In Which Eddward Travels to Psychonaut HQ and

Eddy Receives a Peculiar Guest

Author's Notes: Because of school, I can only write for this thing on the weekend. But summer's coming up, and my schedule is so open it hurts!


"HELLLLLLLOOOOOOO, my brothers and sisters! This is your DJ and Media Phenom Cinco de Mayo, here to give you the word on all of our kindred spirits. You all ready? Here's the news, for all you cats out there who're trying to make a killing!"

"Damn DJ." Wyatt muttered as he turned the volume down on the radio. He had driven to the designated meeting place, and hadn't been surprised in the least to see that Razputin Aquatos was on time. Wyatt opened up the door to the front-passenger seat and listened to the radio while the 11-year-old got in.

"So, I hear from my man Do Not Disturb that the movie biography of Nietzsche completely butchered the guy. The thing looks like total Oscar bait, children, and we all know how much Cinco de Mayo hates award shows. In other news, the Georgia Devil Butcher Killer Strangler—overkill on the name, huh?—chopped off some guy's hand down in (where else?) Georgia! The guy apparently asked him for a hand."

Wyatt chuckled as a recording of a crowd booing played immediately after the horrible pun. Raz stared at the radio for a few seconds before Wyatt began driving again. "Are you listening to what I think you're listening to?"

Wyatt would never admit it, but he didn't like the kid. At least, not the way he was acting now. Razputin had undertaken a sudden change in personality over the last two months. His personality had become much less cheery and he barely smiled. In Wyatt's opinion, you needed to take joy in your work as a Psychonaut.

"… On a sadder note, I've just gotten words that one of our boys fighting the good fight lost last night. You all remember Diego Malheur—that happy-go-lucky factory worker from Virginia? This morning, he was found dead in a small town up north called 'Peach Creek'…"

"Did you find anything out?" Wyatt asked, sucking on a peppermint candy all the while. The loud slurping noises he made were starting to drown out the radio DJ. Raz, his face twisted in a scowl from the obnoxious sounds, reported his findings.

"I tracked down a man who saw something suspicious last night," Raz explained in his most calculating tone. "According to him, he saw the deceased—one Diego Malheur—running from something."

Wyatt gave one of his loudest slurps as he took a sharp right turn in the road. It was 47 miles to the airport where the plane was waiting. Without taking his eyes off of the road, he asked the young Psychonaut, "Did this guy see what Diego was running from?"

As the two approached a large sign that colorfully read, 'NOW LEAVING PEACH CREEK! Spend more money next time, you jerks!' Raz shook his head. "Technically, no," he said. "But he could feel it."

Wyatt chuckled half-mockingly. "That's a nice way to say it. Was the guy a psychic?"

"Yeah, actually," Raz answered after a particularly confusing segment on the radio station. "More than that, he was the first guy who got his brain drained last year."

"I wasn't assigned to that case; I never read the file." Wyatt said curtly. "So, what was this guy sensing, a ghost; an alien; the living personification of arson? If it was the last one, I really hate that guy…"

Raz was about to give an answer when a pounding noise rang throughout the car. Wyatt calmly took a hand off of the wheel and put two fingers to his head. Just as suddenly as the banging had started, it died out.

"I've got rats in my trunk," Wyatt explained to the skeptical Razputin. "Who the hell do you think you are? I didn't kidnap anyone. One of these days, Raz… straight to the moon!"

"… anyways, you take the string and the Honeymooners DVD, and he won't be able to move his arms ever again. I just thought that was interesting…


SAN FRANCISCO:

"… Anyways, onto some more news," the DJ declared in his happy, recognizable voice. "One of our boys fighting the good fight just got a freaking art deal. Can you believe that?! Up in glorious New York, New York, Mr. Black & White's gotten his first-ever commission to make a painting for the grand opening of a swanky new office building. Not bad, eh?

