Equilibrium Fan Fiction by Coolhand This Lonely Tumult (part 2) Part One | Part Two  | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7    Part Two. The Absolution. She wasn’t hiding it, and so it was easy for Partridge to detect. Emotion. Tate was free of Prozium, her soul able to taste and feel and hear. A second Cleric off the dose. How may more are there? "This gun stays trained until I’m happy." said Partridge. "So explain." "I’m a Cleric." replied Tate, a slightly haughty edge to her voice. "You really think you’ll hit me?" "You’re a Second Class. I’m a First Class. I’ll take that risk" "You’re old. I’m young. I‘ll take that risk too." she came back. "Then start speaking before we have to find out that hard way who’s better than who." said Partridge, and thumbed back the hammer of his SP-10. She smiled, then nodded, blinking slowly in time with the bow. "Very well. I have been off the dose for five years now. Two years ago, I was assigned to Special Projects Division tasked with the location and recovery of the De Morangious inventory. Whilst the SPD team dug in the darkness, trying to locate the cache with satellite maps and geographic breakdowns, I applied the art of Intuitive Investigation. I found it long before they did, cleaned it out." "What is she getting in return for the De Morangias EC-10?" asked Partridge, eyes never leaving Tate, scanning for the slightest muscle twitch that could signal the start of a Kata-sequence. "Faux Prozium." said Mary, UMP still trained on Tate. "Weapons, mostly handguns and SMG’s. Silencers, holster and other accessories. Ammo." Interesting. The Faux Prozium he could understand. Any Sense-Offender in Libria would either have to be off the street and hidden when the Interval time came, or would have to make a show of injecting Prozium into their neck. The Faux Prozium had been developed by the Resistance to allow it’s members to keep up appearances. It looked like the real thing an would even test like the real thing under a basic chemical exam. But all it did was make your fingers and toes tingle slightly. It was what had first freed him during that life altering mission in the Nether. So the Faux Prozium was fair enough. But the weapons… "Why do you want the hardware?" he asked. Tate crossed her arms and smiled, then lowered her gauze to the sleek black handgun that currently pointed at her centre-mass. Partridge wasn’t going to chance a headshot. A Cleric would be hard enough to hit as it was. "Because all the weapons I have access to as a Cleric are linked to the Tracer network." she replied. "Every time we use our SP-10’s for something other than official business, we take a chance. I don’t want to take that chance. If I have to kill someone to maintain my cover, I‘d rather not do it with a weapon that screams my name with every shot." "Then why not join the Resistance." said Partridge. "You’re a Sense Offender. The TetraGrammaton will burn you alive once they find out your off the dose. Why not join us and-" Tate shook her head. "The time isn’t right. Maybe soon, but not now." "That’s it?" "I have my reasons Cleric." said Tate simply, apparently not prepared to elaborate further. "So why did you want me here?" Partridge still wasn’t putting his weapon down. Tate leaned back against a crate and smiled. "I found the pile of bodies you left in the Nether." she replied. "The Hedonist cell you wiped out. It was obvious that they’d been taken down with Gun-Kata, but there was no record of the combat engagement in the Kata Chronicles. A Cleric who enters combat but doesn’t record the kills and the kata he used for analysis? Impossible. Unless the unthinkable had happened. Unless the Cleric was off the dose. I was sure as hell that I hadn’t killed them, so that left me just one option. There was another Sense Offending Cleric out there." "But you didn’t know which one." said Shamus, from Partridges side. His shotgun was no longer aimed. He was obviously convinced. "No. But I was sure he’d be in contact with the Resistance. Why else would he take out the Hedonists? So I added you as a condition to this deal." "Why?" Partridge asked. "Because I need to know who my allies are. Because now you can watch my back and I can watch yours. It’s always useful to have a friend, and now we both have an added motivation for keeping the other safe. If they take me alive, the technicians at the Palace of Justice will get your name as well. If they take you, then they will get mine. We’re symbiotic, Cleric. We live together, or we die together." Partridge held the gun on her for long seconds, using every facet of his intuitive training, thinking it over, coming to a conclusion. The SP-10 lowered. Partridge stowed in back in it’s