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Postby Orwain » Mon Dec 05, 2005 7:43 am

NERD Issue # 036
Part 2

What's a Forum?

Hello dear readers, this is NERD Editor. Since the destruction of my office over a month ago, I have not been able to publish my NERD's. That is about to change. To get the ball rolling, I bring to you today a story about a topic that is near and dear to many of you. From time to time, we have all heard the word 'forum'. But what is it? And how does it fit into our world? Some speak of it as a place to share ideas. Others call it a place of violent arguments, and others have been known to call it a mess. Here and now today, we shall uncover the truth.

As has been well documented, NUTS have been working to install toilets throughout Neocron. At long last that task is complete and the city gave a great big flush in commemoration. One of the last things to be done in the mighty task was the implementation of Public Toilet facilities.

Now, once the Public toilets were open, people entered and began to use them. Now, there's no explanation for why it happened, it just seems to be a universal truth since the dawn of time. But those individuals started.... writing on the cubicle walls. It has been this way since the Cavemen, who while they took a crap in a hole in their cave, doodled drawings on the nearby wall. It moved onto the Romans who would take a scroll in to the lavatory with them to read (they were more cultivated you see....). It then moved onto the Mafia putting messages (and weapons) behind the water cylinders in restaurant toilets, and of course the rampant 'toilet culture' of the 20th and 21st century's. And thus it came that in the Year that Toilets returned to Neocron, the runners did begin the trend again.

At first it was very simple. Runners would come in and write "Hi, I'm Gleep, and this is my first time in here!", to which following runners would say hi and then introduce themselves and ultimately, they would get a conversation going right the way down the wall. When they reached the bottom of the wall, a keen eyed runner named Ren spotted a switch at the bottom and hauled the wall up to reveal... more wall!
"Wow, the wall scrolls!" He exclaimed.

After a while, the conversation would start digressing into different things, so people decided that different conversations should be in different areas. Hence, the various toilet cubicles were assigned to different topics. The toilet with no toilet paper was assigned to the debates about inter-clan politics, as it was the most heated topic. After all, people in that cubicle were so busy writing responses to the previous ones they usually forgot to go. The cubicle at the far end was assigned as 'Brainport' the area for new ideas. The reason for this was that good ideas take a while, so the ones who have them are generally the one's having difficulty going and would thus be there a while. As a result the cubicle at the far end made the safest choice for everyone else.

But all was not well with this system. After a while, certain TG runners, who had no toilets of their own, began to sneak into the Public toilet. Now as you know TG runners live in the Canyon and their diet consists largely of meat by-products from TerrorMaulers, a spicy food by anyone's standard. This meat also has a tendency to make the eater irritable. As these TG runners sat on the toilet, they saw a post about how sad TG runners were hailing Fusion cannon shells at everything that moved and how they couldn't hit the backside of a Warbot with a Cold Fusion Missile. Consequently in their irritated state, and excreting a rather lava-like bodily waste, the TG runners began to write harsh rebuttles and some abuse at the original writers. Due to the blazing sulphuric fumes coming from the cubicle when they wrote, it was called a 'flame post'.

After a while, many others, some fueled by tainted meat, and some with just a lot of gas, took to 'flame posting'. It became so rampant that every public toilet wall was covered in flame posts, and a few were deciding to write their flame posts with their lava like... you get the idea.

And so it was that City Admin, sensing a need to keep the toilet walls usable, instituted The MODS (Men Opposed to Destructive Spam).

There was Aegir, who would cut off any flame post by telling them where their posts really needed to be (and then flushing it after they left).

There was Hodur, who used a special form of gum to stop the walls from scrolling and thus effectively closing certain posts, until a new wall could be found.

There was Niddhog, who's speed and efficiency was frightening. At times he would be editing what you were posting, while you were posting it (which got very disturbing let me assure you... 2 men in a cubicle.... uh uh). Even more impressive was his Cloth of Edit, which he would streak across the worst of the posts and would replace with his own brand of 'niceness'.

But there would be times where the posts would degrade into an unhealthy pile of.... never mind. The post would become so foul, so obnoxious, it would make what was resting in the bowl seem like a Potpouri. One of the worst offenders was when Megaman, new commander of the Forces of Dome of York, snuck into Neocron and let loose what he'd been holding in for weeks (and I mean that in both ways...). The MODS couldn't and wouldn't touch it with a 12 foot mop.

And so they sent for the one man willing to get stuck elbow deep into a really bad post. Odin.

Yes, when posts go wrong and the cubicle becomes a no mans land, Odin shows up to make it like it never was. He'll unclog thread congestion, remove obscene posts forever and leave that cubicle clean, sheen and smelling of pine.

Many have asked "Is it worth it?" Are these posts really needed? Well ask the MODS, ask Odin, ask any man who's had a corn brisket crap that feels like you're trying to pass a block of concrete with 5 corners out of a hole the size of a thimble, and they'll all tell you yes, for many different reasons. Because they help you relax, or vent, or get things off your chest (and out your...), because they allow you to become informed.

But most importantly because discussion is important, and as anyone knows, any good discussion is (F)ounded (O)riginally in ( R)ooms of (U)nbelievable (M)ess.
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Postby Orwain » Mon Dec 05, 2005 7:44 am

NERD Issue # 037

Enter The Dome: Part 1

"Sid, Mega, my office, 10 minutes." Cassandra Edwards spoke into her comm-unit. She swivelled in her chair and looked out of her window at the top of the Dome. Outside it was quite barren. The Defender bots were rolling around the perimeter, but otherwise it was dead outside.

It had been nearly six weeks since her bold move to take Dome of York as her own. Since then her two generals, Megaman and Insidious Wolf, had tirelessly worked to build up their forces. NUBI and CDV had not yet merged as one unit, but she was sure that was not far off. The army of DeltaGens she had brought with her to the Dome were now back in stasis in the lower bowels of the city. Inside the city the production lines worked tirelessly to build up more Dome Defender bots, Scythe-bots and BETA Warbots.

Sid and Mega entered Cassandra's office and took up their seats.
"Good. Where do we stand on production?"
"Currently, if we were to unleash all our forces on Neocron at once we would outnumber them 40 to one. However, if we factor in the possibility of EGOS intervention, that advantage will be all but wiped out." Megaman replied.
"Sid, you said you could have something to help us deal with that?"
"Yes. If we equip a troop of DeltaGens with LAG rounds, we can overcome the EGOS obstacle." Megaman was still having a hard time hearing Sid like this. Everyone had got used to him calling himself Precious all the time. Now that his madness seemed to have left... it wasn't the same.
"What else?" Cassandra asked.
"Those fighters of Neocron's pose a problem. It gives them air superiority." Megaman replied.
"Can we not equip the Warbots with Ground to Air missiles?"
"It's possible, but will take at least a week to get them all upgraded."
"Then you'd better start now." Mega nodded and left the room.
"So Sid, what special news do you have for me?"
"It's fairly quiet out there. Since The Wierd's got married Neocron has been fairly relaxed. I have noted a few NUTS hanging out near Regant's Legacy, but they seem to be hunting Swamp creatures. There does seem to be something going on with JERK's. They've had some very serious fighting with the Twilight Guardian leadership. I'll keep you posted." And with that their meeting was over.
"How much do you suspect Reza? How much do you fear me? Your time is drawing nigh. Soon it will be you on your knees in front of ME!!!" Cassandra prattled off to herself, Sid just walked away.

Megaman had enjoyed becoming the Supreme General of York. He oversaw the production of his mighty army, revelled in the almost sincere adulation of his clan and partied all night long. About a month ago he snuck into Neocron, did some serious flaming in the Public 'FORUM' and then stole his beloved Jukebox from Pepper Park 2. Since then, every night, the Dome resounds with the Theme song to Happy Days, and Megaman in his leather jacket, dancing around with Psycho Killa as only drunk fools can.

Cassandra stayed up to 2am Neocron standard time every night. She could always be heard in her office gloating over how she pulled one over on Reza and how she was going to crush him once and for all. Then she would arise again at 5am Neocron standard to receive her daily transmission from Martin, the instigator of war. She continually pushed Sid and Mega and their forces onwards towards preparing a mighty army the likes of which Neocron had never seen and could never withstand.

Sid on the other hand, spoke very little. He had chosen his old cell as his quarters, much to the suprise of everyone, although he rarely used it. He would generally be found late at night, skulking around the Sublevels of the Dome, near the Mobile Weapon storage areas. Those who saw him never heard him, and those that thought they could hear him, could never find him. But always they knew he was there.

NUBI was all but gone. Only 2 members still remained, and neither of them are worth mentioning. They were along for the ride and offered Sid the chance to say he wasn't head of a One Man Clan. CDV on the other hand was going from one destructive and evil strength to another. They were big, powerful and well funded. And they had all sworn a blood oath to ruin Neocron Forever!!! (Big Red Subtitles Slam Down "CORPORATE INSULT!!!").

And so the power of the Dome grew. Unbeknownst to the peoples of Neocron but knownst to us (Mel Brooks' Spaceballs.... Copywright, pay up.) their gears turned in the great machine of war. Soon the Dome would break forth again to lay seige to Neocron and none would be able to stop it. None, but the mighty MoonUnit. Ok, who am I kidding, Moon would let them march all over Neocron if Cassandra offered him some sushi. We have no hope, we're all doomed. Megaman's gonna pwns us all and Sid's gonna laugh and Cassandra's gonna make everyone wear Pink Tutu's before we are all executed. Life sux I quit... I'm outta here....

A few days later, (after my employers showed me the clause in my contract saying I'm not allowed to quit on a tantrum) Sid was standing in the cryo-hall of Delta-Gens. He activated a switch and brought them all back to full animation.
"ORDERS???" They all yelled.
"Argghh.... don't yell."
"orders..." they all whispered.
"Gah... they're even dumber than normal tanks. Next you'll all be walking around going EYYYYY. Stand at attention!" They stood at attention (a ghost slaps N'ed over the back of the head "Hey, that's my line!")
"Now, you remember what I taught you?"
"Sid, Yes Sid!" Sid narrowed his eyes, looked left, looked right, looked down the hall, closed the door and looked back at the DeltaGens.
"Proceed." And then they began. They chanted in unison and in perfect time with each other.

"Oh we are the Tanks of Dome of York, we're gonna kick some ass.
Kill JERK's and NUTS and Canadians too, we're gonna have a blast.
We'll hit them hard and hit them fast, and nail em to the wall.
Then we'll sit right back and tell the tale of Neocron's mighty fall.

But thats not all, theres more to tell, a plan have we begun.
For our king Sid, the greatest man, must first have all his fun.
He works in shadow with thought so deep, he truly has a plan.
To start it off we first must kill that asshole Megaman.

Mega, Mega, you've stolen King Sid's turf,
Mega, Mega, you look like a Freakn Smurf.

And once thats done, that bitch will pay, for locking King Sid up.
Cassandra should have known by now, with others Sid won't play.
So here we are, with thoughts so dark, ascending to the throne.
By this weeks end, when blood is shed, Sid shall rule the Dome.

MJS will send his mail, and Edwards takes his call.
While Sid will sit and wait his time, to cause her mighty fall.
Until that day he sits down here, and sings this song with us.
And longs for the day when once again, he unleashes his PRECIOUSS!!!!

Until next time...

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Postby Orwain » Mon Dec 05, 2005 7:45 am

NERD Issue # 038

Enter The Dome: Part 2, The Dome Reloaded

"EEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY" Megaman yelled.
"Nice accoustics in here Mega." Psycho Killa observed.
"Yeah man, now lets get this party started!" Megaman and CDV began their party at the centre of the Dome. With Happy Days blaring out and a Lot of stolen Synthetic whisky and Cron Beer, CDV was partying hard. Little did they know that up above them, at the top of Central Tower, the support piece for the Dome, Cassandra was having very different feelings.

Looking down on CDV, Cassandra leered at them with disgust. She had taken them on for their sheer strength and destructive abilities, but their company she could not stand. She had also kept Sid around for the same reason, lots of power, personality to kill because of.

"That's right Mega, party it up. Soon I will send you to vanquish my enemies, and at the same time you shall seal your own fate. Once you have done all I need, you will find yourself on the receiving end of more firepower than you could possibly imagine. I'll get you..." and she looked at Psycho, "I'll get you... and your little dog too!" (Wizard of Oz - Copyright, pay up).

Cassandra continued to gloat to herself, and occasionally cackle, till she fell asleep in her chair and dreamed of simpler days.

Cassandra: In the womb

"Warm.... cozy... I love it here. It is nice here. Hey whats that? A light at the end of the tunnel? No.... noooo I'm getting sucked out. Acckkkk I'm covered in crap.... and who are these ugly people... wait, you... I know you... no, It can't be!!!"

Cassandra: Age 4

"I love lollipops." Cassandra said.
"I love lollipops too!" Spanky (aka Wolfwood) ran over and grabbed it.
"Noo, give it back!"
"Nah nah, finders keepers, losers ....arghhh!!" Cassandra started pinching him as only girls can. Eventually the lollipop was lost for all time. Cassandra made a mental note that she should exact further revenge on Spanky as well as Reza.

Cassandra: Age 14

"Ok, I'll show you mine if you show me yours." he whispered to her. Cassandra whipped her top off with proffesional skill.
"Those are boobies." McDanish stated the obvious. He then walked off. Cassandra went to note further revenge on him, then realised she was too late.

Cassandra: Age 17

In the backseat of an APC with Centuri. He lasted 3 minutes. Then he blabbed to all of NDA. Revenge, much revenge.

Cassandra: Age 22

After finishing Advanced Business School in Via Rosso 2, she applied for an assistant managers job with all the major company's. After 6 months of trying she got a job serving radioactive fries at McMutants. They will all pay... oh YES!!

Cassandra: Age 23 (actually more like 30 but she'll never admit to it)

Finally got her job working for Reza. This involved much asskissing (and even more work on the other side) and putting up with his crap....

At that final memory she awoke. Every time she thought of Reza her blood boiled, but that memory of the womb had stuck. Wide eyed in fear she ran down the 58 stairwells of Central Tower to Megaman's party. There she stopped, stared in terror and shuddered.
"EYYYY, I see you have realised the truth!" Megaman replied.
"No, no, it can't be." she backed into a wall
"Oh but it is."
"This isn't possible!" Megaman removed his blue Powerarmour to reveal a pink powerarmour underneath.
"Cassandra, I am your MOTHER!!!"
"NOOOOOO!!!!!" (Steve Oedekirk's Thumb Wars.... Copyright, Pay UP!!)

Sid's latest chorus of "They're all gonna die" was interrupted by the high pitched screaming above.
"Wow, someone's not happy."

"Ohhhhh my Lioon, Megaman's a hermaphrodite!!" Penzius, newest initiate to the 2nd Circle of EGOS exclaimed.
"I did not want to know that." Lupus, who was walking around wearing Trillian's stolen pants, replied.
"But, and I'm almost afraid to ask this... If Megaman's her mother... who's her father?" Moon looked aprehensive and warped to Zone 28 fast.

Cassandra and Megaman had a touching family reunion of blame and recrimination. Many bottles were thrown, many shots were fired, and Psycho Killa was used like a club at one point. Eventually the two came to the disturbing understanding that they were family whether they liked it or not. And after a time Cassandra realised that having her mother watch her back might not be the worst idea ever. And so they embraced as mother and daughter and did what every good family does; blamed their neighbours for all their woes and got back to planning to destroy them.

And Sid watched from a nearby gutter, and planned, and waited...

Until next time...
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Postby Orwain » Mon Dec 05, 2005 7:46 am

NERD Issue # 039

Enter the Dome: Part 3: The Dome Revolutions

Our story begins
"Wow look, the Dome spins. It Revolutions 360 degrees."
Our story ends....

Ok, real story begins...

Cassandra got up... again... as she does every day at 0500, again... geez this is getting dull. Don't you guys do anything interesting at the Dome?

Cassandra: What is this, an interview?
N'ed: Well, yeah.
Cassandra: Ok fine, lets do an interview.

Getting to Know Dome of York: An Interview by NERD Editor.

N'ed: Well hello folks. Today we're going to be talking with the biggest meglomaniacs I could find...
Megaman: EYYYYYY
Sid: Hey, who you calling a mega-maniac
Cassandra: Shut up, both of you.
N'ed: May I continue now?
Megaman: Yes
Sid: No
Cassandra: Shut up.
N'ed: Oh ok
Cassandra: No, not you.
N'ed: Not me?
Cassandra: Not you, them.
Megaman: Them who?
Cassandra: You who... I mean you two
Sid: What?
Megaman: Who?
Cassandra: SHUT UP!!!
N'ed: Let's try this again.

