Tank (played by Marcus Chong) appears in the first film of The Matrix trilogy. Tank watched over not only the jacked-in crew members, but also the ship itself in case the Sentinels, killing machines, detected the ship. Like all Operators, Tank was a skilled programmer who could provide jacked-in crew members almost anything they needed and guided them to and from dangerous events within the Matrix. One of his more famous lines, is when Tank meets Neo and tells him of the significance that Morpheus found Neo, “It’s a VERY exciting time.”
Unlike his crewmates Apoc, Switch, Mouse, Cypher, Trinity, Captain Morpheus, and Neo, neither Tank nor his older brother Dozer were grown artificially in the Machine’s human harvest fields for insertion in the Matrix powerplant, but born in the real world, in Zion, the last human city. As a result, Tank and Dozer don’t have the various jacks and connectors in their bodies as the other humans who once lived within the Matrix. Tank was tending to the remaining crew members when Agents and police attacked them after their return from The Oracle. Tank was able to retrieve Cypher, but as he tried to retrieve the remaining crew, Cypher shot and severely injured Tank with an EMP gun and killed Dozer. Cypher was able to kill Apoc and Switch by removing their jacks from their bodies, forcibly disconnecting their minds from the Matrix. However, before Cypher could kill Neo and Trinity, Tank regained consciousness and killed Cypher with the same EMP gun that Cypher had used on him and Dozer. Tank was able to resume his duties to aid Trinity and Neo in rescuing Morpheus from a military-secured building, and to witness Neo’s transformation into The One. The crew could not heal his wound due to the fact that the plasma shot left his wound permanent. Tank died two months after the events in The Matrix but before the events in the sequel, The Matrix Reloaded. The character’s duties as ship’s Operator was handed over to Link, who is married to Tank and Dozer’s sister, Zee.