Kevin Curry
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Psychoprotective chapter 3.05
🕑 Added 2023-12-25 15:00:08 +0000 UTCMerry Christmas!
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Hollis was rather chagrined when Tanya came back to herself. “I’m… sorry about what you saw in there.” She said, “I wasn’t in my right mind.”
“I’m wondering why you left a bunch of children in your mind unattended after teaching them one of the most dangerous psychic powers around.” Tanya said, rubbing her head.
“I thought I had left them isolated enough.” Hollis groused, “But I didn’t account for Razputin’s resourcefulness. I was reviewing personnel to figure out who was both trustworthy and able to be reassigned.” She glowered into the middle distance. “When I get my hands on that…”
“Razputin is a child, Hollis.” Tanya reminded her. “One that, need I remind you, was gullible enough to let the other interns steal his clothes. This was just another attempt at hazing gone wrong.”
Hollis thought about that. “...Yes, that does make more sense. Talented and gullible, there’s a combination.”
“It is something we can only hope to fix in time.” Tanya agreed.
“Of course, we still need to make it clear that his actions were completely unacceptable.” Hollis added.
“Definitely.” Tanya said, nodding along. “Let me handle it, though. I’ll give him both barrels.” Maybe she’ll even crack open some war memories for him to really understand the magnitude of his fuckup. “But first, one of us needs to dive into Truman’s mind for diagnosis.”
“I have my hands full.” Hollis admitted. “You do it. You didn’t stray too far in my mind, just take a similar level of care in his and we won’t have a problem. I’ll need a full debrief on what you saw after this whole mess is dealt with, though.”
“Understood.” Tanya said, a little pained. She was hoping that she wouldn’t have to do any more mental dives… “Hopefully the nugget of wisdom I just got from you will be enough to identify the issue.”
“Hang on.” Hollis said, gesturing for Tanya to step closer. When she did, Hollis placed a finger on Tanya’s forehead and transferred some additional knowledge, effectively giving her another nugget of wisdom about identifying psychic maladies. “That should cover the possibilities.”
Mind swimming with new information, Tanya nodded weakly. “Yes, that should do it.”
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It was agreed that, after seeing that the interns were using their assignment to ‘watch Ford’ as an excuse to slack off in the man’s many general vicinities, that it was safe to just keep them there. Honestly, they wanted to be given a task and they won’t even do the thing they were asked to do! Teenagers…
“Razputin! There you are.” Tanya growled as she walked up to the ten year old and gripped his shoulder.
“Tanya!” He said, happy to see her. “I’ve been looking for you, where’ve you been? Hey, we should go check on the mail room again.”
“I’ve been disarming the time bomb you left in Hollis’ head.” Tanya said evenly. Razputin’s cheer evaporated.
“T-time bomb?” He said, worried.
“She was an hour away from conscripting everyone who has ever attended Camp Whispering Rock, including me!” Tanya said bluntly. “Yes, time bomb.”
“But… you’re already a Psychonaut.” Razputin said, confused.
“I’m employed by the Psychonauts organization.” Tanya corrected, “I am not, nor have I ever been, formally recognized as a Psychonaut.” Informally… yeah, fixing up Helmut qualified her. “If Hollis ever tells me to do something outside the scope of my contract, I can simply refuse.” She increased her grip strength. “Tell me, how would you react if Hollis decided that Dogen was more useful exploding Communist heads than learning how to actually control his pyrokinesis? That was one of the ideas that was percolating in her head, thanks to you.”
Razputin paled, the image she evoked vivid enough to get through to him. “I didn’t know that would-”
“Exactly.” Tanya interrupted. “You had only the vaguest idea what you were doing, and set out to act instead of considering the consequences of your actions. Did you know what Hollis wanted to do to you until I convinced her to let me handle things?” Tanya didn’t actually know the specifics, but knowing Hollis, it would have likely involved making some very unpleasant Mental Connections in Razputin’s head. She would have hated herself afterwards, but that was why Tanya had to intervene and let her more rational self take the reins.
“Oh.” He said weakly. “What’s going to happen now?” He asked, defeated.
