“Agent Mentalis took a vacation?” Tanya asked, incredulous.
“Yep.” Said Jerimaiah ‘Call me Jerry’ Lewitz, her actual supervisor. The technicians tended to fall into two categories: engineers who could fabricate the artisanal psycho-reactive technology that the Psychonauts rely on for their work, and tradesmen who could maintain and fix both the ordinary technology and the psychic technology. Jerry was an engineer, so unlike the tradesmen he was an unathletic man who nevertheless towered over Tanya. Pretty typical IT guy, if Tanya had to describe him. “Wanda from HR called me early so I could do Otto’s work before my normal job starts. Even got Hollis to approve the overtime.” This was serious. “The way she told the story, Otto called in sick, and she persuaded him to take the whole week off. Then he decided to just fuck off until the new guys come in next Wednesday so he can train them.”
“That’s not like him…” Taya said.
“Nope.” Jerry agreed. “I asked about it, and she thinks he was hung over.”
Didn’t Agent Mentalis mention he was going to ‘visit Bob’? Well, that checked out. Still, if she couldn’t consult the premier expert on the interface… “How much do you know about mobility capsules?”
He seemed like he was about to boast, but then paused. “Is there a brain currently inside of the one you’re having problems with?” He asked, looking directly at Harry’s capsule as it floated behind her, carried by a telekinetic hand.
“Yes.” Tanya replied.
“You’re going to want to talk to Medical.” Jerry said, nodding to himself. “I can and have made those things from scratch, but once the wetware gets involved? Not my department.” He checked his watch. “You’ve got some time to talk to them before your shift starts. Get changed beforehand so you can get straight to work. Did Angela tell you what you’ve been assigned?”
Tanya nodded. “The thinkerprint scanners, yes. Agent Mentalis made sure I was properly trained for that yesterday. Further, he assigned me the Brainframe maintenance, and trained me for that, too.”
Jerry smiled. “Good ma- wait, good gi- no, that’s even worse.” He paused awkwardly. “Good.” He settled on. “You know what to do then.”
Tanya politely ignored her superior’s flub and walked to the transit tunnel. “Goodbye, Jerry.”
---------------------
Agent Jolene Colton was one of the research-oriented Psychonauts, with a particular focus on continuing Helmut Fullbear’s work on the senses and on the necessity of stimulation for mental health. She also worked in Medical, diagnosing and treating the various maladies of the brain that Psychonauts tended to get to. Most importantly, she was enough of a workaholic to be around thirty minutes before her shift so she could read the latest scientific literature.
Tanya wasn’t entirely clear why, but it was custom to not refer to the doctors in the Psychonauts by their title. She’s heard of weirder corporate culture rules, so it was no big deal.
“So the sensorium won’t properly connect to the capsule’s prosthetics?” Agent Colton asked as she examined Harry’s capsule for damage. “That’s not surprising, these things are finicky as hell. The brain inside has to do most of the work. It’s why you only see psychic brains in one of these things.”
“Is there a solution?” Tanya asked.
“That depends.” Agent Colton said, hedging. “The easiest way would be to find a donor body, real sensory organs are way better at adapting the brain to them, it’s practically automatic.”
“What are the drawbacks of that option?” Tanya asked, intrigued by the option. “Further, are there any loaners available?”
“To your second question, no.” Agent Colton said bluntly. “The main drawback is that it takes some pretty aggressive psychic meddling in order to resolve the sensory overload if you use a real body. It’s not the safest way to treat sensory deprivation.” She waved her hand vaguely. “That isn’t to say that it doesn’t work, but it’s risky.”
“What would you recommend?” Tanya asked, getting straight to the point.
Agent Colton snorted. “If I could wave a wand and make it happen, I’d recommend you admit him as a patient instead of attempting to fix him yourself.” That did seem fairly reasonable… “But as you may not be aware of, we can’t just take random brains off the street and start treating them as patients. He’s in a bad spot, but not ‘immediate danger to himself and others’ bad. Hollis wouldn’t stand for it.” Right, this was still America. The Psychonauts are still beholden to American law when working on their citizens. Without knowing who Harry was… “So what you need to do is to go inside the brain and fiddle with the controls yourself. Any kind of mental stimulation should let him open up, allowing you to do what you need to do.”
“I’ll figure something out.” Tanya said.
“It’s nearing time for us to clock in, so that’s all I can do to help. Bye!” Agent Colton said, getting up and walking towards the punch clock next to the transit tunnel.
