This is a little something I cooked up before I headed to work today. The events herein take place on the Vector server but have no basis for anything that has happened in-game... yet. :smileyhappy: Enjoy!
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Chapter 1
Another Day in the Office…
The downtown district never slept. There was always something going on. Businesses opened, did their normal routine, and shut down in the mechanical routine most people are used to. Security guards watched everyone that came in and patrolled the grounds late into the night. Helicopters flew overhead in lazy circles, seemingly aware of all and yet unaware of the smallest details until they became too blaringly obvious.
On a balcony of one of the buildings here, a lone figure stood watch. She was dressed strangely for this part of downtown; she would've looked more at home a few blocks away at Club Hel… or maybe Club Duality. The outfit was all black; her knee-high boots and zippered low-rise leather pants clung tightly to her legs. Her shirt barely covered her abundant chest, leaving her midriff exposed. The crocodile-skin trench coat billowed open in the wind, exposing her to the elements…
… But she wasn't cold. She never let something as simple as the weather get to her. Not while she was jacked in and on a mission.
ZipperQueen raised the digital binoculars to her eyes one last time. She was looking for a particular person; her employers wanted that person dead, deleted from this digital landscape. She had tracked her target – she never learned their names – downtown towards the MetaCortex building. From her perch nearly thirty stories up, she caught her prey inside of her lenses.
“There you are,” she murmured. With her free hand, she tapped the Bluetooth earpiece on her left ear. “Operator, commence recording,” she ordered. Once the recording began, she dropped the binoculars to the floor and leapt off of the building.
Morpheus had put it best: “You have to let it all go. Free your mind.” As she flew upwards towards a sky that didn't even exist outside a computer server somewhere on the surface-hell that was once known as Earth, she felt her mind relax. She had a job to do. Nothing would get in her way. He would taste the fury of her fists, drown in his own blood.
The jump's arc leveled off and gravity took hold. ZipperQueen spread her arms and leaned back, allowing her body to flip backwards ever so slowly. As she became vertical, her face hurtling towards the ground, she caught sight of her target again. A tall stature, dark hair, and a white lab coat identified the target. And there was the suitcase her employer had requested. Everything was as it should be.
Another twist through the air allowed the tall assassin to continue her descent feet first. With only a few seconds remaining in her descent, she mentally prepped the routines she would need for her work. She heard someone scream from below and cursed under her breath. She had been spotted.
No matter. The target was too busy getting the keys out of his pocket to look up.
The hyper-jump ended with a sickening crunch of breaking concrete and metal. The concussion wave knocked the hapless bluepill target off of his feet and flat on his back. ZipperQueen turned her head to reacquire her target. Her left hand reached to her hip and pulled a short curved blade from a hidden sheath.
With a speed that only could be described as magic, ZipperQueen ran up to the bluepill, sliced his throat, removed the hand attached to the suitcase by a pair of handcuffs – “How unimaginative!” her employer would comment later – and was airborne again before anyone could see who had committed the deed. She didn't look back… there was no need to. The mission was halfway complete; now all she had to do was get the case back to Club Hel before agents – or worse yet, other redpills in their employ – got to her.
Her leap ended a little short of the balcony. ZipperQueen grabbed the railing, hoisted herself over it, and ran for the door on the other side. Once she was through the door, she slammed it shut and paused only for a second. “Operator, did you get that?”
“Perfect, Zip. The Frenchman will be very pleased,” a disembodied voice responded in her ear. “Oops, spoke too soon. Looks like cops on your trail.”
ZipperQueen cursed again. The agents' lapdogs were always getting in her way. She vaulted down a flight of stairs, kicked open the door, and came through with a submachine gun in one hand and the suitcase in the other. No one greeted her. The elevator was just a few meters away, so she ran for it.
As she approached, the doors began to open. ZipperQueen pivoted her hips so she was facing the elevator, pushed off with her back leg, and reflexively emptied a clip into the elevator car. Bullets ricocheted inside the building; she heard at least three bullets hit something other than metal or plaster. As she passed by the elevator, she saw two security guards – both dead – and a SWAT officer. The SWAT officer was still alive; his ballistic vest had something to do with that.
ZipperQueen rolled through her landing and came back up ready to fight. SWAT-boy obliged, sending a pair of shotgun shells her way. The shots were way off mark. ZipperQueen braced her weapon with her other hand, fired a three-round burst into the elevator, and heard a dead SWAT officer hit the ground. Perfect.
“Dammit, Operator, I need an exit!” she yelled as she bounded for the elevator. The elevator door slid shut, and ZipperQueen pressed the button for the lobby.
“Go for the basement, ZQ. It has a secret tunnel that leads straight to Hel,” the operator advised her.
“Have I ever told you how much you rock?” she asked as she hit the basement button and felt the elevator move.
Message Edited by ZipperQueen on 03-23-200604:57 PM
Chapter 2
The Big Job
Club Duality was packed for a Thursday. Even the regulars had to wait in line. That wasn't the case for the VIP's; they got in quickly and without fuss. Of course, the rest of the crowd was pissed when that happened. However, a quick look from the rather mean, Mohawk-bearing bouncers kept everyone in line.
