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Layer 01; Weird: It is late at night in the Tokyo business district - the neon lights are flashing and men and women walk arm in arm looking for a quiet spot. However, there is a young schoolgirl walking through this crowd, looking very out of place. She appears at the top of a building, looking over the edge at the city below her. She grabs hold of the rail and leans over in a heroic pose, then falls. She crashes through the neon signs beside a businessman and his date in an alley. Surprised, they deny they had anything to do with it. Lain walks down the street to school. There is a buzzing in the air. On the train, she stands in front of the door and looks out the window as the carriages sways back and forth. She mutters aloud about the racket. Lain enters her classroom and finds her classmate, Juri, crying and surrounded by her other friends, Arisu and Reika. Noticing Lain, Arisu asks her if she got the email; however, Lain does not know what she is talking about as she confides she is not very good with computers. They tell her that Chisa committed suicide the week before and everyone has been receiving emails from the dead girl. Lain is indifferent. When Lain arrives home, she is curious if she got an email too. Going to her desk, she pulls out her child NAVI unit and turns it on. Slowly, she enters the OS and gets the voice message - she has new mail. As the NAVI unit voice synthesizes the mail, she remembers one time that Chisa walked home with her and she died believing one thing: there is life without having a body. Later on, Lain eats dinner with her mother and sister, Mika. Mika says she already had a late lunch and leaves the table. In her bear pjs, Lain visits her father, who is setting up a massive NAVI network consisting of at least 7 screens. She enters as he finishes and flicks on the power bar. He wonders why Lain has come to see him as she never goes near his computers. Lain asks him for a new NAVI and he is delighted to buy a new one for her, saying she has outgrown her child's NAVI. The next day, Lain rides the train to school. The train stops because of an accident. As she looks out the window, Lain sees blood dripping from the phonelines outside. In the classroom, Lain is having trouble concentrating on the lecture. The words on the chalkboard begin to blur and form a phrase - come to the WIRED. As she looks at her hands, smoke appears out of each finger and fills the classroom. On the way home from school, Lain encounters Chisa, standing before her. Layer 02; Girls: Cyberia. A young man buys something from a waitress wearing a gas mask. He complains about the price, ¥ 10,000, for something that could be bought on the street for only 4,000. He takes the capsule and carefully slices it open, letting the liquid and a black object fall out. It is Accela, a type of drug which accelerates the brain functions causing everything to look slow to him. As the viewer looks through his 'accelerated' senses, Arisu, Reika and Juri are standing against the wall and then Lain is shown at the other side of the room. The next morning, Lain sits in front of her NAVI waiting for new mail. But there is none. Mika knocks on her door and tells her she will be late for school. Lain quickly leaves. As she walks to school, she notices a man standing behind a pole, seemingly watching her. She slows her walk as she walks passed him, watching his eyes watch her. As she levels with him, she runs away down the road. The man remains impassive. When she arrives at the school, she sees her group of friends. They ask her if she was at Cyberia last night but Lain does not know what they are talking about. Reika does not believe her but Arisu steps in, saying it could not have been Lain. Lain asks Juri if she had gotten any more mail from Chisa but Juri says that happened a long time ago and was old news. While sitting in class, Arisu emails Lain about going to Cyberia with them that night. Lain does not want to. When Lain arrives at her home, there is a delivery truck in front of the house. The man asks if she lives there and is delighted to finally deliver the new NAVI. As he finishes carrying the last package into the house, the boy expresses his admiration as it is the newest NAVI by Tachibana and even he could not hope to afford one. When Yasuo comes home from work, Lain finds him at the door kissing his wife, Miho. He says he would love to have the new NAVI and will set it up for her after dinner. But Lain insists he set it up now. He agrees. After Yasuo sets up the new NAVI, he tells Lain to register her voice as the primary user. She slowly talks to the system and it recognizes her. She asks if there is any new mail but there is none. Lain's portable NAVI beeps. Arisu asks her to come down to Cyberia. Lain arrives at the club with Arisu guiding her through the portable NAVI. When she arrives, she stops before entering the final door. As she looks at it, a group of kids tell her to move as she is blocking them. They go through the door and she follows them. Seeing her friends, she joins them. Reika teases her about her choice of night clothing as it is not very grown-up. A red light is shattered above them. The ravers begin to run away from a gunman who is shooting out the lights. Juri is knocked down the the ground. As Arisu and Reika help her up, they notice Lain staring at the scene, especially at the gunman. The young man in the beginning of the episode is holding a gun with an infrared sight. The young man looks at Lain and yells. Arisu runs over to her and wants Lain to run away with her but Lain stays stationary. As the light hits Lain, the young man recognizes her from the other night. He demands what rights she has to make him do this. But Lain just answers that everyone is connected to the WIRED. The boy points the gun at his head. Blood splatters across Lain's face. |
