Kevin Curry
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Psychoprotective 20
🕑 Added 2023-03-10 15:33:51 +0000 UTCThis is the first extra chapter! From this point forth, $5 and greater patrons will have two advance chapters, for as long as I can maintain that pace.
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Hot. Agent Cruller’s mind was oppressively hot, to the point that Tanya felt her mental energy drain along with the burning pain on her skin. Her feet in particular were touching an intensely hot grill, but levitation was second nature at this point so it wasn’t a concern after a single point of contact.
Mary screamed, dancing as she suffered for a bit before floating upwards herself. “Why is everything on fire!” She asked.
Tanya never really had to passively cool herself down before with cryokinesis, but there was a first time for everything. She dove deep into her memories of being an aerial mage, the calculations of the thermal regulation formula running through her mind as she created an aura of stable temperatures. This was usually used to stay warm when high in the air, but it also saw use during the summer they spent in the Southern Continent.
Mary sensed the outflow of power and immediately crowded Tanya’s personal space to benefit from her control. “Oh thank God.” Mary said, before realizing the state of Tanya’s clothes. “You’re still wearing the straightjacket!” She pointed out. “...and no pants.” She finished, flushing and turning away. “Um… do you…” She continued nervously.
“Indeed.” Tanya replied dryly, before closing her eyes and focusing. “Just a moment…” The psychic manifestation technique was fairly easy when one was within the mind of the user, but that didn’t mean it was impossible to use in another person’s mind, just more limited. Within a few seconds, Tanya’s ‘mental hospital chic’ was replaced with the snappy officer’s dress of the Empire. Immediately, she started limbering up her arms, the tenseness of the muscles fading unnaturally quickly in the mental world.
“...you look adorable.” Mary said. “The hat… Why is it so cute?”
“Gap moe.” Tanya glibly replied, which just confused Mary further. “Now come on.” Tanya presented her back and offered to let the smaller girl ride piggyback so she could not burn up in the oppressive atmosphere of Agent Cruller’s mind. Mary accepted without complaint, settling her head on Tanya’s left shoulder.
Now that the immediate obstacle had been addressed, Tanya took the time to examine their surroundings. The floor was, as previously noted, a blacktop grill, with fissures separating the sections of the mind with walls of flame.
Floating along, Tanya gathered a few figments: bacon featured heavily, but that didn’t stop there being plenty of pancakes, hamburgers, grilled sandwiches, and a beehive from appearing.
“How are you doing this, anyway?” Mary asked.
Tanya sighed. “Despite my facility with pyrokinesis, I found cryokinesis much easier to learn.” She gestured to the area around her. “It’s two sides of the same coin, much like there’s no such thing as ‘cold’, there is only an absence of heat. Pyrokinesis adds heat to a system, cryokinesis takes it away.” She snapped her fingers. “This link is more than just thematic: you can amplify pyrokinesis by channeling emotion, but cryokinesis would be ruined if you tried to do it the same way.”
“So being a stone cold bitch makes cryokinesis easier?” Mary snarked.
Don’t feed the trolls. “Exactly.” Tanya said instead of being drawn into banter. It was not the time. “There are some emotions that can be channeled into cryokinesis, but they’re difficult to wield. Cool rationality is the proper mindset for such things.” Which used to be in ample supply. While she could acknowledge that the state of deadened emotion she had spent the last decade in, even if it was imperfect, was something that needed to be corrected, it didn’t make the aggravating parts of her recovery any less so.
At least channeling this much cryokinesis seems to have dulled the oversensitivity. She was worried that all the touching that Mary was doing as she rode piggyback would be distracting. Damn this body and its incessant need for physical contact. ‘Touch hunger’, more like touch addiction. The box’s tight confines seem to have emulated the necessary conditions, but… whatever. She’s getting distracted.
Eventually, Tanya found something promising: a knob. Telekinetically maneuvering it to the ‘off’ position, some of the flames dimmed and vanished, allowing another area to be accessed. “That did it!” Mary shouted, right in Tanya’s ear.
