June 2, 2045 - 6:25 PM

"This is kinda lame," Holden groaned as he placed another empty pizza box in the bot's hands. "These things can transport food around, but they still need to be guided to the dumpster?"

"Well," Margo replied, adding another box to the stack, "the guys who brought them here did say they were new. It's not like they would instantly know their way around here."

"They have the most advanced GPS tech in the world. They could find an aluminum can at the bottom of the Delaware River if it weren't for the fact they're not waterproof."

Before he could add another remark, Margo flashed him a deadly glare. He gathered his thoughts together and said, "The circuitry, I mean. The bots themselves are totally waterproof."

"Just help me get these bots out to the dumpster," she groaned. She pressed a button on the back of the bot, and a flash of green light engulfed her. The bot rotated in place until it faced Margo, the camera following her every move.

"Something wrong?" Holden asked as she repeated her steps, activating his bot as well. The two of them marched out into the hallway, and they looked back as their bots tailed behind them like obedient dogs.

"Not much. Just—"

The two of them froze in place, their eyes locked on Principal Zhang leaning against the corridor wall all alone. The poor woman looked like an old dishrag. Dark bags hung underneath her eyes, and she seemed to have given up on making her hair appear presentable for her coworkers and students. Everything about her reeked of defeat and sadness. Margo and Holden caught her in the middle of sneaking a drag off an e-cigarette, and her hands shook like a motor as she tried shoving it back into her coat.

"Y'know, those aren't very healthy, ma'am," Margo said. "Normally I mind my own business when discussing someone's personal habits as long as they're harmless, but—"

"Then maybe you and the rest of Psychwatch should keep doing that," Zhang hissed, refusing to look Margo in the eye.

Shocked but otherwise understanding, Margo kept her mouth shut as she proceeded down the hall with her bot. Holden, however, would have none of that. "What's with the attitude?" he asked her in an ironic display of attitude himself.

Margo felt like her heart had suddenly stopped. She nervously turned her head back toward her younger colleague, wishing she could drag him down the hall by his collar.

"Mr. Sanger," Zhang explained, obviously restraining herself, "if you were attending this school, you wouldn't be here any longer after showing me attitude like this. And since I'm aware which organization you work for, I would like to politely insist that you mind your own business and be a good example for the rest of your colleagues to follow."

"You can't do that," Holden snapped. "You'd only be able to suspend me."

"I'm the principal here. I can do whatever I want with my school."

"Well, we're Psychwatch! We can do whatever the fuck we want, too. Except bring people back from the dead. And I say that because I know that's exactly what you were about to say next."

Zhang still refused to look at Holden in the eye, most likely ashamed of being put in her place by someone she'd see in a classroom. However, Margo was relieved to see that the two of them had calmed down, even though she knew the melancholy that had come over them wasn't any better. "You guys get asked that a lot, don't you?" Zhang said somberly.

"A little too much actually," Margo replied. "I'm really sorry for your losses, Miss Zhang. We're doing everything we can to help."

"I hope so." Zhang paused. She wanted to take another puff, but her conscience overpowered her this time. "I could use someone right now."

"Everybody could use someone. We're here for you, Miss Zhang. And I apologize if any of my fellow officers have come off as hostile in the past."

"It hasn't really been them, Miss Sandoval. My school's reputation, as well as my own, has been ruined ever since Donny Redford and the other boys were killed that day. In fact, this incident made a lot of people realize things are safer under Psychwatch's control."

Margo winced at the sound of those words leaving her tongue. Psychwatch's control. They didn't sound right. No more comforting than the threat posed by this Multi Man.

"Is something wrong, Miss Sandoval?" Zhang asked, finally looking back at her peers.

"Margo, what's up?" Holden added.

Margo blinked several times and she was back in reality. Or closer to it anyway. "Nothing," she replied. "Just got a little distracted. You mentioning Psychwatch's control reminded me...that I need to wake up earlier tomorrow to get back to work!"

Her nervous chuckle did nothing to better the situation, aside from convincing Zhang and Holden to parrot the same shy gesture back at her. All three of them knew anywhere else was a more comfortable place and situation than where they were now.

"Okay, Holden, let's go," she added quickly, but before she could bolt out of the building like a boulder down a hill, she turned to Zhang and said, "Hope you feel better, Miss Zhang! Message me if you ever need therapy!"

Considering the expression that had crossed Zhang's face, Margo had the feeling she wouldn't be seeing her in a therapy session anytime soon.

