[Cowprobe]

((This is not meant to be a challenge to the copyrights held by the Wachowskis’ and Warner Brothers merely a fan-fiction entirely for the amusement of the author and readers))

The Matrix Overclocked

The lack of daylight didn’t concern the scavengers in the
least. Along the ruined megacities that once made up the concrete and steel shells of human civilization these four insignificant figures were eyes peeled for any sign of their ancestral enemy: the Machines.

Once there was a war and man blotted out the sun to starve the great enemy of its food. In response the enemy enslaved the bodies of man and kept them as meat batteries whose minds were locked behind an indistinguishable illusion: The Matrix.

Reality, the world not filtered through the Machine Lie, the place where ones destiny could be forged without being tallied for wattage output was these scavengers home in spirit. As for their flesh, that longed for the creature comforts of a place buried within the ruined Earth. A spiraling bore containing the last free range humans in existence: Zion.

It was Zion that made Theman weary of his journey. The rust gilded halls whose scars were almost nearly healed beckoned to him through drifting eyelids. He had kept his hair shorn close to his scalp to honor the fallen dead whose sacrifice gave their savior “The One bless and protect us” enough time to save them all those thirteen years past from the apparent first and final arrival of kill-droid Machine ‘Squids’.

It was the violation of humanity’s last sanctuary, himself being an immigrant from the Machine Lie,  that suddenly restored Theman’s flagging resolve. “They saved me, Neo and Trinity and all the rest they helped me get free“ was the silent mantra that kept his feet moving while his belly ached and his feet blistered in the metal capped homespun boots.

Looking at the rest of his ragged group he couldn’t distinguish any of them from the other on account of their shielding gear. All except Duo, her resolute shoulders and wide back kept the pace for the rest of them at the front of the line.

“She’s never tired.. what keeps her going I wonder.. She’s growing up so fast, too fast the medics say” Theman pondered at the woman no girl keeping the forced march “How can she be so grown up at only ten?”. Theman chided himself for letting his mind slip facts “Like a dufus they would have said back in the green” he knew what made Duo so precocious; she was a Sooner.

Sooner’s the Machine’s own damned some said. Theman once being from the Machine Lie knew better. “More like the Machine’s own jumpstart” on account of “The One bless and protect us” having to battle for the very soul of mankind within the Matrix itself.

The struggle had ended with Neo, the One, apparently being the winner on account of the ‘Squids’ suddenly leaving like ghosts through the hole they drilled into the heart of Zion. “But it left the Machines without power, or at least not enough to keep everything working at full blast” Theman puzzled “That’s why they needed to harvest a LOT of juice all at once. That’s why they needed the Sooners to grow up so fast”.

Taking another sidelong look at Duo who within the last month stretched up to his own once gawky height of six feet Theman remembered his promise to “Keep her safe as you would your own life Kid or you’ll regret it”. Duo’s adopted mother, the graying though still hard as steel, Niobe forced him to recite those lines practicing crow-bar katas while balancing on a girder of steel.

“To make sure your skills in the REAL world haven’t dulled” Niobe half taunted-half pleaded to Theman, once known throughout the inverted spire of Zion as only the Kid until the Battle of the Gate.

Theman’s mind drifted back to the line of decisions that lead him to this point. It could have been some side effect of being essentially raised in a computerized world but his pattern finding skills were far beyond a free range Zion’s. Almost with each step in the physical world Theman made his way from the present to the past.

—About Duo—

Of Theman’s heroes still alive after the War he had the most contact with the mated captains Morpheus and Niobe. In some bittersweet twist of fate or possibly radiation exposure the two could not have children of their own flesh.

Niobe staged a secret raid on the translucent Fetus Fields of the Machine to rectify this karmic injustice. These strange orchards of developing infants were where Theman himself was born, fed on the reconstituted remains of past generations in an amniotic gel that was his prison until “The One bless and protect us” found and rescued him.

