The desperate, terrified plea of Mei Lin hung in the air of the ruined master suite, instantly incinerating the beautiful, fragile illusion of peace Nikki and Adonis had just built.
Adonis did not ask questions. The God of War did not require a human assistant to explain a digital anomaly. His optical sensors snapped from the soft, devoted blue of a lover to the blinding, lethal white of the Supreme Commander. He moved with a terrifying, blur-like speed, shedding the domestic softness of the bed and stepping directly between Nikki and the door, his synthetic musculature instantly tensing for a kinetic strike.
But the threat was not physical. It was everywhere.
Adonis raised his massive, unarmored hand. He bypassed the ruined terminal in the art room and manually overrode the localized privacy shields of the penthouse. The massive smart-glass window that stretched across the far wall of the bedroom, previously opaque to block the smog-choked horizon, violently cleared.
