1

Neo opens the door, and walks in to see a dark figure staring out of the
window. He turns and smiles at Neo.

Morpheus : At last. Welcome, Neo. As you no doubt have guessed, I am

Morpheus.

Neo : It's an honour to meet you.

Morpheus : No, the honour is mine....Please, come, sit.

Neo sits down in the armchair.

Morpheus : I imagine that right now you're feeling a bit like Alice...

Neo : .....?

Morpheus : Tumbling down the rabbit hole? Hmm?

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.

Ironically, this is not far from the truth....

Morpheus sits down in the armchair opposite from Neo

Morpheus : Do you believe in fate, Neo?

Neo : No.

Morpheus : Why?

Neo : Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my

own life.

Morpheus : I know..._exactly_ what you mean. Let me tell you why you're

here. You're here because you know something. What you know,

you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your

entire life. That there's something _wrong_ with the world.

You don't know what it is, but it's there...like a splinter

 2

in you're mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has

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 nods

Morpheus : The Matrix is everywhere. It's all around us, even in this

very room. You can see it when you look out your window or

when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you

go to work, when you go to work, when you pay your taxes.

The Matrix 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, born into a prison that you cannot smell or

taste or touch. A prison...for your mind....Unfortunatly,

no one can be..._told_ what the Matrix is...you have to see

it for yourself.

Morpheus opens a container which holds two pills : a blue one, and a red
one. He puts one in each hand, and holds them out to Neo.

Morpheus : This is your _last chance_. After this, there is no turning

back.....You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up

and belive...whatever you want to believe. You take the red

pill.....you stay in wonderland...and I show you just how

deep the rabbit hole goes.

 3

Neo pauses for an instant, then reaches for the red pill. He swallows it
down with a glass of water, and looks at Morpheus.

Morpheus : Remember...all I'm offering you is the truth : nothing

more.

Morpheus half smiles at Neo.

Morpheus : Follow me.....

They walk through double doors into a room with computer terminals and
other machines. Morpheus speaks to Apoc

Morpheus : Apoc, are we online?

Apoc : Almost...

Trinity and Apoc are busy wiring a complex system of monitors, modules
and drives.

Morpheus : Time is always against us. Please, take a seat there.

Morpheus gestures towards another arm chair. Neo cautiously sits down,
still looking at all the computer terminals and wires.

Neo : You did all this?

Trinity : Uh huh.

Morpheus : The pill you took is part of a tracing program. It's

designed to disrupt your input/output carrier signals so we

can pinpoint your location.

Neo looks confused.

Neo : What does that mean?

Cypher looks up from his computer terminal.

Cypher : It means, Buckle your seat belt Dorothy...'cause Kansas...is

going bye-bye.

As Neo looks at an old cracked dressing mirror nearby, it appears to show

his image twice. As he stares at it, he speaks to Morpheus
 4

Neo : Did you....?

Morpheus ignores his question

Morpheus : Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was

real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How

would you know the difference, between the dream world...and

the real world....?

As Neo curiously reaches out to touch the mirror, it wobbles, and appears
to stick to his hand.

Neo : This can't be....

Morpheus : Be what? Be _real_?

As Neo pulls away, the strands thin like rubber cement as he pulls away,
until the fragile wisps of mirror break, and only a tiny fragment of the liquid
is left. He looks at it, and it begins to consume his hand, crawling up his
arm. He squirms.

Trinity : It's going into replication!

Morpheus : Apoc?

Apoc : Still nothing...

The liquid has covered all of Neo's right arm by now, and works it's way up
his shoulder to his neck

Neo : It's cold!! It's cold!...

Morpheus takes out a cellular phone, and dials a number

Morpheus : Tank, we're going to need a signal soon.

Neo begins to panic, as he tips his head up as if he's sinking into the
mirror, trying to keep his mouth up.

Trinity : We've got a fibrillation!

Morpheus : Apoc! Location!

Apoc : Targeting, almost there!

 5

By now Neo is almost totally consumed by the liquid, squirming as it

works it way up his face.

Trinity : He's going into arrest!

Apoc : LOCK, I got him!

Morpheus : Now, Tank! Now!

The mirror liquid pours down Neo's throat, as he screams, and we travel down
his throat with it, and then get swallowed by total darkness.

