Neo about to be bugged
Bugs are robotic probes used by the Machines, typically by Agents, to track a Bluepill's location in the Matrix. They are placed onto a human subject's skin, where they will burrow underneath and take shelter inside the subject's body.
Appearance and purpose[]
A bug burrowing into the target's body through the navel.
During inactivity, the bug is completely motionless and looks like a small indistinct wire and metal spy device. When activated however, a single red eye lights up and it soon transforms into a longer squirming dark-gray shrimp-like robot with wiry tentacles and a flexible translucent body with a steel frame.
Bugs are typically placed upon the subject while they are unable to move, abruptly and brutally entering the host via their navel with the pain and ordeal often causing the target to lose consciousness. Once inside theirs hosts, they remain motionless under the flesh so as to remain undetectable.
Known victims implanted with the bug were all found to have no physical traces of harm and all have been tricked into discounting the shockingly unbelievable experience as merely a dream.
Removal[]
Extraction device used for restricting bug movement and removing it from humans
Resistance operatives are able to safely and successfully remove bugs from a host's body using an extraction device. The process is difficult and requires a fair amount of skill however as a bug can still move around within the host body to escape any attempted removal or to possibly cause fatal internal damage.
Appearances[]
The Matrix[]
In the chapter Unable to Speak, after refusing to cooperate during an interrogation by Agents Smith, Brown and Jones, Neo has a bug planted inside his body where the process jarringly plays out like a rape; Smith places the activated bug on the panicked Neo's abdomen as his cohorts hold the latter on the table, leaving him helplessly struggling as it burrows its way into his navel. The bug is later removed by Trinity and Switch.
The Animatrix[]
In the short film A Detective Story, Ash has a bug planted behind his eye during what he believed was an eye examination dream. It is later removed by Trinity when he finds her.
Behind the Scenes[]
Concept Art[]
"This is one of the bugs, the one that gets put into Neo by the Agents. I wonder why I put the mouse in there. I must have been tired of drawing robots. Drawing mechanical stuff is fun, but it can get tiring." — Geof Darrow about the bug[1]
The concept revolving the bug was conceived by the Wachowskis with the task of designing it falling into Geof Darrow. As intended by the Wachowskis, it blends mechanical and organic aspects; true to this, its inert form appears as an unassuming tracking device until it metamorphoses into its true bio-mechanical state upon activation.
Story Board[]
“ ― Steve Skroce about the scene of Neo getting bugged.[src]
“ One thing [Lana] and [Lilly] were really worried about was how scary this scene was going to be and whether Warner Bros. would go for it. And the scene only gets creepier as it goes on. Again, they had really specific thoughts on this. By the time I got my hands on it, the bug was already designed by Geof, so I was looking at his drawings. They wanted the bug to start out as a conventional wire-and-metal bugging device, and then grow into this very techno-organic thing. It needed a life-like look, to be some sort of biomechanical creature.
”― Steve Skroce about the bug.[src]
