USH'S MATRIX GAME 2006 FIFTH ASSIGNMENT- 'The Pagoda'

"Burn! Get us the hell out of here, now!" Cloud yells through, taking off his jacket and putting it over Melkor, "I'm no medic, but you should at least try and stay warm." He'll then collapse into the nearest free chair to have a little rest from the fight.

Burn will start the rotors and get the osprey the hell out of there...

"Oh just hold out a little bit longer..." San says as they take off.

Azrael, all sound drains away from the world as you are lifted on board. All you can hear now is the faint background whup whup whup whup whup of the rotor blades. Soon, everythin fades away.

Azrael is still and silent.

Finn calls. He says Azrael's vital signs have pretty much given out. He's about to flatline.

Mors, crouching by Azrael, falls back into a sitting position, watching as the life fades from Azrael's eyes.

"Goodbye, friend."

"Like hell you're getting out of here so easily buddy!" Cloud says, starting CPR. May be useless, but he's damn sure going to try!

Question that I had last night as I was going to bed - would medicine rolls on the infected people help keep them stable a bit longer? Or if anyone able to tap HC on them?

Azrael smiles.

I don't think CPR is gunna work, Spike.

Melkor closes his eyes, trying to throw the pain away.

"Just an endless sleep." -He whispers to himself.

Berserker recovering from his own bout sees Azrael. "This can not be happening.....Azrael you just saved the Matrix..." Berserker coughs "...I'm..sorry I ever doubted you or blamed you. You deserved better than that."

As for rolls- nope. Reason being, the problem is not here in the Matrix.

Besides, it seems Azrael is beyond any sort of hope now.

The echoing sound of the rotor blades fills Azrael's head as everything fades away.

"What the hell is it with all this 'dying' shit?" yells Dallas, who has stormeds over to the wreck of the Percy in response to Finn's commentary about Azrael. But Dallas only gets there in time for the life signs to go flat, and the eerie whine of death to take its place.

"Life signs extinct," comments the computer, callously.

-----

Whup whup whup whup...

The noise seems to come, Azrael, over and over and over.

Wait... you're confused. You keep hearing the boise, but it is more jarring, more physical, than the soft, bass motion of the blades.

It sounds more like... a train?

The lights flicker, Azrael, and your eyes flick open also. You are lying on an underground train station platform; the oights flicker occasionally as you hear the faint rumble of a train in the distance.

On an uncomfortable looking wooden bench nearby, someone is sitting, eating sweets from a paper bag.

"Well now," says the Oracle. "That was that, then. What do you think? Not too bad a time, you had, looking back at it."

Azrael sits up, trying to get his bearings.
"No, I suppose not. It's all over then?"

He tentatively tries standing up.
"But, I confess, I didn't expect to see you here."

"Why is that then?"

"In all the times I've thought what would happen on my death, I did not ever imagine I would live on in a," Azrael pauses, and looks around, "A subway station. As for yourself, I would have thought you'd have had more important things to attend to, back in the Matrix."

"Well, like most things, this place is not exactly as it seems. Nor are you exactly out of the Matrix. I prefer to think of this as... somewhere in-between."

"I thought when I died I'd be free of the Matrix. What's this, some kind of limbo?" Azrael asks, confused. "And if not, then am I even actually dead?"

"Well, your body has given up. It can only take so much, you know. And when your body goes, so does your mind; you normally have to worry about it the other way around, but the King's Virus is a funny little thing.

"Seems your mind is not quite gone just yet." A rattle again, and another flicker of lights. "But your train will be here very soon. I just thought we'd take a few moments to see how you felt about it all."

"That is interesting. Are you telling me that I'm alive without a body? I can exist in the Matrix without a physical self?"

"Or is this train going to take the last vestiges of my existence? As for how I feel, I can't complain. Perhaps it is for the best that I do not have to see the end of the war, because I doubt it will be a happy occasion for my kind. Will my other crewmates survive - has the virus been stopped?"

"Don't read too much into it. When a person's body dies, how much longer before the mind goes as well? Those thought dead sometimes get brought back, resuscitated their mind intact, so that must have gone on. Who knows when and why and how? You're inside that uncertainty. There's nothing remarkable about it at all. Of course, no-one's going to resuscitate you." The Oracle takes a drag on her cigarette. "More than just a stopped heart wrong with your body. You're just lucky enough to have a bot of time now to think about it all. Probably more than most get. Maybe I did that. Maybe someone else did. Maybe it's just dumb luck. As to where you go next- not even I can tell you that."

She looks you over.

"An Oracle I may be but I don't tend to just give away what I know. It doesn't really work like that. Don't waste your time worrying about your friends now, you shpuld be thinking about yourself. There cannot be many things more solitary than dying."

She blows out smoke.

"Before you go, though, I did want to take the opportunity to see how far you came on. I asked you a question earlier, to think about. Do you remember what it was? Did you get a chance to think about it? I did say it was important."

"I have been thinking it over, in the moments I had spare, but I think my answer is probably unsatisfactory. The question, I hope, was what I should call my last fight - the one that killed me. Am I correct?"