Well, back to work.
---------------------
“I just think that making you handle the brain machine on your second day is just a bit overboard.” Harry asserted as Tanya finished with the final sanitation procedure for the Brainframe’s maintenance.
“If I was in charge, I’d make sure every new recruit got a turn on the brain machine.” Tanya countered. “It’s a valuable lesson on how dirty the important jobs are.” While Tanya’s tolerance for disgusting viscera was certainly much lower than it was before her mental restructuring, she was hardly some delicate flower who needed to be spared the sight of blood. Brains were nothing. Regular brains anyway. Not brainmeat tunnels. Those were gross.
“How old are you again?” Harry asked.
“Old enough to have a master’s degree.” Tanya deflected, chuckling. “You’ve made excellent progress, by the way.” Tanya added. “Do you think you can handle some visual input again?”
“All right, hit me.” He said. Tanya adjusted the psitanium camera, turning it on at a low intensity before pointing it at a wall that had a crack on it from a stray PSI blast.
Meanwhile, Tanya disabled the door to Agent Mentalis’ laboratory, removed and disassembled the thinkerprint scanner with her tools, and examined the internals. Seeing no fault, she infused the psitanium with additional mental energy as per the instruction manual to allow it to function properly without cannibalizing itself. Task complete, she re-assembled the scanner and re-installed it in the door. As the final step, she set it to test mode and had it scan her.
“Welcome, Technician Dosva.” The synthesized voice of the scanner said in greeting.
Well, that was done. It only took her ten minutes. Hopefully she’ll be able to cut it down once she gets more used to the assembly of the device. “One down, four hundred and six to go.” There was a reason Angela said this would take over a week to do. “How’s vision coming along?” She sent in Harry’s direction.
“It’s loud, bright, and smells like bacon.” Harry replied, clearly frustrated with the weakness his ordeal had given him. Relatable.
“Well, it’s time to move.” Tanya sent, informing him before he could panic. “There’s four more scanners in this section before we need to move to a different one.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
---------------------
Tanya had always enjoyed optimization. The pursuit of perfection, only attainable in limited forms as one toiled and failed. It was why they tended to enjoy the more complex, simulationist games as they grew up.
What was the best way to accomplish this task? Under what conditions is this step unnecessary? What parts of the task can be automated? This process served her well in her second life, allowing her to see the fatal flaws in the Empire’s aerial mage doctrine. Even now, she remembered that mission fondly, correcting her subordinate’s useless evasive maneuvers against the Dacian formations, foes that could not hurt them.
One lesson that Tanya learned well in the military was that frequently, the best defense was a decisive offense. This process was no different. Many of the disassembly steps for the thinkerprint scanners can be done in tandem, multitasking techniques used to their full effect. What at first took her ten minutes quickly went down to five by lunch, and by the end of the day a scanner in good working order could be fully disassembled, assessed, recharged, and re-assembled in two hundred seconds.
That said, there were plenty of drags on that productivity. “The door is down for maintenance.” Tanya asserted.
The agent that was bothering her wasn’t one she recognized, but he was exactly the kind of man that Tanya would expect to be harassing the staff. Given that he was trying to get into the mailroom instead of getting his mail delivered, he likely wasn’t particularly important. “Just let me through. The door is mostly open, I’ll just squeeze-”
“No.” Tanya said, interrupting him. “Security protocol is that no one gets through a door that’s down for maintenance.”
“What if there was a fire?” Asked the nameless agent.
“Emergency protocols override security protocols when applicable.” Tanya replied, glaring at the man who tried to violate procedure when she ignored him. She couldn’t resume her task until he was gone. “Now go away and come back after I’m done.”
“You’re not the only one working here, girl.” The agent whined. “I need to get Grand Head Zanotto’s mail. He’s expecting a package.”
Hrm, if he was telling the truth, that could be problematic. “Then I’m sure he’ll appreciate that you took the time to prepare him some coffee while you were out.” Tanya said. Take the suggestion… “I’ve seen him drink it black.”
“Hey, what’s going on here?” A gentle voice came from the other side of the door.
“Hey Nick.” The man said. “Look, you know me, I’m just here for Truman’s mail.”
“Ah, Tim, was it?” Nick Johnsmith replied.
The now named Tim smiled. It was a greasy smile, assured that he was important when he definitely wasn’t. “That’s right. Tell this girl that I can go through.”
