A ring perforated the silence, shattering the tranquility of emptiness with the entropy of a raucous buzz.
Two rings...
Three rings...
A click followed as a clear, feminine voice answered.
"Trinity here."
"You're early." A raspy voice answered on the other end, betraying a hint of cynicism in its mocking tones.
"I thought I'd give you a break." Trinity wasn't ready to deal with Cypher's antics today.
"You like him, don't you?"
"No, Not really. He's weird."
"There's been some weird stuff going on lately. I'll leave the files for you."
Click.
"What was that?"
Click.
"What was what?"
"That clicking noise. Are you sure this line's secure?"
Click.
Click.
"I'd better go. Let's switch now." Trinity hung up and leaned back into her seat, surveying the building where she had "arrived" in Tokyo, Japan. Something was up.

***

Agent Yamada straightened his collar as he stepped heavily out of the town-car that had brought him to the old building in outskirts Tokyo.
"Who would have figured?" he remarked in flawless Japanese. "A run-down warehouse in the middle of Tokyo."
An NPO mini pulled up behind Yamada, screeching to a halt.
"What's the big idea?" A Japanese officer stepped out of the car. "People could have been hurt! You were going more than double the speed limit!"
"It was a good cause, I assure you, officer." Yamada turned around and faced the now daunted Japanese officer. "This woman is one of the most dangerous criminals in the world. She was the cause of billions of dollars in damage back in the 80's"
The Japanese officer nodded. He had to be polite to this man. The government had ordered him to cooperate with him.
"We'll go in and take her." He waved the other three officers out of the mini and directed them into the building.
"I wouldn't recommend it, Sergeant." Yamada grinned, but it was too late for the officers to notice. They had already entered the building.

***

Trinity heard the officers coming long before they arrived, and thus had ample time to prepare.
When the first novice officer to arrive finally made it through the doorway she was sitting quietly at the chair in front of her phone, arms folded obediently behind her head.
The novice, one officer Ikeda, smirked as he filed into the room and surveyed his capture. He was sure to get a raise for this.
"I've got her guys! She wasn't that bad! Some supercrimin-agggh!" Ikeda's screams descended into a faint, sickening gurgle as Trinity's throwing knife buried itself to the hilt in his throat.
The other officers had only fractions of a second to react before Trinity was upon them, attacking in full force. In three seconds, three more men were on the ground, small knives buried deep within their organs, and Trinity was gone.

***

Yamada surveyed the brutal scene only minutes later, and allowed himself a half-smile. "I told you so."
"You told me so?" The lieutenant was nearly foaming at the mouth. "Four of my men are dead and you told me so?"
Yamada ignored him and bent over, examining the bodies of the men, and the knives. Suddenly a flash of red caught his eye.
"Damn..."

***

Trinity smiled as she walked down the street, detonator in hand. Tank's new toys had worked rather well!
Not allowing herself much more than that, Trinity made a break for the nearest hard-line, in a gym dangerously close to Him. Even as Trinity broke into her run she heard the sirens and screeches that notified her of the presence of a pursuit squad. Trouble.

***

Ranma Saotome put up her towel in the gym and began to hurriedly get dressed so that she might have a chance to get some decent sleep tonight. "The things I do for survival..." She flashed a lopsided grin at the gym's clerk as she charged out the sliding doors and made a beeline for the alley that concealed the fire escape that was the easiest way into her apartment.
This evening seemed to be going pretty well so far. "Ranko Tendo" had, after three years of loneliness, finally managed to secure herself not only a "real" identity but also a secure job and even her own apartment. If only she could have done that as the man she was...
Ranma was so lost in thought that she almost completely failed to notice the black-haired Gaijin until she ran straight into her.
The woman, easily topping Ranko's height by a full head, began to register a modicum fear as she stared into Ranma's eyes. Ranko gave her a good shake to try to get some sense out of her.
"What's wrong?" Ranko tried to speak to the woman.
The Gaijin simply pushed past her and kept running away from whoever was chasing her.
The screeching of tires telegraphed the presence of whoever was chasing the woman even as four men who looked like Yakuza without the tattoos jumped out of the car and pushed through the croud of people walking to and from their respective jobs, making a beeline for the alley that the woman had just entered, seemingly for refuge.
"Shit." Ranma dropped her bags and began a deliberate pace towards the alley. "That's a Cul-de-sac." She quickly tore the sleeves from her shirt, allowing herself the mobility that she knew she would need for the fight that was to come.
"Well. Life was getting boring, anyway."
Two red minis drove behind Ranma, speeding to an unknown destination, two red minis that looked exactly the same, down to the license plate.

