Kevin Curry
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Psychoprotective 21
🕑 Added 2023-03-13 14:00:04 +0000 UTCTanya awoke feeling clean and refreshed. “Ah, Tanya darling, you’re awake.” Miss Milla said. “Are you feeling better?” Tanya realized that she was getting her hair brushed, the gentle tugging more soothing than anything else.
What did she do? Whatever she wanted, clearly. She couldn’t have waited until she was lucid? Tanya telekinetically slapped herself. This was Miss Milla! She wouldn’t do anything untoward, that’s ludicrous. The worst thing that could happen was her waking up in a stroller or something, and was that actually a possibility? As much as Miss MIlla seemed to enjoy Tanya’s increased dependence on her during the camp, it seemed far-fetched. Why was her mind continually drawing itself to that as some horrible fate that awaits her? Could she just not function without anticipating some kind of betrayal from everyone?
Still, she checked herself over. She was out of the straightjacket, having been dressed in the sunflower-themed overalls that Tanya distinctly didn’t pack. Given that she was in Agent Cruller’s head, and how that ended the last two times, Tanya didn’t sweat the details.
Stretching her arms for the first time in over a day, Tanya hummed in contentment. “I’m feeling good, Miss Milla.”
“Well, Mary’s parents seemed to have vanished somewhere.” Miss Milla revealed. What? “So given that you seem to be getting along so well, despite the… circumstances,” and wasn’t that word carrying a lot of weight, “-I was thinking that I could just foster her for a while, see how things go.”
“It’s fine.” Tanya said easily. “I guessed that would be how this would turn out.” Although she will admit she didn’t see ‘her parents ditching their presumably productive lives’ coming as a way for that to happen. Although it was possible they just died in an accident… Where did they go on vacation?
“All right.” Miss Milla said, accepting Tanya’s words at face value. Or at least projecting the appearance of such. “I’m a little worried for you two’s safety, but if you think it’s safe enough, I’ll agree.”
Tanya, at this point, really wanted to point out that Mary could be possessed by Being X and murder her in misguided zealotry… but honestly, she just didn’t see that happening. It wasn’t Being X’s style to do that. He seems to be extending the agreement rather than allowing a tie to be called, so she’d have plenty of warning before Mary became murderous.
Even if that thought caused her heart to start beating faster as fear creeped into her thoughts. What if he was truly distant, and put his everything into killing her just so he could claim her soul for a third round? Would allowing Mary to stay near be her doom? Or worse, would letting Mary out of her sight be the true mistake?
After four more increasingly implausible iterations, Tanya telekinetically slapped herself again. “Tanya?” Miss Milla asked. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing.” Tanya said reflexively. Too many unknowns to commit to an option based on Being X’s plans. The best option is the one that draws on her understanding of the enemy. She could be wrong, but it’s more likely that she will be proven correct. Overestimating Being X could be a worse mistake than underestimating him, after all. “Just… some attacks of irrationality.”
“Tanya, I am this close to calling Sasha and going into your mind again.” Miss Milla said flatly with a more forceful than necessary brush to emphasize her point. “What. Is. Wrong.”
Each word sent spikes of fear into Tanya’s heart. She was running out of patience! DEFCON 2! Deflect, deflect! “Ah, that won’t be necessary. They’re just… worries.” Tanya said simply. “First you think about something plausible but bad, then something worse, then it goes on and on until it just becomes… silly.”
Miss Milla silently judged her explanation as she started to tie Tanya’s hair into a simple braid. “Next time, just pinch yourself. It’s safer.” She eventually said, asserting her authority but leaving the matter to rest, for now.
As Tanya submitted to Miss Mila’s aesthetic whims, in the back of her head, some part of her was making contingency plans for an escape. Would they be necessary? Probably… not. But it would be better to have them and not need them, than to need them but not have them.
After Milla finished with Tanya’s hair, she gave her a big hug, the warm and fuzzy feelings finally becoming less… overwhelming. “Once Sasha gets back with the jet, we’ll leave. He had to wait for it to become available, so he’ll be back tomorrow, around midday.” Eventually, she released Tanya. “So what would you like to do before bed? Mary’s gone exploring, you could join her. Or, we could sit in, just you and me, and talk about… recent events. How we feel about them.”
Tanya flushed as her brain immediately went in unproductive directions. Of course she meant the past life thing, not that other thing! She shifted awkwardly, before taking a deep breath. “I did have one last task I needed to do… but it can wait for the morning.”
