Disclaimer: The film 'The Matrix' belongs to the Wachowski brothers (I bet
I spelt that wrong), and the actual Matrix belongs to the Agents. And the
machiney things.
A/N: I hope you like this, pleeeeeeeease review at the end! And Neo isn't the brightest of sparks in this story. DO NOT BE OFFENDED. And this is not a sequel or anything to any of my other Matrix stories. And I know Morpheus probably isn't female. And Tank . . . well, he might well be gay, but anyway, it's ARTISTIC LICENSE.
THE CARPHONE WAREHOUSE by Agent Norbert (for President)
Eleven in the morning found Morpheus staring over his bowl of slop (or snot, as I think they actually said) at a communication from the Zion mainframe computer. He did not seem amused.
After a rather uncomfortably long pause, the One ventured forth a tentative, 'Is something wrong?'
Morpheus snorted, but didn't reply. *Useful* thought our little Neo, except that he didn't cos he hadn't yet quite mastered sarcasm. Well, if you've got an intelligent (though violent) woman I suppose she can deal with life's little problems that might require a basic understanding of the thing.
But anyway, there's one thing you can say for the One, and that's that he's persistent. 'What's wrong?' he asked again.
Morpheus acknowledged this with a grunt, and threw the letter (well, I don't know how they communicate with Zion!) over to Neo, who politely said, 'Thankyou' and started to read it. The wrong way up. Tank kindly reached over and turned it the right way for him, eyebrows wiggling all the while.
'Erm . . .' began the One, 'where's Trinity?'
'Why?' asked Morpheus, surprised.
'It's just that she usually . . . likes to read stuff to me . . .' lied Neo unconvincingly, 'and I don't want to annoy her by reading it myself.'
Usually, you'd think that two grown men like Tank and Morpheus could see through a lie like that. And maybe they could. Maybe they just didn't want to take the risk of Trinity getting angry, on the off-chance that it was true. Which would, in fact, have been admirably sensible.
'Where is she?' asked Neo again.
'I think she's halfway through the eyeliner stage,' said Tank, who knew quite a bit about these things (I've leave you to guess why!). 'I really wouldn't disturb her.'
All three men instinctively moved their hands to cover whatever was most important to them - guess yourself what it was for Neo and Morpheus, but for Tank, eyebrows came first. They all knew only too well how Trinity reacted to being disturbed while applying make-up, and eyeliner was the most important stage in the whole massive operation.
'Ah . . .' said Neo. 'Well, what does it say?'
Morpheus was brought back to the subject in hand abruptly, and started spluttering. 'It says . . .' he spluttered, getting spit all over Tank and Neo, who reacted either by saying 'Ewww!' or alternatively 'Oooooh!' (you can guess which!). 'It says . . . that we have to go to a workshop on phone use!'
'Why?' asked Tank.
'Why?' asked Neo, then on second thoughts, 'What's a workshop?'
'It means . . .' said Morpheus, breathing rather heavily and consequently making snorting noises, 'that we have to go to LESSONS on how to use the phone.'
Tank shook his head, sadly.
Neo shook his head, copying Tank. Then asked, 'What's a phone?'
Morpheus banged his head against the table. Neo copied that too. Morpheus looked at him, pained, and opened his mouth to comment, but wisely closed it as Trinity entered the room.
Assessing the situation, Trinity walked over to Morpheus and kicked the side of his head. 'What's wrong?' she demanded.
'Hello to you, too . . .' muttered Morpheus, massaging his head. This was not wise.
Trinity kicked him again. 'I *said* what's wrong?' she repeated.
'We have to go to a PHONE workshop,' said Tank, wearily.
'A phone workshop,' Trinity repeated, flatly. 'A phone workshop.'
'But Simon didn't say . . .' interrupted Neo. The whole crew looked at him, bewildered.
'What?' asked Morpheus, after a several-minute-long silence.
'Simon didn't say,' repeated Neo, helpfully. Then, looking at the still completely blank faces of his fellow resistance fighters, he added, 'it's a GAME. You're not supposed to copy anything unless Simon says so.'