“Ow.” Tanya said. “Use your indoor voice, Mary.” Tanya scolded. She should really meet that inner child that’s letting Mary pretend to be six so ably. It needs to turn it down a notch.
The next area had enemies, a swarm of explosive Personal Demons accompanied by censors and a noxiously optimistic Enabler. Nothing that couldn’t be easily dispatched, although she did have to hold back and let Mary launch the PSI blasts needed to defeat the explosive enemies, as while cryokinesis wasn’t quite incompatible with the aggressive focus that the offensive power required, keeping it restrained to mitigate the flames rather than freeze things also blunted her ability to use any psychic power offensively. She had to limit herself to psychokinetic impacts guided by her hands and feet, like a more typical psychic would use.
“Now we need to find another knob.” Tanya said to Mary. “Do you see one?”
Mary pointed to a small table that was incongruously standing on the grill without catching fire. “There’s an emotional baggage tag over there.”
The moment Tanya directed her attention to the table, she felt the subtle pull of the tag, directing her eyes straight at it. “Good job.” She idly praised, which led to Mary wiggling in joy at the compliment. That inner child was really screwing with her head. Hopefully its influence would fade after she grows up a bit more.
Briefly, Tanya imagined her being her old size, with Mary hanging off of her shoulder. Now that was an amusing image, a salaryman with a shoulder loli. She picked up the suitcase tag before examining the dish on the table. It was an absolutely delicious looking pancake stack with bacon, honey, and some kind of jam, with the slightest scent of pepper to add a kick.
“Tasty…” Mary said, reaching out for the fork next to the plate. Tanya slapped her hand away. “Ow!”
“As good as it smells, we shouldn’t be eating something in Agent Cruller’s mind. It may have unforeseen side effects.” For example, it may damage his memory of the dish. Which would be terrible, if such a delicious looking dish was to be lost to memory. It might be okay, but it was unwise to risk it, given the fragility of the environment.
“But it smells so good!” Mary whined.
“I’ll feed you some memory pancakes or something later.” Tanya promised with no intention of following through. Come to think of it, if you could isolate a memory of a meal, you could maybe sell it as a diet aide? She’d need to do a few studies on the effects on appetite. Wouldn’t want it to make people hungrier. Well, if she could get the manufacturing cost low enough. Psitanium was a tricky commodity, to her understanding. It could be mined, but it could also be synthesized by a psychic out of mental energy. The mining was better in both quantity and quality, generally, but for some reason the Psychonauts had decided to cease large scale psitanium mining. She’ll have to ask why.
“This is the greatest thing I have ever eaten.” Said a woman’s voice. Tanya’s eyes widened. Lucrecia!
Agent Cruller’s voice, a bit younger, chuckled. “Just wanted to make sure you got a taste of America before you went. Diner food is the best!”
Tanya waited for more memory to play, but after a moment shrugged. “I guess that was it.”
Mary nearly toppled Tanya’s balance as she pointed dramatically. “The knob!” She shouted. The knob in question was at the top of a jagged tower of metal, theoretically climbable if the metal didn’t become red hot in a pattern. It reminded Tanya of a toaster’s heating element, actually.
Fortunately, Tanya could fly and thus didn’t need to bother with that kind of hazard. With a second section of mind cooled and third one now accessible, Tanya and Mary continued on. “First priority is to recover my strength.” Tanya said as she glided on levitation balls to collect figments. “Keeping cryokinesis up for this long is tiring.”
Mary perked up. “Wait, I know how to fix this!” She hugged Tanya tighter as she started murmuring a prayer. “...succor in our time of need…fires of hell…fear no evil…”
Tanya tuned out the prayer as she enjoyed the mental energy transfer. After a few seconds, her heart and head started burning, tingles running over her body in lines. “STOP!” Tanya exclaimed, gripping Mary’s arms and squeezing to emphasize her point.
Mary squeaked in pain. “Ow! Why?”
“Never do that again.” Tanya said, dead serious. “How’s my head? Is there a crack?”
At the mention of a crack, Mary instantly understood. “...No.” She said after gazing at it for a moment. “I think it’s okay.”
