Here is where I do my Please Don't Sue dance. I don't own the characters and concepts of The Matrix; The Brothers Wachowski do. Characters are used without permission. No profit is being made from this file. This fanfic contains strong sexual themes, and as such should not be read by people under the legal or emotional age to read such material.

Note: This fanfic takes place between the events of Matrix: Reloaded and Matrix: Revolutions.

-----

Hypothesis
by Apricot the Gerbil


Clack. Clack.

Clack. Clack.

Clack. Clack.

A scream interrupted the unison footsteps of the roving Smith pack. Five pairs of eyes shifted upwards in curiosity. The Smiths smirked with bland amusement; a human had just leaped from a balcony railing across the street, high among the stacks of gray city buildings. One of the last few humans left in this acre of the city... must've been asleep or in hiding until now.

The words coming from her mouth slid together into incoherence-- perhaps something about how everyone around her had suddenly turned into identical black-suited men, given the circumstances. One could pick up a tone of a question from it all, but the noise was rendered inconsequential before long.

The human smacked against the pavement, making a crunching wet sound.

The Smiths moved on.

From among the many bodies he occupied, Smith wondered at the genius of it all. His plan was coming about perfectly. Among the many strange new abilities he had gained from merging with that human, Mister Anderson (Smith refused to use the silly fictional name Mister Anderson had made up for himself), he had been using one in particular with ruthless efficiency. No longer confined to only one human mind when assigned as an Agent, Smith now had the power to take any host he wanted, as many times as he chose, all with just a simple data-transferring jab of his hand.

By now, he hardly paid attention to the countless Smith-shaped shells dotting the cityscape around him, all silently biding their time from the spot on which they were created. Not counting the occasional program (the useless Agents sent to halt Smith's course had stopped appearing some time ago), each of his bodies had until recently been a human.

Ah, humans-- those walking generators, going about their tediously pointless lives... flitting about the cityscape like a swarm of frenzied locusts. Moving. Burning energy. Just what Smith's former masters, the machines, had wanted.

Smith could imagine perfectly what the machine world would look like by now. Total chaos, its metal inhabitants whirring about in a panic everywhere... its towers of living batteries slowly growing cold and stagnant, one seemingly insignificant pod after another. The machines were losing their only energy source, all because of him. Smith had to sneer. They had been so quick to define him and his servitude as "useless," after his scuffle with Mister Anderson... They were only getting what they deserved for their ignorance.

But then, he couldn't be too bitter at the machines. Were it not for those stray humans that had escaped from their pods, lashing out against the Agents that guarded the Matrix, Smith never would have found his new purpose...

As the five Smiths kept walking in their search, they abruptly turned down an alleyway. Nodding to acknowledge the Smith body already standing there, the group eyed a small flock of pigeons the lone Smith had spotted.

The birds scuttled about, turning left, right, around, in seemingly random patterns. He counted them through his many eyes. Ten... perfect. All in the same place.

As Smith had eventually learned by possessing the odd animal-based program here and there, each division of the gigantic, sprawling city that made up the Matrix had a specific allotment of creatures it could generate. Ten birds, five small mammals, five larger pet-sized mammals, and fifteen insects-- no more, no less. With all the humans in this division claimed or rendered useless through death, and other packs of Smiths roving their way through the remainder of the city, it only made sense to move on to the programs. Nothing should be spared.

The flock's motions grew proportionately quicker and more spastic, giving the appearance of confusion, as the six Smith bodies moved closer. The programming was all but flawless... Smith had to marvel at how detailed the program was, all for something as pointless as a few birds.

Complexity did not save them, however. A few well-placed jabs later, ten new Smiths were slowly getting up from the ground.

Suddenly, the Smiths slowed to a stop, coming to match those on the streets and roads around them.

The acre was still.

From within an apartment's living room miles away, Smith stood, flanked by two spare bodies. He stared down at a lone human cowering in a corner.

He had found something of interest.

Smith stepped closer, ignoring the human's muffled wails. That short mop of black hair on the man's head... he almost looked like...

No, Smith thought, frowning as he studied the man's face closer. The jawline was thicker, the iris of the eyes a different color... his voice was completely different as well, Smith noted, hearing the man mumble on and on. The dim light of the room must have been why he'd mistaken the human for Mister Anderson at first glance. There was no way Smith could forget what that face looked like, having seen each piece of the code it was made up from personally.

