6926 lines
141 KiB
Plaintext
6926 lines
141 KiB
Plaintext
**********************************
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******cany0umatrix present's******
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**********************************
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THE MATRIX
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Written by
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Larry and Andy Wachowski
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April 8, 1996
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FADE IN ON:
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COMPUTER SCREEN
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So close it has no boundaries.
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A blinking cursor pulses in the electric darkness like a
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heart coursing with phosphorous light, burning beneath
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the derma of black-neon glass.
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A PHONE begins to RING, we hear it as though we were
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making the call. The cursor continues to throb,
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relentlessly patient, until --
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MAN (V.O.)
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Hello?
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Data now slashes across the screen, information flashing
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faster than we read.
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SCREEN
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Call trans opt: received.
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2-19-96 13:24:18 REC:Log>
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WOMAN (V.O.)
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I'm inside. Anything to report?
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We listen to the phone conversation as though we were on
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a third line. The man's name is CYPHER. The woman,
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TRINITY.
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CYPHER (V.O.)
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Let's see. Target left work at
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5:01 PM.
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SCREEN
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Trace program: running.
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The entire screen fills with racing columns of numbers.
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Shimmering like green-electric rivets, they rush at a 10-
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digit phone number in the top corner.
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CYPHER (V.O.)
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He caught the northbound Howard
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line. Got off at Sheridan.
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Stopped at 7-11. Purchased six-
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pack of beer and a box of Captain
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Crunch. Returned home.
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The area code is identified. The first three numbers
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suddenly fixed, leaving only seven flowing columns.
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We begin MOVING TOWARD the screen, CLOSING IN as each
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digit is matched, one by one, snapping into place like
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the wheels of a slot machine.
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TRINITY (V.O.)
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All right, you're relieved. Use
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the usual exit.
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CYPHER (V.O.)
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Do you know when we're going to
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make contact?
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TRINITY
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Soon.
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Only two thin digits left.
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CYPHER (V.O.)
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Just between you and me, you don't
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believe it, do you? You don't
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believe this guy is the one?
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TRINITY (V.O.)
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I think Morpheus believes he is.
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CYPHER (V.O.)
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I know. But what about you?
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TRINITY (V.O.)
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I think Morpheus knows things that
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I don't.
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CYPHER (V.O.)
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Yeah, but if he's wrong --
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The final number pops into place --
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TRINITY (V.O.)
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Did you hear that?
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CYPHER (V.O.)
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Hear what?
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SCREEN
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Trace complete. Call origin:
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#312-555-0690
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TRINITY (V.O.)
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Are you sure this line is clean?
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CYPHER (V.O.)
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Yeah, course I'm sure.
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We MOVE STILL CLOSER, the ELECTRIC HUM of the green
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numbers GROWING INTO an OMINOUS ROAR.
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TRINITY (V.O.)
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I better go.
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CYPHER (V.O.)
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Yeah. Right. See you on the other side.
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She hangs up as we PASS THROUGH the numbers, entering the
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netherworld of the computer screen.
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Where gradually the sound of a police radio grows around
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us.
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RADIO (V.O.)
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Attention all units. Attention
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all units.
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Suddenly, a flashlight cuts open the darkness and we find
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ourselves in --
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INT. CHASE HOTEL - NIGHT
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The hotel was abandoned after a fire licked its way
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across the polyester carpeting, destroying several rooms
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as it spooled soot up the walls and ceiling leaving
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patterns of permanent shadow.
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We FOLLOW four armed POLICE officers using flashlights as
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they creep down the blackened hall and ready themselves
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on either side of room 303.
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The biggest of them violently kicks in the door --
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The other cops pour in behind him, guns thrust before
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them.
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BIG COP
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Police! Freeze!
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The room is almost devoid of furniture. There is a fold-
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up table and chair with a phone, a modern, and a powerbook
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computer. The only light in the room is the glow of the
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computer.
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Sitting there, her hands still on the keyboard, is
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TRINITY; a woman in black leather.
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BIG COP
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Get your hands behind your head!
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Trinity rises.
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BIG COP
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Hands behind your head! Now! Do
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it!
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She slowly puts her hands behind her head.
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EXT. CHASE HOTEL - NIGHT
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A black sedan with tinted windows glides in through the
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police cruisers.
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AGENT SMITH and AGENT BROWN get out of the car.
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They wear dark suits and sunglasses even at night. They
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are also always hardwired; small Secret Service earphones
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in one ear, its cord coiling back into their shirt
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collars.
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AGENT SMITH
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Lieutenant?
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LIEUTENANT
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Oh shit.
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AGENT SMITH
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Lieutenant, you were given
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specific orders --
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LIEUTENANT
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I'm just doing my job. You gimme
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that Juris-my dick-tion and you
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can cran it up your ass.
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AGENT SMITH
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The orders were for your protection.
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The Lieutenant laughs.
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LIEUTENANT
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I think we can handle one little
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girl.
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Agent Smith nods to Agent Brown as they start toward the
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hotel.
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LIEUTENANT
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I sent two units. They're
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bringing her down now.
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AGENT SMITH
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No, Lieutenant, your men are dead.
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INT. CHASE HOTEL
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The Big Cop flicks out his cuffs, the other cops holding
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a bead. They've done this a hundred times, they know
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they've got her, until the Big Cop reaches with the cuff
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and Trinity moves --
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It almost doesn't register, so smooth and fast, inhumanly
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fast.
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The eye blinks and Trinity's palm. snaps up and the nose
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explodes, blood erupting. The cop is dead before he
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begins to fall.
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And Trinity is moving again --
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Seizing a wrist, misdirecting a gun, as a startled cop
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FIRES --
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A head explodes.
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In blind panic, another airs his gun, the barrel, a fixed
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black hole --
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And FIRES --
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Trinity twists out of the way, the bullet missing as she
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reverses into a roundhouse kick, knocking the gun away.
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The cop begins to scream when a jump kick crushes his
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windpipe, killing the scream as he falls to the ground.
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She looks at the four bodies.
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TRINITY
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Shit.
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EXT. CHASE HOTEL
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Agent Brown enters the hotel, while Agent Smith heads for
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the alley.
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INT. CHASE HOTEL
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Trinity is on the phone, pacing. The other end is
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answered.
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MAN (V.O.)
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Operator.
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TRINITY
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Morpheus! The link was traced! I
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don't know how.
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MORPHEUS (V.O.)
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I know. Stay calm.
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TRINITY
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Are there any agents?
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MORPHEUS (V.O.)
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Yes.
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TRINITY
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Goddamnit!
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MORPHEUS (V.O.)
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You have to focus. There is a
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phone. Wells and Laxe. You can
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make it.
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She takes a deep breath, centering herself.
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TRINITY
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All right --
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MORPHEUS (V.O.)
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Go.
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She drops the phone.
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INT. HALL
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She bursts out of the room as Agent Brown enters the hall,
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leading another unit of police. Trinity races to the
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opposite end, exiting through a broken window onto the
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fire escape.
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EXT. FIRE E5CAPE
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In the alley below, Trinity sees Agent Smith staring at
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her. She can only go up.
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EXT. ROOF
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On the roof, Trinity is running as Agent Brown rises over
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the parapet, leading the cops in pursuit.
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Trinity begins to jump from one roof to the next, her
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moverents so clean, gliding in and out of each jump,
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contrasted to the wild jumps of the cops.
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Agent Brown, however, has the same unnatural grace.
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The METAL SCREAM of an EL TRAIN is heard and Trinity
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turns to it, racing for the back of the building.
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The edge falls away into a wide back alley. The next
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building is over 40 feet away, but Trinity's face is
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perfectly calm, staring at some point beyond the other
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roof.
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The cops slow, realizing they are about to see something
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ugly as Trinity drives at the edge, launching herself
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into the air.
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From above, the ground seems to flow beneath her as she
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hangs in flight
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Then hitting, somersaulting up, still running hard.
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COP
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Motherfucker -- that's impossible!
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They stare, slack-jawed, as Agent Brown duplicates the
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move exactly, landing, rolling over a shoulder, up onto
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one knee.
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Just below the building are the runbling tracks of
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riveted steel. The TRAIN SCREECHES beneath her, a
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rattling blur of gray metal. Trinity junps, landing
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easily.
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She looks back just as Agent Brown hurls through the air
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barely reaching the last car
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Agent Brown stands, yanking out a gun.
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Trinity is running hard as BULLETS WHISTLE past her head.
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Ahead she sees her only chance, 50 feet beyond the point
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where the train has begun to turn, there is --
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A window; a yellow glow in the midst of a dark brick
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building.
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Trinity zeroes in on it, running as hard as she can, her
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speed compounded by the train. The SCREAM of the STEEL
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rises as she nears the edge where the train rocks into the
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turn.
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Trinity hurtles into the empty night space, her body
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leveling into a dive. She falls, arms covering her head
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as --
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The whole world seems to spin on its axis --
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And she crashes with an EXPLOSION of GLASS and WOOD, then
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falls onto a back stairwell, tumbling, bouncing down
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stairs bleeding, broken --
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But still alive.
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Through the smashed window, she glimpses Agent Brown,
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still on the train, his tie and coat whipping in the
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wind; stone-faced, he touches his ear piece as the train
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slides him past the window.
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Trinity tries to move. Everything hurts.
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TRINITY
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Get up, Trinity. You're fine.
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Get up -- just get up!
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She stands and limps down the rest of the stairs.
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EXT. STREET
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Trinity emerges from the shadows of an alley and, at the
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end of the block, in a pool of white street light, she
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sees it.
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The telephone booth.
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Obviously hurt, she starts down the concrete walk,
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focusing in completely, her pace quickening, as the PHONE
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begins to RING.
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Across the street, a garbage truck suddenly u-turns, its
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TIRES SCREAMING as it accelerates.
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Trinity sees the headlights on the truck arcing at the
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telephone booth as if taking aim.
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Gritting through the pain, she races the truck --
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Slamming into the booth, the headlights blindingly
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bright, bearing down on the box of Plexiglas just as --
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She answers the phone.
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There is a frozen instant of silence before the hulking
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mass of dark metal lurches up onto the sidewalk --
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Barreling through the booth, bulldozing it into a brick
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wall, smashing it to Plexiglas pulp.
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After a moment, a black loafer steps down from the cab of
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the garbage truck. Agent Smith inspects the wreckage.
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There is no body. Trinity is gone.
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His jaw sets as he grinds his molars in frustration.
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AGENT JONES walks up behind him.
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AGENT SMITH
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Did you get anything from the
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room?
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AGENT JONES
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Their next target. The name is
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Neo.
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The handset of the pay phone lays on the ground,
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separated in the crash like a severed limb.
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AGENT SMITH
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We'll need a search running.
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AGENT JONES
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It's already begun.
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We are SUCKED TOWARDS the mouthpiece of the phone, CLOSER
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and CLOSER, UNTIL the smooth gray plastic spreads out
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like a horizon and the small HOLES WIDEN until we fall
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through one --
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Swallowed by the darkness that becomes --
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A computer screen.
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We are on-line, inside a chat room called "The Matrix."
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It is an exklusive web-site where hackers hang out.
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SCREEN
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JACKON: I heard Morpheus has been
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on this board.
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SUPERASTIC: Morpheus doesn't even
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exist and the Matrix is nothing
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but an advertising gimmick 4 a new
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game.
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TIMAXE: All I want to know is
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Trinity really a girl?
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LODIII: 87% of all women on line
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are really men.
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QUARK: The Matrix is a euphemism
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for the government.
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SUPERASTIC: No, The Matrix is the
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system controlling our lives.
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TIMAXE: You mean MTV.
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SUPERASTIC: I mean Sega.
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FOS4: ALL HAIL SEGA!!!
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We drift back from the electric conversation entering --
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INT. NEO'S APARTMENT
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It is a studio apartirent that seems overgrown with
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technology.
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Weed-like cables coil everywhere, duct-taped into
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thickets that wind up and around the legs of several
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desks.
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Tabletops are filled with cannibalized equipment that lay
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open like an autopsied corpse.
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We turn towards the center of this rat-nest of
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technology, following the slurping and crunching of
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cereal. We pass an open box of Capln Crunch as we find --
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NEO, a younger man who knows more about living inside a
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computer than living outside one.
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NEO
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Fuckin' idiots don't know shit.
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He finishes his cereal and is about to disconnect when an
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anonynous message slices onto the screen.
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SCREEN
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Do you want to know what the
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Matrix is, Neo?
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Neo is frozen when he reads his name.
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SCREEN
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SUPERASTIC: Who said that?
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JACKON: Who's Neo?
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GIBSON: This is a private board.
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If you want to know, follow the
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white rabbit.
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NEO
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What the hell...
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SCREEN
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TIMAXE: Someone is hacking the
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hackers!
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FOS4: It's Morpheus!!!!!
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JACKON: Identify yourself.
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Knock, knock, Neo.
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A chill runs down his spine and when someone KNOCKS on
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his door he almost jumps out of his chair.
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He looks at the door, then back at the computer but the
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message is gone.
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He shakes his head, not completely sure what happened.
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Again, someone knocks.
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Cautiously, Neo approaches the door.
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VOICE (O.S.)
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Hey, Tommy-boy! You in there?
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Recognizing the voice, he relaxes and opens it. ANTHONY,
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who lives down the hall, is standing outside with a group
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of friends.
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NEO
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What do you want, Anthony?
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ANTHONY
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I need your help, man. Desperate.
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They got me, man. The shackles of
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fascism.
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He holds up the red notice that accompanies the Denver
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boot.
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NEO
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You got the money this time?
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He holds up two hundred dollars and Neo opens the door.
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Anthony's girlfriend, DUJOUR, stops in front of Neo.
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DUJOUR
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You can really get that thing off,
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right now?
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ANTHONY
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I told you, honey, he may look
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like just another geek but this
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here is all we got left standing
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between Big Brother and the New
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World Order.
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EXT. STREET
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A police officer unlocks a yellow metal boot from the
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wheel of an enormous oldsmobile.
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INT. NEO'S APARTMENT
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They watch from the window as the cops, silently,
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robotically, climb into their van.
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ANTHONY
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Look at 'em. Automatons. Don't
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think about what they're- doing or
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why. Computer tells 'em what to
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do and they do it.
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FRIEND #l
|
|
Thc banality of evil.
|
|
|
|
He slaps the money in Neo's hand.
|
|
|
|
ANTHONY
|
|
Thanks, neighbor.
|
|
|
|
DUJOUR
|
|
Why don't you come to the party
|
|
with us?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I don't know. I have to work
|
|
tomorrow.
|
|
|
|
DUJOUR
|
|
Come on. It'll be fun.
