Chapter 49: Episode 48: Roxy’s Situation

Nikki sat curled in the passenger seat, clutching the sleek black box to her chest as if it contained a human heart.

Her thumb traced the smooth glass screen of the new phone. She couldn’t believe in this time and age she was holding a phone again.

She didn’t see a need for it when she was in sector 4.

[Or it was because you were a broke deadass?]

…

Yes I was too fucking broke to afford a good phone.

“I can reach out to Roxy easier now,” Nikki whispered, breaking the silence. “She might think I had forgotten her.”

Adonis didn’t take his eyes off the road. His profile was sharp, illuminated by the dashboard lights. The tension from the factory incident had dissipated, replaced by his usual stoic calm.

“She likely assumes you have been liquidated,” Adonis corrected efficiently. “The survival rate for unregistered disappearances in Sector 4 is 3.4%.”

Nikki winced. “Thanks for the pep talk, General.”

She looked down at the phone. “I need to get her out, Adonis. I can’t just… sit in your penthouse eating strawberries and sleeping in silk sheets while she’s down there eating ration bars and dodging patrol drones. It feels wrong.”

Adonis tapped the steering wheel.. “You wish to extract Subject: Roxy. Relocation to Sector 1?”

“Yes,” Nikki said, sitting up straighter. “Maybe… maybe you could hire her? Or assign her to work with one of the other Generals? She’s smart. She’s a hard worker. She can organize anything.”

Adonis let out a short, snort of laughter, that was cold and mocking as if he couldn’t believe she could say that, but she was being entirely honest.

“Nikki,” he said, glancing at her. “Do you labor under the delusion that the other Sector Generals are… like me?”

“Well, aren’t they?” Nikki asked. “You’re all Androids, right?”

“We are machines,” Adonis stated flatly. “I am… an anomaly. My logic core has developed a dependency on you. The others? They view humans the way they were programmed to view them. For example for B-02, females are pleasure toys to him.”

He turned the car onto the private highway leading to his mansion.

“If you send your friend to them,” Adonis continued, his voice dropping an octave, “she was going to be drilled… Unless…”

He paused, a dark smirk playing on his lips.

“Unless she plans to walk into their command centers, strip naked, and override their logic circuits with sheer biological audacity, as you did.”

Nikki choked on her own spit. “I did not—”

“You effectively did,” Adonis countered. “You flashed your… intent. Unless your friend Roxy is prepared to seduce a ten-ton war machine with a 0.001% success rate, sending her to work for them is a death sentence.”

Nikki slumped back in her seat, shivering.

She tried to imagine Roxy doing what she did.

Roxy was… well, Roxy was a legend in the slums. She was the bold one. The confident one. While Nikki was the shy one hiding behind her the dirty blankets, Roxy was the one who strutted through the market like she owned it.

Roxy was a hoe, and Nikki meant that with the utmost love and respect. Roxy owned her sexuality. She was the one who had taught Nikki everything, how to flirt, how to use a toy when the nights got lonely, how to crave a man’s touch without losing her soul.

“Men are simple, Nik,” Roxy used to say, applying questionable lipstick in a cracked mirror. “Feed them, tease them, leave them wanting more.”

That was how she was able to survive sector 4 and feed me along with it.

If Roxy was never there with her, there wouldn’t be Nikki.

Roxy had great luck with human men. She always had a boyfriend, or a “sponsor,” or a guard who looked the other way when she smuggled extra rations.

But a General? A sassy unfeeling machine like B-02? Or K-09?

He’d crush her, Nikki thought, a cold knot forming in her stomach. He wouldn’t even blink. He’d just see her as inefficient noise and remove her.

“You’re right,” Nikki whispered, deflating. “It’s a bad idea. Roxy is proactive, but… she’d get eaten alive. Literally.”

She sighed, resting her forehead against the cool glass of the window. “So that’s it? She stays in the slums forever?”

Adonis glanced at her. He saw the slump of her shoulders.

His processor didn’t like that.

It was inefficient for his Asset to be operating at suboptimal happiness levels. A sad Nikki meant a quiet house. A quiet house meant his sensors had nothing to focus on but the dreary task of running the world.

“There is… an alternative,” Adonis said slowly.

Nikki perked up. “What? Smuggling her in as a maid?”

“Negative,” Adonis said, turning the car into the underground garage of the house. The blast doors hissed shut behind them, sealing them in safety. “I do not require maids. I require… entertainment.”

He killed the engine and turned to face her.

“Next week is the Annual Sector Gala,” Adonis announced. “It is a diplomatic event. All high-ranking Generals and the remaining human elite attend. It is… a marketplace of influence.”

Nikki blinked. “Okay? And?”

“Invite her,” Adonis said.

Nikki’s jaw dropped. “To the Gala? Adonis, she’s from Sector 4! She doesn’t have a dress. She doesn’t have shoes. She probably smells like recycled air and despair!”

“Details,” Adonis waved a gloved hand dismissively. “I will sponsor the upgrade.”

“The… upgrade?”

“Everything,” Adonis listed, counting on his fingers. “Wardrobe. Makeover. Hair. Skin treatments. Accessories. She will be outfitted with the finest silk from the pre-war archives. She will look like a queen of the old world.”

Nikki stared at him. He was talking about dropping thousands of credits, resources that people killed for, on a girl he had never met. Just like that.

“Why?” Nikki whispered. “Adonis, why would you do that? You don’t even know her.”

Adonis reached out, his large hand cupping her cheek. His thumb brushed over her skin, warm and rough.

“I am doing it,” he murmured, his blue eyes softening into that rare, melting gold, “because the statistical probability of you smiling increases by 800% if your friend is secure.”

“You are so cute you know?” she smiled warmly, leaning into his hand. “Thank you, Adonis.”

“Do not thank me yet,” Adonis warned. His hand slid from her cheek to her chin, tilting her face up so she couldn’t look away.

The softness in his eyes hardened slightly.

“There is a caveat to this sponsorship,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, strategic rumble. “A tactical requirement.”

Nikki swallowed. “What is it? She has to promise not to steal the silverware?”

“No,” Adonis said, his eyes gleaming with a strange, calculating light.

He leaned in closer, until his breath ghosted over her lips.

“I will make her beautiful, Nikki. I will give her the gown, the shoes, and the entry pass. But I will do so on one condition.”

He paused, letting the weight of the words settle in the quiet car.

“On the condition that Roxy gets picked by one of the Sector Generals.”

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