»The Woman in Red«

''There is one disturbing, unexplained clue that may point to the resolution of a more "sophisticated" matrix. Mouse's Woman in Red, whom Mouse supposedly created for the Nebuchadnezzar's agent training program, appears again inside the AI's Matrix just before Neo notices a déjà vu, which is to say a glitch in the Matrix. As we have seen, theWoman in Red had already been made to represent humanity's continuing need for fantasy objects of desire regardless of whether humanity is inside or outside the Matrix. (And, as fantasy object, she is appropriately made to appear here as a centerfold.) We should keep in mind that the humans on the Nebuchadnezzar are just as reliant on computers and computer simulations for their fantasies as their counterparts in the AI-controlled reality. They can at least comfort themselves that they are themselves creating their own simulations, that they are thus in control of their own fantasies; seeing the Woman inside the AI's Matrix, however, suggests a number of increasingly distressing possibilities:

1. Mouse could have stolen his Woman in Red from a memory he formed while still a part of the Matrix, which suggests again to what extent he still remains reliant on the simulated reality of the Matrix even for his own fantasies. The Matrix could thus be said still to control him after he is ''freed.''

2. The Matrix is playing a cruel joke on Mouse, illustrating to what extent the AIs are still able to survey his innermost fantasies (perhaps tanks to Cypher). Indeed, Mouse's expression in the scene is on of perplexity, as if the Woman in Red were herself one of the interpolated glitches in the scene, one of the déjà vus, which she is, literally: we have already seen her but outside the story-space of the AI's Matrix.

3. There actually is no difference between the Matrix and what Morpheus believes to be ''the real world,'' which is how the Woman in Red can appear in both; she is, ultimately the creation of the master-program. Both Women in Red, in this scenario, are part of an all-encompassing Matrix that has created the perception of an escape in to the real so as to keep the still oblivious bodies of its ''real'' human batteries perpetually locked into this machine.''