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So here I am, in the Matrix. Right now, in fact, I am sitting on a bench outside an apartment complex. I have just killed some Exiles, taken the data they had on them to my contact and been rewarded the $Information promised to me. I have been here for three days now. Well, had access to the Matrix for three days (with the occasional break to eat and sleep, even if I have been dreaming for twenty years). I would like to take you through how I got here. You never know, this first hand experience may come in handy to you one day.

Now I’m tracking down a potential redpill. Well I say tracking down a potential but that isn’t quite the truth; I am actually tracking myself. I am in character creation. I give the operator a basic psychological profile and a physical description. The surveillance camera we have hacked locks on to me as I round the corner of the street. I confirm the name of the potential redpill as “Nucleus”, then wham, I’m in the Matrix. I am Nucleus and I am making the choice of my life. Do I take the Red Pill or the Blue Pill? Do you even have to ask?

Suddenly I feel myself torn from reality. I wake up in my pod and slide down the sink hole of the real into the waiting clutches of a Zion crew. Strangely, I don’t have to wait weeks getting my muscles rebuilt. I guess I’m just lucky. Before I can ask why my eyes hurt, I’m in the training program and my Operator is taking me through the basics. Open the wardrobe, take the key, try on some shoes and I’m done. Now for something a little more interesting: combat training.

A single guard program standing in the middle of a Dojo - what can I do? I start Interlock combat with ease. With the skill (and picturesque quality) of a 6th Dan Kung Foo Master I quickly dispatch my foe. “Again” I cry, eager for more. Before my eyes another guard appears. The same routine, a whole load of new moves and another foe is on the ground. With a smile, the screen goes white and I am in a new room. Weapons practice, and it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Now I’m somewhere new, a subway. I walk up to the phone booth like I have done it a thousand times. With a fizzle and a spark, I’m gone. I am jacking into The Matrix. I know the basics, and hell, a whole lot more. There’s no need for an elaborate back story here; I already own it in the form of The Matrix trilogy.

So I find myself in the Matrix, code dancing from the tops of buildings and raining from the sky. It clears to reveal the world I once lived in, this artificial reality, once a prison for my mind. No more. Now I can bend the Matrix to my will. I am really free to choose.

I get a call from a woman in Zion who goes by the name Tyndall. She has a job for me. A simple courier mission perhaps, but I like to feel I am doing my part. I run the data across town to a Zion operative. This is only the first mission I run. After a couple more courier missions, I find myself killing of some Exiles who have been causing trouble to some of the Zion crews. I stop a guy who has become “aware” of the Matrix and has become a danger to himself and those around him. I get to recruit a new redpill; I handed him the pill myself.

Before I know it, I realize something. I haven’t even looked at my abilities yet. I have just been getting on with what has to be done, and doing it the best I can. But before I start to make my way to a hardline so I can edit my skills, I get contacted by an Agent who goes by the name of Gray, and then by one of the Merovingian’s lackeys, Flood. It seems both have noted my arrival and want to recruit me. I take a seat outside an apartment complex. I have been in the Matrix for 3 days now, give or take, and only now have I realized what all this is about: choice.

So, I am sitting on my bench, thinking about who to trust and what skills to gun for. I will be thinking for a while, not that there is any point of course. I have already made my decisions. I have just come here to try and understand them.

-Nucleus

Coming soon, Part Two: Choice