(High Ground - Slayer. A few days later…)

A tanned EVA soldier walked back and forth in the ruins of a radio station. Three accomplices watched the Spartan as he thought of his next lines. There have been problems associated with allied connections and there was a high demand for a solution.

Paneerakbari held his hands behind his back and faced his fellow comrades. He examined each soldier from one to the other. They were eager to hear some suggestions.

"Over the last couple months, and especially in the past few weeks, I'm sure we've all noticed a pretty severe lack of connectivity among the players. I'm stating this to assemble our collective knowledge of networking and connectivity."He paused a moment, then continued, "First things first, if you have access to the router on your home network go into your settings and open port 3074 UDP. This should make your NAT 'Open'. There are a number of ways in which to perform this action, so if you are having trouble, send me a message, gaming-related or otherwise and I will help."

Simmons blankly stared at PB. The sun was hot and the ultraviolet radiation was being absorbed through his crimson armor. It became difficult to focus on the discussion while standing in the sun and his friend in the shade. Simmons tried his best to analyze the information that was shoved into his head from the lecture all afternoon.

"Yo, you want me to kill a NAT??" He asked confused. The soldier walked up to the table where the electronic equipment was placed. He examined some of the electronics.

"Wow Simmons!" Chikadee exclaimed with amusement. She couldn't help but laugh at her friend's interesting response. Paneerakbari leaned against a table and crossed his arms over his chest. Chikadee turned to him.

"What I don't understand is why would Xbox live not allow me to connect with a few players who have their NAT "Open" when mine is open as well. My router is wired but all ports are open. When I run the test on my Xbox, it shows my connection is Open. So why won't it let me join a party when the leader has an open connection, but their router is wireless?" She paused, thinking over her question, "Would having an open wired connection compared to an open wireless be a source of error for player connectivity?"

PB processed her question while watching Simmons' unusual behaviour examining the devices present. "Different routers are going to behave differently, individually and together. There may have been some miscommunications and some strange quirks that arise with it, Live and other players. There really isn't a whole lot that can be done about it. For me, my old router (some PoS from CompUSA), had such sophisticated settings that the NAT was opened by clicking a link in its control dialog. My new(er) router is a D-Link Wireless with 4 wired ports, it's also on the list of devices that are compatible with Xbox Live. Despite having the router set to an open NAT, and Xbox Live identifying it as open, the Halo 3 servers still classified me as restricted. Once I opened that port in the router settings everything opened across the board. I should point out that just because your router may not be on that list, it doesn't mean that it won't work."

"Makes sense. Well, thanks for the info. I'll go see what else I can find." She left.

Imp hunter stationed himself on the roof of the abandoned radio station above his friends. He saw his friend leave through the gates and hollered after her. "All you had to do was press ctrl-alt-delete!…gosh." He sat down after waiting a moment for a response he was never going to get. Simmons shot a few rounds of ammunition in the ceiling. "Like that would have worked. That has nothing to do with the internet!"

"Well, I really have no clue on how to fix internet connectivity. That's all I know. So I'm going to sit here and twiddle my thumbs." Imp hunter yelled back. He started humming a tune.

RoninWrath moved outside and looked up at the elite on the roof. He pulled out his sniper rifle and aimed his gaze. He processed the information from Paneerakbari's lecture. He analyzed the data, trying to make sense of everything. There was only one solution he had in mind. "You want me to kill imp hunte??"

Somewhere in the state of Missouri…

"You want me to kill imp hunte??" Ronin couldn't finish after coming to an abrupt stop, staring at his screen…

...ERROR..…ERROR.....ERROR…

"Oh f-- wait…" He tossed his controller to the ground and looked over at his computer screen…

...ERROR…

"No no no no NO!" He rushed to his desk. The same words flashed on the computer screen as well as his television.

...ERRORERRORERROR

"Not you too!" He yelled, rapidly typing on the keyboard trying to access anything that was available. Nothing was working, the screen had froze and messages were beginning to pop up.

...A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

"F--k! Dammit!" He was becoming impatient since not even two weeks earlier, he received the Red Ring of Death and just got it fixed only days before this occurrence. He read the messages.

The problem seems to be caused by the following file: HOW TO KILL AN ELITE.SYS

PAGE-FAULT-IN-NON-PAGED-IMAGE-AREA

If this is the first time you've seen this Stop Error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, YOU ARE F--ED.

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any Windows updates you might need. If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select Advanced Start-up Options, and then select Safe Mode.

Technical information:

-- STOP: 0x00000050 (0xFD3094C2, 0x00000001, 0xFBFE7617, 0x00000000)

-- HOW TO KILL AN ELITE.SYS - Address FBFE7617 base at FBFE5000, DateStamp 7d7dd08c

"F--, Dammit! that's,...this whole f--ing week sucks! That's it!" Ronin ran to the closet, brought out his tool box on the floor, and took out a sledgehammer.

"I can't let you do that Ronin!" An audio voice protested. RoninWrath looked up with shock.

"WTF?" He took a step forward in disbelief that his computer was actually talking to him.

"Charging defensive systems."

Ronin began to swing the hammer but stalled as the computer fired at him through the system. He fell to the floor slightly charred and smelling of smoke. He was becoming aggravated.

"F-- you Tower!" He got up and made a second attempt with the sledgehammer. The computer fired again instantly. Ronin was shot back across the room into the sofa.

"Threat eliminated."

SLEEP MODE ENGAGED.

He got up, wiping a little blood from a broken nose. He looked up at his computer shutting down automatically.

"F- ...CK... Y...OU." He slowly made his way back to the computer, sledgehammer in hand.

"Reactivating systems."

"F-- THAT!" RoninWrath swung the hammer at the computer smashing Tower to pieces. All that was left was a pile of debris. He felt a sense of relief the box and hard drive were destroyed. In a blink of an eye, the monitor came to life.

"…what the?…"

"Good Bye, WRATH."

...3...

...2...

"F-- ME SIDEWAYS!" He yelled back, not quite sure what was going to happen. The sledgehammer fell from his hands and he to his knees, mentally exhausted. RoninWrath buried his face in his hands only hoping for this nightmare to end.

...1...

A cameraman positioned himself behind his displayed electronics and looked through the lenses. Outside in a park, a news reporter was filming an interview for the weather station with local residences. Seen in the distant background through the lens, a mushroom cloud was beginning to form…