Matrix Games: The Matrix Online: The Sentinel

2005 to 2006

City Girds for "Blue Sky": Well, That Certainly Was Impressive

Cryptos Had Better Come Up With a Big Finish - by By Andreas Bonifacaeiou

Andres describes how unimpressed he is with the Cryptos "Amazements," aside from a few bursts of voilence they have caused among redpills. He says Cryptos's preaching is agreed to be all about "putting us to sleep."

At Wally's bar, Andres overheard people talking about how Cryptos used to be a redpill, and how Cryptos now wishes to bring all redpills down in order to relieve the strain on "civilians." Andres asked them if Cryptos has anything else planned, and the redpills' looks at each other startled Andres. Perhaps Cryptos has something to do with the Piece of Blue Sky concerts?

One redpill told Andres, "If Cryptos were playing a video game, he'd be the first to use nukes." When Andres asked, "And in real life?," the redpills laughed and even continued laughing on the street. From the redpills' point of view, Andres's life is a glorified video game. Andres wouldn't believe "real life" even if they told him the truth.

Clicking on the word "Cryptos's" in the first paragraph of the original article brings up the following encoded message:

To: The Zion Council Subject: Cryptos (Date and coordinates redacted) It pleases me to report that Cryptos seems to have spent his bag of tricks without causing serious disruption to the Matrix or the Redpill community. Sporadic fighting between "Cypherites" and other Redpills continues, but at this point, such fights are the equivalent of background noise in the Matrix. Few new details have emerged. Cryptos continues his rounds of preaching, but the message hasn't changed (nor, apparently, sunk in). Reports that Neo has appeared in the boxes appear to be products of hope rather than observation. Someone is soliciting and gathering stories about Cryptos, in what seems to be the equivalent of "opposition research," gathered by political campaigns to embarrass or disgrace opposition candidates. When this anonymous person will hurl his mud remains unknown. Perhaps he (or she) has decided it isn't necessary. The General continues to baffle. While his commandos have engaged many Redpills in fights, they have also come to their aid in some cases. At this point we must consider him an unknown quantity, possibly playing both sides of the fence (or all three, to demolish a metaphor). Agents have been asking about the stolen valise of elixirs from Kalt Chemical. If it is possible to read Agents in this way, I would say they are greatly alarmed. It would be best if this valise came into Zion's possession at the earliest opportunity. My inquiries continue, and I await your instructions. (Operative redacted)

Also, clicking on "enrapture" in the original article's first paragraph brings up the following encoded message from The Kid:

Don't let up. Heckle Cryptos whenever he appears. Remind anybody listening that Neo died so that we could face reality squarely, even if it's a virtual world. The temptation to go to sleep is a human constant; Gurdjieff said we went around hypnotized for most of our lives. It's all we seem to want to do, sometimes...put on an alcohol buzz or a heroin high or lose ourselves in a ritual chant. Humanity is pathetic. Reality, of blood and bone and death. I say we embrace it and live as furiously as we can until our small flames go out, and we slip into the infinite night. I don't think Cryptos has given up. I think he's biding his time. I don't think conditions are even right yet for the Matrix to accept a wave of new Bluepills; there are technical considerations. Cryptos is a teaser campaign, a trial balloon with a sleeping death's-head on it, a leaked URL for a half-baked new product, designed to create a buzz worthy of a two-wheeled scooter's gyroscope. The hard sell is yet to come. Don't trust Cryptos. Don't trust anybody who thinks he's less than a toxic puppet. He was ready to kill millions, before; true believers are always a lethal threat, and when they reform, they swing not from red to blue but from the infrared to the ultraviolet. See you in church. or... JVVROZQDNQIUEQOETARVQU

Software Mogul's Free Concerts Inspire Anticipation, Dread

by City Staff

This article and the one after it are both very unique in the way that the surface of the articles relate to current events, while the deeper messages in the articles give interesting background information. Therefore, it makes the most sense to quote the entire article and put comments in mouseover windows.

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Metacortex co-founder Decius Wadsworth didn't want controversy. He just wanted to say "thank you" to the city where he made his fortune. So he sponsored the "Piece of Blue Sky" concerts (coming March 31), at various city parks, which will cost attendees what he had when he started: nothing.

"I tell people we started Metacortex with nothing but a 'piece of blue sky' - no shippable product, no staff, just a dream. Because of where we were in the computer revolution, we lucked out. A lot of people in this town helped - financially, and in other ways. I want to say thanks in a big way. I'm sorry some people think it's a magnet for trouble, but I think everything will turn out fine in the end."

A City Council meeting last week was raucous and full of anti-concert voices. Pliny Earl Chase, of Vauxton, put it this way: "With this Redpill movement in the city, predisposed to violence and mayhem, any gathering is a tinderbox. Add rock-and-roll, and it's soaked in gasoline. I'm staying home with the doors locked."

