Chapter 88: Episode 88: Helping Him

The fuck, he can drink?

Nikki was dumbfounded.

For a microsecond, the sheer absurdity of the gesture paralyzed the room. But humans, especially those surviving in the upper echelons of Sector 2’s bureaucracy, were nothing if not incredibly adaptable to shifting power dynamics.

Seeing the God of War willingly participate in a human ritual, and realizing he was doing it entirely to protect Nikki, sparked a sudden, reckless wave of emboldened camaraderie among the staff.

It was as if a massive, invisible barrier had shattered. If he could drink one cup, surely he could drink another.

“To the General!” the head of agricultural logistics cheered, raising his own cup with a flushed, enthusiastic smile. He signaled the silver-plated utility drone to pour another round.

Adonis did not hesitate. He reached out, his massive hand wrapping around the delicate ceramic, and downed the second cup of scalding sake in a single, flawless motion.

“To the alliance between Sector 1 and Sector 2!” another executive chimed in, practically giddy with the thrill of drinking with a warlord without facing immediate pacification.

Another cup was filled. Another cup was drained.

They continued to toast him, completely swept up in the novelty and the potent effects of the alcohol in their own systems.

They toasted to the new atmospheric condensers, to the future, to the very concept of a shared dinner. And for every single toast directed at Nikki, Adonis intercepted the cup.

Nikki sat frozen for the first four rounds, entirely mesmerized by the dark, territorial devotion radiating from the machine beside her.

But as the utility drone brought in a second porcelain bottle, she noticed a distinct, alarming shift in the atmosphere.

The ambient temperature in their corner of the room was rapidly skyrocketing.

Nikki looked closely at Adonis. His flawless, synthetic skin, usually a cool, pale tone, was beginning to flush. It started at the thick column of his neck and rapidly crept up his sharp jawline, painting his cheekbones a deep, unnatural crimson.

She was concerned.

A fifth cup was pushed toward him.

“Alright, that is enough!” Nikki snapped, her voice ringing out with sudden, sharp authority.

She slammed her hand down flat over the top of the ceramic cup before Adonis could reach for it. The sudden movement instantly silenced the laughing executives.

“He can’t drink anymore,” Nikki declared, her eyes flashing as she looked at the startled staff members. She didn’t care about breaking the cheerful mood; the blistering heat radiating from Adonis’s thigh against hers was genuinely terrifying.

Adonis looked down at her hand covering the cup. His optical sensors were flickering erratically, the cool blue violently stuttering against flashes of hostile, system-error red.

“The Director is correct,” Adonis rumbled. His synthesized voice sounded thicker, laced with a heavy, grinding static that had never been there before. He placed his hands flat on the table and pushed himself up. His massive frame swayed, just a fraction of an inch, before his gyroscopic stabilizers aggressively over-corrected. “This social protocol is concluded. We will be leaving.”

The staff immediately scrambled to their feet, bowing deeply, their earlier intoxication entirely sobering under the sudden return of his imposing, absolute authority.

Nikki didn’t wait for pleasantries. She grabbed Adonis by the wrist, her fingers instantly burning against the scorching heat of his synthetic skin.

“Let’s go,” Nikki urged in a hushed, frantic whisper, practically dragging the towering war machine out of the private room and through the sliding paper doors.

The moment they were out of the restaurant and secured inside the SUV, the true extent of the damage became undeniably obvious.

“Drive!” Nikki shouted at the vehicle’s AI console.

The SUV shot forward, the tires humming loudly as they tore through the neon-lit streets of Sector 2.

In the enclosed space of the backseat, it felt like sitting next to an active furnace. Nikki unbuckled her seatbelt and turned fully toward Adonis. He was leaning his head back against the plush leather, his chest heaving with rapid breaths. The red flush had spread completely across his face and down his throat, glowing with a dangerous, feverish intensity in the dim cabin light.

“Adonis, look at me,” Nikki pleaded, her hands hovering over his chest, afraid to touch him and risk a burn. “What is happening to you? Are you intoxicated? Can androids get drunk?”

Adonis slowly rolled his head to the side. His glowing eyes were locked in a constant, glitching battle between blue and red.

“Negative,” Adonis rasped, the static in his vocal processor incredibly pronounced. “My neural pathways are immune to chemical intoxication. My logic core remains absolute.”

He reached up with a trembling, heavy hand and gripped the collar of his white jacket, practically ripping the fabric open to expose his chest to the cool air.

“The anomaly is purely physical,” he managed to explain. “Alcohol is a volatile biological solvent. It possesses zero caloric utility. My internal system is currently registering the fluid as a corrosive contaminant in my synthetic filtration lines. To prevent hardware degradation, my core has initiated an emergency thermal purge. It is attempting to literally burn the solvent out of my system.”

