"No."
"He's moving. I'm waiting for him to stop."
"Tell me about it."
"What the..."
"Did you hear that?"
"Let's go."
"Bring it, druggy."
((As I've stated in the past, Vector has the best true potential for Roleplaying, and I intend to yield it as best I can. You may meet this man in-game. You may have already met, in fact. He is one of my many alts that I never go OOC with, so don't even try any squirrely tricks with him, cuz he'll think you're crazy.))
There was a player who had the RSI name 303
He was first mate of my PG crew. And a friend IRL.
Just thhought I'd mention it.
Xcesss wrote: There was a player who had the RSI name 303 He was first mate of my PG crew. And a friend IRL. Just thhought I'd mention it.
ZippydaSquirl wrote: Xcesss wrote: There was a player who had the RSI name 303 He was first mate of my PG crew. And a friend IRL. Just thhought I'd mention it. ((Techincally mine is named ThreeHundredAndThree, so no confusion, I hope?))
The man in the suit regards him closely.
"Soldier, you have been closely monitored and your actions closely studied ever since your induction into the local militia. We have documented every instance of your missions, all except the most recent being successes..."
He leans forward, his brow creasing with thought, his lips pursing. Easy to spot signs of hesitation.
"We want you to be part of a special forces squadron for us. You will have the reflexes, strengths, and neural pathways of a redpill. This will greatly heighten your efficiency, which we believe will be a great...asset to us."
The suited man places his hands, palm down, on the table. The man sitting across from him perks his ears at the sound of tiny clicks. The suit has something under those hands.
The man sitting calmly in his chair has smooth, brown hair. He usually shaves it before every operation, but has lately decided to let it grow to normal lengths, to increase his stealth. He also wears a dark grey suit, but when on a mission he is donned in a light gray, street camo suit. He has a small crease around the eyes, more so from concetration than from aging. His eyes are concealed behind dark, mirrored shades.
He has no name. Names are for those with lives. He only goes by his Unit Identification Number, SSG-303.
He keeps his eyes on the Suit's hands, and speaks.
"Sir, anything to better serve the system, sir."
The Suit leans backwards, lifting his hands to reveal two oddly coloured pills on the table. One is blood red, and glints orange in the light. The other is ice-blue, with a cyan glint, and looks much more appealing than the other.
"If you accept, take this red pill. It allows us to track you and your vitals, and helps to keep track of soldiers on the battle field. Know that after ingesting it you will become legally a redpill. Take the blue pill if you want to continue your life as is, and climb the ranks on your own. The red pill will strip you of any rank - you will essentially cease to exist."
"If you accept, take this red pill. It allows us to track you and your vitals, and helps to keep track of soldiers on the battle field. Know that after ingesting it you will become legally a redpill.
Take the blue pill if you want to continue your life as is, and climb the ranks on your own. The red pill will strip you of any rank - you will essentially cease to exist."
The suited man had hardly finished speaking, and the other man is reaching for the red pill. He pauses before chucking it in his mouth, and adds dryly,
"Sir, got any drink to wash it down with, sir?"
Agent Green grins and reaches behind his back, pulling back a cup of water.
His stomach churns. Glancing over, he notices that the cup of water he sipped is melting. He looks up and spies the ceiling light, throwing out waves of bizzare colours. The ground begins to shake, then melts under him, like a pit of quick sand. Calmly, he looks over to the suited man and raises an eye brow questioningly. Then his head is sucked under the floor. Trying not to breathe, he involuntarily does so, and proceeds to gag on the liquid floor. Everything begins turning red...
---Three weeks later---
"Greetings, sir. You have one new priority message."
The man grunts, and leaps out of his chair. Crossing the small, ruined room, he only pauses to take a quick peek out the window. The outside seems empty and peaceful, which is why he picked Southard to mount his operations. Turning away from the window, he addresses the lap top.
"Well, let's hear it, then."
"Of course, sir." The lap top chimes in a soft, female voice. The sound of a hard drive rebooting comes from within, then a darker, deeper voice erupts from it. The man in the room always forgets to turn down the volume from when he's playing video games.