With a deep breath, Tanya refocused on her surroundings. More grill surface, more stray heating elements, a few pits of boiling water… Those were new. Tanya approached the small pools, hydrokinetically shoving half of it aside so she could see if there was anything underneath. Seeing nothing, she shoved the water to the other side. “Nothing in here.” Tanya announced.
Mary looked around as Tanya moved on to inspect the other pools, eventually noticing something. “There’s another tag!” She exclaimed, pointing towards a giant stack of pancakes. No, wait, it was a building that was fashioned to resemble a giant stack of pancakes.
Wait. Tanya recognizes that building. It’s the Lumberstack Diner, the restaurant that’s at that kitschy tourist trap near the Motherlobe. Entering the diner, they were ambushed by regrets, bad ideas, censors, and another handful of personal demons.
Mary launched massive amounts of psychic energy from Tanya’s shoulder, devastating the mental defenses with just a few shots, each attack exploding as Tanya cleaned up with a few well placed kicks.
Once cleared, Tanya picked up the duffel bag tag, situated on one of the booths. Wait… “This place isn’t heated.” Tanya observed. “My cryokinesis isn’t expending much energy right now.”
Mary hopped off of Tanya’s back. “Great! I need to stretch my legs.” She wiggled her feet and did a few squats. “I don’t know how you could stand staying in that box all day. I’d have blown it up in ten minutes.”
Tanya shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time I had to stay in bed all day.” Mary winced at the reminder. “Unlike your little construct, I had to master patience when I was too weak to walk. I couldn’t zone out and let the months pass by without arousing suspicion like you could.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Mary said as she looked behind the counter at the diner, opening a door to the storage room. “Nice!” She exclaimed, grabbing and brandishing a golden spatula as she absorbed the knowledge within. “Got the nugget!” She teased.
Tanya made a mental note to take Agent Boole up on his offer of cooking lessons. “Brat.” Tanya accused. “Cooking knowledge, I assume?” She said dryly.
“Yep!” Mary said smugly. “I now know the secrets of the honey pepper pancake stacker!” Mary proceeded to laugh maniacally. “Oh, and some pyrokinesis tips.” She added. “Actually…” She focused, and the air around her subtly shifted. “I think I can go on my own now.” She said, walking out of the diner. “Ow!” She said, running back in. “I forgot about the grill.” She whined, sitting on a chair and blowing on her now bare feet, her shoes having fallen apart.
Tanya sighed in frustration. This was a preview of the next several years, wasn’t it? It wasn’t yet guaranteed that Miss Milla was going to adopt Mary, but Tanya thought the odds were pretty high. Would she listen if Tanya asked her not to? She wanted to say yes… but Miss Milla might instead insist on Tanya taking responsibility, given the revelations on her maturity.
Nevertheless, break time was over. “Up you go.” Tanya said, picking the girl up with telekinesis and placing her on Tanya’s back. Mary obligingly clung on. “You take over on the cryokinesis.” Tanya instructed. Mary focused again, and the air became cool, as if air conditioned, rather than the choking, but not dangerous, heat of the diner.
Floating outside, the greater temperatures forced Mary to redouble her efforts and still fall short, but her cryokinetic aura did reduce the burning heat into one that was only mildly unpleasant. Well, then it started fluctuating between too hot and too cold, but it was within safe levels so Tanya allowed Mary to continue to practice. “I shudder to think how horrific this would be on our immune systems if we weren’t mental projections.” Tanya said as she searched for the next knob.
“Bite me, old hag.” Mary spat as she struggled to keep the level head required to stabilize the temperature. Tanya snorted in laughter at the amusing insult.
Eventually, Tanya located the knob, tangled up in a bunch of heating elements. On impulse, she seized one of the pools of boiling water and tossed it over the heating elements, causing a steam explosion… which was apparently extra explosive, as the heating elements had blown apart with it. Tanya telekinetically turned the knob and cooled off another section of Agent Cruller’s mind.
