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Equilibrium Fan Fiction
by David W. Huang
The
Cleric
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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Author's Notes
"Cleric."
Loric met Xian's greeting with silence. Blue moonlight filtered through
the high arcing windows and broken stained glass to cast long shadows
throughout the church. "A shame. You came out of emotion, not as an
ally... now I have to hurt you. We'll start with this." He stepped
aside to reveal the body of Tatiana on the alter with a sword stuck in
her... Xian pulled it out with a flourish. Loric drew is own katana,
tossing the saya to the ground. In their wounded states, Gun Kata would
just be mutual suicide, this would be a duel to the death with one
victor... not that the Cleric art of swordsmanship was any less deadly.
The Cleric philosophy of blades was to avoid crossing swords when
possible, defense came in the form of an elegant offense that slipped
past any defense to slice the opponent open.
Xian had
always been much better in training, but now he was more greatly
wounded (bandages on his side and across his stomach suggested
successful torso hits). Loric rushed forward. Blindingly fast their
blades clashed only twice but in less than a heartbeat, Xian had four
inches of his sword thrust into the meat of Loric's right shoulder? but
Loric had the base of his katana biting into Xian's side.
"Wait.
Nathan wait.", Xian said with a hint of urgency in his voice. "Think
about it, don't kill us both. We can get out of this together. If you
think logically, we can end this calmly... coolly... without incident."
"No. Not
without incident."
Xian saw the
look in Nathan's eyes and knew it was over.
Loric spun
in a deep drawing cut that eviscerated Xian and sliced his right hand
off at the wrist just as Xian was pushing the blade deeper while
twisting it. Gutted and missing his right hand, Xian fell to his knees
in a wet slump. He tucked his stump under his left arm which held his
entrails in. The dead man let out a hollow chuckle.
"You damn
idiot.", Xian cursed. "You've doomed us. How long will it last? Ten?
twenty years until your own volatile natures wipes humanity out? You
think you're one of them? You'll never be one of them, they're just
using you. They always knew, Cleric... they all lied to you.", he spat
venom.
"Tell me
what you know." Sinking lower, his eyes rolling back, the words slipped
spitefully from his mouth with some coherence.
"Where do
you think I was all this time? A coincidence we met? We're human
weapons, Cleric. Guinea pigs. Coddled you but tried to break me. Months
of brutal torture, psychological programming, and crushing my will.
Thought they had absolute control over me- made me their mindless
killing machine. Well, they paid with blood for their mistake.
Panicked. Disrupted Martin's program to recover me... you were an
afterthought in their eyes, but I saw your real potential. I was
helping to get you free, Cleric."
"Who are
they?"
"I took as
many... I could... extract. Purified them..."
"You went
crazy."
"Not
crazy!", coughing flecks of blood he growled in anger. "I am logical
and emotionless. I am a Cleric, Nathan? haha, well I'm dying... you
have a chance to keep us alive." His bloody palm reached out and
grabbed Nathan by the shirt shoulder pulling him down to his knees.
Leaning in close as if he wanted to speak to him, he gripped Nathan by
the back of the head then painted a "T" in his own blood upon Nate's
forehead with his thumb. Xian's hand fell and the life left his eyes.
Nathan knelt
there in a daze for a bit. The emptiness of no answers and senseless
death gripped him. After a while, he reached up and pulled the sword
from his shoulder. He sat like that for a bit longer, contemplating
allowing himself to bleed out and let his head go light and death take
him. Something in him wouldn't let go, though, and he snapped out of
the death trance and began tearing strips of cloth with his teeth to
make a tourniquet. He finished the first knot when he heard the racking
of a rifle bolt.
"You killed
my father, Nate."
"Got my
note, huh? I expected you to have killed me already."
"It's more
efficient to shoot the winner of your duel."
"Okay then
collect what I owe you, Jen."
"You owe me
a life." The girl held the G36 level with Nathan's heart, showing no
hesitation. Children in the Nether grew mature differently from the way
children in Libria had feigned maturity through stoic visages. Nathan
found his mind wandering to how children had been such a mystery to
him... he felt like he had never been one and had never been granted
the position of managing a family unit. They were little alien
humanoids to him? curiosities.
"I get it
now. You always knew I was a Cleric. I thought I could sense something
coming off you... that killing intent... but with all the childish
smiling, I thought I was misreading you because of my lack of
familiarity with kids. Tia too. Her movements were that of an expert,
she made too many excuses for me, and the SIMM job was too unlikely...
she was my handler, wasn't she? To put me down if I went rogue like
Xian. Despite it all, I never figured Brother Martin... the Intuitive
Arts failed me there."
"No, you
were right... he never really lied to you. The man genuinely believed
in you. He argued everyday with Statesman Prescott to tell you the
truth, but it was out of his hands. Either hide the truth, kill you, or
put you into Prescott's program."
"The one
Xian went through."
"Yeah,
conventional wisdom was that we could have a Cleric under our control
to eliminate our political rivals... if somehow he was caught alive,
there was plausible deniability, the Cleric was simply acting out of
revenge. Prescott's son was a plant in that insurgence. As a test run,
the Cleric was to take out just the revolutionists... but Xian killed
Prescott's son, the containment team, and got free. He started hunting
the people involved in the project so Prescott forced Brother Martin to
give up his Cleric."
"Me."
"He was
desperate... no one really believed you could beat him- we thought he'd
probably kill you- but we thought you might be able to find him with
your skills and familiarity with Xian. We really didn't think Xian's
mind would shatter as it did and he would try to recruit you with
illusions of a new empire."
"Jen, who
are you?"
"I was
Martin's handler... to make sure he didn't tell you the truth or set
you free."
"Like you're
about to do."
Jennifer
wrinkled her brow and lowered the rifle. She let out a heavy sigh,
slung it on her back and stuffed her hands into her pockets.
"Intuitive
bastard."
"Brother
Martin was infectious."
"Yes."
"Jen, I left
you that note so that you could avenge your father."
"You still
owe me a life Nathan... but it seems to me you haven't lived one worth
collecting yet. Go. Live life. Spread what Martin gave to you and prove
him right. You owe him that at least."
"You trust
me not to go after Prescott?"
"I trust
Martin."
"Thank you."
"Tatiana
left you something." She tossed him a weathered envelope. "See you
again sometime, but not too soon I hope... or I'll have to kill you."
The little girl hopped over some rubble and left through a hole in the
wall. Nathan was alone.
"Dear
Cleric..."
Nathan
stopped reading and put the letter back in its envelope.
-=*=-
Author's Notes
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