Who: EVERYONE! Especially Tamaki, Carly, and Childermass.
When: S1:D40 - the first day of the second performance week.
Where: The carnival, while the gateway to the Matrix is open.
What: Agents find the carnival. They don't like it. Neither does the Ringmaster.
Warnings: Body horror for some people, gun violence for others. Also, a pissed off Ringmaster.

MATRIX: RESOLUTIONS↴ The days following the kidnappings and attacks are tense. The performances go smoothly enough, but are delayed by those that have been bedridden or captured - only for the vanished workers to return a few days after the initial attacks. Bad things have been done to them, clearly, but the specifics are unclear, as is why they seem to have been released without a fight. Maybe the machines just had no further use for them, as unlikely as it seems. Regular humans from the Matrix come and go. They experience the carnival, balk at the possible unreality of their lives, and then go home. What it accomplishes is ambiguous and perhaps unsatisfactory to some. All the while, the threat of something more ominous lurks. The sensible thing to do in this situation would be to pack up and leave, but even if it is broached to the Ringmaster, she will be resistant. She spends much of the Off Week mulling over the idea, only casually recommending that people might want to stay out of the Matrix for the time being, but not enforcing it. When the next week rolls around, she makes the somewhat unpopular decision to declare that the carnival is opening its gates to the Matrix again. Workers are directed to prepare for another week of performances. This turns out to be an irresponsible choice. ► AGENTS ATTACK: Mere hours after the carnival gates open, theoretical threats assertively make themselves a reality. It may not be entirely clear what happened to all observers, but the generalities appear something like this: the gates open and performances start, humans enslaved within the Matrix start to come in, just as before, and then... chaos breaks out. Suddenly Agents are there, something the Ringmaster had assured wouldn't happen. The numbers of Agents present seem to multiple within a short time period, but with some luck you may spot the original source - it's the three captures carnival workers, Tamaki, Carly, and Childermass. ► THE BUGGED: For Tamaki, Carly, and Childermass, this is sure to be an unpleasant experience. How much they experience or remember of this will vary, but what will essentially happen to them is that three Agents are going to use their implanted bodies in an attempt to import themselves into the carnival's reality - that is to say, they are going to try to upload themselves into their bodies through the implanted bugs, and overwrite them as they do with the Matrix natives. (For an example of how this usually, watch the helicopter be overwritten by an Agent about ten seconds into this clip.) This won't really work like how they intended, given that the carnival's reality is a mixture of code, magic, and matter at the moment. How exactly this pans out with your character is up to you - you can have them completely turn into an middle aged white man with a gun (or a different middle aged white man if they already are one) but have the Agent's control falter after a short while, or they can only partially change and partially take over. Or, they can just try to possess your characters body for a while, with no physical changes. Motivation wise, the Agents are pretty simple. They discovered the anomaly of the carnival and wanted to know what the fuck was going on, but what happens after arriving isn't really what they were expecting. They will be attacking primarily out of reflex and out of a lack of better ideas. They are machines, programmed for a purpose, and will do their best to accomplish that - right now, that is eliminating a threat. The bugged characters can be saved by being taken down/knocked out/restrained enough that the Agents will make the jump into another nearby Matrix native. From there, they will multiply, for a short time. ► KICKBANNED: After the Agents enter through the three bugged characters, more Agents will appear by overwritting some of the nearby Matrix natives. Overall we are talking about 6 Agents spread out around the carnival at any given moment, but if you kill or injure their host they will be able to jump to a new human and take them over. The attack will be short, but unpleasant. After about 15 minutes the Ringmaster will realize what is happening, and put a swift end to it. If any of the possessed characters haven't been knocked out/saved by then she will literally and figuratively rip the Agents out of them, returning them to normal. After that she will tear apart the coding/consciousnesses of the remaining Agents and kick all of the remaining visitors out, slamming the gates behind them. She will be very pissed, and it will be scary to watch. Then, she will declare that they are packing their figurative bags and moving the fuck on, thank you very much. OOC GUIDELINES: The carnage here should not get excessive, though people are welcome to get hurt if they want to. The fight will be short, and ultimately the Agents will be too confused to be super effective - however, it's more than enough to provoke the Ringmaster into being done with this shit. Any Agents killed will revert to the dead body of whatever human they were possessing. These bodies will also disappear when the Ringmaster kicks everyone out. If they jump from a live host, the host will be left with whatever injuries they sustained. The bugged characters will have to get their implants removed by the Doctor. Overall, this isn't meant to be a total bloodbath, and the carnival workers will have a good shot at handling the Agents on their own turf. It's mostly the fact that they keep coming back that is the problem. Character's abilities function as normal inside the carnival, and they may possess a small portion of their One powers for the duration of the fight, too. OOC questions can be directed to the original plot post. If you are one of the three possessed people and really don't want to do this plot, we can figure a way to minimalize it for you, but I'm hoping this is something the plot volunteers find exciting.

