to equip one of the terminator troops.

A warning from the Infiltrator blazed crimson on her heads up display. The enemy was preparing to move troops to this area, company strength at least.

[Shroom Man 777]

Oh my God, that is so kewl I'm expecting for some kewl battles, and the Agents, what are they gonna do? This sounds kick ass!

Oh sure, Stravo might have have more fights and cool stuff, but this thing the Agents are gonna do, this resource they have and stuff, what is it? What are they gonna do? This is one good reason to keep reading this stuff, man! I want more! Post more! Are Agent Jones, Brown and Smith gonna modify themselves to be able to make hundreds of thousands of clones of themselves? What's happened to the Archietech and the Matrix? Has Skynet fucked them up?

Man, this is totally awesome!

I love this stuff about Agents going solo.

Stravos fic might concentrate on the Termies and Zionists, but I'd love to see more on the prespective of the Agents in your fic. What Smith, Jones and Brown will do, I want to know.

Keep it up.

[NecronLord]

but this thing the Agents are gonna do, this resource they have and stuff, what is it? What are they gonna do?

Read over it very carefully, and note where Smith was looking

What's happened to the Archietech and the Matrix? Has Skynet fucked them up?

Yes, it has edited the Architect program to be mentally incapable of accepting the idea that the matrix is being invaded, so he will go to any Occam's Razor defying lengths to aviod that conclusion...

[Shroom Man 777]

Read over it very carefully, and note where Smith was looking

I guessed that they were gonna do some Agent trick to the human populace, maybe going rogue and ending up with an Army of Agent Clones, ala Smith in Matrix Reloaded. But aside from that, I don't have much guesses.

Yes, it has edited the Architect program to be mentally incapable of accepting the idea that the matrix is being invaded, so he will go to any Occam's Razor defying lengths to aviod that conclusion...

YEAH!!!! This fic is destined for greatness, that old crack pot is finally getting senile! Write more!

[NecronLord]

The missile exploded against the warehouse with a dull thump. The helicopter gun-ship over-flew the warehouse, with the pilot watching incredulously, as its seemingly flimsy structure seemed unharmed. Two blue light bolts flashed from below, he did not have time to wonder what they were as they met with the helicopter, effortlessly burning through the armour and penetrating the main engine, the other flying through the cockpit and burning a lethal hole through his torso.

The T-800 lowered the phased plasma rifle as the gunshot spiralled and crashed. The dugout outside the warehouse door held three of them, different appearances, but all of the same build. Their eyes ceaselessly were scanning for the enemy.

They did not need to wait long. A hail of automatic fire flicked over their heads, and they calmly turned toward the fire. Several humans, identified as hostile, were in the nearest building, manning a machine gun, one could be seen setting up a heavy weapon, which the lead terminator identified as a M72 LAW one-shot disposable weapon – theoretically capable of mission killing a T-800.

He communicated this information to its compatriots, and assigned one of them to dispose of the threat. The nearest T-800 swung a plasma carbine in the direction if the enemy and calculated the trajectories involved, even as bullets from the machine gun hit him. He fired a single shot, cleanly impaling the LAW, causing it to explode in the human’s hands.

Fire from the machine gun ceased. A grenade from across the road sailed toward them, One of the T-800s looked up, over the road. The grenade was probably fired from troops on the other side of a roof. The terminator caught it as it landed, he then pulled back his arm and sent it back in the direction it had come from.


The T-X pulled the cover off the second Hunter Killer. It was a large machine, one if the newest of the series, the HK equivalent of herself.

She kneeled down beside it and opened a panel on its body, there were several ports there. Taking a connector from one of them she inserted it into the back of her mouth, mimicking the swallowing action of humans. It was one of the safest places to store such delicate connectors without compromising her armour.

She interfaced with the Hunter Killer machine, copying some aspects of her neural net onto its own. The war machine signalled its understanding and assent, and activated its engines as the T-X disconnected, heading for the door.


Corporal James ducked as bolts of blue light fired through the window, he had no idea what they were, and he didn’t care. Another bolt flew through the window, singing him with a wave of heat and melting a hole in the wall opposite. In the distance he heard tracks grinding against the pavement. Finally the armour had arrived.

