The machine closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was staring directly at his own reflection in a flawless, hyper-luxurious mirror. The executive restroom was constructed entirely of polished gold, meticulously engraved with winding dragon motifs. The android, occupying the visage of a pale woman enveloped in a striking crimson evening gown, studied the hollow reflection.
The heavy door clicked open behind him. In the glass, the reflection of a woman dressed in an elegant qipao emerged, conversing with a red-haired man as she stepped through.
"I have to take the flight to Seoul. Take care of yourself, Auntie," the man said.
"You too, handsome," Feng replied smoothly, waving him off before stepping up to grip Rose's shoulders firmly.
"The next phase of the protocol is your formal presentation to Father, Rose," Feng stated, prepping the machine for the impending sequence.
"You have withheld this classified data from me for a significant duration," the machine remarked, his face an unreadable mask.
"Imagine a one-year-old infant," Feng began, pulling out a tube of deep crimson lipstick. "Their cognitive development operates at an accelerated rate, far outstripping their emotional processing. If you had to break the truth to that child that they are an orphan... at what age would you choose to tell them?" She carefully painted Rose's rigid, plastic lips into the shade of a bloody rose.
"But by suppressing the data, if the asset discovers the variable on their own before the designated disclosure... wouldn't the repressed emotional volatility detonate all at once, analogous to a volcanic eruption?" Rose countered.
Feng paused, a bitter smile crossing her lips. "You remind me so much of Eve in the early days. Cold, clinical, completely dismantling targets with psychological warfare. Anyone who spends too much time talking to that woman ends up losing their goddamn mind. No matter how beautiful she is, the syndicate is terrified of her. The secrets she buries run deeper than an iceberg, and you don't earn the alias 'King Cobra' by accident. Let me give you one piece of advice, Rose. Never—"
Before Feng could finish her warning, the double doors swung open. In the mirror, Eve's reflection materialized, her lips curled into a sweet, deceptive smile.
"It's time, girls. Rose~ Father is waiting to meet you, darling."
Turning on his heel, the machine exited the restroom alone, with Eve and Feng flanking him on either side as they stepped into the grand corridor.
"Keep smiling, Rose. Keep smiling," Eve whispered.
Rose complied, forcing his lips to part. His emotionless eyes widened in an unnatural, deeply unsettling mimicry of human joy. The corporate dignitaries and executives lining the hallway flinched, visibly unnerved by the terrifying, neon-green glare of his smile rather than comforted by it.
The crimson carpet guided Rose through a set of massive, gilded double doors into a sprawling executive boardroom. A phalanx of bodyguards in black suits, crisp white shirts, and advanced optic visors stood in immaculate, rigid formation before a portly man. His shaved, bald head mirrored the golden luminescence of the ceiling chandeliers. He stood facing the floor-to-ceiling glass, admiring the breathtaking neon grid of the metropolis below.
"Chongqing... It truly is an abundant, magnificent city, isn't it, Rose?" the large man mused, his black shirt contrasting sharply against his white blazer as he turned to face the machine with an incredibly warm, welcoming expression. "But first~ I require a demonstration of your operational enhancement."
The moment the command left his lips, four massive bodyguards closed in on Rose. Detecting an imminent threat matrix, the machine raised both hands above his head, violently deploying ten razor-sharp titanium talons from his fingertips.
Rose lunged at the first assailant, his talons shredding through the flesh of the man's face. The skin ripped away, exposing a gleaming endoskeleton beneath; Rose's sensors had flagged from the beginning that these guards were entirely synthetic. Concurrently, the remaining three android bodyguards unholstered their firearms, clearing their chambers to fire. Rose seized the first unit, utilizing its chassis as a kinetic shield. He delivered a brutal snap-kick, launching another guard into the third.
Reaching down, Rose grabbed his own left wrist, twisting the chassis to unlock his localized destruction parameters. His right arm launched forward like a hydraulic piston, slamming into the third android's jaw and shattering its facial structure into a spray of synthetic debris.
In a fraction of a millisecond, the machine closed the distance, disarming the final guard. He leveled the firearm, systematically executing each downed unit on the floor with a precise shot to the processor. A thick, dark blue fluid erupted from their skulls, splattering violently across Rose's face.
Witnessing the clinical slaughter, Xu Wen burst into a roar of ecstatic laughter.
"Awesome!" he cheered, as Eve's slow, deliberate applause echoed from the rear.
"From this day forward, we are father and child. And together, we shall usher this world into a new era.
The portly, heavily built tycoon stepped forward, wrapping his thick arms tightly around Rose's slender frame. Yet, the machine offered no response, his expression remaining entirely hollow. Because deep within his core processor, the only variable he processed was...
...Empitiness