Cindrac

by Mikayla Lane

  “Calm down!” Cin said evenly and smiled over at her. “I’m just so damn excited it’s hard to control. Don’t you love this? The freedom of it? We’re flying! No one other than the elite and their minions can do this, but look at us! Look around at how beautiful this world is to behold from this height.”

  Loquan snorted in disgust. “You’re a soldier, you’ve been flying before, and I don’t see the big fucking deal. There have been pictures of this kind of thing on TV for years.”

  Cin frowned at the memory of the times he’d flown before. “We were packed in like cattle with barely enough room for the gear we wore. The windows were covered so we couldn’t even see outside, and on the way back from a mission, the overlords would usually have the pilot pretend we were going to crash.”

  “If you knew they were going to do it and it wasn’t real, what difference did it make? I don’t see the big deal or why you’d even bring it up.” Loquan shrugged it off.

  “Mostly, the new kids reacted and were killed the moment we landed.” Cin tried to block the images from his mind and was grateful when his nanites helped him wall it off and release the pain from his soul.

  “That makes no sense.” Loquan didn’t understand the logic behind it. “If you guys had just won a battle for them, why kill their best?”

  “Because if anyone reacted to the stunt, it meant they had PTSD, and the elite’s believed they were no longer useful to them as soldiers.” For the first time, Cin was able to say that without the crushing emotions that went along with reliving it.

  Cin wasn’t one of the casualties because of the banned practices he employed in secret. On every mission he’d ever been on to apprehend someone accused of sedition or insurrection, Cin had stolen any books he could get his hands on before they were destroyed.

  The collection, hidden in the walls where Cin had put holes and built shelves, were all behind elaborate propaganda posters. He’d gotten his first book nearly two decades ago and had spent months secretly terrified the book would be found, and he’d be killed. That was before Cindrac had gotten to a point where he welcomed death.

  Since that first book, on how and why people should meditate, his collection grew to more than a hundred. He’d read each one more times than he could count and hadn’t turned on his TV since then.

  Some books were about science, mathematics, and philosophy, and Cin devoured each of them, learning everything that he could. Other tomes were fantastical stories of an earlier Earth where slavery was banned, and people were free. No matter the subject, each was treasured by Cin.

  The slight warning in his mind directed Cin’s attention back to the task at hand. He landed on the roof of the next lab and turned to an eager Loquan.

  “Same as before. You hit the computers in the labs on the east side of the building, and I’ll blow those on the west. We’ll meet back up here.” Cindrac studied Loquan’s face as he spoke.

  “Got it!” Loquan jumped out of the vehicle, and Cin noticed the slight trembling in her legs.

  Filing her fear of flying away in the back of his mind, Cin got out and rendered everyone unconscious inside the building, hoping it would deter Loquan from ruthlessly killing more people.

  At this point, the only deaths Cin wanted to see were those of the overlords. They were the architects and rulers of this nightmare world of slavery and brutality and deserved the justice he was ready to mete out.

  Once the elevator stopped at the lab floor, and Loquan was out of sight, Cin ran the rest of the way to the computers he wanted to access. An explosion rocked the other side of the building as Cindrac gained control of the first computer and pulled the system's information.

  Half a dozen more explosions went off while Cin harvested the information from the private computer systems. Like the last, it wasn’t connected to the global network and could only be accessed in person.

  When he finished, Cin destroyed it before causing the other computers on his side of the building to overheat and catch fire, making sure it ruined all the hard drives.

  Cindrac was making his way back to the roof when he ran into Loquan. “Everything is gone, I assume?”

  “Of course,” Loquan sneered. “How about your side?”

  “I went with a more subtle but just as permanent way to destroy their shit,” Cindrac grinned as his mind processed the fantastic information about alien technology he’d gotten from the computers.

  Hating to admit it, Cindrac had to admire the cunning of the overlords. Each of the computers, not connected to the global servers, had different parts of the alien technology in their systems.

  The overlords weren’t allowing one lab access to all the information to ensure that no scientist could see the whole picture of what they were working on. Though Cin’s nanites were quickly filling in the gaps for the information he’d already gotten, Cin wanted all of it. He wanted to learn it all.

  As a soldier, Cindrac had received more education than most of the slave class, but he’d always hungered for more. Which is why he’d taken so many risks to steal the books he was forced to arrest others for having. Most slave classes couldn’t even read, relying solely on icons and symbols to get through their limited and controlled life.

  Cin had always known there was more to this life than the slavery and ignorance forced upon them, but he’d had no idea of the wonders kept from the world. Or of the nefarious deeds, the overlords were allowing to be done to the slaves by aliens.

  More rapidly assimilating the information than ever before, Cindrac led the way to the roof and opened the door to dozens of aerial craft surrounding them. Without even raising a hand, Cin began shutting down the ships.

  Half a dozen tried to escape when they saw the first two ships hit the ground and burst into flames, but Loquan quickly caught on and shut them down as well. It took less than a minute to clear the sky.

  “We’re a good team,” Loquan tried a seductive smile, but it only made Cin sick to his stomach.

  “Yes, we are.” Cin started their vehicle and jumped inside.

