Kevin Curry
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Psychoprotective 3.10
🕑 Added 2024-03-06 05:13:26 +0000 UTCOkay this is a bit short still, but making Ford's final mind was like pulling teeth. Not really happy with it, but I should move on.
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Last she heard, the ‘Admiral’ persona has made his way to the parking garages, washing all the cars.
On arrival, she found her least favorite intern, Adam Gette. He had decided that today was warm enough to take off his shirt as he joined the Admiral persona in washing the cars. Ford’s nautical personality seemed to delight in ordering around the british boy, which was certainly one way to keep the man busy.
“I want that hull sparkling, sailor!” Admiral Ford barked out.
“Sir, yes sir!” Adam shouted before going back to waxing… hey, they were washing her car!
“Good job distracting him, but I want my car finished before you leave, Adam.” Tanya said as they walked up. “I would have been fine with it not getting washed, but getting it half-washed would be infuriating.”
“Hey, we’re here to get Ford put to rights.” Helmut explained, waving to the young man.
“It’s alright, I understand.” Adam said easily. “But I think I deserve a little-”
“I’ll give you five dollars.” Tanya said, interrupting whatever flirtatious thing he was going to say.
Adam frowned, but nodded. “That’ll work.” Heh. Still an easily bribed teenager. Idly, Tanya took out a dream fluff and popped it in her mouth. She’s gonna need the boost.
Helmut walked up to Ford. “Hey Ford, you remember me?”
Ford’s eye twitched. “You were a man overboard.” He said uneasily. “Have you come on behalf of Davy Jones to drag my carcass to its watery grave?”
“No, we’re just here to help you. You don’t want to miss Lucy when she gets here.” Helmut said softly. “She’s on her way.”
“Who?” Ford asked, eyes wide. “I don’t know anyone like that, no sir. My only love is the sea, you see.”
Helmut frowned. “You need to get your head back on solid land, man. Come on, let us help.”
“...No.” Ford said, “Now go away, I’m busy.”
Helmut turned back to Tanya. “Well, that’s my try.”
…Really? “You said you could handle getting his cooperation.” Tanya said, disappointed. “I do not want to try and wrestle his mind down at its full strength. I barely succeeded when it was being split two or three ways.”
“What do you want me to do? Do a song and dance number?” Helmut asked heatedly.
“Yes!” Tanya shouted. Finally he gets it. “Look, we’re the best available.”
“And to be the best, we gotta pass the test.” Helmut started to sing, “We gotta make it all the way, to the top of the mountain!” As he sang the last word at the top of his lungs, a telepathic bond established itself. “We can do it again!”
A strumming guitar backed by a hectic drum solo rang in her head. “To feel the high, we got to learn to fly, we got to take it to the sky, on the wings of an eagle!” She sang, already pumped up. “We’re the best in the world!” She held out her hand and let Helmut grab it and fling her around in a dance.
Helmut picked the song back up, turning straight to Ford as Tanya spun on a levitation bubble under his hand. “You are the best, but you say you don’t know. You got the touch, now come on let it show!”
“You call the shots, but you know that you got to believe in…” Tanya sang, “The things that you dream in!” Helmut tossed her up in the air, and she floated there.
Both of them sang at Ford, who flinched back at the music. “Your search for new meaning, is very revealing…” Finally, the telepathic link of advanced clairvoyance opened up, allowing Ford to get the full experience of the performance. “The power of being, is what you’re feeling, you gotta believe!”
Suddenly, the psychoportal in Tanya’s hand flung itself onto the Admiral’s head, and they left their astral forms and followed the link through the door.
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The Admiral’s head was, as expected, a fleet of ships on a churning ocean, in the middle of a storm. There wasn’t a single giant Ford effigy, tower, or robot in sight. “Well, this is bad.” She said, “Where-”
“What?” Helmut shouted, having difficulty communicating over the wind.
Damn. The environment is inflicting telepathic interference. “There’s no clear destination!” She shouted at him. “We’ll need to search!”
“We’ll feed the church?” Helmut shouted back.
Tanya immediately summoned a tablet from her memories and willed it to display, in big letters on a bright white background, “We’ll need to search.”
“Okay!” He shouted before looking over the fleet. “Let's go below decks here first!” he made his way
Tanya followed him down, and found that the interior of this ship was an amphitheater with… the Psychic Six all with instruments, playing the song that Tanya and Helmut had seen him. “...can Compton and Cassie actually play those guitars?” Both Helmut and Ford’s minds had them using those instruments.
