Joe Chung strapped the dermatrodes across his forehead and clicked in the countdown. 3, 2, 1... The digital perfections of the Matrix swiftly replaced the grimy bedsit. He keyed some familiar coords and the scene shifted quickly to a large, flat circular space, skinned in cybersteel: the Robot Wars arena, his old fight-to-the-death ring for AS3bots made for his FlashBrighton partners.

Bennett's broken bot still lay wrecked in the centre of the space. The arena was a place where the bots could react to their surroundings and smash each other up, and Bennett's was an aggressive bot that had pounded itself to pieces in it's blind hunt for Willis' pacific bot, a gutless thing that just sat at the side. Willis had ultimately won that fight but Chung was here to ensure that cowardly shit wasn't gonna happen again. He downloaded a fix into the arena that would allow players to skin & change the size of their bot, which would affect their speed and strength.

Clearing the ring, he switched a msg pkg across the Matrix to the old combatants 'Robot Wars is back' it began. 'Playaz: bring ur laptop & fav AS3 editor. Bot skinnin reqs Flash CS3+. Best skinz r circular & top-down. Make them b4 if u want. More instructs 2 follow @ FlashBrighton.org. Sesh will b split in 2: 1st codin/skinnin bots, 2nd fight. Winna will take coco-based stimulant.'

Chung looked around the old arena, the simsmell of cyberdiesel & blood reg'ed on his display. His pupils dilated, briefly flaring the place bright red.

'Jack in Tues Nov 3rd, 7pm GMT @ The Werks & no actin like bad losers on yahoo chess'.

Chung clicked the msg out and jacked out of the Matrix. The bedsit roughly phased back in. He hid the dermatrodes behind the air-con grill and pulled his console out to prepare.

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