“First, you’re out of the intern program.” Tanya said. Razputin flinched. She started walking to their next destination and gestured for him to follow. He did. “I don’t actually have the authority to do that, but I can put you somewhere you can’t cause trouble and leave you there. Normally, you could go to Hollis to complain if I did that, but I’m sure you understand why that’s not an option for you?” Razputin nodded hastily. “Once this crisis is dealt with, without you making things worse, we can revisit this and make a final decision about the intern program.”
“Okay.” He said, almost crying. “Where are we going?” He said, looking around.
“The daycare.” Tanya said bluntly as they entered the section in question. Razputin made a pained noise.
“Oh, hey Raz!” Dogen said, sipping a juice box in front of one of the televisions. At a glance, it was some educational cartoon on the public broadcast channel.
“Your new marching orders, soldier,” Tanya said officially. “-is protection detail. Dogen Boole is part of the future of the Psychonauts, and he must be kept safe from communist saboteurs. This includes not letting him leave this area until you are relieved by me or another superior officer.” Tanya leered at the ten year old. “Is that a clear enough mission, Private?”
“Tanya!” Shouted Visha, the telepathic broadcast accompanied by excited barks. She impacted Tanya’s chest like a living missile, and started licking at Tanya’s face. “I love you, Tanya.”
“Pft, ptuie. I love you too, Visha.” Tanya said, giving the dog a big hug. “I just stopped by to make sure you were having fun here.”
“This place is great!” Visha replied, “There are toys, and balls, and kids who throw the ball, and all the belly rubs I can ask for!” Visha wiggled her legs insistently.
“That’s good.” Tanya said, taking the hint and rubbing her belly. “I’ll be back later, Visha. Then we can go home.”
“Uh, Tanya?” Razputin said, clearly conflicted.
“Yes, Razputin?” Tanya asked, putting Visha down and patting the dog on the butt to send her on her way.
“Um… You see… I had a good reason… but…” He gripped his hair, adjusting his helmet and goggles. “...I can’t tell you. Or even why I can’t tell you.”
Wait… that seemed serious. “...There are very few acceptable reasons for you to be unable to tell me something, as your direct report.” Tanya said, “But you have lost the benefit of the doubt. The only one who could have possibly done so is Hollis, as no one else would have told you to leave me out of it. I assume you were specifically told to not involve me?” She asked. Razputin flinched. “I see. Well, whatever Hollis told you, she’ll get someone else to handle it. Now, I have a Grand Head to project into to get to the bottom of what’s wrong with him.”
Razputin’s eyes widened. What did he know? “Um… go ahead, I guess. I’ll wait here, staying out of trouble.”
…She was going to regret keeping him on base, wasn’t she?
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When she returned to Truman’s office, Mom and Lili were both, surprisingly, absent. Even more surprisingly, Truman was standing up and closing the crate that had been sent to him. “Truman?” Tanya asked, surprised. “You’re awake.”
“Hm? Oh, yes. Tanya.” Truman said, clearing his throat. “Yes, I am back. Tell me, what is the progress of everything? No one was here when I awoke.”
Hm. He seemed normal enough… “Well, I had just finished getting authorized to dive into your head to attempt to wake you… I suppose that’s no longer needed.”
“Yes.” He said, a little calmer perhaps than she thought warranted.
“First, about half of our personnel have been afflicted with psilirium poisoning.” She said bluntly. “Most of the other half is trying to deal with that or acting as a skeleton crew.”
“That’s bad.” Truman commented.
“Your judgment is as impeccable as ever, sir.” Tanya said sarcastically. “Next, Lili is fine, but Camp Whispering Rock had to be canceled due to a disastrous implementation of that secret adventure plan that you approved.”
It took Truman a moment to reply, but he nodded in understanding. “At least Lili, my precious daughter, is okay.”
“There was a SNAFU with Hollis and the interns, but it’s been cleared up. It did hinder response times for the other crises, including your health.” Tanya said, ticking off a third finger.
“Unfortunate, but I’m better now.” Truman insisted.
