"I met with him today. He wants to know the truth."

"How much does he know?"

"Barely anything. Someone he was close with was freed a week ago and he wants to know why she disappeared."

"How do we keep him from knowing the truth about what happened to her?"

"We will give him what he desires most in life. What he has never had."

"But that could kill him."

"There is a chance of that happening, but if he does die, he will never have a chance of knowing the truth."

---

Dim fluorescent lights lit up Trinity's small room, waking her from a light sleep. All through the night she had drifted in and out of restless sleep. When she did sleep, her head was filled with dreams of her life and about her past that never happened before. They were so tangible that she could have sworn that they were real, but every time she got close to them she woke up to the metal and wires that made up her room. Trinity lifted up her wrist to see what time it was, when she remembered that there was no watch on her wrist. She didn't even know if time existed in this place.

The metal door unlatched and opened as Exe entered. "Morning Trinity."

"Morning," she replied.

"How'd you sleep?"

"Not so good."

"It's expected. You'll sleep better soon. Anyway, Morpheus wants you up now. We got stuff to do. Places to go, people to see"

"Who are we seeing?"

"The Oracle."

"The who?" Trinity asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You'll see. Get up, we gotta go."

Trinity got up off the bed and followed Exe, ignoring the head rush that blurred her vision. She followed him into the Core, where Morpheus was standing. Control, Flare, Jade, and Switch were already in chairs plugged into the Matrix. "Good morning Trinity," Morpheus said. Trinity gave him a half smile. Morpheus led her to an empty chair and sat her down. "When you wake up, you'll be met with my crew members that are already in the Matrix, Exe will follow shortly after you. They'll show you where to go."

"Okay," Trinity replied.

Trinity felt pressure in the back of her head and felt her eyes get very heavy. She let her eyes close and when she opened her eyes, she was staring into the faces of the crew. She looked around and saw that they were in a large room and they were surrounded by a phone. Everyone was wearing black and wearing sunglasses. Including her. Exe appear next to her, followed shortly by Morpheus. "Switch and Exe, come with me and Trinity. The rest of you, stay here and guard the lines. We'll be back soon." They stepped outside and into the light and onto the sidewalk were a car was waiting. Exe got in the drivers seat and Morpheus got in the passenger seat. Trinity and Switch got in the back. Exe started the car and drove down the street. They sat in silence until the car stopped in front of an old apartment building. "Trinity, come with me," said Morpheus as he got out of the car.

Trinity opened the door and followed Morpheus into the building. "So who is this Oracle?" she asked.

"The Oracle is a woman who will help you find out your purpose in this world. She will give you choices and you can decide which ones you want to make."

"What choices did she give you?"

"I found you didn't I?"

The conversation ended as they stopped in front of a door. Morpheus opened it and led her into the back of the house, past children watching television and playing with toys to the living room where the Oracle was sitting in a chair. "Hello Trinity, take a seat." Trinity sat down. The Oracle then looked over at Morpheus who was standing in the doorway. "Thank you Morpheus," she said with a smile. Morpheus nodded and shut the door, leaving them alone. "So you're the one that's gonna do it. I must admit you weren't what I was expecting. How old are you Trinity?"

"I'm seventeen, almost eighteen, or at least I was."

"You're so young. It's amazing that you're going to define you're life at such a young age."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

"Do you know everything?"

"Not everything. But you could say I know enough. I know what's certain, so I know what events lead up to what will eventually happen. And you will have to make a choice to do something important for Morpheus, and you will choose to do it for him or not. You are part of a much bigger picture Trinity. The choices you make will eventually lead up to you're purpose."

"What is my purpose?"

"That is for a different time. It's something you don't need to know now because it's too early. Just know that we will be meeting again."

The Oracle got up from her chair and opened the door for Trinity. Trinity walked to the door, stopped in the doorway and looked at the Oracle. "Thank you," she said.

"Your welcome," the Oracle replied with a warm smile on her face.

Morpheus was waiting outside the door as Trinity stepped out of the Oracle's apartment. The Oracle's words echoed in her head as they walked down the hall.

