It was 3 AM. Nothing. Robin was about to fall asleep when the computer's screen suddenly went black.
A small message began to type itself across the page.
The Matrix has you...
"What?" he whispered. He then noticed that the message was soon replaced by green lines of some sort of encryption.
A strange alphabet he had never seen before began flowing freely along the page. He paged the rest of the crew. "Guys. There's something you need to see."
They arrived moments later just in time to catch the code before it disappeared. "What was that, man?" Cyborg whispered.
"Whatever it was, I don't think it was worth waking me up for it," murmured the changeling. The first message then popped up again.
"What is the Matrix, Robin?" asked Raven. "Not sure," he said. He ran a search and found nothing.
Then, the screen went dark again. A second cryptic message worked its way across the screen.
He's waiting for you. Go to the dock if you wish to know the truth. Kory stays. Make sure to not contact the Agents if you want to live.
They all looked at Starfire, who shrugged and sat on the couch. "Why wouldn't they let her go?" Raven whispered.
"Dunno. Let's go. Star, you can stay here," said Robin, absently repeating the computer.
Twenty minutes later, they reached the dock. "No sign of anything... wait," said Cyborg, scanning the area. "There's a car approaching."
The car pulled up and a man with a goatee and a black trenchcoat opened the door. "Get in, kiddies."
"What's going on? What did you need us for?" Robin quickly belted out a series of questions.
"All will be explained in a moment. My name is Ghost. We're taking you to see Morpheus. But first," he said, pulling out a gun-like machine from his coat, "I'll need to debug you. Kid, d'you mind?"
They looked around and saw a college-age man driving the car. "Kid?" Beast Boy asked. "Why do you call him that?"
"That's his name."
None of them understood. Raven was already suspicious.
"I'll read their minds to see what's going on," she passed this on to the others through telepathy. Ghost seemed to see it coming and smirked. "You can try to read my mind after this, Rae."
The seventeen year old was surprised that he knew this. "Kid" flicked on a light in the front of the car, and Ghost leaned forward.
He held the suction cup to her eye and pulled out what looked like a wriggling slimy worm. She recalled the nightmare. "That actually happened?"
Ghost nodded. "Now you, Robin." This time, he had Robin lift up his shirt and sucked out another worm through his navel.
Beast Boy's was in his ear. It took three minutes of vomiting out the car window for him to get over this fact. Finally, Ghost pulled a worm out of Cyborg's mechanical arm, where it was lodged in the mechanical eye.
"Now that that's out of the way," said the man, dispensing the containers out the window, "let's see if you can read my mind."
Raven couldn't even come close. "What's that? Can't read my mind? That's because it's free already."
Kid pulled up into a small, boarded up building. Robin shivered. "I've got a weird feeling, guys," he muttered as they entered the building.
A tall, bald, black man was waiting inside. Several chairs were set up, two on one side and four on the other. Kid disappeared into another room, while Ghost and the man sat down.
Ghost motioned for the others to sit. They did so, looking around the room in case of an emergency.
"Hello. My name is Morpheus," he started. "There is no time to explain at the moment, as I believe the Agents are already tracking us. Please, each and every one of you must take this pill." He opened a small case holding four separate red pills.
"Why couldn't Star come?" Robin asked. "Again, there is not enough time. Quickly." They downed the pills and stood up. "What were those?"
Morpheus smiled. "Follow me and I can explain what they do." They walked into Kid's room. "The pills you took are developed to disrupt your signal in the Matrix as so to stop the Agents from choosing you as a host. Please, look at the mirrors around you."
The four teens were seated in dentist chairs. Kid, a black woman, and Ghost were already applying pads and needles to them.
"Take a closer look at the mirrors," Morpheus instructed.
Raven looked closely at her mirror. She reached out to it when she saw a faint ripple. "Is that possible?" she asked as a silvery film coated her fingers.
Cyborg and Beast Boy did the same, but Robin was not so sure. He became less sure when Raven screamed and the silver substance coated her entire body.
Cyborg and Beast Boy couldn't shake the stuff off, and soon were yelling at the cold, Beast Boy more so. Robin leapt from the chair and jump kicked Morpheus, who easily caught his foot.
"I am sorry, Robin." He shoved him into the mirror. The liquid quickly coated him as he struggled to break free.
"Locked. They're out," Kid whispered. The four exited through the hard lines placed for them.
"They're out," muttered Johnson angrily.
"Well," said Thompson, "I suppose we could try to get the Trainman ourselves. Surely he can't be that hard to find?"