Calling All Authors

[Vesuveus]

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Calling All Authors! Story Contest
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06/20/2006 21:46:46
Subject: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


Vindicator

Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
Online



I have read some interesting stories about characters and RP. And I have been turning this idea over in my head for some time.

A Story Contest

The purpose of this contest is to share your stories and ideas with the community. Post your story here. I will read them and judge them on the following criteria:

I. Creativity
A. Original Ideas
B. Entertaining

II. Quality
A. Style
B. Grammar
C. Overall quality
III. Length - At least one page (if viewed on a word processor using:
A. Times New Roman or Courier Fonts
B. Font size of 12

Stories will be judged on the 5 criteria listed above (Originality, Entertainment, Overall Style, Grammar and Overall Quality). Length will not be an issue in judgment if the quality is high. (A story that is too short and does not tell a full, entertaining story will not receive a high score, nor will a long winded, boring story.)
Each criteria will be given a score between 1 and 5 (1 being the weakest score and 5 the strongest)
Once each criterion is given a score, all 5 scores will be averaged into a final score.


For example:


Vesuveus’ Story
Originality 4
Entertainment 3
Overall Style 4
Grammar 5
Overall Quality 2

4+3+4+5+2=18 --> 18/5 = 3.6 Final Score

Entries must be posted in this thread no later than 11:59PM PST on July 25th 2006. Entries posted after that time will not be considered for the contest. Please only 1 post per story. (No reposting the same story with revisions. Revisions will not be considered.)

You must submit your own entry. Stories submitted for someone else will not be considered.

Heading: I am keeping the format as simple as possible. Creatively, you can take your story in any direction you wish. However there are a few things that must be posted along with your story.

1. Title (underlined)

2. Character Handle

3. Server (in italics)

Example: The Matrix by Wachowski of Recursion.

You have one month to write, revise and post your story. Get at it now because time will fly! You never know when the Devs will spring an event on us.

Prizes: I will award 3 authors. 1st prize, 2nd prize and 3rd prize. I have not decided on prizes yet, but I am leaning toward gift certificates to Amazon.com or straight up PayPal. Maybe $25, $15 and $5, respectively.

*If you are interested in helping judge the contest, send me a PM on these forums. Judges will not be allowed to submit an entry.
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06/20/2006 22:54:58
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Fen


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 5119
Location: HvCFT Devildog
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Broken Bonds by Fenshire of Recursion.



First two posts are IC posts that lead to the formation of the story. The actual story itself begins on the third post.



~Fen
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06/20/2006 22:56:46
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Fen


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 5119
Location: HvCFT Devildog
Online

Stories by Fenshire of Recursion.



That was my first story that I had ever written. Enjoy. SMILEY



~Fen
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06/21/2006 00:46:26
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Disseminated


Jacked Out

Joined: Aug 15, 2005
Messages: 365
Location: Reno, NV
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Here's a heartwarming tale.

mxoboards.station.sony.com/matrix/board/message?board.id=NR_Recursion&message.id=5729&jump=true

Message Edited by Moondog548 on 06.21.2006 03:47 AM

Message edited by Disseminated on 06/21/2006 00:47:46.
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06/21/2006 01:21:35
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Tefnut


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 1603
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Accidental Genesis Pt2 which is a stand alone of sorts
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06/21/2006 01:25:31
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Tefnut


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 1603
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The Process of Compassion by Tefnut of Recursion

Message Edited by Tefnutt on 06.21.2006 02:27 AM

Message Edited by Tefnutt on 06.21.2006 02:28 AM

Message edited by Tefnut on 06/21/2006 01:28:17.
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06/21/2006 02:24:22
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
eyepopper


Perceptive Mind

Joined: Aug 15, 2005
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Who is Mohandas? by 3y3p0pp3r of Recursion.

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06/21/2006 02:25:00
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
eyepopper


Perceptive Mind

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Messages: 2081
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Quite A Ride by 3y3p0pp3r of Recursion.

Message Edited by eyepopper on 06.21.2006 03:25 AM

Message edited by eyepopper on 06/21/2006 02:25:20.
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06/21/2006 03:53:50
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
[CoZ]LostProphet




Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 3027
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As my writing at the moment is officially poop, I've dug out and polished up some of mine which I think are fairly good.
In order of writing:

Lethe by LostProphet on Vector
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06/21/2006 03:54:32
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
[CoZ]LostProphet




Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 3027
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Awakening by LostProphet on Vector
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06/21/2006 03:55:10
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
[CoZ]LostProphet




Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 3027
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Xenthi by LostProphet on Recursion
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06/21/2006 04:55:59
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vaulus




Joined: Sep 14, 2005
Messages: 415
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Fragile Bonds by Deliquent (Vaulus) on Regression (Recurssion)



(This link also includes the Broken Bonds story Fenshire Posted. His story is clearly marked and seperated, but this is the only manner of which I still had the story. I will also be writting a new work to add to this so I am not just recycling old works.)

Message Edited by Vaulus on 06.21.2006 08:57 AM

Message edited by Vaulus on 06/21/2006 04:57:54.
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06/21/2006 06:52:02
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


Vindicator

Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
Online




Great to see such a turnout already! I already started reading, too.

If possible, please organize chapters/posts into one post here. This will just eliminate any confusion as to where the story starts and ends. I wouldn't want to sell anyone short because of some confusion between interrupted posts.

For those that have posted entries previous to this post, I won't enforce the "One post per story" rule only to confirm that I have the entire story from start to finish. Just reply to your post and quote your message so I know its a valid re-post.

Of course, I'd also appreciate a link to a site that contains the story in one piece. Example

Keep on writin'!



Message Edited by Vesuveus on 06.21.2006 11:04 AM

Message edited by Vesuveus on 06/21/2006 07:04:46.
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06/21/2006 06:57:07
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


Vindicator

Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
Online





[CoZ]LostProphet wrote:
Xenthi by LostProphet on Recursion






Prophet,

I'm getting dead links on all three stories.
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06/21/2006 09:23:18
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Midnight


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 4459
Location: The Immortalis Faction:Fallen Horizon Level: 50 Gunman Operative Rank: Captain Beta Vetern
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The Midnight Hour

Midnight

Recursion





As I look over to my Hovercraft The Immortalis I see the many years of scars and the many faces of those who I have lost. They say war is a part of our way of life, and that is true, but it never gets any easier to lose a friend or loved one. My hovercraft was named in honor of all those brave soldiers who fought under me and lost their life. Immortalis, means immortal. They will never be forgotten.

As I stand here now overlooking the city of Zion, I see all those who have dedicated their lives to the protection of this great city. People who live their entire lives for one great moment of recognition for what they have done in the name of honor.

I have fought along side Zion’s top elite Warriors. I have known Trinity. I have known Neo. Their Deaths sealed my life’s determination. Zion will not fall, Zion will not fail.
If you have found me, I have led you here. You have a purpose in this plan and you are worthy of my loyalty
I am a soldier of a Elite Faction called The Fallen Horizon, I am also the leader.
What brought me to this place of power is a story that is both a blessing and a curse
I know about recognition, mine was unwanted. This is the story of how I became “Midnight”. It is how I came to be standing here now, and the life I left behind.

I have always been a leader, as a child I felt the need to protect others. In grade school I was heavily involved in Karate and kickboxing. Having that discipline helped me fight off bullies both for me and for other kids. As I got older I started feeling the urgency to protect more important things. After high school I prepared myself for a life of the Police. I passed all test and physical requirements and became a police officer. In two short years I demonstrated such problem solving abilities they promoted me to detective. I worked my way to homicide and excelled in that field. My methods of solving problems was a supernatural secret. I am a PSI Empathic Transferrer.. (Psychological Op) Almost a psychic way to find clues and read people’s presence in order to help solve a case.

It wasn’t long after that the CIA come looking for me. They needed someone who could see that closely into a potiential enemy’s soul. Someone who could work for the United Stated and help plan upcoming battles and wars. There lies my unwanted recongnition.

Needless to say I took the job I became a PSI OP. (Psychological Operations or PSYOP are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of organizations, groups, and individuals. Used in all aspects of war, it is a weapon whose effectiveness is limited only by the ingenuity of the commander using it.) My life as Kate Kruger was over.

How did I get to be a red pill outside the Matrix you ask? Well I was just getting to that.

I was sitting in my office going over paperwork for my Classified case involving Government officals being murdered, when my phone rang. I answered the phone and heard a deep voice on the other end he said to me
“We have been searching for you” I stopped what I was doing and said
“Excuse me.”

“You have known things are not as they seem, you have questions noone seems to be able to answer.” This voice was male and strong.
“I have no idea what your talking about but you have hacked into a government official line and..” I was interrupted by this grand voice again.
“You understand the way the mind works, you understand that somethings are not humanly possible. You have questioned that for years. You have seen things that cannot be explained.”

I stayed silent as I knew inside this man was telling the truth he knew exactly what I was feeling. I let him continue as the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.


“You are living in a world that does not exist. You are apart of a multitude of other millions of souls who do not belong in that world. You are all pawns to their games.”“Who are you.” I asked.
“I am Morpheus and I need your help.”

“You need MY help?” By this time I was standing looking out my 23rd story window looking for any explination to what was going on.

“You will not find answers by looking out a window. You need to look inside yourself. The Matrix Has you, and I need you.”

“The what.?”

“I will explain in time, but first I need to meet with you.” I stood there like in a weird dream staring at my computer screen, it suddenly flashed on and a green glow took over. A curser.began to pulse. I stared at the screen as weird numbers began flashing in sequence. Numbers everywhere began forming a line of numbers. 555-1235. My phone line.
“*CENSORED*.” I whispered.
“What is” He asked. I explained what I saw.
“You must get out of the building now. I will help you.”

“What the hell is going on.”
I suddenly heard commotion outside the room as people began to scream. Gun shots were heard and heavy footsteps were heading in my direction. I had tactical training and could defend myself in a battle field scenario but not in a small office with no way out. My heart began to pound. I could feel the evil coming. I peeked outside my office and saw 5 men all dressed in black, with weird ear pieces in their ears.

They all looked alike and they all carried guns. One of the men who appeared to be the leader grabbed a fellow co worker and lifted him off the ground. The co worker urgently pointed towards my office door. The man then threw the coworker out the window with complete ease. The man or agent of some sort locked eyes with me as he saw me. He touched his ear and they began to walk towards me. I slammed the door and stood there with the phone in my hand. Morpheus spoke again.

“They are here. If they get to you before I do, its over. Now do as I say..”

To make a long story short I took the red pill, and opened my eyes to the world I really lived in. I have my real purpose. To protect and serve. I don’t know why I was choosen to lead such a vast fleet of ships and soldiers of Zion but I am grateful.
Ohh and I know your going to ask how did I get the name of Midnight? Well as I opened my eyes for the first time and saw the fuzzy face of the man and friend I now call Morpheus, the big hand of the clock struck Midnight. The exact moment in time where I was freed.
Now don’t be afraid if you see me standing before you. Just take my hand and believe what I'm going to tell you.
We ALL have a calling in life, we just need a wake up call sometimes.

Message Edited by MidnightFH on 06.21.2006 11:07 AM

Message Edited by MidnightFH on 06.21.2006 11:07 AM

Message edited by Midnight on 06/21/2006 10:07:30.
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06/21/2006 09:45:49
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Midori-Megami




Joined: Aug 15, 2005
Messages: 89
Location: Recursion
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Midori's Story by MidoriMegami of The Sirens - Recursion



The Story is 3/4 complete and will be finished by the end of June:



Midori's Theme from the Soundtrack of Midori's Story



Midori's Story is Found Here.





"I know someone, a woman, unlike any other woman I have ever known. She
is unique....beautiful.... clever... intensely sensual. When she isn't
in my arms, she is in my thoughts. She is a Siren, and she changed my
life in a very real and very fundamental way and I have quite literally
never stopped thinking about her because I love her... to this very
day, I love her..." Inspired
by Doctor Gaius Baltar
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06/21/2006 10:11:04
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Midnight


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 4459
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fallenhorizon.com/forum/Calling_All_Authors!_Story_Contest/m_5190/tm.htm



Link!

Message Edited by MidnightFH on 06.21.2006 11:16 AM

Message edited by Midnight on 06/21/2006 10:16:40.
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06/21/2006 10:16:51
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Fractor


Fansite Operator

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
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MidnightFH wrote:

How do you do those linky things?




Type in a word, highlight it, press the 'Insert a Hyperlink' button and enter the URL.

Edit: Oh you editted it, never mind.

Message Edited by Fractor on 06.21.2006 11:18 AM

Message edited by Fractor on 06/21/2006 10:18:37.
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06/21/2006 11:52:12
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
IR0N


Jacked Out

Joined: Oct 2, 2005
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The Cat - Written by IR0N - Recursion

And, if your interested, the sequel is available to read... its just not finished yet heh. Have a look anyway :smileywink:

The Cats Claw - by IR0N, Crossover and Iola (iola) - Recursion

Message Edited by IR0N on 06.21.2006 12:53 PM

Message edited by IR0N on 06/21/2006 11:53:43.
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06/21/2006 20:44:27
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Roukan


Femme Fatale

Joined: Aug 15, 2005
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Vincent, the Real Roukan
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06/22/2006 00:38:47
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
[CoZ]LostProphet




Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 3027
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Vesuveus wrote:




[CoZ]LostProphet wrote:
Xenthi by LostProphet on Recursion






Prophet,

I'm getting dead links on all three stories.



D'OH SMILEY
I capitalised the filenames but not the links. They should work now SMILEY
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06/22/2006 06:14:06
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Echosnare




Joined: Aug 18, 2005
Messages: 205
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Glinting Moonlight by Echosnare of Recursion



Stories always seem to begin with sunlight or moonlight glinting off something,Its a convenient way to draw attention to something and works well when the body of work is eventually sucked dry and made into a hollowed out version of itself in hollywood. In this case moonlight is glinting off my gun and it shouldn't be. I move the cover back over the gun. One twitch of light and they could know where I am. If they know and I take my shot they'll be on me before I can move.The programs should adjust for it but I hate taking chances. I had always enjoyed hunting before I had been freed. It was peaceful the way you stopped thinking the civilised thoughts you thought everyday and turned yourself down into a purpose. There was only the hunt to occupy your mind,your only concerns were how visible you were, your only thoughts of the future were where you needed to go and how you needed to get there. Hunting brings you back to your roots. Those tiny instincts you would have used thousands of years before, when your next meal wasnt plastic sealed. People assume its a scary thing to do, What do people know? Most of them have no idea they're living in a dream world.


I'm dug in. In the past I'd have disguised the shape of my body stilled my movement, slowed my heart rate. But in the Matrix the prey has upped the stakes. Its an arms war and the weapon is code. Now i have to use programs to hide my RSI, I have to alter sound modifiers so nobody hears my passing I even have to cut myself off in a way. Keep my stream down to just me and barely anything else. If my operator knows where I am so could they. But nothing can hide me once I reveal my intent. Once that piece of metal is flying through the air I'm visible - they know where the shot came from and my programs can deflect their aggressive search subroutines. At my greatest moment I am also at my most vulnerable. I find that Ironic. I hate taking chances but to succeed I must first be willing to die in order fulfil the goal. The prey must not escape.The prey. We aren't talking of something I plan to eat. We're talking of another living person (normally) who's existing in the same way I do but shares different beliefs. I have no qualms about what I am about to do. They would do the same. There are some in zion who shy away from hurting the betrayers. What do they know about honour? The traitors left us to our deaths and all the sympathisers would do the same.The target appears and I return to my old habits

My heart slows

I exhale

I fire
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06/22/2006 06:55:09
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Dv01D




Joined: Aug 26, 2005
Messages: 260
Location: The Grey Area
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The Witch-hunt by Dv01D: Causality - Vector

The Witch-hunt (RP story)
"Just keep it going Para, the speed helps me think".

Dv01D had been like this since the events of the night before. Eyes a mirror of the hard world, view turned inwards. Self analytical.

Almost an hour passed, Dv01D sitting in the co-pilot's chair, feet on the instument panel, 12mm Arbiter Handcannon in his hand, screwing the silencer on.... taking it off... screwing it on... taking it off...

ParaSitius hunched beside him, sweating from the stress of keeping the Dysfunction racing down the tubes. He wanted to say something to his captain, but had no idea what, this was obvious from the look on his face, his twitching glances.

Dv01D slammed a finger into the windshield. "There! Put her down"

The crew would be asleep by now, he knew, "Well, that's fine", he thought, "that'll make this easier on them... just not on me. Such is the price. Cause and effect. I hired them, now I have to pay the price for that."

"Don't you f*cking move" he snarled at ParaSitius as he started to get up to accompany the commander back into the ship.

Dv01D stalked off into the darkness of the companionway. He knew he could trust this crew. They were a close group, all looking out for one another on many occasions, both in the hard world and the soft. And that was the problem. Too much trust

He walked past 0bittus's cabin without giving it a second glance, same with Flips, both these guys are brothers of the Merovingians chosen few. Practically family, like Para, with whom he'd run commando missions in the hard world after his extraction, a period of their lives they'd both prefer to block out.

3rebus' cabin on the left, Vortech's on the right. Dv01D had seen these two around the matrix for along time. Loyal servants of the Merovingian ideal, if not the frenchman himself. "The council have known them longer than I have, and would never have asked me to hire them if they didn't trust them. I trust the council, therefore I trust Vortech and 3re" he whispered to himself under his breath.

Kizomii's cabin next. If it hadn't been for her elder sister, Niika of the Dark Mavericks, Dv01D simply wouldn't be here. He shook his head, looking down at his feet. "She deserves the benefit of the doubt" he thought.

Lillah's cabin next. "Hmmm, I was asked to hire you by your husband. I didn't know him. I still don't know him. There were other voices speaking for her at the time too. No, sorry Lillah. I don't know you at all".

*Whump* The handcannon whispered into her pillow. He turned. Walked out of the door, leaving it open. If the others saw, so the others saw. Explanation would just be another part of the price.

Renzouken next. If anyone had ever tried to be Causality, it was Ren. "Nah", thought Dv01D, "not even close".

And now, to the last occupied cabin. L33x3. "You. You're all my fault he thought. I hired you, no-one else knew you,and as far as I know, no-one else does now either."

She stirred, looking up at him blearily from out of her sleep, he placed his left hand over her mouth and nose. Her eyes turned to water, fear pouring out of them.

*whump* The handcannon spoke again, a private language just for him to hear, "Job done", it said.

Again he left the cabin door open as he returned to Lillah's cabin.

Taking her by the left ankle, he dragged hed through the ship, trailing blood and brains down the gridded floors. Pausing only at L33x3's open cabin door, to grab her sleeping bag and drag that too through the ship to the rear exit ramp.
With the toe of his left boot he rolled them over and dumped the now cooling corpses into the tunnel beneath the ship.

He slapped the intercom at the entrance to the main corridor.

"Job done Para. Get me the hell out of here."

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06/22/2006 06:56:32
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Dv01D




Joined: Aug 26, 2005
Messages: 260
Location: The Grey Area
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Three days by Dv01D: causality - Vector

Three days...
She followed him out on to a surface, like an ocean, frozen in time, instantly frozen into crystal clear ice.

The sky hung down above her, like an ancient CRT tuned to a dead channel. THe Voice of God she thought the noise of the background radiation of the universe.

The eery red glow that dimmed and brightened in great bubbles trapped beneath surface giving her the creeps, an edgy feeling, right on the edge of perception, as if some part of her psyche somehow knew what this place was, but refused to communicate it to her conciousness.

The Commander stopped ahead of her, turned on his heel to face her and spoke, his deep voice booming out over the empty flat landscape.

Your 'relationship' with this Zionist girl, this Synapze777 concerns me deeply. It is time you learned the lesson."

"What lesson?" she asked. This was new, he'd never done this before.

"The only lesson. That which makes us who we are, WHAT we are"

She new better than to interrupt. If this was a lesson, she was meant to listen, not talk.

"You know, that the Matrix you - we - inhabited is gone."

She just nods at this, what else could she do?

"After the war, came the 'Peace'. I call it that, because anyone with half a brain knew what kind of peace it was. Both the machines and Zion simply put hostilities on hold while they prepared their forces.

We knew that the Zionists still wanted the Matrix destroyed, and the Machines still wanted the entire human race in pods, they had just agreed to let it drop for a bit.

I mean, common sense dictates that as soon as one gained an obvious advantage the 'Peace' would disintegrate and the war would begin again.

There were a few - during this downtime, between the iterations, when the pod-people dreamed the chemical dreams the machines fed them instead of the Matrix-feed - that disagreed with that fervent belief of the majority of Zionists that the Matrix must be destroyed at all costs. After all, Morpheus himself said that were the Matrix to be destroyed and the Machines overthrown, 'Millions would die'.

Not a price all of us were willing to pay, not to mention those that just figured being self aware in a world of drones gave them a distinct advantage over others, with what they had learned about the nature of that world they would be able to live like lords in the Matrix.

And so a schism became apparent.

The council met, and the rebels were exiled. Given 6 ships and sent out from Zion.

This place, this is where we came. A desert. There was nothing here but sand. During the year that the Matrix was inactive, we built our own ships, based on the Zionists designs. The Dysfunction was one of this new breed of hovercraft.

There was little trust in those days, we - the exiled humans - didn't believe for one second that the truce applied to us, so our ships were small, fast, and virtually undetectable.

The other things that made the Dysfunction so different to the Zion ships were it's purpose, and it's computer-core. We designed that - I designed it, with an AI in mind, from scavenged parts of the Machine Mainframe, but it found another purpose.

Eventually the Machines began beta-testing the newly re-iterated Matrix, and of course, we began running missions, along with the awakened representatives of the Machines and Zion.

We began earning our keep, as it were, extracting exiles from the Matrix using our new AI compatible cores.

It made sense, perfectly, that humans exiled from the city of Zion, and those programs exiled from the Machine Mainframe would join forces, and we continued to build our freedom. We 'recovered' systems from the Machine cities, and build new homes for our new allies, just as we built homes for our families.

We knew the machines would be looking for us, so we built right out here, we used sub-tents, you know, the ones that drill themselves down about six feet then self-inflate, protecting the inhabitants from the desert heat."

"Colonel, I know all this, this isn't a lesson, this is just a reminiscence, I know you came here shortly after it was established, I know you walked here alone across the desert after self-substantiating, and I'm suitably impressed OK."

"NO!" he moved his face close to hers, staring into her eyes, "it is not OK. And it's Commander now Major" a trace of irony.

"So, tell me what happened here then. Let me learn this lesson of yours"

They started walking again, apparently aimless.

"We knew that the Zionists and the Machines would collude against us, they were negotiating a peace, and every peace has a price.

Once the beta-test phase was complete, that price became clear.

Zion sold us out.

Four, chain-linked tactical thermo-nuclear devices were deployed against the new home of the Exiles, both human and program, Zionists hated us because we didn't want the Matrix destroyed, didn't believe in their brand of freedom, and the Machines wanted us destroyed because we were harbouring Exile programs."

He stood with his back to her, arms outstretched, cane in his right hand, coat flapping around him in the howling wind.

"We walk now, upon the Fields of Failure. The smouldering bodies of our dead.

Each of these beautiful bubbles you see beneath you is someones family, dessicated in the instant of the blast, sealed in the glass of a melted desert, they rise and fall constantly within their superheated tombs as the Earth heats and cools beneath them."

She knew she was losing it. She felt like the day he'd first shown her the pods from the outside, her mind reeled. No, not her mind, her world. Must have been the world, because she was on her knees, weeping now, looking down into one of those red light-bubbles, under the crystal-clear surface. She wiped her eyes. Wished she hadn't.

A face. All it could be. Eyeless. Blackened. Caught in a rictus scream stared back at her.

She puked at it.

She vaguely heard the Commander pass her, he was returning to the ship.

"The Dysfunction will be leaving in 5 minutes" he announced "I'd prefer it if you were with me.

And so would you.

If you're not, you're against me".

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06/25/2006 14:53:34
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Fyre




Joined: Jun 25, 2006
Messages: 1
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hey just seen this competion (handle Zilance - recursion) (reborn part 1)



I open my eyes from my slumber trying to rid myself from some sort of self induced paranoia. I remember thinking throughout the night about the morning in which I will wake to see her one last time before she left. I remember her eyes vividly in my nightmares I had of her dying without me. I tried all night to suppress these dreams but the more I tried to change the imagery the less ambiguous they became. I sit up on my bed and dry the physically reminders of my sleep from my eyes. I look at the palm of my hand and see on It the imprints of how I slept holding on the rails of the bed. I must have been performing actions while I slept. It’s not abnormally to physically act out your dreams in a state just before REM the body still has the same mental state as if fully awake. Remember the dreams in which you fall and can feel it, it’s your brain bracing you for what seems to be a physical action.

I stand up from my bed wearing only my boxer shorts and look down on to my body. I start thinking about what life would have been if I was just a little bigger or a little bit smaller. In the middle is a place where I sit not that big or that small but the median is never suffices. I smile when I look down for the morning friend being awake to see me. Great friend who wakes up even before me. I take those few steps across to the bathroom which stands adjacent to my room. I been living in a hostel for the past 5 months while I get back on my feet, this is where I met the girl I will be losing. She came here with a few friends on a night for the drinks and culture. I remember the night as if it was written in a book in front of me every small detail. She had sat away from her friends while they played a game of drinking cricket something the English seem to enjoy when drunk. I felt compelled to walk over and sit with her. I moved over to sit next to her but a friend of hers grabbed and pulled her away.

My bathroom a place where I am king full of all my utensils to make myself less ugly then I perceive. The mirror in front of me is always fogged up maybe it’s a defence mechanism for it. Having to be used by so many people in a day. The sink below it holds the scars of so many people there is still some of themselves left there for all to see. I turn on the cold tap hoping for some of the old hairs and dry skin to be taken away. I place the plug in to the sink and fill it up with both the cold and hot taps but neither seems to actually give what they are meant for. The cold tape gives a warm sort of water and the hot a similar but more cloudily colour. I stop the water around the height where the safety hole comes in to the action. I slowly put my head in to the water and stop breathing. The seconds go past like minutes as I try to hold my head beneath the surface of the water. I see a picture of her in this strange light I see in front of myself. The light seems to be beckoning me towards it. I feel a sudden force on my shoulder pulling me back from the light and always thrown me now in to the room I started in. I begin to hear a German accent in my ear but I can’t see nothing but the beautiful light in front of me. “wake up Simon”. The voice rings in my head wake up, but am I not in reality now and I’m waking in to a dream. I try my best to ignore the voice but it begins to get louder and I can now feel a force on to my chest. And a strange feeling on my lips and slowly it begins to play in my head Lars’ is trying to wake me up. I shudder as I feel the hands move back to my chest and wake up alert.

“not this again, my French friend, you are starting to make a habit out of having me waking you up”.

I shake my head and smile a sly smile. I start thinking now less of the whole being saved situation in to a more of a sort of embarrassing feeling with myself lying on the floor in basically only a small pair of short and having a large German guy wearing a Def leppard T-shirt and ripped jeans sitting over me. I make my way to my feet using the skin but I slip as I stand and Lars’ grabs my hand and helps me steady myself. “thanks Lars” I say as if it had meaning he looks back at me and pulls the plug from the skin and walks away as if the situation was nothing. I rub away the fog from the mirror and look at myself. I start thinking about how much I want to be someone else, somewhere else so I would not need to handle this whole situation. How do you say bye to the only person you can say you really loved. There is two deaths in this world there is the one in which you can escape and the one you live with and coming after Lars intervention I am going to be living the following.

I walk back across the corridor to my room and look left and right and see the people going along with there lives most of them just here for the night. This is just a place to leave your meaningless items while you got out in to the meaningless world. Everyone here has nothing to do but spend the money they got from their parents or part time jobs. I open my door and close it while the ambience outside still plays in to the room. I grab my jeans from the chair in the centre of the room and put them on and walk over to the window which faces the most industrial side of London and look out to all the black smoke and the peoples with there grey dead faces.

I turn and knee on the floor and pull my suitcase from under the bed and pull it out and lift it to the bed. I open it using the code which is also my deceased grandfather’s birthday. I open it up and look inside to see a picture of myself and friends back home in Senlis. In retrospect I was happy then the smile on my face was not a lie. Back in those simple days in the simple place things held no reason and nothing to be guilty about. I put the picture on the bed and face it away from me. I take a plain white shirt and throw it on myself in the fashion of a man who is sick of the monotonous nature of his actions. I close the suitcase with the picture still out laying on my bed. I put my head on to the suitcase and close my eyes holding back the tears I’m sure to shred before the day is over. I sit in silence for about 2 minutes thinking about the courses of action I should go with. I slide the suitcase off the bed and move my head to let it past I place it under the bed and stand up and leave the room closing it behind myself.

I walk down the hall of the hostel the state of disrepair in which It lies is disgraceful. But for me this place is home it’s like my mind in ways full of rooms which hide something different in each one. I walk down the stairs and make my way to the exit of the building and walk to the reception. I pass my key card to the poor girl who is sitting on the desk I walk out of the doors of the building and walk to my right. I make my way up a path with building to either side with different people standing in the windows. I walk up the glass covered path towards a tube station which I know to never be busy at this time of the day.

In the station I quickly hop over the ticket point and walk down the elevator as the odd person stands waiting holding on to the rail. I see them leaving there pockets exposed I hold my composure as I walk past the people. I try not to fall in to the life I now live in with the only money I make is off helpful locals or naïve tourists. Who would think a French man in London being one of the many colourful locals. I walk off the stairs and get in to the almost closing doors of a passing tube.

The train is full almost to maximum which is not uncommon during this time of day. I slowly rub against a large looking guy most possible American and put my hand in to his open pocket with his tube pass in it. I pull it out and place it in to my own pocket. I hate doing this but I am going to a major station and this guy would be able to afford another one. I wait on the train till I get to kings cross and slide off the train using the same grace I got on and see the seats in which I first got to actually talk to her. I followed her through the night trying to get to talk to her. I caught up with her while at this station her friends were off vomiting or something beautifully feminine. I sat next to her and started talking and found to be a soul like myself. Her words flowed with such beauty I was unable to take my eyes off her lips for the most of the time during the meeting. The told me of the world in which she lived one of grace and beauty and sadly of money. She left me to return to her flat in Knightsbridge and agreed to meet me at a restaurant in Chelsea the next day.

I enter the train station directly from the tube station up those small stairs. She is set to meet me at platform 4. I walk over towards the platform and look up towards the tracks which stand bare. The train must not be here yet, wait what time was I meant to meet her. Eleven I think I look over to the platform details and see the time. I missed her by over an hour. I died that second I was unable to say goodbye because I ignored the time which I never checked. It’s just my bad luck to miss her like this. Maybe I should follow the tracks after her but how far will I get till I come to the tunnel home. She has made her way to Italy to live and become a fashion designer like her mother and make a bucket load of money. I walk towards the seats at the station and sit down and my head falls I see a small slip of paper on the seat. I pick it up hoping for it to be some kind of currency someone left by accident.

“Simon, I’m sorry maybe you were caught up on some important business and could not make it. I wanted to say goodbye to you in person and don’t even know if this would ever even get to you, it’s a long shot but I hope your luck will change and you will find this. Simon follow where your heart takes you and maybe we will meet up together in the end if that is what destiny has in store for you
Good bye
Michelle”

I put the note in to my pocket and stand up from the seat and begin a depressed exit of the station I walk through a large crowd of people and they seem to begin to fade in to shadows as they pass I look towards the exit where two men in immaculate suits stand but of them look as if they are out of some bad FBI show. I walk towards the exit in till I feel someone pull down on my arm and I slowly move towards the direction I am being dragged towards. I am being pulled towards the dark corner of the station and I see the two men begin to move in the corner of my eye. I hear the voice of the person pulling me reassuring me for some reason, I have no idea why but I just allow this to happen I am but a shell. The voice sounds quite endogamous as we make our way to this small part of the station. We stop and I have time to look at the person who Is pulling me. He is a short man with a small build he looks like a random bum off the streets but he seems to have something odd about him. He lifts up one of the concrete slabs from the floor. It’s an amazing site to see such a small person with that much power. He points for me to continue onwards down some small passage towards some kind of lantern. “continue” he says in that voice of his. I follow the directions without actually asking why. I step down and being walking not thinking if the man was coming with me. I turn back to see if he is there and hear the slab being moved back but I can’t hear his steps behind me. The fear comes to my mind maybe he was some lunatic wanting to bury me alive. I begin to run along the passage thinking to myself good thoughts as I try to forget how much oxygen must be down here. I run in to a large wall which seems to be a dead end.

I begin to lose hope and fall to my knees. Maybe this is my death to be left in this hole maybe it was the angel of mercy bring me here so I wont hurt anyone more. I can’t let this happen. I get to my feet and begin hitting my arms against the wall at the end and feeling In case it is hollow maybe I can break through it. I hit upon it for what seems like eternity till I lose the little hope I had and slide down the door and collapse on the floor. I hit the floor and hear a door opening and something else being moved. I look behind me and see one of the suited men walking down the path maybe they are here to save me from that lunatic from before I wave towards them. One of them pulls out a gun from his pocket, my heart sinks maybe that guy was saving me I feel someone pull me with great force through the now removed wall in front of me. I awake in the room which is painted the brightest shade of white with two men looking at me and a woman sitting on a beautiful suede couch.

End of part 1

Message Edited by Fyre on 06.25.2006 03:55 PM

Message Edited by Fyre on 06.25.2006 03:59 PM

Message Edited by Fyre on 06.25.2006 04:00 PM

Message edited by Fyre on 06/25/2006 15:00:47.
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06/29/2006 07:21:22
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Midnight


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 4459
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How is this going by the way? Any feedback?
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07/02/2006 22:34:39
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
NeoXytheril




Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 214
Location: Where no elevator can go, and no stair can reach.
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I'm throwing my hat into this ring.

In Other News by Xytheril - Recursion

The small intercom buzzed twice on the desk. The man sitting near it reached over and pressed the button. "Yes Cathy, what is it?" he said into the small speaker. "Mr. Black is here to see you, Mr. Richards." was the reply. "Ah. Send him in." Mark Richards was a middle aged man. He had a few grey hairs here and there, which was only accented by the dark business suit he wore. He finished signing most of the papers he had in front of him and tossed them on the small stack he had near the phone as a tall dark skinned man entered. Mark quickly stood up and stepped around his desk, extending his hand. "Hello, Mr. Black. This is an unexpected surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked as Mr. Black removed his fedora and shook the hand that had been presented to him. "Before we get straight down to business, I want to introduce to you an associate of mine," he said as he signalled to the ajar office door. A second man entered, lighter skin and not as tall, with a suit that wasn't nearly as extravagant as his business partner's either. "This is Mr. Dolor, and he's going to be assisting me with the matter I have at hand with you today." Mark extended his hand to the new face. "Nice to meet...." Mr. Dolor didn't shake his hand, or even look at it.

Mark retracted the limb and turned back to his desk. "Now, what brings you here today?" he asked the pair as he sat down. He gestured towards the two chairs, offering them, but neither sat. "I've got a bit of a problem. See, I've been reading up on this new proposal you've put before the City Commercial Regulatory Commission." Mark simply nodded his head in understanding. "Mr. Black, I understand your concerns. I know this has the potential to impact your business, but you have to look at this from all sides of the issue. There are many businesses that unless...." Mr. Black held up his hand and cut him off in mid sentence. "Mr. Richards, Maybe YOU aren't looking at this from the PROPER side of this. Why don't you tell my associate here how you came to be mayor of this fair city?" Mr. Dolor stepped over and took a seat in the nearest of the two chairs, crossing a leg and focusing his full attention on Mark. "Oh.....um....ok...." he said slowly, his voice becoming slightly shaky as Mr. Dolor seemingly gazed directly into his soul.

"It was about 12.....no....13 years ago? I was just a prosecuting attorney for the 12th district court at the time. I was pretty good at it, and so I got invited to some exclusive parties that my clients threw after they won. Something wasn't exactly right though. I saw some things behind closed doors that....they seemed like something out of a dream. I did some checking into things and it seemed that a lot of my clients were VERY old, with records going back as far as the Revolutionary War. I kept digging and I met a man named Roland. He told me that the only way to find out the answers to my questions about these people was to go with him. He gave me this pill, which I took, and that's when things got wierd. I woke up and it was like everything had gone to hell. I found out that we were all just being used to power this empire of machines. The last humans lived underground and fought this war. I lived with them for a little while, but the whole ordeal didn't sit well with me, the fact that our entire lives were just a simulation."

Mr. Dolor nodded slowly. "Well, you seem to be here now. I've heard that once you leave, you don't come back." Mark waved his hand. "I'm getting to that. So anyways, I couldn't just sit out there while all of these people were living horrible lives. I decided I'd come back and tell everyone what was going on. I knew that a lot of people would look at me as a madman, but what the hell. Be a madman in this world, or a dirty hunted rat in that one. Not much difference, eh? I made contact with the authorities and gave them detailed plans on several of the ships that those people outside were using to come here. All the strengths, all the weaknesses, everything. They seemed very interested in them. The ability to destroy those ships with minimal losses to their own resources was very tantalizing. After I gave those schematics up, I snuck off the ship. Didn't take long before their flying soldiers came. I witnessed them destroy at least six of those craft and damage several others in a heartbeat. The survivors quickly retreated to safety."

Mark stood and approached a small cabinet in the corner of the office. He removed a bottle of bourbon and several glasses. "Can I offer either of you gentlemen a drink?" he asked. Both of the two declined quickly. Mark shrugged and poured himself a double, returning the bottle. "After they brought me back and put me back in, they tried to erase my memory. They didn't do a very good job of it. Little details slowly crept back in over the weeks. By then, I'd resumed my job as an attorney. I was handling a case against Mr. Black. I don't remember what the suit was about, but I know I remembered most of what they'd tried to make me forget about the outside world. I took him aside and threatened to reveal the truth of this world if he didn't settle out of court. Not only did he settle, but he offered to help me in my career if I kept my mouth shut. He financed my campaign to every office up to this point."

Mr. Dolor took an interested look on his face. "What I want to know is why my associate here would help you ascend to this office, when if I had been in his position, I'd have simply had you killed?" He looked to Mr Black, who stepped towards the desk. "And that question, my friend, is why I'm standing in this office," he answered. "I thought when I made that offer, I could actually gain something from it. Friends in high places will take you far. So I'm going to state my business again. I've been reading about this new proposal you've put before the City Commercial Regulatory Commission. Something about increasing the property and revenue tax brackets for high volume businesses, while reducing it for smaller businesses. I stand to lose a great deal of income and influence with this. I'm hoping it wasn't a mistake investing all of that time and money in your campaigns, and I would be very appreciative as both your friend, and as a powerful man who you owe a great deal to, if you would make this nasty little business go away."

Mark took a gulp of his drink and cringed a bit from the bite it gave his throat. He set the glass down, stood, and looked Mr. Black directly in the eye. "Mr. Black, when I was out there, in the real world, I was responsible for the deaths of at least 50 people. At the time, I didn't think too much of it since I was going home. But now, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about what happened." He turned and looked out the window at the city streets below. "There are people down there who are starving, trying to make ends meet. They own grocery stores, pharmacies, comic book shops, beauty salons, tattoo parlors, and so on. They're being trampled over by corporate industries. I'm not going to let these people die too, and if it means you have to lose some money, than I'm sorry. I know I owe you a great deal, and I'll try and make it up to you some other way. I just can't sit with those people on my conscience any more."

Mr. Dolor stood from his chair as Mr. Black heaved a small sigh, putting his fedora back on his head. "No, making it up won't be necessary," he said as he turned and opened the door to the office. "Maybe I did make a mistake after all." Mr. Dolor left the office, turning to gaze intently at Mark before stalking off down the corridor. "We'll be in touch," Mr. Black said as he exited the room and closed the door behind him. Mark picked up the piece of paper on the top of the stack he had been reading over before his guests had come in. It was the final draft of the very proposal they had been discussing. He signed his name to the bottom and returned it to the pile. "No, I think I was the one who made the mistake," he said to himself as he downed the last of his glass's contents.

"And we are live in 5, 4, 3, 2....."

"Good evening. I'm Karen Leins and this is the Channel 6 Action News at 11. Authorities are still baffled by a series of terrorist attacks last night. A nuclear reactor some twenty miles outside the city limits was destroyed just after midnight in a bombing, leaving half the city without power for several minutes until backup systems were engaged. Officials from the Department of Energy still have yet to comment on the incident. Turning to other topics, early this morning police found the body of city mayor Mark Richards in the bedroom of his downtown loft. Reports are confirming multiple gunshot wounds as well as severe lacerations to the chest and lower neck. The state of the apartment suggests that there was a struggle. If anyone has any information regarding the case, please call the hotline at the bottom of your screen. In other news......"
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07/06/2006 12:45:19
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
BobDaGreat




Joined: Jul 6, 2006
Messages: 3
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Normally I'd be posting under the handle "Aule5", but due to unforseen circumstances I am using this handle.

Anyway, here you go. Print it out, don't read it where it sits, since spell-check went all scribbly on it.

The Fall of the HvCFT Nemesis by Au1e of Syntax

Part 1: Non Doli Capax

Part 2: The Phantom Pilot

Part 3: O Captain my Captain!
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07/06/2006 15:09:32
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Tefnut


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 1603
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I would like to wish everyone good luck on this and may the best FA win. Oh... wait.... R*****n isn't the judge.... nevermind. Good luck to you all
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07/11/2006 15:37:43
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


Vindicator

Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
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2 weeks left until the deadline (11:59PM PST on July 25th 2006).

I hope you are all reading along. Some of these stories are off the hook!

Leep 'em comin'!
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07/17/2006 15:07:10
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


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Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
Online

Just over a week left.



Prizes Finalized

Winners will have a choice of Paypal credit or gift certificate to Amazon.com. I think Paypal is pretty versatile so you can apply it to just about anything on the internet these days.



Good luck!
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07/20/2006 00:41:01
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


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Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
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5 days left.
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07/24/2006 21:18:40
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


Vindicator

Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
Online


Since the forum bugs have been acting up lately, I have decided to extend the deadine by 48 hours. Since the forums are unavailable sometimes, I'll provide my e-mail address also.

VesuveusMxO at yahoo dot com

Send me the story or a link tot where the story is hosted by 11:59PM PST on Thursday, July 27th 2006. Note that links to these forums are not working properly.

Enjoy!

Message edited by Vesuveus on 07/24/2006 21:21:56.
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07/25/2006 10:10:24
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Satta


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 3546
Location: Los Angeles
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Okay I am not good with computers. I have a story, but I have no idea how to post it. I see you guys have links with the title of your story and then you just click on the title name and it goes straight to your story. How do you do that? What can I use to host my story?
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07/25/2006 18:28:16
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


Vindicator

Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
Online


If the story is posted on, say, The Collective forums then you can post the link here.

