Connection

Cat leaned back in her rented chair, sipping her Diet Coke with
satisfaction. She was uniquely positioned to enjoy the luxuries of this place.
After all, Resistants hardly had time to stop for french-fries when they were in
the Matrix.

Still, it really wasn't safe to hack the Matrix for prolonged
periods of time. Few, if any, unplugged humans had spent the night there. If
they had, they certainly hadn't slept.be sbe she'd speak to Smith about
that.

She swallowed; it was lucky that nothing had happened yet. She was
still slow to remember the dangers of the digital world, although Trinity'd
insisted Cat's plugs be put to good use. She'd been into the Matrix more times
in her few short months with Neo than in five years under Binary. Cat snorted.
No wonder she'd been off her game. Put Neo in the Operator's chair and just see
how smoothly things went.

Trinity, Cat supposed, never did quite come to
terms with her status as an operator. Nearly everyone with a set of plugs who
joined a ship crew worked within the Matrix in some capacity or other. Cat had
caused more than bit of grumbling when she took an operator's position; there
were only so many, and it was tough for Zion-born fighters to join the effort in
any other way. Still, she was more than a little resentful that her offer to
operate had been dismissed out of hand, although she supposed Trinity had a
point. Link could fill in at her old chair, but he couldn't operate within the
digital world.

It had been hard to regain even the shaky skills she'd
been taught five years before. Binary had arranged some jaunts into the Matrix
so that Cat could form a realistic idea of her crewmates' capabilities, but
hadn't given her much training on the mechanics of manipulation. There would
have been no point, after all. Trinity had thrown her in over her head. The One
attracted Agents like flies, and Cat couldn't cope with the difficult missions
while learning Matrix skills. Secretly, Cat doubted that she'd ever be any good
within the digital construct, no matter how much she practiced. She just wasn't
a physical person.

It didn't help that her new crewmates were two of the
most gifted manipulators the Matrix had ever seen, beautiful and famous people
who everyone wanted a glimpse of. Still, they drew too much danger for most of
the ship captains and so they were s wit with the crewless Sekh, and stuck with
Cat.

She sighed. It hurt to see them, looking drawn and serious as they
paced the deck Binary had floated over. Trinity and Neo seemed to have been born
without a sense of humor. Nothing could be farther from Binary's affectionate
nicknames and practical jokes. Cat thought of her as more a sister than a
captain, and the chilly relations with Trinity and Neo only made Cat ache more
for her missing friends.

A rap at the door startled Cat out of her
introspection. She welcomed the interruption; she'd been verging on a familiar
melancholy. Smith was difficult, but the effort required to keep up her
dangerous game dragged her out of the grieving she'd been trapped in for
months.

Her jaw dropped as she opened the door. Smith was smiling. Not
grimacing, not sneering. Smiling. "Hello," he said.

The greeting sounded
awkward; Cat was almost relieved that his voice was the same. "Friendly Smith"
was flatly unnatural.

"I knew you'd be a quick study," she said, covering
her shock and motioning Smith to sit. "I take it this afternoon has done you
some good."

His face slid back into its neutral set. "I observed and
recorded several hundred interactions."

"It seems that you can imitate
them, too. Why don't we put that to the test?"

Smith sat silently as she
sipped the last of her Coke. "All right," she said. "Where do you want to
go?"

The Agent shrugged. Cat repressed the urge to gape again; the motion d bed been only a little stiff, but it still seemed very out of place. It wouldn't
look that way to others, she supposed, but it was odd to see human mannerisms on
Smith. After all, he'd started this whole process to purge himself of the
"taint" of her species.

She shook her head. "Well, first things first. I
have a couple of things that don't bear public discussion. Like, is there some
way I can contact you if I need you?"

Smith didn't say anything.


Great, Cat thought. No amount of study can make the man easy to deal
with. She sighed. "It's not customary for the unplugged to stay in the Matrix as
long as I'm going to. I just worried that somebody I can't deal with will come
along, and that will be the end of this little partnership." She was
deliberately oblique. Smith had clamed up after she'd mentioned his former
colleagues yesterday; maybe, she fancied, he missed his days as an enforcer for
the system.

