It makes perfect sense. Kidnap the head of the Psychonauts, swap the brains, and then use the Psychonaut’s own classified information precautions against them.
Every little discrepancy and oddity was reviewed, and she could see the lines where he bluffed. He clearly had done his homework at least a little bit, or else he would have been tripped up by Tanya’s unusually high security clearance compared to her rank.
How did he fake thinkerprints? Easy, he had a fake overlay made. The thinkerprint scanners were never as secure as they told people they were, because it was a LOT harder to gain access to the material for a copy then it would be for, say, a DNA related security measure. But with their access to his brain? Given the technology reported to be at the Rhombus of Ruin blacksite, it would have been simple.
Okay, so… there were a few things she needed to account for. First, Razputin. “Razputin, when I said, in your earshot, that I knew where Lucrecia was, why did you not ask about it?”
Razputin shuffled his feet. “He told me not to tell anyone about what I was looking for. He said that anyone could be a Deluginist spy. Even you. I was the only one who the Deluginists couldn’t have gotten to, the only one he can trust.”
Tanya sighed. “Did you think that Truman didn’t know that I knew where she was?” Tanya asked rhetorically. Razputin looked confused. “That wasn’t Truman, it was someone else’s brain in his body.”
“What!?” Lili shouted, panicked. “Where’s my dad’s brain!”
Ah, crap. She hadn’t gotten around to thinking about that yet. “Well, the last place we know it was was within the Rhombus of Ruin.” Tanya said, “So unless you just coincidentally smuggled it on the Pelican…”
Lili was staring right at ‘Truman’s lunchbox’. Which was found literally chained to Truman’s unconscious body. “...Before this all started, when was the last time you knew your dad used that lunchbox?” Tanya asked.
“Day before I left for camp.” Lili said immediately. So, less than a week.
…Damnit, she should have noticed how weird that was. She dug into her pocket. “I have the key right here.” She said, jamming it straight into the keyhole. “Hm, kind of stuck…” After a small struggle with the lock, it opened up to reveal… a brain. “Lucky.” Tanya said faintly, as she processed the caliber of the bullet she just dodged. From experience, she’d say that this felt like a 25mm 72-K Russy anti-air gun.
“Dad!” Lili shouted happily, tears flowing. She took the Psychoportal off the ground where it fell off of Ford and started to move it, but Tanya stopped her. “Hold on, that was just on the floor.” Tanya said, “Use this one.” She brought out her own, emphasizing the cleanliness aspect by taking out a packet of cleaning wipes and running it over the back surface, placing it gently on probably-Truman.
Okay, let’s check out the damage.
---------------------------------
Truman’s external mind was that of a jungle, with a heavily fortified compound in the middle of it. “This look right to you, Lili?” Tanya asked.
“...I’ve never actually been inside Dad’s mind before.” Lili admitted, but started to shout. “DAD! IT’S ME! I LOVE YOU!”
A carnivorous plant burst that looked vaguely like a velociraptor out from the foliage, but Tanya snatched up Lili and used pyrokinesis to destroy the plant, letting the burning debris pass through the space Lili formerly occupied. “Hm, it looks like he’s not conscious anymore.” Not unreasonable, given the hours of psychoisolation and total sensory deprivation. It didn’t take that long for things like the passage of time to become… agonizing. Helmut’s case was extreme, but this wasn’t anything different from that.
“Okay, let’s set things on fire, then!” Lili shouted, putting word to deed.
Wait… what was that crashing noise? Acting on instinct, Tanya held onto Lili tighter and burst through the burning foliage, right before a giant root system slammed into the place they used to be. “Looks like it’s an arborsaurus.” Tanya mused, making up a name for the long-necked tree dinosaur. She manifested a giant telekinetic fist to bat away the razor-sharp flower at the end of a long stem that constituted the neck and head of the long-necked dinosaur-plant fusion. “Okay Lili, we need to find a way to wake your father up. Any ideas?”
