The time is December of 1999.  The place is Seiko City.  Welcome to a world run by the corrupt corporation known as Glyph.  Glyph is a tech monolith--always staying on the cutting edge creating the cool gadgets that everyone pays money they don't have to get.  To work at Glyph would be a dream come true for most, and among those lucky few is Cody Greyson--a young man with promise who's devoted his time at Glyph into developing an AI assistant that will revolutionize the workplace.

 

Or at least, it would have, had the CEO not gotten impatient and cut the funding for Cody's project when it was just about finished.  Devastated at his project being left for scrap, Cody leaves Glyph and plots to complete the AI project by himself, selling it to the highest bidder once it's done.  But Cody soon discovers that almost every company in Seiko is just as crooked as Glyph, however, taking advantage of those who can barely make it by.  It was there Cody declared war on the privileged upper class in Seiko... and gained inspiration from the source code for his AI's transaction-handling functionality.

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Now, operating as the "Phantom Hacker", Cody uses his untraceable "ghost algorithm" to access the funds of the wealthy jerks out there in the city and give a portion to those in need.  He's made a business out of taking commissions from the less fortunate to help them pay their bills.  Things were running smoothly for the Phantom Hacker until he received a message on his computer from someone named "Mother" asking for help on behalf of "Cybernelle"... a digital world where "Anomalies"--the forgotten concepts of man--go to live out their days.  Turns out a computer virus is spreading throughout Cybernelle, and Mother is thinking Cody's got the brains to investigate it somehow. 

 

Cody's AI may prove its worth yet again... as he reformats the personality code into a new Anomaly: MacLaine, the girl who's got the guts to save Cybernelle from becoming corrupted!

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I came up with the character MacLaine back in 2012, and had no clue what to do with her, she was just something I doodled in the margins of my notebooks.  Come early 2015, I started really thinking about who she is, where she came from and what she's a part of.  Soon I came up with the character Cody, her creator, and my good friend Michael helped me create her chameleon friend Clyde.  I quickly began to craft a story in my mind, and have been thinking on it ever since.  My ultimate goal was to make a webcomic, and the Capstone was the perfect opportunity to truly kickstart the project.  In this endeavor, I aim to create the first few chapters of MacLaine as a prequel comic of sorts, giving a glimpse into Cody Greyson's motives and history, and how he came to find his role as the Phantom Hacker and savior of Cybernelle. I hope that once this comic is complete, MacLaine will be as appreciated by others as she is by me.