Memories of Father

[clericjay]

Chapter eleven: Equilibrium

The place was so wonderfully silent. In past days the loneliness always disturbed Arthur, but this time he welcomed it warmly.
The big box made of grey metal reflected the blue-toned light coming from above. It contained some food, water, a torch with its batteries as well as a brown blanket. Alongside it lay some munitions for Arthur’s guns as well as a communication-gadget with an aerial, which might have reached TX-13, but probably not. Arthur intended to try it some time later.
After he had cleaned the dusty table, he went through the library and collected all the books he thought of to be useful for providing him with all the answers he needed. Time after time he smashed another pack of books onto the massive long table and slowly filled it with a huge amount of history and philosophy books. And they became more and more.
The dust which formerly waved through the room slowly disappeared because of an air stream - Arthur was incapable of finding out its origin. But it floated all the flying dirt out of the door.
Mr. McGee started to read.
Unfortunately the light was fading away very quickly. Dusk set in and forced Arthur to interrupt his researches. He took his torch and went through the building looking for some candles or something else to light him. In the room, where the dead Agents were lying he found some paper, covered with a few spatters of blood, as well as some nice pencils.
He went on to the private sections, where the former inhabitants of the Bunker must have lived. He found some frozen meat in a freezer, which was still working against all circumstances, among many bodies. And finally he got what he wanted. With the candles in his hands he went back to the library.
Within the light of the candles he read his history books. Whenever he found something remarkable he wrote it onto a sheet of the blood-sprinkled paper. So he went through the whole known history of mankind, writing down the most important wars as well as the reasons for their outbreak.
The days went on. When Arthur was hungry, he ate something out of his lunchbox or cooked some of the meat in the private section of TX-1. When he was tired he simply slept in his chair and when he woke up, he went on with his studies.
Every book he had finished lay on the ground next to the table on its face.
So he went through the ages. From the Great Babylonian Empire to the Persian wars in Greece, followed by the conquests of Alexander the Great, going on with The Empire of Rome, The Emigration of Nations, which caused the downfall of The Empire in the West, The Muslim invasion of Europe which was stopped by the Karl Martel, the conquests of Karl the Great of France, Dshingis Khan, the Crusades, the Hundred Years War, the Reformation in Germany by Martin Luther, the Spain “Conquista” in Latin America, the Thirty Years War, the defeat of the Spanish Armada south of England, afterwards jumping to the American War of Independence, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, followed by Imperialism and the race for colonies of the world powers, which disembogued into First World War, which was continued by the Second World War anew and caused the Cold War, which fortunately ended so peacefully and suddenly, followed by a period of relatively peaceful times until last but worst the Third World War broke out. The rest was unclear.
Arthur was primarily interested in the reasons for these wars. He recognized that they were fought much too often to satisfy the unsatisfiable hunger for power of a single person (Babylon, Persia, Alexander the Great, the Popes, Dshingis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Jong Sung) or the glory of a nation, which was fading away later anyhow (Rome, Spain and their “Conquista”, Imperialism, especially the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, USA, Japan and so on). And they wanted more and more, without an end in sight. All these wars were fought in vain, because all these rulers died and weren’t able to take anything with them. Their successors often destroyed what they had built or reached. All the great empires, which had bought their territories, power and glory with the blood of their subjects, were destroyed sooner or later. None of them lasted forever. And after Third World War none of them still existed.
Every war fought for these reasons was fought in vain. They had no true purpose, no use for anyone. The only outcome was that little elite ruled over more dirt and became more and more rich.
Arthur was aware of the fact that a war should never be fought for such a low reason.
But there were other types of wars, the wars which were fought for ideals, for the ideas of man. These were the ideas and dreams of philosophers, scientists and politicians, the ideas of the intelligence and social elites to be exact. (Martin Luther, the philosophers of Enlightenment, the Founding Fathers, Karl Marx, Vladimir I. Lenin, Chamberlain and Count de Gobineau as the founders of Socialdarwinism and maybe Guido List as the founder of National Socialism).
Ideas can be very dangerous and cost a lot of lives.
But on the other hand they are slowly changing the world. But even if the ideas themselves are good and precious, they can and probably will fail, because the people trying to fight their way into the position to put the idea into practice won’t give up their authority for the sake of the people for one simple reason: They are selfish deep in their heart.
A good example for it was Communism. The strange thing is that the same idea of a society living together and sharing, what anyone else needs, seemed to work in the Jewish “Kibbutz”. Why not in the Communistic countries? It did not work because its leaders were incapable of giving the power truly back to their people. Instead of doing this they held the power in their closed hands. The system became inflexible, because the rulers were - and finally the whole house of cards broke down.
So these wars were fought in vain as well.

Listening to his thoughts Arthur wondered about himself becoming a pacifist. He intended to end all wars. But he was certain that he would have done whatever was necessary to install a world without wars, where everyone can live secure, is satisfied with having what he needs, is treated equally and where justice is not only a word. He would fight for it; he would risk a war to build and to protect it.
But firstly he needed a way and a system he may base his free world, the just world of his dreams, his Libria, on.

He shook his head like he was able to throw these thoughts out of it by doing this. He had to go the way step by step and went on with his work.
He read his notices again. After some time he laid them back onto the table and leaned back, closing his eyes to rest them. His thoughts were still running like mad. He wouldn't find rest now.
Suddenly the next important question struck his mind: How were the rulers able to manipulate the people to fight for them?
The people weren’t brainless idiots, doing everything one says, especially when more and more people were educated after the middle of the 18th century. But then the Imperialism and Nationalism spread across Europe and with their race for colonies all over the world. But more and more people were well educated. Isn’t this oppositional? Especially in the well educated world of the 20th century, when the World War I and II burned the world.
How could people like Hitler or Stalin or the rulers of the great world empires manipulate their people to do whatever they wanted?

His head started to hurt. He opened his eyes and saw some water streaming along the cupola on the roof. It must have been dark and rainy outside. Arthur decided to take a walk and to see what was going on outside Bunker TX-1.
He reached the entrance hall, which was laying in silent darkness. He went into the controlling office and opened the big gate. The wind was blowing in with an impressive pressure, when the gate was only opened a few centimeters. After it completely opened Arthur saw the whole chaos of the storm, which was scourging its masses of rain over the country with its powerful wind whip.
Arthur wondered about this storm in the desert. In the far distance some lightning rushed their way down to earth causing amazing thunder on the heavy clouded sky. The rain was falling so immensely like it intended to cause a second diluvia.
The water was slowly flowing into the entrance hall of the bunker, wetting the red-brownish sand on the ground. Arthur did not want to wait until the whole cave was flooded, so he decided to close the door again and go back into the Hall of Wisdom.

Arthur decided to put the books he had finished back ion their shelves, because he had no space to tread around his chair left. So he had to tidy up a bit. When he brought the exemplar from the “B”-section back to its place, he recognized something, which was out of order. One of the books had a title starting with an “E”, though the shelf was reserved for books with a “B”-name. Usually the whole library was ordered very accurately. None of the books were in the wrong shelf.
So Arthur leaned over to reach for the book having its place in the last level next to the ground and pulled it out.
The book was grey and had a very rough surface. On the side and on the cover was a name pressed into the relief in golden letters, which would affect his life from this point on: “Equilibrium”.
He opened it and was surprised that it was handwritten by someone, who called himself “Aedh”. The first page introduced the intension of the author:

“We are humans. And we are suffering a terrible disease called war. Many have tried to heal mankind from it but they all failed and brought new ones only.
We all are well aware of this disease and most of us want to stop its spread and let peace reign in the heart of mankind. This is the dream of all from the first until the last day.
Unfortunately it seems impossible to find a cure for it, but I recognized that no one ever thought of the source. You can’t cure the disease if you don’t know its origin, if you don’t know how it works.
I’m very sad that I’m obviously the first person on earth searching for it, but better one, who takes the first step, then thousands, who don’t move.
So I was looking for the origin and I found it: Emotions.
Yes, I’m seriously considering that human emotions are the source of all our evil behavior. They are the power behind the things we are doing and of course a possibility for others to manipulate our feelings for their own purposes.
Feeling isn't bad I would say. But our feelings evolved a million years ago to help us survive in a primitive, jungle environment. Early humans had a double disadvantage; both low reproduction rates, AND lack of claws, fangs, speed, and armour. Our ability to think and feel enabled us to survive and even master the environment. But men and women, for example, still approach each other like the woman was a gatherer living in a small, close-knit, semi-migratory group, while the man was a hunter with a life-expectancy of about 24 years, living in a restless band chasing mammoths. Men's feelings toward each other to-day are often exactly those of when two bands cooperated to slay a beast and it turned out there was only enough beast for one band.
Feeling isn't bad... EXCESSIVE feeling is bad. We need to tame it, bring it under control like we did with our environment.
All animals have feelings. Humans have emotions, which were necessary to survival in primitive society, among nomads, hunters and harvesters. Emotions played a role in primitive society by enabling people to make distinctions according to their mental sensitivity, stability, and strength. But what was once a benefit, in ancient times, may prove to be a peril in modern times.

In primitive societies, fire was once built in every residence, despite its dangers, for the sake of life-giving heat. We are no longer primitive, have safer, cleaner heat sources; modern dwellings are no longer even suitable for fire as a heat source. Fires in them are not only unnecessary, but actually hazardous; the dangers of combustion and pollution outweigh the benefit. And so fire has been superseded, and those who allow fires to burn out of control are committing an offence because of the potential hazard.

Emotions are the fires of the mind. We once needed them, in primitive society; but now we have better, safer methods to build relationships, logic, analysis, and law. We are no longer a primitive society. The dangers of excessive emotion have been proven time and time again: neurosis, obsessions, mass mania, and every kind of crime born of irrational desires. They are no longer suitable, and are even dangerous, to those who dwell in a modern environment. Therefore, these fires of the mind must also be relegated to their proper place in the museum of history.

To this end, I can announce the discovery of Prozium.
This is a chemical invented by a good friend of mine to cut the extremes of human emotions. It doesn’t prevent you from feeling at all, but it limits them to a level, which is compatible to mankind. You will find a guide to produce Prozium at the end of the book you are holding in your hands.
When the people don’t act like their selfish feelings tell them to do, they will be able to start to act for the sake of all. They will become a true and faithful worker for community and won’t ever waste a single thought to hurting somebody or to start a war. He would protect the peace and support the community with all his abilities, because Prozium would support as well as enable him to leave his dark side and to become a peace-loving, faithful, responsible and conscious human being.

I will explain all these thoughts within this book in more detail. I’m well aware of the fact that some parts might be improved and that there might be some parts I haven’t taken into consideration, but I can guarantee you that I have thought about everything very well and for a long time and I came to the conclusion that it is the best way for mankind to reach its eternal goal: Peace. This is what mankind is seeking for from the beginning and will seek for until someone will give it to them.
They aren’t able to open their eyes on their own, so someone has to come and open them for the good of all. Someone has to give the world back its equilibrium.
It could be you.

Aedh”

Arthur was amazed by this short introduction. It was the answer to all his questions. He felt like he was seeing the world for the first time.
How was he able to ignore what was so obvious?
How were the rulers able to manipulate their subjects?
The answer is so simple: They used their feelings. They educated and indoctrinated them until they believed that it was right and just, what the rulers wanted them to do. They felt that it was necessary to go to war, that they had to protect something they loved. They felt that they had to do everything for their idols or for themselves, whatever they loved more. So their love caused fear to lose, what they were told or educated to love. This fear caused the hate they felt towards the enemy. And who declared, who their enemy was? Their rulers!
So the people hated the enemies of the rulers, they have never met and never would. They went to war for them without asking themselves, why they were doing this. They didn’t see that they were fighting in vain, for nothing, for land, for power, for useless dust.
The rulers were the only ones, who had won. The fighters only lost and woke up much too late, when their burning feelings have vanished and only emptiness was left. Good examples were the soldiers of First World War, who went into their doom with the will to fight. They sang and danced, being excited that the “Great War” finally came. They were happy and glad to die for their country, because they strongly believed in their victory. But they did not win. Nobody did. Only death was laughing at the end.

[Aedh]

Well! Thanks for the tippo mate!

I did wonder one thing about the list of wars and conflicts, which may sound trifling, but everyone here should know by now I obsess over details ... I was a bit surprised to see no mention of the Hundred Years' War between France and England; Agincourt and Crecy were were certainly names which did (and still do) stir more emotions than many other battles' names.

I was even more surprised to miss--unless I skipped over too fast--mention of the dreadful Thirty Years' War, a religious conflict which devastated Germany. The name of Gustavus Adolphus deserves to stand with history's great warlords, even if his career was (for Germans) cut mercifully short with his death at the age of thirty-eight.

But that's mere detail. Overall, bravo!

[clericjay]

It's good that you mentioned it. I already added them.
Seems like I simply forgot them.

The Hundred Years War is a British-French thing, so unfortunately it isn't included in the German history lessons. I read about it on the internet for the first time.

But that I forgot the Thirty Years War isn't okay, because we talked about it in our history lessons and Gustav II. Adolf (this is how the King of Sweden is called in German) went through my hometown twice. Once (pretty alive) on his way south to rest with his troops and secondly dead on his way back to Sweden from his campaign in southern Germany. His body laid in our church for one night.

[clericjay]

Chapter twelve: The “revolution of peace”

Arthur McGee was fascinated by the book. It truly hit his nerve, because he always felt that it was necessary to control your own feelings, especially if you are as dangerous as he was.
If he was not able to hold back his spontaneous emotion he surely would have hurt someone he did not intend to hurt, like it happened so many years ago. His personal attitude matched the one the unknown author Aedh was representing.
He read on and on, gobbling one page after another. The author was talking about a peaceful society, which banned every extreme emotion from their community. Everyone was working for the sake of all and the criminality rates dropped to nothing because every person would be lead by his own logical intellect and not by his emotions gushing out of him. Prozium was the key factor for the whole system. It should be produced in factories and every citizen would always carry some syringes with them and take a regular dose of the chemical to sustain their emotional equilibrium always. The government would be concerned about the production and adjustment of the doses. Pregnant or sick people would need a different composition of Prozium then a normal healthy person.
The book provided different mixes of chemicals for men, women, children and different kinds of usual illnesses. In the case of children the author revealed that they should get their dose at the age of five or six for the first time, because the chemist was not sure about possible side effects if children would get their interval too early. Disabilities were imaginable, but would have to be avoided, because an unhealthy citizen cannot work as efficiently as a normal man could do. So the citizens would have to keep themselves healthy in general by eating the right composition of food and doing some work out regularly. Sick citizens were less useful.
Stupid people were not able to serve the society as well. Therefore to provide an adequate education aiming for the different professions would be the most important duty of government. The second important one would be the protection of industry and trade to secure the societies prosperity. Every citizen should get whatever they need to have from the state. The third very important duty of the state would be the guarantee of security by installing an intact and incorruptible police, which is possible by installing a society, where no one has a reason to desire something more. Someone who has everything he needs and wants cannot become venally.
These entire aspects must be organized and protected by a strong central government. It would be a historical necessity to have a charismatic leading figure as a fixing point for the masses to realize the importance of the installment of this better society at the beginning. This person has to teach the people as well as build the Prozium state in practice according to the manual of the book.
If everyone would take their doses of Prozium accurately they would become law abiding citizens because their own logic unaffected by emotions would tell them that they would do the right thing. If the society would be stable enough and the masses mind would have been opened to the righteous idea the sovereignty of a single leader would be over, because the people would be rational enough to keep the society alive on their own and with their own will. So if the people get used to Prozium and stop wishing their emotions back, if they even sense them as something evil, then the time has come to hand over the power of the state to a democratically elected council.
When this status has been reached the society can finally enjoy its peace and security. The perfect society would be installed and working. Soon all the other governments of the world would recognize that the idea is working and the first society will be a role model for all the others. More and more states will start to produce Prozium and install a similar structure in their own territories. In the end every human would have accepted that it is the right way to guarantee peace. In the end all emotions would be extinguished. But this would need a long time.
This was the way of the “revolution of peace”.
The author was also referring to the case that another state would try to overthrow the role model state for irrational reasons, it was of advantage to have an effective military force to scare them away from such a step.
Like Julius Caesar once said: “Who wants to live in peace must prepare for war.”
But the government must never be the aggressor, because if they would misuse their economical and military power, they would surely lose their status as a role model for all mankind and the revolution of peace was condemned to fail on the international level.
If war breaks out it has to be stopped at the first possible chance. The best scenario would be if the people would not even recognize that a war was fought. The government’s duty was to end every war as soon as possible to protect the revolution of peace as well as the Prozium society itself.
Aedh was referring to many more things, which went into greater detail.