Seconds later, she, Holden, and their two bots—still loaded with empty pizza boxes—marched through the exit doors, greeted by the faint, setting sun behind the dark clouds above them. A soft drizzle pelted the grounds around them, and Margo took a peek back at her mechanized travel companion to see how it would react to the rain. She chuckled as drops of water trailed down its sleek, silver surface and its camera remained focused on her like the eyes of a curious child, waiting out nature's soothing display of power in a raincoat.

"Margo, what the hell was that?" Holden asked.

"What do you mean?" Margo asked back.

"You were defusing the situation well until Zhang mentioned Psychwatch, and then you froze up. And now we're out here in the rain. Something wrong?"

"Just...got anxious when she mentioned Psychwatch. I'm nervous about going back to work tomorrow. Seeing Mason and Andrade and especially Jack. If Royce was broken down by his wounds, I wouldn't want to imagine what Jack is going through."

"Don't worry about Jack. That guy could walk off a crowbar to the groin like nothing. All those Apaths he took fucked up his pain receptors."

That was news to Margo. "Really?" she chirped, as the two of them walked around the school.

"You didn't know? I thought he told you during your sessions with him. He was addicted to Apaths as a teenager. Took them all the time to deal with the physical abuse his dad put him through. Got so bad that he eventually overdosed. Mason thinks that's the primary cause of his sociopathy."

Margo glared at the ground in front of him. "Jesus," she whispered. "So he can't feel any pain?"

"Hardly," Holden replied as he stepped around a puddle. "Like remember the gun wound he received when you two fought those guys at the zoo? He got shot without his Blur protecting him, and it hardly fazed him! And he even told me he's been stabbed before and didn't think much of it."

"He's a nihilist."

Holden whistled. "It's hard to find someone nowadays who isn't a nihilist."

"People really need to learn to appreciate life more."

The two of them paused before the dumpster. Small cascades of water roared down the slits in the lid, forming a massive puddle on the pavement below. Margo and Holden looked back at their bots, worried by the sight of the waterlogged pizza boxes.

"What is there to appreciate though?" Holden asked.

Margo groaned. "Don't be that way. We're all just like that because of last week's incident."

"Incident?! Over four hundred people are dead, Margo! Does that sound like a minor fucking incident?"

Margo stumbled backward. "Whoa, I'm sorry, Holden. I...uh, I didn't mean for it to come out that way."

Suddenly, Holden moved away from the dumpster. He stood before Margo as if he were ready for a fight. "Do you know what it's like to lose people, Margo?" he asked bitterly.

"Of course I have! Everyone has lost someone at some point. Or they will anyway. What makes you think I don't understand what that feels like?"

"Oh come on, Margo. Look at you! Compared to the rest of us working at Psychwatch, you're fucking perfect! You're not scarfing down pills or chugging alcohol or waking up at three in the fucking morning. Or breaking down crying in the middle of a hallway because a couple of your friends just died or getting beaten up because of your fucking job."

"Well maybe!" Margo shouted, calming down before she could dig herself a deeper hole. "Maybe...it's because none of that has happened to me yet. But I have been through crap, Holden."

"Like what? Not being able to talk to Carl for a couple of fucking days? Welcome to my life! You know sometimes I feel like he'd prefer I didn't exist just so he could spend more time with you! The closest thing to a daughter he'll ever get because nobody would want to date a freak with who-knows-how-many other identities. And he knows that! Everyone fucking knows that! Mason knows. My mom knows. Even your mom—"

"HOLDEN!"

It took some time, but she did it. Margo finally managed to be louder than Holden. And he knew it. The mania was gone, replaced by the sadness that additionally defined his condition. The rain grew harder, and Margo couldn't distinguish the boy's tears from the rain around them. All she knew was that this new silence between them was painful and heavy. It was always more painful when a man of a thousand words suddenly lost the ability to utter even one.

She kept her hands on his shoulders, unsure if he wanted some physical comfort. Instead, she listened to the frantic beeping emanating from the pillbox hidden in his pocket. She couldn't get over the hopelessness in his eyes. Too cold and dead for someone his age. Too desperate for someone whose duty was to bring hope and support to other people.

"I..." he croaked. "I'm sorry, Margo. I...I wish someone could fix me."

"We all do," she replied, her hands still positioned on his shoulders. "No such thing as perfection. Everybody is hurting. We always forget that. My pain shouldn't get in the way of your recovery, nor should it get in the way of anyone else's."