N'ed: Cassandra, in one sentence, please sum up the purpose of Dome of York
Cassandra: To crush my enemies once and for all.
N'ed: Megaman, now that we know Cassandra is your daughter, how does it make you feel to know your child is hellbent on destroying almost all life in Neocron.
Megaman: Oh I'm very proud of her. Its good to see my child has ambition!
N'ed: And Sid, how do you fit into this?
Sid: I like killing things (Sid steps on a roach at this point to prove his point. He didn't have to eat it though).
N'ed: So, what is your favourite thing in the world?
Megaman: Happy Days
Cassandra: Revenge
Sid: Pre... Genocide.
N'ed: What is your most hated thing in the world?
Megaman: Daft Punk
Cassandra: Reza
Sid: This conversation
N'ed: Who is your best friend in the world?
Megaman: Psycho Killa
Cassandra: My vibra.... uhhh, My mother.
Sid: The prec... Holy Lightning.
N'ed: Who is your worst enemy in the world?
Megaman: MoonUnit (megaman rubbed his ass at this point, not sure why)
Cassandra: Reza, McDanish, Spanky, Centuri....
N'ed: Just one please
Cassandra: SHUT UP!! Its a long list.
Sid: Whoever is in my targeting reticle.
N'ed: Now, I understand that your conquest of the Dome was assisted by your use of the DeltaGens
Cassandra: That is correct.
N'ed: You knew they were inside Regant's Legacy?
Cassandra: Oh yes, there were archives in City Admin about the Regant's special project.
N'ed: And are there any other such suprises in there.
Cassandra: Oh yes, and once I'm done with Neocron, I will go there to claim them, but at this point there's no rush.
N'ed: Really? So you're not concerned that NUTS have launched an expedition to go inside Regants Legacy?
Cassandra: What??
Sid: I told you they were there.
Cassandra: But you... I mean... this interview is over.

Cassandra marched off hauling her two Generals behind her.
"I'm heading there now, we must cut them off before its too late."
"Why, whats so important?" Sid asked.
"No time to explain. Mega, gather CDV and a squad of DeltaGens, follow me as soon as you can. We have to get there and end that expedition as fast as possible."
"Understood." Cassandra marched off to get her Reveller from the garage. The gate began to open and she tore out of the front gate.
"I will gather our forces Sid, you should hold the fort here. We'll ...ARRGGGHGHHHHHEEEEEEYYYYYYYY!!!!" Sparks flew from Mega's eyes and nostrils as Sid grabbed hold of the back of his head with his gauntlet wearing hand. The gauntlet was equipped with the most hated of all Forbidden Technologies: The BAN (Bringer of Absolute Narcolepsy). Megaman was rendered completely unconscious and he fell to the ground, unable to rise again.
"Yessss.... It is our time now... PRECIOUS!!!" And Sid closed the Gate, and in one swift mistake, became Lord of the Dome.

Without a thought for what was behind her, Cassandra drove like a wildwoman for the Legacy. In the archives of Neocron, there was a passage, written by Regant himself. It read:
"I wonder sometimes if I should tell those fools in the Dome how futile their fight is. They can never win. I have constructed a weapon, one so terrible, so powerful, that they will not be able to endure its power. Should it ever look as though our brave warriors cannot win this Ceres War, I shall unleash it, and there is nothing they can do to stop it...."
The rest of the passage was lost to the ages. But Cassandra knew. She knew that Regant did not exagerate such things. The Legacy held the ultimate weapon; the weapon that would ensure victory for one side. She had thought she would not need it, but now the very real threat that Neocron might gain possession of this weapon was at hand. She could not allow it, she would never allow it.

Until next time...
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Postby Orwain » Tue Dec 06, 2005 4:22 am

NERD Issue # 040

The Seventh Circle

"Dude, I'm not going in there." Reefsmoker stated.
"What? Come on, we walked all the way over here, and now you don't wanna go?" Hurricane replied. Hurricane, Reefsmoker, Warlock, Evangelion, Gully Foyle, Techi and Lisa Davitt had all travelled to the gates of Regant's Legacy this day. Now they were there, and Reef was hesitating.
"Any particular reason you don't wanna go in?" Techi asked.
"Yeah, look at the sign." And everyone looked at the no smoking sign. Everyone fell over in exasperation.
"Right, now that the stupidity is over, lets go," Warlock entered first, activating his flashlight. The rest followed, with Lisa Davitt bringing up the rearguard and using her Dildo of Maven.

The air just inside the entrance was not too bad, but the further in they went, the more stagnant it became. This of course was to be expected. With the exception of the DeltaGen cryo-room, no living thing had entered Regant's Legacy since the Ceres War. The seven NUTS proceeded cautiously into the chasm left by the explosives Cassandra Edwards and her agents had placed several weeks ago.

The first room was much what you'd expect to see right behind a giant, well-sealed gate... nothing to look at. The mechanism for opening the gates was there and there were three exits from the room, but otherwise there was nothing.
"Mmm, homely." Hurricane noted.
"Yeah, its nice. Some curtains, a few throwrugs, and this place will look just like home!" Eva said.
"You mean it'll look like a brothel?" Warlock smirked. He got an elbow to the ribs for that one.
"Hey, over here," Gully beckoned them to a wall near the centre exit of the 3, "looks like a map of this place."
"How convenient!" Lisa clapped with excitement.
"I wouldn't get too excited, its just a basic floorplan. No directions of how to get where. This place has seven levels, starting with this one and going down. This floor is guardrooms and DeltaGen storage." Gully read.
"Lets hope none are left," Warlock gripped his firelance.
"SubLevel - 2 is Kitchen, food storage and Maintenance."
"Can't fix things on an empty stomach, go on," Reef said.
"SL - 3 is Laboratory's, SL - 4 is Testing grounds."
"Testing for what?" Lisa asked.
"SL - 5 is Command and Control, SL - 6 is the Armoury"
"Oooh, that sounds like fun." Hurricane's eyes gleamed.
"And SL - 7 is... The ... I can't read it."
"Well if we get down there I'm sure we'll find out," Reef said, "lets head onwards."

Meanwhile at Neocron,

The EGOS had joined the citizens for a party, commemorating nothing in particular. There was free alcohol and food, so no one cared what it was for. MoonUnit and Penzius were getting down with Trillian and friends. CheapLoveMotel was having a drinking contest with all of NDA, Critter was predicting what horrible things would happen next to people and Laemin was pretending to be a lamppost. The 2nd Circle of EGOS were all in Neofrag giving 20 or so runners the beatings of their lives. Reza looked on from above and smiled. He had planned this party to distract people from the growing rumours descending from the North; that the wheels of war turned fast up there and that soon Cassandra would be coming for their lives. Reza reclined back in his chair and breathed a short sigh of relief. This should get him through another month before the people start to get irritable again. Had it not been for the descisive victory using the FireWreathes, he would not have made it to the end of this month. But right now, time was all he needed. The wheels of war might spin fast in the North, but they spin even faster in Neocron. He just needed another month or two. Then the people wouldn't be yelling at him, they'd be bowing to him. His new assistant, Michael Felding, entered the office.
"What news Mike?"
"It's pretty quiet out there. Some rumours of dissentions amongst Twilight Guardians, and some of NUTS have gone off on a Wasteland expedition, but otherwise everyone is enjoying the festivities."
"Alright, keep the trackers going, but I think we can rest for this evening. It does look to be a quiet night."
"Yes, sir." Michael closed the door behind him.

That night, at Twilight Guardians,

"So it's agreed then?" Chiphead asked.
"Yes, we can no longer stand this... blatant cowardice." .cylon answered.
"We move, together, Now." Shadow growled. The rest of JERK's nodded in agreement.
For some time, the command of Twilight Guardians and JERK's had been butting heads. JERK's were of the absolute opinion that the Dome of York posed a clear and present danger and that they must engage them immediately. TG command on the other hand seemed to think if they did nothing, they would be left untouched. And so the two leaderships bickered and yelled for many a week. When Cassandra had taken control of the Dome, JERK's had geared up for war, in full expectation that TG command would not allow a former CityAdmin executive to take control of the Dome. They were wrong. TG command had simply smiled, as if they had been expecting it all along. And so for the last few weeks, JERK's had been making full preparations to sever their ties to TG and return to Neocron. This night, they were moving. JERK's gathered their belongings and began an evening march into the wastelands. They would journey to Tech Haven and from there contact the city and make them aware of their intentions. Once that was done they would then return to Neocron. Fully aware of the Fallen Angels attitude to what the former SODOM had done to TH, they asked if they would be granted safe passage. Suprisingly the Fallen Angels had granted it.
It would be a long night, so they got started...

Back at the Legacy,

"Geez you'd think they'd have put a few maintenance bots in here to clean the place from time to time. I haven't seen Spider Queen's make cobwebs this big." Reef complained.
"You complain to much. Exploration is an adventure, enjoy it." Warlock hacked away with his combatknife at the sticky strands of web.
"Fine, you enjoy the adventure. Me, I'm gonna take offense to having web in my hair."
"Woah, check this out." Eva called to them. They came to the room she was looking into. In it were rows upon rows of cryo-tubes. Each one had been opened and the dust on the ground had been disturbed.
"Guess this is where the DeltaGens were held." Eva said.
"I'm just glad they're gone." Hurricane said. Warlock looked at the far corner of the room and narrowed his eyes. He walked further into the room. The others beckoned him to return but he was fixated on something. As he neared the far side of the room, he continually gripped his psi gauntlet further. The dust at the far end of the room had been disturbed in the last few minutes...

It was at this point that Cassandra learned of the NUTS expedition and the Gates of the Dome were opening. Megaman was entering the deep sleep and Sid was starting to feel pretty good about himself. As Cassandra's Reveller tore out of the gate, the trackers in Neocron sounded off, but Michael, who was supposed to be monitoring them, was not paying attention, as he, and most of the party goers were distracted by the scene outside. Lupus had stolen Trillian's pants again and watching her run around pantsless after an EGOS with absolute speed was quite entertaining.

... and Warlock was certain he'd seen something moving around in the shadows. He approached as quietly as he could. And sure enough, he spotted two DeltaGens, their backs to him, loading their Fusion cannons. Warlock decided a quick Fire Barrel would be enough and prepared to cast when two latecomers showed up.
"YO WARLOCK, HOW's IT HANGING?" Diesel yelled into the room.
"Whatcha doin?" Byron called in. Warlock spun round to glare at them, but the glare quickly turned to frantic panic as the two DeltaGens leapt to their feet and prepared to fire.
"MOVE YOUR CANDY ASS NO BRAIN DROM LOVING BUTTS NOW!!!!" Warlock yelled as the Fusion fire started hailing past him. Cryo-tubes exploded and the glass showered them all. Warlock grabbed his NUTS and ran. They charged down the hall as fast as their Athletics would take them.
"Which way?" Lisa called.
"Pick one." the rest yelled back. They turned right and ran into another big room. As they entered the lights auto activated to reveal... rows of cryo-tubes containing more DeltaGens, unawoken.
"From now on, Lisa doesn't pick the direction." Eva whined.
"Hey!" Lisa took offense.
"Foyle, help me." Warlock threw him a Lasersword and the two ran over to some pipelines on the wall. They cleaved the pipes off the wall and from their exposed ends gushed the coolant for the Cryo-tubes.
"Are you nuts? You defrost them and they'll all wake up!" Diesel yelled.
"Wrong. If you just defrost someone in a cryo-tube, they die. They have to be re-animated properly. This will take care of the sleepers, and hopefully the other two, now go hide." And they hid. The two DeltaGens that had been pursuing them entered the room. One looked left, the other looked right, neither looked out. The coolant pipe exhausted liquid coolant upon them both and they began to freeze. In anger, they tried to walk forward, but their feet stuck to the floor. Another step, and one left its foot behind, snapping off at the ankle. As the liquid coolant turned them into icicles, Gully Foyle stepped out, pulled out his Wyatt Earp and with a badass look in his eye spoke:
"Asta La Vista, baby." He fired and the two shattered into a million gory pieces. The others came out to look and Hurricane patted Foyle on the back.
"Dude, that was cool. You used that movie line from that old film... you know the one... um.... yeah, Robocop."
"Let's move on." Warlock took them back to the intersection and they went left this time.

The nine companions marched in silence through the echoing corridors for a time. As they passed by rooms where DeltaGen's had once been frozen, they lived in hope that that was all the suprises left in this place. Finally they reached the end of the corridor and found a stairwell labelled "To SL-2".
"We still going?" Lisa asked. Warlock and Diesel had already begun descending the stairs, so the question was moot.

They exited the stairwell and were on SL-2. Here they found a more detailed map of the facility. Each Sublevel was constructed, with the exception of SL - 1, in a circular form. From the stairwell, the path led west, then north, then east, and then south, where it would meet the stairwell to the next floor. All the main rooms adjoined to these main corridors.
"Interesting design," Reef pointed out, "if you were in a rush to get in or out, you'd have a real pain of a time. Each floor is designed to make you walk all the way around to get to the next one."
"There might have been a faster way when it was built, but I guess we're stuck as pedestrians." Byron noted.
They began walking and got to the first turn and began heading north. On the left wall, there were glass panes and light coming through.
"A still active area?" Eva asked.
"Lets see," Diesel found a door and they entered the room. Rows upon rows of benches were in the room with lights above them and deutrithium steel benches at the far end.
"Looks like a mess hall." said Techi.
"No, its a bowling alley, of course its a mess hall." A synthesised voice yelled at them from beyond the benches. Taken aback, only Diesel and Warlock didn't take 5 steps towards the exit. These two walked forward and looked to see who had spoken. As they approached, a human-like creature wearing a dirty white apron walked out and came to face them.
"Who are you?" Warlock asked.
"I'm CHEF."
"CHEF?"
"Yeah CHEF. What, you work here and you never seen ol' CHEF before. Geez. I'm a Cybernetic Helper for Experimental Facilities, or CHEF for short. I manage the Mess Hall here, which Sherlock there figured out."
"Ah, ok. Well CHEF, I don't work here, I've just arrived. But I would like to meet any other employees around here, have you seen any?"
"Well, now that you mention it, I rang the lunch bell and no one came."
"And when was that?"
"Oh... would've been about 190 years ago."
"Riiiiggghhhhtt..... and this doesn't seem at all strange to you?"
"Well the science boys around here get distracted pretty easily. I'm sure once they're done with what they're doing their stomach's will tell em better than my bell will. They eat at such odd hours around here, but they eat like starving men."
"I'm sure you're right. Where would we find these science boys?"
"Oh, SL-3 and 4, thats where they hang out."
"Much obliged, we'll head down there and remind them about their meals."
"Well, hang on there, can't let ya go on an empty stomach, the boss would scrap me for that. I was hoping for some fresh Roach and Swampgrass 2 centuries ago... those delivery boys are gonna catch some hell for this I tell ya, errr... anyway, here's some Choc Choggers to keep your strength up. And you boys head back this way later and I'll fix you up something from the canned goods range."
"BOYS?" Eva protested, and grabbed her boobs, "What do you call these then?"
"Implants." CHEF replied. Eva's face matched her red hair, and Hurricane had to drag her back out into the hall before she unleashed Rei, her Soulcluster.
"Thanks CHEF, catch ya later." Diesel waved as the 9 exited.
"Right, better get cracking on dinner then...."

At that moment, just outside Tech Haven,

The members of JERK's, having left Twilight Guardians behind, were arriving at Tech Haven. The kind Fallen Angels allowed them access. But just as Murkster was about to enter he noticed a Reveller hauling ass across the mountains. Grabbing a scope, he checked who the driver was.
"Guys... isn't that Edwards?"
"Where?" Shadow grabbed another scope and saw for himself, "It is her. Where's she going in such a rush?"
"Only thing in that direction is Regant's Fortress." Elias, representative of Tech Haven said.
"Not the only thing..." .cylon pointed out.
"Seems our visit to Tech Haven has been cut short. JERK's, we're bailing. We make for Neocron this night." Chiphead yelled. They began another forced March, this time south, to alert Neocron that the queen bitch was roaming the wastelands.
"Strange though Shadow," .cylon said as they hurried on, "she's there, but where's her minions?"

Back at Dome of York,

"So Megaman and Cassandra took off together already?" Psycho Killa asked.
"Yes, yesss... er... They had to hurry, but insisted that you follow on. Here, take NUBI along with you and proceed to Regant's Legacy as quick as you can. I shall prep a squad of DeltaGens to follow you." Sid said.
"Okay, NUBI's you're with us. CDV, lets cause some chaos!" They all cheered as only stupid minions can and marched out the gate. The gate closed behind them and none were the wiser. It wasn't till the Defender bots and pop-up turrets opened fire that they realised they were betrayed.
"We are betrayed!" Psycho yelled, and a corpse turned in his grave.
"Yess.... Precious... they must all dies. They will dies, tricksy CDV. CDV never tells anyones the truth. Dome of York is better off without CDV (Big Red Subtitles slam down "HALELUJIAH BROTHER!!!"). Now diess" And thus the battle of the Dome vs. CDV began.