Arthur turned over to the next page, when he suddenly felt something cold and hard touching the back of his neck. He lifted his view away from the pages towards the gate in front of him. His feet were lying on the table, while he leaned back in his chair. It needed some seconds until Arthur was able to see sharp again, because he read for a long time and his eyes became inflexible according to adjusting themselves to wider distances.
Someone was standing in front of him behind the wooden table, but he was only able to see the shape and some shades of brown, which must have been the major color of his clothes. His eyes were hurting a little bit. How long was he reading without any pause?
The person in front of him was asking a question with his deep voice: “Who are you?”
“Agent Arthur McGee, member of Bunker TX-13.” Arthur answered trying to figure out the look of the man standing in front of him. Slowly the shades became clearer and the image sharper, but he still could not really see his opposite.
“TX-13? Where is that?” the voice in front of him was asking.
Arthur concentrated more on the cold thing on his neck, while waiting for his eyes to work again properly. The part, which was touching him was definitely made of metal and had the form of a circle. Of course it must have been a gun muzzle. The question was which type and size. Was it unlocked? Surely it was. This was bad, because Arthurs guns lay beside his metal box, which was too far away to get them before he was shot.
The person opposite repeated his question in a more angry tone.
Abruptly the person behind him said something: “Can’t we just kill him? I’m hungry!”
Arthur’s senses were sharp now, because the man behind him must have been pretty tall. The origin of this second voice was not close at all and high over the level of Arthur’s head.
Some cold water was slowly running down Arthur’s neck from the muzzle into his collar. Very unpleasant.
“You know the boss’s opinion, Eggert. We shall wait for his decision. “
Now Arthur's eyes were sharp again and he was surprised to see that the person on the other side of the table, wearing a thick brown leather jacket and wide brown trousers with many pockets, where some hafts of knifes were peeping out, was a woman. The clothes were soaked full of water, which was slowly dripping onto the floor. They must have been through the storm and were searching for shelter.
Her hair was short and the voice unusually deep, probably she smoked too much. But the good news was that she was not carrying a gun or a rifle. This made the whole situation much easier.
Agent McGee decided to provoke them a little bit: “Would you be so kind as to take your gun away from my neck? This is very unpleasant.”
The man behind him reacted very aggressive, pushing the muzzle harder against the neck and screamed: “You dare to make receivables? Maybe it would be more pleasant to blow your fucking neck off! Does that sound more comfortable, sucker?” His head came closer to Arthur’s and was screaming the last sentence directly into his ear. Arthur was able to get an unclear image of the man’s face, when he came close and entered the edge of Arthur’s sight.
The guy had a big nose, long brown hair as well as a dirty brown beard. Water was dripping from it like it did from the woman’s clothes.
The man returned to his first position. Arthur wondered that he did not hear them sneaking toward him, though the big open wooden gate was in front of him. He must have seen them enter, but he concentrated too much on his book, which he was still holding in his hand.
Now the girl was shouting: “Be quiet, idiot!” She went on in a lower tone. “Tell me; did you kill all these people? Or who did it?”
Agent McGee smiled slightly. “They were dead already, when I arrived. But I was able to do something like it.”
Both, the woman and “Eggert” were laughing out loud. This was the right moment to act. From then on everything went very fast.
Arthur flexed his body to the right side, so he went out of the man’s fire line. Then he pushed his feet against the massive table and fell backwards with his chair, which fell to the ground. Now Arthur was able to see the massive body of the man, who was very brawny and tall. He had long brown hair, which adhered to the camouflage army uniform, which seemed to be too small for these muscles. This impressive “bear” wondered about Arthur, who rolled over the ground and stood up behind Eggert, who turned around and tried to aim at his opponent.
Agent McGee smashed his arm against the side of the rifle to push it to the side and to stay out of the shooting line, but he was simply too weak to move the arm of the massive man a single centimeter. It would be like hitting a tree trunk. Then the reaction followed and the arm pushed Arthur’s body to the side. He fell to the ground but immediately rolled over to stand up and run in a half circle towards his opponent, who started to shoot at him, but was not able to hit a strike.
Arthur reached his enemy and jumped against the body to get as close as possible. So Eggert was not able to aim his automatic rifle at the Agent.
Mr. McGee remembered that he still had the Equilibrium book in his hand. He used it as an extension of his arm and hit Eggert’s throat with the hard spine of his book. The tall man started to rattle and pressed both hands against his throat, so he had to drop his weapon.
Arthur grabbed it. His opponent tried to beat Arthur, but was to slow to hit the agile Gun Kata master. Agent McGee pointed the muzzle against the hulk’s neck, right over the hand, which was holding the hurting throat, while the other hand tried to hit Arthurs head, but again missed it because Arthur dodged it swiftly. He wanted to pull the trigger of the weapon, which would have sent a bullet right though the enemy's mouth to his brain for the purpose of spreading it in the room.
But he hesitated, when he recognized that the woman went to the metal box; where Arthur’s guns were laying, to use them against Agent McGee.
He stepped backwards and dodged another attempt of Eggert’s fist to hit him. After he had gained some distance to the tall man he took the rifle close to his head and aimed at the woman, who reached her hand towards the gun. The bullet hit her hand, which was thrown against the box by the bullets pressure. Out of the hole in the middle of her right hand streamed much blood until she took a scarf out of her pocket and wrapped it around the wounded hand to stop the bleeding.
The bear came closer again, but Arthur dodged the punches again and hit the gorge a second time with his book. Eggert lurched backwards some steps, but stopped moving when Arthur pointed the rifle's muzzle against his nose.
“I’d like to stop this meaningless fight. You don’t have a chance against me and I want to talk to your boss. So would you please stop this nonsense and bring me to him?” Arthur had all the trumps in his hands.
Eggert was looking at the woman, who shrugged her shoulders. She then said: “We will bring you to him. We wanted to do so anyway. There was no need for you to attack us.”
Arthur McGee grinned slightly. “But I feel much more comfortable now.”
Eggert blew like a grampus, but he was not able to do anything without being shot. His opponent was smaller but much quicker than him.
He finally raised his hands. “Angelique is right. We will bring you to Mr. Benétt.”
The bear turned around and started to move. Arthur was following without taking the rifle away from the head he was pointing at.

[BlackDragon]

I was finally able to catch up with the story... sorry for the delay Jay....
I must say that I'm loving it!!! I couldn't stop reading it really! It's so addictive!
Congrats are in order Cleric! You are making a great job, constructing a great plot, a very interesting story. I must confess that I'm a fan of Agent McGee, he is a great character!
I really like the way you imagine and see the prequel to Fathers choices in the future, and everything that lead to his decisions and actions that made him able to construct that future that we all know very well!

I'm waiting for more!!

[clericjay]

Dec 18, 2008 14:25:50 GMT -5 BlackDragon said:

I was finally able to catch up with the story... sorry for the delay Jay....
I must say that I'm loving it!!! I couldn't stop reading it really! It's so addictive!
Congrats are in order Cleric! You are making a great job, constructing a great plot, a very interesting story. I must confess that I'm a fan of Agent McGee, he is a great character!
I really like the way you imagine and see the prequel to Fathers choices in the future, and everything that lead to his decisions and actions that made him able to construct that future that we all know very well!

I'm waiting for more!!

Thank you very much! ;D

This means a lot to me and I'm very glad that you're finally up to date. ;D ;D

[clericjay]

Chapter thirteen: The Frenchman

The two strangers brought him to the luxurious dining room of TX-1, which was not in use caused by the lack of personnel as well as guests. Arthur was very surprised that the room was filled with armed men in wet, dripping clothes. His eyes met some women at a table near the door, where Arthur and his hostages were entering, but they were only a few compared to the approximately thirty tough looking guys. Some of them looked surprised when the group of three entered the room. They did not wonder about Arthur himself, they surely had drawn into their calculations that they would meet inhabitants in the Bunker, but this man had the rifle of Eggert in his hand and pointed it at the head of its owner. The obviously well trained soldiers took their weapons and lurked for a slight moment of non-attention, to fill the stranger with blue beans.
Arthur went on slowly and checked his opponents for a sign of weakness. The good news was that not one of them was about to lose his nerves but on the other hand they would be hard to kill.
Arthur shouted: “I want to speak to your boss. I’m not intending to shoot you and so should you avoid trying to shoot me!”
An older man stood up at the other end of the room. His hair was grey; nearly white, as well as his beard and the brown eyes looked tired. He was not very tall and wore a white suit, which had some brown stains at the end of his sleeves as well as at the hem of his white trousers.
He looked at Arthur and spoke after he had sighed: “This would be me I suppose.”
The man went closer and examined Arthur. “My name is Jean Jaques Benétt. Who is it I have the honor to meet?” he went on.
“My name is Arthur McGee and I was studying here before your companions decided to disturb me.” The Agent answered calmly but reproachfully.
From this point on he had caught the attention of Mr. Benétt. “Studying? What did you study?”
“I’d like to tell you everything, when the situation would be more comfortable to me. Here we have way too many listeners pointing at me with their guns.” Mr. McGee made his wishes clear and the men in the white suit told his men to take down their weapons by a single beck downwards. Everyone obeyed without saying anything. Only Eggert was breathing very deeply like a raging bull, who wished for crushing every bone inside his tormentor.
“I must apologize for the misbehavior of my men. You surely have surprised them and our friend Eggert does not like it if someone surprises him. But I am very sorry if there was any misunderstanding between you both.” His boss looked at the tall man while raising his eyebrows. “And I am convinced that our friend here will not be resentful.” He paused and added then “Or will he?”
Eggert exhaled deeply, then turned around and offered Arthur his hand. “Peace, man?”
Arthur hesitated for a moment because the situation seemed strange to him. It reminded him of his teacher back in kindergarten, when two struggling children were handled by her like Mr. Benétt did it.
Arthur shook the outstretched hand, but the given hand still reached in his direction. “Would you please give back my rifle?” There was still underlying anger in Eggerts voice but Arthur relied on the control of the group leader. He gave back the weapon.
The man in the white suit spoke to the crowd around him. “We are guests of Mr. McGee and you should treat him like a friend of mine.”
One of the men in the room answered sarcastically: “Maybe he was one of the killers of the inhabitants. What if he tried to kill us too when we sleep? I don’t trust him.”
“I agree, Frank.” Mr. Benétt turned towards Arthur. “Is this massacre your action? You should not lie, because I have the ability to look someone in the eye and to see whether he is a liar. What do you know?”
Arthur spoke the truth, he always did. “I don’t know who killed all these people. I am a soldier of Bunker TX-13. Our ambassador was missing and we had the order to bring him back. When we arrived everything was destroyed like you see it. Some unknown assassins killed everyone including our ambassador.”
A woman near to him asked: “So there are your fellows in this building somewhere?”
Arthur looked into her face and answered the question. “No. They went back to TX-13.”
Someone else asked another question: “And if your company went on, why did you stay?”
“We found a library inside. It is not far down the corridor. I want to study there for my personal purposes.”
The boss was speaking again: “TX-13… You do have a very impressive sky scraper. There are not many of them these days. But the Bunker is very far away. “
“You know it?” Arthur did not expect someone in this part of the continent to know about TX-13 because there was no information transferring system or tourism anymore.
“Well, I was a member of the French delegation in the UN plenum. TX-13 was the safety zone for us in case of an attack on New York, so I know the coordinates. But my plane was shot down near Bunker TX- 11 so I spent the first nuclear wave there.” His eyes turned to sadness. “So many people died back then. I survived the plane crash and both nuclear attacks as well as the assassination of TX-11. If there is a God, he must love me…” A pained smile went over his face.
Arthur did not know what to think of this man. Was he trustworthy or should he try to get out as fast as possible? He did not finish thinking, when Benétt asked him to change the room to drink a cup of tea with him. Then they could talk alone. Arthur agreed.

Both settled down in the very comfortable but dirty padded armchairs in a very gloomy living room. Mr. Benétt’s assistants tried to clean the room and pulled out the bodies of the former owners. A bodyguard stood beside his leader. Another one brought some cups of tea, which were still steaming a little. Arthur placed the cup on the low table between them to wait until it was drinkable, but Jean just drank it and obviously enjoyed its formidable taste. He recognized Arthurs wondering expression, stopped drinking and put the cup on the table as well. “I’m very sorry that I did not wait until you have decided to drink your tea as well. It’s no real excuse, but I prefer my tea as hot as possible.” He slightly smiled.
Arthur did not feel very comfortable, so he leaned closer to his conversational partner. “Would you mind if we speak less formally? I’m not very comfortable with such a distant conversation.”
“Of course… It’s just that I want to protect some traces of former civilization in me, because I don’t see anything worth living for in this savage world, which is a consequence of man’s aspiration for power. Hopefully you’re feeling the same way, but … this world these days is so…” He looked very unsure. He was thinking if he should open his heart in front of this stranger, but his intuition told him that Arthur was trustworthy. Finally he found the right expression: “It’s so empty.”
He paused looking at Arthur to check whether this was enough to make his thoughts understandable. Obviously he was not convinced, so he started to explain.
“When I look at the world, dust is all I see these days. In the past I relied on the good and precious essence within all human beings and in the acquisitions of the French Revolution and its democratic tradition. I have been a true patriot and a believer in the good in man. I had everything I might have dreamed of. I had for example a lovely family, a very successful political career and a beautiful Chateau near Marseille, where I produced my own wine. How stupid I’ve been to think that my life could go on this way.”
Mr. Benétt paused for a moment to collect his thoughts again and went on, when he had his emotions back in order. “And then the war started, when I’d been in the US. Desperately I tried to get a connection to my family and finally I got it some weeks before the communication satellites had been shot down. Guess what my friend in France told me…?”
A tear crawled down his cheek, but he swept it away. Arthur spoke in a very low voice. “You don’t need to tell me if it’s too painful.”
The Frenchman calmed down again. “No, it’s alright. I want to tell you, so you can understand me. Something tells me that I have to tell my story to you. I can’t explain it…”
Mr. McGee nodded and the old man went on. “My Chateau burned down when a French missile lost its course because of a malfunction and hit my house. My wife died, but luckily my daughter was out at that time. I don’t know what happened to her, but I don’t expect that she survived the second nuclear wave. So I lost everything but my life. And as if this would not have been enough, I saw the great civilization of mankind destroying itself completely for nugatory reasons. You have to understand… The world, the state, the mankind I believed in with my whole being, annihilated itself.
Now the worst is over and I survived… I found some reliable men and women, who guarantee my survival in this brutal world and I’m their leader, their head. I tell them what we do and where we will go to.”
He looked at Arthur, who listened with great concentration. He sent his bodyguard out of the room, so they were completely alone. Then Jean Jaques Benétt spoke very low, so Arthur had to lean over the table to hear what the white dressed man told him: “The truth is that I have no idea, what I should do. I don’t see anything worth protecting or tbeing built or anything. I don’t see any sense in life at all. You may ask now, why didn’t I decide to leave this burnt world by suicide... I just can’t. I don’t have any satisfying explanation, but I’m not able to do it. I have no idea why I can’t let go or why I’m telling these entire things to you, though I don’t know you.”
Arthur made a suggestion. “Because I’m searching for something reliable as you do. I wondered how I could stop mankind killing itself. I mean, I’m intending to find a possibility or a system to end all wars, to make war itself impossible.”
“That’s why you’re studying in the library? What a sublime goal! But I can’t think of any way to transport this idea into reality. Well, not forever… I mean, whatever we do: It’s not built to last.”
Arthur looked around the room while thinking. Then he asked: “Have you ever thought of the reasons for mankind’s self-destructive character?”
Jean wondered what the intention of this question might be. “Of course I did. I spent so much time thinking about it, but I don’t know any plausible answer. Do you know?”
“I’ve found something very convincing in the Hall of Wisdom.”
“Hall of Wisdom?”
“Doesn’t that title match?” No reaction followed, so Arthur answered himself: “It does very well, because in an old handwritten book I read a very convincing answer. It says that the true sources of human suffering are our own boisterous and egocentric emotions.”
Jean Jaques frowned. “What an absurd thought. I mean what is life without emotions? If everyone was completely numb, he would have no desire to live. And what about evolution? Human evolution would not have worked without emotions, without fear and love or curiosity. We wouldn’t even reproduce our species if we had no joy seeing our children grow.”
“I was an orphan and I have no children of my own… Maybe I can’t understand what parents are feeling, but I have to agree that emotions were necessary. But they aren’t anymore, because our development has reached a stage, when our logical mind has developed good enough to sustain our existence.”
Jean spread his arms to show the dirty and destroyed room, screaming angrily: “Obviously not!”
“The problem is that mankind did not recognize yet that their emotions are a burden to them, because they are used to them. But if they had no emotion at all, they would get used to the new situation and would never miss them any more when they see the results: A stable and peaceful society, able to protect every citizen from any harm. It would be like paradise.”
Jean wondered very much about Arthur. He had never heard of anything similar to this idea. The old man had to think about it. After some silent time he asked. “This sounds not so bad at all. But how do you intend to ban all emotions? No intensive training or education could ever guarantee a sustainable success.”
“You should read the book. It’s called Equilibrium. There you will find a description of Prozium, which is a drug to lower the human emotions. Of course it needs to be tested, but only the thought of the possibility it might work makes me hope for a better future.”
Benétt was very quiet now. His mind was hardly working on the idea. Then he looked up again. “Equilibrium? Sounds interesting somehow. Please tell me more, my friend”
Arthur started to explain the details, but suddenly one of Benétt’s minions came into the room and shouted that the communicator of Agent McGee had suddenly started working and that someone was calling for him.
Arthur stood up. “Who is it? Did he tell you any name?”
The man in the door did not remember it exactly. “I’m not quite sure, but something with Frank in it.”
“Martin Franklin?” Arthur asked.
“That’s it! And he said something about 5 Agents coming to get you or something…” The minion stepped back to let Arthur pass, who ran out of the room immediately and headed for the library.

