Despite his words, he didn’t hurry across the lab, instead taking his time to reminisce. He saw the table where ADIM once lay before he’d sparked his core. Three more were on either side of it, one for each of the six test androids he’d finally powered on before Nora and her fleet arrived.
Cassius stopped when he reached Sage and unfastened her from the surgical table. The androids tried to help, but he shooed them away. Cradling her between both of his arms, he lifted. She was heavier than expected, but he wasn’t a young man anymore either.
He carried her to the lift, where the androids joined him. The door slowly shut, and he stared into the dark lab he’d modeled the one on Ennomos after until it was completely sealed. The time had come to move on.
37
Chapter Thirty-Seven—Cassius
The three androids in front of Cassius stormed forward as the lift’s door opened back onto the main level of his compound. The soldiers waiting outside were instantly cut down by a clatter of bullets.
Cassius carried Sage through the doors and stepped over the mound of bodies. Two of the androids sprinted ahead toward his personal quarters while the other went in the opposite direction toward the hangar. Three more were scattered throughout his compound, and he could tell by the echoing gunfire and screams that they’d already made contact.
With Sage in his arms, Cassius couldn’t move fast, but he didn’t have to. By the time he turned into the hall of holographic busts, it was already lined with soldiers killed by his androids. The water troughs running down the edges of the hall were stained red.
Cassius looked down at Sage’s placid face to see her eyelids twitching. He knew from experience that the dreams and memories she’d experience directly after surgery would be exhausting, as all the things the implant helped bury surged to the surface.
“You’ll be safe here for now,” he whispered in her ear. He kissed her on the forehead and placed her down against the pedestal of his son’s holographic bust. Then, after meeting Caleb’s artificial gaze one last time, he opened the door to his room.
Two of the androids were already awaiting him when he stepped in. Tribune Nora Gressler was on her knees in front of them both. She shielded her face as the guns built into the android’s hands aimed at her head. The bodies of her entire honor guard littered the room. Not a single one moved or even groaned in agony. The finest soldiers the Tribune had to offer, and Cassius’ creations had mowed them down like children on ancient Earth zapping insects with magnifying glasses.
“What have you done?” Nora asked, her voice shaking. Her face and dress were spattered in her soldiers’ blood.
“Only what I must,” Cassius responded sternly. He stepped between the two androids holding her at gunpoint. “You underestimated me. You should have brought mechs of your own.” He patted the androids on their metallic backs.
“Even Benjar didn’t know what you truly are,” she spat. She looked up at him, her face gripped by a look of absolute terror.
“And what am I?” Cassius said calmly before grasping her by the jaw and screaming, “What am I!”
“A monster…” She squeezed the words out through her clenched mouth.
Cassius tossed her aside. She yelped as her elbows hit, causing her pain for what might have been the first time in her privileged life.
“There are no monsters,” Cassius said. “Only different perspectives.” He moved to the entrance to his viewing terrace still sealed by emergency shutters.
She flipped over to face him but was immediately halted by the androids. “Do you really hate people so much that you would turn to these abominations?” she asked, lips pursed like she’d tasted poison.
“I—” Cassius was interrupted by a burst of shots echoing from somewhere else in the compound. Bloodcurdling screams followed. When it quieted again, he continued. “I may not care for people, but I love humanity. I love what we stand for, what we’ve accomplished, our limitless potential to expand and invent. I will not sit idly by while the Tribune holds us back.”
He pressed a switch beside the sealed terrace and triggered a closet nearby to open. A few sleek-looking enviro-suits hung within along with spare respirator masks. They were completely black, with coated tubes extending from the back that connected to a filtration system and a personal oxygen store, which would allow him to breathe safely outside for a short period.
“W-what are you d-doing?” Nora stuttered. She crawled backwards, but the androids repositioned themselves to make sure she had nowhere to go.
Cassius stepped into one of the suits and enclosed his body. Then he pulled the helmet down over his face, forming an airtight seal at the collar. When he was done, he grabbed the other suit and approached Nora.
