Evan Wood sprinted across the quad, the April rain smacking his face in sharp, cold needles. Streetlamps turned each drop into silver wire, and for an instant the whole campus looked caught in a glittering net. He ducked his head, shielding a cracked leather folder beneath his jacket, but soggy lecture notes still flapped against his ribs like panicked birds. Tonight's storm had rolled in without warning, canceling astronomy club on the observatory roof and drowning whatever hope he'd had of reviewing tomorrow's proof homework in peace. Every step splashed, every breath drew damp air that smelled of wet mulch, exhaust, and blooming magnolia.
At the far edge of the quad, a convenience mart kept its neon sign lit even at two in the morning. The W flickered, threatening to flicker out entirely, so the place read "Welcome Mart—Open 24 Hrs" one second and "elco e Mar " the next. Evan darted for the door as thunder rumbled nearer, thinking only of shelter and caffeine. A final puddle swallowed his sneaker to the ankle. Cold water flooded through the mesh, and he muttered a curse that fogged the glass as he yanked the handle.
Warm air and fluorescent light hit him in the same instant. Somewhere, a floor buffer left a faint lemon scent behind yesterday's wax job. Shelves stacked with instant noodles, chips, and energy drinks stood at attention. The lone cashier—an art-history major Evan vaguely recognized from elective seminars—looked up from a phone and raised an eyebrow as rainwater pattered onto the sticky mat by the door. Evan offered a sheepish wave of apology and pushed damp hair from his forehead.
He headed straight for the back wall where the coffee station waited, but halfway there a sharp wail cut through the cooler's quiet hum. It wasn't an alarm or a kettle whistle; it was the unmistakable cry of a baby—thin, high, urgent. Instinct made Evan stop short. Babies registered somewhere deep in his mind as an abstract part of the population data he studied in econometrics: variables, sample sizes, future consumers. Hearing one in a nearly deserted mart at two a.m. felt surreal.
Following the sound, he peered down the aisle with powdered formula and toddler snacks. A young woman in a washed-out green hoodie stood near the bottom shelf, bouncing a tiny bundle against her shoulder. Her free hand reached upward, fingertips just shy of the formula cans perched a rung too high. The baby's cry hiccuped against the fabric, then restarted with desperation. The woman's hood half-obscured her face, but exhaustion showed in the slump of her shoulders.
Evan hesitated, feeling the familiar social dread of intruding, yet something urgent—human, not logical—propelled him. He stepped closer, cleared his throat softly so he wouldn't startle her, and glanced toward the top shelf.
"Need a hand?" he asked. The words came out gentler than anything he'd said all day, maybe all semester.
She turned, relief and embarrassment sliding across her features in quick succession. Up close he saw dark circles under wide hazel eyes and rainwater beading on loose strands of hair that had escaped a messy knot. The baby—bundled in a faded yellow blanket trimmed with tiny stars—let out another protest, fists flailing from hidden sleeves.
"I can't reach the cheapest tin," she admitted, voice thin but steady. "Could you—"
"Sure." Evan stretched up. His height, a nuisance in low dorm doorways, finally served a purpose. He plucked the generic-brand formula and handed it down. She balanced the baby in the crook of her arm long enough to unzip a small coin purse. A single, crumpled bill and a handful of change clinked against the metal shelf before she shoved them deeper inside.
"Thank you," she breathed.
"No problem." He took in the way the baby's whimper calmed the moment the tin arrived, the practiced movement of her fingers opening the seal despite a visible tremor. Rain drummed louder on the roof, as if hurrying them along. Evan lingered instead of returning to his coffee mission.
She filled a disposable bottle with water from a plastic jug, eyeing the measurement lines twice before adding formula. The baby quieted to soft snuffles, sensing relief on the way. When she capped the bottle and shook it, her hand shook too.
"Long night?" he found himself asking.
"Long life," she replied, then managed a weary half-smile. It was the kind of answer that invited no follow-up, but curiosity sparked anyway.