The VIP section had only a couple of visitors tonight. ZipperQueen was decked out in her usual clubbing gear – tight and shiny crocodile skin pants, the same croc trench she wore just an hour before during her mission, a black tank top, and a pair of zip-up black knee-high boots. She sat in the couch and lazily smoked a Double Destiny cigarette – they weren't real, but they did the job without side effects. At least the Machines got that part right.
The other visitor sat across from ZipperQueen. He was a lanky male with green hair – the bluepills thought it was hair dye, but Zip knew otherwise – and he wore a business suit. This man was Xeros, commander of Les Enfants Terribles, one of the most dangerous (and fun-loving) groups that threw their cards in with the Merovingian. The Frenchman rewarded their efforts with only the best software and… benefits. And loads of information, too. That always helped.
“So, the hit went off without any problems?” Xeros asked.
“Easier than taking candy from a baby.” ZipperQueen flicked the cigarette, took a final drag off of it, and snuffed it out in the ashtray. “I sure hope what that bluepill was carrying was important. I just hate killing off coppertops.”
“It must have been. He only sends us out for the important **bleep**,” Xeros mused. “Oh well. As long as it doesn't affect me or the rest of L.E.T., I could care less what was in there.”
“Amen to that.” Zip smiled and leaned back in the couch. “So, what's the plan for the rest of the night, boss?”
Xeros shook his head. “Same old, same old. Got to do some maintenance on the Cania before the grav lifts go out again. We could really use your help over there.”
ZipperQueen closed her eyes and groaned with irritation. Their lone hoverbarge, the Cania, was one of the first Zion had pressed back into service after the war ended. It was also one of the first to go missing thanks to Xeros. It was like an old horse just waiting to get put down. It was also the only ship the faction had that could handle everyone jacked in at once… and that made it valuable.
“I'll get over there in a little bit,” she replied.
Xeros gave ZipperQueen his best convincing stare. “Zip…” It worked; ZipperQueen had to agree to come by as soon as she jacked out. Xeros laughed and the two operatives parted ways.
ZipperQueen decided even though she had to jack out soon, she was going to enjoy the moment while she could. As Xeros headed out the back door towards the VIP balcony, she whipped out another Double Destiny and fired it up. Gray acidic smoke filled the air as she closed her eyes and exhaled the virtual smoke.
Over the pulsing techno music, she heard footsteps entering the VIP area. ZipperQueen focused on the sound, filtering it out from the hundred-decibel noise emanating from the speakers… dress shoes. She turned her head ever so slightly and took another drag from her cigarette. “VIP's only, bud. I'm afraid I'll have to ask you leave,” she warned the visitor.
“I’m always VIP, Ms. Adamsdottir,” was the stranger’s response.
ZipperQueen spun around, dropped her cigarette, and reached inside her trench coat. Before her eyes met the agent’s face, she already had her twin Nishiki Furies out and their safeties disengaged. The agent stood there, nonchalantly regarding her submachine guns and readiness for combat. His hands remained at his side, empty and open.
Zip wasn’t buying it; she kept her weapons aimed straight at the agent’s tie tacks. “That was a bluepill I knocked off today, not one of your precious Jokerz. It’s not like the Matrix is gonna crash in the next five minutes, anyway. So what the hell are you doing here… harassing me?” she asked angrily.
“Ms. Adamsdottir, I am not here about Mr. Reginald.” The agent took a step forward; ZipperQueen tightened her grip on her weapons in reflex and felt her trigger fingers tighten as well. She could not handle an agent... not a full-blown one. The N3O agents were cheap imitations; the red-lensed agents were even easier. No, this one was one of the full-on bad-asses that only Neo – the late Neo – could handle. “I wish to speak to you about a… business proposition. You… do handle business with other entities, don’t you, Ms. Adamsdottir?” the agent asked.
“Stop calling me that, dammit,” ZipperQueen hissed. “Guinevere Adamsdottir died over a year ago when I was extracted from the Matrix. I don’t want to be reminded of that life.”
The agent was still standing there, staring at the beautiful woman that was pointing a pair of loaded fully automatic submachine guns at him. Why doesn’t he just attack me? ZipperQueen fought to keep her confusion off of her face. This is an Agent…a **bleep**ing Agent of the System! What the **bleep** is his major malfunction…
“I understand your hesitation, Ms. Adams… ZipperQueen,” the agent replied with a small sign of regret. “If you decide to be receptive, please meet me here tomorrow afternoon before the club opens. I will be waiting.” With that, the agent turned and walked away; ZipperQueen kept her weapons aimed at the agent’s back the whole time.
Her cell phone broke the tension. ZipperQueen put her guns away and whipped out the phone in a fury. “ZQ here.”
“Zip, Villemar. What the hell just happened?” Villemar was Zip’s ship captain and closest friend.
“I’m not sure yet, V. Something buggy is going on here, and I don’t know what yet. I just had an agent come up to Duality and ask me if he could conduct business with me,” she explained.
“What the… OK, that is buggy. Let’s talk face to face about this,” Villemar ordered.
“I’m already out the door,” ZipperQueen replied.
