Just another episode, Margo thought as she marched through Philadelphia's desolate, ash-covered streets. Need something to ground myself. Anything. Anybody.
Smoke blanketed the sky, rising from the scorched remains of the city skyline. Glass and stone crackled beneath the icy-blue flames, and the dust beneath Margo's feet felt like a sponge, a slight bounce accompanying each step. Yet despite her hometown departing within flames, she felt cold. Goosebumps rippled across her skin, and her teeth chattered. Hell had frozen over, she thought, and she stood in the middle of it all.
Come on. Someone, anyone! Get me back to Earth. I'm having the worst episode of my life. Please help me.
The streetlights flickered in and out of existence. Building generators sputtered around Margo in the surrounding infrastructure's remains like a dying breath. Few walls remained standing, but Margo saw shadows burnt upon the ones that weren't yet reduced to dust, the risen arms of screaming innocents captured forever. When she walked past the shadows, a prickling warmth replaced the cold.
He didn't win. Not yet. This is all in my head. It has to be!
"What makes you say that?"
The Multi Man's voice. By her right ear, then the left. It spun around her. She tried to chase it but only found the wasteland surrounding her on all sides.
She walked faster.
Rubble crackled beneath her feet. Whispers sounded amongst the rocks and the remnants of the surrounding buildings, bouncing from one location to the next. They tempted her, mocked her, invited her, some even pleaded for her sympathy.
She heard her own voice loud and clear, running alongside her. "This isn't our head."
Ignore that. Stop trying to deceive yourself. Be the only one you know who hasn't lied to you.
"This isn't our head."
Alright, I have lied to myself. Even right now, just by saying that. But not anymore. I am above the psychosis. I know my surroundings, and I know the people I can trust.
"Turn around. Look behind you."
Keep fucking running. Doesn't matter where. Just get away.
The sky grew dark. Shadows stretched across the road before Margo as the fires started shrinking away. The whispering in the rocks increased in volume until Margo felt they were stampeding toward her. She had no Fatemaker to put them back in place.
"Turn around!"
The voice belonged to Margo, but someone else wanted it. The words came out harsh and distorted, almost metallic. Two voices merged in one, she realized. There was some kind of mutant behind her, she decided, yet the pace of her run died down to a mere jog, even as the night engulfed the desolate cityscape around her.
All she saw were lights scattered throughout the city, some near, others distant, making the most of their last moments. The fires. The streetlights. Holographic advertisements and televisions. Standing a few feet from a wrecked storefront, Margo rationalized that a few of the voices and whispers chasing her down belonged to the holographic TV screens behind the broken glass.
The closest screen to her played the news. During the fleeting times that the screen remained tangible, Margo witnessed pure hopelessness in the news anchor's eyes and voice. The images that flashed over him as he spoke nearly destroyed what remained of Margo's hope.
"The worst terrorist attack in...Approximately eight hundred thousand casualties in Philadelphia alone...Repeated attacks in neighboring...Psychwatch's Scans crippled..."
The footage cut from one horrific image to the next. Cities disappearing in a blast of blue light. Skyscrapers and cars set ablaze. Rescue workers knee-deep in ashes, many of them gagging at the realization that the bodies they were searching for were all around them, crumbling to pieces beneath their feet, smudging their clothes a smokey gray hue.
Then the inevitable. Protests. Riots. Some in Psychwatch's favor. Others, wishing only the worst upon them. SAVE PSYCHWATCH, read some articles and posters. THE END OF PSYCHWATCH = THE END OF OUR SUFFERING, read others. BRING THEM BACK. BUILD UPON THEIR ASHES. WE CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT PSYCHWATCH. WE WON'T EXIST BECAUSE OF PSYCHWATCH.
Eventually, the news broadcast lost the fight to static. The anchor went silent, replaced with the image of Psychwatch's logo. The Greek letter psi.
"This isn't your head, Margo," said the horrific fusion of her voice and the Multi Man's. "You're someone else's hallucination. You're just a symptom."