'But no-one copied anything . . .' began Morpheus. He was, however, interrupted by Tank, saying:
'Simon? Aaah . . . I knew a Simon once . . . in the good old days,' smiling very strangely, and wiggling his eyebrows.
Everyone stared at him, completely nonplussed.
Then eventually, Neo said, 'It was Trinity who copied something, she said 'a phone workshop' twi- . . .'
'Shut up, Neo,' said Trinity, affectionately kicking the side of his head.
'OWWW!' shrieked Neo, diving under the table.
'How come you can do that outside the Matrix, Trinity? That freezing time and kicking peoples' heads?' asked Morpheus, eagerly.
'You wouldn't understand,' said Trinity, haughtily. 'It's beyond your mental capacity.'
'Be like that,' muttered Morpheus, sulkily. Tank winced, and sure enough, a second later Morpheus was once again cradling his head.
'Why do we have to go to a phone workshop?' demanded Trinity. No-one answered. She stared at all of them evilly then marched up to the table and grabbed the communication from Zion. She skimmed through it then started shouting. 'WHAT? WHAT? WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?'
Tank looked at Neo. Neo looked at Morpheus. Morpheus looked at Tank. 'Run!' Tank advised. They did.
In the safety of a rather small cabin, they sat quietly, listening to the noises that indicated very well that Trinity was not pleased and was showing this displeasure by destroying as much stuff as she could.
Finally, Neo spoke up. 'Why DO we have to go to a phone workshop?' he asked.
Morpheus sighed. 'Those morons at Zion reckon we can't deal with phones without each other. You know that time I took you to see the Oracle?'
Neo nodded. Luckily Morpheus realised that Neo didn't have a clue what he was on about and added, 'the kind lady with the biscuits. Remember?' (by the way, how weird is she? "You're going to die. But hey, have a biscuit!") Neo smiled and nodded, genuinely this time.
'Good,' said Morpheus, looking desperately at Tank before continuing, 'and before we went into the Matrix we spent quite a while standing round the phone before I picked it up and said 'We're in'.' Neo shook his head and opened his mouth but Morpheus cut across him quickly, 'you don't have to remember, that's why I'm *telling* you. Well, Zion thinks . . .' here Morpheus swelled up like a bullfrog (if they swell up, I've never seen one) 'Zion thinks . . . that we waited so long because I didn't know HOW to answer the phone! Honestly! Haven't they ever heard of DRAMATIC EMPHASIS? It was so much cooler when we waited round the phone in cool clothes - except Switch I suppose, those clothes were nasty, I've never liked white myself - but no! Those idiots at Zion wanted us straight into the Matrix! No sense of DRAMA! No sense of STYLE! NO SENSE!!! NO SENSE!!! NO SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENSE!!!'
'Yes,' said Tank, kindly, patting Morpheus on the back.
'No sense!' said Morpheus, defensively.
'We know,' said Tank, heavily, 'we know.'
'But Simon still didn't say . . .' began Neo, then seeing Morpheus' face wisely stopped.
'Was there anything else?' asked Tank.
'Well . . .' Morpheus began to snort again, 'You know after Switch died and Apoc and everyone? When the phone started ringing again?'
'Yeeees,' nodded Tank.
'And Neo and Trinity sat and looked at the phone for a few minutes and then Neo picked it up and gave it to Trinity? Well, they thought that was because Trinity didn't know how to pick up the phone and because Neo didn't know how to answer it!'
Neo unwisely butted in here with: 'Actually, I was just guessing . . .'
Morpheus gave him an evil glare and Tank wiggled his eyebrows menacingly. Neo decided to shut up.
'DRAMATIC EMPHASIS!!!' bawled Morpheus.
'We understand,' said Tank, patting Morpheus' head.
'No you don't,' said Morpheus staring at him.
'Hey, I'm just the operator!' said Tank, cheerfully. 'Of course I don't understand! But I know about MEN. And MALE EMOTIONS. And you're a man so I do understand. Aren't you?'
