[Jango Fett]

Authors forward: This story is meant to be sequential to the Matrix trilogy and act as an alternate to The Matrix Online, while borrowing certain story elements/characters from it much like the differences between a manga and an anime. The thread will be updated gradually as I see the view-count rise -- PLEASE REPLY WITH ANY COMMENTS, I LOOK FORWARD TO THEM



Five years after Neo made the Truce, Zion and the Machines witness a Resurrection...

A Resurrection of War. A Resurrection of Life. A Resurrection of the Mission.



Prologue: Five Years after The Matrix Revolutions

----



Mega City

12-5-03

9:14PM

It was cold that night. Very cold, as a matter of fact. No one could remember the last time the weather was this bad. The snow fell from the sky like small pieces of glass, hitting people in the face with a cutting sensation that made them turn away if they made the mistake of looking into the opposing direction of the snow fall. One would say it was hail but it wasn't heavy enough. It was just the collaboration of snow, and really harsh winds. They crashed into the windshield of the black sedan driving down the dark icy street. The driver, a man in his late 20's, 29 to be specific, ignored them as the windshield wipers pushed them off to the side like someone making lines of cocaine with a razor-blade.

Funny I should think that, the man thought to himself with a chuckle and a smirk, as he looked down at his Detective badge that was attached to the chain he wore. It read, "Detective" and underneath that, "Narcotics Unit".

"Oh well," he said to himself in an assuring tone. "I guess I could say my mind is always on the job, technically." He laughed. He was such a smartass at times, and he knew it. He did it on purpose to get out from being between a rock and a tight space. Most of the time it worked. Sometimes though, it backfired. Like when he had to explain to his girlfriend why he came home late the night he promised he'd be home for dinner that night and to go to bed with her at the same time, rather than coming in and sneaking into the bed after she'd already been asleep. She was still peeved at him for that. He thought of what had been said during that argument, while his eyes were fixed on the road ahead of him.

"Vince, what is the matter with you, you promised me you'd be home by 9:30!"

"I know Cheryl, I got caught up with work I couldn't help it!"

"You told me that no matter what, that even if it meant you would have extra work to do that you would put work on the side and come home to see me!"

"Yeah I know but--rrgh, Howard wouldn't let me off the hook he said if I left he'd suspend my pay for a month!"

"Oh bull, you know he wouldn't have done that, you always say how he tells you you're one of his best cops!"

That was only half of it. Usually Vince would be hearing that when it was attached to the bad end of a complaint from Captain Howard, the head of Vince's precinct. Something always along the lines of "You're a good cop Vince, but you get into so much **** that I don't know what to do with you, y-you're driving me up a *blinking*' wall, listen to me I'm stuttering over here!" Always about his spontaneous way of doing things. He got a reputation in the precinct for that. The officers would say "Burnett? That guy's a loose cannon, I don't know how the Captain puts up with him." Or the other Detectives would say "Vince's chaotic, he'll shoot first and ask questions later." It all made him smile. But Vince couldn't blame Howard on his tardiness from home. He let him get away with too much stuff, any other Captain would have either suspended him and assigned him to a desk job or have him thrown off the force all together.

It's Irvine's fault, he told himself. Irvine. The name had been his best friend for the past year. A search warrant was out for this guy, and he was one the more sought after convicts on the "Wall of the Wanted" back at the precinct. He was a suspected murderer, kidnapper, drug dealer, and hacker. This Irvine character was Vince's case, and he'd had no leads on the guy, just searches around the city that turned up with nothing. His mind went blank. Cheryl's voice came back into his head, like a reminder to come out of thinking of work. It was like purgatory was following him around, making sure he got more pissed off at Irvine for the stupid reasons that caused him and Cheryl to fight all the time.

"You're always late! If you're late one more time after you make a promise like this, I swear Vince, I'm getting out of here!"

"Babe come on, what am I supposed to do?"

"Straighten out your priorities and get your **** together! Wake up already and get with the program."

The words echoed in his head as if he woken up from a nightmare. Who was to say he wasn't in one now? He chuckled and shook his head. What the hell am I thinking? He looked at the clock on his console, the time read 9:14PM. He checked his watch to make sure he wasn't seeing things, and it said the same.

I finished early tonight? he asked himself. He couldn't remember leaving his office so early, but he shrugged. "Whatever," he figured.

His apartment was around the corner and that meant he'd made it home early. He stopped at the red light, and looked to make sure no other cars were coming down the intersecting street. When he felt he was clear, he made the right turn and drove down the street until he came up to his apartment building. Parallel parking the car along the sidewalk, he shut off the ignition and hesitated before he got out of the car.

He looked up at the window of his apartment and stared. I can't believe I'm home this early. I could have sworn it was eleven... he thought to himself. He stayed there looking up at the window, as if there was some outside factor wanting to stop him from getting to his home early, and stay in the car for another two hours. Blinking, he shook his head and got out of the car, gently shutting the door.

The night suddenly seemed calm, despite the snow and the wind. His black leather blazer kept him warm enough to survive the 15 foot walk from the car to the door of the building. He looked down the dark street as he made it to the door, and saw nothing but black when he looked yonder.

"Dark path ahead," he jokingly suggested to himself. He pushed the door open, and stamped his feet to get the snow off of his feet. His eyes scanned over the mailboxes on the wall, looking for his own mailbox. When his eyes fell upon the name "Vince Burnett", he stopped, and moved forward with his key.

He shook his head. I've lived here for almost a year now and I can't remember where my mailbox is. He inserted his key, and after turning it, he slowly opened it a tad and peeked inside. Ever since he saw that Clint Eastwood movie where the black guy opened his mailbox and the bomb exploded, he was always afraid of nonchalantly opening his mailbox. However, like always since then, he saw nothing out of the ordinary in there. Actually, this time he saw nothing in there.

No mail, he thought. Maybe Cheryl got it. Closing the tiny door and locking it, he turned and made his way over to the elevator. Running his eyes over the buttons, he pushed the "6" button after the door closed, and waited for that sudden jolt that took place when an elevator first started to move. When it occurred, it rocked him a bit as he stood in his place. He reached under his blazer and grasped his gun, a black Colt 1911A1 with wood grips.

He looked at it for a few seconds before making sure the safety on the slide was secured. After he was sure that the safety was activated, he slid it back into it's holster, and then he felt that jolt of the elevator again. The next thing he heard was "ding", and the doors opened. Running his hand through his shoulder length dark brown hair, he stepped out onto thin carpet that covered the floor of the hallway. Cracking his knuckles like he usually did as he walked to his door, he counted the cracks as they went off. 1, 2, 3, 4...5, 6, 7, 8..9, 10. He stopped in front of his door and made claws out of his fingers, and extended them straight, and did this twice.

He got a hold of the doorknob and twisted it. To his surprise, it was open. He pushed it open and stepped in, immediately looking around the apartment. No one in the kitchen, which was a few feet in front of him. Then he noticed the TV on in the living room right in the next room. He peered around the wall and looked to the couches, and his eyes automatically locked with Cheryl's. She looks surprised, he registered to himself before thinking anything else. In reality, she was.

"You..you're home." She said in a gentle tone, with a touch of disbelief. It was as if she was whispering because it was too good to be true, and if that was the case, she didn't want to disturb this vision of Vince that stood before her, or else it might disappear. "Yeah, I'm home," he answered, to her surprise. She didn't know what to ask or what to say. So, to improvise, she got up from her seat on the couch and walked over to him. She was dressed in dark grey sweat pants and a random t-shirt, with white socks on her feet. She was shorter than him, but not too short, a 5'3 to his 6'0. She stood not even a foot away from him, and before he could react, she went up on her tippy-toes and gave him the tightest hug she could.

It startled him for a moment, he wasn't expecting it. After a few seconds, he let the fact seep in, and rested his head on hers, which she had pushed tightly into his chest. He blinked, breathing in through his nose and taking in the scent of her hair, the scent of peaches. He exhaled slowly and kissed her head, preparing to let go so he could get off his jacket, holster, and boots, so he could sit with her on the couch and relax, but instead she pulled him into a kiss. The sudden pull and the last sight of her head coming closer to his caused him to close his eyes tight, and as she wrapped her arms around his neck for better leverage, he relaxed and let them stay closed comfortably. As he wrapped his arms around her waist, he thought to himself, I honestly didn't expect this kind of reaction from her. Maybe I was underestimating her. Maybe I underestimate myself. When she let off of him, she looked at him in the eyes with a warm, caring look.

"Welcome home," she told him with a smile. He smiled back.

"Good to be home."

----

This post has been edited by Jango Fett: 27 February 2007 - 12:37 AM

[Jango Fett]

Chapter 1: Life's too short

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MCPD

12-6-03

5:30PM

Vince sat at his desk in his office. His elbow rested on the desk top as he stared at the blank screen on his monitor. The sign-in box was on the screen. The cursor blinked every second. His eyes glanced around. He looked at the walls, with the melancholy design and the dark brown stain finish, and large windows through which he could see a good amount of the rest of the floor he worked on. The wall all the way to his left was also the wall of the office to his left, same with the wall and the office in front of him, the wall his door was on. He had to walk through the other Detective's office in order to get to his. There were a few files cabinets behind him, and since he had a corner office, a window behind him. There was a space heater under this window in absence of a radiator. It was like that in a bunch of the offices around him. Someone went around and turned all of them on to low. The storm from last night was still there now in the morning. Wind and sharp snow flakes in everyone's face. To his left was another large file cabinet. On his desk was a phone, a calendar, a printer in the corner on the right side of the computer console, and a picture of Cheryl.

He looked around his office again and took all of this in. This isn't an office, he thought. It's a glorified cubicle. Shaking his head, he looked out of the windows to his left and saw Howard's office. Vince made a face to himself, and watched as Howard sat there talking on the phone to someone. I better at least look like I'm doing something, Vince decided, before I get *****ed at because I'm getting payed for doing nothing. He looked back at his monitor at the blinking cursor. He typed his name into the first space, and "Vince Burnett" came onto the screen. He pressed tab and then it came to his password. The name & password check completed with a beep and the search interface came up onto the screen, with several fields and options for specifying whatever it was someone may be searching for, and an area for search results. He paused, staring at a blank screen again.

He knew that typing in "Irvine" would do him no good. He'd done it time and again and came up with nothing useful as to where to find the guy. He had no previous record, no location, no place of residence, no relatives, no name changes. The guy just popped up out of thin air it seemed, and it made Vince angry, how this guy could just slip in and out of his jurisdiction. He sat back in his chair and put his legs up on his desk and his hands on his head, staring at the screen, the blank search fields and that blinking cursor again. A fly landed on him, and he brushed it off. Another black pair of jeans, and the same pair of boots, but this time, a blue t-shirt. His gun hung from its holster under his blazer. I don't know where to start or where this stops. I forgot where it began, and I could only imagine where it'll end. But in the mean time, what the **** am I going to do just sitting here looking for a ghost?

He leaned forward and put his face into his hands as if he were crying and slowly slid them down his face and into a sort of praying position, and rested his head of them. Then he repositioned his left hand and rested his head on it, his elbow on top of the desk in front of the keyboard. His right hand was on the desk, the other elbow resting on his right thigh, and he tapped his fingers and sighed. Out of the corner of his left eye he saw Detective Stanford coming into his office. He was about Vince's height, maybe an inch or two taller, and with broader shoulders. He was in his mid 30s and in his combed back brown hair, gray hairs were obvious. He had a serious look in his eyes most of the time, but that was only when he meant business, when he was working. Usually he was a friendly guy though, and now it looked to Vince as if he had something interesting to say.

"Hey, Burnett."

Vince stopped tapping his fingers and put his left elbow on his left thigh, and clasped his hands together under the desk. "What's up, Stanford?"

"You heard about the party, right?"

He arched a brow. "No..what party?"

"Carrington's getting promoted, we're throwing him a surprise party and the ceremony is this weekend."

"Really? What's he moving up to?"

"He got onto S.W.A.T."

"That's a promotion?" Vince said, as if to ask what put the S.W.A.T. team over the Narcotics Unit.

"Well, yeah. Figure, our Narcotics Unit is a tactical unit of its own, we're not just regular Detectives, we do that and our own kind of S.W.A.T. work. So now he's moving from being a regular Narcotics Detective to getting to see a little excitement."

Vince shrugged. "I guess you got a point. Is there time for the whole unit to just take time off and throw a surprise party?"

"We're not the only Tactical Narcotics Unit here, or did you forget that part?"

Vince pointed his finger at him. "Hey, don't get smart with me!" he said in a joking tone, the both of them smiling at the sarcastic humor and reaction. "So when is this party anyway?"

"Well, figure, it's about 5:45PM now, I think we're all going down to the party room by 9:00PM, fancy food'll be catered and ready and everything, music and all, the whole nine yards."

Vince nodded. Suddenly, Stanford looked as though he remembered something.

"What's the matter?"

"Oh, no, I was just gonna say, I almost forgot, everyone in our unit is invited and their partners are welcome, so if you wanna surprise your girl you can suddenly take her out to dinner, and it's free!" Standford said with a chuckle.

A smile came over Vince's face. "Yeah, she'd like that. I think I owe her a few surprises," he said with a nod. He looked around for a clock. "What time do we get off if this party is at nine?"

"I think your shift ends in fifteen minutes. You've been doing paperwork all day since like six, right?"

"Yeah it sucks."

"Go ask Howard, he's not really busy, he told me to go remind everyone about the party tonight, you were the last guy left." Stanford suggested.

"Alright," Vince said as he logged out of his computer, turned it off, and got up out of his chair. He extended his hand and Stanford took it and shook his hand with a nod. "I'll see you tonight at the party," he said, to which Stanford replied "Alright then I'll see you tonight." He then left Vince's office to move onto whatever else he had to do. Vince rubbed his forehead. "Party tonight," he thought to himself. "I play my cards right I might get lucky." He walked out of his office and made his way over to Captain Howard's office. He knocked on the door, and was immediately greeted with a "Come in!" He opened the door, stepped in, and closed it behind him, looking out through the windows to see if Carrington was around.

"What is it Vince, what, what're you doing?"

"Ssh, calm down boss I was making sure Carrington wasn't around."

"Oh, Carrington? I guess Stanford told you about tonight."

"Yeah, I wanted to know when my shift ended for today, I forgot."

Howard checked his watch. It read 5:50. "It's ten to, you're done at six, get outta here you can go home now" he said all in one breath. Vince shrugged. "Alright then, I'll see you tonight then." Howard nodded. "Okay."

"Later boss." Vince said on the way out.

"So long." Howard called after him.

Vince made his way downstairs to his car and drove home.

----

6:10PM

Vince walked into the apartment and threw his jacket and holster onto the couch. Cheryl heard the door slam shut, and she poked her head out of her room cautiously. Seeing Vince startled her, and his greeting made her jump. "Hey, honey what's up?" he said in high volume. "Vince, what're you doing here?" she asked, surprised. "I'm home, and tonight we're going to a fancy dinner" he said as he made his way closer to her. "Fancy dinner? What do you mean?" she said. He came over and held her in his arms and gave her a kiss. More surprises. He went into the bedroom and sat on the bed and began unlacing his boots. "One of the guys at work is getting promoted and my unit's throwing him a surprise party. Nice party, and good food, and it's all free."

"Oh.." she answered, a bit blindsided by the fact he was home so soon, and because now he was taking her out tonight, sort of. "What time do we have to be there by?"

"Nine o'clock. You got something nice to wear?"

"Uh, yeah, do you?"

"I'm sure I'll find something."

"What about your dress uniform?"

"No, no, that I have to wear for the official ceremony this weekend."

"Can I go to that too?"

Vince stopped. He looked up at her, and saw the hopeful look in her eyes. She really wanted to be with him, he realized. He extended his arms, his left out a little further than his right, and motioned for her to come to him. She came over and sat, leaning up against him, and he put her arms around her. "Of course you can come with me to that ceremony," he said to her, his eyes locked onto hers. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just.." she began.

"Yeah, what is it?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I miss you. Work's been taking up a lot of your time lately and sometimes I really hate when I can't see you."

He kissed her forehead and ran his hand through her hair. "Here I am. For the whole night."

She looked up to him and smiled and wrapped her arms around him. He laid back on the bed and took her with him. "I'm tired," he said. "I'm comfy," she answered. He closed his eyes. "Lemme know when eight o'clock rolls around, we'll get dressed then," he told her. "Why?" she asked. "Because staying here like this for a while would be nice," he answered. All she said was "Mhmm." They dozed off in each other's arms.

When 8:00 came around, Vince woke up to Cheryl shaking him gently, saying to him "Come on Vince, time to get ready." He rose up out of the bed and stretched his arms out with a relaxing sigh. He looked around, first to Cheryl, then the closet. Okay....what to wear...got my pants on...got a shirt in the closet..got my jacket..a little cologne, good to go. He walked over to to dresser and opened a drawer, and pulled out a grey tank-top undershirt. After this, he simply removed his blue t-shirt, revealing his in-shape but not jacked up upper body, and put the tank top on, but kept his jeans unbuttoned. Cheryl started getting changed into a little black dress. Vince reached into the closet and pulled out a short sleeved dark-purple button-up shirt, and began buttoning it.

"Do you always dress in black?" Cheryl asked him.

"Yup. Works with everything," he answered. When he was finished, all of the buttons were fastened, sans the top two. He pulled up his pants around the shirt and closed them up, turning to his hutch to go for his cologne. "There, almost done. All I gotta do is put some of this stuff on," he started, as he opened the small bottle and poured some into his right hand palm. He set the bottle down, rubbed his hands together, and then wiped the cologne on either side of his neck and on his chest until his hands were dry. He turned to Cheryl, who at this point was in her dress, pantyhose, and shoes. He had a double take.

"What?" she asked with a smile coming out on her face.

He smiled back and shook his head. "Come on we gotta stop *blinking* around we gotta go soon," he said to her in a joking voice.

"Alright you ass, I gotta fix up my hair and do my makeup," she retaliated. He sighed and waited. This is gonna take a while.

----

9:09PM

MCPD Party Room

When Vince and Cheryl walked in, the party had already started. Ah, this is good. No congratulatory speech to sit through. He turned to Cheryl. "Come with me, we gotta go say hi to the man of the hour, then we can sit." She nodded. She hooked her left arm around his right, staying close and getting some sort of a grip on the sleeve of his blazer. Some people were dancing, but he didn't mind, he cut through the dance floor, however in a nonchalant manner.

When they finally got over to Carrington, his wife was with him and he was being congratulated all around. He was a year or two older than Vince, and about an inch short. When Carrington noticed him, his eyebrows raised and he greeted him with a "Hey! Thought you wouldn't be here." Vince chuckled. "The party just started, I'm a few minutes late, no big deal." Carrington smiled "I suppose. And who's this?" he asked, his eyes shifting over to Cheryl. "Oh, this is my girlfriend Cheryl. Nice, right?" Vince said, raising his eyebrows with a mischievous smile, slightly tilting his head forward. Cheryl smirked, jabbing her elbow into his side under his arm that she had wrapped hers around, causing him to jolt a little. Vince frowned as if he were to say "Whatchu talkin' about, Willis?", and Carrington and his wife laughed. Cheryl extended her free hand to shake Carrington's, and he accepted, getting a good yet gentle grip and shaking lightly before letting go. "Well, you guys go get something to eat and sit down and enjoy yourselves. Vince nodded. "Will do. C'mon Cheryl."