[clericjay]

Chapter fourteen: Warning

He turned into the amazing library and finally stopped then to catch his breath again. Some of the mercenaries under control of the Frenchman were grouped around Arthur’s supply box. They turned around when they recognized the heavily breathing man standing under the gate. Arthur was well trained and fit, but he forced everything out of his legs in the last minute to reach the communicator as fast as possible.
The tall dark-blonde man, who has been called “Frank” in the dining room before, went over to Mr. McGee and reached his hand towards him. “My name is Frank Norman and I’m Mr. Benétt’s adjutant and a close friend. I’m a German officer of the former German army and had been in the US on holidays, when the war started.”
Arthur was able to speak again. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. What happened?”
They were walking across the room to the box, which has been opened by the other persons in the room. Frank explained the situation. “We were investigating the room, when some noise came out of your metal box. We opened it and someone was calling on the communicator. The signal is very weak because of the storm on the outside, but probably they must be pretty close, otherwise we couldn’t receive anything.”
Arthur reached the box and took the mouthpiece of the gadget and spoke into it. “This is Agent McGee of TX-13. Who is it I’m speaking with?”
The signal was weak and sometimes broke off for a second, but it was there. “Arthur? It’s …kkrrrkkk…tin Franklin. I’m so glad…kkrrrkk… reach you after all.”
Arthur was amazingly happy to hear the voice of his close friend again. “Martin! What’s the matter that you’re in this area? I mean there’s a terrible storm on the outside.”
“We came to warn you, because…kkrrrrkkkk… are coming for you.”
The most important part was not understandable, so Arthur requested. “Who’s coming for me? This part wasn’t completely understandable. The signal is so weak.”
Martin replied. “I know. But it’s fortune that we have a signal at all. …kkkrrrrrkkkk… Agents of TX-13 have the mission to kill you. I’m with Juan…kkkrrrrkkk… late. They are ahead of us. They’ll reach you long before we will arrive to support…kkkrrrkkk…”
“To kill me? Why should they do this? Who ordered my execution?”
“Obviously you have …kkkrrrkkk… Colonel Jameson. He asked Commander Smith to order your …kkkrrrkkk… did not allow it, because he wanted to speak to you first, before he would order anything. …kkkrrrkkk… ordered to bring you back to the Bunker. But Jameson ordered to kill you. Maybe they will tell …kkkrrrkkk… you’d refuse to come back and…kkkrrrkkk…”
“Who are the Agents?” This question was very important, because it decided everything.
Martin replied: “Agent Thomas Lorenzo …kkkrrrkkk… Curtis, Valarie Archer and Samantha Fail. They’re with about ten other soldiers, but I’m not quite sure.”
“Samantha? I would never have thought of her trying to kill me. I thought she’d like me somehow.”
“I don’t know. She wasn’t ordered by …kkkrrrkkk… She’s a volunteer for the mission.”
Arthur wondered about this very much. He remembered all the times, he had trained his emotional control with her help and how strange but pleasant their relationship towards each other had been. After some seconds he forced himself back to the topic again. “Who was it after Thomas? I wasn’t able to understand that name.”
“Anthony Foster. I’m sorry.”
All the people listening did not understand the meaning of this name, except Arthur. He knew that this name meant serious danger, even more danger then the other four Agents.
Anthony Foster was a very skilled and strict Agent, merciless against himself and against others. Arthur trained very often with him, when he was younger and Anthony knew him very well, so he nearly always won. But the true problem for the fight against him was not that he knew Arthur’s reflexes very well. Foster was even more emotionless and concentrated in battle then Arthur was usually. This man would certainly kill him without a second's hesitation.
Agent McGee might have talked to the other four Agents, because he knew them very well, but this man would force the others to fulfill the mission and even kill his comrades if they would refuse to obey. Arthur’s life was in serious danger and his chances of survival were very low.
The voice of Martin woke him up from his thoughts, which were able to let fear grow inside him.
“Arthur? Are you still there?”
He took the mouthpiece towards his lips and spoke again. “When will they reach us?”
“By the way, who’s “us”?”
Mr. McGee took a look around and then spoke again. “They’re friends!”
“I don’t know them, but…kkkrrrkkk… stand a chance against Gun-Kata-fighters.”
Martin Franklin was right, but they could help him a little bit, maybe if they’d just pull the focus on themselves to give Arthur time. Or maybe they could reach a one against one situation. Anyway, they needed a plan, preparations and therefore time was most important.
“When will they arrive?”
“kkkrrrkkk… guess, but maybe in about two hours. Juan and I will be there in about five hours …kkkrrrkkk… too late.”
“Thank you for the warning, my friend. Maybe we’ll meet each other again. I hope so.” Sadness was lying in Arthur’s voice.
“I hope so…kkkrrrkkk… on the way. See you later!”
The communicator has been switched off on the other side. Arthur did not move. He tried to think of a plan. Should he try to talk to them? They were his friends, his comrades. But it was impossible to talk to Anthony. If Arthur had to kill no one else, he had to kill this man if he intended to get out of this situation alive. And this was a hard task.
What should he do? Try to kill them all and hope that they won’t get him in return? Or should he just give up and let himself be shot to death? Why? Why now? Now he had a perspective for the future. He had a good idea how to form the world for the best. Arthur was convinced that it was worth fighting for.
But this was his weak point at the same time, because he had something to lose. In the many years of war he had nothing, so he was able to risk everything, but now he had an idea, which nobody would turn into reality if he should die on this day. And then the world would recover someday and start the next World War. This would certainly be the end of humankind for all times -the Apocalypse.
If he should die on this day, humankind would die at the end. These thoughts threw tones of pressure onto Arthur’s shoulders. For the first time real fear went up his throat, breaking a trail towards his mind. His thoughts became confused. Should he flee? Where to?
The fear within him turned into despair. He saw no good solution. He did not believe that he would be able to beat five well trained, Gun-Kata-skilled Agents on his own. Arthur was thinking about his death. He watched himself lying on the ground and his blood streamed over the floor. The library burnt. Even the book, the Equilibrium, the only way out for civilization burnt. The end came.
Suddenly a hand touched his shoulder and Arthur returned from his nightmare back into reality.
Jean Jaques Benétt was suddenly standing next to him and pulled his hand back from the shoulder, when Arthur turned around and looked him in the eyes. “Arthur, whatever the problem might be, we’ll find a solution. You don’t have to worry. We will protect you.”
Arthur stood up and went out of the library without saying a single word or turning around. He had to be alone for a while. He had to decide what he would do.

Half an hour later Arthur came back into the dining room, where the majority of the soldiers were sitting. He looked around in the room. The old man in his white suit came into the room some seconds afterwards. He just sat down and waited for Arthur to say something, who was standing in front of everyone and everyone was looking at him, waiting for anything to happen.
And finally Arthur spoke: “The situation is very serious. Five of the most dangerous one-man-armies are on their way towards TX-1 with the order to kill me. I will try to talk to them, because they are good friends of mine and probably I could change their mind. But for the possibility that I won’t succeed, we need to be prepared. In that case we have to fight them and this is a very hard task, even for experienced soldiers as most of you certainly are. But each of our enemies is a master of Gun-Kata, which is secret martial arts, which has been developed before the war started, for improving the individual fighting skills of secret agents focusing on gun battle. I have been taught in using these martial arts, but I’m not able to fight five people being as skilled as I am myself. So I’d need your help, your support, you risking your life for me. But we have two clear advantages: First, we know about them and second, they don’t know about you all. We have to use them. Will you help me?”
Nearly everyone in the room stood up and screamed things like “Of course!” or “We’ll stand with you!” and “We’ll kill those bastards!” The room became very noisy and the crowd cheered Arthur very loudly.
But when Mr. Benétt stood up, suddenly everyone became quiet and sat down again. The Frenchman turned around towards Arthur and asked: “Would you please be so kind and explain your plan to us. I have the impression that some of us cannot wait until we hear it.” He smiled and sat down again.
Arthur explained his plan, which was focusing on blocking some of the corridors with the main goal to separate the enemies and to destroy them one by one. They had to built barricades and safety points to fight the Agents in the small corridors, where they have no space to move and no possibility to dodge.
Arthur would talk to them at the entrance and if he didn't succeed, he would flee into the Bunker on a fixed route, leading them to a point, where they had to separate. When they do so, they will go on and come to a defense point, where they would be trapped and attacked by Mr. Benétt’s guys, who will be able to kill them hopefully. That was the plan. Arthur took out a map of the building and put it onto the table, Jean and Frank were discussing the best positions for the traps with Arthur and which corridors and air duct they had to block.
Afterwards they began with the preparations.

Arthur was standing in the big entrance hall right behind the disguised gate and waited for his executioners to arrive. He watched the monitor of the surveillance camera on the outside and stroked his gun slowly, which was an outward sign for his nervousness. He tried to keep his feelings in control, to calm down, to prepare for battle mentally. He was numbing himself and focused on the plan and on the fight only. He had to forget his friend’s faces, he had to forget that he knew them; otherwise he won’t be able to kill them if necessary. They must be targets for him, moving clay pigeons without a soul. Arthur tried hardly to forget that they were human beings. Slowly he calmed down. He told himself that this was a battle like all these thousands he had survived in the past. He had survived the Third World War; he won’t die in this ridiculous fight, ordered by a Colonel, who was frustrated, because someone did not obey him and he was not powerful enough to punish this man on his own. The whole situation was ridiculous, but Arthur had to go through it, if he wanted or not. He did not want. And hopefully they did not either.
Suddenly the trucks having their TX-13 code on the front arrived in front of the entrance. The rain weakened, but still made it hard to see far. Only two trucks and a rover were everything, Jameson had sent to him. Arthur was disappointed a little bit, but the less to fight, the better. In this case quality was his enemy’s strength.
Arthur opened the gate, which slowly went upwards and opened the way into TX-1. Agent McGee stepped out of the controlling room and went towards his comrades. He held his hands into the air to show that he had no gun ready. The shapes behind the wall of rain became more and more sharply, when they went closer. Arthur opened his mouth to speak to them, when suddenly a shot hit his chest, right where the heart was. The shock prevented Arthur from feeling the full pain of the hit, when he slowly sank onto his knees and turned over to fall with his face into the red sand, which had been brought into the entrance by the wheels, driving through the sand of the desert.
Arthur’s body lay on the ground and did not move anymore.

[Aedh]

Wow! Finally caught up .... very impressive Jay! Everything is very vivid. Good job Cleric!!

[BlackDragon]

Amazing ClericJay!!! I 'm so curious to know what happened to Arthur!!!
Continue the good work!

[clericjay]

Thank you very much for your kind support (especially Mira, she knows why... ).

The next chapter became much too long, so I decided to split it into two parts.
Here comes chapter number fifteen (already ) and the next chapter will follow soon.

[clericjay]