'Tell no-one!' shouted Morpheus, instinctively grabbing the front of Neo and Tank's clothes. Neo said 'Ewww!' and pushed him off, Tank misunderstood and grabbed Morpheus' clothes back. But then said, 'Oh, hang on, if you're actually a woman I'm not interested. Sorry, and all that!'
'QUIET!' bellowed Morpheus.
'Quiet yourself!' said Neo, sulkily, before proceeding to suck his thumb.
'I'm sorry Tank, but I don't find you remotely attractive . . .' began Morpheus, but he was interrupted by Trinity loudly pushing open the door and shouting 'BOOOOOOOO!'
'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!' screamed Morpheus, diving to the floor.
'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!' screamed Tank, diving on top of him.
'Ewwwwwwwwwwwww!' screamed Neo (yes, he is pretty childish) diving towards Trinity.
'DRAMATIC EMPHASIS!' bawled Morpheus weakly, sounding rather squashed.
'Morpheus, it's time to go,' said Trinity. 'We may as well get this over with.'
'Oh dear,' said Morpheus, resignedly. Then he turned slowly to Tank, seeming to rotate on the spot and put on some broken dark glasses very slowly. 'Tank, load us up,' he said in his best fake American accent.
'Um . . . I was going to,' began Tank, eyebrows wiggling worriedly.
'Tank,' growled Morpheus, 'you're spoiling the moment.'
'Look, are we going to go?' asked Neo impatiently, 'Cos if not I'm going to go tidy some garbage!'
The crew looked at him, pained. Then Morpheus shook his head, sadly. 'Free your mind, Neo! You no longer have to "help your landlady carry out her garbage . . . *face*"'
Morpheus looked so constipated trying to imitate Agent Smith that everyone started laughing insanely, apart from Neo, who was busy pacing around and trying psychological boosty things saying 'Free my mind' and jumping.
'Anyway . . .' began Tank, several minutes later.
'Yes,' said Morpheus, in the deepest voice he could manage, 'Load us up.'
'OK,' said Tank, worriedly, but began nonetheless to plug in Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity. Morpheus had one last moment to mutter 'Dramatic Emphasis!' before they went in.
* * * * *
Morpheus, Trinity, and Neo were standing round a ringing phone about to enter the Matrix. Trinity was wearing tight black leather as usual, Morpheus a swishy black cloak thing, and Neo, inexplicably, an authentic golfers outfit and a Teletubby bib.
'Right . . .' began Morpheus, looking at Neo. 'Why the bib?'
'Oh . . . La-la's a babe,' said Neo, casually. This earned him a rather harder-than-usual kick on the side of the head from Trinity. 'Oh all right,' muttered Neo, sulkily. 'I'll take it off!'
'And maybe you'd consider changing the golfing outfit too? The golf-clubs could get quite heavy if we need to run,' said Morpheus.
'Oh, OK,' said Neo sulkily, and the clothing morphed into a policeman's outfit.
'Um . . .' began Morpheus, then, with a shrug, 'Well, I suppose it's ironic . . .'
'And I do love a man in uniform,' said Trinity, with a scary attempt at a seductive voice. Meanwhile, the phone was still ringing.
'Right, guys,' began Morpheus. 'I want us all to stand round the phone and count to twenty. Then I'll pick it up.'
'I can't count to . . .' began Neo.
'Just count to five four times Neo,' said Trinity. 'And if you get stuck, copy me.'
'OK,' said Neo. 'One! Two! Three! Fo . . .'
'IN YOUR HEAD!!!' bellowed Morpheus. 'DRAMATIC EMPHASIS!'
'OK,' said Neo, angrily.
They stood round the ringing phone for about twenty seconds. Then, slowly, Morpheus reached forward and picked up the receiver. 'Tank,' he said, 'we're in.'
* * * * *
'OK!' said the scarily smiling lady in the room in which they found themselves. 'So it took you three minutes and twenty two and a half seconds to get into the Matrix from when the phone started ringing. But do not fear, I am here!'
'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Nooooooooooooooooooooo!' screamed Morpheus.
'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Nooooooooooooooooooooo!' screamed Trinity.
'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Nooooooooooooooooooooo!' screamed Neo.