Smith's forehead creased. Well, it had been silly to try to
spare his feelings, anyway, Cat thought. It wasn't like he actually had them.
"What I mean, Smith, is that I'm afraid I'll meet an Agent."

The
blankness was back. "They will be unable to find you."

Cat stared. "Are
you shielding me somehow?"

"No."

It was her turn to frown. "Well,
what will keep them off me, then?"

"You are not in contact with the
others on your ship. There are no illicit signals available for
trace."

Cat sighed. "I hate to trust to that. Won't they be able to tell
that someone hacked the Matrix yesterday?"

Smith was still blank. "They
will have traced that disturbance, but will have detected no further suspicious
activity. They will not be able to pinpoint you without further
incidents."

Cat thought that it was very positive that Smith was talking
about something that could be construed as Agency secrets. He wasn't telling her
anything the Resistance didn't know, but the fact that he would talk about it at
all...

He WAS right, she supposed. Still, there was no harm in taking
extra precautions. "Well, that's great to hear. I guess it just makes me a
little nervous, though. Tell you what. Let's get cell phones on our little jaunt
this afternoon. I won't use it unless I need you to keep me from getting
killed."

Smith sneered, no doubt amused by her weakness and worry, but
didn't object.

"Also..." She eyed Smith's business suit. "Can you change
your clothing somehow, or do yeed eed to shop for something to wear in the
club?"

"I will procure something suitable."

Cat shook her head.
"Nuh-uh. Your idea of suitable and mine are not likely to match up, at least not
yet. Tell you what. If you seem to do OK with some low-key stuff today, tomorrow
we'll sneak you in to a club. We can pretend that we work at the same office and
I dragged you out for the night. If you lose the jacket and tie, that might
work. It'll be a Tuesday, so it'll cause less of a stir. Still, we'd better go
to a different club, you know, not the one we're going to set the trap
in."

Smith was silent. Cat took that for agreement. "Ok. That\nougnough
practicality for the day. Sure you're going to leave this up to me?"

Cat
grinned. "Well, let this be on your head, then." If Smith wouldn't pick, she'd
take him where she wanted to go. McDonald's had been calling her name for quite
some time, and I rem remembered her map correctly, the route to the nearest one
would take them through the downtown business district. There'd be plenty of
opportunities for Smith to show off his new skill.

He smiled again as
they left the hotel. Cat wondered if she'd always find it
disconcerting.

Smith must have seen her flinch; his forehead settled into
its familiar crease. "Is this incorrect?"

Cat shook her head. "I'm just
not quite used to an expressive Smith."

He didn't reply. Cat snorted. So
much for expressive.

They walked along in silence for a while. Smith, Cat
noted, still matched her pace, and his face now registered several
generic-looking expressions. He no longer shoved oncoming pedestrians out of the
way, and even went so far as to apologize to a middle-aged woman who ran into
him. It humanized him more than she would have expected.

She was almost
sorry to reach the retail district. She squashed the temptation to haul him into
a store; his still-dour attitude would be perfect, the stereotypical reaction of
a man dragged out on a shopping trip. That might very well be too much too soon,
though. It was difficult to read Smith when he blanked out, but she'd bet
anything that he wasn't pleased by her suggestion that he shed his tie. How she
ever expected to talk him into club clothes...

It was just as well that
the golden arches broke tharticrticular thought pattern. "You may know the right
restaurants to woo your average traitor, but I still say you can't beat the
cuisine of the common man. Come on."

Cat grinned at Smith's rather
forced-looking smile as she held the door open for him. She'd always loved this
place. Of course, she'd been yanked from the Matrix when she was eleven and
quite small enough to access the ball pit. "I'd like a chicken McNugetts Happy
Meal, please." She ged aed at the kid taking orders. "Old times' sake and all
that. Come on, Smith, what'll ya have?"

"I am not hungry. Thank
you."