Who: Tamaki, Childermass, Carly, Susan, Peridot, and Sherlock. And AGENTS.
Where: Inside The Matrix.
When: D28
What: The Agents have been watching your activities over the last week, and they’ve decided it’s time to act.
Warnings: Violence and most likely body horror.

THE ABDUCTION↴ The visitors have not be subtle in their intrusions, and for a time the Agents have held back, analysing the true effects of these new entities before deciding to make a move. But now, their patience has run out. The source of this infection must be found, and eliminated, or else the whole system could be dragged apart. These aren’t just the rebelling humans. These are something else. [OOC: Tamaki, Childermass, and Carly were selected from the danger raffle to be fully abducted by Agents. Susan, Peridot, and Sherlock will be attacked by Agents, but will escape when Resistance members intervene. Please make a top level below with your characters doing something in the Matrix that is relatively secluded from big crowds of people, as that is when the Agents would most likely strike. You can bring other characters along if you like for the initial confrontations, though only the selected characters will actually be captured by Agents. Any injuries sustained in these fights will equally damage character’s real physical forms, no matter how damage resistant they may normally be. Unless they are bending the Matrix to use their powers or to alter it with One powers, they will be as vulnerable as a normal human. Agents and Resistance members will be played by the mods in this log.]

Who: EVERYONE!
When: S1:D22 - S1:D??
Where: Visiting the Matrix.
What: The carnival arrives at its next location, as outlined here. This is a general mingling log for convenience purposes, but players are welcome to make as many other logs for this purpose as desired.
Warnings: Could be a lot of things.

THE MATRIX↴ "What IS the Matrix? The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it." ► INSIDE: On the inside, it all seems so normal. Beyond what you know of the reality you've stepped in, every bit of this place feels just as real as it did back in the carnival. If you were to forget where you'd just come from, would you know any different? The simulation of Chicago is identical to how it would have been in the early days of the new millenia, to anyone who comes from a similar Earth. Humans bustle around you, oblivious to the world outside of the Matrix that they were born into. One bright side to it all is that this hyper realism means the coffee tastes just as good as it does in real life. Anything you could do in real Chicago you can do here - and perhaps even more. ► WHITE ROOM: But before that, you were here. The White Room is a loading program, intended to port objects and people into the Matrix. You arrive as a reconstruction of your true physical form, but common sense suggests that for some of you, entering the mundane world looking like yourself isn't the best idea. It's in this empty world that you will be able to load in whatever physical objects you are, and change the way you present your own body to the system. Changes can be little, or big, but whatever you do, the body has to be able to function according to Earth's physical laws. Don't forget, if you die here, you die in the carnival too. ► DEJA VU: It doesn't matter what you're doing, but at some point you'll notice it - something around you has repeated itself, like a line on a skipping record. Maybe it's the same person bumping into you twice in a row, or the same cab driver yelling at you to get out of the way. It's like reality has rewound and repeated itself, and after the fact you have no proof of it happening beyond the memory of what you saw. You don't know what it means, but something about it is chilling. It may be a good time to find a buddy. ► THE ONE: It won't necessarily come naturally, but in a moment of need you may find yourself bending the world of the Matrix through sheer belief and force of need. How you bend it will always stay without the rules of the universe, at least for now, but when it comes to enhancing your own physical characteristics, just about anything is possible. It will not be easily reproducible, not now, but it could be your first view into the window of what's possible.