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Matrix phenoMena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
164
top 10 Matrix LegendS
KSAF Opinion Poll:
What does Joe Average 2071 fear about the Matrix?
10.) Crash 3.0 is coming soon!
9) AIs are watching everything we do—it’s only a matter of
time until they take over and enslave us all!
8) There are horror nodes that can kill you if you enter them!
7) The ghosts of dead people haunt the Matrix!
6) Something is still trapping people online and turning them
into technomancers!
5) There’s a new virus out there that will wipe your memories!
4) The government has Black IC programs that can kill even
cold sim users!
3) Technomancers can hack your brain and read your thoughts!
2) Dragons roam the Matrix, preparing for the day when they
will take over and make us their food stock.
1) The Matrix is an alien plot—each time you access it, a copy
of your brain is downloaded and stored for alien purposes.
problems, mental derangements, etc. Of course, those are the reported
incidents …
> Sunshine
> I heard an interesting tale from a friend over on the Helix. It involved
him repeatedly running into this strange and flighty woman
on-line, at various social spots. Eventually it developed into a virtual
fling, but everytime he tried to get her to open up and talk about
herself, she backed off. Her behaviour kept growing odder and odder
too, like her motherboard was missing a few circuits. They had a
big row one day and she stormed off. His curiosity got the better of
him, so he went digging. A few weeks later, he tracked the woman
down—only to find out she was a hospital resident who had been in
a coma for the better part of 3 years. That creeped him out big time.
He still sees her on occasion, but he keeps his distance.
> Red Anya
> That wouldn’t be as weird as if he found out she was dead. I’ve been
keeping an eye on these sorts of “ghosts in the Matrix” stories, and
there’s been more than a few. Here, I’ll pop one up in another window.
According to an inside source of mine, Lone Star had to shut
down their own node before the intruder could inflict any significant
damage. Before he went on his rampage, the man identified himself
as Alex O’Keefe, a Novatech system administrator, and tried to report
his own kidnapping. The desk officer didn’t take him seriously,
both because Novatech no longer exists and because O’Keefe’s SIN
pulled up a death certificate. The intruder apparently went berserk,
screaming “I’m not dead!” and wreaking havoc in the node. The Star
hasn’t seen him since.
There was indeed an Alex O’Keefe who worked as a system
administrator for Novatech. He died in the Matrix during Crash 2.0.
> Sunshine
> Come on, are you scared of people who use a fake ID and mess
with the Star? It was probably just some Matrix gang prank.
> Slamm–0!
> It wouldn’t be the first time that the dead walked among
us. In the virtual world, though, it’s hard to pinpoint the truth
of such encounters. Just last week someone was banned from
ShadowSea for claiming to have run into Captain Chaos in a
DIMR node.
> Pistons
> Back in a bit. I have to look after an old friend’s grave.
> FastJack
> Not all of these e-ghost stories are bad. A few months back,
one of those notorious suicide sites shut itself down. (For those
who don’t keep up on the more depressing aspects of Matrix
social life, suicide sites are nodes where people contemplating
suicide gather, find information about effective suicide methods,
goad each other on, and make suicide pacts.) The people running
the node were freaked out when several of their previous
visitors—whose deaths had made headlines as a result of the
site—returned from the dead to haunt those still on the fence.
> Baka Dabora
> Bollocks, just pranksters again, using the icons of some
stupid, dead kids to try and scare some sense into people about to
needlessly throw their lives away. Good for them.
> Slamm–0!
> I don’t know about dead people, but I know about someone who
should be dead. I ran across some … interesting activity in the Matrix
that caught my attention not too long ago, and eventually it put me
on the trail of a group of alleged AIs called the Code Clan. This was
interesting enough in itself, so I kept digging to find out more about
what they were about. I still hadn’t ascertained their agenda when
I came across a technomancer gang calling itself the Discordians,
who were somehow involved with this Code Clan, but who were taking
orders from some seriously cold-hearted slitch. This new outfit
seemed even shadier, so I switched focus, and ID’d a few of their
members. What I found didn’t bode well—both had previously been
members of Ex Pacis. You do the math.
I’ll be looking into this more.
> Puck
> Ex Pacis?
> Hannibelle
> Ex Pacis were a group of … perhaps the best way I can describe
them would be to call them toxic technomancers. They were otaku
back then, before the Crash. I don’t know what their agenda was,
but it wasn’t good. Some rumors hint that they colluded with
Winternight in bringing about the Crash. Their leader was Pax, a
sociopath who had previously served the mad AI Deus, if that gives
you a sense for where their loyalties lay. No one’s seen hide no hair of
Pax since the Crash … Puck, do you think Pax is the leader?
> The Smiling Bandit
> Puck’s been offline for 5 days straight—and he’s never offline. I’m
worried.
> Netcat
Unwired
Simon Wentworth (order #1132857) 9