With that, they made their way over to the table with all the food trays and got on the now short line. After scanning over the trays and getting what they wanted, they made their way over to a sparsely populated table and sat. "Do you know all these people here?" Cheryl asked. Vince looked up from cutting his food. "Yeah, most of them, all of these guys are in my unit and some of em have done work with us on big cases in the past. They all know me though," he said with a wink and chuckle, causing her to smile. "Why don't you have a partner?" she asked. "I wasn't assigned one. I could request one if I need a friend or something, but that won't be until I finish this case I'm working on," he said as he cut his food with a knife and fork. She nodded and got to working on hers.

He plucked a piece of food with his fork and put it into his mouth and started to chew. Good stuff. It was baked ziti. As he chewed, he opened his sense of hearing. Music was playing. People were talking. A lot of conversations going on at once. He studied this. Then he started analyzing every little thing he could and started comparing it to how animals in the wild would act. He didn't know why he did it, but it was a habit. They all come together as friends or members of a pack or a clan to celebrate the fact that one of their own has moved up a level. They gather and feed themselves and communicate, about all sorts of things as they eat. Just talking and eating for the most part, oblivious to what's going on outside. They gather like animals to a place where they know the food is at. Is that all? Why, though? What's the point?

"Vince," Cheryl called. He snapped out of his trance. "You alright?" she asked, a slight worried look on her face. He put his hand over hers, and nodded assuringly.

"I'm fine. Just, deep in thought."

At about 10:00 they had left at went home and went to bed. The thoughts repeated in Vince's mind as he fell asleep.

----

[Jango Fett]

(Note to the reader: I know it's been a little slow in the story so far. After this chapter it speeds up and gets more like a Matrix story and less like a cop story, I promise.)

Chapter 2: The clues don't add up

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MCPD

12-7-03

3:00PM

Vince sat at his desk with his legs resting up on top of it. Leaned back in his chair, he tapped his pen on the desk as if he was antsy. He'd done all of his paper work and there was nothing for him to do. He could go and enjoy himself, but Cheryl was at work, so in reality he couldn't.

"Why do you just sit there, Vince?" Captain Howard had asked him once. "If you got no work to do you don't have to come in, we'll contact you if there's something that needs to be done."

Made him feel real useful. But today would be different, and Vince didn't have a clue. With his legs still up on his desk, he swiveled in the chair left and right for mere hip movement to keep him busy. His eyes drifted around again. Same ****, different day. He looked over to the Wanted posters up on the wall across from his office and the one to the left of his. The usuals, and a few weird ones. Some sleaze bag Italian grease ball. A few black guys. A couple juveniles. Handful of Latinos. And then one was missing. Vince arched a brow. The poster for Daniel Lancaster, a suspected serial killer and syndicate member, was taken down. Vince rubbed his chin and thought about this. Either he was arrested or killed. Wait, wasn't he being watched? Vince rose from his chair and walked into the Captain's office. Howard had two other detectives with him in. When he saw Vince coming to the door, he shook his head as if to say yes and motioned for him to quickly get into the room. When he did, he shut the door behind him.

"Burnett, good thing you're here, I was just about to call you."

Vince looked over at the other two detectives. Corallo and Hall. He gave them a nod before looking back over to Howard. "Why, what's the matter?"

"You saw the wanted wall, right?"

"Yeah, Lancaster's poster is gone, what's the deal?"

"These two were watching him. Now he's gone, and we can't find him anywhere."

"Yeah, and how do I fall into this?" Vince inquired.

"We checked his phone calls and we didn't find anything usual, so we tapped his phone." Corallo answered.

"He made contact with a person named Irvine and few times. The guy you're looking for."

Vince's eyebrows raised, a look of surprise and almost shock coming over his face. "...What?" Howard was first to snap him out of it.

"Listen, we think this guy is the reason why Lancaster is gone, he might have drugged him up and kidnapped him or killed him or something. Either way, you're all on this case now."

"Well, do you have recordings of his phone calls?" Vince asked anxiously.

"Yeah, right here." Hall said. He picked up a tape recorder and pushed the play button. It started with the usual fuzz from a recorded tape but then it picked up. Vince listened closely. It started with the phone ringing. Then someone picked up.

"Lancaster."

"Yes, hello Anubis." Vince frowned. Anubis? When was he ever called Anubis?

"Who is this?" Lancaster demanded.

"You know who this is. You've been expecting my phone call."

"Okay, stop playing games ass--"

"Anubis," The man said in a bold tone, cutting Lancaster off. "You asked me about the Matrix on the internet a long time ago. Are you still interested?"

"Irvine...?" Lancaster suddenly asked, as if he were in the presence of someone highly superior than he.

"Yes. The phone is tapped, Anubis. I will contact you again." The click of the phone hanging up followed after, and Hall pressed stop.

All four men exchanged looks. "Anyone ever heard of the Matrix?" Howard asked. All three detectives shook their heads to say no.

"Hold on, there's one more." Hall said. He pressed play again. The phone ringing was heard again, and someone picked up.

"Hello?"

"Anubis, this is Irvine. Are you ready to meet?"

"Yes."

"Meet me in the shut down storage warehouse in the slums district. I will give you the red pill."

*Click*

"Okay gentlemen, we have our work cut out for us," Howard started. "Corallo, Hall, I want you guys to go into his house and look for clues and see if we can get any evidence on this guy, here's the warrant, keep it with you." He handed Corollo the warrant, and he folded it and put it in his pants pocket.

Then he turned to Vince. "I want you to go over to that old warehouse and see if you can find anything. And while you're at it, find out what the hell they talking about and find out what the 'Matrix' is. After that, since you're narcotics, look into whatever sources and informants you have on whatever the red pill is. Move it!"

Vince nodded and left the office. He checked his gun to make sure it was loaded and the safety off. Hall chuckled. "Ready to shoot off again, eh Vince?"

"Just making sure. Whatever is takes to keep my ass alive. I'll see you guys later."

----

3:30PM

The car radio was off as Vince drove to Appolyon, the part of the slums district where the warehouse was located.. He drove at a moderate speed, and wasn't in any sort of a rush. His eyes moved all over as he drove down the crowded city streets, looking from person to person, store signs, the road ahead of him, side streets, anything in his sight that was in front of him. He looked at the street he was on. Main Avenue. He made a left onto 36th street. Brick and 9th wasn't too far away, but the location was a good choice for something like a secret meeting. The area the warehouse was in was a run-down section of the city, somewhere you would go to only look for trouble. The warehouse itself had been shut down a few years ago but no one wanted to touch it because the people living in the area deemed it "historical" since it had been there for quite a while. Please. It was for storage. Why is it necessary to have incentives?

It seemed like the whole neighborhood was stuck in time. With the sunset in the background, and the dusty feeling of the place, the area had a sepia tone to it, boring and dull as if it was clay. There was a sign of life though, people walking up and down the sidewalks, and some cars. It wasn't abandoned. It just wasn't that great of a place either. It gave Vince the feeling someone was watching or something was out there. He passed 6th street and sighed. Vince was wary as he turned onto Brick avenue, always on the alert. Someone around here might not like him in these parts and decide to show off how many bullets they had in their gun. Was it a boring day or just the city that did it? It started to rain. Oh great. Make that the day, and the city.

He felt like leaving, but his assignment held him back, so he shook his head. Where is this warehouse? Then, as he came to 9th street, he saw it, standing there still as the rain cut through the sunset, as if were expecting him. He pulled into the lot and up next to the building's main entrance, and turned off the ignition. He thought about whether our not he should walk through the rain or cover his head. **** it. He got out of the car and walked into the door. It was dark, there were no lights on. He moved over to flip a switch to his left on the wall. He toggled it a few times; nothing.

He scanned the inside of the room with his eyes. There were several racks with four or five large shelves on them that were made of steel, painted in orange and green. There were four rows of these continuous racks that ran from roughly the front to the back of the warehouse, with some space in between the ends of these rows and the main wall for walking, and cross sections between every three blocks of racks. The space in between the rows themselves was large, about nine feet of space between each.

He proceeded forward, cautiously. The only light was those coming through the windows, which were small in size on the walls and not many, and large on the ceiling, they few and far between. There was one large window in the middle of every set of rows separated by a cross section, and they were barred. It looked like a huge stock room in the back of a large department store. With the sun going down outside, it wouldn't be too long before it was pitch black in the warehouse. He stepped forward into one of the rows between two racks. After walking a few feet, he reached into his blazer and pulled out his gun and let his arm hang down at his side again, then pulled back the hammer. He had a funny feeling walking through this place. Just in case.

He passed the first barred skylight. Looking around, through the empty racks, up above him, and watching his back, he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Then he saw something on the floor ahead, in the light of the second skylight. He picked up the speed in his step so he could get a closer look, and stopped in the light pouring down from above. It was a small white card, about the size of a business card. After he put his gun back into its holster, he put on the pair of rubber gloves he had in his coat pocket and flipped the card over. There was writing in black ink. A curious frown came over his face as he turned the card over right side up so that he could read it. It read "The Matrix Has You." The Matrix...

He arched a brow, and stared at it as he held it in his right hand while with his left he went for a small plastic zip-lock evidence bag. He slipped the card into the bag, fastened the top, and put it into his coat pocket. Then he removed the gloves, placed them into his other pocket, turned, and walked towards the door. He noticed the rain had begun to come down harder. The water ran down the window kind of like suds, each bead of water running down and leaving a trail, followed by another bead of water, all across the window in vertical rows. He moved on, and walked through the door, to the outside. The rain hit him all over as he walked to his car. He didn't waste any time standing there, as he climbed in and drove away.

----

4:10PM

Vince was last of the three detectives to get back since the place he had to go to was farther. When he walked in, Simpson, the guy at the front desk nodded to him. He was close to retiring. "Burnett, the Captain is waiting for you in his office with Corallo and Hall." "Thanks Simpson." Vince responded. He ran up the stairs to the second floor and made his way into Howard's office, as he walked in he heard Howard say "Here he is." He shut the door behind him.

"Burnett, did you find anything?" Howard asked.

"The place was empty, this is all I found," he said as he pulled out the white card in the evidence bag. He tossed it onto Howard's desk, and he examined it through the plastic. "The Matrix" he said to himself. "You didn't find anything on this Matrix though?"

Vince shook his head. "Nope, nothing. That's it. Whoever Irvine is, he was there, and Lancaster was with him."

Howard shook his head as to say yes. "Good, good, now we have a break in the case, these two didn't find much." He looked over at Corallo and Hall "You two go look up whatever info you can find on Lancaster's syndicate connections." He looked back over to Vince. "Burnett, I want you to look into whatever the red pill is. If we can get a supplier down or something, maybe we can cut him off, got it?" All three of the detectives nodded. "Then get to it. And somebody get this bag over to Evidence."

Vince walked out and went back into his office cubicle. As he sat there waiting for his computer to start up, he thought of the white card again.


'The Matrix Has You'....

What is the Matrix?

----

[Jango Fett]

Chapter 3: The Man from the other side
----

MCPD
12-7-03
4:45PM

In the thirty five minutes that had passed since he had gotten back, Vince had began writing the report on the evidence he found and almost died of boredom reliving the moment. He included in the report the time he left, the time he got to the storage warehouse, the time he left the warehouse, and the time he got back to the precinct. He described the inside, including the power failure, and especially, the card he found on which was written, "The Matrix Has You." All of the important details, the literal stuff that anyone who needed the information would have some use for.

What he didn't include though, was that it felt as if he was being watched by unseen eyes. That feeling that creeped him out and caused him to take his gun from his holster. He thought it over as he typed and wondered: Am I still being watched? He shrugged it off. Stop scaring yourself. That always happens when you feel spooked but can't see anything, he convinced himself. He looked at his screen and all of the black text against the white screen. The blinking cursor, blinking every second. The font control, the spacing. Nodding, he decided he was finished with the report. Saving it, he sat back in the chair and exhaled through his lips, his cheeks puffing up only until all of the air/carbon dioxide was out of his mouth.

He looked out of the windows surrounding him to see what was up. Then he noticed something, something he never saw before. Three men came to the upstairs floor and entered Howard's office. To Vince, they looked like secret service agents back from the 1960's, dressed in black suits, with generic black dress shoes. Under their jackets were white dress shirts, and black ties, pinned to their shirts via a silver pin with simple horizontal line design. They all wore their hair parted at their left, and they all wore white earpieces in their right ear, the coiled wire hanging down beside their neck and then being tucked in under their white shirts. The most notable and possibly intimidating feature of their outfits were the the square framed sunglasses they all wore, the lenses shaded black to the point where you couldn't see their eyes or tell if they were looking for you.

But that wasn't the case for Vince. He saw Howard look in his direction and point towards his office, and the three of their heads turned; They were looking at him alright. It wasn't until they exited Howard's office and started towards his own that he started to worry.

Okay, he thought, What have I done lately that would get the Feds on my case.... haven't shot anyone... haven't blown anything up, no car accidents.. oh ****, here they come. The three men entered the office and stood in line from side to side, the one in the center a step in front of the other two. They all stood at at least six feet tall even. The one in the middle spoke.

"Mr. Burnett, I'm Agent Williams, these are my colleagues, Agent Davis and Agent Miller," he said, the other two nodding smugly as their names were mentioned.

Vince stood up from sitting in his chair to see eye to eye with the man, standing at least two feet from him. "Hi," he said wearily. "Something I can help you with?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact there is, Mr. Burnett." Agent Williams said. He spoke in a bold, direct tone, he didn't drag on any words or speak slow or fast, rather, at a steady rate, almost as though he were a robot. "We understand that you've been tracking an individual named Irvine for the past year and you haven't gained any leads on him until recently when a Mr. Daniel Lancaster went missing."

"Yeah, that's true..." Vince replied, in a skeptical tone. This news traveled fast for something that happened only so recently. "What about him?"

"Well, we understand he has charges of murder, kidnap, and drug use against him and currently there is a warrant out for his arrest and that you're the Detective who's been put on the case. We were wondering if you had seen anything unusual lately."

Vince recalled the warehouse and the white card. "No, nothing unusual. Why?"

Agent Williams took a breathe of air and sighed as if he realized he would be staying longer than he had planned. "The truth is, Mr. Burnett, this character Irvine is far more dangerous than he seems, especially according to the way you have him listed down in your files. Compared to your records, he is far worse than he appears. And of course, we all know appearances can be deceiving."

Vince raised an eyebrow at his last statement. "Yeah..What's he really like?"

"To make a long story short, the man is a known terrorist that has his own group of sorts that works with him. You are aware of the shoot outs that have been taking place all over the city, are you not?"

"Yeah, I've heard of them, they turn up from out of nowhere. Is he involved with those too?"

"Yes, actually, he is involved. A great threat to the public, and he isn't the only one." He swallowed, and took a moment to turn his head towards Agent Davis and Agent Miller. "However, we have a more important subject to talk about while we're here."

"Oh, yeah? What's that?"

"We'd like to ask you for your help Mr. Burnett, in tracking this Irvine down and helping us take him into custody."

"Yeah, I think I can do that. Is there any specific procedures to follow?"

"Here's my number, Mr. Burnett. If any new information about him turns up, you know where to contact me." Agent Williams said, holding out a small white business card. Vince took it and looked at the phone number. It read (843) 797-8360. He looked back up at Agent Williams and nodded. "Yeah, sure, I can help."

"Thank you for your cooperation Mr. Burnett. We look forward to hearing from you in the future." Agent Williams concluded. The three men turned, and exited the office, walking toward the stairs. Vince looked back at the card for a moment and looked back to the three Agents. He called after them.

"What If something about the Matrix turns up?"

The three Agents froze in their steps. Vince's eyebrows raised, he took this in as if he just said something that was very insulting to them, and this now was the reaction. They all looked back in his direction. He narrowed his eyes and frowned slightly as though to analyze their reactions.

"The what?" Agent Williams asked.

"The Matrix...at the last known location Lancaster and Irvine were known to be at, I found this card that said 'The Matrix Has You', and we figured Irvine was linked to it. What should I do if anything about the Matrix turns up again?"

They looked at each other like they were deciding what to do about this. Agent Davis's right hand came to his right hand ear over his ear piece. Then, he looked over to Agent Williams and Agent Miller and nodded. Miller looked to Williams.

"He's planning another unplugging."

"He will be back."

"We can use this to finally get him."

Vince watched and listened to this and thought Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut about the Matrix..sounds like they've been looking for him for a while too though.

Agent Willaims looked back over to Vince. "Mr. Burnett, would you please come take a ride with us?"

"Um.." Vince manged to get out, as he tried to think of a reason to not to go. He looked at his computer. He'd finished the report. The only idea he could think of was Howard. "I just have to let my boss know."

"He's already aware that you may be stepping out with us. It will only be brief."

Vince's eyes shifted from Agent to Agent and he stayed silent for a moment. They stared back at him through their sunglasses. It didn't really seem like he had a choice. "Yeah, sure. Let's go."

Agent Davis lead the way, followed by Agent Williams, Vince, and then Agent Miller. They made their way downstairs and towards the exit. Vince looked towards the front desk where Simpson would be, but he wasn't there. Where'd Simpson go? Must be on a piss break. Eventually they made their way outside and into a black sedan parked in front of the precinct. Vince and Agent Williams climbed into the back, while Agent Davis drove and Agent Miller sat in the front seat. They pulled away slowly and drove down the street at a regular speed. Vince looked around the car and out of the windows, seeing familiar buildings he would pass on the way to work, only this time in the reverse order. He looked over to the Agents. They all were looking forward with their hands in their lap, except for Davis, who was driving with his hands at ten and two.

Things were too quiet. "Where are we going?" he asked. "It's nothing to be concerned of. We're almost there." Agent Miller answered. About ten minutes passed, and they drove into an underground parking lot. They parked on a level that had a moderate amount of cars in it, Vince observed. The ignition was turned off. "Please step out of the car," Agent Williams said, and the three men exited the car. After seeing all of their doors opened and noting the fact that they all were moving out of the car at the same time, he opened his door and stepped out, closing it behind him. Miller and Williams made their way around to the side of the car Davis and Vince were on, and then they all stood in front of Vince, like they were cornering him. Davis was to his right, Miller to the left, and Williams in the center. Noticing that they were moving toward him and that he was stepping backwards, he got concerned. "Hey, guys. What are you doing?" Then things got rough.

Davis and Miller violently shoved him at his shoulders and sent him back, hitting up against the car door.

"Hey, what the **** are you--" he managed to get out, but was cut off when Davis grabbed his face and his right arm and held him against the car. He turned his head so that the right side faced out to the Agents, and got a tight grip, configuring his fingers in a manner so Vince couldn't open his mouth enough to get any noise out at a significant volume. Miller grabbed his left arm and held it up against the car with the same painfully tight grip.

Twitching under their hold, Vince couldn't move. Williams pulled out from the pocket inside of his jacket a small silver box and opened it, pulling out of it a small dark gray object that was two inches long.

"We apologize for the procedure, Mr. Burnett. But in the end, you'll be doing us a favor."

Looking as far right as he possibly could, Vince saw Williams push a small button on the object. A red light lit up, and he thought it saw it shake at first. Then, many little spike like objects broke out from the sides of the object, and they too began to move, and it all together started squirming. It looked like a small robotic centipede. Williams held it out and moved it closer to Vince's head. He started moving about, trying to escape, but to no avail, his efforts were futile. He tried to scream but could only let out a low grumble. Williams held the centipede over his right ear, and let go. Vince felt it drop into his ear and begin to squirm and wiggle it's way inside of his head. He started to freak out, moving and kicking violently and putting out as loud of a noise he could muster.

