Single Minded Purpose

The Birth

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

“Oh!” Sarah exclaimed, bending over nearly double and pressing her hand hard against the large swelling of her belly as the popping sensation subsided. Looking down, she saw a gush of water stream down from between her legs, soaking her feet and the very expensive Persian rug she had been standing on.

“No! What is Smith going to say when he sees the carpet?” she wailed fearfully and could have laughed at herself for her stupidity.

“What is wrong?” asked a copy as it came in the living room to investigate. It instantly comprehended the scene before him and the realization that Smith’s child was going to be born. Smith did not need to be apprised of the situation; he already was aware of the situation and arrived within a few moments. The clones that had been present at the assimilation of The Oracle, Seraph and Sati were standing stalwartly behind him, their bodies a solid phalanx of protection, intimidating and silent.

“Where is she?” Smith demanded of the clone who was already trying to blot up the water from the carpet. He pointed to the bathroom.

“Are you alright?” Smith asked, knocking quietly at the closed door.

“Yeah, I’m ok,” came a faint reply from the other side of the door.

“May I come in?” he entered and saw Sarah with a towel wedged between her legs. “My water broke,” she said.

Smith smiled reassuringly at the stricken look on Sarah’s face. “You and the baby are going to be fine,” he said, taking her hand. “The car is waiting downstairs to take us to the hospital.”

Not taking any chances with her safety, he silently transmitted a message to all of his other selves that everyone for at least ten blocks in any direction of the hospital would be assimilated. But there had been no need really: for Smith had taken over most of Mega City anyway. Despite everything, Smith was not going to take any chances nonetheless.

Smith was in a jovial mood; earlier that very afternoon, he had finished assimilating two of his chief adversaries, the Oracle and Seraph, with no difficulty whatsoever. And to top everything off, he was going to become a father on the very same day. Things were looking up indeed.

lllll

Several hours later, the delivery had not been going well for Sarah or her unborn child. As the contractions grew stronger, she grew weaker and it was getting more and more difficult to gather the strength she needed to push the child out of her.

“Your blood pressure is climbing,” the obstetrician told her, “and we’ve done just about all we can. We may have to resort to performing a C-section.”

Sarah swallowed, tears sparkling in her eyes. Even though this child is Smith’s, I can’t lose it, she told herself. I cannot go through another miscarriage.

“Do what you have to do, Doctor,” she said, “I can’t lose…”

“You are not going to lose this baby if I have anything to say about it,” the physician said, looking Sarah square in the eye, injecting his voice with the confidence of a competent professional health care giver. He said the calming words that the woman before him needed to hear. Over Sarah’s shoulder, he met the cold blue eyes of the child’s father. Unseen by Sarah, Smith jerked his chin toward the door, indicating that he wished to confer with the doctor out of hearing range of Sarah.

Before Smith could leave, Sarah grabbed him by the sleeve. Her hand closed over his. “Save the baby, Smith. Please don’t let our child die!”

Smith’s lips curled in what did not have time to be a smile. You tried to kill my unborn child twice, he thought, looking deep into her eyes. It took the possibility of this baby’s death to make you see how much you truly love the life that is growing inside of you.

“You should rest now,” he said. “I’ll be back shortly.” Sarah nodded and closed her eyes, breathing deeply, trying to conserve what little strength she had left to push through the next contraction when it came.

As soon as the two men were far enough out of earshot, Smith spoke. “It is not going well,” he said, not asking but stating. “What are her—their--chances?”

“Unless we get this child out of her now and stop the bleeding, I don’t have much hope for either of them. If a decision has to be made which one has to be sacrificed, which one…?” The physician did not continue, but left the question hanging in silence between the two men.

Smith sighed deeply and turned away so he could think more clearly. He did not care very much for Sarah; he had only married her out of spite, not love. If she dies, then my child will die as well. I have already gone through that loss once; I will not do so again.

I cannot.

Ever since the day my baby with Bronwyn died, I have been wondering what might have been. What colour were her eyes? Would she have taken after me and been tall or would she have been petite like her mother? Putting all curiosity of her appearance aside, I wanted to hold her in my arms, to see her with my own eyes, to feel her tiny hand in mine. I should not have to make this damnable choice that will have negative consequences no matter what I decide, Smith thought angrily.

If I choose to spare Sarah’s life, I will have to endure the loss of another child. However, if I chose the life of my baby, then what? I would have to raise the child alone and be forced to subject him or her to a life without a mother, a life without the crucial feminine influence and nurturing that only Sarah could provide. I know firsthand what it is like to be unwanted, deserted, and ultimately abandoned by a mother--must I subject my child a life without the same? Despite her failed attempts to rid herself of our child, I saw in her eyes the fear she has for safety of the baby. She does not want to suffer its loss any more than I do.

Frustrated and snarling like an enraged beast that had been driven to its limits by its enemies, Smith punched a hole through the nearest wall and perversely welcomed the pain that shot from his hand as it connected with the concrete. It took all of his willpower to fight the urge to slam his fist into the shattered wall again and again, to make his physical form experience the agony that was gnawing like a ravenous rat at his emotional processors. Breathing heavily, he leaned his forehead against the wall and waited until his grief passed and he was under control again. He knew the doctor was waiting for his decision and he brushed the dust from his hand and turned to face him, his face set like stone and as unreadable.

