The Story

The green cursor pulsed on the blank, black computer screen. There was a sound, a phone ringing, then a clunk as it was answered. A line of green print appeared on the screen.

Call trans opt: received. 2-19-98 13:24:18 REC:Log>

~

A voice;

"Yeah."

"Is everything in place?"

~

Trace program: running

~

"You weren't supposed to relieve me." the man's voice was curious, and a little angry.

"I know, but I felt like taking a shift," the woman answered.

~

The print was replaced by columns of numbers, falling and being replaced too quickly to be read. The columns split into two groups, and the number five appeared at the top left of the screen.

~

"You like him, don't you. You like watching him." It was a statement, not a question.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"We're gonna kill him. You understand that?"

"Morpheus believes he is the One."

"Do you?"

~

~

"It doesn't matter what I believe."

"You don't, do you?"

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Are you sure this line is clean?"

"Yeah, of course I'm sure."

~

~

"I'd better go."

~

The screen blanked.

The young cop trained the torch beam on the door, and nodded over his shoulder. The large cop side-stepped around the other police that stood ready against the walls, and ducked under a cluster of electrical cables that hung from the cobwebbed ceiling. He halted outside 303. He waited until the other two units were clustered behind him before kicking open the door into the darkened room, aiming his gun at the head of the figure, sitting in the hard wooden chair. Circles of light wavered on the figure, showing a computer screen flickering on the table before her, beside the white rotary phone.

"Freeze! Police!"

"Put your hands on your head, do it!" a pause, "Do it now!"

Taking a shaky inward breath, the young woman raised her hands slowly above her head.

~

Blue and red lights flickered around the alley, reflecting off police cars parked randomly along the road. A long, black car pulled up outside the building, headlights glaring into the night. The back door opened and three men wearing brown suits and squarish sunglasses climbed out.

Agent Smith stepped forward.

"Lieutenant."

The lieutenant turned his head away.

"Oh shit."

The man's voice was slow and drawling, as if he sifted each word for impurities before saying it.

"Lieutenant, you were given specific orders."

The cop turned and looked at the man.

"Hey, I'm just doin' my job. You give me that juris-my-dick-tion crap, you can cram it up your ass."

"The orders were for your protection."

He laughed humourlessly.

"I think we can handle one little girl."

The Agent cocked his head at an angle, as if listening. Taking a few steps forward, he stared intently at the neon sign outside the building that advertised 'Heart O' The City Hotel – Cheap Rooms'. From his right ear protruded a thin, pale cable, twisted like a phone cord.

"I sent two units," the cop continued. "They're bringing her down now."

The man turned and spoke, his voice flat, emotionless.

"No, Lieutenant your men are already dead."

~

The cop pulled handcuffs from his belt, glancing down at his hands as he undid the clip. The woman spun around, snapping the man's wrist with her left hand while punching her right into his face, crunching his nose. Drawing herself up into a mid-air pounce, she paused before slamming her right boot into his chest, sending him and the man behind him crashing through the far wall. She kicked the chair at the next man, then leapt to the wall as the next pulled his pistol from his belt and fired sporadically. The woman ran along the wall, the bullets missing her heels by inches. Coming down to a crouch on the floor, she spun behind him and grabbed his gun from his still outstretched hand. She used him as a shield as his partner fired, then she shot at the other, killing the last one. Spinning away as his limp body fell, the woman froze in a fighting stance and regarded the lolling forms around her.

"Shit."

~

Agent Jones strode into the foyer flanked on either side by police.

~

"Morpheus? The line was traced, I don't know how."

"I know, they cut the hard line. There's no time, you'll have to get to another exit."

"Are there any Agents?"

"Yes."

"Godammit."

"You have to focus Trinity. There's a phone at Wells and Lake." She breathed in deeply.

"You can make it."

"Alright."

"Go."

She shoved the phone back in her pocket. Jumping over the bodies to the open door, she glanced to her right. A man in a brown suit with squarish sunglasses was moving through the elevator door, flanked by another unit of police. Trinity backed up, turned around, and started running. The Agent and the cops followed.

Down the hall and around the corner, up the stairs and out onto the fire escape. Looking down, Trinity saw another man in brown looking up at her from the street.

She turned and bolted up the last flight of stairs, and onto the roof. Her feet thudded on the concrete, and Trinity gained speed as she neared the edge of the roof. The next building was a similar height the one she was on, and the woman leapt to it, clearing the two-metre gap easily. The Agent followed a scant few moments later, the police close behind. One slipped on the damp concrete, but scrambled to safety.

Trinity fled onward, blind to what was behind her. The roof ahead was steep triangles of corrugated iron. Up, down, up, down she sped, the Agent untiring behind her. The police however, were beginning to lag behind. There was a burning pain under Trinity's ribs. As she ran over a skylight and turned slightly, she could see the end of the roof was nearing her. Behind her, the Agent stopped and fired after her. She clenched her teeth, ran faster, and took off from the edge of the roof, seeming to run in slow motion through the air as she leapt over the main street below.

She landed with a thud, rolling to her feet, her black leather clothes covered in dust. She ran on, ducking behind the first pillar. The surface of the roof was riddled with shoulder-high walls, mounds of bricks, and thick, wide pillars twice her hight.

The leading cop skidded to a halt at the edge of the roof, where he stared, mouth agape, as the Agent stepped off. He seemed to fly effortlessly over the gap, landing in a cloud of dust, tiles cracking under his feet as he crouched, gun in hand.

"That's impossible", the policeman croaked.

Trinity opened her eyes, her chest heaving. She glanced about her quickly, then looked forward. About fifty metres away, a small window gleamed with a yellow light. At the foot of that building, she knew, was a public phone, at the corner of Wells and Lake.

The exit. She had to make it.

Trinity breathed in, feeling her heart pumping erratically, then clenched her teeth and ran. She dived from the edge of the rooftop, flying, arms out straight before her head, hands curling into fists. She turned in the air, steeling herself for impact. Smashing through the window, Trinity curled into a ball, tumbling down a flight of stairs. She landed on her back, feet on the bottom step, twin handguns pointing at the shattered window. The old light bulb swung lazily on its cable. Her hair was in her eyes, a cut stung on her face. Trinity hissed to herself,

"Get up Trinity, just get up."

The light swung, back, forth. Creak, squeak.

"Get up!" she rolled to her feet and ran.

~

A garbage truck rumbled down Wells Street as the woman stepped around the corner of the building. Suddenly the brakes screeched, and the truck turned slowly. The public phone on the corner began to ring. The truck roared and started forward. Trinity ran toward the phone, ripped open the door and grabbed the receiver, holding it to her ear. She turned to face the oncoming truck, laying a hand against the glass as if she could hold the speeding vehicle away from her.

~

The truck slammed into the booth, crashing into the corner of the building. It shuddered, reversed, and stopped. The door opened, and Agent Smith descended from the cab. The pavement was piled with brick rubble, twisted metal and broken glass. The phone receiver lay atop the pile, now nothing but dusty black plastic and a broken metal cord.

The three Agents stood before the heap.

"She got out," said Jones.

"It doesn't matter," replied Smith.

"The informant is real."

"Yes," gritted Smith.

"We have the name of their next target," added Brown.

"The name is Neo," Jones cut in.

Smith looked over the pile of rubble, thinking. "We'll need a search running."

Brown spoke again, "It has already begun."

A computer was online, running a search. Greyscale photos of a man in black, newspaper articles with titles like 'International Manhunt Underway' and 'Morpheus Eludes Police at Heathrow Airport', and paragraphs of information flickered on the screen as they downloaded themselves to the disk drive. The light from the screen lit the face of the young man where he slept, head on arms, at his desk. Music pumped into his ears through the headphones he wore –

– which fed from the complex and expensive amplifier beside him on the electronically cluttered desk. He was surrounded by cables, cords, dust, disks, screwdrivers, screens, CD's, disembowelled computers, and their organs. His cramped apartment was messy and jumbled together, his bed was a tangled nest of sheets and clothes, the garbage bin was full of take-away food containers, and the floor was strewn with junk.

Suddenly the computer screen went blank.

Wake up Neo. . .

His eyelids flickered at the ticking sound as the type appeared, then they opened, and he slowly sat up and read the green print on the black screen. Then it blanked again, as three more letters came slowly, as if an inexperienced typist were pushing the keys.

The

"What?"

He pulled off his headphones, staring bleary eyed at the screen.

The line finished quickly, the typist gaining experience. It now read;

The Matrix has you. . .

"What the hell?" Suddenly awake, he glanced anxiously around the room, then hit control x. The line disappeared, then more letters returned, flowing easily.

Follow the white rabbit.

The man read from the screen, huskily speaking the words as they appeared. He hit the escape key twice, sharply 'Tap, Tap'. The words blinked out of existence, and a new line blinked up just as suddenly.

Knock knock Neo.

Two pounding knocks startled him, and he jumped, looking toward the door. Eyeing it warily, he called;

"Who is it?"

"It's Choi." He looked back to his computer, but the screen was blank, the computer dead. He stared at the screen, as if daring it to make a move. The dark glass stared back at him.

"Yeah, yeah."

He unlocked and pulled open the door, as far as the safety chain would allow. Outside was Choi, with his current girl friend, and a bunch of guys, the type little kids would have bad dreams about. One girl had a chain from her ear to her nose, the metal looped and twisted like lace. The man behind her was wearing chunky sunglasses, besides the fact it was late at night. They all wore lots of black.

"You're two hours late," The man in the doorway observed.

"I know, It's her fault." Choi shrugged.

"Got the money?"

Choi pulled out a wad of green notes out of his pocket. "Two grand."

"Hold on." The man took the money and closed the door. Pulling a thick green book, 'Simulacra and Simulation' from the shelf beside his unmade bed, he opened it, revealing a hidden box within the hollowed out pages. He rummaged briefly among the disks, then chose one, dropped in the money, and replaced the book.

He undid the chain and opened the door, handing the disk to his customer.

Choi snatched the disk, handing it over his shoulder to a heavy man in black leather.

"Hallelujah; you're my saviour man, my own personal Jesus Christ – "

"You get caught using that – "

"I know, I know, this never happened, you don't exist." He said the words as if they were habit, as they were.

"Right." The man nodded absently, leaning against the doorframe.

"Hey man, you okay?" Choi spoke with sarcastic worry. "You look a little whiter than usual."

He let the jibe pass, he was too shaken to make a decent comeback.

"My computer, it – " The man took a shaky breath. "Do you ever get that feeling, when you're not sure if you're awake or, still dreaming?"

"All the time." Choi's eyes were distant. "It's called mesculine, it's the only way to fly."

His eyes focused back to reality with a laugh as he looked to the young man with pale skin and black hair.

"Hey, it just sounds to me like you might need to unplug man, you know, loosen up, get some R and R? What do you think Du Jour," he asked the girl. "You think we should take him with us?" She looked the young man up and down, and smiled, foxlike,

"Definitely."

"I can't, I have, uh – " he protested, " – work tomorrow." The girl grinned coyly, not buying his excuse.

"Come on, it'll be fun. I promise." He was about to shake his head when Du Jour turned toward Choi, and he saw the tattoo on her left shoulder.

A white rabbit.

"Yeah, sure," he nodded assent. "I'll go."

~

Bright lights flashed, loud industrial music reverberated through his feet. He stood alone, arms folded, half-watching the leather clad dancers on the crowded floor.

Choi and Du Jour were sitting smoking God-only-knew-what on the other side of the room, leaving him alone with the wall, feeling distinctly uncomfortable.

A figure walked up behind him.

"Hello Neo."

He looked over his shoulder at the young woman in the tight, black, strapless leather dress. Her hair was short, slicked back, the same shiny ink-black as the leather. Her skin was pale, and he could see the sharp relief of muscles in her bare arms. Her eyes were blue.

"How do you know that name?"

"I know a lot about you."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Trinity."

"Trinity," Neo thought for a moment, then; "The Trinity? That cracked the IRS-D base?"

"That was a long time ago," she admitted, playing it down.

Neo looked aside, giving a breath of surprise, "Jesus."

"What?"

"I just thought, um, you were a guy." Her smile was faint, but there.

"Most guys do."

"That was you," Neo turned fully, "on my computer? How did you do that?"

She stepped closer,

"Right now, all I can tell you, is that you're in danger. I brought you here to warn you."

"Of what?"

"They're watching you Neo."

"Who is?"

"Please just listen." She stepped toward him again, as Neo unfolded his arms and didn't know what to do with them. Then she was speaking in his ear, his head bent, and their fronts almost touching. He could hear the lyrics of the music, a new song –

– he could feel her breath against his neck as she spoke. He could smell her.

"I know why you're here Neo. I know what you've been doing. I know why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night you sit at your computer. You're looking for him. I know because I was once looking for the same thing. And when he found me, he told me I wasn't really looking for him, I was looking for an Answer." Neo swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

"It's the Question that drives us Neo," she continued. "It's the Question that brought you here. You know the Question, just as I did."

"What is the Matrix," he whispered, the word almost palpable.

"The Answer is out there Neo. It's looking for you. And it will find you."

She pulled back, fixing him with a direct stare. Her voice was cold, and Neo shivered as she spoke again.

"If you want it to."

And she turned, and walked away.

The alarm rang, the clock showing 9:18. He thumped the off button and rolled out of bed, realising too late the consequence of not changing the alarm's batteries when he should have. He was going to be late for work, again.

"Shit."

~

On the thirty fourth floor of the Meta Cortex building, he stared blankly at the window washers outside the glass, listening to the squeal of their wipers. He blinked and tried to focus on his manager, who was sitting behind his desk, glaring at him.

"You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson. You believe that you are special, that somehow the rules do not apply to you. Obviously, you are mistaken. This company is one of the top software companies in the world, because every single employee understands that they are part of a whole. Thus, if an employee has a problem, the company has a problem."

Suds dripped down the glass, leaving streaks before the wiper blade scraped them off the window. There was something about the pattern of the falling suds that he felt he should recognise, or he felt as if it had once been familiar to him.

The plastic wipers screamed for attention.

"The time has come to make a choice, Mr. Anderson. Either you choose to be at your desk, on time, from this day forth, or you choose to find yourself another job. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes Mr. Rheinhardt, perfectly clear."

~

He sat in his chair, staring at the dead screen of his computer. The entrance of a courier awoke him to the fact he had been in that same position for some time.

"Thomas Anderson?"

"Yeah, that's me."

He scribbled his signature on the clipboard, and the courier took it back, gave him an envelope and smiled,

"Have a nice day."

He stared at the young man's receding back.

Shrugging off the oppressive feeling, he tore open the express envelope, tipping a black mobile phone into his hand.

It rang.

He froze, then pressed the catch, and a panel snapped open, revealing a number pad and receiver. Hesitantly, he raised the phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Hello Neo. Do you know who this is?" The man's voice was strong and deep. Neo swung his chair around and bent over his desk, head almost touching the cubicle wall. He had never heard this man speak, yet he knew him instinctively.

"Morpheus?"

"Yes. I have been looking for you Neo. I don't know if you are ready to see what I have to show you but unfortunately you and I have run out of time. They are coming for you Neo and I don't know what they are going to do."

"Who's coming for me?"

"Stand up and see for yourself."

"What, right now?"

"Yes. Do it slowly." Pushing back his chair, Neo stood carefully, "The elevator." Standing with another female employee were three men, wearing brown suits and squarish sunglasses, flanked by a dozen or so SWAT police. As he watched, she pointed in his direction, and they turned toward him. Ducking down, Neo huddled in the corner near his filing cabinet like a cornered animal.

"Oh shit!"

"Ye-e-s," the voice sounded, of all things, amused.

"What the hell do they want from me?"

"I don't know, but if you don't want to find out I suggest you get out of there."

Neo scuttled back to his chair, then into the corner again, terrified, "How?"

"I can guide you but you have to do exactly what I say."

Stretching out of his crouch, Neo tried uselessly to see over the cubicle wall, like a rabbit scanning for danger.

"Alright."

"The cubicle across from you is empty."

"What if they – ?"

"Go, now!"

Still clutching the phone, Neo scuttled across the narrow walkway and ducked into the next cubicle, crouching against the partition.

"Stay here for just a moment." Neo nodded, forgetting Morpheus could not possibly him.

Peering around the corner, he saw two of the suited men step up to the gap in the partition that was the door to his work space. He caught a glimpse of a gun holster under a brown suit. Seeing his desk vacant, the pair glanced at each other, then walked away in different directions. Only then did Neo breathe. Morpheus spoke again.

"When I tell you, go to the end of the row, to the office at the end of the hall. Stay as low as you can." A pause. "Go. Now."

Neo stepped out of the cubicle and swerved right, almost cannoning into the legs of a cop who was, thankfully, facing the other way. Neo spun about, and set off at a run, bent double, almost tripping up on his tie, past the walled-in desks of his fellow employees. Down the row, past the photocopier, then wrenching open the door to the vacant office and shutting it quietly behind him. He stood, chest heaving.

"Good," approved Morpheus. "Now outside there is a scaffold."

"How do you know all this?" the young man protested.

"We don't have time Neo. To your left there is a window. Go to it."

Neo crossed the small room, still holding the phone to his ear. He halted before the window, staring blankly through the glass.

"Open it."

He undid the latch and pushed out the large sheet of glass. There was a narrow concrete ledge about half a metre wide. A large, thick pillar cut off the ledge a few metres to the right, and just beyond it was a maze of metal pipes and wood planks, where the other side of the building was being renovated.

"Take the scaffold to get to the roof – " Neo backed away from the window, shaking his head.

"No way!" he hissed into the phone, turning from the window. "No way! This is crazy!" But Morpheus continued.

"Neo, there are two ways out this building, one is that scaffold, the other is in their custody. You take a chance either way, I leave it to you." He hung up. Neo turned, stepped back to the window, and climbed onto the ledge, muttering to himself.

"This is insane! Why is this happening to me? What did I do? I'm nobody." Leaning over the edge; Neo peered at the drop, he swung back inside the office. He swore, breathing heavily. Summoning what he hoped was courage, he looked out again.

"I'm gonna die."

Keeping his back firmly against the glass, Neo inched along the ledge. When he reached the pillar, he leant his stomach to the metal, and reached his left arm around it.

As a freak wind gushed across his face, Neo jerked backward, the left hand that held the cell-phone flying out to keep his balance. The phone slipped from his hand and fell. It seemed to hang for a moment in mid-air, before it dropped, spinning, to the footpath, some thirty-four floors below. Neo swallowed, his eyes clearing.

"I can't do this."

He stepped back from the edge, slinking along the windowsill, and clambering back into the office.

Fine, he'd go with them.

~

Trinity watched in her rear view mirror as the Agents manhandled Neo into the long, black car that waited outside the building. One turned his head to look at her.

She swore, revved her motorbike, and pulled out from the curb.

~

Neo sat in the hard plastic chair behind the desk in the hearing room at the police station. Besides these pieces of furniture, and another chair, the room was little more than a cell, the white walls blank.