'Ooooooooooooooooh! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!' said Tank, watching the code scrolling past.
For standing in front of the three of them was the AOL lady.
A/N: I hope you like this, pleeeeeeeease review at the end! And Neo isn't the brightest of sparks in this story. DO NOT BE OFFENDED. And this is not a sequel or anything to any of my other Matrix stories. And I know Morpheus probably isn't female. And Tank . . . well, he might well be gay, but anyway, it's ARTISTIC LICENSE.
THE CARPHONE WAREHOUSE by Agent Norbert (for President)
Eleven in the morning found Morpheus staring over his bowl of slop (or snot, as I think they actually said) at a communication from the Zion mainframe computer. He did not seem amused.
After a rather uncomfortably long pause, the One ventured forth a tentative, 'Is something wrong?'
Morpheus snorted, but didn't reply. *Useful* thought our little Neo, except that he didn't cos he hadn't yet quite mastered sarcasm. Well, if you've got an intelligent (though violent) woman I suppose she can deal with life's little problems that might require a basic understanding of the thing.
But anyway, there's one thing you can say for the One, and that's that he's persistent. 'What's wrong?' he asked again.
Morpheus acknowledged this with a grunt, and threw the letter (well, I don't know how they communicate with Zion!) over to Neo, who politely said, 'Thankyou' and started to read it. The wrong way up. Tank kindly reached over and turned it the right way for him, eyebrows wiggling all the while.
'Erm . . .' began the One, 'where's Trinity?'
'Why?' asked Morpheus, surprised.
'It's just that she usually . . . likes to read stuff to me . . .' lied Neo unconvincingly, 'and I don't want to annoy her by reading it myself.'
Usually, you'd think that two grown men like Tank and Morpheus could see through a lie like that. And maybe they could. Maybe they just didn't want to take the risk of Trinity getting angry, on the off-chance that it was true. Which would, in fact, have been admirably sensible.
'Where is she?' asked Neo again.
'I think she's halfway through the eyeliner stage,' said Tank, who knew quite a bit about these things (I've leave you to guess why!). 'I really wouldn't disturb her.'
All three men instinctively moved their hands to cover whatever was most important to them - guess yourself what it was for Neo and Morpheus, but for Tank, eyebrows came first. They all knew only too well how Trinity reacted to being disturbed while applying make-up, and eyeliner was the most important stage in the whole massive operation.
'Ah . . .' said Neo. 'Well, what does it say?'
Morpheus was brought back to the subject in hand abruptly, and started spluttering. 'It says . . .' he spluttered, getting spit all over Tank and Neo, who reacted either by saying 'Ewww!' or alternatively 'Oooooh!' (you can guess which!). 'It says . . . that we have to go to a workshop on phone use!'
'Why?' asked Tank.
'Why?' asked Neo, then on second thoughts, 'What's a workshop?'
'It means . . .' said Morpheus, breathing rather heavily and consequently making snorting noises, 'that we have to go to LESSONS on how to use the phone.'
Tank shook his head, sadly.
Neo shook his head, copying Tank. Then asked, 'What's a phone?'
Morpheus banged his head against the table. Neo copied that too. Morpheus looked at him, pained, and opened his mouth to comment, but wisely closed it as Trinity entered the room.
Assessing the situation, Trinity walked over to Morpheus and kicked the side of his head. 'What's wrong?' she demanded.
'Hello to you, too . . .' muttered Morpheus, massaging his head. This was not wise.
Trinity kicked him again. 'I *said* what's wrong?' she repeated.
'We have to go to a PHONE workshop,' said Tank, wearily.
'A phone workshop,' Trinity repeated, flatly. 'A phone workshop.'
'But Simon didn't say . . .' interrupted Neo. The whole crew looked at him, bewildered.
'What?' asked Morpheus, after a several-minute-long silence.
'Simon didn't say,' repeated Neo, helpfully. Then, looking at the still completely blank faces of his fellow resistance fighters, he added, 'it's a GAME. You're not supposed to copy anything unless Simon says so.'
'But no-one copied anything . . .' began Morpheus. He was, however, interrupted by Tank, saying:
'Simon? Aaah . . . I knew a Simon once . . . in the good old days,' smiling very strangely, and wiggling his eyebrows.
