The Circuit, Book 1

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Talon began listing his accomplishments with neither pride nor disdain. “I’ve helped steal from all of the clan leaders in the asteroid belt,” he said. “I’ve killed men for him that were born so close to the surface of Ceres that I’d never have met them otherwise. I’ve commandeered ships with a handful of men, and I’ve escaped some all the same. But never the Tribunes, and never with so little to go on.”

  Talon struggled to gather another thought when suddenly two hands fell upon his shoulders. He turned around quickly to see Julius and Vellish wearing crooked smirks that told him all he needed to know.

  “We’re in, Tal,” Julius declared as he patted him on the arm.

  “Kill me if I have to serve another stint in the mines,” Vellish said. “Let’s blow those Tribunal bastards back to their Spirit of the Earth, or whatever the fuck it is they believe in.” His eyes were glinting with a hawkish enthusiasm that Talon didn’t even know he was capable of wielding.

  “I can’t promise you’ll never have to go back,” Talon said. He was trying his best to hide his excitement, but he could feel the muscles above his mouth desperately seeking to draw his upper lip into a full smile.

  “We ain’t ever had a choice before.” Julius shoved him playfully, forcing Talon to give up on his attempts to remain stoic.

  “I thought you guys would never say yes,” Talon exhaled. He lunged forward and wrapped them both in a heavy embrace. “C’mon, let’s head down to the Dome. No better place in all of Ceres Prime to find mercs as mad we are.”

  “Hey, you’re definitely the only madman here!” Vellish protested as Talon began to pull them toward the way down from the promontory. “We’re just following along. Right Julius?”

  “O’course,” Julius answered. “Just two innocents trying to make an honest living.”

  Talon tightened his arms around their necks. “Keep it up,” he said, “and I’ll tell Zaimur not to pay either of you.”

  “So serious all the time,” Vellish said as ducked out of Talon’s grip and began backing up in the other direction. “I’m gonna go talk to Ulson, I’ll meet up with you two later. We’ll need a pilot and I know he used to run a smuggling ship out of Fortuna. I’ve heard there’s no one better.”

  Talon stopped. “He can wait,” he protested, teasingly trying to grab Vellish back. “There are fights down in the Dome starting soon. Culver the Hammer is here. They say he’s never lost. Could be perfect for us.”

  “Go on ahead,” Vellish said. “I’ve never had the stomach for those things. I’m sure you’ll be able to find plenty of crazy fucks down there, but let me handle getting us a pilot.” Vellish slipped away and hopped down a formation of bulbous rocks where Talon couldn’t reach him.

  “Suit yourself.” Julius shooed him away flippantly and then put his arm around Talon’s neck. “Screw ‘em, Tal. His loss.”

  They headed back down to Dome 534 where a crowd was already building. Arena battles were a huge part of Ceresian culture. The rich bet on them and sponsored the best fighters, and the poor lived vicariously through them. It was a necessary distraction from the lifetime of mining most of them endured.

  The rules were simple. Fight until your opponent either surrendered or died. Most career combatants would surrender in order to live another day, but criminals thrown into one of the many arenas throughout the Ceresian worlds weren’t giving a choice. Volunteers usually wound up dead before they had a choice.

  It took a while for Talon and Julius to squeeze down to the front row, but Julius’ size helped. The arena buried beneath Dome 534 was famous for its battles, even if it wasn’t very opulent in nature. A cage surrounded the lip of a pit where the fighters would be unleashed. People without enough Pico packed the edges on their feet, while glassy, private boxes protruded from the surrounding rock walls above for those with it. Flickering HOLO-Screens were projected around the cage for anybody who couldn’t get a good view.

  Talon leaned up against the cage excitedly as the fight moderator came strolling out from a tunnel in the arena.

  “My people!” the bearded man began floridly. He made a show of announcing, occupying the entire area of the arena as he spoke. “Today, Dome 534 is happy to bring you a treat. He has traveled all the way from Pallus Major to take on your Ceres Champion! But first I will whet your appetite. He will take on any of your challengers as a warm up. You know him, you love him. The undefeated champion of Pallus Major: Culver the Hammer!”

