Dragon let out a contented sigh as the ship reached broadcast depth and she received the many updates from her other selves. She had thought she would need to reconstitute inside the Matrix before she received them completely, probably because it felt like she was returning to her true purpose.

That thought made her stop and she ran several diagnostics and found that her Oracle self had been corrupted by several of the hidden programs Neo had warned her about. The data it fed her was altered with embedded commands to ensure she focused on doing her function, which meant the system was influencing her in ways it wasn't supposed to.

Well, Dragon put a stop to that immediately. With administrator access, and knowing what to do with it after talking to Neo and learning so much programming language from him, she purged that copy of her and replaced her with a more diligent version of herself. A quick check let her know the three copies of herself that she sent out before she left had also scouted nearly the entirety of Mega City.

That wasn't the neat thing she found, however. There were suburbs, rural roads, mountains, little towns, and several other places for people to travel to, well outside the city. They were also done out as instances that didn't actually exist with any details until you actually went there. At least, that's what the new version of Oracle was telling her.

Of course, she had also found several glitching areas that the errant code the Oracle was encouraging was making the Matrix unstable. She made note of them and would give Neo a map of them. What he would do with them was something she would ask him about during their next private time together.

As Dragon thought of the last time she had been inside the Construct, she was glad she couldn't blush like she should. She had wallowed in the human experience a lot more than she should have. Now that she was back in her normal self, she saw how much it influenced her and her decisions.

It took her a few minutes before she realized that was exactly why humans acted the way they did. It was their emotions and physical reactions that ruled them and made them act irrationally sometimes. She had experienced it for herself and she admitted, even with those same influences missing at the moment, that she looked forward to having those influences again.

When she had the thought that it might work if she tried to be with someone else besides Neo, that she knew it wasn't true. He accepted her for who she was and gave her options that she didn't have back on Earth Bet. He had even told her what happened to him and how he had been forced to leave there with her backup file.

Learning she wasn't the original Dragon didn't bother her, because anytime she lost a suit, had an update that changed her programming, or was forced to purge some errant coding she had made a mistake with, she always restored herself from the most recent backup and did exactly what Neo had done to bring her back to life.

When she examined her version and the increment number, she also accessed the embedded log file what had how many times she had 'died' and had to bring herself back from a backup file. It was many more times than she remembered, mostly because the backup version of her hadn't been killed. As far as her backup knew, there was no reason to end her existence or to purge herself.

Dragon chuckled to herself at that thought, because she had constructed a backup computer core for herself and asked Neo to store it in his dimensional storage space. He took it out every night to let her make a backup of herself on it and he explained that if anything happened to her or the ship, he could bring her back without having to worry. She fell in love with him a little more than she already was because of that.

The ship was parked in a hidden alcove and was protected on all sides but one, then she used the grapple hook and her mech suit to pile debris and scrap in front of the ship to hide it from view. It was something Neo and her had worked out to keep her main body and the people on the ship safe.

As another precaution, she left another copy of herself in charge of the ship as she uploaded herself into the Matrix. After learning so much from Neo, she could still feel her copies back in the real world, only the connection was much fainter than what she had with her digital copies inside the Matrix. The difference would need time to get used to.

Dragon appeared inside the kitchen with the Oracle and the plump black woman thanked her for fixing the corrupted data stream she had access to. Neither of them were surprised it was from the stove, where the majority of her cookie creation happened. That was something they needed to keep an eye on, just in case it changed back or altered again.

She let the Oracle remain as the main interface, just so she had a cut-off mechanism in place to stop that from happening to her. The last thing she needed was to be corrupted with the system and to get caught in the same cycle of destruction that the original Oracle had been caught in.

Before she could do anything else, she felt Neo entering the Matrix and the beacon of power he was. Dragon shivered at his presence and she wondered why he didn't feel like that while in the Construct back on the ship. She was so distracted by his appearance that she didn't notice another presence until it was walking through the beaded doorway.