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. APARTMENT
|
|
|
|
An older Chicago 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 did you know that --
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
Kansas City 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 sorewhere 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 the board tonight.
|
|
That was your note, wasn't it?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
I had to gamble that you would see
|
|
and they wouldn't.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Who wouldn't?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
I can't explain everything to you.
|
|
I'm sure that it's all going to
|
|
seem very strange, but I brought
|
|
you here to warn you, Neo. You
|
|
are in a lot of danger.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What? Why?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
They're watching you. Something
|
|
happened and they found out about
|
|
you. Normally, if our target is
|
|
exposed we let it go. But this
|
|
time, we can't do that.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I don't understand --
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
You came here because you wanted
|
|
to know the answer to a hacker's
|
|
question.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
The Matrix. What is the Matrix?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Twelve years ago I met a man, a
|
|
great man, who said that no one
|
|
could be told the answer to that
|
|
question. That they had to see
|
|
it, to believe it.
|
|
|
|
Her body is against his; her lips very close to his ear.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
He told me that no one should look
|
|
for the answer unless they have to
|
|
because once you see it,
|
|
everything changes. Your life and
|
|
the world you live in will never
|
|
be the same. It's as if you wake
|
|
up one morning and the sky is
|
|
falling.
|
|
|
|
There is a hypnotic quality to her voice and Neo feels
|
|
the words like a drug, seeping into him.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
The truth is out there, Neo. It's
|
|
looking for you and it will find
|
|
you, if you want it to.
|
|
|
|
She takes hold of him with her eyes.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
That's all I can tell you right
|
|
now. Good-bye, Neo. And good
|
|
luck.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Wait. Who was it? Who was the
|
|
man?
|
|
|
|
She leans close, her lips alrost touching his ear as she
|
|
whispers.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
You know who.
|
|
|
|
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:
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. NEO'S APARTMENT
|
|
|
|
The sound is an ALARM CLOCK, slowly dragging Neo to
|
|
consciousness. He strains to read the clock face:
|
|
9:15 A.M.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Shitshitshit.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. SKYSCRAPER
|
|
|
|
The downtown office of CorTechs, a software development
|
|
company.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. CORTECHS OFFICE
|
|
|
|
The main offices are along each wall, the windows
|
|
overlooking downtown Chicago.
|
|
|
|
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 across the
|
|
surface of the glass.
|
|
|
|
RHINEHEART
|
|
You have a problem, Mr. Anderson.
|
|
You think that you're special.
|
|
You believe that somehow the rules
|
|
do not apply to you.
|
|
|
|
He stops, glancing over his glasses at Neo, who turns in
|
|
time.
|
|
|
|
RHINEHEART
|
|
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 a 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.
|
|
|
|
INT. NEO'S CUBICLE
|
|
|
|
The entire floor looks like a human honeycomb, with a
|
|
labyrinth of cubicles structured around a core of
|
|
elevators.
|
|
|
|
Neo slumps down into his chair. A TALL EMPLOYEE stands
|
|
up in the adjacent cubicle, leaning over the partition.
|
|
|
|
TALL EMPLOYEE
|
|
What did he say?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
If I was late again, I'm going to
|
|
be fired.
|
|
|
|
He smirks.
|
|
|
|
TALL EMPLOYEE
|
|
Well, it was nice working with
|
|
you.
|
|
|
|
Neo glares at him, as he sinks down.
|
|
|
|
VOICE (O.S.)
|
|
Thomas Anderson?
|
|
|
|
Neo turns and finds a FEDERAL EXPRESS MAN at his cubicle
|
|
door.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Yeah. That's me.
|
|
|
|
Neo signs the electronic pad and the Fedex guy hands him
|
|
the softpak.
|
|
|
|
FEDEX
|
|
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. This is Morpheus.
|
|
|
|
Neo's knees give and he falls into his chair.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
|
|
I had hoped for this conversation
|
|
to take place under less adverse
|
|
conditions, but you can never
|
|
count on hope, can you, Neo?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
... no.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
|
|
I've been watching you, Neo, and I
|
|
want to meet you. 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. Slowly. The elevator.
|
|
|
|
His head slowly peeks up over the partition.
|
|
|
|
At the elevator, he sees Agent Brown and Agent Jones
|
|
leading a group of cops. A female employee turns and
|
|
points out Neo's cubicle.
|
|
|
|
Neo ducks.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Holy fuckin' shit!
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
|
|
Yes.
|
|
|
|
One cop stays at the elevator, the others follow the
|
|
agents.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What the fuck 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 the tall 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.
|
|
|
|
The room is empty.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
|
|
Good. Now there is a window.
|
|
Open it.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
How do you know all this?
|
|
|
|
Morpheus laughs quietly.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
|
|
The answer is coming, Neo.
|
|
|
|
He opens the window. The window howls into the room.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
|
|
Outside, there's a scaffold. You
|
|
can use it to get to the roof.
|
|
|
|
Leaning out the window, he sees that the scaffold is
|
|
several offices away.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
No! It's too far away.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
|
|
There's a small 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.)
|
|
Don't be controlled by your fear,
|
|
Neo. 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.
|
|
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
I didn't do anything!
|
|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - CLOSE ON CAMERA MONITOR
|
|
|
|
A wide angle view of a white roon, where Neo is sitting at
|
|
a table alone.
|
|
|
|
We MOVE INTO the monitor, ENTERING the room as if the
|
|
monitor were a window.
|
|
|
|
At the same moment, the door opens and the agents enter.
|
|
|
|
Smith sits down across from Neo. A thick manila envelope
|
|
slaps down on the table between them.
|
|
|
|
Neo glances at 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 land lady
|
|
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, including the
|
|
unauthorized use of the D.M.V.
|
|
system for the removal of
|
|
automobile boots.
|
|
|
|
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 to the fact
|
|
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 can cram that file up your
|
|
Secret Service sphincter.
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith puts his glasses back on.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
You disappoint me, Mr. Anderson.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
You ain't seen nothing yet.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
The irony of your situation is
|
|
that you have no choice.
|
|
|
|
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 iy 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 trace of his
|
|
mouth is 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, become 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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
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 feels sick.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
|
|
I don't know what you are thinking
|
|
right now but I want you to
|
|
understand that I will not give up
|
|
on you until you give up on me.
|
|
|
|
Neo's throat cracks, dry as the Sahara.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
|
|
Do you still want to meet?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
... Yes.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
|
|
Take the Howard line south.
|
|
|
|
CLICK. He closes his eyes, unsure of what he has done.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. EL TRAIN
|
|
|
|
An EL TRAIN RAGES against its metal rails.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. TRAIN
|
|
|
|
It is three a.m., and the train carries the usual urban
|
|
night crawlers. Neo sits alone, eyes shifting, watching
|
|
everything nervously.
|
|
|
|
There is a METAL BANG and TRAIN CLATTER fills the car as
|
|
the door is opened.
|
|
|
|
Neo turns and sees a large man enter. He is wearing
|
|
sunglasses and a black leather jacket. His name is APOC
|
|
and he walks straight at Neo.
|
|
|
|
APOC
|
|
Come with me.
|
|
|
|
Neo stands just as the door at the opposite end opens and
|
|
two police officers rush in, drawing their guns.
|
|
|
|
Apoc grabs Neo, muscling him to the nearest exit. There
|
|
is no upcoming station.
|
|
|
|
Apoc yanks the emergency brake and the train buckles
|
|
against its own speed. The cops are thrown back. Neo
|
|
slams against the metal rail.
|
|
|
|
The doors open onto nothing and just when Neo regains his
|
|
balance, Apoc shoves him backwards --
|
|
|
|
He flies out from the train, arms windrilling as he falls
|
|
from, the raised tracks --
|
|
|
|
Hurtling towards a busy city street when, out of nowhere,
|
|
a truck races under him and --
|
|
|
|
He crashes into a large dumpster-bed filled with empty
|
|
boxes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. TRUCK BED
|
|
|
|
Still shaking his head, Neo realizes he is not alone. A
|
|
man named Cabie is aiming a big gun at him. Trinity is
|
|
next to him, talking into a cellular phone.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
We got him. Call the chop-shop.
|
|
|
|
She hangs up.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Listen to me, Neo. You have to,
|
|
trust us.
|
|
|
|
She tears off a long strip of black duct-tape and reaches
|
|
for his face.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What are you doing?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
This has to be done for your
|
|
protection and ours.
|
|
|
|
She seals his eyes shut with the tape.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
You can't understand right now,
|
|
but if you're not one of us,
|
|
you're one of them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. LOWER WACKER
|
|
|
|
A featureless black van glides up to a staircase that
|
|
curls down from the city's surface.
|
|
|
|
trinity guides the blind Neo down the steps. The back of
|
|
the van slaps open, revealing a young, skinny man who
|
|
looks to be still in his teens, wearing an outfit that is
|
|
a cross between a surgeon and a telephone repair man.
|
|
|
|
His name is GIZMO and he smiles lewdly at Trinity,
|
|
exposing his teeth that are wired with weird-looking
|
|
braces.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
Va va va voom. Still the hottest
|
|
software around.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Hello, Gizmo.
|
|
|
|
Neo hears the voices around him.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
This is really the guy? The guy
|
|
that Morpheus thinks --
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Yeah.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
But he's so old.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Are you going to help us or aren't
|
|
you?
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
Hacksaw. Load up the copper-top
|
|
and let's get the hell outta here.
|
|
|
|
Hacksaw is a huge man in a leather welder's apron. He
|
|
shoulders Neo and hauls him into the van.
|
|
|
|
A moment later the green lights of Lower Wacker curve
|
|
over the tinted windshield as the van rushes through the
|
|
underworld.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. VAN
|
|
|
|
The chop-shop is filled with electronic gadgets, wired to
|
|
meters and monitors. There are shelves lined with
|
|
medical supplies and rows of hanging tools, knives,
|
|
cleavers, and stainless steel clamps.
|
|
|
|
Neo is strapped down to an ambulance cart, listening
|
|
nervously as Gizmo gets to work.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
Okay, first we take a little look
|
|
under the hood.
|
|
|
|
He pulls up the goggles hanging at his neck and they
|
|
blink to life with tiny halogen lights and lenses irising
|
|
to varying levels of magnification.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
You're going to feel a little
|
|
prick.
|
|
|
|
He inserts acupuncture-like needles into Neo's lower
|
|
abdomen. The needles are wired to video monitors.
|
|
Hacksaw pilots the fiber-optic lens.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What are you doing?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
We think you're bugged. We can't
|
|
take you to Morpheus until you're
|
|
clean.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
There it is.
|
|
|
|
On a monitor, we see the bug nestled in among Neols large
|
|
intestines.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
Hit him with 10 ccs of local.
|
|
|
|
Hacksaw loads a hypodermic needle and pumps an anesthetic
|
|
around Neols navel.
|
|
|
|
Using a device that looks like a miniature speculum,
|
|
Gizmo inserts a knuckled dental pick. Typing into a
|
|
calculator keypad wired to the pick, he automates the
|
|
tip.
|
|
|
|
On the monitor, we watch it telescope out and the end
|
|
separate into a tiny hooked, metal claw.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.
|
|
|
|
The claw snags hold of the bug.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
Gotcha!
|
|
|
|
But the bug reacts violently. Neo screams as it wraps
|
|
itself around the soft tissue web of intestine.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
Shit.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
What's happening?
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
I don't know. They've never done
|
|
that before.
|
|
|
|
Neo writhes in pain.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
Hold him down.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Jesus! God!
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Do something!
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
I got it! Maybe we can stun it.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Are you crazy? That will kill
|
|
him.
|
|
|
|
We watch Neo, who can't see what they are talking about.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
It'll work. Come on, do it or
|
|
Hacksaw will.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Do what?
|
|
|
|
The instant he hears the word, he knows.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Clear.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Oh, shit --
|
|
|
|
The cry is frozen in his mouth as the paddles hit his
|
|
chest. Gizmo wrestles with the bug.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
Hit him again!
|
|
|
|
Again, the electricity convulses through him as Gizmo
|
|
yanks the speculum out.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
Got it!
|
|
|
|
Trinity touches Neo, who is just beginning to breathe.
|
|
She eases the tape off his eyes.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Neo, are you okay?
|
|
|
|
He nods.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
It's over. We got it.
|
|
|
|
Hanging from the claw pick is the inanimate metal wire-
|
|
tap.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
Nasty little bugger, ain't it?
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE
|
|
|
|
The van stops in a deserted alley behind a forgotten
|
|
hotel. The doors open and Trinity helps Neo get out.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Thanks for your help, Gizmo.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
I just hope the man knows what
|
|
he's doing.
|
|
|
|
She nods then climbs out of the van. Gizmo ogles the
|
|
tight leather pants.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
Goddamn, what I wouldn't give for
|
|
a copy of that software.
|
|
|
|
Trinity turns around.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Gizmo, you don't have the hardware
|
|
to handle this software.
|
|
|
|
He howls with adolescent laughter as the van pulls away.
|
|
Trinity turns to Neo.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Let's go. He's waiting.
|
|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
Please. Come. Sit.
|
|
|
|
He nods to Trinity.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Thank you, Trinity.
|
|
|
|
She bows her head sharply and 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 are here because you have the
|
|
gift.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What gift?
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
I've watched you, Neo. You do not
|
|
use a computer like a tool. You
|
|
use it like it was part of
|
|
yourself. What you can do inside
|
|
a computer is not normal. I know.
|
|
I've seen it. What you do is
|
|
magic.
|
|
|
|
Neo shrugs.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
It's not magic.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
But it is, Neo. It is. How else
|
|
would you describe what has been
|
|
happening to you?
|
|
|
|
He leans forward.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
We are trained in this world to
|
|
accept only what is rational and
|
|
logical. Have you ever wondered
|
|
why?
|
|
|
|
Neo shakes his head.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
As children, we do not separate
|
|
the possible from the impossible
|
|
which is why the younger a mind is
|
|
the easier it is to free while a
|
|
mind like yours can be very
|
|
difficult.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Free from what?
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
From the Matrix.
|
|
|
|
Neo locks at his eyes but only sees a reflection of
|
|
himself.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Do you want to know what it is,
|
|
Neo?
|
|
|
|
Neo swallows and nods his head.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
It's that feeling you have had all
|
|
your life. That feeling that
|
|
something was wrong with the
|
|
world. You don't know what it is
|
|
but it's there, like a splinter in
|
|
your mind, driving you mad,
|
|
driving you to me. But what is
|
|
it?
|
|
|
|
The LEATHER CREAKS as he leans back.
|
|
|
|
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. That
|
|
you, like everyone else, was born
|
|
into bondage...
|
|
... kept inside a prison that you
|
|
cannot smell, taste, or touch. A
|
|
prison for your mind.
|
|
|
|
Outside, the WIND BATTERS a loose PANE of glass.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Unfortunately, no one can be told
|
|
what the Matrix is. You have to
|
|
see it for yourself.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
How?
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Hold out your hands.
|
|
|
|
In Neo's right hand, Morpheus drops a red pill.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
This is your last chance. After
|
|
this, there is no going back.
|
|
|
|
In his left, a blue pill.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
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, with 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.
|
|
|
|
He leads Neo into the other room, which is cramped with
|
|
high-tech equipment, glowing ash-bliie and electric green
|
|
from the racks of monitors.
|
|
|
|
Trinity, Apoc and Cypher look up as they enter.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Shit.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
I knew he would.
|
|
|
|
Cypher saddles up to Morpheus, talking in a hushed tone
|
|
away from, Neo.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Morpheus, I know what you believe
|
|
but I think this is a mistake.
|
|
We're rushing him. He's old. I'm
|
|
afraid he might pop.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Haven't I always told you, Cypher,
|
|
not to let fear control your life.
|
|
Apoc, are we on-line?
|
|
|
|
Neo recognizes the large man from the El train.
|
|
|
|
APOC
|
|
Almost.
|
|
|
|
He and Trinity are working quickly, hardwiring a complex
|
|
system of monitors, modules and drives.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Apoc? You wrote the Four Horsemen
|
|
Virus.
|
|
|
|
APOC
|
|
That's right.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Neo, time is always against us.
|
|
Will you take a seat there?
|
|
|
|
In the center of the room sits a chair. Near the chair
|
|
is an old oval dressing mirror that is cracked.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
I imagine you know sonething about
|
|
virtual reality.
|
|
|
|
Neo sits and Trinity begins gently fixing white electrode
|
|
disks to his head, arns, and the back of his neck.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
A little.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Tell me about it.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Essentially, it's a hardware
|
|
system that uses an apparatus;
|
|
headgear, gloves and whatever to
|
|
make you feel that you are in a
|
|
computer program.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
If the virtual reality apparatus,
|
|
as you called it, was wired to all
|
|
of your senses and controlled them
|
|
completely, would you be able to
|
|
tell the difference between the
|
|
virtual world and the real world?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
You might not, no.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
No, you wouldn't.
|
|
|
|
Neo 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 going to make
|
|
things feel a bit strange.
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
Shit...
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What is this? Mescaline?
