Lenny lies on a float in a pool and looks up at the sky. Oliver lies next to her, and Lenny asks if it's Tuesday. He refuses to talk about time, notices that his drink is empty, and a hand emerges from the pool to give him a new glass. Lenny laughs and says that they're trapped, and Oliver laughs with her.
Farouk sits in his office sipping tea and observing them. Oliver see Farouk in his mind as he sits in a bar.
A narrator speaks of the maze inside someone's mind, and warns that they are in it and can't escape... and the maze is madness.
Ptonomy and Clark enter a club and approach David sitting in the darkness. David tells the two men to help "them", saying that they're in the maze. Clark and Ptonomy continue on and find people standing in the darkness, chattering their teeth.
Cary and a group of agents wheel David and the cylinder containing him through Division 3, and Cary tells David that he's safe.
Syd is in a room holding a cat. Kerry comes in and says that they found David.
Elsewhere in the building, Orwell and Cary clad in protective suits check David's readings. They figure that David isn't infected, but don't know why he's non-responsive. Cary suggest that David's mind is locked in the astral plane. Master, wearing a basket hat, says that if there's any risk of contamination than David should be exterminated. Clark insists that David's mind is strong and he can resist it. Exasperated, Cary removes his helmet and alarms go off. He tells David to speak to him, while soldiers come in training rifles on Cary. Kerry emerges from Cary and prepares to fight the soldiers, and Master orders the soldiers to retreat.
Cary asks David to say something if he can hear him. David wakes up and asks if they have any waffles.
Later, David and Ptonomy go to the cafeteria and David eats waffles. David asks where they are, and Ptonomy tells him that they're in Division 3 headquarters. Ptonomy explains that Admiral Fukyama is the man wearing the basket hat, and he's their boss now. He says that after the Lazarus Affair, the divisions were formed to deal with the mutant threat. Division 3 is the tip of the spear: the day-to-day engagement. After David left, Syd and Melanie convinced the leadership that most mutants are harmless and no threat. The mutants joined Division 3 to fight their real enemies. Farouk--the Shadow King--has been priority one since David left. David vaguely remembers being teleported into a small sphere.
David notices that many of the staff are children, and Ptonomy explains that people under a certain age can't be infected. He returns to David's memories of what happened after Summerland, and David remembers trees and being on a roof downtown. Ptonomy starts to explain but sees a woman watching them and tells David that they'll talk later.
Syd comes up and asks David if he's the magic man. She sits down and says that David looks the same, and he says that he was taken. Syd tells him that she thought he was dead for the last year, and asks where David has been. David has no memory of a year passing, and Syd talks about how she spent months wondering if David was alive. He asks if he can kiss her, and she says that he'd better. They kiss on the astral plane and make love.
Oliver drives across the countryside with Lenny/Farouk next to him.
Syd tells David that Farouk is still inside of Oliver, and there have been sighting around the world. They figure that Oliver is looking for someone, and they got close to finding but then were distracted by the Catalyst. Normal people would freeze like statues except for chattering their teeth. It always happened when Oliver was there, and they think Oliver is infecting people somehow. Cary believes that it's psychological rather than a viral infection.
As Syd walks down the hall, Melanie calls her into her room. Melanie says that their men always look good before they go off to save the world. Syd asks if Fukyama asked if Melanie is ready to go back to world, and Melanie says that their men distract them from protecting the world. A kettle on a hotplate whistles, and Syd removes the kettle from the hot plate and pour tea. She tells Melanie that David will find Oliver and bring him home, and Melanie says that after they come back things are never the same.
Later, Melanie inhales opium and collapses back on her bed, and the door slams shut on her room.
The narrator talks of Zhang Zhou and delusions, and says that delusions begins like eggs. A man, Albert A, got the idea that his leg didn't belong to him. He became more and more certain that it wasn't his leg so one day he cut it off. For a delusion to thrive, other more rational ideas must be destroyed so it blooms into psychosis.
David tries to remember what happened to him in the last year, and Clark sits down with him in the cafeteria. Clark says that he doesn't know what Farouk really looks like, He tells David that there's an official conversation that they need to have. They're going to carbon-date David and see what his cells say, and then talks about he and his mother watched TV when he was a child, and they ate ice cream whenever someone had an evil twin or amnesia. David says that he's not lying and a waiter brings ice cream over to Clark. When David says that he can read Clark's mind, Clark says that David is supposed to see Fukyama and "they" are eager to talk to him.
In Fukyama's quarters, the three Vermillion women that accompany Fukyama say that they had machines put in their head so that David can't read their thoughts, and now they are the machine that bleeds. David says that they'll find Farouk and put a stop to him. He figures that Farouk is hiding from him and asks if they can boost his signal. The Vermillions say that Cary has developed a machine to help David recover his memories and find their target. David asks what they're going to do with Farouk, and the Vermillions say that the Farouk's physical body must be destroyed as well after he was defeated on the astral plane. If Farouk's mind was to rejoin his body then he would be unstoppable. Now both sides are looking for the body. The Vermillions tell David not to fail, and David leaves.
Cary tells David that he's created an amplification chamber to boost David's powers. He'll use the resonator to bring up specific frequencies, and he tells David to get naked. David doesn't remove his clothing until Cary absorbs Kerry. Once he's in the chamber, Cary closes it and David opens his mind. Syd enters the elevator and finds Ptonomy waiting. He asks if she believes David, and says that he saw memories of the missing year. David was in the club with Oliver, dancing. Ptonomy suggests that Farouk still has a hold on David. Syd doesn't believe it, and says that David is her man.
Cary adjusts frequencies and David screams in pain as he briefly relives his memory of being in the sphere. Then his consciousness travels through the building and beyond. David remembers being in the nightclub and meeting Oliver and Lenny. The people in the club freeze, and four of them join David in dancing as Lenny and Oliver stare at them. Oliver and Lenny are joined by dancers of their own, and they perform their own number and the two sides dance off.
Syd finds David naked, crouching in the middle of a hallway. He says that he needs to lie down. Syd takes him to her quarters and he showers the fluid from the chamber off and gets some clothes from the locker. She asks if he was found Farouk, and David says that he couldn't see him. Syd asks him what he saw, and he says that it was random noise. She tells him that he's keeping secrets, and David tells her that she's the one who changed after a year. He admits that it's a lot to process, and Syd says that it's the second time that David has left. David says that he wasn't in control, and Syd asks when he'll leave again. Shocked, David tells Syd to close her eyes and holds up a compass. He has her open her eyes and shows it to her, and explains that he had Cary make it to him. David demonstrates how it always points to him so that she can always find him, and says that there'll be no secrets.
Later, David and Syd make love on the astral plane while sleeping separately in the real world. David reams of wat happened to him after the sphere teleported him inside. He wanders in the darkness and sees a one-armed Syd, and wonders where she is. Syd removes her glove but doesn't speak, and communicates writing white lines in the darkness. David realizes that she's in the future and that Farouk is trying to find his body. Finally she writes "Help him", and David wonders why he would help Farouk find his body. He realizes that Syd sent the orb, and someone moves in the darkness. Syd draws a heart and then walks off into the darkness.
David walks through the dancers at the club and Farouk, Lenny, and Oliver appear to him. In the real world, David stands over the sleeping Syd.
Written by Gadfly on Apr 4, 2018