Kevin Curry
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Psychoprotective Book 2 Chapter 15
🕑 Added 2023-07-31 14:00:08 +0000 UTCI seem to have overcome a bit of the writer's block, so I may be able to keep up the updates for the next few chapters. I've also got another chapter of something in my back pocket that's a lot easier to write than this, just in case.
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Tanya was spared the tedium of having to find Bob by dint of getting “ambushed” by a group of men wearing concealing cloaks as she walked out of the spa, too relaxed to muster any serious killing intent. “I surrender.” Tanya said lazily, holding her hands up. She was expecting this after the message Agent O’Peia got off before they failed to fight off the rabble themselves.
“...Good.” Said the lead cultist, gesturing for someone to throw their sack over her.
As she patiently waited for them to carry her to the exact place she wanted to go, she sent another message to Agent Mentalis: “You should probably expect some thugs pretty soon. I’ll handle things here.” Theoretically, Bob could actually fight. Practically, the man hasn’t done anything more violent than tossing beer bottles at people in five years. Helmut’s psychic power would be substantially diminished with his lack of body, as the primary source of mental energy remains one’s own metabolism.
She had no illusions that Agents O’Peia and Boole could effectively combat multiple opponents. Not without a decent quantity of animal life, which is in short supply in the middle of a city.
The Deluginist stronghold was a building that Tanya immediately thought ‘church’ when looking at it, but on a second look, there was no christian symbology like one would expect. She knew this because she was telepathically riding passenger in the sensory cortex of the man carrying her in the sack, with clairvoyance. She kept the connection light, visual only, to prevent him from noticing her eavesdropping.
The cultists opened up a staircase in the middle of the floor of the cathedral with a pair of them telekinetically lifting a rather heavy fake floor, and the background noise of urban life, the telepathic emanations that Tanya had long learned to tune out, cut out when they closed the entrance behind them. Psycho-isolation, then.
The man walked towards some kind of… ritual chamber? It reminded Tanya of some of the Elenium labs, actually. Not the parts where she worked that Shugel ran, but the spell formula research division, which tended to fill rooms with arcane formulae, spell circles, and formations of symbols as they created spells that were then compressed into forms that the computation orb could understand.
In the center of a series of “spell circles'' created with etched psitanium rings, sat an elderly man wearing the fanciest cultist robes of the lot. A psitanium platform was behind him, and he gestured for the man that was carrying Tanya to deposit her on the solid crystal.
Tanya gave her best ‘unimpressed’ look at the cult leader as she sat on the platform, splitting off an archetype to examine the device to discern its function and to sabotage it if necessary.
“Yes, you’re powerful.” The man said, pleased. He spoke in English, probably assuming that she didn’t speak Grulovian. “Now, introductions: I am Kaven Galochio.” Tanya’s eyes widened at the name. “Ah, you recognize it? Perhaps a glimmer of recognition that you do not understand?”
Tanya frowned. What was he getting at? “I’ve heard the name before, somewhere.” Tanya admitted. “But it’s probably just a coincidence.”
“Tell me, child: How old are you?” Kaven asked, smiling.
Tanya did not like where this was going. Still, she needed to buy more time for her archetype. “If you must know, I’m sixteen.”
“Yes, that would make your soul… about seventeen years old, from conception to now?” Kaven continued, his smile growing.
What is he… oh. Is that what he’s getting at? “No. What are you jabbering about, old man?” Tanya said, pitching her voice into ‘petulant teenager’.
“You laugh, but you know exactly what I see.” Kevan said, chuckling darkly. “You come here, where Maligula fell, in the company of her killers, and show off a casual mastery of hydrokinesis. Do you think I’m a fool?”
Yes. Yes she does. Instead of saying that, Tanya decided to move on. “What happens now?” He archetype rejoined, informing her that the platform is a prison that could be activated with a thought, completely restraining whoever was on top of it. It had many other esoteric functions that could only be used capably by someone who understood them thoroughly, and she didn’t have time to reverse engineer them. Most relevantly, it interacted with the various other psitanium structures in the room to accomplish many tasks, reminding Tanya of an overly elaborate general purpose psychic machine, like Sasha’s “brain tumbler”. She’ll have to be careful not to destroy this if things devolve into violence. She wants to study it.
“Now, we’ll awaken the vestiges of Lady Maligula, my cousin, within you.” Kevan explained, smiling.
