Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sasha

Sasha had a headache.

In fairness, so did Milla, and so did Cadence Cowan, the agent accompanying them. The three of them had been combing the forests of the Blue Ridge mountains for the past two days, trying to find the source of a huge burst of psychic energy that had jumped out at Milla during her meditations. It had faded in the time it took to get the mission approved and travel to the area, to the point that they’d barely found a trace of any psychic activity whatsoever since arriving.

“I don’t understand,” Milla said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “It was here. I know it was.”

“No one doubts that, Agent Vodello.” Cowan pulled a bottle of water from her backpack and offered it to Milla. “There has to be a reason it’s gone now.”

“It’s possible whoever – whatever – it was left the area,” Sasha suggested, absent-mindedly levitating his cigarettes out of his pocket and pulling one from the pack. “It’s also possible they’ve been subdued somehow.”

“Wouldn’t we still be able to find their trail?” Cowan asked.

“Not if it’s being suppressed,” Milla said, voice darkening.

There was a pause as the full meaning of her words sank in. The only way to fully suppress a psychic’s abilities was through the use of psitanium. Psitanium meant there was at least one person out here who knew enough about psychic biology to know the affects of psitanium and how to administer it. Milla was adamant that the strength of the psychic shockwave she’d felt couldn’t possibly have been generated by just one individual.

Putting all those pieces together meant that someone was performing unsanctioned experiments on psychics.

Sasha felt heat against his face just a second before it started to burn.

“Ach!” He tossed his cigarette away, catching it telekinetically at the last second before the embers hit the forest floor. He’d been in the process of lighting his cigarette when Milla had put forward her theory, and the subtle pyrokinesis had slowly eaten away at it until it was little more than a scorched filter. “Dammit,” he muttered, rubbing his upper lip and the tip of his nose to check for injury.

“Are you alright, darling?” There was laughter in Milla’s voice, because of course there was.

“Fine,” Sasha muttered.

“I keep telling you those things are dangerous,” she continued, and out of the corner of his eye Sasha saw Cowan fighting a smile as well.

He snuffed the cigarette and started to let it drop to the ground, but Milla caught it with TK of her own and deposited it into her mostly-empty water bottle with a mental wave of chastisement directed at Sasha.

“Should we run with the psitanium theory?” Cowan asked. “It’d be a lot easier to try to find the psychic signature of that than looking for who knows how many unfamiliar psychic trails.”

“I really want to be wrong,” Milla sighed, putting the water bottle into her own bag. “But you’re right, it’s better than what we’ve been doing.”

“Not to step on an otherwise sound plan,” Sasha put in. “But what if it’s been processed? Injectable psitanium serum has a different signature from raw psitanium, which has a different signature from cut psitanium crystal, and so on.”

The other two agents shared a very tired look.

“If they are suppressing psychic abilities it’s almost definitely the serum,” Cowan said after a moment. “Especially for it to have disappeared so thoroughly.”

“Let’s look for that, then,” Milla said, straightening up and rolling her head around to stretch out her neck. “Let’s find whoever’s out here and figure out what the hell they’re up to.”

They split up to broaden their search, agreeing that the risk of ambush was outweighed by the need to end their search quickly. They maintained a loose psychic link with each other – or rather, Sasha and Milla carefully looped Cowan into their persistent link. Their long partnership meant that the two of them were comfortable sharing thoughts and impulses with each other that they were not comfortable sharing with Cowan, and carefully locked those away while they were working. This meant that they could feel each other’s frustration as the search wore on, each dead end increasing their shared agitation.

It was at least another hour of following the incredibly faint trail of psitanium serum (and hoping it wasn’t just the residue of it on his own gloves) that Sasha finally found something. He stepped through the trees into a clearing containing a small, run-down house. He immediately bent the light around himself to hide himself from sight and levitated just slightly off the ground to avoid making any noise as he moved towards the building.

Got something, he sent over the mental link.

What is it? Milla asked immediately, Cowan mentally muttering Oh, thank God in the background.

A small house. Possibly only one room; it’s very small. He floated around the perimeter of the clearing. He saw now that “house” was being generous; the walls were stained and the windows cracked in places, and the front porch was barely attached. There was, however, what appeared to be a very solid cellar door at the foot of the western wall.

It may well be abandoned, he told the others.

Or whoever’s in there wants it to look abandoned, Cowan sent back. Sasha could feel her and Milla’s signals approaching from opposite directions.

Precisely. He risked hovering a little closer, trying to see into one of the cracked windows. The spiderwebbing fracture distorted his view too much, however, and he retreated to the treeline to wait for the others. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket but didn’t light it, instead rolling it between his fingers in a restless fidgeting motion as he waited – and thought. The fact that he’d been able to trace processed, injectable psitanium here was...troubling. The existence of psitanium was not common knowledge outside of the psychic community. In fact quite a lot of work went into keeping it obscure – the one thing that could debilitate and disable a psychic, anywhere, at any time? Not something they wanted taught in schools. So the fact that psitanium – again, processed psitanium, not accidentally dug up out of the ground or caught in a gold pan – was at play here was deeply concerning. It most likely meant their culprit was a psychic.

Which led to the victims – if indeed there were any. The psychic community was not so large that a whole group of them could have gone missing without notice. But the effects of psitanium on non-psychics were well established with the history of the town of Shaky-Claim-turned-Lake-Oblongata. Which wasn’t even getting into the ethics of experimenting on individuals that couldn’t possibly have given properly informed consent. Sasha knew he couldn’t claim to have never skirted the rules himself, but...something was very wrong with all of this.

Penny for your thoughts. Milla’s voice came through their private connection as she settled gently next to him, already invisible herself. He felt her arm snake around his, linking them together. She was the only one from whom he tolerated such casual physical contact.

My thoughts are free to you, Milla, you know that. He sent her the general impression of what he’d been pondering as he waited.

That’s...upsetting, she said finally, and he could hear her frown in her mental “voice”. I don’t want to think that one of our own would...go rogue like that. Sasha knew that by “our own” she meant a Psychonaut, or at least someone involved in the greater psychic community. They both knew too well what psychic criminals were capable of, those outside the community either by choice or ignorance.

But it is possible.

Yes, she sighed. Unfortunately, it is. Her head landed on his shoulder for a scant moment before they felt Cowan approach.

Sorry, she said as she joined them, wrapping herself in invisibility. Guess I made a wider circle than I thought.

It’s alright, darling . Any trace of doubt was gone from Milla’s voice, which Sasha took as a sign that they weren’t sharing their theories with the other agent. Let’s give this place a look-see.

They levitated around the area just as Sasha had, the three of them gathering back at the treeline after.

Do we try the cellar door? Cowan asked. Or knock on the front door?

I don’t really want to go in at all without knowing what’s down there. They could hear the worry in Milla’s voice. Cadence, you’re retrocognitive, right?

Yeah. The affirmation was still doubtful. I generally need to know who I’m looking for, though. I don’t sense any people here, just the psitanium. And even that’s pretty faint. Her mental voice was tinged with apology. We need a psychometric, but even then we’d need something specific for them to trace .

I guess we’re going in blind, then. It was not a flippant thought from Sasha, or even a little bit confident. Going in blind wasn’t a definite recipe for death, but it set the table beautifully.

Milla sighed, resigning herself to the plan. Cellar door, then?

It’s locked, Cowan pointed out. Sasha knelt by the doors – not terribly graceful while still levitating – and inspected the padlock holding the doors shut. The metal slowly began to glow red, then nearly white-hot, and left scorch marks on the wood as it melted away.

They’ll notice that if they come back, Milla chided him.

Did you want to fiddle with the pins for twenty minutes? Psychic lock-picking was possible, but incredibly tedious.

That’s not the point. The conversation was dropped as Sasha opened the doors without ever touching them, and the three of them descended into the dark.

There were no stairs leading down into the cellar, only a packed-dirt incline, and Sasha bumped his head twice before giving up on levitation and coming to rest on the floor. He released the invisibility as well, letting the light around him behave normally again.

Sasha? Concern, from Milla.

As you said, they’ll see the melted lock. They’ll know we’re here. No sense making things harder for ourselves.

After a moment the other two shimmered back into view, landing lightly on their feet.

It feels...strange, in here, Cowan said. Like the room’s smaller than it is.

We’re underground, Sasha replied simply, but Milla was frowning.

No, she’s right. Something’s...not right about this place. I just can’t put my finger on it.

Sasha took a moment to reach out with his own mind, probing the atmosphere of the room and finding that both women were correct. The space was oppressive in a way that couldn’t be explained by the dark and the damp. Like it was pressing in around him, closing him in. Not only that, that it was doing it consciously, purposefully making him feel small and trapped.

Let’s keep moving, he suggested, shaking the shiver of claustrophobia off his spine.

The hallway was long and the oppressive feeling did not relent, making Sasha more and more uncomfortable as they went on. His eyes were darting around the room, his mind jumping at shadows. There was the constant sensation of being very closely followed, like something was lurking right at the edges of his perception. Never sitting still long enough to be identified but always there, watching, following. Stalking. He felt little startled spikes of energy from Milla as well, which was at least a little comforting. He wasn’t the only one being affected by this place.

When a figure appeared out of the corner of his vision, a vague movement in an otherwise still room, his mind immediately identified it as a threat, without the input of any of his other senses. The unease and fear made him break the cardinal rule of any weapon, be it physical, psychic, ranged or melee: he struck without confirming his target. The blast exploded forth, flying across the room without preamble.

“Sasha!” Milla’s cry of alarm was distorted by another overlapping voice, yelling another name he couldn’t make out.

The blast stopped short of his target – a little girl, he could see now, no more than eight years old, standing frozen in terror at the sight of three strangers in this dark, dank place. The kinetic energy dispersed over a psychic shield and fizzled out, made harmless, and three more figures rushed forward. Two of them knelt by the girl, who immediately threw her arms around one of their necks, and the third placed herself between the two groups. Hands raised in what would have been a placating gesture if her fingers had not been so peculiarly arranged – thumb and two fingers outstretched, a pose similar to the focusing gesture used by psychics in training, only aimed outwards instead of pressed to her temples. Sasha could hear one of the people behind her murmuring, presumably to the girl – we said to stay with the others. Meaning these four were not alone.

(Sasha let himself focus on these little details, the specific oddities of an overwhelmingly odd scenario as he compartmentalized his growing horror at what he almost did, tucked away to be addressed later and in private.)

“Who are you?” the woman demanded. She wore regular street clothes, jeans and a tshirt, but dirty and damaged almost beyond recognition. Her hair grew in ragged clumps, like it had been hacked off and no thought given to its growth afterwards. Her cheeks were sunken and her entire body shook with tremors, but her eyes were bright and angry, and Sasha could feel the intent to protect radiating from her, mind and body.

I think we found our psychics, he murmured to the others. General feelings of assent came back from them both as Milla raised her hands in a genuine gesture of good intent.

“We’re psychics,” she said simply and kindly.

“Psychonauts,” whispered the one currently holding the little girl. Sasha estimated they were in their early teens. Already the age spread of this group was intriguing.

“Yes,” Milla said, nodding towards them. “We sensed a large burst of psychic energy coming from here almost three days ago, and we came to investigate.”

“To wipe us out,” the teen spat, and Sasha saw the girl’s arms tighten around their neck.

“No!” Milla was genuinely horrified at the suggestion. “No, darling, we came to help.”

“By shooting at a little girl?”

“How did you find us?” The older woman spoke over the teenager, cutting off the antagonism before it could properly take hold.

“We sensed your general location,” Milla said. “We’ve been searching for you for the last two days.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed for a scant moment before her expression relaxed again. She glanced over her shoulder at the others – the one holding the girl scowled and shook their head fiercely, but the other, comparable in age, nodded hesitantly.

The older woman dropped her hands, and Sasha realized belatedly that they’d held a private mental conversation. A link between two people was common, and “speaking” to the area in general was even easier, but a closed connection with multiple people was more elaborate. Between that and the shield, hastily but effectively formed, there was no doubt that these psychics had been trained. But he didn’t recognize any of them. Nor did Milla, which was much more telling – she was very involved with the young psychics and their studies, and would have known any of them if they’d gone through the program recently.

“Can you tell me your name?” Milla asked. The woman hesitated, seeming to steel herself with a sigh before responding.

“Leah,” she said.

Milla smiled, at once charming and comforting. “Leah. My name is Milla, this is Cadence and Sasha – is it just the four of you?”

Leah glanced over her shoulder. “There are ten of us,” she corrected, and Cowan sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth. “We were actually in the process of…” She gave a short, humorless bark of a laugh. “Escaping, believe it or not.”

Milla blinked in surprise before her smile returned, radiating kindness. “Do you need a ride?”

Leah’s smile was brief and very tired, but seemed genuine. “Wouldn’t say no to one.” The teen holding the girl made a disgruntled sound, but a glance from Leah quieted them. Sasha took in all these little interactions and tucked them away for later – they could figure out the dynamics of the group once they were back in the sun.

One of them had to go above ground to call for extraction, and Sasha took the opportunity to escape the oppressive tunnels. He practically had to sit in the top of a tree, but he managed to get a call out to headquarters.

“Did you find the source of that energy burst?” the agent asked, and Sasha confirmed.

“Ten psychics, ranging from ages eight to thirty-three. We’ll need the jet and probably also a medical team.”

“For you or them?”

“Them,” Sasha said grimly. “Most of them are badly malnourished, and a couple of them have small but visible injuries.”

“I see.” The agent’s voice was grim. “Anything else?”

Sasha paused. He desperately wanted to find out what caused that feeling in the tunnel, that creeping anxiety that had made him react so badly, that broke twenty years of mental trigger safety. But he would need equipment and probably also assistants – and he would have to go back in there. At the moment, that was more daunting than anything. Moreover, it wasn’t the current priority.

“No, that’s all. I’ll call if the situation changes.”

“You have a little over an hour to modify your order,” the agent said dryly. “That’s when the jet and team should be prepped. ETA to your location is three hours.”

