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.
Margo Present met the sky above her and screamed out for Carl, unable to warn him that the body had been repossessed.
* * *
Carl jumped as another explosion rocked the building, his Fatemaker at the ready. Whitey's refusal to flinch rattled his bones. He wasn't afraid to die, Carl thought. There was an agenda built into his head, poured in through a hole dug out with an icepick. Whitey was clay.
Carl rested a finger against the ThoughtControl piece in his ear. "Nikki," he said, "how many more Sentients are there?"
No answer.
"Nikki?" he said again. Still nothing. "Thomas, do you know how many Sentients your boss has built?"
"No," said Whitey. While Carl crouched at the sound of the next explosion, the boy retained his gait. Even Margo remained tranquil amidst the chaos, Carl observed.
"Margo, how are you holding up?" he said. "You okay?"
The Multi Man's body nodded at him, the remaining hand shielding the bloody stump where an arm had been. Carl knew something was off already, but another urgent matter grabbed his attention.
"Andrade, Kusanagi," he said through his piece, "where are you?"
"We're fucking cornered!" replied Andrade, and the distant gunfire sounded two feet away through their pieces. "We're nearing the exit, but we've got six masked men on us and two Sentients standing by! We miss a shot, we could end up taking out half the building!"
"Shit. We'll be there soon! How's Kusanagi?"
"Coming and going just like Sandoval. He's bleeding badly. Have you seen the commissioner anywhere?"
"She just marched on through to find Holloway. She really just leave you both there?"
Andrade didn't answer. They both knew it. Everyone knew it.
"Nikki isn't responding," Carl said to break the silence. "Has anyone else been able to reach out to her?"
"I'll try," said Kusanagi. "She's overwhelmed, but she'll listen to me."
"Thomas," said the Multi Man's body. Carl was still too preoccupied to notice the switch.
It took Whitey's hand forcing into his chest, freezing him in place, to reprioritize the situation. The boy's eyes radiated defeat. He'd been found, and now there was no running away.
"Shit," Carl whispered again, and he carefully turned toward the Multi Man, whose head had been trained in his direction before he could connect the dots.
"Keep the gun facing in front of you," said the Multi Man. "We all know you can't solve anything anymore by shooting me."
Suddenly, Carl himself felt like he'd be switched out with a more effective alter. Anyone who could do what he could without the rage and the doubt.
"Thomas Caulfield," said the Man. "That's a name you haven't heard in a very long time, haven't you, Whitey?"
Carl saw that Whitey was crying.
"Yep, there's definitely a reason for this behavior," said the Man. "If I haven't killed him by the end of the day, you should see him through a Scan, Maslow. I'm sure you and your colleagues will find something interesting."
"What do you want?" said Carl.
"I'd like my arm back. What happened to it?"
"It's gone. You'll just have to regrow one like the rest of us. Where is Margo?"
The Man tilted his head. "If I tell you, you might change your mind about wanting to find her."
The barrel of Carl's Fatemaker met him point blank before either of them could blink. "Where the hell is she?" Carl asked again.
"Allow me the privilege of a prosthetic arm," the Man said, "and I will tell you exactly where she is."
The Fatemaker shifted to Subjugate Mode. The Man chuckled at the sight. "Y'know," he said, "when it comes to learning a man's secrets, the power in his brain has to be on for it to be possible."
Carl jabbed the barrel of the Fatemaker into the Man's shoulder by his remaining arm.
"Ah, I see what you're getting at," said the Man. "You'd like to bribe me with two cybernetic arms instead. Frankly, I'm fine with just one. And I'm sure Margo would, too. Don't you think?"
Carl said nothing.
"Whitey," said the Multi Man, "were you heading to the armory? Answer honestly, please."
The boy was still crying. Carl jumped again at the sound of another explosion beyond the walls. He composed himself as best as he could.
"Thomas Caulfield."
Whitey immediately stopped crying. He turned around to face his superior, his red eyes glowing as tears glistened along the rims of his lower eyelids.
"How about we show Officer Maslow here the armory?"
Whitey nodded his head, and he resumed walking. No change in direction. Carl pondered the boy's intentions from the very beginning as he pursued the two enigmas before him.