“You’re making a lot of assumptions.” Tanya pointed out. “Shouldn’t there be some sort of test?” She telepathically prodded the man, testing his mental defenses. They were ironclad, sadly. It looked like some of the psitanium in the room was reinforcing his shield, actually. Fascinating. It also meant that she couldn’t simply kill him at will.
Logically, externally provided barriers shouldn’t be as sensitive to intrusion as natural ones, so he likely didn’t sense her probe at all. His ignoring of it seemed to prove that. “But there was a test.” Kevan insisted, “My powers can sense the hidden rage within you. An endless well of power that will sweep the enemies of Grulovia aside.”
Hrm. Well, she does have that… His mistake is still stupid, in assuming that only Maligula had an empowered survival drive, but if he knew… “The original Maligula was defeated by six people. The Psychic Six were a bunch of scientists, too. Hardly the ideal group to use for such a purpose. No one person can deal with the power of a modern military.”
“Maligula did!” Kevan insisted. “They feared her, just like they’ll fear you. Once you remember.”
Tanya snorted. “You will die first.”
“You’ll thank me for returning you to yourself.” Kevan corrected, “Your favorite cousin, much better than that traitorous Marona.” Tanya attempted to act confused.
“Ah ha! You recognize that name too. You couldn’t have gotten that from the Psychonauts.” He said gleefully. Tanya winced. Right for all the wrong reasons… “Now, my minions are, as we speak, extracting the memories of Maligula from the Psychic Six. Between those, the memories of the Galochio family, that is, your family, and the Gzar’s, you will have everything you need to reconstruct yourself.”
Uh oh. Tanya had read the files on the Deluginist threat, and one of the things they were known for was the forcible extraction of memories related to their Goddess. It was not clean. Still, the Psychic Six should have significant mental defenses, right?
…Shit. She’s seen those defenses. “Well… cousin…” Tanya felt sick referring to this madman so familiarly. “I suppose all there is to do is wait. I suppose I’ll start by seeing if I can find any vestiges of memories of my previous life.” Subtly, she released a hypnotic wave of emotion, more to make him think that she was sincere than in a genuine attempt to bewitch him. Part of her simulation research included a surprisingly large amount of tricks to baffle telepathic and empathic senses.
The madman grinned victoriously. “Yes, you’ll see, General Maligula. You’ll bring greatness to Grulovia, just like before.”
Splitting an archetype to keep an eye on things here, Tanya sent the rest of her consciousness outward, seeking the one place she knew to get to nearby.
After all, she’s been there plenty of times.
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The PSI King’s mind was under attack. The Deluginists manifest somewhat anonymously in his mind, dressing almost like censors. Was that an attempt to confound his mental defenses? Does that work?
Well, if it doesn’t work here, that’s probably more because Helmut’s censor energy is still quite low. His self-identity is not as firm as it could be, and trying to emotionally prop up Bob Zanotto was definitely not helping.
Still, hurting them and kicking them out of Helmut’s head doesn’t do any actual damage, so Tanya flew in and ripped each of their projections apart. “Vison, what’s the situation?” Tanya asked as she spotted one of Helmut’s sensory representations.
“They’ve got her!” Ford Cruller’s voice said, maddened. “They’ve got Lucy! Everything we had! You’re too late…”
Tanya frowned. That wasn’t good… “Get PSI King. I need to talk with him.” She ordered.
As it turned out, Helmut had retreated to the concession stands, as his mind was still modeled after an outdoor concert. Helmut was there, stress-eating an impressively large stack of corn dogs. “It’s bad, Tanya.” He said after swallowing, another corn dog got dipped in mayo and was shoved into his mouth.
“What happened?” Tanya asked.
Helmut reached for another corn dog, but they were gone. Weren’t they just… whatever. “Bobby… He couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned, sweating… he had the shakes real bad, Tanya.” Helmut sighed in defeat. “He needed a drink.”
“Withdrawal symptoms.” Tanya said, understanding. “He hid it from everyone, snuck out to get a nightcap.”
“I came with him, of course.” Helmut said, continuing.his story. “Found a bar that was still open, got him some of the local stuff, we just… talked. It was a date.”
“I’m following…” Tanya said, taking a corn dog that was passed to her from Tasty. She looked at the… expansive platter of dips. No miso or wasabi… She likes barbeque sauce, let’s go with that.