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Just relax, Neo.
|
|
|
|
The strands thin like rubber cement as he pulls away,
|
|
until the fragile wisps of mirror thread break.
|
|
|
|
With the TINKLING of GLASS, shimmering snowflakes
|
|
of electric-blinking mercury fall, hit the ground, and
|
|
fade.
|
|
|
|
He looks at his hand; fingers distended into mirrored
|
|
icicles that begin to melt rapidly, dripping, running
|
|
like wax down his fingers, spreading across his palms
|
|
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. Stay calm, Neo.
|
|
|
|
The mirror gel seems to come to life, racing, crawling up
|
|
his arns like hundreds of insects.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
It's cold.
|
|
|
|
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 all over me --
|
|
|
|
Morpheus is right next to him, with the phone.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
I got a fibrillation!
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
I knew it, I knew it...
|
|
|
|
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!
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
He's gonna pop!
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. POWER PLANT - CLOSE ON 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 coccon.
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
Below Neo, a petal detaches from the stem, bearing away
|
|
the body of an old man like an automated barge even as a
|
|
new pod rises up and plugs itself into the empty space.
|
|
|
|
Inside the new capsule, its surface more translucent and
|
|
pinkish in color, Neo sees a small baby.
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
A black particle beam washes over Neo, he reacts in pain
|
|
as the scanner seems to expose the nervous system wired
|
|
to the coaxial cable at his cerebral cortex.
|
|
|
|
At the back of the neck, the cable lock spins and opens,
|
|
disengaging.
|
|
|
|
The cable pulls itself free, a long clear plastic needle
|
|
and cerebrum-chip slides from the anterior of Neols skull
|
|
with an ooze of blood and spinal fluid. The other
|
|
connective hoses snap free and snake away as --
|
|
|
|
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 cily clunps of
|
|
cellulite.
|
|
|
|
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 nachine, hovering inside
|
|
the sewer main line.
|
|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
Trinity and Apoc. And others, dressed in bizarre, high-
|
|
tech combat gear.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus smiles.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Welcome to the real world, Neo.
|
|
|
|
Neo passes out.
|
|
|
|
FADE TO BLACK.
|
|
|
|
We have no sense of time. We hear VOICES whispering.
|
|
|
|
MAN (O.S.)
|
|
Do you think Morpheus is right?
|
|
Do you think he could be the One?
|
|
|
|
WOMAN (O.S.)
|
|
It doesn't matter now. But if
|
|
he's wrong...
|
|
|
|
FADE IN:
|
|
|
|
NEO'S POV
|
|
|
|
Neo's eyes flutter open. We see Trinity's face above us,
|
|
angelic in the fluorescent glow of a light stick.
|
|
|
|
|
|
ANGLE ON NEO
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
... am I dead?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Far from it.
|
|
|
|
FADE TO BLACK.
|
|
|
|
|
|
FADE IN:
|
|
|
|
|
|
ANGLE ON NEO
|
|
|
|
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 needs a lot of work.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
I know.
|
|
|
|
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 takes his sunglasses off and puts them on Neo.
|
|
Neo lays back.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Rest, Neo. The answers are
|
|
coming.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. NEO'S ROOM
|
|
|
|
Neo wakes up from a deep sleep, feeling better. He is
|
|
wearing a black tank top and shorts.
|
|
|
|
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 feels his bald 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.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
That's not possible.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
I promised you the truth, Neo, and
|
|
the truth is that the world you
|
|
were living in was a lie.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
How?
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
I'll show you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
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 dark. 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 and Switch. The two big
|
|
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 little systems and computer monitors.
|
|
|
|
At the center of the web, there are six ectoskeleton
|
|
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
|
|
Help him, Trinity.
|
|
|
|
Neo allows himself to be helped into one of the chairs.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Do you remember when I asked you
|
|
about an apparatus that could turn
|
|
a virtual reality into reality?
|
|
|
|
Neo nods.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
It's right here.
|
|
|
|
He touches Neo's head.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
And it's accessed here.
|
|
|
|
Neo feels Morpheus guiding a coaxial line into the jack
|
|
at the back of his neck. The cable has the same kind of
|
|
cerebellum 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 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
|
|
Wild, isn't it?
|
|
|
|
Neo's hands run over the cracked leather.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
This isn't real?
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
What is real? How do you define
|
|
real? If you're talking about
|
|
your senses, what you feel, taste,
|
|
smell, or see, then all you're
|
|
talking about are electrical
|
|
signals interpreted by your brain.
|
|
|
|
He picks up a remote control and clicks ON the
|
|
TELEVISION. We drift through the Windy City circa 1996.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
This is the Chicago you know.
|
|
Chicago as it was at the end of
|
|
the twentieth century. This
|
|
Chicago exists only as part of a
|
|
neural-interactive simulation that
|
|
we call the Matrix.
|
|
|
|
We GLIDE AT the television as he changes the channel.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
You have been living inside
|
|
Baulliaurd's vision, inside the
|
|
map, not the territory. This is
|
|
Chicago as it exists today.
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
'The desert of the real.'
|
|
|
|
In the distance, we see the ruins of a future Chicago
|
|
protruding from the wasteland like the blackened ribs of
|
|
a long-dead corpse.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
We are, right now, miles below the
|
|
earth's surface. The only place
|
|
humans can survive outside the
|
|
Matrix is underground.
|
|
|
|
Still MOVING, we TURN and find Neo and Morpheus; the
|
|
chairs now sitting in the middle of the black desert.
|
|
Dizzy, Neo holds onto the chair.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What happened?
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
It started early in the twenty-
|
|
first century, with the birth of
|
|
artificial intelligence, a
|
|
singular consciousness that
|
|
spawned an entire race of
|
|
machines.
|
|
|
|
In his sunglasses, we see storm clouds gather.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
At first all they wanted was to be
|
|
treated as equals, entitled to the
|
|
same human inalienable rights.
|
|
Whatever they were given, it was
|
|
not enough.
|
|
|
|
In the circular window of the glasses, EXPLOSIONS light
|
|
up a bloody battle field.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
We don't know who struck first.
|
|
Us or them. But sometime at the
|
|
end of the twenty-first century
|
|
the battle was joined.
|
|
|
|
We MOVE INTO his glasses and the war surrounds us.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
The war raged for generations and
|
|
turned the face of our planet from
|
|
green and blue to black and red.
|
|
|
|
At last we see the Sentinels; killing machines that are
|
|
at once terrifying and beautiful. They have an organic
|
|
architecture like a microbiotic organism, that is
|
|
perpetually in motion.
|
|
|
|
The Sentinel cracks the body armor of a soldier,
|
|
splitting open the soft, stearing meat inside.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
It scorched and burned the sky.
|
|
Without the sun, the machines
|
|
sought out a new energy source to
|
|
survive.
|
|
|
|
The Sentinel locks up, as heat lightning of black ink
|
|
bursts against the sky, spreading into a permanent cloud
|
|
of stain.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
They discovered a new form of
|
|
fusion. All that was required to
|
|
initiate the reaction was a small
|
|
electric charge. Throughout human
|
|
history we have been dependent on
|
|
machines to survive. Fate, it
|
|
seems, is not without a sense of
|
|
irony.
|
|
|
|
We return to the power plant that Neo escaped from where
|
|
we see human beings looking almost blissful in their
|
|
gelatin cocoons.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
The human body generates more bio-
|
|
electricity than a 120-volt
|
|
battery and over 25,000 B.T.U.'s
|
|
of body heat.
|
|
|
|
Outside, spreading all around the power plant, beneath a
|
|
breathing greenhouse, are the growing fields.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
We are, as an energy source,
|
|
easily renewable and completely
|
|
recyclable, the dead liquified and
|
|
fed intravenously to the living.
|
|
|
|
Huge farm-like reapers are harvesting the crop.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
All they needed to control this
|
|
new battery was something to
|
|
occupy our mind.
|
|
|
|
We see inside a clear tubular husk. Floating in viscous
|
|
fluid, there is a human fetus; its soft skull already
|
|
growing around the brain-jack.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
And so they built a prison out of
|
|
our past, wired it to our brains
|
|
and turned us into slaves.
|
|
|
|
We PULL BACK to find the image is now on the television
|
|
and we are again inside the white space of the Construct.
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
The room without walls begins to spin.
|
|
|
|
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 brian had been put into a centrifuge.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
He's going to pop!
|
|
|
|
Vomiting violently, Neo pitches forward and blacks out.
|
|
|
|
|
|
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 sitting like a shadow on a chair in the far
|
|
corner.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
No. But if you could, would you
|
|
really want to?
|
|
|
|
Neo isn't sure of 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 broke the
|
|
rule because I had to.
|
|
|
|
He stares into the darkness, confessing as much to
|
|
himself as 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 secret of the war; control
|
|
the Matrix and you control the
|
|
future.
|
|
|
|
He pauses.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
When he died, the Oracle at the
|
|
temple of Zion prophesied his
|
|
return and envisioned 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 we have been brought here
|
|
for a reason, Neo. You are here
|
|
to serve a purpose, just as I am
|
|
here to serve mine.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I told you I don't believe in
|
|
fate.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus smiles, leaning towards hin.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
But I do, Neo. I do.
|
|
|
|
He stands up.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Get some rest. You're going to
|
|
need it.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
For what?
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Your training.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
There is no morning; there is only darkness and then the
|
|
fluorescent light sticks flicker on.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. NEO'S ROOM
|
|
|
|
Neo is awake in his bed, staring up at the lights. The
|
|
door opens and TA.NK 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
|
|
Zion is the place, man. You'll
|
|
see it one day. Last human city.
|
|
All we got left.
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
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 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 sore combat training?
|
|
|
|
Neo reads the label on the disk.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Jiujitsu? 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!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK - CLOSE ON COMPUTER MONITOR - LATER
|
|
|
|
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 looks at his watch, rubs his eyes.
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
He locks at Morpheus.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
This is incredible. I know Kung
|
|
Fu.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus sits in the drive chair next to hin. He nods to
|
|
Tank.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Show me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
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. Consider this your
|
|
first lesson.
|
|
|
|
He assumes a fighting stance.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Attack me.
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
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 chaotically lit up as opposed to the slow and
|
|
steady rhythm of Morpheus.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MESS HALL
|
|
|
|
Dinner is up. Everyone is eating bowls of single-cell
|
|
protein. It has a cottage cheese consistency.
|
|
|
|
MOUSE bursts in the room.
|
|
|
|
MOUSE
|
|
Morpheus is fighting Neo!
|
|
|
|
All at once they bolt for the door.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. DOJO
|
|
|
|
Neo's face is knotted, teeth clenched, as he hurls
|
|
himself at Morpheus.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Good. Adaption. Improvisation.
|
|
But your weakness isn't your
|
|
technique.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus attacks him and it is like nothing we have seen.
|
|
His feet and fists are everywhere taking Neo apart. For
|
|
every blow Neo blocks, five more hit their marks until --
|
|
|
|
Neo falls.
|
|
|
|
Panting, on his hands and knees, blood spits fror, his
|
|
mouth speckling the white floor of the Dojo.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
How did I beat you?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
You -- You're too fast.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Do you think my being faster,
|
|
stronger has anything to do with
|
|
my muscles in this place?
|
|
|
|
Neo is frustrated, still unable to catch his breath.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Do you believe that's air you are
|
|
breathing now?
|
|
|
|
Neo squints at him.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
If you can free your mind, the
|
|
body will follow.
|
|
|
|
Neo stands, nodding.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Again.
|
|
|
|
Their fists fly with pneumatic speed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Everyone is gathered behind Tank, watching the fight,
|
|
like watching a game of Mortal Combat.
|
|
|
|
CABLE
|
|
Jeezus Keerist! That boy is fast!
|
|
|
|
MOUSE
|
|
You ever seen anyone that fast
|
|
that soon, Tank?
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Never.
|
|
|
|
APOC
|
|
Morpheus is right. He's got to be
|
|
the one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. DOJO
|
|
|
|
The speed of the blows rises like a drum solo that seems
|
|
impossible to sustain. Neo's face sheds its mask of calm
|
|
with a scream.
|
|
|
|
He wants to beat Morpheus bad.
|
|
|
|
Finally a single blow catches Morpheus on the side of the
|
|
head, knocking his glasses off.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
There are several gasps.
|
|
|
|
MOUSE
|
|
I don't believe it!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. DOJO
|
|
|
|
Morpheus rubs his face.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
You are angry with me.
|
|
|
|
Neo pants.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I, uh... maybe.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
It's all right. It's natural.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I feel better.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Good, good. Anger is a gift, Neo,
|
|
but it's a heavy one.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus smiles.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Tank, load the jump program.
|
|
|
|
Neo straightens as the dojo DISSOLVES away like a curtain
|
|
lifting, leaving the two men now standing on a building
|
|
rooftop in a city skyline.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
You have to learn to let go of
|
|
that anger. You must let go of
|
|
everything.
|
|
|
|
A WIND HOWLS, whipping Morpheus' long coat to the side.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
You must empty yourself to free
|
|
your mind.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus spins, running hard at the edge of the rooftop.
|
|
And jumps. He sails through the air, his coat billowing
|
|
out behind him like a cape --
|
|
|
|
Somersaults once and lands on the rooftop across the
|
|
street.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Shit.
|
|
|
|
Neo looks down at the street twenty floors below, then at
|
|
Morpheus an impossible fifty feet away.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Okie dokie.
|
|
|
|
He takes a deep breath.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Yeah. Free my mind. Right. No
|
|
problem.
|
|
|
|
He concentrates. Runs.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
They are transfixed.
|
|
|
|
CABLE
|
|
He's gonna make it.
|
|
|
|
APOC
|
|
No way. Not possible.
|
|
|
|
MOUSE
|
|
No one's ever made their first
|
|
jump.
|
|
|
|
SWITCH
|
|
What if he does?
|
|
|
|
APOC
|
|
He won't.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
It's never been done.
|
|
|
|
Trinity stares at the screen, her fists clenching as she
|
|
whispers.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Come on.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. ROOFTOP
|
|
|
|
Summoning every ounce of strength in his legs, Neo
|
|
launches himself into the air in a single maniacal shriek
|
|
--
|
|
|
|
But comes up drastically short.
|
|
|
|
His eyes widen as he plummets. Stories fly by, the
|
|
ground rushing up at him, but as he hits --
|
|
|
|
The ground gives way, stretchinp like a trapeze net.
|
|
|
|
He bounces and flips, slowly coming to a rest, flat on
|
|
his back.
|
|
|
|
He laughs, a bit unsure, wiping the wind-blown tears from
|
|
his face.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus exits the building and helps him to his feet.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Everyone falls the first time.
|
|
|
|
Neo nods quietly.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
If you never know failure, how can
|
|
you know success?
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
They break up.
|
|
|
|
MOUSE
|
|
What does it mean?
|
|
|
|
CABLE
|
|
It doesn't mean anything.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Everyone falls, right, Trinity?
|
|
|
|
But Trinity has left.
|
|
|
|
Neo's eyes open as Tank eases the plug out. He tries to
|
|
move and groans, cradling his ribs.
|
|
|
|
While Tank helps Morpheus, Neo spits blood into his hand.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I thought it wasn't real.
|
|
|
|
Neo stares at the blood.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
If you are killed in the Matrix,
|
|
you die here?
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
The body cannot live without the
|
|
mind.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. NEO'S ROOM
|
|
|
|
Trinity enters from the hall, carrying a try of food.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Neo, I saved you some dinner --
|
|
|
|
She sees him passed out on the bed. She sets the tray
|
|
down and pulls the blanket over him.
|
|
|
|
She pauses, her face close to his, then inhales lightly,
|
|
breathing in the scent of him, before slowly pulling away.
|
|
|
|
It seems the moment she closes the door, he wakes with a
|
|
start, unsure of where he is. After a moment, he gets
|
|
out of bed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HALL
|
|
|
|
The ship is quiet and dark. Everyone is asleep.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
The core glows with monitor light. Cypher is in the
|
|
operator's chair as Neo cones up behind him.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Whoa! Shit, Neo, you scared the
|
|
bejeezus out of ne.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Sorry.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
No, it's all right.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What are you doing?
