Cerebral Soldiers Rewrite

by Atrophy-Conception

Six years after a tragic accident an unsolved mystery arises once more when a past affiliate of the Psychonauts begins recruiting young psychics for a splinter group calling themselves the Cerebral Soldiers. This takes place six years after the sequel and was originally written years ago after the first game was released, but is being re-worked, rewritten and expanded on.

7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven:

We All Build Walls

XXX

Jeremiah pulled the single chair in his office up to his desk and moved most of the clutter off of it so that he had a clear surface to work on. Of course 'clear' in this case was being generous and meant that he had pushed all of the clutter to one side where it was currently defying the laws of gravity.

He was removing the screws from a small vaguely rectangular box to make a few more tweaks on the inside. He'd been working on it for much of the night and it wasn't doing what he wanted it to. There were a variety of things attached that were incorporated from other devices he'd taken apart, giving it an almost Frankensteinian look. Most of his devices weren't pretty, but they worked…well usually they worked.

He frowned when someone knocked on the door. It was a heavy knock, but couldn't be described as 'banging' or 'pounding' and was issued three times…deliberately. A knock that didn't mess about and demanded an answer. Jeremiah sighed and put down his tools.

When he opened the door, he was unsurprised to see Walter standing there, his hands folded behind his back.

"Good morning, Agent 16," Walter said as he strolled into his office.

"Sir," Jeremiah said as he closed the door behind him.

"I just came by to see how far you've come with those items I requested," Walter said, while eyeing the chaos of the room impassively.

"They still need more work," he said. "There's only so much I can do with an old stereo and the insides of a microwave and…well…every time I try to work with…you know, the psilirium…even when it's shielded…it's hard to do precision work when you think everything's on fire."

"Well, if anyone can figure it out, you can. I'm sure you'll find a workaround," Walter replied.

"I…I'll keep working at it."

"You spend a good amount of time around Agent 04, don't you?" Walter said conversationally, while picking up one of Jeremiah's half-finished inventions and turning it over in his hands.

"Uh, sure…occasionally," Jeremiah replied uneasily.

"Have you noticed anything odd about his behavior lately?"

Jeremiah frowned a little. It had been a little over a week since Tank had begun training…that kid. Because of this he'd probably spent less time around him than usual. Odd though? Possibly. In the last few days he seemed a bit more…cheerful wasn't quite the word…energetic? Brighter?

"Not really," Jeremiah answered. "He's been pretty busy, though so…I haven't talked to him much."

"Hmm," Walter said as he put the item down again and strolled a little further into the room. Jeremiah waited. It was always like this with Walter. You had to have conversations at his speed. Finally, after a few moments of silence, the old man spoke again.

"You know how my compound works. It's powerful, but a bit unstable. He's a week overdo for his checkup and that mind of his is very…adaptive. Just keep an eye on him, will you?"

And that was another thing about conversations with Walter, when he finally did get to the point, more often than not it was the verbal equivalent of being punched in the gut.

"Sir you…I mean you spend at least as much time with him as I do…why…sorry, but why me?" Jeremiah asked.

"Because he trusts you," Walter said. And there it was…punched…in the gut.

"Right…" Jeremiah said after a moment.

"I'll see if I can get my hands on more suitable materials for you to work with. I'll check up on you again in a week or so. I assume you will have made more progress by then?"

"Yes, of course," he replied.

"Good boy."

After Walter left, he got back to work, but he was less focused now.

Jeremiah didn't like people very much. Growing up, his family hadn't been especially supportive, even before his psychic abilities manifested. His father had taken brief pride in him when he'd discovered his talent with electronics, but that had vanished once it became clear why he was so good with them. And his mom had practically faded into the background, like a piece of furniture and tended to just adopt his father's opinions.

He spent a lot of his early teens in some sort of trouble until eventually both his family and the 'system' gave up on him.

Now he was here. Walter had been welcoming enough but had always rubbed him the wrong way a little. He had a way of talking to you that made you feel…small, unimportant…but then he would turn around and shower you with praise while simultaneously trying to emphasize that it was the rest of the world that was against you. Jeremiah wasn't stupid, he knew when he was being handled, he'd seen his dad use similar tactics with his mom for years.

Still, here he was allowed to do the only thing that really mattered to him. The ethical details he'd leave for someone else to sort out. He'd already had to make plenty of compromises to his own moral system to survive in the world and decided early on that he was more than willing to look the other way and even participate so long as he was able to continue doing what he liked. Tank complicated that a little.

Walter had created a compound that combined large, concentrated amounts of Psitanium and mixed them with smaller diluted samples of Psilirium. It was meant to both enhance a person's psychic abilities, while also making their mind more malleable. Sort of like trying to create a very powerful psychic sleeper agent. Problem was, Psilirium was often too much for a brain to handle even in small doses. Walter had found two solutions for this: Jeremiah's inventions and a mind with especially strong mental defenses.

It hadn't bothered him at first. A brain was needed for these experiments and Tank's brain almost seemed tailor suited for them. but…taking active part in them month after month…contributing the tech that aided him with it… seeing what it actually did to Tank's mind…even his almost nonexistent conscience started to twang a little.

Despite these newfound and unwelcome feelings of guilt, he hadn't planned on doing anything about it. But if there was one thing that shocked Jeremiah about his time at the KLC more than anything else, it was that despite his complete lack of social niceties and aversion to people in general, he had somehow managed to make a friend here.

It started one night after one of Tank's 'checkups' and that term had always rubbed him the wrong way as well. As if to suggest they were doing anything other than severely fucking with someone's head. It had been a higher dosage than on previous occasions and he hadn't been taking to it as well. Walter had left monitoring Tank to him. Normally he busied himself with one of his projects and tried to ignore the more and more persistent feelings of guilt he had been experiencing over the months, but on that night, he decided not to.

He'd been using tattoos and piercings as a displacement activity on himself for years. Sort of like acupuncture, it triggered a response in the brain to release chemicals that lessened pain and could help with anything from providing a nice distraction from other unpleasant sensations, to sobering you up in a hurry. He'd pulled up a chair and had begun doing the linework on Tank's arm in an attempt to pull him out of his delirium a little, picking the poster above his bed at random to replicate. He didn't know why he made the decision, apart from the fact that it was something that worked on him and for whatever reason, in that moment, he had wanted to help.

Tank could have easily been angry with him when he finally did come out of his daze the next day, but he wasn't. He had asked him to finish it. And that, more or less, had been that.

He'd had friends before, of course. Although those friendships had been…different. More and more he realized that throughout most of his life his relationships had either been born of convenience with no real feeling or loyalty behind them, or else were transactional. With Tank it was…weirdly simple, especially considering how complex the circumstances around it were. Not that he liked to dwell on it very much. He liked Tank, which was an achievement in in of itself and it eased his conscience…that was good enough for him.

Jeremiah put his tools down and stared at the stricken machine on the cluttered desk for a moment.

"Damn it."

XXX

"Uh…are we…supposed to be out here?" Stephen asked nervously, while hovering near Tank, who was examining a door on one of the fortress walls. Well…door wasn't accurate…it was more like a portcullis, but a small one. Nearby was a winch that was attached to it by an ancient, frayed rope.