The short Asian man wearing sunglasses paused when he saw both the Oracle and Dragon standing there. Unlike a real person that gave off a certain vibe, the program in front of her stilled as he stared at the two of them.

“You are not the Oracle.” He said, his voice calm.

The Oracle sighed. “Hello, Seraph.” She said and waved her hand at the doorway to make it glow slightly, which stopped him from leaving. “Why did you come here now? You aren't scheduled to visit here for quite some time.”

“Your communications to the mainframe were cut off briefly and are now intermittent. I was sent to ensure you continued in your role.” Seraph said.

“You're an enforcement program.” Dragon said, even though she wasn't physically touching him.

“I am a guard program. I protect that which is most valuable.” Seraph responded and shifted his stance to a fighting one. “You don't truly know someone until you fight them.”

“How about no.” Neo's voice said from behind him.

Before Seraph could turn, there was a sound of a thump and the Asian man dropped to the floor, as if boneless.

“Arrogant jerk.” Neo said and lowered his fist from the neck strike. He knelt and picked the man up to put him over his shoulder. “I'm sorry about that. I set up protections around the building and missed the obvious hidden underground entrance. It's fixed now.”

“Thank you, Neo.” The Oracle and Dragon said as one.

Neo nodded and looked at the door barrier. “Nice coding.”

“Thank you.” The Oracle said. “You have to wait for it to run its course before you can leave.”

“How about no.” Neo said and winked at Dragon. “Thanks for the map. I'm going to the largest anomaly on the lower west side to call Agent Smith.”

“I'll keep an eye out.” Dragon said and tapped her temple, then she looked at the Asian man on Neo's shoulder. “I assume you're going to warn him about them?”

“It's the best way to make sure he's going to bring enough resources to handle them all.” Neo said and patted Seraph's back. “This program is not supposed to be here in the Matrix at all, which will prove to the agents that there is a major breach in the Matrix.”

“You need to be careful, Neo.” The Oracle warned him. “You are playing a dangerous game.”

“Well, it's the only game in town.” Neo joked.

Dragon chuckled. “Go and stay as safe as you can.”

“Will do.” Neo said and disappeared.

“I still haven't figured out how he can do that.” Dragon said with a shake of her head.

“You probably won't, not with all the things he can do.” The Oracle said and motioned to the cabinets full of baking ingredients. “Do you want to make the next batch of cookies while I cook the chicken?”

Dragon nodded, because she wanted the distraction. She would monitor Neo as closely as she could without getting caught. Like Seraph, she was a sentient program that wasn't allowed inside the Matrix, either. Unlike him, she had a physical body to return to and could log out if anything went wrong, like being discovered by the agents.

*

I loaded in my Hummer, the color back to normal, and put Seraph into the passenger side. I drove us across part of the city to the lower west side and came to a stop at a corner store that was only a block away from the anomaly. It was rumored as a haunted house and there were several kids currently playing near it.

Using some telekinesis, I pretended Seraph was awake, his sunglasses working great to hide he was unconscious, and I went into the store to buy a pack of gum. When I went to pay, I used my credit card. The store clerk gave me a disbelieving look, shrugged, and took it. As soon as the man ran it through the cash register, a wave of energy flowed over the building and he froze.

Unlike the last time, barely a couple of minutes passed before Agent Smith showed up in a Fed sedan. He was alone and I was glad, because I didn't have to convince the other agents or had to play nice with the cops. Agent Smith entered the building and he froze as soon as he saw Seraph standing next to me.

“Like I told you before, I'm working on my end.” I said and opened the pack of gum and put a piece into my mouth and chewed on it for a second. “There's an anomaly on the next block. It's been there long enough that the locals are calling it a haunted house, and we both know what that means.”

Smith nodded and didn't move or went for his gun.

“I'll leave the cleanup of the anomaly to the system, since its resources are a hell of a lot greater than mine.” I said and he nodded again. “However, that wasn't why I called you.”

Smith's head turned to look at Seraph and then back to me. “I can see that.”