"Unit Three Hundred and Three, you have a new objective. Once you are able to, proceed to these coordinates and purchase this book from the man at this location. It is a code key required to enter a construct outside of our control. Once inside this realm, your target will be the head program of this construct. Any hostiles you encounter are secondary targets, but you are authorized to use force as necessary.
The name of this construct is the Yuki Archive. It is a winter based place, meaning it never stops snowing, so you are advised to bring extra clothing for warmth.
Do you understand this mission?"
The man scratches his chin, and wonders if any of the nearby clothing vendors sell black arisaki leather coats. He has been looking for that coat ever since he received a purple version off of a...successful mission. He's jerked back to reality when the voice of the Agent begins breathing loudly.
"Sir, yes sir! Terminate head of operations in Yuki Archive, sir! I'll get right on it, sir."
There's a grunt of approval from the lap top, then the transmission is lost, leaving the man alone to ponder his next move. The lap top cheerfully remarks.
"Would you like to read the attachment?"
"No. How about you print me out a list of all the clothing shops and vendors? I have some searching to do." Outside, an old, rickety truck ambles by, with a pair of ravens on the back, cawing loudly.
"No. How about you print me out a list of all the clothing shops and vendors? I have some searching to do."
Outside, an old, rickety truck ambles by, with a pair of ravens on the back, cawing loudly.
"It's so ******* cold in here..."
"Shut up, I'm lining up the shot. Once we get him we can leave."
"You better not miss."
"I've only ever missed once."
"Well hurry up. Agent Gray's not known for his patience."
"He isn't? What the hell is he known for, then?"
"Being an Agent. Would you take the shot already?"
The spotter turns back to making a miniature snow man, his hands shaking in the cold, even when wearing a bloody pair of gloves he took off one of the ninja-like programs in the Yuki Archive. He sighs heavily, the air blowing from his mouth crystallizing on the frigid, false air. He arranges the snowmen in two rows, with one snow man standing in the middle, facing a second one. All but the snow man in the middle are shaped the same, but the one in the middle, the spotter dug three tiny dots on the back of his head, to keep track of him.
The spotter leans forward, and carefully drools a string of saliva on the two snowmen, then waits patiently. The saliva hardens in the freezing atmosphere, and he picks them up and begins to play with them, humming a song that sounds almost operatic.
The man with the rifle ignores his spotter and concentrates on the Target. It steps into view again, its red mask and large wings glinting in the light. Grinning, the soldier pulls the trigger.
Time slows to a stand still. The bullet grazes the side of a tree, shoots through the opening in a woman's ear ring, bounces off the side of the wall, and punctures the mask between the eyes. The Target falls backward with a crash, and his body guards spin towards the source of the shot, but all they see is a few lumps of snow.
"Spread out! Find them! Kill them!" The leader shouted.
"Time to go," the soldier grunts.
He turns back to find the spotter in a mini crater of snow, with a snow man in one hand, poised over another one spread on the bottom of the crater.
"What...are you doing?"
"Huh?" The spotter blinks, as if awakening from a trance.
"Oh, nothing. You make the shot?"
"Yeah. We gotta move, now, before his grunts find us--"
"There you are!"
A splitting pain runs up his leg. He looks down and grabs at the knife sticking through his calve. Pulling quickly and grunting with pain, he rips it out, and turns and nails the guard in the stomach with another round from his rifle. His spotter dashes up, grabs him under the arms, and begins pulling him back through the snow, leaving a trail of blood behind.
They arrive at the outpost near evening. The eternal blizzard's picked up, now, and one can barely see five feet in it. One of the Sentries near the outpost walks out and helps the spotter bring in the half-dead soldier.
"He needs medical attention, quickly!"
"He's too weak to transport back. We'll have to call in another redpill to help him. Place him in one of the huts. If he lives until tomorrow, he will have a chance."
The sentry turns and walks back towards the Archive Program, to establish a link to the main headquarters. The spotter is left to carry the soldier into the nearest hut.
A pair of crows land on the roof, cawing loudly.
Regaining conciousness is painful, the man on the table decides. He opens his eyes slowly to find...a woman's chest in front of him. The woman pulls back, notices he's awake, and smiles widely.
"Well, you're quite the lucky soldier, Ice man."
