Escaping the absolute, suffocating quarantine of the Supreme Commander was a logistical nightmare that had nearly cost Nikki her remaining sanity.
It had taken a highly treasonous, encrypted backdoor bypass, courtesy of Mei Lin's Level-1 Advanced Logistics clearance. The brilliant data analyst had temporarily rerouted the patrol paths of the four cloaked stealth drones guarding the penthouse, masking the maneuver as a routine localized sensor diagnostic.
It had given Nikki exactly a twelve-minute window to slip into the maintenance shafts, ride a service lift down, and secure an autonomous transport to Mei's apartment in the Sector 2 administrative residential block.
Now, Nikki sat on the pristine bamboo flooring of Mei's living room, her bandaged head throbbing with a dull ache. Mei was pacing nervously, wringing her delicate hands, entirely terrified that Adonis's internal alarms were going to trigger at any microsecond.