"Okay, now, in memorial for Diego Malheur, AKA the Virginia Vampire, we're gonna be playing some of his favorite songs all day. So, sit back and enjoy Axe Murderer Song."

Why do lovers park down deserted lanes
Near haunted houses or homes for the insane
Like the deformed son who was locked in a shed
Later escaped when he chopped off their heads…

The DJ pushed a button on the custom hardware that sat on the desk in front of him. The next three songs would be broadcast without him having to do anything. With a mighty yawn, the twenty-something-year-old man pulled off the bizarre, complicated helmet balanced on his head and got out of his chair.

The 'radio station' was actually the man's bedroom in his childhood house in San Francisco. His parents didn't live there anymore—they were dead. The money the man had gotten in the inheritance was enough to buy their house and the equipment he needed to broadcast the good fight.

His name was Drew, good reader. Oh! And don't tell anyone, but he was Cinco de Mayo! That's right! Cinco de Mayo was him! And they were Drew! Remember that, dear reader, or, on the 5th of May, Cinco de Mayo will come to your house and destroy you!

Drew and Cinco de Mayo and Drew and both of them quickly grabbed the bizarre helmet and put it on all of their heads—even though they only had one. Like a slap in the face, Cinco de Mayo calmed himself down. His thoughts got too scattered without the helmet on.

The helmet was heavy and it pinched Cinco de Mayo's skull, but it was worth it to make him forget. The outside was some sort of iron and lead compound with zinc plates scattered around seemingly at random. Small antenna jutted from the plates. The inside was lined with a thin layer of some purple metal—Cinco de Mayo had forgotten its name, but he knew it helped him somehow.

The song was over—My Generation, by the Who, came to life and sang over the airwaves. There was no tower outside of Drew's (No! Cinco de Mayo! He had to remember to stop calling himself that) home. Everything was broadcast using the helmet.

Cinco de Mayo was special. His brain could send out messages to anybody he wanted, and nobody else could hear them. He first realized he could do this when he was a boy in summer camp; he had to be isolated from the other campers for their own protection.

But he was better now; with the right technology, Cinco de Mayo could keep his thoughts straight and send them wherever he wanted. He was sending them through the radio—or, at least, what his listeners perceived as the radio. It was all in their heads. He sought them out and made them think they could hear him.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! The door was pounded as the third song began to play. Cinco de Mayo stepped out of his room and looked down stairs at the front door. Nobody ever came to this house. Not even mailmen. It just didn't stand out.

Cautiously, Cinco de Mayo walked downstairs and approached the door. Whoever it was knocked again, patiently. Cinco de Mayo cracked open the door and saw somebody looking in at him.

"Ah, hello. Are you Drew Haav?"

Cinco de Mayo smiled at the old name. "Yes," he answered, chuckling on the inside. "Can I help you?"

The person chuckled. It was a man—he had a deep voice and what sounded like a Chinese accent. "Well, Drew, I'm here to kill you. Nothing personal."

It was surreal, as if in a nightmare. Before Cinco de Mayo, or Drew, or whoever he was could do anything, a gun was pointing through the crack in the door right at his head. The DJ stuttered, but all he could do was strain his ears and barely make out the song that was playing.

Look at me
I'm a mess
A mess of everything
That I never wanted to be

BANG!


"WHAT?!" Eddy yelled angrily. A detective was standing in front of him, blocking him from entering his own house. With a growl reminiscent of a Chihuahua or maybe a gopher, the short-fuse nearly attacked his obstacle.

"Easy! This is a crime scene!" The detective exclaimed as he saw Eddy made a lunge for his leg. "We just found some blood-stains in the house—you'll have to find somewhere else to stay."

"That's not the point!" Eddy declared. He sighed and calmed down, though, giving up. "I was gonna charge the kids to see a dead body…" A sick look crossed the detective's face.

