The Circuit: The Complete Saga

by Bruno, Rhett C.

  The way Julius cringed at the mention of that told Sage all she needed to know. She couldn’t imagine a place fouler and dirtier than this, but she also had a vivid imagination.

  “So how about it?” Talon asked. “Deal?”

  She looked up at his face, into his eyes. He seemed genuine enough, and for some reason, she hung on his words more than she knew she should. Even if he was lying, so was she. Unless he was an executor as well, there was nothing for her to fear. And if it was all just some elaborate scheme to get her into bed, she wasn’t afraid of having to fight off two lowly Ceresians.

  “That’s fine with me,” she said.

  She feigned an impish grin as best she could. They might not have been the ones she was sent to find, but maybe by getting involved, they’d run into those who were responsible for attacking the other freighters. She was running in the right circles now.

  The Tribune would be proud of her quick work, but that wasn’t what she was thinking about as the meeting concluded and she followed Julius deeper into the district. Talon watched her as she walked away. She didn’t have to look back to make sure—he was watching her, and she felt it. And for whatever reason, it didn’t repulse her.

  20

  Chapter Twenty—Talon

  Talon sprang awake, grasping futilely for a gun he no longer wore on his hip. He huffed for air as he struggled to regain a sense of his surroundings. Sweat matted his hair to his forehead, and he imagined he looked as if he had just been swimming in the ocean at the core of Ceres Prime.

  “Daddy, are you okay?” Elisha’s tiny voice asked. She lay beside him on his hammock, her head resting on his heaving chest.

  “Yeah, sweetie.” He pulled his undershirt over his face to wipe his brow. “Just a scary dream.”

  It wasn’t. The blue death was making it harder and harder to sleep. His rest was fitful. He’d been back on Ceres for a week already and had woken up in the same way almost every morning, covered in cold sweat.

  “What happened in it?” Elisha rolled over onto her stomach and rubbed her puffy eyes.

  “Oh, you know. The usual.” He ran his hand through her hair, wondering if he’d ever felt anything in the Circuit so soft. “A shadow monster with fiery red eyes came and tried to take you away from me.”

  Elisha pulled herself up his body, her eyes nearly popping from their sockets in wonderment.

  “Don’t worry,” Talon said. He lifted and hugged her so that he was able to whisper directly into her ear. “When I was through with it, the beast was ash, like the surface of Earth.” He swung her over the side of the hammock and placed her down. His biceps burned afterwards.

  “Oh…” She sulked. “That doesn’t sound scary.”

  “Trust me, it was. I’d never seen anything like it, and for a while, I thought I might lose you.”

  “Now I know you’re lying!” Elisha hopped away and crossed her arms.

  “And why is that?” Talon asked. He always forgot how shrewd she could be despite her age. He liked to think that she got that from him.

  “You would never lose me.”

  “Never,” he agreed, not realizing how serious the words would come out. “Not even in a dream.”

  He got out of the hammock, using its post as a support so that Elisha wouldn’t notice how sore his legs were. It took a little bit of teeth grinding to get fully upright, but his affliction was always the most draining after waking.

  “So, how do you feel about us spending the day together?” he asked. “Just me and you.”

  Elisha’s smile stretched from one rosy cheek to the other. “You have no work today?”

  “Never again.” He hoisted her up and began to spin. His arms grew fatigued quickly, but he didn’t care. Holding her was worth however he might feel tomorrow, and he pulled her in tight again so that her head rested on his shoulder. “You and I can travel to the far reaches of the Circuit together. See everything there is to see.”

  She pulled back to look at him, and her smile was quickly erased by skepticism. The look broke is heart.

  “You’re lying,” she said.

  His head sank. “I wish I wasn’t… but today you’ll have me. Promise.”

  He placed her down in front of their clothes locker. It was a crummy piece of furniture, half the metal rusting, but it matched the shack’s tarnished, corrugated-metal walls. Little else filled the small space except for his tattered hammock, a faulty light, and a storage container pushed so far beneath the hammock that it was half plunged in shadow.