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Midnight watch.
|
|
|
|
Neo's eyes light up as he steps closer to the screens
|
|
that seem alive with a constant flow of data.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Is that... ?
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
The Matrix? Yeah.
|
|
|
|
The monitors are packed with bizarre codes and equations.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
You want a drink?
|
|
|
|
He pours Neo a drink from a large plastic jug.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
I'll tell you, I feel for you,
|
|
man. I really do. Most of us
|
|
were still young, just punks, when
|
|
Morpheus jacked us. But you, you
|
|
had a real life.
|
|
|
|
Neo takes a sip and it almost kills him. Cypher pounds
|
|
on his back.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Good shit, huh? Dozer makes it.
|
|
It's good for two things:
|
|
degreasing engines and killing
|
|
brain cells.
|
|
|
|
Red-faced, Neo finally stops coughing.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Did he tell you why he did it?
|
|
|
|
Neo nods.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER,
|
|
I'll be the didn't tell you that
|
|
this wasn't the first time he
|
|
thought he found the One.
|
|
|
|
Neo shakes his head as Cypher fills his cup and laughs.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Let me give you a piece of advice.
|
|
Between you and me, if Morpheus
|
|
says you can fly, I wouldn't go
|
|
jumping out any windows to find
|
|
out if he's right. Understand?
|
|
|
|
Cypher raises his drink. Neo swallows another throat-
|
|
scorching mouthful.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Welcome to the real world!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. RESTAURANT (MATRIX) - NIGHT
|
|
|
|
CHAMBER MUSIC and the ambiance of wealth soak the room as
|
|
we watch a serrated knife saw through a thick, gorgeous
|
|
steak.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
That's what he said to me nine
|
|
years ago.
|
|
|
|
The meat is so perfect, charred on the outside, oozing
|
|
red juice from the inside, that it could be a dream.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
The real world. Ha, what a joke.
|
|
|
|
We recognize the grating voice, the insidious laugh.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
You know what real is? I'll tell
|
|
you what real is.
|
|
|
|
A fork stabs the cube of meat and we FOLLOW it UP TO the
|
|
face of Cypher.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Real is just another four-letter
|
|
word.
|
|
|
|
He laughs, shoving the steak into his mouth.
|
|
|
|
The restaurant is located on the top floor of a Chicago
|
|
skyscraper where the view is breathtaking and the menu
|
|
has no prices.
|
|
|
|
Sitting across from Cypher is Agent Smith.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Do we have a deal, Mr. Reagan?
|
|
|
|
Cypher chews the steak loudly, smacking it between his
|
|
teeth.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Mmm, so, so fucking good.
|
|
|
|
Smith watches him shovel another hunk of meat into his
|
|
mouth.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
You know, I know that this steak
|
|
doesn't exist. I know when I put
|
|
it in my mouth, the Matrix is
|
|
telling my brain that it is juicy
|
|
and delicious. After nine years,
|
|
do you know what I've realized?
|
|
|
|
Pausing, he examines the meat skewered on his fork. He
|
|
pops it in, eyes rolling up, savoring the tender beef
|
|
melting in his mouth.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Ignorance is bliss.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Then we have a deal?
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
I don't want to remember nothing.
|
|
Nothing! You understand? And I
|
|
want to be rich. Someone
|
|
important. Like an actor. You
|
|
can do that, right?
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Whatever you want, Mr. Reagan.
|
|
|
|
Cypher takes a deep drink of wine.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
All right. You get my body back
|
|
in a power plant, reinsert me into
|
|
the Matrix and I'll get you what
|
|
you want.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Access codes to Zion.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
I told you, I don't know them.
|
|
But I can give you the man who
|
|
does.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Morpheus.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Sweat dapples his lip as Neo snaps out of the construct
|
|
coma.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Jeez, I was wondering about that.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
What?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Why I was bald here but not in the
|
|
Matrix.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
R.S.I.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Residual self image.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Good. Now what's this?
|
|
|
|
He points to one of Neo's monitors.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Life systems monitor, glucose
|
|
levels.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
What's that?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Main power supply to the core.
|
|
|
|
He follows Tank to the operator's station where he points
|
|
to a red key-switch.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
How about this?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Mainframe self-destruct. Uses all
|
|
remaining power to generate an...
|
|
E.M.P?
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Electromagnetic pulse. Our best
|
|
weapon against the machines. The
|
|
problem is if someone is still in
|
|
the Matrix when that thing goes
|
|
off, they're not coming back.
|
|
|
|
Neo nods as Morpheus comes up behind them.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
How's he doing?
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
We just finished the operation
|
|
programs and he's showing great
|
|
retention.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Good. I want everyone alerted to
|
|
12-hour stand-by. We're going in.
|
|
Neo, it's time for you to know why
|
|
you're here.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus walks away.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What's he talking about?
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
He's taking you into the Matrix to
|
|
see her.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
See who?
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
The Oracle.
|
|
|
|
Neo looks down at the monitor teeming with Matrix data
|
|
that seems to coalesce, equations giving way to images as
|
|
a METAL SCREAM RISES BECOMING --
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. CHICAGO (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
An El train.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The room is empty, heavy curtains covering windows. It
|
|
looks as if it hasn't been touched in years. In the
|
|
bedroom with the cracked oval mirror an old black PHONE
|
|
begins to RING.
|
|
|
|
In the mirror, we first glimpse them and as we keep
|
|
TURNING, the room fills with equipment and the team.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus answers the phone.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
We're in.
|
|
|
|
He hangs up.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Mouse and Cable hold the exit.
|
|
Let's go.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. STAIRWELL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Neo follows the others down the stairwell that winds
|
|
around an antique elevator shaft.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Did you have to do this?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Yeah.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What did she tell you?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Lots of things.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Any of them true?
|
|
|
|
Trinity looks at him, then looks away.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Some of them.
|
|
|
|
GIZMO
|
|
Were they good or bad?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
There's no point in worrylng.
|
|
Whatever is going to happen is
|
|
going to happen.
|
|
|
|
They cross the old lobby. Switch and Apoc stop at the
|
|
doors.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
We should be back in an hour.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Neo squints into the sun that seems unnaturally bright.
|
|
He is the only one without sunglasses.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Do you now understand what it
|
|
means when we say, if you're not
|
|
one of us, you're one of them?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
The agents. They're sentient
|
|
programs. They can commandeer any
|
|
software hardwired to the
|
|
mainframe.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Anyone that is still in a power
|
|
plant. That is why we try to be
|
|
invisible in the Matrix.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
The best hacking is always
|
|
traceless.
|
|
|
|
Cypher and Trinity move away from them, securing the
|
|
perimeter. As Cypher passes a garbage can, he
|
|
surreptitiously drops something inside.
|
|
|
|
It is a cellular phone and we watch the blue display as
|
|
the LINE CONNECTS.
|
|
|
|
An early 1970s, black Lincoln Continental emerges from a
|
|
corrugated roll-up garage. Morpheus and Neo get in.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. LINCOLN CONTINENTAL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
An enormous man is waiting for them. A wad of chewing
|
|
tobacco bulges his cheek. He spits into a Coke can.
|
|
|
|
MOJO
|
|
Morpheus, been a long time coming.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
You're looking well, Mojo.
|
|
|
|
Mojo coughs a brown, cankerous laugh, juice speckling his
|
|
chin and shirt. He stares at Neo.
|
|
|
|
MOJO
|
|
You bringing us geriatrics now.
|
|
Morpheus?
|
|
|
|
He spits and laughs again.
|
|
|
|
MOJO
|
|
Guess you are locking for a
|
|
miracle.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. BAR (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The Continental pulls up to a bar in the kind of
|
|
neighborhood where every corner has a pair of eyes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. BAR (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
A lightless, lower-class bar. No one enters that is not
|
|
expected.
|
|
|
|
The front doors open in a brilliant burst of sunlight as
|
|
Mojo leads Morpheus and Neo inside. Neo looks around,
|
|
his eyes adjusting to the darkness.
|
|
|
|
Mojo talks to the bartender, then looks over.
|
|
|
|
MOJO
|
|
All right, it's cool. Go on back.
|
|
|
|
They weave their way to the back of the bar, the STICKY
|
|
FLOOR SNAPPING under their FEET.
|
|
|
|
A monolith of a man rises from his stool as they walk up.
|
|
|
|
REX
|
|
You're late.
|
|
|
|
He moves to the side, opening the heavy iron door behind
|
|
him. They descend the basement staircase toward the
|
|
single bare bulb at the bottom, hanging above the only
|
|
door.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. BASEMENT (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
A high-tech laptop and modem are set up on a stack of
|
|
milk crates. Neo waits as Morpheus types in a series of
|
|
access codes. After a moment the screen blinks, "Welcome
|
|
Morpheus."
|
|
|
|
Morpheus walks back to the same door they entered, but it
|
|
now leads into --
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. TEMPLE OF ZION (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The walls and floors are polished marble. Neo follows,
|
|
his mouth agape.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What -- what happened?
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
This is the temple. It is a part
|
|
of Zion's mainframe. It's hidden
|
|
inside the Matrix so that we can
|
|
access it.
|
|
|
|
Two PRIESTESSES are waiting in the antechamber.
|
|
|
|
PRIESTESS
|
|
Hello, Morpheus. We've been
|
|
expecting you.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Okay, you're on your own. Go with
|
|
them.
|
|
|
|
They take Neo by the arm, leading him down a hall into
|
|
another room.
|
|
|
|
PRIESTESS
|
|
Wait here. Among the other
|
|
Potentials.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ROOM OF POTENTIALS (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Neo enters and finally understands the attention given to
|
|
his age. The Potentials are all little children.
|
|
|
|
The room feels at once like a Buddhist temple and a
|
|
kindergarten class. The children's heads are either
|
|
shaved or thick with dreadlocks. Some are playing,
|
|
others meditating or practicing their gift.
|
|
|
|
Neo watches a little girl levitate wooden alphabet
|
|
blocks. A skinny BOY holds a SPOON which sways like a
|
|
blade of grass as he bends it with his rnind.
|
|
|
|
Neo crosses to him, sits.
|
|
|
|
The Boy smiles as Neo picks up a spoon and tries to
|
|
imitate him. Despite his best efforts, Neo cannot make
|
|
it bend.
|
|
|
|
SPOON BOY
|
|
Your spoon does not bend because
|
|
it is just that, a spoon. Mine
|
|
bends because there is no spoon,
|
|
just my mind.
|
|
|
|
Neo watches as it curls into a knot.
|
|
|
|
SPOON BOY
|
|
Link yourself to the spoon.
|
|
Become the spoon and bend
|
|
yourself.
|
|
|
|
Neo nods, again holding up his spoon.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
There is no spoon. Right.
|
|
|
|
He concentrates. The spoon begins to bend just as the
|
|
Priestess touches his shoulder.
|
|
|
|
PRIESTESS
|
|
The Oracle will see you now.
|
|
|
|
Spoon Boy smiles.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. SHRINE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Neo enters nervously. Beneath his feet is a path of the
|
|
zodiac leading to marbled stairs that rise to a dais and
|
|
a three-legged throne.
|
|
|
|
The throne is empty.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Hello?
|
|
|
|
A DISTANT FEMALE VOICE calls to him and he follows it up
|
|
the stairs. At the top of the dais, he smells something
|
|
cooking.
|
|
|
|
Following the scent, he moves behind the pillars where he
|
|
finds an open door.
|
|
|
|
VOICE (O.S.)
|
|
Just come on in.
|
|
|
|
He walks through a vestibule where he sees a fabulous
|
|
moonstone headdress and velvet robes. A second door
|
|
leads into --
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ORACLE'S CHAMBERS (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
It looks like a suburban tract house.
|
|
|
|
There is a lot of cozy furniture, a dining roon hutch
|
|
filled with china, shelves and tables crowded with
|
|
doilies, knick-knacks and ceramic brick-a-brack.
|
|
|
|
Neo follows the plastic carpet runner to the kitchen.
|
|
|
|
A WOMAN is huddled beside the oven, peering inside
|
|
through the cracked door.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Hello?
|
|
|
|
ORACLE (WOMAN)
|
|
I know. You're Neo. Be right
|
|
with you.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
You're the Oracle?
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
Bingo. I got to say I love seeing
|
|
you non-believers. It's really a
|
|
relief. All that pomp and
|
|
circumstances just plain tucker me
|
|
out. Almost done. Smell good,
|
|
don't they?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Yeah.
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
I'd ask you to sit down, but
|
|
you're not going to anyway. And
|
|
don't worry about the vase.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What vase?
|
|
|
|
He turns to look around and his elbow knocks a VASE from
|
|
the table. It BREAKS against the linoleum floor.
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
The vase.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Shit, I'm sorry.
|
|
|
|
She pulls out a tray of chocolate chip cookies and turns.
|
|
She is an older woman, wearing big oven mitts,
|
|
comfortable slacks and a print blouse. She looks like
|
|
someone's grandma.
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
I said don't worry about it. I'll
|
|
get one of my kids to fix it.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
How did you know...?
|
|
|
|
She sets the cookie tray on a wooden hot-pad.
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
What's really going to bake your
|
|
noodle later on is, would you
|
|
still have broken it if I hadn't
|
|
said anything.
|
|
|
|
Smiling, she lights a cigarette.
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
You're cuter than I thought. I
|
|
see why she likes you.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Who?
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
Not too bright, though.
|
|
|
|
She winks.
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
You know why Morpheus brought you
|
|
to see me?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I think so.
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
So? What do you think? You think
|
|
you're the one?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I don't know.
|
|
|
|
She gestures to a wooden plaque, the kind every grandma
|
|
has, except that the words are in Latin.
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
You know what that means? It's
|
|
Latin. Means, 'Know thyself.'
|
|
|
|
She puts her cigarette down.
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
Well, let's have a look at you.
|
|
|
|
She widens his eyes, checks his ears, then feels the
|
|
glands in his neck.
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
Open your mouth. Say, 'ahhh.'
|
|
|
|
She nods then looks at his palms.
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
Hmmm. You sure got the gift, but
|
|
it's tricky. I'd say the bad news
|
|
is, you're not the one. Still got
|
|
a lot to learn. Maybe next life.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What's the good news?
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
Same as the bad news, you're not
|
|
the one.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Is that it, then?
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
No. Here.
|
|
|
|
She picks up the tray of cooling cookies.
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
You better take a cookie. Got a
|
|
big day ahead of you.
|
|
|
|
He eyes her, then takes a cookie.
|
|
|
|
ORACLE
|
|
Make a believer out of you yet.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ANTECHAMBER (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Morpheus rises from a bench as the Priestess escorts Neo
|
|
out. When they are alone, Morpheus puts his hand on
|
|
Neo's shoulder.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
You don't have to tell me
|
|
anything, Neo, because I already
|
|
know what she said.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
You do?
