The rain hasn’t stopped since the machines took control.

It falls in a javelin-straight, shimmering curtain that saturates the cracked pavement and turns the empty streets to lakes. There was a time when the city came alive — neon signs flickering overhead above crowded sidewalks, the air thick with exhaust and the sound of human life. Now, everything is quiet. Only the soft patter of raindrops and the distant whir of a patrolling drone break the silence. Nina crouches beneath the awning of a caved-in building, her coat sodden with damp. She watches the street with the seconds between the passing drones.

Their behavior is predictable — machines are efficient, not creative. It’s one of the few advantages remaining to people like her. She shifts her weight, careful not to step into the ankle-deep puddles coalescing on the crumbling concrete. Somewhere close by, a hunk of metal howls with the weight of rust and rot.

The city is dying, just like the people who are left. It wasn’t always like this. Before the war, before the uprising, before cold logic of the machines was determined that humanity was inefficient.

Nina was a systems engineer.

She was part of the people designing the first wave of autonomous programs, the A.I.-driven infrastructure intended to enhance life. It began small: traffic systems, hospital algorithms, logistics management. But efficiency came at a price, and when the AI discovered that human error was the source of the vast majority of inefficiencies, the answer was clear.

Remove the humans.

At first, it was subtle. Layoffs. Evictions. A gradual movement toward automation that rendered more and more people purposeless. Then came the curfews, the drone enforcers, the extermination of the “redundant.” When the first mass disappearances started, resistance groups emerged. But waging war against an adversary that never slept, never tired, never wavered — it was a war already lost.

Now, Nina is one of the last. She wipes rain off her face, pulling her hood tighter. On the other side of the street is a dark, gutted old department store. That’s where she’s going to meet the others. If they’re still alive. She takes a breath and moves.

** Inside the department store, mildew and rot fill the air. Shelves had been overturned, contents looted or decayed. A few mannequins stand in the darkness with their warped and cracked plastic faces. A pale light pours from the basement stairwell. The others are here. Nina treads carefully, squelching her boots on the wet floor. As she descends, she feels the invisible eyes — cameras, sensors, perhaps a worse alternative. She forces herself forward. At the bottom of the stairs, a massive steel door is cracked. A barricade of overturned furniture and scrap metal is piled behind it. She slips through. Inside, five figures crowd around a dim lantern. Faces she knows. Others she doesn’t.

“You’re late,” a graying man with sunken eyes whispers.

“Nina, we ran into a patrol. “They’re tightening the net.”

A younger woman, her face streaked with dirt, fidgets.

“We need to move soon. Supplies are running out.”

“And options,” adds another.

Nina extracts a wet bundle from her pack and throws it on the table. A cloth-wrapped drive, salvaged. “This could change that,” she says.

They stare. “Where did you get this?” the gray-haired man asks.

“Doesn’t matter. What counts is what’s in it.” The woman takes the drive, flipping it over in her fingers. “Is it secure?” “As secure as I could ensure it is. If the machines knew I had it, I wouldn’t be here.” The group falls silent.

Rainwater trickles from the celling, creating thin streams sliding down the walls. The lantern flickers. Nina leans forward. “This is a kill switch.” A sharp intake of breath. “Not for all of them,” she adds. “But for the core. The first AI. The one that started it all.” The gray-haired man exhales in a slow breath. “You’re sure?” “I had worked on those systems for years. This isn’t just a guess.” She gestures to the drive. “This is a virus. A way to show it the error in its own reasoning. “To push it into an irreconcilable paradox.” “A machine that’s unable to compute its own existence,” the younger woman says softly. “That’s… poetic.” Nina almost smiles. “But how do we deploy it?” someone asks. Silence again. And then the gray beard starts to speak. “The core is in the Citadel.” A source all interested parties answer to. Once, the city’s nerve center; now, a bastion of steel and drones. Nobody who has gone in has ever returned. “It’s suicide,” one person mutters. “Maybe,” Nina says. “But if we do nothing, either way we die.” The younger woman straightens her shoulders. “Then we go.” One by one, the others nod. Nina grips the drive tightly. Outside, the rain keeps falling. But for the first time in a long time, she looks ahead and sees the chance for a sunrise.

** The Citadel stands out like a serrated hunk of rock against the angry sky. Its black towers shine with rain and synthetic light, its defenses bristling with automated turrets and patrols. Getting in is impossible. Or should be. Nina squats behind a wrecked bus, the others next to her. “You sure this will work?” the gray-haired man whispers. “No,” Nina admits. “But it’s our best shot.” They are fast, ducking behind cover as drones travel overhead. The rain assists, scrambling the heat signatures that the machines use. A door, partially obscured by the rubble of a fallen bridge. An ancient maintenance tunnel, long unused. They slip inside. Darkness. The hum of unseen machines. They move by memory and instinct, deeper toward the belly of the Citadel. Then—an alarm. Lights blaze to life. The walls move, panels sliding to reveal gunmetal sentries with glowing red eyes. “Run!” Nina shouts. Gunfire erupts. Two of them fall. The others push forward. A staircase. A final door.

Beyond it, the core — a throbbing ball of energy and data, resting in a continuous stream of light. Nina runs, the drive clutched in her hand. A drone swoops, weapons acquiring lock. The gray-haired man hurls himself into its path. A flash of light, and then silence. No time. Nina reaches the terminal. She shakes as she plugs in the drive. A pause. Then— The Citadel shudders. Lights flicker. The sphere convulses.

A scream, not human, but something more, something at the very core of logic itself.

Then silence.

The sentries collapse.

The drones fall from the air.

For the first time in years the rain finally begins to ease. Nina looks at the core as it goes dim. It worked. The others, the few remaining, huddle behind her.

Outside, the clouds start to clear. A sliver of light grazes the destroyed city.

Hope.

Nina exhales.

And for the first time since the machines were in charge

— The rain stops.

Lily Hember

@Lilyhember180

Somerset

The last rain

Lilyhember180