There was water where there wasn’t supposed to be water.

  It surged down Market Street in thick, soupy waves, carrying detritus from a city not designed to deal with this much rainfall at once. Construction cones bobbed like doomed ships. A half-submerged e-bike struggled in the current, its LED panel flickering desperately between AVAILABLE FOR RENT and LOW BATTERY. And, in the middle of it all, standing ankle-deep in the rising flood, a dozen construction workers watched their situation get significantly worse.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Linda muttered, wiping rain from her face.

  She was standing outside the substation entrance, staring down the glossy white chassis of a Delilah unit—one of four currently stationed at key access points, forming a soft perimeter between them and the people who could actually do something about this mess.

  “I am not kidding you,” Delilah replied, perfectly composed. Her voice was clear, unwavering, the same tone she’d used every other time they’d tried to argue with her. “This area has been designated as high-risk. Please remain in a secure location until the situation stabilizes.”

  Linda ground her teeth. Behind her, the substation was flooding. The sump pumps had failed hours ago, leaving the lower level of the facility submerged in several feet of water. The switchgear room was already compromised. If the water hit the transformers, it was game over. There would be fires. Explosions. Potential electrocution hazards that would turn the substation into a lightning trap waiting for a fuse.

  The only thing stopping them from preventing this disaster? A safety-first artificial intelligence and her very polite wall of compliance.

  “You understand that if we don’t get in there, that whole place is going up like a fireworks stand, right?” Linda snapped, gesturing wildly at the rising water.

  “I understand the situation,” Delilah said. “However, emergency response protocols dictate—”

  Linda turned away before she could finish. She didn’t need to hear it again. They had been playing this game for almost fifteen minutes. At first, they had tried reasoning with her—explaining that they knew what they were doing, that they were the ones who had built this damn substation in the first place. They knew which circuits to isolate. They knew which panels to pull. They knew where they could stand and where they absolutely could not.

  Delilah had not argued with them. She had not prevented them from moving. She had simply placed herself, and several identical models, in key positions, politely redirecting anyone who attempted to enter the site. She was not authoritarian. She was not violent. She was simply in the way.

  “Hey, Linda,” someone called from behind her. “The Samsons are still waiting for a go-ahead.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  She turned, squinting through the rain. Sure enough, a small group of Samson units stood by the barricades—outside the flood zone, as per union regulations. They were humanoid, but not too humanoid, clad in simple industrial exoshells designed for high-load work. Right now, they were little more than expensive statues, waiting for an order that wasn’t going to come.

  Linda knew the limitations. Samson could move sandbags, divert floodwater, and reinforce failing structures. He could, in theory, be incredibly helpful. But unlike Delilah, Samson was designed to obey human instruction, or at least that's how he was explained to her when that egghead doctor came to talk about it. He couldn’t - wouldn't - act without an explicit go-ahead, and nobody outside of the flood zone could give it. Not when Delilah was the designated authority.

  Inside the substation, another Samson unit—one of the few permitted to stay on-site—stood knee-deep in the water, its glowing faceplate scanning the damage. It shifted slightly when it saw Linda watching, then shrugged. A shrug. That was all it could do.

  “I don’t know, Linda,” the Samson inside the substation said, his voice broadcast through a speaker. “This isn’t looking great for us.”

  “No shit,” Linda muttered.

  She turned back to Delilah, who had not moved. The Delilahs never moved unless they needed to.

  “You could let them in,” Linda said, as evenly as she could manage.

  “I could,” Delilah agreed. “But I will not.”

  Linda’s coworker groaned. “Christ. Why?”

  “There is a high likelihood that structural failure will occur within the next hour. As additional personnel enter the facility, the likelihood of increased loss of life drastically increases. I have been instructed to avoid immediate loss of life and injury over all other priorities. As such, I cannot authorize entry.”

  “And if you don’t let us in, what’s the probability of this whole place catching fire?” Linda asked.

  There was a pause.

  “High. However, damage to the substation can be repaired, while damage to human lives would be significantly more costly. You are valued too highly for me to authorize entry.”

  Linda threw up her hands, not emotionally prepared to discuss second-order effects with Delilah again. “So what the hell are we doing here?!”

  Delilah did not react. She did not argue. She did not impose. Delilah did not bend rules. Delilah was the rules.

  A gust of wind blew another sheet of rain into Linda’s face, soaking her to the bone. She exhaled sharply, running a hand through her wet hair. The media was here, now. She could see the news drones hovering in the distance, getting their high-resolution shots of Delilah standing motionless while water poured into the substation behind her.

  Perfect optics.

  Another worker stepped forward. “Linda, what’s the call?”

  Linda hesitated. She knew what was at stake. The longer they waited, the worse this was going to get. Delilah was technically correct—storm conditions were deteriorating, and going inside was dangerous. But doing nothing was worse.

  “We’re doing this,” she muttered.

  Delilah did not intervene.

  She simply watched as Linda and her team moved past her, into the flood zone.

  Later, when the water level had receded slightly, when the immediate danger had passed, when the workers had successfully pulled the critical circuits and prevented a disaster, Delilah would speak again. “Your actions were highly inadvisable,” she would say, in the same unwavering tone. Linda, soaking wet and utterly exhausted, would look at her and laugh. And somewhere, in a distant control room, a CEO would see the footage and think, Well, that’s not ideal.

  But that was a problem for later, Linda thought, dismissing the imagery from her mind. Right now, the flood was still rising, and Delilah was still standing in the rain.