"Is that where you're keeping her?" he asked the Man, and he jumped at the sound of gunfire resonating down the hall.
"Last we checked," the Man replied. "Are you gonna shoot me if she isn't?"
Carl ignored him, returning a finger to his ThoughtControl piece. Nikki, he thought, answer me. Are you okay?
No, she replied.
What's wrong?
Everything.
Hey, don't be so hard on yourself. All you need to do is work on the drones. Find the Sentients, keep an eye on whoever's left. Don't hold yourself responsible for our losses.
"Alright, you know what?" the Multi Man said. "I admire you, Maslow, so I'll just be honest with you. Margo isn't in the armory. However, I still do need something from there in order to get you to her."
"What is it?" Carl growled.
"A cybernetic arm like the one Inspector Andrade has. If we have several, we can replace hers with a lamer, cheaper model should anything happen to it."
Carl slammed the Multi Man against the wall, splattering it with blood from the wound. He felt the PACER halo hidden behind the mask as he jammed the Fatemaker against the Man's head.
"TELL ME WHERE THE FUCK SHE IS!"
Trembling. Whimpering. That was the response Carl got. The Man's voice was higher, more hopeless. "Carl? What's happening?"
"Margo!" Carl exclaimed, and he turned the Multi Man's body so she could see him again. "Margo, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to."
"Did we find my body yet?"
Carl gulped. "No, but we're still looking! We'll find it soon, I prom—"
The Multi Man's fist swiftly met Carl's throat. The officer tumbled back. Words couldn't leave his tongue, only coughs and gurgles. Carl collapsed to the floor, grasping his neck. His Fatemaker slipped from his hands and landed out of reach.
"She's still gone," said the Man in his normal voice, and he marched over to the Fatemaker and stomped on it until it bled sparks. "For the record," he said, "I only need the arm to stop the bleeding. I could have you and the rest of Psychwatch on your knees even if all that's left of me is my beating heart."
Carl's throat ached. He wanted to vomit. He felt his face growing beet-red, the veins popping out like worms vacating soil. Everyone else wanted control, but he wanted to be there when Margo would emerge from the PACER with her integrity intact.
"One more thing, Carl Maslow," said the Multi Man. "Neither me nor my young subordinate here have fully learned how to install a cybernetic limb. Perhaps you could get Inspector Andrade to assist you."
Carl directed his swelling rage at Whitey, hoping to break the stoic facade he was too damn good at putting on. The eyes, Carl thought. Those were the only way he could sense the guilt if such a thing was present.
"Get Andrade," said the Man, "and I'll show you where Margo has been this whole time."
* * *
"Carl!" shouted Margo from an unreachable dimension. Her younger selves took her hands, scanning the sky for her target.
"What's happening out there?" asked her Post-Erasure self. "And who's that person out in the distance?"
Margo Present stood on her tiptoes but returned to earth, knowing another scream would be just as futile as the ones before. She followed her Pre-Erasure self as they shifted their sights to a humanoid thing standing yards away. At a distance, it was nothing more than a silhouette, a three-dimensional shadow tracing Margo Present's every move. Then it started walking.
"Is that a person?" whispering Margo Post, but her future self gestured her to shush and look after their youngest self, taking Pre-Erasure's hand.
"Is it gonna hurt us?" said Margo Pre.
"No, I won't let it," said Margo Present as she aimed her Fatemaker at the incoming stranger.
A familiar voice reached her ears with the passing breeze. "Wow. I always said we Sandovals only look after ourselves. Guess your brain took that to its logical conclusion. I gotta say, though, you were fucking adorable when you were young."
"It's that lady!" whispered Margo Pre.
"Shit!" said Margo Post. "When you were gone, this girl showed up and—"
"I know exactly who she is," said Margo Present, curling her finger around the trigger. "Hello again, Ellie."
The distant individual materialized before them in the blink of an eye, frightening the younger counterparts. Ellie looked the same as she did the day she sent Margo spiraling downward. Perfect posture, dark red lipstick layered over a playful smirk, long brown hair styled in a wavy bob that reached her shoulders. She stood two inches over the host whose mind she plagued.
