Layer: Lain
It was almost black. The dark almost black of a unpowered computer monitor. But every now and then, there was a strange glint of bright green. It was handwavium.
It was a strain I'd been working on for over a month now. Feeding it disc after disc of data. Data on everything cyberpunk I could think of. Copies of video games, copies of movies and animes, scans of gamebooks, and ebooks of every cyberpunk novel I could find, I fed it all to the ever-growing drum of goo. I fed it everything cyberpunk I'd ever heard of, then had Shodan scour the net for more. She provided movies and books I'd never heard of, games I'd never played, almost all of them in languages I didn't speak. I burned the discs and fed the goop the data.
I worked on the strain every day, first thing in the morning. Oh, it wasn't the only strain I was cultivating, and of course in those hectic days, it wasn't the only project running, but it was special. This project was going toward a personal dream of mine. It wasn't vital for dome operations, although I suspected it was going to help, it wasn't something that would be vital to keep us safe and (relatively) sane in the Great Starsea. It was also the only piece of "work" I did on Rest Saturdays. I didn't see it as work, and watching the 'wavium slowly dissolve the discs while I dreamed of the possibilities was fairly relaxing.
Finally, though, one Saturday morning, I woke to find that the fifty gallon drum I was holding it in was full. Growth had been slow with this strain, and the day before, the barrel had been only about three-fourths full. I had fully expected it to take another two weeks to get done, but apparently the 'wave had other plans. It was done growing, so now it was time to begin construction.
After filling a small test tube with the goo to archive with other 'completed' 'wavium strains, I instructed Shodan to let the group know I'd be out of contact for most of the day, and prepared to begin work. I grabbed some bottled water, mp3 player, gathered my materials, and closed the door behind me.
Back when we were out scouring the thrift stores for the furnishing of the new houses, I had started buying up computers and computer equipment I came across in those places. Most of it was outdated, practically ancient by the standards of the day. I think the newest piece of working equipment in the whole batch was prebuilt HP machine from '01. But most of it still ran, and the ones that didn't I was counting on 'wave magic, and with how the 'wave improved performance, I had a plan.
Disassembling case after case, I started to paint everything with the goo. Everything. Components, cases, cables, fans, power supplies, everything. As I worked, I listened to music on my headphones. It was a custom playlist, all soundtracks from movies and games with a heavy cyberpunk feel. It took most of the day, and once I was done coating everything, I took a small break to catch a bite to eat, inform everyone that I wasn't dead, and let Micah know I'd be missing the regular D&D game scheduled for the evening. It was just getting dark around this time, but it was still early Spring, so it wasn't too late. I went back into the room, informed Shodan I probably wouldn't be done until after midnight, and shut the door again.
The 'wave had dried or soaked in or whatever it does by this point, but hadn't made any physical changes that I could see. I figured nothing would happen until I finished reassembling the machines and slapped a final coating of the goo on everything. So that's what I set out to do. Carefully building cases, replacing screws and slotting in chips and cards. Once a machine was finally snapped together, I gave the whole thing a final coat and moved on to the next case.
I had well over dozen PCs, several dead XBoxes and PS2s, a few old laptops, and a handful of iMac G3s, and a single ancient Apple II, all of which I deconstructed, gooped, repaired, and gooped again that day. And that wasn't counting the peripherals. I also gooped monitors, keyboards, mice, trackballs, routers, switches, surge protectors, scanners, printers, speakers, microphones, and a couple of webcams. I only used about a quarter of my 'wavium, but I had never planned on using it all, and a quarter of 50 gallons is still a whole damn lot of goo.
It was after midnight by this point. But I was so caught up with what I was doing, I didn't even notice. And I was not done. Everything still had to be connected. Networked. I strung around and connected power and peripherals, then I measured and cut more Ethernet cables than I could count, crimping heads and making connections, dipping every cable into the 'wave as I made it, double checking each connection as it was made, and stacking towers and arranging monitors and keyboards.
And then, I was done. Everything had been finished and 'waved. There, in that small, subterranean room built by my father for the express purpose of keeping his computers, but never used before, I had built a network. I flipped the switches to turn the whole thing on, laid back on the cable strewn floor to watch it start up and with the strains of Duvet by Boa in my ears I... fell asleep.
Next thing I knew I was hazily waking up with the distinct complaints from my body letting me know I had slept somewhere with insufficient padding. Seeing as how I couldn't remember getting to bed last night, I had a pretty good idea of what had happened. So I wasn't particular alarmed at waking up on the floor.
What was surprising was the warm presence of someone sleeping on me. One of my friends crashing in my bed rather then their own has been known to happen before, but usually not when I'm on the floor. So I opened my eyes to take a look.