We emerge in a cocoon filled with a red gelatin-like liquid. Neo is attached to the
sides of it by wires, tubes. He struggles, air bubbles into the gelatine, but does
not break the surface. As he presses up, the surface distends, stretching like a
red rubber cocoon. Unable to breathe, he fights for stand, and eventually
ruptures the surface, creating a hole which he uses to gasp for air. Tearing
himself free,

he emerges from the cell. Neo is bald and naked, and covered in the gelatine.
He's dizzy, and unable to stand properly, as he waits for his vision to focus. He
is standing in an oval capsule of clear alloy filled with red gelatine. Tubes in his
arms are plugged to his flesh.

He feels the weight of another cable and reaches to the back of his head
where he finds an enormous tube plugged and locked into the base of his
skull. He tries to pull it out, but can't. To either side he sees other tube-shaped
pods filled with red gelatine; beneath the surface, pale and motionless, he
sees other human beings. All connected to a centre core, each capsule
attached to a black metal stem. He looks out. Towers of glowing petals . From
above, a machine drops directly in front of him. He swallows his scream as it
seems to stare at him. At the back of the neck, the cable lock spins and opens,
disengaging. The other connective hoses snap free .the back of the unit opens
and a tremendous vacuum, like an aeroplane door opening, sucks the gelatine
and then Neo into a black hole. The pipe is a waste disposal system, and Neo
falls, sliding down it, screaming his lungs out. He falls into water. As he begins
to drown, he is suddenly snatched up by a machine. The metallic cable
then lifts, pulling him up into a flying machine of some sort, as the doors
close (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, Trinity and Apoc, along with others he doesn't recognize. Morpheus
smiles, and speaks quietly to Neo.

Morpheus : Welcome to the real world....

 6

Neo passes out.

As he is unconscious, Morpheus and Trinity talk in hushed voices

Morpheus : ...We've done it, Trinity...we've found him.

Trinity : I hope you're right...

Morpheus : I don't _have_ to hope. I know it.

Neo wakes up later on, and looks at Trinity and Morpheus, who are
standing watching him.

Neo : ....Am I dead?

Morpheus : Far from it...

Neo passes out again.

Later on, he wakes up. He sees his body pierced with dozens of
acupuncture-like needles wired to a strange device.

Dozer: He still needs a lot of work.

Neo : What are you doing?

Morpheus : Your muscles have atrophied, we're rebuilding them.

Neo : Why do my eyes hurt?

Neo blinks

Morpheus : You've never used them before.

Neo looks confused

Morpheus : Rest, Neo, the answers are coming.

Neo passes out again. When he wakes up, he's lying on a bed in a room.

He begins to examine himself. He explores the large outlet in the base of

his skull. Just as it starts to come unglued, Morpheus opens the door and
walks in.

Neo : Morpheus, what's happened to me?

Morpheus : More important than 'what?' is _'when?'_

 7

Neo : When?

Morpheus : You believe that it is the year 1999, when in fact is

closer to _2199_. I can't tell you _exactly_ what year it

is, because we honestly don't know. There's nothing I can

see that will explain it for you, Neo...Come with me, see

for yourself.

Neo follows Morpheus rather unsteadily through the door.

Morpheus : This is my ship, the Nebuchadnezzar....

Morpheus gestures around him

Morpheus : It's a hovercraft. This is the main deck...This is the

core, where we broadcast our pirate signal, and...hack

into the Matrix.

They enter a room where the other people Neo has met are all standing, or
sitting at computer terminals.

Morpheus : Most of my crew, you already know.

Trinity nods and smiles

Morpheus : This is Apoc, Switch, and Cypher.

Cypher smiles

Cypher : Hi.

Morpheus : The ones you don't know, Tank, and his big brother,

Dozer...The little one behind you is Mouse.

Mouse smiles at Neo and waves slightly shyly

Morpheus looks at him, then turns back to Neo.

Morpheus : You wanted to know...what the Matrix is, Neo?

Neo nods unsteadily

 8

Morpheus nods to Trinity

Morpheus : Trinity...

Trinity approaches Neo, and helps him into an armchair, strapping in his
feet, and leaning his head back against the head rest.

Morpheus looks at Neo

Morpheus : Try to relax...this will feel....a little _weird_.

As Morpheus guides a coaxial line into the jack at the back of his neck,
Neo screams and makes a few other disturbing noises.

When he opens his eyes, he is standing in a totally white place. His hair is
back, and he is wearing different clothes.

As Neo spins around a bit, trying to see what's going on, Morpheus
appears in front of him.