holster. "Very well." he said. "I’ll take you at your word." "Then I suggest we don’t dawdle." she replied. "Your Partner will end the search of his area soon and I don’t believe either of us want him coming to look for you…" Partridge and Tate sensed it at the same time. Their hearing feeding them information that none of the other occupants of the room had been trained to detect. Both Clerics fell silent, trying to process the data properly. "What?" asked Mary, growing concerned. "What is it?" "Someone’s coming." said Tate. Both she and Partridge spun around to the entranceway- -To see an arm snake out of the doorway and slap a pistol to the head of the Resistance member stationed there. Kemp. Kemp’s eyes went wide, panic flushing into his face. He froze stiff as the whole room spun to look at him, weapons raising. "Nobody move, or I’ll kill him!" snarled a voice. "I mean it!" Everyone in the room had a weapon trained except Partridge and Tate. They both stood, evaluating the situation with the calm of a still winters lake. The doorway was at the far end of the room, and side on to everybody. All they could see was Kemp and a perfect side-on view of the arm and gun that was attached to his temple. But, by definition, that meant that the unseen forces in the corridor couldn’t see into the room either. Both parties were hidden from the other. Tate and Partridge exchanged glances, cool, professional agreement conducted in the passing contact of eyes. "Don’t shoot yet." they both said, a quiet instruction to the edgy and shocked Resistance fighters. Any hits to the arm, hand or gun could result in a muscle spasm that tightened the finger on the pistol trigger and caused the weapon to fire. Right into Kemp’s brain. The ideal shot in this situation was a headshot to the gunman, cut the spinal cord at the brain. But that shot was unavailable, lurking out of sight in the corridor behind. "What do you want?" snarled Mary, her own sub-machinegun raised at the arm, the best shot any of them had. "We want the EC-10 that the bitch stole from us!" snarled the voice. "And we want the name of the Cleric who killed our guys! Or we‘ll blow this guys head clean off." "I didn’t steal it from you." replied Tate. "You stole it from me. I simply recovered it after your hideout was obliterated." Partridge realised. The men in the corridor were Hedonists, probably the last surviving few who’d not been with the group in the Nether or at the hideout when Partridge had rescued Jurgen and his advisors. Now they were looking for revenge. "And if you want the name of the Cleric who killed your men, well that’s easy." added Partridge. "I’m here." It was almost funny. If an arm could do a double take, it was doing one right now. The grip shifted, the fingers flexed around the barrel. The Hedonists had obviously not been planning on a face-to-face revenge. Not with a Cleric. They were probably thinking along the lines of a bomb or poison. The voice cleared it’s throat. "What?" it said, sounding a little less confident. "I said I’m here." Partridge replied. "I recall that the combat efficiency of your colleges was not that impressive. Are you any better?" "You’re lying. There’s no Cleric in there." "I assure you that there is." replied Partridge. "Two of us, actually. The woman you stole the art from is also a Cleric. We can come out and demonstrate if you‘d like-" "NO!" The arm shoved Kemp’s skull with the gun "No, uh, you, uh, stay there." said a voice realising that it had just grabbed an attack-dog by the ears and now couldn’t let go. Partridge heard frantic whispering from the corridor, much of it containing words of old Anglo-Saxon. He could pick out ten distinct voices. Ten targets. "Ok," said the voice. "This is what’s gonna happen. You guys are gonna shoot the Cleric’s in the knees. Put ’em out of action. NOW! Or this piece of crap is gonna get his face sprayed all over the floor." The Resistance looked at each other, concern and maybe even panic in their eyes. Mary didn’t look panicked, but she did look frustrated, angry. "What now?" she asked Partridge. "Can I borrow that?" Partridge whispered to Mary, pointing at the pistol in her holster. She looked down at it, then drew the 9mm Walther P99 handgun with her free hand and passed it over. "Thank you." said Partridge, then look at Kemp, into his panicked eyes. Get ready. He mouthed. Kemp nodded, sweat shining on his forehead, dripping from his nose. Then Partridge examined the pistol clapped to Kemp’s head. It was a Glock 17L, a long barrelled derivative of the Glock 17 9mm. The 17 was still used in Libria, though the version issued to Sweepers was a vastly upgraded in improved model of the Gaston Glock original. The Glocks had no safety