Tracer opens her eyes for the very first time. She blinks a few times, the bright lights making her blurry. She looks around and sees she's in a metal room where a metal door is connected on the wall in front of her. She looks down at her arm and sees the IV she noticed earlier with the Oracle and the metal plugs all over her arms. Tracer tries to sit up but winces and falls back on her pillow. Holy snickers, she wasn't kidding about moving around for the first time. A knock comes from her door, startling her.

"Come in." she said weakly.

A young man comes in with a wet towel, looking at Tracer like she has five heads. "Holy shit! You're awake!" he yells and runs out the door.

Okay, that was weird… She takes the time to examine her room more. It's a very small room. A nightstand is there with a few clothes on top and the bed she's lying on. No room for anything else. Tracer tries to sit up, but yet again fails. A few seconds later Morpheus comes in with a towel and stands in the doorway.

Tracer smiles weakly at him, "Little help please?"

Morpheus quickly rushes over to her side, helping her sit up. She moves her legs over the bed so she is sitting next to him. "I feel like I slept a thousand years." she says stretching.

"You practically did," he says amused, "let me take your IV out."

Tracer lifts her arm for him so it's easier to take the needle out. She looks away wincing when she sees him reaching for it. Only a hiss leaves her mouth as she feels him pull the needle out of her arm. She reaches up behind her head and discovers another metal plug. How many of these do I have?!

"That's the place where you hook up to the Matrix." he informs her.

She also notices for the first time, her hair is extremely short. She moves the hair out of her eyes and freezes when Morpheus smoothes out her bed head, making her blush.

"I hope the clothes fit you ok, We only have two sizes, men and women." he informs her.

Tracer shakes her head, "No it fits good actually, I don't mind my clothes being a little big."

Deciding it's time to stand up, she almost falls, failing to keep her balance when Morpheus grabs her arm steadying her. She doesn't mind being close to him and holding on to her, "Clever Oracle." she mutters.

"You saw the Oracle?" Morpheus asks.

"Yes, but I'll tell you later."

Morpheus announces it's time to show her around the ship. The floor they were on was where everyone sleeps. He leads her toward the other end of the ship. Tracer realizes the whole ship was made out of metal.

"This is my ship, the Nebuchadnezzar."

"That's a mouthful." Tracer says, smiling, getting a laugh out of him.

"It's a hovercraft. Small like a submarine. It's cramped and cold. But it's home."

They approached a ladder at the end of the hall. Morpheus lets Tracer go first in case she falls or loses her balance. After they both climb up, Morpheus grabs her hand, continuing to lead her around.

"This is the main deck. You know most of my crew."

The woman that was with Neo when she first met him was the first person she saw.

"This is Trinity."

Trinity smiles and nods at her, Tracer waves.

"The ones you don't know are Apoc, Switch, and Cypher. You met the Mouse when you first woke up." he announces.

Mika looks at the familiar faces. Apoc was the man she saw in front of all the monitors in that Lafayette Hotel. He has his long black hair tied back and looks physically fit wearing a grey long-sleeve shirt and blue pants. Switch was the white-haired woman that gave Morpheus her earpiece. She has on the same grey long sleeve shirt but with a blue jacket and blue pants. Cypher was the driver that was with her and Morpheus. He is bald, has a mustache and small goatee. He was in good shape and has on a grey long sleeve shirt with a red beater with holes in it. For some reason, she had an iffy feeling about him. Everyone with the matching clothes again! I need to give these people fashion tips. Mouse was the young man that knocked on her door. He looks like the youngest one here. He wore a blue hat on top of his head making him stand out from the others. He is maybe an inch taller than her.

Tracer looks around the room and sees more monitors and wires that Trinity seems to be working on. She realizes Morpheus is holding her hand again after he introduces who everyone is, or so she thought.

"Those two guys over there," He points to two big buff men by the monitors on the left side. "Are Tank and his big brother Dozer."

Tank has short black hair and looked like he was in very good shape. Tracer establishes he is good eye candy. He is also smiling like a cute goon. Tank is wearing the same long sleeve shirt and pants. Dozer, on the other hand, was just about as buff as Morpheus was. However, Dozer had a blue shirt tied around his head, a grey beater. and finger-less gloves on his hands. She recognizes him as the one who helped rebuild her.
"Of course, you know Neo, but he's currently sleeping." Morpheus stated.

