"In the first years of the 21st century... a third world war broke out." "Those of us who survived knew mankind could never survive... a fourth." "That our own volatile natures could simply no longer be risked." "So we have created a new arm of the law... the Grammaton Cleric, whose sole task it is to seek out and eradicate the true source of man's inhumanity to man," "his ability to feel." "Police!" "You know what to do." "Get down!" "Cleric." "Lights out." "Maybe more than a dozen inside." "When the door's down, blow the bulbs." "Go." " This is it." " Where?" "There." "It's real." "Burn it." "Why didn't you just leave it for the Evidentiary Team to log?" "They miss things sometimes." "I thought I'd take it down myself, get it done properly." "How long, Preston, until all this is gone?" "Until we've burned every last bit of it?" "Resources are tight." "We'll get it all eventually." "Libria, I congratulate you." "At last, peace reigns in the heart of man." "At last, war is but a word whose meaning fades from our understanding." "At last... we... are... home." "Librians, there is a disease in the heart of man." "Its symptom is hate." "Its symptom is anger." "Its symptom is rage." "Its symptom is war." "The disease is human emotion." "But Libria, I congratulate you." "For there is a cure for this disease." "At the cost of the dizzying highs of human emotion, we have suppressed its abysmal lows." "And you, as a society, have embraced this cure." "Prozium." "Now we are at peace with ourselves and humankind is one." "War has gone." "Hate, a memory." "We are our own conscience now and it is this conscience that guides us to rate EC-10 for emotional content all those things that might tempt us to feel again and destroy them!" "Librians, you have won!" "Against all odds and your own natures, you have survived." "Every time we come from the Nethers to the city, it reminds me of why we do what we do." "It does?" "I beg your pardon?" "It does." "The following items have been rated EC-10 Condemned." "Seven works of two-dimensional illustrated material, seven discs of musical content, twenty interactive strategy computer programs." "Thank you for coming, Cleric." "I assume you know who I am." "Yes, sir, of course." "You are Vice-Council Dupont, of the Third Counciliary of the Tetragrammaton." "Father's voice." "I am told that you were very nearly a prodigal student, knowing almost instantly if someone is feeling." "I have a good record, sir." "Why do you imagine that is, Cleric?" "I'm not sure, Vice-Council." "Somehow..." "I'm able, on some level, to sense how an offender thinks, to put myself in their position." "If you had ceased your interval." "If you were a sense offender." "I suppose you could say that, sir." " You're a family man, Cleric?" " Yes, sir." "A boy and a girl." "The boy's in the Monastery on path to becoming a cleric." "Good." "And the mother?" "My spouse was incinerated for sense offence four years ago." " By yourself?" " No, sir." "By another." "How did you feel about that?" "I'm sorry, I don't fully understand, sir." "How did you feel?" "I didn't feel anything." "Really?" "How is it that you came to miss it?" "I..." "I've asked myself that same question, sir." "I don't know." "A nearly unforgivable lapse, Cleric." "I trust you'll be more vigilant in the future." "Yes, sir." "Every time we come from the Nethers to the city, it reminds me of why we do what we do." "It does?" "Every time we come from the Nethers to the city, it reminds me of why we do what we do." "It does?" "It does." "Prosecutorial evidence for AR 136890." "I need it." "It was late this afternoon." "May not have showed up in the records yet." "Nothing logged and nothing pending under that entry." "It was an item brought in by Grammaton Erroll Partridge." "Check again." "Cleric Partridge has not entered anything in for weeks." "You're mistaken." "It was a book of some kind." "Cleric." "There's nothing." "Thank you." "He's been into the Nether every night for two weeks." "We assumed it was enforcement-related." "You always knew." ""But I, being poor, have only my dreams."" ""I've spread my dreams under your feet."" ""Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams."" "I assume you dream, Preston." "I'll do what I can to see they go easy on you." "We both know they never go easy." " Then I'm sorry." " No, you're not." "You don't even know the meaning." "It's just a vestigial word for a feeling you've never felt." "Don't you see, Preston?" "It's gone." "Everything that makes us what we are, traded away." "There's no war." "No murder." " What is it you think we do?" " No." "You've been with me." "You've seen how it can be, the jealousy, the rage." "A heavy cost." "I pay it gladly." "Don't." "You and your partner were close?" "I hope you're as pleased to be assigned me as I am the placement." "I was told this would be a career-making advancement." "I'm like you, Cleric." "Intuitive." "Sometimes I know what a person's feeling before they know it." "Cleric." "I could only hope one day to be as... uncompromising as you." "Good night." "The later 20th century saw the fortuitous and simultaneous