After an awkward silence, Miss MIlla started the conversation. “So let’s start with… education. How far were you in that homeschooling program? I know they arranged for all the work books through high school to be delivered to you to work at your own pace back in August.” The homeschooling program’s administrator, Mrs. Stein, had spent over a year forcing Tanya to take a slower pace before giving up and getting the accelerated program approved.
Well, Tanya had been keeping her progress deliberately hidden specifically so that she wouldn’t interfere, so…. “I spend a lot of time confirming that what knowledge I do possess is still valid. The history section is mostly the same, but there are differences. Math is math, and psionics is still new enough that it isn’t really touched on in the science curriculum. I believe I could finish tenth grade in a few more days, I’m almost finished.” The program had an awful lot of boring book work to make sure that the student understood the material, which was understandable, so given that she had started at sixth grade at the start of the school year, Tanya thought that was plenty fast enough for anyone. “Well, if you ignore the fact that ‘Psychic powers training’ is not normally valid for physical education nor extracurricular requirements, and that it’s physically impossible to get enough logged hours for all of those grades in that time frame.” As Tanya understood things, the American method for this kind of thing was to be, on paper, inflexible, but enough of a reason could get any rule bent or broken.
Miss MIlla hummed at the explanation. “I would have liked to know when you changed years at least, Tanya.” Tanya shifted uncomfortably under her disappointed stare. “But I’ll see if we can go straight to testing out. What were you considering for your academic degree?”
Instantly, Tanya replied: “I was going to get a Masters in Psionics.” Then, she added: “I’ll try and get some engineering credentials on top of that so I can start on my plan for commercialized psychic technology. Perhaps some art or writing classes for the game development part.” To be honest, Tanya wasn’t entirely confident she could get more than maybe one year of college credits just by testing out. Two at best. War college wasn’t terribly applicable, and she didn’t exactly get the most academically rigorous class schedule back at Todai. She spent most of her college years wargaming. She called it networking, but the drinking and partying did more for that than the wargaming did.
“You have it all planned out, huh?” Miss Milla mused. “Well, I knew you were a smart one from the start, it’s not so surprising that you’d skip some grades. Would you be attending classes in person?” She seemed a little sad, at the question.
Tanya winced. “There are several reasons why that approach would be ideal…” Miss Milla’s emotional state dipped a bit more. “But staying at the Motherlobe would give me access to Agent Mentalis, and more importantly, his tools and supplies. While the networking opportunities provided by attending MIT would be substantial… being able to perform test builds and experiment years earlier than otherwise would be an invaluable advantage for my plans.” MIT had the best psionic technology program in the country, and it was even theoretically commutable from the Motherlobe, so it was the best choice.
Perking back up, Miss Milla hummed in agreement. “I’m sure Agents Boole and O’Peia can help you get the necessary tests. Education should be challenging, not busy work to get your credentials.”
That was something Tanya could agree with. “Credentials are important, but it would be nice to skip the redundant classes.”
“I don’t think we’ll be able to be as flexible when it comes to you being considered an adult legally, though.” Miss Milla said. “The Psychonauts are influential, but fudging something like that would be very difficult.”
Tanya interrupted Miss Milla’s explanation with a hug. “I’m in no hurry to grow up.” Tanya explained reassuringly. “I’m no less your daughter than I was last week.” Tanya took a moment to gather her thoughts, unused to comforting. She should… use an emotional appeal. Logic has no place here, even if there are many benefits to remaining a minor. “You’re the one person I can trust completely to never hurt me, no matter what. Even in my worst nightmares.” It was a bit of an exaggeration, but- shut it!
Miss Milla started tearing up and hugged her back. “Thank you, Tanya. I love you.”
She wasn’t sure when she started crying too, but Tanya sniffled as she tightened the embrace. “I love you, too… Mom.”
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“It’s over here.” Mary said as she leapt into the cavern that their fight had inadvertently revealed. “It’s massive! It’s got to be worth a fortune!”
“Psitanium isn’t actually that expensive.” Tanya pointed out. “Low demand, you see. I’m sure that will change in ten to twenty years, but for now? No.”
“You ruin everything!” Mary whined. “Let me imagine being rich!”
“You know, the Psychonauts already own this land, mining rights included.” Tanya pointed out. “Furthermore, they’re already the number one consumer of Psitanium. Unless you’d like to commit treason and sell some to the Communists, you couldn’t sell it anyway.” Good odds the monsters harvest the stuff by sticking the brains of dissidents in a machine or something. Agent Mentalis has complained about the Soviets stealing his inventions…
Mary stuck out her tongue at Tanya’s logic. “Hmph. It’s right here.” She said, pointing at the center of the cavern.