  It wasn’t much, but it was home.

  “What do you want to do?” Talon asked. “Head down to the bathing basins? Get some real green lettuce?”

  “No,” she answered as she went to work on the locker. It took two hands and all her strength to yank the door open. She reached in and grabbed a crummy tunic for her and one for her father, then turned to him. “Can we go to the Buckle and watch the ships?”

  “If that’s what you want, sure,” he said. “Now get dressed and grab us some nutri-pills from the cabinet.”

  Elisha quickly followed his directions. When they were both ready, she eagerly seized his hand and pulled him out the door. He barely had time to turn around and lock it.

  She was always excited to watch the transports come and go to Ceres. Talon had been the same way when he was younger; however, it often troubled him with her. In his experience, there wasn’t much out in the solar system for the dreamers wishing to trace the worlds of the Circuit.

  “’Bout time you two woke up!” Julius hollered soon after they emerged. He was seated at a firepit built out of rock, holding up a deck of holocards. As usual, Ulson and Vellish joined him, drinks in their hands already. “Care for a game?”

  “I—” Talon lost his thoughts when he noticed Agatha accompanying them. It’d been a few days since they’d recruited her, and he hadn’t seen her outside her armor up close yet. There she was, holding a glass of synthrol. A baggy shirt borrowed from Julius revealed her plunging neckline as it was drawn low around her slender shoulders. Her green eyes sparkled from the flame, as magnificent as Earth must have been in its prime.

  Talon’s eyes moved along her body until they fell upon her artificial arm. Outside her suit, he’d expected it to look misplaced and clunky like all the other artificial limbs worn by Ceresians, but hers was exceptional. Like something a rich clan leader could afford. There was a grace to it that in certain light made the human body pale in comparison.

  “We, uh… we’re headed down to the spaceport,” Talon said, stumbling over his own tongue.

  “Gonna see the ships, aye, Elisha?” Vellish asked before taking a healthy swig from his drink.

  “Yup. Daddy promised,” Elisha said, tugging on his hand. Seeing Agatha had apparently caused him to stop moving without realizing.

  He didn’t mean to stare. His mouth went drier than it normally was from the local air, and his hands began to sweat beneath his gloves. Finally, Agatha turned her head and looked up at him. Their eyes met for a second, maybe less, before they both pretended that something else had caught their attention.

  “I did,” Talon muttered. He strode forward and nonchalantly snatched the drink out of Ulson’s hand just before he took a sip. “Try not to drink too much. Can’t have a drunken pilot.” Talon stole a mouthful.

  Ulson grabbed it back. “I can fly better drunk than half the pilots in the Circuit,” he boasted, flipping his luscious hair. “You don’ worry yourself, Tal.”

  “Never doubted you for a second.” Talon laughed. He patted Ulson on the back when that laugh transitioned to a cough, to try to hide it. “See you all later. Hopefully, we’ll find some more tonight.”

  He nodded to Julius and Vellish, who returned the gesture, and then to Agatha he said jokingly, “Milady.”

  She didn’t even bother to glance back up. Ever since they’d made eye contact, she’d been staring into the fire without blinking. He tried to think of something to say to her before he l
eft, but nothing came to mind. Instead, he was left wearing what he imagined was a ridiculous crooked smirk. At least he thought so, but right before Elisha jerked him away, he noticed the beginnings of a pathetically thin smile tugging at the corner of her lips. He’d take it. That was all the farewell he needed.

  Talon and Elisha made their way down to the underpass and hopped on the crowded tramline to Ceres Prime’s main port, barely able to squeeze into the back without bumping someone. He clenched Elisha’s hand tight the entire way.

  The spaceport they arrived at didn’t have an official name, but most of the locals simply referred to it as the Buckle. Nobody had ever told Talon exactly why it was called that, but nobody ever had to. Ceresians just knew it. Together with the Ceres Conduit Station, the Buckle served to hold together all the settlements of the asteroid belt.

