77. Downfall Part 1

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October 31, 2045 - 6:45 PM

Margo scratched her nails against the wall as she attempted to hoist herself back up. Her ribs and shoulder ached from the impact, and she glanced down at her Blur, frustrated but unsurprised at its defectiveness. A part of her wondered if she'd even deserved to depart the building unscathed that night. Or if she'd even depart the building at all.

She tapped on the Blur with such momentum, she wouldn't have been surprised if it shattered to pieces at any moment. The shield engulfed her for two seconds only to vaporize out of existence once more, and the cycle repeated as she kept her eyes on the Multi Man before her. 

"I know what you're thinking," he told her. "This isn't your bad luck. I made sure to rig them before you and your officers got down here. It's about time this organization is brought down to the level it deserves."

Margo reached for her Fatemaker, but her chest grew heavy the longer she kept her hand on the gun. This is rigged, too, she thought. It won't work.

"Actually," said the Multi Man, "those are the only things I didn't touch. Taking away your protection is one thing. But taking away your only reason for existing? You're not ready for that, Margo. You should hope you'll never be ready for that."

The Fatemaker rested in Margo's hand before she knew it, her finger curled around the trigger.

"Shoot me," said the Man, "and everything else you want to know will go with me."

The gun trembled in Margo's hand. Sweat dampened her forehead and brows. "I've heard enough lies," she whispered. "I don't need to hear anymore."

"You're right. You have." The Multi Man took a step forward. "But that won't be a problem. I'm not a liar."

"Stay back."

"Ever since I put on this mask, I've never had to lie."

"Stay the fuck back."

"Your fellow officer, Brian Royce? He was surprisingly easy to get on my side. Makes sense, though. He had nothing to lose but his life. Well, and one other thing."

"I said get back!"

The young doctor-cop found herself wedged between two walls. One was made of concrete. The other wore a mask and carried a dagger in his right hand. She had a gun to his throat. She could've blown through the wall and walked away, let someone else patch up the hole while she enjoyed the fresh air outside, took in the sun.

But she knew there was no sun or fresh air on the other side. Just dust getting in her eyes and lungs the moment she'd pull the trigger.

"There," said the Multi Man. "You may never get another opportunity like this ever again, Margo."

"You really think I'm gonna pretend like there isn't a catch here?" she said.

"There is never a catch with me. If I wanted to kill you, I would've done it before you'd even stepped foot in Psychwatch. I would've done it before the Scans even knew your name. I've been around for a long time, Margo."

It's not him, she told herself. It's not Dad. He's right. Dad would've killed you.

"Come on. You kill me, you'll be one of the few Psychwatch officers who gave someone what they had coming. In fact, you already are. You're not a killer, Margo. You might just be the only doctor-cop who's doing their job right. Why do you think Mason wanted you in the psych ward?"

Stun him. Rip the truth right out of him once you've knocked him unconscious. Use the PACER or a Psych Expressor, anything!

"Last chance, Margo. Go ahead and send the Devil back to Hell."

He's not the Devil. He's just another delusional asshole.

Margo curled her finger around the trigger and nudged the barrel into the Multi Man's neck.

"You're on your way to making the smartest decision of your life," he said. "And it won't even cost you a thing."

Doing the right thing always costs something. Or maybe that's just what I believe because I hate myself and like knowing that everything I do to help other people only hurts me more and more.

Green light blinked out of the Fatemaker's barrel as Margo switched her gun to Incapacitate Mode.

"Bad habits, on the other hand," said the Multi Man, "will always cost you something."

Margo fired too late. The blast flew over the Multi Man's shoulder toward the wall behind him as he swatted her gun away from his neck. The Fatemaker dropped to the floor, and Margo found herself holding back a dagger as it carefully inched towards her face.

* * *

Carl's legs grew heavier with each step, and his head pounded as a dozen different people punched and skirmished around inside. Vince, Catalina, Loki, all his copilots arguing over who deserved the control. Margo, Holden, Nikki, the ones he knew would take his place in the future he'd spent years building for them. Maybe even Andrade had his sympathy, as long as no room remained for his own well-being. Everyone and everything else mattered. He was just the lamb roasting over a fire.

Holden bumped into his back, nearly knocking him over. He turned back to his nephew and barked, "Get back!"

