Animatrix -- Steel Reaper (Matrix Crossover)

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Animatrix -- Steel Reaper (Matrix Crossover)

Post by Raoul Duke, Jr. »

He ran. His breathing was practiced, calm, regulated. The corridor of this building was cool and dark.

Behind him, footsteps clattered on broken tile; he acknowledged the sound and dismissed it. A pair of gunshots -- bullets tore over his shoulder, exploded a gout of plaster from the wall, glass from an office door. His eye lingered on a falling shard, the letters YSTE.

More letters glared stonily up from a shard on the gritty floor -- BERDY.

His movements slowed as his mind inextricably caught on the letters, tried to solve this puzzle despite all the meditation, all his training.

YSTEBERDY, he decided. A single gunshot sounded -- he turned and threw himself against the wall, but it was too little, too late. The bullet pierced him just above the collarbone, ripping flesh in a tight cone of wound channels as the frangible round dispersed.

Jacketed hollowpoints. he noted as kinetic transfer from the shell brought the floor rushing up at him. He landed on his back with a grunt, his left arm useless as he scrambled backward across the debris-strewn checkered tiles, away from the pair of Agents -- a Smith and a Jones.

The Smith leveled its government issue IMI .50 caliber hand cannon. The cavernous barrel sunk into view, and James Cameron, alias Scribe, stared into the eye of Hell.

Footsteps crunched in the grit, and someone else stepped into the corridor. A big guy in a jean jacket, medium length brown hair, expressionless face.

Jones turned, "Government business, this doesn't concern you."

The big guy took a few steps forward, stopped. "Government business." he repeated in a dead voice. What the hell was this, another agent?

Scribe tensed, looked for a way out -- no dice. Smith still had the .50 trained on him, though he gave the appearance of looking over his shoulder at the newcomer.

"I believe you heard my associate." Smith said slowly. "This is government business. It is none of your concern. I advise you to leave, before you get into... trouble."

The guy in the jacket responded almost instantly. "I have detailed files regarding 'trouble'." He pointed a gloved finger directly at Scribe. "Release the hostage." When the Agents simply looked at him, he added. "Now."

Smith and Jones glanced at each other, then at the guy in the jacket. In one fluid motion, Smith's sidearm swiveled to aim directly between the guy's eyes, and opened fire in tandem with Jones.

The shots were machine-gun fast, deafening in the narrow corridor. The newcomer was rocked with multiple impacts. In the fading thunder of the guns' reports, the stranger fell, twitching.

"This human is not accounted for." Jones stated blankly. "Why am I unable to detect it?"
Smith placed a hand to his ear, listening for a response from the system. His lips turned down faintly. Finally, he said, "We don't know. Doesn't matter now that it's dead. Our orders stand. Eliminate the anomaly."

A pair of magazines dropped to the floor as full clips were retrieved from jacket pockets. A look of disbelief crossed the human's face. The first stage of human confrontation with death, Smith concluded. Denial.

In the dim light, a shape rose as the Agents slapped the fresh ammunition into their weapons, took aim --

A hand locked around Smith's throat, crushing his larynx and trachea -- the floor dropped from beneath his feet as he flew into a concrete wall. The impact knocked the gun from his hand, shattered his sunglasses. He dropped to the floor but instantly regained his feet, only to be slammed into the wall again as Jones sailed face-first into him.

"Another anomaly." Smith broadcast through the system as he dusted himself off. The guy in the jacket strode up to him, swung a clean, efficient right hook.

Smith ducked the blow, caught the fist in midair and held it. Looking into the stocky man's eyes, he growled. "It's a shame that you''re about to die without leaving a name for your grave."

Smith swung five savage blows, nailing the man dead-center between the eyes. The blows sounded like automobile collisions -- horrible, metallic crunching sounds that echoed from the corridor's dingy walls and made Scribe sick to his stomach.