Then again, Mister Anderson was a whole world away at the moment. He still wasn't sure how he was able to tell just where his enemy was, but Smith knew there was no way to contact him here from within the Matrix.

He corrected himself-- yes, there was one way. However, the human shell he'd managed to take outside the Matrix had gone dormant, ever since Smith had made him crash the ship he'd been on. Probably comatose... No matter. It was unthinkably demeaning to have to act through such a sack of filth, helpful puppet or no; Smith would deal with that body only when it became useful to him once more. He was well on his way to possessing everyone in the Matrix as it was...

Upon realizing the free time on his hands, Smith decided to listen to this human before him. It might be interesting, if nothing else.

The man was still stuttering, probably in the mental defense of denial. How predictable. "M-my wife... oh god Suzie wha-- what did you-- DO to, to her, she-- what did you... oh god..."

Behind his sunglasses, Smith squinted. Wife? Yes, there had been a woman here-- a woman and a female child, within this apartment. His two new bodies were right nearby, watching the man mutely.

"I'm afraid your wife is no longer here," Smith said, taking two careful steps backwards. Perhaps some distance might put the human more at ease. "However, you and I both have some time to spare. Would you like to--"

"You KILLED them!" the man choked out, his hands scrambling against the wallpaper, shakily pulling himself to a standing position. "You killed... you killed my little girl, an-- m-my Suz--"

He lunged at Smith, eyes bugged comically wide, but his flurry of punches hardly served as a tickle against Smith's virtual body. With superhuman speed, the man soon found himself dangling above the floor, Smith's iron grip around his neck.

"I don't believe my question was about your wife," Smith replied. "My question was, would you like to sit and talk for a while?"

The man stopped his thrashings in a manner Smith took to mean 'yes.' He sat the human down on the nearest piece of furniture-- a dingy couch-- and looked around for a place he could seat himself. Smith grabbed a nearby chair, dragging it over to face his new chatting companion, and settled down to fix the human with an icy stare.

"Now," he began, his voice oozing calmly, "Shall I begin, or should you?"

The man only stared back, quivering. Smith was about to start the conversation himself, when words finally choked from the man's mouth.

"...Where did you take them?"

Smith couldn't help smirking. Humans looked so precious when they were confused. "Saying that I 'took' your wife and daughter would assume that they would eventually be coming back. I'm afraid that isn't the case... You certainly do have a one-track mind, don't you, Mister Ander--"

He caught himself halfway through the name. "No. That's not it," he said quietly, pausing. Why would his mind would slip like that? It wasn't as if similar physical appearances of two humans would define them as the same.

"It amazes me how the simplest of characteristics can be latched upon as making a person unique," Smith continued, resting his arms along the chair frame. "The length of hair, or the clothes one wears... interests, hobbies, all those pursuits you humans find to distract yourselves. The concern for these two other people you show, I have to admit, only confuses me."

Growing impatient at the human's silence, Smith shifted the topic to something even this slow mind might pick up on. "Your wife, for example. Her characteristics seemed no different than any of the thousands of bodies I've already accumulated. Some sort of job... a love of stamp collecting, or for a particular kind of music... copulating, maybe with more than one person... I can't even remember, they all blur together so easily."

Smith paused, noting the man's sudden angered expression. "You-- Don't you dare talk about my Suzie like that! My wife never cheated on me. She LOVES me!"

"Love?" Smith raised an eyebrow, his mouth curling to a flat, sour frown. "I've heard that word so often... It seems to be of incredible significance to your species." He shifted forward in his seat, making the man before him flinch at the sudden move. "I have the option of keeping any memories that might be of interest to me, when I gain a new shell..."

The human blinked, his eyes shifting about warily.

"Ah, it's probably too complicated to explain to you. No matter. I'll just say that a certain few concepts keep rising to the top of every mind I've seen. Feelings that people seem to spend the majority of their lives shifting between. Love, hatred, fear... I've known many, many humans who spent their last thoughts hating me, or being afraid of me. I'm not sure I know what it means to feel these things, however."

"You mean... y-you're really not human?" muttered the man, glancing over at the two identical... whatever-they-weres... nearby. He gulped a breath, bringing his hands up to cover his face, as if the action would make everything go away. "I don't know what's goin' on here anymore..."

Watching the human's movements, Smith smiled. An idea had dawned upon him. "Well, since we are having such a pleasant discussion at the moment, this seems like the perfect chance for me to ask you what these emotions are like. Finding out from the source, as it were." His smile widened to a toothy predator's grin. "This may help me know what warning signs to watch for in myself, after all. Weaknesses aren't things to ignore."

