Bob was… pretty much as Tanya expected. Old, fat, with very poor personal hygiene. His beard went down to his belt, he was perpetually hunched over, and his glasses were broken, barely functional and probably with an out of date prescription. One time, in her first life, she went three years without updating her glasses: after she did replace them, she swore to never let it get that bad again, the difference was so massive.
His greenhouse, on the other hand, was surprisingly well-maintained. Closer inspection indicated that this was more accurately referred to as ‘recently renovated’, as the majority of the modern conveniences were all new, and more importantly, were all psitanium inventions that were likely brought here by Agent Mentalis.
Clearly, Agent Mentalis decided to spend his procrastination week modernizing his friend’s abode. Well, as modern as it can get without any electricity but with ample amounts of psitanium. So… futuristically convenient. Agent Mentalis had laundry lists of electricity free appliances under his patent catalog, there just wasn’t any method to mass produce them, so they remained luxury goods for the wealthy… or for anyone who could just make the things themselves from Otto’s very expensive book filled with schematics for the devices, which was sold by a single mail-order company that he owned that was nominally for selling psitanium supplies to hobbyists. To her understanding, there were a few small businesses who also paid him royalties for the privilege of selling the consumer products in question to the aforementioned wealthy people.
The watermelon smoothie was delicious. It was mixed with some green apples, as apparently they had started drunkenly experimenting with Bob’s new blender. “So, introductions.” Tanya said, breaking the awkward silence. Bob and Helmut had been telepathically whispering to each other, the presence of the psychic messages, if not their contents, were perceptible to other telepaths. “Mary, Lili, this is Bob Zanotto. Bob, this is your niece Lili, my sister Mary, and I am Tanya. I assume Helmut has explained my role in his restoration by now.”
“Yes, he did.” Bob confirmed, his voice rough and only barely recognizable as the voice of Audie O. “Thank you for all of your hard work.” Bob’s mind sent a tidal wave of gratitude along with his words. Helmut joined in with that.
Wait, why was she blushing? It was just a simple thank you! “Well, it… I didn’t… How could I not…”
Lili looked on in wonder. Mary cackled. “She’s actually speechless.” she said between laughs.
Changing her focus away from trying to reply to Bob’s sincere gratitude, Tanya sent some of Mary’s smoothie up her nose.
In another stunning example of Mary’s poor critical thinking skills, Tanya countered Mary’s attempt to seize Tanya’s own shake, drinking it with zero fear.
“Mmmm!” Lili said after doing the same. “Uncle Bob, this is so good! What’s your secret?”
“There is no secret ingredient, kiddo.” Helmut said.
“That one has the peaches mixed in, I think.” Bob added, “But it’s just watermelon and peaches put in the fancy new blender Otto built for me.”
“Four to one ratio.” Otto pointed out. “Watermelon has a lot more water in it than other fruits, thus the name. You need at least that much to keep the flavor.”
Tanya brought out a psychoportal. “If you wish to have a private discussion, you should use this.” She said, floating it into the mobility capsule’s slot. “We can entertain ourselves for an hour or so.”
Smiling with gratitude, Bob focused and astrally projected himself into Helmut’s mind, Lili jumped up. “Let’s style Uncle Bob’s beard!” She took some brushes and ribbons out of her backpack telekinetically.
Tanya’s face twisted in disgust. “It needs a serious wash first.” She pointed out. Lili took some shampoo and conditioner out of her backpack. Tanya sighed. “All right, where’s his water…”
After thirty minutes of extracting all of the various gardening tools that Bob had stashed in his beard’s knots, a thorough hydrokinetic washing, and an even more thorough brushing to untangle it, including some required cuts, Lili and Mary started the involved process of determining exactly how to style it.
With the difficult part done, Tanya sat down next to Agent Mentalis, who had watched the proceedings without stopping or encouraging it. “I hope you enjoyed your vacation.” She said to the man.
Agent Mentalis sighed. “Yes, I suppose it was nice to spend time with Bob, even given the circumstances. I should have brought some cannabis, though. Would have been a more relaxed experience than alcohol.”
Tanya hummed. “You don’t need to return to the office until Wednesday, so get your head back on straight, get yourself cleaned up, and show up ready to take on your duties with enthusiasm.” This was not the first time Tanya had to give that speech to an alcoholic coworker, and she did not expect it to be the last.
“...Thank you.” Agent Mentalis said, “Is there anything that I missed that I should know about?”
Should she? …yeah, he does kind of need to know. “Nothing that can’t wait until you return, but someone’s been seeding sabotaged thinkerprint scanners into the warehouse. They look like they work, but they allow anyone through.”
