April 10, 2045 - 8:50 pm

Two days after their session, Royce returned to Psychwatch. Just like what he told Margo before he left, he teamed up with Carl and Andrade to patrol the offline neighborhoods using SanityScans with limited range built into their vehicles. Due to their already polarizing reputation along with the fact traveling through the Psycho Slums in a Psychwatch vehicle would've already painted a target on every single one of them, they traversed the desolate streets in a heavily armored, self-driving van so generic in appearance, no one would ever believe how much technology they had stored in there. Multiple Fatemakers of all types, backup firearms, and a portable supercomputer that would've taken up an entire room anywhere else.

Three days had passed after that, and the only thing they ever found in the Psycho Slums were bodies. Bodies and drug stashes. Some of them died by OD. Others were clearly caught up with the wrong crowd, their bodies riddled with either gunshots or stab wounds. And too many of them were no older than eighteen.

Carl had to force Catalina back into the depths of his subconscious. The two of them had a soft spot for children, and seeing one get in harm's way would've drastically affected Carl's performance. As a result, Carl found himself trapped in the abyss alongside Catalina, with Vince taking the wheel once again, his LED ring glowing green.

Royce sat across from him in the van. With a small holographic screen hovering in front of him, he'd check the monitors for signs of life or dangerous substances with each scan. Every fifteen seconds, the Scan would activate, releasing invisible waves through the neighborhoods. Andrade kept her Fatemaker in hand and her eyes on the crates containing their spare firearms.

Radio waves burst out of the van once more. Seven red figures appeared on Royce's screen. All of them were undiagnosed and unregistered to the P3S, and the massive gaps between their ages implied they made up an entire family. No weapons or illegal substances on them.

"Do I register them to the P3S, sir?" Nikki asked over the ThoughtControl piece. While Carl, Andrade, and Royce were out on patrol, Nikki remained back at the headquarters with Margo and Commissioner Mason, the three of them tasked with keeping track of the identities of whomever their colleagues came across.

"Yes," Mason replied. "Normally we'd give them the right to register to the System on their own free will, but this entire neighborhood may become part of it if the mayor approves of the expansion. Might as well add them early."

Once the family was added to the P3S, the van trudged forward. Four scans later and no signs of life or criminal activity anywhere. The only thing they found was a single body in the middle of an alley wading in a pool of her own blood. It was instantly declared a suicide, just like many of the other bodies they found at the bottom of abandoned high-rises.

"You think we'll find any neo-speakeasies?" Royce asked over the ThoughtControl.

"A neo-what?" Margo asked.

"The illegal clubs hidden in the Psycho Slums," Andrade replied. "They're all the rage among teens and young adults. Drugs, orgies, rave music, black market cybernetics. Shit like that."

"Hedonists," Vince growled.

"Yeah, just kids trying to be edgy," Royce said. "I don't even want to think about what goes on in one of those."

"I think a few of my friends went to one," Nikki added in her typical shy voice. "They brought back entire bags of Euphors and kept bragging about how many people they screwed while there."

"You didn't take any, did you?" Margo asked.

Nikki had a shocked look on her face, slightly hurt by Margo's seeming lack of trust in her. "Of course not!"

Margo smiled and patted her on the shoulder. "That's our girl," she said.

A discomforting alarm emanated out of Royce's feed following the next scan. Dozens of red lights flashed across his screen as his map displayed the image of a large warehouse one block away from them. Warnings of Threat Level 5 individuals harboring firearms popped up like online advertisements. "Shit," he muttered.

"¿Donde están?" Andrade urged.

"Huh?"

"Where are they?" Vince said.

"Right, uh..." Royce took a closer look at the screen. "They're right outside. Twenty-two individuals, all of them inside an abandoned warehouse. Five of them are ranked Threat Level 5, nine are Level 4, and the rest are Level 2. However, the individuals stuck at Threat Level 2 are suffering from immense trauma and multiple injuries."

"How many of them are registered to the System?" Mason pried.

"Two, both of which are Level 2."

"I think we have a hostage situation, Mason," Andrade declared.

The officers nearly jumped out of their seats when a loud bang erupted through their ThroughControl pieces.

Vince, Royce, and Andrade dropped down in the van, a bullet narrowly missing them as it pierced through one wall and out the other. Andrade noticed a streak of electricity trailing behind the shot like lightning. The three officers' Blurs engulfed them instantly, protecting them from whatever gunfire would follow suit.

