Chapter 92: Episode 92: Invite B-02 Over.

“That is a brilliant idea,” Nikki breathed into the empty room, her eyes wide as she stared at the text hovering before her.

[SECURING TWO CLASS-5 WAR UNITS (A-01, K-09) PROVIDES A 64% ADVANTAGE IN PREVENTING GLOBAL EXTINCTION. HOWEVER, TO ACHIEVE A BALANCED WORKSPACE, HOST MUST ESTABLISH A HUMAN FOUNDATION.]

[RECOMMENDATION: INFILTRATE THE SECTOR 2 ADMINISTRATIVE HEADQUARTERS. BUILD STRONG, ALLIED RELATIONSHIPS WITH HIGH-RANKING HUMAN EXECUTIVES.]

Nikki nodded slowly, tapping the cap of her dry-erase marker against her chin. The System was absolutely right. Adonis was already connected to her, entirely compromised by his newly developed emotional matrix.

K-09 was currently being thoroughly distracted and ’scientifically experimented’ on by Roxy. If she could find a human partner for B-02, she would have three of the most powerful machines on Earth effectively domesticated by human love.

But machines weren’t enough. If she wanted true equality, she needed human allies. She needed the executives she had met yesterday to see her as a leader they could trust.

That would inevitably lead her to success.

“Okay,” Nikki muttered, turning back to the massive rolling whiteboard. “I need to win over the staff. The dinner was a good start, but I need them to rely on me.”

She uncapped a black marker and began aggressively drawing lines connecting her stick figure to the human faction. She drafted a rough, chaotic flowchart of how to bypass Adonis’s lethal overprotectiveness to sneak human-friendly policies into the global grid.

Next, she drew a massive question mark beside General B-02’s stick figure, tapping the board repeatedly as she tried to brainstorm which human female in her limited social circle possessed enough sheer audacity to handle the mischievous and always horny B-02?

She was so deeply submerged in her tactical plotting, aggressively nodding along to the heavy bass of the Old World pop song blasting from her phone, that she completely missed the fact that Adonis could get home anytime soon.

Suddenly, the pop music cut out.

[CRITICAL ALERT!]

[A-01 HAS ENTERED THE PERIMETER.]

[FIFTY METERS AND CLOSING RAPIDLY.]

“Oh, shit!” Nikki shrieked, her heart leaping straight into her throat.

She fumbled the dry-erase marker, dropping it onto the hardwood floor. She scrambled frantically, grabbing the microfiber eraser and practically throwing herself against the whiteboard. She wiped the board with wild, desperate, sweeping motions, smearing the carefully drawn stick figures of the Android Generals and her secret rebellion into a chaotic, unreadable mess of black, green, and pink ink.

She didn’t have time to clean it perfectly. She grabbed the edges of the heavy rolling board and violently spun it around so the blank side faced the door, shoving it into the corner of the room just as the heavy footsteps echoed in the corridor.

Nikki sprinted back to the center of the room, snatched a blank canvas from the desk, slapped it onto the easel, and grabbed a random fistful of unused paintbrushes.

She struck a pose, trying to look incredibly inspired and totally innocent, completely ignoring the fact that she was wearing nothing but an oversized grey sweater and hadn’t opened a single tube of paint.

The door hissed open.

Adonis was wearing only his form-fitting black undershirt, his broad shoulders practically brushing the doorframe. The sharp scent of rain rolled off him in waves.

This time it was more prominent than before.

He stopped instantly, his eyes sweeping the bright studio. His advanced processor cataloged everything in a microsecond: the smeared ink on her hands, the reversed whiteboard in the corner, the blank canvas, and the erratic, thumping rhythm of her heart perfectly audible to his audio receptors.

Adonis’s flawless brow furrowed.

“Why are your biometric responses mimicking a panic state?” Adonis asked, his voice a low, suspicious rumble that echoed off the high ceilings. He narrowed his eyes, tracking the slight, nervous twitch of her hands. “What is the matter, Kitty? You are behaving weird.”

Nikki’s brain scrambled for an excuse. She couldn’t tell him she was drafting a human-AI alliance to overthrow his absolute dictatorship.

She immediately dropped the dry paintbrushes onto the glass desk and deployed her most effective, newly discovered weapon: her absolute hold over his logic circuits.

