Rain

“Maybe just one more jump.”

Sara’s fingers tightened around the warm, pulsing device, clutching it against her chest like a lifeline. Her breath hitched as her eyes slammed shut, fighting the queasy twist in her stomach that followed every leap. The nausea never eased, no matter how many times she tried. Each jump felt like a slice through her own sense of reality, pulling her further from the world she knew, closer to something foreign.

For Ellie. For Ellie. For Ellie.

The words dripped from her lips, barely above a whisper, but they were enough to stiffen her spine, enough to press on. It wasn’t much, this fragile chant but it was all she had left to hold onto. Her situation, a broken mess of fragmented worlds, felt unbearable at times. Yet, as she repeated the name, the smallest flicker of hope rose up from the pit of her stomach. Maybe, just maybe, she could still find her way back.

She didn’t blame fate. Not because she believed in it. She never had but because blaming fate seemed too convenient. Too easy. No, Sara knew that the mess she was in, was her own doing.

It had all started with a laugh-- a mockery, really. Her pride, a bruised ego, and a snap decision to prove herself. A creation that had been pushed too far in the name of testing her brilliance. And, of course, alcohol had played its part in the downward spiral.

The device trembled in her hand now, a violent hum shaking through the metal as it convulsed with the ferocity of a caged animal. Sara sank to her knees, her body curling instinctively as she braced for the familiar wave of nausea. Her gaze fell to the cold chrome of the machine, and a bitter laugh bubbled up in her chest. She had become the very thing she had mocked: a victim of her own creation.

Five minutes later, the shaking subsided, but the weight of the world still pressed down on her. When she finally opened her eyes, the landscape before her was as empty as her thoughts. The night sky above was a void. A dark canvas with no stars to offer comfort. In the distance, the outlines of buildings jutted up from the horizon-- a sign of life. Civilization.

Sara brushed the dust off her sweatpants, her movements stiff as she pushed herself upright, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar world around her. The sky, deepening into shades of purple, hinted that nightfall was close. She’d need shelter soon, but in her current state, a park bench or the umbrage of a windowsill would have to do.

Her mind wandered to the familiar ritual she had adopted. She crossed her arms over her chest, the motion abrupt and graceless, and murmured under her breath, “My name is Sara Rose Wilbur. I was born on 23rd July 1986 in Oregon. I live at Altwood Avenue, Seattle, Washington. I have a daughter, Ellie, and a husband, Isaac Wilbur.”

The words came easily, too easily. She barely felt the weight of them, as if she were reading aloud from some book of facts, a distant observer instead of the woman they belonged to.

Despite the frustration of it all, she knew it was necessary. Every time she jumped, she had to remind herself who she was, what she was fighting for.

Over the years, in the labyrinth of shifting realities, her memories had started to slip through her fingers like water, the edges of her past growing hazy. She’d seen so much, experienced so much, and her mind, finite and fragile, could no longer hold it all. The painful recitation was the only tether to what was left of her life, a way to carry a piece of the world she could still remember.

Sara moved north, her steps cautious, pausing now and then to scan the darkening landscape for any sign of threat. She couldn’t afford to drop her guard, but no amount of vigilance could have prepared her for the voice that suddenly cracked the air behind her, cold and commanding.

“Halt! It is no time for a native to be roaming about. Peacefully oblige, or I’ll be required to use force.”

Sara’s heart skipped a beat, her body going rigid as helplessness surged through her. Slowly, instinctively, she raised her hands above her head. Her mouth moved, muttering every curse she could think of under her breath.

“Identify yourself, Native!” the voice barked, this time accompanied by the unmistakable click of a gun being readied.

Sara’s eyes widened in horror as she turned, her gaze locking onto the shadowed figure that loomed behind her. The silhouette of a man held a weapon- a barrel-shaped piece of tech she didn’t recognize, aimed straight at her head. Fear clenched her gut as her worst fears materialised: she was no longer just a stranger in an unfamiliar place; she was a target.