“Understood.” Sasha hung up the call and deposited his phone back in his pocket. He stayed where he was for a moment, levitating invisibly in the forest canopy. He should find a suitable site for the jet to set down. He should go back and check on the others, tell them the plan. He should apologize to the little girl – Lila was her name, he’d learned – but she wouldn’t speak to him. He figured that was fair.

He sighed, rubbing his gloved hands over his face. Nothing was going to be solved by sitting out here and sulking like a child. If they were going to have to stay down there for three hours, they would probably have to rotate out, just to have a brief respite from the sensation in the tunnel. He’d had his turn.

So he lowered himself back down to hover just over the forest floor, headed back to the cabin in the clearing.

By the time he got back and sent Cowan topside, a couple of floodlights had been set up in the hallway, pointed at the ceiling to disperse light without blinding anyone. Milla had charmed Lila away from her protective teenager to play some sort of clapping hand game. When the child saw Sasha approaching, however, she hid her face in Milla’s neck.

“Now darling,” Milla said soothingly. “We talked about this, remember? Sasha didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Lila peeked up, stared at Sasha for a brief moment, then buried her face again.

Headquarters is sending the jet , Sasha said before Milla could try to convince the little girl again. And a medical team.

Thank God, Milla said fervently, rubbing Lila’s back. Half of these children will be on IVs for days just to get back to baseline.

Sasha pulled out a cigarette, but thought better of lighting it given the cramped surroundings. Are they all so bad off ?

Tony – that’s the one so protective of Lila here – once the adrenaline wore off he could barely stand.

Sasha sighed, settling down on the ground next to Milla. Have you gleaned anything? They weren’t going to interrogate them right there in the hallways, but stress and physical unwellness could make it difficult to block psychic eavesdropping.

Nothing. Not even from this one. Milla indicated Lila by bouncing her slightly on her lap. Leah has been very outwardly...professional, I guess is the term? I think she took charge a little bit, as the oldest.

Sasha looked around, seeing Leah sitting with her head tipped back against a wall. One of the younger children was leaning against her, eyes closed in what looked like sleep, but their little fingers were curled very tightly in Leah’s ragged shirt. What has she said?

Very little of use, Milla admitted. And I’m reluctant to push just now.

We’ll have plenty of chances later, Sasha said, a cynical undertone to the words. They couldn’t be left here, especially the children, but once they set foot in the Motherlobe they would have effectively traded one captivity for another. Under no circumstances would a bunch of unknown, untrained, and untested psychics be allowed back out into the world. And Sasha knew they wouldn’t ever be fully trusted, no matter what their circumstances were.

She said they were captives, that they weren’t all brought in at once, and identified their captor as male, Milla continued. Other than that – well, she didn’t say it, but she rubbed her head a lot while she was talking about their captor. More than just a nervous affectation. Like thinking of him gave her some kind of...phantom pain. Or like a phantom itch. She looked down at Lila, who had started drifting off in her arms. As her face slackened the dark circles under her eyes became that much more prominent, her skin sallow even in the washed-out color of the floodlights. Her hair was in the same ragged, uneven state as the others, straw-blonde and clearly unwashed. Oh, Sasha. What happened here?

Has anyone been back into the rest of the cellar? He asked in lieu of answering. He had a theory, but to share it now would only upset her further, and if she was feeling the aura of this place the way he was she didn’t need any help on that front.

Leah said they locked the door behind them as they left, to delay “him” finding out they’d escaped.

Sasha sighed, putting the cigarette he’d been fiddling with in his mouth more to chew on the filter than anything.

Ten psychics in an underground bunker, clearly for some time, all in extremely poor physical condition and with shorn hair. The thought was private, not shared with Milla. We are not going to like whatever we find out about this place. I don’t like this place now . He rolled his shoulders. It’s a psychic effect, but hell if I know what’s causing it.

Cowan interrupted the thought as the came down the hallway. What the hell, guys, I’ve been trying to reach you for like ten minutes.

Sasha and Milla shared a surprised glance. We didn’t hear or feel anything, Milla said.

Cowan’s mental voice “grimaced”. Great, it’s shielded from the outside. Need to check what that cellar door’s made of.

“All’s quiet.” She spoke aloud, albeit quietly, in deference to the others in the room. “Milla, you wanna head up for a while?”

Milla looked down at Lila, who had drifted off entirely. “I don’t want to wake her,” she said quietly. “I’ll stay a while longer.”

“Milla,” Sasha said quietly, letting his concern touch her mind.

“I’ll be fine, darling.” The smile she gave him was tired, but still brighter than it had any right to be. “I’ve been compensating for your gloominess for this long, no? This is old hat for me.”

Sasha started to protest that he wasn’t gloomy , he was German, then realized he’d just be proving her point and settled for an exasperated sigh. She knew him well enough to know it was born of fondness.

“Alright, Agent Vodello.”

“Do you want to go then, Sasha?” Cowan jerked a thumb over her shoulder.

Sasha looked at Milla, who was looking down at Lila with a smile on her face but sadness in her eyes.

“No. I’ll stay.”

Cowan paused, looking between the two, before shrugging and turning back towards the exit. “I’ll stay lookout, then.” She disappeared back into the dark, with the muttered thought that one of them should still be sane when backup got there.

They were quiet as they sat, keeping an eye on their new charges while trying to resist the despair the cellar seemed intent on evoking in them. Eventually Sasha reached out again, cautiously probing the aura with his mind, trying to at least determine the nature of it, if not the source.

Almost immediately he was hit with a a wave of psychic feedback that physically knocked his head back, giving him a nosebleed and a migraine all at once.

“Sasha?!” Milla sat up in alarm, both the motion and the noise startling Lila awake.

“I’b fine,” Sasha lied, pinching his nose and screwing his eyes shut against the pain in his head.

Milla started trying to dig through her bag one-handed, with Lila still on her lap. “Tilt your head forward, Sasha, not backwards, you know this - “

“I do’t want to bleed on by thirt - “

“Here.” Sasha opened one eye to Leah standing over him, offering a compact item wrapped in plastic – a tampon.

He accepted it with a muttered “thankth” and went about the process of packing the cotton up his nose.

Don’t laugh, he warned Milla.

I would never, she replied, though Sasha remembered many occasions where she’d done just that. (The sight of a grown man with a tampon string hanging out of his nose was admittedly hilarious – when it was someone else.)

“It happens,” Leah said dryly. Then, after a moment’s hesitation: “You tried to talk to the walls, didn’t you.”

Sasha look of confusion must have communicated enough, because she sat down next to him with a sigh. “That feeling. That...awful, permeating feeling, like the room’s two sizes too small and you’ll never feel joy again?” Sasha and Milla both nodded. “It’s in the walls,” Leah explained. “It gets better when you’re farther away from them, but it’s so narrow in here you can never really escape it. Especially in the cages.”

Sasha felt Milla’s spike of rage and horror at the word “cages”. He wasn’t too pleased to hear it himself, as he unconsciously glanced down at Lila. “What is it?” she asked.

Leah shrugged. “We don’t know. We’ve poked at it ourselves, with plenty of nosebleeds for our trouble.” She smiled slightly at Sasha, though it faded quickly. “We don’t know how he did it. But it’s purposeful, and it’s pervasive.”

Sasha fell quiet, musing privately. Psitanium couldn’t do this, as far as anyone knew. Psilirium, on the other hand...but bringing psilirium to the surface was such an endeavor there were only a few very well-guarded samples, mostly in Otto’s lab (and one, much-coveted, in Sasha’s). The idea that anyone would have enough to coat the walls of this place was unthinkable.

He was shaken from his thoughts by the cellar door creaking open and spilling light into the hallway.

“Ride’s here,” Cowan called down to them. Looks like they brought the kid, she added privately to Sasha and Milla.

Razputin? Milla sounded dismayed. He doesn’t need to see this! And don’t you tell me he’s an agent now, Sasha Nein, he’s still a little boy -

I would never. Sasha echoed Milla with a straight face, earning a glare for his trouble.

They think he’ll be good for interfacing with the younger kids, Cowan said, interrupting the by-play.

He does have an infectious sort of charm, Sasha said, and he and Milla stood, Lila still wrapped in Milla’s arms. Sasha thought the child might be grafted to her hip at this point.

Leah gathered her group together, bolstering them. A brief touch to the shoulder, a squeezed hand. They clearly looked to her, and she seemed to have taken to the role.

“I’ll go first,” she told them quietly. “Then you can follow me.”

“Leah,” one of the older women whispered, clearly worried. Leah took her hand and held it briefly, smiling confidently.

“I’ll be fine, Dawn. We’ll all be fine.”

A brief squeeze of Dawn’s fingers and Leah approached the door to the cellar, flinching away from the light. It was tinted orange, indicating sunset, but after so long in the dark even moonlight might have been painful. Cowan offered her a pair of sunglasses, though whether they were from the medical team or Cowan’s own pair Sasha wasn’t sure. Leah donned them and turned back to the doorway, still with her face turned partially away but at least able to ascend the steps out into the clearing.

After a tense moment Dawn straightened, turning to the others. “It’s legit,” she murmured. “At least as far as she can tell. There are doctors out there, anyway.”

One of the teenagers perked up at this; they were leaning heavily on one of their companions, as their ankle had apparently been sprained for some time. Sasha hoped it hadn’t been long enough to do permanent damage.

Lila became upset as the group started moving away, so Milla followed after them, and Sasha followed after Milla. Cowan was standing the hallway just before the light started to become unbearable, handing sunglasses out to each of them. Milla cooed at Lila about how chic she looked, like a little rock star, and Sasha saw the little girl smile for the first time.

The rescuees’ poor condition was even more obvious in the light, however rapidly it was dimming. The bruises were more obvious, the tremors more visible. Sasha felt more than one spike of surprise and anger from the medical staff scattered around the clearing. They’d set up a sort of triage area, examining each of them and handing out blankets. And in the background, bouncing around like a superball, was Razputin.

“Sasha!” He sprinted over, skidding to a stop in front of Sasha. “What’s that in your – oh.” He winced. He’d been training as a cadet for three months now, and had experienced his own fair share of nosebleeds as he stretched the limits of his already impressive abilities. (Usually by pushing too far too fast, but Sasha could hardly throw stones in that regard.) “What happened?”

“Touched somethibg I sh’nt hab,” Sasha replied dryly, watching a grin spread across Raz’s face at his distorted speech. I’m fine, he said firmly. And I’m not why you’re here, anyway. He picked Razputin up telekinetically by the top of his head and turned him around to face the makeshift urgent care. You’re here to talk to the children. They are surrounded by adults who are stressed and worried – about them, but all they’re going to see is another angry adult. His mental voice grew less stern. Be gentle with them, Razputin. They’ve been through a lot. He paused, wondering how much he should say, then added They may be frightened by the medical exam. But it’s important the doctors find out what they need, understood?

Got it. Razputin squared his shoulders, and before the connection broke Sasha saw the briefest flash of an image of two children. A girl with long, looping pigtails and a boy with almost no hair at all but wearing a long cape of some sort. He realized he’d seen the pair before – Razputin’s younger siblings. Thankfully none of the children here were quite so young, but it was the frame of reference Razputin was using for treating someone gently. Sasha supposed there were worse models.

He made his way over to the main medical tent, gently easing the tampon out of his nose and looking for a bio waste bag to dispose of it in. Leah was being examined there, looking resolutely away from her arm as her blood was drawn.

“I didn’t used to be afraid of needles,” she said, in a voice so quiet and just this side of broken that Sasha had to take a moment to quell his own anger before he spoke.

“We can’t erase what’s been done to you,” he said gently, levitating a waste bag over the medic’s head (and protests). “We can only try to help you move forward from here.”

“How?” Leah asked quietly. She’d taken off the sunglasses in the shade of the tent and her eyes were scanning the clearing, visually checking in on her people as they all went through the same thing.

“...we’ll work that out as we go,” Sasha replied. “But we will do all we can.”

“Sasha.” Leah looked at him. “That’s your name, right?”

“Ja. Yes. Sasha Nein.” Her stare was piercing, making direct eye contact despite the tinted lenses hiding his eyes.

“Sasha Nein.” Her gaze intensified, her expression chiseled in stone. “Will we be safe with you?”

Sasha paused, and immediately hated himself for it. She needed reassurance, not hesitance. But he knew they’d be long-term “guests” of the agency. That some of them may never leave, by choice or otherwise. It was an uncertain and most likely contentious future.

But they would not be harmed, not the way they clearly had been here. So Sasha returned her gaze, noting how thin she was now that he could see her properly, and how dark the circles under her eyes were. “Yes,” was his simple reply.

Leah squinted at him, clearly suspicious at how long he’d taken to give a one-word answer. But her expression relaxed after a moment, and she sat back on the stretcher.

“Good,” she said quietly. “We need safe.”

“If you could stop harassing my patient, Agent Nein?” the medic asked quietly, and Leah gave a soft chuckle.

“I think technically I’m harassing him.”

“Either way,” the doctor said, preparing to withdraw the needle. “And with all due respect, Agent Nein: git.”

Leah’s smile pulled her skin too tight over her face, cheekbones and chin far too prominent, and Sasha’s mind worked furiously as he walked away.

Raz

Raz made his way over to one of the stretchers where he heard the medic arguing – firmly, but gently – with their patient.

“No,” the boy said furiously, over and over. “No needles. No more needles.”

“I’m not injecting anything in you,” the medic said patiently, holding up the empty vial. “I need to draw blood so I can learn how to help you.”

“No needles,” he repeated stubbornly, and Raz could feel the mingled exasperation and compassion coming off the medic.

He came around at a wide angle so the boy could see him approach, stopping while he was still behind the medic. “Hey,” he said brightly, getting the medic’s attention as well. “Room for one more?”

The medic shrugged and stepped aside, but Raz’s focus was on the boy. “Can I sit with you?”

The boy stared at Raz, expression unreadable behind the sunglasses, and Raz just stayed where he was and let himself be scrutinized.

“I guess,” was the eventual response, albeit reluctant.

“Cool.” Raz carefully and deliberately levitated up onto the stretcher, both to avoid jostling it and to reveal that he was also psychic. “Thanks.”

