So he stood, waiting for the Morastus prince to realize it himself, until eventually Zaimur grasped Cassius’ hand. “Cross me, and it’ll be your word versus mine,” he said, squeezing tight. “An execution would be a kindness compared to what my dog would do to you.”
As he held Zaimur’s hand, Cassius placed his other on ADIM’s arm. The android’s emotionless gaze hadn’t shifted from Zaimur for even a moment during their conversation.
Cassius smiled. “Let’s win a war together, then.”
24
Chapter Twenty-Four—Adim
It was with reservation that ADIM watched his Creator walk away beside Zaimur and a host of guards, toward a mock execution. He’d never before been asked to trust another human, especially one who was so difficult to read.
As Zaimur spoke, his pulse constantly raced, and his facial gesticulations suggested uncertainty. He didn’t seem worthy. But Cassius informed ADIM that everything was going smoothly. He’d outlined the plan step for step, and ADIM knew that his plans never failed. Still, he fought every urge not to follow Zaimur and Cassius, just in case.
Instead, he programmed his camouflage to again take on the image of a Morastus henchman so that he could easily traverse their compound. His instructions were simple. He was to kill Zaimur’s biological father in a manner that made it seem accidental or natural. Beyond that, his method didn’t matter. So long as it couldn’t be traced back to Cassius or Zaimur.
ADIM’s initial idea was to pose as an executor and cast the blame on the Tribune. It seemed like the logical choice, being that Cassius wanted to further escalate the conflict between them and the Ceresians. He had seen a few of them in his time whose appearance he could choose to emulate, and none was a better fit than Sage Volus. The similarity of her arm would make him appear even more genuine, and her abilities in a fight would surely have made her capable.
A few issues arose, however. In order for Sage to access the heart of the Morastus compound, she would have to be wearing a disguise. Trying to replicate two layers of camouflage simultaneously would increase the odds of video surveillance picking up on ADIM’s true form. Another was that the identity of all executors was a secret even amongst the majority of Tribunal forces. For one of them to be identified, they’d have to be captured, and ADIM’s first order of business on Ceres was to avoid detection. He knew he could generate a better option.
By the time he reached the outside of Zargo Morastus’ private hollow, he was masquerading as a portion of the rocky wall. Two guards were stationed outside a circular hatch, gripping pulse-rifles. Despite him being only a few meters away, they had no clue he was there.
Their armor is weak at the neck joint, ADIM considered. Two shots will remove them silently. If violence was to be his route, there was no doubt he could make it past them and then hack the hatch’s locking mechanism.
He spent a few minutes observing them before the hatch opened all on its own and an android came strolling out. It looked similar to the others ADIM had seen on Ceres so far, but he recognized this particular model from the assembly room by a distinct dent on its chassis. From what he’d observed, it always stuck close to Zargo.
As the android walked by ADIM, its head turned to aim its pale eye-lenses directly at him. It didn’t stop moving or say anything, but only once it was entirely past did its head return to a straightforward position.
All they require is the will of the Creator, ADIM thought as he followed the android. He quickly rifled back through Gaia’s recordings, now a part of his own memory banks, and watched Cassius’ fingers pick apart an android’s memory core.
He observed how everything went together, and, after comparing it to how he knew his own parts were composed, he was starting to understand exactly how the Ceresian androids worked. They were relatively simple.
ADIM stalked it down a series of intersecting tunnels to a nearby cargo hold. Three Morastus mercenaries were in the vicinity, though none of them appeared important. They glanced up at the dented android and relaxed. ADIM remained in his rock camouflage.
“Old man needs his juice?” one of the men snickered. He had a ratty beard.
“Much as any of us do,” the one sitting nearest to ADIM responded. He snapped his fingers impatiently and signaled to the cards hovering above a holoboard set between them. They had foreign inscriptions on them that ADIM didn’t recognize. The bearded henchman emphatically shifted cards and the two others groaned as if they’d just been shot.