SL-3,

NUTS exited the 2nd stairwell with a degree of difficulty. The stairwell door was magnetically sealed and had to be disabled, but once that was done they entered the Lab section of the Legacy. Immediately they were confronted by turrets bursting from the ceiling and opening fire, all the while the lights going red and a siren going off.
"I'm guessing we're not supposed to be here." Reef pointed out. Warlock and Diesel used Energy Halo's to disable the electrical circuits and trash the turrets. Lisa had caught a few plasma rounds but Eva took care of some quick healing.
"A lot more security on this level." Techi noted to Diesel and Warlock.
"Probably gets worse the lower we go." Diesel opined.
"Weapons out everyone," Warlock called to the rest, "that wasn't too bad, but I think we've just crossed into the part of the facility that actually matters." They armed up. They moved through the different labs, examining the state of everything. The top two floors had been fairly neat and clean, aside from centuries of dust and cobwebs. This floor however was filled with scattered debris and broken windows, and it was not from the turret fire earlier. Many labs showed what appeared to be experiments in progress, and seemed to have been left unattended, as if the scientists had had to run all of a sudden. A few even had dried blood on glass shards.
"Ok, theory time," Reef stopped them mid-march, "why was the Legacy abandoned in the first place?"
"I think we're starting to see some of that. Would explain why this levels stairwell was sealed." Hurricane suggested.
"Ok so something went wrong on this level, and the levels above sealed it off. That would explain why it was clean upstairs, but... where are the skeletons?" And it was true. Though there was chaos and some blood, there were no bodies.
"Maybe everyone on this floor got out and then sealed it?"
"Maybe... lets keep going, I'm curious now." Warlock sneered. He knew all to well the lure of a good exploration.

As they carried on towards the next stairwell, there began to be a theme amongst the labs. The experimentation rooms all had large hermatically sealed chambers with a vial inside, roughly 2 metres high and a metre wide (thats roughly 6 and a half feet by 4 feet for our American readers). What was unnerving was that all the chambers were cracked. The other rooms had boards and displays and notes, each pertaining to a Project they called "The Cells", a project designed to create "an autonomous bio-engineered weapon capable of working in any environment" that could "achieve a state of controlled Mitosis by using any on-hand organic materials". None of those present truly understood what that meant. They only ascertained that it was a living weapon.
"SL-4 is the testing level. If my guess is right, this may be where the problems sourced from. We may be walking into some trouble here folks." Warlock declared. The others gripped their weapons, and they proceeded to SL-4.

Back in Neocron,

The jubilation came to a screeching halt when JERK's, no longer bearing the colours of TG, were escorted by NDA to CityAdmin through the party-goers. The realisation that something was up suddenly hung around their necks like a noose. Reza received Shadow, with a half dozen STORM bots in the room.
"Well Shadow, I'll be more happy to see you once you've signed back up with a city faction."
"And that will happen sir, but I bring news that couldn't wait for that."
"Very well, what is it?"
"Cassandra Edwards has been spotted making great speed towards Regants Legacy."
"WHAT? Who was with her?"
"That was what bothered us sir, she was alone." Reza couldn't have looked more puzzled, when Michael burst into the room.
"Sir, sorry to barge, but we're just getting these images from the Gate of the Dome." He patched through the transmission to the wall monitor. There they saw NUBI and CDV battling against the defenses of the Dome. And then Reza did the impossible and looked more puzzled.
"You're sure Cassandra is on her way to Regants?"
"Yes sir, I am."
"She's gone, CDV and NUBI are fighting the Dome... this is our chance! Gather the troops, we make for the Dome immediately!"
"But sir," Shadow interrupted, "should not someone go after Cassandra?"
"If we take the Dome, then she will have nowhere to go. The Legacy may have another squad of DeltaGens inside, who knows. But if she has no base to work from, nothing she finds in there will do her any good. Gather the troops..."

The Dome,

Sid was sitting back cackling away at his former allies fighting against the defences they had sworn were invincible. To add pain to their woe, Sid had a Warbot carry the Jukebox outside and threw it into their midst, with a song jammed on play. The fighters outside took cover and covered their ears.
"ARRGGGHHH, It's hideous!" One yelled.
"Its monstrous!" Another yelled.
"It's the SPICE GIRLS!!!" Psycho Killa screamed, "curse you Sid and your psychological warfare!!!" And Sid just kept on laughing.

SL-4,

The door showed signs of weaponsfire, which was not what they wanted to see. No lights at all worked on this floor. So the 9 travellers activated their flashlights (or dildo's) and began to walk. Everywhere they found blast damage, bullet casings and electrical scorching. Warlock, taking point, was looking along the path. This was where he was starting to worry. Still they could find no bodies, but now they were finding clothes. Shoes, labcoats, belts, underwear, but no bodies. They walked on a bit more. Warlock noted a rock in the path on the left, so navigated to steer the others away from it. He flashed his light to the right wall, noticing more damage and then back to the left. He stopped. The rock was gone. He looked around quickly and again stopped short. The wall with the damage now appeared a sleek, untarnished black wall. He took a few steps forward. Then stopped again.
"Form a circle, face outwards." He growled. Everyone formed a circle. Warlock pushed Eva into the middle, so they had 8 forming the circle and one on the inside.
"What're we looking for?" Lisa whispered.
"Not a sound." Warlock replied. They strained their ears to the silence, and then they heard it. A faint, soft, rippling sound, like shallow water running over pebbles. They looked around. Eva turned to face the other way and her foot squished in something. Warlock grabbed her arm and pulled them all out, and nodded to Lisa who fired her Pain Easer into the goo. The goo screeched and then rolled off down the corridor.
"What the hell is that?" Reef asked.
"Not time for explanations." Warlock growled again as he Firelanced the wall. The wall peeled away, morphing into a ball and rolled after the other one.
"Target anything thats pure black." He yelled.
"There's no light in here, everything's black." Foyle yelled back.
"Then shoot everything." And they did. To their horror practically every wall, surface, rock and pebble screeched and rolled off down the hall.
"Ok, time to get out of here." Byron suggested. And all would have done so, had the door behind them not been blocked by a giant blob of black goo that was actually growling at them. Warlock, Hurricane and Diesel stepped forward and blasted it with Energy Halo's. It rolled back but otherwise just seemed angry, not hurt.
"Fire?"
"Yes, lets." Fire Halo's came out and they lit it up. It screeched at them and then seemed to lose its form, sliming outwards across the floor.
"Ahhh good, so lets..." and then the goo reformed. It reshaped back into a giant ball.
"Oh give us a break!" Diesel groaned.
"Stand back!" Reef yelled as he and Gully launched Kami-drones at the blob. They impacted and detonated. The ball of goo smattered all over the corridor. No one was going to ask the question. They just waited and watched. And to their dismay, like something out of the movie that Hurricane can't remember the name to, the bits rolled back across the room and reformed. Lisa stepped forward with her Pain Easer, but nearly lost her grip in shock as the goo formed into.... her! It took female form and stood like a mirror image, pointing a Pain Easer made out of goo at them all. And then it fired. Bullets of goo shot out and struck Gully on the arm.
"Arrrggghhh.... its burning! My skin is burning!" He tried to scratch the goo off, but it just began to burn his fingers as well. Warlock, not one to worry about such things, aimed his Firelance at Foyle and set him on fire. The others looked on in dismay, but the goo screeched and fell to the floor, only to roll back across the floor and rejoin Lisa the Goo. Eva put Gully out and healed him.
"So.... run?" Warlock asked. The others nodded. And they ran. Lisa the Goo reformed into a ball and began chasing after them like a giant boulder in an Indiana Jones movie. Whoever could lobbed fire down the hall to slow it down but it was only gaining in strength as it began to merge with the other goo that had been sitting dormant in the corridor. Lisa pulled out a grenade and lobbed it down the hall. It turned out to be a life saver as out of the darkness another giant boulder was rolling towards them. The grenade detonated, blasting that boulder to bits, allowing them just enough time to pass before it added to the mass of the one behind. The stairwell was in sight and they all fired off as much fire damage as they could. Gully reached the door first and swung it open. The others hauled ass through the door and Reef helped Foyle slam it shut and seal it. The boulder crashed into the wall but it held strong.
"Ohhhh crap, I wanna go home." Eva gasped.
"I think we know what The Cells are now." Warlock seethed.
"But that was huge, it looked like way too much to fit into those vials we saw upstairs."
"You're forgetting the other part," Warlock saw they were all looking for an explanation so he gave one, "we were wondering why there were no bodies, and you're wondering why there's more of that goo than could have been in the vials. The one is the answer to the other. The documents upstairs said that The Cells were an autonomous bio-engineered weapon that could achieve mitosis by using on-hand biological material. Now I get it. They use living materials to make more Cells." And it was so. The Cells were designed to be introduced, just a few microscopic cells at a time, to the Dome populace. They would then slowly ingest biological material; food, rats, peoples skin, and then multiply. And they would continue multiplying till they reached a point where they could attack an entire person and overwhelm them, and then use them to multiply further. And from there it was exponential. However, as history proved, the Dome was not the target The Cells ended up attacking. Before any genetic conditioning could be done to inhibit The Cells from attacking their creators, they broke free from a Testing room, just a few microscopic cells at a time. They hid as dust, as pipes, as anything they wanted to be till they were strong enough to overpower a guard, and from there... the rest was history.

"What do we do then? The exit is that way." said Byron.
"We have more grenades and kami drones, we could fight our way back to the exit, seal it up and get out of here." Lisa suggested.
"It would take time to get past the door when we re-open it. They'll be on the other side. We'd have to prepare." Reef explained. They were about to begin to prepare when Warlock started pushing them down the stairs.
"What?"
"This stairwell isn't sealed, look!" And they saw that, just a few specks of dust at a time, The Cells were coming through an air vent overhead. The nine ran like Carl Lewis on Vitamin Supplements.

Outzone Station,

"You know the mission, move out and end this war before it begins!!!" Reza had one good trait, his corny, uplifting speeches did the trick. Fired up, the forces of Neocron set out in whatever vehicles they could muster towards the Dome to destroy all they found there. At their current speed they would arrive in 90 minutes.

The Dome again,

CDV were being pressed further and further back. They had destroyed the Jukebox but Sid had upped the odds by releasing a wave of BETA Warbots against them. Things were not looking good.

Just outside Regants Legacy,

Cassandra skidded to a halt, crushing a Slimeworm in her wake. She saw footprints heading in and knew that NUTS were already inside. She walked to a nearby boulder, and dusted off a few rocks. She then tapped her finger in a sequence, and the boulder lifted up to reveal an elevator door that opened for her. She stepped inside, and it descended.

SL-5,

The Nine quickly remembered that this level was Command and Control. They ran towards the main room and entered it, closing the door as best they could.
"This won't buy us long." Hurricane panted.
"I know, but even a little time is better than none." Warlock leaned up against the glass, feeling his energy draining fast. Hope had apparently decided to pitch a tent on SL-2 and let them go on ahead.
"Guys, look at this! There's a way out if we go down!" Reef exclaimed. The others all looked at him. Apparently Hope had caught up at last.
"These blueprints show an emergency elevator for Command Personnel on SL-7. It goes all the way to the surface!"
"Why only Command personnel?" Lisa asked.
"Well they're the only one's with access to SL-7."
"So either we need enough firepower to get past the doors or we need an access key." Byron determined.
"Seems like." Reef said.
"Hey look," Eva jumped up, "SL-7 Access key, its right here!" She reached for the black card on the desk, but Foyle grabbed her arm just in time, as the card became a claw and tried to grab her. A concentrated Fire Beam from Diesel saw the blob of goo cooked to perfection. It was solid this time, so they threw it down the corridor.
"Seems energy pisses them off, fire can bake them and slow them down and bullets don't do squat." Diesel groaned.
"And considering the notes upstairs, since they're designed for all regions, I doubt radiation is gonna work either." Techi noted.
"So its explosives all the way." Reef grabbed his Missile Drone.
"Ok, this is helpful. SL-6 is sealed off from 5. So they're not below this level. If we get there we can seal these black boogers up here and just head for the elevator." Warlock got up and the others followed. With Hope back alongside, they walked back into the main corridor. That was when the wall behind them erupted and a tidalwave of The Cells burst forth. It was running time again. Everyone who had fire started lobbing it behind them. They ran as if they were EGOS down that corridor. As they saw the end, there was a door. Foyle was about to sprint forward to open it for them when Lisa grabbed a grenade from her belt and hurled it forward. The door morphed backwards and then catapulted the grenade back at them. They dived out of the way and it shot into the approaching mass, exploding and stopping its advance. The three APU monks let loose with fire and cooked the rubbery door, and another grenade removed it from their path. The nine charged through and went into the stairwell, sealing the gate and The Cells behind them.

The Dome,

The Forces of Neocron arrived to see the beaten members of CDV still struggling for their lives. Old rivalries were set aside as the forces linked together to engage the Dome. Yet Sid did not open the gates to dispatch any more units. 2 squads of BETA Warbots and a few turrets were all that was still defending against hundreds of well armed runners. Within half an hour the bots were no more and the forces of Neocron marched on the gate. They only hesitated when Sid's voice burst from a loudspeaker.
"Wells...Precious, they comes. All the peoples of Neocron's they does. To takes our homes aways from usss...Yesss. Go now, leave Precious alone!"
"Sid? Open up in the name of Neocron. Do it now or we'll kick that door and your ass up your throat." Zane Shadowfall had been up front in the assault, and his words pleased his fellow fighters.
"Ohhh dears, how politely this ones asks. Wells then we must not be rude, Precious. No, we will sings him a rhyme!"
"Just how many times did your parents drop you on your head? I know Drom's don't have arms, but come on..." Zane joked. Again the others laughed.
"Roses are Red,
Violets Are Blue.
If I drop this Bomb,
Whats that make you?" Sid sang to them. They stopped laughing. A port on a mountain behind the Dome opened up and the warhead of a short range missile poked out. Reluctantly, the Forces of Neocron took CDV into custody and withdrew from the Dome.

SL-6,

Having sealed The Cells away again, NUTS took a break to enjoy the snacks they had been given.
"Thanks CHEF." was about all they could say as they chowed down on 190 year old chocolate. It was actually pretty good.
Once their energy returned they moved on, and there they found the Armoury. Not ones to assume anything, they geared back up on grenades and any other explosive weapons they could find. Then they marched on through the Sixth Circle. They reached the stairwell and descended once more.
"How deep are we anyway?" Reef asked.
"I'd say we're a mile down." Gully replied.
"What makes you say that?"
"Just a guess. See the rocks they carved the stairwells out of when we're in the stairwells? Thats seriously compressed rock. If we're not a mile down, then I'm not a geologist."
"You're not a geologist." Diesel remarked.
"Ah well...."

They emerged into SL-7 to find a maximum security gate in front of them. To their considerable joy, they found two dead bodies. One was dressed in a Scientist jacket, he had a SL-7 passcard in his hand. The other was a Security Guard with a gun in hand. From what they could determine, the Scientist had made it this far with a stolen card and was trying to gain access to the emergency elevator. The Guard, who probably didn't know what was going on up above, had shot him. Unfortunately, when SL- 5 was sealed off, he was trapped, and being a Security Guard he did not know about the Emergency elevator. Hence he had starved to death alongside the scientist whom he shot; ironically the one man who could have saved his life. The members of NUTS, not taking any chances, checked around for any black surfaces, just in case their theory about the deaths was accurate. But the fact that the bodies had not been processed was fairly convincing proof. They used the card and gained access to SL-7. Lisa, overjoyed to be getting out of the hellhole, stepped through first and was promptly shot for her eagerness by the awaiting Cassandra.

The Dome again,

Sid, elated with his scare tactic to get rid of Neocron's assault force, overjoyed at having taken the mighty Megaman out and over the moon at now being the Lord of the Dome, decided to call Cassandra and share his good fortune.