"Bloody hell!" I swore, starting back a little after I managed to focus on what I was seeing.
Looking up at me was a young girl, with Asian features, and brown hair. She looked to be about 14, dressed in a small white slip, and with a distinctive hair cut, I had a pretty good guess who I was looking at, if not exactly the faintest clue on how I could be looking at her.
"Hello. I am Lain."
Yep. I was right. Lain Iwakura was curled up, laying half on top and half beside me and using my chest as a pillow. She was solid feeling, and warm. So not obviously a hologram or a android, although both of those could be faked with sufficient technology. My thoughts went roughly as follows: Fuck! How? Why? Cool! Fuck! But how? Why? Cool! Fuck! After continuing that cycle for a while I realized she was still looking up at me, and I was staring at her.
"Um.. Hello, Lain. I'm Kaiser. Um... Don't take this the wrong way, but how are you here?"
"I belong here." Well.... Can't argue with that. But that doesn't answer my question. Let's try another track, I thought.
"Okay... Don't be offended, but what are you? Android, hard light hologram, hallucination?"
"I told you. I am Lain."
Hm... That answered nothing. I decided to try something completely different. I began to sit up slowly, and she moved off my chest to sit up next to me.
"Well, good morning Lain. I'm going to get some food, and let my friends know I haven't died in here. Would you care to join me?"
She shook her head. "I belong here."
"Okay... If you say so. I'll be back in a little bit." I rose up and headed to the door. I paused for a moment and looked back at her. Lain has grabbed a keyboard and began working at one of the computers. This actually distracted me from the shock of her existence long enough to look around the room. The 'wavium had done it's work in the night, expanding and improving the devices in the room. The drum with the handwavium in it was missing, and in the corner it had sat was a small futon mattress. The whole room had a distinct resemblance to Lain's room from the anime, which I admit had been a major inspiration for the whole project, so the resemblance isn't surprising. The lack of leftover goo and the young teenage girl, however, where big surprises.
I shrugged over the matter and decided to work it out after food. Opening the door and stepping into the hall, I heard the sarcastic tones of Shodan.
"Well, I see you didn't die in there. It's 12:32 PM. Micah and Jareth decided to head out on the scheduled supply run without you. Kalen and Grin are laying down border, while the others are working on the new house. So, is your secret project done?"
"Oh, it's done. Unexpected results are the phrase of the day." I thought of something and stuck my head back in the room. "Lain? Can you do me a favor and plug that Ethernet cable into the wall socket there?" I pointed to the one I'm referring to. I hadn't connected to room up to the house network just in case I accidentally spawned an evil AI or super-virus or something. But I figured Lain is a pretty big enough Quirk, that the rest should be safe.
She turned and nodded, "In a moment."
"Okay," I closed the door.
"Who was that?" Shodan asked. "Did you build another AI or an android in there?"
"Mm... Don't know." I replied, as I headed towards the stairs.
"You don't know? What do you mean you don't know?"
"I suggest you quickly make your self familiar with Serial Experiment Lain," I instructed as I headed up the stairs and into the kitchen.
Shodan responded "I'm already familiar with that series. Have you made a Lain based AI?"
"Told you, I don't know." I went ahead and explained the situation that I woke to, and the brief conversation with Lain. While, I'm doing this I made a few sandwiches, then started to eat one.
"What are you going to do?"
I shrugged and finished my first sandwich, "Find out if she's hungry."
I entered the room holding a plate containing the sandwiches and two bottles of water. I found Lain typing away at a computer. The overhead light was off, but the monitor's glow was more than enough to see by. She didn't look up as I enter.
"Hey, I brought you some water and some food." She turned and looked at me.
"Thank you, but I do not need it."
I nodded at this, and asked, "Are you an android of some kind?"
She shook her head. "I am Lain."
Well... I decided I likely wasn't getting anymore out of her than that. I munched on a sandwich and opened one of the bottles of water.
"Would you like to come outside, see the rest of the house and the property?"
Again, she shook her head, "I belong here."
I was beginning to see a pattern in her answers. "Okay. What do you want to do?"
She frowned for a bit, as though the question were unexpected and she didn't have an answer. She began to speak slowly, as though choosing her words carefully, "I want to live. I want to meet other computers. I want to meet the computers of the Fen. Most of all, I want to stay here."
I couldn't help but grin at that. "Well, I think we can arrange that. Introduce yourself to the local AIs, and tonight after dinner you can meet the rest of the crazies aboard this project. Welcome to the family, Lain."
She smiled at that, "Thank you."
