The LaserShank went through skin and bone like a hand through a wall of mist. Blood sprayed Jack's face with each slash, only blinking when a drop caught his eye. Limbs popped off like toys, and masked men painted the walls and floor copious shades of red. The Fatemaker's Subjugate Mode lost all of its allure after he'd killed the albino girl whose name he cared nothing for. Nothing could top killing a child, yet such a deed did nothing to boost his pulse.

Jack pondered if raping Margo would warrant a similar sense of indifference. It was the only thing left to try while he still had a few functioning nerves left. Then Psychwatch could remove and replace every part of him that'd come in contact with her body.

Until then, Jack savored each mess he'd left behind, the freedom that came with his destroyed Blur. His clothes and his face soaked up each spurt of blood like a canvas. Carotid arteries came apart like worn fabric upon contact with the blade. The screams were brief, always gargled and shrill, before their heads tumbled off their shoulders. The unlucky ones got to watch the blade reappear through the other side of the arm or leg, feel its fiery, prickling sting as it reduced their flesh to the smallest of atoms before taking something important with it. A limb, a fragment of bone, ounces of blood, oftentimes life itself after minutes of grievous blood loss.

He'd forgotten his true nature, the ones who owned him and decided what would leave his tongue and come in contact with his savage hands, until he saw a drone shine a light down on him through an open window.

"Holy sh-sh-shit!" Nikki shouted into his ear through his ThoughtControl. "Holloway, w-w-what have you done? How many people have you...Wait!"

The drone vanished with one garish blast from his Fatemaker on Eradicator Mode, not a single component left. Two more drones took its place, however, wafting away the minuscule cloud of smoke that remained of the first one.

"J-J-Jack!" Nikki said. "You need to stop!"

The Fatemaker returned, hovering between Jack and Psychwatch's eyes in the sky. But Jack paused, watching a drop of someone else's blood trail off his hand down the grip of his gun. He smoothed his thumb across the grip, amused by its oily sensation, comparing it to the gashes across his right arm courtesy of Crimson.

With his pointer finger curled around the trigger, Jack froze upon hearing Kusanagi declare behind him in a weary voice, "Holloway! You take out another drone, you'll find yourself waking up back in your cell, filled with more implants than you can count."

"Atkinson," said Jack, "do you really want to know how many people I've killed in the last few minutes?"

"Holloway!" said Kusanagi, his Assault Fatemaker trained on his younger colleague's back, though the man struggled to stand. "Holloway, I'm warning you. Holster your weapon now!" 

"Somebody got you, Kusanagi?" Jack said. "You should get that fixed up. You won't last much longer around me."

"Yeah? Guess you haven't noticed, but you have a nasty gash stretching across your waist. What the hell happened to your Blur?"

Jack shrugged. "Didn't think I needed it anymore."

"Great. That means we can just drag you out."

Then Nikki said, "GET DOWN!"

BOOM!

Jack and Kusanagi tumbled to the floor as the wall behind them vanished into dust and rubble with an earsplitting bang. The screams of their fellow officers followed next, and Jack peeked his head up to see a chasm form in place of the hallways he'd journeyed through. He looked back to see Kusanagi writhing around on the floor, blood stippling the dust beneath him, his Blur blinking in and out of existence.

"I hit it with the pulse," Nikki whispered before screaming the rest. "I hit th-th-the Sentient with the p-p-pulse, and it still blew up! It moved around and s-s-spoke and it...it went off!"

"Atkinson," Kusanagi winced, and he screamed as he covered his wound with his hands.

"I did that...This is all my fault."

"You're out of your fucking element, kid," Jack told Nikki, and he snatched his ThoughtControl piece from his ear and lobbed it into the chasm.

"Holloway!" Kusanagi said, his voice cracking. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm getting that bitch's voice out of my head. I don't want that to be the last thing I hear when this place goes down in flames."

Jack didn't need to look back to know that Kusanagi had his Fatemaker trained on him again. He could hear the gun's energy rile up like a hungry beast.

"You have five seconds to get off the floor, Holloway!" said Kusanagi.

"Having you be the last thing I hear isn't any better," said Jack.

"Five!"

"If I could move, I would've by now."

"Four!"

"Actually, no, I wouldn't have."

"Three!"

"Looks like someone's coming."

"Two! One...Maslow?"