“You’re going to need this,” he said as he offered it to her, his voice muffled by the helmet. “I learned a few things while serving as a Tribune. Careful planning was one of them.”
Nora grimaced at him, refusing to take the suit. Cassius shrugged before he used his holopad to key a few commands. Then he held on to the wall.
When the terrace’s emergency shutters began to open, he watched gleefully as Nora frantically put on the suit. She barely finished before a gust of icy air rushed in. The androids kept her from moving, and when the rapid environmental change completed, Cassius stormed forward and took hold of her from them. He dragged her squirming body out onto the terrace.
It was incredibly noisy. The winds of Titan whistled through the shattered glass and pelted Cassius’ visor with sand and dust. Once the panel was all the way up, he saw a swarm of additional Tribunal transports approaching. They dropped combat mechs down into the crater to secure Edeoria. Beyond them, the Calypso turned to face his compound straight-on with its rail gun.
“Tell them to pull back,” Cassius demanded.
Nora shook her head defiantly, visibly struggling to ignore the lethal androids standing just behind her.
Cassius drew his pistol and tapped it against her helmet. “Tell them.” He knew that as a Tribune, she’d be comm-linked to the entire fleet in case things went awry. Which they obviously were.
She bit her lip, swallowed, then said, “Calypso fleet, don’t engage. I repeat, do not engage!”
The closest of the incoming ships sailed harmlessly overhead.
“There we go. Easy.” Cassius patted her on the shoulder. With his free arm, he glanced at his holopad and saw the countdown at 1:53 in the corner.
“What do you want now? How do you possibly see this ending?” Nora tried to summon her most regal inflection, but he could see how frightened she really was. Her eyelids were peeled open as wide as they could go, and the entirety of her person seemed to be seized by a relentless tremble. It had been a long time since she was a soldier.
“I don’t see it ending,” Cassius responded as he continued to stare impatiently at the counter. “Not yet.”
1:31. Zero couldn’t come fast enough.
“I will not be some bargaining chip, Cassius!” Nora said. “I am a member of the Tribunal Council!”
“You are nothing!” Cassius thundered. He struck her in the back of the head with his pistol so hard that he knocked her onto her face. When he went to pull her back up, two other androids entered the room.
“Creator, the other units have boarded the White Hand,” the androids announced all at once. They crossed the dozens of corpses without even a downward glance.
“Good. Seal the door,” Cassius commanded them, not forgetting that Sage remained unconscious in the hall and would soon need breathable air.
“Is this what you’ve been doing here… building an army?” Nora wheezed, getting onto her hands and knees.
“Not an army,” Cassius said. “That comes later.”
“What happened to you?” Nora released a grueling cough, and Cassius immediately realized that the tube attached to the back of her helmet had been ruptured at the base from his blow. “Is this all for your son? Nobody could have stopped what happened that
day.”
As Cassius leaned over to try to fix it, her words made him stop. “Don’t you dare talk about him! My son gave his life for your Earth. He didn’t just wait for change, he made it. And now you display the plant he grew there like a badge of honor!” Cassius’ dark eyes burned with rage. He hoisted her up by her neck and squeezed.
Nora groped at his arm, writhing and thrashing for her life until Cassius’ arm suddenly gave out. His muscles didn’t have the same endurance they used to.
“Fire the rail! Kill him now with me!” Nora took the unexpected opportunity to order. In a hurry, one of the androids seized her.
Cassius cursed, wheeled around quickly with his gun drawn, and fired a shot into the center of her chest. She gawked down, fingering the wound with both hands.
Storming forward, Cassius grabbed her by the suit. He yanked her out of the android’s grasp and heaved her with all his might. Her body sailed over the railing and over the top of the Ksa crater’s rim, tumbling through the frigid air until she vanished beneath Titan’s eternal fog.
