by Mikayla Lane
“Other worlds whose lives have ended,” Cin replied. “The remnants end up throughout the universe. Some land on other planets and the life that ended can begin again in a new home and a new form. Some are similar to this one, and the life that died creates new life and a new world.”
Lanie was speechless and a little creeped out, just sitting on a hunk of rock in the middle of space with what looked like a golden haze keeping the oxygen and gravity inside. But the beauty and wonder of it all were incomparable.
The stars had never appeared so bright before, and the floating landmasses, golden aura, and disappearing waterfalls seemed more like something from a fantasy world than real life. Slipping her fingers through the soft grass, Lanie struggled to comprehend the magnitude of it all.
“It’s impossible to believe that Earth or any of us matter when looking at something as vast and complicated as this.” Lanie gestured to the other landmasses, golden halo, and stars beyond.
“Really?” Cin was surprised.
Lanie spread her arms out wide and quirked a surprised brow at him. “This doesn’t overwhelm the hell out of you?”
“No,” Cin shook his head and smiled at all he could see. “This makes me feel connected to everything on a soul-deep level. I’ve seen incredible things like this throughout the universe, and yet, I was chosen to be among such treasures. Someone greater than the bastards who created me thought my soul deserved to be counted among wonders such as this. It humbles me and drives my desire to become worthy of the gift that was given to me.”
Lanie was struck speechless by his words. When she looked back at the space outside the golden atmosphere, her breath caught in her throat over the chaos of emotions running through her.
Lanie held her hand up, and Cin pulled her to her feet. She looked around at all the marvels in a new light and found that she couldn’t agree more with Cin’s words.
“You’re right.” Lanie nodded with tears misting her eyes. “It’s an honor to be among this. Thank you for showing it to me.”
Cin put his arm around Lanie and gazed at the stars above them.
After several minutes of comfortable silence, Lanie looked at Cin. “Is that how you got over the years you lost to slavery? By looking at the bigger picture? Like this?”
“I know that time is just that.” Cin saw Lanie’s confused stare. “Not every second of someone’s life is glorious and happy. But if you ask most people about their memories, they will generally exhaust themselves talking about the good times before a bad one is mentioned. All we lose to each memory, good or bad, is time. I choose to gather these moments closer to my heart than those of my slavery.”
Cin smiled down at a stunned Lanie. “One day, I will have to reach so far past the memories of these moments just to find a bad one that it won’t be worth the effort anymore.”
“How did you become so wise? Can I have some of those nanites too?” Lanie knew Cin was smart but didn’t expect this side of the hacker warrior.
Cin snorted and shook his head. “I learned of the reality of time during my stay with the Dominion Order.”
Lanie remembered something from earlier. “Hey, the elemental brothers asked the Madean about using some powers? Did you get one from them too?”
“No way.” Cin shook his head. “The last thing I need is more power. Kace made an exception for me, and we skipped that part of the ceremony. Kace didn’t have a problem with it, but I wanted to make sure they could overpower me if it ever became necessary.”
“Are you afraid of yourself?” Lanie wouldn’t blame Cin if he were. The power he wielded was incredible, and she doubted she knew the half of it.
“No,” Cin snorted. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t be frightened of what I could become. It’s just nice to know there are checks and balances for myself as well as everyone else.”
Lanie nodded her head in understanding and took one last look around when she saw Cin creating a portal in the air. When he finished, Cin held his hand out, and Lanie took it, following him back to the cabin's deck. The sun was high in the sky, and she assumed it was early afternoon.
“I’m starving,” Lanie admitted when her stomach growled.
“We missed breakfast.” Cin was also hungry and went to the kitchen to make a few sandwiches.
They finished eating and were putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher when one of Cin’s computer bots notified him that the intelligence community and paid actors were flooding his forums with spam.
Cin waved his hand, turned on the TV, and stormed into the living room to watch what was happening. It was easy to see the elite’s shills were trying desperately to bury the story about the gas valves.
Cin saved the agitators’ IPs for later, banned them, and called out the alphabet agency shills before banning them too. Next, he did a reverse search of the IPs and discovered the identities of the paid idiots.
Looking deeper into their social media presence, Cin found that all of them were participants in the burning down of minority-owned and other small businesses in various cities. The agitators were also openly bragging about beating random people, mostly the elderly, in the streets.
Unsurprisingly, Cin could find no work history on most of them, regardless of age, except for the elite money they were taking through various shadow non-profits. They were nothing more than elite funded groups that instigated domestic unrest designed to increase the tension between the masses.
Most were openly calling for the death of anyone who disagreed with the elite plans they were desperately trying to force on the population. Instead of stopping it, big tech was amplifying the voices of those calling for violence and banning anyone who dared speak against it.
It was nothing more than bullying on a global scale, and it sickened Cin to see how brainwashed so many had already become to think that killing their fellow slaves instead of the overlords was a good thing.
After assessing the post history, calculating the depth of their mental illness, and determining how dangerous they were to others, Cin was left with six paid agitators who needed to be neutralized.
“I need to leave for a little while.” Cin turned to Lanie. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Will you be all right?”
