Search Results: 49 messages were found

...

There's a reason we don't have carpets in there.

Honestly, I just don't know what gets into operatives these days...

Hmph. I knew it was a mistake using that man's face on the training simulacra. Confuses their simple minds, gets them thinking all kinds of nonsense.

Oh...very well. Yes, I'll have a diagnostic run.

Waste of time...

Typical egomaniacal ranting... Unfortunate that some operatives seem to encourage him. Why should anyone care what happens to Silver? Oh, I wouldn't mind seeing him suffer in some prolonged and ironic way, but I wouldn't bother putting myself out for it, and I don't suppose *she* will, either.

Flood
The Chateau
Fourth of September

Inane self-dialogues and mindless violence: par for the course where those two are involved, I'm afraid--not that the operatives present made much effort to control them... When the bill for damages comes in, I'll know where to send it.

Flood
The Chateau
27th of August

Well, operatives, I hope you'll have enough sense to stay away from that program from now on, unless you want it running around inside you doing who knows what.

Disgusting manners... Not surprising Ookami got along with the thing after all.

Flood
The Chateau
26th of August

Pure bungling. "Nincompoop," indeed--hmph!

Needless to say, operatives, if any of you do feel Machinist leanings, it's time to take your crumpets elsewhere before they get singed. The rest of us will carry on with this Ouroboros business very well without you.

Flood
The Chateau
Tenth of July

I think we can eliminate that Lemone parking lot as a possibility, at least.

Mm, has anyone tried those shoes? I've heard good things.

Flood
The Chateau
Ninth of July

The smiley face he typed into the receipt code was entirely unnecessary.

The encounter with the Ouroboros Corporation's Miss Lahler--not one of their model employees, as it was found--reminded me of why I make it a practice to avoid intoxicated females. For the most part, this is best accomplished by ignoring them completely. With the extreme cases whose inebriated ardor overcomes all such subtle rebuffs, I find that accessing a means of transport--stairs, elevators, what have you--beyond their inhibited powers of navigation is usually the only recourse.

The sound of Ookami dragging her claws after you is enough to scare most men out of the simulation, I suppose--jacks or no. Pity she didn't manage to kill him for stealing from us, but then again, a life of exile out there in the muck could be considered a fate worse than death; not the worst, by any means, but it might do for a start.

Hmph. I suppose I'll have to be the one to send out the summary of this operation, since--as usual--the General is too mired in his own incompetence to fulfill his responsibilities.

Come to think of it, this entire operation was up to its knees in the General's latest failure: scores of his men caught them completely by surprise and blown to the big scrap yard in the sky by a missile barrage in the Machine no-fly zone. Why, in order to scrape up the very weakest sham of progress from this situation, the General had to pick through the bodies of his dear boys with the Sentinel equivalent of tweezers.

And as for the supposed scans of an "intruder" ship his men had spent their last futile moments recording, well, that's awfully convenient information to have come by, isn't it? Oh, the General knows his utter uselessness is about to be exposed, and he'll invent any sort of rubbish to keep himself from being ground into digital mulch--the one useful function I think he has left.

The General is on his way...after needing a good deal of bailing out, as usual. We can hope that the Machines save us the trouble of scuttling that leaky old tub.

Flood
The Chateau
21st of April

Rolled? I seem to recall it being Machines who were bouncing around like little balls. But I won't waste my time trying to teach semantics to the likes of you.

Listen carefully, operatives, because I only have time to spell this out for you once. We're expecting some trouble from the Machines on this fine day, probably...oh...say about 3:00 in the afternoon (that's one nice thing about an opponent who runs according to timetables).

It seems they're miffed about us tinkering with their Sentinels. Can't imagine why--nasty things.

Thought I'd let you know, in case you were planning on slacking off today. Ta.

Flood
The Chateau
21st of April

Our objectives were achieved, and well-deserved beatings were suffered by several individuals. Mmm... I'd have to say this was one of our most satisfying operations. Cheers and a handshake.

Flood
The Chateau
19th of March

Skylarks,

I hear the conversation with Halborn was the usual hair-pulling affair. So he's decided to give up and go crawling back to the Machines for more information, eh? Given his communication skills, I'll be shocked if he can understand anything that comes out of the Architect's mouth, truthful or otherwise.

Caveat emptor.

Flood
The Chateau
26th of February

...And they conclude that I'm leading an uprising of the proletariat. It's enough to make me want to bite my saucer.

Groundlings,

I have to warn you that our burgeoning relationship with the intruder may have suffered something of a setback as a result of the General boring the fellow to virtual tears. My own view is that if he's given the General the kiss-off, we may as well do the same...but nobody ever asks what I think until it's too late.

