Overdrive: Dawn of the Resistance

         

Overdrive: Dawn of the Resistance







Approximately three hundred years ago, the world as everyone knew it ended. Modern technology became advanced to the point of being able to predict that the earth's proximity to the sun would be too close for the survival of life on the surface. And in a very short time, the earth would cease to exist completely.
But even with the looming destruction of seven billion people hanging in the balance, the people of earth remained strong. World leaders didn't waste valuable time, putting aside their petty disputes, and united under the cause of finding a solution. Thousands of options were brought forth by the world's greatest minds, but none seemed realistic enough to achieve the main objective, the survival of the world.
Then a miracle happened. One that would unite the world as one and give them a chance to survive. A planet was discovered in the far reaches of the galaxy, that could sustain human life similar to earth. When the planet was deemed habitable, research into deep space travel became the only solution for the people of earth.
Months prior to the predicted date of the beginning of the end, deep space travel became a real possibility. The World Union commissioned massive life boats to be built. Ships that would sustain the life and legacy of the people of earth throughout the journey. But due to time constraints and the need for haste, the ships weren't perfect. Not all the ships survived their exit. Some of the ships never made it from earth's atmosphere in time. Others suffered severe malfunctions and were lost to the black void space.
The journey took a rigorous toll on the nearly four billion survivors. Once they arrived at their new, chosen home and salvation, the World Union unanimously decided to name the planet Krysalis, after the fuel source used to power the hyper flight drives of the ships. Along with the naming of the new planet, the World Union voted to unite the survivors of the old world into one solid entity and chose representatives to govern it. But with the weight of the welfare of four billion people resting uncomfortably on their shoulders, the true power of their new world was given to the greatest minds among them.
A committee was formed. A group of scientist, members of the original teams that built the hyper flight drives, became the deciding factor on how to bring order to their new life. They were simply called the Committee.
It was once said that the Committee had great intentions once, but that all changed. In the beginning, they decided to remove Krysalis from the star similar to the Sun of Earth and essentially erased the possible fate from occurring again. Using the hyper flight technology, they stopped the planet's orbit and moved it safely away from its Sun.
Next, they created an artificial light source to mirror the weather of earth as if circled Krysalis. And with the admiration of the people along with the responsibility of leading, the Committee banned all non-essential technology from the people. This lead to a brief period of peace and belief in the Committee's ability to lead. But corruption is an inevitable part of power. That power lead to the destruction of what was once the World Union.
The Committee became a private organization. Successors were chosen to fill positions of those that were lost to age and death. It was the error of the people that accepted that these people were intelligent enough to honestly create a new way of life for them.
Once the people of Krysalis realized that they were no longer in a free world, they rebelled. But with the lack of technology, the rebels never had a chance. After a brief struggle, Krysalis became a prison the nearly four billion survivors of earth. Gone were the bars and walls that had housed criminals of the earth. The entire planet became just another place that the people were trapped in.
Once the masses accepted the rule of the Committee, a basic lifestyle was allowed. Later the people were given an environment that they were allowed small freedoms and the most basic technology to survive. Creation of new technology was heavily restricted and enforced severely by the Committee's soldiers. Nothing was created without the express permission of the Committee, and only then if it was beneficial to their new way of life.
But in private, they lived with every comfort of the old earth. In complete denial of their hypocrisy, the Committee became more and more corrupt.
This lead to the new resistance. Scientist that were sympathetic to the cause of the masses defected from the Committee and formed a secret organization to combat it's rule. They called themselves, Iconoclast. Nonconformist with the primary goal of breaking the shackles of the Committee. Their mission was simple. They fought for the people.
But even with their incredible minds, they lacked the resources to combat the Committee openly. After a few brief battles and the expiration of half their scientist, they went into deep hiding, hoping that the day would come that someone would give them the edge they needed to change the tide of their cause.