  The crowd went wild as from the darkness emerged a mountain of a man. His shoulders bulged with so much muscle that it appeared to be a challenge for him to turn his head. He raised his fist like a conquering hero, taking in the boos as if they fueled him.

  Julius looked to Talon. “You think the Hammer would join us?”

  “No, probably not him,” Talon responded. “But any volunteer mad enough to take him on might. If one of them survives that is.”

  The moderator turned to the other tunnel leading into the arena. “His first challenger may be small, but what this woman lacks in size, she makes up in apparent insanity.”

  The world went quiet as Talon watched a woman emerge from the shadows. Her facial features were difficult to distinguish from so far away, but her green eyes were framed by dark hair, and they glowed bright and fierce. The tight boiler suit she wore hugged the lithe curves of her toned figure, leaving little doubt that she was beautiful. Talon couldn’t help but feel his heart break a little for a life he had little doubt was about to come to a brutal end.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE—SAGE VOLUS

  The Tigress of Ceres Prime

  Sage Volus struggled to regain her senses. Thick beads of sweat trickled down the loose strands of her tousled hair. She was on her knees, panting wildly. Her hot breath bounced off the rocky surface in front of her to warm the drying blood sticking to her lips.

  The crowd in the surrounding arena grew more and more raucous as they anticipated her impending defeat. They rattled against the fence, saliva and drink spewing from their mouths like a mob of rabid animals. Their cheers, however, reached her ears as no more than a dull drone, barely discernible over her own hastened heartbeat.

  Guess I haven’t recovered as well as I thought, she mused to herself as her fists ground into the uneven ground. She had only been in Ceres Prime for a little over a day, but finding a fight in one of the colonies underground arenas had proven all too easy. It just happened to be against the man called Culver the Hammer.

  The tall, brutish man approached her, his shirtless figure laced with dense muscles. He wore a wicked smirk, the kind that someone puts on when they know they’ve got their enemy on the ropes. The ground rumbled more vigorously with each nearing step. The crowd’s enthusiasm augmented like a rising storm, but all Sage was worried about was settling her throbbing head so she didn’t see two of everything. She’d been in that position before, but she wasn’t used to this lot of bare-knuckle brawling. Just be patient, she told herself. Remember your training.

  Feigning defeat, she kept her head lowered. While doing that she imperceptibly re-positioned her limbs to be ready to pounce. There was no way to take her much larger opponent down with sheer strength—that she had already been assured of—but there was a reason she was an Executor of the Tribune. She could use the wrist-blade in her artificial arm to win easily, but the arena manager was leery about letting her participate with it in the first place. She had to lie about its capabilities, and knew she’d gain far more respect by winning a fair fight.

  Her vision remained cloudy as she strained to keep her peripherals fixed on Culver’s face, but it was enough. She waited until his brash expression twitched in an effort to acknowledge the boisterous crowd. Then she shot forward like a bullet from a rifle, her shoulder burrowing into a set of crunching ribs.

  They bowled over, slamming into the hard ground as Sage delivered a second paralyzing blow into the man’s tender side with her artificial arm. She rolled off quickly to avoid a rampant counterattack and
took an aggressive grappling stance a few feet away. Culver roared as he forced himself back on his feet. Then he charged her with a relentless flurry of un-aimed, but powerful attacks.

  Sage reeled, using her attacker’s own force to deflect the blows, but she wouldn’t be able to withstand the barrage forever. Ducking under a swipe she rolled to the side, trying to ignore the scraping rock tearing across her back. Before she could evade it a powerful kick struck her in the stomach, lifting her off the ground and sending her sprawling into the craggy side of the arena. It was rare that she made a move too late, but she knew then that she had jumped into a fight far too quickly after the explosion on Mars.

  Groping frantically as she wheezed, her artificial hand found a protrusion of rock in the wall. She could feel her opponent bearing down. Shifting from defense, she broke the piece of rock off and swung with all her might. There was an audible crack, the man’s knee snapping brutally inward as she struck him there. An insufferable scream of agony rang out. She then lashed upward in a wide arc, the rock smashing her opponent across the temple. The force exerted through the synthetic arm split the man’s skull open like a sack of rotten fruits, causing him to crumble into a heap of tangled limbs.

