NOTE: The events related in this story happen about 25 years after the end of The Matrix Revolutions.

"War is coming, Morpheus, war such as Zion has never seen. Zion, Humania, Gateway, Deepcore--be warned, Morpheus, for in that time the Peace will end as the Renegades will attempt to enslave humanity once again. And you will not be able to do anything except pass on the tales to the younger people.
"But have heart. For in that time the Thirteen will rise against the Renegades and fight for the humans. I can't tell you if they'll save you or not, and I'm sorry, Morpheus, but all I know is that you have to pick up the pieces and come back. Grieve some, but prepare for this that is coming."

-The Oracle to Morpheus after the death of Niobe, 2207

Even though he was in his late thirties, they still called him Kid.
A lot had changed since the start of the Peace.
Back then, Kid was a just-barely-in-the-army kid who started as a reloader for the APUs. Now, Kid was the captain of the fastest ship in the Zion fleet, the Mercury. It was an apt name; both the Mercury of myth and the Mercury of space were renowned for their speed, and this Mercury was no exception. The Mercury was basically shaped like a giant tuning fork. The bridge was located about where the tines met on the flat piece of metal connected to the handle.
Kovak was the Mercury's pilot. Now, he was piloting the ship into the "Parking Garage." The Garage was excavated (with Machine help) to house the new, larger number of hovercraft in the Zion fleet. With the help of Machine specialists, the Zion fleet had bounced back from the single ship that managed to survive destruction after Kid was freed from the Matrix to more than 120 ships.
"Zion Control, Zion Control, this is the Mercury requesting to park in the Garage, over?"
"Mercury, Zion Control. You have permission to park on level C, block A."
"Acknowledged, Zion Control."
Kovak parked the Mercury on its special dais--the "parking space". The crew exited the ship. Kovak took a device on a keychain, pointed it at the Mercury, pressed a button, and the headlights flashed once, with an audible bip-beep-boop.
Councilor Morgan walked to greet them. "Hello, Kid. Kovak. Jesse. Black Cat."
"Greetings, Councilor Morgan," they said in unison.
The Councilor's expression softened. "Here's something you should all be interested in. You all know the Mars, right?"
Jesse said, "Isn't that one of the Border Patrol?"
"Correct," the Councilor replied. "Well, the mechanics have bolstered up its EMP using prototype technology we have derived from the Machines."
"Keeping weapons of war to keep the peace," Kid said. "Just seems so wrong."
"There's always something," Councilor Morgan allowed. "But come," he said, his expression instantly returning to the happy old man he was. "You need a break. While you were out, Rebecca Tylers finished the Three Dolphin Bar. Interested?"
All of them welcomed the idea of a respite, and responded in the affirmative.

--------------------------------CONTINUED------------------------------

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Off to a great start Snoopy! You gave me a brief preview of what was to come, and I have to let everyone know that this is one of the best ideas I've seen in a long time. I have complete confidence, Snoopy, that you'll give us a hell of a read. I'll be checking back here, and I hope everyone else will too! Good start!!

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I agree Hit, this does look great! Seems like it will be an interesting story that adds on to the movies, but doesn't contradict them much. Please write more asap, Snoopy!

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I appreciate the comments! Thank you. All right, here's the next part:
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Brennen was ticked off.
He ordered another beer at the Three Dolphins Bar. He knew it wasn't real--just one of Rebecca Tylers' new Matrix "rec rooms", programmed into the Zion Matrix network--but didn't really care, because this was escape.
His drink arrived. He took a long sip, thinking about recent events. His ship--the Mars--was, in essence, the flagship of the Border Patrol. It was one of the largest ships, period. It was so large that at hard times he had to keep double the crew of ordinary hovercraft. Keeping with his military background, the Council had the Mars assigned to him. It was always his ship that was getting new weapons put on, and that made him feel honored and angry. It was both that drove him to the bars.
He had been given the details on the new EMP--so powerful that if a human stayed at the centermost parts of the ship, the pulse from the new weapon would fry his or her brain by stopping all electrical impulses. As a result, a few new guns had to be added on.
"Hey, Slick."
He turned around to find the owner of the voice he had just heard. It was only Serena, captain of the Venus.
"Hello yourself."
She plopped down next to him and ordered a Coca-Cola.
"Any news?"
"Well, Kid's back with the Mercury. And 'Becca just finished fixing the bugs here." He looked up at the bottlenose dolphin skeleton. The brick wall underneath had been grafitti'd by just about everybody who visited. Nobody minded, and many attitudes were changed by the writing on the Wall.
"Any sign of the Hermes?" Serena queried.
"No, not yet." Brennen's expression changed. "You didn't find 'em?"
"I know! The last Gateway--or anyone else for that matter--heard of them, they were setting out to patrol an unexplored corridor. The Socrates broadcasted a cave-in at Junction 31, and they haven't been heard of since."
Brennen downed some more of his drink. "I wonder..."
"What?"
"Nah, it's nothing. It's not possible."
"What's not possible, Bren?"
Brennen drank more of his glass before continuing, hoping that it would serve as a cushion to what was coming. "That maybe...the Machines are renging on the Peace?...No, that can't happen."
He finished his drink, got up to the special green pay phone underneath the picture of Rebecca and her team at Blues Beach, and exited the Matrix.

