Chapter three.
He woke after a heavy sleep in some foul sludge in the darkness. He looked around in the haze for Olivio who could just be seen because of her luminous overalls that glowed in the hungry dark.
"Where are we?" Martyn asked, still dazed from the dodgy travelling of the matrix.
"Not far from Grey District. We are in the sewers my good friend."
Recognising the foul stench, Martyn jumped to his feet with his last ounce of energy, spitting the oddities from his mouth.
"That's disgusting." He vomited, gurgling.
"You'll be saying how wonderful it is soon. How much you love it. The awe will take you over. For in this very sewer is salvation." She declared with awesome strength in her voice.
There was a sharp click and thousands of overhead lights shone from about thirty metres above. The sewer was huge, with a long thin river of waste running in the dead centre. Luckily we were only half way to the centre, where Olivio has hooked up an old computer with bits that she could find. There were old coke cans and bits of tin, a sheet of glass and old wires used to make the monitor. The computer itself was an old box, probably swiped from a warehouse somewhere or maybe found down here in the sludge, connected to a variety of different things including a nineteen-forty's gramophone that looked like it was used as a speaker to upload, download and uplink different electrical signals.
No wonder he felt so ill, the computer he had been uploaded to was an absolute wreck. But it was amazing that she had managed to get them out at all. She pushed me aside and clicked what appeared to be her mouse what really was just a piece of metal covered in rubber. She searched for the chat room and found what she was looking for. She hacked her way into a database of the mini-guns and cameras and managed to get a few glimpses of what had become of the room that they were in just a few minutes ago.
It had been indeed shredded to pieces by the mini-guns and the destruction of the computer had caused a small fire. Everything was gone.
"Was anything important in there?" Martyn asked her.
"No, not really, I just wanted to check to see if they saw you. Listen, third rule, if you are going to stay with me stay alive. Fourth rule, if you are going to stay alive, don't slow me down. Fifth rule, if you slow me down, I start shooting, okay?"
"Certainly are a lot of rules, aren't there?"
She sighed. He was going to be an absolute drag on this mission. He wouldn't survive a day.
"So what's next?" Martyn asked simply.
"There is a city ahead of this tunnel. I just don't know in what direction to go. I left the map in the chat room. There is a ship at the city that we can use to get to Big Brother."
"There's a city down here? Wow! But how?"
"Listen! You know those little goody-two-shoe bitches in the movies who say to the guys fighting 'Ask questions first, shoot later'"
"Yeah…" He trailed.
"Well I am not one of those girls! Keep your eyes open. Your mouth shut. And you'll learn a few things."
Olivio walked up to the cement paving that had been splattered with human waste and rolled up her sleeves to reveal a strange spherical gadget on a strap. She punched a few of the buttons on the rear side of the gadget and the screen flickered a little and exposed the code of the matrix and started to walk north of the computer, down the tunnel.
Martyn followed her, anxiously, wondering if, as she had said, if he would learn anything as their journey continued.
He wondered if the city was large or if it had an army, or possibly more people who wanted to join against Big Brother and his evil empire.
Ando so Martyn and Olivio travelled amongst the labyrinth of sewage passages until a bright white wall of light greeted them.
It was a huge floating luminosity that shone through the entire tunnel.
Olivio seemed happy to see the beauty of the shining white wall at the end of the tunnel.
"What is this?" Martyn asked, "Some kind of barrier?"
"Close. It is one of the gates to the engineering level to the city. It is made physically of light. One thing you should know, the light does not accept any being. Not one person. The codes for the gates have to be hacked for us to get through and I am telling you now that there will be gunfire. But, once they realise who we are, we should be okay. Take this."
She handed him a small silver case. There was a stylish print engraved onto the case with the letter 'G'.
Martyn opened the case and found six beautiful rounded grenades with purple jewels encrusted into them.
"Plasma grenades push the purple spots to activate them. When I hack the codes, I will send a peace signal through, but they will firstly still attack. See you on the other side."
Olivio walked up to the wall of light and Martyn followed. They both could feel a mesmerising force over them, like a tenacious strength over them, protecting the city from further harm.
Olivio took her gadget that was still attached to her wrist and sent it flying into the wall of light.
A default voice from the computer spoke out into the sewer.
"Accessing codes to Gate 307 of Veiled Dungeon. Searching Internet for Codes. Codes discovered. Code UviTY7.0╣≥ђךН65TRY#G#307. Overwriting gates."
Martyn and Olivio watched as the light faded and two huge turrets appeared and four men; two on either side with auto-rifles in hand.
"Intruders! Open fire!" Shouted a guard on duty.
The guards loaded their guns and started shooting and thousands of bullets darted through the air obliterating the atmosphere around them.
Martyn felt the pressure building. It would be a matter of milliseconds before his body was pumped full of lead, and his heart seized to pump blood around his and Olivio's bodies.
Instinctively, Martyn reached for one of the grenades, and let it float from his hand and travel towards one of the luminous gun turrets. It imploded and the bullets nearby were sucked back into the blast killing the first two of the four guards.
"We need backup now! We need reinforcements!" Shouted a guard before being shot by Olivio's sci-fi handgun.
She beautifully jumped into the air, relying on the matrix itself to allow her to fly into the air at sluggish speed and fire her purple bullets of radiance into the surroundings killing her new enemies that had just arrived.
"We are friends! We do not want to harm you! Read my signal!" She screamed, whirling and twirling in mid air. She punched her arm forwards and allowed the gadget to wriggle on her wrist and transmit a signal via infrared.
Yet the bullets kept coming, minute ovals of brilliance speeding towards them and at the speed of light.
The bullets kept flying towards them but then an amazing scientist with her long hazel hair tied back in a bun, wearing a stained lab coat arrived on the scene and waved her arm across her face, her palm facing towards them and miraculously the guns soared into the air with a pure light around her. She floated into the air and drifted towards them.
The surroundings were silent. Every bullet had ceased to rip the air and her azure eyes of serenity cleared the place. She outstretched her arms to both sides above the bodies that Olivio had slain with her plasma weapons. She soared upwards and a little and then dropped back down and all the time her eyes and hands had glowed an unruly azure light.
Martyn and Olivio watched as the symbols of the Matrix rushed out of her and they saw all the energy inside of her pulsing like a spiritual power that urged the dead to return to Earth.
She was a powerful being. A supernatural being.
"Listen to me! The new fellows that walk amidst soil are our allies you fool! Put down your weapons! The woman there is our contact; Olivio and that man there her accomplice, Martyn of Grey.
And as for me, I am from the science labs of the supernatural. Do you remember the silly programme known as the Oracle, who said that when a programme deceives the mind of an unplugged human by means of showing them a ghost or an angel, they are a programme that is doing something they are not meant to be doing…well I am a programme. A rare one at that. One that undoubtedly you have not seen before. You will see many like me, new programmes, in your travels through this city that we call the Veiled Dungeon. However, I am doing my job by protecting this city by resurrecting its dead by means of Necromancy to create an army strong enough of defeating the one we call Big Brother!"
"And what are you called?" Olivio demanded. Martyn detected a tone of defence in her voice. She didn't like the new woman. She felt an acute resent towards her.
"My name is Boone, BiblioBoone."