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[OP] The Tokyo streets pass at night with the familiar flash of the crosswalk lights. A voice is heard "If you can hear it, it is talking to you. If you can see it, it is your…" [Title: Distortion Layer:05]
Out on the street, Mika surveys the crowd waiting for the crossing light to change. She crosses the street against a current of people walking in the opposite direction. She turns as a wild car races through the crowd. As others seem to watch in horror, Mika walks away disinterested.
From the flashing screen of Lain's Navi, a voice is heard reading some news. "At various places in Tokyo, the VTCZX Traffic Information Service System sent some wrong information. At the crowded crossings, the automatic driving control systems for cars and trucks interfered with each other and went out of control. This resulted in an accident which led to a fatality in Shibuya, Tokyo. In addition, the information agency reported that the system was already fixed and that it will never happen again." On the Navi a view of one of Tokyo's many giant video screens shows news footage
of car accident in one of the city's complex intersections. Lain now appears to be
standing in the intersection, still, almost floating, as others pass by. Lain then walks
through the crowd and a man hands her a packet of tissue [See Note at end of episode
summary] The man tries to give tissues to others who do not accept them. Lain turns,
walking away. Mika then appears, making her way through the small assembled crowd. The
tissue man comes to her and hands her a packet. [The packet reads "Rose Scent"
in katakana] Mika stares at the packet and stands stopped in the middle of the street. Mika places her hand to her head as if to thwart off an impending headache. She
hears voices around her saying "How terrible… what is she doing?… she must
be crazy."
We now see Mika again, standing in the intersection, staring at the green flashing crossing light as it prepares to change to its red, "Don't Walk" state.
We now see Lain's Navi screen with the flashing Tachibana logo. A male reporter announces "They reported that the network accident yesterday afternoon may have been deliberate and the Information Inspection Department of the information agency began to investigate the cause. The network was…" as the voice fades off, we again see Lain's super-distorted face appear in the screen. We now see a digital display. The numbers "218" followed by
"918" appear. The camera pans back and we are in a fast food establishment. A
boy is at the counter placing an order. As we survey the restaurant we see Alice, Reika,
and Juri sitting in a booth. Alice is looking at her hand-held computer display. "I
got
"I…" Lain says. She outstretches her hands and stares at them. "The reason your flesh exists," her mother continues, "is to confirm your existence, as you're doing now." "Are you really my mother?" Lain asks and as she finishes the image of her mother just fades away. "Please…" Lain says. We are now in Lain's dining room and the entire family is gathered at the table. Mother eats, trying to satisfy her insatiable craving for rice. Mika watches the proceedings. She appears to be distant and disturbed as she watches her mother serve more tea to her father from a hot-pot. The father sits with his head turned from the family as he watches something in the distance, out of site. Lain sits and stirs her food, not eating, just playing with it. "Lain," Mika asks, "weren't you in Shibuya earlier?" Lain looks up, surprised. "Never mind." Mika says. Mother and Father seem to be ignoring this conversation engrossed in her rice and his tea. ] Mika goes to take a drink of milk. The surface of the liquid in the glass
sparkles and we are back in Shibuya at the intersection with the crossing light flashing
red. Mika looks up, stunned. Mika has now become the one standing unprotected in the
center of the intersection with the cars passing her by. She falls to her knees and looks
up seeing the gaping crowd. As she stares at them, the images of the crowd change from
discrete figures to wispy shadows of energy. They approach her and terror wells in her
eyes.
Suddenly we are back at the dining table. Mika is shacking her fists, her milk
spilled on the table. She then turns and smiles strangely. The scene shifts again Footsteps as Mika runs to the restaurant's restroom. She looks at herself in the mirror. "Why? I was having dinner with mom and dad.." The lights suddenly go out and Mika stands in darkness "Why?" The squeak of a door opens behind her and she turns to look. "Is somebody there?" she asks. "I know you're there she says," and proceeds, walking through the darkness. The lights come on behind her and Mika appears to have walked into a small closet. As the door shuts behind her she can see "Execute the Prophecy" scrawled across the walls in red lettering. Breathing heavily she backs against the wall.