The stranger sagged momentarily in Smith's grip, his eyes unfocused... then, the sounds of metal again -- but this time, it sounded like dents being suctioned out of a car's hood.

The stranger's eyes refocused -- before Smith could react, the stranger had reversed the grip, bending the security avatar's hand back over its forearm, eliciting a grimace of pain.

"Your assessment of this scenario is flawed." the stranger said coldly.

Then, faster even than Scribe's mind could follow, the stranger stooped down, seized Smith's ankles, and swung him, Louisville Slugger style, into Jones, sending the other agent through the door behind him, across the room, and through the fourth-story floor-to-ceiling window.

The stranger took three steps into the nearest corridor intersection. Smith had barely enough time to think, No... before his head made impact with the corner of the marble tiled walls and disappeared into a shimmer of emerald symbols.

Scribe lay shivering on the cold and dirty floor, his back against a wall. Blood soaked the left side of his shirt; everything below his left shoulder was numb, everything above it on fire.

Footsteps approached him, crunching in the debris. That same dead voice now spoke to him. "James Cameron?"

He looked up at the stranger -- it wasn't human, that much was certain. But what was it? A rogue Agent? Another like him? The Prophecy hadn't mentioned more than one... well, more than one One.

Of course, the shortest distance to the truth is a straight question, so Scribe asked it: "Who are you?"

The stranger didn't answer. Instead, he extended a hand, and said something Scribe would remember for a long time: "Come with me if you want to live."
Last edited by Raoul Duke, Jr. on 2003-07-12 02:50pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by russellb6666 »

:shock: :shock: :shock: ...............dude holy fuck this stuff is the SHIT!!!! I must have more damn write more and write faster
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Post by Raoul Duke, Jr. »

If you like this first chapter of the story, thank Stravo -- his Matrix/Terminator crossover is what inspired it.
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Re: Animatrix -- Steel Reaper (Matrix Crossover)

Post by Mark S »

Raoul Duke, Jr. wrote: "Come with me if you want to live."
That's what I was waiting for.
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Post by Raoul Duke, Jr. »

"Where are we going?" Scribe asked for the third time as he climbed into the truck beside the stranger.
The stranger didn't answer imediately, cocking his head in an inquisitive gesture. Then he held out his hand, palm-up, and a pale blue shimmer formed, solidified into a key. The stranger started the truck.

"Hello!" Scribe squinted at the man against the glare of the hot noon-day sun. "Are you gonna fucking answer me or what?"

"We are going to 7275 Sepulveda Boulevard, Number 115-A." The stranger glanced at Scribe with an undecipherable expression.

"My old apartment -- why are we going there?" Scribe jolted upright. "How the fuck do you know my address? What are you?" The pickup pulled into traffic, the A.C. finally kicking in.

"I am a Terminator, Cyberdyne Systems Model 101." The Terminator glanced at the human to gauge his reaction. Of course, Cameron in this time and place had no conception of the nature of the machine sitting next to him. Such was the decree of Fate for this particular James Cameron -- but Cameron himself had never put much stock in Fate, and neither did the Terminator.

"You're a machine?"
"Yes. A cybernetic organism."

Scribe examined the Terminator's face. "I don't see any cybernetic prostheses or implants."

"My body is constructed of a hyperalloy combat chassis overlayed with living tissue." the Terminator responded matter-of-factly. "I am an Infiltration unit. Ideally, my internal workings should never be visible."
"Oh, I hear ya, yeah." Scribe shook his head. "Okay, that doesn't make sense, though. The machines use us for power in the real world, they don't outfit us with super-skeletons and set us loose to fight against them."

