Agent (The Matrix)
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Agents are a group of characters in the Matrix series. They are sentient intelligent agents within the computer-generated world of the Matrix, guarding it from anyone or anything that could reveal it as a false reality. Agents also hunt down and terminate any rogue programs, such as The Keymaker, which no longer serve a purpose to the overall Machine collective. They appear physically human, but it becomes apparent after observing them for only short periods that they are not. They have a tendency to speak and act in highly mechanistic ways.
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[edit] Physical aspects (including appearance)
Agents wear dark green or black business suits, lined with a yellow material, possibly Kevlar, black dress shoes, square sunglasses with a red tint, and a communication earpiece to inform them of any disturbances within the system. These features are copied from the attire for plainclothes agents of the United States Secret Service, which investigates computer fraud in the US. Matrix Agents carry Magnum Research/Israeli Military Industries Desert Eagle handguns chambered for .50AE ammunition in shoulder holsters that are concealed beneath their suits. In addition to proficiency in the use of firearms, all Agents are masters of the martial arts and hand-to-hand combat.
Like Zion infiltrators, Agents are aware of the artificial nature of the Matrix and thus have the ability to bend its physical rules, allowing them to perform superhuman feats such as leaping incredible distances. They can briefly move at speeds fast enough to dodge bullets from a gun, at least in most circumstances; a shot from a gun in contact with the Agent will hit its mark, and they can't dodge rapid-fire such as that from a minigun.
Agents also have superhuman strength. One is observed tearing a car's roof off with one hand, and they can also generate enough power in their punches and kicks to punch through solid concrete. Agents also seem significantly less fazed by punches and kicks than a normal human being would be, although a sufficiently strong attack to a vital body area can still stagger them.
Agents do not seem to have bodies of their own in the Matrix; instead they gain physical form by taking over humans in pods directly connected to the Matrix (Zion rebels broadcasting from hovercrafts are not susceptible to possession, most probably due to the wireless nature of their connection). When this host has served its purpose, they can possess someone else (leaving the person somewhat disoriented, as demonstrated in one of the Matrix comics [1]). Even if the host is killed, they can simply transfer themselves into another body to continue their operations.
[edit] Names
Agents do not appear to have first or second names, only surnames. Their surname is usually very ordinary and common, perhaps to help avoid drawing attention to themselves. In The Matrix, the three Agents have one syllable names, such as Brown. In The Matrix Reloaded, the Agents are upgraded, and now have two syllable names, such as Jackson.
[edit] Interaction with Zion infiltrators
All these abilities make Agents extremely dangerous opponents and it is impossible to permanently eliminate them. All Zion hovercraft crewmembers know that upon encountering one they should simply run away and try to escape not only from the Agent but from all nearby humans who could be potential hosts. According to Morpheus, in the time before Neo was freed from the Matrix every human that had stood their ground against an Agent was killed. Morpheus and Neo had fought Agent Smith in the first movie of the trilogy, and both were defeated by Smith, but were not killed. Once Neo could harness his abilities as the One, Agents posed no threat to him, and he could defeat a triad of Agents with ease. It is implied in the game Enter the Matrix that one of the main reasons for Neo being able to defeat Agents was his ability to focus enough to move quickly for far longer periods than normal rebels. In Enter the Matrix, this is the main cause of a player character's difficulty in fighting Agents, since when the player is outside bullet time the Agents are able to dodge and counter all hand-to-hand attacks.
Morpheus has been fortunate enough to stand against two Agents (Smith and Johnson) during the trilogy and live to tell the tale, though in both instances, he was defeated.
[edit] Agents Jones and Brown
Agents Jones and Brown are credited as Agent Smith's "sidekicks" in the first Matrix movie. Smith appears to be the leader of their Agent unit. He is seen giving them orders (such as "Find them and destroy them!") which they obey.
In The Matrix Agent Brown is played by Paul Goddard, while Agent Jones is played by Robert Taylor II.
There is little character development for either Jones or Brown in the movies, and they don't take part in the sequels. They are mostly silent but brutal accomplices to Smith. A draft of The Matrix Reloaded's script originally included Brown and Jones.[citation needed]
Brown's memorable scenes include chasing Trinity across the rooftops in the opening sequence. He attempts to shoot her but misses several times. Brown is also present in the scene where Morpheus is interrogated, injecting a truth serum into Morpheus's neck. Brown is ordered by Smith to check Neo for life signs after Smith has shot Neo: Brown pronounces Neo dead. He is last seen fleeing from Neo along with Jones after Smith's destruction.
Jones is less prominent than Brown in the first movie. His "finest moment" is when he shoots and almost succeeds in killing Neo. He stands above the stricken Neo, uttering the line "Only human," before being shot himself by Trinity. From this it seems Jones holds humanity in the same contempt as Smith. Jones is seen holding Brown back when Neo is about to destroy Smith in the end of the film, and he is last seen running away from Neo, along with Brown.
In the movie, Jones and Brown seem to exist only as thuggish assistants to Smith, for instance holding Neo down so Smith can insert a probe through his navel.
Brown and Jones continue their operation as Agents, and are seen occasionally in The Matrix Online.
