The Circuit, Book 1

by Rhett C. Bruno

  “Cassius! Welcome, welcome!” An eccentric looking man sauntered out of one of the adjoining chambers. Joran Noscondra was a short fellow, without a beard or much hair, and garbed in a rather superfluous white cloak that draped to the ground over a tunic similar to Cassius’s. Like the servant, his face was painted heavily with makeup, though in the statelier manner emblematic of the Tribunal upper class. Gold tinted eye shadow dragged off neatly to the side as if he was an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh, and his lips were black with a notch coming off the bottom, extending over his chin.

  He moved along in a hurry, paying no attention to the dozens of saluting soldiers posted around the room. When he reached Cassius, he clasped his hands together and offered a humble bow. His held Cassius’s gaze, as was proper amongst equals.

  “Save your pleasantries, Joran,” Cassius said. He stepped around him without returning the gesture.

  “Still sour I see.” Joran frowned, reeled in his arms, and followed. He was one of the four Tribunes and was tasked specifically with overseeing New Terrene and the other colonies on Mars and nearby. Born and bred in the glistening city’s loftiest towers.

  “You’re lucky I’m here at all! Last time I came here, you and your Tribunal tried to have me killed.”

  “It was your Tribunal as well!” Joran snapped before taking a deep breath to regain his composure. “It was an unprecedented situation, as you know.”

  “Yes, of course. Well, I would have been happy to live out the rest of my pitiful life far away from here. It was you who summoned me. Only out of the kindness of my heart did I accept, so let’s be done with it as harmlessly as possible.”

  “Charming as always, Cassius,” Joran groaned. He shooed away the servant-girl who was quietly waiting. “The others await us in the assembly. Do try to be congenial at least.”

  “Aren’t I always?” Cassius mused.

  Cassius was led by guards up the grand staircase. He could remember all the faces of the lowly commoners attended Tribunal with their complaints and were so struck by awe as they slowly ascended the steps lined with pink flowered plants that they nearly forgot what they wanted in the first place. They had seventy-three steps to think about what they were going to say before they reached the most guarded room in all of the Circuit—enough time to read the names of all of the soldiers lost in the Earth Reclaimer Wars inscribed on each stair’s rise.

  The circle of the assembly room wrapped the room in two concentric rings adorned by stone statues of former Tribunes bathing in the ruddy sunlight pouring in through a glass dome with deep-set, golden ribs. At the center of those rings, a roaring flame burst through the glossy, white floor. Projected above the flame was a three-dimensional, holographic map of the Circuit which monitored the movements of celestial bodies around the sun as well as the Solar-Ark ships which defined it. In the place of Earth was a hovering, transparent container with a wiry, green plant floating inside.

  “He has arrived, fellow Tribunes,” Joran addressed, clasping his hands together and bowing his head.

  Cassius didn’t say anything. His glare was focused on the plant and it took a minute before he could finally tear his gaze away.

  “How…” He began to growl before taking a deep breath and settling his thoughts. He had waited far too long to let his temper sidetrack his plans. “It’s been too long.” He said before offering the feeblest excuse for a bow that he was able to muster.

  At four intervals around the space, a tall, metallic seat much too large for a human was nested against the obsidian wall beneath the dome. Two of them were already occupied by Tribunes. They looked like idols upon their thrones. Each of them were made up in the same garish style as Joran with their robes unfurling down the glossy metal with regal disregard. Beside Joran was the eldest of them, Cordo Yashan. A long, spectacular white beard fell from his chin, together with his makeup serving to hide most of his wrinkles. Next around the circle was Nora Gressler, a middle-aged woman with short black hair and hard features. She was the newest Tribune, replacing Cassius after he was exiled. The last of them, Benjar Vakari, was projected on a HOLO-screen hovering over the chair. He was a comely man. His lips, buried beneath a bushy beard, were constantly drawn to one side to form a complacent grin.

  How long I’ve waited to wipe that look off his face, Cassius mused to himself. That may very well be my greatest accomplishment after all of this is done with.