***

Trinity came up to the cold brick wall and frantically searched along it for a door, a fire escape, or anything that could help her even as the four Agents drew closer, deliberately slowing their pace to instill fear in her. Otherwise interrogation would be harder. There was nothing, though. She was going to die. She was dead. They would kill her, just like they did to Neo. The poor kid...
"Do you mind?" The clear soprano rang out, almost tangible in its confidence, causing all four agents to turn towards the entrance to the alley. "This is my neighborhood, and I don't appreciate these fights going on here."
Trinity momentarily forgotten, the four Agents turned towards the girl and simultaneously popped their necks, working their best to intimidate the child.
"We would advise that you leave here at once, Miss Saotome." The "alpha male," Smith, admonished the child. "We know of your history, and we know who you would not like us to inform of your whereabouts.
The girl seemed to begin to glow as she took a fighting stance in front of the four men. This child was foolish, Trinity had to stop her! She quickly charged for the nearest agent, unthinking, and was thrown back into the wall which she had just leapt from. It was hopeless. The agents began attacking the girl.
Trinity looked away, not wishing to see another person die, and was rewarded with sounds of pain, sounds of male pain! She quickly turned her head back to see the girl moving in what could only be decided as a blur, her arms seeming to be in ten places at once as, one by one, she crushed each of the four agents against the very walls that they had trapped Trinity against.
Jolting Trinity from her reverie as she watched the beauty of the redhead's small war, the phone rang.
"Trin here." She was unable to disguise the fear and elation in her voice as the redhead begin to actually beat the agents.
"It's Tank. Where the hell are you? Tokyo seems to have become a hot spot for all of the agents in Asia. They're morphing in like crazy!"
Trinity noticed the first agent's broken body fall lifeless to the ground with a smile on its face, morphing back into the salarymen that had been unfortunate enough to be nearby. "I think I know why, Tank. You should see this girl. She's moving even faster than they do!"
"What girl, Trin? You're not making any sense! How can anybody move faster than they d-...holy shi-"
The line went dead.
The redhead finished off the last of the agents with a satisfied smile and surveyed the four salarymen who remained. As Trinity had seen a thousand times before, the smile quickly turned into a confused frown as she clenched her arms around her stomach as if to comfort herself.
"How did they...?"
Trinity silenced the girl with a finger. "Where's your home? We have to hide."
The girl nodded and broke into a run, taking easy herself but nearly running trinity out of breath with her sheer speed. Within minutes they were on the fifth floor of a nearby building and seemingly safe.
The girl's apartment was undeniably seedy, barely having enough space to fit a couch, much less the seemingly endless array of martial arts equipment that leaned against the wall. Despite this, the living room was spotless, having not only no dirt, but no furniture to mark the floor.
As if on cue by the sudden air of relaxation, the girl collapsed, allowing her arms to fall free of her bruised midriff. In a state of panic, Trinity quickly found the girl's bathroom and dumped her unceremoniously into the tub, turning on the hot water in one fluid motion.
The girl was no longer such. It was Him.
Trinity turned to the nearby porcelain bowl, tried, and failed to accept the impossible as she lost what surreal lunch she'd had that day.
After a healthy ejection of imaginary fluids, Trinity gathered herself and sat down and pulled out her cell phone.
It seemed like ages before Tank picked up the line. "Op, here." There was fear and worry in his voice
"Tank, something's up. The Matrix has gone wild, and I'm about to lose it myself. Find me a hard-line so I can get the hell out of here.