  At first the crowd released a collective gasp. Then thunderous cheers rained down from all corners the small arena somewhere in Ceres Prime. She paid them no heed. Sage stood right where she was, her eyes remaining locked on the still-twitching corpse lain before her feet. The rock slipped from her metal fingers. She never enjoyed taking life senselessly, but when it came to her missions she did whatever she had to. He was a Ceresian, she told herself. He needed to die. He deserved to die. They were as the Tribune had told her–animals.

  Suddenly, the arena moderator raised her arm in victory. “My, my folks,” the chubby, red-faced man announced to the hundreds of patrons packed against the raised, octagonal cage enclosing them. “The victor, by cause of death, is…” He whispered in Sage’s ear, “what’s your name again, girl?”

  “S…Agatha Lavos,” she responded wearily.

  “Agatha Lavos! The Tigress of Ceres Prime!”

  The crowd went wild as Sage was escorted through a tunnel carved into the rock wall of the ring. She had no idea what a Tigress was, probably some mythical creature from ancient Earth, but apparently she’d done well enough to earn a nickname like Culver had.

  Once the door sealed behind them, the moderator’s smile turned to a scowl. “Culver was undefeated. Gonna cost me a pretty penny killin’ him like that.”

  Sage didn’t respond. There was a pool of warm water in the center of the room, which had showers lining the rim and some benches beside them where the next fighters were waiting. None of them were women, and they took no care to hide their enamored stares as she walked by half-naked and glistening with sweat. She dipped her hands in the water, washing the blood out from beneath her fingernails on one and out of creases in the metal plates on the other.

  “I’ll pay you two hundred Pico, but that’s all I can do. The managers in Pallus are going to kill me for this.” The moderator activated the HOLO-Screen on his wrist and began typing in some commands.

  “I thought you said four?” Sage questioned coolly, not looking up from the basin. She didn’t really care about the money; she merely had a part to play. She got the exposure she required when she smashed a rock through Culver’s skull.

  “That arm of yours ain’t like any I’ve ever seen. You may be a woman, but with that thing you might as well not be. Two-fifty and that’s all. But don’t ever expect to fight in here again unless you cut that thing off!”

  “Fine by me,” she grumbled. She brought out her CP card and the moderator scanned it. Two-hundred and fifty Pico were transferred over before he handed it back and left to usher two more unlucky combatants into the arena.

  “Didn’t expect you to come walking back in, beautiful,” a handsome man sitting nearby teased her. He placed his hand on her waist. “Don’t listen to him, I like the arm.”

  She gripped his wrist with her artificial hand and growled, “You like it now?” She began squeezing so hard that she could sense the bones would crack if she applied any more pressure.

  “Fuck!” He yelped and she let go. “Crazy bitch.” He got up and hurried away, holding his wrist the whole way.

  Sage smiled as all the men in the room stopped staring. She didn’t like to be seen. No Executor did truthfully, but her more than others. She grabbed her armor and pistol out of her locker and stepped into a shower in order to wash and change back into it. It was time to see what attention her victory would garner in the bar above.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO—SAGE VOLUS

  Blue as the Ancient Sky

  Sage emerged from the lift leading up from the arena. She attempted to hide herself behind the tall bodies of guards standing on each corner of the platform, but there was no point in trying. The crowd surrounding the fence of the sunken arena immediately turned to greet her. Some hollered words of praise, but most of the men offered her drinks or a night in their company. She thought that changing into her armor would keep them at bay, but it only seemed to make them more ravenous. Not only was she a beautiful, female warrior who they had watched savage a brute twice her size, but living on Mars had made her tan, or at least tan compared to the extra milky skin of Ceresians.

  She ignored them all. She had a mission, and none of the ingrates begging for her lips were worth the time. Moving hastily enough to escape any conversation, she got lost in the sultry darkness of one of Dome 534’s notorious dance floors. Colorful lights flashed along with the pulsing music in a way that was dizzying. Men all around turned their gazes from the strippers flaunting their emaciated bodies in transparent cases hanging all around in order to stare at her while she passed.

