Psychoprotective Sidestory 1

It's the winner of the vote! Enjoy. I'm not great with chapter titles, so for this one, how about 'Being Tanya is suffering'? It's a series of scenes pre-book 1, focusing on Tanya's life pre-fire. 

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It took a while for Tanya to fully understand what was going on. Embarrassingly long, if she was honest. The last thing she remembered was begging Being X for power. Not for mercy, mind you, but for the chance to destroy that monster in human skin. In hindsight, the fact that she destroyed herself as well was fitting.

She had died again. There was a faint snippet of memory, of seeing the accursed type 95 embedded in her chest, somehow intact, the smell of burning human flesh heralding a darkness so quiet that she could not even hear her heart beat. She couldn’t be sure if that was how she actually died, or merely one more nightmare among many. It didn’t matter, not really.

At first, she rejected the idea that she had died. Being X didn’t show up to gloat, after all. But after several hours, she was picked up and fed a bottle, and she really couldn’t deny it any longer after that.

Her first impressions of this new life were… positive. She wasn’t in a nun-run orphanage this time, a clear step up. She was initially curious about how her primary caretaker, addressed as Miss Milla by the older children, had darker skin than was typical of Europeans, but Tanya had confirmed by the first bath, in a tub on the bathroom counter that had vision of a mirror, that she was of the same rough phenotype of her second life. Blonde, pale, blue eyes, girl. Probably still Slavic, too. Between that and the accent of the English, Tanya was confident that this was probably America. No one ever invades the Americans.

In addition, the year was significantly later than her second life. She’d like to say the presence of the television told her that, but she had already known when she noticed that. The actual reason was because disposable diapers existed, and those didn’t exist until she convinced the General Staff to get someone to invent them. This was excellent news.

It was also the last piece of good news. This new body had some kind of sensory disorder, strange sounds and sensations constantly bombarded her. Being X had a sense of fair play, in refraining from hobbling her with the myriad possible genetic disorders or handicaps beyond the obvious ‘being a girl in the early 20th century’ thing. No longer. At the other end, the nightmares that plagued her rest during the Eastern campaign did not abate for her absence from that frozen hell, and in fact got even worse.

She dreamed of battles, where each and every engagement was as frantic and desperate as that first flight over Norden. She dreamt of massacres, her lips alight with prayer as she murdered for “God and the Kaiser”. She dreamt of the gulag, of the horrors that Loria promised to inflict upon her. All of these nightmares plagued every attempt to rest.

The worst ones, though, were the ones that mixed her new life with the old. The Red Army coming by and kidnapping all the girls for Loria’s disgusting lusts featured prominently, no matter how little sense it made. Miss Milla was a teenager, doing most of the actual running of the orphanage in place of the nominal owner, an elderly woman who even Miss Milla referred to as ‘Mrs. Walsh’. Miss Milla even went to school, which is when the old woman would actually do her job.

Around six months in, according to Miss Milla, when Tanya had a birthday hat strapped to her head and given some delicious cake, Tanya realized that the voices and sensations were some kind of telepathy, rather than just being hallucinations. Sure, occasionally she heard something coherent that she changed her behavior in response to, like when she heard something about babies not crying being strange, but she assumed it was some secondary thought stream of hers. Echoes of her own thoughts that she heard as speech because brains are complicated and her new one is just glitchy.

Nope! Telepathy. The chaotic words were coherent thoughts, and the sensations were, more often than not, emotions. On one hand, it was a bit of a relief to know that her mind wasn’t completely cracked, and it quelled her occasional promise to herself to stab her eardrums out at the first opportunity. On the other hand… knowing the nature of the chorus of noise didn’t make it any less aggravating to bear, and turned those thoughts into murderous impulses that needed to be ignored instead. She still slept… a little. But not enough.

If she doesn't get some kind of handle on this, she will go insane before she re-learns how to walk. If it makes her less vulnerable to whatever chicanery that Being X decides to toss her way, all the better.

So, Tanya… meditated. Or tried to, anyway. It was, unsurprisingly, difficult to shut out external distractions when one was constantly bombarded with them. So she needed something to focus on. Eventually, on a day when Miss Milla was rather frazzled herself, Tanya pretended to cry about something or other just to maintain their infant credentials. So Tanya ended up cuddled to the girl’s chest while she was seated on the nursery’s comfortable armchair, and she just… fell asleep.

