October 31, 2045 - 5:30 PM
So much can happen in a single day.
Halloween of 2045 would go down in history. The citizens of Philadelphia, its witnesses and contributors. Margo Sandoval, one of many playthings for the cutting-edge deity known as Psychwatch, prepared for the night shift.
She took a cold shower. Twenty minutes later, she stepped out, dried herself off, gazed at her reflection in the mirror, counting the scars on her flesh. There were so many since she'd first joined Psychwatch, marking her arms, her shoulder, her back. When she forced herself to grin, she tongued the gap in her teeth where the right molar used to be.
"And that's just the physical scars," she sighed. She imagined the rest of her flaws carved into her skin, patched together with crude stitching. PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIA. DEPRESSION. WORKS FOR PSYCHWATCH. BEATEN AND NEARLY KILLED BY DAD. NEGLECTED AND HAD MEMORIES ERASED BY MOM. HALLUCINATED HAVING A NARCISSISTIC OLDER SISTER.
Stop it, she declared, and as she finished dressing into her work uniform, she grabbed her pillbox. 20 hours, 30 minutes, 57 seconds. No excuses for any strange thoughts that crossed her brain in that amount of time.
Minutes later, Margo stood beside her car, pausing to feel the breeze caress her face. A shiver traversed down her spine, and the scent of smoke laced the wind passing by her. Life, she thought. Someday it'll be in my control again.
Another twenty minutes later, Margo's car slowed to a careful pace, hoping to work its way through the enormous crowd encircling Psychwatch.
Posters and picket signs nearly obscured the view of the building, each one plastered with something against her and her occupation. PATIENTS NOT PRISONERS, read one. NO ONE IS BORN A CRIMINAL, read another. Deja vu struck Margo like an empty soda can struck her car, freezing her in place yet allowing her the choice to react the way she wanted. Avoid repeating the massacre at the rally, she hoped. Be an officer, not a pawn.
"Disperse immediately!" ordered a Psychwatch officers, his voice familiar to Margo. She heard his voice far more clearly only a second later, metallic and resonant, courtesy of a nearby SanityScan. Margo, it's me, it's Joseph. Kusanagi. Welcome back, but please be careful.
Kusanagi! Where did all these people come from?
We don't know. It was just some kids from MindLock this morning. But then it turned into this.
Do you guys need help dispersing the crowd?
No. Stay inside headquarters. Should be safer in there.
Or we hope, anyway.
The last thing that resonated through Margo's head was Kusanagi's dispirited sigh as her car squeezed itself into a vacant parking spot. More protesters blocked the sidewalk circuiting the building, many of them donning masks of various designs and origins. More Jasons. More Michaels. Some Ghostfaces. Some Guy Fawkes'. Yet none with red Xs over the eyes.
Margo stepped out of her car, her muscles stiff, hoping her reflexes wouldn't betray her and paint her as a jumpy little rabbit flinching at the slightest of movements made by other people. None of the protesters stopped her from making her way toward the entrance. None of them even looked at her. And if they did, the lenses and visors of their masks kept them hidden. The young woman would've never learned without the help of a SanityScan tearing the masks off for her. She scooted her way through them almost without obstruction.
Almost.
Until she came across a girl with a spark rose in her hair. Then another, a whole crown of them atop her head. And finally, the mask that'd haunt her dreams and cloud her vision once the meds wore off. White and ragged with red Xs across the eyeholes, like a treasure map.
"Why are you wearing that mask?" she said.
The wearer shrugged. "It's Halloween, lady. You doctor-cops don't know how to have fun or what?"
"Please take that off."
The young man scoffed. "Yeah, right after you take off that doctor-cop costume."
Margo grabbed him by his shoulders and yanked him closer. He tried pushing away, tried thrusting his hands about, but the young man felt like a rag doll in her hands. She grabbed the mask and yanked it off.
"What the fuck, lady? It's just a costume!" he shouted, and Margo shoved the mask into his chest, sending him tumbling back into some other protesters. He scrambled back up to his feet and said, "Learn to take a fucking joke!"
Margo didn't waste her time on him any longer. She approached the girls with the spark roses next. "Where did you get those?" she said.
"Do you like them?" said the girl with the crown of spark roses. "I can get you one if you want! What's your favorite color?"
"Where did you get them?"
"Oh, they've been handing them out all over town. Y'know, to honor all the people who died at the rally. My friend here got it for me, actually."
