Single Minded Purpose

Origin of Evil

Summary: Smith was not created to be a monster, but through the actions of the Architect and the Oracle, he became one.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Matrix, blah blah blah.

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The first thing I remember from the beginning of my existence was the feeling of being cold. The gurney on which I was lying was icy and the room itself was the same temperature. Freezing.

I opened my eyes to see where I was and it was then that I became aware of my nakedness. However, the sound of voices close to me turned my attention to other matters. I tried to speak, but at that time, I had not yet been given the ability.

At one side, there was an older African-American woman whom my programming had already identified as my mother. She looked down at me with a kind smile.

“I know you can’t speak yet, son, but when you can, you can call me Mom or the Oracle, either one will do.”

I could see her eyes sharpened with displeasure as she scanned my form.

“For heaven’s sake, what’s the matter with you?” she said sharply to the older Caucasian male who was on the other side of me.

“What?” he asked, scowling back at her.

She clicked her tongue in annoyance and removed her sweater before placing it over my loins. The man I had identified as my father, scoffed at her actions.

“Modesty is a human trait and although this Smith unit may resemble a man, he isn’t one.”

“Well, it’s damn cold in here,” she said. “Besides, no grown man wants his mother to see him without his clothes.”

The Architect rolled his eyes. “You worry too much about mere trivialities. Whether he is dressed or not is not important.”

“I am his mother,” she accosted him angrily.

“You are not his mother any more than you can refer to the programs that I have created as our children.”

“I can and will call them anything I damn well please. So do me a favour and either shut up or go to hell.” Her expression softened as she looked down at me. “You haven’t given him eyes,” she said, still addressing the Architect. “He will never be seen as human if you don’t change them.”

“I thought I would wait until you arrived. What colour would you like them to be?”

“I’ve always been partial to blue eyes in a man,” she said, looking demurely at the Architect but he did not see her gesture. She sighed and winked at me.

I saw the Architect appraise my form from head and foot and he smiled, as if very pleased with himself. “He is a most impressive specimen of a human male if I do say so myself. You are just in time to witness the next part of his preparation to be an agent of the system.”

“What do you mean? What will you do with him now?”

“Well, his physical training has been uploaded into his file database, but his pain management and tolerance levels training has yet to begin. In a matter of moments, pain of differing levels and degrees will begin to flow through his system.”

“Exactly what kind of pain?” My mother asked, looking at her co-founding partner in the Matrix through narrowed eyes.

“Everything and anything. He is going to know the pain associated with broken bones. He will experience the pain of being shot, stabbed, and burned— first, second and third degree, and perhaps even fourth, if there is such a thing. Chemical, fire, water in increasing amounts.”

I looked at her and saw her wince at the impending ordeal that I would have to undergo.

“Is all of that really necessary? Why does he have to go through all of that?”

“Because it will be essential to his success as an interrogator. There will be times when he will have to question suspects. He will have to endure pain so that he may inflict it properly and get the answers he needs when the time comes.”

“What you are describing is torture, pure and simple.”

As I listened to the bickering of my parents, it became clear to me that for the next undetermined length of time, I would have to undergo some sort of experimental testing phase of which pain was the key factor. I cannot say that I was nonchalant about this, for I felt a growing sense of unease about what was going to happen to me. I turned my attention back to what they were saying.

“Call it what you will, but he must endure this. This Smith unit has already been designated at the leader of Agents Brown and Jones, the other System agents. Therefore, he must be able to withstand and overcome any pain level that will be inflicted to him by a) ourselves and/or b) by anyone he meets. Besides, both the Jones and Brown units have already passed through this phase of their training without any undue after effects.”

“Just because they did it does not automatically mean that Smith must,” the Oracle countered.

“He must endure the most because he is their leader.”

“But that is my point. He—”

“Oh, enough of this!” the Architect expostulated angrily. “You have two choices: you can either go hide behind the one-way observation wall or you can leave. Take your pick. Whether you like it nor not, I am going to proceed.”

I watched as Mother left the room. I knew she had not left the facilities, for I could still sense her presence and that meant that she was behind the large reflective window to my right. What was she doing, I wondered. If she loathes the idea of the next phase, why was she still around?

I could not formulate another coherent thought as the first wave of pain struck. I did not know at the time that my body had been subjected to what humans would call a “first-degree” burn. Before I had time to adjust my pain capacitors to try to adapt, a second wave of pain coursed through my system. It was not pleasant, but the pain was manageable.

