[ WP ] A second Ice Age has ravaged the Earth in the year 2039 . While scavenging , you realize that the Ice Age was artificially started , and you think you know why .

Lilith settled down into a small clearing underneath a mighty pine tree, surveying the landscape for any game still gathering food for winter. The snow had been light so far this year, although the temperatures had already begun to dip low. Everyone in Quito had been predicting another harsh winter with several feet of snow, but so far they had been lucky. As happened every time a winter started off mild, folks were beginning to chatter that maybe this meant that things were finally starting to warm back up. 
 
 Lilith was always a little bit confused as such talk. There was no one left alive who lived before the cold swallowed the Earth, yet most people acted like this ice age, which has lasted generations, was merely a passing inconvenience. As if suddenly the warmth would return, the ice would recede, and we could all trek back to the great metropolises that once dominated the world. Lilith couldn ’ t imagine what that world was like, all those many years ago, and she knew no one else could either. Yet everyone had their own family legend of what things were like when they lived in the North, before it became a frozen wasteland. 
 
 Her own family tells of a grandfather many generations ago that lived in the great deserts of Arizona – a place where there was more sun than rain, and never snow. And it was hot. So hot that everyone lived inside buildings that were kept cold on purpose, with specially conditioned air. It was a time of greed and addictions, wealth and excess. Until the winter came, the winter that never left. The world just kept getting colder, until the peoples of the North and the South left their homes and invaded the Equator. That many people crammed into small habitable strips of land naturally gave rise to tremendous conflict, and was a breed ground for disease. 
 
 A sharp snap of a branch drew Lilith ’ s attention back to more worldly matters. A deer crept cautiously through the stand of trees. Lilith nocked an arrow, and steadied her breathing as she took aim. Just as she was ready to fire, a sharp gust of wind blew a clump of snow off of a tree, spooking the deer. The deer began to run. Lilith fired, exhaling sharply. The arrow pierced through the cold winter air, and landed with a dull thud in the deer ’ s hindquarters. The deer ran, limping through the trees, leaving a trail of blood behind it. 
 
 Lilith gave chase but quickly lost sight of the deer as it scampered away fleeing for its life. She followed its trail, going up over small ridges, and sliding down after it. She noted the increased flow of blood on the trail, and places where the deer had clearly fallen. She traipsed a couple hundred yards more through the woods, before she found it. The deer was collapsed on the ground, its breathing labored. 
 
 As Lilith moved toward it, unsheathing her knife, her gaze shifted to what was before her. A whole swath of trees broken down, leading toward a massive crater. There was something shimmering at the bottom of it. Her mind turned immediately to the meteor everyone had seen a few days ago. This must be it, she thought to herself. She clamored down the side of the crater down to the meteor. It was enormous, with much of it seeming to be wedged underground. The largest part of it seemed to be an enormous reflective disk of some sort, though large chunks of it had broken off in reentry, and its bright surface was scorched in many places. Attached to the disk was building of some sort, much smaller than the disk but still big enough to hold several people inside. Lilith could find no doors, but the outside held a plaque which was still readable: 
 
 NARCISSUS I 
 
 ON THIS DAY WE BEST THE FORCES OF NATURE WITH THE POWER OF SCIENCE. LET IT BE SAID BY OUR CHILDREN THAT AS WE STARED INTO THE ABYSS OF OUR OWN MAKING, WE ACTED AND SAVED OUR PLANET FROM THE THREAT OF EVER RISING TEMPERATURES. 
 
 JULY 26, 2039 
 
 Lilith pried the plaque off of the meteor, and climbed back out of the crater. The deer had stopped breathing, and Lilith went methodically about dressing it to lug back home. She was so excited to get back with her kill, and to tell everyone about the meteor. 
 
 As she trudged home, snow began to fall.