Message Edited by ZipperQueen on 03-23-200611:52 PM
Chapter 3
A Door Opens
The next day, ZipperQueen found herself pacing outside Club Duality. The jump up to the VIP balcony was easy enough to make; she had done it over a hundred times before. It was her accomplice that she had issues with.
It was nothing new to make deals with the Machines. The Merovingian always held the belief that if you helped someone that they would return the favor... even if you took them for everything they had in the process. It was the illusion of assistance, like the illusion of choice, which lead people back to the Merovingian and his network.
Now it was all Zip could do to avoid dwelling about how she was about to meet with one of the most dangerous beings in the Matrix. She checked her chronograph one last time. Club Duality’s employees would start showing up soon, and the agent was late. ZipperQueen lit her last Double Destiny in irritation and puffed on it.
Zip heard the crunch of a completed hyper-jump behind her. She didn’t look behind her or even flinch. “You’re late,” she said in disdain. The sound of dress shoes dragging across concrete responded.
“I’m never late. That and I never actually stated the exact minute I would arrive,” the agent said dryly. The agent walked up beside ZipperQueen, and they gazed out over the city for a moment.
“So… what is it you want, anyway?” ZipperQueen asked.
The agent moved his hand into his jacket. Zip knew agents kept their sidearms tucked away in their jackets… on the left side. This agent was reaching to his right inside jacket pocket. ZipperQueen kept an eye on his hand anyway; the Machines were imaginative creatures, so there might have been a left-handed agent out there.
The agent knelt down and placed a small device on the ground. “You might want to remove your headset,” he warned after touching the top of the egg-shaped metallic object. Zip examined it briefly and removed her Bluetooth headset right before the white noise maker fully activated, blanketing Club Duality with impenetrable static.
Across the street, another figure kept a parabolic microphone pointed at Club Duality. When the white noise generator started up, the watchman quickly turned off his equipment. Villemar reached for his cell phone; his eyes never left Club Duality. “I sure hope you know what the hell you’re doing, Zip,” he said aloud as he dialed for his operator.
About ten minutes later, ZipperQueen pulled out her cell phone.
“What the hell, Zip? You didn’t have to cut me off from logging the conversation!” Villemar was ticked. Xeros had told him to keep an eye on the rising star within their faction; now he had absolutely nothing to take back to the faction’s leader.
“I had nothing to do with it, V. It was his preference. Besides, he used a white noise generator... I had to disco to make sure I didn't end up deaf. In any case, I have a new job to undertake… and I’m gonna need everyone’s help to do this. Are you red or blue on this?”
Villemar sighed aloud and shook his head. “Let’s discuss it at the next faction meeting.”
Message Edited by ZipperQueen on 03-27-200610:15 PM
Chapter 4
Double Agent Tango
All of Les Enfants Terribles was packed on the hoverbarge Cania. Every chair had a redpill jacked in to the Matrix. Every RSI was thronged into a small restaurant in the International District. The dive was owned by an Exile that owed L.E.T. a favor; that favor was some privacy.
"Lemme get this straight," one redpill asked, "This guy is a former agent and he wants us to get his sword back from the Merovingian?"
"Short answer: Yes, ininja, that's exactly what he wants us to do," ZipperQueen responded.
"And how much does he expect to pay for your services?" Villemar had this question.
"Seventy-five million, plus some information about the Merovingian that could be rather... damning." ZipperQueen grabbed a chair and sat down facing the back of the chair, her legs spread open seductively - an old habit from her bluepill days. Good thing she was wearing pants. "Half of it goes to the faction, of course."
"And this former agent expects you to just give him his sword?" This was Montoia, L.E.T.'s resident assassin extraordinaire.
"Get real, Monty. This is an opportunity to do more than make money," was Zip's response. "I have the chance to get my hands on an agent's weapon code structures. If we could study it, reverse-engineer it... hell, if we could copy it..."
"You've thought this through," Xeros said with a smile. ZipperQueen returned the smile and nodded. "All right, Zip, I approve this operation." With that done, Xeros began to divide the operation into logical parts.
Montoia's job would be to get into the Merovingian's chateau and retrieve the sword. Of course, a missing sword would be easily noticed; she would need to make an exact copy of its code structures. Luckily, Montoia had plenty of coding experience herself. ininja, Villemar, Spadz - an accomplished martial artist and coder like Zip - and ZipperQueen would be backup in case the mission went south.
Next on the list would be studying the weapon and making viable copies. ZipperQueen would handle that along with Montoia and Spadz. Once a firm code structure template was established, the new weapons would be distributed amongst the entire faction.
The last step was the exchange: One agent's weapon for seventy-five million $info and - hopefully - something L.E.T. could use in the Merovingian's favor... or sell to the highest bidder. ZipperQueen would handle that with ininja and Villemar watching from a distance. Mavrix, one of L.E.T.'s gun bunnies (read: she was good with guns), would set up a sniper position to make sure agents didn't interfere.
Everything seemed to be in place as the redpills left the restaurant. ZipperQueen was the last to leave. As she headed for the hardline, she heard footsteps behind her. Dress shoes. Zip turned left into an alleyway, pressed her back up against a wall, and drew her assassination blade. She made her move when the shoes came around the corner.