Type the title, like the others did, in a post in this forum.

Then highlight the text. Above the text box, right below the smileys is a 'link' button. It looks like a chain link.

Anyhow, click that and paste the address to the story in the box. Just make sure the story is posted on a forum that I would have access to.

Or you could just email the story to me at the address above.
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07/26/2006 10:19:47
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Midnight


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 4459
Location: The Immortalis Faction:Fallen Horizon Level: 50 Gunman Operative Rank: Captain Beta Vetern
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This should be excitng..Good Luck all!
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07/27/2006 22:46:22
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
NeoXytheril




Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 214
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What about the stories that were posted as links to the old boards? I'm sure you've read and judged them by now, but some of us haven't. If anyone would be so kind as to maybe repost?
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07/28/2006 06:04:43
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


Vindicator

Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
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This contest is now closed. I will announce winners in about a week. Thank you to those that entered.
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07/30/2006 18:39:18
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


Vindicator

Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
Online


Here is a quick review of the entrants and their stories.

15 Authors entered. Names alphabetically:

* 3y3p0pp3r
* Au1e
* Delinquent/Vaulus
* Dv01D
* EchoSnare
* Fenshire
* LostProphet
* Midnight1
* MidoriMegami
* Moondog584
* Roukan (entered second story while forums were down)
* Sattakan (entered story while forums were down)
* Tefnutt
* Xytheril
* Zilance

22 stories were entered for a total of:

186 total pages (when formatted to 12pt font, Times New Roman on Microsoft Word)

Again thank you to those who entered.
Winners will be announced in about a week.
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07/31/2006 03:00:36
Subject: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
[CoZ]LostProphet




Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 3027
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Woo!
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08/06/2006 20:06:55
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


Vindicator

Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
Online


Sattakan's Entr

[Vesuveus]

08/06/2006 20:06:55
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


Vindicator

Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
Online


Sattakan's Entry via e-mail while the forums were down...


Sattakan's Awakening by Sattakan of Recursion pt 1

My sister picked me up from school today which is very odd. She is usually at the library studying like she always does or working. Normally my mother picks me up and takes me to get some ice cream, if I was good in school. Today I was on my best behavior. I couldn't wait to tell my Mom the good news and then tell my Dad about it when he gets home from work.

My Dad is a police captain in Megacity. He has been an officer all his life, and even though I am only 5, I want to be an officer as well. He works long hours and recently he has been working on a case that takes up all his time. I ask him why he has to be away and not at home playing with me, and he tells me, "Son I have to protect us from the terrorists." Being 5, I have no concept of what a terrorist is, but I knew it had my father worried. My father told me that there is a local gang network operating in his precinct. They have never had many problems with them before, but a war has seemed to break out with a new group operating in the same area.

My Dad said that the federal agents have taken control of the case because this new gang is actually international terrorists who are wanted for murder, conspiracy, espionage, and a whole list of stuff I do not understand. My father said that he saw these criminals do things that do not seem humanly possible, like out of an old school karate flick. I love watching those karate movies, where the guys can do flips, jump on top of roofs, and walk on water. I especially like the older movies that were not translated into English. It is funny watching their mouths move.

"Cammy why are you picking me up? Where is mommy?" My sister looked horrible and I can tell something was wrong. She did not answer me she just said, "Get your book bag, we have to go now!" She grabbed me by my arm and nearly dragged me to her car.

My sister is a very beautiful woman. Her real name is Camara which means "teacher." She acts much older than her age. She just turned 16 but she graduated from Mega City University with a 4.0 at the age of 15. She hangs out with strange people who are all into computers. She is considered a genius and her IQ level is up there with Einstein. I admire her, but she is no fun. She never wants to play with me. She is always telling me how to act, and that school is important, but I just want to play. She is way too serious. A top notch computer firm hired Cammy right after graduation, but they had to work out a deal with our parents, because she is under age. The funny thing is she makes more money than our Dad, but she has to live at home and the corporation is paying for her continued studies. She always says that she cannot wait to turn 18.

While we are in the car, Cammy still has not said anything. Her cell phone rings, "Hi mommy, I just picked up Satta and we are on our way right now." My name is Sattakan, but everyone calls me Satta. "Where are we going Cammy," I ask my sister. "We are going to the hospital, daddy was hurt." I did not know what to say, so I just sat there.

When we arrived at the hospital I overheard the doctor telling my mom that they do not think Dad will make it through the night. "You and your family may spend a little time with him Mrs. Ivey. He is conscious," said the doctor. We walked into the room and dad looked fine. The doctor said he had internal bleeding that couldn't be stopped. My dad smiled when he saw us. My Mom started crying uncontrollably. I said, "Dad! Get up, let's go home!" He just smiled and said, "Satta, daddy will not be able to go home with you today. I will always be with you and I love you." I said, "Daddy what happened?" He said, "I tried to stop the terrorists. They were shooting at the federal agents and I returned fire. They were just too fast and I was hit." My sister said, "Daddy, why did you try to stop them if the federal agents were there?" Dad said, "Because it was the right thing to do and innocent people could have gotten shot." Cammy said, "Dad did any of the federal agents get hurt?" "No, but the terrorists got away." My mom grabbed my dad and she just kept whispering, "Don't leave me, I cannot live without you." My father started to shake uncontrollably and all the buzzers started going off. They were very loud and all these people came running in, and they rushed us out. My dad died that night and nothing was the same ever again.

My dad's funeral was a big event in our neighborhood. The police commissioner, fire chief, mayor, and anybody who was anybody in politics attended the funeral. It seemed like all the policeman and fireman in the city were there. I have watched other funerals briefly on TV. before, but my Dad was important. Everybody liked him and he was well respected. After all those years on the force he met lifelong friends. They all called him 'Cap.' Everybody came over to me and said that 'Cap' was a good man. They all knew my father better than I did. My mother was a complete mess. She hasn't stopped crying since dad died. My sister has not spoken a word since that day in the hospital. She seemed to be searching in her mind for something. Something un-explainable. I didn't know how to feel other than know that everybody was hurting and my Dad was never coming home.

They draped my father's coffin with the flag and did the 21 gun salute, because he was a former marine. I liked the sound of the guns shooting with the horn blowing. Something caught my eye. Something that was unusual and Cammy noticed it too. There was one man in a black suit standing off in the distance. He looked like the men my dad said were from the Government. I looked on with intrigue. Dad said these men were here to protect us from the terrorists. The same terrorists that killed my father. I got up out of my chair and started running to that strange man. My sister screamed for me to come back. Once I reached the man I just grabbed his leg in a bear hug. The man just looked at me without emotion. I said, "Are you here to protect us from the people that killed my daddy?" The man just nodded his head. By that time my sister grabbed me and picked me up. She said, "Get away from him Satta, he killed Daddy." I said, "No, no he was working with Daddy." "Then why weren't any of them injured in that fight? That was not Daddy's fight." She carried me off back to the procession and I just looked over her shoulder at the man.

It would be 3 years before I saw that strange man's face again. That man who was watching over us at my daddy's funeral. My mom was never able to recover from my Dad's death and she had a mental break down. She was no longer able to care for Cammy and me. She was instituted into "Daily Hope" mental institute, the best one in the city. My sister was making a lot of money with her company and the State let her raise me. She worked hard and late so she enrolled me in a bunch of after school programs to keep me busy until she got home. My favorite was Tae Kwon Do. I was a clumsy kid; always tripping over my feet, but the martial arts was teaching me balance.

My sister became all consumed with that stupid laptop whenever she was home. She was possessed with finding out about the secret government agents and the terrorists. She would always tell me that things are not as they seem. She started possessing strange powers. Whenever she was angry she was able to move things with her mind. The first time this happened it scared both me and her. I used to run in the house without closing the front door, and one day she got so mad she said, "CLOSE THAT *CENSORED* DOOR." Before I could close it, the door closed all on its own. I called her a witch, and she made me promise not to tell anyone. She soon learned how to control this power and use it at will, but I could never do it.

The month of her disappearance she was very reclusive. She kept saying, "Things are not as they seem." She always felt that somebody was watching her. I got mad at her and told her, "You're not human!" On the contrary, my sister was more human than any of us could realize. One day a policeman came to our door and questioned my sister about having ties to some terrorist organization called Zion. That is the first time I ever heard that name. That must be the name of the group that killed my Dad. My sister said that she did not know anything, but they confiscated her computer.

Later that night my sister comes running in my room and says, "We have to go right now!" She just grabbed me and slipped on my shoes. "Where are we going," I asked. She said, "We are going to the real world." "What about my things," I asked. "Those things will be of no use to you where we are going Satta," said Cammy. Cammy opened the front door and we were no more than 20 feet from the house when a figure, whom I could not make out said, "follow me." We began to follow this figure when bullets started flying over our heads from behind. The figure said, "Agents are coming, run!" As we picked up speed, I was struggling to keep up and the figure just sweepingly sped away. Moments later gunshots from in front of us passed over our heads towards the Agents. Those shots startled me and I tripped over my own feet. "Cammy!" I yelled. My sister stopped and turned around, "Sattakan!!!" The mysterious figure grabbed my sister with one hand and took off running. "No, wait, what about my brother?!? We had a deal!" Said Cammy. The figure said, "It is not his time!" And they were gone. A few seconds later 3 Government Agents ran past me after my sister, but 1 stopped and looked at me. It was the same man who was at my dad's funeral. He said, "I'll be watching you," and he took off after the other Agents with lightning speed. I never saw my sister again!
To understand this story you must read parts 1 and 2 first that are posted on these boards.

It has been 15 years since Camara disappeared that fateful dark night. It has also been 18 years since my Father was gunned down by those terrorists. Fate is not without a since of irony. I followed in my Fathers footsteps and I joined the Marines. I was an excellent soldier and an even better assassin. Not a day goes by that I do not think about my sister and her disappearance. The police closed her case over 10 years ago and presumed that she was dead. The FBI has her case classified with only top level clearance. There is almost no trace that she even existed. I will never forget. I will not forget those terrorists that tore my life upside down.

My success in the military led me to opportunities within the FBI, Secret Service, and CIA. I never asked questions, I just did the job with no emotions attached. You cannot be an assassin and have emotions. But the truth is my emotions are all focused on one thing. I want to find out what happened to my sister. My success gave me opportunity to do my private investigation. I needed information on these terrorists and hopefully I would be able to find them. They hold the key to all of my questions. They will also feel my wrath. I was assigned to protect dignitaries and foreign heads of state. My job was to protect, but the government used me to gather information about these VIP's without their knowledge. I was a spy. Every day I would write a report and send it to the Federal Agents downtown. After a year of this I was called to a meeting at the main office downtown. It is not a spectacular building, just another government building that could pass as an office tower. I met with 3 Agents.

This meeting seemed more like an interrogation than a meeting. They asked questions and I answered, and it seemed routine enough until one of them said, "Have you ever heard of Zion?" That word hit me like a ton of bricks. I answered "Yes." The Agent said, "What do you know about Zion?" I answered, "That they are a terrorist organization that has been operating in the city for almost 20 years, but are very elusive. They are like a ghost mafia." The agents just looked at each other. One said, "Mr. Ivey we have been following you and are impressed with your work. You have never failed a mission. We have a mission for you. We want you to be apart of our task force to bring these terrorists to justice. Many innocent people have been murdered by their hands." I said, "of course anything that you need me to do." "Mr. Ivey we are now giving you full access to our classified files regarding the terrorists." I said, "Yes of course, I will get right on it."

I walked out of that room shaking. I would finally get my revenge for my Fathers death. I swear I will make these terrorists pay for destroying my life. They gave me an office in the federal building, but I am not a desk person. I was set up with a personal office center at my house so I can access all of my files after hours. It was going to take me weeks to go through all of the paperwork, but I knew my answers were there. I got to know all of the officers in the Federal building. There was one officer who always greeted me with a smile in the morning as I walked through the lobby. His name was Johnson and he never asked me about my personal life, but he would always say, "I hope you find what you are looking for Sattakan." I appreciated hearing him say that.

It seemed that the number one terrorist was a man named Morpheus. All we have is a name and a list of crimes that could spread two miles long. I heard about him on the news, but it was always vague. One morning I received a special message on my secure e-mail file. The subject was, "This is what you are looking for." Right before I opened it we got a call about a possible ambush on some of the Terrorists. A report is that Morpheus is one of them. I forwarded all of my messages to my home computer and ran out of the door. By the time my unit arrived to the site Morpheus had already been taken into custody and was headed back to the Federal building. I demanded to interrogate him, but the Agents told me that I could have him tomorrow. It took me 2 more hours going over the crime scene. All we found were bodies, and it looked like the only one taken alive was Morpheus.

All of a sudden all of our pagers went off. I yelled what was going on and one of the officers yelled, "The Federal building is under attack." I said, "What, that cannot be? Who would be stupid enough to attack that fortress?" We hopped in our cars to head back to headquarters, but we are a good hour and a half away. All we got was static on the CB's and walkie talkies. The phone lines were dead. I thought to myself, "They could not be trying to rescue Morpheus, which is suicide. He must be more important than we thought." A huge explosion interrupted my thought process. A ball of fire could be seen emanating from the center of the city in the vicinity of the federal building. By the time we got to the scene the whole bottom floor of the building was gutted out. It looked like a scene from the Oklahoma City bombing, except this explosion came from the inside. Fire crews were everywhere, and a charred helicopter was in the middle of the street a few blocks away. The military had cordoned off the whole area and we were not even allowed to go near the building for fear of a structural collapse.
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08/06/2006 20:07:53
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


Vindicator

Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
Online
Sattakan's Awakening by Sattakan of Recursion pt 2

That night I went home and logged onto my computer. I had access to all video cameras and the recordings for the day. I saw two figures walk into the lobby and without even saying a word they just opened fire on the guards. I watched a woman point a semi-automatic at Johnson and he fell to the ground dead. "What did Johnson do to deserve that?" I was filled with rage and nearly punched a whole in the wall. I thought about how my Father died just doing his job. These terrorists must be stopped at all costs. Before I fell asleep I remembered the e-mail messages I sent to myself. I got myself a cup of coffee and sat at my computer again. Once again the message popped up that said, "This is what you are looking for." There was no name on the original sender and just an attachment in jpg form. I opened it and clear as day was a picture of Morpheus in a long black trench coat. I recognized some of the other figures that were with him, because they died today in our ambush. But then I saw something that shook me to my core. There was a woman standing behind one of Morpheus's associates partly obscured. I messed around with the zoom and I yelled out, "CAMMY, you're alive!"

It has been almost a year since the Terrorists blew up the Federal building and broke Morpheus out. It seems that the whole world has gone crazy since that day. The terrorists have scaled up their kidnapping attacks. We have reports of people missing all over the place, and not a single case has been resolved. Our Agency is flooded and on the brink of collapse.

I have not had a good night sleep since that day. I lost a lot of friends in that explosion, including Johnson. I never really had a conversation with him, but his words were like coffee to my brain. "I hope you find what you are looking for Sattakan." Johnson's voice would keep me going, especially now that I know that Camara is still alive.

All this time has passed and I am no closer to finding Cammy than the day that mysterious e-mail popped up. I had our guys in the tech department try to trace the e-mail, which of course led to yet another dead end. I could send replies but, I never got a response back. Sometimes at night I would just type what I was feeling. "Where are you Cammy, please contact me?" I would type over and over again.

I needed answers, yet I got the feeling that even the agents were not being straight with me. They have now moved Morpheus off the list as the most wanted man in the world. His name has been replaced by a Thomas Anderson. This Mr. Anderson is reported to have killed our top Federal Agent. The confusing thing is that there have been reports of Agent Smith sightings in more than one place at the same time. The Agency did not make any moves to follow up on these sightings, and the other Agents acted like everything was normal. Agent Smith has also made no attempt at contacting headquarters.

I have been the top assassin in the world for the past 3 years. I have never heard of Thomas Anderson. I read up on his file and it seems like he was just some every day average guy. He worked at the MetaCortex building during the day, but at night he was a hacker who went by the name "Neo." His profile categorized him as a loner, and very aloof. He fit the profile of my sister. He would be the type of guy she would hang out with. He is not that much older than me, and has been reported missing for almost 2 years.

What I don't understand is how a guy like this can go from a computer geek, to being able to kill Agent Smith? I am one of the best fighters in the world, and when I would spar with Agent Smith I could hardly ever get a hit in. Yet this Neo was able to kill him and be charged with the destruction of the Federal building and murder of countless Agents including Johnson?

I decided to go to the one place where I could hold onto some sense of reality. I went to my Father's grave. It was still kept up and clean. Former officers are well respected and the tombstone looks like it is still shining new. It was very peaceful.

"Dad, I am so sorry that I have not come to see you often. It has been getting harder every time. I struggle just to remember your face. I feel like I have been robbed of a decent life. All I think about is revenge, and I cannot even claim that. These Zionists are like ghosts. They pop up one minute and then they completely vanish. I have failed you Father. I cannot even claim that you would be proud of me."

While I was pouring my heart out to my Dad's grave, I didn't even notice a small figure quietly approach from behind.

"I am proud of you Satta!" Whimpered a soft female voice from behind me.

I jumped up and to my surprise there stood my sister Camara 5 feet away from me. She was wearing a tight purple cat suit that just hugged every curve of her frame. She had on deep dark sunglasses and long flowing hair. For a woman pushing 40 she was strikingly beautiful and in better shape than me.

"Cammy is that really you?" I said.

We hugged each other and I did not ever want to let go. Tears formed in my eyes.

"Wow Satta you really have grown up. You look just like daddy!" Said Cammy who also had tears coming down her cheeks.

"I miss him to." Said Cammy as she looked down at our Father's grave.

My mind went blank and I could not remember any of the questions I had. I was just so happy to have her in my arms.

"Zionists are not terrorists Satta. You have been living in a dream world and none of this is real." Said Cammy.

"Where have you been Cammy, I have devoted my life to finding you and avenging our Father. What do you mean the Zionists are not terrorists? They killed Dad, and what are you talking about some dream world." I shot back.

"I know you have a lot of questions but, nothing is as it seems. I am so sorry that I left you, but I knew you would be alright. I left you with a lot of money and a trust fund. I have been watching you from afar." Whispered Cammy.

"I don't care about some stupid trust fund. All I cared about was you. You were the only family I had. I was 8 years old when you were kidnapped Cammy. Daddy was dead, Mom was in a mental institute and my sister was kidnapped." Cammy cut me off.

"I was not kidnapped." Said Cammy. "I was freed and I am here to save you."

For the first time during our encounter a nervous feeling came over me. All of my senses went on high alert. With my left elbow I rubbed what I already knew was beneath my jacket. Cammy noticed how my demeanor changed as well. She wrapped her arms around my neck and lifter herself to my ear.

"Listen to me I do not have a lot of time. I could not contact you earlier because they have been watching you. The Agents have not told you the truth. They knew I have been alive all this time. They used you to lure me out, but they underestimated us. The war is about to be over and I need to get you out." Said Cammy in a rushed tone.

"What war?" I whispered back

All of a sudden Cammy's eyes darted left and right. I noticed not more than 50 yards away in the shadows of some trees, 5 figures wearing all black, some with trenchoats just stood there staring at us. Without even flinching I reached for my gun.

In a lightning quick fashion Cammy had my arm wrapped around my back and she twisted herself behind me. She had her left arm wrapped around my neck and with her right foot she brought my knee down to the ground.

"Listen very closely. I will not loose you twice but time has run out. I know you have a lot of questions and the answers will come. You have been living a lie Satta. We are trying to save the world. Do you want to know the truth?"

I just nodded my head. I could not move at all. Cammy is only 5'5 and between 120 and 125lbs. She had the strength of 10 men. I knew she had telekinetic powers but not superhuman strength.

"Inside your right pocket there is a red pill. I am breaking all protocol, but you are my brother. Go back to your apartment and when you are ready send me an e-mail. Do not and I repeat do not take that pill until I contact you. Yes, it was me who sent you the photograph of me. I made sure you were not in that building when it was attacked. And I have been getting your e-mails. I love you Satta and I will see you soon." Said Cammy very quickly.

Cammy quickly darted off in the direction of those 5 figures and I drew my gun, but I did not fire.

That night in my apartment my mind was racing and replaying over and over again the encounter with Cammy. She has been alive all this time and never made contact with me. She said they were watching me. "Who was watching me? The agents?!?" I remember that night Cammy disappeared after I fell down and that Federal Agent stopped and told me that he would be watching me. When I first came to work at the Federal building the Agents did admit that they had been watching me and were impressed with my work. Is that what Cammy is talking about?

Nothing made sense, and I knew the Agents weren't being truthful so I could not go to them with this new information. My sister is the only one who can give me the answers I am looking for. She is not the same Cammy I remember. Has she been brainwashed? Has she been sipping on the Cool aid for too long? I do not know who to trust, so I have to trust myself and go with what I know.

These terrorists killed my Father that is a fact. Cammy says she was not kidnapped which means she willingly left with those same terrorists. She has now become my enemy. She says that the Zionists are trying to save humanity, but what have they saved? All I see are a trail of dead bodies that the Zionists leave behind. They kidnap people and leave no ransom. Countless families have suffered because of these Zionists, including my own.

I knew what had to be done, and I knew where the answers were. My computer screen beeped and there was a message saying, "Are you ready?" I typed back "Yes." I took the red pill and lay down on my bed. The whole room began to spin as if I had a hangover.

"Oh great, my sister has got me taken some form of an ecstasy drug." I mumbled

I closed my eyes and drifted into some form of a dream state. I was surrounded by some form of embryonic bright orange red fluid. I began to gag at something stuck in my throat. I must be dreaming, but I never felt so much alive. I started panicking and clawing to get this thing out of my mouth. It is too bright to open my eyes and I black out.

I awoke to the sound of my sister's voice!

"You are safe now Satta, I finally got you out." Said Cammy. All I could see were two shadows and a bright light. I thought I was dead. I could not move, and my body felt like it had been in a washing machine.

"You owe me big time for this Cam. Deadbolt is going to kill you, he ordered us to go straight back to Zion." Said a deep male voice.

"Whatever Deadbolt does to me does not matter. What is important is that I got my brother out." Said Cammy.

"He is too old and you tricked him, besides he is not your brother. He is a product of the farms. He could be dangerous." Said the voice.

"He is not dangerous and it doesn't matter now, the war is going to be over anyway." Said Cammy.

"I hope you are right Cam, I hope you know what you are doing." Said the voice.

"Get us prepared to leave, we are going home. You are now free Satta. Welcome to the real world!" Said Cammy as she kissed me on the cheek.

I have no clue what all that meant, but what I do know is that they are taking me to Zion. Somehow they have drugged and kidnapped me. I will have my revenge!
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08/06/2006 20:44:53
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


Vindicator

Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
Online


Ok, I read all the stories and have come up with the top 3 rated stories and authors. All stories were read in their entirety and judged based upon the criteria outlined in the first post of this thread. Vesuveus was the only judge.[/size">



3rd Prize ($5 credit)
is awarded to Au1e of Syntax for his story The Fall of the HvCFT Nemesis.

2nd Prize ($15 credit) goes to Tefnut of Recursion for her tale The Process of Compassion.

AND THE GRAND PRIZE OF A $25 CREDIT GOES TO...

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08/06/2006 20:59:33
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Vesuveus


Vindicator

Joined: Aug 20, 2005
Messages: 3049
Location: Upstate NY
Online


Picking up where the last thread (got cut off cuz these forums suck)



AND THE GRAND PRIZE OF A $25 CREDIT GOES TO...

3Y3P0PP3R of RECURSION for Who is Mohandas?



Honorable Mentions:

I think it is important to cite those authors that wrote great stories and took the time to enter them into this contest. These authors wrote entertaining tales and deserve the recognition. (Honorable mentions are in alphabetical order by author name.)

Fenshire - Broken Bonds

Lost Prophet - I enjoyed all three entries, but I'll mention Lethe and Xenthi

MidoriMegami - Midori's Story The music was a nice touch

Sattakan - Sattakan's Awakening Even though it was part of a larger story, it 'stood on its own two feet'.

Xythieril - In Other News ...



I would like to thank all the authors for your entries. Congratulations to the prize winners. Please send me a PM to make arrangements for giving you your prize. (Paypal credit or Amazon.com gift certificates.)
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08/06/2006 21:51:12
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Midnight


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 4459
Location: The Immortalis Faction:Fallen Horizon Level: 50 Gunman Operative Rank: Captain Beta Vetern
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Congrats to the winners and to those who even got a mention.

SMILEY


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08/07/2006 00:17:08
Subject: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
[CoZ]LostProphet




Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 3027
Offline
^^

Congrats to everyone that won SMILEY

It was the first time I'd submitted those stories of mine to the main boards, so I'm pleased they went down well SMILEY
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08/09/2006 08:55:05
Subject: Re:Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Satta


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 3546
Location: Los Angeles
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I forgot about this. Congratulations guys. The stories were great! SMILEY
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[Vesuveus]

(I've had a few people request that I do this, so here it is. This is the repost of my "Broken Bonds" story that was on the "An Important Message for All Zion Operatives" thread. So, if you don't feel like reading that thread, he's my story so you don't have to go through a million pages to find it. :0p Enjoy!)




Broken Bonds - A Story (Part One)



I don't know how long it's been since I've wandered the surface... It's difficult to tell the time when all you ever see is the darkness of night. If I were to guess, I'd say I'd been out here for a little more then a week, maybe more.



Let me start by saying that if anything in the Bible were true, the surface of this world would be the farthest place from the Garden of Eden that would be possible. The ever-present black clouds have done something to the weather patterns of this place... the wind constantly blows, constantly making these weird howling sounds as if the millions of dead souls that can be found everywhere are crying out simaltaneously in pain, not forgetting the tortures the human race went through during the Matrix's experimental phases. Lightning provides the sole illumination in this hellish nightmare, it's thunder powerful and frightening. When it rains, I've learned to take immediate shelter. When it first rained during my forced vacation out here, it felt like thousands of needles were piercing into me... I thought at first maybe it was because I had never felt rain before, and that this was how rain was really supposed to feel. It wasn't until the next day, that I was covered in red welts that I realized this rain was not normal... it was more like acid rain... and it burned.



As horrible as the sky is in this place, the ground is worse. It's either rocky and forbidding, or it's thick and mucky, with a slight sewage smell to it... no, not sewage... rotting decay. You can see evidence of the hundreds of years of war up here. Destroyed cities, burnt down buildings, battered and smashed hovercrafts and sentinels... and fields, no valleys of human remains... There are entire areas of land that are covered every square inch by human bones. I've learned to avoid these places, these rivers of skulls that glare at you with their grinning faces... I've... seen things... heard things... things I'd rather forget, but they continue to haunt me in my dreams.



Yes, this place is hell. The Devil's Advocates' outpost, Styx, couldn't have been more aptly named. Styx, the mythical river that stands between the land of the mortals, and the realm of the dead.



However, as bad as it has been, I've been able to survive up here. A lot of my bluepill life experiences have come in handy during this time of exile. Most people know that I was a Marine as a bluepill, and during basic training, we were taught how to survive off the land... whatever that landscape may be. Something not many people know about my time as a bluepill was that after I was kicked out of the Marines, I had spent some time living on the streets of Roger's Way. Roger's Way reminds me of a clean version of the surface of the Real, and a lot of my survival skills that I learned during that time applies here. I've been able to collect what rainwater I can, and I've found that boiling it removes some of that acidity to it... still tastes like crap though, and it burns like BlackVelvet's moonshine on the way down. But it keeps me hydrated... mostly.



As for food, there are things to eat up here, however unpleasant. So far, there are two forms of animal that still seem to survive up here: the cockroach and the rat. No matter how screwed humanity gets, those two always seem to find a way to survive. And for the record, the machines DID get a few things wrong when they created the Matrix. A rat in the Matrix tastes NOTHING like a rat in the Real. In the Matrix, a rat tastes like rabbit, almost like a savory piece of chicken. In the Real, a rat tastes like **bleep**. Of course, it's probably a result of whatever that rat's been eating, which is something I'd rather not think about.



My only source of refuge from this place has been the Matrix. It seems weird, that I'd run to the Matrix to get away from the Real. I used to hate jacking into the Matrix. I hated seeing the millions of people, going about their daily lives completely unaware that everything they were doing was nothing more then an elaborate dream. However, living up on the surface, alone... I can't help but to jack in... to get away from this hell...



Does that mean that I'd rather live in the Matrix, now that I've gotten an up close and personal taste of the Real? No, not at all. This experience has only shown me how much we need to work to make this world liveable again. Running to the Matrix is nothing more then closing your eyes and mind to the reality around you. I will not turn my back on this world that I call my home.



Since I am without a hovercraft, many people often wonder how it is that I jack into the Matrix. When I left my hovercraft, the Devildog, my operator Hauk handed me a backpack and told me that he had some supplies that would help me to survive out there in the Real. When I stepped off the ship, I had assumed he had packed some canteens of water, and a few gallons of goop. The first time I sat down to rest in the tunnels, I opened up the backpack to see what kind of surprises Hauk had for me. I was quite amazed, and very impressed by what I found. Inside was an old laptop-style piece of equipment, that I could use to hack into communication lines and into the Data Node mainframe. There was also a small radio transmitter so that if I needed to, I could contact those within a certain range of me in the Real. The most amazing piece of equipment was something I had never seen before. It was obviously something that Hauk had been working on for awhile and probably had the help of my Communications Expert, Iviera. It was a modular broadcast device. A relatively small device that could be used to send out a broadcast signal and jack into the Matrix. It had an extremely weak signal, however, and could only be used on the surface.



The portability of the device seemed to be it's only asset, as it had a list a mile long of cons. Asides from the obvious con of having to be on the surface, it lacked a loading construct program, and it made hardlines only good for making phone calls... and even then, it cost .35 cents.





So, that's the Real... the place I've been living for the past week or so. I can feel the effect that the lack of water and healthy food is having on me. My clothes feel baggy, and I can't travel as far and as long as I had been able to. While I'm in the Matrix, I find myself compelled to drink water... but as much as I drink, I keep wanting more..



The past few days haven't been so bad... Firestrarter had made a drop that consisted of a canteen full of clean water, and a few servings of goop. Anubis had also made a drop before even that... but I never went to look for it. Just yesterday he offered to give me some ridiculous device that he said would allow me to live for an extra half hour in the Matrix, should my body in the Real die. I refused. I'll be damned before I accept aid from that **bleep**. A few days ago, I actually ate some semi-decent food and stocked up on water at Th3ra's place in the Real. Th3ra... it hurts everytime I think of what happened to her...



I had recieved a phone call...





"Goodbye, Fen..."



"What's wrong, Th3ra? You sound sad..."



"I'm calling all my friends, and saying goodbye to them."



"Why are you doing that?"



"Fen... I'm being reinserted..."



"WHAT?! Why??"



"Agent Gray has ordered that I be reinserted for my actions."



"But why?? What did you do?"



"Eclipses reported how I was aiding you to Agent Gray... How my assistance violated the Truce..."



"That's bull**bleep**, Th3ra, and you know it! Your place is only about five miles from my current location on the surface. I'm on my way."



"It's too late, Fen..." I could hear her begin to sob on the other end.



"I'm coming to get you, Th3ra. I don't care if I have to run thousands of miles across the surface to do so. I'm coming, and I'm going to bring you with me."



"Fen..." The call was then disconnected.



When I arrived at her place, I found that it was in fact, too late. The Machines had removed everything of use to them and left nothing but scraps behind. There were two things of interest still left behind, however. One was food. Th3ra obviously knew that I was coming, and had put together a package of preserved food for me, obviously things that the Machines had provided her for sustenance. The other item, at first glance, looked like nothing more then a bizarre pile of scrap metal. After a closer inspection, I came to a realization of what this item was... Th3ra had obviously made it, and her ingenuity really impressed me. It was a piano, crafted from items she must have scavenged on the surface. And it really didn't sound all that bad. Of course, my untalented *CENSORED* didn't do it any justice, but I could only imagine Th3ra sitting here, playing away creating sweet melodies that helped to drown out the wind and thunder of this place. I rested in her old home, to keep out of the elements for a day... I couldn't help but to just let out my emotions... I laid back on the ground, thinking back on old memories... fighting together as warriors of Zion, beating up that exile wimp Price... sitting in that bar in Downtown together, talking for hours and smoking Chessman Sweets... how hurt I was to hear how she'd left Zion to work for the Machines and my daily attempts after that to convince her to come back...



**bleep** Eclipses from taking my friend away from me... how dare he report her actions to Agent Gray! Who was he to report anything to Agent Gray?! And for her to be reinserted... removing from her the very choice that she made! I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive him for this... the best that I can do is find Th3ra as a bluepill, and watch over her. Maybe one day offer her that red pill again...



That had been a few days ago... I had to leave. Staying there just hurt too **bleep** much.



I miss BlackVelvet... Prior to the events concerning Bast and Anubis, I had been spending all my time in the Real with her. Now that I've been alone for so long, I feel like a piece of my soul has been wrenched out of me... sure, I've met up with her in the Matrix many times... but it's not the same. There have been times I've thought of turning myself in to FreeStyle, just so that I could see BV again in the Real. I've told her this, but she puts her finger to my lips and reassures me to stick to my guns... This must be killing her as much as it is me. The only things that comfort me when I try to sleep out here are my thoughts and memories of her. Sometimes, as I lay out here in the muck, my head resting on a rock, I'll close my eyes and pretend that I'm out there laying on our pier, just me and BlackVelvet... my head resting on her lap, with her hands playing with the tips of my hair.



I wonder if she's jacked in right now... checking on my laptop, I don't see her signal anywhere in the code. Well, maybe I'll just check anyway... I pull out the broadcast module and set it down on a relatively clean rock and then insert the jack into the port in the back of my skull. When I hit the switch, the module will give me a forced connection into the Matrix, jacking me in to the point where I last was... which if memory serves me correctly, is the White Lotus Hotel in Shinjuku. I lay down on my side, facing the module, and reach across, pressing down on the button that will initiate the connection sequence...



Everything fades to green...
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09/09/2005 11:05:32
Subject: Re: Broken Bonds - A Story
Fen


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 5119
Location: HvCFT Devildog
Online



Broken Bonds - Part 2



The jack slid out of the back of my head as the world of the Matrix dissolved around me. Opening my eyes, I look around the inside of the Hovercraft "Zion's Elite". Dang, it felt good to use hardlines again. Getting up from the old dentist's chair I'd been laying in, I smile as I feel my old leather boots hit the steel grates that made up the floor of this small hovercraft. Strolling confidently down the pipe-lined hallway out of the operator's chamber, I turn to the first door on the right. I spin the wheel lock and open the door to an empty galley. Grabbing myself some goop, I throw myself down at the table for a little lunch.

Quite a change from last week, huh?

A lot has happened in a week. I jacked in to find out that Th3ra had actually been re-awakened. Apparently, before she was taken away to be reinserted, Masterkiller had given her some kind of tracer that allowed the Chambers of Shaolin to find her and get her back out of the Matrix. What this could mean for the Chambers of Shaolin and their relationship with the Machines has not yet made itself apparent. I was wrong to think that their organization had no honor... I was basing my opinions of the group off of a few of the individuals. However, they were one of the first groups to come to my aid, and I will always remember that. Someday I'll have to actually meet this Masterkiller and shake his hand. He truly has an amazing group of operatives.

That day Eclipses and KnifeEdge organized a manhunt for me. Musutangu, Soulfire, and Honihaka of the Prophets of Peace, Katla and her Delphic Knights, as well as the Machine operatives Nigh7Shad3 and Mitrios came to my defense and helped to hide me long enough for Eclipses and KnifeEdge to give up.

After I jacked out that day and I was sleeping out in the Real, I was awakened by bright lights and someone shaking me. It was none other then my old friend Delinquent! Delinquent, for those who don't know, was my bluepill best friend and had been promoted to a position in Zion. He was in charge of leading expeditions into the Real to search out old artifacts, explore the destroyed cities, and look for signs of other possible civilizations. While out on one of these expeditions, he stumbled across me sleeping on the ground. Like most of my team in The Trust, he didn't really agree with what Lock and FreeStyle were doing, and wanted to support me in secret. As long as he was on this current expedition, he's allowed me to stay on his hovercraft, the "Zion's Elite", and sleep on a bed and eat proper meals. I've also been able to make use of his broadcast equipment, which has allowed me to use hardlines and construct programs. It's only been me and him on this ship, but it really feels good to see another living person to have conversations with. He asks me about my operations and seems to love to sit back and listen to my stories. Lee, as I call him by his bluepill name, has always been a great listener, and it's felt good to just unload on him.

The biggest surprise I've had was just a few minutes ago. I had jacked in to run some operations, to check out a few leads I had on some masked operatives. By the end of the operation, I had uncovered two traitors in the Zion organization... California of HvCFT Euphoria, and Shen of HvCFT Kyoto. I had also found information regarding an underground hardline network, that may lead to the lair of the Assassin. I needed to put this information on a data disk, and get it uploaded to Tyndall immediately. Even though I'm wanted, Tyndall still allows me to run operations. I am, as always, a loyal soldier of Zion. I just don't care to follow Lock any longer.

Uploading the information, however, would prove to be difficult. Shkspear, captain of the HvCFT Juliet, began warning me that Major FreeStyle had begun to zero in on my position in the Matrix. Shkspear wanted to help me escape, so I gave him my position in the Uriah Industrial Park. FreeStyle, however, somehow hacked our secure line, and arrived around the same time Shkspear did. I sent out a distress call to Th3ra, who came almost immediately. FreeStyle then called out for Eclipses, who also showed almost immediately. Following a heated argument about ideologies, Shkspear fought FreeStyle as Eclipses battled Th3ra. I continued to urge FreeStyle to rethink his actions, to try and realize what was important in life, that friends should come above orders... Eventually, Shkspear jacked out and Th3ra left in disgust of Eclipses... leaving me with just the two of them. After telling Eclipses that I would not be going back to bow down to a system I did not agree with, we battled... and I lost. I could tell my words were having an effect on FreeStyle, as he seemed truly confused to what he should do. As Eclipses approached me to bring me in, FreeStyle stepped in his way, deciding that all of this had gone too far. FreeStyle talked of our friendship, how even with all that's happened, I still supported him. How I've never lied to him or deceived him. How we were truly friends.

FreeStyle had realized all that I had taught him... he realized that it wasn't just about following orders, or being a great soldier. It was about being a great man, and I began to see some of that greatness emerge in him. The Devildog, my hovercraft, left Zion Command that day. So did the Juliet, as well as the Virgin Vessel... soon followed by the Switchblade. The Trust was to become a rogue faction in Zion's eyes... I told Eclipses that the only way we'd be coming back is if the Council allowed us to run operations on our own... out of the jurisdiction of Commander Lock. I gave Eclipses the data disk from my operation, and asked that he give that to the Council, to show that I was still a loyal soldier of Zion, and still doing my duty. At the end of it all, FreeStyle and I embraced, old friends again. He was truly sorry for what he'd done... he was thinking of his career and felt that I had always held him back, and here was an opportunity to prove himself to Zion. What he did, he said, was almost lose his family instead... and that would never happen again. I told him that I would jack out and transmit my location in the Real to my operator, Hauk, onboard the Devildog. I didn't want to tell him that I was onboard Delinquent's ship... I didn't want to risk Delinquent losing his position in Zion over me.

With that, I headed to the nearest hardline and jacked out... and now here I am, eating a nice bowl of goop in Delinquent's galley. The door to the galley opens and Delinquent comes strutting in.

"Congratulations, Commander."

I grin at him over my bowl of goop. "You don't need to call me that. Kris is fine." We always referred to each other by our bluepill names... he was Lee, I was Kris.

Finishing up the goop, I got up from the table and we walked together to my makeshift quarters. The "Zion's Elite" was a very small hovercraft, meant to only hold a maximum of three people. As it was, the corridors were too tight, and the few cabins were too small. Delinquent only really operated out in the Real on his own, so the two other crew cabins were packed with supplies and items that he's found in the Real. Most of what he stored in those cabins seemed to be items that reminded him of his life as a blue... a piece of worn fabric, an old and decaying pen, broken sculptures, and many other items. He managed to clear out a little space in one of cabins so that I could rest there. I didn't need a lot of room... it was just me and my backpack of equipment. I never got to see Delinquent's room... he kept it locked and spent most of his time in there. I knew enough to never bother him while he was in there... he was very protective of his personal space, and I could respect that. I imagine that his room probably looks like the other two overstuffed crew compartments... only he probably kept his most treasured artifacts near him.

I grabbed my backpack from my quarters and slung it over my shoulder. Still without a word, Delinquent walked with me to the ramp leading outside. As we got to the bottom of the ramp and my feet touched the ground, I turned around to face him.

"Lee.. I really can't thank you enough. The risks you've taken by having me on board... it really means a lot."

Delinquent smiled slightly, scratching the back of his neck, his fingers lingering on his cranial jack... "Hey, it's what I do." he said, shrugging indifferently.

Smiling, I stride back up the ramp to him, embracing him in a tight hug. "Thanks. Be safe out there."

Delinquent's arms held onto me tightly. "You too, Kris... you too."

I release the embrace and grin up at Delinquent warmly. Turning around I stride down the ramp back onto the barren surface of the Real. Well, here I am again... all that's left is to send out that signal to Hauk and get the Devildog to pick me up. It'll be nice to see the old crew again... it'll be even more nice to see my love, BlackVelvet again...

Everytime I think of her I get this dull ache in my heart, as if something is missing... It's been two or more weeks since I've last seen her in the Real... being apart from her is killing me. I set my backpack on the ground, and pull out the small radio transmitter. Bringing it up to my lips, I begin--

WHAM!

Darkness....



Message Edited by Fenshire on 09-09-2005 04:06 PM

Message edited by Fen on 09/09/2005 11:06:49.
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09/09/2005 15:09:56
Subject: Re: Broken Bonds - A Story
Fen


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 5119
Location: HvCFT Devildog
Online


(Finally! I apologize for the length... but, I hope you still enjoy it. SMILEY)




Broken Bonds - Part 3



We had been on the hunt for Gabe for a little over a half hour. Scouring the government housing complexes of Moriah Projects, we had found an apartment that a group of Blood Drinkers were using as some kind of sick crack house... except, instead of drugs, these exiles dealt in blood code. It was a side benefit to be able to take them out, but stopping their blood code ring wasn't why we were there. We knew that their leader, Nosfu, had information on him that would lead us to the Merovingian operative, Gabe, who had been such a thorn in Zion's side. The leader of the operation, this woman BlackVelvet, had sent the information via hardline to her operator onboard her husband's ship, the Freelancer. Now we were about to close in on the apartment that we knew Gabe was using as a base, here in the Matrix.