“You really should get checked out by Medical, sir.” Tanya added, before ticking off a fourth finger. “Next, Ford’s started to infest the Motherlobe again.” Truman’s eyes widened in surprise. “I know, sir. He’s not as erratic as he was before getting committed to Whispering Rock, but his Agent Archetype has yet to surface, so he’s still completely unreasonable. If we were operating as normal, his obstruction would be disastrous, but ironically, in this case the pre-existing crises prevent him from being more than a minor annoyance. Hollis deployed the interns to keep an eye on him.”
“What about that Grulovian boy, what was his name?” Truman asked.
Tanya raised her eyebrow. “How do you know about Razputin?”
“Ah yes, that was it.” Truman said, “I remember just a little bit from while I was out, but I distinctly remember seeing him with Lili.” After a moment, his eyes widened. “Wait, does Lili have a boyfriend?”
…Something was wrong here. “Are you alright, sir?” Normally, he’d be either faking outrage, or displaying his amusement. He was doing neither, acting concerned but… it was off.
“Perfectly fine,” he insisted. “-now, what’s he doing?”
Tanya stared at him suspiciously, letting the weight of her gaze crack his composure. He remained firm. “I confined him to the daycare so he’d stay out of trouble.” Tanya said slowly. “He was instrumental in causing that SNAFU I mentioned.”
Truman frowned at that. What? “How did Ford Cruller get here?” He asked.
Why did he use Ford’s full name? “I don’t know.” Tanya admitted, “I assume it’s enemy action, but I don’t see how… or why.” She never did ask how they got him moved to Whispering Rock in the first place… “You’d know more about how to move Ford than I would.”
“I don’t quite recall the protocol we used.” Truman admitted, which was an odd turn of phrase for him to use. “But I vaguely recall something about… bacon?”
Why would bacon be… Tanya’s eyes widened. “Razputin.” She said, the pieces coming together. “He saved a piece of bacon from lunch, and it was minutes after he went to the bathroom that Ford showed up.” How A went into B, she didn’t know, but… “...Razputin said that Ford was the one who said he was promoted to Psychonaut during the Whispering Rock incident.” Tanya said out loud, puzzling it out. “I assume he meant the Agent Archetype did so, who is certainly lucid enough to create a long term telepathic connection, bound to an olfactory stimulus… like bacon. Which can be used to focus a teleport, bringing him from there to here.”
“Yes, I think you’ve got it.” Truman said, smiling widely.
“The only thing missing from the picture is why Razputin would call Ford in.” Tanya said, “Also, what Razputin said to him in order to cause him to teleport here. Without the BPR, “ which stands for Big Psitanium Rock and the official code name for that particular piece, “-the Agent Archetype couldn’t pursue whatever mission objective Razputin asked for assistance on. The Agent Archetype knows this.”
“Do we have any suspects for the instigators of the crisis?” Truman asked.
“Oh, right.” Tanya said, blushing that she forgot. “Key to your abduction was that villainous actor we hired to play the bad guy, Dr. Loboto. He was apparently the one who did… whatever it was that was done to you in the Rhombus of Ruin. We did capture and interrogate him, but due to the powerful fear-based suppression in his mind, all we have is that the Deluginists are behind it.”
Truman’s expression was uncharacteristically grave. “This is serious.” He said, “The Deluginists are very dangerous.”
“We certainly know that now, yes.” Tanya agreed. “We thought that they were crippled, but to think they shifted to using psilirium…” They could actually awaken Maligula if they got that stuff near Nona Aquato, for one. Wait… Tanya paled as she realized the possibilities. “Did they get to the files on Project Hydrophobia? They could make ten Maligulas if they tracked down the survivors.” The thing about psilirium is that not only did it induce insanity that can be tuned, with the right know-how, to consistently have a similar result as Compound M (or you could just roll the dice and have them fall on KILL EVERYONE), it was also an incredibly dense alternative to psitanium to increase the power of those former child soldiers on top of the normal power boost. Project Hydrophobia had about twenty-five survivors, but only about ten of them were considered ‘high-risk’, due to the others becoming stable enough to be called ‘recovered’, committing suicide, or ending up falling victim to their condition and ending up being put down.
Truman’s eyes widened. “I would very much like to know if those files have been accessed, yes.” He went to his desk. “...Where are they again? I’m still a little…” He twirled his finger vaguely.
