Zion Critical Mission #1 Title: Demonstration of Force

Isn’t it wonderful to start off a new set of missions with ‘*CENSORED*’nome? Not really… Anyways, this is what he had to say at the beginning: “Hey. You new best buddy, the Generalissimo himself, wants to meet with us to coordinate offensive efforts against the Merovingian. Guess what, all our real operatives are out doing actual work, so you’re elected. Just play nice with him and convince him to give us a lot of ordinance, okay?” Why you son-of-a... I hate youuuu… Anyways, so I went to the location where The General was at. I went inside and found The General, who had a couple of his commandos with him. The General had this to say: “Operative, you’ve come highly recommended. They tell me you’re just the soldier to lead my men on a search and destroy mission against the Merovingian’s forces. Looking you in the eye, I can see you’ve got what it takes. Consider three of these men here at your disposal. Your operator will have further instructions for you once you’ve led them outside.” So I collected the three commandos. Before I left, I talked once again to The General and he said this: “You’ll receive further mission instructions on a need-to-know basis, soldier. I’m counting on you to show those three men just how an expert takes on the Merovingian’s forces.”

I left the building with the commandos and ‘*CENSORED*’nome said this: “Got your own little band of goose-steppers now, don’tcha? That must be fun. Boy, the things I could do with the right programs… [*CENSORED* is that suppose to mean…:smileyindifferent:] We’ve got a dandy Exile gang all scoped out for you to take down with a little help from your friends. Just don’t go getting yourself slapped around too bad in front of those commandos. We can’t have The General thinking that we don’t know what we’re doing.” So I went to the next location and the four of us had to kill a hand full of Exiles. After that was done, my Operator came on and said this: “Okay, Zion control tells me that the General is pleased with progress so far, and has sent a specialist for your next jaunt: Exner. He should be showing up there in a nearby room right about now. Find him and lead him out of the area.” So I searched around until I found this Exner and he told me this: “Pleased to meet you. I hear you’re good at this. My sensors are more refined than those of the other programs. I will study your methods very closely as we proceed.”

I left the building with Exner and ‘*CENSORED*’nome came back on with this message: “A specialist assigned to study you, huh? Well, aren’t you popular? All right, I think we’ve got just the thing: another group of Exiles, smaller, but tougher. That should give the ‘specialist’ plenty of data for his little recording.” We went to the next location and killed all of the Exiles there. When that was done, my Operator came on with this: “That’s all of ‘em. The General wants to meet you again for a debrief. I’ll upload the coords once you’re outside.” Before I left I talked to Exner and he said this: “That was quite a show. The General will want to speak with you now. I’ll stay here and upload my data for analysis.” I left the building and ‘*CENSORED*’nome said this: “So far, so good. Now, just smile and nod, and I think we’ll have the old man sold on the deal.” I went to the location, found the General, and spoke to him. This is what he said: “I’m told I should congratulate you, operative; we pulled down prime data from your combat against the Exile forces. As soon as we’ve got it analyzed, we’ll be able to initiate superior anti-Exile combat routines. The Merovingian won’t stand a chance against this battle prowess. Good work, soldier. You’re dismissed, soldier. You can be sure I’ll submit a glowing report of your performance to your Commander Lock.” I left the building, which ending the mission. ‘*CENSORED*’nome had this final thing to say: “Boy, if the General is that impressed by your abilities, maybe he’s not quite the formidable ally we were counting on. He’d better not be wasting our time with boot camp crap.”

Critical Mission #1 Title: House Call

Anome… Well you all know about my opinion by now lol… anyways… This is what he said at the beginning: “*cough* Hey there, operative. You’re probably wondering what’s going on. Well, the leader of the commandos, an Exile known as the General, has agreed to help us in our battle against the Merovingian. He was really insistent, in fact. So the commandos are our allies now, and you’ll treat them accordingly. We may even be working with them in future missions. But right now, we need to find our more about those Cyperites. Their apparent leader, Veil, is still at large, and they’re interfering more and more with our recruiting teams. In face, they just gave one of them a pretty rough reception. Fortunately, we’ve been able to track this particular Cypherite gang, and now you get to go give them the business. And while you’re at it, try to find out where their leader is.” So I went to the location and was suppose to defeat the Cypherites and search the area for clues about Cypherites. I killed all of the Cypherites in the area and found a computer. When I searched it, it popped up nothing and my Operator said: “Looks like they were downloading something they didn’t want us to find. The file is lost, but I may be able to trace that address. Give me a minute here…”