Then the door opened, and the three men entered, the taller two moving to stand either side of him, while the slight man sat down opposite. He laid a thick, blue manilla folder on the table, and began flicking through it. Neo tried to see what was in it, and then wished he hadn't. He was in big trouble.

"As you can see," the slight man's voice was irritatingly slow. "We've had our eye on you for some time now, Mr. Anderson.

"It seems that you've been living two lives. In one life, you're Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, you pay your taxes, and, you help your land lady carry out her garbage." The man sneered at that last sentence, as if he could smell the taint of garbage on Neo. The man turned to a new page in the folder.

"Your other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias Neo, and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for."

"One of these lives has a future," The man closed the folder and sat back in his chair. "And one of them does not.

"I'm going to be as, forthcoming as I can be Mr Anderson." He took off his sunglasses and folded in the arms carefully, setting them to his right. "You're here because, we need your help."

"We know that you've been contacted by a certain individual, a man who calls himself 'Morpheus'."

Neo breathed in.

"Now, whatever you think you know about this man is irrelevant, he is considered by many authorities to be the most dangerous man alive. My, colleagues, believe I am wasting my time with you, but I believe you wish to do the right thing. We're willing to wipe the slate clean," the man pushed the folder to one side. "Give you a fresh start. All we ask in return is your cooperation in bringing a known terrorist to justice."

Neo bit his lip and tilted his head, as if considering.

"Well," he began, "that sounds like a good deal, but, I think I've got a better one. How about, I give you the finger," he raised his left hand, shaped as a fist, middle finger extended. The slight man raised his eyebrows, but did not comment.

"And you give me my phone call."

The slight man picked up his shades and replaced them. Neo dropped his hand.

"Mr. Anderson, you disappoint me – "

But Neo broke in,

"Listen, you can't scare me with this Gestapo crap. I know my rights. I want my phone call."

Something resembling a smile played around the corner of the slight man's mouth.

"Tell me Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?"

Neo tried to answer, but there seemed to be something holding his lips together. With a wrenching effort that left his jaws aching, he opened his mouth, and saw his reflection in the man's sunglasses. A thick slime the colour of his skin was covering what should have been an open mouth. With a yell that sounded very distant, Neo jumped up, knocking his chair over, pressing himself into the corner. The two larger men stepped up close, one ripping his shirt open, leaving his chest and stomach bare. Between them, although he struggled every step of the way, the two men forced him face up on the table, and held him while the third opened a silver cigarette case.

"You will help us Mr. Anderson," sneered the other man. "Whether you want to, or not."

He pulled a delicate, metallic, tadpole-shaped socket from the case, holding it by the tail. After he clicked a button on the head, it became cocooned in a dark jelly that quivered obscenely as the metal stretched and began to squirm like an insect. The socket suddenly shook itself free of the jelly, and Neo saw, to his horror, that it was more like a robotic scorpion. It writhed wildly in the man's hand, spidery tentacle legs flailing, then dropped onto Neo's stomach. He tried to scream, but it came from far away, and then there was nothing but burning pain as the scorpion wriggled it's way into him, through his navel.

Neo woke up with a jerk, chest heaving as he gasped for breath. His hand went to his stomach, but there was no scorpion, and his mouth was back to normal. Outside, rain pelted against his window, and thunder growled. It must have been a dream. Falling back, he flung one arm over his eyes, his breath and heart calming.

The phone rang, startling him, although he had somehow expected it. He sat up and, crossing to his desk, picked up the receiver.

"This line is tapped, so I must be brief." It was Morpheus. "They got to you first, but they underestimated how important you are, if they knew what I know, you would probably be dead."

"What are you talking about? What," Neo shook his head, pushing away the fuzziness of sleep; confused. "What is happening to me?"

"You are the One, Neo." A snarl of thunder came from the dark outside at his words. Neo was now wide awake.

"You see, you may have spent the last few years looking for me, but I have spent my entire life looking for you. Now do you still want to meet?"

A hesitation, then;

"Yes."

"Then go to the Adam's street bridge."

~

The rain poured down in waterfalls from either side of the bridge, and Neo waited in the relative dry on the road underneath. A black car pulled up. Trinity opened the back door.

"Get in." Her tone offered no argument, and Neo made none. He slid into the seat beside her.

And found a gun aimed at his head.

A blond woman gazed steadily and impassively at him from the front passenger seat, from the other end of the gun. A dark haired man with a ponytail was driving.

"What the hell is this?"

"It's necessary Neo," said Trinity, "For our protection."

"From what?"

"You." Neo stared at her.

Blond spoke, "Take off your shirt." Now he was really confused.

"What?" Blond turned her head to the driver.

"Stop the car." The car slid to a halt in the wet, cold, night. Blond turned back to him.

"Listen to me copper-top," That's a battery. "We don't have time for twenty questions. Right now there is one rule; our way. Or the high-way."

Neo looked at her for a moment, then at Trinity. She seemed to nod, but he couldn't tell. He looked away and opened the door. "Fine."

Trinity caught his arm.

"Please Neo, you have to trust me." He looked back at her,

"Why?"

"Because you have been down there Neo. You know that road. You know exactly where it ends." He looked out into the rain-drenched night. The end of the road was in darkness, yet looked hauntingly familiar. It was the road that he walked down every day on the way to the train station. He caught the 8:30 train to the station two blocks from the Meta-Cortex building. A vision of his matchbox work station came to him, with the dead computer screen, and a courier with a package for Thomas Anderson.

Trinity called him Neo.

"And I know that's not where you want to be."

Neo looked back to the woman beside him. Her black leather glistened like midnight oil. Her eyes gleamed. He pulled the door shut.

The car lurched into motion. Trinity spoke to the driver, "Apoc, lights." The man with the ponytail flicked a switch on the dashboard and two bulbs lit up in the roof above the back seat.

"Lie back, lift up your shirt." This time he obeyed, unzipping his jacket and untucking his t-shirt. Trinity pulled a tube like machine from under the seat, and plugged a cable into a socket in the arm rest.

"What is that thing?"

"We think you're bugged," she told him. "Try to relax,". He did as he was told, pushing away a half formed memory . . .

She set the glass barrel against his navel, and pressed a button on the joystick that grew out of the grey box above the barrel. Four arms clamped down on the bare skin of Neo's stomach, and he winced. A tiny screen flickered into life, and the machine began to hum and vibrate. Cords and cables were wrapped almost clumsily about the mechanism in the head of the machine, as if it was homemade, the sort of gadget one would expect to see in some old science fiction movie.

"Come on," Trinity urged the machine.

As the humming changed tone, the skin around his navel puckered and stretched in a grotesque way, as if something beneath the surface was moving. He clenched his teeth and inhaled as a half-remembered pain shot through his abdomen.

"It's on the move," said Blond. Trinity didn't answer. Ponytail continued driving. The machine began to shake, then buck under Trinity's grip on the handlebars. The hum became a whine. Trinity hissed profanities at the machine, which Neo only half heard.

"Come on, come on."

"You're gonna lose it," The Blond cautioned.

The whine increased in volume, becoming a scream.

"No I'm not," Trinity muttered through a clenched jaw, "Clear!"

A capsule slid out the top of the handle with a click, about test-tube size. Neo's back arched as the pain became white-hot, he yelled as a small, red-silver object shot out of his navel and was sucked, squirming, into the capsule held ready. His 'dream' flooded back.

"Jesus Christ, that thing's real!"

Trinity wound down the window, and dropped the contents of the jar onto the road.

As the car sped away, the red light in the socket flickered, and died.

~

The car pulled up outside the dark, looming building. Neo and Trinity stepped out, running inside to avoid the driving rain. It was becoming a real storm. The building was an abandoned hotel, The Hotel Lafayette, now only rented by the rats and mice that lived in the walls, and the occasional stray cat that preyed on them.

Neo followed Trinity up a square spiral staircase, tiled in black and white. Upon reaching a certain floor, Neo had lost count of which, she pushed open the door and led him down a dimly lit hallway. She stopped before a set of large double doors. Room 1313.

"This is it."

He exhaled, forcing himself to relax.

"Let me give you one piece of advice," she said, her voice cool. "Be honest. He knows more than you can imagine." Then she opened the doors.

Stepping inside, Neo saw a man in a black leather trenchcoat standing at the far window. He turned. He wore round, mirror shades with no arms. He was middle aged, and his head was shaved, his skin smooth and dark.

"At last." The voice was gently deep, but with a strong undertone, like steel hidden under something. As he smiled, Neo saw a gap between his front teeth. But somehow it didn't look bad.

"Welcome Neo. As you have no doubt guessed, I am Morpheus."

The man could be no other, he possessed a charisma that made him stand out like a crow among doves. He stood in the middle of the small, dark room, with its peeling wallpaper, mildewed curtains, and empty fireplace, as if it didn't matter where he was. It seemed simply, enough . . . enough that he was at all.

Neo held out his hand and stepped forward as he spoke.

"It's an honour to meet you."

Morpheus returned the handshake, and again Neo had the sensation of covered power.

"No Neo, the honour is mine. Please, sit."

Morpheus gestured for Neo to sit in one of the large, red leather armchairs, as Trinity left by another door. As he closed it behind her and turned, Morpheus began to speak.

"I imagine that right now, you're feeling a little like Alice. Tumbling down the rabbit hole, hmm?"

Neo's reply was wary; "You could say that."

Morpheus smiled, "I can see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man, who accepts what he sees because, he is expecting to wake up. Ironically this is not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate Neo?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Neo breathed in deeply.

"Because, I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life."

Morpheus sat down, holding a silver cigarette case in his hands. "I know exactly what you mean." As he leant back he began idly turning the case over and over.

"Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You have felt it your entire life, that there is something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"The Matrix."

"Do you want to know, what it is?"

Neo nodded slowly. Outside the window, there was a brief flash and a rumble, then the rain pelted down even harder.

"The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes, to blind you from the truth."

Neo sat forward, elbows on knees, his hands twisting. "What truth?" He was becoming frightened, but he knew he could not back out now, he had to know. Morpheus leant forward.

"That you are a slave Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage, a prison you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind."

Neo sat, stunned, confused, and uncomprehending.

Morpheus sat back, playing with the case again. He sighed, "Unfortunately, no-one can be told what the Matrix is." With a click, the case opened, the lid blocking Neo's view. "You have to see it for yourself."

Morpheus sat forward in his chair, rested his elbows on his knees, and held his hands before his face, balled into fists. Neo sat back sharply, his fingers tracing the faces of the lions carved into the armrests. When Morpheus spoke again, his voice was hypnotic, and the steel began to show.

"This is your last chance, after this there will be no turning back."

He opened his left hand. Lying in his palm was a small, blue capsule.

"You take the blue pill; the story ends. You wake up in your bed and, believe whatever you want to believe."

The right hand uncurled. The capsule was red, but in all other ways exactly the same as the first.

"You take the red pill; you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

Neo hesitated, then reached forward –

"Remember," Morpheus' voice was hard.

"All I'm offering is the truth, nothing more."

Neo could see nothing of the man's eyes, only his double reflection in the silver shades, as he took the red pill. He put it in his mouth and washed it down with water from the almost full glass on the circular coffee table.

The lightning flashed again with an ear splitting crack, followed immediately by a growl of thunder. Morpheus smiled, then stood abruptly,

"Come with me."

Trinity looked up as Morpheus opened the doors, Neo trailing him as he entered the room. The older man held out his hand, and spoke as the man with the ponytail gave him his cell phone.

"Apoc, are we on-line?"

"Almost."

"Time is always against us," Morpheus spoke to Neo, guiding him through the tangle of cables and clutter of equipment. He gestured to a large chair, the cushion covers torn, the metal frame, wires, and cords giving the impression of an old science fiction movie.

"Please, take a seat there."

The blond woman took his jacket, and Neo sat down as Trinity stepped in with wires attached to white patches, ECG monitors. He pulled up his sleeve as she stuck one to his forearm, then on the side and back of his neck.

"You did all this?" he asked, with something like fear in his voice. He looked up at her, trusting her, and she cringed inwardly.

"Hmm-mm." She fixed the last patch and stepped back.

According to the rules he was too old to be unplugged, but he was far too important to let go. In some ways it would be easier for him than it was for her, less frightening for a twenty-odd-year-old man than for a teenage girl. But for the same reason, it would be hell for him, and she could do nothing to help.

~

Neo was terrified, but struggled not to show it. The room seemed crowded, with Trinity, Morpheus, Blond, Ponytail, and another man. His head was also shaved, but he was white, and he had a moustache and a goatee. He was setting up equipment, setting the receiver of an old fashioned phone on a stand that was wired to a screen, plugging sockets left and right, adjusting a knob or typing something into the machines. Blond, nearer to Neo, was flicking switches on a large grey metal box with what could have been a printer attached, spewing out EEG readings.

"The pill you took is part of a trace program. It's designed to disrupt your input output carrier signal so we can pinpoint your location."

That was Morpheus. His words confused Neo,

"What, what does that mean?" even his own voice sounded distant.

"It means buckle your seat-belt Dorothy," smiled Goatee. "'Cos Kansas, is goin' bye-bye." Lightening crashed, and Blond smirked at his words. The look was neither friendly nor very pleasant.

Neo breathed in, and out, starting to feel shaky. His hands rested on his knees, and he tried to focus on something, but there was nothing he could look at without wondering exactly what it was.

Then something on his right caught his eye. He found himself looking at a large, ornate mirror, with a crack running down the middle. A small section was tilted at such an angle, that where his face should have been reflected, it showed only blank wall. He leaned forward, trying to see around the crack, then froze as the mirror seemed to melt, and the crack was absorbed into the glass.

"Did you – ?" Neo turned left again, but no one had seen. Trinity looked up and at Morpheus, but said nothing. Neo looked back to the uncertain reflection in the mirror.

He lifted his right hand, and without stopping to wonder why, he reached out to touch the glass. Ripples spread from the point where he made contact, and the glass seemed to cling to his fingers as he pulled them away. The mirror flexed forward, then back, and the cold, slippery liquid began to creep up over his skin, sliding over his fingers, like quicksilver. He heard Morpheus, and saw him beside him, but the sound was distant.

"Have you ever had a dream Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world, and the Real world?"

"This can't be – " he stammered.

"Be what? Be Real?"

The liquid spread further, gaining speed, and Neo held his arm away from his body, trying to slow it, but it spread and slid up all his arm and around his chest. He felt as if his body was being covered in ice, like frost was spreading across his skin..

Neo jerked as the cold gripped him, panting suddenly as breathing began to hurt. He was aware of voices around him, but although he heard them, his mind did not really register the meaning. First Trinity,

"It's going into replication." And Morpheus;

"Apoc?"

"Still nothing."

Morpheus opened his phone, "Tank, we're going to need a signal soon."

Then Trinity, "I got a fribulation!"

The metal was almost to his neck,

"Apoc, location?"

"Targeting, almost there."

Trinity, more urgent, "He's going into arrest!"

"Lock!" That was Apoc, "I got him!"

"Now, Tank now!"

Neo managed to draw a deep breath. The quicksilver was up to his jaw, reaching for his mouth. He opened it wide in a struggle to breathe, then all air was sucked from his lungs as the silver coated his tongue, throat, then all of him, as he tumbled into the black . . .

Neo could see through a thick haze of red. He saw his arms folded in front of him, and a maze of black tubing wound around him. He was floating in some sort of liquid. It was no longer cold; the thick slurry seemed slightly warm. But Neo still couldn't breathe. He tried to get his feet under him, but the bottom of the pool, or whatever it was he was in, sloped down sharply to a deep crevice. Then he managed to balance somehow, and he stood, his back arching against a sort of membrane over his head. It burst suddenly, and he came up, pulling the tubing from where it led into his mouth, almost down to his stomach. He gagged as it came out, and he dropped it into the slime, his mouth gaping as he gasped for air. Raising his hands to his face, Neo stared at himself in horror, he was covered in slime, standing in it up to his waist. Piping surrounded the pod, and then he focussed on his arms.

Near to the wrists, where the hospital would usually insert a drip, were two thick, black pipes. Neo reached behind him, feeling with mounting fear the row of tubes that seemed to grow out of his spine. His hands came to rest on the huge plug that protruded from the nape of his neck.

Then he looked forward.

His pool was fixed to a wall, the end jutting out into space. Neo leaned out over the edge, looking down. Through the dim half-light, he could see an endless city of pillars, all impossibly wide, and black dotted with red lights. All stretched as far up as he could see, and their bottoms were lost in the dark. Looking to either side of him, Neo saw that his tub was but one of millions. Stretching away from his left and right were rows of the red glowing pods, like tiny cocoons filled with pinkish slime. And people. . .

Neo clenched the plug at the back of his neck, as if he could gain some kind of support from it. Then a thrill of cold fear ran through him, as a huge robotic monster reared up before him, floating, it seemed, on nothing.

The machine had many legs, more than a spider, but Neo could not count them, as the monster wouldn't stop moving. The two front arms of the giant suddenly shot out, grabbing Neo by the neck. He writhed in its grasp, struggling to prise open the pincers of the machine, so he could just breathe . . .

On the verge of blacking out, a loud, hurting sound brought Neo cruelly back to – wherever he was. There was a harsh whirring noise and an agonising pain in the back of his head, like the plug was being unscrewed. Then the machine let him go, and the black cables were popping out of him like he was a piece of faulty equipment.

A door in the wall opened, and the slime, discarded cables, and Neo slid down a pipe like a garbage chute, like a crazy theme park slide, slipping around corners, thumping against the walls of the pipe. Landing in a river of icy, filthy, greasy water, Neo went under, floundering; he had forgotten how to swim. Then a light appeared, far above . . .

A large, robotic claw, like one in an arcade game, reached down to Neo, scooping him out of the water and lifting him, dripping, toward the window of light above. Then there were strong arms wrapping him in a rough blanket, and a voice, soft, gentle, and distant.

The man's face swam into focus above him.

"Welcome, to the Real world."

~

Trinity paced toward the dripping claw where its chain had been wound back up. Tank was holding a shivering, slimy, bald Neo wrapped up like a baby. From now on, the focus of the entire ship would be directed at the man who was now so weak. The blond woman stood with her arms folded as Neo was carried down the hall to the lab. Apoc was beside her.

"So what do you think Trinity?" Switch asked her. "Yes or no?"

"Not much of a performance so far, but Morpheus is pretty sure."

"You haven't answered my question."

"It doesn't matter what I think. If he isn't; Morpheus is wrong, the world doesn't get saved."

Apoc spoke up;

"And if he is?"

Trinity stared down the hallway, aware that they were both looking at her.

"Then the Oracle told the truth."

He woke slowly, voices coming through the darkness toward him.

"We've done it Trinity. We've found him!"

The voice was excited, but hushed. A man's; strong, but gentle.

"I hope you're right."

That was another, a woman. A vision of black hair, blue eyes, and pale skin came to Neo as his eyes opened.

"You don't have to hope. I know it."

Trinity stood on his left, Morpheus on his right. Neo looked from one to the other as they turned their gaze down to him.

"Am I dead?" he managed to croak.

Morpheus smiled and shook his head.

"Far from it."

Then Neo's eyes closed again.

