"We've retrieved Officers Sandoval and Holloway along with one suspect," Nikki told Carl through his ThoughtControl piece. "We're returning to headquarters now."

"Nice job, guys," Carl replied cheerfully, keeping his view on the road ahead of him. "I'll see you again in an hour or two."

Once his connection with Nikki cut off, he received a call from Holden. "Uncle Carl," Holden greeted, "I got some more info on Donny Redford."

"Did you find the name of the school, honey?" Andrade chimed in. She leaned forward to activate the van's directory, and a screen requesting an address hovered in front of her and Carl.

"Oh hey, Andrade. Yeah, he was a junior at Skinner High School in Torresdale. Low ranking in his classes, multiple absences, and despite being undiagnosed, has a notable lack of control over his temper. Had a Threat Level 3 according to the last SanityScan he passed."

"Skinner High," Andrade repeated as she input the address, and the van redirected itself toward the school. "Weird how the System declares him undiagnosed, yet we found a pile of Apaths scattered around the bathroom sink."

"Probably went down the same path Holloway did," Carl replied. "Started off as a requirement then devolved into a bad habit. From a daily pill to so much more."

"I can't help but feel sorry for the boy. All of them, really, but if Redford had all these absences and was addicted to pain medication, I'd hate to see how his home life was."

"If we learned anything, Andrade, it's that it takes one madman to make another."

The school was only a few more blocks away. Carl's eye started twitching, and he slumped into his seat as if he was about to pass out.

"You alright, Maslow?" Andrade asked.

"Someone else wants to take the helm," Carl grunted. "Let them know what's going on."

Andrade perked up. "I really hope it's Catalina!"

YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT YOUR DESTINATION, declared the van's automated voice.

Carl slowly rose from his seat. He glanced over at Andrade with a cold expression completely devoid of Carl's usual amiable nature. His posture was tense and his eyelids hung low, as if he was angry that he dragged himself out of the depths of Carl's mind. To conclude his introduction, he pressed the button on his LED ring, switching the light from blue to green.

"Hello, Vince," Andrade greeted.

"Andrade," Carl's alter Vince replied in a baritone voice almost unrecognizable compared to the original.

"Maslow and I have been tasked with inquiring Isabella Zhang, the principal of Skinner High School, over the deaths of four junior students, particularly Donny Redford, the only one confirmed to have formerly attended the school so far. Are you willing to cooperate with us to fulfill our task and bring these boys and their loved ones justice?"

Vince retained his icy expression but silently nodded in agreement.

Andrade smirked. "Bueno. Then let's get this done."

She and Vince stepped out of the van and stood in front of Skinner High. Like many of the other buildings scattered throughout Philadelphia, it was a large, futuristic superstructure with entire walls constructed primarily of RG, a self-repairing material known formally as regenerative glass. Shrubbery stood around the school's premises like strands of grass protruding out of the sidewalk, and the school's name hovered above its roof in green holographic letters. A concrete pathway led directly to the front doors, and Andrade and Vince followed it.

As they entered the school's main entrance, they were greeted by the sight of dozens of holographic anti-bullying and suicide prevention posters lining the walls and hovering above them like banners in the wind. Beams of sunlight rained down on them through the skylights. The lobby was completely empty, to the point the officers' footsteps were the loudest noises in the room. SanityScans hung at every corner, whether it was at a bend in the corridors or above the restroom doorways. Wherever anybody went, some form of technology would reassure them they were under the eye of something greater. Whether or not they felt protected by that greater force depended on the person's mindset.

"Here they come," Vince said.

Right on cue, the bell rang. Students poured out of the rooms like water through floodgates, quickly filling the halls. Andrade and Vince used their ThoughtControls for a mass evaluation of the wave of teenagers coming towards them. Once the Scan rippled through the crowd, data poured into their ThoughtControl pieces in a blink. They had access to each and every one of these kids' minds.