The cavern was spacious, with a ring of dirt surrounding a small hill within the hill. When Tanya used pyrokinesis to create a light to inspect the center, she noticed the purple tinge of psitanium. Tanya touched the stone, and used a little trick that Agent Mentalis showed her before getting her to do his grunt work of cleaning the psitanium of detritus.
The psitanium glowed ominously, trembling with its innate power. All of the stone that clung to the powerful material broke off within seconds, leaving the gargantuan chunk of psitanium fully visible. “What.” Tanya said, unable to come up with anything more eloquent as she witnessed what must be over fifty tons of psychically reactive minerals.
“It’s cool, right?” Mary said, eyes sparkling. “It’s so big…”
“This… should do nicely.” Tanya said. “This might take a while, so if you could run interference in the event Agent Nein shows up, it would be appreciated. I need to pull Agent Cruller together.”
Now, to use her now amplified psychic powers to literally join a madman’s three personalities back into something resembling a cohesive whole. Just one more unprecedented accomplishment to burnish the Argent Silver’s service jacket. What could go wrong?
She already knew the answer to that: Everything.
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Tanya wasn’t entirely clear on how to enter the collective subconscious, but after experiencing it once, she just copied what Miss Milla did while focusing on her objective and, after entering her own mind, flew towards the cracked sky on the exterior of her mental realm, slipping between the cracks to the familiar field of stars.
While she wasn’t entirely clear on the effects of psitanium before… with this much of it, the benefits were quite apparent. She could feel the difference in her shield’s resilience, her flight’s acceleration was vastly amplified, and she could discern the dimensions of her mind’s totality at a glance. Once within the Collective Unconscious, she could still feel the empowering emanations, as if a constant trickle of figments were sustaining her astral form.
You could do a lot from here, if you built a base to take advantage of this cavern’s properties.
As a test, she called forth an entrance to Mary’s mind. The door reminded Tanya of the entrance to a church, massive and ornate. The instant she decided to ignore the door and move on to her actual objective, it vanished.
The door to Agent Cruller’s mind was a tableau of shattered wood, each with their own window. Only the three largest windows had any light within them, the others dim and inaccessible.
How to do this? Tanya opened all three doors, and focused on the Heptadome within all three. After a moment of nothing happening, she gave up on that tactic. Next idea… archetypes? She never used that power before, but it is designed for multitasking… How does it work, though?
According to Mind Swarm, Cassie O’Peia’s award winning book on the subject, Archetypes were essentially tatemae, or rather, that power was an everyday application of the concept, the archetype of ‘The Citizen’ as the most common implementation of it. So… Tanya pretended for a moment that she was on the streets of Japan, just another cog in the grand machine of society. Then, she imagined taking that mask off, and setting it aside to her left.
The being that manifested where she willed it was quite unusual, but it did function. It resembled a soft doll in a kimono, oversized but with stubby feet and no fingers. Its hair was styled in a bun, straight and neat in a way that her hair never was, albeit still blonde. Instead of a face, it was an expanse of cloth, depicting a henohenomoheji as features. Given the specific archetype involved… fair enough.
“I’m going to say that this is good for a first attempt.” Tanya declared with zero evidence to support her assertion. Ideally, she’d be able to maintain three of these to insert inside the three minds without needing to enter one with her true self, but she may need to settle for two. “Now, you can’t manifest multiples of the same archetype, so which one should I try next?”
“Nothing embarrassing.” Suggested her Citizen archetype. “We’re finally dressed respectably again, it would behoove us to not sublimate any improper desires.” At Tanya’s gimlet stare, the doll bowed in apology. “Sorry.”
“Good.” Tanya said. Mind Swarm did warn that getting into arguments with yourself was a common hazard of splitting off archetypes psychically, but so quickly? “That experience was not desirable.” Tanya insisted. “There’s nothing wrong with enjoying physical affection from family in private, that doesn’t make the circumstances surrounding it enjoyable.” Tanya wished that mental projections couldn’t blush, but alas, they could. She looked down at her outfit.
“We’re in agreement, then.” The Citizen archetype said primly. “You should change outfits if you mean it, though.” Tanya glanced down at the childish outfit that Mom put her in while she was inside Agent Cruller’s mind. Wait… she knows about her true age now. Was this supposed to be a subtle punishment for astrally projecting again?
…Possibly. But it wasn’t important. Tanya changed her mental projection’s outfit to her athletic wear. Perfect. Now, what archetype to manifest next? Tanya pictured being at the Motherlobe. When among the psychonauts, she was polite, curious, eager to hear whatever the adults in the area had to say. Fascination with the wonders of psychic powers, and completely and utterly unsuspicious. With that image firmly in mind, Tanya removed another mask and set it to her right.