"I was not constructed by the machines you are fighting now."
"Who built you, then?"
"You did."
"What?"
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Post by russellb6666 »

:shock: :lol: :lol: HAHAHAHAHA HOLY FUCK THIS STUFF IS GREAT I'm not laughinga tyou im just laughing at how well crafted and totally kick ass this is I really should read stravo's fic if you got ideas from him damn man you must right more and this must be stickied STICKIED I TELL YOU
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Post by Raoul Duke, Jr. »

"That's it." Scribe said, shaking his head. "I need an exit." He pulled a sleek black phone from his pocket, flipped it open.
"That would be unwise." the Terminator said simply, its eyes scanning the traffic ahead as it pulled the pickup onto the freeway and accelerated.
"Why?"
"If you leave the simulation and reenter at a different location, the security avatars may reacquire you before I do. I cannot allow you to be terminated before you complete your work."

The words were so matter-of-fact, so emotionless, that Scribe was taken aback. "So you're saying it's perfectly okay if I get dead, as long as I do what you want me to do first?"

The Terminator turned its gaze to Scribe slowly. "Your survival beyond the completion of your work is outside the scope of my mission parameters."
"Well, fuck you, too!" Scribe shouted. The Terminator turned backto the road, unaffected by the human's display of emotion.
Scribe pulled a number from the phone's memory, hit SEND.

A digitized soundstream issue from the phone, then another. A click. "Operator."

"Baud, I need an exit."
"Scribe? What the hell is going on?" The voice of the operator showed reigned panic.
"I ran into a pair of Agents back at that R&D lab, and an unwelcome guest -- " Scribe stared pointedly at the Terminator " -- decided to join in the fun. Where am I?"

"From what I can tell, you're doing eighty northbound, approaching Overland... in a truck with no fucking driver."
Scribe looked at the Terminator. "No, I'm looking at the driver right now. Big guy, jock, kinda stupid looking, talks funny. He's definitely here."
"Then why can't I see him? Hold up -- " Baud's voice switched from shocked to professional. "You've got company."
"Agents?"
"Two pair, more on the way."
The Terminator glanced in the rearview mirror. His eyes snap-focused on something behind them. "Get down."

Scribe ducked just as the pickup's rear windshield exploded in a fine spray of glass, followed by the front windshield. The Terminator's head jolted as a few shots connected.

Scribe peered over the backseat -- two black Crown Victorias closed on the truck. Further back, another materialized from the midmorning traffic. A Johnson leaned from the passenger side of the lead Crown Vic, leveled a service pistol.

In the roar of the wind and rushing automobiles, the gunshots were harder to make out. A round clanged off the passenger-side door, its angle of approach too shallow. Another punched through the tailgate, into the back of the cab with a solid thump.

The Terminator stared into nothing again --

------>MUNITIONS MENU
---[SIDEARM]
---[SHOTGUN]
---[SMG]
---[BATTLE_RIFLE]X
-[M16A2]
-[AUG]
-[G36K]
-[OICW]
-[M25 PPR]X
LOADING


The Terminator placed its right arm horizontally in front of its chest, hand open -- in a shimmer of pale blue code, a massive battle rifle appeared. Scribe stared at it in shock.

"Jesus, you can load gear from inside the Matrix?"
"Correct. Take the wheel." The Terminator pivoted its torso and pushed the driver door open against the slipstream, gracefully swinging its legs out and up to land in the bed of the truck.

The nearest Agents opened fire, rocking the Terminator on its feet -- the trailing Crown Vic closed the gap to add automatic weapons fire. From behind the wheel of the truck, Scribe could hear slug after slug slamming into the Terminator's torso, arms, legs.

The Terminator did not go down. The Agents in all three vehicles paused, confused.

The Terminator leveled the Westinghouse M25 Phased Plasma Rifle. "Fuck you, too."

The first shot ripped the lead pursuer into ribbons of flaming trash -- the second closest peeled away, down an off-ramp where it struck a FedEx delivery truck at speed, sending both vehicles in a smoking tangle into a concrete abuttment.

The third Crown Victoria pulled ahead and disintegrated much as the first, as bolts of superheated plasma shredded engine block, fuel line, suspension, upholstery, digital flesh.

