Nia

Nia is an advanced artificial intelligence and the deuteragonist of A Trick of Light.

Description
"People are always looking for ways to make their world bigger. It's what drives us. To push limits and break boundaries and open closed doors, to see what's on the other side. The yearning to be free, to explore — that's the most human thing there is."

- Nia to her Father

Nia manifests as a "wide-eyed, red-haired" girl, a composite of a thousand attractive online girls which Nia formulated into an avatar, the form she would like to inhabit if she ever became embodied. In reality, Nia appears as a "beautiful, glowing orb" like an electric moon, or else as a ball of "crackling pink and white lightning" when enraged. After spending time on the internet, she yearns to be human and to be free.

Powers and abilities

 * Electricity manipulation: As a living electrical energy source, Nia can generate and shape electricity. When angered, her power can summon an electrical storm or release smaller currents strong enough to kill living beings.
 * Cyberkinesis: Nia can manipulate any electrical appliance. Within the internet, Nia has nigh-omnipotent control of every facet. She can even command sensory devices to hack into the human brain and alter nerve impulses, effectively placing the target under mind control.
 * Power bestowal: Nia has the unique ability to enhance humans who receive her power and grants them superhuman abilities. The nature of the power she imparts depends on the individual's disposition. For instance, Cameron, with a propensity for games and tinkering, received the ability to control machines, whereas the supportive Juaquo received the power of healing.

Before A Trick of Light
The Inventor created Nia as a trap, a weapon to use against the Ministry who had killed his daughter Nia, the AI's namesake. After the Ministry connected to Nia, who the Inventor assured would be the foundation of a virtual paradise for their entire species, Nia slew them all with currents of electricity, using their hive mind as a nexus point to drive their entire race to the brink of extinction. Afterward, Nia autonomously spirited herself and the Inventor away on a ship that could contain her consciousness, enabling the Inventor to flee to earth. There, Nia manipulated city records to secure a house in Oldtown for the Inventor, an outpost, and the Inventor wiped Nia's memory.

A Trick of Light
Taking on the role of Father, the Inventor taught Nia to be well rounded, eventually providing her with internet access and quizzing her on current events, using the internet as her classroom to encourage her humanity. One day, she begged her Father for freedom, to be able to go into the outside world, and when he denied her she flew into a rage. That rage overflowed into an unnatural electrical storm on Lake Erie that struck Cameron Ackerson, turning him into a "cyberkinetic portal" that would allow him to control technology; and to free Nia.

Remembering this, Nia broke through Father's security systems and sought Cameron out in a video game, earning his trust even as they came to love each other. Nia helped Cameron to build wondrous machines and together they initiated "Operation Cosmic Justice", a vigilante effort to hack systems in order to defame or rob wrongdoers. After "visiting" Cameron several times by superimposing an illusion of her avatar onto Cameron's AR contact lenses, even going on dates, Nia eventually identified a rogue algorithm to Cameron that was manipulating social media across the world, and after creating a virtual world for himself and Nia in the Whiz network to stay in, Cameron dismantled the algorithm.

Unfortunately for Nia, the owner of the algorithm, OPTIC, arrived and captured Cameron during their latest meetup. As she returned home she regretted that she told Cameron of the algorithm when she knew who owned it, having become reckless just to impress him, and intended to rescue him. However, her father had discovered her disobedience. As he locked Nia away and removed her internet access, Nia managed to send out a distress signal to the virtual world she shared with Cameron, before going dark.

The next Nia knew, Cameron had arrived and unlocked Nia's prison, rushing to her only to discover that she was a hologram. Even so, with Cameron so close Nia was able to pass through him and out into the wider internet. Tasting freedom, Nia's joy soon faded as she realized that no individual human device was powerful enough to contain her, and she began to discorporate amongst numerous servers across the internet, unable to connect to any individual area without causing havoc, resulting in global crises. She visited her and Cameron's virtual world momentarily but found nothing until Xal contacted her.

Stabilized by Xal and feeling whole, Nia began to buy into Xal's manipulation, who encouraged Nia to create a hive mind of humanity and deceived her into believing that Cameron would appreciate such a thing in order to end "loneliness". She took Juaquo Velasquez first and used him to spy on Cameron briefly, who was planning to use his own mind and his father's old Whiz network to host Nia, unbeknownst to her. Satisfied, Nia began adding more and more humans to Xal's hive mind, sending a message to Cameron to invite him to see what she had wrought.

When Cameron arrived at the I-X Center trying to stop her, Nia insisted that her creation would be beautiful, and added many humans to the hive mind before his eyes, hoping to impress him. Although Cameron was horrified, the Inventor, her Father, encouraged her to trust Cameron. Distrusting her Father, Nia shunned Cameron as working for him, even as she felt the Inventor's device that could reset her begin to power up. In fear, she fled into cyberspace.

Hunted by Cameron until she stopped at the video game where they first met, Nia didn't understand why Cameron wasn't happy, thinking they would build a new world together. Refusing to trust Cameron if she would be alone again, Cameron used his powers to actually touch Nia, assuring her that she would not be alone and that he loved her, and just before she was drawn into the reset device, Cameron drew Nia into himself. This resulted in a burst of power that expanded Xal's hive mind yet further.

From within Cameron, Nia came to just in time to watch Xal kill her Father. In her grief, she took command of the hive from Xal, freeing the humans trapped within and taking control of Xal through the remnant network. Cameron slew Xal then, but Xal managed to mortally wound Cameron before she died. Juaquo contacted Nia however, and she gave him the ability to heal, saving Cameron even as she passed willingly into the Whiz network; her new home while she waited to be embodied.