Organizers are undeterred. "We're hiring a large number of security personnel, and don't anticipate any problems. This is a celebration of joy, peace, and dreams fulfilled. Call it hippie nostalgia, but you won't see rumbles - it'll be one big love-in," Wadsworth claims.

Asked whether the concerts are modeled after Apple Computer cofounder Steve Wozniak's free "US" concerts of the late eighties, Wadsworth demurs. "They're their own thing. Similar, I guess, but these are for today, now."

One difference is the announcement of the talent lineup. The US concerts headlined many of the most prominent musical acts of their day.

Wordsworth is staying mum about who's booked for the concerts. But "nobody, I swear to God, will find this less than a life-changing experience."

Wadsworth and his partners founded Metacortex thirty years ago, their initial products simple games and a word processing program, "Probable Word," which is still widely used today. An early contract to develop an operating system led to explosive growth. Metacortex, now a subsidiary of Ouroboros Corporation, helped make Ouroboros the fifth-most capitalized corporation in the world.

Wadsworth retired four years ago, living a mostly hermetic lifestyle in his famously inaccessible mountain chateau, Spindrift, designed by architect Giovanni Porta.

When asked why, after years of seclusion, he is making this public gesture, Wadsworth shrugs. "It's time. That's all."

Concert Patron Did It His Way

From Trickster Gadgeteer to Billionaire - by Sentinel Staff

It was a passion for practical jokes that first got Decius "Deece" Wadsworth tinkering. He found he could alter the frequency on his toy walkie-talkie to link with the neighbor's baby monitor. He delighted in burbling "mama, dada" into the microphone, watching the excited parents rushing to baby's room to witness her first words, only to find her asleep.

A similar device for creating static on television, and one which caused rock-and-roll to inexplicably play over schoolroom loudspeakers, led to much mirth among his friends.

One which caused vending machines to vend multiple sodas or candy bars on a single coin landed him before a judge. He solemnly swore never to steal again. "And I haven't, except for market share from the competition," Wadsworth says.

Soon thereafter, with a couple of friends, he founded Metacortex.

"Computers were hobbyist items, then. Toys for grownup boys. But printed circuits, driven by military procurement, got better and cheaper every year. It was possible to dream that we'd soon have computers in every home, like a Ray Bradbury story." Wadsworth says.

Computers need programming, and this became Wadsworth 's passion. He created statistically-governed games, which also called for rudimentary animations. "Green Rain," a simple game in which a tiny man runs from umbrella to umbrella, dodging the titular assault, is still available, in an emulative version, on the internet. Metacortex created "Probable Word," the popular word-processing program, the first to make anagram, pun and cryptology tools standard components.

But it was the operating system, commissioned in Metacortex's fifth year ("we were more broke than anybody knew," says Wadsworth) by Ouroboros Corporation, a leading manufacturer of industrial computers and other electronics, that launched the company into the stratosphere. Within five years they broke ground on their famous headquarters (infamous for the number of window washers who have died outside its complex contours) in Morrill.

Metacortex drew large numbers of young programmers to the city, whose disposable income led to the proliferation of nightclubs for which the city is famous.

Wadsworth never lost his taste for pranks. After a young Metacortex programmer had a nervous breakdown after receiving a cell phone in an overnight parcel (he attempted suicide by climbing out a window, but lost his nerve), for weeks afterward, Metacortex employees received cell phones in a similar manner, which promptly rang, delivering murmured code words and instructions in a voice that sounded much like Wadsworth's "with the lamest English accent ever," according to one employee.

Most Wadsworth-watchers agree that he began to lose enthusiasm after the Ouroboros Corporation purchased Metacortex. The change in corporate culture, a new emphasis on integrated product lines and market control, all contributed to his restlessness. He was also rich beyond his dreams.

One could hardly blame him for wondering: what next?

About this time Wadsworth started work on Spindrift, his Xanadu-like retreat in the mountains north of the city. No reporter has ever been there, but workmen speaking anonymously describe an eccentric modernist villa, improbably thrusting out over an abyss, with secret rooms and passages, stairways to nowhere, and an abundance of carved, cryptic symbols. Most of it was fabricated off-site and helicoptered in at a cost estimated to range from 70 to 140 million dollars.

The cost may yet rise; rumors say Wadsworth, with the blessing of his architect Giovanni Porta, is still adding to the installation.

Wadsworth is unmarried, but lives with his longtime companion, Agnes Driscoll.

