Three days after Dottie and Penny were reunited with their families, Psychwatch made a few more enemies.
Shortly after Dottie's departure from Psychwatch, Arthur Cohen caught up to her and her parents, three individuals so disconnected it was hard to believe they shared the same bloodline. Her story poured out like tea from a pot, but Arthur could care less about showing this girl sympathy. The poor bastard was still having trouble comprehending the massacre of his coworkers weeks ago. Plus, he was really annoyed by her motormouth.
Eventually, her story, along with her distorted views of the murderous psychopath who'd stolen her heart, were released to the public through Arthur's online journal, the Perceiver. She had painted Psychwatch as a mob of violent meddlers getting in the way of the real rescuers, the masked men whom she never learned were all sentenced to death by the P3S. Those masked men killed the half-human monstrosities that kept her locked away from the world for too long. That's all that mattered to her. The doctor-cops were just taking all the credit.
Soon these masked men would gain scores of fans, probably enough to take on Psychwatch in the anarchic streets of the Psycho Slums. The parasites would try to unveil them as political heroes like any other degenerate they managed to shove into the spotlight. It would only make it that much harder for the System's expansion to initiate.
Unfortunately for them, Psychwatch was the higher power, the men and women with the guns and the money, and they still had advocates of their own. In just the span of a week, SanityScans had been installed in thirty neighborhoods originally deemed offline. And soon began the cleansing process. Hundreds of people were taking part in Psychwatch's services, many of them by force through the System's authority. Some found themselves on the path to recovery, others saw no change. Plenty more had to be snuffed out like candles, tiny flames not too far from become raging wildfires. Secrets in the dark started coming into the light.
It was on April 17, 2045, at 6:45 PM that Psychwatch had finally discovered the true location of the House of Pleasure.
Rising above a street so neglected and murky it looked like the ruins of the post-apocalypse, the House was a four-story building made of pure cement, not a single window in sight. It was surrounded by an entire complex of dilapidated brick buildings, its hiding place exposed by two, newly-installed SanityScans. A swarm of Psychwatch's drones floated around the building's exterior like bees around a hive, and the rest of the Neutralizers were on the way, their vehicles finally free to traverse the streets under the protection of the Scans.
Margo, Carl, Royce, and Mason herself rode along in the back of one vehicle. A dozen other of their own trailed behind them. Each officer was fully decked out in body armor, each one armed with an infamous Assault Fatemaker. Able to stun or kill dozens of targets in seconds, they were only used in the most urgent situations. And they were almost always fired only to kill.
"They hate us, y'know," Margo muttered, still trapped in her disheartened state that had kept her restrained since the day she met Dottie. "We're supposed to be the next step in the evolution of law enforcement and human psychology. Yet why did we barely only discover this place?"
"Nobody's perfect, Sandoval," Royce replied. "Don't be so hard on yourself."
"But we've got SanityScans and ThoughtControls and other things that people could only dream of back in the past. We're supposed to be the future!"
"The future isn't always a welcoming place, Margo," Carl replied. "We've got SanityScans, but not everyone wants them around. We've got ThoughtControls, but not everyone can afford them. We're like the pills we distribute. We can only help if people are willing to accept our help."
"But what about the Level 4's we stun and take back to the headquarters? Don't they get a chance?"
"They'll get their chance, Margo. Some people just need more adjustments, ones that need to be more...reinforced."
A loud beep rang out through the van. Holographic screens appeared in front of Mason, Royce, and several other officers, greeting them with the views of the dreaded building from the drones. However, the building itself appeared in multiple forms, with one form bespeckled with red outlines representing human heat signatures and another mapping out the building's electrical system like blood vessels in the human anatomy. They grew more intrigued when they noticed there were several humanoid outlines in the electrical map as well, small sparks of energy taking the shape of humans.
They found the Sentients.
"All right, ladies and gentlemen!" Mason ordered. "Listen very closely because I'm only saying this once. There are forty-three people inside this building. Twelve of them are Sentients, all of them modeled after youth ranging between the ages of thirteen and twenty. Twenty-six of the occupants are armed, therefore marking them as Threat Level 4. However, there are five Threat Level 5's as well, all of which must be shot on sight, with one exception. Royce!"
"The plan!" Royce added. "Infiltrate the House of Pleasure, recover the Sentients with as little damage as possible, neutralize all threats, and apprehend this man."
The headshot of a man around his early forties flashed across every screen in the van. He had green eyes, black hair, and a conspicuously forced grin, as if he were halfheartedly posing for a picture rather than a symbol of his imprisonment. "This is Geoffrey Coggins," Mason continued. "Forty years old, Caucasian, male of English nationality. Guilty of multiple sex-related crimes, including possession of illegal pornography as well as aiding in the trafficking of both humans and Sentients. His last trade deal was revealed to be with the Bod-Modders before their deaths at the hands of the masked men. We need to find out the origins of his alliance with the Bod-Modders and any knowledge he has of their killers."
