Roach gasps awake in his chain, eyes shaking wildly. He begins to calm down as it becomes apparent that he's no longer in the matrix.

"Would somebody get this thing out of my head?" He asks weakly.

Laz puts the phone back on the hook and grabs it as it rings.

Lot stares at his inadequate pistol and grimaces. Xan had unloaded a full auto volley at one of these agents and didnt live to make it this far.  Sure, he put a slug into one just moment earlier but conditions were so drastically in his favor.  Lot watches the way the door buckles from the agents furious pounding, and alot of good it did anyhow.

Lot begins to make slow progress towards the hardline while he aims his pistol where the agents will come around.  Once Laz is clear he reluctantly hangs the phone back on the hook and prepares to make his own exit.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:30, Mon 26 July 2004.

Laz puts the receiver back on the hook.  Waiting for it to ring again seems to take forever.

The pounding and pushing on the door intensifies as you realize that there is more than one Agent now.

A movement two aisles over alerts you to the presence of the other two Agents.  They are walking around the rows.

The phone rings.  Laz answers and disappears.  The phone drops.  Jade picks it up and replaces it on its hook.

You estimate that the two approaching Agents will round the corner in about 10 seconds once they veer around all the crates and other supplies blocking their way.

The two Agents pounding on the door have pushed it open a crack.  An arm reaches in, trying to swat away at the barrels.  A pistol is in its hand.

T-Minus 16 Seconds to EMP

Roach, Mitose and Laz find themselves back on the Hyperion.  There are klaxons blaring.  The jacks are hastily removed from their heads.  They sit up dizzy and exhausted, but EM Rifles are placed in their hands.

That is when they see the head of a sentinel poking through the hole it just made in the roof of the Hyperion.

Hammer is taking a step back with his own rifle to get a good shot.  X is trying to man the computers with the sentinel just 5 yards away.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:40, Mon 26 July 2004.

Jade sees Lot's inadequate pistol and nods to the phone as she steps toward the open aisle with her fully loaded Thompson on automatic fire, ready to fire away at the Agents as soon as they are in full view.

"You next," she says to Lot.  Then to Viper, "And then you.  I'll take these G-men down."

This is just to clarify since I realize my description wasn't really clear.

The warehouse is lined with heavy duty industrial steel shelves about five feet wide fifty feet long and twenty feet high.  They are extremely heavy (about 10,000 pounds) when they are stuffed full of boxes and heavy materials (like they are now).  Crates, barrels, computer and equipment parts, and various miscellaneous items fill the shelves so there is very little room to see through them.[Think of the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  When I worked for the government, we used these types of shelves in our warehouses.]

The brown rectangles are worktables, which are full of papers and projects.  The two Agents have just come around the northwest corner and are approaching E12.  Jade is standing by the extraction point, and Viper is pushing against the barrels holding the door shut against the Agents pushing on it.  Lot is also standing by the extraction point, ready to take the next call.



Back on the ship, Laz, Mitose and Roach are in the midst of chaos as the sentinel is pushing its way into the computer control room.  They hardly have time to notice the bodies of Grid, Xan, Twitch, and Caine.  Instead, Hammer has handed them EM rifles (the same as used in the movies) and pointed them toward the sentinel.  Jumping from their chairs, they back away and face the machine.

EM RIFLE:


SENTINEL:

This message was last edited by the GM at 02:14, Tue 27 July 2004.

Beads of sweat run down Lot's nose as he waits for the next ring that would signal his escape. Like an old west gunfighter his hand hovers over the phone ready to draw at any second. He returns his pistol to his belt and withdraws something else in his fist.  "Jade..." he starts, but lets the rest trail off.  He holds out his arm and hands her his frag grenade.  Enough said, Lot gives her a nod and returns his attnetion to the phone.

Laz hoists his rifle as soon as he is unplugged, the weight of it in his hands makes him realize he is no longer in wonderland, he is in a place much worse.

Jade takes the frag grenade and yells to Viper, "Get to the phone!  We don't have time.  I'll hold them off."

Just as Roach begins calm down, he's thrown back into battle again. He readies his weapon...

OOC: Ready gun(1), aim(2), fire(3), aim(4), fire(5)

Viper is slightly preoccupited, and fails to notice that Jade is shouting at him. After all, there's a hand with a gun behind him.

As soon as he notices the hand, Viper reverses the AK and slams the butt end down at the offending extremity. "Back off!"

T-Minus 13 seconds to EMP
The phone rings.  Lot picks it up and disappears.

Viper hits down and scores a solid hit on the hand with the butt of his weapon.  It withdraws, and he is able to close the door and push the barrels once more against them.  They bang against the door again from the outside, but it will take at least ten seconds or more for them to break through again.

Jade gets her Thompson ready.  Just above the crates, in that open crack, she can see the two Agents approaching.  They both hold pistols.  4 Seconds until they round the corner.

T-Minus 10 seconds to EMP

Back on the ship, tentacles swoop in and attach to the underside of the ceiling, and the sentinel begins to pull itself inside.

There is a loud clunk as the other sentinels outside begin to land on the Hyperion.

Hammer and Roach begin firing at the sentinel.  Mitose unplugs Lot so that he can clear the way and avoid being hit by the sentinel or the EM rays from the rifles.

The sentinel falls back as it is hit...but a tentacle strikes out, hitting X and knocking him from his seat.  X falls from his chair and is stunned on the ground.  Luckily, he was able to push a button before he fell.

The phone begins to ring.

Stepping up and using the shelving and crates as cover, Jade yells to Viper, "Get the phone!"  Then she kneels and prepares to spray the Agents with bullets as soon as they round the corner.

Viper sprints for the phone, his AK aimed again at the corner he expects the Agents to come around. If he reaches the phone without incident, he slams the AK down as he picks up the phone, leaving it behind, just in case.

