As it turned out, Lili had led the two other Psychic Six descendents to Otto's lab. "You don't say?" Otto asked as Tanya entered the room. "Truman said that? That doesn't sound like him."
"If by 'that', you mean 'ordered me to try and make Ford sane again', he did." Tanya groused. "He's been acting strange ever since he woke up, but I can't do anything more to sic medical on him than I already have."
Otto smiled at her arrival. "Ah, you're looking well! I'm glad this whole psilirium business hasn't caught you off guard."
"So I take it from the fact that you're here that there aren't any reports of psilirium that you haven't dealt with yet?" Tanya asked.
"Yep, just finished, every sample is locked down tight in the quarantine vault." He confirmed, jerking his thumb in its general direction. "Truman sent me a memo about how the secure archives aren't working, he tried to access them from his desk and got an error report. Can you handle that?"
Tanya raised an eyebrow. "I know. I'm the one who broke the interface to keep any infiltrators from accessing them. I'll fix it after this business is dealt with."
"Not sure if Truman will like that." Otto said, before chuckling. "But you're right, it's not worth the risk. There's not really anything in there that's useful right now."
"Just make yourself too busy to deal with it today." Tanya advised. "I got Compton's head back on straight, he's gone off to help Cassie with whatever problem she's dealing with that's kept Bob and Helmut so occupied."
Otto frowned. "Come to think of it, I didn't check Green Needle Gulch with my psilirium scanner… Perhaps I should go do that. Now." He took a deep breath and stood up, grunting as the aches and pains of his advanced age made themselves known. "Ugh, I'm getting too old for this." He grumbled as he trudged over to his laboratory's secure tram entrance. "Take whatever you think you'll need to deal with Ford, I'll backdate my authorization if I need to." He offered, then floated himself down.
"Oh boy!" Razputin said, looking greedily at the various gadgets that Otto had on display. "What's that do?"
"That's a camera." Tanya said bluntly. "Instead of printing pictures, it impresses the picture into the user's memory, creating a mental image that is easily recalled even years later." Unless one went inside a mind and broke the mental structures preserving it, of course. It wouldn't be safe if you could accidentally use it to memorize something thoroughly unpleasant, after all. "It won't be useful."
Lili had gone straight to the Otto-magic vending machine. The one in the lab was the 'Master' machine, the central hub of the network. It was Otto's most recent leap forward in psychic technology, creating stable teleportation beacons to transport items. Currently, it only worked for items that were at least partially made of psitanium, but it made supplying the Psychonauts much simpler. "I want a dream fluff!" Lili said whiningly. "Or a PSI pop!" The Otto-matic was still in 'public' mode, where you needed to supply a certain amount of psitanium to the machine for it to vend the items. This was something Otto put in for the campers and tourists, actual employees just paid money for them through by getting the cost deducted from their paycheck, if the purchase wasn't work-related.
Tanya walked to the Otto-matic and input Otto's special 'unlimited use' code, then had the thing eject some psychically enriched candy. "Come on, we've got a lot of minds to get through, we could all use a bit of a pick-me-up." She said, passing some out to each of the children. "Don't forget to save some for later." She then shoved several candies in her own pockets before locking the machine again.
"How'd you manage to make it give you all that candy?" Razputin asked, fascinated at her haul.
"I used Otto's key." Tanya summarized. "You heard him say I could." She unwrapped a dream fluff and ate the cotton candy-like substance. The mental strain she had been experiencing after so many mental dives faded away in a wave of euphoria.
"Uh… Tanya? You okay?" Razputin asked, and Tanya realized that she had been giggling while letting the candy do its work.
"Right. Yes." Tanya said, flushing. "It feels a lot more intense when you're actually tired." Tanya slapped her cheeks, using the slight pain to focus. "Okay, let's go."
"I think I'm gonna go." Sam said awkwardly. "You guys got this, right?"
"Who's your mentor?" Tanya asked.
"Agent Oleander." Sam said quickly. Tanya winced. Really? Damn it, Hollis…
"Just hang out with your brother and Mary in the daycare. Oleander would just send you to fetch him lunch or something." For a discriminated minority, the dwarf was still depressingly old fashioned about gender roles when he could get away with it. "Also I think he might be in a holding cell for the stunt he pulled." That was a lie; he wouldn't have had an intern assigned to him if that was the case. But one less intern mucking about was a good thing in her books.