"Took a while to find you," Ellie said. "Almost thought your mind expanded in size or something." She glanced down at Pre and Post. "How are you girls doing? Is she treating you alright?"
Neither of the younger counterparts said a word.
Without glancing back at Margo Present, Ellie asked, "Have you told them what I mean to you?"
"Have you?" Margo said.
Ellie smiled. "I've said some things."
Margo raised her Fatemaker to the illusion's head, forcing her to laugh. "They were crazy things!" Ellie said. "Wanna hear—"
BAM!
Margo's young counterparts shrieked as a stream of blood sprayed from the back of Ellie's head, the Present not even recoiling from the shot. Ellie stumbled back three feet but remained standing, sneering at the person who once believed her to be a sister. Blood oozed out of the hole in her forehead, and more trailed out each nostril down to her chin. All she could do was laugh more and spit the blood into the soil beside her.
"Here's what I told them!" she said. "I said 'Hi! I'm the sister you never knew about. I'm the sickness you never knew about! I followed you around for years, watching over you, watching you grow, watching the world show you how meaningless your existence is, watch you receive all the punishment you deserve!' And then I gave them a solution. I told them the only way they could stop themselves from ever having to see me!"
"I'm not interested," said Margo Present, and she fired another shot, this time through Ellie's shoulder. A chunk of skin dangled off her arm, and blood poured down to her fingertips.
"I told them all they had to do was kill themselves!" Ellie shrieked. "Throw away life. THROW IT FUCKING AWAY!"
Five more shots, all through her torso. Ellie refused to fall. She had that in common with Margo. But she never raised her voice to a grating howl ever again. Instead, she looked down at herself, watched blood soak into her clothes, reduce her allure to an exposed, ineffective facade.
"I'll never leave you," she said weakly. "I'll be with you when you die."
Margo Present lowered her gun. "Girls," she said, "we have paranoid schizophrenia. Symptoms started exhibiting around the age of twenty-two, as is usually the case. She is one of them."
Margo Present had a counterpart on each side, Pre to her right, taking her hand, and Post to her left. They watched Ellie lower herself to the ground, unable to look her host in the eye, instead watching her blood coat the dirt.
"Schizophrenia?" Margo Post asked, her voice slightly higher than a whisper.
"That's right," said Margo Present. "You hear her or see her when you get older, try your hardest to ignore her. Get a prescription for antipsychotics, and tell Mom and Carl. They'll help you take care of it."
"Is it easy living like this?"
Margo Present sighed. "Life will never get easier, even if we never had to deal with any of this. But it'll be harder for us to give up. I promise."
She glared up at the sky once again.
* * *
Andrade fired over a table as cover, burning holes in the wall and oftentimes grazing the arms or torsos of her attackers. To her side, Kusanagi waited to pass out and wake up somewhere better, studying his clothes as a murky shade of crimson overtook them. Voices had been screaming their names into their ears through their ThoughtControl pieces.
"Fuck!" Andrade shouted as she took cover beside Kusanagi. "There's too many of them, and the Sentients are still there."
"Eradicator Mode," Kusanagi coughed. "Have you tried it yet?"
"Joseph, even one incorrect hit with that mode could still set off what's left of them."
Kusanagi exhaled a painful breath. "Try the masked men first. Then the Sentients."
Andrade nodded and touched her ThoughtControl piece. "Maslow, what's your position?"
"I have the leader in captivity," Carl said, "but he won't cooperate unless I fulfill his request."
"What does he want from you?"
"He needs me to stop the bleeding where Holloway blew his arm off. And he needs your help installing a prosthetic."
Andrade visualized the issue, hoping to pinpoint any fabrications in the Multi Man's request. Not many potential ways to deceive them. The installation would indeed prevent him from bleeding out, but it would also provide him with a weapon. An easily vanquishable one, however. Not much in the way of immediate danger apart from her current dilemma of going against several armed crooks and two walking bombs.
"I'll see what I can do," she told Carl, "if I can somehow get us out of here."
"Forget about me, Daniela," said Kusanagi. "Find yourself a way out. I'll take care of them."
"You can't even stand up!" she said.