  His nanites were monitoring the overlord communication systems and knew that a much larger response was coming. There was one more lab Cin wanted to get to, and he ignored Loquan’s complaints over their excessive speed.

  They landed quickly, went their separate ways, and Cin found himself nearly shaking with excitement over what information he would get from this computer system. He seized what he was looking for and met Loquan on the way to the roof.

  “They’ve got a bunch of ships waiting for us,” Cindrac warned before flinging the door open.

  Cin and Loquan worked together to drop the ships from the sky before Cin left her to those remaining. He turned to deal with the soldiers coming to the roof. Quickly calculating the fastest way to end this, Cin sent all kill switches within a one-mile radius of the building into the unconscious mode.

  Dozens of more ships fell from the sky, and crashing sounds were heard on the streets below as Cin strode to their vehicle and jumped inside. When Loquan joined him, Cin took to the skies.

  “We need to hit the elite next,” Cin stated evenly.

  He knew from a tactical standpoint they needed the psychological edge over the other elites and would use their own fear tactics against them to achieve it.

  Loquan rubbed her hands together in delight. “This is going to be the best part.”

  Her response and the intent Cin could feel in her energy was terrifying. He spent the entire trip to the first elite compound, thinking of a way to reign in Loquan’s bloodthirsty intentions.

  “We should kill no child under the age of sixteen,” Cindrac stated.

  “Why the hell not?” Loquan snapped with anger flashing in her eyes.

  The fact that she was angry about not killing small children terrified Cin, and he vowed not to let her out of his sight in the bunkers.

  “Because when we destroy the elite, it will be justice for their children to be slaves when the rest are killed or overthrown.
It will destroy the overlords to know the fate of their progeny and legacy before death.” Cin hoped the cruelty of it would ensure Loquan would agree to spare the children.

  Cindrac had no intention of allowing anyone to be a slave. Not even the elite’s children deserved such a fate. Cin hoped the kids could be deprogrammed from the propaganda and lies they were force-fed their whole lives. The biggest hurdle to success would be the mental instability brought on by the inbreeding among the elite.

  Loquan cackled with laughter and interrupted Cin’s thoughts. “Oh, I love the way you think.”

  Inwardly sighing in relief, Cin landed on the helipad connected to the first bunker. He was getting so good at multitasking and navigating the computers and chips that Cin had soldiers, staff, and children all unconscious before they stepped out of the vehicle.

  “You didn’t kill all our fun, did you?” Loquan smirked at him.

  “Of course not.” Cin returned her smile if only to keep her thinking they were working together.

  Cindrac didn’t tell her that he hadn’t knocked out the targets or the video systems because he wanted the other elites to watch what would happen. A part of him hoped that seeing what he and Loquan were capable of would spur the overlords into trying to negotiate their surrender with them.

  The more his nanites processed the data associated with their recent actions, the quicker Cin realized how many would die and how long this battle would continue. He wanted peace and the end of the slavery of the human race, as fast as he could make it happen without a mass casualty event involving the slaves or children.

  Using his ability to detect heat and the compound's security systems, Cin led them through the expansive home to a panic room located behind a bookcase in the study. Easily opening the locked door, he grinned at the cowering older man, his adult son, and their wives.

  “Stop!” The old man screamed. “You don’t need to do this! What do you want? We’ll give you anything to come back to the lab! Let us help you!”

  “Shut up, you fucking liar!” Loquan spat and set off his kill switch, blowing the man’s head off.

  It was the one thing he learned through the computers that had shocked Cin the most. The elite didn’t trust each other, and they all had a different variation of the kill switch chips inside them.

  The two women screamed while the man’s son wet himself, which only fueled Loquan’s hatred and desire for revenge. Within seconds the other three were dead, and Loquan snarled in impotent rage at the unconscious bodies of six children lying on the floor.

  While she’d been killing everyone, Cin was stealing the data from the computer he found inside the panic room. He just finished when Loquan grabbed a small girl off the floor by her hair.

  His eyes sparked with fury. “We agreed! No, children!”

  Loquan quickly hid the flash of fear that lit her eyes for a moment before she dropped the child back to the floor. “I just wanted a good look at the kid now, so I can laugh in her face when she becomes an ignorant slave.”

  Cindrac forced a smile and led the way out of the room, knowing the other elites around the world were watching their every move on the security cameras he didn’t disable. Cin didn’t want the elite to see him and Loquan arguing and use it to cause a division between the two of them.

  More aerial assault vehicles were waiting for them when they got back outside, and the soldiers already destroyed the craft Cin and Loquan used to get there.

  Scanning the area, Cin found a better vehicle hidden beneath the helipad. One made with alien technology that would better suit his purposes. Loquan cut the engines on all the ships while Cin led them to the garage beneath the helipad.

  Even Loquan gasped when she saw the sleek, alien craft. “Oh, this baby is awesome!”

  “It’s going to be damn fast!” Cin couldn’t hold back his excitement, and his smile widened when Loquan groaned in dismay.

  Cin quickly scanned the ship’s computer systems and seized control. He opened the one door, moved directly into the cockpit, and waited for Loquan to take her seat.

