The explanation for this: my dad has been on a sci-fi kick lately, and I've been forced to watch the 'classics'. The Matrix was one of the better ones.
Disclaimer: I don't own them. They're free (albeit fictional) characters.
"This is Trinity-" Morpheus gestured to a pretty woman with cropped dark hair, diligently keeping lookout from the bow of the hovercraft, "Switch and Apoc-" another woman, with bleached, spiky hair and a Polynesian man, polishing a what looked like a pair of giant tasers, "Mouse-" a younger boy, wearing scratched sunglasses and a tattered hat, "Venus," a young blonde woman with much longer hair than the other two, "and Tank and Dozer," a pair of black men, both healthier looking and without ports, sitting in front of two screens displaying long strings of green code.
"Everyone, meet our newest friend," said Morpheus loudly, calling attention to himself and the bald, silent man next to him, "Cypher."
None of the crew members acknowledged him in the slightest way, all their eyes were trained on Morpheus. It stung a little, having people act as if you were insignificant. Not even caring that you'd just been dumped from the slime tank where you'd lived out your life, only to find that the real world was run by machines. Not caring that you were about to pee yourself from the stress. Why should they? They were too important for him.
"Mouse," he said suddenly, his focus switching from Cypher to the boy. "How's the agent program going?"
"Absolutely great," gushed Mouse, talking so fast Cypher thought his lips were going to fall off. "I've got the city, and the agents, who, by the way, were absolutely disgusting to have to study, but I'm having a little bit of a tough time thinking of a distraction."
"A prostitute, maybe?" the younger blonde woman suggested, biting her lip to keep from laughing.
"Not a bad idea, really," Mouse agreed. "Then after she's done, I could put her into a different kind of program for the men on board. You know, have a little personal encounter for them. Depriving ourselves from the human way cannot be good for us."
"Shut up, Mouse," said Apoc, looking up from the taser. "We don't need a digital whore taking up program space."
"I could put her in a zip file," he suggested, shooting nervous looks at the weapon in Apoc's hands.
"Hey, Morpheus," Trinity said quietly. She had migrated from the front window to behind Morpheus and Cypher. "He looks pretty beat. Maybe he should go to bed. Get some rest for tomorrow."
What was with the he? Was he not good enough to waste speech on?
"Follow me," she commanded gently. It took him a second to realize who she was speaking to.
He followed, seemingly struck dumb. She led him to a tiny, shabby room, containing only a cot and a small table. As she made to leave, he spoke his first word since stepping onto the Nebuchadnezzar.
"Thanks."
"Go to sleep. You'll need it tomorrow."
A sharp rapping at his door the next morning woke him up from a tortured dream about red pills, rabbit holes, and repenting. Without waiting for an answer, the girl who'd suggested the prostitute opened the door and waltzed in with a pen and tablet in hand. Venus was a good name for her, he thought. She was beautiful as anything. But hoping that she was going to pay attention to him was delusional. It wasn't as though anyone else had been.
She squatted against the wall by the door and tapped in a few commands on the tablet. Apparently, paper was no longer used in whatever the hell year it was.
"Hello, Cypher," she said without looking up. Without acknowledging his presence with her eyes. After tapping a few more things into her tablet, she asked, "Tank said I could have a minute before your training. Would you mind if I psychoanalyzed you?"
The question caught him by surprise. He had been expecting something more along the lines of, "We've discovered that you're not actually cut out for the real world. Would you mind if we dumped you back into your vat?"
"I guess," he answered. Not revealing any more feeling than needed.
"First question. Why did you take the red pill?" She finally looked up at him, big, pretty brown eyes flickering between his face and where her pen was poised above the tablet.
"Why did you take the red pill?" As soon as the question was out of his mouth, he regretted it. Now he would test as paranoid.
"Easy," she smiled, not visibly put-out by his reply, but pen tapping away at the tablet none the less. "I was about seven, and red is my favorite color. The decision made itself. You?"
"I wanted a change. I had a boring-ass desk job. Morpheus was the most interesting person I'd met in a while, so I went with it," he explained, picking at the skin on his thumb.
When she asked the next question, she was completely focused on him, though still tapping the infernal tablet. "How do you feel?"
"Why do you care?" he asked, savagely ripping off a piece of skin.
"I'm trying to see if there is a specific personality trait that causes people to choose the red, the unknown," explained Venus. Her smile was starting to look plastered on.
"Any luck with that?" he asked, avoiding the psychoanalysis. Where the hell had a girl who left the matrix at seven learned psychiatry? Unless she was some kind of child prodigy.
"No," she sighed. Her tone then switched to thinly-masked annoyance. "Answer the question, please."
"I feel scared," he answered, chuckling at her anger. It was so easy to break her calm shell. "Scared as hell."
"Why are you scared?"
"Why are you scared?" he replied.
"Answer the goddamn question, Cypher," she said quietly, furiously tapping at her tablet. He would have paid millions to see what she was writing.
"I'm scared," he answered slowly, watching her struggle to remain emotionless, "Because I have no idea what's going on. No one has told me anything. It's like I don't matter, like I'm nobody again. Just another battery."
"Nice speaking to you." With a few final taps on her tablet, she got up and left. She slammed the door behind her. Cypher could hear her voice, both annoyed and accomplished, speaking to someone who'd been waiting outside.
"Nice speaking to you, sweetheart."
Who'd you like the next chapter to be based around? Anyone on the Neb is a possibility.