Single Minded Purpose

Regrets, Remembrances and a Resolution

Disclaimer: A friend of mine said it best: I do not own the Matrix, the Matrix owns me.

Summary: Having been given unexpected but accidental access to Jones’ memories, Sarah seeks to use the information for her own advantage.

The clone looked over at its creator and hesitated to say anything while Smith appeared to be deep in thought--not to mention drinking heavier than usual. However, the persistence of the program known as Sarah inside of him was adamant and difficult to ignore. The copy was getting tired of her repeated requests to be allowed to have communication with Smith.

To Sarah’s chagrin, she had discovered that even though she was free from harm and further violation while inside the form of Smith’s copy, it was still a cage. And like any animal held against its will in a prison, she strained against the bars, desperate to be free.

If I broach this with him, the clone thought to itself, then perhaps she will be satisfied and leave me at peace. It did not like the idea of Sarah using and reading his files and whenever she was not allowed to have control of the form of the clone, she was usually rummaging and searching through all the records and accounts she could access. Sarah’s poking, prying and being downright nosy was getting tiresome.

The copy had assumed that Sarah was merely inquisitive and that could be called correct; however, the real reason for her relentless pursuit of information was that she was looking for a weakness. A weakness of Smith’s could only be discovered from within the clone itself and his data banks were the best place to begin looking.

She, too, now had access to all of Smith’s memories as well as those of every program he had assimilated. All but one. For Smith would allow no one but himself to view or have access to the files he had acquired from Jones.

“She wishes to speak to you,” the clone said tentatively, hesitating to disturb Smith from his dark contemplations. “Will you permit it?”

Smith shrugged. At that response, the clone rightfully interpreted that as a sign of its creator’s consent.

“What did you want to speak to me about, Sarah?” Smith asked, glancing over at her as he took another generous swallow of brandy.

“I was just wondering something about Bronwyn and the time she was carrying your child.” A muscle twitched in Smith’s jaw and Sarah knew that if she wished to be allowed out of her cage from time to time, it would be wise to tread carefully around the man who had such absolute control over her--especially now that Smith was getting increasingly more intoxicated as the night wore on. This was definitely not the time to piss him off, she thought.

Even though he did not answer her question directly, Sarah was able to deduce from the expression on his face that there were times when being pregnant with Smith’s child made Bronwyn unhappy.

“What would you like to know?” he asked guardedly.

“When I was carrying Danny’s child, I know that being pregnant wasn’t always a wonderful thing. I remember complaining to Danny that my feet hurt so much I could hardly shoes anymore. I felt fat and ugly. Sometimes I wished I had never become pregnant in the first place. Did Bronwyn ever feel that way?”

Yes, she did, Smith thought. From what I have been able to find out from Jones’ memories, there was at least one time where he was actually afraid of what she might do to herself, as well as to my unborn child…

When Jones entered the apartment, the first thing he heard was muffled sobbing. His first thought was that Bronwyn was being harmed in some way and he drew his weapon before proceeding any further. If Smith is in there doing anything to her, he thought, I will kill him. He knows as well as I do that the last thing Bronwyn needs right now is more stress.

Walking further into the apartment, Jones spotted a thin sliver of light from underneath the door that had been designated as the baby’s nursery. He pushed open the door just enough to see inside but hesitated to enter.

For this entire evening she has been upset about something, he thought, for throughout the dinner at Mickey’s house she appeared to be acting normally. However, Jones had noticed that whenever she expressed amusement at some of Mickey’s jokes, she laughed but her eyes did not sparkle as they usually did whenever she was amused. Jones had been around Bronwyn enough in the last few months to notice the fact that when she laughed, her eyes twinkled as well.

I shouldn’t break in on her now, Jones thought, because if she wanted me to know what was bothering her, she would have told me. Peering into the room, he saw Bronwyn sitting on the floor of the nursery rocking back and forth and weeping, the white teddy bear with a pink ribbon around its neck she had bought earlier in the day, clasped in her arms.

Jones shifted his weight from one foot to the other, wondering what to do. The sounds of Bronwyn’s despair wrenched at his heart. I can’t just stand here with my finger up my ass and not try to do something, he fumed angrily at himself. I have to see what is causing her so much pain. Taking a deep breath of the simulated air of the Matrix, Jones pushed the door to the nursery open and walked over to where Bronwyn was and sat on the floor next to her.

“What’s wrong, Bronwyn? Why are you crying?” he asked and felt her whole body tremble beneath his hands. He took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders before holding her close to him.

“I know this will sound stupid, but I just realized something,” she said.

“What is it?”

“I’m going to have a baby, Jones.”

“Yes, I know, but…”

“No, what I meant is that I am going to have Smith’s baby,” Bronwyn said. “Oh God, I wish it was yours!”

So do I, he thought. However, we must live with what we have and not go around wishing for things that cannot be changed.

“But I don’t want it anymore…I want to get rid of it!” she wailed.

“You can’t. It’s too late for that.”

“NO IT ISN’T!” Bronwyn said desperately. “It’s not too late…. I’m not the naïve fool I was before; I’ve learned there are things a woman can do even at my late date.”