Social anxiety. Depression. Autism. OCD. Bipolar disorder. Those words floated around nearly every teen wandering the school's corridors in the eyes of the Psychwatch officers thanks to their ThoughtControl pieces. Labels were the one thing adolescents such as these hated most in the world, and many people were appalled by the fact they were receiving them from their own protectors. Both Andrade and Vince were aware of this. It was hard to find a kid who actually looked pleased to see them.

As the officers made their way toward the principal's office, certain sights and sounds would grab their attention like museum exhibits, each one reminding them of the bonkers world they both loved and feared. The sight of several teens with cybernetic body parts reminded them of the new ways they could save a person's life, but it also led to their horrific realization that it had gotten to the point artificial limbs were necessary to replace the damage people could do to themselves and each other. Then there were the Bod-Modders, people addicted to receiving cybernetic enhancements, trying so hard to replace the flaws that made them human with imperfect, manmade contraptions. Two teenagers wearing rabbit masks were pressed up against the lockers, kissing and fondling each other as if the world around them didn't exist. Four other teenagers were gathered around a holographic poster board promoting Mental Health Month. Andrade appreciated their cause at first until she caught a glimpse of the image each had painted on their face, a black and yellow padlock shaped like the human brain.

"Parasites," Vince growled as they passed the youths by.

"Fuck off, doctor-cop," one of the teens shot back

"Not sure if this is the right place to tell them that to their faces, Vince," Andrade whispered. "The Scan said three out of four of them were suffering from depression."

"Just narcissists," Vince groaned. "No one important."

"They certainly think they're important."

"Don't we all?"

As the amount of children filling the corridors began to dwindle, the two of them noticed that some of the lockers were decorated by photos of students, surrounded by special flowers known as spark roses. Characterized by their ghostly white petals and light blue anthers that glowed like Christmas lights, spark roses were one of the first successful bioluminescent plants ever produced. They grew in popularity as the public devolved into insanity and body counts rose, and the plants started spreading across the country like stars in the night sky. It was a new tradition to use them to honor the deceased.

Every picture Andrade and Vince saw surrounded by spark roses were just a few of hundreds of suicide victims nearly every high school in the country was guilty of knowing. Their lives were precious, but unlike the flowers that enveloped their holographic portraits, they didn't give themselves the chance to blossom into something beautiful.

The officers paused in front of a large window overlooking the school's track. Right beside them was the door to the principal's office. If Carl had his turn in the limelight, he would've tried to lighten the mood by exchanging stories with Andrade about their delinquent behavior back in their own high school experiences. Like most people in this day and age, calling it "delinquent" was quite an understatement. And just like most people, it was hardly their fault.

Andrade knocked on the door. Ten seconds later, they were greeted by an Asian woman a few inches shorter than them. She had brown hair styled into a bob cut like Margo and wore a maroon skirt and blazer similar to the regular attire of an Empath. Her name tag read Isabella Zhang, and she greeted the officers with an amiable yet blatantly forced grin.

"Can I help you, officers?" she asked.

"Hello there, Miss Zhang," Andrade greeted. "I'm Inspector Daniela Andrade of Philadelphia's Psychwatch division and this is my partner, Vince. We hate to show up unannounced, but I'm afraid we have some unfortunate news. May we come in?"

The principal silently parted away from the door to let the officers in, and they took the two seats in front of her desk as Zhang closed the door behind her. Andrade looked around the room. A bouquet of spark roses rested in a vase on her desk. Smaller versions of the same posters they saw outside were on full display across the wall. Anti-suicide. Anti-bullying. Anti-Psychwatch. At least the former was how Andrade and many more of her fellow officers interpreted the political posters designed by parasite groups like MindLock.

"I apologize for those," Miss Zhang said, aware of Andrade's vitriol toward the poster. "Y'know how teenagers are, always rebelling against their authorities, fighting so hard to be themselves."

"Yes, I'm aware," Andrade replied. "I once worked as an Empath a long time ago, so I definitely understand teenagers. However, given my own mental conditions, my service in that position didn't last very long. Psychwatch believed I was better suited to be a Neutralizer."

"How about you, Officer...Vince?" Miss Zhang asked him. He was too busy reading the notes Carl left for him in their ThoughtControl piece to refresh his memory on the case. And even without the notes, he wasn't much of a talker anyway.