"The corroders are in position," Royce added, still glaring at the screen hovering in front of him. "That should give us three ground-level access points, six more for the drones, and should eliminate the building's sound cancellation system."
Mason clasped her hands together. "Let's move out!"
The van doors burst open, and the officers poured out in lines as they directed toward the concrete building. Up close it looked like a gigantic block of stone, not a window or doorway visible anywhere. The screens displayed earlier revealed tunnels leading into the forsaken place, but Psychwatch decided to create their own entrances instead. Once those corroders were detonated, all hell would break loose, both into the building and out of it.
The officers flanked the building, approaching every corroder set in position by the drones. Mason approached the right side followed by Margo, Carl, Royce, and several other officers. Mason motioned to her comrades to activate their helmets, and each one of them did so, the helmets' protective material engulfing their heads like water. She started counting down from five to one with her fingers.
"Remember, Margo," Carl whispered. "If they're Level 5, they can't be saved."
Margo looked back at her colleague, their faces hidden except for their eyes due to their visors. "You think we can save Coggins?" she urged.
The corroders went off with a metallic shriek. Giant holes burned through the concrete instantly, leaving behind traces of blue light around the edges, not a single fragment flying out. And the ominous silence filling the streets of the Psycho Slums was broken by the deafening sounds of electronic music suddenly booming out of the building.
Mason and her officers raised their weapons and bolted through their new entrance, a curtain of smoke and dust blocking their views. Their Fatemakers' green laser sights activated, slicing through the opaqueness like knives.
"By authority of Psychwatch, you are all under arrest!" thundered Mason's voice through the fading smoke. "Drop your weapons immediately! If you are Level 4 or below, you still have a chance to—"
The smoke cleared, and the officers were greeted by gunfire. The bullets vanished into dust as they made impact with Mason's armor, and the officers quickly opened fire on three armed criminals.
Margo bolted around the room, repeatedly taking crooks out with her Assault Fatemaker. The impact of the bright green energy against her enemies sent them flying toward the wall. She was sent stumbling backwards with every shot against her armor, not a single one reaching her skin, but she didn't slow down.
The entire room devolved into a horrible rave of chaos. Gunfire flashed across the room like a light show, splattering the walls red as soon as they reached their target, with only the luckiest ones sent crashing to the floor in balls of electricity. Royce and a few other officers were tackling the young Sentients to the ground, peacefully stunning them to be taken back to headquarters. All the while electronic music blasted out in all directions like a hellish orchestra.
Margo lost her train of thought when she heard Carl screaming.
She ran in his direction, managing to take out a few more Level 4's. She heard a few more shots ring out around the corner but froze in her tracks as blood splashed across the walls following the most powerful shot. She saw a deceased Level 5 lying on the floor in a pool of his own entrails. Next to the crook was the body of a half-naked teenage boy, sparks crackling out of a hole in his skull. Red lights were flashing out of his eyes like an oncoming ambulance.
"We're too late!" Carl shrieked, recharging his shotgun-style Fatemaker. He stumbled backward in a daze before slamming against the wall back-first. "We can't save the real one!"
"Carl, it's alright!" Margo shouted over the rest of the noise. "As long as we get the others, we'll be doing some good!"
Carl's screams immediately cut off as if he were being choked. He stood back up and flashed a glance at Margo that was completely devoid of his trademark sympathy. His eyes looked like that of a wild animal behind the glass of his visor, and Margo didn't realize Vince had taken over until she noticed the green light emanating from his hand.
"Let's get this over with," he growled, and he marched back into the room to kill more Level 5's.
Minutes later, the floor started going quiet, most of its patrons either dead or stunned. Stripper poles trailed from the ceiling to the floor, abandoned as the Sentients were deactivated and hauled out of the building like cargo. Margo spotted Mason on the opposite side of the room at the edge of a stairwell, her superior motioning to her to meet her above.
Margo traversed up the stairs, managing to harmlessly take out other threats along the way. But she stopped again at the middle of the stairs when she heard Dottie's screams.
She turned back toward the bottom floor. A teenage girl stood at the first step, clad in see-through clothing. She had a sly smile on her face and playfully motioned Margo to approach her. Her movement was very mechanical, like a theme park animatronic. There was an uncanny gap between the amount of time it took for both of her eyes to blink, one slowly after the other, never at once.
Fighting back nausea, Margo aimed her Fatemaker at the bot and fired. The Sentient girl crashed to the floor peacefully. The same probably couldn't be said for the girl whose likeness she modeled.
"Friends!" shouted a man's voice from the next floor.