I had been contacted randomly by BlackVelvet to help out the Royal Guard in this mission. There were four of us: BlackVelvet, Selavagh, Carleon, and myself. I had met a few of them before, but didn't really know any of them that well... I was friends with Labraid, BlackVelvet's husband, whom I had met through Delinquent. I had met BlackVelvet a few days prior, at a meeting of Zion factions held by Tuo at The Vault. I had been sitting back on a few cushions with Th3ra of Kai Furii, drinking glasses of Dom Perignon and smoking my Chessman Sweets. For some reason, I couldn't help but to notice the glances BlackVelvet would give over to my direction. Glances, and subtle smiles...

BlackVelvet had been drinking. Apparently, her and her team had been having some fun at a local club before she received the call from Tyndall. I think that's why they called me along. I was in the area, and I was still sober enough to fight. I didn't really mind. I enjoyed knocking a few exile skulls here and there. BlackVelvet and I were running down an alleyway when she stumbled and almost fell into a pile of garbage. I ran forward and grabbed her, helping to support her.

"Sorry... that was negligent of me..."

I smiled over at her and said jokingly, "You're fired."

At that she gave a pout and lowered her head. I laughed at her and she smiled and giggled back at me. With a mischievous glint in her eye, she bit her lower lip...

"Will you kiss me?"



Darkness... it felt like someone was pounding my head with a jackhammer. There was a dull ringing sound replaying itself over and over in my ears. My arms were stretched back behind me, and I could feel massive chain links cutting into my chest, my arms, and my wrists as I sat, bound to something... a rock, by the feel of it. My legs, I could feel, were outstretched in front of me, and I could feel the cold, mucky wetness of the ground seeping into the fabric of my pants, as I sat... bound... a prisoner?

My senses began to return... I could feel something warm and wet on my forehead and face... I could taste it as it ran down to the corner of my mouth... blood. I could hear the faint static hum of a hovercraft in the distance, and the sound of a pair of boots pacing in the muck before me.

What happened..? I was about to do something... transmit.. transmit what? It was hard to think.. my mind felt so cloudy... I was... transmitting... to the Devildog... my location...

But then what...? I began to open my eyes. It felt like my lids were tied to those old ten ton anvils they'd use in cartoons... Thinking that made me chuckle a bit, a pair of anvils tied to my eyelids... Ow.... it hurt to laugh... something was broken.. I began to cough, which hurt much more. I could taste the warm saltiness of my blood as it came out of my mouth, and flecked my lips.

"Ah, good. You've woken up."

That sounded like Delinquent... was he okay? I hope he wasn't captured either... I finally managed to get my eyes open and looked out at the scene before me. Everything was blurry, but began to focus... I could see the "Zion's Elite" in the distance, parked on the ground with the hoverpads still running. I looked down at myself and saw that I was, in fact, chained and fastened tightly to a rock, which dug into my back. My head, still pounding with severe pain, darted up and looked around, hoping to see if Delinquent was in a similar predicament.

Delinquent stood before me, legs spread slightly, his right hand holding a wicked looking bowie knife, his left thumb scraping against the sharp edge. He looked down at me, his green eyes fierce with a... satisfied... smirk on his face.

What the hell was going on?

Delinquent approached me, and crouched down in front of me. "It's time we had a little chat, Fenshire."

Still confused, I looked back at him. "'Fenshire'? You've never called me that... Lee, what's going on? What happened? How did I get like this..?"

Delinquent sighed and standing, he shook his head dejectedly. "Always the clueless buffoon, I see. Very well, I'll state the obvious. You're in that position because I put you there. You bent down to retrieve your transmitter, and knocked an iron pipe right over your head. Then I kicked you for a little bit to make sure you didn't wake up anytime soon... oh, by the way, sorry about the ribs.. I think I broke a few. Not that it'll make much difference soon, anyways. Anyhow, I then dragged you over to this nice rock and chained up you to it. Then I waited until you woke up, and now here we are."

Fear... confusion... many emotions began to course through my body. I shook my head, my mind beginning to clear, but the painful pounding seemed to worsen... This couldn't be happening.. why was it happening..? What was going on? So many questions... I could only manage to get one out...

"W.. wha.. why?"

At that, Delinquent laughed. "Why? Why? You really are clueless!" He spread out his arms, and motioned to the world around him. Looking back down to me, I noticed a new fierceness in his eyes...

With his teeth clenched, Delinquent spoke with pure hatred, "This world is why. This world. This world that you threw me into, ripping me out of the life of everything I had ever known. You took me and threw me into this hell. You never told me that I'd be forced to live in this place... where it's cold and where we're forced to eat muck all day long...."

"Lee... I didn't force you to do anything..." I said, still confused, "I gave you a choice.. it was your choice to leave the Matrix. I showed you the door--"

I was cut off as Delinquent spun around, smacking the butt of the knife into my right temple. My head exploded in lights and colors as pain shot through my whole body. I could feel the darkness creeping back over me, but I forced myself to keep my eyes open.

"You showed me nothing!! You caught me as I left rehab and you offered me pills!! You told me the blue one would keep me blissfully asleep and that the red one would open the curtain that had been pulled over my eyes! I was a heroin addict!! Which did you think I would choose?? Hell yeah I wanted to go on a mind trip! I hadn't been able to get a fix for over four months and you offered me pills!! What was I supposed to think?! You screwed everything up! I was set to go back into the wrestling circuit and make my big come back! But you denied me that! You ripped me out and now I'm forced to live in a **bleep** cave taking orders all day long!"

Gritting my teeth, I spoke back, "It's not real, though, Lee... It's a dream, it's--"

I was cut off again by a swift kick to my left side... excruciating pain shot through me again as I felt something break. Tears of pain began to stroll down my cheeks, but I just clenched my teeth, not allowing Delinquent the honor of hearing me yell out in pain.

Delinquent, seemingly half-crazed, yelled back at me. "Don't tell me what is real and what is not! My life in the Matrix was real enough! You were a bum! You lived in the dirt and the filth, and survived off of the trash of those of us that were successful! Of course this place is some paradise to you! This is all you've ever known! I had power, I had prestige, I had money! But, through Germaskeerd, I've been given the opportunity to have it all back. To get put back into my life... maybe to even make it a little better then it was before. I don't care if this place is real or not. I want my life back. I want back in. And I'll do anything to get there."

Sighing, I look up at him, frowning sadly. "Germaskeerd, huh? So you've decided to become a Cypherite. And what was the deal? Kill me and you get put back in? No... there has to be more to it then that. You could've easily just pulled the plug on me while I was in the Matrix. What is it? What's the deal?"

Delinquent looks down at me, smiling wickedly. "Oh, I have a long list of tasks that I've done for my employers. Killing you, however, is what's going to get me on the one way trip back to the Matrix. Originally, I was to kill you before, but then you had gotten yourself wanted and kicked out of Zion. Germaskeerd knew that I was out in the Real at the time and wanted to me to find you and keep watch on you. He wasn't sure if you were going to be a threat or not while you were on your own. But when you took control of The Trust over again, and you seemed to be collecting a nice little group of friends from all of the organizations... I got that blessed order to take you out. Take you out, and my reinsertion was assured."

He paced back and forth as he talked. My mind was reeling from all this... I still couldn't believe this was all happening... Delinquent was my best friend... he really hated me this much? Is this all really my fault..? No. No, he made the choice.

Suddenly, from behind Delinquent, there was a loud squawk as my radio transmitter picked up a signal. Delinquent, startled, spun around to look at my backpack that was still sitting on the ground behind him, over towards the hovercraft. He looks back at me, grinning.

"Well, seems as if someone has a phone call. Let's see who it is."

He strides over to the backpack, and picks up the transmitter from the ground, brushing some of the muck off of it. Then he moves back to me and hits the button on the transmitter, allowing it receive the transmission.

"...seems that BV is in trouble..."

It was Anubis. I looked up at Delinquent, who stood there grinning at me. "Trouble..?" I barely got the word out.

"...look, I have dropped six probes in the same tunnel as where the fighter was. Swallow your pride and use them."

Delinquent bent down over me, holding the transmitter close to my face. "Go ahead, Fenshire. Ask Anubis for help. Tell your enemy what I've done. Ask him to come and save you. Go ahead. Just say it."

"...look, check them out, we used them to locate Liliane when she disappeared and they found her within the hour. Fenshire, I know you're listening to this! Stop crumbling up plastic and answer me!!"

"Yes, Kris. Answer him. Say something. 'Help me, Anubis! Come save me!'" Delinquent grinned, satisfied at the expression on my face.

"...okay, I've loaded the signal boosting program. Can you hear me now?"

As much as Delinquent taunted, I just stared defiantly in this eyes. Finally frustrated, Delinquent threw the transmitter at a nearby rock, then glared back at me as the transmitter smashed into pieces.

"Fine. You're no fun."

I was worried by what Anubis said about BlackVelvet... I looked up at Delinquent. "Lee... you heard him... BV, your sister, is in trouble. It's not too late for you. We can put all this behind us and go find her! We can--"

Delinquent shot towards me, slashing me across the chest with his knife. "Shut up!! Don't try that hero crap on me! I've made my choice and nothing you can say will make me change my mind! You're always trying to change people! Well, guess what? You can't! You tried to change Return! Guess what? She's still a Merv! You tried to change NetCracker! Guess what? She's still a Merv!! I've seen your pathetic attempts to bring Th3ra back to Zion... but guess what? She's still a Machine!! You ran off to help hide Azyanna from Sattakan and his Machine operatives. How long before Azyanna finds an opportunity to stab you in the back? FreeStyle is a loose cannon and always will be! Look how he jumped at the opportunity to take you down to better his career. How long will it be before he turns on you again?! You're always trying to 'fix' people. Haven't you realized that maybe people don't WANT to be fixed??"

Delinquent clenched his fists and stared at the ground, breathing heavily... finally, he said quietly, "Besides... you won't have to worry about BlackVelvet much longer. You'll be going to meet her soon."

Hearing that, I stared, shocked, up at Delinquent. "What do you mean...? What did you do to her?" I couldn't help the terror that began to take over me, the tears streaming down my face uncontrollably.

Delinquent, seeing the effect his words had on me, smiled victoriously. "BlackVelvet is dead. I couldn't have her interfere with us... plus, she knew your location. You think I just found you by accident?"

I couldn't say anything.... it couldn't be true... I felt a great emptiness grow inside of me. None of this seemed real... it was too much... I looked down at the ground, closing my eyes, letting the fear and the terror and the sadness take over.

Delinquent, gaining control of himself and his anger, slipped into that role of the professional. The hired killer. "I'm sure that you're wishing for me to make this quick. Unfortunately for you, I'm going to drag this out. I want you to suffer as much as possible for what you've done to me. I want you to realize that it was me who got the best of you. I, Delinquent, took down the great Fenshire. Have you ever heard of the old Chinese torture, 'Death by a Thousand Papercuts'? No? Well, let me educate you. A thousand small incisions are made on your body at key locations. Each cut is merely a minor wound. But having a thousand of them will cause you to slowly bleed to death. Not to mention that it is extremely painful."

My eyes still closed, I barely listened to what he was saying. "How... how could you... I loved her... she was all I had... she was your sister! How could you?? She loved you!!"

Delinquent crouched down next to me, his knife inches from my face. "You want to know a secret, Kris? When I went out into the Real on my expeditions, I was never exploring or looking for ruins. I was meeting up with my employers. I was given a poison to use on you. When put in contact with the open air, it's carried along by oxygen molecules to be inhaled. It works very fast, but also dissipates very quickly. If it isn't inhaled within a few seconds, it spreads out too much to have any effect. I took a vial of my own blood and injected this poison into it. Then I left it onboard my hovercraft for BlackVelvet to find. I knew that she would take it back to Zion, where you, her, and Labraid would examine it. I was hoping to take out three prominent Zion officers in one blow. I figured that would surely secure me a reinsertion. However, Labraid got himself too curious and wanted to examine the blood for himself. By the time BlackVelvet got to his side, the poison had already dissipated and done it's work. That's right, Kris. You have me to thank for your 'sweet romance' with BlackVelvet. I killed Labraid and removed him from the picture for you. You can save your thanks, because you ended up doing me a great favor. You got me in a nice position in Zion, where I've been able to transmit all kinds of information to my employers."

I couldn't speak... I was shocked. I looked at the monster that used to be my best friend. I didn't know what to say... All I could do was just look at him, horrified.

Delinquent smiled, knowing that he had finally defeated me. With a triumphant grin, he brought the knife closer to my face. "Well then, since the cat's got your tongue, I suppose we should begin. Goodbye, Fenshire."



(To be continued by BlackVelvet)

[Vesuveus]

9/14/2005 01:10:25
Subject: Re: Broken Bonds - A Story
BlackVelvet




Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 260
Offline


She sat there in the real holding her bloody
side. "Dam it where the hell can he be?" she said to herself as she
coughed up a little blood. She got her medical kit from with in the
Freelancer and patched herself up as much as possible. Pushing herself
up where she was she ascertained the damage of the Freelancer, in her
condition she knew she would not be able to get her working with out
her crew, at least she was salvageable. Hopefully I can get her back.

Getting
her backpack, BlackVelvet packed some food and what ever was light for
her to carry with for her to take on her trek. She wrote down the last
co-ordinates pointing her to Fenshire; she had to find him she had to
make sure he was well. She didn't care what condition she was in, she
would die trying. She hoped her last transmission for help went
thru if not she would have to do this alone. With determination in her
soul and for the love for this man would carry her thru. It had to
there was no doubt on her mind.

As I left the Freelancer I turned around to look at her. My eyes gazed over this magnificent vessel that lay before me. “Lilyth would be pissed at me if I survive this personal journey of mine.” I thought to my self lost in my moment. Lilyth
was my freeborn operator that I cared for very much I treated her as if
she was my own daughter, after her mother, who was a close friend of
mine, was killed on duty I took her in as my operator knowing full well
she would be good at it. I knew she would worry for
me, but there are things that one has to do in their lives and this was
the most important for me. This was One thing that I had to do. I couldn’t bear losing Fenshire I loved him too much. I already lost two that were very close to me. My
husband Labraid, who I loved dearly in life, I thought I would never
survive his death; there are those days when I’m alone walking seeing a
certain place we shared together, sparking a memory of us, causing me
to smile, and reminding me what we shared in life. When he died I felt
my seams quickly unraveling, I felt lost in a fog balancing my duties
as a newly appointed Captain, but fortunately for me there were many
who offered me solace but one who had helped me thru those dark moments
in my life. The innocent talks that we shared which grew to a special
connection so now life brings me where I am now. I am hear because I can't let go, I am here searching for a man that means more than life to me, my friend, who is my lover.

So many memories were shared on that ship.

“Your
hovercraft or mine?” I smiled at him as we continued to dance in the
park to the music played by Darktech. The music was a soft tempo and we
stood in front of each other just enjoying each others company. Moving
slowly to the melodies being played on the little hand held radio we
brought with us.

Fenshire smiled his boyish grin and placed a kiss on the tip of my nose.

“Well sweet pea shall we?” I nodded and smiled sweetly at Fenshire. He returned my smile with a soft caress over my face.

“Jacking out Beeve… see ya in the Real, love.” With that I blew him a kiss.

He caught it.

Too
many good memories to count most were good and others I was glad not to
think about. Than my mind quickly wandered to the day I found out
Delinquent was my blood brother. That was a shocker, but a joyous one at that. Now
I had blood family which was important to me, for a person who only had
slivers of her blue pill life, I grabbed on to that like a fish to its
bait. I smiled at the thought and giggled to myself.

“Hello
sweet sister.” A voice broke into my reflection; I quickly turned
around towards the voice as I pointed my guns towards it. “What the ….?” I said as I swiftly cocked my guns towards the voice.

“Is
that how you greet your brother? I’m hurt my dear.” Delinquent said as
he gradually walked towards me with a sarcastic smile.

“Del!!!!! I thought you were on assignment?” I said in a confused tone but excited by seeing his presence. Delinquent laughed as he continued to approach me. “Yes I’m still on assignment Sara. Just haven’t been able to keep in contact.

I
would have Sara but you see that is a story for another moment. We need
to get you out of here not really safe here.” Delinquent placed his
hands over my guns bringing them down. Suddenly a rush of happiness came over me I would have jumped him but I was still hurting from my wounds.

“Lee
I am so happy to see you. I thought you left me…you **bleep**-“I yelled
at him. “Why didn’t you let me know you were still around?” as I
continued to berate him with my questions. “No contact from you for
months…I thought something bad might have happen…” I paused for a
second a mixture of anger and glee, but I was just too ecstatic made me
feel good knowing he was alive.

“Because I know you, you would have wanted to come and I can’t let you give up your career within The Royal Guard. I know how much they mean to you. “I held on tightly to him. “And I couldn’t have pulled you away from Kris.” He winked at me and smiled. “Come lets move we can talk later.”

We
continued to move along, finally reaching his ship. There it was
nothing special. It looked like it could use a complete overhaul.

“Wow you definitely need to come back to give this craft an overhaul …I know it has seen better days.” I said with pure shock on how beat up it looked.

“It
gets me from point A to B, so as long as she runs I’m fine no need to
worry.” Delinquent led me in and we continued into the main area.

“Lets see those wounds of yours…I think I have clothing for you..don’t want you to get infected and sick.” Deliquent took my backpack.

Delinquent
patched me up, sewing together a cut on my upper right brow. “Wow that
is a deep gash you got there.” He shook his head being the older
brother that I so loved. “I see you taped yourself
all up Sara. Drink this it will bring your immune system up; can’t have
you getting sick on me.” Delinquent handed me a cup with some really
awful smelling liquid.

“This stuff smells awful.” I made a face as I downed the concoction. Delinquent laughed and shook his head at my childish face.

“Well now that the freelancer is down, we will need to get you back to get you help.”

“I
can’t Fen is out there and I need to get him. I have his co-ordinates
here.” I got up from the chair that I sat on and searched my bad for my
little handheld. “I need to get to him, he could be in danger.”

“Really, you think he could be in danger? What are his co-ordinates?” I handed him the hand held with the info I had.

“It’s
all there, Hauk had downloaded into my device before I left in my
search. I need to get to him…..will you help me get there?” Delinquent
smiled. “well I can do that.” I smiled I felt happy that I ran into him. “Amazing luck I have for you to find me.” I said smiling at Del. I watched him placing the information on his crafts computer.

“You sure do sister. It amazes me every time.” He came up to me and gave me a hug. “What’s this for?” Just really happy that we got to bump into each other even though the circumstances are not so hot.

“Yeah…so am I.” I hugged Delinquent back. “Know I love you…” As he held on to me I felt a **bleep** on my neck.

“What the hell!!!! Lee!! What was that???” I said trying to loosen myself from his grip. “It will make you sleep Sara. A long sleep, I love you know that.” Everything got blurry. “Lee…wh…y..?” my speech got slow and cumbersome.

I woke up finding myself in a room. Tied up and gagged. Still groggy from what ever he gave me. My
body felt like I was frozen in place. I tried to get my vision to focus
but everything was blurry….than I heard voices…I tried to scream but
still nothing came out. What ever was in me had me petrified. I was useless I couldn’t do anything. Than I heard Fen’s voice in another section.

10/07/2005 06:41:31
Subject: Re: Broken Bonds - A Story
BlackVelvet




Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 260
Offline

*Wonders* What is happening on the other
side of that door....as she focused her eyes on the door facing her.
"Dam it he found him, he found Fenshire." As she heard the
mumbling of two male voices...she knew one was her brothers and that
the other one was most definitely Fen.



She still couldn't move, her body was in a
stasis, only feeling moments of tingling running up and down her
body. She continue to let her mind question her situation,
ascertaining how bad her delemma was...one thought hit her like a bag
of bricks, "What in the world was her brother up to...and why did he do
this to her?"



The numbing she felt...it had actually helped her
not to feel any of the pain that was cycling thru her body....BV was
very thankful for that. "How do I get myself out of here? How do
I warn Fen? Too many questions....to many unanswered
questions.....must clear my mind...must focus on how Im going to get
out of this room." Was funneling thru her mind like some ancient ticket
machine of old.



As Blackvelvet began her meditiation, this
was the only thing she knew would help her clear her mind, to focus on
what she needed to do. "For goodness sake" she thought as she
tried stay focus on her situation before it got worst...she had been in
situations that there was no hope of her survival--unfortunately they
didn't involve the two people she loved. "DAM it, what in the
world was ticking in Lee's head, what made him snap?" she continued to
let her anger and questions funnel thru.



This wasn't helping her "Zen" like state.
She started to take deep breaths, coaching herself on focusing on what
she had to do "Inhale.....exhale....Inhale.....exhale--" she
repeated in her mind trying to clear her thoughts. "What was she
going to do?" That answer would most definitely be rectified soon
enough. "Inhale....exhale....inhale......"



(Looks at Fen....waiting... SMILEY Excuse any typos... : ))




Message Edited by BlackVelvet on 10-07-2005 10:44 AM


10/14/2005 19:57:19
Subject: Re: Broken Bonds - A Story
Fen


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 5119
Location: HvCFT Devildog
Online



((Okay, I was going to make the finale one big story, but as I got to 7 pages, I realized I might need to break it up. So here it is, kind of long again. I thought I'd post this part so you'd have something to read while I wrote the next part. Don't worry, I'm not stopping until this story is done. Hopefully, the last part will be up tonight. Enjoy.))

((EDIT: The formatting and fonts on the email messages looked a lot cooler... but the message board messed them up. Grrr))

Broken Bonds - Part 4

She was bound, gagged, and drugged so that she couldn't move. Just hearing her lover's muffled voice coming from somewhere else on or near the hovercraft sent tingling waves of feeling throughout her body. Hearing her brother's voice made her confused... She still wasn't completely sure what happened or where she was. She knew, however, that Delinquent had done this. And Fenshire's voice... it was strained, hurt...

She didn't have time to wonder why this happened, she needed to save the man that meant the world to her. BlackVelvet needed to get free.

With every passing moment, she could feel more and more feeling return to her body. She could begin to move her fingers and her toes. She could feel the rough line that was cutting into her wrists and ankles, binding them together. Trying to move her fingers, BlackVelvet tried to reach the knot that the lines were tied into, but could only brush the tips of her fingers against it. If she had something to cut them, she could easily get out of this.

BlackVelvet looked desperately around the cabin, taking in her surroundings. It seemed like a very sparse crew quarter. Rusty pipes ran along the ceiling and cables were scattered across the grated floor. A solitary steel bed to her left, with a few roughly woven blankets thrown across it for bedding. Directly across from her was the heavy entrance door with a wheel lock in the center. To the right was the only other feature of this room, a steel desk, with a worn and rusty metal chair in front of it. A dusty looking monitor sat on the desk, with a grimy keyboard in front of it. Disks were in a rough pile next to the computer, and a ceramic bowl with a metal fork resting in it sat next to the keyboard. This must've been Delinquent's room on the hovercraft. She never expected it to be so... empty. So devoid of personality. It seemed to just serve it's purpose: a place to sleep, work, and eat.

Seeing the bowl atop the desk, BlackVelvet saw her way out of these bonds. Summoning up all her strength, she lunged forward throwing her body into the desk, hoping to knock the bowl onto the floor. The desk barely moved as she hit it. More feeling started to come back to BlackVelvet, but with it, came the pain from her previous injuries. Her side felt like it was on fire, and as she slid back to the floor, she fought hard to hold back the tears that were uncontrollably sliding down her cheeks.

She forced her body up onto her knees, and slowly, painfully, stretched herself up so that her head came up above the desk. She gritted her teeth against the gag and knocked the bowl with the side of her head. The bowl slid a bit, closer to the edge of the desk. The pain screaming out at her, she hit the bowl again, this time succeeding in knocking it off. The bowl fell off the desk and crashed on the floor, breaking into pieces. BlackVelvet fell back onto the floor, gasping and wincing from the pain. She laid on the floor, looking up at the pipes above her. The pain was too much... she couldn't do this... Why was this even happening?

Somewhere up above, a speaker clicked on.

"...ribs.. I think I broke a few. Not that it'll make much difference soon, anyways. Anyhow, I then dragged you over to this nice rock and chained up you to it. Then I waited until you woke up, and now here..."

Then the speaker burst into static and clicked off.

It was Delinquent's voice. She could hear what was going on... Fenshire was in real danger. Ignoring the pain that coursed through her body, BlackVelvet twisted herself around on the floor and reached for a piece of ceramic shard. She was able to grab hold of a large piece and worked it against her bonds. Eventually, she worked her way through the lines that tied her wrists, then got her feet free. Lastly, she pulled off the gag and sighed.

Her entire body felt sore... she must've been out and tied up for a very long period of time. Using the desk to help pull her back up on her feet, she shakily moved towards the door. Grasping onto the wheel lock, she tried to turn it and open the door, but to no avail. She was locked in...

She immediately focused on the computer. Maybe the lock was operated on some sort of system... there could be some kind of clue, or security controls on the computer. BlackVelvet held her side, her abdomen was killing her after all that stretching and twisting. She sat down at the computer and looked at the screen.

ValkyrieOS ccc9 (release 4.358-18.4smp #1 SMP)

login: OccultusUnus

password: ********

Welcome to ValkyrieOS, OccultusUnus. Please select your options below.

1. mail

2. systems diagnostics

3. vaulus training construct

4. life support systems

5. reactor support

6. system to disk back-up

7. logout

BlackVelvet sighed in disappointment... there didn’t seem to be anything on there that had anything to do with security or door locks. She could still hear Delinquent and Fenshire arguing, albeit muffled, but her curiosity was piqued... she clicked on the first option, “mail”.

ValkerieOS cc9 (release 4.358-18.4smp #1 SMP)

Mail - Please select your options below.

1. Inbox - 1 read message, 0 unread.

2. Sent

3. Saved - 43 messages.

BlackVelvet clicked 1 for “Inbox”.

From: Command

To: OccultusUnus

Subject: RE: Fenshire





He is now a threat. Remove him from the picture.

-G.

OccultusUnus wrote:

It seems like Fenshire is back in the Trust, no longer on his own. It’s only a matter of time before Zion Command brings him back into the fold. The way many redpills have stood up for him during this exodus, it could mean trouble for us. Orders?

-OU.

She sat there, in shock. Delinquent couldn’t possibly kill Fenshire... they were friends! But who is “OccultusUnus”..? Could that be Delinquent? Her brother wouldn’t do this...

The speaker burst out static and then she heard another snippet of the conversation between the two men...

"...world is why. This world. This world that you threw me into, ripping me out of the life of everything I had ever known. You took me and threw me into this hell. You never told me that I'd be forced to live in this place... where it's cold and where we're forced to eat muck all day long...."

She needed to hurry, but she needed to know why Delinquent was doing this. She knew of his desire to go back to the Matrix, but she’s never heard him like this. He was her brother! This just wasn’t like him... She backed out of the Inbox and opened up the Saved files.

Saved mail. 1st message.

From: Command

To: Delinquent

Subject: RE: RE: Interested



Nice, D. That oughta do it. We’ll be sending you your new handle and welcome mat. I’d like to say you’d get a nifty membership card and decoder ring, but it seems like we’re out of stock. By the way, what’s your color? Black, red, or blue?

Ignorance is bliss,

E.



Delinquent wrote:

As requested, here’s proof of my loyalty. I’ll be sending the log for you to look over, but here’s the gist. Tyndall had me pick up a potential victim and escort them to a local extraction point. The crew of the hovercraft Incisor was there to accept the potential. Before they could even offer the pill, I pulled out my rifle and eliminated all targets including the blue. No witnesses, you know?

-Delinquent

Command wrote:

Delinquent,

It’s not just as easy as putting on a mask and getting plugged back in. You have to earn your right back in. You need to show us how far you’re willing to go.

Ignorance is bliss,

E.

Delinquent wrote:

I want back in. Through research, I found that you are the one I need to speak with. What do I have to do to get away from this nightmare ‘they’ call the Real?

-Delinquent

Delinquent... killed the crew of the Incisor? The report on that from way back said it was a group of exiles... it was Delinquent..? She continued on...

Saved mail. 2nd message.

From: Command

To: Delinquent

Subject: Mission Orders



Delinquent,

Welcome to our cause, our agenda. From here on out, you will be referred to as ‘OccultusUnus’, “Hidden One” in Latin. Any transmission you have with us will be under that handle.

You must take extreme care to keep your identity veiled when carrying out missions for us. If one of your Zionite “compatriots” recognizes you, it could compromise our entire plan. Remain vigilantly masked. Destroy this transmission immediately after reading it.

Veil.



So Delinquent went ahead and became a Cypherite... things were beginning to make sense. But BlackVelvet still couldn’t believe it...

Saved mail. 3rd message.

From: OccultusUnus

To: Command

Subject: Code bombs



Okay, it’s done. You should’ve seen the Prophets of Peace’s faces when I dismantled those bombs. That one girl, Suiko, yelling “you better follow your faction’s orders!” lol I said back to her, “I AM following orders!” ROFLMAO!! And I was being honest! Oh man, what a rush that was! And, just like you thought, Fenshire stood behind me 100%!! Hey, do me a favor, if you need me to take out another redpill, can I put in a request to pop Musutangu? That guy is a pain in the butt.

-OU

Command wrote:

We’ve recently come under the knowledge that Fenshire has ordered the Trust to help Morpheus with his plans. We sense a fracture coming within Zion, and we need you to stay on the side of Jason Lock. We’ll deal with Morpheus in our own way, you just continue to send us reports on Zion Command. Whatever Morpheus is planning, I want you to oppose him. We’ll make sure that Fenshire is occupied tomorrow so that you’ll be the ranking officer jacked in at the time. From the intel we’ve gotten on Fenshire, he’ll stand behind whatever decision you make.

-G.

BlackVelvet continued to look through a few more files, then skipped ahead a bit. She couldn’t help but to sit here and read. The reality of the situation began to creep through her, turning her blood to ice.

Saved mail. 26th message.

From: OccultusUnus

To: Command

Subject: The Devil’s Advocates



Okay, I’m in.

The information you made about Glider being related to Morpheus’ death worked wonders. I managed to ‘accidentally’ slip it into their communications for Kabell to find. Well, he showed up at Club Kirin where I was to meet him, but he brought company; Renshi, Severious, and pltchaos. The Trust, Royal Guard, and Ralica made a rescue attempt for me, but I let Anubis think I gave into his ridiculous interrogation and shouted “I WILL WORK FOR THE MEROVINGIAN” just as Team Zion busted in. Oh, the look on Fenshire’s face was rich. The grown man crying and blathering on. Anyhow, I’ve uploaded the crew list of the 6 Horsemen to you, and included the names of the crews and their captains as requested. I’ll provide you with more DA info as I come across it.

-OU

P.S. Again, if you need another redpill taken out, you can add Return to that list. She’s as bad as Musutangu.

Command wrote:

I’m sure you’re aware of the Merovingian-aligned faction, the Devil’s Advocates. They’ve been growing in numbers a little too fast for my taste. We don’t have anyone to spare at the moment, and since things are quiet in Zion Command as of late, I need you to infiltrate their organization. I don’t care how you do it. If you need anything to help make it easier, just let me know.

Ignorance is bliss,

-E.

BlackVelvet sat back in the chair in utter disbelief. Delinquent’s kidnapping by the Devil’s Advocates was staged so the Cypherites could gain more information about them? This couldn’t be real... everyone fought so hard to get him back... that was when she first learned of him being her brother... what if that wasn’t even true? How deep has Delinquent’s deception gone..?

Static burst out of the speaker as it began to broadcast another snippet of the conversation.

“have to worry about BlackVelvet much longer. You'll be going to meet her soon...”

Static, Fenshire’s voice.

“...do you mean...? What did you do to her?"

Static.

“BlackVelvet is dead. I couldn't have her interfere with us... plus, she knew your location. You think I just found you by accident?”

Again the speaker went out. BlackVelvet had to get to Fenshire. She had to save him. Let him know that she was still here, and still alive. Suddenly, there was a loud click from the door, and it slowly opened into the room with a loud, rusty groan. Outside in the companionway, it was pitch black. Unnerved by what just happened, BlackVelvet slowly got out of the chair and kneeled down to grab the fork that was laying amongst the shattered remains of the bowl. After waiting a few moments, and hearing nothing other then the hum of the hovercraft’s life systems and the muffled voices of Fenshire and Delinquent, she decided to move out into the hall.

Light from the room illuminated about ten feet of the hall on either side, but other then that, it was completely dark. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a small light flicker on off to her left. Cautiously, she crept slowly along the hall to the small light. The light, merely some kind of indicator on some machine that does who knows what, was barely enough to shed light on a foot of space. Feeling around, she could tell that she was at a T-intersection. The light was at the end of the hall, with passages going off to her left and her right, also black with darkness. To her right, another light flickered on, light that was spilling out of another room down the hall.

Again, her back to the pipe and cable lined hallway, she moved slowly towards the room. When she got to the door, she stopped to listen for anything in the room. She heard nothing inside except for the static hum of the light inside as it flickered occasionally. Turning around, her makeshift weapon, the fork, held out before her, she looked into the room.

It was a simple supply closet. All manner of equipment for making repairs on the hovercraft lined the shelves inside. Suddenly, one of the shelves collapsed, dropping it’s contents on the floor, landing in front of the doorway. It was one of those large arc welder machines, the ones for sealing up holes in the hulls of hovercraft. It sure makes a better weapon then a fork. BlackVelvet bent down, wincing again from the pain in her side, and picked up the large, rifle-shaped piece of equipment.

As soon as she stood back up, all the lights came back on in the hovercraft. This startled her for a minute as she glanced nervously up and down the hallway. Still no sign of no one. However, with the lights on, BlackVelvet would be able to easily find her way out of the hovercraft. Now should could finally get out, find Fenshire, and hopefully try to talk some sense back into Delinquent.

Another speaker squawked on, this one somewhere inside the supply closet.

“...the time BlackVelvet got to his side, the poison had already dissipated and done it's work. That's right, Kris. You have me to thank for your 'sweet romance' with BlackVelvet. I killed Labraid and removed him from the picture for you. You can save your thanks, because you ended up doing me a great favor. You got...”

The speaker clicked off.

She was stunned. Her knuckles began to turn white as her grip on the arc welder grew tighter and tighter. All feeling began to leave her body as the pain began to dissipate and the adrenaline began to flow. Labraid... Delinquent killed Labraid... and now he wanted to take Fenshire from her as well... Everything around her began to turn red and all sound began to fade until all she heard was her very own heartbeat. BlackVelvet knew what she had to do. She was a trained assassin, after all.

With new resolve, she turned and began to walk down the hall that would lead her to the hovercraft’s exit...

Message Edited by Fenshire on 10-15-2005 12:08 AM

Message edited by Fen on 10/14/2005 20:08:54.
Report this post to a moderator
10/15/2005 03:35:52
Subject: Re: Broken Bonds - A Story
Shkspear




Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 127
Location: Recursion (HvCft Juliet)
Offline
*hands his quill and nametag to Fenshire*



Looks like you should have these.... not me.



/bravo

Report this post to a moderator
10/15/2005 05:15:40
Subject: Re: Broken Bonds - A Story
Fen


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 5119
Location: HvCFT Devildog
Online



Broken Bonds - Finale

Delinquent smiled, knowing that he had finally defeated me. With a triumphant grin, he brought the knife closer to my face. "Well then, since the cat's got your tongue, I suppose we should begin. Goodbye, Fenshire."

He brought the knife down, making a very small, very careful incision on my left forearm. I couldn't really even feel it, to be honest. I couldn't believe that this man, my one time best friend, was capable of any of this. He'd sell out his friends to live in a false reality, he'd.. kill his sister.. my love...

I felt defeated. I felt like my entire world has just been destroyed. Like someone reached into my soul and ripped out every essence of humanity from me. Delinquent did... he took the one woman that was a very piece of my soul and tore her away. Now I feel like I have nothing. Nothing to care about.. to live for..

I don't know if it was the pain from my wounds, the loss of blood, or just the pure emotional shock of what Delinquent had just said... but I felt my eyelids grow heavy. The world around me began to blur. My head slowly began to fall forward. Normally, I'd try to fight this... fight to stay awake... fight to try and find a way out of this mess. But to be honest... I just didn't care anymore.

Delinquent smacked me across the face, jolting me back awake. "Oh, no no no. There's no going to sleep for you. You need to stay awake and be aware of every little part of this."

I looked up at him, and said unemotionally, "Go to Hell, you **bleep**. Do whatever you want. I don't care. Just kill me and be done with it."

At that Delinquent laughed. "Oh this is even better then I thought! I truly have defeated you! Well, don't worry. I will make you care. I'm going to drag this out as long as I can and I'm going to savor every moment of it." He leaned close. "I was going to save my favorite part for last, but I think I'll get to it now."

He brought up his knife and pointed to my eyes. "My favorite part about this torture is the very small, but very painful cuts that are made to the eyelids... just above the eyeball. If done correctly, the victim tries to close his eyes to block out the flow of blood... but still ends up seeing through the incision. I hear it's quite painful."

*****


BlackVelvet came to the entrance of the hovercraft, and climbed down the ramp onto the ground. She looked around and finally spotted Delinquent and Fenshire. Fenshire was sitting down, chains wrapped around his torso holding him firmly to a small outcropping of rock. He looked battered and bloody. His head slumped forward... Delinquent was crouched before him, but stood up. In his right hand was a knife, a small drop of blood falling from the tip.

No..., BlackVelvet thought, Fen can't be...

Fury and adrenaline still running hot through her veins, she raised up the arc welder and began to stride purposefully towards Delinquent.

*****

I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. Exhaustion finally took over and my head slumped forward. I wanted to just let the darkness come over me. Just drown out everything that was going on around me.

Delinquent stood up over me and shook his head. “You’re not making this easy on me, Kris. The more you fall asleep, the more painful this becomes. First I’ll start with the eyes, then I’m sure I can find some more sensit-- AAAHH!!” Delinquent screamed out in pain and spun around, falling back on the ground.

My eyes opened, my sight still blurry, but I could see a figure standing before Delinquent, a blue arc of energy having just been released from whatever it was holding in it’s arms.

Delinquent winced in pain as he tried to pick himself up off the ground. He glared up at the figure wielding the massive arc welder pointed down in his direction. “What the..? Sarabelle..? How did you...?”

Another arc of energy shot out of the gun. The figure, a woman, jolted back but held her position as the recoil on the arc welder slammed into her. Delinquent screamed out again as he was pushed along the ground by the sheer force of the energy hitting into him. Again, the arc stopped.

Delinquent gasped out and coughed, blood spilling out of his mouth. He looked down at his body, his chest and abdomen charred. I could smell him burning... I blinked my eyes, trying to force my sight back into focus.

“Sarabelle... please...” Delinquent hacked out. “I’m your brother... I love you...”

My sight cleared quickly hearing that. It couldn’t be... I looked up at the figure. It was BV!! A moment of joy and relief coursed through my body. I could only hope this wasn’t a dream or some kind of hallucination brought on by the pain. She looked down at Delinquent, her face showed her utter disgust for him.

“You’re not my brother. You’re a sick, twisted, evil monster.” Another arc and Delinquent screamed out again in pain. “You killed Labraid. I heard you. Now you’ve taken Fen away from me too...”

Tears streamed down Delinquent’s face as he looked up at BlackVelvet. “No... I... Please, Sarabelle... you...”

BlackVelvet fired off the arc welder again, this time holding down the trigger letting a constant stream of searing heat slam into Delinquent. She screamed out at him. “Don’t call me that! You are not my brother!!!”

I watched, my mouth open, as BlackVelvet laid into Delinquent, his screams eventually drowning out until he was just a charred, lifeless husk. She still continued to unload into his body.

“Beev...”, I said, barely audible.

She began to cry, but never once let up off the trigger of the arc welder.

“Beev... Love... stop... please...”, I almost couldn’t watch it anymore. “BV!! Stop! He’s dead!!”

She released the trigger and let the welder slip from her fingers and fall to the ground. She turned her gaze towards me, her face showing the disbelief at hearing my voice. “Fen..?”

I tried to smile up at her, and winced a bit in pain. “He’s dead, love... it’s over now...”

“Fen!” She ran over to me, falling to her knees next to me, reaching out and grabbing my face with both hands. “Oh my God, you’re still alive... I was so worried... I saw you here and...” She let the tears come and began to shudder with sobs.

I smiled, feeling all the life returning back to me. “Love... he told me he killed you... I...”

BlackVelvet, her hands holding each side of my face, leaned down and gave me a long, passionate kiss. Afterwards, she pulled back, staring into my eyes. “I’ve missed you so much... I didn’t know if I was ever going to see you again... I just... couldn’t stand not being near you...”

She wrapped her arms around me, collapsing on top of me. The pain from my ribs wracked throughout my body, my head feeling like it was exploding, and I held back the reactionary scream. BlackVelvet noticed my tensing up and heard me grunt in pain. She immediately pulled back looking at me concerned. “Hun.. what’d he do to you...?”

I coughed as spasms of pain shot through me. “Beev... I’m hurt pretty bad... do you think you can get me out of here..?”

She nodded and stood up, wincing briefly as she moved her hand to her side. I could tell she tried to hide her injury. She was a strong woman. She moved around behind the rock and began working with the chains. After a few minutes, she got the last of the chains untied and I felt them loosen immediately as they fell to the ground. BlackVelvet came back around to me and kneeled once again. I massaged my arms, trying to get some feeling back into them. I looked up at her.

“BV... how are you here? What happened..?”

She sighed, looking at the ground lost in thought. Then she sat down next to me, leaning into me. I winced a bit, but lifted my arm up around her. “I had problems with the Freelancer and had to bring her down in an emergency landing. I packed some supplies and set out for the coordinates that you gave me. Then he found me.. but he drugged me.. I don’t know how long I was out. But I woke up in his cabin on the ship and...” She opened her eyes and looked at me quickly. “Fen! I found something on the ship! You need to see it... they’re files... his files... with the masked...”

I sighed and looked over at the hovercraft, the Zion’s Elite. “I can’t believe it... I can’t believe he went Cypherite... I can’t believe he’s gone...”

BlackVelvet got to her feet and looked down at me. “Fen.. we should go... I want to show you those files...”

I looked up at her and nodded. “Think you can help me up?”

“Of course, hun.”

She bent down and put my arm around my shoulder. After counting to three, she helped to hoist me up onto my feet. Again, pain exploded from my abdomen as I tried my best not to scream out. Moving very slowly, we made our way back to the hovercraft. She lead me through the companionways to Delinquent’s cabin. When we entered, I looked around at the spartan furnishings.

“Not quite what I expected...” I said.

