The sins of the father...

"You hear that Mr. Anderson?... That is the sound of inevitability... It is the sound of your death... Goodbye, Mr. Anderson... "

Ah, the light at the end of the tunnel. Agent Smith sees it. He knows that you cannot rise above what you are. He knows you are just the product of genes and environment. A child ignored and neglected seeks out his own comfort and raises children who feel ignored and neglected who become seekers of comfort and neglect children of their own. Children of divorce, divorce. Children born out of wedlock become single parents. A parent injects their fears and false securities into the mold whether intentionally or not and the next batch is poisoned before leaving the nest. Lather, rinse, repeat.

"Nay!" say thee. "I am a ship, not a caboose! I choose my own destiny!" Good for you! Go forth and sail proud. But why, pray tell, in so many ports do people recognize you. "Would have known you anywhere," they chuckle, "you're your mother's daughter." Or do they grab your chin and burr, "Yew have the look of yer mutha." "Your old man was the same way at that age," they say with a shake of the head or a knowing smirk because they know the old man better than you. And one day, sitting on a lonely beach, the ship smashed against the rocks, holding a bottle with a note in your grandmother's handwriting, you look back and with the telescope of hindsight, you can plot out how you followed an invisible path that couldn't have been more rigid had it been two tracks made of steel. Oh sure, some of the details were different enough to cloud the journey, beer instead of vodka, porn for adultery, career instead of civic duty but the gutter outside the old port bar has tasted those tears before. They just fell from your father's eyes.

If you haven't reached that port yet, just wait, you'll get there.

Agent Smith knows this. He barely needs to hold your head to the tracks. You don't have the strength to fight fate. You couldn't win even if you knew what to do.

Except, you do fight. You roll forward and with a strength you shouldn't possess you push and through clenched teeth you tell him,

"My name... is Neo. "

But what's in a name? i'll tell you later.