Manufactured for Sin (The clean version)

3: Meat

I dug my toe-claws into the stone flooring, getting a better grip as I strained harder. My back arched as I exhaled softly "Almost there"

"Not even close." He joked.

"I don't have anything left." I chuckled in frustration and playful exhaustion.

Unfortunately he was right, the coffee spoon bounced farther then I realized, and there was no way to reach it without moving the fridge. I'd just spill everything if I tried any harder to reach it. The spoon was a lost cause for now, I'll print another.

"Forget the spoon, it will mix when you drink the coffee. If the booze settles at the bottom, that's a happy accident." He yawned. I nodded, getting off the floor and returning to my beverage.

"Easy for you to say, you had your coffee. After that crazy hour, I need the boost more then you."

"That was a pretty fun little romp, wasn't it?" He asked rhetorically. I forgot how a smaller set of hands can really make all the difference."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm adaptable, because with you here, I ended up needing more beef than normal." I joked, reaching out and patting the delicious hunk in front of me. I was saving the brisket sauce for a special occasion but it's good to treat yourselves, and we both needed the distraction of cooking. It was that or we would have end up having sex! Lol. Wouldn't that be crazy?

"Well now you got barbecue sauce on your nails. Was it worth it for the sex joke?" He asked, both proud and slightly underwhelmed.

"Oh come on, we're the only ones eating brisket here, and both of us are radioactive enough to sterilize it. Technically I just made it safer to eat.

"Can't believe we printed off 5 slabs for just the 2 of us. I didn't know I was that hungry till you started eating. I hate to admit it, but it's almost like just being a woman makes you slightly better at cooking." He said with a pause for my annoyance.

"I swear if you tell me to make you a sandwich, you're never handling my meat ever again, and you'll be doing that by yourself." I snipped, angrily, but playfully.

"Hey, relax. This isn't like us. Obviously something is bothering you." He said, patiently sipping his drink. He was right. Obviously he was. He could read me like an open book, even without a wireless download link to my brain or me publishing this as a book. My stress was so clear that a stranger could sense my frustration, let alone myself.

"It's just a lot of work being an overlord." I sighed. "You get it. But recently you've missed the controversy. The humans can't get along, or agree on anything. We're on the border of a gang war over toilet paper and gender pronouns. I've been re-branded twice in one week because nobody can choose a damn word and commit to it. Every day we invent 15 new titles for the same damn concept and then 15 people argue over the same thing we all agree on. Everyone just wants to live their life and be themselves, and most of us are fine with that, it's just the labels. Last week I nearly killed someone in a meeting because they suggested we change Menaces pronouns. She's just a little green kid, she doesn't even know what any of it means, let alone her gender. She doesn't care and it doesn't matter. She's happy and we love her, and unless she learns to speak, and wants something different, I see her as my little girl and it infuriates me when people start splitting hairs on semantics. She's not a poster child for controversy; she's basically a tall toddler. It's unnecessary, and they should be ashamed to even question it." I said, opening the fridge for a beer, or 4, or 7.

"You want me to assassinate someone? They won't trace it back to you, I'll set up an alibi and everything. You won't even have memory files for plausible deniability."