  “Stay close to me.” Talon’s grip on Elisha’s hand tightened as they squeezed off the tram. He knew it probably hurt her a bit, but that was better than losing her here. Thousands of people at a time. He’d never see her again.

  The platform outside was packed with all types, from wealthy merchants to the unfortunate souls dwelling in the far depths of Ceres, with their lanky bodies and ashy, pale skin. He noticed mercs for a few different clans wearing their faction’s respective armor. There was a Morastus one nearby, putting far too much effort into not looking in Talon’s direction and pretending he was busy.

  Talon had little doubt Zaimur had men keeping tabs on him to make sure he wouldn’t try to run away, but he didn’t expect them to make it so easy to spot them. Their lack of finesse was an insult to the profession he used to call his own.

  Stopping in the middle of the platform, Talon bent over so that Elisha could hear him. “Can you keep up?”

  Elisha pursed her lips and nodded assertively.

  He began to guide her through the crowd at a quickened pace. Not quite a jog, but close. They wove through traffic and onto a wide avenue. There was no bigger cavity within Ceres than the Buckle, and it was mostly comprised of one meandering avenue piercing through clusters of rock formations, which were carved up with metal buildings.

  There was no uniformity to it, many of the structures stacking around massive stalagmites all the way up to the Buckle’s lofty ceiling, giving the whole place the appearance of an ancient insect hive. Busy as one might’ve been too. The stalagmites were mostly hollowed out, serving as the vertical hangars through which ships from all over Ceresian space came and went.

  Talon glanced back over his shoulder to see Elisha struggling to keep pace, her tiny feet pattering along the ground in quick succession. A hauler sped toward them, and he scooped her up before hurrying across the avenue to beat it. The driver laid into the horn. Then they proceeded up emergency spiral stairs, through an alley, to a narrow crevice carved into a towering stalagmite.

  “Slow…” Elisha stopped, pulling her hand free of his. “Down…”

  Talon quickly turned around. She was bent over, panting. For a moment, he’d nearly forgotten that she was just a child. “Are you… okay?” he asked, breathing just as heavily but for far different reasons.

  She gathered herself and proudly stood as tall as she could. “What are we running from?”

  “Nothing.” Talon had to pretend a grimace was a grin since his stomach was cramping so bad. Even jogging wasn’t as easy as it used to be. “I just wanted to see how fast you were. C’mon.” He began to guide her through the fissure, with no room to even hold her hand here. It grew so cramped they had to shuffle through sideways.

  “Try to be as quiet as possible,” Talon whispered, finger to his lips. “The Lakura Clan still doesn’t know about this entrance.” He squeezed through, checked his corners, and quickly snuck behind a pile of metal crates. The upper level of the Buckle’s hangars was usually reserved for storage, so there was little chance of them being caught once already inside.

  “Lakura?” Elisha asked softly, kneeling as close by as possible.

  “The lowest of the big clans, in my opinion. Think they speak for all of us while they terrorize innocent Tribunal colonies and citizens.” He didn’t tell her that he also suspected that they might be involved in the attacks on the Tribunal freighters. That was why he’d decided to take her to that specific hangar. He also wasn’t sure why he was bothering her with such adult concerns.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Just follow me.”

  Together they skulked around the curved walkway until there was a low enough break in the crates for Elisha to get a good view down.

  “Here.” Talon stopped and knelt, hands resting over a low container. She mimicked his position exactly, except her face went bright as a ship below became visible.

  Talon had seen the inside of the Buckle’s vertical hangars countless times. He didn’t imagine anyone could find it anything more than ordinary, but Elisha had a knack for seeing the beauty in all things. A small transport vessel rose slowly through the shaft, making the grated floor beneath them tremble. Talon glanced over at Elisha to see her watching as if it were the most amazing thing in the world.