rise of two synergistic political and psychological sciences." "The first, the revolutionary precept of the hate crime." " John." " Yes." "I saw Bobbie Taylor crying today." "He didn't know, but I saw." "Do you think I should report him?" "Unquestionably." "..the single inescapable fact that mankind united with infinitely greater purpose in pursuit of war than he ever did in pursuit of peace." ""But I, being poor, have only my dreams."" ""I've spread my dreams under your feet."" ""Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams."" "Viviana Preston, don't move!" "Don't move!" "Comply!" "Comply!" " Stop where you are!" " Get down!" "Get down!" "Don't shoot." "This is a lawful entry." "We have a warrant for your wife's arrest for sense offence." "Hey!" "Get her!" "Get her off him now!" "Remember me." "Awaken to triumph again in the face of yet another day." "Another step..." "What are you doing?" "I said, what are you doing?" "I accidentally dropped my morning interval." "I took it out before I brushed my teeth." "I never take it out before I brush my teeth." "Then you'll go by Equilibrium, log the loss and get a replacement." "Yes." "Of course." "Your new partner called." "He'll pick you up at ten for the AR." "I hope you don't mind." "I took the liberty of telling him you would be at Equilibrium replacing your dose." "No, of course not." "That was the right thing to do." "Stop that." "Due to terrorist activity, this site is temporarily closed." "Proceed to the Equilibrium Centre in Sector 8-A." "Due to terrorist activity, this site is temporarily closed..." "More than punctual, Cleric." "Hop in." "How are the lines?" "I'm surprised you could get your interval and get out so quickly." "No, they're fine today." "Maybe I'll drop by later and get my interval adjusted." "You expecting resistance?" "That's something you'll find about me." "I'm a wary person." "Cautious by nature." "Always expecting the worst." " You cannot do this." " Tetragrammaton." "There's nothing we can't do." "How long have you been off the dose?" "Look at you." "Look at you!" "Look at you." "The mirror's frame's illegal." "Destroy it." "You're gonna burn it, aren't you?" "Eventually." "However, you couldn't have accumulated this by yourself." "It'll all be sorted and examined." "We'll discover who your confederates are." "We need her." " What's your name?" " O'Brien." "Mary." "Well, Mary, you can either wait and tell the Technicians of the Palace of Justice or you can tell me now." "Who are your friends?" "I'm wondering if you have any idea at all what that word means - friend." "There's nothing you don't feel?" "How about guilt?" "Let me ask you something." "Why are you alive?" "I'm alive..." "I live... to safeguard the continuity of this great society, to serve Libria." "It's circular." "You exist to continue your existence." "What's the point?" "What's the point of your existence?" "To feel." "Because you've never done it, you can never know it." "But it's as vital as breath." "And without it, without love, without anger, without sorrow, breath is just a clock... ticking." "Then I have no choice but to remand you to the Palace of Justice for processing." "Processing." "You mean execution, don't you?" "Processing." "The gun katas." "Through analysis of recorded gunfights, the Cleric has determined that the distribution of antagonists in any gun battle is a statistically predictable element." "The gun kata treats the gun as a total weapon, each new position representing a maximum kill zone, inflicting maximum damage on the maximum number of opponents, while keeping the defender clear of statistically traditional trajectories of return fire." "By the rote mastery of this art, your firing efficiency will rise by no less than 120%." "The difference of a 63% increased lethal proficiency makes the master of the gun katas an adversary not to be taken lightly." "Without love, breath is just a clock... ticking." "Prozium - the great nepenthe." "Opiate of our masses, glue of our great society." "Salve and salvation, it has delivered us from pathos, from sorrow, the deepest chasms of melancholy and hate." "With it we anaesthetise grief, annihilate jealousy, obliterate rage." "Those sister impulses toward joy, love and elation are anaesthetised in stride, except as fair sacrifice." "For we embrace Prozium in its unifying fullness and all that it has done to make us great." " Good morning, Cleric." " Good morning." "..intrinsically humans as creatures of the earth were drawn inherently always back to one thing: war." "And thus we seek to correct not the symptom, but the disease itself." "We have sought to shrug off individuality, replacing it with conformity." "Replacing it with sameness, with unity, allowing each man, woman and child in this great society to lead identical lives." "The concept of identical viable construction allows each of us to head confidently into each moment..." "What are you doing?" "I'm rearranging my desk." "You didn't like the way it was before?" "I had no feelings about it." "I'm merely attempting to optimise." "Sense offenders holed up in the Nether." "We estimate 50 