The man turned his head, but it was too dark for her to make out any of his features. There were a few small lights set into the surface, but nothing too bright. “My father used to take me here when I was just a child,” he reminisced. His voice was smooth and articulate, a breath of fresh air compared to the typical incoherence she found characterized most Ceresians. “Not many people come up here anymore. Our sad excuse for a park on Ceres. Nothing as beautiful as the Conduits you grew up on I bet?”
It took her a moment to realize that it was a question. “I…How did you know where I’m from?” She stepped to the side so that Julius and the mysterious man were both in front of her. As Julius walked over to sit beside him on an outcrop of rock facing her, she wrapped her fingers quietly around the grip of her pistol.
“Well, for starters, it’ll take a few months down here before your skin is pale enough for you to blend in. Since I already know you arrived recently, I’d have to imagine you’re the beauty I’ve heard so many guards drooling over.”
She decided to ignore his last comment. “I do miss seeing the sun,” she replied, and she meant it.
“And now you’re here fighting in the arena like some common brawler even though I can tell that there is nothing common about you. There was a time I took to those rocks in order waen some spare Pico. I bet the managers didn’t care too much for a woman taking out their top combatant.”
“No they didn’t.”
“So what brings you to this district then? I can’t imagine you’ve come here to live as a fighter.”
“Opportunity,” Sage said. She didn’t want to reveal too much too soon. Agatha Lavos didn’t seem like someone who would trust easily, and she wasn’t keen on it either.
The man got up and approached her. He had a slight limp. “The name is Talon Rayne,” he said. As he exited the shadow she found herself unexpectedly surprised by his face. It was incredibly handsome, with a scruffy beard and short, unkempt hair. A burn mark scarred a patch of skin over his right eyebrow, but it wasn’t enough to draw her attention away from his eyes. They were as blue as the ancient sky of Earth she imagined, and they bore a certain weariness which made him appear as if he had a longer story to tell than his age would indicate. When he got close enough he held out an open, gloved hand.
“Agatha Lavos,” Sage said. She made sure to peek over her shoulder before stepping forward. She instinctually went to clasp her hands together and bow, and then remembered how the arena manager had originally established their deal. It wasn’t what she was used to on New Terrene, but she extended her human hand to shake his.
She had expected a stronger grip from looking at his muscular physique, but she was used to men treating her like she was fragile. Only then did she realize that she’d been staring into his eyes since the moment he approached her, and that he had been doing the same to hers. Their hands remained locked, and she could feel both palms growing moist as they held them together. It was like they were frozen in that moment. She felt her heart begin to race in such an unexpected fury that she swiftly let go and averted her gaze. She stumbled slightly as she backed away, and hoped that he didn’t notice.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Agatha,” Talon mouthed. He was gaping down at his empty hand with a look of astonishment.
“So, what is this job?” she answered without hesitation. She wasn’t sure why she felt bad for lying to the stranger, but she wanted more than anything to move on.
“Straight to the point. Just like a true merchant,” Julius chimed in.
“Oh come on, Julius. Don’t be jealous. The mines aren’t too bad,” Talon said as he sat down beside her. He was trying to hide the fact that he was eyeing her from head to toe out of the corner of his eye. She noticed.
“So you know everything about me?” she responded anxiously and moved to stand right in front of them.
“Just what you told the moderator down at the arena. I figure any servant of the Tribune wouldn’t be able to leave even if they wanted to, but the Conduits are supposed to be free of ownership. Or are we wrong?”
“My parents were smugglers during the Earth Reclaimer Wars, but I was too young to remember that,” she explained. She was careful sure insert some false emotion into her tone so it didn’t seem like she was reciting from note cards. “The Tribune killed them outside New Terrene when we were caught. I escaped. I grew up moving from Conduit to Conduit. It took almost everything my parents left me to repair my arm after the attack…everything but my mom’s armor and pistol. But I was never meant to be a merchant -”
“You were meant to fight, to take from those who took your parents from you.” Talon took the words right out of her mouth. “I used to think the same way. Well, Agatha, I can’t promise you much, but I can say you’ll get to take down some of those Tribunal bastards.”
“Nothing would…” She paused to gather her breath enough to allow her words to betray all that she stood for. “…make me happier.”
“Perfect!” Talon jumped to his feet and smiled. “The Morastus clan will pay us handsomely. I can’t tell you the numbers yet, but we’ll be hitting a Tribunal freighter carrying a hell of a load of Gravitum.”