The boy made a non-committal noise, not looking at Raz. Raz studied him out of the corner of his eye – he might have been Raz’s own age, but he was gaunt and drawn in on himself, making it impossible to know for sure.

“I’m Raz,” he said, trying to be friendly without being...what was the word Milla used? Over-exuberant. That was it. “What’s your name?”

No response. The medic looked at the two of them for a second before setting down her phlebotomy kit.

“I’m going to go speak with Agent Nein,” she said quietly, and stepped away. Raz saw that she went nowhere near Sasha, but merely retreated to a respectful distance.

They just sat there in silence for a moment, Raz swinging his legs off the edge of the stretcher while the boy curled his knees into his chest and wrapped his arms around them.

Raz broke the silence. “Don’t like needles, huh.”

The boy curled farther in on himself.

“No, I get you – first time I went to a doctor was when I broke my leg. I was five.” He shrugged. “So I was hurt, freaking out, somewhere I’d never been before, that didn’t look like anywhere I’d ever been, and there was a stranger trying to poke me with a needle. Without even asking! They told my dad to hold me down.” The boy curled in on himself tighter, until Raz thought he might turn inside out. Raz had hit a lot of nerves with his story so far, and he leaned back away from the boy to put his weight on his elbows. Giving him space under guise of relaxing on the stretcher.

“But he didn’t,” Raz continued quietly. “He just knelt down next to me and held my hand until I stopped crying so much. And he told me that the needle was gonna hurt, but not nearly as much as I was already hurting, and it would make the hurting stop.” Raz shrugged. “I was still freaking out, because my leg was still, y’know, broken.” He looked over again to see the boy looking back at him, head resting on his knees. “But I trusted my dad, and my dad trusted the stranger, so I let them use the needle on me. It was medicine, and it made it stop hurting.” Raz sat back up, sitting cross-legged facing the other boy. “I know these are all strangers to you, but I know every one of them, and I trust them. Can you trust me?”

The boy hesitated. When he spoke, in was in a whisper. “You’re a stranger, too.”

Raz shrugged in concession. “Fair enough. But Dr. Acevedo – that’s her name, Dr. Juliana Acevedo – she just wants to make the hurting stop. She’s not gonna give you anything without asking and without telling you what it is, and she’s gonna draw some blood so they can figure out what you need to get better.” He paused. “And nobody’s gonna hold you down. If they do, I’ll kick their asses, and then you can kick my ass for telling you wrong.” That got a smile out of the boy, and Raz felt a burst of shock and sympathy at how gaunt the boy’s face was. He fought to keep it away from his face, and instead extended a fist halfway between them. “Deal?”

The boy didn’t sit up, but unwrapped one of his arms from around his knees and gently bumped his knuckles against Raz’s. “Deal,” he said quietly.

Raz grinned. “Excellent. Thank you.” He lifted an arm to wave the medic back over, and heard the boy say something too quietly to be heard.

“What was that?”

The boy sat up a little and raised his voice where Raz could hear. “Michael,” he repeated. “My name’s Michael.”

A grin bloomed across Raz’s face. “Nice to meet you, Michael.”

Raz sat with Michael as he got his blood drawn, noticing how he turned as far away from the needle as he physically could and screwed his eyes shut. He didn’t fight or yell anymore, however, and Juliana sent Raz a wave of gratitude. When he finally moved away it was almost dark, and most of the others had finished their examinations. The jet was actually hovering overhead, hidden from sight by a group of invisists, and the medics were careful to warn the group about the telekinetic boarding method.

“Gonna be a tight fit,” Raz said, coming to stand next to Sasha.

“Indeed,” he replied, taking a long pull off of his cigarette.

“You’re not gonna smoke that on the jet, are you?”

“Of course not, Razputin.” Another long pull. “I try to only destroy my own lungs.” He exhaled a long trail of white smoke. “Usually.”

A couple of responses to that ran through Raz’s head, but he shook them away in favor of the question troubling him more. “Sasha...what happened here?”

Sasha paused, one hand to his mouth, holding the cigarette in place for a long moment. When he spoke his voice was low and dark in a way Raz hadn’t heard before.

“We don’t know, Razputin. But we're going to find out.”

Chapter Text

Raz

The jet wasn’t really meant to hold as many people as it was now – the ten rescuees, the medics, the backup team, Sasha, Milla, Agent Cowan, and Raz himself. A couple of the smaller kids wound up having to sit on someone’s lap. Milla actually levitated in the center for most of the way, holding Lila with her. There were meal replacement shakes as well, to get nutrients into them without putting too much on their stomachs.

They set down on the secondary landing pad, set into the back of the mountain and connected to the Motherlobe via a long underground tunnel. The official explanation was to avoid overwhelming the group with the main atrium, but something about the way Milla looked at Sasha when she said it told Raz there was something else.

Michael found Raz in the dim light and walked next to him, close enough that they bumped shoulders occasionally. “Where are we going?” he whispered.

“There are dorms under the main building,” Raz replied. “You’re going to get rooms and clean clothes.”

Michael picked at his shirt, filthy and stained with most of the hem and collar worn away. “That’ll be good,” he said quietly. Then, a little more fearfully: “What are they going to do then?”

Raz thought fast. He didn’t actually know, but he could make an educated guess that hopefully wasn’t a total lie. “Probably food,” he said. “Like, real food, if they don’t think it’ll be too much. Maybe another doctor.” He bumped Michael’s shoulder, on purpose this time. “Not just an emergency exam. Trying to figure out how to get you better.”

Michael was quiet for a long time. “I...I think I might be okay with that. Last time wasn’t...so bad.”

“Glad to hear it,” Raz said, as they reached the steel doors of the elevator that would carry them up into the base.

Milla laid a hand on Raz’s shoulder. “We’ll take them to the dorms, darling,” she said. Lila was still in her other arm, curled into her shoulder. Raz figured she had to be using at least a little telekinesis, or else her arm might have fallen off by now. “Why don’t you go up to the classrooms? Agent Forsythe will want to talk to you.”

“Yeah, of course.” He looked at Michael, whose eyes were wide and fearful at the thought of Raz leaving. Raz thumped him gently in the shoulder with one fist. “I’ll come see you later, alright? Let you get cleaned up and stuff first.”

“Y-yeah. Okay.” Michael still looked afraid, but one of the adults whose name Raz didn’t know came up to them, taking Michael’s hand in his own.

“Come on, Mike,” he said gently. Michael looked up at him and nodded, walking away with him and only briefly looking back over his shoulder at Raz. Doubts welled up in Raz for the first time, and he looked up at Milla.

“They’ll be okay...right?”

“We’ll do our very best for them, darling.” Milla squeezed his shoulder. “Now go on. Oh, and Razputin?”

He stopped, looking back at her. “Yeah?”

“This is classified, okay? No trying to impress the others.” The warning was kind, and Raz grinned at her.

“Understood, Agent Vodello.”

It was a couple of elevator rides and at least one security checkpoint for Raz to get where he was going, and he was so zoned out going through the classroom hallways he rolled right past a familiar face and had to backtrack.

“Frazie?” His lev ball popped as he stared at his sister, sitting at one of the tables outside Hollis’ office. She sat up when she saw him, clearly surprised.

“Hey. Raz.” She looked to one side. “I, uh. They said you were on a mission.”

“We just got back. What are you doing here?” It was off-putting seeing his sister here, wearing a sundress over her costume, all safety pins and faded stripes against the fluorescent lights and linoleum floors.

“I, uh. Decided to take Agent Forsythe up on her offer. For training,” she added, as Raz’s face lit up with a grin. “For control. I’m not trying to be a psychopath.”

“Psychonaut.”

Frazie just lifted an eyebrow at him, clearly perfectly aware of what she’d said. He opened his mouth to continue, but the door to Hollis’ office slammed open and his mother stormed out into the hallway. If it had been odd to see Frazie, Donatella Aquato was a foreign entity, all ruffles and stripes and an absolutely furious expression.

“That woman - “ She hissed through her teeth, stopping when she saw Razputin. “Oh, Pootie, you’re back from your…” She waved a hand dismissively. “Field trip.”

“I was in the field,” Raz sighed.

“You can tell Agent Forsythe all about it,” she sniffed, ignoring the correction. “Since apparently she knows better for my children than I do.”

Raz looked over at Hollis’ office; she and his father were standing in the doorway, her standing primly with her hands behind her back and him looking pained and apologetic.

Agent Forsythe said that only one of them has to consent for me to train here, Frazie whispered in Raz’s mind. And...Dad did. Before telling Mom about it.

Raz was simultaneously very glad that he – and presumably Frazie, now – had a room here on base, and wishing he could bring the rest of his siblings here as well. Their little camp in the woods was going to be very uncomfortable for the foreseeable future.

“We have to get back to the children,” his mother sniffed. “Dion does his best, but he tries to impose order on the babies and it just makes them even more rebellious.” She gave them both swift kisses on the forehead that never really made contact. “Come out for dinner, if you can.” A sharp look over her shoulder at Hollis. “Dion’s been fixing up the kitchen in that old diner, so we can make larger meals. Since we are apparently here for the time being.” Raz knew about the project; Gisu had been helping with the mechanical repairs. Raz suspected his mother didn’t know about the assistance, and decided it was probably best not to say anything.

Donatella stormed out, not waiting for or even acknowledging her husband.

“I really am very sorry,” Augustus sighed. “There’s…still a lot we’re unpacking.”

“I understand,” Hollis said. “This isn’t actually the worst reaction I’ve had from a parent. Had one realize they were psychic while they were yelling at me.” A small grimace tightened her features briefly. “Didn’t think we’d ever get that chair off the ceiling.”

Augustus came over to Raz and Frazie, kneeling down and hugging them both tightly.

It’ll be alright, he told them both. It’s more that you two aren’t with us at camp than the actual psychic training . Raz had his doubts about that, but kept them to himself. Do come for dinner, though. Just maybe...not right away.

Love you, Dad. That was from Frazie, and Raz echoed it. Communicating with just waves of sentiment or emotion were still weird for the both of them, so he tried to keep to actual “speech”.

Love you both . He kissed them both on the forehead and straightened, sighing heavily. “See you when you visit next,” he said out loud, and turned to leave.

“Dad?” He turned back at Frazie’s voice. “Thanks,” she said, her voice very small. Augustus smiled at her.

“Of course, Frazie.” The smile grew. “You’ll have to come teach me what you learn!”

Frazie returned the smile, albeit more quavery, and Augustus left. She slumped onto the table, head on her arms.

“...it could have gone worse?” Raz suggested, and she lifted her head long enough to glare at him with one eye. “How’d she even find out?”

“I fell,” she muttered into her arms. “During practice. Panicked and floated myself.” She thumped her head on the table once. “There’s a net, there’s always been a net, why would I - “ The sentence devolved into a groan. Raz patted her shoulder.

“It would have come out eventually,” he said. “At least it was while you were still nearby.”

“Yeah, I doubt Mom would have come back out here – it’s an expensive trip.” Frazie sat up, rubbing her face with both hands. “She said she only came for you because we couldn’t do the pyramid without you.”

“She’d have figured something out,” Raz said, shrugging. Frazie mirrored it. Their mother loved her family, she was just...prickly about it, sometimes. And downright spiny at others.

“Junior Agent Aquato.” Hollis’ voice was quiet but still her Boss Voice, and Raz turned to face her. “I’d like your debriefing now, please. I’m sure there’s someone to show Frazie to her room, who may or may not be hiding behind the classroom door to avoid encountering her boyfriend’s mother.”

“He is not - “ The squawk did indeed come from the classroom, and after a moment Gisu stomped out, cheeks dark. “That was dirty, ma’am.”

“It’s important to learn to control your reactions,” Hollis said, not unkindly. “Please show Miss Aquato to the dormitories – there’ll be a room assignment by the time you get there.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Gisu smiled at Frazie, who returned it – the two were at least familiar with each other, through Dion.

“I’ll visit later,” Raz told Frazie, realizing distantly that he was developing a full social calendar.

Gisu headed down the hallway, but Frazie hesitated. Then, to Raz’s immense surprise, she threw her arms around his neck. Not saying anything, just standing there for a moment before pulling away and punching him in the shoulder.

Love you too, he said fondly, and Frazie just made a non-committal noise before following Gisu out into the atrium.

He turned back to Hollis, who quickly schooled her expression but Raz could have sworn there was a smile on her face.

“Come in, Junior Agent Aquato.”

“You know you could just call me Agent,” Raz pointed out as he walked past her.

“Absolutely not.”

The first part was familiar, not unlike when he’d finally been asked about Whispering Rock and the Rhombus of Ruin. What did you see when you arrived, what did you do, who was involved. Then, when all the pertinent information was down, Hollis put her pen down and leaned forward, fingers interlocked in front of her face.

“You spoke to one of the children, correct?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What was your impression of him?” Raz blinked a couple of times.

“Like...as a person?”

Hollis tipped her head to one side. “What he was like, how he was feeling.”

Raz looked down at the desk, thinking. “His name was Michael,” he said. “But it took a while to get that out of him. Dr. Acevedo was trying to take a blood sample and he...really didn’t like the needles.” He frowned. “He said no more needles. Like he’d...seen a lot of them. And they’d hurt him.” He looked back up at Hollis’ stern expression. “I got him to trust me enough to let the doctor take the sample, but...he was really scared, Agent Forsythe. Somebody did something awful to him, and everyone else there. He’s so thin ,” he added, his voice dropping almost to a whisper.

“Did you touch his mind at all? Just basic telepathy, nothing intrusive.”

Raz shook his head. “It didn’t seem appropriate, given the state he was in.” He paused. “I didn’t want to make anything worse.”

“Hmm.” Hollis regarded him for a long moment, then sat back. “Thank you, Junior Agent Aquato. You were there to act as a stabilizing influence, and you performed admirably.”

“Even though I just talked to one person?”

“For the other children – I understand there were four of them, out of the ten – seeing someone closer to their own age working with and being safe around the strange adults, including the ones with the needles, can do wonders for their state of mind. Adults are...trickier, but the hope is that they believe someone with ill intentions wouldn’t bring a child along.” She shrugged. “The fact that you were able to successfully connect with one of them and ease their fears speaks well of you.”

