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Layer 03; Psyche: Sitting on a chair, Lain is questioned at the police station but she claims she remembers nothing. He asks if she knows where her parents went since when he phoned, there was no one home. Lain asks if he believes her and he responds he does since he looked up the information. Arisu comes in and cries while hugging Lain. But all Lain can do is mutter her name in broken syllables. Arisu's parents come to take her home while a patrol car takes Lain home. The cop drops her off, asking if she will be all right since the house is dark. Lain nods and goes into the house. There is no one home. The next day, Lain wakes up with her mother chiding her that she will be late. Lain wants to ask about the night before but changes her mind when her mother does not know what she is talking about. While Lain walks to school, she notices a black car parked in front of her home. As she walks by, she notices a red dot peering through the tinted windows; it seems the dot is following her, following a random path as it floats around. She runs away from the car. On the train, Lain hears a voice. When she responds, there is no reply other than the passengers looking at her. At school, her friends come to her and ask about the incident at Cyberia. Lain is quiet but Arisu answers for her. During class, Lain is doodling in her notebook. She hears Chisa's voice again. Her scribble comes to live and turns into a foggy, churning tunnel. She watches it turn round and round. Later on, Arisu confesses to her friends that she feels disturbed about the murder, especially when Lain talks about it as if it were nothing. Juri responds she thinks too much. At Lain's locker, she opens the door and finds a brown envelope. The girls gather around and Reika grabs it, thinking it may be a love letter. Lain gets it back and opens it, tipping out a small cube onto her palm. The girls are disappointed since they do not know what it is but Lain drops it in her pocket. On the way home, she looks at the device. In her room, her father comes in. She stands in front of him and holds out the device, asking him if he knows what it is. He does not look at it, just responding he does not know what it is. She asks again but he is firm in his answer. Lain returns to Cyberia. She gets stopped by the DJ, commenting how she is going for the 'little girl' look tonight. Lain does not know what he is talking about. Finding the three kids sitting at a table that brushed by her the other night, she approaches them and holds out her hand with the device in it, asking if they know what it is. The girl responds, isn't that a PSYCHE? and the others lean in in awe. Lain still does not know what that is and the kids tease her, asking if they can buy it from her. Taro steps forward with the information, telling her what a PSYCHE chip is and how to install it in her NAVI. But, he informs Lain that information was not free. Taro claims to have seen LAIN in the WIRED and she was very different from the Lain now. The price is a date with the wild Lain but Lain is mad. He back down. The next day after school, Mika comes home to find the two men in black standing in front of her door. She tells them to leave or she will call the police but they inform her they are not really there. As they leave, Mika feels terrified. She goes into the house and tells her mother to call the police if they show up again but she is ignored. Mika walks up the stairs to her room but notices Lain's room is open. As she peeks in, she sees Lain in her slip. She has taken her NAVI apart and is busy working on it, explaining to Mika that the she was told about static electricity and it was safer to work this way. Layer 04; Religion: Lain sits in her room reading a NAVI manual. Her father peeks through the narrowly open door and looks at her. The NAVI has changed from the system he bought and is larger now. He shuts the door, leaving Lain by herself. Mika looks through the fridge but instead, finds a can of beer. Taking a sip, she returns to the living room where her parents are sitting. She tells them she thinks Lain acting weird. Her father does not think so. After Mika leaves, Yasuo tells Miho he agrees with her. Switch. A man runs along the hallway in terror. He comes to a door and brings out his keys, fumbling to get the right one. The door will not open. He continually looks back, cursing over and over again. A small girl comes closer to him and then is behind him. Gotcha. The man falls off the building. Lain and her friends walk through the school grounds, wondering why the faculty called an emergency meeting but Lain says she knew it from the WIRED. Arisu and Reika wonder how Lain knew that but she says that all the kids who have committed suicide were playing a game. Reika observes Lain has changed, from her usual quiet self to talkative. Lain asks if it is all right for her to go and finish modifying her NAVI and Arisu says she does not need their permission. Lain runs off. As the group turns to leave, Arisu bumps into a little girl and drops her dolly. Picking it up, she apologizes to the girl, who runs off with her mother. Cyberia. JJ talks with Lain about a game the kids are playing. Phantoma. But JJ dismisses the game as a kids game, not something that Lain would want to play. A first person shooter walking through a dungeon. The walls keep moving and changing as he walks through the maze. A young girl is chasing him and he runs frantically away. Suddenly, there are hands all around him and he is trapped with the girl behind him. Her face begins to distort. He screams out, are you a PK? Nothing. He calls up a weapon and holding the imaginary gun in his hands, empties the clip into the girl. He kills her but she dies in reality as well. Lain watches this. He stands on a building roof, crying it he was not responsible. As Lain watches the boy, she learns Phantoma is linked to a tag game played by preschool children on the WIRED. Lain has mail. She learns a group called the KNIGHTS is responsible for this bug. Lain's father comes in. He warns her the WIRED is just a device used for sharing information and not to be confused with the real word. Lain smiles. She says they are the same and soon she will be with the WIRED. He talks about the PSCYHE chip, then leaves. Lain logs onto the WIRED. Holographic images dance around the room as Lain is connected. A red dot floats lazily around the room and Lain watches it. She notices it is coming from the outside and she looks out the window, at two men looking up at her. Their infrared devices on their glasses dance around Lain's face, randomly circling her forehead. Mad, she commands the men to go away. A shock wave erupts from her, flexing the window and causing the machine on one of the men's head to explode. He acts scared, then they leave in their car. The NAVI announces 'Intruder interrupted'. |
