After 4000 years of war, the Arm Commander, sitting down
for lunch finally realised that it really was true. No matter how hard
he tried, he couldn't cut anything on his plate with the knife in his left
hand. Now that the dispute had finally been settled (the whole idea of
a war over patterning was just some stupid historians' fevered imagination
playing up) after 4000 years of bloody conflict, he felt a bit guilty about
rudely sucking up so many Core corpses just to spite them. And then spitting
them out into some huge plasma gun, when he knew how obsessed the Core
were with manners.
Immediately, he phoned up the Core Supreme Commander, apologised for
the grave misunderstanding, and arranged to have lunch with him sometime
(the Core Commanders sister was one of the best looking metal suits this
side of the Andromeda Galaxy, and the silver look was in this year!).
The two Commanders quickly became best friends and had regular Quake
sessions to ease any tensions they felt. Unfortunately for the Arm Commander
(now known as King überfrag XIV), his nemesis beat him every time
they played (hey, you know the computer always cheats). So the one time
he managed to get the rocket launcher first, it was with great glee that
he clicked the button that would send fiery death winging his opponents
way. Joyously anticipating the ridiculously overstated carnage that would
surely follow, when the computer crashed 1 second too soon, his temple
only just avoided popping out of his head, destroying the battlesuit he
wore and likely taking his house with it in an immense explosion.
Gradually, however, as the red cleared from his vision, his heart stopped
thumping, and a group of Arm technicians finished constructing a geothermal
powerplant on him to tap the steam emanating from his head, he realised
that his computer (now D-gunned into small, frightened-looking atoms) had
not been sacrificed in vain - it had given him an idea.
As soon as he could manage a coherent sentence, he quickly declared
war on the Core once again. Searching through ancient Arm records, he finally
came across what he had been looking for - a piece of software so lethal,
and yet so seemingly innocent that even the mighty Arm Commander himself
was terrified to clone the creator of such an efficient weapon. Knowing,
however, that no other mind in existence could be devious enough to manipulate
the malicious killing machine in mind, he gritted his teeth and did what
had to be done. Gates 00000001 (this was the first time in history he had
ever been cloned, and the Arm Commander hoped to god that it would never
be necessary to duplicate him again) was born.
The Commanders plan was brilliant. As a sort of Trojan horse, he would
offer the Core an improved method of patterning as a recompense for starting
yet another bloody war that had decimated both civilisations. Secretly
however, he would be infecting them with the weapon! (OK, maybe brilliant
was overstating it).
Everything went according to plan - the Core were dead chuffed (I've
always wanted to use that phrase) with their new toy, and used it so much
that soon all their warriors were patterned by it. The time to strike was
now…
The Gates clone had been born without any of the knowledge of his former
self, having to rely on Arm records for information. But as he booted up
his adopted child, he was struck with an evil glee, which felt startlingly
familiar. For some reason - he didn't know why - he had decided to call
it "Wendose".
As his fingers ran across the keyboard, activating the program, he
cackled insanely. The Arm Commander looked at him nervously, but was committed
now.
"Initiate stage one," he said.
Gates pushed the power up to 3.0. A zipper rushed into the room;
"Its working," he cried, "they're wobbling about all over the place!"
"Increase power!" The Arm commander ordered…
Gates increased it first to 3.1. The monitor in front of him showed
Core soldiers walking into several walls. Ecstatically, he again increased
the power to 3.11. The soldiers started tripping over each other hitting
their heads. Still Gates lusted for more power. Before anyone could stop
him, he pushed it all the way up to 95, with a corresponding increase in
effect. The Core Kbots started ripping limbs off each other, if only to
batter themselves into unconsciousness.
The Arm Commander, not normally a compassionate man, could bear it
no longer;
"Stop it!", he shouted knowing that he could not reach the console
in time to stop the gates clone from pushing the power up again… He did
so, all the way up to 98, and every Core unit exploded violently. He shouted;
"I've done it! The universe is mine again, Bwahahahahahahaaaaaaaa!!!"
Fortunately, this time there was someone around who could step on him….