Julius hadn’t been lying. Her eyes grew wide. Goosebumps rose all along her skin. “So you’re the ones causing all the reports of attacks on freighters?”
“We wish,” Julius laughed.
“No. None of us has any idea which clan has been responsible for that, but the Morastus want in on the action,” Talon clarified. “Anybody who could do what you did in the arena is either half insane or exactly what we need.”
“Probably a little bit of both,” Julius added before spitting over the ledge.
Sage shot a look at him so scathing that he immediately fell silent and pretended to see something in the distance. She turned to Talon and said: “As long as the pay is good, I’m in.” The Ceresian fascination with credits was foreign to her, but she had to make sure she sounded genuine.
“If we succeed, you’ll never be hungry again,” Talon promised her. “So are you in?” He extended his hand.
She didn’t waver this time before grasping it. “I’m in,” she agreed. “Just tell me what to do.”
“For now, you just have to wait while we handle some more recruiting. In the meantime you’ll be staying with Julius.”
“And why is that?” She shot him a heated glare. “You didn’t buy me.”
“Of course not! But the Morastus don’t want anything about this mission leaking out. Judging by the way you’re fiddling with that gun of yours leads me to believe you’re just about as untrusting as I am.” He nodded toward her artificial hand, which she hadn’t even realized was so close to her holster. “I may not think you’ll tell anybody, but I’ve known Julius here my whole life and I’d trust him with my own, so I know it’s the truth when I say you’ll be safe with him. Plus, I doubt somebody so new to this place probably has anywhere else to stay unless you want to descend closer to the core. So, how about it? 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 of the Tribune 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 Ceresians.
“That’s fine with me,” she said.
She feigned a grin as best she could. They might not have been the ones she was sent to find, but maybe by attacking a freighter they’d run into those who were responsible for taking the others. 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. Talon watched her as she walked away. She didn’t have to look to make sure, but Talon was watching her and she felt it…and for whatever reason it didn’t repulse her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE—TALON RAYNE
Simple, Beautiful Things
; Talon sprung awake a few days later, grasping futilely for the gun that he no longer wore on his hip. He was panting wildly and struggling 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 was lying down beside him on his hammock, with her head resting on his heaving chest.
“Yeah, sweetie.” He pulled his shirt over his face to wipe his brow. “Just a scary dream.” It wasn’t a dream. The Blue Death was making it harder and harder to sleep. He’d been back on Ceres for a week already and had woken up in the same way almost every morning.
“What happened?” She rolled over onto her stomach and rubbed her puffy eyes.
“Oh, you know. The usual.” He ran his hair through her hair, wondering if he had ever felt anything in the Circuit so soft. “A shadowy monster with fiery, red eyes came and tried to take you away from me.”
Elisha pulled herself tight against his tunic as she stared up at him, her eyes nearly popping out of her sockets from wonder.
“Don’t worry,” Talon said. He picked her up and hugged her so that he was able to whisper directly into her ear. “When I was through with it, the beast was as much ash as the surface of the Earth.” He swung her over the side of the hammock and placed her down on his thighs.
“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 off of him and crossed her arms.
“And why is that?” Talon asked. He always forgot how shrewd she could be despite being so young. He liked to think that she got that from him.
“You would never lose me.”
“Never,” he agreed, not realizing how austerely 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 at dawn. “So, how do you feel about us spending the day together?” he asked.
Elisha turned around, her smile stretching from one rosy cheek to the other. “You have no work today?”
“Never again!” He lifted her up and began to spin. His arms grew weary 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 was resting on his shoulder. “You and I can travel to the far reaches of the Circuit together. See everything there is to see.”
She pulled her head back to look at him, and her smile was quickly masked by skepticism. “You’re lying.”
“I wish I wasn’t, but today you’ll have me.”
He placed her down in front of their clothes locker which leaned against the wall. It was a crummy piece of furniture, half the metal rusted off, but it matched the shack’s tarnished, corrugated-metal walls. There was little else filling the small room 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 of her strength to yank the door open. There were a few cloth tunics inside, some big enough for Talon and others for her, but they were all plainly colored. She reached in and grabbed one for her and one for her father and then turned to him. “Can we go to the Buckle and watch the ships?”
He took the clothes from her tiny hand. “If that’s what you want, sure,” he said. “Now get dressed and grab us some pills from the cabinet.”
Elisha quickly followed his directions and when they were both ready, she eagerly seized him by the hand and pulled him out the door. He barely had time to turn around and lock it with his CP Card.
