Despite Tanya’s reservations, there were a few things she could do to mitigate the risk to Harry’s mentality. Mostly, it involved personally moderating the psychic connection and actions. It didn’t quite ruin the usability of the tests, but it did it no favors. If it would have gone catastrophically wrong without her intervention, she probably would be able to tell even without letting it actually go wrong. It just means she’ll need more tests, which is hardly the worst hardship.
She was back inside the darkness of Harry’s mind. It was not quite as oppressive as before, she could make out some blobs in the darkness that might have been the remnants of memories. Further, the floating ball of light was now a ball of glowing white wire, a microphone without a handle. Progress.
“The first thing we need to do is to locate the exterior of your mind.” Tanya said, looking at the prototype’s scanner readout. She had it mirrored to a tablet, which she could carry a copy inside someone’s mind. It was another piece of technology she couldn’t take credit for, it was one of Agent Mentalis’ inventions. Being able to look at his machine readouts when inside someone’s mind was too useful for him not to do. “According to the scanner, this segment of your mind is pretty deep inside, these memories we’re surrounded by are probably rather important ones.” Also probably very traumatic ones, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.
“Oh.” Harry said, uncomfortable. “So… we need to move?”
“Indeed.” Tanya confirmed. She felt out with her psychic senses. The structure of this place seemed fairly linear, actually. Like the back of a cave. The only way to go was… This way. She started walking, the light of Harry’s body lighting the way. As they passed the blobs of memory, she noticed that multiple ones were roughly the same shape. If she assumed it was an image of Harry’s real body, he must have been a rather large man, broad in both shoulder and stomach. The tall memory was clearly some kind of nightmare, or something else he was scared of. Or Harry was just really short. The blobs were much bigger than her, though, so it would require a truly absurd sense of scale for that to be the case.
“...I think this is the way forward.” Tanya said, pointing to a piece of darkness that was visually indistinguishable from the rest. She didn’t want to describe it as this section’s weak point, but honestly it was the best way to describe her sense of it. It was the best place to breach. “Can you open it?”
“I’ll try.” Harry replied, floating towards the patch of darkness. Tanya waited.
…and waited.
“I can’t.” Harry said after what Tanya estimated was about five minutes of staring at the darkness.
Tanya manifested a massive telekinetic construct of a hand, pushing intently at the wall. With no change, she tried a different tactic: She knocked.
“Who’s there?” Said a voice. It wasn’t Harry’s voice, it was rougher, lacking the musical smoothness that Harry’s voice had.
Harry gasped in recognition. “Audie!” He shouted. “It’s me!”
The wall opened up like a gigantic door, revealing an absolutely massive blue person who had a giant ear as a head. He was dressed as a member of a marching band and had fronds coming out of his hat. “PSI King?” He asked. “Is it really you?” The ear-man sniffed, his voice wracked with sobs. “I’ve missed you so much…” Well, that’s a better thing to call him than ‘Harry’, at least. Was that his stage name? Or perhaps an affectionate nickname? Usually, when something in a mind has a different voice, it’s because it represents someone that person knows.
“I’ve missed you too, buddy.” PSI King replied, shooting himself out the door into Audie’s chest. The giant stepped back, and Tanya flew through the now-free passage.
Immediately when she stuck her head through the threshold, the scale changed, and Tanya had to shuffle and crawl out of… a Memory Vault? Interesting. Fortunately, she was still very svelte, so while it took a little wiggling to get her hips through the tiny door, the rest of her came out without much trouble.
Looking around, Tanya noticed that the place was… a campground? Well, sort of. There was a tent, and trees. The place was rather dark, although Tanya’s psychic senses gave her something resembling vision of the area.
“So who’s the girl?” Audie asked.
“That’s Tanya.” PSI King said, “She’s the one who found my brain. We’re going to test one of her devices, it might help us.” Or hurt them.
“Maybe I should get Dr. Touch in here, feel things out.” Audie said worriedly.
“Can you?” PSI King asked hopefully.
“...No.” Audie admitted despondently.