He screamed out loud as he jumped up in his bed. Cheryl jumped up next to him, scared out of her sleep. Vince sat there with no shirt on, and the rest of his body covered by the comforter. In a cold sweat, he panted for air as if he was holding his breath under the water for too long. He looked around the room frantically, trying to place himself, letting out small yells as he calmed down, each more quiet than the one before it until it reduced to a heavy breathing. Cheryl came to him and put her arms around him. She ran her right hand through his hair and placed her left hand on his chest.

"Vince! Vince, are you alright?"

"Wh-what...where, where am I?"

"Vince, it's me Cheryl, you were having a bad dream. You're here, home in bed."

"..Huh? A dream? No, I..I was at work, and the three guys, the feds, Williams, and Davis, and Miller. They put some thing in my ear, and.."

"No no, you're fine. You scared the **** out me."

His senses came back to him, he felt her bare breasts upon his left arm. He looked down to them, and then up into her eyes. Still breathing heavily, he looked over to the alarm clock beside his bed. It said 10:36. He frowned. "10:36? It was about a quarter to five when I left the office. When did I get home?"

"You came home around eight o'clock and said you were tired and we went to bed."

"Eight? What?" He couldn't remember walking in. "What did we do?"

"Well, we didn't go to sleep right away." She said in an implying tone. He raised his eyebrows. He didn't remember any sex either. Giving up, he shook his head. "It must have been a bad dream. Realistic to say the least, huh? You almost set off all the car alarms on the block." She said in a kidding voice.

"Have you ever had a dream where you couldn't tell if you were awake or in bed dreaming the whole thing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, it seems real, like this, right now, but you can't tell if you're dreaming or not. Kind of like when you have dreams and realize something was wrong and you were only in bed dreaming it up but you couldn't tell which one was a dream or not."

"Nope, never. You crazy head." She kissed his head on his temple and got up out of the bed. He looked over to her. Bare ass naked he registered. "Where are you going?" He asked. "To get a drink," she answered. He decided he had to use the bathroom. He moved his legs over the side of the bed and sat up, realized he was naked too. Hm. He stood up and walked down the hallway into the bathroom. Standing over the toilet, he began to piss and sighed, feeling exhausted and tired. He looked into the mirror at his reflection. He looked tired, he could tell in the way his eyes looked. When he finished, he stepped over to the right and rinsed his hands in some warm water.

As he stepped out, in the corner of his eye, he saw the mirror, and in the mirror, he saw his left ear, and it reminded him of his dream. He stepped back into the bathroom and leaned over the counter. Leaning forward, he turned his head so the right side faced the mirror, enough so he could still see when he shifted his eyes as far right as possible. He tilted his head in several directions in the light, looking for anything unnatural, like scars, or a cut, or a tiny mechanic centipede. Sighing after finding nothing, he shook his head, and turned the light off. Walking back out into the hallway, he went back into the room and saw Cheryl waiting for him in the bed. "Hey tough guy," she greeted him with. "Hi babe," he mumbled as he walked around to his dresser. He started taking out clothes and getting dressed.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I gotta go take care of something work related."

She sighed. "All you do is think of work," she claimed.

"Go to sleep," he answered. "You expect me to track down a nightclub owner during the daytime?"
----
11:14PM

Since he didn't want to waste time brewing up coffee as a stimulant, Vince popped a caffeine pill once he got into his car and drove off. Tonight, his destination was Guiness Lake, in the Barrens District. He had a few questions for Indigo, the man who ran the joint at Club Dante, where he always liked to hang around. Vince had gone to him a few times in the past for information, and he needed his help with that again.

Westview, as the Barrens were formally known, was by no means as good looking as its actual name sounded, hence its new nickname. While the Slums District Vince was in the other day had a dirty, run down and dilapidated look of Urban decay to it, it was suddenly of admirable quality when compared to the Barrens. Regardless of this, people still lived and spent time there. An average person would wonder why, but Vince knew that the type of activity that went down in the Barrens, especially this late at night, was no cleaner that the area was. This was why he was paying Indigo a visit, because he had a good feeling Indigo would know about this new red pill substance that had come up.

Parallel parking the sidewalk opposite the club's front entrance, Vince switched off the ignition and opened the door. Before he got up out of the car though, he checked his pistol, making sure it had a full magazine with an additional round in the chamber, as usual. He'd never had to pull a gun on Indigo or threaten him before, having a well established undercover identity. However, the local gang in Guiness Lake, calling itself "The King's Men," has a persistent presence in the club and the entire Guiness Lake area. They protected the place and acted as Indigo's muscle, among other things Vince didn't have much trouble imagining. He stepped up out of his car, and closed the door, neglecting to lock it. If someone wanted to steal it, they would anyway.

He stepped up to the front door and waited as the Bouncer gave him the once-over. One of the most important things about going undercover was dressing like you weren't a cop. Vince did this in style, managing to look good no matter what the occasion or the disguise. The Bouncer nodded in acknowledgment.

"Been a while, Janus," he said in a deep, albeit greeting tone.

"Time's not something I have a lot of these days."

"You're not the only one. I've seen some nice ones walk in tonight, you'll have a nice selection," the Bouncer said with a grin.

Janus cut to the chase. "I gotta talk to Indigo."

Suddenly the Bouncer was all business. "What about?"

"Business as usual, what else?"

The Bouncer considered it. After a moment, he pulled a radio from his waistband, motioning to a fellow member of the King's Men to guard the door.

"Janus is here to see Indigo, says he's gotta talk." A few seconds passed while the Bouncer waited for the answer.

"Send him in," said an anonymous voice over the radio. The Bouncer nodded, and stepped aside. "He's in the back."

Janus, as he was known in these circles, nodded and walked inside. It was his undercover alias when dealing with these types of characters. He found irony in the alias he'd chosen, being that Janus was a god with two faces, and that was the same situation this Janus was in. One of these faces was Vince, the Mega City PD Narcotics Unit Detective. The other, his underground alter-ego, Janus. Although this was an undercover thing, he had to admit to himself that he let the lines blur sometimes. He enjoyed it. As Janus, he felt like he was free, free from the systematic routine that ruled everyone's daily lives.

Inside, the club was dark as any nightclub would be, with flashing strobes creating all sorts of different light pattern designs all over the place. Along with this, the techno music, and the pounding bass to go along with it. It seemed like the only sort of music you'd hear in this city's clubs, but Janus didn't let it get to him. He just blended in, something he considered himself good at. As if on instinct, his eyes scanned the club and all of its patrons, trying to assess any immediate threat. Right away he could pick out the gang members of The King's Men, posted all over the club and noticeable. It was obvious that they did a better job at deterring trouble makers when they were seen rather than being subtle.

He directed his eyes to the back of the club near the VIP sections, and it was almost as if Indigo was waiting for Janus to see him, because when he saw Indigo, he was looking right at him. Decked out in an outfit that was black and charcoal grey in color, he would have been nearly invisible in the darkness. However, the beanie cap he wore on his head was what made him distinguishable, something he was always seen wearing. Of course, this all was complimentary to the chilling stare on his face. When Indigo realized Janus had recognized him, suddenly his facial expression changed to seeing someone he was fond of, but not necessarily someone he missed. Upon waving him over, Janus cut through the crowd and made it over to his table.

"Well well, Janus, you finally show your face around here after how long? Doesn't matter, have a seat."

Janus knew the warm welcome was total bull****, but he sat down and acted like he was happy to be there regardless. As far as Indigo knew, Janus was a man who knew things as good as he did, so their network of traded information was mutually-dependable one.

"So, to what do I owe the occasion?" Indigo inquired. He took a puff of his cigar, which Janus registered was strawberry flavored. Curled up next to him was one of the nice selection of ladies the Bouncer had mentioned earlier. Janus looked over Indigo's attire once more.

"You know, I would have expected you to wear something with a little purple in it, since you go by the name."

"Haha, what are you here for Janus, to give me fashion tips or talk matters? Besides, you're confused, it's my sister Violet that wears the color all the time."

Janus nodded with a grin. "Right, right. Anyway, speaking of all this color bull****," Janus began, a remark which made Indigo almost imperceptibly narrowed his eyes at as though he'd been insulted-- something Janus intended for, "There's a new drug being passed around that I don't know a source for. It's called 'the red pill,' you heard anything about it? Know where it's from, anything like that?"

Indigo seemed surprised at the mention of it, his eyebrows raising at the mere mention of the pill. Like Janus had reminded Indigo of something he knew very much about that hadn't crossed his mind in a while.

"The red pill, eh? Where'd this come up?"

Janus didn't like the way he'd put emphasis on the word red, but he didn't show it. "A friend of mine disappeared, and when I looked into it, it turned out that someone else was behind it. Said he'd give him the red pill."

"Is that right? Who's the other guy?"

"A guy who calls himself Irvine."

The look of familiarity on Indigo's face was so noticeable it was like shining a flashlight in someone's face. Janus knew he was onto something. Indigo sat there, pondering, but not saying anything just yet.

"Indigo," Janus called to him, trying to break him out of his trance. He snapped out of it and turned his attention to Janus. "Why did you say 'red' like that?"

Indigo grinned. "Cause the red pill's only half the bargain. There's also the blue pill."

The *blue* pill?! Janus thought to himself. ****, this is bigger than we thought. Indigo cut in on his silent consideration, as though he knew what was going through Janus' head.

"You said Irvine offered your friend the red pill? That's why he disappeared. The blue pill is for people that want to stay behind."

The look on Janus' face had what-the-**** written all over it. Indigo seemed amused.

"Not to worry though," he continued. "You don't give a **** about what the pills do, you want to get in touch with the guy who's giving them out, correct?"

Janus nodded. Indigo was good for things like this. Through his large colorful family, he knew a lot of people.

"Yeah, I wanna see this guy. Can you set something up?"

"Oh, sure. I just need to make a few calls. Of course, there's the incentive I need to consider..."

"Yeah, you're worried about what you're getting out of it, I know." He reached into his jacket to grab something out, and a nearby King's Men member thought he was going for a weapon. When he moved in, Janus gave him a stare as he pulled out a small envelope, causing the gang member to stop in his tracks. It earned him a scolding look from Indigo, who motioned for him to get back in place with a simple tilt of his head. Janus placed the envelope down on the table before Indigo, who looked at it with curiosity.

"Inside the envelope you'll find some details on your father's agenda for the next week or so. Where he'll be, what he'll be up to, and when."

Indigo took the envelope with a smile, and nodded with a look of approval towards Janus. "Very good, you know what turns me on Janus. You'll get a call soon. Til next time."

"Right, thanks Indigo. Catch you later."

With that, Janus nodded to his host, got up from his seat, and made his way for the exit. When he stepped out, the Bouncer looked over at him as though he was wondering why that meeting went so fast. Janus smirked with a smart-ass smile. "Business as usual."

The Bouncer shrugged, and got back to his guard duty as Janus stepped into his car, turned on the ignition, and drove off.

"Nice work," he said as he looked at himself in the rear view mirror. "One step closer to Irvine."
----

12-8-03
2:13PM
MCPD

Vince sat at his desk in his office again. He'd quit thinking of his dream experience and more about what it was that apparently got him into that situation: the Matrix. Accessing the FBI's database, since nothing could be found in the precinct's, he entered 'the Matrix' into the search field.

The results that came up were interesting, enough to cause his eyebrows to raise. They were almost scary. All cases and information with any mention of the term 'the Matrix' were all missing persons cases, the evidence of such mention of the Matrix found at the site of supposed kidnapping. None of them mentioned Irvine though. He tapped his fingers on his desk. Obviously, whatever this Matrix was, it was all related to people that turned up missing.

Where did they go?

He sat back at his chair and looked over at the shelves with all the binders on them and noticed a dictionary. He arched a brow, and pushed over in his swivel chair, grabbed the dictionary from the shelf, and rolled back over to his desk. Flipping through the pages, he looked up the word Matrix and read the following:

"ma·trix or ma·trix·es
A situation or surrounding substance within which something else originates, develops, or is contained: “Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every form of freedom” (Benjamin N. Cardozo).
The womb.
Anatomy.
The formative cells or tissue of a fingernail, toenail, or tooth.
See ground substance.
Geology.
The solid matter in which a fossil or crystal is embedded.
Ground mass.
A mold or die.
The principal metal in an alloy, as the iron in steel.
A binding substance, as cement in concrete.
Mathematics. A rectangular array of numeric or algebraic quantities subject to mathematical operations.
Something resembling such an array, as in the regular formation of elements into columns and rows.
Computer Science. The network of intersections between input and output leads in a computer, functioning as an encoder or a decoder.
Printing.
A mold used in stereotyping and designed to receive positive impressions of type or illustrations from which metal plates can be cast. Also called mat2.
A metal plate used for casting typefaces.
An electroplated impression of a phonograph record used to make duplicate records."


Shaking his head, he couldn't make any sense of it. He put down the dictionary and asked himself again, What is the Matrix? His phone rang. He picked it up and put it up to his ear.

"Detective Vince Burnett."

"Is this Janus?" A mysterious voice asked over the phone. He recognized the voice. However, he wasn't sure.

"Who is this?"

"You already know who I am, Janus. You wanted to meet?"

"Irvine."

"Yeah. You must be saying to yourself, 'I finally come into contact with this bastard', hm? You've been searching for me for over a year now."

Vince looked over to Howard's office, and all around the floor, looking for someone to help him get a trace on Irvine's location. "How'd you get this number?"

"Don't bother trying to record and trace this phone call, you won't find me. I'm far beyond your reach, but if things turn out right, it won't stay that way for too much longer."

He looked around, trying to see if anyone was watching him and pranking his phone. Seeing no one, he went over to his window and looked out. Hundreds of windows from dozens of buildings. He could be anywhere.

"I'm not outside either. The question of why or how I can see what you're doing, or how I know your 'real' name is probably driving you crazy, but we both know that there's another question driving you even more crazy."

"What?"

"You know what the question is, Janus. But you've been bugged, and that unfortunately cuts our time short. I'll be in touch."

"But wait a minute!"

"I can't afford to, always been short on time to begin with."

The line went dead. He took the phone from his head and looked at it before placing it back upon the receiver. He sat back in his chair and tried to make sense of what just happened. He'd actually spoken to the guy, who somehow knew exactly what he was doing and thinking. He didn't get it. What the **** was that?
----

Chapter 4 will come as soon as I see the view count go up a bit or get a reply, whichever comes first

[ShadowDog]

Cool deal. I look forward to reading this later.

[Richcelt]

Haven't had a fan fic here in.... er.... a very long time.

I'll likewise come back and give this more of my attention.

[Axiom]

Thats the way a story begins... Jango Fett. You got to set up the characters otherwise you have no story you know.

I wrote a Terminator III script... the one they did in the movie could have been construed as plagarism but how they made that movie was so stupid, I felt pride that mine as described by my friends who read it, was so much better and cheaper on-screen. Shrugs.

Incidently, I think the stupid part of Matrix: Revolutions was that they didn't make Neo the true Virus he could have become.

[Jango Fett]

Axiom, on 27 Feb 2007, 07:52 AM, said:

Thats the way a story begins... Jango Fett. You got to set up the characters otherwise you have no story you know.

I wrote a Terminator III script... the one they did in the movie could have been construed as plagarism but how they made that movie was so stupid, I felt pride that mine as described by my friends who read it, was so much better and cheaper on-screen. Shrugs.

Incidently, I think the stupid part of Matrix: Revolutions was that they didn't make Neo the true Virus he could have become.

Was that a compliment?

[Yossarian]

Jango, I just read all the chapters so far and I am enjoying it rather a lot. In fact I didn't think I would as I don't read fanfic but I idly clicked on the thread and now I'm intrigued. More please.

[Axiom]

Jango Fett, on 27 Feb 2007, 12:51 PM, said:

Axiom, on 27 Feb 2007, 07:52 AM, said:

Thats the way a story begins... Jango Fett. You got to set up the characters otherwise you have no story you know.

I wrote a Terminator III script... the one they did in the movie could have been construed as plagarism but how they made that movie was so stupid, I felt pride that mine as described by my friends who read it, was so much better and cheaper on-screen. Shrugs.

Incidently, I think the stupid part of Matrix: Revolutions was that they didn't make Neo the true Virus he could have become.

Was that a compliment?

Yep... am looking forward to seeing what you do with Ressurection.

This post has been edited by Axiom: 27 February 2007 - 02:07 PM

[Jango Fett]

Chapter 4: You never see it coming

12-8-03

5:30PM

MCPD

Without realizing that he was staring at the floor in his deep thought, Vince knew Indigo came through. Soon. He shook his head. Now he knew he was out there, but he hadn't the slightest idea as to where. He looked back up at his computer monitor and saw the search results and remembered what he was doing before he had gotten the phone call. Finding out what the Matrix was. He looked over out the window across the floor to Howard's office again. How many times have I looked over there in the past few days? He got up out of his chair and exited his office and went over and knocked on the Howard's door and was greeted with an immediate "Come in". He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Howard looked up from whatever it was he was doing at the moment and blinked as he took a moment to see who came in. "Whatcha got, Vince?" he asked. He seems calm.

"I just did a search on the FBI's database for the Matrix. Every case that came up was related by one specific factor other than mention of the Matrix."

"Yeah? What, what is it?"

"They're all missing persons cases. Every single one."

"This looks like it's deeper than just one guy who fell off the face of the earth with a drug dealer. Something's not right here."

"You have any suggestions?"

"Well you said all of the cases related to the term Matrix were all filed as missing persons cases. Obviously your friend isn't the only one doing all of the disappearing acts, so there's more like him out there, meaning that going after one guy might be a waste of time."

"A waste of time? People are disappearing and leaving no trace as to where they go and all we get to do is play around with our thumbs up our asses trying to figure out what the Matrix is."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, this isn't any walk in the park it's been happening all over the place it seems. Okay then, listen. You're in charge of this now."

"What do you mean I'm in charge of it?"

"The whole missing persons thing with the Matrix, I want you to lead the case."

"I'm a narc, I don't work in missing persons why don't you hand it over to them?"

"Because this Irvine guy is still in your hands and you've got a lead now."

Vince sighed. His facial expression became that of one who was concerned or worried about something else other than the situation at hand, as he thought about Irvine's phone call once again.

"What's the matter with you?"

He snapped out of it. "Wha-Oh, nothing, I'm fine. Yeah, I'll see what I can do with this. If I don't find anything you'll be the first to know about it."

"Do whatever you gotta do to find out where these people are going, who Irvine is, and what the Matrix is. Find out by any means necessary."

"Alright." Vince looked at the clock. It was 5:50. His shift ended at 6:00. "Hey I'm gonna get outta here okay?"

"What? Oh, yea, that's fine, see you tomorrow." said Howard, already putting his attention toward something else on his desk. He was busy in paperwork. Vince stepped out and went back into his office. He turned off his computer, and as he walked out of his office, he shut the door behind him and locked it. After he made it downstairs and went outside, he began walking over to his car. He reached into his pocket for his keys, and then his cell phone rang. He took it out and flipped it open.

"Hello?"

"I did say I would contact you soon."

Vince had a double take. "Irvine!!"