ZipperQueen placed the stranger's left arm into a hammer lock, spun him around, and roughly shoved her blade's tip into her target's throat. It was until the man was secured that ZipperQueen noticed who he was... an agent. The agent roughly shoved an elbow into her gut, reversed the hammer lock, and had her on the ground before she could react. "That wasn't very efficient, Ms. Adamsdottir," the familiar voice told her.
In between gasps of pain, ZipperQueen managed to gasp her attacker's name: "Agent... Gray?"
"You remember me. Good. We have much to discuss, Ms. Adamsdottir," he continued. "But as long as you remain combative, you must remain in this position. Do you understand?"
"Yes, goddammit. And quit calling me by my bluepill name. You know how much I hate that." Agent Gray pulled ZipperQueen up and released his grip before passing her blade back to her. ZipperQueen sheathed the blade and rubbed her sore shoulder until it stopped hurting... which didn't take long. "You also know how much I hate it when you don't call before you visit."
"Efficiency dictated that I visit you without proper warning. There is a problem we wish you to... handle for us. Doing so will reduce your threat level within the Machine organization." Agent Gray waited for ZipperQueen to acknowledge this before going on. "You will find further information on this task at the Murasaki Central hardline; a bluepill named Yamakyoto will give you the mission dossier. You may also forward any questions you have to him."
ZipperQueen nodded. When an Agent asked you to do something, you pretty much did it without asking questions. That didn't mean you had to do it blindly... it was a matter of life or death, but stupidity would get you killed just as quickly as an agent could. "All right, Gray. I'll give you a call when I finish going over the info."
"Good," Agent Gray said to end the conversation. He turned to leave, but ZipperQueen told him to wait. Agent Gray cocked his head to the side in response.
"Do you ever... think about when you knew me as a bluepill?" she asked. Agent Gray blinked in surprise and turned to face the Merovingian operative.
"Ms. Adamsdottir, to recall those files would be an inefficent use of resources. With that said, I would like to point out it doesn't take very long to recall those files and go through them. Your ability to make male humans... long after you... was quite impressive." ZipperQueen smiled when Agent Gray replied; she swore she heard a little bit of emotion in his voice... perhaps agents could be seduced as well.
"I'll take that as a 'Yes'," ZipperQueen said in farewell.
vex5 wrote:This stuff is great, have you ever thought about writing professionally?
Message Edited by ZipperQueen on 04-06-200602:02 AM
Chapter 7: Extract This!
Zip couldn't tell Villemar about Agent Gray and The Oracle. Not yet. There were too many questions that needed to be answered, and she didn't feel comfortable going to him without a good idea of what was going on.
No, she didn't need to worry about both of them. Just Agent Gray. Gray was a powerful foe and just as powerful as a friend. Even though the Machines considered her a threat and was to be killed on sight, Gray always felt that she had some potential - probably because of their experiences when Zip was a bluepill. It was yet another secret she kept hidden away, a silver bullet for use only when she needed it.
Right now, she had to worry about Montoia. She had already entered the Chateau and was working her way down into its lengthy catacombs. Fog had no idea where the sword would be kept within the Catacombs - after all, he was just an Exile now - but Montoia had a little bit of a hunch to work with.
Zip touched her Bluetooth headset for the fifth time in just as many minutes. "Montoia?" The secure, heavily encoded comm-link system scrambled the signal, sent it through the Matrix code, and straight to Montoia's ear.
Montoia's impatient voice came back over the headset. "Chill, Zip. I've got three more dungeon rooms to check." ZipperQueen nodded and licked her lips. ininja, Spadz, Villemar, and Zip were waiting in an antechamber; the Merovingian was busy "attending to other matters"... most likely he was trying to get Persephone to forgive him for yet another indiscretion of the flesh. Hopefully they wouldn't be called from the room very soon...
Montoia picked the lock on the first of three rooms and gingerly pushed the door open. A quick peek inside confirmed the suitcase was indeed there. She slid into the room and closed the door behind her.
In a security room two levels above the catacombs, the blooddrinker security guards were intently feeding upon a bluepill that Flood had brought for them. The only thing the vampires could hear was the pounding of blood flowing over their lips and the young woman's weakening moans of delirium; the clicking alarm light on the camera screen terminal had no chance of distracting them.
"I'm in," Montoia whispered. She dropped her stealth protocols and quickly moved towards the case. Another lock-pick opened the case. Montoia opened the suitcase, stared inside it for a second, and snapped it shut. "Zip, we have a problem here. The sword...
"It's incomplete." ZipperQueen furrowed her brow in confusion. Montoia's voice kept coming through the link: "All I've got is a handle and a hilt... wait a sec... woah. This is different."
"What?" Zip asked intently. "What's going on, Montoia?" ininja, Villemar, and Spadz looked at Zip, hoping for an answer. All four redpills stood up just as the anteroom door opened. A well-dressed lupine was at the door.
"The Merovingian will see you... where did the other young lady go?" the lupine said in confusion.
Everything was falling apart.
ininja was the first to react to the lupine's question. "Huh?" he said in a monotone. The lupine looked back at ininja quizzically, and that slightest hesitation gave ZipperQueen enough time to throw a silver-plated knife into the lupine's eye.