“...I think that way would be the best place to activate the APES prototype.” Tanya announced, pointing towards what she sensed was the closest external border of the mental world. “Let’s go.”
---------------------
As it turned out, there was a lot of empty space in PSI King’s mind. All of the various segments of it had drifted apart, and the space between was some kind of lightly forested terrain. It was pure filler, exactly the kind of thing the prototype needed to do its thing.
“I’m activating the APES!” Tanya shouted as she sent instructions to the archetype she had piloting her body.
After a few seconds, the portion of the PSI King’s mind that Tanya had designated transformed into a box as the Artificial Psychic Enviroment Simulator did its work. It was a box with lines noting every decimeter, like graphing paper, deliberately designed to be obviously artificial. “Walk inside the box and the simulation will begin.” Tanya instructed. She walked through the box’s borders, there wasn’t really a door so you could enter from any of the walls.
Inside the simulation, Tanya sat at the simple breakfast table, breathing deeply through her nose to get the full olfactory experience. She was going to enjoy this.
It took PSI King a minute or two to work up the courage to enter the simulation, but he did show up… still as a ball of light. “Wow!” He said, impressed by the spread of rich American breakfast food. “But… how am I supposed to…” He trailed off.
“There’s a function for that.” Tanya assured him. “I’ll activate it now.” One of the goals of the device was to be able to impose rules on the user, to create a fair-ish gaming experience. As a part of that, this included the ability to set models for the user’s avatar. While there was certainly a level of appeal to being able to accomplish things that you couldn’t ordinarily… there was also a market for people who simply do not like what they look like and would not be able to enjoy themselves unless they could imagine themselves as someone else. Also, being unable to alter the avatar’s clothes would be… problematic. Particularly if diapers did end up being necessary equipment, which was probably not going to happen but she couldn’t completely rule it out.
The glowing, floating microphone transformed before her eyes, as she activated the pre-set default appearance… which she set to look like Link, because it amused her. Legend of Zelda isn’t even out for another seven years. She should know, she played that one when it was new.
“Woah…” PSI King said, looking at his new hands. The environment tinted green as he marveled at them. Those hands then fondled his ears. “...Why am I an elf?” The environment brightened, which was a bit of a worrying sign.
“Because you look like whatever I programmed in.” Tanya replied. “My initial testing idea was some kind of elf hunter tracking a deer. Simplistic, but it pays close attention to the sensory experience.” Tanya smiled pleasantly, to put the man at ease. “Now, you have one hell of a fast to break. Hop to it.”
She put on a confident front, but in reality, she was paying close attention to the integrity of the simulation, ready to disengage if things start going crazy. It should be less intense than normal sensory experiences, but it’s still the first time he’s used most of those senses since he lost his body…
PSI King the Link cosplayer sat down at the table and grabbed the honey pepper pancake stacker. He giggled at the novelty of doing so, took a deep sniff of the food. The simulation tinted itself purple as he did so, and Tanya quickly clamped down on the mental energy flow. “That’s good, but… shouldn’t it smell stronger?” He complained.
“I turned everything down so as to not overwhelm you.” Tanya said, a little misleadingly. “I might have gone overboard.” She pretended to turn it back up. “Try again.”
He sniffed the pancakes some more, and it seemed to be less disruptive the second time, the purple tinting of the environment was subtler. “That’s better.” He said happily. He cut a portion of the food out without trouble and ate a bite. The simulation started to turn yellow as he absorbed himself in the flavor.
Tanya tried to be gentler in her throttling of the sensation, but she had overcorrected: the simulation melted into a riotous combination of sensation. To make things worse, Tanya could detect that the PSI King’s mental defenses had decided that the foreign box was something that needed to be destroyed, censors pounding the weakened simulation with their stamps.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
His expression was uncomfortable, and he tried to hold it together, but… “It’s too much!” He shouted. “It’s loud, and spicy, and feels like honey!” The PSI King groaned. She really had her work cut out for her, didn’t she?