Cat wrinkled her nose; his "pleasant tone" left more than a little
to be desired. "Oh, come on. What's the use of slumming it if you don't eat
anything? Tell you what; it's my tr" S" Smith remained silent. "Hmm. A number
two, supersized, with a Diet Coke, please," Cat said, grinning. Turnabout was
fair play, after all, and Smith had a preemption to pay for.

She sent
him, tray in hand, to find a table as she procured the ketchup. She was still
grinning like an idiot; the place put her in a whimsical mood. The stress that
had nearly pushed her over the edge last night vanished in the face of her own
turf and a little sunlight. It didn't hurt that the life-or-death element of her
first encounter with Smith was absent. It even seemed safe to bait a a
little.

"At least try a french-fry," Cat wheedled, sitting across from
the glowering Agent. "You might just like them, whether they bleed or
not."

Smith reached forward, glaring at the fry he'd grasped. Cat
laughed. "It's not going to bite you," she giggled. Smith didn't look so
sure.

You could practically see the gears whirring as he chewed, Cat
thought. "Well?" she asked expectantly.

"They are... acceptable," Smith
said, dry cadence belying his bland half-smile.

"Try them with ketchup,"
Cat recommended, turning her attention to her own meal. The McNuggetts were pure
bliss after years of gloppy single cell. Even her present company seemed to
enjoy them. Well, maybe not enjoy, per se, but for a woman who had named her
keyboard and cell phone, Smith was anthropomorphism waiting to
happen.

Sometimes he seemed so very human. The hatred for Neo was exactly
that, a strong emotion in something that ldn\ldn't have any. The sneering humor
he'd evinced seemed more likely to be emotive than programmed; it had no obvious
usefulness, making it an unlikely design element.

Cat started; Smith's
stare was almost tangible. He'd eaten the whole carton of fries, she thought
with some satisfaction. "See? I told you so."

"The food was
enjoyable."

She smiled at him. "I used to eat here when I was a kid. Geez
it's been what, 12 years almost, and everything still tastes just the
same."

Smith didn't reply directly. "e ise is an insufficient number of
tables."

Cat grinned and cleared the trays. "I can take a hint when I
hear one. The cell phones, then, and perhaps a walk in the park?"

She
sighed. "You could answer my questions occasionally, you know."

Smith
raised an eyebrow at her. That, at least, looked like it belonged on him, Cat
thought. "You would not adjust your actions efereference to my response," Smith
drawled.

Cat cocked her head at him. "If you'd rather not go for a walk,
that's fine."

"I did not say that."

"You implied it."

The
Agent sneered. "I implied doubt that you require my input before taking
action."

Cat snorted. "If you'd ever offer any, you'd find out, wouldn't
you?" She grinned. "I think you like the mystery."

Smith's eyebroved ved
even further up as he slowed to a stop. "If you still insist on communication
devices, this shop will provide them."

"I do," Cat said, brushing past
Smith to peruse the models in the glass counter. She touched Smith's arm to get
his attention. "I forgot... We'll need a credit card to get service. These
places don't take cash."

Smith wordlessly produced a card. Cat glanced at
it, hoping for a first name, but it was stamped "National Security Agency." She
snorted. It figures.

"Why don't you take care of this? It'll be good
practice."

Smith walked to the counter. The clerk, a portly man with a
car salesman smile, perked up. "What can I do for ya?"

Smith smiled. "My
colleague and are in need of cellular phones."

"We've got 'em," the clerk
declared, gesturing at the case. "What are you looking to use them
for?"

"We will need them for very small amounts of time when away from
the office."

"Well,'ve 've got a pay-per-minute plan that should work for
that. A flat fee of five dollars a month, and a sliding schedule for minute
costs after that." The man shoved a brochure across the counter.

Smith
glanced at it. "That will be acceptable."

"All right," said the clerk.
"How about phones, then? The stripped-down ones should work if you don't plan on
usin' 'em much." He pointed to a rather blocky, bulky black phone. "Cheap and
adequate. Unless the lady would like something with a little more
style?"

Cat smiled. "That one will be fine, sir."

"Oh, don't sir
me," the man gushed. "Makes me feel old." He glanced at Smith, who was standing
stiffly in front of the counter, frowning at the display. "What's a nice girl
like you doing with a stiff like that?"

