Chapter 2 - The First Test

After the hair cut Ryan made his way through the grammaton center to his car. The white Cadillac was waiting for him in his parking spot. On his drive to the residential sector, he noticed a female walking at a very erratic pace. Ryan was becoming very suspicious as he was now observing her in his rear view mirror. Suddenly the clerics watch alarm went off, and he pulled over the car in order to inject his final prozium shot of the day. He quickly snaps his injector back, and slides it into his jacket pocket. He looks back to see that the female he had observed was no longer walking but now she was running in the other direction.

As his instincts set in, he turns the car around and begins a pursuit. As he comes up behind her she franticly leaps over a small fence and runs down a narrow alleyway. He calmly gets out of the car and quickly studies the layout of the alley. With ease the cleric leaps the fence and walks calmly down the ally. He knew that it would be coming to a dead end. As he approaches the end of the ally, he observes the female now crying and pounding the bottom of her fist on a large metal door on the far wall of the ally. The door was obviously locked and there was escape. When the cleric was within several feet of her, she looked at the cleric and dropped to her knees, continuing the weeping. The words were incomprehensible, but he could make out that she was begging for her life. The cleric hesitated for a moment.

Ryan became slightly confused and even more curious as to why this woman was so emotional, and what the reason was for such an emotional breakdown? He realized immediately that this woman would be doomed should he have arrested her, for she was quite obviously not on prozium, and she had committed such a blatant sense offence. Offenders like this were to be terminated on sight. Crying was on of the most serious sense offences one could commit and the technicians of the palace of justice never let anyone in this situation live.

With no expression on his face, Ryan reached for one of his Mark 10 pistols, switched the safety to semi and snapped back the loading bolt. He raised his arm towards the woman's head and fired one bullet into her forehead. The exit wound in the back of her skull exploded a fissure of blood and brains as an empty shell popped out of the now smoking pistol and ricocheted of the ally wall behind Ryan. The woman looked at him once more while she fell backward, into the blood sprayed wall that was painted with half of her brain and skull. The cleric switched his weapon back to safety and began to walk back to his car.

Suddenly the large metal door swung open and slammed into the body of the woman who had just been slain. With a feline like reflex the cleric pulled out both of his guns, and kicked of the wall to do perfect 180-degree spin into a crouching firing position. He looked up to see his new training sensei looking at him with almost a slight smile on his face.

"Cleric Ryan James. You have passed your first test. In this instance it was made to appear that this woman had no chance of surviving interrogation. You also had no supervision, partner or any apparent witnesses to the scene. You showed no mercy to this woman. You showed no compassion and no regard for her life. Well-done Cleric! This is the enemy in the disguise of a harmless female. A good cleric must always see past the appearance of an offender and consider only the face of their emotion. "

"Thank you sensei, I am pleased to have met the requirements of this test. Who was the woman?"

"Irrelevant. You may go home now Cleric. I will see you tomorrow morning. By the way, I noticed that you have changed your hair. It takes most clerics one week to make the change you have made in one day. In ancient times, the most well trained marshal artists all had shaved heads. Hair simply serves no good purpose in combat. Good night Cleric"

"Good night"