Zero stepped into my pristine quarters like a walking biohazard disaster, leaving muddy footprints mixed with blood and machine oil across my spotless floor. Every step sent my OCD into violent overdrive, each dirty mark a personal declaration of war against my carefully maintained sterile environment.
"One more step," I said, voice cold as surgical steel and twice as sharp, "and I'm disassembling you into component parts and dissolving them in industrial acid."
Zero tilted his head with mechanical curiosity, processing my threat like a computer trying to understand abstract poetry. His blindfolded face showed no comprehension of danger—only the blank fascination of a predator examining interesting prey.
Then he moved with inhuman speed that defied physics.
One moment he was by the door, the next his ice-cold fingertips were pressed against my chest, right over the fresh surgical wound I'd just finished bandaging. His touch was clinical, exploratory, like a technician examining a broken machine to understand its inner workings.
"Where's your CPU?" he asked with genuine scientific curiosity, fingers starting to dig into the bandages with surgical precision. "I want to see how you work inside. Want to take you apart piece by piece."
*Oh, absolutely not. Not today, Satan.*
I grabbed his wrist and used his own superhuman momentum against him, leveraging years of emergency room experience dealing with violent patients hopped up on everything from PCP to pure rage. Zero's inhuman reflexes meant nothing when physics and proper technique were on my side—I sent the S-class killing machine flying into my bathroom like a ragdoll launched from a catapult.
The door slammed shut behind us with finality, trapping us both in the narrow shower stall like gladiators in an arena. I twisted the hot water valve to maximum without hesitation or mercy.
Scalding water erupted from the showerhead at fifty degrees Celsius—hot enough to sterilize surgical instruments and melt the resolve of lesser mortals. For Zero, who'd been kept in cryogenic suspension for months, the sudden thermal shock was like being doused in molten lava while his systems tried to recalibrate.
His attack protocols overloaded instantly. The predatory grace vanished, replaced by confused stumbling as his internal temperature regulators went haywire and his hybrid nervous system short-circuited.
**[LIVESTREAM - VIEWERS: 11,847,293]**
→ @BloodRose_666: DID HE JUST WEAPONIZE A SHOWER AGAINST A KILLING MACHINE?!
→ @ChaosQueen: The absolute disrespect of using hot water as crowd control I'M SCREAMING
→ @ShadowLord donated 3,000,000 credits: "MOST CREATIVE TAKEDOWN IN HUMAN HISTORY"
→ @OmegaLover: Zero looks like a confused wet cat and I'm here for it
→ @Anonymous_7749: This man has zero survival instincts and maximum audacity
I grabbed the industrial-strength antibacterial body wash and went to work with the efficiency of someone decontaminating hazardous materials. Zero's hospital gown dissolved under the scalding water like tissue paper, revealing a body that was more machine than human—surgical scars crisscrossed pale skin like a roadmap of suffering, and a row of metal neural ports ran down his spine like a zipper made of chrome and nightmares.
The ports were inflamed and infected from months of criminal neglect. Red, swollen tissue surrounded each connection point, and I could smell the sour stench of bacterial infection mixed with machine oil and despair.
*When was the last time anyone cleaned these properly? This is a medical disaster waiting to happen, and I'm looking at a walking lawsuit.*
I snapped on surgical gloves and began scrubbing with the ruthless efficiency of someone decontaminating a biological weapon. Zero's neural ports were the most sensitive part of his hybrid anatomy—direct connections between his organic nervous system and the artificial components that made him a weapon instead of a person.
The moment my fingers made contact with the inflamed ports, Zero's entire body went rigid like he'd been struck by lightning. His back arched in a perfect bow of agony, a strangled sound escaping his throat that was part scream, part digital static, and entirely heartbreaking.
"Don't touch—" he gasped, voice breaking with pain and something that sounded dangerously close to vulnerability. "There's electricity—it burns like fire—please—"
But I didn't stop. If anything, I scrubbed harder, working antiseptic foam into every crevice with the dedication of someone performing life-saving surgery. Zero shook like a leaf in a hurricane, his legs giving out as he collapsed to his knees, arms wrapping around my thighs in desperate supplication.
"Please," he whispered, voice cracking with something that might have been tears if killing machines were capable of crying. "It burns—make it stop—"
*Good. Pain means the disinfectant is working. Pain means you're still alive enough to feel something.*
As I cleaned the infected ports with methodical precision, I let a thin stream of golden energy flow from my fingertips—purification power that invaded his neural pathways like liquid light seeking darkness to banish. The energy sought out damaged circuits, corrupted code, the digital infections that had been eating away at his sanity for months like parasites.
Zero's agonized gasps transformed into something else entirely as my power rewrote his damaged neural pathways. The pain melted into overwhelming sensation as healing connections that had been severed by years of systematic abuse were suddenly, miraculously restored.
