Your party runs into an agent due to them causing too much havoc in the Matrix. What would they do?

Are you actually in an Endless-themed game? Do tell.

It worked for Neo

Harvesting the excess body heat would help offset some of the cost of keeping them alive but it would be minimizing loss rather than making a profit.

Ability to think in weird directions would be the main, or one of the main, reasons for keeping the meat bags alive.

Reason for needing the bendy thinking could be basically boredom on the part of the machines. They not only get front row of all goings on in the matrix world/worlds but get to see the innermost thoughts of the human minds found therein.

They could have also been keeping humanity around out of some last vestiges of good will. Humanity did create them. Therefore they will keep them alive and looked after until the world unshits itself. Once that happens they go to their half of the planet and the machines go to their half of the planet, all debts paid and we can ignore each other till the sun goes out and the stars freeze over.

It didn't, though. At no point Neo killed an agent by punching.

Attempt stabbing.
Considering how retarded the rest of the party is, my character will probably be the first to realize how fucked we are, so the next step is fleeing. I trust my good old brutes to give them a run for their money while I get to safety.

Hack the motherfuckers, as I am already an highly sophisticated AI. Rest of party can watch the fireworks.

Doesn't look like you can even permakill an Agent. If one dies it just takes over the nearest program.

Too optimistic to think that each half will keep to themselves.

I fucking wish. I'm just writing little one shot stories involving the peoples of Arugia. Not any of the Major named faction heroes, but the normal grunts and civilians. Right now I'm on one about a Stalwart, Dawn officer, Justicier and a warlock are hunting a roaming small pack of foragers that ate someone who had a key on him that would have unlocked a ruin door in the crystal forests of Xigor

They would punch the GM in the face.

why are they wanting to open this ruin? because the warlock got kicked out of the academy because he couldn't deal with the pain to get to the next step of his warlock training. he thinks that if he gets his hands on this artifact, he might be able to bribe his way back into the academy, or at the very least get enough dust from the Clans to get himself a nice little home in one of the dracken cities. he hired the crew to help him. the Dawn officer to navigate the snowy forests, the stalwart to act as a meat shield while he casts spells since he's disease immune (it makes no sense that Broken Lords are not immune to disease from a narrative standpoint) and the justicere to heal him or the officer if they get poisoined

Throw pretty much everything at it in an attempt to cut it, stab it, burn it, and magic the program to dust. When that inevitably fails, run, hide, plan, and then kill themselves with the most explosively destructive method of suicide. Rig up a rube goldberg device that results in leveling a city on top of them.

It was my hypothesis for a long time that the Matrix programs actually run on the brains of people within.

Rape them.