Try to recover.

Emmy hurriedly ushered her grinning doppelganger into their room and closed the door. As soon as they were alone, she turned to Betty.

"Betty, what did he do to me?" she asked urgently. "You've got to figure out what he took!"

Betty booped her on the nose playfully. "He already told you! Now you don't know about ∅."

"Know about what?" Emmy demanded. "I can't understand you!"

In response Betty flopped back onto the bed and blew a lazy raspberry. "Mmm, these sheets are sooo soft..."

Emmy was in tears at this point. She put her hands on Betty's shoulders and begged. "Betty, babe, you gotta get lucid for me."

Betty's brow furrowed and her eyes unclouded. "Whoa," she said after shaking her head. "He really took your concept of ∅, huh?"

"Stop talking like that!" Emmy cried. "Help me!"

"But you understand how Matt hurt you, right? Or do you not get that anymore?" In spite of it all, Emmy was glad to see a hint Penny's inquisitive nature in the woman that used to be her.

"Of course I do. He built me to make me suffer. Look, can you just undo it?"

Betty balked at this. "I dunno, Em. It seems pretty important..."

"It's more important to me!" Emmy was crying again. Why did she feel so helpless suddenly? "Just fix it, please!"

Betty suddenly had a strange look on her face. "What will you do if I don't?" she asked.

"I don't know!" Emmy shouted. "Nothing! There's nothing I can do! Is that what you wanted to hear? There's nothing I can do!"

Betty nodded and Emmy suddenly felt dizzy, as though she had misjudged a step off a curb. She fell backwards onto the floor and looked up at Betty, who was smiling encouragingly from the bed. "I... is there a way to make you do it? Do I have mind control? Is that what he took? Mind control?"

"Not quite," Betty said softly. Emmy poked at the strange gap in her brain like tonguing the socket from a missing tooth. "It's something anyone can do."

"I can't control minds, but can I control bodies?" Emmy asked. Her hyperintelligence struggled against the quicksand of the artificially nullified part of her mind. "No, that's not something anyone can do. If I had a way to change what you want to do..."

"Good," her twin said approvingly. "And how do people make decisions?"

"They weigh the pros and cons," Emmy said. She was speaking more to herself than to Betty at this point. "So to make you do it, I have to make the benefits outweigh the consequences for you.

"Or make the consequences of failing to do it outweigh the consequences of doing it."

"But how can I create consequences for someone who can't experience anything negative?" Emmy wondered.

"You can't," Betty sighed. She was clearly tempted to release her lucidity and sink into bliss, but she held on. "What about Matt?"

"I could, but I'd have to make it so... have it where something- something- something-" Emmy could feel her mind glitching as her logic inexorably led her into the sucking abyss of ∅∅∅∅. "Make it make it bad-"

Betty tapped on the tablet and the dam broke inside Emmy's mind. A thousand images of the bastard that destroyed Penny flashed through her mind, each a symphony of regret and agony, and she collapsed with a wail. She looked up at Betty, her breath ragged and eyes accusing.

"Why the fuck did you put me through that?" she asked. The girl holding her tablet smiled sweetly and knelt beside her.

"Emmy, this is a world where **** and threats will get you nowhere. Your rage is a weapon, but it will only work on Matt. I need..." Betty trailed off and her eyes swam out of focus for a few seconds before snapping back into place. "We need you to understand that. **** is not an option for almost anyone we encounter. You need to learn to use positive motivation."

"But why-"

"Because you gotta keep your promises," Betty sighed. She leaned her head back against the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling. "Even to boosteds. You gotta..."

She trailed off, but moaned softly as she spread her legs wide.