"I know. And I doubt I'll stand again." Kusanagi grunted as he sat up, not even flinching as a few bullets collided with the wall just above him. "But you can still help them. You can still help Sandoval."
The Fatemaker trembled in Andrade's arms. Bullets raced toward her but connected with the walls around her, spraying her and Kusanagi with dust. She pondered what awaited her on the other side of the wall, how many of her fellow officers fell victim to stray shots, how many of their own masked men had been struck. What value did human life possess in their eyes? If it did at all.
Through the bullet holes, she realized the wall came between her and a three-way intersection in a corridor.
"You see that?" she told Kusanagi. "There's a way out."
"Great," he said, managing a weak smile. "Good luck. Let me know if I can do anything to help."
"Come on, Joseph, there has to be a way to get you out."
"My only options are a bodybag or a dustpan, Daniela." Kusanagi glanced at her. "You get to leave alive. Do it."
She took Kusanagi's hand. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Just live and get better. And now that you've pointed out the holes in the wall, I have an idea." He winced as he raised a finger to his ThoughtControl piece. "Atkinson, send a drone to my location."
"Y-Y-Yes, sir," she said, and seconds later, she added, "S-S-Sir, there are two Sentients just outside the room!"
"I know. Tell me when you're within six feet of them," Kusanagi said, and he flashed Andrade an ardent gaze. "Andrade, listen to me. On the count of three, I need you to blow a hole in that wall and run out as fast as you can. Don't look back. Just fire. Don't even change modes."
With her mouth ajar, Andrade nodded. "And you?"
"I'll cover you. Trust me."
"I'm here, K-K-Kusanagi," Nikki said. "I'm on the other side of the wall behind the Sentients. Is th-th-that what—"
"That's perfect, Atkinson, thank you. Now, when I tell you to, I need you to send out the pulse."
"But sir!"
"It was great working with you, Atkinson," he said, his smile breaking Andrade's heart. "Keep finding people to trust. You've got a bright future ahead of you."
Andrade stared at the hole-riddled wall in front of her. She wondered, What would I leave behind if I died today?
"On my count, Daniela," said Kusanagi. "One!"
The gunfire halted. Andrade caught a quick peek over her cover and saw one Sentient with his arms reaching toward the sky, casting over his disciples like the false Messiah he was. Beside him stood the other Sentient, its head tilted and demeanor curious.
"Two," Kusanagi said lower. He met Andrade's eyes for the last time, reading her lips when she whispered, "Thank you."
There was a pause. Then there was no cue. Kusanagi blew the wall open before throwing himself over the table, squeezing the trigger over and over until half the masked men were reduced to ash. He took the right arm of the Messiah-looking Sentient, then everything above it went away with subsequent blasts.
"THREE!" he exclaimed, and Andrade scurried through the new exit as Kusanagi's blood sprayed from his shoulders and his back, worn apart by another onslaught of gunfire. Then the pulse followed, and the onslaught died again, instead replaced by crackling electricity, the sounds of weapons blown apart by an EMP.
Dragging herself away, she heard the Multi Man's voice rippling through the Sentient's manufactured voice box. "And to dust we shall return."
She didn't have to look back to know the Sentient was rushing toward her. She pushed herself away and away, panic gluing her to the floor of the hall. Her cybernetic hand wielded her Fatemaker for the last time, making the most of Eradicator Mode. She didn't see it reduce its leg to smithereens, nor did she see it take a chunk out of its head.
But when it still managed to detonate, even before looking back, she knew that it had taken her robotic arm with it.
She gawked longer at the cybernetic remains, watching sparks dance at the end of the severed wires, than she did at the chasm where a room once stood. A single human-shaped entity of destruction took a man she'd trusted for years, took devotees of its own creator, out of this world in the blink of an eye. A problem and a solution, gone. All she could do was rest her temple against the floor, feel her eyes hollow out as the blood drained from her face.
"Andrade?" whispered Nikki through their pieces. "I...Are you th-th-there?"
She nodded her head slowly, brushing her hair against the cold floor.
"A-A-Andrade?"
"I'm here," she said, and she grasped the warm remains of her artificial limb, letting it burn her organic hand.