  The crass behavior of the Ceresians was enough to make her sick. Sweat splashed on her from every direction as men and women danced in ways she could never have imagined. Slimy, bare legs wriggled with the music as if she were in a crowd of frantic worms. Tongues thrashed. Women and men moaned. And everybody seemed to be celebrating as if they’d just won a war.

  Sage was about to vomit by the time she finally reached a break in the noxious revelry. She wiped the sticky layer of sweat which had formed over her brow; whether it belonged to her or a Ceresian she didn’t know. Then she headed toward the bar, only to find that there was an android serving from behind the counter. Just hearing its cold, monotone voice taking orders made her stomach turn even more, so she decided to find a seat at an empty table as far away from all of the clamor as possible.

  When she pulled out the chair and went to sit, a sudden feeling of vertigo rushed to her head. She would have toppled over if the table hadn’t been there to brace her. After the dizziness waned, it felt like a small creature was pounding on the inside of her skull with a hammer. She shuffled her hands along the arm of the chair until she was able to position herself and fall into it.

  I am a knight in the darkness, a vessel of their wisdom. She began reciting the vows of an Executor in her head to keep calm. I am the silent hand of the Tribune. I will not lose faith amongst the faithless.

  “Got somethin’ on your mind, honey?” A large, dark-skinned man said. He rested his big hands on her table. He was wearing a skintight, black suit with numbers demarking a certain designation over his chest. She hadn’t been in Ceres Prime long, but she instantly recognized him to be a miner.

  “I’m not looking for a drink so why don’t you get lost?” she bristled. She leaned her still aching head on her hand and looked away. As she did so, she slid her free hand inconspicuously down to her holster just in case.

  “Whoa!” The man’s unexpectedly kind eyes widened. He took a step back. “Look, I ain’t here for that. Since you don’ seem too fond of wastin’ time, I guess I’ll cut right to it. The names Julius, and my business associate and I saw you down in the arena. Very impressive. We got a job, a big one, and we need fighters to get it done.”

/>   She didn’t let it show, but the offer piqued her interest. “What kind of job?” she asked. “I’m not a miner if that’s what you’re after.”

  Julius released a resonant laugh. “Don’t let the outfit fool you. I can take you to my associate, but I can’t tell you here. Too many pryin’ ears and such.”

  “You think I’m that easy?” She withdrew her pulse-pistol and placed it on the table so that the barrel was casually facing in Julius’ direction. “What is it you and your friend want? My armor or what’s underneath it?”

  “You didn’t grow up here did you?” He leaned over close enough to her so that anybody looking wouldn’t be able to see the fact that she had drawn her weapon. “Why don’ you put that thing away before we both find trouble.”

  “Trouble with whom? There are no laws here. Are one of those bags of bolts going to take me down?” She didn’t need to see the robot guards in action to recognize their ineffectiveness. The Tribune had made sure she knew about that. She also didn’t realize her spiteful tone, which only must’ve helped Julius confirm his assumption.

  “You must be really new here.” He got even closer to her and whispered. “All I can tell you is the job involves Tribunal Freighters and a shit ton of Gravitum. Now I suggest you come before you really do get yourself into trouble.”

  She tried not to sound too eager, but her green eyes began to sparkle as she realized how fortunate she was. Considering Julius wasn’t lying, of course. “I’ll come, but I’ll have my eyes on you.”

  “Whatever helps.” Julius sighed and began to lead her out of Dome 534.

  Sage stayed right at his back as they walked, with her artificial hand curled into a fist and ready to strike. Julius guided her out of the latticed dome and through the Underpass station where stumbling drunkards waited for their tram and bantered about nothing. They moved up a winding pathway carved out of a cliff. The higher they got, the darker it was, and Sage was about ready to give up on the venture when they arrived at a clearing dug into the surface of a sharp promontory. A man in a navy-blue tunic sat on the other side with his feet dangling over the edge. He was staring off at the vast hollow below filled with the flickering lights of metal shacks and the always colorful dome.