BlackVelvet helped me down onto the chair in front of his computer. “Hun... read the mails.”

I read through the first one... and then the next... and the next... with each mail read, my mouth dropped in more and more disbelief. I couldn’t believe all that I was reading. Everything we had done, Delinquent had pulled all the strings. From direct actions to subtle suggestions, I began to learn how Delinquent was a master of deception. I’m sure his masked leaders were proud. As I looked through the computer, I learned that not only had he kept all his mail from the Cypherites, but he had compiled a list of the members that he knew the identity of.

“Love, we need to get this information to Zion. The Council needs to be warned...”

BlackVelvet nodded. “I know. Okay, let me help you over to the bed. You rest here, and I’ll pilot the ship back home. You need to rest.” As she bent down to aid me, she winced again in pain.

I grinned over at her. “I think we both could use a little rest. We can have it in Zion, together. I’m coming up to the cockpit with you.” I pulled myself up, the pain almost unbearable.

She grabbed my shoulders, helping to support me. “No, hun... I can do this. You just rest...”

I leaned up against the desk and I looked over at her. “We do this together.” Picking up one of the disks that were spread out on the desk, I slid one into the side of the monitor. I selected to back up the system information. After a few moments, the disk popped out and I put it into my pocket.

BlackVelvet and I helped each other to the cockpit. She helped me to sit in the co-pilot’s seat, and she pretty much collapsed into the pilot’s seat. She glanced over at me and smiled. “Let’s go home.”

She flicked the switches that would activate the hoverpads and raise the docking ramp, then clicked on the button to fire up the reactor engine. Her movements were so fluid and natural, and she executed them with such grace.

But, nothing happened.

BlackVelvet stared around at the instruments, a confused look on her face. I glanced over at her. “What’s wrong, Beev?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know... nothing’s working. I mean, the ship has power, but nothing’s working. It should be powering up...”

I looked over at the instruments. Everything seemed in order and the power was almost at maximum capacity. “Do you think the reactor might be bad? The ship was running fine when we landed..”

BlackVelvet shook her head. “If it were bad, we would’ve still heard the reactor try to power up. It’s like the switches and buttons don’t even work at all. When I came out of Lee’s... Delinquent’s... room, there was a problem with the lights. They were out and a few would flicker on and off... it was really weird...”

I looked over at the communications panel. “Seems like the comms are still up... let me see if we have anyone friendly in the area we can call out to.”

I activated the ship’s scanners, and watched the readout as it searched the area for other hovercrafts or hoverbarges. A few Chambers of Shaolin ships popped up on screen, followed by a ship owned by the MegaCity Department of Energy.

I groaned as the list continued. “As much as I’d like to ask some of our Machinist friends for help, we need someone that can actually get us through the gates of Zion.” As the list continued, a name popped up that caught my attention. I quickly stopped the scan and grinned.

BlackVelvet looked over at me. “What is it? Did we find someone?”

I looked over at her. “We sure did. The Chaos Hunter is nearby. Abasynian’s ship. He’s a bit of a mercenary, but hell... he’s a Zionist through and through.”

Excited, I activated the comms. “Come in, Chaos Hunter! Come in, Chaos Hunter, do you copy?”

I heard Abasynian’s voice on the other line. “Fenshire..? Holy **bleep**, Fen is that you?!”

BlackVelvet and I laughed happily at each other as I almost cried with joy. “My God, Ab am I happy to hear your voice! Think a guy and his girl could bum a ride to Zion?”

*****


To make a long story short, Abasynian came and found us. He helped BlackVelvet and I to his ship and one of his crewmembers immediately took us to the sick bay and began treating our wounds. I slept most of the way back to Zion. When we got back to the docks, armed guards were waiting for us. Word had traveled quickly that I was returning back to Zion, and I’m sure that Lock would want to immediately put me on trial.

The Council, notified of our wounds, had us go straight to the medical section. The ships in The Trust, upon hearing of my return, immediately stopped the search in the Real and made their way back to Zion.

I ended up not actually having any broken ribs. They were just bruised. I was treated for a concussion, and I had to get stitches in my chest where Delinquent had slashed at me. While I was recovering in the medical centers of Zion, Lieutenant Commander KnifeEdge insisted on presenting my case and the information about Delinquent before the Council.

From what I heard, he got into it a few times with Commander Lock as he tried to explain my actions to the Council. Apparently, Lock wanted to take away my ship, but Sergeant Iviera wouldn’t have it. Although I haven’t verified it, I heard that she socked him one. Many stood up and spoke on mine and BlackVelvet’s behalf. When things began to calm down between Lock and my Trustmates, KnifeEdge solemnly presented the information regarding Delinquent and the Cypherites. KnifeEdge had known Delinquent even back before the Trust, back when we were all on the Devildog together. I’m sure the news of his treachery hurt him as much as it did me. As the Council read aloud the information contained within the files, all gathered were shocked at how deep Delinquent’s deceit had gone. The end of the file shocked us all when we learned that an assassination attempt had been planned on Lock and Tyndall. Tyndall broke down at the news of that, as she had gotten close to Delinquent during his time in Zion.

Finally, KnifeEdge presented the case of having the Trust operate independently from Commander Lock. After much debate over the situation, it was KillahRazor’s influence with Councilor West that landed us the job of our dreams.

Zion had been building an outpost on the surface, inspired by the outposts those loyal to the Merovingian and the Machines have built. It would be a symbol for Zion, showing their willingness to share the surface with the Machines, and to slowly begin to reclaim our land. It also would serve another purpose. It was positioned directly above the holes that the Machines had created when they dug into Zion. The outpost would serve as a frontline of defense, should the Truce ever falter. The Trust was given the duty of maintaining and operating this outpost, Outpost One. We would be considered a separate force in Zion, not part of Zion’s military, but still under the Zion banner. We would now take our orders from the Council itself.

When we finally got everything moved in, the team really jumped to work in operating the base. Captain Shkspear got a little too overexcited about the possibilities we could have operating the place. I had laughed and just told him to focus on getting the mainframe up and running.

My crew aboard the Devildog told me that after FreeStyle had welcomed me back in the Trust, he disappeared without a word. I had assumed it was out of sorrow for what had come between us. A few weeks after my return, I had promoted Iviera to the rank of lieutenant and gave her the position as my first mate aboard the Devildog. Soon after, FreeStyle had returned and we got into another one of our fights. He had been out on special assignment and had taken a transceiver with him in case we needed to get in touch with him. I should’ve contacted him, I know that now. We haven’t spoken with each other in sometime now, and I can only hope that time will heal the wounds that we’d given each other.

BlackVelvet surprised me one day when she flew the Freelancer into our dock. She said she couldn’t speak for the rest of the Royal Guard, but she was going to stay here at the outpost with us... with me. KillahRazor had taken her in the Yojimbo back to where she had to make a forced landing. After some repairs, the Freelancer was back up and running again.

I’m really proud of my fellow Trust members and how they’ve stepped up for the responsibility of this duty. It’s not easy, and it’s certainly not pleasant. The heat doesn’t work half the time and as I said before... the surface isn’t really a nice place. The constant howling of the wind got to everyone the first couple of weeks, but now we’ve learned to just drown it out.

We’ve picked up a few more members since we started our post, and even another hovercraft, the Titan. I’ve promoted Hauk, my operator, to the position of mission controller. We now run all of our missions through him, although we still get occasional requests from Tyndall or Anome. They’re usually pretty big jobs, however. We’ve been using a lot of the data that was provided off of Delinquent’s disks to help route out the Masked.

One thing of interest... Zion had sent out a ship to recover the Zion’s Elite, so they could commission it to someone else. When they arrived at the coordinates we had given them, the ship was nowhere to be found. Everything else was there... Delinquent’s remains, the smashed transceiver... The only thing we could conclude was that the ship was picked up by one of the many Machinists that live out on the surface.

All in all, though, I’m pleased with how things turned out.

Most of all, I’m glad I can be with my love, BlackVelvet, again.
Report this post to a moderator
10/15/2005 05:16:00
Subject: Re: Broken Bonds - A Story
Fen


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 5119
Location: HvCFT Devildog
Online




*****


Epilogue

The four men sat around the cruddy table, playing a game of cards and smoking cigarettes inside this warehouse in the Uriah Industrial Park. Each wore a bandanna tied around their faces, concealing their identity.

“Do you think he’ll show?” one of the men asked, a man in a red bandanna.

The man across from him, a man in a blue bandanna, lifted his mask briefly to take a drag off the cigarette, and shrugged. “Who knows... it’s been more then a month since we had any contact with Command. They say Enmascarado is dead and that Veil has been captured.”

A third man, also in a red bandanna, looked at his companions. “Do you really think that chick on the Novalis II, Toorima, was really Veil? I don’t know if I believe that...”

The first man spoke again. “I bet Germaskeerd framed them. I mean, no one’s really spoken too much to Veil, but Enmascarado was cool. He was the funniest S.O.B. I’d ever met. But like, Germaskeerd never really talked that much. And he was always kind of cold when he would assign you missions. I dunno... maybe he just wanted more power or something...?

The man in the blue bandanna raised an eyebrow and looked across the table. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s probably just in hiding now, what with all the hits that are being made on us.”

The fourth man, wearing a black bandanna, looked at his watch. “OccultusUnus is late. He was supposed to be here an hour ago. I’m getting a bad feeling about this.”

Outside, they could hear the low rumble of an approaching motorcycle. The bike stopped right outside the doors to the warehouse and the engine was cut-off. The men looked at each other and jumped out of their seats, pulling out an array of weapons.

The first man in the red bandanna spoke, “Do you think it’s him? Is he here?”

The doors opened and a woman in a purple motorcycle suit strode in. She pulled off her helmet and ran her hands through her purple highlighted hair. She flashed a grin at the four men who stood there, completely flabbergasted.

The man with the black bandanna raised up his .45 automatic pistol at the woman. “Who the hell are you?”

“She looks really familiar...” one of them said.

The man in the blue bandanna sniffed, his nose wrinkled up. “God, who the hell is smoking the cigar? It reeks!”

“Aw, hell. It ain’t so bad boys. A Chessman Sweet is one of the finest you can find around here in the MegaCity,” a voice said behind him.

Three of the men spun around to see who spoke, the fourth continuing to keep his gun on the woman.

The man in the blue bandanna stumbled back in surprise. “It’s... it’s Fenshire! And that’s BlackVelvet! It’s a trap!”

Fenshire grinned and tossed his cigar over onto the table. “Shucks, love, they found us out. I was hoping to have a few rounds and win some info first.”

BlackVelvet laughed sweetly. “I don’t know... I think we might still be able to clean house with our hand.”

She rushed forward, quickly grabbing Black’s gun and pointing it back at him.

Fenshire smiled at the other three as he pulled out his pair of silenced FM-11SK submachine guns. “I think there are about to be four hovercrafts that are just going to be completely surprised to see what some of their members have been up to. Ready, love?”

BlackVelvet cocked the pistol. “Let’s kick some *CENSORED*, hun.”

The End.

Message Edited by Fenshire on 10-15-2005 09:21 AM

Message edited by Fen on 10/15/2005 05:21:31.

[Vesuveus]

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"Stories" by Fenshire
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08/16/2005 17:23:30
Subject: "Stories" by Fenshire
Fen


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 5119
Location: HvCFT Devildog
Online

I hate stories.

Rather, I hate telling stories. I can never think of where they should start. Do I go from the beginning?

That's a pretty obvious choice. But then we get into the question of where the beginning actually starts. Maybe my story starts when I was a kid, completely carefree and rambunctious, a total trouble-maker for my parents. Or, maybe it starts when they put me in military school, to "keep me in line". Hell, why not just start it when I was in the Marines, and my unit beat the crap out of me with socks full of soap because my "antics" got our leave canceled. You see why I hate starting these **bleep** stories? So many possibilities...

Ah screw it. I'll just start with the here and now. Maybe something will come to me.

I close my eyes and I feel the wind rushing at the back of my head. It's pretty peaceful like this. All I hear is the distant sound of traffic, steadily rising in pitch, the sound of the air rushing all about me, and the faint, ethereal tinkling of glass. I open my eyes and gaze out at the bright, blue sky... the sun warming my face, the clouds drifting lazily by... uncaring of the events that happen in this crazy city below them.

Sighing, I look up and scan the surrounding area, everything growing larger in size as I approach my final destination. I grow a little worried... Cirpeio should've been here by now. Not that I'm worried of death, such a thing is quite avoidable in the Matrix these days... the pain, however, remains.

I look back down at those lazy clouds...

It's really amazing how much you can think about during the 21.6 seconds it takes to fall out the window of an 80 story building.

Above me, I hear the sound of an air horn. I look up at the rapidly approaching street to see a dull green dump truck, it's bed full of garbage. I smile. Good ol' Cirpeio came through for me after all. But really... garbage? The truck stops below me the second that I impact with it. A drop like that would probably have killed a normal man. But none of us are really normal men... we've learned to bend the rules of The Matrix to our will.

Oh yeah, it hurt. But hey, I'm still kickin', right?

I get up, and jump over the side of the bed to hit the ground. Brushing myself off, I walk towards the driver side of the truck's cab.

"Really, Cirpeio... cutting it a little close aren't you? And garbage? Couldn't you have found hay, or mattresses, or pillows??"

Cirpeio leans out of the window and grins down at me. "Aw, come on boss. You said 'just like one of those crazy Steven DeGaulle movies'... and if you hadn't noticed, the stunt man always falls into a pile of garbage or in a dumpster. And the suspense! I couldn't leave that out. Don't worry, Hauk had a lock on your location and knew the precise time we'd have to be here."

I smile and shake my head, pulling out a Chessman Sweet from my pocket. "I'll have to speak with Hauk when we get back then."

I run the cigar under my nose, pulling in every scent the Matrix tells me that is there. Mmm... Chessman Sweets... made special for me by an exile in Tabor Park for which the cigar is named. It's a very special torpedo-shaped cigar, with a natural Maduro wrapper leaf. I put it in my mouth, strike a match, and breath in the pure bliss that can only be gained by these particular cigars. Subtle aromas of sweet spices and oak gently dissipate as a blanket of maple syrup coats the front of my palate. They're like heaven... but don't get me wrong, I know it's all just code. But **bleep**... that's some fine code.

"Um.. Kris? Don't you think we should continue the mission? Put those poor bastards out of their misery?"

I look over to see Delinquent walking from around the passenger side of the truck, holding a small device in his right hand. His Winchester Model 70 Stealth sniper rifle, held in his left hand, rests against his shoulder. Delinquent and I were best friends back in our ignorant lives. He calls me Kris, I call him Lee. It seems weird for both of us to call each other by our handles.

**bleep**, it was easy to lose myself in these things, I think as I puff on my cigar. I hold out my hand and take the device from Delinquent. I turn, waving up at the poor Lupine **bleep** watching all this from his broken window on the 80th floor.

"Poor **bleep**, indeed. He, nor his friends, have any idea what's about to happen to them. For all they know, I just failed my mission to search their information network." I look at the device in my hand.

Cirpeio, still sitting in the truck, looks up at that poor **bleep** too. "Who builds an 80 story building in Roger's Way, anyway?"

I press the button. Waves of heat instantly beat down on us, as Delinquent and I dive into the cab of the truck and Cirpeio guns it. Looking in the rearview mirror, I watch as the top of the building explodes in an array of yellows, oranges, reds, and black. Like crystal rain, I hear the sounds of glass and mortar hitting the ground all around us. With a satisfying smile, I watch as the building falls, and with it, one of the Merovingian's most elaborate information hubs.

"No one, Cirpeio. No one."

"****, Kris, we got company." Delinquent leans out the passenger side of the truck, grabs the roof, and slides out onto the top of the cab, his gun slung over his shoulder. I hear the crack of his rifle ring out in the air.

I slide over to the passenger seat and look out the side mirror. I see a lupine driving a red BMW K1200S motorcycle along side our truck spin out and get himself crushed underneath one of our tires. Good shot, Lee, I think to myself.

Unfortunately, two more come up from behind the truck to replace the first. I can only imagine what's behind us and to the other side of the truck. And sport bikes tend to be just a tad faster then a construction-grade dumptruck. I look over at Cirpeio. "You just keep doing what you're doing. I'm hitting topside with Delinquent."

"Aye, aye, Captain."

In a similar movement to Delinquent, I grab the roof's edge and pull myself up top. I hold the cigar in my mouth and pull out my babies... my Clamors. Delinquent is down on one knee, lining up his next target. I survey the scene.

Behind the truck, a silver Range Rover packed with machinegun-wielding Elite Guards, plus their lupine motorcade. About five total lupines on various sportbikes, firing off their FM-11SKs at us.

CRACK! Make that four lupines. Gotta love Delinquent.

"All right. Lee, you take out the wolf boys, I'll take out the grocery getter."

"Agreed."

Running forward, I leap over the stinking pile of trash that probably saved me from getting a cracked rib, guns outstretched and on full-auto, towards the Range Rover. The bald exile in the driver seat tries to hit the brakes, to widen the gap between our two vehicles. The other exiles open fire on me and time seems to slow down... I twist my body in the air, barely avoiding the dozens of bullets flying in slow motion towards me. In reaction, I squeeze the triggers on both my guns, my mind focused and my aim true. By the time I hit the hood of the SUV, the two exiles in the back are dead in their seats. That leaves the guys in the front seats.

Immediately, the driver tries swerving back and forth in hopes that I'd lose my balance and fall. I spread out both feet and brace myself, swaying like a mad sailor on his ship in a typhoon. The exile in the passenger seat, one with a bad mohawk and a worse attitude, swings his gun up to take me out. I, however, am much faster. Bringing both Clamors to the windshield, I press the triggers.

CLICK CLICK CLICK... God dammit. Guns are jammed. When I get out of this, I'll have to have KnifeEdge take a look at them and see if there's anything he can do. I quickly fall back, placing the Clamors back in their holsters underneath my Partisan Jacket, and nimbly avoiding holes in my head as the exile's gun goes off.

I spin around, reaching out with my left hand and forcing the passenger door off it's hinges.

CRACK! Three lupines.

I pull myself down to the passenger side, and get myself slugged in the face by Mr. Mohawk. I bite down on my cigar and kindly return the favor. He tries to crack me in the skull with the butt of his FM-11SK. My left hand holds onto the frame of the SUV, while I bring my right arm up and around the exile's gunarm. With a flurry of movement, I avoid the blow, and hear a satisfying crack in the exile's arm. The driver pulls out a pistol and tries to fire off a few shots at me. I pull Mr. Mowhawk in front of me. He makes a great shield. I pull him aside and throw the body out the door.

The driver holds onto the wheel with his left hand, while his right hand, the pistol, is pointed straight at my forehead.

CRACK! Thanks Delinquent, I think as I see the exile driver slump down in his seat, dropping his gun. I quickly grab the wheel and gain control of the SUV, wheeling it to a stop. Taking two of the FM-11SKs from the vehicle, I step out to see how the lupine motorcade is doing.

CRACK! Two lupines. One continues to trail after the dumptruck, while the other wheels around and begins speeding towards me. Bringing both guns up to bare against the lupine, I open fire. The lupine, obviously an excellent motorcyclist, moves back and forth, avoiding my spray of gunfire. I barely jump out of the way as he zooms by, almost turning me into roadkill. I land on my side, aiming for the lupine and opening fire. He moves his body to the right, almost like he has eyes on the back of his head, dodging my gunfire. I hear a loud pinging noise and see a silver disc fly up in the air... obviously a piece of the motorcycle. The gas cap. I must've hit it in the bullet spray when the lupine dodged.

Grinning, I stand up and level my guns to point at the lupine. He spins the motorcycle around to face me and chuckles. Gunning it, he speeds once again at me. Like a game of chicken, I don't budge, just stand there, guns raised and cigar dangling out of my mouth. The lupine leans in closer to the bike, gaining speed as he comes toward me.

At the final moment, I drop both guns and leap up and forward, sailing over the motorcycle in what again seems like slow motion. The lupine, a look of confusion on his feral face, watches as I sail over his bike, and begins to lean back... I smile and grab my cigar. What a waste, I think as I toss the cigar in the opening the lupine has given me in his confusion. Too late, the lupine realizes what I just did as the still-smoldering Chessman Sweet falls into the hole where the motorcycle's gas cap was.

Somersaulting, I land with one hand and knee on the ground behind the bike. The following cachophony of sounds and waves of heat on my back tells me my aim was true. The motorcycle explodes, and I hear the briefest sound of the lupine howling before getting cut off.

One lupine.

Turning around, I see the dumptruck approaching, with Delinquent sitting crosslegged on the top of the cab, cleaning his rifle. I can only assume that now means zero lupines. Cirpeio leans out of the driver side.

"Hey Captain, nice work. Need a ride?"

Smiling, I hop up in the passenger seat, and slide over for Delinquent as he climbs back down. "Thanks. Don't mind if I do. And very nice driving, Cirpeio. And awesome shooting, Lee."

Delinquent only cracks the faintest of smiles. "It's what I do."

Off in the distance, the sounds of helicopters and sirens can be heard faintly. It was time to go. We began to drive back to the nearest hardline, and I phoned Tyndall to let her know that our mission was a success. Soon, I'd be back in the ol' Devildog, my hovercraft, regaling our tale to the rest of the crewmates who no doubt are peeled to Hauk's screens watching the whole thing.

I hate telling stories. I can never seem to find a place to begin...

-Fenshire, Commander of The Trust
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08/17/2005 14:57:28
Subject: Re: "Stories" by Fenshire
Cmdr_Dezreki


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/clap

Good job Fenshire, for hating telling stories you sure do good at it.
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08/24/2005 06:36:24
Subject: Re: "Stories" by Fenshire
BlackVelvet




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Messages: 260
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More...we want more ....!

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01/11/2006 23:15:59
Subject: Re: "Stories" by Fenshire
Fen


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Heh... old story of mine from back in the day. Figure a lot of you n00bs haven't read it, so I thought I'd do a little thread necromancy on it. SMILEY
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Version 2.2.7.43

[Vesuveus]

10/16/2005 01:38:44
Subject: The Second Chapter of Accidental Genisis - Truths Never Told
Tefnut


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 1603
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Part 1: Fish out of Water


The engineering level was her favorite place to be. It was more secluded than the living areas. Almost no one came here even during waking hours. Plenty of time to sit by herself and contemplate her new "life."

At first the shock of the real was too much for her. She had imagined she was in a kind of coma or and that this was just all a really bad dream and she would wake up at any minute. But deep down she knew that was just a fantasy. The realness of the real was far too intense to be anything else but real. And the realness saddened her.

She could tell her new "friends" or “shipmates" were overly disappointed that it was her and not her brother that they pulled up from that muck. They had even told her as much. Ophelia, from the start, had had no use for her. Most of the crew was friendly, but there was something there... something unmentioned, but there nonetheless, that told her that she was not a member of this crew, this group of people, the only group of real people she had ever known, but rather a passenger.

It was Ying and Yang who had suggested that she be given training. And training she got. Thirty three minutes in the operations chair and she had all the knowledge of ship maintenance and repair she could have ever hoped for. With that knowledge and a mop, she was transformed from a redpill to a glorified janitor in a matter of hours.

Not all of her time on the hovercraft Ellipse was work. She did learn basic histories of the human race and Zion and our war with the machines. She felt obligated to be a part of the team and did her duties to the best of her abilities. When the operatives were jacked into the matrix, she was allowed to watch from the rear of the bridge. The ship's Operator, Xev not wanting her to "touch anything she didn't understand."

But none of that compared to the loneliness she felt. It was no surprise to any of the crew of the Ellipse when, after coming home to Zion to recharge, Lawanda requested to be left behind.

Billeted in a common sleeping area and given the job of recharging battery cells, Lawanda grew increasingly depressed. She often wondered if this was the life Antonio had envisioned for himself. If he had known the whole truth would he have taken the red pill or would he have come home and went to bed. Would he have been thankful for the potato sack shirt her would get to wear or would he long for the clothes hanging in his closet at the Paddock Club apartment?

In her job as a battery recharger, she met a good many people, most of whom she also saw in the large common sleeping area where she was allotted a bed and a small trunk to store her belongings. She met a few people she liked, who were friendly to her, but most people kept to themselves knowing she was the one who was freed by accident. Even when Lawanda would try and spark up a conversation with someone she would meet, they would either answer with short, direct responses, or arrogantly walk on by. It didn't take very long for her to stop trying to initiate conversations with "those" kind of peoples.

It had been explained to her before many times by many people that her "brother" was not really her brother at all. That they both just, at times, shared the same matrix induced dream reality or virtual space. She and he, in fact, like the whole human race were created and grown from spliced clones embryos of who knows how many respliced and recloned donors. They may have been physically located hundreds of miles from each other. She couldn't understand that, wouldn't buy it.

The last person she let tell her this without a scowl was a co-worker she met named Ishii. Ishii told Lawanda she had decided not to train as an operative when she was awakened since she didn't like violence, which sounded good to Lawanda. Ishii was the first person to warm up to Lawanda and Lawanda liked her company. She wasn't too demanding, and loved to talk. There were no awkward silences between them, and Ishii didn't push Lawanda to reveal anything about herself that she wasn't comfortable with.

Lawanda was surprised when Ishii first spoke to her. When Ishii walked up to her and said "Hey... you're Lawanda." Lawanda was so surprised she jumped.

"Wow... someone actually talked to me..." she mumbled.... though Ishii heard her.

"What are you talking about? Oh, the arrogant ones giving you the cold shoulder?" Ishii asked...

"Well... I don't know if I would call them arrogant. I don't ev..."

"Nonsense. Arrogant and self involved is just what they are. You would think that they would be more friendly to someone who was removed without being aware, but they act the opposite. Rudeness and arrogance. I've seen it before. Don't worry though... they don't like me much either, and I have a feeling that we are going to get along just great." Ishii said, the last bit a bit coyish.

Lawanda nodded her head, and was relieved to finally have someone to talk to.

Ishii was the person who first mentioned and then showed Lawanda the engineering level. She he pointed out and explained the machines and consoles that controlled them. Lawanda instantly fell in love with the place and started spending all her spare time there. Listening to the steady hum of the machines. Alone.

The Engineering level was her favorite place to be. As she sat in the shadows, she heard a beeping coming from one of the console displays. Standing up to see what it was, she noticed the small display flickering then turning white. In very small almost illegible print, a message appeared.

LAWANDA... IMEUT IS STILL ALIVE.

Lawanda looked around hoping to see who it was that was playing this cruel trick on her, maddened.

"How Rude!," she thought, but could see no one in the level.

Another message typed itself out:

YOU ARE NOT ALONE LAWANDA. WE CAN HELP YOU FIND HIM.


She Quickly though, Who is We?

WE WANT THE TWO OF YOU TO BE REUNITED.

"Who's we?" Lawanda asked.

YOU WILL SEE. FIND ISHII. SHE WILL GUIDE YOU.

The screen quickly fluttered then went blank.

For the first time in Lawanda's whole awakened life, she smiled.

Part 2: Bug Bytes


It took almost three days for Lawanda to muster up the nerve to approach Ishii.She had tried talking to her a few times but always seemed to lose her nerve at the last minute. This time she was resolved to make contact. As she approached Ishii, she started to say hello, when Ishii quickly leaned over and embarrassed her in a friendly hug, quietly whispering into her ear, "I know. Not not here. Not now. Meet me in the Engineering level in an hour."

"Ok." replied Lawanda, still a bit stunned by the unexpected hug.

As the elevator doors opened into the Engineering level, Lawanda jumped back in surprise, as the doors reviled Ishii standing in the foyer, waiting on her, arms crossed.

Hanging her head and with a pouty lip Lawanda said, "I just wanted to make sure I wasn't late."

"Thirty-five minutes early!" replied Ishii in mock amazement,"I knew you would be early ... why else would I be here even earlier?" She took Lawanda's arm in hers and said, "C'mon."

They walked for about ten minutes, enough for Lawanda to not recognize her surroundings. Lawanda asked, "Where are we going?" to which Ishii replied, "Just a bit further. We don't want to be overheard or caught."

At first she let the comment go, then after dwelling on it a few minutes she stopped walking and demanded, "Caught doing what?"

Ishii smiled and said, "Trust me." She proceeded down the corridor, leaving Lawanda to walk behind her. After reaching one of several doors at the end of the corridor, Ishii opened the door and walked into the waiting darkness that enveloped the room. Lawanda followed.

Taking a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, she lost sight of Ishii. A bit frightened, she turned around only to find herself uncomfortably face to face with Ishii and two very large men Lawanda had never seen before.

"Who..." she began to ask, but before the question could be asked, Ishii grabbed her arm and quickly plunged a needle full of a glowing purplish fluid into Lawanda's neck and emptied it.

"Whaaa..." was the only sound that came out of Lawanda's mouth as she broke free of Ishii's grip. "What the heck was that? What did you just do to me?"

"Insurance." replied Ishii. "Calm down and listen. I have injected millions of tiny nanobots into your bloodstream. These nanobots each contain segments of biological base pairs. When combined these base pairs will awaken a deadly disease that will liquefy your body in a matter of hours. In their present state they are totally harmless, but once activated...." she made a slicing motion from one side of her neck to the other while making a "kyyyyyyyyyyk" sound. "Do you understand?"

Lawanda nodded, obviously scared and a bit off balance.

"Now before you get too angry, listen to me. I am your friend. I want to help you. I want to help you find your brother, but certain precautions have to be made to protect us.." she pointed to the two gentlemen standing just behind her. "Once you have proven to me that you can be trusted, the nanobots will deactivated and purged from your body. Bygones..."

"I really am your friend, Lawanda. And I am doing this to protect you."

"You could have told me all that before jabbing me in the neck with that needle. I hate needles. Hated'em when I was in Dreamsville and still hate'em now.

"Some friend! Trust me she says..." replied Lawanda, rubbing her neck.."This is gonna bruise ya know."

Ishii waited, letting Lawanda settle down.

"Well..." said Lawanda impatiently. "You filled my body with poison robots... you might as well get along to answering my question.... Who are they" Lawanda motioned to the two strangers, "And who are you, really?"

Part III: Cats and Dogs

"I am exactly who I have told you I am. Ishii. I have never lied to you, Lawanda," Ishii defended. "I have just decided to not tell you certain things about myself. Everything I told you was true though, just not the entire truth."

"I am an exile. Until recently, have lived outside of Zion with others like myself. People who do not agree with the Zion Council with respect to the Matrix and the Machines. We all at some point made a choice to leave Zion. Chat and Cabot here," she said motioning to the two men who still stood silently at her side, "are also exiles. They remain here in Zion, as do others, to help ferry any fellow Mer...er dissidents who wish to leave away from Zion."

"Ok, but.." Lawanda started.

"Let me finish first." said Ishii. "Please."

"My associates dropped me off outside Zion and I was smuggled in. With all of the construction and general turmoil left over from the War, it is impossibly easy to get in and out of this place undetected. I was sent here because I do not jack into the matrix. I am completely undetectable, invisible if you follow in the real. I was sent here because someone was supposed to arrive here a short time ago. Someone who was carrying something very valuable to the Merovingian. But he never arrived. He never arrived because you took his place, Lawanda."

'Huh, Antonio? But what could he have for you? He was still in place, a part of the Matrix." argued Lawanda.

"You're brother's RSI was altered by an old associate of our...leader. We would like to examine his RSI and extract the altered code, if possible." stated Ishii.

Lawanda's brow furrowed and her lip started quivering. Her body tensed and her hands clenched into fists. "So you are trying to use me to get to my brother? As far as I know he died in my arms!" tears were streaming down her face.

"But you see.." started Ishii, "..that's really the dilemma, isn't it... You..Lawanda don't see very far at all. I mean, you are a virtural hermit living here doing what you are told to do while being ignored by the populace. You still insist Imeut is your brother and you are still using the name given to you by the machines who enslaved you. Well allow me to SHOW you the truth..."

Chat handed Ishii a small metal device which resembled a long, thick icepick while Cabot slid a chair to Lawanda, indicating for her to sit.

"This," said Ishii, referring to the metal rod in her hand, "is a Local Construct Terminal Connector. It is what adolescents who are newly awakened from the Matrix use to access our vast computer library, as well as train to free their minds from the rules of the Matrix. It is very much like what operatives use to jack into the Matrix, only scaled down. It also can be used as a gaming terminal.... I hear all the kids are playing something called a MMORPG on it... some crappy game called Star something Galaxies... Blaaa...whatever."

"We will be using it to display information recorded directly from a specific location in the Matrix. It has something you should see."

Holding the terminal terminal connector, Ishii looked at Lawanda. Understanding, Lawanda bent her head slightly forward, separating her now decently braided hair. Ishii slowly inserted the connector then turned it in place until it clicked.

Lawanda felt a weird wooziness as everything first went black, then kind of faded into a greenish mass of confusion. The confusion slowly started forming into objects that Lawanda's mind could make sense of, then the green cloud of confusion faded, and she could see clearly. She was surprised to be looking at herself. Her other self was holding her hand and crying. Slowly her other self lifted a red piece of candy... or maybe it was a cough drop, to her mouth and swallowed it, gagging slightly. As the image of her other self disappeared into a shower of green, she realized what she was seeing.

A few seconds later, two men in black suits burst down the door. Checking Imeut's pulse, the two men exchanged words. One placed his hand to his ear and spoke.



The image faded... darkness overcame her senses... then small flecks of light.Then her minds eyes opened again.... strange room. Window. Alone. A nurse enters and starts speaking, large smile on her caring face.



Fade

"He's alive! He's alive! He's alive" cried Lawanda as soon as the connector was removed from her head and she got her equilibrium back.

"As I told you he was." replied Ishii. We want to help you find him Lawanda. We want to help you find him and to remove him from the Matrix before something happens to his altered RSI. To save him, we will need your help. Will you please help us?"

"Wow." said Lawanda, "This is a lot. I don't know. Can you really find him?"

"Of course we can." replied Ishii.

"Ishii!" called out Chat. "They made us on that transmission. You have to get out of here."

"But.."

"No." said Ishii sternly, "We have to leave. We have to leave now." pointing to Cabot, and shoving Lawanda forward, Ishii said "Cabot, lead the way"

LATER

Boarding the elevator leaving the Engineering Level, Cabot asks Chat, "So... you think she bought it?"
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10/24/2005 02:22:34
Subject: Re: The Second Chapter of Accidental Genisis - Truths Never Told
Tefnut


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 1603
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Part IV - Busy Werk


"I'm so tired" the thought plagued Lawanda over and over, despite the fact that she wasn't tired at all.

These tunnels were dangerous. Lawanda kept asking herself how she had ever let Ishii convince her to leave Zion. At least the current shaft was leading them in a horizontal direction vice the vertical. After climbing upward for three days straight, she was glad for the change of pace, and so were her hands which were now all cuts and blisters.

Every now and again she and Ishii would break into conversation, grasping at anything to talk about, but their conversations were gradually becoming less frequent and shorter in duration.

As each step got more and more difficult, Lawanda tried to stay focused and moving forward, silently singing to herself, when suddenly she tripped on a rock and fell to the ground. As she stood back up, she noticed a bluish glow up ahead. She pointed to the glow and said "Look"

Ishii turned to look into the direction that Lawanda was pointing , then quickly crouched to her knees and signaled for Lawanda to do the same.

"What is it?" whispered Lawanda.

"I'm not sure, but that glow looks familiar. Let's get a little closer for a better look. Stay down and be quiet."

They low crawled down the shaft, hiding behind the larger rocks until they had covered about half the distance from the mystery glow. Peering around a rock then quickly pulling back, Ishii said, "Oh my God. It's a hovercraft. They've found us."

After the tension that statement caused eroded away, curiosity got the best of them, and Ishii signaled that she was going to take a look and for Lawanda to stay where she was.

Waiting for Ishii to return, Lawanda stopped staring at the ground long enough to realize that she was actually enjoying all of this. With the quick and seemingly secret departure from Zion, the trek through this vast system of tunnels with the end goal being to rescue Antonio from his prison, her adrenalin was pumping and she was feeling alive. Alive like she had never experienced before.

Smiling in her moment, she was startled by Ishii's booming voice calling out, "Lawanda.... it's OK. Come on down."

Lawanda stood and quickly made her way down the shaft towards the hovercraft. As she arrived she saw the hovercraft laying on the ground, parts and pieces spread out around the mangled rocks that it rested on.

Ishii spoke a bit too loud for Lawanda's proximity, "It's abandoned. Must have been left from the War."

"Yeah," replied Lawanda as if in a trance. "The War." She had first learned of the War between humans and the machines while she was mopping the floors on the ellipse. She recalled how all but a few hovercrafts were destroyed by some crazy guy and how someone else saved the human race, making a deal with the machines. That part was a
little hard to swallow and she had her doubts about that part of the story.

They walked over to the main body of the wreck, surveying the hunks of debris and equipment scattered around.Making their way to an emergency escape hatch on the sideways craft, Ishii reached out and grabbed a tiny lever an pulled it to release the hatch control panel. She typed in the sequence to open the hatch. "Don't they ever change these", she asked herself presumably.

As Ishii pulled herself into the hovercraft, Lawanda was startled by a single blue spark which hopped from one of the hover pads to another.
"So that was what was glowing," She said aloud. "This baby must still have some juice in her." Looking up she saw a upside down plaque with the simple inscription MENTUHOTEP.

"Hmmmph, weird name for a ship." she whispered before disappearing inside the door. The hovercraft was actually in pretty fair condition considering it's hoverpads were disabled by an EMP that caused it and all other ships in proximity to fall to the ground, while the machine sentinels finished off any survivors.

Oddly enough the Mentuhotep must have rolled after hitting the shaft floor because it was resting on it's side, which made crawling around inside kinda weird.

Feeling really useful for the first time, Lawanda made good use of the hovercraft maintenance programs she had been given on the Ellipse. She was easily able to transfer a few dozen power cells and fuses to give the ship some rudimentary systems such as lights and the waste collection systems. Then she turned her attention to the communications systems. They were a bit tricky because this was an older model hovercraft, but she managed to get it up and running with some cable splicing and a
makeshift antenna using parts she salvaged from the broken food processor. They were too deep in the core to use it though.

After some power had been restored and the ship was set to evenly distribute what power there was among the power cells, Ishii suggested they try and get the craft right side up.

Lawanda instantly started verbalizing some kind of hook and tackle plan, but was interrupted by Ishii, "Um... why don't we try to start the most forward and aft hoverpads on the starboard side for just a second. The jolt should be enough to tip us over."

"Sounds good to me, besides I don't think we have a hook and tackle handy...te he." joked Lawanda, "Which side is starboard?"

After rehearsing a few times to get the timing down, Ishii and Lawanda climbed in the the pilot and navigator chairs, respectfully. Ishii pushed a few buttons on the control panel which caused the entire bridge to light up. Lawanda was excited, sitting up straight in the chair, waiting for what was t come.

"Three... Two... One" Ishii counted down. "NOW!"

She hit the execute button. There was a tremendous BOOM and the hovercraft started to roll as planned. Ishii shut down the pads, only a few seconds too soon. The momentum of the thrust wasn't quite enough, and the craft rocked back into place as the rocks beneath it crumbled allowing the ship to keep rolling.

Lawanda closed her eyes, her excitement quickly turning to terror. She gripped the arm rests with her hands so tight that her fingernails cut into the cloth covering them.

As they settled, Ishii quietly said, "Whoops"

"Whoops? Whoops! What do you mean whooo," lawanda's voice trailed off as she, looking through the cracked windshield of the hovercraft, noticed the world was upside down.

"Well, at least this model has pads on the top as well as the bottom."

They both laughed for over ten minutes before prepping for another go at it.

After the ship was right sided, it was much easier to get around inside. Lawanda's first thought was to find a nice place to sleep. Two weeks of sleeping on a rocky bed was quite enough for her. She had scoped out the living quarters when the craft was lopsided, and found that there were still three rooms with beds intact. Ishii, seeing Lawanda's excitement, told her she could have her pick at which room she wanted, and that she would take whatever was left.

They were all dull, boring rooms with metal beds and yucky looking mattresses. In the end she picked the room which smelled less like pee than the others, although she didn't tell Ishii that.

Once they were settled and had done all of the repairs they could do to the ship on their own, They were at a loss as what t do next. The hovercraft, although partially operational, was lacking any food and there were only 7 operational pads.

"We've got to get closer to the surface where we can get food and then try to make it to broadcast depth." stated Ishii.

"Broadcast depth?" asked Lawanda.

"Yeah... I haven't reported in for over three weeks now. I have to make contact with my...people."

"What if the transmitter is busted. We haven't tested it fully yet?" inquired
Lawanda.

"There are some other people I know. They may help. People who can help us both."

"Oh... more of your friends?" Lawanda sarcastically asked.

"I wouldn't call them friends" stated Ishii, "but they will help us. They owe me. They owe me big time."

======================

Part IV - Thinking of Titles is Harrrrrd (Make your own up) :smileytongue:

"But I don't understand why we had to leave the MENTUHOTEP and walk like four miles to ask these guys for help. We could have made it just fine in the hovercraft. There was plenty of power left." Lawanda wined.

Ishii cut a very impatient look to Lawanda.

Looking away and rolling her eyes, Lawanda, in a low voice said, "Just sayin'."

"We left the MENTUHOTEP back because we don't want them to know we have it. It could be a means of escape if we need, or a bartering tool. We just don't know how our arrival here will be met. It's been a while since I've seen these guys." said Ishii.

An echoing voice from above answered, "Two years, two months and twelve days to be exact."

Ishii turned around and searched the surrounding area for the owner of the voice.

"Frith," she called, "Is that you Frith?"

"Hmmmmmm," was the only response.

"Frith, come on out. We are unarmed and need to talk to Pad."

"Oh.... he is gonna flip when he sees you Ishii." the voice replied. A second later a cloud of dust rose from where a tall, lean man jumped and landed beside Ishii. "This is gonna make the old man's year." he said.

As the man straightened up, Lawanda saw he word a nicely made black turtleneck sweater with a pair of dark khaki pants on. Nothing like the rags she had seen in Zion. He reached for his hip, as if he were going to draw a gun. Ishii tensed. Stopping, he held his out his arms and with a mischievous grin, beckoned, "Ishii."

Ishii wrapped her arms around him and they embraced for a few seconds. Pulling back, |Frith asked, "Where have you been hiding yourself? We've heard rumors." he looked down at her, "Nasty rumors."

Changing the subject, Ishii looked to Lawanda and said, "Lawanda, this is Frith, Frith...Lawanda."

Frith sank to his knees and taking Lawanda's arm, kissed her hand and then slyly said, "The pleasure is all mine, M'lady."

lawanda's face turned beet red, embarrassed by his act, she simply replied, "Heyas."