Niobe was so determined to start a family at the time, some would say desperate if they had the ‘balls’ as they said in the green, that she was willing to incubate a preformed child back in Zion if that’s what it took.

A strange development on account of the Fields already being ripe enough to discharge their cargo led to Niobe being able to snatch and grab a birth ready infant. Morpheus was convinced the heightened rate of gestation to coincide with their arrival was a gift from his former friend and eventual savior of humanity Neo.

They ended up nearly getting killed and severely damaging the last cobbled together Ship in getting the infant Duo back to Zion. For reasons that took much reconnaissance to decipher the Machines were extremely jealous of their first crop after Neo’s “Like a big brother but still the One” final act ended up wiping out ALL of the ‘plugged in’ humans to save the free ones in Zion.

Vengeance from the Machine City never came and after a few weeks Morpheus and Niobe’s exile was lifted. There was much talk about the identity of the toddler with the input plugs that marked her as one formerly part of the Matrix.

The Medics of Zion were able to temporarily halt Duo’s increased aging but not her curiosity. Morpheus and Niobe were both seasoned warriors of the virtual world of the Matrix but the father took the role of teaching Duo ‘The Way of No Breath’.

As for the physical repertoire Niobe was soon finding an able sparring partner as her adopted daughter’s body began expanding under it’s regimen apparently outside the activity of her Mechanical creators design specs. Theman who once hounded the adult soldiers of Zion before being baptized in the horrors of physical battle soon was followed by a stocky little shadow named Duo.

She hounded Theman with incessant questions that if not answered quickly enough were followed by a kicked shin or piece of torn off, never sharp, metal being thrown at his waist. Theman soon began to realize the trouble he was in once Duo’s aging vaccinations started to lose effect.

It was as if every day brought a stronger smarter and somehow less able to be resisted Duo. Theman eventually found himself turning from a reluctant chaperone to a concerned uncle then finally close confidante. He never had to protect her from bullies on account of her unexpected brawn and she never took advantage of her neighbors.

“I’ll outgrow them soon enough why should I waste my short life fighting them.” Duo once answered quietly looking at him in an unsettling way. She was full of odd questions as if her mind was moving forward even faster than her body was “Why do you think the Machines left? They still have the advantage. They KNOW where Zion is now. They can come back at ANY time! I’ll give my final breath to ensure my friends live even if I don’t get to”.

Theman finally confronted Duo’s mother about her child’s zealotry “Look I don’t want her being hurt by the truth. You can kick my ass if you want but I’m holding my ground on this. I’ve tried to be a good mentor but I can’t just stand here while you keep filling her short life with ideas that will make it even SHORTER”.

Niobe took a long look at Theman that make him somehow want to stare right back at her “Plug in Kid lets see what you’ve got”. One devastating battle in the white room Matrix emulator later Theman had found himself bruised but still defiant “Look if you want me to stay out of it FINE! Good luck making Duo think anything other than what she wants!” to which Niobe crossed her arms and nodded “You’re beginning to understand the battle at hand Theman” leaving him to ponder her words. 

For some reason after that Duo began talking up to him. Something she had never done even when still forming her first sentences. “What do you think of these sandals Theman-sah?” and “I could do that if you showed me how to Theman-sah I just know you’re the best frame pilot in all of Zion”. Was she beginning to treat him as the adult? Was she finally getting it in her head to enjoy her unnaturally short life to its fullest including the brief childhood her biology afforded her? The plan finally became apparent when Duo began having Theman introduce her to all the remaining Operators in Zion.

—Operators—

Those born of Zion from a man and woman, not plucked from the slurry of the Fetus Fields, had no access plugs dotting their skin and no port at the base of their skull to join body and soul to the Matrix.

What skills those of Zion did have was an amazing sense of spatial awareness that came from living in the claustrophobic tunnels and tubeways of mankind’s last refuge. They, if properly trained, could map in their mind’s eye the virtual warrens of binary concrete and steel that made up the false data city of the Matrix known as Capitol.