Tracer immediately turns to Morpheus "He woke up before me though, is he ok?"

Trinity spoke up softly, "He had a rough first time in the Matrix."

Tracer started bouncing excitedly, bringing Morpheus' hand with her, "Does that mean it's my turn to go in?"

"Yes. Whenever you are ready." he states.

"Holy snickers! Yes! I'm so ready. I just need to do one thing." She turns to everyone and waves shyly, "My name is Tracer. It's super nice to meet you all here in Wonderland or Oz or whatever you call it here." she has everyone laughing, including the all so serious Morpheus. She then turns her attention to Dozer with daggers in her eyes. Dozer's smile quickly leaves his face. "Dozer, I just want to thank you for helping rebuild me. But I just have to warn you. If you ever stick those needles in me again, I'm going to punch you in the face and stick you with said needles myself." Everyone starts laughing at Dozer, who looks petrified.

"How do you know Dozer worked on you?" Tank asks.

"I have connections." She says, winking. "Now let's plug me in! Trinity, can you help me?"

Trinity nods while Tracer scampers off to one of the seats and sits down. She winces when the needle goes into her head, making Morpheus give her hand a reassuring squeeze.

When she opens her eyes, she is back in the white abyss. "Well, this looks familiar." She notices she had on her short black and red dress from her night out. Her brown hair is down to her shoulders, and she has on her black heels.

"You've seen this before?" Morpheus suddenly asks.

Mika is startled, looking behind her to see Morpheus. He has on his usual black round glasses, but this time he has a maroon colored suit jacket with a tie and dark dress pants with black shoes.

"Holy snickers Morph! Don't sneak up on me like that!" She composes herself and turns to look at Morpheus. "This is where I was every time the Oracle came into my dreams and she was with me when I was waking up. That's how I knew you and Dozer were with Neo and I in the medical bay."

Morpheus looks deep in thought, "I see." He moves to stand in front of her, "This is the construct. It's our loading program. We can load anything from clothes, to weapons, to training simulations. Anything we need."

"So we're currently in the Matrix right now?"

Morpheus nods.

"This is so awesome!" She says bouncing excitedly, "I do have a message for you though."

Morpheus raises an eyebrow, "And what would that be?"

"I know why Neo freaked out. He doesn't believe any of this is real Morpheus. He's still holding on to his beliefs from his old life, and he thinks this is a dream he'll just wake up from. Now, me? I know better." Tracer spots the leather chairs and sits in one of them, "I'm supposed to help Neo adjust to this. You, forcing him to accept all this is going to result in him being hostile to everyone. Let me help him."

"This is what the Oracle told you?"

"Among other things," she rubs her hands on her lap nervously, "She honestly didn't tell me much, you know how she likes her riddles."

Morpheus smiles at her, "Yes, in fact, I do."

"She did tell me something else though. I started waking up years ago. She said my dreams were her reaching out to me in a sense to give me the extra push I needed. Then about six months ago when I was ready to wake up, I was dreaming about you. Then you found me and well," she raises her hands up, gesturing to everything around them, "the rest is history." she crosses her arms over her chest becoming more serious, "I know you think Neo is 'The One', but you need to let him figure that out on his own, okay?"

Morpheus looks deep in thought from everything Tracer said. He is quiet for a few seconds before he nods to agree with her terms, "You're quite interesting."

Tracer smiles at him, "I try. So history lesson time? As I said, the Oracle didn't tell me much."

Morpheus clears his throat, "We think the year is 2197, I can't say for certain what year it is because honestly, we don't know." He picks up a remote and the television comes on to reveal her old city. "This is the world you know. The world as it was at the end of the Twentieth Century. It exists now only as part of a neural-interactive simulation that we call the Matrix." He flicks the channel and instead a broken, run-down version of her city takes its place on the screen. "You have been living inside a dream world, Mika-"

"Tracer." she interrupts him, "Mika stopped existing when you woke me up." She looks around and sees the ruined city before her.

"This is the desert of the real." Morpheus states.

"Cool name. Did you just make that up?" she asks trying to get him to smile more, instead, she earned a chuckle.

Morpheus continues, "We only have bits and pieces of information. What we know for certain is that at some point in the early twenty-first century, all of mankind was united in celebration. Through the blinding inebriation of hubris, we marveled at our magnificence as we gave birth to A.I."

Tracer squints, "Artificial intelligence, really?"