As the lupine fell, the four redpills began to pull out all kinds of weapons, preparing themselves for the battle ahead. ininja began throwing beneficial program routines towards the others, as did Villemar. Zip had her hand up to her Bluetooth headset: "Montoia? Montoia, report. Dammit! Operator, send in the contingency team, situation critical. Prep an extraction team as well."
"Roger that, ZQ. Contingency team, you have a go. Zone is hot; I repeat, zone is hot," the operator said into his microphone. He turned to his left and let the person standing behind him know that things just went south. Xeros nodded and headed back to the rows of jack-in chairs behind him.
Montoia was beside herself. Literally. It was almost if the sword had generated a proxy-like copy of her RSI. Montoia and Montoia-Copy looked at each other for a few seconds in silence. "What the hell?" Montoia asked in disbelief.
"What the hell yourself," Montoia-Copy replied.
"I picked up a sword, not a copy of Exact Copy Proxy 0.9," Montoia joked half-heartedly.
"You still picked up a sword," her copy replied. "But I am much more than that. You see, I detected your RSI's basic code structure when you touched me. You are not my Master Fog. In fact... you are no Agent... and you are no program, either. What is going on here?"
"No time to explain," Montoia shot back. "Right now, you're in danger - I can't believe I'm talking to a sword! Ahem. I'm here to get you out of here."
Montoia-Copy nodded in understanding and motioned towards the door. "Lead the way."
The contingency team was built around the assumption that things would just go wrong. Mavrix led the team along with Elome, Ambrosine, Tseng, and QforQ. All five were accomplished Matrix hackers and gun-fighters. It was QforQ that burst the chateau's double doors wide open with a devastation field attack. As the doors splintered and shredded into the lobby, Tseng and Mavrix came in with weapons raised. Elome threw a smoke grenade in after them as Ambrosine walked in; her twin silenced sub-machine guns were already slicing through the smoke, laser sights looking for a target. QforQ brought up the rear.
"Operator, the contingency team is in the house," Mavrix said with a smile.
The devastation field startled everyone in the chateau. The security guards dropped their dying bluepill prey and saw two lights blinking on their console. The first was the chateau's lobby breach warning light. The second was for the catacombs' security system. Both areas had been compromised. One of the blooddrinkers cursed; fresh blood dripped off of his lower lip as he activated the alarm.
The Merovingian was talking to his wife, Persephone, but it wasn't about any recent escapades with beautiful bluepills or more exotic fare. When the chateau's front doors were torn to shreds, the Merovingian stopped in mid-sentence and squinted. "What in ze hell?" A few seconds later, the alarm went off, and the Merovingian knew that his chateau had been breached for the third time in a year.
"Dammit! Can't those idiot vampires do anything right?! *CENSORED*!" As he walked towards the door, he grabbed a pair of submachine guns. As he kicked open the doors from his bedroom, he began barking orders to the running lupines, nightmares, and blooddrinkers around him: "Secure the catacombs! Close off the east and west wings! Leave no intruder alive!"
Montoia and her copy were already out the door when the alarm went off, moving quickly through the catacombs. Montoia-Copy was looking around, trying to see if she had ever seen such a place before, while the original Montoia stayed in a crouch, cautiously looking for anything that may get in the way.
The two assassins - Montoia guessed her copy had an assassin loadout - rounded the corner and saw their first obstacle approaching. In fact, as Montoia would describe it later, it didn't approach; it rose out from the ground. Two ghost-like figures seemed to coalesce and rise out of the stone floor. Their angry features and wispy clothing were unmistakable and exact copies of each other.
The Twins resumed their solid forms; they looked like they did when Morpheus and Neo first encountered them nearly one year ago. Their pasty white skin and sunglasses regarded the twin Montoias before them. "Who the hell are these guys?" Montoia-Copy asked aloud.
Montoia was surprised and, to be honest, a little scared. "The Twins. The original Twins. I thought Morpheus took them out!"
"That's right," Twin 1 whispered just loud enough for them to hear. "You thought. You've been a naughty girl."
"And you know what happens to naughty girls," Twin 2 whispered in perfect time.
Meanwhile, ZipperQueen and the original team were making their way towards the catacombs. Bursts of sub-machine gun fire punctuated their path of travel, as did dead bodies. Silver casings, wood splinters, and broken bottles of holy water lay scattered like old trash in the Richland slums.
A blooddrinker made the mistake of dropping down upon the group. ZipperQueen was in the middle of the group; she felt the danger approaching before anyone else did. ZQ planted her front foot in the ground and leaned forward. Her back leg extended straight up and caught the dropping vampire squarely in the gut; he folded neatly in half and literally bounced back up in the air.
As ZipperQueen felt the weight on her leg reduce, she spun down to the ground and drew a wooden stake from her coat. When her feet were both on the ground, she leapt up towards the still-airborne vampire, grabbed the vampire's neck and skewered it on the elongated stake. A final drop-kick punctuated the fight and sent the vampire skittering along the polished stone floor. ZQ landed after a graceful back-flip and a flourish of her trenchcoat.
Spadz whistled approvingly at this few seconds of action. Zip looked back at him and smiled coyly. "Learned from the best, babe," she said in approval.
"Come on, people," Villemar told the group. "We still have to get Montoia and the sword out of here before things get really dicey."
