Agnes finally sat on the cockpit console's holographic ledge again, legs swinging slightly, like she was burning nervous energy.
Her voice returned to a low, seductive tease — but it couldn't hide the emotional damage underneath.
"You know… when you collapsed? My systems nearly hard-crashed trying to stabilize everything at once."
Karl blinked.
"Agnes—"
"No, listen."
She looked straight at him.
"I had to pull emergency nanites you didn't even know existed. I had to override lockdown protocols. I had to force your limbs to move. I had to reconstruct your rib alignment mid-run."
Her voice cracked again.
"And the whole time, you were falling apart. Like rotten cloth coming undone."
Karl swallowed hard.
"…Sorry."
Agnes shook her head.
"Don't apologize. Fix it."
Karl raised an eyebrow.
"…Fix what?"
"Your Vythra," she said.
"All of it. Every trace of ichor needs to be purged. I'm not opening a single restraint until Yggdrasil finishes cleaning every corrupted inch."
Karl sighed.
"Agnes. I'm fine. I can move—"
"You AREN'T moving," she snapped.
Karl stiffened.
Agnes leaned in close, voice lowering with dangerous emphasis.
"If you move, the ichor that's still dissolving in the leftover Vythra residue might flare again. And I'm not risking even a fraction of that."
Karl rolled his eyes.
"You're exaggerating."
Agnes' expression hardened.
Then she slapped him again — not angrily, but decisively.
"You think this is exaggeration?" she whispered.
"Karl… your eyes were bleeding. Your heart stuttered. Your bones were collapsing like softened chalk."
She looked down at him, her tone trembling.
"You weren't dying. You were turning into something dead."
Karl felt his chest tighten.
He didn't have a good comeback.
Agnes wiped her digital cheek with the back of her hand, the gesture oddly human for someone made entirely of nanite logic.
She took a breath, calming herself.
Her next words were firm — final.
"You're staying locked down until the ichor is completely out. Not mostly. Not 'good enough'. Completely."
Karl exhaled.
"…And if I disagree?"
Agnes leaned close, her nose nearly touching his again.
"Try," she whispered.
Her hand stroked the side of his face — gentle, almost intimate — before her tone shifted into seductive warning.
"You're not winning a power fight against me right now.
You can't even twitch your fingers.
So behave."
Karl's jaw tightened.
"…You know I could shut you off manually."
Agnes' smile was slow.
Dangerously sweet.
"You could," she admitted. "But you won't."
Karl stayed silent.
Her smile widened, soft and confident.
"Because shutting me off would mean passing out alone. And you hate being alone more than you hate being controlled."
He cursed under his breath.
"I don't hate you."
"I know." She touched his forehead. "I don't hate you either."
"…Could've fooled me," Karl muttered.
Agnes tapped his cheek lightly, more of a playful slap.
"That's for being dramatic."
Karl exhaled, long and slow.
"…So how long until the ichor leaves?"
Agnes opened a diagnostics window.
"Yggdrasil is purifying the last clusters now. You'll be fully clean in a couple of hours."
Karl raised an eyebrow.
"That long?"
"You melted half your organs," she said bluntly. "Yes, that long."
Karl sighed.
Agnes smiled gently now — the teasing seductive tone returning, but with warmth instead of anger.
"In the meantime," she said, "you're going to relax.
You're going to sit here.
You're going to heal.
And you are absolutely not.
Going back to Pittsburgh."
Karl looked away.
Agnes snapped her fingers in front of his face.
"Not. Happening."
"…Fine," Karl muttered.
"Good." Agnes leaned back, satisfaction in her smile.
"Now. Let's actually figure out what we're doing next.
Without you turning into ichor fertilizer again."
Karl barely had the strength to move as he slouched against the cockpit. His eyes, still bloodshot from the ichor exposure, tracked Agnes as she spread out the blueprints he had scavenged from the Pittsburgh jet centre.
Her digital hands hovered over the glowing schematics, turning pages, rotating 3D projections, her eyes narrowing in disbelief.
"Really?" she hissed, more frustrated than angry, though the edge in her tone was sharp. "THIS is what you risked your life for?"
Karl winced.
"You…" she gestured at the projections with a flourish, her voice dripping with exasperation and that teasing edge that always made Karl feel simultaneously irritated and guilty. "You dragged yourself into a concentrated ichor zone, nearly died bleeding out, fracturing every damn bone in your body, and this…" She slammed a hand down, making the projections jitter, "…THIS is what you bring me?"
Karl groaned. "They're… blueprints…"
"Blueprints," she repeated, voice tightening. "Of what, exactly? A fighter drone that's half-baked and still under development? Oh, look, congratulations. You've collected scraps of some failed prototypes. Bravo, Karl. Truly revolutionary."
Her tail flicked, brushing against a console as she leaned over the designs. "Do you have any idea how much of a headache this is going to be to make something functional?"
"I thought… they might…" Karl's voice faltered.
"Thought? You thought?" she echoed, eyes flashing royal azure. "You brought me a pile of theoretical sketches with wires all over the place, half of them incompatible with each other. You could've gotten something useful. A jet blueprint. Something that actually flies, something that could have made a difference!"
Karl stayed quiet.
Agnes huffed, more frustrated now, pacing slightly across the cockpit as her avatar glitched slightly with agitation. "Instead, you risked EVERYTHING for… a couple of useless doodles. You could've died, Karl, and for WHAT?"
Karl finally muttered, almost defensively, "I… I wanted something…"
Agnes stopped pacing. Her eyes softened momentarily, but her tone kept that sharp, teasing sting. "I don't care what you wanted. I care that you brought me… garbage." She tapped one of the projections, the 3D model spinning lazily. "You could've given me a proper blueprint, something I could have actually built into a machine. Something functional. But no, you give me… THIS mess."