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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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By
the time his eyes had half closed, the Cleric’s sleeves had
ejected two chunky long barreled SP10 autopistols into his hands, the
Cleric’s eyes had taken in the entire contents of the room and fed them
back to his brain, which made a detailed analysis of the Geometric
distribution of opponents, their weaponry, their temperament and a
hundred other variables.
By the time his eyes were completely
closed, the Cleric had selected the appropriate initial Kata in his
mind, the Kata that would best inflict the maximum amount of damage on
the maximum number of opponents whilst keeping the Cleric clear of the
statically probable trajectories of return fire and was already
planning the next five Katas ahead of that, slotting them into a
sequence known as a Kata-Tree. It was also planning for unexpected
contingences and statistical aberrations. The Cleric’s hands had
flicked his pistols from Lock, past Single Fire, to Auto.
By the time his eyes were open again, the
Cleric had leapt into the air and was hurtling towards him.
All in the blink of an eye
Partridge leapt up into the air, towards
the first man, kicked his rifle out of the way with one leg-muzzle
blazing on reflex at nothing but darkness-and planted his other foot
into the man’s throat. He kept it there as his momentum knocked the man
over onto his back, so that the full force of Partridge’s landing went
onto his opponent’s windpipe with a fatal crunch. As he touched down,
his arms tracked the other two opponents at the doorway and shredded
their centre torso’s with short, crashing bursts from his SP-10’s. Then
he sprang forwards, each step both a dash and a firing Kata, heading
for the large group of thirteen men a few metres away. All this before
any fire was returned. When the other muzzle flashes came in, he
proceeded to Kata 214, and somersaulted forwards. Right into the middle
of the largest group of opponents. Now Eleven in total.
And the odds swung even more in his
favour.
Because if there’s one place a
practitioner of Gun-Kata wants to be, it’s surrounded by his opponents
at point blank range.
It hands the practitioner numerous
advantages. Firstly, all of his opponents are easily accessible with a
swing of the arm and a swivel of a torso. Secondly he can actually
incorporate close combat into his Kata enabling him to increase the
maximum damage inflicted in one move, and increase the maximum number
of opponents it is inflicted on. Third, return fire is reduced and is
less effective. Everyone else is wary of hitting his comrades, is
panicked by the close proximity of the Practitioner. A skilled
Practitioner can even goad his opponents into accidentally shooting
each other, thus increasing the kill zone time/efficiency ratio without
expending more of the Practitioners ammunition.
It is in this situation that the full
potential of the Gun-Kata system is unleashed.
And so Partridge unleashed it. In all
it’s lethal, whirling, awe-inspiring fury. His body twisted and spun,
arms flashing from point to point, Kata to Kata, dealing death with
every move. 10mm hollow points zinged about the room like swarms of
bees, each one finding a home in human flesh or bone, spraying blood
across the concrete floor. T-Cross muzzle flashes danced in the air
around him, each one the last thing a statically selected opponents
would ever see, each white hot, blazing symbol marking the point where
the Kata’s optimal kill zone had been reached. The floor around his
feet became covered in a sea of shell cases. He spun about, knees bent,
right arm across his chest, left arm up behind his head, fired, spun,
right arm out in front, left elbow shattering the jaw of an opponent in
a move that also lined up his left gun on a more distant target. Fired.
Kept going. Fountains of concrete shot up around him as bullets he’d
evaded before they were even fired seared past and ended their short
lives unfulfilled in scenery, or in the tissue of someone they weren’t
intended for. Bodies fell to the floor, were blasted through the air,
bounced across the floor. In a few frenzied, bloody seconds, the group
Partridge had somersaulted into was dead, and so were a lot of the
others. Both arms out in front, wrists crossed over. Kata 48. Fired.
The topslides on his SP-10’s slammed back as the two opponents flew
against the walls like rag-dolls.
Empty. As he knew they’d be. His thumbs
brushed the clip-release buttons. The spent clips fell away in tandem.
Before they hit the floor, he’d dropped down into Kata 60. Standard
Wrist Holster Re-load position. Crouched to present minimal target,
arms out to the side, wrists bent, guns pointed down to allow access to
magazine ports. A muscle flex later, and he felt the auto-reload smack
new clips into his pistols as bullets whipped past him, one almost
grazing his temple.
He sprang back up, fresh waterfalls of
brass casings gushing from his arms. Now he was concentrating on taking
out scattered opponents at variable distances, who no longer needed to
hold back. More return fire was the result. More evasion was needed.
Partridge flowed between Kata with liquid grace, ripping away chests
and heads with surgical, mathematical precision. The air thundered with
gunfire, shadows dancing with muzzle flashes.
But their number was rapidly reducing.
Two on either side at 90 degrees,
bringing their guns around. One behind at 175 degrees, also aiming.
Stone support pillar directly in front 1 metre distance.
Kata 376. 85% chance opponents on 90
degree angle will cancel each other out. Concentrate kill zone on 175
degree target. Risk of injury or death to Cleric between 1% and 6%
Partridge sprinted forwards at the
pillar, leapt into the air, pushed off the pillar with his feet and
backflipped away from it with cat-like grace and agility. The men on
either side fired late. Their rounds seared under the mid-air arch that
was the back of the somersaulting Cleric and found each other instead.
