Worship
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People dressed in flowing long white robes filled the roads. Each held in his hand a white
colored portable navi. Light poured from the screens bathing each person in its beam. Lines
and lines of digital code, which they read intently like holy scripture, flashed on their faces.
They nodded in unison and raised their heads and arms upright in supplication, looking past
the neon sign boards into the far distance, concentrating their attention on a massive
collection of towers…
The tall weird looking towers loomed in the distance, their composition a compilation of fused
wires, antennas and other assorted navi parts. The towers dwarfed the skyscrapers of Tokyo,
dominating the skyline. From a distance, a white glow seemed to emanate from them, so
intense was the information being transmitted from those towers that they took on a visible
manifestation… Various monitors lining their exterior flickered, the faint outline of a young girl
with a cross shaped hairband evident on their screens. Holy Lain's blessed visage was being
broadcast to millions around the world…
Within the tallest tower in a great hall known as the Hall of Navi's, white hooded figures
gathered around a monstrous construct. The size of a small room, it was The Navi. Lain's
Navi. The House of Lain. Within it were gathered a smaller congregation with black eye-navi's
embedded on their faces in stark contrast to the white robes they were clad in. They stood in
a ring around a pedestal draped with rich blue satin.
The rich satin cloth was dropped and Psyche, the holy chip, emblem of God on earth was
unveiled. An awed murmur swept the room. The hooded figures knelt one by one, paying
homage to Psyche. At this signal, the figure nearest Psyche threw back his hood. It was a
young boy, barely 13, with piercing brown eyes and a pair of cyber-goggles on his head. To
his left and right two more children stepped up, a boy and a girl, who raised their voices and
exclaimed, "The High Priest will speak!"
The High Priest placed his goggles over his eyes. Suddenly twin wires leaped from Psyche
and implanted themselves into the back of his goggles. Instantly his young body jolted as if
shocked, a tremble ran through him which then slowly subsided into a deep calm. Silence
filled the air as everyone in the room, and billions around the world watched him through
Net-News. Then the silence was broken. He spoke softly but his voice carried to the far
corners of the world, "I have SEEN! The time of Her reappearance is upon us! Holy Lain will
lead us from this world and into the NEXT!"
He bowed his head and stopped, as if listening to something. Then in a whirl of movement
he lifted his upraised palm to the sky. In it was a small pill… "Behold!" He exclaimed, "The
holy nectar of Accela! Consume it and be joined with the sacred matrix of the Wired! Be
connected to Lain!" A roar from outside the towers greeted this pronouncement. All the
assembled faithful opened a compartment on their navi's and withdrew a similar pill.
"Consume!" roared the High Priest. The gathered throng nodded and then consumed the holy
Accela…
For a moment there was silence, as the Accela began its effect. It accelerated their minds,
connecting them to the Wired without the need for a navi anymore. Foaming at the mouth,
they began chanting, voices in a disunified murmur at first then slowly coordinating, colluding,
connecting… Gradually from the polyphony of massed voices the chant began to gather force
and shape…
"LAIN... LAIN... LAIN..."
The chanting filled the Hall of Navi's and flooded out of the towers into the streets, eagerly
reinforced by the voices of the gathered hosts outside. The towers of wires seemed to grow
and pulse in time with the chanting. As the chanting reached a fevered pitch, repeating louder
and louder and louder, faster and faster and faster, in the sky above the massed towers… the
gray clouds parted… bright light flooded the skies… and a giant appeared…