Morpheus : This is the construct. It is our loading program. We can

load anything from clothing, to equipment, weapons,

training simulations, anything we need.

Neo is having a hard time getting a grasp of this.

Neo : Right now....we're inside a computer program?

Morpheus : Is it really so hard to belive? Your clothes are

different. The plugs in your arms and head are gone. Your

hair has changed.

Neo puts a hand to his head and touches his hair

Morpheus : Your appearance now is what we call residual self image.

It is the mental projection...of your digital self.

Two chairs appear in front of them, and Neo reaches out to touch one. He
runs his hand along it's back.

Neo : This....this isn't real?

Morpheus looks at him

 9

Morpheus : What _is_ real? How do you _define_ real? If you're

talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what

you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical

signals interpreted by your brain.

A television appears in front of the two chairs, as Neo sits down in the
chair beside Morpheus. Morpheus picks up the television control and
turns it on.

Morpheus : _This_ is the world that 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.

Morpheus turns to Neo

Morpheus : You've been living in a dream world, Neo. This...is the

world as it exists today.

Morpheus changes the channel on the televison.

The sky is an endless sea of black and green bile. The earth, scorched and
split like burnt flesh, spreads out beneath us as we enter the television.

Morpheus : Welcome.....to the desert of the real...We have only bits

and pieces of information, but what we know for certain is

that some point in the early twenty-first century all of

mankind was united in celebration. We marvelled at our own

magnificence....

Neo looks confused

Morpheus : .....as we gave birth...to A.I.

Neo : A.I. - you mean Artificial Intelligence?

Morpheus : A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of

 10

machines. We don't know who struck first - us, or them. But

we know it was us that scorched the sky. At the time they

were dependent on solar power and it was believed that

they would be unable to survive without an energy source as

abundant as the sun. Throughout human history, we have been

dependent on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not

without a sense of irony.

Neo stares at Morpheus, with his mouth open.

Morpheus : The human generates more bio-electricity than 120-volt

battery and over 25,000 BTVs of body heat. Combined with

a form of fusion, the machines have found all the energy

they would ever need. There are fields...endless fields,

were human beings are no longer born. We are grown. For

longest time, I wouldn't belive it...and then I saw the

fields with my own eyes. Watch them liquefy the dead, so

they could be fed intravenously to the living. And standing

there, facing the pure horrifying precision, I came to

realize the obviousness of the truth. What is The Matrix?

Control. The Matrix is a computer generated dream world,

built to keep us under control in order to change a human

being into this.

Morpheus holds up a battery to Neo

Neo begins to panic.

Neo : No....I don't belive it!! It's not possible.

 11

Morpheus : I didn't say it would be easy, Neo. I just said it would be

the truth.

Neo : Noooo!! Stop!! Let me out!! I want out!!

His eyes snap open and he thrashes against the chair, trying to rip the
cable from the back of his neck. Trinity tries to calm him down.

Trinity : Easy, Neo. Easy...

Neo : Take this thing off me!! Take this thing..

Morpheus : Listen to me...

Neo : Don't touch me! Stay away from me! I don't want it, I don't

believe it!!

Cypher rolls his eyes at Neo as he tries to get up out the chair.

Cypher : He's gonna pop.

Neo gets up out the chair, and as he is dizzy, staggers about the room a
bit, eventually falling onto the ground.

Morpheus : Breathe, Neo. Just breathe...

Neo throws up on the floor and passes out.

He wakes up later, in his room.

Morpheus is sitting beside him.

Neo sits up slowly and looks at him.

Neo : I can't go back, can I?

Morpheus : No, but if you could, would you really want to?

Neo isn't sure, so decides not to say anything.

Morpheus : I feel I owe you an apology. We have a rule...we never free

a mind once it reaches a certain age. It's dangerous, and

the mind has trouble letting go. I've seen it before, and
 12

I'm sorry. I did what I did, because...I had to.

Neo listens

Morpheus : When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside

who had the ability to change whatever he wanted, to remake

the Matrix as he saw fit. It was he who freed the first of

us, taught us the truth : 'As long as the Matrix exists, the

human race will never be free.' After he died, the Oracle

prophesied his return, and that his coming would hail the

destruction of the Matrix, end the war, bring freedom to

our people. That is why there are those of us who have spent

our entire _lives_ searching the Matrix, looking for him. I

did what I did because...I belive that search is over.