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THE MATRIX
Larry & Andy Wachowski
What follows is the shooting script for THE MATRIX, although it’s not exactly what people saw in the theaters. While everything that follows was filmed, changes occurred during editing. An example of this is in the final speech by Neo (scene 219) which was altered when test audiences didn’t know the word “chrysalis.” Other differences exist, from small cuts to dialogue tweaks. This is, however, the last draft before filming.
Shooting Script
August 12, 1998
[Reformatted by AITNOG]
-----------------------------
FADE IN:
[001] INT. COMPUTER SCREEN
On a computer screen; so close it has no boundaries.
A blinking cursor pulses in the electric darkness like a heart coursing with phosphorous light, burning beneath the derma of black-neon glass.
A phone begins to ring, we hear it as though we were making the call. The cursor continues to throb, relentlessly patient, until --
MAN (V.O.)
Yeah?
Data now slashes across the screen, information flashing faster than we can read:
SCREEN
Call trans opt: received. 2-19-98 13:24:18 REC:Log>.
WOMAN(V.O.)
Is everything in place?
SCREEN
Trace program: running.
We listen to the phone conversation as though we were on a third line. The man's name is Cypher. The woman, Trinity.
TRINITY (WOMAN) (V.O.)
I said, is everything in place?
The entire screen fills with racing columns of numbers. Shimmering like green-electric rivers, they rush at a 10-digit phone number in the top corner.
CYPHER (MAN) (V.O.)
You weren't supposed to relieve me.
TRINITY (V.O.)
I know but I felt like taking a shift.
The area code is identified. The first three numbers suddenly fixed, leaving only seven flowing columns.
CYPHER (V.O.)
You like him, don't you? You like watching him?
We begin moving toward the screen, closing in as each digit is matched, one by one, snapping into place like
the wheels of a slot machine.
TRINITY (V.O.)
Don't be ridiculous.
CYPHER (V.O.)
We're going to kill him. Do you understand that? He's going to die just like the others.
TRINITY (V.O.)
Morpheus believes he is the One.
Only two thin digits left.
CYPHER (V.O.)
Do you?
TRINITY (V.O.)
I... it doesn't matter what I believe.
CYPHER (V.O.)
You don't, do you?
TRINITY (V.O.)
If you have something to say, I suggest you say it to Morpheus.
CYPHER (V.O.)
I intend to, believe me. Someone has to.
The final number pops into place--
TRINITY (V.O.)
Did you hear that?
CYPHER (V.O.)
Hear what?
SCREEN
Trace complete. Call origin: #312-555-0690.
TRINITY (V.O.)
Are you sure this line is clean?
CYPHER (V.O.)
Yeah, 'course I'm sure.
We move, still closer, the electric hum of the green numbers growing into an ominous roar.
TRINITY (V.O.)
I better go.
She hangs up as we pass through the numbers, entering the netherworld of the computer screen. Suddenly, a flashlight cuts open the darkness and we find ourselves in--
------------------------------
[002] INT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL - NIGHT
The hotel was abandoned after a fire licked its way across the polyester carpeting, destroying several rooms as it spooled soot up the walls and ceiling, leaving patterns of permanent shadow.
We follow four armed POLICE OFFICERS using flashlights as they creep down the blackened hall and ready themselves on either side of Room 303.
The biggest of them violently kicks in the door. The other cops pour in behind him, guns thrust before them.
BIG COP
Police! Freeze!
The room is almost devoid of furniture. There is a fold-up table and chair with a phone, a modem, and a Powerbook computer. The only light in the room is the glow of the computer.
Sitting there, her hands still on the keyboard, is TRINITY; a woman in black leather.
BIG COP
Hands behind your head! Now! Do it!
She slowly puts her hands behind her head.
------------------------------
[003] EXT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL - NIGHT
A black sedan with tinted windows glides in through the police cruisers. AGENT SMITH, AGENT BROWN, and AGENT JONES get out of the car.
They wear dark suits and sunglasses even at night. They are also always hardwired; small Secret Service earphones in one ear, the cord coiling back into their shirt collars.
AGENT SMITH
Lieutenant?
LIEUTENANT
Oh shit.
AGENT SMITH
Lieutenant, you were given specific orders--
LIEUTENANT
I'm just doing my job. You gimme that Juris-my-dick-tion and you can cram it up your ass.
AGENT SMITH
The orders were for your protection.
The Lieutenant laughs.
LIEUTENANT
I think we can handle one little girl.
Agent Smith nods to Agent Brown as they start toward the hotel.
LIEUTENANT
I sent two units. They're bringing her down now.
AGENT SMITH
No, Lieutenant, your men are already dead.
------------------------------
[004] INT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL
The Big Cop flicks out his cuffs, the other cops holding a bead. They've done this a hundred times, they know they've got her, until the Big Cop reaches with the cuffs and Trinity moves --
It almost doesn't register, so smooth and fast, inhumanly fast.
The eye blinks and Trinity's palm snaps up and the nose explodes, blood erupting. Her leg kicks with the force of a wrecking ball and he flies back, a two-hundred-fifty pound sack of limp meat and bone that slams into the cop farthest from her.
Trinity moves again, bullets raking the walls, flashlights sweeping with panic as the remaining cops try to stop a leather-clad ghost.
A gun still in the cop's hand is snatched, twisted and fired. There is a final violent exchange of gunfire and when it's over, Trinity is the only one standing.
A flashlight rocks slowly to a stop.
TRINITY
Shit.
------------------------------
[005] EXT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL
Agent Brown enters the hotel while Agent Smith heads for the alley.
------------------------------
[006] INT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL
Trinity is on the phone, pacing. The other end is answered.
MAN (V.O.)
Operator.
TRINITY
Morpheus! The line was traced! I don't know how.
MORPHEUS (MAN) (V.O.)
I know. They cut the hardline. This line is not a viable exit.
TRINITY
Are there any Agents?
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Yes.
TRINITY
Goddamnit!
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
You have to focus. There is a phone. Wells and Lake. You can make it.
She takes a deep breath, centering herself.
TRINITY
All right--
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Go.
She drops the phone.
------------------------------
[007] INT. HALL
She bursts out of the room as Agent Brown enters the hall, leading another unit of police. Trinity races to the
opposite end, exiting through a broken window onto the fire escape.
------------------------------
[008] EXT. FIRE ESCAPE
In the alley below, Trinity sees Agent Smith staring at her. She can only go up.
------------------------------
[009] EXT. ROOF
On the roof, Trinity is running as Agent Brown rises over the parapet, leading the cops in pursuit.
Trinity begins to jump from one roof to the next, her movements so clean, gliding in and out of each jump, contrasted to the wild jumps of the cops.
Agent Brown, however, has the same unnatural grace.
The roof falls away into a wide back alley. The next building is over 40 feet away but Trinity's face is perfectly calm, staring at some point beyond the other roof.
COP
That's it, we got her now.
The cops slow, realizing they are about to see something ugly as Trinity drives at the edge, launching herself
into the air.
From above, the ground seems to flow beneath her as she hangs in flight, then hits, somersaulting up, still
running hard.
COP
Jesus Christ-- that's impossible!
They stare, slack-jawed, as Agent Brown duplicates the move exactly, landing, rolling over a shoulder up onto one knee.
It is a dizzying chase up and over the dark plateaued landscape of rooftops and sheer cliffs of brick. Ahead she sees her only chance, 50 feet beyond the point where her path drops away into a paved chasm, there is--
------------------------------
[010] EXT. WINDOW
A window; a yellow glow in the midst of a dark brick building.
Trinity zeros in on it, running as hard as she can and--
Hurtles herself into the empty night space, her body leveling into a dive. She falls, arms covering her head as the whole world seems to spin on its axis--
------------------------------
[A010] INT. BACK STAIRWELL
And she crashes with an explosion of glass and wood, then falls onto a back stairwell, tumbling, bouncing down stairs bleeding, broken--
But still alive.
She wheels on the smashed opening above, her gun instantly in her hand, trained, waiting for Agent Brown but is met by only a slight wind that hisses against the fanged maw of broken glass.
Trinity tries to move. Everything hurts.
TRINITY
Get up, Trinity. You're fine. Get up-- just get up!
She stands and limps down the rest of the stairs.
------------------------------
[011] EXT. STREET
Trinity emerges from the shadows of an alley and, at the end of the block, in a pool of white street light, she sees it-
The telephone booth.
Obviously hurt, she starts down the concrete walk, focusing in completely, her pace quickening, as the phone begins to ring.
Across the street, a garbage truck suddenly turns U- turns, its tires screaming as it accelerates. Trinity sees the headlights of the truck arcing at the telephone booth as if taking aim.
Gritting through the pain, she races the truck, slamming into the booth, the headlights blindingly bright, bearing down on the box of Plexiglas just as--
She answers the phone.
There is a frozen instant of silence before the hulking mass of dark metal lurches up onto the sidewalk--
Barrelling through the booth, bulldozing it into a brick wall, smashing it to Plexiglas pulp.
After a moment, a black loafer steps down from the cab of the garbage truck. Agent Smith inspects the wreckage. There is no body. Trinity is gone.
His jaw sets as he grinds his molars in frustration. Agents Jones and Brown walk up behind him.
AGENT BROWN
She got out.
AGENT SMITH
It doesn't matter.
AGENT BROWN
The informant is real.
Agent Smith almost smiles.
AGENT SMITH
Yes.
AGENT JONES
We have the name of their next target.
AGENT BROWN
The name is Neo.
The handset of the pay phone lays on the ground, separated in the crash like a severed limb.
AGENT SMITH
We'll need a search running.
AGENT JONES
It's already begun.
We are sucked towards the mouthpiece of the phone, closer and closer, until the smooth gray plastic spreads out like a horizon and the small holes widen until we fall through one--
Swallowed by darkness.
The darkness crackles with phosphorescent energy, the word 'searching' blazing in around us as we emerge from a computer screen.
The screen flickers with windowing data as a search engine runs with a steady relentless rhythm.
We drift back from the screen and into--
------------------------------
[012] INT. NEO'S APARTMENT
It is a studio apartment that seems overgrown with technology.
Weed-like cables coil everywhere, duct-taped into thickets that wind up and around the legs of several desks. Tabletops are filled with cannibalized equipment that lay open like an autopsied corpse.
At the center of this technological rat-nest is NEO, a man who knows more about living inside a computer than outside one.
He is asleep in front of his PC. Behind him, the computer screen suddenly goes blank. A prompt appears.
SCREEN
Wake up, Neo.
Neo's eye pries open. He sits up, one eye still closed, looking around, unsure of where he is. He notices the screen.
He types 'CTRL X' but the letter 'T' appears.
NEO
What...?
He hits another and an 'H' appears. He keeps typing, pushing random functions and keys while the computer types out a message as though it had a mind of its own.
He stops and stares at the four words on the screen.
SCREEN
The Matrix has you.
NEO
What the hell?
He hits the 'ESC' button. Another message appears.
SCREEN
Follow the white rabbit.
He hits it again and the message repeats. He rubs his eyes but when he opens them, there is another message.
SCREEN
Knock, knock, Neo.
Someone knocks on his door and he almost jumps out of his chair. He looks back at the computer but the screen is now blank.
Someone knocks again. Neo rises, still unnerved.
NEO
Who is it?
CHOI (O.S.)
It's Choi.
Neo flips a series of locks and opens the door, leaving the chain on. A young Chinese MAN stands with several of his friends.
NEO
You're two hours late.
CHOI
I know. It's her fault.
NEO
You got the money?
CHOI
Two grand.
He takes out an envelope and gives it to Neo through the cracked door.
NEO
Hold on.
He closes the door. On the floor near his bed is a book, Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulations. The book
has been hollowed out and inside are several computer disks. He takes one, sticks the money in the book and drops it on the floor.
Opening the door, he hands the disk to Choi.
CHOI
Hallelujah! You are my savior, man! My own personal Jesus Christ!
NEO
If you get caught using that--
CHOI
I know, I know. This never happened. You don't exist.
NEO
Right...
Neo nods as the strange feeling of unrealness suddenly returns.
CHOI
Something wrong, man? You look a little whiter than usual.
NEO
I don't know... My computer...
He looks back at Choi, unable to explain what just happened.
NEO
You ever have the feeling that you're not sure if you're awake or still dreaming?