“Who have you been talking to? Who told you this?” Jones demanded, taking her by the shoulders and forcing her to look at him. “You haven’t done anything to yourself, have you?”

Damn, Jones thought. I knew something was wrong when I saw Bronwyn and Mickey’s wife talking quietly with their heads together after dinner. I thought that she was giving Bronwyn advice about babies since she is pregnant herself, but in fact, she was telling Bronwyn how to terminate this pregnancy. Both of them were unaware that I could follow most of what was being said between them. I remember hearing the phrases ‘starve’ and ‘flight of stairs’ but I didn’t think much of it at the time. Now, however, I see that that woman was telling Bronwyn she could possibly bring about a miscarriage if she deliberately caused herself to fall like that or by not eating.

“You’re not planning to hurt yourself in any way are you? I know you haven’t been starving yourself or this child for I’ve seen you eat, but perhaps you are waiting until my back is turned before throwing yourself down a flight of stairs so you can be rid of this baby?”

“No! Wait—how the hell did you know about that?” Bronwyn asked, her eyes wide open in surprise and fear at Jones’ degree of astuteness.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said tersely. “I just need to know if I can trust you not to hurt yourself when I’m not able to be with you. Which bring me to ask again: what is upsetting you right now?” Jones took her chin in his hand. “Please tell me what is wrong, Bronwyn. I’m worried about you.”

“I hate this baby,” Bronwyn said harshly, jabbing the heel of her hand hard against her swelling abdomen. “I wish I had never become pregnant in the first place. Mickey told me to get rid of it months ago. I should have listened to him.”

“Don’t do that, you’ll hurt the baby,” Jones said, attempting to take the hand that was trying to hurt her unborn child and place it in his own, but Bronwyn jerked her hand away.

“I don’t care anymore!” she shouted. “I – hate - this - baby!” she said, vehemently pushing and nudging the swell of her body.

“You don’t mean that.”

“Oh yes I do,” she said forcefully, looking at Jones directly in the face. The look he saw in her eyes was frightening in its intensity. She means every word, he realized. Something has happened to her in the last few hours to completely change her outlook regarding this pregnancy. I must find out what it is and get her to change her mind somehow before she does something she will regret later.

“What happened to change your mind all of a sudden?” Jones asked. He was careful to modulate his voice so it appeared calm, but deep inside, he was anything but.

“It just occurred to me that once this baby is born, Smith will never leave us alone. I’ve never told you this, but I’ve seen him following me from time to time, just out of the corner of my eye and once I turned around and stared right at him.” She dropped her gaze to her lap. “And then there are the phone calls…”

“Phone calls? He’s been calling you? Here?”

“They’re just hang-ups, that’s all. The phone rings, I pick it up and there is no one there. He never says anything, but I can hear him breathing. I know it’s Smith—who else could it be? He only calls when you’re gone but never when you are here with me.”

“When has he done this? And why haven’t you told me this before?”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

Jones seethed, but did not let Bronwyn see the fury that was building up inside of him. Smith is making her afraid to go outside by following her, and now he is making her afraid to be inside by calling her. What does he have planned next? “When you saw him, did he bother you in any way or say anything?”

“No. He just watches me. Somehow, the baby knows it too; she becomes much more agitated than usual whenever he is near me. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that each of them knows the other is around. And that’s my point—Smith is always going to be around, hiding in the shadows, watching and waiting for his chance to do God knows what. What I do know is that I cannot live like a prisoner anymore. I can’t even go for a walk by myself when I feel like it in case he’s lurking about. And it’s all because of this thing that’s inside of me!” Bronwyn wrenched her hand out of Jones’ grasp and poised it above her belly, readying to hit herself again. Jones knew he had to say something, anything, that would cause her to reconsider harming her baby, not to mention the damage she might do to herself. But her next words chilled and hurt him.

“What do you care anyway? You are only in this for the money.”

“That is not true, Bronwyn.”

“No? I know how much Mickey is paying you—five figures! That’s at least ten thousand dollars! And the fact that you get to sleep with me from time to time is just icing on the cake, isn’t it? I mean, you get to have sex with me AND you get paid for it!” Bronwyn hid her face in her hands and a paroxysm of angry sobbing shook her small frame.

Had Bronwyn looked at the expression on Jones’ face as she said those angry, accusing words, she would have seen pain and hurt suffuse his face and it was a long moment until he could get himself under control again.

“How can you say that to me after everything that has happened between us?” When Bronwyn did not answer, Jones stole a look at her, but her hair hid her face.

“In the beginning, I was only in it for the money, I admit that. But I changed, Bronwyn. Being near you and getting to know you changed me. I am a different man now; a better one, I hope, than what I was before. If I was only interested in the money Mickey was paying me, would I have been here, at your side, every time you woke up screaming from bad dreams? Who stayed with you until you felt safe enough to fall asleep again? Me. Who was there for you each and every time you needed comfort or a shoulder to cry on? Me. Who held you, dried your tears or just listened to what was on your mind? Me.