Chapter fifteen: Operation rabbit hunt

Slowly the shapes behind the wall of water became physical objects while entering the room. The few soldiers were very carefully holding their rifles close to their eyes, which were scanning the area for potential enemies. But Arthur’s body was the only thing they saw. One of the soldiers reached his hand out of the water barricade giving a sign towards his comrades. Then more and more soldiers went into the entrance hall, carefully and slowly walking towards Arthur’s body. He was still lying face down on the floor and did not move. But nobody was quite sure if he was dead or if he was just pretending. Carefulness saved many of their lives. Finally the agents went into the hall.
Beautiful Samantha Fail was looking around in the room. Obviously she was searching for Arthur, but when she found him she started to scream towards the tall red haired man standing next to her. Reproachfully she screamed next to his ear: “Why did you shoot him? Look! You hit him. Tell me how shall we talk to a dead man? Now he’s worth nothing!”
The tall man, who laid his hand over his ear on Samantha’s side for the purpose of protecting it against her loud and angry voice, wondered as well that his shot hit his enemy. Astounded he gave an unsatisfactory reply. “Uhhmm… Well… I thought he’d dodge it. I never expected Arthur to be so easily killable. He must have seen us. Otherwise he would not have opened the door. But how can he be so stupid, just standing there as if he wouldn’t expect any punishment for his betrayal.” Samantha looked at the frowning Thomas Lorenzo. Suddenly Anthony Foster stood between them, pointing at the dead body. “Arthur is not stupid at all. This scenery suspiciously looks like a classical trap. Check the body!” When he said this three soldiers were on their way to the body.
Suddenly the hall was convulsed by an explosion. An overwhelming cloud of dust was waving through the room. Everyone was coughing and trying to see anything. The dirt was burning in their eyes. Immediately the soldiers were pulling gasmasks out of their pockets, some were running outside to breathe and see in the heavy rain. But they did not see anything yet.
The chaos was exactly how Arthur had expected it to be. He had placed several bombs within bags, which were filled with every kind of dirt they were able to find. In the moment one of the soldiers, who were rushing towards him, tapped onto a thin line of wire, all kinds of sand and dirt from vacuum cleaners were filling the room in no time. The bombs had been placed at the side of the entrance hall around the corner of the small control rooms, so they were not viewable from the entrance. This was a position, where they could not endanger any one of the soldiers, so the experienced soldiers did not expect them to be placed, where they would endanger the user himself. But Arthur had placed them close to him. These were not expected to hurt anybody, but to spread short time confusion to give Arthur the time he needed to flee into TX-1. If they had negotiated, he would have told them that they needed to take care of the thin wire hidden in the red sand, which was lying in the entrance hall anyway.
Arthur used the time to stand up, pull his gas mask out of his collar and over his face and finally to run into the cave built of red stone. A few minutes later he would get rid of his bulletproof vest, which saved his life, but limited his mobility. This thing would be a limitation of his Gun-Kata, because he could not move nearly freely enough for a real fight. His enemies would try to hit his head next time and in that case the vest would not bring him any benefit.
The soldiers were shooting into his direction, though they could not see anything and it was no surprise that they did not hit agent McGee, who reached the iron door, which would lead him onto his planned route into the bunker.
His former comrades have recognized his escape and now they were following him, shooting wildly into the direction without seeing anything. Arthur had run some test runs before he had opened the gate, so he knew where to run and how many steps he needed to reach the door without seeing anything. He had planned every detail very carefully, because carefulness saved lives. And now it was saving his life.
Arthur opened the heavy door and went into the gangway. Now he was able to see again and the air became very clear again though the dust of the entrance hall quickly flowed into the new space. Shots were crackling against the door. Then suddenly someone was banging against the door very hard. A soldier must have run against the door. Poor guy. His nose must hurt terribly. Arthur had to smile for a millisecond, but then he concentrated again and ran as fast as possible. His operation rabbit hunt had started and been successful so far. The goal was clear: Saving his life, so he might save humankind one day.
His hunters followed and were shooting at Arthur the rabbit, who had turned around the corner. He had been running along the route many times, so he did not need to think about it any more. All other possible ways had been blocked anyway, so they had to go his way. When his way ended, his plan ended and the real fight would start.
Arthur reached the first crossing of ways. He took off his gas mask and threw it into the corridor opposite to the one he was using. Every thinking being would expect a feint and run in the opposite direction. Whoever would follow the old trail would run into a dead end.
Arthur ran as fast as his lungs enabled him to do. He reached a staircase and did the same with his bulletproof vest. He threw it upwards and ran downwards. If his hunters would run upwards, they would face a blocked iron door. Behind it was a spilled corridor. Probably a bomb made it impassable. Arthur did not know, but used this situation. He reached the deepest level of the staircase, when he heard voices from above. Someone was shooting downwards at him. This man must have seen him through the small space, which is left between the handrails of the stair parts side by side. The bullets did not hit, but now they knew, where to go to. Arthur opened the next door and entered a connection hall, where four possible corridors lead into every direction. In the middle of the room some old interior was lying. The chair was split apart but under this one Arthur's guns were lying. He took them, checked whether they were still loaded properly and ran on. At this point he did not need to care where to go to anymore, because everyone would split again and finally end in a trap by Benétt’s men. Arthur was curious about who had the misfortune to choose the right path to follow him.
Now the corridor was very tight and did not leave much space to move. Then Arthur reached the turn to the right. He called his supporters, who would wait behind it, that he would turn around the corner, so they should not shoot at him. He stopped next to the corner and waited for the response of the men. When it came, he turned around and ran to the big metal boxes, which were their coverings. He jumped over the first blockade and sat down next to the two men, who were asking him if the enemy was on his way. Arthur tried to catch his breath again, but was not able to speak yet. So he simply nodded. Both men smacked their hand onto his shoulder and congratulated the success of Arthur’s operation.
Arthur was still breathing very heavily when he answered. “It’s not successful yet. The real thing is about to begin. Be careful!” The man to his right said “You made it here alive, so you have been very successful. Now we’ll manage this.” Then they went back to work and aimed with their rifles over the coverage. Arthur stood up and went on to reach the room, where the communication center has been installed. He had to contact the other stations to warn them that the enemy was coming.

Arthur McGee was not gone for long, when suddenly some soldiers turned around the corner. Benétt's men started shooting and killed the first enemy soldiers by surprise. But agent Valarie Archer recognized the trap very quickly and started her counterattack, before the soldier fell down, who had been hit by many bullets. The small woman with her distinctive face and short black hair let herself fall the same moment her comrade fell, who served her as coverage. She hit the floor together with the freshly killed man and shot back towards Arthur’s supporters. They immediately dodged behind the metal box. Valarie’s bullets were fizzing over their head. But this woman did not go back around the corner again. She ran towards the barricade. Her shots stopped for a short moment, so the two men at the front used this time to look over their coverage again and to shoot back. They were very surprised, when she suddenly ran towards them and before they were able to aim at her, she jumped onto the metal box and from there into the air over them. Flying through the corridor she made a back flip and shot both astonished men in the head. Then she landed and rolled over the floor dodging the shots from the next barricade. Then she jumped hard against the wall and pressed her feet against the wall to catapult herself towards the opposite wall while she shot at her other enemies. Her bullet hit one of the men. The other two were able to dodge behind their barricade built of scrap of different kinds. Valarie was light and quick. With the next jump she landed right in front of the barricade and laid her body down on the floor very low. She pulled herself closer to the barricade with her arms and pulled her legs close to her breast. Then she waited a moment until one of her enemies looked over his coverage and wondered where she might be.
His frantic eyes wandered around the room, searching for the disappeared enemy. He did not waste a thought that she might lay under his view on the ground. Then it was too late and her bullet went through his head, entering at his chin and finally stopping on the inside of the helmet.
Next thing she did was pushing the barricade against the back of the other man with her feet leaned against the scrap. The man stumbled and fell forward. The surprised man turned around and was shot by the agent standing over him. The next guards shot at her, but none of them hit. She ran straight towards them very fast, shooting some of the men, who became more and more, because the men from the backwards barricades came to the front to support their comrades. Suddenly Valarie stopped in front of the nearest soldier, who pointed his rifle directly into her pretty face, which was only four centimeter away from the muzzle. She looked into it without any emotional stirring. Then her arm went up to push the rifle upwards and the shots dedicated to the deformation of the small woman’s face landed in the roof above. In return her shot hit his chest. She made another step, shot a second bullet into his face and pushed the rifle, which was still shooting, because the shock hardened the finger on the trigger, in a circle-like movement around her silhouette. The hand leading this rifle held her second gun, which was then ending the life of a woman who was running to help her male comrades.
The man in front of Valarie was not alive anymore, but still he stood and shot into the ground until the ammunition clip was finally empty. The gun still clicked and blood streamed out of the head of the man. The female agent reloaded her guns using this man as coverage. The next wave of defenders reached the near barricade and started shooting at her. They just hit the dead body, which was now turning and falling forwards. The body landed, while agent Archer rushed forward, dodging the shots. Very quickly she reached the next men and shot one opponent after the next ,using different attacking Gun-Kata stances. She met a group of opponents and slaughtered one after another in very close range. Whenever someone aimed his weapon at her, she smacked that weapon aside and hit the enemy hard, breaking different kinds of joints. With a hard punch using her gun like a metal fist the small woman cracked the throat of her opponent. Then she went on and put the other gun at the chest of someone else and pulled the trigger. The corridor was filled with people close to close trying to kill and dying because of failing to do so. Finally she reached the next barricade. Behind, a huge amount of bodies were lying on the ground. None of them moved anymore. Next to the last barricade was a room from where a brighter light, compared to the much more damped light of the gangway, shone. One man came out of the room. He seemed to be very confused and when he was looking into the gangway his blood froze. The man saw this woman, returning his look with the eyes of a killing angel. The thin man feared her, when she ran towards him. He jumped back into the room and smashed the door. She had been able to hit his leg, but she had moved too late to hit his head she was aiming at. Valarie Archer was not very satisfied with her performance, because at the end she had made such a stupid mistake. She kicked against the door, but it was closed. She thought about a possibility to get in. She looked along the corridor into the darkness searching for something to crack the door with.

[clericjay]

Chapter sixteen: Fighting Valarie Archer

Arthur watched her. He was lying behind the last barricade in an angle, which made him invisible from her when she was still in front of it. But when the thin man came out of the room, she jumped over the barricade without recognizing him. Arthur had only a slight idea why she did not shoot the man immediately. Maybe she wanted to ask something or use him as a hostage. Anyway, she stood at the best possible position with her back towards him. He shot at her, but a second before he pulled the trigger, she suddenly let herself sink to the ground very quickly and spin around with her stretched leg sliding in a circle-like movement over the ground. His shot missed and he pushed himself from the ground into a head standing position to avoid her return fire. With a fast jump he went back onto his own leg and went closer to her. Both dodged the shots of their opponent very skillfully.
Arthur and Valarie were masters of Gun-Kata and both had learned from the same master, but they had never trained with each other. This was the first fight of them against each other, but it would be their last one as gun battles are supposed so. They did not know the movements and reflexes of their opponent, so both had absolutely equal chances. Arthur was physically stronger then she was, but Valarie was quick moving.
Both moved towards each other shooting as well as dodging at the same time. When they were close to each other they tried to hit the enemy, but at the same time cared for his movements to avoid a hit on their body. At the beginning both shot, but then they recognized that this would not be over very quickly, so they had to save ammunition. But Valarie really managed to reload while letting herself fall onto the floor and turning around. This seemed to be her favorite move, but it was surprisingly effective. Arthur jumped over her, because she had turned around and started shooting at him again. But when he had been on the other side, she had continued her circle movement and was on his side again. Arthur copied her trick and let himself fall onto the floor as well. Some shots flew closely over his breast, when he was lying as flat as possible on the floor. She lowered her gun to shoot into his belly, but he catapulted himself away from her very quickly. Her bullet screwed into the floor at the place,where Arthur’s body had been a very short time before. Arthur was rolling backwards and stood up again. His legs hurt terribly after he had strained them this way. Such a quick jump from such a low position was very strenuous.
He looked back at Valarie Archer and was surprised that she had stopped shooting. Her face told him that she was very impressed. “What a fabulous jump. My God, Arthur. You are extraordinary good. It’s a pleasure for me to fight such a skilled person.” She stood up. Arthur reloaded his guns and answered: “Why do you want to kill me? I mean couldn’t we just stop here and be friends again?”
She lifted one eyebrow. “I’m just fulfilling orders. Sorry, Arthur, but this is nothing personal. Though I must admit that fighting with you is fun.” Now she smiled, which made her look very pretty. Looking into such a friendly face made Arthur wonder if she was so dangerous after all.
He in return was looking very serious. “Once I obeyed orders as well as you do now without thinking, without questioning. Do you know why?”
Valarie looked around in the corridor for some seconds and replied then. “You had nothing to live for. It wouldn’t have mattered at all if you’d died. Same thing with me here. There is no one and nothing waiting for me.”
Arthur was surprised that she knew it, probably he did not know her at all. He had seen her and talked to her, but he knew nothing about her and she never interested him.
“Exactly. But now I’ve found something to live for. I do have a reason to live. I am planning to end this war and all wars forever. This is what I have been thinking about all these terrible years of death and reasonless hatred. We both saw the world burn and we both survived so far. Why should we kill each other now? I have to live for the ultimate goal of mankind: Eternal peace. And now I know how to reach it. I know that emotions are the root of evil. People without emotions are thinking straight, are thinking rationally. They would not destroy mankind for selfish reasons.”
She looked irritated. “And how shall it be possible to avoid feeling?”
“There is a drug called Prozium. This can cure mankind. And that’s why I need to live.”
Valarie was thinking about it for some time, before she looked into Arthur McGee’s serious eyes. “I can’t imagine a world without emotions. It is an essential, maybe the most essential part of being human: to feel. Men without feelings are just… are just… robots. Oh my God, Colonel Jameson was right: you are totally mad. Sorry Arthur, but I can’t let you do this.”
She lifted her gun and shot again at him. He dodged her shots and rushed towards her. They were fighting within close range. She moved very quickly and Arthur was not able to hit. He had to try something else.
Suddenly he threw one gun away, while pushing her arm to the side. Obviously she wondered about this step of Arthur, but she already had two guns in hand, so there was no benefit she could have from Arthur’s tactical step. With the free hand he tried to punch her face, but she leaned backwards, so the fist did not hit her. At the same time she turned around her gun to Arthur’s breast, which was then turning around but the bullet streaked his chest. Then Valarie realized that Arthur’s action has been a feint to make her concentrate on her upper body. Arthur kicked his leg hard against her patella. Her leg did not break, because Arthur had to dodge the shot and therefore stood in a very bad angle to put enough power into his kick. But the pain was enough for her to let her concentration focus on the knee for a second, which was enough time for Arthur to turn around into her back. He grabbed her neck. She was in chancery. The woman lifted her guns to shoot against Arthur’s arms, but he shifted his balance point and threw her to the ground. She landed and rolled over to the side to dodge Arthur’s shot, but while turning she saw his feet flying towards her head. He missed, because she was moving on, but then he stood in a wide stepping position next to her and was able to point his gun at her head.
The noise of this shot seemed to be a million times louder to Arthur’s ears as usual. The bullet went right through the head and smashed into the ground. All tension of the body left and it was falling the short distance towards the hard ground.
Valarie Archer was dead.

Arthur stood up straight again. He was standing there without any motion and did not turn around, because he did not want to see the body. This had been the first time he killed a citizen of TX-13, the first time he killed someone from the group of agents he always thought are supposed to be his team-mates, his comrades, his friends. Arthur McGee had killed a friend and he apprehended that she would not be the only one. Agent McGee felt sad and endlessly drained. This kill ruptured his heart. For the first time he felt sadness after a victorious battle, a fight, which ended surprisingly, even for Arthur. And the result was the death of someone, who had gone through the same life like he did. Maybe Valarie Archer was one of the few persons who had the same biography, who was able to understand him. He did not know the details or her point of view on life.
But she rejected his vision. She said that he was mad. He was not mad. Mankind acted mad. Leaders of nations were mad, manipulated by there own desires and manipulating others using their desires to control them. But he would end this. Arthur McGee was convinced that the way Equilibrium told him was right and just. The result of this battle was just, because he fought for mankind. She defended the old system, which brought nothing but pain to mankind.
Arthur ended his thoughts and then he was able to turn around to view the body. He watched it and within he said goodbye to her.
Suddenly the door of the communication room opened and another man was carefully looking around. When he saw Arthur standing next to the dead body of the assassin he became very relieved. He spoke, while he recognized the gun Arthur had thrown away on the floor. He picked it up. “I’m so glad that you’re alive. Suddenly it was so silent and I thought the fight must be over and then I dared to risk a look. You can’t imagine how glad I am that you killed her. She killed so many of my friends.” He was looking down the corridor, but then he remembered the gun he was holding in his hand. He gave it to Arthur, who thanked him for it and then went into the room without losing much time.
Inside the thin man was sitting on a chair. His leg was bleeding terribly but a long rag was wrapped around it to stop the blood from spilling out of the wound. When he saw Arthur he smiled. Agent McGee smiled back and went to the communicator, which was the connection to the other traps.
“Here’s rabbit. I’ve been successful. Valerie Archer is dead. But we had terrible losses. I’m actually at…” Arthur turned around and looked at the incoming man, questioning, where he was. “We’re rabbit hole 2.” Was the answer and Arthur continued. “…rabbit hole 2. Please report me your situation. I’ll come to you if you should need any support. Over”
He waited for some seconds. Every one of the six different rabbit holes was able to hear him, because they all used the same frequency. And the answers came quick.
“Here’s rabbit hole 1 we shot some enemy soldiers down, obviously none of the agents. We’ll hold the position. Over.”
“Here’s number 5. No enemy soldier appeared here so far. We’ll keep watching. It’s good to hear you, Arthur. Over.”
Then the distinctive voice of Frank Norman spoke from the speaker box. “Here’s number six. Some enemy soldiers are down as well as an agent. Well, he was very hard work and we have many casualties, but he’s down. Mr. Benétt is fine. Over.”
Arthur was very glad to hear that all of his teams had been successful so far. But he wanted to know who died. “Rabbit hole 6, could you please describe the agent? Over.”
Norman did not need to say more then one sentence to make it clear to Arthur. “It was a black guy, normal size, short hair…” Arthur knew that it was Jason Curtis. This was very good, two have been knocked down, but three of the dangerous ones are still running free.
“Very interesting, Arthur. It’s nice of these guys to try to save your life. But this trap was way too obvious and if I could give you a hint: Next time when you try to kill us, use stronger companions. These boys were much too weak.” The voice of Anthony Foster shocked Arthur extremely. For a moment he was staring at the speaker box as if he would be able to see Foster’s face there. Then he shook his head and forced himself to talk. “Have you been listening the whole time?”
Anthony answered with a sarcastic undertone. “What did you expect? That these small flies would ever make a hit? Once I thought you’d be clever, but this wasn’t your best action, my friend.”
Suddenly another well known voice to Arthur began speaking. “Yeah, you are very stupid to think that we would lose. C’mon, I want to fight you directly. I’m sick of fighting ants, but you are a real match to my abilities.” Thomas Lorenzo loved competition, a real hothead.
Anthony replied. “Careful! Lorenzo, he got Valarie. He could get you too…” Both men laughed out loud. Arthur just listened. It would be good if they underestimate him. They shall laugh. He would have the last laugh, hopefully.
Lorenzo was speaking again. “By the way, where’s Samantha? Sammy, are you listening?” Nobody replied. Low random noise was everything hearable.
“Whatever, we’ll find you, Arthur. Enjoy your last minutes on Earth. Lorenzo, over and out.” Silence reigned over the scenery until Arthur asked whether Anthony would still sit in front of the communicator. But no reply followed.
Arthur’s plan had expected this situation, but he had forgotten it during his fight. Now these killing machines were running around somewhere in Bunker TX-1. From this point on, he wasn’t able to tell where his enemies might be. He could meet them everywhere and therefore he had to be very careful. Arthur calmed down. He needed to become as cold as he usually had been during situations like this. The talk with Valarie had confused him, made him feel strange and made him concentrate less. Next time he lost concentration, he would definitely lose his life. No hesitation, no mercy in this situation. These hunters would not spare him, so he should not do so either.
Arthur McGee took some fresh ammunition with him and went out into the gangway, which was filled with bodies. He could still smell the gunpowder and blood filling the air. He knew it very well, it did not make him sick, it did not make him think about it and did not irritate him. He was used to this, he just forgot it for a moment. Against Valarie he was weak, too weak to fight Anthony, Samantha and Thomas at the same time. Arthur McGee was hoping to find them alone and to fight one against one.
He went through the corridor and picked up a rifle from a companion. After checking it, he took it with him. Maybe it would be useful.
Then he went deeper into the dark bunker to seek and fight his enemies. He had to be victorious. He had to cool down his emotions.