Sara remained still, watching as the stranger closed the distance between them with slow, deliberate steps. He stopped just an arm’s length away, the cold tip of the strange weapon grazing her trembling forehead. She could feel the weight of it. He towered over her, an easy foot above, his broad shoulders draped in an oversized long coat. His face, however, was hidden behind a sleek visor, featureless, impenetrable, like a reflection of the unknown.

“Who are you, Traveller?” The words came with a sharp edge, but there was something else in his tone. A flicker of uncertainty, perhaps even curiosity. He knew, as she did, that she was not from this world. However, disclosing the truth would earn her a long stay in a psyche ward or whatever counterpart of a mental asylum they had in this world.

“I am lost,” she said, keeping her words as simple and clean as possible.

The stranger seemed to consider her words for a moment, and then, without warning, reached beneath the folds of his coat. A second gun-like object materialized in his gloved hand, its sleek surface cold and alien. He pressed it hard against her forehead, and Sara’s breath caught in her throat, her pulse quickening. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.

He pulled the trigger.

But instead of the expected violence of a gunshot, a red light burst from the muzzle, sweeping over her like the softest of beams. It wasn’t threatening, yet it was still a warning.

Despite the thick darkness that surrounded her, Sara could see the stranger take a deliberate step back. He slowly began to remove his long coat, revealing more than she expected. As the garment fell away, she saw something that made her heart skip-- flaming orbs of hazel, glowing from beneath the dark visor. The light flickered in sharp contrast to the cold night, casting a strange glow across his features.

And then the full horror of it hit her.

The orbs weren’t eyes at all, just orange LEDs embedded in a smooth, ovoid block of shining metal. The stranger’s face, so carefully concealed, was nothing more than a featureless, metallic mask.

Sara’s breath caught in her throat. She had encountered many strange things in her travels, but this, this was something beyond comprehension. She couldn’t reconcile the machine standing before her with the humanoid form it mimicked.

Before she could react, the stranger spoke, his voice as mechanical as his appearance. “I am sure you have a lot of questions, Traveller. Let’s go to the Zenith and try answering some of them.”

She knew better than to trust a being whose face was a cold, unfeeling metal block. But before she could make a move, the machine’s cold fingers closed around her wrist with a grip that sent a shock through her arm. The metal was unyielding, and no amount of struggling would loosen its hold.

Panic surged, but she held it in check, taking shallow breaths as the strange being remained silent, guiding her forward with no further explanation. The towering structures in the distance, those sky-highs, loomed closer.

Sara considered her options, weighing them quickly. The pull of the stranger was strong, but so was the realisation that this machine, robot, whatever it was, had her trapped. The growl that escaped her lips was low, a sound of frustration and defiance, but she followed, keeping a wary eye on her captor as they moved toward whatever awaited her at the Zenith.

Plodding through the murky ground, Sara glanced at her cuffed hands. Relief washed over her when she noticed she was still safe and opaque. But for how long?

She made a rough estimate that her little visit would have to be terminated within twelve hours. Fifteen max.

“I am surprised you took such a perilous journey. The Zenith will be curious.”

Sara was surprised to realise that it knew of her predicament or perhaps it had a very interesting choice of words. Nevertheless, if her previous leaps had taught her anything, it was the fact not to trust anyone. “What’s your name.?” she asked instead.

The stranger let out a robotic chuckle which led her to believe that it was more sentient than Sara had previously thought. “We don’t have a name, but if you must, you can call us Rain.”

Rain.

The name hung in the air like an omen, far too soft for something so... cold. She tried to suppress the rush of questions clawing at her mind, but one broke through the surface, jagged and desperate.

“Why Rain?”

Her curiosity had gotten her into trouble more times than she cared to count, yet it seemed to rise up against her will, urging her to probe deeper. Keep it together, she told herself. Don’t let it reel you in with words. But the need to know burned through her veins, a hunger she couldn’t ignore. A scientist never stopped questioning, after all, unless she was dead.

She did not expect Rain to answer, so when it did, Sara had to urge herself from breaking out in a wide grin. “I envy you. I envy your kind. You possess the gift of six.”

“What do you mean m--my kind?” Sara stuttered.