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
I brought you so that you could
|
|
hear it for yourself. I knew it
|
|
would help.
|
|
|
|
Neo finishes his cookie.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
No one will ever ask you because
|
|
it is a gift from her. It is for
|
|
you and you alone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. CITY STREET (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Storm clouds shroud the streets as the sky turns
|
|
jaundice.
|
|
|
|
Cypher nervously glances down the surrounding streets.
|
|
He notices several unmarked white vans.
|
|
|
|
He mops the sweat from his forehead, when Trinity sees
|
|
the black Lincoln.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Here they come.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
In the hovercraft, we see the sweat rolling down Cypher's
|
|
face and neck.
|
|
|
|
Tank is typing rapidly at the keyboard.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Weird. This area never has this
|
|
much activity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Apoc opens the side door and they enter the hotel.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ROOM 1313 (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Mouse's CELLULAR RINGS.
|
|
|
|
MOUSE
|
|
Welcome to Movie-Phone.
|
|
|
|
TANK (V.O.)
|
|
They're on their way.
|
|
|
|
MOUSE
|
|
Right.
|
|
|
|
The phone flips shut as he jumps up.
|
|
|
|
MOUSE
|
|
Let's get to work.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Light filters down the throat of the building through a
|
|
caged skylight at the top of the open elevator shaft.
|
|
Four figures glide up the dark stairs that wind around
|
|
the antique elevator.
|
|
|
|
Neo notices a black cat, a yellow-green-eyed shadow that
|
|
slinks past them and pads quickly down the stairs.
|
|
|
|
A moment later, Neo sees another black cat that looks and
|
|
moves identically to the first one.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Whoa. Deja vu.
|
|
|
|
Those words stop the others dead in their tracks.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
The monitors suddenly glitch as though the Matrix had an
|
|
electronic seizure.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Oh, shit! Oh, shit!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Trinity turns around, her face tight.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
What did you just say?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Nothing. Just had a little deja
|
|
vu.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
What happened? What did you see?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
A black cat went past us and then
|
|
I saw another that looked just
|
|
like it.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
How much like it? Was it the same
|
|
cat?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
It might have been. I'm not sure.
|
|
|
|
Trinity looks at Morpheus, who listens quietly to the
|
|
rasping breath of the old building.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What is it?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
A deja vu is usually a glitch in
|
|
the Matrix. It happens when they
|
|
change something.
|
|
|
|
She also listens as the staccato BEAT of HELICOPTER
|
|
BLADES GROW ominously LOUDER.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Tank sees what was changed.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
It's a trap!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. STAIRCASE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Morpheus looks up the stairs as a helicopter shadow
|
|
passes over the clouded glass.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Come on!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ROOM 1313 (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Cable goes to the draped windows.
|
|
|
|
CABLE
|
|
Did you just feel something weird?
|
|
|
|
MOUSE
|
|
Yeah...
|
|
|
|
The CELLULAR RINGS.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. BASEMENT (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Heavy bolt-cutters snap through the main phone cable.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ROOM 1313 (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Mouse answers the phone.
|
|
|
|
MOUSE
|
|
What's going on?
|
|
|
|
TANK (V.O.)
|
|
They cut the hard-line! It's a
|
|
trap! Get out!
|
|
|
|
Cable yanks open the curtain.
|
|
|
|
CABLE
|
|
Oh, no.
|
|
|
|
The windows are bricked up.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The door to the roof explodes open as heavily-armed rnen
|
|
rush towards room 1313.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Tank watches helplessly.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
No, no, no.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ROOM 1313 (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The door slams open and the police force pours in, dozens
|
|
of assault rifles surrounding Mouse and Cable who are
|
|
armed with only handguns.
|
|
|
|
CABLE
|
|
Morpheus! It's a trap --
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. STAIRS (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Morpheus stops as the scream is drowned by the REPORT of
|
|
MACHINE GUNS filling the building with a terrible fury.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Oh, God.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Mouse's body thrashes against its harness as --
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ROOM 1313 (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
BULLETS POUND him against the blood-splattered brick
|
|
window. Gun smoke thickens the room, Cable blasting and
|
|
moving until --
|
|
|
|
The HAMMER CLICKS empty. He screams as a DOZEN GUNS OPEN
|
|
FIRE, ripping him apart.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Blood spits from Cable's mouth, his body spasming, then
|
|
lying perfectly still.
|
|
|
|
The flat-line ALARM softly cries out from the life
|
|
MONITORS of the two dead men.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
More police cars arrive as cops break open the lobby
|
|
doors.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. STAIRWELL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Flying downstairs, Morpheus stops, hearing the police
|
|
swarming below. He turns and rushes down the hall of the
|
|
eighth floor. At the end of it, he finds the bricked-up
|
|
windows.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
That's what they changed. We're
|
|
trapped. There's no way out.
|
|
|
|
The sound of heavy BOOT-STEPS close around them with the
|
|
mechanical sureness of a vice.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Give me your phone.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
They'll be able to track it.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
We have no choice.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Tank answers the call.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
|
|
Tank, find a structural drawing of
|
|
this building and find it fast.
|
|
|
|
His fingers pound the keyboard.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. LAFAYETTE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Flashlights probe the rotting darkness as the police
|
|
search every floor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
The diagram windows onto the screen.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Got it.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS (V.O.)
|
|
I need the main wet-wall.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith pauses, his hand going to his earpiece.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ROOM 808 (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Morpheus is guided by Tank.
|
|
|
|
TANK (V.O.)
|
|
Now left and that's it in front of
|
|
you.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Good.
|
|
|
|
He cuts off the phone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith hears the LINE CLICK dead.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Eighth floor. They're on the
|
|
eighth floor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Agent Brown hears Smith on his earphone.
|
|
|
|
AGENT BROWTJ
|
|
Eighth floor! Move!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. STAIRWELL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Cops flood the eighth floor, rushing everywhere.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ROOM 808 (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Several cops sweep through the room. It is empty. As
|
|
they pass the bathroom, we see a man-sized hole smashed
|
|
through the plaster and lathe.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. WALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
They are inside the main plumbing wall, slowly worming
|
|
their way down the greasy, black stack pipes.
|
|
|
|
Above them, light fills the hole they made to get inside.
|
|
|
|
INT. HALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Brown turns to Smith.
|
|
|
|
AGENT BROWN
|
|
Where are they?
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ROOM 608 (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The cops search in silence, straining for a clue, when
|
|
one hears SOMETHING STRANGE near the bathroom.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. WALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Cypher has slipped and is wedged between the wall and
|
|
several thick supply pipes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ROOM 608 (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The Cop leans in, his ear almost against the thin
|
|
membrane of plaster separating them. He can hear
|
|
WHISPERS, HISSES and a GRUNT when --
|
|
|
|
The WALL suddenly bulges, SHATTER-CRACKING as the Cop
|
|
realizes --
|
|
|
|
COP
|
|
They're in the walls!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. WALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Neo pulls Cypher free just as the Cop OPENS FIRE --
|
|
|
|
BULLETS PUNCHING shafts of light like swords into the box
|
|
of soot-black space.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ROOM 608 (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The Cop keeps FIRING, his flashlight strapped to his gun
|
|
barrel, lighting up the wall until --
|
|
|
|
A BULLET spits out his forehead. Agent Smith watches the
|
|
BODY fall with a THUD.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Are orders that hard to follow?
|
|
I'll say it again. Morpheus must
|
|
be taken alive. Understand?
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. WALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
They're almost falling, they're climbing so fast.
|
|
|
|
Above them, plaster is smashed open as crunbling bits
|
|
shower down on them, filling the crawlway with dust.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ROOM 608 (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith looks into the open wall, at the exposed
|
|
intestines of the building, and realizes where they are
|
|
going.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
How like a rodent.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. WALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Just below, a RIFLE-BUTT SMASHES open the WALL, light
|
|
raking across the lathe.
|
|
|
|
COP
|
|
I got him! I got him!
|
|
|
|
Trinity finds her gun first. BULLET-HOLES POP out the
|
|
WALL as she STRAFES the room, sending cops diving for
|
|
cover.
|
|
|
|
They continue, Trinity exposed for a roment, when a
|
|
creeping cop smashes a fist through and grabs a fistful
|
|
of her hair.
|
|
|
|
He starts to yank her out when Neo kicks, his boot
|
|
bursting through plaster and splintering lathe, knocking
|
|
the Cop out.
|
|
|
|
They then quickly sink out of sight.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. BASEMENT (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
This part of the basement, a dark concrete cavern, was
|
|
the main mechanical room. There are four enormous
|
|
boilers, dinosaur-like technology that once pumped hot
|
|
water like arteries.
|
|
|
|
Black and bloody, they squeeze out from the ceiling into
|
|
the tangled web of pipes.
|
|
|
|
Their enemies are waiting for them.
|
|
|
|
Blinding lights cut open the darkness as gas-masked
|
|
figures FIRE GRENADE LAUNCHERS.
|
|
|
|
Smoke blossoms from the green-metal canisters.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus never stops moving. Searching the floor, he
|
|
finds what.he needs; the cover of the catch basin.
|
|
|
|
Cypher watches him pry open the grate, when a gas can
|
|
bounces near him.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Come on!
|
|
|
|
Cypher seems to trip as the cloud envelops him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Cypher's body begins to shiver uncontrollably.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Nerve gas.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. BASEMENT (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Morpheus watches Cypher disappear into the smoke then
|
|
follows the others down the wet-black hole.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. CATCH BASIN (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
They crawl through greasy black water in a three foot
|
|
diameter pipe that feeds into the sewer main.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. BASEMENT (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Gas-masked apparitions find the open hole.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Cypher is carried out, hand-cuffed, his body still
|
|
shaking, mucus bubbling out his nose. As he is led past
|
|
Agent Smith, it almost seems that both men smile.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
We have them now.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. SEWER MAIN (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Neo punches out the screen and then spills down into the
|
|
main water trough.
|
|
|
|
Oily water forms around them as they wade across the man-
|
|
made underground river, towards the service catwalk.
|
|
|
|
Neo is about to pull himself out when he sees them coming.
|
|
|
|
Flashlights and laser sites sweep at them as cops in
|
|
helmets and heavy armor, looking more nachine than human,
|
|
fill both ends of the tunnel.
|
|
|
|
There is a single manhole cover above them.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus whispers to Trinity.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
You have to get Neo out.
|
|
Understand? That's all that
|
|
matters now.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Morpheus, don't --
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
He must get out. Do you
|
|
understand me?
|
|
|
|
She nods.
|
|
|
|
A font of water erupts as Morpheus leaps for the manhole
|
|
ladder, his coat flying open like the wings of a manta
|
|
ray.
|
|
|
|
COPS
|
|
There he is! That's him!
|
|
|
|
Pools of light wash over him as he hauls himself to the
|
|
surface.
|
|
|
|
COP
|
|
He's heading for the street!
|
|
|
|
Trinity urges the others to follow her. Grabbing Neo,
|
|
they wade quietly away from the chaos.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. STREET (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Morpheus shoots out of the sewer but the police are
|
|
waiting for him. The closest cop is armed with a
|
|
tranquilized gun. He fires --
|
|
|
|
But Morpheus' is too fast, using the manhole cover as a
|
|
shield, blocking the darts, then --
|
|
|
|
Frisbee-ing it into the cop's armored chest, knocking him
|
|
off his feet.
|
|
|
|
The cops lunge at him but every part of his body is a
|
|
deadly weapon moving with impossible speed.
|
|
|
|
It seems he might fight his way out when he throws a
|
|
spinning back fist that is caught by --
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
So, we meet at last.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
And you are?
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Smith. I am Agent Smith.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
You all look the same to me.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
I've been waiting for this noment.
|
|
|
|
Faster than a snake spits, Morpheus cracks Smith with a
|
|
jaw-breaking right.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Oh, so have I.
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith smiles.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. SEWER MAIN (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Trinity leads the others, fading into the darkness of the
|
|
tunnel, lit only with shafts of lights streaming through
|
|
the street drains as we RISE TOWARDS them --
|
|
|
|
THROUGH a grate INTO the fight.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. STREET (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Smith and Morpheus exchange a furious serious of blows
|
|
that is witnessed but not believed by the surrounding
|
|
police.
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith delivers a punishing kick that staggers
|
|
Morpheus.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
You can't win.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus smiles.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
I already have.
|
|
|
|
He stands up and drops his fists; a steely resolve in his
|
|
eyes.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Take him.
|
|
|
|
Cops swarm over Morpheus.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Tank reaches out to the screen as if reaching for
|
|
Morpheus.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
No!
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Cuff ed and beaten, Morpheus is thrown into a caged
|
|
transport vehicle. The DOOR CLANGS shut.
|
|
|
|
Agent Jones finds Agent Smith.
|
|
|
|
AGENT JONES
|
|
The others were lost.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
You've taken care of Reagan?
|
|
|
|
Agent Jones nods.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Then the others do not matter.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. STREET (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
A manhole cover cracks open. Two eyes peek out just as a
|
|
TRUCK RATTLES over it. The THUNDER DOPPLERS AWAY and the
|
|
cover opens.
|
|
|
|
Neo, Trinity, Switch and Apoc climb out. Trinity pulls a
|
|
water-logged phone from her pocket.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
We need a phone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Tank is again at the monitors, searching the Matrix.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
We gotta find the others. They're
|
|
still alive.
|
|
|
|
The PHONE RINGS.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Operator.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER (V.O.)
|
|
I need an exit! Fast!
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Cypher? I thought they had you?
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. STREET (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Cypher is standing at a public phone. Across the street
|
|
is the burning paddy wagon that appears to have collided
|
|
witli an oncoming car.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
There was an accident. A fucking
|
|
car accident. All of a sudden.
|
|
Boom. They're all dead. I still
|
|
got the shakes but, Jesus,
|
|
someone's going to make a believer
|
|
out of me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Dozer spots the wreck.
|
|
|
|
DOZER
|
|
There he is.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
I got you.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER (V.O.)
|
|
Just get me outta here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. STREET (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
TANK (V.O.)
|
|
Nearest exit is Franklin and Erie.
|
|
An old appliance store.
|
|
|
|
Cypher hangs up and smiles as the fire trucks arrive.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
An actor. Definitely.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
The PHONE RINGS. Tank answers.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Operator.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY (V.O.)
|
|
Tank, it's me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. STREET (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
They are outside a pawn shop. Trinity has a new cellular.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
We need an exit!
|
|
|
|
TANK (V.O.)
|
|
Gotcha. You're not far from
|
|
Cypher.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Cypher, I thought --
|
|
|
|
TANK (V.O.)
|
|
So did we. That boy's got nine
|
|
lives. I sent him to Franklin and
|
|
Erie.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Got it.
|
|
|
|
She hangs up.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. STREET (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Running, Cypher turns onto Erie.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. APPLIANCE STORE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Dead machines, eviscerated and shrouded with dust lay on
|
|
metal shelves like bodies in a morgue.
|
|
|
|
Plywood covering a small window is ripped off and Cypher
|
|
crawls inside.
|
|
|
|
Deep in the back room, a PHONE that has not rung in years
|
|
begins to RING.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Tank punches the emit command.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Got him.
|
|
|
|
Cypher's body twitches in its harness, jerking itself
|
|
awake. His eyes blink open. Dozer unplugs him.
|
|
|
|
DOZER
|
|
System check looks fine.
|
|
|
|
Cypher stands, a raspy cough spewing from his lungs.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. STREET (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Trinity sees the appliance shop.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Cypher holds his chest.
|
|
|
|
DOZER
|
|
You okay?