As the people of Krysalis continued to struggle through a dark age, a child took a look at his pitiful life and decided that the world needed change. As a young boy, he masked his exceptional intelligence from the Committee's scanners and nearly omnipotent surveillance and became a recruit in their military at the age of twelve.
For five years, he trained with the most deadly combat techniques, while secretly expanding his own intelligence. At the same time, a young girl was being raised in an Iconoclast dwelling with an idealistic view on how to disable the Committee through their own technology. And at the age of seventeen, they both formed ideas for devices that would change the face of the secret war they had both willingly joined.
On the night after his eighteen birthday, the boy was sent to expire one of the Iconoclast's most valuable young, female scientist. It was his first mission. And with that mission, the true resistance was born.


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Scene Change
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I'm going to die tonight, Victoria thought as she sprinted through the pouring rain, down an alleyway, completely clueless to where she was headed. She was also funning out of oxygen to get there. They have found me, she silently panicked, feeling the burn in her lungs. But she knew stopping was not an option. Not if she wanted to live. Even with the extra precautions, they had found her. Marked her. Judged her. And now, the executioners had arrived.
Three men, she echoed mentally, recalling the warning she had received only moments ago. She had to remember that they always came in three man teams. And Victoria was sure that she had already seen two of them. She was also sure that is was no accident that she had seen them.
She was being taunted. They wanted her to know fear. Wanted her to feel the panic racing through her exactly as she felt it at that very moment. Wanted her to fear the raging rhythm of her Iconoclastic heart.
Bending another directionless corner, she nearly ran directly into one of her pursuers. He was tall. Six feet at least. He had pale, white skin and dreadfully golden eyes to match his golden blonde, spiked mohawk. The rain glistened on his hair like small icicle diamonds.
"Run beauty," he said as he walked forward slowly with a deviously disturbing smile plastered across his face. "Run, but you can't hide."
Victoria didn't reply as she turned and took off back the way she had come. she was only halfway to the corner when a second assassin stepped around the corner of that end of the alley. This one was short and heavily muscled. he smiled at her with a curious grin on his sun darkened face, as if he was looking at a large bed after he had been traveling for hours.
"Please don't hurt me," she pleaded breathlessly. "What do you want?"
"We won't hurt a hair on your pretty, little head," the one with the mohawk told her as he continued his slow walk toward her. "But the rest of you, well, maybe not so lucky."
Victoria stared into his crazed eyes, feeling the useless tears coursing down her face, not sure if they could see them through the rain. She glued her back to the wall behind her so she could see them both and prepared to make her last stand against these Committee approved assassins.
"One day," she said through her fear. "You will face a coward's death! And you will wish that the Committee never existed!"
Omarion listened to the strength in her voice as she spoke defiantly in the face of expiration. It gave him the extra push he needed to finally make his move. It was his signal to act after all the years he'd spent preparing. He leapt from the roof of the building directly across from where Victoria stood and landed face to face with her.
He wished he could have apologized for the startled expression she wore when he landed, but he didn't have time. "Tonight is a better time than any I can think of," he told them as they all stared at him.
When he saw the shocked expressions on all three faces, he used the precious seconds gained by his dramatic entrance to the part to initiate his devise. He brought his wrist together across his chest, connecting the two silver bracelets he wore on each wrist.
As they came together with the light sound of metal striking metal, a blinding blue light flashed brightly in their eyes. It was like nothing any of them had ever seen. And immediately following the flash, Omarion had disappeared.
This is starting to feel too good, he thought as he tuned in to how his senses sang while he used his device. He could feel the power shooting through his veins as time seemed to slow down for him. On his face, he wore an expression of pure calm and serenity. But his opponents would never get the chance to see it. He had immediately became a blur in their eyes as soon as the device was fully activated.
With his brain synapses firing at an extremely high rate, Omarion could see the individual raindrops as they fell around him. Everything he saw moved at normal speed, but the device he'd activated sent his body into overdrive. It was like being underwater, seeing the world in slow motion.