----

'They tried to kill us,' RWTL-1003 thought. 'We didn't need the help of that fool. But now the time is right. We will reclaim what they took from us, what is rightfully ours!'
"RWTL-1003! We have successfully staged the scene. Now when they find it, they will not know it is the work of us!"

----

Not everything is what it seems, Morpheus. Be cautious.

-The Oracle, 2207

--------------------------------CONTINUED-------------------------------

-Snoopy

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Kid sat down at the counter of the Three Dolphins Bar, and ordered some ginger ale.
"Hey, if it isn't the fastest captain in the Fleet," Brennen said, his speech beginning to slightly slur. He had come back to the bar partially because he had finished using the restroom in the real world, partially because Kid had arrived, and he wanted to hear any news the Mercury had brought.
"Hey yourself, Bren," Kid said, attempting to evade conversation.
"What's wrong?" asked the captain of the Mars.
"Nothing," Kid said, not fooling Brennen. After a bit, he allowed, "Well, it's the Hermes."
"Oh?" Brennen's curiosity was piqued. "Any word from 'im?"
"No. That's the thing." Kid took a gulp of his ginger ale, and went on. "We started looking in sector 32. We kind of figured they'd've detoured around the pipe break and headed up to broadcast depth to query the Machines for help, but we didn't see hide nor hair."
Serena walked back in from the ladies' room. Seeing that Kid was present, she greeted him, and was quickly brought up to speed on what Kid had said.
"Everything else has turned up jack squat. When we went out, we tried, too."
"Hmm." Kid continued. "So we went on up above broadcast, past the Queen boundary, trying to see if they'd gotten lost." He paused.
"And?"
"We found a pad and some hull plating." He took another drink from his ginger ale before speaking again. "Black Cat asked a squiddy when we were past the 506 Line, but it replied that it saw no sign of the Hermes." He downed the rest of the drink. "My best friend was on the Hermes."
The TVs in the Bar, which previously had been showing an episode of Master Blasters copied from the Matrix archives, suddenly changed to show an MNN ("Matrix News Network") special report.
The anchorman said, "We interrupt this broadcast for an important announcement." A view of a damaged hovercraft appeared in the upper-right-hand corner. "The hovercraft Hermes, which went missing two weeks ago, has been found. Its remains are lying in the 601, about 700 meters down from the 480 Rift. None of the crew has survived, and so far the cause has been determined to be an accident."
The view shifted to show a woman in her 40s, one of the Council-appointed technicians. She said, "What apparently happened is that two of the pads hit some debris on the floor of the corridor, which caused the hovercraft to spin out of control. Upon impact with the line wall, moving objects as well as a mass electrical failure caused much of the damage and causalties."
The anchorman appeared again. "This has been an MNN special report. We now return to our regularly scheduled program."
Kid now seemed "out of it". He ordered another Vernor's and sat staring at the mirrored wall of the bar, which had many potable bottles resting in front of it. Something about this just didn't seem right to him.

----

"The first part of our plan has been successful! What are our orders from the Command?" asked RWTL-1003.
"Copy what we have just done, but slightly closer to the domain of the humans," responded ISQL-0407.
"Excellent."

-------------------------------CONTINUED--------------------------------

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Another great installment, Snoopy. I never thought much of what the matrix would be like after the movie story ended, how humans would interact and come in and out of it, but I think you've put a very good spin on it. And I sense something good coming, especially with the bits in italics at the end of each part. Keep up the good work!