"He's a little busy right now," Andrade replied, leaning forward in her seat. "I like this school of yours, Miss Zhang. It appears to pass nearly every safety requirement imaginable. RG windows, SanityScans, I believe I even saw self-scanning lockers along the hallways as well."

"Yes, ma'am. Skinner High has always prioritized safety over anything else. While most other schools thought installing X-rays in the lockers was an absurd idea, I could only see its potential."

"Speaking of potential, I looked around at your students on the way here. I like the diversity. They all seem to have their own quirks and motivations. And not a single one over Threat Level 3."

"Uh...thank you?" Zhang replied awkwardly. She was surprised to hear Andrade say that given her reaction to MindLock's posters.

"I understand why you may feel a little uneasy right now. My colleague doesn't look as friendly as I do, right? Trust me, he's usually one of the nicest people you'll ever meet." Andrade paused to twirl around with her robotic fingers. "And I bet you're wondering how I got this," she added in reference to her artificial limb.

"As curious as I am, it's my policy to respect other people's privacy. Unless, of course, they feel the need to tell me."

"I like you," Vince said. "You've got standards."

"Lucky you," Andrade told Miss Zhang, followed by a laugh. However, it was short-lived as she returned back to her composed self. "But we're really here to ask you about a student of yours, a junior named Donny Redford."

Miss Zhang raised an eyebrow. "Redford? He was absent again today. Fourth time this week."

"I hate to alarm you, Miss Zhang, but the boy was found dead in a public restroom out in an offline neighborhood along with three other kids around his age."

Zhang turned as pale as a corpse. A quiet "What?" was the only thing she could muster.

"We have no idea who did this, and the only witness we found wasn't reliable for an account since he had traces of hallucinogenics within his system. So in the meantime, while my colleagues continue to identify the rest of the bodies, I'm here to ask you why you believe Donny Redford was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Zhang could hardly say another word. She sat down at her desk, the most horrified expression on her face. She buried her face into her hands, hundreds of guilt-ridden thoughts racing through her head in an attempt to justify this.

Vince's ThoughtControl beeped as he received an incoming message. The lens blinked in front of his eye, and three more names appeared in front of him. "We have the rest," he told Andrade.

Andrade didn't reply back. She rose from her chair and walked over to Zhang, placing her robotic hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

"I love these children," Zhang croaked, tears streaming down her face. "Some of them say I'm like a mother to them. I just wish...I just wish they could think their actions through."

"We all wish they could," Andrade whispered sullenly. "We try so hard to save people, but we can't save them from themselves."

"We're all free to make choices," Vince said, still reading his notes, "but we are not free from the consequences of those choices. If only Mr. Redford knew."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Andrade and Vince left the room, leaving Zhang behind to endure the storm that was her own emotions. They received contact information for the victims' relatives, but due to Zhang's privacy policy, they hardly learned a single new thing about them. The four kids were quite troublesome, and Donny Redford was the unofficial leader of their clique. They've been reported multiple times due to verbal threats, drug use, and inappropriate physical contact with their fellow colleagues. However, this behavior combined with their absences implied abuse going on at home, at least as a worst-case scenario. Sadly, Psychwatch learned that the worst-case scenario often became the most-likely scenario.

As Vince pointed out before they left, those kids were a bunch of irresponsible little bastards who didn't seem to deserve the fate they received. Psychwatch wouldn't press charges against the school since Redford and his friends left class on their own free will, but the school itself was not safe from the wraths of the victim's relatives. Still emphasizing his lack of sympathy, he finally added that they'd need to add more spark roses to the lockers in the hall now that more bodies were added to the pile.

"Attention," an automated voice announced through the speakers. "All students please step away from your lockers. A scan for firearms and illegal substances is currently in progress."

Standing in the middle of the corridor, Vince and Andrade looked around as lines of green light swept up and down the locker doors accompanied by a electronic hum. A wonderful chime followed suit once the process had completed, and it echoed through the hallway in every single locker.

Andrade and Vince left that momentary symphony behind as they exited the building, now prompted to return to headquarters.