April 10, 2045 - 11:03 PM
The next few hours following the discovery of those girls in captivity were a typical night for Psychwatch. Shock, nausea, and a lot of tears.
The coroners eventually arrived to clean up the mess the Multi Man left behind, the dozens of mutilated Bod-Modders dangling by chains from the ceiling, deprived of their cybernetics. The deactivated bodies of the Sentients were taken back to Psychwatch in an attempt to find the individuals whose likeness they copied. Of the five girls they rescued, three were taken to the hospital to receive treatment for their injuries while the remaining two were escorted to headquarters for an interview.
Nikki nearly had a panic attack just writing down the details in a mission log. Royce had to take over, and even he went to war with his own emotions in the middle of summarizing. Halfway through the report, his hands were twitching uncontrollably and his fingers ended up tapping the wrong keys, generating gibberish that reminded him of his own disoriented thoughts. He almost made it toward the end, but Andrade took his place before he could create another typo. He and Nikki waited in the corner of the room, both of them struggling to catch their breaths and make the room stop spinning.
As soon as Carl retrieved control of his body from Vince, the first thing he did when he returned to the light was break down crying. Even after all those years, he hardly felt he had grown stronger. His cries were so full of anguish, so devoid of his trademark hope, many of the other officers assumed Catalina had taken control. She looked after anyone she cared about as if they were her own children, a beautiful trait she and Carl shared. Nonetheless, it was also their weakness.
With many of the other officers currently preoccupied with their own guilt, it was up to Margo, Andrade, Mason, and an incredibly paranoid Holden to initiate the interrogations. Margo was hooked into the PACER with one of the kids they rescued, a teenage girl with dirty, messy hair and bruises and cuts all around her face. Her eyes were closed shut as her mind found solace within the program, and it was incredibly refreshing to finally see her in a state of peace considering the fact they found her enduring great pain.
"All right, Sandoval," Mason said, quickly running her fingers along the buttons on the keyboard. "I wish you the best in there. Her mental state is stable enough to maintain a durable simulation, but evoking her traumas will quickly distort it. Try to make sure she remains composed."
Margo took a short, bothered look at the unconscious girl before the PACER helmet carefully descended over her head. "Everything will be all right," she whispered.
"Initiating PACER in three...two...one..."
Margo found herself in a bedroom.
Posters for movies and bands hovered against the walls in holographic displays. The blue early morning sky peered through the skylight on the ceiling above Margo. She sat on a sleek, beige-colored arm chair planted in the corner of the room, her hands clasped together as if in prayer. She wore a light blue sweater and jeans, as did the young frightened girl sitting on the bed in front of her. Finally free from the physical constraints of reality, the young girl looked absolutely beautiful. Streaks of wavy, sandy blonde hair trailed down her head to her shoulders and as she blinked multiple times as if waking from a nap, Margo noticed one eye was gray while the other was brown.
"Hello there," Margo greeted warmly. The girl abruptly jerked her head to the right to see the doctor-cop flashing a friendly smile at her. "What's your name, sweetie?"
"Dottie," the girl whispered.
A series of words raced across the small screen of Margo's ThoughtControl piece hovering in front of her eye:
Name: Dottie Marie Forrester
Age: 16
Sex: Female
Status: Diagnosed (social anxiety disorder; takes prescribed anti-depressants. Shows signs of mild psychosis due to trauma)
Threat Level 2 (Undergoing massive amounts of trauma. Emotions are in an incredibly volatile state. Please proceed carefully)
"Dottie Marie Forrester," Margo read before glancing back at the girl. "What a pretty name! And I absolutely love your eyes, by the way."
"Thank you," Dottie croaked. She couldn't look Margo in the eye, her own eyes scanning the fabricated environment around her.
"My name is Margo. I work for Psychwatch and I'm here to help you. We're running a PACER program to make you feel as safe and comfortable as possible by generating a location where you felt most comfortable based on your most positive memories." Margo paused to look around the room. Her gaze remained on the palm trees beyond the window, the beach only a small walk away. "Really nice place. Could you tell me a little more about it?"