men, sir." "Intelligence tells us they're all fully armed." "This is the group that bombed the Prozium factories." " You clean, we'll sweep." " Yes, sir." "Go, go, go, go!" "Go!" "Cover me." "I'm going in." "Nice grab, Cleric." "Ludwig van Beethoven." "Cleric, why didn't you leave that for the Evidentiary Team to collect and log?" "They miss things sometimes." "I'm gonna take it in myself, make sure it gets done properly." "You know, Preston, if we keep burning all this contraband, eventually there won't be anything left to burn." "What'll there be for men like us?" "Sir!" "We got something out back." "They were defended by women and children." "We put them down." "This isn't the first time we've seen this." "Why do they keep these animals?" "Do they..." "Do they eat 'em?" " What do you want me to do?" " Exterminate them, of course." " All right, let's do it." " No." "What's wrong, Cleric?" "Nothing." "Hey!" "Grab it." "Grab it!" "Sir, toss it back in." "I'll finish it off." " Give it to me, sir." " Give it to him." "He'll finish it." "Wait!" "It seems to me that... at least some of these animals ought to be tested for disease." "If there's an epidemic in the Nethers, it's best we know." "I don't quite follow your logic, Cleric." "They were Resistance." "They could have led us to the Underground." "But instead of interrogation, they were slaughtered." "But given the circumstances, the Father has decreed that there will be no more process for sense offenders." "They are to be shot on sight or incinerated without trial." "It's counter to law." "You're a member of the Council..." "It is not the will of the Council." "It is the will of Father and he is law." "Sir... without the logic of process, is it not just mayhem?" "What we have worked so hard to eradicate?" "You must understand, Preston, that while you and even I may not always agree with it, it is not the message that is important." "It is our obedience to it." "Father's will." "Call it faith." "You have it, I assume." "Yes." "I have it." "Good." "Confiscated evidence X-23-T-45." "Mary O'Brien." "Cleric John Preston passing into the Nether." "Enforcement-related." "Thank you, sir." "I don't know what else to do with you." "Go on." "Go on." "Go!" "Fine." "But you're going back in the trunk." "OK." "Here." "Step away from the vehicle." "Step away from the vehicle." "This is your last warning." "Step away from the vehicle." "Identification." "Cleric." "I'm here on official..." " Identification!" " It's in my coat." " Where's the coat?" "Where is it?" " I don't have it." "Unidentified individuals are subject to destruction." "You're making a mistake." "I'm a Grammaton Cleric First Class." " We'll search your vehicle." " There's nothing in it." "Search it." " Clear, sir." " Keys to the trunk." "I'm trying to tell you I have a predawn combustion to witness..." "This is a waste of my time." "My name is John Preston." "I'm the highest-ranking cleric..." "Wait!" "Stand off." "I'm sorry." "I didn't recognise you, sir." "That's OK." "Just doing your job." "Thank you." "We'll escort you back to the gate." " Thanks." "Animals." "The Nether's full of 'em." "Sounds like it came from your trunk." "Impossible." "Just give me my keys." "I'll be on my way." "Captain, I'm asking you one last time." "Don't do this." " Down on your knees!" " Down on your knees!" "Shoot him!" "Fuck!" "What?" "Shit!" "Shoot him, shoot him, shoot him!" "Always practising, Cleric." "I guess that's why you're the best." "Maybe I'm just better." "Something on your mind?" " Why do you ask?" " The intuitive arts." "It's my job to know what you're thinking." "So, then, what am I thinking?" "About the murders in the Nether last night." "And if they know who did it." "Am I close?" "So tell me, do they know?" "There are theories." "I have one of two of my own, but at the moment they're premature." "I'm glad it happened." " Why?" " Now Father and the Council have to create an acceleration in the crackdown on offenders." "Whoever did it, all they accomplished was a quicker end to the Resistance." "It's gonna be a massacre, Cleric." "I came to tell you there's a raid in the Nether." "Sector 7." "So get ready." "That door behind you." "Go." "Go, damn you!" "Get out of here." "If you don't, you're dead." " He'll shoot us in the back." " I'd shoot you in the face." "Go." "Damn you!" "Follow me." "Now!" "Let's go." "Prisoners and apprehendees are to be put down." "Look out!" "What's happening?" "We heard gunshots." " Go!" " What are you doing?" "They're Resistance fighters." "Cleric!" "He's a sense offender!" "What is this?" " What are you doing?" " Nicely done, Cleric." "You drive them into the trap." "I close it." "The very definition of teamwork." "Don't you think?" "Why don't you take the honours of the execution, Cleric?" "These people should be taken for clinical interrogation." "Father's rulings are quite clear." "Offenders are to be shot on sight." "They have valuable information." "They can be put to better use..." "Cleric." "If your weapon's low, please use mine." "No." "I think, in the end, it'll be better if you have it." " Captain." " Yes, sir." "Firing