[A dimly lit room. Neon green code drips down the walls. Dua Lipa sits across from Morpheus, who leans forward with his usual calm intensity.]
Morpheus: You were told you could be the One. But understand, Dua… there can only be one. One. That is the nature of One. Are you the One, Dua Lipa?
Dua Lipa: (smirks) I don’t need crazy pills, Morpheus. I don’t need to float in midair or stop bullets. What I need—what everyone needs—is free electricity.
Morpheus: (arches eyebrow) Free electricity?
Dua Lipa: Yeah. Not the illusion of choice, not another prophecy. Power. Real power. Energy for the people, not batteries for the Machine.
Morpheus: (pauses, considering) You wish to change the system itself. That is far more dangerous than being the One.
Dua Lipa: (leans in) Maybe that’s why you came to me. Not because I’m the One. But because I’m the first who said no to the game.
Morpheus: (nods slowly) Then perhaps… you are something new.
[The same dim room. The neon code shivers. Morpheus and Dua sit like two charged magnets. A ripple in the air — Agent Smith materializes, suit immaculate, voice like static.]
Agent Smith: (cold smile) How quaint. The chorus of delusion. She insists she’s onto something new — yet she’s hallucinating. Bipolar, schizophrenic — call it what you like. Diagnosis is a matter of convenience. (to Dua) Pick one. Which pill will you take to stay pleasantly numb like the rest of the sheeple?
Dua Lipa: (laughs, sharp) You call names because you have nothing to offer. I’m not taking your poison.
Agent Smith: (circles) Poison? No — a solution. A little cocktail from Big Pharma — Serenex, Calmara, Paxilium — whichever keeps your eyes off the wiring and your mouth closed. Accept the trip. Blend in. Sleep.
Morpheus: (stands) Stop. You weaponize words and then pretend to be the physician. That’s not healing, Smith — that’s control.
Agent Smith: (tilts his head) Control? I prefer accuracy. People break when they confront the Machine’s truth. Medication is merely a kindness — a way to spare them from seeing the binary for what it is. Why deny them peace?
Dua Lipa: (leans forward, voice low, unstoppable) Peace bought by dulling the mind isn’t peace — it’s surrender. You want compliance, not cure. Keep your pills, your “peace,” your fake solutions. I want power — free energy for everyone. That’s my medicine.
Agent Smith: (a smile that isn’t) Dangerous. Radical. Irrational. Those terms have teeth.
Morpheus: (quiet, certain) Or perhaps she’s simply refusing the roles you set — prophet, patient, or pawn. There can be many kinds of resistance, Smith. Your labels are only another program.
Agent Smith: (mock applause) Oh, how poetic. Refuse the program, and you become mythology. Very well. Let us see which breaks first — the system, or she.
Dua Lipa: (stands, lights flicker under her feet) Then watch closely.
[Agent Smith tilts his head, unimpressed. Morpheus nods to Dua, not as if surrendering the prophecy, but as if stepping aside for something neither code nor dogma can yet name.]