Kevin Curry
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Psychoprotective Book 2 Chapter 6
🕑 Added 2023-05-22 14:00:05 +0000 UTC“Why this pose?” Agent Nein asked. He was holding Tanya up by her Psychonauts jumpsuit, the slack provided by the oversized garment allowing her to hang a whole foot below his hand.
“Give her a stern glare.” The art director said. “Like she just got into some mischief and needs scolding.” He pointed to Tanya. “Give me a nice sheepish look.”
Simple enough. Tanya gave her best ‘shounen idiot’ grin, as if a wide enough smile would make Agent Nein less angry. Hand behind her head included. “Perfect!” The art director said. “Sasha, be sterner. Let’s say… she just crashed the jet. It’s totaled. You’re frustrated. It’s her fault.”
After Sasha adjusted his expression, the artists began their drawings in earnest. They had been sketching rough lines while the director made small adjustments, but their energy picked up when they were given official sanction to begin.
“How’s your arm, Sasha?” Mom asked from the sidelines after several minutes of boredom. She was maintaining a psychic link so they could speak without moving their expressions.
“With reinforcement, I can maintain this pose for at least an hour.” Agent Nein replied, a hint of pride entering his mental voice. “I hope you’re not too uncomfortable, Tanya.”
“You’ve got me hanging by my center of mass, this is surprisingly comfortable.” Tanya explained calmly. “I’m tempted to fit in a nap.”
They continued telepathically joking around until the art director nodded in approval at all five artist’s sketches of the scene at various angles. “Okay, now hold her up by the front of her jumpsuit.” He said. “If you’re going to be wearing such a baggy outfit, we can get some physical comedy by letting you hang.”
Tanya nodded, and negated her weight for Sasha to flip her. After a second or two of adjusting his grip to minimize discomfort, she let herself fall into the pose. “What’s my motivation?” She asked the director.
“Something’s just exploded and you’re hanging from a random cliff, concussed.” The director replied.
After assuming a facial expression that she hoped conveyed ‘delirious’ and not something untoward, she continued her discussion with Mom and Agent Nein. “How many poses did they make you two do?” She asked. The director allowed the artists to pick up the pace without telling her to change what she was doing.
“Enough to fill an art book.” Mom replied. “Twenty-five to thirty, in total.”
“Twenty-eight.” Agent Nein sent. “Thirty-one if you count this session too.” So, in other words, they had over ten to go. Irritating, but given that it was supposed to be comprehensive, it seemed like a reasonable amount.
“At least the artists have all been… polite.” Tanya sent, changing the subject. She expected at least one of them to crack a nude model joke, at the very least.
“Yes, I had a word with them before you arrived.” Agent Nein replied. “I reminded them what your writing stipulations implied when it came to your image priorities, and how that impacted their own work.”
“I appreciate that.” Tanya replied. “They can make me as childish or cute as they want. But I don’t want to give the fans any untoward ideas.” Ideally, it would lead her fans to want to ‘protect her innocence’, rather than more gauche examples of fandom, like a countdown until she hits 18. Granted, such measures may be excessive, but she’s perfectly willing to be seen as paranoid, as long as the outcome she guards against does not come to pass.
“I was thinking of having them increase the size of your eyes a bit.” The art director cut in. Oh, she forgot he was part of this conversation. While many of the artists were not psychic, pretty much every management role was filled by one.
“That does sound like it would make her look cuter.” Mom agreed. It would also make her more anime-esque, which Tanya approved of.
They spent a little bit more time discussing various little touches that could be used to characterize the True Psychic Tales version of Tanya, both things that she actually did and things that were more exaggerated. “Okay.” The art director said out loud. “That should be plenty of you in your uniform. We’ll need a few drawings in other outfits. Did you bring what we asked for?”
“Swimsuit, two sets of casual wear, and pajamas, yes.” Tanya said, counting them off of her fingers as she floated back down to the ground.
“Pick one to do first and change into it.” The director instructed.
At least she only needs to do this once…
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“Thank you for watching him.” Tanya said as she accepted PSI King’s mobility capsule.