CHOI
All the time. It's called mescaline and it is the only way to fly.
He smiles and slaps the hand of his nearest droog.
CHOI
It sounds to me like you need to unplug, man. A little R and R.
What do you think, Dujour, should we take him with us?
DUJOUR
Definitely.
NEO
I can't. I have to work tomorrow.
DUJOUR
Come on. It'll be fun. I promise.
He looks up at her and suddenly notices on her black leather motorcycle jacket dozens of pins: bands, symbols, slogans, military medals and--
A small white rabbit. The room tilts.
NEO
Yeah, yeah. Sure, I'll go.
------------------------------
[013] INT. APARTMENT
An older apartment; a series of halls connects a chain of small high-ceilinged rooms lined with heavy
casements. Smoke hangs like a veil, blurring the few lights there are.
Dressed predominantly in black, people are everywhere, gathered in cliques around pieces of furniture like jungle cats around a tree.
Neo stands against a wall, alone, sipping from a bottle of beer, feeling completely out of place, he is about
to leave when he notices a woman staring at him.
The woman is Trinity. She walks straight up to him.
In the nearest room, shadow-like figures grind against each other to the pneumatic beat of industrial music.
TRINITY
Hello, Neo.
NEO
How do you know that name?
TRINITY
I know a lot about you. I've been wanting to meet you for some time.
NEO
Who are you?
TRINITY
My name is Trinity.
NEO
Trinity? The Trinity? The Trinity that cracked the I.R.S. D-Base?
TRINITY
That was a long time ago.
NEO
Gee-zus.
TRINITY
What?
NEO
I just thought... you were a guy.
TRINITY
Most guys do.
Neo is a little embarrassed.
NEO
Do you want to go somewhere and talk?
TRINITY
No. It's safe here and I don't have much time.
The music is so loud they must stand very close, talking directly into each other's ear.
NEO
That was you on my computer?
She nods.
NEO
How did you do that?
TRINITY
Right now, all I can tell you, is that you are in danger. I brought you here to warn you.
NEO
Of what?
TRINITY
They're watching you, Neo.
NEO
Who is?
TRINITY
Please. Just listen. 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.
Her body is against his; her lips very close to his ear.
TRINITY
I know because I was once looking for the same thing,
but when he found me he told me I wasn't really looking for him. I was looking for an answer.
There is a hypnotic quality to her voice and Neo feels the words, like a drug, seeping into him.
TRINITY
It's the question that drives us, the question that brought you here.
You know the question just as I did.
NEO
What is the Matrix?
TRINITY
When I asked him, he said that no one could ever be told the answer to that question.
They have to see it to believe it.
She leans close, her lips almost touching his ear.
TRINITY
The answer is out there, Neo. It's looking for you and it will find you, if you want it to.
She turns and he watches her melt into the shifting wall of bodies.
A sound rises steadily, growing out of the music, pressing in on Neo until it is all he can hear as we cut to--
------------------------------
[014] INT. NEO'S APARTMENT
The sound is an alarm clock, slowly dragging Neo to consciousness. He strains to read the clock-face: 9:15AM.
NEO
Shitshitshit.
------------------------------
[015] EXT. SKYSCRAPER
The downtown office of Meta CorTechs, a software development company.
------------------------------
[016] INT. META CORTECHS OFFICE
The main offices are along each wall, the windows overlooking downtown. RHINEHEART, the ultimate company man, lectures Neo without looking at him, typing at his computer continuously.
Neo stares at two window cleaners on a scaffolding outside, dragging their rubber squeegees down the surface of the glass.
RHINEHEART
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.
His long, bony fingers resume clicking the keyboard.
RHINEHEART
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.
He turns again.
RHINEHEART
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?
NEO
Yes, Mr. Rhineheart. Perfectly clear.
------------------------------
[017] INT. NEO'S CUBICLE
The entire floor looks like a human honeycomb, with a labyrinth of cubicles structured around a core of
elevators.
VOICE (O.S.)
Thomas Anderson?
Neo turns and finds a FEDERAL EXPRESS GUY at his cubicle door.
NEO
Yeah. That's me.
Neo signs the electronic pad and the Fedex Guy hands him the softpak.
FEDEX GUY
Have a nice day.
He opens the bag. Inside is a cellular phone. It seems the instant it is in his hand, it rings. Unnerved, he flips it open.
NEO
Hello?
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Hello, Neo. Do you know who this is?
Neo's knees give and he sinks into his chair.
NEO
Morpheus...
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
I've been looking for you, Neo.
I don't know if you're ready to see what I want to show you,
but unfortunately, we have run out of time. They're coming for you, Neo.
And I'm not sure what they're going to do.
NEO
Who's coming for me?
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Stand up and see for yourself.
NEO
Right now?
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Yes. Now.
Neo starts to stand.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Do it slowly. The elevator.
His head peeks up over the partition. At the elevator, he sees Agent Smith, Agent Brown, and Agent Jones leading a group of cops. A female employee turns and points out Neo's cubicle.
Neo ducks.
NEO
Holy shit!
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Yes.
One cop stays at the elevator, the others follow the Agents.
NEO
What the hell do they want with me?!
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
I'm not sure, but if you don't want to find out, you better get out of there.
NEO
How?!
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
I can guide you out, but you have to do exactly what I say.
The Agents are moving quickly towards the cubicle.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
The cubicle across from you is empty.
NEO
But what if...?
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Go! Now!
Neo lunges across the hall, diving into the other cubicle just as the Agents turn into his row.
Neo crams himself into a dark corner, clutching the phone tightly to him.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Stay here for a moment.
The Agents enter Neo's empty cubicle. A cop is sent to search the bathroom. Morpheus' voice is a whisper in Neo's ear.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
A little longer...
Brown is talking to another employee.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
When I tell you, go to the end of the row to the first office on the left, stay as low as you can.
Sweat trickles down his forehead.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Now.
Neo rolls out of the cubicle, his eyes popping as he freezes right behind a cop who has just turned around.
Staying crouched, he sneaks away down the row, shooting across the opening to the first office on the left.
------------------------------
[018] INT. EMPTY OFFICE
The room is empty.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Good. Outside there is a scaffold.
NEO
How do you know all this?
Morpheus laughs quietly.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
The answer is coming, Neo. There is a window in front of you. Open it.
He opens the window. The wind howls into the room.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
You can use the scaffold to get to the roof.
NEO
No! It's too far away.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
There's a ledge. It's a short climb. You can make it.
Neo looks down; the building's glass wall vertigos into a concrete chasm.
NEO
No way, no way, this is crazy.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
There are only two ways out of this building. One is that scaffold. The other is in their custody.
You take a chance either way. I leave it to you.
Click. He hangs up. Neo looks at the door, then back at the scaffold.
NEO
This is insane! Why is this happening to me? What did I do? I'm nobody. I didn't do anything.
He climbs up onto the window ledge. Hanging onto the frame, he steps onto the small ledge. The scaffold seems even farther away.
NEO
I'm going to die.
The wind suddenly blasts up the face of the building, knocking Neo off balance. Recoiling, he clings harder to the frame, and the phone falls out of his hand.
He watches as it is swallowed by the distance beneath him.
NEO
This is insane! I can't do this! Forget it!
He climbs back into the office just as a cop opens the door.
NEO
Shit!
------------------------------
[019] EXT. SKYSCRAPER
The Agents lead a handcuffed Neo out of the revolving doors, forcing his head down as they push him into the dark sedan.
Trinity watches in the rear view mirror of her motorcycle.
TRINITY
Shit.
------------------------------
[020] INT. INTERROGATION ROOM
Close on a camera monitor; wide angle view of a white room where Neo is sitting at a table alone. We move into the monitor, entering the room as if the monitor was a window.
At the same moment, the door opens and the Agents enter. Agent Smith sits down across from Neo. A thick manila envelope slaps down on the table. The name on the file: 'Anderson, Thomas A.'
AGENT SMITH
As you can see, we've had our eye on you for some time now, Mr. Anderson.
He opens the file. Paper rattle marks the silence as he flips several pages. Neo cannot tell if he is looking at the file or at him.
AGENT SMITH
It seems that you have been living two lives.
In one life, you are Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company.
You have a social security number, you pay your taxes
and you help your landlady carry out her garbage.
The pages continue to turn.
AGENT SMITH
The 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.
Neo feels himself sinking into a pit of shit.
AGENT SMITH
One of these lives has a future. One of them does not.
He closes the file.
AGENT SMITH
I'm going to be as forthcoming as I can be, Mr. Anderson. You are here because we need your help.
He removes his sunglasses, his eyes are an unnatural ice- blue.
AGENT SMITH
We know that you have been contacted by a certain individual. A man who calls himself Morpheus.
Whatever you think you know about this man is irrelevant.
The fact is that he is wanted for acts of terrorism in more countries than any other man in the world.
He is considered by many authorities to be the most dangerous man alive.
He leans closer.
AGENT SMITH
My colleagues believe that I am wasting my time with you but I believe you want to do the right thing.
It is obvious that you are an intelligent man, Mr. Anderson, and that you are interested in the future.
That is why I believe you are ready to put your past mistakes behind you and get on with your life.
Neo tries to match his stare.
AGENT SMITH
We are willing to wipe the slate clean, to give you a fresh start and
all we are asking in return is your cooperation in bringing a known terrorist to justice.
Neo nods to himself.
NEO
Yeah. Wow. That sounds like a real good deal. But I think I have a better one.
How about I give you the finger--
He does.
NEO
And you give me my phone call!
Agent Smith puts his glasses back on.
AGENT SMITH
You disappoint me, Mr. Anderson.
NEO
You can't scare me with this Gestapo crap. I know my rights. I want my phone call!
Agent Smith smiles.
AGENT SMITH
And tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call if you are unable to speak?
The question unnerves Neo and strangely he begins to feel the muscles in his jaw tighten. The standing Agents snicker, watching Neo's confusion grow into panic.
Neo feels his lips grow soft and sticky as they slowly seal shut, melding into each other until all traces of his mouth are gone.
Wild with fear, he lunges for the door but the Agents restrain him, holding him in the chair.
AGENT SMITH
You are going to help us, Mr. Anderson, whether you want to or not.
Smith nods and the other two rip open his shirt. From a case taken out of his suit coat, Smith removes a long, fiber-optic wire tap.
Neo struggles helplessly as Smith dangles the wire over his exposed abdomen. Horrified, he watches as the electronic device animates, becoming an organic creature that resembles a hybrid of an insect and a fluke worm.
Thin, whisker-like tendrils reach out and probe into Neo's navel. He bucks wildly as Smith drops the creature which looks for a moment like an uncut umbilical cord--
Before it begins to burrow, its tail thrashing as it worms its way inside.
------------------------------
[021] INT. NEO'S APARTMENT - NIGHT
Screaming, Neo bolts upright in bed.
He realizes that he is home. Was it a dream? His mouth is normal. His stomach looks fine. He starts to take a deep, everything-is-okay breath when--
The phone rings.
It almost stops his heart. It continues ringing, building pressure in the room, forcing him up out of bed, sucking him in with an almost gravitational force. He answers it, saying nothing.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
This line is tapped so I must be brief.
NEO
The Agents--
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
They got to you first, but they've underestimated how important you are.
If they knew what I know, you would probably be dead.
NEO
What are you talking about? What the hell is happening to me?
MORPHEUS
You're the One, Neo. You see, you may have spent the last few years looking for me,
but I've spent most of my life looking for you.
Neo feels sick.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Do you still want to meet?
NEO
...yes.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Go to the Adams Street bridge.
Click. He closes his eyes, unsure of what he has done.
------------------------------
[022] EXT. CITY STREET - NIGHT
It is just beyond the middle of the night; that time when it seems there are no rules and everything feels unsafe. Neo's boots scrape against the concrete. Every pair of eyes he passes seems to follow him. Rain pours from a black sky.
As he reaches the bridge, headlights creep in behind him. He turns just as the car slides quickly to a stop beside him. The back door opens.
TRINITY
Get in.
------------------------------
[023] INT. CAR
A large man named APOC is driving. Beside him is a beautiful androgyne called SWITCH, aiming a large gun at Neo. Window wipers beat heavily against the windshield.
NEO
What the hell is this?!