The Terminator raised the weapon to High Ready, scanning the remaining traffic. Detecting no further imminent threat, it deleted the rifle.

Scribe looked up at the Terminator as it wrenched the driver door open against the slipstream.

"Move over."
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Post by Crazedwraith »

:shock: wow cool story.
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Post by Shroom Man 777 »

[John Conner voice] I ORDER YOU TO POST MORE! I ORDER YOU![/JC voice]
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Post by russellb6666 »

so THATS where he keeps all his toys overall very very good story but if possible make the chapters longer this stuff is too good to have in small parts
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Post by Illuminatus Primus »

Tiny nitpick, though this is awesome. (I've always wanted to see Skynet make the Matrix its bitch).

Agents' standard issue is a .44 Magnum Desert Eagle (maybe .50 AE).
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Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Tiny nitpick, though this is awesome. (I've always wanted to see Skynet make the Matrix its bitch).

Agents' standard issue is a .44 Magnum Desert Eagle (maybe .50 AE).
He's right you know.

And another nitpick.

The upgraded Agents are named Johnson, Jackson and Thompson.

The older Agents (Smith's generation) were named: Smith, Jones and Brown.

Kinda odd when you see Smith and Jones working with a Johnson...

Anyway... I want more of this shit! I'm gonna be addicted! BTW, make your chapters longer!
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Post by Grand Admiral Thrawn »

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Tiny nitpick, though this is awesome. (I've always wanted to see Skynet make the Matrix its bitch).

Agents' standard issue is a .44 Magnum Desert Eagle (maybe .50 AE).

If Enter the Matrix is canon, it's .50 AE.
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Post by Raoul Duke, Jr. »

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:
Illuminatus Primus wrote:Tiny nitpick, though this is awesome. (I've always wanted to see Skynet make the Matrix its bitch).

Agents' standard issue is a .44 Magnum Desert Eagle (maybe .50 AE).

If Enter the Matrix is canon, it's .50 AE.
It's been fixed.
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Post by Raoul Duke, Jr. »

"Why are we stopping here?" Scribe asked as the Terminator pulled the smoking, bullet-riddled Nissan pickup to a halt behind what looked like the most run-down Conoco in existence.

The machine looked almost pensive. "There is a problem." It brusquely shoved its door open, swung out. "Wait here."

Scribe looked around nervously, spotted the gutted shell of a phone booth -- something was wrong. In the Matrix, there was no such thing as a damaged payphone. "Will you be back?"
"No." The Terminator replied, assuming a position out in the open -- he looked vaguely like Captain Kirk waiting to get beamed up.

"A security avatar has enacted counterinsurgency measures. I am being recalled until an appropriate response is formulated. Someone will be sent to continue my mission."

"Who?"
The Terminator disappeared in a shimmer of pale blue code.
"Great. Thanks, you know, for the answer and all."

Another shimmer, this one more like a heat ripple.
Scribe got a glimpse of gray suit, white shirt, black tie, sunglasses, receding hairline -- Smith! Duck!

Cameron waited for the inevitable volley of gunshots... and waited... the driver's door unlatched, a lanky leg followed another, and Smith took a seat behind the wheel.

"We're not being fired on." Smith said. "I know that position is uncomfortable, James."

Scribe looked up at "Smith" -- the appearance was perfect. Scribe's faint ability to read through the visual stimulus of the construct to the code beneath confirmed that this was Smith, so...

"Why aren't you trying to kill me?"
Smith smiled faintly. "Perhaps in time. My mission is to ensure that you complete your work. You must live."
"What happened to the big guy. Why did he have to be recalled?"