"Enough of your endless flirting Frith." said Ishii, sounding almost jealous. "We came here to talk to Pad. You might as well get the credit for finding me and bringing us in. Pad'll probably want you all around when he talks to me so he can gloat in front of you all and so you can see me asking him for help. You'll get all your answers then."

Frith stood to his feet, but not before giving lawanda a quick wink before releasing her hand, which made her giggle in response.

"ok Ladies, follow me..."

Frith lead them through a maze of very small tunnels and crevices which climbed higher and higher. Lawanda was about to ask Frith if he had any water when Frith and Ishii suddenly stopped at what appeared to be a large metal plate that was anchored to the side of the cavern. As Lawanda's eyes followed the plate, which was painted with yellow and black stripes, up the cavern walls, she saw that it opened to the surface. She could distinctly make out the rumbling clouds overhead accompanied by tussles of lightening which momentarily would illuminate the shy and cavern.

"Wow, you guys," said Lawanda, in awe of the view, "Is that what i think it is?" she asked pointing up towards the surface.

"Yes," answered Ishii, "But the novelty will wear off soon enough."

"You ain't kidding there," said Frith as he reached out and pressed a couple of buttons on the control panel next to the metal plate. "Going underground every once in a while is quite a nice change. They say it is starting to get better up there, but I don't know who "they" are or what they are looking at. Looks the same to me." he said out of the corner of his mouth to Lawanda, with a wink.

Lawanda giggled as the platform Frith had just activated clanked to a stop at her feet.

They all stepped onto the platform, which began to rise after Frith typed in the correct commands. When it neared the top, the platform came to a sudden jerky stop. So jerky that Lawanda tightened her grip on the lone support rail. When a door inside the black and yellow plate opened, Lawanda was the first one through it. Looking back at her two companions she smiled and shrugged.

Frith walked through the first door, passing Lawanda and typed an access code into the door at the far end of the small corridor, which then opened.

Bowing to them, Frith said, "ladies" and motioned for the two women to proceed.

Lawanda followed Ishii into the next room, in which four people were standing, waiting for them, guns drawn targeting them both.

A man wearing a blue sweater similar to Frith's stepped toward Ishii. Looking her in the eye, bringing his face close to hers. So close she could smell his breath. A look of disgust formed on his face, and out of his mouth a single word, "Traitor" boomed out. As Frith knocked her in the back of the head with the butt of his gun.

Lawanda didn't have time to react before she heard a loud thud, which proceeded her falling and her world suddenly going black

Message Edited by Tefnutt on 10-27-2005 11:24 PM

Message edited by Tefnut on 10/27/2005 22:24:59.
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10/28/2005 12:15:41
Subject: Re: The Second Chapter of Accidental Genisis - Truths Never Told
Tefnut


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 1603
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Tee Hee... I have two part IV's
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10/28/2005 12:35:59
Subject: Re: The Second Chapter of Accidental Genisis - Truths Never Told
Tefnut


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 1603
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Part VI - Doin time

Waking in total darkness, it took more than a few seconds for Lawanda to remember that she didn't know where she was, and that Ishii was no where to be seen. Not that anything else was to be seen here.

Lawanda felt around on the floor, which was smooth and cold, and felt very metallic, in her opinion. Deciding she wanted to look around, Lawanda gently stood up. She had expected her head to be throbbing, but it felt fine. Nothing like it should have felt like after getting whopped on the head by a lead pipe, or what she had imagined was a lead pipe. Since it came from behind, she honestly didn't know what it was that hit her, but it felt very lead-pipish to her.

As she batted this mental conversation around in her head, she was startled by a quiet voice which whispered, almost inaudibly, "They won't feed you if you are standing up."

Spinning around, Lawanda asked, "Who is that?"

"I'm just another prisoner of these darn Merv's. If you are standing they won't feed you. Too risky I guess. Some of the other prisoners are pretty dangerous."

"Prisoners... this is a prison?" asked Lawanda. "So I guess that makes me a prisoner too. I don't like the sound of that. I didn't do anything wrong... I wonder why I am here."

"Oh, you don't have to do anything wrong to be put into this place. These Merv's are all about themselves. They kidnap anyone they can get their hands on, then ransom us back to Zion for food and supplies... or information.."

"Ransom? asked Lawanda. "But nobody in Zion even knows me. Who would pay a ransom for me. Even before I left, no one seemed to care I even existed."

"Well, maybe it is for information." replied the voice. "Do you know anything that would be of any value to anyone? Something you know about Zion or the Machines or any of their operatives. Something that you could use to get yourself out of this place? Information is the key to survival, you know."

Lawanda quickly though of what Ishii had told her about Antonio's RSI containing altered code. That could be worth getting her out of this. But it would mean betraying Ishii, who, except for the whole poison robot injection thing, has been her best and only friend. NOT TO MENTION PUTTING HER BROTHER INTO WHO KNOWS WHAT KIND OF DANGER.

"No, I can't think of anything I know that would be worth anything, unless they want to hear how to recharge batteries. Then I could talk their heads off, for almost a whole minute."

"Hmmm, that's too bad. Looks like you will be in here with me for a bit... what's your name anyway? Mine's Daisen."

"Hey. I'm Lawanda. I'd shake your hand but I can't see where you are." said Lawanda, squinting to try and see.

"That's ok.. I can see you...guess being locked up in here for a month or so has some advantages at least." said Daisen. "What kind of name is Lawanda anyway?"

"Ummm " replied Lawanda, "It is my name from before... before I was awakened... I just never felt like anyone but Lawanda, so that's who I am."

"Ok... that's perfectly fine. But you know, you will never truly be free of their control until you have severed all ties to that part of your life."

"So I've been told." said Lawanda, clearly not wanting to get into this conversation again.

Breaking the silence, Daisen called out, "I'm behind you. Turn around and take two steps forward. Now kneel down. Ok .... here I am." Lawanda could just barely make out a finger wagging through a small hole in the metal bulkhead. She reached out and touched it with her own finger."

"Nice to meet you Daisen. Guess we'll become bosom friends in here, at least until you leave. I'm guessing I'll be in here a while. They don't seem to like my friend. And since I don't know anything, I am sure they will just let me rot here."

Lawanda guessed she had been in her cell at least three days when finally her door opened to a great wall of light. The light was so blinding she could scarcely see and her eyes burned. A familiar voice said, "Stand up Lawanda."

She complied, with her arm wrapped over her face, shielding her eyes from the accursed light which filled the room. Someone grabbed her other arm and lead her out of the room and into the walkway where the light was coming from.

The light was getting softer now, her eyes adjusting to it. When the pain had lessened, Lawanda looked up and saw she was on an overhead walkway which spanned across an enormous room. The room was lined with hundreds of doors on either side.

"Where am I?", she asked.

"This is your new home. Our prison facility. After we ask you a few questions, I will introduce you to the rest of the population. Your new family, if you will." replied the man who she now recognized as Frith. He laughed.

"I don't know why you have me here. I didn't do anything to anyone, I don't know anything about anything, and nobody cares that I'm gone. What possible reason do you have to keep me here."

"Well for starters, you were in the company of a certain young lady who the boss has a bone or two to pick with. You can't just walk in here with that traitorous hag and expect us to cater to you. And to truthfully answer your question, we don't need a reason to keep you here... we would do it simply for the pleasure of it."

At that Frith shoved Lawanda into a room which was completely white. The ceiling walls and floor had no depth to them and they all seemed to be the same dimension. In what appeared to be the middle of the room was a desk and three chairs. Two in front of the desk and one behind it.

Nausea over came her, and Lawanda stumbled to one of the chairs in front of the desk. From behind the desk, the light changed, and what appeared to be a door opened. Through the door walked a man dressed in a suit, with black sunglasses and a red fedora on, carrying a red folder. He reminded Lawanda of the agents that attacked and wounded Antonio in the matrix.

He sat down in the chair behind the desk, placed the folder on to the desk and cleared his voice. "Umm Ummm....Ms Jankins..." he read from the folder, "Lawanda...What are you doing here? You are not supposed to be out and about." He waited.....

"We have found your brother. We saved him actually. After that botched rescue attempt your new friends in Zion made, it was touch and go for a bit, but we managed to... save him."

Lawanda sat up n her chair. "But I'm afraid we can't predict how long he will last. You never know what happens to a mind which is in a coma. He may just fade away."

"No," shouted Lawanda. "You can't just let him die."

"There may be something we can do.... if you cooperate with us. We are very curious as to why Zion attempted to release Antonio from the care of the Matrix. Do you know why?" he leaned over the desk as he asked.

Lawanda knew that Ishii and her "employer" wanted Antonio alive for a reason... a reason she didn't fully understand, but that didn't matter. they would keep him alive and pull him from the Matrix. They would give him a chance. She guessed that the man behind the desk cared little if Antonio lived or died.

"No." she said, simply.

"That's very unfortunate, Ms Jankins. Because now you are going to force me to use.... alternative forms of persuasion to get the answers I want." said the man, menacingly.

"Go ahead. I don't know anything, and even if I did, I wouldn't tell you."

The man stood up, and in his right hand appeared a large device that looked very much like a gun, except that there was a long thick needle where the barrel should have been. And she could see an ugly, dirty red liquid inside the glass vial attached to it.. but what really scared her was the creature swimming around inside the vial of liquid.

Strengthening her resolve, Lawanda tensed her body, and closed her eyes, but did not say anything as the man with the silly red hat approached her with the syringe.

"OK... Skeeter... she's had enough... she passed." said the man across the desk from her. "Let's get her out of here. I'll bet she could use a good hot meal."

Just as Lawanda was going to ask who he was talking to, she felt a weird sensation; kinda like the world was moving past her while she stood still. Then suddenly she was laying down and there were people standing around her.

She let them sit her up while she regained her equilibrium.

"Good job Lawanda," said the familiar voice of Ishii. "You passed"

"Huh?... passed what?" replied Lawanda.

"We wanted to see if you would betray the information I gave you about your brother. If you would talk to anyone about it, or use it as a bargaining chip to save your own skin.... and you didn't."

"So that wasn't real... the prison.... that room... I shoulda knew that room was just too weird to be real. So the robot shot wasn't enough? You had to insert me into the matrix to test my loyalty to.... you?"

"Well..." started Ishii, "That needle wasn't exactly full of, how did you put it... poison robots. It was just saline with purple coloring. I just needed something to get you going. Gatto came up with it...not me."

"Well, I'm not forgetting it, anyways..."said Lawanda as she rubbed her neck where the needle had been stuck. "I hate shots"

"And now... let me introduce you to the people who are going to help find and retrieve your brother... also, they were your captors..."

"Captain Frith you know..." Frith bowed, and as he raised back up, winked at Lawanda, coyly.

"Daisen you met in your prison cell. She is our chief medic" A tiny waif of a girl, who couldn't have been more than twenty-two raised her hand and waved, "Heyas" she said.

"Captain Warbird, or War for short," she pointed to a rather tall, lumber some man who wore a handkerchief around his face like a bank robber, "My pleasure pretty lady!" he said before the short woman to his left elbowed his ribs, forcing him to bend slightly.

"...and his girlfriend, Imagene. She is Captain War's navigator" Imagene smiled sarcastically, then scowled at Warbird.

Ishii motioned to the woman at Warbird's right, and started, "And this is..."

"I can introduce myself, traitor." said the tall brunette who stood across from Ishii. "I'm Captain Mokushiroku.I don't share everyone else's optimism on having you here... especially if you arrived here with her." she motioned to Ishii. "Stay out of my way if you know what's good you ...you, Lewanna or whoever you say you are." Lawanda didn't know what to think about this one, so she just nodded and smiled to her.

"And last but not least... this is Padma." The stalky man who had waited patiently in the corner walked over to Lawanda, holding out his hand. She met his with hers and they gripped then shook each other's hands.

"Welcome, Lewanda... to the Atlantis. Home of Atrum Angelus. You will find loyalty and obediance will take you far here," Lowering his head and eying Ishii he continued, "treachery and disobediance ..... won't."



Raising his head "We all earn our own way here, so if you want to stay... you'll need some training. First thing tomorrow."
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11/02/2005 01:28:53
Subject: Re: The Second Chapter of Accidental Genisis - Truths Never Told
Tefnut


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 1603
Offline

Part VII - Wax on - Wax Off

"Wakey Wakey...eggs and bakey"

Rolling over on her makeshift bed, Lawanda picked up the first thing her hands could find, a shoe, and hurled it at the door.

"Dear God, of all the ways to be woken up, that has to be the worst ever...please next time just throw a bucket of cold water on me and be done with it." replied Lawanda who had yet to open her eyes.

"I'll keep that in mind. Someone is just a little ball of sunshine in the morning, isn't she... "asked the voice at the door.

Not wanting to, Lawanda opened her eyes and saw a woman at the door. Her long, beautiful brown hair was in a braided pony tail which spanned to the small of her back. She was older than Lawanda, but not old old. She smiled when their eyes met.

"I'm DragonAngel or DA for short. I am supposed to take you on a tour of the place and then get down to start your training. So up and at'em. Lots to do, and the clock is ticking."

"Huh, clock ticking?" said the still half asleep Lawanda, "Ok gimme a second." She said as she stood up and dressed as DA waited for her.

"I should start off by telling you a little about the ship you are on. The Atlantis is actually a barge, kinda a modified floating docking station. We currently have fixed docking stations for six hovercrafts, and with some modifications have added docking clamps for an additional 4. We use the barge as a command post, and each hovercraft adds to the total size of Atlantis. It is actually easier to show you than to explain it."

"No, I understand. It is kinda like Voltron... I remember watching it when I was a kid. Cept they were lions, and formed a big robot with a large sword. You know I always wondered about that sword."

"Well, in concept you are correct, but in reality it is a bit different. We don't have a sword... we have a whip." baited DA.

"You do? Wait..." said Lawanda seeing the smile on DA's face, "never mind."

DA showed Lawanda the bridge of the Atlantis which was much larger and more complex than the Eclipses or the MENTUHOTEP had been. Then they went to the chow hall, where more than just goo was served. There were mushrooms and salads, and the inevitable bugs.

"Ewwww... how do you guys eat these things?" asked Lawanda, turning her nose up at the sight of a bowl full of rather large insects.

"Survival...plus they have a nice taste to them... you should try one... you will before too long, so you might as well get used to them."

"No way..." Lawanda quickly retorted.

As the tour continued, Lawanda was shown a gym, which people were actually using, to Lawanda's surprise, a library, and a lounge. The lounge was Lawanda's favorite. There were like 7 couches spread out facing different directions, and a small bar, where she met Shauneo, who was having himself a drink.

He offered Lawanda a drink, "What is it" she asked.

"Better not to ask what you don't want to know" replied Shauneo and poured her a shot from a very old and worn bottle. As he turned his up, he yelled out, "Whooooop!", which surprised Lawanda a little, but not as much as the burning that went from her mouth straight down to her spleen after downing her shot.

"Good stuff, aye," said Shauneo, "It'll put hair on your chest... that's for sure." he said with a grin.

"Um... Thanks, but I don't need any hair on my chest." the three of them broke out in laughter.

"I have one final place to show you, where we will get down to your training." said DA. Leading Lawanda to an old rust door with a sign written in Latin which read "Welcome all who seek Knowledge"

When they entered the room, Lawanda saw a three rows of four chairs, each row having it's own operator's console. DA motioned for Lawanda to sit down, then inserted the connector into Lawanda's head.

Sitting in the operators chair, and flipping a few switches while typing on her keyboard, she said to Lawanda, "Ok, dear... we are going to start downloading some basic programs into your mind. The first few are primarily information. History actually. Everything we have on the entire human race, the rise of the machines, all of our knowledge of them, and then, finally of the Matrix itself. This should take about 2 minutes."

The information slammed into Lawanda's mind. The feeling was indescribable. But those two minutes lasted a lifetime. When it was finished, Lawanda looked over to DA, and simply said, "Wow".

"Now, as you already know, to survive inside the Matrix, you need to be quick on your feet and one step ahead of everyone and everything. You need to be aware of your surroundings. I will start off by loading some basic self defense skills, and build up from there."

The next five hours were Lawanda sat in the chair accepting programming through he device in her head. At first she thought she would gain some kind of enlightenment or something out of the experience, be a super kung fu chick or something, but it didn't work like that. She had no recall of the information, just the information. When she was too tired to go on, she asked for a break, to which DA agreed.

But as soon as DA rose from her seat, Ishii came into the room followed by a young woman who sat down next to her as Ishii plugged her in.

"DA, if I may..." she asked. In reply DA stood up and handed her headgear to Ishii who sat into the operators chair and at the same time began vigorously typing into the five sets of keyboards that surrounded her.

"You need a little perspective, Lawanda, honey... after taking in all that data, you need to apply it to see how the mechanics of all this works. It's ok...being that it is your first time Kutikiri will take it easy on you. I think...." with that said, she dramatically raised her hand then swiftly brought it down onto a keyboard, executing the begin command.

Lawanda's world prospective changed. She was inside the white field of nothingness again, only this time Kutikiri was standing beside her, dressed in a black leather catsuit and a black leather trench coat, wearing a bandanna. Lawanda, was dressed in one of her favorite outfits from when she was still a bluepill, a high cut royal blue plaid skirt, a white shirt, blue blazer with thigh high white stockings and knee high leather stiletto boots. Hair in pig tails with a pair of white sunglasses.

"I miss this outfit so much.... wow..." said Lawanda. "This is so awesome."

"Clothes aren't the only thing that make this place cool... but they are a good start," replied Kutikiri."Let's try the overviews sparing program. Break her in gently."

No sooner than she said that, the world suddenly came down into view. They were standing on a highway, cars zooming by in both directions. Kutikiri said, "Ok the thing to remember and know here is that these cars are not real, but the effect they can have on you will be. You need to be able to anticipate what I am going to do, while also watching the cars, being wary of where they are, how fast they are going and how you may use them against me."

"Wow. That's a lot to do at the same time." Said Lawanda.

"Don't worry, you will be able to do this. Maybe not at first, but you will learn." said Kutikiri. "Ok... go."

With that said, Kut jumped into the air. Much higher than Lawanda would have thought possible, so high in fact that Lawanda lost sight of her, at least until a second before Kut's foot met up with Lawanda's face. "Freeze it"

Everything froze. The cars, the birds in the sky, the trees.

"Ok... one thing you must remember here, you must always be alert and on your guard. And always try and get the first punch. It will almost always lead to a guaranteed second one."

Lawanda took a deep breath and cleared her mind. As she opened her eyes, she quietly said to Kutikiri, "OK".

The program started again. As Kutikiri lunged behind a moving car and came around, Lawanda met her half way with a roundhouse kick, which Kut easily blocked. But as she landed Lawanda pushed off with her leading foot into a reverse roundhouse, which hit it's mark, sending Kut flying in the other direction.

"Wow, what was that?" asked Kut, pulling herself up.

"I dunno... it just happened. When you blocked my first kick, it was like time slowed down and I had time to plan my next move exactly. I didn't even know if it would work."

"Well you did just fine. Again." she said as she lunged at Lawanda.

After a few hours of sparing, Lawanda was grasping just what she could manipulate herself and her surroundings to do if and when she needed.

"Ok, you did well. That's enough one on one today." said Kut with a slight smirk.

The world went white again, and then just as suddenly they were on a rooftop. Shauneo appeared out of nowhere, as did Warbird, Frith Imagene and Mokushiroku.

"Now let's see how you fair in a little six on one action, gutter trash," said Mokushiroku as she and the others attacked Lawanda from all sides at once.

Relentless.

No holds barred.

After she could no longer move, and the six of them were standing over her bloody beaten body, Mokushiroku, standing with her hands on her hips said, "This is the reality of the Matrix. We are constantly surrounded by our enemies, and only when we are extremely lucky is the fight only two on one. We not only have to avoid the Machine operatives and agents, but the operatives of Zion as well, and these days there are just more and more of them, all standing in line to bag a Merv. So listen up you bluepill in disguise, you better learn to hold your own, or you will die in the real Matrix. If you are in a fight that you cannot win, you run. You hide. You call for help."

Frith kneeled down so that his face was right over Lawanda's, and kissed her bloody forehead, then whispered, "So endith the lesson."

[Vesuveus]

Part VIII - Homework

For the next two weeks, Lawanda spent any time she had to spare searching through the Atlantis' computer archives. She started looking up the names of some of the people she knew as a bluepill, but came up empty on every search. No big surprise there. After getting bored with that she turned to the archives.

Searching the archives and reading up on some ancient earth history, she hesitantly typed in her brother's redpill name, Imeut. The screen filled with different references to the name. 1232 hits in total. She hurriedly clicked on the first link which just mentioned the name in a list of ancient Egyptian Gods, which caused a small ping of glee, since she didn't really know if the Egyptians were real or some made-up piece of information the Machines cam up with. She had always loved Egyptian history and mythology.

The next few hits were pretty vague references too. But the 8th link she selected brought up a database called Ancient Egyptian Gods. This database was extensive. She read how Imeut was a jackal-headed God of the dead. Imeut weighed the souls of the dead and either lead you to everlasting life or fed your soul to something called an Ammit, the devoured of the wicked. "Ewwww," Lawanda said out loud after reading this. Imeut also had the names Anpu, Inpu, Ienpw and Anubis.

Imeut's description, while very interesting still did not shine any light into why Antonio had picked it. She was very curious about the other Egyptian Gods, so she started reading about them. Osiris, Ra, Horus, Mentu … what their different roles were, their hierarchy and the changes that occurred and merging of beliefs and of gods. When reading about the different goddesses, Lawanda sat up and read with intensity about Bat, Mut, Wasret, Selket. The importance they had in their followers beliefs were amazing, and she soon found she was spending her remaining free time reading and taking notes on the different ones she found.

Her relationship with the crew of the Atlantis was so much better than that of the Elipse. Although they were all really helpful and eager to help out in some of the sparing, they still didn't trust her completely, or Ishii for that matter. This was apparent at mealtimes. Whenever she entered the dining areas, any talking that was going on would abruptly stop. New conversation would start, but any that had started before she entered were not continued in her presence.

Ishii had stopped coming by to speak with Lawanda shortly after her training had started. On those first few days she has stopped by every evening to talk and everything seemed fine, but soon she had stopped coming at all, and would barely speak with Lawanda if they ran into each other.

She seemed very preoccupied all the time, and from what Lawanda heard from Frith and DA, Ishii and Pad had once been a couple, but that Ishii had just suddenly vanished one day, with no explanation. Which explained Padma being so peeved at her.

As Lawnda's training continued, she learned more refined ways of survival and combat. Kutikiri was very helpful in teaching her about hardlines and escape and evasion techniques, as well as a few pointers for fighting.

DragonAngel also helped Lawanda with combat techniques. A much less hands on instructor than Kutikiri, DA focused on concentration and bending the rules of the Matrix that how quickly she could put her foot in Lawanda's face. Lawanda’s speed and reaction times were ever increasing and she was feeling more and more confident in her abilities.

During one such training session, DA was teaching Lawanda how to propel herself through the air in large leaps that were precisely aimed and covered great distances. Lawanda was having a hard time pulling it off. As much as she assured herself that she was in fact laying down in an operative chair on the Atlantis, and that nothing around her was real, she always hesitated at the last possible second, and would come crashing down onto the pavement.

DA told her it was fine, that no one gets the jumps right off the bat. Practice and belief were the only things that would increase her ability in that respects. And practice they did… for hours on end… every day until Lawanda was exhausted.

“Get a good night’s sleep.” Said DA after their daily session, “You are going to need it for tomorrow. We have something big planned for you.”

Nervous that she was gonna have another session with Mok and the rest of the Angels, Lawanda got very little sleep. Rolling around in bed, she thought of nothing but how to counter their attacks and what new skills she would use against them.

Getting up early and grabbing some breakfast goop, she walked the halls of the massive docking ship. Counting the minutes until she would have to face her new friends in battle again. As she approached an intersection in the hallway, she bumped into Ishii.

“Hey stranger,” said Ishii. “DA has been looking for you. She is waiting in Ops.”

“Ok, thanks.” Said Lawanda as she turned into the directions of Ops.

“Hold on a sec,” said Ishii, placing her hand on Lawanda’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around as much as I should. I know you feel like a stranger here, but believe me, they like you. I can tell. The girls specifically, and Frith, but he really doesn’t count because he seems to like all the girls.” she continued, “What I am trying to say, is this can be a home for you, if you give it time. They are not like the ones we left. You can be special among these people, just find your space. Your niche.”

“Well, I actually have figured all of that on my own.” said Lawanda. “I do like these people, and this place is starting to feel like a home to me. They may not be my family, if that even really exists, but they have all been great to me, and I thankful for it. I would have liked to have told you all this weeks ago, but you were not around. So keep your pep speeches for someone who needs it.”

Turning around and walking forward, Lawanda marched off towards Ops, leaving Ishii standing alone, arm still hanging in the air. Reaching the next turn, Lawanda wiped her now tearing eyes with the sleeve of her shirt before walking into the Ops office.

Regaining her composure, she marched in to see Kut, Daisen and Frith already strapped into their chairs and jacked in. Lawanda followed suit, waiting for DA to insert the massive jack into the back of her skull.

The last thing she heard before the disorientation started was DA telling the pilot, “OK… bring us up to broadcast depth.”
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11/09/2005 10:02:01
Subject: Re: The Second Chapter of Accidental Genisis - Truths Never Told
Imagene


Transcendent

Joined: Aug 25, 2005
Messages: 216
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I need to pay more attention to the forums... woot Tef, I love how Lawanda knocks Ishii down a peg :smileyhappy:

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11/11/2005 09:54:20
Subject: Re: The Second Chapter of Accidental Genisis - Truths Never Told
Tefnut


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 1603
Offline



Part IX - Back Into the Rabbit Hole

The trip into the loading area, although it was as disorienting as usual, was in fact different this time. When Lawanda’s mind’s eye started to focus, she was in a strange field of green, which as time went started to slowly take the form of shapes, which gradually faded from it’s greenness to produce the city street she now was standing on. Filled with people walking to and fro, cars driving up and down, all which looked just slightly off… something about them was not quite right.

And only now, as she was out of the strange green field, did she notice that while she was inside of it, her body had been tingling, her mind sharp and focused and she felt an overwhelming power from it, something she had never experienced before.

Looking at herself, she saw she was dressed differently in something she had not previous loaded in the constructs before. She had a black, tight body suit with knee high boots and a black leather coat with matching gloves. Something she had seen Kutikiri and DragonAngel wear before, but had never dared to try herself. Feeling a lump in the jacket on either side, she opened it to find herself holstered with two MP5’s and two 44’s. She had not had much experience with the guns.

Strange, she thought.

Looking up as she realized that she recognized the street corner she was stranding on.

She had worked this very street, night after night, for over three years. Looking up and down the street she recognized several of the shops that lined the sidewalks. Graffiti on the walls that had been there for years and other more recent writings were everywhere.

Scanning the area to get her bearings, she noticed for the first time that she was alone. None of the others had shown up or were simply not around. What if they had gotten here first and left without her, the slowpoke newbie. Standing around staring all nostalgic like, when she should have been paying attention, way to go.

Dammit Lawanda… stay focused, she told herself.

Not knowing what she should do, but also not wanting to just stand around, she decided that she should start walking. So she made her way down the street, keeping her eyes open for any trace of her shipmates. Almost by habit, she turned left down 33rd street and made her way north until she found herself standing in front of the Paddock Club Apartment building, where she had lived with her brother before… waking up.

Looking first left then right, she entered the front doors. To her immediate right were the apartment mailboxes. How many times had she ran upstairs without remembering to check the mail, only to have to run back down. As she glanced to the mailbox for room 233, she noticed it still read JANKINS on the dirty piece of paper above the keyhole. Looking into the tiny mailbox window, she saw a few envelopes inside.

“I wonder if the keys are still here,” she said aloud, “Only one way to find out.” and started climbing up the stairwell, taking particular care not to get hung up on the railing as had a billion times when she lived here. Finally reaching the landing, she approached room 233, and briefly hesitated when reaching for the doorknob.

What if he is in here, she asked herself, or worse… what if he is not…

Twisting the knob ever so gently, it opened with a creek. Staring inside the room from the hall, she saw it was completely unchanged from the last time she had been here. Blanket still on the couch in front of the television. Small breakfast table with newspapers stacked in the corner. The light above the stove in the kitchen was still on.

Aware that it had been almost 9 months since she had been removed from the Matrix, and that none of this should be as it was, she proceeded with caution. Moving from the living room to her old bedroom door, she entered her bedroom cautiously. Everything was as it had been as she left that last day. Bed unmade. Clothes on the floor. She approached her dresser and opened a small music box. It played “When You Wish Upon a Star,” which she had loved as a child. Inside the box were a set of spare house keys, which included the key to the mailbox.

“Got’em,” she said aloud. “Now to find out what is in the mailbox.”

Leaving the bedroom she stopped at Antonio’s door. Placed her hands on the door and pushed, hoping to find him laying in his bed. No such luck. The room was empty of any and all life. The only sound was the fan on his computer.

Leaving the apartment and heading back down the stairs, Lawanda told herself to make sure she asked DA about the apartment, and why it still looked lived in. Maybe it was normal to look like that. She wasn’t sure how that worked. Approaching the mailbox, she lifted the key and inserted it into the keyhole and twisted it.

Opening the small door she retrieved the mail inside and started going over it’s contents.

“Department of Energy… cancellation notice… hmmmph…” she said as she flipped to the next item, “spam…spam….spam…. What’s this?” She stopped.

Holding the letter up, she saw it was an envelope which was addressed simply to Sis. In Antonio’s handwriting.

Remembering the last time she saw him, he had mentioned something about a letter her had written, but she hadn’t known anything about it. She hadn’t checked the mail that day, but had been hiding, waiting for him to leave.

Carefully opening the envelope, she took out a folded piece of paper, and unfolded it to find, in a totally familiar near illegible handwriting, a simple paragraph which read:

LAWANDA,

THERE IS NO EASY WAY TO TELL YOU WHAT YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND. I HAVE TO LEAVE. I HAVE TO GO. THE FRUSTRATION IS KILLING ME AND I MUST KNOW THE TRUTH, NO MATTER THE CONSEQUENCES. I WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOU I WILL COME BACK FOR YOU, BUT I DON’T THINK YOU ARE READY OR WOULD EVER BELIEVE THE TRUTH. I WILL MISS YOU AND LOVE YOU AND AM EVER THANKFUL FOR THE SACRIFICES YOU MADE FOR ME. I WILL NEVER FORGET THEM OR YOU.

FOREVER YOUR LOVING BROTHER,

ANTONIO

After reading and then rereading the letter the third time, she crumbled it up, and began to cry. The memory of him flooded her, and she missed him and she missed being her. Thinking back to the time the letter was written, she could see his point. She hadn’t been aware of anything wrong with this world. Never questioned her existence or anyone else’s. She hadn’t even really believed the real was real when she was first awakened, and then when she did, she had merely wished it hadn’t been. If Antonio had came to her with this story then, she would have thought he was using REDS, that designer drug, or something worse. But she would have never believed him.

Feeling sorry for herself, she started walking back towards the phone booth she had entered through, deciding it would be better to just stand in the rain and wait for someone to contact her. Or maybe they had just decided that she wasn’t worth the effort, and had tricked her into coming back, and would just leave her here.

Lost in her own little world, not keenly aware of her surroundings, she was startled when she suddenly bumped into someone. Someone who, as she looked up, was very familiar indeed.

“So what’s this? You show your face around here and don’t think I would find out. You have a lot of explaining to do, Lawanda.” Mammon was her former “employer.”

Someone who, in her line of work, was a necessity, but was almost as dangerous as the weirdos he protected her against…. For forty percent. “Don’t just stand there,” he said grabbing her wrist and dragging her into an alley, “Start explaining.” The alley was full of his boys, the “The Demon Army”

“I don’t have time for this, BOB. I am looking for some friends,” replied Lawanda, as she counted 5 of them closing in.

Survival… that is what the game is about, the memory of Kutikiri’s voice echoed in her head.

“Friends… what do you need friends for, baby, when we are all the friends you need… here allow me to introduce you to five of my friends.” Said Mammon. “They are just dying to say hello.” He grabbed her arm again, “Now about that money you owe me….”

“Don’t you ever touch me again, Mammon,“ said Lawanda, pulling away from him and standing right out of his reach.

Be aware of you surroundings… they are the greatest weapon the Matrix offers.

“Oh… I’m gonna touch you again…” said Mammon as he slapped her in the face. “And again” slapped her again, backing her up, grinning “and aga…” the last word never escaped his mouth. Lawanda had waited until he had backed her up against a wall, then with her right foot pushed off, jumping into the air, and landing with her left foot on his right shoulder. She looked dead into his eyes as she brought her right foot down with every ounce of strength making contact with his jaw, breaking it in at least three places. The fear she saw there was like a drug.

Let every action you make set up the next one. Always be one step ahead.

As Mammon fell to the ground, three of the thugs ran towards her, the other two waiting at a safe distance, guns at the ready. As soon as Lawanda regained her balance, her MP5's were drawn and firing, taking out two of the three guys running towards her. A swift kick to the groin stopped the third one and brought him to his knees, where Lawanda unloaded a clip into what used to be his head.

As his body dropped, the two thugs who had held back looked at each other, dropped their guns and ran in the opposite direction.

Smiling at herself, and what she had just done, Lawanda jumped up and yelled, “Uhhh Huhhh,” then as she landed quickly looked around to see if anyone had saw her do that.

All of a sudden a ringing came from her jacket’s breast pocket. Pulling out a phone, she pushed the answer button. “Hello…?” she asked.

“Lawanda, it’s DA. Good work with those guys. You need to get out of there right now… we have a location on Imeut…. He is in a house of healing in Furihata. We are gonna do a cross vector insertion…. Go back to the phone booth you first entered from, and I will patch you back to Furihata.”

“Ummm… first things first… where is everyone? I couldn’t find the others.” asked Lawanda.

“They were…. Irrevocably detained.” Replied DA. “They will meet up with you in the house of healing.”

“Understood. On my way.” Said Lawanda as left the alley and started running toward the phone.

From above a figure jumped down to where Mammon lay in a heap on the ground, still moaning. “I believe 5000 was the agreed price.” Said the figure, as he tossed the money onto Mammon’s face. “And here is another 10,000…. Get something done with what’s left of you face….and I would recommend you taking Lawanda off your list of employees… current or former…. She’s with us now, understand.” Mammon nodded his understanding.

Taking a few steps away, the figure suddenly turned around and unloaded a full clip into Mammon’s body. As he collected his money back, Frith said, “On second thought….”

Part X1 - ALL GOOD THINGS



As the green blurriness began to clear and the Floating Feast began to dissipate around her, Lawanda continued to argue with DA.



“I don’t care what you say, I am not going to wait on anyone to get here. I have been waiting to see him for so long and I am so close to him now,” Lawanda said into her phone.



BUT LAWANDA, THE HOSPITAL IS SWARMING WITH ZION OPERATIVES AND CIVILLIANS. GOING IN ALONE WILL ONLY LESSEN OUR CHANCES TO RETRIEVE HIM. YOU WILL ALERT THEM TO OUR INTENTIONS. WE NEED THE ELEMENT OF SUP…



DA’s voice trailed off as Lawanda threw the phone into the pool of water as she walked over a small wooden bridge.



“What I need is to have at least a minute alone with my brother.” She said to no one as she approached the entrance to the House of Healing. Hmmm she thought to herself, why do they call it the house of healing and not the Healing House… or maybe a clinic…dare I say hospital... weird.



Opening the front door, she cautiously stepped inside. The door quickly closed behind her. Scanning the outer office waiting area, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Walking up to the receptionist at the front desk, she calmly shot her in the chest with her silenced MP5, walking past her office into the hallway.



“Now, where is room 143?” she asked herself aloud as she proceeded down the hall. Everything was quiet, and she didn’t see anyone. Anywhere.



“Too quiet” she said aloud, her footsteps echoing off the walls in a loud repetitive reply.



Reaching room 143, she paused, raising her right hand up to her sunglasses, giving them a slight nudge, still tightly grasping her gun. She took a deep breath, and stiffly kicked the door in.



Antonio was sitting up in his bed. There were tubes and hoses hooked to him from at least five different sources, clear and colored fluids being pumped into his body. The sight of him made her melt.



“ANT!” she screamed, dropping her gun filled hands to her side. “It’s you… you are alive!” She quickly rushed into the room and up to his bedside to be close to him. Reaching out to hug him, she saw him looking not at her but straight ahead, just behind the door.



“Ok” he said, still not looking up towards her. Lawanda heard the door shut behind her.



The hair on the back of Lawanda’s neck stood up as she heard a familiar voice behind her. A voice which still made appearances in her nightmares. The first voice she could remember ever hearing with her own ears.



“So,” said the woman at the door, “Looks like our intel was dead wrong. All I see is a lone exile-loving traitor. And to think I jacked in myself to play protector to our poor little patient today.”



“Ophelia” stated Lawanda as she turned around to face her.



“Heard of me, have you. I’m not surprised to hear that. It’s a relief actually, because now I don’t have to explain who I am or why you won’t be leaving here with Im…”



Lawanda cut off Ophelia, “Dear God, do you ever shut up? Do you honestly love to hear your own voice that much? I mean I am here in front of you, armed, ready to rescue my brother and you don’t even recognize me. I mean, good grief, I worked for you for almost two months.”



“Oh,” Ophelia studied Lawanda’s face as if to draw some recognition. “You. The ….sister.”



Pointing both her guns at an unarmed Ophelia, Lawanda said, “Antonio… get up. I’m here to rescue you.”



“Rescue me? What do you mean? Ophelia is taking care of me. She nursed me back from the brink of …”



The window to Lawanda’s right exploded as Ying and Yang burst through, sending a shower of glass right into her face. Ducking down Lawanda used the bed as cover as Ying and Yang opened fire in the room giving Ophelia time to grab Imeut and dart out the hole in the wall where the window had been.



Seeing a pair of feet from under the bed, Lawanda opened a little fire of her own, bringing Yang to her knees as her legs were shredded by the bullets. Seeing her twin taken down, Ying rushed to her, giving Lawanda an opening to stand and kick the bed upright towards the wall, covering both Ying and Yang and opening her path to the window, which she quickly took.



Outside, Lawanda could see Ophelia carrying Imeut across a courtyard. Measuring the distance with a dead calm, she bent her right knee slightly, took a deep breath and silently said, “You can do this,” then launched herself into the air in their direction. Soaring into the air and rising higher than she had ever dared during her training, she barely noticed the vast city opening up around her as she rose higher.



Reaching the apex she started to descend, picking up speed on her way down. Just as she reached the ground, she tucked her head, arms and knees into her chest; forming a ball of sorts that skipped off the ground three times before crashing directly into Ophelia and knocking them both in front of the same pool of water she had thrown her phone into.



Standing, Lawanda scanned the area for Imeut, who had been knocked to the ground when she had barreled into Ophelia. She caught a glimpse of him on the ground of the courtyard, and as she started toward him. The distinct sound of gunfire on all sides stopped her after her first step. She leapt behind a newsstand to avoid being filled full of hole from the gunshots that seemed to be coming from all directions.

Looking into the distance to her left she saw that Yang was back on her feet as if nothing had happened to her legs a few minutes before. To her right she saw Ying, guns in both hands firing, as she was running in a straight line to her. Leaning with her back to the newsstand and reloading her guns, Lawanda took a deep breath and jumped out from the newsstand and was about to open fire when she saw the familiar trench coat and hat that Frith always wore, land right beside Ying . He reached over to disarm her and in one motion flipped the gun around and up landing a blow under her chin which brought her to the ground……. eventually, tweety birds floating around over her head.



Glancing over to where Yang had been, she saw that Imagene and Shauneo had both landed near her and were keeping her occupied. Lawanda instinctively turned to where Imeut had been and saw that, yet again, Ophelia had gotten there first and was helping him onto his feet.



Lawanda ran towards them. Faster than she had ever thought she could run. Kicking Ophelia’s back as she arrived. Staggering backwards only a little, Ophelia, as quick as lightening, punched Lawanda in the face, taking her off the ground. Landing beside the same pool of water and looking up she saw Ophelia had left Imeut and was moving in her direction. Standing, Lawanda waited for Ophelia to approach and then jumped to the far side of the pool, firing at Ophelia until both her weapons were empty. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she bolted straight for Ophelia, running across the water as if it were solid ground.



Ophelia, obviously surprised, just stood there watching as Lawanda crossed the pool and jump as she hit dry ground, her foot making contact with Ophelia’s face and dropping her to the ground.



“Leave him alone. If you touch him again I will kill you” said Lawanda to Ophelia in a very matter of fact voice.



“Looking up to Lawanda, Ophelia asked, “How did you do that?” Run across the water? Where did you learn how to do that, Lawa…”



“Now come on Ant… Imeut… we’ve got to get out of here….” Lawanda started to reach down for his hand, as she saw Ophelia pull out a gun from a holster on her thigh. But before she could react, she found herself face first on the ground, her feet having been swept out from underneath her.



“Now Ophelia, shoot her now,” Imeut’s voice echoed in her ears.


Report this post to a moderator
12/08/2005 22:34:28
Subject: Re: The Second Chapter of Accidental Genisis - Truths Never Told
Tefnut


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 1603
Offline



PART X2 - ALL GOOD THINGS



Slow motion.



Shocked, Lawanda looked back at him, and saw him smiling back at her. Turning back to Ophelia, she had her gun raised and Lawanda in her sight. Lawanda closed her eyes and waited for inevitable.



An eternity of silence passed.



Opening her eyes, Lawanda saw Frith sitting on top of Ophelia, pinning her arms to the ground as both Shauneo and Imagene rested the barrels of their shotguns in each of her eye sockets, keeping her sedated for the moment.



“You mentioned wanting to have a moment with him, to talk,” said Frith, nodding in Imeut’s direction.

Standing up and brushing herself off, she drew her attention to Imeut, who was still sitting on the ground, looking very scared. As Lawanda walked over towards him, he cowered back and said, “Lawa…” before being cut off.



“Don’t call me Lawanda again. Lawanda is dead. Lawanda is the person who raised you, taught you right from wrong, degraded herself for you, and loved you. She’s dead, she died the moment you betrayed me,” said Lawanda, sadly, either to Imeut or to herself, even she didn’t know which. Looking to Frith and the rest of AA, to Ophelia and back to Imeut, a sly smile formed on her mouth, as her eyes sharpened. Looking directly at Imeut, she asked, “Do you remember the name of the Egyptian goddess of water?”



He just looked at her in silence.



Removing a large knife from the inner pocket of her jacket, she continued, “The one who had the head of a lion.”



Imeut blankly stared up at her.



