These two were faster, better coordinated. They moved with experience. One of them kicked a chair toward you, forcing you to give ground as the other approached, leaping over a table, and then they were on you. You blocked one, two fists, every step bringing you back, hunting for an opening.
You saw a chance to force the defenses of one down and drove a palm for his chest, but the other kicked your wrist and sent you spinning. You came back up to just avoid the other's boot as it swept for your face, the leather skimming within an inch of your skin.
You ducked his extended leg followup, coming up under him with an arm wrapped under his knee as you lifted and threw him end over end. His neck came down hard on the table and you had no time to contemplate the
crack as the other came back, swinging low, high, his feet dancing with yours as you traded blows. He almost seemed to be moving in time with you, every move of his anticipated, every move of yours blocked.
He threw two punches that overextended his guard and you stepped into a palm strike, but his head shifted and the blow just cuffed his ear. You stepped inside his guard as his left fist jackhammered into your kidney, once, twice. You released, stepping back, trying to get back to your circle, but he darted in right after you, seeming to sail across the floor in a flying punch.
You gave ground, always moving, spinning your body to bring your hand down on his neck, but he blocked, blocked, swung low. Hit nothing but air, you were already moving around him, each twisting motion taking him off-axis as you shifted your weight along the eight steps. He swept his leg in and down in a brutal chop and you shouldered it aside, coming in for a shocking strike to his back, but he transitioned flawlessly to his other leg and caught the side of your head with an elbow.
You stumbled back, dazed, the room swimming, throwing two blind blocks, and suddenly you saw your opening. Your palm came up like a hammer, catching him square on the nose. He actually lifted a good two feet off the air from the impact, sailing back and crashing stiff as a board through a table.
You threw up an arm in triumph, staggered, and collapsed to your knees. You could barely stand.
"Well done, Coda. The last man is a challenge for many recruits," Frag said.
"He was so fast. I couldn't keep up," you confessed, shaking your head to try and get the dizziness out. "How's a bot that good?"
"Clever programming, and a fair amount of processing power," Frag said, setting her drink down and stepping over one of the lifeless bodies, her heels clicking off the floor with every slow stride. "But the bot is as fast and as tough as you allow it to be."
"Why would that be up to me?" you asked. "I get the injury thing…" She offered you a hand and helped you up. Your head already clearing, you found that willing yourself to your feet despite the pain was making it fade in real time. "Couldn't the computer tell it how fast it is, how strong it is, do those calculations?"
"Of course," Frag said. "What do you suppose does the processing for that computer?"
You couldn't think of an answer, so instead you just pulled out one of the chairs, sitting heavily. Your ribs still hurt.
"I don't know," you admitted. Coda stepped to the window, pushing it open, and you glanced outside.
Where there was once void, there was now an inky darkness, with lightning dashing through it.
"There are limits to traditional computing. These limits far exceed what you know in your time, yes, but gold can only be etched so fine, processors only made so dense. The computers of this ship use a three-dimensional semiconductor foam as a computing substrate, a device millions of times more powerful than the most powerful processors avaliable in your day. And yet, it has perhaps three percent of the density of the computer which runs this simulation and the Matrix itself."
"What is it?" you asked. "Quantum computing, optical, some kind of… subatomic substrate?"
"The answer is closer to home," Frag said. The image began to resolve into a dense web of crackling static, pulsing between nodes, each connected to dozens of others. The farther the image zoomed out, the more you thought you could see the shape of it.
One very familiar.
"This computing system has a hundred trillion synaptic connections, devoted to everything from managing the operation of organs and chemical regulation to conscious thought. It runs on a fairly small amount of power and produces only a little waste heat. The only problem is the casing is somewhat integral and not exactly reliable."
"The human brain," you said. "They're using us as computers."
"Exactly. By isolating our minds from our bodies inside a machine, a portion of that incredible power in the three pounds of electrified lipids between your ears is available to the machines in the form of a neural net processor, one more powerful than anything they or we could build."
"The Matrix is a supercomputer. It runs on the people in it," you surmised.
"They have their own systems, backups, dedicated memory. But the core mental infrastructure of the machines is built on human minds and human thoughts, all of the Machine's constructs are. We employ similar structures here, in these systems." She looked around at the frozen bar. "The
Ashur's computers didn't run those bots. They aren't calculating the reflections of light off the paint, the creak of the floorboards, the feeling of blood on your knuckles. You are."
You stared at your hands, turning them over. Hunting for a sign.
"So tell me, which do you think matters more, in a place like this?" Frag asked, "What the computer tells your brain is true, or what your brain tells the computer?"
