Kansas is Going Bye-bye

EXT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE

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

INT. HOTEL LAFAYETTE

It is a place of putrefying elegance, a rotting host of urban maggotry.

Trinity leads Neo from the stairwell down the hall of the thirteenth floor. They stop outside room 1313.

TRINITY
This is it.

Neo can hear his own heart pounding.

TRINITY
Let me give one piece of advice.
Be honest. He knows more than you
can possibly imagine.

INT. ROOM 1313

Across the room, a dark figure stares out the tall windows veiled with decaying lace. He turns and his smile lights up the room. A dull roar of thunder shakes the old building.

MORPHEUS
At last.

He wears a long black coat and his eyes are invisible behind circular mirrored glasses. He strides to Neo and they shake hands.

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

NEO
It's an honor.

MORPHEUS
No, the honor is mine. Please.
Come. Sit.

He nods to Trinity and she exits through a door to an adjacent room. They sit across from one another in cracked, burgundy-leather chairs.

MORPHEUS
I imagine, right now, you must be
feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling
down the rabbit hole?

NEO
You could say that.

MORPHEUS
I can see it in your eyes. You
have the look of a man who accepts
what he sees because he is
expecting to wake up.

A smile, razor-thin, curls the corner of his lips.

MORPHEUS
Ironically, this is not far from
the truth. But I'm getting ahead
of myself. Can you tell me, Neo,
why are you here?

NEO
You're Morpheus. You're a legend.
Most hackers would die to meet
you.

MORPHEUS
Yes. Thank you. But I think we
both know there's more to it than
that. Do you believe in fate,Neo?

NEO
No.

MORPHEUS
Why not?

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

MORPHEUS
I know exactly what you mean.

Again, that smile that could cut glass.

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

NEO
The Matrix?

MORPHEUS
Do you want to know what it is?

Neo swallows hard and nods.

MORPHEUS
The Matrix is everywhere, it's all
around us, here even in this room.
You can see it out your window or
on your television. You feel it
when you go to work, or go to
church or pay your taxes. It is
the world that has been pulled
over your eyes to blind you from
the truth.

NEO
What truth?

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

The leather creaks as he leans back.

MORPHEUS
Unfortunately, no one can be told
what the Matrix is. You have to
see it for yourself.

Morpheus opens his hands. In the right is a red pill. In the left, a blue pill.

MORPHEUS
This is your last chance. After
this, there is no going back. You
take the blue pill and the story
ends. You wake in your bed and
you believe whatever you want to
believe.

The pills in his open hands are reflected in the glasses.

MORPHEUS
You take the red pill and you stay
in Wonderland and I show you how
deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Neo feels the smooth skin of the capsules, the moisture growing in his palms.

MORPHEUS
Remember that all I am offering is
the truth. Nothing more.

Neo opens his mouth and swallows the red pill. The Cheshire smile returns.

MORPHEUS
Follow me.

INT. OTHER ROOM

He leads Neo into the other room, which is cramped with high-tech equipment, glowing ash-blue and electric green from the racks of monitors. Trinity, Apoc, Switch and Cypher look up as they enter.

MORPHEUS
Apoc, are we on-line?

APOC
Almost.

He and Trinity are working quickly, hardwiring a complex system of monitors, modules and drives.

MORPHEUS
Neo, time is always against us.
Will you take a seat there?

Neo sits in a chair in the center of the room and Trinity begins gently fixing white electrode disks to him. Near the chair is an old oval dressing mirror that is cracked. He whispers to Trinity:

NEO
You did all this?

She nods, placing a set of headphones over his ears. They are wired to an old hotel phone.

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

NEO
What does that mean?

CYPHER
It means buckle up, Dorothy,
'cause Kansas is going bye-bye.

- From the script of the movie Matrix, written by Larry and Andy Wachowski