Cognitive Deviance

63. Path to Healing

June 10, 2045 - 10:15 AM

The footsteps resounding through the halls of Psychwatch reminded Margo of pebbles tumbling down a steep hill, beginning slowly but escalating into a violent landslide. Three days since the Rabbit Hole infiltration, yet the day looked like any other. Her colleagues? Not a scratch on them. No trauma or regret bogging them down, rendering their expressions sour. As she sat beside Royce, the two of them awaiting forthcoming therapy sessions, Margo declared herself a primary exception.

Neither one of them bothered to check on the other. All they knew of was their own wounds. Half of Margo's face dimmed purple by contusions and a gaping spot in her teeth, a minuscule patch of tattered flesh where her right molar used to be. Royce with his withering, corpse-like physique yet impeccable posture, back straightened, shoulders back, head high. An animatronic constructed in his likeness could've taken his place, and no one would've known the difference.

"When was the last time you took your meds, Sandoval?" he asked Margo, signaled by the tapping of her fingernails against the aluminum frame of her pillbox.

"Last night at eleven," she said, staring ahead at her colleagues rushing by like cars on the freeway. "I figured night was the best time to take them. My worst episode to date happened at night, actually."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

The two of them nodded, taking the moment to embrace the silence.

"Do you still take meds, Royce?" Margo asked.

"No. They made it harder to sleep. Not that it made much of a difference. I only really get about three hours of sleep per day."

"Do you get nightmares like I do?"

No answer. But as Margo pivoted her head to the left, she saw him nodding his head.

"This your first session?" Royce asked.

"Yeah," Margo said. "First in a long time. Although, I had one with Mason after coming back to work from the rally incident. I didn't know it was her at first. She made it seem like an AI ran the session."

"That's odd."

"Yeah. I hate AI-conducted sessions."

"I'm okay with them. Sofia helped me get used to them."

Margo's eyebrows raised. "Oh yeah, I forgot about Sofia. Who is she anyway?"

"Just a woman I care deeply about. But I can't always tell if she knows what's best for me."

"Well, we're Psychwatch officers. Shouldn't we technically already know what's best?"

"Since when did working for this place mean our opinions matter more than anyone else's?" Royce asked.

"Since we started shooting people who say otherwise."

Another way to bring the silence back. Margo cringed, but she couldn't tell which moment of comprehension humiliated her more. The words that'd come out or the disapproving glances of her colleagues passing by. And another layer of discomfort built upon the later presumption when she declared to herself that they undoubtedly saw what she said as only the ramblings of a patient amid another psychotic episode. A pathetic schizo, just like the voices told her.

"Have you ever thought about that?" Margo said. "Ever wondered what would've happened to us if we weren't part of Psychwatch? Because I hadn't. And I'm an idiot for not doing so."

"You're not an idiot, Sandoval," Royce said. "Besides, Psychwatch wouldn't gun you down. You're harmless."

"And probably so were most of the people we've killed."