Sam slumped, but trudged in the proper direction for the daycare.
Next!
---------------------------------
The bowling alley was still 'closed for the senior bowling league's tourney', but unlike children, Tanya could open the locked door without any issue.
"Hey now! You're not one of the senior bowlers!" Ford said crankily.
"Reservations cancel after fifteen minutes if no one shows up to use it." Tanya retorted, "Astral Lanes employee guidebook page thirty-two." The only reason she knew this was because she lost her party reservation four years ago due to accidentally scheduling it an hour before she needed it. She had to pay each of the other bowlers one hundred dollars to leave in order to fix it. She pointed to the clock. "It's been over twice that." She gestured to the empty alleys. "Do you see any senior bowlers?"
"Nice try, Missy, but that's still only at the discretion of the manager." Ford argued, thumbing his 'manager' name tag that he presumably stole. Damn, he actually read the guidebook.
"We're not here to bowl, anyway." Tanya deflected, "There have been reports of a pest, and I'm here from the head office to verify before authorizing expenses to deal with the issue."
"Ah, a troubleshooter, huh?" Ford asked, "Yeah, y'all look like the types to find trouble." He said, nodding. "You, Missy, look like the type to shoot it."
"My hands frequently wield many disinfectants." Tanya said, inserting a bit of menace into her tone. This particular Ford has not stopped using disinfectant spray on bowling shoes since they walked in. Implying uncleanliness would not go well. "Much like your own."
"Gotta kill the germs when you find 'em." Ford said in agreement. "But I don't think I've seen any rats or anything. I can handle anything smaller."
Tanya held up a Psychoportal. "Mind if I inspect the reported areas, then?"
"Go ahead." Ford said, turning around to put the shoes he had been disinfecting away. "No germs'll be anywhere on my watch."
Good enough. Tanya tossed the psychoportal, landing on the back of Ford's head. He zoned out as the device put him in a trance, and the three of them entered the next section of Ford's mind.
---------------------------------
The start was a different bowling alley, with a single large bowling lane leading off into the darkness.
"Huh, somehow I expected something different." Razputin said, confused.
"Why? It's a bowling alley. He's a bowling fanatic. Seems obvious." Lili snarked back.
There was a puerile giggle from the photo booth, a classic 'date' activity. Tanya perked up, "I know that giggle." She said, paling.
"Huh?" Razputin asked. "Why? Kind of sounds like Nona…"
"That's Lucrecia." Tanya quickly explained, distinctly not reacting to Razputin's guess. "I've been in Ford's mind before, remember? This must be a memory of one of their dates."
Walking to the photo booth, Tanya opened the curtain, only to find a figment, but no actual entities. Tanya exhaled in relief. The photos had still dispensed, which.. Wait, did they have these in the sixties? Or… actually, it would still be the fifties when this happened, right?
…Wait, she's actually seen these in Berun. Huh, photo booths were old, weren't they?
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
Anyway, she glanced over the photos, which were thankfully not overly lewd, they were just very happy and close proximity, a very romantic image. "Surprisingly child-friendly…" Tanya muttered as she put the photos back in the booth's dispenser slot.
The bowling alley attendant was a giant germ, which was rather familiar. She just finished evicting these guys back in Janitor Ford's mind. Well, looks like she'll have to just do it again. Razputin and Lili were talking to it.
"Yep, world's coming to an end pretty soon. Go ahead and play, no point in charging you. Hey, you want some food? You know the rule: five seconds on the floor and it's free!" Said the germ.
"Ew." Lili said, "C'mon Raz, talking to this thing is a waste of time."
"Hang on, I got one more question." Razputin said, before turning back to the germ. "Is that a Gruloky deck?" He asked, pointing to a deck of cards.
"It is." The germ confirmed. "But it's kind of boring, isn't it?"
"It's not- " Razputin said, blustering "That's Nona's favorite-" Razputin paused. "Okay, yeah. It's boring." Gruloky's a gambling game, without real stakes it's pretty boring, yeah. "She always wins, too. Psychics have no match against grandma powers. She can read your mind!" Tanya brutally suppressed the urge to laugh.
"Come on." Tanya said, walking to the bowling lane.
For some reason, Razputin and Lili decided to go down the bowling alley via a giant bowling ball, Razputin showing off his circus chops by expertly rolling it with his feet. He carried Lili princess-style as he did so, adding extra death-defying flair to the whole process. Tanya just flew.