The idea of instantaneous communication carried from the golden age before the Man-Machine war was put into effect within the Matrix. People could hear voices through ‘telephone’ lines that were merely disguised communication programs. Lines that if properly tampered through careful data forging could provide an access back in for anyone born in the Fields.

This dance between an Operator and their plugged in Caller was a dying art. The one person Duo seemed to trust with her plot was Sparkz, a graying keyboard jockey with an insight and dry wit that Theman silently approved of.

“We’ll need all the laughs we can. This is like playing Russian Rolette except all the chambers are loaded” Theman grumped quietly surprised at how slips of phrase from his Matrix youth persisted. Sparkz was providing navigation even outside in the ‘true blue’ world making sure their passage to the ‘Sentinel Graveyard’ was a safe one.

—Back to the moment—

Duo pulled a decrepit concrete pylon out of their path with enough effort expended for a group twice their number, the muscles in her back bunching and then staying at the severe distension as if they had grown from thin air. That image of a woman less than half his years according to the atomic calendar yet fast approaching the biological benchmark of adulthood shook Theman from his fugue state.

[Cowprobe]

-overture

A whip of motion gained on the black limousine. The luxurious interior was bulletproof from the sounds of spent shells that suddenly rained onto its roof. The windows were also reinforced, but not for long as projectile impacts were replaced by the pounding of a woman’s high heeled boot that left nasty cracks that soon meant buckling.

“Our visitor is apparently too rude to introduce herself properly perhaps you might convince her to at least wait until the valet can park before attacking?” a question that was an order sprung from the sneer of the man called Merovingian. The limo passengers’ style was seedy combined with intimidation value except for the flower petal beauty of the Merovingian’s consort Persephone and the distorted saimese twins clad entirely in tailored white. The fused body’s two component heads faced each other as well as they could and shared a nod.

Seconds later the twins’ co-joined mass became a glowing mist that lifted through the armored limo’s roof. The red clad attacker paid the two headed specter no notice as she single mindedly pounded at the limo’s weakening reinforced one-way glass finally shattering it.

The green mist suddenly solidified and a pair of straight razors silently unfolded from the twin’s hands. Those blades shone in the streetlamps passing the black limousine as it raced along the Central City highway. Cars swerved to avoid smashing into its bulk and each other. Where the red garbed blonde woman stood there was only the high pitched whir of the Twins murder weapons as vital points were targeted in less time than it would take to blink.

The red jumpsuit was ribbons as the Twins inspected their handiwork, feet steady on the bullet pitted surface of the speeding limousine. Only the crimson garment, caught on a ragged bullet hole, was left of the woman.

Going immaterial for a moment to sink into the roof and inspect the empty jumpsuit closer was all that saved the Twins from a cartwheel kick that would have sent it into the concrete walls bordering the six lane highway. With a self indulgent grace the woman that should have been rent and bleeding from the razorblade fury a second earlier was untouched and radiantly glamorous.

Looks belonging to an airbrushed pin-up and a body culled from the best of that joined seamlessly with the graceful recovery roll of a martial arts master. Mirrored shades reflected an entirely bare body and then each others faces as the Twins went solid in the resulting double take.

The blonde then licked her index fingers and stuck one into an ear of each of the Twins heads. Their body shook as the lady nimbly used the Twins to absorb the incoming gunfire from the limo’s passengers all the while pushing her hands until knuckle hit skull.

Seemingly satisfied with the condition of the unique corpse she disengaged her digits and tossed it behind her to be ground under the surrounding traffic. Another salvo of hand held artillery rounds threatened to cut the nude’s luck short.

Without the meat shield of the Twins she should have been wet mush. The impossible was echoed in her flawless imitation of the Twins’ earlier trick as the blonde went from firm to fog-like letting the bullets scream harmlessly through her red silhouette.

