Cognitive Deviance

56. Lights Out

June 7, 2045 - 11:40 AM

Crimson hummed a song to herself as she dragged Jack's body up the stairs, giggling as his head walloped against each step. She studied every inch of him, the process slowing her down. The way the mask fit his face, how his BufferSuit clung to his skin, the small stream of blood pouring out of his left eye socket. Hundreds of thoughts filled her head, and she couldn't decipher the meaning behind a single one. Nor would anyone else, she decided.

"Help me out," she snapped at two masked nobodies as she reached the top step. "Psychwatch is here. Or this guy anyway."

The three of them hoisted Jack above the floor, only his feet remaining in contact with the grated surface beneath him. The suites aligned the second floor to their right like a hotel hallway, crammed into the wall from one end to the other. Some occupied, some vacant. Some far more vile than others. In one rested two corpses, one with its torso sliced open from the mouth down to the crotch, and the other lying off the edge of a bed, white fluid dripping from its mouth and eye sockets.

Her brother guarded the door to their room alongside three other masked youth. Whitey didn't care to sport the club's mandatory attire, instead shielding his face with a plain gas mask. Hatred burned bright in his blood-red eyes. His hands gripped around the guardrails as he peered out over the sea of partiers beneath him, the gas mask transforming his heavy breaths into sharp, fuming gnarls.

The memories are coming back, Crimson thought. He's definitely gonna kill someone again.

She and the two masked men heaved the doctor-cop's body into the suite, their vigilante colleagues nudging the door open. Inside was a king-sized bed positioned in the middle of the room, dark blue sheets riding up to the knees of the catatonic body of Arthur Cohen. At the far end of the room, the Multi Man sat on a stool, bloodstains blotching his suit and his back. A corpse strung from the ceiling by a rope around his neck swayed beside the veiled madman.

"Hello, sir!" Crimson said. "Check out this guy. Didn't think doctor-cops could be this hot."

The Multi Man lifted his head and glared at her, wiping the grin off his young subordinate's face. He shifted his sights toward Arthur, the poor bastard's eyes wide but glassy, gazing out into space. Another dosage or two of the drugs they fed him could've put him out forever. The Man then returned his sights to Jack.

"Lay him beside Cohen," he ordered, and his lackeys did so. He rose from his seat, marching over to study his new prizes closely. "Haven't seen this one in a long time."

"Yeah, I remember him from the rally," Crimson said. "Isn't he one of the guys Asch shot? Or am I thinking about the other one?"

"It's him." The Multi Man turned to her. "Don't you remember where the other one is?"

"Oh! Yeah, I remember now."

The Man nodded his head. "Where did you find this one?"

"That Slater guy gave him to me. Said he's loaded up on Wonderland Mist. Although, I don't know why one of his eyes is missing."

"Anything else?"

"He says this guy's a maniac." Crimson paused, smoothing her hand across the doctor-cop's thigh. "I kinda like that."

"Stop touching him." The Man's subordinate pulled her hand away. "He does anything to you when he wakes up, I'm not responsible for it."

Crimson forced out a hesitant chuckle. "Nothing I can't handle, sir."

She froze as his gloved hand gripped her shoulder like a trap. "A seventeen-year-old girl," he said, "versus a brute in Psychwatch's captivity under the influence of the hallucinogenic infamously referred to as the consent drug. How do you think that will play out without my interference?"