Margo glared at the other girl. "What did the person who gave you those look like?"
The friend didn't compose herself as well as the previous girl. Margo tensed up at the sight of genuine fear in the young girl's eyes. What terrified her? The source of the flowers? The authority figure standing before her?
"I'm sorry," Margo said, her voice low and shaky. She straightened her posture and continued. "I think you should get rid of those. Every time these things appear, people get hurt."
The flower crown girl gasped, standing before her increasingly fearful friend. "Oh, don't worry, miss," she said. "None of those masked guys gave them to us. The guy who did was really—"
"Throw them away," Margo said, her voice deeper than she thought possible. "And go home. Now. This is for your own good."
Sadness crept across the face of the flower crown girl, as if confronted with a brutal truth rather than a simple order, and she tore the spark roses from her hair and disappeared from Margo's sight, her trembling, teary-eyed friend following suit. A single rose fell to the pavement at Margo's feet, neither her nor the other protesters stepping on it.
How could something so beautiful be such a bad omen?
Margo took the flower and stuffed it into her pocket.
* * *
Five minutes later, Margo neared the commissioner's office. Her colleagues glared at her like she had a bomb hidden in her uniform, forcing her to stare at the floor instead, a far more inviting sight. The only thing that didn't judge her.
She looked back up again when she eventually came across a room crowded with her fellow officers, their backs turned toward her. A wall of holographic screens held their attention and refused to let go as they stood so still, they nearly passed for mannequins sporting Psychwatch uniforms. When Margo stepped in, the sole of her shoe clapping against the floor, only one of her fellow officers bothered to acknowledge her, and that was Andrade. Only for two seconds before returning her sights to the screens before her.
"Welcome back, Sandoval," she said.
"Andrade," Margo muttered. "What's everyone looking at?"
"The protest outside. The number of people grows the more we attempt dispersion."
"Look what I found outside."
Andrade turned back to Margo again, glancing down at the spark rose resting in the palm of her hand. She took it from her, pinching a single petal between the tips of her thumb and forefinger.
"Bad omen," she said. "Nowadays, anyway. Where did you find it?"
"Some girls were wearing them in their hair outside. They said people were handing them out around town."
"Did you just take one from their hair or what?"
"No, it just fell off and landed at my feet."
Andrade nodded again, handing the spark rose back to Margo. "Poor girls," she said.
"I told them to go home. Felt it was safer that way. Where's Mason?"
Andrade dropped her collected demeanor, her eyes widening and her mouth agape. She stepped back from Margo, muscles stiff.
"Andrade?" Margo said.
Her colleague cleared her throat. "Right. She's, uh, she's outside with the others."
Margo's brow raised. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." She cleared her throat again. "If you're looking for Maslow, he's probably with Sanger and Atkinson as usual."
"Great. Thanks."
Margo's once-superior officer jerked back to the screens, as if ashamed to even speak to her. Someone had left an impression on her, Margo thought. She pondered whether she'd become Andrade's newest fear after the physical altercation they had the day she received the earth-shattering news of her diagnosis. Or perhaps Mason had found the right things to say to render her a submissive lapdog.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen, Margo thought, and she left the room.
She stood in that old familiar hallway. Silver walls with blue pinstripes trailing across them like veins. Rows of seats positioned outside SafeSpaces, yet not a single patient in sight. Only a single room with its door opened, a familiar one even from her distance. Her suspicions were confirmed when Nikki and Holden stepped out.
"Hey, Margo!" said Holden, and he and Nikki awkwardly waved at her.
"Hey," Margo replied, making her way toward them. "What are you guys up to?"
"Psych ward cell surveillance with Carl. Keeping watch over Jack and that Slater guy, as usual."
"What are you up to, Margo?" said Nikki.
Margo shrugged. "No clue. Mason said the Empaths won't have much to do for a while until we get those masked psychos under control, and the protesters are blocking most of the exits. So I guess I'll just hang out with you guys."
Holden smiled. "Great! Come on in."
Margo stepped inside, and the door slid shut behind her. The surveillance room was murky, only the six holographic screens shimmering against the wall chasing away the dark. Margo found Carl planted in a seat before the screens, focused on them as if his life depended on it. She wondered if he was doing his best not to look at her.
"Hello, Carl," she said, waving despite being out of his line of sight.
