“Try ADIM for the password,” she said.
Kitt entered the name, then shook his head. Sage pursed her lips and closed her eyes, and then it came to her.
“How about Caleb Vale.”
The moment Kitt entered the password, a tiny image of Cassius popped up on the monitor in front of him.
“Sage, my dear.” Cassius’ resonant voice spoke through the command deck’s speakers.
Sage leaned as close to the hologram as she possibly could. With her human hand, she pointed to the trough on Ennomos. Kitt nodded that he noticed it, took control of the ship from Elisha, and guided it down into the rocky groove.
“If you’re seeing this, I know I’ve done enough to earn your hatred,” Cassius continued. “I accept it, but one day I hope you’ll understand. I hope you’ll realize that what I did, I did for the good of humanity. My only regret in doing so will be losing you. I wish I could’ve been there for you after Caleb’s death. I know that deep beneath your veil of faith, you’ve always blamed yourself. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t my fault. It was his choice to brave that vile world, and his choice alone.
“You see, there was a time when we were a species of dreamers. Before the Circuit, the Ancients looked up to the sky and wondered how they could go beyond it. For every new challenge they discovered, they built something to answer it. My son carried their torch. He wanted to heal Earth with the technology he could understand, but there are some things beyond our control. What Caleb failed to realize is that we evolved beyond our need for Earth.”
While Sage watched, enraptured, the Monarch raced through the valley of Ennomos.
“What’s that?” Hearing her voice after so long drew Sage’s attention. The girl pointed toward the mouth of a tremendous hangar. The outer seal opened all on its own as if they were expected.
“Not sure,” Kitt said.
“The Ancients understood this,” Cassius went on, drawing all eyes back to him. “Before they fell, they wanted to seek out another homeworld. They wanted to visit the stars they so often dreamed of. I can’t say for certain why we of the Circuit abandoned that dream and chose to stay, but today our chains are broken. Within Ennomos sits an ark that was created not to circulate resources to help us stay behind, but to allow us to claim our destiny. On the Circuit, humanity will persevere as we always have, but out there, on the next frontier, we can thrive.”
The Monarch entered the hangar, and a series of bright lights along the lofty ceiling flashed on, illuminating the hangar Cassius had once brought Sage to, along with the solar-ark Amerigo. Kitt had to quickly pull up to avoid crashing straight into it. He maneuvered up over the top of its shimmering solar-sail and glided over its incredible length.
“The ark is my gift to you,” Cassius said, the corner of his lips lifting into a smile. “It is yours to do with what you will. You can return it to the Circuit, where it has been for centuries, or you can fill its chambers with those brave enough to realize its original purpose and seek out a new Earth. I’ve always wished I could believe in the Spirit, but if anyone can discover the world we’re meant to be on, it’s you, Sage. You can find us a planet across the galaxy where there are blue skies and green grass again.”
Cassius spread his arms out wide. He stared straight forward, looking directly at Sage’s eyes even though he was just an image on a screen.
“We can’t change what we are, or what we’ve done,” he said, “but we can change the future. I leave the decision in your worthy hands, Sage Volus. One last mission…”
Epilogue
For Cassius Vale, Earth had always been an alien place—a barren, volatile world where death came from beneath without warning. It surprised him that when he returned to the planet after destroying it, he found it even stranger.
Gone were the constant quakes and fissures spitting up lava. What was left behind were cool, stagnant chunks of rock, which had spread as far as they could before the effects of the gravitum bombs faded and each piece was caught by the gravitational pull of the others. They whirled around each other, like a tightly knit asteroid field caught in a macabre dance.
Finally, after centuries, Earth—the cradle of life—was completely sterilized. Gravitum clung to its cloven mantle, waiting to be mined by the more industrious peoples of the Circuit along with other precious resources.
Cassius never thought he’d return to the world he so detested. But as the White Hand touched down on one of its chunks, somehow it was the only place that seemed fitting. He had to wear a full enviro-suit to walk outside, as he always did, though it was no longer because of the toxic atmosphere. It was because there was none.
The only signs that Earth had ever been a habitable planet was a strange haze hanging above the surface comprised of ship parts and debris, along with what little moisture and gases remained before they gave way to the great vacuum. Otherwise, he might as well have been walking the surface of Ceres.