"Oh-kay," the man drawled. He slid his hands down to fold them under his chin, his eyes glazed. Smith heard him mutter the words "gotta be asleep" under his breath. So be it, Smith thought. If a human wants to think something they don't understand isn't real, he couldn't be surprised.

"Please, do go on!" Smith leaned back in his chair. "What does it feel like to feel... oh, fear, for example?"

"Um, well-- fear is when... I guess, you don't know what's going to happen...?" mumbled the man. "Your mind locks up, and you can't move, sometimes can't even think, 'cause you don't know where you should go. All you can do is stand there and sweat."

"Very interesting. Yes, that makes sense, from what I remember," Smith mused. "Now, what about hatred?"

The man took longer to answer this one. His face twisted about, as people tended to do when they were trying to think of something specific. "You think about whatever it is you really hate. But you can't think straight, and you don't do what'd make sense, kind of like when you're afraid... you know you want to do something. Anything, just to get rid of what you hate. It's like your whole brain heats up, and you just want it GONE."

Smith was silent at this, only speaking after the reflex of a solemn breath. "It would seem I've experienced this feeling, myself..." Much more often than he would care to admit, in fact. Was this some sort of malfunction he'd picked up from Mister Anderson?

This idea, that his reaction to anything involving Mister Anderson was an utterly human response, disturbed Smith. His thoughts reeled, jabbing at this newfound flaw with obsessive fervor. Was the fact that he now felt uneasy a sign that he could also feel fear? Would this mean his mind was devolving to the level of a human's? What if his own facial expressions were betraying what he was feeling, even now?

He decided to change the subject. "And love?"

"Love?" repeated the man, his features falling blank. "I... Well, I don't know. I don't think I can explain that. It's like the opposite of hate."

"Its opposite... I see. So when you feel love, your brain feels... colder?" Smith tilted his head slightly. That didn't make sense; humans seemed to prefer heat. Why would they seek out such a thing?

The man shook his head. "No, no-- you feel warmer, but not like when you hate. It's... um..." He trailed off in thought, his eyes shifting to stare intently towards the ceiling.

"I'll try something simpler," interrupted Smith. "Tell me, did you love your wife?"

"Of course I do," said the human, crossing his arms defensively. "I love her more than anyone else!"

"Well, you show fear through physical cues. The tensing of your skin, for example-- shivering-- or by sweating, or uttering your many sorts of noise louder than usual, if you and others of your kind are any indication. Is this true?"

The man nodded. "I... I guess so."

"How, then, do you show love?" Smith continued.

Curiously, the man's face started heating up, enough to turn the skin there a reddish color. "Well, there's... there's a way I'd show my wife. It's what you do with someone, when you love them." He bowed his head, apparently to make his black hair spill down and mask his face somewhat. "I couldn't do that, with you, though..."

This sudden defensiveness puzzled Smith. "Why not?" he asked, smirking. "Is there something humans can do that I wouldn't be able to?"

The man kept silent. Smith leaned forward, as impatient to hear an answer as he was intrigued by what it might be. "Why I would ever want to experience some nuisance like the act of sweating is beyond me, but your bodies aren't too difficult to imitate, if I chose to do so. You may have noticed... there's very little I can't do by now."

He smiled widely and nodded from the two bodies behind him, if only to drive home the point.

With a shudder, the human's face grew redder. "What do you want me to do...?"

Smith only shrugged, giving a quiet, amused snort. "I wouldn't have any idea. How would I know how to display signs of love? If I don't know what it's like, it would be futile to ask you to make me feel it." He paused, eyes darting back towards his two nearby bodies.

An idea began forming in his mind... The shells might serve well as two more points of surveillance, he realized. Smith turned his attention back to the human, a grin sliding along his mouth. "Either way, I'd want to find out what such an important thing looks like."

He brought a hand over to the man's face and cleared the dark hair away from over his eyes. His own steely gaze stared into the darting pupils with curiosity. "I believe it would be in your own best interests to tell me what I have to do to you, if I'm going to see it."

The man sputtered out the first excuse he could think of. "But-- wait, you can't do it to me if I don't want it! That's not sex, it's rape!"

"Sex...? Is that all there is to it?" Smith frowned, furrowing his brow with impatience. "You could have just told me that. I'm familiar enough with the action of human intercourse... Your species seems to seldom think about anything else."