The highway was in chaos as the driver attempted to dislodge the roof surfing trespasser without success. Within the limo minions of the Merovingian reloaded weapons as their leader cursed in a steady stream of French. “Persephone, you’re going to ask her for a kiss?” he vented at his wife “You always ask women who come to cause me grief!! Why is this? Aren’t mine enough for you?” she regarded him with silent patronizing affection and returned to applying her lipstick. After a satisfactory puckering and rolling of her naughty mouth Persephone let events be her answer as the driver suddenly rolled past outside their window to be swallowed under a passing semi truck.

The limo suddenly took an exit ramp to be met by a roadblock of Capitol City Highway Police and Federal authorities. The Limo continued over the roadblock’s wheel crippling fence, a quartet of sparking hubs against the asphalt signaled the tires expiration.

As the division rolled down the crew of thugs actually looked worried at the sight of the blonde trussed vixen smiling at them from the Limo’s rear view mirror. Anxiety soon welled into fear as not even the dimmest among them would fire without their master’s order.

The Merovingian sighed and pulled out a key which fitted into a hinged opening on the floor of the limo. “You’re coming home with me intruder, unless you want to deal with the FBI?” he smoothly said as he dropped below into a space which shouldn’t have existed given the reduced clearance of the popped tires. Persephone followed not out of obedience so much as not wanting to be inconvenienced by the cops closing in on the skidding limo. The hirelings marched into the floor and out of sight like children in a fire drill.

Confused by lack of any further reaction the blonde lithely slid from the driver’s compartment and through the trapdoor falling into a dark room lit only by the daylight above her.  Grabbing for anything she ended up landing badly with the small square of light above disappearing as her consciousness faded.

From a modern throne of velvet wrought in dark expensive wood the Merovingian gloated “All it took was a simple redirect”. Her words bouncing delicately off the anterooms gold leaf wallpaper “Now to see what the Nemesis is made of, and more importantly WHO sent her” Persephone answered, almost too eagerly for her husband’s comfort. The novel experience of being hunted by one of their own sent Persephone’s mind into a hunger usually prompted by the presence of genuine emotion.

-Intermezzo

The blonde awoke strapped to a table, her every orifice invaded by monitoring equipment. A man with a surgeon’s mask and the nametag ‘BHO’ checked the various readouts.

“I don’t know why he’s bothering to do a full shell analysis when he just can read her like an open book himself” BHO complained to an unseen visitor. “I could always make your burdens lighter, perhaps tell him that you’re unhappy?” a female voice answered, its affected accent grated the blonde almost as much as the jarring green hospital robe she was now clothed in. “No no no I’m fine. I like it here. Always safer to work in the background really. No hair off my back” BHO backpedaled as a loud buzzer went off “It’s awake”.

The blonde squirmed and tried in vain to do the trick she ‘learned’ so forcefully from the Twins earlier but with no success. “Okay … It says on your record you’re TWIR, now give me the truth or I’ll convince your body it’s undergoing cardiac arrest” to prove his point BHO fiddled with some knobs and sent crackling sparks through the blonde’s body.

“All you’re doing is turning her on to pain, you’ll never get the truth that way” Persephone said as she entered Twir’s field of vision and pointed out the glitter of dripping fluids where the reproductive access mounting met flesh. “Nice girl this one…” BHO admitted.

[Cowprobe]

-finale

The wall hangings were of a red so dark it appeared black with a single white and gold ‘M’. They were the only adornments in the underground coliseum where Twir was set to fight for her life.

She was clad in the same color as those ominous tapestries though her garment had wires stitched into its skintight fabric. Twir’s femininity was aggressively highlighted with what cleavage visible seeming to be going for her throat.

No matter how hard Twir tried she couldn’t become immaterial, perhaps it was all a dream: a waking error of her thinking? Shaking those doubts from her head she instead focused on her opponent, Persephone.

With a hand resting on her agile lips and the other slightly where her sex would be Persephone seemed more in the throes of a silent heat than an actual fighting stance.