“So eventually some weird guy starts talking about Lulu.” Helmut said, getting angry. “Talking about her like she was some Goddess. She was a person! A hurt one, who needed help.”
Ah. It looked like Helmut had taken Tanya’s lecture to heart, then. Has he read the research paper? Perhaps he just trusted it because it was an excuse to forgive? Who knows. “So you got mad.” Tanya said between bites of her corn dog.
“I got mad!” He confirmed. “Bob wanted me to ignore him, and I did… for a bit. He was doing the whole cult gospel thing. So eventually, I got up and said ‘Her name was Lucrecia!’ and everyone looked at me like I was crazy.” Or because he was a floating brain in a ball. “I kinda… went on a rant, about how she liked pancakes, and dancing, and she laughs like she has hiccups.” Can confirm. “That she was a person, you know?”
“So they kidnapped you.” Tanya finished.
“So they kidnapped us.” Helmut confirmed. They dug through everything I could remember about Lulu after bringing me to the cellar of the bar.”
Tanya huffed. “So I go through the trouble of getting kidnapped and don’t even get brought to the same facility as you.”
“Sorry.”
Wait. This basement was psychoisolated. She couldn’t have reached here unless Helmut was within the complex. “Maybe there’s a tunnel…” Tanya said, pondering. “I need to get into Bob’s mind. Could you guide me there?”
“Sure thing, Tanya. Thanks for kicking those guys out. Even if they were done, it was like having a boot on your neck, you know? They were calling me the Frozen Apostate or something like that. Don’t know how that makes sense.”
Tanya chuckled darkly. “I know quite a bit of putting boots on necks. I understand completely” Most of her experience was in jamming her boot on other people’s necks, but in a more metaphorical sense, she’s well acquainted with the feeling on the other end.
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Bob’s mind was an ocean of alcohol. Literally. It was storming, with the darkened silhouette of Maligula in the distance. With no raft or boat, Tanya just flew, Helmut retreating back into his own mind to try and guard it against further intrusion.
Finding the place where the invaders were was more difficult this time, given the conditions. But it was nothing in comparison to the storm that was Janitor Ford’s mind. A brief check in with her archetype showed that if Kevan noticed her exit, he was keeping that under wraps.
Eventually, she found Bob, ragged and tired, supported by a cactus that resembled Helmut, a tree with two faces, Agents O’Peia and Boole, and a set of watermelon vines, the fruit looking like… Tanya, Mary, and Lili. They were battling in a place where driftwood was everywhere, the plants growing out of the wood.
The cultists were still in their censor-like disguises, and the battle calmed when Tanya arrived, the cultists readying for a volley of PSI blasts but they held off on unleashing them, assessing her presence. “Leave.” Tanya told them. She pulled up some of the alcohol sea that the driftwood was floating on and formed a hydrokinetic drill. “Or it will be time for some improvised dentistry.” To add to the effect, Tanya made the water spin quick enough to whine in exactly the right tone to match a dentist’s drill.
Morale broke immediately, and the cultists began to flee to the other parts of Bob’s mind. “Wrong answer!” Tanya shouted, and Bob helped her dispatch every intruder in short order. “Is that all of them?” She asked.
“I think so.” Bob said, exhausted. He closed his eyes and presumably felt out his mind. “Yes, you’re the only foreign entity in here.”
“Can you get me into Agent Boole’s mind? Or Agent O’Peia?” Tanya asked. Theoretically, she’s been in Agent Boole’s mind before… but it’s been years…
“They’re captured too? Oh no.” Bob said, rubbing his temples and sniffling. “I’m such a failure… I shouldn’t have gone to that bar…” He took off his glasses and started wiping his eyes.
Agreed. “We didn’t seriously consider cultists a threat.” Tanya said, trying to console the now crying man. “Did they get what they wanted?” She asked.
“Yeah, they did.” Bob admitted, “Well, some of it.” He corrected, “Not everything. The memories of the battle are buried pretty deep by all that booze. They mostly got her gentler side. Lucy was always more interested in my research than the more mental stuff, you know. She just pretended to like it because Ford focused on that stuff.” Bob blew his nose on a handkerchief that appeared in his hand. “She told me that my work with agriculture could make a big difference for the world. I didn’t remember that until they dredged that memory up.”