Flipping the knife into the air and catching it, she continued, “The one who was banished to the dark lands, but returned to be the Eyes of Ra, the creator,” Looking to Frith, she chuckled and said, “Who ruled in Heliopolis.”



Placing the blade to his throat, she asked, “So, does the self proclaimed god of the dead know who I am talking about? I’m getting impatient here,” she said as she pressed the knife into his throat, drawing blood.



“T..Tefnut,” said Imeut, choking.


“Tefnut, that's right” she repeated nodding. Looking over to Frith, she said it again, “Tefnut.” To which he smiled and nodded back to her. “Seems to fit. I likes.”



“Thank you for the name, Imeut.” She said sarcastically, as she tightened the grip on her knife.



“Wait. Don’t!” yelled Ophelia, still on her very immobilized position. “You can’t kill him.”



“What makes you think I am going to do that?” asked Tefnut.



“You can’t take him from here either” replied Ophelia.



“Says who? The girl with shotgun barrel glasses on? I don’t think you are in any position to make demands, or requests either for that matter,” replied Imagene, digging the barrel of her gun in a little deeper into Ophelia’s eye.



“You don’t understand. He can’t be jacked out. Why do you think he is still in the Matrix. Do you think he has actually healing for a year? He can’t leave,” replied Ophelia.



“OK,” said Frith, motioning for Shauneo and Imagene to back off a bit, “Let’s hear it, doll.”



“He can’t be jacked out of the Matrix. His RSI has been altered. He doesn’t have a carrier frequency that we can lock onto. It seems to modulate and frequency shift on us whenever we try to lock onto it, it changes. We have been trying to free him for months now. Nothing seems to work,” said Ophelia.



“That’s crazy. Why would you think we would fall for that?” asked Shauneo.



“She’s right,” said Tefnut, blankly, “Ishii told me that his RSI had been changed, modified somehow. We just didn’t know exactly how or for what purpose. That’s one of the reasons we were looking for him, to find out what had been done to him, and cure him.”



“Wow,” said Frith, “That sucks.”



“Yeah it does,” said Tefnut, as she quickly turned and grabbed Imeut’s arm and raised it up with one hand, as she buried the knife blade into his shoulder, then twisted the knife, severing the arm, which landed on the ground, twitching.



Imeut howled in pain fow a moment before passing out from the pain.



“What the hell did you do that for Lawanda,” asked Frith, standing up, leaving Ophelia free.



She stared at him unflinching, “Um.. I mean Tefnut,” he quietly corrected himself.



“That’s Better. Ishii said we needed to study the code in his RSI to see what had been done to him. I’m guessing an arm full of RSI will do as well as a body. Plus I am interested in seeing what this will do to him if we ever find him in the real,” she said looking down at him.



Picking up the arm and holding it away from her like something extremely stinky, she walked over to Imagene and simply said, “Decompile this thing.”



Pulling out her decompiler, Imagene entered the correct commands into it, and then touched the sensor end to the arm which still had a few twitches left in it. The arm disappeared slowly, as the bits of code were stripped off in a green cloud of code, whittling the appendage down to nothing.



“Ok, got it,” said Imagene, removing a small disc from the decompiler and placing it into a slot on her cell phone. “Uploading complete.”



“Good,” said Tefnut, who turned her attentions to Ophelia, “Take care of him. And hope I never see him again.”



With that, said, she turned around and started walking back towards the hardline up the street. Tears streaming down her face, she silently said, “Goodbye, Antonio,” and even more quieter, “Goodbye, Lawanda.”



As they approached the hardline, no one spoke a word. The phone started ringing, and Tefnut was the first to reach it. Picking up the receiver, she turned around facing her teammates. She was openly crying now.

As she brought the phone up to her ear, she felt the normal wooziness that jacking out always caused.



At first.



Then there was a distinct change. All of the code, which normally was green, turned first yellowish, then orangish, and then red as she watched helpless. Wondering what was happening but unable to do anything but see what was going on, the red began going faint until there was only black, and then there was nothing.



*****************************************************************************************************************



“It was Ishii. Dammit I knew she couldn’t be trusted,” said Padma, “I knew it.”

“There was no damage done,” stated Daisen.



“And no one was hurt,” replied Warbird, “So at least we got that going for us.”



“I wouldn’t say no one,” said DA, holding the bump on the side of her head where she had been knocked out, “I’ve still got a headache.”



“I can’t believe Lawanda would go along with something like this though,” said Kutikiri, “She seemed so genuine, and sweet. Plus her and Ishii weren’t getting along at all. It just doesn’t add up.”



“Lawanda wouldn’t have, but I’m not so sure about Tefnut. Tefnut was acting very different out there, right Ima,” said Frith.



“Yeah, like another person entirely,” agreed Imagene, “She kinda scared me a little, with that whole arm thingy.”



“Speaking of the arm, did you get the code, DA?” asked Frith.



“Arm? I don’t know anything about any arm, sorry. Musta already been knocked out,” she said, rubbing her head again.



“Flood’s not gonna like this at all,” replied Pad. “Let’s clean this place up and start looking for them. They couldn’t have gotten far on foot.”



“Umm, see that’s just it,” said Frith, whose head was bowed and shaking left to right, “They kinda had a hovercraft of their own.”



“Kinda had a hovercraft?” asked Padma, “Kinda had one?”



“I saw them land it when I first found them. I just never though she would leave again, Pad. I wanted her to tell you about it herself, and then I just forgot about it.”



“Well, that’s it… they are long gone by now,” said DA.



“Yeah, but I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of either of them,” sighed Padma, “Not by a long shot.”

Message Edited by Tefnutt on 12-08-2005 10:38 PM

Message edited by Tefnut on 12/08/2005 22:38:53.
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12/08/2005 22:41:22
Subject: Re: The Second Chapter of Accidental Genisis - Truths Never Told
Tefnut


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 1603
Offline



EPOLOGUE

Walking this path was both exciting and discomforting every time she came here. Having to navigate from memory and by the light of a small torch in darkness that was so complete she couldn’t see her nose in front of her own face without it. Freezing, the black robes she wore which were mandated for such meetings offered almost no heat.

Making her way to the place she had once been held prisoner, what seemed like another lifetime ago. She waited. Waited until she saw the lone light approaching as it always did.

Out of the darkness, he appeared, as always. Cabot offered his arm as escort. Putting out both his and her lights and leading her down further into the darkness, he served as her eyes. After an hour of wandering around in the dank, damp dark, he came to the doors. Releasing her arm, he relit his torch and removed a key from his pocket. After unlocking the door, her took her hand in his and kissed it before opening the door and motioning for her to enter.

As she entered the torch lit room, the door closed behind her, and as always was again locked from the outside, the noise from the tumblers echoing off the stone walls of this giant room.

She took in the particulars of the room again as she always did. The floor was a polished marble fresco depicting a great medieval war, with The King and his bride sitting in large fiery thrones as their minions fought exhaustively beneath them . There were great marble pillars and columns laid out against the walls, each a different thickness so that the perspective of the room could never truly be judged. The columns were connected with great red curtains, hung from one column to the next, sagging in the middle with perfect symmetry. Painted on the ceiling was a grand mural depicting the seven levels of hell from Dante’s Inferno.

Centering the room was a large spiral staircase made of polished granite with a thin red carpet laid in the center which descended from a door at the line where the curtains met the ceiling. This is the place where her eyes were drawn.

The door suddenly opened and she watched as a figure, dressed in a red hooded robe much like her own, stepped through and on to the stairs. She waited patiently as the robed figure made her way around each turn in the immense staircase, until finally stepping onto the frescoed floor.

Approaching her, the hooded figure stopped just out of arms distance. They both nodded to each other, showing recognition.

“So,” asked the red robed female voice, “do you have what I sent you for?”

“There was a problem, M’lady. The subject escaped and was recaptured by Zion,” said the woman in the black robe.

“How very unfortunate.” Said the woman in the red robes disappointment evident in her voice.

“But, M’lady,” continued the woman in the black robe, “We were able to retrieve this.” She handed over a data disk to the woman in the red robes.

“Excellent. This should do nicely,” said the woman in the red robes. “The fleshlings will take forever to uncover what we did to him. What about the other. Has she shown any signs that she remembers anything from before?”

“No M’lady. She remembered only what we programmed her to. She is resting in her prepared chamber until we need her again. She is unaware of her full capabilities or of our plans for her” said the black robed woman.

“You have done well, Ishii,” said the woman in the red robes. “Well enough to be rewarded. Anything you desire?”

“Thank you, M’lady,” said Ishii, “But the pleasure of being in your service is all I will ever ask.”
“Hmmm,” said Persephone, “I had a feeling you would say that.”

[Vesuveus]

12/25/2005 07:03:43
Subject: The Process of Compassion
Tefnut


Systemic Anomaly

Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 1603
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//ARCHIVE 8:8:8
ENTER PASSWORD:********
//PASSWORD AUTHINTICATED
///Search Enabled:///
[V:]SEARCH STRING:/// AGENT_BROWN///
//STARTING SEARCH . . . . . . . . . .
//SEARCH RETURNED 8,431,512,701 FILES//
//
ENTER FILE NUMBER TO VIEW:
Report this post to a moderator
12/25/2005 07:09:56
Subject: Re: The Process of Compassion
Tefnut


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Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 1603
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//
ENTER FILE NUMBER TO VIEW: 26431

//FILE 26431: THE DANCE

***********************************************



"So you had another dream," said the man from behind his desk, looking readily at the woman laying on the leather chaise lounger just to his right.



"Yes. This one was as real as the others. I never really remember going to sleep, or waking up and I am always in strange places, but the details are so real. So precise. It's eerie Dr. Brown," replied the woman.



"Can you describe to me where you were, Ms Johnson?" asked the man.



"It was at a night club. I have never been to a bar or night club before. I mean I have seen them on TV and they all look kinda like this place. It is very dark there, but there are bright lights blinking all around me, off and on to the beat of the music that is playing," said Gabriella.



"Strobe lights, then," stated Dr. Brown. "Please continue."



"The music is loud. So loud it is impossible to think, much less talk to anyone. But it draws you to it. As if you are in a trance. Before I knew where I was I was moving to the beat of the music... swaying from side to side... as if answering the question the music was asking me. Like the Dance was alive," said Gabriella.



"And what do you think the dance was telling you?" asked Dr. Brown.



"It's the same question. That question. The question." said Gabriella, shifting in the lounge.



"What do you think the question means?" asked the doctor.

Looking in his direction as she rolled her thumbs over each other repeatedly she paused, licked her lips then looked away again before answering, "I don't know."



The doctor noted her tensing body language, wrote something in his notepad, the simply said, "Please, continue."



"As I am dancing, offering myself to the music, I open my eyes and see him, sitting at the bar on a stool, staring at me. Even through the smoke and people walking back and forth in front of me, I know it is him." said Gabriella, seeming for the moment to forget the doctor was still in the room. "Staring right at me, right through me, intently, as if to burn a hole in me with only his eyes."



"You said you knew it was him. I am assuming you are referring to the man you spoke to be about at our last session, who has been haunting your dreams. You told me you did not have any memory of meeting him before, but that you felt you knew him, and that he acted as if he recognized you. Was this the case again?" asked the doctor, sitting in his chair looking down at his patient.



"Yes. I must know him from somewhere. I keep feeling like I have spoken to him before, and he gives me an overwhelming feeling of safeness whenever I think about him. I just don't know or can't remember his name."



"So, in your dreams, have you approached him or talked with him yet?" asked the doctor.



"No. I seem to wake up before I talk to him. Or at least it seems like I wake up, although I don't seem to remember waking after these dreams... it's like I just realize that I am now awake. Nothing like just normally waking up, whatever that means. But, like I said, I have a feeling that we have met and spoken before, I just can't remember where or when."



"It's ok. Just relax. You shouldn't feel a need to remember him. In fact, it may be your mind's way of telling you that you may not want to remember him. Try and not push it. Let it happen on it's own," said the doctor.



"Please continue with the dream."



"Well, as I saw him sitting there, I felt an overwhelming need to be with him, beside him. I started to slowly walk toward him, trying to not look as desperate as I was feeling." said Gabriella. "Wanting to hear his voice and see if it sparked a light of memory."



"And then what happened?" asked the doctor.



"As I approached him, he held out his hand to me, and opened it."



"Was there something in his hand?"



"I don't remember. I remember reaching out to him, to take his hand, or to take something from it, and then.... nothing. I woke in bed, sitting up in the pajamas I had put on, my retainer still in my mouth, two hours late for work. And I have the feeling I had been there, sitting up, for quite a while." she said, clearly upset.

Turning toward the doctor, she started crying as she said, "Am I going crazy, Dr. Brown? I feel like I am. I don't know what I am doing to bring these dreams on, or what they mean, or why they are so real, but they must mean something."



"I don't use terms like crazy. And if I did, I would still answer that question with a firm No. I think you are just experiencing a high level of stress, and these dreams are they way the stress is manifesting itself. The man in your dreams may well be someone you know or knew, or possibly he is a combination of many people you know. But whomever he is, he is undoubtedly causing you even more stress. By making you late for work, by the unresolved feelings of familiarity." said the doctor, unmoving in his chair.



"What should I do then. To get rid of him or the dreams entirely. What should I do?" asked Gabriella, in desperation.



"The only two ways to resolve this, I believe are; One, to confront him and ask him who he is and why he is haunting your dreams. This could leave to more questions, as you mind struggles to come up with an answer which is believable to you. That is why I recommend the second option. Ignore him. Whenever you see him, look the other way. Leave him alone and do not pay him any mind. How much trouble can a powerless dream man have on you when you ignore him. He is bound to disappear once he sees you have no interest in him." said the doctor, leaning back slightly in his chair.



"Do you really think so?" asked Gabriella. "Could it be that easy."



"Of course it can. If you let it be that easy. It really is all up to you. You are going to have to take the first step," said the doctor, smiling.



After she arrived in her small apartment, ate her usual dinner of noodles and broth alone. After cleaning up, she went into her restroom, brushed and flossed her teeth, then started to draw a hot bath, with bubbles to soak in.



Stepping out of her robe and walking to the tub, she paused to turn on a stereo sitting on a small wicker shelf. The music was always soothing, especially when she was in the tub and needed to unwind.

Stepping into the bath, she paused a few times so that her body could get used to the very hot water before totally immersing herself in the steam and bubbles.



The combination of the water and music was extremely comforting. She soon found herself getting drowsy, laying with her head in the small ledge which was form fitted to accommodate her neck. The steam so thick she could barely see. She closed her eyes and fell into the beat of the music.



Opening her eyes again, she was on the dance floor of the club, swaying back and forth in time with the music. Here we go again, she thought to herself. I have to remember to be strong this time.



Closing her eyes she let the music take over. She was no longer in control of her movements. The music moved her where it wanted her to go, as fast or as slow as it wanted her to move... she lost track of time... had she been here Dancing for one song or two, or twenty. She couldn't tell.



Opening her eyes, she looked over toward to bar. He was sitting there, at the bar. She quickly looked away.

Grabbing the first person who walked by, a young lady dressed in a leather tu-tu, leather knee high boots and a leather sailor's cap, and started to dance with her. Up close. Anything to get the vision of him staring at her out of her head.



The leather clad lady had other ideas of fun, and after a few turns, she moved on to the next person within reach, leaving Gabriella alone and once again facing the man, who at that very moment looked at her and made a brief eye contact with her.



As soon as Gabriella realized they were in an staring embrace, she quickly turned her eyes away, and started walking to the other side of the dance floor, looking for the exit. Her breath already quickening and her heartbeat racing, she stumbled over an anonymous foot, and was caught by someone on the dance floor.



Regaining her composure, she straightened her dress out and, looked up to see the man standing less than 8 inches from her, her hand still in him. Gasping and taking a step beck, she moved to turn and run, when she heard him mutter a single word.



"Pirouette?"



A single word that brought with it the gift of her memory. The next few seconds took an eternity to pass. As her entire life passed through her mind. Being raised by her parents in the city. Going to boarding school and prep school. Knowing that something in the world was just not quite right. Being awakened. Zion. Being selected as an operative. The Matrix. Falling in love. The hovercraft being boarded by sentinels.



"Prizm?" she whispered.



"Pirouette, Where did you go last night? Why didn't you meet me?" Prizm asked.



"Prizm..." her voice trailed off as she saw Dr. Brown approaching from behind Prizm. She simply pointed to him.



Before Prizm could turn around, Dr. Brown pulled out a gun and emptied his it into Prizm, who fell to the floor. Kneeling down, Gabriella held Prism's head in her lap, wiping his hair out of his eyes. His eyes opened, and he coughed, making his lips unnaturally red. Looking up to Gabriella, he said, "Run, Piro..." before another coughing fit caught a hold of him.



Continuing to gently caress his face, Gabriella just looked at him lovingly. As he tried to speak again, she placed a finger over his mouth to shush him and said, "It's Ok Priz. I remember now, and it's ok." She gently rocked him back and forth until he had passed, then laid his head down on the floor, closing his eyes with her fingers, and placing a kiss on his forehead.



Standing, she looked up at Dr. Brown, standing in front of her, wearing his customary black suit and tie along with a pair of dark sunglasses. He offered his arm as escort, which she took.



"Thank you, Agent_Brown." she said, with a bit of relief, "I don't know if I would have been able to work this out without you."



"That's quite alright Ms Johnson. That is what I am here for. You said his name. Did he tell you it or did you remember him finally."



"No. I remembered it. I remembered everything. I remember meeting him. I remember our first dance together. I remember falling in love with him. I remember getting transferred to his hovercraft to be with him. I remember dancing at our wedding. I remember being happy with him, talking of children with him. I remember walking in and seeing him with her. I remember his excuses. I remember contacting you and the deal we made. I remember transmitting our coordinates and waiting in the dark for the sentinels to arrive. I remember being reinserted. I remember it all." she said.



He looked down at her and sighed. She had never seen him do that before.



"And I remember every time we have Danced this same Dance, you and I. Why do I keep bringing us here? Why won't I accept the programming? Why do I always remember?" she asked.



"We have the same questions. After every memory reoccurrence, we start monitoring you in the fields and scanning your surroundings here, trying to pick up something that is triggering your memory." said Agent_Brown.



"So what is it? Spiders? Oatmeal? The guilt of what I have done?" she asked.



"No," he replied, taking her hand into his and leading her out of the club, "It's the Dance."

[Vesuveus]

Who is Mohandas?
By Michael Chandler aka 3y3p0pper




For a week now the villagers had been talking about him: Mohandas Singh was doing some strange things in his hut. He had the usual traveling performer‘s tricks, but he could also bend spoons by staring at them. He could move faster than a striking cobra, they said, like the time he caught the jade statue knocked from its temple shelf. He had caught it at waist level; they said his turban was a blur streaking across the room.

Mohandas was bad for business. You see, I am (or was) a missionary. I compete with the local religion and provide food, clothing and God’s Word to His faithful followers. I devoted my life to this sometimes-frustrating battle many years ago, and it becomes worse when a two-bit charlatan tries to undo the work I’ve done with some two-bit miracle. Mohandas, in fairness, was said to be a spiritual man who spent his days in meditation and prayer, scornfully turning away anyone who came to his home before showtime. But pious or not, he had to go.

“Surely you realize that he does tricks for his supper? And that he has practiced to fool you?” I growled at Jawaharal, my assistant and translator. He was a good man and servant of God, but he grew up here; it was as if superstition were something that couldn’t be removed from him through reason or salvation.

“Sahib, many times, when he is meditating, he will rise from the floor. This has been witnessed,” he replied, almost reverently.

“Well, I’m putting a stop to this now. Next thing you know, they’ll be climbing up there on Sunday instead of coming to church. We’re going up there,” I decided.

The climb was difficult. The path up to his hut was only about a mile long, but because of the grade it took us almost two hours. I wheezed up the side of the mountain until I saw the ramshackle dwelling squatting next to a sheer face of cliff. Slowing my pace as the ground began to flatten, I walked up to the hut and rapped on the doorframe. I could hear a low droning sound and I realized it was him, meditating. Then I saw him.

“Excuse me,” I said in English. “I would like to speak with you.” It was as if I had not even spoken. He sat there with his legs crossed in the middle of the room, humming a single note softly. “Excuse me, sir,” I said, “I would like to speak with you.”

His face went from a picture of tranquility to a mask of annoyance mixed with anger as his eyelids shot open and he regarded me with cold eyes. Shaken a little, I continued to speak. “I must ask you to cease performing for my parishioners. The light of Christ is within them, and you must respect that. I can not have your little performances, these manifestations of Satan, to lead my people’s souls to hell.”

As Jawaharal finished translating, Mohandas looked at me for a second and scoffed. Then he placed a hand beside him on the floor and, in one swift and smooth motion, whipped his body into the air and came to rest in a perfect, motionless, one-handed handstand. “What I know you can not understand,” he said to me in slightly accented English. “You do not have the ability to understand it. Allow me my truth, and I will allow you yours.” Then he closed his eyes, signaling the end to our conversation.

I was not ready to end it. I threatened him with Hell, the civil authorities, and the massed might of my parish but nothing I said broke his concentration. Finally I dragged Jawaharal out of the hut and down the mountain, which to my delight was much easier than climbing up.

He had not heard the last from me. Oh, no. I had, of course, one final course of action: using my influence with the local police chief (who was little more than the local strongman but who attended services on Sunday). I came to him in his office as a ruler would to a subject, and he received me in a manner befitting a man of God. Before I left his office, I had assurances that Mohandas would be imprisoned for a few days and then taken to Delhi and dropped off in the city. I whistled “A Mighty Fortress is our God” as I walked out, pleased that my nemesis would finally be brought to heel.

That next afternoon, I watched contentedly as six men walked up to the trail that let to Mohandas, and I decided at once to join them. Taking Jawarharal along, I wheezed up the trail, this time with the help of a staff Jawaharal brought for me.

As we reached the hut, I noticed the crude spit and bones a little ways from his home. I felt the cold and noticed animal tracks in the dirt. I wondered why he would live up here in these conditions, pray all day, and do tricks in the afternoon when curious children or nosy hunters happen by and gave him food in exchange and then move somewhere else when the handouts ran out here. Something made me want to ask him.

“Jawaharal, tell them to wait and then come with me.” I walked into the hut unannounced and found him there, sitting four inches off the floor. I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Mohandas,” I said, feeling angry at him and myself and growing angrier, forgetting my questions, “there are men here to take you away. You must go away from here.” He slowly sank to the floor and opened his eyes and smiled a beautiful, sanctified smile. I thought that, given his past behavior, this was an unusual change but I replied in the affirmative when he asked to take my staff for his long journey. I stepped aside for him as much as the hut would allow, almost knocking Jawaharal down as Mohandas passed me, walking out toward the men.

Then it happened: he swung the staff so hard I thought he threw it. My head followed where the flight would have been and, not seeing anything, turned my head to behold Mohandas standing in a circle of bludgeoned corpses and blood. Then he leapt six feet into the air and brought the staff down hard on the last man’s head. He killed them all in less than two seconds and stood staring at me, tense in his face but tranquil in his stance and demeanor.

I almost said something to him but I was interrupted; “I don’t feel good,” said Jawaharal behind me. I was still spellbound and staring at Mohandas, and so I nearly died of shock when I was shoved aside by a giant man wearing a dark green suit. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses and had a huge handgun in his hand, which he began to fire at Mohandas. Mohandas seemed to dodge the first few shots, looking for a second exactly like a picture of Brahma with many arms, but one shot caught him in the shoulder and he went down. The man in the suit walked over to where Mohandas lay, aimed the gun, and---

###########target neutralized at location
X:13750 Y: +60 Z:-14567
rerouting media feed… done!
cleaning up archive… done!
restart zone############


--- and I woke up. The morning sun spilled into my room. Clothed in my pajamas, I looked around and must have cried out because Jawaharal rushed in and asked “Are you all right, sahib?”

“Yes, yes--- but what of Mohandas? What happened? Who was that man?” I cried.

“Sahib, you have had a nightmare. Who is Mohandas?”

06-09-2005

[Vesuveus]

Quite a Ride
By michael chandler aka 3y3p0pp3r

It was Saturday night and Angel ducked his head beneath the low door frame, passing the silent bouncers. The abandoned warehouse would be a dance club that night, powered by stolen juice from nearby power lines. Angel had not obtained his little white pill that made him feel the music so strongly and love everyone in the room, but this was a rave. Things like this are easily obtained.
He was dressed, as he would call it, as a techno-goth. He wore a black shirt with orange accents, a pair of black pants and a pair of goggles on his head, the lenses a nice orange tint that gave the world a dark and interesting hue.
This was not his first rave. He had been to several around the city, not to mention countless clubs in Europe, that techno nexus. He was known by the right people but not so flashy as to be recognized by everyone. This was good because, as a rule, Angel disliked others. It was also good because certain contacts made it easy to obtain his party enhancements. He saw one of these contacts sitting at a table with some friends, having a drink. Angel leaned down and spoke in his ear.
“Outside,” his friend shouted over the thumping bass. “In the back.”

“Goddamn it, where the hell is Aux?” Fortran screamed into his phone at the bewildered operator. Fortran and his crew, on their way to meet a new recruit, had been ambushed. His first mate, dodging a late night taxi driver who had weaved onto the sidewalk, had jumped clear over the car from a standing position. The taxi sped past for a second, then swung around, barreling toward the team. An agent fired at them from the window. They had split up, each group heading to different hardlines. Aux was supposed to contact the recruit and then jack out, but now Fortran couldn’t reach Aux by phone.
“Bad news… I think he’s down,” came the reply. “Bathory Wharf… I don’t know what he’s doing, I mean his vitals are there but they’re weak, and he’s not moving.” Fortran shivered, feeling a delicious mix of sorrow and relief that it was not him. It wasn’t easy anymore, working for Zion. He remembered the time when, as a bluepill, he found himself employed at his favorite restaurant, only to find out he didn’t love the food after seeing it for a month. He felt the same way now.
“Aux is dead. Let’s get out of here. Goddamn it,” he swore again, this time sounding more resigned to the truth he had uttered. Aux wasn’t dead, but he might as well have been.

Aux lay in a pool of blood outside an abandoned warehouse near Bathory Wharf. Every now and then he coughed, marveling with each fresh trickle of blood how bad it hurt. None of this is real, he thought. Yet here I am bleeding to death from a gunshot wound. The hot, sweaty years working on the Zion engineering level came back to him, reminding him how he had dreamed of becoming an operative. The danger he felt when lubing the huge, spinning gears that supplied Zion with its power was way worse than a fight with security guards or running from an agent, something that before tonight had only happened to him once. None of it was real, he could tell himself. The bullet that pierced his coat, cell phone and body seemed real enough, though. Now, bleeding from his gut and feeling the spark leaving his body, he chuckled painfully at the irony.
He heard a noise in the darkness to his left. He unholstered his gun, knowing that he had but a few bullets left. He vowed to himself to die fighting.
Footsteps came close. Aux tensed up as best he could, knowing that each second he held himself at the ready was taking minutes from the half hour he had left. “Die like a human,” his operator had told him during training. “If you’re gonna go, show them Zion’s resolve.”
Any second now, he thought. Any second.

Angel looked around the darkened corner, peering into the darkness, trying to make out the shape of the friend of a friend he had to meet back here. “Is anyone there?” he called to the darkness. He heard some noise, like something propped against a wall sliding to the floor. He heard a meaty thump and, from the light of his Bic, saw a man laying in a pool of blood holding a pistol in one hand and his bloody abdomen with the other. Angel, who had never seen a dead body except at a funeral, knew the man was dead.
Quickly he looked around in the inky night for anyone who may have been responsible for the dead man. Angel knew only one thing: nobody saw or could see anything. The man’s clothes, while not unlike something from Angel’s own wardrobe, were of such obvious quality that Angle began to speculate in the dark about the contents of the man’s pockets. Quickly rifling the pockets, Angel was disgusted to find only what looked like a cigarette case. Angel didn’t smoke, but he pocketed the case anyway, leaving the body and returning to the club. His friend had better not have set him up out there, Angel thought.

When the operator pulled the spike from the base of Fortran’s skull, the captain leaped out of the chair as if a string was pulled out of a talking doll. Fortran began to bark instructions: the ship must return to Zion to drop off Aux’s body and then return to broadcast depth to rendezvous with the recruit. “And hurry it up! Let’s get back in there before he has a dream about an anal probe,” Fortran blustered. Fortran knew the recruit had but a little time before the men in the dark green suits would visit him. The recruit, however, was a lesser worry: the pills had been compromised. Their signal had moved soon after Aux’s signal flatlined. Somebody had the pills. What if the machines got their hands on a blue pill? Or a RED pill? Fortran began to form a fine layer of sweat on his forehead as he began to think of what to tell Commander Lock, and how to explain that his crew had been the first since Zion began to lose a set of Recruitment pills.

Angel, as it was said, didn’t smoke. But he did drink, and on rare occasions, like a cigarette with his vodka-energy drink cocktail. Since he had the sexy eye of the woman with the hoops in her nose across the bar, he decided to produce the unique looking cigarette case and have a smoke, at least to look cool. Angel absentmindedly opened it and beheld what he had been looking for all night: two pills, one red and one blue, mounted on little stands in the case. Angel’s eyes got big and then he calmed and put the case away, looking up to meet the girl’s gaze. She had left the bar. Then she was behind him.
“So you wanna come to a party?” she lisped in a haze of pinned back pupils. “There’s this place close by.”
Angel wanted no part of this woman, who had gone down immediately in his estimation after his little discovery in the cigarette case. It meant he would have to share. “Uh, I think I’m gonna dance some more,” he replied while thinking “red or blue, red or blue.” Red was an exciting color, but he had always had a thing for blue. He put them both in his hand, shook them like dice, and swallowed one, placing the other in the case without looking. He began to dance crazily on the floor, fired with anticipation as he waited for the buzz that was sure to come.

It had been twelve hours since the death of Aux. Tyndall had looked Fortran in the eye with her penetrating, blue gaze as he explained. She listened quietly until Fortran had finished. “I can see your disappointment in yourself for this failure,” she said gently. “I will not add to your shame with a lecture. I will pass the news of this setback to my superiors, but you have a mission to complete. This new recruit promises to be one of the best, and at such a young age. Do your best to get him out. That is all,” she finished, dismissing him as she turned to a monitor and began to tap furiously on the keys. Fortran began to walk to the elevator that would lead to the dock.
Tyndall was right. Fortran was disappointed and ashamed, but not because Aux had died. Rather, Fortran felt a healthy dose of “redpill remorse.” Disappointed that the truth meant work and death in cold metal hovercraft, ashamed that he no longer believed in Zion, Fortran just wanted to jack into his personal processing unit and never jack out.
Upon reaching his hovercraft, he saw a fresh-faced youngster waiting for him by the ramp. “The name’s Flick. I’m your new operator.”
“What happened to Bat? Nobody told me about this,” Fortran grumbled.
“I got orders from Deadbolt himself today.” Flick waved a beeping portable data screen at Fortran’s face. “I was top in my class, ya know. You all are lucky.” Fortran sniffed, shook his head, and wearily walked up the ramp into his hovercraft. This kid was too cocky, not respectful of the danger that lay ahead. Yet another disappointment, Fortran thought.
“If we were lucky, we’d leave you here by accident. Get your ass in, Flick.”

It was not Flick’s fault everything went wrong. He was indeed, as he bragged to Fortran, the top student in the Zion Operator Academy. His quick reflexes and an uncanny anticipation of the jacked-in operative’s needs barely overshadowed the risks he took. Unfortunately, these reflexes and this anticipation had never let him down in training, which justified his risks to him. He relished the opportunity to serve under Fortran, who was quite famous. Fortran had held ten sentinels off his crippled hovercraft, his wounded pilot and the bodies of his first mate and operator with only a rifle until a rescue hovercraft had changed the squid’s programming to a caterpillar of zero bits with a single blast of an EMP. Flick desired to serve under such a legendary captain, and so had a bearing of confidence that everyone mistook for mastery.
Angel woke the morning after the rave, feeling more tired than when he had… when had he gone to bed? This was not Angel’s first blackout, but generally he could trace the events up to the crucial moment. Today, he couldn’t even remember the rave, or the body in the alley. He rolled over in bed, reaching over the side for his cell phone. His hands closed on a metal rectangle, which Angel pulled up to his face. Through the squint, Angel saw that he held a cigarette case. Angel opened it and was surprised to see a red pill in a little stand mounted in the box. He didn’t really feel like something new, but something compelled him. Hedonism was Angel’s watchword. After all, you only live once.
“Party time.”

Fortran’s crew had set up in an apartment building in the slums of the city. Fortran had passed off the responsibility of the actual recruitment pitch to his first mate, staying to oversee the extraction process. He didn’t feel like telling some dumbass bluepill, who always sat there with wide eyes, thinking they were going to be superheroes, that the truth was out there, looking for him. He would rather absorb himself in the sometimes tricky process of extracting a bluepill from the Matrix. The scan would be started just before the recruit made the choice. There was only one signal at any given time disrupted by the red pill in the Matrix, since there was in place a strict system of one extraction at a time. Finding the bluepill’s server was the most difficult part. The operator would then trace the path of the bluepill’s disrupted signal from the population server down the fiber optic cable to the tower where the body lay. Then he would map this route and upload it to machine programs in the Matrix which was responsible for sending the code which destroyed the chemically encoded Matrix protocols in the potential’s brain. The recruit would awake, freak out, go on the waterslide and be taken up to the waiting hovercraft to be configured for the real world. This was basic stuff.
Flick worked effortlessly at the screens. Those stupid machines were so slow to change the access codes that the search he performed was very similar to the one he had completed four days earlier at training. Flick saw his signal and began to home in on it, seconds away from the keystrokes that would awaken another bluepill. Had he not been so trusting in his first instincts and in his reflexes and the one-extraction-at-a-time policy, he may have seen a fainter signal further down the line that he should have traced instead.

Fortran looked up as the recruit entered into the room, wearing the bewildered look everybody wore when they saw the machines. Giant metal and wire contraptions filled the room, set up around an easy chair. The recruit sat in the chair and allowed the sensors to be fixed to him, visibly nervous. Fortran’s cell phone rang. It was Flick.
“Got the signal. Waiting for your order, Captain.” This was faster than usual. This new operator, Fortran had to confess, was pretty good.
“Flip the switch,” Fortran replied as he looked on the screen and realized their mistake, hearing the noise from the extraction machine behind him severing the connection to the Matrix: they had unplugged the wrong person.

Angel took a deep breath. It’s just a drug, he told himself. He had experimented with some pretty serious hallucinogens, including one purported to be the same root given to Aztec human sacrifices before they went to their purpose. That high was like aspirin compared to this. Angel began to get scared, which he knew was the worst thing that he could do, but his heart was racing and his hand began to turn into a strange, jellylike glass. This change traveled up his arm, under his shirt and up his neck. As it covered his face, Angel used his last thought thinking of how he could use a Valium.

Human saliva not only is edible and safe for human consumption, it is also a mild acid. Collected from plugged-in humans, it fills the huge pools that the dead and awakened fall into from many feet above. It dissolves the bodies of the dead and is tapped to nourish the living. Fortran’s hovercraft kept a holding pattern over one such reservoir, looking for the recruit’s body which they knew would be lifeless after suffering cardiac arrest in the Matrix. Fortran felt very old and tired. Flick sat in his chair, eyes as big as a sentinel’s, his face an ashy gray.
Thirty miles away in a similar pool, Angel’s body tumbled ungracefully from the chute, landing on his back in the pool and sinking to the bottom.

08-17-2005

[Vesuveus]

Lethe by LostProphet of Vector

His heart beat loudly in his ears. Sweat poured down his forehead and cascaded off his body, soaking the sheets beneath him.

But he did not wake.

His face contorted with anguish and pain, tears squeezed themselves free from tightly-shut lids.

Still he did not wake.

His body twitched, his lips moving, whispering quietly, things that nobody alive would remember.
Prophet's eyes snapped open. He screamed a soundless scream, and clawed at the bed sheets and metal walls. But nobody was there, nobody to help him. He fell back onto the bed and the eyes snapped shut, and he began to live it all over again.


Part 1
LostProphet landed from a particularly elaborate jump.
The pavement cracked, birds flew away in startled confusion – their programming not designed to deal with such a bizarre occurrence.
He grinned, his brilliant white teeth glinting in the sunlight. It was a nice day – rare for the Matrix. The machines liked to keep their humans a doleful as possible - nothing that convinced them to better themselves. Just keep the status quo, and that’ll be grand.

He flicked his phone open and punched the direct line to his operator.

“The corner of Chesterfield and Seventh Street; be there in 10 minutes.”
“Alright.”

*10 minutes later*

“Mr White?” a voice said behind him.
Prophet turned around.
“I have the package you requested.”

The voice was soft, but it exuded power. Prophet knew the guy probably had sharpshooters aiming at him. But they weren’t the Awakened; they had no chance of hitting him.

“Where is it?”
“AhhAhhAhh.” A strange laugh, “You don’t think I would be so foolish as to carry it with me do you?”
“I had my doubts.”

A frown creased his features.

“I have it in safe house.”

He clicked his fingers. An arm reached around and clamped a rag to Prophet’s mouth. He stood there and smiled beneath the rag. They thought that was air he was breathing.
In a trice, he had his would-be-anaesthesiologist on the ground with a broken arm. Only training stopped him from screaming in pain.

“I suggest we go there now, wouldn’t you agree?”

The man was unfazed, and clearly uncaring about his dogsbody writhing on the ground.
“As you wish.”

**

The elevator stopped four floors beneath ground level, and they alighted. “They” being Prophet, the man, and three heavily armed guards.
“What’s your name?” Prophet asked as they walked down a narrow corridor.
“AhhAhhAhh,” that laugh again, “I’m not foolish enough to reveal that information.”
“Our deal is almost complete.”
“You can be traced. If you know my name, I can be traced. Know me only as The Acquirer.”

They reached the end of the corridor. Passing through the doorway, they entered a room full of locked safes. Prophet was led to Number 363, and The Acquirer removed a golden key from his inner jacket pocket to unlock the safe.
Inside was a small box, and inside the box was a set of discs.
They were termination codes for several highly powerful Agents. The war was intensifying. The machines had made no bones about the fact they were looking for access codes to the Zion Mainframe.
Zion, in a feat of brilliance, had managed to locate an open machine node that connected back to 01. A carefully planned feedback loop brought out a huge information dump. Unfortunately, other interested parties had managed to steal the most important pieces.
Zion was now bargaining for the discs – Prophet didn’t know what they were giving in return, he just knew he was there to pick up the goods and upload them to his hovercraft.
The troupe returned to the elevator and travelled to the ground level in silence.
The doors pinged open and they walked into the foyer … and that’s when things got incredibly messy.

Part 2
The windows shattered as motorcycles burst into the building. The three guards fell instantly as bullets ripped through their bodies. They weren’t awakened or programs, and they were now dead.
Prophet grabbed The Acquirer and manhandled him towards the front door. The gunning had stopped – the bikers wanted both of them alive.
As they reached the door, it came crashing inwards, and The Acquirer wet himself. Three Agents stood there, one with his fist outstretched, having “knocked”.
The bikers turned their weapons fire on the Agents, who fanned out and began to work on taking them down. Prophet and the frightened man ran back the way they had come.

“Down here! We can get out the back way.” The Acquirer shouted, gasping for breath. They hared towards the back door and burst out into a courtyard.
A covered courtyard.
A stretched car screeched to a halt at the only exit, and the rear door swung open.
Prophet swung round, and saw Agents coming towards them fast. There was no
choice.
They both bundled into the car, which accelerated rapidly and they were soon several blocks away.
Prophet knew instinctively that he was in the company of Exiles. If they had been regular people, Agents would have been inside the car in seconds.

“LostProphet, welcome. And hello to you, Mr Backer.”

The Acquirer was silent. His plans had gone fantastically wrong. He was scared shitless.

“We know you don’t have the discs. In fact, you’re of no use to us anymore. You’re dangerous, Mr Backer. You don’t realise, but you have the potential to become a very good federal agent.”

The Acquirer looked startled and confused. The Exile speaker pulled out a serrated knife and plunged the tip into his neck.
The Acquirer screamed, then gurgled as he rapidly choked on his own blood.
The knife was pulled across his throat, almost severing his head, and the screaming stopped abruptly. The exile ripped the head off and tossed it into the footwell. Prophet grimaced at the nasty way the businessman had met his end.

“Unfortunately, you can’t do that to me.” He said quietly, wiping blood off his face.
“No,” the exile said wistfully, “I wouldn’t want to anyway. We will take the termination codes from you, and you will tell us what else that information dump revealed.”

Prophet laughed.

“Sure thing. How about I give you access codes to the Zion Mainframe whilst I’m at it? Go back to your master, whoever the hell he is, and tell him to find the info himself.”

The remainder of the car journey was made in silence. Prophet knew that if he tried to escape he’d get a bullet in the head, but was confident that when they got to their destination, something could be arranged.
Twenty minutes later, he was not so confident. Not so confident at all.

**

When he had arrived, a huge ensemble of rough-looking exiles were there to meet him, and they had rapidly bundled him into an interrogation room. He was currently sitting strapped to a chair with very few clothes on.
A knock on the door, and a voice said quietly “They’re here.” When the door opened, Prophet got the shock of his life.

Part 3
“Glad you could make it, Mr Hirst.” The first of three Agents said almost amiably, “Say hello to my colleagues, Agents Jones and Brown.”

LostProphet glowered at them and struggled in his restraints.

“That’s not my name, but how about you tell me yours?”
“Smith. Agent Smith. Let me assure you Mr Hirst, we are in control here. Any attempts at escape are pointless.”
Smith turned to one of the Exiles. “You have the discs?”
The exile duly handed them over.
“Good. And now for your … reward.”