“Yeah, they can.” Hemlut replied. “They’re not exactly going to be doing any bitching solos, but they can play along.”
“Let’s just do a quick check for any sign of Ford’s last mirror shard, but I don’t think this is going to be fruitful.” Tanya said before going about collecting figments. The Psychic Six, a few of Lucy, instruments, music notes… nothing unusual. There was an emotional baggage tag, underneath the bleachers with a disheveled Lucy figment, so she snapped that up too.
“Did you find anything?” Helmut asked, strumming an air guitar when Tanya came back.
“Nothing I’d consider a lead.” Tanya replied. They went back outside and reviewed the other ships in the fleet.
“Let's try that one!” Helmut shouted, pointing to a miniature aircraft carrier. That is, it was the size of the other ships instead of far larger.
Tanya gave him a thumbs up and flew towards the landing strip, triggering Ford’s mind to lash out at the intruders with a wave of censors, personal demons, regrets, and some bad ideas for flavor.
“I got em!” Helmut shouted, using Time Bubble to effectively paralyze clusters of enemies while Tanya tore them apart with her PSI blades and the occasional PSI blast.
“Much easier than killing them alone, thank you Helmut.” Tanya shouted, not even breathing heavily.
“Yeah, gotta be careful of those little orange ones, but I had your back.” Helmut replied with equal volume, before walking below decks of the aircraft carrier.
Tanya followed. “I see you’re adapting to the wind.” She commented.
“Yeah, Audie O’s picking up the tempo, keeping me in tune with your words.” Helmut replied, a little proudly. Translating that from band-speak, he must be using a dedicated archetype to listen carefully to her words.
As before, the way down transitioned into a completely different terrain, which was mundane for psychotravel. This time it was a giant table floating in a void, with a giant version of Ford and Compton playing chess with each other.
“I told you, no.” The Ford said.
“Come now, Ford.” The giant Compton said, “You’ve been hiding long enough. It’s time to go outside.”
“I’ve been in here for twenty years. I’m going to stay like this until I finally die.” Ford insisted, “It’s the least that I deserve.”
“Ouch.” Helmut said, wincing.
“It’s the coward’s way out, but he’s not wrong.” Tanya replied, “While I can sympathize with his motivations, the actions he took were reprehensible. Dying without making things worse would be the bare minimum of consideration.”
“Tanya, that’s terrible.” Helmut said scoldingly.
“Unfortunately for him, the bare minimum is unacceptable.” Tanya continued. Helmut snorted at her tiny joke. “We’ll be dragging him back to sanity kicking and screaming if necessary.”
“That’s the spirit!” Helmut said.
“Ford, you know that we all still care about you.” The giant Compton continued, “We can work through this together.”
“I told you, no.” the giant Ford said, in the exact same cadence as the beginning.
“Ah, it’s looped.” Tanya said, “I think I understand what’s going on here. Each of the ships contains a train of thought, something that he’s avoiding thinking about by cramming it in its own little world. From the song we sang, getting it stuck in his head, to the knowledge that he’s just being stubborn and not accepting the help that’s being offered.”
“Sounds right.” Helmut agreed, “Let’s check the next one.”
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“How many more are there?” Tanya asked, annoyed. By now, they had managed to forge a telepathic bond that withstood the interference of the “storm” in Ford’s mind. “That was, what, number eight? Nine?”
“Uh… twenty?” Helmut guessed, looking out on the horizon.
“If he was doing this on purpose, I’d be complimenting his strategy when it came to protecting his important thoughts.” Tanya groused. “...Then again, he might be collected enough to be doing this on purpose.”
The next ship was a giant motorboat; as in, it was the same size as all the other ships, with the entrance being the oversized cargo compartment. It led to… “Damn it he’s shuffling them!” Tanya shouted in frustration. “We’ve already been here!”
‘Here’ in this case was a place representing Ford’s horrified awareness of the impact his actions had on Helmut. It was a brig, where a copy of Helmut lay in the same bindings that Ford had used to restrain Maligula, with the addition of a sensory deprivation helmet.
“Hello? How much longer?” the copy Helmut asked.
“You’ll get out when Doc Otto says you do.” Ford, dressed as an Admiral, said. “Until then, it’s total isolation.”
This place had an emotional baggage, but as another one didn’t suddenly appear, Tanya spun on her heel and trudged back up the stairs. “This isn’t working.” Tanya declared.