Margo heard footsteps behind her, moving closer. She took two steps in front of her, and the ones behind her went silent. She moved again, then the ones behind her followed.
"Give it up," said the abomination. "This is all you have left. You could've had more, but you squandered everything. You've lost. The right thing to do now is remain still."
It moved closer again.
"Get away from me," Margo hissed, refusing to look back at it.
"I will always be here, Margo. I define you."
"You're just another problem I'll overcome. Don't pretend like you're anything more than that."
"And yet," the abomination continued, the Multi Man's voice nearly overtaking Margo's, "you're here pretending that you're going to wake up from this, unscathed. Wake up without hearing voices or seeing things. Or feeling bugs crawl across your skin and get into your clothes."
Margo jerked around toward the voice. "I knew none of this was real!" she exclaimed, but once she'd gazed upon the abomination, she'd felt herself proven wrong, reduced to the size of an ant.
She saw herself, a horrific imitation of herself. Her skin was chalky and white as moonlight, and bright red Xs stretched across her eyes, burnt across the sclera and over her eyelids. The imitation sported the same sleepwear she wore the night she'd hallucinated the home invader in her apartment, yet it possessed all the wounds she'd sustained the day the Multi Man infiltrated Psychwatch. The cuts on the arms, the laceration across her cheek, her fingers bent in grotesque positions, overcome with a deep shade of purple, and the messy gash in the crease of her left elbow, oozing enough blood to paint a house.
"It's real," said the imitation. "If it can kill you, if it can reduce you to a whimpering, miserable shell that can do nothing but beg to be put out of its misery...then it's real."
Margo bolted toward the imitation and tackled it to the ground, only for it to vanish with the rest of the ground beneath her. She fell into a pitch-black void. The buildings, streets, and sky were gone. Air blasted against her chest and around her arms as she made her descent into nothing.
Then she crashed through the abyss, the darkness shattering to pieces as if bursting through a window, and planted face-first into an empty intersection. She felt cuts tread across her face, and the oxygen left her body in a hurry, her chest and stomach aching from the impact. When she lifted herself from the floor, she froze in place, thrown off by the street's texture as she brushed her fingers against it. Too smooth, like a vinyl record.
Before she'd made the connection, Margo's only light was the flickering red glow of the stoplight above her. Only a second later, the rest of the city came to life, the lights trailing toward the sky. Skyscrapers surrounded her on all sides with no top floor in sight, like pillars holding up the sky. When she glanced at the ground beneath her, she saw herself staring back, saw how small she was amidst that sleek yet daunting metropolis around her.
Where am I? she thought. Where is that...thing...that brought me here?
The road ahead of Margo flooded with blue light, and she saw holographic screens the size of billboards float against the buildings' exteriors. The city square, perhaps. She made her way there, eyes peeled for the next disorienting sight she'd come across.
The moment she neared the city square, the claustrophobia went away as distance grew between her and the skyscrapers that had closed in on her like the claws of an otherworldly beast. She stood amidst an empty clearing the size of Independence National Historic Park, yet plant life and people were nowhere to be seen. When she looked up at the sky, she saw only a starless void. The Psychwatch logo emblazoned the screens watching over her from hundreds of feet above. Even after living in a world in which SanityScans rested on the corner of almost every city block, Margo had finally felt violated by all the attention.
Each footstep was heavier than the last the closer she got to the center of the square. As if a dense chunk of metal grew within her legs like a tumor. She'd felt herself slowing down, including her arms. Her existence was screeching to a halt.
The voices came back one by one. First, Ellie. Then others. They'd surrounded her, their faces hidden in shadow, everything but their mouths. Some smirked. Others remained blank.
Then returned the Multi Man's voice like a cold rush of wind, unseen but very present. "Good evening, Margo."
The few smirks present on the voices' faces snapped away instantly, replaced with gaping mouths and terrified gasps. One voice, a bearded man Margo had never seen before in her life, vanished before her eyes in a violent blast of red mist. She stumbled back, her face splashed with someone else's blood.