Tanya found herself smiling ruefully. Yeah, she knows what it’s like for crazy mental shit to bring up memories that were actually pretty nice along with the terrible stuff. “It’s not too late for you to continue it.” She said after thinking about it. “But first thing’s first.”
“Right. It’s been a few years, but I remember how to report back…” He stepped outside of his mind into the Collective Unconscious, and Tanya followed him. Oddly, unlike the usual ‘blank everything’ environment, this place had walkways of light between many doors. “Okay, Compton’s mind was… over here.”
Tanya looked around at the odd structures. “What is all this?” She asked.
“Wha?” Bob seemed confused as he looked around. “Oh, right. You’re not an agent.” He said, in a tone that screamed ‘I made a mistake’. “Well, this place is a kind of… permanent waystation that Cassie made. It lets the Psychonauts check in on each other more easily.” He glanced around worriedly. “It’s classified, though. Don’t tell anyone.”
Ah, that makes sense. “I didn’t even know this was possible… I’ll ask Agent Mentalis how it works later.” She could use this… could she use the Collective Unconscious as a server farm? The possibilities were delightful.
“Well, I don’t really know how it works anyway.” Bob admitted. He stopped at a familiar-looking door. “This is Compton’s mind… or, not quite, but it’s a way in that he’s not going to block if he’s fighting off the Deluginists.” He leaned down, hands on his knees, and breathed heavily, exhausted. “Woo, it’s been way too long since I’ve left my head like this.” After a moment of catching his breath, he opened the door, the deceptively simple action probably representing a far more complicated action. “I’m not going to be helpful, I need to go back to my own mind. I need a drink…”
“I appreciate the assistance.” Tanya said, “I’ll take things from here.”
“Just don’t go crazy on us, okay?” Bob asked. Hm, someone told him about the Argent. Was it Agent Boole? Or Mentalis? It probably wasn’t Helmut.
Nevertheless, Tanya doesn’t think she can draw on that power when she’s so far removed from her body. She’d need to bring back her archetype at the very least.
Time to go.
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The game show studio that was Agent Boole’s mind was not in good shape. Four giant hand puppets, emulating Grand Head Zanotto, Agent Hollis, Agent Cruller, and Agent Mentalis as goats, were gorging themselves on food and spitting it out as gross projectiles on the censor-like invaders, who numbered five times as many as were still in Bob and Helmut’s mind. The actual censors seemed confused, like they weren’t sure who they were supposed to fight. Agent Boole was nowhere to be seen.
Well, until Tanya showed up. The censors, a rather large amount of them, zeroed in on her position and started to charge. Hm. Tanya left the mind. “Well, if it works for them…” Tanya muttered to herself.
Thinking back to that horrible week, Tanya recalled the entity that took on her old face. She recalled what it was like to be a man, to tower over people. She remembered her old desk, the seal she used to sign documents, including that fateful one, the one that got her killed. In the same way that Archetypes can be thought of as stepping out of oneself, she instead stepped inside, transforming her mental projection into a copy of her first life.
It… wasn’t as bad as the last time they tried this. But then again, they weren’t exactly in a good mental place back then. They definitely weren’t completely comfortable in this shape, but in the unlikely event that they need to avoid censors instead of dispatching them, they’ll probably do this again.
Newly armed, Tanya stepped back into Agent Boole’s mind, channeling their own censor energy into their hand and creating a copy of a censor’s stamp. They had absolutely no idea if this will have any side effects, but… Tanya ran at one of the cultist intruders, wielding their stamp like a katana and lashing out with an overhand swing, red ink manifesting as a blade from the censor tool.
Tanya grinned savagely as they sidestepped away from one of the globs of muck that was launched at the man he cut. Apparently, it was not enough, so a thrust accompanied by an iai impaled the cultist’s projection through the heart, which was enough to dissolve it entirely.
“NO!” Tenya shouted, rallying Agent Boole’s censors. Along with the word, Tenya sent out a burst of telepathy, designating each of the cultists as foreign invaders and himself as a friendly. As part of it, he projected a small sampling of cooking knowledge, sourced from Agent Boole’s nugget of wisdom, to prove his identity. “NO!” He shouted again, instructing the censors to attack the invaders with another telepathic burst.
In short order, the invaders were dealt with and the game show stage reset, the giant goat puppets retreating into the understage. “I’ve never seen anyone try that before.” Agent Boole said, sending his censors away. “Then again, I had no idea censors could be fooled so easily. I don’t think we’ve ever tried disguising ourselves as them before.”
