Connection

Smith sat motionless on the living room couch. He’d considered the
evening’s events for hours, and the conclusion was inescapable. The Mainframe
was in error.

Its logic in the decision to delete him had been clear.
Thomas Anderson had somehow corrupted his program. Deletion was the obvious
solution. His operatives, however, had not been exposed to the contaminant. They
should have been overhauled, perhaps, or upgraded. Deletion was an unmitigated
waste.

His lip curled into a snarl as he thought of the supposed
upgrades that had replaced his team. Their code was less efficient, their team
less effective. Power loss was exponentially greater than it had ever been.
Agent Johnson had a lamentable tendency to gloat before executing his
enforce dir directives; Smith’s operative inside Zion reported that it had
resulted in more than one escape.

These were upgrades in name only, and
yet the Mainframe persisted in its attempts to eradicate Smith. It indicated
nothing less than faulty logic that Brown and Jones had also been deleted.
Either the Mainframe deemed it necessary to delete all code related to his own,
a decision of questionable efficiency at best, or it had decided that he was a
priori faulty. Smith sneered. The enforcement disaster the system was
experiencing under Agent Johnson was more than sufficient to refute that.


The prospect of a Mainframe with imperfect logic was troublesome. If it
persisted in its errors regarding his code, even a essfessful purge of
Anderson’s influence and eradication of the Resistance would not restore him to
sanction. The thought of remaining in this vile system indefinitely - and as an
exile, no less - was intolerable.

The snarl returned as muffled thumps
emanated from upstairs. The Mainframe’s many errors forced him to operate
alongside one of the creatures he had been created to exterminate. Thompson’s
frailties had already forced him to accept inconvenience and behavioral
aberration; nothing less could be expected from continued contact.

Smith
turned his attention from her, allowing the familiar rage at Anderson to
surface. His elimination, and the purification of Smith’s own code, would more
than justify the irritations of the present.

Cat woke up and immediately
wished she hadn’t. It had been so easy to doze off after the exhausting events
of last night, but now that everything ached it seemed like a less than stellar
idea.

She began to roll out of bed, but her knees refused to stiffen as
they were supposed to. She hit the ground with a jarring thump. Every bump or
bruise she’d accumulated throbbed in protest. She gritted her teeth and grabbed
for the bedframe, intending to pull herself up. She couldn’t quite bite back the
yelp; her shoulders hurt, too, and her elbows were swollen and difficult to
move. She inched her way upright, then tottered forward. Only a hard landing
against a bedpost prevented her from falling again. Cat winced; that would leave
a brand new bruise.

She eyed the wall; thank heaven for little old ladies
and their tendency toward small houses, she thought. It was only a couple of
feet from the end on the bed. She clenched her jaw and let herself fall forward.
The impact hurt less than she’d expected; it was only a minute or two before she
managed to drag her feet up to the wall as well. She leaned against it and
scooted forward, propping herself up as the stiffness in her joints receded a
little. By the time she reached the bathroom, she was able to
stand.

After nearly an hour of morning ablutions, Cat realized that she
was avoiding both the mirror and Smith. Either one was likely to bring her to
tears again. The combination of the two... Well, it was hard enough to spend
time with the programmed-to-be-perfect Agent without looking like a bad Picasso
print.

Oh, stop sniveling, she berated herself. Putting this off will not
make it more pleasant.

She limped to the top of the stairwell, catching
her lip in her teeth as she looked down it. This was not going to be
fun.

She latched onto the hand rail and bent her knee enough to step
down. She sighed. Of course, Smith would choose this moment to come stand at the
bottom of the stairs and smirk at me, she thought. She bit her lip harder and
forced herself down a few more steps. “Go ahead,” she growled. “Make your snarky
comment. I can tell you’re just dying to do it.”

Smith’s smirk only got
broader. Mumbling curses, Cat managed the rest of the stairs and stumbled past
him into the living room without sparing him a look. She chose a chair that was
reasonably isolated from other furniture; one of Smith’s bruising grips wasn’t
high on her list this morning.