***

Ranma awoke in his bathtub with a start. What had happened? Those thugs had fought him while he was a her and lost, she brought that lady home, and then...she must have blacked out.
Not knowing what else to do, and having a distinct sense of Deja Vu, Ranma stood up in the tub and walked out into his living-room to find...nothing. The girl was gone. The only trace that another person had ever been in Ranma's small home at all was the small black laptop that sat in the middle of the floor.
As if on cue with Ranma's thoughts, the laptop began to hum to life. After a few seconds, a small speaker spouted out a deep voice, incongruous with the tiny machine that was generating it.
"Open up the laptop, because we do not have much time."
Cautiously, Ranma flipped the catches on either side of the small computer and unfolded it. On the monitor was a picture of a large man of muscular build wearing a perplexingly crystalline pair of sunglasses that seemed to be reflecting Ranma's living-room through the very computer and smiling as if his life had just suddenly become to make sense.
Noticing the microphone pickup on the laptop's monitor, Ranma began to speak.
"Who are you?"
The man's smile grew. "That's not important right now, but what I need to tell you is very important. You've been living a lie.
-Have they found me?- There was no way. Ranma's trail was nonexistant. There was no way that the Tendoes and the old man could have...
"I want you to walk out of you front door as quickly as you can. Don't worry about the computer, but you're in danger. You have to leave now.
Ranma stood and clasped his collar, looking around nervously, and made for the door.
At the door, he came face to face with two of the thugs from before.
"Sorry, sir. We seem to have the wrong place." The head thug from before, from behind sunglasses, smiled smugly. "We don't suppose you have a redheaded woman in there with you?"
Ranma shook his head and exited his house, closing his front door behind him making for the exit. As he came down the first flight of stairs, he heard the sound of wood splintering as if a door was being busted in. He broke into a run and arrived at the front exit to the small building as the woman from before came up on a motorcycle that looked so new that it must have been just out of the paintshop.
"Get on." She didn't even give him a second glance. "We have to get you before they do."
Ranma was about to speak when an explosion seemed to rock the very pavement. A looming fireball burst from Ranma's outside window, three floors up, and yielded a single body, discarding it on the pavement behind the motorcycle.
"Get on now!" Trinity grabbed Ranma's arm and gunned the engine of the bike even as the charred mass of flesh that lay behind them began to stir and draw a gun. Weighing the alternative, Ranma hopped onto the back of the bike even as Trinity brought it into gear, speeding away from the flaming thug as quickly as possible.

***

It was two hours towards Hokkaido and quite a few toll roads before Trinity could find the courage to speak.
"How do you move that quickly?"
"I've been practicing for a very long time." She could almost feel the kid smirking behind her.
"I've mastered every art that's known," Trinity took her own turn to smile, but switched back to being serious soon after. "I could never beat an agent, though, and you just beat three of them while barely breaking a sweat."
"Agent?" Ranma asked confusedly. "You mean those thugs? I've fought better."
"You'll see." Trinity wondered how this child could have faces one who was better than an agent. Hadn't she been told that it wasn't possible?
There was no more conversation during the ride until they came up to a run-down office building and Trinity opened the front door for Ranma.
"Morpheus needs to speak to you. He'll tell you what's going on if you really wish to know."
Ranma paused before walking through the door.
"And what do I call you?"
Trinity smiled for the first time since earlier that day when Ranma had saved her from the agents. "I'm Trinity."

***

As Ranma entered the building, a door down the hall creaked open, shedding light on the floorspace between Ranma and the room that the door had concealed. Not wasting any time, Ranma hurried over to the Room and entered to find the same man who he had seen on his laptop reclining in a comfortable-looking red leather chair.
"Welcome, Ranma." His Japanese was perfect, like the dialect that the Agents had spoken, though there was also a warmth to his voice. "Take a seat, because I have something important to tell you,"
Ranma remained standing. He wasn't ready to trust this man.
"Very well," the man sighed. "We shall start with the basics. I am Morpheus, and I'm here to give you the chance to see what the world is really like." He tossed a small silver box into Ranma's lap and made for a door in the side of the room. "Take the red one if you want to see what I mean. I know you know what I'm talking about. If you take the blue one, you'll forget everything and this will end. Make a choice and come into the next room, where I will be waiting, if you take the red one."
Ranma sat down in the red chair after Morpheus made his exit and opened the box. In it were two pills, one red and one blue. Did Morpheus know who Ranma really was?
He couldn't. He must have been baiting him, thinking that Ranma did not have the courage.
That was it. Ranma Saotome never backed down from a challenge! He quickly downed the red pill and entered the next room, stepping into a scene out of some cheesy sci-fi movie.
Morpheus stood in front of Ranma, smiling, flanked by Trinity, a woman with short blonde hair, a man who looked Mexican, though Ranma was not sure, and a short, bald Italian man who was grinning triumphantly.
"I need you to sit here," Morpheus motioned to a chair that was currently the only normal-looking thing in the room. "The pill contained a trace program that allows us to determine your exact coordinates.
Confused, Ranma sat down as the women placed electrodes on his arms which were connected to some odd gadgets and, interestingly enough, an old rotary telephone.
"Welcome to the club, kid. What do we call you?" The Italian man extended a hand of friendship.
"Rank-err...Ranma." Ranma took the hand, and then felt a sudden wrenching.
Suddenly, it was as if Ranma was seeing double. The world took on a distinctly flat look and tore itself in two. Everything seemed to grow silent as Ranma's strange new 'friends' hustled to see what was wrong.
"What did you do to me!?" Ranma fell from his chair in a spasm and lurched towards Morpheus.
"Morpheus, we're getting two trace signals!" Trinity frantically checked readouts so that she could define the problem.
Ranma noticed an uncharacteristic look on the large man's face. Fear.
"Which one is nearest? Get him! We can't afford to lose him!" Morpheus rushed behind the consoles to help and then Ranma's world inverted.

