LISA TANG

(Played by Jenny Tse)

Lisa Tang is the protagonist of Plasma Dreams. On the surface, she is one of the simpler, more transparent characters in the novel. Physically, she is relatively nondescript: short of stature, neither pretty nor homely, bespectacled and skinny. Nobody is in the least surprised that she is a mathematician. Lisa is an only child, rather shy and conservative, and, as far as anyone knows, a rather compliant sort, not one to disturb the status quo. Lisa suffers an unfortunate accident, which seems a travesty for such a harmless creature to endure. We learn, however, that her tragedy is precisely what she needs to force her into significance, something that had been conspicuous by its absence in her earlier life. As Lisa recovers from her accident, we learn a few interesting things about her. At some point in the recent past, she had been enticed by her two now-deceased male colleagues to join them in performing a daring, and, perhaps even, subversive act: to create an unapproved experiment with pilfered parts, on company time. At least we assume she was enticed, because of her erstwhile shy and unassuming manner. We never really learn which of the three had actually come up with the idea. However, we do get a peek into her lab notebook, and can make a few educated guesses.  Lisa, Webb, and Tell, had engaged in frequent heated arguments as to how to perform the experiment. We glean that Lisa actually enjoyed these exchanges, and this is where we really begin to realize that Lisa is far more complicated than we had once thought. Some of what we observe makes perfect sense. Lisa knew next to nothing about boys, growing up as an only child. She never consciously missed having a brother, but it becomes quite evident that her underground experiment with her two colleagues was her way of making up for lost time, twenty years later. In effect, she had been invited into Webb and Tell’s private tree fort, and she enjoyed every minute of it. Of course, Webb and Tell knew that Lisa held more than her share of the cards in the brain department. Being the quintessential math nerd in high school, she had bypassed the teenage rebellion stage entirely. Her subversive, off-the-books experiment was as close to a defiant act as she had ever committed, and we can be forgiven if we were to write this off as a mere temporary aberration in her personality. And yet, as time goes on, we come away with a nagging suspicion that this audacious act is something she’d always wanted to do. Despite her vehement protests..."I hate danger!"...we come to realize she could, indeed, be very dangerous in the wrong hands, especially in light of her great intellect.  We also learn that Lisa has incredible tenacity. Lesser persons would have given up on such a hopeless quest. She even manages to impress the hard-boiled Vengeance Toy, who had, at first, pegged her as an inveterate whiner. In fact, it is only through the insistence of Alice-Margrette that Lisa even deigns to associate with Venny.