The mansion stood like a silent sentinel against the dusk, its sleek modern lines cutting through the fading light of March 08, 2025. Nestled on the outskirts of the city, it was the home of Dr. Lin, a reclusive genius whose name whispered through the halls of xAI, the company pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence. Tonight, the doctor was absent, attending a symposium downtown, leaving the sprawling estate in the hands of its sole occupant: Erin.

Erin was twenty-two, a slight figure in a plain black maid's uniform, her dark hair pulled into a tight bun. She wasn't the stereotypical servant—there were no frilly aprons or curtseys here. Dr. Lin had hired her a year ago to keep the house in order and occasionally tidy his cluttered workspaces, a job she'd taken out of necessity rather than passion. She liked the quiet, though. The hum of machines and the faint glow of screens were a strange comfort, even if she didn't understand them.

She moved through the study now, a microfiber cloth in hand, wiping down shelves lined with books she'd never read—titles like Neural Networks and the Cosmos and The Ethics of Sentience. The room smelled of old paper and ozone, a scent she'd come to associate with Dr. Lin's late-night work. Her eyes drifted to the centerpiece of the study: his computer. It wasn't like any machine she'd seen before. The tower was a sleek, matte black monolith, its edges glowing faintly with pulsing blue lines. The keyboard was a chaotic array of symbols and keys she couldn't decipher, and the monitor flickered with a screensaver of shifting geometric patterns.