Author's note: An Oedipus complex is, according to the Columbia Encyclopedia (Sixth Edition, 2001), "Freudian term /…/ designating attraction on the part of the child toward the parent of the opposite sex and rivalry and hostility toward the parent of its own. /…/ Many psychiatrists, while acknowledging the significance of the Oedipal relationships to personality development in our culture, ascribe love and attraction toward one parent and hatred and antagonism toward the other not necessarily to sexual rivalry but to resentment of parental authoritarian power." (the sexual attraction is not meant in an incestous sense, but as part of the child's psychological developement)
"Having" an Oedipus complex is generally (not quite correctly, as you see in the above quote) thought of as a grown man or woman always searching for a parental authority figure in their lovers. Meaning that if Erol had such a complex, he would be looking for a motherly person to love him, and he would (either way, more correctly) have a problem with authority and definitely with rivals. You get my drift.
If you ask me, Freud was full of it and sex-crazed but he managed to conceive a few good expressions.
Chapter 2, The drawing board
"Sulfur?"
"Quite large quantities of it, too," Ashelin said, "according to the first tests."
The whisper of paper was for a short while the only sound heard as she shuffled through Tarry's report. Jak, Daxter, Torn and Samos watched her in the blinking lights of the Freedom HQ main hall, waiting for something more to work with. But she appeared to be engrossed in her eying through the report.
"Meaning?" Jak finally asked.
Ashelin quickly glanced up at him, then back down at the papers.
"The metal heads that dug the tunnels must have passed some volcanic area on their way towards the city, or their base is located in one such," she said, "but there is no volcanic activity around Haven."
"So they might have dug really far down?" Daxter suggested.
It was quite apparent that it took a lot of effort from Ashelin to answer that. She had to agree with something Daxter said.
Ow.
"Maybe," she finally said, reluctantly, "however, according to Tarry the tunnels might stretch all the way to the wasteland."
She gave Jak a quick look again.
"You're going to have to go back down and follow it the whole way," she said.
"We're going to need vehicles for that," Jak said.
"Yes, yes, I know."
They really had done their best. But after walking for two hours through eerily lit tunnels, never knowing when something might jump out and try to chew your throat apart, even Jak had decided to give up. The troop of fighters, as well as Daxter and Tarry had returned without finding the end of the road.
"But it's bothering me that they even made a tunnel," Samos said, rubbing his beard where his chin theoretically should be, "it seems far too organized."
Silence fell over the room.
It was impossible to fight it. One by one, all of the others found their gazes drawn towards Jak, as if he had been some kind of eye magnet.
He began to grin.
Daxter groaned.
Putting the papers on the dark table in the center of the room, Ashelin finally gave Jak a proper look-over.
"Well then, we'll form another party to go with you," she said.
"Heey now, what's with all this careful handling of us all of a sudden?" Daxter jeered, "are you finally realizing our potential?"
"I work best alone," Jak agreed and motioned at the report, "we don't know what's in the end of the tunnel."
"That's why we're giving you backup," Ashelin said, an irritated frown on her forehead.
It should be noted by now that she spent most of her time talking through her teeth.
"What, lack of information never stopped you before," Daxter pointed out.
He pointed at Torn.
"At least not that guy!" he added.
"That was when we thought you were expendable," Torn sourly informed the ottsel, "for all of your later so called crappy missions, we've at least had some vague knowledge of what was ahead."
"Right, this time we don't," Ashelin agreed.
Samos floated up and put a hand on Jak's free shoulder.
"We can obviously assume that there is a new leader for the metal heads, my boy," he said, "and though I see your uncanny interest in that, it would be moronic to just barge in."
Jak gave him a glare.
"I'm not just gonna rush in there with guns blazing," the young warrior said.
This time the silence held another meaning than the last one had done, even if everyone repeated the action of looking at Jak. He frowned slightly, and then glanced to his left to see Daxter giving him the exactly same kind of blank look.
"What?" the blond elf finally snapped, giving the air an irritated whap with both his hands.
Nobody replied. Instead they just found something else to watch.
"Anyway," Ashelin finally said, studying the reports again, "we'll assign a troop of Blue Guards and equipment for a heavy onslaught. This one's going to be dangerous."
"We should call on the wastelanders, if the tunnels reach that far," Jak said.
"We don't know for sure if they do," Ashelin replied.
"Yeah sure, but the wastelanders could mop the desert with your Blue Guards' asses any day from Sunday, babe!" Daxter said.
For this he received a death glare from Torn and a smack over the head from Samos.
"Cut that out!" the sage ordered, raising his voice above Daxter's loud complaining, "there's been a lot of hard work put in the city security!"
"You shouldn't deprive them of their anti-depressants all the time, though!" the ottsel sourly stated, rubbing his aching head, "what do you do to the pills anyway, since you're obviously not taking them yourself? Sold them to Jinx to pay for your fertilizers? And Tattoo Torn, don't make me tell Jak to tell you to put that gun away!"
"I can guarantee that I won't hit you, Jak," Torn said, squinting one eye shut as he aimed, "I practiced a lot on the rat's replica while we were stuck in the harbor."
Jak watched him without blinking, feeling a spark of demented curiosity about whether or not the commander was serious. It was however not strong enough to keep the blond young man from raising a hand in protest.
"Stop it," Ashelin snapped and reached out to push Torn's hand downwards, "there's no time for this!"
Snorting, the commander holstered the gun again. Ashelin glared at him for a moment, then shot Daxter a similar look before crossing her arms.