Lili scrambled onto Tanya’s back and wrapped her arms and legs around Tanya’s neck and chest. “Go deeper!” She suggested.
It was the obvious answer, but that didn’t make it any less viable. The outer layers of psychic defenses could be rather insensitive, blindly lashing out without much perception of what it was attacking. Deeper in, the defenses would need to be more precise, and thus more discerning.
It wasn’t that difficult to reach the fort inside the jungle, and the gates grew over with vines and bulbs, easily destroyed and-
EUGH!
---------------------------------
Tanya blinked as she was propelled back into her mind. “Did he… weaponize smelling salts?” Tanya asked incredulously. It was so simple… and genius.
“Dad’s got the best mental defenses in the world!” Lili said proudly, even as she massaged her own nostrils. “That stuff was strong.”
Mary’s wheezing laughter died down. “You actually failed?” She asked, grinning. “Guess you can’t do everything, huh?”
Tanya snorted, rubbing her nose. “Well, I’d say that’s pretty definitively Truman, which is all we needed to confirm.” She said, closing the brain vault. “We need to confront the fake.” But first… “Let’s go to Otto’s workshop for tools.”
“Okay!” Razputin said excitedly.
“You are still on thin ice, Razputin.” Tanya said warningly. “Keep in mind, the only reason I let you come was because Truman told me to… and that wasn’t Truman.”
“Oh…” Razputin said despondently.
“I want you where I can see you, though.” Tanya said, “I’m tired of you finding trouble the instant I can’t.”
“Okay…” Razputin said, trudging along as Tanya walked to the transit station.
---------------------------------
They didn’t stop in Otto’s workshop for long: just enough to get Truman’s mind in a brain ball, juiced up with fresh nutrient fluid with extra caffeine to help him wake up. On top of that, Tanya grabbed some super sneezing powder, put the psychoportal that Mary had in Otto’s junk drawer, and most importantly: a funnel.
Thus armed, they went straight to Truman’s office. After waving her entourage to stay back, she plastered a militaristic expression on her face then marched into the office. “Sir! There’s been a complication.” She barked out with crisp military cadence, saluting.
Now, if this was the real Truman, he would be looking at her with a confused expression at best. This Truman instead smiled, pleased at the display. “Is Ford restored?” He asked.
“Negative!” Tanya replied, “All known instances of Ford Cruller have been eliminated. We suspect he fled, seeking the subject of his obsession.”
“Obsession?” Not-Truman asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Lucrecia, sir.” Tanya clarified, “You know, the love of his life before she…” Tanya twirled her finger around her ear, condensing a little bit of water from the air and making it into a snake.
“Do you know where he’s going?” Not-Truman asked, “Was where she was in his mind?”
Tanya pretended to be confused. “...Sir? He can teleport. He doesn’t need to know where she is to go to her. He just goes through astral space.”
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Damnit!” Not-Truman exclaimed, smashing his fist on his desk. “He was the only one who knew!”
“Sir, you were the only one who knew.” Tanya lied.
Not-Truman snarled. “I told you not to test me, Dosva!” He shouted, standing up and walking up to Tanya, looming his height. “I know damn well that isn’t true!”
“That’s correct, sir.” Tanya replied, seizing the man’s shirt and dragging him down to eye level. “Because I’m the only one who knows. Which the real Truman knew.”
Not-Truman’s eyes widened as he realized the position he was in. He attempted to reach into a pocket, but Tanya telekinetically seized his hands. “You’re not even a psychic.” Tanya said, “That’s why you used so much psilirium in your plot: you’re immune. It explains all of the strange readings, and the non-psychic mental defense.”
Quickly, she searched the man’s pockets, finding a small jewelry box that contained a sizable chunk of psilirium. “Here it is.” She snapped the insulated box shut, still protected by her anti-telepathy shield. Finding nothing else of note, she fished out the sneezing powder. “This is your last chance to cooperate.” Tanya said, “Who are you, and why did you do this? Where’s Hollis?”