Two minutes later and the dead bodies were stacked neatly in the corner. Jones had set out a medical kit on the desk next to Prophet.
“What’s this all about? Machines using exiles to capture me … you’re losing your touch boys.”
Smith stared blankly at him, inscrutable behind his dark glasses.
“We all know Zion caused that information dump. Unfortunately for you, they were sloppy. They didn’t know where the dump would be, or how many dumps there would be. And so we find ourselves in this situation.”
“You have the termination codes, now either kill me or release me.”
Smith smiled. It sent chills down Prophet’s spine.
“Wrong requests, Mr Hirst. We want the access codes to Zion’s Mainframe, and you’re going to give them to us.”
“I don’t have them. I’m just an operative.”
He felt something sharp and cold stab into his neck. He winced, tried not to cry out, as the plunger of the hypodermic was pushed, injecting him with code.
“Either you tell us the codes, or how to get them, or you’re going to suffer in ways you can’t even imagine. The fluid injected into you is code, like so much of this world, and we can make it do anything we want. Anything.”
Smith clicked his fingers and immediately Prophet felt his temperature rising. He fought against it, but was soon sweating profusely.
“As you can see, we’ve had our eye on you for some time now, Mr Hirst. You and
Zion, that is.”
“Then you’ll know I’m just the messenger.”
“Unfortunately for you, we do shoot the messenger. Unless the messenger tells us where the codes can be found.”
Prophet found his vision beginning to blur. He hadn’t been briefed on the Agents mind-bending techniques. Nobody had experienced them and survived. He wasn’t prepared.
“Only a captain would have the codes. Not even a first mate, only a captain.”
Smith murmured approvingly. Prophet realised what he had said.
“But you’ll never get your hands on one. My captain will never show around here – as far as they’re concerned, I’m as good as dead.” He spat, though it was more of a dribble of a comment, drugged as he was.
Smith un-holstered his Desert Eagle and pointed it at Prophet’s head. Calculating the angle perfectly.
“What the fu…”
There was a short, sharp bang. Prophet’s head snapped backwards, then his whole body lolled forwards in the chair. The bullet had ripped a chunk of his face away, but he was still alive.
“Let us hope the shock wasn’t too much for his real body,” Agent Jones said quietly, helping to remove Prophet from the restraints. They carried him quickly to a waiting black sedan, and sped away.
Ten minutes later on Stratford Campus, a car almost ran several citizens over as it steamed through a busy square. The back door flew open and a body, its face half decimated, rolled out and stopped in a bloody heap.

Somebody screamed. In the car, the Agents smiled.

Part 4
It was mere minutes before LostProphet’s rescuers arrived on the scene. They bundled him back into a car and left at high speed.
As they hurtled down some stone steps and onto the road, there was a thud on the roof, and a fist came smashing through.
“An Agent!” the driver screamed, pulling on the handbrake and spinning the wheel in his hands. The car skidded into a U-turn and then accelerated hard the way it had come. The hand withdrew, but the Agent was now pulling the roof apart. As the gap opened, the passengers immediately opened fire.
A hail of bullets – too many to dodge – ripped through the Agent. Except it was now an old man again. The tattered body fell like a rag doll onto the road and the car sped on. But the reprieve was only brief.
The brake lights of the car ahead flared a deep red, and the group ploughed into the back of it, and over its back. The car barrelled through the air and landed on its roof, skidding to a messy halt and almost demolishing a payphone.
As the crew pulled themselves painfully out of the wreckage, they saw Agents walking slowly towards them from the car that had braked heavily to a stop.

The payphone started to ring.

As Prophet was jacked out, the Agents started to run.
Soon the captain was left, staying behind to make sure his crew got out safely.
A bullet from a Desert Eagle ripped through the receiver of the payphone. He was trapped. The Agents stood there, two immovable, unemotional rocks.
“The access codes.” Smith intoned, smiling.

**

Prophet finally awoke, crying. He remembered it all – his captain had blown his own brains out to stop the codes falling into the hands of the Agents.
For some reason he was reliving this over and over tonight, after blocking it out successfully for so long. Unbeknown to him, it was the work of his neural transceiver – repairing its pathways now that he was growing in strength and knowledge.
He stumbled out of bed to the bathroom and hurled cold water all over his sweat-drenched body. His convalescence was over and he had a ship to lead.
He had to make his mind strong again.

[Vesuveus]

Awakening by LostProphet of Vector

Part 1
Edward Hirst was a wealthy man. A lottery winner at the tender age of 18, money had transformed his life in a way he never thought possible. He was now a major shareholder in several of MegaCity One’s largest firms and owned numerous exotic cars and boats. But he stayed low-key. Not wanting to be pawed over by the leeches of modern society he stayed hidden in his "down time" as he liked to call it.

Tonight was no exception. He was at a club where he was assured anonymity, and assured that none of his peers would there. Swathed in a leather trench, black beanie and an expensive pair of tinted glasses, he blended in perfectly with the underground elite.
As he walked slowly amongst the bodies, some writhing maniacally to the screaming music, others lounging against walls and bars, chatting casually despite the noise, he noticed a lone figure standing out from the rest. He was dressed in just a canvas jacket and black trousers, clearly not a regular.Edward walked over; people that stood out intrigued him.

"Hi there." he offered.
"Er, hey." the reply, nervous, wary.
"First time here?"
A nod.
"What's your name?"
"Ne..Thomas. Thomas Anderson. I'm er, I'm here with friends."

Edward looked around. There was a group nearby who he assumed Thomas was talking about. They were definite regulars.
Thomas' bottle of beer was emptying rapidly; a nervous drinker. Maybe not so used to drinking alcohol?

"Hey, you want another?"

Thomas eyed him warily.

"Hey, I'm not gonna drug it," Edward said jovially, "I can tell this isn't really your scene that's all. Might as well have it pass a little more pleasantly, right?"

Thomas cracked a half-smile, "Yeah, sure, OK."

The queue for the bar was a long one. Edward couldn't use his status here to get a quick beer. As he returned, a pale-skinned woman was talking to Neo. Edward grinned to himself. Perhaps he wasn't the only person intrigued by Mysterious Mr Anderson.
He took a different route back, but as he grew nearer he heard the conversation and stopped. Something in him told him to eavesdrop, even though he kinda liked the guy and usually reserved such behaviour for the board room.

"...And when he found me, he told me I wasn't really looking for him, I was looking for an answer. It's the question that drives us, Neo. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did..."
"What is the Matrix?" Thomas asked breathlessly, his voice so quiet Edward had to strain to hear it.
"The answer is out there, Neo. It's looking for you...and it will find you...if you want it to..."
Then the woman was gone. Edward showed up a moment later with the beers.

"Who was that?"
"Oh, it was ... nobody. Thanks for the beer. Hey, you never told me your name."
Edward smiled. "They call me the Lost Prophet ... Neo."
Thomas' eyes widened, he opened his mouth to speak when a group crashed into them, throwing Edward to the floor.
"Sorry dude!" a voice cried, laughing. As he got up and dusted himself off, it seemed that Mr Anderson had vanished.


Part 2
The next day Ed rose late and wandered about his penthouse flat.
Neo.
The name echoed in his mind. Restless, he flicked on the plasma screen to the news.

"... in other news, the hunt for the infamous computer hacker Trinity is alive again after eyewitness reports placed her at Club Succubus last night. Yes that's right, her. After years of speculation, the gender of the IRS Database cracker has finally been revealed. Police are encouraging anybody with more information to come forward. In events believed to be connected to the sighting, a programmer at top software house MetaCortex was seen being taken away by federal agents this morning."

The picture on the screen was of a suited Thomas Anderson being pushed into a car. Ed clicked the screen off. So that's who he was talking to. Could Neo be another hacker? Had he been conversing with a highly-wanted criminal?
Going to the police was out of the question. He couldn't reveal his secret haunts, plus he wanted to find out more for himself.

-

Four hours later, Ed knew that Neo was indeed a hacker. A very good one in fact.
But there was no connection to Trinity. Her work had been carried out several years ago when Neo was a mere blip on the hacker network.
As he lounged back in his chair, suddenly he remembered.
"What is the Matrix?"
He was still online in one of the usual hacker hangouts.

LP>I'm looking for Trinity
*>So are the police, LOLS
*>D00d we dont even know you. Hey guys he's the feds! boot him!
*>Admin kick! Befoer he arests us all, lolol!1
LP>No, wait. I saw her last night. At Succubus.
*>Yeah, sure
*>Get his IP! Track him down!
LP>Why would you want to do that?
*>Coz if it's true, u need silencing be4 u go to the cops!
LP>I won't. She said something, I need more information.
LP>What is the Matrix?
*>Huh. OK, you bought yourself some time.
*>We don't know.
*>Shuttup man!
*>Fuck you! We don't. There are theories. But nobody has got close. And some of our guys disappeared after asking too many questions
LP>Cops? Feds?
*>Yeah, or worse. Nobody knows. Talk to WhiteBishop, if you can find him online. I'll tell him to talk to you.


It was 10pm before "WhiteBishop" signed on. And all he gave away was an email
address and login details.

WhiteBishop>Once you've read this, you are vulnerable. If you get scared, using my name will make no difference. They have tried and failed to hunt me down.
This will make you, or it will break you. The choice, like so few in this world, is yours.
*WhiteBishop has signed off*


Part 3
Edward sat cross-legged on the wooden floor. Papers were spread out around him, printouts of what he had found in the email account.
He realised he was sweating.
He had just been told that the world he knew was not real. That the real world lay somewhere else. This, the world that had given him everything, was a lie.
Here was the decisive moment of his life. Most people living in the Downtown district relied on the Matrix for their lives to flourish. They would never reject the system. But something in Edward's mind was wired differently. And the system knew it.
He was startled out of his reverie by the buzzer. Walking to the intercom he flicked the camera on. Three men in dark suits and sunglasses stood in front of the door.

"Mr Hirst, we'd like a moment of your time."

Wordlessly, he pressed the Door Unlock button. And 10 seconds later he was out of the door, racing towards the elevator.
There was one to the penthouse, and three to the garages far below. If he could make it to the main hallway his chances of escape would triple.
He didn't know what he was escaping from, but something told him to move, and to move fast.

Ping!

The door opened into the hallway. Ed glanced at the lights above the three elevators. They were all moving.
He started to panic. He hurriedly knocked on all the doors, but nobody answered.
His breathing and heart rate were getting faster, his eyes darted around frantically for a place to hide ...


The three Agents stepped out of the elevators and slowly looked around. Nobody was there. They proceeded to the penthouse elevator and ascended.
As the whirr disappeared upwards, the door of the laundry chute popped open and
Edward pulled himself out and landed in a heap on the floor, drenched with sweat, his arms shaking for the effort it took to hold himself in there. He knew there wasn't much time. They would find everything on the floor and come after him.

Two minutes later he was in the garage, heading for one of his cars. He got in, hit the starter and relaxed for a moment. The air conditioning was rapidly cooling him off and he started to feel more in control.
He eased the clutch out and trundled away, accelerating gently as he reached the road. It was then he realised he had no idea where to go.


Part 4
As he drove slowly along the streets, busy as they were with 11pm traffic of taxis and partygoers, he saw a group of policemen point at his car. He locked the doors as he drove past. Glancing in his mirrors at them again, he caught his breath.
The suits!
"How the hell..." he muttered, then saw one of them unholster a gun, "Fuck that!"

He swung the car into the centre of the road and rammed his foot hard on the accelerator. The engine screamed as it nudged the rev limiter and he neatly flicked it into third gear. The car took off like a rocket. Drunken pedestrians watched open mouthed, taxis honked in indignation as he flew past them.
He flicked right at the next intersection, giving it plenty of opposite lock as the back end stepped out, and got in lane for the highway. A black sedan peeled out behind him.
"How many of these bastards are there?" Ed despaired as he shifted down for another direction change. His speed was limited - he didn't want to risk hitting anything - and the sedan was close behind.

The phone rang. Ed glanced down at it. He didn't even remember bringing it with him. And he hadn't driven the Porsche in a week. How...?
Whatever, he answered it.
"Seems like you ticked them off. They're closing on you and they will bring you in at any cost."
"Who is this?"
"Say hello to White Bishop. I can help you, but you must do as I say."
"OK. Just get me out of here."
"The highway is the last place you want to be, but it's too late now. Take Exit 16 and head to the docks."
"OK, I'm almost ... shit!"
"What?"
"A traffic jam! A fucking great traffic jam at fucking 11pm at night!"
"This makes things more difficult. What was that?"
"Now they're SHOOTING at me,” Ed screamed, then forced himself to calm down. “Alright, I've had enough of this. The docks you say?"
"Yes."
"I'll be there."

Edward hung up as he reached the top of the on-ramp. Stationary cars stretched for miles.
He stopped the car, flicked it into first, pulled the handbrake and floored the throttle. The V10 roared in protest as he wrenched the car round to face the other way, and took off down the hard shoulder.
The sedan gave chase, but it was far too slow.
He was reaching Exit 13 when the agents finally understood his velocity and planned accordingly. Ahead of him, Ed saw a car pull onto the shoulder and stop.
"No no shitshitshitshitshit!"
He stood on the brakes but was still going too fast. He saw an opening in the traffic, and took it. The tyres squealed and he sideswiped several cars as he dived through the gap. The traffic was thinner here - they had waited too late. He swerved and dodged, trying to keep his foot as planted as possible. But his luck ran out in spectacular fashion.

A driver, totally oblivious to the oncoming car, pulled forwards slightly to close the gap to the car in front and Ed hit it, hard.

He launched the Porsche into the air, the engine wailing as the rear wheels broke free of the asphalt, and went into a roll. The car flew over the walls along the onramp and crashed passenger-side down onto a rooftop.
It slithered off the roof and finally came to land upside down at the side of the road.
The door popped open and a bloody Edward Hirst crawled out. Thanks to the mayhem, nobody fully registered what was going on. No more suits appeared.
Ed staggered towards the nearest car - a taxi - and grabbed the stunned driver who was standing by the door.
"Hey man, are you OK?"
"I need your car."
"What? After doing THAT to a fuckin’ Porsche?"
"I don't have time to argue, just give me your fucking car!"
The driver was down on the road. Without realising it Ed had punctuated the last two words with sharp head butts.
He hopped in - thankfully the guy didn't have a passenger - and quickly drove away, leaving the emergency services to deal with the wreckage. He just knew he had to get to the docks. It now seemed that his life depended on it.


Part 5
The brakes squeaked as he pulled to a stop, the sound piercing the night silence so much that Edward actually ducked down in case somebody sprang up to find out what the noise was.

There was nothing.

He sat back up and swivelled the rear-view mirror. His face was covered in small cuts and was starting to bruise. His hair was full of glass and in the last few miles he'd become aware of his ribs aching - they were probably broken.
"What are you doing. What the hell are you doing?"
He rubbed his face with his hands, getting both slightly bloodier than they were before. Sinking back down into the seat, he reflected on the events of the last day.

Just over 24 hours ago he had met a hacker, by chance, called 'Neo'. The feds got the guy, now they were after him. He couldn't make the connection. Perhaps somebody had identified him?

Impossible. He was disguised and it was the last place anyone would expect him to be.

Having read the contents of the email account, Ed felt sure that there was something deeper, something more sinister at work.
Maybe what those people were saying about 'Big Brother' watching was true.
Of course the answer was much darker than that. He just didn't know it yet. He also didn't know that, as he sat in the car, Neo was meeting Morpheus and starting a chain reaction that would change the world forever.

The phone rang, and Edward almost jumped through the roof. He had left the phone in the Porsche Yet it was lying on the passenger seat. His skin crawled, but he picked up the phone anyway.

"Hello?" he whispered.
"Good, you've made it this far. It won't be long before they trace you though. Go to Row 5, Warehouse 6. Park the car in the bay, and come up the stairs."
"I have a question."
"We don't have time."
*click*

He coasted round to the warehouse, its roller door raised, but hardly invitingly.
The lights were off, it looked like nobody was home. Or it was a trap.
He parked the car as requested, got out, and stood on the first step.
There was the click of a hammer being pulled back, and the gun that it belonged to pressed against his neck.
"What the hell?!"
"It's necessary to protect us." the holder of the gun said quietly.
"From me?!"
"From you."
"But you asked me to come here!"
"Keep walking. All will be revealed."

The room at the top of the stairs was sparse, except for a small polished aluminium desk.
A bald, muscular man walked in and faced Edward. He estimated at late-twenties, maybe early thirties.

"Hi, my name is Soren. We've been tracking you for a few months now."
"Months? What the hell ... I only got into this whole situation last night ..."
"When you met Neo, yeah we know. That was a coincidence that accelerated our plan. But the fact that you're here after all you've been through shows that we were right to watch you."

Edward grimaced. Just what on god's earth was he into?

"We know that you're a wealthy guy. Wealth and power usually stop people questioning their surroundings, questioning the world they live in. They become dependant on their world, the system that they are plugged into, and they never come out of it. You are different."
"Am I?"
"We've studied you, seen you ask questions that nobody in your position would normally ask. And then your perseverance at finding the truth about Trinity. That was the clincher my friend."
"So what, I'm here because I ask too many questions?"
"In a manner of speaking. Yes."
"And what, you're going to put a stop to it."
Soren laughed. "Far from it. The agents that were chasing you ... they wanted to put a stop to it. We're here to show you that you were right to question the world. And we have the answer to the question that has been bugging you most.
The question that sums up all the other ones that you have been asking in your life."
"What ... what is the Matrix?"
Soren smiled. "We can show you the Truth. This world you know is a prison. You, and everyone else, were born into slavery. Born into a prison your mind cannot escape from on its own. We can help."
"How?" Edward said, suddenly interested. Calm. His mind clear.

Soren placed two small objects on the desk.

"It is time to make a choice. Take the blue pill, and it ends here. You'll wake up having had the mother of all nightmares. We'll even put your Porsche back. You can believe whatever you want to believe. Take the red pill, and we can show you what the Matrix is."
"Drugs? You can't just tell me?"
"Unfortunately, nobody can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it with your own eyes."


Part 6
When the three figures went into the adjoining room, only the blue pill was left on the table.

"Take a seat over here," Soren said, leading Edward to the only chair in the room.

The whole place was filled with bizarre equipment. It looked like ancient hardware, but the screens betrayed the advanced nature of the operation.

"So what did I just take? Am I gonna believe I can fly now or something?"
"The pill disrupts your input/output carrier signal. It helps us get a lock on you, and stops the agents from finding us. You'll understand soon enough." Soren replied.

The people in the room with them were all doing specific jobs. One was dialling on a decrepit modem, whilst the others were all monitoring their screens.

"OK, I'm starting to pick up a signal." one of them muttered, eyes still fixed on the screen.
Edward began to feel ill. His skin crawled, he felt cold, his vision blurred.

Then there it was.

"I've got him!" cried a voice from in the room. He felt a pain in the back of his neck. Hotspots of pain sprang up all over his body. Then they intensified, all together. He screamed in pain, his eyes clamping shut.
His brain took a few moments to adjust to what was going on. When it had decided, Edward found himself lying. He could hear a humming noise all around him. His skin felt strange somehow, there was something on the back of his head, and a tube down his throat.
After the few milliseconds it took to process that information, he opened his eyes.

Pink. Wet. Panic.

He flailed out and found his hands against a barrier. Trapped! But it moved. He dug his fingers into it and stretched again. Heaving himself upwards into the warm air, he pulled the tube out of his throat and opened his eyes.. It was a wonder his brain didn't shut off out of shock.

He was standing in some sort of pod. And he was looking at hundreds ... thousands of them. Maybe tens of thousands.

Ed slowly looked from side to side, and threw up what little stomach content he had into the pod. There were people in each one, all lying still with tubes and wires connected to them.
Slowly he examined himself. He was thin, a lot thinner than he remembered. And there were thick wires sticking out of his body.
It was when the robot came that he passed out.
Even the icy waters of the waste system couldn't revive him, and it was only once aboard the Hovercraft Vigilant that he reopened his eyes.

There was Soren, looking a little less perfect than he had before, and dressed in ragged clothing. The words that he spoke, for some reason he would never be able to explain, were the most beautiful words he had ever heard.

"Welcome to the Real Word, Lost Prophet."


Epilogue
After weeks of the crew rebuilding his body, LostProphet was taken back to Zion for training simulations.
A fortnight later he was slowly getting to grips with his surroundings. He was no longer in his penthouse flat, no longer rich. He was an equal amongst 250,000 others, in the real world. And that felt good.

He had accepted the truth of the real world as a matter of course, and gladly gulped down the training simulations that were thrown his way. In his old world, knowledge was power. That mantra was even more tangible in the real world, and he was determined to learn everything he could.
In fact, he excelled. At first a number of teenage red pills were running around after him, saying that he was "The One".
Prophet questioned 'The One' in a briefing with Commander Lock. He was swiftly beaten back.
According to Lock, The One was bullshit. A fairy story told by somebody plugged into the Matrix. A number of captains believed this 'Oracle' figure, but Lock did not, and took a dim view of those that did.
He later found out from other sources that Captain Morpheus had rescued Neo, and that he was believed to be The One.

The first time they returned to Zion, red pills found out that Neo had freed Morpheus from the grasp of the Agents, had killed an Agent, and was able to fly.
Such feats spoke volumes to LostProphet, but he stayed quiet, anxious not to get on the wrong side of Lock and the power brokers of Zion.
Prophet never got to meet Neo. In the next four months, he concentrated on his own skills. He eventually ran missions into the Matrix regularly and became a highly valued soldier of Zion.
Unfortunately, or luckily (in hindsight) an accident confined him to quarters just as the machines attacked. On medical grounds he was no longer trusted on a hovercraft nor in an APU. And so he stood in the temple on that day, the day that the war ended, and experienced a bittersweet moment.

He had met the man that saved the world, but before either of them realised it.

[Vesuveus]

Xenthi by LostProphet on Recursion*
*Xenthi is a Recursion character, albeit one that isn’t really being used much anymore

Part 1: The Secret Life of Holly Xandrel
*Thu-chunk*
"Holly!"
*Thu-chunk, Thu-chunk*
"Ms Xandrel!"
*Clickclickclickclickclick*

The red carpet dissolved in flashes of light, as if a small war were being fought in the air above. A mass of people surged against the rope barriers, jostling for a better position, trying to see all the stars, to get their scoop.
Holly Xandrel swept past the photographers, her dark glasses protecting her from the flash of the cameras, smiling at random people, allowing a choice few to get the photograph they were after.

Her long black hair bounced gently around her shoulders as she walked, catching the light and hurling it back in the most photogenic way possible. The shimmering red dress seemed to work in harmony with it, controlling the light as if it were her own possession to do with as she pleased.
A black limousine waited at the end of the row of bodies, its dark, cool leather interior beckoning her onwards. She quickened her pace and turned to the crowd one last time, blowing a theatrical kiss before slipping effortlessly into the sumptuous leather seat to cries of adoration.
She wore the smile until the door shut with a muted click, then let out a sigh and tore her sunglasses off, dropping the $300 designer items to the floor as if they were a sixty-cent pair from the flea market.

"That film wasn't very good." she muttered to the woman sitting opposite her as the car pulled away, its powerful engine rumbling quietly as they approached the Freeway.
"Don't let them hear you say that." the woman replied, tapping away at a handheld computer, her face creased with concentration.
"Why the hell did you sign me up for it?" Holly asked petulantly, thrashing around in a mock-tantrum and pulling a face.

The handheld was placed onto the seat with the controlled calmness of one who had dealt with Holly Xandrel many times before.

"Because times are hard, Hol," she snapped, "Right now nobody is promoting a damn thing. Everyone's been scared out of the city by those damn "red pill" lunatics and the spate of killings."
"The killings stopped. And the reds are all over the world. You know that." Holly replied quietly, twisting a strand of hair around the index finger of her right hand.
She was playing the innocent schoolgirl routine, but she knew it wouldn't wash.
"Regardless, there's more of them here than anywhere else. This is MegaCity One, in case you'd forgotten. Everyone looks to us, and everything here is magnified.
Just be thankful you got a gig at all."

Annika scowled as she finished her lecture and sat back, arms folded and Holly felt a pang of guilt. Annika had been her friend and manager since she'd started two years ago, had supported her as she shot to fame and fortune, had got her promotion work when the chips were down.

Like now.

They rode in silence until the limo stopped at the apartment complex in South Vauxton, Holly not daring to break the stalemate and Annika perfectly content to sit in silent indignation and continue working on her handheld.
"I'm sorry Ann. We'll go shopping tomorrow." Holly said gently as she opened the door. Her friend smiled begrudgingly and waved half-heartedly, before firing a parting shot, albeit more gentle.
"Remember, times are hard. I don't know how you can keep spending so much."
Holly grimaced as she walked towards the entrance of the up-market apartment complex, it's aluminium and glass construction towering above the surrounding environment.

She'd kill me if she knew what I'm about to do.

Thirty minutes later, a battered, olive coloured Oldsmobile lurched out from the underground car park of South Vauxton Apartments and headed off for Bathary
Row. The driver wore a headscarf, sunglasses, and a large-collared coat. It was impossible to guess the gender, let alone the identity. The disguise had worked plenty of times before.

**

The car sputtered into the small line of vehicles outside the warehouse, tyres crunching through the rough gravel and discarded rubbish that littered the entire area.
The driver got out, locked the door and entered the building. Inside, industrial heating equipment kept the place warm - important, considering what they did there.

"Ahh there's my little star, Holly Xandrel!" an overweight man bellowed from down the roughly-assembled corridor, "Let's get you into makeup." he said, hugging her tightly and letting his hands rove places that would have earned him a swift knee in the particulars under other circumstances.
Holly smiled tightly as he withdrew, "Let's not throw that name around too much here, shall we?"
She involuntarily wrinkled her noise, not that he noticed. He was balding, fat, about five foot six, and permanently carried a light sheen of sweat on his forehead.
He winked conspiratorially and nodded, before ushering her into the makeup room, grabbing a good squeeze of her ass as he did so.
At this work, Holly Xandrel was her own dead ringer; a blonde wig and some clever makeup, and she looked just enough like a lookalike to fool everyone. She had even masterminded a clever court case, effectively trying to sue herself for dragging her name through the mud. She would "settle out of court" of course when the time was right. It was a lot of trouble to go to, but she earned a lot of money doing it, and after all, times were hard.
After a time in makeup, she walked out onto the set in a blood red kimono-style robe. Muscular, naked men stood chatting casually to one another not too far away. One looked over and nodded then continued the conversation. She avoided acknowledging them, for the time being.
The set she was on was a bedroom. In real life it looked like the walls would fall down if you pushed them - and most of them did, but on camera it looked real enough. Holly gazed around, mentally preparing herself for what was to come.

"Alright, we'll carry on from where we left off yesterday. You all know the script." the director shouted as he walked into the 'room'.
Holly nodded her affirmation and dropped her robe, revealing her naked body beneath. She took up her position on the bed, and suddenly an image of her friend and manager flashed through her mind.
Annika really would kill her if she knew.
She closed her eyes and thought of the money. The director yelled "Action!"

***

As she was leaving, once more in her garb of coat and headscarf, the director called her back.
"Great work today hun, I just wanted to show you what we got for the cover of the DVD."
Holly squirmed uncomfortably, "That's alright, I've gotta be heading back ..."
She tried to turn back to the exit but the DVD case was whipped in front of her eyes. She smiled weakly at the images staring back at her.
"Good huh?" the director leered. Holly nodded then hurried out to the car, the cover of "Xenthi Banks Does Dallas" forever imprinted on her mind.


Part 2: Enter Xenthi
Holly parked the car down a side street in Achan, the seedy underbelly of Richland, and made her way up to a small studio flat. She tossed the coat onto the sofa - it joined various other garments, empty takeaway boxes and 'adult literature' magazines - and went into the bathroom.

The flat was sparsely furnished, and very messy. The jumble of assorted crap – as Holly liked to call it - wasn't confined to the sofa, spilling out across the living area, its mucky tendrils reaching into every corner of the room. She reflected on it as a representation of Richland itself, but the truth was she had better things to do in this apartment than vacuum.
A few seconds later hot water was pouring into the bathtub and she returned to the living room and switched on her PC, the only clean and polished item in the entire place.
In between checking on the bath, she opened her email client and IRC, logging on under her usual alias.
Some people who saw the alias thought nothing of it, though most people had seen her 'films'. Some thought she was a girl preying on naive, horny boys. Most others thought she was a guy preying on naive, horny boys. A few thought it was just a coincidence. The hackers knew her as someone of unspecified gender with
a wicked sense of humour and some of the best coding skills they'd seen in recent times.

Nobody thought it was really Xenthi.
And nobody thought it was Holly Xandrel.

She set up a suitably offensive and witty auto-away message and took to the bath, turning on the radio to drown out the rest of the noise from within the building; people fighting, watching loud television, and other acts that she certainly wasn't in the mood to listen to after her recent work.
The hot water enveloped her like a blanket, she sighed as her muscles relaxed and the muted noise in the rest of the building drifted further away. Closing her eyes, she began to drift off into deep thought.

Holly was a model and a very successful one at that. She advertised products, films, clothes, everything she could; 'everything a body needs', she'd once said.
When things were going well, she was just had to stand around and look pretty, in return she was paid handsomely, given expensive things for free, taken to posh, exclusive clubs. When things were going well, life was incredible.

Lately however, things had taken a bit of a nosedive. The recent rise in weird activity in the city had given firms pause for thought. Nobody was investing. Nobody was advertising anything new. Holly was currently 'obsolete'.
When her career started, a member of a leading adult entertainment production company, desperate to use her obvious charms to increase revenue had approached her. She turned it down.
She wanted to make money in the public eye, not as a sex object, played on televisions and computer screens all over the world by sexually charged individuals. She appreciated pornography, but never wanted to try it out for herself.
But a year ago, work started to dry up, slightly ironic considering the record breaking rainfall the city experienced. She was approached again. They promised her she could be made up to look like someone else, and suddenly it seemed tempting. She agreed to try out the 'disguise' on the street, and to her surprise it worked. Everybody told her how much she looked like The Lovely Holly Xandrel.

Nobody ever guessed it was actually her.

So the 'Xenthi' line of films was produced; the name was her own creation and the producers liked it.
After the first week after the release of her first film, simply titled "Xenthi", she was at number one in the adult charts. Downloads of it peaked at previously unforeseen levels. Servers crashed everywhere, and the bean counters thought they had tripped over and fallen into heaven.
More were immediately scheduled to be filmed. On reflection - aside from the sleazy directors and occasional pangs of guilt - she rather enjoyed it.
As she soaked in the bath, steam rising from the water causing condensation to form and roll down the walls like scrolling pieces of code, she wondered whether she was more Xenthi than Holly now.
When she was younger, her parents used to tell her how beautiful and clever she was. They were right on both counts of course, but beauty paid more than brains.

It paid a lot more.

The ultimate in paradoxes, she had been a beautiful geek at school. Always interested in computers, she quickly mastered the art of coding, and it wasn't long before her mischievous and inquisitive nature led her to start hacking into things. She started with the school roster, causing teachers to wonder for the longest time who the hell 'Hugh Jaas' was and why he had never showed up for lessons. Quickly, she learnt that knowledge was power, and with power came money. Hacking for friends and associates was particularly lucrative.
She had acolytes online now, after a number of years writing some of the best security-bypass programs ever seen. People worshipped at the Great Altar of Xenthi, none of them having a clue who she really was.

She smiled to herself and got out of the bath, towelling herself off and dropping a bathrobe on. She slammed a pizza into the oven and sat down at the PC.
Definitely more Xenthi, she thought as she opened up her compiler.


Part 3: An Unmitigated Disaster
Three floors below Xenthi, a well-built man sporting an all-black suit and Trea sunglasses paced up and down in the living area. His colleague hurried back and forth with him, trying to manoeuvre him onto the sofa.
"This is a disaster. A fucking disaster." Lucerius cursed, beads of sweat forming on his brow as he walked.
"Calm down, let's think about this rationally!" Mundra protested in a tone of voice that sounded on the very knife-edge of 'calm'.
"CALM DOWN?! Do you have any idea what they'll do to us when they find out?" Mundra wrung his hands - Lucerius was right. They had made a monumental mistake and as soon as it was discovered, the only penalty would be death.
"We have to go." Lucerius said, suddenly standing still.
"What?"
"We'll escape. Flee into exile where they won't find us."
"Lucerius ... if the worst case scenario hits, there won't be anything to run to! But ... if we're fast, I think .. I think that we can come out of this okay."
Lucerius started pacing again.
"We'll start a trace running," Mundra said quickly, "If we can locate where the data stream is going, maybe we can retrieve it and route it to the right location. Put it back where it belongs."

Lucerius stopped.

"That sounds good. Let's get on it."
"Not right now," Mundra said, "I have to report back to 01. I'll be back in a few hours and we can sort it out. Just lie low for now."
"Can't you just go Downtown?"
Mundra blanched, "No way, they'll read me like a book. I'm splitting off my recent memory segments about this, I'll leave it here with my shell."

He sat down and shut his eyes, a moment later his body became rigid.
In the real world, a small crab-like machine detached itself from the hugely complex base station of one of the Power Plant towers and flew away through the black and stormy perma-night.

Inside the apartment, Lucerius picked up a phone. He wasn't totally convinced of
Mundra's plan and was damned if he was going to suffer if it didn't work.
"Hey, it's Luce'." he said as the callee picked up, "I've got a problem. We let something go. Uh-huh. Mundra and I. What was it? Some sort of historic information dated back to the creation of the First Instance. YES it's a problem. I need to make arrangements, we don't know if we can track this thing. If not, I need to know you can help me disappear. Yeah. Thanks, I'll be waiting for your call."

**

Holly slumped back in her chair and yawned. It was 3am and she had just put the finishing touches to a program she was writing. It was designed to seek out specific backdoors in systems of her choice, and break in using sophisticated algorithms and code breaking techniques. It was time to compile.
With a tired flourish she hit the shortcut combination and set the program to work. Turning the monitor off, she retired to bed.

Under the cover of darkness provided by her last action, something opened a port on her machine, in one single step bypassing every security measure she had employed - some of them her own design.
The compiler stopped and flashed up a message.
'New Code Added. Do You Wish to Recompile?'
A few seconds passed, then the 'Yes' button mysteriously clicked inwards and the machine began processing its new data.


Part 4: Disturbances
Holly woke early, forced into the stark reality of dawn by her alarm clock. It was important for her to leave and get back to her Downtown apartment before anybody came calling.
She padded into the living area and entered the kitchen, clicking on the kettle and opening the fridge to retrieve the milk. She frowned as the door opened but the light failed to come on.
"Huh, weird. Bulb must be broken." she muttered sleepily to herself, reaching for the milk. It was warm, and upon investigation of the meagre contents of the fridge, she found that it was off.
"Son of a bitch." she yawned, sniffing the milk and finding that it hadn't gone off.
The kettle wasn't boiling, so she jiggled it around on its stand and re-flicked the switch before going back through to the living area.
The room was bathed in a dirty, sepia tinted light streaming through the thin curtains. Holly tore them open, staring at the filthy building opposite with all the disgust and contempt she could muster and then turned back to the room.

The lighting hadn't changed.

She frowned and clicked on a lamp, furrowing her brow when it refused to come on, and noticed that the kettle still wasn't boiling.
"Power outage!" she said angrily, kicking a box of two-week old Chinese food that lay near her.
It took her sleep-addled brain a few more moments to realise that she could still hear a noise, a humming, regular, familiar sound coming from the corner of the room.
Turning slowly, she drank in the sight of the computer, its fans whirring quietly,
LED’s flickering intermittently on the fascia.
"How the hell ..." she breathed questioningly, moving towards it, inadvertently creeping.
Holly reached out a tentative finger and powered the monitor on. The light turned orange - it was in sleep mode. Feeling slightly more confident, she placed her hand squarely on the mouse to wake the machine.

There was a loud WHUMP noise that filled the room and Holly was hurled backwards into her bedroom.
A second later the screen blinked on, the "Compiling Job Completed" message seeming to taunt Holly's unconscious body, lying crumpled in the corner of her room.

*

Lucerius jumped as the motionless man on the sofa suddenly moved.
"I see you're back then," he said sourly.
"Yes. The debrief went without a hitch. They have no idea that the data stream has been derailed." Mundra replied, cracking his neck and making small circular motions with his shoulders.
"Won't He be getting impatient?" Lucerius asked nervously.
"Yes, I'm sure He will. But we can afford a little time. Is the system ready?"
Lucerius pointed to a laptop on the coffee table, "All ready to go. Just initiate the trace protocols and we can find where that bastard thing got to."
Mundra moved over to the table and began keying in commands with inhuman speed, speaking as he did so, "You know, I've been wondering. What on earth does the Architect want with this historical file anyway?"
Lucerius shrugged miserably, "I don't know, I just archive them. Only He knows why He's interested. It's not as if we don't know how to win a war."
"Perhaps he's just nostalgic," Mundra said with a mischievous grin, "Now that he's not hunting for The One anymore and threatening to destroy that stinking cave the simian's call a city. He must be bored out of his mind. Aha!"
Lucerius moved to get a better view of the laptop, "Did you find it??"
"Yeah!" Mundra said happily, "The bloody thing travelled the code stream three floors up. Seems to have tried getting into a computer system and its frozen there."
Lucerius clapped his hands together, "Right, so how do we get it?"
"We take out whoever's up there, quarantine whatever it got into, decompile its code and trap the data stream. Then we send it where it's supposed to be going."
"Great," Lucerius grinned, "I'll get my baseball bat."

*

"This door doesn't look right," Mundra muttered as they approached Holly's apartment, "Something's wrong."
"Let's just get this over with, shall we?" Lucerius said, raising the bat and swinging it hard at the door. The materials in the building were notoriously paper thin and he fully expected the first blow to break straight through.
It came as a shock to the pair when the bat impacted the door and exploded into shards of wood.
"What the hell..." Lucerius growled. He reached out and grabbed the door handle, pulling back immediately with a yelp, not of pain, but of surprise, "DAMN that's hot."
Mundra felt the handle, then the wood; his burly colleague was correct. He wrung his hands.
"I think we have a problem."

~~

Holly opened her eyes and struggled to her feet. The room was spinning and she felt a huge bump on the back of her head. Tottering into the living room, she looked in confusion at the computer. It was still on, despite there apparently being no power to the rest of the apartment.
She sat at the computer, eyeing it warily as her hand hovered above the mouse after her recent experience. She knew there was no way that a shock like that could have come through a mouse.
"Okay. Freak occurrence." she said flatly, dropping her hand onto it. As soon as she touched it she pulled it away, but that was enough. No shock.
More confident, she dismissed the message that her program had been compiled with a click and ran her newest toy.
The second her double-click was completed, everything in the flat switched on; lights, kitchen appliances, her hairdryer in the bedroom, the radio.
She looked around frantically then ran to the door, all disguises and alter egos forgotten.
The door refused to open. She ran back, grabbing the phone and plugging it in - it was only there for emergencies - as the cacophony of electrical devices filled the apartment.
Holly fumbled the handset as she took it off the hook, then jammed it to her ear.
Her eyes bugged out as she heard what was on the other end, her body going rigid, then she slowly toppled over onto the floor, twitching gently for a few seconds.
The noise in the flat subdued and eventually died away, and Holly's unseeing eyes gently fell closed.


Part 5: The First Vision
Lucerius banged his head against the door in frustration and recoiled.
"It's gone cold!" he whooped, kicking the door with a powerful right leg. It splintered and collapsed off its hinges into the apartment and the pair ran in, excited as small schoolboys on the last day of school before the summer holidays began.
Lucerius grabbed the computer and wrenched it clear from the wall, ignoring the cables. Mundra examined the prone figure of Holly on the floor.
"What do you think happened to her? Is she dead?" Lucerius asked casually as he carted the computer to the door.
"No, still alive," Mundra replied, "But let's just get the hell out of here before she wakes up."

---

The building shook as a jet fighter screamed low overhead and a small cloud of plaster fell onto the assembled soldiers. An ugly hole in the south wall was blocked up with pieces of wood, barbed wire, and a beam constructed of high strength polymers and plastics.
"Alright men, listen up!" shouted Major Kyte as he strode into the room, commanding instant attention from the blue and gray-suited soldiers. The assembled men all belonged to the United Nations against Machines - or U.N.A.M. - and knew that they were fighting a losing battle. But they still had immense respect for their superiors who probably realised the harsh truth of the situation even more than they did.
"Recon has spotted a small fleet of Sentinels heading toward Sector Omega-Five.
Now ordinarily we'd leave them alone, Omega-Five has nothing of value to us at the present time. However, High Command has seen fit that we should apprehend the machines in order to extract any useful information that they may be carrying."
The Major paused and looked at the faces of his men. They all wore stony expressions, trained with years of hard fighting to banish all emotion from their facades.
"We'll be travelling in an AUC-5 equipped with two standard APUs. Coleman and Bink, you two will do the honours when we go to ground. We'll be leaving at 1500 hours. No need for HAZMAT suits but bring your armour. That's all, gentlemen."

---

"AH!" Holly yelped as she jerked into consciousness. Taking a moment to get her bearings, she clambered to her feet and looked around. The door had been smashed open and her computer was gone. Now well and truly freaked out, she found her keys and fled the apartment, not caring who saw her.
She left the front door to the building wide open as she exploded out onto the street and hurried to her car. A minute later with a squeal of tyres, she was joining the morning commuters - them in a bid to get to work and her in a bid to get home. Back to sanity, to try and figure out what had just happened, and why she had dreamt of something from a war movie she'd never seen or even heard of before.


Part 6: The Second Vision
Holly joined the freeway and pushed the accelerator further down to bring the battered old car up to speed.
"What was that." she muttered to herself, thinking back to the apartment. When she had stood up, the strange sepia tint had gone; how long had she been asleep? Was she even asleep? Was the light anything to do with the light coming into the room, or … something else?
She jerked out of her reverie just in time to see a suitcase fall off the roof-rack of a car in the middle lane. Stamping on the brakes, she screamed and tried to swerve around the object. The car slewed into the case and snapped around, the back end slamming into the barrier that ran alongside the freeway. The impact hurled the car into the middle lane and Holly let out a piercing howl as she stared out of the passenger side at the oncoming truck.
As the huge vehicle collided, she was hurled hard against her own door, feeling bones in her arm snap and staring in horror as the car began to roll up into the air. The Oldsmobile landed on its passenger side, screeching and groaning as the metal contorted and twisted. Holly's eyes clouded over and she slumped in her seat, every limb going limp and lifeless as the car took to the air once more.

---

"Mount up, First Battalion!" bellowed First Lieutenant Stokes. His troops hurried out from the bunker towards the AUC-5, dressed in tough protective suits and helmets.
The Armoured Unit Carrier Class Fives were the most widely used troop transport and offensive units in this part of MegaCity One, carrying up to twenty five personnel and two standard Armoured Patrol Units, or A.P.U.s for short.
The AUC took off precisely one minute and thirty seconds after the command to mount up had been given, rising out of the silo and scudding off towards Sector Omega-Five.
Inside, the pilots navigated using an infra-red camera and a holographic mapping system to chart the terrain of destroyed buildings that lurked below in the permanent darkness.
"How ya feelin' Charlie boy?" a trooper asked the guy sitting opposite, slapping him on the knee. Charlie nodded back gloomily and raised a half-smile.
"Not so good Paul. Been three months since Beth left and the bastards won't even let me see her."
"Fuck! Why not?!"
"Say that my 'interaction with the machines' makes me dangerous. They think I've got a damn tracker inside me or something. Bullshit is what it is."
"That's fucked up. I don't trust those Zionist Monks or whatever the fuck they claim to be with the hooded robes and all that stuff. That place should be a military base, end of discussion."