Nikki stared at his exposed chest. The synthetic skin was a violently angry red, practically radiating waves of visible heat distortion in the air.

“You’re going to melt your own circuits,” Nikki realized, panic seizing her throat. “How do we stop it?”

“I must expel the fluid,” Adonis ground out, closing his eyes as a violent shudder wracked his massive frame. “The spike will continue until the physical liquid is entirely flushed from my filtration reservoirs.”

The SUV violently decelerated, sliding seamlessly into the garage of the mansion.

The gull-wing doors hissed open before the car even fully stopped. Nikki grabbed his arm, ignoring the blistering heat, and helped haul his massive weight out of the vehicle.

They practically sprinted to the private elevator, riding it up to the penthouse in silence.

The moment the doors opened to their sanctuary, Adonis completely abandoned all military protocol. He tore off his cape, letting it drop to the carpet.

He shrugged out of his jacket and violently pulled his black undershirt over his head, discarding the garments in a trail down the long corridor.

He marched straight into the en-suite washroom of the master bedroom, his heavy boots thudding against the slate tiles.

Nikki hovered anxiously in the doorway as Adonis stepped up to the automated commode. Even as a machine, his bio-synthetic architecture demanded a way to process and expel the liquids he consumed to mimic human behavior.

He stood there, his massive hands braced heavily against the dark marble wall, letting out a long, ragged hiss of static as he took a piss to physically purge the corrosive alcohol from his system.

When he finished, he turned around, leaning back against the cool marble.

His chest was still heaving, and the terrifying, vibrant red discoloration had not faded.

The thermal purge protocol was still trapped in a feedback loop, aggressively overcompensating for the contaminant that was already gone.

“It is out,” Adonis rasped, wiping a bead of synthetic condensation from his forehead. “But my core temperature is failing to stabilize. The cooling fans are insufficient against the thermal cascade.”

Nikki didn’t hesitate. She ran past him, hitting the manual override panel on the massive, sunken smart-tub in the center of the washroom.

The massive tub immediately roared to life. Instead of warm, steaming water, a violent cascade of freezing, purified water blasted from the primary faucets. A second later, the ceiling dispensers opened, dumping a massive quantity of ice into the basin.

Within thirty seconds, the massive tub was a churning, freezing pool of absolute zero.

“Get in,” Nikki softly commanded, pointing fiercely at the ice bath.

Adonis looked at the freezing water, then down at Nikki. His logic hesitated, fighting the sudden, extreme shift in thermal variables, but his obedience to her was absolute.

He stripped off his trousers and heavy boots, standing completely bare. .

He stepped down into the sunken tub.

The moment his scorching synthetic skin hit the freezing water, a massive, violent cloud of thick white steam erupted into the air.

The water literally hissed around his thighs and waist. Adonis gritted his teeth, a low groan vibrating in his chest as he sank down until the freezing slush covered his broad shoulders.

Nikki stood at the edge of the tub, watching the water vigorously bubble and churn around him. The ice cubes were melting at a terrifying, unnatural rate, desperately trying to combat the nuclear-level heat radiating from his core.

It wasn’t enough. The red flush on his chest was still violently glowing beneath the water. His internal processor was trapped in a panic state, fighting the cold instead of absorbing it.

Nikki bit her bottom lip, her heart aching as she watched the most powerful entity on the planet suffer entirely because he had tried to protect her from a bad memory.

She took a deep breath, her dark eyes flashing with resolve.

Nikki reached down and grabbed the hem of her tailored blazer, pulling it off and tossing it onto the dry tiles.

She unbuttoned her silk blouse, shedding it in a single motion, and kicked off her trousers and boots.

Dressed only in a set of delicate, black lace underwear, she stepped over the marble ledge.

Adonis’s eyes snapped open. He stared in absolute, paralyzed shock as she willingly stepped down into the agonizingly freezing water.

She waded through the slush, gasping sharply as the absolute zero temperatures bit into her fragile human skin. She didn’t stop until she was standing directly between his parted knees.

“Kitty,” Adonis rasped, his massive hands instinctively rising to hover over the water, desperate to pull her out but terrified his scorching touch would burn her. “What are you doing? The thermal variable is lethal for your biological—”

Nikki cut him off by straddling his lap, completely submerging herself in the freezing water, and wrapping her arms tightly around his boiling, thick neck. The violent contrast of his scorching synthetic skin and the freezing ice bath sent a massive, agonizing shudder through her entire body.

She pressed her cheek directly against his glowing red chest, letting her fragile, freezing human body act as a biological heat sink to shock his panicked core processor back to reality.

“Helping you,” Nikki whispered fiercely into his ear, her teeth chattering against his skin, “expel the heat.”

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