They were everywhere, the gangs had been long since replaced by these, fake, repulsive, wanna-be's. Fake Agents, Imposter Agents, whatever you wanted to call them. They were everywhere. They ignored all the blue pills and concentrated only on us red pills. No matter what organization we were in, Machine, Zion, or even Merovingian, we were all equal game for them, and they were all equal game for us.
I dodged a fist, took one in my back, flipped over one of them, shot one in the head sending his limp body to the ground. They were everywhere, but rather easy for us to take on if we kept our whits about us. "Lets see what this batch had."
I emptied out their pockets, some might think that sort of thing was defiling of the dead. That would be the case, if these were human to begin with. $info, a few guns I could pawn off or try to decompile... hmm, what are these? They were like nothing I had seen before, code fragments in the shape of floppy disks. Written on them were a few words and a set of numbers, RSI Frag 1.3, 1.9, 1.5. What were these? Some sort of new code fragment that the coders would want? No, it felt like something more, something almost human about them nearly vibrated from them.
I read a few of the desks in a safe place, away for the fake agents, away from the other red pills, away from those that served my own master. They were like pieces of thoughts, incomplete. They reminded me of someone's last thoughts, like someone who knew the end was near.
"Interesting..." with that, I headed off to my next mission, leaving the fragments in my coat pocket for the time being. Later that night a meeting was called somewhere in Appolyon, a meeting for all those that followed the Merovingian. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, he just commanded us to go and do our job. Little did we know that there was going to be a shake up, just to keep things interesting.
The N3O Agents. Different from the others, they were like twisted versions of the Zionists savior. They had a strange glow about them, but they were no harder to kill. With each one that scattered their code to The Matrix the stronger I became. Who was controlling these programs though? It was simple, a new program had come to The Matrix, and his name was The General.
We only knew a little about this new Exile. Him, like so many before him, and so many after him, had been displaced by this new truce. Instead of returning to the source he chose to come here, to The Matrix. Did he want to start the war over? Fine by me for starting the war over again, maybe it would get Zion to wake up and get there heads out of the clouds. But it would have to be on my bosses terms.
No one had seen what this, General, looked like. All the contact, if you would call it that, that we had of him was in the form of threats, threats to all of us that we had no choice, that we had to leave The Matrix. What arrogance, who is he to think that he can command us to do whatever he wanted from afar. Even our boss would come down to us to give us commands. This, program, had yet to prove that we should fear him.
So here I am, killing more of his minions. Its rather a good stress reliever. Slowly these N3O Agents are starting to disappear from The Matrix. Maybe a sense of normality will return. Normal, who am I kidding, The Matrix is anything but normal...
Invalesco
Crossroads. Even in the dreamworld they are real enough. One day you could be walking along, minding your own business, the next you get jumped by a gang of lupines and blood drinkers. It started out an innocent enough day in the matrix. My crew, part of the La Costra Nostra division, had met in the Uriah Industrial Park. The area was out of the way, forgotten by red pills, blue pills and programs alike. A perfect place for those that didn't want to be interrupted could meet. The rain started to fall. How strange, that this dreamworld seemed to reflect that something was about to happen. Rain, why does it always bring difficulty, hardship, issues. The first one appeared in front of me, a scrapper by the looks of him. At first I didn't know what to do. We had gotten reports of other Lupines and blood drinkers being spotted in other parts of the city, generally they didn't attack those that were part of their organization. Apparently these guys didn't get the memo.
The first one lunged at me. I didn't need to get orders from my leader, Tavien, to open fire. I didn't care if this dog on hind legs was with the Mervingian, I wasn't about to let him rip out my neck for the fun of it. I aimed, and fired a silver bullet straight into its head. He flew back, only to stand back up and come after me again. "Well that was a waste of code."
He swiped at me with his claw, I dodged him simple enough, I had learned how to slow time for a few seconds, just enough to dodge his attack with ease. I caught the mut of guard as I sent my leg into his face. The sound of bone crushing was satisfying to my ears.
"Silver doesn't work on these mutts." I shouted to the others. Have you ever wished that you could take back something the moment you said it? I know I did, the moment those words left my lips several other lupines jumped in around me. "So this is how you want to play it."
Limbs were flying. Attack. Defend. Retreat. Fire. No matter what we did, they kept coming, there was no end to them. I admit I was enjoying myself, it was like a test of skill, to see who would fall first. The program or the man. Then fate decided to step in at the worst time imaginable.
Everything slowed to a crawl except for me. A lupines fist, that was once flying at my face was frozen in space, a mere inch away. I stepped back, everything was frozen. Then everything went black. I awoke to my operator standing over me, the rod coming out of the back of my head. "What the hell happened!"
"Hardware failure, if I didn't pull the plug, you wouldn't be coming back again."
I slammed my fist into the chair in frustration. "How long until you can repair the equipment?"
He was silent for a minute. "A few hours."
"Damnit!"
