A telephone booth at night
A telephone booth or phone booth was a small structure furnished with a payphone or telephone and designed for a telephone user's own personal purposes within the Matrix. Phone booths were also used to exit the Matrix and could function as hardlines.
Details[]
The phone booths within the Matrix appeared as a modern 1980s and 1990s booth with a vintage looking rotary dial telephone within the booth itself. The telephone came in many different colors from black, white, and red. The ringtone was similar to the ringtone of a regular telephone and used a vintage sounding bell ring signal whenever the phone was receiving a call. Locations of phone booths varied all around Mega City.
The booth itself appeared as a metallically constructed booth with glass walls that allowed the user to see his or her surroundings while inside the booth. It also allowed others to see if the phone booth was being used.
The phone booths were used by both bluepills and redpills within the Matrix but, while both types of humans used the phone booths in a similar manner, the usage carried risks for redpills.
Bluepills used phone booths the same way they used other telephone devices and used them for personal calls, contacting many different bluepills like family, friends, partners, spouses, and company operating machines, oblivious of the true nature of the Matrix.
Telephone booths as Exits[]
Trinity attempting to escape from the Matrix with a phone booth before being hit by Smith's incoming truck.
Redpills, however, used phone booths mostly as their way to exit from the Matrix. Using phone booths as exits were more dangerous for redpills and members of the resistance due to how they were for public use. The booths were also usually in an open location where bluepills, Agents, and other programs within Mega City could easily spot redpills leaving the Matrix and these booths were typically avoided when exiting as a group since Agents were quick to swoop in at the earliest signs of an anomaly.
When a redpill is in need of an exit, hovercraft operators usually use telephones in an abandoned or private area to ensure safe exit from the Matrix. Redpills and operators use phone booths only in case of an emergency or immediate exit from the Matrix.
The Matrix Resurrections[]
By the time of The Matrix Resurrections, the resistance no longer needs to use telephone booths as exits.[1] Instead, they use mirrors or other reflective surfaces such as windows.
Appearances[]
- The Matrix
- The Matrix Reloaded
- The Matrix Revolutions
- Enter the Matrix
- The Matrix: Path of Neo
- The Matrix Online