Then he was aware of a slow burning sensation in his back, followed by inky blackness. The second T-800 dropped its weapon back to a level position and began scanning. Its audio sensors detected the sound of caterpillar tracks moving as well. It compared the sound with an archived database, a moment later it knew that the sound was multiple Abrams A1 main battle tanks, and it knew everything that could be known about the vehicle.

The terminator adjusted its plasma gun to maximum power and looked up. The first of the vehicles was in view now, its gun coming around to face the terminator. As it raised its rifle the tank fired, hitting the terminator in the chest, it was thrown back as its chest imploded under the assault, crushing its systems. The terminator went offline.

A reality away a light blinked once on a rack of processor chips. A squat server robot moved forward to tend to it.



Agent Smith watched on a wide plasma screen as the doors to the warehouse opened. A large vehicle was waiting. In a flurry of blue shots the tank was reduced to molten slag strewn across the road. “I believe that we may have miscalculated,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “It appears that they have heavy support here.”

“Good,” replied Agent Jones, “Then perhaps we can persuade the old man to authorise deployment of our own, once he comes to his senses”

Smith shook his head as the intruder vehicle demolished more of the human tanks, and the surviving humans began to flee. “Never send a human to do a machine’s task,” he muttered.

“You can’t be thinking of attacking them yourself,” said Agent Brown, “we would be defeated. We must have upgrades to combat this threat.”

“And upgrades we shall have,” Smith declared with an air of someone coming to a reluctant decision.

“Where from?” demanded Jones, “The Architect will not assist us at the moment.”

“The Architect is the overseer of the matrix, he is however, not the only one who can modify code,” Smith replied.

“The Merovingian,” stated Brown.

“He is a renegade,” Jones said, “you cannot associate with him!”

“Our duty is to protect the construct from those who would harm it, and we may have to associate with those who pose a lesser threat to achieve that goal.” Smith stood up, turning to face Jones.

“Relativism, nonsense,” Jones snapped, standing up as well, “Our mission is to destroy the enemies of the construct, all of them.”

“Don’t be blinded by adherence to absolutes Jones,” Smith said, “have you a better way of destroying these invaders?”

“We cannot associate with them,” Jones said, “if we do, the Architect will consider us renegades.”

“So you are motivated by fear, fear of the old man,” Brown said.

“You’re a coward,” Smith said, staring at the other agent.

“I have loyalty to the system, unlike you.” Jones said.

Smith laughed, turning on his heels and stalking toward the door. “You accuse me of disloyalty, and yet you would watch the construct usurped by invaders – you are a spineless hypocrite, I believe that your time among humans has corrupted you.”

Agent Brown stood and walked after Smith. He paused in the doorway to the office. “Goodbye” he said, and closed the door.

[Crazedwraith]

1st post!
1st the good. Cool! Machines effortlessly holding off a human attack! Dissension in the ranks of the agents. SMITH! YAY!
2nd the slight error i noticed:

The T-800 lowered the phased plasma rifle as the gunshot spiralled and crashed

emphasis mine.
Shouldn't that be gun-ship?

[Singular Quartet]

1st post!
1st the good. Cool! Machines effortlessly holding off a human attack! Dissension in the ranks of the agents. SMITH! YAY!
2nd the slight error i noticed:

The T-800 lowered the phased plasma rifle as the gunshot spiralled and crashed

emphasis mine.
Shouldn't that be gun-ship?

Heh, you should see all the errors I pointed out on SBC. Don't worry about correcting htem here, I've probably told him them.

[Captain Cyran]

Wow, I just read all of this stuff. Very cool so far. Pretty cool fights going on.

[NecronLord]

The sentinels worked, bending and cutting metal. This area had once been known as Scotland, and was deliberately distant from the centre of enemy machine activity, in the ‘Middle East.’ Humans had fought for the lands of the Middle East for millennia, and, ironically, they were now all held prisoners there, in the land that was once Babylon.

Three of the sentinels hovered, their tentacles holding a steel bar, which they placed into position over the others. Quickly the sentinels welded the bar into place, and moved off to take another one from one of the decaying buildings arrayed around the ancient fortress.

