Equipoise

At last peace reigns in the heart of man. At last war is but a word whose meaning fades from our understanding. At last, we are whole but there is a disease in the heart of man. Its symptom is hate. Its symptom is anger. Its symptom is rage. Its symptom is war. The disease is human emotion. However there is a cure for this disease. At the cost of the dizzying highs of human emotion, we have suppressed its abysmal lows. Now we are at peace with ourselves and human kind is one. War is gone. Hate, a memory. All those things that might tempt us to feel, destroy them. You have won.

Against all odds, and your own natures. You, have - survived.
Fifty years have passed with neither war nor murder nor hate nor contempt. At long last Man is at peace with himself. All due to the great equalizer, Equium.

Chapter 1

Breaking the rules

He stood high up, above the new generation, they were called Generation F2.

"For decades, for no better reason then mutual contempt, civilization hovered on the brink of nuclear war. People across the world massacred each other over forgotten cultural grudges. 'Tensions have escalated' was the familiar refrain"

He looked over Generation F2, his still deep brown eyes observing their faces, working out whether they were feeling or not.

"It became inescapable – if man was to survive into the future, he must find a way to govern his emotions before they governed him into non-existence"

Generation F2 stood up and clapped rhythmically like a mechanical wave of noise. Varick stepped down from the podium. His great long jacket moved lightly in the wind. He walked down the steps and nodded to some of the young males of the Cleric Youth as he strolled out of the large concrete classroom. He was greeted by Janik.

"Janik"

"Varick" he replied

"Where is it Janik?"

"Outside Liberta, in The Never"

Varick looks at him. Janik was probably one of the very few black Clerics in the Tetragrammaton Council, but he was most certainly one of the most talented Clerics, his record has been perfect, complete Incineration of all Feelers and emotional increasers.

"Let's go"

A ragged, desperate, modern day pirate sits staring out the window. Outside, the world is in ruin. Buildings were half there and half missing. Darrel was only forty five, his mother and father had survived the last war and gone on to have him. It was only recently the Resistance had recruited him. How much his world had changed, surprisingly for the better? Perhaps. He gently, almost lovingly, places a scratched black platter onto an old Playskool Record Player. Watching mesmerized, as the disc goes round and a distorted child's lullaby begins to eke out of the set's tiny speakers. Darrel closed his eyes and rocked gently to the song, he felt cheerful and calm. These were two emotions that were new to him. He called it experimenting. The Resistance had said it was good to experiment with emotions, to get used to them. Darrel began to hum to the tune, his eyes still closed. He was certainly enjoying it despite the uneven words; it gave him pleasure, a whole new childhood experiencing a forgotten life. Abruptly, his eyes snap open! In the distance he could hear a noise, getting louder and louder. He looks out of the window and sure enough screeching round the corner a phalanx of police cars, not blue and red but instead black and white, emotionless.

Darrel, forgetting the lullaby moves quickly. He moves towards another room. Men, women and children sit scattered about the room. They all have long braided hair, some were tattooed, and some had piercings. They sit telling jokes, playing cards, laughing, feeling happy and lively. Suddenly Darrel bursts though the door.

"They are coming!" Darrel shouts

The room becomes quiet; they stare at Darrel in shock and disbelief, unsure of what to do next.

"Come on!" Darrel shouts again

The room suddenly comes to life. They begin to clear the room, taking the paintings off the wall, Munch, Van Gough, Monet, all in the hands of these pirates. Everyone, even the children grab shotguns and begin to load them. Around the room, every heart is pounding; every chest is rising with raw emotion.

"It all comes down to this"

The plain black and white police cars pull up, the police officers storm out of the cars, their guns raised, they are all wearing full body armour. They stand ready, waiting for any sign of movement… Suddenly, pirates come streaming out, guns blazing, shooting anywhere from the building. The police return fire with automatic weapons, bullets thickening the air, chewing the house up, as one by one across the building, Darrel's men drop. In what seems nothing more than a moment, they are all down. The police slither past the dead bodies which are strewn all over the lawn; they kick the door down and enter the house.