TRINITY
It's necessary, Neo. For our protection.
NEO
From what?
TRINITY
From you.
She lifts a strange steel and glass device that looks like a cross between a rib separator, speculum and air
compressor.
SWITCH
Take off your shirt.
He looks at the strange device and the gun still trained on him.
NEO
What? Why?
SWITCH
Stop the car.
Apoc does.
SWITCH
Listen to me, coppertop. We don't have time for ‘twenty questions.'
Right now there is only one rule. Our way or the highway.
NEO
Fine.
Neo opens the door.
TRINITY
Neo, please, you have to trust me.
NEO
Why?
TRINITY
Because you've been down there, Neo. You already know that road. You know exactly where it ends.
Neo stares out into sheets of rain railing against the dark street beyond the open door.
TRINITY
And I know that's not where you want to be.
He closes the door.
------------------------------
[A023] EXT. DARK STREET
A moment later the green street lights curve over the car's tinted windshield as it rushes through the wet underworld.
------------------------------
[024] INT. CAR
Neo grudgingly strips off his T-shirt.
TRINITY
Lie back.
Trinity aims the device at Neo, its glass snout forming a seal over his navel. Switch snaps a cable into the
front seat cigarette lighter.
NEO
What is this thing?
TRINITY
We think you're bugged. Try to relax.
She turns a dial and the machine bears down on Neo's midsection, the cylinder sucking hard at his stomach.
Neo screams, squinting in pain as Trinity watches the needle on a pressure gauge climb steadily.
TRINITY
Come on, come on...
On a small monitor that projects an ultrasound-like image, we see Neo's insides begin to slither and churn. He gasps as something wiggles beneath his skin inside his stomach.
SWITCH
It's on the move.
TRINITY
Shit.
SWITCH
You're gonna lose it.
TRINITY
No I'm not. Clear.
The forboding word hangs in Neo's ear for a moment when Trinity squeezes a trigger. Electric current hammers into Neo and rigid convulsions take hold of him beneath the flickering car lamp until--
Something finally rockets wetly out of Neo's stomach through the extractor's coils.
NEO
Jesus Christ! It's real?! That thing is real?!
Trinity lifts a glass cage at the end of the tubing. Inside the small fluke-like bug flips and squirms, its tendrils flapping against the clear walls.
She unrolls the window and dumps it out.
------------------------------
[025] EXT. CAR
It hits the pavement with a metallic tink, reverted back into a common wire tap, as the car disappears into the rainy night.
------------------------------
[026] EXT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE
The car stops in a deserted alley behind a forgotten hotel.
------------------------------
[027] INT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE
It is a place of putrefying elegance, a rotting host of urban maggotry.
Trinity leads Neo from the stairwell down the hall of the thirteenth floor. They stop outside room 1313.
TRINITY
This is it.
Neo can hear his own heart pounding.
TRINITY
Let me give one piece of advice. Be honest. He knows more than you can possibly imagine.
------------------------------
[028] INT. ROOM 1313
Across the room, a DARK FIGURE stares out the tall windows veiled with decaying lace. He turns and his smile lights up the room. A dull roar of thunder shakes the old building.
MORPHEUS
At last.
He wears a long black coat and his eyes are invisible behind circular mirrored glasses. He strides to Neo and they shake hands.
MORPHEUS
Welcome, Neo. As you no doubt have guessed, I am Morpheus.
NEO
It's an honor.
MORPHEUS
No, the honor is mine. Please. Come. Sit.
He nods to Trinity and she exits through a door to an adjacent room. They sit across from one another in cracked, burgundy-leather chairs.
MORPHEUS
I imagine, right now, you must be feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole?
NEO
You could say that.
MORPHEUS
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.
A smile, razor-thin, curls the corner of his lips.
MORPHEUS
Ironically, this is not far from the truth. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Can you tell me,
Neo, why are you here?
NEO
You're Morpheus, you're a legend. Most hackers would die to meet you.
MORPHEUS
Yes. Thank you. But I think we both know there's more to it than that. Do you believe in fate, Neo?
NEO
No.
MORPHEUS
Why not?
NEO
Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
MORPHEUS
I know exactly what you mean.
Again, that smile that could cut glass.
MORPHEUS
Let me tell you why you are here. You have come because you know something.
What you know you can't explain but you feel it.
You've felt it your whole life, felt that something is wrong with the world.
You don't know what, but it's there like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.
It is this feeling that brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
NEO
The Matrix?
MORPHEUS
Do you want to know what it is?
Neo swallows hard and nods.
MORPHEUS
The Matrix is everywhere, it's all around us, here even in this room.
You can see it out your window or on your television.
You feel it when you go to work, or go to church or pay your taxes.
It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
NEO
What truth?
MORPHEUS
That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage,
kept inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind.
The leather creaks as he leans back.
MORPHEUS
Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.
Morpheus opens his hands. In the right is a red pill. In the left, a blue pill.
MORPHEUS
This is your last chance. After this, there is no going back.
You take the blue pill and the story ends.
You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe.
The pills in his open hands are reflected in the glasses.
MORPHEUS
You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Neo feels the smooth skin of the capsules, the moisture growing in his palms.
MORPHEUS
Remember that all I am offering is the truth. Nothing more.
Neo opens his mouth and swallows the red pill. The Cheshire smile returns.
MORPHEUS
Follow me.
------------------------------
[029] INT. OTHER ROOM
He leads Neo into the other room, which is cramped with high-tech equipment, glowing ash-blue and electric green from the racks of monitors. Trinity, Apoc, Switch and Cypher look up as they enter.
MORPHEUS
Apoc, are we on-line?
APOC
Almost.
He and Trinity are working quickly, hard-wiring a complex system of monitors, modules and drives.
MORPHEUS
Neo, time is always against us. Will you take a seat there?
Neo sits in a chair in the center of the room and Trinity begins gently fixing white electrode disks to him. Near the chair is an old oval dressing mirror that is cracked. He whispers to Trinity:
NEO
You did all this?
She nods, placing a set of headphones over his ears. They are wired to an old hotel phone.
MORPHEUS
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.
NEO
What does that mean?
CYPHER
It means buckle up, Dorothy, 'cause Kansas is going bye-bye.
Distantly, through the ear phones, he hears Apoc pounding on a keyboard. Sweat beads his face. His eyes blink and twitch when he notices the mirror.
Wide-eyed, he stares as it begins to heal itself, a webwork of cracks that slowly run together as though the mirror were becoming liquid.
NEO
Did you...?
Cypher works with Apoc, checking reams of phosphorescent data. Trinity monitors Neo's electric vital signs. Neo reaches out to touch the mirror and his fingers disappear beneath the rippling surface.
Quickly, he tries to pull his fingers out but the mirror stretches in long rubbery strands like mirrored-taffy stuck to his fingertips.
MORPHEUS
Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real?
A flash of lightning flickers white hot against Neo.
NEO
This can't be...
MORPHEUS
Be what? Be real?
The strands thin like rubber cement as he pulls away, until the fragile wisps of mirror thread break.
MORPHEUS
What if you were unable to wake from that dream, Neo?
How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?
Neo looks at his hand; fingers distended into mirrored icicles that begin to melt rapidly, dripping, running like wax down his fingers, spreading across his palm where he sees his face reflected.
NEO
Uh-oh...
TRINITY
It's going into replication.
MORPHEUS
Apoc?
APOC
Still nothing.
Morpheus takes out a cellular phone and dials a number.
MORPHEUS
Tank, we're going to need the signal soon.
The mirror gel seems to come to life, racing, crawling up his arms like hundreds of insects.
The mirror creeps up his neck as Neo begins to panic, tipping his head as though he were sinking into the mirror, trying to keep his mouth up.
NEO
It's cold.
TRINITY
I got a fibrillation!
MORPHEUS
Shit! Apoc?
Streams of mercury run from Neo's nose.
APOC
Targeting... almost there.
An alarm on Trinity's monitor erupts.
TRINITY
He's going into arrest!
APOC
Lock! I got him!
MORPHEUS
Now, Tank, now!
His eyes tear with mirror, rolling up and closing as a high-pitched electric scream erupts in the headphones. It is a piercing shriek like a computer calling to another computer--
Neo's body arches in agony and we are pulled like we were pulled into the holes of the phone, sucked into his scream and swallowed by darkness.
------------------------------
[030] INT. POWER PLANT
Close on a man's body floating in a womb-red amnion. His body spasms, fighting against the thick gelatin.
Metal tubes, surreal versions of hospital tubes, obscure his face. Other lines like IVs are connected to limbs and cover his genitals.
He is struggling desperately now. Air bubbles into the Jell-O but does not break the surface. Pressing up, the
surface distends, stretching like a red rubber cocoon.
Unable to breathe, he fights wildly to stand, clawing at the thinning elastic shroud, until it ruptures, a hole widening around his mouth as he sucks for air. Tearing himself free, he emerges from the cell.
It is Neo.
He is bald and naked, his body slick with gelatin. Dizzy, nauseous, he waits for his vision to focus.
He is standing in an oval capsule of clear alloy filled with red gelatin, the surface of which has solidified like curdled milk. The IVs in his arms are plugged into outlets that appear to be grafted to his flesh.
He feels the weight of another cable and reaches to the back of his head where he finds an enormous coaxial plugged and locked into the base of his skull. He tries to pull it out but it would be easier to pull off a finger.
To either side he sees other tube-shaped pods filled with red gelatin; beneath the wax-like surface, pale and motionless, he sees other human beings.
Fanning out in a circle, there are more. All connected to a center core, each capsule like a red, dimly-glowing petal attached to a black metal stem.
Above him, level after level, the stem rises seemingly forever. He moves to the foot of the capsule and looks out. The image assaults his mind.
Towers of glowing petals spiral up to incomprehensible heights, disappearing down into a dim murk like an underwater abyss.
His sight is blurred and warped, exaggerating the intensity of the vision. The sound of the plant is like the sound of the ocean heard from inside the belly of Leviathan.
From above, a machine drops directly in front of Neo. He swallows his scream as it seems to stare at him. It is almost insect-like in its design; beautiful housings of alloyed metal covering organic-like systems of hard and soft polymers.
The machine seizes hold of Neo, paralyzing him as the cable lock at the back of his neck spins and opens.
The cable disengages itself. A long clear plastic needle and cerebrum-chip slides from the anterior of Neo's skull with an ooze of blood and spinal fluid. The other connective hoses snap free and snake away as the machine lets Neo go.
Suddenly, the back of the unit opens and a tremendous vacuum, like an airplane door opening, sucks the gelatin and then Neo into a black hole.
------------------------------
[031] INT. WASTE LINE
The pipe is a waste disposal system and Neo falls, sliding with the clot of gelatin. Banking through pipe spirals and elbows, flushing up through grease traps clogged with oily clumps of cellulite.
------------------------------
[032] INT. SEWER MAIN
Neo begins to drown when he is suddenly snatched from the flow of waste.
The metallic cable then lifts, pulling him up into the belly of the futuristic flying machine hovering inside the sewer main.
------------------------------
[033] INT. HOVERCRAFT
The metal harness opens and drops the half-conscious Neo onto the floor. Human hands and arms help him up as he finds himself looking straight at Morpheus.
He smiles.
MORPHEUS
Welcome to the real world, Neo.
Neo passes out.
FADE TO BLACK.
------------------------------
[034] INT. HOVERCRAFT
We have no sense of time. We hear voices whispering.
MORPHEUS
We've done it, Trinity. We found him.
TRINITY
I hope you're right.
MORPHEUS
I don't have to hope it. I know it.
Neo's eyes flutter open. We see Morpheus' face above us, angelic in the fluorescent glow of a light stick.
NEO (O.S.)
... am I dead?
MORPHEUS
Far from it.
FADE TO BLACK.
------------------------------
[035] INT. HOVERCRAFT - INFIRMARY
He opens his eyes again, something tingling through him. He focuses and sees his body pierced with dozens of acupuncture-like needles wired to a strange device.
DOZER
He still needs a lot of work.
DOZER and Morpheus are operating on Neo.
NEO
What are you doing?
MORPHEUS
Your muscles have atrophied. We're rebuilding them.
Fluorescent light sticks burn unnaturally bright.
NEO
Why do my eyes hurt?
MORPHEUS
You've never used them before.