“Before I give you my answer, I must know: will my wife be able to have more children if she loses this one?”

“She is strong and healthy, Mr. Smith. I see no reason why she can’t.”

Smith nodded. “Spare the mother’s life, Doctor, I….”

As if jolted by electricity, Smith turned his head sharply to the window as he felt his only remaining adversary, Neo, being jacked in. Mr. Anderson, it appears, has struck a bargain with the Deus Ex Machina for the survival of Zion. The cessation of the attack of the army of sentinels has begun, waiting for the outcome of our forthcoming duel. If he fails, Zion will be razed to the ground. If he succeeds against me in battle, the hordes of the many-armed mechanized offensive force will retreat, leaving the humans in peace.

Mr. Anderson has stood face-to-face with Our All-Powerful Omnipotent Creator and is now about to enter the Matrix in an attempt to defeat me, with the Overlord’s express permission. I have been betrayed by the very thing that spawned me, Smith thought contemptuously.

I have been abandoned once again, it would seem.

“I must deal with another matter,” Smith said brusquely, striding past the surprised doctor.

“You are leaving now? But the surgery is about to commence…” the other man asked incredulously, but Smith ignored him and went to Sarah’s side.

“This will not take long. I will return very shortly,” he said and she nodded.

“Is it him?” she asked.

“Yes. Mr. Anderson is now less than a block away from the doors of this place,” Smith replied. He smiled slightly. “It is me he is after, Sarah, not you or the baby.” Smith’s face hardened into set lines. “You have your orders, Doctor,” Smith said, looking over his shoulder. “Proceed as I have told you.”

At the last instant, Sarah clutched at his sleeve. Her lower lip trembled. You and I have experienced so much together, she thought, her thoughts a frenzied whirl of memories both good and bad of everything she had shared with the father of her child. There is so much we need to say to one another; I hardly know where to begin. I have seen the worst as well as the best part of you.

“I’m afraid, Smith. I--” she whispered and Smith squeezed her hand comfortingly.

“I’ll be back soon, and we can talk about things later, all right?” he said.

The physician sighed very quietly as he watched Smith stride briskly down the hall and he glanced outside as the first rumblings of thunder sounded. He turned from his contemplation of the dark sky and issued the directive he had been given.

“Goodbye,” Sarah said, her voice slurring as the anaesthetic began to take effect.

In less than five minutes, Sarah had been prepped for emergency surgery as the skies opened and the downpour began.

lllll

Unable to restrain himself, Smith shoved his hand into Neo’s chest with such brute force that even his wrist was inside the digital form of his enemy. Smith watched with a sense of satisfaction and pleasure as his coding overwrote that of the human male with whom he had fought. When the cloning was complete, Smith looked with barely concealed triumph at the last version of himself. Infinitely exhausted from his exertions, Smith panted heavily.

“Is it over?” he asked, his voice cracking; the strain of even doing something as simple as speaking fatigued him. He breathed a sigh of relief when his duplicate nodded, a smirk on his handsome, chiselled features. It was over.

Something was wrong, he could feel it. Something was not as it should be. He stared, horrified, as the clone twitched. No, it cannot be, Smith thought to himself. A maelstrom of thoughts and feeling raced through him, threatening to overload his neural processors.

He watched as cracks began to form in the clone’s dark glasses, his face twitching and jerking spasmodically in pain. Having been destroyed once himself by Neo, Smith could feel the agony that his other self was feeling. He covered his eyes from the blinding light as the clone exploded, sending bytes of digitally-created software in every direction.

“Oh, no, no, no, no,” he moaned, “it’s not fair.”

Sarah has just given birth to our child—no, not one but two! I have two sons! This cannot be happening! Not now! I have yet to see my faces of my children! I want to hold them in my arms! For the first time in my life, I have someone who will love me! This cannot be the end for me; I cannot die like this—in the middle of this crater, covering in the stinking, reeking offal of humanity.

Smith glanced up at the lines of his other selves and groaned, feeling the disintegration of his coding commencing. The pain was building and cracks were beginning to form in his hand.

I want to see my sons, to hold them… I cannot die now! Noooo!

Seconds later, the program known as Smith had been obliterated forever along with every clone he had created. The shock wave of light expanded across the entire Matrix in infinite ripples of light from its centre, filling the night sky with its brilliance until every copy had been consumed, destroyed and driven back into the darkness from whence they came.

The world was free once again and the rain stopped.

lllll

The surgery was over and Sarah was beginning to revive. She was still numb but she knew that all had gone well by the smiles on the faces of the operating room staff.

“Twins!” the obstetrician told her proudly, a broad smile on his face. “This little guy,” the doctor indicated to the small bundle he held against his right side, “was a complete surprise! I had no idea he was even there! Nothing came up on the ultrasound. He is a little smaller than the first, but he’s perfectly fine.”

He frowned in puzzlement as he watched Sarah’s face fall in disappointment. New mothers were usually pleased and this one had every reason to be happy; she was alive, weak but healthy, and she was the mother of two perfect baby boys.

“Would you like to hold them?” he asked tentatively.

“No,” Sarah said curtly, turning her head away. Smith was gone irrevocably from her life and the Matrix itself. The last thing I need to see are his sons, reminding me by their very presence of what he did to me.

“I don’t want to see them,” she said angrily. “Take them out of here.”