"Well, we're fucked," said Ellie, and she met the same fate, reduced to minuscule bits of flesh and bone. Margo screamed, as did the rest of the voices.
Soon, six or seven of them disappeared in a flash of light and gore, replaced by humanoid creatures standing eight feet tall, each one dotted with colorful lights. Their heads were featureless. No eyes, mouths, ears, or noses. Just more bright lights, like the universe personified. They moved so fast, the voices only had a second to react before vanishing in a spray of blood.
"Isn't this what you wanted?" said the Multi Man, erupting through the streets. "They're fixing you. They're making sure you'll only have one voice in your head. The guiltiest one."
"This isn't fixing," Margo hissed. "This is hurting me."
"As does every other solution."
Margo jerked up in place again. I'm awake, she thought. But everything remained unfamiliar once again. Wrong body. Wrong clothes. A mask covered her face, and dozens of other individuals with that same mask surrounded her. She sat in a chair, nails burrowing into the cushion.
Then back again. She stood in the featureless city before the featureless humanoids that cleared her mind of voices. Back in the dream, she thought.
"I saw that!" she shouted. "Let me out of here!"
The humanoids approached her, leaning forward to match her height. A singular bright light appeared where a face could've been, inviting Margo to stare until her eyes melted out of their sockets.
In a voice that resonated like church bells, one humanoid said, "We've cleared your head, Margo Sandoval. We've freed you. Why do you remain ungrateful?"
"None of you are real," she barked. "None of you are fixing me! I'm fixing myself just by lasting another—"
"We were hoping you'd be the exception, as the last human being on this planet. The others were too doubtful. Too hopeless. They wanted to be alone, so we took them to the one place where they'd find the silence they craved."
Margo raised her brow. "You killed them all?"
Don't give in. This is still all a lie. Don't show fear.
"They finished the job," said the Multi Man. "It seems we found a way to work together in the end."
Margo growled, "What are you?"
"We are the future," said one humanoid, and the words burned across the colossal screens above her.
"We are the cure," said another. Those words replaced the previous ones.
Then the final. "We. Are. Psychwatch."
Margo watched her agency's psi logo appear on every screen in sight. When those screens had filled, new ones appeared beside them until the entire sky was hidden, and a dome of holograms traveling for miles around trapped Margo in that nameless, featureless metropolis.
She grabbed her hair and yanked with all her might. This isn't your head, this isn't your head, this isn't your fucking head! Get the fuck out of here!
She got herself out.
Psychwatch's humanoid followers, nothing more than dust. The smooth, coal-black streets dashed to pieces like a broken mirror. Margo fell once again. An avalanche of ash and snow broke her fall, and she sank through the flakes until she collided with a solid surface once more.
"You've finally figured it out," said the Man. "I knew you could do it. The next question is, do you know how we got you here?"
"In a PACER program?" Margo exhaled, but she sunk back into the ashes, everything aching. She clutched her stomach and her back, wincing and swearing under her breath.
"Correct again. We took plenty of souvenirs from Psychwatch that day. Weapons. Shields. Maps. Technology, both prototypical and contemporary. This PACER junk, this Psychoanalytical Cognitive Evaluation Render, caught my eye quicker than anything else."
"How...did you even..."
"Find it? Learn how to operate it? I've seen professionals at work, Margo. I've cut them open to see how their brains work."
Margo yelped as the switch occurred again. Gloves on her hands, mask on her face, an army of lackeys surrounding her. Then back into the PACER, back into the ashes.
"You're waiting for cognitive deviation to kick in," she said. "You're trying to trap me in your head!"
"That's one possibility," the Man replied. "Maybe I'm waiting to offer you the opportunity to walk a mile in my shoes. See the world from the perspective of someone who will go down in history. Or I may just be willing to botch the mind-merging and kill us both. I have enough individuals on my side to finish what I started, even after I'm gone."