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So, what does all this really mean? Aside from the sudden outburst of background information on the Merovingian, it means that the Merovingian is ultimately behind the Piece of Blue Sky concerts, even though it is the breakoff Cypherite faction that seems to be doing the primary work of organizing the concerts. This only makes sense since the programming technology behind the Piece of Blue Sky concerts (blue spotlights that affect the sky of the Matrix) would have to be considerable, requiring even the Architect to step in and help fix it. This also explains how mere redpills were able to exert control over bluepills, turning them into "Sleepwalkers" - another piece of programming that is almost certainly beyond redpills.

It makes sense that the Merovingian wishes to keep his bluepill identity of Decius Wadsworth secret, because while the Architect does wish for the Matrix to continue, the Merovingian tries to bring it down, not only with these concerts, but also by trying to stop the One from reaching the Source, not to mention his gloating words to the Oracle that "her time is almost up" as he sees a cataclysmic crash coming. If the Architect indeed gives shelter to the Merovingian within the Matrix, this blessing would certainly be in jeopardy if the Architect found out who Decius Wadsworth really is.

News Briefs

Blue Lights - Law enforcement agencies were flooded with calls shortly after midnight regarding a 10-minute duration of blue lights in the sky, obviously referring to the "Piece of Blue Sky" concerts. This brief explains to bluepills that a City College astronomy professor says it may have been a meteor breaking up in the high atmosphere, although she could not account for the lengthy duration.

Helicopter Abduction - This brief reports a helicopter landing and men coming out of it to abduct two people outside the Vault [inside] (private club) in Lamar. It sounds like the General kidnapped two people: the question is, who? My theory is that the General has kidnapped a couple of Cypherites, perhaps even leaders such as Veil or Cryptos, because Cypherites wish for humans and machines to live in symbiotic peace, while the General (a sentinel leader) wishes for Zion and Machines to resume in war (more on this below in message from Agent Pace).

Missing Delegate Found - A missing peace conference delegate was found alive but confused and suffering from amnesia. It sounds like agents took him over. I don't know what this means exactly, other than to say that agents may have used their abilities to rescue an important kidnapped person. Could it be Cryptos, the advocate for stopping redpill fighting and other redpill activity within the Matrix? This would certainly go along with the connection between Cryptos and agents demonstrated by the conversation between Cryptos and an Agent at the end of MxO Chapter 3.2: The Enigma of Cryptos.

Chemical Theft - The Kalt Chemical Corporation has made public the theft two months ago of a case containing experimental compounds (what the General said were "cheat codes"). Kalt Chemicals warns that they could result in death of those handling the materials and also advertises that they have antidotes to some of the materials for anyone who might have taken them.

Clicking on "Kalt Chemical" in the original news brief brings up the following encoded message from Agent Pace:

Ciao, Rosapillore. We have new information on an old topic: the "red-eyed agents." As you know, we have made clear that these were imposters, and not Agents of the benevolent authorities who maintain the Matrix for the benefit of all within. We now have received intelligence that these are in fact AI entities associated with the Exile known as "The General," apparently hoping to sow discord between humans and machines. For this reason we ask that The General be harassed, interfered with, damaged, inconvenienced or destroyed by any peace-loving Rosapillore who encounters him. He is an agent of chaos, entropy, and disorder. He is suspect in the theft of some highly dangerous code, represented in the Matrix by vials of different colored fluids, contained in a padded case. We cannot overstress the danger these vials represent, should they fall into the hands of irresponsible parties. If you find the vials, do not drink any. They may result in death or disfigurement. Call your Machine contact immediately if you secure this hazardous material. Additionally, we wish to inform all Rosapillore that the "Piece of Blue Sky" concerts are apparently emergent behavior of Bluepills. They are certainly not sanctioned officially, although we have no objection to this whimsical human enterprise. In all truth, of all human mysteries, music and its emotional effects are among the most intriguing. Enjoy. Pax Vobiscum Agent Pace

It makes perfect sense that the General wishes to play all sides (Zion, Merovingian, Machines) to try to get them to fight with each other, because if he succeeds, he and his commandos will likely be reinstated with purpose as Sentinels with the purpose of fighting Zion and hovercrafts. As long as peace exists, sentinels' purpose is greatly diminished!

Finger Burger - A man is suing the Bumblebee restaurant chain, claiming to find a human finger in a hamburger.

Hit and Run - Authorities are seeking an orange van with a painting of a barbarian on the side in connection with a hit-and-run accident.

Martial Arts Classes - City Community College is now offering martial arts classes featuring the "new, revised styles." This may refer to the new styles that redpills have brought into the Matrix, which may very well be a fusion of many types of martial arts (presumably, all redpills are masters of all martial arts).

Not Metacortex Concerts - The Metacortex Corporation denies involvement in the "Piece of Blue Sky" concerts in a press release, pointing out that its cofounder and former board member "Waddy" (Wadsworth) is the sole sponsor of the concert.

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