The man groans in pain, and looks down at his leg. It's in a splint, heavily bandaged. His memory comes slowly back to him. The Target. The knife. The blizzard. But nowhere in his memory can he find this woman. He turns his head slowly to her, and mumbles.
"Who are you?"
The woman giggles, then turns her attention to a laptop on the stand next to the cot. As she types away, a figure forms next to her. It's a simulacrum. Fully constructed, the program turns and begins to use medical program abilities on the cast leg. The woman turns back to the man with a smile.
"Hello, Ice man, my name's Ellalira, and I'll be your rejuvenator for the week."
Several things strike the man at once: how long he would be healing, the woman's strange name, her body, her voice, her hair...but the seductiveness is sapped away by his hard-core conditioning. He grunts, and tries to raise himself up on his elbows.
"Why do you keep calling me Ice man?"
"You don't have a name, I noticed. Just that silly I.D. So I call you by how I found you: covered in ice and still breathing! Your spotter isn't very good at medical attention."
The laptop chimes. The woman glances at the monitor, and frowns.
"Oh, looks like I'm being re-assigned. Toodles, Ice Man! Oh, and here's a message from the Gray dude!"
She clasps the laptop shut, and the program vanishes in a flash of light. She walks for the door, her hips swinging in a bizzare motion. The soldier on the cot decides that she's just trying to mess with his mind, and focuses instead on the recorder she left on the bed. He presses the Play button.
"Congratulations on finishing your assignment. My...condolonces on your injuries sustained after its completion. However, such things can not be predicted, and the only thing we can do is concentrate on our next assignment.
Your next target is a group of Exiles in Westview. They call themselves the Tokens. We expect you to make a full recovery in three days and have this mission complete in a week."
The soldier groans, and heaves himself out of the cot in a stiff motion. Three days? He can have the mission completed in that time. He stops and checks himself. His clothes are missing. He stands naked in the middle of the room, thinking about the strange woman, then finds a replacement suit and his rifle in a corner. He dons them and makes his way for the Archivist Program, pausing to make conversation with a few Sentries.
He takes target practice on a pair of ravens, missing both as they fly away, cawing loudly.
"Don't call me that."
"Great. Hello, Ellalira, Ditimriovski. Where's our first target?"
"So who do we have for backup?"
"Okay. Give me details. Which one is he?"
"Got it. Lining up the shot now."
"We've got company."
"All right, worms, from this day forward, you will have no name. No family. No life. You will only be referred to by your Unit Identification Numbers. Do I make myself clear?!"
The soldiers shouted in unison. "Sir, yes, sir!"
The Sargeant glared at the young cadets, resting his eyes on one in particular. His face gave a certain emotion of confidence or power, probably both.
"You! What are you looking at?!"
"Sir! Nothing, sir!"
"Then you must be looking in a mirror, maggot, because you are nothing! You no longer bear this name-" the Sargeant ripped off the tag and tossed it into the mud, leaving only the number below it. "- but instead, you will be referred to by you ID number! What is your name, boy?!"
"Sir! I have none, sir!"
"What are you going to be called now?!"
"SDF Unit 303, sir!"
"Excuse me?!"
"SIR, SDF Unit 303, SIR!"
"You have a problem with authority, runt. I'll make sure to rectify that problem by the end of the night! Give me fifty push ups, NOW!! The rest of you worms, listen carefully. In the course of action, you will be required to resort to melee combat instead of gunplay..........."
Sometimes unwanted memories surface as the soldier tries to remember his training. His posture is only good for the first blow in a self defense match. He will have to go on the offensive immediately after. He shifts his left foot so that it braces against the wall.
The Green Coin rushes forward, throwing his left fist against the soldier's out-stretched arm and bouncing off aimlessly, while his right hand is parried when the soldier kicks up his right foot and catches the Token square in the stomache. Staggered, the Token steps back, then whips around in a round-hosue kick. The soldier wraps his arms around the Token's leg, and spins him onto the floor. He stands over the Token, poised to kick in his head, when the Green Coin suddenly kicks up his legs again, straight into the soldier's chin and nose, in a spiral that puts him in a handstand. Spinning around, he whips his feet into the soldier's face over and over, until he falls back.