Her nerves eased once Carl found the strength to look at her, even if she could still sense his disappointment. "Hey, kiddo," he said.
"Don't you guys want to turn on more light in here?" said Margo. "It's dark in here."
"It's easier to see the screens this way," Nikki said, pulling up a seat.
"You really think so?"
Nikki sighed. "N-N-No, I actually just prefer the dark. It...It honestly feels safer to me this way."
"Oh really?" Margo managed a small grin. "I used to be scared of the dark when I was younger. Still kinda am. What about it makes you feel safe?"
"W-W-Well—"
"Hey," said Carl, "could you guys maybe lower your voices for just a few seconds? Something's up with the patients again."
Margo glanced at the screens, four per individual just like last time. Four for Jack, four for Slater. Jack sat on a couch, glaring off at holographic television screens with a distant look in his eyes. There was no indication he needed or wanted anything other than his humanity back. Slater, however, peered right into the camera, flashing a clown-like grin and waving with the excitement of a small child.
"Why is he always so cheerful?" Margo said.
"Because he knows it annoys us," Holden said. "Me and Nikki joke that he's like that because he sneaks in Euphors up his—"
"Guys, I said quiet please," Carl said, and he lifted a finger to his ThoughtControl piece. "What do you want, Slater?"
"Just wanted to say Happy Halloween, that's all!" chuckled Slater. "I can't go out selling ecstasy to high schoolers anymore, so I gotta have fun on this holiday somehow."
"Slater, this is the third time you've wished us a happy Halloween. And the fifth time you've mentioned selling drugs to high schoolers. Quit messing around, or we'll have to start taking away cell privileges." Then Carl muttered under his breath, "Not that you deserve any of them."
"Hey, it gets lonely it here sometimes, and you're the best company anyone can have! You know why?"
Carl groaned. "Here it comes."
"Because you don't need a group of friends, Maslow. You are a group of friends!" And Slater fell back into his seat, laughing his ass off.
"You're one to talk," Margo snapped, finger on her ThoughtControl piece, startling every other person in the room, including Slater.
"Who the fuck was that?" Slater said.
"Yeah, it's nice to see you again, too, Slater," Margo continued despite Carl's shushing. "This is Margo Sandoval. Remember me?"
Slater didn't attempt to invoke his grating, clown-like enthusiasm and perkiness. He stared off at the wall of his cell, an expression of concern, possibly shock, crossing his face.
"Margo Sandoval," he repeated. "Are you the girl I talked to several months ago about Erase-and-Replace? The one who just totally fucking lost it?"
Margo nodded, clenching her fist until her fingers popped cracked. "Yep, that's me. The girl who fucking lost it."
"Margo, what are you doing?" Carl whispered.
"I'm just letting you know," she told Slater, "that I'm back with Psychwatch, and I will not let you or anyone else get in my head ever again! Do you understand?"
Slater said nothing.
"You know why Carl talks to you? Why anyone talks to you? It's not because they care about you. It might be hard for you to believe, but people are smarter than they look. Some of them know when they're being played. They can spot a fake smile, detect a fake laugh. And you, Slater? Your smile is the fakest anyone has ever seen. That laugh? That charisma? It's a facade that everyone can see a mile away. It's not working anymore. And now you're here in this cell, where you'll die alone with no one else to take advantage of."
Margo's hands and body trembled. Sweat dampened her brow and her palms. "Why the hell aren't you saying anything?" she said, her voice fluttering.
"Margo," Carl said. "Please stop. We don't need to keep talking to him."
"You're right," Slater said. "I chose to be here. I could've slipped away if I wanted. I really could have."
"Well, why didn't you then?" Margo snapped.
Slater glanced into the camera, a small smirk crossing his face, the most sincere expression anyone had seen from him. "No one ever really dies alone, honey. Not in this line of work."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
"Goodbye, Slater," said Carl, and his and Margo's connection broke off. He rotated in his seat to flash his daughter another defeated glare.
"Carl, what is he talking about?" she said.
"Why do you insist on talking to him? He doesn't care about you. He doesn't care about anyone!"
Margo's expression grew sour. "So that's why he's the only one who hasn't lied to me."
"He is lying to you, Margo! He just wants to get in your head because he knows he made you paranoid about your memories last time. Slater doesn't want to help anybody. He just wants to see people drive themselves crazy for his amusement. Do you understand?"
