Sai

Spoilers ahead. Are we okay with that, kid?

Sai
Pronouns	She/Her
Age	31
Affiliations	Crew YuYu (former employee)
First appearance	Issue 0
Voice actor	Safiyya Ingar

Sai is a core member of Pax's crew in Dustborn. She is introduced as an artist, gig-economy proletarian, and Pax's best friend.

History

Before the heist

Sai was born in around 1999 and named after Shirdi Sai Baba, a figure with both Hindu and Muslim followers, due to her mother being a Muslim and her father being a Hindu-to-Muslim convert. As a result, she was raised Muslim while learning of both cultures. She had a fairly normal life with many camping trips to bond with her family. On one camping trip, she got arrested by Justice for graffiti and faced more than a decade in juvenile hall. Worse yet, her father rejected her for making the family look bad, though it is ambiguous if he knows about her Anomal powers. Justice threatened to arrest her family for associating with her unless she moved to Pacifica as their informant, and Sai had no choice because staying in juvie increased the risk of Justice finding out about her Vocals. For a while, Sai was able to appease her handler with information about local protests and other expats. The handler went silent for a few years, but eventually demanded that Sai join Sara Medina-Castillo's campaign. At some point, Sai befriended Pax and Noam while bouncing around various minimum wage jobs at companies like YuYu. Justice subsequently began demanding more important information, with the safety of Sai's family and a promise of a pardon on the line, leading to her joining Theo's mission for the sake of obtaining the Puritans' Protolanguage data for Justice.

The Raid

On September 7, 2030, Sai goes to Noam's apartment, where she, Pax, Noam, and Theo discuss the upcoming heist as well as what they want to get out of their deal with Nova Scotia. On October 13, Sai and the crew fight their way through the Puritans' headquarters in Purity, where they find the terminal containing Protolanguage data. Although Sai is freaked out over Pax's injury from the terminal's security system, she finds an opportunity to download extra copies of the Puritans' data, intending to give it to Justice in the future.

Issue 0: The Getaway

Sai drives the getaway car, but is very stressed about recent events and Justice's own mission for her that she lashes out against the other crew members, eventually causing Pax to use Block on everyone. Afterwards, Sai plays some K-pop on the car's radio to calm down, only for Pax to change to a song suiting the whole crew's taste. Unexpectedly, a Pacificop tries to pull the party over, and Sai is too panicked to make a decision, forcing Pax to use a Vocal to push Sai towards either making a break for it or complying with the cop. Most options will result in Sai panicking over the cops death by robotruck collision, though if the cop is saved through the Block Vocal, the crew will instead worry about being reported by that cop. Additionally, if Sai pulls over, she will automatically turn her hands into mineral if the player does not choose any option in time, causing the cop to panic and step into the same lane as the robotruck. However, choosing to escape instead of pulling over will result in Sai nearly crashing into a truck, only for that truck to hit the cop car instead, causing her to feel more guilt than in the other options.

Issue 1: Opening Act

At La Torre, the crew finds the librarian Luna trapped under a bus, but Pax can buy time for Luna by asking Sai to lift the bus as much as possible while the rest of the crew reactivates the jack. When Pax has to go to the bathroom, Sai escorts her there and uses it afterwards. However, the Pacificops and Puritans come knocking on La Torre's doors, causing Sai to panic and lock herself in the bathroom, being afraid that her Vox will expose the crew. Sai cannot be convinced through normal means, and Pax ends up having to use Vox to get Sai to calm down. Trying to bribe her with jerky will only serve to anger her for being patronizing.

After gaining a robot bus driver, the crew hits the road towards their next destination. Pax requests that the bus stops in Liberty before going to Pete's Pool Hall in order to pick up her sister Ziggy, with Sai expressing jealousy that Pax can reunite with her family while such a thing is currently out of reach for Sai. When the crew reaches the Oregon border, Sai is frightened when Puritan ships follow the bus, but Theo reassures her that the Puritans cannot attack them on American Republic soil without incurring retaliation from Justice. However, the Justice officers do not believe the crew's cover story as a punk rock band and demand a recital. Regardless of the outcome, Sai is relieved she did not transform into mineral during the performance.

At Rock Rabbit Campground, Sai apologizes for being selfish about the topic of family, but also expresses worry about the Pacificop who pulled them over, especially if the Pacificop died. She also expresses awareness of how poorly she can control her emotions and wonders if she should be more like Pax and Noam in that regard. However, Sai reacts negatively if Pax jokingly asks if she is a Justice double agent, since the latter is unaware that she is accidentally correct. She also wonders if this mission is worth the risk in order to escape Pacifica's brutal gig worker economy. The next morning, the Horned Riders attack while Sai is in the outhouse, but she finishes up her business in time to join Pax for the final round against Patsy. Although the duo defeat the Horned Riders, Sai worries that their opponents might have taken too much damage.