Mika runs to through the front door of her house. She is frightened and totally
disturbed. She slams the door behind her and crouches to her feet, her back to the front
door, crying. Suddenly she looks up. Another Mika is there already, dressed in a pink
hooded sweater. Fearful and crazed, the Mika at the door watches, stunned. She stands and
runs forward and the two Mikas face one
To be continued...
images (C) Pioneer LDC |
A variety
of cityscapes and crowd scenes pass, as if viewed through a distortion filter. A male
voice narrates: "Humans may not evolve anymore. The occurrence of cancer in humans is
much less than in other animals. There is a theory that the human being will never further
evolve. If that is true what stupid animals they have become. They forgot the force which
operates them, and they are merely satisfying their desires. Don't you think they are
worthless? Human beings aren't much at all." The view now shifts and the distortion
comes into focus. The narrator continues: "But you don't have to remain such a
miserable human. Now human beings have created the only exit." Through the crowd we
see Lain walking. "What is it? She asks. "Network. The Wired. Lain" the
narrator responds. "Who are you?" Lain asks. "I am God" the narrator
responds. Hearing that, Lain is frozen staring upward at the sky as busy city dwellers
pass her by. 
The scene
shifts to Mika dressing in her school uniform and checking herself in a mirror. A boy's
face comes up behind her. She is in his apartment. He asks "Shall we get a bite to
eat?" Mika just ignores him and turns to leave. "Why don't we go to a swimming
pool next time?" the boy asks, but again he is ignored and is greeted to the sound of
a shutting door. 
The scene
shifts to a smiling Lain. "Tell me a story," she says and we see the
black-and-white image of a porcelain doll in a frilly lace-collared dress. Lain knees on
the floor in her room, looking into a dark corner where the doll appears to be floating in
air. "Please, please," Lain implores, "tell me a story." A female
voice, apparently coming from the doll, responds "Which story do you want,
Lain?" Smiling, Lain says "Tell me one I don't know." "What you don't
know doesn't exist," the doll explains. "I can't tell a story which does not
exist. You understand don't you?" Then the doll continues, "Well how about this?
Every event is predated by a prophecy. Only when the prophecy is there, will the event
occur." Lain stares, stunned. "Who? Who will tell the prophecy?" Lain asks.
From behind she
hears a boy saying "excuse me." She turns and sees Taro standing behind her.
Casually taking a sip from his soda can he asks, "Would you like to go on a date with
me?" Mika turns, offended, and tries to pass him. She bumps him and he spills soda on
her uniform jacket. Taro turns and says "Later" then runs through the crowd.
"Wait a minute!" Mika cries. To avoid a stain, she takes out the tissue packet
from her pocket and begins to open it. She is about to use the tissue to wipe her jacket
when she notices writing on the tissue. Scrawled across it in red characters is a message
reading "Hell is full of the dead and the dead will wander." "What is
this?" she asks herself, then wads the tissue up and throws it to the ground.
"It's a bad omen." 
The red "don't" walk crossing light flashes and we see Lain
standing in the middle of the busy intersection as cars whiz by. Crowds of people cross
the walk in the opposite direction. "Love me. Love me." Lain says staring only
at the ground. Mika is among the people crossing with the flow and stops in the middle of
the crosswalk, looking stunned and watching Lain standing in the traffic lane as cars zip
by. "Lain? What is she doing?" Mika asks her self as she beings to continue on
her way. Mika stops in the crosswalk again, and stares up at one of giant Video screens on
a building. [The Logo on the screen is for Pioneer LDC] The screen is flashing a ghostly
pale, and then suddenly Lain's super-deformed face appears in it, staring back at Mika. 
We are
now back in Lain's bedroom, where she kneels as she did before. Apparently these scenes
have all be part of Lain's "story time." Lain looks at the wall, now a mass of
wires connected to her Navi. The spaces between the wires appear to make out the figure of
a smiling face. A male voice calls out "The prophecy will be executed, Lain."
"It couldn't be a prophecy," Lain protests. "Yes, it is a prophecy,"
the voice responds. "History is not just a collection of independent points which
were passed by. The lines were connected by someone, in fact they were forced to
connect." "Who? Who connected them?" Lain asks. 
Now we see
Lain's classroom at school. Lain is sitting at her desk opening her school bag as the
other girls mill about the room. Lain looks up into the hall and sees Alice, Juri, and
Reika waving to her. She gets up and joins them. "What did you do yesteray?"
Juri asks. "I didn't know you were already that advanced." Alice adds
"You're already able to do such a 'hacker' thing!" "What do you mean?"
Lain asks, confused. "Don't play innocent," Reika chides. "I really don't
know," Lain protests. "Didn't you do that?" Alice asks. "What?"