Margo couldn't stop trembling. Her face burned bright red.
"I fucking hate that guy," Holden said. "Why do we still even keep him around?"
"I don't know, Holden," Carl groaned. "I wish anything made sense around here. But it never does."
"Slater told me Psychwatch doesn't like throwing away any of their own creations," said Margo. "Is that a lie, too?"
Carl shook his head, running his hands through his hair. He sighed, regretting every word that left his tongue and everything he did that'd convinced Margo to join Psychwatch.
"But you only lied because you care," Margo said. "I understand that."
"Margo," said Holden, "I think maybe we should...I dunno, change the subject or just...I dunno."
Margo nodded. And the officers waited in silence until Nikki leaped from her seat.
"The S-S-Scans are going out," she said.
Holden squinted. "Going out? Like powering off?"
"Y-Y-Yeah. Th-th-the outage is heading straight for us."
All four individuals flinched as Kusanagi's voice screamed through their pieces, "Intruders in the building! Incapacitate on sight!"
Beyond the door roared a train of footsteps down the hall, three or four individuals sprinting as fast as they could. The four doctor-cops heard their colleagues yell more warnings, only to open fire seconds later. Green light flashed through the small crevices around the door, followed by loud thuds outside.
"Someone in that room over there?"
"Should be. Let me check." Andrade's voice. She knocked on the door. Margo and Carl stepped back, guarding their younger colleagues. "Sanger? Atkinson? Anyone in there?"
"We're here, Andrade," Carl said. "What's going on out there?"
"Some of the protesters ran into the fucking building, but we got them. Although, more are still trying to get in. Are Sanger and Atkinson still in there?"
"Y-Y-Yes, ma'am," Nikki said.
"The two of you are going home. It isn't safe for you here."
Holden marched over to the door and opened it. "How the hell are we supposed to get past them?" he said.
"Yeah, how?" Margo said, hoping her doubt was obvious. "How is this gonna play out, Andrade?"
Andrade's jaw dropped again. She threw her hands up. "I don't know. But...we have everything under control."
"Don't lie to yourself."
Margo, Andrade, Carl, everyone turned to look down the hall. There stood Royce. What remained of Royce. Ragged clothes, pale face, thin as a pole. Something rested in his hands.
"Royce, what..." Margo said, "what are you doing here?"
"No one's in control," he said, his voice sullen and gravely. "We're all just puppets. Victims prolonging our suffering."
"Royce, what's that in your..." Carl said before it dawned on him. He drew his Fatemaker. "Turn that thing off, Royce! Or I will open fire!"
"We're victims. Always have been. It's too late to save us."
Andrade drew her Fatemaker. "Royce, drop the device!"
"You're not stopping anything! Don't you people get it? We've lost."
"You don't have to be a part of this," Carl stressed. "Just drop the device and—"
"This will be over soon."
Glass shattered in the distance. Deafening shouts erupted in the distance, growing louder and less human.
"Brian," Margo said. "Listen to me, you don't need to do this. You're stronger than this! You said not to let anyone else have this much power over you. So don't let that happen!"
Royce said nothing. He stood still, breathing heavily, the device trembling in his hands.
"Brian," Margo said again.
Royce whispered one more time. "It'll be over soon. I promise."
The EMP device went off. Several, all around the building. The officers found themselves in darkness, their Fatemakers now useless and scorching to the touch.
"ROYCE!" Carl said, him and his fellow officers standing in near-pitch darkness.
Crowds of people shrieked at the top of their lungs at the far end of the hall. The building shook like a palace sinking into the earth.
"What the fuck is going on?" Holden said. "What do we do?"
"Royce!" screamed Carl. "Royce! What have you done?"
Margo twisted and jerked around in the dark, hoping to find Carl's voice. "Forget about him! We need to get Holden and Nikki somewhere safe."
"And we also need guns," said Andrade "The armory has prototype Fatemakers. We should head there."
"But the kids, Andrade!"
Margo heard the protesters crying out at the far end of the hall. She couldn't see them, only hear their battle cries and animalistic screeching bounce off the walls like another. Then argent rays of intense light fired out of flashlights in the distance, perusing the halls like curious eyes. When they found the officers, the shouts only grew louder, and Margo heard the intruders rushing toward them like roaring waves.
"Run!" she shouted. She and Carl stood behind the younger officers, shoving them forward to escape the pursuing rioters.