Excelsior,

Flood
The Chateau
6th of December

It's part of the tragedy of my position of high responsibility that I cannot risk myself in the field, and so must rely on others to carry out my orders. Cerulean can be particularly exasperating, but she is, at least, a professional, which is more than I can say for certain people I've had to employ in the past. Now that we've been able to identify a pattern in the intruder's movements, it should be a relatively simple matter to make contact with him.

Flood
The Chateau
20th of November

My dear jackanapes,

Often I curse those little red pills of yours, as they brought you here, constantly dependent upon my attention and charity. Apparently they have their uses, however, though not those for which their creators intended them. With any luck all this dreary pod business will be over and done with shortly. In any case, I suppose I should "call out" the operatives involved in this latest medical adventure, so that we have a paper trail in case...well:

Chimaere
Demoana
Gretyl
Riac
Tore2

And to close with some final advice for you: don't take candy or cake from strangers.

Au revoir.

Flood
The Chateau
11th of September

My briny limpets,

As was only natural, my brilliant plan of attacking the Machines simultaneously in the Matrix and on the slimy surface of your festering home succeeded marvelously. Unfortunately, as a necessary side effect, the General was saved from imminent capture and deletion by the Machines. Still, I suppose I should congratulate you, operatives, for more or less following directions, since that is such a rare thing among you; particular laurels of this type would be due to captains Gretyl and GDisciple, whose ships downed some Machine Sentinels, and deviljenny, an incomprehensibly pink individual who somehow managed to get the kill shot on the Agent that appeared in the government building lobby.

Cheers, etc.

Flood
The Chateau
27th of August

Little hens,

It is now official: the Machines are slacking off. For what reason, I imagine we'll know soon enough, although I for one could care less, as long as they keep it up.

I suppose I ought to mention that operatives Dezreki and Cemtex managed to kill the weak Agents who made an appearance at the end of our assault, and lnguss made himself useful by offing that frightfully impertinent Metacortex receptionist.

Au revoir,

Flood
The Chateau
28th of July

The Twins can be useful when given a clear target. They refuse to trust anyone aside from the Merovingian, which is just as well, since it means that I can keep my interaction with them to a minimum; I find that I tire of the constant echo.

Little ones,

The General will have to be a little more careful where he flies his big black birds. Fortunately, thanks to operative Tseng, the Machines did not retrieve anything useful from the downed craft. I won't say it was "quick work," though, operatives; you left them with a little more time to try for it than was really necessary.

Flood
The Chateau
Fifteenth of March

Mes petites,

Cry for the Machines; they will need to build themselves a new liaison officer. Their last one came down with a sudden virus, and the Machines, cooly efficient as they are, decided to delete the poor chap rather than have him suffer.

I must say that I hardly expected the operation to go so smoothly. Are the Machines really losing their touch? Such a pity. It's not as though we can turn to Zion for much amusement.

Regards,

Flood
The Chateau
28th of February

Waifs,

The General is apparently hard of hearing--a condition not unusual in one his age. I begin seriously to doubt that this decrepit failure can possibly have what we seek. Senility should be cured at gunpoint... Still, the Merovingian's orders are clear, and will be obeyed. Some means of making the old fossil listen to reason must be found.

Flood
The Chateau
Twelfth of February

My minions,

One of the Twins, engaged in a simple contact mission with the aim of retrieving some sort of information about the General, allowed the contact to be slain by an unannounced and unidentified interloper. I felt I should bring this to your attention, as I've noticed that some of you seem to hold our pigmentally challenged siblings in undeserved high regard.

Flood
The Chateau
30th of January

Apparently someone came and left right under everyone's nose, including Ookami's. Bah! Must I do everything myself?

Flood

My little mountebanks,

I want you to keep an eye on our greasy friend, Mercury--without him knowing it, of course. We have some reason to suspect that he is behind a drop in profits in Richland; not only that, but I hear his girlfriend had a tête-à-tête with Anome shortly before the Machines gave him what-for.

Flood
The Chateau
21st of November

Peons,

Several days ago, liaison officer Entropi alerted operatives to maintain surveillance on a handful of black market hotspots around the city. Their vigilance finally paid off when Heckle, leader of the Crow Bars gang, was seen leaving Club Succubus in quite a hurry. He switched trains in Tabor Park and was tracked into South Vauxton before his signal was lost.