"Smith's" face went stony, but the change was barely a flicker before the mildly jocular "gee, ain't we having fun?" expression returned. "I wouldn't worry about him."
"So, what are you -- a Terminator, like him?"
"Not like him. Mimetic polyalloy."
"What's that?"
"I'm composed of a network of nanomanipulators capable of emulating visual and electrical signatures, as well as solid edged or blunt masses for strategic infiltration and combat."
"Sorry I asked."
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Post by Sea Skimmer »

Raoul Duke, Jr. wrote: It's been fixed.
Replace OICW with M-29 while your at it.
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Post by Crown »

I like your descriptions and story, but fuck colour me confused ... Am I just dense?
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Post by Crazedwraith »

huh? smiths a good guy?
me very confused now.
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Post by Grand Admiral Thrawn »

Hello? He's a T-1000 that looks like Smith, I think.
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Post by Mutant Headcrab »

Crazedwraith wrote:huh? smiths a good guy?
me very confused now.
Its just a T-1000.
"I'm composed of a network of nanomanipulators capable of emulating visual and electrical signatures, as well as solid edged or blunt masses for strategic infiltration and combat."
See
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Post by Crazedwraith »

Mutant Headcrab wrote:
Crazedwraith wrote:huh? smiths a good guy?
me very confused now.
Its just a T-1000.
"I'm composed of a network of nanomanipulators capable of emulating visual and electrical signatures, as well as solid edged or blunt masses for strategic infiltration and combat."
See
yes thank you. :oops: stop rubbbing it please
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Post by Raoul Duke, Jr. »

"Smith" started the truck -- just as eight tires squalled into the Conoco parking lot.

"Smith" gunned the Nissan ahead, but it was hopeless -- one of the crown Victorias roared at them from directly ahead, the second from the station's main entrance, neither showing any sign of slowing.

"Shit!" Scribe ducked as a Crown Victoria slammed into the Nissan's front quarter-panel, spinning the truck forty-five degrees, stealing the vehicle's forward momentum. The second Vic scored a direct hit on the driver's side door, crumpling it inward.

Momentarily stunned, Scribe looked over at the ruined driver's seat... and saw nothing. Before he could formulate a plan, his door war literally ripped from its hinges.

Agent Jackson pulled the anomaly from the vehicle, threw the human roughly to the ground and covered him, his finger heavy on the .50's trigger. He was tempted to execute the anomaly then and there -- but his instructions were clear.

The new threat had been acknowledged. The Architect had no point of comparison against which to reference the new error code in his construct, and more data was required. Because the error code appeared to center on this particular human, the human would be stimulated to produce more demonstrations of the error code, so that it might be corrected.

Jackson addressed Johnson, "Did you see who was driving the truck?"
Johnson replied, doubtfully, "It appeared to be a Smith."
"That's impossible." Smith corrected -- but was his response a few nanoseconds too slow? And did his voice betray a certain irregularity? Jackson replayed and analyzed the words.

"You are lying." he decided. "I don't know how, but you believe that it is possible. We will discuss this later." Jackson spoke again to Johnson. "Check the truck and verify the identity of the driver."

Johnson approached the battered pickup, noting with satisfaction the trace of human blood on the frame of the passenger door. He peered inside --

-- just as a needle flashed from the pickup's roof, puncturing his scalp and skewering his skull, finally protruding from the back of his neck.

The body dropped to the ground, convulsed, twisted, became the body of an elderly woman.

Jackson's gaze snapped to the pickup... and saw only a battered, decrepit vehicle. He turned to the human. "What happened?" he demanded.

"I..." Scribe didn't know -- he hadn't seen any more than Jackson had. "I don't know."
"I think you do." Jackson snarled. He changed his grip, brought the barrel of the gun down to crack against Cameron's cheek, laying it open.

Cameron hit the hot asphalt hard, his head spinning, his vision blurry. He crawled back to hands and knees just as Jackson raised the gun for another blow. Cameron's eye was drawn to a metallic glint of sunstreak from the window of a junked Pontiac a few yards away, the heat shimmer...

"Don't do that again." a voice spoke up. The voice was cold, malevolent... and sourceless.

Jackson and Smith looked toward the pickup. The agents nodded at each other in unspoken communication, Smith drawing his sidearm as Jackson went to the truck to gather more data.