And back to SL-7,

Lisa's wound was a uranium round to the shoulder. Eva would have taken care of it in an instant, but could not make a move with Cassandra there. The nine stood and glared at the Queen Bitch of the Wastelands.
"My my, you made it all the way down here, I'm impressed. I'd often thought of coming inside to find out about the suprise that Regant left in here, but hadn't had the time. Though as you can see, I know an easier way down." Cassandra smirked.
"There's 9 of us and only one of you. What makes you think you've won?" Reef growled
"Because CDV and 2 squads of DeltaGens will be here in the next two minutes. Lay a finger on me and you'll never survive this. Under the circumstances I'll be generous and just have you removed from my property. Consider it an act of charity."
"Your property? You just said you'd never been in here."
"True, but I am the only one who knows WHAT is in here."
"You mean you WERE the only one. We know about The Cells now." Reef looked her hard in the eyes. He wasn't sure if he should be happy about the fact she looked confused.
"What ever are you talking about... I'm talking about this behind me." And she pointed to a massive machine. It was a giant pump station, with 6 pistons channelled into the ground. At the top of each piston was an impact hammer to drive the pistons down. Reef looked noticably worried.
"What is it?"
"A Seismic Wavefront Generator. I believe you know what that means." The horrified look on Reef's face told her he did. Reef had been able to study many parts of the Ceres Discs, and this was one part that had chilled his mind and soul.
"No... it can't be, you can't use it... not the SWG!! SWG will be the death of all Neocron!!" (Big Red Subtitles slam down "SAY IT AIN'T SO!!!") "We have to stop her!" The others went to charge her.
"With the press of this button, I can destroy the entire city of Neocron and everyone in it. One more step, and I will." Cassandra leaned over a big yellow button on the control panel. They stopped. All of a sudden Cassandra's communicator sprung to life.
"Cassssandra." Sid called.
"Yes? Sid where are my troops, the should have arrived by now."
"Your troopsss are now my troops. Your mother is now gone. I control the Domes, yes Preciousss... You loses!!" Cassandra went pale.
"YOU SON OF A DROM!!!"
"Don't speaks bitchesss... I woulds be findings somewhere to hides if I's was u. Cause I R L337 Precious.. I ROXXOR UR BALLZ!!! YESSS!!" Cassandra smashed her communicator to the ground. With tears in her eyes and vengeance in her heart, she slammed her fist down on the button and the pistons shot at a speed beyond that of sound deep into the earth. The ground split, the earth shook and the walls shuddered.

Neocron,

The first of the troops were returning, downcast. Reza took the news that Sid now controlled the Dome as good and bad. He knew Sid would launch a war, but at least he was not Cassandra. Cassandra knew every dirty trick Neocron could pull, Sid was just genocidal. He was about to head for his office when the entire city quaked. Windows shattered, walls broke, but the city stood.

Tech Haven, Twilight Guardians, Military Base and Dome of York,

Everywhere felt a massive and resounding earthquake. Walls broke, foundations weakened, but the cities remained.

SL-7,

Giant cracks in the walls formed and the entire facility felt like it was a deck of cards. Cassandra looked around her in dismay; something had not gone right.
"Why?? Just let me have my vengeance!! WHY!!!" Only she knew to whom she was screaming, she and him. But her scream for vengeance turned to just a scream, as a giant blob of pure black goo oozed out of a fizzure in the ceiling and her very flesh was stripped away.
"Time to leave?" Warlock turned to the others.
"Yeah." They all nodded. And they all ran. They ran for the elevator and boarded it. The goo was too busy mealing down on the late Cassandra Edwards to pursue them and they travelled 1.3 miles back to the surface (Gully got a pat on the back for that). When they reached the surface, they smashed the controls to the elevator.
"Well at least The Cells are stuck down there." Hurricane breathed a sigh of relief, and they set course back to Neocron to see the damage. Warlock however stood and looked on in despair at Regants Legacy. For there was a giant crack that had opened up and had allowed the nearby river to flood into the facility. And sure enough: The water around the facility had turned a pitch black colour.

Reza's Office

The Nine reported in, not too happy to be standing in the same office with JERK's but under the circumstances they said nothing.
"So, what was that?" Reza asked.
"Poisoning the wells." Reef replied.
"Excuse me?" Shadow looked at him funny.
"Cassandra unleashed the SWG mechanism. The theory is that you create a tectonic shockwave that will destroy a small city. However, what she didn't realise is that that technology is supposed to be mobile, a small one piston device. The one in the Legacy had 6 stationary pistons."
"So what did it do?" Reza asked, now physically showing signs of concern.
"As I said, it poisoned the wells. Back in ancient times, if an attacking force looked like it was going to take your town, you abandoned it, but you poisoned the wells so that the land was unusable. It's the ultimate act of spite. Regant designed this machine along the same lines. If Neocron had ever been close to losing the Ceres War he would have used it," Everyone looked at him even more intensely, "I had seismic analyses done. The device has begun a chain reaction. As we know at the end of the 3rd World War, a great deal of tectonic shifting took place, completely altering the face of our world. The SWG device is designed to accelerate that tectonic chaos so that the planets crust will rip itself to pieces."
"How bad can it get."
"It couldn't get any worse. The planets tectonic plates will crush each other. All land masses will be destroyed and ultimately our entire planet is going to fall apart from the inside out. It's Armageddon." Everyone took a long silence.
"How long?" Reza was the first to speak.
"Our estimate is 365 days." Byron answered.
"So, we have 1 year to either figure out how to stop this, or to find a way off the planet." Shadow looked gloomy.
"Yes. I don't think this should be kept under wraps. If the people know, maybe they'll be more motivated to work to a solution." Michael suggested.
"Agreed. I'll spread the word in a few hours. Thank you gentlemen. I'm sure you could all use some rest. We have a long year ahead of us." They departed from his office.
"Great," Eva sighed, "one year to either revive the entire space program to a point its never been before, or stop an entire planet from shaking apart. Well here's my bright side. Things couldn't possibly get any worse..." And Warlock clenched his teeth.

D minus 365 days.

Until next time...
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Postby Orwain » Tue Dec 06, 2005 4:32 am

NERD Issue # 041

What The Hell Is Going On?

A lot has happened these past few months. Where once there was a Neocron where almost nothing happened, now there is a countdown to Armageddon. Where once there were 12 factions , now there are twelve factions, numerous warring clans an a genocidal lunatic in charge of the worlds largest army talking to himself. It can be a little confusing, so lets take a moment to recap just what directly the funky munky is going on...

The City of Neocron:

This place is the centre of all hate. Everyone and their pet Warbot is heading here to beat the doors down, slaughter the populace and pull Reza's head from his shoulders to use as a chip 'n' dip serving bowl for their next coctail party. Reza is still in charge but he's holding on by a very thin thread. The city has survived an all out assault by Dome of York through the use of two Cold Fusion missiles, a sabotage attempt by Cassandra Edwards directed to the main power grid and a planetary earthquake triggered by the same Miss Edwards. The city has stood the test of time not by the strength of its leadership but by the strength of its people. The recent additions of the Mech's and FireWreathes to its arsenal have helped stem the destruction, although less successful inventions like the X-borgs have done plenty to undo that success. Only time will tell if the city will survive.

The Dome of York:

Still a mystery to most. The average runner can only hear the name and wonder, when can I go there? (Big Red Subtitles slam down "WHEN??? WHEN???"). It has gone through some serious leadership changes of late. First it was led by a guy in serious need of a tan who took his orders from a growling voice over a comm channel. He obviously had a lot of faith, since every time someone with a deep voice calls me over the link its because they want rough sweaty butt-sex or are part of some neo-mutant cult... I need an unlisted apartment... anyway. Once this moron of faith was deposed by plasma, Cassandra Edwards, assited by CDV and NUBI took over. She lasted a few weeks, generally gloating and scheming and plotting a lot of revenge. Some people need to just join a club or something... maybe take up knitting, I hear its very therapeutic. However, the Day of the Quake saw Cassandra, well, turned into a light snack by The Cells (more on them later). As a result, Insidious Wolf (or Sid) and his Precious (don't ask) are now the joint leaders of the Dome (hooray). The Dome does possess a lot of short range defensive weapons and the most powerful land based army ever assembled. Should the Dome ever put forth its hand in the pursuit of war again, Neocron will be supremely lucky to survive the experience.

Twilight Guardians:

Its still a craphole. I mean come on lets face it. Its essentially the kind of place that would have been used as a landfill 700 years ago. But despite its fungus, dust and the smell of over-worn socks, TG is still home to some of the most militant freaks we've ever seen. JERK's called it home once upon a time, but it didn't last. They never really fit in, so they went back home to Neocron and to Tangent Technologies. This has left TG in the hands of a few major clans and a handful of unclanned runners. The main story of Neocrons fate has not involved TG very much, but that is soon to change.

Tech Haven:

The big blue sterile hole in the ground. You often feel like you walked into a medical lab, except in a lab you'd actually find people. Our story began there, with the war of ASS, SODOM and NUBI battling it out. But that war moved to new locations, and for the longest time Tech Haven has been deserted. Now however, life has begun to spring back into it. Fallen Angels has been the long time home of DarK, who will very soon enter the great wheels of this story, and of TecH, who have risen and fallen and risen in power too times to be counted. What part they will play in the coming storm, only time will tell. For now, they can continue to stare at their hypnotically blue walls, and wonder about the greatest question of all time: Would Tech Haven suit pastels?

Military Base:

The Military Base has also not featured much into our story. This is essentially because a.) our story has always rushed past them and b.) it is not their time. The Base was besieged many months ago and was overrun by Dome of York forces, but was then retaken in the same day. The rebuild was slow but successful. Since that time, none have dared to cross paths with the Mercs. But a time may soon come for the Mercs to step up and show their worth.

NUTS:

Formerly known as ASS (Against System Shock) until the destruction of their clan by ReefSmoker handing over the clan key in a duped (or doped) state to Shadow. They reformed under the banner of NEXT for many months and have fought in all the battles. They were in the battle for Neocron against the forces of Dome of York, they helped stop the battalion of DeltaGens in the battle against the traitor Cassandra, and lost a good man stopping the sabotage of the reactors of Neocron when McDanish met perma-death. His obvious statements have been sorely missed.
They also were the first to discover The Cells, the latest terror to rampage the Wastelands, and were witnesses to Cassandra dooming the planet when she activated the SWG machine.
The members and numbers of NUTS have gone all over the place. The likes of Jonavan, Deo, Crono and Trillian have moved on or disappeared, whereas others like Lisa, Reef, Hurricane, Warlock and Eva have remained. Though not the most powerful clan ever, it is filled with perhaps the most unlikely crew of people ever brought together by strange circumstance. Say what you will about them, but they're just nutty enough to be interesting.

JERK's:

Formerly SODOM (we don't really know what it stands for), they have relentlessly pursued a war with ASS/NUTS for as long as the Pluto realm has existed. This raging war between the two has been well documented and the reasons explored. At first it seemed that the cause was simply a territorial fight over Soliko and Eastgate, but further investigation turned up some traumatising incidents in their childhood including stolen weed, breast implants and an assortment of other tales you can look up on your own. Whether the war between these two will ever end is yet to be seen. But rest assured, they both have a part to play in the coming year.

NUBI:

Dead and buried. This was never really a clan. It was Sid surrounded by no name weenies who thought it was cool to be around a guy who talks to himself. After Sid had the guns of DoY attack his former clan, I don't think they're gonna find it so cool anymore.

CRC:

What the hell happened to these guys? The Corpse [censored by KK] Canadians seem to have disappeared off the face of the Plutonian Earth. And I had such high hopes for them too...

EGOS:

For guys who are supposed to just watch and fix things they do an exceeding amount of meddling don't they? Especially those 1st Circle guys... They should all be shot, courtmarshalled and sent to the Yorkist front, not necessarily in that order (except Laemin, he's nice, he should be made President). The 2nd Circle EGOS are not in this story much, and there's a reason for that. 2nd Circle guys are actually the ones who do all the work, and get very little of the credit. I suppose I should do a tribute story to them.... nahh. I prefer making them look like pants thieves wink.gif

The DEVS:

The enigmatic creators and destroyers of the world around us. Their agenda is dictated by the Power That Is: MJS. Their motive is unclear, but their methods are harsh. One can only hope that through the turmoil, they will live up to their motto of "Building Better Worlds".

NERD Editor:

The hardest working, and worst paid writer in the history of humanity. Broke his fingers around Issue 7 so had them replaced with steel plated matchsticks for easy key pressage. Must really invest in voice recognition software.... Ah well. His Mission: To Entertain. His Motive: To be recognised as a source of entertainment. His Goal: To cause the Mods pain.

MODS:

Gluttons for punishment

Odin:

The King to the Realm of Gluttons for Punishment, but makes a kickass Cheeze Sandwich with Roach legs.

The Cells:

An ammoral killing machine. Everything it kills makes it stronger and so far no weapon can make them weaker. They are coming, and what change they will bring, only I know for sure wink.gif

So, sit right back and I'll tell you a tale, a tale of fun and war,
Cause after all, my loyal NERDs, you always ask for more.
Of Armageddon, Sid and death, of balls of pitch black slime,
But all of this will, I's sorry to say, will wait Until Next Time...
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Postby Orwain » Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:02 pm

NERD Issue # 042

The CEO Device

D minus 364 days

"All by myself.... don't wanna be... All By MYSELFF... just need ta be... ALL BY MYSELF... Duet with Precious... ALL BY MYSELF..." 24 hours after evicting everyone from Dome of York and Sid was starting to feel the isolation. Having already sung 18 verses of Henry the 8th, dropping 998 bottles off the wall and having named ever spitwad on the ceiling of his cell, Sid had resorted to duets with Precious. It was not a pleasant experience.

After the duets timing wore off (Precious is a bit tone deaf you see) Sid began patrolling the halls. After that he went to inspect the sleeping DeltaGens. After that he updated his diary for the day (the entire page was covered in the word BORING).

And then he snapped...

He took control of two Defender bots outside and threw a giant ball in between. He then began playing a giant game of Pong with them. When that got boring he started lobbing short range missiles at a nearby cliff, trying to draw a smiley face in it. And when the smiley face turned into a Picasso he started twiddling his thumbs.

And then, at the absolute moment of desperation, when Sid had picked up a bucket of paint, dolloped some on the wall and was getting comfortable to watch it dry, MJS appeared.

"SID!!!" He thundered. The walls shook, the heavens groaned and the sky's darkened. Sid turned to look at him.
"Shhhhh" He then went back to looking at the paint. MJS was naturally dumbfounded. He then kicked Sid in the back of the head and got his attention.
"Okay fine, who are you and why do you want to die so badly?" Sid started reaching for his Holy Pestilence.
"I am The Creator!!!"
"Okay Mr. The Creator, time to die now." And Sid engulfed him in poison. MJS just shook his head in total disbelief and shrugged the poison off. Sid was unamused.
"Oh a tough guy eh? Well put em up!" And Sid put his fists up for a fist fight. MJS raised a single index finger and touched Sid on the chest. He flew through 3 walls and ended up in a poorly cleaned latrine. Then with a snap of his fingers the defiled Sid re-appeared in front of him.
"Dude... you suck."
"SILENCE!!!!" MJS raged. Precious whispered in Sid's ear and he shut up.
"I am MJS," finally Sid understood, "for decades the ruler of Dome of York has served me. As you have quite convincingly seized power, I offer you the same opportunity. Serve me and your power shall grow tenfold. Defy me and watching paint dry will be a welcome break to the misery you shall endure."
"Hmn... so whats the pay like?" MJS sent him back to the latrine for a while. When he returned:
"Okay, geez, not the joke loving type are ya?"
"I'm talking to you aren't I?" (MJS 1, Sid zip)
"May I have a week to think on your offer?" Sid asked.
"I shall grant you this request. I will return this time next week for your answer." MJS turned to go. Sid suddenly spotted a device in the back pocket of MJS's Armani Powerarmour. Just before he vanished, he lunged forward and snatched it out and then MJS was gone.

And so it was that Sid was left all alone with the CEO device. He looked at the long title on the top "Cease Every Operation" and thought on that for...oh... 1 millionth of a second. Cause at that point he noticed it had a big Red Button. His eyes bugged, his mouth watered, and his finger dived for the button. Then he convulsed and with an invisible hand tried to pull his finger away
"Must.... push ... Da ... BUTTON!!!"
"No, no don't push, could be bad!"
"But its big and RED. It Must Be PUSHED!!!"
"It could have terrible effects!!"
"Since when do big Red Buttons do anything bad??" (Big Red Subtitles Slam Down "DUMBEST STATEMENT EVER!!!")
"Hmn... can't argue with that statement." (Big Red Subtitles Slam Down "WE SPOKE TOO SOON!!") And then his finger crashed into the red button and an almost orgasmic look overtook his face. And then the device disapeared. Sid looked at his hands, then he looked at the ceiling as it vanished. Then the walls as they vanished. Then the rest of the city was gone.

In fact, everyone began to have the same problem. Screams resounded as the floor disappeared and people fell through the landscape. Gogo's disappeared, inventory's vanished and a giant void consumed the world.

Alternate Universe: Saturn

Betty stands on the top of Soliko as the world starts vanishing from the bottom up.
"I don't get paid enough for this sh..." he vanished without a trace.

Alternate Universes: Jupiter, Venus and Urarse...err.. Uranus

The worlds crumbled and collapsed as the void consumed them all.

What had happened? The CEO Device has the ability, with the touch of a button (after all if you're going to end all existence, you should be able to do it with an easy press button) to shut down the SERVERS (Society's in Electronic Reality Vying for Ego, Respect and Sex) and thus destroy the very reality we live in.

And that my friends is where the horror started...