“Unhand me, peasant!” Not-Truman said, his cadence shifting to a different, whinier tone.
“Suit yourself.” Tanya said, holding her breath and cracking open the container of sneezing powder.
The instant the man caught a whiff, Not-Truman’s face twisted as he tried to relieve his nostrils, but his hands were still restrained by Tanya’s telekinesis. After a few seconds, he sneezed, launching his brain out his nose and impacting the wall wetly.
Quickly, they put Truman’s brain back in his head (a task Tanya delegated to the children) and put the infiltrator’s brain into the brain ball. Tanya ran the boot sequence of the diagnostic tools, as she had made sure to grab the latest model that had them. “Non-psychic confirmed, but with enough mental defenses that the biography’s auto-fill feature isn’t working. Lovely.” Otto put in significant effort into improving his laboratory’s record-keeping after Helmut’s recovery, and a small feature that displayed a basic form with fields like ‘name’ and ‘mental integrity’ was one of them. Unfortunately, that feature was not tuned to be an effective interrogation tool.
“Dad! Wake up!” LIli said, slapping her father’s face. Truman remained comatose, breathing steadily. “Tanya! I need smelling salts!”
Tanya tossed the ten year old the requested chemicals. Reaching out with her mind, she spoke with the imposter. “Okay, so now that you’re completely at my mercy, will you be revealing your plot willingly, or will we be stripping them from you neuron by neuron?”
“I command you to return me to my body!” The imposter demanded. “If I am to be taken prisoner, I must be treated with all due respect afforded to my station. It’s in that box right over there.”
“I’m vaguely aware of the niceties given to diplomatic prisoners.” Tanya replied, “-but I’ll need a name and title if you’re claiming diplomatic immunity. Without that, you get the due of an enemy spy.”
“I am Gzar Gristol Malik of Grulovia, peasant!” Gristol thought imperiously. The brain ball registered the name for him.
Hm. If he wasn’t lying, and while he could be, she wasn’t terrible at sniffing out lies in telepathic conversation, so she was leaning ‘honest’, he might actually have political asylum. It helped that she was well aware that a man by that name and rank was associated with the Deluginists.
“...Alright, I’ll play your game.” Tanya said slowly. “You’ll be remanded to our most comfortable secure cell and I’ll let Truman decide what to do with you.” Was it convenient that she could pass the buck to not only her superior, but also the man the prisoner personally wronged? Yes. Will it end well for Gristol? No. No one uses the rules against her and gets away with it.
Besides, she’s not paid enough to make decisions that have political implications. She went to the designated box, and opened it up. “...You know, when I first heard the name ‘Nick Johnsmith’, I immediately thought that it was a name a foreigner would make up.” Tanya said idly, broadcasting the thought to her captive. “I now have zero faith in the Psychonauts’ internal investigators.”
Indeed, the body of Nick Johnsmith, senior mailroom clerk, was within the box. “TeeVee?” The body asked. A common symptom of brainlessness was, surprisingly, being in a complete coma. Due to the fact that brains in this world functioned on a three-part system, with the two normal hemispheres and an overdeveloped brainstem that held some redundant functions, a brainless body was capable of activity up to the level of a particularly lethargic toddler: a vocabulary of a few dozen words at most, typically a series of wants, and an instinctive understanding of them needing other people to care for them. It wasn’t a perfect comparison, but it got the idea roughly across. Child-proofing the body’s surroundings was essential.
Intriguingly, there was actually a negative correlation between psychic strength and the functionality of the brainless body. Tanya never lost her brain, but Mary wanted to know what it was like, and when they tried it her body was particularly helpless.
“Hm, looks like you kept it clean, at least.” Tanya commented, although the compliment was begrudging. “Getting it shipped to Truman’s office was smart.”
“Of course, it was my Master Plan!” Gristol boasted. Hm, she’s never played both the good cop and the bad cop against the same person before. Well, with such a small gap of time between them anyway.