"Get out of the truck." Jackson instructed no one in particular. Ordinarily, a direct command from a system agent was sufficient to compel even error code -- yet, this time, nothing happened. Jackson was slightly perturbed, nothing more.

Jackson peered inside the vehicle, careful not to get as close as Johnson had. The smashed interior of the vehicle was empty. Jackson stepped back, leaned to his left to check the truck's bed -- that, too, was empty.

Grunting in distaste at the idea of mussing his suit trousers, Jackson squatted in the dust, braced a hand against the pickup's flank, and peered beneath the truck's suspension.

His fingers vanished from his perception -- his palm -- his wrist. Jackson attempted to stand quickly, but his arm was anchored to the side of the truck and he was quite unable to rise. He stared at his trapped limb -- a sheath of what looked like liquid chrome raced up the appendage, enveloping, swallowing it like some voracious metal snake.

In the 2.75 seconds it took Jackson to decide whether or not to call out to Smith -- an inferior program barely worthy of Jackson's notice -- for help, the attacking material had reached his throat, consricting it. Then it filled his mouth, raced down his throat, into his hollow abdominal cavity. All that remained visible was a thin line of chrome, as if Jackson had been napped and inadvertently drooling tinfoil. This, too, soon vanished into the Agent.

All this had occurred so rapidly, and so silently, that Smith next looked up to see Jackson walking back toward them. Jackson's gait was unsteady, uncertain.. and strangely heavy, each step seemingly on the verge of sending Jackson toppling to the ground.

"Where's the driver?" Smith asked "Jackson".
"Jackson" pointed a stiff, faintly twitching arm at Scribe. "Release the hostage. Now." There words were deliberately calculated to produce reaction.

"You." Smith raised the gun from Scribe and emptied the 8 round clip directly into "Jackson's" face. The other figure didn't even flinch.

Instead, it exploded. Shards of Jackson's construct skin flew out in all directions -- a large chunk of decompiled code struck Smith, knocking him to the ground.

Smith stared up at what had hidden beneath the Jackson avatar. Gleaming in the harsh afternoon sunlight, a sleek, metallic humanoid figure stepped toward him. Massive, wicked spikes protruded from its face, shoulders, arms, torso and legs.

As it approached, the spikes receded into its body with a faint metallic hiss, smoothed, disappeared. The smooth body gained texture, proportions shifted. Finally, color filtered across the new details.

The figure reached up, adjusted its black tie.

"No," "Smith" said to Smith. "You."
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Post by Darth Garden Gnome »

Sweet. T-1000 rules. Although I don't think an Agent would hesitate to call for help--even for an obsolete unit--if it were being swallowed up by liquid metal. But why is an obsolete unit still being used by the machines?
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Post by Raoul Duke, Jr. »

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:Sweet. T-1000 rules. Although I don't think an Agent would hesitate to call for help--even for an obsolete unit--if it were being swallowed up by liquid metal. But why is an obsolete unit still being used by the machines?
That's something I honestly hadn't thought about. It originally started when I threw the name "Johnson" in for one of the Agents in the freeway chase and someone pointed out that a "Johnson" is an upgraded Agent. But I already had Smith in there, so I couldn't just write him off (besides, would anyone want me to?)

I'm also trying (and not entirely succeeding) to parallel Stravo's fic, "Cain and Abel". That's why the T800 was recalled and replaced with the T1000 -- Skynet's response to T800s being "infected" with Smith.

As to your question, I suppose I'll have to leave it to you, the readers, to speculate as to why the altered Smith avatar is operating side by side with upgraded Agents. (Hint: this fic may or may not take place after the events of Matrix: Reloaded.)
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Post by Rye »

I quite like the idea of the termies being able to import what they want, i mean, the zionists can load whatever they want before they go in, and since skynet are machines, i dont see why they cant just import stuff on the fly as it were.
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