Once back inside the Nebuchadnezzar, the man's eyes scanned frantically up and down the brightened walls of the ship. Neo held him upright gruffly, making up for his unused and weak legs. It was clear that he was being overwhelmed from his jittering and dizziness, but Neo had no choice but to pull him onward.
In the infirmary, he was no better off. He still pulled the jacket around his bruised and battered body which they now realized was dripping flecks of blood onto the ground. Trinity tried to coax him away from his panic, gently placing a hand on his shoulder and pulling Neo's jacket away to replace it with a blanket. "Wait wait, can I see your arm? Just for a moment? I promise, I won't hurt you." She attempted to still his quaking arm long enough.
"What is it?" Neo leaned over the table inquisitively.
"This arm is broken." She whispered to him, pulling his arm out from underneath the blanket. "Does it hurt?"
He did not reply, but his manner told her that he was either in too much shock to feel the pain of his shattered arm or it in fact did not hurt at all.
"Look at this…" Neo traced a finger up the man's arm, pointing out a series of tattoos, green fluorescent numbers. "12, 9, 20, 8…what are they? An identification code?"
"Maybe." She studied the arm herself. "That's strange…where would these come from?"
"There're a lot of things strange about him." Neo sighed.
"Yes…" agreed Morpheus, examining the pupils of the stiffened patient. "Like this, for instance…" his eyebrows raised and he squinted hard into the man's eyes, blinking repeatedly in confusion.
"What is it?" Neo came to look as well.
"His eyes are not real."
"…What?"
"His eyes," Morpheus repeated. "Are not real…they are not organic. They've been installed quite some time ago."
"How can you tell?" Trinity searched his eyes.
"His pupils do not dilate and they only appear to have five sets of movements. Up, down, left, right, and set center, but no gradation in any direction."
"…Than why does he blink?" Neo said in almost a question.
"He doesn't. At least, not the same way or for the same reasons you and I do. Blinking is the only way to change the direction of his eye, it appears."
Neo found this to be true after a few moments of observation. "How well can he see?"
"Quite well by the looks of it," Morpheus nodded.
"But why the eyes?"
"He may be able to tell us himself…but apparently not at the moment." Morpheus stood up straight. "He's exerting himself far too much…sedate him, quickly."
"What?"
"He's non-coherent. He doesn't understand what is going on." Morpheus motioned to him. "He could panic and hurt someone."
Trinity applied the syringe to his arm and he fell limp an instant later. He was not, however, unconscious. He didn't seem to be, that was. He lay much in the same condition that Neo had found him in, eyes open and still, very dead looking.
"Why does he do that?" Neo pointed to the ghostly man with a thumb.
"Sleep with his eyes open?" Trinity glanced at him. "Maybe it's a-"
"No, that's not what I mean." Neo replied, walking over to the head of the table and staring down into the robotic eyes of the tattooed man. "It's like he's sleeping…but awake…Watch this." He poked the man in the cheek, who duplicated the action, reaching up and poking Neo.
Morpheus and Trinity looked at each other oddly. "And he's done that before?"
"He mimics everything I do. Like a simple program…" he furrowed his brow and the man did the same. "When you told me the signal was back, he…lapsed into a conscious state. And he acted like any other guy I've seen just yanked from the matrix."
"That's very odd." Morpheus declared, rubbing his chin.
"That explains why the signal read in and out, doesn't it?" Trinity set down the syringe and looked up. "If he was coming in and out of consciousness. When he isn't awake, he turns into this."
"I suppose, but," Morpheus paused. "But why, if he was merely unconscious, did his signal completely fade out?"
"Is he human?" Neo asked aloud to no one in particular. The question rang heavy in the air, all eyes watching the pale figure breath in a horrifically rhythmic pattern.
"He is living." Morpheus concluded. "But there is little else we can tell as of now." He turned away and walked towards the door. "If one of you will stay with him, there is some business I must attend to. If he awakens, let me know immediately."
"But…" Trinity uneasily shifted. "How will we know if he is awake?"
Morpheus raised his eyebrows and closed his eyes half way. "That should be simple. You will know he is awake if he begins to act human…"