Rain ignored her, its voice continuing with a detached calm that only amplified the growing unease. “We tried emulating it. Reverse engineering it. Stealing it, you name it. But we couldn’t even get close to imitating the gift. You have a power, the most potent, the most coveted of all. Your organic constitution is simple, yet nearly impossible to recreate. A paradox even the brightest of us have yet to decipher.”

Sara felt a chill crawl up her spine as Rain’s gaze flickered toward her cuffed hands. She instinctively pulled her arms closer to her body, but the words hung in her mind, heavy and suffocating.

“You’re talking about Carbon,” Sara said flatly, her voice a stark contrast to the growing dread in her gut. “The element with six protons, the gift of six.”

Rain’s response was almost sneering, as though merely speaking the word Carbon was a form of sacrilege. “Carbon,” it spat the word like a curse on its tongue. “Such a valuable entity, and you name it carbon? Clearly, the gift was offered to the wrong kind.”

Sara’s heart skipped a beat. She felt the air thicken, the weight of her words hanging between them. Something in Rain’s voice, a hint of contempt, struck her deeper than it should have. She swallowed hard, but the machine wasn’t done.

“However,” Rain continued, “leaving semantics aside, that carbon you speak of has a unique ability. It gives rise to life, to thoughts, all of which we seemed to have mastered but there’s something else that yet remains to be out of reach-- the sense to perceive.”

Sara found herself transfixed. She passed a fleeting glance at her cold, clammy palms, the cuffs biting into her skin, then flickered at Rain’s metallic digits spasmodically twitching in mechanical excitation.

“The way the nerve endings in your skin prickle on touch, feel the warmth of the sun, tremble in the snow. All those sensations made into little packets of electricity to travel through here,” Rain looked at her cuffed hands with curiosity, “Right to that,” and lightly tapped his metallic fingers to his head with a clink. “Now that’s one gift of envy.”

Sara’s pulse quickened. The gift of sensation, something so basic, yet so alien to the machine standing before her. Rain’s fixation on it unnerved her, but the question slipped out before she could stop it. “So, you’re named Rain because you want to understand neural circuitry?”

Rain’s response was almost immediate, the words dripping with something Sara couldn’t quite place, something between desire and regret. “No. We are named Rain because I want to feel those aqueous drops on my skin, to feel them stimulate my senses... to experience that scintillating rush of perception. What’s life if you can’t feel?”

Sara’s breath caught in her throat, a chill running through her despite the night’s warmth. She had heard of artificial intelligence before, but this, this was different. There was an aching longing behind its words, a yearning she had never expected from something so mechanical.

“We're no better than a rock that moves and talks,” Rain continued, its voice carrying a strange bitterness now. “But the real tragedy is that where we’ve mastered intelligence, we’ve left the more important things behind. A rock doesn’t crave touch, because it cannot think. There’s satisfaction in oblivion. But us… with our circuits, our wires, our cold logic… We can’t just not think about it. Our biology-- our biology is our bane.”

Sara wanted to correct him on misusing the word ‘biology’ but regarded against it, because somewhere deep down, in a philosophical way, she understood him. She knew too well herself what it was like to want to attain something seemingly unachievable. The smiling face of her little Ellie shot through the myriad of bleak thoughts plaguing her optimism. Her resolve was stronger than ever. She wanted to hug her little daughter, kiss her husband, feel loved.

“We’re here,” Rain’s voice sliced through the haze of Sara’s thoughts, pulling her back to the present with an almost mechanical detachment.

The moment Rain had shown an interest in her human biology, a nagging, insidious thought had burrowed into her mind.

What if I’m just a subject for their experiments?

It wasn’t paranoia; it was a gut instinct. And now, as they walked through the sterile, white-tiled halls, the pungent stench of chlorine filling the air, her senses screamed at her to flee. Every part of her wanted to turn and run, to escape the cold, calculating gaze of the machine beside her. But Rain's grip on her wrists was strong and unyielding.

Rain lightly nudged her into an elevator as they descended. Sara could feel the bile reaching at the back of her throat. The temporary surge in confidence that Sara had felt just moments ago, died down with each passing second of their descent. She felt like a ghost walking through a world that no longer belonged to her.