WANTED: Matchwriters

["The" Ross Walker]

Yeah, so I need a couple of guys to write some matches, about 1 or 2 per week, just to take some of the load off me. Just fill out this little form, and I'll make my choices as soon as possible.

Name:
IM Addresses (can be PM'ed if you don't wish to disclose them):
E'Fedding Experience:
Sample Match:

Oh, and there's mod powers in it for you too, did I forget to mention that?

[Jane]

Name: Jane
IM Address: [e-mail]
E-fedding experience: I've been doing e-wrestling for a little over a month now. Not very long at all but I do have a lot of experience in writing through University, work and just for fun.
Sample Match: I've never written an e-wrestling match as yet. But I've written quite a bit of stuff that's combat related. For example, I used to write for "The Matrix Online" as a character named "Austrian" that was incorporated into the official storyline. Here's an excerpt from one of the chapters in a story involving the character:

My former hiding spot is quite a ways from where the interrogation took place at the police station and so I'm forced to take up Umbrion's offer to use a Mega City Police Department safehouse to lay low in for a while. I'm distinctly aware how this must look, of course. A Merovingian Operative defying The Merovingian's orders to turn over a powerful artifact to him and then accepting the help of Machine Operatives not once but twice. I imagine, based on the details of my plans, that I will need to call upon the Machine Operatives again in the coming weeks. There are aspects of my plan that The Merovingian will be able to openly oppose and interfere with. If that is the case, I may not be able to rely on the aid of other Operatives from my own Organization aside from those who serve in my crew. Zion no doubt wants The Katana as much as The Merovingian. After all, who wouldn't want a sword that could kill an Agent just by slicing his tie in half? The code of The Katana would no doubt hungrily consume the intricate make-up of an Agent Program.

And so I sit in one of the backseats of a spacious black hummer in an MCPD convoy. Sitting with me are Spiatelli, Schlafsucher, and AdventHalo. You've met these crew members of mine already. Spiatelli was the crack sniper who blew away the Exile that ruined my drink in Club Paradise Lost earlier in this little story. Schlafsucher is my younger brother with an obsession for putting as many bullets in the air as possible and harbours some Cypherite sympathies. And AdventHalo accompanied me on that interrogation of Yokuhitsu. They all seem a bit nervous about riding in a vehicle driven by Machine Operatives but they understand the necessity and that the police are not what the propaganda makes them out to be. Of course they're guilty of murdering Exiles whose only crime was to try to survive independently of The Source. But they do as much good, if not more so, than they do evil. They are the same as us, just with slightly different aesthetics and employers. At the end of the day, we have almost exactly the same goals- it's just that we get our pay cheques from different places. I wonder if my ancestors in the Wehrmacht thought the same way as they fought against the Americans and the British? I might be obliged to say "No. My ancestors fought for a morally bankrupt regime." But can I say I am fighting for a moral cause? For every decent Exile I protect, there is a real villain I help bring into The Matrix. Perhaps I am just like those who held my name in ages past who fought for the wrong cause.

I'm contemplating this as I see a car drive past us on the other side of the road. A few scowling faces leer at me from the "pimped-out" vehicle. Members of the gang here in Ikebukuro known as the "Phoenixes". They would be case in point: bad Exiles that probably should not have been rescued from The Source and brought here. They acquire the resources to pay for their cars and their guns by bullying innocent Bluepills. Such a fall from grace! One day they were governing the flight patterns of sea birds on the docks of Ikebukuro, the next they are scavenging the meagre earnings of an innocent old street vendor selling rags on the curb of a warehouse. I suppose the scowls of the faces in the car are not much different than those of Yokuhitsu- and not just because they are Japanese faces as well. It's because the scowls are born of an introspective disappointment thrown outwards in order to stop the internal bleeding of self-esteem.

"Everyone! Out! Now!" The driver yells to us as he bails out of the driver seat. Was im Hölle? I throw myself out of the vehicle and feel myself being pushed and shoved towards a parking lot attendant's booth nearby. What is going on?

Then I hear it. A Fwoosh! sound followed by a loud crack. And then my hearing completely cuts out and my ears feel as if they have been covered by plastic cups. I remember my first time flying on a plane from Graz to Paris on vacation. I was just a child, back then. I had some sort of problem with my ears so as we were landing, I began to suffer an excruciating pain in them due to the altitude changes. The flight attendant handed me two plastic cups and instructed me to place them over my ears and swallow hard. Somehow it helped. At the moment, it feels like how it might have felt if the plastic cups had not helped and had somehow become fused to my ears.

I take a glance to my left as I lie with my back to the parking lot attendant's booth and see the hummer in flames. Schiesse! What had just happened? I looked around to make sure everyone made it out of the vehicle all right. Schlafsucher is right in front of me, also staring at the burning husk of the black hummer in shock. Spiatelli is on my right, his AI PM sniper rifle all right in his shoulder. It looks to me as if he is scanning the windows of the buildings in front of us for any shooters. Just beside him is AdventHalo, covering Spiatelli with a Heckler and Koch MP5A6- a fairly handy submachine gun usually used by counter-terrorist teams for its reliability and stopping power. All hands accounted for. Wait. Where's the police driver? A quick scan around and I spot him taking cover behind a car nearby.