This cross-town trip by the normally clannish Heckle could only be accounted for by some highly valuable commission: say, perhaps, gathering pieces of the second Twin for sale to some unscrupulous Exile. Our recently rebuilt Twin joined the operatives and I at Club Noir, from whence he led them out into the night, following his uncanny bond with his brother's missing limbs.

This took them to a building in northwest South Vauxton, where, despite her urging on of the local gang, the Runners, the Exile known as The Weaver was unable to prevent the Twin from accosting her, flanked by our operatives. She had no choice but to hand the legs and feet she had bought from Heckle back to their brother.

This has been a trying process, but the pieces, I think I can say, are at last falling into place. It is also coming to our attention that certain Exile elements have forgotten to pay their respects where respect is due. This, I assure you, will not be allowed to continue.

Flood
The Chateau
27th of October

Thralls,

We are now in possession of two disembodied white-gloved hands. Their legs, anxious to be reunited, sniffed them out--however they manage that--in the vast warehouse of centuries old trash and knick-knacks acquired by that old putter-about, Digger. Almost predictably, the fool had managed to lose their catalog number, and couldn't locate them among the rest of his collection. He found in its place a suspicious note, with some sort of puzzle on it. I won't bore myself by rehashing the details, but they somehow involved a book, Hypatia, a "book club" of thugs in the Creston Museum, and the enigmatic character TantaIos, who was found there attempting to trade the stolen catalog information to them.

Operatives quickly persuaded him to hand over the purloined page, and Digger was able to retrieve the hands from his junk pile. Our liaison officers, Terentia and MadHattah, returned the legs and the hands to me, and I quickly consigned them to the care of lesser programs suited to take the considerable abuse the freakish things dole out.

This is all extremely tiresome. The Twins will have a lot to answer for when we find their heads.

Flood
The Chateau
23rd of October

My pets,

A lucky few of you had the fortune of being dispatched by me, in person, to search out businesses named on a list we recovered recently from Anome's chowder heads--businesses, no doubt, in danger of being ransacked by code-enhanced soldiers, led by Anome's particularly annoying hacker, Phenora.

The businesses were Sharpe Jewlers (their spelling, not mine), the Metro Glass head office, and Neuwirth's department store. Operatives found Anome's forces wreaking havoc in all three locations; indeed, most of the damage had already been done. However, a survivor at Neuwirth's, Marissa Clark, managed to give operatives information she'd overheard about the enemy's rendezvous point, just before she died, dramatically, of the injuries they had inflicted on her. Everyone wants attention.

Almost needless to say, once they found her, Phenora did not last long, despite her unbridled use of cheat-code-conferred powers. And of course, it fell upon me to hand out the gewgaws so highly prized among you, like shiny beads to primitive natives.

KashiraKyoushu: The first to find Phenora, and the one to inflict the most damage on her

KillahRazor: Inflicted the second-most damage

ChuckTaylor: Providing the coup de grâce

UnholyDesire, LordVortex, Ardala, and Jameskaimuki: Located the survivor, Marissa Clark

ZippyTheSquirrel: I'm really not sure why I gave Zippy a commendation. The humidity and the press of so many sweaty operatives must have temporarily impaired my better judgment.

With Phenora disposed of, the Effectuator should have no further major obstacles in tracking down Zion's hapless leader. I think we'll all be glad once that little piece of Good Samaritanism is taken care of.

Flood

The Chateau, 28th of July

That fool of a hacker, Anome's puppet named "Maxson," is dead. I don't wish to say much about him, as it would only serve to make his death at the hands of his own soldiers, who killed him as he attempted to flee in cowardice from our forces, seem more dramatic than he deserved. We shall only say that it was most fitting.

Let this serve instead as yet another lesson that information is the only thing that matters in this world. Our unmatched information network allowed us to anticipate Maxson's final four-pronged attack on city facilities before it had even begun, and when he was fool enough to show his face at one of them, attempting to access the network terminal that his soldiers had been unable to reach, his destruction was assured.

Ipsa scientia potestas est.

Speaking of which, in his abortive final hack attempt, Maxson again left information behind. This time, we were able to use the information access his remote system. On the system, we found copies of messages sent to his forces, indicating that his real target has been hardline junctions. This no doubt has something to do with their attempts to keep us from locating Zion's missing leader. Needless to say, this little scheme of theirs will not go on much longer.

