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Equilibrium Fan Fiction
by Coolhand
This
Lonely Tumult
(part 1)
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Part One |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Part Two
Part
One. The Redemption.
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Through
a pair of binoculars, two eyes went wide.
"It’s her!." said a gruff voice. "She’s
alive."
"She won’t be for long when Largo gets
hold of her. Who’s that with her?"
"Can’t see clearly…" the finger spun the
focus wheel. "No way! Damnnit. DAMN!"
"What? WHAT?"
"It’s a Cleric. It’s a damned Cleric."
"Ok. Get hold of Largo. Tell him we’ve
got a problem. We can solve it but we’ll need more men."
"Are you crazy? That’s a Cleric!"
"That’s why we’ll need more men." came
the reply. "And make sure they’re carrying all the weapons they can.
"That-is-a-Grammaton-Cleric!" Each
word stressed, as though speaking to an idiot. "Haven’t you ever heard
of Gun-Kata?"
"Haven’t you ever heard of what Largo
does to people who fail?"
A pause. Long and tense.
"I’ll call Largo. Get some more men."
"Good choice."
Partridge picked the cat up and put it on
the floor with extreme reluctance. He had to get moving. This was
getting dangerous. These new, unfamiliar emotions were rolling around
inside his head like a wrecking ball. And they weren’t just confined to
his mind. Emotions spread tendrils into your physical body as well,
twisting your stomach, making your hands tingle, putting pressure in
your chest. He needed to get back to Libria, needed to get his dose. He
stood up and hefted the PA-04 shotgun.
"You have to get up." he said, trying to
make his tone neutral.
She looked at him with those dark
eyes he couldn’t avoid and said;
"You’re still taking me back?"
"Yes."
"You don’t have to. If you let me go, I
can guide you through what you’re feeling right now."
"No." he replied, but his stomach
twisted. He looked away.
"Please. I know what it’s like the first
few hours. The fear. The overwhelming sensations. It’s like your mind
is drowning. I can help you to cope with it. Let me help you."
He shook his head.
"No."
I need my dose. I need to hand her over.
Incineration. Halls of Justice.
He was hit by the sudden image of her
dark hair burning in flame, of her deep eyes liquefying in the
incinerator.
No. I can’t do that to her.
I have to.
Stop these, PLEASE!
"I can help you-"
"NO!" Partridge roared, snapping up the
shotgun, pulling the trigger. An explosion of dust and mortar shot from
the wall next to the woman, spraying her with brick fragments. She
screamed and threw her hands over her head, dropping to her knees.
Partridge racked the slide, head the spend shell clatter onto the
concrete below. His chest was heaving, sweat on his brow. The silence
lingered, then the woman uncurled her arms and slowly got to her feet.
The look on her face ripped at fibres deep inside his chest. He wanted
more than anything to apologise.
I can’t give in. I CAN’T.
"Ok." she said quietly, crestfallen.
"We’ll go."
They walked for another hour, through the
abandoned cityscape of the Nethers. She never spoke once, just looked
down at the ground in front of her, shoulders slumped, arms hanging
limp in their cuffs. He couldn’t stand the silence.
"What’s your name?" he asked.
There was a pause.
"Mary." she didn’t look round.
He nodded
Mary. Last night, names were just tags to
identify Clerics, Citizens and Sense-Offenders. Now, names were so much
more. The name and the person were wrapped together. Inseparable.
Irreplaceable.
He knew what he was going to do. Had
known for the past ten minuets.
"Turn around Mary."
She did so. He saw her eyes. Downcast but
hopeful.
"Hold out your hands."
She did so, and he slipped a key into the
cuffs and twisted, letting them fall clattering to the floor.
"You’re free to go, Mary."
He saw her face light up. Relief, joy,
hope. She smiled, caught herself, looked down at the ground. Looked
back up. He could see the glittering of tears in her eyes. That didn’t
make sense. Tears were used in negative emotional states, weren’t they?
But she didn’t seem to be angry, or unhappy or sad.
"Thank you." she whispered, face lighting
up into a smile once more.
She’d so beautiful. How can I go back to
what I was, to seeing beauty and yet not knowing it? To see nothing in
her but tissue and skin and bone and sense-offence? How could I even
contemplate another dose of Prozium?
Never. I’ll never dose again.
"What’s your name?" she asked softly,
putting her hand gently on his arm. The slight pressure and warmth from
her hand felt like a searing Tasar bolt.
"Partridge." he replied.
She grinned, and shook her head.
"No, your real name. Your first name."
"Errol. It’s Errol."
"I’ll never forget you Errol. And I
promise that you’ll never regret starting this journey. One single hour
of unhindered emotion is worth a lifetime of Prozium-shrouded coma."
There was such passion in her voice, such
conviction, that Partridge almost didn’t hear the sounds. They were
faint and far off. But you can’t sneak up on a Grammaton Cleric. His
head snapped around, focused on the noise. He saw an armed man sixty
feet away, saw him duck back behind a wall. There were others too. He
could hear them.
