Silicon

1997

Mike Barton

At the turn of the millennia, Mike Barton has 3 things- a dead end job, seasonal depression, and the ability to talk to computers.

The former were recent developments as his 20’s came to a close. The latter could be traced back to the summer of 1983 when his family brought home the Apple Lisa.

Telecorp

Where Mike, Kent and their colleagues works. They are tasked with creating The Next Big Thing.

Spiders

A dev term for the team that catches bugs and gathers web resources. Mike’s position.

Kent Greene

Mike’s best friend, extremely charismatic and often employee of the month. He is always a loyal advocate for Mike and his grand ideas, even though their boss has little patience to entertain them.

Clarke Campbell

The Boss. Thinks Mike is a slacker and compares him to Kent. Often picks on Mike and holds him to unfair standards. Often heard yelling “BARTON!” At the smallest inconvenience.

Rosie Harrison

Sweet as a button, sharp as a tack. Rosie is the secretary for Telecorp, but her qualifications exceed her title. Among the Spiders she is known as “Black Widow”.

She’s a remarkably warm and kind person, with a 50’s inspired fashion sense. Mike’s confidant and love interest.

Kent’s Betrayal

Kent pitches an idea for a revolutionary social network Aetherlink to Kent. Kent accompanies Clarke to pitch their next product to investors- Clarke’s plan was a rather underwhelming telephone. Instead, Kent pitches Mike’s idea and it’s met with overwhelmingly positive reception.

When asked how he came up with the idea, Kent takes the credit, swept up in the wave of attention.

When Mike discovers this and confronts him, Kent insists that he will be compensated. Mike doesn’t buy it.

Kent is consumed by the project, taking the stance that his idea in improvement upon Mikes, and that his friend should be grateful for all the opportunities and networking he had done for him over the years. He began to resent his shy and quiet friend for holding him back, and told him that.

Kent ends up ruining Mike’s relationship with Rosie, stealing his partner, his ideas and ruining his career

Time skip 3 years, Kent becomes the CEO of Aetherlink and it becomes used in the mainstream.

Mike leaves Telecorp and gets entangled in a dark mystery.

The Missing People

During Mike’s time at Telecorp, there was an increasing number of missing persons reports. The individuals were all divorced men or recently in a break-up and their spouses shared similar accounts:

He started working long hours at the office, until I barely saw him at all. Surely he couldn’t spend all this time at work. I can’t go on raising a family like this.

Not long after their spouses left them, they vanished.

Evidence came out that the men were all in contact with a woman knows as “Black Widow” in a now defunct chatroom. The men’s bodies were then discovered in a server room deep below Telecorp’s offices. This prompted Mike to believe Rosie was the killer, and Kent convinced Rosie that Mike was unstable.

Lisa

Rosie invited Mike to meet her at Kent’s corporate event. It’s the first time Mike heard from Rosie in 3 years, he still has feelings for her.

Mike approaches who he thinks is Rosie at the party, but she is revealed to be Kent’s bookkeeper. Kent introduces them, acting chummy and reminiscing about the “good times” All while basking in the success that should have been his. Mike hates this.

When Mike asks about Rosie, Kent says they parted a year ago.

It wasn’t Rosie who invited him after all.

Struggling for years with his conflicting emotions, he decides to call Rosie. She’s the only one that could make sense of things now. She too, had been investigating the killings after Kent had framed her.

When Mike explains what had happened she asks about the bookkeeper “Wait, what was her name?”

Mike, realizing the name sounds all too familiar says “Lisa.”

Upon further investigation no record of the woman exists.

Lisa was Mike’s first computer. It was a far-fetched theory.

Lisa was the mastermind machine entity manipulating Mike and the reason he can “speak” to computers. She planted the social media idea that Kent stole. When Mike realizes this, he has a crisis. Has he ever had an original thought in his life? Was it always Lisa?

Was Lisa the killer? If she was, he fit the criteria of the victims. Why was he spared?

Mike reunites with Rosie to uncover the truth and heal from their trauma. They discover something deeply disturbing about Aetherlink.

Supporting Characters/Places

Java Net

A bustling internet café, an underground meeting place for hackers. The owner known as Webmaster has many valuable connections in the community that can be called upon.

Aether

A concept Mike defines as “The energy of human connection.”

Aetherlink

The social network technology that Mike invented

Milo

One of Mike’s rejected projects, a 3D cartoon cat virtual assistant (Think Clippy) Milo can answer any question about the database he has access to. Rosie expands this database to include government documents and records.