The poor boy did so, a sudden disappointment in his eyes. Too harsh, they told Carl.

"Sorry," said Carl. "Just...be careful. And don't run ahead of me. Please."

"I got it. I'm sorry."

"You're alright. Andrade, cover me."

Andrade rushed to his side, Fatemaker drawn. Light creaked through the doors back to ground level, a veil of dust pouring through.

"Everyone get your Blurs ready," said Carl. Seconds later, he and his three colleagues froze, uncertainty crossing their minds and boosting their pulses.

"For fuck's sake, these aren't working?" Holden said, furiously tapping on his Blur. The Blur's paper-thin layer of energy blinked in and out of existence, a sensation like a spiderweb adhering to his skin during its few seconds of life.

"Damn it!" said Carl, and he looked at Andrade. "How are we supposed to get them out of here now?"

"The only way out is beyond that door, Maslow," said Andrade.

But Margo, Carl thought, and then he told himself something he didn't believe. Margo will be fineFocus on your own flesh and blood for once. Your family is a very self-destructive breed of humans. You can change that.

Carl swore he heard Margo screaming down in the depths of the sub-level. Agonized and shrill. Not unlike the night he saved her and her mother. But he made it unreal. Just his thoughts ringing in his ears, hoping to disorient him.

"Maslow?" said Andrade.

Carl shook his head and faced his younger colleagues. "Are any of the Scans back online?"

"We..." Nikki replied, but the words couldn't form. "W-W-We would have...have t-t-to look—"

"It's fine, I'll check for myself then."

"Wait, Maslow!" said Andrade, grabbing his shoulder, but he brushed past her and forced himself through the door, ducking to the ground with his Fatemaker drawn.

Dust and soot obscured the halls. Beams of silver and blue emergency lights tore through the haze, but Carl only saw the floor beneath him. He covered his mouth with his hand, and his eyes burned instantly. The violence was distant, muffled by the building's outer walls, but he felt no peace. He was a Psychwatch officer. The violence would reach him again soon.

"Coast is clear," he told his colleagues before a fit of coughs overtook him. "But stay close to the floor, and cover your eyes and mouth. There's dust everywhere."

Carl took five steps forward. He heard Andrade pass through the doors, followed by Holden and Nikki. He heard their shocked whispers and mumbling. "Holy shit." "Oh my God." "What happened here?" Then just like him, they were alerted by the chaos in the distance. Gunfire, people screaming, walls shredding apart like cardboard. 

Carl froze when he found a dead body splayed out before him. Three more rested several feet away. Four total. The one by his feet was a masked man with a scorched hole burrowing through his face, blood engulfing his mask and seeping onto the floor beneath him. The rest possessed similar wounds leaving behind worse messes, and they were all Psychwatch officers.

"Hey, Maslow," called Andrade, "the Scans are still offline."

Carl took a momentary glance behind him and saw the glow of Andrade's ThoughtControl lens hovering before her eye. When the lens vanished, all he could see was her silhouette, a dark smokey figure rippling against a murky yellow haze. 

Carl activated his lens. "Watch where you step, guys. There's bodies everywhere."

"You're welcome," muttered a familiar voice not too far from Carl. Then a weak chuckle that devolved into a fit of coughs.

Carl aimed his Fatemaker into the unknown. "Holloway? Is that you?"

"Well, what's left of me."

Carl hurried forward, still crouching. He maneuvered around more corpses, many with their heads and limbs reduced to chunks of skin and bone. Dissociation felt imminent as each step of his began to make a squishing sound, and when he looked back, he found bloodied footprints trailing behind him.

The violence in the lobby was closer than ever. Two more steps into the smoke, he thought, and he'd be in the crossfire, reduced to shreds. He found a silhouette positioned against the wall like a bundle of sticks, and once he was close enough, the silhouette slid to the floor, painting the wall with a streak of his own blood.

"Holloway, what the hell happened to you?" said Carl.

"I got a little carried away with my new toy," Jack replied, and he held up his LaserShank, clicking it on then back off. "Thankfully, they missed my spine this time. They still got something, though. Isn't that right, Royce?"

"Royce?" Carl repeated, and he jerked his head to the right to see another silhouette. Its posture was flawless, and dust coated the lenses of its glasses.

Royce.

