March 31, 2045 - 4:45 pm
The interrogation room was cold. Fluorescent lights hung over Jack and the unmasked stranger Margo apprehended earlier, drenching the room in a dim white haze. The two of them sat at a silver table in the center of the room, and to Jack's left stretched a one-way mirror across the wall.
This simulation is hitting every cliche in the book, Jack thought.
Jack clapped his hands together and pulled his seat in. "All right, buddy," he said. "You don't have anywhere else to run. So how about you start telling me more about yourself?"
The stranger was slumped in his chair, refusing to make eye contact. He had red hair and skin as pale as snow, aside from a few small contusions around his neck. There was a bruise around his left eye, and Jack knew fully well why he was wearing so many layers even at the end of March. If the stranger was aware he wasn't actually conscious, there was no way he'd recreate whatever wounds he was trying to hide.
"What's your name?" Jack asked.
"Finn."
"How old are you, Finn?"
"Nineteen."
"What were you doing at the Philadelphia Zoo? The animals are long-gone, buddy. And even if we found any, I would've killed them on the spot. Just like I killed your friends."
Finn remained silent, his eyes focused on the table in front of him.
"You a dealer?" Jack continued. "Apaths, Euphors, 'Gasm Gas, shit like that?"
"No," Finn replied.
Jack slammed his fist on the table, prompting the boy to jerk up. "Where'd you get the black eye?" he asked.
"Self-inflicted."
"Uh-huh." Jack flicked his fingers, and Finn's sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Dozens of dark red incisions were carved across his arms. "I'm guessing those were self-inflicted as well?"
Finn slowly nodded his head before hanging it low once more. "How'd you do that?" he asked in a dull tone.
"Easy, buddy. We're currently running a Psychoanalytical Cognitive Evaluation Render. Most people refer to it as the PACER."
"Is this a dream?"
Jack chuckled. "Buddy, when dreams end, you still have a whole day to look forward to. As far as I'm concerned, yours is only gonna get worse."
"Can we get hurt in here?"
"Physically, no. Unfortunately, your mind, however, is as vulnerable as a kid in a dark alley. In fact, just to prove we're in a simulation, I'll let you throw your chair at the mirror."
Finn gave him an understandably confused look.
"Go ahead, buddy," Jack urged. "I don't mind."
Still wondering what the catch was, Finn folded up the chair and carried it in his hands toward the mirror, coming face to face with his own reflection. He froze as he realized his reflection didn't have his black eye or the cuts on his arm now that he was aware of the simulation. He further concluded that there really was no mirror. Whatever went on behind that opaque screen didn't matter.
Still grasping the chair by its legs, he turned toward Jack and slammed it down on him.
The chair exploded into millions of grays fragments as soon as it made contact with Jack's head. Jack remained unmoved, not even flinching when the object came hurdling toward his skull, and he took glee in watching Finn's confidence wash away with that failed attempt.
"I already told you, buckaroo," he said as he rose from his seat. "Neither of us can get hurt in here. Not physically anyway." He slowly took a few steps toward Finn, who started backing into the wall. "And unless you're skilled at breaking people with words like me and my colleagues, I'll be the only one getting out of here unscathed."
Now cornered and breathing rapidly, he let out a quick scream as his arms sunk into the wall as if it were quicksand. The bottom of his feet become one with the wall as well, leaving only his head and torso exposed.
"Holloway," Mason ordered Jack through his ThoughtControl piece. "Resist the urge to provoke the boy. If his mental state grows more unstable, we'll have to deactivate the simulation."
Jack ignored her and stood before Finn in an intimidating pose. "So you're obviously not the mastermind," he said. "Tell me who your boss is."
"What do you mean I'm not the mastermind?" Finn asked, struggling to unbury his limbs from the wall.
"Just the fact you asked that already proved my point." Jack cleared his throat. "Finn, there's no way a kid like you could be responsible for murdering four teenagers in the Psycho Slums so brutally. At least not one as disposable and mediocre as you are."
"Fuck you, man. I didn't want to kill them. I was just there to deal with you guys."
Jack burst out laughing. "So you'd rather face a squadron of armed policemen over a bunch of unhinged little shits who didn't even have any weapons?"
"He gave me a purpose!" Finn shrieked.
Jack froze, both due to his response and the beeping from his ThoughtControl. "Subject is feeling agitated," Nikki told him. "Five percent chance of cognitive deviation."
"What the fuck did they tell you now?" Finn growled. "I see the piece hanging in your ear, man. Tell me what they fucking said!"
"First off," Jack replied, "you really need to calm down. Your aggression is screwing with the PACER program. You might cause both of us to undergo potentially lethal cognitive deviation."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that once the PACER's control is gone, our minds could merge together. We'll be mentally fused together, sharing the same thoughts, plagued by the same trauma. Either your consciousness could switch places with mine, therefore trapping you in my body, or our brains will fry if the merging goes wrong. So I highly recommend you shut the fuck up and let me do my job."
Finn shut his mouth immediately. The two of them glanced up at the ceiling as the fluorescent lights flickered four times. It wasn't just your typical flicker to add to the creepy ambience. It glitched out like a computer screen, lines of binary flashing across the ceiling in a blink.
"See that, kid?" Jack said. "That's just a small sign of this simulation's transience. So make it quick. I recall you shouting that someone gave you a purpose. Please elaborate on that."
"Yes," Finn hissed, no longer hiding his true nature behind a calm demeanor. "He taught me things."
"I'm guessing one of them wasn't social skills."
"He taught me how to fire a gun. Skin with a knife." He paused momentarily as he regained control over his breathing. "He taught me how to take my pain and give it to someone else."
"Who?"
Finn remained silent again.
"Get a Psych Expressor ready," Jack ordered to his colleagues through his ThoughtControl piece. He leaned closer to Finn as he was still engulfed by the wall behind him. "Who gave you a purpose and what does he look like?"