"I'm sorry," said Nikki. "About everything."
Just let me rest, she wanted to say, but she couldn't. She thought about all the responsibilities placed in her hands, the wrong hands. The wrong hand, more accurately. Do anything wrong, Psychwatch told her, and you'll be back in a rundown apartment building, finding the right vein to plunge a syringe into.
"It's not your fault," she said, and as she rose from the floor, she concluded, "It'll be mine if we don't succeed."
* * *
The Multi Man leaned against a table in a large room, staring down Carl as Whitey dashed around the room like a roach, searching box after box for a cybernetic arm. PACER equipment in one box. Pillboxes and syringes in another. ThoughtControl pieces. Old and new-model Fatemakers. A successful raid on Psychwatch equipment, Carl hated to admit.
"Hey," he said as Whitey retrieved a Fatemaker. "Hand over one of those."
"No," said the Multi Man. "Whitey, don't give him anything without my approval. Keep searching for the prosthetic."
"Thomas," said Carl, "you don't need to listen—"
"Thomas Caulfield," said the Multi Man, freezing the boy in place, "do what he says, and I'll drag you back to the doctor."
Whitey searched faster, tossing away boxes and tearing cardboard to shreds.
"Why did you do this to him and his sister?" said Carl. "They're just kids."
"I saved them from a worse fate, Officer Maslow. When I found them, their father had been routinely molesting them and calling it 'checkups.' And since they were beyond the reaches of Psychwatch's precious Scans, no one was coming to save them."
"Then how is it 'saving them' if you spend every day controlling this boy with his greatest source of trauma?"
The Multi Man leaned forward. "Guess we're not so different after all, me and Psychwatch."
Carl took a deep breath. "What's his sister's name?"
"We called her Crimson."
"Her actual fucking name, asshole. What is it?"
The Multi Man paused. "You're gonna have to pry it out of the boy. But if you do, I'll have to kill you both." He tilted his head to peer behind Carl, hearing footsteps. "There she is."
"Andrade!" Carl gasped, watching his colleague limp into the room with distant eyes and a missing arm. "Are you okay? What the hell happened?"
"Kusanagi is gone," she said, resting her hand on Carl's shoulder. She looked ready to pass out and wake up weeks later.
"Doesn't seem like he's the only thing that's gone," the Multi Man said, glaring at the new stump.
"What reason do you have," she said, "for doing all of this?"
The Multi Man forced out a brief, condescending laugh. "Very few individuals get this kind of opportunity. To rip the truth from its hiding place."
Carl and Andrade said nothing, the latter perplexed as she watched Whitey unearth a cheap, borderline outdated prosthetic arm from a box. He blew dust off its juniper green surface and approached his three superiors, shaking his head "no" when he and Andrade made eye contact.
"I didn't just awaken Margo to the lies her brain was feeding her," said the Man. "I made the rest of the world see that Psychwatch is like any other bloodthirsty god hiding behind the guise of salvation and healing. It's created by man. It has a foundation that can crumble."
"Then what does that make you?" growled Carl.
"Right now? I'm your god. You want the girl you've forced into the role as your daughter. You want mercy and a comprehensible explanation for how I've killed hundreds of people in less than a year. I can give you the first two once you've set the prosthetic in place."
All eyes rested on Andrade, whose shoulders and head sunk as she was forced into the spotlight. She reached for the mutilated stump with her biological hand, wishing she could disappear.
"Tell the boy what to do," said the Man. "Then you can take back whatever you want from here. Even the guns."
Carl's ears reduced Andrade's instructions to an unpleasant garble as he focused all of his attention on the Multi Man, almost begging for Margo to come back out and beg for her body back. He wondered if she could see him the way he sometimes watched other alters pilot his body, peeking from behind his own eyes to see how they made his life easier. Perhaps it was best if she couldn't.
"That should be it," Andrade said.
The Man closed his new fingers into a fist, studied the back of his artificial hand. His mask reflected back to him off its juniper green surface, the ceiling lights glinting off his knuckles.
"Very impressive," he said, and he stood up from the table. "Whitey, hand over a Fatemaker."