When she was gone, Cassius looked up and saw a dull white glow beginning to emanate from the center of the Calypso. It was too late. Nora had issued her order and the rail gun was charging, with enough power to rattle a small moon. He knew, he’d helped with the weapon’s designs.
Cassius’ heart skipped a beat, but that was before his wrist beeped. He looked down anxiously to see that the countdown had reached zero.
Just in time.
The laboratory buried deep beneath his feet exploded, causing the entire compound to shudder. He was rocked back into the arms of an android that somehow managed to keep its balance.
Despite all that was going on below, Cassius kept his eyes fixed on the sky. A rapidly moving black shadow approached the murky silhouette of the conduit station beyond the clouds. When the two shapes met, the atmosphere was painted with a conflagration of blue and orange. Cassius couldn’t feel the blast, he couldn’t even hear it, but the whole sky lit up momentarily as if a second sun were rising.
The Calypso’s rail gun slid back along the surface of the ship, preparing to fire, when a fiery chunk of debris rained down from the sky and crashed into the bow. The cruiser pitched forward from the impact, throwing off its aim just as a blinding beam of whitish light lanced out and blasted through the tops of at least three of Edeoria’s shafts. The initial shockwave was so strong that it blew Cassius and even the androids this time back onto their rears.
Flames and smoke coiled up from a gash in Titan’s surface. Chunks of metal and rocks were spewed all over, and more fragments from the damaged Conduit continued to shower the colony and wreak more havoc. Cassius watched in awe, hardly even noticing as the androids lifted him back to his feet.
Then, as if called down from the heavens, the White Hand banked around the compound and blocked his view. It hovered just at the edge of the terrace.
“Creator, you are in danger. You must come,” the androids said in unison, one of them extending its hand. The others leapt into the open cargo bay of the White Hand.
Cassius ignored his creation, instead stepping to the side to capture another view of the destruction. All the smaller Tribunal ships scrambled out of the way of flying wreckage. The Calypso was on a crash course for the rim of the Ksa crater. Away from the heart of Edeoria, but the damage would still be substantial.
“Creator, you must come,” the android said.
“Give me a moment,” Cassius responded calmly.
He took it all in for a few more seconds, then hurried to closet to retrieve a respirator mask. Then he tore the sheets off his bed.
With all that in hand, he reopened the entrance to the hallway and invited Titan’s frigid air into the rest of his compound. Sage still lay peacefully on her back, but she wouldn’t last long as the temperature dropped. Moving as quickly as possible, he wrapped the sheet around her body, pressed the mask over her face, and lifted her cradled in his arms.
Cassius glanced down the hall, seeing all the holographic faces staring forward as if he wasn’t there. More than a face of stone, he thought as he used his son’s podium to get a better grip on Sage’s body.
“We’re survivors, you and I,” he whispered into her ear, peering over her brow to see Caleb’s face. He nodded at the hologram before wheeling around to return to the White Hand.
“Are you ready, Creator?” the waiting android asked.
Cassius drank one last gulp of the devastation he’d caused. They were the people he was charged with, but they were his father’s people. There is no other way, he assured himself as he began to walk toward the edge, each stride growing longer and more confident. Once there, the android grabbed him and Sage and leapt, the three of them landing safely in the White Hand before it took off toward the scorched sky.
The cargo bay’s ramp sealed shut behind them and Cassius sagged against a wall, still cradling Sage’s unconscious body. As he did, the familiar voice of ADIM spoke into his right ear, ever so slightly different from the others in ways only he would perceive.
“Creator, the gravitum bomb performed as anticipated,” ADIM said.
Cassius shut his eyes and exhaled slowly. “ADIM,” he said, “it is good to hear your voice.”
38
Chapter Thirty-Eight—Adim
Before Nora Gressler’s failed raid of Cassius’ compound had even begun, the Shadow Chariot sat silently on the surface of Kalliope’s smaller satellite asteroid. ADIM remained in a sleep state, awaiting commands. The pulsing bomb protruded from the top of the ship’s hull, appearing unstable enough to explode at any moment.