After checking the spy’s pockets for any weapons, Tanya brought the ol’ funnel back out. Why brains could be inserted this way was beyond her, but at least this world balanced how easy it was to lose one’s brain with it being equally simple to put it back.
Ah, she almost forgot. Tanya put her fingers to her temple and called the switchboard. “This is Agent Sawyer on switch, make it snappy.” was the gruff tone paired with the smell of unsmoked tobacco and the feeling of well-oiled leather.
“Caught the enemy infiltrator.” Tanya reported, sending her own authentication scents, “It was Nick.”
“Great, so I gotta talk to Truman, then?” Agent Sawyer asked.
“No, he was Truman. Swapped brains. They’re back now. What I need from you is to-” Tanya immediately started speaking out loud, so Gristol will hear this, “- revoke Nick’s permissions and flag him an enemy spy, in case he escapes. Authorize lethal force,” Tanya went back to purely telepathic communication. “-if you can manage it.”
“With pleasure.” Agent Sawyer replied, transmitting his wide grin. “Always thought he was a pansy. What was it that Truman called him?”
“An obsequious lickspittle, I believe.” Tanya sent. It was to Truman’s credit that despite having such a negative opinion of one of his employees, he didn’t let that opinion extend to official action. Even if, coincidentally, it would have been for the best in this case.
“The boss man’s got a way with words, he does. Sawyer out.” The telepathic connection ended.
Pretending that what she said out loud was the only thing she said, Tanya turned back to the familiar aristocratic features of Nick or rather, Gristol. He was holding himself differently than the anxious people-pleaser that was his Nick Johnsmith persona, prouder and imperious. “If you’re not secured and found anywhere by anyone, you die.” Tanya said bluntly. She brought out her bundle of zip ties, always useful when dealing with wiring, and restrained Gristol’s hands behind his back. “There, now those aren’t exactly very secure, but no one’s going to shoot you if you’re wearing them and accompanied by a Psychonaut. Do you understand?” To his perception, Tanya’s eyes glowed as she spoke, a bit of extra flair to her subtle hypnosis.
Gristol had paled, but nodded. If he took the time to think it through logically, the odds of finding one of the psychonauts that were both willing to resort to lethal force and were bad enough at nonlethal subdual that they couldn’t capture him was vanishingly small. The odds of running into one of the psychonauts that were battle maniacs who eagerly used the most amount of force they were allowed to use was probably higher, but still not good.
But logical reasoning was for people who weren’t hypnotized into compliance.
Truman had been hugging Lili while having a whispered conversation, both sets of eyes wet with tears. Tactfully ignoring that, she cleared her throat when their conversation paused. “Welcome back, sir. The perpetrator, Gristol Malik, is secure.” She telepathically transmitted relevant details to him.
Truman scowled at Gristol. “Thank you, Tanya.” He said, glancing at her before turning back to Gristol. “Now, what am I going to do with you?”
“Razputin, we’re going.” Tanya said, subtly tapping Lili on the shoulder and gesturing for her to follow.
“Yes ma’am!” Razputin said nervously. “Should we really leave them alone?”
“Even minutes out of a coma, Truman won’t be in any danger from a thoroughly disarmed non-psychic.” Tanya said assuredly.
“That wasn’t what I was worried about…” Razputin said, but didn’t slow down and followed her into the hallway into the Motherlobe proper.
---------------------------------
Still, there was one more Ford. Given how difficult the third to last one was, Tanya really didn’t want to tackle what was probably Ford Cruller’s full psychic strength alone. So… to Green Needle Gulch.
“We’ve got the Astralathe all ready to go.” Otto said. The sane members of the Psychic Seven were seated around the large device, sitting on their bean bag chairs. “We just need Ford and Lucy.”
“What’s the Astralathe?” Razputin asked.
