Cognitive Deviance

70. Conflict of Interest

Almost four months. Maybe a little longer on the inside, or so it felt. The slightest of improvements still treated like astounding scientific progress. The Empaths believed even the smallest of victories deserved a celebration, though they had an unconventional way of showing their excitement. Not that anything else Psychwatch did could be described as conventional.

What was done to Margo Sandoval, done to save her from herself, few would understand. Few would approve. But it was all for the best, argued the higher-ups. She could hurt herself. She did hurt herself. It could happen again. It would. Wait until a year has passed and then leave her to her own devices.

Maybe not a year. Not that it mattered. Her cell felt like a gap in time and space, a waiting room before a door. Beyond that door, everything aged forward. But as long as it stayed closed, she'd stay young, with smooth skin and beautiful hair. No new scars.

On October 20, 2045, at an unknown time of the day, stepping out of the shower, Margo discovered scars on her back. Or more accurately, rediscovered.

They were small but plentiful, far from the crudest remnants of injury she'd come across, but she couldn't recall the last time she'd caught sight of them. The memory of her reflection remained as blurry as every surface she'd come across in search of it, as if her mind itself fought to keep her from seeing what she'd become. From the way the scars scattered across her back like twigs, Margo presumed shards of glass or shrapnel maimed her long ago.

The car crash.

Most of the scars disappeared behind the back of her bra as she dressed herself. She slid on sky blue pajama pants and a gray T-shirt emblazoned with the Psychwatch logo above her heart before fitting her feet into a pair of slippers.

The car crash, she thought again. There never was a goddamn car crash. Dad did this to me. Or maybe I did this. We're both good at hurting me.

Margo stepped out into the rest of her cell, and the bathroom disappeared behind a cluster of moving panels, closing off as if disintegrating out of existence. A resonant clap accompanied every step she took, and she recalled how the sounds made her flinch during her first week.

Or maybe they didn't. Once her head hit the pillow, all that mattered was that she'd wake up again the very next day. There was no such thing as yesterday. Or the day before. Or the prior week. Not until she wanted them to exist again.

The panels on the floor turned green, flashing with the sound of a rhythmic beep. Margo took a step back, and the panels retracted into paper-thin slots, allowing a black leather couch and a glass coffee table to ascend from repositories in the floor below.

Sitting on the sofa were two familiar entities, Ellie and the Multi Man, the two of them drenched in blood. No amount of blinking could erase them from her sights.

"Margo," called Kusanagi's voice through a speaker, but she remained still.

The two of you are going to try to kill me again, she thought. Is that what's going on?

Ellie and the Multi Man nodded far too carefully, more machine than man. Though Margo refused to believe they'd counted as either.

"Margo," Kusanagi said again. "Nod your head if you see something that shouldn't be there."

Margo nodded, and the Multi Man rose from his seat.

"Atkinson, activate the Tracer. Mason, should we give her the medication now?"

"In a minute," Margo heard her superior say.

The Man slid his hand into his pocket and returned with a dagger, its blade ragged like the teeth of a reptile.