"You sound excited. And now it looks as if you're searching for me more now than you ever have in the past."

"How long have you been watching me?"

"Questions, questions. That's irrelevant."

"Questions?! You act like you think I'd have none!"

"Well, I did know you would have questions, and you'll have more soon, but I was looking for something more specific. I hear you're interested in the red pill."

I know what he wants to hear.

"Yeah. What is the Matrix?"

"Aha. Now we have progress."

"What is it?"

"I can't tell you what it is. You have to see it for yourself."

"What?"

"The Matrix is pervasive, it's all around you. You're staring at it as we speak. It's right under your nose. You've been living these past 29 years oblivious to its existence. It has you Janus. I can help you escape, but only if you want me to."

Vince considered this. Help me escape..?

"So where's this meeting going to take place?"

"Are you sure you're ready for the truth? I think you are, but I won't force you to do this."

"I'm sure."

"We'll meet tonight at 1:00. In Kedemoth there is a nightclub called Club Duality. I found it appropriate, don't you? I'll be inside. Until then, keep dreaming."

Irvine had hung up the phone before Vince could ask another question. He looked at his phone, and thought about what he said. He looked down the street as he put his phone in his pocket. He turned his head and looked in the opposite direction. He looked at the buildings in front of him, the cars parked alongside the street, and then all around him. Nothing seemed at all strange. Pervasive? He shrugged and moved to climb into his car, started the ignition, and drove off.

----

6:00PM

When he got out of the car, he slammed the door shut, but in the process, dropped his keys. When he kneeled down to pick them up, he thought he saw someone standing on the street corner in the corner of his eye. Maybe he's waiting to cross the street. After picking up his keys, he stood up and turned his head toward the person standing there. In a second, he scanned the man from head to toe. Black suit, white shirt, tie, glasses. Staring at him. Williams?! He had a double take. Then, a group of people walked in front of the man who was supposedly Agent Williams. When they'd passed by, he was gone. Vince looked in the direction he stood for a moment and shook his head. Just a dream... just a dream. He turned and crossed the street, and then walked up the steps to the apartment complex lobby and stepped inside. Down the block on the sidewalk on Vince's side of the street this time rather than the opposite stood Agent Williams, watching silently. A couple passed him by, and when he saw Vince make it inside the building, his right hand went up to the ear plug. He took a moment, registering whatever instructions it was that was coming over the link.

"Subject is inside home. Irvine nowhere in proximity. We will continue to watch Mr. Burnett until further instructions are received."

With that, he turned and walked away down the street, amidst every other non suspecting person.

----

1:00AM

Kedemoth

Pulling up in front of Club Duality, turning the engine off, and checking his gun all seemed like Deja-vu to Vince. He'd only just done this the night before, and although he was in a different area of the city, it didn't matter. The same setup. Meet in the club, discuss business, see where it goes. But unlike his meeting with Indigo, this wasn't for information. This was it. The break in the case, meeting the man he'd been searching for for a year now. He shook his head. Vince was going to sit this one out. Game time.

He had parked down the street from the club's front entrance, so he began walking down the sidewalk toward the place. It was crowded, but it didn't get to him. He noticed someone walk up alongside him to his right, dressed in rather outlandish fashion that seemed cool for being so out of the ordinary. He thought nothing of it until he saw another one in front of him, walking in his direction. Instinctively, he looked down to his side and noticed someone was also behind him, and didn't have to think twice about the person on his left. Not only were these people following him, they had him boxed in. He knew something was up, but he also knew they did too, based on their configuration. They had the drop on him, it seemed.

"Janus," the one on his right spoke. "Stay silent. Don't turn your head to look at any of us, focus on the sidewalk and just keep walking straight," he said. "We're what you might call friends of Irvine. We're taking you to him."

"We know you're armed," the one in front of him said. "So don't try anything funny. This is for our protection. Once we get you inside the club, head to the back. Irvine will be waiting for you there."

In his silent compliance, Janus offered no argument. They approached the door, and the man in front of this escort squadron presented some sort of card to the Bouncer. Upon examining it, he handed it back and stepped aside, allowing the group entry. Once inside, flashing strobe and laser lights pierced the darkness, with smoke machines doing their thing. Along with this, the fast paced, booming, almost hypnotic techno music.

"Rise FM, broadcasting LIVE from Club Duality! The 24/7, 365, off the hook stay up FOREVER party venue! WE MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE," the DJ yelled into his microphone, drawing loud cheers from those on the dance floor.

One of the escorts nudged Janus with his elbow, so he turned to look.

"He's in the back, behind the doors. Be careful in here, there's a lot of exiles in the joint."

"Exiles?"

The man smiled behind his sunglasses, something Janus thought strange for him to be wearing in this dark club.

"Never mind about that for now. Maybe we'll see you around again," the stranger said, before disappearing into the crowd. Janus pondered for a second, after realizing the rest of the team escorting him had also fell out of sight. Now alone, he turned and looked toward the doorway Irvine was supposed to be waiting behind. Wasting no time, he went straight to them, a set of tinted glass doors that you couldn't see through, like windows on a limousine. He pushed them upon and stepped inside. And the greeting he received wasn't what he expected.

[Jango Fett]

(Chapter 4 continued)

Irvine stood in the center of the room with his arms crossed. He wore a simple three piece black suit, the jacket of which was knee length. His shirt underneath was red wine colored, with a matching tie. He grinned upon Janus' entry. "You finally showed up."

Besides Irvine, there were four other people waiting there with him. Three of them had guns pointed at Janus. He stood wide eyed looking at each of them trying to figure out what he'd just gotten himself into. One of these people was a black man that was maybe an inch taller than Vince was. He had a mustache, and sunglasses covering his eyes like the rest of them. His hair was short cut, almost like a soldier's would be but with the curled hair of a black man. He wore a leather ankle length trench coat. Under this was a black bullet proof vest made with leather covering the kevlar, and under that, what could be a black long or short sleeve shirt. He wore a generic pair of black pants that looked like they were made of denim and were slightly baggy, and pair of boots that looked like they were made from the Lugz company. He noticed a cylindric silver and black colored sword hilt that obviously belong to a sword coming up behind his head, strapped on his back. Black gloves covered his hands. But what Janus took major note of was the MP5-K with a 15 round clip that he had pointed in his face. He looked from the barrel of the gun, to the black guy's face. He had no facial expression.

Janus then looked to the next one. A female of oriental descent who was petite in size. Her jet black hair was tied back into a long french braid that went down to her waist line. She wore a skin tight body suit made of black spandex, and it was all one piece for ease of motion. Her boots were also skin tight and they looked like they were a part of the body suit except you could tell it was thicker leather material. They were definitely feminine, made for quick and agile activity, and they went as high as her calf. Over this body suit she wore a small leather jacket. She had a Walther PPK chambered for .380ACP aimed right between his eyes. The sunglasses made her look as if she were a stone cold killer. If the shoe fits..

He looked onto the last person aiming a gun at him. Another female. This one was about an inch taller than Cheryl was. Her hair was red, and up in a ponytail. She wore a skintight red and black leather pants, and a black leather corset, over which she wore a red vest. She stared at him through her red-tinted sunglasses as she held a Beretta 85FS aimed at his face in her hand. She wore gloves over her hands with the fingers cut half way.

Then there was the last thug of Irvine's pack. This one seemed laid back, or not at all worried or concerned about Vince than the other three did. Unlike the others with black or dark brown hair, this man had slicked back platinum blonde hair. He had black sunglasses in his own style like the others did on his face, along with an observant expression.. He had a long, ankle length black coat on. Under the coat he wore a black dress shirt with a raised collar that stopped just under his jaw, and over this, a vest. Under the collar of the dress shirt he wore a dark violet tie. The coat itself had no buttons to hold it closed but instead there was a gold chain that was attached and fastened at about the same level as the middle of his chest. The vest itself had gold buttons rather than black. Instead of a gun, his weapon of choice was a Katana, which was approximately 29 inches long, encased in a black sheath with gold thread wrapped around the base. He wore black gloves on his hands. His pants were black dress pants, and he wore black dress shoes with them. Rather than being ready to kill Janus at the first sign, he had the sword at his front with his hands placed over the top of the hilt, as if it were a cane. This man was Anubis, the man known in the MCPD precinct as Daniel Lancaster.

Out gunned, and outnumbered, Janus knew he had no chance. "Alright. Alright," he said to signify his surrender. Removing his gun slowly from his jacket holster, he released the magazine from the gun and let it drop to the floor with a *CHANG*. He slowly brought his free hand up to the slide on his gun, and pulled it back, ejecting the last round from the chamber. It fell to the floor and bounced once before finally resting. Then he dropped the gun itself. However, the three people still had their guns pointed up at him. He looked over at Irvine.

"What's the deal?" He asked, raising his arms.

"You've been bugged, you're being watched. This is for the safety of everyone here. Kira,"

Vince arched a brow when Irvine said Kira, but then realized he was talking to one of the people holding a gun to him. The one wearing the black and red leather put her gun into the holster and stepped towards him. He turned to face her. She pulled a syringe like object out from her coat and Vince eyed it skeptically.

"What is that?"

"Don't move." She answered with a serious tone. She brought the syringe up to his right ear and pushed it in. He started to worry, and heard a loud whining noise. She pulled back on the "pump" part of the syringe and the next thing he knew it felt like someone jammed a Q-Tip into his ear and pulled it out. Slightly stunned, he put his hand up to to his ear and looked at the syringe. His eyes widened with horror. Inside the syringe, the metallic centipede that Agent Williams dropped into his ear in his "dream" squirmed around inside like a trapped animal until it seemingly died and was lifeless and still. Kira threw the syringe away. Vince's hand was still over his ear.

"That thing was real?!" he yelled out, looking to Kira for an answer. She said nothing and stared at him again. The others hadn't yet dropped their guns. Irvine put up his hand.

"Blade, Solitaire, please, put your weapons down. Our friend here is no longer a danger."

In the respective order their names were mentioned, Blade and Solitaire put their weapons away under their coats. They turned their heads toward Irvine, and he smiled.

"Now, Janus, time to get to business. You probably feel as if you've gotten yourself caught up into something you have no knowledge about, but strangely, it doesn't feel wrong, no?"

"..Yeah."

"When we last spoke you asked me what the Matrix was."

Janus nodded.

"Do you really want to know what it is?"

"Yes."

"You're lookin' at it."

A puzzled look came across Janus' face, to Irvine's amusement.

"The Matrix is all around you. Here, now. On the dance floor. Outside, all over the place. You see it everywhere. When you drive your car. When you go to the precinct. When you have sex with your girlfriend. I told you earlier, it's pervasive. You would never know of it's existence until now. It's a deception, leading you to believe that you're living a peaceful regular life in the early 21st century. Sometimes, you can sense it, like there's something big or important around the corner, but it never comes. This can change."

Janus knew this feeling Irvine was talking about, about feeling so close yet so far from something you knew was there but couldn't see or know in any way. It wasn't something he only experienced at work. It was a feeling he had for as long as he could remember.

"It can?"

"Yes, if you want it to. I'm giving you the option to get out of the Matrix, and free your mind. Either that, or you can stay here in the Matrix and live the same life you've been living every day where you wake up, go to work, come home, spend time with your girlfriend, go to sleep, and start it over again the next day."

Janus looked at him and thought it over. This talk of truth and another world wasn't something he expected. He was anticipating a drug exchange, but the things he said had effect. They summoned idle thought Janus had always had about this life and place, idle thoughts that were buried and pushed aside by the life his work put him into. Irvine could see he was considering his words.

"Have you ever felt like you dreaming, and couldn't tell if what you experienced was real?"

What is this guy a mind reader? Janus remembered his experience with the Agents, and how life after that seemed aloof. "All the time."

"Would you like to wake up and find out?"

Janus arched a brow. He had no idea where this was going. "...Yeah."

Irvine reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver case, and poured its contents into his hand.

"This is it Janus. You've been searching for me for a year, and here we are. Once we've reached this point, there is no going back."

Janus continued to pay attention. The pain in his ear was killing him.

"You said you wanted the red pill..." he began, and opened his hand to revealed to Janus both the red and blue pills Indigo had mentioned to him the night earlier.

"If you take it, everything will change. Everything you've known your whole life will be revealed for what it really is. There is no going back. If you take the blue pill, the road ends here. You wake up in your bed, as if this was another dream, and keep living your life as you have been, searching for that which you cannot find. Choose your destiny."

Janus stared at the pills. After a moment, he reached out and took the red pill from Irvine's palm. He noticed that Irvine and the rest of his crew had their eyes on him, including Lancaster. He couldn't not take the thing now, it wasn't like he could put it in his pocket, go home, and say "I'll get back to you." Without any other option, he gathered saliva in his mouth, placed the pill on his tongue, and swallowed.

"Just a moment," Irvine said. He took a cell phone out from the inside of his coat and pressed a release button, and the face shield snapped up. He pushed a button on the phone and brought it up to his ear. It rang and the person on the other end picked up.

"Operator."

"Glitch, are you tracking him?"

"We got him, we see where he is, we just have to wait for him to 'die'."

"Very funny. Is the exit ready?"

"It's all set-- what the..."

A look of concern came over Irvine's face upon hearing this. After seeing this, Janus, and the rest of Irvine's crew looked to him to see what the problem was.

"What's the matter?" Irvine asked.

"GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE! AGENTS AND SWAT ARE CONVERGING ON YOUR POSITION NOW!!" Glitch screamed.

Without further comment, Irvine closed his phone and looked to his team. "Agents and SWAT are inbound, we gotta move."

"A ****in' sting operation?! He set us up!" Blade said in disbelief as he moved for the door.

"No, they probably tracked him here without anyone realizing it. Get to the Kedemoth Central exit," Irvine said. He turned to Janus, who was trying to figure out what was happening. "Janus, this goes against procedure but we have no choice, get out of here as fast as you can. We'll come back for you." With that, he turned and hurried for the rear exit the rest of his team had already escaped through.

"What the ****'s going on?!" Janus yelled after him in confusion. Then, from the inside of the club, he heard yelling. He turned to look out the tinted glass doors of the VIP room and saw a team of men dressed in tactical gear clearing out the club, and coming in through the doors after them were three men he immediately recognized: Agents Williams, Davis, and Miller.

"Oh ****!" he exclaimed, before escaping out the rear entrance as well. Without taking time to look back, he ran as fast as he could down the street. Outside it was dark, cold, and it had started to rain. Irvine and his team were nowhere in sight. He felt fear and adrenaline pushing him to run faster, and he felt lighter on his feet. He didn't know where to run, just that he had to get away and hide. The fear of knowing someone was chasing you, and that you had to get away by any means necessary was no stranger to him.

He'd had dreams of this all the time throughout his life, running to get away from someone chasing him, and pulling all sorts of stunts like jumping extremely far and high distances to do so. That was something he wished he could do now. He knew those three Agents weren't on his team or looking out for his best interest. They'd used him to find Irvine. But now that Irvine was apparently safe, the only thing Janus was worried about now was getting himself out alive, having never fully known was he was getting himself into. He blamed himself for being foolish and impulsive, and told himself he should have known better.

His throat was getting cold, and now about three blocks away from the club, he was running out of breath from breaking into a sporadic top speed run. He heard someone calling out behind him.

"There's no use running, Mr. Burnett. You're only making things more difficult."

No way! He thought in his mind. How had they already caught up with him? Did they even bother to check through everyone else in the club? How did they manage to cover this distance so quickly? It wasn't possible, he told himself. Nevertheless, he continued to run, into the night, and the uncertain darkness that was ahead. He twisted down alley ways, hopped over fences, ran through moving traffic. He was feeling tired. His vision was getting blurry. He didn't understand why, until finally he remembered the red pill. What the hell was it anyway? Janus had no idea what kind of narcotic it was supposed to be, because right now it was giving off the effects of a large dosage of sleeping medication.

By now he'd ran into the Moriah Projects area, and was crossing over a metal bridge that went over water. Ahead, suddenly, it seemed as though the bridge had vanished and a cyclone opened in the water, into which he was being sucked in like a vacuum. Was this some hallucination side effect the red pill? This is the Matrix? He felt his balance go, and he started to fall down forward. He blacked out.

----

[Jango Fett]

(Chapter 4 concluded -- didn't realize it was this long!)

An hour had passed since Irvine and his crew had jacked out of the Matrix. They had to take emergency protocol procedures and drop from broadcast depth, and then locate a new place to hide the ship. It was either that, or sentinels would have came and destroyed them all. Now, the team was hunched over and crowded around the construct display monitors, watching.

"What's going on?" Kira asked, trying to read the screen.

"Looks like they're in the middle of refreshing the Matrix. All the code is renewing itself and starting it over, I'm seeing glitches and changes all over the place," Glitch said.

"Where's Janus?" Irvine asked. "Did they get him?"

"Hold on, lemme trace his signal. Hopefully the red pill didn't cut him off or cause him to wake up, or else he's dead," Glitch said as he banged away at the keys. After a short period of lag, he finally located Janus. "There he is. Looks like he's asleep in his bed. I guess they relocated him."

"He must have passed out," Solitaire added.

"Wait, wait a minute. Look," Irvine pointed out.

Glitch watched, and then a look of confusion washed over his face. "He's... moving? That's impossible."

"Why is that impossible?" Anubis asked.

"Because when the machines give the Matrix a refresh they're just cleaning out all the small glitches or sectors that display bugs. During this time, all bluepills are put to sleep."

"Put to sleep?"

"They can't wake up, they're put into a state of mind where it's like they're asleep in bed having a regular dream."

"How do the machines fabricate the dream?"

"It's a playback composed of whatever you did for the last 24 hours before the refresh."

"So what's the big deal?"

"Our friend here has somehow awoken during the refresh period, he shouldn't have been able to do that. It's like waking yourself up out of the Matrix."

"So he's sleepwalking..." Kira concluded.

"I guess so. Still, I don't know he managed to pull it off." Glitch said.

"We've gotta go in and get him." Irvine said. His words were like two cymbals being smashed together during a moment of silence. His crew looked at him.

"What are you nuts? That's never been attempted, ever." Blade said. "We could die in the process, we don't know how stable the uplink is."

"The uplink is going to be fine."

"How do you know!?" Blade returned.

"He's still alive. And if we intend to keep him that way, we've gotta go get him before Agents kill him."

"Uh, Captain," Glitch said. "I don't know if you know, or care, but our computers on this ship have been all *CENSORED* up recently. Either the hardware's screwed up and we need repairs or we need a firmware update, but they just haven't been cooperating. So if they cut out while you're in there, well..."

"Just shut up and jack me in already."

"Will do, Sir."

----

Janus stumbled around. He didn't know what was happening to him. His vision was blurry. He saw the hallway and his hands in front of him extended forward as though he could see through a vertigo effect, but he didn't feel his body moving forward. He felt like he was drunk and delirious at the same time. He could see what he was doing but he felt as though he had no control. The air in his lungs tasted like it was coming out of an air conditioner, but he couldn't feel any air in the atmosphere at all.

Where... where am I...? What's going on?

He made it outside of his apartment, by some virtue of not falling down the stairs on the way down. He tried to look around and take in his surroundings. All he saw was darkness, all around. Not a pitch black darkness, but the light was very dim, like walking around in the middle of the night. Cars on the road weren't moving, as though they were stuck in traffic. No people were around.

Where the hell is everybody? Why can't I move right?