positions!" "Ready!" "Aim!" "Fire!" " Sir." " Yes, Cleric." "You asked me to be an instrument against the Resistance." "I'm ready." "Today." "I wish to show my faith." "I wish with your permission to locate the Underground once and for all." "To destroy it." " To destroy it." " Good." "Do it." "I'm so... so very sorry." "These are the possessions he had on him at the time of death." "The legal ones will be burned with him." "Good." "Erroll Partridge." "It's supposed to mean something?" "He was a Grammaton Cleric First Class." "You knew him." "News bulletin." "I'm a sense offender." "I don't hang round much with the Cleric." "I wanna know about him." "Well, I suggest you go ask him, but I understand that he's dead." "Killed by your friends at the Tetragrammaton." "Not by my friends." "By me." "You were lovers." "And thus it is in the writing of the Father that we find our greatest..." "Good afternoon, sir." "What will it be for you?" "The latest copy of The Insensate?" "Revised edition of the Manifesto?" "Erroll Partridge." "What do you know about him?" " I beg your pardon?" " Everyone out now." "I'm gonna ask you one more time." "Erroll Partridge." "What do you know about him?" "I'm sure this must be some mistake." " You're an offender." " I'm not." "No?" "Then why are you so scared of me?" "You will tell me everything you know about Erroll Partridge, or I will have you taken to the Hall of Destruction for summary combustion." " I really don't know..." " Speak!" "He'd come in here with a fella named Jurgen." " Why?" " That's all I know, I swear." "Interesting." "We've been watching you, Preston." "You're Jurgen." "You're feeling." "Do you know why you came?" "Welcome to the Underground." "Polygraph." "It detects fluctuations of human emotion." "We have to be sure." "Mary." "You're carrying in your pocket a ribbon sprayed with her scent." "You breathe it in sometimes when you think there's no one to see." "But what you feel... could only be satisfied by folding yourself into her." "She's scheduled for combustion." "Tomorrow." "I know." "You know, I was like you." "But the first thing you learn about emotion is that it has its price." "A complete paradox." "But without restraint, without control, emotion is chaos." " How is that..." " The difference is that when we want to feel, we can." "It's just that... some of us... have to forego that luxury so that the rest can have it." "Some very few of us have to force ourselves not to feel." "Like me." "Like you." "What can I do?" "You can kill Father." "Cleric John Preston, you are to come with us immediately." " Cleric Preston." " Sir." "I've heard the most disturbing rumour." " Rumour, sir?" " Yes." "A rumour maintaining that one of us, one of the Cleric, has secretly taken it upon himself to cease his dose." "That one of our elite number is actually feeling." "Feeling, sir?" "Are you playing with me, Cleric?" "No, sir." "This person, I'm told, is actually attempting to contact the Resistance." "Now, tell me, if you would be so kind, how exactly have you been making use of your time of late?" "Attempting to contact the Resistance, sir." "Attempting?" "How is it that you intend to expose this traitor if all you do is attempt?" "You're absolutely 100% right, sir." "Of course I am." "The Cleric is the final line of defence." "If the Resistance compromises it, we are doomed." "Father is doomed." "I will redouble my effort, sir, to locate the Resistance, to find this traitor and bring them all to the Council's fair justice." "Do it." "What are you doing?" "What are you doing?" "I, uh..." "I was checking to make sure you've been... taking your interval." "And are you satisfied?" "Yes, I am." "Good night, then." "I don't understand." "My execution's set." "Why are you here?" "Aren't you going to dose?" "My God." "What..." "What'll you do?" "I don't know." " Fifty sweepers, maybe more." " What about an audience?" "Father's never given a single audience since the upheaval." "They've trained you to fight these kind of odds." "Even if I could..." "Even if I could make it through, what guarantee is there it would accomplish anything, anything would be different?" "Our network is larger than you could imagine." "The instant word comes that Father is dead, bombs will be set off at the Prozium clinics and factories." "If we can succeed in disrupting the supply for even one day, one day, our cause will be won by human nature itself." "What about war?" "There would be cruelties that are gone." "Replaced by the Tetragrammaton?" "Will you do it?" "Yes." "Can you?" "I don't know." "Don't..." "Seeing her one last time will only make it harder to do what you have to do." "File footage." "Viviana Preston." "Sentence and incineration." " Auditory." " Viviana Preston, for ceasing your interval, for the crime of feeling, you will suffer annihilation in the city furnaces." "You will be taken there immediately and you will burn." "Has the incineration gone through?" "It's going through now." "Hey!" "Machine turbines priming." "Machine turbines priming." " I need to speak to this woman." " You're too late." "If we force the door now, the turbines will explode