I sigh and try to steady myself. My hands are a little shaky not from fear but from the shock of the explosion. It's like just narrowly being missed by lightning. And, in a way, it packed the force of lightning. I never saw it happen but I suspect we were hit by an RPG- a rocket-propelled grenade. A lot of things come in off of the ships in the Ikebukuro docks. Some of those things are weapons that are not exactly for sale in Mega City and which would be much too difficult to code. I pull the Steyr AUG, my favoured assault rifle, from my jacket. It's a fairly bull-pup design so it packs the punch of an assault rifle like a Colt M16A2 assault rifle, the standard-issue weapon of the American military, by has the size of a submachine gun like AdventHalo's H&K MP5A6. It was, when Humanity was still free, supposedly the standard-issue weapon of the Bundesgrenz, the Austrian Army, and many elite mercenary units around the world- including the "security consultants" that American corporations like Halliburton would send to Iraq to protect their assets.

One of the many advantages that the Steyr AUG has over most weapon designs is its magazine. With nearly every firearm in existence, the firer never knows exactly how many shots he or she has in the magazine. The best one can do to anticipate when one will need to reload is to count the shots one has fired. But what if you need to fire on full automatic at someone storming your position? How will you know how many shots you have then? You won't. And you might find yourself walking into a situation where you are screwed, as they say in English, because you are completely out of ammunition but don't know it until you pull the trigger and hear the distinctive ‘click' of the rifle bolt moving forward and hitting... nothing. But the Steyr AUG is different. Unlike other designs, the magazine is ever so slightly transparent. So when the firer wants to know how much ammunition they have left in their current clip, all they need to do is glance at the magazine before bringing the rifle back up into the shoulder in a high-ready stance. I do so and see that the currently loaded magazine is full. Thirty 5.56x45mm NATO rounds- just as it was coded as I jacked-in.

I poke my head over the edge of the parking lot attendant's booth and see the car that had initially passed us barely sixty feet down the road ahead and to the right of us. About four Phoenix gang members are taking cover behind their vehicle and are brandishing weapons. I point the barrel of my Steyr AUG at them and double tap the trigger with quick pulses of my gloved finger. The sound of the shots is muffled and it sounds almost as if I was underwater and holding my rifle above the surface of a pool as my ears are still recovering from the explosion of the hummer's engine under the force of the 84mm rocket-propelled grenade. The figures of the Phoenixes disappear behind their vehicle as my shots hit too low and smack into the body of their car. A hand sticks up over the hood holding a MAC Ingram machine pistol to spray a few bursts of bullets but, as expected, the shots go wide and hit a row of cars to our right in the parking lot and, despite being intended for me, the shots hold more of a threat for our driver from the MCPD. Luckily, the Machine Operative is in very dense cover from all of the cars and it would take a lot for the Phoenixes to ever have a chance of hitting him.

The Machine Operative... I remember that we were in a convoy. But I only see the wreckage of our hummer and us. But where is the rest of the convoy? I shout at the MCPD officer to get his attention and ask him where the rest of the convoy is at. He speaks into the microphone in his sleeve that goes with the ear piece that gives him an almost Agent-like look. Then he looks back at me and shouts something in return. Right... my hearing is still gone. I can't make out words, just the sound of his voice. Although the gun battle raging around us doesn't help much. To heck with it, I decide.

I poke my head and arms out of cover again, using the booth as a support to steady my aim. Placing my eye to the 6x scope mounted on my rifle, I take a bead on the windshield of the Phoenix's car again, hoping that one of the gang members will poke their head up to take a look at their tactical situation again. I see nothing but the body of a gang member falling from the second-story window of a warehouse just behind the car. Good old Spiatelli and his marksmanship. A large metallic object falls to the ground just behind the Phoenix. It looks like it could have been an RPG launcher of Russian design. Of course, in The Simulation, it would likely have been manufactured in China. One often finds that gangs like the Phoenixes here are armed with AK-47's, a Russian design of assault rifle but manufactured in China and then imported into Mega City via the notorious Ikebukuro docks. I still don't know how the rest of the world factors into The Matrix. What is China? A Construct populated by Programs and some Bluepills? Another Matrix with fields of pods hooked up to it? Or is it just some myth supported by the evening news and the injection of foreign goods that don't look like they belong in Mega City- like that RPG launcher, like a cup of chai tea, like me?

I flick the fire selector switch on my Steyr AUG to "automatic" and let loose a well-controlled three-shot burst on the car. No effect but badly scratching the paint job. I suck my breath in and hold my hands steady, letting loose another three-round burst on the vehicle. The only result this time is that one of the tires was punctured by the fusillade and the car sags slightly to its left in response to the loss of one of its tires. Schiesse!

