Work Text:
There was supposed to be music. There was meant to be a hail of gunfire, a spectacle, a martyrdom. The chase feels hollow, no matter how hard he runs. As he rounds the corner he trips on a loose piece of cobblestone, stumbling to the cracked stone streets. The weight of his actions falls on him while he regains his balance. He stumbles to his feet, taking a deep breath for the first time since last night.
"Soldier 7285, why didn't you fire?"
Saul lay awake in his bunk mere hours before, working his way through the question. He knew his purpose. He knew his duty and the burden his uniform bore. And yet, he didn’t regret sparing the child. He brandished his gun in his cot, raising his arms and replaying the shot a hundred times, stopping before the trigger. He wondered about her purpose in life and the weight of her sacrifice. She must have known what she was giving up, but she didn’t even flinch when he kicked down the door.
He faltered then, recalling her dry eyes and her unfaltering smile. They always cry. They always cry. He questioned why his duty must stifle something so beautiful, why he must exist in contrast. As he tumbled through the impossible questions, the inevitable answer dawned on him. Without individual action, there will be no change. He tucked out his window into the oppressive fog that stalks the streets and took to the lower districts with a plan.
Saul made his way under the cover of night to the lower districts for a truth serum and the tools he needed to break into the water supply. It's never pleasant being a cop in the lower districts, but then again there's not much that a uniform and a wad of cash can't get you. Once clean of the heavy dawn fog, he skulked through the sullen city to the upper districts where his heaviest task lay. The sun was just peaking as he emptied the concoction into the reservoir, and he was well on his way to the mountains to the west when he heard a distinctive crackle of radio behind him; “Target is secure.”
Sargent Latef, Saul’s superior, noticed an empty spot at roll call that morning. Usually the protocol is to wait 24 hours and see if the soldier returns. However, when the soldier is waiting on a court-martial, more definitive action is required. He sent an order for the routine doll-raids to start in the commercial districts. His unit swept the streets of district 2, finding boot-prints and names falling out from every corner. It took longer to piece together which tips were true than it took to find someone to snitch, but Latef had it figured out in time. He took to the side-streets, slipping through slums of dolls and drugged out Voodoopunks to find his man. When he started marching, he had his full unit tight on his leash. However, each opium-fueled daze or dressed-up doll requires an officer, and Latef was never one to accept backup anyway.
This is how our hero found himself running through the city, knowing every soot-stained breath he stole was on borrowed time. On the radio, the chase scenes were always the blood red dogs. The song got louder the closer they were to victory. That's why he was so afraid of the silence. His clumsy footsteps pound in his ears as the man he always revered, General Latef, follows methodically behind. It doesn't matter what his foot caught on, nor the ringing in his ears as his head hit the cracked cobblestone street. His fate was sealed when he couldn't pull the trigger on Priscilla.
Latef was never one for speeches. Obviously he's going to tell the press that Saul was disbarred. Can't have scandals in a regime and you can't have martyrs without a revolution. Saul doesn’t fully get up, returning to his knees. He knows there’s no point running, so he resigns to his fate. He watches the industrial districts' distinct smog pool in the cracks of the streets, head bowed. The thought of an apology never once occurred to him. His mind raced with thoughts of revolution and freedom and the new generation when the shot rang out in the empty alley. The man who single handedly toppled the city-state fell to the stone, lifeless.