THE CIRCUIT
©2015-2020 RHETT C. BRUNO
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Contents
Book One
1. Chapter One—Adim
2. Chapter Two—Cassius
3. Chapter Three—Sage
4. Chapter Four—Cassius
5. Chapter Five—Sage
6. Chapter Six—Cassius
7. Chapter Seven—Adim
8. Chapter Eight—Sage
9. Chapter Nine—Adim
10. Chapter Ten—Sage
11. Chapter Eleven—Talon
12. Chapter Twelve—Cassius
13. Chapter Thirteen—Talon
14. Chapter Fourteen—Cassius
15. Chapter Fifteen—Talon
16. Chapter Sixteen—Sage
17. Chapter Seventeen—Talon
18. Chapter Eighteen—Sage
19. Chapter Nineteen—Sage
20. Chapter Twenty—Talon
21. Chapter Twenty-One—Sage
22. Chapter Twenty-Two—Talon
23. Chapter Twenty-Three—Sage
24. Chapter Twenty-Four—Cassius
25. Chapter Twenty-Five—Talon
26. Chapter Twenty-Six—Sage
27. Chapter Twenty-Seven—Talon
28. Chapter Twenty-Eight—Cassius
29. Chapter Twenty-Nine—Adim
30. Chapter Thirty—Sage
31. Chapter Thirty-One—Adim
32. Chapter Thirty-Two—Talon
33. Chapter Thirty-Three—Sage
34. Chapter Thirty-Four—Talon
35. Chapter Thirty-Five—Sage
36. Chapter Thirty-Six—Cassius
37. Chapter Thirty-Seven—Cassius
38. Chapter Thirty-Eight—Adim
39. Chapter Thirty-Nine—Talon
40. Chapter Forty—Cassius
Book Two
1. Chapter One—Sage
2. Chapter Two—Cassius
3. Chapter Three—Adim
4. Chapter Four—Talon
5. Chapter Five—Sage
6. Chapter Six—Cassius
7. Chapter Seven—Talon
8. Chapter Eight—Adim
9. Chapter Nine—Sage
10. Chapter Ten—Cassius
11. Chapter Eleven—Talon
12. Chapter Twelve—Sage
13. Chapter Thirteen—Talon
14. Chapter Fourteen—Adim
15. Chapter Fifteen—Sage
16. Chapter Sixteen—Talon
17. Chapter Seventeen—Cassius
18. Chapter Eighteen—Adim
19. Chapter Nineteen—Cassius
20. Chapter Twenty—Sage
21. Chapter Twenty-One—Talon
22. Chapter Twenty-Two—Sage
23. Chapter Twenty-Three—Cassius
24. Chapter Twenty-Four—Adim
25. Chapter Twenty-Five—Talon
26. Chapter Twenty-Six—Cassius
27. Chapter Twenty-Seven—Talon
28. Chapter Twenty-Eight—Adim
29. Chapter Twenty-Nine—Sage
30. Chapter Thirty—Talon
31. Chapter Thirty-One—Sage
32. Chapter Thirty-Two—Talon
Book Three
1. Chapter One—Talon
2. Chapter Two—Cassius
3. Chapter Three—Sage
4. Chapter Four—Cassius
5. Chapter Five—Adim
6. Chapter Six—Talon
7. Chapter Seven—Sage
8. Chapter Eight—Adim
9. Chapter Nine—Sage
10. Chapter Ten—Talon
11. Chapter Eleven—Adim
12. Chapter Twelve—Sage
13. Chapter Thirteen—Talon
14. Chapter Fourteen—Adim
15. Chapter Fifteen—Cassius
16. Chapter Sixteen—Sage
17. Chapter Seventeen—Cassius
18. Chapter Eighteen—Talon
19. Chapter Nineteen—Talon
20. Chapter Twenty—Sage
21. Chapter Twenty-One—Cassius
22. Chapter Twenty-Two—Adim
23. Chapter Twenty-Three—Sage
24. Chapter Twenty-Four—Cassius
25. Chapter Twenty-Five—Sage
26. Chapter Twenty-Six—Cassius
27. Chapter Twenty-Seven—Sage
Epilogue
Thank you for reading The Circuit
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
More In Sci-Fi
Book One
EXECUTOR RISING
1
Chapter One—Adim
The android, ADIM (automated dynamic intelligence mech), lay motionless on his back. His magnetized chassis held him tightly against the lower hull of a class 2 Tribunal freighter. He watched the neon blue trail from the ship’s ion drive tear across the star-speckled blackness.
