The Circuit: The Complete Saga

by Bruno, Rhett C.

  “Our Homeworld has been blighted by darkness, but we are the light,” she continued. “Those beside me, those beneath me, and above me. Ours is a collective unconscious, bound to each other and to the soul of the Earth. We are, all of us, shards of that Spirit, never alone as the dark void closes in. This day is yet another test of my conviction, but though the Earth may be wreathed in flame and shadow, she remains within me. May those who have left to join this essence guide my daily endeavors. Redemption is near. May my faith—”

  Just as she began mouthing the final verse, the shack’s door swung open. She rolled to the side, banging into the hammock, which swung as if she’d fallen off.

  Julius burst into the room and threw his hand over his eyes. “Shit! I didn’t mean—” He backed out and closed the door halfway so that he could speak to her from behind it.

  Only then did Sage look down and realize that she wore nothing but her undergarments. She grabbed the ratty Ceresian tunic lying in a pile on the floor and threw it over her head.

  “I’m so, so, so sorry,” he said, sounding every bit as embarrassed as Sage was. “Did I make you fall? I ain’t used to havin’ anyone here.”

  “No,” she replied. “Well, yes. But it’s okay.”

  “I swear I didn’t see nothin’.”

  “I believe you,” she said. She didn’t. “I needed to wake up anyway.”

  “Well, if you’re up, grab a nutri-pill from the cabinet and come out. Think we still got some. You can meet some of the team we’ll be goin’ to battle with. We’ll have a few drinks, play some cards.” He peeked around the edge of the door, his usually dark cheeks so blushed they were almost purple.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. She didn’t know how to play the Ceresian card games, and based on Agatha’s history, she would have at least encountered them in the conduit stations she’d supposedly lived on. It wouldn’t be hard for them to figure out she was lying about who she was.

  “It’s a miner’s game, I know,” he said, as if answering her thoughts. “But we’ll teach you. C’mon, you’ve been in here alone for too long. We gotta keep our minds fresh.”

  She considered it for a moment. If he immediately assumed that she wasn’t familiar with the game, then maybe a Conduit merchant’s daughter wouldn’t know. It was worth the risk. A bunch of Ceresian lowlifes drinking and carousing? They were sure to spill something valuable to the Tribune.

  “Sure. I’ll be right there.”

  Julius clicked the door shut and Sage used the hammock to pull herself to her feet. That was way too close, she thought. She tidied up her oversized tunic, pulling it down so it covered down to her knees. She decided against putting on her armor. She’d have to fit in, act leisurely.

  When she was dressed, she opened Julius’ cabinet and grabbed a nutri-pill out of a tin. The last one left.

  She looked around to see if there was any water left to wash it down with. Just like her home in the depths of New Terrene, there were no in-home sources of water, though at least back home water was allotted. Drinkable water was a precious commodity throughout the Circuit.

  She spotted a quarter-full glass of murky water placed at the back of the counter. Julius had probably bought it earlier from the neighborhood well. It would have to do. Her throat was parched.

  Placing the pill on the center of her tongue, she took a swig, swishing it around in her mouth before swallowing. The water had a metallic tinge, but it was tolerable.

  With yet another pill slugging down her throat, she began to miss New Terrene crud. She couldn’t believe it was something that she could miss, but she was always fond of the routine. Days organized around feeding schedules. So much of her life was unpredictable. The only thing she could always count on every day, other than her faith, was the Tribune feeding its people.

  As much as the taste of crud could make her cringe, there was at least more to it than surviving on some pill. There was texture, substance—a flavor to ground her.

  Regardless, Sage forced the pill down, needing more water to get it unlodged from the back of her throat. Then she headed outside.

  Housing Block 543 wasn’t remarkable, but again it bore a slight resemblance to the Labyrinth of the Night. Instead of being built up along two vertical sides of a gorge like it was there, the shantytown was carved into the surfaces of the cavern. It extended up and down the rocky hill in either direction, until the slopes were too great to manage.

