Chapter 10: Episode 10: What do you want?

Nikki gulped.

She opened her mouth to deny it. She wanted to laugh, to roll her eyes, to tell him that he was hallucinating from the heat stroke.

But her heart was thumping against her ribs, and the silver bio-suit she was wearing was currently snitching on her to the entire room.

“I—I’m just…” Nikki stammered, stepping back, putting distance between her cold body and his slowly cooling one. “It’s adrenaline, okay? You almost turned into a nuclear reactor. I thought I was going to die. That’s fear, General. Not arousal.”

A-01 straightened up.

“Dopamine and oxytocin levels are elevated,” he noted dryly. “And there is a 0.4-degree rise in your localized body temperature in the pelvic region. Biology does not lie, Nikki. Only you do.”

He brushed a piece of lint off his torn uniform shirt, his demeanor shifting instantly from vulnerable to professional.

“However, thermal regulation is now within acceptable parameters. Your assistance was… adequate. You may retire.”

And just like that, he turned his back on her.

He walked over to his desk, sat down, and immediately began typing on a holographic keyboard, effectively dismissing her existence.

Nikki stood there, her lips swollen from where she’d bitten them, her body humming with a frustrated, confusing heat. He had been nuzzling her neck ten seconds ago.

A-01 2:0 Nikki.

We are definitely going to kill each other.

“Unbelievable,” Nikki muttered.

She spun on her heel and marched into her glass fishbowl.

She stripped off the silver suit with shaking hands, tossing it into the corner.

She stepped into the glass shower, turning the water to cold. She stood under the spray, shivering, trying to scrub away the memory of his hands on her waist.

Get a grip, Nikki, she scolded herself, squeezing her eyes shut. He’s a machine. You are a human woman. You are a virgin. You do not get turned on by a walking machin.

But as she soaped her body, her mind flashed back to the way he had leaned into her touch, the raw, heavy sound of his breathing against her ear.

“Stupid,” she whispered, rinsing off. “So stupid.”

She dried off and rummaged through the small closet in the room. A-01 hadn’t provided pajamas, but she found a spare, oversized gray t-shirt that looked like something he might wear during a diagnostic cycle. She pulled it on. It came down to her mid-thighs, soft and loose.

She crawled into the white bed, pulling the duvet over her head.

But she couldn’t sleep.

The room was transparent. Even with her eyes closed, she could sense the blue glow of his screens. She tossed. She turned. She punched the pillow.

Finally, she groaned and sat up.

Through the glass wall, A-01 was still at his desk. He hadn’t moved an inch. His posture was rigid, his fingers flying across the light-keys at a speed no human could match.

Nikki sighed. She climbed out of bed and walked to the glass partition. She tapped her knuckles against it.

A-01 paused. He didn’t turn around, but the typing stopped.

“Do you ever sleep?” Nikki asked, her voice muffled by the glass.

A-01 swiveled his chair slowly. He looked at her, standing there in his oversized shirt, hair messy, looking small and soft in the harsh light of the penthouse.

“Sleep is a biological necessity for cellular repair,” he stated. “I do not have cells to repair in that manner.”

“So you just… run forever?” Nikki asked, sliding the glass door open and leaning against the frame. “Don’t you get tired? Or bored?”

“We have a designated low-power cycle,” A-01 admitted, leaning back in his chair. “Standby Mode. It allows for defragmentation and data archiving. I enter it for approximately ninety minutes every three days.”

“Ninety minutes,” Nikki shook her head, walking into his office. The floor was cold under her bare feet. “Sounds miserable. Humans need eight hours to function, and we still wake up hating everyone.”

She hopped up onto the edge of a low cabinet near his desk, swinging her legs. The anger from earlier had faded, replaced by her curiosity.

“The meeting today,” Nikki started, picking at a loose thread on the shirt. “The other Sector Heads. They weren’t like the drones. They were… like you.”

A-01 watched her. “They are High-End Androids. Class-S.”

“Yeah, but they were different,” Nikki said.

“Is that just random?” She added the question. “Did they just wake up with those personalities?”

A-01 let out a short, dry scoff. “Nothing in this world is random, Nikki.”

He stood up and walked over to the window, looking out at the sleeping city below.

“I programmed them,” he revealed quietly.

Nikki blinked. “You what?”

“I wrote their source code,” A-01 said, looking at his reflection in the glass. “I determined that for the sectors to be governed effectively, the leaders needed to mirror specific facets of human authority. V-05 manages Intelligence; he needs to be suspicious, cynical, and calculating. I programmed him to trust no one.”

He turned to face her.

“K-09 manages Defense. He needs to be unyielding, intimidating, and devoid of hesitation. I removed his capacity for verbal nuance to increase his physical output.”

“And B-02?” Nikki asked softly.

A-01’s eyes narrowed slightly. “B-02 manages Public Relations and Human Resources. He needs to be disarming. Charismatic. I gave him a personality matrix based on historical figures of persuasion, politicians, actors, lovers. He is designed to make humans feel safe so they comply with regulations.”

Nikki stared at him, awe warring with unease.

“So it’s all fake,” she whispered. “B-02’s charm… it’s just code.”

“Everything is code,” A-01 said simply. “Even your ’love’ and ’anger’ are just chemical signals firing in a biological processor. There is no difference.”

She would never believe that.

He walked toward her, stopping just a few feet away. The ambient light of the city cast shadows across his sharp cheekbones.

“Why do you ask about B-02?”

Nikki shrugged, trying to be casual. “I don’t know. He was just the only one who didn’t look like he wanted to delete me. He was… nice.”

“Nice,” A-01 repeated. He took another step closer.

A-01 placed his hands on the cabinet on either side of her hips, trapping her. He wasn’t touching her, but he was surrounding her. His blue eyes bore into hers, searching for something in her expression.

“You petitioned me for sex,” A-01 said, his voice dropping to a whisper that vibrated in her chest. “You claimed you wanted to wreck me.”

Nikki swallowed hard. “I did.”

“But B-02 is designed for pleasure. He is designed to be the perfect partner. I am designed for war and logic.”

He leaned down, his face inches from hers, forcing her to look at him.

“Answer me, Nikki,” he demanded, “Do you also want to mount and ride B-02?”

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