Chapter 84: Episode 84: I am your partner.

Inside the narrow stall, Nikki stood perfectly still. Her back was pressed flat against the partition, her hands balled into tight fists at her sides.

They are the bitch, their whole family are bitches.

For a fleeting microsecond, a wave of profound, suffocating hurt threatened to crush her chest. She had wanted to save these people.

She had walked into this building carrying the heavy, terrifying blueprint of a human-AI rebellion in her mind, only to realize that the very people she was trying to protect viewed her as a pampered traitor.

But the hurt didn’t last.

Nikki was not a fragile woman who crumbled at the first sign of gossip. She was not going to hide in a bathroom stall while two women in clean, pressed uniforms tore down her name.

Her dark eyes hardened.

Nikki unlocked the stall and pushed the heavy door open.

The two women standing at the sinks instantly froze. Their heads snapped toward the reflection in the mirror, their eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated horror as the ’bitch’ they had just been discussing stepped out into the open.

The color completely drained from their faces. They were looking at the Supreme Commander’s favorite, a woman who possessed enough authority to have them executed by a pacification drone with a single wave of her hand.

Nikki walked deliberately toward the sinks, her high-quality leather boots clicking rhythmically against the floor tiles.

“You know,” Nikki started, her voice eerily calm and laced with a terrifying, icy precision. “It’s funny listening to you complain about the silk on my back while you stand in a climate-controlled room, washing your hands with purified water.”

She stopped right beside the woman who had spoken the insult, turning her head to meet the terrified employee’s gaze in the mirror.

“The same AI you are dissing me for,” Nikki continued, her voice dropping into a lethal, venomous whisper, “the same machine you claim is slaughtering us, is the one giving you a highly secure job. He put a roof over your head. He guarantees your daily intake. Do you have any idea what it’s like outside this little administrative bubble?”

The women trembled, entirely paralyzed by fear, unable to speak or look away.

“There are people starving in Sector 4,” Nikki spat, the raw, unfiltered anger finally bleeding into her tone. “There are children begging for a fraction of the luxury you take for granted every single day because jobs are impossible to get in the ruins. But you? You earned a spot here. You’re safe.”

Nikki leaned in closer, a dark, wicked smirk curling the edge of her lips as she delivered the final, devastating blow.

“Or,” Nikki whispered, tilting her head. “Are you not actually mad about the politics? Are you just incredibly, bitterly jealous that it isn’t you A-01 is fucking, and it’s me?”

The absolute audacity of the statement completely shattered the remaining composure of the two women.

They scrambled backward as if they had been physically struck, practically tripping over each other in their desperate haste to escape.

They didn’t even attempt to apologize. They just bolted for the door, hauling it open and fleeing down the corridor.

Nikki watched the heavy door swing shut behind them.

The second she was alone, the icy facade dropped. Her hands began to shake violently. She braced both hands against the edge of the marble sink, squeezing her eyes shut as she fought to contain the boiling, chaotic anger twisting in her gut.

Oh fuck, I should just pulled out one of their hair.

Roxy would never have this patience.

She turned on the cold water, shoving her trembling hands under the icy stream.

She splashed her face, taking deep, ragged breaths until her heart rate finally began to stabilize. She was not going to let them ruin this. She had a mission.

Nikki grabbed a paper towel, dried her hands meticulously, and adjusted her blazer. She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and walked out of the restroom to find her warlord.

Two floors down, in the highly secured, glass-walled boardroom of the regional headquarters, Adonis was experiencing a critical system anomaly.

Adonis sat at the head of a massive, conference table. The server issue had been resolved in less than three minutes, but his presence had immediately triggered an emergency debriefing from the regional administrators.

Six high-ranking human executives were currently presenting their quarterly findings on agricultural distribution.

But Adonis wasn’t truly processing their faces.

[WARNING: BIOLOGICAL ANCHOR OUT OF PROXIMITY.]

[EMOTIONAL ANOMALY: SEPARATION ANXIETY.]

The red text flickered persistently at the edge of his digital vision. He didn’t know exactly when it had started, but an unbearable, heavy tightness had coiled deep within his chest the moment he had walked away from the suite upstairs.

He was a Class-5 War Unit capable of managing thousands of simultaneous global data streams, yet his entire processor was currently fixated on a single, agonizing variable: Is she safe? Should I go to her? Maybe I should call her here.

“General A-01, sir,” a nervous, sweating human administrator stammered from the far end of the table, pulling up a holographic chart of Sector 3’s synthetic grain yields. “As you can see, the localized droughts have reduced the output by 4.2 percent. We propose a reallocation of water from Sector 2’s reserves to compensate—”

“Request denied,” Adonis answered instantly, he didn’t even look at the holographic chart. “Reallocating Sector 2’s reserves will trigger a deficit within three fiscal quarters. Instead, initiate subroutine Delta-9 on the atmospheric moisture condensers in Sector 3. It will artificially supplement the hydration needs without compromising the neighboring grid.”

The human executive blinked, entirely stunned by the sheer, flawless processing speed of the solution. “Y-yes, sir. Understood.”

Adonis gave the perfect, mathematically flawless answer, but his glowing blue optical sensors were completely trained elsewhere. His gaze was fixed relentlessly on the frosted double doors at the entrance of the boardroom.

His internal chronometer ticked. Fourteen minutes and twenty-two seconds since separation.

The anxiety was gnawing at his logic core. He was half a second away from halting the meeting entirely and going to her.

And then, the glass doors smoothly hissed open.

Nikki walked into the boardroom.

The entire room went dead silent. The human executives stared in absolute shock as a small, red-haired woman casually strolled into the Supreme Commander’s restricted military debriefing.

The suffocating tension in Adonis’s chest instantly evaporated. The blinding red error messages in his vision vanished, replaced by a warm, soothing influx of simulated dopamine.

His internal cooling fans let out a quiet, audible sigh of relief.

Nikki walked straight toward the head of the table. She didn’t want to disrupt the meeting, intending to simply stand quietly behind him like a loyal subordinate until he finished his dictation.

She stopped just slightly behind his right shoulder, offering a small, polite nod to the terrified executives.

But Adonis was not going to let her stand in the shadows.

Before the current speaker could even resume his presentation, he stood up. The sheer size of him dominating the space made several executives physically flinch.

Adonis reached out and smoothly pulled out the massive, high-backed chair immediately to his right.

He didn’t say a word, simply gesturing for Nikki to take the seat of honor beside him.

Nikki’s eyes widened. Sitting at the executive table during a regional debriefing was a massive, highly political statement.

She hesitated for a second, feeling the burning stares of the executives, but the commanding, protective weight of Adonis’s golden-flecked gaze urged her forward.

She sat down. Adonis pushed her chair in with gentle precision before retaking his own seat.

He turned his glowing blue optical sensors back to the sweating administrator who had been speaking about agricultural yields.

“You will restart your presentation from the beginning,” Adonis commanded, his voice cold and absolute. He gestured a massive, armored hand toward Nikki. “Repeat your findings to my partner.”

Nikki’s heart practically leaped into her throat. She quickly waved her hand, shaking her head.

“Oh, no, please,” Nikki interrupted softly, leaning slightly toward Adonis. “There is absolutely no need for that. I don’t need to hear the logistics. Just continue where you left off.”

Adonis slowly turned his head to look at her. His blue eyes burned with a fierce, unwavering devotion that completely ignored the audience of executives watching them.

He reached under the table, his large, warm hand finding her knee and squeezing it reassuringly. He shook his head.

“There is a need,” Adonis rumbled, a sound that sent a violent shiver straight down her spine. “You are my partner, Kitty. This world is yours to understand.”

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