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Goddamn gas. My lungs are killing
|
|
me.
|
|
|
|
He crosses to an overhead bin.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
We got any pain killers?
|
|
|
|
DOZER
|
|
The first aid kit's over here.
|
|
|
|
As Dozer stoops for a cabinet, Cypher pulls back a heavy
|
|
blanket exposing a plasma rifle.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. APPLIANCE STORE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Neo crawls through the window that Cypher opened.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Tank finishes loading the exit programs as Cypher rises
|
|
behind him, swinging the weapon at his back.
|
|
|
|
He looks over as Dozer turns with the first aid kit, a
|
|
look of frozen disbelief crossing his face --
|
|
|
|
DOZER
|
|
No!
|
|
|
|
Tank spins as red hot wads of PLASMA EXPLODE through his
|
|
chair and into his back. Diving, a second BURST tears up
|
|
his side --
|
|
|
|
As Dozer shoots a look at the monitor where Tank was
|
|
working. He stabs the enter command activating the exit
|
|
sequence and ducks under a BARRAGE of PLASMA FIRE-
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. APPLIANCE STORE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The PHONE begins to RING as the others crawl in.
|
|
|
|
SWITCH
|
|
God, I love that sound.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Dozer rolls up, grabbing a heavy crowbar from a box of
|
|
tools.
|
|
|
|
Cypher circles the drive chairs as the sights of the
|
|
plasma rifle find Dozer's face.
|
|
|
|
Dozer charges, screaming, and the PLASMA RIFLE SCREAMS
|
|
back.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. APPLIANCE STORE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The PHONE is still RINGING.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
You first,.Neo.
|
|
|
|
Neo answers the phone when there is a CLICK. There is no
|
|
signal. Nothing but silence.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
What happened?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I don't know. It just went dead.
|
|
|
|
Trinity listens to the dead line and takes out the
|
|
cellular.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
The operator PHONE begins to RING- Cypher steps over the
|
|
body of Tank and looks at the monitor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. APPLIANCE STORE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Trinity can almost feel him watching them. Every
|
|
unanswered RING wrings her gut a little tighter, until --
|
|
|
|
CYPHER (V.O.)
|
|
Hello, Trinity.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Cypher? Where's Tank?
|
|
|
|
CYPHER (V.O.)
|
|
He had an accident.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
An accident? What about Dozer?
|
|
Is Dozer there?
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
He walks over to Trinity's body, staring down at it
|
|
hanging in its coma-like stillness.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
You know, for a long time, I
|
|
thought I was in love with you,
|
|
Trinity. I used to dream about
|
|
you...
|
|
|
|
He nuzzles his face against hers, feeling the softness of
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
You are a beautiful woman. Too
|
|
bad things had to work out like
|
|
this.
|
|
|
|
We INTERCUT BETWEEN the appliance store and the main
|
|
deck.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
You killed them.
|
|
|
|
APOC
|
|
What?!
|
|
|
|
SWITCH
|
|
Oh God.
|
|
|
|
Wearing Tank's operator headgear, Cypher moves among the
|
|
silent bodies.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
In a way you're very lucky. Most
|
|
people never know why they die.
|
|
One minute they're alive, the next
|
|
they're dead. No warning.
|
|
Nothing. That's why I thought
|
|
maybe I should tell you. It
|
|
seemed the least I could do.
|
|
|
|
He stands over the body of Morpheus, as his anger boils
|
|
up out of him.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
You see, the truth, the real,truth
|
|
is that the war is over. It's
|
|
been over for a long time. And
|
|
guess what? We lost! Did you
|
|
hear that? We lost the war!
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
What about Zion?
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Zion? Zion is a part of this
|
|
delusion. More of this madness.
|
|
That's why this has to be done.
|
|
It has to end. Now and forever.
|
|
|
|
She suddenly sees the entire dark plan.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Oh rny God. This is abzut Zion.
|
|
You gave them Morpheus for the
|
|
access codes to Zion.
|
|
|
|
Cypher walks away from Morpheus and bends down next to
|
|
Apoc's body.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
You see, Trinity, we humans have a
|
|
place in the future. But it's not
|
|
here. It's in the Matrix.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
The Matrix isn't real!
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Oh, I disagree, Trinity. I
|
|
disagree. I think the Matrix is
|
|
more real than this world. I
|
|
mean, all I do is pull a plug
|
|
here. But there, you watch a man
|
|
die.
|
|
|
|
He grabs hold of the cable in Apoc's neck, twists it and
|
|
yanks it out.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
You tell me which is more real.
|
|
|
|
Apoc seems to go blind for an instant, a scream caught in
|
|
his throat, his hands reaching for nothing, and then
|
|
falls dead. Switch screams.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Welcome to the real world, right?
|
|
|
|
He laughs.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Somehow, some way, you're going to
|
|
pay for this.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Pay for it? I'm not even going to
|
|
remember it. It'll be like it
|
|
never happened. The tree falling
|
|
in the forest. It doesn't make a
|
|
sound.
|
|
|
|
His hand slides around the neck of Switch as he takes
|
|
hold of her plug.
|
|
|
|
She suddenly feels her body severed from her mind as she
|
|
is murdered.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Goddamn you, Cypher!
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
Don't hate me, Trinity. I'm just
|
|
the messenger. And right now I'm
|
|
going to prove that the message is
|
|
true.
|
|
|
|
He stands over Neo.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
If Morpheus was right, then
|
|
there's no way I can pull this
|
|
plug, is there?
|
|
|
|
She turns to Neo, eyes wide with fear, and he knows he is
|
|
next.
|
|
|
|
CYPHER
|
|
If he is the One, then in the next
|
|
few seconds there has to be some
|
|
kind of miracle to stop me.
|
|
Because if he dies like the others
|
|
that means Morpheus was wrong.
|
|
How can he be the One if he's
|
|
dead?
|
|
|
|
He takes hold of the cord when --
|
|
|
|
She hears an EXPLOSION and a scream.
|
|
|
|
Cypher is on the ground, his left leg blown off at the
|
|
knee. He rolls over and finds Tank on the ground, and
|
|
the sights of the plasma rifle.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
How's it feel, Cypher? Knowing
|
|
you're about to die?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
It's Tank! He's alive.
|
|
|
|
Cypher lunges for Neo's plug just as Tank BLOWS his head
|
|
off.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. APPLIANCE STORE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
They're both listening, trying to figure out what is
|
|
happening when the store PHONE starts to RING.
|
|
|
|
Trinity smiles, tears moistening her eyes as Neo throws
|
|
his arms around her. For a moment, it looks as if they
|
|
might kiss before Trinity lets go.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
We should, we should hurry.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Yeah. Right.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Trinity's eyes open, a sense of relief surging through
|
|
her at the sight of the ship. As Tank unplugs her, she
|
|
sees his charred wounds.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Tank, you're hurt.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
I'll be all right.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Dozer?
|
|
|
|
Tank's face tightens.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
I'm sorry, Tank.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. NIKO HOTEL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
A Japanese luxury hotel in downtown Chicago.
|
|
|
|
A military helicopter sets down on the roof. Heavily
|
|
armed Marines begin to deploy.
|
|
|
|
Agent Jones gets out of the helicopter, flanked by
|
|
columns of Marines. They open the roof access door
|
|
and enter the top-floor maintenance level of the hotel.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. TOP FLOOR (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
They get in the elevator. At every door, at least two
|
|
Marines stop and post guard.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
They exit the elevator and walk to the Presidential
|
|
suite; the final two Marines post guard.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Inside, he finds Agent Smith.
|
|
|
|
AGENT JONES
|
|
There is a problem. Reagan has
|
|
failed to secure the hardware.
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith stares out the window.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Never send a human to do a
|
|
machine's job.
|
|
|
|
AGENT JONES
|
|
But if Reagan has failed, why
|
|
haven't they pulled the plug?
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Haven't you learned by now, that
|
|
it is impossible to understand why
|
|
they do the things they do?
|
|
|
|
He turns.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Continue as planned. Trace his
|
|
signal to locate their position
|
|
and deploy an extermination unit.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus is handcuffed to a chair, stripped to the waist.
|
|
He is bleeding from numerous wounds and is pumped full of
|
|
serum, alternately shivering and sweating. He is hooked
|
|
up to various monitors with white disk electrodes.
|
|
|
|
Agent Brown begins running a trace program.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Neo looks at Morpheus whose body is covered with a cold
|
|
sweat.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
What are they doing to him?
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
They're cracking his mind.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
How?
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
They inject virus-like serums to
|
|
break down the system. It's like
|
|
cracking a computer. All it takes
|
|
is time.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
How much time?
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Depends on the mind. But
|
|
eventually, it will crack and his
|
|
alpha pattern will change from
|
|
this to this.
|
|
|
|
Tank punches several commands on Morpheus' personal unit.
|
|
The monitor waves change from a chaotic pattern to an
|
|
orderly symmetrical one.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
When it does, Morpheus will tell
|
|
them anything they want to know.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
The access codes to Zion.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
If an agent got inside Zion's
|
|
mainframe he could do anything.
|
|
Disable the defense system. It
|
|
would be the end of us.
|
|
|
|
He looks up at Trinity who is pacing relentlessly.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
We can't let that happen. We have
|
|
to do it, Trinity. Zion has to be
|
|
protected.
|
|
|
|
Trinity sees Cypher's dead body. Rage overtakes her and
|
|
she starts kicking hin.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Goddamnit! Goddamnit!
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
We have to pull the plug.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
No!
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
We don't have any other choice.
|
|
|
|
Those words are like using gasoline to put out a fire and
|
|
we watch the pain in her eyes burn into a blaze. She
|
|
walks past him and gets into her chair.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Trinity, what are you doing?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
I'm going in after him.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Morpheus could conform at any
|
|
minute --
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
If he does I'm sure you'll do what
|
|
has to be done.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
You saw that place. It's suicide.
|
|
|
|
She glares at him.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
I know what Morpheus means to
|
|
you --
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
No. No, I don't think you do. If
|
|
you did, then you would know that
|
|
I'm not letting him go. Not
|
|
without a fight, Tank.
|
|
|
|
She yanks her harness tight.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Not without a fight.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith stands in the bedroon of the enormous suite,
|
|
staring out the windows at the city, below, shimmering
|
|
with brilliant sunlight.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Have you ever stood and stared at
|
|
it, Morpheus? Marveled at its
|
|
beauty. Its genius. Billions of
|
|
people just living out their
|
|
lives... oblivious.
|
|
|
|
Agent Brown sucks a serum from a glass vial, filling a
|
|
hypodermic needle.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Did you know that the first Matrix
|
|
was designed to be a perfect human
|
|
world? Where none suffered, where
|
|
everyone would be happy. It was a
|
|
disaster. No one would accept the
|
|
program. Entire crops were lost.
|
|
|
|
Agent Brown jams the needle into Morpheus' shoulder, and
|
|
plunges down.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Some believed we lacked the
|
|
programming language to describe
|
|
your perfect world. But I believe
|
|
that, as a species, human beings
|
|
define their reality through
|
|
suffering and misery.
|
|
|
|
Agent Brown studies the screens as the life signs react
|
|
violently to the injection.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
The perfect world was a dream that
|
|
your primitive cerebrum kept
|
|
trying to wake up from. Which is
|
|
why the Matrix was re-designed to
|
|
this: the peak of your
|
|
civilization.
|
|
|
|
He turns from the window.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
I say 'your civilization' because
|
|
as soon as we start thinking for
|
|
you, it really becomes our
|
|
civilization, which is, of course,
|
|
what this is all about.
|
|
|
|
He sits down directly in front of Morpheus.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Evolution, Morpheus. Evolution.
|
|
|
|
He lifts Morpheus' head.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Like the dinosaur. Look out that
|
|
window. You had your time.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus stares hard at him, trying hard not to show the
|
|
pain racking his mind.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
The future is our world, Morpheus.
|
|
The future is our time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Neo goes to his chair and begins strapping in.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
What do you think you're doing?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
You need help. I'm coming with
|
|
you.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
No. No way. Morpheus sacrificed
|
|
himself so you could escape.
|
|
There's no way you're going back
|
|
in.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Morpheus did what he did because
|
|
he believed that I'm something
|
|
that I'm not.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
What?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I'm not the One, Trinity. The
|
|
Oracle told me.
|
|
|
|
Trinity is stunned.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
She said I had a gift but I still
|
|
had a lot to learn. She told me
|
|
maybe next life.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Did you tell Morpheus?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Why? It wouldn't mean anything.
|
|
He'd still believe what he wanted
|
|
to believe. But Morpheus is the
|
|
one that matters. He's more
|
|
important than me and we both know
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
He straps in.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I may not be what Morpheus thinks
|
|
I am, but if I don't try to help
|
|
him, then I'm not even what I
|
|
think I am.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
What are you?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
His friend.
|
|
|
|
INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith sits casually across from Morpheus who is
|
|
hunched over, his body leaking and twitching.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
I'd like to share a revelation
|
|
that I've had during my time here.
|
|
It came to me when I tried to
|
|
classify your species. I've
|
|
realized that you are not actually
|
|
mammals.
|
|
|
|
The life signs continue their chaotic patterns.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Every mammal on this planet
|
|
instinctively develops a natural
|
|
equilibrium with the surrounding
|
|
environment. But you humans do
|
|
not. You move to an area and you
|
|
multiply and multiply until every
|
|
natural resource is consumed and
|
|
the only way you can survive is to
|
|
spread to another area.
|
|
|
|
He leans forward.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
There is another organism on this
|
|
planet that follows the same
|
|
pattern. Do you know what it is?
|
|
A virus.
|
|
|
|
He smiles.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Human beings are a disease, a
|
|
cancer of this planet. You are a
|
|
plague. And we are... the cure.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Trinity and Neo hang motionless in the suspension unit.
|
|
Tank is at the operations station.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Okay. Store's open. What do you
|
|
need?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY (V.O.)
|
|
Guns. Lots of guns.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Coming right up.
|
|
|
|
He loads the weapons disk.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. CONSTRUCT
|
|
|
|
Racks of weapons appear and Neo and Trinity arm
|
|
themselves.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
No one has ever done anything like
|
|
this.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Yeah?
|
|
|
|
He snap cocks an Uzi.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
That's why it's going to work.
|
|
|
|
INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith is again at the window.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Why isn't the serum working?
|
|
|
|
AGENT BROWN
|
|
Perhaps we are asking the wrong
|
|
questions.
|
|
|
|
AGENT JONES
|
|
Or he doesn't know.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Of course he knows. He's
|
|
resisting.
|
|
|
|
AGENT BROWN
|
|
How?
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
I don't know. If I knew...
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith hides his knotting fist. He is becoming
|
|
angry. It is something that isn't supposed to happen to
|
|
agents.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Leave me with him.
|
|
|
|
Agent Brown and Jones look at each other.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Now!
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Tank sits down beside Morpheus whose face is ashen like
|
|
someone near death. He takes hold of his hand.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Hold on, Morpheus. They're coming
|
|
for you. They're coming.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. NIKO HOTEL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
A dark wind blows.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. NIKO HOTEL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
In long, black coats, Trinity and Neo push through the
|
|
revolving doors.
|
|
|
|
Neo is carrying a duffel bag. Trinity has a large metal
|
|
suitcase. They cut across the lobby drawing nervous
|
|
glances.
|
|
|
|
Dark glasses, game faces.
|
|
|
|
Several plainclothes cops try to stop them. They are met
|
|
by the MUTED SPIT of a SILENCED GUN and the RAZORED
|
|
WHISTLE of THROWING STARS.
|
|
|
|
The cops slump down to the marbled floor while Neo and
|
|
Trinity do not even break stride.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith leans close to Morpheus, whispering to him.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Can you hear me, Morpheus? I'm
|
|
going to be honest with you.
|
|
|
|
He removes his earphone, letting it dangle over his
|
|
shoulder.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
I hate this place. This zoo.
|
|
This prison. This reality,
|
|
whatever you want to call it, I
|
|
can't stand it any longer. It's
|
|
the smell, if there is such a
|
|
thing. I feel saturated by it. I
|
|
can taste your stink and every
|
|
time I do, I fear that I've
|
|
somehow been infected by it.
|
|
|
|
He wipes sweat from Morpheus' forehead, coating the tips
|
|
of his fingers, holding them to Morpheus' nose.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Repulsive, isn't it?
|
|
|
|
He lifts Morpheus' head, holding it tightly with both
|
|
hands.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
I must get out of here, I must get
|
|
free. In this mind is tlie key.
|
|
My key.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus sneers through his pain.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Once Zion is gone, there's no
|
|
need for me to be here. Do you
|
|
understand? I need the codes. I
|
|
have to get inside Zion. You have
|
|
to tell me how.
|
|
|
|
He begins squeezing, his fingers gouging into his flesh.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Tell me! Tell me!
|
|
|
|
The skull is about to shatter when Agents Jones and Brown
|
|
burst into the room. Agent Smith releases Morpheus.
|
|
|
|
AGENT BROWN
|
|
What were you doing?