He didn't push. Instead he took two steps toward the fridge, grabbed a bottled coffee, then pivoted back while she tested the formula's temperature on her wrist. Overhead bulbs flickered, and an old radio behind the counter whispered static-laced pop ballads. In the odd quiet between songs, the baby's tiny slurps sounded huge.
"I'm Evan," he offered, thumb jerking toward himself.
"Mira."
"Nice to meet you, Mira." He realized how inadequate the phrase sounded here, like greeting someone on a sunny quad instead of a midnight grocery aisle. He tried another tack. "Your little one's adorable."
Mira's tired eyes brightened at that. "This is Nora."
A beat of silence held, almost intimate. Then thunder cracked so close the floor vibrated. Both adults flinched; the baby startled but, mercifully, did not resume crying. A lull. Evan swallowed. "Looks like the storm's not letting up soon," he said. "Where are you headed?"
"Just off campus. It's a quick walk." The statement carried the brittle confidence of someone hoping the universe wouldn't test her.
Evan knew the side streets off campus: cheap student rentals, three a.m. bars, a few rundown apartments. In weather like this, even a quick walk was miserable. He pictured the baby, two months old at most, breathing damp air and cold wind. The mental image struck harder than he expected.
He lifted his bottled coffee like a peace offering. "I have a giant umbrella back by the door. It's one of those university giveaways—big enough for two, maybe three if we squeeze."
Mira hesitated, eyes flicking to Nora, then to the storm outside. Trust balanced against caution in that single look. Finally she nodded. "I'd appreciate it."
They paid at the counter—Evan with his coffee, Mira with the formula tin and a snack-size pack of diapers. The cashier rang them up without comment, but his gaze lingered on the baby with unexpected softness. Outside, rain cascaded from the roof's edge in relentless sheets.
Evan unfurled the bright-blue umbrella, college logo in bold letters across nylon panels. Wind tried to wrench it free, but he braced, letting Mira edge beneath first. The baby's blanket shifted, revealing a tuft of dark hair and impossibly tiny eyebrows knotted in confusion.
They set off. Water rushed down gutters; streetlights blurred in watery halos. Campus buildings loomed like dark hulls of ancient ships. Under the umbrella, their shoulders bumped twice before settling into a rhythm. Evan angled the canopy to cover Nora as much as possible, earning a grateful glance from Mira.
"First year?" he asked, meaning school.
She shook her head quickly. "Was. Had to pause everything when… you know." She shrugged, and rain droplets fell from her hood.
Evan nodded, unsure how to respond without prying. He shifted to safer ground. "What were you studying?"
"Communications." She said it softly, almost apologetically. "I liked telling stories."
"Sounds useful. I bounce between applied math and electrical engineering, so my stories are mostly datapoints." He tried a smile; she huffed a tiny laugh.
They reached the end of campus, where student housing gave way to older residential blocks. Streetlights grew fewer, sidewalks rougher. A flickering neon sign advertised twenty-four-hour laundromat; next door, an empty storefront displayed travel agency posters sun-faded beyond recognition.
Mira slowed in front of an apartment building with flaking paint and a buzzing porch light. Four letters—River Loft—hung crooked above the door. She turned to Evan. "This is us."
He offered the umbrella. "Keep it. Forecast says storms all week."
"But you'll get soaked heading back."
"I'm already soaked." He shrugged, aiming for casual. The truth: returning wet felt trivial compared to leaving her and Nora exposed.
She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it, gratitude dimpling her cheeks. "Thank you, Evan."
The baby shifted, eyes fluttering open. Hazel irises, wide and unfocused, met his. For a brief, startling heartbeat, Evan saw his own eyes in hers: same flecks of gold near the pupil, same odd green undertone. A jolt shot through him, physical and electric. He couldn't explain it—genes didn't leap into recognition like that. He blinked, chalking the illusion to neon glare, rain, and exhaustion.
Before he could dwell, the air changed. A translucent rectangle of blue light—no bigger than a postcard—hovered beside Mira's shoulder. Words glowed across it in crisp white font:
[Super Dad System initializing… Scanning parental bond… Match found: Evan Wood]
Evan's heart lurched. He darted a glance at Mira. She stared back confused but calm, clearly seeing nothing unusual. The rectangle belonged to him alone. His stomach somersaulted.