She gd atd at him as he sat on the couch.
“Get it over with,” she said. “Make your little remark about the frailty of my
stupid kind, or whatever, and we can get on with it.”

She eyed him as his
face slid toward its neutral, not quite extinguishing the traces of mirth in his
eyes. Great, she thought. Sadism is well within his emotional range.

“I’m
sorry,” she snapped. “Did I ruin your comedic timing?”

His eyes narrowed.
Cat made a conscious effort to restrain herself; there was no point in making
him too mad. “Let’s get down to business. I’m going to need crutches, I think.
And food, too. You’re going to have to go get them for me, because I’m in no
state to do so.”

Smith remained silent. Cat curbed the impulse to shake
her head; it would hurt too much. “I came up with something, though. We can tell
the neighbors that I got in a traffic accident in the moving van, which explains
me and the fact that we have no belongings.” She sighed. “Here’s the hard part.
We have to pretend we’re married. There’s really no other reason two people our
ages would be living in the same house. I mean, I’m too old to be your niece or
anything, and...”

“That will be acceptable.”

Cat blinked. That was
it? “Or, er, all right,” she said, disconcerted. “Details, then. We’re going to
have to cook something up about where we came from, and that sort of thing.
You’ll have to have a first name... Unless... do you have one
already?”

Smith raised an eyebrow.

“Er, do you want to pick one
out?”

The eyebrow crept higher. “I kind of thought not,” Cat said. “How
about Alan? It’s sort of like Agent...”

She froze as the doorbell rang.
“Go get that, will you?”

“Is it necessary?”

“They can see us from
outside, Smith. Open the door.”

Cat eyed the woman standing on the porch.
She looked like an ad for Suburbia, right down to the perfectly coifed hair and
the tennis sweater.

“Hello.” Cat ignored the pain her smile caused.
“Won’t you come in?”

The woman smiled uncertainly. “Did I catch you at a
bad time?”

“Not at all,” Cat said, hoping her voice was cheery. “I
haven’t seen anyone but Alan and doctors for three days. I’d love some company.”


The woman started as Smith strode behind her to the couch. She glanced
around, then perched on the extreme opposite end. “I always like to come by and
meet newcomers to the neighborhood,” she said in a brittle voice, jabbing a
finger at the dish she sat next to her. “I brought some
coffeecake...”

“That’s very sweet of you,” Cat said, trying to believe
it. “Look, I’m sorry if you’re feeling uncomfortable. I know I look frightful.
Some drunk driver ploughed into the U-Haul and rolled me over, and I just got
released from the hospital last night.”

The woman’s face shifted from
uncertain to sympathetic. “Oh, how awful!” She patted a stray hair back into
place. “And I’ve forgotten all my manners. I’m Cyndi, Cyndi Morgin from down the
street.”

Cat shot a glance at Smith; his silence was in danger of
becoming odd. Thankfully, he took the hint.

“I am Alan Smith.” He offered
his hand gravely. Cyndi hesitated, but shook it. “This is my... wife,” his lip
twitched and Cat repressed the urge to glare, “Catherine.”

“I don’t know
why he persists in introducing me like that. I won’t answer to anything but
Cat.”

“But Catherine’s such a lovely name!” squeaked Cynthia. Smith
smirked.

Cat tried to exorcise the poison from the smile she gave Smith.
“Alan was just going to pick up some crutches for me, but I’d be delighted if
you could stay for a chat.”

Smith muttered something inaudible, but left
without a fight. Cat didn’t realize how tensely she’d been holding herself until
he was gone and her muscles uncoiled. The motion made her wince, and Cyndi
popped up from her seat. “You poor thing!”

Cat smiled and wrenched
herself up. “Let’s have some of your coffeecake.” She gestured toward the
kitchen. “I don’t know how Alan’s been feeding himself, but he certainly didn’t
think to have anything on hand when I came in.”