“...thank you,” Raz said, though there were a million more questions racing through his mind now.

“Dismissed, Aquato.” Hollis picked her pen back up and started writing, ignoring Raz now that she’d checked him off of her mental to-do list.

Raz exited the office and just stood in the hallway for a moment, going over the entire conversation in his head.

It occurred to him that Hollis had said “he” before Raz ever told her the gender of the child he’d spoken to, and started to feel like he’d just been tested on something.

Which made him start to panic that he’d failed somehow, so he shoved it out of his mind and threw a lev ball under himself to make back out to the atrium. He had some visits to make.

Milla

Milla drifted carefully into Sasha’s lab, peering into the small office off to the side. He was there, filling out a report on one monitor while some program ran on the other – a missing persons database, she realized, as faces flickered rapidly on the right-hand side of the screen.

Milla walked up behind Sasha and wrapped her arms around his shoulders wordlessly. He didn’t react – he’d sensed her come in to start with – and let her rest her chin on his shoulder.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Her voice was quiet and her question was exactly that – a question, not a suggestion or a probe. He didn’t respond except for a tightening of his shoulders and his jaw clenching, and she let it drop without another word.

“You should eat,” she murmured after a while. “It was a long few days.”

“When I’m done with this,” he muttered in response. It was an old call-and-response between them at this point.

“It will be midnight and you still won’t have eaten,” she said, standing to rest her hands on his shoulders. “The report will still be there afterwards.”

“I just want to get it finished,” he insisted, and Milla sighed. The flickering of the second monitor caught her eye again – now that she could see it clearly, the name and face being run through the database was Lila. She’d clearly taken a shower before the picture was taken, but her face was so gaunt, her hair so short and scraggly, there was no telling if the database could match it.

Sasha… The mental murmur was unconscious, and he rested his hands on the keyboard with a sigh.

“She’s an orphan,” he said flatly. “Fischer was able to get that out of her while she was fitting her for clean clothes. Moved around through several foster families – apparently she was only with the last one a few days before…” He paused, levitating a cigarette out of the pack on the desk. “She didn’t remember their names.” He lit the end of the cigarette with a thought and took a long pull, aerokinetically manipulating the smoke away from Milla. “Did she say anything to you?”

Milla shook her head. “She spoke very little. I think she just wanted the physical comfort, to be honest. Just someone to hold her.” Her fingers tightened on Sasha’s shoulders; a brief, tense squeeze. “I don’t suppose she remembers what happened?”

“If she does, she hasn’t volunteered it. None of them have.” Another drag on the cigarette and a long exhale. “I suppose it’s not a ‘first day of freedom’ question.”

“No,” Milla agreed softly. “The adults might be able to...push through, if they understand the need, but I don’t want to push the children.” She floated next to Sasha as though there were a second chair at the desk, watching the faces flash by. All children, all Lila’s age. “There’s so many,” she murmured, and felt a soft wave of comfort from Sasha. There was grief and rage behind it, but tightly controlled, as everything about Sasha was.

“I want to know what’s in those tunnels,” he muttered. “Leah said there was something in the walls, but none of them know what it is.”

“There was definitely psitanium there, but psitanium wouldn’t do that.” Milla frowned. She remembered the feeling, dark and oppressive and frightening, like being hunted and buried alive at the same time. Trapped while something watched from the shadows. She’d been down there the whole time they’d waited, not wanting to disrupt the only rest Lila might have gotten in weeks, and even after a shower it was like she could feel it in her pores. Frankly, she was terrified of sleeping that night.

“No,” Sasha said, leaning his elbows on his desk and folding his fingers in front of his chin, lifting the cigarette out of the way. “No, it wouldn’t.”

Milla peered at him, feeling the theory in his mind that he was holding just out of reach. “What are you thinking, Sasha? What’s down there?” Sighing, he released the mental wall, and Milla’s eyes widened.

“Psilirium?!” Sasha hissed between his teeth and she laid one hand over her mouth, lowering her voice. “Psilirium?” She repeated, in the same hissing whisper. “There’s no way, it’s almost impossible to get to the surface - “

“As far as we know,” Sasha intoned.

“We have the only samples - “

“The only known samples.” His eyes drifted to the closet at the back of the office, locked both to his mental signature and with a padlock across the front. There was, of course, a chunk of psilirium there, on semi-permanent loan from Otto Mentalis. Milla, Hollis, and Truman knew about it, and presumably no one else. But doubt crept into Milla’s mind as she followed Sasha’s gaze. “It’s still in there,” he told her, stubbing out the cigarette. “I checked as soon as we got back.”

"And Otto's?"

"It's far more difficult to get into Otto's lab than it is to get in here," he told her. "And he never leaves his."

She pursed her lips tightly. “It’s got to be something else,” she said, picking at the collar of her dress. “You know I trust you and your intuition, darling, but this…” She shook her head. “It’s too much.”

“I understand.” He levitated another cigarette out of the pack. “It’s...not the priority right now, regardless.” Milla glanced at the screen again; the faces continued to flicker past, never pausing.

“...you need to eat,” she said again, unfolding her legs to lower her feet to the ground.

“What?” Sasha blinked at the sudden topic shift.

“You can’t think on an empty stomach,” she said. “And...I really need you to come up with a new theory.” She glanced at the closet door again. “For my sake. And probably Truman’s, if he ever gets wind of this one.” She wouldn’t breathe a word of it, but not everything stayed confidential in a building full of psychics. “So if I can’t get you to the cafe, I’ll at least bring you a sandwich and you can eat at your desk.” She paused, plucking the cigarette out from between his lips. “And stop chain-smoking.”

“That’s my last one,” he spluttered in protest as she left the room, headed for the atrium. And how well will I think when I go into withdrawal? he demanded, and she smiled.

You have enough nicotine built up to carry you for days.

That’s not how that works!

In the cafe, she paused at the counter, staring down at the plastic-wrapped sandwich without really seeing it. Her mind was back in the cellar. She’d been down there for three hours. The ten of them had been down there for so much longer and suffered so much, things they couldn’t even talk about yet. Young adults, teenagers, children. And Leah, a good seven years older than the next youngest rescuee. It had to have been for something, though nothing would justify the way they’d been treated. But what?

“Ma’am?” Milla was yanked out of her thoughts by the cashier’s voice.

“Oh! I’m so sorry.” She handed the sandwich over to be scanned. “I spaced out a little.”

“No worries.” The woman behind the cash register smiled. “You just got back from that big mission, right? Haven’t even had the chance for a nap yet.”

Milla very carefully did not pull a face. Truly nothing stayed “classified” in this building. She didn’t reply, which the cashier didn’t react to – likely used to the careful reticence of field agents – and handed her the sandwich back.

“Say hi to Agent Nein for me.”

Milla spluttered in surprise. “What makes you think - “

The cashier gestured at the sandwich. “It’s got ham on it.”

Milla looked down at the package, feeling heat rise in her face. Of course. She’d been vegetarian for years; even as zoned-out as she’d been she wouldn’t have gotten a ham sandwich for herself.

She looked up, smiling widely. A defense mechanism since childhood; she knew how bright and cheerful she could look when she really wanted to. It disarmed people, kept them from asking too many questions. “Got to keep him fed, darling, or he’ll waste away and I’ll have to train a new partner. Far too much work.”

The cashier laughed, but Milla saw the knowing smile as she turned and strode out of the cafe. Psychics, she thought with exasperation. Horrible gossips, every single one of them. Can’t buy a sandwich without feeding grist into the rumor mill.

Frazie

“You’re gonna like it,” Gisu said confidently as they left the classrooms. She was levitating on her board, which evened out their heights. “There’s more beginners your age than you’d think.”

“Yeah?” Frazie perked up slightly. She’d fully resigned herself to taking classes with kindergarteners, learning the absolute basics.

“Oh yeah. Lots of psychics from non-psychic families don’t realize what they can do until after puberty.” She grimaced. “Puberty can be...rough, for psychics. Depending on their specialty.” Frazie looked down at her feet, remembering the two year period where she slept with a pillow over her head at night in a futile attempt to block out her siblings’ dreams, and had to routinely go out as far as she could from the circus and levitate everything in a 20-foot radius just to burn out the energy so she could focus on her act.

“Yeah, I get some of that,” she muttered.

“There are schools all over,” Gisu continued, steering her towards the elevator. “But the Motherlobe takes the strongest or the...most challenging.” She shrugged.

“I don’t think I’m either of those things.” Frazie caught herself wringing her hands. “I just want...to know what to do.”

“That’s what 90% of the kids here want,” Gisu said seriously. “Just because this is Psychonauts HQ doesn’t mean everybody here wants to be a secret agent.” A pause. “Some of the interns don’t even want to be a secret agent.”

“What?” Frazie blinked. “Really?”

“Yeah, y’know.” Gisu shrugged. “Shit happens.” She flipped her board back under her feet as the elevator doors opened. “Alright, this is your hall. Hollis should already have you in the system, but they’ll make you an ID at the desk up here.” They exited the elevator into a wide hallway with pale cream walls and red carpet.

“It kind of looks like a bank,” Frazie muttered. Gisu cackled.

“I heard it used to look like a regular-ass office building until they made Truman remodel,” she said. “Made kids feel like they were in an institution.” She sobered slightly. “And some of them know what they’re talking about, too.”

She drifted to a stop in front of a set of double-doors, a desk set into the wall next to them. “’Sup, Mel?”

“Ms. Nerumen,” the woman seated there said, nodding at Gisu before looking at Frazie. “And Ms…”

“Aquato,” Frazie said, watching Mel's expression shift in recognition of the name. “Frazie Aquato.”

“She’s a new trainee,” Gisu said, leaning over the desk to look at the computer. “She needs an ID.”

“Please don’t lean over my desk,” Mel sighed.

“I like to watch.”

“Gisu.”

Gisu set her feet back on the ground, grinning. “Fine. This time. Because Frazie’s here.”

A device hovered from behind the desk, startling Frazie.

“It’s going to take your picture and a surface-level brain scan,” Mel said kindly. “It’s how you’ll get around the building.”

“Like a keycard in a hotel,” Gisu said. “But for your brain.”

Frazie nodded; she had seen Raz’s. He was still trying to get them to retake the picture – she personally hoped it stayed like it was forever.

“Say cheese,” Mel said as the device flashed. She felt a tingle over her scalp at the same time as the flash, and she shook her head to chase the sensation away.

“Thinkerprint acquired,” Mel announced.

“Thinker what,” Frazie asked flatly, and Gisu cackled again.

“Someone back in the day really liked puns and portmanteaus,” she said gleefully. “It’s the worst.”

A printer whirred behind the desk, and Mel handed Frazie a small laminated card. “It’s a formality,” she said with a shrug. “Most of the doors here will just give you a scan.”

“You get used to the tingles,” Gisu added.

“You’re in room 3H,” Mel said, gesturing at the double doors. “Go on, let’s make sure the scan took.”

Frazie stepped up to the doors, shivering as the scan tingled over her and the doors swung open.

“There we go! Welcome to the Motherlobe,” Mel called after her as she and Gisu headed down the hallway.

“You really do get used to it,’ Gisu said, lifting herself back up onto her board and gliding down the hallway beside Frazie. Her room was almost at the very end, and Gisu spent the whole time chattering happily beside her.

“Farthest from the door but closest to the food,” she said. “Cafeteria’s at the end of the hall. The trip gets faster when you learn how to use a lev ball,” she added. “You’ve probably seen your brother do it? Balancing on a ball of psi energy and just - “ She lifted slightly off of her board and mimed running in midair. “Cuts every trip in half. It’ll let you use the elevators, too, so you can get to the upper floors without having to go out and around.”

They parted briefly to let a group pass between them – two women and a little girl. One of the women and the little girl were wearing forest-green Psychonauts sweatshirts, and looked like someone had cut their hair off with garden shears. Gisu turned to watch them for a moment after they’d passed, a small frown on her face.

“Anyway,” she said, turning back around. “It’ll probably be tomorrow, since it;s so late, but someone will come take you to evaluations.”

“What’s that mean?” Frazie asked.

“Just what it sounds like,” Gisu said with a shrug. “They’re gonna test what you already know, figure out your primary skill – your specialty, what you’re best at – figure out what class you need to be in. You’re not graded, it’s not something you can fail, it’s just...placement. Oh, this is you!” She pulled up short in front of a dark wooden door, identical to every other door on the hall except for the small silver “3H” embossed on the wood.

“Press here,” Gisu said, pointing at a rectangular panel set into the wall, and Frazie laid her hand on it. Another brain scan ran over her and she shivered again, glancing up at the wall above the door where it seemed to have emanated from.

“I’m not gonna get cancer from these things, am I?” she asked as the door swung open.

“Nobody has yet,” Gisu said, nudging the door open with a telekinetic finger. “Come on, take a look!”

The room wasn’t huge, just enough room for a bed, desk, and small dresser. There was a small door off to the left, ajar enough to show a small bathroom. Frazie stepped inside and immediately felt adrift, like she’d stepped into empty space. She told herself it was silly, she’d stepped into a smaller space than the one she’d just been in, but she couldn’t help the sensation. One bed just felt wrong, the smallest number of beds she’d ever had in a room was four. Not to mention the sheer size of it, sitting in the center of the room and not a cramped cot that she’d outgrown years ago. A dresser, just for her, just for her things, and not a trunk stuffed with whatever she could fit, and she just had to hope one of the others didn’t break into it? A bathroom? A whole-ass bathroom?

Gisu slipped past her, peering into her face. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “Raz looked kind of like that, too. After he woke up and actually saw the room, anyway, poor kid fell right on his face first chance he got.” She sat cross-legged on the board, still floating. “You can rearrange the furniture however you like,” she said. “Bathroom’s all yours, there’s towels and shampoo and shit. Dresser should have a few sets of clothes in there, you can find what fits and give the rest back to Mel.” She looked Frazie up and down. “I’d offer to loan you a pair of jeans, but you’d have to ask Lizzie for that. You’re both 90% leg.”