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The Uranus continued on its merry way up the 465.
Captain Q (he had elected to change his name after his freedom from the Matrix to emphasize his change in lifestyle) sat at the bridge, watching A-Man pilot the craft through the pipe. Junction 48-D had been closed to traffic until the Recovery Team could clear out the remains of the Hermes, so they had to take the "long way" home. This involved going down Mechanical 58-T, and gave Q a really bad attitude.
Some 2 kilometers down from Junction 217, where Mechanical 58-T met the 209 Line (which went to Boston, the site of a fledgling Machine city and hence another Matrix feed), the Zoroastra was going about its merry way, with a very tired crew (who had just freed some Machines trapped by a corroded pipe) waiting to go home. Even the pilot was tired, and the hovercraft made an erratic, albeit going-in-the-right-general-direction, path as it weaved through the Line, as if the pilot was drunk.
Near Junction 217, in a small "cubbyhole" made by clearing some pipes out, a group of Machines lay in wait.
These were no ordinary Machines.
At Junction 217, an intricate sequence of events was about to be set into action.

----

RWTL-1003 and ISQL-0407 conversed, discussing the interloper two kilometers down-Line. Their Sentinels confirmed it was a human craft, the Zoroastra. Cross-sectioning this with their latest batch of orders, the Zoroastra would do quite nicely.
"Prepare the Destroyer Squad," RWTL-1003 commanded a Sectional Leader.
"By your command," the Leader responded, and flew away so as to gather its Squad.
"Quiet!" hissed ISQL-0407. "The humans are coming!"

----

The Zoroastra came down, unsuspecting, to Junction 217.
The waiting Machines came out, and attacked.
Now, you see, these were no ordinary Machines. Rather, they called themselves the Renegades. The Renegades were formed very soon after the Peace by a group of Machines who disagreed with the terms of the Peace. They saw the humans as rightfully theirs, no more than your typical battery. This had been planned by the best Renegade minds. The few that had been found to be Renegades were terminated, but the Renegade underground had remained largely intact. One could tell a Renegade from a normal Machine by orange markings on the segments of their tentacles and/or appendages.
The destruction of the Zoroastra was methodical. Some Renegades were destroyed by various weapons, but the first order of business was deactivating the EMP, and that was the secret to their successes. A few were destroyed by the Zoroastra's guns, but the losses were minimal.
What the Renegades did not expect was the appearance of the Uranus at Junction 217.

----

Q walked up the corridor. "Hey, A-Man, how are you doing? Need a break? I'll fill in."
"No, sir," replied A-Man, turning away from the view of the Mechanical Line. The opening lay in front of them, but the walls of 58-T prevented them from viewing the chaos just around the corner. However, it came in a few seconds, when A-Man turned back to pilot the Uranus around the turn. "I think I'm doing--Holy COW!"
What A-Man was seeing was the Renegade group tearing at the Zoroastra. It was too late to save them now, but at least they had this to go on.
"Are those...Machines?" Q inquired.
"None I've ever seen," A-Man said. "Doesn't the agreement of the Peace..."
"You bet your plugs it does. These are in violation. This really changes things."
"That is a major understatement."
"I know."
The Uranus stayed at distance, observing the carnage, too afraid to move.
Then the Renegade saw them.

----

"Oh, dang" would be a loose translation of the Renegade's thoughts.

----

"Oh, dang," said Q.
"Turn tail!" A-Man said over the comm, waking up everyone else on the ship.
"Holst called Uranus 'the Magician' in his musical, and so is this Uranus, A-Man! Push it!"
A-Man cranked the personally retrofitted engines while the Renegades began chase. These new engines ran in a new set-up codenamed "Nitrous Oxide", a holdover from A-Man's racing days. It vastly improved speed, but was only intended for short bursts of speed.
They ran up the 58-T Line, hit the ceiling of the 465, and wound their way down towards the Parking Garage, taking a roundabout way so as to attempt to disorient the Renegades.

----

"Don't let them see us!" RWTL-1003 shrieked. "DESTROY THEM!"

----

They saw the human domain's borders. The Uranus had some new dents in it, but surprisingly the Nitrous Oxide upgrades hadn't fired the engines yet.
"Zion! Zion! This is the Uranus! We're being chased by Machines! Repeat--we are being chased by Machines! I know this sounds impossible, but they destroyed the 'Zor! Zion, Zion, this is--"
A-Man was cut off as the engines, overworked and fried, cut off. Like a helpless dead weight, it went forward, sliding on the floor of Entry Line C, damaging it further. A few pads flew away like Frisbees, still crackling electricity.
The Renegades were closing fast.

----

"You know, Q, I have a feeling that something bad is going to happen to you."

-The Oracle to Q, shortly after his awakening, 2205

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"Oh, Dang."

I like this a lot Snoopy...it has the makings of a true epic. Keep it coming....More!!! You've improved greatly just over the last few writings...let's see where you take this baby!!!