Mary eagerly took the five dollars Tanya held out to her. “Pleasure doing business with you.” She said, pleased with herself. Tanya resisted the impulse to correct her grammar. She definitely wasn’t going to make fun of how appreciative Mary was of such a small amount of money. A small signing bonus was standard among Psychonauts employees, an extra paycheck’s worth, so she was flush with cash, by a teenager’s standard.
“We had fun.” PSI King said. “Did you know I speak Swedish?”
Mary interrupted: “Not very much of it. Also, not very well.”
“My umlauts are perfect, though.” PSI King insisted. Mary didn’t disagree. He continued: “Hey, we saw a poster about a rock concert that’s this weekend, can we go?” Mary had a distinct tendency to like anything that got a moral panic in the news from the church-going crowd. It was a little odd, given how devout she still was, but the arguments against the things were always stupid. Tanya was just always a little surprised when Mary did something rational, unprompted anyway.
“Where is it?” Tanya asked as she walked into the lab, Mary following at her heels. She technically didn’t have authorization to be here, but as long as she was with Tanya, Mom, or Agent Nein, she could go anywhere they can, as a registered guest.
“Just in the city.” Mary said. In Mystery, referring to “the city” meant only one place: Springfield, the state’s second largest city. It wasn’t that far; Massachusetts was pretty small. Even going to the other side of the state to Boston was do-able as a commute, particularly by flying car. Really, owning a flying car made anything within two hundred miles a reasonable commute.
“Ask Mom.” Tanya said as she hooked up the mobility capsule with the fluid cycler. “I’ll manage without you for the day, PSI King.” She could spend the day wargaming instead.
“She said we could only go if you took us there.” Mary said immediately.
Drat. “Who’s playing?” Tanya asked as she watched the fluid cycler drain the capsule, the hydrokinetic pump much gentler on the brain inside than one that used pressure differential.
“Van Halen.” Mary replied, grinning.
They weren’t bad, if a bit loud. PSI King would benefit from a high-stress test that he would want to enjoy, probably. “If we can get tickets, sure. We’ll go.” Tanya said. Mom was always insisting that she be “a loving big sister” and “form fond memories that will last lifetimes”, which was a rather large concern for an immortal like herself.
PSI King and Mary cheered at the news. “Mom said she’d take care of it if you said yes.” Mary said after they finished celebrating.
Tanya immediately connected to Mom’s mind. “Are you sure you can get tickets to that concert?” She sent. If Mom was confused as to what she meant, it meant that Mary was lying. She hasn’t tried to fool Tanya in over a year, but that doesn't mean that she shouldn’t be vigilant.
“Don’t worry darling, I have ways.” That confirmed Mary’s side of the story. “We’ll go to that water park again on Sunday, when I’m not working.” Mom sent back. Now that sounded fun. Water Whizz opened earlier that year, and the grand opening was a good time. “Thanks for doing this for Mary, I love you.”
“I love you too.” Tanya replied before cutting the connection. She slotted PSI King’s capsule into the prototype of the APES. “Mary, that’s where the transport network is. Go inside and go home.” She said, pointing at the lid in question before projecting into PSI King’s head.
“Let’s get those drums.”
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PSI King’s brain was brighter than normal. As in, Tanya could see, as if it was a normal night with the stars shining.
Audie O was present at the top of the cliff Tanya had arrived at. After a moment, PSI King’s primary consciousness joined them. “Nothing much like being high like this.” He commented.
“You know it, PSI King.” Audie O said, nodding as he looked over the wilderness scene lit by starlight. He offered an odd mushroom to the ball of light. “Mushroom?”
“Ugh, no thanks.” PSI King said. “You know I don’t like mushrooms.”
“Yeah, I know.” Audie O replied. “But now you do too.”’
PSI King paused. “You’re right! Thanks, Audie. Love ya.”
“I love you too.” Audie O said solemnly, hugging the ball of light close. Tanya furrowed her brow. Was this relevant? Or just a sign of PSI King going insane?
After giving them a moment to luxuriate in the embrace (they would do the same for her, she was sure), Tanya snapped her fingers. “I believe we have a search to go through?” She asked.
