“Oh, but it is!” Dr. Price yells. “It is, Luka. Now, I will give you one last opportunity to come back to Purgatory with me. I will up your dosage and you can live out the remainder of your days in bliss.”

I lean against the tall glass tube and close my eyes. “I’m not the monster here,” I say. “If all my friends, my family, told me they no longer wanted to fight, I’d let them go, but I would let them make the decision of their own free will. You take free will away and force people to conform to your way of thinking because, what? You don’t want to be lonely? You’ve lost your mind.”

I hear the doctor laugh quietly. “Then you have made your decision,” he says. “Which of these people do you care for the most?” he asks.

I open my eyes, feeling adrenaline whoosh into my body, and lean around to get a look at the doctor.

He walks slowly up the aisle between the rows of chambers and then stops at the man I had been dancing with earlier.

“How about Alix?” he asks, pointing his USW pistol at the glass. “How about we cut short his time in Purgatory?”

I feel my heart thumping in my chest as I watch, unsure of what to do. And then the smile grows on Dr. Price’s face.

“No, no, no, not Alix,” he says, moving over to Shion’s cryochamber. “How about this old clone?”

He won’t do it. He won’t do it, I think.

“Do you know why I selected people like your sister to be my sentries? It’s because they’re addicts. Disgusting beings, really, but they can be relied upon to return to Purgatory—after all, it’s where the drugs are.”

He places the barrel of the gun against the glass.

“Wait!” I call, and step out of my hiding place. “Don’t do it. I’ll do what you want, just don’t kill Shion.”

“Get back in the chamber,” he says, aiming the gun at me now.

“I feel sorry for you,” I say.

“I know you do, because that’s the kind of person you are.”

I shake my head and move back toward the chamber that will take me away to Purgatory. My mind will be doped until I can’t remember a thing. I’ll be a placid, docile shell of myself, awaiting oblivion.

I step into the chamber and turn to look at Dr. Price.

“Now, press the button. Your friend and I will join you in a min—”

“What’s going on?” Molly’s voice reverberates through the arcade.

I turn my head to see Molly leading Pander, Igby, Dr. Ortega, and Kina into the arcade.

“Holy fucking hell!” Igby exclaims. “This is Safe-Death! This is the Missing!”

“Molly,” I call. “He’s drugging every—”