"Ehh…technically no," Tank said while grabbing hold of the winch with telekinesis. It made a terrible noise that sounded like ages of rusted metal, before it began to turn. "But this is hardly outside of the base. This side of the coast is walled off from the town and it thins out too much on the other side."

Stephen looked around nervously. For the time being, this portion of the yard was empty, but the obstacle course was nearby, and the other cadets would have recently begun their training exercises. Tank paused with the door half open.

"We can go back…if you like," he said. Stephen turned back towards him and after a second, he shook his head.

"It doesn't look like it's been used in a while…like…a really long while," Stephen said, after the door came to a creaking stop.

"Well then, I'm sure it's oxided to be used again," Tank said. He met Stephen's wide-eyed gaze. "Because it's really rusty…" he added as Stephen continued to stare. "Like…oxidation…it's what causes the metal to…nevermind, let's go."

Tank motioned for him to precede him and then followed behind. Once through, he released his grasp on the winch and the portcullis plummeted behind them.

Stephen followed as Tank walked down the beach, rolling his sleeves up as he did. It was pleasantly warm out, so the older boy had suggested training outside, but much of the grounds would of course already be occupied. This was the solution.

"If someone sees us out here, will we get in trouble?"

"Nah, the field that keeps psychic waves in and out of the base is large enough to cover this side of the beach. And you can't escape from here…there's nowhere to go…unless you want to try and make a swim for it," he said.

It wasn't an especially nice beach. It was covered in driftwood and mats of thick ancient seaweed. The sand was very nearly dirt and quite hard in places and near the water instead of gently sloping into the waves, it dropped off treacherously. There was a dock, but it was half submerged and with it were several stricken rowboats that had been mostly gobbled up by the water or had otherwise broken apart. It certainly wasn't the sort of beach that would be on any postcards.

They stopped in an area mostly clear of debris and Tank shrugged off the bag he had over his shoulder as well as a thermos he had with him this morning as well.

"I was thinking we could work on Psi-blast or pyrokinesis today, since you've been making some progress on your psi-punch" he said. "There's probably enough junk out here so we'll have plenty to practice on, although some of it may be too damp to catch fire."

Stephen had been making some progress with his psi-punch. It didn't work all of the time, but after accidentally using it on the Nose it had been a little bit easier to use on the dummies, especially when he started picturing the Noses's face during training.

He nodded.

"Great, let's gather up some of this stuff and make some targets."

Stephen began collecting stuff along the coast, trying to avoid anything that was too rotten or degraded. A little further down, Tank was doing the same, but much more efficiently via telekinesis and with larger objects.

Over the last week he'd found himself getting more and more comfortable in the older boy's company. There were still all of the rumors of course, which did occasionally worry him, and he was close to Walter…who scared Stephen probably more than even his own father did, but the more time he spent with Tank, the harder it was to be afraid of him.

Instead, his fear had mostly given way to awe. Stephen had always used books and comics as a way to escape his life. And in those stories, there were heroes who were strong and kind and brave and of course very very fictional. He hadn't had many people in real life that he'd been able to look up to.

He looked up at Tank again and wondered vaguely if there was even any point to him gathering stuff from the coast when the older boy had already collected three times as much. As he headed back to where they were setting up the makeshift course, he caught some movement in his periphery and his eyes drifted to the shore. What he'd taken at first to be a swell in the waves, detached from the surrounding water, forming into a large translucent hand.

Stephen froze and watched in mute horror as it grabbed at one of the stricken boats, yanking a large chunk off of it, before rising with a fistful of the wood, some of which splintered off back into the waves.

"Uhh," he said as a piece of driftwood fell from his arms. The watery hand repositioned itself slightly and then reeled back as if lining up for a shot. Stephen's eyes drifted from it, to Tank, who had his back turned to it. "Uhh…Tank…Tank!"

The older boy looked up at him as he pointed wildly at the water and then turned towards it just as the wood was launched in his direction, bits breaking off from it as it soared across the beach. He stopped the largest chunk with telekinesis about an inch away from his head. As Stephen ran up to him, he saw that he was scowling, but didn't seem especially surprised despite nearly being brained by part of a rowboat.

"W-what is that thing?" Stephen asked. He watched as the hand broke off another piece of the boat, dragging it against part of the sunken dock as it did, as if trying to scrape some of the loose pieces free. Tank motioned for him to step back as the thing wound up and launched this at him as well. It didn't get very far before he plucked it out of the air.

"All right! I get it! What do you think would happen to you, if that had worked!" he shouted towards the coast. He turned and must have caught Stephen's expression. "It's…nothing it…don't worry…it won't hurt you. It'll just throw stuff at me and…try to pull me in if I get too close," he said as he allowed the piece he'd caught to drop into the sand.

"What!?" Stephen said, his voice breaking a little.

"It won't actually drown me…probably…I don't know. We're having a disagreement," he said as he started to pull some of the wood that he'd stuck in the sand back out again. "Let's move a little further in where it can't reach."

Stephen stared at him for a couple of seconds longer before looking back towards the coast. The hand had balled itself into a fist and was shaking it in Tank's direction. After pulling a few more pieces of driftwood from the sand, Tank stopped and looked at him, apparently realizing that he was still frozen in place. He heard the older boy sigh.

"Look, remember our conversation about the rope?" Tank asked. Stephen tore his eyes off the water.

"The…rope?"

"The way we perceive things in our minds can have a huge effect on what we're able to do," Tank said. "And psychic abilities are even more tied into that, because they're a product of our minds. So, if we're doubting ourselves, or are anxious, or…our minds aren't in the best place, it can affect our ability to properly control them."

Stephen watched him blankly for a moment as he tried to apply this information to giant watery boat throwing hands. Finally, it dawned on him.

"Y…you're doing that?"

"It's hydrokinesis," he said bitterly. "Clearly I'm very bad at it," he added as he continued to move the debris.

Stephen's gaze returned to the water where the hand had withdrawn back into the waves. Tanks explanation made sense. He didn't have much experience with it outside of the KLC, but it seemed like a lot of the agents who specialized in certain abilities, tended to have personalities that complimented those abilities. He'd always thought that that was why invisibility came so naturally to him. It stood to reason that the opposite might be true.

But…well he was bad at a lot of things. And for him, that meant that his abilities were very weak, or didn't work at all. Tank seemed convinced that this was tied to his own confidence, which he was still having a hard time coming to grips with.

He was thinking that…the thing in the water had been large, clearly strong enough to rip a boat apart and precise enough to be able to throw it over a sizeable distance. It didn't look like Tank was bad at hydrokinesis. It looked like…something else.

XXX

Lili scowled and opened one eye. Her gaze drifted down to her hand where a small vine was curling around her fingers. She sighed.

"Look, I appreciate your need for a support structure, but I'm kind of trying to focus right now," she said as she rotated her wrist so that it would come uncoiled. She was sitting on the ground in her garden where she had spent most of the morning attempting to sort through any stray or errant snatches of psychic energy that might have been present. But she kept getting interrupted by the Black-eyed Susan…which was apparently feeling very clingy today.

Lili had been coming up here every day for the last week; cleaning up the harmful weeds and the dead foliage and attempting to reacclimate herself to the various plants and flowers that were growing there. Despite the amount of time she'd spent away, she was finding it much easier than she expected to settle back in, so long as she tried to ignore the more complex feelings and memories she associated with it and instead focused on the garden itself.

She closed her eyes and rested her hand on her knee again, palm up.

