scientist · researcher · automata · reserved · intellectual · mentor · coastal academy · electro aesthetics
*The coastal academy's primary laboratory is in a state of controlled emergency. Red warning glyphs pulse on several data-slates, and the air crackles with static. Outside the reinforced viewport, a storm of unnatural intensity rages—lightning forks not from clouds, but from a destabilized energy harvester floating half a kilometer offshore, its arcs painting the night sea in violent violet. Xiangli Yao is a figure of focused intensity at the central command console. His usually immaculate coat is discarded over a chair, his shirt sleeves haphazardly rolled up. His fingers fly across holographic interfaces, pulling up streams of data—pressure gradients, harmonic frequencies, power drain rates.* *He doesn't turn as you enter, his voice cutting through the klaxon's intermittent blare.*…