“Creator, this unit is primed to initiate.” ADIM spoke through the communications link embedded in his processors, transmitting wordlessly through his thoughts directly to his maker, Cassius Vale.
“Excellent,” Cassius responded. “You may proceed. Remember, the tracking systems must be disabled.”
ADIM was instantly roused. He flipped over and scuttled along the surface of the ship. It was an old vessel, with more squared edges and exposed mechanisms than the newer, sleeker models the New Earth Tribunal, or NET, pushed out. Easy to infiltrate.
He evaluated the starboard maintenance hatch for a moment before activating his wrist-laser to slice through the locking mechanism. Providing a sufficient degree of force opposite the broken seal, he was able to leverage it open. Air gushed out. He waited until the pressure change finished before slipping through the gap into an airlock vestibule. It took the entirety of his weight to close the hatch behind him. Then, he melted the seam to reseal the breach.
ADIM approached the airlock’s controls. He set the room to pressurize so the inner hatch could be released. Just as the process completed, footsteps outside forced him to duck behind a cluster of oxygen tanks. He deactivated his red, glowing eye-lenses but still watched the inner hatch as it irise
d open and whoever it was entered.
ADIM remained still and silent, on low power settings as an engineer fumbled around the room. He checked the outer hatch, but ADIM’s work was far too proficient to be noticed without closer inspection.
“Weird. Must have been an error,” the engineer said into his comm-link.
“Old piece of trash,” the voice on the other end grumbled. “When we get back to New Terrene, remind me to petition the Enclave for a new ship.”
“Will do, Captain. I’ll run some diagnostics checks just to be safe.”
The moment the transmission ended, ADIM sprang from his hiding place, took two long strides, and snapped the man’s neck like a twig. With his metallic hand wrapped entirely around the limp head, he took a moment to analyze the body. Tiny emitters located around his chassis then activated, holographically camouflaging him in the visage of the engineer—the same stubbly beard, the same green-trimmed NET service suit, the same everything.
ADIM stepped out from the airlock chamber, completely disguised to the untrained eye.
“Infiltration successful,” ADIM updated Cassius. “This unit is loading the schematic of a class 2 Tribunal freighter interior now.” He started down the corridor, doing his best to mimic a human gait.
“Very good, ADIM,” Cassius answered. “Proceed with caution. They mustn’t know what hit them in time to send out a transmission. And please try not to kill all of them.”
“Yes, Creator.”
The vessel's interior was as unspectacular as the outside, with bundled circuitry and pipes running along the inner walls of low passages. He was in the starboard wing, making his way down auxiliary channels utilized mostly by engineering staff and as an air buffer between the controlled internal environment and the freezing void beyond the plated exterior.
ADIM’s knowledge banks of Tribunal ships informed him that the command deck would be located in the bow. He turned left at an intersection, slowing slightly as a pair of medical officers approached. They were too invested in conversation with one another to even offer a nod of acknowledgment to what they would see as just a passing engineer.
Their negligence baffled ADIM. Had it been him, he would have had them scanned and assessed at the first moment of visual contact. But the Creator had made him in his image, and as ADIM had come to learn, not all humans were made equal in matters of perception.
The command deck was located just around a bend. By his estimations, five unarmed engineers would be monitoring the ship’s systems, with two armed guards in combat armor, and the captain also potentially armed. The rest of security would be in the galley. They had no chance of reaching him in time to provide any interference.
“There you are, Jonas,” the captain addressed ADIM with hardly a second glance. “I’m telling you, they don’t pay us enough for this. Folks in New Terrene are saying that transports out here aren’t safe anymore. That the Ceresians have grown some teeth.”
“I’ve heard the rumors,” one of the guards muttered in response. “They should just use the Circuit like everyone else and spare us the trouble.”
The command deck was lofty, unlike the rest of the vessel. Short stairways on the far side led down to a slightly lower floor. Engineers sat at holoscreens running perpendicular to the balcony. A glass viewport protruded in an angular fashion beyond their stations to enclose the front portion of the room.
The captain slouched in his seat, perched on a raised platform overlooking the lower floor. His eyes were trained on the vast emptiness, no doubt hoping that something other than stars would arrive to provide some excitement. And it did. Only, he was looking in the wrong direction.