It was the quietest time Tanya had ever experienced in this life. The telepathic noise had ebbed to a dull roar, and the only sound was the steady, even beats of Miss Milla’s heart. Just as Tanya almost drifted off to sleep, the image of her ripping out Miss Milla’s heart flashed through Tanya’s mind. It would be so easy… She had already figured out that mage blades responded to her will, creating mysterious cuts in the toys and furniture when her nightmares got exceptionally violent. So far, they hadn’t directly blamed her for the mysterious damage, but it was really only a matter of time. If she wasn’t careful, she could be shipped off to some laboratory. Or conscripted again.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. It was the only remaining noise. If she stopped it, and she can, easily, things will be quiet. So quiet. She doesn’t remember the last time it was quiet. All she needs to do is… Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

No! No. It was not noise. Noise is irregular, and painful. This was… like a sozu. Regular, and gentle. Meditative. She should meditate. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Let everything else fall away. Quiet her thoughts.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

If she’s a telepath… she should be able to do something about this. She pictured a great fire, the burning pride that made existence as an infant so unpleasant. Humility, that’s the key. It was fed by many fuel lines, each spewing more combustibles to burn her peace-loving existence away, revealing the truth beneath.

It was a horrible truth. She had just been contemplating murder for the crime of having a heartbeat. How old was she, anyway? Seventeen? Nineteen? Well, it’s not like it would be the first teenage girl she ripped the heart out of. Wait. That’s even worse!

She’s so tired… Back to the meditation. Each of those lines fed the flames of rage and pride. One by one, Tanya imagined those lines shutting closed, putting their entire mental focus on quelling the metaphorical flame.

She could hear thoughts? Cut it off. She was dangerous? So what. She couldn’t even walk. Cut it off. She was stuck in diapers? She was one year old. That was normal. Cut it off. She was helpless? She was safe. Cut it off. Each nonsense assertion diminished the flame in her mind, the horrible truth that she would rather murder than suffer someone else’s existence that inconvenienced her. That was the thinking of drug-addled layabouts who pushed people into trains. That was the thinking of someone who slaughtered tens of thousands for patriotism they were only pretending to feel.

Eventually, the fire was gone. She felt… hollow. Spent.

When she closed her eyes, listening to Miss Milla’s heartbeat, she once more remembered the look on Mary’s face when Tanya gripped and shredded her heart.

…She managed to sleep despite that.

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The meditation helped. The noise didn’t become any quieter, but it became… more ignorable. It didn’t bother her as much. She could sleep more… although still not enough. Every chance she got, she meditated and quenched the flame of irritation. It probably wasn’t a good way to achieve zen, but she never learned proper meditation. She never needed it.

Admittedly, it probably would have helped in her second life to have learned such a thing, or at least if the Imperial Army would let her drink with the men, but alas. Each time, the fire started smaller, and quenched faster. The furnace of her indignation was cold and charred, as it should be. She was just a baby, and should not be enraged by the realities of that state.

At least she didn’t need to worry about finances. The group home wasn’t poor, as each child had their own set of clothes, although hand-me-downs were still common, the cheap mass-produced fabrics just weren’t durable enough for attrition to make purchases necessary. The government organization that supported the “group home” had health insurance, so even the diabetic David was well-supplied with medicine. Finally, there didn’t appear to be any issues with food or heating, either. Given her experiences from her second life, these were all markers of a well-administered orphanage.

…Even if the labor was sparse. There were only five children so far, if you count Tanya, but one elderly lady and a teenage assistant seemed inadequate. At least the oldest child, Patty, assisted in wrangling the more rambunctious children, but she supposed tallying up the budget needed per child for expenses and getting the government to pay up was a lot easier than convincing them to expand payroll. As a Human resources manager, she knew well how short-sighted management types would seek to save on that most crucial expense beyond all reason.

That didn’t help with the boredom, though. Tanya had managed to narrow down the year to 1964, in the thick of the Cold War. It was definitely ongoing, too. It means that she would be sixteen years older than her first life, so unless Being X kicks off the nuclear apocalypse, she could probably expect… well, given her track record from her second life, if she wanted to enjoy things from her first before she dies again, she’ll need to limit her expectations to the kind of stuff she currently had access to.

That’s one extra reason to try and live longer, anyway. Still, she needed to occupy herself somehow… Tanya was currently in a playpen, filled with boring baby toys and several stuffed animals.

…She missed Visha. She missed her men. Tanya looked at the stuffed animals again. She crawled over and picked up the bear, clean, new, and quite large, and hugged it tightly. She never did give Visha that hug that she promised her when she came back from the mission… She was delirious from fever, and her internal monologue became external for just long enough for her to express her wish to cuddle her face into Visha’s soft chest.