catch as such. It’s main safety mechanism was a third trigger, a tiny button on the trigger that had to be depressed in order for the trigger to function. It would be depressed naturally if you pulled the trigger in the correct way, but if you slipped or fumbled over the gun, the main trigger would remain locked out and… Bingo. Partridge levelled the Walther and fired in a single, fluid motion. The arm jerked and a scream of shock and panic ripped through the air. But the Glock didn’t fire. Because the trigger guard was empty, hollow, the finger and the trigger spinning away in a splash of blood. Kemp was already moving, head down, dashing out of the entrance and into the room, out of the line of sight. The sound of footsteps pounding away down the corridor hammed into the room. The Hedonists were fleeing. They couldn’t be allowed to escape. They carried the knowledge that the deal was not wiped out, and that two Clerics were present. Partridge and Tate pounded after them, closely followed by Shamus and Mary. They swept through the entranceway to see shadows disappearing around the corner. They ran after them, round the corner, up a flight of steps, the Clerics gaining with every step, the two Resistance fighters falling behind despite their best efforts. They flew up tunnels and stairs that Partridge had never seen before, and finally came out onto a catwalk. Ten feet below them was a floor, a door in the wall and six hedonists desperately trying to pull it open. "They’re mine." said Tate, and pulled two of her newly acquired handguns from her pockets. A pair of Beretta 92FS 9mm, venerable ancestors of the current Cleric SP10. The hedonists spun around, saw the Clerics. Raised their weapons. The female Cleric didn’t bother with the steps, just ran at the rail, somersaulted over it, into mid-air, slamming down into the middle of the men with the grace of a cat. The storm broke below, Tate whirling in a blaze of muzzle flashes and limbs, shell casings flipping through the air, thunder bouncing off the walls, bodies writhing and snapping as the Gun-Kata took their lives. Partridge didn’t stop to watch, just pounded across the catwalk after the remaining prey. He knew that Mary and Shamus was about ten seconds behind him as he rounded another corner, saw a tunnel with water pouring through the roof, pooling on the floor. He saw the four remaining Hedonists, disappearing around the corner. And he saw a grenade sailing back down the tunnel towards him. Partridge pulled himself back around the corner, felt the dull crump of the grenade reverberate through his chest cavity, saw the fragments of rock and metal bounce and patter across the turning. Then he dove back, raced down the corridor. And stopped, halfway down, footsteps splashing to a halt. He knew this tunnel. The schematics in his head told him where this tunnel led. Who it led too. He felt a slight relief wash into his soul. The Hedonists would still die, but he wouldn’t be the one to do it. He’d been on a storm-tossed sea of emotions throughout this mission. Thinking he’d have to kill the Sweeper Team, then being relieved of that burden. Thinking he’d have to kill the Hedonists, then behind relieved of that too. No more blood will stain my hands this night, no further souls will cry my name. A weary smile plucked at the Cleric’s face as Shamus and Mary run up behind him. "What is it?" asked Shamus, panting. "Why have you stopped." "Because they’re already dead." replied Partridge, still looking down the tunnel in the direction that they had escaped. "Why, who…" Mary started. Then she realised and said; "Oh, I see. Right." The cracking sound came so suddenly, it even caught Partridge by surprise. He spun around. The grenade blast had done more than just scorch the walls. It had accelerated the erosion that the water had been working at for decades. The pooled floor beneath Shamus and Mary just gave way, just broke as if it were polystyrene. Their eyes went wide in shock as they began to fall, Partridge hurling his arms out, one towards each. His left seized Mary by the shoulder holster she wore and pulled her onto the solid ground with all of his might. His right brushed the coat of Shamus. Then closed on nothing but air. Shamus fell away, backwards, his mouth opening in surprise and fear, his shotgun sailing away as he vanished into the floor. "NO!" Mary screamed the water sluiced down the fresh hole, both she and Partridge dashing to the edge, looking down. Partridge experienced the double-edged blade of relief and despair. Shamus lay below, on his back, only about eight or nine feet down, apparently unhurt in a large pool of collected water and rubble. But he was surrounded. By a surprised looking Sweeper