Several decades before the game begins, Doctor Joan Aiken discovered a serum that could unlock the unused portion of the human brain. The serum granted psychic abilities, called talents, such as levitation or shooting lightning. Talents were grouped into collections known as totems, and each Psionic specialised in one totem. Aiken founded the Science totem.

At the start of the game, Cain has been suspended from the DNPC after an incident involving Priscilla Divine, leader of the Eye of Ra and founder of the Sun totem. The Eye of Ra is a radical organisation that wants to destroy the CoT project for ethical reasons.

Cain is later recruited back and sent to infiltrate the Eye of Ra, which has been operating as a psychic hotline, and to apprehend Divine.