The beams of the intruders' flashlights caught Margo's eyes, forcing her to clench them shut. Her legs wobbled, and she'd nearly collapsed to the floor. Holden, Nikki, Andrade, and Carl all fared better, she thought. They didn't flinch the way she did with every shattered window and shredded chair or crowbar clashing against the wall. It was only a matter of time before gunfire would enter the picture.
She wanted to spend the rest of her sprint with her eyes closed, hoping this was another bad dream or another psychotic episode. She imagined being chased around in her apartment past midnight again, an abnormal blizzard roaring outside, a stranger in her home. Only for the stranger to be her father, haunting her from beyond the grave.
She and her fellow officers neared the stairwell down to the sub-level when the gunshots rang off. There were screams. Grotesque sounds as bodies blew apart like paper. The walls vaporized into dust as bullets powerful enough to shred a tank nearly grazed the officers. A dark red tint overcame the beams from the rioters' flashlights, bathing the officers in the color of rage.
Then boomed the Multi Man's voice from every direction, from the highest peak to the deepest abyss. "This is it, Psychwatch! The day you're brought down to our level."
* * *
The lights in Jack's cell flickered like the twitching of a wounded insect. A message scrawled in red holographic letters seared into the wall opposite from him. WARNING: POWER OUTAGE. PLEASE REMAIN IN CELL UNTIL EVACUATION PROTOCOL IS INSTRUCTED BY AN AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL. EMERGENCY LIGHTS WILL ACTIVATE MOMENTARILY, the message read. The SanityScan dangled from its corner of the room, sparks spraying from its blighted inner workings.
Eye for an eye, he thought, and he rose from his seat, studying the quaking panels barricading him from the rest of the building. They wanted to keep him in, he thought, but they struggled. The shaking panels, the flickering lights, Psychwatch's headquarters wanted to die fighting.
Like a final breath, the lights in the cell faded out of sight. The panels retracted into their slots with a loud clang. And there stood Slater at the door, holding a blue flashlight up to his smiling face.
"You coming, kid?" he said. "We've got a whole storage over here with weapons and supplies. Kinda weird they'd place it near the psych ward, right?"
Jack moved toward Slater at such a brisk pace, the man almost tripped stepping away from the cell's entryway. Jack's shoulder brushed past him as he marched outside, the rest of the hall obscured in shadow.
"Over there, big guy," Slater said. "Y'know, I knew this day would come. Always knew that Sandoval girl was a harbinger for something big."
"She's nothing," said Jack.
"Oh, come on, kid. Don't lie to yourself. We both knew she'd be a game changer in one way or another. This whole siege wouldn't have even happened if she didn't go back to her job. Only reason we even got Brian Royce to keep coming back here to check on her."
"We?" Jack repeated, the two of them approaching the door to the armory. "Just because I knew for a while that he was a mole doesn't mean I'm a part of whatever the fuck you have planned next."
"Of course you are! You know it, so now you're a part of it. Now, either you get out of this shithole with me and go out and attempt to live whatever your interpretation of a normal life is, miles away from the smoking remains of this city, or you die with the rest of these pill-popping freaks. Your choice."
The door to the armory slid open, and the emergency lights clicked on, illuminating Psychwatch's most prized possessions. Jack shrugged, marching around the room.
"Hello?" said Slater. "Earth to asshole. Come in, asshole. Did you hear what I just said?"
Prototype Fatemakers with only two firing modes. Police batons. Erase-and-Replace helmets. Jack stood amongst scientific and societal progression, yet he went back to humanity's animalistic routes, nabbing a LaserShank.
"Y'know, you're a lot like Psychwatch, kid," Slater said. "You disturb the peace and ruin everyone's day. Then when you're given the chance to make things right and better, you just comment on how shitty they are and then move along to find the non-shitty parts and do your thing. So in a way, you're also kinda like the masked lunatic who started this whole massacre."
Jack activated the LaserShank and made his way toward Slater.
"But at the same time," Slater continued, "I've always believed that it's not until nothing truly matters anymore that we can really do whatever the fuck we want. It's obviously a very subjective thing, so each person crosses that line at a different time compared to everyone else."
Jack froze before Slater, his expression lifeless yet hinting at frustration. Slater glanced down at the LaserShank in his former patient's hand, chuckling. "I crossed that line a while back. I'm glad I got to help you cross yours, too, kid."