Lanie had been watching the information scroll on the TV and knew Cin would do something he felt was important. She wouldn’t stand in his way.
“Of course.” Lanie smiled and leaned up to kiss his cheek. “Go, save the world. I’m going to finish the dishes and play on the forums.”
Cin waved his hand at the TV, changing it to his moderator accounts on his forums. Next, he placed his palm flat on the glass top of the coffee table. Hundreds of tiny nanites swarmed from his hand and moved around the glass until they’d formed a standard keyboard.
“You’re amazing.” Lanie was awed and thrilled.
“I’ll be back soon.” Cin gave Lanie one last smile before creating a portal and disappearing.
He came out in a back alley that ran between dozens of homes, and Cin immediately saw his target. Striding through the gate, he went directly to the steps that led into the basement. As expected, the door was locked, and Cin sent his nanites into the keyhole to open it.
Viewing his target through the guy’s camera on his monitor, Cin slipped quietly inside and had a knife to the man’s throat before he could scream. The smell of urine immediately assailed Cin, and he turned away in disgust.
“Stand up,” Cin ground out and created a portal behind them.
The man stumbled to his feet, and Cin had to yank him up to keep the guy from falling. Using the idiot’s own momentum, Cin threw the man into the portal and quickly followed.
The acrid smell of smoke and human waste immediately had Cin’s nanites forming a filter across his nose, and he studied the once flourishing turned run-down area.
“Who are you?” the man screamed, trying to crawl away from Cin. “Where are we? What have you done?”
Cin casually followed the crawling fool
and smiled. “I’m like a fairy godmother, here to give you what you wish for the most. Don’t you recognize your most fervent dream?”
The guy’s eyes darted around the obvious slum, and he shook his head vehemently. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, man! I don’t wish for this shit! Take me home! I want to see my mom.”
Cin laughed and gestured around the near barren wasteland that used to be a thriving, middle-class housing development. “This is exactly your dream. A socialist utopia!”
“Bullshit, man!” the guy spat. “Take me the fuck home now!”
Cin held out his hand and manifested a stack of documents that he flung at the idiot, one by one.
“This is Venezuela, and it’s run exactly as you want. You no longer have to burn things down, hurt innocent people, or create chaos to get what you want. You are here now, and those are all the papers giving you permanent citizenship. I’ve also done you the favor of revoking your American citizenship.” Cin laughed when the guy turned so white he looked like a ghost. “We wouldn’t want you to go back and struggle so hard at tormenting people to get your way when your dream is here!”
The man looked around in horror and crawled over to Cin with tears streaming down his face. “No! They don’t do it right here! Please, I don’t want this place! I want to go back home to my Mommy! I want to wake up from this dream!”
Cin stepped away in disgust. “You’re a thirty-five-year-old violent child molester, and you’ve never done anything to contribute to society in any meaningful way. Now, you better get moving. You need to get in the bread line early if you want to eat today. I hear they’re going to kidnap a few of the elite’s dogs to eat, and you don’t want to miss that either.”
“No!” the man shouted in terror. “I don’t want this! I want to go back home! We can make it work back home!”
Cin made a portal. “Good luck, asshole.”
Cin jumped through and closed the portal before the idiot could get off the ground. His eyes immediately adjusted to the dim lighting and looked down at the guy sleeping soundly in a room that smelled like dirty sweat socks and stale energy drinks.
There was no doubt, in Cin’s mind, that this exact scenario would be played out with his other targets. One of the many things they seemed to have in common was their hatred of bathing and clean clothes and their obsession with energy drinks and expensive, chemically-altered coffee and foods.
Cin liked to refer to these people as the non-food addicts. They were literally a slave to the chemicals and drugs put in the fake food being pushed onto society. It was the same tried and true concoctions eventually fed to the slaves in his time, with only a few tweaks made to the vitamin dosages and calories for each slave class.
Without a word, Cin created a portal, grabbed the kid’s arm, and pulled him through. Usually, he enjoyed these little wake-up calls with these morons. Now, he just wanted to hurry up and get back to Lanie and the bigger problem of the elites.
It took another four hours for Cin to finish before getting back to the cabin. When he arrived, Lanie was tapping furiously on the tabletop keyboard, while Bob sat beside her. Cin was already scanning to see what she was doing as he poured a cup of coffee.
“Hey!” Lanie called out without looking. “How was work, honey?”
Cin nearly choked on his coffee and quickly covered it with a cough. “It was fine. What has you so worked up?”
“The forum has been getting spammed non-stop with glowies and agitators trying to bury the gas valve information,” Lanie sighed in frustration. “It’s hard to keep up with them.”
Cin chuckled and headed over to the couch. “Let me show you the fastest way to get rid of them.”
Using only the nanites in his mind and bots he’d embedded in the internet, Cin showed Lanie how to do proxy IP range bans. When he finished, Cin sent dozens of bots back to the agitators' computers and corrupted their systems, rendering them permanently useless.
Cin knew it wouldn’t take long for the idiots to get new computers when the elite was footing the bill for their treacherous activities. But it helped to slow them down, and he’d take whatever wins he could get.