One dropped like a stone, four holes punched across his chest. The
other staggered for a few steps before he fell, his head reduced to a
soggy mess. And Partridge fired both his pistols mid-flip at the man
behind him, crossing his fire arcs to maximize kill zone potential. The
flip went full circle and Partridge landed on bent knees, arms out to
the sides, facing the pillar, his back to the man he’d just shot. His
pistols were empty again. But he’d planned for that, and his trail of
destruction had taken him to the shotgun Mary had dropped for him. He
let the pistols go, slid a foot under PA-04 and flicked it into the
air. Caught it and fired it one-hand into a target, grasped the
pump-handle with his second hand, rolled, racked it fired again,
rolled, racked it, fired-
Statistical Aberration,
He shot should have taken out the Leader
as he ducked behind the pillar the Cleric had just flipped off. But the
airborne M16 of the previous opponent sailed across the buckshot’s
trajectory, and caught most of the pellets. The M16 was flung away in a
new directions as if it had hit an invisible rubber wall. The Leader
got behind cover unharmed.
It happened. In fact it had happened
twice now in this fight. Nothing unusual. There were always unpredicted
variables that could not be controlled. The skill lay in how you
adapted, Partridge adjusted his Kata-Tree to compensate, taking his
Kata sequence down a new branch that incorporated the miss-target, and
the fact an opponent was still up. He was point-blank with a man who’d
just finished re-loading and was bringing up his SPAS 12 shotgun.
Partridge smacked the weapon barrel away with the palm of his left
hand, jammed the shotgun into the man’s neck with his right and
evaporated his head in a red cloud. Two more went down fast. Then the
last man, the leader swung his arm out from behind cover, holding a
rifle that he blazed off widely. Partridge replied with a shotgun blast
that sheared the arm away at the elbow, then struck his finish
position, head turned left, leaning back on right leg, left leg
stretched out to left side, right arm up, left down, holding the
shotgun vertical at the floor, and in parallel with his body. The Kata
was perfect before the severed arm bounced wetly across the ground,
rifle still in it’s grasp.
Silence descended and bathed the wounds
of the room. Partridge felt the Gun-Kata clean white void evaporate
from his mind.
And into it's place rushed a hundred new
sensations, swamping his soul with questions and confusions that he
couldn’t afford to analyse just yet. He heard movement, saw Mary rise
from the floor, her eyes wide as she scanned them slowly across the
room, jaw hanging open. She walked over to him as he recovered and
re-loaded his autopistols, opened her mouth to speak, shut it, opened
it again and said:
"That was...quick."
"Should have been quicker. said Partridge
with unconscious honesty as he snapped his SP-10 slides closed.
"Quicker?" her eyebrows arched even
higher.
"Yes, definitely. Looking back on it, not
all my Kata were optimal. I made a few poor sequence choices. My
Kata-Tree could have been more efficient during the second phase-"
He realized he was giving an After-Action
evaluation and stopped.
Coughed.
"I suppose it'll do." he said.
"I suppose it’ll have to." she said, but
there was a slight smile on her face, her expression one of gentle
sarcasm.
"Who were they?" he asked
"We call them Hedonists. They used to be
part of the resistance.'' replied Mary, " until they got tired of the
struggle. They decided that, rather than help their fellow human's,
they'd rather just hide in the Nethers and soak up all the EC-10 the
could. But a few months ago they found an old weapons storage vault.
Dated from before the war. They contacted us to do a trade. Trade
weapons we badly need for EC-10 they crave. "
"The art deal I was sent to interdict."
muttered Partridge.
"Yes. How did the TetraGrammaton find
out?"
"Art dealer named Griffith. He cracked
under interrogation."
He saw Mary close her eyes.
"Ryan." she whispered. "I'd hoped he got
away."
Then she shook her head.
"There's no time. Not now. If Largo hands
Jurgen over to Father-"
"The resistance ends." said Partridge. He
never thought he'd see the day when that phrase would bring him
foreboding. The TetraGrammaton had always known that resistance had a
leader, one man who organized everything. But they hadn’t known his
identity. Now Partridge had the name that he’d always searched for but
would no longer hunt down. Jurgen.
Mary nodded gravely.
"Once they have Jurgen, it's over."
Partridge knew well how the resistance
was structured. After all, he’s spent his career fighting it. It was
organized into small cells that were unconnected, the members not aware
of the identities of members outside their own cell. Each cell had a
leader known only to Jurgen and a few other top members. If Father got
Jurgen, he got the entire resistance, stored in the man’s memory.
"Then we need to stop them. We need to
free Jurgen and his council" said Partridge.
He’d made his decision now. The only real
decision he could make. In these few short hours he’d lived more than
in the rest of his lifetime. No-one had the right to suppress this.
No-one. Emotions were the core of a life. Remove them, and all you had
was a shell, a corpse that had not yet started to decay. His no longer
belonged with the TetraGrammaton. He belonged with the resistance, with
those trying to bring real life back to their fellow man. To return
their core. To give them back their soul.
He saw Mary looking at him, saw her
realizing that he’d thrown his lot in with her Resistance. With her. He
couldn't quite read her eyes, her face, but there was something there
that hadn't been there before.
Something he’d been trained to recognize
but had never known directed at him.
His head swum and spun with the new
sensations.
"We need to know were the Hedonists have
them." said Mary.
As if on cue, a terrified whimper drifted
across to meet them.
The voice of the Leader.
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