“Men,” Cyndi giggled.
“George couldn’t feed himself for three days if his life depended on it.” She
placed a hand on Cat’s wrist. “No, let me.”

Cyndi rummaged around in the
cupboard and came up with a few plates covered in a hideous print in the same
vein as the furniture.

Cat chuckled. “We have to make do until we can get
our hands on some new stuff,” she explained. “We might have to rough it for a
while. I’m just not in the interior decorating frame of mind.”

Cyndi gave
her a sympathetic smile. “It must be so difficult, trying to get settled in to a
new place in your condition.”

“Well, the good thing is that my job
doesn’t start for a while.” Cat took the cake Cyndi proffered. “We were
transferred, so we have some time allotted for
moving.”

“Transferred?”

“This is delicious, by the way,” Cat said,
lowering her fork. Cyndi beamed at her. “Anyway, Alan and I work for the
government,we owe occasionally get the old bureaucratic shuffle.”

“I’m so
glad that George doesn’t have to worry about that sort of thing,” Cyndi said.
“He’s in advertising, and this is the place for it.”

Cat gave the woman
her first genuine smile of the day, relieved that she hadn’t pried into the
details of her “government job.” “What do you do, Cyndi?”

The woman
shrugged. “I haven’t had time to work since we had the kids. I didn’t want to
hand them over to a nanny.”

“Kids?” Cat asked. It was the right thing to
say. Cyndi pulled a couple of pictures out of her purse and started nattering on
about her children’s amazing accomplishments. Cat was glad that nothing but a
polite smile and the occasional comment was required of her.

After a
while Cyndi had to pause for breath. “I’m sorry. I must be boring you to
death.”

“Not at all.” Cat smiled. “If I had kids, I’d be right there with
you.” Cyndi looked expectant. “Well, you know how these things go,” Cat said. “I
guess I picked the wrong end of the career-family continuum.”

Cyndi
looked sympathetic again; Cat was beginning to wonder if Cyndi had any
expressions between “sympathetic” and “perky.” Maybe it comes with the name, she
thought.

Cyndi patted her. “You’ve got lots of time.” She glanced at her
wristwatch. “Speaking of which, I’m afraid I’ve got to run. Kindergarten’s
nearly out.”

Cat smiled. “Well, thank you very much for the cake, and for
stopping by! I hope you’ll come again soon.”

“Of course,” Cyndi promised,
then slipped out the door. Cat let out another sigh. That had been unreal. Maybe
she was just impatient with coppertops, but that woman would be ditzy by
anyone’s standards.

It was strange to think that everything that woman
cherished - the house, the kids - was fake. Those kids... They probably weren’t
even plucked from the same batch. It seemed so cruel that Cyndi’s job had been
sacrificed for beings that weren’t even her own flesh and blood.

Cat
sighed and headed for the living room. She flicked through channels, but even tv
failed to distract her. Even someone as irritating as that Cyndi woman reminded
her, forcefully, of just what was off purchasing her crutches. It was so easy to
forget that Smith wasn’t real, any more than that women’s kids were “hers.” He
was a bastard, but his cutting comments and surliness only made him seem more
human. If he were balnk, indifferent... That’s what she’d associate with a
machine.

She shook her head and the pain called her back to reality. It
just wasn’t safe to humanize Smith too much. Every time she made that mistake,
he yanked her up short with some terrifying reminde jus just what he was capable
of. It seemed so small, but the memory of that look he’d had in the park still
made her skin crawl. Smith just wasn’t human, no matter how easy it was to
forget it.

And now? Well, her life hung on whether she could convince a
crowd of Cyndi clones that he was perfectly normal. Well, not normal, she
amended. Human. If Johnson found out where they were... If he brought
reinforcements...

Cat turned her eyes back to the television. She
wouldn’t even toy with that possibility. It was easier to muse about the
minutiae of life as an Agent; life with “Alan” could answer a good many
questions.