“ADIM.” Cassius’ cool voice spoke directly to him, finally. “Proceed as planned. Use any means necessary.”
ADIM wasted no time. His bright red eyes bloomed to life.
“This unit is primed, Creator. Preparing to penetrate Kalliope defenses.” The Shadow Chariot hummed as the ion drive flared to life and it slowly lifted off.
“Good,” Cassius said. Then came a lengthy pause. The Shadow Chariot was already racing toward the elongated body of Kalliope before Cassius continued speaking. “Good luck, ADIM.”
“This unit does not require luck. With the will of the Creator guiding it, the odds of failure are minimal.”
“Noted,” Cassius replied softly and took an audible breath. “ADIM, you may not be a human, but I care for you all the same. You understand that, I hope?”
“This unit understands. A man can feel love for whomever he chooses. One day, when we’re done, there will be other humans worthy of your will.”
“Perhaps. But until then I have you. Goodbye, ADIM.”
“Goodbye, Creator.”
The emptiness returned, as it always did upon hearing those parting words, but it was easier to handle when ADIM had a task to complete. As he piloted the Shadow Chariot toward one of the entrance hatches into the mining colony, all he looked forward to was completing his task so that he could speak with Cassius again. It made failure an impossible notion.
When he was close enough, two mounted defense turrets above the hatch unleashed a hail of anti-air rounds. He assumed complete control of the ship, the Shadow Chariot becoming like an extended part of his being. It shot upward, exposing the underside to the weapons so that the gravitum bomb on top was in no danger of being hit. He spiraled out of the way of incoming fire and shifted downward, his ship’s bow cannons tearing through one of the turrets. A missile sped under his wing as he corkscrewed up and around, coming at the second turret from the flank and ripping it from the wall with precise fire.
With the outer defenses swiftly destroyed, ADIM guided the ship’s landing gear to touch down against the asteroid’s scabrous surface, just above the hatch. It was a densely plated entryway, and ADIM had no doubt that those inside had been alerted of an assault.
He disconnected the circuits binding him to the Shadow Chariot after the cockpit opened. Then he climbed over the edge and pushed off so that he drifted through
space. When he banged against the hatch, he magnetized his limbs to steady himself.
With one arm, ADIM concentrated his wrist-laser into the metal, slowly tracing a circle until both molten ends met. Then he moved a small distance down and repeated the same steps but in a much smaller ring. Leaving the second circle three-quarters finished, he fired a missile at the first. The disk exploded inward at first before the intense change in pressure sucked it back out into the void, along with everything else loose inside.
ADIM waited as scraps of metal, equipment, and even a few humans were pulled out before smashing through the second hole with both feet. He wielded the circular plate like a shield as he landed in the open hangar. Guards and miners inside had taken up arms, but they’d been heaved off their feet by the release of pressure. Having already donned their helmets, they were able to breathe despite the breach, so ADIM bolted horizontally, firing accurate shots with one arm as he shielded himself with the other.
He ducked behind a pile of crates at the other end of the hangar. Six hostiles on level one. Five on level two. ADIM quickly assessed the situation and plotted his course of action.
Poking his arm out from cover, he sent a missile into the engines of a parked transport vessel the defenders were using for cover. Plumes of smoke and flame shot out from it in every direction. He vaulted over the crates, now using both arms to unleash a barrage of carefully aimed shots. He ran forward, his eyes and body revolving rapidly as he continued firing up onto the catwalks. Bullets whizzed by, but he had calculated the route, and when he reached the damaged transport, there was nobody left shooting.
Hostiles terminated.
ADIM turned around and entered the control room on the broad side of the room. The viewport facing the hangar was shattered, the men inside peppered with holes. He pulled the foreman’s corpse off a chair and placed his palm against a console, tapping into the security systems. The hangar’s airlock hatch began to iris open completely. He hurried outside to climb up the rim and return to the Shadow Chariot.
The Circuit: The Complete Saga Page 26