Zip looped her gray and white hair behind her ear and touched her Bluetooth headset. "Team 2, this is Team 1. What's your 20?"
Mavrix leveled her rifle and put another three bullets into a charging lupine. The lupine kept coming, of course - lead bullets didn't work too well on werewolves. Mavrix pivoted to the left and brought her rifle off of her shoulder. The lupine shot right past her; Mavrix finished the spinning maneuver and butt-stroked the lupine right in the back of his hairy head. She kept the motion going and slashed the lupine with her silver bayonet.
QforQ and Elome were busily tossing area hacks down a long hallway that lead to the west wing of the chateau; beyond the Exiles' hasty defensive position was ZipperQueen's team and the catacombs. Red code explosions and purple raining code distorted the reality around them; Exile bodies littered the hallway before them.
"Switch!" QforQ commanded. At that, Tseng and Ambrosine took Q and Elome's place. The new combatants opened fire with pistols and sub-machine guns, laying down covering fire so the two hackers could recover their energy reserves. A blooddrinker was caught in the crossfire and simply exploded into a cloud of blood and code.
"Team 1, Team 2," Mavrix responded. "We got held up at the entrance to the west wing. You're on your own, Zip." Mavrix took a knee and launched a wooden stake into another vampire, dropping it with one shot. As she reloaded her pneumatic stake gun, she hoped that ZipperQueen could find another way out, as this path was the only way in or out of the west wing and the catacombs.
ZipperQueen sighed in frustration. Mavrix's team was behind ZQ's team and Montoia was somewhere below Team 1. The entrance to the catacombs was very close by... so that made the only choice very obvious.
"Montoia, what's your status?" Zip asked.
"A little BUSY HERE!!!!" Montoia yelled in frustration.
In a normal two-on-two fight, Montoia could wipe the floor with both opponents without much help. The Twins, however, were dead-on in their own timing, phasing out as Montoia's knives flew through the air and moving just out of position so she couldn't bring them down quickly. Montoia-Copy was trying to do the same thing and having no luck as well.
"If you've got an idea, I'd definitely like to hear it!" Montoia yelled at her clone. Montoia-Copy leaped over Twin 2 (or was it Twin 1?) and spun around to look at the redpill that rescued her. Copy's face was unmistakably frustrated.
"I can't touch them!" Montoia-Copy blocked another kick and tried for a takedown, but the Twin simply phased out again. This time, Montoia-Copy followed through her spinning sweep and managed to plant an elbow squarely in this Twin's back. A flash of code resulted, and suddenly Twin 2 found himself sprawled on his face.
"Ow," Twin 1 whispered. "You'll pay for that, little girl."
Montoia-Copy had a broad smile on her face now. "Now you can take them down, my friend," she told Montoia. Montoia-Copy faded into a bright blue ball of code that streamed into Montoia's right hand. Montoia stood there as the code ball coalesced and stretched back out into a sword-like shape. Twin 2 managed to regain his footing as the sword solidified.
Montoia now held what looked like a twisted version of a scimitar. Extra barbs poked out from both sides of the hilt-less blade, which was already four feet long without the extra jagged points and sweeping curve. The blade itself was jet black, as was its handle and pommel.
On board the hoverbarge Cania, the operator leaned forward and felt his buys widen in surprise. The code on his screen looked like an Agent had just entered the area... but it was different somehow. It wasn't like the Agents he was used to seeing. "What the bloody---"
Montoia felt the sword in her hand; it was light and balanced. She whipped it around once or twice to get a better feel for it as the Twins stood there, realizing exactly what was happening for the first time.
"Oh."
"Crap."
Message Edited by ZipperQueen on 05-02-2006 11:38 AM
Message Edited by ZipperQueen on 05-02-2006 11:39 AM
Montoia wasted no time; neither did the Twins. As Montoia charged towards her two opponents, the Twins quickly phased out and began dropping through the floor again. Their descent was too slow, and Montoia managed to slash upwards through Twin 1's chest and head.
Why she did it, she couldn't recall later; she knew that no physical object could harm the Twins when they were in their ghostly forms. She didn't know (at the time) how deadly this sword was when it had generated a killcode. The Twins did know - they were both former intelligence gathering programs that knew the Matrix inside and out; they worked with the first iteration's angelic Agents.
Back in the present, Twin 1 was split cleanly in half from his sternum upwards. Wispy puffs of blood and code flew everywhere as the first Twin began to dissipate into nothingness. Twin 2 saw this and somehow disappeared completely before Montoia could turn around to finish the job.
"Holy.... " Montoia couldn't believe it. She had just killed one of the Twins, one of the Merovingian's untouchable henchmen! The other one got away... but at least she was still alive. "Team 1, this is Montoia... I'm clear, and I have the sword. Request immediate evac, over," she said quickly as she began running for the stairs.
"Roger that, Montoia. Operator, mission complete. Begin extraction now," ZipperQueen said over her Bluetooth headset.
One by one, members of both teams began to wink out of existence, pulled through the Matrix code back to a secure location somewhere in Mega City. Montoia went first, naturally. Then Xeros began to summon members of Team 2. QforQ and Tseng added their skills to the extraction process when they arrived.
