Equilibrium Fan Fiction by Coolhand This Lonely Tumult (part 1)  Part One | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Part Two   Part One. The Redemption.     They walked all through the night. She walked just ahead of him, under the constant guard of his shotgun. In the darkness, navigation was hard and she almost injured herself many times before Partridge pointed out the danger. Such was the landscape of the Nethers. Torn, crumbling buildings, craters in the ground, jagged metal and concrete that were as good as any anti-personnel trap if you weren‘t careful. "Why are you trying so hard to keep me alive?" she said after a few hours, breathless. "I’m going to be executed when we return." "My duty is to, if possible, capture sense-offenders alive and convey them to the Halls of Justice. Summery execution only takes place when resistance is encountered." "So rather than just shoot me and be done with it, you’re going to march me for a day across hard terrain, hand me over for interrogation and then have me burned to death." "Yes." "Because they tell you to." "Because it’s my duty. To Libria and Father." She shook her head, a look of disgust on her face. "You’re like machines. If they told you to put a gun to your own head, you’d do it." "I would need a convincing reason." he replied. "What if Father told you to do it?" "Then I would have my reason." replied Partridge. Something stirred inside him. A slight movement around his stomach, in his chest. Then it was gone. She was silent again for a while, then; "I can’t go any further. I need to sleep." "Keep moving." "I can’t" she said, rounding on him, eyes flashing. "I’m too damn tired, understand? I haven’t slept in over a day. Without rest I’m gonna trip on something and break a leg. You’ll have to carry me back, and that’ll slow you down more than letting me sleep." He considered her point for a while. Why did she need to stop? She was impeding his schedule. It was very… Something stirred again. He couldn’t place it. Am I becoming ill? "Very well." he said. "We’ll stop in the next suitable building. You can rest for five hours. Then we move." She said nothing in reply, just nodded. Soon, they came to a house that looked relatively intact, with most of its roof in place. "We can stop here." he told her, and walked through the open doorway. The interior walls and upper floor of the house were gone, leaving only a large shell with a roof. But the inside was mostly free of rubble, suggesting that someone had removed it long ago for raw materials. "Pick a spot." he said. She looked around, found a large, grassy mound of earth and sat down on it. He found a spot opposite her and sat down as well. He might as well rest his legs and build up some energy reserves whilst she slept. "You’re not going to sleep?" "I don’t need to yet." She was doubtless hoping that he would drift off and she would be able to obtain one of his weapons. It didn’t work that way with Grammaton Clerics. His face twitched in a…smile? No, impossible. A muscle spasm caused by random electrical impulses. I don’t feel well. He looked back at her. She lay on her side, facing away from him. It wasn’t a cold night, but she was ill dressed for it. Her dress only came down to her knees and her sleeves were loose. Her arms were crossed, legs drawn up under her chin, huddled to try and conserve body heat. She was cold. Again he felt something odd. What? Surely not… I don’t want her to be cold. No. Ridiculous. She’ll survive. Such moderate discomfort is irrelevant. Why would I care? I don’t. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed them with his fingers. I don’t feel well. "Did you give those men a chance to surrender?" He opened his eyes. "What?" "The men you killed tonight. Did you give them a chance to surrender?" "What difference would it have made?" he replied. "You mean, they’d have only been executed anyway?" she said, voice bitter. "I suppose so." Partridge rubbed his eyes again. That didn’t sound like something he should say. Why couldn’t he concentrate? "So why process us at all? If the outcome is the same?" "Because otherwise it is chaos." "Would you rather I’d have pulled a gun?" she said, turning over to look at him. "Would you rather have shot me than trouble yourself with a prisoner?" No. What? It doesn’t matter. "I have no preference either way." he replied. "My duty is my duty." "Why do you carry out your duty?" "I live to serve Father." "Does your service make him happy?" Why couldn’t he stop looking at her eyes? They were drawing all his attention, and he’d only just realized. He jerked them onto the wall behind her. I don’t feel well. "We no longer suffer from emotion. Father does not suffer from emotion. I do what I do to serve humanity. To serve Libria." She sighed and shook her head. "You expend all this effort in your service but if you didn’t, no-one would care. Not really. Not really care, the way sense-offenders care. Those you serve may be away of the factual difference that your existence, your service makes, but it never really touches them. Don‘t you find that unsettling?" He shook his head as if to shake water from his eyes, trying to clear the sensation from his mind. I don’t understand this. "Your statement makes no sense." he replied. "I serve progress. There is no war. There is no murder." "And because of the very method by which that has been accomplished, no-one truly cares!" She turned away from him. He started at the wall above her for a few seconds, trying to define and control whatever was going wrong with his mind. When she spoke again, her voice was low and sad, and it sounded as though she were reciting something. "Those that I fight I do not hate. " "Those that I guard I do not love." "What?" "Nothing. Just something someone wrote a long time ago. It could almost be the Ballard of the Grammaton Cleric. Goodnight, Grammaton Cleric." And soon, her could hear her breathing in the deep, regular pattern of sleep. He looked at her sleeping form for a while, visible only by the moonlight. Something’s wrong. I must have contracted a disease whilst in the Nethers. I may have to warn the Gate-Watch and submit myself to quarantine. He shook his head. This wasn’t disease, of that he was certain. Something else was going wrong. Had he been exposed to chemicals of some kind? He shook his head again. If he wasn’t careful, he might fall asleep. So instead he sat back in the white sand and watched the sea, watched the sun glitter off the waves. It was beautiful. He smiled and lay back, enjoying the feeling of the hot sand molding to his back, his arms and legs. He looked up at the brilliant azure sky, saw gulls circle overhead. He could hear the warm sea