“Oh, yes.” PSI King said, embarrassed. “Let’s take a look around? I guess?”
“How big are these drums?” Tanya asked.
Audie O took a moment to think on that question. “You know, I can’t rightly remember.” He said. “But you were right, I haven’t checked my ear canal. Could you take a look?”
Now that it was the subject at hand, Tanya could feel… something off about Audie O’s mouth/ear canal. It was subtle, but that was good enough for Tanya to indulge the silly request and follow through with her earlier sarcasm.
When she looked into the ear canal, she felt herself being drawn in through a spatial tunnel. As this was probably where she needed to go, she relaxed and let it happen. The tunnel had the appearance of a kaleidoscope, colors and patterns shifting before her eyes until she ended up laying face first on the ground with no recollection of colliding with it.
Standing up, she took a look around. Unlike every other part of PSI King’s mind, this place was intensely colorful. Every single surface was painted brightly, with no rhyme or reason as to what was colored what.
After a moment, she did start to make out some sort of pattern. Mostly, a lot of the environment was ear-shaped, and most of those were the same shade of blue as Audie O’s skin.
Otherwise, the place was littered with sound equipment, the kind you’d see at proper concerts. Tanya started humming a few bars that Mary started earlier. “Running with the devil~” She sang softly as she started to explore. She didn’t memorize the lyrics to that one.
There were actually a few figments in this portion of PSI King’s mind, which was new. They were mostly music-related, but there was one person: It was a little difficult to make out the features exactly, given all of the visual noise it was among, but she got a full understanding of its shape when she absorbed it. Was that what the PSI King looked like? Or was it someone he knew? The figment was depicting the man sitting on a picnic blanket, smiling widely.
She feels like she may have seen this man before. That full beard was rather generic, and he wasn’t dressed in a distinctive way… Perhaps a picture?
“Hey.” PSI King said in greeting while Tanya was busy thinking.
Startling, Tanya brought up her full barrier before realizing that it was just the mind’s owner. “Don’t do that.”
“What are you doing?” He asked.
Tanya frowned. Ah, she lost the mental image of the figment. “I was trying to gain clues from your figments as to your identity.”
“Any luck?”
“No.” Tanya replied. “I hope this environment won’t be overstimulating you.”
“It’s fine.” The PSI King said quickly. It didn’t sound fine. “Just… maybe sing a little? DIstract me?”
Tanya started to hum the introduction to I Will Survive. If he’s heard it before, it won’t be as stressful to hear. Eventually, she found something of interest: A golden microphone. “Oh, a nugget of wisdom.” She said, surprised.
“...Oh!” PSI King said, as if he was just remembering. “I know what that is! Do you want it?” He does? Now that’s interesting.
“I already know how to sing.” Tanya replied. “Also, our vocal ranges are likely way off from each other. That matters, I wouldn’t be able to learn much from you. Save it for someone else.” Agent Nein lost a bit of those combat skills in translation, as unlike her he can’t automatically assume that all of his enemies are significantly larger than him and can also fly. She supposes it isn’t impossible that there could be singing-adjacent psychic skills mixed in there, but if he turns out to know a lot about obscure telepathic techniques, she can always change her mind later.
“Yes, that’s a good point.” PSI King said, disappointed. “Who taught you, anyway?”
“A former opera singer.” Tanya replied. “She taught a church choir I was forced into.” She cleared her throat and sang the scales, holding each discrete note for about three seconds each. It was actually rather surprising at times how easy it was to transfer skills learned in one life to the next, even muscle memory. Then again, her second and third lives had a lot in common, build-wise. Was it even possible for her to reincarnate as anything other than a blonde haired, blue-eyed slavic girl? Two data points are not sufficient to say for sure. “Sister Lotte could manage to shatter a wine glass with the resonant frequency, but she never let us try to do so ourselves, so I don’t know how to do it.” It would be a pretty cool party trick.
“Yeah, that’s a cool trick.” PSI King replied cheerfully. “So, where are those drums?”