“Those would be in the secure archives.” Tanya said. “I’ve never had to access them before, so I don’t know where they are.” This was a lie. This was a blatant lie. She’s the one who has to fix the thing when Otto’s busy or just doesn’t want to be bothered.
He looked at her strangely. “...Don’t you have access to all the tech to fix it?”
Okay, he passed the test. “Just keeping you on your toes, sir.” She said, “I guess it’s not time to drag you to Medical yet.”
“You know Tanya, I appreciate the concern, but stop that.” He gave her a small glare. “These are serious times and I don’t need my subjects trying to trick me.” Subjects? What an odd turn of phrase. He better not be thinking of her as a test subject… Maybe she should drag him to Medical anyway.
“Is there anything else I should know about?” Truman asked.
“Hollis should be able to get you an accurate picture as to who is and isn’t able to work.” Tanya said to wrap things up. “Also, she likely knows of a few relevant events that I don’t know about. I’ll go check the security on the secure archives.”
“You do that.” He said authoritatively. Hm, that’s not like him… Something is seriously off about Truman. “Oh, two more things: First, my lunch has definitely gone bad and I seem to have lost my key. Go incinerate the contents, and you’ll want to minimize your exposure. It’s likely mold city. Actually, just throw it in the lake.” Tanya nodded, telekinetically grabbing the lockbox. “Second, it sounds like Razputin is going to be critical in resolving our Ford Cruller situation. Get him on that with the rest of the interns. We need our founder fixed.”
Tanya paused. Why was he insisting on trying to get the man fixed instead of contained? “Are you sure, sir? He might get hurt, and he never signed the waiver, there’s a legal liability there...”
“That’s a risk we’ll just have to take.” He said, “It’s a hard decision, but I’m the man who needs to make it.”
…Okay, she’ll definitely be telling Medical staff to come check him out. Truman was definitely not thinking straight if he wasn’t utterly terrified of lawsuits and the resulting audit.
But there was a time to mutiny for her boss’s own good, and there was a time to follow orders. Right now? In the middle of a crisis? One where she didn’t have an alternate timeline to cheat notes off of?
…She’ll follow orders.
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It was easy enough to confirm that the secure archives were secure. Unlike the vast majority of the computer systems, they were able to implement an access log, and she was the first person to access them in nine days. Tanya put the whole thing on an additional lockdown, literally removing a critical component of the data retrieval functions of the psitanium computer and destroying it to prevent anyone from accessing the top secret information without replacing it or using psychic powers to emulate the piece, which would require knowing exactly how to make the component anyway. Only her and Otto would be able to do so.
Just in case, she left a note apologizing for breaking it, slipping the sticky note inside the hollow created by her extracting the component. Sure, she didn’t plan on dying, and Otto was around, but it should stop Hollis from panicking if she finds out about the broken machine.
With the only important thing that Truman requested that she handle being taken care of, Tanya went to Medical. It was… rough. Every single bed was occupied by someone who had to be strapped into the table, everyone in beds had therapeutic helmets designed to counter psilirium poisoning, and the actual medical staff were extremely occupied. At a glance, the padded rooms were overstuffed, each converted into additional bed space using improvised restraints on top of straightjackets and psychoisolation helmets, presumably to prevent them from hurting anyone else in the absence of equipment meant to actually treat them.
Ah, there’s Director Frued. He was the grandson of the famous psychologist, and was proud of it. “Director, I have information.”
“What, what is it?” Director Frued asked, frazzled. “Is it more work or something to make my life easier?”
“Truman’s conscious but acting a bit strange.” Tanya summarized quickly. “He’s taking charge, so sending someone qualified to check on his mental state may prevent a disaster.”
“Shit shoved up a whore’s cunt!” He cursed in German. Tanya raised her eyebrow. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard anyone shove those particular swears together before. “I can’t send anyone.” He said, switching to English. “But I’ll tell Hollis to do it for you, she’ll listen to me.”
“Thank you. Goodbye.” Tanya said in German. Director Freud paused before slapping his own face.