And I’m not just saying all of this to score points with you, Bronwyn,” Jones said softly. “You know all of what I’m saying is true. If I truly did not care for you, it wouldn’t have mattered to me if you were too afraid to fall asleep. I could have turned my back and left you alone in the darkness. I would still have been paid, wouldn’t I?”

Jones paused before he continued, allowing the silence to drive his point home. “If you hadn’t become pregnant or if you decided not to keep the baby, we never would have met,” he said, stroking her face from temple to cheek and to the outline of her stubborn little chin. “Or doesn’t the last four months together mean anything to you?” he whispered. “And what about all the times we’ve made love? Are you saying all of that meant nothing? That it was just sex, nothing more? If that is what you really think, should I just leave you alone from now on, except to accompany you when you want to go somewhere? If that is what you want, then tell me and I’ll go.”

His words raced like a lightning bolt through her brain. Everything she and Jones had shared flashed before her eyes: the long walks together through the park where they talked about everything and anything in an attempt to get to know each other better; or truth be told, she did all of the talking while he mostly listened—now and then managing to get a word in edgewise. However, the first real breakthrough in their relationship occurred the night she felt the baby move for the first time and he carried her home in his arms. After that, the wall that kept them distant and aloof from one another had been broken.

But the event that had truly brought them together as something more than client and protector had occurred the night of her nightmare. Because of that night, the proximity of their bodies as Jones enveloped Bronwyn in his arms and comforted her, made them aware that one of them was a man and the other was a woman; each with the desires and needs of their respective genders. Of a man, to provide comfort--and of a woman, to be comforted by someone stronger than she.

Both had been afraid to reveal these very new and very strong feelings and emotions to the other for fear of rejection and the heartbreaking possibility of not having them returned. After that night, Jones thought, what would I have done if I discovered that Bronwyn only wanted to retain the status quo of client and bodyguard?

As Jones watched, Bronwyn’s hand lowered and fell in her lap as she considered his words. He is right, she thought. He wouldn’t have been sent to look after me if I hadn’t been pregnant. If it hadn’t been for this baby, I would never have known what true love feels like. She glanced over at the strong profile of the man beside her and the coldness that had encased her heart for the last few hours melted. Her love for Jones far outweighed any of the negative emotions she felt whenever she thought of the father of her baby and even though she hated and despised Smith, Bronwyn realized that she loved Jones more.

“NO!” Bronwyn said, her voice breaking. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you,” she continued. “Please forgive me! I didn’t mean…I need you, Jones! Don’t leave me!” She clutched at his sleeve.

“I’m not going to leave you, Bronwyn,” he said tenderly. “Now or ever. I know you’ve been through hell because of Smith and what he has done to you. You still have that nightmare about him, even though each and every time I am there to hold you when you wake up and comfort you until you feel safe enough to close your eyes. But it’s not me from whom you should ask forgiveness.” He placed his large hand on her swollen abdomen and looked into her eyes. “This little one needs to hear a few words from you for I think you frightened her. I think she needs to know that you still love her.”

“I’m so sorry, my poor little girl,” Bronwyn said remorsefully, tears sliding down her cheeks as she gently stroked the roundness of her body. “Mommy didn’t mean to hurt you. I love you and I will never hurt you again, I promise.” Caressing her belly and feeling the child within respond to her touch with a cautious nudge followed by a kick, Bronwyn smiled through her tears.

I remember that, Smith thought, as he lost himself in the memories of his now-deleted colleague. I remember getting several messages from our daughter that day because she was afraid that her mother was trying to harm her. I even drove to where Bronwyn and Jones were living and waited outside their apartment building all night in my car, so my daughter would know I was nearby if she needed me.

But Bronwyn remained true to her word and never again tried to harm herself or our baby. I suppose I owe Jones a belated thank you for his intervention that night, for he made Bronwyn come to her senses. If he had not been with her at that crucial time in her pregnancy, I have no doubt that Bronwyn would have thrown herself headlong down a flight of stairs causing a miscarriage or at the very least, serious damage to her own body.

Smith continued to delve further into the well of Jones’ memories of that day…

Jones helped her to her feet and put his arm reassuringly around her shoulders. “It’ll be OK, Bronwyn. I’ll always be here to take care of you.”

“Can I ask you something about Smith?” Bronwyn asked.

“Sure.”

“You’ve worked with him for years and probably know him better than anyone. He just doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would develop paternal feelings. Ever. He is sick and evil. He is incapable of giving her the love she needs from a father. Why is he so obsessed about being involved in my baby’s life?”

I have known Smith for more years than I would ever divulge to you, Jones thought. “I’m not sure, Bronwyn. I guess it’s because this is the first child he’s ever fathered. But I suppose that now that it has happened, he sees this child as an extension of himself and can’t bear the idea of being far away from it. I think he is curious about the life he has created and like any new father-to-be, he wants to be involved in the child’s life somehow.”

“Over my dead body!” Bronwyn said fiercely, with a display of spirit that made Jones proud. “Do you think that’s what he wants to do, get close enough to her so that he can corrupt and twist her mind until she is as evil as he is?”