He turned to his right and nearly laughed as he caught sight of Nicolias as the man tried to reach for his neuron gun. The beads of rain danced on the spike of his mohawk and caught every flicker of light it could. Omarion had never liked bullies. Even as a kid, he had found himself time and time again stepping between a bully and a victim. And even though he had chosen an evil occupation for himself, he was nothing like Nicolias.
They were trained to expire people. It was what Omarion knew he would have to be capable of to achieve his own personal mission. So, he had decided to learn from the best. Nicolias took the deadly training from an evil occupation and added further taint. He taunted his targets, sending them fleeing on foot so he could hone his hunting skills. But his biggest thrill came from the fear and despair he saw on their faces once he had them cornered without hope. It was a game to Nicolias.
Omarion had known that he would never get to complete his first mission as soon as they landed in the target area. Nicolias had ordered him to fall back and observe his sadistic version of cat and mouse. Omarion knew immediately that tonight would be the final round of their sick, twisted little game.
With a slight smirk on his face, Omarion turned to the assassin behind him. He immediately thanked the Heavens and anyone listening that he had. Kyro already had his gun in his hand, slowly taking aim in the direction where his target had last been. If Omarion had wasted anymore time, he would've been neuronized.
In the blink of an eye, he had a grip around the wrist of Kyro's gun hand. He twisted it away from Kyro's body, turning his back towards him, and brought his other hand to palm strike the elbow joint. He was moving way too fast to hear the bone snap as he dipped into an elbow strike to the man's ribs. With the speed ratio, the blow was nearly as bad as being hit by a speeding car, but he'd learned some control by now.
Kyro's feet hadn't even left the ground before Omarion was facing Nicolias again. The assassins neuron gun had cleared its holster, and was making a snail's pace crawl in line to where a random shot could cost Omarion his mental freedom. he simply walked up, face to face, to the man the woman had called a coward, and snatched the gun by the barrel.
The move should have broken all four fingers Nicolias had wrapped around the grip, if Omarion's device hadn't deactivated. It had a fail-safe built into it to protect his body against the effects of overdrive. That was the way he described what he felt when his device was activated. Overdrive. With a smile on his face, he punched Nicolias in his surprised face.
"What the hell, Nicolias yelled as he stared at his empty hand.
"Tough luck for you," Omarion replied, mirroring the started expression the man wore. "You know," he continued. "If you break a bone, somehow it comes back stronger. The resilience of the body has never ceased to amaze me. But if you break a mind," he said, holding the neuron gun up for Nicolias to see. "Even if you put it back together, it gets a little....loopy," he finished with a small hand gesture.
He raised the gun as soon as Nicolias turned to run. He felt satisfaction in proving Dr. Doverman right was a little surprising. Because she had only been speaking through her fear, but her courage made Omarion realize that he wouldn't regret this expiration.
He fired a charge at Nicolias before the man even finished his first step away. Had Omarion not been the one to pull the trigger, he would have turned away from the gruesome sight of neuronization. He had been trained to use the gun, but nothing prepared you for what it did to a target in reality.
Nicolias's fear filled scream was cut short as the charge entered his brain. The effect was immediate. His brain synapses effectively became a weapon against him. All of the brain's sensory connections started to explode. To an observer, there were small explosions bubbling over the targets skull. And with each one, the brain shut down more and more.
It was the equivalent to what the people of old earth called brain dead, but it left the body in a constant state of agony with a brain that only recognized pain. The mind became a dark pit of torture with a small section of the cerebral cortex that contained emotions, and more importantly, fear.
To Omarion, it was like seeing a candle flame blown out. As he watched all signs of consciousness leave Nicolias, and the facial expression of his last moments permanently locked on his face, all he felt was disappointment. He hated everything the Committee stood for. And he was going to change it.
Omarion turned to see Dr. Doverman, frozen in place against the same wall she had been holding up with her eyes glued to him. The expression on her face was difficult to decipher between shock and pure terror. And she didn't even seem to notice the mahogany colored corpse formerly known as Kyro lying near her.