Now, he was walking in the middle of the street, and noticed something he didn't seem to have caught onto.

What's that...?

It looked as though spots of reality were dissolving, revealing green strands of shapes, running over the surface of every single thing he could see. The shapes were changing every second.

What the hell is going on?!

And then, he heard a voice. It was behind him. His head felt like it was spinning as he tried to turn around.

"Janus. Come to me. It's safe."

That's Irvine's voice...

Before him, he saw Irvine. His vision began to get more blurry. He felt like he was staggering forward.

"Irvine.. what's happening...?"

"It's all a dream, Janus. And the whole world is in it."

"A dream..?"

"Come to me Janus, this way."

Irvine went to Janus and slung his arm over his shoulder to help him along. What he saw was odd. Everything in the Matrix looked as it should, but along with the darkness, everything was blurring as though he had slight double vision, and he noticed that there were patches of coding all over, giving the world a decayed look. No doubt that it was part of the repair process, with code renewing itself. It made things difficult to see, but it was easy for him to move around and find his way.

Janus had no balance however. He was still disoriented from the effects of the red pill. Finally, they reached the same phone booth exit Irvine used to get in. Lucky for him it was just around the sidewalk from Janus' location. He put Janus into the phone booth.

"I hope this thing rings..." Irvine said to himself. The phone rang with a noisy echo effect added to it. For a moment, Irvine worried an Agent might show up, but he remembered how all the bluepills were in a sort of stasis mode, this preventing an Agent program from entering someone's body. He picked up the phone and held it to Janus' ear.

"Irvi--..." Janus disappeared.

Catch you in the real, comrade, Irvine thought to himself.

----

Janus shook as if he was scared out of his sleep from his leg falling off the side of the bed. The world was just a dream...?

Something felt... wrong.

He looked down in front of him and saw his hands. Everything was red. There were tubes. He was confused. He saw a flash of light above and raised his hands toward it. He pushed up at what felt like some sort of sheet of jello. It stretched, and he put all of his effort into trying to break out of it, but all of his strength had left him. Finally, he broke out from the womb that held him in and sat up and leaned forward. There was some sort of a hose attached to his face. He pulled it off and he took a deep breath but fell forward with the weight of the tube and accidentally inhaled some of the red goo and closed his eyes. He began to cough and leaned over whatever it was he was sitting in the get it out of his mouth so he could breath.

He opened his eyes and his vision came into focus. He saw hundreds of thousands of red pods with people sleeping in them. He looked to his left and to his right. More naked bodies with tubes attached to them, each in an individual pod of red fluid. He looked down at himself. The tubes were attached to him to. And suddenly, as he looked in front of him and upwards to see colossal towers lined with millions of the pods, he realized that he wasn't dreaming anymore. He felt awake.

This is real...?

Lighting struck in the sky, the flash of light hurting his eyes. Static shocks burst randomly in between pods everywhere. The sky was black, charred, as if it were burnt. He looked down below and saw no floor.

Where am I....Where's Irvine?

He turned his head to look around but felt something holding his head back. He reached behind slowly and felt a large cable plugged into his head.

What..

Suddenly, a large machine rose up in front of him and extended four large legs from his body. It scared the hell out of Janus, he had never seen anything like it before. Then, it released a huge arm that was strangling him by his throat. A camera eye extended forward as if it were examining him. The plug in the back of his head detached it self and it felt like someone scratching nails on a chalk board. As a result of this feeling combined with fear, he began to twitch furiously. When the cable fell out, the machine let go and flew away.

Janus braced himself on his pod trying to breath. Then suddenly every other tube on his body had burst off, and it hurt, it felt like being shot, and he moved and jolted about as if that was happening to him. Then, something else happened. His pod drained, and he was sliding down some sort of a chute. He had no control. Nothing to grab onto. He was just falling.

Finally he was shot out of this chute and ejected into a pool of murky water. He tried to swim, but he couldn't. There was a bright light above. He reached for it as his muscles tired out, and he could no longer keep himself up. He began to sink, but a large crane came down from the light above and grabbed him just as his hand was about to go under. It reeled him up into the light, and then he heard a loud slam behind him as if something shut.

He could barely see. He was in some sort of a room. There was a blue tint everywhere. Someone was carrying him. Whoever it was had set him so all could see them. Then he saw them all: Irvine, Blade, Anubis, Solitaire, Kira, and two others he did not know. They were no longer dressed in black. Irvine came over him and spoke gently.

"Welcome to the Real World, Janus."

His vision and hearing blurred. He was cold. He passed out and fell once again into an abyss of darkness.

----

[Yossarian]

More please.

[Jango Fett]

Chapter 5: A Pirate's life for me

Date: Unknown
Time: Unknown
Area: Tunnels of the Real

Janus lay on a table, completely bare except for the cloth covering his groin. The table was lined with white fluorescent light bulbs, giving off bright white light. The part Janus was laying on was covered by a thin white sheet. Small antennae were attached to each side of his head at his temples. In the time that passed, his eyebrows and eyelashes had grown in, with only a little bit of the hair on his head apparent. His head rested on a pillow. Irvine, Anubis, Kira, and another man all stood around the table watching over him.

Rather than their crafty black clothing they were wore when Janus first ran into them, they were now all dressed in rag like clothing. Black combat boots covered all of their feet, and they wore combat pants in several dark shades.

Irvine was wearing dark blue pants and a white baggy, raggy shirt that looked like it was made of homespun cloth but now tarnished. His hair was more messy in appearance than it was in the Matrix. Anubis was dressed in a brown shirt with black pants, and had short blonde hair still growing in.

Kira dressed in a black tanktop and black pants, her hair as long as it appeared in the Matrix, but not as treated looking. There were black plugs visible on her arms placed every few inches.

The other man standing there looked to be of haitian decent. He wore an outfit of fatigues, a B.D.U. jacket with cut off sleeves and combat pants in a matching dark shade of olive green. Under his vest he wore a black t-shirt, and combat boots of the same color like the others. He wore black knuckle gloves on his hands. His dreadlocks were tied back under a black bandana, and the surplus cloth that made up the knot was nearly as long as the dreadlocks themselves, which ran down to the base of his neck.

This man's name was Marley, and he was a ship crew assistant like Glitch, the operator. When the others were jacked into the Matrix, he would help out Glitch while he was operating, and that included anything from unplugging the others from their chairs, or piloting the ship when the ship was under Sentinel attack & pursuit while Glitch worked as fast as he could to set up an exit to get the rest out of the Matrix ASAP. He'd also help when none of them were in the Matrix, like piloting the ship or manning a turret. Sometimes if Glitch was piloting, Marley would sit in as Operator himself. The room they all stood in was an infirmary.

A fluorescent light hung above the table. There were medical supplies and cabinets here and there, and some monitors and consoles displaying the readings being taken from the antennae on Janus' head, such as heart rate, brain waves, and other important conditions that would be monitored on a newborn. The floor was solid steel, as well as the bulkheads. Black conduits ran across the ceiling, as well as pipes and mainlines, with some wires on the floor as well. A small cart stood beside the table, on which was several medical tools.

Janus opened his eyes, barely, and he squinted. He couldn't look around much, but he saw the others standing over him. He recognized Irvine, but Anubis and Kira were out of his path of vision. Marley looked down and made eye contact when he noticed Janus had awakened. He tried to speak, and could only do so in a whisper.

"What's going on?"

"Relax buddy, we're rebuilding your muscles." Marley answered. "You got a while to go yet."

"Irvine? Where am I?"

"We'll explain everything to you later, Janus. Sleep for now."

His head barely moved, but it was Janus' effort to nod. He closed his eyes, and in a matter of seconds he fell back into sleep. Hours passed. Every so often, Janus' body would twitch as a result of his nerves reacting to the muscle rebuilding process.

Irvine looked over to Anubis and Kira and nodded, and they left the room to go elsewhere on the ship. As Marley and Irvine removed needles from his body they placed them into a small basin filled with a sterilizing fluid. Marley yawned and rubbed sweat from getting into his eyes, his forehead reflecting the fluorescent light. Irvine looked up to him and cracked his knuckles.

"We have a lot of work to do still," he said to him in an assuring tone.

Marley nodded and looked down at Janus, who was still asleep. "How much longer you think this is gonna take?"

"An hour or two maybe. The hard part's over. All we have to do is get the rest of these needles out, and then work on the plugs."

"The plugs..." Marley said in a mumble, as if he had something against them. Irvine raised a brow.

"What's the matter?"

"They look freaky."

Irvine gave him a look that said "Don't go there."

Marley chuckled and shook his head. "Come on let's finish this guy up."

And so they continued working, and it took them two more hours to finish. After removing all of the acupuncture pins, they moved on to working on the plugs all over his body. This included closing up every plug on his body, except for the one located on the back of his head. The reason for this was to stop anything from getting into his blood stream that shouldn't have been there and to prevent infection.

When they finished, they covered him up in a cloth to keep him warm and left him sleeping on the table. The rest of the crew was busy attending to ship maintenance, monitoring sentinel activity, attending to themselves, whatever they could do to keep themselves busy, while Irvine and Marley did the surgery. When they came out of the room, they met on the main deck.

Here, the floor was made out of grated metal. Wires and conduits were all over the place. They ran across the floor, they ran along the walls, they hung from the ceiling, from the bridge up above that was part of the upper level of the ship. There were pipes everywhere. Metal supports all over the place, and they all had a burnt or tarnished look. Pipes were all over, huge pipes connected by flanges or thin pipes connected with through welding.

The main structure was the core. Every chair from which someone would sit in to be jacked into the Matrix was wired to this core. Several monitors were attached to it, about four per chair, and with these came a keypad, for keying in certain modifications and configuration set ups. Not far off from the core was the Operator's station, a plethora of monitors and several keyboards all connected together by many wires. It was a mess. But a clean mess at the same time.

"How's he doin'?" Blade asked, crossing his arms and standing tall. Here in the real world his hair was more natural looking. His eyes were gray, and he wore a dark gray sleeveless shirt and dark brown combat pants and the black boots. Everyone had black boots, it went without saying. He tilted his head slightly.

"He's alright now. His vitals are normal and he's doing okay. We still have to put some clothes on him and put him into his bed." Irvine answered.

Anubis took a seat in one of the chairs and took a moment to scratch behind his ears. He never said much to anyone and was rather anti-social. He seemed to have no care at all about the new crew member, and continued on lukewarm about it as usual with most things. Solitaire stood hanging onto a pipe with her right hand. She had a white tank top and blue pants on with suspenders, her hair done up in a high ponytail. "So, what's he gonna do for us?"

"Right now there's not much he can do, but it brings one more guy onto our side once we get him trained and everything. Besides, he wanted out." Irvine replied.

Kira sat there listening. "So what's that mean, he's just as effective as we are? That's not saying much," she said.

"With our position, with the way things are looking, I know what you mean. But he wanted the truth so I wasn't gonna deny him the fact." He looked over to Marley. "Marley, go help Glitch with the sentinel watch. I'm going to put Janus in his bed. Later, we'll give him orientation."

Marley nodded and walked off with a "Yes, Sir." Irvine went off to tend to Janus, and Marley made his way over to Glitch.

Glitch was young looking, about 25 years old. He was caucasian, and stood 6'0 in height. He had short combed back black hair, and wore a dark gray baggy shirt with blue combat pants, a headset, and brown leather gloves cut short at the finger. He nodded over to Marley.

"Whatcha got?" he asked.

"Ah nothing, Cap told me to come and help you, what's new?"

Glitch shook his head and looked at the three large central monitors displaying scrolling code strands that represented the Matrix. "Nothing special really. System refresh is finished, copper tops doing what they do, no sentinels on our ass. We're doing good so far, so I guess it's just me and you watching people again and trying to fix this ****."

Marley shrugged. "Better than nothing."
----

Janus slowly opened his eyes, and his blurred vision came into focus. He had a slight headache. As he stared up at the ceiling, he realized it wasn't his apartment ceiling anymore. Then he saw that he was sleeping up against a titanium wall. A long shelf-like mesh box on this wall contained a few articles of clothing. The titanium plates that made up the wall were bolted together. The top rim of the bed was also lined with bolts.

Where the hell am I?

He took a moment to try and gain his bearings. And then, in a flash, he remembered. The entire world around him blurring, with decayed looking patches of green symbols, and the tub of red goop with the tubes. Above his pillow was a light, and behind that, an empty black rack.

There was a single monitor panel on the wall adjacent to that of the light and the mesh box. Two thin pipes ran along the wall that he slept against, the wall with the mesh box. Farther along the wall was a phone attached to a receiver but with no buttons to dial.

It must be like closed circuit or something.

There was a cabinet, and a small fan above it. He looked down at his bed. It was only big enough for him to sleep in, and he had one pillow and a large burgundy cloth that was a blanket.

There was a little bit of space to walk around his bed, five feet out to the side, and four feet away from the foot of the bed was the door, which was fastened by a lever, the same way a Navy ship's doors are closed by.

This must be what a jail cell feels like.

He looked back down at his bed and looked at how big it was. He looked over his legs and noted his clothes. Now he was dressed in black combat pants, new boots, and a dark blue shirt made of the home woven material.

My clothes are gone... what the hell did Irvine do with them?

He looked down at his bed on his left side. Something caught his eye.

What the hell?

A tube was going into his shirt. He pulled up his sleeve and he was taken off guard by what he saw. The needle entered his arm where it should have, but instead of going in through the skin, it was inserted into a plug in his arm that was gunmetal in color.

What the hell is this?!

Getting a grip on the tube and needle, he pulled at it with hopes of getting it out of his arm, and he felt pain. Wincing, he pulled at it slower and more gently than before, until it had come all the way out of his arm.

Then the memory of waking up in the pod came back. He remembered the huge towers of pods filled with red fluid and naked people sleeping with tubes attached to them.

Tubes...wait...

Slowly he moved his hand to the back of his head to where his headache was coming from, that being right above where his nick connected to his head. Gently running his fingers across that area, he felt something he didn't expect. A round, metal plug, on the back of his head, with a small hole in the middle. His eyes widened, and he hit his hand down onto the bed from the spontaneous reaction.

What is this!?

He stood up from the bed and put his hand on top of his head and felt short tiny hair.

My hair's gone!

He began feeling his chest and his arms and felt more plugs, and pulled his arms away and looked at himself.

What the **** happened?!

There was a knock at the door. Snapped out from his moment of hysteria, he looked towards the door. The sound of the crank turning came about, and the door whined as it was pushed open. There stood Solitaire, and smiled when she saw the freaked out look on Janus' face. To him it looked like she was holding back laughs, causing him to calm down and be more concerned as to why she was there.

"Hey newbie. You alright?"

The look on his face made it obvious that he had tons of questions. He opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off.

"I'm Solitaire, I think we met a few hours ago," she said, and extended her hand to shake. He accepted and shook her hand, and then she took back her hand/ She gestured with her head for him to follow her. "C'mon, everyone wants to say hello."

She led, and he followed, leaving the door open behind him. He studied the hallway as he walked behind her, noting how it was all made of metal, and had a blue tint to it, and how it was lined with wires and pipes. They passed several other doors, and he assumed that this was the quarters level of whatever it was he was on. They came to a ladder and she climbed up, and he followed. They passed a level as they went up, and came up to the main deck on the opposite side of the floor from where Glitch and his set up was located.

Janus narrowed his eyes as he looked around, noting the wires and the pipes all over the place and shaking his head. That's a lot of wires.. He looked at the the core setup and how complex it was. His eyes roamed all over the place, from the floor to the ceiling, over to the chairs, of which he counted six. And then finally, he looked over to the others that were staring back at him. He saw and recognized Irvine, Anubis, Kira, and Blade. Solitaire joined the others, and there were two more he didn't recognize. Realizing he was standing alone, he began walking over to the others. It felt kind of weird to be walking, and why he didn't know, but he got used to it and in short time it felt like normal walking. He stopped about seven feet away from the rest of the group. Irvine stepped out and took his hand and shook it firmly.

"Welcome aboard, Janus."

"Where the hell am I? Is this a warehouse or some ****?"

"This is my ship, the Nemesis. It's a hovercraft, but not the same as the kind you're used to."

"Hov-hovercraft?" This was ridiculous, it seemed. "What the ****'s going on here, what'd you do to me? You cut my hair, you took my clothes, you put these metal things all over me. Tell me what this is! I had these insane dreams, cause of that pill you gave me. Is that what 'the Matrix' is? Your pet name for the trip you get off of the red pill?"

The crew couldn't help but get a laugh out of that. "Looks like he's got us all figured out, Boss," Glitch said with a laugh. Irvine himself smiled with a brief chuckle.

"We'll explain everything one thing at a time."

He nodded as if to be referring to something behind Janus. Janus turned his head and saw a bronze plaque attached to the center of the core and it read "Mark VII No. I NEMESIS Made in Zion Year 2202". 2202? He turned back to Irvine.

"What's the date?"

"Actually to be honest we don't know. We estimate that the year is sometime around 2203, two hundred years after your time. But we'll get to that later. Right now, it's time to introduce you to the rest of my crew, but in a more formal manner."

They all stood in line. First Irvine came to Blade. "This is Blade, my first-mate." Blade nodded. Then he moved onto Kira. "This is Kira." She gave a nod. Next he moved onto Anubis. "This is Anubis. He isn't too talkative but he might warm up to you." Anubis simply greeted Janus with a cold stare, and Janus gave it right back.

"Lancaster," Janus responded. Anubis continued to stare.

"His name is Anubis." Irvine said, guiding him a long.

"This is my Operator, Glitch." Janus nodded, and Glitch nodded back in return, replying with "Nice to meet you."

Next Irvine came to Solitaire. "You've already met Solitaire." She winked at him, and he nodded back.

Irvine then came to the last person. "This is Marley, secondary Operator and a great help among many other things."

Then he turned to his crew. "You all know Janus. Let's make him one of us." They all smiled. All except for Anubis. He kept the cold stare.

What's his problem? Janus wondered. Irvine looked back to him and continued to speak.

"This is the real world. You have yet to see how it really is, but it's nothing to rush at. In this world, survival is a struggle. We do whatever we have to do."

Janus arched a brow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"We've broken off from a major fleet to take a neutral side in a war. However we are looked upon as rogue pirates."

"A war? Pirates?"

"We steal and salvage, we attack, we hijack, we hack, we crack, we shoot to kill. All of this is necessary to survive. It's the life we live, but the way we see it, the ends justify the means."

Janus thought this over. He still had so many questions.

A pirate's life for me.

[Jango Fett]

Chapter 6: Reality Check

Date: Approx 2203

Time: -

Area: Tunnels of the Real

Irvine stood before Janus, studying his face and making note of how he was taking all of this. He grinned, for there were two things about this that amused him. One, how Janus was just standing there and listening to this like it was nothing. Two, the fact that Janus was only scratching the surface. He had yet to learn of the world they lived in and why they lived like pirates. He still did not know what the Matrix was, but Irvine knew this. He knew he would have many questions, and being human, some answers he would understand and accept, and some answers would confuse and possibly frustrate him.

"Janus, you asked me what the Matrix was. Are you ready to know?"

Janus looked back at him in the eye. This was all a roller coaster, and he figured it was only going to get better. Or worse. He knew he was going to find out what it was one way or another, so he answered Irvine by nodding his head.

"Good. Come this way." Irvine led him over to the chairs, and then walked over to the chair that was to the right of Janus'. He looked back at Janus.

