The Matrix: Chapter Seven: Getting the Bug Out

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.

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.

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
ëtwenty 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.

EXT. DARK STREET

A moment later the green street lights
curve over the car's tinted windshield
as it rushes through the wet
underworld.

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.

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.

The Matrix: Chapter Eight: Morpheus’ Proposal

EXT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE

The car stops in a deserted alley
behind a forgotten hotel.

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.

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.


The Matrix: Chapter Nine: Down the Rabbit Hole

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.

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.

The Matrix: Chapter Ten: Slimy Rebirth

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.

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.

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.

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.


The Matrix: Chapter Eleven: Nebuchadnezzar’s Crew

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Matrix: Chapter Twelve: The Real World

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--

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.