Morpheus closes Neo's eyes and Neo lays back.
MORPHEUS
Rest, Neo. The answers are coming.
------------------------------
[036] INT. NEO'S ROOM
Neo wakes up from a deep sleep, feeling better. He begins to examine himself. There is a futuristic IV plugged into the jack in his forearm. He pulls it out, staring at the grafted outlet.
He runs his hand over the short hair now covering his head. His fingers find and explore the large outlet in the base of his skull.
Just as he starts to come unglued, Morpheus opens the door.
NEO
Morpheus, what's happened to me? What is this place?
MORPHEUS
More important than what is when?
NEO
When?
MORPHEUS
You believe the year is 1997 when in fact it is much closer to 2197.
I can't say for certain what year it is because we honestly do not know.
The wind is knocked from Neo's chest.
MORPHEUS
There is no reason for me to try to explain it when I can simply show it. Come with me.
------------------------------
[037] INT. HOVERCRAFT
Like a sleepwalker, Neo follows Morpheus through the ship.
MORPHEUS
This is my ship, the Nebuchadnezzar. It's a hovercraft. Small like a submarine.
It's cramped and cold. But it's home.
They climb a ladder up to the main deck.
------------------------------
[038] INT. MAIN DECK
Everyone is there.
MORPHEUS
This is the main deck. You know most of my crew.
Trinity smiles and nods.
MORPHEUS
The ones you don't know. That's Mouse, Cypher, and Switch. Those two guys are Tank and Dozer.
The names and faces wash meaninglessly over Neo.
MORPHEUS
And this, this is the Core. This is where we broadcast our pirate signal and hack into the Matrix.
It is a swamp of bizarre electronic equipment. Vines of coaxial hang and snake to and from huge monolithic battery slabs, a black portable satellite dish and banks of life systems and computer monitors.
At the center of the web, there are six ecto-skeleton chairs made of a poly-alloy frame and suspension harness. Near the circle of chairs is the control console and operator's station where the network is monitored.
MORPHEUS
You want to know what the Matrix is, Neo? The answer is right here.
He touches the back of Neo's head.
MORPHEUS
Help him, Trinity.
Neo allows himself to be helped into one of the chairs. He feels Morpheus guiding a coaxial line into the jack at the back of his neck. The cable has the same kind of cerebrum chip we saw inside the plant.
MORPHEUS
This will feel a little weird.
There are several disturbing noises as he works the needle in.
We move in as Neo's shoulders bunch and his face tightens into a grimace until a loud click fires and his ears pop like when you equalize them underwater.
He relaxes, opening his eyes as we pull back to a feeling of weightlessness inside another place--
------------------------------
[039] INT. CONSTRUCT
Neo is standing in an empty, blank-white space.
MORPHEUS
This is the Construct.
Startled, Neo whips around and finds Morpheus now in the room with him.
MORPHEUS
It is our loading program. We can load anything from clothes, to weapons, to training simulations.
Anything we need.
Morpheus walks past Neo and when Neo turns he sees the two leather chairs from the Hotel Lafayette set up in front of a large-screen television.
MORPHEUS
Sit down.
Neo stands at the back of the chair as Morpheus sits.
NEO
Right now, we're inside a computer program?
Morpheus smiles.
MORPHEUS
Is it so hard to believe? Your clothes are different, the plugs in your arms and head are gone.
Look at your hair, you were bald a moment ago.
Neo touches his head.
MORPHEUS
It's what we call residual self image. The mental projection of your electronic self. Wild, isn't it?
Neo's hands run over the cracked leather.
NEO
This-- This isn't real?
MORPHEUS
What is real? How do you define real?
If you're talking about what you feel, taste, smell, or see,
then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.
He picks up a remote control and clicks on the television. On the television, we see images of the twentieth century city where Neo lived.
MORPHEUS
This is the world you know. The world as it was at the end of the Twentieth Century.
It exists now only as part of a neural-interactive simulation that we call the Matrix.
He changes the channel and we see a very different city as we enter the television.
MORPHEUS
You have been living inside a dreamworld, Neo.
As in Baudrillard's vision, your whole life has been spent inside the map, not the territory.
This is the world as it exists today.
In the distance, we see the ruins of a future city protruding from the wasteland like the blackened ribs of a long-dead corpse.
MORPHEUS
The desert of the real.'
Beneath us, the water is gone.
We turn and descend, spiraling down toward the lake bed which is scorched and split like burnt flesh, where we find Morpheus and Neo. Neo clings to the chair, trying to get his bearings.
MORPHEUS
We have only bits and pieces of information.
What we know for certain is that, at some point in the early Twenty-first Century,
all of mankind was united in celebration.
Through the blinding inebriation of hubris, we marveled at our magnificence as we gave birth to A.I.
NEO
A.I.? You mean artificial intelligence?
MORPHEUS
Yes. A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines.
I must say I find it almost funny to imagine the world slapping itself on the back, toasting the new age.
I say almost funny.
He looks up and his sunglasses reflect the obsidian clouds roiling overhead.
MORPHEUS
We don't know who struck first. Us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky.
At the time, they were dependent on solar power.
It was believed they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun.
As we descend into the circular window of his glasses, there is a flash of lightning.
MORPHEUS
Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive.
Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.
------------------------------
[040] EXT. FETUS FIELDS
On the flash, we pull back from the darkness which reveals itself to be the black eye of a fetus.
MORPHEUS
The Machines discovered a new form of fusion.
All they needed was a small electrical charge to initiate the reaction.
The fetus is suspended in a placenta-like husk, where its malleable skull is already growing around the brain-jack.
MORPHEUS
The human body generates more bioelectricity than a 120-volt battery
and over 25,000 B.T.U.'s of body heat.
The husk hanging from a stalk is plucked by a thresher- like farm machine.
MORPHEUS
There are fields, endless fields where human beings are no longer born; we are grown.
We rise up, the field stretching in every direction to the horizon, lightning tearing open the sky as a harvester sweeps past us.
------------------------------
[A040] INT. POWER PLANT
From the yawning black of the waste port, we begin to pull back as it snaps shut. Red amniotic gel flows into the pod below us, pooling around a tiny newborn that suckles its feed tube.
MORPHEUS
For the longest time, I wouldn't believe it.
But then I saw the fields with my own eyes,
watched them liquify the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living and standing there,
facing the efficiency, the pure, horrifying precision, I came to realize the obviousness of the truth.
Still pulling back, we see the image of the power plant now on the television as we return to the white space of the construct.
------------------------------
[041] INT. CONSTRUCT
Morpheus steps into view as he clicks off the television.
MORPHEUS
What is the Matrix? Control.
He opens the back of the television remote control.
MORPHEUS
The Matrix is a computer-generated dreamworld built to keep us under control
in order to change a human being into this.
He holds up a coppertop battery.
NEO
No! I don't believe it! It's not possible!
MORPHEUS
I didn't say that it would be easy, Neo. I just said that it would be the truth.
NEO
Stop! Let me out! I want out!
------------------------------
[042] INT. MAIN DECK
His eyes snap open and he thrashes against the chair, trying to rip the cable from the back of his neck.
NEO
Get this thing out of me!
TRINITY
Easy, Neo. Easy.
Dozer holds him while Trinity unlocks it. Once it's out, he tears away from them, falling as he trips free of the harness.
NEO
Don't touch me! Get away from me!
On his hands and knees, he reels as the world spins. Sweat pours off him as a pressure builds inside his skull as if his brain had been put into a centrifuge.
NEO
I don't believe it! I don't believe it!
CYPHER
He's going to pop!
Vomiting violently, Neo pitches forward and blacks out.
------------------------------
[043] INT. NEO'S ROOM
He blinks, regaining consciousness. The room is dark. Neo is stretched out on his bed.
NEO
I can't go back, can I?
Morpheus is sitting like a shadow on a chair in the far corner.
MORPHEUS
No. But if you could, would you really want to?
Deep down, Neo knows that answer.
MORPHEUS
I feel that I owe you an apology.
There is a rule that we do not free a mind once it reaches a certain age.
It is dangerous. They have trouble letting go.Their mind turns against them.
I've seen it happen. I'm sorry. I broke the rule because I had to.
He stares into the darkness, confessing as much to himself as to Neo.
MORPHEUS
When the Matrix was first built there was a man born inside that
had the ability to change what he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit.
It was this man that freed the first of us and taught us the truth;
as long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free.
He pauses.
MORPHEUS
When he died, the Oracle prophesied his return
and envisioned that his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix,
an end to the war and freedom for our people.
That is why there are those of us that have spent our entire lives searching the Matrix,
looking for him.
Neo can feel his eyes on him.
MORPHEUS
I did what I did because I believe the search is over.
He stands up.
MORPHEUS
Get some rest. You're going to need it.
NEO
For what?
MORPHEUS
Your training.
------------------------------
[044] INT. HOVERCRAFT
There is no morning; there is only darkness and then the fluorescent light sticks flicker on.
------------------------------
[045] INT. NEO'S ROOM
Neo is awake in his bed, staring up at the lights. The door opens and TANK steps inside.
TANK
Morning. Did you sleep?
NEO
No.
TANK
You will tonight. I guarantee it. I'm Tank. I'll be your operator.
He offers his hand and Neo shakes it. He notices that Tank doesn't have any jacks.
NEO
You don't have...
TANK
Any holes? Nope.
Me and my brother Dozer, we are 100 percent pure, old-fashioned, home-grown human.
Born free. Right here in the real world. Genuine child of Zion.
NEO
Zion?
TANK
If this war ended tomorrow, Zion is where the party would be.
NEO
It's a city?
TANK
The last human city. The only place we got left.
NEO
Where is it?
TANK
Deep underground. Near the earth's core, where it's still warm.
You live long enough, you might even see it.
Tank smiles.
TANK
Goddamn, I got to tell you, I'm fairly excited to see what you are capable of.
I mean if Morpheus is right and all.
We're not supposed to talk about any of that but if you are, well then this is an exciting time.
We got a lot to do, so let's get to it.
------------------------------
[046] INT. MAIN DECK
Neo is plugged in, hanging in one of the suspension chairs.
TANK
We're supposed to load all these operations programs first, but this is some major boring shit.
Why don't we start with something a little fun?
Tank smiles as he plops into his operator's chair. He begins flipping through a tall carousel loaded with micro discs.
TANK
How about some combat training?
Neo reads the label on the disk.
NEO
Jujitsu? I'm going to learn jujitsu?
Tank slides the disk into Neo's supplement drive.
NEO
No way.
Smiling, Tank punches the "load" code. His body jumps against the harness as his eyes clamp shut. The monitors kick wildly as his heart pounds, adrenaline surges, and his brain sizzles. An instant later his eyes snap open.
NEO
Holy shit!
TANK
Hey, Mikey, he likes it! Ready for more?
NEO
Hell yes!
------------------------------
[047] INT. MAIN DECK
Close on a computer monitor as grey pixels slowly fill a small, half-empty box. It is a meter displaying how much download time is left. The title bar reads: "Combat Series 10 of 12," file categories flashing beneath it: "Savate, Jujitsu, Ken Po, Drunken Boxing..."
Morpheus walks in.
MORPHEUS
How is he?
TANK
Ten hours straight. He's a machine.
Neo's body spasms and relaxes as his eyes open, breath hissing from his lips. He looks like he just orgasmed.
NEO
This is incredible. I know kung fu.
MORPHEUS
Show me.
------------------------------
[048] INT. DOJO
They are standing in a very sparse Japanese-style dojo.
MORPHEUS
This is a sparring program, similar to the programmed reality of the Matrix.
It has the same basic rules. Rules like gravity.
What you must learn is that these rules are no different than the rules of a computer system.
Some of them can be bent. Others can be broken. Understand?
Neo nods as Morpheus assumes a fighting stance.
MORPHEUS
Then hit me, if you can.
Neo assumes a similar stance, cautiously circling until he gives a short cry and launches a furious attack.
It is like a Jackie Chan movie at high speed, fists and feet striking from every angle as Neo presses his attack, but each and every blow is blocked by effortless speed.
------------------------------
[049] INT. MAIN DECK
While their minds battle in the programmed reality, the two bodies appear quite serene, suspended in the drive chairs.