Visha had laughed it off, presumably because she misinterpreted the blatant sexual harassment as something more innocent, and promised to accept as many hugs as Tanya wanted to give when she returned from the mission.

But then… the NKVD.

“...Visha.” Tanya whispered to herself. “This is Visha.” She closed her eyes and imagined her adjutant, tears forming in her eyes as she pretended, for just a moment, that she had finally returned. WIth coffee.

When she woke back up from her nap, the image of a burning Moskva and her most loyal subordinate laughing in joy along with her lingered. Was Visha’s bloodlust natural to her? Or did Tanya warp that sweet girl as much as the type 95 warped her?

…She was still going to maintain a claim on Visha the bear. She was hers now.

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Learning to walk was the second step in no longer being treated as a baby. It was surprisingly easy, actually. She thought she could maybe use telekinesis to make the process easier, but all she needed to do was think back on what it was like to use the physical reinforcement formula, which normally allowed one to make a good showing at a shounen fighting tournament, and her telekinesis responded easily. It was more difficult learning to account for the diapers than it was to learn how to stand and walk normally.

Unfortunately, this particular part of American History was marked with a population boom, which meant that the child processing services for orphans were significantly overtaxed. So the group home expanded to nine children, and Mrs. Walsh broke her hip and retired.

Miss Milla took the whole thing quite well, actually. Tanya could only stare in awe at Miss Milla’s legendary work ethic. In her first life, such dedication would earn accolades and promotions, but in 1960s America, she just got the standard stipend per kid that any foster parent gets. Tanya did overhear that Mrs. Walsh was actually quite wealthy, and kept up the property’s taxes and paid a few services to help keep the pressure off of Miss Milla.

This did not help Tanya’s problems with the new blood. The two other girls, twins by the name of Susan and Gertrude, were the same age as Tanya. This meant that they were put in the same room as Tanya. Most people’s thoughts were whispers, listening to them was like overhearing them mumbling to themselves. Children tended to have louder internal monologues, but these two girls had intensely loud thoughts that never stopped. She was certain that Sue and True had some kind of mental disorder with how loud their thoughts were. They weren’t just loud, either. They were shrill, like everything was shouted at the top of their lungs, so loud you could picture the damage they were doing to their throats. But… mentally.

Even her psudeo-zen state could not withstand these two girls. At night, she couldn’t avoid them, as she was trapped in a crib, and was not driven insane enough to risk damaging her fragile body to escape. One small mercy was that their minds quieted down when they were asleep, but that just meant they worsened Tanya’s already battered sleep schedule instead of eliminating it altogether.

It did mean that naps rose in importance, however. If she doesn’t get a better handle on her telepathy by the time school starts, she’s going to be in big trouble. But with the walking air raid sirens around, it would take a little bit more effort to find a quiet place.

Closets were no good. Even with telekinetic door-opening, merely passing by the door was enough for the noise that was the children to penetrate her torpor. The bathtub was even worse, as that room was a high traffic area. Outside was not tenable, as the older children were quick to notice and tattle on anyone who left the building unsupervised.

Tanya would complain about that, but given that she was still pretending to actually be two years old, it was a perfectly reasonable policy to keep her confined indoors unless actively watched by someone responsible. The only question was… where was there a place that children could go, but they just… didn’t?

The attic was initially promising, but it was as forbidden as the outdoors were, if not as explicitly warned about. Miss Milla’s room was also outright locked when she wasn’t in there, and while Tanya could probably learn how to open it telekinetically eventually… it would require concentration that she just couldn’t muster with all of this sleep deprivation.

That left… the basement. It was a small one, primarily used as the laundry room, and utterly uninteresting to all but the newest of children. Was she allowed in the basement? No. But unlike outdoors, it was a lot easier to sneak inside and float their way down the stairs.

Now, where would be a good spot to hide? The concrete floor and sparse furnishings are clearly a problem… in the attic there was this nice box with quilts inside… Perhaps she should have brought it down here? The dryer is big enough and has soft laundry inside… but Tanya immediately envisioned how horrible it would be to die by someone turning it on by accident while she’s inside. Definitely not.

After some searching, Tanya found the perfect place to nap: a laundry basket. It just needed a little bedding, and the aforementioned dry laundry would be perfect for that. Some quick telekinesis later, and Tanya had her own little hermitage, hidden away from immediate view by the table normally used to fold clothes.

