Otto slowly came to. He wasn't sure just what had happened to him, but had a hunch it had to do with Oscar's new gadget. The newly elected President of Odd Squad's Science department had been showing off the gadget to him and his partner and co-director, Olive. Apparently it didn't work when simply zapped into the air, like the Tinynoteinator, so Oscar had believed it only worked when zapped on someone. Otto, interested and curious, had volunteered.

The thing had looked harmless enough: the usual blue and white, with five different colored spots in a circle, in yellow, blue, purple, green, and red. Besides, Oscar had never invented a gadget capable of killing anyone. None of the Odd Squad scientists ever did. Obbs's mind-control gadget was the most dangerous thing ever to appear. Otto had full confidence in his freind, but something he couldn't quite place still nagged at him.

Otto could hear voices around him, not Olive's or Oscar's, but still familiar. One, a female voice, moaned, "We're never gonna get this to work..."

"Oh, yes we will!" countered a male voice. "Look, the blink function still works."

"Sure, Joy, but nothing else is!" snapped another guy.

Did he just call him 'Joy'? Otto thought. I thought that was a girl's name... He almost stopped mid-thought when he heard his own voice echoing his thoughts back to him from outside.

Another male voice gasped, "What was that?"

"Well, something else still works," a girl's voice remarked sarcastically.

What is going on? Otto's voice sounded again. Now slightly worried, he sat up (apparently he was on a floor). His surroundings were comfortingly familiar. A ball pit, a slide, that big circular thingy hanging from the ceiling, five colorful creatures crowded around some kind of control panel...

Now that was definitely not familiar.

"Okay, guys, we can work with this!" the one in the center said. Otto was pretty sure it was the one they had called Joy. If that was the case, then Joy was the tallest of the five, with golden yellow skin and Otto's black hair and Management outfit. Well, at least the purple sneakers.

"His thoughts responded to our conversation!" argued the guy next to Joy. Like Joy, he had Otto's hair, but this guy was shorter and thinner, and purple. His outfit looked more like an Investigation uniform.

The first girl Otto had heard said, "I think I'll go check the Mind Manuals. Maybe there's something in there." She turned around, and caught Otto's eye. She was shorter than Joy, and rounder, and blue. She wore glasses over sapphire-blue eyes, and she was dressed up like a Maintenance agent. Long, shoulder-length black hair fell over her shoulders.

Otto waved slightly. "Uh, hi?" he said, his voice quavering.

"Guys?" the blue girl said half over her shoulder. "Otto's right here in Headquarters."

All activity stopped short. Four more pairs of eyes turned themselves on Otto.

"Well, this changes things," muttered a green girl in a Medical uniform.

"Disgust, be nice," Joy urged. He carefully approached Otto. From the front, Otto could now see that Joy was, indeed wearing the same purple tie as him, and had blue eyes even brighter than the blue girl's. "Wow," he gasped. "I never thought I'd see you face to face-to-face."

"Sorry, but who are you, and where am I?"

"Oh, my bad. I'm Joy, but you probably figured that out already. And as to your second question... you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"I've seen robot princesses and flying goldfish," Otto assured Joy with a laugh. "I'll probably believe you."

"Oh, right," Joy laughed back. "I should have known you'd say that. Well, you're in your own mind."

"Whaaaaat?"

"I knew he wouldn't believe him," the blue girl murmured.

"Oh, no, I believe you, it's just..." For a moment, Otto couldn't find the right words. "I'm just so amazed. Oscar is a genius!"

"I know, right?" Joy replied with a wide, toothy grin. "For starters, she's Sadness."

As Sadness and Otto shyly waved, Joy continued, "These guys would be Disgust, Fear, and Anger," pointing at the green girl, the purple boy, and a blocky red male figure in a Security outfit.

Otto inquired, "So, are you guys supposed to be my feelings or something like that?"

"Technically, we're your emotions," Joy answered. "We live and work here in Headquarters. Our job as a group is to get you through your day-to-day life, but we each have our own specific functions. I provide for that sense of wonder you need every day, Sadness insures that you have a shoulder to cry on whenever you need it, Fear keeps you safe, Disgust wards off physical and social poisoning, and Anger makes sure things are fair."

"Wow. So how do you do all that?"

"Oh, we just use the console over here." Joy took Otto's hand (Otto noted, it was surprisingly solid for consisting of particles) and led him to the control panel. It was boxy, with a blue stripe around the bottom, and covered with buttons, levers, switches, and who-knows-what else. "Right now most of the functions aren't working, but you can try the blink button if you want," Joy offered, pointing at a small blue button near the top of the console. Otto went to press it, but ended up pressing the green button next to it. A whooshing noise sounded behind him, and Otto turned around just in time to see a glowing purple sphere drop from a tube in the ceiling and suspend in place. A beam of light hit it and projected an video image Otto recognized onto the screen before them.

"Isn't that the time Olive was being tube-blocked and I had to deal with the Laser Chicken myself?" asked Otto.

Joy laughed, "Yes, sir! Looks like you triggered the Random Recall by mistake. Happens to me all the time. Well, now one other thing works!"

"What's the purple ball supposed to be?"

"It's one of your memories. See, we emotions are at the console at various times, and the memory that's made always corresponds to the emotions that were working the console at the time."

"I made that particular one," Fear said with a touch of pride.

"That's really neat," Otto said. "So you have memories of everything I've ever done?"

"Unless you count the forgotten ones, which are rotting at the bottom of the Memory Dump," Disgust remarked.

Joy ignored Disgust and dragged Otto over to the far side of Headquarters, explaining, "Your most important memories are over here." The emotion stamped on a button on the ground, and a podium rose out of the floor. In it were nestled more glowing balls, brighter than the memories Otto had already seen. "Core Memories," Joy continued. "Each one connects to one of your Islands of Personality, see them out there?"

Otto nodded, looking out past the floor-to-ceiling window. The islands were connected to Headquarters by long, thin bridges. Each island was uniquely suited to Otto - one featured his likeness and Olive's sharing a high-five, another featured his favorite foods, there was one that looked like the Soundcheck Room he had created, and one more featured many of the things he found funniest.

"These are what make you you," Joy explained proudly. "We got Partner Island, Food Island, Soundcheck Island, Humor Island..."

"I never knew I was so complicated," Otto shrugged.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I hate to break this up," Fear interrupted, "but it sounds like Olive and Oscar are getting worried out there."

"Sad to say, you can't stay here forever," Sadness added.

"Looks like they're going to use the gadget again," Anger commented. Indeed, Oscar had just flashed the gadget in the direction of the window.

"Nice meeting you!" Otto called as he disappeared.