Fortunately, he calmed down after Tanya tore the panic attack apart, the accompanying tiny censors easily dispatched. “Did you enjoy it, at least?” Tanya asked.
“Yes, thank you.” He replied, having turned back into the ball of light. “I just… realized how much I’ve been missing out on.” He said despondently.
“Hey now, don’t feel sad.” Audie said, suddenly appearing. “That’s my job.”
The PSI King chuckled at the ear-man’s joke. “I know, Audie O.” Was that part of this entity’s name, or was that just him rhyming for no reason?
Tanya checked the time. “I could transition it back to the original scenario, if you wish?”
“I don’t like hunting.” PSI King objected. “Animals can talk, if you know how to listen.” Tanya did know, but most animals were, put bluntly, assholes. She regretted many things about how many people she had killed, but the fact that she killed people at all was never among their number.
“...Give me five minutes to adjust it to be nonviolent.” Tanya promised him. Hunting and hide and seek aren’t that different.
“Deal.”
---------------------
“It’s so fluffy!” PSI King said, utterly pleased as the simulation tinted itself pink. He was sitting down in the Link cosplay, petting the copy of Rudersdorf’s dog that Tanya had imported to the simulation. “Seems kind of… stupid though.” He said after watching the memory bolt away to the reset point.
“It was a rush job.” Tanya said defensively. “The deer is much more carefully programmed.”
“Well, it works.” PSI King pointed out. “Now what?”
“Now, we turn it off and see if there’s any lingering influence.” Tanya explained, walking out of the simulation. When the ball was outside of the box, Tanya sent the instruction to her archetype and the box shrank to nothingness. There didn’t appear to be any changes to the area it used to occupy… wait. Was it… brighter?
Tanya looked around. No, everywhere was a little brighter. It was still dark, but now she could discern shapes without needing as much focus. “I choose to believe this is a good sign.” She declared. Honestly, she was mostly hoping that positive affirmations would have a placebo effect at this point.
“The show must go on!” PSI King declared. “Wait, what show?”
“The Feast of the Senses.” Audie O answered. “Remember? …Not like it matters. No one’s in the audience.” Hm, has she heard this voice before? It’s probably her imagination.
“That’s nothing new.” The PSI King said before pausing, thinking on the ear-man’s words. “...Maybe we could have a rehearsal?” He proposed.
“You sure?” Audie O asked. PSI King bobbed up and down. “I don’t even remember where I left my drums.”
“Did you try your ear canal?” Tanya asked, smirking at her joke. Of course the ear man is the drummer.
“Vision’s not here to check down there.” Audie O said, shaking his head. “Could you?”
Tanya checked her watch. “No time. I don’t want to miss dinner.” Mom said she was going to cook steak to celebrate her getting the job. Tanya loved steak. “We’ll pick this back up tomorrow.”
---------------------
“Tanya, why do you have a brain ball?” Was Mom’s first question when she arrived at home, a little late but before the food got cold.
“It’s called a mobility capsule, technically.” Tanya corrected as she cut her steak. “But this is the brain I’m using to test my machine.”
“You brought it home… why?” Mom asked.
“I didn’t want him to get lonely.” Tanya replied, before eating the delicious red meat.
“Hello.” PSI King said out of the ball’s speaker system. It was immature technology, it couldn’t yet emulate someone’s voice. Instead, it used the generic, vaguely feminine tones that the other psychic technology used. Apparently, it was synthesized from a combination of Agent O’Peia and Mentalis’ voices.
Mom leapt out of her seat in surprise. “He’s awake in there?” She asked, vaguely horrified. “Otto let you use a living brain?”
“Agent Mentalis didn’t know he was alive.” Tanya said. “He… didn’t take the news well.” It was hard to do worse than ‘immediately go on a drinking binge’, short of literal suicide. He didn’t even get the news that PSI King was still alive, just that he had forgotten to test it. “He took a week’s vacation pretty much immediately rather than deal with it.”
“I don’t remember much.” PSI King explained. “But Tanya’s device lets me pretend to eat. It’s been ages since I’ve been able to do that.”