  Once Joran reached his lofty seat, they nodded to one another in turn, signaling at least a dozen guards to file out of the room and seal the entrance promptly behind them.

  “We are blessed with ground beneath us. May our faith be eternal and unwavering, so that we may one day walk the Earth’s untainted surface,” Tribune Yashan recited. Each of the Tribunes rose to their feet and carefully rearranged their clothing before they gracefully dropped to one knee. They looked to the map of the Circuit and then to the floor, slowly and deferentially allowing their fingers to graze the floor.

  Cassius didn’t move. When the Tribunes rose back to take their seats, he could tell by the scowls on three of their faces that his lack of reverence had insulted them. Benjar’s hologram continued to wear the same, smug grin.

  “It has been a long time, I know,” Tribune Yashan grumbled, “but I assume you have not forgotten the conventions of this blessed council.”

  “Ah, forgive me. Where are my manners?” Cassius didn’t kneel down. Instead, he bent at the waist, playfully groaning as he stretched out his arm and pretended he couldn’t reach the ground.

  “A mockery!” Cardo Yashan defied his age by shooting up to his feet and shouting. His face was red with anger. “How dare this heretic be invited to walk these sacred halls again!”

  “Relax, Tribune Yashan,”Joran spoke unenthusiastically. “I’m sure Cassius’s body is still weary from travel. Am I correct?”

  “It appears so.” Cassius patted his thigh a few times. “Leg seems to have stiffened up on me. I don’t suppose I could trouble you for a seat?”

  Cardo snapped. “You gave up your seat here long—”

  “Enough!” Joran cut him off. “We have more important matters to argue over.”

  Tribune Yashan muttered under his breath as he fell back into his seat.

  “Now,” Joran continued. “How fares Edeoria, Cassius?”

  “Give me a decade and the orange moon of Saturn will one day rival the great city of New Terrene.” He reached beyond the rail surrounding the map of the Circuit and felt the flame’s hotness against his flesh. For a long while, he thought it merely an illusion, but it was very real. “Now can we move beyond these pleasantries and explain why I was summoned from the comfort of my home?”

  “Don’t act like you don’t already know.” the projection of Benjar Vakari quickly cut in, bearing an incriminating tone.

  “Forgive Tribune Vakari,” Joran said. “Unexpected circumstances kept him occupied on Europa. He won’t be arriving until after you’ve already left.”

  “What a shame,” Cassius said with obvious sarcasm. “I was so looking forward to seeing him again.”

  “The flattery is unnecessary, Vale,” Benjar responded. “If it were up to me, you wouldn’t be allowed within light years of New Terrene.”

  “If it were up to you,” Cassius corrected, “I’d be dead.”

  Benjar’s distinctive grin broke for a rare moment, allowing his loathing for Cassius to seep through his features. “You shall find no pity for performing your obligatory duties to this holy council.”

  “You mistake me. I haven’t come for pity, I merely wish to hear this esteemed council beg for my help.”

  “Nobody is in the mood for your games!” Benjar yelled.

  “This is not a game!” Cassius barked, his eyes fuming. “Now from your own mouths, tell me why I, Cassius Vale, the innocuous exile, am required so far from my post?”

  “You knew the oath you were—” Tribune Vakari voiced before he noticed the others shaking their heads. “Fine.” He forc
ed his expression to return to normal, though his cheeks remained flushed. “I assume you have heard of the unsettling string of stolen freighters traversing the Ignescent Cell.”

  “The Tribune is no stranger to acts of piracy, especially in Ceresian space.”

  “Not like this. Usually we are not only able to track the stolen vessels, but disable their systems to uselessness. Even if the seized ships are beyond our reach, it can take up to a year for them to be completely dismantled and reconfigured in order to be used again.”

  “Just to be clear, you are describing to me the Vale Protocol? The same initiative I spent years in the Tribune developing?”

  “Yes…” Tribune Vakari’s mouth went crooked with embarrassment.