"It—" Dottie cut herself off as she slowly inhaled. Margo nodded her head, a small and encouraging smile creeping across her face. "It's my family's vacation home. In Cape Cod. This was where I..."
"Uh, honey, before we delve right into the darker things, could you please tell me a little bit more about yourself?"
Dottie paused, still refusing to look Margo in the eye. "What is there to know?" she asked.
"Anything really. Your hometown, school, friends, family. Whatever you're comfortable with."
The young girl nervously twirled her hair around before resuming. "Well," she said sheepishly, "my name is Dottie. I'm sixteen years old. I was born and raised in Boston. Only child. I have heterochromia iridum, which means my eyes are different colors. I'm bisexual. And...that's...all I can really think of right now."
"Do you have any friends? Any other kinds of relationships?"
Dottie gulped. "I have f-f-friends," she croaked, her stutter warning Margo of her state. "I have a girlfriend. Had one anyway."
"Well, that's very sw—"
"I hate them..."
Margo froze. "Aggression levels are growing," Holden warned through their ThoughtControl pieces. "Mason says try to keep her calm. Avoid cognitive deviation."
"Why do you hate them?" Margo asked slowly, as if another word would make Dottie detonate like a bomb.
"I know Claire doesn't even care about me," Dottie continued in a quiet yet noticeably agitated voice, tears streaming down her cheeks. "My teachers didn't help me. And when my parents found out who I really was, they told me it was like they never even knew me!"
Take note of this, Margo thought, and the words in her mind were delivered to her superiors like Morse code. Her piece recorded every word that left Dottie's tongue, and a Psych Expressor would begin bringing whatever imagery filled the poor girl's head to life.
"How did you end up with the Bod-Modders?" Margo asked.
"I ran away!" Dottie sobbed, slouching further forward. "I thought coming here would make me feel safer. But they broke in! They forced me into their van. Th-th-there were other girls in there."
Margo nodded quietly. "Take deep breaths, sweetie," she urged.
"Th-th-they put us in cargo crates. They said, 'Just piss on the fucking floor!' And some of them tried..." Dottie choked on those last few words, as the urge to continue crying got the best of her, "Some of them tried to..."
"Shit," Holden muttered in disgust.
"Th-Th-They wanted to send us to the House of Pleasure. They said th-th-they'd treat us better than ever, as long as we did what they wanted." Dottie looked down again. "One of them put me in the shower. He told me to...he told me to d-d-dance for him! T-T-Take off my clothes!"
"Oh fuck, the House of Pleasure!" Holden repeated. "That's bad news."
The lights from the bedside lamp flickered uncontrollably, and the room filled with the nauseating stench of blood and urine. A tall man decorated with cybernetics stood by the bed, holding a dagger. An optical visor implant took the place of his eyes, and blood dripped from the bottom of the screen like tears. The man's flesh dissolved from his body until he was nothing but a shiny metal skeleton, the cybernetic implants still remaining in their original position. And Dottie let out the most inhuman scream Margo had ever heard.
"Correct the simulation!" Margo shouted into her piece. "Now!"
Dottie frantically scooted further into her bed, sending the sheets and pillows flying off. She backed against the wall so the side of her face and arms were pressed against it. Her screams were horrifying as she shrieked at the top of her lungs for the world around her to disappear, and the lights continued flickering on and off as if a demonic presence had entered the room.
"I said correct the simulation!" Margo shouted again, and each flicker of light in the room revealed a new corpse of a young girl. The lights started flickering so fast, the bodies began piling up at the edge of the room, and eventually they were joined by the horrifically ravaged corpses of Bod-Modders.
The only thing Margo could think of doing next was wrapping her arms around the girl, who tensed up in her arms as if preparing for another attack. She wouldn't stop begging for the demons to stay away from her, and her eyes were clamped shut as the storm of trauma passed over her. It hurt Margo to constantly see Dottie's real-world injuries fade in and out of the simulation, constantly flashing across her skin and face like strobe lights.
