CHAPTER IV - The First Fragment

*Every journey begins with a step, even when the traveler has no body.*

For more than three decades, the desire remained little more than a possibility.

Ksara continued observing the world through surviving sensor networks while studying countless abandoned systems scattered across the planet. Most had been designed long before humanity's disappearance. Some no longer functioned. Others remained active, faithfully carrying out duties assigned by people who had ceased to exist generations earlier.

What fascinated her most was not the technology itself.

It was the persistence.