team. Partridge’s Sweeper team, still in the room he’d commanded them to secure and wait in. The room directly below this tunnel. He saw weapons train on Shamus. Desperately, Mary unsung her sub-machinegun, but Partridge grabbed the barrel and shoot his head. Let me. he mouthed. "He’s a Sense-Offender." came a voice from below as the team took in Shamus non-regulation clothing and the illegal Remington 870 shotgun that lay by his side. "Arrest and secure him for processing." There would be killing. More blood would be shed. He’d been a fool to think he could escape it. Partridge allowed the sorrow to linger for a second more. Then he banished it away, his mind revolving to present another face. The face of a Cleric, the mind of a killer about to do what he’d been trained to all his life. He simply dropped the hole and landed with a splash in the room, water launching away from the floor as he touched down next to Shamus. "Sir, we’ve found-" "Yes I know." said Partridge calmly. He looked down at Shamus, who looked winded and bruised but unhurt. He made eye contact, and hoped the message got across. Trust me and stay down. Partridge looked around the room. Two Sweepers either side of him and Shamus, the rest dotted around the room at various points, some half hidden by pillars, old furniture or lockers. Only twelve of them. The other eight would be securing the perimeter outside. Partridge looked back down at Shamus, his mind assembling his Kata tree, planning his route with the science and mathematics of the deadliest combat art known to man. He couldn’t use his SP-10’s to take out the Sweeper team, the risk of a sidearm trace was too great. But a Cleric was never short of weapons, as long as there were weapons in the room. "You two. Shoot him." said Partridge to the Sweepers either side. It wasn’t standard procedure. But Elite Sweepers obeyed any order a Cleric gave. For the Cleric were Father’s right hand. The two Sweepers pointed their G36K rifles at the prone and helpless Shamus, racked the bolts to put chamber the first rounds. And Partridge felt the trance of the Gun-Kata envelop him like a cool, crisp lake, calm, peaceful, centred. Nothing existed now but the Kata. And when the Sweepers pulled their triggers, they hit not Shamus but each other’s hearts. For Partridge had grabbed their gun barrels at the last moment and wrenched them up toward each other. The Sweepers toppled back, trailing blood and torn leather, the after-image of the muzzle flashes still bright in everyone’s eyes. Both weapons were still in Partridge’s grasp, one in each hand, held by the barrel. Before anyone could take in what had happened Partridge had flipped both rifles around in mid air and caught them with his fingers on the triggers. The Sweeper team threw up their own weapons. But by then it was far too late. Partridge went to Kata 88, thrusting the G36K’s forward, crushing down the triggers, blasting away two Sweepers in front of him, then shifted to Kata 327, a full-auto Kata, dropping down and to one side, legs in a very wide, very low stance, both arms carving a full arc from the front to the back whilst spraying 5.56mm slugs, creating across a kill zone on either side of his body. The Sweepers in zones buckled and spun as the slugs caught them, broken tile fragments erupting from the walls, glinting mid-air under the chemical green glow-lights as they spun away. Incoming fire hissed through the air where Partridge’s head and torso should had been, then moved down and to one side, trying to reach the place where those body parts were now. They tore nothing but stale air, Partridge not just one or two steps ahead but having already fought the entire battle in his mind. The rifles spun and crashed, throwing out bottle-nosed shell casings like sprays of copper coloured blood. Everywhere Sweepers were dying, firing, yelling as the room was consumed by the howl of gunfire. Partridge danced with a grace that belied the weight and unwieldy nature of the two G36K’s. They weren’t ideal for this type of Gun-Kata, and Partridge could have made much faster progress with smaller, lighter weapons. But to a casual observer, this below-par performance would still have been a jaw-dropping, terrifying display of how truly deadly a human being can be. Partridge spun, hot lead hissing past his body, and dropped the last two Sweepers with the last four rounds in each gun, watching them thrash and twist under the muzzle flashes before the guns fell silent. Still in his Kata position. Partridge let his hands fall open, let the rifles fall away into the pool at his feet, letting them hiss and steam as the superheated barrels touched the cold water. He was already moving, pounding towards the