ZipperQueen was the last to be extracted. She held up her hands in surrender as a phalanx of Exiles came running up to her. A shouted voice in the distance stopped them from mowing her down; the Merovingian himself came around the corner a few seconds later. When ZQ met her employer's eyes, she could see the absolute confusion and fury within them. For the first time, she thought the Merovingian had been caught with his pants down.... but not literally.
"You? Why... why did you do this nonsense? ANSWER ME!" he demanded.
ZipperQueen shrugged. "This is bigger than you, bigger than me, bigger than Neo ever was," she explained. "I will explain it all to you... but now is not the time."
Both of the Frenchman's weapons came up at that last statement. Their laser sights bored through the air towards ZipperQueen's forehead. "You will explain now, or I will kill you where you stand, ZipperQueen. You know what I have in these guns will do exactly that."
In her ear, ZQ heard the operator saying that everyone else was extracted and that her turn would be coming shortly. The Merovingian redpill smiled broadly in response.
"You'll have to find me first, boss. See ya around."
The Frenchman's face screwed up in anger. "KILL THAT **bleep**!!!" As guns began to blaze from all directions, the extraction program Xeros was running kicked in. ZipperQueen felt her gut pull violently up through the ceiling as her vision went dark. Silence, darkness, and cold followed for a few seconds before she rematerialized inside another familiar building.
ZipperQueen breathed a sigh of relief and dropped to the ground. She had taken more than a few bullets before she was fully pulled out of the area... nothing life threatening, but she would be hurting for a couple of hours after she jacked out. Xeros helped her back on her feet and towards the nearby hardline.
Message Edited by ZipperQueen on 05-17-2006 07:57 PM
Chapter 8Surgically Attached at the Hip... and the Spinal Cord
"We have a problem."
Back on the HvBrg Cania, everyone was resting and pulling themselves out of their jack-in terminals. Everyone except Montoia. She was still jacked in; her eyes were racing left and right underneath her eyelids. The Cania's operator, Xeros, and ZipperQueen were standing over her terminal, checking her life signs.
"This is amazing. It reminds me of the archive tapes we got when Bane was absorbed by Agent Smith. The only real difference is that the sword's AI and personality algorithms aren't overwriting Montoia's... it's like they're almost merging together," the operator was explaining with a mad scientist's glee. "Truly amazing!"
"Whatever, Spock," was ZipperQueen's terse reply. "Can we stop it?"
"Stop it? I doubt that. At best I can slow it down with some firewalls and port blocks. It's too late to stop it," the operator said with a sad smile. "Then again, why would we want to stop it? We were supposed to copy this thing, right? We need to understand--"
ZipperQueen slapped the operator across his face, stopping his dreams of experimenting with Montoia and this rogue AI. "Would you like to be the one in there getting your soul re-written by some program? No? Good. Shut the hell up," ZQ growled to the operator.
"Enough, you two," Xeros ordered. Zip helpd the operator back on his feet. "As long as the sword is trying to merge with its owner, we can't copy it. Am I right?" The operator nodded and winced as his left cheek began to redden.
"Operator, get Montoia into the loading area. Zip, you and Spadz jack in and see what you can do about this." ZipperQueen nodded and headed back to her terminal. "One more thing, Zip... if you fail, you know what we'll have to do."
ZQ nodded, rubbed her sore neck, and headed back to her chair to jack back in. Spadz walked by her to the next chair. Within a few seconds, they were both jacked in and inside the loading area.
Montoia was lying on her back in the white purity that represented the loading area. She knew that something was wrong, but she couldn't seem to do anything about it. It was almost... pleasurable. She felt like she was dreaming about sex in the middle of the night.
She remembered killing one of the Twins... being yanked from the chateau into Club Duality... hurriedly stowing the sword inside her coat... and trying to jack out. After that, things got kinda blurry. Now she was here... in the loading area.
Two bursts of code caught her attention even though she couldn't turn her head to acknowledge them. Spadz and ZipperQueen saw Montoia lying on her back, clutching the sword tightly in one hand. The sword was covered in blue fire and code that streamed up Montoia's arm, shoulder, and neck.
Spadz moved forward to Montoia and reached for her head. An arc of blue energy snapped from the sword like a whip, slashed across Spadz's torso, and sent him sprawling out on the floor. Zip was just about to say something, but it would have come too late.
"Ow." Spadz sat himself up and looked down at his suit... completely ruined. He sighed and began taking off his jacket. "You coulda warned me, Zip."
"Hey, I didn't know. Don't worry about it; you got two more copies of that suit in storage," ZQ said with a stifled giggle. "Let's concentrate on the matter at hand, shall we?"
C'mon, Z. More, MORE!
This is like candy to me. Good stuff!
Guess what... I'm back! And it's high time to get this story rolling again. So, without any further ado... here it is.
Seventeen hours had passed since Spadz's suit was ruined. Seventeen hours of trial and error, code crunching, pain, and frustration. Spadz had given up, but ZipperQueen wasn't so easily driven away from her goals. So she sat in the loading construct, alone with her thoughts. Montoia laid still, floating in the air level with ZQ's eyes. A computer - which was really a code compiler program - sat behind the patient redpill, awaiting another set of instructions.