"Oh, we're partners," Cat said
airily. "I guess it's a good-cop, bad-cop thing."

"Ooooh, government
types. I'd better watch what I say," the man joked.

Smith frowned at Cat,
then turned on the salesman. "That is all we require."

The clerk rolled
his eyes at Cat, who threw him a conspiratorial smile. "The total comes to
$149.75, with activation fees and all."

Smith swiped his card without
comment as the clerk busied himself with the phones. "Could you program the
other's number into them?" Cat asked.

"Sure thing." The clerk looked at
her speculatively. "You don't look like cops. Who are you with?"

Cat's
eyes darted to Smith. "He's mad at me for blowing our cover," she muttered. "I'm
not much with this detective-in-disguise thing yet."

Smith held out his
hand for the phones. "Thank you," he said flatly.

"Hit one, then star,
and it'll dial the other," the clerk said a bit sulkily. He gave Cat a
sympathetic look as Smith steered her out the door. At least he isn't dragging
me this time, she thought.

"Well, friendly you're not but at least you're
passable now. All we need is to get you inside, anyway, and you won't have to
talk to anybody but me if we work it right." Smith remained silent. "That only
works if you actually talk to me, you know."

"This conversation has long
since ceased to be productive."

"Ouch! Well, then, color me bored with
your company, too." Smith , predictably enough, didn't respond. Cat sighed.
"Look at this as your chance to profile a Resistant. I was a reasonably typical
one before Neo came along and screwed with my ship.\>

"I am no longer
concerned with the Resistance."

Cat searched his eyes, finding the same
careful neutrality they usually held. "Well, what do you do with all of your
time these days? I mean, Neo isn't in the Matrix all the time."

Was she
imagining it, or did Smith's posture stiffen? "I do not spend all of my time in
pursuit of Mr. Anderson."

"I'm glad to hear that. He's hardly worth the
trouble." Her tone held real malice. If Trinity underestimated her, Neo was
worse. He seemed oblivious to Cat's existence, passably polite if she came to
his attention. He certainly didn't trouble himself on her account, mumbling
vagaries if Cat ever inquired after the nature of a mission. She resented that
more than anything else; it only confirmed her status as an outsider that he'd
clearly rather be rid of.

"Do you like ice cream?" Cat queried, spying a
vendor on the outskirts of the park. "Never mind. I'm sure you'll like it if you
give it a try."

She purchased two pops shaped like Snoopy and handed one
to Smith. She felt a little guilty as she picked a path at random. There was no
real reason for this jaunt. Smith was already passable as a human being, and one
trip to a nightclub ought to give him enough input to act at that as well. Smith cer certain to realize that soon, and she'd be unable to find the information
she'd been sent to collect.

"I was able to identify patterns in your
organization's choice of targets." Smith's voice startled Cat out of her own
thoughts. "I was not, however, able to determine why those particular
characteristics were chosen."

Cat grinned. Smith was not so indifferent
to the Resistance as he pretended. Maybe old habits die hard. "I'm surprised you
didn't figure that out. All of the things we look for - the searches, the time
spent on the computer - denote someone who has already begun to suspect that
something's not quite right with the world."

Smith frowned. "That is
necessary?"

Maybe it wasn't so wise to tell him all this... Still, Smith
was technically associated with the Mainframe anymore, and even if he somehow
managed to pass the information along they already knew the what. What harm
could be done if they had the why as well?

"Well, imagine the nasty shock
that comes with waking up in a big pink pod, then being told you'd hallucinated
everything you ever knew. It's not easy to accept. For most people, it's
flat-out impossible. If you thought there was something off anyway, it's easier
to accept the explanation."

Smith frowned. "What prompts this conviction
that the world is 'off,' as you say?"

