Chapter 3: The Puzzle Had Been Done Wrong

She has to settle things straight ASAP. She knew it was part of her mission to get close to him but unfortunately, the puzzle had been done wrong.

At this moment, Cleo almost wanted that he just know all the assassination plan about him and he would fight for his life in a dark room than doing such childish things in his own house.

Was his mother that trustworthy for him to be this credulous without her even trying? She wasn't here to be a maid, she's here to kill him, but whatever how he liked things to go, he must've noticed the way Cleo moves and how it can be easily compared to a robot-maid that he wants. He even has his search history filled about how to control a robot before: the cover of a lady robot with a maid apron had given it all away on his iPad on the center table.

A robot was supposed to be the smartest of all things, a robot was programmed to obey its master, and another thing he purposedly augmented was the robot-maid should assist him, be his friend, companion, help him, practically to be his.

Laying it down one by one. One thing could go wrong. Her mission was opposite to what he's doing. She could kill him the moment she got to his house and conceal it as an accident or suicide but she can't, she can't do it for the first time, and even on the second time.

There’s this bugging feeling that tugs her heart from killing him. Whatever that was, she gritted her teeth. She should try her best to love him ASAP and mark the mission as done.

Being a robot-maid was not that hard? Right? She shrugged.

Robots obey three things as what Isaac Asimov wrote;

Law One: A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.

Law Two: A robot must obey the orders given by its human being except if such orders would conflict with the first law.

Law Three: A robot must protect its own existence as long as it does not conflict with the aforementioned law.

It would be such a shame for him not to put this into action. Cleo thought it'll be a feast for his eyes seeing the girl who found him in his hiding spot workaround with this law. What a shame because after he finished enjoying that she'll surely kill her to pieces and throw his parts in the deepest part of the ocean.

"Huh? What's that? You want to say something?" He nonchalantly asked, getting an apple from the small fruit basket on the center table.

Cleo almost rolled her eyes for the third time at him, hearing that when he just drop the bomb made her balled her fist even tighter.

Thankfully, he wasn't able to see what she's doing because of his center table that hid her hands, if there wasn't just a center table here, she would've killed him the second he blabbers about all this but the fact that he rescued her when she's about to lose control on her thoughts made her not do the deed. For now, yes, for now.

She managed to face him with a smile after thinking that even though he was grinning at her and munching the apple he got from the fruit basket she got it in front of his door this morning. "No, no, please continue."

She settled on plotting his murder instead of paying attention to him. As to like he was when she was tailing him in Spain, but something was a little out, she doesn't remember him being annoying straight to the bone to the point that she'd want to buy a wolf-dog and put his bones for its dish.

In Spain, the 'Alas Crowne' that she knew was more restrained, stern, and doesn't let anyone touched him yet everything she saw today has that perspective change, he still gave a strong, menacing but comfortable aura, and something about him makes her think that something was really out of the box.

Maybe he was doing it as camouflage, she thought. It's what's a shady person does nowadays, create a second identity where you cannot paint how bad you can become because every day you greet your neighbors and gave them soup on Thanksgiving or invite them to dinner parties. Just the complete opposite of what you're doing underground just like Cleo Martinez that's not her real name, Noir created a fake identity for her. To correct and recreate the mission on why she didn't kill the person sitting in front of her.

On the other hand, he was writing something on the paper and said in a  pedantic manner. "So, if you're going to have me and call me 'master' as my helper, you have to succeed in these four challenges that I'm going to give you."

He must've thought that Cleo would quit the moment he said his stipulation, but he doesn't know that she gave out her word and two can play the game.

Cleo's ears ticked as he mentioned challenged. True to say, Cleo was imagining him hanged on the ceiling and his blood was slowly falling from his head down to the floor until he turned white like the Black Dahlia but he just mentioned one word to keep her off track, everything vanished, when someone says challenge her world seems to spin in a complete turn and that was enough to keep her up every day.

"So challenge one: Put everything back in their original place."

She looked at him in confusion, was he really serious about that?! She shivered. Of course, he'd like to cause trouble with his new maid. Suddenly, a kid shouted coming from the outside of his apartment's window was heard, her sharp hearing and keen sight got activated and she heard children playing just below the apartment.

"Ah, I forgot to say, you'll get demerit points once I'm not satisfied with your work. Let's call them Thanatos," he said with a sinister smile. It looked like he was used to kids playing down the apartment in the morning and he just doesn't care but the moment Cleo heard a boy screamed and the sound of a baseball bat hitting a ball, at the speed of light, it was like cracking of vase when she heard his floor-to-ceiling window on his apartment created a trace like roots from plants on the plant box below and the origin came from the hole created by a small ball and shards started falling like crystal rain that was about to hit the man's gorgeous face.

It was sort of like an adrenaline rush receded on her when she blocked the ball with her hand from touching his cheeks. Her palm burned instantly when she caught the ball and her whole hand gone from pale white to pinkish red, the feeling of burning blood seeping through her nerves was inevitable, but she gave no attention to that, instead, she looked at the man she had just saved from getting hit by a baseball because she knew it was an automatic response, yeah, she tried to convince herself, everyone who saw the ball about to hit his face would do that. A normal person would do that.

"You just save my life," he muttered, Cleo gave a stoned-face expression and simply hid her left hand behind her.

She took a step back and place the baseball she caught on the fruit basket. His half-eaten apple rolled out from the edge of the cabinet just below his television.

"Does it hurt?"

She faced him who looked more curious and worried than she thought. His voice was so condescending that she thought it was real, but she realized that all people do that. Fake emotion.

Instead, she went back to her seat and gave out a detached smile, "does a robot even get hurt?" She asked, staring at the shards of glass scattered towards the glass window.

"Yeah," he swallowed and gave a slight nod. "You're right." 

He gathered the paper that flew on the carpeted floor and continued.

"By the way, what name should I put in here?" He asked as he arranged the paperback in its proper order.

Without a single sound, Cleo can hear all her nerves and muscles writhing in pain after she put his arms on his neck. Albeit, she just used one hand in strangling him, it was the most satisfying moment for her. To see him die.

But of course, that was all in her head. She doesn't even care what name she blurted out. The fact that he just made her composure crumble and pushed all the known buttons of her made her want to squeeze him into a pulp and put him on a blender. 

"You're not moving, so a Thanatos point?"

Cleo forced herself to smile. "No sir. I'll do the work right away."

Thinking about all the life-and-death training she overcame in the hands of her organization, how dare he gave demerit points a name of death?

So what was he planning? Kill her? How? When she's already imagining making a sweater out of his nervous system with her one arm.