Tank monitors their Life Systems, noticing that Neo is wildly and chaoti
Larry & Andy Wachowski
What follows is the shooting script for THE MATRIX, although it’s not exactly what people saw in the theaters. While everything that follows was filmed, changes occurred during editing. An example of this is in the final speech by Neo (scene 219) which was altered when test audiences didn’t know the word “chrysalis.” Other differences exist, from small cuts to dialogue tweaks. This is, however, the last draft before filming.
Shooting Script
August 12, 1998
[Reformatted by AITNOG]
-----------------------------
FADE IN:
[001] INT. COMPUTER SCREEN
On a computer screen; so close it has no boundaries.
A blinking cursor pulses in the electric darkness like a heart coursing with phosphorous light, burning beneath the derma of black-neon glass.
A phone begins to ring, we hear it as though we were making the call. The cursor continues to throb, relentlessly patient, until --
MAN (V.O.)
Yeah?
Data now slashes across the screen, information flashing faster than we can read:
SCREEN
Call trans opt: received. 2-19-98 13:24:18 REC:Log>.
WOMAN(V.O.)
Is everything in place?
SCREEN
Trace program: running.
We listen to the phone conversation as though we were on a third line. The man's name is Cypher. The woman, Trinity.
TRINITY (WOMAN) (V.O.)
I said, is everything in place?
The entire screen fills with racing columns of numbers. Shimmering like green-electric rivers, they rush at a 10-digit phone number in the top corner.
CYPHER (MAN) (V.O.)
You weren't supposed to relieve me.
TRINITY (V.O.)
I know but I felt like taking a shift.
The area code is identified. The first three numbers suddenly fixed, leaving only seven flowing columns.
CYPHER (V.O.)
You like him, don't you? You like watching him?
We begin moving toward the screen, closing in as each digit is matched, one by one, snapping into place like
the wheels of a slot machine.
TRINITY (V.O.)
Don't be ridiculous.
CYPHER (V.O.)
We're going to kill him. Do you understand that? He's going to die just like the others.
TRINITY (V.O.)
Morpheus believes he is the One.
Only two thin digits left.
CYPHER (V.O.)
Do you?
TRINITY (V.O.)
I... it doesn't matter what I believe.
CYPHER (V.O.)
You don't, do you?
TRINITY (V.O.)
If you have something to say, I suggest you say it to Morpheus.
CYPHER (V.O.)
I intend to, believe me. Someone has to.
The final number pops into place--
TRINITY (V.O.)
Did you hear that?
CYPHER (V.O.)
Hear what?
SCREEN
Trace complete. Call origin: #312-555-0690.
TRINITY (V.O.)
Are you sure this line is clean?
CYPHER (V.O.)
Yeah, 'course I'm sure.
We move, still closer, the electric hum of the green numbers growing into an ominous roar.
TRINITY (V.O.)
I better go.
She hangs up as we pass through the numbers, entering the netherworld of the computer screen. Suddenly, a flashlight cuts open the darkness and we find ourselves in--
------------------------------
[002] INT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL - NIGHT
The hotel was abandoned after a fire licked its way across the polyester carpeting, destroying several rooms as it spooled soot up the walls and ceiling, leaving patterns of permanent shadow.
We follow four armed POLICE OFFICERS using flashlights as they creep down the blackened hall and ready themselves on either side of Room 303.
The biggest of them violently kicks in the door. The other cops pour in behind him, guns thrust before them.
BIG COP
Police! Freeze!
The room is almost devoid of furniture. There is a fold-up table and chair with a phone, a modem, and a Powerbook computer. The only light in the room is the glow of the computer.
Sitting there, her hands still on the keyboard, is TRINITY; a woman in black leather.
BIG COP
Hands behind your head! Now! Do it!
She slowly puts her hands behind her head.
------------------------------
[003] EXT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL - NIGHT
A black sedan with tinted windows glides in through the police cruisers. AGENT SMITH, AGENT BROWN, and AGENT JONES get out of the car.
They wear dark suits and sunglasses even at night. They are also always hardwired; small Secret Service earphones in one ear, the cord coiling back into their shirt collars.
AGENT SMITH
Lieutenant?
LIEUTENANT
Oh shit.
AGENT SMITH
Lieutenant, you were given specific orders--
LIEUTENANT
I'm just doing my job. You gimme that Juris-my-dick-tion and you can cram it up your ass.
AGENT SMITH
The orders were for your protection.
The Lieutenant laughs.
LIEUTENANT
I think we can handle one little girl.
Agent Smith nods to Agent Brown as they start toward the hotel.
LIEUTENANT
I sent two units. They're bringing her down now.
AGENT SMITH
No, Lieutenant, your men are already dead.
------------------------------
[004] INT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL
The Big Cop flicks out his cuffs, the other cops holding a bead. They've done this a hundred times, they know they've got her, until the Big Cop reaches with the cuffs and Trinity moves --
It almost doesn't register, so smooth and fast, inhumanly fast.
The eye blinks and Trinity's palm snaps up and the nose explodes, blood erupting. Her leg kicks with the force of a wrecking ball and he flies back, a two-hundred-fifty pound sack of limp meat and bone that slams into the cop farthest from her.
Trinity moves again, bullets raking the walls, flashlights sweeping with panic as the remaining cops try to stop a leather-clad ghost.
A gun still in the cop's hand is snatched, twisted and fired. There is a final violent exchange of gunfire and when it's over, Trinity is the only one standing.
A flashlight rocks slowly to a stop.
TRINITY
Shit.
------------------------------
[005] EXT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL
Agent Brown enters the hotel while Agent Smith heads for the alley.
------------------------------
[006] INT. HEART O' THE CITY HOTEL
Trinity is on the phone, pacing. The other end is answered.
MAN (V.O.)
Operator.
TRINITY
Morpheus! The line was traced! I don't know how.
MORPHEUS (MAN) (V.O.)
I know. They cut the hardline. This line is not a viable exit.
TRINITY
Are there any Agents?
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Yes.
TRINITY
Goddamnit!
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
You have to focus. There is a phone. Wells and Lake. You can make it.
She takes a deep breath, centering herself.
TRINITY
All right--
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Go.
She drops the phone.
------------------------------
[007] INT. HALL
She bursts out of the room as Agent Brown enters the hall, leading another unit of police. Trinity races to the
opposite end, exiting through a broken window onto the fire escape.
------------------------------
[008] EXT. FIRE ESCAPE
In the alley below, Trinity sees Agent Smith staring at her. She can only go up.
------------------------------
[009] EXT. ROOF
On the roof, Trinity is running as Agent Brown rises over the parapet, leading the cops in pursuit.
Trinity begins to jump from one roof to the next, her movements so clean, gliding in and out of each jump, contrasted to the wild jumps of the cops.
Agent Brown, however, has the same unnatural grace.
The roof falls away into a wide back alley. The next building is over 40 feet away but Trinity's face is perfectly calm, staring at some point beyond the other roof.
COP
That's it, we got her now.
The cops slow, realizing they are about to see something ugly as Trinity drives at the edge, launching herself
into the air.
From above, the ground seems to flow beneath her as she hangs in flight, then hits, somersaulting up, still
running hard.
COP
Jesus Christ-- that's impossible!
They stare, slack-jawed, as Agent Brown duplicates the move exactly, landing, rolling over a shoulder up onto one knee.
It is a dizzying chase up and over the dark plateaued landscape of rooftops and sheer cliffs of brick. Ahead she sees her only chance, 50 feet beyond the point where her path drops away into a paved chasm, there is--
------------------------------
[010] EXT. WINDOW
A window; a yellow glow in the midst of a dark brick building.
Trinity zeros in on it, running as hard as she can and--
Hurtles herself into the empty night space, her body leveling into a dive. She falls, arms covering her head as the whole world seems to spin on its axis--
------------------------------
[A010] INT. BACK STAIRWELL
And she crashes with an explosion of glass and wood, then falls onto a back stairwell, tumbling, bouncing down stairs bleeding, broken--
But still alive.
She wheels on the smashed opening above, her gun instantly in her hand, trained, waiting for Agent Brown but is met by only a slight wind that hisses against the fanged maw of broken glass.
Trinity tries to move. Everything hurts.
TRINITY
Get up, Trinity. You're fine. Get up-- just get up!
She stands and limps down the rest of the stairs.
------------------------------
[011] EXT. STREET
Trinity emerges from the shadows of an alley and, at the end of the block, in a pool of white street light, she sees it-
The telephone booth.
Obviously hurt, she starts down the concrete walk, focusing in completely, her pace quickening, as the phone begins to ring.
Across the street, a garbage truck suddenly turns U- turns, its tires screaming as it accelerates. Trinity sees the headlights of the truck arcing at the telephone booth as if taking aim.
Gritting through the pain, she races the truck, slamming into the booth, the headlights blindingly bright, bearing down on the box of Plexiglas just as--
She answers the phone.
There is a frozen instant of silence before the hulking mass of dark metal lurches up onto the sidewalk--
Barrelling through the booth, bulldozing it into a brick wall, smashing it to Plexiglas pulp.
After a moment, a black loafer steps down from the cab of the garbage truck. Agent Smith inspects the wreckage. There is no body. Trinity is gone.
His jaw sets as he grinds his molars in frustration. Agents Jones and Brown walk up behind him.
AGENT BROWN
She got out.
AGENT SMITH
It doesn't matter.
AGENT BROWN
The informant is real.
Agent Smith almost smiles.
AGENT SMITH
Yes.
AGENT JONES
We have the name of their next target.
AGENT BROWN
The name is Neo.
The handset of the pay phone lays on the ground, separated in the crash like a severed limb.
AGENT SMITH
We'll need a search running.
AGENT JONES
It's already begun.
We are sucked towards the mouthpiece of the phone, closer and closer, until the smooth gray plastic spreads out like a horizon and the small holes widen until we fall through one--
Swallowed by darkness.
The darkness crackles with phosphorescent energy, the word 'searching' blazing in around us as we emerge from a computer screen.
The screen flickers with windowing data as a search engine runs with a steady relentless rhythm.
We drift back from the screen and into--
------------------------------
[012] INT. NEO'S APARTMENT
It is a studio apartment that seems overgrown with technology.
Weed-like cables coil everywhere, duct-taped into thickets that wind up and around the legs of several desks. Tabletops are filled with cannibalized equipment that lay open like an autopsied corpse.
At the center of this technological rat-nest is NEO, a man who knows more about living inside a computer than outside one.
He is asleep in front of his PC. Behind him, the computer screen suddenly goes blank. A prompt appears.
SCREEN
Wake up, Neo.
Neo's eye pries open. He sits up, one eye still closed, looking around, unsure of where he is. He notices the screen.
He types 'CTRL X' but the letter 'T' appears.
NEO
What...?
He hits another and an 'H' appears. He keeps typing, pushing random functions and keys while the computer types out a message as though it had a mind of its own.
He stops and stares at the four words on the screen.
SCREEN
The Matrix has you.
NEO
What the hell?
He hits the 'ESC' button. Another message appears.
SCREEN
Follow the white rabbit.
He hits it again and the message repeats. He rubs his eyes but when he opens them, there is another message.
SCREEN
Knock, knock, Neo.
Someone knocks on his door and he almost jumps out of his chair. He looks back at the computer but the screen is now blank.
Someone knocks again. Neo rises, still unnerved.
NEO
Who is it?
CHOI (O.S.)
It's Choi.
Neo flips a series of locks and opens the door, leaving the chain on. A young Chinese MAN stands with several of his friends.
NEO
You're two hours late.
CHOI
I know. It's her fault.
NEO
You got the money?
CHOI
Two grand.
He takes out an envelope and gives it to Neo through the cracked door.
NEO
Hold on.
He closes the door. On the floor near his bed is a book, Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulations. The book
has been hollowed out and inside are several computer disks. He takes one, sticks the money in the book and drops it on the floor.
Opening the door, he hands the disk to Choi.
CHOI
Hallelujah! You are my savior, man! My own personal Jesus Christ!
NEO
If you get caught using that--
CHOI
I know, I know. This never happened. You don't exist.
NEO
Right...
Neo nods as the strange feeling of unrealness suddenly returns.
CHOI
Something wrong, man? You look a little whiter than usual.
NEO
I don't know... My computer...
He looks back at Choi, unable to explain what just happened.