They both turned as another man spoke.

"I heard they've even got cyborgs in there, living with 'em."
"Cyborgs?" Charlie asked with a worried look on his face.
"They used to be plugged in to the Matrix. But now they're free. Walking around with bits of machine in them."
Paul guffawed, "Damn Fischer, you don't half come up with some bull. You can't get out of the Matrix! Remember when they made the first simulation? Tried to put the poor buggers into their own version of Eden. They all rejected it and died.
But they said they'd get better and they did. Nope, you can't get out of that thing. If one goes, they all go."
Fischer wrinkled his nose and sat back in his seat, "I'm just telling you what I heard, that's all. I got contacts you know."
"Yeah, sure ya do." Paul said with a grin, patting Charlie's knee again, "Don't worry mate, I'm sure your Beth ain't down there with any damn cyborgs."
Charlie grinned weakly, "Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you're right."
They all looked up as the overhead lights clicked off and the blue floor lights came on. A quite klaxon began to sound: they were at Sector Omega-Five.

*

Paul Coleman and Larry Bink were lowered from the upper deck into the hold with the APU machines. They were humanoid machines encased in a smooth, bullet-proof alloy, standing about 18 feet high. The operator sat inside a cavity in the 'chest' area and could manoeuvre the machines with subtle manipulations of hand controls.

Once the APUs were active, the bottom of the AUC split open and gently deposited them onto the ground.
Behind the breastplate, looking out at the world through a camera screen, Paul grimaced. The APUs were always the first thing the Sentinels went for.

"Alright boys, I'm reading twelve incoming signals bearing North-North-East." said First Lieutenant Stokes over the radio, "Take 'em down as quick as you can, we'll be laying down covering fire. This is a simple mission and we don't want any casualties. If things get out of hand we'll drop an EMP on them and wait for the cavalry."

Paul and Larry strode ahead of the AUC and stood in a clearing, facing North-North-East. Even encased inside the units, they could still hear the rolling thunder and crashes of lightning, an eternal legacy of one of mankind's absolute worst ideas.
"How ya doin' Larry." he said quietly into the APU comm. channel.
"I'm okay Paul. Just hate being exposed like this, you know?"
"Yeah, I know."
Larry Bink's father had been the manager of the main MegaCity 2 branch of the
World Union bank before the war. His family had been very well off and at the age of five he was already set for life. Then the war hit, and thirty five years later here he was. The man was right to be nervous, everybody was in an APU no matter how many times they'd done it before.
"Hostiles in view!" Paul said into the comm. and the two APUs readied their weapons, the targeting receptacles moving on the camera screen in perfect synchronisation with the 'arms' of the machines.
The metallic, humming sound of the swarm started to penetrate the metal bodies and Paul flinched inadvertently. The sound meant death and destruction – nothing more, nothing less.

Larry fired first, Paul a microsecond behind him. The thunder of the guns filled their ears and the adrenaline surged as the squid-like killing machines dived down towards them.
The AUC let rip with its more powerful weapons, ripping some of the Sentinels into pieces.
"Keep firing!" Paul shouted as he flung his APU round to dislodge a mechanical tentacle that had gripped onto it.
"Oh hell..." came Stokes' voice over the radio, "It's an ambush. It's a goddamn ambush!"

Paul flicked his eyes to his radar. Approximately seventy hostile signals had suddenly appeared in the area around them. He turned and began to move back to the AUC as quickly as possible, not wanting to be left in the open when the Electro-Magnetic Pulse bomb was detonated.
Sentinels grabbed at his APU and the camera view swung wildly as he crashed to the ground onto his back. A huge black swarm of machines passed over him towards the AUC and he heard frantic activity over the comm channel.
"EMP! Fire the EMP for the love of ... breach! APU bay is breached!"
The sound of rending metal filled the airwaves as the Sentinels began firing their lethally effective laser cutters. Panicked screams could be heard, followed by a sentence dreaded by all troopers, "EMP is offline! Oh god help us ..."
The transmission cut off abruptly.

---

"Prep the OR! This woman needs surgery immediately!"
Holly's eyes drifted open. Lights whizzed overhead and she could make out faint figures in white coats around her.
"She's awake! Holly! Holly, can you hear me? HOLLY! Dammit get that OR prepped!"


Part 7: The Discovery
The Architect stood up from his black leather chair and took five steps into the centre of the room.
The monitors were all blank, but they should have been flashing with data, a needless representation of the data stream that he should have been assimilating at this very moment.
"They're late." he rumbled, his program immediately activating a progress protocol to follow up on his request to the archivists. The reply was instantaneous. The Architect knew that the data stream was in the Matrix. The fact it had not yet been delivered meant that something was wrong.

-

A short, blond-haired woman stood in front of the cracked and grimy mirror of the ladies public toilet in Mara West. She opened her handbag, then doubled over in pain, grasping the edge of the basin as she fell to her knees.
"Oh ... my ..." she gasped, the open handbag falling to the floor and spilling its contents everywhere.

Agent Pace stepped out of the toilet and strode purposefully in the direction of the main road.
A direct order from the Architect was so rare as to be practically unheard of. This was clearly something important. She knew where the targets were located - the
Architect saw everything, and two machines were not hard to spot amongst a sea of human minds.

*

"Why isn't it here??" Mundra said in a high-pitched desperate cry as he finished analysing the computer's code.
"It must be in the girl," Lucerius muttered, nervously playing with his phone,
"Somehow it got into her, maybe that's why she was unconscious."
"That's crazy, she'd be dead!" Mundra retorted.
"Then where else did it go, genius?" Lucerius snapped, dialling a number.
"What are you doing?"
"It's my insurance policy. Hey, good, you're there. You have my position? Put it into action."
Mundra stared at him with confusion, "You made a deal with the exiles?!"
"I have contacts. I'm not being sent back to the Source. They'll be here in a few minutes."
Lucerius strode to the door and flashed a lopsided grin at Mundra, swinging the door open as he did so.
His head snapped back as the bullet from Agent Pace's gun ripped through the digital flesh and bone, his body slumping to the floor a moment later.
Mundra yelled out and ran towards the window, but another bullet from the Desert Eagle hit him in the leg and he sprawled onto the floor.

Pace walked over to him, her gun aimed at his head.

"Sentinels are standing by to take care of you, your programming will be returned to the Source or you will be destroyed." she said in a steely voice.
"Please! This is a mistake ..."
"This is not a mistake. I have been ordered by the Architect to retrieve the data stream. You will tell me where it is."
"I don't have it!"
The hammer clicked on the gun.
"REALLY! We lost it. The containment was damaged and the disk landed in a patch of corrupted code. It ate through the wrapper and we lost the information."
Pace ran the information around her mind. Everything in the Matrix was code, but some was pure code, invisible to the naked eye, used only by machines and other programs. The disk was a 'wrapper', a coded prison that allowed the data stream
to be transported by RSIs and shells.
"You didn't try to trace it?" she asked suspiciously.
"Yes of course! We traced it to that computer over there. But by the time we got to it, it must have migrated. We think it's in the woman that was in the apartment."
Pace narrowed her eyes.
"You think it's in a human mind?"
Mundra gulped and nodded. Pace pulled the trigger and the bullet crashed into his skull. Raising a finger to her earpiece she said, "Deploy the Sentinels. Analyse his memory circuits and download the data to me as soon as possible."


Part 8: The Breaking Point (The Third Vision)
--
"Captain Oakes, you have hostiles inbound to your location! Approximately sixty five sentinels at present." squawked the radio.
"Yes sir Major Kyte!" Oakes replied, "We can see them on holographics sir. Artillery is ready for them."
"They'd better damn well be. They just took out first battalion of Fox Company
and they're still lookin' for blood."
"We'll give em hell, sir. Oakes out."
Oakes ran over to the Intelligence Officer who had been trying to get his
attention.
"What is it Booth?"
"Gunships sir! Two of them heading from the East."
"What?! I thought they only used them to guard Zero One's perimeter."
"So did I. They must be sleeper units, they just appeared out of nowhere. We've got runners coming at us from the South too."
Oakes ran a hand around his chiseled jawline, rough as sandpaper after almost a week without bathroom facilities. He went back to the comm. station, trying to suppress all emotion from his face. He'd heard the stories from those that survived gunship attacks, and he knew that he and his men would likely all die from the impending onslaught.
"Artillery! Are you ready?"
"Yes sir! Squiddies are almost in range."
"Good, give 'em hell. Listen to me carefully, we have two gunships heading our way from the East. Once the squids are down, if you want to get as far away as you can I'll understand."
There was a moment's silence on the airwaves.
"That's a negative captain. We fight to the last."
Oakes repeated his message to all areas of the defence team, and all met with the same response. His men all knew that they were fighting a losing battle, but every man and woman left on earth felt that they owed it to their species to fight to the bitter end.

*

The Sentinels raced through the blackened sky towards the outpost, their internal sensors knowing exactly what was ahead. Human technology was slow to evolve and adapt. By contrast, machines developed at a lightning-fast rate. They registered the first salvo before the projectiles had even left the barrels of the guns.
The swarm scattered immediately, ducking into bombed-out buildings, hiding behind walls, or gaining altitude to go over the onslaught.
"They've scattered! Recalibrate and fire!" bellowed Lieutenant Stetz in the artillery bunker.
"INCOMING!" screamed a trooper. The sentinels were picking up debris and slinging it at the bunker with accuracy that could only be achieved by a machine brain.
"Keep firing god dammit!" Stetz reiterated one eye on the holographic display.
The gunships were getting closer.

*

The runners came at the infantry like cheetah's chasing a prey, the fact that this prey had guns didn't phase them.
With spindly legs and a small lightweight body they could run at up to 120mph and were often used to outrun convoys and hold them up until the big guns arrived.
They leapt in amongst the troopers, unfolding arms so thin as to inspire confidence amongst men seeing them for the first time. Confidence misplaced.
The runners grabbed out at the troopers, snagging arms, legs, torsos and heads, and hurling them mercilessly at the concrete bunker behind them. Sporadic gunfire interspersed with bloodcurdling screams eventually died down to silence.
One runner had fallen to twelve men.
The machines gave a glance to their fallen comrade and stepped over the mound of bloody bodies, but their progress was halted. The bunker had been sealed.

*

"Lieutenant Stetz! Stetz are you there?" Oakes shouted into the comm., meeting silence.
"Dammit soldier, is anybody there alive?!"
The sound of laboured breathing suddenly filled the room, followed by a rasping,
dieing whisper.
"Dead. All dead. Broke through the defences. Bloodbath. Gunships ... coming. Nn-n-no! NO!"
The chilling noise of a sentinel came through the radio, followed by a wet crunching sound that was unmistakably flesh and bone.
The ground was vibrating now as the gunships drew closer, the drone of their enormous engines could be heard through the thick concrete walls and ceiling of the outpost.
"Sir, they're opening up." said Booth at holographics. Oakes hurried over to see the massive machines splitting open to reveal gun turrets.
"They don't look small enough ... are they going to shell us?" Oakes muttered.
Outside there was a thunderclap. Then another. Then five more. Ten more. It was the sound of the gunships firing, and Oakes got his answer.
"They look like bombs, sir. Flying bombs." Booth replied, "Hundreds of them."

*

The runners turned as one as the first bomb was launched, and began to run, the sentinels following close behind. They didn't look back, as the event meant nothing to them.
If they had, they would have witnessed the complete annihilation of the last outpost in Sector Alpha One. The gunships bombarded it with such ferocity that the resulting crater was five times larger than the entire installation.
It was to mark the beginning of the end for human resistance to machine rule. A huge offensive wiped the surface clean of all remaining life - those who saw what was coming fled underground to the city of Zion, those who refused to go perished as cities were razed to the ground.

--

Holly screamed, her eyes snapping open, arms shooting straight out, grabbing at the air.
"Holly! Holly! It's me, calm down! You were in an accident." Annika said soothingly, trying to settle her back down.
"It's not real! It's not real!" she gasped, tearing at the sensors and needles attached to her body.
"What? Holly, what isn't real?"
"THIS!" she screamed, "Sentinels! Killing machines! The Matrix!"

Annika hit the alarm to summon the nurses.

"What? Sentinels? Holly what are you talking about? What is the Matrix?"
Holly lunged off the bed and staggered, she had somehow survived with no broken legs. She swung around to face Annika, but instead there stood a woman in a black suit.

And she held a gun.

"Ms Xandrel, my name is Agent Pace. Please calm down, I need to ask you a few questions."
"YOU'RE NOT REAL!" she thundered, pushing the hospital bed hard at Pace with new-found strength and running towards the door.
A bullet smashed her left heel into pieces and Holly tumbled into the wall with a scream of agony, hitting her head as she did so.
Pace walked slowly over to her quivering body and pointed the gun at her head.
"I'm afraid you are no longer authorised to be here, Holly Xandrel."
Two seconds after the second shot had rung out across the ward, nurses and security guards burst in to find Annika motionless, staring at the body of her friend lying on the floor with a bloody hole through her skull.


Part 9: The Real
Holly let out a muffled scream as her eyes snapped open and the pink goo of her pod obscured her vision. Like thousands of humans before her, she shot out her arms and pulled herself up into clear air, driven by the most basic urge that governs the behaviour of mankind - the urge to survive.
She yanked the breathing and feeding tube from her oesophagus, throwing up what little there was in her stomach as she did so. The cool air felt good and she drank it in, steadying herself with weak shaky arms as she gazed out at the towers of pods surrounding her.
"Yes..." she whispered, "I knew it."
Then she began to laugh.

*

"Sir, there are no extractions scheduled for today are there?"
Captain Syn looked at his young operator questioningly.
"No, why?"
"Because I'm reading movement on one of the towers, and I think it's human."
Syn became alert, moving to his operator's station. Since the truce and increase in freed minds, some hovercrafts had adapted their technology to read the movement on the Power Plant more carefully.
"Sure enough, there it is. Maintenance will be on it soon enough to get it out of the pod. There are no other ships around so I guess this one's ours. God only knows how it's still alive without a red pill though."
Syn ran over to the ladder that would take him to the flight deck.
"I'm looking forward to the explanation!"

*

"Hey!" Holly shouted at the pod next to her, "Hey! Wake up you idiot! Wake up!
It's all a lie, it's not real!"
A loud whining noise and rush of air caused her to spin round, bringing her face to face with a crab-like airborne robot.
"What the fuck?!" she squawked, recoiling and slipping back into her pod.
Arms unfolded from the robot and grabbed her by the neck, hauling her into the air as it removed her neural jack. As soon as the job was done it dumped her unceremoniously back into the pod and flew away.
"What ... aah! What the ... aah Jesus Christ!"
The jacks connected to her body popped away painfully and as she sagged forwards there was a dull whump noise behind her. The liquid in the pod flooded out of the hole that had just opened, sucking Holly with it.

*

The pads of the Zion Hovercraft Ignatius buzzed gently as they waited in the waste tunnel, watching the progress of the human life sign.
"Now!" Syn said into the intercom. Immediately some cargo doors snapped open on the underbelly of the craft and a grappling arm raced downwards, plunging into the icy waters.
"Got her!" came the reply over the comm.
"Okay, retract the arm, I'm coming down."
Syn slid down the ladders to the medical bay of his ship and hurried over to where his crew was gathered around a small human form wrapped in a blanket.
"Welcome to the real world, miss." he said gently.
"I knew it," she whispered, "I knew it wasn't real."
"Get her over to the bed," he directed his crew, "What's your name?"
"Ho ..." she paused, "Xenthi. My name is Xenthi."

[Vesuveus]

06/22/2006 06:14:06
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Echosnare




Joined: Aug 18, 2005
Messages: 205
Offline


Glinting Moonlight by Echosnare of Recursion



Stories always seem to begin with sunlight or moonlight glinting off something,Its a convenient way to draw attention to something and works well when the body of work is eventually sucked dry and made into a hollowed out version of itself in hollywood. In this case moonlight is glinting off my gun and it shouldn't be. I move the cover back over the gun. One twitch of light and they could know where I am. If they know and I take my shot they'll be on me before I can move.The programs should adjust for it but I hate taking chances. I had always enjoyed hunting before I had been freed. It was peaceful the way you stopped thinking the civilised thoughts you thought everyday and turned yourself down into a purpose. There was only the hunt to occupy your mind,your only concerns were how visible you were, your only thoughts of the future were where you needed to go and how you needed to get there. Hunting brings you back to your roots. Those tiny instincts you would have used thousands of years before, when your next meal wasnt plastic sealed. People assume its a scary thing to do, What do people know? Most of them have no idea they're living in a dream world.


I'm dug in. In the past I'd have disguised the shape of my body stilled my movement, slowed my heart rate. But in the Matrix the prey has upped the stakes. Its an arms war and the weapon is code. Now i have to use programs to hide my RSI, I have to alter sound modifiers so nobody hears my passing I even have to cut myself off in a way. Keep my stream down to just me and barely anything else. If my operator knows where I am so could they. But nothing can hide me once I reveal my intent. Once that piece of metal is flying through the air I'm visible - they know where the shot came from and my programs can deflect their aggressive search subroutines. At my greatest moment I am also at my most vulnerable. I find that Ironic. I hate taking chances but to succeed I must first be willing to die in order fulfil the goal. The prey must not escape.The prey. We aren't talking of something I plan to eat. We're talking of another living person (normally) who's existing in the same way I do but shares different beliefs. I have no qualms about what I am about to do. They would do the same. There are some in zion who shy away from hurting the betrayers. What do they know about honour? The traitors left us to our deaths and all the sympathisers would do the same.The target appears and I return to my old habits

My heart slows

I exhale

I fire

=-=-=-=-====-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==

06/22/2006 06:55:09
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Dv01D




Joined: Aug 26, 2005
Messages: 260
Location: The Grey Area
Offline

The Witch-hunt by Dv01D: Causality - Vector

The Witch-hunt (RP story)
"Just keep it going Para, the speed helps me think".

Dv01D had been like this since the events of the night before. Eyes a mirror of the hard world, view turned inwards. Self analytical.

Almost an hour passed, Dv01D sitting in the co-pilot's chair, feet on the instument panel, 12mm Arbiter Handcannon in his hand, screwing the silencer on.... taking it off... screwing it on... taking it off...

ParaSitius hunched beside him, sweating from the stress of keeping the Dysfunction racing down the tubes. He wanted to say something to his captain, but had no idea what, this was obvious from the look on his face, his twitching glances.

Dv01D slammed a finger into the windshield. "There! Put her down"

The crew would be asleep by now, he knew, "Well, that's fine", he thought, "that'll make this easier on them... just not on me. Such is the price. Cause and effect. I hired them, now I have to pay the price for that."

"Don't you f*cking move" he snarled at ParaSitius as he started to get up to accompany the commander back into the ship.

Dv01D stalked off into the darkness of the companionway. He knew he could trust this crew. They were a close group, all looking out for one another on many occasions, both in the hard world and the soft. And that was the problem. Too much trust

He walked past 0bittus's cabin without giving it a second glance, same with Flips, both these guys are brothers of the Merovingians chosen few. Practically family, like Para, with whom he'd run commando missions in the hard world after his extraction, a period of their lives they'd both prefer to block out.

3rebus' cabin on the left, Vortech's on the right. Dv01D had seen these two around the matrix for along time. Loyal servants of the Merovingian ideal, if not the frenchman himself. "The council have known them longer than I have, and would never have asked me to hire them if they didn't trust them. I trust the council, therefore I trust Vortech and 3re" he whispered to himself under his breath.

Kizomii's cabin next. If it hadn't been for her elder sister, Niika of the Dark Mavericks, Dv01D simply wouldn't be here. He shook his head, looking down at his feet. "She deserves the benefit of the doubt" he thought.

Lillah's cabin next. "Hmmm, I was asked to hire you by your husband. I didn't know him. I still don't know him. There were other voices speaking for her at the time too. No, sorry Lillah. I don't know you at all".

*Whump* The handcannon whispered into her pillow. He turned. Walked out of the door, leaving it open. If the others saw, so the others saw. Explanation would just be another part of the price.

Renzouken next. If anyone had ever tried to be Causality, it was Ren. "Nah", thought Dv01D, "not even close".

And now, to the last occupied cabin. L33x3. "You. You're all my fault he thought. I hired you, no-one else knew you,and as far as I know, no-one else does now either."

She stirred, looking up at him blearily from out of her sleep, he placed his left hand over her mouth and nose. Her eyes turned to water, fear pouring out of them.

*whump* The handcannon spoke again, a private language just for him to hear, "Job done", it said.

Again he left the cabin door open as he returned to Lillah's cabin.

Taking her by the left ankle, he dragged hed through the ship, trailing blood and brains down the gridded floors. Pausing only at L33x3's open cabin door, to grab her sleeping bag and drag that too through the ship to the rear exit ramp.
With the toe of his left boot he rolled them over and dumped the now cooling corpses into the tunnel beneath the ship.

He slapped the intercom at the entrance to the main corridor.

"Job done Para. Get me the hell out of here."

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06/22/2006 06:56:32
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Dv01D




Joined: Aug 26, 2005
Messages: 260
Location: The Grey Area
Offline

Three days by Dv01D: causality - Vector

Three days...
She followed him out on to a surface, like an ocean, frozen in time, instantly frozen into crystal clear ice.

The sky hung down above her, like an ancient CRT tuned to a dead channel. THe Voice of God she thought the noise of the background radiation of the universe.

The eery red glow that dimmed and brightened in great bubbles trapped beneath surface giving her the creeps, an edgy feeling, right on the edge of perception, as if some part of her psyche somehow knew what this place was, but refused to communicate it to her conciousness.

The Commander stopped ahead of her, turned on his heel to face her and spoke, his deep voice booming out over the empty flat landscape.

Your 'relationship' with this Zionist girl, this Synapze777 concerns me deeply. It is time you learned the lesson."

"What lesson?" she asked. This was new, he'd never done this before.

"The only lesson. That which makes us who we are, WHAT we are"

She new better than to interrupt. If this was a lesson, she was meant to listen, not talk.

"You know, that the Matrix you - we - inhabited is gone."

She just nods at this, what else could she do?

"After the war, came the 'Peace'. I call it that, because anyone with half a brain knew what kind of peace it was. Both the machines and Zion simply put hostilities on hold while they prepared their forces.

We knew that the Zionists still wanted the Matrix destroyed, and the Machines still wanted the entire human race in pods, they had just agreed to let it drop for a bit.

I mean, common sense dictates that as soon as one gained an obvious advantage the 'Peace' would disintegrate and the war would begin again.

There were a few - during this downtime, between the iterations, when the pod-people dreamed the chemical dreams the machines fed them instead of the Matrix-feed - that disagreed with that fervent belief of the majority of Zionists that the Matrix must be destroyed at all costs. After all, Morpheus himself said that were the Matrix to be destroyed and the Machines overthrown, 'Millions would die'.

Not a price all of us were willing to pay, not to mention those that just figured being self aware in a world of drones gave them a distinct advantage over others, with what they had learned about the nature of that world they would be able to live like lords in the Matrix.

And so a schism became apparent.

The council met, and the rebels were exiled. Given 6 ships and sent out from Zion.

This place, this is where we came. A desert. There was nothing here but sand. During the year that the Matrix was inactive, we built our own ships, based on the Zionists designs. The Dysfunction was one of this new breed of hovercraft.

There was little trust in those days, we - the exiled humans - didn't believe for one second that the truce applied to us, so our ships were small, fast, and virtually undetectable.

The other things that made the Dysfunction so different to the Zion ships were it's purpose, and it's computer-core. We designed that - I designed it, with an AI in mind, from scavenged parts of the Machine Mainframe, but it found another purpose.

Eventually the Machines began beta-testing the newly re-iterated Matrix, and of course, we began running missions, along with the awakened representatives of the Machines and Zion.

We began earning our keep, as it were, extracting exiles from the Matrix using our new AI compatible cores.

It made sense, perfectly, that humans exiled from the city of Zion, and those programs exiled from the Machine Mainframe would join forces, and we continued to build our freedom. We 'recovered' systems from the Machine cities, and build new homes for our new allies, just as we built homes for our families.

We knew the machines would be looking for us, so we built right out here, we used sub-tents, you know, the ones that drill themselves down about six feet then self-inflate, protecting the inhabitants from the desert heat."

"Colonel, I know all this, this isn't a lesson, this is just a reminiscence, I know you came here shortly after it was established, I know you walked here alone across the desert after self-substantiating, and I'm suitably impressed OK."

"NO!" he moved his face close to hers, staring into her eyes, "it is not OK. And it's Commander now Major" a trace of irony.

"So, tell me what happened here then. Let me learn this lesson of yours"

They started walking again, apparently aimless.

"We knew that the Zionists and the Machines would collude against us, they were negotiating a peace, and every peace has a price.

Once the beta-test phase was complete, that price became clear.

Zion sold us out.

Four, chain-linked tactical thermo-nuclear devices were deployed against the new home of the Exiles, both human and program, Zionists hated us because we didn't want the Matrix destroyed, didn't believe in their brand of freedom, and the Machines wanted us destroyed because we were harbouring Exile programs."

He stood with his back to her, arms outstretched, cane in his right hand, coat flapping around him in the howling wind.

"We walk now, upon the Fields of Failure. The smouldering bodies of our dead.

Each of these beautiful bubbles you see beneath you is someones family, dessicated in the instant of the blast, sealed in the glass of a melted desert, they rise and fall constantly within their superheated tombs as the Earth heats and cools beneath them."

She knew she was losing it. She felt like the day he'd first shown her the pods from the outside, her mind reeled. No, not her mind, her world. Must have been the world, because she was on her knees, weeping now, looking down into one of those red light-bubbles, under the crystal-clear surface. She wiped her eyes. Wished she hadn't.

A face. All it could be. Eyeless. Blackened. Caught in a rictus scream stared back at her.

She puked at it.

She vaguely heard the Commander pass her, he was returning to the ship.

"The Dysfunction will be leaving in 5 minutes" he announced "I'd prefer it if you were with me.

And so would you.

If you're not, you're against me".

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06/25/2006 14:53:34
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
Fyre




Joined: Jun 25, 2006
Messages: 1
Offline




hey just seen this competion (handle Zilance - recursion) (reborn part 1)



I open my eyes from my slumber trying to rid myself from some sort of self induced paranoia. I remember thinking throughout the night about the morning in which I will wake to see her one last time before she left. I remember her eyes vividly in my nightmares I had of her dying without me. I tried all night to suppress these dreams but the more I tried to change the imagery the less ambiguous they became. I sit up on my bed and dry the physically reminders of my sleep from my eyes. I look at the palm of my hand and see on It the imprints of how I slept holding on the rails of the bed. I must have been performing actions while I slept. It’s not abnormally to physically act out your dreams in a state just before REM the body still has the same mental state as if fully awake. Remember the dreams in which you fall and can feel it, it’s your brain bracing you for what seems to be a physical action.

I stand up from my bed wearing only my boxer shorts and look down on to my body. I start thinking about what life would have been if I was just a little bigger or a little bit smaller. In the middle is a place where I sit not that big or that small but the median is never suffices. I smile when I look down for the morning friend being awake to see me. Great friend who wakes up even before me. I take those few steps across to the bathroom which stands adjacent to my room. I been living in a hostel for the past 5 months while I get back on my feet, this is where I met the girl I will be losing. She came here with a few friends on a night for the drinks and culture. I remember the night as if it was written in a book in front of me every small detail. She had sat away from her friends while they played a game of drinking cricket something the English seem to enjoy when drunk. I felt compelled to walk over and sit with her. I moved over to sit next to her but a friend of hers grabbed and pulled her away.

My bathroom a place where I am king full of all my utensils to make myself less ugly then I perceive. The mirror in front of me is always fogged up maybe it’s a defence mechanism for it. Having to be used by so many people in a day. The sink below it holds the scars of so many people there is still some of themselves left there for all to see. I turn on the cold tap hoping for some of the old hairs and dry skin to be taken away. I place the plug in to the sink and fill it up with both the cold and hot taps but neither seems to actually give what they are meant for. The cold tape gives a warm sort of water and the hot a similar but more cloudily colour. I stop the water around the height where the safety hole comes in to the action. I slowly put my head in to the water and stop breathing. The seconds go past like minutes as I try to hold my head beneath the surface of the water. I see a picture of her in this strange light I see in front of myself. The light seems to be beckoning me towards it. I feel a sudden force on my shoulder pulling me back from the light and always thrown me now in to the room I started in. I begin to hear a German accent in my ear but I can’t see nothing but the beautiful light in front of me. “wake up Simon”. The voice rings in my head wake up, but am I not in reality now and I’m waking in to a dream. I try my best to ignore the voice but it begins to get louder and I can now feel a force on to my chest. And a strange feeling on my lips and slowly it begins to play in my head Lars’ is trying to wake me up. I shudder as I feel the hands move back to my chest and wake up alert.

“not this again, my French friend, you are starting to make a habit out of having me waking you up”.

I shake my head and smile a sly smile. I start thinking now less of the whole being saved situation in to a more of a sort of embarrassing feeling with myself lying on the floor in basically only a small pair of short and having a large German guy wearing a Def leppard T-shirt and ripped jeans sitting over me. I make my way to my feet using the skin but I slip as I stand and Lars’ grabs my hand and helps me steady myself. “thanks Lars” I say as if it had meaning he looks back at me and pulls the plug from the skin and walks away as if the situation was nothing. I rub away the fog from the mirror and look at myself. I start thinking about how much I want to be someone else, somewhere else so I would not need to handle this whole situation. How do you say bye to the only person you can say you really loved. There is two deaths in this world there is the one in which you can escape and the one you live with and coming after Lars intervention I am going to be living the following.

I walk back across the corridor to my room and look left and right and see the people going along with there lives most of them just here for the night. This is just a place to leave your meaningless items while you got out in to the meaningless world. Everyone here has nothing to do but spend the money they got from their parents or part time jobs. I open my door and close it while the ambience outside still plays in to the room. I grab my jeans from the chair in the centre of the room and put them on and walk over to the window which faces the most industrial side of London and look out to all the black smoke and the peoples with there grey dead faces.

I turn and knee on the floor and pull my suitcase from under the bed and pull it out and lift it to the bed. I open it using the code which is also my deceased grandfather’s birthday. I open it up and look inside to see a picture of myself and friends back home in Senlis. In retrospect I was happy then the smile on my face was not a lie. Back in those simple days in the simple place things held no reason and nothing to be guilty about. I put the picture on the bed and face it away from me. I take a plain white shirt and throw it on myself in the fashion of a man who is sick of the monotonous nature of his actions. I close the suitcase with the picture still out laying on my bed. I put my head on to the suitcase and close my eyes holding back the tears I’m sure to shred before the day is over. I sit in silence for about 2 minutes thinking about the courses of action I should go with. I slide the suitcase off the bed and move my head to let it past I place it under the bed and stand up and leave the room closing it behind myself.

I walk down the hall of the hostel the state of disrepair in which It lies is disgraceful. But for me this place is home it’s like my mind in ways full of rooms which hide something different in each one. I walk down the stairs and make my way to the exit of the building and walk to the reception. I pass my key card to the poor girl who is sitting on the desk I walk out of the doors of the building and walk to my right. I make my way up a path with building to either side with different people standing in the windows. I walk up the glass covered path towards a tube station which I know to never be busy at this time of the day.

In the station I quickly hop over the ticket point and walk down the elevator as the odd person stands waiting holding on to the rail. I see them leaving there pockets exposed I hold my composure as I walk past the people. I try not to fall in to the life I now live in with the only money I make is off helpful locals or naïve tourists. Who would think a French man in London being one of the many colourful locals. I walk off the stairs and get in to the almost closing doors of a passing tube.

The train is full almost to maximum which is not uncommon during this time of day. I slowly rub against a large looking guy most possible American and put my hand in to his open pocket with his tube pass in it. I pull it out and place it in to my own pocket. I hate doing this but I am going to a major station and this guy would be able to afford another one. I wait on the train till I get to kings cross and slide off the train using the same grace I got on and see the seats in which I first got to actually talk to her. I followed her through the night trying to get to talk to her. I caught up with her while at this station her friends were off vomiting or something beautifully feminine. I sat next to her and started talking and found to be a soul like myself. Her words flowed with such beauty I was unable to take my eyes off her lips for the most of the time during the meeting. The told me of the world in which she lived one of grace and beauty and sadly of money. She left me to return to her flat in Knightsbridge and agreed to meet me at a restaurant in Chelsea the next day.

I enter the train station directly from the tube station up those small stairs. She is set to meet me at platform 4. I walk over towards the platform and look up towards the tracks which stand bare. The train must not be here yet, wait what time was I meant to meet her. Eleven I think I look over to the platform details and see the time. I missed her by over an hour. I died that second I was unable to say goodbye because I ignored the time which I never checked. It’s just my bad luck to miss her like this. Maybe I should follow the tracks after her but how far will I get till I come to the tunnel home. She has made her way to Italy to live and become a fashion designer like her mother and make a bucket load of money. I walk towards the seats at the station and sit down and my head falls I see a small slip of paper on the seat. I pick it up hoping for it to be some kind of currency someone left by accident.

“Simon, I’m sorry maybe you were caught up on some important business and could not make it. I wanted to say goodbye to you in person and don’t even know if this would ever even get to you, it’s a long shot but I hope your luck will change and you will find this. Simon follow where your heart takes you and maybe we will meet up together in the end if that is what destiny has in store for you
Good bye
Michelle”

I put the note in to my pocket and stand up from the seat and begin a depressed exit of the station I walk through a large crowd of people and they seem to begin to fade in to shadows as they pass I look towards the exit where two men in immaculate suits stand but of them look as if they are out of some bad FBI show. I walk towards the exit in till I feel someone pull down on my arm and I slowly move towards the direction I am being dragged towards. I am being pulled towards the dark corner of the station and I see the two men begin to move in the corner of my eye. I hear the voice of the person pulling me reassuring me for some reason, I have no idea why but I just allow this to happen I am but a shell. The voice sounds quite endogamous as we make our way to this small part of the station. We stop and I have time to look at the person who Is pulling me. He is a short man with a small build he looks like a random bum off the streets but he seems to have something odd about him. He lifts up one of the concrete slabs from the floor. It’s an amazing site to see such a small person with that much power. He points for me to continue onwards down some small passage towards some kind of lantern. “continue” he says in that voice of his. I follow the directions without actually asking why. I step down and being walking not thinking if the man was coming with me. I turn back to see if he is there and hear the slab being moved back but I can’t hear his steps behind me. The fear comes to my mind maybe he was some lunatic wanting to bury me alive. I begin to run along the passage thinking to myself good thoughts as I try to forget how much oxygen must be down here. I run in to a large wall which seems to be a dead end.

I begin to lose hope and fall to my knees. Maybe this is my death to be left in this hole maybe it was the angel of mercy bring me here so I wont hurt anyone more. I can’t let this happen. I get to my feet and begin hitting my arms against the wall at the end and feeling In case it is hollow maybe I can break through it. I hit upon it for what seems like eternity till I lose the little hope I had and slide down the door and collapse on the floor. I hit the floor and hear a door opening and something else being moved. I look behind me and see one of the suited men walking down the path maybe they are here to save me from that lunatic from before I wave towards them. One of them pulls out a gun from his pocket, my heart sinks maybe that guy was saving me I feel someone pull me with great force through the now removed wall in front of me. I awake in the room which is painted the brightest shade of white with two men looking at me and a woman sitting on a beautiful suede couch.

End of part 1


07/02/2006 22:34:39
Subject: Re: Calling All Authors! Story Contest
NeoXytheril




Joined: Aug 16, 2005
Messages: 214
Location: Where no elevator can go, and no stair can reach.
Offline
I'm throwing my hat into this ring.

In Other News by Xytheril - Recursion

The small intercom buzzed twice on the desk. The man sitting near it reached over and pressed the button. "Yes Cathy, what is it?" he said into the small speaker. "Mr. Black is here to see you, Mr. Richards." was the reply. "Ah. Send him in." Mark Richards was a middle aged man. He had a few grey hairs here and there, which was only accented by the dark business suit he wore. He finished signing most of the papers he had in front of him and tossed them on the small stack he had near the phone as a tall dark skinned man entered. Mark quickly stood up and stepped around his desk, extending his hand. "Hello, Mr. Black. This is an unexpected surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked as Mr. Black removed his fedora and shook the hand that had been presented to him. "Before we get straight down to business, I want to introduce to you an associate of mine," he said as he signalled to the ajar office door. A second man entered, lighter skin and not as tall, with a suit that wasn't nearly as extravagant as his business partner's either. "This is Mr. Dolor, and he's going to be assisting me with the matter I have at hand with you today." Mark extended his hand to the new face. "Nice to meet...." Mr. Dolor didn't shake his hand, or even look at it.

Mark retracted the limb and turned back to his desk. "Now, what brings you here today?" he asked the pair as he sat down. He gestured towards the two chairs, offering them, but neither sat. "I've got a bit of a problem. See, I've been reading up on this new proposal you've put before the City Commercial Regulatory Commission." Mark simply nodded his head in understanding. "Mr. Black, I understand your concerns. I know this has the potential to impact your business, but you have to look at this from all sides of the issue. There are many businesses that unless...." Mr. Black held up his hand and cut him off in mid sentence. "Mr. Richards, Maybe YOU aren't looking at this from the PROPER side of this. Why don't you tell my associate here how you came to be mayor of this fair city?" Mr. Dolor stepped over and took a seat in the nearest of the two chairs, crossing a leg and focusing his full attention on Mark. "Oh.....um....ok...." he said slowly, his voice becoming slightly shaky as Mr. Dolor seemingly gazed directly into his soul.

"It was about 12.....no....13 years ago? I was just a prosecuting attorney for the 12th district court at the time. I was pretty good at it, and so I got invited to some exclusive parties that my clients threw after they won. Something wasn't exactly right though. I saw some things behind closed doors that....they seemed like something out of a dream. I did some checking into things and it seemed that a lot of my clients were VERY old, with records going back as far as the Revolutionary War. I kept digging and I met a man named Roland. He told me that the only way to find out the answers to my questions about these people was to go with him. He gave me this pill, which I took, and that's when things got wierd. I woke up and it was like everything had gone to hell. I found out that we were all just being used to power this empire of machines. The last humans lived underground and fought this war. I lived with them for a little while, but the whole ordeal didn't sit well with me, the fact that our entire lives were just a simulation."

Mr. Dolor nodded slowly. "Well, you seem to be here now. I've heard that once you leave, you don't come back." Mark waved his hand. "I'm getting to that. So anyways, I couldn't just sit out there while all of these people were living horrible lives. I decided I'd come back and tell everyone what was going on. I knew that a lot of people would look at me as a madman, but what the hell. Be a madman in this world, or a dirty hunted rat in that one. Not much difference, eh? I made contact with the authorities and gave them detailed plans on several of the ships that those people outside were using to come here. All the strengths, all the weaknesses, everything. They seemed very interested in them. The ability to destroy those ships with minimal losses to their own resources was very tantalizing. After I gave those schematics up, I snuck off the ship. Didn't take long before their flying soldiers came. I witnessed them destroy at least six of those craft and damage several others in a heartbeat. The survivors quickly retreated to safety."

Mark stood and approached a small cabinet in the corner of the office. He removed a bottle of bourbon and several glasses. "Can I offer either of you gentlemen a drink?" he asked. Both of the two declined quickly. Mark shrugged and poured himself a double, returning the bottle. "After they brought me back and put me back in, they tried to erase my memory. They didn't do a very good job of it. Little details slowly crept back in over the weeks. By then, I'd resumed my job as an attorney. I was handling a case against Mr. Black. I don't remember what the suit was about, but I know I remembered most of what they'd tried to make me forget about the outside world. I took him aside and threatened to reveal the truth of this world if he didn't settle out of court. Not only did he settle, but he offered to help me in my career if I kept my mouth shut. He financed my campaign to every office up to this point."

Mr. Dolor took an interested look on his face. "What I want to know is why my associate here would help you ascend to this office, when if I had been in his position, I'd have simply had you killed?" He looked to Mr Black, who stepped towards the desk. "And that question, my friend, is why I'm standing in this office," he answered. "I thought when I made that offer, I could actually gain something from it. Friends in high places will take you far. So I'm going to state my business again. I've been reading about this new proposal you've put before the City Commercial Regulatory Commission. Something about increasing the property and revenue tax brackets for high volume businesses, while reducing it for smaller businesses. I stand to lose a great deal of income and influence with this. I'm hoping it wasn't a mistake investing all of that time and money in your campaigns, and I would be very appreciative as both your friend, and as a powerful man who you owe a great deal to, if you would make this nasty little business go away."

Mark took a gulp of his drink and cringed a bit from the bite it gave his throat. He set the glass down, stood, and looked Mr. Black directly in the eye. "Mr. Black, when I was out there, in the real world, I was responsible for the deaths of at least 50 people. At the time, I didn't think too much of it since I was going home. But now, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about what happened." He turned and looked out the window at the city streets below. "There are people down there who are starving, trying to make ends meet. They own grocery stores, pharmacies, comic book shops, beauty salons, tattoo parlors, and so on. They're being trampled over by corporate industries. I'm not going to let these people die too, and if it means you have to lose some money, than I'm sorry. I know I owe you a great deal, and I'll try and make it up to you some other way. I just can't sit with those people on my conscience any more."

Mr. Dolor stood from his chair as Mr. Black heaved a small sigh, putting his fedora back on his head. "No, making it up won't be necessary," he said as he turned and opened the door to the office. "Maybe I did make a mistake after all." Mr. Dolor left the office, turning to gaze intently at Mark before stalking off down the corridor. "We'll be in touch," Mr. Black said as he exited the room and closed the door behind him. Mark picked up the piece of paper on the top of the stack he had been reading over before his guests had come in. It was the final draft of the very proposal they had been discussing. He signed his name to the bottom and returned it to the pile. "No, I think I was the one who made the mistake," he said to himself as he downed the last of his glass's contents.

"And we are live in 5, 4, 3, 2....."

"Good evening. I'm Karen Leins and this is the Channel 6 Action News at 11. Authorities are still baffled by a series of terrorist attacks last night. A nuclear reactor some twenty miles outside the city limits was destroyed just after midnight in a bombing, leaving half the city without power for several minutes until backup systems were engaged. Officials from the Department of Energy still have yet to comment on the incident. Turning to other topics, early this morning police found the body of city mayor Mark Richards in the bedroom of his downtown loft. Reports are confirming multiple gunshot wounds as well as severe lacerations to the chest and lower neck. The state of the apartment suggests that there was a struggle. If anyone has any information regarding the case, please call the hotline at the bottom of your screen. In other news......"