Bertha

Early years

From her early years, Bertha struggled to find her place in society. Her mother, a spy, was arrested for leaking confidential data from the New Horizon corporation to third parties. Bertha ended up in an orphanage, occasionally visiting her mother, who, as it turned out later, was pregnant. She learned about this only later in life, as she rarely had the opportunity to see her mother.

As the time for her mother's release approached, Bertha eagerly awaited a family reunion. By then, her younger sister was also supposed to be born. However, for unknown reasons, her mother disappeared, and her body was found a week later in a poor neighborhood. The fate of the younger sister remained uncertain.
Growing up, Bertha took on various dirty jobs, ranging from a janitor to an apprentice mechanic. She found solace in working with welding, nuts, and metal, where unpleasant thoughts could finally recede, and she could feel control over at least something. After several years in a workshop and saving up enough, she pursued education within the corporation, eventually becoming a full-fledged employee in the defense department.

New Horizon

She became a partner to Detective Blackman, who had worked alone for a long time but, after a series of setbacks and a decline in performance ratings, reluctantly agreed to work as a duo. Despite his pessimism, he soon accepted Bertha as his partner, and they gradually became close friends, at least according to Bertha.

Together, they worked for eight years, more than half of which they spent together every day, forming a family-like bond. However, this idyllic partnership was disrupted by the corporation's innovations—smart companion robots designed for gathering and analyzing evidence and protecting detectives. Blackman was forcibly retired, and Bertha was paired with one of the new robots.

Blackman stopped communicating, and later mysteriously disappeared, never returning home. Bertha took it upon herself to investigate his disappearance with her new companion, who, over time, showed increasing signs of deviation and self-awareness, which Bertha tolerated, growing attached to the robot.

Fugitive

The corporation noticed glitches in their robots and issued an order to recall all of them. Bertha strongly opposed this, as Jax remained her only friend. She decided to steal him and take him to a familiar workshop for the removal of tracking sensors and other devices that could reveal the robot's location. Unfortunately, hiding for too long became dangerous. Encrypting a significant portion of Jax's memory, Bertha escaped the city walls, leaving the robot behind to search for the missing Blackman.

The group of refugees Bertha joined outside the walls gradually diminished. Their last hope was an abandoned military outpost once used by the government to study the external environment. The refugees managed to restore only a part of the abandoned complex, but their numbers continued to decline due to the dangers of the external environment and limited resources.

Constantly under attack by mutants, the population dwindled to a few individuals, each struggling to survive on their own. However, Bertha succeeded in this, thanks to her... new friend. It was one of the mutants she encountered. The Cavaliero, as she named him, had lost all humanity but gradually recovered. In gratitude, he now protected his savior and helped her survive in the aggressive environment to which he had adapted so well.