"We’re being followed." he said.
"What? By who?"
"I don’t know. If they‘re the Resistance,
you‘d better go to them."
"No." she said, and that surprised him.
And he saw the look of foreboding on her face. "They might not be the
resistance."
There were thirty one of them in total.
All armed with assault rifles or sub-machineguns. A couple with
handguns. Dressed in rugged clothing that was never the less well
maintained and looked after. Their eyes betrayed that they did indeed
feel emotion, in large quantities, the sort of emotions that caused
humanity to turn to Prozium after WWIII. They moved in smooth,
practiced formation, tense but confident. They’d been tracking their
prey for over four hours now, and were getting very close. They had
seen the two figures enter one of the old, abandoned buildings.
"We'll take them in the building. We need
the woman alive. The man we'll have to kill."
"That's a Cleric, isn't it?"
"He's only human. Shoot him and he'll die
just like anyone else."
"Shooting at him isn’t the problem. It’s
hitting him that’s the problem."
"You wanna go back and tell that to
Largo?"
"Not really."
They entered the building cautiously,
weapons up and ready for trouble. Whatever the building had once been,
now it was just a hollow rectangular shell, about twenty meters wide,
fifty meters long. In the center two support columns, each the width of
a man, rose to the ceiling. Light filtered through the hollow windows
and holes in the ceiling to fall in glowing, isolated pools in the cool
dark shadows.
And in between the pillars, in the center
of the room, stood Mary. Stood tall, arms holding the PA-02 shotgun
leveled at floor midway between herself and the newcomers. The gunmen,
who's number included a few gunwomen, moved cautiously through the
doorway and into the skeletal, hollow building. Three remained by the
doorway, a large group of about fifteen moved a few meters further in,
taking up generic fire and cover stances. The rest spread out through
the building, covering Mary with their weapons, hunting with their eyes
for the real threat that they knew must be close by. One of the men,
the leader, strode, strode towards Mary, his face hard. She kept the
shotgun steady. Not exactly pointed at him. Not exactly pointed away
from him.
''What happened to the Cleric?'' he said.
''Why are you following me?'' Mary
countered. "Who are you?"
The man tutted and shook his head.
''Thought that would be obvious.'' he
replied. ''We were promised a sizeable amount of EC-10. Paintings,
CD’s. Stuff we could sell on to the highest bidder. But we aint got it,
have we?''
'Yes, I thought you might be working for
Largo." Said Mary, nodding, eyebrow raised. "'The deal was hit by the
TetraGrammaton. Everyone was wiped out, the EC-10 was destroyed.
"Yeah, we know." A crooked grin. "You
see, your resistance came to Largo a couple' hours ago to set up a new
deal, try again, so to speak. Must really want it bad, coz Jurgen
himself led your delegation. And Largo has this brilliant idea.
Probably why he's our boss and all. "Listen lads," he says. "If the
resistance want to give us loads of EC-10 for weapons, imagine what
they'll give us for their leader and his mates.'' What do you reckon?''
Mary's jaw dropped a little, the shotgun
barrel slipping down just a fraction in her grasp
"What?" she breathed, a look of pure
horror on her face.
''Largo put it this way." continued the
Leader. "He said: Jurgan's always goin' on about how the body needs the
head to function. Take out Father and you cripple the TetraGrammaton.
Well, the same applies to the resistance. We got your leader and loads
of his top dogs. How much EC-10 would the resistance pay to stop us
turning him over to over to Father?"
His face turned intense, his eyes
glittering.
"I reckon they'd give us all of it. Every
picture, every book, every DVD, everything they have. So does Largo.''
''So what are you doing here?'' hissed
Mary. "Why are you stalking me?"
''Jurgen may be the head, but you’re the
heart. Or so Largo says. Gotta have you to make sure they pay up.
Besides, his favourite squeeze got killed a few days ago. Reckon he
wants the company, if you know what I mean. Now put the gun down or my
men here will blow you kneecaps off and carry you back. Makes no
difference to us, love. We might enjoy it, know what I’m saying? You
can‘t be a true hedonist unless you indulge in all life‘s pleasures."
Perhaps he should have thought more about
the relaxed way Mary let the shotgun fall to the floor in front of her.
About how she gave in so quickly. But he didn’t.
''Your crazy.'' Mary said in disgust,
contempt in her face. ''You'd take away our best chance of overthrowing
father just to increase your own stockpile of EC-10?''
"Eat, drink and be merry." replied the
Leader with a shrug." For tomorrow we die."
"Some sooner than others." said a voice
from the entranceway.
Everyone spun around.
The man stood by the doorway, holding a
G3 assault rifle, was one of the first to complete his spin. He saw a
figure in the doorway, silhouetted in the rectangle light. A figure
wearing a long coat, with his arms relaxed by his sides. The figure of
a Grammaton Cleric.
The man blinked. It was the last thing he
would ever consciously do.
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