"We're looking at a dire possibility that there is a new metal head leader down there in the tunnels," she said, "we're going to need the best we've got."
"Damn straight!" Daxter said, patting Jak's blond haircut.
"Torn, you will lead the troops," Ashelin said.
"Yes ma'am," he replied.
That was some heavily drilled obedience right there, judging from the utter lack of reaction apart from the reply.
The governor quickly turned to Jak and began talking again before Daxter had time to start voicing his protests. Wise woman, that.
"Jak, you'll come with them. I also want you to inform the wastelanders about what has happened, and be ready to call them if it seems like the tunnels really does lead to their territory."
Jak began to nod.
"Ya know, wouldn't it be nice to have more people around who can actually handle something that huge?" Daxter said, "if I remember correctly not even the KG co- ow!"
"Preparations to start immediately!" Ashelin said, raising her voice above Daxter and Samos' verbal grappling, "Jak, the wastelanders."
Even as he tiredly glanced at the angry ottsel perched on his shoulder, Jak reached down and produced the shrunk communicator from a pocket. Folded up like it now was, it looked more like a small metallic cube than anything that could send messages. A simple push on the blue button on one of the tiny item's side solved this. With a bussing sound the cube opened up, unfolding and growing into the head-shaped piece of science proudly adorned with a blank TV-screen, all within a couple of seconds.
It really sounded more fancy than it actually was, even if it was quite helpful.
Still not giving Daxter much interest Jak headed over to one of the wide screens along the wall, normally used for surveillance. He picked up a cable curled up on the commando bridge of the closest one and plugged it into his communicator. The huge black screen immediately filled up with dancing white spots, until Jak pushed the correct combination of numbers on the communicator's small display. Then the white dots became flashing horizontal lines instead, hissing angrily at the room for a few moments.
"What's cookin', Jak?"
The lines gave away for a blurry vision of Sig's face. He squinted his visible eye, on his end of the world watching a far smaller screen than the assembly in the Freedom HQ.
"Hey," Jak said, "remember that attack from metal heads in the slums the other day?"
"Yeah?"
Daxter abandoned Samos and instead spun around on his heel to irritated Sig instead.
"We're talking huge stuff again, Siggy my man!" he said, making wide motions with his stick-like arms for emphasis.
Jak quickly explained the situation, leaving Sig with a look mixing disbelief and intrigue.
"You oughta think they're wumpbees or something!" he finally commented, "this sure sounds like- Jak?"
Sig narrowed his eye further, while Daxter leant away from his friend's head, chewing on a finger. Ashelin and Torn raised their eyebrows at Samos groan, but they had no possibility of looking at Jak's expression since he had his back turned to them.
"I'm okay," Jak said.
"Really?" Sig said, "You look kinda-"
"Just fine."
"There's a spasm-"
"Nothing wrong."
"You sure that-"
"Perfect."
The wastelander hesitated for a moment, but finally let it slide.
"Anyway, I'll whoop up something. Keep us informed."
"Will do."
Jak turned off the communicator, reverting the big screen to a dark wall. He turned around and stalked towards the exit with an expressionless face, pocketing the shrinking machinery without looking at it.
"Jak?" Torn said, waving a hand in front of the eco-warrior's face as he passed the commander.
No reaction, apart from Daxter showing Torn a helpless grin.
Ashelin and Torn both looked at Samos, questions apparent in their faces. The sage sighed and waved a hand in the lady's direction, shaking his head.
"Err, well," she said, seeing no answer in sight for the time being, "prepare to move out in five hours, Jak."
"I'll be in the shooting range," he replied.
Not once did he look around. Moments later the doors slid shut behind his back.
"What the hell was that?" Torn asked Samos.
"One moment, please," the sage replied.
He took out his own communicator and dialed a number. Several seconds passed before the line made a hissing sound followed by a female voice speaking.
"Yes, daddy?"
Torn took close note of Ashelin's face hardening, but neither of them said anything.
"Jak's heading for the shooting range with a mental image of metal head wumpbees stuck in his head," Samos told the screen, "deal with that."
"Oh my! Right away!"
With a bleep, the line died. Samos put the communicator away and looked up at the two other elves in the room.
"Don't tell me Jak's afraid of wumpbees?" Ashelin said.
She regarded the sage's shifty look for a moment, then threw out both her hands.
"Wumpbees?"
"There was one ordeal on his ninth birthday…" Samos said, sadly shaking his head, "the boy's still a bit edgy about that."
The pair of warriors looked the old man over, searching for the tiniest proof that he was merely making a weird joke. There was none.
"I never thought his only weak point would be that pathetic…" Torn muttered.
He cleared his throat and turned to the table as the risk of a glare from Ashelin seemed impending. The push of a button and the quick input of a code later a computerized female voice spoke up.
"City intercom prepared, commander Torn. Please relay your message after the beep."
The elf waited until said metallic sound had passed before he acted. Now his voice lacked all remains of disbelief, and left was only the strict commanding tone.
"Attention all S-class troops," he said, "this is commander Torn. Assemble in auditorium of Freedom HQ at 900 hours. Further information will be given there."
He pushed the button to signal the end of the message and stepped away from the table, brain already working on how to word the instructions for this mission. They would not be happy at all, especially not since all of the Blue Guards had seen the head of Kor hanging in the Naughty Ottsel.
Of course, Ashelin knew this fully well too. That was why she sent him off on this battle, because that was the only way they could possibly keep the moral high enough among the soldiers.
And then they could just pray that they were not biting off more than they could chew.