"Hmm. While that's certainly… creative, I'm afraid that wouldn't be allowed." He mused. "Now, could you please move along? We've had enough set-backs today as it is? The Psychonaut stole most of the evidence…"

By this point, Eddy was already walking away. At present, he was focused on only two thoughts—both of them selfish, as always. Number one, he had no place to stay; and, perhaps less important, he wasn't able to make any money off of a dead body in his backyard. That was injustice to the highest degree.

"Hey… kid, look over here…"

The voice was little more than a whisper, but Eddy heard it fine. Turning his eyes toward Edd's house (And not stopping to wonder why his best friend hadn't been at school that day), Eddy saw perhaps the most demented-looking old man imaginable.

His grey beard went down to his chest and was made up of wild curls with bits of leaves stuck in them. His hair was just as much a mess, perhaps more so—Eddy could swear he saw something moving in it. What he was wearing could barely be called clothes—more like rags a dog had torn apart and then pissed on.

Most striking, however, were the eyes. The one on the left was normal-sized, or at least what people accept as normal. The right one, however, was so large it seemed to cause a deformity in the old man's skull. The pupil and iris in the eye were just as large, which made the old man look altogether eerie. When he opened his mouth to speak, his teeth were revealed to be as crooked as a picket fence that had fallen into disrepair.

"Kid… follow me… I needs to talk to you and your yellow shirt…"

The old man darted away, leaving Eddy to stare on in confusion. Now, for all of the underage readers out there, it normally isn't wise to follow a strange adult. However, if the adult looks crazy and has a weird eye, it's perfectly fine. Taking this advice to heart, Eddy followed after the most-likely-a-hobo.

After a few minutes of walking in the direction he guessed the old man had gone in, he found himself in the woods. A flickering, orange light was barely visible ahead. Walking up to it, Eddy found himself in the middle of a ramshackle campsite, with a fire and various furnishings made of scrap from the junkyard.

"You're kinda stupid to follow an adult you don't know… but this was smart…" the old man grabbed Eddy's shoulder and spun him around. Right away, Eddy found himself staring blankly into the man's bulbous eye. Ordinarily, the pipsqueak would have said something rude or angry—the eye, however, freaked him out too much.

"I know what you're looking at," the old man grumbled sadly. "It's my hair, ain't it? I haven't had a haircut since November, '99. No point, huh? The world was going to end! And it did! I was right! Showed those jerks at work, didn't I?"

To anyone with one-and-a-half brain cells to rub together, it was easy to tell what the man was talking about. Eddy, however, didn't see the point in using brain cells, and simply stuttered nervously. "A-are you going to rape me?"

The man grumbled angrily. "God, no, you little sicko! I'd sue you, if the world hadn't ended," he yelled. "No. I'm here to warn you. About happenings; goings-on, if you catch my drift. No? Yeah?" He blinked and Eddy noticed, nauseated, that the old man's right eye blinked much slower than the other one and made a loud 'squish' noise when it closed.

"Hmm. I can see you're speechless. My hair ain't that bad." The man pointed out. "Listen closely, kid, because I'm only gonna say this once. You've gotta save that girl. Before they get her. They've already killed two people, and if they kill anymore we're all DOOMED! Except for me… because, you know, the world ended. Y2K, you know? You, however, will die. Slowly and without mercy."

Eddy's normal-sized eyes twitched traumatically. "What the hell are you talking about?!" He asked, finally gaining control of the situation. "You ask me to follow you and then you start telling me to save a girl! Tell Edd! He's psychic!"

The old man took a step back out of shock. "Don't talk so loud! The roaches will hear you," he ordered. "They're the only thing that survived after—"

"Screw that!" Eddy screeched, forcing the old man back another step. "What the hell's wrong with you?! It's a little while after 2000—I'm pretty sure the world hasn't ended!"

"I—I think," The old man gasped fearfully, "I-I think that… OH GOD! THE TV IS WALKING! THE TV IS WALKING! MEN IN HAWAIIAN SHIRTS! SCREW YOU GUYS, I'M GOING HOME! LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU, THERE'S AN OXYGEN!"