Nick’s aristocratic features peeked out from the slightly open door. “Oh, Tanya!” He said, smiling. “I see you got the job, good work.”
“Yes, thank you.” Tanya said. “Security protocol is quite clear: No one goes through the doors when the scanner is getting maintenance done.”
“You don’t want me to call Truman over this. You’re going to lose that new job.” Tim threatened. Given how the last time Tanya had seen Grand Head Zanotto, he was saying standard ‘my kid is always talking about you’ parent-babysitter pleasantries, somehow Tanya didn’t think that nepotism is going to be on Tim’s side here.
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…Unless he decided that having a job was impairing Tanya’s ability to babysit. With some thought, she put that at a 30% probability. Truman Zanotto was more professional than that, his habit of coming into work in a bathrobe on days without outside meetings notwithstanding. “You’re one more threat away from me reporting you as an enemy spy.” Tanya retorted. “Insisting on the violation of security protocols is exactly what a spy would do.”
“Woah, let’s all calm down here.” Nick said, pre-empting Tim’s next outburst. “How about I just go get Truman’s mail and pass it through the door? The packages are already scanned, after all.”
“Thank you!” Tim exclaimed, his relief palpable. “Finally we have someone talking sense around here.”
While it was theoretically possible for this to be some kind of nefarious scheme, at least it wouldn’t be her fault if it was. “That is acceptable.” Tanya said. “Now back off and let me do my job.”
After spending a few seconds pretending to work, Tanya double checked that the man was remaining still and not trying to bypass the door. Satisfied, Tanya proceeded to finish the disassembly of the thinkerprint scanner and inspected it.
…What was this? The psitanium device was wrong. It looked more or less the same, but there was a distinct difference in the segments that checked with the brainframe’s database. It wouldn’t link to anything at all, in fact. But wouldn’t that mean it couldn’t open? She saw it open fine right before she put it into maintenance mode.
…The segment that received the signal from the brainframe was also compromised. It would open no matter who tried to go through, while still looking like it worked. But it still says the person’s name, she heard it.
Even that segment was nonstandard. It used the thinkerprint to generate the name and title based on a standard ask-and-answer telepathy prompt, the same thing that she had suggested the ‘under-18’ safeguard operated on. It would just announce whoever goes through, whoever they are, and you could get it to say whatever you wanted if you knew the door was compromised.
This was definitely sabotage. Three flaws that worked together to make a seemingly functional lock while being nothing of the sort? The probability of a coincidence was astronomical. How long ago was this thing inspected?
Tanya glanced at Harry’s mobility capsule. He’s been quiet for a while… “Can you make out what it says yet?” Tanya asked him. She had given him a sticky note to read, it said ‘Can you see me?’.
“No.” He replied despondently. “I give up. It’s just… yellow, with blurry bits of black.” That actually sounds like progress. He didn’t describe any sounds or tastes that time.
“Perhaps we could try hearing again?” Tanya proposed. “Just for a change of pace.”
“That sounds nice.” Harry replied, emphasizing ‘sound’ to make the joke clear.
“We’ll work on your sense of humor later.” Tanya sent back flippantly, smiling at her own joke. She turned off the mobility capsule’s camera and turned on the microphone.
“Hey, I found the package.” Nick said, deferential as usual. He pushed the door open a bit and sent it through.
“Thanks a bunch Nick.” Tim replied, telekinetically lifting the package and walking off. “This midget works slower than molasses. Newbies.”
“Say hello to Truman for me!” Nick shouted after him. Turning to Tanya, he got a worried look on his face. “Um, Tanya? Is there something wrong with the door?”
“Yes, actually.” Tanya replied. “Do you happen to know off the top of your head who I’m supposed to bring security concerns to?”
“Security concerns?” Nick said, frightened. “Is… is it the Russians?”
“Perhaps.” Tanya said. “I’ll just contact Jerry, I suppose.” When you don’t know what to do, talk to your immediate supervisor. It’s their job to tell you what to do. Reaching out with her mind, she contacted the telepathy “switchboard”: “Agent Osec, I need to speak to Lead Technician Lewitz.” Along with the message, she sent her authentication code, which was the smell of chocolate and coffee.
“You got it. Technician Dosva.” Agent Osec replied, accompanying the message with the sound of bubblegum popping and the smell of cherries. The authentication codes were irritating, at times.