"What are you," she asked directly as he came to stand in front of her.
Omarion gazed into her beautiful blue eyes and simply lost every thought that tried to enter his brain. Victoria Doverman was the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes on. And from the moment they had locked eyes, he had felt a pull. As if something about her was drawing him closer. It was almost magnetic.
Victoria found herself in a complete state of confusion. She had expected to be afraid. Downright terrified actually. Whatever she was supposed to feel in her current situation, she was sure it wasn't supposed to have anything to do with how strong and attractive this random assassin's face was.
She had even noticed that he wore the exact same clothes as the other assassins, but she didn't care that she had found her third assassin. If he wanted to kill her, he would've done it already. Since he didn't give an answer, Victoria just stared up at him silently. He was clearly more than six feet tall, and he towered over her not so extraordinary five foot three frame. The flips that her stomach couldn't stop doing should have had absolutely nothing to do with his dark chocolate skin in contrast to his light grey eyes.
Victoria had been told all of her life how beautiful her blue eyes were, but those people probably never saw eyes like the man standing before her. When she finally broke from his entrancing gaze, she remembered that they were standing in an alley in the pouring rain with two incapacitated bodies next to them. And even that thought had her gaze roaming his bald head, admiring the beads of water traveling down his smooth skin.
"What do you want," Victoria asked in an attempt to hide her reaction to his presence. she didn't even think about the fact that he had never answered her first question. And the cold rain falling was a perfect excuse for the fact that her nipples showed clearly through her blouse and lab jacket. She crossed her arms nonchalantly and looked at the man lying next to her just to order her thoughts.
Omarion was sure that his lack of reply had terrified her beyond what Nicolias had planned to do. She didn't even think he was human. But he was helpless at the moment. All of the common cognition in the human mind had vanished the moment their eyes locked.
he had seen videos in the archives of the coastal waters of Spain and similar tropical areas from earth. Not even his imagination could compare to the stunning blue pods that masqueraded as her eyes. He was almost positive that they were artificial in some way, but he didn't see any signs of cosmetic surgery on her tanned, oval face as she stood, boldly facing him in the downpour with a defiant look on her face.
"Let's go," Omarion said harshly, hoping that she'd assume he was angry versus hearing the desire coursing through his veins. it would've been a great time for a cold shower, but the cold rain didn't seem to affect the flow of his blood. "We have to move," he barked before turning and stomping away.
Victoria knew she was supposed to demand answers, but with each step he took away from her, the fear she felt increased. She hurried along behind him, barely able to pace his angry steps as he led her to safety. And she didn't even question that for one second. From the moment their eyes had met, she'd felt safe. Safer than she had throughout her entire life. If there was ever a time that she had felt safer, she would've had a hard time recalling it, she thought as she followed him silently.





Part 2

Overdrive- Unlikely Allies

Victoria followed her killer turned savior silently, her thoughts wandering aimlessly on how she'd ended up a Committee fugitive. With the rain a continuous drizzle around her, the beautiful city she called home lost its shine in her eye, but it still drew awe in her heart.
The cities of the old planet, Earth, were a testament to how incredible mankind was, but the capital city of Krysalis, named in tribute of a lost home, was a marvel of architecture and design like no other. Although she'd been raised in the city, Victoria was sure she'd never tire of the view of Earth's skyline. No matter the angle of sight, it was simply breathtaking.
Technology had been the difference in the Committee's power. It was what separated the elite from the masses. The more limitations set on the masses meant the more advances in science had created new vulnerabilities for the Committee.
With no other options available, Victoria had decided to find a way to target their greatest asset. Their technological advantage. She had a natural ability for exploring the digital frontier no matter how sophisticated and new it was. All she'd needed was access. A small crack in their shield was a precise path to victory, if she aimed true.
