USH'S MATRIX GAME 2006 SECOND ASSIGNMENT- 'The Monastery'

"Of course he is a programme," says Lo Qi. "You obviously know little of the physical world. The vast majority of programmes exist inside the mainframes of the System. No programme has physical form; if required we construct mobile shells to carry our programme. Like... the Sentinels? Very few have cause to, though. What relevance has location? Those of us you see in the Matrix are simply those of us who have transferred our programme into that greatest of all systems.

"Of course, it could be said that no Human has physical form either, that you are mental patterns inside flesh. Your very presence here suggests that is the case, that you are mind more than body."

"The details of porgrammes are not my area of expertise, That would be explosions and other things involving fire."

"I see. That being the case, perhaps you may find Sennacherib more amenable than you worry. He is a General, not an indiscriminate maniac, which means he appreciates the value of soldiers and does not necessarily kill on sight. Though as I said earlier, you could find great danger there.

"Well that is good."

"Sennacherib himself would have spent much of this time during the war inside the Central mainframe. Machine communications are extremely good and he could direct the war effort from there. If need be... or if the whim took him.... he would transfer his programme to a temporary facility nearer to a particular battle."

"So... the Programme who led the Machines to victory against us. That's who we stand to meet. The one who made all of this..." Hawk waves a hand to indicate everything, "and the complete slavery of the Human race possible."

He pauses for a bit.

"It would be difficult to simply be in his presence."

"Well, I hope you understand the concept I was trying to get across. All of you believe very strongly in a cause, fight to free the remnants of Humaniy, and here is the person who inflicted that upoin you. He is directly responsible for the deaths of billions of Humans. You can never look upon your upcoming meeting with him in the same way again."

"No, not really."

Barb was clenching the handles of his Tachis again. Knuckles white, with rope-like veins bulging in several locations on his huge arms. "The Machine, we must meet. Is essentially our mortal foe..."

"Pretty much. Sounds like someone we should meet in some gladiatorial fight at the end of an action movie."

"Sennacherib...I assume he's got Kung Fu down too?"

"Well, he..." begins Lo Qi, but he stops when his advisor hobbles over to him and whispers in his ear. "Ah..."

Dallas' phone rings, and he takes it. After about five seconds he looks up at the rest of you.

"We're leaving," he says, decisively.

Melkor listened carefully, his eyes closed. He looks like he is trying calm down when he hears about the King. Then he speaks hesitantly:

"But isn`t Sennacherib an Exile now? Did his purpose end with the end of the war? Perhaps we should be more open minded about him? For me, Machines were representing the faceless evil, but now I see they are as varied and complex as humans.

Please tell me, Master Qi have you studied human beings? I wonder what would the main diffrence between them and your kind be, in your opinion. What determines Machine`s personality besides its purpose, or does the lack of it give freedom, like in the case of Exiles? Is this "King" any diffrent from the great generals that humankind knew?

And my last question..... Was human side responsible in some way for starting the War?"

"I did wonder if someone would ask the obvious question, about why our Commander-in-Chief is inside the Matrix. Yes, he is an 'Exile', as you call it."

He has picked up his robe and is putting it back on.

"But I am afraid time is against you for an explanation." He fastens his belt. "Maybe you can get answers from him. And I have studied Humans in every way I can without having met one," he says.

And now, you can hear the droning of aeroplane engines.

"Move!" yells Dallas. Mardukl is already up as well.

"I was a little too late to be able to answer that one," says Lo Qi, now speaking louder. "But you will never find an objective person to answer it anyway!"

It's not just engines- rotors as well.

And now heavy machine gun fire. Marduk is on the phone as well.

"They're strafing our landing point!" he says.

"So we can't go out the way we came in - I think it's time we saw what's behind that door" Cloud says, moving quickly to his feet.

"They're trying to destroy the helicopters and strand us here!" San says, jumping up. "How the hell did they even know we were here?"

"Shit! I dunno, Lets go!"
Burn moves towards the door to the outside.

Ares dashes with everyone else outside.

Hawk follows suit, running after Ares.

Heph runs, looking over his shoulder at Lo Qi as he does so.