Honestly, the Bowling Ford's mind wasn't terribly impressive. It was quite the roller coaster, certainly, with all kinds of weird gravities, so she let Razputin and Lili have a bit of fun with it, but in the end, it was just a matter of going to the giant bowling pin mocked up like Ford and ripping out the mirror shard.
"It's so sad!" Lili sobbed as they walked into the brain room with the waiting shard. "They were so cute together!"
Tanya rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, very cute. I hope you enjoyed your little sojourn through the tunnel of love?"
"It was fun!" Lili said, smiling. "Thanks for letting us handle this one, Tanya."
Razputin removed the shard from the brain, looking at the Agent Ford within. "You really loved her, huh?"
"Lucy was a remarkable woman." Ford said simply. "How it ended, though… I don't even remember the details anymore, but I know I screwed up." And how. "Makes me wonder how I managed to hide her. How'd I stop her from losing control again? I don't know." Hm… looks like he doesn't remember the Astralathe.
Ah. She sent off a memo to Otto telling him to ensure the Astralathe is ready for usage. Whatever was done to brainwash Lucrecia, they'll need the same tool to undo it.
---------------------------------
The Bowling attendant Ford woke up from his daze. "Oh, three for bowling? Here." He floated over three sets of bowling shoes. "Have fun, kids!" He said before popping away in a teleport.
"Cool, we get to bowl now!" Razputin said, already taking off his shoes. That was not why they were dealing with Ford, Razputin!
Wait, this is her chance to keep them out of trouble. "I'm not a fan of bowling." Tanya said, "But you two can play a game or two if you want."
"Both of us?" Lili asked, her voice rising to a higher pitch. "...alone?" She nearly whispered, clearly anxious. She came close to Tanya and whispered very quietly. "...like a date?"
"I can bring some extra players if you think it would be better with more competition." Tanya said, deliberately missing the cause of her sudden nervousness. "Mary, Sam, Dogen…"
"Yeah, get Dogen over here!" Razputin said, excited. "He told me about bowling here earlier today!" That's because Dogen's actually pretty good at bowling. Better than Sam, anyway.
Tanya brought Lili aside, whispering discreetly. "Just a bit of dating advice from someone who's been there, not sure if what you're doing is a date or not." That is a bit of a stretch, but Lili is a ten year old girl, she's completely adrift when it comes to dating. So she'll bluff. "The best dates are indistinguishable from an outing as friends." At least, any date that's suitable for ten year olds. "Worry about the actual mushy stuff later, just enjoy the ride."
"...Really?" Lili asked.
"As far as I'm concerned, your first date was inside Ford's mind. It had princess carries, roller coasters, a romantic movie, a tunnel of love…" Tanya smirked, "-and now some bowling. No one is going to be able to top that when you tell that story."
Lili's face became completely red. "You think so?" She asked, smiling.
"Just remember to save the kiss for the very end, when you part ways." Tanya advised, "It'll be very awkward if you have to stick around afterwards." She may not be exactly experienced in dating, but playing into romance tropes is probably the way to go here. "You've just met Razputin, learn more about him before committing to saying 'this is a date'. You've got plenty of time to take things slow." She took out her wallet and handed Lili two twenty-dollar bills. "You know where the food stores are."
"Right." Lili said, now confident. "Thanks!" She turned and walked towards the lanes. "Oh Raz… we should get snacks for when everyone else arrives. What do you like to eat?"
Tanya nodded to herself as she left to get the other children. She was a great big sister.
---------------------------------
With the children occupied, Tanya moved on to deal with the Park Ranger Ford. "Gisu, what are you doing?" Tanya asked, bewildered.
"Sh! If he spots me he goes ballistic." The skater girl whispered from her position ducking behind the elevated flowerbeds. Ford had started tending to the plants in the main garden, a relaxing place where herbaphony can ordinarily get practiced, or those who were in-tune with plants could meditate to rest and recover. "If he spots anyone, really."
There was a reason Tanya had turned invisible, yes. Ford's groundskeeper persona had built up quite the head of steam as he forcibly organized the garden according to his vision of order. Thing was, the majority of plants here still had echoes of the last telepath to commune with them, which meant that they were resisting him. Apparently Ford wasn't good enough at herbaphony to ignore that interference.