Chris opened his eyes very slowly. It was quite difficult for some reason. He then tried to uncrouch by extending his legs same as always, but this didn't seem to do anything. When his eyes finally opened he realised he was lying on the ground. Panicked that he had died he looked around for a monk to ressurect him, but he was in a zone that was totally unfamiliar to him. He tried to get a lock on a Generep but could not find the etherial interface. He wanted to scream... and he did... and suddenly feared that CheapLoveMotel would Temp Kick him for talking while dead, but no EGOS boot of doom was forthcoming. He couldn't understand this, when he tried to move.. and could! With great difficulty he managed to get to his feet.
"What is this? Did I lom my agility? Gravity seems to be worse... Ugh I feel like I've got 99% synaptic impairment"
"Chris? Is that you moving around? Get your lazy ass downstairs, your mother's going shopping and you can help." A voice yelled.
"Mother? Wha???" With considerable agony, he hobbled down the stairs. Two faces, only slightly familiar greeted him.
"Oh my, how long have you been at it this time?" the female responded. She looked like a Private Eye but seemed to have a more detailed appearance.
"I tell you, he just doesn't know when to stop. Well some fresh air will do you good. Off you go." the burly male responded. He had the build of a GenTank, but not the vacant dumbass look.
"Ok, I'll just get my anti radiation armour." Chris replied.
"Heh, nice try son, but time for a dose of reality." Chris decided to follow the Private Eye out the door, rather than ask what the Tank meant by that. The woman stepped out the door and he followed on. Suddenly he was struck with an indescribable pain and fell to the ground in agony.
"ARRGGHHHH It BURNNSS!!!!"
"What?"
"That!! That Evil Lightbulb in the sky!! It Burns!!!"
"Oh dear, you really need to stop this. You'd think you'd never been exposed to natural light before, although the way you play thats almost the truth."

Chris walked for some time through the unfamiliar city landscape. As he walked he could only wonder... is this some Dome of York trick?

They reached a 'Supermarket' and the 'mother' figure began loading a trolley with items. Never before had Chris been in a store with such selection. He did wonder where the weapons vendors were, but was impressed nonetheless. After what seemed like days they reached the npc's who were suprisingly animated, although their dialogue was just as repetitive as ever.
"That'll be $32.98 thank you." the female npc asked. Chris leaned forward to open a trade window by touching the npc's chest and was promptly bitchslapped.
"I'm experiencing a sensation altogether new to me. And frankly, I Love It!" Chris responded (Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Move, Copyright, pay up!!!). His mother apologised for his behavior, successfully initiated trade and then directed him to remind him that this is why he doesn't have a girlfriend, although the female npc seemed to be turning a shade of red. The Mother figure told him to carry the goods. He added them to inventory and tried to walk.
"Arggghhhh... what am I a Monk? My Free Load is gone! I can barely walk."
"Oh for goodness me dear, go to the gym once in a while." His mother took some of the bags and they walked on.

Later that day, as the lightbulb in the sky began to go away, Chris was sitting at his HomeTerm, feeling the after effects of his strange Wasteland hike with such low Free load. He had been coated in a strange fluid which The Mother had called sweat. He felt so strange and confused. Nothing made sense anymore. And his Hometerm was of no help at all. It just kept displaying this 'Synchronising' message.

3 days later...

Chris was in absolute agony. His stomach was turned inside out. He had gotten hungry 2 days ago so had gone to the alley, killed a rat (which was suprisingly small) with a breadknife (obviously not double sharpened) and had eaten its Big Flesh. Ever since then his stomach had been in revolt against him. This had never happened before. Flesh was supposed to heal you not poison you like an angry Swamp Shaman.

As the pain finally started to subside (The Father had handed him some protopharma goodies called Paracetamol) he looked at the Hometerm. It had changed to display a 'Login Screen'. Curious, Chris activated this screen and it moved to a Universe selector.
"Pluto... 172" He clicked Enter, and miraculously it moved to a mugshot screen where he could see a picture of himself. There was an arrow over his face and Chris tried to move the plastic rat but it clicked and the screen changed again.

And then there was Neocron.

Sid stood in terror at the nightmarish vision he had just had, much the same as that of Chris and the rest of the world. He threw the device to the ground and went to shiver in the corner.

We should all fear the CEO Device. When misused it casts us all into 'The Real World' a terrifying place where nothing works like it should. Let us all hope it never happens again...

Until next time...
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Postby Orwain » Tue Dec 06, 2005 3:29 pm

NERD Issue # 043

Indiana Zane and The Mofo's of Gloom

D minus 363 days.

With the sense of dread in the air about the worlds imminent doom, spirits were at an all time low (even lower than when Betty had done a complete rendition of all of Britney Spears' songs and remixes). Using their incredible Spidersense ... err... their incredible Sixth Sense (N'ed suddenly senses the Copyright police heading to his door)... their highly evolved intuition, the EGOS decided that the populace needed a pick-me-up. Thus, they declared an event. This was of course a huge deal for the populace since, after all, events in Neocron were few and far between (Big Green Subtitles from Event GM's slam down "LAEMIN YOU'RE A DEAD MAN!!!).

Perhaps the best known instigator of events, a member of the First Circle of EGOS and all round good looker, is ZeroSanity. In this instance, Zero had decided to hold a cross-wasteland Reveller Race. All competitors were to use Revellers. They could have a driver and a gunner. The race would then begin at Jerriko Fortress. It began the moment Zero would announce their first location and the competitors would race to that location where they would receive directions to the next point in the race and so on until they reached their final unknown destination. The use of violence was acceptable, but both members of the team had to remain in the vehicle. With the rules announced, all the competitors took their positions. Zane Shadowfall of Phoenix Inc. had opted not to have a gunner, but to go it alone. All other competitors were armed and ready.
"Drivers are you set?" Zero yelled with his EGOS vocal power (hence he was heard a whopping 50 feet away). They acknowledged that they were.
"Gunners are you prepared?" The sound of gunfire into the air answered that one.
"Then drivers... your destination is..."

We won't bore you with the details of the race. After all, commentators are just glorified McDanish's (e.g. they just state the obvious). So instead, we go to the best seats in the house for their commentary on the race.

"Noo, get that freakn cloud out of the way. Move... MOVE!!! I can't see the damn race!" Laemin screamed at a cloud that was now hovering over the race. So much for the best seats.
"Dude, relax, have some sushi." MoonUnit offered. Laemin turned to look at him strangely, but he lifted up a small platter with sushi on it. Laemin just raised an eyebrow.
"Never fear, I'll deal with this!" CheapLoveMotel glanced over the edge of the Higher Plain and hauled out his NERF cannon and took aim at the cloud. Terrified at the possible results, Laemin tackled CLM, only for the cannon to fire and knock Moon's sushi out of his hand and over the edge. Moon was about to get angry, but fortunately Penzius, the current serving boy, brought him another plate. The other 2nd Circle EGOS were sitting on Apparent Chairs looking down on the race. Critter and Carbonite entered the Higher Plain and took over Laemin's space on the couch.
"So who's winning?" Carbonite asked.
"Dunno, but Moon just cost someone the race!" Excelsior answered. Everyone peered down to see why. Moon's sushi had fallen from on high, achieved terminal velocity and smashed into the windscreen of ReefSmoker's Reveller. Reef just looked at his car, looked at the sushi now splattered all over him, looked up, took one guess as to what just happened, and decided now was a good enough time for a spliff as any.
"Bahahaha. When Moon gets sushi, the result is some smashed up NUTS!" Mercuri giggled.
"Oh har har, it is to laugh," Moon replied, "Why don't you do something useful and turn into a chair so Laemin can sit down." Mercuri continued laughing, until he suddenly became a chair and Laemin sat down on him.
"Damn... why am I always on the ass end of all jokes?" Mercuri whined.
"Who are you calling a joke?" Laemin growled. Merc considered shutting up, but all of a sudden Penzius brought over a plate of Nacho's and a bowl of brocolli.
"Noooooooo...." he whimpered.
"Woah strange, NDA and JERK's are kicking each others asses. You'd think both being Tangent they'd work together." said PlasmaStorm.
"Pah, you know JERK's and NDA, if there's a prize up for grabs or something rare to be had, there's no lengths they won't go to in order to get it." Critter replied.
"Woah, wait a minute guys!" Lupus yelled, "they're coming up to the zoning line!" All the EGOS fell into a hush to see the greatest spectacle.

For those of you that don't know, a 'zoning line' is the anomaly that exists throughout the world. Long ago the world was mapped by great explorers, then it was revealed in greater detail by the use of GPS satellites. Some time after that, in order to assist in global positioning, the Federation launched satellites that would beam a low frequency energy pattern on the face of the planet in a grid pattern. This grid would then allow any electronic device to be able to know what grid it was in, and to give the user their location to within a few inches. However, during World War 3, these satellites were damaged, and as a result, they now beam a high frequency interference energy pattern onto the planet. The result of this is that anyone trying to cross from one grid to another must undergo the ordeal of 'zoning'.

The lead car was being driven by Lisa Davitt and KramerTheWeird. Closely behind them was Evangelion and Vain and behind them was Zane Shadowfall. Lisa and Kramer braced themselves and ploughed straight into the zoning line. The others followed in. Immediately they were sucked into a tunnel of light and colour. A strange high pitch whistle began playing some obscure themesong as they charged down the tunnel.
"Honey, Look out!" Kramer yelled. Lisa looked up and swerved quickly to avoid crashing into a blue Police box as it came floating past. She then swerved again as a bunch of of big trashcans with toilet plungers sticking out of the side yelling "EXTERMINATE" all the time came flying past. They breathed a sigh of relief, but it was too soon. They looked up and screamed as a giant neon word crashed into their windscreen and drew them off course. The neon 'Synchronising' logo was the greatest obstacle when crossing a zoning line. If anyone got struck by the Synchronising logo, you were in trouble.

Evangelion and Vain came screaming into the tunnel next. They narrowly avoided the police box, and Vain opened fire on the bubbletop trashcans, and with some amazing swerves, Eva dodged the Synchronising screen. But all of a sudden, the second worst obstacle was upon them. Up ahead the tunnel split into two branches. At the intersection was a roadsign that simply said 'Albequerque'.
"Oh no, I can never remember this part. Which way? Left or right?" Eva yelled.
"Right." Vain yelled. Eva swerved right and they ploughed out of the tunnel.
The Reveller materialised on the other side of the zoning line and the two breathed a sigh of relief. But then Vain looked up and just a few metres away he could see the EGOS sitting there looking at them funnily.
"What are you guys doing down here?" Vain asked.
"Look down and ask us that question." Ayreon replied. Vain and Eva looked down, and screamed as the distant ground approached them rapidly.
"I knew we should've taken that left turn at Albequerque!" Eva screamed. The Reveller smashed into the mountainside around Tech Haven and the occupants were killed. They generepped back to Neocron, only to be met by lawyers from the Estate of the Warner Brothers, wishing to discuss the unauthorised use of one of their catch-phrases.

Meanwhile, back in the light show tunnel, Zane cruised along completely oblivious to any dangers around him. He had one hand on the steering wheel, another gripped around a Warbot Cola, and had 'The Funky Chicken' blaring out of his speakers at full volume. Without realising it he took the left turn and emerged on the other side of the zoning line in first position. He then cruised on to the next target.

"Dude, Zero does a good job, this is a pretty good race," Moon replied, "want some popcorn?" He offered it to Ayreon who accepted.
"Ack... man, the butter tastes like its gone off." He spat out.
"Yeah.... the butter... that's it..." Moon looked shifty and edged away. Ayreon looked down at the popcorn and began yelling with a thunderous roar.

"Hmn... sounds like Thunder, better hurry." Zane thought to himself.

The race ended and Zane won (like you didn't see that one coming). Excitedly he received his prize from ZeroSanity.
"Here you go Zane, a completely unique set of items!" Zane nearly creamed himself as he received his... cowboy hat and bullwhip?? The look of bewilderment was priceless. Zero just looked innocent and disappeared. A few onlookers chuckled away at Zane's crappy prize. Zane felt jipped. What was he going to do with a hat and bullwhip?

For several day's Zane pondered what his prize might be useful for. At long last he came to the conclusion that there was only one way to find this out and that was to try them out in various scenarios. He donned the hat and thought to himself "well its at least a change from the normal wardrobe around here" as he looked at the depressing selection in his outfitter. He then shoved the Bullwhip in his hand and zoned to Plaza 1.

He stood in Plaza 1 and found Spanky. Spanky had stiffed Zane on the bill for a few weapons last week, and since then had been hiding under the protection of the copbots in Plaza 1. Zane wondered if maybe the whip could be used there anyway. He found Spanky and went to raise his whip but suddenly a strange Spy with a big beard ran over and waved a hand in front of his face.
"You don't want to raise that whip."
"I don't want to raise this whip." Zane looked blank.
"You want to leave and play Star Wars Galaxy."
"I want to leave and play.... hey wait a minute, I'm not THAT weak minded. Who in their right mind would play that buggy ass piece of (CENSORED)." Zane glared up and realised he was being mindtricked by the LUCASbot, an infiltrator that had been sent to weaken the minds of Neocron's faithful with flashy images and hollow promises. Zane sucked in the air and yelled at the top of his voice
"SHENANIGANS!!!!" All the copbots looked over at Zane, put away their copbot rifles and pulled out their brooms. The LUCASbot could only look on helplessly as the Copbots beat it to death with their brooms... slowly.

His experiment in plaza 1 failed, Zane went to the Military Base. He stood on a stony cliff, his hat tipped ever so slightly as he glared down a Warbot. His fingers twitched and he hauled his whip out and struck the Warbot across the face. The Warbot recoiled and then turned to look at him. Zane looked above its head and a big red 0.00000001 floated up. The Warbot then started doing a mechanical laugh before rearing its foot back and dropkicking Zane over the MB's Satellite dish.

Next, Zane went to a Worm tunnel. He crept along silently till he found what he was looking for. An Apparition was hovering there quietly. Zane lept from the shadows, reared back and whipped at the Apparition. The bullwhip passed right through it without having any effect. Again the look of bewilderment returned to his face. The Apparition moved slightly, then sent a 10 jigawatt pulse into the whip which travelled up and electrocuted Zane to a extra spicy crisp. He fell to the ground in an amount of pain that cannot be described. As for what happened then... well... if you can imagine what the sound of 1000 souls all laughing at once sounds like, you might have an idea as to what he was going through.

Rather unhappy about his lack of progress, and sulking around Plaza 3, Zane felt nature call and went to use the Toilet. As he began to do his business, he could hear discussion in the stalls behind him.
"I hate Neocron. I'm nerfed all the time."
"I hate Neocron. Life sux, I can't kill a Tank in one shot."
"Neocron sux. My monk isn't uber."
"Neocron's great, what are you talking about?" Zane called back. All of a sudden the stall doors flew open and the occupants, some of which had forgotten to zip up, emerged. Zane turned to look and realised in one horrified moment that he was pissing on his shoes. After zipping up he realised the other horrifying fact. For he realised he had entered the Dark FORUM of Whiners
"Oh you like Neocron do you? Well we got a nice Flaming instore for you!" The 5 Whiners moved forward with menace. Zane got a glimmer in his eye, tipped his hat and pulled his whip out. He cracked it a few times and made them back of a bit.
"Oooh, this one's got spunk! This is gonna be one fun flaming!" Zane decided that maybe retreat would be wiser. He turned to go when all of a sudden the door slammed shut and the locking sound was heard.
"I've warned you Whiners before, now this FORUM is Closed. Have fun wallowing in your own mess for a while." Niddhog yelled in. Zane turned around with a horrified look on his face. The Whiners just grinned.
"Don't worry. You can leave your hat on..."

For reasons of morality, hygiene and sanity, we will not discuss what happened after that. Ever. Needless to say Zane was not feeling particularly happy right now. After a mindtrick, a booting, an electrocution and a flaming, he still had found no use for his prize. He was about to throw it in a nearby crate when Eva walked by.
"Oooh, whips. Whips are wheeeeee. Give it a crack for me, please?" Half-heartedly he gave it a crack.
"Ohhh, I almost got off on that. Do it again. Harder." Zane's eyebrows raised a bit as he gave it a solid crack. Eva looked on orgasmically. All of a sudden the light of hope entered into his being.

Later in Eva's Bordello...

Wearing nothing but a cowboy hat, Evangelion was performing moves that Yoga masters would have shy'd away from, all at the motivation of a Bullwhip cracking away nearby, still in the hand of an exstatic Zane.
"Thank you Zero... this is the best Prize Ever!!!!"

And up above in the Higher Plain, MoonUnit and the other EGOS could only nod and agree.