Before Eddy could turn and look at the oxygen, the old man turned and frantically ran away. Eddy could barely hear him screaming something back to him…

"Before you go on the dangerous path, boy, consider this… I AM ONLY 38!"


THERE WAS darkness all around Edd. Memories of the morning came flooding back along with a mind-numbing migraine. He tried to stand up, but found he was in some cramped space. Feeling around, he was able to surmise that it was the trunk of a car…

Had Wyatt kidnapped him? There would be time to find an answer later—right now, Edd had to find a way out. He spent a minute pounding on the ceiling of his tiny prison and then began to scream. Apparently, the latter did the job, because the trunk was soon opened by a fairly familiar figure.

"… Double D? What the hell are you doing in Wyatt's car?"

Razputin Aquatos pulled Double D out of the trunk and stared at him curiously. It had been a few months since the two had seen each other—Raz, after all, had been a key player in defeating the meteor last year and had introduced Edd into the world of Psychonauts.

"Wyatt isn't going to like that I touched his car…" Raz mumbled quietly. "He barely likes it when he touches his car. Dude's got some problems."

"I noticed," said Edd, after stretching a few neck muscles. "Is he an actual Psychonaut? I'd like to see his credentials! He knocked me unconscious and threw me in there!"

Raz looked at the trunk of the car and then at Edd. Then, suddenly, the young Psychonaut burst out laughing. "Oh, don't worry," he assured pleasantly. "I've worked with Wyatt before. The guy's a kleptomaniac. Like, a big kleptomaniac."

"That makes it okay that he kidnapped me?!" Double D, quite justifiably, shouted.

Raz didn't seem to notice, and simply laughed. "The Psychonauts found him when he tried to steal the Smithsonian," he explained.

Double D, mouth agape, stared at Raz for a few second before giving the only response anyone could in such a situation: "The WHOLE Smithsonian?! How is that even possible?! And why would the Psychonauts even recruit someone like that?!"

"I think he's up in the cabin," Raz answered a completely different question. "Let's go. I'm sure he'll apologize."

"Cabin…?" Edd asked while Raz walked off cheerfully. Looking around, Edd realized for the first time where he was—an airplane. Specifically, some sort of carrier section (Edd had never done much research into aeronautics). The back wall was actually a large ramp that could open and close so a car could drive on.

Seeing that Raz had gone through a door on the opposite wall, Double D followed suit. He found himself on what greatly resembled a 1st-class cabin on a plane. In the very front row, watching an in-flight movie and enjoying some peanuts, was Wyatt. Raz was already talking to him.

Edd was about to give the kidnapper a piece of his mind when a voice suddenly sounded through the cabin:

"This is your captain, Manny Sayonce. We're just a few hours away from our destination of the Psychonaut HQ in NY, NY. LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR!"

"Crap. He's losing control again, Raz." Wyatt grumbled in-between mouthfuls of nuts. Raz looked at Edd and waved him over. "Hey, Wyatt. This is a friend of mine who says you kidnapped him," Raz said with a childish grin on his face. "I think he wants an apology."

Wyatt scoffed, spitting some nuts out as he did so. "It wasn't my idea. Someone from HQ sent me a telepathic message instructing me to bring him. And, well, what better way to bring someone?"

"You've gotta stop kidnapping people!" Raz ordered half-jokingly. "Remember that trouble you got in with the Catholic Church when you kidnapped the Cyber-Pope? What about when you…"

"Uh… guys? I'm not feeling too hot. I think this ghost was too much for me to—we will crush our enemies! We will fly into the very mouth of hell for the glory of our nation!"

Edd looked around in terror, prompting a laugh from his kidnapper. "Don't worry. That's just Manny. He channeled the spirit of a pilot so he could fly the jet."