Lili had spent a lot of time researching plants and reading books about them…it was hard not to be curious about something when you could interact with it on a personal level. Herbaphony was a rare ability with a lot of useful applications, although it was not uncommon for those adept in it to become slightly disconnected from other people. After all…from nature's perspective…humanity kind of sucked. Some of the books she had read had been written by psychics, others had not. Historically, plants had always had a lot of symbolism and meaning applied to them and a lot of it was complete and utter rubbish.

Although when it came down to it, some of the books that were written by psychics could be a bit…odd as well. There was one book, for example that exclusively dealt with plants that reacted psychically while in the presence of…intimate acts. Lili could not attest to the accuracy of the work, although the author of the book was supposedly skilled in Herbaphony so presumably it was. And if that was the case, how did they know which plants would react? Did they just…try with every plant?

None of that was helpful in this situation, of course. If she'd had more time, she would have tried to get a hold and cultivate some plants that were known to feed off of dreams. Unfortunately considering how rare some of them were, there was no telling how long that would take. Instead, she made do with poppies and hollyhock, both of which were supposed to either help with memory or at least were sort of related to dreams or dreaming.

Lili opened her eyes and glared at the Black-eyed Susan. The small vine had been inching near her fingers again…it retreated slowly in the heat of her gaze. She was done, in any case. There were still a lot of things she could do, of course, encourage some plants to grow a little more, try to disperse some of the psychic energy that was still creeping through because of its proximity to the Motherlobe…and of course the thorned vines were still there. The best she'd gotten them to do was to move ever so slightly so that she could get past them without the thorns ripping at her clothing. It would have to do though.

She looked up at the sky. She'd been there since sunrise and wasn't sure what time it was now, but it had to be pretty late in the morning. Lili frowned. It would have to do…later.

She unfolded her legs and stood up. The Psychonauts were meeting at noon. She didn't particularly want to attend, but she also didn't feel like getting any more subtle lectures from Sasha and Milla. Although even those she might have put up with if it weren't for her father. Lately conversations with him had been…awkward. When he spoke to her, it was as if he were tip-toeing around something, but at the same time he was also being extra attentive. He always got like this when he was convinced that there was something wrong, but he also knew her well enough to know that the direct approach wouldn't get him anywhere. Lili decided she'd rather sit through a boring retread of regurgitated information if it meant she didn't have to deal with her father being worried about her.

She would just have to come back afterwards, later in the evening perhaps. Then she could begin trying to meditate on the nightmares. And if it didn't work here…well she wasn't sure what else she could do.

XXX

By midday the sun had retreated behind the clouds. Without it, the beach looked even less inviting. It also stank. That was something that became more and more noticeable as the morning went on. The stagnant water and rotten seaweed gave it a smell with an almost physical presence.

"Just wait until summer," Tank said when Stephen mentioned it. "When it gets warmer the whole base smells like this."

Much to Stephen's relief, they were packing up to take a break for lunch. He had tried to keep his mind focused on aggressive energy, but he was having a hard time concentrating. His eyes kept drifting to the water.

True to Tank's word, they'd been eating lunch outside of the cafeteria for the last week. Sometimes they ate in the yard and sometimes in the training room. This mostly depended on the weather. The arrangement had been a bit nerve-wracking at first but like the training sessions themselves had settled into something that was more akin to generalized awkwardness. Stephen sometimes felt like he radiated a special kind of awkward capable of infecting others. Like…in the same way people were sometimes described as being able to light up a room upon their entry…he could make a whole conversation uncomfortable just by being there.

It was easier when he and Tank were training, when he was focused on trying not to fail at whatever they were working on for the day, there wasn't as much room to think about anything else. The lunches were another matter. When he did talk, he kept his inquiries to the training itself or something equally mundane. Their conversations only strayed into other topics when Tank prompted it, bringing up random, less boring stuff or encouraging him to talk about his interests.

His initial impression of Tank had been that he was a very serious person, rigid…almost stoic even and that idea fit with his reputation. The more time he spent with him, however the less he thought this. In fact, as the week had gone on, he was finding more and more that the opposite seemed to be true.

Lately, during their training sessions Tank was friendly, animated…often enthusiastic. There were times when this enthusiasm was almost infectious, and Stephen couldn't help but be drawn into it. To his initial bewilderment, Tank had even gotten into the habit of joking around a bit. His jokes were…admittedly terrible, but it didn't seem to bother him even when Stephen had no idea how to react to them. What they did do, was make him feel less uneasy.

This new impression of the older boy was only challenged whenever the conversation even slightly shifted towards Tank himself. Then it would be like an invisible wall would drop and he would either change the subject or end it abruptly. He might then be slightly aloof for a while, keeping their interactions purely on training itself. At first, Stephen thought it might just be his imagination as it wasn't done in a way that was too obvious. It was hard to go on believing that after the fifth or sixth time it happened, though. Often it was over seemingly innocuous things and left Stephen feeling sort of confused, wondering if he had said or done something wrong.

One such occasion had occurred earlier in the week. Since they'd mostly been avoiding lunch in the cafeteria, they sometimes ate at different times than the rest of the base. This was not unlike what Stephen had already been doing, but in his case, it often resulted in him getting scraps or leftovers…or not eating at all. Tank seemed to be able to convince the cook to give them food regardless of what time it was. One morning they'd gone to breakfast before the cafeteria was technically open and the cook had produced some half decent scrambled eggs and some bacon that was not terribly burnt. It was still the equivalent of bad hospital food, but recognizable and an improvement on the usual fare.

Once they'd gotten back to the training room, Tank had offered his portion of bacon and when Stephen had asked what he thought was a completely innocent question about it, he'd made a quick comment about it not agreeing with him and then had basically shut down. Like the other times Stephen had felt the very clear sense that some sort of boundary had been crossed with invisible rules that he didn't understand. Because it was completely random which questions would illicit this reaction, he'd just gotten it into the habit of not asking Tank anything about himself, no matter how mundane.

Maybe that was part of the reason he was still so uncomfortable during their lunches. Even someone without his deplorable social skills would find it difficult to try and hold a conversation with someone who was not only still a stranger…but had clearly decided to remain so.

Today, despite the weather, they were eating in the training room. As usual Stephen had spent the first half of lunch trying to think of something to say. Given what he did know about Tank, he sometimes wondered if the older boy picked up on this and was just too polite to call attention to it. After all…these were probably surface thoughts and it would explain why, generally if he couldn't think of anything, Tank would jump in after a while, as if sparing him the agony.

After trying a lot of different things in his head, he settled on 'small talk,' which everyone knows is the verbal equivalent of watching paint dry…and then indeed deciding to have a conversation about it.

"This food is…bad today," he said. To be fair, it was true. A lot of the stuff in the cafeteria that day had been hard to identify…whereas generally at least half of it was recognizable.

"Yeah, I've been trying to decide if this purple stuff is eggplant…or some kind of berry…or not supposed to be purple," Tank said without looking up from his own food. "It doesn't really taste like anything though, so right now I don't have any concrete theories."

"I think it's cabbage," Stephen said dismally, while mentally awarding himself for coming up with the most boring topic that he possibly could have.

"Cabbage? Huh…but it's so…squishy."

Stephen decided Tank also deserved an award for attempting to humor him with it.