Even gravity felt off-kilter. He was being tugged lightly in every direction as he walked and the chunks of Earth spiraled around each other, as if he were submerged in a pool with constantly shifting tides. The sensation made him nauseous, though he didn’t let it keep him from his task.
He dragged ADIM’s frame across the parched ground by both arms toward the lip of the Euro-Continent Gravitum Mine. The g conditions remained high enough for it to be extremely heavy for his old arms. When they reached the lip of the mine, he fell onto his back, wheezing into his helmet.
“I should’ve built you lighter,” Cassius huffed.
He used the rest of his energy to prop up the deactivated android’s head so that it hung directly over the chasm. Then he fell against ADIM’s chest, catching his breath. He stared up at the stars. The moon obscured a patch of them, undamaged itself except for the darkened scar where the Ceresians had hit hardest.
Reaching into a compartment on his suit’s belt, Cassius pulled out a small glass tube holding the plant Caleb grew. The container was smaller than the original, the stringy plant folded over itself to fit inside. Then he pulled out his holorecorder.
“You would hate me as much as Sage does, wouldn’t you?” he said. “But I hope that you’d understand.”
He rotated the device in his hand, stopping when his thumb landed on the switch to activate Caleb’s embedded recording. There it remained for almost a minute before he tilted his hand and allowed it to roll off into the mine without bringing up Caleb’s face. He didn’t deserve to see it.
The recorder plummeted into the darkness, the plant following soon after.
There were no more goodbyes left to say. Everything he’d wanted since the moment Caleb had showed up on Luna with a metal shard through his chest had come to fruition, but with it went Cassius’ fire, his rage, his need to fight.
He turned toward ADIM’s blank face and dim eye-lenses. The android comprised all those pieces, yet he’d become so much more. He was a miracle. As much as the first humans to be born out of Earth’s good graces were. It was the moment when Cassius saw New Terrene in ruins, bodies tossed around like worthless trash, that he realized his greatest failure.
With proper guidance, ADIM could have been a gift to humanity. Instead, he had to be destroyed. For ADIM’s need to replace the shackles of man with newer, tighter ones wasn’t due to logic, not completely. It was instilled by Cassius. It was because ADIM could feel a need to protect him. It was because he was so much more than a machine.
Cassius slid ADIM’s body as far as he could over the hole without it falling. He held it there on the brink until his arms started to shake.
“I’m sorry, my son,” he whispered.
He let go, and in that split second of ADIM scraping across the ground as gravity began to pull him downward, Cassius pictured the first steps the android took—how innocent he was. All he’d ever wanted to do was prove himself worthy of Cassius’ impossible metrics, and he’d never know how worthy he was.
Cassius dove forward and grabbed ADIM by
the leg. The weight nearly yanked him down as well, but his foot caught a rock and he was able to brace himself. His shoulder tore from its socket, but he gritted his teeth, channeled his training, and lifted ADIM out of the darkness.
Cassius had failed him once, but he wasn’t dead yet…
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Rhett C Bruno is the USA Today Bestselling & Nebula Award Nominated Author of The Circuit Saga (Diversion Books, Podium Publishing), Contact Day (Aethon Books, Audible Originals), Children of Titan Series (Aethon Books, Audible Studios), and the Buried Goddess Saga (Aethon Books, Audible Studios); among other works.
He has been writing since before he can remember, scribbling down what he thought were epic stories when he was young to show to his friends and family. He is currently a full time author living in Delaware with his wife and dog Raven.
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The Circuit
Executor Rising
Legacy of Vale
Falling Earth
The Children of Titan:
The Collector (Novella Prequel)
Titanborn
Titan’s Son
Titan’s Rise
Titan’s Fury
Titan’s Legacy
The Origins of the Children of Titan Universe Nebula nominated short story: Interview for the End of the World
and This Long Vigil
Contact Day:
The Luna Missile Crisis
The Buried Goddess Saga:
Web of Eyes
Winds of War
Will of Fire
Way of Gods
War of Men
Word of Truth
Baron Steele
The Roach
The Black Badge
Dead Acre (Book 0)
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