Everyone stared at him, completely nonplussed.
Then eventually, Neo said, 'It was Trinity who copied something, she said 'a phone workshop' twi- . . .'
'Shut up, Neo,' said Trinity, affectionately kicking the side of his head.
'OWWW!' shrieked Neo, diving under the table.
'How come you can do that outside the Matrix, Trinity? That freezing time and kicking peoples' heads?' asked Morpheus, eagerly.
'You wouldn't understand,' said Trinity, haughtily. 'It's beyond your mental capacity.'
'Be like that,' muttered Morpheus, sulkily. Tank winced, and sure enough, a second later Morpheus was once again cradling his head.
'Why do we have to go to a phone workshop?' demanded Trinity. No-one answered. She stared at all of them evilly then marched up to the table and grabbed the communication from Zion. She skimmed through it then started shouting. 'WHAT? WHAT? WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?'
Tank looked at Neo. Neo looked at Morpheus. Morpheus looked at Tank. 'Run!' Tank advised. They did.
In the safety of a rather small cabin, they sat quietly, listening to the noises that indicated very well that Trinity was not pleased and was showing this displeasure by destroying as much stuff as she could.
Finally, Neo spoke up. 'Why DO we have to go to a phone workshop?' he asked.
Morpheus sighed. 'Those morons at Zion reckon we can't deal with phones without each other. You know that time I took you to see the Oracle?'
Neo nodded. Luckily Morpheus realised that Neo didn't have a clue what he was on about and added, 'the kind lady with the biscuits. Remember?' (by the way, how weird is she? "You're going to die. But hey, have a biscuit!") Neo smiled and nodded, genuinely this time.
'Good,' said Morpheus, looking desperately at Tank before continuing, 'and before we went into the Matrix we spent quite a while standing round the phone before I picked it up and said 'We're in'.' Neo shook his head and opened his mouth but Morpheus cut across him quickly, 'you don't have to remember, that's why I'm *telling* you. Well, Zion thinks . . .' here Morpheus swelled up like a bullfrog (if they swell up, I've never seen one) 'Zion thinks . . . that we waited so long because I didn't know HOW to answer the phone! Honestly! Haven't they ever heard of DRAMATIC EMPHASIS? It was so much cooler when we waited round the phone in cool clothes - except Switch I suppose, those clothes were nasty, I've never liked white myself - but no! Those idiots at Zion wanted us straight into the Matrix! No sense of DRAMA! No sense of STYLE! NO SENSE!!! NO SENSE!!! NO SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENSE!!!'
'Yes,' said Tank, kindly, patting Morpheus on the back.
'No sense!' said Morpheus, defensively.
'We know,' said Tank, heavily, 'we know.'
'But Simon still didn't say . . .' began Neo, then seeing Morpheus' face wisely stopped.
'Was there anything else?' asked Tank.
'Well . . .' Morpheus began to snort again, 'You know after Switch died and Apoc and everyone? When the phone started ringing again?'
'Yeeees,' nodded Tank.
'And Neo and Trinity sat and looked at the phone for a few minutes and then Neo picked it up and gave it to Trinity? Well, they thought that was because Trinity didn't know how to pick up the phone and because Neo didn't know how to answer it!'
Neo unwisely butted in here with: 'Actually, I was just guessing . . .'
Morpheus gave him an evil glare and Tank wiggled his eyebrows menacingly. Neo decided to shut up.
'DRAMATIC EMPHASIS!!!' bawled Morpheus.
'We understand,' said Tank, patting Morpheus' head.
'No you don't,' said Morpheus staring at him.
'Hey, I'm just the operator!' said Tank, cheerfully. 'Of course I don't understand! But I know about MEN. And MALE EMOTIONS. And you're a man so I do understand. Aren't you?'
'Tell no-one!' shouted Morpheus, instinctively grabbing the front of Neo and Tank's clothes. Neo said 'Ewww!' and pushed him off, Tank misunderstood and grabbed Morpheus' clothes back. But then said, 'Oh, hang on, if you're actually a woman I'm not interested. Sorry, and all that!'