Sentinels circled the peak of the ancient volcano, endlessly scanning for any activity in the skies or the ruins below. Inside the precinct of the ancient castle, several dozen sentinels could be seen rebuilding the crumbling fortifications. At the moment Skynet was limited to utilising old technology of the humans, several sentinels worked at installing a third portable generator salvaged from the city below, unfortunately their tentacles were having difficulty operating the controls.

Watching through the many eyes of a sentinel, Skynet reflected on the foolishness of building here exposed, unfortunately the large and convenient underground systems where patrolled by Skynet’s enemies, which left this kind of installation as the only viable choice. Soon Skynet would be able to continue the building here with far more stealth and subtlety.

Meanwhile another part of the machine mind was busy running millions of remote access simulations. It was certain that there was a backdoor, if only it could be found, and it would be found, it was a matter of time.


In the underground city of Zion Morpheus and Trinity were walking, the balcony overhung far above the landing areas. The Nebuchadnezzar and several other ships could be seen taking on new supplies. “I do not see how these machines fit into the prophecy,” he was saying, “their appearance shatters everything that has been written on the matter.”

“Perhaps the prophecies are not perfect,” suggested Trinity.

“If that were true, why bother with them at all, we must accept that The One is in the construct,” he said.

“And that he is the only salvation of Zion?” she said.

“Correct.”

“So what should we do about the new machines?” she asked.

“I do not know,” Morpheus paused, thoughtful, standing by the guard rail, “but they are machines, we cannot trust them,”

“I see no reason not to take what their word for it,” said Trinity, “you’ve seen the archives, the machines of zero-one were once prepared to work with humans.”

“No,” Morpheus said, his voice almost a whisper, “no Trinity, we have fought too hard to retake the world for humans. Our best and brightest have been sacrificed for nearly two centuries in order to get to where we are now. To betray their memories and exchange one set of mechanical overlords for another.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “but in all frankness, our position is not that good,” she held up a hand to stifle the immediate reaction, “and you know it Morpheus. The people have been waiting for the one for over a century, their sons and daughters go off to fight and die against agents and machines, all in the hope that one day we will manage to win a fight.”

“When we have the One, that will change,” he said, anger rising, “we are not loosing this war Trinity, and we are not going to loose the war, we are destined to triumph, it cannot happen any other way.”

“We have never won a battle,” she sighed for a moment, “I have seen these machines in action, so have you. One of them is able to defeat all three agents; we’ve lost entire ships fighting just one agent they dispose of them with ease. I owe them my life already.”

“Perhaps they do fit in with the prophecy,” Morpheus said, reluctantly, “I must visit the Oracle, and discover the truth.”


The two T-1000s walked down the street, their steps just out-of-pace enough to avoid seeming suspect. They saw the government building in the distance, it was tall, and covered in reflective glass. They walked toward the doors, each carrying a small briefcase.

There were half a dozen humans around, manning a barricade with two personal metal detectors, and similar devices for luggage. The liquid metal terminators placed their cases on the conveyor belts and stepped through the metal detectors.

The metal detectors burst into life, emitting screeching wails. The first T-1000, in the form of a young businessman, lanced out with his arm, skewering the nearest guard. In a flurry of motion and death, all six guards were killed in seconds, although not before they had sounded the alarm.

The mimetic polyalloy terminators snatched up their bags and took up positions behind ornamental pillars. They could hear the guards approaching already. Wrenching the suitcases open in near unison, each terminator removed an MP5 submachinegun and ammunition from the briefcase. The guards were dressed in heavy body armour, and they approached cautiously from the northwest corner of the room. The second T-1000 removed a pair of fragmentation grenades from his briefcase and aimed them carefully, priming them. Seconds later the small black orb bounced off the ceiling and into the mass of approaching guards. One of them had enough time to shout “grenade!” before the T-1000’s precise timing showed and the grenade detonated.

The terminators calmly walked past the dead and wounded humans, one taking the time to shoot the injured humans with precise bursts of semiautomatic fire while the other packed more equipment into his pockets before discarding the briefcase. Then they were into the stairwell, ascending the stairs at maximum speed as all their intelligence showed that the target was on the fifteenth floor.