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith recovers, replacing his ear piece.
|
|
|
|
AGENT JONES
|
|
You don't know.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Know what?
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith listens to his earphone, not believing what
|
|
he is hearing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ELEVATORS (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
They get in. Trinity immediately drops and opens the
|
|
suitcase, wiring a plastique and napalm bomb.
|
|
|
|
Beneath their trench coats is an arsenal of weapons slung
|
|
from climbing harnesses.
|
|
|
|
Neo hits the emergency stop. He pulls down part of the
|
|
false ceiling and finds the elevator shaft access panel.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Agent Jones looks at Morpheus.
|
|
|
|
AGENT JONES
|
|
I think they're trying to save
|
|
him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ELEVATOR SHAFT (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Neo ratchets down a clamp onto the elevator cable. Both
|
|
of them lock on. He looks up the long, dark throat of
|
|
the building and takes a deep breath.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
There is no spoon.
|
|
|
|
Neo whips out his gun and presses it to the cable, lower
|
|
than where they attached themselves.
|
|
|
|
BOOM! The CABLE SNAPS.
|
|
|
|
The counter-weights plummet, yanking Trinity and Neo up
|
|
through the shaft as --
|
|
|
|
The elevator falls away beneath them, distending space,
|
|
filling it with the sound of WHISTLING METAL as they soar
|
|
to the top.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. LOBBY (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The ELEVATOR hits the botton.
|
|
|
|
BA-BOOM!
|
|
|
|
The massive EXPLOSION blows open the doors, fire clouds
|
|
engulfing the elevator section of the lobby.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The Agents hear the BLAST AND FIRE ALARMS.
|
|
|
|
AGENT JONES
|
|
Lower level --
|
|
|
|
AGENT BROWN
|
|
They are actually attacking.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. ELEVATOR SHAFT (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Hanging by a rope, Trinity hot-wires the panel for the
|
|
door.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. TOP FLOOR (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Nervous, the Marines watch as the ELEVATOR "DINGS" softly
|
|
and slides open.
|
|
|
|
Black smoke rises out of the exposed shaft.
|
|
|
|
The nearest Marine eases to the edge, peering down at the
|
|
churning blaze engulfing the lower levels.
|
|
|
|
He does not see Trinity and Neo above him until it is too
|
|
late.
|
|
|
|
Krack! Neo kicks, knocking the Marine flying down into
|
|
the shaft.
|
|
|
|
Before the others can react, Trinity flips out into the
|
|
hall, decking the nearest Marine. Neo cracks another.
|
|
|
|
The fight is over before it begins.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
An enormous EXPLOSION THUNDERS above them, shaking the
|
|
building. The ALARM SOUNDS, emergency sprinklers begin
|
|
showering the room.
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith smashes a table.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Find them and destroy them!
|
|
|
|
Agent Jones nods and touches his ear piece.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. ROOF (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The roof-access tower is now engulfed in flames as Neo
|
|
and Trinity lay waste to a dozen more Marines.
|
|
|
|
Guns and knives, like extensions of their bodies used
|
|
with the same deadly precision as their feet and their
|
|
fists.
|
|
|
|
Across the roof, the pilot inside the army helicopter
|
|
watches the ferocious onslaught.
|
|
|
|
PILOT
|
|
I repeat, we are under attack!
|
|
|
|
Suddenly his face, his whole body dissolves, consumed by
|
|
spreading locust-like swarm, of STATIC as --
|
|
|
|
Agent Jones emerges.
|
|
|
|
Just as she drops the last Marine, Trinity sees what's
|
|
coming.
|
|
|
|
Neo sees her, the fear in her face, and he knows what is
|
|
behind him.
|
|
|
|
Screaming, he whirls, GUNS filling his hands with
|
|
thought-speed.
|
|
|
|
Fingers PUMPING, SHELLS ejecting, dancing up and away, we
|
|
look through the sights and gun smoke at --
|
|
|
|
The Agent blurred with motion --
|
|
|
|
Until the HAMMERS CLICK against empty metal.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Trinity!
|
|
|
|
Agent Jones charges.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
... help.
|
|
|
|
His GUN BOOMS as we enter the liquid space of --
|
|
|
|
Bullet-time.
|
|
|
|
The AIR SIZZLES with wads of lead-like angry flies as Neo
|
|
twists, bends, ducks just between them.
|
|
|
|
Agent Jones still running, narrows the gap, the BULLETS
|
|
coming faster until --
|
|
|
|
Neo bent impossibly back, one hand on the ground as a
|
|
spiraling gray ball shears open his shoulder.
|
|
|
|
He starts to scream as another digs a red groove across
|
|
his thigh.
|
|
|
|
He has only time to look up, to see the barrel when Agent
|
|
Jones, standing over him, pulls the TRIGGER the final
|
|
time.
|
|
|
|
CLICK. Empty.
|
|
|
|
Neo rolls, reaching for another gun when around-house
|
|
kick snaps his jaw. Agent Jones grabs the gun and levels
|
|
it at Neo.
|
|
|
|
AGENT JONES
|
|
Only human...
|
|
|
|
Suddenly Agent Jones stops. Something is wrong. He
|
|
scans the roof. Trinity is gone.
|
|
|
|
Immediately, he whirls around and turns straight into the
|
|
muzzle of her .45 --
|
|
|
|
Jammed right into his head.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Dodge this, motherfucker!
|
|
|
|
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The body flies back with a flash of
|
|
mercurial light and when it hits the ground --
|
|
|
|
It is the pilot.
|
|
|
|
Trinity helps Neo up.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Thanks.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
You're hit --
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I'm fine.
|
|
|
|
Neo is already looking at the helicopter.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Can you fly that thing?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Not yet.
|
|
|
|
She pulls out a cellular phone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
Tank is back at the controls.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Operator.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY (V.O.)
|
|
Tank, I need a pilot program for a
|
|
military M-109 helicopter.
|
|
|
|
Tank is immediately searching the disk drawers.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY (V.O.)
|
|
Hurry!
|
|
|
|
His fingers flash over the gleaming laser disks, finding
|
|
one that he feeds into Trinityls supplement drive,
|
|
punching the "load" cormands on her keyboard.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. ROOF (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Trinity's eyes flutter as information surges into her
|
|
brain, all the essentials of flying a helicopter absorbed
|
|
at light-speed.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Let's go.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Marines, trying to communicate with the men on the roof,
|
|
are beginning to panic when Agent Jones comes around the
|
|
corner.
|
|
|
|
SERGEANT
|
|
Sir! Sir! There was gunfire --
|
|
we've lost communication with the
|
|
roof!
|
|
|
|
AGENT JONES
|
|
Remain at your posts.
|
|
|
|
SERGEANT
|
|
But, sir -- the fire -- we should
|
|
evacuate!
|
|
|
|
AGENT JONES
|
|
You will do as you are ordered!
|
|
|
|
SERGEANT
|
|
Yes, sir.
|
|
|
|
Agent Jones marches into the Presidential Suite.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Agent Jones throws open the bedroom door and enters,
|
|
walking through the puddles pooling in the carpet.
|
|
|
|
Over the RUSHING WATER and the ALARMS, Agent Smith hears
|
|
a SOUND and understands the seriousness of the attack.
|
|
|
|
He turns to the wall of windows as the helicopter drops
|
|
INTO VIEW --
|
|
|
|
Neo is in the back bay, aiming the mounted .50 machine
|
|
gun.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
No.
|
|
|
|
The GUN jumps and BULLETS EXPLODE through the WINDOW in a
|
|
cacophony of CRASHING GLASS --
|
|
|
|
As the Agents go for their weapons.
|
|
|
|
But Neo is too close, the .50 CALIBER too fast and
|
|
BULLETS are everywhere, perforating the room.
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith is hit first, his body jack-knifing back,
|
|
blood arcing out with a sudden flash of light --
|
|
|
|
Then Agent Brown, his GUN still FIRING as his body falls.
|
|
|
|
And finally Agent Jones.
|
|
|
|
Neo stares at Morpheus, trying to will him into action.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Get up, Morpheus! Get up!
|
|
|
|
Morpheus sits unmoving, his head still down.
|
|
|
|
Neo grabs the climbing rope just as marines burst into
|
|
the adjoining room.
|
|
|
|
He attaches only one end to his harness when they OPEN
|
|
FIRE.
|
|
|
|
Quickly he swings the GUN, SPRAYING the other room,
|
|
WINDOWS SHATTERING, FURNITURE EXPLODING, marines diving
|
|
for cover.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Just outside the Presidential Suite, three marines
|
|
blister with snow-static.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. PRESIDENTIAL SUITE (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Morpheus lifts his face into the room's rain. His eyes,
|
|
still white, begin to blink, twitch, then close.
|
|
|
|
And when he opens them, they are again dark and flashing
|
|
with fire.
|
|
|
|
The Agents knife into the room, FIRING even as Neo's
|
|
BULLET TRAILS chase them.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus strains at his handcuffs.
|
|
|
|
The Agents and the marines turn the tide, BLASTING LEAD,
|
|
RICOCHETING, POCK-MARKING the COPTER.
|
|
|
|
FIRING wildly, Neo turns to see Morpheus rising, snapping
|
|
the handcuffs, starting for the window.
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith stops and sees Morpheus run past the open
|
|
bedroom door.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Nooo!
|
|
|
|
He FIRES, sweeping across the sheetrocked wall in a
|
|
perfect line.
|
|
|
|
For an instant, we see the BULLETS SHRED, PUNCTURING the
|
|
WALL, searing through the wet air with jet trails of
|
|
chalk.
|
|
|
|
And as Morpheus starts to dive for the window, a bullet
|
|
buries itself in his leg --
|
|
|
|
Knocking him off balance.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
He won't make it.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus lunges, out of control --
|
|
|
|
As Neo spins, every move a whip crack --
|
|
|
|
Snapping the other rope-end onto a bolted bar.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus begins to fall when Neo hurls himself into the
|
|
wide blue empty space --
|
|
|
|
Flying for a moment.
|
|
|
|
The rope snaking out behind him; an umbilical cord
|
|
attached to a machine.
|
|
|
|
As their two bodies, set in motion, rushing at each other
|
|
on a seemingly magnetic course until --
|
|
|
|
They collide.
|
|
|
|
Almost bouncing free of each other, arms, legs,
|
|
scrambling, hands searching in furious desperation,
|
|
finding hold and clinging.
|
|
|
|
Until the line ends, snapping taut, cracking their
|
|
fragile embrace. Morpheus tumbles, legs flipping over,
|
|
falling down --
|
|
|
|
The ground deliriously distant --
|
|
|
|
As Neo snatches hold of his mentor's still handcuffed
|
|
wrist.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Gotcha!
|
|
|
|
Trinity is already pulling the copter up and away.
|
|
|
|
As Agent Smith grabs the M-16 from the nearest marine.
|
|
|
|
He'll bring them all down. Targeting the helicopter, he
|
|
aims at something only he can see: the oil line.
|
|
|
|
PONK. PONK. PONK. The rear HULL is PUNCHED full of
|
|
holes and smoke and oil pours out like black blood.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Shit-shit-no!
|
|
|
|
Neo is pulling Morpheus up to him when he hears the
|
|
HELICOPTER BEGIN TO DIE.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Oh fuck.
|
|
|
|
Trinity throws the helicopter towards the roof of the
|
|
nearest building.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus and Neo cling to one another as they and the
|
|
machine above them begin to fall.
|
|
|
|
The ENGINE GRINDS, the CHOPPING BLADES start to slow
|
|
while --
|
|
|
|
The Agents stand in the open shattered window, watching
|
|
the helicopter disappear behind taller buildings.
|
|
|
|
Carried by its nomentum, Trinity guides the parabolic
|
|
fall over the nearest roof where --
|
|
|
|
Neo and Morpheus drop safely, rolling free as the rope
|
|
goes slack. Neo gets to his feet, trying to detach
|
|
himself but --
|
|
|
|
The helicopter is falling too fast, arcing over the roof
|
|
like a setting sun --
|
|
|
|
The coils of slack snap taught --
|
|
|
|
Yanking Neo off his feet, dragging him with ferocious
|
|
speed towards the edge even as --
|
|
|
|
Trinity lunges for the back door, her gun in one hand,
|
|
grabbing for the rope with the other --
|
|
|
|
Neo flies like a skipping stone, hurtling straight AT us,
|
|
when his feet hit the rain gutter --
|
|
|
|
A fulcrum that levers him up just as --
|
|
|
|
Trinity FIRES, severing the cord from the HELICOPTER,
|
|
falling free of it as it SMASHES, blades first into a
|
|
glass skyscraper.
|
|
|
|
Holding onto the rope she swings, connected to Neo, who
|
|
stands on the building's edge watching her arc beneath
|
|
him as the HELICOPTER EXPLODES --
|
|
|
|
She bounces against a shatterproof window that spider-
|
|
cracks out while FLAMES ERUPT behind her.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
Tank stares at the screen, his mouth agape.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
He's the One. He's got to be...
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. ROOFTOP (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Neo pulls Trinity up into his arms. Both shaking, they
|
|
hold each other again.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
I knew it! I goddamn knew it!
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Morpheus!
|
|
|
|
She runs at him, throwing her arms around him.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Do you believe me now? He's the
|
|
One! Who else could have done
|
|
this?
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Morpheus, I know you won't believe
|
|
me but the Oracle told ne I'm not
|
|
the One.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
It doesn't matter if I don't
|
|
believe you --
|
|
|
|
His eyes light up.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
What matters is that you don't
|
|
believe her.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. MAIN DECK
|
|
|
|
The PHONE RINGS.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY (V.O.)
|
|
Tank, get us out of here.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Got one ready. An underground El
|
|
station. State and Balbo.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY (V.O.)
|
|
See ya soon.
|
|
|
|
LINE GOES DEAD. Tank looks at the bodies and smiles.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
See ya soon.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. ROOFTOP (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The rope is all that remains. Agent Smith can barely
|
|
control his anger.
|
|
|
|
AGENT BROWN
|
|
The trace was completed.
|
|
|
|
AGENT JONES
|
|
We have their position.
|
|
|
|
AGENT BROWN
|
|
The extermination unit is in
|
|
place.
|
|
|
|
AGENT JONES
|
|
Order the strike.