She was always excited to watch the transports come and go to Ceres. Talon was the same way when he was younger, but it often troubled him with her. In his experience, he found that there wasn’t much out in the solar system for the dreamers who wished to trace the worlds of the Circuit.
“’Bout time you two woke up!” Julius hollered when the emerged. He was seated at a fire pit, holding up a deck of cards. As usual, Ulson and Vellish were sitting with him and had drinks in their hands. “Care for a game?”
“I—” Talon lost his thoughts when he noticed Agatha with them as well. He hadn’t yet seen her outside of her armor up close, yet there she was holding a glass of Synthrol. A loose-fitting tunic revealed her plunging neckline as it was drawn low around her slender shoulders. Her green eyes sparkled from the flame, as magnificent as the Earth must have been in its final, dying breaths. His eyes moved along her body until they fell upon her synthetic arm. Outside of her suit, he expected it to look misplaced and clunky like all the other artificial limbs he had seen in his lifetime, but hers was exceptional. There was a grace to it that in certain light made the human body pale in comparison.
“We…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.
“Daddy promised!” Elisha glared angrily up at Talon because seeing Agatha had caused him to stop moving.
“Yes…” He didn’t mean to stare, but he couldn’t manage to turn his gaze from Agatha. His mouth went dry and his hands began to sweat. Finally, she 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. “That I did.”
Talon walked forward and nonchalantly snatched the drink out of Ulson’s hand just as he was about to take a sip. “Try not to drink too much. Can’t have a drunken pilot.” Talon stole a mouthful.
Ulson grabbed it back. He was smirking. “I can fly better drunk than half the pilots in the Circuit,” he said. “You don’ worry yourself, Tal.” He opened his mouth and poured the rest of the Synthrol in, the bitterness making his face clench.
“Never doubted you for a second,” Talon laughed. He patted Ulson on the back when he started to cough. “See you all later. Hopefully we’ll find some more tonight.”
He nodded to Julius and Vellish, who waved back, and then to Agatha, who didn’t even bother to glance back up. Ever since they made eye contact, she had been staring incessantly into the fire. He tried to think of something to say to her before he left, but nothing came to mind. Instead, he was left wearing what he imagined was a ridiculous smile. At least he thought so, but right before Elisha jerked him away, he noticed the beginnings of the slightest smile imaginable tugging at the corner of her lips. That was all the farewell he needed.
Talon and Elisha made their way down to the Underpass and took the busiest tram-line to Ceres Prime’s main port. It didn’t have a specific 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 it seemed simple enough. Together with the Conduit station it connected to, the Buckle served to hold together all of the Ceresian settlements of the asteroid belt.
“Stay close to me.” Talon grabbed onto Elisha’s hand tightly as they squeezed off of the tram.
The platform outside was crowded with people of all types, from wealthy Conduit merchants to the unfortunate souls dwelling in the depths of Ceres with their lanky bodies and ash-white skin. He noticed servants of a few different clans wearing their faction’s respective armor. There was a Morastus guard nearby, putting far too much effort into not looking in Talon’s direction and pretending he was busy. He had no doubt that 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 find
out. Their lack of finesse was an insult to the profession he used to call his own.
Talon stopped in the middle of the platform and bent over so that Elisha could hear him. “Can you keep up?” He asked, wearing a sly grin.
Elisha pursed her lips and nodded assertively.
Talon squeezed her hand a little tighter and began to guide her through the crowd at a quickened pace. It wasn’t quite a jog, but they wove through traffic and onto a wide avenue. There was no bigger hollow than the Buckle in all of Ceres, and it was mostly comprised of one meandering avenue, which pierced through clusters of rock formations that were carved up with metal building. There was no uniformity to it, with many of the structures built around massive stalagmites all the way up to the Buckle’s lofty ceiling, giving the whole thing the appearance of an insect hive. The stalagmites were often hollowed-out, serving as the vertical hangars through which ships from all over Ceresian space came and went.
He glanced back over his shoulder to see Elisha struggling to keep pace, her tiny feet pattering along the ground in quick succession. A transport vehicle was speeding toward them and he scooped her up before hurrying across the avenue just in time to get in front of it. Then they proceeded down a narrow crevice carved into the root of a towering stalagmite, and emerged into the upper level of a vertical hangar.
“Slow…” Elisha stopped to rest her hands on her knees and pant. “Down.”
Talon quickly turned around. He had almost forgotten for a moment that she was just a child. “Are you…okay?” he asked. For his own reasons he was breathing just as heavily.
She gathered herself and proudly stood up as tall as she could without being on her toes. “What are we running from?”
The Circuit, Book 1 Page 14