Twir acted without hesitation, brutally breaking every available limb and leaving her jailer’s face covered in blood from a cut in her forehead. “You fought me like you meant it, not as good as a kiss but it’ll do” Persephone bubbled from a swollen lip and bruised eye. “To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human” Twir said as she performed the finishing kick that savagely left the former beauty an inert death gurgling puppet.

From the behind the gated entrance a couple of servants clothed in ivory robes wheeled a large refrigerated container into view. Twir kept her eye on the departing ‘monks’ while quickly licking each finger and then shoving them into her defeated opponent’s braincase.

A rush of newfound pathways and the intricacies of the real power of makeup entered Twir’s repartee along with a dreadful discovery. Twir winced as the body of Persephone crumbled into dust with only the blood on her fingers to signify it had ever existed.

From behind the coliseum’s thick impassable cage gate the refrigerator began to shake. The steel container's polished surface pressed outwards and a sharp “-pop-“ heralded the opening of its seal. A bank of vapor spilled from a seam in the top like dry ice at a rock concert and the sound of something wet against plastic echoed in the expansive fight pit. The slablike top clanged against the stone floor as something sat up from its cold confines.

“Didn’t I just spend the last 2 minutes killing you?” Twir asked rhetorically, already knowing the answer from the faded memories of the vanished and apparently reincarnated corpse. “You’re looking good, younger too. I might feel like kissing a face that smooth. Too bad that big black gate is keeping you from me” Twir mocked in a tone designed to lull men’s wills and hopefully the resolve of her, till now, underestimated foe.

“MMmmmmmm I haven’t changed in sooo long I do think I’ve gotten a little faster..” the woman, with skin so pale it was nearly luminescent, swung her legs over the container’s edge and hopped down stumbling slightly.

Twir let herself smile, and shook her arms and legs if to get the circulation back into them, cracking her vertebrae and finally rolling her shoulders. “Well I hope you’ll find someplace far away to hide when I’m done with you, daisy popsicle bitch” Twir sneered waiting for the inevitable flood of goons.

The freshly minted woman was clad in nothing but air her nipples seemed to be making an effort to show the world how cold it was. The way she brought her hand to her mouth left Twir no doubt as to who was really behind those eyes.

The memories of Persephone now stood across from each other separated by the iron handiwork of the Merovingian. Persephone 2.0 curled her thawing hands around the grid work of the gate testing it against her long supple arms. “I do hope all that trash talk hasn’t hurt my data” she murmured huskily as her fingers curled into fists and Persephone 2.0 began to strain against the immobile entryway.

Taut belly tightened further to the breathless exertion the resurrected hedonist was heaping on the thick bars. Where there was once only a flat stomach button soon was spilt from sternum nearly to crotch by the absence of fat and the onset of muscle.

Shoulders rounded themselves as definition crept its way across Persephone’s chest. As each moment passed there was more flesh filling out the surface of her skin. There was no longer a painfully thin faun but a sleek predator as her mass was now tripling.

Biceps were churning outwards to meet stone hard forearms. Persephone shook her long hair out of her eyes to reveal watermelon breasts that swayed as pectorals shoved them to either side.

The backlight of the hanging lanterns outlined the silhouette of a lat spread, so out of pace with the subtle strengthening of the waist, that it made an undeniable hourglass figure. 

Toes moored to strong and lengthening feet dug into the concrete floor as if it was freshly poured. The resistance caused Persephone’s glutes to pucker and expand fighting the widening hips for purchase.

Calves split down the middle as the overabundance of sinew caused them to overtake the shins and shadow Persephone’s floor shattering bare heels. Hamstrings soon provided striated, vertical cords of fiber that shot from the burgeoning buttocks to disappear behind her knees. 

The bars proved themselves to be quite impassible to the motive onslaught that was expelled through Persephone’s physique update. While the iron bars may have maintained integrity the walls to which they were attached exploded into Italian marble shrapnel.

With a negligent shrug the massive ivory brunette carried the portcullis off its wall as easily as if it was a new designer purse. The former barricade soon became an improvised Twir swatter with Persephone chattering in her silky tones “Now, my flower I hope you appreciate all the trouble I’ve gone to”.

