Disclaimer: I don't own the Matrix. Well, actually I do. All three DVDs. But not the rights to it. So... um, yeah.
Day after day it was the same. Neo sat in his glass cell as the people walked by and gaped at him, oblivious to the glares he threw in return. But it was no use. He knew he was never getting out.
Vague memories were all he retained of the life he once had. It seemed so distant, so far away now, as though none of it had ever happened and was, as the scientists had told him, fictional.
He remembered defeating Smith, remembered the light that surrounded him all over, remembered the pain... and then he was here, lying helpless on a floor that felt more... real than anything he had ever experienced before.
"Welcome to the real world," the scientists had told him, smiling smugly as they looked down on their latest experiment. They told him everything: about a trilogy known as The Matrix, two brothers known as Andy and Larry Wachowski, an actor known as Keanu Reeves, and the bottomline was, Neo was fictional.
He didn't believe them. He didn't want to, but he knew somehow that they were telling the truth. They showed him snippets of the movies, enjoying the look on Neo's face as he watched bits of his life - private or otherwise - enacted out on screen. They knew everything... everything...
They showed him the bit where Trinity died. People watched this for entertainment.
And then they had locked him up in the glass cell where he was now. Neo had struggled, but they had been too strong for him. In this world, his powers were gone. In this world, he was only human, and it made him feel strangely vulnerable.
He got food and drink three times a day through a flap in the cell's only door; just barely enough to keep him alive. Through the transparent walls he would see the person who brought him his meals walk by, staring in wonder at him as did everyone else. Neo would pound on the walls and demand to be let out, but he never was, and soon he gave up.
Three days later the scientists returned to check on their experiment, thoughts of the Nobel Prize going through their heads. They had managed to bring a movie character into the real world. It was one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs ever.
"Let me out," Neo asked quietly, though where he would go then he had no idea.
"No."
"I have my rights."
"Those are for humans. You aren't human. You don't have rights. You don't exist, understand? You're not real."
"I'M REAL, ---- YOU!"
From the other side of the glass wall the scientists smiled at each other, amused.
Days passed. Sometimes people would walk by and stare at him - big scientists, important people, the occasional rich Matrix fan... they all gawked at him as Neo just sat there on display, staring back with a hint of defiance in his eyes.
Smith had once talked about purpose, back then in the life he could barely remember. Neo had no more purpose. There was no more point in living. All he had, all he had ever known, were gone, never existed. He didn't know who he was anymore.
Two weeks from the day he first arrived, the scientists found Neo huddled in a corner of his cell. They tapped the wall until he lifted his head and looked at them.
"Freddy says you're not eating."
Neo didn't reply.
"You have to eat, you know. You don't want to starve to death, do you?"
Neo gave them a look that said he had seriously considered the possibility.
"No, you can't do that. It cost us too much to bring you here. It would ruin the experiment, and we can't have that happening."
Neo cursed them under his breath. The scientists chuckled. "Of course," one of them said, "if you do die, we'll just have to use someone else instead. Like... Trinity, perhaps..."
Neo's eyes widened, and he futiley slammed the wall with his fists as the scientists started walking away. "No... NO! YOU LEAVE HER ALONE! YOU LEAVE HER ALONE, YOU HEAR ME? Leave her alone..."
They had gone. Neo gave the wall one last angry kick, then slid back down to the floor, his head buried in his knees.
He started eating again. After a while, he didn't care anymore. He didn't care, didn't struggle when the scientists came to try out tests on him, experimenting to see how much pain he could take before he blacked out, using him for anything that required human testing - they couldn't use real people as it was against the law, but Neo wasn't real and it was therefore perfectly fine to use him.
Every night they returned him back to his cell. On the weekends they left him alone, and on those days the public were free to enter and stare at him like some kind of zoo exhibit, while Neo just sat there, helpless, weak, and on display.