NEO
You ever have the feeling that you're not sure if you're awake or still dreaming?
CHOI
All the time. It's called mescaline and it is the only way to fly.
He smiles and slaps the hand of his nearest droog.
CHOI
It sounds to me like you need to unplug, man. A little R and R.
What do you think, Dujour, should we take him with us?
DUJOUR
Definitely.
NEO
I can't. I have to work tomorrow.
DUJOUR
Come on. It'll be fun. I promise.
He looks up at her and suddenly notices on her black leather motorcycle jacket dozens of pins: bands, symbols, slogans, military medals and--
A small white rabbit. The room tilts.
NEO
Yeah, yeah. Sure, I'll go.
------------------------------
[013] INT. APARTMENT
An older apartment; a series of halls connects a chain of small high-ceilinged rooms lined with heavy
casements. Smoke hangs like a veil, blurring the few lights there are.
Dressed predominantly in black, people are everywhere, gathered in cliques around pieces of furniture like jungle cats around a tree.
Neo stands against a wall, alone, sipping from a bottle of beer, feeling completely out of place, he is about
to leave when he notices a woman staring at him.
The woman is Trinity. She walks straight up to him.
In the nearest room, shadow-like figures grind against each other to the pneumatic beat of industrial music.
TRINITY
Hello, Neo.
NEO
How do you know that name?
TRINITY
I know a lot about you. I've been wanting to meet you for some time.
NEO
Who are you?
TRINITY
My name is Trinity.
NEO
Trinity? The Trinity? The Trinity that cracked the I.R.S. D-Base?
TRINITY
That was a long time ago.
NEO
Gee-zus.
TRINITY
What?
NEO
I just thought... you were a guy.
TRINITY
Most guys do.
Neo is a little embarrassed.
NEO
Do you want to go somewhere and talk?
TRINITY
No. It's safe here and I don't have much time.
The music is so loud they must stand very close, talking directly into each other's ear.
NEO
That was you on my computer?
She nods.
NEO
How did you do that?
TRINITY
Right now, all I can tell you, is that you are in danger. I brought you here to warn you.
NEO
Of what?
TRINITY
They're watching you, Neo.
NEO
Who is?
TRINITY
Please. Just listen. 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.
Her body is against his; her lips very close to his ear.
TRINITY
I know because I was once looking for the same thing,
but when he found me he told me I wasn't really looking for him. I was looking for an answer.
There is a hypnotic quality to her voice and Neo feels the words, like a drug, seeping into him.
TRINITY
It's the question that drives us, the question that brought you here.
You know the question just as I did.
NEO
What is the Matrix?
TRINITY
When I asked him, he said that no one could ever be told the answer to that question.
They have to see it to believe it.
She leans close, her lips almost touching his ear.
TRINITY
The answer is out there, Neo. It's looking for you and it will find you, if you want it to.
She turns and he watches her melt into the shifting wall of bodies.
A sound rises steadily, growing out of the music, pressing in on Neo until it is all he can hear as we cut to--
------------------------------
[014] INT. NEO'S APARTMENT
The sound is an alarm clock, slowly dragging Neo to consciousness. He strains to read the clock-face: 9:15AM.
NEO
Shitshitshit.
------------------------------
[015] EXT. SKYSCRAPER
The downtown office of Meta CorTechs, a software development company.
------------------------------
[016] INT. META CORTECHS OFFICE
The main offices are along each wall, the windows overlooking downtown. RHINEHEART, the ultimate company man, lectures Neo without looking at him, typing at his computer continuously.
Neo stares at two window cleaners on a scaffolding outside, dragging their rubber squeegees down the surface of the glass.
RHINEHEART
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.
His long, bony fingers resume clicking the keyboard.
RHINEHEART
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.
He turns again.
RHINEHEART
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?
NEO
Yes, Mr. Rhineheart. Perfectly clear.
------------------------------
[017] INT. NEO'S CUBICLE
The entire floor looks like a human honeycomb, with a labyrinth of cubicles structured around a core of
elevators.
VOICE (O.S.)
Thomas Anderson?
Neo turns and finds a FEDERAL EXPRESS GUY at his cubicle door.
NEO
Yeah. That's me.
Neo signs the electronic pad and the Fedex Guy hands him the softpak.
FEDEX GUY
Have a nice day.
He opens the bag. Inside is a cellular phone. It seems the instant it is in his hand, it rings. Unnerved, he flips it open.
NEO
Hello?
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Hello, Neo. Do you know who this is?
Neo's knees give and he sinks into his chair.
NEO
Morpheus...
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
I've been looking for you, Neo.
I don't know if you're ready to see what I want to show you,
but unfortunately, we have run out of time. They're coming for you, Neo.
And I'm not sure what they're going to do.
NEO
Who's coming for me?
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Stand up and see for yourself.
NEO
Right now?
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Yes. Now.
Neo starts to stand.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Do it slowly. The elevator.
His head peeks up over the partition. At the elevator, he sees Agent Smith, Agent Brown, and Agent Jones leading a group of cops. A female employee turns and points out Neo's cubicle.
Neo ducks.
NEO
Holy shit!
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Yes.
One cop stays at the elevator, the others follow the Agents.
NEO
What the hell do they want with me?!
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
I'm not sure, but if you don't want to find out, you better get out of there.
NEO
How?!
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
I can guide you out, but you have to do exactly what I say.
The Agents are moving quickly towards the cubicle.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
The cubicle across from you is empty.
NEO
But what if...?
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Go! Now!
Neo lunges across the hall, diving into the other cubicle just as the Agents turn into his row.
Neo crams himself into a dark corner, clutching the phone tightly to him.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Stay here for a moment.
The Agents enter Neo's empty cubicle. A cop is sent to search the bathroom. Morpheus' voice is a whisper in Neo's ear.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
A little longer...
Brown is talking to another employee.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
When I tell you, go to the end of the row to the first office on the left, stay as low as you can.
Sweat trickles down his forehead.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Now.
Neo rolls out of the cubicle, his eyes popping as he freezes right behind a cop who has just turned around.
Staying crouched, he sneaks away down the row, shooting across the opening to the first office on the left.
------------------------------
[018] INT. EMPTY OFFICE
The room is empty.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Good. Outside there is a scaffold.
NEO
How do you know all this?
Morpheus laughs quietly.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
The answer is coming, Neo. There is a window in front of you. Open it.
He opens the window. The wind howls into the room.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
You can use the scaffold to get to the roof.
NEO
No! It's too far away.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
There's a ledge. It's a short climb. You can make it.
Neo looks down; the building's glass wall vertigos into a concrete chasm.
NEO
No way, no way, this is crazy.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
There are only two ways out of this building. One is that scaffold. The other is in their custody.
You take a chance either way. I leave it to you.
Click. He hangs up. Neo looks at the door, then back at the scaffold.
NEO
This is insane! Why is this happening to me? What did I do? I'm nobody. I didn't do anything.
He climbs up onto the window ledge. Hanging onto the frame, he steps onto the small ledge. The scaffold seems even farther away.
NEO
I'm going to die.
The wind suddenly blasts up the face of the building, knocking Neo off balance. Recoiling, he clings harder to the frame, and the phone falls out of his hand.
He watches as it is swallowed by the distance beneath him.
NEO
This is insane! I can't do this! Forget it!
He climbs back into the office just as a cop opens the door.
NEO
Shit!
------------------------------
[019] EXT. SKYSCRAPER
The Agents lead a handcuffed Neo out of the revolving doors, forcing his head down as they push him into the dark sedan.
Trinity watches in the rear view mirror of her motorcycle.
TRINITY
Shit.
------------------------------
[020] INT. INTERROGATION ROOM
Close on a camera monitor; wide angle view of a white room where Neo is sitting at a table alone. We move into the monitor, entering the room as if the monitor was a window.
At the same moment, the door opens and the Agents enter. Agent Smith sits down across from Neo. A thick manila envelope slaps down on the table. The name on the file: 'Anderson, Thomas A.'
AGENT SMITH
As you can see, we've had our eye on you for some time now, Mr. Anderson.
He opens the file. Paper rattle marks the silence as he flips several pages. Neo cannot tell if he is looking at the file or at him.
AGENT SMITH
It seems that you have been living two lives.
In one life, you are Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company.
You have a social security number, you pay your taxes
and you help your landlady carry out her garbage.
The pages continue to turn.
AGENT SMITH
The 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.
Neo feels himself sinking into a pit of shit.
AGENT SMITH
One of these lives has a future. One of them does not.
He closes the file.
AGENT SMITH
I'm going to be as forthcoming as I can be, Mr. Anderson. You are here because we need your help.
He removes his sunglasses, his eyes are an unnatural ice- blue.
AGENT SMITH
We know that you have been contacted by a certain individual. A man who calls himself Morpheus.
Whatever you think you know about this man is irrelevant.
The fact is that he is wanted for acts of terrorism in more countries than any other man in the world.
He is considered by many authorities to be the most dangerous man alive.
He leans closer.
AGENT SMITH
My colleagues believe that I am wasting my time with you but I believe you want to do the right thing.
It is obvious that you are an intelligent man, Mr. Anderson, and that you are interested in the future.
That is why I believe you are ready to put your past mistakes behind you and get on with your life.
Neo tries to match his stare.
AGENT SMITH
We are willing to wipe the slate clean, to give you a fresh start and
all we are asking in return is your cooperation in bringing a known terrorist to justice.
Neo nods to himself.
NEO
Yeah. Wow. That sounds like a real good deal. But I think I have a better one.
How about I give you the finger--
He does.
NEO
And you give me my phone call!
Agent Smith puts his glasses back on.
AGENT SMITH
You disappoint me, Mr. Anderson.
NEO
You can't scare me with this Gestapo crap. I know my rights. I want my phone call!
Agent Smith smiles.
AGENT SMITH
And tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call if you are unable to speak?
The question unnerves Neo and strangely he begins to feel the muscles in his jaw tighten. The standing Agents snicker, watching Neo's confusion grow into panic.
Neo feels his lips grow soft and sticky as they slowly seal shut, melding into each other until all traces of his mouth are gone.
Wild with fear, he lunges for the door but the Agents restrain him, holding him in the chair.
AGENT SMITH
You are going to help us, Mr. Anderson, whether you want to or not.
Smith nods and the other two rip open his shirt. From a case taken out of his suit coat, Smith removes a long, fiber-optic wire tap.
Neo struggles helplessly as Smith dangles the wire over his exposed abdomen. Horrified, he watches as the electronic device animates, becoming an organic creature that resembles a hybrid of an insect and a fluke worm.
Thin, whisker-like tendrils reach out and probe into Neo's navel. He bucks wildly as Smith drops the creature which looks for a moment like an uncut umbilical cord--
Before it begins to burrow, its tail thrashing as it worms its way inside.
------------------------------
[021] INT. NEO'S APARTMENT - NIGHT
Screaming, Neo bolts upright in bed.
He realizes that he is home. Was it a dream? His mouth is normal. His stomach looks fine. He starts to take a deep, everything-is-okay breath when--
The phone rings.
It almost stops his heart. It continues ringing, building pressure in the room, forcing him up out of bed, sucking him in with an almost gravitational force. He answers it, saying nothing.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
This line is tapped so I must be brief.
NEO
The Agents--
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
They got to you first, but they've underestimated how important you are.
If they knew what I know, you would probably be dead.
NEO
What are you talking about? What the hell is happening to me?
MORPHEUS
You're the One, Neo. You see, you may have spent the last few years looking for me,
but I've spent most of my life looking for you.
Neo feels sick.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Do you still want to meet?
NEO
...yes.
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
Go to the Adams Street bridge.
Click. He closes his eyes, unsure of what he has done.
------------------------------
[022] EXT. CITY STREET - NIGHT
It is just beyond the middle of the night; that time when it seems there are no rules and everything feels unsafe. Neo's boots scrape against the concrete. Every pair of eyes he passes seems to follow him. Rain pours from a black sky.
As he reaches the bridge, headlights creep in behind him. He turns just as the car slides quickly to a stop beside him. The back door opens.
TRINITY
Get in.
------------------------------
[023] INT. CAR
A large man named APOC is driving. Beside him is a beautiful androgyne called SWITCH, aiming a large gun at Neo. Window wipers beat heavily against the windshield.
NEO
What the hell is this?!