The switch happened again. Margo jumped out of her seat, staring down at the new body she'd temporarily possessed before looking around some more. The albino twins took each of her sides, Whitey on her right, Crimson on her left. Just ahead, six masked men with more poise and gravitas than the rest. Identical suits, identical hair, and their masks weren't raggedy or tattered. They—
CRASH!
Back into the PACER with Margo.
She drowned in ashes once again. Some got in her mouth, sending her into a coughing fit. She swiped away at everything within her reach until she was free again.
To her left rested a closed door illuminated by a flickering red light.
"How are you doing this?" Margo said. "Whose head are we in: mine or yours?"
"It really wouldn't make a difference," said the Man. "But I understand where that's coming from. The patient sees their mindscape in a mixture of wonder and horror while the Psychwatch officer dives in, brave and sure of themselves. But you don't know how safe you are here. Or if you're safe at all. Who's running the program? How is it running? Who has the most favor in this simulation: you or me?"
Margo stood up and brushed off the remaining pieces of ash on her clothes.
"I'll spoil the surprise," said the Man. "We're on equal footing. Physically speaking. Those moments you see the world through my eyes, I see it through yours. I feel your pain. I feel the soreness in my body where your wounds keep healing. You're almost completely immobile because of me. Even if you returned to your body, you could still die from your injuries."
Margo remained silent, clenching her fists, her eyes trained on the door with the red light.
"In fact...have you ever considered what I or any of my followers could've done to you while you were unconscious?"
Margo looked above her, hoping it'd help her feel as if she wasn't buried hundreds of feet in the earth where no one could hear her or care for her. If that's how low the Multi Man had sunk to reinforce what he was capable of...
"If that's not a lie...and I make it out of here," she said, "I'll kill you and everyone else I see wearing your mask. Do you understand?"
She thought she could repress the anger and the disgust and the hatred, but it burned straight through her. "AFTER EVERYTHING YOU'VE DONE TO RUIN MY LIFE, YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD!"
"You'll get what you want soon," said the Man. "You just have to step through that door."
"No, no, no, NO! JUST SHUT UP! You're not getting what you want from me anymore!"
"Stop pretending that I can't make the choice for you."
The switch occurred again. She found the Multi Man's body standing up only to tumble back down into the seat, grabbing the chair's arm to keep herself from sliding to the floor. She looked around and saw his followers laughing at her, even Whitey and Crimson. Before she returned to the PACER, she caught sight of the long scar traversing Crimson's cheek, and she saw that the young girl had to force herself to laugh.
When she'd returned to the PACER in a swift flash of movement that left her disoriented, she discovered the door was to her right this time. Red light flashed through the crevice beneath it.
The Multi Man got her through. No turning back.
When Margo carefully rotated in place to face away from the door, she found an endless corridor lined with dolls, life-sized and hanging from the walls by strings.
Get out, she decided, and she bolted back to the door. The moment she landed a kick, the door shattered to pieces, and she found the corridor continuing endlessly in the other direction. The choice now was which direction: forward or back?
I need to get out the same way I got here. Break through the floor! Get in the wrong body, something! Just...get me out...
The Multi Man made the choice for her once again. The hallway floor shifted like a conveyor belt. Margo started moving toward the first doll.
The doll resembled a pudgy man in ragged clothing, a long beard of thread dangling from his ghostly-white, porcelain face. Black marbles rested where eyeballs should've been. He was hunched over in tattered clothing, the pants too big and the hoodie coated with dust. Poor, homeless, Margo pondered his situation.
One string severed from the wall. It slithered into his back, and small cracks ruptured across his chest. Blood poured from the cracks down the doll's clothes, and agonizing screams radiated from its voice box, the mouth refusing to open despite the horrible screams. It pleaded for life, for mercy, until all that remained was incomprehensible screeching. The doll finally went silent after its head cracked open, and Margo watched as blood flowed down its face like melted wax.
