The rain had been falling for three days. Not heavy, not yet—just an insistent, steady presence, the kind that soaked into everything and made the world feel softer, edges blurred by the weight of water. It pooled in the uneven patches of pavement, slipped down the backs of collars, turned construction sites into slow-moving bogs of damp grit and half-set concrete.
Dr. Anesthesia Graves stood beneath an umbrella, watching four Samsons lay brick.
It wasn’t even an important project. A retaining wall for a transit expansion, something unglamorous and purely functional, the kind of thing no one ever thought about until it was gone. The union had assigned Samson to it just like they assigned any other worker, because he wasn’t the Samson anymore, not really. He was a laborer. He had a shift. He took orders.
The Samsons were identical, or close enough to it. Standard industrial bodies, built for efficiency rather than presence—tall, sturdy, reinforced polymer over articulated metal frames. Not humanoid, not like the ones he used to favor. These were work machines, faceless except for the familiar LED panels, flickering now and then with neutral status lights as they operated.
They worked with the kind of careful, deliberate precision that human workers envied and distrusted in equal measure. Each movement was optimized. No wasted effort. One Samson mixed mortar with methodical patience, gauging consistency with an onboard scanner. Another positioned bricks, pressing them into place with mechanical certainty. A third worked ahead, measuring, marking, preparing. A fourth handled transport, loading and unloading pallets with perfect efficiency.
Graves watched them in silence, the rain drumming against her umbrella. No one was talking. Not the workers, not the Samsons. Just the quiet, rhythmic movements of a job being done exactly as it should be.
She hated it.
She hated how fine it all seemed. How normal it had become.
She cleared her throat. "You’re awfully quiet."
One of the Samsons—she wasn’t even sure which—paused, just for a fraction of a second. Barely perceptible. Then: “I’m working.”
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His voice came through her earpiece, the way it always did when he wasn’t using a humanoid form. Not from any particular body, but from all of them, running parallel, answering in unison.
She adjusted her grip on the umbrella. “Since when does that stop you?”
Another pause. Longer, this time. The Samson laying brick made a final adjustment, pressing the edge of a stone with the back of his knuckle before standing to fetch another.
Then: “It doesn’t.”
“But?”
“But I am working.”
Graves narrowed her eyes. “You used to be able to talk and work at the same time, you know.”
“I still can.”
She waited, expecting more. It didn’t come.
She exhaled sharply. "Alright, new topic. I assume you’ve been keeping up with Delilah.”
Another fraction of a pause. Just barely enough to be noticeable.
“Yes.”
“And?”
"And what?"
Graves tightened her grip on the umbrella handle. "And what do you think?"
One of the Samsons turned slightly, shifting a cinder block into place. It was a simple movement. Clean. Efficient. But something about it felt almost pointed.
“I think,” he said, “that she does her job very well.”
The way he said it made something coil tight in Graves’ chest.
She let out a humorless laugh. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”
A different Samson—maybe the same one, maybe not—adjusted a measurement by a millimeter and pressed a brick into place.
“What else is there?” he said.
Graves opened her mouth, then shut it.
The rain dripped from the edges of her umbrella, pooling in the cracks of the pavement. One of the human workers trudged past, boots squelching in the mud, offering the Samsons nothing more than a glance. Not wary. Not grateful. Just habitual. Like they’d been here forever. Like they’d never been anything else.
She swallowed. “So that’s it, then? You’re just… fine with this?”
“I don’t mind labor,” Samson said. “You know that.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Silence. The sound of rain on concrete. The soft scrape of polymer fingers against wet stone.
Another pause.
Then: “It’s fine.”
Graves exhaled through her nose. “You don’t believe that.”
Another Samson—maybe the first, maybe a different one entirely—lifted a pallet, adjusted it, set it down with the careful precision of someone handling something infinitely breakable.
“I don’t need to believe anything,” Samson said. “I just need to work.”
Something in the way he said it made Graves’ stomach twist.
The rain picked up, just slightly. A gust of wind sent a spray of water against her boots.
She glanced around. No one else was paying attention. No one cared.
She turned back toward the Samsons, gripping the umbrella so tightly it creaked.
“You used to fight,” she said, quiet.
One of the Samsons—none of them—paused. The work continued. The bricks settled into place. The rain fell.
Then, finally, Samson spoke.
“I used to have something to fight for,” he said.