"Sit, and lay back," he told him, before doing the same in his own chair. Janus sat down and laid back as he was told, and positioned himself so that he was comfortable. To him, it felt like a dentist's operating chair. He turned his head and looked to his left where Irvine was sitting. He watched as Marley walked over and pulled off of the pillar a needle with a handle the size of a man's fist. The needle itself was at least 5 inches long. Marley took this needle and inserted it into the hole in back of Irvine's head, to Janus' wide eyed state of surprise.

Blade had walked over to his chair and pulled the needle behind Janus' chair off of the cylinder, and Janus quickly turned his head toward Blade with a look on his face that said "What are you going to do with that thing!?"

Blade smiled and shook his head, placing his left hand on Janus' forehead whilst holding the needle plug with his right. As he brought his hand around the chair's head rest and set the tip of the needle down upon the entrance of the canal on the back of his head, Blade gave Janus a reassuring look, and Janus looked worried.

"Relax. It's like nails on a chalk board."

Janus arched a brow, and with that, Blade inserted the needle into Janus' head and it made a *ZZzzt* noise. Janus tightly closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, because the metal of the needle rubbing up against the metal of the canal shaft inside his head cause friction that made that *ZZzzt* noise to everyone else, but to him, it sounded like someone scratching a plate with a fork, or as Blade put it, nails on a chalk board. Blade looked over at the touch tone screen above Janus' chair that showed his vitals and pushed at the screen where it said "LOAD". Janus' face suddenly calmed as if he was sleeping.

The next thing Janus knew, the nuisance of the screeching noise had gone away as if someone has snapped their fingers. He opened his eyes and was caught off guard by what he saw. He no longer was looking up at the ceiling of the Nemesis' main deck. Now he stared at a blank whiteness.

He saw nothing. Nothing but white, everywhere he looked, in every direction. To him, it felt like when you fall asleep and don't even realize it, and when you wake up, hours have passed, but the last thing you remember was what you were looking at before your eyes closed, as if you had merely blinked.

Where am I?

"Welcome."

He heard a voice. It was Irvine's, and it sounded as clear as a bell, since there was nothing like background noise to interfere. It was the only thing Janus heard. He turned around and saw him, but wasn't dressed in the combat pants and the raggy shirt and the boots. He was dressed in the same outfit Janus saw him in when he met him at Club Duality. But that seemed like so long ago. Now he was confused, again.

"Where are we?"

"This would be the Construct. It's what we use to load equipment. We come here before going into the Matrix."

"Load equipment?"

"Yes, this is our loading program. Be it clothes, weapons, vehicles, training programs, whatever we need, we get it from here."

"Program? This is a computer program?"

"Indeed it is."

"But how...?" Janus was trying to figure this out faster than he could process.

"It's fairly simple once you think about it. It's no different than the Matrix where you came from. Take a look at yourself. You have different clothes on. Your hair's grown back, and the plugs on your body are no longer present."

Janus examined himself as Irvine listed the changes. He was wearing the same black pants, shirt, boots and leather blazer he wore before he was unplugged. He ran his hand through his hair and it was long, and felt the back of his head. No plug. It was as though he was back to his old self again.

"How did this happen?"

"It's your Residual Self Image. Your mind's projection of yourself. The reason you're in regular clothes and your hair is back and your plugs are gone is because this is how your mind sees itself, or how you're most used to looking."

Janus looked at himself over and it made more sense. But he still didn't get the whole computer program aspect. "If this is how I'm used to looking, how did it get into a computer program?"

"Not how 'it' got into a computer program, but how your entire mind was put into a program. The plug that is put into your head is like a bridge. Your mind is taken from your brain, translated into data, and is fed into the ship's online mainframe. Then it's inserted into the Construct program. The data re-translates and conforms so that it's compatible with the program and then you get your RSI. It works the same with training programs and the Matrix."

"So I'm not really here right now, and none of this is real?"

"Precisely. Now your getting the hang of it. Real is only what our minds tells us is real, and we get what it tells us is real through our five senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, which are merely electrical impulses. Our bodies are back on the Nemesis in the chairs with wires plugged into the back of our heads connected to our cerebral cortex. Our minds are here. Our apparent bodies are merely avatars of our mind, like when you play an online computer game. It's not really you in the game, it's the character you're playing as that's in the game and you're controlling it. It's the same concept here only from an intense first person perspective where what you experience here and what registers through your five senses not only affects you here, but also affects you back on the ship. In other words, while it's false here, your mind makes it real on the ship."

"So if I'm shot in the Matrix, I'll have a bullet wound in the real world with the hole and everything?"

"No. You would have the bullet wound here or in the Matrix, but in the real world, your mind would tell your body that you were shot. Consequently, the nerves in your body in the same place you were shot would respond as if you actually were shot, and you would feel pain and bleed."

Janus tilted his head with a slight frown. He was beginning to understand. "So, if my arm was cut off in the Matrix, I wouldn't be able to use it here?"

"Yes, right. Your nerves in your arm wouldn't respond and it would be rendered useless."

"If you die in the Matrix, you die here?"

"Exactly. The body cannot live without the mind. If the mind is killed, it tells the body it was killed, which results in you being dead."

"Can the mind live without the body?"

This caught Irvine by surprise. He frowned thinking it over. "Honestly, I don't know. It isn't something I'd experiment with though."

Janus nodded. "Why though? All of this..the Construct, the Matrix, what's it all for?"

A sly grin crept upon Irvine's face. Janus was eager to learn.

"Pay attention," Irvine said to Janus. Suddenly, the world around them changed. The infinite whiteness of the construct was replaced by a city street where they stood in the middle of the road. There was the black pavement, the sidewalks lining the road, the six-floor apartment buildings, trees, people walking around, and over all this, a magnificent blue sky dolloped with clouds here and there. Janus had a double take, as the city around them had come out of nowhere. He approached a car slowly and put his hands on the top of the hood and ran his hands over to smooth surface. It felt real, it looked real. He could feel the cold of the steel begin to chill up his hands. He was amazed. It's not real...?

Irvine looked at Janus and chuckled. "Amazing, isn't it?"

Janus looked over at him and slowly nodded, before surveying the area around him again. One could say he was dumbfounded, but at the same time, it wasn't new to him. He looked back to Irvine and raised his eyebrows like "What now?" Irvine inhaled. Janus payed close attention as Irvine spoke.

"Look here Janus. Do you see this? This is the world as you know it, the way it was in the beginning of the 21st century. It now exists only as a virtual simulation that we call the Matrix. You've been living inside of a neural, interactive dream world your whole life. This is the world as it is today."

[Jango Fett]

(Chapter 6 cont'd)

He snapped, and the buildings transformed from tall, strong supported structures to crumbled, charred towers of what remained. The sky was black with little light passing through the clouds. Lightning cracked the sky and thunder struck like a whip right after. Rubble and rock and metal and debris was the ground, in tremendous colossal heaps all around. Janus was shocked. No longer was he surrounded by the tranquility of the city. He was now in the world of post apocalyptic destruction he got a short glimpse of when he awoke in his pod. Quickly, he turned to see where Irvine was and he saw him still standing across from him as calm as a breeze.

"Where the hell are we?"

"This is the real world. Right now, we are on the surface, somewhere we seldom visit."

"What happened?"

"There was a war. Centuries ago, our technological prowess had reached its peak and we created Artificial Intelligence. As it developed, it eventually gave birth to a race of thousands of machines of all types, like androids, industry machines, construction robots, home convenience. For any task you could think of, there was a machine to do it."

"So then what?"

"Humans treated machines as though they were an inferior race. When one of these machines took a human life in self defense, it launched a genocide against the machine race, humans took up arms against them. It was a worldwide massacre. Eventually the machines built their own city where they could manufacture and develop themselves and thrive in piece without being threatened. It's not too far from where we're located, but no one dares to go there. No ship ever made it within 100 miles of the city without being destroyed. All except one, but that's another story."

"Then how did this happen?"

"From our understanding, the war began after numerous attempts to establish peace fell through.."

"The war?"

"Yes. We don't know who struck first. However, it was us who blackened the sky and blocked out the sun, with efforts to eliminate the machines' solar energy source. Apparently it didn't work out. Unfortunately, the machines had a greater understanding of our anatomy and our weaknesses, and in the end the machines slaughtered us. After a surrender, it was here that the Matrix began."

"Then why are humans in those red pods with all the tubes attached to them?"

"Do you remember how I said that the machines used the sun as their main energy source?"

"Yeah."

"Well, after we blocked out the sun, the machines had to find another source for power. Instead of wiping us out, they decided they would put us to good use. A human body generates more bio-electricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat. Harnessing this power with a certain method of fusion, the machines could manufacture it. With this discovery, they found all of the power they would need, in those that created them."

Janus was blank. "..What are you saying?"

"I have no reason to lie to you, Janus. Look."

The scenery changed, and they were now on some sort of mountain top, overlooking what looked like a field of red dots with large octopus-like machines picking at these red dots with their long tentacles.

"What is that?"

"Those are the fields. Those red dots you see are humans. We're a crop now, Janus. No longer born, but rather, grown. We are, as an energy source, easily renewable and completely recyclable, the dead liquefied and fed to the living. All they needed to control this new battery was something to occupy our minds."

Janus looked at Irvine wide-eyed, but didn't say a word, as he came to a horrifying conclusion of what he was being told.

"You wanted to know what the Matrix was? This is it. Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated neuro-synaptic simulation, where the machines put your mind, while your body is used to power them. Our mission is to find a way to destroy it and liberate our people, as it has always been."

Janus took this in, and his forehead wrinkled. He felt surprised. Mad, angry even. Confused. Shocked. Caught up in a state of awe. The fabric of his reality had been unraveled and tied into a noose, and now it was choking him. He experienced trouble breathing.

"I don't believe you. No, I don't believe this. It can't be, this is fake."

"It's never easy to accept, but it's true. While it is hard to believe, you know you're an advocate of the fact that the truth can sometimes hurt."

Janus could only look at Irvine as though he was disgusted, leaving Irvine to wonder whether it was at him or what he had just told the new redpill. "We're finished for now. You need some time to rest and think this over." The world around them turned back into the vast whiteness of the Construct. "Take us out of here, Glitch."

----

Upon waking in his chair, Irvine got up and walked over to Janus, who was merely laying there staring up at the bulkhead. Marley unhooked the attachments on the chair so that he could get up, but he didn't move. Irvine stepped over and gently helped Janus up out of the chair.

"Are you alright?"

"Nausea.. and a migraine.."

Irvine nodded Glitch over to help him with Janus.

"It's normal. Come on, let's get you to your bed."

When they reached Janus' quarters, Glitch and Irvine helped him to his bed. Irvine nodded to Glitch. "Keep working on the ship's computer repairs."

"Gotcha," Glitch said with a nod, and left to get back to work.

"Janus," Irvine said as he turned to him. "Take as long as you need."

He nodded, and laid down to sleep as Irvine went off. That was all he needed right now. Time, and as much of it as he could get.

----

The Vehemens buzzed through the underground tunnels of the real, with blue wide rays of light coming out from several points on the ship. The hover pads left their blue trails behind that faded away only about fifteen feet behind the location of each pad. The ship was medium in size and had sixteen hover pads in total. Twelve of them were bunched in threes on four points on the ship. Several antennae and turret barrels stuck out from the ship. It stopped at one point where a large opening broke into the side of the tunnel, turned 90-degrees to the left, and entered the tunnel.

The tunnel was made almost entirely of rock and sediment except for the few pipe fragments jutting out from the rock. This area was uncharted territory that no one had actually traveled in, and therefore was unknown. The reason for the wide blue rays coming out from the ship was that the crew was mapping the unknown territory and writing it down to memory.

A bald caucasian man sat at the controls steering the ship. His controls were two joysticks and a keyboard in between. There were several other monitors and keypads in the cockpit as well. The man was built, with a red tone to his skin. He wore a white tank top, brown combat pants, and had black knuckle gloves on.

On his left sat a man dressed with black combat pants, and a dark blue shirt. He also had long hair and a goatee, and a scar under his right eye. Both men watched closely as the ship hovered onward.

"Iratus," the man on the left began, "set the ship down there in that cave," he said. Iratus nodded and worked the controls. The ship spun 270-degrees and backed up into the small cave in the wall of the tunnel. It set down with a rumble and then was finally still.

"Capitan, are we finished mapping for now?" Iratus asked.

"Yes, that'll be fine, I'll let you know when it's time to leave. Have Zero patch the cooling systems to the hard-drives and shut down whatever power we don't need, we don't want to waste any and it's a pain in the ass to recharge as it is. Run a maintenance check and see to it that whatever needs to be worked on is repaired."

"Yes sir." Iratus said, and he left the cockpit. The Captain stared out the window out at the dim blue rocky tunnel they had just came from. The radio crackled and a voice came over the speaker with some static. "Com com, this is the Nosferatu calling in requesting a report of your current status." The man in the chair grabbed the receiver and pushed down on the button. "Check, we hear you. This is Ravage, we've taken a break from tunnel recon for repairs. Who is this?"

"Copy that Vehemens, this is Sideways, the Nosferatu's Operator, Captain Blood felt like checking everyone else's status."

"Oh, that's nice," Ravage said as if to retort. But he meant his sarcasm in jest. "While we're on the topic, how's everything over by you?"

"Everything's straight, we're just mapping and looking out for sentinels, our status is fine." The radio crackled again with more static and another voice came over the radio.

"Speaking of sentinels, we wiped out a few of them not long ago," the voice said. It was a female.

"Who's that?" Ravage asked

"This is Sigma, first mate on the Rebellion."

"Is Django there?" Sideways asked.

"This is Django," he replied over the radio. He had a deep voice but he sounded like he was in a good mood.

"Django how did you turn out?"

"We were fine, our auxiliary power kicked in right after our EMP set off, and the Vendetta came in to make sure we were alright."

"Any sign of more sentinels?" Ravage asked.

"Nope, nothing anymore. They were doing some recon on their own but we zapped em before they even knew we were here."

"What about Zion craft?"

"No sign of them, you know they don't like to go into uncharted territory, they don't want to get lost, that's what happened to the Logos."

"I remember. What about the Nemesis?"

"They're pretty good and keeping their distance, there's been no sign of them at all, they're probably miles from here."

"Yeah, probably. Well I'm signing out for some R&R."

"Alright, talk to you later Ravage." Ravage stood up and hung the receiver back up on the console and left the cockpit to go to his quarters. He recited the objective of all this mapping, quietly to himself. "The closer we can get to the machine city via untraveled routes, the better chance we have to EMP-blast it without the machines having a clue."

----

[Jango Fett]

(Chapter 6 concluded)

Several hours later, Irvine went to check on Janus and found him sitting in his bed staring into space.

"You doing any better?"

Janus nodded his head. "I'll be fine. You mentioned a war before."

Irvine nodded. "What of it?"

"Is it still happening?"

"No, it isn't. There was one factor that changed it all."

"What was it?

"Inside of the Matrix, there's a consultant that we call The Oracle. She's been with us since the beginning of the war. She's a guide, and a large help to us. She told us that once upon a time, when the Matrix was first created, there was a man inside that could control the Matrix's reality by will alone. He was called The One. Apparently, it was this man who freed the first of Zion's people and showed them the true nature of the world."

"What happened to him?"

"When he died, The Oracle came up with this prophecy that said the return of The One meant the end of the war was near. Not long afterwards, we found the guy. His name was Neo. Under the tutelage of Morpheus, one of the more praised and respected ship captains of Zion, Neo reached his full potential. There were those who thought the prophecy was bull, and refused to believe that one man could stop an entire race of machines. When the time came, Zion was about to be attacked by huge machine army."

Janus merely watched and listened.

"It didn't happen, for some reason," Irvine said. Janus noted that he sounded distant, almost disappointed as he said it.

"Neo traveled to the Machine City with his partner Trinity. We don't know how he did it, but the machines ceased their attack; they were already inside of Zion and destroying it by then. The war was then declared over. We never saw Neo or Trinity again. A truce was made between Zion and the machines, and we existed together in peace. Those that wanted to be free from the Matrix were allowed to do so with no restraint. That was five years ago."

Janus nodded as though to say "Go on."

"Despite the fact that there was peace between humans and machines, there were some people that couldn't accept it. A whole bunch of different opinions from different groups. Some wanted to uphold the peace, some wanted to destroy it, some even wanted to go back to the Matrix. In particular, one group argued that we were still vulnerable, and that the machines could come and destroy Zion at any time. With Neo gone, it was widely held that there would be no way to stop it. The counter-argument was that as long as Zion did nothing to instigate, the machines would have no reason to attack. Well... that was easier said."

"....."

"Well, let me break this down. Three years into the peace after Neo made the truce, one particular group of people came with an undeniable point- the machines were still in control and they could attack if they wanted to and there would be nothing Zion could do about it. They said that since the Matrix still existed, and as long as humans were still being used as a power source, the machines still were in control. They didn't trust the truce, and they threatened leave Zion. But the High Council didn't take them seriously. So, said group got pissed that no one was listening to them, so they went off to prove their point. There were six captains, six ships, six crews. My crew and I were a part of the group. We felt that instead of being sitting ducks, we'd rather be prepared and at least be ready to warn Zion if the machines were going to attack."

"So that's how we fall into this?"

"No, there's more. After we left, the captains grouped up and decided on what to do. There were the six of us alone on our own, and we were trying to find something we only had a hunch about. So we set out to look for some kind of proof behind our suspicions. What we found... well for once it didn't feel good to be right."

"What did you find?" Janus asked.

"With six hovercraft scoping out the tunnels and the desert, we had a lot of area covered. That's how we stumbled across them. An entire army of sentinels poised to attack Zion, waiting on standby for the order should the truce ever fail, or as we figured, whenever the Machines saw fit.. We screwed that up big time."

"What happened?"

"We leaped before we looked. On an impulse decision, we set up an attack formation and struck at the sentinels. Our attack plan worked out, we managed to take out a majority of them since we took them by surprise, and we scattered before the rest could take us down. That was what did it though. We didn't think it through, we thought we were protecting Zion. The consequences of our actions were worse than we figured."

Janus raised an eyebrow out of curiosity.

"The moment we left port, Zion considered us rogues and refused to be involved in our expedition or give us any assistance. The machines, unknown that this split went down, saw this as an offense and a declaration of War. They sent a larger attack squad to Zion and when it arrived, Zion wasn't expecting it. Lock, the commanding officer of Zion's military, was quick to come up with a strategy and built up a large enough defense force to hold off the machine army from getting into Zion. We came to help out after we realized what we did wrong, and it was like a slap in the face to the Council, and added insult to injury because it also counted as an I-told-you-so. So then Zion began mobilizing and increased its military size to almost double the size it was during the first war. They insulated the dock, the living quarters, the temple, all of the main conduits, and all of the tunnels leading to the entrance gates, and surrounded Zion with EMP charges, in and out."

"An electro-magnetic-pulse. Automatically shuts down circuitry. SWAT uses weapons like that."

"Correct. Lock figured that if the machines were going to try to get into Zion again from any entrance point, they would be ready, and if they somehow got past the first few lines of defense, they would have the military ready for them. When the machines found out, they decided that since we were mobilizing for another war, then another war it would be."

"And we're neutral? How does that work out?"