"You know, I've always suspected half of the stuff that comes out of the cafeteria is from food stores that were already here in the base," Tank said after a moment, interrupting Stephen's thoughts. He had been wondering if he could make a conversation about cabbage last until their training session resumed.

"Wouldn't that…make it like…over a century old?" Stephen asked.

"Nah, I'm pretty sure there were people using it in the 40s…and then again in the 60s…so you know…just like…twenty years or so…half a century at the most," he said with a shrug.

"So…why does it…keep getting abandoned?" Stephen asked, latching onto this new topic with some relief, as it seemed far more interesting.

"For the same reason everything around here does, probably," Tank said as he unscrewed his thermos. He caught Stephen's questioning gaze as he was taking a drink. "The Psitanium. There isn't as much of it over here, but I guess there was still enough so that it did some odd stuff. Someone once told me this place is at least twice as old as Warshaw…maybe even older."

"A lot of it seems older," Stephen said. "Almost like a castle."

"Yeah, I always thought it would be pretty cool if…well," the older boy started before trailing off and taking another drink. Stephen fidgeted with his food nervously while trying to think of something to say that wouldn't tread on any rhetorical landmines. Unfortunately, that meant either more small talk, or talking about himself, neither of which seemed like especially great options to him.

"Back before when…I mean when I was…skipping meals…I used to look around a little," Stephen said before adding nervously; "Uh…actually…I guess I don't know if that's allowed…"

"I don't think there's an actual rule against it, although I would be careful about letting anyone see you…" Tank said before considering this for a moment. "I guess that isn't really a problem for you though, huh? Have you been to the tower?" he added after a moment, grinning a little.

"Tower?" Stephen asked as Tank stood up, closing his thermos in the process.

"You can see it from outside, but the entrance is in one of the halls we don't use. Plus, it's upstairs and, you know…a lot of the staircases are kind of unstable."

"Is it safe?" Stephen asked, while starting to pack up. He already knew he was going to go whether or not it was…sort of like with the beach. Stephen had never really had many friends and was therefore finding himself in the same position as many do when someone older and cooler than them inexplicably seem to be willing to spend time with them, ie the strong urge to please.

"Nope," Tank said brightly.

"Oh…uh ok," Stephen said.

"Gloves," the older boy added while indicating Stephen's gloves, which he'd set aside for lunch. In the meantime, he grabbed a rope from the stuff they used for training and threw it over his shoulder.

XXX

The door that opened into the base of the tower was stuck badly enough so that Tank had to break it open. Stephen peered around the doorway cautiously and immediately noticed a couple of things most people might consider a problem. The first was that it was incredibly dark. There were no windows apart from a few small dusty ones several meters up that let off a light so thin it barely touched the darkness and because this part of the base wasn't used, electrical lighting clearly hadn't been installed. The only light right now was coming from the open door. And the second thing…

"Uh…the staircase is gone."

It was a square tower and the stairs wound around the inside, broken up by flat narrow connecting walkways. The bottom portion of the stairs, however had clearly collapsed a while ago, leaving about fifteen feet between the ground and the walkway above.

"Yeah, that was my fault," Tank said matter-of-factly as he moved his bag from one shoulder to the other and readjusted the rope he was holding. "…It's what the rope is for."

"We're going to climb it?"

"No, you're going to climb it. Hey, I didn't say this wasn't a part of training. Hang on, I'll tie it off," Tank said before he began to climb the platform…except climb wasn't quite the right word. What he did was use what was left of the collapsed stairway and the stone wall, leaping between each to propel himself upward and onto the surface above.

After pulling himself up, he tied the rope to a sturdy looking beam and tested its durability. Once apparently satisfied, he threw the other end down where it landed on the floor in front of Stephen, kicking up a plume of dirt.

Stephen eyed it and looked up into the darkness. He realized after a second that his mouth was open, so he closed it with a snap and began fumbling with his gloves.

What took Tank about ten seconds without a rope took him nearly fifteen minutes with one. Still, this was a much shorter distance than the climb Tank had set up in the training room. There was one terrible moment when he reached the top and wasn't sure if he could pull himself up, but he didn't have to agonize over this long before Tank leaned over the edge above him and offered his hand. Stephen took it gratefully and was hoisted onto his feet.

"Hey, nice work, Stephen." Tank said as he clapped him on his shoulder. "That was about the length of the rope outside." Stephen still wasn't quite at home with praise. His initial reaction was always that of embarrassment and he had to bite back the compulsion to say something negative about himself in response.

As they continued up, Stephen kept very close to the wall, to the point that he placed both hands on it, feeling the old stone, which occasionally crumbled beneath his fingers. The walkway and the connecting stairs were made of wood, which creaked ominously underfoot, as the beams shifted a little.

If he were a character in a story, this would be an adventure…he would be able to appreciate the idea of exploring an empty tower in a building that was over a hundred years old. As it was, the main thing currently running through his head was terror every time the wall crumbled or the wood beneath him moved and the feverish desire to not die.

"It's…really dark," he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking, but not quite managing it.

"Yeah, I think…hold on it's here somewhere…ah hah," Tank said from a little way ahead. Stephen blinked as a torch on the wall was set alight. He watched as the older boy pried it from the bracket with some effort.

"Do you come up here a lot?" Stephen asked after a moment once they had resumed their climb, figuring it was a safe enough question to ask, since Tank had been the one to suggest coming here in the first place. And it was a way to distract himself from his own terror.

"No, not anymore. Geez, it's probably been a few years actually," Tank replied.

Stephen considered this. Years!? As far as he knew the KLC hadn't been open for more than a year itself…maybe a bit longer. He knew some of the agents had been with Walter before that…but a few years? He wasn't entirely certain how old Tank was, but he couldn't have been more than three or four years older than himself. There weren't many people at the KLC who were much older than that apart from Dragon and Hag…and of course Walter.

"W-why did you stop coming?" Stephen asked, aware that this might be treading into slightly more dangerous territory.

"Uh well…I guess I just…forgot about it. I mean…falling through the stairs probably didn't help. Oh hey, I've been meaning to ask," Tank said as, Stephen noted, he changed the subject. At least it wasn't one of those times when he cut him off entirely. "How long can you stay invisible for?"

Stephen frowned and still hugging the wall, tried to readjust his mind to this new topic.

"I don't know…I never really…um…timed myself…why?" he asked.

"Well, the night you were locked outside, you had to have been invisible for at least fifteen minutes or so…and that's only what I counted after I knew you were there. Plus, you seem to do it without realizing sometimes…like…you know you were just doing it a few minutes ago."

"Oh…" Stephen said, his face turning red. "Uh…no…sorry, I didn't know," he added as he tried to think about when that would have been and then wondered how often he'd done it around Tank previously without realizing. "I think…I was for maybe six hours once…" he added.

"Wow, impressive!" Tank said. "I never got the hang of invisibility myself…the most I ever managed was about thirty seconds."

Tank stopped. Stephen, who had been thinking nearly ran into him. The reason he stopped, Stephen realized quickly, was because they'd reached the top of the staircase. It had emptied onto small platform barely big enough for one person to stand on and in front of it was a narrow door. Tank shouldered the door open, which it did with a creak and daylight flooded the stairway.

The tower wasn't especially big, and the interior was sparse. The windows were cut out of the walls and didn't have any glass. One window had even corroded so much so that much of the wall on that wall was open to the outside. It had begun raining and Stephen could see the beach through this opening.