The LaserShank drove through his head with ease, spraying Jack's face with blood. Yanking it back out, Jack swung the blade again, cutting Slater's head clean off. His body crumpled to the floor, limbs splayed out like an empty suit of armor tumbling from its shiny display.
Then Margo, Andrade, and Carl approached the entrance to the room, each one instantly regretting it.
"Holden, Nikki, don't come any closer," Carl whispered harshly, shooing them away.
"How the hell did you get out?" Andrade said to Jack.
"I tend to have a good day," Jack replied, "when others are having a bad one. I don't know what other surprises this day will have, but I hope they're just as good as this one."
"You're a sick fuck," said Carl, and he and the women beside him jumped back as Jack made his way toward them, not even the sight of his LaserShank deactivating allowing them some form of relief.
"I like this thing. I think I'll hold onto it."
"Holloway," Carl said. "Drop it. Now."
"Relax."
"W-W-What's going on?" Nikki said, then she saw what remained of Slater and screamed.
"Honey, just stay outside with Holden," replied Carl. "Holloway, drop it!"
"It's off, buckaroo. See? No one else is getting shanked. Besides, what are you gonna do with your Fatemakers blown out? You guys gonna start putting me into actual therapy?"
"Just let him go," said Margo. "He's wasting our time."
Jack smirked. "Finally, someone has the right idea. Hey, tell the voices in your head I said thanks, Sandoval."
"Get out before I take your other eye."
Jack grazed her shoulder with his own to leave the room. "I wouldn't blame you for doing that, sweetheart," he said. "It's the best part of me, after all."
And he disappeared down the hall like a shadow.
"You guys are just gonna let him go?" Holden said. "Are you fucking crazy?"
"He knows who's got more power between him and the System," Andrade replied, and she groaned at the sight of Slater's decapitated head on the floor. "Everyone grab a gun and a Blur if you can find one."
The officers scrambled around the storage, taking what they could fine. An old-model Fatemaker handgun made of carbon fiber. Functioning ThoughtControl pieces. Only three Blurs. Two of them went to Holden and Nikki. But the third?
"Here, Margo, take it," Carl said. "Margo?"
Carl found his daughter standing petrified before the five Erase-and-Replace helmets preserved behind a sliding plastic door. Her pointer finger hovered over the trigger of her gun.
"Margo, get away from those," urged Carl. "Please."
"Psychwatch doesn't throw away their own creations," said Margo. "So the only other option is to burn them."
"Burn?" Andrade repeated.
Margo clicked a button on her Fatemaker. Orange light blinked out of the gun's barrel.
"Margo, could you at least take this Blur?" Carl said. "If anything happens to you, I'll never..."
He trailed off once he realized Holden had peeked into the room. The two of them exchanged weary glances until Holden noticed the bloody mess that remained of Slater. "HOLY FUCK!" he exclaimed before disappearing back outside. "I've seen worse than that, but Jesus Christ, I wasn't expecting that."
"Hand it over," Margo said. She'd extended her hand toward him without aiming herself in his direction, and she attached the Blur to her waist the moment she felt it rest in her hand.
"Sandoval, why aren't you moving?" said Andrade.
"I'll meet you guys back upstairs," Margo said, eyes refusing to move from the E-and-R helmets. "Or outside the building. Wherever you go. I'll make this quick."
Carl sighed. "Margo, it'd be safer if we all—"
"Just get somewhere safe, goddamn it."
Now that Carl had finally made eye contact with Margo, he wished he hadn't. He scurried out into the hall, and Holden, Nikki, and Andrade followed behind him without another word, leaving Margo alone in the armory.
She rose the Fatemaker up to the helmets, finger curling around the trigger. You didn't fix me, she thought. I fixed myself.
She opened fire, blasting each helmet until flaming, charcoal black fragments were all that remained. Holstering her gun, she exhaled deeply, as if freed from a choke. Her eyes watered, and a hundred emotions raced through her head at once.
I'll be okay. Eventually. Just stop crying and join the others.
She wiped the tears away and nudged the ThoughtControl piece into her ear. Even with the chaos and violence above her, each of her legs weighed as much as bricks as she made her way out of the armory. She felt no need to run.
But she should have.
"You never know when to stop, do you?"
She couldn't draw her Fatemaker fast enough. The Multi Man slammed her against the wall, bruising her back, and he came and went with the flickering lights.