"Come on," Jack slurred, sinking toward the floor. "Why don't you tell them why all of this is happening? It'll be easier for them to digest that compared to what I have to say."

"Maslow!" called Andrade. "Are you okay?"

"Everything's fine, Andrade," said Carl, and he rose to his feet.

He curled his finger around the trigger of his Fatemaker and marched through the smoke toward Royce. The man broke his statue-like composure and threw his hands to the air, spouting terrified gibberish.

"What the hell have you done?" Carl muttered, the barrel of his gun rising before Royce's face.

"This was supposed to be quick," Royce said, his entire body shaking. "But the more we resist, the longer it'll go on!"

"How could you do this to us?"

"How could I not? When was the last time Psychwatch has ever made you feel safe?"

The tip of the barrel nudged into Royce's forehead. "So then what the hell are you doing then? Is this supposed to be safer than what Psychwatch has done?"

"No! But..."

"But what, Royce? Spit it out!"

"But what we've done...It was supposed to have more concrete results than Psychwatch."

"What, killing the people you used to work with? Killing innocents and laying waste to the city?"

Silence as Royce gazed at the floor, the bones in his fingers crunching as he clenched them into a fist.

"How long have you been working with the masked men, Royce?" asked Carl.

"This part's interesting," Jack said in a raspy voice.

"A while back," said Royce, "I told Sandoval that the worst thing anyone could do was make themselves the most influential person in your life for their own self-benefit."

"Yeah?" Carl said.

"I thought I was stronger than that. But I wasn't. He snuck his way in and found a way to bring me down from the level I used to be."

"Who, Royce?"

Royce took a deep breath and replied, "The masked man behind all of this. The dead drug dealers, the murdered students, the Sentients, the rally. He knows my weakness, Maslow, and he'll figure out everyone else's. He's already figured out Psychwatch's weakness. No Scans, no security."

"Well, that won't be a problem anymore," Jack said.

Carl turned to his wounded colleague. "The hell are you talking about?"

"Maslow, don't listen to him," Royce said.

"Maslow?" called Andrade again. "Are you sure everything is alright over there?"

"Everything is fine!" he said, and he grabbed Royce. "Can you repair the Scans?"

"Not all of them," Royce said. "B-B-But I can try one! I swear!"

"Fix the first one you come across." Carl moved the Fatemaker away at last and turned toward Jack. "I've got Holloway right where I need him. If I even suspect he's lying to me..."

Carl rose his Fatemaker by his face. Gathering the implications, Royce nodded his head profusely and trudged away into the smoke. 

Seconds later, Carl stood before Jack, hovering his Fatemaker above his young subordinate. Gunfire continued to ring out in the distance, and he kept his sights on the hallway's end following a tremor that shook the walls and floor.

"The longer you stare, Maslow," said Jack, "the sooner they'll arrive and finish what they started."

"Yeah, I'm sure you'd love that," Carl said. "So what were you saying before about no longer having a problem?"

"You mean on top of me dying from blood loss in a few minutes?"

"About the masked psycho behind all of this."

Jack nodded, his hair scratching against the wall he'd forced himself against. "Right," he said.

Carl stumbled back as an unsettling grin stretched across Jack's face. Then he said it.

"I killed him. Blew a hole straight through his chest. I won for us, Maslow."

* * *

Andrade's eyes pursued the faint glow of Carl's ThoughtControl piece as it darted through the dust like a searchlight. Tinnitus plagued her ears, muffling the sounds of conversation less than twenty feet away from her on the other side of the smoke, yet the footsteps of her younger, shorter colleagues resonated with a boom. Like a trail of bombs directing toward her, detonating one by one.

"Andrade," said Holden, followed by a cough. "Andrade, what do we do?"

"What?" she said.

"What do we do? I can hear Carl talking to someone over there. Do you think Royce is still here?"

Andrade would've crushed her Fatemaker with her bare hands had she possessed the strength to do so. "If he is, it's because he knows he can't run from us," she said. "He's not an idiot."

"What if he's waiting for another attack?" said Nikki.

"Another attack?" Andrade repeated.

"Y-Y-Yeah. Like S-S-Stage 2 or something."

"Guys, I hear Carl up ahead," said Holden. "He sounds pissed."

Andrade moved faster, still crouched toward the floor. "Get behind me. I'll see what's going on."

