A Short Story

## Ships log: HvCFT Polydectes : Personal Entry

## Date: October 4, 2006
## Log by: WiredNight

It was evening in Lamar most recently. Evening was setting in, and then sun had just begun to set when I received the call from Agent Gray. While normally I am not the go to person for assassinations, apparently they felt this one I was, and gave me the call.

I accepted of course, and found myself with the first task of seeing one of the many exterminators that the machines have programmed. I've had a number of talk to "so-and-so" missions to know that if they have to send me to talk to someone, most likely it means that the some one is out of contact, usually because another faction has kidnapped him, and I was going to assume the same here.

Sure enough, with a number of codes running, I opened the door. The room was one of the typical run down rooms so normal in the Matrix. This particular room was evidently an armory of some sort. Guns, swords, ammo cans, all stacked along the walls. Three commando's stood within the room. Shock was evident on their mirror-sunglassed faces as I began to ramp up my attack codes. This event is nothing new, but one thing made it stand out.

"If you defeat me, promise me you'll tell my story."

Normally I don't listen to the banter these waste of code throw at me. Its empty bravado anyway, and I'm sure someone has said this line to me before. But the fact that it resounded over the empty and typical bravado of the other two commandos made it stand out in my mind.

Viruses were already being sent downstream, and bullets were already flying so I didn't have a chance to truly learn his story. I'll never know his name, or what he stood for. A shame, for the rest of his story would have answered so many questions about the commando's, but it was not to be. He fought valiantly. He said no more, and neither did I. No words needed to be said. His twin guns blazed repeatedly, until the end, but they just were no match. Viruses hammered his body, until he could barely stand, logic streams overloading his memory until he could hardly move, then a quick burst from my rifle, and he went down, deleted, fighting until the end.

The other two I wasted no time on, barely pausing to remove anything useful they may have been carrying. This one I paused just a bit. One of his pistols had fallen out of his hand as he had crumpled. I moved it back into his hand as I passed him by. He had fought valiantly with them, with honor, and he deserved them more then I did. A wasted effort I am sure, as the exterminator was in the next room, held prisoner, and quickly sent me to take care of the person who had orchestrated this fiasco. He said he'd clean up the mess, so I assume that the guns would disappear. But he had used them, and he deserved that I not take them from him, even in death.

So that is his story, a story I don't know the beginning nor the end of, but one that I was asked to promise to tell, a promise I never made, but a promise I keep all the same.

##End of log