USH'S MATRIX GAME 2006 FIRST ASSIGNMENT- 'The Museum'

"Wait, let me find it," says Ariadne, flicking through various shots of the weird code. It doesn't even flow normally like other code; it seems to flicker from place to place, as if the Matrix cannot make up its mind about where it should be.

Finally, Ariadne produces a less complex shot (less going on in the background) which seems to give a much clearer view of the funny code.

"Anyone see the issue here?" she asks. A few seconds of silence as you strain your eyes trying to decipher the undecipherable.

"That's not the Matrix," comments Marduk.

"Got it in one."

"Jesus!" says Dallas, opicking up a crowbar from a side table and whirling around to look down the corridor.

"I'm not saying it can escape the Matrix, Dallas," says Ariadne in a weary voice, not bothering to turn her head. "That's impossible in... SOP many ways."

"Oh yeah, sure," says Dallas, "because ONLY things that we thought were possible are going on right now, yeah? How do we know freaky code beast isn't going to squirm out the Matrix and eat us all?"

"We seem to specialize in finding the impossible..." San comments. "But if that's not the Matrix...then what is it?"

"How is that possible?" Mors asks. "The non-Matrix coding, I mean. That would mean it's from somewhere else, outside of the Matrix, but similar in the sense that it could interact with the Matrix. It's a Program, no doubt, but from where?"

"Maybe he's a virus," Heph says. "He ran the hell away when the Doctor entered. Hell, he even freed me. Perhaps the Doctor is the clean-up crew?"

"No Mors," says Ariadne. "That's not him. This is a training programme I created three months ago. You are lucky I still have this copy, because this was not the finished version and I don't normally keep earlier work.

"I made a programming error when I created this programme. It crashed immediately when I tried to run it, and that is the bade code it threw that crashed it.

"It is exactly the same composition as our hunting friend. The only guess I can give you... is that it is a programming error."

"A fluke," Ares says. "I've never seen that before. The Machines don't take it lightly, I assume."

"Ok...." Cloud says trying to put everything together, "So we've got people who can revive themselves from death...People who are invunrable...A person who can freeze code......and a corruption.........Was there anything normal in that mission?"

"Uh, nope!"

"What about those SWAT?" Heph asks. "Sirin told me something about their gas masks being sealed to their faces?"

"Did you track where the Hunter and the Doctor went after left the Museum?" Mors asks, keeping on the current topic.

"God I love Science fiction," Cloud jokes, "I can understand the whole "life is but a dream" aspect, but this........this is some crazy ****"

Hey, where's Sequel?

In the cockpit looking for a decent broadcast point to fly out to. He doesn't understand all this Matrix claptrap. He's never been there, pretty much CAN never be there, and is happy being rooted in the real world.

Still, he'll chip the odd comment in.

"No, I was busy sorting out things with you guys," says Ariadne.

"I am surprised you of all people find that unusual, Heph," says Marduk. "But ths doesn't make any sense, Ariadne. If we assume that a programming error has someone erupted in the Matrix, wouldn't it look like... a visual distortion? A wall also being a flower? Something like that? How can it be a sentient being?"

"How can we kill it?" asks Dallas, shooting to the point.

"Kill it? I can't even tell you why we can SEE it," says Ariadne. "I know, Marduk, it's ludicrous. That thing is all wrong. It shouldn't be there, and even if it was there, it shouldn't be walking around, with obvious intelligence, trying to kill us. At best, it should be messing up the running of the Matrix. By any rule I know, it is impossible for that thing to be alive."

"I don't know what you guys are all so glum about," says Sequel. "You're all alive. We came here to find out about Exiles. I think we pretty much hit THAT target. Ok, so all we got is more questions, but who thought it was going to be any other way? What did you think you would get, an instruction manual?"

"I don't think we were expecting things that shouldn't exist or things that can't die," Heph replies. "The Xiao Emo could be hurt. I could have beat him senseless had I worked out his abilities earlier. But this...there's no getting around invincibility, unless Ariadne finds that countercode. These questions we've gotten are a bit more than we were expecting to have, I think."

"And I don't find it that unusual," Heph says to Marduk. "Just another thing to add to the list of freaky shit I'd like explained that I've seen since Dallas woke me up."

"Add?"

"Heph," says Ariadne, "you fought things like that before. I suppose the military gear confused you, but the masks should ring a bell."

Heph smacks his forehead. "Melitus' musicians!"

In fact, Heph, you may remember that all of Melitus' staff were masked, in a permanent fashion.

"I don't know how much to read into that, though," says Ariadne. "You might remember that they were hardly combat models. Melitus seemed to use them to look after himself... or play music. He used his criminal contacts as heavies, not created SWAT gunners."

"Do they read the same?" asks Marduk.

"No, but then that doesn't tell us much because they are a different programme. There is no tell-tale signature I can read. I'm fairly sure they are not full AI matrices, so they were not truly sentient beings, but I can only make guesses, same way we all can from the masks."

"He could have changed his tactics," says Finn. "When we took out Ni Zahn's mob we did wipe out many of his criminal contacts, even more on the final attack on the factory. Maybe he's been forced to create these. And Melitus was doing things like trying to steal the Machine's cipher code, he likes to get things. Maybe he wanted the key as well."

"Ah, maybe maybe," says Dallas. "Let's face it, he's not going to come chasing after us, is he? So, every programme and its mother wanted that key. The key is the key, hmm? Doesn't matter who was there really, we'll just take it as read that it was just about everyone. What the hell is it?"

"And what the hell are we going to do with it?" Ares asks. "Quite a lot of factions there wanted it, so we're going to have quite a lot of people after us, it seems."

"We don't even know what it's for, though apparently it's something important." San says.

"Four factions there wanted it," Klez says. "Definitely important."

"Yeah, I'd like to know as well. You said it was complex."