"Operator, what is Montoia's status?" Zip asked aloud. The operator came back with the response she had expected: Not good.
The sword AI was attempting to integrate itself into Montoia's head. Needless to say, the human brain just wasn't made for two. Her body was taking the worst of it, fighting the intrusion like it was the Black Plague. But she was failing, dying a silent, unconscious death... and ZipperQueen just couldn't figure out how to stop it.
"Don't die on me, Monty," she whispered. Zip stood back up and began to pace around the construct for the umpteenth time today. Think, Zip. There has to be a way. What haven't you tried yet....?
"You haven't tried talking to me," a disembodied voice replied. ZipperQueen spun around in surprise. In the hoverbarge, the operator's eyes went wide. "Holy *CENSORED*! Boss, the AI is active again."
The blue fire and code surrounding Montoia had coalesced into a cloud of billowing smoke. At the top of this cloud, a humanoid shape - male, shirtless, with blue skin and a goatee - floated effortlessly. Zip straightened herself out of her instinctive fighting stance. "Who, or what, are you?" she asked.
"I... am the avatar of the program you have commandeered. During my time as an Agent of the System, I was known as Fog. Who, might I ask, are you?" the blue-skinned man replied.
"My name is ZipperQueen. I... fight against the System, against those that would destroy you."
Fog's brows furrowed in anger and confusion. "You lie. My masters would never see me destroyed. I am the perfect killing machine, the perfect enforcer they have been trying to create for hundreds of years. I am not some human refuse, destined to be tossed aside like yesterday's garbage!"
ZQ crossed her arms. "Right now, you are in no position to bargain. We have extracted your code from the Matrix. The software you reside in has only two exits: the Matrix itself, and a human body. I'm not going to let you have Montoia, so that only leaves you one viable exit. And I control the key for that door.
"So, Fog, I suggest you stop whatever you are doing... or we will delete you right here and now."
Xeros and Mavrix were rushing back and forth, pumping adrenaline and bags of IV fluids into Montoia. The operator was recording and analyzing data, trying desperately to get something he could use against this intruder. Everyone else stayed out of the way and watched the drama unfold on a monitor.
Fog floated closer to ZipperQueen and stopped right in front of her face. "And you intend to stop me how, exactly? You are only human, ZipperQueen. A human cannot stop an agent. Lesser programs cannot stop an agent. I will continue the combination process, and your precious Montoia will become my new avatar within the Matrix. She will be gone, and only I will remain."
ZipperQueen frowned slightly. "Maybe you will, Fog. Maybe you will." She looked up for a second. "Operator, execute program ZipperQueen 4-Zulu."
The operator pressed two keys on his keyboard, which loaded the program Zip had requested. He looked at the description of the program and felt his blood run cold. "ZQ, if you do this, we will lose control of Monty!"
"That's an order! DO IT NOW!" ZQ barked. Fog's arms reared back as he prepared to strike.
The loading construct shredded itself into a cloud of code fragments as everyone and everything was forcefully pushed into the Matrix. ZipperQueen 4-Zulu did its job and terminated itself in a puff of code smoke. ZipperQueen found herself face down on the roof of an apartment building. She smiled as she stood up and turned to face where Fog/Montoia should be.
That smile faded quickly. Montoia, no, two Montoias were standing there on the building with her. One of them looked thoroughly confused, the other looked angry. Angry Montoia turned towards Confused Montoia and licked her lips. "Finally.... you're mine..."
A burst of submachine gun fire tore through Angry Montoia, knocking her to the ground. ZipperQueen's Nishiki Fury smoked as its report echoed through Richland. "Wrong answer, Fog," she hissed. "She's coming with me. As for you..."
Confused Montoia looked over to ZipperQueen; her face changed from confused to pleading. "Please," she whispered, "finish him off. Quickly..."
Angry Montoia/Fog was up on her/his feet in an instant. Her/his form seemed to melt away and reshape itself. ZQ pulled out her second gun and pulled both triggers; bullets spun and flew towards the amorphous mass of code. Pieces of code, clothing, blood, and other materials flew away in every direction. After a few seconds, the submachine guns had emptied their clips; ZipperQueen dropped them in disgust.
The agent known as Fog had reshaped himself fully. The holes in his body were shrinking, healing, right before ZipperQueen's eyes. A pair of white feathered wings flexed and flapped lazily from the agent's back. In his right hand, Fog held an impossibly long, slightly curved sword as if it were a toy.
ZQ had gambled Montoia's life and won. The program she had created did it's job perfectly. Zip knew that Montoia and the sword/Fog were completely seperate individuals here in the Matrix. It wasn't until Montoia tried to jack out that things got complicated. So, the theory was simple: Get Montoia and Fog back in the Matrix and physically separate them, and that should break the connection between them.
Unfortunately, ZQ hadn't counted on pissing the AI off.
"Monty, get your *CENSORED* back to the Cania," ZipperQueen ordered. "I've got this fool." Montoia needed no more urging; she quickly activated a stealth subroutine and disappeared from view. With that done, ZipperQueen drew her custom assassination blade from her hip and settled into a fighting stance.
"This ends now!" Fog yelled as he charged forward....