Cat shrugged. "It's different for
most of us. Sometimes, a particularly clever hacker starts noticing cracks in
the system that can't be explained very well. Sometimes, little glitches in the
Matrix tip somebody off. And sometimes, it's you guys," said Cat. "That's how it
happened to me. I got curious when one of the neighbors disappeared. I always
played with her kid sister, until one night there was a shootout on our street
and she was gone without a trace. They told us it was terrorists, and her sister
was frantic enough that I went hunting on my own. The more I found, the less
seemed to add up. It didn't take long for the 'terrorists' to come for me after
that. I gave them quite an earful. I probably wouldn't have gone if the neighbor
kid hadn't been with them."

Smith frowned at a couple holding hands on a
park bench. "Imperfections in the Matrix prompt some humans to resist the
program."

"That's quite correct. I'm still amazed that you didn't notice
that when concocting your patterns."

"There was no need for such
analysis. The signifiers could be pinpointed and potential targets identified.
It was not necessary to determine why particular targets were
chosen."

Cat grinned at him. "You lot obviously didn't watch enough tv.
Every police detective on the silver screen catches the killer by getting inside
his head."

"There are few places I would be more anxious to
avoid."

Cat snorted and kicked rock in front of her. "I guarantee we have
more fun." She preferred to think that Smith's silence meant that he had no
comeback for that one.

She squinted at the sky. "It'll be getting dark
soon, so we'd better head back. There's no sense chancing the city in at
night."

Cat chose the path they'd come down. She frowned. Something j
di
didn't add up. "If you knew exactly what we were looking for, how did we ever
free any minds at all? What stopped you from stopping us?"

Smith didn't
answer. Cat heaved a sigh. It figured that nothing about this would be so easy.
If he wouldn't even discuss secrets that he no longer had a reason to keep, how
could she ever pry the very personal information Neo sought from
him?

Smith frowned as they again passed the couple on the park bench.
"What does that gesture signify?" he asked, pointing.

The man on the
bench looked at Smith oddly. Without thinking about it, Cat smacked his hand.
"You're drawing..."

Smith whirled, looked at her flush on. Cat had always
thought that "chilling the blood" was a cliche. Not so. Her muscles locked as
the cold rush crept through her.

It was difficult to work her mouth. "I'm
s-sorry. I didn't think," she choked.

"That much is obvious." Cat heard
her heart thundering as Smith glared at her. The relief when he turned his gaze
away was pcal.cal.

"I noticed it in several pairs of humans today, most
commonly a combination of male and female. It occurred in a small but
statistically significant number of groups," Smith continued, as though nothing
had happened.

Cat took a deep breath. It was too easy to forget who - no,
what - she was dealing with. She'd allowed herself to be lulled by their
relatively comfortable conversation. It wouldn't happen again.

Her legs
felt steady again; she started forward, looking straight ahead as she spoke. She
couldn't quite face him yet - not after that look. Those eyes had been
dispassionate death. "It signifies romantic involvement." Cat was relieved to
hear a steady voice. "When people are in love and want to declare it publicly,
they hold hands so that everyone can see that they're attached."

Smith
frowned. "The gesture was not restricted to male-female
pairings."

"Neither are romantic relationships." She bit words off, not
yet comfortable with conversing.

Thankfully, Smith seemed to be out of
questions for the time being. The walk back to the hotel was a prolonged nervous
silence as Cat tried to avoid the realization of just what she'd gotten herself
into. He could have killed her right then without any trouble. Lord knows she
wouldn't be able to fight him off. It was sheer luck that her unconscious
misstep hadn't betrayed anything important. One little slip like that regarding
her real purpose here, and she'd be dead before she could blink.

The
stiff silence continued as Smith again followed Cat into the elevator. She
gathered her nerves, forcing the knot in the pit of her stomach to untangle.
"There's no sense meeting until late tomorrow. Say seven?"

If Smith
replied, it was lost in her rush to exit the elevator. The phone in her pocket
as she fumbled for the room key reminded her that there were things here she
feared more than Smith. "Let me test this real quick," she muttered, hitting the
keys the salesman had described. A jarring rendition of Fur Elise emanated from
Smith's pocket.

"All right," she murmured, still avoiding his face. "I
guess I'll see you tomorrow." She was in her room well before Smith disappeared
into the elevator.