“From what I know about Smith, that sounds exactly like something he would do and it is crucial that you and I keep his contact with the child at an absolute minimum. The further she is from Smith and his influence, the more likely it is that your involvement in her life as her mother will enable her to have a normal, happy childhood.”

“Amen to that,” said Bronwyn fervently. “I know it might sound hypocritical of me to say this, especially after what happened earlier tonight, but I would honestly rather see this child dead than for her to get to know her father. I mean, most parents can give their children unconditional love and teach them to be better people—what can he give her? Lessons on how to load and fire a Desert Eagle pistol in 5 seconds flat?”

“Actually, under the right circumstances, a good marksman should be able to do it in less than that, but I get your point.”

Bronwyn was now back to her usual jovial self and the thought of maligning Smith behind his back made her feel too good to abandon the subject so quickly. “Can you imagine him sitting in a sandbox, playing with her? He’d be so mad that he got his precious suit dirty trying to teach her how to build a sandcastle!” The images that came to her mind made her double over in laughter.

Jones chuckled heartily in response. I care for you so much Bronwyn, he thought, slipping his arm around her waist and giving her a squeeze. If it had not been for you, I never would have known how good it feels to laugh. You are the one who brought me out of my shell and taught me how to laugh in the first place. It wasn’t long after Christmas, if I recall correctly and we were still getting used to being in another’s company…

It was in the middle of winter and the sidewalks were covered with a thin layer of snow. Bronwyn had insisted on walking home after her shift in the cash office at the club Mickey owned.

“I can walk home by myself you know,” Bronwyn protested when she saw Jones waiting for her outside the employee’s entrance. “I’m a big girl, Jones.”

He shrugged and held out her coat for her. She took it from him and they walked out into the snowy night. Pretending to tie her shoe, Bronwyn knelt down, grabbed a handful of the sticky snow at her feet, and formed it into a snowball. Because her coat was still open, she was able to hide her newly created projectile behind her back and waited for the right opportunity. With a sure and steady hand, she threw the snowball and managed to nail Jones directly between his broad shoulders.

When Jones turned around to look at Bronwyn for the reason she had done this, she burst out laughing at the expression on his face. Her amusement was contagious and Jones could not restrain his lips from twitching.

“Oh my God!” Bronwyn yelled in mock alarm. “Jones, is that a smile I see on your face? Quick! Someone call CNN!”

Jones bit his lip and gnawed the smile away. “I was not smiling,” he said, his voice serious as always.

“Aw, come on, Jones. Yes, you were--admit it. Besides, it wouldn’t kill you to learn how to smile, you know. Your face won’t crack, I promise.” She laughed again, remembering how she had once thought how nice it would be to show an emotion of any kind on his face. Tonight was the closest he had ever gotten to expressing something other than the stoic expression he had always worn since as long as he and Bronwyn had known each other.

She watched warily as he knelt and gathered some snow of his own before rising to his feet and facing her. “You wouldn’t dare!” she squealed, knowing without question that he was going to return fire at her with a snowball of his own. She stood her ground, raised her chin, and stuck out her tongue at him in a show of bravado.

“Go on, try and hit me, Jones,” she called out. “You probably couldn’t hit the side of a barn! Show me what you’ve got. I can take it.”

Jones drew his arm back and threw the snowball. It hit Bronwyn and she staggered backward, knocked off-balance. For Jones hadn’t realized until then that something as inherently harmless as a snowball could become a potentially dangerous flying object if it were thrown with the strength of an agent behind it.

“Bronwyn! Are you all right?” Jones yelled as he ran toward her. Using his agent reflexes, he caught her before she fell. Her eyes were closed and her body was still and unmoving. He lowered her to the ground and tried to revive her.

Without warning, her eyes popped open and Jones felt her hands purposefully go inside his jacket, homing in on his midsection, her fingers twitching and squirming at his waist. He was confused and a little angry until he understood what she was doing. She’s trying to tickle me, he thought, and it took him a fraction of a millisecond to realize that he was ticklish.

“Oooh,” she said grinning mischievously, “looks like my Big Bad Secret Agent Man is ticklish.”

“No, I’m not,” he protested, trying not to laugh but his mouth curved up into a smile despite his best efforts. “But you are,” he said, determined to turn the tables on her and give her a taste of her own medicine. What would Smith say if he could see us now, Jones thought, as he and Bronwyn playfully wrestled together in the snow. I don’t know and I don’t care because for the first time in my life, I am having fun and I like it!

He straddled Bronwyn and she lay underneath him, giggling, and her hands were held above her head. Jones could feel the rounded lump of her body against his and the unexpected proximity of their bodies came to them both at the same time.

If he wanted to, he could kiss me Bronwyn thought, swallowing nervously as she realized how close Jones’ face was in relation to her own at this moment. If I could get free, I could touch him with my hand and finally know what his skin would feel like. She yearned to touch him, to spread her hands along the wide expanse of his broad chest, to feel for herself the strength and firm tone of the muscles she could almost make out the outline of as they rippled underneath his shirt.