Twir was unable to do much aside from evade and attempt to process the events that changed Persephone from an inept captor into a dangerous adversary. The air shrieked from the speed of the metal lattice as Twir attempted to regain the upper hand without losing her head.

After an agonizing solid minute of movements so quick in some cases they appeared a blur Twir suddenly stopped and fell limp.

Persephone’s new center of balance along with such an unexpected tactic caused the thick half ton of metal to merely graze the scarlet garbed blonde. It tore into the bizarre wear Twir had been secured in and after skidding to a halt on the concrete floor amongst the scattered rubble of the ruined entryway she was quite still.

“Going so soon, my flower? And without a kiss even.” Persephone smirked, the titanic nubile threw the portcullis like a frisbee and it buried itself halfway into the wall above Twir’s inert form.

The dust loosened from that last thoughtless toss obscured Persephone’s blonde opponent for a suspicious amount of time “I’m a good hostess, my blossum. I hope you know you can be as bad a guest as you want” she cautiously called out.

Persephone gave herself a small look over as she strode to the smashed wall tightening her arms and chest to provoke huge twitches of impenetrable muscle. Having to heft one of her gravity spurning mammalian assets for clearance enough to see her vanquished foe she snorted in disgust.

There was a torn pile of red garment where stunned blonde should have been. Her hair a brief cascade of black along her unnaturally wide back Persephone spun around, long feminine fingers opening and closing in unnatural excitement.

[Cowprobe]

Encore

The villa dungeons were more a negotiation clearinghouse than place of criminal contemplation. If one gave the Merovingian what he wanted they soon found themselves freed of these dark hallways though not his service. If they refused him they were soon eliminated to make room for more productive hostages.

Twir was busy relocating her shoulder while trying to do the same with information in her head that plainly wasn’t hers. Stopping for a moment she slid immaterially through one of the thick prison doors to avoid roving guards.

Two men nonchalantly walked along the curved ceiling wearing sunglasses that refused to fall off despite their violation of gravity. One of them stopped by Twir’s hiding place and sneered revealing non-standard canines “I think I smell something”.

The other man shrugged, a movement that would have been comical given their inability to obey physics but a lifesaver from Twir’s vantage, growling and continuing on their circuit “Whatever, Baphomet  I know it isn’t air.. let’s say I traced something would that make you happy?”.

From within the cell a voice croaked “You’re obsolete and so am I let me die already” Twir spun to face this newest foe. The painfully plain woman in business clothes was chained to the wall, implements familiar to Twir’s earlier interrogation were secured to the prisoner.

“You’ll be deleted someday you know this. I may be outdated but I’m going back to the Source. My passes are void by now. Let me go” the prisoner stated flatly to, rather than imploring, Twir. 

The nude blonde shrugged and put her hand against the prisoner’s temples “Well if you’re going back to heaven you won’t mind me making use of what you won’t be able to”.

Seconds later Twir reappeared in the hall clothed in garments that radiated authority and after some rummaging through her acquired suit jacket she pulled out a Desert Eagle and a pair of sunglasses. After tossing the static spouting earbud from the front pocket she started into a run.   

Baphomet was having a good day, after busting a couple of coppertops heads over at the Helclub he got the distinction of patrolling the ‘Lane of Woe’ at his master’s villa. His sense of elation at being a good minion evaporated his second circuit around the jail. He bothered to look down from his impossible perch to notice a certain piece of ear intended hardware. “OH shit the Agent’s loose!” swearing as he tripped the alarm hoping it wasn’t too late to save some face, especially from Merovingian’s temper.

Miles away from his manor, while relaxing in the ravenous attentions a delectable darling was giving his undercarriage, the Merovingian heard a door open and close in the front hall of his Capitol City Hotel penthouse suite. Since his mistress’s attentions were propelled by more than just her mind’s instructions the Merovingian found bodily disengaging quite difficult.