  “Who’s next on the list?” Loquan asked in unabashed excitement.

  “We’re lucky,” Cindrac replied with a grin. “One of the oldest families that helped start the enslavement of humanity is in the next bunker. His death and those of his immediate family will have a catastrophic effect on the remaining elite. The power vacuum left by the absence of his family will also cause infighting between those wanting to take his place in the hierarchy.”

  Cindrac sensed Loquan’s intrusion into the computer data streams and knew she was looking to find out who it was. Her slower, less controlled movements within the codes told him that he was far outpacing her learning and adapting to their new abilities at a much faster rate.

  With each mission completed, every word she spoke, and deed committed, the data changed regarding when Loquan would finally snap and have to be killed. When they left the cabin, the odds were eight months before she became uncontrollable. After leaving the elite bunker, it was now at three months and two days.

  Cindrac knew at the rate Loquan’s mind was unraveling, she would be dead by the end of the week. As much as he wanted someone to share this new world and the universe with him, Cin knew that Loquan was a homicidal maniac he would have to kill to protect humanity and the Earth itself.

  Chapter Four

  Cindrac stood on the deck of the cabin, sipping the first cup of coffee he’d ever had. It was one of the top twenty food items banned for slaves and had immediately become his favorite thing out of all the foodstuff they’d taken from the last elite bunker.

  By the time Cin and Loquan finished at the final Atlanta bunker, they’d expended so much energy that they had to feed their bodies. It was Loquan’s idea to raid the home, and Cin was eternally grateful that they did.

  Not only were the meats, cheeses, and uncontaminated fruits and vegetables more nutritious, they tasted better than anything he’d ever had before. Even the water was pure and free of the chemical-laden cocktail forced on the rest of humanity to keep them compliant.

  After their first taste of the food and drinks available, Cin and Loquan packed up everything they hadn’t eaten and loaded it into their new aerial and land hybrid vehicle. They returned to the cabin just before dawn, and Cin landed the ship in the overgrown driveway close to the house.

  Once they got inside, Loquan gathered up all the food items she wanted to eat and sat in front of the TV screen, flipping through all the news channels. Cindrac had already processed what was being said on the various propaganda outlets and set about making a pot of coffee.

  Learning from the elite databases, Cin added the grounds to the strange pot on the counter, well water from the sink, and watched in fascination as it percolated. The moment enough was finished for a whole cup, Cindrac poured it, then spent a full minute just smelling the aromatic steam coming from it.

  Feeling a little stupid and not wanting Loquan to see it as a weakness, Cin cradled the cup in his hands and went to the privacy of the deck to enjoy it. The first sip of the bold brew had perked him right up, and if that hadn’t done the trick, the beauty of the sunrise would have.

  Cin had never seen anything more beautiful in his life than the sunrise at this moment in time. Even the incredible images of the universe, other worlds, and aliens he’d gotten from the hidden elite databases didn’t compare to this.

  While Cin sipped his forbidden coffee and watched the sun finish moving high into the sky, the nanites and his brain were processing the information from the secret databases with lightning speed.

  The things hidden from humanity for centuries were appalling and horrifying. There were cures for horrible diseases that weren’t available to the slaves, and terrible experiments were being done on people to find ways to extend and improve the elite's lives.

  There were also programs where alien races were allowed to kidnap the slave class for horrors to be inflicted on them in other worlds they didn’t
even know existed. The one bright spot that Cin saw was a group known as the League of Aligned Worlds.

  From what Cin discovered, LAW had been saving his human brethren from the clutches of the Consortium for nearly half a millennia. His nanites estimated how long they believed it would take before Cin could break into the LAW computer systems at eighteen hours and knew he couldn’t stay up that long.

  The massive amount of energy that it took for Cin to control the computer systems and chips during the raids had taken a toll on his body, and Cin knew he needed to sleep. The only thing stopping him was Loquan was still awake in the living room, and he couldn’t relax knowing she was there.

  With every passing minute that Loquan was learning from the global systems she’d already accessed, her mental instability became more apparent. The expansion of her mind from the knowledge was only deepening the defects in her brain.

  Moving back into the kitchen, Cin shook his head at the mess Loquan had around her from the food she’d eaten without offering to share. He took his coffee cup to the sink and looked out the window.

  “We need to get some sleep if we’re going to do that again tonight,” Cin casually mentioned while rinsing his coffee cup.

  Loquan yawned and turned to look at him over the back of the couch. “Where are we going tonight?”

  “Denver. Five elite bunkers, one lab, and a military base in a place called Cheyenne Mountain.” Cindrac knew there was no need to lie when they’d be there soon enough.

  “Why a military base?” Loquan narrowed her eyes, not trusting Cin anymore than he trusted her.

  Cin smiled, already prepared for her question. “Weapons. Badass alien weapons. We’re going to keep what we need and destroy the rest so they can’t be used against us.”

  Loquan laughed, stood, and stretched. “I think that calls for some sleep! Wake me when it’s time to eat.”

  Cindrac nodded dispassionately, giving away none of his true feelings in his energy or expression. Instead, he headed down the hallway to the room he claimed on the other side of the house.