She couldn't step away fast enough. Time went against her feet, reducing the speed in each step by half. There was a long gap of silence. No dolls. No blood. The walls of the corridor were blank. Margo counted down the seconds until the next one appeared.
This time, an older woman. Similarly ragged, dirty clothes to the first doll. She was sitting down.
"Can I help you?" she said through a static-ridden voicebox. "Sir? Sir, you're...you're moving too fast. Is everything alright?" A pause. "Hey, what are you doing? You're getting too close, sir. Please, just...sir! Sir! Get away! GET AWAY! SOMEBODY HELP! SOMEBODY—"
Her cheek cracked open. Blood seeped out. Another crack stretched across her neck, a slit throat. The blood spewed out like a water pump, drenching her clothes. Her hand crumpled up, the splintering of the porcelain like nails stabbing into Margo's spine. She covered her mouth, trembling, and when she looked ahead, more dolls lined the corridor.
All shapes. All sizes. Genders, races, languages, classes, some even sporting that dreaded mask she'd seen everywhere, they all went out the same way. Screaming in agony, begging for their lives, blood spurting from their wounds. One of the worst ones was a man with his stomach sliced open from one end to the other, and his intestines spilled to his feet as his voice gave out. Another had only seconds to react before its head exploded in all directions from a shotgun blast. She'd even caught sight of a doll that resembled Wendell Asch talking down to someone before his head caved in beneath the weight of a crowbar.
But two dolls carved out a place in Margo's mind to stay there for a long time, those of Dottie Forrester and Holden.
Dottie's last words comprised of declarations of love for the Multi Man, claims of returning the favor to the people who'd hurt her. She questioned why the Man led her toward the edge of the top floor, why he wasn't saying a word. She begged for her life, then spent the rest of the fall that would eventually kill her shrieking at the top of her lungs. The impact silenced her instantly, and every inch of her doll cracked like an eggshell, tinting the porcelain a sinister shade of red.
Holden's doll had the cleanest death out of all the dolls, but the sounds of him begging for his life just before his neck was snapped sent Margo dropping to one knee, wrestling with nausea and guilt. She could only glance at his doll for one more second, just as blood seeped out of the doll's mouth and nose, before returning her sights to the floor beneath her.
Another switch saved Margo from irreparable insanity. She tolerated collapsing to the floor in the Multi Man's body, tolerated the laughing and jeering, just to go back and find herself somewhere else in the PACER. Anywhere without the dolls.
She found herself in the same hall as before, but there wasn't a doll in sight. She heard a young girl crying several feet away.
The Multi Man's voice returned. "Have I broken you yet, Margo Sandoval?"
She didn't say a word. She just followed the sounds of crying, her eyes distant and head weary.
"Oh, that's right. I already have. You just haven't realized it yet."
Margo kept walking. She'd imagined herself breaking into a run at any second, running off into the shadows, hoping to ruin all the surprises until she'd suddenly wake up back in her body. Wake up somewhere better. Her bed. A hospital. The afterlife. Anywhere with lights.
She halted before the source of the crying. A young girl sat on the floor in a fetal position. She had long brown hair flowing down to her shoulders and wore a sweater far too big for her. She had her face buried in her arms, and the closer Margo got, the more terrified she became, tensing up and inching away, praying for mercy in a voice no one else would here.
Then Margo heard another girl. "Get away from her! Put your hands up!"
Margo raised her hands with an exhausted sigh.
Light footsteps came her way. Another girl, this one a teenager with short brown hair, a messy bobbed cut. She wore a white T-shirt that read KEEP TALKING, I'M DIAGNOSING YOU, and between her hands rested a Fatemaker trained on Margo. There was fear in the teen girl's eyes, but also a willingness to protect.
Margo recognized the teen instantly, and when she looked down at the younger girl on the floor, she recognized her, too.
"Who are you?" the teen girl asked.
Managing a small smile that took what little energy she already had, Margo replied, "I'm you."