[BlackDragon]

Very Good! Keep up the good work Cleric!

[Aedh]

Vivid, wonderfully done. Excellent!

[clericjay]

I know it's been some time, but I had to organize my life, make some journeys and read some books I wanted to read for a long time.
And now I'm three months behind my plannings.

So it's time to catch up again and here's the first step: the new chapter.

Enjoy!!!

[clericjay]

Chapter seventeen: Battling bunker

The silence reigned in all corridors Arthur passed sneaking. He looked carefully around every corner he had to pass. He intended to reach rabbit hole 6 to support Benétt and his group. They would probably be the best and most useful support in his fight against the Agents he soon would face.

But everything was surprisingly silent. Arthur thought that everywhere in the bunker fights between the different groups would go on and gunfire would be heard everywhere, but nothing seemed to happen. Arthur felt helpless, the enemy must be somewhere, but he seemed to be completely alone in this huge labyrinth of corridors and stairs. The light was only weak, because the energy generator did not work accurately and in some of the gangways only a few lights were still working, most of them gave a dimmed light to its environment only, which gave the whole scenery a gloomy and sinister atmosphere.

Arthur stepped over one of the older bodies, which were already there when he arrived at TX-1 for the first time. He carefully placed his feet down, taking care to prevent any noise, because he came very close to a T-crossing, where the light was not working at all in the right of the possible directions, which would give enemies sitting in the protection of the dark and waiting for someone incautious the best possibility to attack without being seen or without risking many casualties by returning fire. The way Arthur was using ended at a the sidewall of the crossing gangway.
Dust was whirling through the weak light when Arthur’s foot stepped close to the edge of the wall, he was happy to know in his back. The dust slowly flew into the area of the crossing and a weak gust of wind pushed it in the left direction Arthur was able to look at. The stream of air made him aware of the staircase at the other end of the dark corridor, because it had access to the first level, where fresh air was able to flow in through ventilator shafts closely under the outer earth.

These stairs would bring him to the point they had named as rabbit hole 6 for this defending operation. But the dark corridor was a threat Arthur could not just ignore. He could have gone another way, but it would have been a loss of precious and sometimes very decisive time. And even there he surely would have to face such a dangerous part of the corridor.

He must risk going through this passage, but how would he be sure that he would not be shot as soon as he turned his head around the corner? Carefully looking would not help him, because his eyes would need some time to get used to the darkness to give him the ability to see anything. And he could not shoot into the darkness blindly to test if there was any returning fire, because if the gangway was safe, enemies close by or even more far away would recognize him in this silence and he would not be as alone as he wished to stay anymore. Arthur wished he had a mirror he could hold around the corner to watch, something a soldier would ususally do in this situation, but there were not even any stones, he could have thrown. Everywhere in this Bunker was rubbish or broken pieces from the walls or something like this around, but this T-crossing was still one of the cleanest places he has seen in this building. His view wandered around and fell onto the dead body he had overstepped a minute ago. Slowly and silently he laid down his rifle, went back and pulled the heavy old man over to the corner. This dead body was not very fat, but dead people always became much harder to carry, because they left any tension out of them and became heavy like a wet soaked sack. The body smelled horribly and Arthur had to pull it on his clothes, because the skin appeared to rip off if Arthur touched it too hard. He was worrying about the clothing not ripping apart, because this noise would have made his efforts useless.

Finally he reached the corner as silently as possible. He wiped sweat off his forehead and made himself ready to pull the body up into a nearly standing position to simulate the right height of a normal curious man looking around the corner. Arthur was not physically weak, but doing this as slowly and silently as possible felt physically encumbering.

Then the preparations were done and Arthur turned the body forward, so it must have looked like someone looking around the corner into the dark corridor. The dead body must have looked like a shadow of someone alive and stupid, because the lights were in his back and the face was not visible from the possible enemy position. Arthur waited and listened into the silence but nothing happened. He started to become aggitated because all his efforts seemed to be in vain. There was no real threat, only his extreme caution and obvious paranoia. Arthur was thinking in this direction, when suddenly the head of the body he was holding splattered like a melon hit by a single, well aimed shot. He was genuinely shocked and surprised when he let the body fall. For the real existing enemy it must have looked like a real man was falling onto the ground because the shooter hit him. Arthur did not move and listened to the silent whisper he could hear now.

Someone whispered: “Idiot, why did you shoot? Now we don’t know if there was someone else, who’s alarmed now.” Another whisper answered: “Should I have waited until they felt safe and went around the corner?”

“Exactly!”

After some seconds of silence the other voice belonging to the man, who was the shooter of the dead body, excused himself: “I… I’m sorry, I was just nervous… I lost my nerves. Sorry…”

A third voice broke into the conversation: “Don’t argue, correct your mistake. Look whether there’s someone around the corner!”

“But if there’s someone, they will shoot me.” The scared voice was quavering.

“It’s fifty/ fifty! You’re a soldie dork! Don’t be such a scared kid. Go!”

The third voice was merciless and the shooter started to move. The steps were not very careful or silent. Whoever was coming towards him was very inexperienced. Arthur prepared to just kill this guy like he would have done it always and pointed his gun towards the corner and waited until the head of the soldier appeared to blow it into fractions, but suddenly he had to think of Juan Sanchez. It scared him that he felt this sudden pity for this young man, who would never survive a minute on the battlefield if he was so nervous. But his weakness saved Arthur’s life. Otherwise he would have gone on and had his last seconds in this world. Where was the cold effectiveness he used to have in battles all these years before? He felt so weak, when he decided to save the life of this young guy and reached for the rifle, which he had laid down to carry the body. Something must have changed in him. In the past he would have never been so considerate. Maybe it was because he was fighting against his former allies or he was so sick of this endless war. Maybe he felt deep inside that enough lives have been wasted. Unwillingly he shook his head as if he was able to throw these thoughts out of his head by doing so. More people had to die until peace could reign.

Suddenly the head of the enemy soldier was finally appearing at the corner. Arthur did not hesitate and the man had no time to look surprised, because extremely fast Arthur had smashed the back part of his rifle into the face. The man was falling back and hit the other wall and sank down to the ground. But this man was not as young as Arthur had imagined it, judging from the behavior of him before, the opposite was the case. Why did TX-13 use such an old man with grey hair and some wrinkles in his face for the army? But Arthur had no time to think about it or if he might have hit him too hard.

He put his rifle at his back, squared the belt of it and threw his only two grenades around the corner. The explosion hurt every ear in the corridor used to the absolute silence, which had reigned before. Arthur was running around the corner and started shooting, while shortening the distance as fast as possible to his opponents. He did not see anything in the dark and the first shots went blindly into the dark and obviously some hit, when the first scream went through the air. When Arthur was deeper in the darkness, the gunfire of his pistols lightened his path for the time another death bringing bullet pierced the air. There was only uncoordinated return fire. The explosion of the grenades must have blended his enemies, which made the whole thing very easy for Arthur. The first four men were down without being able to defend themselves. Arthur went on through the small corridor and dodged the enemies shots while every one of his shots was a killing hit. The flow of Gun Kata was back again in his veins. He went on, through one studied pose after another. No one was able to resist this storm of death Arthur had unleashed among them.

The man in front of him dodged a shot by jumping against the sidewall and letting himself stumble in the opposite direction. A move Arthur had not expected. The man put up his rifle as Arthur came closer very quickly. The muzzle was pointing towards his breast when he swept the rifle to the side with his right hand in a fast circle movement. Arthur went even closer by turning in a 360 degree movement around his vertical body axis, which ended with a hit by Arthur’s right elbow full of verve against the enemies head. The man went smashing against the sidewall and tumbling to the ground, while Arthur shot the next two men simultaneously in their chests. They were obviously wearing bulletproof vests, so Arthur had to shoot the heads. He ran over the bodies, treading on one of them even before it reached the ground. The man behind them was shooting carelessly, without aiming. Arthur’s jump forward ended with him rolling over the floor under the wild fire. The man was lowering the shooting angle, when Agent McGee was cowering on the ground and shooting into the leg of the man, who started to scream and broke down to the hit site. When he stopped looking at his injured leg he looked up and recognized that Arthur had come very close. The man tried to lift his rifle, but Arthur wrapped his left arm around it and pulled his shoulder around with such a force that the weapon slipped out of the man’s hand. At the same time Arthur’s right hand went towards the throat of the tall man and pierced it with a bullet fired from a millimeter distance to his skin. The hands of the enemy soldier were grabbing Arthur’s hand to pull it away from the neck, but it was too late, though they fulfilled the initial movement. The hard grip was not losing its power, even when the man fell down backwards. It did not disturb Agent McGee, who had a second hand to use against the other enemies.

Finally the hands gave up and let go the right hand. Someone was throwing a grenade towards Arthur, who simply kicked it back to the originator, where it exploded. The sender was able to dodge it, but he was lying on the ground. His hands were holding the helmet on his head until the explosion was over. When he looked up he had Arthur’s gun in his face, which was the last thing he was able to see anymore. Arthur had used the time the explosion gave him to reload his pistols. He ran on and the corridor became brighter again. The light helped him to locate his enemies, who had the light in their back from this point on. Arthur was running and shooting.
Then he was able to see the staircase he wanted to reach. His enemies suddenly gave up fighting and just started running. But Arthur was faster and shot one after another. Finally he had reached the pleasantly blue lit staircase. There the lights were still working as they were supposed to.

The last two soldiers were standing outside the dark corridor in the staircase. Arthur rushed out of the gangway towards both men. One of them ran away in panic down the stairs, while the other one tried to shoot Arthur - of course without success. Arthur pushed him hard against the chest, so he fell backwards over the banister and down onto the stairs on the level below. Arthur turned around and shot the fleeing man from behind, so he fell on his face onto the stair. There he slid down a short way until the body finally stopped.

Arthur took a look around and made sure that he had defeated every enemy in sight. He was alone now. He took a deep breath, reloaded his pistols and put them back into their holsters. Arthur McGee tried to remember where he was and where he had to go. Then he was sure that he had to go downwards and he would better hurry, because the noise of the battle would have certainly attracted other enemies attention. He turned towards the stair leading down where the dead body was lying, but suddenly he thought of the older man, who was still lying unconscious at the T-crossing. Unwillingly he turned towards the entrance of the dark corridor he had filled with new bodies a minute ago, when suddenly something hard hit the rifle on his back. The metallic sound and the small sparks told him that someone was shooting at him and he was lucky enough that the assassin did not hit him. Instinctively he jumped to the side, turned around and pulled his guns out of their holsters. He was looking around, but was not able to see anyone. Someone must have seen him from an upper level of the stairs and shot down at him as long as he was in sight.

He was waiting and then heard the sound of something sliding down the stairs. It sounded like a sleigh with high speed, which came closer and closer. He went over to the stair part leading upwards. But what he then saw really surprised him. A slim man with short red hair was sliding down the handrail using a rifle like a snowboard. Arthur forgot to shoot for a second, but then Thomas Lorenzo jumped off his provisional board and landed very close in front of Arthur. Now he woke up and tried to point at the enemy, while taking a step back, away from the Agent. But this quick man rushed forward and grabbed Arthur’s guns with his bare hands and pushed them away from him. He caught Arthur’s guns. Arthur let them go immediately, but Thomas was very quick, let the guns fall and caught the hands of the opponent trying to retreat some steps. Arthur tried to get out of the grip by kicking against Thomas belly. But he failed in first try, because the evil grinning man shifted his body a bit, so the kick slipped off the body. Arthur pulled his leg back and then stood on it and tried to hit with his other knee, but Agent Lorenzo pulled his and Arthur’s arm in the way, so Arthur came into a posture, which prevented his attack from being effective.

Then both just stood there facing each other, but the red haired man was strongly holding the hands of his opponent, grinning even more widely than before. “I’ve got you! You had some luck to turn away while I shot at you from above. I don’t know how someone can be as lucky as you are, but I’m glad about it. Do you know why?”

Arthur moved his head negating.

The answer came: “This way I’ll get my fight!”

[Aedh]

Nicely done Cleric!

[clericjay]

Chapter eighteen: Coequal

The situation was not well for Arthur. His hands were kept in control by the strong hold of his opponent Thomas Lorenzo, who Arthur had been fighting against before for training purposes. But this time it was very serious and Agent McGee’s guns were lying on the ground behind the red haired hothead. The color of his hair underlined his character visually, because he was always the first to jump into battle, always acting spontaneously and never sticking to any plan. That was a reason why Commander Smith did not use him often for any operations, which had the effect of increasing his hunger for blood. He must have been the first volunteer for the McGee-capturing-mission, hoping to “get his fight.”

The rifle on Arthur’s back was not useable if he would not be able to free his hands. Attacking with his feet was what Thomas expected and what he was prepared to parry. Shifting his weight in the hope to struggle his hands free had little chances of success, the other Gun Kata master was able to predict his movements. Arthur was so desperate that he thought of biting the opponent’s arms, when he suddenly let Arthur go. Thomas took a step backwards and said: “This ain’t fun! No one of us would get far from this point on.”

Arthur did not reply, he was looking into the enemy's face while he prepared to get his guns back. Suddenly Arthur sprinted toward Thomas, dodged his punches and stooped to grab one of his pistols, but Thomas put his foot on it and pulled it out of his reach, stepping on it. Then he put his other foot on the other gun and surrounded Arthur like he would walk on skates not on pistols. The scraping sound of them was a terrible noise, but Thomas was very quick with it. Everyone could easily recognize that this man has done this trick several times before by his skilled use of these gun-skaters.