This next section stank of alcohol. Shot glasses filled with flaming liquor sat in rows, with charcoal-gray trees twisted in unnatural shapes creating an ambiance that was welcoming to the boozehound but repulsive to anyone else.
A voice that Tanya wished she didn’t recognize sounded out, slurring but concerned. “Look, Ford.” Bob Zanotto said. “She’s just worried about her family. Russia’s got that Hungarian puppet invading Grulovia, she already lost her husband to when it was just Grulovia and Bulgaria fighting it out, It’s got nothing to do with you, she liked you. We all like you.”
“Why’d she have to fight, though?” Agent Cruller’s voice said despondently. “She could have moved them all here to the States, I’d have helped her.”
“We all would have, Ford.” Came a deeper, gentle voice. From context… Helmut Fullbear? “We’d have brought the whole circus back if we had to.” That’s a new idiom…
“You should write her a letter.” Bob proposed, as if it was a genius idea. “Get your thoughts out.”
Helmut hummed in approval. “You don’t have to send it. We’ll decide that after it’s done.”
“...Yeah. I’ll do that.” Agent Cruller said. “Thanks.”
This area was still composed of a giant grill, various substances cooking or burning caking the terrain, but this time it seemed to resemble… the psychoisolation chamber she saw in the Park Ranger’s brain. Well, the office that was attached to it anyway.
The sobbing suitcase that was right in front of a panel of gauges, including a prominent knob, was surprisingly quiet, but that may just be the dull roar of sizzling meat and popping grease that was drowning it out.
“It’s so tragic…” Mary said, sniffling. “He was in love, but then she left. What happened to her? Did she die in the war?” She asked herself. Tanya raised an eyebrow at the girl, but then realized that she lacked the context that she needed.
“Worse.” Tanya said. “She won it.” With that cryptic comment, Tanya took out the tag and affixed it to the suitcase, prepared to finally absorb the emotional energy properly, for once.
Sadness. Longing. Numbness. A flash of a letter, too brief to read anything but ‘Dearest Ford’. Numbness. Horror. Grief. Resolve.
Shuddering as the foreign emotions flashed and swam through her head, Tanya was glad that Mary was handling the cryokinesis this time, because there was no way she could manage it right now. After the feelings passed, Tanya took a deep breath, back at full strength. Flawless success.
“Why is this so hard?” Whined Mary as the temperature continued to fluctuate.
Tanya sighed. “Didn’t your orbs have the environmental regulation formula?” Tanya asked. “Just pray for it.”
“That’s not how the nugget told me to do it.” Mary retorted.
Tanya sighed. She knew Mary was dim and inflexible, but this was ridiculous. She focused, stabilizing the temperature herself. “Picture this exact temperature. Remain calm, as there is no danger. I’ll protect you from anything that tries to disrupt your concentration. Trust in Big Sister Tanya and focus everything you have on lowering the temperature to this exact level.” A single censor spawned, as if mocking Tanya’s words. Tanya immediately used a PSI blast to decapitate it.
“Big Sister Tanya?” Mary questioned. Tanya flushed at her cheesy line being called out. “...Okay.” She focused, and Tanya gently lowered the amount of energy she expended stabilizing the temperature over a few seconds, eventually allowing Mary full control over the newly stable temperature. If she focused on it, she could tell it was wobbling a bit still, but it was way better than before.
“Good job.” Tanya said. “Just keep protecting us from the environmental hazard, and I’ll handle the rest.” By now, she was convinced: if she had tried this on her own, countering the heat would have been too great of a tax on her mind in order to allow her to be victorious.
Turning the knob the emotional baggage was blocking, Tanya glanced at the scorched and burned metal frame that was in the last section of the Cook’s mind: yet another rendition of the Heptadome, with all of the glass melted and pooled in a bright orange puddle of slag that surrounded the metal frame, bubbling as the grill that was the floor continued to heat it further. Merrily dancing among the slag was a memory vault.