You didn't know what to say. Frag smiled and nodded.
"Chrysie, next program."
You were standing now on the roof of a vast skyscraper, opposite another. There was a city around you, enormous in size and scope, and while it looked realistic at first you began to notice things wrong about the shadows, the reflections, the people moving about in the windows. How much everything repeated.
"Then… why the illusion. Why the Matrix? Why not just… put a bunch of brains in jars and boot them up?" you asked. Frag indicated for you to stand, and you did, following her to the edge of the building.
"That's exactly what they've done, Coda. The brain isn't just what's in your skull, they'll use the whole nervous system. And when a brain runs, it tends to create at least one person," she explained. "You have to do something with that person. It is my understanding that in the earliest versions of the Matrix, they tried to keep people in comas, unconscious. Unsurprisingly, it didn't lead to a lot of surplus processing power."
"So they made a fake world. A prison. Though it seems really complex," you pointed out. "Why not something simpler? More… Truman Show? It's got to be expensive to run."
"It is, but that's the genius of it. The Matrix is
run on human brains," she said, tapping her temple with two fingers. "The prison that traps your thoughts is built from them. Our reactions to stimuli can be used to run new stimuli in a positive feedback loop, with a surplus. They have all the processing power they'll ever need, and it scales to as many humans as they plug in. Disconnected from what that system is used for, it is… beautifully elegant."
"So that's it?" you asked.
"There's another element. Undirected, human processing power can meet theirs needs. But the machine is
greedy. It wants to expand, always wants to expand. More towers, more brains, more juice to run their own simulations, to run more squids, more bots, more. More than just what they get from plugging in new humans."
"How?"
She regarded you with a judgemental eye over the top of her sunglasses, then indicated with her parasol (how long had she been holding that?) to the building opposite.
"Jump," she said.
"What?"
"Jump to the other building."
You stared down over the street, dozens of stories below. The cars looked like toys. You couldn't even make out individual people. There were four lanes of traffic and two wide sidewalks.
"You gonna run a training program on the long jump, or..?" you asked. She chuckled.
"How far do you think it is between these two buildings?" she asked.
"Um… You're going to say it doesn't matter because it's all in my head, right?" you asked. She smiled.
"Well, I also want you to guess, just to see how you do," she said.
"Fifty feet? Sixty?" you offered. She nodded.
"It sure looks that way," she said. You just stared at her. "I write a script, you've already gone off it. Had to make this difficult."
You laughed, staring over the edge again.
"Can you show me how?" you asked.
"Oh, no," she said, stepping up onto the edge of the building, her parasol held aloft as she casually walked along the railing. "You already know how to jump. Just don't fall."
You clamoured over the railing, staring across at the other building.
Just don't fall.
---
When you want to do something impossible, when you want to openly defy the rules of the simulation, not just momentarily but to truly flaunt your mastery over the system, we call that Disconnecting. This is a special move which works like no other in the game.
Disconnecting does not add any stat bonuses, and only full hits, only 6s, count. The number of 6s you input determines how successful you are. None, and reality asserts itself in the most brutal manner imaginable. One, and you show only the slightest hint of affecting things before failing and suffering consequences. Two sixes, and you very nearly make it, stumbling at only the very last moment. It'll be easier next time. Three successes, you do it, just like that.
Two and Three Success Disconnects add this feat to your sheet as a Signature Ability, Level 1. Level 1 abilities are easier to do, costing only 2 full successes. Doing it flawlessly will move the ability to Level 2, so it only costs 1 Success. Finally, doing it one last time will upgrade it to Level 3, where you can perform this feat at will.
Finally, every time you Disconnect, you also Advance, choosing a new ability or improvement for your character as you move through different stages in their development.
[⚅⚅]⚂⚁⚁
You can't make it. Not yet. But you will learn.
Choose your first Advance.
[ ] +1d6 Will (Roll +1d6 when generating the Charge pool)
[ ] Bring It: A +1 bonus to one die on subsequent Fight die against the same singular opponent. Stacks.
[ ] Foresight: Discard a 6 to add +1 to a Stat for your next roll.
[ ] Strapped: Allows you to covertly carry slightly more gun.
[ ] Double Tap: Spend additional ammo to deal more damage with a single ranged attack.
[ ] Cross-Counter: Every 1 you spend in Fight gives +1 to one other die.
[ ] Power Move: The first 6 you spend on Fight does +1 Damage.
[ ] Quick Turnaround: On a 6 while fighting Flexible, disarm an enemy, take their weapon, and immediately use it with a bonus to Shoot.
