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