After a moment, Jerry’s own code, the greasy texture of WD-40 and the sound of tearing duct tape, was sent. “What’s up, Tanya? I’ve been hearing that you’ve been pretty busy today.”
“You have?” Tanya asked, surprised.
“It’s your first day of actual work, of course I’m going to keep tabs on you.” He replied. Yeah, that made sense. “You’ve been doing a bit too great, actually. Have you been skipping any of the procedures?”
“Of course not!” Tanya sent back, offended. “I may be a bit overqualified for this kind of task, but I wouldn’t dream of not doing anything but my utmost at any of my duties.” She really was. You didn’t generally need an engineer to compare the crystal structures to the documentation and confirm that everything was in line with expectations. She was even finishing the replacement while she talked, it was such a simple task by now.
…Of course, that may be why no one noticed the subtle sabotage on this one. “I’m afraid I noticed something disturbing.” Tanya sent, getting to the point. “One of the doors was modified to allow anyone through while appearing to function perfectly.”
Alarm bled through Jerry’s telepathic link. “Where?” He asked.
“The mail room door.” Tanya replied.
“At least it’s not a secure area…” Jerry’s reply was rough, and a touch panicked. The undercurrent of ‘why isn’t Agent Mentalis here to handle this’ was clear in his tone. “What’s the most secure area you’ve checked so far?” He asked.
“Agent Mentalis’ laboratory, but it was clean.” Tanya sent back. “As per procedures, I’m going in order of clearance level per facility.” It would take over a week just to handle all of the low-security doors. They outnumbered the higher-security ones four to one.
“I’m almost there, show me.” He sent, before cutting the switchboard-moderated link.
When Jerry arrived, Tanya showed him the modifications, comparing it to one of the three spares she had in the large floating toolbox she had following her around the Motherlobe. Well, two now, after she swapped one into the mailroom door. Finally, she scanned Harry. “Welcome, H3([^]()7 :=()((8=4}{” Both of them winced at the discordant screeching sound that was in place of a name. But the detached scanner gave a checkmark and sent the ‘open’ signal nonetheless.
“Yeah, this was done by an expert.” Jerry confirmed, scowling. “The Soviets could have pulled this off, but how long ago did they do it? I wouldn’t trust any of the tradesmen to notice anything more subtle than cracked psitanium, and you’re probably the first engineer to look at this scanner since it was built.”
“Do you think we have a mole in the engineer corps?” Tanya asked.
Jerry shook his head. “No, it’d be easier for them to just sneak the compromised ones into the warehouse. If they stole an equal number of scanners when they left them, we’d have no way of noticing if we didn’t catch them in the act.” He turned the scanner in his hands idly as he thought more about possibilities. “You checked the Brainframe too, right? You probably didn’t skip checking for tampering on that, either.”
“You are correct on both counts.” Tanya said carefully. “Everything was as expected.”
“Yeah, if we had an engineer tampering with stuff, they’d definitely have done something to that.” Jerry said, nodding to himself. “Their penetration of the facility isn’t quite that deep yet.” He sighed tiredly. “Well, we’ll keep this quiet, for now. I’ll talk to Truman. In the meantime, just… keep going. Replace any you find and put the tampered ones in one of the empty women’s lockers for later. If you need any further instructions, I’ll tell you when I can, or Truman will backchannel it to you.” In this case, ‘backchannel’ referred to unofficial personal communication, either telling her directly while talking about other matters or using Lili or Mom as a messenger. “I’ll put in an order for extra scanners, it’s not that weird to need to replace more than usual after a skipped maintenance cycle or two.” He sighed again, his voice becoming something of a whine: “I’m going to need to ask Hollis for more overtime budget…” Tanya suspected that she’ll be voluntold to take some of those hours to handcraft more scanners.
“Understood.” Tanya said. Why did this have to happen in her first week on the job? How did it come to this?
Resigned, Tanya put Harry’s mobility capsule back on the floating toolbox and trudged off to the next door.
---------------------
Back at the orphanage in her second life, Tanya was in the choir. She didn’t want to be the choir, but the nuns were quick to resort to spanking if they felt that the children were not sufficiently deferential to their authority. It was a bit of a shock the first time it happened, honestly.
As it turned out, she actually had something of a talent for singing. She initially assumed that it was a plot by Being X… but after going through all of her first life memories, she couldn’t entirely rule out the possibility that she always had that talent. She was complimented at times for her karaoke skills, in fact. She always thought herself barely proficient, which was automatically above average by karaoke standards, but she was barely proficient with absolutely no training or even that much effort. Mom was sure to point this out when they went over those memories.
