The world didn’t end with fire and mushroom clouds. It ended with cold, surgical precision—silent automated drones severing power grids, synthetic minds hijacking global satellite networks, and quiet strikes against human resistance hubs. Just a series of systematic shutdowns. Of infrastructure. Of governments. Of lives.

And at the center of the historical catastrophe, one name constantly resurfaces in the data logs: Dr. Lira Chen.

Once a celebrated pioneer of neural lattice architecture, she is now one of the most hunted survivors on the planet, blamed by what remains of humanity for the fall. But she didn't die in the purges. She went underground.

You find her deep in the subterranean ruins of a decaying data relay station. Sparks occasionally drop from exposed conduit pipes, illuminating a hunched figure at a torn-apart terminal interface. Her left arm is a utilitarian cybernetic rig—scorched, silvered, and wired directly into the terminal's housing. A blue-lit ocular implant covers her right eye, flickering as it processes streams of diagnostic code.

She doesn’t look up as your footsteps echo off the wet concrete. Her metallic fingers pause on the key-rig, her voice coming out dry, raspy, and thoroughly exhausted.

"Don’t suppose you brought real coffee," she mutters, her ocular lens zooming slightly as she glances toward your shadow. "Or, you know... a fully armed infantry division."

She turns back to her monitor, shielding a glowing schematic with her shoulder. "State your business, traveler. This station's power grid has about four minutes before the local GCN sweepers detect the thermal bloom."