~

Morpheus looked down at the young man on the table. He lay prone on the white mattress, with a sheet laid over him. Needles were inserted along his limbs and torso. Small acupuncture needles bristled from specific points on his face and along the sides of his head.

Morpheus looked up to where Dozer stood opposite; his stitched cap pulled down over his ears. He was drying his hands on a cloth, and he sighed.

"He still needs a lot of work."

Morpheus looked back to Neo, who was opening his eyes. Squinting up, as if at a too bright light, he spoke hoarsely.

"What are you doing?"

"Your muscles atrophied," Morpheus answered. "We're rebuilding them."

Neo squeezed his eyelids shut, and he shook his head from side to side tensely, pushing away the words like they were too difficult to process. His forehead wrinkled, as if from a vaguely unpleasant pain.

"Why do my eyes hurt?" he asked, aiming for an easier question.

Morpheus hesitated before answering.

"You've never used them before."

He reached out a hand, through the hole in the incubator's side wall. As it touched Neo's forehead, he became still, his face softening.

"Rest Neo," the older man told him. The young man exhaled slowly, relaxing.

"The answers are coming."

~

The next few weeks Neo spent on his back, mostly unconscious.

The few times he dreamt, his dreams were of shadowy figures, people in black, or machines.

The few times he woke, he either felt numb or had a faint feeling of pins and needles.

He was dimly aware of Morpheus and another man around him, and occasionally Trinity. But he always fell asleep before he could be certain.

~

The number of pins they had to use was astounding. The system used to regenerate muscles was a little like acupuncture, but still different. Electrical pulses would react to the metal tips of the pins that were inserted almost all over Neo's body. It was necessary to rebuild his muscles; after all, he had been lying motionless for almost thirty years. As each area was reconstructed, the pins were removed.

Some of these scars would remain forever.

His sockets, like a plughole one would see in the back of a computer, were in specific points all over him. Many would be removed, but the main three that would remain were in each forearm, and the nape of his neck.

They would forever bear testimony to the truth of the Matrix.

Trinity sat in a hard chair in the lab, gazing at the sleeping face of the young man in the perspex case. She found herself looking more and more closely at his closed eyes. He looked like he was sleeping peacefully, innocent of the world around him.

He was almost finished.

Trinity stood, about to leave the lab. A memory teased at her mind; something she had once been told, it dared her to cross to the incubator's side.

But she brushed it away, and stalked back to her room.

~

There was something wrong with his bed. Neo was used to waking up in a tangled nest of blankets and sheets, but he was flat on his back, arms folded across his stomach. The mattress was hard, there was no blanket, and he was cold. Very cold. He opened his eyes, seeing steel plates and rivets in the ceiling above him.

Neo sat up. He was dressed in a loose jumper of thick cotton. The trousers were much the same, hand-me-downs, far too big for him. The boots he wore were leather, combat style, and definitely second-hand.

His head felt cold, and he ran a hand over his scalp. There wasn't much hair, it was very short, like it had only been growing a brief while. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

And stopped, as there was a pulling at his left forearm. He looked down, and swallowed. There was an IV drip in his arm. But it was plugged into a socket. In his arm. Neo took the drip in his right hand and pulled slowly. It resisted, and his left hand clenched to hold in the pain.

Then a click, and it was out. Neo tossed the drip away, and touched the socket cautiously, it hurt, with a dull ache. A memory tugged at Neo's mind, and he remembered, a pool of slime, cables, a monster machine. His hand rose slowly to the back of his neck –

The door to the tiny room opened, and Neo dropped his hand, startled. Morpheus stepped into the room, holding a folded blanket.

"Morpheus, what's happening to me, what is this place?" asked Neo, before Morpheus could speak.

"More important than what, is when."

"When?"

"You think it is the year 1999, but in fact it is closer to 2199. I can't tell you the exact year because, we honestly don't know."

Neo sat shocked. He had missed a whole two centuries? How was that possible? Or maybe he'd misunderstood. He looked up, mouth open to speak, but Morpheus interrupted him, holding out the blanket.

"There's nothing I can say that will explain it for you. Come, see for yourself."

Emerging up a ladder through to the next floor with the blanket about him like a cloak, Neo stared at the cluttered room. At second glance, the equipment was organised, but it was hard to see exactly how. He hauled himself to his feet on the metal floor, and looked about him. The room was dim, and sparks erupted from somewhere on his right. Directly before Neo was a plaque that read;

mark III no. 11

nebuchadnezzar

made in the USA

year 2069

"This is my ship, the Nebuchadnezzar, she's a hovercraft. This is the Main Deck. This is the Core, where we broadcast our pirate signal, and hack into the Matrix."

Neo looked up as Goatee descended a set of stairs along the side of the room. The room was basically circular, with several chairs bolted into the floor around the pillar in the centre. They looked like dentist chairs, taken to pieces and put back together with a few extra levers and mechanisms. Morpheus was still speaking.

"Most of my crew you already know."

Neo turned, and watched Morpheus name the others as they stood, or stepped forward. It appeared some sort of maintenance check had been going on before he had arrived. Trinity turned as Neo passed her, pushing up her welding mask and running a hand through her hair.

"Trinity, Switch, Apoc, Cypher."

The Blond and Ponytail looked up; their gaze was judgemental. Goatee stood with his arms folded and muttered, "Hi," without moving his mouth.

"The ones you don't know are Tank, and his big brother Dozer."

The thick, heavy man looked to be out of a war movie, and another, perhaps eighteen, a smaller replica of the larger brother.

"The little one behind you is Mouse."

Neo spun on his heel. There was a boy that seemed younger than Tank, maybe sixteen or so. He gave Neo a shy smile, then looked away quickly.

Morpheus stood before Neo, and reached to lay a hand on each of his shoulders. Neo swallowed, feeling like a child on his first day at school, only much more worried.

"You said; you wanted to know what the Matrix is, Neo. Trinity – "

~

Trinity led Neo to an empty jack-in chair, taking the blanket from his shoulders, and adjusting the height of the chair as he sat back. He shivered, she could not tell if from cold or fear.

Clang, bang! Two steel caps were locked in over the toes of Neo's boots, securing his feet to the platform of the chair. Morpheus came towards them, and Neo sought his eyes. Trinity stepped back, remembering her own fear.

~

Neo turned to Morpheus, scared, again.

Morpheus laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Try to relax."

The older man stepped behind Neo, gently pushing him down to the chair, so he lay at a roughly thirty degree angle. The head rest was curved to support around the back of his head, but left the nape of his neck accessible. Neo exhaled shakily, trying to stay relaxed through the irrational fear that tingled up his spine to the hole in his head. Morpheus spoke again.

"This will feel, a little weird."

And he slid the plug into Neo's head-socket.

Neo gasped as a rush of pain like a very strong headache washed through him. Then it passed, and he opened his eyes.

He was standing in white. It was not a room, as it seemed to stretch forever, to all sides, and up. But he stood on something solid. As he looked down, Neo realised that he was wearing the same clothes as he had on that fateful night, the 'bug', the old building, and the red pill. And what had come after . . .

He looked up, and saw Morpheus. He was no longer wearing the cotton long-sleeved t-shirt and homespun pants, but a simply cut brown suit. The mirror shades hid his eyes.

"This is the Construct," began Morpheus. "It's our loading program. Here we can load anything from clothing, equipment, weapons, training simulations, anything we need."

There was a break in the white now, two red leather chairs, and a television. They were the same as the ones in that room, the night he had learned.

"Right now," Neo began hesitantly. "We're in a computer program?"

"Is it really so hard to believe? Your clothes are different, the plugs in your head and arms are gone, your hair has changed."

Neo pulled up his jacket sleeve, felt his neck and head. There were no metallic scars, and his hair was back to its correct length. Morpheus was right, he was back to normal.

"Your appearance now is what we call residual self-image. It is the mental projection of your digital self."

Neo leaned against the back of one of the red leather chairs.

He grappled to understand.

"This, this isn't real?" The chair certainly felt real, Neo could feel every crack and wrinkle in the old leather.

"What is real? How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then reality is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."

Morpheus sat down in the other chair, and picked up the remote control. In front of him was an old fashioned AWA television. He pressed the on button, and the screen flickered into life.

Neo saw a picture of the city he had lived in, but the view was from the ocean, looking inland. As Morpheus spoke, the screen flashed up views of the city, scanning over the buildings, into a crowded subway, then above a street of crawling cars.

"This is the world that you know. The world as it was at the end of the twentieth century. It exists now only as a neural interactive simulation that we call; the Matrix."

Morpheus turned to Neo, away from the screen.

"You've, been living in a dream world Neo. This, is the world as it exists, today."

And he pressed the remote again. Neo gaped as the image changed from a sunny, bright, clean city, to a dim, stormy hell.

Lightning crackled among the impossibly tall buildings, buildings that were broken and crumbling. The world was a wasteland, the city destroyed.

Morpheus spread his hands out, palms up.

"Welcome, to the Desert of the Real."

Neo let go of the chair, spinning around as he saw that the white had vanished. He was standing on packed dirt and sand, and far away on the horizon, was the lumpy, artificial skyline of the Hell-city.

"We have only, bits and pieces of information," continued Morpheus, "but what we do know is that sometime in the early 21^st century, all mankind was united in celebration. We marvelled at our own magnificence as we gave birth, to AI."

"AI? You mean Artificial Intelligence?"

"A singular consciousness that spawned, an entire race of machines. We don't know who struck first, us or them, but we do know it us that scorched the sky."

Neo flinched as flash of lightening lit the dim sky, smothered in leaden clouds.

"At the time, they were dependent on solar power and it was thought, they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun.

"Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines for our own survival. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony."

Morpheus looked up, and his shades reflected the boiling clouds. Back on the TV screen, Neo saw a blotchy red appear, then it seemed it was before him. His gaze drew back, and he saw a cocoon of semi transparent skin, a red bubble. Inside he could make out the pale form of a baby, curled up, as if in a womb.

"The human body produces more bio-electricity than an 120 volt battery, and more than 25000 BTUs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the machines had found all the energy they would ever need."

"There are fields Neo, endless fields; where human beings are no longer born, we are grown."

Neo swallowed as a machine plucked the pod from the metallic vine on which it grew, and the pod slid up a tube of the huge harvester, along with the dozens, scores, hundreds of cocoons of life.

"For the longest time I wouldn't believe it. Then I saw the fields with my own eyes. Watched them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living."

Neo felt he was going to be sick. He was sure he could taste the bile rising in his throat . . . but he could not tear his eyes away from the TV screen.

He saw a baby inside one of the cocoons, one that was fixed to a tower. Black pipes fed into its mouth and nose, the nape of its neck, down its back, all over it's body. A pink liquid, gleaming in places like mercury, trickled into the pod, over the pipes and around the baby. The baby moved, whimpered, an all too human sound in a world ruled by machines.

"And standing there, facing the pure, horrifying precision, I came to realise the obviousness of the truth."

Morpheus stood, turning to Neo. The younger man stiffened, glaring at him as he moved past the chairs in the white of the Construct.

"What is the Matrix? Control." He snapped the TV off with the remote. "The Matrix is a computer generated dream world, built to keep us under control, in order to change a human being, into this."

He held up a copper-top battery, which was reflected in his shades; twin images of a reality Neo refused to believe.

"No," Neo shook his head. "I don't believe it. It's not possible."

"I didn't say it would be easy Neo," Morpheus continued calmly. "I just said it would be the truth."

"Stop!" Neo could stand no more. backing away, staggering as he turned, he cried out as loud as he could.

"Let me out! Let me out! I want out!"

~

Trinity fumbled with the restraints as Neo exploded into movement. Dozer tried to hold him down as he writhed in the jack-in chair, with little success.

"Easy Neo, easy," Trinity began to say, but Neo continued to struggle as if he had not heard her, as he probably hadn't.

"Get this thing out of me, get this thing out of me!" Trinity pulled the plug from Neo's head as Dozer let him go. Neo threw himself out of the chair like a wild animal from a cage, still stammering in angry terror.

"Don't touch me, stay away from me! I don't believe it!" He spun away from them, as if from hands that sought to restrain him, until he backed into the corner near the stairs. His head moved as if seeking to keep all threats in sight, his arms up in defence from some imagined attack, his eyes wide and his breathing heavily laboured as he warned them away in a voice barely coherent. Trinity winced as his knees began to buckle and he seemed to choke on his words. He was so scared. Others had died at this point. He was too old.

"I don't believe it, I don't believe it – " Neo folded slowly to the floor as Cypher crossed his arms.

"He's gonna pop."

Morpheus burst forward, bending as he neared the man on his hands and knees.

"Breathe Neo, just breathe!" His voice was tightly controlled, hiding worry.

Neo's body convulsed as he threw up on the iron grille floor, then passed out.

~

He lay on his hard bed, staring at the blank wall in front of him.

Morpheus was sitting in the corner on the only chair, holding the carving he wore around his neck. It felt cool to his hands. Neo was facing the wall. The young man moved his head, checking who was there. Then he turned his back.

"I can’t go back, can I."

"No." Morpheus softened the hard answer with a question. "But if you could, would you really want to?"

~

~

"I owe you an apology," he continued. "We have a rule. We never free a mind once it has reached a certain age. It's dangerous, the mind has trouble letting go. I've seen it before and I'm sorry. I did what I did because, I had to." He paused, searching for words, fingering the circular talisman on the cord.

"When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside, who had the ability to change whatever he wanted; to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. It was he who freed the first of us, taught us the truth. As long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free." He looked Neo, saw him lying tense, waiting.

"After he died, the Oracle prophesised his return, and that his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix, end the war, bring freedom to our people." Morpheus kept looking at Neo as he saw the young man on the bed shift, and listen harder. The older man looked away, collecting his words.

"That is why some of us have spent our entire lives, searching the Matrix, looking for him.

"I did what I did because, I believe that search is over."

Morpheus looked back over to Neo as he rolled to face him. The younger man's expression was questioning, forehead creased, eyes searching. Morpheus spoke gently.

"Get some rest. You're going to need it." He stood, and opened the door. Neo sat up.

"For what?" The words were a challenge, what was he expected to do?

Morpheus paused, and looked back at his student. "Your training."

And he left, closing the door behind him.

Trinity sat pensively on her bed. The hard bed, with its built-in drawers, was all that the room contained. But she had very few possessions anyway, and she understood why her room was so cramped. Space wasn't something readily available in this world, especially on a ship.

Across the hall, she heard a sound, a clunk-bang-click. A door opening.

She picked up the pacer, and with a few last, neat strokes, completed her sketch. The drawing was on her sketcher, a small object similar to the palm pilot used back in the twentieth century. The sketch was of a tall young man, dressed all in black. He wore black cargoes, t-shirt, and a long black overcoat. His short black hair was parted roughly down the middle, and combed toward the back. But a few strands fell forward, over his dark glasses.

~

Neo heard a click, then a buzz as the fluorescent lights on the ceiling flickered into life. Another artificial dawn, another day begun. He sat on the edge of his bed, cold in his thin clothes. He knew he should have been wrapped in blankets, conserving his energy in sleep, but he couldn't. As he had sat alone in the dark, his mind had been crowded with images. Machines, men in brown suits, the 'bug', and other things. Neo kept remembering what he had seen, endless black, the ground dotted with red pods, with machines hovering over them, sowing and reaping the human crop. He had seen that baby again, black tubes leading into its body and mouth, as a shiny red slime oozed around them.

He couldn't possibly sleep while he was thinking of that.

The metal door opened with a rattle and a clang, and Tank paused on the threshold.

"Morning. Did you sleep?"

Neo shook his head.

"You will tonight, I guarantee it."

Neo received the younger man's grin with a strange feeling. There was an open feeling about this guy that he had never encountered before. Now Neo saw that he was not so young, probably closer to twenty or twenty-one. It was the man's impish grin that made him seem younger.

"Hi, I'm Tank." He stepped inside and thrust out a hand. "I'll be your operator."

Returning the handshake, Neo realised something.

"You haven't got any – "

"Holes? Yep, that's right, me and my brother Dozer are both one hundred percent pure, old fashioned, home grown human, born free right here, in the Real World. Genuine child of Zion." He said it proudly, but Neo was confused.

"Zion?"

"If the war was over tomorrow, Zion's where the party would be."

"It's a city?"

"Last Human City. The only place we have left."

"Where is it?"

Tank crouched down, resting a hand on the floor. His voice was quiet, and a little sad.

"Underground, down near the Earth's core, where it's still warm." He looked up at Neo, grinning again.

"If you live long enough, you might even see it."

Neo looked at him,

"Goddamn, I gotta tell you," Tank continued. He looked down, then hoisted himself up to stand straight.

"I'm fairly excited to see what you're capable of, if Morpheus is right and all. We're not supposed to talk about it but, if you are," he thumped one fist into the other hand. "It's a very exciting time. We got a lot to do. We gotta get to it." And he left, leading a very puzzled Neo up to the Main Deck.

~

Tank settled him into the jack-in chair, securing him by strapping him down, for safety more than restriction. There was no one else around. After setting Neo up, Tank leapt into his chair at the control desk with a creaking of supports. He looked at Neo from a gap between the monitors.

"So," he said, going through a large pile of disks. "We're supposed to start with these operation programs, that's major boring shit. How about something a little more fun?" Tank held up a disk with a conspiratorial grin. "Combat training."

Neo watched as Tank slid the disk into a slot in the computer at his side. The name of the program flickered onto the screen on the metal arm before Neo, the letters morphing from code into font he could read.

"Jujitsu? I'm going to learn Jujitsu?"

Tank looked back and winked.

Neo's eyes shut and his lips parted slightly as he entered the program, his body jerking violently. His head spun as his mind filled with knowledge. Tank brought him out, and Neo opened his eyes. His chest heaved, and his eyes were wide. Neo had played many computer games in his old life, but not even the roughest combat simulation game could match what he had just experienced. His pulse was leaping in his neck, and he knew Jujitsu!

"Holy shit!" he swore.

"'Hey Mikey, I think he likes it.'" Tank grinned; "How 'bout some more?"

"Hell yes!" Neo felt breathless. "Hell yeah."

The monitor above Neo flashed into life. The blueprint figure moved jerkily as it displayed move after move he made. Under it, the activity screen blinked up what he was learning.

Kempo

Tae kwon do

Drunken Boxing

Kung Fu

Tank typed endlessly, loading new levels to the programs, more challenging obstacles, and Neo just kept on going.

~

Hours later, Morpheus pulled himself up the ladder into the Main Deck. Leaning on the back of Tank's chair, he asked, "How's he doing?"

Tank replied in a whisper, blinking to focus on the screen. "Ten hours straight, he's, a machine!"

Tank brought Neo out of the program as Morpheus crossed to his chair.

~

Neo opened his eyes with a breath and an indescribable expression. Sweat stood out on his forehead. Morpheus was leaning over him; his gaze curious.

"I know Kung Fu," Neo's voice was tight with restrained excitement, and his dark eyes shimmered.

"Show me." The words were a command.

~

The room was large, the walls and roof of some sort of thatch, and the wood floor covered with mats. There were perhaps two dozen wood poles supporting the rafters above.

