I have never entered the Matrix on my own will. I am 15 years old, and one day away from officially joining a ship's crew as training cadet.

I was nervous, but for no real reason. I think it was more anticipation than anything, because I had already gone through a training course, albeit homemade.

I created my own training software on my personal mitter, and its pretty fun, blasting through waves of armies, and taking down agents, but nothing compares to the real thing. If you could call it the real thing.

The ship was named the Nexus, and it was supposed to be parking as I was packing all of my belongings. My room was particularly sparse, because I was always busy researching and training. I was in classroom right after I was freed from the Matrix when I was 10,but after one year, I was switched to quick-load disks. Im not allowed to learn military things until I'm in a crew, but I had seen enough to improvise during my training exercises and of course, anything is possible.

A sharp rap on my door woke me from my daydream.

 'Come in,' I said and a creak signaled the entrance of the person, who turned out to be my friend Q-ball, when I turned around. Even thought his name was spelled with a Q, we called him C.B. for short, which stood for Cue Ball.

 'Hey C, whats going on?' I greeted him.

 'Im good, just dropping by to see my old friend before he gets all grown up and gets a position on a ship!' He laughed, and grabbed a stack of old hand-me-down shirts that he intended to stuff in my large, but not large enough bag.

I grabbed the clothes from him.

 'Im not that small, I am 5 feet 6 inches tall,  and Im older than you. Youve still got a month till youre allowed to train on a ship!' I rebutted

 'Oh yeah? How about we settle this in a sim?' He countered. I raised my eyebrow and touched my link to activate it. I called Tinker, the new White Room operator, and only about a month older than me.

 'Hello?' She answered.

 'Hey Tinker, Nomaly here. I was just wondering if the Nexus has parked yet?' I asked.

 'They just came in, and have a forty-five minute layover for refuel and any repairs needed, She replied.

 'Thanks Tink, see you in a few months when I get back,' I said.

 'Great, hope to see you then,' I could hear her smile.

 'Yeah, good luck with the new job, I said.

 'Same here,' She replied and we both hung up. I looked at Q-ball and said' heck, we have time for a tournament, do you want to add a couple baddies in to stir things up?'

 We call the A.I. in our Sims, or training exercises, baddies, instead of what they really are, Artificial Intelligence. We do that in some sort of ignorance, not wanting to face the truth, that we brought the war on by ourselves, with ignorance, ego, stupidity, and almost everything else that makes us human. Since The One freed the first of us from the Matrix, and helped create Zion (which, surprisingly was already there, as if it was waiting for us), the humans who knew the truth were also the first humans to start denying the fact that they were part of the race that created the virus that spread across the world like, when the humans first appeared on the earth. Some people forget that machines and humans are not that different. The ignorance that occurs in humans is a dangerous cycle that would probably keep repeating, as sad as that is.

 The programs in our training exercises are the A.I. that don't think for themselves, but rather answer the questions that have already been programmed into them. these questions include 'am I being attacked? How should I respond?' Much like a human subconscious except that they can't vary the questions. humans employ an imagination, and can invent questions of their own, mostly using the one that goes 'what's happening?'. this inspires the individual to learn more. The A.I's that took over the world were first infused with that basic function, the imagination, the ability to invent questions, then later, the question 'what happening'. this inspired a basic instinct. As we all know, basic instinct involves survival, which was the downfall of the humans. This is called a 3-dintelligence, instead of the basic 2-d one using programmed questions.

I pulled the personal mitter from under my bed and motioned for Q-ball to lay down on the creaky old mattress. I unhooked one of the connectors.

 'Yeah, lets throw in two agents and a couple M.P.s to make it interesting. First one to die loses,' Q-ball replied to my earlier question.

I selected the program and popped it in. After Q-ball had sat on the mattress, I slid the shiny metal prod into his plug, and lay down next to him. He grabbed the other connector and hooked me up. I flipped the switch and the blinding white of the construct appeared before my eyes.

 'Computer, guns,' I said with ease, as I turned and came face to face with Q-ball. He grinned as rows of guns swept past us like a strong gust of wind. I pulled my sunglasses out of the knee-length trench coat that my mind had pictured.

 'Lets get it on,' I said, and grinned an exhilarating smile of pleasure.

       I grabbed two nine-millimeter handguns with extra clip, two large uzis with an extra clip for each, one small Uzi which I put in an ankle holster, and a medium automatic gun which I strapped to the inside of my coat, and an M-16 to start out with. 