Well, easy enough. Tanya telekinetically seized the vault, using a second hand to whack it until it stopped struggling, and brought out the viewing goggles within. The sequence of memories were labeled: “Lucy’s last meal’. It started with Agent Cruller and Lucrecia having a romantic breakfast together, reading newspapers. Prominently displayed as a headline was ‘Grulovia Invaded!’, as Bob mentioned in that flash of memory. The next slide was of the pair eating lunch at a diner, having an argument over pancakes. The slide after that one was Lucy leaving on a hydrokinetic wave, carrying luggage and a picture of what appeared to be herself and a female relative. Mother? Sister? The other one wore glasses, so Tanya wasn’t sure which. Agent Cruller was in the background, reaching out and looking sad as Lucrecia left. Wait, wasn’t there that corpse with glasses that looked like Lucretia in the Janitor’s section? Must be the same woman.
“I wanna see.” Mary said.
“When I’m done.” Tanya shot back. Tanya would like to say that Mary was worse than Lili… but she really wasn’t. Lili wins the brattiness competition handily.
The next slide was Ford writing a letter, with two things beside the letter on the desk: A postcard from Grulovia saying ‘War is over! Now the people are the problem’, and a newspaper declaring that ‘General Maligula’ had drowned a group of peaceful protestors, an atrocity called ‘The Deluge of Grulovia’. The letter read: “Your last letter frightened us. You don’t sound like yourself. We’re worried about you.” The last slide was Agent Cruller walking away from the mailbox, that same letter returned, marked with ‘country discontinued’.
“...You don’t want to see this.” Tanya declared.
“Gimmie!” Mary said, snatching it from Tanya’s unresisting hand. Thinking quickly, Tanya re-asserted her cryokinesis before Mary could lose her concentration on it. “So tragic…” She said as she went through the first few slides. “...oh.” Mary said after the fourth click. “...She was like you.” Mary said, weakly.
“War is a greater hell than any that that hack could devise.” Tanya said. “Your monofocus on my death spared you from the worst of it. Sure, you caused a lot of collateral damage and killed hundreds if not thousands of people you weren’t supposed to kill, and even more that you were… But if you just brought your father’s killer to justice, it would all be worth it, huh?”
Mary sniffled at Tanya’s caustic diatribe. “I didn’t know he did that!” She said defensively.
Tanya shrugged. “It didn’t matter that he almost killed me. You’re still not getting it.” Tanya sighed as she tried to figure out how to get the thick girl to understand. “He was a soldier. So was I. We both had our objectives, and instructions to kill others to accomplish those objectives. I didn’t harbor any hard feelings for any of the men who fought me at Norden. They were just doing their jobs. I was mad at the asshole who ordered an inexperienced artillery spotter to stand and fight against twelve to one odds.” Mary sniffled again, but she started to clean up her teary eyes. “I was mad at the assholes who decided to award a medal and use the biggest example of fool’s luck as a way to make all the sane people who didn’t want to sign up for the army to feel inadequate for not doing something that a nine year old girl did. Most of all, I was livid at the asshole who decided to shove some random office worker into a World War as a prepubescent girl while also twisting sanity to make them eligible for conscription!”
Noting that her control over her cryokinesis had slipped, Tanya took a deep breath and stabilized the temperature. “The point is, Mary, that you were suckered. You bought the propaganda that war was anything but the massive waste that it is. I killed your father because he was wearing a uniform that didn’t match mine, and he tried to kill me for the same reason. There was no justice to be had in your vendetta.” Tanya shrugged. “But it doesn’t matter now. I killed you, died anyway, and we’re here.”
After a minute of deep breathing, Mary seemed to recover her equilibrium. “I’m ready to keep things cool again. Let’s help Mr. Cook.” Tanya nodded, passing on the duty to her as she examined the surroundings.
The pool of molten glass around a red-hot metal frame that was the Heptadome was the primary attraction to this part of Agent Cruller’s mind, but there was at least one other thing to note. Specifically, there was a path behind that had a rickety bridge that led deeper into the mind. Flying over the pool and the bridge, Tanya examined the little two-story house that was surrounded by a swamp of boiling water. It resembled the one in the background of the memory vault, and as expected, the duffel bag, the last emotional baggage, was seated on a little table, with two chairs flanking it. Landing next to it, Tanya affixed the tag and absorbed the emotions, bracing herself for the surge of power.
