Chapter 85: Episode 85: Smart Nikki

Nikki sat completely dumbfounded, the heavy obsidian chair suddenly feeling like a throne she hadn’t earned.

Her eyes darted from the towering, unyielding God of War beside her to the terrified human executives seated around the massive conference table.

No one dared to breathe.

The absolute authority in Adonis’s voice left zero room for misinterpretation.

Adonis’s glowing blue eyes slowly swept across the frozen room. He gestured toward a female executive standing near the holographic projector, completely dismissing the sweating man who had been speaking previously.

“You,” Adonis commanded smoothly. “Project the structural logistics for Sector 4’s energy consumption. Speak clearly.”

The female executive jumped, nearly dropping her digital data-pad. She scrambled to the center of the room, tapping frantically on the console. A massive, glowing blue blueprint of Sector 4 materialized in the air above the table.

“Y-yes, General A-01,” the woman stammered, her eyes darting nervously toward Nikki before focusing back on the hologram. “Our algorithms have detected a critical energy deficit in the residential grids of Sector 4. To optimize the power supply and prevent a total blackout, we propose instituting a rolling blackout. We will cut power to the lower residential blocks between the hours of 0200 and 0500.”

Nikki focused intensely as she stared at the blue map. She knew those blocks. She had lived in those blocks. Between two and five in the morning, the atmospheric temperature in Sector 4 regularly plummeted below freezing due to the artificial smog blocking the sun during the day.

Without thinking about the political ramifications, or the fact that she was surrounded by elite executives.

“You can’t do that,” Nikki blurted out, leaning forward and planting her hands flat on the obsidian table.

The entire boardroom visibly flinched. Interrupting an official debriefing approved by the Android General was a direct violation of protocol. The female executive went completely pale, looking at Adonis in sheer panic.

But Adonis did not silence her. He simply turned his head, his blue eyes focusing entirely on Nikki, waiting for her input.

“If you cut the power between two and five in the morning,” Nikki explained, her voice rising with desperate conviction, “the residential thermal heaters will completely fail. The insulation in those buildings is rusted out from the Fall. People will freeze in their sleep. It will cause a massive spike in mortality rates.”

She looked up at the map, pointing a finger toward a cluster of massive, automated factories on the edge of the sector. “Why not reroute the deficit from the drone manufacturing plants? The machines running the assembly lines don’t need thermal heating to operate. Cut the heat there, and funnel that energy back to the residential grids.”

The female executive looked absolutely scandalized by the suggestion. “Director, we cannot compromise the manufacturing quota. The efficiency algorithms dictate—”

“Quiet,” Adonis rumbled.

The room instantly fell silent. Adonis’s internal processor whirred loudly. For three seconds, his optical sensors flickered rapidly as he ran thousands of simulated scenarios based on Nikki’s suggestion.

He cross-referenced the requirements of Sector 4 against the automated assembly line functionality.

“Your hypothesis contains a logical variable the human executives failed to prioritize,” Adonis stated, his voice echoing with clinical precision. “Biological units cannot survive a sub-zero thermal drop without artificial heating. Drones can.”

He looked at the female executive, his expression turning terrifyingly cold. “Implementing your original proposal would have resulted in an estimated 14.6% increase in biological termination. That is an unacceptable failure of your management.”

The woman practically shrank into the floor, trembling.

Adonis turned back to Nikki, the blue in his eyes warming instantly. “Your input is correct, Kitty. However, removing the thermal heating from the manufacturing plants will cause the industrial lubricants to stiffen, resulting in a 1.2% drop in drone production efficiency.”

Nikki bit her lip. “Is that… bad?”

“It is an acceptable variance,” Adonis answered smoothly, reaching out to gently trace the knuckle of her hand resting on the table. He looked back at the executives. “Reroute approved. Implement the Director’s strategy immediately.”

For the next hour, the dynamic completely shifted. It became a bizarre, unprecedented dance between human empathy and machine logic.

The executives presented their cold, calculated logistics, Nikki offered her raw, human opinions based on actual survival experience, and Adonis functioned as the ultimate filter.