Not wanting to be caught in the act by this wife, the razor tongued Persephone, ‘Merv’ quickly administered poison. The inert ladyfriend was hidden by ‘Merv’ in a voluminous closet at a speed equal to her execution.

“Hello Dearest! I thought I heard you coming. I have been busy with the work that holds our empire together” the Merovingian lied as he dressed with hollow haste. Soon presentable to the mere mortals, and more importantly his queen and wife, Merv unlocked the penthouse door with efficient flamboyance.

Seeing nothing at all aside from the hallway’s expensive furnishings his eyes narrowed and he returned to his room disappointed at having so unnecessarily murdered his current mistress. A static screech and then a loud –THUMP- from the closet made the Merovingian drop his charade of confidence.

The closet door slowly creaked open, and while common sense built through centuries of information warfare suggested it was better for the Merovingian to leave alone pride conquered that incessant subroutine. “Persephone might still be on her way, I have to ensure the proper deletion of this RSI” Merv thought to himself as he gripped the closet door handle and was instantly gathered in a resolute embrace. The woman which he callously disposed of moments earlier was replaced with a blonde straining the buttons on her conservative office suit and touching him in all the correct places.

The Merovingian didn’t know what hit him as a mouth so agile it could be considered a weapon explored his molars, ears and throat nearly simultaneously. Mirror shades hid her eyes but as his hands explored the supple expanse of his apparently recycled mistress he connected curves to memory.

“Twir” he said flatly as the Desert Eagle nestled itself in the inseam of his immaculately tailored pants. “Love you too” she giggled and continued doing things with her mouth and free hand that reminded Merv of the earlier passionate decades between himself and his bride Persephone.

“MMmmm you’re ringing why don’t you answer it?” Twir huskily implored Merv while maneuvering him into the center of the room. Bewildered that a mere training program could detect his private means of communication the Merovingian soon learned that his archived Agent had gone missing and that someone had killed his wife’s most recent shell.

“I shall admit I am impressed but you are in over your head, and unless you-“ his smooth spiel was interrupted as Twir hip checked him onto the bed while covering him with her more than a mere Desert Eagle pistol.

“Strip” Twir said using her voice in a way that put the seductive contact moments earlier to shame the Merovingian complied. “I’ll humor her since my help is obviously on the way” Merv smugly thought while taking his time with the expensively programmed cufflinks.

Bare as the day he was installed he was straddled and hogtied with strips of familiar, though damp cloth. “The jumpsuit was the wrong shade of red” Twir smiled while planting a throaty kiss on the Merovingian’s most prized set of jewels.

His face flushed with rage and embarrassment at being both entrapped in something of his own making and being positively scent marked beyond the point of plausible deniability with his queen Persephone.

Turning to frame the door the blonde smirked and shook the black off her suit as a properly tuned crimson embued the fabric “Just the color of your cheeks, Chao!” while pantomiming an upper crust kiss goodbye.

— Meanwhile in the real world—

The Sentinel Graveyard was a vast valley of stripped metal corpses left to molder under the sunless, cloud choked sky. It took nearly a month of travel by hand charged tunnel cart and climbing equipment to make it to the surface where the evidence of mankind’s most recent botched last stand stood in silent memorial.

The Fleet that protected Zion and freed potential operatives from the Matrix had nearly all found their final rest in the "Squid Graveyard". The name was a play on how few Sentinels actually were destroyed compared to the nearly complete annihilation of the fleet by the floating Machine mech’s upgraded weaponry.

Theman was happy that they didn’t have to go into the depths of that shattered pit.
Radiation from the Ships’ broken reactors wouldn’t fade to safe enough levels for salvaging for the next hundred years.

The periphery was Duo’s objective. There the Sentinels that were merely winged by heavy weapons fire remained in crippled standby mode apparently abandoned by their Machine masters in the precision attack on Zion.