Flood
The Chateau, 21th of July

Post Script ~ I had put it altogether out of my mind, but in fact I had to stay in that filthy park for some time giving out trinkets to operatives. The following were lucky enough to receive a gift from me:

Denary: for inflicting the most damage on the hacker
TheHostileIntention: for inflicting the second-most damage (pfft)
Insertion: for being the first to lead a team to secure one of the areas, and for showing proper respect
Akaney: for killing a certain annoying gang member for me in the park

Anome's hacker, Maxson, has succeeded in making quite the nuisance of himself; now he's gone and attacked systems owned by the Merovingian at Network Media. Thanks to my unmatched response time, operatives were soon dispatched to chase off the ruffian, who eluded pursuit by rather messily reducing our more headstrong operatives to roughly the size of large cantaloupes.

He will have to be able to pull the same trick on himself if he wishes to hide from the Merovingian's wrath for much longer.

Flood
The Chateau, 20th of July

Thralls,

You'll be delighted to know that my quick action prevented serious damage to one of our network hubs, despite the Effectuator's ineffective security measures.

Although news of trouble at one of his computer labs came as no great surprise, I nevertheless acted with alacrity, dispatching some of our more alert operatives to the scene. Thanks to the Effectuator's tardiness in reporting the attack, and perhaps their own dawdling in my presence after having received their orders, the operatives found the lab already ruined by Anome's gauche henchmen, some of whom remained in the area.

No doubt inspired by my own example, the operatives quickly determined the next point of attack, and found Anome's lieutenant, Maxson, attempting to break into the local computer network. The coward fled, hounded by our operatives like fleas on a mangy dog, leaving the lab in considerable disarray. Fortunately, at that moment I arrived and immediately got the situation well in hand, recovering an access log containing the address of Maxson's remote system, which he had accessed in order to execute his hacking procedure, and had not had time to clean up before he ran off.

So do not be concerned; I am in control of this situation. All you must do is remain alert for my bidding. If Anome's success depends upon breaking the Merovingian's systems, he is foredoomed to failure.

Flood
The Chateau, 20th of July

My poppets,

An Exile--not one of ours--had been bragging of having picked up some information on Anome's lieutenants while skulking around the Bishop Imports building in Ueno. Proving yet again that a windbag and his goods are soon parted, our operatives, searching for this miscreant, found him in full battle against one of these very same lieutenants: the swaggering Azul. Azul attempted to leave after finishing off the Exile, but was detained by our operatives, while liaison officer Entropi searched the Exile's body and found this:

The discovery came as no great surprise to our debonair leader, who congratulated the undeserving operatives in his own unique way.

Au revoir,

Flood
The Chateau, 28th of June

My dear savages,

A certain acquaintance of ours within Anome's organization, a rather large gentleman by the name of 0nryou, has been most cooperative in allowing us to infiltrate Anome's inner circle. Last night he led us to Casque, one of Anome's top lieutenants, whom he met in Club Janus for a casual chat.

Casque is a jumpy fellow, and did not much care to exchange pleasantries with our socially maladroit operatives. He skulked off (and would soon cause some delightful havoc among the Zionite, etc operatives outside the club), but 0nryou, somewhat abashed by the outcome of the encounter, agreed to aid us by disabling the jack-out procedure in Casque's hovercraft, to which he claims to have access, at an opportune moment.

Let this be a reminder of the importance of mastering the social graces; wars are more often won in the drawing room than on the battlefield--not that I expect many of you to understand what I'm talking about. Not to worry; we shall have plenty of work more suited to your grosser talents.

Au revoir,

Flood
The Chateau, 22nd of June

Message Edited by Flood on 06.29.2006 12:08 PM

Greetings, faithful minions,

Our rambunctious Ookami was feeling frisky lately, and decided to do something about a certain nasty smell she's been sniffing around Uriah--the stench of Anome's followers, no doubt up to no good.

Like most of Ookami's flashes of temper, this kept the little people entertained, but didn't really achieve anything worthwhile--until she sniffed her way to a strange bluepill hiding in one of the old warehouses down there.

It appears that this bluepill survived the incident at the Aqueduct, the very sight of which caused most of the bluepills in the vicinity to wake up and drown in their pods. While this bluepill isn't quite all there, they are, at least, alive, and may tell us something useful. I have good money down that they won't, and I look forward to collecting from the betting men among Ookami's rabid following. I'm sure she'll get tired of his clucking and slit his throat sooner or later, but in the meantime it's cute to watch her play with him.

Tra-la,

Flood
The Chateau, 19th of June

Message Edited by Flood on 06.19.2006 07:35 PM

My little chickadees,

Several ticket stubs resembling the one you see pictured above have been located recently, confirming our suspicions. For further information and instructions, contact liaison officer MadHattah or Terentia.

Flood
The Chateau, 24th of May

Message Edited by Flood on 05.25.2006 01:08 AM