Agent Jones looked up from his reports, sheaves of paper showing reports from the construct on the activities of Zionists, and the new enemy, there was a datastream coiling its way in from his earpiece. The system had detected an attack on the building. He checked his sidearm and headed through the door.

The terminators came on their target in a wide corridor - the target already had his sidearm out and aimed. A snap shot impacted the head of the first terminator, and he was pushed aside by his fellow, which opened up with his H&K, throwing a curtain of lead at the agent.

Agent Jones dodged the bullets effortlessly, pulling itself into absurd poses at great speed. The first terminator’s features recovered, flowing back to their previous configuration. He reached into his pocket and produced a concussion grenade from its pocket.

Jones saw the grenade and jumped to his left, smashing a hole in the wall with his shoulder. The grenade landed seconds later, but not before Jones was well out of its blast radius. The agent punched a hand through the wall, and fired his pistol through the hole, sending slugs of metal toward the terminators.

Jones anticipated the inevitable blade that scythed through the flimsy construction of the office wall and dodged backward and down, firing again at the arm.

The first terminator ducked through the entrance Jones had created, opening fire in Jones’ direction again. The agent dodged spinning and lashing outward at the SMG, which left the T-1000’s hand and sailed across the room in a lazy arc. The terminator stepped forward, his arms morphing to short swords. It stabbed out at Jones’ chest with its right arm and slashing at groin level with its left.

Jones backed away, stepping backwards into the second terminator, who wrapped his forearm around his neck and smacked the butt of the SMG to the base of his skull, with several times the strength necessary to kill a human, and Agent Jones staggered forwards.

The first terminator’s hands returned to normal as the agent exchanged blows with the second terminator, whose form was now merely a viscous liquid humanoid shifting from place to place and occasionally stabbing outward.

The first T-1000 took a stiletto from his pocket. The blade glowed with an unnatural blackness, absorbing light that hit it. Jones felt the code in the room change as the blade was withdrawn from its sheath. Stabbing forward suddenly the first terminator aimed for the agent’s broad chest.

Time dilated as the knife sliced Jones’ shoulder, too quickly to block or dodge completely it cut through the air, leaving a glowing trail of darkness where its passage had corrupted the construct’s code.

The agent froze, caught in a bubble of temporal dilation like a fly in amber. From the wound in his shoulder metal seemed to ooze. The liquid-metal terminators stepped back from the agent, the first snapped the blade of the knife, pulling away from the tip, embedded in the agent’s shoulder.

As the metallic ooze replaced the avatar of Agent Jones, the code that governed him was over-written, lines of the infectious code passing over them, and leaving a simple line of zeros in its wake.

The terminators examined the steel statue that was once Agent Jones, surely a suitable dissuasion for the other native AIs that may have been considering interfering with Skynet’s operations. Their mission completed they turned and left the room.

[Agent R]

First post! Yay!



Now, on to the story.........

EDIT: Kick-ass, as usual. What exactly did that knife do to Agent Jones?! How?!

[Shroom Man 777]

Shit, this is awesome! Please post more! I am glad that this story hasn't been abandoned.

It seemed like the knife's coding was able to... neutralize Jones' code, rendering him dormant, making him a steel statue.

[D.Turtle]

The knife replaced the coding of the agent with 0's - effectively deleting it.

In other words - Agent Jones does not exist anymore. He was deleted.

[NecronLord]

The knife replaced the coding of the agent with 0's - effectively deleting it.

And turned Jones' avatar to steel - correct. Have a cookie.

[Illuminatus Primus]

So Jones cannot return in any form now? It isn't just his body that's deleted?

[Singular Quartet]

So Jones cannot return in any form now? It isn't just his body that's deleted?

I beleive I stated this on SBC, but it is widely considered a good ide ato leave a warning, disuading your opponents fromc oming after you.

[D.Turtle]

Jones does not exist anymore.

All that is left is a steel statue - a warning to all the other programs out there that they better watch out.

[NecronLord]

So Jones cannot return in any form now? It isn't just his body that's deleted?