'QUIET!' bellowed Morpheus.
'Quiet yourself!' said Neo, sulkily, before proceeding to suck his thumb.
'I'm sorry Tank, but I don't find you remotely attractive . . .' began Morpheus, but he was interrupted by Trinity loudly pushing open the door and shouting 'BOOOOOOOO!'
'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!' screamed Morpheus, diving to the floor.
'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!' screamed Tank, diving on top of him.
'Ewwwwwwwwwwwww!' screamed Neo (yes, he is pretty childish) diving towards Trinity.
'DRAMATIC EMPHASIS!' bawled Morpheus weakly, sounding rather squashed.
'Morpheus, it's time to go,' said Trinity. 'We may as well get this over with.'
'Oh dear,' said Morpheus, resignedly. Then he turned slowly to Tank, seeming to rotate on the spot and put on some broken dark glasses very slowly. 'Tank, load us up,' he said in his best fake American accent.
'Um . . . I was going to,' began Tank, eyebrows wiggling worriedly.
'Tank,' growled Morpheus, 'you're spoiling the moment.'
'Look, are we going to go?' asked Neo impatiently, 'Cos if not I'm going to go tidy some garbage!'
The crew looked at him, pained. Then Morpheus shook his head, sadly. 'Free your mind, Neo! You no longer have to "help your landlady carry out her garbage . . . *face*"'
Morpheus looked so constipated trying to imitate Agent Smith that everyone started laughing insanely, apart from Neo, who was busy pacing around and trying psychological boosty things saying 'Free my mind' and jumping.
'Anyway . . .' began Tank, several minutes later.
'Yes,' said Morpheus, in the deepest voice he could manage, 'Load us up.'
'OK,' said Tank, worriedly, but began nonetheless to plug in Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity. Morpheus had one last moment to mutter 'Dramatic Emphasis!' before they went in.
* * * * *
Morpheus, Trinity, and Neo were standing round a ringing phone about to enter the Matrix. Trinity was wearing tight black leather as usual, Morpheus a swishy black cloak thing, and Neo, inexplicably, an authentic golfers outfit and a Teletubby bib.
'Right . . .' began Morpheus, looking at Neo. 'Why the bib?'
'Oh . . . La-la's a babe,' said Neo, casually. This earned him a rather harder-than-usual kick on the side of the head from Trinity. 'Oh all right,' muttered Neo, sulkily. 'I'll take it off!'
'And maybe you'd consider changing the golfing outfit too? The golf-clubs could get quite heavy if we need to run,' said Morpheus.
'Oh, OK,' said Neo sulkily, and the clothing morphed into a policeman's outfit.
'Um . . .' began Morpheus, then, with a shrug, 'Well, I suppose it's ironic . . .'
'And I do love a man in uniform,' said Trinity, with a scary attempt at a seductive voice. Meanwhile, the phone was still ringing.
'Right, guys,' began Morpheus. 'I want us all to stand round the phone and count to twenty. Then I'll pick it up.'
'I can't count to . . .' began Neo.
'Just count to five four times Neo,' said Trinity. 'And if you get stuck, copy me.'
'OK,' said Neo. 'One! Two! Three! Fo . . .'
'IN YOUR HEAD!!!' bellowed Morpheus. 'DRAMATIC EMPHASIS!'
'OK,' said Neo, angrily.
They stood round the ringing phone for about twenty seconds. Then, slowly, Morpheus reached forward and picked up the receiver. 'Tank,' he said, 'we're in.'
* * * * *
'OK!' said the scarily smiling lady in the room in which they found themselves. 'So it took you three minutes and twenty two and a half seconds to get into the Matrix from when the phone started ringing. But do not fear, I am here!'
'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Nooooooooooooooooooooo!' screamed Morpheus.
'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Nooooooooooooooooooooo!' screamed Trinity.
'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Nooooooooooooooooooooo!' screamed Neo.
'Ooooooooooooooooh! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!' said Tank, watching the code scrolling past.
For standing in front of the three of them was the AOL lady.