It wasn’t as quiet as Tanya would like… but it was quiet enough. She slipped into the most peaceful sleep she’s had since the twins showed up.

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She should have known. The reason she had telepathy in this world was because it was not a particularly rare ability. How long has Miss Milla been privy to her thoughts? How was she able to ignore all of the times she thought of things that little girls should definitely not be thinking of?

Really, every little bit of good news she receives in this world comes packaged with even worse news. Telepathy not being something rare enough to demand absolute secrecy? She now has to worry about people reading her mind. The twins quiet down the foghorns they have in their heads? It’s because they’re minor psychic talents and Miss Milla actively taught them to quiet those thoughts down, because she’s psychic too.

In order to stay ahead of her, Tanya quickly learned how to pick up on a specific person’s presence through telepathy, and when she was present? Well, she wasn’t quite sure how to go about blocking the mind reading, so her best idea was the old ‘name, rank, and serial number’ trick. “I am Tanya Dosva, and I am four years old.”

Tanya’s new mastery of her telepathic abilities could not have come at a better time: it was time for pre-kindergarten. The concept of a year of “school” that was before even Kindergarten was pretty strange, but after a few weeks it was clear that it was more accurately referred to as ‘government-sponsored daycare’.

It was significantly more structured than actual daycare, as while rare it was something that was done whenever Miss Milla needed literally all the children out of the group home for a few hours to get something done, like when they needed the professional carpet cleaners to come in.

But they didn’t really… learn anything. Well, Tanya wouldn’t have learned anything anyway, but the ‘classes’ were more about getting used to the idea of listening to the teacher and not inflicting violence on the other children. Which… a lot of the children admittedly needed to learn. Everything else was things like story time, play time, snack time, and nap time. Then you go home.

In short, Tanya approved of pre-kindergarten. It gave her time to acclimate herself from needing to withstand up to ten minds at a time during meals to needing to withstand twenty to thirty minds, or even more, for hours on end. The fact that it meant that there would not be any half-feral hellions disrupting things once real school started was just a bonus.

…Although she really could have gone without passing out on the first day, when they passed by the school assembly. It was just… too much. She didn’t even enter the room, the pre-kindergarten children didn’t attend it. She was just being escorted to the bathroom when the assembly dismissed, disgorging hundreds of children and their riotous thoughts into the hallway. There wasn’t a worse time to pass out, really.

The good news was, being excessively telepathically sensitive was an actual medical disability that even poorly funded semi-rural schools could address. The bad news was, the treatment was wearing a stupid hat that didn’t do a very good job at muffling the telepathic noise. It helped, but it both looked and felt like it was made of chicken wire and aluminum foil, although she was assured that it was more technically sophisticated than that.

It did, however, dull the roar of the student body down to merely disorienting, instead of incapacitating. Even if it was supposed to make other people’s thoughts inaudible, it at least accomplished that much. Tanya suspected that it really was just made of aluminum foil and chicken wire, and any assurances to the contrary was an attempt to invoke the placebo effect.

Needless to say, wearing such a stupid-looking piece of medical headgear did no favors for Tanya’s popularity. Her “peers” didn’t really care beyond asking questions that were easily answered or deflected, but the larger children… well, they saw weakness. Like any predator, those who drifted from the herd for whatever reason were the prime targets for their hunt.

“What are you doing over here, crazy baby?” The third grader taunted. It was the preferred insult for the school’s various bullies, as to them, all of the four year olds were babies, and the one with the foil hat was the crazy one. He was already imagining how this exchange would go. Start with hostility, end with Tanya in tears.

Not happening. “Relaxing.” Tanya replied, as she laid back to the tree trunk in the playground. It was recess, after all. “Go away.” And his line is…

“This is our spot.” The bully asserted. His flunky behind him voiced agreement. “You go away.” The four total bullies were positioned to block most escape routes.

“Alright.” Tanya said. Most, but not all. She flipped up the trunk and kicked off, soaring over the children’s perimeter and lightly landing a dozen feet away.

“...Hey, wait!” The head bully shouted. “You gotta pay a penalty!”

Tanya sighed and started walking towards the hysterical teacher who saw the exchange. “Tanya! What were you thinking? You could have hurt yourself jumping off the tree like that!”

Tanya shrugged. “I can fly. I was in no danger.” To prove her point, she rose up to eye level so the woman didn’t need to kneel down.

“There is to be no psychic powers during school, Missy!” the teacher said, frowning.

Tanya set herself back down. “Time out, then?”