She already knew how strong Jones was for she had not forgotten how easily and effortlessly he had picked her up in his arms that night she felt the baby move for the first time. Neither did Bronwyn forget that Jones had run the entire distance back to where she lived as well as racing up the four flights of stairs, taking them three at a time, without breaking a sweat or even being out of breath.

Jones, on the other hand, still imprisoned both of her wrists in one hand while the other hovered over the areas of her body that his data showed might be the most susceptible to tickling: underneath her arms and around her waist…

Smith could never feel what I do for Bronwyn, he thought, bringing himself back to the present, and he kissed the top of her head as she leaned against him. She made me feel things inside I never allowed myself to experience up until now.

Smith always looked down his nose at humans and their irrepressible need to express their emotions feely and openly, but now I see that until I met and got to know Bronwyn, she freed me from the cage I had willingly locked myself into; my desire to be like Smith and follow his example. Both Agent Brown and I modeled our behaviour on Smith’s example—remaining cold and stern-faced at all times, never expressing our emotions or feelings to other programs, let alone the humans with whom we had any contact.

That night in bed, Jones held Bronwyn in his arms and watched as she slept. Perhaps after this child is born, I could talk to the Architect about arranging it so that Bronwyn and I could have a baby of our own, he thought, a glimmer of hope spreading through him.

As Jones continued to hold her, to reassure her even in her sleep that he would always be there for her, he noticed that the movement inside Bronwyn’s womb had intensified to a degree that alarmed him. However, his fears were dispelled when Bronwyn showed no sign of distress; she continued to sleep contentedly in the crook of his arm. But it was a recollection of something she said earlier that made him think twice about the intensity of the child’s movements and the reason for it. She mentioned that the baby seemed to be more active when Smith was around. Could he be nearby now, perhaps prowling around outside, Jones wondered.

Slowly and gently, he slipped out of bed, taking care not to disturb Bronwyn, went to the living room and looked idly out of the window. He did not feel the need to turn on the lights for the quiet of the darkness suited him just fine. The night was warm and clear and in these early hours of the morning, very little stirred in the streets below by way of human activity.

His attention was caught by the sight of a familiar black Audi sedan that was parked across the street and Jones bristled in anger and annoyance as he saw its owner leaning nonchalantly against the car, all the while gazing up that the very window that Jones himself was looking out of. As he watched, he saw Smith pull out his cell phone. As Jones expected, the phone beside him rang and he leaned over to answer it before it could ring again and wake up Bronwyn.

“What?” Jones said brusquely.

“That’s no way to talk to your former superior, Jones,” Smith said chidingly.

“What do you want?”

“I received some disturbing messages from my baby tonight. What the hell is going on over there?”

“Nothing, Smith. Nothing is going on.”

“Liar,” Smith snarled. “Bronwyn was trying to hurt my child, wasn’t she? What was she doing, Jones, punching herself in the stomach?”

Something like that, Jones thought to himself. “Everything’s fine now. Stop calling her, stop hounding her. Just leave us alone.”

“The hell I will. She is carrying my child and I will never leave her alone.”

“If you continue to bother her, she will have another setback and this time, she might end up losing the baby. Is that what you want?”

“Of course it isn’t.”

“But even though you know the risks, you won’t leave her alone, will you?” Jones did not wait for an answer; there was no need. He already knew. “That’s a shame, Smith, it really is.”

There was something about Jones’ tone that did not sit well with Smith. He knows something, Smith thought, as he furrowed his brow.

“Do you know what Bronwyn and I did today, Smith?” Jones asked with a smug tone.

“Aside from having sex for the umpteenth time, I can’t possibly imagine,” Smith said dryly.

“Whether or not Bronwyn and I make love once or even ten times a day, isn’t any of your goddamn business. No, Bronwyn and I spent about an hour picking names for the baby.” He knew by the sudden intake of breath on the other end of the line that Smith was positively livid with rage. I was not your assistant all those years for nothing, Jones thought. I still know how to push all your buttons.

“How nice of you to choose names for my child when you can never have one of your own! Damn you, Jones!” Smith snarled, all trace of indifferent unconcern from his voice and manner was gone now and a killing rage took their place. He heard Jones’ deep chuckle of amusement at his expense before he hung up….

Without a second thought, Smith deleted all of Jones’ memories after the point of his meeting them in the mall that one Saturday afternoon. That horrible, awful day when his child was nearly lost. Watching the interaction of Jones and Bronwyn and the love that they shared between them had become much too painful. However, I will retain everything between Bronwyn and Jones leading up to that point, before they became intimate, for something that Jones might have seen said or done in the early stages of their relationship might be of use to me. Our circumstances are very similar—Jones had to deal with all the problems and peculiarities of a pregnant female, learning as he went along. For the first and only time, his knowledge and experience exceeds mine and I will take from his experiences all that I need to make living with her easier.

I will not repeat the same mistakes that I made with Bronwyn, Smith thought. I will not risk losing this child as well. If need be, I will handcuff the clone who houses her to my wrist until my baby is ready to be born into this world. I will do whatever is necessary to ensure that afterward, Sarah will not take my child and vanish from my side as Bronwyn once attempted to do.