The tip of Carl's boot collided with Jack's face, knocking him back to the floor with a thud. While his younger colleague reached for his bruised eye, Carl drew out his Fatemaker and aimed it at Jack. Eradicator Mode, Jack's favorite. Though the only one who'd partake in such irony would be:

"Vince," Kusanagi whispered.

"Stand up," Vince said, "or I will pull the trigger and carry you back to Psychwatch in a dustpan."

Jack laughed the most real laugh anyone had heard from him as he forced himself off the floor. He and Kusanagi flinched as another explosion rang out in a distant corner of the building, yet Vince remained still with his weapon ready.

Andrade ran in from the same door Vince came through. Dust coated her face and her organic arm, and a streak of blood trailed out of a cut on her temple. She fought hard to breathe, but upon seeing her far more composed colleagues, she straightened her posture and flashed Jack a piercing glare.

"The albino girl is dead in the other room," she said in a shaky voice. "She's dead because of you, Holloway!"

Jack returned to his feet, his laughs lowering in volume until he was back to wincing at the sight of the gash in his side.

"Vince is right," Andrade said. "You're nothing."

And she marched over to assist Kusanagi while Jack remained in Vince's sights.

"Where's Mason?" said Jack. "Amidst all of this, where is Mason?"

"Everywhere," said Vince.

"What, did she get blown to kingdom come, and nobody told me?"

"No. She's in the drones. She's watching us."

Jack's expression grew dark. "She's doing nothing."

"Let's go back to the vans before you get us in more trouble."

"We're taking you, too," Andrade told Kusanagi as she hoisted him up.

"I'm fine," said Kusanagi with a forced chuckle. "What are you talking about?"

"Joseph, you're bleeding so much, we can roll you across the walls like a paint roller."

Kusanagi shrugged. "Fine with me. This place gives me the creeps anyway."

Andrade rolled her eyes before looking back at Vince. "We'll go find him a medic. Either make use of Holloway or let him bleed out."

Everyone but Jack squinted their eyes shut as the searchlights of another drone bathed them and their surroundings. Even when Mason wasn't there in the room, they sensed her looking over them with talons for eyes.

"Evening, Commissioner!" Jack said. "Or morning or afternoon or whatever the fuck you want it to be."

"Behind you," she said, and the officers found the Multi Man guarding the exit.

"Commissioner, don't use the pulse!" Nikki blared through their earpieces.

"Oh no, go ahead," said the Man. "We all love surprises, don't we? Or maybe Psychwatch has a different opinion."

The horrified pleas from his fellow officers did nothing to keep Jack from firing a shot using Eradicator Mode. One with faster reflexes would've caught sight of the smirk stretching across his face. But everyone went silent as the shot burnt half of the Multi Man's Sentient out of existence, taking the left arm and most of its torso. The bottom rim of the mask illuminated with a hot blue glow, and the Sentient's artificial blood ran down its clothes and face as it stumbled back clumsily.

"Well," said the Sentient, its voice mutilated by static, "that was a surp—"

Jack fired again, and the blast swallowed what remained of the Sentient. The humanoid imitation didn't even scream as the starlike ray of energy burnt every inch of it to the smallest particle of dust. His fellow officers froze, mouths agape and eyes wide, all but Vince. The solution to their problem had arrived.

As did a new problem. Another Multi Man. An utterly terrified one, with his hands raised and trembling.

"Wait, don't shoot!" he said. "It's me, it's Margo! I'm trapped! You need to help me. Please!"

Not a single officer changed their expressions. Confusion rippled through them like a disease, eating them inside, leaving aches in their brains.

"Carl. Please...it's me."

Jack glanced between Vince and the puppet master hoisting the Multi Man by his strings. He watched the hollow space in his eyes refill. They grew softer, more merciful. The Fatemaker shook in his hands, and his arm began its careful descent.

"Margo," Carl whispered.

Jack knew in that moment that the wound would sting most. He quickly switched the Fatemaker to Subjugate Mode and blasted the Multi Man's left arm off. Hearing Margo shriek through the puppet, watching the consequences of empathy reach their logical conclusion, brought a smile to his face. He watched her collapse to the floor in someone else's body, scoot away through the open door she'd come through, while his colleagues around him struggled to make sense of it all.