Also, there was a perfectly good balcony she could have been using to overwatch the whole garden. Amateur.
Needless to say, Ford did not like that. "Hn, I think I'm going to need to be a bit more forceful with this one." Tanya muttered to herself. Taking a deep breath, Tanya bonded with the plants in the area, gently smothering and ejecting the leftover mental energy from other psychics and attuning the plant's unique signatures to her own.
"Eh? Who's there?" Ford demanded. With the sense of danger, he more forcibly seized control of the plants in his immediate vicinity. Tanya was impressed; usually being stressed made it harder to use herbaphony.
One of the more unsavory hobbies of the Psychonauts agents was a very specialized fight club. It was similar to the beetle fights of her youth, in that it was essentially committing mild ecological damage for childish amusement. Instead, they both controlled half of a dedicated garden, and had the plants fight each other. They had a whole system of rules in place, inspired from both wargames and trading card games.
It was actually a lot of fun, and there were intense debates on the merits of this kind of plant or which cultivar was best among a given category. Come to think of it, did she still have her seed deck? Tanya checked her many pockets.
…No. Alas, she must have left it at home after the last time she restocked. She'll have to make do with whatever's in the garden. Of all times to have left Lili behind, she never leaves home without four of them…
The broad leaves of the ferns stiffened with psychic power and, augmented by her PSI blades, sliced through the vines that Ford sent to attack, then cut into the ground and shoved the severed parts towards their roots, which Tanya then made her plants devour for additional nutrients. Some favored controlling a single massive chimeric entity that brawled, but Tanya always preferred to treat things like a real time strategy game.
"The hell is all this?" Ford shouted, horrified by Tanya's tactics. It wasn't quite as scorched earth as she could be in the arena, but she continued to assault his territory from all sides. "This isn't right at all!"
"Woah." Gisu said, "That's gnarly…"
"You don't know about the Chloro Thrills?" Tanya asked, surprised. "I don't go to all the meetings, but I figured you for the type."
"I have never wanted to know more about something plant-related than I do right now." Gisu said seriously.
"Just ask Lili to take you." Tanya said, waving her off. "They're right after work."
Eventually, Tanya took out her psychoportal. She infused it with some extra power and modified it to use that power on the hypnotic trance, and waited for her moment.
Right when her plants successfully separated Ford's from the ground, Ford had to channel all of his focus on reconnecting them before they died, burned out by his aggressive herbaphony.
Now! Tanya flicked the psychoportal, the tiny door shooting at the man's head as if launched from a slingshot. "Secure the perimeter and watch for hostile movement." Tanya said commandingly.
"Sir yes sir!" Gisu said, saluting.
---------------------------------
The mind of Park Ranger/Gardener Ford had changed a lot since she last saw him. A great tree rose high, branches and knotholes forming a face near the top. The tree was rooted around a copy of the Heptadome, and the rest of the mind appeared to have vanished.
On a hunch, Tanya entered the Heptadome and found a staircase inside, with greenhouse-like conditions. Lucrecia's puerile giggling echoed throughout the room.
Ugh. She's going to have to go up this whole thing, isn't she?
Cursing Ford, Truman, Lucrecia, and Razpuin all the while, Tanya steadily ascended the wooden tower of memories. "Okay, I've learned my lesson." Tanya said, already in the bargaining phase. "Raising Ford's metaphorical hackles before invading his mind was a terrible idea!" She knew it would make things more difficult, but she figured that exhausting his psychic energies would make up for it. It did not.
"No." Said yet another heavy censor.
"Of course you'd think that!" Snapped Tanya as she cut its oversized arms off. It vanished in a puff of purple smoke.
"This is a lot more boring than I expected." Gisu's voice cut in. "Cool, though."
Tanya scoffed as she blasted a Regret out of the sky. "I make this look easy. The Heavy censors can take a lot of beating if you don't have the intent necessary for that technique." Really, PSI blades were kind of unfair. In mental worlds, there really wasn't any weapon more potent than weaponized intent to kill. In the physical world, it didn't fare as well, but it was still substantially more dangerous than anything anyone sane should be comfortable with. "But I also underestimated how much more difficult his active resistance would make this."
"Didn't realize the old man had so much game, though." Gisu said, moving on. "Whoever that lady is, she's a fox!" After a beat, she continued: "Wonder what happened?"