If her input was flawed, he gently corrected her. If her input was correct, he overwrote the executives’ plans and implemented her ideas on the spot.

She wasn’t just sitting there. She was actively shaping the world.

As the fourth presentation dragged on regarding crop rotation, the adrenaline that had been keeping Nikki upright finally began to crash.

Nikki leaned back in the chair, arching her spine in a long, slow stretch. She covered her mouth with the back of her hand as a small, delicate yawn escaped her lips.

Adonis stopped mid-sentence.

Then stood up abruptly. The heavy scrape of his chair echoing loudly in the quiet room.

“This concludes the debriefing,” Adonis announced.

The human speaker froze, his mouth hanging open. “But, General… we haven’t covered the water filtration logistics for—”

“The debriefing is concluded,” Adonis repeated, his voice dropping into a lethal, finalized register. He didn’t care if the entire water grid of Sector 2 collapsed. His Kitty was tired.

Adonis stepped around the table, his massive hand securely wrapping around Nikki’s wrist to pull her gently to her feet.

“Come,” he murmured to her, entirely ignoring the baffled executives. “We are going to my private office.”

As she stood up, the grogginess faded just enough for Nikki’s tactical mind to kick back in. This was the perfect moment. The meeting was over, the executives were lingering, and she had just proven that she held absolute sway over the God of War.

If she wanted to build a network of allies for her balanced workspace, she needed to socialize. She needed to shake hands.

Nikki offered a warm, professional smile to the room.

“Thank you all for your hard work,” Nikki said kindly, deliberately projecting the image of a merciful leader.

Several of the younger male executives, realizing that gaining the favor of the Director of Human Relations was the easiest way to bypass the terrifying AI General, immediately began to move toward her.

“Director Nikki, it is an absolute honor,” a handsome, slickly dressed executive said, taking a bold step forward and reaching out his hand to shake hers. “Perhaps we could discuss the Sector 3 logistics over a—”

The man never finished his sentence.

He snatched Nikki’s hand away before the executive could even brush her fingertips, his grip tightening possessively around her waist.

The approaching males physically stumbled backward, their faces draining of color as they stared down the barrel of an extinction-level threat.

Adonis didn’t say a word to them. He simply turned, hauling a bewildered Nikki completely off the ground and marching her straight through the adjoining double doors into his private executive office..

The heavy doors slammed shut, automatically engaging the digital locks.

Before Nikki could even ask what had just happened, Adonis spun her around. He backed her up until her spine hit the edge of the heavy mahogany desk.

His massive hands framed her face, his thumbs pressing firmly against her cheekbones.

He didn’t want her socializing. He didn’t want human males looking at her, talking to her, or breathing the same purified air as her.

His newly developed emotional matrix was completely overwhelmed by a vicious, suffocating jealousy that his logic circuits couldn’t control.

“You are mine,” Adonis ground out, his voice a dark, vibrating rasp.

Nikki’s eyes widened and before she could retort or even calculate the sheer change in him.

He crushed his lips against hers.

His tongue swept past her lips to taste her, thoroughly reminding her exactly who she belonged to. Nikki gasped against his mouth, her hands instinctively flying up to grip the lapels of his white uniform.

She melted against the desk, entirely consumed by the desperate, heavy rhythm of his mouth..

The electronic lock on the office door suddenly beeped.

The heavy door swung open.

Adonis broke the kiss in a fraction of a microsecond, his combat reflexes instantly snapping him around to shield Nikki’s flushed, thoroughly kissed body from whoever had just breached his secure zone.

A human figure stepped into the office, holding a stack of papers.

The human froze dead in his tracks. His eyes widened in absolute horror as he took in the sight of the Supreme Commander of Earth practically devouring his Director of Human Relations over the executive desk.

The papers clattered noisily to the floor. The human violently spun around, facing the hallway, his face burning a bright, terrified red.

“I am sorry for not signaling you before I came in,”

A/N: Another 10 more will be posted soon :3

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