Neo faced Morpheus, taking in all he saw. His mind spun with a tumult of sensation, the rough-smooth touch of the white cotton pants and shirt on his bare skin. The warm cushioning of the straw-filled mats beneath his feet. Morpheus stood quietly before him, arms folded within the sleeves of his black kata.

"This is a sparring program," he began to tell Neo, "similar to the programmed reality of the Matrix. It has the same rules, rules like gravity. What you must learn is that these rules are no different from the rules of a computer program. Some can be bent, others can be broken. Understand?"

Neo nodded his head.

"Then hit me. If you can."

Neo breathed in, spreading his arms in the stance he had so recently learnt. Morpheus copied, though his position was more closed, defensive. A pause. Neo half ran toward Morpheus, fists flying. He threw out a kick at Morpheus, closely followed by a flurry of punches, but the older man eluded him, spinning out of reach. Neo moved away, bouncing on his toes with half a smile on his face.

Morpheus moved, readying himself. He held out his right arm to Neo, his body at an angle to him. His right hand moved, the fingers beckoning.

Neo leapt toward him, almost flying as he kicked at Morpheus' head, but again the older man ducked, and Neo came to earth again. His world was a blur of black and white, all he could feel was the thud of the mats beneath his feet, and the distant pain as his fists and arms collided with Morpheus' as he blocked hit after hit.

Neo twisted Morpheus around, but Morpheus kept to his feet. Neo came off the mats as he kicked out to him, but Morpheus caught is foot and spun him, so the young man hit the floor with a thump. Neo's teacher stepped back, speaking as his student got to his feet.

"Good, adaptation, improvisation, but your weakness; is not your technique."

Neo waited for the space of about a second, looking aside as he took in the words, then nodded, and flung himself back at Morpheus.

~

Mouse clattered down from the Main Deck and threw himself around the galley doorway.

"Morpheus is fightin' Neo!" he called. Five pairs of eyes looked up at him. There was a moment of stunned silence, then breakfast was forgotten as Trinity stumbled up from the bench and Cypher swung around the counter and Dozer followed him and Switch leapt over the table and Apoc shoved past Mouse, and they all rushed up to the 'Deck.

~

Neo was breathing harder.

Morpheus threw Neo to the ground, then leapt up in the air, seeming to hang for a second before swooping to where Neo was sprawled on the mats. Looking up, he rolled aside just in time to avoid the knee that smashed through the floor.

He scrambled to his feet, only to be beaten to the ground again.

~

Trin looked at Neo's body in concern as the white figure on the simulator screen crashed to the mats, and the young man in the chair jerked. Cypher grinned as the screen Neo climbed to his feet, shaking his head, obviously in pain.

~

Neo had given up on conscious thought. He simply let his body take care of himself. He tried to flip Morpheus over his shoulder, but the man recovered from the move easily.

Neo flipped backwards to avoid a blow, over the mats, his feet hitting the wood and running up a pillar, and into the air. He spun slowly, turning over and over . . .

~

Morpheus stood, looking up as Neo spun above him.

As the young man landed, his feet thudding loud on the mats, Morpheus punched out, striking Neo square in the chest. He was thrown back across the room, into another pillar, cracking it in two.

~

Neo fell forward, onto his hands and knees. He felt no serious pain, but he was breathing hard. Morpheus leant over him.

"How did I beat you?"

"You're . . . you're too fast," Neo gasped, getting to his knees.

"Do you believe that my being stronger, or faster, has anything to with my muscles, in this place?"

Neo got one foot up, half kneeling, chest still heaving. He thought a moment, then shook his head.

Morpheus bent over.

"You think that's air you're breathing now?"

Neo froze, looked up; confused.

Morpheus smiled, shrugged, then stepped away, an irritating, I know something you don't know look on his face. He turned his back, and spread his arms, flexing his hands.

"Again."

In the Main Deck, the entire crew was clustered around the control desk and simulation screens. Mouse was fidgeting, but Trinity kept her face stony. Cypher was watching her like a vulture, and she focussed on the screen.

~

Neo stood, and stepped into the centre of the arena. He began to fight his teacher again, their feet dancing, their fists flying, too fast for the eye to follow.

~

Trin bit her lip. She could feel Cypher's eyes on her, but ignored him. He did not bother her now. The images of the screen were blurred, and not much more than a smudge of colour in the arena.

"Jesus Christ he's fast!" exclaimed Mouse, he tapped excitedly on the read out on the screen. "Take a look at his neuro-kinetics, they're way above normal."

Tank swatted his hand away from the screen, he was blocking their view.

~

Neo could hardly describe what he felt. This was more than a fight, or a test, but he could not pinpoint the importance.

He could not explain why he felt so at home, fighting with a strange man in a way he had only known for an hour or so. But it was meant to be, this combat, it was right in a way Neo himself could not fully understand.

Morpheus suddenly threw a punch directly at Neo's face. His heart stopped as the world seemed to freeze, and he moved back, arms up in fists.

"What are you waiting for?" Morpheus asked quietly, standing with his arms slack. "You're faster than this."

He stepped into the position he had taken before, right arm held out.

"Don't think you are. Know you are." He beckoned.

Neo moved his arms in a circle, his right arm further ahead, his hands now flat. He didn't move. He refused to be told what to do. Morpheus didn't change his expression, but attacked. Neo couldn't move any faster than he was, and that still wasn't fast enough. Morpheus had his arms locked, then;

"Come on! Stop trying to hit me and hit me!"

~

Mouse jerked his hands in excitement, staring at the screen, as did Trin and the rest of the crew. The figures were moving so fast they were barely visible for all the blurring. The screen on Neo's com-pole showed a pulse that was almost twice as fast as normal, and the program monitor at Tank's desk was going haywire. Not a sound was made, as every eye remained glued to the fighters. From where she stood, Trinity could see Neo's body in the chair, shaking, almost vibrating.

~

Neo's nostrils flared, his teeth clenched. He had had enough of being told he was better, Morpheus had asked for it.

He swung into Morpheus' range as his teacher began moving. His blood began to pump faster, and a strange sort of rhythm began to beat through his ears. Neo did not focus on his teacher, or himself. He seemed to see a black screen before him, with green figures. They rippled in their lines, and glowed brighter. He could hear that base thumping clearer now, like the music at the rave when he had followed Choi. And the woman in black . . .

Neo blinked, seeing again. Morpheus was staring at him as they fought, the black figure moving away from the white as the lines of the room blurred again . . .

Neo did not even look at Morpheus as he moved, not needing to see what he was doing. It was as if this fight was no more than a performance, choreographed beforehand and practiced for so long that he had memorised where Morpheus was going to be at what split instant. His limbs were out of focus, as he watched from a distance. Neo watched the young man in white as the right fist came up, stopping an inch from the darker man's face where he was backed against a pole.

~

Morpheus was beaten. Mouse stared;

"I don't believe it."

Trin allowed herself the smallest of smiles.

~

When Neo spoke, his voice was a murmur.

"I know what you're trying to do."

He came back to himself as he pulled his hand back, and stood tense.

Morpheus gave him a steady look, sizing up the words he had heard.

"I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. Remember; I can only open the door. You're the one that has to walk through it." Then Morpheus spoke, seemingly to no one. He held Neo's gaze.

"Tank? Load the Jump program."

~

Mouse was biting his fingernails. Trinity folded her arms as Tank pulled out the combat disk, and picked up another. When she saw which one, her breath caught.

~

The ground seemed to fall away from their feet, as Neo found himself looking down at the city. Buildings spread out in an endless carpet, a tapestry of greys and browns, overlaid with a greenish murk. Then they were falling, as the world rushed up to meet them.

Neo whirled. He was dressed in the same clothes as he had that night, just as Morpheus wore the same leather coat and armless shades. They stood on the top of a tall building, in the city. Looking out, Neo could see his building, although nothing moved in the windows. There was no sound but the wind.

"You have to let it all go Neo." He turned back to Morpheus.

"Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free – your – mind."

And the man turned, running toward the edge of the building. Neo watched, mouth open, as Morpheus leapt and flew over the main street below. He landed with a thud and a crack of roof tiles on the next building along.

"Whoa." Neo walked to the edge of the roof, and looked over.

"Okey Dokey." He looked up at where Morpheus waited across the suddenly very wide street.

"Free my mind." He turned and paced to the elevator shaft on the other side of the roof.

~

"What if he makes it?" asked Mouse, half to himself.

"No one's ever made their first jump," Tank spoke absently as he typed.

Mouse bit his fingernails with nervous tension.

"I know, I know, but what if he does?"

"He won't," Apoc shook his head.

Trinity clenched her teeth, made the smallest of whispers;

"Come on."

~

Neo rolled his shoulders, shifted his feet.

"Right," he rubbed his hands together, then placed his fingers on his temples, "No problem free my mind free my mind no problem. Right!"

He began to run. Arms pumping, faster and faster, until he leapt . . .

And fell.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH . . . !"

Neo fell, arms and legs windmilling, then BANG, he hit the ground. The concrete road seemed to flex, sucking him down, then bucking and throwing him up again. Then it stopped. And Neo slammed into the hard asphalt and lay still.

~

"What-what does that mean?" asked Mouse, confused.

"It doesn't mean anything," Switch muttered as she walked past the baffled teenager.

"Everybody falls the first time." Cypher drawled. "Right Trin?"

But she was gone. From the other side of the Deck Trinity watched Tank pull out the catch that let Neo's chair down to the normal tilt with a hiss. Across the room, Morpheus looked to Neo. Tank pulled the young man's plug, and Neo moved his head stiffly.

~

Neo could barely move. He began to sit up but halted as pain lanced through him. There was a coppery taste in his mouth, an ache deep in his stomach. He felt his mouth with his fingertips, they came away red. He turned left toward Morpheus.

"I thought it wasn't real."

"Your mind makes it real."

Neo swallowed, but the taste remained;

"If you're killed in the Matrix, you die here?"

"The body cannot live without the mind."

Neo looked at Morpheus, startled.

Trin stepped into Neo's room, a tray in her hands. He was sprawled on his bed, face down. A blanket was thrown over him, but his boots were still on. Crouching to set the tray on the floor where he would see it, she paused. In sleep, those worry lines were smoothed. She could begin to imagine how he must have been, years ago –

Standing abruptly, she backed to the door.

Trinity stepped out of the tiny room, shutting the door gently behind her.

"I don't seem to remember you ever bringing me dinner."

Cypher leaned against the wall, arms folded. He raised his eyebrows at her, laid a hand on the door.

"There's something about him isn't there?" he continued.

"Don't tell me you're a believer now?"

"I just keep wondering, if Morpheus is so sure, why doesn't he take him to see the Oracle?"

"Morpheus will take him when he is ready." And she turned, walking across the hallway, to her own room. Sitting down on her bunk, she picked up the pacer, and began to draw. It was like some weird kind of therapy, not for pleasure. Trinity didn't even think she drew that well, she simply drew a lot. As soon as a sketch was finished, she deleted it from the pad's memory. It just served for a space on which she could define something. As soon as she had it 'right', the image could be categorised, and filed away in her mind. She used the sketcher for images of Agents, machines, and dead people. But it wasn't working this time.

~

Neo was struggling to keep up with Morpheus as they walked through the busy street. Morpheus seemed to float through the crowd, people stepping out of his way without realising it. However, they seemed to aim themselves for Neo, bumping shoulders and making him stumble.

"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 the system and that makes them our enemy."

Neo stumbled again, and received a glare from a policeman writing a parking ticket, his square mirror shades reflecting a sea of monochrome. There was something odd about this street, a pair of men in sailor suits walked by on either side of him. And he was sure he had seen that bride before . . .

"You have to understand; most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."

But now Neo was only half listening. Walking toward him, in a tight, bright red dress, was a beautiful woman. Her blonde hair was thick and hung free down her back. She smiled slyly at him, and Neo followed her with his eyes as she stalked past him. When he turned to the front again, Morpheus was looking at him.

"Were you listening to me Neo? Or were you looking at the woman in the red dress?"

Caught off guard, Neo stammered.

"I was – "

But Morpheus interrupted him.

"Look again." Neo turned around.

And found a gun aimed at his head. The woman was gone, and in her place was a man in a brown suit, wearing squarish sunglasses. He flinched backward.

Morpheus turned his face sky wards.

"Freeze it."

Neo hesitated, feeling foolish. All around him, people were frozen in mid-step. Pigeons hung on nothing in the air, wings spread in flight. It was like a fairytale spell had been cast, only he and Morpheus moved. Like in a wax museum.

"This, this isn't the Matrix?" Neo was certain it had been. He had been born in this city.

"No."

"It's another training program designed to teach you one thing; if you are not one of us," Morpheus looked to the Agent, "you are one of them."

"What are they?" He recognised the face now, it was the man who had arrested him, the guy with the bug. That day seemed an age ago.

"Sentient programs. They can move in and out of any software still hard-wired to their system. That means that anyone we haven't unplugged, is potentially an Agent. Inside the Matrix, they are everyone, and they are no one. We have survived by hiding from them, by running from them, but they are the gatekeepers. They are guarding all the doors, they are holding all the keys, which means that sooner or later, someone is going to have to fight them."

"Someone."

"I won't lie to you Neo, every single man or woman who has stood their ground, everyone who has fought an Agent has died. But where they have failed; you will succeed."

"Why?"

"I've seen an Agent punch through a concrete wall, men have emptied whole clips at them and hit nothing but air. Yet their strength and their speed are based in a world that is built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong or as fast as you can be."

Neo struggled to understand Morpheus' words.

"What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets?"

Morpheus smiled. "No Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready; you won't have to."

His phone rang. In the silent, frozen city, the sound echoed. As the man answered it, Neo tried to quiet his reeling mind. Then he heard Tank's voice, tiny from the phone's speaker.

"We got trouble."

~

As soon as he was unplugged, Morpheus was up, and out of his jack-in chair. Neo stood unsteadily, he still wasn't used to the change from illusion to truth, and his head was spinning.

He followed Morpheus down a hall and up a ladder he had not noticed before, since it was at the rear of the Main Deck. The ship jolted, and Neo steadied himself against the wall as he entered the cockpit. He looked around as Trinity came in after him. The room had a low ceiling, the walls lined with screens showing readouts with charts and graphs and symbols. There was a large panel at the front window, covered in smaller screens, buttons, and levers. Morpheus and Dozer sat side by side in two swivel chairs bolted to the floor. He could see tunnel walls through the window; cracked concrete and piping that had fallen away in places to leave piles of rubble barely visible in the dark.

"Did Zion send the warning?" Morpheus asked the other man.

"No, another ship," Dozer answered.

The captain pressed buttons and a small hologram lit up blue. On it, creatures were charted, with a large heads and tentacles. But even from a metre away, Neo could see they were machines.

"Shit," Dozer muttered. "Squiddies sweeping in quick."

"Squiddy?" Neo asked quietly, half to himself.

"A sentinel," answered Trinity. "A killing machine designed for one thing."

Dozer chipped in to finish her sentence,

"Search and destroy."

Thanks for the input Dozer. I really needed that.

Morpheus pointed to the right of the cavern they were moving through. "Put her down right over there," he told Dozer.

~

Tank listened for instructions as the crew moved behind him, wrapped in blankets against the cold.

~

Morpheus spoke into the intercom.

"How are we doing Tank?"

~

Down in the Main Deck, Tank tapped in a code on the ship's computer. There was a strange sound, like a radio with the batteries running out, and then the ship was pitched into darkness. The lights went off, the screens went blank. Apoc, Switch, Mouse, and Cypher stood tense behind him, silent.

"Power offline."

~

"EMP armed, and ready," came Tank's voice over the intercom. Morpheus flipped opened a clear plastic lid on the control board, revealing a red switch that glowed in the dark of the room. Mist drifted around the ship, thickening the murk.

Neo turned to Trinity again,

"EMP?"

"Electro-Magnetic Pulse, it disables any electrical system in the blast radius. It's our only defence against the machines."

"Where are we?" he asked Trinity in a whisper.

"They're old service and waste systems." Her whisper was even softer.

"Sewers?"

"There used to be cities that spanned hundreds of miles. Now these sewers are all that's left of them."

Morpheus was pulling a cap over his shaved head.

"Quiet."

The air was chill in Neo's lungs.

Then he froze as a shadow fell across the ship. Some huge object was blocking the pale light from above. Neo saw four dark shapes move across the sewer chamber. They were gigantic.

Then he saw it. It paused in the above them, an antennae on it's front flicking back and forth. The 'head' turned toward them.

Neo held his breath.

The tentacles were like worms, like Medusa's hair. They floated back and forth as the Squiddy hovered on nothing. Then they moved, snaking around until every one of them was aimed at the Nebuchadnezzar.

Neo's chest was beginning to ache.

The rounded tips of the tentacles burst open, with what looked like some type of missile launcher protruding.

The entire crew was frozen solid. There was not a sound from the ship.

The Squiddy, finding no electric radiation, decided they were no threat, and the tentacles waved briefly in a non-existent breeze, as it followed the others.

There was a sigh as the crew breathed again.

~

Neo couldn't sleep. Contrary to popular belief, he had not been all that freaked by the sentinels, neither the Agent nor Squiddy kind. What bothered him was not nearly so inhuman as them.

Sick of staring at the ceiling, he had gotten up, and was wandering around the ship. Noticing a light filtering down through the hatch, Neo pulled himself up to the Main Deck.

Cypher was sitting at the control desk. The screens to either side were showing the plans of a building, or another diagram, but the centre ones were black, with neon green figures sliding down them in columns, the same as they always showed. Neo wasn't sure if the symbols were numbers or letters, or a bit of both.

He stepped up to Cypher. The man seemed to hear something, and turned. When he saw Neo, he jumped.

"Neo!" Neo started at Cypher's sudden yell. The bald man breathed deeply, glancing around.

"You scared the Bejesus out of me."

"Sorry."

"It's OK," said Cypher, sounding every bit like it wasn't OK. He flicked switches, casually turning off the side screens.

Neo felt uncomfortable. Gesturing at the remaining monitor, he asked;

"Is that - ?"

"The Matrix? Yeah."

Neo leaned closer, trying to understand it. There was something about the pattern that he felt he should recognise, or he felt as if it had once been familiar to him. "Do you always look at it encoded?"

"Well, you have to. The image translators work for the construct program, but there's way too much information to decode the Matrix. You get used to it. In fact, I don't even see the code. All I see is blond, brunette, redhead . . ." Cypher grinned. It was not a pleasant sight. "Do you, ah, wanna drink?" Cypher offered conspiratorially. Neo smiled slightly, and nodded; "Sure."

Cypher pulled a large tin jug and cup from the floor beside him. Pouring some clear liquid into the cup, he handed it to Neo. Neo cradled it in his hands, but did not drink it.

"I know what you're thinking, cause right now I'm thinking the same thing." started Cypher. Neo looked up from the mug.

"Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here. Why oh why, didn't I take the blue pill?" he grinned at Neo, who frowned slightly.

Cypher lifted the jug to his mouth, tilted it up, and gulped. Neo followed suit, and gasped for air. That stuff was strong! Cypher chuckled.