Otto grinned as he got the chance to brag. ‘The Astralathe is my finest, most powerful invention.” He summarized, “You may be familiar with the large psychic machines that the Psychonauts use to increase the potency and precision of their telepathic probes. Interrogations, meditation, etcetera.”
“Like Sasha’s brain tumbler?” Razputin asked.
“Exactly.” Otto confirmed, “The Astralathe is the prototype to that technology, far more expensive. The only problem was, I made it too powerful. As it turns out, you pretty much never need to be able to toss six minds at the same problem in concert. It just causes problems.”
“Cool…” Razputin said, smiling. “But wait, why are you going to use it?”
“Ford used the Astralathe to both break himself and to conceal Lucy’s identity from herself.” Tanya explained, “While I wouldn’t say it’s impossible to reverse it without the Astralathe, it’ll be far safer to bring a similar level of force to bear, particularly because they’ll need to secure the Maligula identity again after releasing it.”
“Most importantly, the Astralathe has the strongest psychic restraints at our disposal.” Compton added, “We’ll need those for Lucy.”
“Uh… one more thing:” Razputin asked, “Maligula cursed my family to die by water. Do you think you can, you know, break it with the Astralathe?” Oh, there’s a good excuse.
“A curse?” Otto asked, confused. “You must be-”
“I am one hundred percent certain we can, Razputin.” Tanya said, stepping forward and drawing attention. “In fact, while we get ready, you should bring your entire family over, from Nona to Queepie, so we can cure that curse of yours.”
“Really?” Razputin asked, excited. “I’ll go right away!”
“I’m going too!” Lili volunteered. Already meeting the parents? She works fast. Heh.
“Otto, authorize the use of the jet.” Tanya requested. “They’ve met Mom, so go send her too. Get Dad to fly it. I’ll call ahead.”
Otto looked at her strangely, but after checking with his peers, he nodded back. “Alright, if you insist.” He got on his psychic phone and started issuing orders.
After Razputin and Lili left into the tram, Helmut spoke first: “So, we gotta go get Lucy now, right?” He asked.
“Taken care of.” Tanya said easily. “She’ll be here in a few hours.”
“When did you have time to do that?” Bob asked.
Of the group, Cassie was the first to connect the dots. “That boy is Lucy’s family, isn’t he?” She asked.
Tanya grinned. “What better way to keep Maligula contained than with induced hydrophobia?” She asked rhetorically. “Ford left her with family, convincing her that she was her own dead sister, to raise her nephew as her own son. Then he brought them to America, and the rest? Is history.” Tanya’s smile dimmed. “I’ve never confirmed, but I suspect that Ford’s hypnosis became sort of… contagious. Lucy believed in the curse, and infected her family with the same suggestion with her own telepathy, turning their own hydrokinesis against them. It should be relatively simple to fix.”
“That’s clever.” Helmut commented, “Getting Lucy over here without anyone suspecting a thing, because no one outside this room knows you’re ever getting her.”
“I have my moments.” Tanya said humbly, “Now, I’d like some backup for Ford’s final mind fragment. It’ll have his full psychic power behind it, so who’s with me?”
“I’m still rather weak from the psilirium.” Compton admitted.
“I’m pooped from dealing with Cassie’s berserk bees.” Bob said. So that’s what was happening.
“I’ve been running around all day, I need a break.” Otto complained.
“I’m barely holding together.” Cassie admitted, “I’ll need all the strength I have left to help with Lucy.”
“I’ll help ya, Tanya.” Helmut said, flexing. “These old timers need a nap, but these younger bones are still hale and hearty.”
“There will be no heavy lifting.” Tanya said sarcastically.
“I’m out, then.” Helmut said, sitting back down. Tanya slapped her own face, running her hand down her face slowly. “Ah, I’m just kidding you. Let’s go.”
Tanya smirked at the comedy bit. “I’ll need to borrow your phone before we leave.” She said to Helmut. Fortunately, one of the many benefits of having psychic powers was being very good at memorizing phone numbers.
“Got it, right over here.”