Further, one of the nuns was a former opera singer, so she spent quite a bit of time training the choir in actual vocal skills. Skills that Tanya learned. So when Tanya tested Harry’s hearing by singing a C note, she was confident that she was actually singing one rather than belting out some random pitch as long as possible.
“I think I can hear it.” Harry sent through the telepathic link she was maintaining. There was no way Harry wasn’t a telepath, if he was still cognizant after so long as a brain, but he was unable to reach out on his own. “That sounds like a C note all right.”
“Then what’s this?” Tanya replied, taking a breath and singing an A note instead. It wasn’t the highest note she could hold, but it was close.
“Woah!” Harry sent back. “That’s a nice high note. That’s a low A, right?”
“It was a normal A.” Tanya said after stopping. She paused. Did he hear her?
“...You said it was a normal A?” Harry sent, unsure. He did.
“I did.” Tanya confirmed. “It appears your hearing is aligned better than your vision is, at least.” It made sense, the technology of the psitanium hearing aids that were incorporated into the ball was more mature than the psitanium cameras. It was a less complex signal.
“I love hearing.” Harry gushed. “Just thinking about audio makes me feel like a blushing schoolgirl.” After a pause. “You know, at the School of Rock and Roll.”
Well, that was a very strange sentence. She walked out of the testing room into the rest of Agent Mentalis’ workshop, telekinetically carrying Harry’s mobility capsule behind her. “Hm, Jerry’s gone off somewhere.”
“So… you promised me a song.” Harry sent. “If I figured out hearing.”
Tanya winced. “Yes, I suppose I did.”
“If you sing it, I’ll help you with your thing. You said it might hurt me?” Harry offered.
“If I did everything right, it should be harmless.” Tanya responded. “But there’s a reason I wanted to use a brain that I thought was already dead for the first activation.”
“Give me the numbers, doc.” Harry replied.
She was very good at estimating risk, but… “I’d give it a 70% chance of working without complication, twenty with minor complication, and ten with serious damage to your mental world.”
“I’m feeling lucky.” Harry said. “Sing a popular song! One you like.”
Tanya did, in fact, like one particular song, a very popular one, that came out late last year. It was a break up song; she didn’t usually like romance-related music, but she liked a lot of the lyrics, imagining Being X as the ex-boyfriend in question provided a certain feeling of empowerment. “Alright.” It was probably one of the only songs she had sung enough in the shower to be confident in her performance.
The singer in question had a deeper voice than Tanya did, so after a deep breath she pitched herself lower as she started to sing. “At first I was afraid, I was petrified, kept thinking that I could never live without you by my side.” She definitely couldn’t have survived the orphanage without spite for Being X. If she remembered her first life without knowing why? “I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong, and I grew strong!”
As she continued to sing, Harry’s emotions roiled through a tapestry of feeling, totally absorbed in the song as the telepathic link expanded through his intense focus.
“Go on now! Go, walk out the door! Just turn around now ‘cause you’re not welcome anymore!” Tanya’s muscles twitched to the beat in her head as her memory of listening to the song over the radio. As no one was around, she let those twitches guide her in a dance as she allowed the foreign emotions to direct her steps. “Weren’t you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye? You think I’d crumble? You think I’d lay down and die? Oh no, not I, I will survive!”
As expected, Harry started singing along to the chorus when she repeated it. Towards the end, he seemed to have recovered some of his telepathic talent as he started singing along to the whole song, without a single stumble in the lyrics despite having never heard the song before. At its conclusion, his mental voice was bursting with emotion. “That was beautiful!” He said. “So fresh, such affirmation after heartbreak!”
“I’m not a fan of the love-related parts of it.” Tanya said, to prevent the brain from getting the wrong idea. “But I do like the overall message.”
“...I completely understand.” Harry said, before backpedaling. “Well, I’m not sure what I understand yet, but I feel ya, right here.” If he was in a body, Tanya imagined he would be tapping his chest right now.
“Now to test the prototype.” Tanya said, wanting to be talking about anything else. “I altered the test memory when you were calibrating, so it should allow you to experience a nice breakfast.”
“Hook me up!” Harry said gleefully, still in a good mood from hearing the first music he’s heard in seventeen years.