The sound of gunfire erupts from within the house, children and women scream. Both the gunfire and the screaming eerily stop suddenly, leaving a peaceful, quiet atmosphere. Almost as if the world had frozen and only the wind blew gently through the air. Meanwhile at the curb a black Sedan stops. Out steps Varick. He surveys the house with a keen eye. Janik steps out after him. They move quickly, quietly towards the front door. They look down at the surrounding bodies. Varick moves towards a child laying his side, clutching a small gun with one hand and in the other a small dirty teddy bear. Varick looked at the scene and with his face expressionless and unaffected. He took the bear and chucked it on an ever increasing pile of artefacts. As he walked inside the building, a police officer burns the pile of artefacts with a flamethrower, leaving nothing behind but scorched grass.

Synchronized, like a machine, Janik and Varick move silently through the house. A pirate suddenly steps out from nowhere and shoots at Janik, narrowly missing his head but before Janik can react BAM! Varick has put a bullet to the pirate's brain. The two look at each other, seemingly to thank each other with a silent, simple nod. Then they begin to move through the house again. They reach a tight knot of police officers at a closed door at the end of a hallway. The officer in charge quickly approaches.

"Lights out, maybe as many as a dozen inside" he whispers

Varick nods.

"Once the door is down, blow the bulbs" he replies

The police officer nods, snapping his fingers at the other officers who scramble to take their position. Varick stands at the front, his eyes closed for a moment, levelling his breathing. Two officers quickly place two pistols in his hanging hands while three other officers take their position at the door – zeroing the hinges and lock with shotguns. In one deep breath, Varick opens his eyes and nods to the officers. BAM! BAM! BAM! The officers blow out the hinges.

A doorway of light opens into a world of black as the dark slab of door collapses inwards under the feet of a silhouetted figure in a flowing dark cloak. BAM! The officers blow the lights out, raining down fiery red sparks as everything drops into pitch black. BAM! BAM! BAM! Like a string of fire crackers, the darkness goes off with the stroboscopic action of Varick's guns punctuating the black world into a discotheque of instantaneous spit-fire globes of light…

A black world defined by fleeting images of his adversaries slamming the walls with the impact of the bullets. And then, three seconds and thirty bullets later, his guns fall silent and blackness rules again. Behind him, flashlights strobe into the darkness from the hall as the police officers enter the room – fresh young faces mirroring their unemotional astonishment as they count the once living corpses. Wordlessly and calmly Varick turns and exits.

The dust has settled now, It's quiet…still. Varick is in the battle scarred main hall when he is met by Janik and the leader of the police squad, who have just secured the upper floor.

"The house is clean, we found nothing" the officer states

Varick nods, taking in every detail of the house collectively.

"Clear it" Varick commands

The officer glances at Janik – who nods with simple gravity.

"Do it"

The officer jumps to it, ushering his men out of the house. Varick turns briefly to Janik. Janik nods and leaves too, leaving Varick alone in the hallway. Varick stares around the passage, he quietly walks to a door plastered with bullet holes, and he silently feels it carefully, a second passes and then just as soundlessly, he opens the door.

He stands there, taking it in, feeling the atmosphere. A man lies dead half on the kitchen table, half off. But Varick just ignores him, intent on his communion with the room. Another second passes Varick returns to the main hall, satisfied there's nothing downstairs, he climbs the wooden stairs. He stops in the doorway of an empty second floor room. Light eking sickly through a dusty window. He stands for a long moment, feeling the air.

"This is it" he silently thinks to himself

He slowly walks into the centre of the room and reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small black phone, flipping it open he presses a button. On the other end is Janik.

"Yes?" Janik asks

"I've found it"

In a matter of seconds Janik and the police squad are making their way up the stairs.

"This is it" Varick announces

"Where?" Janik asks

Janik and the squad move into the room, staring into the empty abyss. Varick nods to a space in the middle of the floorboards covered by a threadbare rug.

"There" Varick says plainly

The squad quickly moves to it, stripping away the rug, splintering up the floorboards with crowbars. The great puff of dust revealed within a jagged hole, atop many other similar sized canvases, the Mona Lisa. Smiling back at them with her famous, quiet smile. The squad back off and let a man through with a strange scanning device, he scans the painting. Strange noises emit from the device then a prolonged beeping.

"It's real" he announces

Without turning, Varick says to the Incineration Team who step abruptly beside him with flamethrowers.

"Burn it" he says bluntly

WHOOSH! The Incineration Team unleashes a torrent of flames into the jagged hole, igniting the great paintings in a great almighty light. Leaving nothing behind but the ashes, those were once the Mona Lisa's famous smile. Varick turns silently out, satisfied with a day's good work.