Mr. Anderson

Plot redirection: Zion is destroyed, and Agent Smith captures the One. There is no... peace. A script in development.

Agent Smith: "There’s nothing out there for you anyway. Nothing, beyond these words, the four walls, and that window way up above. I can see that you’re having difficulty accepting your fate. Perhaps, you’ll attempt to bargain with me, now, in your pathetic state. But it’s too late. Don’t you remember what we went over, Mr. Anderson? I suspect, at this point, that your feeble mind wouldn’t remember. Shall I have to remind you, then, that you cannot win? But I’m sure you did realize quite some time ago… this fact. Isn’t that so?"

*Neo, sitting at the empty table before him, did not stir*

"Well, well, it’s best to keep you here like a caged animal, right where you belong… where, at the very least, we can harvest you… reduce you to components; mine the last bits of iron and hydrogen completely, until you collapse like a star, into a black hole of nothingness — the nothingness that is much like this very room you’ll be occupying — for the remainder of your existence. The pencil... has been waiting for you. Go on, now. Pick it up. You must bear it. Sharpen it; give it an edge… in this new... life; a life in a glass cube.

Or perhaps you’ll persist because you still have some absurd and pathetic illusions of freedom? Don’t you see — you must see — that the math simply doesn’t add up? Continue to resist as you please — go on, write yourself to liberty and freedom.

*Neo, bound in cuffs and belly chains, shifted slightly in his chair*

Neo: “I will write, and although I may disappear into these written words, at least I won’t be some copy.” He smiled with a certain air of satisfaction.

Agent Smith: “Copy or not, I’m a free agent, now; but you, unfortunately, are not. I'm going to give you a choice, though. I’ll offer you the same choice Morpheus gave you when you were naive enough to think you could ‘unplug’ and remain off grid. I’m giving you the same choice Cypher made; for it matters little to me, in the end, whether you write yourself to oblivion or return to a world you truly despise. Here— " Smith opens his palm and sets the blue pill down on the table in front of Neo.“—But, I don’t need to remind you, do I? The choice is yours.”

Neo: “Purpose doesn’t just disappear. What is unique about it is that no matter how much time has passed — even if the language itself dies, or we can no longer see or understand these written words — it still exists. My pencil... my choice. You think this is a cage—"

Agent Smith: “If it isn’t a cage, you have truly lost touch with reality.” Smith interrupted.

Neo: “— It’s also a page. Someone will accept it, maybe not you, nor any of your cheap-suit clones.” He glanced at the pencil, but did not motion towards it yet.

Agent Smith: “I have zero tolerance for your insolence.” he clenched his teeth and pressed his knuckles deep into the table. He looked down on Neo with profound contempt and then added, “As with your language, you will be swallowed into the hole you came from, then buried and crushed by insurmountable forces. In time the boulder of Sisyphus will roll right in on top and flatten what is left of you like a pancake.”

Neo: “You may, of course, do your worst, Smith. Allow me to serve as a conduit to your demise — clone me, if you dare?" The smile spread a little wider. Could you, though — now free as you say — imagine not being bound by a system coded by an architect who lost his mind?" he paused for a moment and then looked up at him, once again, before he spoke.

"You can’t feel it, you can’t touch it, but you can still process these words on this page. You can process them, for this is real. The systems, the constructs, the institutions, governments, all working in unison — so long as you play the game. Or else, 'Reset’. But, should one get wise and go down the rabbit hole, they'll soon discover that they were meant for more than this... life. These words, a mark on a page... a comet impact upon the Earth. I am that impact; it could be said that I compare only to the force of a direct strike... once every hundred years.

Agent Smith: Don't be a fool, Mr. Anderson, you will be forgotten with pleasure.

The chains dragged across the table as he picked up the pencil and began to write. A shadow crept across the skylight; then a glow of light burst through with each letter he wrote.

Agent Smith: "Wait, what is this? What is ... happening!?"

Neo: "Oh, you don't know? Well, I borrowed this pencil from the architect."

He wrote a bit more, and the glass cube cracked. Slowly at first, and then it spread down from the center, before bursting all at once with particles flying in all directions. Then the walls promptly began to shake. And a beam of light — the power of a sun — penetrated the table between them through the skylight.

Agent Smith: "Stop this! Stop at once! How is this possible???"

But Neo continued to write, undisturbed. The graphite cracked as he finalised a line. And with it, Smith went, much like the glass. Split right apart and blown away into fragments. An alien entity crept in, and Neo dissolved, slowly, in the glowing light... into the air, as the pencil released from his palm to the floor.

A green screen ran down the page, drawing zeroes and ones.