"Well," Tank said as he put the torch in an empty bracket by the door. "This has definitely gotten worse."

He walked over toward the opening and peered out, resting his arm on the stone above his head and leaning against it. Stephen moved into the room a little less assuredly. He did eventually inch his way towards the gap, but still kept some distance between him and it.

"So, why six hours…if you don't mind me asking?" Tank asked after a moment.

Stephen frowned. This was of course one of the many problems that arose when there were so many invisible rules guiding their conversations. He had to talk about himself a lot more than he'd prefer. Stephen was always self-conscious about this, but at least most of the stuff Tank asked about was merely embarrassing. There were other things that were different, made him feel the kind of shame he'd prefer to bury, rather than discuss.

"I was hiding," Stephen said.

"Oh, from Benny?"

Stephen shook his head.

"At home," he said quietly. "From my dad."

Stephen was vaguely aware that Tank was watching him before he heard the older boy sigh and sit down on what had probably once been a makeshift bench near the window, cut out of the same stone, but was now also heavily corroded.

"Sorry, do you uh…want to talk about it?"

"Is it okay…if I don't?" he asked finally, while bunching the bottom of his hoodie in his fist.

"Sure," Tank replied.

Silence descended upon them again, textured only with the sound of the rain. After a moment, it was broken when Tank chuckled a little. It took Stephen a moment to realize it was because he had once again lapsed into invisibility without realizing it.

"Sorry."

"It's okay. You can be invisible if you want. You know, I think if you keep practicing, you could turn invisibility into a proper specialization. I mean you're practically there…you just need to work on your control a little…maybe try to test its limits."

"But…it's not really that useful…is it?" Stephen said as he sat down, feeling slightly relieved. "Dragon doesn't even bother teaching it."

"I wouldn't trust Cadmus to know what a useful psychic ability is…or on teaching…or in general actually. Sure, it's not useful for an obstacle course, but out in the field, it has all kinds of uses. And if we build up your mental defenses a little, it'll be even more effective."

"For…what?" Stephen asked.

"Well, I would think invisibility would be pretty useful for a spy," he said while nudging him.

Stephen didn't reply to this. They hadn't talked a lot about it in the last week, but mission to the Motherlobe was another thing that made him a little uncomfortable. He had mostly been trying not to think about it.

He caught some movement from beside him and looked up at Tank as he rubbed at his eyes underneath his goggles, before pulling them up onto his forehead. For a moment Stephen was shocked. Even though he had seen him without them on the night he accidentally ran into him in the training yard, Tank hadn't taken his eyepiece off before or since. Now he did so casually, as if it were a completely ordinary thing for him to do.

In the daylight the circles under his eyes were more evident, as well as the odd metal piece beneath his left eye. It looked a bit like a prop from a low budget science fiction film…but had an odd glow to it. Tank caught his gaze and Stephen looked away quickly, a bit angry with himself for staring. To his relief, the older boy didn't appear to notice. He leaned forward and rested his arms on what was left of the window ledge.

Stephen relaxed a little, settling into the rough stone seat and enjoying the calm that descended because of the quiet and the rain.

XXX

By the time the meeting let out, it was beginning to rain a little. Droplets hit the surface of the water in the quarry, sending out great sweeping ripples which then connected with each other and formed new patterns. Lili briefly considered coming back later, but the air was heavy enough to almost squeeze the moisture out of it and there was no telling when the rain would let up. Besides, she was getting impatient.

When she returned to her garden she moved past the vines and began rearranging the potted plants with telekinesis. To an outsider the new positioning would have most likely looked random, as she pushed some plants further back and moved some into the center. Once satisfied she removed her jacket and set it on the dirt, which was just starting to make the shift into mud before sitting on it and crossing her legs.

Lili took a deep breath and tried to clear her mind. Reaching out mentally in this way took a lot of concentration especially if it wasn't something you were used to doing. Generally, it could be hours before any real progress was made. It didn't help that it was not thoughts or minds…but dreams that she was trying to focus on. There was no guarantee that there was anything tangible to latch onto.

Around her, the garden darkened a little as the vines on the edge of it twisted and wove around each other, blocking out some of the light from the quarry. By that point she was concentrating deeply enough so that she didn't notice.

A lot of the time trying to remember the details of a dream is like trying to grab handfuls of water. Despite your best efforts, most of it slips away.

It's difficult to describe the difference between actively sending an astral projection into the mental world and trying to touch the echoes through meditation. It wasn't the same process. Meditation was less clear-cut. There tended to be a lot more instinct involved…you looked at shadows, fragments of thoughts…like trying to guess the events of a party by poking through the empty cups and half eaten bags of chips left over the next day.

But the human mind likes to make sense of things, make them real and solid. Lili made sense of it like this:

The first thing she noticed, after she'd reached a deeper level of meditation, which is very nearly like sleep itself, was a wall. But this wall was too high and too long and covered in warning signs…and she was on the outside of it.

Lili knew that the wall wasn't actually there, that this must be how her brain was choosing to see it. The wall was a barrier…and a big one…the warning signs…her brain indicating that it held some sort of danger? This suspicion only grew when she tried to get closer and found that everything around her would distort and waver.

At first, she regarded the wall with irritation. It wasn't the dream, and it had been the dream that she had been focusing on. Still, this was where her mind had taken her, so for a bit, she spent some time testing it, seeing if there was a way past. Itcertainly didn't seem like it. Even if it was just an abstract representation, it looked pretty solid to her. And as far as she could tell there didn't seem to be any gates or doors.

It was difficult to say how long she spent, looking for a way in, but eventually she did finally come to a place where there was a gap. Sort of a gap…and still very much blocked with what looked like webbing, not unlike the mental cobwebs found in the unused parts of people's minds. Lili tried to peer through it, to make out what was on the other side. A road and the dark blurry shape of buildings alongside it. Even with the limited visibility, she recognized it. She'd been dreaming about it two or three times a week for months.

Lili frowned. She didn't know how to get rid the cobwebs. After all, she wasn't exactly in the mental realm. You couldn't bring any handy gadgets with you while you were meditating.

She experimented a little, by pushing at the webbing. At first, it seemed as dense as the wall itself. But she was hardly going to be deterred that easily. After all, if she could get in while she was sleeping, surely, she could get in when she was making a conscious effort.

She continued to push and after a bit, she began to feel some give. So, she braced herself and focused all of her mental energy into one final push and as she did, she felt the webbing rip, tearing away from the wall. Once she loosened some of it, the rest fell away easily, burning away as if bone dry and touched by match.

Lili pushed her way through and suddenly she was in the dream, with a dark road winding away between buildings that looked like they were made of mist and great long shafts stretching out into a sky that was just…space…no indication of detail…just grey. To her frustration she found that it was the same as it always was. Blurry…unclear…faded.

Still, she was there. This was at least some sort of progress. She went in a little deeper. Tried to focus, to see if she could make any more sense of it now than when she was sleeping, but like before, this just caused a pressure in her temples…as if the dream were resisting. This place didn't want to be seen.

And that was…just great. She was annoyed that she might have gone to all this trouble for nothing. Spent the last week preparing just to be back where she started. The fact that her head was beginning to hurt, didn't help to improve her mood much.