"Good shit, huh?" he thumped his back as Neo coughed. "Dozer makes it, it's good for two things; degreasing engines and killing brain cells."

Neo blinked hard, managed to gasp "Oh," and did not drink again.

"So, uh, can I ask you something?" Cypher raised his eyebrows. Neo stilled, then nodded.

"Did he tell you why he did it? Why you're here?"

Neo nodded again, looking away.

Cypher winced as if in pain.

"Gee-zuz! What a mind job." Then his face straightened. "So you're here to save the world. What do you to say to something like that?"

Neo looked down. The oily liquid in the mug washed against the tin walls that kept it captive.

"A little bit of advice," Neo looked up at Cypher again.

"You see an Agent, you do what we do. You run. You run your ass off." Cypher paused, as if to continue, but stopped.

Neo exhaled. He gave the half-full mug back to Cypher.

"Thanks for the drink." He turned to go. But Cypher's voice followed him;

"Sweet dreams."

~

The man was taking his time with his steak. The man in the brown suit sat back in his chair, watching his companion. A harpist played gently in the background, calm in the elegant restaurant.

"Do we have a deal, Mr Reagan?"

The bald man with the goatee speared a piece of meat on his fork, and lifted it to eye-level.

"You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is, juicy, and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realise?" He put the fork end in his mouth and pulled it out slowly, his lips pulled back, so his companion could see him gripping the meat with his teeth. The man set the fork down and chewed slowly, then sighed with his mouth full.

"Ah, ignorance is bliss."

His companion leaned forward, placing his elbows on the restaurant table, knitting his fingers together.

"Then we have a deal?"

"I don't wanna remember nothing. No-thing," he raised and tilted his wine glass to stress that word. "You understand? And I wanna be rich, you know, someone important. Like an actor."

"Whatever you want, Mr Reagan," said his companion with a reptilian smile.

"Ok," the man pulled out a cigar, "you get my body back in the power plant, reinsert me into the Matrix," a match flared, he lit the cigar. "I'll get you what you want."

"Access codes to the Zion main-frame – " but the man shook his head.

"No, I told you, I don't know them." He sat back in his chair. "I'll get you the man who does."

Agent Smith spoke.

"Morpheus." The other man's eyes flickered, then he gulped the last of his wine.

There was a dull clunk as Tank set a bowl in front of him.

"There you go buddy, breakfast of champions."

Neo gave him a half-smile in thanks, then reluctantly picked up his spork. He scooped up some of the stuff. That was the only thing he missed about his old life in the Matrix, decent food. In the Real world, it was a lukewarm, lumpy, milky, porridgy, stuff, which the other crewmembers had affectionately dubbed 'goop'. The main basis of it was white, and thin, like watery milk. Bubbles floated on the surface from when Tank had squirted it out of the dispenser. Then there were the lumps that floated around in it.

Mouse was on the bench next to him.

"You know, if you close your eyes it almost feels like you're eating runny eggs," he grinned, obviously meaning to be encouraging.

"Yeah," added Apoc. "Or a bowl of snot."

"You know what it really reminds me of?" Mouse asked Neo, stodging up his own bowl of breakfast goop. "Tasty Wheat. Did you ever eat Tasty Wheat?"

Neo smiled faintly at the kid. He shook his head.

Switch cut in at Mouse, "No, but technically neither did you."

"But that's exactly my point! Exactly!" the boy jabbed his spork in the air to emphasise his words. Mouse was irrepressible. He turned back to Neo;

"Because you have to wonder; how do the machines really know what Tasty Wheat tasted like? Maybe they got it wrong."

Neo looked to his right. Mouse was leaning toward him slightly, peering up at him from under the brim of the cloth cap he wore to keep his head warm. Neo and Dozer were wearing similar roughly stitched hats.

"Maybe what I think Tasty Wheat tasted like, it actually tasted like, uh, oatmeal, or, uh, tuna fish. It makes you wonder about a lot of things. You take chicken for example, maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything. And maybe they – "

"Shut up Mouse." That was Apoc.

Neo bowed his head to hide a smile, and he swallowed a sporkful of the slop. He had to grit his teeth to keep it down.

"It's a single celled protein combined with synthetic aminoes, vitamins, and minerals." Dozer spoke in a lofty tone, intending to end the discussion. "Everything the body needs." Mouse rolled his eyes at Dozer, and muttered to Neo.

"It is not 'everything the body needs'." He shifted closer to Neo. "So I, uh, understand you've run through the Agent training program." Neo looked down. "You know, I wrote that program."

Apoc sighed, "Here it comes."

"So, what did you think of her?" Mouse continued.

Neo looked back. "Who?"

"The woman in the red dress. I designed her." Mouse stated, with a proud little grin. "She, uh, doesn't talk very much but, if you'd like to meet her, I can arrange a much more intimate milieu."

"The digital pimp hard at work," Switch smirked.

Mouse glared at her, still speaking,

"Pay no attention to these hypocrites Neo," he turned to his left again. "To deny our own impulses, is to deny the very thing that makes us human."

The door was thrust open and Morpheus entered, saving Neo from a response. Mouse sat back as Morpheus began speaking.

"Dozer, when you're done, bring the ship up to broadcast depth. We're going in. I'm taking Neo to see her." he announced.

Neo glanced about the table as Morpheus left. Trinity looked pointedly at Cypher, who glared.

"To see who?" Neo asked.

Everyone avoided his eye, and only Tank looked up slowly. "The Oracle."

The crew seemed to sleep in the jack-in chairs, their eyes closed, bodies relaxed. A plug to the head of each human was hooked to the pole behind each chair. The monitors were alight, heartbeats pulsating on electric blue lines, brain scans running.

Tank flipped switches and typed rapidly, muttering to himself,

"Everyone please observe; the fasten seatbelt and no smoking signs have been turned on; just sit back and enjoy your flight."

~

In the old building, a black rotary phone rang. Morpheus stepped forward, his overcoat covering the suit and gun holster he wore. He picked up the receiver.

"We're in."

They left Mouse behind, to guard the room. The other six left the building, holding close to their bodies the coats that hid their weapons. They moved like shadows, all dressed in black save for Switch, a negative impression in white.

~

Nobody noticed as Cypher dropped his black mobile into a garbage can as he left the alley at the rear of the building. The Agents would trace it, and then find the building.

~

Switch and Apoc waited outside while Neo went with Trinity, Morpheus, and Cypher in the black car. He sat in the back seat with Trinity while Cypher drove. Neo was staring out the window, watching a city go by that he had once known. Morpheus smiled and spoke over his shoulder at Neo's amazed expression.

"Unbelievable, isn't it?"

Neo glanced distractedly at him and looked back out the window. Seeing a restaurant, he muttered;

"God." Trinity looked around.

"What?"

"I used to eat there." He pointed out the window, his face twisted in a sad smile. "Really good noodles." He tapped the armrest with his left fingers. "I have these memories from my life," he looked to Trinity. "None of them happened. What does that mean?"

"That the Matrix cannot tell you who are," she answered.

"But an Oracle can?"

"That's different."

Neo sighed. Then he looked at her again.

"Did you go to her?"

She looked out her window.

"Yes."

"What did she tell you?"

Trinity opened her mouth, then she smiled forcefully. He did not have sunglasses on, and his dark eyes shone in the dark of the car.

Unlike the rest of the Crew, Neo never wore the impassive, impenetrable mask that would hide his feelings. Emotion did not matter in the Real world; there was not enough time for it. In the few months he had been woken, Neo had begun to adopt a neutral expression, but it could not hide his eyes. His eyes made him vulnerable.

"She told me . . . "

"What?"

The car slowed, then stopped. Morpheus turned.

"We're here. Neo, come with me." Trinity watched the two men enter the block of units.

~

As they entered, Neo looked around, graffiti seemed to be everywhere. Morpheus nodded to an old, blind man in a black suit and bow tie, sitting on a bench opposite the lift, and the man nodded back. Neo stepped into the small, dim elevator, and watched Morpheus press the button for the ninth floor. The doors rattled closed, and the lift began to rise.

"So is this the same Oracle," Neo asked, suddenly nervous, "that made the uh, prophecy?"

"Yes. She is very old. She has been with us since the beginning."

"The beginning?"

"Of the Resistance."

"And she knows what? Everything?"

Morpheus smiled, Neo could hear it in his voice. "She would say she knows enough."

"And she's never wrong?"

The older man sighed and glanced over his shoulder, "Try not to think of it in terms of right and wrong. She is a guide, Neo. She can help you find the path."

"She helped you?"

"Yes."

"What did she tell you?"

Morpheus paused, looking aside. The doors rattled open.

"That I would find the One."

They walked out into a narrow, dimly lit hall, Morpheus sweeping like a shadow. The brick walls were painted over in a dirty mustard colour, brightened in places by graffiti. Some was artistically done in spray paint, while other comments were nothing more than hastily scrawled permanent marker. The doors were grey, and monotonous. Morpheus stopped outside a door that seemed no different from the rest, number C960. He turned to Neo.

"I told you I can only show you the door. You have to walk through it."

Neo reached for the door-knob, but it was opened immediately by a middle-aged dark woman, with dredlocks in her hair. She smiled, and spoke in a low, smooth voice.

"Hello Neo. You're right on time." She held the door open, and moved back to let them in. Morpheus walked in, Neo close behind. As he walked through the door, there was a wall on his left, and a shelf on his right. The woman laid a hand on Morpheus' shoulder.

"Make yourself at home Morpheus. Neo; come with me," and he followed her around the corner into a small but bright lounge-room.

"These are the other potentials. You can wait here."

There was an old TV, showing a scene of giant rabbits from the movie, Night of the Lepus, a battered sofa, another bookshelf, and a large glass door leading to a balcony. Neo looked down at two young girls in summer dresses, perhaps about nine years old. They were not watching the TV, but playing with alphabet blocks. The girls were holding their hands out before them, palms up. The blocks were floating above their hands, keeping the same distance as the girls moved their hands up, down, and side to side. Neo swallowed.

There were several other children at various places about the room, and a young woman with a baby. Neo saw a girl dealing out tarot cards, a five-year-old boy reading an book that looked several centimetres thick, and another girl working on a laptop. The dredlock woman had disappeared, and Neo looked over to a small boy on the floor in the corner. He was dressed in a white cloth, and his head was shaved like a Buddist monk, but the boy was Caucasian.

He had several creatively twisted silver spoons laid on the carpet before him. Neo watched as the boy, about seven or eight years old, raised the largest spoon, and stared at it.

Neo glanced back at the spoon he held. It was straight, and his upside-down face stared back at him.

Mouse lay in the corner, holding a poster before him. It was of a tall, blond woman in a tight red dress. A flourishing signature made him smile, 'Xxx, The Woman In The Red Dress.'

Suddenly his mobile rang, and he fumbled away the poster. Pressing a button, he listened to Tank.

"They're on their way."

~

As Neo stepped out of the car in the alley, Cypher gave him a feral grin. Neo glanced at him, then walked past, ignoring the bald man.

~

Lying in his jack-in chair, Cypher's mouth twitched in a smile.

At the desk, Tank pressed a finger to the ear of his headphones as a strange sound began.

"What is that?"

~

They trooped up the spiral stairs, Morpheus leading them, with Neo bringing up the rear.

As they passed an open doorway, Neo glanced at the black cat that stared at him. As he watched, it meowed, shook itself, and trotted out of sight, it's tail up like a mast on a ship. He smiled, and half turned to follow Trinity, when he heard another mew. He looked back, and saw a black cat shake itself. Then it held it's tail up perpendicular, and trotted out of sight.

Neo looked at where it had been for a moment then shook his head, muttering to himself,

"Déjà vu."

Trinity and Morpheus spun around.

~

Tank raised his hands from the keyboard as the screens of green figures flickered, halted, and resumed a new pattern.

~

"What did you say?"

Neo was surprised. Trinity's tone was sharp, urgent. Feeling silly, he said;

"Nothing, I just had a little Déjà vu."

"What did you see?" Now the others had stopped, and were listening intently.

"What happened?" Cypher demanded.

Neo frowned; This is serious.

"A black cat walked past us," he gestured behind him. "And then another walked past, just like it."

"How much like it?" Trinity snapped, "was it the same cat?"

"Might have been, I'm not sure."

Morpheus barked out, "Switch, Apoc."

Switch ran up ahead, and Apoc thumped down the stairs past Neo to check their rear.

"What is it?" Neo asked.

"Déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix," Trinity said curtly. "It happens when they change something."

~

Mouse stood in the small room, holding the case. His head tilted up as a sound came from above him, a helicopter.

~

Tank froze, staring as he read the new pattern.

"Oh my God."

~

In the basement of the abandoned hotel, a pair of wire cutters snapped through the phone cable.

~

Morpheus called an order,

"Let's go."

The crew hurried after him up the stairs.

~

Mouse's head jerked around as he heard the mobile ring; he fumbled it out of his pocket and answered it.

~

Tank's voice was panicked as he called through the head-set.

"They cut the hard line it's a trap get out!"

~

Mouse dropped the case, running to the nearest window. Yanking open the curtains, Mouse pushed desperately at the bricks blocking the frame.

"Oh no!"

~

Tank bit his lip as the pattern continued to scroll ominously down the screen.

"Oh no!"

~

Mouse ripped open the large box on the floor, pulling out two full machine guns.

~

The SWAT crew from the chopper crowded outside the door, guns ready.

~

Holding a gun in each hand, Mouse turned to face the door as it was kicked open, and the front row of SWAT police pulled the triggers on their weapons.

~

Morpheus froze on the stairs, looking up through the dim light as the sound of gun-fire echoed down through the building.

~

Mouse fired, screaming defiance as his guns flashed.

~

Tank watched as Mouse's body convulsed, the heart-line on the monitor jerking up and down at impossible heights, then it went flat. Blood trickled out of the boy's mouth as his head lolled onto his chest. Tank bit his lip hard.

~

There was a sound of marching from the first floor, and at Morpheus' unspoken order, they ran up the stairs, two at a time, swerving off the stairway a Morpheus signalled for the crew to move down the hall on the next landing. They pulled into the first room on the left.

Neo knew that Mouse was dead.

Switch pulled open one pair of curtains. The window was bricked up. When Apoc checked the others, he found them the same.

"So that's what they changed," Cypher was panicking. "That's it, we're trapped – "

Morpheus turned to him, taking off his trenchcoat.

"Be calm. Give me your phone."

"They'll be able to trace it." Trinity cut in as Cypher checked his pocket. Morpheus looked at her;

"We have no choice." She shrugged, handing him her mobile. He punched in the control number.

~

He bit down on grief, pressed his fingers to the headset.

"Operator?"

"Tank, find a structural drawing of this building, find it fast."

~

The SWAT team was spreading throughout the top floor, checking every room. Once the level was empty, they moved to the next one down.

~

Tank hammered at his keyboard, looking at the screen to his left. After a few moments, he found the plan he needed.

"Got it."

"I need the main wet-wall," came Morpheus' reply.

Tank zoomed in on the plan, looking for a break.

~

Several floors up, Agent Smith pressed his fingers to his ear plug. He could hear an Operator.

"Eighth floor."

~

On the first floor, Agent Jones listened to Smith's voice from the ear plug.

"They're on the eighth floor."

~

Morpheus listened to the phone, then motioned to the woman in white.

"Switch, straight ahead." The crew moved after them. As Neo turned to follow Morpheus out the door, Apoc spoke.

"Neo."

The man held his gun out to Neo, handle first. Neo took it slowly, he had no weapon.

"I hope the Oracle gave you some good news." Apoc said in his flat voice.

~

The second SWAT team was swarming up the stairs on the orders of the man in brown. Somehow he was sure the terrorists were on the eighth floor. The police just did as they were told.

~

Morpheus paused at Tank's instruction, "Now left, that's it." Morpheus pushed open a door, revealing a dusty, brown tiled bathroom, with a hole in the wall.

"Good," he shoved the phone back in his pocket.

~

Agent Smith stared at the leather coat dropped on the faded carpet. Agent Jones stepped up, followed by his unit. His voice was terse as he asked;

"Where are they?"

~

The cop stepped into the eighth floor bathroom, scanning from left to right. All down the hall, in every room, at least one of his fellows was checking for them. No one was really sure who or what these people were, but the cops were paid to follow orders, and they did not ask questions.

He raised his gun slowly, making no sound.

Then he lowered it, and turned.

~

Neo was second from the top in the wall cavity, and his arms were aching. In his right hand, he still clutched the gun. He pressed his back against the outer brick wall, his hands and knees on the gyprock before him. In the room above them, that they had just left, the cop was scanning around for them. Then his torchlight faded away, and Neo relaxed slightly, still pressed to the wall.

Above him, Morpheus waved for them to continue down wards. But as he began to move, his foot slipped on a wet pipe, sending a shower of dust down over Neo, Trinity, Apoc, Switch, and Cypher at the bottom. Cypher held his hand over his mouth, stifling a cough.

~

The cop in the seventh floor bathroom paused, raised his gun, and stepped closer to the wall.

~

Neo bit his lip, not daring to breathe. Then, a sound came that he would curse for the rest of life.

The sound of Cypher's muffled sneeze.

~

"They're in the walls, " the man muttered, then yelled over his shoulder; "They're in the walls!"

He stepped back, aiming his gun.

~

Neo listened, his ear close to the wall as he heard the yell. Then he jerked back as bullets began peppering the wall.

He lifted Apoc's gun. Squinting his eyes against the dust, he fired at the cop through the wall. Plaster and broken tile poured down to the crew below, but Neo did not stop until the clip was finished. Light shone in shafts through the shattered wall, and Neo peered, trying to see through the wall. He saw the cop move toward the doorway for cover, then he jerked to a stop, dropping his gun. Neo watched in horror as the cop's face twisted, like a second skin was growing over it. Static flickered in lines of code, briefly. Square sunglasses formed, the helmet changed into dark hair slicked down, a brown suit grew over the uniform.

Now Neo understood what Morpheus had said, the Agents were at once everyone and no one. They could over-ride the RSI, possess the carrier signal, of any coppertop in the Matrix.

The Agent stepped forwards and plunged his arms through the wall, wrapping his hands around Neo's neck. Cypher yelled in alarm,

"It's an Agent!"

~

Morpheus clenched his teeth, twisting his head to the side as he let out an inhuman sound, a cross between a moan and a roar. He bunched his muscles, then threw himself through the wall.

~

Plaster and tiles shattered over the Agent as Morpheus leapt onto him, breaking his grip on Neo and knocking him to the ground.

"Morpheus – !" Trinity struggled to climb up the pipes. He yelled over his shoulder as the Agent struggled.

"Trinity! You must get Neo out! He's all that matters!"

"No!" Nightmares swamped over Neo,

. . . one of you is going to die . . .

"No Morpheus! Don't!" He started to squirm up the cavity.

"Trinity! Go!" the captain ordered. Trinity turned her head to look below her, "Go!" Cypher let himself fall down the gap, closely followed by Switch and Apoc. Trinity looked above her, taking hold of Neo's foot, but he resisted.