"It's more than just an action!" protested the human. "When I do it with my wife, that's how we can show we love each other. That's why we do it."

"As I understood it, the point of human intercourse is to ejaculate," said Smith, disdainfully recalling the massive backlog of such memories he'd absorbed. "You bring up a point, however. If showing love requires copulating, would we both have to participate, or would I only need to bring you to the point of ejaculation?"

The man grimaced at this. "Hey, even if I didn't mind, I don't swing that way anyhow." Seeing Smith's puzzled expression, he explained, "I'm not into doing that with other men."

Smith nodded, taking this into account. He looked down idly at the cuff of his suit's sleeves, knowing there was currently nothing in his body's code for displaying what was underneath his clothing. But, then, he could alter his own coding easily enough...

"If you insist," he replied. His eyebrows narrowed in concentration.

"What're you doing?" the human asked, staring back warily.

"Generating a set of female organs. It shouldn't take long." Smith reached down to start unbuckling his belt.

"No--!" The human suddenly looked ill. "No. No no nononono. Don't do that!"

Smith stopped frozen, hands still on his belt. He lifted his head with an eerie slowness to face the man, glaring pinpoints into those two cattle-stupid eyes.

"You've just begun to wear away at my patience," he said through grated teeth.

The human gave a quiet yelp, a scream catching in his throat. He looked down shakily to see Smith's fist jammed halfway into a gurgling, shiny black wound in his chest...

Cold. God it was like being frozen alive from inside, and having every nerve in your body tingle and pinch as if they'd fallen asleep-- it all came so quick, he hadn't even seen the suited-thing's hand move... The man's jaw clacked and twitched like it would fall off, eyelids fluttering. Could you die in a dream? his brain tried to wonder.

And then it stopped. He opened his eyes to find the fist gone, along with the oil-- now he knew this was a dream, people didn't bleed OIL!-- that'd been slurping around it.

Smith spoke, his voice edged with frustration. "If I have to do that a second time, I'm no longer going to stop midway. Consider your cooperation motivated."

A few beads of the cold sweat now oozing down the man's face shook off as he bobbed his head in a "yes." Ah, the physical cues of being terrified, Smith thought to himself... It was almost fascinating to see them being played out so soon after being told what they were.

Having the human feel so much fear before trying to induce love was probably counterproductive, but he wasn't going to put up with this person's level of incompetence. The fleshbag should feel honored to have him tolerate such stupidity as long as he already had.

"Now, if we could move along, Mist--"

Smith grimaced at the name, cursing under his breath. He'd done it again! This was inexcusable... Turning his attention back to the nameless person before him, he flatly commanded, "Remove your pants."

"B-but, I--" started the human, falling silent as he thought of the alternative. He shivered, reaching down numbly to carry out the motions: unbuckle the belt, toss it on the couch, unzip his fly... The man shook his head as he pulled his legs free, mumbling, "This isn't love..."

"You don't seem to know how to explain what love is, either," Smith replied, frowning. "If you're so convinced this experiment is a waste of time, I suggest you come up with your reasoning quickly."

Silence. The human only looked down towards his feet.

"It's only love if I GIVE myself to you."

Smith raised an eyebrow at these quietly spoken words. "What...?"

"That's what love is." The man looked up to face Smith with a new confidence. "You can't take love from me. I have to choose to give myself up. And not 'choose' like 'I'll kill you if you don't.' That's not a choice. Forcing someone to have sex is even worse than just hating them."

This information made Smith pause in thought. "Love means giving up control of yourself, to someone else?"

The man nodded, a grin spreading at his apparent victory. "And I'm not going to give it to you."

Smith looked at this human, so sure of himself... the similarity between him and Mister Anderson finally became clear to him. A rush of-- he wasn't sure what, but it was something new, something tingling, almost electric to his senses-- flooded Smith's mind. Suddenly, the idea of picturing this reeking idiot as truly being Mister Anderson seemed unbearably tempting.

He leaned towards the man, giving him a smile wide enough to match, then a merry chuckle. "In that case, I have no need to worry about ever feeling love."

The man's smile faded, twisting to a look of confusion.

His startled yell followed, as firm hands grabbed out from both sides, one body yanking down his boxers while the other pinned his arms against the couch. Smith could only laugh louder. The fool never even saw it coming.

"It's just like all the other ridiculous concepts your kind dream up for yourselves to believe in... Your gullibility never ceases to amaze me," Smith said, getting up from the chair to loom over the dark-haired man. He saw Mister Anderson held down before him, thrashing, helpless...