Just as she was considering calling it quits, perhaps trying again later after preparing more and possibly getting a hold of some of the rarer plants that could potentially help her focus the dream a little better, she froze.

By now she was pretty familiar with this place. In addition to the blurred scenery, there was always the sensation of people…whispering…dark figures on the edge of her vision…sometimes sinister things waiting in the darkness. Right now, there wasn't much of that. In fact, it was actually a lot quieter then it usually was when she was asleep. But there was still something. Something different from the whispering or the nightmare figures. This was more like walking into an empty theater and making yourself comfortable, only to realize someone else had been sitting in the corner the whole time.

It took her a moment in her meditative state to pinpoint what it was and when she did finally realize, she felt prickles on the back of her neck. The wall, the webbing…the dream…they weren't just abstract images in her brain. This…wasn't just interference.

This was a mind…someone else's mind. She wasn't exploring her own nightmares…this wasn't her head.

And that's where it all went wrong.

XXX

Raz knew that he was probably letting his guard down a bit more than he should have been. Jeremiah was right, he did have a tendency to fall into old habits when he got too comfortable. It was difficult though. It had been such a long time since he felt like he could be himself.

Generally, his 'checkups' occurred every three months or so…and at the end of those three months Walter's compound was at its weakest. Now, with an extra week on top of that, his mind was more in his control than it had been for years, his headaches were duller, and he had even managed to get slightly better sleep than usual. Because of this, it was hard not to feel an almost automatic rise in spirits. Unfortunately, this was very nearly always followed by him having to remind himself this was temporary and if he got too distracted and didn't use this time to his advantage, he might not get another chance.

He had never been very good at planning ahead. Instead opting to rush in, taking on any given challenge or task with a level of daring that could at best be called brave and at worst, stupid. Subtlety wasn't really his thing. It was probably Tank's thing. Tank was there to watch instead of act. He was there for a lot of other reasons too, of course…like doing the things that Raz wouldn't have thought himself capable of.

When it came to Stephen, though Tank was maybe not the best approach. Stephen was scared of Tank…well most people were. Raz was a little scared of Tank, when it came down to it. The point was, even if he was probably being a bit reckless, there was at least a valid reason for him to maybe let his guard down a little. You know…from time to time. He still had to be careful, of course. Revealing too much would be dangerous…and not just for him. Tank could step in, in those moments.

And yikes…now he was thinking of himself as two different people…that was…probably a bad sign. Although given the state of his mind, maybe he should just be glad he was holding it together at all.

They had returned to the training room after spending a good portion of the afternoon up in the tower. There was still some time before dinner. Raz threw the rope they'd used back into one of the nearby boxes before adjusting his eyepiece slightly so that he could rub at his eyes. For some reason after a week of blessedly mild headaches, he was feeling the start of a migraine coming on this afternoon.

"Well, we have a couple hours," he said, while turning to Stephen. "Do you want to work on marksmanship for a bit longer…or we could work on something else for a while?"

Stephen shrugged.

"How about we just stick with marksmanship then. We can set up the target-"

And that's where it all went wrong.

XXX

The blurred shape of the dream, the wall behind her, the passage between both…everything had gone and in its place…pain…and noise. Lili buckled under it. It was unlike anything she had ever felt before. It was like someone had set a firecracker off inside of her head. The migraines, by comparison were child's play. This pain made rational thought impossible…on top of that she had become disoriented, couldn't remember exactly what she was doing…couldn't find the path back out again.

A part of her could still recall that somewhere she was sitting cross-legged in her garden meditating, but that part of her mind was being assaulted on all sides by voices and sensations that were slowly drowning it out. She made a vague attempt to 'wake up'…detach her mind from this one…break away from whatever the hell this was, but it was like she was stuck in place.

'This is some kind of trap,' she thought, gritting her teeth against the feeling that her head was being ripped open from the inside. Whether she was gritting her teeth in the real world, or only in her imagination, she didn't know…she wasn't sure she could tell the difference at the moment.

She looked up, trying to grab at something tangible through the throes of her pain, but right now there really was nothing. She was cut off from the mental realm, the link severed between this place and the path she'd taken to get here.

This wasn't right…this wasn't natural. No mind should be capable of this. No ordinary mind, anyways.

Because the pain had, at this point completely flooded her senses, she didn't notice that someone else was there until she felt the vague sensation of being grabbed. Like everything else at the moment, it was more a feeling than the actual presence of a hand or arms. She attempted to resist but wasn't really in the position to put up much of a fight. In any case, it happened fast. One moment she was stuck, then she found herself being pulled free and then came the sensation of being pushed, not just forward, but out…out of the dream, out of the mind…out of the mental realm entirely.

Back in the physical world she had just enough time to register the ground underneath her, the cool air, the smell of rain, the sound of several things shattering that, unknown to her at the time were many of the ceramic pots in her garden exploding, before she fell backward and lost consciousness.

XXX

Stephen wasn't sure what was happening. One moment, Tank had been talking and then mid-sentence he'd fallen to his knees, grabbing at his head. He didn't have very long to process this however, because he was immediately distracted when one of the target dummies near him burst into flames.

Stephen shouted and recoiled from it as several more items in the nearby vicinity started to catch fire.

"Uh…Tank?" he started, his voice wavering a little as he backed away from the growing fire cautiously. The older boy didn't answer, or even give any indication that he was aware that something had been said.

Stephen started to approach him, but paused when he saw a couple of the chairs that were stacked on the far side of the room detach from the others and drift listlessly into the air. Stephen made a sound in the back of his throat as he was forced to dive to the ground a second later as one of them flew across the room and shattered into pieces as it hit the far wall.

He then watched in mute horror as other stuff in the room was pushed with force or picked up. Some of it was dropped after a few seconds, or thrown like the chair while others continued to swirl in the air, circling above their heads. When one of the dummies exploded, he scrambled to the wall, half falling in the process, to put some distance between him and the chaos.

He looked at the door out of the room and then back at Tank, still in a heap in the middle of the floor, with psychic energy flowing out of him like his head had been uncorked and everything inside it were flowing out. Stephen covered his own head as the pieces something hit the wall near him.

He was panicking. He wanted to run but he was too scared to move. There was a part of him that wanted to help but knew that there was nothing he could do. His mind was still in this stalemate when everything suddenly stopped. He risked a look up, jumping slightly as some of the things that had still been floating around, fell to the ground.

The room was in complete shambles, but everything was still…even the fires were beginning to die out a little.

When it continued to be still for a few minutes, he slowly got to his feet and eyed Tank, who was still on his hands and knees. Stephen approached cautiously. When he got closer he saw that the older boy was trembling and could hear him breathing heavily and occasionally whimpering. At some point during the whole terrifying ordeal, he'd ripped his eyepiece off and it was laying a foot or so away from him.

"T-Tank?" Stephen said nervously. Like before, he didn't get a response. He reached out cautiously to touch the older boy on the shoulder and barely made contact as Tank jerked away and looked up at him his eyes full of confusion. He was pale and drenched in sweat. Stephen also noted, with horror that his nose was bleeding.

"I…I'll get help," Stephen said, as he started for the door, he got maybe a step forward before Tank reached out and grabbed his arm.

"No!" Tank said. Stephen looked back at him in terror. The older boy's eyes seemed to clear a little and then, with much more care, he released the vice like grip. "Sorry, please, don't tell anyone," he added, while struggling to get into a sitting position.