Until next time...
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Postby Orwain » Wed Dec 07, 2005 3:38 am

NERD Issue # 044

Returning to Roots

D minus 355 days

10 days. Only 10 days had passed since Cassandra had doomed the planet. 10 days had been wasted, at least as far as NUTS could see. They had regathered their troops, recalled all personnel that they could and geared themselves up to the fullest. Keyser Soze had been sent on an errand to Tech Haven and Warlock the Hermit... well, he'd wandered off and was not taking calls. But the rest of NUTS were gathered in their Plaza 2 clan apartment, and were waiting. They waited and waited for some word from NEXT command as to what they were going to do.
"Ok, we've been waiting for days now. Yes, that EGOS race was fun and my whipping was fun, but now we need to work!" Eva paced around, "how long do they expect us to ...arghhh" Eva tripped over something, "damn chair..."
"That wasn't a chair," Hurricane moaned.
"Sorry Hurr," Eva reached out and rubbed his back.
"Eva, stop rubbing my ass." Lisa growled. Eva retracted her hand, glad that Lisa couldn't see her grin. None of them could see more than 2 inches in front of them. And all of a sudden, as if with one mind they all turned to where they thought the cause of the problem was seated.
"Reef, seriously, if you're gonna smoke for 8 days straight, crack a window!!" They all yelled.
"Sorry," Reef replied from behind them, and cracked a window. The smog cleared and finally they could all see again.

Finally the transmission from NEXT HQ came through to all NEXT clans.

***** Attention of: NEXT clans *****
***** From: NEXT Command *****
***** Subject: Survival *****

NEXT Clan leaders, and your associated members. NEXT have been charged with a most important and crucial mission, one that cannot fail. We have concluded deliberations with CityAdmin and the heads of other factions and have come to this agreement.
NEXT will begin the construction of 2 Nebula class Starliner Transports. These two transports will be the means by which we can evacuate the entire population of Neocron, Tech Haven, City Mercs and even the Canyon sectors. Our timeframe is simple. We must complete these craft within 300 days. After that point, planetary stability may compromise our ability to build such delicate vehicles. Once ready, the vehicles will be open to all to board, there will be no discrimination along faction lines.
CityAdmin will provide us with resources and funding. Biotech and ProtoPharma have been charged with the production of adequate cryo-units. Tangent will assist us in building the radiation shields, space drive and short range defensive weapons. Diamond Real Estate will also provide funding and resources as well as allocating cryo-units so that everyone is prepared for. The Wasteland factions that have signed on with us will be responsible for finding the resources and delivering them to either Diamond or CityAdmin. The CityMercs will provide protection for all departments during the construction. We understand Twilight Guardians and Fallen Angels will be working on another project aimed at saving the planet, but they will still supply us with the necessary resources.

All clans please report to Headquarters at the earliest possibility for assignments.

Our mission is stated, let us now carry it out.

***** Message Ends *****

"WHAT THE FREAKN HELL WAS THAT??????" Reef yelled.
"They wanna run. THATS their great plan?" Crono blurted out.
"We're not gonna just go along with this are we?" Lisa asked. And thus NUTS began a meeting. And once they cracked another window, they held the meeting. And when Keyser arrived they actually had something to talk about at the meeting.

Meanwhile in Tangent HQ...

JERK's had been given the assignment of preparing the weapons for the starships. They felt it was a worthy task, but one that would not allow them to pursue their goal of overwhelming outpost control any further. And with that gloomy thought, their name's acronym seemed a little redundant...

And so it was that with 355 days to go, the 44th Issue of NERD and the two main acronym's not being quite funny enough any more, NUTS and JERK's changed their clan names.... again.

The clan formerly-known-as-NUTS-and-formerly-known-as-ASS voted unanimously to return to their roots in Fallen Angels and assist in the Planetary Movement of Salvation (PMS).

The clan formerly-known-as-JERK-and-formerly-known-as-SODOM set their full attention to The Buiding Arks for Keeping away Armageddon Project (or The BAKA project for short).

The clan formerly-known-as-NUBI sucked too much in this story and won't be back again.

The runner formerly-known-as-Megaman-and-formerly-known-as-Kate-Moss is now serving a valuable function outside Dome of York, scaring birds away from Insidious Wolf's Milky Ren garden.

Centuri was standing around Tangent HQ, awaiting the arrival of one of his clanmates, when Chiphead walked past. At first Centuri noted it was Chiphead and thought nothing more of it, but then did a double take as he saw the JERK insignia gone.
"Chiphead, you're not a JERK anymore. What are you now?"
"I'm a DICK."
"A wha..."
"A DICK. Defending our Interests through Carnage and Kills."
"Riiiggghhhhttt... I've just got to... go...and... do... stuff. Bye." And he walked away very fast, without making eye-contact with the DICK.

The next day in Tech Haven...

Trillian was murmering something in Dajuda's ear that was making him grin in Tech Haven 1 when the elevator door swung open and Crono stepped out. Trillian gasped as she looked on at the returning GenTank.
"Can it be? Have our NUTS come to rest in Tech Haven?" Trillian looked on wide-eyed.
"No. I am NUTS no longer. From this day on, I am a FART!" The wide-eyed look quickly changed to a glance of reproach.
"A FART?"
"Yes, Fixing the Armaggedon from Regant's Trap. FART. And here today, there will be lots of FART's in Tech Haven."
"I hope the air-con works." Dajuda mumbled.
"What?" Crono glared.
"Nothing." Dajuda made sure to keep his distance.

And thus FART's filled up Tech Haven and Tangent was full of DICK's and there were no more NUBI's and there will always be EGOS, and you can bet your ass there's always gonna be NERD's, so thats enough from this one, on to the next issue...

Until next time...
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Postby Orwain » Wed Dec 07, 2005 3:39 am

NERD Issue # 045

A Day In The Life of an Evil Bastard

D minus 351 days

After finishing polishing every window in the Dome for the 50th time, Sid sat back and stared at the spotlessly shiny glass.
For those who thought Sid was ... imbalanced before, 2 weeks in total isolation from all other life and made him even more insane. What was worse was now the voice of Precious in his head had started calling him 'Insane' rather than Sid. And as they sat, it began again.

"What shall we do tonight Insane?" Precious asked.
"The same thing we do every night Precious. Try to Take Over The World!!!" (Lightning crashes outside). All of a sudden the DeltaGen's start singing:
"They're Precious and Insane, They're Precious and Insane,
One is a Psi Monk, the other's in his brain.
To Prove their crazy worth, they'll overthrow the Earth,
They're Precious, they're Precious and Insane sane sane sane sane."
"DAMNIT, Stop singing that song!!!" Sid yelled. The DeltaGens remained motionless.
"So Insane, how will we take over the world tonight?"
"Well Precioussss we has had a brilliants ideass. We is goings to asks thems to surrendur!" Another lightning bolt strikes.

Now if Precious had eyes, she'd be rolling them right about now. But as she is just a figment of Sid's mind, she did the only thing she could do. And that was to send random shock pulses down his spine and cause him to crap himself.
"Why's u do thats? My idea is l337 Precious."
"Your idea sucks more than Eva." Sid looks at the camera, raises and eyebrow and smirks.
"But whys it sux? Its R L337!!!"
"They are not going to surrendur just because you ask. This plan cannot work."
"NO! I wills do its, you cannot talks me out of it!" And Sid walked to his console to demand Neocron's surrendur.
"I Urge you to reconsider!" Precious put on a serious voice.
"Hmn... Ok. I will stop." Precious would have fallen out of her chair if she had one. Who would have thought Steve Oedekirk's dumbass tactic would work.

After a heated debate, they decided that tonight, they would attempt to force Neocron's surrendur through mental torture. A torture so horrible, so barbaric, that they would have no choice but to give up.

The city speakers in Neocron activated and the volume was cranked to the max. Citydwellers could only look on in horror, or hope to reach a generep in time to get out of the city before they fell over in a spasm as the noise blasted forth:

(The Following Song "Dome of York" is done to the tune of Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York").

Startss spreadings the newzzz, I'm so l337 today,
I ams the Lords of all of its,
Dome of York, Dome of York.
These Inquisition shoes, are longings to strayss
Right through the toxic part of it,
Dome of York, Dome of York.

I want to wake up, in a city with no peeps,
And find I'm King of Hill
I R So L337!!! Yes Precious....

Those Neocron dudes, Are Goingsss to Pay,
Now I lives afar from thems,
In Old Dome of York,
If I can prepare, Neocron must beware
Of Nukes from Dome of York, Dome of York..

Dome of York, My York...
I want to wake up, in a city with no peeps,
Who needs a gun, I'm having fun,
No I'm not done, I've justss beguns...

And now for my renditionsss of Spice Girls!!!"

In a move that scored him major brownie points, Lioon Reza hit the panic button and sent the signal to all copbots to destroy all the speakers. The sound plague ended and the worst cases were hurried off to Medicare. The screeching nightmare had ended.

"An artist is rarely appreciated in his own time Insane," Precious assured Sid.
"Yeah I knows, buts they coulds have waited. I was just gettings warmed up, listens:
If you wannabe my Runner,
You gotta shoot all your friends.
Making guns is clever,
But killing is the trends...."
"Ok, yeah, I get it..." If Precious had hands she'd have them slammed over her ears. Fortunately she doesn't have ears either so the problem is solved.

Later that day there was a knock at the front gate.
"I wonders who thats could be?" Sid wondered. He walked to the gate. "Who iz its?"
"Roomservice."
"Ooohhh, Roomservice." Sid gladly opened the gate. He was a little disappointed when the door opened as a knucklesandwich wasn't what he ordered. Warlock the Hermit strode in over Sids laid out body.
"Ahh, thanks for opening up Sid, don't mind if I come on in do ya?"
"Yes."
"Good."
"Whats do you wants?" Sid grumbled, holding his sore jaw.
"This." Warlock walked over to a sensory control and began pushing buttons. A number of dishes and arrays atop the Dome and in the surrounding regions began to come to life as Warlock began scanning for something.
"Why's is the Hermit taking liberty's with Sid's stuff? Precious doesn't likes this. What's is the little NUTS doings??"
"I'm not a NUTS anymore." Warlock growled back at Sid.
"Its nots? What is its then?"
"A FART."
"ARRGHHH!!! No FARTs in here, its a closed air supply! Gets out, Gets Out!!" The console dinged and Warlock breathed heavily.
"Hmn... mores the pity. Now what were you saying?" Warlock finally took a moments notice of Sid. Sid, enraged at Warlock ignoring him, and at Precious playing 'The Thong Song' in his head (yes, figments of imagination may not have hands, ears or body's, but apparently they have great subwoofers), ran upstairs to the laundry room and found one of his pairs of underwear, a pair worn for two weeks straight and still not washed. He ran to a base defense cannon and loaded the soiled garment in. Warlock had already begun walking away from the Dome, so Sid took aim at his back and fired.

Warlock, hearing the shot, slammed on his Psi Deflector in the nick of time and the evil cloth rebounded off and sailed many miles southwards. He turned to look back at the Dome and saw the open gun port. Grinning that evil grin of his that only evil grinners can grin (did that make sense?) he spun round and hauled out a Tangent Commando Rifle, loaded it with a special round and fired it back into the Dome. Sid quickly sealed the port again and the Dome returned once again to its closed air supply. Warlock walked onwards towards the northern shores.

"Warlock must be a bad shot Insane, he totally missed you." Precious stated.
"Warlock suxx... Warlock can kiss my pants." Sid replied. He stopped dead in his tracks, thought for a second and then screamed.
"No....Noo.... PANNNTTSSS!!!" And so it was that Dome of York was infected with the Pants Virus.

That evening...

"What shall we do tonight Insane?"
"The same things we do every nights, Precious... try to take over your pants... DAMNIT!!!"
"But I don't have pants." Precious informed him.
"I know, I didn't means we were gonna take over your pants, I mean we were gonna try and stick it to the Pants....DAMNIT!!!"
"Listen Insane, I may be your figment, but we're not that close..."

That night there was a major row in Dome of York, a lot of pained patients in Medicare, and a ditch with a small stone glowing green in the night with a hideous undergarment melting through the ground.

Until next time...
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Postby Orwain » Thu Dec 08, 2005 2:57 am

NERD Issue # 046

He's Back

D minus 350 days

It was early in the morning in Tech Haven and the FART's were full of energy. Warlock had sent a quick message during the night saying he'd found some information of interest, Keyser Soze was handing out donuts and all of them had survived the sonic torment that Neocron had endured the day before. So they were in pretty good moods, even despite having been up all night working.
"Ok, so NEXT have received adequate materials for the first cruiser already? That's excellent." Reefsmoker sat back in his chair.
"Yes, hopefully they'll have the rest of the materials within 2 weeks. Then its just a matter of building them." Eva smirked as she pretended to be the chair. Reef suddenly realised this and got up.
"Ok, so that will be a nice safety net to have, but what about efforts to stop the planetary destruct?" Reef asked.
"Not that great it would seem. We've tried getting back to Regant's Legacy to gather some information but the entrances are blocked. We tried sending drones in, but now they're just sending black image." Keyser informed them.
"Black? Did the drones get very far?" Vain asked.
"No, they just skimmed the waterline into a fissure in the wall and then started transmitting black. Nothing else can be determined at this time." Vain shuddered at memories from the last encounter with the Legacy.
"You know its times like this when we need to play a game." Eva jumped up and down. Vain got the urge to hump things. Eva encouraged Vain to hump things. Keyser encouraged them to not. Vain rubbed his head. Eva rubbed Vain's head too. Keyser pulled Eva's hand up to above Vain's waistline.
"Eva we're not playing Pin the Dildo on the Eva again." Lisa called back from the clan cabinets. Eva went to sulk in the corner by herself.

A few members of THSC were in Tech Haven 2. Trillian was wearing a towel and was hanging her freshly washed panties on the security bots.
"Why are you hanging your laundry on them Tril?" Dajuda asked.
"Well they might as well have ONE useful purpose. And we all know that ain't security (Big Red Subtitles slam down "SAD BUT TRUE.").
"Yeah, but, like, someone could, you know, steal them."
"Oh please, who would want to steal my clothes?" Trillian asked. (Note from N'ed: Put your hands down people.)
All of a sudden the air behind Trillian and Dajuda rippled as an invisible entity ever so slightly disturbed the air and snuck towards one of the Clotheshangers...err.. I mean Tech Haven Security Bots. He carefully lifted an item up and then vanished without a trace. Trillian continued to hang her clothes and Dajuda continued to try and see down the towel (him and everyone standing on the upper balcony's). Then Trillian turned to see if anything was dry.
"Hey... where's my pants?" Trillian asked.

Across space and time, in another world, in another Dimension known only as "The Test Server".
The air rippled and Lupus appeared from nowhere, a big fat woman in nasty pink leiderhoesen stepped out of the shadow's.
"You got the stuff?"
"Here ya go." Lupus passed her the pants.
"Sweet.... I can make a fortune from these things."

The war concerning Trillian's pants is far from over. NERD will continue to document these events as they unravel.

Meanwhile in Dome of York...

"I DO NOT WEAR PANTS!!!"
"I KNOW. I DONT WANT YOUR PANTS! YOU'VE BEEN NAGGING ALL NIGHT!! JUST GIMME YOUR PANTS!!... DAMNITT!!!!"

Back to Neocron...
"No more singing... when does the hurting stop..."

Okay.... we're running out of things to talk about here... back to Tech Haven...

"YOU STOLE MY PANTS!!!" Trillian was strangling Dajuda.
"No ...wait... arghh... please..." Then from the balcony above a single voice called out.
"He wouldn't take your pants. He doesn't want them. He want's whats in your pants." The source of the voice moved away.
"Yes... geez. I thought that would be obvious, babe." Daj gasped for air.
"Hmn... now that you mention it (Tril turns to look at the camera) That was Obvious." (NERD Editor points at the title, points at the giveaway clue: "Figured it out yet?)

Keyser was fighting Eva to get Lisa's Dildo of Maven back (not that she cares, Kramer does such a good job after all, but it was her property) and Vain was sexing everything in sight when a big bang was heard at the door.
"I have walked into the door." A voice stated the obvious. Everyone inside stopped and listened. The doorbell rang.
"I have rung the doorbell." Again with the obvious. Those inside could barely restrain their unbridled hope. Keyser rushed to the door and opened it. Everyone looked on in awe and with one voice yelled:
"MCDANISH!!!"
"And you guys complain that I state the obvious." McDanish smirked.

Within ten minutes, the entire clan was assembled. Trillian, Dajuda and Kramer The Weird had been invited in as well, to bask in the presence of FART's.
"How is it possible?" Reef exclaimed.
"When did this happen?" Keyser Soze asked.
"Are ya still stiff?" Eva smirked.
"Can I hump you?" Vain asked. McDanish just grinned. It was good to be home.
"To answer in order. I awoke this morning under the ground. I was at first quite startled, and then I was alarmed as I saw a glowing green pair of underpants on my chest. I quickly fled from them and found myself gasping for air."
"Warlock mentioned that Sid's underwear had sailed South." Keyser informed.
"So its true," Trillian gasped, "the contents of Sid's underwear is only fit for the dead." (Big Red Subtitles Slam Down "OOOHHHH DISSED!!!")
"Anyway," McDanish had a sip of his Cron beer and continued, "that answers how and when. As for the other two questions, I appear to be hard in only the right places and if you sex me you'll find yourself in my ditch." Vain decided not to pursue the matter further.