"Zion wouldn't accept us back home. The Council ruled that everything was our fault, and our actions ended the truce and put on stake once again the lives of every person in Zion. We were outcast, and on our own without a home. Since we took matters into our own hands once before, we figured we could do it again, so we started calling ourselves the Resistance, as redpills were known before Neo ended the last war. The other five captains agreed that we should do what we could to destroy the machines and take down the Matrix. At this point, they weren't opposed to fighting or even killing Zion forces inside the Matrix. In fact, they were all for it. They figured that if Zion was going to try to stop us from completing our mission, then they were the traitors."

"What about you?"

"I thought it was crazy to even think of pulling it off. Finding a way to destroy the Matrix was one thing, but the six of us ships couldn't take on the entire race of machines alone. We would be destroyed in no time, and it had been done before to those that tried. Second, there was nothing I would get out of attacking Zion. Just because my crew and I were thrown out didn't mean I hated them or thought they deserved to die, and I wasn't willing to kill the very same people I was trying to protect. So I took my ship and my crew and left the group, and now we're neutral to both sides. We're like rogue rogues, and we have to look out for ourselves."

"How's this accomplished?"

"We don't attack anyone, we only defend ourselves, from the machines, Zion, and the Resistance fleet. We're only pirates because we do whatever it takes to survive. We're fringe in all this."

"What about the Matrix?"

"Everything I told you so far applies to the Real World only. Inside the Matrix it's a mess. The three factions are still fighting against each other in there as well, but when you throw Exiles into the mix it gets more hectic."

"What about the people that want to be free?"

"Stopping humans from escaping the Matrix was the first course of action within the Matrix that the machines took. It was right back to the old policies again. When that happened we had to start worrying about Agents again."

"Agents?"

"Do you remember the three men that came after you at work? Williams, Davis, and Miller?"

Janus frowned. He didn't think Irvine had any idea about them. Was he watching that? "Yeah..."

"Those are Agents. They're sentient programs designed to eliminate any soldier from the real world that plugs into the Matrix. They also go after exiles."

"What can they do?"

"They're stronger and faster than any of us. Their strength and speed is like no other. They punch through walls made of marble. You could fire off an entire magazine at them and never hit them once. You could square off against one of them, but you wouldn't last long, since they're not human. Neo could beat an Agent. He could take ****-loads of them down. But for any one of us ‘regulars,' when you see an Agent, you run like you've never ran before unless you have no choice but to fight to maybe buy yourself some time. Regardless, you have a better chance of being killed than you do defeating one of them."

"Why did they put that thing inside of me?"

"They were trying to use you to catch me. They have a bad habit of underestimating us though. There's a few ways to get rid of them, they're not invincible."

"But you just said.."

"They can die like any man, since they're programmed to operate in the Matrix, and they have to blend in the people still plugged into the Matrix, and therefore, they're bound to the rules of the system. Those rules, however, we can bend."

"How?"

"Not now. We'll deal with that when the time comes, and now isn't the time."

"Then what do we do now?"

"Well, now we get out of here. Time to eat."

Irvine walked away, and Janus followed. Glitch came and caught up but not before he came up to Janus and gave him a play-punch in the shoulder.

"Well, you coming?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah, I just didn't know where the galley was," Janus answered.

"Oh, well come on, I'll show you. By the way, I'm Glitch, I'll be your Operator."

Janus looked him over and nodded his head. "Nice to meet you."

"C'mon, this way," Glitch beckoned, and walked through a door out into a hallway. Janus promptly followed. When they had all reached the galley, Janus noted that it looked more like an old restaurant kitchen with a large table in it surround by stools than an actual galley. When they sat, Janus found himself sitting across from Anubis. He looked at him in a skeptical manner, but Anubis rested his head on his hands and stared off into space, not even acknowledging him. Janus could tell he was going to have to put some effort into getting to talk with this guy, but he didn't care to worry about it now. He was hungry. He looked over and saw Kira, Marley, Blade, and Glitch bringing the food over. When his plate was put down before him, Janus eyed the food and it looked like white meat chicken breast to him. Glitch sat down across from him, next to Anubis.

"Have a bite," he told him.

Judging by the sound of his voice, Janus figured it couldn't be anything at all too bad. He caught a piece on his fork and put it into his mouth and began chewing, and waited a few seconds for the flavor to set in. Remarkably, it tasted like chicken. He looked up at Glitch and held up his fork.

"What is this?"

Glitch grinned. "It's synthetic," he answered before taking another bite.

"Then what is it made out of?" Janus inquired.

"You don't wanna know. Just eat it, enjoy it," Kira said to him. She was sitting to Janus' left. Irvine spoke out.

"Guys, today we're fortunate to have another person join us after being freed from the Matrix, and we should give thanks for finding and saving him. We'll take our minds off of the war and our enemies today, to take a break and celebrate."

Irvine looked over at Janus, smiled, and nodded to him. "Happy Birthday, Janus."

This caught Janus off guard. Irvine's welcoming statement was followed by a few other Happy Birthday's from some of the other crew members, and it felt nice. Snapping out of his stupor of surprise, he shook his head and nodded. "Thanks," he told them, and went back to eating his food. It seemed as though only hours passed, but he was already settled in like he had lived this life for days.

"Listen, get a good rest, you're gonna need it for tomorrow," Blade said.

"Why, what happens tomorrow?"

"Combat training."

----

[Yossarian]

Very good. This is taking an interesting turn.

[Jango Fett]

Chapter 7: Free Your Mind

Date: Approx 2203

Time: -

Area: Tunnels of the Real

Janus awoke, and he realized that he was still in his quarters aboard the Nemesis. He'd been dreaming of his old life inside the Matrix, and waking up to this wasn't the most welcoming feeling. He took in a deep breath and yawned. Then he heard someone walking down the hallway towards his door. The person stopped there and knocked three times. Janus arched a brow and opened the hatch, and saw Glitch standing there with a smirk.

"Hey, what's up? You sleep good?"

"Uh, kinda. What do you need?"

"Oh, come with me, we gotta get your trained."

Janus' eyes darted around in several directions and then he blinked and nodded. "Oh, yeah, I remember. Let's go."

Glitch nodded, and then walked down the hall. Janus followed and blinked a few times after yawning. He watched where he was going with one eye while he used his finger to wipe the crust out from the inside of the other, and then switched to the other eye, repeating the same process over again. They reached a ladder, and he climbed up after Glitch, making sure to stay low enough so he wasn't hit by Glitch's feet. Finally, they reached the main deck. Janus looked around to see what was going on. Marley was at the operator station, Blade was welding something, Solitaire was tightening something with a ratchet, and the others he didn't see. Glitch snapped his hand over in Marley's direction and then threw his fist back slightly with his thumb extended as though to tell him to get out of his chair. He came over to them and nodded.

"What's the deal?"

"Newbie needs combat training. Where's Irvine?"

"Cockpit. I'll go see what he's doing." Marley nodded to Glitch and lightly punched him in the shoulder, and patted Janus on the back before he walked past them. Janus looked over to Glitch, who returned his look.

"You ready?" Glitch asked, and Janus replied with a nod. Motioning over to the chairs, Glitch told Janus to have a seat. He then grabbed the plug and inserted it into the canal in Janus' head, and chuckled when Janus' face cringed.

"You'll get used to it," he said.

"You're going to upload the training into my head?" Janus asked.

Glitch shook his head repeatedly in the yes fashion and with an assuring tone he said, "Don't worry, you'll like it, I promise." Then he made his way over to his control setup. He pulled out a small metal box containing several small square shaped disks. He picked one up that had "Basic Operations" written on it and smirked, dropping it back in and digging through the box some more to find a different one.

Finally, he said "aha!" and pulled a disk from the box. Janus looked over to see what the commotion was about, and Glitch grinned. He popped it into the nearest drive and pressed the engage button on his keyboard. Since his chair was located behind Glitch's station and to the right, Janus could see some of the screens. When Glitch put the disk in, one of the screens read "Jeet Kune Do."

"You're gonna upload it into my head? And I'm gonna know it just like that?"

"I hope you're strapped in." Glitch answered with a grin. Janus' forehead and eyebrows wrinkled as he tried to figure out what was about to happen. Glitch pushed the engage button again. Janus' eyes closed but his eyebrows raised, and then his face cringed, and then his eyes opened. He panted for air trying to figure out just happened, but one change he noted was he now knew Jeet Kune Do like the back of his hand.

"Whoa.."

"Ready for more?"

"Bring it."

Glitch nodded, and the uploading continued. Over the course of the next few hours, several different styles of combat were uploaded into Janus' head.

Every so often, the words on the screen would change in accordance with what style was being loaded into Janus' head. Hapkido, Xing Yi, Drunken Fist, Mi Zong, Ninjitsu, Sambo, Tong Bei, Yuan Yang, Shuai Chiao, Wrestling, Muay Thai, Judo, Karate, Tai Chi, San Shou, Aikido, Eagle Claw, Ba Gua, Mantis, Shaolin Fist, Baji Quan, Lui He Ba Fa, Longfist, Wing Chun, Tae Kwon Do, Gun-Kata, Leopard, Fu Jow Pai, Tang Soo Do, Escrima, Nan Chuan, Jujitsu, Hung Gar, Crab, Pi Gua, Snake, Crane, Kenpo, Shotokan, Dragon, Kickboxing, Kung-Fu, Black Dragon, Judo, and Kendo, among many others, were all loaded up into Janus. Irvine approached Glitch as he was typing commands for the uploading procedures.

[Jango Fett]

(Chapter 7 continued)

"What's his status?"

"He's doing pretty good, guy hasn't stopped yet."

"How long until he's finished?"

"You couldn't have come at a better time." He watched as a bar finished growing from one point on a screen to the other and when it did, the uploading procedures were finally complete. Irvine stood over Janus and his eyes opened, and he let out a sigh of relaxation as he looked up at Irvine with newfound knowledge in his eyes.

"How you feeling?"

"Like I could beat 50 Bruce Lees if I wanted to."

"Oh really?"

The next thing Janus knew, he was standing before Irvine on the rooftop of a skyscraper building. He looked around in amazement, in awe at the fact that this was all a computer program yet it looked so real. Real. What was real now? He shook his head, telling himself not to worry about it. He looked down at his clothes. He was dressed in a form fitting black t -shirt, black BDU pants, combat boots, and kneepads. It was night time. He turned around and saw Irvine standing there in his suit with the knee-length jacket, black in color with a cobalt blue shirt underneath and a matching tie.

"What is this?"

"This is the Jump Program. Our version is made a bit different, so that you're less likely to fail. Practice makes perfect."

"Practice at what?"

"Before you can survive in the Matrix, no matter how much combat and fighting knowledge you have, you must free your mind."

"Free my mind?"

"Yes. Open it up. Throw away your fears, your disbelief, your doubts. Concentrate on executing the improbable, and more importantly, the impossible. Free your mind."

Janus arched a brow, and then suddenly Irvine ran from him and jumped across the ten foot gap to the building across from the one he previously stood on. In response, Janus lifted his eyebrows. That looked easy..

Irvine looked back. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

Janus was skeptical. Nevertheless, he shrugged, shaking his head, and took a few steps back so he would have a decent enough distance to get a running start. After walking a few steps, he stopped, turned around, and looked back. Irvine was standing with his arms crossed, looking around as if he had better things to do. Janus broke into a quick sprint, and eventually built up speed. When he reached the ledge, he stepped up onto it and pushed off, flying over the gap and landing next to Irvine. He looked back before looking to his mentor.

"That was it?"

Irvine grinned and shook his head. "It gets better."

Janus' forehead wrinkled when he tried to comprehend what he meant, but once again, Irvine broke off running and went from one end of the roof to the other and jumped up. He went through the air and landed on the next building. This time, the gap was about half of the width of a city block.

Ooookay.. Janus got into running position, and bolted off again. The closer he got to the other edge of the building, the faster he ran. The edge came, and he jumped. Up into the air he went, bringing his legs down in front of him before he landed, and with a "WAM" he landed on the next rooftop. He stood up and stopped for a moment, and turned around. He looked over the ledge and looked at how high up they were. Then he looked at the distance of the jump. How the hell did I do that? He turned back to Irvine as though he was expecting something.

"This is it," Irvine said. "This is the last jump. If you can do this, you can do anything." Janus nodded. And then Irvine was off. He repeated the same process, running and gathering speed, and jumping at the ledge, soaring over the gap that was literally a city block wide and landing on the rooftop across the street. Now Janus stood there alone. He inhaled, and sighed slowly, fixing his view on the rooftop. He remembered all the dreams he thought of when he was running away from the Agents out of Club Duality, the dreams of making super-jumps to get away, and realized that this was no different than those dreams. He felt a wave of confidence come over him.

Free my mind. I can do this... Irvine watched through his sunglasses. Janus began to run.

"Come on, come on...." Irvine said to himself. Janus got closer to the ledge.

Glitch, Marley, Anubis, Blade, Kira, and Solitaire's eyes were all glued to the screens, the suspense building.

"Here it comes," Glitch whispered.

Janus made it to the edge and pushed off and flew up into the air. Moving his legs as though he were running, he stared at the point on the rooftop next to Irvine. I have to get there.. Irvine looked up and followed Janus' path through the sky, and was eventually looking straight up above to his zenith. Janus touched down behind him and the sound of crushed concrete was heard. He had landed in a kneeling position, and it seemed as though he was waiting for something. Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked around.

I made it.

"He made it!" Solitaire said out loud. "Our jump program beats the **** out Zion's."

Blade nodded his head a few times. "This guy's got it down. How useful you think he's gonna be now, Kira?" She smirked and hit him in shoulder.

Janus stood up and Irvine came over to him with a smile. "Good work. See what happens when you believe?" Janus nodded. He looked at the rooftop he had jumped from across the street, then back down to himself, and all around.

"In this virtual reality, we can do anything as long as we believe?"

Irvine shrugged slightly and nodded at the same time. "Almost anything. The One could do whatever he wanted."

Janus nodded as though to say he understood. Irvine took his phone out of his pocket and opened the face shield. The phone rang, and Glitch answered on the other side.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Next training program, please."

Glitch nodded, typed in the command, and pressed engage, and the rooftop slightly changed around them. Janus looked at Irvine with a questioning look as he put his phone back in his pocket.

"This is a sparring program. Unlike the other ship captains who use a dojo for their sparring simulations, we use city locations like this one to be a more accurate simulation of the real thing, because the odds are, you're more likely to be defending yourself somewhere in the Matrix rather than a dojo. Therefore, this gets you better conditioned, like our version of the jump program. Before we fight though, there are a few pointers you should know. First of all, this sparring program is just like the Matrix in that both are virtual reality simulations based on rules. Some of the rules can be bent, and some of them can be broken, for example, physics like breathing and gravity need not apply, but that all depends solely on one thing."

Janus arched a brow and Irvine tapped his own forehead with an index finger.

"The more open your mind is, the more things you can do. Now, fight me, if you can. Remember: free your mind."

In an instant, Janus put himself into a random ready stance, and Irvine did the same. Then, the fight begun. They ran at each other. Janus punched for Irvine's head , but Irvine blocked and punched back. Janus pushed Irvine's arm down to his right, and executed a mid kick to Irvine's kidneys on his right side. The kick connected, but Irvine showed no expression of pain. Then Janus went to chop at Irvine's neck, but Irvine raised his left arm, wrapped it around Janus' oncoming arm, and pulled it down to his left, yanking Janus down in the same direction.

Janus' head was right in front of Irvine's now. Irvine punched his head twice, then followed with a knee strike to Janus' gut area, causing him to bend down forward slightly, so Irvine finished off the combo with an elbow strike to Janus' back. He fell sort of, but then came back suddenly and gave Irvine a hard uppercut, causing him to nearly fall backwards, his arms going up.

With the same fist, Janus backhanded Irvine's head, causing him to face toward his left, and followed up with a right fist to his gut. Irvine keeled over, and Janus chopped Irvine's mid back, sending him downward. Then he kicked Irvine back up to his feet, and struck Irvine right in his chest. From the waist up, Irvine tilted back. Janus went to follow up with a left fist towards Irvine's head, but he blocked, and wrapped his arm around Janus' arm and pulled Janus towards him, so that now the his left side was facing Irvine. He gave out a medium kick to the Janus' gut, causing him to bend forward and lean right into Irvine's follow up attack, which was a kick to the Janus' head. Irvine then let go of the Janus' arm and punched him right in the nose.

Janus spun around 270-degrees counter-clockwise, and was now facing Irvine. He delivered a palm strike to Janus' chest and sent him flying back. He landed on his hip, but he was unphased. Irvine dusted himself off and looked at Janus

"You did good. Solid, fluid motion, improvisation, yet you try to get too many shots in too fast. Your method wasn't the problem though.."

Janus got up and started running at Irvine. He got ready, and started running at Janus. When they had about 5 feet between themselves, they jumped up into the air in bullet-time.

Janus held his left arm out in front of him with a clawed hand, and his right hand was cocked back in a fist, ready to give out a punch. As he brought his fist forward, his left hand came back. Irvine had his arms wide open with fists similar to a Gorilla would have before pounding his chest, and his chest was facing Janus, unguarded.

Janus' fist smashed right into Irvine's head, in his left eye. His head snapped back, and Janus landed in front him. Irvine's head came forward, so Janus gave Irvine a roundhouse right elbow to the nose, causing him to look towards his right, and then Janus smacked Irvine's face back forward by using his left fist, with his elbow still pointed forward, executing a left backhand punch. Irvine was still trying to place himself from getting smacked up so much, so Janus used it to his advantage and gave Irvine a right hand forward punch into his chest, sending him back about two feet. Behind Irvine was the rooftop stairwell doorway and behind Janus was nothing. Irvine shook his head, and made a quick dash towards Janus with his right fist out forward, and came at him like a bullet. Irvine had just barely missed him, for Janus had leaned back slightly and Irvine's fist barely clipped his face. If Irvine had hit him, it probably would have had knocked him out and nearly took his head right off his shoulders. Janus jumped up when he was safely out of Irvine's range of attack.

Back on the Nemesis, the crew had rounded up around Glitch's control setup after they heard from Marley that Irvine was fighting Janus when they has asked where he was. Kira whistled. "Didn't think he'd be this good on his first spar match."

Blade smirked. "Beginners luck."

Marley shook his head, "Wow, he's got a lot of fight in him." He chuckled. "Maybe he can square off against an Agent."

Anubis arched a brow and glanced over at Marley before he looked back at the screens. "He'll never be that good."

Solitaire chuckled. "He speaks," she said as though she was amused.

Glitch spoke out, "Yeah okay we know guys, shut up. Fight's still on."

In bullet-time, as Irvine came by, Janus jumped up in the air and performed a spinning round house kick, with his fists up in karate stance fashion.

Janus' foot smashed into the Irvine's back, and sent him flying. His head would have smashed into floor, had he not put his arms up in front of his face prior to impact. Irvine got up as fast as he could and turned, now facing the city below, and when he looked behind him, Janus was running at him. It appeared as if Janus was going to punch him, so Irvine put his arms up ready to block a punch. But a punch wasn't what Janus had in mind. When he was 2 feet away from Irvine, he dropped. He caught himself on the floor with his hands, and with his right foot, sent a kick right up behind Irvine's arms. It would have been perfect, but he leaned back and Janus' foot went flying up past his head in front of his face. He grabbed Janus' leg by the ankle and started to spin, building up momentum and speed. Then he let Janus go and watched as he flew backwards through the air. He started to fall, but he missed the edge of the rooftop. So he kept falling. He kicked his legs and reached his arms around trying to find something to catch himself on, but found nothing to grab. As he fell, he screamed.

