Born

“Stop it!” Allora rushed past him but the overlord blocked her path.

“Listen to me, you filthy whore. You will put on your armor and escort this Bred to the draining chamber. He attacked the colony overlord and if not for the nonviolent conditioning he had received during gestation, I would have been physically assaulted. His makeup is flawed and he is scheduled for immediate recycling. You will watch him die. Then you will report back to me, immediately, where I shall decide your fate.” He leveled his gaze on her. “Pray I am in a merciful mood.”

Allora squared her shoulders. “Overlord, you wouldn’t recognize mercy if I booted it up your ass.”

For a moment Cormack thought the overlord was having an apoplectic fit, his color had turned a mottled purple hue. His hand drew back and struck Allora across the face. Cormack's vision went red before he attempted to attack the other man once more. But his legs refused to support his weight. The fine dinner he’d shared with his task mistress charged back up, his stomach spasming violently.

The overlord laughed at his misery, striding to where Cormack had curled into the fetal position.

“Foolish Bred. Don’t you know your very name means designed? As far as you are concerned, I am God, the creator. And you would dare touch one of the Born, no matter how wretched she may be?”

“Kkk-kkiiiillll yooouuu.” Cormack stuttered through chattering teeth.

“Keep it up. Enough violent thoughts and your brain will aneurysm until it bursts. Then your darling task mistress will drag your corpse to the recycling chamber, saving us a walk to the draining tube.” The overlord smirked at him. “Don’t you understand?

Breds are meant to serve us.”

“Cormack, stop.” Allora crawled across the floor to reach him. “You must stop this or you will die.”

He tried focusing on nothing but her amethyst eyes, but all he could see were her tears, the livid mark that beast had left on her pale cheek. His instincts warred with his conditioning, as though his body waged a war on itself, both fronts equally convinced of being in the right.

Nothing would remain of the battleground.

The overlord kicked Allora away from where he suffered. “You have your orders, Task Mistress.

Follow them or you will hold him up during draining.”

“Ggggg…ggooo,” He managed to tell her as his shaking increased, teeth rattling together in painful connection. He would die for her because he refused to see her die for nothing.

Allora nodded once and scurried for the other room. Cormack’s sight wavered in and out but he kept his eyes on the overlord, hating every breath the man took. Here was evil, in a fine suit of cloth. He’d won the genetic lottery, being Born instead of created and somehow thought that power made him invincible.

The source of his power, controlling those he saw as beneath him.

It might have been minutes or hours but the agony lessoned, his muscles going lax. Allora returned, dressed in her boots and armor. She bent to pick up Cormack’s discarded clothing but the overlord stopped her. “He won’t need his thermals. We’ll give them to a worthier Bred, a new and improved model.”

Allora’s eyes went wide. “He’ll freeze to death in minutes with no gear.”

“Do as I say!” The overlord roared and stormed out. He felt her pulling on him, tugging him to his feet.

Her voice was so low he had to strain to make out her rushed vow. “We’ll figure something out.”

A calm lethargy descended over Cormack. “It was a nice dream, while it lasted.” Weak as a newborn babe, he rested all of his weight on Allora and focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

A sea of armored guards had been lined up in the hallway. “Bred whore.” One hissed and spat at her.

Cormack lunged for the man and was knocked down like a toddler just learning how to walk, his blasted conditioning flaring up. Allora wiped the saliva from her cheek and helped him up. A wave of sadness descended upon him. “So many dreams,” he whispered.

Allora shook him, her strength incredible. “Don’t you give up on me! Cormack, I will not watch you die.”

He smiled, nodding once not wanting to contradict her impassioned speech. “Maybe you will like being married.” Glancing down at the red curls escaping from her helmet he said, “I would have chosen you for my Only One.”

His foot caught on an uneven patch of grounds and he stumbled. She caught him around the waist to keep him from landing flat on his face. “Quit the maudlin goodbye routine and help me look for a way out of this. Fight, damn you. ”

How he wished he  could fight, that adrenaline would surge through his body until he took on the Born army, stopping the atrocities that his people suffered once and for all. Freeing them, so they could scrape by on their own, without waiting for whatever handouts the Born saw fit to pass down.