The Student manifested as another soft doll, wearing that anime school uniform that Tanya did not remember, even after her improved recollection of her first life. The military theming with the firm shoulderpads and chevrons made her guess that it was a mecha anime, though. She did like those. Its face was another henohenomoheji, so that was probably going to be a common theme until she developed her ability with archetypes further, or perhaps an artifact of her specific mnemonic.
“I wonder how many we could do?” The Student said immediately. “Does the psitanium impact the quantity? Does it impact our lucidity?”
“All good questions.” Tanya agreed. They’ll need to practice this outside of the camp, later. The Citizen snorted in disapproval. Right, back on task. “Who next?”
“As long as it can follow instructions, anything will do.” The Citizen advised. The Student nodded in agreement.”
Well, when it comes to following orders… Tanya took a moment to remember the little things about military training. How to stand, how to salute, how to properly address one’s superiors. She removed the third and last mask and manifested the Soldier in front of her.
As expected, the newest archetype was wearing her officer’s dress from the Empire, marked as her final rank, Colonel. It also had a henohenomoheji instead of a face. “Sir!” It said strongly, saluting Tanya as their superior officer.
“You all know your mission. Execute.” Tanya said simply, and each one entered one of the fragments of Agent Cruller’s mind. The Citizen went into the Cook’s mind, the Student into the Park Ranger’s, and the Soldier into the Janitor’s.
After about a minute, Tanya felt the third mental ping that indicated mission success. After a few more minutes of attempting to somehow bridge a link between the three minds, Tanya huffed in frustration. “What am I missing? Each Heptadome had three different parts of the same machine. If I could only use that, Agent Cruller’s minds could connect with each other and, presumably, fuse back together.” Or at least get started on a long process of doing so.
What hasn’t she tried? She’s attempted to pull the machine out here, she’s attempted to use archetypes as a bridge… Half of psychic discoveries were just making stuff up and imagining it hard enough to make it happen… Idea!
Tanya seized parts of the shattered door/windows that led to Agent Cruller’s mind. Using those shards as seed crystals, she poured out mental energy into constructing a fourth copy of the Heptadome around the windows. Once the fourth copy was sealed from outside influences, the windows into his mind gently wafted open, as whatever psychic pressure differential that kept them shut was removed. This chunk of the Collective Subconcious was now an extension of Agent Cruller’s mind.
“Woozy…” Tanya said to herself as she panted from the exertion of creating that much psychic matter from nothing. Without the psitanium chunk she was sitting on in the real world, there was no way she could have accomplished that.
After she felt recovered enough to continue, which took several minutes at least, Tanya shouted to the open windows: “On my mark!” Tanya paused to allow her archetypes to ready themselves. “One, two, mark!”
All three of Tanya’s archetypes slammed into Tanya’s mind, re-integrating their experiences with her own. Along with them, the three chunks of the mysterious psychic machine manifested around her, the drills and ominous antennae now pointed directly at her head.
Immediately, Tanya jolted out of the danger zone. Now seeing the full machine, she tried to discern some kind of purpose to it. Activating it would be simple enough, it only had the one telekinesis-friendly valve-like structure to operate it. As this was assuredly psychic technology, any further direction must require a trained psychic operator.
There weren't any restraints or comfort features in the center, so Tanya couldn’t use that to figure out whether it was meant for use on patients… or prisoners. Perhaps it had a similar function with projected telekinesis or levitation? Larger machines were more frequently multi-purpose… but it’s also presumably a very old piece of psychic technology, so perhaps a precursor to the psychoportal?
Tanya searched the machine for any inputs that could accept the astral projection, but only found something vaguely vent-like on the top structure. Given the psitanium within the vents… it might be some kind of input for mental energy.
The drills, though. Even if they were far too dull to accomplish any kind of displacement on anything sturdier than sand, they still seemed vaguely menacing.
Suddenly, Tanya noticed something strange: The doors were open. When she created the simulacrum of the Heptadome, she had to block off the doors, but now, they led somewhere that was definitely not the Collective Subconscious.
Tanya walked out of the Heptadome and saw… Camp Whispering Rock. Unlike the Park Ranger’s version, the buildings were all there, exactly as they should be. The Heptadome appeared to have replaced the hill that contained the psitanium, but otherwise… everything looked normal.
New figments populated the camp, most prominently the other members of the Psychic Seven. Tanya traveled the camp, wondering at the implications of Agent Cruller reforming his mind with this environment. Shouldn’t there be another, more familiar environment? Like the place where the Heptadome was in reality? Where was that, anyway?