"Lucrecia Mux." Tanya said bluntly as she telekinetically lifted several Personal Demons and launched them strategically to take out another flight of Regrets. "She met a terrible fate, one that is not something one wishes to know the fullest extent of if they like sleeping peacefully." An exaggeration, to be sure, but she just needed to dissuade Gisu from inquiring further.
"So you know what happened?" Gisu asked curiously.
"This is the fourth shard of Ford's personality I've had to delve into today, I should hope that I know the man's life story by now." Tanya snarked as she used Herbaphony to open the way up. "Hm, this layer's large, open, and mostly clear. It even has a moat. This is clearly where the most powerful defenses lie." There wasn't even any stairs…
"That doesn't sound right." Gisu said.
Suddenly, a copy of Maligula manifested out of leaves, soil, and vines. "You were saying?" Tanya asked before charging and cutting the mental entity in half.
Unfortunately, Ford's mental defenses, despite his insanity, are still quite powerful. They had adapted to that strategy, the Maligula copy reconnected before she could even finish cutting. "You will not harm my dear Ford!" Lucy shouted, firmly and clearly, instead of crazed or aged. She spoke in Grulovian, too.
Oh no. She was being blocked by the Power of Love. "Shit." Tanya complained while dodging the buffeting branches that the entity manifested and swung at her. Okay, dealing with the power of love… how?
"Gisu, have you learned anything useful about dealing with love-based defenses?" Tanya asked as she continued to play defensive. "I never got proper training on mental breaching." She mostly just improvises, or recalls some more informal lessons she received from Dad.
"Uh… not really?" Gisu said bashfully. "I mean, throwing off emotions or corrupting a memory is usually a pretty good go-to, but nothing about love."
Hm. She already knew that, but how? Maybe… Ah! Tanya leapt off the platform, falling into the moat. Seizing control of the water, Tanya rode a waterspout upwards, cackling in her best Maligula impression.
"W-what are you doing?" The plant-Lucy stammered, fearful.
"Be careful, Lucrecia…" Tanya said, "A storm is coming."
Tanya lifted half the water up into the air, creating a rainstorm. plant-Lucy shuddered, flowers budding and blooming on her body and on her environmental weapons.
They were funeral flowers.
"No, no… my family…" Lucy said, the plant matter and soil that composed her skin washing away to reveal flesh. "I need… I need to go." She said, "I can help. I have to save them. I'm sorry, Ford."
Suddenly, all of the water Tanya was controlled vanished from her senses, wrapping around the naked image of Lucy and transforming into the winter coat she wore in that final battle. "I have to go home." She said, crying. She went upwards, drilling through the ceiling and out through the giant face of Ford. Another tiny brain was left behind, now revealed by the hole.
"I should have gone with her." Ford said when Tanya retrieved the mirror shard.
"You'd have pissed someone off and died." Park Ranger Ford retorted. "Messed up their coordination with your non-native butt, and maybe even started World War 3 while you were at it." That was probably an overblown fear, but not one completely without basis. "Everyone has their proper role in an army, and you wouldn't fit in anywhere. If you were lucky, you'd have just been a weed, in the way."
The mental world collapsed, returning them once more to the blasted wooden structure that represented the central hub. Tanya took the hedge clippers now in her hands and placed them on the shelf, moving the mirror shard into the broken mirror the headless Ford was carrying. "Three pieces left." Tanya said idly. "Then we can go pick Lucy up for treatment."
"I just wish things could have turned out differently." Ford said, lucid for a few moments in this, the foundational structure of his mind. "I really just made a lot of trouble, didn't I?"
Tanya waved her hand vaguely. "Eh, it worked out to be a better decision than it really should have been. The Deluginists are an actual threat, and I'd say they had a decent chance of making her crazy again. You did keep her safe from them." Hiding Lucy where he did was actually a good plan. The part where he rendered himself unable to research a less desperate solution was his real error.
After all, she could hold back her own crazed survival drive, even use it on purpose sometimes. Lucy could theoretically have learned the same if she was treated properly. It would have still necessitated the plan to hide her just for political considerations, but only for long enough for heads to cool.
"Thanks for saying that." Ford said, appreciative but without internalizing her words. "Where on earth could I have hid her? I can't think of a thing."
"It'll come to you eventually." Tanya said, "Just be ready to apologize to the people who still need one from you."
"I will."