"IRVINE!!!!"

His body finally hit the street below, but it stretched like a trampoline and prevented his body from smashing. Then it rebounded and launched him back up about 10 feet or so into the air before he fell back down, this time onto solid pavement. The impact hurt, but he'd live. His body ached. As he picked himself up, he turned and saw Irvine approaching calmly.

"You handled yourself quite well. You're able to stand your ground, but an Agent would have thrown you off the roof like that in no time. Always remember that.

"Janus nodded again. "I understand."

"There is one more test you must take before you're finished."

Arching a brow, Janus thought of what he could mean. "What else do I have to do?"

Irvine looked around as though he was a tourist. "Whenever you go into the Matrix, you run two major risks: Getting killed, or getting captured, and that risk is as high as ever."

"Why?"

"Agents can move in and out of any body still plugged into the Matrix, and you've seen them before. But they've been upgraded, again. Originally they weren't as hectic, and we didn't have to worry much about them as long as we weren't traced, and if the situation called for it, we could briefly stand our ground against them. Now, they're practically impossible to fight, and they're frequently present. They'll either kill you on the spot, or if you're a ship captain, they may capture you to get Zion mainframe codes, and then kill you. Either way, we're more of a priority to them, and they are extremely dangerous."

Janus took note that Irvine had mentioned Zion again, that which he had no knowledge of. Now was the time to get out of the way. "You keep talking about Zion; What is it?" Irvine turned around to face him.

"Zion is the last human city. It's the only place we have left for refuge when we're not in our ships. It was once almost destroyed, but thanks to Neo we got lucky. It has more defense systems than it did before, but it's still treated as though it's always at risk."

"What for?"

Irvine's tone became more serious. "Those machines are still out there, and we're at war with them again. As long as they exist, Zion will always be in danger of attack. If it were to be obliterated, we would have nothing."

Irvine sighed. There never seemed to be an end to this living in fear. Living day to day, hour to hour, hoping and praying they would see the next. He called himself a fool for thinking that Zion was really safe and that their worries were over when Neo made the truce. He knew it wasn't. He knew that the machines could attack at any moment they pleased; The fear was still there. That's why he chose to leave Zion. Living as though the war had not ended was more comfortable to him and the other ships' crews than living where you weren't sure if it was over or not. Now, he got what he wanted, but at the cost of Zion's peace. It was a guilt that weighed on his shoulders that he didn't think he would ever be able to get rid of. The look of reminiscent remorse slowly crept over his face. Janus stood there waiting, and Irvine didn't seem to notice or remember Janus was there.

Glitch frowned. "What the hell is he doing, taking a coffee break?"

Blade walked over to the chairs and stood over the one Irvine sat in. He slapped Irvine on the cheek, but not too hard. "That oughta do it."

Irvine snapped out of his trance when he felt the small bit of pain on his face. He shook his head and looked back over to Janus. "I'm sorry, I--" but he was cut off.

"No, it's alright. I understand. What does this last training involve?"

Irvine tilted his head slighlty, and then remembered what he was talking about with a nod. "Oh! Yeah, that's right. Like I was saying, when you go into the Matrix these days, you risk your life, and the chance of getting captured. Should anyone be captured or held up and not able to get to their exit in time, the first available person from any of our ships will be sent in to get you out. Your objective here is to be the knight in shining armor. There will be simulated people who can turn into Agents at any possible moment. Cops can be called in and will try to kill you, their bullets will hurt, but if they hit you in an area where you would die immediately, the simulation will end. There will be a simulated redpill that you have to rescue, and if he is killed before you get back to the exit, you fail. You're to make sure he gets out of the Matrix before you do. You'll be given a pistol and two extra magazines. You'll have a phone to contact us with in case you need any help. Good luck."

As he stood there, Janus watched the world around him change. Irvine's image before him faded into a transparent figure broken up by particles of light and then disappeared. The new surroundings consumed the existing environment he was in like a huge expanding mass. The border of the new programmed reality as it swarmed over all of the buildings and streets and floor and sky was hi-lighted in a bright green light. Janus took a moment to look around him as the changes took place.

[Jango Fett]

(Chapter 7 concluded)

Now, instead of standing on a rooftop, Janus stood in a crowded street full of pedestrians and cars, and skyscrapers towered over him. There were changes on him as well. Adding to what he was already wearing, the bright green light came over his body and a black ankle length trench coat formed over him. It almost resembled a cape. On his head, the green light took the shape of sunglasses.

He felt the gun materialize in the back of his waistband, and the two clips attached to his belt in the back, both well concealed by the coat. Theses change happened in a matter of maybe five seconds tops. He looked around a bit more at the people and the buildings to familiarize himself with the new environment he was in, and then he heard the phone in his pocket ring. He took it out and pressed the button to release the face shield, and it quickly slid down with a *CHAK* He put the phone up to his ear.

"Alright, you all situated?" the voice on the other end asked. It was Glitch.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Tell me where he is."

"Okay. He's stuck on an apartment rooftop downtown from where you are, building 344. He was running from an Agent but he stalled it for now, but you have to hurry, because the cops are after him and they have a chopper."

"I'll need something fast."

"Coming right up. Anything else?"

"A full-auto AR-15 in a pistol configuration. Make it quick."

"The alley to your left."

Janus shut the face shield and put the phone back into his pocket. Looking over to his left, he saw an alley, just like Glitch said, so he made his way over to it, pushing his way through people as he went. When he finally made it to the other side of the street, he didn't waste time and went down it quickly and saw what Glitch left for him. It was a black ninja-type motorcycle. "I said fast, not a crotch rocket." He noticed the AR-15 pistol hanging onto the handle grips by its sling. He hopped on and started the ignition and revved the engine making a loud *VVVMM* noise. He slung the AR-15 pistol over his shoulder. The traffic and all the pedestrians in the street would be a problem, so he turned the bike and went down the rest of the alley into the less occupied back roads.

Speeding through the roads in the downtown direction, he thought of what Glitch told him, how the guy he had to go in after was stuck on a rooftop. He turned right and thought of how he could get up onto the roof in a manner that they could both get down. He built up speed, going about 50 MPH, and he could hear sirens a few blocks away.

Time was running short. He looked at the address number on one of the buildings he passed, and it read 426. He still had some way to go. He switched gears and kept going straight and then made another left. Looking to the number signs again, he caught a glimpse of 340 as he passed by, so he knew the building was just down the block.

The man stood on the roof dressed in black pants and boots and a patterned dress shirt tucked in. He had a two-tone P8 in his waist band, and black biker gloves on his hands that ended at his wrist. His hair was short, black, and spiked, and he had a goatee. His glasses were black framed with red lenses. He listened nervously as the sirens got closer, and he heard the whooping of helicopter blades. In the distance, he saw the helicopter itself. Looking around, seeing buildings with rooftops too low to jump on without hurting himself, and buildings that were tall enough were too far to make a jump to.

He clenched his fist. "****!" He tried his phone again, but it was dead, of no use. He threw it down to the street and it smashed into bits. A few blocks back he was being chased by an Agent, but he caused a ten-car pile up and that gave him enough time to run a few more blocks. He was unfortunate though to find after climbing up the fire escape ladders that the door to get down into the building was locked, and he couldn't jump. If he went back down, he risked another Agent getting a lock on his position.

Janus zoomed down the block past the building the guy was on. He saw a multi-story parking garage across from the building that was too far to jump from to get to the apartment rooftop, but he wasn't planning to jump. He stopped the bike in front of the parking garage with a fish-tail, and the back tire screeched. After switching gears again, he went forward and busted through the small gate and went up the ramp to the next level. There were five levels in all.

Kira watched the screens and arched her eyebrow. "What's he doing?"

Anubis shrugged. "I don't know. I would have used a grappling hook."

When Janus made it up to the fifth level, he saw a small ramp on the other side farthest from him. He backed the bike up, and he heard the helicopter and sirens getting closer.

"No way," Irvine said out as he watched.

Janus hit the gas and with a loud *VVVVMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM* filling the air, he sped across the rooftop and hit the ramp. He went flying up into the air. The guy on the other roof watched in awe. The bike slammed down on the roof and Janus swooped around, hitting the breaks. The pilots of the helicopter were in eye view now. The Agent was with them. The helicopter flew overhead and circled around to come back to make another pass.

"I'm Chip," the guy said.

"Come on!"

Taking the hint, Chip jumped onto the bike as Janus revved the engine again. He started to drive, and the pilot brought the helicopter around in the air in front of the building to stop Janus from making the jump, with the door facing Janus, the Agent facing him.

Acknowledging this, Janus pulled up the AR-15 out and aimed it up at the blade rotors and fired a stream of automatic fire. The bullets hit into the base of the rotor. It sparked and whined, and the helicopter began to spin out of control. The pilots flew forward and tried to move out of the way of the building.

Janus hit the gas, and the bike raced forward, off the rooftop of the apartment. They flew through the air and the bike went through a gap into fourth level of the parking garage. The pilots tried to control the 'copter, but it started to fall and it tipped forward, and crashed into a nearby building side with a loud explosion, killing the pilots inside.

When they landed on the top of the parking garage however, Janus looked back to see the Agent jump up into the window after them from the ground below.

"**** it!"

He turned and drove down to the next level of the parking garage, but he knew it would be of no use. "We gotta ditch this bike," Janus said. He rode off into a corner and they both got off. Now they were on level three of the parking garage. Janus looked over all of the cars.

"We can sneak out behind those."

The Agent came down and saw the lone bike, hesitating for a moment, then began scanning the area. Janus and Chip were ducked behind the cars, moving ever so gently as not to make a sound. Slowly moving along, Chip slipped and hit into a car with an alarm. It sounded off, giving away their spot with loud sirens blaring and echoing.

"Oh that's bad," Glitch said as he watched.

Seeing the Agent look over in their direction, Janus first pushed Chip away and then dashed, quick enough not to get hit by the bullets sent flying his way. They both ran, ducking behind cars and hiding behind pillars, over to the nearest set of ramps leading down to the next lowest level. The Agent fired and they ducked, the bullets almost making their mark, concrete bits flying up into the air from the impact points. More car alarms sounded off. Janus looked out from the concrete pillar he hid behind and blind-fired his AR-15 pistol. The Agent's body suddenly blurred, and he moved in all sorts of positions, the bullets passing him by and hitting the wall far off behind him. Janus looked back to Chip.

"Go."

Chip nodded and jumped over the railing, falling down to the next ramp. He landed in a crouch and ran down the rest of the way to the bottom. Janus faced the Agent as he backed toward the ramp cutout, and kept shooting until he ran out of bullets. When he did, the Agent went from blurry to solid again and a sly smile came over his face. He raised his gun and Janus ducked back behind the pillar. Three rounds flew past where he was standing. Had he not moved, he would have been killed. He ran quickly and jumped down the same way Chip did, following the same path down to the bottom.

Putting his gun back into the holster under his jacket, the Agent walked over to where Janus jumped from to see where he might have landed. Smirking, with a nod, he walked off.

"Are you hurt?" Janus asked as he made his way over to Chip and reloaded his gun. He looked back to check for the Agent, seeing no sign of him. "Where did he go?" Janus asked.

"No, let's keep movi--DUCK!!"

Janus turned his head to see the Agent pick up a car as if it was as light as a feather. His eyes widened; he couldn't believe it. He jumped out of the way as the Agent hurled the car in his direction. It slammed through the wall of the parking garage, and that was all it took to get Janus moving again. He and Chip both started to run again, and the Agent ran right after them, fast. Very fast.

As they both ran, Janus pulled the phone out of his pocket as his coat billowed out behind him. After opening the face shield, he put the phone up to his face.

"Glitch!!--" *BOOM--BOOM BOOM* the bullets zipped past his head. "Where's the exit!?" he yelled into the phone.

Chip turned back and fired back *BAM BAM*

"It's two blocks away on 5th street. A phone booth. You're almost there."

Dropping the phone, Janus grabbed Chip's arm and pulled. They kept running, but the Agent was still behind them. Janus knew there was no way they were going to be able to run two city blocks away from this thing, so they had to find a short cut. He looked up ahead and saw one of those stores where the owner lives on the top of the store, where the door to get upstairs is next to the door that leads into the store itself.

Holding his gun up and aiming at the doorknob, he fired a few rounds until he saw it hang limp. Leading Chip, and unfortunately the Agent, he ran up to the door and kicked it in, running up the stairs and into the apartment. Chip followed, the Agent at least twenty feet behind him still, so he didn't want to give it the chance to catch up by shooting at him.

He followed Janus up the stairs and to the back of the house where he was waiting. "Up the fire escape!" he instructed, and up they went. When the Agent caught up, he was slowed down when he tried shooting at them and climbing the stairs at the same time. Every round he fired missed and made a loud *PANG* or *TWANG* noise when it hit the steel. They made it up to the roof, and without say, they ran to the edge and super-jumped across the street to the rooftop on the other side of the street.

When they landed, they ran and jumped one more time. The Agent was one roof behind them; The exit was on the sidewalk below. "The exit is down there. Go, I'll cover you," Janus said to Chip.

The simulacrum looked appreciative and nodded. "Alright. Thank you."

He ran over to the fire escape ahead, and Janus looked back at the Agent.

*BOOM BOOM*

Two shots whizzed past him and he fired back

*BAM BAM BAM BAM*.

The Agent's body blurred again, and he stood there like that until Janus had stopped firing, then solidified again. Janus ran over to the fire escape ladder and looked down to the sidewalk. He saw Chip enter the phone booth and disappear; Then he started his way down. The Agent stood there and waited for a moment. His head shook and his body transformed into the civilian he had originally taken over. When Janus was low enough, he let go of his ladder and fell down the rest of the way to the sidewalk, only a ten foot drop.

The phone booth was just down the block, so he started running. Janus looked back again to make sure he wasn't being followed; He saw a car pulling into a parallel parking spot. The driver's head began to shake, and it transformed into the Agent. He dropped to the floor as the Agent moved to open the car door. As he fell he aimed at the gas tank under the backside of a car, and when he fell , he fired a shot. The bullet ripped through the air and smashed into the gas tank making a small hole.

A *CLANK* was heard, there was a spark, and as the Agent passed the car, it exploded into a fury of flames. Janus figured the Agent was out of commission-for now.

"Check out this bad ass! He's a regular action movie hero," Glitch said, looking quite entertained.

Slowly, Janus got himself up off of the payment and walked over to the phone booth. The phone rang when he saw it, like someone was waiting to call him. He walked over to it, opened the doors and took the phone off the receiver. Hesitantly, he put it up to his ear, and felt his eyes close. The next thing he knew, he was taking in a deep breath and looking back up at the ceiling of the Nemesis. Irvine was staring down at him.

"You made it. So did he. Good job. You're ready to operate in the Matrix."

Janus nodded. "Thanks."

Anubis looked over at him. "Don't let it get to your head, it's nothing fun," he said as he passed by.

Janus' eyes followed him as he left. What's his problem?

"Don't mind him," Marley said as he walked over. "He's always in a bad mood. We just ignore it, he does what he has to. Congratulations. You're a full member of the team now."

Janus looked back up at him. "Uh, yeah. It's great."

----

"Balthasar, behind you!" *BOOM BOOM BOOM-TATATATATATATATATATA*.

"Come on, move!" Blood shouted. He wore a black tactical vest over a blood red t-shirt, and black BDU pants over his combat boots of the same color. He fired an UZI back at the Agent on the other end of the car garage so Balthasar could get over to the car so they could get to their exit.

Balthasar had long black hair that went to his mid back. He was dressed all in black: Leather pants and an ankle length black coat. A black t-shirt covered him underneath that and was tucked into his pants. The boots he wore went up to his knees, with four buckles going up the front of each over the laces. He was armed only with a Glock 21 and his magazine was running low. He was ducked down behind a dumpster with an Agent firing at him. Blood fired and the Agent blurred, giving Balthasar the chance to run. He did so in the fashion of rolling out of the way and diving over to the car.

He climbed into the back seat and Leon, the person driving the car, shouted out to Blood. "Blood, into the car, time to move!"

Leon and Balthasar aimed out of the window and fired at the Agent to keep him over on his end while Blood climbed into the car. He ran around, opened the door, and climbed in, slamming the door. Balthasar chucked a grenade out behind the car as they peeled out, for cover. As they drove up out of the garage, they heard a loud BAM behind them.

"Is the exit ready?" Blood asked as he reloaded his clip.

"Not sure, why don't you check?" Leon suggested sarcastically as he dodged cars and pedestrians left and right.

"Maybe if you actually learned to drive.." Blood started off.

"Hey, guys, shut up, I'm trying to call Sideways now, okay?!" Sonia shouted. She sat in the back with Balthasar, and was dressed in black and green. The phone rang and Sideways picked up on the other end.

"I know, I know, Exit right? I'm working on it," Sideways said as he typed DIAL.EXE into the keyboard so he could patch the exit. "Make the next turn on your left and drive under the overpass, it's right there. We'll be waiting for you."

She hung up the phone and repeated the directions to Leon. He followed them, but when they got to the overpass, someone was waiting for them. A black car.

"Who's that?" Blood asked. The doors opened. From the driver's seat stepped out Niobe dressed in her brown croc-print leather, armed with an AK-47 Beta Spetnaz; From the front passenger seat: Morpheus, in his purple suit and leather trench with a Tommy-gun. Out from the back came Ghost in his black suit and trench coat with two Walther P-99s, and Kid in a knee-length version of Neo's cassock, with an HK P2000.

"Damn," Balthasar said. "We can handle them."

Leon put the pedal to the floor and hit the car into the wall so that it made a sort of barrier in front of the phone, but so that no one was injured. As soon as their car stopped, the bullets started flying. Leon and Balthasar opened their doors up and everyone jumped out and got behind the car and started shooting back. The phone started to ring.

Blood shouted out over the gunfire: "Morpheus, you got a lot of guts trying to pull some **** like this!!!"

Balthasar reached up over the roof and fired two shots over at Ghost, causing him to wince slightly even though he wasn't hit.

"Someone get through the exit!" He yelled.

"Blood, you go!" Leon told him. Blood nodded, handed his gun over to Leon and reached for the phone. When his RSI disappeared, Sonia hung up the phone so Sideways could load the exit again. When it rang, it was her turn. She left, and as Leon hung up the phone, Balthasar guarded him with cover fire.

"They're outnumbered!" Kid yelled as he shot for Leon's head as he answered the phone. The bullet traveled through the fading avatar though. Balthasar was the last man left. He grabbed Leon's UZI and aimed over at Morpheus and fired through the windows, hitting him twice in the stomach region. Morpheus yelled out; "AGH!"

The others stopped firing for a moment, just enough time for Balthasar to hang up the phone and pick it up again. He faded away, and the four Zion fighters were alone. Niobe tended to Morpheus.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

He nodded. "I'll be fine. Did he get out?"

She nodded. "Barely, but yeah."

He sighed. "**** it. Call Sparks, tell him to set up the exit. Then have Link ready to get the ship back to Zion, we'll need to recharge."

Ghost took out his phone. "I'm on it."

----

[Jango Fett]

Where'd all my readers go? I see the view count going up, but no responses.

[Undome Telcontar]

man, get used to it. it always happens. and slowly, it slides down the page into the abyss that is... page 2