And so it was that two very important things happened that day. Firstly, McDanish, Lord of the Obvious and Pastry Chef Supreme upgraded himself from compost to a FART (though the smell was much the same, ok I had to put that one in, so sue me). The other was the discovery that Insidious' Wolf's underwear was the only known cure to Perma-Death.

That evening, in the Dimensional Room known only as "The Office"...

"Interesting... the dead return, the underwear is flying and the world continues to die, and all the while they laugh and try to find things to be happy about." MJS thundered to himself.
"Guess it's how they deal boss," Teh KillerBunneh remarked.
"Oh thank you for that insight Bugs. What you look into a crystal ball for that pearl of wisdom? Pipe down Fluffy." MJS growled.
"...I'm not fluffy, its just a natural curl to my hair..." Bunneh mumbled to himself.
"Well, I can't imagine things going more my way." MJS reclined in his chair.
"Yeah, but they are getting those cruisers built. At this rate they'll all escape before the planet goes boom!" Bunneh absentmindedly informed MJS, then regretted it.
"Oh really? We shall see..." MJS thought to himself for a moment, "get me the translation device."
"Which one?"
"The English to Japanese one." MJS did a few translations and then sent a message to a brand new recipient.

And a new player began to move...

Until next time...
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Postby Orwain » Thu Dec 08, 2005 6:04 am

NERD Issue # 047

Mr. Anderson

D minus 340 days

A clean cut, nice and shiny copbot walks in to a sterile, windowless interrogation room in CityAdmin. The room is soundproof and the only furniture in it is a table and two chairs. The Copbot sits down and awaits the arrival of its superior.

1.4389 minutes later, Copbot Jenna entered the room and sat down as well.
"Very well Copbot, you have messaged me for a meeting. Let meeting commence at 0759.24178 Neocron standard time. Report." Copbot Jenna was far less chatty when dealing with other Copbots. CityAdmin had permitted her personality subroutines for her work with runners doing missions of an epic nature for the faction. But deep down she was just another Copbot, another bodysnatched victim locked in a copbot chassis, forever forced to do CityAdmin's bidding. And now it was time for the other Copbot to address her. This Copbot was also special. It had been gifted with numerous special powers, as well as a voice box of an outstanding quality. Where most CopBots had a voice synthesiser with a few bossy commands programmed in, this Copbot had a deep, slow, yet deliberate speaking voice. It spoke very pronouncably and with a total lack of emotion, but it was a real voice.
"I've had my eye on a particular individual for some time now. It seems this individual has been living two lives. In one of these lives, he's Mr. Anderson, a respectable runner for the city of Neocron. He kills rats for a living, sharpens stilleto's and... recycles his garbage into solantium. In the other life he goes by the runner name of W_H_Spliff, a drugdealer and ... all round mellow guy. One of these lives has a future, and the other does not." He awaited a response from his superior, but instead got the synthesized snore from Copbot Jenna. His Visor glimmered as he pulled out his rifle and shot Copbot Jenna once in the head. Copbot Jenna woke up.
"That was a long report."
"Yet now it is done."
"And not a moment too soon."
"May I make a move?"
"Yes, you may. Take appropriate action against this... Mr. Anderson. We trust you will fulfill your obligations."
"Indeed I will." He growled and rose to leave.
"By the way, I got your serial number, but what is your designation? What name do you use when dealing with runners?" Jenna asked.
"Smith. Copbot Smith."

Across town in Club Veronique...

Mr. Anderson stands stoicly in the club as Evangelion performs one of her ballbreaking stripteases on stage (good thing she don't have any balls). All of a sudden he turns his head to see a woman walking towards him, clad in black.
"Who are you?" he shouts over the noise of the club music.
"I am Trinity." she replies.
"Your name is Trinity?" he looks shocked. She moves closer.
"No you idiot, my name is Trillian, how many times have I told you that before?"
"Never."
"Oh, well... you should still know. I am Trillian after all."
"What do you want Tril?" Mr Anderson asks.
"They're coming for you Neo."
"Did you just call me Neo?"
".... can we get out of this club so we can talk?" They leave. Dajuda feels betrayed in the shadows as Trillian walks away with (yet) another man. Then he spots Eva bending in ways women just aren't supposed to and forgets his train of thought.

Once outside they find they can talk a bit better.
"Ok, as I was saying, they're coming for you NOW!!" Trillian glares Mr. Anderson down.
"Who is?"
"The Copbots, an Agent of the system."
"What system?"
"Andy we don't have time for 20 questions. Right now there's only one way. My way or the highway."
"That's two ways, and this is Neocron, we have dirt tracks, not highways."
"Why he thinks you're worth saving I have no idea..." Trillian shakes her head in disbelief.
"Huh who do....arggghhh." Trillian hits Andy in the balls with a sharpened baseball bat and drags him off, rather than explain any further. A few moments later two steely boots slowly walk down the path they have just left the club by as Copbot Smith scans the area.

Mr. Anderson awakens in a high backed chair in a big room. Trillian is just heading out the door, muttering obscene word about him as she goes. Mr. Anderson sits up and sees another individual in the room standing by a window, looking out at stormy weather. Mr. Anderson goes to say something when the individual turns around and grins. A lightning bolt flashes behind him. It would have been a far more impressive and striking image if the individual didn't have a big signboard hanging around his neck with the word "McDANISH" written on it. The individual strides forward.
"In case you had not figured it out, I am McDanish." says McDanish. Andy raises a finger to say something, but decides against it.
"I imagine that right now you're feeling a bit like Alice... tumbling down the rabbit hole?" McDanish grins again.
"We're not gonna do that whole crappy Alice in Wonderland analogy are we?" Andy asks.
"Oh you don't wanna do that? Great, I hate that analogy. And who reads Alice in Wonderland anymore?" McDanish hauls the script out of his pants and shreds it. Then he sits down.
"Let me tell you why you are here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you've felt it, ever since you were born..."
"Yeah, thank you! Finally someone understands, what the hell is this?" Mr. Anderson stands up, hauls his pants off and points to an obscene rash on his inner thighs. McDanish practically leaps out his chair and hides behind it.
"SIT DOWN YOU SICK SON OF A BITCH!!!" McDanish cries. Mr. Anderson sits down.
"PULL YOUR PANTS BACK UP FIRST!!!" Mr. Anderson pulls his pants back up. McDanish calms down and sits back down.
"That's not what I'm talking about, and for the record, I have never seen, nor do I ever wish to see, a rash like that."
"Oh."
"As I was saying. Let me tell you why you are here..."
"I know why I'm here. That crazy Trillian bashed me over the head with a sharpened baseball bat and dragged me here." McDanish looks blank for a second, then yells down the hall at Trillian for ruining his well prepared and long-winded speech.
"Ok, fine, let me do this the short way. Andy, you've been living in a dream world."
"You mean a cleverly designed and insanely complicated computer network is using me as a double A battery to power itself in an apocalyptic world that ultimately is all humanity's fault?" Mr. Anderson's mind was opened.
"What? No. That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. You're living in a dream world because your alter-ego is smoking too much weed."
"ohhhh."
"Yeah, and as a result of that, the Copbots have sent an agent against you because they perceive you as a threat."
"Why me?"
"Because, the world of Neocron, despite all of the funky weird crap that happens around here, and the liberal use of the NERF bat, is a world governed by rules. And in that world, the Copbots are the gatekeepers. They are watching all the exits to the wasteland, and they are holding all the keys. And in order for our people to truly be free, someone has to go against them."
"Someone?"
"I won't lie to you Andy, everyone who has tried to solo a Copbot has died. But where they have failed, you will try."
"Why me?"
"Because when we've loaded you up with some top grade 'ReefSmoker Elite' weed, you'll be too doped up to perceive the sh*t you're getting yourself into."
"Wha?? Hey wait a ...arggghhhh." Once again Trillian bashes Mr. Anderson over the head with a baseball bat.
"See this is sooo much easier than explaining things to him." Tril points out.
"Yes, upon seeing you render his babbling ass unconscious and the simplicity that has dawned afterwards, I am realising that hitting him is sooo much easier than explaining things to him."
"I just said that!" Trillian growls.
"Yes, upon going back upon this conversation I realise that in order to state the obvious I have said what you just sa...arggghhh!" Trillian didn't swing for McDanish's head, but it shut him up all the same.

As a car with an unconscious man in the back seat and a pained man in the passenger seat is driven away by a wild-eyed blonde with a bat, Copbot Smith walks into the room they just occupied.
"I really need to oil my gears, I'm so slow today."

Three weeks later, a completely wasted Mr. Anderson, now referring to himself as W_H_Spliff, enters "The Training programme" with McDanish to learn of his great new powers.
"Isn't this just Neofrag?" Andy asks.
"Shut up." McDanish growls. Andy takes a pull of another spliff and forgets his own question.
"Now, as I was saying this is the training programme. It has the same basic rules as Neocron. What you must realise is that some of these rules can be bent, others can be broken."
"Like what? Gimme and example."
"Well if I knew that I wouldn't need you now would I?" McDanish growls. McD pulls a weapon out.
"This is a knife."
"Heheheheheeh Knifey knifey knifey knifey knifey...." McDanish looks on in horror as Andy grabs the knife and runs around stabbing everything in sight.
"What directly the spoodle are you doing?"
"You've never played Knifey Knifey before? Here look, knifey knifey knifey..." Andy thrusts the knife forward repeatedly, a little too close to McDanish.
"You've perforated my chest you moron."
"Soz."
"Np." Ahh the universal phrase of problem solving, if only world leaders knew how to use it.
"Anyway," McD snatches the knife back, "this is a knife. To free your mind you must realise the truth."
"What truth?"
"There is no knife."
"Yes there is, its right there!"
"No, realise that there is no knife."
"Dude, come on, its in your hand! Just look at it, look..." McDanish decides to take a page out of Trillians book and calls down a strike of Holy Lightning on Andy's head. Andy collapses in a smouldering pile.
"Do as you're told. There is no knife."
"There is no pants."
"Are you suffering from the Pants Virus?" McDanish looks on quizzically.
"No, I mean there is no pants!" Andy stands up and reveals he's stripped his pants off. McDanish recoils and runs off screaming. Andy grins and sits back with another spliff.

Mr. Anderson and McDanish exit Neofrag together, only to be confronted by... Copbot Smith!
"Mr. Anderson." he exclaims with an odd amount of enthusiasm for a machine.
"Umm... laters." McDanish exits, stage right. Andy is left all alone with Smith.
"I'm going to enjoy watching you die, Mr. Anderson." Smith states.
"Huh? Have we met?" Apparently Smith had been taking lessons all this time because he stops talking and pulls out his copbot rifle and blasts Andy full force. The plasma shots that look oddly like a Poison beam strike Andy down hard.
"Goodbye Mr. Anderson." he turns to walk away. Mr. Anderson rises to his feet, to the amazement of Smith.
"Duuuude. That poison stuff is the bomb, gimme more. I r soo out of it right now." Smith is enraged and blasts Andy down again and again, but W_H_Spliff's powers only increase with every blast. All of a sudden the rifle clicks empty. McDanish sticks his head out from behind a door.
"You're empty!" and then runs off. Andy all of a sudden gets a look of pure determination. He throws away his knife, throws away his gun and glares down Smith. If Smith had a mouth, he'd probably not be grinning right now. All of a sudden, in a stunning move, Andy raises his.... fist. Smith is dumbfounded. Surely Spliff boy can't mean to go fisticuffs with a Copbot?

Mr. Anderson lunges forward and begins slowly punching Copbot Smith in the chest. Copbot Smith is so pissed off by this, he becomes paralysed with rage, and cannot fight back. For 30.128578 minutes, Andy punches Smith, but then runs out of stamina. He then steps back, calls for time out, grabs a Stamina booster and rolls it into his next spliff. A few quick pulls and he's ready for action. This time Smith is no longer paralysed. He takes his size 23 Copbot boot and shoves it right up Andy's Ass. Smith begins to systematically beat the crap out of Andy, until Andy can no longer stand. Then Copbot Smith wraps his arm around Andy's neck so he can whisper in his ear.
"You hear that sound, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of your neck breaking. That is the sound of your death. Goodbye, Mr. Anderson." Short of breath, Andy sums up the strength for one final line.
"My...name... is W_H_Spliff!!!"
"What kind of stupid ass name is that?" Smith yells in his ear. Furious at a copbot mocking his chosen name, Andy sums up his inner strength to propell them both upwards into the ceiling in dramatic fashion. However, he does not realise copbots weight 2 tonnes, and only succeeds in pulling a groin muscle. In the strain, he also unleashes a foul fart into the air. The thick toxic fumes enter Copbot Smiths air filters and begin to cause his wiring to short out.
"Noooo...arrggghhhhh *static*" Smith slumps to the ground. McDanish comes out awe-inspired.
"Its true, you really are The... *sniffs* ... argghhh." McDanish falls to the ground in convulsions. Andy just shrugs and walks off to see if Eva's still putting a show on.

Until next time...
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Postby Orwain » Fri Dec 09, 2005 2:03 pm

NERD Issue # 048

The Hunt for Grey November

D minus 200 days

Deep in the bowels of Tech Haven, in the newly established Council rooms, a special meeting of the Fallen Angels was taking place. The meeting was to discuss the latest transmission from NEXT HQ. The recently elected Council Chairperson, Trillian was attempting to get everyone into order by repeatedly smacking the gavel on her bench. However, after 3 straight minutes the gavel broke so she pulled out a 5 slot liberator and perforated Download of THSC as an example to the rest. 4 seconds later the meeting began.

"Once again the message holds no real information that could help our search for a solution to the SWG machines effect," many grumbles could be heard. Ever time the city messaged them it was always to do with their pet project, and only ever had the weakest scraps of information for the Fallen Angels or Twilight Guardians. It was, they supposed, expected towards TG, what with their history, but there had been a genuine belief that FA would get a little more cooperation.
"Great so Neocron sticks it to us right up the ass again." Dajuda moaned.
"Yeah, well anyway, this message doesn't even try to give the pretense that it was for anything other than their scheme." To this everyone went silent. Neocron was many things, but blatant was not one of them. They always made at least a token effort to candycoat their selfish demands.
"So what do they want?" Ithaqua asked.
"The starcruisers are nearing completion. However, NEXT believes it can only construct one propulsion unit before the deadline." At this, there was a huge amount of murmerring. Effectively, NEXT had stated that if no solution to the SWG effect could be found, there would only be enough room for half the global populace on the one completed cruiser. This would mean that one in every two runners would be facing certain perma-death.
"Oh man, I'm gonna die, I just know I'm gonna die." Hurricane started babbling out loud.
"Calm down Hurr," McDanish patted him on the shoulder.
"No, come on, you know its true, I'm always the one that dies!"
"Yes, I know thats true, but I still want you to calm down." McDanish flatly stated. Everyone looked at him funny, then looked back to Trillian.
"If you'd all shut up long enough for me to finish. They only have the time and resources to BUILD one propulsion unit. However, there may be a way to get another one." At this, everyone did a Spock and raised one eyebrow. Trillian felt she was in a Star Trek convention.
"Don't do that again." She asked. In unison everyone asked:
"Do what?"
"Never mind... anyway. It seems that when the ships for the great Trek were being built, a prototype was build and launched. However, due to a trajectory miscalculation, it never made it to space and crashed back down to earth. Now recent satellite footage has shown that the ship may in fact be sufficiently intact as to have the propulsion system salvaged. Repairing the existing system will be far quicker and NEXT believes that if we can obtain the system, then the second cruiser will be operational in time." At this, everyone cheered, except for Hurricane who was still sensing his demise. McDanish was trying to comfort him with tales of what its like to be dead, but it wasn't helping. Especially the tale of mutated disgruntled earthworms nibbling on your nads. It was, of course, no suprise that the only empty seats in the room were directly surrounding McDanish.
"So what is the plan oh boss type person?" Keyser Soze asked from the shadows at the back of the room.
"We need an expedition to go out and find the wreckage. We have the relative co-ordinates so this will only be a search within one grid, but the party must still locate it, find safe entrance to the vessel, determine the fate of the propulsion system, and transport whatever can be salvaged to NEXT HQ."
"Pah, easy! Tril, we can do that!" Download, having picked all of the bullets out of his chest yelled.
"Why am I not suprised to hear that? Let me be a little more specific, before everyone jumps to the conclusion that this is a simple assignment. The location of the ship is outside of the normal territories we frequent. Using the current mapping system, this would be the equivalent of H 21."
"But that would place it... beyond the cliffs and into the extreme radiation lands. We can't walk there!" More murmering began.
"Ok, if you're all going to mumble like that every time I finish a sentence, I will take my leg shaver and personally peel away your testicles one layer of skin at a time." Dead silence.
"The mission is possible but not easy. The city will provide us with airlifts using the FireWreath fighers to get to the top of the cliffs. From there its a 2 day march through intense radiation. This means that only those equipped with the AntiRadiation suit will survive."
"You don't mean..."
"Yes, this mission must be carried out entirely by Spy's." Looks of disbelief were on everyones face. Trillian was asking a team of spy's to walk through uncharted areas, where any number of hazards could present themselves. They would have to trek a long distance, so their stamina would be put to the test. They would have to explore a derelict wreck, which would mean climbing and scouting, and most importantly it would mean having to transport a very large weight back. It summed up to the ideal job for a squad of tanks, and Spy's were going in their place. A request for volunteers was made and thankfully volunteers stepped up. ReefSmoker and Vain from FART and Tricia McMillan from THSC stepped up.
"Hmn..." Trillian looked at the 3, "this is good, but I feel like we need something else. An adventurer, you might say, a man willing to search through dark, dusty places, to step where history has forgotten, who looks good in a stupid hat..."