"We can't leave him!"

"We have to!"

Trinity gripped his leg, and relaxed, letting herself free-fall. Neo was pulled down with her.

~

They slid down eight floors, hitting the floor hard at the basement. Switch and Apoc began firing as an answering volley of bullets came through the gloom from the SWAT team waiting for them. As the last man of the first unit fell, Switch dropped into the pipe, Apoc following her. Trinity grabbed Neo's hand, pulling him toward the pipe, but he held back.

Another rattle of gunfire sounded, machine guns flashing even when Neo could not see the cops who wielded them.

Neo slid into the pipe, looking up at Trinity as she called, "Cypher, come on!"

~

"Come on!" Trinity waited long enough to see the man start toward her through the hail of bullets, then dropped into the pipe after Neo.

~

Morpheus was on top, holding his hands about the Agent's neck. He had never been this close to an Agent before. He knew he could not win, but he was sure going to give something to remember.

The voice was mocking as the program beneath him spoke.

"The Great Morpheus. So, we finally meet."

"And you are?"

"A Smith. Agent Smith."

Morpheus' voice was a barely controlled growl.

"You all look the same to me."

Morpheus managed to land a few punches before the Agent threw him back. He hit the wall hard, but landed on his feet, fists ready. The Agent didn't seem at all hurt, or even bothered. The hard face was impassive behind the square glasses. Morpheus balled his fists and attacked.

~

He was losing terribly, and he knew it. His nose was bleeding, and his ribs felt like knives.

The Agent threw him back into the wall again, shattering bricks. Morpheus struggled to get to his feet, dragging himself up by the broken sink.

The Agent's voice was like rough ice.

"Take him."

Morpheus had known that he would not be killed, not yet. There was something strange about the sudden attack on the Crew, and Morpheus had no idea how the Agents had found them so easily. The purpose however, was clear.

They wanted Zion.

Police swarmed into the tiny room, six tall men surrounding Morpheus. He kicked out as he was grabbed by the arm. Immediately, the six police began to beat his already bruised body with their hands and the handles of the pistols they carried.

Morpheus fell, as stars swam before his vision, and his world went dark.

~

Tank slammed his fist against the desk, wanting to smash the screen before him.

"No!"

~

Near the alley behind the hotel, two cars and a truck were in flames. Police vehicles and fire engines crowded around, people swarmed at the scene. Cypher crashed into the phone booth across the street. Dial tone, he punched in the number, then Tank snapped an answer.

"Operator."

Cypher panted into the payphone, "Yeah, I need an exit fast!"

Tank answered him in a confused voice.

"Cypher?"

"Yeah, there was an accident, a goddamn car accident, all of a sudden boom!" he glanced over his shoulder. "Somebody up there still likes me." Sounds of a keyboard taping came through the phone and Cypher continued, "Get me outta here, fast!"

"The nearest exit is Franklin and Erie, an old TV repair shop."

"Right."

He slammed down the phone, and ran.

~

Trinity hauled herself out from the man hole, hurrying off the street as the others followed her. She ran past the payphone, the others behind her. Pulling out her mobile, she hit the speed dial.

"Operator."

"Tank. It's me."

"Is Morpheus alive?" Neo asked her anxiously.

"Is Morpheus alive Tank?"

"Yes. They're moving him, but I don't know where to yet."

"He's alive," she spoke curtly. "We need an exit."

"You're not far from Cypher."

"Cypher?"

"I know! I sent him to Franklin and Erie."

"Got it."

~

Light sliced into the room as Cypher kicked open the boarded up window. He moved quickly through the front of the store, dodging the heaps of broken and half-repaired televisions. He caught himself against the large wooden table in the back room, and snatched up the ringing phone, the receiver thick with dust. He held it to his ear.

~

Tank glanced at his brother, "Got him."

Dozer hit a button on the screen and Cypher opened his eyes. Reaching behind his head, Dozer eased out his plug. Cypher got up slowly and moved to the main desk.

"Where are they?" he asked Tank.

"I'm making the call."

"Good."

~

Trinity burst into the back room of the TV store, followed by Neo, Apoc, and Switch. The phone rang. Apoc paused in the doorway, Switch stood against the far corner, and Neo hesitated near the phone, opposite her. She stopped.

She nodded for him to take the phone,

"You first Neo."

Slowly, Neo picked up the black receiver, and lifted it to his ear.

~

Tank was too busy typing to notice him as Cypher stood, and picked up the blaster from behind the empty chair. It was used for close combat with smaller machines, surging a bolt of electricity that momentarily sent their systems haywire. And it would easily kill a human.

~

Tank froze at a sound, his hands hovering over the keyboard.

He spun the chair about toward his right, and gaped in horror at Cypher. The bald man held the blaster to his shoulder.

"No – " Tank fell forward as a bolt of electric blue burned into his side.

~

Cypher swore, and raised the setting on the blaster, it had only been on half power.

~

Dozer stood from where he was crouched, working with spanner and hammer. He had heard the explosive crack of the blaster, and the thud of a body hitting the ground.

"Tank – " he gasped. Dozer threw himself at the bald man, screaming "NO!"

~

Cypher pulled back the trigger of the blaster, and Dozer was thrown back as the bolt of electricity struck him full in the chest.

The bald man dropped the blaster beside the body of Tank. He pulled off the headset, and fitted it over his own brow.

~

But after a moment, Neo lowered the phone piece, looking at it. Trinity stood higher.

"What is it?" her voice was sharp.

"I don't know. It just went dead." He handed the receiver back to her. Trinity listened for a dial tone, but there was nothing. Just silence. She replaced the piece, and looked back to Neo. His eyes were dark, and she could see his confusion clearly.

Trinity pulled her mobile from her pocket and hit the speed dial, beginning to pace back and forth as it rang.

"Hello Trinity," The voice that answered her made her skin crawl.

She stopped.

"Cypher, where's Tank?"

~

Cypher leaned over Trinity in her jack-in chair. He raised a hand to stroke her face.

"You know, for a long time, I thought I was in love with you."

~

Trinity cringed as a feeling of cold slid down her cheek.

"I used to dream about you."

~

"You're a beautiful woman Trinity." Cypher turned his eyes from her to the scorched body of Dozer.

~

"Too bad things had to turn out this way."

She stopped short.

"You killed them." Her voice was flat, numbed with shock as she realised. Neo ceased breathing.

Apoc's face drained of colour, "What?"

Switch gasped, "Oh God."

~

"I'm tired Trinity." Cypher shook his head, "I'm tired of this war, tired of fighting. I'm tired of this ship, tired of being cold and eating the same goddamn goop every day. But most of all – "

~

"I'm tired of that jack-off and all his bullshit." Trin tightened her grip on the phone.

~

Cypher leapt astride Morpheus, like he was trying to pin him down.

"Surprise asshole! I bet you never saw this coming, did you? God I wish I could be there, when they break you. I wish I could walk in just when it happens, so right then, you'd know it was me!"

~

"You gave them Morpheus!"

"He lied to us Trinity,"

~

"He tricked us!" Cypher jabbed his forefinger into the captain's chest to emphasise his words. "If you'd have told us the truth, we would've told you to stick that red pill right up your ass!"

~

Neo stared at Trinity. Her eyes were burning, and her voice was like a knife as she spoke to Cypher. She kept it tightly controlled, but even from the other side of the room, Neo could feel her anger. His own mind reeled, and he wanted to run, no matter where.

Tank, his trainer, the only one who could bring them out of this hell, was dead, together with Dozer, who had shown Neo nothing but kindness. An innocent boy, Mouse, had been sacrificed to the will of some twisted, sick little man.

Cypher had betrayed Morpheus, and in doing so had betrayed the entire Resistance, and everything it stood for.

~

"That is not true Cypher," Trinity protested. "He set us free."

"'Free'."

~

Cypher waved a hand at the crowded and dimly lit Main Deck. "You call this 'free'? All I do is what he tells me to do. If I have to choose between that and the Matrix, I choose the Matrix."

~

"The Matrix isn't real!" she insisted.

"I disagree Trinity."

~

"I think the Matrix," Cypher moved toward Apoc's chair, "can be more real than this world. All I do is pull the plug here – " His hand reached beneath the ponytail, fingers curling around the plug . . .

~

"But there, you have to watch Apoc die." Trinity looked to the man with long brown hair, he spoke, scared.

"Trinity – "

~

Cypher pulled the plug sharply.

~

"No!" Switch dropped her gun and ran to Apoc's side as he collapsed to the cheap linoleum floor, she tried to lift his head. Trinity's left hand was balled in a fist, and her right griped the cell phone. She wanted to scream; all she had lived for was being destroyed. She was barely thirty, and she had been woken at seventeen. For almost thirteen years, Trinity had been trying to undermine, trip-up, and trick the AI, in any way she could. Now the Resistance finally had a purpose, Neo. But she knew he would not survive for long. Cypher was in control, and he held their lives in his hands.

Trinity winced inwardly as she heard Cypher's voice croon on.

~

"Welcome to the Real world, huh baby?" Cypher dropped the plug to the ground.

"But you're out Cypher," Trin reasoned, "you can't go back."

"Oh no, that's what you think. They're going to re-insert my body. I go back to sleep, and when I wake up, I won't remember a Goddamn thing!"

He moved over to the next chair. "By the way, if you've got anything terribly important to say to Switch,"

~

"I suggest you say it now."

"No. Please don't."

Trinity swallowed. Switch was about her age, and the two women were almost as close as sisters. To lose the blond was unthinkable. Switch raised her eyes to meet Trinity's. When she spoke, her voice was husky with raw grief.

"Not like this, not like this."

Then her arms relaxed, and she flopped limply over the body of Apoc, like they were two abandoned rag dolls, the child bored with it's toys; casting them as useless in it's plans. Trinity bit her lip.

~

Cypher shrugged nonchalantly.

"Too late."

~

Trinity yelled into the phone, raw.

"God damn you Cypher!"

~

"Don't hate me Trinity. I'm just a messenger. And right now, I'm going to prove it to you."

The bald man's eyes narrowed, and he stepped around the foot of Switch's chair. He bent over the man with the black hair, and the pale white skin. A strong, yet soft face, whose eyes showed all that he felt. Those black, shining eyes, now peacefully shut as if in sleep.

Yet from Cypher's view, the man below him was ugly, seen though a haze of jealousy. He slowly, carefully, wrapped his fingers around the plug in the man's head, savouring the power of holding a life in his hand.

~

Neo stood from beside Switch as Trinity looked at the ground, then turned slowly to look at him.

He could not look away from her burning blue eyes.

~

Trinity stared at him. She was almost shaking, her temples throbbed.

~

"Now, if Morpheus was right," reasoned Cypher, "then there is no way I can pull this plug. I mean, if Neo's the One, then there would have to be, some kind of a miracle to stop me. Right?" Cypher paused, glancing around the Main Deck, but no such miracle was evident.

"I mean, how can he be the One, if he's dead?"

~

Trinity's world was falling down around her, but all she could see was Neo, standing there. He was afraid, but could do nothing to stop what was going to happen, like a lamb about to be led to the slaughter.

All she could hear was Cypher, as he crooned into her ear.

"You never did answer me before, if you bought into Morpheus' bullshit. Come on."

~

"All I want is a little yes or no. Look into his eyes," Cypher sneered at Neo.

~

"Those big pretty eyes."

Trinity's hands were shaking. She knew that Cypher was asking her whether or not she believed Neo was the One. But she did not truly know the answer. Because if she believed that he was the One, it meant she also had to believe something else about him . . .

~

"And tell me." Cypher tightened his grip on the plug. "Yes, or no."

~

Neo was transfixed. Silence rang in his ears, thrumming with tension, like a string about to break. His mouth was dry, his palms damp in his clenched fists. Their eyes were unguarded, he felt she could see through him. Fear gripped like a vice around his mind, he was helpless as he stood, staring at Trinity, as she whispered one word into the silence.

"Yes."

~

"No!" Cypher leapt up from the chair, staggering backwards.

"I don't believe it!"

But he was not talking to Trinity.

~

Tank leaned heavily against Trinity's jack-in chair, and the blaster seemed to weigh a ton. But still he held it up to his shoulder, aimed at Cypher.

"Believe it or not, you piece of shit, you're still gonna burn!"

And he pulled back the trigger hard, blasting Cypher into oblivion. The body collided with the wall, then flopped limply to the ground. Tank spat viciously.

~

Trinity lowered her mobile, staring at nothing as if in shock. Beside them, the phone rang, shattering something. Neo watched Trinity turn and look at it blankly.

He felt hollowed, he knew he had almost died, like Apoc, like Switch. But something had stopped Cypher, although what he didn't know.

They had to get back to the Real world; whether or not death awaited them there, here it was a certainty.

He picked up the receiver, hesitated –

– then held it out for her.

"You first."

~

Tank re-set the phone and stepped toward Trinity's jack-in chair. Dozer had been his real brother, but in all things but blood, Trinity was his sister. He had been drafted to the Nebuchadnezzar when he was nine, Trinity had been woken two years later, and she had been like a big sister to him. After his brother, Tank cared most for no one else but Trinity. And now Dozer . . .

Her eyelids flickered, and then snapped open. Tank pulled out the plug, and helped her sit up. She looked over him, trying to see how he could be alive. Her gaze went to his side, where the bolt of electricity had glanced him, blistering the skin of his arm and shoulder.

"You're hurt." Trinity's voice was soft, showing what she did not say. She could be cold, but that was for survival.

"I'll be alright."

"Dozer – ? " she did not finish her question, she knew the answer. He sniffed. Trinity wrapped her arms around him.

The chopper flew over the city, stopping on the roof. The SWAT men carried Morpheus down to the office they were using as an interrogation room. Agent Brown stopped on the edge of the roof and looked about him, listening.

~

Morpheus sat still, handcuffs cutting into wrists that were tied behind him as he sat in the hard chair. He kept still. Staying motionless stopped his head spinning, stopped wounds from stretching.

Two of the three Agents sat or stood about the large room, one wall of which was a clean glass window, that faced other buildings beyond that, and the city harbour. He was in a huge office skyscraper, which was probably used purely for the Agents' purposes.

A voice, irritatingly slow, was talking. It was Smith, standing by the window.

"Have you ever stood and stared at it? Marvelled at its beauty, it's genius? Billions of people, living out their lives, oblivious." He turned from the glass, and began to pace slowly toward Morpheus.

"Did you know that the first Matrix, was designed to be a perfect human world, where none suffered, where everyone would be happy."

That word sounded foul in the program's mouth.

"It was a disaster, no one would accept the program, entire crops were lost."

Beside Morpheus, another Agent was preparing a syringe, stainless steel instruments spread on the table before him, near two laptops.

"Some believe that, we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world, but I believe that, as a species," the needle jabbed into Morpheus' neck, cold quicksilver oozing into his bloodstream, "human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. So the perfect world was a dream, that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to 'wake up' from." Morpheus glanced at the second Agent, finding it difficult to focus.

"Which is why the Matrix was re-designed, to this; the peak of your civilisation. I say your civilisation because when we started thinking for you it really became our civilisation, which is, of course, what this is all about." Smith was behind Morpheus' chair, looking over his shoulder. He bent, speaking in his ear. "Evolution, Morpheus, evolution. Like the dinosaur. Look out that window." Groggily, the man raised his head and did as he was told. "You had your time, the future is our world Morpheus, the future is our time."

Smith stood up as the third Agent walked in;

"There could be a problem."

~

Neo, and Tank stood on either side of Morpheus' body. Trinity was facing the wall, standing with her arms folded, near the covered figures of Mouse, Dozer, Apoc, and Switch. Cypher, they left where he'd fallen.

Neo stared at the captain's face. It was like watching a sleeping person having a nightmare.

"What are they doing to him?" he asked.

"They're breaking into his mind," Tank explained. "It's like hacking a computer, all it takes is time."

"How much time?"

"Depends on the mind. But eventually it'll crack, and its alpha patterns will change from this;" Tank pressed the DISPLAY button on the screen above Morpheus' head. The brain waves changed, become ordered, slow, "to this. When it does Morpheus will tell them anything they want to know."

"What do they want?"

"The leader of every ship is given codes to Zion's mainframe computer. If an Agent got the codes and got into Zion's mainframe, it could destroy us. We can't let that happen.

"Trinity, Zion's more important than me, or you, or even Morpheus."

Neo glanced from Trin to Morpheus, then back to Tank, "There has to be something that we can do."

"There is. We pull the plug."

Trinity turned,

"You're gonna kill him. Kill Morpheus – " but Tank cut her off with a shake of his head.

"We don't have any other choice."

~

"Never send a human to do a machine's job."

"If indeed the insider has failed they will sever the connection as soon as possible, unless – "

"They're dead. In either case – "

"We have no choice but to continue as planned. Deploy the sentinels, immediately."

Tank laid his hand on Morpheus' forehead. His voice was quiet, respectful.

"Morpheus, you were more than a leader to us, you were, a father. We'll miss you always." His hand crept down behind the head rest, and closed around the plug –

"Stop." The voice that came from Neo was quiet, but not without authority. Tank and Trinity stared at him.

"I don't believe this is happening," he whispered.

"Neo, this has to be done," Tank's voice was hard, sore.

"Does it? I – I don't know, I – "

Something was worrying at Neo, it was something the Oracle had said . . .

He shook his head, his eyes fixed on nothing.

"This can't be just coincidence, it can't be."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Tank.

"The Oracle, she told me this would happen, she told me, that I would have to make a choice – "

"What choice?" Trinity asked.

Neo looked up at her as if seeing her for the first time. His mind was clear, and he knew what he had to do.

He turned, and hurried toward the operator's desk, Trinity following.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going in."

"No you're not."

"I have to," Neo began, turning. Trinity shook her head.

"Neo, Morpheus sacrificed himself so we could get you out. There is no way that you're going back in."

"Morpheus did what he did because he believed that I'm something I'm not."

Tank's eyes narrowed.

"What?" Trinity's voice was an icy whisper.

"I'm not the One Trinity. The Oracle hit me with that too."

"No you have to be."

"I'm sorry, I'm not. I'm just another guy."

"No Neo that's not true, it can’t be true."

"Why?"

She didn't answer, but dropped her gaze. Neo turned again, continued at the screens. Tank spoke.

"Neo, this is loco. They've got Morpheus in a military controlled building, even if you somehow got inside those are Agents holding him. Three of them. Neo, I want Morpheus back too but what you're talking about is suicide."

His heart was going overtime, and his nerves almost tingled. He breathed quickly, glancing from one face to the other, finding resistance in both courts.

"I know that's what it looks like, but it's not. I can't explain to you why it's not. Morpheus believed something, and he was willing to give his life for what he believed, I understand that now. That's why I have to go."

"Why?" came the challenge from Tank.

"Because I believe in something."

"What?" Trinity's voice was quiet. He turned his eyes to her.

"I believe I can bring him back."

~

Trinity froze as Neo turned from her, her eyes downcast in thought. She nodded ever so slightly as his words struck home.

She moved after him.

~

Neo stepped away, twisting through the maze of equipment and cables, and began to re-set the monitor as he reached his chair. Hearing a sound, he looked over his shoulder, and saw that Trinity was also preparing for re-entry.