"C-C-Correction," Royce stuttered as he stumbled toward the door, his screen still hovering in front of him. "There are now six people ranked Threat Level 5."

Unholstering her Fatemaker, Andrade kicked open the van door and ducked outside. In her left hand she held a small metal rectangle vaguely resembling the stock of a rifle and attached it to her gun. In just a matter of seconds, her Fatemaker transformed from a standard yet still-effective handgun into a sleek sniper rifle that had no effect on the weapon's weight whatsoever.

Vince jumped out of the van and ducked behind his colleague, gun in hand. He fell back as a shot collided with his skull, but the bullet exploded into smithereens against him thanks to his Blur, and he remained unmoved. Andrade glanced around the corner of their vehicle and saw the attacker, another masked man standing at a window on the second floor of the warehouse.

His sniper rifle was no match for Andrade's as she quickly aimed at him and fired. A loud, metallic crackle echoed throughout the neighborhood, and red mist sprayed in every direction as the attacker collapsed to the floor behind him. She could see that the walls, ceiling, and even the windows were completely doused in her target's blood.

"Royce," she ordered through her piece. "Send out the drones. Relay the building's format."

Even though she knew her colleague was undoubtedly shaken by the attack, she knew he'd follow through with her orders. And only a few seconds later, five drones burst from the roof of their van and soared toward the warehouse like a swarm of locusts.

"What the—" Carl said, having retaken control of his body, frightfully staring at the Fatemaker in his hand. "What's going on?!"

"Maslow!" Andrade shouted. "What are you doing here? I thought you let Vince take control!"

"I don't think he felt like he needed to be here. That's why he brought me back out!"

"We're sending reinforcements," Mason chimed in through their pieces. "That includes Holloway."

"Shit, they're actually bringing Holloway with them?" Carl remarked.

"Yes!" Andrade hissed. "I don't want him here, but he's our best bet at cleaning out an entire building full of 4's and 5's."

"We're on our way, Carl!" Margo exclaimed. "Hang in there, guys!"

* * *

Five minutes later, Andrade and Carl were right at the entrance of the warehouse, both of them taking shelter behind two pillars. They continued exchanging shots with the crooks beyond the garage door leading into the warehouse and managed to take down two of them, the shots from their Fatemakers burning through the door with ease. Royce remained in the van to gather intel from the drone's footage, preferring to avoid shedding some blood that evening.

"I'm detecting traces of cybernetic material all around this place," he said. "Fuck! There's nearly a dozen bodies in there!"

"Probably old Bod-Modder territory," Carl replied as he took another shot. "Where the hell are the others?"

"They're arriving right now as we speak!"

Carl and Andrade looked back to see five of their own vans brake in front of the building, and their fellow Psychwatch officers poured out with their weapons ready. The van closest to the entrance of the building only held Officer Holloway, who calmly trudged out of the vehicle unlike his quicker, more steadfast colleagues. "Could somebody please tell me how many of them are in there?" he asked.

"The Scans say eighteen individuals, twelve of which are Threat Level 5," Margo replied, switching her gun to its Incapacitate mode. The two of them narrowly avoided another shot, their Blurs swallowing them like a bubble.

Jack patted her on the shoulder as he made his way toward the warehouse. "Stand back, sweetheart. That number's changing to zero."

He disconnected his gun from his MagniSheath and quickly set it to its third level of Execute mode, known as Eradicator mode. His gun upgraded into a larger barrel with a wider muzzle, and the circuit-like pinstripes trailing around the weapon glowed a bright shade of reddish-orange. He took one shot at the warehouse doors and the entire thing vaporized before their very eyes into ash. All that was left was a gaping, perfectly round hole leading into the building.

Three masked men awaited him beyond the makeshift entrance, each one armed with a gun. Jack quickly switched his gun into Subjugate mode, the second form of Execute. The criminals fired their guns at him to no avail, the bullets exploding into dust as soon as they made impact with his Blur. One shot from his own gun took one of the crook's arms clean off his elbow. The next shot sent chunks of the crook's head splattering across the wall. That was the moment the other criminals knew they had to run, only prolonging their deaths a little while longer.

"Move in!" Andrade ordered, and she and her fellow officers raced into the building.

Margo quickly looked away from the crook Jack just killed in disgust. She nearly screamed when she saw his dismembered arm lying a few feet away from him but regained composed for the sake of her job. She only barely noticed Carl was running beside her.