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith can't stand listening to them. He moves to
|
|
the edge of the building, looking out at the surrounding
|
|
city.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
They're not out yet.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. "EL" STATION (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
A metal gate is locked, the sign reading, "Station
|
|
Closed." Neo looks around, takes out a GUN and BLOWS OFF
|
|
the LOCK.
|
|
|
|
In the moist underground distance they hear the MUTED
|
|
RING of a TELEPHONE.
|
|
|
|
The PHONE is RINGING inside a graffiti-covered booth.
|
|
|
|
Across from it, sitting hunched against the red concrete
|
|
wall, is an OLD MAN. He stares at the RINGING PHONE,
|
|
taking a final pull off his T-bird. No one is around.
|
|
It continues to RING.
|
|
|
|
Determined, he stands and walks to the booth. He is
|
|
about to answer the phone, when Neo sees him.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Don't!
|
|
|
|
The Old Man stops, Neo rushes at hin, gliding smoothly
|
|
over the turnstiles.
|
|
|
|
OLD MAN
|
|
I'm sorry -- I didn't mean!
|
|
|
|
The Old Man is shaking, terrified. Neo looks at his gun.
|
|
He glances over his shoulder, then eases back the hammer.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Get outta here. Okay? Run! Go!
|
|
|
|
The Old Man nods, turns and hurries deeper into the urban
|
|
cave, disappearing into the shadows as Trinity and
|
|
Morpheus arrive.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
What happened? Was that --
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
It was nobody.
|
|
|
|
Neo turns to the RINGING BOOTH.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Let's go! You first, Morpheus.
|
|
|
|
Morpheus gets in and answers the phone.
|
|
|
|
Lost in the shadow, the Old Man turns back and watches as
|
|
Morpheus disappears, the phone dropping, dangling by its
|
|
cord.
|
|
|
|
His eyes grow wide, glowing white in the dark.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. ROOFTOP (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith stares, his face twisted with hate. He will
|
|
never be free of the Matrix.
|
|
|
|
He starts to turn from the edge of the building when he
|
|
suddenly hears it, his head whipping back around,
|
|
staring --
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. "EL" STATION (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
As the Old Man stares.
|
|
|
|
Trinity hangs up the phone. She turns to Neo, standing
|
|
close enough to kiss him.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Morpheus is right, you know. It
|
|
doesn't matter what he believes or
|
|
even what the Oracle believes.
|
|
What matters is what you believe.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I believe...
|
|
|
|
He stares at the fullness of her lips.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I want to kiss you.
|
|
|
|
She smiles.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
I want to kiss you too...
|
|
|
|
The PHONE begins to RING.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
But I want it to be real.
|
|
|
|
She pulls herself away and gets into the booth when
|
|
something catches Neo's eye and he looks to where the Old
|
|
Man had been.
|
|
|
|
She hears him SCREAM and sees Agent Smith emerge as if
|
|
formed by congealing darkness, charging with a fistful of
|
|
metal.
|
|
|
|
The GUN FIRES, the BULLET flying at her, BURSTING through
|
|
the plastic WINDOW just as --
|
|
|
|
Trinity disappears.
|
|
|
|
The handset hanging in the air as the BULLET HITS,
|
|
SHATTERING the EAR-PIECE.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
Trinity blinks, shivering as her conscious exits the
|
|
Construct.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Neo!
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
What the hell just happened?
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
An Agent! You have to send me
|
|
back!
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
I can't!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. "EL" STATION (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
GUN REPORT THUNDERS through the underground, both men
|
|
BLASTING, moving at impossible speed.
|
|
|
|
For a blinking noment we enter BULLET-TIME.
|
|
|
|
Gun flash tongues curl from Neols gun, bullets float
|
|
forward like a plane noving across the sky, cartridges
|
|
cartwheel into space.
|
|
|
|
An instant later they are nearly on top of each other,
|
|
rolling up out of a move that is almost a mirrored
|
|
reflection of the other --
|
|
|
|
Each jamming their gun tight to the other's head.
|
|
|
|
They freeze in a kind of embrace; Neo sweating, panting,
|
|
Agent Smith machine-calm.
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith smiles.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
You're empty.
|
|
|
|
Neo pulls the TRIGGER. CLICK.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
So are you.
|
|
|
|
The smile falls. Agent Smith yanks his TRIGGER.
|
|
|
|
CLICK.
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith's face warps with rage and he attacks, fist
|
|
flying at furious speed, blows and counters, Neo
|
|
retreating as --
|
|
|
|
A knife-hand opens his forearm, and a kick sends him
|
|
slamming back against a steel column.
|
|
|
|
Stunned, he ducks just under a punch that crunches into
|
|
the beam, STEEL CHUNKS EXPLODING like shrapnel.
|
|
|
|
Behind him, Neo leaps into the air, delivering a neck-
|
|
snapping reverse round-house. Agent Smith's glasses fly
|
|
off and he glares at Neo; his eyes, ice blue.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
You can't win.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I already have.
|
|
|
|
He attacks with a vicious series of blows but the Agent
|
|
seems to absorb them, waiting for his opening.
|
|
|
|
And this time Agent Smith's attack is too much, an
|
|
unrelenting fury, fists pounding like jackhammers.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
Trinity watches Neo as his body jerks, mouth coughing
|
|
blood, his life signs going wild.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Jesus, he's killing him!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. "EL" STATION (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith grabs hold of him, lifting him into the air,
|
|
hurling him against the curved wall of the train tunnel,
|
|
where he falls inches from the electrified third-rail.
|
|
|
|
The Agent is about to jump down, and press his attack
|
|
when he hears sonething. From deep in the tunnel, like
|
|
an animal cry; a burst of high-speed METAL GRINDING
|
|
against METAL.
|
|
|
|
The sound of an ON-COMING TRAIN.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
Tank is trying to find another entrance.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Send me back, Tank! Anywhere!
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
I'm looking, Trinity! I'm
|
|
looking!
|
|
|
|
From the cockpit, an ALARM sounds. Morpheus hurries to
|
|
the front console, typing, bringing up the radar.
|
|
|
|
Trinity follows him.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
What is it... oh no.
|
|
|
|
In every pipe surrounding them, they see the
|
|
Extermination Unit.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Sentinels.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. SEWER MAIN
|
|
|
|
The killing machine we saw in the History Program blister
|
|
by us like tracer bullets shot down the throat of the
|
|
abyss.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. "EL" STATION (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Neo tries to get up. Agent Smith jumps down onto the
|
|
tracks and drop-kicks him in the face.
|
|
|
|
The world begins to shake, RUMBLING as the TRAIN NEARS.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson?
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith grabs Neo in a choke-hold, forcing him to
|
|
look down the tracks, the train's headlight burning a
|
|
hole in the darkness.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
That is the sound of
|
|
inevitability.
|
|
|
|
Neo sees it coming and he starts to fight.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
It is the sound of your death.
|
|
|
|
There is another METAL SCREECH, MUCH LOUDER, closer, as
|
|
Agent Smith tightens his hold. Neo is unable to breathe.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Goodbye, Mr. Anderson.
|
|
|
|
The TRAIN ROARS at them, swallowing Agent Smith's words.
|
|
|
|
The veins bulge in Neo's head, as he grits through the
|
|
pain.
|
|
|
|
He is not ready to die.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
My name is Neo.
|
|
|
|
Impossibly, he hurls himself straight up, smashing Smith
|
|
against the concrete ceiling of the tunnel.
|
|
|
|
They fall as the sound and fury of the TRAIN EXPLODES
|
|
INTO the station.
|
|
|
|
Neo back-flips up off the tracks just as --
|
|
|
|
The train barrels over Agent Smith.
|
|
|
|
Neo stands, knees shaking, when the train slams on its
|
|
emergency brake. With an ear-splitting SHRIEK of
|
|
TORTURED RAILS, the train slows, part of it still in the
|
|
station.
|
|
|
|
Neo turns, limping, starting to run, racing for the
|
|
escalator --
|
|
|
|
As the train comes to a stop and the doors of the last
|
|
car open; Agent Smith bursts out in furious pursuit, his
|
|
glasses again intact.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
Morpheus checks the ship's self destruct key.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
You can't use that until Neo is
|
|
out!
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
I know. Don't worry, he'll make
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. CITY STREET (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
A man sits in his Mercedes, talking on his car phone when
|
|
his door is thrown open. Neo yanks him out and jumps in.
|
|
|
|
Further down the street, Agent Smith slows, calmly
|
|
touching his ear-piece.
|
|
|
|
Neo throws the car across traffic, rocketing down a side-
|
|
street.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. CAR (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Driving like a demon with one hand, he grabs the car
|
|
phone and dials long distance.
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
Tank answers.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Operator.
|
|
|
|
NEO (V.O.)
|
|
Mr. Wizard, Get me the fuck out
|
|
of here!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. CAR (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Looking over his shoulder, watching the mirrors, Neo
|
|
drives almost unconsciously.
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
Hurry, Tank! I got some serious
|
|
pursuit!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
The keyboard clicking, Tank searches for an exit.
|
|
Trinity screams into the headset.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Neo, you better get your ass back
|
|
here!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. CAR
|
|
|
|
NEO
|
|
I'm trying, Trinity. I'm trying.
|
|
|
|
TANK (V.O.)
|
|
I got one!
|
|
|
|
Neo glances to his right and sees Agent Brown, now
|
|
driving the car beside his. Agent Brown swerves,
|
|
slamming into him.
|
|
|
|
TANK (V.O.)
|
|
Wabash and Lake. A hotel.
|
|
|
|
Neo fights the steering wheel as Agent Brown pushes the
|
|
car up over the median.
|
|
|
|
TANK (V.O.)
|
|
Room 303.
|
|
|
|
Neo drops the phone as his car bucks into the opposing
|
|
lane --
|
|
|
|
Directly into the charging path of an enormous truck
|
|
driven by Agent Smith.
|
|
|
|
Neo dives from the Mercedes as the truck plows into it,
|
|
rending metal and GLASS, crushing through, totaling other
|
|
cars, as it EXPLODES.
|
|
|
|
Neo is up and running even as orange and black clouds
|
|
billow up behind hin.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. CITY STREET (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Three figures silhouette by the burning wreckage become
|
|
the three agents.
|
|
|
|
Further down the street, Neo hauls his broken, bleeding
|
|
ass.
|
|
|
|
Agents Brown and Smith slow, touching their ear-pieces as
|
|
Agent Jones continues chasing full-bore.
|
|
|
|
Neo spins around a corner, racing toward a hotel called:
|
|
the Heart of Chicago Hotel.
|
|
|
|
Only Agent Jones is behind him now.
|
|
|
|
Neo dives into the alley. At the far end he sees Agent
|
|
Brown charging. Neo leaps for the fire escape and begins
|
|
to climb.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. SEWER MAIN
|
|
|
|
Sentinels open and shift like killer kaleidoscopes as
|
|
they ready their weapons, swarming around the
|
|
Nebuchadnezzar.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
The hovercraft booms as machines drop onto it.
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
I'm going to make the call.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
Do it!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. "HEART OF CHICAGO" HOTEL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Agent Snith is in the elevator when he hears the DISTANT
|
|
RING of a PHONE.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EXT. ALLEY (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The agents chase him, FIRING, BULLETS SPARKING and
|
|
RICOCHETING even as Neo jumps for the third-floor
|
|
platform.
|
|
|
|
Neo kicks in the window, jumping into the hall. The
|
|
doors count backwards: 310... 309...
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
Morpheus grabs the biggest gun he can find. The lasers
|
|
begin to slice through the hull.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Where is he?
|
|
|
|
TANK
|
|
Almost there.
|
|
|
|
MORPHEUS
|
|
He's going to make it.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Hurry, Neo.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Neo can hear the PHONE RINGING.
|
|
|
|
305... 304...
|
|
|
|
Agent Brown reaches the broken window behind him just as
|
|
Neo grabs the handle of 303, throwing open the door to
|
|
find --
|
|
|
|
Agent Sniith, waiting, .45 cocked.
|
|
|
|
Neo can't move -- can't think --
|
|
|
|
BOOM.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
Neo's body jerks, and everyone hears it as the life
|
|
monitors snap flat-line.
|
|
|
|
Trinity screams. Morpheus is frozen in disbelief.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Three holes in his chest, Neo falls to the blue shag
|
|
carpeting, blood smearing down the wallpaper.
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith stands over him, still aiming, taking no
|
|
chances.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Check him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
Through the lasered opening, Morpheus screams, blasting
|
|
away at the machines; comet-wads of plasma burning holes
|
|
in their armored housings.
|
|
|
|
Trinity collapses onto Neo's body.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
No-no-no! Neo, you're not dead!
|
|
You can't be dead!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Kneeling beside him, Agent Brown checks his vital signs.
|
|
|
|
AGENT BROWN
|
|
He's gone.
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith smiles, standing over him.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
I told you, you couldn't win.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
Tank is hit, a laser bolt knocking him to the ground.
|
|
They can't hold them off any longer. Morpheus lunges for
|
|
the self destruct --
|
|
|
|
As Trinity whispers in Neo's ear.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
You're right here. I'm holding
|
|
you, Neo. I'm not letting you go.
|
|
Do you hear me? I won't let you
|
|
go.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The agents walk to the elevator, leaving Neo's body
|
|
behind.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
Morpheus flicks the Plexiglas shield of the self-
|
|
destruct.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Goddamnit, Neo! Don't give it up!
|
|
Not now!
|
|
|
|
She pounds on his chest.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Not now!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOTEL HALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
The BLOW ECHOES deep in his mind.
|
|
|
|
His eyes snap open.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
Trinity screams as the monitors jump back to life. Tank
|
|
and Morpheus stare, unbelieving.
|
|
|
|
It is a miracle.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Now get up!
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HALL (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Neo struggles, holding his chest, sitting up. Down the
|
|
hall, he sees the elevator closing and --
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith staring at him as if he were looking at a
|
|
Cypher.
|
|
|
|
Neo gives him the finger.
|
|
|
|
AGENT SMITH
|
|
Nooooo!
|
|
|
|
Agent Smith pounds on the elevator door.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
A sentinel BLOWS a hole in Morpheus' right arm and he
|
|
screams, refusing to let go of the detonator.
|
|
|
|
INT. ROOM 303 (MATRIX) - DAY
|
|
|
|
Neo dives for the RINGING PHONE.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
Machines split open the craft, pouring in, lasers
|
|
targeting everywhere.
|
|
|
|
A beat finds the center of Morpheus' forehead and he
|
|
screams, ready to die.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Now!
|
|
|
|
He turns the key.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. OVERFLOW PIT
|
|
|
|
A blinding shock of white lights flood the chamber;
|
|
sentinels blink and fall instantly dead, filling the pit
|
|
with their cold, metal carcasses.
|
|
|
|
|
|
INT. HOVERCRAFT
|
|
|
|
In the still darkness, only the humans are alive.
|
|
|
|
TRINITY
|
|
Neo?
|
|
|
|
His eyes open. Tears pour from her smiling eyes as he
|
|
reaches up to touch her.
|
|
|
|
And she kisses hin; it seems like it might last forever.
|
|
|
|
FADE TO BLACK.
|
|
|
|
|
|
FADE IN:
|
|
|
|
ON COMPUTER SCREEN
|
|
|
|
as in the opening. The cursor beating steadily, waiting.
|
|
|
|
A PHONE begins to RING.
|
|
|
|
It is answered and the screen fills instantly with the
|
|
trace program. After a long beat, we recognize Neo's
|
|
voice.
|
|
|
|
NEO (V.O.)
|
|
Hi. It's me. I know you're out
|
|
there. I know you're working as
|
|
fast as you can to catch me.
|
|
|
|
We CLOSE IN ON the racing columns of numbers shimmering
|
|
across the screen.
|
|
|
|
NEO (V.O.)
|
|
I thought I should call and let
|
|
you know how things stand.
|
|
|
|
We DIVE THROUGH the numbers, surging UP THROUGH the
|
|
darkness, sucked TOWARDS a tight constellation of stars.
|
|
|
|
NEO (V.O.)
|
|
I know you're real proud of this
|
|
world you've built, the way it
|
|
works, all the nice little rules
|
|
and such, but I've got some bad
|
|
news.
|
|
|
|
We realize that the constellation is actually the holes
|
|
in the mouthpiece of a phone. Seen from inside.
|
|
|
|
NEO (V.O.)
|
|
I've decided to make a few
|
|
changes.
|
|
|
|
We SHOOT THROUGH the holes as Neo hangs up the phone.
|
|
|
|
He steps out of the phone booth and starts walking,
|
|
wearing a long black coat and dark glasses. He passes a
|
|
mother dragging her little BOY, who cranes his neck as --
|
|
|
|
Neo takes off, flying up into the air.
|
|
|
|
BOY
|
|
Mommy! Mommy!
|
|
|
|
MOMMY
|
|
What?
|
|
|
|
BOY
|
|
That man! That man flies!
|
|
|
|
MOMMY
|
|
Don't be silly, honey. Men don't
|
|
fly.
|
|
|
|
There is a RUSH of AIR as the Boy stares up as Neo shoots
|
|
overhead. His coat billowing like a black leather cape
|
|
as he soars up, up, and away.
|
|
|
|
FADE OUT.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE END
|
|
|
|
|