And so it was that Zane Shadowfall was conscripted into the team, not that he minded. So the four gallant heroes, all wearing the Anti Radiation suit were unceremoniously dropped on the top of the cliff and they began their journey. With the identical armour suits on, no one could tell the difference between the four... well... except for the one wearing the cowboy hat and holding a bullwhip.

So, with 199 days on the clock, 4 spy's set out to salvage the last, best hope to get the hell out of here. 4 spy's, suffering from major headaches thanks to their crappily made, sorry excuse for a powerarmour powerarmours, marched across unmapped terrain to reach the only relic of the Irata 3 trek, the "Grey November".

What they saw and what they faced on the journey is a tale only the 4 of them can properly tell, but needless to say they wore their Stealth Activators down to the nub. There were many creatures, larger and more awe inspiring than any BETA warbot, or Grim Persecutor or Betty has ever been. There were flying creatures that when they passed overhead, it was as if night had fallen, and their were creatures beneath the sands, tunnelling faster than an APC can drive. There were gorges so vast, had it not been for Zane's whip, they would never have been able to swing across. And yet, there were places where the sands were silent; where no living thing seemed to walk, and where there could only be seen small lagoons of black water.

After 3 days of stamina booster aided running, the four spy's reached the zone. They split up and began looking around.
"Hmn... not under here. Nope, not under here." the thorough ReefSmoker had begun lifting stones and pebbles to see whether the cruiser was hidden under them. Apparently he'd had his independent air supply specially tainted before leaving.
Vain took a different approach and began nailing everything around him with his Pain Easer, figuring the first thing to sound metallic was worth investigating. Unfortunately for him the first thing to sound metallic was Tricia getting hammered in the ass by his fire, and thus despite his armour, Vain spent the rest of the trip wanting to get inside his armour and nurse his crushed testicles.
Zane on the other hand was throwing caution to the wind, running around the place, whipping at anything that moved and trying to look heroic.
"Now... if i was a rusting hunk of junk, where would I be?" he asked himself. The answer came a second too late. A rusting pile of junk will always be wherever it can trip you up. Thus Zane tripped on the ship and thusly found it.
"Zane has found the ship." McDanish stated.
"How do you know that?" Hurricane asked.
"Hmn? Did I say something?" McDanish looked around blankly.
"Umm...." And Hurricane was afraid.

The team was able to gain access through a tear in the hull and they dropped into the ship. Zane lived up to his name and fell into a shadow. (Zane Shadowfall... get it? Clever huh? See you take the name and ....(NERD Editor has just ejected McDanish from the writing staff. We apologise for that incident)) The others landed on Zane, so 2 happy and safe spy's, one pancake and one eunuch proceeded into the ships bowels. When they realised this ship really did have bowels they decided to take a slightly less stinky route to Engineering.

As they walked down the hallway, which was slightly slanted downwards, it got increasingly dark. All of a sudden a buzzing sound was heard and a flashlight lit up, or rather, a Dildo of Maven.
"Reef, what are you doing with that?" Vain asked.
"What? Lisa's got Kramer now, she doesn't want it anymore."
"Thats not the point..."
"No, thats the bulb, this is the point." Reef turned it over to show Vain. Vain just backed away.

They proceeded further, but stopped constantly to look at signs on the walls. The further they went, it became apparent that not all of the crew had died in the crash. The signs made up almost a story as they walked along.
"The end is near, the walls will not hold."
"If anyone reads this, tell my daughter... she's adopted."
"All work and no play makes Yen a dull gurl."
"Napalm tastes like chicken."
"For a good time call Crack Whore on 555-BIG-ASS"
"Turn away, death lives in Engineering." At the last two everyone had shuddered, and at the last one everyone gulped.
"What could that mean? Death lives in Engineering?" Tricia asked.
"It means I, as the hero, should go first." Zane stepped forward, everyone started pushing him forward.
"I'm glad you all agree...hey, Reef watch where you're pushing that thing..."

Carefully the 4 crept into the darkened engineering section. Debris lay everywhere, and there was little light. They stepped out from behind cover, when all of a sudden the lights came on. Then, from out of nowhere, a squeeking, grinding noise echoed through the room as a big, black menacing form moved towards them. They screamed. The form carried a stick with a scythe on it. They screamed more. The form came closer. Zane whipped at it. It screamed. They screamed. We all scream together (everybody now...). Once the screaming ended (which took a lot longer than it should) everyone looked closely. The form appeared to have a big black cloth over it. Zane did his Indiana thing and whipped it off, to reveal... a bot. The bot was standing there, with 8 metal appendages and a long neck. On the neck was a ball with a single camera lens and blinkers over it (apparently to simulate an eye).

"Ohh, you scared the piss outta me." Tricia exclaimed. Everyone took one step away from her leaking suit.
"Geez I thought the message was right and death was in here." Vain squeeked.
"Death is in here." the bot's synthesizer chimed in. Everyone froze.
"Where?"
"Right here. I am death." Everyone prepared for battle. The bot just blinked. Reef, a veteran of being NERDed, suddenly realised the old gag and asked the obvious question.
"What does DEATH stand for?" (I love acronyms... *grins*)
"Data and Engineering Assistant from Tech Haven."
"Aww, thats cute!" Tricia went over and rubbed the bots shiny head.
"Don't do that." The Bot raised a bansaw to Tricia's neck. She backed away slowly.
"So Death, what do you do here?"
"I maintain the system when the Chief Engineer is not here. He has not been here for some time."
"How long is some time?" Zane asked.
"Data records stopped recording after 1 year. I went into standby before that time. The system has not requested my help since then, although Jane's probably getting fired."
"Jane?"
"Janitor Assistant from NEXT Enterprises. It is supposed to clean up, but hasn't done a very good job."
"Death, you do know the ship has crashed." Reef pointed out.
"It has? Oh dear oh dear. Whatever will the Captain think."
"Is this him?" Zane had found a body. Death inspected it and confirmed it was the captain.
"Oh dear oh dear. I guess the Captain isn't thinking very much."
"Death, we've been sent by Fallen Angels to salvage the propulsion system of this ship. Its very important. Can you determine what parts are still operational?"
"Oh the entire mechanism is entirely functional. Observe." Death looked at an optical port on the wall and a laserpointer beamed out towards the port. The system kicked into gear and the engines fired up. The 4 spy's could not have been more delighted.
"This is great. Death, can you show us how to disassemble it?"
"Disassemble?" All of a sudden, Deaths memory banks shot back to an old movie that was loaded into its storage system, of a funny robot called Jonny 5 babbling on about being 'disassembled'. Death's shutters shot wide open, and it activated all its power tools
"No Disassemble. Death Disassemble YOU!" It lunged forward at Tricia, only to be struck right in the 'eye' by Zane's whip. A big red '0' floated up above its head. It turned to glare at the now worried Zane when Vain spoke up.
"Woah, easy Death. We want to disassemble, then reassemble."
"Reassemble? You can do that?"
"If you're a mechanism, sure!"
"Then reassemble the Captain."
"He's not a mechanism. He's fertiliser." Tricia pointed out. Then she scooped up a bit of the Captain for her apartments flowerbed.
"So you can reassemble propulsion unit?"
"Yes, but first we have to get it to a new ship. Can you help us transport it?" In a flash, Death had unhooked the Propulsion system from the ship and had loaded it up on its back. Everyone climbed on board Death, as Death opened a cargo bay door, stepped outside, and began scampering across the terrain. The spy squad was successful. They were on their way home with a new addition to the Tech Haven family, an engine for the ship, and a job well done.

As they drew closer to home, Reef, who had removed his suit once they exited the radiation sectors, found the actual air had cleared his mind and a thought had occured.
"Death, the history records never recorded the name of the captain who piloted the Grey November. Can you remember what it was? I'm sure his family would appreciate the information."
"Certainly, it was Captain Lioon Reza." And silence fell upon the land.

Until next time...
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Postby [TgR]KILLER » Fri Dec 09, 2005 3:21 pm

before you think nobody reads it.. been reading just as i always used to kept reading every nerd edition that came out. they are brilliant. just keep posting :D
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Postby Orwain » Fri Dec 09, 2005 6:11 pm

NERD Issue # 049

Reza's Birthday

D minus 186 days

The population of the Fallen Angels were gathered in Tech Haven 2. They had received advanced notice that the team had successfully retrieved the propulsion unit. All had gathered to congratulate the hero's of the hour. They stood there as the pressure door slid upwards and 4 tired Spy's stepped through. And then a large 8 legged bot stepped in behind them. Many puzzled looks were glanced towards the unexpected guests. As Trillian and others stepped forwards to shake hands with the 4, all eyes began to turn to the bot. Evangelion walked right up to it with a curious look on her face.
"Who are you?" she asked. In a deep tone it replied,
"I am Death." Eva went pale and then dropped to her knees.
"OHHHH Please please please forgive me. Please let me confess my guilt. It has been my entire life since my last confession... in that time I have taken money in exchange for 418,983 counts of sexu..."
"Woah Eva, relax, this is D.E.A.T.H." Reef explained the acronym. Eva let loose a huge sigh of relief. Then she decided to make herself less noticable for a while.
"Heya Death! How's it hanging?" Hurricane walked over and slapped Death on the back hard. Death activated a bansaw and took Hurricane's head off in one slice.
"Oh my Lioon, Death killed Hurricane!" McDanish exclaimed. Total silence permeated Tech Haven.
"Hey, isn't there supposed to be something that happens now?" Vain asked. The patter of running feet could be heard coming down the hallway and finally a door swung open as the long absent Shodough finally showed up.
"YOU BAST..."
"Too slow, no time for that!" Zane cut him off. Shodough got pissed that his cameo in this episode was cut short.
"What's wrong Zane?" Trillian asked.
"We have discovered something."
"Dude, I think its McDanish's job to say stuff like that."
"They have discovered something." McDanish stopped stuffing his face with pastries long enough to do the job he was brought back from the dead for.
"So what have you discovered?" Trillian asked.
"Something. Was that not clear before?" McDanish again stepped in. Trillian snapped her fingers, the signal for Dajuda to strike McDanish down, but for some reason he was not around.
"Look, we found the Grey November, and we got the engine." Cheers interrupt Zane, "and we also brought Death back with us," a few people shudder, "but we found the captain of the ship as well."
"He was alive?" Mako Tanaka, desperate for more NERD time, decides to step in here.
"No, he was fertiliser." Reef grinned.
"Then whats the problem."
"The captain was Lioon Reza."
"Eh..." the entire of Tech Haven once again went silent.
"Yeah, exactly. We downloaded the ships logs before leaving and have been reviewing them on the way back since Death told us about the captain. It seems that when the Grey November was ready for launch, as it was the prototype, Lioon Reza, who at the time was a low-class member of the Psi Monks secret service, volunteers to be the captain of the latest innovation in space travel, the design used for the 40 vessels of the great trek. He is given command and the ship launches in 2721. The ship never made it to space and crashlanded. Some of the crew survived for a while, but ultimately the crew died."
"Wait... this isn't making sense. If I recall my history, didn't Reza begin his guerilla campaign against the Psi Monk regime in 2722?"
"Exactly right," Zane points out, "and as we found Lioon's body on board the ship, we know he didn't make it back. Hence the Lioon who is in charge of Neocron today is not the real Lioon Reza."
"Then who is he?" Trillian asked.
"Good question. Lets go ask him."

Neocron had received word from Fallen Angels earlier that the mission had been successful, and the people were jubilant. And they had even more reason to be happy, as THE celebration of the year had come again. Reza's birthday. All of Neocron would turn out for the day when Reza put on the best show of all. The copbots would all be on passive stance, so they wouldn't keep glaring at everything that moved. The vendors offered half price on anything. The beer was all free and there was a LOT of it.

And this was also one of the few times Reza would walk openly among the people. Despite his age (which was estimated to be somewhere between 70 and 300) he looked fantastic. He would stride out strong amongst the people and bask in their almost sincere and highly intoxicated adulation.

As the masses gathered in Plaza 1, the area was busier than ever. There was no room to swing a cat, not that there were any cats left alive to swing. Reza took a seat up on the podium on the balcony of the Medicare building. There were runners on the skywalk, on the ground below, on signboards and lampposts. And they were all in great spirits. And why not? Without having to lift a finger, they had gained their salvation. The propulsion unit for the second cruiser had been acquired and within half a year they would all be speeding away to Irata III. Reza looked down and waved to the masses. A few waved back, a few sexy'd back. A few barfed. Everyone was still happy though.

In celebration of this great day, a few people had gone out and tried to find things to present at the party. Not items, but things they could do for the entertainment of Reza and the crowd. In a gesture of goodwill, considering the current way everyone was working together, the Brotherhood of Crahn had sent a dozen monks to put on a light show with their passive modules for everyone, which was met with ooh's and ahh's. NDA put on a military parade with turns and presentation of arms which was met with an applause (and a few wary looks from NDA's rivals and enemies). And then there was Betty.

Betty stood upon a podium and cleared his throat. Everyone listened in as Betty had worked hard to present a poetry recital of classic poetry from the 20th and 21st century. Reza especially was very interested to hear what poetry had been like hundreds of years ago. Betty began.
"I think that I shall never see,
my cataracts are blinding me..." everyone looked dumbfounded (Runner comes streaking past "SIMPSONS, Hans Moleman, COPYRIGHT, PAY UP!!).

"Mirror Mirror, on the wall,
who is the fairest of them all?
Not you said the mirror, not you indeed,
To be the fairest, first lay off the weed." Again, everyone sat dumbfounded.

"Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pron surfed, weak and weary,
over many a strange and spurious site of ' hot xxx galore'.
While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark,
suddenly there came a warning,
and my heart was filled with mourning,
mourning for my dear amour,
'Tis not possible!", i muttered, "give me back my free hardcore!"
... quoth the server, 404." Reza started giggling (Note from N'ed: I didn't write this, Pez brought it to my attention and I thought I'd share it with the rest of ya).

Betty carried on for some time doing this till people were thoroughly confused. And since thats what normally happens at a poetry recital, it was declared a huge success. Reza stood and congratulated Betty on his recital. Betty pulled the microphone closer and went to respond.
"You're dead Reza." blared through the speakers. Reza glared, Betty whimpered. Reza glared more, Betty whined. Reza snapped his fingers, 4 copbots waffled Betty.
"You're dead Reza." the voice blared through the speakers again. CheapLoveMotel appeared right next to Betty's carcass.
"Talking while dead, TEMP KICK!"
"It wasn't me..." Betty pointed out.
"It was now." and CLM sent Betty sailing into a puddle near Regants Legacy. Reza looked around anxiously. Then the speakers spoke again.
"Your beloved Reza is a fake people!" the speakers yelled. Centuri walked right up to Reza and grabbed his chest.
"No, those are genuine real mantits." Everyone looked at Centuri funny.
"Reza died over 50 years ago. The expedition to recover the propulsion system from the Grey November discovered that the captain was a Captain Lioon Reza, died 2721. The Reza you see before you is an impostor!!!" Everyone looked stunned. Reza just glared and then snapped his fingers. The copbots began targetting everyone in the crowd. However, nearby CityAdmin employees quickly signalled HQ and the Copbots were sent the stand down signal in time. Reza was wild with fury.
"You dare question me here? This is MY CITY!! It lives and dies at my will. And YOU will die at my will."
"Really?" the speakers spoke again, "you and what army?"
"CityAdmins, Rally to me!! We must destroy the usurpers!" A few began to move. But then a vid screen that had been installed for the birthday celebration flickered on, and the final log file of the Grey Novembers camera's was displayed. Everyone could clearly see Lioon Reza, as he was in his twenties, dying defending the Engineering section of his wrecked ship. Everyone looked at the current Reza, and finally understood why he looked so good for his age. He hadn't aged at all. Reza was no longer wild with fury, he was paralysed with fear. For now his CityAdmin's weren't rallying to him, they were restraining him. In a violent outburst he broke free of their grip and fled through the stunned crowd. Hunting party's were quickly formed.
"We should apprehend him quickly." Wannabe, who had been enjoying the good life in an office job at CityAdmin these last 20 or so issues, suggested.
"I guess, but seriously, whats the rush?" Centuri suggested, "everyone on the face of the planet will be after him. Where can he go?"

Until next time...
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Orwain
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