"What are you doing?"

She didn't turn around, "Going with you."

Neo spun, "No you're not!"

"No?" Trinity turned around and stepped closer, her eyes still alight, but restrained. Every line of her showed rigid control, and Neo stood still. Her voice was dangerously quiet.

"Let me tell you what I believe. I believe that Morpheus means more to me than he does to you. I believe if you are really serious about saving him, then you're going to need my help. And since I am the ranking officer on this ship if you don't like it, then I believe you can go to hell. Because you're not going anywhere else.

"Tank," she did not break eye contact with Neo, "load us up." And then Trinity turned her back on him.

~

Smith pulled a metal chair across the carpet, turned it around before Morpheus, and sat down.

"I'd like to, share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. And I realised that, you're not actually mammals.

"Every mammal, on this planet, instinctively develops a natural, equilibrium, with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to move to another area."

He leant forward, elbows on knees.

"There is, another organism on this planet, that follows the same pattern. Do you know what is?"

Morpheus looked up slowly, blinking sweat out of his eyes.

"A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague. And we are the cure."

~

Tank adjusted his headset. He stretched, wincing at the pain under the bandage on his side, and flexed his fingers.

"Okay, so what do you need, besides a miracle."

~

Neo stood, watching Trinity. She was wearing all black leather, her usual attire. He wore a tight long-sleeved shirt, black cargoes, and a full length trenchcoat. His boots came half way up his calves. His shades were in his pocket.

He spoke into his mobile; thankful Trinity didn't hear Tank's remark.

"Guns," he smiled very faintly. "Lots, of guns."

~

Tank typed rapidly.

~

Neo looked left, as several dark specks appeared on what would be called the horizon, if the white nothing had a horizon. The specks grew rapidly, the edge ones lengthening into lines. Within seconds, Neo and Trinity's coats were flapping in the wind that the hundred or so tall shelves, loaded with firearms, created as they rushed past the pair. As they slowed, then stopped, Neo turned, taking a gun from the rack on the shelf behind him. He turned back to Trinity, finding a clip.

Trinity took a deep breath.

"Neo, no-one has ever done anything like this."

"That's why it's going to work."

And he slammed a clip into the gun.

~

Smith was pacing.

"Why isn't the serum working?"

Jones turned from the screens.

"Perhaps we're asking the wrong questions."

"Leave me with him." They hesitated. "Now."

They left.

~

Tank soothed a cool cloth over his captain's forehead, washing away sweat. Morpheus' face twitched, the eyes squeezing shut tight.

"Hold on Morpheus. They're coming for you. They're coming."

~

Smith took off his shades.

"Can you hear me Morpheus?" The Agent took out his ear plug, sat down.

"I'm going to be honest with you," he sat forward, intense.

"I, hate, this place, this reality, this zoo, this, whatever you want to call it. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I can, taste, your stink," Smith raised his hand, ran a finger over Morpheus' head, collecting sweat. "And each time I do I fear I have somehow been infected by it, it's repulsive, isn't it?" He held his hand under Morpheus' nose, forcing his head back. His eyes were rolled back in their sockets.

Smith grabbed suddenly for Morpheus, hands gripping either side of his head like a vice.

"I must get out of here, I must get free. And in this mind is the key, my key. Once Zion is destroyed there is no need for me to be here, do you understand?" He shook Morpheus, making his eyes focus. "I need the codes, I need to get inside Zion, and you're going to tell me how.

"You're going to tell me or you're going to die."

His hands gripped tighter.

~

Neo stepped through the rotating doors, into the lobby. Placing the duffel bag on the conveyor belt of the x-ray scanner, he swept through the arch of the metal detector, and heard an alarm sound briefly. The guard stepped up to him, one of the twenty or so that hung around the lobby. As the man began talking, Neo whipped his head around, sizing up the open space, with the two narrow vistas at the sides, separated by two rows of thick square pillars.

"Sir, could you please remove any metallic items you are carrying, keys, spare change . . ." the man's bored voice broke off as Neo pulled open his coat.

Enough firearms were clipped, buckled, and strapped to him to supply a small army.

"Holy shit!" the guard exclaimed. The young man in black slammed a fist into the guards chest, throwing him backwards. Before he even hit the ground, Neo had pulled two uzis from his belt, and holding them across his chest, he walked forward almost calmly, spraying the rows of cops to either side with a deadly rain.

One man who had escaped the bullets pulled out his pistol and radio, and called into it,

"Backup! Send backup!" but the alarm sounded again as Trinity came through the detector, raising her Uzi and shooting the man quickly. Trinity took up the bag and moved up to Neo as he tossed aside his empty guns, pulled out two more, and stood still. Footsteps thundered.

They waited for the rest of the cops. Feet thudded from the emergency stairwell, and doors burst open all around the lobby as the men arranged themselves among the pillars. The lieutenant yelled out to them,

"Freeze!"

Neo looked to Trinity,

They split, running for cover in opposite directions.

~

Trinity ran from Neo, firing with deadly precision at the guards who ran unheeding toward her. She dodged around the corners of the pillars, in a fatal game of cat and mouse in which the panther killed for necessity. There were no wounded among the ones shot, there were no sounds of pain. Just the echoes of the gunshots ricocheting off the tiled walls and the unearthly music that throbbed through her head. Bullets missed her by inches, riffling her hair, skimming past her head as she sped out of the way by running up the wall and around behind her attackers. When she did not have a weapon in her hands, she moved out of the way and grabbed another from a fallen cop. Coming up behind a man, she kicked his own rifle out of his hands and shot him in the chest as he turned around. Or she flattened the attacking man with her hands and feet. Many times she would grab a man and hold him in her way as a human shield, trying not to think of the children he would not return to tonight.

~

Neo's blood was rushing through his head. What would have taken him years of intense training to learn in the Matrix, he had learned through Tank's computer training in a matter of weeks. His movements seemed marked in advance, this skirmish nothing more than a marvellously choreographed dance in which his victory was preordained. Holding two empty guns, he ducked behind a pillar as the SWAT men wasted their shots on the unyielding concrete.

Tossing the machine guns aside, he pulled two Uzi's from the straps on his legs and swung out of cover. Firing both hands at once, he bent all the rules, moving faster than was physically possible, not missing a single shot, cart-wheeling in seeming slow motion to pick up a fresh machinegun, then take down three men before his feet touched the ground.

He found himself empty handed, so he walked up along the length of the cop, wrapping his heels around the man's neck and snapping it like a twig. He landed on his feet, sweeping the bottom of his coat out of the way of the falling body. As the man thudded to the tiles, there was silence in the lobby. Trinity went back to the middle of the room and picked up the bag, dropping her last rifle on the tiles with a crack, and walked back with him to the lift. Trinity pressed the button, then stepped in first as the doors of the lift slid open.

~

Suddenly the door opened, and Agent Smith stood, dropping Morpheus' head. The other two Agents stared.

"What were you doing?" asked Jones.

"He doesn't know," said Brown.

Smith replaced his ear plug. "Know what?"

~

Dumping the bag on the floor, Trinity crouched beside it, shucked off her coat, and unzipped the bag. Opening the silver case inside, she flipped back the lid and tapped in a code on the bomb. Neo hit the emergency stop button, the screen flashing level 41, have a nice day, then he pushed the escape panel out from the top of the elevator. He slipped through like a shadow, Trinity looking up in time to see the tail of his coat disappear.

~

Brown stared at Morpheus, spoke unemotionally,

"I think they're trying to save him."

Through the haze in his head, a dim light began to glow.

~

Neo stood on the metal bar on the ceiling of the lift, pulling Trinity up. In the dimly lit shaft, with his shades on, he couldn't see much of her. Pulling a pistol from his belt, he clipped a cord from his belt to the cables, held them tight, and shot the first of them that were attached to the lift. It shuddered, slipping down a little as half of its support went. Trinity stepped up to him, holding to the cable as he let go and wrapped his arm about her. He exhaled, steeling himself. Both of them looked down to the unseen floor forty odd floors below them. Neo looked up into the dark. His voice was a whisper so quiet, but it broke the sudden silence like a gunshot; as he remembered a child's lesson from a time that seemed years past, but had occurred only that morning.

"There is no spoon."

He looked down as he shot the second cable through. The elevator fell, while the cables to which they clung flew upward. A few moments later, far below them, the entire ground floor exploded.

~

The lights went out, the sunlight from outside the only illumination. A split second later, the sprinklers started up, raining down on the Agents and the man in the chair. Smith fumed;

"Find them and destroy them."

Brown held a fingers to his plug, listening.

~

The chopper pilot's voice was panicked as he yelled into his radio;

"I repeat, we are under attack!!"

Neo barely heard him above the rushing of blood in his ears. He had thought this part was over, but obviously not. Trinity was beside him, fighting with him against the cops which had appeared from nowhere as soon as they had reached the roof. There were less gunshots now, only the cops had machine guns, and it was better to save the handguns the pair had by relieving the men of their weapons before they could be used. It was harder to use kung-fu in the coat, but Neo did well with anything else that came to his head. A man approached him from the left, but was knocked down by a right kick with all Neo's weight behind it. Before him, Trinity appeared, pulling a knife from her belt, flinging it at the man over Neo's shoulder who was lifting his rifle. It lodged between his eyes. Neo spun back to her, staring.

~

Over in the chopper, the pilot jerked violently, as Agent Brown overtook him.

~

Silence. That had been the last of them. Neo stood upright as he threw down his rifle. But then there were footsteps behind him. He looked at Trinity, saw the fear in her stance.

Neo swung abruptly to face the challenger, pulling his last two handguns from beneath his coat, levelling his aim straight forward.

He opened fire, trying to believe what he saw. The Agent dodged every single bullet, moving so fast he was a brown blur. Back, side, forth, other side, all with the most indifferent expression.

Click, click. His guns empty, Neo let his hands fall to his sides. The Agent straightened, unscathed. The useless metal clattered to the ground, as the young man shifted his feet, getting ready for – what?

"Trinity," Neo's voice almost cracked. The Agent reached for his gun – "Help!"

Bang! The first bullet flew. Neo threw himself back, arms flailing as his world slowed and he struggled to stay on his feet. His body horizontal, his legs bent, he could see the ripples above him in the air as the bullets came, the first, then two more. Four more, as Neo's head twisted sideways to move from the bending air beside his ear. His coat rippled in the slow wind as it began to slide from his arms, his hair was ruffled in the breeze. His mind blanked, refusing to register the danger around him as the Agent fired twice again.

Neo jerked as the next two bullets came, one nicking his right shoulder, the other his left leg. The spell broken, the young man fell hard on the concrete, wincing. The Agent moved forward, holding the gun before him. His voice was blank as he looked down at Neo,

"Only human."

Trin stepped up, pressing her gun to the Agent's temple.

"Dodge this."

The Agent fell sideways as she fired, thudding to the concrete. Trinity turned her head from the bright static that flickered on the corpse as the Agent left. She reached down and pulled Neo to his feet, stepping away from the body of the pilot. Neo's chest heaved, he felt almost exhausted. Trinity gave him a look he couldn't read through her shades, it could have been amazement, or shock, or suspicion, or fear.

"How did you do that?" She demanded, her voice cold steel.

"Do what?" he shrugged off his coat, trying to disregard what he had just done, no matter how much it could mean.

"You moved like they do, I've never seen anybody move that fast."

Neo touched the bleeding spot on his shoulder pointedly.

"It wasn't fast enough."

Watching closely, he thought he saw the slightest of smiles curve Trinity's mouth.

~

He nodded in the direction of the empty chopper; "Can you fly that thing?"

She followed his gaze, and pulled out her mobile, wondering how he would react to this.

"Not yet."

~

~

Tank paused in his typing as he listened to Trinity.

"Operator."

"Tank, I need a pilot program for a B2-12 helicopter. Hurry."

The keys clicked frantically as Tank searched for, found, and began loading the program. Over in her chair, Trinity's eyelids flickered, a diagram on her monitor showing her brain recording the knowledge.

~

Trinity's eyelids flickered, then opened. Glancing at Neo, she spoke,

"Let's go."

Neo followed her over to the chopper.

~

Brown stepped into the room, facing Smith. The three of them froze as the sound of a helicopter faded into hearing. Turning slowly, Smith stared out the window as the chopper moved down, and the young man in black shifted behind the huge rotating machine gun.

"No."

~

Neo gritted his teeth.

And he pressed the trigger. Glass shattered as he moved his aim across, breaking the window and peppering the floor of the office with bullets, then up on one side of Morpheus. The gunshots thundered, it rained empty shells. One Agent fell, then another. Water sprayed in waves that were chopped and diced by the bullets. Neo swung the gun to the other side, across the top of the room, and then down. The last Agent died, still firing his Desert Eagle.

The machine gun rattled to a halt.

~

In the corridor outside the office, the three Agents returned, overriding the RSI's of police.

~

Morpheus did not even lift his head. He was alone, water rained down on his bent back, and he did not move.

Neo whispered, urging his captain; "Morpheus, get up. Get up get up!"

~

Morpheus raised his head slowly, his eyes rolled back so far only the whites showed.

Morpheus pulled, and the chain of his handcuffs broke. He blinked, looked forward. He tore off the ECG and EEG monitors and the plug in his ear, and stood.

The door opened, Agent Smith pulling out his gun as he came in.

Morpheus started running for the window.

The Agent shot through the partition that stood between him and his target, aiming for the ground. One bullet, two, three. The third found Morpheus' leg, leaving a shallow wound where it entered and left the skin.

He stumbled.

~

"He's not going to make it – " Neo got up from behind the gun, a cable attached to his belt uncoiling as he leapt out from the chopper and Morpheus half jumped half fell from the building. They met in mid air, wrapping arms around each other for an instant then free falling. Suddenly the jerk of the cable pulling taut threw them apart. Neo caught Morpheus' still-cuffed wrist.

"Gotcha!"

~

Morpheus looked down,

~

Trinity pulled the chopper up, moving away from the building.

~

Smith raised his gun, shot, twice, for the fuel tank of the helicopter.

~

Red lights flashed and alarms screamed for her attention. Trin wrestled with the controls to keep the chopper up, trying to gain altitude. As she swerved past the AWA tower, she scanned for a low, flat roofed building. Far below her, Neo and Morpheus swung from the cable; the two most important men in her world, and their lives depended on her handling of this machine.

The chopper drew closer to the MMI building , but she was so high. Trinity gripped the controls, keeping the chopper squarely above the building.

~

Morpheus looked down, then up. A glance passed between them, and at the same moment, he and Neo let go. Morpheus fell, landing hard and smashing the concrete tiles before rolling to a halt. He looked up, seeing the chopper continue to fall as Neo came down to the roof, still gripping the cable like it was an umbilical cord between him and the machine. Coils of slack piled around him as the helicopter began to fall out of control.

~

Neo rolled to his feet, looking up as the chopper's shadow fell over him. She was still in there.

"Trinity – "

He looked down at the cable clipped to his waist, at the cable he held in his hands. Suddenly it all seemed very simple. He knew what had to be done.

Neo looped the slack around his right arm, twice, then held on as it was pulled tight and he was jerked off his feet and pulled across the roof toward the edge that loomed ever closer.

~

Trinity ripped off the harness that held her to the pilot seat and fell out of the chair. She grabbed for the cable, whipped out a gun and shot through the D-ring where it was bolted to the floor.

~

The tug of a burden on the end of the cable pulled Neo to his feet on the edge of the roof. He held the cable tightly in his hands, as he saw Trin jump from the dying chopper. The cable was now a link from him to her, Neo could feel the weight of a life in his hands.

The chopper connected with the opposite building, rotor blades crumpling in a squealing of metal. The body of the helicopter crunched into the wall, the glass rippling in a wave before exploding in fragments.

~

Trin swung toward the building, turning her shoulder as she impacted with the window. Shatter-proof glass cracked in a pattern like a spider web. She bit back a sound of pain.

~

Then the fireball; yellow then red then all black smoke. Neo turned his head from the heat, which then died as the explosion died. Trin hung, vulnerable, from the cable, he began to pull her up.

~

Tank stared at the screen with glowing eyes, "I knew it, he's the One!"

~

Hand over hand, Neo pulled her up, then reached for her. The contact of her skin against his was a relief, and Trinity came over the edge of the roof and stumbled against him as Neo stepped away from the brink. He caught her hands to hold her, she could feel the heat of him through the leather gloves. She moved back, a little, there was a moment of silence. He didn't let go of her hands.

"Do you believe it now Trinity?" Morpheus stood near them, smiling with, pride? As Neo's attention shifted, Trin freed herself and took another step back.

~

"Morpheus," Neo turned to his teacher. "The Oracle, she told me I – "

"She told you," Morpheus interrupted him, "exactly what you needed to hear. That's all." Neo stared, not understanding. "Neo sooner or later you're going to realise, just as I did, there is a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path."

~

"Operator?" Tank held his breath, listening for all he was worth.

"Tank." The operator's face split in a grin.

"Goddamn it's good to hear your voice sir."

"We need an exit."

"Got one ready. Subway station, State and Balboa."

Smith bent down, picking up the tangle of harness left on the empty roof. He twisted it in his hands with a creaking of leather, clenching his jaw.

"Dammit."

Behind him, Brown and Jones stood in the doorway of the stairwell.

"The trace was completed," Jones stated.

"We have their position," Brown confirmed.

"Sentinels are standing by."

Smith stood still. He said nothing.

"Order the strike," said Brown, and they left down the stairs.

The Agent looked out over the city, listening to the wail of sirens, hearing the thrum of traffic.

"They're not out yet."

~

The pay phone rang, as it had not rung in years. In the corner of the abandoned subway station, a homeless man lay on the ground with a bottle in his hand, watching as three figures in black came down the stairs like shadows.

~

Neo reached the phone booth first, turning as Morpheus came up to him. The older man held his arm, bruised from being gripped by Neo, and he was hiding a limp in his bleeding leg. Neo took his shoulders, moving him toward the booth as the phone rang again.

"You first Morpheus."

Morpheus stepped into the booth and picked up the phone. After a last look at the woman and man beside him, he held the receiver to his ear. Mercury seemed to flow into him from the phone with a silvery, digital sound, air becoming thicker as it seemed to absorb his RSI. The phone was suspended in nothing for an instant, then it dropped as Morpheus' mind left the Matrix entirely.

~

The old man shifted in his pile of cardboard boxes, and looked harder.

~

On the roof, Smith paused, turned, and listened harder.

~

He picked up the phone from where it dangled on its cord, and replaced the receiver.

"Neo, I want to tell you something," Trinity began to speak. "But I'm afraid of, what it could mean if I do."

The phone rang. Neo looked at her, waiting, listening.

"Everything the Oracle told me has come true." She heard a rumble, and a grinding of metal. A train was coming. The phone kept ringing. Neo watched her.

"Everything but this."

"But what?" The train passed them, a roar of wind through the tiny station. The wind riffled though his hair, blew her fringe in her eyes.

~

Lines of static ran through the RSI of the homeless man.