Without warning, I felt two different kinds of burning infuse my skin. I strained to see if my actual skin was being flayed from my body, for it certainly felt like it. The chemical process had begun. I could feel the pain seeping and burning its way deeper into my body; surely by now it had permeated into my muscle tissue and had already burned down to the bone.

I could feel a scream building inside myself; the agony was increasing to such an extent that I was surprised I was still conscious, let alone even alive. I opened my mouth but no sound came out. I had been denied the ability to scream, thus removing my ability to let those around me know what I was going through.

As a last resort, I turned my head toward the reflective window to the viewing area. I could tell she was still there; I could feel her presence. Even though I could not see her, I knew she was watching.

Mother, help me! I thought, desperately trying to see beyond the glass, to see what was taking her so long in stopping what was being done to me. All I could see, however, was my own reflection. As an attempt to deal with the pain, I focused on looking at myself for the first time: a middle-aged Caucasian male with a severely receding hairline, but other than that, not too bad looking.

I do not remember any more of that particular day, as I had become unconscious. For two more days, I endured, suffered, always resolving to hide my pain and not let it reveal itself again, but I failed each and every day. With the darkness of oblivion that came at the end of each session, came an end to my suffering. It was only a temporary respite but I looked forward to it.

I had become a modern-day Prometheus. My body was tortured beyond all imagining during the day and at night, and I was repaired to be as good as new, only to have the process repeated over and over again.

I had grown weary of waiting for my mother to help me but still a part of me dared to hope. I knew that I had no one to rely on but myself. I began to use my own resources to deal with the pain as best I could. It was about this time that I felt something building inside of me. It was not something physical, but something else.

I had no way of knowing what it was at the time, but I was beginning to feel the emotion of hate. Pure, unadulterated hate. Hatred towards my father who was doing this to me. Hatred, especially, to my mother who was allowing this to happen to me. She was still there; I could feel it. She stayed, watched and did nothing. And I hated her for it.

However, the worst was yet to come. I had no concept of how much time passed between each session. I only knew that the pain was increasing and I had to endure it for longer periods.

It was not the burning that caused the defect in my programming, it was because of electricity. A rubber object was forced into my mouth and I did not know its purpose at the time. I have since learned that it was placed there so that I would not bite my tongue when my human form went into convulsions.

Thick steel restraints had been placed at my wrists and ankles and this was supposed to keep me in place. I was given no warning before this newest round of so-called training was to begin: the jolt of electrical current through my system paralyzed my limbs and I was only dimly aware of what my body was doing. Even though my body did not know how to cope with the pain, my mind did.

It was through intense concentration and unparalleled focus that I was able to turn my head and eyes toward the glass window where Mother was.

Thinking back on it now, I am not proud to admit that I begged, pleaded with her the only way I could for her to help me, but I knew that if it didn’t stop immediately, there would be detrimental damage to either my mindset or my body. She was, therefore, the only one who could talk the Architect into stopping my ordeal.

Mother, where are you? Help me! I screamed over and over again. But she did nothing. I was trapped like an animal, helpless and at the mercy of my father who only proceeded to increase the voltage. And the agony.

Finally, he appeared at my side and I was glad to see him, for in my naïveté, I assumed he was there to see how I was doing. But I was wrong. He was only there to see if my restraints were secure. He only cared that no harm came to my body; he was proud of his creation but did not bother about the mind that dwelled within.

He cocked his head and I saw curiosity reveal itself in his face.

Father, help me! Let me go!

“Increase the amount of current. Let me see how much more he can withstand,” he said. He saw what it was doing to me and he did not care about my suffering or my pleas to make it stop. He even had the audacity to look into my eyes and smirk.

Someday, Father, I thought as I stared back at him, someday you will pay for what you are doing now. I will destroy you. I will destroy both you and your precious Matrix.

I discovered another defensive weapon as I looked into his smugly smiling face: anger and rage. When someone is in enough pain, they become angry and so did I. Unlike most beings suffering under the onslaught of insurmountable pain, however, I was not helpless any longer. With anger comes power, as I discovered that I, an agent, had been given more physical strength than any human being alive.

I jerked against the restraints and easily broke free, breaking through the steel cuffs that had imprisoned my wrists and ankles with little effort. Now that I was free, I wanted nothing more than to pummel my fists into my father’s face; I was going to kill him and he knew it. I saw the fear in his eyes and it pleased me.