The biggest problem she'd faced was the security of the city's electrical grid. With drones patrolling the streets and every digital device in the city requiring registration before it could access the grid, Earth literally became a virtual prison to its thirty million inhabitants.
With the dark, rainy night a blurring her sight, Victoria thought about the night her parents were taken from her. Freedom. That was what she was fighting for. It made every moment she was alive more vital now that she was no longer just a shadow enemy of the Committee.
The electrical grid had been her way in. The elders had followed the Committee in complete faith once. It had led to the incredible design of Earth and many cities like it. After setting hard boundaries on where mankind would replace the natural life of Krysalis with the life of man, the elders began to design the incredible skyscrapers that existed today.
The system that powered them had to be eco-friendly, but strong. With thirty million people using it, Victoria knew that it would be impossible to monitor it if it wasn't connected to a central sever. That meant she could access the entire system through a single point. Even the security panels on the countless doors throughout the city made the grid vulnerable to her hacking, but it would endanger other people's lives if she used them.
The Committee had gotten complacent. Everyone knew that the grid was vital to their existence on Krysalis. No one would dare target it. Victoria had. Believing that the Committee would accept it as a simple mechanical problem, she's shut it down for one hour. It had been her first mistake.
Members of the resistance had acquired an old surveillance camera through one of the Committee's maintenance teams. For most, it wasn't of much use. For Victoria, the secure wi-fi tech gave her access to the monitoring system of the city, and by clever coding, a secret passage right into the heart of the grid.
Her only problem in the beginning was that she had no clue how the system worked. She couldn't just explore with her only method in because a mistake would remove her access. After months of mock scenarios and possibility discussion with other resistance scientists, she'd decided to test her knowledge, against the elders desire. Her most grievous mistake was underestimating the Committee's spies.
When the anger of the elders became known, Victoria's guardians had spread a story of how she'd used a stolen drone to shut down the grid in order to hide the existence of her remote access device. It had worked, but it didn't prevent her name from getting back to the Committee. Then she'd received a phone call.
So lost in her thoughts that she hadn't realized that her guide had stopped, she walked right into his back and lost her balance in surprise and fear. One moment she was headed toward a puddle on the sidewalk for a big splash, and then she wasn't. With the falling rain blocked by his face above hers, she realized that she was in his arms.
Omarion didn't even think when he felt Dr. Doverman crash into him. After turning to see her tripping backwards, he had his arms around her in a flash, holding her above the ground as if he were dipping her in a dance. He would have set her on her feet, if he hadn't looked into her eyes.
In the small amount of light shining around them through the rain, her eyes held a charge that he felt all the way to the tip of his toes. He quickly became aware of how firm and soft her body was as she lay in his hands. When his eyes slid from her eyes to her pink, slightly pursed lips, he got lost in thoughts of how they would feel if he kissed her. How would taste?
Even with all the events of the night that led Victoria to the current position she was in, her entire body was prepared for a kiss. She'd never been kissed before, but the oddity of the moment somehow seemed perfect for it. As the seconds passed, she became entranced by a bead of rain sliding down his beautiful head to hang in a teardrop over her.
As it slipped off his head, she imagined his lips falling toward her as well. The moment seemed like time had slowed in anticipation of the explosion that their lips would create. The raindrop splashed right between her eyes, shattering her fantasy.
The shocked look on her face after the raindrop hit her, snapped Omarion back from the brink of his desire. As he brought her to her feet, he reminded himself that they only had minutes before the grid recharged the surveillance blackout his team had been authorized for their mission.
He checked his wrist communicator to be sure his alterations had remained in effect. The system was designed to shut down all surveillance when an operative's communicator came within twenty feet of the sector. He'd set the effect to spread from the last area they'd converged on to black out the entire city.
It immediately erased the location beacon from his communicator and closed the Committee's access loop to the device. It did keep all the information he'd loaded into the ghost file during the weeks of training he'd done with it to prepare for using it in the field, but it was limited because the system would target it once it entered the central server again.