They both stand and face each other. The soldier kicks out his left foot, and the Token parries with his right foot, and strikes out his left arm, sweeping it across the soldier's chest. Trying to catch his balance, he throws his right arm at the Token's face. The Green Coin catches it with his free hand, and effortlessly spins it about. The bones in the wrist make a loud popping sound as it breaks, and the soldier flips through the air.
He falls on an old table, breaking it in a cloud of dust and falling further onto the floor. Blood gushes from his nose and into his mouth. It's warm.....and yet so cold.....so.........cold....
"What are you doing?! Get off of him!"
"I'm doing what I shoulda done a long time ago, Marien! This brat is the reason we're unhappy! This is the only way!"
"Killing him won't solve anything! Please, Charlie, your'e drunk! Put the gun down!"
"I want a happy life, Marien! This kid is sapping our lives away, can't ya feel it? We're broke as hell! He's a demon, he is, and I'll d*** well make sure he goes back to whence he came!"
The six year old boy sat frozen in the corner by the great statue of his father with a shot gun pointed at his heart. The man reeked of alcohol, his normally rugged facial hair a tangle of spindly hairs. His eyes were blood-red from heavy drinking, and his hands could both easily crush a mastiff's neck.
His mother had soft, auburn hair. Her face was narrow, and her ribs would show when she breathed too deeply, a sign of lack of eating. She gave what little food she had to her little boy.
She jumped on the mountainous man's back and scratched at his eyes. The two parents fell in a mass of flailing punches and kicks aimed at nothing. The boy couldn't stop watching, fear freezing him in place, preventing him from speaking.
A shot pierced the sky.
The lumbering hulk rolls away from the bloody corpse of his one true love. Cursing, the man turned and headed out the back door, as police sirens grew in the distance. Transfixed by the sight of his mother's life just draining away in the middle of the floor, the boy stared at the spot in absolute horror. The earliest memories he would ever have are of his father's cruel face and the death of his mother, caused by a simple drunken dispute. The husband was never apprehended, and the child sent away to a military orphanage, without even a thought about a psychiatric hospital trip.
Sometimes, late at night, the boy would have a nightmarish flashback of that fated night, even as he endured his stay at a military academy, in the cold, cold rain. The cold....yet warm.....so.....warm.....
The soldier coughs up blood onto the floor. He can't move his legs. He's paralyzed temporarily from the black-out. Reaching out blindly, he grabs a handful of dust, and turns to fling it at the Token. He stops, and stares at the face of familiar man. The world blackens out, leaving just him and the lumbering hulk poised with a sniper rifle at his heart.
He throws the dust in the Token's eyes. It rubs furiously at its eyes, dropping the rifle. The soldier hollers in rage and rushes the token.
Block. Parry. Parry. Block. Attack. Military training a simple reflex action. The Token, still blinded by dust, kicks out his left foot. The soldier blocks it with his right leg, and brings up his left knee into the Token's stomache. As it doubles over in pain, he brings up his right hand, balled tightly into a fist, and smashes into its nose. The sound of bones breaking is lost in the bellow of rage as the man begins pulverising the Token's face. Punch after punch after punch, he continues until after its face is nothing but a bloody mask of splintered bones...and keeps punching. Blow, after blow, after blow. The left eye explodes under pressure, and a mass of bloody eye-gore splashes about. Snot flows as freely as blood from the remains of the nose. He tears his hands on the few remaining teeth in its mouth as he punches into the back of the throat.
Ellalira pops her head out of the hole in the floor.
"Ice Man, come on, we don't have time for....this...."
"He killed her. He killed her and they wouldn't arrest him. Blamed it on me. All on me. You know you killed her, you b******!! **** you, and burn in hell!"
"Ice Man!!!"
He snaps out of his trance. Looking down, he spies his bloody knuckles. The bones in his hands are also broken, on the face of the now-dead Exile. Before the woman in the exit tunnel opening can say anything, he picks up his rifle and dashes down into the hole. He pauses and turns back to stare at the scene he leaves behind. A group of Tokens with bullets in them, and one Green Coin without a face. This would not go under the list of successful operations. He turns back and starts climbing down the steep decline into the vast exit tunnels for emergency maneuvers.
A pair of black crows hop into the room through the open door, and begin picking at the remainder of the Green Coin's left eye.