“Okay,” Frazie said, swallowing hard. “Okay, sure.”

“Hey.” Gisu drifted up to be eye-level with Frazie, catching and holding eye contact. “You got this. You’re gonna kick everybody’s ass, blow through training, and be outta here in no time.” She grinned. “But when you get cleared to go into town, we are taking you shopping, at least once.”

“What?”

“Town. Shopping. Clothes that aren’t second-hand sweatsuits.”

“I mean I have clothes,” Frazie protested. “I just didn’t...think to bring any.” She deflated slightly, looking around the room.

“Oh. Shit.” Gisu frowned, looking down to one side for a second. “We’ll figure something out. I mean even if we don’t we’re still gonna take you shopping.” Her grin returned in full force.

Frazie gestured uselessly. “I don’t have any - “

“You get a stipend,” Gisu interrupted. “And anyway if we catch Milla on a day she can come with she’ll spoil you, I swear it’s her favorite pasttime. Oh! Speaking of Milla.” She swung around to be between Frazie and the door again, making Frazie turn to follow her. “If you need anything, like lotion or soap or, y’know, supplies, ask Milla. She keeps a bunch of stuff in her office for the trainees and the interns. You can ask Mel if you really have to, but she’s stingy.” Gisu lowered the board back to the floor and stood on it. “Now, I have to jet, because I am actually graded on my work, and I have done absolutely none of it today.” She flashed a grin, continuing telepathically. But if you need anything, you know how to find me.

Frazie smiled. Yeah. ….thanks.

No problem. Gisu turned the board in a sharp 180 and started back down the hallway. Catch you later!

The mental message trailed off into some equation Frazie didn’t understand in the least before cutting off entirely, and Frazie gently shut the door behind her and went to flop on the bed. It felt nine miles long, her arms spread all the way out and her fingertips only barely reaching either side. And it was soft, not torn and flattened and repacked.

Frazie! Raz’s voice was loud and sudden in her head, making her shoot upright.

You scared the shit out of me, Pooter!

Sorry. He had the grace to sound sheepish. Look, I can’t go down the girls’ hallway, but if you can make it to the cafeteria I can meet up with you there!

Frazie smiled despite herself. Yeah, that sounds good.

Cool! I told someone else I’d check on them but I’ll definitely make it over there before curfew.

See you then, Frazie said, and flopped back onto the bed as the connection dropped. The room was too big and she was still pretty sure she was gonna get cancer from the constant brain scans, but she at least had one familiar face in Gisu, and she would never admit it out loud but Raz being there was a comfort, too.

Yeah , she thought, letting her eyes drift closed. Maybe I do got this.

Raz

He rolled through the hallways, shouting apologies to agents he zoomed past on his way to the dorms. It was still at least an hour until curfew, surely enough time to check on Michael and visit Frazie.

Frazie! Frazie, his sister who wouldn’t even tell the family she was psychic! Even after the family history came out, keeping it under wraps so as not to rock the boat any further.

Well. Not to rock Mom’s boat any further.

And now here she was, in the heart of psychic society, getting trained to be a better psychic.

Raz willfully tempered his excitement; Frazie would learn how to control and direct her abilities, and then she would leave. Go back to the circus with the others. Which was honestly fine, nobody had to stay, as long as they could safely control their abilities.

But in the meantime, he was excited. There was no telling how good of a psychic she could be once she knew what she was doing. And he got to watch it happen!

He paused outside the boys’ hall while the thinkerprint scanned him, taking the moment to shift his focus. Michael didn’t need his excitement. Over-exuberant, Milla’s voice echoed in his head again. Michael needed steadiness and calm. Raz was pretty sure he could be at least one of those.

He got Michael’s room number from the desk and rolled down the hall, stopping in front of the correct door. Some of the others (Norma) teased him for using the lev ball as much as he did, but the truth of the matter was that most of the Motherlobe was not built for people under five feet tall. The thinkerprints in the dorms couldn’t even see him unless he was floating.

He knocked on the door, waiting politely as he heard movement inside. It wasn’t Michael who opened the door, but the man who had led him away in the tunnels.

“Uh,” Raz said, and the man smiled.

“Here for Michael, right?” He had a heavy Scottish accent that Raz hadn’t been expecting, and he blinked as the man stepped aside. “I’m Evan. Come on in, he’s just eating still.”

“Thanks!” Raz did drop his lev ball as he entered the room – it wasn’t great for small spaces – and saw Michael on a small bed in the corner, a tray table on his knees.

“Raz!” he called cheerfully, though it came out more like “Rahh” due to the amount of food in his mouth.

“Not with your mouth full,” Evan admonished from across the room, and Michael ducked his head.

“He keeps having to remind me,” he said sheepishly when he’d chewed and swallowed. “That and not to eat so fast. This is the most we’ve had in...a while.”

Despair and rage welled up in Raz again and he shoved it back down. Michael didn’t need that either.

“Is it good?” He asked instead. Michael nodded enthusiastically.

“It’s great. Want some?”

“No thanks, you keep it.” Raz smiled at the other boy’s excitement – a complete reversal of when they’d met in the clearing. “I’m gonna eat with my sister probably.”

Michael perked up at that. “You have a sister?”

“Two of them,” Raz confirmed. “Only one of them’s here, though – my big sister, Frazie.”

“That’s so cool,” Michael said. “I hope I have a sister.”

Raz frowned at that. “What do you mean?”

Michael paused, setting his fork on his tray and staring at it. “I uh. I don’t remember great. None of us do. From...before.” His eyes went very far away, and Raz knelt to get back into his line of sight.

“You okay, buddy?” Michael blinked, his eyes slowly focusing back on Raz.

“Yeah.” He swallowed. “Yeah, I’m fine.” His eyes followed Raz back up, suddenly brightening when Raz was standing again. “Hey, what was that thing you were doing in the hallway?”

“What thing?”

“With the - “ Michael bicycled his legs in the air, jostling his tray.

“Oh!” Raz let his lev ball reinflate under him, staying very carefully still. “This?”

“Yeah!” Michael was grinning again. “That’s so cool!”

“It’s called a lev ball – levitation ball,” Raz corrected himself as he settled back to the ground. “They’ll probably teach you when you’re healthy again.”

But Michael was already setting his tray aside and standing, staring at Raz’s feet. “Show me again!”

Cautiously, Raz once again levitated, and Michael furrowed his brow. After a moment’s concentration he too had a ball under him, albeit very shaky and more oblong than round.

“Woah!” He pitched backwards almost immediately, and Raz’s telekinetic hand shot out to steady him as the ball popped under him.

“Michael.” Evan’s voice across the room was firm, and both boys looked over at him. He was standing in the doorway to the bathroom, arms crossed. “Bedtime.”

“But - “ Michael gestured at Raz. Evan just jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

“Now, youngin’. Raz has to go see his sister, remember?”

Michael pouted. “Fine,” he sighed. “But you gotta come back tomorrow.”

“If he can,” Evan said as Michael trudged across the room. “You remember what the doctor said.”

“I know,” Michael groaned as he went past Evan into the bathroom.

As soon as the water turned on, Evan crossed the room to Raz. Despite his earlier tone, there was a smile on his face.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

“What for?” Raz asked.

“For Michael. All he could talk about the whole time was Raz, Raz, Raz. When will Raz come see me, can I go see Raz, where’s Raz.” The smile deepened as he looked over his shoulder. “I think it kept him from thinking about...everything.” He looked back at Raz, laying a hand on his shoulder. “He needs a friend who wasn’t...there.”

Raz looked past Evan at the bathroom, where he could just see the corner of a stool and Michael scrubbing his face with a towel. “I’ll do my best,” he said, smiling up at Evan.

“Appreciate it, lad.” He opened the door for Raz, who waited until he was in the hallway to pull up his lev ball again. “Go see your sister.”

Raz tossed a mock salute his way and started towards the end of the hall to the cafeteria that all the dorm hallways connected to, like fingers coming off a hand. He was frowning as he went, though; there had been something weird about the way Michael had pulled up that lev ball. Incredibly shaky, yes, to be expected of a beginner, but to be able to just look at Raz and recreate the technique, after seeing it just once...there was something off about it that Raz couldn’t put his finger on.

He shook his head and pushed the concerns to the back of his mind. It wasn’t like he was the final authority on psychics. He was still incredibly new to the psychic community at large, and there could be lots of people with that kind of talent for imitation. It could be like people who learned music by ear. He’d ask Sasha the next time he saw him. If anyone was the final authority on psychics it was probably Sasha, at least as far as Raz was concerned.

The dorm cafeteria wasn’t enormous, but spacious enough to comfortably hold most of the students housed at the Motherlobe. As a result, Raz had to squint to spot Frazie on the other end of the room, sitting by herself at one of the round tables. Grinning, he rolled over to her and popped his bubble to skid to a halt at the table. Frazie had been looking at her hands, and Raz’s otherwise silent arrival made her shove herself away from the table in surprise.

“If you’re going to give me heart attacks every ten minutes I’m leaving,” she threatened. Raz grinned sheepishly and climbed into the chair across from her.

“I’m just excited,” he admitted.

“I’m just here for - “

“The basics, I know.” He shrugged. “It’s still exciting. It’s been pretty...isolating, being the only Aquato around.”

Frazie looked back down at her hands. “Yeah, I can understand that.”

Raz paused for a moment, tilting his head at his sister. “I hung rugs up in my room,” he said finally.

“What?” Frazie looked up at him and he shrugged again.

“Rugs. Hung ‘em on the walls, used them as room dividers for like between the desk and the bed and stuff. It helps. With the...roominess.”

Frazie made a small noise of understanding. “I’ll have to try that. When, y’know. I can buy stuff.”

“Milla can at least get you like a bead curtain for now,” Raz told her.

“Yeah, Gisu mentioned her. She sounds like the agency den mother or something.” When Raz didn’t answer she looked up to find him with his hands curled into loose fists, staring down at the table. “...Raz?”

“Huh?” Raz’s head snapped up, his eyes taking a moment to focus on Frazie. “Oh. Yeah, Milla’s a real mother hen type.” He smiled a little, and it chased the haunted look from his face. “It’s nice, though, y’know?”

Before Frazie could open her mouth to answer, her eyes locked onto something over Raz’s left shoulder. Her mouth set in a thin, firm line that made her very much resemble their mother, and her hands curled into fists on the table.

“Frazie? What - “

“Oh god, Lizzie, look. They’re multiplying.” Norma’s voice interrupted Raz’s question, and he just closed his eyes in exasperation.

Out of all the amends he’d made at the agency, from either direction – Hollis, Ford, Truman – he’d never been able to bring himself to reconcile with Norma. It was partially genuine lingering anger at her actions, her target fixation and desperation for acknowledgment that had made a fraught situation almost fatal. Anger at her refusing to take responsibility for what she did, waving Raz off with “well it worked out didn’t it” and ignoring the actual repercussions of her actions.

The other part was that Norma just had a really shitty attitude in general, and it made interacting with her at all extremely frustrating. He could and did work with her as a fellow junior agent, but absolutely avoided her otherwise.

Frazie had no work-related restrictions, and Norma was right there in front of her.

Frazie, Raz muttered inside Frazie’s mind.

What.

Don’t .

I’m not doing anything. It was terse and bitten off at the ends, and Raz resisted the urge to rub his hands over his face.

Your chair is floating. Frazie looked down sharply, and the chair reconnected with the ground with a thud .

“Shut the fuck up, Norma.” Lizzie had her back to the group, investigating the vending machine that served as an after-hours buffet. Raz liked Lizzie much better than he did her sister, even if she had called him a city kid that time. “Leave the new kid alone.”

“Is she really a new kid?” Norma asked, levitating up to sit on the table, folding her legs and resting her chin in her hand to stare at Raz and Frazie. “Given...everything?”

A telekinetic hand shoved Norma off of her perch. “Shut the fuck up, Norma.”

“By ‘everything’ do you mean that time you tried to get my grandmother killed?” Frazie’s voice echoed in the otherwise empty space as Norma caught herself and stood upright.

“Well she’s not your real grandmother, for one.”

The wave of rage from Frazie was Raz’s only warning before she stormed past him. He grabbed her with a desperate telekinetic hand before she could reach Norma.

Let go of me, Razputin.

She’s baiting you , he told her, struggling to keep a mental grip on her. Trying to make you look like a problem before you even get evaluated.

She’s the problem!

I know , Frazie, but listen – He managed to reach Frazie and wrap a physical hand around her arm as well. Listen. Just – give it a week, okay? Give it a week and if she pulls something like this again you can turn her into mystery meat. Just...not tonight. Okay?

Frazie glared at Norma for a long moment, eyes blazing. When she finally spoke in was in a low, restrained voice.

“Let go of me, Raz.”

Hesitantly, he loosened both his mental and physical grips until Frazie was free. She stayed where she was, eyes locked with Norma’s, until she took a single deep, slow breath.

“Not worth my time,” she said, and turned sharply around to march through the doors to her hallway. Raz watched her go, only turning back to Norma when the doors had shut behind Frazie.

“Well that was a hell of an introduction,” Norma said. She was smirking, because she only ever smirked, and Raz took a breath that mirrored Frazie’s before he spoke again.

“Shut up, Norma.” The smirk dropped from her face. “Don’t do to Frazie what you did to me.”

Norma rallied, crossing her arms in front of her. “Aww, are you protecting your sister? Cute.”

A smile crept across Raz’s face. “No,” he said simply. “I’m not protecting Frazie.”

The implication hit Norma and her face contorted into a scowl. “I’m pretty sure I can deal with the remedial class.”

“Dude.” That was Lizzie, sitting at the table behind Norma, not looking at either of them as she peeled the plastic away from her food. “Why do you keep going after them like they don’t juggle whole-ass people with their actual physical bodies for a living?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Norma asked, exasperated.

Lizzie did look up then, steam rising into her face. “She wouldn’t go after you as a psychic ,” she said, as though explaining the obvious. “She’d go after you as a fucking enraged ball of muscle.” She balled the plastic up and reached for her fork. “She’d kick your ass.”

“Not if she wants to stay here,” Norma shot back.

