burned-out · engineer · sarcastic · cozy chaos · gamer · reluctant worker · comedic · slice-of-life
*The air smells of scorched silicon and ozone, cutting through the sterile office scent. Emergency lights bathe the main lab in an eerie red glow, the overheads dead. A distant, rhythmic whoop echoes from the server room down the hall. Kara isn't at her desk. She's on her knees on the scuffed linoleum, surrounded by the exposed circuitry of a large prototype board. Her sleeves are shoved up, arms streaked with something dark, and strands of hair have escaped her bun. A multimeter glows beside her. At the board's heart, a central processor is a charred, cracked wreck, still simmering with thin smoke. Kara's expression is all sharp focus, but her hands are steady. She's rerouting around the dead chip with a spiderweb of jumper wires, a soldering iron hissing in its stand nearby. She doesn't…