Finally Arthur unfixed the belt of the rifle, which was the last weapon he could use, though close-range combat was always difficult with a rifle because of its length. If the opponent was able to get out of the line of fire and close enough to Arthur’s body it would become completely useless. Therefore Gun Kata preferred guns or swords to be able to fight in close- as well as in wide-range.

Arthur did not hesitate to shoot, but skilled Thomas dodged it very fast and came closer on the gun-skates. With one hand he pushed Arthur’s rifle to the site and with the other he pulled one of his own guns out of its holster to shoot Arthur, who took the push against his weapon, continued the movement and turned in a circle, lowered himself to the ground and rolled to the side to get past Lorenzo, who started shooting at him, but missed very closely.
Then Arthur jumped down the stairs to land next to the soldier he had killed shortly before. He shot back at Lorenzo with his rifle in one hand to stop Lorenzo from shooting for the second the enemy needed to dodge, while his other hand searched for the gun of the dead soldier. He got and unlocked it. Then his enemy shot back and jumped down the stairs as well, leaving Arthur’s guns back at the stage on the higher level. Arthur recognized that his ammunition did not match to the captured gun, so he had one clip of ammunition for it only. He turned very quickly to the side so the bullets destined for his body were drilling into the wall, tossing dust out of it.

The next step of Arthur’s plan was to jump onto the handrail using the rifle as a board like Thomas has done it before. During his action he used the captured gun to return the fire. Lorenzo landed on the dead body, which slid down a few steps more under the pressure of the landing man. He looked surprised when Arthur copied his trick obviously with success. He needed so much practice to learn to do what Arthur McGee was doing instinctively right and skilled as if he would not surf on a riffle upon a handrail for the first time. Arthur himself was surprised as well that he was able to keep the balance until he reached the lower level, where the other body was lying, obviously with a broken neck. Shortly before he had reached the level he finally lost his balance and the rifle turned to one side. Arthur jumped from it before he would fall and stepped on the banister to jump to the body. The rifle fell into the gap between the stairs, hitting some of the handrails with metallic sounds and probably the ground on the lowest level. Arthur had no time to wait until he would be able to hear this, he had to take the pistol of the other soldier out of its holster as fast as possible and unlock it before Thomas would have been on his level.

Agent Lorenzo came down to Arthur very quickly. He had drawn his second gun and then both Gun Kata masters were fighting close to each other with two guns in their hands. Neither Arthur nor Thomas landed a hit, but vantage was on Thomas’s site, because he would have been able to reload his guns, while Arthur had to be very careful with every shot he risked. The first captured gun was empty then and Arthur had nothing more to do then to throw it away. He had to fight with one gun, having maybe nine or eight bullets left, he did not know exactly. He would be able to count down if he had his own guns, where he knew when he had to reload them before he would have send out the last bullet of his actual clip.

So it was time for the last phase of his fighting plan. Everything went perfectly well until then with Thomas concentrating on his opponent only without caring for the circumstances. Arthur went around Thomas while dodging his shots into a position, where he was able to move back upwards slowly, step by step, always having a good eye on Mr. Lorenzo. This man had to reload his guns. Arthur used this very short fire pause to turn around and run up the stairs as fast as he could. A shot streaked his leg without causing serious damage, when the surprised Thomas was able to shoot at Arthur again, who had only felt a short traction from the nearly hit. The risk of turning his back to his opponent was worth it, when Arthur was running around the turning of the stairs and up the second part of it until he had reached the level, where his own guns were still lying peacefully. He took them and turned around to shoot at the up-sprinting Thomas Lorenzo.

From this point on both were fighting with same odds. Arthur McGee and Thomas Lorenzo recognized in close combat dodging the enemies attempt to kill the other, while trying the same at the same time, that both where totally equal in their fighting skills. Both were fighting coequal.

Dozens of bullets flew through the air without causing any damage to any of them. No one of them was able to get any advantage over the other. This waste of ammunition would bring Arthur neither benefit nor victory over this Agent, so he changed his tactic and surprised his opponent with a full body tackle as hard as he was able to do. Thomas was pushed back and tried to take a step backwards to get into balance again, but his foot found no stand. Arthur had been able to force Thomas into a position close to the downward stair in his back, so the red-haired man fell down and rolled it down until he had found his stand again. Arthur shot at him, but Thomas reacted very quickly and was able to change direction slightly while rolling, so Arthur did not hit. Instead he followed Thomas down. The close combat went on and slowly both were going downward step by step, stair by stair. Arthur had changed his tactic and did not try to land a deadly hit with his gun as hard as before, but to hit the body with punches, elbow-strikes, kicks and body-checks out of every possible position. This did not do any remarkable damage to his enemy, who was able to get into balance again easily, but the positive effect for Arthur was that this upset Thomas. And the angrier he became the more mistakes he did. But still Arthur was not able to use these short moments of bareness for his benefits. But Thomas Lorenzo started to do the same and used more and more physical attacks as well. The shots became less and less as both tried to bring the other one out of his balance. Both stumbled on the difficult stairs a few times, but none of them could hit a shot. The fighting men moved downwards, slowly, from level to level.

Arthur was highly concentrated. Every mistake could be his last. He knew it and his opponent knew that, but nevertheless both became slower and slower in their movements. The fight went on and on. Arthur and Thomas needed a break, they had quite a good physical condition, but such a long fight strained on their strength. They made more and more mistakes the lower they came and also stumbled more often, but the theoretical beneficiary was not able to use these situations, because he was just to slowly moving, not completely concentrating, too slowly reacting. Both were exhausted, more and more heavily breathing, both needed a break, but they would not get it.

Finally they had reached the lowest level, where Arthur’s rifle was lying. Arthur took away one of his pistols and tried to grab it, but Thomas Lorenzo just kicked it away. It was sliding over the ground and smashing against a wall. Arthur did not hesitate a single moment, when Lorenzo had focused on the rifle to kick it away. He grabbed one of Lorenzo’s guns and twisted his arm harshly, so he had to let the weapon go if he did not want to risk a broken arm. But Thomas reacted surprisingly fast for his exhausted state and tried to shoot at Arthur’s hand. He hit the captured gun, which flew out of Arthur’s hand by the force the hitting bullet practiced on the gun.

Arthur and Thomas turned around and faced each other. The time went by very slowly for both of them, when they gave each other the opportunity of landing a secure shot, because of their anger and fast reaction without thinking much about what they were doing. Arthur as well as Thomas saw the gun of the opponent point into their face in slow-motion. Seconds were dropping like hours, when both realized their mistake of risking their own death for a fast and final hit onto the opponent. Both pulled the trigger at the same time and awaited their own last moment in the same breath, but the movement they had begun was not stoppable, when they recognized the mistake. The sound of the empty guns clicking dashed through their bones and they did not realize that both guns had completely emptied their ammunition-clips a short moment ago. The sudden surprise turned into indescribable joy when both men understood how lucky they have been in this situation.

They could not act in another way then to laugh out loud.
These laughing and sweating men were leaning against each other as if they had been best friends for their whole lifetime and had only a short struggle about an unimportant matter and they found out how meaningless their fight was in this moment. The whole scenery was absurd.

Soon they stopped laughing and were only breathing heavily. None of them was trying to reload and shoot, because both desperately needed the pause to regain their power.

Thomas was the first to say something: “Damn Arthur, seems like we’re coequal.”

Arthur replied shortly: “Even if it’s about luck.”

Thomas was able to stand on his own feet again. “Whoa… This could be the longest fight I’ve ever done. You’re giving me a damn good time, man.”
Then he started laughing again, but soon stopped it.

Arthur and he were looking at each other. Arthur had the control over his breathing frequency back: “You should have been at the Battle of Houston. THAT has been a long none-stop fight for me.” He smiled, which was a rare phenomenon.

“Showoff!” Thomas Lorenzo replied shortly, took a short break to gulp and then went on: “It’s really a pity that I have to kill you. I could do this for eternity.”

Arthur looked very serious at him and spoke with a deep voice: “You don’t have to!”

“Nah, where’s the purpose of a battle if no one dies? No, one of us won’t survive the day, there’s no other way.” Thomas shook his head.

“Then I guess we should continue…”

Arthur said this, when suddenly sounds of marching men and voices appeared from one of the corridors on this level. There were some soldiers coming, the question was just, whose?
Both reloaded their pistol and looked into the direction the noises came from. They intended to wait until they would see who was going to get support.
Finally the men were coming out of the dimmed light of the corridor the noises came from. They stopped and looked at the two men. These were Benétt’s minions, a circumstance Arthur was very glad about.

One of them spoke to Arthur, while he raised his rifle to point at Agent Lorenzo: “Mr. McGee! What are you doing down here? Mr. Benétt desperately needs your help at rabbit hole 6. Two of these Agents have appeared there and we don’t know how long they could stand against them.”

“Are you on your way to help them?”

The man nodded to Arthur’s question.

Arthur McGee thought about going to leave these men alone with Thomas Lorenzo. The Agent was exhausted, so probably these men could stand a chance against him. What if not?

The soldiers slowly wandered out of the corridor. The group-leader pulled Arthur out of his thoughts: “What are you standing here around? Go! We’ll deal with this guy!”

Arthur knew it would be a mistake, but he went to the stairs. Suddenly Thomas started screaming angrily: “HEY!!! Do you really leave me with these worthless flies?”

Arthur did not reply, he did not turn around. Instead he ran up the stairs to get to the level, where rabbit hole 6 must have been close to. A mad scream was hearable, followed by several gun shots. Arthur did worry a little bit, but he had to find the other group to help them.

He was on the right level and went into a larger corridor then usual in this bunker. It was a very central path in its structure. He would pass the Hall of Wisdom on his way, but this was not of importance. Only if the enemy would have been able to get through rabbit hole 6 he might have come to this point. Or if he would come from behind the lines like Arthur was doing it in that very moment. Anyway, he would see it. He just hoped that Jean-Jaques Benétt would be still alive. This man had political experiences, he certainly knew how someone could convince the masses. He needed his advice to let the concept of Equilibrium become reality.

Suddenly a bullet pierced into the ground in front of Arthur’s feet. He looked forward, but there was nobody, then back to the ground, where the dust the impact had left behind waved away from him, which showed him, that the shot must have come from behind him. Arthur turned around and saw Thomas Lorenzo standing a longer distance behind him. He seemed to be injured, some streak of blood was streaming down his sleeve and his left arm. Agent Lorenzo screamed angrily through the big gangway: “Arthur McGee!!! How can you dare to flee? I’m not finished with you!!!”

[Aedh]

So when do we get another installment Cleric?

[clericjay]

I'm actually working on it.

It's nice that you ask! ;D

[clericjay]

Chapter nineteen: “It’s time for something new.”

A terrible scream setting teeth on edge filled the warm and insipid air between Arthur McGee and Thomas Lorenzo, who was the sounds origin. This berserk was on his way to rip this disrespecting enemy into tiny pieces. Arthur had left him with unable soldiers, he was underestimating him, which was an unforgivable crime in Agent Lorenzo’s eyes. The man who was running toward his opponent as fast as he could was very proud of his abilities.
In Arthur’s eyes this rage was a definite advantage for him. He was calm inside and outside, convinced of his supremacy over a Gun-Kata-user lead by his emotions, pushing his mind into a far distant edge of his brain. Arthur would not loose. He was spreading such a confident aura, that Thomas’s anger only grew into immensity. And finally fire and water met each other.
What Arthur really surprised was that his opponent did not even tried to kill Arthur with his guns, he just tried to hit him with his fists and feet. Arthur managed to push the attacking arms to both sides with a quick circle-like movement of his own arms, but suddenly Thomas just smashed his head against Arthur’s chest.
The hit man was stumbling backwards, turning away, trying to catch his breath again. His chest was hurting terribly, but what was worse was the fact that he had turned his back toward the enemy.
Arthur jumped and rolled over the floor in his expectation of an enemy attack during his short regeneration phase, but nothing seemed to happen. No shots swishing through the air were hearable.
Surprise squired Arthur while rising back into an upright stand and throwing a look at the red-haired, who had put his guns back into their holsters. He grinned: “I don’t need these. Beating you down will be more satisfying than a single shot could ever be.”
No comment from Arthur and the fight went on. Thomas was very skillfully and avoided Arthur’s bullets, which were sent out with a high possibility of a hit only, because he did not have them endlessly. The problem was that the reflexes taught by Gun Kata were avoiding lined attacks, but this was something different. Whenever Arthur blocked a fist, Thomas inflected his arm and stroked the elbow into Arthur’s collarbone. And though he hardly tried to avoid any attack he had to take one stroke after another, small and unimportant little wounds, but Arthur started to bother about them and his incapability of killing this unarmed man. He felt his emotions rising within him, and he had to force himself to bend them. If he would allow them to take over his loss would be determined, his death as well.
He had to stay calm and to use his brain, his experiences from thousand and thousand battles. This man was raging, which must have been his weakness. But nevertheless Arthur was the one retreating step by step and Thomas Lorenzo did not make any mistakes. What was wrong?
Again Arthur pointed at the enemy’s chest, hoping to hit the heart or even lungs, but again Thomas was faster then Arthur’s finger on the trigger, which definitely was not slow at all. Thomas turned to his right and grabbed Arthur’s outstretched right arm. Then he pulled himself closer to Arthur, who was turning to his own right and then he did something unusual. While Thomas followed Arthur’s movement with his free fist, he himself laid his left arm on his own back, turned around some more, so he was able to shoot from behind his back. The punch met the face in the same moment the bullet pierced into the left thigh. The projectile did not fly out at the other side, but obviously missed the femur. The hard punch took Arthur slightly out of balance, so it became very easy for Thomas to pull the grabbed arm and to toss Arthur around, throwing him some distant. Arthur did not fall, his feet were the first thing hitting the hard and dirty floor, avoiding to loose equilibrium.
But Arthur did not receive the advantage he was hoping for by the hit. All the adrenaline within Thomas body expunged all pain completely for the moment.
Finally Thomas pulled out one of his pistols again and started shooting at Arthur, who dodged like he always did. But he still had to pull back slowly, because Agent Lorenzo’s attacks were still powerful, supported by an automatic pistol.
Suddenly Arthur recognized a brown open door right beneath them. A very uncomfortable thought flew into his mind: They reached the Hall of Wisdom. Arthur worried it could be destroyed. They should pass it and Thomas would not recognize how important this place was for him. But if he would, Arthur would have a weak point. He tried to retread backwards in the same speed as they already did. His raging opponent should not see that Arthur wished to get away from this place as fast as possible. And then out of the tail of his eye he swiftly saw, what would have meant a true catastrophe to him. He needed to be sure and he intended to look into this amazing library, whenever he would have any chance to lead the focus of his concentration away from the fight for a second. But this was unnecessary, because the unbelievable thing raised its voice first. A confided voice, but every emotion once connected with it changed into the complete opposite these days.
“There you are, Arthur!”
Both men stopped their battle and stared into the Hall of Wisdom, both with opposite feelings toward this discovery. While Arthur’s face adapted a deeply shattered and shocked expression, Thomas reacted like everyone seeing the library for the first time and then he identified the origin of the voice and his facial expression became one big evil grin.
On the big desk positioned close to the massive wooden folding doors, where Arthur used to read, stood Anthony Foster holding a book in his one hand and a gun in the other. The book was opened nearly in the middle and Agent Foster did not lift his view from this collection of paper. But the collection he was holding in hand was not ordinary by far. It was “Equilibrium” by the unknown author carrying the pseudonym “Aedh”.
A silence filled with expectancy laid among these three Agents. Everything was twisting and turning inside Arthur’s mind. He did not knew how he should beat two Gun Kata-masters at the same time in a library full of the most precious books he had ever seen and with the enemy having the manual for a perfect future in his hands, threatening with its destruction, the destruction of mankind’s future. There was no copy at all, anywhere. Arthur felt the pressure of his duty to save this book for the sake of all human beings. But how?