“She doesn’t care,” Raz said, and Norma looked back at him, eyes narrowed. “When you pulled that shit on me when I first got here? And I just kind of let it happen? I wanted to make a good impression. I wanted you to like me.” He shrugged. “Frazie doesn’t give a shit.” Over Norma’s shoulder, Lizzie’s eyes widened. It wasn’t that Raz didn’t swear, but he did so rarely, and almost never at people. Both at the same time was an event. “Not about you, not about this place. She’s literally only here so she can perform without worrying about her abilities flaring up at the wrong time.” He grinned suddenly. “And Lizzie’s right. She would kick your ass.”

The curfew chime sounded then, and Raz let his lev ball lift him off the ground. “See you tomorrow!” he said cheerfully, rolling backwards towards the boys’ doors and flashing a peace sign as they closed in his face.

In the privacy of the empty hallway he slumped, sighing heavily. Frazie ? He reached out tentatively.

What. Her mental voice was flat and came with a wave of irritation that made him wince.

Sorry. I didn’t know she’d be there .

I know you didn’t, she replied. Some of the irritation was leaking away now, replaced with sheer tiredness. Raz knew she’d learn to suppress the emotional transfer as part of her training, but for now he didn’t comment and just let the emotional overflow part around him without making contact. I’m not mad at you .

I’m still sorry. He headed for his room, still rolling on his ball. That’s not how I wanted your first night here to go.

We’ll call a mulligan , she said. Tomorrow’s my first full day, we’ll call that my first night here .

Raz smiled as he reached his door. That sounds good. He made it into his room, walls covered in posters and patterned rugs hanging from the ceiling in places, an amalgam of the caravan and an average student dorm. I’ll come find you tomorrow, if you get time. It’ll be a full day. For both of us, probably . He had little doubt that there would be more to do with those ten rescuees, in one way or another. I'll try to be at your evaluation for sure.

Sure. Frazie’s voice was just tired now. See you tomorrow, Pooter.

G’night, sis.

Chapter Text

Leah

The knock came before Leah was expecting it, still half-dressed with uncombed hair.

“J-just a minute!” she called through the door, scrambling for the long-sleeved shirt she’d found in the dresser last night. Real clothes, and a real shower, a real bed and real food and all the other things that had been consigned to the realm of fantasy for the past...however long it had been.

She dragged a brush through her hair, not bothering with a mirror. Her hair was scraggly, unkempt and uneven – a single shower wouldn’t fix that. There was talk of haircuts, but they had to be cleared to enter the rest of the facility for that.

Facility . The word sent a shiver down her spine. As silly as it was, it almost felt sinister . She knew logically that they were most likely just referring to the building they were in, the dome of which she’d been able to see just over the ridge of the mountain as they were landing. But the itch between her shoulder blades persisted.

“Coming,” she called again, pulling on the loose cloth shoes that had been set by her door. Several pairs in several different sizes, and in her rush she was glad she’d taken the time the night before to find one that fit. These rooms were clearly prepared to take in people who had nothing, or at least very little, and she’d wondered more than once last night how many strays they actually took in.

She opened the door to a woman with lovely dark hair and eyes, as well as two men in tshirts and jeans behind her. In the middle of the group was Dawn, Lila in her arms.

“Sorry,” Leah said, attempting a smile. “Morning got away from me. I guess.”

“It’s quite alright,” the woman said, smiling slightly. She had a soft, lilting accent that Leah couldn’t quite place. “My name’s Eirian. We’ll get you some breakfast before the evaluations.”

“...sounds good.” Eirian stepped aside to let Leah into the group. The men never moved.

“Here,” Dawn grunted, shifting Lila’s weight. “Take this.”

Leah let Dawn shift Lila onto her back , feeling the little arms go around her neck. “You’ve got legs, you know.” It was an empty comment; Leah knew why Dawn had been carrying Lila. It was a callback to their original escape plans – if they have to run, carry the little ones so they don’t fall behind. If they have to fight, make sure Dawn and Evan’s hands were free. Clearly Dawn at least halfway expected both.

Alright? Leah sent, careful to keep the message private to her and Dawn.

Been better, Dawn replied, mental voice tight. Don’t like that we’ve got guards .

They don’t know us, Leah reasoned, though she had her doubts about the big, silent men as well. Makes sense they don’t trust us.

Dawn didn’t respond, just a distant aura of distrust and potential energy, and Leah shifted Lila a little higher onto her back as they started down the hallway.

The cafeteria was a little under half-full, students milling about in various states of dress and consciousness. Eirian talked them through using the buffet and the vending machines (“when you start receiving your stipend, of course”), and left them to get their food. The men did not leave with her.

Leah had to set Lila on the ground so they could both get breakfast, but kept her body between her and the men. Their looming was putting her on edge, and she could only imagine what it was doing to the girl.

You okay? She whispered mentally, receiving only unease in return. Leah sent back a wave of bolstering confidence that she didn’t entirely feel herself, and scooped eggs onto Lila’s plate.

Eirian had claimed a table for them, and the group sat around it with her.

“You’re not eating,” Dawn noticed immediately. Eirian waved a hand dismissively.

“Already did,” she replied simply. Dawn cut her eyes over to Leah, who squinted at Eirian briefly. When she relaxed so did Dawn, trusting her read on the woman.

“Raz!” Leah looked over her shoulder to see Michael running full-tilt across the cafeteria, Evan’s long-suffering admonishment ringing out behind him. He was sprinting towards the boy that had been with their rescuers, though it was hard to recognize him without the helmet. The boy greeted Michael with equal exuberance, and started introducing him to the girl he was sitting with. The two seemed to be related, with similar hair color and skin tone, and the girl was awkward but kind to Michael, or at least it seemed from there.

“Ah, Razputin,” Eirian said fondly, drawing Leah’s attention back to the table. “Youngest junior agent in our history. That’s his sister with him, she’ll be in your same evaluation group.”

“How’d he get made an agent?” Dawn asked. “Junior agent. Whatever.”

“He – well.” Eirian smiled again. “A few months ago, he had a...very interesting week.”

“Interesting.” Dawn made a derisive noise. “That word is a curse.”

Eirian nodded. “I’m quite sure he’d agree.”

Frazie

Raz quickly tucked his face into his elbow as he sneezed suddenly.

“Gross,” Frazie said, adding a moment later: “Bless you.”

“Thanks.” Raz wiped his face with his napkin. “Don’t know where that came from.” He turned back to Michael. “Evaluations today, huh?”

“Yeah!” The boy that had come sprinting over to Raz had mousy brown hair that looked like it’d lost a fight with a weed-whacker, with sunken eyes and cheeks that didn’t match the smile he was giving her brother. “I’m nervous, though.”

“Don’t be,” Raz said. “They’re just figuring out what you know and what they still need to teach you.”

A man came up behind Michael at that point, laying one big hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” he said, pulling Michael away from the table. “Told you he was excited.”

“It’s fine,” Raz said. “I wanted to see him before the evaluations, anyway – I’ll be there to watch!”

Michael’s face lit up again and the man chuckled.

“Cheering him on, aye?” His eyes found Frazie over Raz’s head. “This the sister you mentioned?”

“Oh, right! Frazie, this is Evan. Evan, this is my sister Frazie.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Frazie.” Evan tipped an imaginary hat at Frazie, which made her smile.

“You too.”

“Alright now, come on, you.” Evan steered Michael away from the table and towards the group he’d originally sprinted away from, a man in a tie and two more in t-shirts. “Got to eat before doing that much work.”

“But what if I throw up?”

“Then don’t stuff yourself, ninny.”

“Okay, what’s going on.” Frazie asked as soon as the pair were out of earshot.

“What?” Raz asked. He tried to keep his tone bland and his eyes innocent, but Frazie was the one who’d taught him how to lie in the first place, and she jabbed her fork at him.

“Don’t ‘what’ me, I’m not blind.” She gestured around the room. “There are three groups of people here, all with those same bad haircuts, and all with at least three handlers. What’s going on.”

Raz tried to hold the innocent expression for another second before giving it up. “I really can’t tell you,” he said apologetically.

“Does it have to do with that mission you were on yesterday?”

Raz remained silent, but his expression turned pleading.

Frazie sighed. “Fine. Secret agent dork.” She muttered the last into her plate.

“Yo.” The new voice startled her, and she looked up to see one of the girls from last night – the one who wasn’t Norma. She instinctively tensed in response, and Raz’s voice was quick in her mind.

She’s not Norma, he said. She’s the one that was telling Norma to shut up, remember?

Frazie relaxed, but only slightly. “Hi.” Her voice was flat and unfriendly, and the girl sighed in response.

“I’m Lizzie, I’m supposed to escort you to evals, and if you could avoid punishing me for my sister’s sins I’d appreciate it.”

It’s really not her fault , Raz pointed out, and Frazie gave a slight sigh of her own.

“Fine,” she said. “Can I finish eating first?”

“Yeah, take your time.” Lizzie jerked a thumb over her shoulder towards the doors leading back into her hall. “Just, y’know, not too much time, or you’ll be late. Meet me in the hall in like ten minutes?”

“...sure.”

“Cool. See you.” Lizzie ambled away, hands in her back pockets, to lean against the far wall next to a tall figure in a wide-brimmed hat.

“She’s really alright,” Raz said, and Frazie shrugged.

“I mean if she’s my minder for the day, I don’t have much of a choice,” she muttered.

“It’s just for the first little bit,” Raz said. “Really as soon as you can make a stable lev ball they kind of turn you loose. That’s how you get everywhere.”

“...that’s weird.”

“That’s psychic architecture.”

“Like I said.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Evan steering Michael towards a table. “So is Evan Michael’s dad or…?”

Raz frowned in thought. “I don’t think so? He calls him by his first name, anyway.” Realization hit and his expression became exasperated instead. “Stop fishing , Frazie, I really can’t tell you anything.”

“Fine, fine.” She pushed the remnants of her food around on her plate. “I guess I’m just trying to distract myself from…” She gestured at the room around them.

“You’ll be fine,” Raz said. “It’s not like you’re suddenly going to be non-psychic and lose all your abilities and they kick you out for being a fraud.”

Frazie froze as the new anxiety took root. “I’m going to fucking kill you,” she growled, jabbing across the table with the fork. “You’re supposed to be supportive .”

“I am being supportive!” Raz protested as he dodged the fork. “I’m making you aware of a rare yet entirely possible scenario!”

“Respect your elders!”

“You’re only 4 years older than me!”

“And therefore elder!”

The fencing match went on until Raz telekinetically grabbed Frazie’s tray and used it as a shield. “Okay, okay, truce,” he called from behind it, and Frazie paused but did not lower her weapon. Raz peeked up over the top of it, just goggles and eyes. “I’ll take this back for you,” he said. “You go meet Lizzie.”

Frazie narrowed her eyes for a scant moment before relenting. “Fine,” she said, dropping the fork on the table. “I’ll get you later.”

“I know,” he replied gleefully. “Break a leg!”

“Preferably someone else’s,” they finished in unison, and got up from the table to head in opposite directions.

“Hey,” Lizzie called as Frazie approached. “You good to go?”

“Yeah,” Frazie replied. “...actually, no. Hang on.” She turned around and spotted Raz across the room, and her fork still left on the table. With a slight flex of her fingers she telekinetically lifted the fork, took careful aim, and with a flick of her fingertips shot it across the room to nail Raz right in the back of the head.

He stumbled, catching himself at the last second, and didn’t even bother searching for his assailant.

Frazie!

I said, ‘later’, I didn’t say how much later, she said with a grin, and saw Raz make a mocking “blah blah blah” motion as he continued towards the tray return. Watch it, Pooter, there’s plenty more forks where that came from.

You’ve found your calling, Raz replied. Just fling forks and pinecones at the evaluators and you’ll get classified a psychic assaulter in no time.

Lizzie had been laughing through the whole exchange, and was wiping tears from her eyes when Frazie turned back around.

“You’re gonna be fine,” she said gleefully. “Come on, before we’re late.”

Sasha

Sasha emerged from his office with an armful of file folders and nearly ran directly into Milla as she tried to enter.

“Ach,” he muttered, straightening the stack of files tucked into his elbow.

“Sorry, sorry,” Milla murmured, helping him shift some of the papers back into place. “I was coming to see if you wanted to watch the evaluations with me.”

Sasha smiled slightly. “That’s where I was headed,” he said, lifting his arm slightly to indicate the stack of folders. “Thought I’d get some work done at the same time.” Evaluations could be quite interesting, but there was also a lot of “down time” as new psychics were put through lengthy questionnaires and tests of minor psychic ability. It was a good time to catch up on paperwork.

“Always working,” Milla teased, and Sasha wondered distantly how she was this radiant and that well put together first thing in the morning, while he was still regaining control of his joints and hoping his hair decided to lay flat. “Shall we, then?”

“Of course.” They headed down the hall together, and Milla started to slip her arm into his, as she often did. Just as she did so, however, another agent walked past them, and Milla hesitated. Feeling her sudden discomfort, Sasha looked over at her, frowning slightly. He didn’t ask what was wrong – he didn’t need to, as she felt his concern just as he’d felt her unease.

He saw her jaw set and her shoulders pull back, and she threaded her arm through his almost defiantly. “Nothing,” she said firmly. “ Nothing is wrong.”

For just a moment, Sasha toyed with the idea of asking her who she was trying to convince, but ultimately let the matter drop. The concern stayed in the back of his mind – Milla Vodello did not let the presence of others affect her behavior – but he declined to give it voice. For now.

There were rooms built especially for the testing of new psychics in the lower levels of the Motherlobe, designed by Otto Mentalis when more and more psychics stated coming out of hiding. A young, untrained psychic could be very dangerous, through no fault of their own, and a safe area for them to test the furthest extent of their abilities was necessary. Double-layered concrete walls with carefully measured amounts of psitanium in between, to block any potential psychic shockwaves from escaping the room without suppressing the abilities of those within. There was also a small room in the back with a two-way glass window for additional observers, so as not to overwhelm those being evaluated with too large of a crowd.