While they played their strange game, the android walked over to a crate nestled against the back of a nook. It bent over at its hip joints in a rigid motion and typed a code into the pad on the lid. Vapors of freezing cold air poured out over the side as it popped open.
“You mind leavin’ one of those with us?” the bearded mercenary asked.
The android emerged from the crate holding two bottles of dark, golden whiskey and turned to face him. “Forgive me, but these are the personal property of Mr. Zargo Morastus,” it said politely before continuing on its way.
The bearded man smirked. “Of course. Just messin’ with you, bot. Wouldn’t dream of it.”
The nearest mercenary reached out and slapped him on the shoulder. “Ya know he records everything, ya dumbass.”
He groaned and rubbed his shoulder. “Just playin’ around is all. One day maybe he’ll let us get a taste of the good shit.”
“Aye, when he’s dead.”
“Won’t be long—”
The bearded man was cut off when he was smacked on the arm even harder than the first time. ADIM ignored the rest of their bickering, instead turning to get a head start on the android as it headed back toward Zargo’s quarters.
He hurried to find a spot in the tunnel that was hidden from all surveillance cameras and where there were no guards within earshot. He still would have to work as quickly as possible.
The android approached, and ADIM waited amongst the rocks until it was so close that it turned to look at him again. He sprang out of cover, seizing it by its head and ripping off a plate to reveal its processors. The two bottles clanked against the rock but didn’t shatter.
ADIM wasn’t sure if it would work, but using the data he’d collected only moments earlier, along with his experience tapping into the systems of Gaia aboard the White Hand, he began to access its systems.
Hundreds of hours of recorded memories coursed through him instantaneously. There would have been more, but the relatively weak processing power of the android only permitted a certain amount of extraneous storage beyond its primary programming. The unsophisticated design also allowed him to infiltrate every one of the android’s systems. Like the White Hand, its arms became his arms. Its sensors and visual receivers became his. It didn’t take long before he could step back and simultaneously see both his own frame and that of the other android, through two sets of eye-lenses.
He lifted his hand, and it mimicked his motion. He tilted his head. It did the same. This continued until he was able to divide their two ambulatory systems and move the android completely on its own. It was tricky to master, but tricky to ADIM meant that he only needed a few seconds to gain a complete understanding.
Before long, their two metallic bodies were two pieces of a single entity—a shared network of complex systems.
It was much like balancing on a single foot. With the proper amounts of his processing power allocated, he could control them both without any adverse effects. He quickly estimated that it would take controlling roughly one hundred similar models to generate any noticeable hindrance to his original body’s systems.
In one spectrum of this newly formed neural network, he controlled his new body to bend over and pick up the bottles. With another, he camouflaged his main chassis with the rock again. Then they both continued forward. He couldn’t physically alter the old android’s joints to make it move any faster, but he was able to improve certain aspects of its programming to allow it to run smoother.
It was
a short walk back to the entrance into Zargo’s chambers, enough time for him to quickly conceive of even more efficient ways for his new body’s parts to coordinate their motions.
“Finally,” one of the guards outside grunted. “Boss’s been callin’ for you. Hurry up.” He entered the code into a keypad on the hatch and it peeled open.
ADIM’s main body remained outside, but his other went walking in until the entrance resealed. The hollow was spacious, and the metal plating that lined the walls was more polished than most of Ceres.
Zargo lay in the corner of the room on a spacious bed wide enough to fit five humans side by side. He was hooked up to a mobile respirator unit, though ADIM hadn’t seen it with the Morastus leader in the assembly hall. That fact, in addition to the fact that his room was privatized with no viewports looking out and no surveillance inside, made it clear that Zargo wanted to hide the true nature of his condition.
“There you are, bot,” Zargo said, coughing. “I was worried I’d have to celebrate with nothing but water.”