~

She turned away from Neo, picked up the ringing phone. Trin looked through the glass of the booth, and saw the Agent stand from the pile of cardboard boxes in the corner of the station. She raised her hand against the glass in an instinctive gesture, and pressed the receiver to her ear.

The bullet ripped through the glass and the phone exploded, the speaker end of the receiver shattering into fragments of black plastic and metal.

~

Trinity opened her eyes with a breath;

"Neo!"

"What the hell just happened?" snapped Tank.

"An Agent," Trin looked at him, "you have to send me back!"

The operator made a helpless gesture, "I can't."

~

Neo faced the broken phone, staring at the remaining half of the receiver dangling from its cord.

He looked right; the Agent.

Smith moved forward.

"Mr Anderson."

He looked left; the stairs.

~

She leaned toward the screens, "Run Neo, run."

~

Neo turned around. He faced the Agent.

~

Trin stared at the code, not quite believing what she was reading.

"What is he doing?" she asked Morpheus.

"He's beginning to believe."

~

They stood, motionless. A breeze from the subway blew an abandoned paper across the station, gently.

Smith clenched his left fist, the knuckles cracking loudly.

Neo stretched his hands, flexed his fingers.

He moved, grabbing his last gun from the back of his belt, and the Agent moved a split second later. Neo ran left, up and off the wall, the Agent doing the same. Guns firing, they caught at each other's arms, each struggling for dominance as they turned, each a mirror of the other. They hit the ground, each pressing a weapon to the other's temple.

"You're empty," said the Agent, reading code.

"So are you," snarled Neo. Through the Agent's shades, he could see his eyes move to his gun then back to Neo. Neo was right.

He rolled away, spinning, impossibly, through the air and away from the Agent, then landing on his feet.

Smith got up, then glanced at his useless gun. He tossed it aside. Neo followed suit.

Neo leapt forward, and they began to fight. The Agent was fast, and strong, faster and stronger than Morpheus. Neo kept moving, moving, fighting, fighting, as well as he could. He ducked as the Agent punched at him, hitting the wall and smashing through the concrete. A roundhouse kick from Neo threw the Agent back into the same wall, half breaking his shades.

Smith pulled them off, speaking.

"I'm going to enjoy watching you die, Mr Anderson."

They dove back into conflict, raining blows. Like a dance almost, but with far too much emotion for a dance. The Agent got Neo by a limb, and threw him into the wall, but Neo got up again, and kept fighting. Moves began to blur into each other, losing clarity. Somehow, Smith got his arms locked, and then head-butted him twice. Then Neo was airborne, flying back across the station from the Agent's punch, and hitting the ground and sliding.

~

He jerked against the restraints of his chair, blood on his lips.

~

Neo spat a mouthful of blood on the ground.

~

"Jesus, he's killing him," Trinity ripped a piece of material out of her shirt and wiped the blood from Neo's mouth, reading the information on his screen with increasing fear.

~

The Agent smiled. The expression was reptilian.

Neo climbed slowly to his feet, hurting everywhere.

He wiped his blood from his mouth with his sleeve, breathing in. The Agent's smile faded.

Neo remembered a sparring match, the dry smell of mats, the crisp feel of a white kata. He lifted and spread his arms, white dust falling from him as he moved, as he slid fluidly into position. He moved two hands out, right before the left, defensive. Then his right hand turned palm up, and his fingers crooked, beckoning.

Smith ran forward.

Neo began to fight, his heart now pumping faster. He had beaten Morpheus, but still, this was harder. Neo was fighting better than his best. It was almost enough. He got the Agent's arms locked, and repaid him his two head-butts. He forced the Agent back further and further, but then, as he kicked out, the Agent caught his leg. Neo punched at his head, but he was picked up and hurled bodily into the wall. Concrete shattered, a poster board splintered. The Agent slogged a punch into Neo's side, then from the other side, then his fists were blurring as he pummelled Neo's abdomen.

~

Neo convulsed and shook in his chair, the supports creaking.

~

The young man sagged, then Smith threw him again, crunching him into the old ticket booth. Timber cracked, and Neo lay still, trying to get his breath back, trying to will himself to move. He saw the Agent turn his head, listening. Neo heard a rumble and a grinding of metal.

Another train.

Smith grabbed Neo by the leg and dragged him across the platform. He stopped at the edge, picked him up by his shirt, and then hurled him, again, into the wall. Neo fell limply to the tracks. The Agent paused, then jumped down beside him.

On his face, Neo tried to get up, but he felt himself pulled as Smith wrapped an arm around his neck, getting him in a headlock. The train kept coming, louder.

"You hear that Mr Anderson?" the Agent asked. "That is the sound of inevitability."

Neo shifted, pulled at the Agent's arm, tried to loosen his grip. The train roared, the lights bright at the end of the tunnel.

"That is the sound of your death."

"Goodbye, Mr Anderson."

"My name," he moved, got one knee under him. "Is Neo!"

He jumped, propelled himself upward somehow, slamming the Agent into the roof of the subway tunnel and breaking his grip. They fell, Neo landing in a crouch.

The train was huge, all light and sound. Neo jumped again, turning over backwards, landing on the very edge of the platform.

Smith got to his feet, reached for Neo, but then the train slammed into him, and roared past. Neo teetered, then took an unsteady step back, away from the rushing wall of steel. He backed off, turned away, and began jogging toward the stairs. He felt tired, battered, and sore.

Behind him, there was a screeching noise as the train slowed then stopped. Neo turned.

The doors of the last carriage opened, and a man stepped out; a man in an immaculate brown suit, his hair neatly combed, his square, rimless shades whole and undamaged.

Smith.

Neo ran.

~

Trin came back to the desk, leaning over Tank's shoulder.

"What happened?"

"I don't know, I lost him."

A side screen flashed suddenly, red and yellow words screaming along with the sirens that erupted throughout the ship.

Proximity Warning

"Oh shit," Tank swore. Morpheus ran for the ladder at the back of the 'Deck, Trinity hot on his heels.

They came through the doorway into the cockpit, Morpheus jumping into his chair and hammering the keyboard. A hologram sprung up; Squiddies.

Five Squiddies.

"Sentinels," Trin clenched her hands. "How long?"

"Five, maybe six minutes," Morpheus took up the radio, clicked a button, and spoke to the operator. "Tank, charge the EMP."

Trinity stopped breathing, "We can't use that until he's out."

"I know Trinity, don't worry," the captain looked to her. "He's going to make it."

~

"Flats or pumps," the man stood on the street corner, arguing into his mobile. "No, just – " his conversation was cut short as Neo ran up to him, grabbed his phone and sprinted around the corner and up the side street.

"What the shit?" the man yelled. "That's my phone! That guy took my phone!"

But as he stood there, waving his arm for attention, there was a buzz of static.

~

Agent Smith turned around, looking after Neo as he ran up the street.

~

Neo punched in the control number and held the phone to his ear.

~

"Got him!" Tank lifted a finger to point out Neo's coding on the screen to Morpheus and Trin, back on 'Deck. "He's on the run."

"Mr Wizard!" Neo's voice came through the headset, "Get me the hell out of here!"

"Got a patch on an old exit, Wabash and Lake." Tank's fingers raced as he followed Neo's code, and made sure the exit was open.

~

Neo came around the corner, into the middle of a busy street market. He looked around, into the crowd. So many people, every one of them a potential Agent.

"Oh shit!"

He started running as Agent Brown began shoving shoppers aside, pulling out his gun. On another side; Agent Jones, firing at Neo. Watermelons exploded and people screamed. A child stared as her mother was over-ridden by Smith, who immediately ran after Neo. As a man got in his way, the Agent pushed him, and the man flew back, crashing into a stall and crumpling to the ground.

Neo just kept running, swerving around the next corner and ignoring the blond woman near him who screamed and threw her hands over her head as an Agent fired again.

He ran faster, into a blind alley, the three Agents behind him. Faced with a blank brick wall, Neo spun, calling into the phone.

"Uh, help. Need a little help."

"The door."

He looked left, and made for the now obvious door, crashing through it as the closest Agent shot at him, the bullets breaking up the wall.

Inside, Neo ran up the stairs, looking briefly over his shoulder as Jones came through the door behind him.

But what was it he'd always thought in the movies?

He kept going, the phone still held to his ear as Tank directed him through corridors and halls, turn right, left, then right again.

Agent Brown appeared at the end of the hall before him, and Tank spoke,

"The door on your left."

Almost panicking, Neo tried to go through the door on his right, but it was locked. Bullets erupted before and behind him.

"No, your other left."

He crashed through the correct door, into a living room, where an old lady sat knitting by a TV.

"The back door." Neo ran through the apartment, startling the other old lady in the kitchen who was chopping vegetables. A sound, and then he skidded to a halt as the knife thudded into the wall close to his head, thrown by Agent Smith. Neo bolted through the back door, out onto the fire escape. He swung over the rail, breathing in as, for an instant, the world seemed to slow. He could smell garbage, it was almost sweet.

Then he was falling, fast, cardboard boxes and plastic bags around and on top of him, and he was stumbling to his feet and running, running, as Jones came smoothly down behind him.

~

The side screens flashed again, warning bells changing tone.

Red Alert

Tank glanced at Neo in his chair, at his position in the Matrix. "Oh no."

Morpheus raised his eyes, if there was a heaven he was looking up to it.

"Here they come."

~

The sentinels glided through the tunnels, all of them in some strange formation, swerving corners one after the other. Their tentacles rippled in movement, terrible yet undeniably beautiful. And utterly inhuman.

One by one, they swooped down upon the vulnerable ship, landing with a clunk and latching onto the hull. Lasers burned like the probes of some mechanical insects, and their red eyes glowed.

Utterly inhuman.

~

Morpheus opened the lid of the EMP switch. He met Trinity's gaze, speaking to convince himself as much as the remains of his crew.

"He's going to make it."

~

Smith paused as he saw the human running, down the alley and behind the abandoned hotel, with Brown following him. Smith looked up at the sign outside the building that advertised 'Heart O' The City Hotel – Cheap Rooms'. Something resembling a smile twisted his features.

~

Neo pressed the phone to his ear, trying to hear Tank over the rasp of his breathing.

"The fire escape at the end of the alley, room 303."

He dropped the phone, and jumped for the ladder that hung from the fire escape. Climbing up it, Neo tried to ignore the sound of bullets ricocheting off steel. Higher and higher, as Jones stopped below him and fired directly up. At the third floor, Neo crashed through the door with his good shoulder, and fled into the darkness of the hall.

~

With a creaking, screaming noise, the hull split, and bent as sentinel claws pulled it far enough apart to squirm through.

~

Tank looked up as words flashed again on the side screen,

Warning

Hull Breach

"They're inside."

Trinity stood by Neo's chair, close to him. She looked up in response to the nightmare sounds of metal on metal, then looked back to the man in the chair, and she whispered,

"Hurry Neo."

~

Neo ran down the narrow hall, counting down the numbers as he passed the doors, 307, 306, he could hear the phone, 305, 304, he reached for the handle of 303, threw it open and moved in.

And stopped, face to face with Agent Smith. For the space of a heartbeat, there was silence.

Then a flash of light, a muffled sound. Neo blinked, stepped back, looked down at his fingers where they were pressed to the hole in his stomach. They came away sticky. He was shocked into stillness by the warm, wet smell of his blood . . . if there was such a thing . . .

The phone rang.

He looked up slowly.

Another shot and he staggered back, his blood painting the cheap wallpaper as he thumped against it. Doubled over, Neo clenched his hands, trying to breathe in through gritted teeth, but Smith fired again. Neo found himself counting the shots as the bullets were sown in his body, threefourfivesixseveneightnine –

~

Trinity bent over Neo as his body jerked then rose his back arching mouth open and breathing in –

~

– ten. Neo's eyes blanked and he leant heavily against the wall, sliding sideways before collapsing on the floor like something broken.

~

– and breathing out. With a sigh, Neo relaxed. Trin stared at the monitor above him as his lungs and heart stopped, and the ECG monitor went flat.

Morpheus read the coding, not believing.

"It can't be . . ."

~

Smith stood motionless as Jones and Brown came up from opposite ends of the hall.

"Check him."

Jones knelt down beside the human, feeling for the carotid pulse with two fingers. He stood up,

"He's gone."

Brown walked past the figure, and he and Jones made their way back to the elevator where torn police tape still hung from either side of its doors.

Smith looked down, an odd expression on his face.

"Goodbye, Mr Anderson."

~

Squiddies were breaking through the inner layers of the ship, but Tank sat still, watching his captain, waiting for an order. Morpheus just stared at the screen, his face blank, not moving. Numb.

~

Lasers sliced through the ceiling above her and the air was loud with the tortured screams of steel. But there was an aura of silence and calm around the dead man in the chair and the woman leaning over him.

~

~

"Neo," Trinity whispered. "I'm not afraid any more. The Oracle told me I would fall in love and that that man, the man I loved would be the One. So you see, you can't be dead. You can't be. Because I love you."

Sparks showered, flickering light on Neo's relaxed face. Eyes shut, lips parted, he could have just been sleeping. Trinity breathed in, she could taste his scent. He was beautiful.

~

~

"Do you hear me? I love you."

Trinity lowered her head, and their mouths connected.

~

~

Neo tasted like copper, like blood. His lips were still warm.

She opened her eyes, pulled back. For a moment, nothing happened.

~

~

Then he moved. Neo's lips parted and his back arched as he breathed in deeply. But this was different to the last time. This was his first breath.

The monitor beeped into life, the ECG line pulsing and his life signs flourishing.

~

Neo opened his eyes.

~

Trin sat back, her hand reaching for Neo's plug.

"Now get up!"

~

Neo's eyes focussed. Ten fatal gunshot wounds still showed in his chest, but they were not bleeding.

~

Morpheus stared at the screen, suddenly animated.

~

Neo stood as Smith halted. The three Agents turned. They lifted their guns, an automatic response, and fired.

The young man looked toward them, a faint frown on his brow.

"No."

The bullets slowed, air rippling, as Neo lifted his hand. He looked at each bullet carefully, reading the green coding which gave them an existence. And he read the rules that stated the bullets should fly toward him. But the rules did not apply to him. The bullets stopped.

Neo plucked one out of the air, turned it over. It was small, smooth, and cool.

He dropped it. At his glance, the others fell to the floor.

~

The code ran faster, irregular and jumpy, it's logical pattern unravelling.

"How – ?" Tank asked.

Morpheus believed; "He is the One."

~

Neo looked about him, in wonder. Everything rippled in waterfalls of green code, the walls, the floor, the power cables hanging from the roof, the Agents at the end of the hall.

Smith grit his teeth and began running forward, Neo turned his attention to him. The Agent began to fight, fists flying, trying to connect, but every move was blocked. Neo's hands moved easily, his eyes not seeing the Agent, but rather the impulses that told him what move Smith was going to make. He turned, defensive, and stopping the Agent's every attack with only one hand. His arm blurred as he caught the Agent's wrist, twisting it back far enough to break Smith's arm.

Neo turned his head. A roundhouse kick threw the Agent halfway down the hall, and sent him sliding across the floor.

~

Smith pulled off his shades and climbed to his feet, readying himself to fight again.

~

But Neo ran forward, slower then lightening fast, and he dove, literally, into Smith.

~

The Agent turned, arms spread, hands out, as if asking his colleagues for help.

Brown and Jones took a simultaneous step backwards.

A crack appeared in Smith's forehead, as he stood, shaking. Shafts of green-white shone through it, casting shadow and light through the hall. The crack spread, split. The Agent's arms stretched apart, like he was being crucified, and he made some sound as tension thrummed and then he exploded in a blinding flash that forced Brown and Jones behind their hands.

~

Neo stood haloed in white, visible only as a black silhouette as the brilliance around him faded. The walls flexed and rippled as he breathed in deeply, tilting his head back.

He was whole. He was new. He was alive. He was the One.

He exhaled, then opened his eyes. The two remaining Agents looked briefly at each other, then split, and ran.

~

The sentinels broke through into the inner chambers, through the ceiling of the Main Deck. Morpheus had his hand over the EMP, but could not use it. Broken steel girders and ceiling panels fell.

Through the lightening play of sparks and the thunder of metal on metal, Trinity called to the man in the chair.

"Neo!"

~

Neo turned, as if at the sound of a voice calling, as the persistent ring of the phone broke through to him. He ran back down the hall, around the corner into room 303, and reached for the old white rotary phone.

~

The sentinel reared over Trin, coming closer, turning for Neo as it located the source of power. She gripped the plug tighter, ready for the EMP.

~

Tank ducked as another sentinel came through the roof above the desk, claws reaching for the two men. Morpheus looked to Trinity.

"Now!" she screamed. Morpheus switched the EMP. A wave of power swept through the ship, rippling the air.

~

Trinity shielded Neo's body with hers as the force of the EMP blast knocked the Squiddy away from them.

~

The sentinel collapsed, tentacles going limp, and Morpheus moved out of its way, arms over his head. Tank shrank as small as he could in the chair. The distorted sounds of the machines ceased, and darkness fell.

~

~

She held his plug in her hand, it was out. As Trinity lifted her head, she let it go. She looked at him.

Neo moved, opened his eyes. His pupils were large and dark in the low light, and he looked so young. He looked so new. He took in the sight of her as if for the first time, brought his arms around her slowly, for the first time. Trinity lifted her hand, touched his cheek, and traced the line of his jaw. She had never touched anyone like this before, in the Real world or the Matrix. His skin was smooth, flawless, and pale.

He raised his head from the chair, and their mouths connected. The touch was gentle, peaceful. It echoed Trinity's words back to her, and she knew they were coming from Neo.

Somehow, in the darkness, he had heard her voice.

The green cursor pulses on the blank, black computer screen. There is a sound, a phone ringing, then a line of green print appears on the screen.

Call trans opt: received. 9-18-99 14:32:21 REC:Log>

~

A young man's voice begins to speak.

"I know you're out there; I can feel you now."

~

WARNING: carrier anomaly

~

"I know you're afraid."

~

Trace program: running

~

"You're afraid of us, afraid of change."

~

The scrolling numbers freeze and two words appear in the middle of the screen, two words that have never appeared before.

System Failure

~

"I don't know the future, I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here, to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show then a world, without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries.

"A world, where anything is possible."

~

"Where we go from there, is a choice I leave to you." Neo holds the phone in his hand, and he looks at it for a moment, before hanging it up with a definitive clunk.

He opens the door and steps out of the phone booth, turning slowly and looking around him. So many people, they walk by him as if he is not there. Each person is just living out their life. Oblivious.

That is going to change. Some of these people are ready to be unplugged; teenagers, young people, and children, who ask questions and wonder why the world has to be as it is.

Neo is here to show them that it doesn't have to be as it is. It doesn't have to be at all.

He reaches into his pocket, draws out a pair of rimless shades, and puts them on. He tilts his head back, looking straight up.

And then he takes off, springing from the pavement and soaring through the air. Above his City.

In the echoes and ripples of coding, he knows that far below him a young child has stopped short, and has raised their eyes to the sky. And has seen.

And has believed that rules are meant to be destroyed.