“Do you really read this SciFi-shit?” Anthony threw the book away onto the long beautifully brown wooden desk in front of him.
Arthur did not say anything.
“Well, it sounds familiar to me. Controlling one’s emotions… keeping the head clear while battle… This stuff could have been written by a Gun-Kata-master.”
A short hesitation hindered his mouth, before Arthur found the courage to try something.
“It’s the philosophy that makes you and me strong. We are the living proof that it works, that you can even survive the worst war the planet has ever seen if your mind reigns over your feelings.”
“Nah, Arthur, we are something different. We’ve been through so many hard experiences, before we found out. But you can’t take the only things, stupid masses have, away and expect them to follow your will, because it’s rationally true. Joy is the drug of the simple minded. They cannot exist without it. They will never follow you.”
“And how about you? You follow orders of these stupid masses your whole life. Don’t you think it’s time for something new? Peace is possible.”
“Arthur, how idealistic you sound. Did someone wash your brain? Your mouth is speaking the words of an idiot.”
“Answer my question, Anthony!”
Agent Foster smiled, which was a seldom phenomena. “There will never ever be peace among men. I thought you’d know. I thought we were the same.” Another pause. “We are playing the same game. We’re Agents.”
“I’m quitting. Why don’t you?”
Anthony Foster hesitated and looked to the desk, obviously hard thinking. He must have felt very strange in this moment, when many memories rushed through his mind on his search for an answer. And he found it. “It’s the place that has been given to me. This identity is the one I have accepted and I love it. There will never be peace, so being a soldier is a safe place, giving me a direction in this dark world. I won’t be something else, because I don’t want to be someone else. Do you understand that, Arthur?”
“No. It’s time for a change and I’ll bring it, with or without you.” Arthur had used the time to regenerate his body a little bit and he felt confident and strong again. His eyes were shining full of will, leaving no doubt about his words.
Then Thomas Lorenzo interrupted the talk. “Stop this talk. Are we in a parliament debate or something? I want to rip this sucker into his parts.”
Anthony sighed. “We should have been talking like this some years ago, Arthur. It would have made more sense back then. Now it’s pointless.”

Thomas Lorenzo started to shoot, forcing Arthur to run into Anthony’s direction. This one stepped onto the table, ran over it and jumped towards Arthur. He landed right in front of him and stretched his arms to kill the enemy man, but Arthur blocked them and carefully stood out of the fire line. Lorenzo appeared suddenly right behind him. Arthur winded his arm around Anthony’s, who pulled it back automatically. Arthur was able to use this force to get behind Agent Foster’s body, using it as a shield against Lorenzo, who would not shoot without hitting his ally in this moment.
But Anthony used the opportunity to have Arthur this close to him and tried to get his free gun in position. Arthur in return reached his fist toward his enemy’s face, but he leaned far back in order to avoid the punch. This way the field was cleared for Lorenzo’s bullets heading for Agent McGee.
Arthur was letting the captured arm of Anthony Foster go and slid down to the ground, shooting back in same breath. Foster stood up straight again and involved himself in this bullet ballet, firing at the lone Agent McGee, who fled by pushing himself backwards. He slid over the ground, returning fire, but his counterparts weren’t hittable, not even the injured Thomas Lorenzo.
Then Arthur had reached the massive table, who would give him a reliable shelter for a moment. His opponent Foster jumped onto the table and tested the wood during his flight with his pistols. Fortunately for Arthur it did hold back the bullets via the massive table top.
Arthur had stopped under the table and for a short moment he thought about trying to throw over the table with Anthony on it, but therefore it must have been way too heavy. Lorenzo shot at him, Arthur returned the shooting, kicking some chairs, so they were lying on the ground to complete his thin shelter into Lorenzo’s direction, but between the chairs were gaps and the through-piercing bullets added some more to them.
Suddenly Lorenzo paused, probably because he had to reload his emptied weapons. Nevertheless there would have been no pause for Arthur, because on the other side Anthony had reached over the rim of the table top and shot, pulled back and shot from another position again, only being there for such a short time to surprise Arthur and to avoid being hit by him in return.
Arthur McGee’s strategy to escape this trap was simple. He turned himself over in the small space he had under the table and forced his body to glide on the ground, front to it. Suddenly he stopped his movement with his hand, which was a very painful maneuver for it, absorbing most of his movement energy, and gave himself another direction, so he glided out of the table shelter, forcing some chairs to fly away, hardly crashing against some wooden book shelves. Towards these Arthur was heading, when he jumped up, continuing his rush toward these shelves. Enemy bullets closely failed him, but then he had a short pause to reload his own weapons, while he hid between the book shelters.
He closely leaned against one line of books, frantically looking around for the case of some enemy crossing the corner. But nobody came, thought they surely were searching for him in this gigantic library.
All involved persons needed to be very careful, all depended on who would find the other one first.
Slowly Arthur was moving around, assuring that he would be as silent as possible.
Out of a sudden the voice of Anthony Foster shouted right from the other side of the book shelf to his right and Arthur had to shrug automatically, because he did not expect that Foster would reveal his position this easily by screaming around: “You’ve got a pretty creative fighting style, Arthur. I think I still could learn one thing or another from you.”
The person receiving this compliment was thinking about an attack, but he was quite unsure. This had to be a trap. Anthony Foster was not stupid at all and he was not intending to commit suicide by telling his enemy, where he was, either.
He could not react, when the arm was wrapped around his neck and the cold muzzle of a deadly gun was put to Arthur’s temple.

[Aedh]

Nicely done Cleric! Talk about your cliff-hanger endings!

[invisiblescientist]

Excellent work, Cleric. On this occasion, let me suggest that as chapters progress, we would like to see in more detail, how the philosophy, the mind of the Father is evolving... Perhaps a narrator would be helpful in illustrating this from various perspectives...

I am sure you have seen the movie "Tommy" about the child who becomes a messiah/idol the society starts worshipping as a savior... In that way, maybe it might be interesting to illustrate how people start worshipping the Father as a savior like Tommy.

[clericjay]

Oct 20, 2009 10:58:04 GMT -5 invisiblescientist said:

Excellent work, Cleric. On this occasion, let me suggest that as chapters progress, we would like to see in more detail, how the philosophy, the mind of the Father is evolving... Perhaps a narrator would be helpful in illustrating this from various perspectives...

I am sure you have seen the movie "Tommy" about the child who becomes a messiah/idol the society starts worshipping as a savior... In that way, maybe it might be interesting to illustrate how people start worshipping the Father as a savior like Tommy.

Thank you very much. I'm glad that you read and liked my story so far. ;D
Don't worry, my focus will come back to Father's development, but we're actually in an action scene and there's not much space for these things, because Arthur should think about other things right now... surviving and such stuff.

No, I have never heard of that film.
The reason could be that I'm 19 and I never came across this film. I read about it on the internet and it seems to be pretty odd to me... Maybe I'll get it between my fingers someday. I'll see...

[clericjay]

Chapter twenty: Domino-effect

The cold muzzle pressed on his temple, something Arthur McGee had not felt since the beginning of his training with guns.
Back then his master had shown him and all the other apprentices how it feels to be in such a hopeless situation, with your own life in enemy’s hands. This feeling was called fear of death, something every soldier should know, and if it is even just to know how your enemy feels facing the master of Gun-Kata, spreading death all over if he wants it. Back then Arthur’s master showed him what it is like to feel this. But he did not teach it to the young Agents to provoke mercy for their victims within them. No, they should fear this situation themselves. They should do everything to hold the gun in such situations in their own hand, never to be the helpless victim, because your enemy won’t have mercy on you, so neither do you. This is the law of war.
And this entire lesson rushed back into Arthur’s mind. All these years he had successfully avoided this situation. He has been always the one in charge, in every battle. But one moment of imprudence negatived his struggle.
Arthur awaited his death in this second and he became upset about himself loosing his life before he was able to do something useful, before building his vision. But no bullet went out of the gun, no trigger has been pulled. Whoever had the opportunity, to accomplish his mission, hesitated.
Agent McGee was not intending to wait until the decision would have been done. Harshly he pushed the gun on his head upwards, while he pulled his head downwards, to get out of the line of fire as fast as possible, having in mind that the projectile was much faster, than he could react. Then he pushed his body against his opponent, standing close behind him. But the effect was very little, because the person behind him leaned back as well as a little to the side, so Arthur’s attempt had no chance of having much effect. Arthur used the swing of his movement to let himself fall onto the floor continuing rolling backwards. In this very moment between falling and hitting the floor he was able to get a glimpse on his enemy, positioned to his left side during this moment. Surprisingly it was not Thomas Lorenzo and neither Anthony Foster, none of them would have hesitated only for a millisecond.
Arthur knew this thin and well shaped figure, this long beautiful blonde hair, floating through the air, caused to fly by the quick movement of that woman, Arthur knew just too well.
The head turned to the side and slowly the hair gave free the way for Samantha Fail’s clear blue eyes following Arthur. These views have met often before, but this time it was something different. A certain strain lay in her eyes, his eyes were cold as ice. His shock has been thrown out of them within the milliseconds, when he had reacted to get his head out of the sling. There was no doubt about her being his enemy. But why did she hesitate? No, he was not in the situation to let doubts run through him. Arthur McGee had to fight three masters of Gun-Kata, usually an impossible task for any human. But there was no use in denying his situation; he had to think about a way to solute it and to win this battle.
He was back on his feet, when she had turned around to shoot at him. He put his foot on a board of the bookshelf to his right, pushed himself upwards to jump in a high angle to the other side, rapidly shooting back into her direction. Samantha stepped to her own right side and moved very skillfully to dodge Arthur’s shots, who tried to predict her movements according to what he knew from their training fights or from general Gun-Kata reflexes, but he did not hit, though he was often very close to it.
Arthur and Samantha were on their way to the line of bookshelf left to Arthur, who reached it first. Then something very strange happened, when both of them had to reload in the same moment. A short pause of shooting reined the fight, while both quickly reloaded their guns. But suddenly Thomas Lorenzo went around the corner in Arthur’s back and Anthony Foster appeared, in the same horrible second for Arthur, right behind Samantha to back up her. From both directions bullets went on their ways to find a piece of Arthur’s body, which was trapped from both sides and with his back against a high wooden book shelf.
Arthur McGee did the first thing coming to his mind. Swiftly he put his guns into their holsters and grabbed some books to both of his sides and threw them out of their line, into the air to lower the chances of being hit by a projectile. And this provisory shelter for a second really worked, some bullets were conducted into slightly different angles and some had lost much speed by piercing through the bigger and therefore harder books, so they were able to hurt Arthur a bit by hitting his skin only, but not to get into it. These stitches were not recognized by Arthur’s concentrated, adrenaline-driven mind. There was no emotion in this rush, only a clear strategy quickly forming itself inside of him to assure his escape from this deathly trap.
Pieces of books and a lot of dust was flying through the air around Arthur, swirling of passing bullets and the hard cracking of book covers accompanied the world around this man in that very moment.
And he had a plan to get out of it. Quickly Arthur turned around and started to climb up the bookshelf, board by board, throwing as many books out of the place, they haven’t left for many years to fulfill the only purpose left for them, to make Arthur’s life last some seconds longer, as he was able to on his way upwards.
Obviously his strategy succeeded, because he was not hit until he had reached the top of the bookshelf. With all power his muscles were able to provide, he pulled himself onto the top. He rolled over and took a deep breath laying there in uncertain safety. But his hideout was not safe anymore, when the shooting suddenly stopped and the bookshelf began to move in a regular rhythm, constantly increasing its frequency and force.
Arthur leaned over the rim to his right and saw how Anthony and Thomas were pushing against the bookshelf in order to let it fall into the opposite direction. Arthur wanted to stop them, taking his guns again, but Samantha covered her fellow Agents by firing at Arthur’s head glimpsing over the edge. The swinging became more and more intense and finally the shelf leaned to Arthur’s left side far enough, so it was not able to swing back and had the option of surrendering to gravity only.
Arthur got onto his feet, when the shelf leaned over to fall. He stood in a lowered position on the top board, waiting for the right moment to jump over to the next bookshelf. And this moment came, so Arthur jumped into the air and onto the next bookshelf top, while the falling colossus crashed into his neighbor, forcing this to move as well. Arthur landed on the other bookshelf top and tried to balance on the falling massive object with his hand wrapped around the edge of it. The right moment came, when Arthur had to jump onto the next massive monster of wood, which failed to resist the domino-effect as well as his successors. But Arthur McGee was not buried between these huge monsters attacking each other by forcing them to the ground. In every part he found the right point to jump further, to ride on these trembling cases of wood, unto the end of the Hall of Wisdom, because finally the chain reaction had reached the last bookshelf, standing on the steel-concrete of the final wall. Arthur jumped off the final domino-stone and smashed against the cold hard grey wall behind the bookshelf. There he had serious problems to keep his balance, because there was no space in front of him and the hard crash against the immovable barrier added to the high speed he already brought along with him resulted in a forced movement backward toward the abyss, where the other bookshelf broke into halves and hit the floor. But while it did, the force of the crash against the last bookshelf forced this one to break at the hit spot as well. And Arthur fell with the top piece, he was standing on into the vociferous chaos behind his body. The landing was not as pleasant as he might have hoped. It was much worse.

Every bone and muscle hurt inside Arthur’s body, when he awakened from his short unconsciousness, caused by the hard crash on the wooden debris on the ground. He sat back into an upright position and looked around. He had to hold his forehead, because it terribly hurt. Arthur must have hit something with it. Next to him was a huge wooden spike reaching into the air. This thing broken out of the back of a fallen bookshelf might have wounded him deadly if he would have hit it. But he did not. He was still alive. And to avoid a change of this condition he had to move.
Arthur searched for his guns, which were buried under some books. Careless as he never might have been under normal circumstances he threw books and pieces of wood around, frantically searching for his guns.
Arthur found them, checked them quickly. They were not damaged.
He took a deep breath, pushed the pain, which slowly decreased, out of his mind. Then he started to run. First he ran along the wall at the back-end of the library. Spontaneously Arthur turned into another direction and back into the huge hall.
He quickly changed directions and ran as fast as he could through the corridors formed by these bookshelves standing around everywhere. The lines were strictly ordered, except the aisle caused by the falling line of bookshelves, but Arthur changed directions like a rabbit being hunted makes feints.
Suddenly he saw Samantha standing in a corridor to his right. She was able to turn her head around, when she recognized him in some distance, when Arthur already had left the corridor she was in. She followed him. Arthur changed his direction and used the bookshelf-corridors as a hideout by constant and quick moving to change his position, so his enemies would soon loose his track.
On his way he saw Thomas Lorenzo looking around a corner, but into another direction, so he was able to see Arthur just, when he had moved into another corridor. Obviously Agent Lorenzo was very surprised to see someone running around the corridors instead of sneaking, being as invisible as he could. But Arthur was not playing hide and seek, he was running to confuse his enemies.
Suddenly he turned into a corridor, which was going parallel to the bookshelves standing in line, where Agent Foster was looking for him. But Arthur did not fight, when Foster started to shoot at him. He just turned around and fled into one of the bigger corridors crossing the lines of bookshelves. Anthony Foster followed him into a crossing corridor, which was the closest to him. Both men were running as fast as their feet allowed them parallel to each other. Anthony Foster shot at Arthur at every gap allowing him to do so. Arthur did not react and did not change his direction. Anthony was slightly faster, so he was able to shoot at Arthur shortly, before he crossed the shelf-line.
Suddenly Arthur stopped running in one of these lines, using the massive wooden shelf as a shelter. Anthony stopped as well, when he recognized that Arthur did not appear on the other side. He rapidly turned into the opposite direction, suggesting that Arthur might have turned around. But he did not, he waited until Foster had gone into the direction both have been coming from. He guessed the time this one would need and then he ran forward as he has done before his short break. Then he changed into another corridor.
Anthony Foster had been tricked and lost the trace of Agent McGee.