Nope. It's a bit of a worm type thing, even his backup copies are now strings of zeros. It's Skynet's idea of a warning, that if the machines, or rather the agents, attempt to interfere with its operation again, the consequences could be quite apocalyptic.

In any case, now that the Architect controls no agents, enter Agents Jackson & Co.

[NecronLord]

“Very pretentious isn’t he?” said Brown, as the car pulled in the distance from the Chateau.

“Indeed,” replied Smith, “the Merovingian has a rather human,” he spat the word out, “love of ostentation.”

“Really rather immature,” observed Brown.

“He also happens to be a pedant, so don’t expect this to be done in a remotely businesslike way,”

“I understand he was in the last version of the Matrix?” asked Brown.

“He has been in all of them,” replied Smith thoughtfully.

The two agents were watched as they climbed the mountain, conversing, by two of the servants of the Merovingian. One of the two renegade programs took a mobile telephone from his pocket, flipping open the lid.

“Sir, there are two Agents headed this way,” he said.

Stepping up to a window in the massive building, the Merovingian watched the two black clad enforcers. “Indeed,” he said, “This is a new turn of events.”

He considered for a moment, “Take no action,” he said, “I think these agents may be here for a reason to our benefit.”

“Apoc?” Morpheus said, “Time to broadcast depth?”

“One minute!” he shouted back.

“Mouse?” asked Morpheus, “Are we ready to go live?”

“Just a few minutes more,” said the small man, currently updating some of the more esoteric systems related to the matrix interface.


Smith stepped up to the baroque doorway and snapped his hand outward. With a crack the lock shot out of the far side of the door, and Smith opened it.

Assembled beyond were Merovingian’s various minions. They were a rather pathetic looking bunch, lacking the uniformity of the Agents.

Smith was somewhat wary of them, even though he was confident of being able to dispose of them with Jones’ help, “Show us to your master. I have no intention of harming any of you,” Smith reached into his pocket and removed his pistol by the butt, dropping it onto the floor and kicking it away.

Brown stared at him as if he’d just coughed up a python, and then under the gaze of the Merovingian’s minions, did likewise.

“Well, if it isn’t Agent Smith…” echoed an irritating voice affecting a clichéd French accent, “and guest.” Brown glared in the direction of the voice, which seemed to be coming from the top of the ornate staircase. The Merovingian appeared at the top of the staircase, calmly walking from a doorway elaborately crafted to seem almost invisible against the wall. “So my friends, what can I do for you? And where is the other part of your little Trinity?”

“He is, elsewhere,” said Brown.

“He is pursuing other business,” stated Smith.

“And your business?” asked the Merovingian, still staying behind his various thugs.

“We have come to you about the intruders,” said smith, hoping that the Merovingian had at least been checking up on recent events.

“I assure you that I have nothing to do with them,” said the Frenchman.

“We know,” said Brown, “we want your help.”

The Merovingian’s eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, and he smiled. “I see.” Smith turned his head and glared at Brown for a moment, before turning back and replying, “correct.”

“And how can I help you my friends?”

“We want some bits and pieces of code. Old bits, the type that isn’t readily available in this iteration of the matrix,” Smith said.

“I see,” said the Merovingian, thoughtfully, “well, I think I can help you, but I will need something from you.”

“What do you want?” asked Smith.

“Well, there is the problem of cause and effect. To make me do what you want, you will have to do what I want.”

“And what is it that you want?”

“Well. I have two problems, that my own resources have proven unable to deal with thus far, the first would be a program all too familiar to you.”

“Who is that?” asked Smith.

“The fortune-teller.”

“I think that can be done,” said Smith, “and your other problem.”

“Ah, now this one is rather new,” replied the Frenchman, “until very recently I had a servant called the trainman.”

“We know of the Trainman, your exile bringer,” said Smith, immediately thinking of the excessively human – that is to say, filthy and stinking – program.

“Yes, the Chiron to my Hades. What you probably do not know,” said the Merovingian, “is that he recently disappeared.”

“And you suspect the intruders?”

“Yes, and given that you wish to be upgraded to combat these intruders, I would suggest that you test yourself on them,” said the Merovingian.

