in the first feature film, "the matrix", morpheus successfully finds and monitors a man named thomas a. anderson, a hacker who calls himself neo. despite a close call with agents that capture, interrogate, and place a surveillance device on neo, morpheus and his crew locate him. morpheus offers neo a choice of ingesting a red pill, which will activate a trace program to locate neo's body in the real world and allow the "nebuchadnezzar" crew to extract him, or a blue pill, which will leave neo in the matrix to live and believe as he wishes. neo takes the red pill. the "nebuchadnezzar" crew is then able to eject neo's body from the matrix powerplant and retrieve him from the cold sewers where the machines patrol. morpheus takes a risk in helping neo escape the matrix, as human minds that live too long in the matrix may have trouble in comprehending the reality. initially, neo does experience denial when morpheus explains the truth, a point for which morpheus apologizes.