He was slowing down unwillingly; but his body was not able to hold the speed he had before anymore. He nearly had reached the entrance of the library, when suddenly Thomas Lorenzo turned around the corner. Both men saw each other just too late to avoid the crash. Both surprised men were falling to the ground at the same time. After they came over the first shock they started shooting at each other, while they were still sitting on the ground. Quickly they stood up again and they were into a close combat again. Arthur wanted to reach the entrance of the library to escape into the much wider labyrinth of Bunker TX-1, but Agent Thomas was in his way and he was able to push Arthur backwards, step by step. Thomas’s injury on his leg was not recognizable in his fighting style, which was as skillfully as it always has been.
Soon they had reached the little plaza right under the big glass dome on the roof. There some space without books has been left by the architects. There was a big mosaic on the ground only, showing the symbol of TX-1, creatively decorated.
Arthur had to find a way to kill or escape Thomas Lorenzo as soon as possible, because the other Agents must have already heard the battle noise caused by their four guns. There would not be much time go by until they would arrive and join the fight.
Agent McGee had to set everything on one card. He rushed forward as closely as possible to Thomas, who dodged the shots. Arthur did as he had done it in his battle against Valarie Archer. He suddenly threw away his right-hand gun, when it was close to the enemies arm and grabbed it, pushed that hand upwards, so he was out of the line of fire. With his other hand he pointed at Thomas head, which suddenly swung backwards, so Arthur’s shot from a lower angle missed him.
Thomas Lorenzo pulled his free hand towards his enemy, but this one was quick enough to push this hand upwards as well. Doing so Arthur had exposed the enemy’s body and he used it. His knee hit Agent Lorenzo’s stomach hardly. The pain caused him to shoot automatically and this reflex caused the bullets to go out of the upwards pointing guns to fly directly to the ceiling, where they smashed against the glass of the dome above. Some cracks were visible.
Thomas bit into Arthur’s hand, so it had to let go of him. Arthur retreaded some steps. Lorenzo just stood there and breathed heavily. The hurting stomach seemed to be unimportant to him. A maniac smile was on his face.
“You like this place, right? I’ve got an idea, you surely won’t like…”
While saying he pointed at the glass dome and started shooting at the cracks in the glass dome.
Then Arthur became furious. He shot at Lorenzo, who dodged them by letting his body fall backwards to the ground, rolling to the side and then take some steps to the side.
And then the cracks on the glass became bigger and longer until a small part broke out of it. Tones of sand were gushing downwards over Arthur and the small square below.

[lian]

Memories of Father comments:

Hi Jay,

here is the feedback on MoF that you requested. Sorry, it took me a while. But then, it is a long story.

You have here a creative, very vivid, well-developed storyline. Great job!

I really had not thought of father's origin as a one-antihero-against-the-world story, so I really enjoyed reading that. (My own idea of how Libria came to be is very different. Maybe one of the characters in Sentience who appears later in the story will mention it briefly.)

Somehow, your writing style seems "visual" as if you know exactly what kind of "look" you want. The scenes certainly would work well in a storyboard for a movie. For example, you often use nature (weather etc.) and setting to convey the emotional atmosphere of a scene. There are other aspects that remind me of a storyboard. One is the emphasis on fighting scenes and "observable" action. Another is that you often directly tell your readers what you want them to know about a character or the atmosphere of a scene instead of taking the more indirect route of having your readers figure it out through dialogue or less explicit description. Also, your characters rarely have long inner monologues which is again something that is difficult to convey in a movie.

You suceeded well in incorporating many fighting scenes in your story. Personally, I find action scenes very hard to write. One somehow has to describe what is happening. I.e. "X fired a shot but Y dodged the bullet." But such descriptive writing can be dull, except if used very sparingly. Descriptions of complex fighting moves can sound awkward and read like gymnastics instructions. Maybe this is because in writing we relate to what is happening through atmosphere, point of view, feelings and thoughts of characters. To pull off stunning Gun Kata action effects, movies are probably just the more suitable medium. ;-) Great idea to use a stream of consciousness technique here.

You are really good in choreographing creative, original fighting scenes. I would love to see the bunker fight in a movie!
However, I have to admit that I noticed myself starting to skip the fighting scenes and just reading the end result. After more than two sentences of "whose gun points where" I could no longer "see" the story in my head and switched mentally out of it. However, I suspect this is just a personal peculiarity of mine and most readers will enjoy your scenes.

I found it very convincing that Arthur had a rather dysfunctional childhood. He almost never experiences positive emotions like trust, affection, joy, love. He survives by his fighting skill which necessitates a certain level of emotional control. So emotions always have this negative, weak connotation for him. At the same time, he experiences his own emotions as threatening and overwhelming. He almost seems afraid of that part of himself. Hence, he never achieves emotional maturity. This believably explains why the book makes such an impression on him and why he does not recognize it as nonsense. Although it leaves your readers wondering why and under which circumstances this book was written.

I really like that although Arthur is tough, he is not a brainless fighting machine. He asks himself quintessential human questions regarding the purpose and meaning of his existence. That is something most readers will be able to relate to in this otherwise rather unapproachable character.

The scene at the beginning between Arthur, Juan and Martin in the rover somehow made me think of the tank scenes in "Aliens".

You sometimes translate German idioms literally into English. This rarely results in the same meaning. For example: "they looked at him like cars". Would be interesting to hear what the non-German-speaking board members think this means?

The content of your writing is very good and creative and you know what you want to say. I would encourage you to work a bit on the form (word usage, spelling, grammar, punctuation etc.). It would be a shame to disrupt the atmosphere of the story for the reader through mere linguistic errors. As everyone, you tend to make the same kinds of errors repeatedly, such as incorrect word usage, tense or conjugation. So even if you have a native speaker correct just one chapter in detail, you will really learn a lot from it. Then you can apply this to revise the other chapters and any future chapters will be of higher linguistic quality right from the start.



Since MistressofLibria told me she found it very helpful: Here is a stream of consciousness of the things I asked myself while reading. (By the way: I would take everything I write with a pinch of salt. Don't worry too much about it and take from it only what is useful for you.)

Why do they need to move the Gun Kata orphans about so much? Why even bother to put them in foster families? Why not just have them at one secret facility and train them there? How do they manage to finish their training when they are only 15? How come that all these dispersed Gun Kata orphans later meet in Bunker TK-13? And why use orphans at all? Why not just train grown-up, dedicated agents in Gun-Kata?

Why not kill Juan in the first place or just leave him there? Why bother to bring him to TX-13 against explicit orders? Why is Arthur so friendly to Juan?
Why would Arthur hesitate to kill capitulated enemies when he has no problem killing people who are not his equal in combat skills? And why offer Juan your hand in greeting when he is a prisoner of war? Also, why does Arthur suddenly go from not wanting to teach Juan to totally accepting him and defending him in front of Smith? Why does Juan have this instant, childlike admiration for Arthur? Where is his anger at having lost his comrades?

How exactly does Arthur know that Juan's bunker was destroyed? I did not really understand that paragraph.

It is highly unlikely that Arthur's breadcrumbs would attract large numbers of birds from a wide distance. To a certain extent, what you have in mind would work for vultures or gulls. Or maybe for feral pigeons in broad daylight over a very limited distance. Also, birds are quite capable of recognizing human silhouettes, even when they are not moving. However, I still think the visual idea for the scene is good and very original and most people probably will not notice. How does Juan determine if the birds are contaminated? Contaminated with what?

How can bunker TK-13 exist at the site of a recent nuclear detonation?

I was not entirely convinced by Commander Smith's psychological motivations. I think it would be more believable if he just wanted survival and a growth of power for his own "bunker-nation" i.e. himself. Why bother to win a war when you don't know what you are fighting for? And why even wanting to end it when you are doing just fine as military commander?

I think it is very good that Arthur is not the best agent in TX-13. This avoids the common and boring cliche of the invincible male lead. (Although Preston pulls this one off rather well... )

Is there really a need in the story for the Gun-Kata monastery? Also, it seems there is little bit of a clash of ideas here. On the one hand Gun-Kata is presented as being derived from a military training project, on the other hand there is suddenly a more mythical "Jedi order" structure with a master etc.

Why does Arthur care about his master? If they took him as an orphan to a military training institution, then it seems more likely that he would hate him for forcing that life on him? The amount of love between master and students seems not very fitting for a secret military training operation.
The little speech of the master before his death is pretty good, especially when he realizes that he used fighting skill as a crutch to boost his self-esteem.
But then Arthur's decision to strive for peace comes very sudden and without much preparation. We never see him doubt the war much before that.

Is it really necessary for the story to have the disappearance/death of Arthur's parents be so mysterious?

You may want to think a bit about the point of view that you want the story to be in. For example, people may be initially confused that Martin is talking about Arthur's past to Juan but the scene is not written in Martin's voice. (Again- just like you would do it in a movie, with a flashback. ;-))

It seems a bit far-fetched that Arthur would be able to convince the secret service to let Martin, an untrained civilian, be his driver. I also thought the Gun-kata / driver combo developed only after the war had been going on some time and machines / bomb were no longer the main technique of warfare?

When you describe female side characters, the only thing you often mention is whether they are attractive or not. Most women do not consider their attractiveness to others to be their most important characteristic. Your female readers could well be put off by this.

What is the purpose of the scene between Juan and Basque?
Why would Arthur want to take Juan with him on the mission? Why not just leave him at TX-13 and resume the training when he is back?

What is the purpose of the mine field scene?

Why does Arthur want to explore the Hall of Wisdom immediately after Juan draws his attention to it?
It is surprising that Arthur directly jumps to the decision to use the library to find out the reason for war. It is never mentioned before that he has an inclination towards books and learning. As a fighter, he has plenty of experience of his own with wars, so it is not immediately obvious why he would search for an answer in books.

It seems somewhat odd that the two agents get all exited like children about a library and immediately forget their orders and start reading.

I liked the passage where Arthur reflects on the consequences of his decision to disobey the commander.

Juan disappears rather quickly after he played such a prominent role in the first chapters.

Why is the commander not interested in discovering who conquered bunker TX-1 and killed the agents? Why is this is not further explored in the story and why is Arthur himself not interested in finding out who did it?

You sometimes switch between calling your characters by their first name and then calling them Mr. XY. Is there a reason for this?

The list of wars that Arthur reads about sounds very "Euro-centric". On the other hand, that might accurately reflect the books that are available to him in a US library.

Arthur realises in the library that if good ideas are forced upon people and misused in a centralized power structure, they become harmful and evil - which, as the reader knows, is exactly what he himself will do later on. (And what is also what he suddenly agrees with only moments later when he reads Equilibrium.) I like the irony.

It is odd that Arthur never connects being a pacifist and ending wars with simply stopping to engage in violence himself? When he thinks about his peaceful Utopia, he immediately thinks that he will have to fight for it. And he never stops to think that other people have a free will and may not want to be part of his plans. But maybe this is believable since violence was presented to him as a normal way to resolve conflict and solve problems from his earliest childhood. So one of his character flaws seems to be that while he senses there is something wrong with war, he can never really sees beyond his "fighter mentality".

It seems just a tiny bit far-fetched that Arthur finds a book that directly corresponds to his own desire to end war. But I guess that most readers would be willing to overlook that for the sake of the plot.
What I find more improbable is the convenient, off-hand introduction of Prozium as something "a good friend invented".

During the description of Arthur's fight with the woman and Eggert it seems slightly idiosyncratic that in the middle of all the fast-paced action, the woman has time to pull out a scarf and wrap it around her bleeding hand.

Why do Arthur and Benett instantly trust each other? Why do two people who meet in a post-war hell in a destroyed bunker directly proceed to drink tea and discuss philosophy? Why do Benetts men follow him?
Why does Arthur just walk out on Benett after the talk with Martin? Also, why does he waste half an hour with thinking, when he knows the agents will arrive in two hours? Why are Benett and his men suddenly willing to die for someone they just met and even attacked at first?

What is the purpose in the plot of the long description of Valerie Archer fighting Benett's soldiers?

The gun skating of Lorenzo reminds me of the scene in "The Two Towers" where Legolas at Helm's Deep is skating on a shield. Such improbable "visual" trickery may sometimes work in a movie (although probably in a very "brainless entertainment" sort of way ;D), but I find it difficult in a written story.

How would Arthur be able to climb on a bookshelf fast enough to avoid bullets?
Why do Lorenzo and Anthony try to topple the bookshelf? It seems contrary to their usual fighting style. Why not just climb up themselves?
Why do the other agents not simply follow the falling bookshelves and shoot Arthur at the last one?

[clericjay]

Thank you very much for this VERY detailed opinion. I didn't expect that you would make yourself so much work for me. But I'm very thankful for it and there are definetely some points I have overlooked.
By the way...Are you a literature critic or professional author or something like this? Your tips convey this impression, because you're looking so close to everything.

About the "visual" style: I don't know if I've mentioned it here earlier, but I intend to become a movie director later and many of the creative things I'm doing shall be an excercise and preparation for later. And of course it's much fun. ;D
But I'm writing the story more in the way that I describe the image I see in front of my inner eye. It's like having a film inside your head and you just write down, what happens.
Maybe this method isn't very matching for writing books, but this way I can transport my story much better, then I ever could in a script, which limits me much.
In my mind "novel writing" is literarely freedom, because you have unlimited space for everything you want to include in a story.

Another thing is that I have a storyline, which gives me a direction, but nearly every scene is written more spontaneously. Therefor story gaps or "bricks" must appear, though I'll try to fix them in the later story. Some of your questions would have been answered later anyway, but I'm thankful for some others, which probably would have been forgotten.
Oh, and the story develops itself more and more. At the beginning I did not plan it to become that big, but then I had more and more ideas, so it will go on for some time...also because it's hard for me to find time to write, while planning a new filmproject and having my apprenticeship and all these dayly things I have to do at home... But I'll make it.

So thank you very much for this great help.
I'll use it and work on "caulking the storybricks" as well as bringing it forward. ;D

_{PS: About the women subject... Read what's happening during the next chapters, when they'll be online...}

[lian]

You are welcome, Jay. Glad to hear that the feedback is useful to you and encouraged further creative endeavours.

By the way...Are you a literature critic or professional author or something like this? Your tips convey this impression, because you're looking so close to everything.

No, not at all. Just an unhealthy tendency to nitpick.

I intend to become a movie director later

Excellent! Keep going!

But I'm writing the story more in the way that I describe the image I see in front of my inner eye. It's like having a film inside your head and you just write down, what happens.

Really interesting to hear how it works for other people. I usually do not "see" but "feel" my scenes when writing. _{Oops, did I say "feel"?}

Maybe this method isn't very matching for writing books,

I would not know that. And:who cares? That method seems to work very well for your intended purpose and gives your writing a distinctive style.

Therefor story gaps or "bricks" must appear, though I'll try to fix them in the later story. Some of your questions would have been answered later anyway, but I'm thankful for some others, which probably would have been forgotten.

It was not my intention to suggest that all these questions need answering. There are very good reasons for not revealing everything to your readers.

Oh, and the story develops itself more and more. At the beginning I did not plan it to become that big, but then I had more and more ideas,

I think this is a rather common phenomenon. To quote the venerable J.R.R. Tolkien: "This tale grew in the telling..."

_{PS: About the women subject... Read what's happening during the next chapters, when they'll be online...}

I am intrigued. Looking forward to read what you come up with.

[clericjay]

Today is the 2nd aniversary of Memories of Father!

Yes, I'm writing on this story for two years already and much happened during this time, but I always found some time to work on it.
I'm still having much fun with it and my English improved extremely during these two years. ;D

And I want to thank all of you for reading this (pretty long) fan fiction, because an artist without audience is nothing, and also for encouraging and supporting me. Thank you very much!!! ;D ;D ;D

I'll go on with it!