Equilibrium

In the first years

of the 21 st 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!

We have an unknown number

barricaded in the southeast end

of the compound.

Read that.

Tetragrammaton team en route.

Cleric, lights out.

Maybe more than a dozen inside.

When the door's down,

blow the bulbs.

Yes, sir.

Go.

Where is he?

Shut up.

Anybody get him?

Did anybody hit him?

Shut up!

Listen.

This is it.

Where?

There.

It's real.

Burn it.

Why didn't you just leave it

for the evidentiary team

to collect and log?

They miss things sometimes.

And I thought

I'd take it down myself...

get it done properly.

How long, Preston,

till all this is gone?

Till 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...whole.

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 is 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 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,

computer programs.

Seven works

of two-dimensional...

Thank you

for coming, Cleric.

I assume you know who I am.

Yes, sir. Of course.

You are Vice-Council Dupont

of the Third Conciliarly

of the Tetragrammaton...

Father's voice.

Quite frankly, Cleric,

I am told that you are

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 himself,

on path to becoming a Cleric.

Good.

And the mother?

My spouse was arrested

and incinerated

for sense offense

four years ago, sir.

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 why we do

what we do.

It does?

Every time we come

from the Nethers to the city,

it reminds why we do

what we do.

It does?

It does.

Prosecutorial evidence

for A.N.R. 136 890.

I need it.

It was late this afternoon.

May not have showed up

in the records yet.

I'm very sorry, Cleric.

Nothing has been logged

and nothing is pending

under that entry.

It was an item of evidence

brought in personally

by Grammaton Errol Partridge.

Check again.

Sir, 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 passing through

the gate into the Nether

every night

for the last two weeks.

We assumed it was

enforcement-related.

You always knew.

"But I, being poor...

have only my dreams."

"I have 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'd 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

when a person's feeling

before they know it

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