  Its humming ion drive left behind a dappled trail of bluish light, the sound reverberating down the hollow cylinder, playing it like a tremendous string instrument. Talon watched as it passed through the airlock hatch. For the briefest moment they could see the stars through the viewport in the outer seal. It might not have been long, but Ceres rarely offered glimpses of what lay beyond its dense, rocky surface.

  “Amazing, right?” Talon said. He wrapped his arm around her as the airlock shut and both the ship and space disappeared behind a wall of steel.

  “Have you ever been on one?” Elisha asked. She leaned out over the container to try to see the floor of the hangar, where men and plodding androids were loading up another ship.

  “Dozens. I can’t even remember them all.”

  He leaned out with her and couldn’t quite make out what the Lakura workers were saying. But there was nothing visible in the hangar that would incriminate them in the attacks. Seemed too simple anyway, he thought to himself, feeling guilty that he’d turned a quiet moment with Elisha into part of a job.

  “I wish I had one of my own,” Elisha said.

  “So do I. So does everyone born in this rock.” Talon chuckled and pulled her back. “I think you will one day. A much nicer one than these pieces of Lakura junk too. But where would you take it? That’s the question.”

  She pursed her lips for a few moments; then her face lit up. “I really want to see a planet.”

  “A planet? What could be better than Ceres?”

  “Maybe Saturn. I’ve heard traders talk about the rings. Have you ever seen them?”

  “Only once, but to tell you the truth, I never got the chance to really look at them.” He had always been too busy back on jobs for Zargo. Too focused. Like it was the only thing in the universe, until Elisha opened his eyes to the rest of it.

  “Or Earth!” Elisha exclaimed so loud that Talon covered her mouth, hoping that the workers below hadn’t heard.

  He hushed her, then asked, “Why in the name of the Ancients would you want to see that wasteland?”

  “I don’t know. Everybody says it’s a scary place, but I bet it’s not.” The room began to tremble again as the second ship powered up. Elisha extended her neck as far across the container as she could. Talon reeled her back a bit.

  “I wouldn’t know,” he admitted. “My father went there during the Reclaimer War and never came back.” He exhaled and rested his head against hers. “That’s all I know of the place besides what travelers tell me.”

  He was too young to remember the day his father left for battle. All he remembered was that he never came back, and then his destitute mother left him at cluster home. That was the thought that gripped his heart every night and squeezed… that he might wind up doing the same things to her.

  “I bet it’s beautiful. I bet…” Elisha was rendered silent by the second ship ascending
right in front of them, this one close enough to blow her hair back.

  “One look at you and it would sprout green and lush all over again,” he said, marveling at her. He could tell she was too occupied with the ship to hear him, but he didn’t mind. He ran his fingers over her shoulder and watched with her as the view of space momentarily opened again.

  Beautiful.

  21

  Chapter Twenty-One—Sage

  A week had passed since Sage was recruited by Talon, and over that period she didn’t stray much from Julius’ shack. He was the only person she’d spoken to at all. She quickly found that everything on Ceres had a cost, even the smallest luxury. Nothing was provided.

  She had to pay to get any nutri-pill from the local vending machines. To get a jug of water. To bathe in the nearest public soaking pools. Even the shack was rented from someone richer. Everything.

  In fact, the only thing she didn’t have to pay for was her sleeping arrangements—though technically she’d bartered her services in Julius and Talon’s insane job. But still, despite her protests, Julius insisted that he would sleep on the floor of his shack so she could take his hammock.

  She’d reluctantly agreed, avoiding any other further unnecessary conversations. Her body could use the break. Aches and pains from the explosion on Mars had pretty much vanished, and even her head felt fine for most of every day, but Culver’s blows had left some lasting bruises.

  Finally, alone that morning, Sage rolled out of the hammock and sank to both knees on the floor. It was dark, only a sliver of light slipping through the cracks of the shack’s rusty door barely clinging to its hinges.

  “I am blessed with ground beneath me,” Sage whispered, wary of anyone listening in. She extended her arms and let the tips of her fingers touch the floor. There was a soft scratching noise as her artificial hand grazed slowly across the surface.