During the time that Jones was growing closer to Bronwyn, his constant presence was becoming more and more acceptable to my unborn child. I remember her being very curious about why Jones was always at Bronwyn’s side but I was not. But how could I have explained it to her in a way that she could understand? Could I have said: ‘Your mother hates me because I perpetrated an act of violence on her and that is how you were conceived?’ Or, ‘Jones is with your mother to keep her safe from me?’ Hardly.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but Jones had evolved since becoming an exile. In fact, he had evolved to the point of actually feeling love towards the woman who would have given birth to my daughter--where he even hoped that Bronwyn and he could have a child of their own. Fat chance the Architect would have ever allowed that to happen, Smith thought maliciously. He frowned as he perused Jones’ memories of that particular day, for it was the first of many that did not end with an intimate encounter of some kind. I never realized until now that their relationship was not based on sex alone; but of mutual respect and caring on both sides.

However, I do remember a time when Jones did not care for expectant human females one bit. If I had only told her, perhaps she would have seen him in a different light; she would not have been tempted to wonder about the possibility of having a relationship with him of any kind whatsoever. I wonder what Bronwyn would have thought if she had known what Jones really thought of them…

Mr. Regan had demanded that his first meeting with Smith take place in the open—somewhere public and the rebel had requested that the leader of the agents not come alone.

Agent Brown was on a direct assignment from the Mainframe and Smith had no choice but to have Agent Jones accompany him.

“He’s late,” Jones commented, looking at his watch.

“Don’t worry; he’ll be here,” Smith said confidently, his eyes glancing around the open space of the park. He and Jones had selected a bench that was relatively close to a playground and the shrill laughter of children at play could be heard in the background. Mr. Regan had selected it especially since he thought the presence of so many humans would be a deterrent on any untoward activities Smith might have in mind. It was a beautiful summer’s day and the park was full of people, old and young, male and female.

Smith’s eyes were caught by the sight of two expectant mothers conversing with one another from a bench not far from the one where he and Jones were seated. “Look over there, Jones, at those two women. Tell me what you see.”

Jones obeyed his superior’s instructions and scrutinized the two females. “I see two women who are pregnant. By the proximity of their bodies towards one another and by the sound of their laughter and the smiles on their faces, I would say that they are very close friends.”

Smith sighed and could not refrain from rolling his eyes. “You always manage to reduce things to its simplest form, Jones. What I meant was: what do you see? Do you find those women pretty, even in their expectant state?”

Jones scowled. It figures that Smith would automatically categorize any female he laid eyes on as either attractive or unattractive. He always did have a wandering eye towards the opposite sex, Jones mused. Not as bad as the Merovingian obviously, but running a close second.

“I’ve never seen females, human or otherwise, who could be called good-looking while expecting their offspring. I have always thought that pregnancy made them all look as if a parasite had latched onto them and was sucking the life out of them. Like that of a mosquito—for both a child and a mosquito need to be physically attached to its Host to survive. Pregnancy has a way of turning even the most beautiful of women into walking, talking, overstuffed organisms: their bodies are swollen beyond all recognition and even their facial features become bloated and coarse.” Jones grimaced in distaste and he and Smith continued to watch the women as they in turn glanced over their shoulders at the two handsome and well-dressed men who kept staring at them.

“Not a bad assessment, Jones,” Smith commented approvingly. “But what has made you so cynical? Did something happen in your meeting with the Architect the other day?”

Jones scowled again. “You might say that. It seems that dear old Dad got the idea in his head that if we agents were able to marry, we might be more acceptable and approachable to certain members of the Resistance who might wish to be re-inserted into the Matrix.”

“Marry?!” Smith threw back his head and laughed boisterously. Even the two women in the neighbouring bench stopped their conversation and looked at him curiously when they heard his outburst. “And when, pray tell, am I to wish you joy? Who is your bride-to-be?” Smith tried to keep a straight face as he watched his underling scowl yet again.

“Some bubble-headed blonde who works for the Frenchman’s wife. But fortunately, the Architect thought better of the idea.”

Smith’s brief bout of humour disappeared when he saw their human informant, Mr. Regan, coming towards them….

Sarah watched the myriad of emotions play over Smith’s face and a shiver of fear coursed through her when she saw a slight, knowing smirk twist his mouth. She could feel him staring at her intently and when Smith jerked his chin sharply at his clone, she was not sorry to be forced to return to what was now her only sanctuary from Smith.

Not only that, but she needed time and space to analyze the data she had been given unexpected access to and Sarah turned her face away from him and tried to digest what she had just learned. Whether by negligence or intoxication, Smith had been careless, inadvertently allowing Sarah to see and hear all that he himself had just remembered from Jones’ past.

So Bronwyn had tried to hurt herself when she was pregnant, Sarah thought grimly. Well, she may have been talked out of it, but I certainly won’t be. With all the clones around me watching my every move, throwing myself down some stairs certainly is not an option, but perhaps there is another way…and it was Jones himself that suggested it. But in order for my plan to work, I will need my own body back.

lllll

Smith leaned back negligently in his chair and fell into a brown study. He intentionally kept the clone that housed Sarah inside always close to him and always in his line of sight.