Good question. “I arrived from there… so my best guess would be as far from there as possible.” Tanya said, pointing to the entrance to this section. Ugh, looking around is giving her a headache. So bright… She thinks there may be some noise above or below her hearing range, too. Or she was just suffering from minor tinnitus. Given that she’s a mental projection, it was likely not that.
Oh, right, she’s supposed to be singing. “Go on now, go, walk out the door…” Ah, that seems to be counteracting whatever infrasonic or ultrasonic hazard the place was putting out. “Just turn around now…” Tanya picked up speed as she flew around and through some obstacles. “‘Cause you’re not welcome anymore!”
‘
On cue, censors descended on Tanya. One of the things that kind of annoyed Tanya about navigating mental worlds was that flying just meant that all of the mental entities started to fly as well. Fish trailing rainbows flew towards her, with censors riding their backs.
“Who are those guys?” PSI King asked. “Are they friends?”
“No.” One of the censors said as it leapt from the fish to hit Tanya with its stamp. A flick of telekinetic force pulped the entity, causing it to explode in mental energy.
“Censors are forces of order, in your mind. They’re what stop thoughts that should not be from propagating.” Tanya sighed and landed on a random platform. “Foreign intruders in your mind qualify as thoughts that should not be in your head, so your mind makes token attempts to oust me.” It was actually a good sign that his mind was active enough to muster any kind of resistance. “Don’t worry, they’re utterly disposable.”
Having deliberately made herself somewhat vulnerable, censors flooded the area as the not-quite audible noise intensified. They were easy to dispatch, but the acts of violence seemed to distress the PSI King.
“This is too bright…” He whined. The world rumbled as his stress built up. Streaks of darkness broke up the technicolor landscape, and Tanya could feel a distinct dampness in the air. “No… nononono. Not her… GET AWAY!”
Two panic attacks manifested as a shroud of noise and light encompassed the area, and that was a lot more difficult to defeat than just one. Each one covered for the other as Tanya built up aggressive energy to destroy them with, whichever she was better placed to attack became the one staying on the defensive and transitioned to offense whenever she switched her focus.
Well, she’ll just have to take things up a notch. Bringing forth the unpleasant memories of frantic combat, Tanya invoked one of the more curious psychic powers: Time Warp. Most people who knew it used it to slow down time, using it offensively on others. Tanya couldn’t quite manage that. Instead, she just sped herself up, which was stressful and exhausting.
The world around her slowed down to a crawl, even the panic attacks moved as if play-acting rather than seriously fighting. Anything of lesser speed might as well not be moving at all. The aggressive energy that was building up to a PSI blast instead formed into a blade, wickedly sharp with her lethal intent. In less than two non-accelerated seconds, the panic attacks were in three pieces each, Tanya taking deep breaths to recover from the potent psychic technique. Fortunately, it was only a quarter as stressful when used in a mental realm in comparison to the physical, so such a small amount of use was easily handled.
“Woah.” PSI King said, dumbfounded as the mental entities dissolved. “You’re pretty strong, aren’t you?”
“I’ve been told that.” Tanya said, deflecting the attention with humility. “Your mental defenses aren’t very powerful, except when you draw upon hysterical strength to create panic attacks.” Fundamentally, drawing upon unsustainable amounts of power, enough to be harmful to the users, was why panic attacks and nightmares were so powerful in comparison to other mental entities. It was the one advantage to having an empowered survival drive, the ability to invoke that strength at will.
Happily, PSI King had no such empowerment at his fingertips. Now that the shroud of sensory overload had abated, the seemingly-infinite terrain had changed, instead showing a grand shrine dedicated to Audie O. Well, it wasn’t so much a shrine as a giant statue of the entity that was seated and in a guru pose. In the statue’s lap, a full drum set sat, with flourishes that made it better resemble internal ear anatomy. “Here we are.”
“...How did you know you needed to stop here?” PSI King asked.
“I didn’t.” Tanya replied. “But I flew for four miles with no discernible change in the terrain. I suspected a trick.” Her ability to sense the terrain was, apparently, able to be fooled. She was hardly an experienced Psychonaut, so while it was the first time that’s happened, it’s not surprising that she was learning new things.
