Their territory may have expanded, but much of Philadelphia still remained beyond the reach of the SanityScans. Many saw it as a lack of safety; others saw it as a sign of freedom. Anywhere that wasn't within their range was left for dead, ready to succumb to insanity.

Deep in the Psycho Slums north of the city stood the remains of a shopping mall left to ruins like the city of Pompeii. It was abandoned years ago, its fall ensured by the rise of cyber-stores and delivery AI's. Now it stood as a monolith to the vagrants who couldn't afford to live within Psychwatch's territory along with those who refused to do so.

At the center of this two-story mall was a plaza, where a fountain stood in the middle of an intersection of pathways guiding others to new locations to drain their eWallets. There was a massive skylight towering above the plaza, encircling them like a rotunda, all of its glass shattered across the floor beneath it. Projectors tasked with illuminating the building with holographic advertisements flickered on and off, ghostly walls vanishing and returning in an endless cycle. And a horrible smell plagued the premises.

Dawson's bullet-riddled corpse lay at the top of a pile of corpses next to the fountain, the entire pile drenched in gasoline.

The Multi Man watched from the edge of the plaza as the bodies of his former comrades, those who died during their ambush on the Bod-Modders a week ago, were stacked up like a pyramid. With the new SanityScans installed in new neighborhoods, his followers had to find alternate routes through the Psycho Slums to smuggle the corpses to their hideout. The only ones left behind were the mutilated remains of the cyborgs they massacred and the masked men who fought an impossible fight against the incoming Psychwatch officers. Anyone else who wasn't one of them was brought to the outskirts, where no one would ever find them.

The Multi Man got one more glimpse of Dawson's blood-soaked mask before Whitey set the pile of corpses ablaze with a single match.

As soon as he let the match go, Whitey began gagging uncontrollably at the already-horrible scent that managed to grow exponentially more nauseating. He tried to bolt toward a trash can positioned at the edge of the plaza but dropped down on his knees a dozen feet away from it, and the poor boy spent the next few seconds vomiting on the floor. Many of the other masked men had to take their leave as well, some stopping abruptly to lose their lunch while others were simply disoriented by the stench of burning flesh.

The Multi Man predicted the crude cremation's assault on the senses, but he only bothered to warn Crimson and a tied-up Arthur Cohen, the two of them wearing gas masks and watching the smoke rise through the hole in the glass above them. It was a challenge for Arthur to keep his head up. Underneath the gas mask was a series of cuts and bruises inflicted on him by the Multi Man earlier, nothing too bad that it would permanently disfigure him. The pain medication also helped him endure the blows longer than anyone else.

"It looks so pretty," Crimson sighed as she gazed at the flames as if it were a lovely sunset.

"You're a fucking loony," Arthur groaned.

Crimson quickly jerked her head back toward Arthur. "What was that?"

"Nothing you probably haven't heard before."

Crimson continued staring at him, no longer interested in the raging inferno in front of her. Arthur couldn't tell, but she had the widest grin on her face underneath the mask, even while staring into his eyes with a look that could've killed a hundred people. Her hand slowly reached over her back toward the handle of her machete.

Then they all froze when they heard Whitey screaming.

The Multi Man rushed to the edge of the balcony overlooking the plaza. Whitey was backed up against the wall in a fetal position, having lost control of his breathing. He stared at the fire as if something would emerge from it, ready to drag him somewhere than this nightmare he was forever trapped in. He was very visibly scared, nearly on the verge of breaking down in tears, and his hand was gripped on his dagger.

"Whitey!" the Multi Man called out. "What the hell are you doing?"

"The fire," Whitey whimpered. "We threw them in..."

"They're no longer of any use to us, kid! Who could you possibly be—"

The Multi Man stopped. He glanced back at Crimson, who had since returned her sight to the fire. She still maintained a gaze full of awe and wonder. Then he looked back at Whitey. The fear in his eyes, his powerless position on the floor, the dagger in his hand smudged with dry blood. That was the same way he found him and his sister years ago. And he knew exactly who the boy was referring to.

"Whitey," he spoke in a low growl, "you don't want me to take you to the doctor, do you?"

Whitey instantly jerked his head up, and the Multi Man noticed tears were streaming down his eyes. "You'll never do that!" he shrieked. "You've been saying that for years!"

"I've also never spared people before! Not at least until I met you and your sister." The Man paused. "Things change, boy. Whether or not you can endure them is another thing you can change. Now get up here!"

Still shaking, Whitey emerged from the floor. He slid his dagger back into his pocket and made his way toward a broken escalator to join up with them. He wasn't in a hurry to regroup, for the traumas that plagued his mind held him back like weights tied to his feet.

The Multi Man turned toward Arthur. "I'm gonna miss Dawson," he said.

"But you just said they were all disposable," Arthur replied.

The Multi Man turned to his right, facing a dark corridor into the rest of the mall. "Crimson, bring him with us," he ordered. "Let's fine somewhere cleaner."

Crimson walked behind Arthur and shoved him forward with one hand on the chains wrapped around him. "Am I in trouble?" he asked.

The unhinged girl beside him didn't respond. She only took a quick glance at him and quietly chuckled under her breath.

"Are the Apaths still working, Cohen?" the Man asked, facing the path in front of him. "Nothing personal about your injuries. Just angry that they got the House of Pleasure before I could."

"Yeah. Can't feel a thing."

Crimson burst out laughing. "Why would you tell him that, silly? Now he's gonna hurt you really bad."

"No," the Multi Man added bluntly. "I'm not going to hurt Mr. Cohen. I've already taken away most of what he had left. If I hurt him now, he'd no longer be able to comprehend the rest of what I have planned."