"Margo," he said, his sight focused on the corridor in front of him. "Shouldn't your gun be in Execute mode?"

"Planning on taking some of the perps back with us," Margo replied.

"I hate to admit it, but not all of them can be saved. If they were Level 4, maybe, but 5? Too far gone. Just have to rely on the Level 2's for information."

Jack was still way ahead of the rest of the group, leaving a trail of red behind the further he progressed down the corridor. While the rest of the doctor-cops jogged behind him, he roamed the halls in a casual stroll, only pausing to kill whatever crook came across him next. "Why don't you fellas try giving me a challenge?" he yelled in reference to the other criminals. "Attacking one at a time is so damn cliche!"

Approaching a corner, another masked man lunged from the shadows, wielding a dagger rather than a gun. He dodged a few swipes from his new enemy, but the last one managed to cut through his Blur. He was unharmed, but the Blur's torn material dangled off like a loose thread. That didn't slow him down. He slammed his Fatemaker upside his attacker's skull before shoving the gun against his chin and pulling the trigger. Gore sprayed his face as the headless corpse collapsed to the floor.

"See?" he said, wiping the blood off his face. "Disposable."

Margo dashed through the line of officers in front of her to catch up to Jack. She gagged at the sight of his latest victim's brains splashed all over the wall like a crude painting of a rose before moving on. "Holloway!" she called out.

Jack glanced back at his more merciful ally. She gasped at the sight of his blood-soaked face and hair and his disturbingly nonchalant grin despite what he was doing in front of his own colleagues. Even the tip of his Fatemaker was smeared with blood. He looked like the kind of person they were supposed to be hunting in the first place.

Her focus returned to their real enemies when another masked man emerged from the room Jack was approaching. She fired a non-lethal shot at him before anything else could happen, sending the crook flying toward the wall in a ball of electricity. His knife dropped to the floor beside him, and Jack finished him off with a shot to his chest using Subjugate mode, blasting a dark red hole through his chest.

"We could've saved him!" Margo shrieked angrily. She stared at Jack with an icy gaze.

"I don't take prisoners," Jack replied in an uninterested manner as he continued strolling down the hall.

Margo wanted to stun him with her own gun, but Andrade prompted her to move on. They still had five Threat Level 2's to rescue. Unless Jack makes it to them first, Margo thought.

Then she heard a scream.

She shifted her head to the left to see a figure disappear around the corner at the end of the next corridor. She bolted down the grimy pathway, Fatemaker in hand. She noticed blood trailing along the wall like a sadistic mural, bright red handprints decorating the edges. Her fear skyrocketed when she noticed a blood on the floor at the corner of the hall, and a hand came into view.

She was greeted by the corpse of a teenage girl lying in a pool of her own blood, three bullet holes in her back. The words HUMANITY IS IRREPLACEABLE were scrawled across the wall in black paint, seemingly taunting Margo by reminding her that this girl would be the first of many she wouldn't be able to save. Using her access to the P3S provided by Royce's drones, she learned that the girl was fifteen years old, lived in Scranton, and was diagnosed with ADHD as well as suffered from loads of trauma considering where she had been. She died alone and far from home.

"Royce," she croaked, using her ThoughtControl. "W-W-We found a body. Fifteen-year-old girl named Lola McLane. Three gun wounds to the back."

"Shit!" Royce gasped. "That's horrible! But are you all right, Sandoval?"

Margo couldn't respond, instead doing everything she could to choke back the tears. Wiping them away, she added, "How many more are here?"

"Twelve. Seven are Threat Level 5. The amount for Level 2 has remained unchanged. And I'm still detecting electronic signals from three other individuals." He gasped. "ONE OF THEM IS APPROACHING—"

The deafening sound of a gunshot filled the air. Margo was sent flying onto her back, the oxygen vanishing from her lungs. Her bulletproof vest had saved her now that her Blur was deactivated a long time ago, barely reactivating now that she was hit. Another gunshot—the shrill, metallic twang of a Fatemaker—followed suit along with a loud splashing noise and a thud as something heavy made contact with the floor.

Every breath she took made her feel like there were nails lodged in her throat. Margo slowly rose from the floor to see another masked man on the floor, a ravaged hole positioned where his face used to be. She could see his hand grasping around the trigger of a gun. Jack approached the body with the most victorious grin on his face. He took a quick glance at his wounded comrade, studying the wet streaks across her cheeks left behind by her tears before apathetically moving forward.

