Cognitive Deviance

57. Drug Bust

"Stop resisting!" Kusanagi yelled, his gun still trained on the remaining clubbers as they squeezed into a massive pile. A shot fired out once or twice, but the man was careful with the trigger.

Margo turned back toward Mr. W, her own Fatemaker rising to the rabbit man's level, aiming right between his eyes.

"Who are you?" she growled.

The rabbit man removed his hand from his shoulder, blood trailing down his fingers and his arm. With both hands, he loosened the mask's restraints around his neck, taking his time to ensure he had a firm grip on the hem of the mask. Margo's throat burned, parched from the shouting and the screaming. Her heart pounded furiously in her chest, only a matter of time before it would burst through her ribcage and kill her.

When the mask was off and the clubbers went silent, all of them grasping the threat of two dozen Fatemakers aiming their way, Margo felt her heart stop and her lungs crumple up into tinfoil balls, smaller and smaller until she'd pass out. The blood drained from her face, a sudden dizziness coming upon her, and all she could think was, Who can I trust anymore?

The man underneath the rabbit mask, clad in leather and bleeding from his shoulder, was Carl.

"Officer Maslow!" Andrade shrieked.

"No," he grunted, a flourishing rage sparkling in his emerald green eyes. "He hasn't been out in a while, no thanks to you and Mason."

"Vince?" Margo wheezed, her voice so shrill and low, the murmurs of the crowd nearly drowned her out.

The alter in control of Carl's body nodded his head. It was him. Vince. Underneath his glove would've been an LED ring glowing bright green, just like those eyes of his.

"Everyone, freeze!" boomed another familiar voice. Margo and Andrade turned back to see their commissioner standing at the base of the elevator, Fatemaker in hand. And silence came upon them, aside from the pain-ridden screams from the wounded among the crowd.

"I am Commissioner Janice Mason," she continued, her voice echoing through the cavernous room. "Everyone in this room is now under the surveillance of the Psychwatch Societal Stability System. That means each one of you has been assigned a Threat Level coinciding with your mental health and your risk of partaking in harmful impulses. So...by order of Psychwatch, remain still, or we will open fire once again!"

Another round of terrified murmurs rippled through the crowds like waves over a rocky shore. Margo could still hear the groans of the injured clubbers, the one who needed medical help as soon as possible. Or they might have still been having sex. The Wonderland Mist kept the two sensations inseparable, and she fucking hated the stuff because of that.

"Just to be clear," Mason continued, "we do not want anyone else to die here. We know what some of you have been through. And we also know what some of you have been doing down here, too. But if anyone threatens the life of my officers, we will not hesitate to shoot! So as of this moment, please do not take any further risks, because I can assure you nothing good will come of it."

"What are you gonna do with us?" a woman shouted from the crowd, and suddenly the rest of them joined her in loudly making their anxieties known to the officers.

"Silence, please!" Mason ordered, and the shouts slowly faded out. "You will all be escorted to the surface and driven back to Psychwatch for diagnoses and interrogations. Medical officers are on standby for those of you in critical condition. Any other questions?"

"Indeed, we do, Commissioner!"

Another voice, far too familiar. Margo recognized him from the rally. Gravelly. Deep. A sound like a blade scraping against one's spine. Only moments ago, he'd shouted at the top of his lungs, but the voice didn't match such an outspoken personality. The man she heard, the one who'd convinced her to take her eyes off Vince, was the masked man at the heart of all the chaos. The Multi Man.