Several hours later I was able to jack back in. Bodies were thrown about the area surrounding the area. Both Lupine and Blood-drinker alike. I walked around several of the districts by myself for awhile, no sign of my comrades or the ones that had turned their back on the our boss. I wondered into Manseen district a few hours later, a mistake on my end unfortunately.
It didn't take the local blood-drinkers long to smell my blood code, the weakest of there bunch had the gull to come after me, well, looking back at the time I was pitifully weak in comparison. I ran as fast I could, bending the laws of the matrix to allow me to run faster then a human should, to the closest structure that I could think of. Ironically it was a church, even more ironically it was the blood drinkers hideout. I thought I was surely dead, but then I head familiar voices, my friends.
Carefully I walked into the main room, half paranoid thinking it might be a trap. I was surprised to find so many of my fellow redpills here. I found members of my own faction, La Cosa Nostra there. They told me what had transpired, needless to say it was shocking and felt like something out of an old vampire story.
Invalesco, a exile long since imprisoned by the frenchman, was finally released. He had an offer for those that would follow him. Immortality. In exchange, four simple items and a "willing" recruit. Maybe it was a good thing now that we didn't find out what would become of those that agreed to come with us.
My factions leader quickly called a meeting to discuss what we would do next. Such a tempting offer, who wouldn't take it? We had to act fast though, the next day we set about getting together what we needed. It wasn't hard, but rather the wait proved to be annoying. I think I spent about ten hours sitting in that place before Invalesco showed himself. But it didn't matter now, we were about to become immortal!
He selected the first of us, Lady Return. Such an honor, to be chosen by him first. The ceremony started, and was brought to an abrupt end by Invalesco's own brother! The exile actually had the gull to call upon those who sold their souls to the devils themselves, to the machines. Gunfire erupted in the small church, fists and legs flew as each side tried to kill the other. It was madness, one side fighting for immortality, the other fighting for the pleasure of disrupting the plans of those that chose not to side with them. Then it happened, Invalesco killed his own brother. We didn't have time to celebrate, other members of Invalesco's clan quickly descended upon the building to take vengeance out on one of their own for the slaying of another one of their own.
While we distracted the infernal machinists and other blood-drinkers, Invalesco made his escape. Both those that sided with him and those that wanted to kill him were in hot pursuit after the fleeing blood-drinker. He was fast, not many could keep up with him as he made his way from the barrens to the international district. Almost like magic he disappeared among the buildings. Magic to those that don't know what the matrix is, simple program alteration to those that did.
Slowly we disbursed, both exile and machinists went their separate ways to lick their wounds and wonder what the next day would bring.
It wasn't until later had we learned of what happened to our faction. Our leader, Tavien, had fallen in battle. It was like someone had taken the soul of our faction and ripped it apart. I wonder now if he hadn't died if the outcome of those events would have been different. Needless to say our faction suffered the worst. Our spirt was indeed broken when word had come down that Invalesco and been found and staked by a machinist no less. But the worst for me was yet to come...
I had betrayed the Frenchman, a grim fate awaited me, worse then the others I was sure of it because of what he had done for me. He had taken me in and I had betrayed his trust. So I wasn't surprised when several of his closest guards jumped me. I woke up on the ground, "oh no..." I moaned as the throbbing music brought me to my senses.
"Oh no indeed, mon jeune ami, oh no indeed." The French accent was unmistakable. Slowly I opened my eyes and sat up. The Frenchman sat on his couch looking directly at me, his face betrayed agitation.
"What to do with you, Anubis, what to do with you. The others I can forgive but you, you I took into my domain and gave you safety, I gave you a place to exist, to destroy the machines when Zion would not. And this is how you repay me you stabber peu arrière!"
"I..."
"Silence!" He looked at me for a moment, as if trying to figure a fitting death for me. At the moment that I thought he was going have one of his guard come and kill me his face softened.
"But what should I expect from a human? Don't worry, mon petit ami, I don't plan I killing such a gifted talent."
I looked at him with confusion in my eyes. He wasn't going to kill me? "Your letting me live? Your not going to punish me?"
"oui, I will let you live, but I do think that your treachery does deserve some punishment... take him."
Before I could say anything several guards grabbed me from behind and dragged me away. They took me into a back room. I thought I would just get a work over, a few broken teeth that would reappear when I came back in, nothing to serous. I should have known better...
Tattoo's, who would have thought that he would have such a twisted sense of humor. A giant cross on my face, dragons along my arm and covering my back now exist on my body. After they were done they told me these would forever bind me to him. I would have no escape now if I wanted to leave now. I can feel the tingle in my body even when I jack out, the change to my RSI, they code that they used was more then mere coloring, but indeed was a binding program to him, now I cant refuse him. I was waiting for when that price tag would come along, but I guess I got it easy, in a way...
La Cosa Nostra translated means This thing of ours, while I was in this faction it was sort of like the mafia, close family connection sort of thing.
Sorry for the delay in posting this, college finals and a few RL issues came up that prevented me from publishing this latest chapter.