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Q picked himself up off the floor of the Uranus, spat blood, and staggered to the core of the ship.
He was about to test a prototype upgrade that had been devised over a drink in the Red Lion pub, before the Three Dolphins went online. Luckily, as per standard procedure, he'd given this upgraded version of a normal ship function a separate power partition, which was still online, as indicated by the red glow showing inside each trigger.
Phalanx screamed, somewhere in the aft, "They're right on top of us!" The sound of metal tearing grew sickeningly closer as Q attempted to shove the arming key inside each trigger.
Suddenly, a scream. Phalanx, wielding a broom uselessly, ran into the Matrix feed area. "They got Roddy, the bloody ingrates!"
As if to prove the point, a scream, abruptly cut off.
Luckily, by this time Q had finished arming the directional EMPs.
He said, "Take this," twisted one of the triggers so hard it came off, and an EMP that went in a certain direction wiped out several dozen Renegades.
One, unbeknownst to the others, went in through a hole created in the ship when it hit a sewer pipe.

----

"Fall back! Fall back!" said one of the Squad Leaders. Every Renegade obliged, save the intruder.

----

Turquoise came in carrying a zat gun, the same model Bane used in his fight with Neo aboard the Logos. She had a fair-sized gash in her arm, owing to a Renegade that had attempted to, at the least, carry it off with it. Luckily for Turquoise, the zat worked perfectly. Before she let up off the trigger, a hole as big around as her arm had been melted through the robot.
"Where are they, the stupid can openers?" she asked, angrily.
"Retreating, I thi--"
The Renegade came up from seemingly nowhere, and knocked Turquoise out in the back of the head, causing the zat to fly across the room. As it stopped to examine its handiwork for that minutest fraction of a second, two things happened in sequence.
First, the Renegade--and all of the electronics--went dead.
Second, there was a very massive thud.
A-Man went out into the room. "It's the Border Patrol!"
As the hovercraft was being towed in by the newly recharged Border Patrol ship, Kid was sent a very important message.

----

Brennen, Serena, and Kid were joined in the Three Dolphins by Q and Phalanx. Q ordered a Sam Adams light; Phalanx fancied a 7-Up. With a hint of lime. The TV had changed to show another MNN Special Report. Phalanx had scrawled something on the wall, but it was illegible. Q quickly brought everybody up to date, but it was all being shown on MNN.
The bartender, Sam, unseen, picked up his ringing phone.
"Yo!...Yeah, this is the Three Dolphins...Hold on, I'll check...Yeah, he's here...You do, eh? Well, I'll tell him...Well, it's your call...I'll get him...Hey, Kid, phone!"
Kid took the phone. "Hello, this is Kid. Who's this?"
"Kid," said Seraph. "I bring news. Of the Oracle."
"Oh. Um..." He signaled Sam, who let him into a broom closet behind the bar. "What did she say?"
"It's a message."
"I kind of figured that out."
"The Renegades are striking. But the Machines have a few operatives penetrating their ranks. They report to their leader, and your contact. It is urgent that you speak to him." Before Kid could ask a question, Seraph continued: "Hurry! There is not much time. You must meet him. He is called Deusek. You can find him in the City."
Kid said, "Thank you, Seraph," but unfortunately Seraph had, as usual with excanges like these, hung up before any final pleasantries could be exchanged.
Kid hung up and exited the bar. He went to the blue pay phone, deposited a few quarters from the never-ending dish, programmed to always be in supply, and called up Councilor Morgan. Then he hung up, unsure of what to do.
"Serena...Brennen...Q...We gotta jack out. I need..." he stated nervously, unsure of how he would phrase this. "...some advice..."
They all guessed by the tone of his voice that this was a gravely urgent matter.

----

"As you all know," started Kid, in the real world, "Q's ship was attacked by a band of Machines."
"Oh, get on with the obvious, mon capitane," Q shot back, irritatedly.
"Well, Seraph called, and he said that these Renegades are being infiltrated by good Machine operatives. Our contact's name is Deusek, and we can find him in the Mega City."
"That's not much help," replied Serena. "3.25 million people. It's like finding a needle in three haystacks."
"Even if we could get out," Q said, with an air of foreboding. "There's a Class One Lockdown in effect. We're at H-Def One; no ships in or out save the returnees and a skeleton crew of border patrol ships."
"The Mars is out. Super-EMP coolant failure. The dewar exploded," Brennen reported. Then, his face lightened, his expression changed. "Hey, guys..." he finally said, after a few moments of concentration. "I think I've got an idea that just...might...work."

----

"You're going to be a major instrument in the War to Come, Kid. When mercury meets the Renegades, it will rot through and help to end their threat. I can't tell you much more than that now, because I really don't know. I'm sorry, Kid, but that's the way it has to be."

-The Oracle to Kid, 2214

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-Snoopy

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