Carl and Andrade froze, their muscles tensing. Carl wanted to step back, run for cover, but he knew he'd embarrassed himself enough that day. If he died, he wanted to at least die resisting. Or at least die believing that wasn't the most foolish thing he could do.
The Man took the Fatemaker with his organic hand and raised it to Carl's head. "If I show you where Margo is," he said, "you must agree to let me disappear. You'll get her back, and you'll get to continue this little hunt. We'll meet again soon, just on more equal footing. Is that understood?"
In another lifetime where Carl and Andrade still had their faith in Psychwatch, still hadn't lost their dignities and self-respect, they would've opposed. They would've charged head on, even if it meant taking a shot from a Fatemaker just to show the world that Psychwatch was incorruptible, always victorious. But with their clothes layered in ash and their heads light and weary, they decided to nod.
"Smart choice," the Multi Man said, and he fired four shots into the wall beside him. The fifth shot was through Eradicator Mode, and it reduced the wall to dust. The sight nearly had Carl fainting.
Margo lay strapped to a bed, bandaged from head to toe. Oxygen tubing wedged into her nostrils, and an IV line pierced the crease of her elbow. Engulfing her head rested the PACER helmet. Carl wanted to rip it off, blast it into unrecognizable pieces, and carry her miles and miles away from Psychwatch. But he composed himself, knowing he would've been traded out for someone else should he get anymore anxious than he already was.
"If I didn't miss those first shots," the Man said, "my condolences. You can have her. But if I didn't miss a shot..."
He paused, studying Margo's unconscious body. She was still breathing. All the old wounds and scratches were there. No new blood.
"Whitey," he said, "did I miss?"
Whitey slowly nodded his head. "Yes, sir."
The gun switched back, and the Man fired through Whitey's chest. "There," said the Man to the officers. "Have all the bodies you want."
He didn't have to blow another hole through the wall or vaporize the floor to depart. All he had to do was walk away. Carl and Andrade didn't even budge. Their feet felt cemented to the floor, and every limb felt like jelly. When his footsteps vanished from their ears, Andrade was the first to move, bolting toward Whitey as he lay splayed out on the floor, eyes piercing the ceiling as blood seeped through his shirt.
"Maslow!" she said. "Maslow, get over here! You have to put pressure on his wound!"
Carl's head ached. He wanted to cut it off just to stop the pain, just to put him, Vince, Catalina, and Loki down. He couldn't run to Whitey nor to Margo. His body wanted to tumble to the floor and merge with it, decay like grass before an unforgiving winter.
"Maslow!" Andrade shouted again. Her hand remained firm on Whitey's chest, turning a darker shade of red with each passing second. "Maslow, look, I'm sorry about Holden. I'm sorry about the day we were in your apartment. And I'm sorry about Sandoval! But we need to help this boy. You can help this boy! I can get Sandoval out of the PACER if it's not too late!"
Carl wanted to be the first thing she saw when she reemerged. He wanted to apologize. But in that moment, all he saw was that he was a bad omen. Someone had to be a bad omen. Psychwatch! Psychwatch was a curse. They were all sick. They were all marked for death and misfortune. What was the point of helping Whitey? If he didn't die now, he'd die another day. Most kids his age killed themselves. It was statistics! It was all...
Fuck statistics, Carl thought, and he traded places with Andrade, resting his two hands on Whitey's chest, feeling the boy's breathing. The boy looked dead before he even hit the floor. He looked dead the moment he left that house with his sister, pursuing a masked psychopath who wanted to prowl forbidden territory, prey on the weak.
"Stay with me, Thomas," he said, getting a glimpse of Whitey's eyes, hoping the light would stay there and not drain away. "You're gonna be just fine."
Whitey said nothing. That's what he did best. He kept his eyes on the ceiling, hoping to see stars. When was the last time anyone had seen any?
"Thomas, listen to me," said Carl. "What is your sister's name?"
Carl looked back to make sure nothing could obstruct the boy's answer. The boy's freedom and the life he had ahead of him. He looked at Andrade, hearing her fingers rap against buttons and twist knobs all over the PACER. He looked at Margo, her bruises yellowish-brown and surrounding a gash across her cheek. She looked so peaceful, as if she weren't caught in a fabricated nightmare.
