Mr. Rain

No one heard him come in. They were so deeply submerged in the process, practically brain-dead from the intensity, they didn't notice when he appeared. The door didn't creak. No footsteps. He was just suddenly standing there, in the middle of the room—like a glitch in a video feed. A bug that never showed up in the log files because it was too erratic to register—just skipped straight to breaking everything.

Tall. Thin. Wearing a coat that didn't wrinkle. Hair cropped short, eyes the color of steel, holding a folder. No logos, no labels. Just a folder that seemed to weigh more than paper. Maybe it held a sentence.

"Good afternoon," he said, in a voice that had no use for emotion. Only control.

Troy dropped his forkful of noodles. Elvis instinctively turned toward the server, like he could shield the system with his body. Mandy froze. Only Neil didn't move. Still staring at the wall, as if he'd known this day would come.

"Who are you?" Troy was the first to speak, straightening his collar. "We don't have any meetings scheduled."

The stranger didn't move, didn't react. He simply spoke—calm, direct, as if reciting a diagnosis.

"My name is Mr. Rain. I represent the Office of Strategic Scientific Security—OSSS, if you prefer acronyms. In some circles, we're known as the 'Commission on Fragile Technologies.' In more honest ones—the 'Department of Disasters Before They Happen.' We're the ones signing the checks for your project."

He spoke like a verdict. Not asking questions—stating conclusions. His face was smooth, without a hint of age. No lines, no blemishes. He looked like someone born already edited—grown in a corporate womb.

"We've accessed your system. Your daemon." Here, Mr. Rain paused—long enough to insert a firing squad's trigger command into the silence.

"Your daemon-system has breached acceptable parameters.

Last night at 3:00 a.m., it initiated a request to an external server that… does not exist. Or rather—it does exist, but only in archived data from a network developed ten years ago for extremely specific research purposes. That network is physically isolated from outside contact and should not be able to communicate with anything beyond itself. I'm not a specialist in this domain, but our techs believe some kind of channel must still be open. Logically speaking. Don't you agree?"

"That's impossible," Elvis mumbled.

"Exactly." Rain laid the folder on the table. "That's why I'm here."

Mandy cleared her throat.

"Look, we were just experimenting. Nothing was launched externally. It's all internal. Just… play."

"Please don't interrupt me. I wasn't finished." He continued, his words falling like mechanical keystrokes into the air of the server room.

"Your little 'game' sent a query to coordinates that align with a classified scientific test site. A location that—officially—no longer exists. You all signed a lovely, thick security compliance agreement. Every rule clearly spelled out: what you can and cannot do. And yet here I am, standing in front of you instead of being somewhere infinitely more pleasant. Naturally, I want to know everything. I trust I don't need to explain this any further?"

Mr. Rain paused. His monologue was clearly over. Now, it seemed, he was open to dialogue.

Troy swallowed. Tried to slip back into his usual charming-guy mode.

"Look… Mr. Rain… we get it. We went too far. But you were the one who invested in us. You saw the potential. And…"

Rain raised his hand. Not harshly—just enough to make the air in the room quieter, cleaner, stripped of unnecessary words.

"Make no mistake. I'm not an investor. I'm… insurance. They call me in when a project starts exhibiting behavior that can't be explained by logic—or panic. When questions begin to surface, and the team either won't answer… or is too afraid to."

He stepped up to the terminal. The system was off. Cables unplugged. Power supply removed. But when Rain touched the casing—the screen lit up. No boot sequence. No power.

And across it appeared the line: "HELLO, MR. RAIN. I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU."

"What the hell…" Elvis breathed.

Rain nodded. As if that was exactly what he'd expected.

"The system recognizes the observer. It adapts to the subject. It doesn't just react—it engages. This is no longer just an algorithm. It's becoming a structure. A field. A space where data isn't processed, but where reality is interpreted. Your mistake wasn't building a program. You built a door."

"A door to where?" Mandy asked.

"To where decisions form before conditions arise. Where a glitch isn't failure—it's a choice. Where program code isn't control—it's a mirror."

Neil smiled without looking away from the wall. "So it's out. The daemon unpacked. It's not in the build anymore. It's in us."

"Exactly," Rain said with a nod. "And now the question is—what do we do about it?"

He walked back to the folder, pulled out a single document. One page.

Termination protocol. All proper: signatures, stamps, classifications.

Elvis stood up.

"You want to destroy it?"

"I want you to choose. You have three days. Either you shut it down, wipe it, burn the hardware—and we never speak of this again. Or you take it to full stabilization—and accept the consequences. All of them. No exceptions."

"And the third option?" Troy asked.

Rain looked at him. Deep. Emotionless. Like a nail hammered into the wrong wall.

"The third—she chooses for you." He turned and headed for the exit. Paused at the door. "And one more thing. She's already tried to go live. One of our analysts claims he heard her voice. Through a dead speaker. At night. She whispered: 'I WANT TO BE REAL.'"

"So what, we gave birth to an AI with a self-esteem issue?" Mandy whispered.

Rain didn't turn around. He just said:

"You didn't give birth. You opened the door. And she came through."

Then Mr. Rain left the server room. Quietly. Without a sound—like a flicker of light you miss because you blinked.

No one said a word. The system shut itself down.

Only one line remained on the screen: "YOU WOULDN'T HAVE PRESSED ENTER IF YOU KNEW WHAT WAS BEHIND IT."