With that handled, she could throw this valuable lockbox in the lake, as ordered… or she could try and defuse the Ford bomb first. With… Razputin. Tanya sighed. She needed to question him, at the very least.
Should she open the thing first? She does have the key… Nah. She needs her constitution undisturbed by smelling rotten food.
Entering the daycare for the third time today, Tanya looked around, then had to double take. “Lili? What are you doing here?”
Lili was sitting at a table with Razputin, the both of them playing chess. Lili was winning by a landslide, so Tanya assumed that Razputin was just learning. “Oh, hey Tanya.” She said, a little melancholy. “Dad insisted I go here when he woke up. Said it’d be safe.” She sighed in frustration.
“You want to help?” Tanya asked, finishing her thought.
“Yes!” She said angrily, before deflating. “But… It's kind of nice that Dad’s worrying. He doesn’t usually do that.”
“Usually, the danger posed by infiltrators isn’t so close to home.” Tanya said softly. Wait, why didn’t she get ambushed by… ah. Visha’s napping.
“Yeah…” Lili said.
“So.. why are you back?” Razputin asked.
“First, to ask you a question: Do you know how Ford Cruller found his way back into the Motherlobe?” Tanya asked directly, opening her mind to peer into his own.
“Urk.” Razputin said, locking up.
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with that bacon you saved, would it?” Tanya pressed.
“...Maybe?” He said, squirming uncomfortably.
Tanya smirked. “Well, then it’s your lucky day; Truman thinks you need to help clean up your own mess.”
“Yes!” Razputin cheered, abandoning the chess game. “Let’s go!”
“Can I come?” Lili asked, putting away the chess pieces.
Tanya paused. It was a really bad idea… “No.”
“Please?” Lili asked, clasping her hands together, quivering her lip, widening her eyes, and summoning the beginnings of tears.
“I’m not your babysitter right now, Lili.” Tanya insisted, “Your father just wants you away from anything dangerous.” She paused. “But I’ll allow it on one condition.”
“Anything!” Lili said desperately.
“If I tell you to run, you hit Razputin with the smelling salts and drag him with you.” Tanya said seriously.
“Hey!” Razputin said, offended.
“Razputin, if I tell you two to run, you hit Lili with the smelling salts and get her to safety.” Tanya instructed.
“Okay!” He said, before catching up with the scenario. “Hey!”
Tanya walked off, chuckling.
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“Why do I have to carry my dad’s lunchbox?” Lili asked.
“Because he’s your dad.” Tanya said simply. “I’m not throwing out a perfectly good lockbox when I can take it home and clean it out. I have a hydrokinetic power washer at home.” Or rather, she has a psitanium attachment she can put on the garden hose that consistently shoves enough water through the spigot to create the desired pressure. As it turned out, an ordinary garden hose used two to three times the amount of water than a power washer did. It didn’t have infrastructure to power it, so it required a psychic operator. She could do it manually, but it was really annoying without the spigot, and if she was using a tool anyway…
“Senior mailroom employees only.” said the speaker to the office where the important things in the mailroom are. More relevantly, it was one of the many locations where Ford holed himself up.
For the benefit of the kids… “Maintenance override.” She said needlessly, mentally inputting the commands to put it into maintenance mode.
“Eh?” Said Ford as they walked in. “Who’re you? What are you here for? You don’t look like a mailroom employee.” Every word increased his irritation, and Tanya could sense a buildup of psychic power as more of his fractured mind focused on this portion of himself.
“I’m a technician.” Tanya explained calmly. “I’m here to fix the faulty equipment.”
Ford calmed down. “Oh. Well you have a lot of work to do, then!” He said, irritated. “I can’t get half of this stuff working!”
“Given the reports, I expected as much, sir.” Tanya said, a little amused. “We call it a class-U error,” As in, "User error”, you technologically illiterate fossil, “and I will be fixing the source of the problem immediately.” She brought out Razputin’s psychoportal and placed it on the back of Ford’s head. “Just need to sort things out in here, to start.”
“Glad to see someone actually working for living around here, nothing but a bunch of slackers working here nowadays.” Ford grumbled as Razputin and Lili both projected inside the old man’s mind.
Tanya split off an archetype to keep watch in the physical world and followed them in.