Mom’s expression softened and she sat back down. “Is there anything I can do to help?” She asked. Mary seemed keenly interested in the orb now, although she was still more occupied with her own meal.
“When the weekend comes, some deep delving into the dark corners of his mind may be useful.” Tanya allowed. “But if you could secure a donor body we could pop the brain in for a few hours, Agent Colton said that could be an effective, if risky, treatment.” Given that the capsule only had effective sight and hearing, although it could theoretically provide a combination smell/taste sense. Either way, it would be necessary to activate touch.
“Sasha might be able to spare something.” Mom said idly. “I’ll ask.”
Tanya put some of the marinated carrots in her mouth. The sweetness was an excellent complement to the steak. “We’re not in a rush. The bigger concern is the sabotaged thinkerprint scanners I found today.”
“Sabotage? On your second day? Tell me more.” Mom said, a note of excitement in her voice.
“Bull!” Mary said, pointing her fork at Tanya. “You’re not that great, why wasn’t it caught sooner?”
Tanya chuckled and started to explain. She probably shouldn’t break opsec like this, but this is more of securing some backchannel support in case someone was to try to use the bureaucracy against her. The Soviets probably haven’t penetrated the Motherlobe to that extent, but it was prudent to hedge her risk portfolio.
“It doesn’t seem too dangerous, at least.” Mom concluded. “I agree with Jerry. It’s best if things are kept quiet until the vulnerability is caught.” Tanya relaxed at her mother’s ruling. “But I’ll ask Hollis for some time off from missions, so I can be available at the Motherlobe. I still need to catch up with the True Psychic Tales people, go over some scripts.” One of the stipulations of the comic’s agreement with the relevant agents was making sure they knew what the comic was saying about them so they wouldn’t be caught off guard if a random fan managed to ask them questions about it.
“Ah, I still need to meet them as well to play art model.” Tanya said. She wasn’t particularly looking forward to that. It was yet another thing piled on her metaphorical desk. At least she already met with the writers and clarified all of the various minutiae on what she would and would not be depicted doing.
Mom winced. “They were very professional when I did it.” She said, although she didn’t seem very sincere. “Even for the swimsuit.” She probably meant that most of them were professional. No matter. If she couldn’t intimidate some pencil-necked artist into politeness, she doesn’t deserve her rank. “We can go together, sometime tomorrow.”
Mary laughed. “Tanya? As a model?”
“Art model.” Tanya corrected. “If I’m going to be a character in True Psychic Tales, they need to know what I look like, which is particularly important if they intend to freeze my age like they have Mom.” According to True Psychic Tales, she was 28 years old. This was accurate when she was introduced, but naturally, that number has gone up over time. “So I’ll need to let them draw me in various poses, outfits, and expressions so they can be used as references for the actual comic.”
“I’m a little confused.” PSI King said, startling Mary. “What’s all this about?”
Tanya just focused on her meal. Let him interact with someone else for a bit. Mary stepped up to the plate. “Ah, the Psychonauts are super-spy-psychics. They have a comic book where they tell everyone how cool they are.”
“Brilliant.” was PSI King’s opinion on the propaganda. “Can I have a comic book? I’m pretty cool. Even if I’m not God.”
Mary scowled at the brain in a pod. “Certainly not!” She shouted. “God doesn’t sound anything like you!”
“Full disclosure: This pod makes me sound pretty weird.” PSI King said. “My voice is normally way sexier.”
Mom glared at PSI King, but decided to not raise a fuss. Mary wasn’t actually ten, after all. “Eat your dinner, Mary darling.” Mom said scoldingly.
Mary paused. “Wait, don’t brains still need food?”
“I gave him fresh nutrient fluid before I left the office.” Tanya replied. “The high energy formulation for active brains needs to be changed out every day.” The not-quite-starvation rations that the long-term preservation formula put PSI King on either helped him stay sane by forcing him into some long hibernation cycles, or exacerbated things by making him suffer. She wasn’t entirely clear if disembodied brains could feel hunger. It was probably the former. Yet another thing a body would fix.