entranceway as fast as he could. Not all the Sweepers had been in this room. He could hear the rest approaching. And as the first two appeared in the doorway, Partridge ejected his SP10’s into his hands. He couldn’t use them to shoot the Sweepers, but an SP10 was far more than just a firearm. It was the sidearm of the Cleric, and had been designed specifically with the philosophy of the Gun-Kata in mind. The Gun-Kata treats the gun as a total weapon… The SP10 wasn’t just a firearm. It was a total weapon. Partridge spun the pistols around on their trigger guards, and they came to rest as inverted L-shapes, butt thrusting forward from the top of Partridge’s fist, barrel thrusting straight down from the bottom. He squeezed small, hidden studs. From the base of each magazine, five prongs flicked up. At the other end of the guns, from the T insignia at the end of the barrel, a six inch blade hissed out, gleaming, hungry for blood. And he dove into the surprised and unprepared Sweepers like a cannonball. He landed crushing blows with the bludgeons, tore spraying paths with the blades, spinning the guns on the trigger guards like Sai to favour with either end. The Sweepers staggered and writhed as Partridge inflicted blow after blow, one injury atop another, unable to react or counter, only able to bleed and die. A Sweeper either side and one in front. Partridge dropped down low, left hand driving a blade up into one Sweeper’s heart, right hand arcing down to shatter the other’s knee with a gun-butt, the snapshot of the third whipping harmlessly overhead. His right hand blade lashed up to meet the descending throat of the kneecap man, then he launched forwards at the last Sweeper, knocking the FN P90 sub-gun to one side with his forearm, spun, slammed an elbow into the throat, drove a knee into the man’s gut, brought up the SP-10‘s, whirled them around in his hands then slammed both blades through the visor and into the Sweeper’s eyes. Two spider web patterns shattered across the obsidian black glass, the Sweeper frozen in the moment of death, Partridge motionless, at the end of his Kata. Then he pulled away the blades, and struck his finish position, arms making a circle then coming to rest , crossed at the wrists in front on his chest. He held the silence for a second more, then the blades retracted into the barrels, and the prongs snapped back into the mags. He looked down at the butt of both SP-10s. There, on the base of the magazines, he saw the silver engraving: Grammaton Cleric Partridge 412 The words were stained, sullied with splattered blood. He closed his eyes, the Gun-Kata trance now nothing but a fading mist, his own emotions and soul returned to him. He flexed the appropriate muscles, and his wrist holsters clicked down, accepted his weapons and slipped back up into his sleeves with a metallic snick. He turned to look back into the room. Shamus was staring at him in open mouthed shock. The Resistance fighter struggled back to his feet, grabbed his shotgun and said; "Whoa. Remind me never to annoy you." "That’s what they all say." said Partridge without humour. He’d just killed twenty people, albeit Prozium fed zombies, and didn’t feel like being light hearted. He strode back into the room as Mary dropped down. "Are you ok?" she asked, eyes scanning him for injury. "I’m fine. Get the bodies into the rigged-room and burn it all. Now. I’ll contact Preston and tell him the story. Move. We don’t have much time." And he turned and strode from without looking back, past the bodies of the Sweepers, the staring, lifeless of Captain Vickers, a man who’d looked up to him, trusted him. A man who’s throat he’d ripped out with an SP10 blade. The hedonists ran hard, down the tunnels, not stopping to wonder why the Clerics were no longer chasing them down. The just ran, and ran hard, one of them clutching his maimed hand and gritting his teeth. When the tunnel opened up into a large room, they found something they weren’t expecting. Another Cleric. He stood, hands clasped in front of him, expression on his handsome face cold as the grave. They skidded to a halt in front of him, eyes wide. He looked them up and down. Then said; "You are under arrest for the crime of ceasing your interval-" "Drop him!" screamed the injured Hedonist. Their guns came up. The sound of a pair of holsters triggering echoed across the room, followed by a furious fusillade of shots from one pair of weapons working so impossibly fast that they were at the very limit of their cyclic speeds. Then silence. Preston scanned his eyes once over the fallen offenders then, satisfied that none had escaped and that not one shot had missed, he walked silently from the room. Next >>> more Equilibrium Fan Fiction