You will have to make a choice to do something important for Morpheus, and you will choose to do it for him or not

---

Switch and Exe waited in the car for Trinity and Morpheus to come out. Switch looked at him in the rearview mirror. He looked nervous. "What's up with you?" she asked, a small smirk on her face.

"Nothin," he replied.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

There was a long pause. The Switch broke the silence. "It's Trinity isn't it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Please. Even before she was unplugged, you were watching her on the computer. Now that she's not a piece of green code anymore you can't take your eyes off her."

"Bullshit."

"It is not and you know it."

"I don't even know her."

"But you want to don't you," she said right in his face with a big smile.

"Shut up Switch," he said laughing. "Here they come."

Morpheus and Trinity appeared out of the apartment building and got in the car. "Welcome back," Switch said. "How'd it go?"

"It was ok."

"She confused the shit out of you didn't she?"

Trinity let out a small laugh. "Yeah."

They arrived at the building where Jade, Control, and Flare were waiting. Morpheus pulled out a cell phone. "We're ready," he said into it. An old fashioned phone was sitting on a table in the room where the crew was. It rang, and one by one, they answered it and disappeared. "You're turn," Morpheus said to Trinity. The phone rang and she picked up. She hesitated before putting it to her ear, but when she did, she felt the world get very far away and turn to black.

Her eyes opened and she was back on the ship, having Dozer pull the needle out of her head. She was about to get up when Driver stopped her. "You're not gonna need to get up, you're gonna be in that chair for a while."

"How come?"

"You've got learning to do."

Morpheus came into the core to check up on Driver and Trinity. "How's she doing?"

"She got done with the operations programs hours before she should have. She's on the martial arts training programs now, but she devoured every bit of information in the operations programs. I don't have any more chips to download into her."

"Let her finish with the martial arts training and then let her go to sleep. I'm going to start training her tomorrow."

"So soon?"

"I believe she can."

---

Trinity opened her eyes. She was drenched in sweat from the martial arts she was doing. "Hey," Driver said to her. "You did a good job. Get cleaned up and go to bed."

"I need to ask you something first."

"What is it?"

"Is there any way I can look for someone in the Matrix from here?"

"Who do you want to look for?"

"A friend."

"Morpheus wanted you to go to bed, but I guess I can let you see someone. I'm only gonna let you do this once though." She got up from the chair and stood next to Driver, who was typing on the keyboard. "What's their name?"

"Thomas," she said. "I don't know his last name."

"Where does he live then?"

"In an apartment on 37th street."

Driver typed a few things onto the computer and up came a video of Thomas. "We usually look at people from the code, but since you can't read it yet, you can look at this. I'll be back in ten minutes." Trinity sat down in the chair and looked at the monitor. Thomas was sitting in his computer chair undoing a knot in his headphone cord. The clock on his wall told Trinity that it was 5:32 PM in the Matrix. She didn't know what time it was in the real world. She whished that she could see him again but doubted that they would let her. She watched him undo the knot and get up to go onto the computer. But as he sat down, three men, all dressed in suits and dark sunglasses barged into his room. They grabbed him and threw him to the ground face down. He tried to get away, but they were too strong. One man took something out of his suit and put it to Thomas's head. Thomas's entire body started convulsing and then went limp. The man put the device back in his suit and he and the two other men calmly walked out of his room. Trinity stared in shock at what she had just seen. Whatever they had done to him, it seemed to have killed him. She got up from the chair and turned around quickly and bumped into Driver. "What happened?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said quickly. "It was nothing." She brushed past him and went to her room.

---

"Wake up." Someone was shaking her. "Trinity, wake up." Trinity's eyes snapped open and she was greeted with Switch's concerned face. "You were screaming, what's wrong?"

All throughout the night, the three men and Thomas's limp body haunted Trinity's dreams. "I just had a really bad nightmare."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No not really."

"Ok then. I also came in to tell you that Morpheus wants you up now, he wants you to go to the Core" Switch got up and left while Trinity got off the bed.

She got to the Core where Morpheus was standing. "Trinity, I hold in my hand, extremely powerful and challenging hacking programs. I need you to lay down in a chair while I download these into you."

"What is this for?" she asked, as she laid down.

"You're familiar with the name IRS database."

"Yeah."

"The reason you were unplugged is because I need you to crack it."