There were a few figments that seemed strange, as well. Most notably, a small child. He appeared in three, one in a neutral stance, another that was utterly terrified, and one where he was embracing Lucrecia. Did she have a child? Odd.
Eventually, when Tanya walked to Agent Cruller’s trailer, she found a memory vault, cowering underneath. Quickly getting it to spill its guts, Tanya reviewed the slideshow.
The slideshow was labeled “Ford’s Fractured Felony.” The first slide had Agent Cruller, exhausted, detaining an unconscious Maligula with what looked like incredibly secure restraints. Presumably, they could contain her psychic powers. The idea that such restraints exist… She didn’t know they had something like that. Could she break free of restraints that could contain Maligula? She doubted it.
The second slide showed Ford placing the restrained Maligula within the mysterious machine. He activated it, doing… something to the woman’s mind with it as she raged within her restraints like a feral beast. The next slide illuminated his actions, as an imposing mental figure was getting entombed behind a dam’s worth of emotional baggage, secured by a locket containing two pictures, although she could only guess that one of them was Lucretia. The resolution of the slide wasn’t great.
The fourth slide explained the child figment from earlier, which on further inspection was more of a young teenager, maybe thirteen or fourteen, as it showed Agent Cruller leading the boy by the hand away from some nuns, presumably at an orphanage. The fifth showed that boy within the machine, activated much more gently than when it was attempting to… contain Maligula? Brainwash her? She lacked the necessary context to determine exactly what was being done to her. If the ‘Maligula’ persona was something that could be considered separate, like the Type 95’s influence… Hrm.
The sixth and seventh slides were just Agent Cruller leaving the boy with a now peaceful Lucrecia, with a circus in the background. Ah, so the circus was literal. It was somewhat weird to think that someone like the Deluge of Grulovia started off as a carny.
The last slide was the most illuminating. It showed Agent Cruller turning the mysterious machine on himself, with the slide itself showing cracks and fissures, corrupting the image.
“So… the one who shattered the founder of the Psychonauts… was Ford Cruller.” Tanya said to herself. It didn’t seem real, but it explained all of the little inconsistencies.
“And now you know too much.” Growled an aged voice.
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Tanya awoke, startled. Where is she? What’s happening? Her memory returned the last few minutes, slowly and sluggishly. Being X! He found her! No, nonononono. She has to escape. Get away from Mary. Without Mary, he can’t find her.
“Tanya?” Mary asked. “What’s wrong? Did you fix Mr. Cruller?”
Tanya screamed, immediately re-asserting her shamefully lapsed personal barrier at full strength. Mary was here! The Bloody Valkyrie! She doesn’t have the type 95! She’s exhausted! She’s going to die! Sending the best explosive spell she can manage without an orb, Being X’s puppet seemed caught off guard, flying backwards and crumpling among the rocks.
Fantastic! She didn’t expect it to be so successful, but she wasn’t going to waste time quibbling with reality. Mary may be incredibly difficult to kill, but that just means Tanya’s only bought herself a few seconds.
It’s all she needs. Her head was still a little fuzzy on what happened today, but she did remember making escape plans. Time to execute. She burst through the door to the girl’s cabin, picking up her packed luggage along with some sheets. She went to the kitchen, where Agent Cruller’s alternate personality was oddly absent. After requisitioning some supplies, including a dream fluff that she immediately ate to replenish her strength, she flew off, going straight south.
After traveling about ten miles, she ducked into the trees, took a hard right, and went west, deeper into the country. It was a basic misdirection, but she needed to stay away from the psychonauts. Away from Being X’s eyes. Away from psychic probes, to rip the last of her secrets from her mind. She needed to stay away from the Psychonauts.
Away… from Mom. Tanya sighed. Running away was never easy, but she was in danger. Being X wouldn’t be interested in harming her if Tanya wasn’t there to suffer for it. Not without a chance to beg him for mercy. Given that his usual warmongering tactics could lead to a nuclear holocaust in this world, she needs to vanish. To stay away from the psychonauts. While he might do it anyway, that chance goes up if she’s even peripherally involved in international relations. He doesn’t like the commies any more than she does, so if she holds out until the Soviet Union collapses, then she could maybe come back. After killing Mary. But Mary’s not in a position to be vulnerable. Tanya will have to wait until Mary comes after her. She will, eventually. She’ll just need to figure out how to hide until she can be counter-ambushed. Just… stay away from the Psychonauts.
She’s got a long day of flying ahead of her.
Comments
Dragonin
Darn it Ford, what did you do?
Chris Larson
Oh boy, total paranoid breakdown.
