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.
After shutting and locking the door, Cin collaborated with his nanites on how they would keep watch over them while he slept. Confident in his growing symbiotic relationship with the technology and AI, Cin laid down and was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
It felt like only moments later that Cin was jerked awake, but the nanites confirmed it had been almost ten hours since he laid down. Immediately aware of what awakened him, Cin slid out of bed and went into the bathroom.
After a long, hot shower, Cindrac went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, nodding at Loquan, who was sitting on the couch. Once he got it started, Cin opened the refrigerator and scanned all the items they’d stolen from the bunker.
When he had the list, he put it through a recipe database and scrolled through the options until he found one that sounded interesting. Cin poured himself a cup of coffee and sipped it while pulling everything he needed out of the fridge and placing it on the counter.
Loquan moved away from the mess around the couch and sat at the bar to watch Cin. To keep her distracted, Cin slid a cup of coffee across the counter and waited for her to try it.
“Ugh, it’s bitter.” Loquan made a nasty face and slid the cup back.
Running through the databases’ information to figure out how to fix it, Cin smiled, added a bit of milk, and a teaspoon of sugar before sliding the cup back.
Loquan looked at it skeptically but took a sip, and this time her eyes lit up. “OK, now that’s good! Why the hell didn’t you give it to me like that to start with?”
“I like it plain and wasn’t sure if you would or not.” Cin shrugged and turned his back to her so he could cook.
The simplicity of cutting fresh vegetables and preparing a wholesome, non-chemical ridden meal was calming and interesting for Cindrac. He found that he enjoyed the process and hoped the results would be just as gratifying.
“How did you learn to do that? Only house and restaurant slaves are allowed to cook, and even they aren’t allowed to eat anything other than rations like the rest of us.” Loquan was growing more suspicious of Cin by the second.
“It’s a recipe for a western omelet that I found in the global database. I figured that if we started our mission with a good-tasting and nutritious meal, it would make tonight go better for us.” Cindrac shrugged, not caring what Loquan thought since he was enjoying himself. “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to.”
Loquan was nearly drooling at the tantalizing smells coming from the pans on the stove, and she shook her head, realizing her mistake.
“No, no!” Loquan rushed to say. “I was just curious where you learned it.”
Cindrac finished sautéing the vegetables and folded them into the eggs in another pan, ignoring Loquan’s eyes boring into his back. He wasn’t surprised when his nanites caught her going through the global database to verify the recipe existed.
“So, are you having any problems accessing certain information, or do your nanites not respond sometimes?” Loquan tried to sound casual but was too high-strung and unhinged to pull it off.
Cindrac kept his back to her and pretended to consider her words while running the information through his nanites and rapidly evolving brain.
“I think there’s