“Ti-” The teacher swallowed her words as Tanya pre-empted them. “Yes, you better believe you’re in time out. Go to the quiet room and don’t come out until recess is over.” Her voice was that of defeat, and her thoughts were despairing that the ‘hippies’ that ran the school had forbidden them from spanking children that go into time out without a fuss.

Perfect. Tanya walked right into the repurposed closet and did her best to get an early start on naptime. Even if getting a reputation as a delinquent hurt something deep within her, There was still plenty of time to correct such an impression.

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Today was a terrible day. Tanya thought that the established, if ineffective, responses to telepathic children meant that she wouldn’t be persecuted or conscripted, particularly due to how defective her own psychic powers were.

This was before she knew that the Psychonauts were real. The Cold War was not a war of bullets and tanks, but of espionage, and diplomacy. Proxy wars were the only shooting ones, and spies were the front line of the conflict.

The Psychonauts were those spies. When she first heard of them, it was through their propaganda comic book, True Psychic Tales. Mind controlled super-soldiers, nightmare beasts unleashed, poisoning of water supplies, children who manifested excessively powerful and uncontrolled abilities… all of these threats were supposedly defeated by the Psychonauts. She thought it was just a comic book.

No. They were real. More importantly, they were essentially the sole source of assistance for psychics in the free world. If you wanted to do anything but suffer alone, you needed to go through them.

If Tanya had actually snapped those years ago, and murdered Miss MIlla and everyone else for some peace and quiet, they would be the ones to put down the monster.

But given that government adoption/communist kidnapping of young psychics is actually a concern… she needs to prepare. Even if Being X has so far been quiet, the idea that he isn’t planning on making her life miserable is foolish.

Mage blades were easy, and flight was only slightly more complicated, even if she’s rather clumsy with it by her old standards. The next, most important part of an aerial mage’s kit is the barrier.

Active barriers were easy to recreate, she simply needed to focus on the memory and safety of a mage shell and an iridescent barrier sprung to life. For best results, curl up into a ball first.

This had two problems. First, it did not have the unconscious, passive benefit that a proper mage’s barrier possessed. She knows it’s possible, she doesn’t even need to think about psychic reinforcement any more, any time her strength proved insufficient it turned on and increased until it worked. Second, it did nothing to protect her from telepathic intrusion. Well, she assumed so, as it didn’t even muffle the telepathic noise that constantly bombarded her.

Both of these weaknesses must be fixed. Any attempt to bring her back to the battlefield will have the battlefield brought to them. In order to do that, her previous destructive talents will not be enough. She must also be able to protect herself from retaliation.

Never again.

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It was quiet.

Today was the day that she finally decided to test her mental barrier in real world conditions, without the hat. Second grade wasn’t exactly a challenging academic environment, but she’s already committed to pretending to be ‘merely’ bright for her ‘seven’ years of age. Once she sheds the stigma of being disabled, she’ll be able to start skipping grades.

But despite being around over one hundred children, she could not hear a single thing without her ears. With a minor adjustment, she was deaf to normal sound as well.

When she imagined this day, she pictured herself having to struggle to keep her normal expression, that she would have to fight to keep happy tears from flowing, or to stop a big smile on her face.

…But she did neither of those things. Maintaining decorum was as easy as it always was, and no grand emotional catharsis interrupted this ordinary school day.

“Tanya.” Mrs. Kerr said, pointing at her. “Can you tell me the answer to question five?”

With a glance, Tanya realized that in her musings, she had neglected to follow along in the workbook. Turning the page and finding the requested problem, she immediately said: “Six dollars and seven cents.” She had long completed all of the questions in the entire workbook, so she didn’t even need to solve the problem before responding.

“...Correct.” Mrs. Kerr admitted. “Don’t think that forgetting your helmet at home is a free pass to not pay attention, though. You’re in second grade now, you need to be responsible.” That sentiment was hilarious, but laughing would not be wise. Even if it has been a while since she’s done so.

…when was the last time she laughed? She can’t remember. Even during the war, she found time to have fun. She’s pretending to be a kid, why hasn’t she laughed? Was telepathy that big of a problem?

Eh. It’s not that important. Moving on… with her new control over her telepathy, she should probably start taking steps to… get friends or something. At least get friendlier to her ersatz siblings. Miss Milla would be overjoyed if she became more sociable. How difficult could it be?

The bell rang. It was time for lunch. The final test of her new mental barrier: A crowd of excited children. Despite all of the challenges that this life has put in front of her…

Everything is fine.