"Sandoval!" Royce shouted through his piece. "Are you hurt?!"

"W-W-Where..." she wheezed, flinching as a stinging pain jolted through her abdomen. "Where are they?"

"If you mean the Level 2's, they're only three rooms away! It'll be faster if you blast through the walls with your gun. But watch out for the others!"

"Sandoval!" shouted Andrade. Margo abruptly looked back to where she came from to see Andrade and Carl racing towards her, additionally noticing that Andrade had modified her Fatemaker into a machine pistol.

Which she quickly took advantage of.

"Look out!" Margo shouted. With her gun on Eradicator mode, she blasted a hole through the wall beside her. A cloud of dust swallowed her as the hallway beyond the concrete was exposed along with the two crooks positioned behind it. Carl and Andrade quickly gunned them down.

Margo managed to get back up on her feet, her mission to catch her breath still proving to be quite a challenge. She was shocked to see Carl scream in horror only to realize he had just caught a glimpse of the deceased girl. And once she had full comprehension of that, she dashed over to him to make sure his dissociation proceeded carefully.

"We couldn't save..." he muttered somberly. His head twitched repeatedly and his eyes quickly shut, as if he were waking up from a bad dream. But it was the opposite that was taking place. Carl was sent back into his subconscious as Vince took his place, greeting Margo with his usual cold glance.

"Let's go," he growled, switching the light on his ring to green.

"Poor girl," Andrade said, following alongside Margo. "I hate to think about how her family must be feeling right now."

Margo quietly nodded her head, still heartbroken over that girl. She didn't plan on using her Fatemaker anymore that night. It couldn't save Finn. It couldn't save that girl. Maybe they were better off killing the unfixable ones. And that was something she wasn't ready to do.

As they entered the next hall, Carl blasted open a new hole to establish another shortcut. The scans from the drones revealed that the five hostages were locked away in the next room they'd approach. All they had to do was take down the two other Level 5's guarding the door. Luckily, Jack disposed of them quickly and violently, drenching himself in their blood with the shots he took.

For the first time that night, he reverted his Fatemaker back to its original handgun form. He stood in front of the door, ignoring the horrified looks he had received from his colleagues. "Don't worry," he sighed out of exhaustion while recharging his gun. "I'll make this quick."

Another scream filled Margo's ears. She couldn't tell if it was her own or from the people beyond the door.

Jack kicked open the door, and the officers were greeted by a nauseating stench. There was a small storage room with a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling. Eight teenage girls sat around the room, all of them bounded and gagged. Five of them were shrieking in terror, tears cascading down their cheeks, but three of them were silent and slumped against the wall as stiff as mannequins.

"Sorry, girls," Jack said, raising his weapon. "I'm setting you fr—"

He choked on those last words as the implant in his neck lit up like a Christmas tree. He collapsed into Vince's arms and was carefully dragged back out of the room where he couldn't hurt anyone else. The last thing he saw that evening was an incredibly furious Margo with her ThoughtControl's lens on display, a look of absolute frustration on her face.

She scanned everyone in the room and covered her mouth in horror as their Threat Levels raised by one due to the shock of seeing one of their own protectors threaten them with violence. After that, she ran over to the closest girl and worked to free them from their ropes.

"You're all right," she whispered as she untied the ropes around one girl's hands. "My name is Margo. I work for Psychwatch and we're here to rescue you."

Once the ropes and gag were removed, the girl turned around and hugged Margo with all her might, sobbing uncontrollably as she held on to her rescuer. Margo carefully wrapped her arms around her. It broke her heart to admit she smelled horrible, but none of that was her fault. She was completely naked. Red marks were etched across her back, and she had bruises all over her face.

She only managed to say two words, uttered in a quiet yet spine-chilling voice brimming with fear. "Help me."

"You're safe now, sweetheart," Margo replied, her grip on the poor girl refusing to dwindle. "You're safe."

The rest of the officers continued to free the girls from their bonds. Vince and Andrade were faced with a new dilemma as it turned out the three unconscious bodies in the room were Sentients, just fabricated clones. Three more people Psychwatch couldn't save. And since the creation of artificial humans was illegal, there was only one solution.

With three shots from Andrade's Fatemaker, they were set free.

Once the girls were escorted to safety, the sorrowful officers dealt with investigating the mutilated corpses hanging in the room next door. And the enormous pool of blood stretching from one end of the room to the other.