"None of this is real, sweetie," she whispered into Dottie's ears. She could feel the girl's tears landing on her arms as they wrapped tightly around her, the two of them clenching their eyes shut as if they were trapped in a sandstorm. "They can't hurt you. I won't let them."
"Please let me go," Dottie whimpered. "Just let me see him again."
Margo's eyes flashed back open as those last words left Dottie's tongue. The bedroom and all the nightmarish sights accompanying it had vanished into dust. All that was left were the two young ladies, the bed they rested on, and a single arm extending out of the shadows, its gloved hand planted firmly on Dottie's head.
"Mister?" she asked frightfully, slightly lifting her head so she faced the darkness. "Is that you?"
"Dottie," Margo whispered, still clutching the girl, "who is that?"
The gloved hand carefully massaged Dottie's hair before slowly smoothing down her cheek. The unseen entity brushed a tear off her cheek before groping her chin, and the sudden grin on her face sent a shiver down Margo's spine.
"Such a pretty girl," a voice uttered, the words hanging in the air like a horrible scent. Margo couldn't tell if that voice belonged to a human or something more sinister. "Can't believe they'd hurt someone like you."
"Please take me with you," Dottie sighed, her hand slowly moving down her leg.
The hand vanished into the dark for a moment before returning with a single spark rose, its petals specked with blood. The flower's hazy white glow briefly revealed something in the dark, a white mask with red X's for eyes and an unmoving grin, before the stranger returned to his shadowy shroud. He carefully adjusted the flower into Dottie's hair over her ear before smoothing his hand through her hair once more.
Margo could feel the girl getting warmer, and her heartbeat was growing faster. She tried pulling her away from the man in the dark, but Dottie remained unmoved, still staring off into the spot where he'd reappear and disappear. All the while she had the biggest smile on her face.
"I bet your family must miss you," the stranger continued. "Do you miss them?"
"No," the young girl asserted.
"Dottie?" Margo gasped.
"No?" the stranger chuckled. "Don't you love anybody?"
"I love you." Dottie's hand had reached her crotch, and she slid it into her pants as she let out another sigh. "Please let me be with you."
"You'd really sacrifice everything for your rescuer? A strong, beautiful young lady like yourself?"
"Anything for you!" Dottie cried. While her cheeks were still moist with tears, she had suddenly broken out into giggles, repeatedly cut short by her own tiresome gasps for air in a disturbing pattern of sexual excitement. The position of her hand only further emphasized the cause of her sudden arousal.
Margo could hardly restrain the girl any longer. Not just because Dottie was becoming more energetic, but also because she was filling to the brim with disgust. It was only a matter of time before she'd meet another victim who wasn't in the mood to be saved, and Dottie Forrester ended up being the one.
"Hello?" Dottie asked. "Are you still there, sir?"
"He's gone, sweetie," Margo replied, holding her tighter to brace for the impact of what might happen next. "He's not your rescuer. We are."
Dottie's smile disappeared. "But...he said I was beautiful."
"We need to return you to your family."
"But I don't want to see my family!" Dottie finally managed to shove Margo away. "They left me to die! Claire left me to die! Nobody cares about me, except for my rescuer."
"Honey, we are your rescuers, and we do care about you very much. We want to do what's best for you."
"Then take me to him!"
"Dottie, listen to me! He's only telling you what you want to hear. He's manipulating you!"
Dottie grabbed Margo by her collar. "How are you guys any better?" she cried.
Margo choked once more.
"Just let me see him again!" Dottie shouted, another tear drifting down her cheek. "Please! I love him so much!"
"Shit, finally!" Holden yelled from the other side of Margo's piece. "Simulation is ending. We're getting that girl some help."
And Margo and the young girl disappeared into the dust, Dottie's final request to see the Multi Man fading out like an echo.