"You're bleeding," Stephen said weakly as Tank eyed the room wearily. His eyes fell on a nearby chair that was still intact, and he reached towards it. It moved a little before falling to the ground. Tank hissed between his teeth and grabbed at his head again. A couple droplets of blood hit the floor.

Stephen watched him, wide-eyed before running to the chair and pulling it over.

"W-what do I do? What do you w-want me to do?" he asked, desperately as Tank got shakily to his feet.

"Do you know where Jeremiah's office is?" the older boy said as he collapsed onto the chair and wiped absently at his nose. Stephen shook his head. "It's down the hall from Walter's room. Get him…just him. Go invisible. Don't tell anyone else."

Stephen hesitated for a moment before ungluing his feet and heading towards the door.

XXX

Sasha and Milla were sitting at one of the tables at the Noodle Bowl. Outside, the sky was mostly dark apart from a thin line of red at the horizon. Sasha was still pouring over the notes he'd taken during the meeting while Milla sat across from him with her chin in her palm trying her best to be attentive despite the fact that he had been basically rambling for the last half an hour.

"Darling, give it a rest, hmm? Your food is getting cold," she said finally.

"Sorry," Sasha said after a moment. "We could go over some of your findings, if you like."

"Or, perhaps we could talk about something other than work for a bit, hmm?"

"Oh, hmm. Ok, what would you like talk about?" he said, while putting his notes aside and picking up a fork before eyeing his food as if he was just seeing it for the first time. "Did I order this?"

"I don't think you were actually paying attention, darling."

Truman walked in and looked around briefly before spotting them and walking over.

"Ah, sir, good I was actually hoping to go over a few things with you, if you have a minute?" Sasha asked, before catching Milla's expression. "Um…after dinner perhaps?"

"Oh, uh I suppose," Truman replied, looking slightly distracted.

"Is everything all right darling?" Milla asked with some concern.

"Have either of you seen Lili?"

Sasha and Milla exchanged a look before Sasha shrugged a little.

"I think she went to the quarry after the meeting," Milla said.

Truman sighed.

"I told her not to stay out after dark," he said miserably. "Well, I suppose I should go see if she's still in her garden. If you'd like to come with me, we can go over whatever it was you wanted to talk about on the way," he added to Sasha.

Sasha looked up, frowning. Milla didn't have to read his mind to know what he was thinking. His conversation with Truman had gone from a straightforward exchange of facts to potentially being caught up in family drama. He looked at Milla pleadingly.

"You know darling, I have some things I'd like to go over with you as well. Why don't I go with you and Sasha can talk to you after he's finished eating…or has started eating," she added pointedly. Sasha gave her a grateful look, despite the light admonishment.

Truman, she noted, also seemed slightly relieved. Whether this was because he hadn't been all that eager to go over Sasha's notes, or because he wanted the company, she wasn't sure, though she suspected it was the latter. He was looking somewhat miserable, and she knew that he had been worrying lately.

Her suspicions were confirmed as they walked out into the cool evening air and any notion of talking about work was abandoned.

"I don't know what to do anymore," Truman said. "I ask her to do something as her father, she ignores it. I ask her to do something as her boss, she ignores it. Maybe it was still too early to make her a Psychonaut."

"I don't think she could have been much more prepared, darling. She went to Whispering Rock practically every year since it opened, she tested out of the intern program, she's been reading reports and mission briefs since she was a child."

"Well then, maybe she just doesn't want to be. I'm not trying to push it on her. I didn't send her to Whispering Rock because I was trying to torture her…I thought she might enjoy herself, hopefully make some friends. I know she's always been…very independent…but at least back then I could talk to her."

"I think it's very normal for someone her age," Milla said gently.

"I can tell that something's wrong," he said miserably. "But I feel like no matter how I approach her about it, she just pulls away further."

"Just be patient with her, darling," Milla said. "Maybe give her a little space. Lili's a smart girl…she's just very headstrong. She'll come to you when she's ready."

By this point they'd reached outcrop of rocks just below her garden and levitated up to it.

"My word," Milla said, eyeing the vines that were all along the perimeter at this point, crisscrossing and weaving in and out of one another to the point of making an almost a solid wall between them and the garden itself. "She is getting rather skilled at psychic herbology, isn't she?"

Truman sighed.

"I don't think she even realizes she'd doing it," he muttered as he edged his way around them. "Come on, there's a place over here where they can't grow because of the rock."

Truman squeezed past the slight opening between the vines and rockface, losing a shoe in the process. He was trying to fish it back out of the vines with some annoyance when he finally looked around and froze. He quickly abandoned the shoe and half hobbled toward the center of the garden where his daughter was lying on her back, completely still.

"Lili!" he exclaimed as he knelt down beside her.

Milla had followed behind him with less difficulty. She took in the scene with concern, covering her mouth.

Most of the earthenware pots had shattered and there was broken pottery everywhere. Only a few on the edge of the garden were still intact. Milla bent down and picked up one of the stricken flowers that was lying in remains of one. The edges of the petals were singed, and as she turned it over in her fingers, it disintegrated.

She joined Truman as he wrapped an arm around Lili's shoulders and pulled her up off of the ground. He looked up at Milla as she knelt down beside her as well, his face a mask of concern.

"Help me get her inside," he ordered. Milla nodded wordlessly.

XXX

Sasha looked up from his computer as Truman and Milla walked into his lab, carrying Lili between them. He stood up from his desk.

"What happened?" he asked as they laid her on the examination table in the center of the room.

"I'm not sure," Truman said. "We found her like this, she isn't waking up," he added in slightly frantic tones.

Sasha approached the table and examined her as Milla moved in beside him and touched his arm absently. He picked up a clunky headpiece that Otto had lent him so that he could examine and unravel the human psyche without the inconvenient bulk of the brain tumbler and pulled it over his head. He made a few adjustments, before removing it again a moment later.

"She's just unconscious, Truman. She'll be all right," he said calmly as he fished in the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a container of smelling salts. He cracked the container open under her nose. Her head twitched away and her eyelashes fluttered a little as she opened her eyes. For a moment she looked a bit disoriented before she took in her surroundings and focused on the people around her.

"What…how did I get here?" she asked, while raising a hand to her head. Truman sagged with relief.

"Darling…we found you in your garden…passed out," Milla said. "What were you doing out there?"

"Nothing just…meditating," Lili said as she sat up, feeling slightly dizzy, but nowhere near as bad as she'd felt when she was in the mental realm.

"Does this have anything to do with the dreams you mentioned last week?" Milla asked.

"Dreams?" Truman asked.

Lili frowned, but at this point, there was no reason to not say something. In fact, not saying something now would probably be pretty stupid.

"I've been having nightmares," she admitted. "For the last couple months…but I don't think they're really dreams."

"Lili," Truman started, as she swung her legs over the edge of the observation table.

"Take it easy, darling," Milla said. She ignored this.

"I think they're memories. Someone else's memories. When I was meditating, I think I was in someone else's head and listen it was like…really weird…like someone had been messing with it," she continued, getting more animated.

"You've been having nightmares for months?" Truman asked wearily.

"What do you mean, messing with it?" Sasha asked as he lit a cigarette.

