Chapter 5: The Matrix

Qu overlooked the jack-in room of the Imation, with its rows of computer monitors spewing green code and vitals for the crew. The Imation was equipped with 10 chairs and plugs but the crew rarely used half of them. The chairs themselves were leather that had been worn smooth from the numerous missions that they had seen. The keyboards that Qu sat behind he knew just by lightly touching them where he was. Being operator on a ship with missions generally dangerous made it necessary for him to be quick on his fingers. While he had not seen action in the matrix for many years, like his friends had, he still remembered how it all worked.

Born in the matrix, Qu was the runt of his family. The youngest of three brothers, Qu faded into the background of his household. The resistance came to his house when he was only 7 years old, looking for his oldest brother, who at the time was starting to come to the attention of the machines. The resistance wanted him because his showed promise in various fields of electronics, especially in areas essential to zion ship and squiddy construction. Qu followed the men as they led his brother to a warehouse where they met several others. After following the group up stairs and hiding in the room where his brother sat with another, Qu listened to the typical red pill/ blue pill debate. His brother was not convinced however of the truths he man spoke of and chose the blue pill. As they left the room, Qu came out from his hiding place and took the red pill. Only when he stumbled into the next room, in a cold sweat, did the extraction team realize what was going on. Even though he was not the primary target, Qu was separated from the matrix almost as an inconvience on the recovery team. While resting on the Aeris recovery ship, he wandered into the plug room while the crew had fallen asleep. He was perplexed and equally dumbfounded at the scrolling lines of green code on the command screens.

The captain found him the next morning, still staring at the screens, but as he tried to pull him away from them, Qu murmured "Oh thats new" and pointed lazily at the screen. The captain stared down at the boy who seemed in an almost dreamlike state and then to the screens. He stared at the screens for a moment to try and find the anomoly that the boy had seen, but he could not see it. "Where? What is new?" The captain asked shacking the boy to try and ruse him from his dream state. "There it is, clear as day" the boy murmured and again pointed to the screen as his head slumped forward against his chest. The captain looked closer and to his amazement saw that the boy was right. A small section of the scrolling code had changed, almost imperceptively. However the change was a big deal, as the captain realized that another team was working in that area, and the change could only mean one thing. The shift in code was a preparation command machines used to make an area easier for agents to infiltrate. Normally when an agent takes control of a body in the matrix, several lines of code are implemented all at once, allowing the transformation to occur. An operatator with a good eye will see this change happen and warn his crew of the danger. More recently, when a high priority capture is sanctioned, this preparation command is used to allow the normal string of code to be shortened. Its like preloading the agent into the available bodies. The lines of code when the transformation occurs end up being shorted and thus easier to miss. The captain realized that the boy had spotted the preloading of agents in the area of what was supposed to be a secret infiltration mission. Hastily he grabbed the head phones and broke protocol in broadcasting to a ship under strick silent running. The operator who received the message looked at the code and failed to see the small change in the code. After much convincing by the captain on the line, he ordered the mission to be scrapped and all units to return to the ship. The men on the group imediately headed to the exit point, only to find agents hot on their tail. Their appearance was swift, but with the foresight by the calling captain, all hands made it safely back to the ship. Upon returning to zion after the failed mission, the captain was questioned as to why he disobeyed orders and transmitted a signal. He explained the entire series of events and presented the small boy, Qu, to the council. The council found that this unexpected retrieval, could read the matrix code with no formal training at all. He was immediately placed in a training facility and by the time he joined the crew of the Imation on his 22nd birthday, he was one of the best operatators in zion. When he went back later to find out the fate of his brother, he was saddened to find that the machines had used his body for an agent and that he was killed sometime later. To have your soul bound into a machine and then lost was a scary thought and Qu hoped he would never have to enter that world again.

Munikc left his cabin and proceeded to the jack-in room to find Qu powering up the machines for their trip into the matrix.

"How goes it Qu?" he asked.
"Well captain, we have full power and I've hacked the matrix so the mission is a go." Qu replied.
"How many times do I have to tell you Qu, don't call me captain."
"Yes captain."

Munikc looked at Qu with disgust, rolled his eyes, and then sat down in his chair for the trip into the matrix. "Where's the rest of the crew?" he asked Qu. "Port and Splice? They'll be here momentarily. Splice said something about grabbing some tool program" replied Qu. Munikc laid back and smiled thinking about what his crack-pot engineer was going to bring along on this mission. The last time, he tried to make an agent repeller but only to have it back fire and they had to fight off 20 agents instead of only 2. Munikc closed his eyes and waited for the plunge.

When Munikc opened his eyes again he was in the matrix sitting in the back of a black Cadillac. His crew mates Port, a young hot-headed swordsman and hacker, in the passenger side seat and his engineer driving. Both Munikc and Port wore black clothes and had black cloaks with dark sunglasses, but the driver was a little different, seeing as he wore a dirty burnt red jacket-coat that went down to just above knees. He too was wearing black clothes underneath but his glasses were small, rectangular and blood red.

"Splice, why did you wear that suit again? We aren't trying to attract attention to ourselves here." Munikc said to the driver.

"Well Munikc, I don't like those black capes, plus there's no room under there for my gun." Splice retorted. Splice was right thought Munikc; it is kind of hard to hide all the ammo Splice needed for his guns.

"Ok Splice, we have a deadline so let's gets a move on." a defeated Munikc said. "I just hope you brought a good tool this time."

"It's sitting on the seat next to you, why don't you have a look." Splice replied as he started the car engine.

It was at this moment that Munikc looked over to his left and saw Splice's bomb sitting in a duffel bag on the seat next to him. There were enough explosives there to relocate a house to about a block away. Splice pulled the car smoothly into traffic and headed downtown as the other members of the Imation crew checked their guns and sharpened their blades.