When PSI King touched the drums, the entire region collapsed, warping their location back to… a stage?
“Oh jeez, it’s been so long…” Audie O said, as he sat at the drum set, which was properly moved to the stage. “What do I play?”
Tanya looked around. There wasn’t an audience, and there were figments scattered around the stage, outlines of people holding instruments. One was actually of Audie O, so the other five… Were probably the other senses. The one with the hand-like head was the only one that she could definitely trace to a specific sense, touch of course. DIdn’t Audie O mention a “Dr. Touch” at some point? The only other one she could guess at was the one with the head that looked vaguely lip-shaped, perhaps that one was taste. Which of the other three was sight, smell, or proprioception/balance/whatever it represents, she couldn’t say.
Nevertheless, she gathered the figments to herself, recovering a small portion of the significant amounts of mental energy she had expended. “What is this place, anyway?” PSI King asked.
Tanya actually knew the answer to this. “This feels like an exit to your mind.” She said. “But it’s not at the edge of your mind.”
“Yeah, that sounds right.” PSI King said, bobbing up and down.
“There’s very few places in your mind that lead out without being the edge. Given everything, there is only one possibility: This is where your sensory input enters the rest of your mind.” Tanya said, taking a lecturing tone. “In fact… now that I know this is here, I may be able to properly align the artificial senses of the mobility capsule.”
“You think?” Audie O said. “It’d be nice to see the rest of the band. Dr. Touch, Tasty, Sniffles…” after a moment, he nodded to himself. “-even Vision.” Wait, that was only four of the five. Was the last one… a silhouette of PSI King’s actual body? She’d wouldn’t dispute someone calling that tall and broad bear of a man as a ‘mighty oak’, after all.
“If it wasn’t for Vision, I wouldn’t be half the man I became.” PSI King asserted. “He brought everyone together, after all.”
“I know…” Audie O said despondently. “But does he have to be such a diva about it?” He asked, “He can’t handle the crowd on his own, after all..”
“For now, let’s see if we can turn the bandwidth of your hearing up to normal levels.” Tanya said, reaching out telepathically to the mobility capsule’s psitanium technology. She did know, from the documentation, that this part basically involved her acting as if she was linking herself to it, and because she was inside the brain, it would just link up through there. Easy. The issue was, she never actually did that before.
After a moment, she gave up on linking up to the systems and turning them on from inside. Instead, she instructed her archetype to turn the hearing on, and once that tiny connection was opened, it was a simple matter to open it up further and to adjust it. “Okay… I think I’ve done it.” She announced as floating ears started to wander into the empty audience section. “Play them a beat that they can dance to.” She instructed.
“Okay.” Audie O said, before doing just that. Drums weren’t usually seen as an instrument that had good solo performances, but he did a reasonable job of creating a beat that the crowd seemed to appreciate. They didn’t seem unhappy, at least.
“Huh.” PSI King said contemplatively. “That music you’re playing outside… it’s cool.”
“It’s Otto’s.” Tanya explained. “He likes Metal music, and his record player is what was around.” She could probably get some disco tracks if she raided Jerry’s office, if needed.
“It’s great.” PSI King said, bouncing to the beat that Audie O was now copying. “I bet this kind of music will last a long time. “
“It’s actually being largely supplanted by punk rock, to my understanding.” Tanya said idly. That’s what that newspaper article said, anyway.
“They’ll fail!” Prophesied PSI King. “And be stricken down.” He must be in a joking mood, if he’s going full music snob. “The Metal will live on.”
Tanya checked her watch. Ah, she does not have time to do anything intensive here. “That’ll have to do for today. Otto won’t miss his records before he returns to work, so you can listen to them back home.”
“I appreciate all that you’re doing for me, Tanya.” PSI King said seriously. “I’ll pay you back, no matter what it takes.”
Tanya flushed at the outpouring of gratitude. It was a little early to be bandying out oaths like that, wasn’t it? “Thank you.” She managed to squeak out before breaking out the smelling salts.