Issue 2: Ghosts

The crew reaches Pax's old anarcho-primitivist home, Liberty, but the gate is locked. Pax can ask Sai to punch a hole in it, but the residents will later admonish the crew if they do this. Inside the camp, Pax can ask Sai to pull the axe that was once used to determine the camp queen among the kids, which Sai manages to pull off, only to accidentally lodge the axe into a tree. After a talk with Pax about how Liberty used to accept Anomals, Sai goes to the schoolhouse, makes a sketch of it, and pulls up the heavy warning bell. When Pax hunts Echoes, Sai witnesses her fighting a Protolanguage squid and is frightened by it until Pax gives an explanation and demonstrates the ME-EM console's usage. After the altercation with Fred, it is possible for Pax to inspect a video phone that Sai was near before, which turns out to be still operational despite Sai earlier saying it was not. Unbeknownst to Pax, Sai overhears Moon stating that she called Justice on the Anomals in the crew, so Sai decides to call Justice and discredit Moon's report by revealing the opium production. Sai tells Justice to come in the evening to catch the drug kingpin, which would allow the crew and citizens time to escape. However, Justice shows up earlier than expected, and she teams up with Pax and Ziggy to beat back the Justice officers and the reanimated Junior Justice robot.

On the way to the next camp, Sai worries about the Justice vehicles passing by their car, but Theo insists on keeping calm to avert suspicion. At Knapper Campground, Sai and Pax discuss the recent battle and admits she should not be jealous of Pax's family situation, which is complicated in different ways from her own. She warns Pax not to take her family bonds for granted and that she needs to do the work necessary to maintain those bonds. The next day, Sai and the crew perform at Pete's Pool Hall in Nevada.

Issue 3: Caretakers

During the bus ride through Nevada, Sai laments she cannot find anything to draw in the bus's surroundings and brings up her ambition of writing her own graphic novel about refugees. Soon afterwards, Sai and the crew are stranded at a Standard Energy Service Station when the robot driver leaves with the bus. Sai remarks on how nostalgic the energy station, Henry, and Betty are for her childhood, but also notes that most of the items in the store are expired. If the player goes with the plan to steal the Horned Riders' bikes, Sai is an excellent candidate to carry the large tire to the fire pit. though thanks to the tire obstructing her view, Sai needs Pax to direct her to the fire pit. For the truck plan, Sai can open the back or garage doors while on the Way of the Fist Coda. If the truck plan succeeds, Sai reluctantly drives the truck to the bus, but almost hits a kangaroo on the way.

Regardless of how the player leaves the Standard Energy Service, the crew will eventually find the abandoned trailer park that the robot crashed the bus at. Sai may or may not join Pax to investigate the trailer park, but if she does, she can move the trailer without having to solve Justice's security system, revealing a secret entrance into an underground school. Sai will stay aboveground while Pax and Ziggy explore the school, but the Horned Riders show up and take Noam and Theo hostage, forcing Sai, Pax, Ziggy, and the newly recruited Eli to fight the bikers. After Eli makes peace with the gang leader Patsy, Sai and the crew can perform a song to celebrate this truce.

In Signal Hill Campground, Pax and Sai discuss Eli and Caretaker becoming full crew members and wonders what her role in the crew will be, but Pax assures her that the two will always be besties. At the campfire, Sai continues to bring up her interest in Henry and Betty by asking if Caretaker knows about them or has similar lore.

Issue 4: Promised Lands

In Utah, Sai is enthusiastic to eat at Betty's Diner and meet one of the Betty robots, to the point where she explains Henry and Betty lore to the crew while they wait for their order. As a prank, Sai orders a bacon salad for Theo in order to vicariously eat bacon through him. Sai is rattled by the encounter with the two Justice officers, but thinks about Betty in order to cope with the situation.

At the entrance to the New Jerusalem abandoned mall, Sai and Pax recount a time when they broke into a different mall and stole frozen cinnamon buns. Sai attempts to tackle the door, but while it did not budge, she does manage to expose the keypad to unlock the door, allowing the crew to make contact with the librarian Lottie. Inside, Sai moves supplies to the comic book store, with Pax guiding her when she carries enough boxes to obstruct her vision. Afterwards, Sai spends time reading Justice comics and discusses the risk and rewards of the mission with Pax. After dinner, the player can choose to have Sai, Pax, Noam, and Theo play a birthday song for Lottie's pet raccoon Mr. President. That night, Sai has a chat with the crew in the mattress store and falls asleep. Later, she wakes up to an invasion from the Puritans, and she, Pax, Ziggy, and Eli try to fight them off, only to struggle against the cyborgs' barrier. After Theo disables the barriers with an EMP grenade, the crew manages to beat the cyborgs and escape while the Puritans are preoccupied with the Mormon Guard.