Lot gasps as he awakens into the real world.  His eyes blink several times as they attempt to focus on the world around him.  Quickly and without ceremony Mitose yanks the plug out of his skull and Lot rolls off the side of the chair and out of the way of stabbing tentacles and stray lightning bolts.

Still very concerned for the others still jacked in, Lot looks to X to see how he is doing with the extractions.  He looks just in time to see X being knocked from his chair.  Lot springs into action and runs across the floor to help X and make sure he is okay.

Laz has his gun ready, he scans the area for the next sentinel ready to fire when it shows its ugly head.

T-Minus 6 Seconds to EMP
Viper jumps to the phone, his AK-47 clatters to the floor, and he disappears out of the Matrix.  The phone drops and dangles.

The Agents round the corner, and the Thompson roars to life.  The first Agent ducks back, surprisingly agile.  The second Agent is caught off guard, and his body is splattered with bullets.  He falls back out of view from the impact of the bullets.

T-Minus 3 Seconds to EMP

The Sentinel is still active and connected.  It pulls itself back through the hole in the ceiling for a second round.

Hammer, Laz and Roach are ready for it.  The EM Rifles blaze, sending sparks and the sound of an amplifier feedback throughout the computer room, which lights up like a fireworks display.  The sentinel flies back and away from the ship, completely detached.  However, you hear a strange buzzing sound and the clinking of metal on metal.  Then, like a flock of birds, the sentinels descend on the Hyperion--too many to count.

Lot is leaning down to X, who was injured.  X pulls down his keyboard, grunting in pain.  His shoulder is bleeding and bruised.  He begins typing blindly, but he stops for an instant to point to a switch against the wall.  "Flip the EMP!" he yells.  "They'll decimate us."  You know that the switch will set off the EMP.

Mitose pulls the plug from Viper's head as he exits the Matrix.
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:22, Wed 28 July 2004.

NOTE: As soon as you jack out of the Matrix, your Health and other attributes return to normal.

"NO! Wait for Jade!" Lot screams.  "X you better open that exit! Dont you give up on her!".

Lot rises and dashes towards the EMP switch.

Laz looks at Lot as he walks over to the EMP switch, weariness visibly on his face . "Punch it the minute she shows, we've lost too many already."

Jade puts the phone back on the hook.

The Agents pop out from behind the shelves, pistols blazing.

Jade manages to duck behind the other side of the shelves, but not before a bullet catches her in the...arm.  (6 dmg).

To her left, the other Agents are pushing through the door, banging and thrusting.  One of the barrels falls and rolls down toward her.  Two hands appear in the doorway, attempting to wedge it open.

Jade fires around the corner while still behind cover.  Her firing misses...but the Agents do not approach.

Jade looks anxiously at the phone.

T-Minus 0 Seconds to EMP

On the Hyperion, the sounds of Sentinels breaking open metal is ear piercing.  They have arrived, and the EMP has not been pushed.

A sentinel's head appears in the open hole in the ceiling.

X pushes the "Enter" button.

The Agents to Jade's left break through and the first steps into the aisle 40 feet to her left.  The other two Agents are moving around the shelves.  She is surrounded with no hope.

And then the phone begins to ring.

T-Minus Negative 3 Seconds.  Situation Critical

Jade flies to the phone just as four pistols are raised and pointed at her.  She never hears the sound of firing, but X notices that the hardline is suddenly cut off as the phone is destroyed and that spot is riddled with bullets.

Jade opens her eyes on the chair, her hand immediately going to her arm in memory of her residual image.

T-Minus Negative 5 seconds.  The sounds of the Sentinels are everywhere.

As soon as Jade's eyes open, Lot hits the EMP switch.

There is a flash of bright light, and the engines, computers and other equipment on board suddenly go out.

Fortunately, the sentinel in the hole above you also loses all power.  It slams into the side of the ship and tumbles off.  The sound of falling sentinels around you is like a bucket of marbles being dumped on a tile floor.

Locke is running in from the control room.  "Hammer," he yells in command, "get the engines up and running again.  More of those calamari will be on the way."

Locke looks at Binary's form still plugged into the chair.  "What a god-awful mess this mission turned out to be."

"At least it's over," X says, and the silence around you is comforting as your bodies start to drain away their adrenaline and you begin to calm down.

"It ain't over yet," Locke says.  "Get the ship up and functional again.  Our next mission begins in 30 minutes or as soon as possible before that."

"What?!" X says, still clutching his injured shoulder.

"I'm going to plot a course in.  We have to get to the Fields."

"No," X says in desperation, "not the Fields.  Not in this condition.  We won't make it."

"Just do it," Locke says.  "That's an order."

Locke disappears to the control room to work on getting the ship back up, leaving you alone for the moment.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:57, Thu 29 July 2004.

Laz takes a breath as all the sentinels seem to go down but a grimace comes to his face as he hears talk about the Fields. He looks to Locke, anger on his face. "With all respect captain, I don't think we are in shape for any extracirrcular activity."

Dropping the gun, Roach starts taking tired, heaving breaths. He looks like he's about to say something.

Then he throws up on X's shoes.

Lot winces when he hears the bad news.  He rubs the back of his shaved scalp in a tired gesture as he turns and walks away from the others.  "Guess ill go man one of the guns then".

Mitose moves to return his EMP rifle to where they are normally stored, and returns to look over his fellow divers, a term he preferred to hackers, as his awareness of the Matrix did not spring from hacking the system directly.  He nods to each of them, and then bows.

"I am honored to be aboard this vessel with all of you.  And I thank you all for keeping me alive long enough to come home." Mitose straightens and breathes, "From the fire into the frying pan.  Anyone have any ideas about what Stage 2 will be?"