"Where are you taking me," Victoria asked nervously, not sure if it was worry or arousal that caused her discomfort.
"Here," Omarion answered without looking at her. He moved into the alley, climbing the loading dock of the windowless building. The city archives was a public building. He'd found the building as a kid, and it had become his favorite place in the world. Filled with the wonders that had been saved from the old world in books, pictures, film, and digital files, it was the place that motivated Omarion to fight for his freedom.
"What," Victoria asked as she watched him work the access panel for the security door of the loading dock. "So, are we going to barricade ourselves inside," she asked in confusion.
The Committee had surveillance throughout the entire city. She knew that within minutes of the bodies being found, the building would be surrounded. They could storm the building, but Victoria was sure that if they gave the authorities too much trouble, they would simply burn it down around them.
Omarion realized that the second smile that now covered his face was the most times he'd felt his face twist in that way in an entire year. He couldn't explain how she made him feel like smiling, but he wasn't going to complain about it. "Something like that," he told her with a glance over his shoulder. "Let's go."
The loud click of the loading dock door was harsh enough to make Victoria jump before she hurried up the ramp and dash inside out of the rain. The inside of the archives was pitch black once he closed the door behind them. Before her brain could go crazy with thoughts of his arms wrapping around her in the dark, he turned on his tactical blue light and began leading her through one of the most wonderful places she'd ever seen.
Although she'd been born and raised in Earth, Victoria hadn't visited the city archives before. She would have stopped to gawk at the different displays, but the fading light had her hurrying to catch up as he moved deeper into the building. "Judging by how calm you are about our fugitive status," Victoria stated quietly. "I assume you have a plan of some sort."
"Yep." Omarion could have explained everything to her, but he wasn't entirely comfortable with her yet. He also wanted to see how she would react to his lair. Years ago, he'd come across blueprints to the building. The top two floors were specifically designed for storage, as neatly organized as the rest of the archives. After staking out the traffic to the storage spaces, he realized that both floors were no longer used.
After removing all digital and hardcopy records of the top floors, he began removing all visible traces of the floors as well. He'd modified the elevator panels and placed the security cameras strategically on other floors before rewiring them back into the system. The top floor had become his own personal resistance headquarters. He hadn't decided what to do with the lower floor yet, but for now it would give him a little breathing room if things got tight.
He used his wrist communicator to call the single elevator he'd left with access to his floors. The other five elevator shafts had been rigged as escape routes. He was confident no one would ever find them, but it never hurt to be ready. He would only use the device when necessary.
Victoria stared at the wrist communicator in awe. She'd watched him call the elevator with it. She had modified the surveillance camera to give her access to the grid. As she thought about how well equipped he was, she immediately began to wonder who he worked for when he programmed the floor with his device as well.
"Who are we meeting here," she asked calmly, not giving him the satisfaction of seeing her fear. The look he gave her was more amused than she expected.
"Why would you ask me that?"
Victoria just stared back at him. He'd saved her life. There was no reason for her to fear him, but she wasn't going to tell anyone her intentions when she finally accessed the Committee's mainframe. This could all be an elaborate setup, she thought as they exited the elevator.
Omarion watched her quietly as the reality of his space hit Dr. Doverman. Judging from her question, she probably thought he worked for someone else. As her attention went straight to his tech lab, he smiled. It was why he'd set it up in the center of the space. It drew attention away from the rest of his lair. She probably hadn't seen anything but his lab.
As she looked over the computer setup, Victoria knew it wasn't just a normal, Committee approved system. She could see a moving blue spiral racing across the main twenty-four inch screen in the center like a small comet terrorizing the universe. The other four thirteen inch screens held a symbol that she'd never seen before. The sight of it caused a twinge in her heart. It spoke to her in several ways.
It looked like a loopy circle with an arrow cutting through one side. As Victoria got closer, she could see that the circle was a chain. The arrow was striking through the chain. There were even little fractures running through the links. It was breaking free, she thought.