"Yes. A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines. I must say I find it almost funny to imagine the world-"

"Slapping itself on the back, toasting to their new development?" she finishes the sentence for him, smirking.

Morpheus smiles, "Indeed. However, we don't know who struck first. Us or them. But we do know it was us that torched the sky."

Tracer starts putting the pieces together as Morpheus speaks about their history. Humans were dependent on machines since they were first created. Then the machines took over, evolving to the point that humans were grown instead of born.

Tracer stands abruptly, "That's what those towers were! All those pods hold a human being?"

Morpheus nods, "Those pods also represent who has yet to be awakened. He stands up pacing the floor, "For the longest time, I wouldn't believe it. But then I saw the fields with my own eyes, watched them liquefy the dead so they could be fed. I came to realize the obviousness of the truth." he turns off the television looking directly at Tracer, "What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dreamworld built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this." he holds up a coppertop battery.

Tracer tries to break the tension, "I'm never going to look at another battery the same way again."

Tracer feels the needle leave her head, wincing in pain, "God I really hate needles." She sees Neo staring at her until Trinity walks over to talk to him. Switch comes from behind her telling her she did a good job handling being plugged.

"In comparison to Neo having a freak-out?" she giggles, "I passed with flying colors. The difference between Neo and I, I already knew when I was asleep that none of it was real. So I faked it to believe the dream and managed to stay off the Agent's radar."

"God, you are such a badass!" Switch smiles. "Agents scare the shit out of me, I never ran into them when I woke up thankfully. But I've been a big fan of yours. You helped us find other people who needed help to wake up. How fast you traced everyone." she whispers to Tracer, "you're probably better than Morpheus sometimes."

"I'll take that as a compliment!" she beams at Switch, "Tracer became my name for a reason."

Switch smiles, "You know, That actually makes a lot of sense."

Neo interrupts the girls talking, "Can I borrow her for a minute?" He asks Switch.

Tank is the one to answer, "Make it quick Neo! I have to go through some stuff with her."

Tracer salutes Tank, "Yes sir!" she says bouncing out of her chair following Neo.

Neo leads her to his room, which is three doors down from hers. He walks in while Tracer crosses her arms leaning on the doorframe, his room is the same as hers, except Neo has a chair in the corner of his room by his bed.

"What's up Neo?" She asks.

"I'm freaking out! How am I supposed to believe any of this?" Neo says frantically pacing his room.

"Neo, what Morpheus said makes sense. Those Agents were going to kill you, you do realize that don't you? If Morpheus didn't come for you that night, you would be DEAD right now."

Neo scoffs, "Easy for you to say, they weren't after you!" he shouts.

Tracer narrows her eyes at him, "Actually, I had one shoot me when Morpheus came to me. He just got to me first thankfully."

Neo sighs and sits on his bed, looking distraught, "I can't go back can I?"

Tracer sighs and uncrosses her arms, sitting next to Neo, "Nope. But I mean, come on Neo, even if you could, would you even want to?"

Neo sighs again, but before he can answer, Morpheus knocks on the door. The pair look at him as he walks in front of them to lean against the wall with his hands behind his back. Morpheus looks at Tracer for a few seconds before he turns his attention to Neo.

"I feel that I owe you an apology. There is a rule that we do not free a mind once it reaches a certain age. It is dangerous. They have trouble letting go. Their mind turns against them. I've seen it happen. I'm sorry. I broke the rule because I had too."

Neo looks at Morpheus, nodding his head accepting his apology. "Why isn't Tracer having a hard time?"

"Maybe it's because I was partially awake? I mean, the dreams started when I was sixteen but I always knew nothing was real even before that." Tracer says.

"I honestly do not know," Morpheus says. "when the Matrix was first built there was a man born inside that had the ability to change what he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. It was this man that freed the first of us and taught us the truth; as long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free. When he died, the Oracle prophesied his return and envisioned that his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix, an end to the war and freedom to our people. That is why there are those of us that have spent our entire lives searching the Matrix, looking for him. I did what I did because-"

Tracer interrupts him, "I think that's enough history for one day. Neo looks like he's about to explode." she gives Morpheus a warning look.

"Get some rest. You are going to need it." Morpheus says before leaving the room.

"For what?" Neo asks Tracer.

She smiles at him, "For me to kick your ass in training tomorrow so get some sleep."