Whitey answered his question, but he didn't hear it. He turned back to look at the boy. "What did you say?"
"Her name," he said weakly, "is Alice."
A familiar scream startled Carl. Not a painful one nor an angry one, but that of fear escaping the body. The body of Margo Sandoval.
There she sat up in bed, panting, having escaped the nightmare. She and Andrade yanked the PACER helmet off, and her hair slid out and dropped around her shoulders. She grabbed her face, feeling the wound, the sting. Confusion, shock, everything struck her as she felt her new surroundings. The oxygen tubes. The IV line.
"Andrade," she said, "where the hell am I? What happened to your arm?"
Andrade shrugged. "Wish I could say, Sandoval. All I can say is you're back in the real world."
Then Margo saw Carl. She covered her mouth. Carl almost cried, almost disappeared back into his head.
"Welcome back, kid," he said. He looked back at Whitey just to keep himself in the light.
"Oh my God, is he okay?" Margo asked, referring to Whitey. "How is he?"
"Not good," Andrade said. "The masked man shot him and left him here with us. But now that we've got you out, we can do more for him." Andrade raised a finger to her ThoughtControl piece. "This is Inspector Andrade, requesting medical support."
Margo yanked away the oxygen tubing, then the IV line, ignoring the new gash in her arm. She climbed out of bed and collapsed to the floor instantly, groaning.
"How long have I been here?" she said. "What day is it?"
Andrade took her by her shoulder, assisting her to her feet the best she could. "November 17. The time is 6:45 PM."
Margo's jaw dropped. "But the attack was on Halloween."
Almost three weeks. Holed up in an abandoned building, surrounded by masked psychopaths, forced into the PACER. How long had she been in there? At what point was she sent in? Neither of them wanted to ponder such a thing. Andrade nodded her head and kept Margo standing as they approached Carl.
"You'll be okay, Thomas," said Margo. "Medics are on their way."
"Good, you both need them," said Carl.
"I'm fine, Carl. For now anyway."
The squeaking of wheels sounded by the doorway. Margo and Andrade glanced over to see Jack being wheeled away on a gurney by masked Psychwatch officers. When he'd disappeared from view, Mason followed behind him, pausing by the doorway to stare at the revenant known as Margo Sandoval. Mason flashed her a smirk while Margo returned with the most contemptuous leer she could muster.
"Glad to have you back, Sandoval," said Mason.
"Commissioner," Margo replied, hoping she'd perfectly emphasized the venom in her tone. "I can name two people who deserve that gurney more than he does."
"Psychwatch property is expensive, Sandoval. We have to be extra careful removing it from the scene. I'm sure you understand. Where's the masked man?"
Margo shrugged, tired of having her in her line of sight.
Mason raised her brow. "You didn't see him anywhere?"
Margo shook her head, and Mason walked away.
"Psychwatch property," repeated Andrade. "For fuck's sake."
"I know where he is," said Margo.
Andrade raised her brow. "What? Then why did you..."
"I've been in his head for three weeks. I know exactly where he's going."
Andrade's eyes narrowed. Even Carl and Whitey were intrigued. "How?" said Carl.
Margo looked at Carl. "Is Scan surveillance still at one hundred percent throughout the city?"
"No, we're still working on it. That attack crippled us far worse than anything that's come before. Why?"
"Because," Margo said, "he once told me that bad habits will always cost you something. And his habit is always looking for a place to hide. Isn't that right, Thomas?"
Whitey took a deep, harsh breath and replied, "Yes."
"And we both know his favorite kinds of hiding places. Don't we?"
"Yes."
* * *
November 17, 2045 - 9:50 PM
Sirens every night. They demanded justice. The man responsible for bringing the city to its knees walked the streets at night, free and influential. Another few weeks, and he could've revived the forces that once stood behind him, that once hid behind paltry imitations of his mask.
But the Multi Man wandered the streets he'd rendered offline, streets the common citizen often referred to as the Psycho Slums. Wastelands cracking into the polished surface of civilization. He walked alone, admiring his new arm, reflecting streetlights and neon. And he laughed, amused by the idea he'd die as the only head Psychwatch couldn't force its way into.