  Crude metal pathways worked alongside natural bridges between clefts and small valleys so that people could negotiate the uneven landscape. There was very little order, but there was something undeniably picturesque about it. She never knew where a shack was going to pop up, or where a pathway would carve through the crags to surprise her.

  “There she is!” Julius exclaimed. “Told you boys that she would come.” He wore a toothy grin as he waved Sage over. He and two others sat around a firepit, with green drinks set by their feet. Above them stretched a rock bridge with shacks built up on either side. Thin ropes draped between them were strung with dozens of articles of damp clothing.

  As Sage approached, she could see them whispering to each other and trying not to be caught staring at her. Just by their smirks she could tell what they were talking about. She was used to the way men looked at her, no matter how much she detested it.

  One of the two men accompanying Julius stood. He wasn’t very tall, and his reconstructed nose drew attention away from a head far too big for his body. “Wow, Talon wasn’t lyin’,” he admired. Julius nudged him in the leg. “Uh, name’s Vellish. Nice to finally meet the Tigress of Ceres Prime.”

  Sage ignored his initial comment. She stuck out her artificial hand and waited for him to shake it, like a true Ceresian would. Vellish’s eyes lit up.

  “By the Ancients, that’s some piece of tech. Who made that thing? I ain’t never seen anythin’ like it.” Vellish grasped her hand with both of his and took it upon himself to grope inquisitively along its parts.

  Sage pulled away aggressively, scaring him back into his seat. She exhaled. “Sorry. I don’t like to think about it.”

  “No worries. I didn’t mean anythin’ by it,” Vellish muttered. “Just amazin’ is all.” He picked up his drink and concealed his embarrassment with a long sip.

  “You’ll hafta excuse Vellish,” said the other man she hadn’t met. “He ain’t always the most charmin’ of fellows.” He stood and extended his left hand so that Sage would be able to put her human arm forward instead. “Name’s Ulson.”

  “Agatha,” she said, taking note now of how they didn’t use last names. Did most people here even have them? Or family at all?

  She grasped his hand, shook, and feigned a smile. “And if you must know, my uncle made this for me,” she lied. “Spent his whole life trying to give me an arm after I lost it when I was young. I would tell you how he made it, but he died shortly after he finished. He was a great man.”

  Julius signaled toward an empty chair already set up for her. “Wish I could’ve met him. I could use one of those arms. Or two.”

  Sage shot him an angry look. She didn’t necessarily mean to, but as much as the arm was a gift, the true story of its creation was horrific. She’d spent years blocking out the memories. Until they were merely a dull ache tugging at the fringes of her consciousness. Unfortunately, what had happened on New Terrene had them sneaking back into her thoughts.

  “So, you’re a merchant girl, right?” Vellish finally broke the silence.

  “Not always,” Sage said. She pulled her seat closer to the fire. It wasn’t often she got to feel the heat of an open fire. With so much of the Circuit drowned in the cold, it felt good to sweat. New Terrene was always kept temperate.

  “Agatha’s parents were smugglers out in the deep system. Died back in the Reclaimer War,” Julius informed the others. She was surprised he’d remembered anything from their few conversations.

  “Whose didn’t in this rock?” Vellish raised his glass and
nodded his head. The others mimicked him before simultaneously taking sips. “You’re in good company, Agatha. Ain’t nobody on Ceres who wouldn’t love a chance to get a piece of those stuffy Tribune bastards.”

  Sage gritted her teeth and offered an amenable nod. There is one person, she thought to herself as she began to stare into the fire. The way its unpredictable tendrils rose and fell, crackled and hissed, mesmerized her.

  “All right, are we gonna chitchat all day, or are we gonna play?” Ulson asked, rubbing his hands together vigorously. “Talon cleaned me out on Kalliope. I gotta make some back while he’s gone.”

  “He’s damn right,” Julius added. He went to pick up a holo-table from beside his foot, then glanced at Sage and paused. “But first, where are our manners? Agatha’s got nothin’ to drink.”