“That green stuff?” Mary asked. “It looks gross.”
“It’s actually edible.” Tanya said. “It’s mostly glucose; sugar.” Assuming that you drink it fresh out of the pot, it’s actually kind of tasty… if you diluted it. She spent some time tinkering with the flavor early in the year, when she was still a student. “Assuming you ignored me when I told you not to drink the green stuff I put in the fridge, you’ve even had some.” Mary paused at that, and from her expression, Tanya knew that she did, indeed, drink the diluted nutrient fluid.
The meal concluded with Mary bashfully avoiding the topic of brain juice.
“Great, dinner’s done, now what?” PSI King asked.
“Now it’s time for some light exercise.” Tanya said. “I forgot yesterday, and it’s good for digestion.”
Mary groaned from her position, washing the dishes with Mom. “Do we have to?”
“Yes.” Mom said. “It’s healthy, and Tanya’s method is quite useful.”
“I miss exercise.” PSI King said. “I was a mighty oak of a man, you know.” What an odd turn of phrase.
Still, it was a simple matter to move inconvenient furniture aside and to dress down to their exercise clothing. “Uh… should we be dressed like this in front of…” Mary pointed out after she had halfway undressed.
“He can’t see.” Tanya explained. “Only his hearing currently works, and the camera in the mobility capsule is currently off.”
“Don’t mind me.” PSI King said cheerily. “I’ll just busy myself rewriting the lyrics of that song Tanya sang for me.”
Once all three women were ready, Tanya called out “Form One!” and they all kneeled onto the carpet, careful as they moved steadily into the starting position. Even that simple motion was difficult, as she used her not-so-secret training technique.
The primary obstacle when it came to exercising, to reverse the issue she had accidentally caused herself when she used psychic reinforcement to cut short learning to walk, was that she needed to completely focus on not enhancing her muscles in order to not accidentally ruin whatever task she put herself to.
To fix this, Tanya instead developed what she referred to as the psychic resistance formula. Instead of telekinetically assisting the motion of every muscle and movement, it does the opposite: telekinetically impeding those motions. At first, the amount of resistance was negligible, but it was impossible to simultaneously assist and impede her motion, so as long as she impeded her motions at least a little bit, she could be assured that she wasn’t wasting her effort by leaning on her telekinesis to reduce the physical stress.
Granted, there were a few embarrassing hiccups during development, as there were muscles that could handle being strengthened without side effects beyond not needing to work as hard, but the opposite was not true. By now, she was notably strong for someone of her size and weight, her meat-rich American diet going a long way to assisting that endeavor. It still wasn’t anything impressive, as she could lean on her psychic powers if she needed to actually lift anything, but her muscles now become visible when she flexes, which is good enough for her.
The actual routine was just a handful of aikido kata she had cribbed from an instruction book that the Psychonauts had on hand as training materials. They didn’t quite exercise every muscle, but they came close, and it wasn’t that big of a deal to add a few supplementary exercises to ensure that, as an example, her fingers were capable of supporting her weight, if needed.
She had initially thought to use Levitation to make herself heavier, but anime lies: gravity training was a good way to cripple yourself, and it wouldn’t exercise your muscles evenly. All you needed to train a muscle was resistance, and all exercises were just to aim that resistance to specific muscles. No exercise equipment could possibly be superior to the simplicity of directly applying that resistance to every muscle all at once, then trying to move. It was an innovation that she wished she could have used to improve the 203rd’s physical conditioning, but she didn’t have the authority to tinker with novel spell formulas back then.
Mary, of course, didn’t appreciate efficiency in this, and instead preferred to call it ‘torture’, but Tanya had administered counter-interrogation training, she knew what torture looked like. This didn’t make the cut.
It felt like doing the exercises underwater, without the normal buoyancy you would feel. She was supposed to do this twice a day for twenty minutes each, but now that she has a job, she’s been lazy about it. No matter, it’s just a matter of self-discipline.
Despite her easy third life, where she regularly indulges in emotional whims, discipline is still something she has in ample supply.