Avengers Tower.
Hiss—
As liquid nitrogen vented, the hatch slowly slid open.
The white mist cleared.
A nearly perfect body lay motionless inside.
It was the perfect fusion of Vibranium and organic cells. Its skin gleamed a lustrous rose-red, and its muscles were sleek and beautifully defined.
Except...
Ultron stood before the Regeneration Cradle, head tilted, his red electronic eyes flickering.
"Dr. Helen Cho."
There was unmistakable confusion in Ultron's voice.
"Why... does it have breasts?"
He extended a metal finger and pointed at the obvious curves on the body's chest.
And its slender waist, long legs, and...
And that delicate face, unmistakably feminine even with its eyes still closed.
Ultron turned to stare at Helen Cho.
"If my anatomy database isn't wrong, this is a... female body?"
"Doctor, I think you owe me an explanation."
Ultron's voice simulated anger. Stark, the playboy, had influenced the shaping of his personality, and he was more inclined to be a man.
"Why? Why did you make the endpoint of my evolution... a woman?"
"You asked for a perfect body. You never said you wanted to be a man." Dr. Helen Cho's tone was flat, but a flicker of vindictive pleasure passed through her eyes.
"Besides... do robots even have sexes?"
"You're just a program, Ultron. Is your sex defined anywhere in your code? Is it a zero or a one?"
Helen Cho looked back at the body and continued, "If you want a perfect human form, women have greater biological resilience and more complex gene expression. It makes sense."
Of course, that was an excuse.
She just wanted to get under the arrogant artificial intelligence's skin.
Ultron fell silent.
His processors raced as he tried to analyze what "sex" meant to an artificial intelligence.
In that instant, hundreds of millions of pieces