At Texas Beach Campground, Sai discusses the Puritans, and hopes that they will leave the crew alone after they got spotted by the authorities of a rival territory. At Main Street, Sai and the performing crew members perform in front of a crowd for the sake of keeping up their cover story.

Issue 5: Yellow Brick Road

At the Palisade, Colorado checkpoint, Sai discusses Lottie's fate and feels bad about the Utah library getting compromised. At Alpine Visitor Center, Noam senses an Anomal in danger, and after the Anomal, Girl, is found, Sai escorts Girl into the bus. If Sai is on the Way of the Fist Coda and Pax chooses to fight the Justice officers to save the old couple from interrogation, Sai will participate in the ensuing battle. Once the bus makes a getaway, Sai worries that her swearing habits will be a bad influence on Girl, but decides to at least use her physical strength to protect the child. She also wonders how Girl could have obtained her powers, or if she was born with them. At the Standard Energy Service Station, Sai discusses with Pax, Theo, and Ziggy what food or drink would be good for Girl, with hot chocolate being her suggestion.

Once Pax reports that Justice is going after the Yellow Brick Road Motel library, Sai joins Pax in searching the location to evacuate the librarian. Sai can break down every door except for Room 3, which is suspiciously sturdier than the others. Once the crew unlocks it, Sai busts the door open, but the librarian Sol shoots her in a panic. After realizing his mistake, Sol uses his healing Vocal to heal Sai's gunshot wound, leading to Sai helping him carry supplies to the bus.

At Peaceful Valley Campground, Sai discusses her art with Theo, as well as what to do with Girl now that they can no longer leave her at a library. Sai also checks on Noam after the latter passes out from head pain.

Issue 6: The Bad Lands

In the bus ride through the Great Plains Exclusion Zone, Sai discusses rumors about this region with the crew, such as the residents becoming cannibals. When the bus crashes into a bionic lifeform and Girl runs off, Sai stays behind at the bus and works on her graphic novel. Pax, Eli, and Girl return with Ophelia in tow, and Sai listens to Eli's recap of the events that took place in Lebanon.

At Camp Oakwood, Sai listens to Pax's side of the recent events and compares the Protolanguage squids to the ME-EM regarding their shared ability to capture Echoes. Sai asks Theo about the crew's plans for Chicago and the meeting with Theo's contact, and she plans on waiting at the bus to avoid risking exposure of her powers. Later that night, Sai hangs out with Pax, talks about her current Coda path, and almost confesses about her spying until Noam and later Theo show up. She will commend Pax if the latter took the time to listen to most of her dialogue thus far, stating that she likes the new Pax.

Issue 7: Let There Be Light

The bus breaks down near an abandoned house in Iowa, with Sai and most of the crew waiting near the front porch. If Pax asks Sai to break down the front door, she will refuse to do so due to having too much on her mind, even if Noam is asked to use Gaslighting to make Sai feel better. When Ophelia loses control of her harmful Vocal, the crew debates about whether or not to let her remain in the crew. Sai advocates for Ophelia to leave, putting her at odds with Eli, who wants to save Ophelia. If Pax votes for Ophelia to stay, Sai will be angered that Pax would choose new crewmates over one of her oldest friends. In a room on the second floor, Pax tries to ask Sai about what she wanted to talk about last night, but Sai declines. Sai also admits she is jealous everyone else can reunite with their loved ones except her. Pax tries to cheer up Sai with her Vocals, but this fails and Pax gives up. Sai wonders if there is any such Vocal that can solve all their problems like the Word of God, causing Pax to wonder if Jacob's words about Protolanguage's potential holds merit. During the hide-and-seek contest proposed by Girl, Sai hides behind a haybale beyond the back fence, but can still be caught easily despite how the rules require hiders to stay within the fence. During dinner, Sai and the original crew members tell the newer ones about the heist in Purity, but Sai becomes angry at how everyone is nonchalant about the constant danger and leaves. In truth, Sai was looking for an excuse to leave in order to meet up with her Justice handlers, hoping that this will prevent her from potentially leaking too much info on the crew.

Issue 8: Battle of the Bands

Although Sai does not appear in Chicago alongside the rest of the crew, they still miss her greatly even as they party at the Bad Lands Bar. Pax has the option of getting a K-pop mix tape from Hawker in the hopes of reuniting with Sai and gifting it to her.

