Cognitive Deviance

64. Wall of Thoughts

The man had no face. No details on his clothes. Just edges. Rough, smooth, angled, only a toon. The thicker white, diagonal lines behind him were rays of light, the two of them realized. Presumably moonlight considering the black and white contrast. The man was a black silhouette blotting out the light, fists clenched down by his side, and smaller white lines splashed around his feet like the claw scratches of a feral creature.

"Those are glass shards," Margo told Kusanagi regarding the scratches. "But I'm not even sure if they were real, let alone the incident as a whole."

"Well, if there was glass on the floor," Kusanagi said, "wouldn't you call that evidence?"

"I don't know. My windows have regenerative glass, so the shards would've disintegrated by the time the police arrived. So even if they were real, I doubt anyone really believed me."

"If you mind me asking, how did this event play out?"

"It was three in the morning, and I heard all this noise in my apartment. Doors closing, the window shattering. And the electricity went out, too, because of that freak blizzard. At the end of May, of all things! I tried sneaking out, but I saw this guy on the canvas standing in the dark. I couldn't see his face or recognize him from anywhere, but he started talking to me about how I was keeping secrets from myself and how I was trying to put him in place somehow."

"Did his voice sound familiar?"

"Absolutely not. Didn't even sound human. All distorted and raspy."

"Did you report the incident to Psychwatch?"

"Yeah, and like I said, they said there wasn't enough evidence. The RG shards went away, and the only prints they found were my own since I was tripping and tumbling all over the place trying to escape. You know what that means? Half of the damage done to my apartment was my own fault! There are six holes burnt into the walls of my living room because of me!"

"I'm really sorry for what happened, Margo. But remember not to be so hard on yourself. We Psychwatch officers have a habit of assuming we'll always stifle our screams or remain still in the face of danger. But we're not perfect, and considering such an incident occurred while you were in such a vulnerable state, it only makes sense that you reacted this way."

Margo's shoulders slumped. "But that makes me feel like all this training was for nothing," she said. "Everyone else made me feel that way that night."

"Who's everyone else?"

"I called Royce, Andrade, Mason, my mom, and Carl after it happened. The only ones who didn't make me feel like it was all my fault were my mom and Carl. But the other three acted like the phone calls never even happened! So I'm not sure if either they're just over it or don't care, or maybe that was all in my head, too. Especially since I was also talking to Ellie when it all happened."

Kusanagi exhaled. Margo felt as if she were overwhelming him.

"Hey," she said, "do you have any of those Psych Expressor journals, too? Or do I need to buy one of those?"

"Oh no, I have one right here if you'd like to use it," Kusanagi replied, and he disappeared behind his desk, keeping one hand on the sleek white surface before them. When he returned, he planted a notebook in the center of the desk, the cover a dull sheet of gray plastic.

He wedged his thumb underneath the cover and carefully lifted it, exposing the snow-white sheets within. Margo forced out a chuckle. The device looked indistinguishable from any other notebook. In fact, calling such a thing a device felt like the overstatement of the century. But, of course, the cover couldn't define the contents of the book on its own. When given the chance, Psych Expressor journals had just as much, if not more, potential than the canvases and sketchpads, granting an individual the ability to lay down the rails for their runaway trains of thought, put ramblings to paper without even laying a finger on a single sheet.