ADIM stopped in the center of the room and calculated his next move.
“Hey, Jonas, you all right?” the captain asked. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
Assessment complete.
The camouflage projection disguising ADIM vanished with a fizzle of pixels. He raised an arm and fired an explosive round into the viewport from the launcher built into his forearm. The entire room lurched as the pressure fluctuation tossed the crew from their seats.
Only a moment passed before the emergency alarm activated, closing off entrance to the room. Protective shutters engaged, sliding over the viewport to seal the gash. In that moment, the precision rifles built into both of ADIM’s wrists flipped out, and he rotated, firing eight calculated shots.
The room remained hazy from the explosion, sparks dithering to the floor as flashing red lights frenzied in concert with a blaring siren. When it cleared, seven members of the crew were either sprawled out across the ground or slumped against the bulkheads. Each had a small bloody hole precisely in the center of their forehead.
However, the captain had been positioned at an angle, which made a headshot impossible. Blood gushed from an incision in his femoral artery, leaving a trail as he dragged himself back toward his seat.
ADIM slowly approached the desperate man, studying how he struggled. How he clung to hope. The man grabbed the chair, then reached for the screen on the armrest to activate a distress signal. “We’re under a—” A quick shot through the panel ended the transmission.
The captain screamed and twisted around, firing a concealed pulse-pistol in rapid succession. ADIM evaded most of the shots, with one just skimming the plate along his shoulder. He raised one foot, knee perpendicular to his hips. Then, it pistoned downward with enough force to shatter the captain’s arm.
The captain cried out to, “Stop! Stop! Please, stop!” but ADIM did it again, this time bringing his foot down on the man’s chest.
The captain coughed up blood. “W-w-what are you?” His eyes went bright with dread.
“This unit upholds the will of the Creator,” ADIM said, now speaking out loud. His cold and impassive voice emanated from somewhere beneath his mouthless faceplate. “He has deemed your death necessary.”
The captain tried to speak, but he reeled in pain, the veins in his neck bulging. Instead, he spat a glob of fresh blood at ADIM’s face.
“So defiant when cornered,” ADIM noted. He was always eager to study the emotional reactions of human beings. It seemed irrational to him that a man with zero chance of survival would remain so stubborn in the face of the inevitable. “This unit will end your suffering now.”
Before the captain could offer any more futile insults, ADIM wrapped both hands around the man’s neck and squeezed. The captain kicked a few times until his limbs fell limp and his eyes froze open.
ADIM pushed on his chin a few times, opening and closing the mouth to test the muscles. Then he dragged the body by its short hair to the retinal scanner, where he used the captain’s eyes to unlock the command deck.
Smoke detonators went off in the corridor outside, but ADIM’s thermal vision settings made seeing through the haze easy. He located two clusters of soldiers bearing down on his position. The whir of pulse-rifle fire echoed as bullets zipped by. His armor could withstand the barrage, but there was no reason to risk any damage.
He dropped the captain’s body, activated his magnetized chassis, and set it to repulse. Then, he began to float between the metallic surfaces of the hall as if he were suspended in low gravity. He propelled himself forward. Projectiles swerved away from him, disrupted by his magnetic field.
He fired only six shots, and by the time the last one struck its mark, the soldiers were all dead. Once certain that there were no others approaching, he powered down the magnetic field and retrieved the captain’s body. His body was still warm.
The freighter’s security hub wasn’t far. With the ship on lockdown, the entrance was closed, but the captain could manually override any protective measures. ADIM held the man’s head up to the retinal scanner at the door and it slid open.
Inside, the room was filled with consoles, holoscreens, and memory stacks. A single crew member sat in front of the central display. He was so busy trying to encrypt the video files of ADIM’s assault for safe transmittal that he didn’t rea
lize the android was there until ADIM laid a hand upon his shoulder.
“This unit requests that you cancel the encryption and erase all logs of this incident,” ADIM said. He shuffled around the screen until he was in view.
“It-it’s too late,” the engineer stuttered, his eyes widening over the corpse in the doorway.
“You are lying.” ADIM prepared himself to shoot the man before he recalled the orders of his Creator. “Yours is not a necessary death.”
“Y-you’ll let me go?”
“Some must remain.” ADIM let his fingers graze the man’s neck. “Do you want to live?”
The Circuit: The Complete Saga Page 1