"Holloway!" Carl shouted, and his neurotic colleague met the barrel of his gun.

Jack knew he made the right call to switch back to Eradicator Mode the instant he'd first pulled the trigger. When his superior officers returned to Earth, Jack found Andrade and Kusanagi with their guns on him. He fired at the floor beneath him and vanished into the next floor.

"Goddamn it!" Andrade shouted. "Mason, we have to put him down. He's only getting in the way!"

Mason said nothing as her drone flew out of sight. Another explosion shook the building as Carl ran to find Margo, even while she screamed from a vessel she was forced to pilot. He found her in the corner of an empty room, the blood from the missing arm guiding him to her.

"Margo, it's me, it's Carl," he said with a cracking voice. "Do you know where your body is?"

"No!" she sobbed.

"Do you have the halo on?"

"Yes, yes, I fucking do. But how do I get it off without hurting me?"

Andrade and Kusanagi found the two of them.

"Maslow," Andrade said, "have her come with us back to the vans. We'll get Kusanagi patched up, and we can get her out of the PACER."

"But he takes the body back!" Margo said. "I could be back in his head at any moment. You're gonna have to stun me! Stun this body, I mean!"

Andrade turned to Kusanagi. "Won't that damage the halo?" she said.

"It can," he replied. "But we can get her back through an override. Just follow us, Sandoval. Do your best."

"Yeah, everything will be okay!" Carl said. "We'll get out before you bleed to death. We'll find your body and get you out of the PACER. I promise, Margo! I...Margo?"

The Multi Man's body wasn't sobbing in anguish anymore. It winced in a low voice, a harsh whistling rushing through its teeth. That whistling turned into a pained laugh barely audible amongst the building's destruction and the shots tearing through the air. The Man scooted away from Carl until he was planted against the wall, forcing himself up from the floor as blood soaked his clothes.

"She's in Hell, Maslow," the Man said. "There will hardly be a thing left of her if you get her out."

Carl drew his Fatemaker.

"Maslow!" Andrade called, and she and Kusanagi staggered as another explosion rocked the building.

"There will hardly be a thing left of you," Carl told the Multi Man, "when I get her out of your fucked-up head."

"You've made it this far with your mind in pieces," said the Man. "Who's to say I can't do the same thing?"

Carl waited, the Multi Man facing down the barrel of the Fatemaker.

"What do you do," the Man said, "when you destroy what you love, Maslow?"

Andrade and Kusanagi met the floor as the closest explosion yet took another chunk out of the building. Carl lost his balance, but he caught the Man's shoulder with a shot from his Fatemaker as the Man disappeared down the hole Jack created. Carl hated the pain it would cause Margo, but at least he'd slow the monster down.

Staring down the makeshift abyss, Carl slipped away from the light. Vince found his way back. He glanced back at Andrade and Kusanagi and said, "Save yourselves."

"Vince, what are you doing?" Andrade said, but the man disappeared down the hole.

Kusanagi sighed, then broke down in a fit of coughs. He watched his blood trickle down his pant leg to his shoe, marking his footprints in red.

He looked up at Andrade and said while mustering an exhausted smile, "Let's not disappoint him."

* * *

Margo Present rested on the pavement beneath the flickering street light, clutching her left arm that had somehow vanished seconds ago. She breathed harshly, even though the simulation didn't require oxygen or lungs. But the pain felt far too real. She knew her arm would be gone again when she returned.

"Are you okay?" said Margo Pre, running to her side.

"No," whispered Margo Present through grit teeth. "My arm."

"Did you hurt it?" said Margo Post. "What happened when you left?"

"Someone blew it off. Someone I knew."

Margo Pre gasped, and a look of disgust crossed Post's face as she helped her Present self to her feet. "Why did they do that?" asked Margo Post.

"Because he wants me dead," said Margo Present.

The three Margos glared ahead at the pitch-black road in front of them. Lights burned in the distance, dotting a row of houses in a desolate neighborhood. Townhouses, more specifically, bordered by lawns sprawling with dead grass and withered trees.

"We're almost out of here," said Margo Present. "There's the townhouse up ahead—"

WHOOSH!

When Margo returned to the surface, the mutilated stump elicited her screams, and she tumbled to the ash-covered floor of a hallway in the building. Globs of blood dabbed the floor like soft raindrops, and she curled into a fetal position when another Sentient detonated in the distance, taking the building and some of its inhabitants with it. She was afraid to find herself floating in darkness following the sound of an exploding Sentient. Because then that meant it took her body with it.