I must do something about this current situation, he thought, frowning slightly. While what had happened between us the other day had been pleasurable for me only, to put it bluntly, but by no means am I content to leave things as they are now. I do not relish the idea that any further intimacy with Sarah might be perceived as homosexual in nature by anyone, even his other selves, since it was only by using his clone’s form that I was able to have sexual relations with her in the first place.

Politically correct people might call me a homophobe, Smith thought to himself, but I do not care. I have to admit the truth: that I still desire to have Sarah in a sexual sense, but only in her capacity and form as a woman.

lllll

“Smith,” Sarah said hesitantly, “I was wondering if I may have my own body back for a while?”

Smith glanced at her through his bloodshot eyes but said nothing for a long time. “Why?”

“Because that idiot clone I am now a part of doesn’t eat. At all,” she said, stressing the last two words of her sentence. She could see the realization of what she was saying reveal itself in his eyes and decided to press her point home in such a way that he would have no choice but to grant her request. If she wasn’t able to eat, then neither was their child.

“I need to eat something, Smith,” she said, injecting just the right amount of concern in her voice. “For the baby’s sake.”

“You’re right, Sarah.” Smith agreed readily, getting to his feet and removing the Desert Eagle revolver from under his left arm. “You’ve served me well,” he said, his blue eyes focused on the identical ones of his other self. “But your usefulness has come to an end.”

“Smith, wait!” Sarah yelled as she saw his finger tighten on the trigger. When the bullet entered the skull of the clone, Sarah was instantly freed. She slumped to the floor, her body shaking and perspiration flooding from every pore from shock and horror. Taking a few deep breaths to ensure she really was alive and unharmed, it took a while before she felt anywhere strong enough to get to her feet.

Smith took her by the elbow and helped her to her feet. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m OK, but don’t do that again or at least give me a little warning next time?” she snapped. “You scared the shit out of me!”

“It was the only way to free you,” he replied easily. He scanned her figure from top to bottom. Sarah’s clothes were now tight on her body. Her pregnancy has advanced and she’s gotten larger, he saw with satisfaction. To human eyes, she looks about five months pregnant.

Smith reached out and put his hand on Sarah’s distended womb. I was never able to do this with Bronwyn, he thought, smiling as he felt his child move inside its mother. I touched Bronwyn like this only once, on the night she lost our baby. Jones was her side for too many months—he was the one who felt my child move, not me. However, this time will be different.

It is true that I missed quite a bit of Sarah’s pregnancy; but from this time on, I will always be by her side and able to have this contact with my child as much as I wish. Not only that, but I will be able to have her as much as I wish. He drew Sarah to his body and Smith growled in pleasure when his lips touched hers, his hands reaching up to cup her larger and fuller breasts. Knowing that this would inevitably lead to intercourse, Sarah brought her hands up to Smith’s chest and pushed him away from her.

“No, Smith. Not now. I’m tired,” she lied, trying to sound as believable as she could for what was the point of lying to Smith if she could not at least be convincing? Smith saw for himself the exhaustion in her face and retreated.

“All right,” he said, and Sarah was encouraged that it seemed that he not only believed her but something in his eyes told her that he understood.

“If it’s OK, could you give me a blanket and pillow so I can crash on your sofa for a few hours?” she asked.

“No,” he said, sharply shaking his head. “The mother of my child,” he murmured as he touched her belly, “will not sleep on something as uncomfortable as my sofa. Give me an hour or so to get some furniture in the bedroom and you can have a proper bed to sleep in. I’ve never had a use for the room until now and it is just sitting empty.”

“Okay,” Sarah agreed. I am too tired to argue because I really do not care where I sleep right now—I am tired.

When everything was prepared for her, Sarah entered Smith’s bedroom for the first time. The king sized bed at the other end of the room beckoned to her and she accepted its silent invitation to lose herself in its large expanse. She sat on the end of it and bounced tentatively up and down to test the firmness of the mattress.

A quiet knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. When she answered the door, she found one of Smith’s clones at the door, its arms full of boxes of clothing. Sarah brought the clothes to the bed and examined them at leisure, curious at to what she had been given. The boxes were from many designer shops around the city and the clothes inside were expensive.

To her surprise and delight, she was now the owner of several changes of maternity clothing for which she was grateful for the clothes she was wearing were a little tight due to her pregnancy. At the bottom of the pile, she discovered a couple of maternity nightgowns. The fabric was delicate and the quality of the lace instantly told her that they were high-priced, but Sarah did not care. At least I do not have to sleep in my clothes, she thought, gratefully and quickly removing what she had been wearing and trying on what she had been given. She smoothed the nightgown over herself and admired the effect in the full-length cheval mirror.

I look more like a bride than a mother-to-be, she thought sadly, her fingertips absently touching the white fabric and the costly Irish lace. But no bride I ever heard of looked as pale and awful as I do, Sarah reflected as she gazed at herself before turning away from the mirror and putting back the covers on the bed and getting between the crisp sheets that awaited her. She did not extinguish the light for she had intended to read the titles of the books that were lined up on the nightstand table with an almost mathematical attention to neatness, and she considered taking a volume or two into bed with her to read at her leisure.