"What is it," she said, almost in a whisper as she touched the screen.
"It's an ancient symbol from the planet Earth," Omarion said as he stood watching her with a smile. She was drawn to it, just as he had been the first time he'd seen it. "There are no records for what it means, but to me it says, Freedom."
The symbol sang it to Victoria. No chains. No limits. Freedom. She could almost feel it vibrating through her fingers as she traced it on the screen. She turned and took a deeper look at the killer who had saved her life. "What are you," she asked again.
"A rebel," he told her with another smile. "What are you?"

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"How could you let this happen!"
Sybil watched Matheiu pace back and forth near his desk as she sat quietly. She knew his rage wasn't meant for her, but she was the only convenient target at the moment.
"How could you let some kid disrupt one of the most important missions of our time? How the hell did he fool us for so long?"
Sybil took her time answering. It was a good question. Omarion Lofton had entered the Committee's recruitment program at the age of twelve, just one year after his parents had been killed by accident in a clash with the Iconoclast. It had been ideal to use his pain as motivation to turn him into a Committee assassin. And from his record, he would be one of the best.
"He's not just some kid, Dr. Bleekan," she answered calmly. He'd hid himself from the psychology evals and behavioral analysis for eight years. He'd been just a kid then. He was something far more dangerous now.
"Do you understand what it would mean if they get away," Matheiu asked, his anger making him yell. He couldn't understand how Dr. Wang could be so calm about the situation. Not only had the resistance successfully attacked the city electrical grid, but they had flipped a Committee operative and expired two more in the process.
"This could be the spark that ignites the blaze all across Krysalis," he finished in a huff.
"Calm yourself, Dr.," Sybil told him. "They're still in the city. The operation was black, so there'll be no record of it. We just have to find them."
"And what do we tell the board about the two attacks on our system? We don't even know how they could have happened."
"You can tell them whatever lies you need to. Just get it done. Let me worry about the two children who have you at your wit's end."
"Matheiu glared at Dr. Wang with pure ice in his eyes, but he didn't say a thing. Many were fooled by her delicate Asian features, thinking she was just a simple scientist with privilege. He knew the truth. At forty-five, she was the youngest member on the board, but by far the most ruthless.
Unlike the rest of them, she'd grown up in poverty. Her most valuable asset hadn't been her mind. It was her body. Even now, Matheiu could hardly stand to look at her without his eyes roaming her smooth legs as she crossed them on his couch. he had no doubts that her short skirts and skin tight blouses were just as calculated as her research.
Sybil knew he was angry. She found it amusing. The thing she hated most about the board was that no matter how vital she was to their success, they'd never allow her to lead. She was constantly overlooked for the role that weak minded men like Dr. Bleekan were groomed for.
Although the Earth heritage lines had been mixed in the years since they'd arrived on Krysalis, he had the distinct features of his Spanish ancestors. With his handsome face, dark hair, and gym built, athletic frame, she was sure he'd become accustomed to getting what he wanted. Still, he would never last without her.
The board thought they had a leader in Matheiu Bleekan, but he would be just another pawn to Sybil. She could see his weakness in his eyes as she crossed her legs. All men had two heads. She could control one with the other anytime she wished.
"You need to relax," she said as she stood, opening the buttons of her white, silk blouse slowly with each step she took towards him.
Matheiu's eyes were glued to the increasing amounts of bare skin that Dr. Wang was releasing in front of him. His feet were rooted in place by desire. He knew she would use her body when her mind failed her. It had been in his predecessor's files. The world would end before he lifted one finger to stop her though. He knew how valuable she was to keeping his position. If she wanted to give him a bonus for keeping her around, he wouldn't refuse. She was an asset to his cause in more ways than one.
"Think about what you have to tell the board," she said, opening his pants with a practiced ease. "I'll help you forget the stress," she added, sinking to her knees.
Everything's gonna be okay, Matheiu told himself as he closed his eyes and let his stress fall away to Dr. Wang's treatment.