“Oh dear.” Agent Mentalis commented, paling. “How can that wait?”
Tanya shrugged. “Evidence suggests that it was a long term plot meant to weaken our security, not something targeted. I’ll finish sweeping the facility this week. As for the warehouse… that’s for counterintelligence to worry about.”
“Ah, too true.” Agent Mentalis said, nodding in approval. “Any problem that you can foist on someone else isn’t really a problem at all.”
Tanya frowned. While she didn’t disagree… she didn’t like how he said it. “So how long do you think it’s going to take to find Helmut’s body?” She asked, “Also, do you think it’s salvageable?”
Agent Mentalis waved off her concerns. “It’s still frozen, I’m sure of that much. The Hyperglaciator created a permafrost bottom in the lake, the local psitanium below the lake continually reinforces the ice.” He paused for a moment. “You know, I wonder how they’re handling it? Fish can’t live there anymore…”
What? Psitanium? “Grulovia has psitanium?” She asked.
“Oh yes.” Agent Mentalis said, taking another sip from his whiskey bottle. “The largest deposits in Europe, actually. It was why the Soviets wanted to control it, although they had plenty within their borders. There’s a lot more psitanium around than can be used so there’s not a huge rush in denying it to Russia. By the time they could possibly need that extra source of psitanium, the puppet dictator will be deeply entrenched.”
…Well, once she creates mass production techniques, that will change very quickly. “So how long are you scheduling for this trip?”
“Well, Helmut should be able to sense his own body from a fair distance.” Agent Mentalis said, “The psychic tether between the brain and the brainstem has a lot of interesting properties.”
Wait… she remembers seeing that. “Was that the experiment where you tortured that communist with his brain outside of his skull?”
Agent Mentalis winced. “Ah, you saw that. Yes, that was the one. While creating a tether of that strength requires sawing open the head, Helmut’s telepathic senses are quite good.” He took another sip of whiskey. “While I’m unsure how the freezing process will impact matters, there’s a subtle tugging sensation that he should be able to detect if he gets within a thousand feet of his body. Once found, extracting it will be a simple matter with the equipment I intend to bring.”
“Will the unfreezing process be a challenge?” Tanya asked.
“It shouldn’t be.” Agent Mentalis replied, “I consulted on the neurological aspects of Homer’s revival; I’m familiar with the techniques and I can borrow their machinery. They’ll likely send a doctor along to operate it, too.” ‘Homer’ was the name that the frozen Neanderthal was given.
“Tanya!” Lili shouted excitedly, “What do you think? Pretty, right?”
She turned to look at Bob, who was still sitting down, insensate with Helmut’s mobility capsule in his lap. Mary and Lili had decided to go for a style that reminded Tanya of a picture of the famous pirate Blackbeard that she had seen before: a dozen different tendrils, each with a candle wick burning to create a hellishly intimidating look. Except instead of candle wicks, there were instead pink ribbons, completely ruining the effect.
“I don’t think pink is his color.” Tanya observed.
“I told you!” Mary said to the younger girl.
“Perhaps…” Tanya looked through the greenhouse, examining the plants. Yes, this one. She telepathically linked herself to the lavender plant and carefully let it grow and thread itself underneath the ribbons, taking off each one as the structure was replaced, blooming the gentle purple flowers once the ribbon had been removed. “Then…” She paired it with some rosemary, binding pairs of tendrils together while providing a subtle color variation with their own bluish-purple flowers. “Finally…” She trimmed the ends of the beard, evening things out, and placed some sage blooms between the ends and the ties, the nearly white purple flowers creating further contrast. “There.” Tanya said, nodding to herself.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Yeah, that looks really good!” Lili complimented. “But it’s missing something…”
“Maybe something in the center?” Offered Mary. “Right below his chin.”
Tanya took a small cutting of the orange lily they used for the ikebana arrangement, using herbaphony to grow it into a full flower using one of the available flower pots. Placing the bloom right where Mary instructed, Tanya stood back and examined her work.
“Perfect.” Lili announced. Right on time, as it turned out: a surge of mental energy heralded Bob returning to his body, and the man stood up, leaning backward with his hands on his back, attempting to correct his posture.
After a moment of grunting and stretching, Bob stood taller than he did an hour ago, no longer bent with age and misery but filled with the vim and vigor of youth. He touched his beard, noting the new design. “Huh.”
“Do you like it, Uncle Bob?” Lili asked excitedly.
“It looks good, Bobby.” Helmut offered.