"But Margo, if you're hurting, too, you need the support as well. Don't try to save everyone when you haven't learned to save yourself yet."

"The last time I lost someone was a long time ago. It's not as relevant as your pain. So I'll be fine in the meantime."

Her hands moved away from Holden's shoulders, and the two of them stood before each other without a single remnant of hostility in sight. "Who did you lose?" Holden asked, his voice quivering.

"My dad and my sister," Margo replied. "But it's been so long, I don't miss them as much as I should."

"I didn't know you had a sister."

"We don't talk about her very much. My mom wishes she never even existed. But my problem now is that she wants to see me again, and my mom didn't seem very happy when I told her she was coming."

"Well, I mean...she's her daughter, just like you. So she should still love her, right?"

Margo nodded her head. She told him "yes", but she spoke so quietly, he couldn't hear her response.

"My mom is like that all the time with Uncle Carl and their mom," Holden continued, sadness still lingering in his voice. "She's always talking about how much she hated her and how she wished she could use Erase-and-Replace to get rid of her from her memories. She even told Carl to use it because she thought it would get rid of his alters."

Margo struggled to comprehend the information. It wasn't the first time she'd heard something like that. In fact, Carl himself hardly sugarcoated anything involving his life story; he felt it would help build further sympathy for people with DID. But his deteriorating relationship with his sister broke her heart every time she thought of it. No wonder he often built better relationships with friends than his own blood relatives.

"That's very sad to hear," Margo said. "And I understand what they went through growing up. I'd erase that from my memory, too, if I had the chance. But it made them stronger though. Stronger together as siblings. Right? Don't they still love each other?"

Holden gulped. "I like to think so," he replied sheepishly. "They tell each other during Christmas and Thanksgiving at least, so that counts, right?"

Margo smiled. "Close enough. Now let's do what we came for and dump these boxes in."

Her young colleague let out a sharp exhale. "Damn," he chuckled as he raised the lid of the dumpster, "that was one hell of a therapy session, right? Dramatic rain cue and everything."

"Definitely!" Margo paused to take the first stack of boxes. "Do you feel a little better now, Holden?"

"Oh shit! Gimme a second," Holden chirped as he took a pill from his pillbox, finally silencing its annoying call for attention. "Now I'll feel better. And by that, I mean emotionally stunted for a while because that's what meds do. But I really did need that talk, so thank you so much, Margo."

"Anytime, buddy," she smiled as she dumped the boxes in. Once her hands were empty, she turned to her bot and pressed another button, and her mechanical companion made its way back into the school.

"Speaking of therapy sessions," Holden continued, still holding the lid up, "are you going back to work tomorrow as an Empath or a Neutralizer?"

"Definitely as an Empath," Margo declared. "I need a break. And I know thousands of other people could use one, too. For once, I'd like to help someone out by talking things out, not punching stuff out."

"You helped me out by talking."

The two colleagues exchanged friendly smiles as Margo took the last stack of boxes. Suddenly, everything felt okay, and much like the boxes going into the dumpster, their worst feelings felt like they were all being thrown away.

"Huh," Holden mumbled.

"What's wrong?"

"There's something weird down there in the trash."

Margo shook her head. "Leave it alone. Let's go back inside."

"Wait, but it looks really suspicious. I think one of the students here threw it away a long time—holy shit..."

Margo raised a brow. "What is it?"

Holden removed his arm from the dumpster, and out emerged a dirty rabbit mask. One smudged from white to dark gray with dirt and soot. At the bottom of the mask where the chin was located were brownish specks of dry blood.

"Dang it, Holden," Margo groaned. "Please wash your hands when we go back inside."

"Fuck yeah I have to wash my hands," Holden replied in utter astonishment, his eyes refusing to move away from the mask. "Do you have any idea where this is from?"

"No, but I'm guessing it's not from anywhere good."

"The Rabbit Hole! You can only get into it with one of these. But let me just say that place is Hell disguised as Heaven."

"What's the big deal? It's probably just another neo-speakeasy like the House of Pleasure. We could take it."

"Margo, you don't understand. This place is where they make the Wonderland Mist! They've probably got a shit ton of weapons and defenses ready since they know we'll be coming for them."

That was enough to make Margo's jaw drop. "Holden, do you know where this place is?"

"Not yet. But with this mask, we'll find it real damn soon! We gotta let Mason know tomorrow!"

And with that, Margo's hopes of going back to being an Empath disappeared.