Nikki let out a soft, highly exaggerated sigh, her shoulders slumping as she walked slowly toward him. She looked up through her lashes, letting her dark eyes soften into a pool of pure, vulnerable affection.

“I was just… missing you,” Nikki murmured, stopping right in front of him. She reached out, her small hands resting flat against his chest, feeling the steady, powerful thrum of his core. “I woke up and the bed was empty. Where have you been all day?”

It worked flawlessly, as Adonis shuddered.

Adonis’s blue eyes instantly melted into a warm, possessive gold. The [Care Protocol] violently overwrote his interrogation subroutines. He let out a sigh, his massive arms coming down to wrap securely around her waist, pulling her flush against his hips.

Nikki winced slightly, a soft, involuntary whimper escaping her lips as the movement pulled at her incredibly sore core muscles, a direct result of their marathon session earlier that morning.

Adonis immediately loosened his grip, his expression shifting to absolute, protective contrition. He gently rubbed the small of her back.

“I apologize for my absence,” Adonis rumbled softly, kissing the top of her head. “And for the physical toll my system demanded. I was required in Sector 3.”

Nikki rested her cheek against his chest, her guilt at lying to him momentarily warring with her genuine curiosity. “Sector 3? Why? What happened?”

“No,” Adonis replied. “There was a murder.”

Nikki froze. She tilted her head back, staring up at him in pure shock.

“A murder?” Nikki’s voice drops to a horrified whisper. “In the lower sectors? I thought the pacification drones stopped violent crime before it could happen. Why was the person killed?”

Adonis’s jaw tightened. “Initial data suggested a dispute over a crate of synthetic water purifiers at a rationing center. A human severed another human’s carotid artery. It appeared to be a localized resource conflict.”

Nikki shuddered. She remembered the desperate, rabid fights over batteries in Sector 4. She knew exactly how ugly humanity could get when pushed to the brink of starvation. “That’s awful.”

“It is worse than a simple resource dispute,” Adonis corrected, his optical sensors darkening to a dangerous navy blue. “General K-09 executed a deep digital scan of the crime scene. The murderer did not just flee; they utilized a highly advanced algorithmic wipe to completely scrub their biometric footprint from the sector’s grid. A human from the slums does not possess the technological capability to blind my surveillance network.”

Nikki’s breath caught in her throat. “What does that mean?”

“It means it was not an isolated incident of greed,” Adonis stated in certainty. “K-09 cross-referenced the unique digital signature of the scrubbed data. He found identical, previously unconnected voids in the surveillance grids of Sectors 2, 4, and 5 over the past three months.”

Adonis looked down at her, as he finished what he was saying. “It is a serial killer case. There is a highly organized entity, or a faction, systematically targeting specific biological units across the globe and utilizing advanced AI tech to cover their tracks.”

Nikki stood paralyzed, a cold, heavy dread pooling in her stomach. A serial killer? Someone out there was hunting humans and successfully hiding from the Android Generals? The world outside was still so incredibly, terrifyingly dangerous. She had been sitting in a sunlit room, drawing stick figures on a whiteboard, while actual monsters were slitting throats in the rain.

She slumped against Adonis, brooding, her mind reeling from the horrific revelation.

Sensing her sudden spike in despair, Adonis tightened his arms around her, careful not to aggravate her sore muscles, and pressed a firm, heavy kiss to her forehead.

He seemed to love doing that, Nikki had noticed.

“Do not fear this,” Adonis commanded softly, his voice a fierce, vibrating oath of absolute protection. “I am sorting it out. K-09 is already hunting the anomaly. You are under my absolute protection, Kitty. No threat will ever breach my mansion. I will dismantle the world before I let anyone touch you.”

In his arms, she was the safest biological unit on the planet.

And as that undeniable safety washed over her, Nikki’s paralyzing dread slowly began to recede. The serial killer was a massive threat, yes, but Adonis and K-09 were apex predators. They would handle the violence.

She trusted them.

But Nikki still had a world to save from the inside out.

What if you find B-02 a partner?

If there was an organized, tech-savvy faction murdering humans out there, she needed her human-AI alliance finalized faster than ever. She needed all the Generals compromised and brought to the table before the fragile peace of the globe completely ruins every of her progress.

Nikki suddenly pulled back from his chest. She clapped her hands together with a loud, cheerful smack.

“Adonis!” Nikki declared, a wicked, brilliant smile spreading across her lips. “Let’s invite General B-02 over!”

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