TRINITY
It's necessary, Neo. For our protection.
NEO
From what?
TRINITY
From you.
She lifts a strange steel and glass device that looks like a cross between a rib separator, speculum and air
compressor.
SWITCH
Take off your shirt.
He looks at the strange device and the gun still trained on him.
NEO
What? Why?
SWITCH
Stop the car.
Apoc does.
SWITCH
Listen to me, coppertop. We don't have time for ‘twenty questions.'
Right now there is only one rule. Our way or the highway.
NEO
Fine.
Neo opens the door.
TRINITY
Neo, please, you have to trust me.
NEO
Why?
TRINITY
Because you've been down there, Neo. You already know that road. You know exactly where it ends.
Neo stares out into sheets of rain railing against the dark street beyond the open door.
TRINITY
And I know that's not where you want to be.
He closes the door.
------------------------------
[A023] EXT. DARK STREET
A moment later the green street lights curve over the car's tinted windshield as it rushes through the wet underworld.
------------------------------
[024] INT. CAR
Neo grudgingly strips off his T-shirt.
TRINITY
Lie back.
Trinity aims the device at Neo, its glass snout forming a seal over his navel. Switch snaps a cable into the
front seat cigarette lighter.
NEO
What is this thing?
TRINITY
We think you're bugged. Try to relax.
She turns a dial and the machine bears down on Neo's midsection, the cylinder sucking hard at his stomach.
Neo screams, squinting in pain as Trinity watches the needle on a pressure gauge climb steadily.
TRINITY
Come on, come on...
On a small monitor that projects an ultrasound-like image, we see Neo's insides begin to slither and churn. He gasps as something wiggles beneath his skin inside his stomach.
SWITCH
It's on the move.
TRINITY
Shit.
SWITCH
You're gonna lose it.
TRINITY
No I'm not. Clear.
The forboding word hangs in Neo's ear for a moment when Trinity squeezes a trigger. Electric current hammers into Neo and rigid convulsions take hold of him beneath the flickering car lamp until--
Something finally rockets wetly out of Neo's stomach through the extractor's coils.
NEO
Jesus Christ! It's real?! That thing is real?!
Trinity lifts a glass cage at the end of the tubing. Inside the small fluke-like bug flips and squirms, its tendrils flapping against the clear walls.
She unrolls the window and dumps it out.
------------------------------
[025] EXT. CAR
It hits the pavement with a metallic tink, reverted back into a common wire tap, as the car disappears into the rainy night.
------------------------------
[026] EXT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE
The car stops in a deserted alley behind a forgotten hotel.
------------------------------
[027] INT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE
It is a place of putrefying elegance, a rotting host of urban maggotry.
Trinity leads Neo from the stairwell down the hall of the thirteenth floor. They stop outside room 1313.
TRINITY
This is it.
Neo can hear his own heart pounding.
TRINITY
Let me give one piece of advice. Be honest. He knows more than you can possibly imagine.
------------------------------
[028] INT. ROOM 1313
Across the room, a DARK FIGURE stares out the tall windows veiled with decaying lace. He turns and his smile lights up the room. A dull roar of thunder shakes the old building.
MORPHEUS
At last.
He wears a long black coat and his eyes are invisible behind circular mirrored glasses. He strides to Neo and they shake hands.
MORPHEUS
Welcome, Neo. As you no doubt have guessed, I am Morpheus.
NEO
It's an honor.
MORPHEUS
No, the honor is mine. Please. Come. Sit.
He nods to Trinity and she exits through a door to an adjacent room. They sit across from one another in cracked, burgundy-leather chairs.
MORPHEUS
I imagine, right now, you must be feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole?
NEO
You could say that.
MORPHEUS
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.
A smile, razor-thin, curls the corner of his lips.
MORPHEUS
Ironically, this is not far from the truth. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Can you tell me,
Neo, why are you here?
NEO
You're Morpheus, you're a legend. Most hackers would die to meet you.
MORPHEUS
Yes. Thank you. But I think we both know there's more to it than that. Do you believe in fate, Neo?
NEO
No.
MORPHEUS
Why not?
NEO
Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
MORPHEUS
I know exactly what you mean.
Again, that smile that could cut glass.
MORPHEUS
Let me tell you why you are here. You have come because you know something.
What you know you can't explain but you feel it.
You've felt it your whole life, felt that something is wrong with the world.
You don't know what, but it's there like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.
It is this feeling that brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
NEO
The Matrix?
MORPHEUS
Do you want to know what it is?
Neo swallows hard and nods.
MORPHEUS
The Matrix is everywhere, it's all around us, here even in this room.
You can see it out your window or on your television.
You feel it when you go to work, or go to church or pay your taxes.
It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
NEO
What truth?
MORPHEUS
That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage,
kept inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind.
The leather creaks as he leans back.
MORPHEUS
Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.
Morpheus opens his hands. In the right is a red pill. In the left, a blue pill.
MORPHEUS
This is your last chance. After this, there is no going back.
You take the blue pill and the story ends.
You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe.
The pills in his open hands are reflected in the glasses.
MORPHEUS
You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Neo feels the smooth skin of the capsules, the moisture growing in his palms.
MORPHEUS
Remember that all I am offering is the truth. Nothing more.
Neo opens his mouth and swallows the red pill. The Cheshire smile returns.
MORPHEUS
Follow me.
------------------------------
[029] INT. OTHER ROOM
He leads Neo into the other room, which is cramped with high-tech equipment, glowing ash-blue and electric green from the racks of monitors. Trinity, Apoc, Switch and Cypher look up as they enter.
MORPHEUS
Apoc, are we on-line?
APOC
Almost.
He and Trinity are working quickly, hard-wiring a complex system of monitors, modules and drives.
MORPHEUS
Neo, time is always against us. Will you take a seat there?
Neo sits in a chair in the center of the room and Trinity begins gently fixing white electrode disks to him. Near the chair is an old oval dressing mirror that is cracked. He whispers to Trinity:
NEO
You did all this?
She nods, placing a set of headphones over his ears. They are wired to an old hotel phone.
MORPHEUS
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.
NEO
What does that mean?
CYPHER
It means buckle up, Dorothy, 'cause Kansas is going bye-bye.
Distantly, through the ear phones, he hears Apoc pounding on a keyboard. Sweat beads his face. His eyes blink and twitch when he notices the mirror.
Wide-eyed, he stares as it begins to heal itself, a webwork of cracks that slowly run together as though the mirror were becoming liquid.
NEO
Did you...?
Cypher works with Apoc, checking reams of phosphorescent data. Trinity monitors Neo's electric vital signs. Neo reaches out to touch the mirror and his fingers disappear beneath the rippling surface.
Quickly, he tries to pull his fingers out but the mirror stretches in long rubbery strands like mirrored-taffy stuck to his fingertips.
MORPHEUS
Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real?
A flash of lightning flickers white hot against Neo.
NEO
This can't be...
MORPHEUS
Be what? Be real?
The strands thin like rubber cement as he pulls away, until the fragile wisps of mirror thread break.
MORPHEUS
What if you were unable to wake from that dream, Neo?
How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?
Neo looks at his hand; fingers distended into mirrored icicles that begin to melt rapidly, dripping, running like wax down his fingers, spreading across his palm where he sees his face reflected.
NEO
Uh-oh...
TRINITY
It's going into replication.
MORPHEUS
Apoc?
APOC
Still nothing.
Morpheus takes out a cellular phone and dials a number.
MORPHEUS
Tank, we're going to need the signal soon.
The mirror gel seems to come to life, racing, crawling up his arms like hundreds of insects.
The mirror creeps up his neck as Neo begins to panic, tipping his head as though he were sinking into the mirror, trying to keep his mouth up.
NEO
It's cold.
TRINITY
I got a fibrillation!
MORPHEUS
Shit! Apoc?
Streams of mercury run from Neo's nose.
APOC
Targeting... almost there.
An alarm on Trinity's monitor erupts.
TRINITY
He's going into arrest!
APOC
Lock! I got him!
MORPHEUS
Now, Tank, now!
His eyes tear with mirror, rolling up and closing as a high-pitched electric scream erupts in the headphones. It is a piercing shriek like a computer calling to another computer--
Neo's body arches in agony and we are pulled like we were pulled into the holes of the phone, sucked into his scream and swallowed by darkness.
------------------------------
[030] INT. POWER PLANT
Close on a man's body floating in a womb-red amnion. His body spasms, fighting against the thick gelatin.
Metal tubes, surreal versions of hospital tubes, obscure his face. Other lines like IVs are connected to limbs and cover his genitals.
He is struggling desperately now. Air bubbles into the Jell-O but does not break the surface. Pressing up, the
surface distends, stretching like a red rubber cocoon.
Unable to breathe, he fights wildly to stand, clawing at the thinning elastic shroud, until it ruptures, a hole widening around his mouth as he sucks for air. Tearing himself free, he emerges from the cell.
It is Neo.
He is bald and naked, his body slick with gelatin. Dizzy, nauseous, he waits for his vision to focus.
He is standing in an oval capsule of clear alloy filled with red gelatin, the surface of which has solidified like curdled milk. The IVs in his arms are plugged into outlets that appear to be grafted to his flesh.
He feels the weight of another cable and reaches to the back of his head where he finds an enormous coaxial plugged and locked into the base of his skull. He tries to pull it out but it would be easier to pull off a finger.
To either side he sees other tube-shaped pods filled with red gelatin; beneath the wax-like surface, pale and motionless, he sees other human beings.
Fanning out in a circle, there are more. All connected to a center core, each capsule like a red, dimly-glowing petal attached to a black metal stem.
Above him, level after level, the stem rises seemingly forever. He moves to the foot of the capsule and looks out. The image assaults his mind.
Towers of glowing petals spiral up to incomprehensible heights, disappearing down into a dim murk like an underwater abyss.
His sight is blurred and warped, exaggerating the intensity of the vision. The sound of the plant is like the sound of the ocean heard from inside the belly of Leviathan.
From above, a machine drops directly in front of Neo. He swallows his scream as it seems to stare at him. It is almost insect-like in its design; beautiful housings of alloyed metal covering organic-like systems of hard and soft polymers.
The machine seizes hold of Neo, paralyzing him as the cable lock at the back of his neck spins and opens.
The cable disengages itself. A long clear plastic needle and cerebrum-chip slides from the anterior of Neo's skull with an ooze of blood and spinal fluid. The other connective hoses snap free and snake away as the machine lets Neo go.
Suddenly, the back of the unit opens and a tremendous vacuum, like an airplane door opening, sucks the gelatin and then Neo into a black hole.
------------------------------
[031] INT. WASTE LINE
The pipe is a waste disposal system and Neo falls, sliding with the clot of gelatin. Banking through pipe spirals and elbows, flushing up through grease traps clogged with oily clumps of cellulite.
------------------------------
[032] INT. SEWER MAIN
Neo begins to drown when he is suddenly snatched from the flow of waste.
The metallic cable then lifts, pulling him up into the belly of the futuristic flying machine hovering inside the sewer main.
------------------------------
[033] INT. HOVERCRAFT
The metal harness opens and drops the half-conscious Neo onto the floor. Human hands and arms help him up as he finds himself looking straight at Morpheus.
He smiles.
MORPHEUS
Welcome to the real world, Neo.
Neo passes out.
FADE TO BLACK.
------------------------------
[034] INT. HOVERCRAFT
We have no sense of time. We hear voices whispering.
MORPHEUS
We've done it, Trinity. We found him.
TRINITY
I hope you're right.
MORPHEUS
I don't have to hope it. I know it.
Neo's eyes flutter open. We see Morpheus' face above us, angelic in the fluorescent glow of a light stick.
NEO (O.S.)
... am I dead?
MORPHEUS
Far from it.
FADE TO BLACK.
------------------------------
[035] INT. HOVERCRAFT - INFIRMARY
He opens his eyes again, something tingling through him. He focuses and sees his body pierced with dozens of acupuncture-like needles wired to a strange device.
DOZER
He still needs a lot of work.
DOZER and Morpheus are operating on Neo.
NEO
What are you doing?
MORPHEUS
Your muscles have atrophied. We're rebuilding them.
Fluorescent light sticks burn unnaturally bright.
NEO
Why do my eyes hurt?
MORPHEUS
You've never used them before.
