Chapter 1: The 00bers
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I woke up and looked at the screen of my computer. It was black. I don’t really know why I woke up suddenly just then, and there was nothing wrong with my computer. Me and her (I call my computer a she, I can’t call the only thing I love in life an it) have a sort of a freaky psychic connection that makes me sit down in front of her whenever she catches a virus (I keep getting spam e-mails that may just as well contain a virus), and when I’m feeling down, she always freezes and shows me a blue screen of death. Very convenient.

Then suddenly, letters appeared on the screen. They were randomly colored in red, green, yellow and white, it seemed:

WAKE UP, NEO

I sat irritated down at the computer and typed back.

I’M ALREADY AWAKE, YOU IDIOT

It appeared in the same freaky colors, even though I didn’t ask for it. I immediately got another message in that eye-piercing pattern of colors, and apparently the spammer sending this stuff didn’t read my reply.

THE TYPE CHART HAS YOU

Type chart? What nonsense…

But just then, the screen slowly got filled with some kind of a table. The top of it said:

TYPE CHART
Attack type – defending type

Then there came rows of “Normal Fire Water Electric Grass Ice…” both horizontally and vertically, and between them, there were just little squares colored in those same annoying colors. I’d never be able to look at white, red, yellow and green again…

Then, when that thing had filled the screen, it suddenly went blank and the faint buzzing in my computer died down. I pressed the start-up button a few times, but nothing happened. I ripped my faithful computer open, and the whole of her insides had simply melted into a chunk of metal.

“NOOOOOOOO!” I screamed. “MY COMPUTER!!!!”

Then I banged my head against the wall, yelling “WHY ME?” for around twenty minutes. After that, I looked around to find something to blame this on, even though the answer was obvious. I pointed at the empty screen.

“You did it!” I roared, pointing at the screen. “Evil type chart! IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!”

Then, even though I had actually even disconnected the screen from the remains of my computer, words appeared on the screen.

FOLLOW THE YELLOW MOUSE…

Then smoke started rising up from the screen, and I knew she had said her last words. My computer… oh, my computer…

I put my hands before my eyes, bent down to my knees and screamed about the injustice of the world until someone knocked on the door. I stopped being a freak and went to answer the door. While I was walking towards it, I looked over my apartment. With my computer not even in order, this was probably the most out-of-order room on the planet. I felt a glint of pride. I was probably the world champion in the amount of chaos I can fit into one tiny apartment.

“Hello,” said the man at the door, who was actually my friend, Leo. He had his son with him, who was playing on a Game boy Advance. “Remember the disk?”

“Yeah,” I said dully, “but sadly, it was in my computer when she…”

I couldn’t continue, but pointed instead at the scorched remains of my computer.

“Well, then you might actually go and get some fresh air just once,” said Leo. “Why don’t you come with us to see a movie?”

I wasn’t really listening to him; my extreme interest in everything having to do with computers had caused me to kindly get the boy to let me see his Game boy. I was peering at every side of it, but now I noticed the picture on the screen. It had a yellow mouse with the word “Pikachu” beside it.

“Yeah, I’ll come,” I said after that. My beloved computer’s last words might have been said at the very moment of death and probably made no sense, but I still had to respect them.

Once we got into the movie theater, I wondered what in hell I was doing in there. I had no money to pay to get in to actually see the film, and Leo and his son went in long ago and didn’t notice I was still outside. Suddenly, I noticed some freaky girl wearing a pair of shades, even as dark as it was in there, who was staring at me. Well, maybe staring at me, maybe just the movie poster beside me. The shades made it impossible to see.

I walked up to her, and she seemed to read my mind, because she walked towards me too. We met in the middle of the room.

“Hello, Neo,” she said.

“How do you know that name?” I asked her curiously.

“I know everything about you. So much it’s scary. I know about your computer. And I’ve wanted to meet you for some time.”

“Who are you, then?”

“My name is Trinity.”

“Trinity? THE Trinity?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s get to the point…”

“But I thought you were a guy!” I blurted out.

“Everyone thinks I’m a guy! Tell me, WHY am I so unlikely to be a girl to you? Why were you so stupidly sure I’m a guy? You should see your face now, shouldn’t you? Yes, I’m a girl over here! GIRL POWER!!!!!”

“Err… yeah,” I said when it suddenly dawned onto me.

“It was you! It was you who sent that type chart thingy into my computer!”

“I was waiting for you to realize that,” said Trinity and smiled victoriously. “But your computer is – was – a part of the Type chart.”

“What is the Type chart?”

“No one can be told what the Type chart is. You have to see it for yourself. And by the way… they’re watching you, Neo?”

I looked around, but saw no one but the ticket guy standing by the door, who was certainly not watching me. Then she went over to the man by the door and flashed a ticket, and she disappeared.

I stared after her, but then I just turned around and went home. I was so confused I forgot to set my alarm clock and was late to work, got told off by my boss and then sat down to work some in a bad mood.

I was interrupted when someone came with a package for me. I took it and opened it dully. In contained a mobile phone. It started ringing right there in my hands, and I didn’t notice anything better to do than answer the call.

“Hello, Neo. Do you know who this is?”

My heart stopped.

“Morpheus?” I whispered.

“I’ve been looking for you, Neo. I don’t know if you’re ready, but we don’t have the time to get you ready. They’re coming for you.”

“What ‘they’? Who’s ‘coming for me’?” I quickly asked.

“Stand up, and see for yourself…”

I looked towards the door, and some freaky guys in black leather jackets wearing shades were just entering.

“What the hell?!” I muttered into the phone. “Who are those guys?”

“They’re 00bers,” said Morpheus calmly.

“00bers?” I questioned.

“Yes. I can’t explain everything to you now, hurry to the window over there.”

I went there.

“Yes?”

“Jump out.”

“What the…?”

“Jump out. It’s the only way out, other than with them.”

“Now look here Morpheus, I may have been searching for you for years, but I’m not committing suicide just because you tell me to! I’m on twentieth floor, for crying out loud!”

But Morpheus hung up already. I threw the phone down, both because I wanted to get rid of all thought of Morpheus, and because cell phones can cause brain cancer (you can never be too careful).

“Suicide time already, Mr. Anderson?”

It was one of the… uh, what did he call them again? 00bers, right? I had no choice but to step slowly down from the windowsill and put my hands in the air.