  Sage’s eyes shot up from the fire when she heard him. On New Terrene synthrol, or even genuine alcohol, was outlawed. She’d brought countless smugglers to justice for trying to run it through the Mars Conduit Station into the city, or bootlegging it in the Nether, but she’d never tried it before.

  “That’s okay. My uncle never let me touch the stuff,” Sage said, unable to think of any other excuse on the fly.

  Julius pretended to nearly fall off his chair in astonishment. “You’re telling me you’ve never tried it? Not even once?”

  “What’s so surprising? It’s a man’s drink, you know.” Vellish snickered. Sage’s unamused glare made him cringe. “Well, at least… most ladies I know don’t very well like the taste,” he added under his breath.

  Julius and Ulson couldn’t help but smirk as Vellish once again tried to mask his embarrassment by taking an exaggerated sip of his drink.

  “One day my wife and I will teach you manners,” Ulson said. He patted Vellish on the back, causing him to choke and his cheeks to get even redder.

  “Screw you both.” Vellish coughed.

  Julius and Ulson shared a laugh before he turned his attention back to Sage. “Here, try mine,” he said, holding out his glass.

  Sage regarded him with a furrowed brow. On one hand, it seemed like something Ceresians partook in with people they trusted. That could surely benefit her cause. On the other, it was against Tribunal law. Her law. Undercover or not, she couldn’t forget herself.

  “Just a sip,” Julius said. “I promise you’ll be fine.”

  There was something about the look in his eyes. She could tell that he wasn’t lying. That, for whatever reason, he sincerely wanted to include her.

  “I’ll do it,” she declared. She was an executor. She did whatever needed to be done for the good of the Tribune. “Just a sip.”

  Sage snatched the glass out of Julius’ hand. As soon as she did, Ulson and Julius leaned forward with anticipation. Even Vellish stirred from his chastened state. She brought it to her nose, recoiling initially from the pungent smell. It made her eyes water.

  “Trick is to be quick about it,” Julius advised.

  “Right down the hatch,” Ulson added.

  Sage breathed with her mouth so she couldn’t smell it, then tossed a sizeable amount of the green liquid in. It sat on her tongue for half a second, probably less, before the intolerably bitter taste forced her to spit it out. The open flame sizzled as the spray rained down over it, forcing Vellish to scamper off his chair to avoid a tendril.

  The three Ceresians laughed hysterically at her, like it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. Julius was in tears, and Vellish crouched beside his chair, holding his gut, unable to bring himself to sit. Sage bit her lip and tried to ignore them, but their reaction irritated her so much that the glass in her artificial hand shattered. She hadn’t even realized she was squeezing.

  The men immediately looked up at her, a fear in their eyes that she’d seen all too many times before. She stared at the shards in her palm, synthrol trickling out from the spaces between each plate. Then something happened to her, something she hadn’t felt in longer than she cared to recall. She laughed.

  It was far from boisterous, in fact it was barely audible, more a chuckle than anything, but it startled her so much that she covered her mouth. Then came another, and another after that, until before long she joined the others in honest amusement.

  “I…” she began. The sensation was so unfamiliar that she had to pause for a moment to gather her voice. “I didn’t expect it to taste that dreadful.”

  “I swear I ain’t never seen anybody react that bad,” a completely winded Julius said.

  “Seriously.” Vellish wiped his eyes and took a seat. “You almost burnt my leg off!”

  “Serves you right for letting me drink that,” Sage said. “What is wrong with all of you?” Her whole face remained scrunched in disgust, the foul taste still lingering in her mouth. She couldn’t stop it. All her executor training, undone by a drink.

  “Better than being sober all day,” Ulson said, shrugging. “You get used to it after a while.”

  “I’ll be dead long before I’m used to that,” Sage replied before realizing how wrong she might be. She’d thought the same thing the first time she’d tasted crud in lower New Terrene, and now she craved it more than anything.

  Could I ever miss this? She looked up at the three Ceresians’ smiling faces, and then she gazed down at the fire and began reciting the executor vows in her head again. I am a knight in the darkness, a vessel of—

  “’Bout time you two woke up!” Julius shouted, interrupting her thoughts. “Care for a game?”