"If the act of love can also be an act of hate, I know which one I'd rather choose to do," he continued, bending to one knee before the human. "Loving or not, ejaculation is still a possibility, Mister Anderson."

The eyes of his enemy grew wide, disbelieving. Teeth clenched, hands turned to fists and shook, but the two extra Smith bodies held the man where he was, giving Smith three perfect views of the panicked sweat beading fresh and thick on his flesh.

As he wrapped his hand around Mister Anderson's penis, Smith wondered if this was what humans had felt when they created the word "delicious."

Smith began moving his fist, yanking the organ so roughly that the only response he received at first came in sharp screams of pain. However, all it took was for him to slow down-- now Mister Anderson didn't seem to know whether to enjoy it or cry. A constant pulse of groans fell from his mouth.

Smith wouldn't have thought it was possible, but humans managed to stink even worse when they were aroused.

The sounds Mister Anderson was making, though. Oh, the sounds...

The man felt himself growing hard from the touch, grimacing even as his breaths became quick gasps. He opened his eyes to stare at Smith... only to squint them closed again, feeling the last fiber of his sanity being snapped away and swallowed by whatever was behind that shaded glare.

He bucked his hips, thrusting into his attacker's freezing cold fist, and began uttering a sound that might have been cackling. He wasn't able to realize it clearly, but in the back of his mind, he knew he was already a nonentity to this suited-thing. He had absolutely no idea what would be coming next, nor how it could possibly make any sense anymore.

Smith slowed his hand even further, clenching his grinning teeth as if tasting the sight before him. Whatever the mysterious sparks in his mind were, he only knew he wanted more. Seeing Mister Anderson like this, sobbing, screaming, all because of him, made the feeling burn all the stronger, until he found his own grip shuddering from it all...

Feeling a sudden wetness on his hands, Smith paused. He looked down at Mister Anderson's penis to find it had begun leaking a watery fluid along his fist. He frowned, slightly disturbed at the sight.

Looking closer, the messes dripping off and around the body of his nemesis now seemed all the more noticeable: the sweat pooling around from Mister Anderson's face, oozing down his neck... the crust of urine and old, long-dead semen, matted thick in the patch of hair around Mister Anderson's genitals... the globby tears streaking down from Mister Anderson's reddened eyes...

The formless blaze Smith had been so enthralled by vanished in a pang of utter disgust. How could other humans even stand to be near an anatomy this repulsive?

He was still observing Mister Anderson's face when he felt the muscled flesh under his hand twitch. Smith watched his enemy's eyes unfocus and look into nothingness, his face contorting into a ridiculous, straining mask. Smith yanked his hand away-- just in time to have Mister Anderson's semen spurt onto his own bare legs, rather than dirty any part of Smith's bodies further.

Smith studied Mister Anderson's red-faced, huffing body for a moment longer, as if to burn the sight into his retinas...

"Pathetic."

He drew his other hand back into a fist, jamming it into his enemy's chest.

The man grunted and fell silent, too tired to do anything more than feel the coldness spread through him...

Two eyes opened behind dark sunglasses. The only hint that there had ever been another being in the room lay in a white splatter along the black pantlegs of Smith's newest body.

Smith tugged a handkerchief free from the coat pocket of his suit, handing the cloth over to his body on the couch. His seated self nodded, said "thank you"-- a needless formality, but a habitual one nevertheless-- and dabbed the genetic code away.

As Smith watched himself clean up, he picked through the new memories he'd just absorbed, only to find the man's life had indeed been as boring as all the others. Unsurprising... He added the human's last few minutes' worth of memories into his own data, remarking, "That was..."

"...interesting," finished his new body, rolling the word about in his mouth like clotted syrup.

The four bodies became motionless; Smith's mind had wandered off to be somewhere more productive. He couldn't shake a sense of unease, though, after the events in that apartment... Now that he thought of it, why had he wasted so much time catering to that strange impulse he'd felt? It hadn't furthered his mission in any way. That human had not truly been Mister Anderson. He knew of the human word "justification", but disliked the idea of having such a hollow defense for his actions.

Then again, Smith reasoned, this experiment had taught him what the human emotion called "love" entailed. As his mind settled back into a handful of bodies, returning to his search for more hosts to absorb, Smith could only wonder about this idea-- that feeling love was more important than having control over one's self.

Humanity, as it turned out, was driven by a force more worthless than Smith had ever imagined.


---011001100110100101101110---