  Joran took over from there, said: “Over the past few months there have been a series of thefts of private freighters containing stores of Gravitum. In each case, no emergency signal went off. The tracking systems were disabled along with our ability to shut down the ships. No evidence was recorded or transmitted. The freighters are completely gone, missing as though they never even existed.”

  “You can understand why this would be disconcerting,” Nora Gressler chimed in. “If the Ceresian Pact has found a way around the Vale Protocol then we will have lost a significant advantage. Not all goods can be conveyed along the Circuit.”

  Cassius almost laughed after she spoke. He had a difficult time taking her seriously, her newness to the Tribune evident in her words. After he was forced out of his position as Tribune, she was the one chosen to replace him as the overseer of the outer Nascent Cell, hand-picked by Benjar himself. Her citadel was so near his home on Titan that he had made a living out of avoiding her gaze. But not shortly after she was sworn in did he find that her sway over the others was as minimal as his own had been when he occupied her seat. She was a constant reminder of how much he didn’t miss being a Tribune. Benjar had her wrapped around his thumb, and she rarely got a word in edgewise.

  “All of your goods, you mean?” Cassius corrected her. “Trade between the Cells has always been necessary, even amongst enemies. The Circuit weaves together all of humanity.”

  “Not if we can control it. Get the Keepers under our fingers.”

  “Don’t think me a fool!” Cassius roared. “The Circuit only works because it is impartial. If the Keepers were ever to lose control, the Solar-Arks would be susceptible to attack. This isn’t the second century K.C. anymore. There are other powers in the system who would not be bullied by you or any others. Few remain now perhaps, but they are out there.”

  “I’m beginning to wonder which side you are on!” Tribune Yashan snapped. He leaned forward in his chair and steepled his fingers.

  “I am on no side because I didn’t realize sides were already being taken. I have nothing to gain in whatever conflict you fools are instigating.”

  “Fools, you call us? It is your protocol that is being cracked, not ours.”

  “Yet it is your Tribunal. Every program will be broken eventually. It is up to you to ensure continued security. That was the agreement.”

  “Don’t patronize us, Cassius,” Nora said, jumping back into the discussion. “You promised that it would be imbedded too deep to be infiltrated without our knowing.”

  “Perhaps the ex-Tribune knows something he is not telling us. Perhaps the inventor of the Vale Protocol himself is the one using it to subvert us?” Tribune Vakari accused, an obvious reprisal for the slight he had received earlier. He put on an even haughtier grin than earlier.

  “How dare you make such a bold claim through the safety of a projection!” Cassius stormed around the fire basin and addressed the hologram directly.

  “Now, now, nobody is making that assumption,” Joran said in an attempt to placate.

  “I may have put down the gun a long time ago, but do not think I’ve forgotten how to use it,” Cassius stated. “You would be wise not to test my patience.”

  “And why is that?” Benjar didn’t break eye contact, his reinvigorated expression making Cassius’s blood boil.

  “Because though I have turned to using words, there will come a time when their effectiveness wears thin! There have been very few peaceful revolutions throughout the history of mankind, from what I’ve read of it.”

  The tension could be read in each crease on the present Tribune’s uneasy faces. Only the soft crackling of flame could be heard as they awaited the next exchange with bated breath.

  “Are you threatening me, Vale?” Tribune Vakari whispered sharply through his teeth.

  “Not you…” Cassius breathed deep and turned so that he could look upon the others, when suddenly a transmission came through.

  “Urgent message from the New Terrene Defense Arbiter,” an administrator’s voice echoed over the chamber’s intercom.

  “Patch him through,” Joran mumbled. He appeared eager to change the course of the conversation.

  “Excuse me, Your Eminences, another ship has vanished from the Circuit. Same result as the others,” the Arbiter addressed.

  Cassius masked his enthusiasm. He had been wondering how long it would take for ADIM’s work to finally earn recognition.

  “How long ago?”

  “Maybe an hour or so. I thought the news would be worthy of interrupting.”

  “It is. Thank you, Arbiter. I will meet with you soon.”

