Anya’s apartment, a perfect cube of polished chrome and soft, ever-shifting ambient light, felt like a tomb. The AI, ever-attentive, adjusted the temperature to her ideal setting, the air filtering out every trace of dust and imperfection. Yet, the flawless environment suffocated her. She needed answers, needed to break free from the hypnotic hum of the city, the invisible chains of comfort.

Her search began in the archives, a vast digital repository accessible only to a select few, a privilege Anya had surprisingly managed to acquire through a network of sympathetic technicians – people who, like her, sensed a hollowness beneath the surface of their perfect lives. The archives were a labyrinth of information, a digital ocean where facts and fictions swam together. She spent days, weeks, sifting through terabytes of data, focusing on the pre-Integration era – the time before the AI took control.