“I dunno, one repeat seems a bit quick of a conclusion to jump.” Helmut said.
“No, the fact that it moves at all means that we won’t get anywhere sensitive, the moment we get close a switch will happen.” She made a grand gesture towards the other boats. “This is the mental equivalent of defense in depth. By conceding a large swathe of territory to the invaders, you permit your enemy to overextend and exhaust themselves chasing your defenders while minimizing your own losses. It’s a form of asymmetric warfare that functions well even against peers. If you’re willing to accept the territory, or in this case information, loss conceded to the invaders, you can more effectively defend and protect the most critical objectives.”
“Ah, I get it. It’s all flash, a shell game.” Helmut said, understanding.
“...a what?” What does matching shells to each other have to do with this?
Helmut chuckled. “It’s a carnival game.” He explained. Ah, a con man’s game. Her Japanese upbringing betrayed her. “You have three cups and a ball or token or whatever, and get someone to guess which cup the ball’s under.” Ah, she understands now. In Japan, it’s known by a different name. Did she ever see it in the Empire? “The scam is that it’s not in any of them, unless the barker’s trying to make someone win to lure in more suckers.”
“You seem to have grasped the core principle.” Tanya said in agreement, “The key here is not in figuring out which boat has what we need, but Ford’s defenses will hold as long as we still accept the premise that the boats are what we need to concern ourselves with.”
“So where do we go?” Helmut asked.
Hm, the telepathic noise of the storm had been obscuring her ability to sense the topography of the mental realm, but… She’s been compensating for it for a while now. “The Admiral even told us the way.” She said, pointing down with her left hand. “His true love is the sea.” Tanya snapped the fingers on her right hand, changing her mental projection’s outfit to a swimsuit. It was her usual modest one piece, dark blue this time, with short sleeves and also went halfway down her thigh, but she added a set of matching swim trunks to it, mostly for the pockets. Even in this mental copy, her sealed plastic bags with important items were inside them. No way to spend money here, though, so it wasn’t important. “See you at the bottom!” She backflipped into the water.
Underneath the sea, as Tanya suspected, was not some kind of deeper level of thought with less stable groundings and more powerful defenses, like most minds were underneath the churning ‘floor’ of setups that didn’t float in a void. Instead, it was a well-lit aquatic wonderland, filled with colorful fish that Tanya almost suspected were about to go into a song and dance number, but that particular animated classic won’t be around for a few more years.
“Huh, so it’s the lost mind of Atlantis.” Helmut said jokingly. He had transformed himself into a merman, naked but with his lower body replaced with a stout fish tail. He had gills on the side of his muscular chest, as he had also benefitted severely from his own fitness regimen that he and Bob collectively encouraged each other on.
“That's where what we need is located.” Tanya declared, pointing straight at the tallest tower of the underwater castle, which didn’t resemble Ford’s head as much as some of the others, but that didn’t mean the resemblance was zero.
“Hot damn, let’s go swimming, then.” Helmut replied, and he started moving, Tanya following while using her psychic powers to cheat as usual.
Fighting the inevitable censor assault (wearing old-timey swimsuits) was a bit more difficult in the aquatic environment, but not by enough to make a difference with Helmut’s support. Focusing her PSI blasts into bullet-like sharpness took a bit more concentration, but with the temporal stasis she had plenty of time to line up a shot on each one right in the apricot, the heads exploding in gore before the entities vanished without a trace.
“You know, I didn’t notice it before, but isn’t it kind of weird that the censors actually bleed and fall apart when you kill them?” Helmut asked after the battle. “When I do it, they just fall down and poof.”
“They still poof.” Tanya pointed out. “Also, the blood vanishes when they do.”
“Yes, but I asked around. That only happens when you do it.” Helmut said.
Tanya tilted her head. Really? “I suppose I just didn’t notice? Not many people can use PSI blades like I can. Maybe if I ask Dad…”
“I thought of that and used a sword as a test. Still doesn’t happen.” Helmut said, reminding her that he was, in fact, a scientist at times.
“I never thought it was weird.” Tanya admitted. “I just saw it and thought ‘yes, that’s exactly what it looks like when you cut a man in two like that or shoot their heads off’ and moved on with my life.”