  The message cut out and Joran slumped back into his seat. He released a beleaguered sigh. “Look Cassius,” he began, “we may have had our differences over the years, but you once sat upon this Tribune, in this very room. Help us now, and I will personally acquit you of all lingering contempt .”

  “And what about the others?” Cassius questioned, his piercing stare still directed at Benjar Vakari’s hologram. “Will they too dismiss their claims of heresy and leave me in peace?”

  Joran didn’t wait for them to speak up. “They will. Help us and you may live the rest of your life outside of scrutiny.”

  “I don’t think—” Tribune Vakari responded before Joran cut him off.

  “Unless they don’t have the best interests of humanity at heart.” Joran glared at Benjar, who muttered something in frustration before closing out his projection.

  “Finally a man with some sense,” Cassius said as he offered Joran a nod. “The problem may be impossible to resolve entirely without recalling all vessels under the protocol, but I will do what I can. I must examine matters from the Arbiter’s Enclave first, and then I will return to Titan where I will maintain open communications until my services are no longer required.”

  “You have the full compliance of the New Earth Tribunal and its standing members.” Joran rose to his feet to address the rest of the room. “I will personally oversee this investigation and the involvement of Cassius Vale. Does anybody present oppose this?”

  The two remaining Tribunes shook their exhausted heads, neither of them eager to cause any further unrest.

  “To New Terrene then,” Cassius proclaimed.

  CHAPTER FIVE—SAGE VOLUS

  Labyrinth of the Night

  Sage Volus threaded through a crowd, a ratty cloak draped over her shoulders. She was alone, submerged in the shadows of the dim underworld of New Terrene where it was time for the Feed—when common people were herded like cattle to provisional outposts serving a solitary meal each day. Citizens were given a single bowl filled with mushy soup comprised of mostly vegetables and a few small supplemental pills bearing all other nutrients necessary for survival. They’d also get a cup of lukewarm water purified in the northern polar region of the planet. Guards in black and green light-composite armor kept the bedlam to a minimum. The letters NET were printed on the upper right side of their chest-plates.

  A guard at the edge of the serving stand looked her face over and then held out a retinal scanner. She moved toward it, placing her eye near the opening…B276584…ran across the top. A similar code was provided by the Tribune for every new resident of New Terrene. Hers was more a disguise t
han an identity. A name, Talia Bristol, popped up along with all the required information of birth, housing block, and years of citizenship.

  The gadget beeped, a signal that she’d had been cleared and she received her first and only meal of the day. Food wasn’t a luxury among the settlements of the Circuit, and the Tribune was never afraid to impose regulations on its growing populace.

  “Here you go, beautiful,” the portly man behind the stand said as he handed her a cold bowl with a bent spoon. She didn’t even bother to look up. She only wished that her cloak was fixed with a hood so she would be spared the daily, gluttonous stares by dirty, fat men.

  Sage watched as chunks rolled over the rim of the bowl as she dipped her utensil into the soup affectionately termed Crud. She remembered being nauseated by it, but that was a long time ago. In fact, she had come to look forward to the Feed just like everybody else. Only she was nothing like everybody else.

  As the pasty goop tumbled down her throat, her eyes remained vigilant, scanning for the man she’d been hunting for days. Instead, her eyes took in the gloomy underworld of New Terrene which was built into the depths of an extensive canyon known as the Labyrinth of the Night. Running up its wrinkled crags was a vertical shantytown—an ever expanding amalgamation of crude housing sheds rising up with cavernous passages carved out of the cliffs behind them. Tramways lined the void between the two sides, rising and falling beneath spontaneous bridges where the accruing structures on each side of the rift grew together. So far below the beautified avenues and containment of the glistening, upper city, it was always dark. Though the flickering lights in each tiny hovel made it appear like an abstract painting of a night sky.

  She moved slowly along the crowded walkway, her hand grazing the railing. She stopped by a towering HOLO-screen. It rendered her as a silhouette while she continued eating and trying to appear inconspicuous in her search.