My hearing is almost completely back now. I gesture for everyone but Schlafsucher to take cover. He can usually tell what is going through my head just by looking at my body language. We're brothers so I suppose that explains it to an extent. That and we spent a lot of time together as children. Our nomadic lifestyle, moving all over Europe, made us look to each other for human comfort. We couldn't make friends too well in Bulgaria, for example, because it took us a while to learn the local language and customs. Gott in Himmel, the Bulgarians don't even nod the same way as most of the world. They shake their heads to say "yes" and nod to say "no". So, of course, with that degree of a language barrier we were forced to play and chat with one another and not seek friendships from other children outside the household.

"We're not getting anywhere this way." I state to Spiatelli and AdventHalo. They nod anxiously in response. "Here's what we'll do: spread out and lay down heavy covering fire. They'll see you two moving and shift their fire to counter. Meanwhile, I will move up this line of cars on the right and take them from behind. If we stay here, their friends will come." I explain. The Phoenix gang controls Ikebukuro. This area will soon be full of the gang as they hear the fighting from further down the docks where they concentrate their presence to intimidate docking ships from Asia into paying them "docking fees".

I race along in a squatting position as I hear the distinctive slam! slam! of Spiatelli's rifle firing on the car's engine block and the spraaaat! of Schlafsucher's Steyr TMP machine pistol on automatic. AdventHalo's H&K MP5A6 is a fairly quiet weapon and he is moving to be the furthest from me on our little gun line so I hear nothing more than the occasional series of clicks as the 5.56mm rounds puncture the car and turn it into about as much slag as our hummer.

I finally reach the corner of the cars in the parking lot and peek around the corner to check on the status of the Phoenix gang members that had kept us pinned after the RPG took out our vehicle. One is sitting on the floor clutching a bloody arm and cursing incoherently. A second is lying on the ground, apparently killed by a shots to the head and chest. A lot of people over-estimate the cover a car can provide. They see the police officers in action movies taking cover behind their car doors and assume that that must mean that metal is bullet proof. That might have been true of cars built in the 1950's. But nowadays cars are made of terribly fragile material. A collision with a deer can turn what would seem like a sturdy SUV into a crumpled chunk of metal that could easily be mistaken for a large bale of cardboard and used paper. My crew's salvos have been piercing the doors of the car and hitting our would-be Exile attackers taking cover on the other side.

I bring my Steyr AUG up into my shoulder and fire a shot into the nearest Exile's head. He slumps in his spot where he was preparing to return fire from. Before the others can react and direct their weapons at me, I take cover behind the car at the end of the parking lot line by pivoting on the balls of my feet. I wait for a pause in the fire and get ready to pivot back around to take out another enemy but find myself pivoting into one of the Exiles who has approached the back of the car and is waiting directly around the corner.

Instinctively, I swing my Steyr AUG to strike him in the crotch with the butt of the rifle. As expected, he keels over and clutches his crotch. I quickly rise to my full height, standing over his doubled over form and raise my rifle as if performing a "present arms" rifle drill and drive the butt of the weapon down onto the back of his exposed neck. The blow breaks his neck, either killing him or leaving him confined to a wheel chair for the rest of his life. Either way, he's no longer a threat and I pay him no further heed.

The fellow who had been clutching his arm now holds a revolver in his hand and is pointing at me but is reluctant to fire for fear of hitting his falling comrade. I fire another three-round burst from my Steyr AUG from the hip. At this range, there's little point at bringing the weapon up into the shoulder and using the scope. I can use the so-called "splash" of the rounds to aim- in other words, watching for the shrapnel as the bullets hit to tell where I'm aiming and correct accordingly.

The last Exile, a woman, surges forward and kicks my hand supporting the barrel of the Steyr AUG, throwing my aim off. A hand held in the manner for a punch in the Chinese martial art She Kuan Kung Fu, or Snake style Kung Fu, strikes my collar bone and I stagger back. But before I can bring my weapon to bear on her, a round strikes the remaining Phoenix in the side. A clean and well-aimed shot from our police driver.

I nod my thanks to him and he shrugs indifferently as if it was no more favour than opening a door for me. I'm not sure how I should respond to such a gesture. The Phoenix was trying to kill me, yes, but she was also a living breathing creature. Her death didn't seem to be "no biggie". Her death was a loss. I wish I could say I could dismiss her death, the death of the other gang members, and the death of DarkenedLies, was all just for a good cause but... I can't. The ends do not justify the means. The means justify the ends. I would elaborate but that's something for another time.

Cliché, I know, but just then the convoy doubled back and arrived to take us the rest of the way to the safehouse. Apparently they proceeded a few minutes further up the road to regroup and intended to come back and rescue us but they came under fire from more gangsters and had to take them out before they could hope to help us. This was a well-orchestrated ambush. The problem was, were they planning on attacking the first group of expensive-looking vehicles traveling through their territory? Or was it an attack on the police in retaliation for recent crack-downs on Asian gang activity in the International District? Or, worse of all, had The Merovingian figured out where I was hiding and had contracted the local gangs to kill me and thus prevent me from making further progress in my mission to destroy The Katana?

[Scott Johnson]

Name: Scott
IM Addresses: AIM: Fr3shPrinc3of CT
E'Fedding Experience: Have Owned a Fed, Roleplayed for 4-5 Years
Sample Match: My board does not exist anymore, but I know what I'm doing when writing