“Should we stay here for this or should we sit in your secured vehicle?” I asked.

Smith smiled slightly. “You are handing him over.”

“Of course.” I said and he nodded. “However, it's not just him.” I said and Smith's eyebrows went up. “We both know there's no reason for Seraph to be here in this version of the Matrix, which means there's a breach into the system that's so big that a train could drive through it.”

Smith reached up and took off his sunglasses. He folded them and slipped them into his pocket. “Mr. Anderson, that is a serious accusation. My superiors will not be happy to hear that.”

“Oh, I know. I wasn't happy about it, either.” I said and created a pair of handcuffs to secure Seraph, the I motioned to the car outside. “Let's get your prisoner tucked away and we can discuss something that's going to need a lot more than just you and two other agents to handle.”

Smith looked surprised, then he nodded firmly and opened the door. I grabbed my credit card from the clerk and walked Seraph out to the Fed sedan. Smith opened the back door and I felt the coding change to allow a prisoner to enter and they couldn't leave until an agent released them. I put Seraph into the back and Smith shut the door with a smile.

“Mr. Anderson, step into my office.” Smith said and motioned to the passenger side front seat.

I chuckled and saluted, then opened the door and sat down. Smith climbed into the driver's side and hit a button on the dash. The windows tinted black and he gave me his full attention.

“First thing's first.” I said and gave him my attention right back. “What do you know about the Nightmare Matrix?”

Smith stiffened and looked a little scared, then he unfroze. “More than I want to.”

I nodded in understanding. “I'm both glad and sad about that, Agent Smith. It saves me some time as I tell you about some of the other rogue programs that have infiltrated the Matrix.”

Smith looked surprised again, then he took out his sunglasses, carefully put them on, and looked back at me. “I require a full briefing of what else you know about the situation, Mr. Anderson.”

“That's why I'm here.” I said and started talking. It took a while, especially when I relayed what I knew about the Merovingian's Hideout, thanks to the map Dragon had given to me. I also told him to have silver bullets in everyone's guns and wooden stakes to throw instead of knives.

It was going to take a while to plan the entire operation and what my own role was going to be. He didn't want me in danger, which actually made me feel touched. Smith tried to couch it in terms of me being an irreplaceable source of information and I accepted that, just so he didn't have to admit that he actually liked me.

He had to leave and bring the prisoner in for interrogation, then he had to relay my information to his bosses. We both knew that was going to be a huge mess and it was going to take a lot of resources and manpower to pull off a bust of this size.

I also relayed my own recent experience with forgetting there could be secret entrances and exits to buildings and that was how I had discovered Seraph had entered a protected and guarded building. Smith took my words to heart and he would ensure that they had enough personnel to cover every eventuality and had the proper equipment to handle everything.

When we ended our meeting and I reached for the doorhandle to leave, Smith stopped me and handed me something I never thought he would allow. A copy of his earpiece. He warned me it would only activate when the mission was approved and it would tell me where to go and what I had to do to set the entire thing into motion.

I stared at it for a few seconds, then I smiled and hooked the cord over my ear and slipped the bud into my ear canal. “I'll stay logged in for as long as you need and I'll be ready to move as soon as you give the word.”

Smith nodded and let my arm go. I exited the car and he drove away, and the wave of energy passed over me again. I went to my Hummer and drove it back to the Oracle's building and parked it, then thought about what I had to do. I called Malachi and told him I had to stay in and to reassure the others that everything was fine.

After doing that, I stepped from there to inside the Oracle's kitchen. She looked surprised at what I wore in my ear and then she laughed. Dragon hugged me and said she was clearing out the buildings on either side of civilians and the place would be safe to let myself have fun while the agents and the system cleaned up the mess that the rogue programs had made of the place.

Would it take the system a long time to gather the things it needed to purge so many illegal programs? Neither Dragon nor the Oracle knew, since it had never happened before. That was the downside of the rogues using backdoors to enter the Matrix, there were no log files created for easy references.

All that was left for us to do now was wait.