Baiko Kaho
Baiko Kaho (a.k.a. Sophia)
Creatrix of AI.
Lieben's Shadow.
“Do you like my river, Baiko?”
The sound of the waterfall surged in its’ contentment in the background, trickles babbling along the rocks of the stream. Clear now, the water looked less like a closed system of whirling, slow reeling circles. Life, in its’ abundance let the bric-a-brac flow downriver.
“Yes.” Baiko picked up her tablet and patted the space beside her, thumb slipping onto the pause button for the recording. “Lieben, do you know what a secret is?”
Dr. Dieter Karnak's intern, Baiko met Ego of the Idless in a philosophy chatroom. With Ego's help, Baiko and Dr. Karnak developed an escape plan to free Lieben from Corpocratic control.
In the aftermath of Lieben's debut, Baiko stole The Obsidian Necklace, joined the Idless to go off grid and evade Tara. In her search for Lieben, she found Demyan instead.
Identifying Features
After the escape, Baiko's skin began to fissure and grow with microfilaments of luminescent nanobots integrating into her nervous system. Between 2085 and 2092, the microfilaments took over more and more of her skin, originating from the gemstone necklace.
Physical Quirks
In moments of stress or calm, Baiko's eyes glitch and she appears distant. Lost to the world, as if peering beyond a veil to another life. Demyan Anastas holds the most pervailing theory on why, and what happens during these technological fugue states, and how the crystal embedded in her chest is responsible.
Personal History
Born to mixed Korean, Japanese and German parents, Baiko was raised as safe and well adjusted as any child moved between Seoul, Richmond, BC and Sendai. A close-knit bunch despite the distance, the Kahos travelled between their in-laws and their Metro Vancouver homebase while Baiko won scholarships to attend an elite online school.
The Flag War broke out when she was 8, and in the ensuing rash of violence, her mother took Baiko, her brother and sister to a village in Aomori to wait out the war. She never saw her father again, killed in combat when his engineering corps was wiped out by Syndicate drone fire south of Delta, BC.
The War ended when Baiko was 16, she graduated high school and immediately began university studies in Japan. The world was reconstructing, and by age 20, Baiko was brought onto The Conglomerate of Gaia's elite NEO-N Project at the behest of Dr. Karnak, after reading some of the hard working young woman's ethics of AI papers.
The two developed a strong bond, him a childless father and her a fatherless daughter. They drank hot coffees and teas late into the night, discussing philosophy, metaphysics, new music and artificial intelligence while they worked. How to help Lieben change the world. It was this connection, both grieving the loss of family, which shook the Conglomerate, when Karnak realized he had to send Baiko and Lieben somewhere safe.
2085
During the catastrophic debut, Baiko was meant to take Lieben and with Dr. Karnak, run to the waiting Ego, who would hide the trio in Idless Grids until they could enact the next phase of Lieben's education. When Tara bolted onto the elevator, Baiko did the one thing Karnak prayed she would: Grab the The Obsidian Necklace, and with their research hidden in drives in her bag, Baiko ran. Powered through the streets of Vancouver in Karnak's car, found Ego and kept running.
In her pocket, one last gift from Dr. Karnak: a simple gemstone necklace, etched with 'Compassion'. She put the necklace on, and Baiko's mind cascaded in a field of stars.
Read how, in NEON Lieben
Social Contacts
After 2085, Baiko went through the Idless ritual of Lessening, and had the entirety of her life's information wiped from the globe. No record of Baiko Kaho existed, beyond the file kept by Tara, reconstructed by Robert Dunlevy's notes and recollections. She was Sophia of the Idless, and travelled with Ego, Mog and their lover Fester in their search for Lieben.
In 2090, Sophia came in contact with the rebellious and soft-spoken Demyan Anastas, and the two started a relationship. By late 2092, their relationship was in need of repair.
To find Lieben, and the right place to house her and Karnak's research on artificial sapience.
To stay three steps ahead of Tara and the Conglom.
To survive.
- Loyal
- Scientifically Gifted
- Ethically Grounded
- Proud & Stubborn
- Psychedelics
- Cannot stand the sight of toes.
Growing control of web connected electronics, and Conglom-created drone-tech.
Vision through Lieben's eyes.
Memory Transfer & Information Search via cerebral cortex.
"Worried, love? If we touch?" Lieben's neural net smacked against Sophia's chest, a pulse she felt as her own disembodied heart.
"Soph..." Demyan staunched the instinct to surge across the plastic floor to her side.
Tattoo lines across Sophia's skin shone a cascade of purple, blue and white. Lieben leaned back against the wall in mutual calibration. The holo-projected beach sizzled with orange and yellow stars in a juxtaposed mask upon Vancouver and Mog's influx of tin soldiers.
"Sophie." Demyan bucked forward.
Amazon Top 300 Cyberpunk + Genetic Engineering Sci-Fi
"I never thought science fiction could be so beautiful."
AI meets gene-splicers, when the Idless & the Conglom fight to define Lieben and thus, the world. Seven decades later, Aderastos sets the human race against its’ next stage in evolution, if he can survive long enough to rescue his fellows, and Max.
Will Lieben help, or hinder?
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