***

Cherry blossoms lined Ranma's vision as he awoke from a terrible dream into a nightmare. There was something down his throat!! There was something inside of his arms! Where was he? Unhesitating, he quickly executed a Moko Takabisha.
Nothing happened, Absolutely nothing.
Ranma finally lashed out with all his strength, feeling feeble, and felt his hands pierce some sort of membrane and cold so biting that it hurt touch his skin. He glanced around and found that, though his vision was too blurry to make out any details his depth perception still functioned, and he was very, very high up.
As Ranma attempted to focus something black grabbed him with iron claws and gave him pain, spinning something in the back of his neck, and left. Ranma perversely enjoyed the solace until the small explosions seemed to rack his body
and, once again, stopped.
Ranma was given no rest this time as the tank that he found himself him emptied itself, dumping itself, warm goo and Ranma in all, into the tube that seemed to be holding it up.

***

Trinity wrapped the cloth tightly about herself, watching as Tank and Dozer operated the winch that was pulling the boy's inert form up into the Nebudchanezzar. He looked so different, without that hair. Trinity had been like that once herself. It was so long ago when Morpheus had come to her, a young hacker showing what she could do, and shown her what the world could be like. He had shown her the lie that she was perceiving and then he had shocked her awake by showing her the truth.
She watched silently as Tank wrapped a blanket that was similar to her own around Ranma and lifted him up as if he were a small child. Had Trinity ever been that young? Nineteen years old, Morpheus had said. Nineteen and he had that kind of power...
Trinity shivered to herself as the unconscious boy was taken by Tank into the medical room, where he would undergo the seemingly miraculous treatments that would help his body grow.

***

Ranma woke up and rubbed her head, looking at what was left of the gadgets that had littered the room where she had sat, awaiting the revelation that did not come.
"So much for that." Ranma got up and exited the slightly charred room, kicking the remains of the complicated machines aside.
Having an odd feeling as she passed the table where she had left the box with the blue pill, Ranma broke into a run and quickly made her way out onto the street.
"Oh shit." Ranma looked around at the relatively rural area that was the trademark of Hokkaido. "How am I going to get back home?"
Ranma smiled as she looked at the southward-facing fence post that lined her building. "Well...old ways are the best ways." She hopped up with a flourish and began the long run home to Tokyo.
To Ranma's surprise, she almost immediately fell off of the top of the fence, landing hard on the ground and bruising herself. She quickly tried again, but got the same results. With a grumble Ranma began a walk to Tokyo, hoping that she might see a friendly face along the way.

***

Bright. It was so bright! It felt as if the sun had suddenly increased in its intensity a thousand times over. It burned! It felt as if a thousand needles were making their ways into Ranma's brain! Something was missing. Ranma heard a presence with the only part of him that seemed to be working, his ears. Something gingerly touched his hand but he remained still, the pain steeling his muscles and jellifying his nerves.
"What happened up there, Tank?" It was Trinity. The strain in her voice hinted at betrayal as Ranma heard heavy footsteps entering the room.
"I don't know, Trin. I'm sorry! I was trying to access his memory patterns and bam! I got disconnected!"
"Is that even possible?" The touch that was on Ranma's hand left momentarily, and then returned.
"I can't say. I've looked at the logs over and over again. It's as if he's an encrypted data file. No matter how I try, I can't get through."
The hand left Ranma's yet again and light footsteps crossed the room. "How the hell..."
"That's not all, Trin. Everything about this guy is just a little off. He has the best synaptic reflexes I've ver seen. They seem to be literally perfect, but his cerebellum and thallamus are both underdeveloped. That's not logically possible, Trin. You know what it would take to work one without working the other as well as I do."
"Maybe he's just what Morpheus says he is, Tank. Maybe you should believe him for once!"
"Fuck that, Trin! Fuck that! If he's not certain this kid won't be dangerous it could spell death for all of us! When he screwed up with Neo it cost me my brother. My Brother, Trinity. Do you know how that feels?"
There was only silence following as Ranma fell back into sleep.