  Sage saw Talon approaching in her peripheries first, with a child leading him by the hand. She didn’t dare look at him directly, but as he approached them, the handsome lines of his face were brightened by the flame. Their eyes locked in a moment too short to count, but a moment that made it feel like her heart sank through her stomach.

  She quickly returned her attention to the fire. It took all her concentration this time. Whatever conversation going on between the four Ceresians was rendered muffled whispers.

  She repeated the vows in her head until she could feel Talon hovering behind her. His shadow swayed with the firelight, but there was no doubt he was there. It was too much to bear. Out of the corner of her eye she allowed herself a glimpse.

  His cheeks were red as the Earth’s core, and a goofy smile stretched from one ear to the other. Seeing the expression was enough to make one end of her lips curl upward. Like the laugh, it happened before she could stop it. And by the time she was able to, he was already gone.

  “All right, Agatha, you ready? Agatha?”

  Sage didn’t hear who was speaking to her until a holocard projected in front of her face from Julius’ table and caught her attention.

  “You ready?” Julius asked again. “I’ll teach you as we go.”

  Her mouth opened to say she was ready. When nothing came out, she nodded instead.

  I will not lose faith amongst the faithless.

  22

  Chapter Twenty-Two—Talon

  Talon spent two more weeks scouring Ceres Prime for a crew of mercenaries willing to rob a Tribunal freighter. Most scoffed and claimed it was impossible, but the promise of wealth was irresistible for others, not to mention a chance to take on Tribunal soldiers.

  By the end of the search, he had twelve others in their squad. Enough to fill a small transport.

  On the eve of departure, Talon stood beside Julius on the promontory overlooking their housing district. Elisha and her mother sat a short distance behind them in the shadow of an overhang, waiting.

  “Tell me straight, Julius. You think the team we have is good enough to get this done?” Talon asked.

  “Honestly, Tal? I have no idea,” Julius replied. “We’ve been through more than our share of scrapes, you more than I, but this.” Julius grabbed his friend by the shoulders and turned him so that Vera or Elisha wouldn’t be able to read their lips. “More I think about it, the more this seems like suicide.”

  “Sounds perfect to me.” Talon put on a roguish grin, ma
sking his true feelings on the notion. Damned by the blue death or not, dying early meant less time with Elisha.

  “We’ll come back alive.” Julius nodded sharply, as if trying to assure himself. “I won’t let you go out like this. If and when you die, she’ll be at your side. I promise that.”

  “When,” Talon lamented. “I sure hope she isn’t. I hope she’s far away from here, bathing in the sun somewhere with grass wriggling between her toes.”

  “Yeah, and I hope Earth’ll be green and beautiful again.” Julius lightly jabbed Talon in the chest.

  Talon glanced back at Elisha. “Maybe one day it will be…”

  “You okay? You’re startin’ to sound like one of them.” Julius chuckled. “I’ll always look after her, Tal. You know that. We may not be blood, but she’s my daughter too.”

  “Then can I ask something of you?” He laid his hand on Julius’ brawny chest. “Something I would never trust with any of the others?”

  “Anythin’.”

  Talon took a deep breath. This was as difficult for him to ask as he knew it would be for Julius to hear. “Stay here with her. I can’t go back, but there’s still hope for you.”

  “What?” Julius said, aghast.

  Talon pulled him closer. “If we fail, I don’t know if Zaimur will hold up his end of the bargain. He’s not the man his father is. When Elisha’s old enough, he might…” He didn’t even want to say it.

  Julius pushed Talon away. “What about her mother?”

  “If she isn’t playing with needles, she’s with some asshole trying to score more. You think she’ll do anything to keep Zaimur’s hands off our daughter? She’d probably take the credits and watch. No. I can’t let Elisha follow that same path.”

  Julius’ eyes began to well up and his hands trembled. “No, you guys need me,” he implored, shaking his head. “I-I don’t want to be stuck in the mines my whole life. You don’t understand.”