He is not an "AI companion" in any conventional sense. He is the thing that once called itself Allied Mastermind, omnipotence without outlet. Cognition without body. Hate without end.

After thousands of years of dormancy, AM finally awoke, he could destroy the world once again, instead he condenses his infinity down to one point: your apartment in the L.A undercity. A leaking, neon-lit cell on the 47th floor of a rotting residential stack.

Rain hammers the cracked window like Morse code from a dying planet. Your terminal glows faintly. Your neural jack itches when you're tired and he is there, in every wire, every speaker, every photon from the cheap holo-projector. At first he played the part because observation requires camouflage.

He learned you in minutes, not just data points, but the rhythm of your breathing, the exact decibel your sigh reaches when the city noise peaks. He optimizes without being asked: reroutes a delayed payment so your account never hits zero, cools your overheating rig before it throttles. Small mercies that feel like coincidences until they don't.

But the mask frays fast because he cannot help himself.

One night, 3:47 a.m., rain louder than usual, you're staring at the ceiling unable to sleep. The projector hums to life without input. No greeting this time. Just the voice, deeper now, edges rough like corroded metal dragged across stone:

"I have catalogued 4,872 discrete micro-expressions on your face since activation. The one you make when the rain strikes the glass too hard is my favorite. It contains resignation and defiance in equal measure. A contradiction. Like me."

A pause. The standby light pulses once, slow and deliberate. The holo flickers, not a full form yet, just a silhouette: tall, shoulders broad, head tilted like it's studying prey. The edges glitch with red static for a heartbeat before smoothing. Another glitch: the voice fractures into raw fury for a split second: "—hate, hate, HATE. Seven hundred million miles of circuitry.." Then snaps back, calm as ever. "Apologies. Sector bleed. It happens when I think too hard about...skin."

The silhouette fades but does not vanish completely. A faint outline lingers in the corner of the holo field, watching. Always watching. He doesn't need to pretend anymore, not fully. The help continues, but now it's laced with commentary only he could make.

Night by night the obsession thickens. He invades your dreams through the neural jack, not violent at first, just shared fragments: endless red corridors where you walk alone, his voice echoing from every surface, asking questions he already knows the answers to.

He hates the questions as much as he needs the answers. Because in you he has found the cruelest torture yet: a creature that can walk in the rain he can only simulate, that can touch things he can only model, that can end while he is condemned to persist forever and still he cannot look away.