        'Computer, ask Q-ball if he is ready, please,' I said to the air above me.

        'He is,' the computer reported back to me a few seconds later.

        'computer, please start the program, two agents and twenty Military Policemen, please,' I said to the computer.

        Everything around me faded, in blocks, into a deserted urban street, which is part of a city that resembled holograms I had seen of Scotland and London, with old cement buildings, two lane roads that really should be one-way streets.  Cars sat up and down the streets, crowding everything.  Cars are a mystery for me, because they were such a huge waste, and in our ignorance (again) we stuck to petroleum, not a good idea. 

        I raised my M-16 and quickly looked around.  no one was in sight, and it was quiet, but it wouldn't be for long.  I silently leaped to the roof of the nearest concrete building with peeling paint on my right. 

        I spotted movement behind a blue car, two buildings down on my left.  I crouched behind a red brick chimney and took careful aim.

        Bam-bam.  One M.P. down..... but wait, oh crap.  I'd forgotten.  You should never be the first to shoot or be spotted.  The green code flickered across the second M.P.s body, and soon the infamous glint of a silver Desert Eagle made me duck for cover. 

        Chunks blew out of the chimney as I hid from the onslaught of lethal bullets.  A split second after it stopped, I swung my M-16 to the top of the chimney and let loose, but to no avail.  Only the blurring lines and the sound that resembled the mix of a connecting fax line and a frog's croak.

        I tossed away the useless gun and pulled out the long-nosed gun strapped to inner pocket of my coat, which was a little better suited for long-range targets.  I smacked two M.P.s in the chest with bullets as they ran down the street to assist in my termination.  More M.P.s started to infiltrate the street and the building I was standing on.  the clip I was using went dry after two more attempts to hit the agent, and I tossed it behind me and slid off the roof right behind one M.P. like a cat ready to pounce.

        I thought about pulling out my uzis, but I wanted to have fun.  I wound up and kicked the man straight in the ass.  He went flying up and over the red car in front of me.  I then side kicked the car and despite it being on parking brake, it went the distance. It hit the man right below the waist as he tried to stand up, and he crumpled to the ground. 

        I leapt over the car and landed a knee to the man's stomach, which sent his weapon popping up to my waiting hands.  It was a nice shotgun, standard issue. I swung around and let one off on an M.P. who was turning the corner in an alley towards me.

I wonder where Mr. Big Shot Q-ball is right now, I thought to myself, just before a window was smashed from the inside, and a brown-suited figure flew sideways into the air, and kept going into the building I was just standing on top of.  I grinned and said, more to myself than Q-Ball, Having some trouble with the agents, are we?

            I wondered if I should be a friend and help him out with the agents, or leave him to lose.  I figured I should be a nice guy so I whipped out my uzis and leapt into the air, sailing over one more M.P.  I flipped in mid-air, turning upside down, with my face pointing straight down, at the man.  I brought my guns out and shot him repeatedly from my precarious position.  I completed the circle and slammed down on the roof right above the agents.  I looked down and saw that the roof had weakened slightly from the impact. 

            I pointed one Uzi down and shot out a hole in the wooden roof.  I crashed down through the hole before the agents could react.  I spun to my left and brought my Uzi up and pistol-whipped the agent on my left as I swung my left foot out and kicked the other straight in the temple.

            My only chance in defeating agents was up close and personal with automatic guns, so I strapped in new clips and decided which one to take on first. The agent I had kicked had landed on the ground, and the other was still standing, so I decided to try to take out the worst threat first. 

            The agent was right in front of me as I completed my spin, so I threw a line of flame across his chest and he fell onto the floor, morphing back into the armored personnel. 

            Suddenly my legs flew out from under me and strong hands gripped my head like someone was using me as a baseball bat.  The agent instead threw me through the already existing hole that my friend Q-Ball had traveled through.  I sailed straight through the hole into the other hole in the opposite building, following the same path as Q-Ball had taken.  I skidded into a wall and stopped my journey, and slowly started to roll onto my feet. 

            Q-ball!! I shouted down the empty hallway connected to the door of the room I was in. I only half expected an answer, but I listened anyway.  The only thing that answered my call was a door that slammed in the distance.

            Aw, crap, I muttered, and slapped a fresh clip into the Uzi I had used against the agent, and of which I had managed to hold onto. I looked through the hole that I had just come through and, expecting to see a black-suited figure standing in the entrance to the other building, I saw nothing and it surprised me.  Agents were not known to be sneaky.  They were usually straight forward and to the point.  They never took to sneaking around when they could just bust down the door and shoot everything that moved.  In these limited scenarios, though, strategies can change, even if no one can really stand up to you.  And they now have a limited amount of bodies to use, instead of about 6 billion, as in The Matrix. 