Crimson gasped. "Are we gonna show him the special place?"

"Yes, my dear, we are."

"What place?" Arthur asked, and he and the other two looked back to see Whitey running up behind them.

"Just wait," the boy asserted.

Arthur gulped, returning his view to the masked maniac in front of him. "So why do you miss that Dawson kid?" he asked the Man.

"Could one of you take off his mask?" the Multi Man asked in mild annoyance. "I didn't understand a thing he just said."

Crimson took off her gas mask and did the same to her prisoner. "I said," Arthur continued, "why do you miss Dawson? I didn't think empathy was your thing."

"That dork was so freakin' adorable," Crimson replied. "So hesitant. He could hardly even pull out his knife, let alone stab someone."

"Pretty much what she said," the Multi Man replied. "I like seeing watching someone change. I could tell the boy was hesitant at first. I couldn't wait to see how long it would take for him to grow comfortable with the sudden end of human life. Like watching the moon eclipse the sun. Nothing more satisfying than seeing someone find a way to be free of the constraints of empathy, finally questioning what reason there is to believe other people are somehow valuable."

"Don't you see these guys as valuable?"

The Multi Man paused for a moment as he noticed his fellow masked men loitering around the abandoned shops. He glanced behind him toward Whitey and Crimson, his mask protecting them from whatever disgust he may have felt towards them.

"Of course I do, Mr. Cohen," he replied in a low voice. "There's a healthy balance here in our group. My plans are nothing without these men and women around you. And these men and women are nothing without my plans."

Arthur looked around at the dilapidated stores around him. Hidden in the shadows stood groups of masked men continuously varying in size. One room would have a single pair of lunatics while another would have at least a dozen. However, he couldn't find a single female aside from Crimson.

Until they reached the end of the path and stood on another balcony, rising above a large pair of maroon-colored doors built into the floor in the level beneath them. Two girls donning the same raggedy masks as the rest of the building's illegal tenants stood on the bottom floor beside a control panel. One had sandy blonde hair waving down the sides of her mask while the other had black hair styled into pigtails, but those dreaded masks immediately dispelled whatever feeling of innocence their physical appearances conveyed.

"I thought you were the only girl working here," Arthur told Crimson.

"That girl you interviewed after last week's incident helped earn me some more allies," the Multi Man said. "And some of them ended up coming back to me after Psychwatch found them. Glad to see not even the professionals could sway their loyalty." He paused to lean over the balcony rails and ordered, "Open it up."

The girl with the pigtails approached the panel and messed around with the switches and buttons, brief little beeping noises sounding with every movement. An alarm echoed throughout the building as the floor opened up. The four of them on the balcony were greeted by rows upon rows of spark roses as the doors vanished into their slots, streams of water trailing in between each flower bed. The entire structure around them was engulfed by the dim white glow of the flowers.

"I haven't seen the stars in the night sky in years," the Multi Man continued, "so I decided to bring the stars to me."

"I'm guessing there's some fucked up reason behind you saying that," Arthur added quickly.

Much to his surprise, his comment elicited chuckles from both Crimson and even Whitey, although the latter's was quieter and blatantly hesitant. However, the two of them immediately went silent as the Multi Man leered at them and maintained that cold gaze for ten seconds straight, none of them uttering another word.

Eventually, he returned his sight to his hidden garden. "Those are spark roses," he explained. "We're all aware of this flower's significance as a symbol of condolences for the deceased, correct?"

His three companions all nodded their heads silently.

"Mental Health Month is approaching, and that means plenty of rallies coming up. Each flower represents a single human being. Any person who receives one of these flowers from us will be very, very unlucky."

"Didn't you give one to that girl I interviewed? Dottie Forrester?"

The Multi Man paused. "Indeed I did," he replied slowly.

He turned to the blonde-haired, masked girl on the lower level and found her staring back up at him. She slowly pulled her mask up so her mouth and nose were visible, a single cut protruding from the edge of her lip. She blew a kiss toward her superior above before sliding the mask back on and walking away. It didn't take long for Arthur to connect the dots.

"It's amazing the kinds of things people do," the Man said, "when they're no longer in control of themselves. And that's the next part of my plan, Mr. Cohen. I'm gonna make sure the public knows what it's like not to be in control."

"I'm guessing you'll be the one in control, right?"

"No." The Man glanced up at the enormous hole in the ceiling above them, where the spark roses were fed by sunlight during the day. "I'll be giving them a little taste of anarchy. And it's your job to ensure Psychwatch shows up to witness the effects."

"Won't they get in the way?"

"Not at all. This plan is nothing without them. This will all be a downward spiral into their own self-destruction, and I'm just setting it off."

"Then what do I have to do with all this?"

"You're the lure." The Multi Man turned away from the balcony and rested his back against the rails, now focused on Arthur. "As devoted to their jobs as they may be, the doctor-cops are still very reluctant when ordered to protect the parasite groups that oppose them. You're gonna be the one to ensure their presence at our next big event."

"And if you don't do what we say," Crimson chimed in, gripping the handle of her machete, "you're not gonna last much longer."

Arthur gulped. "You guys are gonna at least give me Apaths, right?"

Crimson burst out laughing. Arthur turned to Whitey for a response, and the boy quickly shook his head.

"Well I hope I've made my point," the Multi Man concluded, patting Arthur on the shoulder. "You have four weeks to earn Psychwatch's trust."

"Got it," Arthur replied.

"And speaking of which, I myself plan on getting acquainted with a few of the officers. I think I'll go pay some of them a visit."