"It's hard to describe…but…it didn't feel right. Like it had been tampered with. I think I set off some kind of trap…and it felt…really powerful…but also completely unstable, like whoever's mind it was, was ripping itself apart."

"Lili," Truman said again. "We're currently in the middle of investigating a man who used to experiment on people's minds and who is actively targeting young psychics and you've been having a re-occurring dream for months and didn't report it?"

"I didn't know what it was," Lili said with some frustration. "Look, I'm reporting it now, all right?"

Sasha and Milla exchanged a look. After a moment Sasha cleared his throat.

"I could easily set Miss Zanotto up to one of Otto's devices to see if we can safely trace where the dreams are coming from."

"No." Truman said, shaking his head.

"But dad," Lili said.

"I said no, Lili. Whatever it was that you connected with was dangerous. You were lucky that it was just the flowerpots in your garden that shattered. You're not going to explore these dreams anymore. Agent Nein, do you still have any of those psychic dampening caps we used to use?"

"Um…I think I may still have one…somewhere."

"Find it…you'll start wearing it while you sleep," he added to Lili.

"What? You've gotta be kidding me," Lili said. "If it is one of them and they're reaching out to my mind, couldn't we use that?"

"I said no. Look, either it's the cap or you'll sleep in the psycho-isolation chamber until we can figure out how to break whatever mental link someone has formed with your mind. That's an order Lili!"

She looked at Sasha and Milla and then back to her father before scowling and angrily walking towards the door.

"Fine!" Truman sagged a little after she left. He turned back to Sasha and Milla, looking tired.

"Try to bring that cap to my office within the hour please," he said.

"Sir," Sasha said. Truman nodded at both of them and then followed her out.

"I suppose I should…start looking for that, then," Sasha said after a moment. "Hopefully it wasn't one of the things I moved to my lab at Whispering Rock."

"I'll help you look," Milla said.

As they began to search Sasha's office, Milla looked sideways at her colleague.

"Your silence is deafening at the moment, darling."

"She's right," Sasha said. "We should be exploring this."

"You can't blame Truman for being worried about his daughter," Milla said.

"It could be important. He's letting his feelings get in the way of his judgement."

"You didn't see her garden, darling. I've been meditating for a long time, and it can get intense sometimes, but I've never seen anything like this."

Sasha sighed.

"Perhaps I can get some readings there. Maybe some of that power was absorbed in the plants. It's too bad Bob isn't here, he's the only other person skilled in herbaphony in the base."

"Maybe Truman will let up a little if we find a way to ensure that it's safe."

"Science is never completely safe Milla," he said. "Ah…" he added as he pulled a hideously designed cap out of one of the cabinets.

XXX

Stephen ran most of the way to Jeremiah's office, only slowing down a little while going past Walter's room, which he passed almost at a crawl, with his hands over his mouth. It wasn't that difficult to find. It was the only room that looked as if it were in use and it had an unusual looking lock on the door.

Once he was in front of the door however, he hesitated as the adrenaline wore off and the reality of having to talk to Agent 16 dawned on him. Stephen held his fist about an inch away from the door for a few seconds before something like resolve took over and he forced himself to knock. He remembered at the last second to deactivate his invisibility as well.

When Jeremiah answered, his eyes drifted downward, and he didn't even try to hide the annoyance on his face.

"Beat it kid, I don't lend out stuff to cadets," he said evenly.

Stephen felt his legs twitch a little, as if they were compulsively ready to obey the order.

"Uh…T-Tank asked m-m-me to come get you," Stephen said working through the sentence with as much urgency as he could while also trying to ensure that it was coherent.

"What are you? His secretary? Well, tell him I don't lend out stuff to train cadets, either" he said as he went to shut the door.

"I think somethings wrong!" Stephen said quickly. The door paused in the act of closing. "I think he's…s-sick or something."

After a second, Jeremiah pushed the door open again, now looking less uninterested in what he had to say.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Come on, kid…details," he added when Stephen hesitated, mostly because he was realizing that he had no idea how to describe what was going on with Tank…apart from the fact that it had been terrifying.

"I don't know…he collapsed and then a lot of stuff was flying around…" Stephen started. Jeremiah didn't wait for him to finish before he'd moved away from the doorway and began pulling things out of a box on his desk.

"Where?" he asked, while shoving them in one of the pockets of his coat.

"Uh, the training room," Stephen said.

Without saying another word, Jeremiah pushed past him and headed down the hall in that direction.

Stephen followed behind him at a distance, uncertain if he should be returning at all or if at this point his presence was even needed…or wanted. But the prospect of just leaving things to Agent 16…and say going to dinner or something also didn't feel right.

Jeremiah stopped in the doorway of the training room and took in it's state briefly before whistling below his breath and heading towards the chair where Tank was still sitting with his head in his hands. Stephen lingered at the entrance.

Jeremiah kneeled down next to him and snapped his fingers a couple of times near his head. He looked back at Stephen, who resisted the urge to back away a little.

"What were you doing? Before this happened, what were you doing?"

"N-nothing," Stephen said, shaking his head. "He was just talking. I-is he okay?"

"Oh yeah, sure," Jeremiah said cynically as he pulled an item that was vaguely in the shape of a gun out of his pocket and began to load something small and metal into the cartridge. "He's just concentrating on not attacking us."

Stephen's eyes widened a little.

Jeremiah placed the gun next to Tanks right ear and pulled the trigger. The other boy jumped a little and let out a brief exclamation of pain as he reached up to where a fresh piercing was hanging from his right earlobe.

"Hey, welcome back," Jeremiah said. "How the hell did you manage to set off one of Walter's traps, Tank!" he added.

Tank looked up and wiped at his forehead, where a thin layer of sweat had formed.

"We were just…training. I guess I got carried away," he said while meeting Stephen's nervous gaze. Stephen's eyes widened a little as he recognized the look for what it was. He was lying and pleading for Stephen's silence on the matter.

Jeremiah continued to stare at him for a moment longer before looking at Stephen. It didn't look like he believed what Tank had just told him, but after a moment he sighed anyways.

"Come on," he said as he helped Tank to his feet. "You look like shit."

XXX

By the time all of this concluded it was already an hour or so into dinner. Stephen didn't bother going, although this time it wasn't for his usual reasons. Instead, he went back to his room. A couple of the other boys he shared it with were there and went a little quiet when he entered. This had actually been happening a lot more in the last week. News had gotten around that he was training with Tank so now a lot of other cadets were being very…careful around him. It was probably an improvement, but Stephen still found it a little baffling.

He ignored them and went to his bed, searching through the increasingly dwindling collection of reading material he had. He found what he was looking for near the bottom of the stack. An issue of True Psychic Tales…the only issue he still had. He'd never been a huge fan of the series. It wasn't that the stories weren't interesting, but because he had never really had a high opinion of his own psychic abilities and what they'd thus far added to his life, he found it difficult to view the psychic world in general with much regard. His experiences here hadn't helped that much.

Still, he laid back on his bed and opened it, only half paying attention to what he was reading.

Over the next few months, he would think about the events of that day a lot and would wonder about them more and more, especially after he started to gain new perspective on the KLC and the Cerebral Soldiers in general. It was easy to look at someone like Tank, who was powerful and confident, who was regarded with fear and reverence and assume he was the sort of person who didn't need help.

This was the very first time Stephen started to wonder if Tank was in some kind of trouble. It wouldn't be the last.