And if the Sentient didn't do the job, Margo realized, then Jack could.

"Oh Sandoval!" he called out, almost singing the words. He paused to shoot, then kept going, his voice carrying on. "Sandoval! Come out, come out, wherever you are."

Goddamn it, Margo thought, and she forced herself up from the floor, a challenge when left with a single arm. She leaned against the wall as she tried to look away from the blood she'd left on her clothes. Too much, and it wasn't even her own. She'd share a death, die twice in two different bodies.

Quickly? Slowly? I don't want either. At the end of everything, I want to be alive.

Shots from a Fatemaker burned through the wall, vanishing into black smudges above Margo. She watched two masked men careen around the corner, each one armed with guns that could blow a pillar of stone away. They caught sight of their leader, caught sight of his body's invader taking credit for his final moments on Earth, watching curiously.

"He did this to himself," Margo told them. "You all did."

They said nothing.

"Why are any of you doing this?" she said. "You could've saved yourselves. You could've helped people!"

Still nothing. They only glared at the Multi Man as if he were a newly discovered species.

No reaction, huh? Margo thought. Let's see about this.

The moment she reached for the hem of the Man's mask, she met the barrel of their guns, and their panicked reactions met her ears, declaring blasphemy that she'd unmask their god. They only managed one shot, which took a chunk out of the concrete wall behind Margo, before their ribs and internal organs blew through their chest. The familiar effects of a Subjugate Fatemaker.

When the dust and red mist settled, Jack emerged from the new entrance in the walls where the blasts came from. He paused to watch one of his victims choke on the blood gushing out of his mouth, and when it no longer amused him, he fired another shot. Through the Multi Man's eyes, Margo once again bore witness to the human brain vacating the skull.

"Don't you fucking dare," Margo said, still gripping the hem of the mask with the Multi Man's fingers.

"Keep that mask on," Jack said.

"What, are you like the other masked psychos here? You see this guy's face, you have to die?"

"No. I just really couldn't care less. Everyone looks the same blown open. This wouldn't be any different."

Margo let go of the mask. "Fine. Do it."

Jack chuckled. "What the hell are you doing? You're supposed to drop down on your knees and beg for your life!"

"Fuck you."

Jack lowered his gun. "Just need a little longer, Sandoval. Then you won't be talking anymore."

Something was running towards Margo and Jack, a silhouette sprinting through the dust. Margo took a few steps back. She'd never seen Jack snap so fast.

"You know what?" he said, returning his gun to his target, activating Eradicator Mode. "You don't excite me anymore, Sandoval. You only exhaust me."

Margo didn't know if she threw herself to the floor, or the hopeless, inhuman shrieking of the incoming attacker nullified her balance. A blast from Jack's Fatemaker reduced more of the wall beside her to dust, a misfire thanks to the attacker. Whitey caught Jack from behind, cleaving into the officer's ribs with his dagger, slicing and yanking as much as he could while Jack grunted and screamed more out of annoyance than agony.

Margo hardly understood a word that came from the young albino boy's mouth. Perhaps exhaustion or stress weakened her, or the Multi Man's dampening adrenaline affected her the way she shared his pain. The only words she heard him string together were "my sister," howled with so much rage, it was clear he wanted to sacrifice his voice to those words.

Then Margo was dragged back into the PACER, materializing before the building she'd hoped was her townhouse. What she found instead was a dilapidated brownstone with boarded-up windows, the orange radiance of a fireplace dancing behind the glass. Standing six feet away from the door were her younger counterparts, her Post-Erasure self deathly pale and mouth wide open. She held her youngest self in a maternal embrace, that of a mother who failed to prevent the real world from grazing her child with its claws.

"What happened?" said Margo Present.

"Don't go in there," said Margo Post in a harsh whisper.

Margo Present glanced at her two selves. "Did you let her go in?" she asked, referring to the youngest counterpart.

"No! But I saw what was in there. Don't look! You're not gonna unsee that."

"Cover her ears and tell me what you saw."

Margo Post embraced harder. "There's a little boy in there. There was a little girl, too, but a guy took her into the other room. Then I heard her screaming."