The text dissolved, replaced by a new line:
[Condition met: First Visual Contact with Offspring. System activation confirmed.]
A soft chime—like the gentlest phone notification—sounded inside his skull rather than his ears. He tried to step back, half expecting the world to tilt. It stayed stubbornly upright, rain freezing time in shimmering strands all around.
"Everything okay?" Mira asked, shifting Nora's weight.
"Y-yeah. Just lightheaded." Not a total lie.
Blue light flickered again.
[Welcome, Evan. Tutorial available at your convenience.]
His pulse hammered. Offspring? The moment the word registered, memory shards fired: a semester-start mixer five months earlier, cheap punch, sweaty dance floor, a girl in a green hoodie laughing at his attempt to quote Huxley. He had left before sunrise, scribbled phone digits on a napkin he later realized were missing one number. He'd tried to reconstruct, failed, decided she must have tossed his number anyway. Shame had faded under exams and projects—until now, standing beneath shared nylon in the rain, staring at evidence that his one reckless night had led to a living, breathing child.
Nora cooed, oblivious. The system's blue glow faded to transparency, hovering like a half-remembered dream. Evan's mind thrummed with equations, probabilities, moral imperatives.
Mira shifted again, mistaking his silence for awkward goodbye. "Seriously, thank you for tonight," she said. "Good luck with—whatever you were hurrying to."
He opened his mouth. No words arrived. Confession in a dark hallway felt wrong; understanding thundered that she had survived without him for months. But he couldn't walk away now that knowledge smoldered inside him.
Lightning cracked overhead, briefly illuminating all three of them bright as day. Mira flinched; the baby startled, then settled. Evan inhaled, tasting rain, anxiety, and something fierce—resolve maybe, or instinct.
He cleared his throat. "Mira, could we talk tomorrow? I mean, can I check in, bring—uh—another umbrella? Or anything you need?"
She studied him. Whatever she saw must have convinced her, because she nodded. "Apartment 12-B. Buzz 'M. Ainsley.' Cheap intercom, so give it a good smack if it fails."
He memorized the code, feeling the night pivot around that small permission. "Okay. Tomorrow." He stepped back into the downpour, door clicking behind her. The neon porch light sputtered, carving shadows over peeling paint.
As he turned toward campus, the Super Dad System reappeared, its glow diffused through sheets of rain:
[Daily Quest generated: Provide a clean, warm blanket for your child before nightfall tomorrow. Reward: +100 SP, +1 Vitality.]
Raindrops slid across the virtual panel but didn't break it. Evan swallowed. Quest. Reward. Vitality. The language felt ripped from a mobile game, yet adrenaline convinced him this was real. Questions spiraled: Why him? Why now? What counted as completion? How did sincerity measure?
The system shrank to a blinking icon in his periphery, waiting like a patient tutor. He clutched the coffee bottle—now lukewarm—and set off into the storm.
Lightning flashed again, turning puddles into mirrors. In each reflection he glimpsed a man who had left the library thinking only of grades and deadlines, and returned with a responsibility big enough to reorder galaxies. The quad stretched ahead, wild with wind-driven rain, but for the first time all semester he felt a direction clearer than any map: the path back to 12-B, to a child's blanket quest, to a conversation that could not be avoided.
Thunder boomed overhead. The system pinged once more, almost cheerful.
[Tutorial Tip: Sincere care unlocks greater rewards. Insincere actions revoke points.]
Evan laughed—a short, breathless sound whipped away by wind. Sincerity wouldn't be the problem. Time, money, answers to questions he'd never asked—that would be the real trial. But first he needed a blanket, and maybe a miracle or two.
Rainwater streamed off his jacket as he angled the umbrella forward and plunged back across the quad. Behind him, River Loft's flickering porch light burned against the storm like a small, defiant star.
And somewhere above the clouds where thunder could not reach, a brand-new system watched, waited, and kept score.