Sarah was sound asleep and did not hear the bedroom door being opened and as gently closed behind a tall silhouette that walked silently into the room. Noticing that the lamp on the nightstand had still been left on, Smith stooped to turn it off so that its brightness would not prematurely awaken Sarah.

As he looked at Sarah’s sleeping form, a flash of déjà vu hit him with such intensity that for a moment Smith swayed unsteadily on his feet. He had been able to regain his composure but the memories that swirled through his conscience and mind shook him. He sat down on the bed and gently eased Sarah onto her back so he could see examine her distended body at his leisure, first with his eyes. His hands yearned to touch her skin and discover for himself the subtle yet pronounced changes in her body since he saw her last. His desire for her, awakened because of her refusal of his intentions, was dormant for now. However, it would not take much to rekindle it back into full-blown passion and lust.

He had only seen Bronwyn sleeping like this once when she was pregnant as he looked down at the tranquil form of the mother of his child. Then, as now, his baby was not asleep like its mother but wide-awake and cognizant that its father was in the room with them. Smith watched as the skin over Sarah’s womb rippled with movement and he was struck dumb and silent with awe at the miracle of creation arising from his act of violation.

I was only able to be this close to Bronwyn once, he recalled sadly, but this time, I do not intend to allow any untoward action on my part to cause harm to the child I begat. I have been given a second chance: another opportunity to create and bring forth my offspring into the world of the Matrix. Moreover, this time it will not die in utero as the other did, dying before it was able to even draw its first breath or open its eyes. It will be born when the time is right and when it is ready.

I will protect you, Smith thought, placing his hand over where his child was the most active inside Sarah. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe.

“You will see the world I am rewriting and reshaping outside of this room, this building,” he murmured to his unborn child. “A perfect world and it will be yours for the taking. A place of beauty, too. The Matrix can be beautiful and I am ridding it of all the undesirables who currently inhabit the greater portion of it. My work is almost complete and when you are brought into the world, I will show it to you and we can rule it together. The three of us—you, I and your mother—will live in it in perpetuity.”

The stress of the day and the imbibing of copious amounts of brandy made Smith feel sleepy and sluggish. He removed his clothes and stretched his long, lean frame beside Sarah’s warm body. He fell asleep quickly, his hand covering Sarah’s swollen belly in a protective gesture.

An hour or so later, Sarah awoke to the sound of a man’s loud snores in bed next to her.

“Seraph?” she murmured hopefully, as she tried to turn over in bed. The man who was sleeping next to her locked her body in a firm embrace and for one glorious moment, Sarah thought it was Seraph who was holding her.

The smell of stale brandy shattered her pleasant and temporary illusion. It wasn’t Seraph who was next to her, it was Smith—the father of the child inside of her who was now kicking her vigorously because it sensed the presence of its father so near to itself.

“Stop it,” Sarah hissed vehemently but barely audibly, sharply jabbing at the round lump of her body. “Your father is passed out, drunk, so don’t think you can tell him how mean I am to you. He won’t wake up anytime soon, so settle down,” she hissed quietly under her breath in the darkness. She angrily rolled over onto her side and tried to ignore the sharp pangs of hunger. Get used to it kiddo, this is just the beginning, she told herself with grim pleasure.

The next morning when Sarah awoke, she was relieved to find Smith had already left the apartment and she did not have to deal with him watching her and becoming suspicious for the slightest thing. A full plate of scrambled eggs and toast awaited her and Sarah ate it with gusto, wishing put on a convincing show of being hungry just in case the clone was watching. Sarah completely finished the meal in a very short amount of time.

Sarah knew that her best chance of success at purging would be if she did it before her food could settle. Immediately after she finished eating, she dashed to the bedroom, grabbed an outfit from her newly acquired selection of clothes and made for the bathroom.

Thankfully, there was only one clone in the entire apartment and it barely gave her a glance as she hurried past to get into the bathroom as soon as possible. It had received orders that Sarah was not to be disturbed; no one was to enter the bedroom until she came out of it. As long as Sarah did not try to leave the apartment, the clone was not to interfere or converse with her.

Once the bathroom door was shut behind her, Sarah turned on the tap in the shower to a moderate flow. In case anyone was listening at the door, the sound of the running water would only indicate she was participating in her usual morning ablutions, nothing more. She made straight for the toilet and forced her index finger into her throat as far as it would go until she had vomited up most of what she had eaten.

If there is only of them around, then I need not even bother to eat, she thought as a plan formulated in her mind. However, with my plan of not eating, if he notices or says anything, I have a foolproof excuse that will stave off any and all questions: morning sickness. Smith will surely know that almost all expectant mothers have difficulty keeping their food down and he will see for himself that I am no exception.

Smith may watch me like a hawk to make sure I am eating properly, but that doesn’t mean what he gives me to eat has to stay in my stomach, does it, she thought with a triumphant sense of accomplishment. I will continue to starve myself until this child is so malnourished it will die; for there is no way that I will be forced into giving birth—no way in hell.