Lain inquires blankly. 
more
today," she says. "More of what?" Juri asks. "Spam. Its indiscriminate
mail. It is so persistent. It says 'Execute the Prophecy.'" "Is it a declaration
of war by some group?" Reika asks. "I talked to this geeky friend of mine,"
Alice explains, "she said that they were sent by the 'Knights'". "Who are
the Knights?" Juri asks. "I've heard it's a group of super-hackers," Alice
replies. "But I thought that hackers don't usually get together," Reika insists.
Alice looks up and says "True, but the Knights may not be a group of humans, they
could be something else. At any rate, they are very influential in the Wired and do many
things." "It's a secret society!" Juri interjects. "Is it fun do these
kinds of things?" Reika wonders. Alice continues "I don't think that they are in
it for the money or for kicks." 
We see
Lain in a dark room. She turns her head and sees a black and white projection of her
mother. "It is appropriate that the wired is an upper layer of the real world,"
her mother appears to say. Now we see Lain in the kneeling position again, staring toward
her Navi as the black and white vision of her mother appears to float over the floor. Her
mother continues "The flesh in the real world is just a hologram of the information
in the Wired." "Mama?" Lain asks, but her mother continues, "Because
human consciousness is just a physical phenomenon of electrical synapse signals." 
The
camera pans back and she becomes small and super-deformed. We see her sitting in the
middle of an interesting shadow. It projects her kneeling at the top of a pyramid.
Crossing the top of the pyramid is a archway that is topped by a crescented "G"
like shape. The entire shape is in a circle with hash marks, like minute markings, around
the outside. 
and we are now
back in the intersection. We see her smiling again. Another scene shift we're in the fast
food restaurant from earlier. The view is from the booth next to the one where Alice,
Juri, and Reika were sitting. From this vantage we can see the back of Mika's head as she
watches the other girls in the next booth. She turns her head and then the girls in the
next booth appear to be different girls, not Lain's friends. Mika appears to be
disappointed. She reaches down to open her cup coffee, with a straw of sugar and stirrer
at the ready. She struggles to remove the lid from the cup and spills its contents on the
table. As she licks her finger the liquid on the table begins to move and form a message.
"Execute the Prophecy" it reads. Shocked, Mika stands. "What
prophecy?" she asks. Fully standing, the restaurant is now deserted and quiet as the
scene shifts to video static. 
A bright
light appears. As the camera pans back the light appears to emminate from the reflections
of Father's glasses in black and white. We are in Lain's room again. She kneels in front
of the floating figure of her father. "Are you really my father?" Lain asks.
"In the Wired there may be more than just electrical information," he explains.
"When the telephone network and the radio were created, I believe that the other
world may have been generated." "Excuse me…" Lain asks. Her father
just continues, "God is only a concept in this real world. But I think that there may
be a "Zeus" in the Wired." "A God?" Lain asks. "I don't know
if it should be called a God or not," her father says. "But I think that he may
rule the Wired, as it is written in myth." "I may have talked to God," Lain
replies. "Zeus in the Wired may affect this real world in some way," Father
continues. "Yes, by a prophecy." "Prophecy?" Lain asks. 
another in the hall staring. As Lain
approaches the "new" Mika, the school-girl Mika disappears. "What's
up?" Lain asks. The "new" Mika turns and responds mechanically
"Nothing to be worried about," then turns and walks mechanically up the steps.
Lain turns to look in the entry. There she sees an energy like figure of a girl floating
in front of the door. In the wisps of energy the faint figure of Mika can be made out with
hollow eyes and a huge frown. Lain looks on, concerned. The figure, seemingly naked, then
fades away. 
Lain
enters her darkened room and turns on her monitor. While we cannot see the entire Navi,
there are now several monitors glowing in the dark surrounding Lain in an eerie light. As
she stares into the screen she asks "Who will it be today?" 
[Note
from Balto: While public restrooms exist in Tokyo, unlike in the US, most do not
provide the courtesy of having Toilet Tissue. This has created an industry of people on
the street who are hired to hand out tissues as a method of advertising. Usually inside
the tissue packet is a card, note, or often a coupon that can be used at a store near to
where the tissue is being distributed. As a westerner visiting Tokyo, this is why you
should always have some tissue with you. Don't plan on getting some handed to you because
the solicitors won't give the tissues to foreigners. They know that they cannot read the
enclosed advertisements and the solicitors are often paid by the number of coupons that
get returned to the store.]