Margo's focus returned, and she continued bolting up the stairs. When she reached the second floor, she was greeted by the sight of a wide-open hole leading all the way up to the highest level of the building, nothing but a gray featureless ceiling at the top. Wires filled the room like jungle vines, and empty beer bottles and pillboxes were scattered across the floor. A strobe light kept her next target in view, a tall man standing in the middle of the room, facing away from her.
"Friends!" the man shouted again. "We know this is the House of Pleasure, but are there not other ways to attain joy besides the suffering of others?"
"Shut up!" Margo shouted, raising her weapon toward the figure.
The man slowly turned toward Margo, revealing himself to be Geoffrey Coggins, the original target. A large blade had emerged from his right hand, a Psychwatch officer impaled on it like a fish on a hook. Coggins' eyes were glassy and lifeless, and his grin was inhumanly forced, to the point it looked more like he was painfully clenching his teeth.
"Put him down," Margo whispered, too disgusted to shout.
"You mind repeating that again, love?" Coggins replied, his uncanny expression remaining.
"She said put him down!" Royce exclaimed as he and a dozen other officers emerged into the room. All guns were now set on Coggins.
"Geoffrey Coggins!" Mason ordered, Vince standing beside her, "You have nowhere left to run! Avoid your associate's mistakes and cooperate with us. The P3S identifies you as a Threat Level 5, but we will give you a second chance only once—I repeat, only once—if you cooperate."
Coggins slowly leaned his head to the side. "Surprised you're not upset I turned your mate into a cop-kebab."
"Where's the real you?"
The blade quickly retracted back into Coggins' arm, and the dead officer's corpse crashed to the floor beside him. Other officers carefully approached the body, some carrying it away and others aiming their guns at the deadly Sentient in front of them. Even as the blade slid back into a special slot in his arm, his fabricated, cordial look didn't change. He didn't say anything else.
Mason lowered her gun. "Nevermind," she growled. "We'll get our answers one way or another. Royce, Kusanagi, you know what to do." And she sent them a final message through their ThoughtControl pieces. Keep your Blurs activated.
With their Fatemakers set on Incapacitate mode, Royce and Kusanagi slowly approached Coggins. The two of them stood on opposite sides of him, and Kusanagi held a small chip that would give Psychwatch access to the infinite database that was Coggins' mind.
"Answer the commissioner," Kusanagi asserted. "Where's the original?"
The bot's eyes turned bright red. "He's here. And he's not very happy to see you."
Royce and Kusanagi were sent flying toward the wall as Coggins' decoy exploded. Gunfire erupted once more throughout the club, the walls blasting away into dust. If it weren't for their Blurs, Psychwatch would've lost many more officers that day. It disturbed them to see that many of the other shots were coming from the remaining Sentients they came to rescue in the first place.
"Mason!" Margo shouted, her vision obstructed by the cloud of dust filling the room. "Orders, Comm—"
Margo cut herself off as the sounds of more screaming filled her ears, even louder than the lasers destroying the world around her. Then she was launched across the floor into the wall, the impact of her back against the concrete reduced by her Blur. However, she felt a massive pain in her torso where the shot hit her, as if she had been kicked incredibly hard in the ribs.
She looked down to see a gaping hole in a layer of clear material covering her armor like a plastic wrap. It was her Blur. Whatever shot her managed to blow a part of it open.
Sliding against the wall to the floor, she looked up to see her attacker making his way toward her, upgraded shotgun in hand. It was the real Coggins. She could tell through the distinctly human look of anger plastered on his face.
He looked paler and more fragile than his imitator, and a scruffy beard covered his face. He paused to blast the head off a nearby Psychwatch officer before nonchalantly recharging his gun amidst the chaos around him.
Margo was still on the floor, her vision fading. Her eyelids were growing heavier, and the already cacophonous noises surrounding her felt as if they were hammering into her skull. Her Fatemaker lay beside her on the floor in a pile of soot.
"Ellie," she heaved painfully in a raspy voice.
"I thought you didn't want me around," Ellie coldly replied. "Having fun, doctor-cop?"
Coggins continued marching toward Margo, the barrel of his gun facing her.
"Uh, hello?" Ellie urged. "Margo, you there?"
Coggins pulled the trigger.
A concussive pain exploded through her arm as she blocked the shot. The pieces of her Blur scattered in all directions like shattered glass, but she remained unmoved aside from the descent of her possibly-broken arm toward the floor. She used her free hand to snatch the Fatemaker and rose it toward the crook above her, the sound of her own heartbeat filling her ears.
"Shit," was all Coggins could utter before Margo opened fire.
She didn't realize her gun was back on Execute mode, and as the world grew darker, she saw pieces of his arm breaking off in flashes of orange light, unaware of when she eventually let go of the trigger. His screams were just as shrill as Dottie's.
The last thing she saw before passing out was a splash of blood tinting her visor red.