The three of them froze as a voice riddled with static screeched into their ears, stabilizing into a slightly more pleasant sound five seconds later.

Andrade, kids, said Carl, restrained frustration evident in his voice. We got one of the Scans back up.

"Oh shit," Andrade whispered. Where are you, Maslow? And who were you talking to?

I found Royce and Holloway here. I need your help. 

What about Sanger and Atkinson?

"What does he need help with?" asked Holden.

Something didn't feel right to Andrade. She raised her pointer finger to her ThoughtControl, still keeping her eyes on the glow of her fellow officer's lens beyond the haze. But messages were not enough, she thought. She waited for her younger colleagues to get closer before moving forward.

The ringing in her ears prevailed. The only thing she could hear clearly was the unrelenting beat of her own heart. If her ears were clearer, she might've even heard the clattering of the gun in her hands. Or the growing commotion between Carl, Jack, and Royce.

She was closer. The voices were less warped. "What the hell...you're lying...that easy?" she heard.

"I swear...I got...Subjugate...chest open..."

"No...you didn't...he's..."

"Andrade!" exclaimed Carl. "Are any of you hurt?

"No, we're fine," Holden said. "The fuck happened to Jack?"

A smirk stretched across Jack's face again. His laughs were weak and faint, hurting him more than relieving him. What little light remained in his eyes started to burn out.

"What's he smiling about?" Andrade said.

"He says he got the masked man," said Carl, the tone of his voice bitter with disbelief. "The main one. With the blue suit. The one Margo saw."

"And you believe him?"

"Of course not. But my only other source of support is..." Carl turned around to look at Royce, who tried his hardest to shrink into his seat and disappear forever.

"You," growled Andrade, and she trained her Fatemaker on him. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Nothing," Royce whispered. "This could've been over with quickly."

A loud noise sounded at the end of the hall. A thud, an explosion, walls being torn down, no one could pin it down yet.

"Why would you do this to us?" Andrade hissed.

"May...Maybe he didn't have a choice," said Nikki.

"There's always a choice, Atkinson. The question is whether he regrets it or not." She took a step forward. "Do you think you've done what's right, Royce?"

Another deafening sound, this time longer, like drills burrowing into the wall. The lights at the end of the hall flickered off.

"Well? Say something!"

"No," said Royce. "I didn't do the right thing. But there really wasn't any other choice."

"I already told you. There's always a—"

"NO THERE FUCKING ISN'T, ANDRADE! GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD!"

Andrade and the other officers jumped back, her finger curling around the trigger. Royce finally looked at them. He'd bared his teeth like a wolf.

"Let me ask you something," he said. "Is a choice really a choice when the only other option is to have your face filled with glass? Or a dagger dragged from one ear to the other ear? OR TO HAVE EVERY FUCKING THING YOU'VE EVER CARED ABOUT RIPPED AWAY FROM YOU?"

The longest round of thundering noises rippled through the hallway, shaking the building. They no longer sounded like drills burrowing into the wall. They sounded like bullets.

"Then tell us what the fuck that masked man did to you!" said Carl. "What could he have done to make you end up this way?"

"IT DOESN'T MATTER ANYMORE!" Royce grabbed his pant leg and glared down at the floor, visibly nauseous. "None of us are making it out alive by the time he's done. All we can do now is realize that maybe this is for the best."

"You think we deserve to die?" Holden shouted. "Just because of whatever the fuck you did?"

"Holden, stand down," Carl said. "Royce...you're not getting out of this unpunished, I hate to be blunt, but you still have time to make at least one right choice! Just tell us what happened to you and what his plans are."

"There's nothing left of my mind," said Royce. "I'm already dead."

Gunfire. Unmistakable once again. What remained of the walls wore away as bullets raced towards the officers. Carl, Andrade, Holden, and Nikki all dropped to the floor. Carl threw himself on top of his nephew and used one hand to open fire on the danger out of his line of sight, orange lights ripping through the growing cloud of dust working its way toward them.

Then it stopped almost as soon as it started. Carl fired longer, even if the shots didn't land anywhere helpful. When the silence from the opposing side dawned on him, he stopped.

He tried catching a glimpse of the closest SanityScan only to find it reduced to dangling shreds of metal and wires. Yet somehow Jack was still in one

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