breeze rustling in the nearby treetops, then he sat up, saw the bloodstained figure looking right back at him with a bullet hole blasted through his head and woke up with a jolt. He’d fallen asleep. In spite of all his training, he’d fallen asleep. Sunlight now shone through the cracks in the roof, the open windows, the brilliant sunlight of early morning, casting stark shadows across the room. He put out a hand to one side, and it touched concrete. Rough, chilled beneath his hand, troughs and scratches across it’s surface. He tugged the glove from his hand and ran his bare palm over the concrete slowly, as if he’d never felt it before. Somehow it seemed more real. More vibrant. Alive with…sensation? He looked around. He saw the woman lying on her pile of earth, hands cuffed. Facing him. Asleep. Caucasian. Middle Thirties. Dark hair. But she wasn’t anymore. The thick dark hair that streamed from her head fell gently across her face as she slept, a face tranquil and relaxed. Trim eyebrows arced over her eyes, her nose twitched in her sleep. Her lips were full and sensual even without the lipstick, the hand that lay next to her face was slender but the nail on the forefinger was cracked. Some of the hair that fell over her face was drifting slightly to the rhythm of her breath. She was beautiful. And with a thrill of horror, Partridge realized that he was feeling. He was emoting. He was a sense-offender. Panicking, he pulled open his coat and dug inside for the PIU, snapped it open. His fingers fumbled over the vials of Prozium, seized one, jammed it into the receiver and fired the drug into his jugular vain. He sat there, panting, staring into space, wondering how this could have happened. I took my interval. My dose couldn’t have worn off, it’s not possible! Calm down. The dose you just took will kick in within minuets. No-one will ever know. And he waited, whilst the world pulsed with colour and smell and taste and life. And sensation did not fade from him as it should. It kept getting stronger. After twenty minuets he ripped out another vial and injected it. And again. And again. And then there were no more. Overdosing on Prozium could overload the neural pathways of the brain, send you into a coma. Kill you. By rights he should be slipping away into death. But he wasn’t. He was still here. "Good morning Cleric." The voice still held disgust, contempt. His vision snapped over to her. She was sat upright now, looking at him with dark eyes that seemed to see more than he wanted them too. She looked down at the PIU on the floor, at the spent vials littered around him. Looked back at his face. Remain calm. Do not show your weakness. "Good morning." he said back, automatically, evenly. "Do you feel rested enough to proceed?" "Give me a moment." she said. She looked over to her left, and a smile appeared on her face. "Hello there." she said, changing her tone. It was soft now, higher than usual. He looked over and saw a yellow cat. No. Not a yellow cat. A golden cat with white paws and a square head, looking back at the woman with cautious curiosity. It’s eyes glittered in the sun, it’s tail drifted behind twitching with interest. She held out her hand, rubbing her fingers together. "Come on then. Come here. Come on Mog." "What are you doing?" he asked. "Why should you care?" she replied, then turned her attention back to the cat. "Come on, I won’t hurt you." The cat made a decision, lifted it’s tail and moved towards her with an introductory meow. Partridge watched it’s muscles move under it’s fur, watched it’s lithe, surefooted steps. It moved like a Cleric. "It might be diseased." he said, hand moving to the shotgun that lay beside him. "So what?" she replied. "I’m dead anyway, remember?" The cat met her outstretched hand and pushed it's head against her open palm. She ran her hand smoothly down its back. And again. The cat started to make an odd, rumbling sound. "Why are you doing that?" "Because the cat likes it. Because I like cats. Animals are much more than just vermin or food, even if the TetraGrammaton refuse to see it." "It's an animal. It's not capable of emotion." "That shows how little you know. Does it look like it's not feeling? Maybe not to the degree that people can, but look at it. It's happy." Partridge looked at the cat for a few moments. Then, not really sure what he was doing, acting on an instinct that he didn't fully understand, he reached out his own hand. "Here animal. Come here. I won't kill you." The cat looked over at him. He kept speaking, feeling faintly ridiculous. The cat walked towards him and rubbed it cheek against his outstretched hand. He started to stoke it, as he'd seen the woman do. It's fur was soft and warm, the body beneath muscular and hard. It's back was vibrating in time with the rumbling sound. Then, without warning, it jumped up into his lap. He felt the four paws as gentle points of pressure on his thighs, moving about as the cat trod a circle on his lap then flopped down onto it's side, eyes half closed as Partridge continued to stroke it. It's happy. Because of me. He felt good about that. And he looked up. And saw the woman staring back at him, jaw open, face astonished. She looked down at the empty Prozium vials. Then back at him. And with a chill, he realised. She knew. "I don't believe it." she whispered. He said nothing, just looked down at the cat, trying to work out what he was going to do. "How?" she asked. "I don't know." he replied hesitantly. He felt drawn to conversation, the urge to talk to her was overpowering. "I haven't missed my interval. I shouldn't be feeling." He stroked the cat, started to tickle it under the chin. She looked about the ground, as if thinking, then looked back at him with a faint smile on her lips. "I think I know." she replied. "Tell me." "Well, it's obvious. If you had injected yourself with Prozium, you wouldn't be feeling. So whatever was in those vials, it wasn't Prozium." "Impossible. I obtained those vials at an Equilibrium centre." "What, and you never took your eyes of the vials once between then and now? Or did you even check to see if the shots you collected were genuine Prozium?" "Are you telling me that the Equilibrium centres are compromised?" he asked, frowning. On his knee, the cat shifted a little. "I don’t know." she replied. "But if I wanted to cause disruption by supplying dead doses to people, a Cleric would be the best place to start." There was a pause. "It won’t work." he said. "As soon as I return to Libria, I’ll replace my vials. I’ll go back on the dose." She shook her head, a sad but knowing smile on her face. "No you won’t Cleric. No-one ever does." 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