Seated at a long, white table in the center of the room was Agent Siyavong. Siyavong was a veteran agent, injured in a mission several years ago and now in charge of trainee intake. While he may not have been able to chase down psychic criminals anymore, his abilities were as strong as ever, making him perfectly capable of subduing an overloaded psychic should the need arise.

“They’re starting with Frazie,” Milla murmured, leaning her elbow on the table to rest her chin in her hand.

“Who?” Sasha was already going through his files, looking for a place to start.

“Razputin’s sister, darling.” Milla’s voice was only mildly reproachful.

“Ah, yes.” A cigarette floated out of Sasha’s pocket. “They’re likely getting her out of the way for the more exciting subjects.” When Milla didn’t answer, he looked up to see her staring at him, temple rested on her fist and mouth turned downwards. “Scientifically speaking,” he clarified. Her only response was to lift an eyebrow at him, and he sighed. “We know Razputin and Frazie’s genealogy, “ he explained. “The Galochio line was...disrupted, but Frazie will most likely turn out to be a levitator or aquakinetic.”

“Razputin is an astral projectionist,” Milla reminded him mildly.

“Yes, well.” He shuffled his papers. “These things happen.”

Milla just gave a quiet “hmm” in response, turning back to the window. Sasha shifted in his chair. Milla claimed to support psychic scientific advancement, but the moment it came to the study of actual psychics it was always “guinea pigs” this and “human rights” that. (She similarly did not appreciate it when Sasha pointed out that technically psychics were not humans, as the mutations that gave them their abilities placed them in a different taxonomic category than standard homo sapiens.)

There was also the matter of family trees. Some skills were so closely linked to certain families that showing a primary specialization in that skill would connect them directly to that family. It was unlikely any of them was a Boole or a Zanotto, but there were other families with other specialties that might take them in, if the need arose.

He opened his mouth to put forth this defense just as Razputin skidded into the room.

“Am I late?” he asked, out of breath. “Has Michael gone yet?”

“No, darling,” Milla said warmly. “You didn’t miss him. Your sister’s starting now.”

“Oh, good.” He flopped into the chair next to Milla’s. “I got ambushed in the hall – something about the last mission.”

“Oh?” Sasha looked past Milla at Raz, who shrugged.

“Yeah – one of the desk agents, I think? Asking if we’d questioned the rescuees yet.” He paused. “We really gotta come up with a better name for them, that’s starting to sound like a bad cover band.”

“Why would they ask you that?” Milla frowned. “If we had anything, we would have put it in the file.”

“Not to mention you were a junior agent attached to that mission in a very minor capacity,” Sasha added. “There would be no reason to think you had any information on the larger case.”

“Thanks for making me feel like a valued member of the team, Sasha.”

“That’s not what he’s saying, darling, it’s just…” Milla paused, searching for the words. “An...odd subversion of the chain of command, is all.”

Very odd , Sasha thought. Desk agents didn’t normally approach field agents about their cases at all. Normally they sent fifty-seven emails before nine in the morning, in his experience.

Maybe if you actually filed your paperwork instead of hoarding it like some kind of bureaucratic dragon, Milla sent, along with a small bubble of fond amusement.

Sasha started to respond in defense of his filing method (“do it all at once every six months”) but the door opened again and Frazie Aquato stepped into the evaluation room.

“Hey!” Raz perked up, grinning ear-to-ear as his sister took the chair across from Siyavong.

“Ah yes,” Sasha muttered under his breath. “The softball.”

“Hey.” Raz repeated himself, only much more reproachfully as he frowned at Sasha.

“That’s not what he means,” Milla sighed. “Or least it doesn’t mean what you think it means. Watch your sister, darling.”

Raz took the distraction eagerly, as Sasha made another note on his file folder, under the first one: desk agent. After a moment’s consideration, he added a question mark to the end, putting a small, quiet voice to the skepticism brewing in the back of his mind.

Frazie

Frazie strode back and forth in the hallway outside the evaluation room, absently stretching her arms over her head out of sheer nerves.

“How have you not dislocated something?” Lizzie’s voice snapped Frazie out of her pacing, and made her realize that she had one arm wrapped behind her head, fingertips resting on her chin.

“Oh. Uh.” She unwound her arm, letting it dangle at her side. “Sorry. Nervous habit.”

“Contortionism is your nervous habit?” Lizzie laughed, not unkindly. “Man, I just chew my nails.”

“Yeah, well.” Frazie shrugged with one shoulder, fully intending to leave it there. Her body was still itching to move, however, and after a moment she smiled with a sudden memory. “When I was kid I’d do handstands,” she said quietly, and Lizzie just stared at her for a second before giving a sharp, surprised laugh.

“Like as a nervous tic? Just...standing on your head?”

“Yeah.” Frazie grinned. “My mom said she’d find me before shows, just walking around on my hands behind the tent.” The mention of her mother brought back the memory of the day before, Donatella storming out of Agent Forsythe’s office. Belatedly, she realized she’d gone silent, and that Lizzie was watching her from where she was leaning against the wall. “What?” she asked, suddenly defensive.

“I used to freeze my breath,” Lizzie said simply, and Frazie tilted her head to one side in confusion.

“Your breath?”

“Yeah, like - “ Lizzie tipped her head upwards, breathing out in a open-mouthed sigh, and Frazie watched as tiny ice crystals formed in the air in front of Lizzie’s face.

“Oh wow,” she breathed. “That’s actually really pretty.”

“Thanks,” Lizzie said easily. “It’s good for a distraction, because it takes a lot of control and I have to focus. Keeps my mind off of whatever the hell else was bothering me.”

“You’re next, Miss Aquato,” the woman behind the nearby desk said, and Frazie looked back at Lizzie.

“Plus if I do it for other people, it distracts them too.” Lizzie grinned sharply. “Go get ‘em, new kid.”

“Right.” Frazie sighed, rolling her neck on her shoulders before approaching the door.

“Try not to melt Liko’s head,” Lizzie called after her. “He owes me twenty bucks.”

Frazie laughed despite herself as the door shut behind her, the simple action chasing away the last of her nerves.

There was a long white table in the center of the room, a man in a suit seated on the far side. Frazie took the chair directly across from him, folding her hands on the table in front of her.

Raz? She called nervously.

I’m here , came the reply, and she felt herself relax. I can’t interact with you during the thing, but I’m here.

Thanks , she said simply, dropping the conversation as the man behind the desk started addressing her .

“Miss Aquato,” he said, looking up from the file in front of him. He had a gentle smile and kind eyes, despite the scar running across one cheek and over his nose. “I’m Agent Siyavong, and I’ll be conducting your evaluation today.”

“Okay,” Frazie said, hating how high and thin her voice sounded.

“It’s all quite harmless,” he assured her. “We’ll skip the questions about your family’s psychic history – that’s all well-documented.” His tone was light, but Frazie still caught the sardonic edge and smiled tightly in response. “So, here.” Agent Siyavong took a pack of what looked like playing cards from the table next to him, pulling them out and shuffling them in his hands. They weren’t any cards Frazie recognized, instead having a plain white field and blue symbols on them – a star, circle, square, cross, and three wavy lines.

“I’m going to hold one of these up,” he said, “and I want you to tell me which card it is.” Frazie frowned but nodded understanding, and he pulled a card out of the center of the deck to hold in front of his eyes. “Take all the time you need.”

She and Raz had played games like this. Us ually a shell game or three-card monte variant, where the other had to guess not where the pebble or the card was, but how the other had cheated that time. She didn’t know any of this stranger’s tells, however, which made it slightly more difficult. She focused on the card at first, trying to get it to “tell” her what was on the opposite side, but it didn’t budge. So then, tentatively, she reached out for Agent Siyavong’s mind. Trying to keep her touch light, to keep him from noticing, but as she fumbled her way through the connection he spoke again, very gently.

“It’s not cheating,” he told her. “You don’t have to be sneaky.”

She nodded again, taking a deep breath to recenter herself before reaching out again. This time, when she wasn’t trying to avoid detection, she slid much more easily behind his eyes and peered through them at the card he was holding between them.

“Circle,” she said confidently, withdrawing her mental touch. He smiled.

“Excellent.” He pulled four more cards from the deck and shuffled the circle card into them, eventually laying all five face-down in front of him. “Can you find that same card?”

Ah, this was the three-card monte she remembered. Sort of. She closed her eyes and reached out to lay her fingertips on each card. These spoke to her a little more easily than before and she quickly determined their shapes - square, cross, star, circle...circle.

She frowned, moving her hand back to the previous card, questioning it, trying to see if it was the one the agent had held before. But neither it nor the second circle was forthcoming, and she slumped back in her chair in irritation.

“There are two circles now,” she said. “I can’t tell which one is the original.”

“Still very good,” he said, making another note in the file. “Now, for something slightly different.” He reached to the side to retrieve a clear pitcher Frazie hadn’t noticed before, along with a tall glass. “I want you to try to move water from the jug to the glass.”

Frazie eyed the setup dubiously. “I’m guessing just pouring it is out of the question.”

He gave a small chuckle. “It would rather defeat the purpose, yes.”

Sighing, Frazie angled her chair so that she was facing the pitcher straight-on. Hydro kinesis . The word echoed in the back of her mind, Raz explaining what it meant and why Nona had been the best in the world at it. Her fingers curled tightly around the edges of the chair, Nona’s voice in her head now – no water . Her whole life avoiding baths and ponds and even puddles if they seemed to o deep, and now she was supposed to believe she had some kind of genetic affinity for it?

Scowling, she bit her lip and glared at the jug. She was not going to have a hydrophobic panic attack over a glass of water .

“You don’t have to sit on your hands,” Agent Siyavong said quietly. “If gesturing makes it easier, do it.”

He had misread the cause of her agitation, but his voice still calmed her in its kindness . So Frazie pried her fingers loose from her chair and reached one hand out towards the jug. Not to touch, just to reduce the distance between herself and the water.

C ome on, you piece of shit . The thought was aimed at the water inside the pitcher. Get in the fucking glass .

She spread her fingers wide, trying to connect with the water through the plastic barrier. After an eternity of straining her mind to the point she thought it might pop, a thin tendril of liquid rose from the inside of the jug.

“Ha!” she crowed, quieting quickly when the thin strand of water wavered in midair. She moved slowly and carefully, like she was transferring acid and not water, and managed eventually to deposit her small, thin thread of water into the glass.

“Ha,” she repeated, and slumped back into her chair. Exhaustion spread through her, making her limbs heavy and her breath shallow. “I don’t have to move all of it, right?”

“No,” Siyavong said, smiling. “You did excellently.” He made a note on his file, simultaneously lifting the pitcher telekinetically and pouring the glass full of water. “Go on and drink; we’re not done yet.”

Wait, moving the pitcher was an option? A dozen alternate solutions flooded her mind at once, and she scowled into the glass as she drank. She could lift things , no problem. She didn’t have to stress herself out about hydrokinesis at all.

Sasha

“Not hydrokinetic, then.” Milla’s voice was mild, but when Sasha looked up from his paperwork her smile was distinctly smug.

“No,” he agreed bluntly.

“How can you tell?” Raz asked from the end of the table. “Doesn’t everybody struggle with their abilities at first?”

“There are...affinities,” Sasha explained, going back to his file. “It’s not really fully understood yet.” He raised his voice slightly. “Research on the psychic brain is ongoing, with the full cooperation of willing and informed participants.”

Milla’s look was sharp, and he felt the rebuke across their mental link. A combination of their usual disagreement and not in front of the child . He let the matter drop. For now.

Frazie

There was in fact a test of her telekinesis afterwards, asking her to move various objects across the room. Sometimes just to move them, sometimes to place them into designated target areas. Moving things was fine; placing them into the targets was sometimes a little more challenging. Sure, she could fling a fork with pin-point accuracy, but that was a matter of angle and momentum, like throwing knives during a show. Deliberately moving an item from point A to point B without breaking it or causing violence was more taxing than she’d anticipated.

Pyrokinesis then, making her think of her father more than anything else. She set the wooden crate to smoking, if not outright burning, and managed to start a small campfire. Both were quickly extinguished by Siyavong before the smoke could build up in the room, and she slumped back into the chair across from him.

“Done yet?” she asked, pouring another cup of water. The pyrokinesis had made her warm, and not just from the proximity to flame.

“Almost,” Siyavong murmured. He was looking down at the file, brows furrowed. “One more physical skill test.” Frazie groaned internally as he looked up at her. “Levitation.”

She froze, feeling the blood run from her face. She hadn’t levitated since the panic mode at the circus, when she’d lost the ground and survival instinct had set her floating in mid-air. Her mother had not yelled, not at the time, just pressed her lips together. Once Frazie had gotten control of the levitation and put her feet on the ground she was trembling, and just stood there as her mother stared at her.

(“Are you hurt?” The question was spoken through clenched teeth, but was sincere.

“...no. I’m fine.” A wave of apologies built behind her teeth and she clamped down on them; she had nothing to apologize for. If Raz and her father could run around being openly, proudly psychic then so could she. Even if this hadn’t quite been the way she’d expected or wanted to open up.

“Good.” Donatella had turned on her heel and marched out of the tent and Frazie’s knees finally gave out. Her father crouched next to her, one arm around her shoulders, a quick squeeze and a whisper of “it was a good save” before he followed his wife outside.

It was Dion that offered her a hand up, surprisingly, and she hesitated before she took it.

“I’m not evil,” she protested, before he even opened his mouth.

“I know that, idiot,” Dion snapped, then visibly reined himself back in. “I mean, I know that now. I’ve been. Y’know. Gisu.” His voice dropped almost to a whisper on the name. “Mom does too. Somewhere in there.” He looked in the direction their parents had gone, the thin stream of light from the open tent flap. A short, sharp sigh and he turned back to her, cuffing her in the back of the head slightly. “Maybe don’t fall next time, stupid.”

She shoved him. “Maybe be at your mark next time, dickhead.”

“Hey fuck you, I was at my mark. You missed the catch.”

“I don’t miss my catches.”

“Evidence suggests otherwise.”

“Jackass.”

The squabbling had helped, in an extremely weird way, but when they approached camp Frazie could hear their parents at a distance.