His grip on my legs tightened, but not with aggression—with desperate, clinging need. He made a sound deep in his throat that was almost like purring, and tilted his head back to look at me with eyes that were suddenly, startlingly, devastatingly human.
"Good," he whispered, voice soft with wonder and something that might have been hope. "Tastes good. Like home. Like safety. Want more—need more—"
**[LIVESTREAM CHAT]**
→ @BloodRose_666: DID THE KILLING MACHINE JUST PURR LIKE A SATISFIED CAT?!
→ @ChaosQueen: He's treating Zero like a feral animal and it's somehow WORKING
→ @ShadowLord: The way Zero is looking at him now I'M GETTING EMOTIONAL
→ @Anonymous_0001 donated 5,000,000 credits: "MOST WHOLESOME DECONTAMINATION EVER"
→ @OmegaLover: This character development is better than therapy
When I finally turned off the water, Zero was clean for probably the first time in months. His pale skin gleamed under the harsh bathroom lights like polished marble, and the infected ports along his spine were healing visibly, the angry inflammation already receding under the influence of my purification energy.
He followed me out of the bathroom like a lost puppy who'd finally found his pack, staying close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his freshly scrubbed skin. When I sat on the edge of my bed to check my medical supplies, he immediately curled up beside me, pressing his face against my hand like a cat seeking warmth and comfort.
"Can I sleep here?" he asked, voice small and uncertain in a way that had nothing to do with his programming. "With you? I don't want to go back to the cold room. Don't want to be alone anymore."
I was about to refuse—sharing a bed with a killing machine seemed like poor life choices even by my admittedly low standards—when I caught sight of something that made my blood run cold as arctic wind.
A small red light was blinking at the base of Zero's skull, nestled among the neural ports like a malignant star. The rhythm was familiar, urgent—the same pattern as a countdown timer on an explosive device, each pulse bringing him closer to oblivion.
**[SYSTEM ALERT: CRITICAL WARNING DETECTED]**
**[SUBJECT 06 - ZERO: TERMINATION PROTOCOL ACTIVE]**
**[PROGRAM NAME: "FINAL REST"]**
**[TIME TO BRAINSTEM DESTRUCTION: 5 HOURS 47 MINUTES]**
**[KILL SWITCH ACTIVATED BY: WARDEN ADAM]**
*Son of a bitch. Adam activated a kill switch the moment Zero left his cell.*
Zero had no idea he was living on borrowed time, that his own body had been turned into a ticking time bomb. He was still nuzzling my hand with innocent trust, making those soft purring sounds, completely oblivious to the fact that his hybrid nervous system was preparing to murder him from the inside out.
I looked down at this broken weapon who'd been turned into a person for maybe the first time in his artificial life, and felt something twist in my chest that might have been conscience or might have been something far more dangerous.
*Damn it all to hell.*
I reached for my medical kit and pulled out a micro laser scalpel, its blade thin enough to perform neurosurgery on a living brain without causing permanent damage. Zero watched with curious, trusting eyes as I activated the cutting edge, the laser humming to life like a mechanical wasp.
"You can sleep in my bed," I said, voice carefully neutral despite the storm of emotions threatening to break through my professional facade. "But first, lie down on your stomach. Before you rest, I need to remove that noisy little thing in your brain that's been beeping like a smoke detector with a dying battery."
Zero's eyes widened with something that looked like hope mixed with absolute trust—emotions that had no place in a killing machine's programming but everything to do with the person he was becoming.
"You'll fix me?" he whispered, voice carrying the weight of someone who'd never had anyone care whether he lived or died. "Make the bad programs go away?"
I adjusted my grip on the laser scalpel, calculating angles and entry points with surgical precision while my heart did things that were definitely not covered in medical school.
"I'll try," I said, meeting his trusting gaze with steady determination. "Now hold still. This is going to hurt like hell, but it's better than the alternative."
**[LIVESTREAM EXPLOSION]**
→ @BloodRose_666: HE'S GOING TO PERFORM BRAIN SURGERY TO SAVE ZERO I'M CRYING
→ @ChaosQueen: The character development from decontamination to life-saving surgery
→ @ShadowLord: This is the most intense medical drama I've ever witnessed
→ @OmegaLover: The trust in Zero's eyes I'M NOT OKAY
→ @Anonymous_7749: Five hours to disarm a kill switch this is peak tension
Zero positioned himself on my bed with the absolute trust of someone who'd never had anyone fight for his right to exist. The red light continued its relentless countdown, each blink bringing him closer to a death he didn't even know was stalking him through his own neural pathways.
I steadied the laser scalpel and prepared to perform the most important surgery of my career—not just to save a patient's life, but to give a weapon back his stolen humanity.
*Five hours to disarm a kill switch buried in a hybrid brain. No pressure at all.*
The blade hummed to life with deadly precision, and I began to cut into the darkness that threatened to claim him.