A curved holoscreen extended around the foot of the bed, displaying what appeared to be a massive sunken arena. Thousands of people stood around the rim of it behind a fence, cheering raucously.
“Forgive me,” ADIM responded through the dented android’s vocal emitters, mimicking the polite manner with which it had spoken earlier.
“Fine. Fine. Just fill me up.”
Zargo reached out with a frail, wrinkled arm with bright blue veins spreading around the crease of his elbow. ADIM had never had the chance to see the effects of the blue death up close. Just holding up an empty glass had Zargo’s hand trembling.
ADIM did as instructed. He opened a bottle and used his clunky new limbs to fill the glass. The android’s inability to bend at the right angles made it a fairly difficult task. Zargo coughed as he struggled to reel his arm back in and bring the now-full glass to his lips.
“I never thought I’d get to live to see this day,” he said after taking slurp. “Cassius Vale, dead.”
The Creator will not die, ADIM thought, but said nothing.
Some commotion drew their attention to the holoscreen. Cassius strode out from a tunnel into the arena. His hands were bare, and he was stripped down to only a boilersuit. Physically, he appeared like any human male of his age within his percentile of fitness ratios. His hair was appropriately gray. Forehead appropriately creased. Though ADIM had never seen him covered in so much grime.
“Looks better than I do, I’ll give him that.” Zargo chortled. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you? We’ve been waiting almost three decades for this. At last, today, Ceres triumphs.”
ADIM turned to Zargo and studied him as he raised his glass in cheers to himself. He had learned about the fatal disease crippling the man when he and Cassius initiated construction of the gravitum bomb.
After that, ADIM was careful never to let his Creator expose himself to the raw element. It caused the rapid decay of muscle and eventually organ tissue. Zargo’s age accelerated the disease. And judging by how often he squeezed his respirator against his mouth, it seemed likely that his lungs were beginning to fail.
That was where ADIM decided he would target. All he would have to do was hold onto the respirator while providing a slight pressure on Zargo’s chest, and the old man wouldn’t last long. He could do it without leaving behind any signs of struggle or bruising.
It would look natural.
Zargo took another slurp of his drink and then placed the glass down. He leaned as far forward as possible in order to focus on the holoscreen, bones in his neck popping.
Ten Ceresian fighters stepped out into the arena across from Cassius, driving the crowd into a frenzy. As long as ADIM accomplished his task, Zaimur promised that Cassius would come to no harm. Still, ADIM didn’t fully trust the Morastus prince and willed his main body to begin making the long trek to the arena as a contingency.
Simultaneously, ADIM moved Zargo’s servant android as close to him as possible. He shifted its knee and used it to pull the sheets on the bed tight over Zargo so that he wouldn’t be able to move. Then, with one hand he pinched the tube feeding oxygen through the respirator mask and held it on Zargo’s mouth so that he couldn’t make a noise. As he did, he used the other hand to press down on Zargo’s chest.
His new android body wasn’t particularly strong, but Zargo’s diminished muscles stood no chance. His attempts at flailing didn’t work. The sheets on the bed had him pinned as if he were trapped in a cocoon.
After two minutes and forty-seven seconds, the sheets went slack. Zargo’s heart stopped beating.
ADIM then had his second body take a step back and stand upright as if nothing had happened. He dug through its memory banks, cleared out the recordings that would be incriminating, and stitched them back together in an order that simply showed the android returning to its post and staring blankly as Zargo choked and died.
When he returned to the present, Zargo lay silently, his eyelids frozen open in the direction of the screen where Cassius was about to begin his fight.
25
Chapter Twenty-Five—Talon
The Lakura warship Lutetia didn’t have the finest cabins, but Talon had experienced worse. The bunks were packed in, with hardly enough room to stand. Tarsis could only shuffle sideways if he wanted to get anywhere. Not that there was any place to go.