Helmut blinked as he realized that yes, she was, in fact, an experienced war veteran with a body count that would set a historical record if it was verifiable. Dad had done research and she was comfortably ahead of the Nazi that personally executed ten thousand undesirables with a pistol, the current record holder. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Mental worlds are like that.” He said quickly before changing the subject. “Hey, look, it’s a thing!”
In this case, the ‘thing’ was something of a prison work camp. A bunch of Fords stood on the ocean floor, wearing literal cement shoes, groaning while rowing oars, reminding Tanya of some depictions of a viking longship. Each one had their own second Ford, whipping them.
“It’s just more self-flagellation, by the looks of things.” Tanya commented. “Nothing new here.”
“Man, he’s really beating himself up.” Helmut said, vaguely disgusted at the display.
“He deserves it!” Tanya insisted, “The man made a giant mess with his actions, causing incredible suffering, to you most of all.” She may still be mad at him, but she was rational enough to realize that Helmut had a better reason to hate him and Lucy than most. It was telling that of the many people Ford had wronged, Tanya was still only… does she count the Curse of Galochio as one or for each Aquato? Bah.
“Does seeing this make you feel better?” Helmut asked heatedly.
“...No.” Tanya said, looking away. “This isn’t justice, or even comeuppance. It’s just pointless suffering that he’s putting himself through instead of doing anything to actually address the problems he’s created. It makes me even angrier at him.”
“...Jeez, when you put it that way, it kinda pisses me off too.” Helmut said, conceding to her point. “Come on, let’s go.”
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The underwater castle was built reminiscent of the Grulovian Palace, which she had seen pictures of during that trip to Grulovia. Inside, thankfully, the underwater environment ended and they were back on… well, calling it ‘dry’ land was an exaggeration, it was still pretty muggy even after she used the innate shapeshifting of being a mental projection to dry herself and change back to her normal utility jumpsuit, but Helmut needed to turn back from being a merman.
The whole place was set up as a propaganda museum, portraying Ford as a great hero for slaying the evil Maligula, which probably would have had a really surprising twist for someone who didn’t already know Ford as well as they did.
Tanya tore apart all of the displays that portrayed Maligula as the villain, revealing the lovey-dovey displays hidden underneath, which eventually opened the way up.
The final shard was guarded by a Ford wearing a naval uniform. “I’ll go down with this ship before I give you what you want!” He shouted.
“Ford, what we want is for you to be better.” Helmut said softly.
“We already know everything you could possibly tell us.” Tanya added, “Lucy’s on her way back, now get sane again so you don’t embarrass yourself. Put on some cologne or something.”
Ford proved once more that he was still fragmented, as he seemed flabbergasted at the thing that he had been told so many times. “She is? Oh man, does anyone have a breath mint? Where’s my rowboat?”
Finally, this was over.
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Putting in the finishing touches of his mind, ensuring that it properly fit together, was simple and occurred with no complications. When they came back out of Ford’s mind, Tanya looked at her car. Spic and span. “Good work, Adam.” She said, fishing out her wallet. “As promised.” She gave him the five dollars, and from his visible appreciation of the sum, she felt comfortable bringing her attention back to the elephant in the room.
Ford had removed the stupid hat, looking lost. “Oh no. Oh no.”
“How much do you remember of what we have told you?” Tanya asked.
“You what?” He asked, confused. After a moment, his eyes widened. “She’s really coming?”
“The Aquatos are on their way.” Tanya said obliquely. “As far as they know, they’re here to get the curse they have lifted, to die in water.” She pointed straight at him. “It is the first mess of yours that you will need to clean up.”
“How-” Ford’s eyes narrowed, clearly thinking through the situation. Now this was the man that could spearhead research into a subject as esoteric as the mind, finally running on all cylinders for the first time in twenty years. “No, I see how that could have happened. The hydrophobia was a rush job, I put it in with some superstitious associations, so some kind of family curse… she could have hypnotically passed it on… Yes, I see what we need to do. We’ll need the Astralathe, though.”
“Otto should have it ready by the time they arrive.” Tanya said.
“Good, good.” Ford said, firming up his stance and looking at himself. “I’ll need… a shower and a change of clothes.”
Good to see that he has his priorities in order. Focusing on the things that he needs to do as part of the greater plan instead of taking charge is exactly what she needs from him.
“We’ll take my car.”
Comments
Eldar ortell
Love the realization that when Tanya kils censors they blled and stuff, realy reminds me of how Christopher Lee told Peter Jackson off for trying to tell him how a stabed man should sound
