INT. APARTMENT

An older apartment; a series of halls connects a chain of small high-ceilinged rooms lined with heavy casements.

Smoke hangs like a veil, blurring the few lights there are.

Dressed predominately in black, people are everywhere, gathered in cliques around pieces of furniture like jungle cats around a tree.

Neo stands against a wall, alone, sipping from a bottle of beer, feeling completely out of place. He is about to leave when he notices a woman staring at him.

The woman is Trinity. She walks straight up to him.

In the nearest room, shadow-like figures grind against each other to the pneumatic beat of INDUSTRIAL MUSIC.

TRINITY Hello, Neo.

NEO How do you know that name?

TRINITY I know a lot about you. I’ve been wanting to meet you for some time.

NEO Who are you?

TRINITY My name is Trinity.

NEO Trinity? The Trinity? The Trinity that cracked the I.R.S. D-Base?

TRINITY That was a long time ago.

NEO Gee-zus. What? I just thought… you were a guy.

TRINITY Most guys do.

Neo is a little embarrassed.

NEO Do you want to go somewhere and talk?

TRINITY No. It’s safe here and I don’t have much time.

The MUSIC is so LOUD they must stand very close, talking directly into each other’s ear.

NEO That was you on my computer?

She nods.

NEO How did you do that?

TRINITY Right now, all I can tell you, is that you are in danger. I brought you here to warn you.

NEO Of what?

TRINITY They’re watching you, Neo.

NEO Who is?

TRINITY Please. Just listen. I know why you’re here, Neo. I know what you’ve been doing. I know why you hardly sleep, why you live alone and why, night after night, you sit at your computer. You’re looking for him.

Her body is against his; her lips very close to his ear.

TRINITY I know because I was once looking for the same thing, but when he found me he told me I wasn’t really looking for him. I was looking for an answer.

There is a hypnotic quality to her voice and Neo feels the words, like a drug, seeping into him.

TRINITY It’s the question that drives us, the question that brought you here. You know the question just as I did.

NEO What is the Matrix?

TRINITY When I asked him, he said that no one could ever be told the answer to that question. They have to see it to believe it.

She leans close, her lips almost touching his ear.

TRINITY The answer is out there, Neo. It’s looking for you and it will find you, if you want it to.

She turns and he watches her melt into the shifting wall of bodies.

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is meet-ups, suggested by Teddy Pasternak. The Matrix was suggested by Pliny the Elder and @laffarsmith.

Trivia: The name of the company Neo works for is Metacortex. The roots of this word are meta-, which according to Webster’s means “going beyond or higher, transcending,” and -cortex, which is “the outer layer (boundary) of gray matter surrounding the brain.” Thus, Metacortex is “transcending the boundaries of the brain,” which is precisely what Neo proceeds to do.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Introduction as mystery working on two levels here — The Matrix and Trinity, both arousing Neo’s curiosity and leading him into his journey.