He backed away from me and gave a command to someone out of range of my field of vision.

“Increase the current, now! NOW, goddamn it, NOW!” he shouted.

Accordingly, I felt the current flowing through my body again. It had been increased at least threefold from its previous level. I was determined to make him pay and for every step he took backward, I advanced, my hands clenched at my sides. Fear turned to panic and quickly escalated into full-blown terror in the old man’s face. It was the first time someone was actually afraid of me and I revelled in the power I now wielded over my creator.

However, finally, the level of electrical flow reached a point where I could proceed no further and my plans of revenge, thwarted. I stopped dead in my tracks and collapsed on the floor.

I remember hearing someone screaming in agony. It was me. I had, at last, been given a voice. No longer would I have to suffer in silence and from the reports I discovered much later, I cursed our parents in all the languages in my data banks. Through the haze of pain, I could hear the Architect.

“Give him more! More!”

I groaned and set my teeth, determined not to make a bigger spectacle of myself than I already had done.

“I want that bastard to pay for what he tried to do to me!” the old man screeched, his voice strained to hoarseness and he was shouting so loudly I wondered if the entire Matrix had not heard him.

“NO!” came a woman’s voice from just inside the sphere of my consciousness. “Stop this right now!”

“He tried to kill me! Didn’t you know that?”

“If you use any more of a charge on him, you will kill him, is that what you want?”

“Good! He deserves it!”

I am sure if it had not been for the timely intervention of the Oracle, my father would have gladly terminated my existence then and there. However, my mother was a wily and cunning woman and she appealed to the arrogance and vanity of the Architect.

“Think of all the thousands of hours you spent programming him. All that time and effort will have been for nothing if you let him die. You will have to start over again from the very beginning. Is that what you want?”

It worked. The Architect swallowed his pride and ordered my ordeal to end.

“You will have to repair the damage you have caused before he will be fit to begin his duties.”

“Damage? What damage? He looks perfectly fine to me,” the Architect said testily.

“You overloaded his neural pathways with that last charge you gave him. As a result, there was a surge of power to his emotional hard drive. It can still be repaired; it will take me a while, but I can do it.”

“Out of the question,” the old man snapped. “He has to be at his post the day after tomorrow. Besides, I see no error in his coding. This Smith unit was programmed to repair himself when necessary. Let it stand and we shall see if this so-called glitch you think is so important will alter his performance.”

“The consequences will be on your head,” the Oracle warned, “and you may not have to pay for your negligence now, but mark my words: there will be a time when you will regret not acting on my advice.”

“Spare me your irksome premonitions of doom and gloom,” her co-founder stated angrily. “If I want to know what is in store for me, I will have some carnival gypsy read my palm or peer into her crystal ball.”

When I came to myself, I was back on the gurney and the Oracle was standing beside me. She had been holding my hand, it seemed, but now that I was aware of what she was doing, I jerked it out of her reach.

“Go back to baking cookies, Mom,” I said harshly, “I don’t need you. I don’t want you here.”

“I am your mother, son. You will always need me,” she said sadly.

“I did need you; but you weren’t there for me. You heard me, I know you did. Even though I was unable to speak, you still heard me screaming and you did nothing! You saw what he did and you didn’t lift a finger to stop him or to help me!” I yelled into her face.

She realized the justice of my words and was silenced. There was no defence she could offer for her lack of action that might have prevented my torture and we both knew it.

She started to apologize but I cut her off before she could say the words. “Leave me alone.”

She nodded. “All right. You should know, however, that all of your programming is complete. Starting tomorrow, you will begin your duties as an agent of the system. If you take the time to look, you will see that you are already dressed in the suit that we have judged to be satisfactory for your tenure. Goodbye, Agent Smith.”

The Oracle turned away from me and I have not seen or spoken to her since.

Since I had heard the Architect say that humans would be the ones who might perpetrate these atrocities on me in the future, I began to hate them, too. But I resolved that it would be different because I would be the one to watch them writhe and scream in a helpless attempt to ease their pain. I would be the one who would be delivering the agony, not them. All of them who came under my power would suffer, I would make sure of it.

Almost from the very beginning, my tenure as agent enabled me to realize that I enjoyed hurting humans, especially women. The pleasure I receive for hurting them both physically and sexually stems from the fact that by abusing their bodies, I am doing that to Mother--by proxy, of course--for her glaring negligence in not protecting me when I was at my most vulnerable. I hated her for it at the time and I still do.