Chapter 33: Episode 33: A Name?

She choked. The savory chicken broth went down the wrong pipe. She slammed the spoon down on the tray, coughing violently, her eyes watering.

“Nikki!” A-01 was out of his chair fast. His large hand hovered over her back, unsure whether to strike her or scan her.

“Water,” Nikki wheezed, pointing to the glass on the bedside table.

A-01 grabbed it and held it to her lips. Nikki took a huge gulp, the cool liquid soothing the fire in her throat. She took another, and another, until her breathing leveled out.

She pushed the glass away, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She looked at him.

A-01 was crouching by the bed now, his blue eyes wide and searching. He didn’t look like a General. He looked like a child who had just asked why the sky was blue, only to be told it was because the atmosphere was dying.

Nikki pressed her lips into a thin line, her chest tightening.

“That’s a hell of a question to ask over soup, A-01,” she whispered.

“I require data,” A-01 said, his voice dropping to a low rumble. “My analysis of the event with Councilor Vane… the probability of such an attack occurring in a secure facility was 0.04%. Yet, you anticipated it. You recognized the threat before the tactical data confirmed it.”

He leaned closer, his brow furrowed.

“Do you not have information in your system?” Nikki asked, her voice trembling slightly. “About the rape cases? For children? Young ladies? Older females? It’s all there, A-01. In the archives of the old world and the reports of the new one.”

A-01 stiffened. The glowing bar above his head shifted to a deep, bruised PURPLE.

[STATUS: DATA CORRUPTION / GUILT]

“I have the statistics,” A-01 affirmed, looking down at his hands, the same hands that had broken Vane. “I have accessed the crime logs. Millions of terabytes of data regarding sexual violence.”

He looked up at her, his expression stark.

“I apologize,” he said stiffly. “If my inquiry caused you further distress. It was blunt. Inefficient.”

Nikki shook her head slowly, a sad smile touching her lips. She reached out and placed her hand over his. His skin was cool, synthetic, but beneath it, she could feel he cared.

“It doesn’t hurt to talk about it,” she said softly. “Because it’s the truth. Indeed, all female humans… hell, even animals… we always have to go through that. The fear. The looking over our shoulder. The knowing that to some people, we’re just… tools.”

A-01 went very still. His processor seemed to be running a billion simulations a second, and in every single one of them, the outcome was unacceptable.

“Then the environment is flawed,” he stated, his voice turning cold and hard as diamond. “If the variable of ’predation’ is constant, then the system requires a firewall.”

He turned his hand over, gripping hers. His hold was gentle, but there was a terrifying strength behind it.

“I will protect you,” A-01 vowed. It wasn’t a promise; it was a fact. “I will redesign the security parameters of this sector. I will eliminate the variables. No entity will ever touch you again without your express authorization.”

Nikki looked at him. She saw the RED flicker of his combat programming warring with the BLUE of his caretaking protocols. He was a machine built for war, trying to learn how to be a shield.

Her heart swelled with a sudden, overwhelming warmth. It started in her chest and spread to her fingertips, chasing away the cold memory of the assault.

He’s trying so hard, she thought. He’s so grumpy and literal and terrifying, but he’s trying.

She felt a sudden urge to baby him. To take care of the big, scary robot who was currently having an existential crisis about the cruelty of man.

Nikki picked up the spoon. She scooped up a piece of chicken and some broth.

“Open up,” she said.

A-01 blinked, his intense gaze faltering. “Why?”

“Open your mouth,” Nikki repeated, moving the spoon toward his lips. “You made the soup. You should taste it.”

A-01 pulled back slightly, looking at the spoon as if it were a foreign object. “I do not require nutrition, Nikki. I have a bio-matter reactor, but consuming human food for pleasure is illogical. It wastes resources.”

“It’s not a waste if I say so,” Nikki countered, ignoring his logic. “Come on. Say ’ah’.”

“I am a General of the United States,” A-01 grumbled, his HUD bar flickering a soft, embarrassed PINK. “I do not say ’ah’.”

“You do if you want me to stop being sad,” Nikki manipulated shamelessly.

A-01 paused, and then sighed knowing he couldn’t stop her. He sighed.

“Fine,” he muttered. He opened his mouth.

Nikki fed him the spoon of soup.

A-01 closed his lips around the spoon, swallowed, and then sat back with a look of stoic dignity, as if he hadn’t just been hand-fed like a toddler.

“Well?” Nikki asked, grinning.

“Thank you,” A-01 stated flatly.

Nikki laughed. It was a real laugh this time, not a hysterical one. She scooped up another spoonful.

“There is no need for you to do this,” A-01 protested, though he didn’t move away. “You are the one in recovery.”

“Just shut up and take it,” Nikki said affectionately, nudging the spoon against his lips.

A-01 glared at her with zero heat, opened his mouth, and took the second bite.

They sat there in the quiet luxury of the new bedroom. The most powerful being on the planet and the girl from the slums.

One could feel everything, and the other claimed to feel nothing, yet in the soft light of the lamp, the line between them blurred.

Nikki watched him swallow. She looked at his sharp jawline, his black hair falling over his forehead, and the blue light in his eyes that softened every time he looked at her.

He wiped a drop of broth from his lip with his thumb.

“I must return to the command center,” A-01 said, standing up. “I have to restructure the Council’s security detail to ensure Vane’s replacement is… less biological.”

He adjusted his cuffs, back to being the General. But he lingered. He didn’t walk out the door immediately.

Nikki set the tray aside.

“A-01,” she said softly.

He turned back. “Yes?”

“I’ve been thinking,” Nikki said, tilting her head. “Calling you ’A-01’… it feels wrong.”

A-01 stiffened. “It is my designation. Unit Alpha-Zero-One. It is efficient.”

She shifted on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest. The [Heart Protocol] showed his status as [CURIOSITY / HESITATION].

“What if I give you a name, A-01?” she asked.

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