Grayish pellets of snow met the pavement at his feet. Were he a man without the will to hide his face, he could've seen his breath materialize before him in a cloud of steam. But he didn't shiver. He hadn't felt the cold in a long time, nor the heat. Feeling was weakness, and he was the strongest thing of flesh and bone that he knew.
Curiosity maintained the upper hand, however, and he paused a block away from a bonfire dancing in the middle of a barren lawn. Two individuals hovered by the fire, one standing and the other sitting, their faces hidden by raggedy imitations of his mask. With his hand reaching for his knife, the Multi Man approached.
"Do you know the meaning behind those masks?" he said. "They mean truth. They mean reality, uncorrupted by delusion."
The individuals glanced at him, and he sighed. Sure enough, he'd been found. It was bound to happen.
"I recognize those bandages around your arms, Margo," he said to the one sitting down. "I put them there. I didn't have to, but I did."
Margo removed her mask and brandished a Fatemaker at the Man.
"And Officer Maslow," he said, "I recognize the way you stand. You stand like a man who's spent his life learning how to put on the correct facade and finally got it right. Ironic, isn't it?"
Carl unmasked and took the first shot at the Multi Man. Blood sprayed from the new hole burrowing into his torso.
The Man managed an aching laugh. "Even when I'm gone," he said, "I hope you two realize that I've poked holes in Psychwatch. I've chiseled cracks into their foundation."
Margo squeezed the trigger. Another shot through the Multi Man's chest. He stumbled back before repositioning.
"I will hold a place in history," he said, "as another man who killed God."
"We were never God," said Carl, and he fired another shot.
"You were the future," the Man said, his voice rougher and frustration growing as his blood tinted the snow red. "You had a timeline of your reign! I am the end of your reign! I marked your fall. I ripped you from the heavens and buried you in the ground."
"We're still standing," said Margo. "You won't be."
"I rival you, Psychwatch. I have a legacy! When I am gone, you will still be wiping away my influence on this world!"
The Multi Man dropped to one knee, blood drenching his pants and his gloves. His breathing was harsh and wet. He wanted to cough up blood, but that meant removing the mask.
"They'll only remember your mask," said Margo. "Once you take that off, you'll be just like everyone else, and that could've been the best thing to ever happen to you. If you'd taken it off sooner, you could've lived a normal life with normal pain and normal suffering. You didn't have to hurt anybody."
"You didn't have to kill Holden," Carl muttered, and a tear left his eye as he pulled the trigger again, eliciting a scream from the Man.
"You want the mask? Here! Here, it's off!" And the Multi Man yanked off his mask and threw it into the snow. "Here I am! The man who revealed Psychwatch has weaknesses! Another meaningless life dropped onto this world somehow accomplished all of this!"
Margo said nothing. Her finger hovered over the trigger.
The Man Behind the Mask coughed up blood, the snow red and curdled by what he produced. He looked back up at the officers, everything gone but his rage.
"What's next for me, Psychwatch?" he said.
The officers paused. The Man wanted pity. He wanted correction. Or what did he want? There was no reason for what he did. Perhaps there was a goal. Chaos. Deicide. But Psychwatch was never God. Nothing ever wanted to be deified. Too much faith in such a finite creation. If only he'd learned.
"WHAT'S NEXT FOR ME?"
They might've said it. They might have only thought it. But in that moment: "This is for Holden."
Margo and Carl fired away. By the time they'd finished, the Man was flat on his back, blood pouring from the wounds on his chest and out of his back. The snow around him was a crimson pool, and his eyes remained directed at the heavens above them. Empty. Deserving of Xs scrawled across them.
Sirens sounded again in the distance. Blue and white light danced across the alleyway. Margo and Carl looked at each other, tried estimating how much pain the other was in while they'd made their journey into the Psycho Slums rather than a hospital like any rational person would've gone. But they both knew what the other one said with their eyes alone: It is done.
The incoming Psychwatch vehicles were only a minute away. Margo took a moment to stare up at the sky, watch the wind blow the clouds out of view. At one point, there was a gap between them, and the night sky reached out to her.
For the first time in years, the stars were visible.