It had been nearly a decade but the potential for still active Sentinels had Theman and Sparkz on edge, Duo was unconcerned. Making camp in the ruined shell of an ancient archology she unpacked what appeared to be plates of armor and assembled a long telescoping spear.

“These were once what we’re here to hunt. Sentinel carapace and cutting tools. If we work together this should be non-fatal” Duo managed to fit into the harness that hung the plates but only barely given her now 6’ 4” frame had turned gruel paste rations into flesh and bone.

“Am I in this? Great now plug me in please” Duo motioned to her neck where on the pod-born human there was usually only one access plug, she had two. Sparkz waved Theman off and took a long look at the Sooner’s port before plugging the in the cables leading from her spear. “Practicing on the way here eh? You’re lucky they still fit you’ve grown into quite the big bottomed girl Cripes!” Sparkz dodged a playful smack from a falsely fuming Duo.

“You know that the plugs won’t change size” sticking her tongue out while adjusting to the surprisingly light armor and weapon. The end twitched to life as batteries hung from Duo's back fed the spear power while her mind fed it data. A half circle opened up from its front along with a sharp sparking end that quickly retracted “Good”.

Sparkz had to admit, clad in the refurbished poly steel material, Duo looked the part of some primeval avenging goddess “Or at least one that doesn’t get much sun” he chuckled. Theman figured she looked like some strange combination of hockey and football padding crossed with a volleyball ad “Except built like a sports bra wearing tank” he thought silently.

A pile of twisted shapes resembling huge sea life with dull metallic shells were covered in silt and dust from the crumbling surroundings. Duo signaled for the others to provide potential cover fire as she crept in close enough to prod the chassis of the once terrible Sentinel.

The multitude of forward sensors came to eerie red life as the crippled Sentinel’s killing tools thrashed weakly for their targets. Her improvised spear opened like a flower petal and a brief tinny sound could be heard almost like electrical feedback. Post–apocalyptic snake charmer Duo closed her eyes and sat crosslegged while murmuring “It’s so bright” the Sentinel didn’t gut her nor run it’s self destruct protocol so that much was a success.

“These are close combat and not worth the juice they use, probably 10 minutes of firing before the columns burnout and even then you can only use each barrel ONCE! Yeah they’re better than nothing but I figured we wouldn’t need something like this as long as we kept our heads low.” Theman angrily muttered to Sparkz in order to cover his worry as the minutes stretched into hours. A light rain had started and Sparkz managed to convince Theman that Duo’s input jacks were properly insulated “After all they’re meant to operate in a vat full of conductive nutrient goop.” he shrugged.

It was pitch black and the only light was from the dim glow of the Sentinel’s photoreceptors when finally after four hours Duo disengaged and whistled for her friends to come closer “I’ve convinced it to stand down”.

Sparkz being honest in all things except those that would get him time in the brig answered “Bullshit how do we know it hasn’t reprogrammed YOU”. Duo flipped Sparkz the ancient hand gesture he taught her months ago and soon was joined in the gully.

“How did you do it?” Theman queried still holding his Empgun at waist level warily, having seen these Machine devices tear through his adopted countrymen so many years ago still hadn’t left his thoughts. “Oh I convinced it I was a diagnostic program and this was the recycling and refurbishing center of Zero-One” Duo chirped.

Having set up camp under a non-reflective tent and disengaging the Sentinel’s capability to kill them they set to work. “I’ll need two interrogation plugs and we’ll have to somehow boost this thing’s sensitivity” Duo instructed.

Sparkz the skeptic and expert in this sort of jury rigging ran a hand through his graying hair and blew out the air in his cheeks “Trying for broadcast depth?” he asked amusedly. Duo chuckled while emptying another gruel pack greedily “OH no I’m going to be working on direct Machine language, Source-Code”.

((Last addition for this portion for now. Feedback, critiques and product firmware welcomed.  ;D ))

[Anonymous]

Excellent post!!
The story is entertainning!! And to say the least very good!!
A continuation would be great.

[Author]

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