Besides, after Cin deleted all their social media accounts, it would take a while for them to get back up and running among their fellow agitators. Every person not terrorizing innocent people into submission was also a win as far as Cin was concerned.
Lanie sighed. “I have a lot to learn.”
“We all do,” Cin admitted. “It should make you feel better to know that there are more awakened people in this timeline than any of the other six. Don’t lose hope when you’ve just begun the fight.”
Lanie nodded and smiled up at him. If Cin could go through this so many times to save humanity, then she could damn well suck it up and try to do her part.
“I’ll never give up,” Lanie replied with a determination that came from deep inside. “I won’t let them win.”
“We won’t let them win,” Cin agreed with a smile. “Not this time.”
Lanie thought of something and looked over at Cin. “You keep talking about the Emissary coming. Does it happen before or during your time?”
“No.” Cin shook his head. “Nor has it happened in the other six timelines. I think it’s because I keep changing the conditions that must be in place for the return, but I can’t be sure. I do know that if I continue to interfere, at some point, the ability to sift time may be taken from me.”
“Because it’s our fate to be enslaved?” Lanie was horrified at the thought.
“Not at all,” Cin insisted. “Our fate is to be free and join the universal star community. I’d be stopped because humanity must want it bad enough to make it happen. It wouldn’t be the first time humanity was rescued from slavery after learning a harsh lesson in fighting back for our rights. The stories we’re allowed to know of ancient civilizations are riddled with stories and legends of the underdog or slave coming back to win from impossible odds. Perhaps, this is yet another lesson that must be learned in this generation as well. We shall have to watch this future unfold and see.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cin was standing on the back deck, petting Bob, drinking coffee, and waiting for the sunrise when he noted Dar was in the galaxy, picking up another Earth victim. He was already tracing who was kidnapped and why when Lanie shuffled to the coffee pot.
Smothering a chuckle at her rumpled appearance, Cin held his cup out for a refill when Lanie brought the pot out and offered. She sank into a chair and sighed heavily, turning her face to catch the first rays of sunlight.
“You appear upset,” Cin noted, studying Lanie’s face.
“You’re gonna think I’m crazy,” Lanie snorted.
“Try me,” Cin countered with a smile.
“I’ve spent my whole life looking for safety, and you’ve given me that,” Lanie confessed with a smile. “I spent more than a decade running, hiding, learning how to use weapons to defend myself, and praying for peace, and now I have that too.”
Cin chuckled when Lanie paused. “You’re bored to death and want more excitement.”
“How did you know?” Lanie sounded exasperated. “What the hell is wrong with me? Now all I want is another battle like the Mulvor ship or Raider’s Moon, and a few days of peace here before doing it again. Only this time, I want it to be our enemies. I want to hunt the minions and the elite, and not just on a computer.”
Cin considered Lanie’s words and could understand her desire not only for revenge against those like Jason and his Senator aunt but the elite trying to enslave mankind. If he were honest with himself, Cin had to admit he enjoyed the thought of having someone, of this world and time, to fight by his side.
The biggest problem he faced was that Lanie would need to be nanite and AI-enhanced a lot more to ensure her safety if she were to fight alongside him. Thoughts and fears of her turning out like Loquan terrified Cin and were the only thing standing in the way of him making it happe
n.
“How about we start a little slow and work our way up to another Raider’s Moon?” Cin suggested.
“What do you mean?” Lanie was excited and moved to the edge of her seat.
“We’ll finish with your armor and weapon systems until you’re as powerful and protected as Gabe, but only if you allow me to train you in various methods of combat and tactics,” Cin suggested.
Lanie suppressed a squeal of excitement. “Of course!”
“I have to warn you, most of the assassinations I do are just like the gas valves and not like some spy or hitman movie or game. It’s imperative that what we do against the elite is subtle and not overt,” Cin explained, needing Lanie to know that they couldn’t go commando on anyone.
“OK,” Lanie agreed, a little deflated.
“That doesn’t mean we won’t do battle here,” Cin assured her. “Most of the real fighting will be for others, in space, for favors that we will call in on the day humanity decides to stand up to the elite and their minions. Everything else is training for that day.”
That excited the hell out of Lanie. As surreal as it had been to fight beside Gabe, the Elves, Elementals, and the Madean, she’d never felt more alive. She’d done something that mattered. Maybe not for someone here on Earth, but like Cin said, calling in those favors would be epic in the final war against the elite.
“I can accept those terms,” Lanie agreed with a grin. “Maybe one day I can join the Dominion with you?”
“It takes a century of intense physical, psychological, and spiritual preparation to reach Throke, which is the completion of your training,” Cin explained. “I’m not saying you can’t do it. I’m just warning you that it’s an arduous journey to become a warrior cleric.”
Lanie snorted, unhappy with the news. “A hundred years? Yeah, I think I’m precluded from it since I’ll be dead before I finish.”
Cin furrowed his brows when he looked at Lanie. “I thought you understood what you were accepting when you asked me to have the nanites assist you.”