[edit] Upgraded Agents
The Agents use very plain, common, usually Anglo-Saxon names to avoid drawing attention to themselves. In The Matrix, Agents Smith, Brown, and Jones appeared; Jackson, Johnson and Thompson, three new (and larger in physical build) Agents with upgraded abilities, including being able to actually block minimum blows from Neo along with faster speeds and enhanced strength, were introduced in The Matrix Reloaded. Despite these enhancements, Neo is still able to defeat them easily. In The Matrix: Path of Neo the upgraded Agents recover from violent physical injuries in a relatively short time.
A rogue Agent can be a very dangerous program. When Smith, the strongest of them all, was destroyed by Neo at the end of The Matrix, his programming instructed him to return to the Source, the Machine mainframe computer, to be destroyed or stored. However, because of Neo's attack, something changed in Smith that allowed him to defy his programming. The change in Smith also disconnects him from the system, setting him "free" from his duties, in effect. This change makes Smith an "Exile" program without purpose. Smith's programming also takes on some of Neo's abilities as The One, such as the ability to withstand dramatic damage. However, since Smith is not in truth a complete autonomous being with the ability to choose a new purpose for himself, Smith becomes sociopathic. The rogue Smith begins to behave like a virus himself, making copy after copy of himself using humans and other programs in the Matrix, all of them with one purpose based on his old Agent programming, which was now corrupted: destroy Neo. The copies would have the special abilities of any assimilated programs, such as the Oracle's ability to see the future. Smith's ability to copy himself onto others may be a sort of corruption of his original ability to move from host body to host body before Neo's attack. No one, not even other Agents, were immune to his attacks (although if Smith possesed an Agent's body, the Agent could simply take over another one, as seen in Reloaded. This was nullified, however, when Smith took over every human and program in the Matrix).
The new Agents also made appearances in various television commercials leading up to the theatrical and DVD releases of The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, most notably several Powerade commercials wherein an Agent, sitting at the table in the room used during Neo's interrogation from the first movie, would encourage the viewer to "Drink more Powerade" and replenish the energy they supply to the Machines because the Agents have "quotas to meet".
[edit] Other Agents
Many other agents have appeared in the Animatrix and the Matrix comics. Agents Ash, Bird, Finn, and White are the only agents named there, but others have appeared as well. Along with other Agents in the game The Matrix: Online, Agents Skinner and Pace (a female agent) are named.
Agent White appears in The Matrix: Path of Neo as a replacement for Smith after he was destroyed by Neo. White appears in only one section of the Redpill Rescue level called The Security Guard. He appears much like Agent Brown but has his own personallity.
The Agents live on in the online multiplayer game, The Matrix Online. With the brokered peace created by Neo at the end of The Matrix Revolutions, Agents are no longer programmed to kill redpills on sight, but guard various areas of the Matrix from the increased activity created by these visitors. They are currently led by Agent Gray.
The Animatrix story World Record featured a different style of Agent wearing full-length trenchcoats instead of the usual dark suit.
In The Matrix Online, Agents have a level of 255, and are therefore very hard to kill. They cannot be defeated by one person alone; to do so requires many level 50s to attack at once. However, even when an Agent is killed in The Matrix Online, three more will spawn in its place.
[edit] Red-Eyed Agents
Red-Eyed Agents appeared in The Matrix Online. Red-Eyed Agents attacked every faction. All three factions (Machines, Zion, Exiles) denied controlloing them, and it was later found out (from The Oracle) that the Red-Eyed Agents were created by "Intruders" angered by the Truce between the humans and the Machines. The Red-Eyed Agents later captured one of the programs known as Shapers and used them to form fragments of Neo's RSI into new models of Red-Eyed Agents: N30 Ag3nts.
[edit] Agent Gray
Gray was one of several Agents trapped in the Matrix during the infestation known as Smith. His program was overwritten with new code, executing instructions which conflicted with his primary architecture. When Smith was defeated and Smith's program was withdrawn from the system, Gray was freed, but his ordeal was not yet over.
The Machine Civilization is run by cautious protocols, and there was still some chance that the Smith code had found a place to shelter within the system, or within an RSI. Agents that had been exposed to Smith were quarantined within the Matrix during the reset—something that is usually never done. Bluepills have their connections to the system attenuated so they never notice the event, and Exiles can seek shelter in a construct, but Agents have no such recourse. Those trapped in the system during the reset were literally turned inside out as their code was deconstructed and recompiled with a vicious error-checking routine.
Even afterward, he has not been allowed to return to the Source, instead relegated to a buffer system created during the reboot—a gateway construct which acts as a Machine analog to the Merovingian's Mobil Avenue Station. In some ways he is almost an Exile, but for the fact that he believes he will eventually be able to return to the Source.
Description & Style: Due to his current situation, Agent Gray was selected to act as recruiter and Controller for human beings that the Machines believe can assist them in controlling the Matrix. Like all Agents he is normally dispassionate and aloof, with a precise manner of speaking, but his forced dealings with humans have left him with somewhat more understanding of them than most Agents.
When dealing with humans, he uses many euphemisms, as he has found that humans often prefer not to say what they really mean. Death is “cessation of awareness.” Stealing is “expeditious acquisition.” He addresses humans by their gender title and bluepill last name (e.g. "Mister Anderson"), and seems to have a foolproof way of knowing this information about every human he speaks to.
Though Gray resented his assignment greatly at first, he has come to appreciate the fact that he is better at dealing with humans than most other machine Agents. Although he does not enjoy interacting with humans, the fact that he is efficient at it gives him a sense of... pride.
Agent Gray is voiced by John Patrick Lowrie.