“Well, I admit to making the whole thing up on the spot.” Tenya admitted, chuckling. He looked down at the downright tiny Agent Boole. He was shorter than him even as a girl, so it was just strange seeing someone so small at this point. “Can you direct me to Agent O’Peia’s mind, please?”
Agent Boole’s eyes widened. “Oh dear, yes, we should help her. Follow me, Tanya.”
Tenya hummed. Why was that so irritating? “Tenya, when I’m like this.” He corrected.
“Only if you start calling me Compton.” Agent Bo-Compton retorted. “Start using Cassie and Otto’s name too. You’ve earned it.”
What? Tenya blinked. “...Okay.” He said. Compton has him there, he did ask for him to use his given name. He’s too used to being an American.
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Age- Cassie’s mind was, as expected for an author, a giant library. Paper flew all over the place, the cultists fighting paper-thin constructs depicting various things, from knights to dragons to anatomical models. Leading them was a group of similar drawing-on-paper entities that looked like Cassie in various roles, although Tenya didn’t bother sparing the brainpower to decrypt each one’s appearance. Most of them looked like some flavor of librarian, but that was mostly because Cassie’s real appearance just screamed that.
Compton had put on his own censor disguise, taking off his hat and putting on some glasses along with wearing a suit and wielding a stamp. “Do I look weird?” He whispered.
“Extremely.” Tenya replied, “But so do I. Own it.” One of the lessons that they learned in this life was that if you were considered competent, if not a genius, minor transgressions of dignity reinforced your status rather than weakening it. That made some of the more unusual reactions of the General Staff make more sense, in hindsight.
Tenya channeled more censor energy and projected instructions throughout Cassie’s mind, just like he did in Compton’s. With that, a flood of censor doors started appearing, disgorging mental defenses that attack the cultist’s projections.
With the censors preventing the cultists from teaming up, effectively providing covering fire, Tenya easily mopped them up, two or three at a time, until Cassie locked up her mental defenses and had the various paper dolls that bore her face fuse back together into a three dimensional psychic projection.
“That was rough.” She said, “It’s been ages since I’ve had a mental battle that tough.” She gave Compton a hug. “But you saved me again Boolie. Thanks.”
“Thank Tenya.” Compton said, “He did all the heavy lifting, I’m afraid.”
“Oh?” Cassie asked, intrigued. “Is that… Heaven field?” She asked. That is certainly a more common spelling…
Tenya shook his head. “No. It is written with Ten as in ‘rules’ and ‘ya’ as in ‘affirmation’.” After a moment, he added: “My family name is ‘Deguchiya’ which is written with ‘exit’ and ‘affirmation’ again.” Which, in hindsight, is actually kind of an amusing coincidence, with someone who went to a different world having a name meaning ‘exit’.
“It suits you. I’ll be sure to remember that.” Cassie said, smiling.
Compton put his hat back on and threw away the glasses and stamp. “Now, did they manage to get anything, Cassie?”
“Not much.” Cassie replied, “They got up there,” She pointed up into the very tall ceiling in this library chamber, a dome where a globe hung from the ceiling. “I didn’t quite catch what they grabbed, but everything’s still there so they only copied it.”
“They’re seeking your memories of Lucrecia.” Tenya said. He looked over himself and decided that this guise has served its purpose. With a thought, the false face dissolved, leaving her back in a copy of her physical body. “Woah… that was… something.” Tanya said, the effects of assuming their original body leaving in a rush.
“How are you feeling, Tanya?” Compton asked.
“I’m fi-” Tanya cut herself off. She should be honest here. “Kind of… light I suppose? I feel good.” She supposed that she did worry that the improvised plan would go terribly, but it worked better than she expected.
“A conflict you didn’t even know you had has just been resolved.” Cassie said in an official tone, giving her medical opinion. “Sometimes you can gain a new appreciation of yourself by stepping away for a little bit.”
“Yes, I theorize that finally stepping back in your old shoes, you cleared up the lingering dissonance from knowing that Tenya is also you intellectually and emotionally.” Compton said, adding his own take.
Hm. “I suppose reinforcing my identity will be quite handy, given what’s about to happen.” Tanya said, “Now, I need to tell you what’s going on.”
Tanya started outlining things, also sharing her plan on how to deal with it.
