"Broken, Part 1" is the first chapter in Pandora's Tale.
The scene opens on the Helper Corporation training facility, where genetically engineered cat-people are bred, brainwashed, and "trained" to be slaves.
Helper Corporation training facility
A Helper who will eventually be known as Pandora tells her overseer Kyndley that she is a girl, despite being assigned male at birth.[c1p3]
Transfeminine (Nonbinary Wiki)
Kyndley reminds Pandora that Helpers are created to serve their owners, and Pandora's future master won't be happy with a boy who thinks she's a girl. Pandora responds that she isn't "a boy who thinks he's a girl": she's a girl.[c1p4]
Kyndley tells Pandora that she is broken,[c1p5] and takes her to a doctor. The doctor explains that some Helpers just are trans, and Monopolith doesn't understand why.[c1p6] Kyndley plans to have Pandora's memory erased and give her a new personality to make her a boy[c1p8] Pandora screams "I'm not a boy!" and runs off.[c1p9]
Pandora crawls through a vent, and finds herself among helpers who are about to be shipped to buyers.[c1p12] Seeing a chance to avoid having her memory erased, Pandora climbs into a capsule which is about to be shipped.[c1p13] Pandora wishes she wasn't broken.[c1p14]
By sheer chance, the delivery drone containing Pandora suffers from an engine failure and lands in the middle of the desert, where the Pioneer City resistance finds it.[c1p15]
When resistance member Isabelle Monday realizes the pod contains a person,[c1p16] she goes to open it.[c1p18] What Isabelle doesn't know is that the pod contains a gas which causes Helpers to view the next person they see as their owner.[c1p19] Hence, when Isabelle literally opens Pandora's box, Pandora declares her purpose is to serve Isabelle, leaving Isabelle and the rest of the resistance very shocked.[c1p20]
Chapter 1 draft script (Patreon)
This section covers material from outside of the main comic, such as from Xan's social media posts.