Issue 10: The Maine Event

Sai teams up with the crew to rescue Pax from the Justice-controlled hospital in New York City and carries her friend to the getaway van in the parking garage. In Queens, Sai explains the truth about her role as a mole for Justice, and how her family rejected her despite all the sacrifices she made to secure their safety from Justice. She gives the crew a spare copy of the Puritan datakey while revealing she sent Justice a fake datakey filled with K-pop. Pax may choose whether or not to forgive her, and this is also Pax's only opportunity to gift Sai the K-pop mix tape. Afterwards, Sai leaves to pursue her own goals, with Sol helping her.

Ending

At some point, Sol parts ways with Sai in order to support Ziggy's Coda path.

• In the Way of the Heart Coda, Sai rejoins Sara Medina-Castillo's campaign and uses her art to promote her candidate. She also tries to push Medina-Castillo to pursue progressive policies instead of compromising with Justice.
• In the Way of the Mind Coda, Sai helps rebuild the Weave in NYC and works as a mole for Justice again, but secretly feeds them false info on the Weave's behalf.
• In the Way of the Fist Coda, Sai joins an anti-Justice resistance group on the East Coast.

Appearance

Sai is a tall, portly woman with black hair, violet pigtails, and light gray eyes. She has vitiligo areas on her skin. Her default attire consists of a sky-blue and white jacket with white cat faces on the left front and the back, a tank top with "Game Over" printed in pink, black shorts, pink sneakers, and white knee-high socks with yellow stripes. Her accessories include a black baseball cap with a yellow pixel Space Invaders style alien print, a leopard print backpack, a belt with a masked face buckle, a circular barbell piercing in the septum, and glasses with a pink frame. When praying, Sai wears a purple hijab.

Sai's attire throughout the game consists of the following:

• In Issues 0, 1, 4 (before dinner at the mall), and 6, she wears her default attire.
• In Issue 1's flashback in Noam's apartment, Sai wears a purple sweater with a print of Wonker's face, purple sweatpants, and white and gray socks.
• In Issue 2, during the crew's stay in Liberty, she wears a black tank top with "1up" printed in a yellow and orange gradient, paired with blue shorts.
• In Knapper Campground in Issue 2, Sai wears a pink and white sweater with white and sky blue sweatpants. In Issue 4, she wears this outfit during dinnertime, during bedtime, and at Texas Beach Campground.
• In Issue 3, Sai wears a white tank top with a pink pixelated heart, but refrains from wearing her jacket during the day due to Nevada's heat. She puts the jacket back on at night at Signal Hill Campground.
• In Issue 4, while in Betty's Diner and on the bus afterwards, Sai wears a pink and white sweater with her default short pants.
• In Issue 5, Sai wears a white tank top with a pink print of a woman, along with blue shorts and black pantyhose.
• In Issues 7 and 10, Sai wears her purple Wonker sweater, blue shorts, and black pantyhose.
• In the Way of the Heart and the Way of the Mind Coda endings, Sai wears a light pink hoodie underneath her usual sky-blue and white jacket.
• In the Way of the Fist Coda ending, Sai wears a different light pink hoodie with the text "Arcadia" printed in a darker shade of pink.

Personality

Sai is described as a nervous drama queen, due to the fact that her ability can easily out her as an Anomal if she loses control of it. Adding to her stress is that she is torn between her crewmates and her family's safety. The fact that she cannot tell anyone about her circumstances causes her to have few ways of coping outside of emotional outbursts or relieving her stress through art, causing many to think she is stressing over minor issues. When she is finally able to explain her side of the story without worrying about her family, she calms down significantly and is remorseful of betraying the crew.

Sai is by default bad at controlling her emotions and tends to speak from the heart. Her Way of the Mind Coda has her try to control her emotions at the cost of self-expression, while her Way of the Heart Coda has her try to find more constructive ways to express them. Despite being the physically strongest crewmate, Sai is averse to violence and seeing people get hurt, but she can embrace the usage of her strength in the Way of the Fist Coda.

Abilities

Physical abilities

Even without using her Vocal, Sai has the most physical strength out of everyone in the crew. She can easily perform feats of strength like pulling Liberty's bell while the average person would struggle to do so.

Vocal

Sai's Vocal allows her to turn her skin into concrete to enhance her weight and strength. If Pax uses the Block Vocal to immobilize a group of foes, Sai will jump and use her enhanced density to stomp on the ground and create a large shockwave that knocks them down. However, these Vocals depend on her emotional state, and getting flustered can potentially cause her to use her powers by accident.

Gallery

Early concept art

Outfits concept art

Full concrete form concept art