Cognitive Deviance

84. Culmination

Margo watched through the Multi Man's eyes as Carl assisted Whitey to his feet. She peered back at Mason, who stood over Jack's unconscious body, nudging him with the tip of her boot. 

"Mason," said Margo, "we need to let him go. He's not helping us out anymore."

Mason forced herself to laugh. "He's never helped us, Sandoval. He was more of an amusing experiment. Most of the redemption therapy patients are."

"Then why have you been keeping him around this whole time?"

Mason nudged him again. "Just the slightest ounce of sympathy, I guess. Besides, only Psychwatch can dispose of one of its many utilities."

Margo curled the Multi Man's hands into fists and said something she'd immediately regret. "I am Psychwatch!"

"Not right now, you're not," said Mason, flashing Margo a quick glance. "And if we get you back, you won't be anymore."

"Alright, enough," said Carl. "We need to start searching before it's too late. We don't how long you've been like this, Margo. And look at how much blood this body has lost already!"

The Man's missing limb stung like the open wound it was, but Margo's weakness felt restricted to her mind alone. The body was hurt, but she as a person, as a concept, believed she was withering away out of existence.

Carl looked at Whitey. "Does this man plan on surviving any of this?" he said, pointing at the Man.

Whitey shook his head, and Margo said, "No. I don't think any of them do."

"Oh shoot, it makes sense you'd know," Carl said. "What have you heard from him? Or discovered."

"Carl...it's been days since the antipsychotics wore off. Even if I told you what I heard him say, how would we know if it was real or not?"

Carl's eyebrow curled. "Are you still hearing voices or seeing things that shouldn't be there when you come back into his body?"

"So far, no. But when I go back into the PACER, sometimes I see and hear things. Like Ellie."

"Ellie," Carl repeated, taking a few seconds to click. "Oh! She isn't hurting you, is she?"

Embarrassment hid behind the Multi Man's mask, and the feeling wasn't even his. "I wish I could tell you exactly what's going on in here, Carl," said Margo. "But we just need to get me out of here."

Without a word, Whitey started walking, a flick of his fingers the only signal for them to follow him.

"Commissioner," said Carl. Margo sensed his distaste for her. "Let's go."

"Go on ahead with Sandoval," Mason replied, glaring down at Jack as if she'd unearthed a valuable relic. "I'll be waiting here."

Margo rolled her eyes beneath the Man's mask, and she watched Carl replicate her frustration with a long groan. Were she not brought down by exhaustion, she would've been delighted that Carl sensed perfectly that she was still there in that body that didn't belong to her.

But the moment she followed behind him and Whitey, the PACER yanked her back in.

She stood on a vast plane of dirt, a world in which humanity had never reached its full potential. No buildings, no sidewalk, no modified landforms like canals or tunnels. The sky above her was a featureless, flint-colored haze, the sun no more than a woolly ball of light hovering above the atmosphere. Her only company were her two younger counterparts, Pre-Erasure and Post-Erasure, though another individual stood yards away.