Margo Present retrieved her Fatemaker, curling her finger around the trigger as she marched toward the door. With her free hand, she motioned her younger counterparts to switch places with her, taking her position at a safer distance.

She crouched by the window, peering through a crevice between the wooden boards shielding what remained of the glass. White hair atop a young boy's head came into view. Beyond the boy's head, a black-and-white holographic television screen wrestled with static against the wall, the screen dimmed by the glow of the fireplace underneath it. The rest of the room suggested poverty. Floors riddled with dirty clothes and scattered sheets of paper. A stack of envelopes piled high on a coffee table in front of the boy. The closer Margo leaned in, however, the more clearly she could hear the little girl's screams in the other room.

Silence fell a few seconds later before Margo heard a door open. The little girl ran back out into the living room and sat down by her brother, shaking. She had the same snow-white hair and pale skin as him, and when the two turned to look at each other, Margo realized she was looking at the Multi Man's young subordinates. Whitey and Crimson, two names she'd never learn.

A man walked into the room. The two children watched him as if looking elsewhere would kill them instantly. The man wore dark blue scrubs and a pair of clear rubber gloves.

"It's your turn, Thomas," he said.

The boy shook his head profusely, and he started crying. Tears welled up in his sister's eyes, but she remained quiet.

"There's something wrong with you," the man said. "There's so much wrong with you. That's why I keep having to check you both."

The boy cried louder, backing further into his seat. Margo Present glanced back at her younger counterparts to ensure none of what occurred before her reached their eyes or ears.

"Thomas," the man said, "follow me into the other room. Now."

Only crying. Only tears came back to him.

"I've already checked your sister. Now I need to check you. It doesn't need to take as long as last time."

Margo had no body to call her own anymore, but she still felt faint. She still felt the nausea and the guilt and the anger. She wanted to shoot herself with her Fatemaker just to get the image of that man out of her head. To get Whitey's sobbing away from her ears.

She stumbled away from the window, her feet wobbly. She wanted to cry. She wanted to open fire on the man, but he was just an illusion. A memory. He was set in stone.

But we're not in the boy's head, Margo realized. We're seeing this through the eyes of...

The flames behind the windows went out. The glass was dark as obsidian. No light went in or out. No sound. No more cries of abused children. Margo Present's ails vanished as caution took its place.

Fire consumed the house in seconds. Margo and her younger counterparts jumped back as the front door launched open, colliding with the wall. The two albino children stepped outside, their clothes and arms drenched in blood. Behind them marched the Multi Man, and behind the Multi Man trailed bloodied footprints. They walked on as if Margo and her counterparts were nothing more than unseen apparitions, striving toward their new lives on the other side of a crossed line.

Then the Multi Man froze in place as the twins vanished out of sight, Whitey and Crimson the apparitions all along. With a crack of bone, his head jerked toward Margo Present. Perhaps she could've shot the monster in the house after all.

She waited for him to say something, waited for the PACER to throw her back into reality, striking her with whiplash. Nothing was in her favor. She knew that now. She couldn't do anything without fucking it up.

But she still refused to believe doing nothing was the solution. Her Fatemaker rose to the Multi Man's head.

"Not in front of the kids," said the illusory Multi Man, his voice so gravelly and booming, it moved the air.

"Those kids are me," said Margo. "This is for me. And everyone else you've hurt."

"You're not gonna change anything. Not in here."

Margo curled her finger around the trigger. "Then I'll see you out there soon."

The sound of the Fatemaker firing a shot followed her back into the real world, even in the Multi Man's ears. She found the Man pinning Whitey's head against the wall, bruises and scratches marking his right temple and eye. Blood trailed out of his nose into his mouth, and he breathed as if dirt had filled his lungs.

She let him go, and he dropped to the floor, grasping his head. Beside her, she found Jack backed against the wall with his arms around his gut. He was pale and shivering, and a grin sporting blood-soaked teeth met her like something out of her nightmares. Jack coughed up blood and spat it beside him, glaring at Margo taking over a stranger's body.

She knew he was gonna say something else, another tasteless remark hoping to garner shock and disgust, so she paid him no mind and got down on one knee to reach Whitey. The pain in the Man's missing arm continued to sear, but she fought through it.

"Thomas," she said. "Thomas, you have to listen to me."