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After a simple but delicious dinner of fried rice with miso-marinated cabrito; an unusual combination but the meat was locally sourced, there was not much else to do but to watch some TV as a family until bedtime. PSI King was there too.
“Man, being in the military sounds like a laugh riot.” PSI King said as they watched a popular show about an army hospital in the Korean war. Unlike before, his new mastery over his sense of hearing allowed him to somehow manage to alter the voice in the speakers to match his own. Tanya wasn’t entirely certain how he was pulling it off. Perhaps she should have taken that nugget of wisdom…
“At times.” Tanya agreed, cuddled up to her mother’s side. “Few things can get as bored as a low ranking soldier that’s not getting shot at.” She chuckled. “Their creativity can cause more damage than the enemy, if they’re particularly inventive.” The Salamander Kampfgruppe provided many anecdotes of that nature.
“If you’re important, can do things others can’t, they’ll let you do anything.” Mary said solemnly. “No matter how bad of a soldier you are. They’ll just yell and bluster.”
Mom’s smile vanished at the sudden downturn of the mood. “Don’t be so gloomy, Mary. It’s still summer vacation for another couple of weeks, no frowns allowed.” She poked Mary a few times in the side, provoking a giggle. Mary was incredibly ticklish, so it didn’t take much effort.
“Am I missing something?” PSI King asked, confused.
“Don’t worry about it.” Tanya replied dismissively. “Just listen to the show.” Unexpectedly, fingers ghosted up and down her torso, provoking a burst of laughter. Mary was not the only ticklish one on the couch.
All subtlety was abandoned, as Mom used one hand each to mercilessly tickle both of her daughters. “Mom!” Mary shouted insincerely between giggles. “I’ll get you!”
Tanya just laughed, not resisting the assault one bit. Telepathically, she sent a wordless impression to explain what was going on to PSI King, as she did when the TV had an excessively visual gag that he would be confused over.
PSI King’s control over his voice slipped, the original synthesized voice rendering his laughter in an emotionless deadpan. “Ha. Ha. Hahaha. Ha.” Ah, she must have sent too much of the sensation of being tickled along the telepathic link. Re-asserting that control, he mimed taking deep breaths, which supposedly actually helped, according to ‘So you’re a brain in a jar’, a book that Mary managed to find in Mystery’s public library the day before. After Mary claimed that she was about to wet herself, Mom let up her tickling assault. PSI King chuckled once more as Mary dashed to the restroom. “That was a trip. Think your monkey machine can have a tickling thing?”
Monkey machine? Oh, the APES. “I usually reserve simple playbacks with little required input for my dream player.” She replied, noting that there was a commercial on so she could safely ignore the television. “It works fine, I already filed the patent now that my employment contract clarifies the ownership of things.” She also sent initial FDA paperwork, but she can’t actually afford to make a proper clinical trial of it, so that’s a long term concern. It was safe enough that she didn’t mind occasionally using it herself, but she was just a bit cautious when it came to side-effects of long-term use. “I suppose I could adjust the hunting scenario’s defensive mode’s code, make something where you’re a child that’s getting chased by a tickle-happy parent. It’s not like games where losing is part of the fun would be unprecedented…” Perhaps difficulty levels that adjust the user’s effective age, and thus the relative size of everything else?
“Losing sucks, though.” Mary said as she sat back down on the couch. Oh… it would be unprecedented. That was more of an advanced video game design concept… right?
“That does sound fun.” PSI King agreed. “Not quite what I was thinking, but fun.” His puerile giggle gave away what he meant.
Tanya just rolled her eyes at the joke. She’d like to say that she wasn’t looking forward to when her work was inevitably turned into a vehicle for pornography, but she intended to fully capitalize, becoming very rich when that occurred. Until then, the public would just have to settle for the device that just nudges your otherwise ordinary dreams in whatever arbitrary direction you want.
Sex sells, after all.
Comments
Chris Larson
Huh so Mary likes going to things that has other church goes clutching their pearls? Good for her I do the same. Religious doesn't mean that you shun everything fun or new. Especially when you don't hurt anyone.