Affection. Love. Peace. Confusion. Trepidation. Worry. Hurt. Idea. Worry. Hurt. Resignation. Sadness.
Taking a moment to assimilate the foreign emotions, Tanya silently wondered. Was that what romantic love felt like? Even with her greater recollection of her first life, Tanya couldn’t remember any kind of girlfriend. She knew she liked women, because of all of those inappropriate thoughts she had about Visha’s breasts when she was in the army… But it wasn’t anything like that. Well, perhaps a little. But it just vindicated her decision to never speak of or act on those feelings, if they were as shallow as that baggage revealed they were. Even if she wished she had nuzzled her head in that comfortable looking chest at least once. But those were hormones talking, probably. It would have been unethical. That time she blurted it out while delirious made her want to die. It was a cruel irony that such a faux pas was the last thing she said to her loyal adjutant.
“Are you okay, Tanya?” Mary asked. “You’re crying.”
Ah. “I’m still a bit inexperienced with emotional baggage.” Tanya said. “I’m fine.” She walked into the little house, gathering figments as she went. A heart here, bacon there, Lucrecia wearing only a towel, nothing that seemed out of place.
The final knob was on a small stove within the hut, the importance of it apparent despite its modest appearance. One twist, and it was done. “That should be the last one, Mary.” Tanya said. “How’s your mental energy?”
“Spent.” Mary said. “You didn’t let me pick up any figments.”
“I should have let you handle the baggage, then.” Tanya lied. “I’m sure you know what happens when you get forced out of a mind by now, so you should hop out now before that happens.” Tanya took another look around. “I’ll confirm our success before we go.”
Mary nodded weakly, before pausing. “...About that, when you were kicked out of Mr. Park Ranger’s mind, why didn’t you-”
Tanya immediately shut down that thought. “I prepared beforehand.” Tanya said misleadingly. “Now unless you want that to happen again, you best get out your smelling salts before I destroy your mental projection myself..”
Mary squeaked as she leapt off of Tanya’s back, taking out her smelling salts and cracking the container open. She was gone in a flash of blue light.
Tanya did one more inspection of the house, and found nothing of note. Walking back across the bridge that went over the swampy water, steaming but not boiling, she came back to the Heptadome. It was solidifying the last few panels of the Heptadome when she arrived, and inside, she got to see the third piece of the mysterious device.
It hung from the ceiling of the dome, only a stray arm attached it to the rest of the device, presumably to make it easy to orient. The business end of this portion of the device was not a drill, but more of an upside down antenna looking contraption. Honestly, it looked more like a sci-fi prop than anything real, but it was not out of the question that it was a deliberate aesthetic choice, given the time frame involved. It wouldn’t have been as cheesy back then. Naturally, the position indicated that it was pointed at center of the two drills.
Tanya walked underneath the device. How to unite the three pieces? …This was probably something that was completely novel, so she couldn’t just ask Agent Boole about this.
What did she know about mental worlds and shaping them? Big changes were easier than small ones, the final form of it had to make sense… and the best vantage was just on the outside! Of course. She needed to access the minds through the Collective Subconscious if she wanted to bring them together. She couldn’t do that within the box, though.
She’ll need to find a private spot to do the projection. If she’s lucky, she could find a chunk of psitanium to amplify her psychic strength for the feat. A bigger one than the one she has stashed in her stuff.
Where will she find one of those, though?
Comments
Kevin Curry
Exactly. Tanya doesn't like cutting losses. She's vulnerable to sunk cost like everyone else.
Dragonin
Tanya's drive to complete things isn't always going to turn out well. In fact her desire to be thorough helped to keep the war going in her second life.
Kevin Curry
Same reason she did the third mind. To finish the job. Is it a good idea? No.
Chris Larson
Also confused why she wants to reunite the three pieces of the device. I can't think of a proper motive.
Chris Larson
"War is a better hell than anything that hack could make" is sad, poignant, and an insult all in one. Very efficient use of language there.