“The composition is nice.” Bob said, borrowing Tanya’s sight with clairvoyance for a moment. She allowed it. “It’s been a long time since this beard’s been washed…”
“I know.” Tanya retorted, “We had to cut off half of your chest hair to separate the two.” Fortunately, she was very precise with her telekinetic blades. She’d add something about her experience shaving as a man, but honestly her experience shaving her own legs was more useful. His beard was just too long for it to have anything in common with her first life’s experience. At least in the other case she was still using telekinesis.
Bob looked around his greenhouse. “...I should clean up.” He said, and three large vines descended from the ceiling and started to tidy up the place. Everyone helped.
“What are you doing with all that broken glass, anyway?” Mary asked after twenty minutes of cleaning. Tanya had collected every single broken shard, and impressively large amount of them, into one pile she had floating in the air.
“Did I get it all?” Tanya asked, and after one more glance over, nodded to herself. She emptied the glass recycling bin, brought all of it together, and used pyrokinesis. It all melted into a giant mass of cherry-red silicate, the various imperfections exploding harmlessly in Tanya’s psychic grip.
“Wow!” Lili said, gleeful at the radiant heat.
“Woah.” Helmut said, “It’s like the 4th of July.”
Agent Mentalis hummed. “The panels are 24” by 24”, Tanya. Three millimeters thick.”
“Thank you, Agent Mentlalis.” Tanya said, telekinetically cutting the glob of glass to create the desired size, gathering the remainder, and cryokinetically cooling the panels to room temperature. The useful thing about cryokinesis is that unlike literally any other means of cooling, it does so across the entire target at once, if done correctly. This meant that most drawbacks related to rapidly cooling objects flat out didn’t occur, as those flaws were caused by drastically different temperatures along the structure.
After two more passes, there was a sizable stack of greenhouse glass panels and also a single sphere of glass with the remainder, not enough to make another panel. The sphere was deposited in Lili’s hands “Hm, how important is it that the glass be clear?” Tanya asked, inspecting the lightly tinted window panes. Perhaps she should have separated them by color…
“For a normal greenhouse?” Bob said, inspecting one of the panes himself. “Pretty important. For me? Not very. The sunlight’s the least important part. These are clear enough.” He turned to Otto. “That something new? Three psychic powers, all that precise? What kind of training program are you running?”
“Wish I could take credit.” Agent Mentalis replied, “But that’s all Tanya. I’ve some devices that could replicate the feat, but she learned how to control most of her psychic powers by using math, numbers. It makes her very precise.” Ironically, normal telekinesis is one of Tanya’s clumsiest psychic powers. She’s been practicing, though. “It makes her work a bit boring, but there’s something to be said about industrial efficiency.”
“Still, why’d you learn to do that?” Helmut asked.
Tanya blushed, nervously picking at the hem of her shirt. “Well… one of the classes for my degree, an art credit, was about using telekinesis to mold non-psitanium materials.” She explained, “we worked with clay and plastic, mostly, but Mother’s day was coming up…”
Agent Mentalis snorted. “She asked me about molding molten materials, so I showed her the machines I use for fabricating lenses, and she decided to learn how to manually accomplish the same tasks, and showed off a glass sculpture of a camilla flower as one of her projects for that class.” She also learned how to make lenses, which will be incredibly useful knowledge if she ends up needing glasses in a future life.
“It’s actually pronounced Camellia.” Bob interjected.
Mary scowled. “Yeah, I remember that. Show-off.” She had given Mom a painting she made in art class that year, one of the whole family. Including Agent Nein. Tanya would say that she was surprisingly talented at painting, but it wasn’t a surprise at all; She usually won the informal competition for best Mother’s day gift, but that year was an exception. So Tanya pinched her nose with telekinesis. “Hey!” Mary complained, breaking the hold with her own telekinesis.
“We’re in a glass house, Mary. Don’t throw stones.” Tanya said, scolding her little sister. The adults chuckled at her joke. Mary glared but did nothing else. Did she not know that expression? It’s old, and she learned it in her second life, so it was there too.
“Now,” Tanya began, stepping into the role of ‘host’ because Bob certainly wasn’t going to. “-it’s five in the afternoon, there’s alcohol, fruity drinks, and a celebratory mood.” After a beat, Tanya took out one of her personal amusement inventions. “Who’s up for karaoke?”
---------------------
Agents Boole, O’Peia, and Mentalis, as well as Helmut and Bob all gathered around in the Heptadome the next evening. Tanya was there too, having been invited by Helmut for… something. He was vague.
“Okay, now we’ve got a pretty good plan for getting my body back,” Helmut said, “-but I have an announcement to make.”
“Are you renewing your vows?” Agent O’Peia asked.