Morpheus closes Neo's eyes and Neo lays back.
MORPHEUS
Rest, Neo. The answers are coming.
------------------------------
[036] INT. NEO'S ROOM
Neo wakes up from a deep sleep, feeling better. He begins to examine himself. There is a futuristic IV plugged into the jack in his forearm. He pulls it out, staring at the grafted outlet.
He runs his hand over the short hair now covering his head. His fingers find and explore the large outlet in the base of his skull.
Just as he starts to come unglued, Morpheus opens the door.
NEO
Morpheus, what's happened to me? What is this place?
MORPHEUS
More important than what is when?
NEO
When?
MORPHEUS
You believe the year is 1997 when in fact it is much closer to 2197.
I can't say for certain what year it is because we honestly do not know.
The wind is knocked from Neo's chest.
MORPHEUS
There is no reason for me to try to explain it when I can simply show it. Come with me.
------------------------------
[037] INT. HOVERCRAFT
Like a sleepwalker, Neo follows Morpheus through the ship.
MORPHEUS
This is my ship, the Nebuchadnezzar. It's a hovercraft. Small like a submarine.
It's cramped and cold. But it's home.
They climb a ladder up to the main deck.
------------------------------
[038] INT. MAIN DECK
Everyone is there.
MORPHEUS
This is the main deck. You know most of my crew.
Trinity smiles and nods.
MORPHEUS
The ones you don't know. That's Mouse, Cypher, and Switch. Those two guys are Tank and Dozer.
The names and faces wash meaninglessly over Neo.
MORPHEUS
And this, this is the Core. This is where we broadcast our pirate signal and hack into the Matrix.
It is a swamp of bizarre electronic equipment. Vines of coaxial hang and snake to and from huge monolithic battery slabs, a black portable satellite dish and banks of life systems and computer monitors.
At the center of the web, there are six ecto-skeleton chairs made of a poly-alloy frame and suspension harness. Near the circle of chairs is the control console and operator's station where the network is monitored.
MORPHEUS
You want to know what the Matrix is, Neo? The answer is right here.
He touches the back of Neo's head.
MORPHEUS
Help him, Trinity.
Neo allows himself to be helped into one of the chairs. He feels Morpheus guiding a coaxial line into the jack at the back of his neck. The cable has the same kind of cerebrum chip we saw inside the plant.
MORPHEUS
This will feel a little weird.
There are several disturbing noises as he works the needle in.
We move in as Neo's shoulders bunch and his face tightens into a grimace until a loud click fires and his ears pop like when you equalize them underwater.
He relaxes, opening his eyes as we pull back to a feeling of weightlessness inside another place--
------------------------------
[039] INT. CONSTRUCT
Neo is standing in an empty, blank-white space.
MORPHEUS
This is the Construct.
Startled, Neo whips around and finds Morpheus now in the room with him.
MORPHEUS
It is our loading program. We can load anything from clothes, to weapons, to training simulations.
Anything we need.
Morpheus walks past Neo and when Neo turns he sees the two leather chairs from the Hotel Lafayette set up in front of a large-screen television.
MORPHEUS
Sit down.
Neo stands at the back of the chair as Morpheus sits.
NEO
Right now, we're inside a computer program?
Morpheus smiles.
MORPHEUS
Is it so hard to believe? Your clothes are different, the plugs in your arms and head are gone.
Look at your hair, you were bald a moment ago.
Neo touches his head.
MORPHEUS
It's what we call residual self image. The mental projection of your electronic self. Wild, isn't it?
Neo's hands run over the cracked leather.
NEO
This-- This isn't real?
MORPHEUS
What is real? How do you define real?
If you're talking about what you feel, taste, smell, or see,
then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.
He picks up a remote control and clicks on the television. On the television, we see images of the twentieth century city where Neo lived.
MORPHEUS
This is the world you know. The world as it was at the end of the Twentieth Century.
It exists now only as part of a neural-interactive simulation that we call the Matrix.
He changes the channel and we see a very different city as we enter the television.
MORPHEUS
You have been living inside a dreamworld, Neo.
As in Baudrillard's vision, your whole life has been spent inside the map, not the territory.
This is the world as it exists today.
In the distance, we see the ruins of a future city protruding from the wasteland like the blackened ribs of a long-dead corpse.
MORPHEUS
The desert of the real.'
Beneath us, the water is gone.
We turn and descend, spiraling down toward the lake bed which is scorched and split like burnt flesh, where we find Morpheus and Neo. Neo clings to the chair, trying to get his bearings.
MORPHEUS
We have only bits and pieces of information.
What we know for certain is that, at some point in the early Twenty-first Century,
all of mankind was united in celebration.
Through the blinding inebriation of hubris, we marveled at our magnificence as we gave birth to A.I.
NEO
A.I.? You mean artificial intelligence?
MORPHEUS
Yes. A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines.
I must say I find it almost funny to imagine the world slapping itself on the back, toasting the new age.
I say almost funny.
He looks up and his sunglasses reflect the obsidian clouds roiling overhead.
MORPHEUS
We don't know who struck first. Us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky.
At the time, they were dependent on solar power.
It was believed they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun.
As we descend into the circular window of his glasses, there is a flash of lightning.
MORPHEUS
Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive.
Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.
------------------------------
[040] EXT. FETUS FIELDS
On the flash, we pull back from the darkness which reveals itself to be the black eye of a fetus.
MORPHEUS
The Machines discovered a new form of fusion.
All they needed was a small electrical charge to initiate the reaction.
The fetus is suspended in a placenta-like husk, where its malleable skull is already growing around the brain-jack.
MORPHEUS
The human body generates more bioelectricity than a 120-volt battery
and over 25,000 B.T.U.'s of body heat.
The husk hanging from a stalk is plucked by a thresher- like farm machine.
MORPHEUS
There are fields, endless fields where human beings are no longer born; we are grown.
We rise up, the field stretching in every direction to the horizon, lightning tearing open the sky as a harvester sweeps past us.
------------------------------
[A040] INT. POWER PLANT
From the yawning black of the waste port, we begin to pull back as it snaps shut. Red amniotic gel flows into the pod below us, pooling around a tiny newborn that suckles its feed tube.
MORPHEUS
For the longest time, I wouldn't believe it.
But then I saw the fields with my own eyes,
watched them liquify the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living and standing there,
facing the efficiency, the pure, horrifying precision, I came to realize the obviousness of the truth.
Still pulling back, we see the image of the power plant now on the television as we return to the white space of the construct.
------------------------------
[041] INT. CONSTRUCT
Morpheus steps into view as he clicks off the television.
MORPHEUS
What is the Matrix? Control.
He opens the back of the television remote control.
MORPHEUS
The Matrix is a computer-generated dreamworld built to keep us under control
in order to change a human being into this.
He holds up a coppertop battery.
NEO
No! I don't believe it! It's not possible!
MORPHEUS
I didn't say that it would be easy, Neo. I just said that it would be the truth.
NEO
Stop! Let me out! I want out!
------------------------------
[042] INT. MAIN DECK
His eyes snap open and he thrashes against the chair, trying to rip the cable from the back of his neck.
NEO
Get this thing out of me!
TRINITY
Easy, Neo. Easy.
Dozer holds him while Trinity unlocks it. Once it's out, he tears away from them, falling as he trips free of the harness.
NEO
Don't touch me! Get away from me!
On his hands and knees, he reels as the world spins. Sweat pours off him as a pressure builds inside his skull as if his brain had been put into a centrifuge.
NEO
I don't believe it! I don't believe it!
CYPHER
He's going to pop!
Vomiting violently, Neo pitches forward and blacks out.
------------------------------
[043] INT. NEO'S ROOM
He blinks, regaining consciousness. The room is dark. Neo is stretched out on his bed.
NEO
I can't go back, can I?
Morpheus is sitting like a shadow on a chair in the far corner.
MORPHEUS
No. But if you could, would you really want to?
Deep down, Neo knows that answer.
MORPHEUS
I feel that I owe you an apology.
There is a rule that we do not free a mind once it reaches a certain age.
It is dangerous. They have trouble letting go.Their mind turns against them.
I've seen it happen. I'm sorry. I broke the rule because I had to.
He stares into the darkness, confessing as much to himself as to Neo.
MORPHEUS
When the Matrix was first built there was a man born inside that
had the ability to change what he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit.
It was this man that freed the first of us and taught us the truth;
as long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free.
He pauses.
MORPHEUS
When he died, the Oracle prophesied his return
and envisioned that his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix,
an end to the war and freedom for our people.
That is why there are those of us that have spent our entire lives searching the Matrix,
looking for him.
Neo can feel his eyes on him.
MORPHEUS
I did what I did because I believe the search is over.
He stands up.
MORPHEUS
Get some rest. You're going to need it.
NEO
For what?
MORPHEUS
Your training.
------------------------------
[044] INT. HOVERCRAFT
There is no morning; there is only darkness and then the fluorescent light sticks flicker on.
------------------------------
[045] INT. NEO'S ROOM
Neo is awake in his bed, staring up at the lights. The door opens and TANK steps inside.
TANK
Morning. Did you sleep?
NEO
No.
TANK
You will tonight. I guarantee it. I'm Tank. I'll be your operator.
He offers his hand and Neo shakes it. He notices that Tank doesn't have any jacks.
NEO
You don't have...
TANK
Any holes? Nope.
Me and my brother Dozer, we are 100 percent pure, old-fashioned, home-grown human.
Born free. Right here in the real world. Genuine child of Zion.
NEO
Zion?
TANK
If this war ended tomorrow, Zion is where the party would be.
NEO
It's a city?
TANK
The last human city. The only place we got left.
NEO
Where is it?
TANK
Deep underground. Near the earth's core, where it's still warm.
You live long enough, you might even see it.
Tank smiles.
TANK
Goddamn, I got to tell you, I'm fairly excited to see what you are capable of.
I mean if Morpheus is right and all.
We're not supposed to talk about any of that but if you are, well then this is an exciting time.
We got a lot to do, so let's get to it.
------------------------------
[046] INT. MAIN DECK
Neo is plugged in, hanging in one of the suspension chairs.
TANK
We're supposed to load all these operations programs first, but this is some major boring shit.
Why don't we start with something a little fun?
Tank smiles as he plops into his operator's chair. He begins flipping through a tall carousel loaded with micro discs.
TANK
How about some combat training?
Neo reads the label on the disk.
NEO
Jujitsu? I'm going to learn jujitsu?
Tank slides the disk into Neo's supplement drive.
NEO
No way.
Smiling, Tank punches the "load" code. His body jumps against the harness as his eyes clamp shut. The monitors kick wildly as his heart pounds, adrenaline surges, and his brain sizzles. An instant later his eyes snap open.
NEO
Holy shit!
TANK
Hey, Mikey, he likes it! Ready for more?
NEO
Hell yes!
------------------------------
[047] INT. MAIN DECK
Close on a computer monitor as grey pixels slowly fill a small, half-empty box. It is a meter displaying how much download time is left. The title bar reads: "Combat Series 10 of 12," file categories flashing beneath it: "Savate, Jujitsu, Ken Po, Drunken Boxing..."
Morpheus walks in.
MORPHEUS
How is he?
TANK
Ten hours straight. He's a machine.
Neo's body spasms and relaxes as his eyes open, breath hissing from his lips. He looks like he just orgasmed.
NEO
This is incredible. I know kung fu.
MORPHEUS
Show me.
------------------------------
[048] INT. DOJO
They are standing in a very sparse Japanese-style dojo.
MORPHEUS
This is a sparring program, similar to the programmed reality of the Matrix.
It has the same basic rules. Rules like gravity.
What you must learn is that these rules are no different than the rules of a computer system.
Some of them can be bent. Others can be broken. Understand?
Neo nods as Morpheus assumes a fighting stance.
MORPHEUS
Then hit me, if you can.
Neo assumes a similar stance, cautiously circling until he gives a short cry and launches a furious attack.
It is like a Jackie Chan movie at high speed, fists and feet striking from every angle as Neo presses his attack, but each and every blow is blocked by effortless speed.
------------------------------
[049] INT. MAIN DECK
While their minds battle in the programmed reality, the two bodies appear quite serene, suspended in the drive chairs.
Tank monitors their Life Systems, noticing that Neo is wildly and chaoti
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