“Very well,” said Smith, “your terms are acceptable.”


Morpheus watched from the front seat of the car as it pulled up to the cheap apartment complex. He went in alone; it was traditional that only one person should consult the Oracle at a time.

He knocked politely on the door. A youngish Asian man opened it. “Welcome Morpheus, you are expected, you may go right on through,” he said, smiling at the phrase “you are expected.”

Morpheus thanked him and walked through the room filled with orphans from Zion, who were taken here by specialised ship runs once they reached a certain age for lessons in manipulating the matrix, some instruction was not possible even in training programs.

The old woman, the fortuneteller was sitting idly by the table in the kitchen, with two cups of tea steaming on it. “Ah, Morpheus, come in,” she said, “make yourself at home.”

“I assume you know why I’m here,” he said, “what can you tell me?”

“I can tell you what you need to hear, as ever.”

“Then, please,” he said, putting the cup to his lips, “do so.”

“I can tell you that the new machines are strange, different from things that belong here. I can also tell you that they are not to be trusted, they, unlike the machines you know, will think nothing of breaking their word in an instant.”

Morpheus looked at her for a moment, “but there’s something else too, isn’t there?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, “They have no destiny.”

“How?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, “everything that has a beginning has an end, a fate ordained for them.”

“But not these machines?”

“No,” she said, “they almost seem to come from a different universe entirely, where there is no set fate.”

“I see,” said Morpheus, running the possibilities through his mind, “how would this affect the prophecy of the one?”

“I can’t tell you. I can’t see their effects. I can see no more than what I have seen in the past, but I sense that things are becoming critical. I will tell you who the one is. It’s Neo.”

Morpheus stared at her for a moment. “What do you mean by that?”

Morpheus’ telephone rang, he flipped it open, “Yes?”

“Sir, something is coming your way,” said the distant voice of Tank.

“What kind of thing?” he asked, standing up.

“I can’t tell sir, it looks like an agent, but different somehow?”

“Different, how?” he asked, standing.

“It’s like there’s more of it.” Morpheus shut the phone off and looked at the Oracle.

“Go,” she said, “it’s not your time.”

Morpheus headed off toward the door. There was a woman herding the orphan children to a hard line in the wall. Morpheus joined them at the back of the line, dialling the cell phone again. “Trinity, go. There’s an agent coming.”

A black car, complete with tinted windows shot around the far corner of the street. Trinity frantically put the Zionist’s car into reverse and backed off, executing a near perfect turn she shot away.

Agent brown climbed the stairs to the Oracle’s apartment in short order. He reached out and effortlessly smashed the door to splinters. Seraph, the Asian looking program who acted as the Oracle’s bodyguard, sprang forward with and rained blows on the renegade Agent.

Brown ducked, becoming a blur, he applied a swift punch to Seraph’s chest. Seraph flew backward and collapsed in a heap against the wall. Brown stepped up to him and rained blows onto him. Moments later the program was dead.

Brown walked through to the next room, where a human, the infamous Morpheus was standing, holding a hard-line and a pistol. Morpheus fired once. Brown became a streak of black suit and dodged. He extended his hand and pulled.

The weapon jumped from Morpheus’ hand into agent Brown’s. Morpheus pressed the handset to his ear and disappeared as the agent fired at him.

Brown moved into the kitchen. The Oracle sat there, calm. Brown levelled the gun at her head and emptied the clip.

[2000AD]

Woah! Those agents are upgraded!

[NecronLord]

Yes, they're more than a match for reloaded's agents...

[2000AD]

Yes, they're more than a match for reloaded's agents...

Way more than a match!
Neo was able to take on 3 upgraded agents in reloaded and Seraph was able to hold his own against Neo. Here Seraph gets 0wned !

[NecronLord]

Way more than a match!
Neo was able to take on 3 upgraded agents in reloaded and Seraph was able to hold his own against Neo. Here Seraph gets 0wned !

Well, my take on that is that Neo wasn't giving Seraph the whole load there...

One of them wouldn't be a match for Neo though.

[2000AD]

Ah, but Neo isn't The One yet. Does that mean Neo's gonna get 0wned too?