***

Something woke Ranma up yet again. Someone was here.
"Who's there?" Ranma hoped dearly for an answer and shut his eyes when none came, isolating himself from half of that painful light. The presence left, only to be replaced by another after what seemed like hours.
"How do you feel?" It was Morpheus, but he sounded so much less confident. He sounded like he had been through a war.
"I feel like I've died and gone to Hell." Ranma took this chance to be blunt. "What did you do to me? Did you poison me?"
Morpheus laughed, a sound which Ranma could imagine less stalwart men fearing. "Far from it. I've brought you life."
Ranma welcomed the blackness that came as he felt sedative coursing throughout his body, another pinprick among thousands.
After what seemed like sheer seconds Ranma opened his eyes once more to Morpheus's kind eyes and hear his deep, soothing voice. "Are you ready?"
Ranma blinked the rest of the sleep out of his eyes and sat up, feeling weak.
"Ready for what?"
"To see the real world."

***

Ranma lurched out of the constraints of the chair and found that there were hands holding him down as the impossibly long needle was removed from his spine. He made for the door that led out of the control room and ended up falling to the floor, making every attempt to catch his breath.
"He's gonna pop," Someone in the deep background said. He wouldn't though. Ranma wouldn't give them that pleasure. Not them. They wouldn't see his weakness!
He swallowed and got up.
"Why did you bring me here, assuming you've been truthful."
"Come with me and I'll speak of it to you, alone." Morpheus gently grabbed Ranma's arm and hefted him up as if he were a child, leading him to his small room.
"I have to apologize to you, Ranma. I usually wouldn't pull someone this late in his lifespan, but I believe that I was justified in taking you." Ranma sat and listened, knowing that Morpheus would be speaking for a while. "You see, there is legend that when the Matrix was built, there was a person born inside who could actually edit it freely. The oracle foretold that the one would be reborn. many of us have been searching for that one in recent years because we believe that the time of the one's return is nigh. I believe that search is over, Ranma."
Ranma looked morpheus directly in the eyes. "What if you're wrong?"
For the first time since he had met Morpheus, which, despite that it was only a few hours ago, seemed like years already, the large man flinched. Without another word Morpheus got up and left the small room, leaving Ranma to his thoughts.

***

Hours later, Ranma was greeted by one of the two men on the ship who he had not been introduced to. "Hey kid. I'm tank. I'll be your op today. Didja sleep okay?" When given an affirmative nod from Ranma, the man paused for a moment, and then nodded to himself. "Well then, let's get going.
"For what?" Ranma was curious. There didn't seem to be much on this ship to do, after all.
"Combat training." The man smiled for the first time Ranma had seen since meeting him.
"I don't need combat training," Ranma was momentarily indignant. "I'm already the best."
"Really?" Morpheus's voice telegraphed his presence behind Ranma as they walked down the cramped hallways towards the broadcast core. "We'll see about that."

***
Ranma ran down the streets at top speed, hoping to get home and see if her apartment had survived the explosion. It was getting cold.
"Damn. What I'd give for a hot shower ... " She shivered to herself and kept running as the weather grew uncharacteristically colder and colder, seeing as it was midsummer.
After what seemed like ages of unchanging highway through mountainous terrain, Ranma began to recognize the spots of city that she passed even as they blurred by. Eventually, as twilight began to hit, Ranma stopped in front of a small hotel. Fingering what little money she had in her pocket, she decided to stay.
Inside the lobby of the hotel was a mass of children, all perfectly silent, who seemed to be there of their own volition. A woman approached Ranma as she gingerly closed the door and handed her a ticket.
"The Oracle will see you in a while, child. Just make yourself comfortable. We've been expecting you for a long time.

Fin. Chapter 1.

Author's Note: This work, untitled as of yet, is an adaptation from the Matrix, a film by the Wachowski brothers, and Ranma 1/2, an Anime by Takahashi Rumiko. All rights are held respectively by those three people. The Author made absolutely no money from this fic. He's not good enough at it to make a profit.