​Intermission 6. Mark

Consciousness returned with the taste of chemical sludge in his mouth and one arm completely numb. He rubbed it for a few minutes, trying to chase away the harsh, painful tingling. The car was parked in some filthy, forgotten alley in the Ring.

Mark tried to sit up straight, and his head responded with a dull, pulsing ache. The last thing he remembered was Eliza’s burned-out eye sockets in the metal sarcophagus, and then velvet darkness.

He scanned the car in a frantic rush. No shattered glass. No signs of struggle. On his shoulder, where the dart had struck, there wasn’t even a puncture in the fabric of his jacket. He examined the cloth — untouched.

Another nightmare. Brutal, vivid, but only a nightmare.

Trying to scrub off the nauseating aftertaste clinging to him, he rubbed his face hard with both hands. He needed to contact someone — hear Barry’s voice, for instance, to feel real again. To explain everything to Eliza.

“System,” he forced out at last. “Center, Department C.”

“Subscriber not found,” the cuff replied.

Mark froze.

“What? Repeat.”

“Subscriber not found.”

A coldness, unrelated to the morning air, spread through his veins.

“Eliza, Barry?!”

“I do not recognize these subscribers,” the device said flatly.

Panic flooded him. He scrambled through his contacts. Everyone he knew at the Center — gone. Wiped out. Or they had never existed at all.

“Connect me to the Second Precinct.”

The precinct’s emblem flickered on the holo for a moment, then the connection was established.

“Police Precinct Two. How may I—”

“Put the captain on, you idiot,” Mark snapped. No need to be polite with an auto-receptionist.

The answer came instantly, without hesitation.

“You were terminated over a month ago, citizen Kane. Reason: failure to report for duty. Connection to the acting captain is not available to non-staff. Is there anything else I can assist you with?”

A month. He hadn’t been transferred to the Center. He had simply been thrown out of the police. The Center, Barry, Eliza-the-captain — none of it had happened. It had all taken place only in his mind.

The car swayed beneath him like a boat. He flung the door open and collapsed onto the pavement, vomiting onto the wet asphalt. Gasping and coughing on all fours, he knew with sick certainty he’d gone insane. Completely. The only logical conclusion.

Staggering, he crawled back into the seat, slammed the door shut, and dropped his head onto the console. One last, desperate thought flared in his mind. Proof.

The bug. He searched the panel feverishly, running his hands across every surface. Eliza had left it for him before they took her. But it wasn’t there. Smooth, clean plastic.

Even the bug — his only anchor and his last piece of evidence — was gone.

The system had worked flawlessly. It erased people, events, and every trace that might implicate itself. Mark was left alone, in an empty car, in the middle of a reality that had won a final and devastating victory over his memory.