Whitey stopped moving. He rose his head up, and Margo saw the same fear in his eyes that she'd seen when confronted by his father.

"The Man isn't here right now," she said. "I'm here to help you. I promise! But first, you have to help me."

Even as fear radiated through his eyes from his very soul, Whitey reached for his dagger.

"Do you know where they're keeping my body?"

The dagger remained in the air beside Whitey.

"Please, Thomas. You can help me. You can help yourself. And your sister. Where is she?"

The dagger started to shake. Margo heard Jack force out a laugh. When she looked back, she saw him digging his LaserShank into the wall, using it like a pick to hoist himself up.

"Jack?" said Margo. "What's so funny?"

"You asked where his sister is," he rasped. "Ask him again. I'm sure he'd appreciate it."

Margo swallowed. "Jack...where is the girl?"

 "I'll tell you after we find your body."

"What did you do?"

Jack forced himself to chuckle again, finally struggling to deny his pain. He unholstered his Fatemaker, and Margo made the connection, her eyes widening beneath the Multi Man's mask.

"You didn't," she whispered.

"I did," he said, switching the gun to Subjugate Mode. "Blew her perky little tits off. Did you know she wanted me, buddy? Your sister? She told me to do what I wanted with her. So I blew her open."

Margo glared back at Whitey. The dagger in his hands continued to shake. She wanted to sic him on Jack like a ravenous wolf if it meant getting her body back, but Jack was stronger. Jack could've reunited him with his sister in an instant. But the smallest spark of life left in the boy's eyes died in that moment. He couldn't leave the floor even if he wanted to.

"Y'know," Jack said, aiming the gun at Margo and Whitey, "I could get you to her if you want. You, too, Sandoval. You can tell Sanger how much his death fucked Maslow up."

Margo said nothing. She stood in front of Whitey, ready to take the shot.

"You don't deserve redemption, Jack," she said. "You don't deserve to leave this place alive."

Jack shrugged. "Who says anyone does?"

An orange flash of light entering Jack's left radius, exiting as a splash of crimson across the walls and floor. The Fatemaker dropped from his hand, and a lime-green blast into his chest ensured the rest of his body followed shortly. Incapacitate Mode at work.

Margo traced the origins of those shots and found the two biggest mysteries in the world apart from the man whose body she inhabited. The first was Carl, orange light emanating from the barrel of his Fatemaker. The second was Commissioner Mason herself, the one responsible for the incapacitating shot.

Anger clouded Margo's thoughts, and with the Multi Man's voice, she roared, "Mason, where the fuck have you been?"

"Wow," said Mason, a small smirk crossing her face. "So it really is you. You're having a hell of a day, aren't you, Sandoval?"

"I swear to God, Mason, when I get out of here—"

"When you get out of here, Sandoval," said Mason, "you won't be going back to Psychwatch. You'll be going to a hospital. This is not me being cruel. Believe me."

"She's right, Margo," said Carl. "You're hurt."

"Did you find my body?" Margo asked, reaching for the stump that remained of the Multi Man's arm. She and Carl winced the moment her hand made contact.

"No, not yet," he said. "But we heard you talking with this young man right here."

Margo and Carl looked down at Whitey, who still hid his face and his head from the rest of the world. Mason walked away to reach Jack's unconscious body, if he wasn't dead for the fourth time. 

"Thomas," Margo said, but after hearing the news of his sister's fate, she realized the Man's voice was the last thing he'd want to hear. "Carl, ask him."

Carl knelt to the boy's level. Margo watched him fight back tears, suddenly reminded of the nephew he failed to protect.

"Thomas," he said, "we've met before. I don't hold you responsible for...any of this, especially after hearing about what happened to...Well, we're giving you the opportunity to—"

The officers jumped at the sound of an explosion rocking the building. It was distant but still had the power to shake the floor beneath them.

"We just want to ask you one thing," Carl continued. "Do you know where this man is keeping Margo's body?"

Whitey's hands shook as he rested them on the floor beneath him. He pushed himself up and remained still as blood trickled down his chin from the wounds on his face. Carl gasped at the sight, still seeing Holden in the boy, but he cleared his throat and rose to his feet, reaching out a hand for Whitey.

The boy didn't get up from the floor just yet, but he let his face be visible as he told them what they needed to hear.

"Yes."