Rain hammered East London like it had a personal grudge. Tom Harper pedaled his rickety bike through the downpour, the back wheel wobbling like it might bolt at any second. His yellow delivery jacket clung to him, soaked through, and the plastic box strapped behind him smelled of soggy fries and despair. Another late-night shift, another measly paycheck—if he could even call it that after the rent ate most of it.

"Bloody weather," he muttered, wiping water from his eyes. The streetlights flickered, casting long shadows over the cracked pavement. He was supposed to drop off this burger ten minutes ago, but the customer's flat was buried in a maze of alleys even Google Maps couldn't crack. Typical.

Tom slowed near a dumpster, fishing his phone from his pocket. It was a third-hand piece of junk—screen spiderwebbed with cracks, battery stuck at a stubborn 17%—but it was all he had. He swiped to the app he'd been fiddling with lately: Grok 3, some AI writing tool he'd stumbled across on a sketchy forum. Supposed to be good for brainstorming, or so the weirdos online claimed. He wasn't much for writing, but he figured he could use it to kill time between deliveries.