The Cusanus Game

In a post-nuclear-disaster Europe where large portions of Germany have been rendered uninhabitable owing to radiation and global warming has spurred sandstorms and mass human migrations, botany might seem an unlikely savior of humanity. Student Domenica Ligrina finds that her studies in the subject make her an ideal candidate for a project taking place in Venice that involves time travel. As scientists manage to tunnel incrementally further into the past, they seek to preserve plants that have gone extinct and protect architectural wonders like the city of Venice by using nanobots to replicate seemingly lost materials. These gains come with risk as Domenica discovers the danger of time travel, where humans traveling time are like dogs riding the subway: semi-intelligent creatures walking across a threshold into a technology they can't understand and hoping to arrive where they intended to.