"That's a kamikaze pilot!" Double D protested adamantly. "Yeah, well, he needed someone who knew the basics of flying." Wyatt pointed out with a wave of the hand. "And, you gotta admit, those guys knew how to get where they needed to be."

Before Double D could protest anymore, Razputin, now sitting in the aisle next to Wyatt, smiled reassuringly. "Relax," he said simply. "Psychonauts have to channel dangerous people all of the time—and kamikaze pilots get us where we need to be safe almost 60% of the time!"

"What?!"

"I see an enemy ship! We will hit the weak point for massive damage!"


THE GUNMAN pushed some buttons on Cinco de Mayo's broadcasting equipment. A never-ending stream of songs would be played over the airwaves until someone came to take over Cinco de Mayo's job.

The killer smiled—something he did every hour of every day. That was partly why he was called 'Mr. Joy'. The other reason was his clothes—a t-shirt over a long-sleeved shirt seemed normal. So did dress-pants. However, the t-shirt and pants were absolutely covered with images of smiley faces and foreign words for happiness. A black neckerchief was tied tightly around his pale, scrawny neck.

The bright-yellow cell phone hanging from Mr. Joy's belt buzzed. In a movement faster than the eye could see, he unhooked the device and had it up to his ear. "Joy!" He greeted simply and with an even bigger, toothier smile.

"Mr. Joy, you've reached your deadline. What's Drew Haav's status?"

"Single, most-likely. He never got out much. He won't get a chance to, either—he's dead."

"Well-done! I'll inform Jefferson to move on to the third target. Now, listen closely—I want you to go to Queens, New York; you'll receive further instructions upon arrival. Understood?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Mr. Joy hastily answered as he hung up and put his phone back on his belt. He had already forgotten most of what… whoever had just told him. Something about a bus and the Best of Queen?

It didn't matter—instructions were for losers, and if Mr. Joy got out fast he could probably buy a coffee on his way to the bus depot.


THE PLANE LANDED outside a gleaming, white dome on the outskirts of New York. Edd wondered how a large plane could safely land outside a building without a runway. Edd was thinking too much.

A loud, worrisome hissing noise accompanied the door to the craft opening. Raz assured Double D that it was nothing to worry about before stepping outside. Wyatt told Double D not to touch the outside of the plane or his brain would melt. Taking what they said to heart, Edd stepped outside into the cool, morning air.

Turning to look at the plane he had just flown on, it was obviously no jet. Large chunks of glowing, purple metal (Psitanium, Edd remembered) were placed on the nose and wings of the plane, for some reason.

"Ah. Eddward. I'm sorry for dragging you away from your studies."

The German accent startled Double D. He hadn't seen anybody else when he stepped off of the plane—but, as psychics could turn invisible, that was hardly surprising. Double D turned around and saw just who he expected—Sasha Nein, the elite Psychonaut agent who had contacted him in his dream the previous night.

"Are you saying you're the one who told Wyatt to kidnap me?" Edd asked with a calmness that surprised even him. He descended down the plane's steps and faced Sasha Nein in front of the entrance to the building.

Sasha gave a wry smirk while Raz and Wyatt waited patiently behind him. "I'm afraid you're mistaken—you weren't kidnapped. You came here of your own free will. You signed papers to prove it."

Before Double D could argue, Sasha produced several papers from his back pocket. Edd had just enough time to spot an obviously forged signature before Agent Nein put them away.

"As for why you came here… who knows? Maybe you can help us out with a case," Sasha took Edd by the shoulder and walked towards the entrance to the glorious institution before them.

Seeing no other alternative, Double D walked into the massive building. And, as he passed through the double doors, he saw this—carved above the entrance, and in pristine condition:

Mens Sibi Conscia Recti


Author's Notes: Well, summer's here. More updates for all! Also, feel free to look up the Psychonauts' motto. For once, it's not a joke on you.

Next Time: Running the Asylum