And it didn’t take long on board for Talon to remember that the blue death had a reputation among his people. Many of the fighters who weren’t higher-ups in the Lakura hierarchy were from the nether regions of Ceres Prime—down by the subterranean oceans where the gravity generators were faulty. They were lankier, paler, and spoke with a twang so thick that they could be difficult to understand. Similar to Vergents, but worse.
Many of them thought the blue death was contagious no matter how much they’d been told otherwise. Talon remembered thinking the same thing before he got it himself. So he and Tarsis remained in the very back of their assigned quarters whenever they could, and kept to themselves whenever they couldn’t.
Presently, Talon sat on his top bunk, fiddling with the crummy pulse-rifle he’d been provided. It was the only thing he could do to distract himself from watching the video of Elisha. Take it apart, put it back together, and hope it would work better.
He was about to start all over again when Captain Hadris, commander of the Lutetia, announced that there was a vital transmission coming in from Ceres Prime. He ordered everyone on the vessel to report to their galleys to view it. He claimed it would explain why Yara Lakura remained back on Ceres for the time being and would rendezvous with them at Eureka, post-battle. If they weren’t all dead first…
Talon hoped he could just ignore the message and continue his work at making sure his gun actually fired when a Tribunal got in front of him. But Captain Hadris wouldn’t have it. He toured the bunks personally to ensure everyone got moving. He had full authority with Yara gone, and his comrades appeared to hold him in great esteem, though Talon couldn’t imagine why. In all his days operating on Ceres, he’d never heard of the man. Though he also knew that the Lakura were best known for skulking through shadows and planting bombs, not open battle.
Talon sighed. For better or worse, he was with them now. Besides, after years away from being a stooge for the Morastus, he’d lost his taste for holding grudges against the rival clans. They were all Ceresians, after all.
“Must be important, captain coming down and all,” Tarsis said as he got up. He might have been on the bottom bunk, but it still took him a great deal of effort to squeeze out into the passageway. Caused a racket too.
“I’m sure it is,” Talon replied.
He held his rifle up to the light and gave it one last inspection. After deconstructing it at least a dozen times since the Lutetia set off, he decided it was finally ready for use. Though, he also knew he’d probably change his mind after returning from the galley. Other than talking to Tarsis, who slept mor
e often than not, it was the only thing he could do to distract himself from thinking about Elisha and Julius.
He hopped down from his bunk; the short drop was enough to make his thighs throb with soreness. For whatever reason, holding a rifle had a way of making him forget that he couldn’t jump around like he was a young man anymore. The blue death was always careful to remind him.
“Better be important,” Tarsis grumbled. “I was having a great dream.”
“Don’t you have enough of those these days?” Talon asked.
Tarsis patted him on the back. “When you’re as grateful to be waking up as I am, you start to appreciate them a little more. The good ones at least. Trust me, you’ll get there eventually.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
Talon started off across the dirty rows of bunks, clothes hanging everywhere, and only when he was halfway across the room did he realize that he’d snapped at Tarsis. He glanced back over his shoulder to see the clumsy Vergent struggling to keep up. He slowed down.
“I’m sorry,” Tarsis said once he was able to catch up. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I know that,” Talon said. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“So am I. Better not to be alone in times like these.”
The moment they entered the galley on their level of the ship, they were swept up in a boisterous crowd. Fighters, both trained and conscripted, were pushing and shoving their way toward trying to get a better view of holoscreens projected above the slop counters. It was too loud to make out what anybody was saying, but Talon thought he heard someone whisper, “Vale.”
While he tried to locate who it was, the screen started playing a view of one of Ceres’ famous arenas, only this one made the one buried beneath Talon’s home district seem meager. The largest on the entire asteroid, where only champion brawlers were permitted. Unmoving bodies lay across its floor and a man strolled out into the center. Talon immediately recognized him to be Zaimur Morastus. Behind him, being dragged along by a host of armed men, was none other than Cassius Vale.
The Circuit: The Complete Saga Page 45