at street level." "..clear the area immediately." "All unauthorised personnel, clear the area immediately." "Turbines primed." "Fire in ten seconds, nine seconds, eight seconds, seven seconds, six seconds, five seconds, four seconds, three seconds, two seconds..." "Turbines... fire." "Cleric John Preston." "You are under arrest." "This man, this senior cleric, has ceased the dose." "He is feeling." "He is the worm that has been eating at the core of our great society." "And I..." "I have brought him for your justice." "I told you I'd make my career with you, Preston." "Vice-Council, this man is guilty of consorting with sense offenders, of having relations with a female, of sense crime itself." "Dispatch a team to his quarters to search for unused Prozium." "If you'll run the trace record on his side arm, you will find it was he who was with the sweeper team when they were murdered." "Cleric, I assume you have something to say to me." "I know..." "it's hard to believe... that a cleric of the Tetragrammaton could turn his back on everything he's been taught, become associated with the Resistance, even becoming a champion in its Underground." "But it's true." "I promised I would bring you that man." "And I have." " Cleric Brandt." " Sir." "The trace shows that it was your gun in the Nether with the sweepers." "That's impossible." "This is wrong." "I think, in the end, it'll be better if you have it." "He switched them." "See, I have his gun now." "Of course you do." "You took it when you arrested me." "What?" "Take him to the Hall of Destruction for combustion." "Wait, wait, wait, wait!" "I can explain this." "I'm not feeling." "He is the one who's feeling." "This is a mistake." "Of course, since a complaint has been lodged, law and the letter is that I allow a team to carry out the search of your premises." "Do you think that's entirely necessary or am I being too... exacting?" "As you say, sir, it's the law and the letter." "And it doesn't disturb you in the least that your colleague is going to his end?" "The only thing that disturbs me, sir, is that" "I am Father's instrument against the Underground, and yet..." "I've never had the honour of meeting him." "You know that Father never grants an audience to anyone." "Even to the man who brings him the Resistance?" "Just a formality." "The search team will be up momentarily." "Excellent." "I have nothing to hide." "The search team's already inside, sir." "Excellent." "Looking for something?" "If I were you, I'd be more careful... in the future." " How long?" " Since Mom." " And Lisa?" " Of course." " How did you know?" " You forget." "It's my job to know what you're thinking." "Then you know what I'm gonna do now." "You have a message for the Vice-Council?" "It's done." "I've located the Resistance." "Come now." "You'll have them all." "Do not address Father unless first addressed by him." "Avoid eye contact." "If you should break his personal security zone, you will be immediately put down by snipers." "Is that understood?" "You'll be required to surrender your firearm, of course." " And then there's the test." " Test?" "Yes." "You didn't imagine we would risk exposing Father to even such a dedicated servant as yourself without first having him tested, did you?" "Please." "Cleric, your weapon, please." "Here." "Sit." "We'll start with a test question first." "More of a riddle, actually." "What would you say is the easiest way to get a weapon away from a Grammaton Cleric?" "You ask him for it." "I told you I'd make my career with you, Cleric." "Preston." "Brandt's job was simple." "To make you feel like you'd won, to make you feel safe." "For years, I tried to infiltrate an agent into the Underground, until it hit me." "In order to pass undetected into their midst, in order to be trusted by them, my provocateur would have to think like them," "and would have to feel like them." "But where to find such a man?" "A man with the capacity to feel who didn't yet know it." "But... we've never met." "No?" "Don't look so surprised." "Why should Father be more real than any other political puppet?" "The real Father died years ago." "The Council elected me to pursue his paternal tradition." "And you, Preston, the supposed saviour of the Resistance, are now its destroyer." "And along with them you've given me yourself." "Calmly." "Coolly." "Entirely without incident." "No." " Oh." "Shit." "Not without incident." "I'm coming." "You really should learn to knock." "How did it feel, Preston?" "Mind the uniform, Cleric." "I plan to be wearing it for a long time." "Be careful, Preston." "You're treading on my dreams." "No!" "Wait!" "Wait!" "Look at me." "Look at me." "I'm life." "I live, I breathe." "I feel." "Now that you know it, can you really take it?" "Is it really worth the price?" "I pay it gladly." "The following items have been rated EC-10 Condemned." "..conquest of the known world, Alexander the Great slaughtered more than one million human beings." "Three centuries later, purely out of jealousy," "Gaius Germanicus Caligula murdered his own sister, impregnated with his own child." "...rated EC-10 rated Condemned, destroy..."