Chapter One

Lulu had been having a lovely lucid dream when her alarm went off, blasting t.A.T.u.'s "Snowfalls" at full volume. She groaned, silencing the alarm as she stumbled out of bed and sat down at her desk. She was nearly awake by the time she had logged into her laptop, and wide awake when she checked her email. She had an inbox flooded with spam, letters from friends, notes from her parents, and…hello, what's this? It was a chain letter that read in the subject line: "What is the Matrix?" Although instinct told her not to open it, she double clicked on the email, opening it up.

It read in neat font, "To find the truth, the secret to the pure life where we can all be together for all eternity, join us at the following location." There was an address printed below this, and Lulu contemplated deleting this. Actually, the smart part of her knew that she shouldn't listen to any of these letters. They usually caused nothing but trouble, and she didn't want to be the victim of an Internet related incident. But this was something different…she didn't know how it was different. This was some weird gut instinct, and she never got this feeling unless it was something important. Without any more hesitation, Lulu clicked on the reply button. A small window appeared on her monitor that informed her that she wasn't allowed to reply to the sender. "Whatever," she muttered to herself, slumping over in her seat. "This better be worth my time…" She glanced at the name of the person who had sent her the email. "…Morpheus."

"If you want my money, you can forget it, mister," Lulu announced as her eyes darted around the nearly empty room. The only man in the drab building was Morpheus, the man who had invited her. He was a muscular, African American Adonis that kept his eyes hidden behind sunglasses.

"Miss Adams, I don't want any money. I want to show you the truth of your life." He leaned forward in his chair—he was sitting in the only comfortable armchair in the room, and Lulu was standing by the door, prepared to make a dash for it at any moment. "You were adopted, weren't you? And your birth parents remain a mystery. What if I were to tell you that I could show you your parents and their legacy?"

"What do you mean? Are my parents alive?" Lulu asked, her heart soaring with hope. All she had been told by her surrogate mother was that her biological mother had been in some kind of car wreck when she was pregnant, hence the need for another woman to carry the child. But Lulu never met the woman or the man who had created her, given her the gift of life.

"I'm afraid not," Morpheus said gently, and Lulu's heart sank. "But I knew them in person. They were great people, and they fought for a noble cause." He stood, removed his glasses, and examined the girl in front of him. "You look just like them. You have your father's eyes." She blushed and fidgeted with a strand of her dark hair, tucking it behind her ear. "Their wishes were for you to see the world that they wanted to live in…a free world."

"But, the—"

"Everything you have been told is a lie." Morpheus insisted, returning to the armchair. He leaned forward in it as he spoke. "Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but its there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"I think so," Lulu said slowly, secretly wondering if this man used this speech with all of the people he knew. "It's destiny, isn't it?"

"Do you believe in destiny?" He asked solemnly.

"I don't know, to be honest," she snorted, leaning against a wall. "I don't even know who I am. I've been trying to figure that out for twenty-four years."

"Do you want my help?" Morpheus asked, smiling slightly. "All you have to do is suspend your disbelief and expand your horizons, for what you will learn is nothing that you could ever have expected." She didn't say anything at first, and she contemplated her options…she had many. What could she do? He made it simple for her. "I am going to offer you two pills. If you take the blue one, then this meeting will never have happened. You can return to your normal life and forget about your birthright. But if you take the red one, I can tell you everything you want to know: your real name, your parents' names, their jobs, how they met…anything." Lulu bit her lip and twirled a strand of hair around her finger. "The options are both reasonable, Miss Adams," he continued. "A man I knew once said that ignorance is bliss. And I won't lie to you: there are things that you may not want to know about your parents. But the truth isn't always pretty. That's the way of life."

"It doesn't really matter what the truth is," Lulu muttered. "My parents are dead."

"What if I told you that there was a way to bring them back?" Morpheus asked, and all of the alarms went off in her head. This man was either brilliant…or insane. And Lulu's normally silent gut was speaking up again, screaming at her that this was a dangerous man to be with if you were his enemy. "All you have to do is take the red pill," he added, extending his right hand towards her. In the palm of it, there was a tiny, red pill.

"What's in it?" She demanded, not trusting this man enough to take any suspicious medicine from him. And she didn't want to start taking new drugs…not after all the time spent in rehabilitation…

"Tracer systems that will help us locate you in the real world," he replied nonchalantly, and Lulu began to lean more towards him being insane.

But then again, Lulu was not known for having a stable mind. She was prone to suicidal tendencies—that's what led to her being sent away to the mental ward.

"I only have one more question before I do anything else you say," she whispered, finally accepting the pill from him, but not bringing it up to her mouth. "What were my parents named? Can't you tell me?"

Morpheus laughed quietly to himself. "I can tell you what I called them," he answered. "Trinity was your mother, and Neo was your father."

Review, please!

Yes, this is a sequel to the third Matrix movie, which focuses on the legacy of Neo and Trinity.

Take the red pill and continue reading…or take the blue pill and go look at other fan fiction. But be sure to leave a review before you go.