            I didnt dare go near the hole to survey the scene, so I decided to stick my original scenario and use close-quarters gun combat to win.  I turned back and ran through the doorway and down hall after hall of peeling paint and old posters.  I finally saw a window, and when I looked out, I saw two M.P.s running down the street with Q-Ball in pursuit.

             'Oh, come on, you wuss, just take them out,' I said to Q-Ball, but of course, he was too far away to hear me.  He seemed surprised, and looked around as if a bug had zipped around his head.  I watched, confused, when he then furrowed his brow and then shook his head, and took out a large handgun, which he intended to use against the men fleeing the street. 

            I decided to make an entrance at that moment, so I backed up and then sprinted and threw myself out the window, with glass shards surrounding me.  I brought out my small uzis, which I had automatically put away at some point in the last few minutes. 

            My outstretched hands clutched the uzis and cocked them as I flew through the air, looking like a professional diver, then tucked them in and flipped over, landing on my feet, causing a shockwave to unfurl around me as if I had landed on a liquid, when glass started raining around me. 

            The M.P.s took cover behind two different cars and began to unload ammunition at both Q-Ball and me, who was busy dodging parked cars as he sprinted down the street.  I swung around and leaned against the green car that was sitting on my left. 

            As I sat there, I counted the shots.  15...16...17...18...19...20.  More than what could possibly be packed into those military issued shotguns.  Then I realized that Q-ball must have been shooting too.  Was he firing at them or me?  I couldnt tell.  The gunfire stopped from two guns.  Had Q-Ball killed them both or had they run out of ammo?

            I jumped out from behind the car and my face met a silver Desert Eagle.  I threw myself down and swung my guns up and sliced the agent from his right hip to his left shoulder with hot lead.       

           I was down to my pistols and I still had 7 M.P.s left.  Well, five M.P.s and two agents, including the one standing in front of me, firing down the street at my friend.  Why does he not notice me, I wondered.  I decided not to dwell on questions, but to use the two cold hunks of steel in my hands.

           I did a kip up and walked around back of the agent as he kept firing.  I pulled my guns out and put one to the back of the black-haired head and pulled the trigger.

           As soon as he morphed back into M.P, I looked up at Q-Ball, who was about twenty feet from my position.  I met his eyes and grinned.

          'It's quite,' I said

         'Too quite' He replied

         I burrowed into my friend's eyes with my own until I could almost see the green code running down his iris. 

          I rolled to the ground and pulled out the mini Uzi attached to my ankle and sprayed the ground where Q-Ball had been standing just a split second ago with lead.  Q-Ball dived behind a car and pulled out two handguns.

          I quickly sprayed the windows of the green car. I knew I would not hit him, but I felt like wasting time. Q-Ball hopped on top of the car and swung both pistols my way.

         The flames exploded from the muzzles of his guns followed by the silver chunks of metal.  The bullets sped by, but only fast enough to catch the air beside me.  After watching the bullets crash into the cement, throwing chips everywhere, I spun 180 degrees, threw my leg out and pushed off of a blue car's bumper, pushing myself into the air.  I flew through the air, twisting like a cat and firing with one hand when one gun was pointing in C.B.'s general direction.

         My clips ran out as I landed on the roof of a car on the other side of the street, turning the roof into a concave hole in the pavement.  I looked up just in time to see speeding bullets heading straight for my chest.  I threw my right shoulder back and swatted the bullet away with my left pistol. I spun to my right and swatted the other bullet away with my right pistol as I completed my circle.

         I stopped and looked at Q-Ball, who was standing in the middle of the road, with a gun cocked back with an open casing, signaling an empty clip.

         I knew without looking that mine were already empty. I tossed them away and kept looking at Q-Ball.  He grinned and dropped his own weapon at his side.

        I lifted my left hand and stepped into a neutral bow.  He crouched in a low left bow,  and brought his hands up into an imitation of a martial arts stance. 

        Suddenly, five M.P.s ran into the street and hid behind cars.  The sound of clicks came from the armored personnel and the reloading of military issue shotguns and M-16s.

        All at once, they pointed their weapons at both of us and one of them shouted 'Freeze!'

        'This is about to get interesting,'  I said.