“No.” Helmut said, before pausing. “Actually, yes, that sounds like a good idea.“ The iridescent telekinetic hand he was using to gesture pointed at his husband. ”Bobby? After I get my body back, we should renew our vows.”
“I’d like that.” Bob replied, smiling softly despite the fact that he was suffering from alcohol withdrawal. “We still can’t get the government to recognize it, by the way.” He added.
“Really? Damn.” Helmut said, disappointed.
“You should expect about four months of physical therapy from being unfrozen.” Agent Mentalis pointed out. “So don’t schedule it for this year if you want to fit in a suit.”
“It will also give Bob time to get back into shape.” Tanya added, “I don’t think he can fit in his old tuxedo.”
Bob coughed. “I don’t have it anymore anyway…” He admitted, “I don’t remember exactly when, but I destroyed most of my possessions… a few times over the years. I don’t own anything from our marriage anymore beyond the greenhouse itself and the Feelmobile, and that thing’s a derelict.”
“I don’t get hung up on weight, Bobby. You know that.” Helmut said consolingly.
“That’s a project for later.” Agent Mentalis said, “Now Helmut, what was your announcement?”
“RIght.” Helmut said, “I reviewed some of my memories, and I found something that none of you know: Lulu survived!” Tanya winced as the other members of the Psychic Six gasped. “Ford snuck her back to the Astralathe and shut her down!”
“Oh. So that’s what happened.” Agent Mentalis said, a little dazed.
“He was coherent enough to do that?” Agent Boole asked, his brow furrowed in thought.
“Ah, right. The second thing.” Helmut said, “Whatever Ford’s like… he did it. He brought Lulu and some kid, put ‘em through the Astralathe, then came back a day later and turned it on himself.”
“I suppose he’d have wanted to cover his trail, remove the memory of where he put Lucy…” Agent O’Peia said, thinking hard. “...but it went wrong.”
Agent Mentalis, as the one who knew the most about the capabilities of the Astralathe, spoke up next: “If that’s all he was doing, he wouldn’t have screwed it up. Think bigger.”
Bob gasped. “He wanted to forget Lucy altogether!”
Agent Boole nodded grimly. “That would do it, I think.”
“So after we get my body, we need to find her!” Helmut said, resolved.
“And then what?” Tanya said. The adults turned toward her, confused. “Lucrecia’s not going to remember any of you. Further, if you make her remember, you’ll just unleash the Maligula personality.” Probably. She didn’t really know how it worked, precisely.
Agent O’Peia stared intently at Tanya. “You know something.” She accused, pointing at her. Tanya kept a straight face. “You saw what Ford did when you were in his head.”
Ah, she thought she had been vague enough. “I did.” Tanya admitted, “The so-called ‘psychic defense’ that caused those troubles when I tried was him attacking me after I learned it. He defends that secret with everything he has.”
“Then… if we want to fix Ford, we need to get Lulu to do it!” Helmut concluded, “Where is she?” Hm, that might actually work. However…
Tanya rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I know how to find her, and I did a few years ago. Don’t bother the poor woman, she’s safe and happy with what she thinks is her son and his family.” They are also her actual family, but Tanya wanted to imply otherwise. “That boy was a fresh orphan, who lost his mother recently enough that Ford could slot Lucrecia right in her place.” That boy just happened to be her nephew, which was what she didn’t say.
“We’d really like to know, if you please.” Agent Boole asked softly.
“You know, Mom’s always willing to talk about things that pop up in True Psychic Tales.” Tanya said, changing the subject. “I’m well aware that the Deluginists are still active. If they catch wind of Lurcecia’s location, they’ll stop at nothing to resurrect Maligula.”
That seemed to convince them. ”We need a foolproof way to prevent Lucy from going back to that.” Bob declared, “Then we can get her back.”
“We’d need Ford for that.” Agent Mentalis pointed out. “We’d need more detail on what he did to keep her quiet before we could even think about adjusting it.” After a moment, he added: “Well, if we wanted a plan before diving inside her head, anyway.”
“So we need Ford to help Lulu, and Lulu to help Ford.” Helmut said, “Isn’t that just a mood-killer.”
“A lie told for long enough becomes emotionally indistinguishable from truth.” Tanya said, “I’m not going to assist you in uprooting Lucrecia’s life.” She stood up and started to leave. “I’ve got testing to do.”
“Oh!” Helmut exclaimed, “Yeah, I’ll come help you. I promised, didn’t I?”
Tanya smiled as the mobility capsule floated behind her. “Yes, you did.” It was always nice when people actually did what they said they’d do.
They left the others to plan out Ford’s recovery.