So I left the building and Anome told me this: “You’ve got a possible Cypherite network address? Wow. Wow. Can you feel my excitement? No? That’s because I don’t care! [Smart *CENSORED*! I hate you!] I can’t do anything with that! Get me something I can use! Get me Veil!” Ugh, excuse me! Anyways, so I went to the next location where the objectives were the same. When I got inside my Operator said this: “That’s the place the Cypherites you fought earlier were downloading from. I’m picking up redpills, a computer network, and an alarm system in there.” After killing everyone, I found a computer that had something interesting to say about one of the Crypto boxes:

Sending crypt 0.34a “312.comm’ to 7422.975092dejg60”…

Data connection aborted by remote client.

>read 0312.comm

********

Possible glitch at the Union Hill Cryptos box. Increase security at the site. Verify ASAP. /eof/

********

>_

Then my Operator said this: “Cryptos? The street magician? It seems that the Cypherites are awfully concerned about him. We’d better report this to Anome.” So I went outside and Anome had this to say to me: “Cryptos? That religious nut who pops out of boxes? Hmm… There was that operative who was saying something to Niobe the other day about Cryptos’ speeches referring to bluepills… So this was the only lead you got, huh? That’s just great. Okay, fine; here’s what we’re gonna do. As you ought to know by now, Cryptos used to be a Zion operative. I’m sending you to hit a MegaCity resident database. You’re gonna look up the whereabouts of these ex-crewmembers of Cryptos who’ve since ‘retired’ from service to live like damned bluepills in the Matrix: Selene Hendrickson, Michelle Clark, Lyndon Rodick, Sylvester Piel, Gonzalo Stephens. Of course, if you’re caught, Zion will disavow any knowledge, blah blah; you know the drill.” So I went to the next location. When I got inside, my Operator told me this: “The computer database should be in there. Ostensibly, it’s just a customer database for a large retail corporation, but Zion has found that the Machines use it for tracking residents of the MegaCity. You’ll have to watch out for their security teams. Also… I’m reading a fairly complex network in there. It’s possible that you’ll have to access multiple computer terminals.”

I killed all the security guards and searched the computers and came up with the results on the people. There were only two of them left alive: Michelle Clark and Gonzalo Stephens. My Operator told me this: “Only two out of five found; not a very good life expectancy for Cryptos’ “retired” ex-buddies. I can track those two resident codes, though. Get back out on the street.” And so I did and Anome had this to say: “Only two? Well, maybe Cryptos is doing these publicity stunts of his to meet new people. Sounds like it’s time for you to pay a little house call to Michelle Clark. See if she remembers anything about Cryptos that would connect him with the Cypherites.”

So I went to the first location to talk to Michelle Clark. This is what she had to say: “Oh, you’re with them, are you? Look, I’ve had enough of you people! Yes, I was in a crew the Cryptos, but I avoided him as much as I could. He was a pompous, conceited, self-righteous, grade-A jerk! Never happy with anything. I didn’t like it there either, but I kept my trap shut, and got out quietly when the chance came. I hope I’ve seen the last of Cryptos, and Morpheus, and all associated “saviors.” I don’t need saving, got that? Now get out of my home!”  After talking with that nice lady, I left and Anome had this to say: “You’d better get something useful out of Gonzalo Stephens, operative. I don’t have time to be giving missions to people who don’t produce results.” And thus I go to the next location and meet this Gonzalo Stephens guy. This is what he had to say: “Cryptos? Hah, yeah. I was just watching his latest little stunt on the news. Let’s see… He was hard to get along with- wanted everybody to see things his way. He could draw an audience when he ranted about the Machines, which he did a lot. I mean, we all hated the Machines back then, right, but why waste your breath yelling about them? I don’t think he had many real friends… Oh, he did pal around with that Cypher guy a bit. You know, Morpheus’ crewmember who later went nut so and got himself zapped? That was a while after I saw him and Cryptos hanging out, though.” That was all I needed and could do so I left which ending the mission. Anome had this final thing to say: “Cypher. It all comes back to that stinking line-cutter, doesn’t it? So Cryptos was buddy-buddy with the most infamous traitor in Zion’s history. Why does this not surprise me? Cryptos. Cypher. This is starting to add up to something. We’re going to have to see what other nasty little rabbits we can pull out of Cryptos’ hat. Later.”