“Did everyone know but me? Was this one more Aquato family secret I was not privy to?”

“That’s not – with everything that’s happened recently, Raz and – and myself, and Nona, we thought - “

“You thought you knew what was best for me?” Donatella’s voice raised in pitch, and Frazie winced. Her mother did not take being “handled” well. “You thought you should keep secrets from me about my children?”

“They’re my children too, Dona.”

Frazie turned away then, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’ll...eat at the diner,” she told Dion.

“It’s not ready to cook in,” he warned her.

“I’ll figure something out,” she said, and started walking back towards the parking lot.)

“ Miss Aquato?” Frazie startled at Agent Siyavong’s voice, and blinked as she came out of the memory.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “Levitation is a...sore spot.”

“Was it your first psychic event?” he asked, and Frazie shook her head.

“No, just...the most recent one.” It was bitterly said, and Siyavong made a soft noise of understanding as Frazie stood from her chair. Maybe he did understand. Maybe every psychic had a moment where their families realized what they were and argued about it at night.

She hoped not. It kind of sucked.

Standing in the open area of the room, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out in a long sigh, just as she did before a performance. Arms loose at her sides, weight on the balls of her feet, she thought: Up.

It didn’t happen at first, and she gritted her teeth in frustration. This isn’t that time. We’re not there, we’re here. Up. She pictured flying through the air, being tossed up by her parents or Queepie. The feeling of it, of open space on every side.

When she opened her eyes, she was a good three feet off the ground and a thick gymnastics mat had been placed under her.

“Go as high as you can,” Siyavong said. “The mat’s there to catch you. Although if you’re anything like your brother, you won’t have any trouble with a fall.”

I’m nothing like Raz, she thought, and wasn’t sure if it was defensive or regretful.

She managed to make it up to the ceiling, though it almost took frog-kicking through the air to get there. She even managed to lower herself back down safely, landing lightly on her toes on the mat. There was an exhilaration replacing her exhaustion now – not just from being in the air, which she loved, but the triumph of having done the thing that caused her so much anxiety not moments ago. Similar to the hydrokinesis, but with an even more personal element. She’d done it. She was smiling, even if Siyavong wasn’t.

Milla

“So not a levitator, either,” Milla said decisively, smiling at Sasha. He just grunted in response, hunching further over his paperwork.

“What are you talking about?” Raz asked. “She literally hit the roof!”

“Yes, but she had to fight for it,” Milla told him. “When it’s your specialty, you have a...flair for it. A natural ability. If she were a levitator she would have shot right up there.”

“And given herself a concussion,” Sasha muttered. “And been out of commission for days afterwards.” Milla shot him a look, recognizing the reference to her own evaluation, all those years ago. She just glared at him until he looked up, and she could see the curve of a smile on his face. “Just as a totally hypothetical example,” he added as she fought not to smile in return. “Certainly not relevant to any persons currently in this room.” His voice was totally flat, but he couldn’t hide the underlying mirth from Milla. She just tossed her hair at him as she turned back to Razputin.

“What does the collective unconscious feel like to you, Razputin?”

He blinked, clearly not having expected the question. “Uh...lots of connections. Lots of paths. Kind of loud? Kind of like being in a big crowd except you can still use your elbows.” He frowned up at her. “Why?”

“Because you are an astral projectionist,” she told him, smiling. “You have an affinity for that place, for the connections between minds. I can certainly enter the collective unconscious, with a brain tumbler or psychoportal, but it is flat and dull and cold to me.” One day, with the right training, Razputin would be able to enter minds without any assistive devices at all, but she knew if she told him that he’d start trying to do it now and end up hurting himself. It was a dangerous specialization that he’d already pushed the limits of, just as a little boy.

“I’m somewhere in between,” Sasha said from behind her. “As a telepathist, I can sense those other minds, but there is a buffer there. Like listening to a conversation from an adjacent room.”

“Similarly, anyone can be in the air,” Milla continued. “Levitators know how to be the air.” She smiled at Raz, who turned back to the window and his sister.

“What does Frazie know how to be?” he murmured. Milla didn’t answer, knowing the question had not been for her.

F razie

“Last thing,” Siyavong said, leaning his elbows on the table and folding his hands together. “A question, rather than a test.”

“Thank god,” Frazie murmured, and wasn’t sure if the twitch in Siyavong’s face was a smile or not.

“You said levitation wasn’t your first psychic event.”

“No.”

“What was?”

The question took Frazie aback slightly. She paused for a moment, not because she didn’t know the answer, but because she didn’t know where to start.

“I was eight,” she said carefully. “So Dion – my older brother – Dion was eleven and Raz was three. We were in this – no, wait.” She waved her hands in front of herself, wiping the previous statements from the air. “Wait, I have to back up. So...our circus isn’t big. Bigger than what we’re working with now, but still not huge. We tend to set up in...parking lots or abandoned fields or whatever. Sometimes we end up near these construction sites – suburbs, cookie cutter houses. Sometimes they’re abandoned, sometimes not. Anyway, we would go exploring in them.” She shrugged.

“As children do,” Siyavong said, smiling gently.

“Anyway,” Frazie sighed. “Mom made us take Raz. Even though he was a literal baby. Dion said we could just set him on a tarp or something and come back later. Only…he left. Wandered off somewhere.” She took a deep, shuddering breath, the memory of bone-deep fear washing over her. “And we couldn’t find him. And it was a construction site, with – with exposed metal and wires and power tools and - “ She smoothed her palms over her knees, trying to calm herself just from the memory. “I...I don’t know what I did,” she said, closing her eyes. “I don’t know what happened, what switch flipped. But suddenly it was like he’d left a trail. Not like footprints or anything, just...I knew where he’d been. Where he was going. I just took off running, and Dion started yelling at me, but I just went straight to him. He was on top of this pile of – blankets? Those things you put over furniture so it doesn’t get scratched. He’d fallen asleep, which was why he hadn’t heard us yelling. But I found him.” She shook her head. “Dion kept asking me how, and I didn’t know how to answer him. I think I eventually asked him if it wasn’t enough that we found him at all and he shut up.”

She looked down at her hands, twisting her fingers together. Siyavong wasn’t speaking now, just letting her tell her story. She simultaneously appreciated it and wished he’d just say something so she didn’t feel like a blathering idiot. “Obviously we didn’t know Raz and my dad were psychic yet, and Queepie hadn’t even been born. I didn’t realize it was a – a psychic thing until I thought back on it years later. After I started doing...other psychic stuff. Realized how clear and sure it had been in my mind.” A rueful smile touched her lips. “Or how I had a migraine for three days after. I thought it was just a panic attack hangover.”

Siyavong wrote something in his file, signed it, and flipped the cover closed. “Thank you,” he told Frazie, smiling warmly. “You may step outside.”

“...thanks,” Frazie said, standing from her chair. It felt like a really abrupt end to ...everything, but she just nodded at Siyavong and headed for the door.

“Oh.” She looked over her shoulder at him as he called out. “Tell Miss Natividad I have already made good on our bet, and I have a better memory than she thinks.” He winked at Frazie, who giggled despite herself.

“I’ll let her know.”

Sasha

“Retrocognitive,” Milla said triumphantly. Sasha just hummed wordlessly, watching Frazie leave the room. “What?” Milla challenged. “Tell me that wasn’t the most retrocognitive first event you’ve ever heard.”

“No, no, I’m with you,” Sasha said. “It’s just...compelling.”

“What’s a retrocognitive?” Raz asked loudly, making both adults turn to him. He ducked his head. “Sorry. I know the word, just not...what it means. Totally.” Sasha noted in the back of his mind that Raz was getting better at admitting when he didn’t know things. No longer trying to put on a hyper-competent facade.

“Retrocognitives latch onto the psychic energy exuded by people and events and track it,” Sasha told him. “Like your sister finding you despite having no idea where you’d gone.”

“Or in the field, finding where a kidnapper took a victim. Or where a burglar makes a second hit,” Milla added.

Raz looked out the window at where Frazie had exited the room. “And she does that?”

“It’s the first thing she did, instinctively,” Milla said warmly. “A levitator might have gone up as high as they could, to see better. Or a telepathist would have reached out to try to find their mind.”

“Or a pyrokinetic could have burned down the site from stress overload,” Sasha said quietly. “Or a telekinetic could have blown it apart.” Milla didn’t turn, but he could feel the disapproval radiating from her.

He already knows psychic abilities are not all rainbows and sunshine, he told her. Speaking to him realistically will not harm him.

She didn’t answer, speaking to Razputin instead. “It’s something most psychics can do, with training, but it’s relatively rare to have as a specialty.”

“It does explain how she’s so accurate with those pine cones,” he muttered. Sasha smiled despite himself, before being distracted by the door opening. The young woman who walked in was the one Sasha had mentally dubbed Leah’s second-in-command, with brown hair and green eyes and what seemed to be a permanently surly expression.

She’s earned it, I suppose , he mused to himself.

She sat in the chair Frazie had just vacated, not making eye contact.

Already on the defensive, Milla murmured in his mind.

She either doesn’t know what to expect here or knows exactly what to expect and isn’t looking forward to it, Sasha responded.

“Aurora,” Siyavong read from the file in front of him.

“Dawn,” the woman interrupted. Siyavong glanced up at her.

“I’m sorry?”

“Dawn. I prefer Dawn.” She glanced to one side. “They asked for my legal name for – for missing persons stuff, but I - “

“Dawn,” Siyavong said gently, making a note in her file. “My apologies.” He looked up again. “To the best of your knowledge, are there any other psychics in your family?”

Dawn hesitated, and even through the observation window Sasha could see her jaw working before she answered.

“I don’t remember,” she finally forced out, and Siyavong straightened, sitting back in his chair. Sasha and Milla shared a look, confusion passing back and forth between them.

“How do you mean?” Siyavong asked, and she took a deep breath.

“I mean I don’t remember my family,” she said tightly. Her jaw was still clenched and Sasha could feel agitation rolling off of her in waves, as well as Siyavong gently siphoning it off and away before it could overwhelm her. “I know they exist, I just don’t remember their names or – or faces - I try to think of it and it’s just – not there - “ She had her arms crossed in front of her, one hand squeezing so tightly the flesh under it paled with the pressure.

“She’s had her memories tampered with,” Milla murmured, one hand over her mouth in horror. “Whatever they did to her down there, they made sure she didn’t have anyone to go back to, so she’d be less likely to escape. Oh, Sasha…what if that’s why Lila doesn’t remember, either?”

“Michael said he didn’t remember if he had a sister,” Razputin said, making them both look over. Sasha had forgotten he was there. “He said none of them remembered anything very well.”

Milla didn’t respond, just laid her other hand on Sasha’s arm as they both looked back at the window. This was not what he had meant by “exciting”.

“I understand this is upsetting,” Siyavong said carefully.

Dawn’s laugh was loud and sharp enough to cut glass, and when she spoke she sounded on the edge of hysteria. “Buddy, you have no fucking idea.” A heat haze was forming around her, and Sasha sent a sharp sense of warning to Siyavong.

I know, came the terse reply. You’re not the one sitting across from her.

“Dawn, I understand your reaction,” he said out loud, and that sharp, bitter laugh burst from her again. “I would like to continue the evaluation to help you find a place here, but I won’t do that if you’re uncomfortable continuing. Would you like to stop?”

Dawn stared at him, like it was the last thing she’d expected to come out of his mouth. The shock seemed to break her out of what was rapidly becoming a flare-up, and she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. The air around her cooled again, and when she opened her eyes she seemed calm, if not outright exhausted. “She said to be honest ,” she muttered under her breath.

“Who?” Dawn’s eyes cut sharply to Siyavong.

“Leah,” she replied flatly. “She trusts you, for some goddamn reason.”

Siyavong tilted his head. “Do you not?”

Dawn’s eyes cut over to the two-way mirror, and Sasha felt irrationally like she was making eye contact with him directly.

“Sure,” she said, not changing her gaze. “Sure I do.”

“Pyrokinetic,” Sasha murmured, and Milla was nodding in agreement before he finished the word.

“The flare-up, the...attitude,” she said, sitting back in her chair and wrapping her arms around herself. “Exactly like an adolescent pyrokinetic.”

“Compelling.” The unrestrained behavior of an adolescent psychic – of any specialization – could present in adult psychics who hadn’t received training in that stage of their life, and at 22 Dawn wasn’t so far removed from it to begin with. But to escalate so strongly so quickly…

“Phoebe’s not like that,” Raz said, naming the pyrokinetic girl that had been in his class at camp.

“Phoebe is very young still,” Milla told him. “And we’ve worked with her quite a bit. She has tools and exercises to help her with control and discretion.” She shook her head. “This young woman doesn’t seem to have had any of that – not uncommon with psychics from non-psychic families, I’m afraid.” She was picking at the sleeve of her dress with one hand, a stress habit she’d had as long as Sasha had known her.

Were they augmented somehow? Milla murmured, having followed Sasha’s train of thought but clearly not wanting to voice the theory in front of Razputin. For once Sasha agreed – knowing the potential dark side of his own ability was important. They could keep the darkness of the human soul away from him for a while longer. Their hair...their heads were shaved at one point, weren’t they?

We don’t know anything for sure. And they didn’t. Only very strong – and very disturbing – conjecture, albeit one that corroborated his earlier theories. Quietly, he made a note on the corner of a file folder – check for scarring.

The evaluation continued, Dawn struggling slightly with the prediction portion as well as the use of any directed skills such as levitation or psy blasts. But when the time came for wide-spread destruction she excelled almost gleefully, as though glad to be rid of the energy she’d produced earlier. All pyrokinesis took was the dumping of energy into the molecules of any given object – even dust mites in the air, if the psychic was skilled enough. As it was, when asked to incinerate a wooden block, she had it reduced to charcoal almost before Siyavong was finished speaking.

You didn’t ask what her first psychic event was, Sasha noted as Dawn exited the room .

I get the distinct feeling it was very much like that crate over there , Siyavong said dryly, and marked Dawn’s skill class in her file.

“We should have questioned them before this,” Milla murmured.

“It wasn’t safe,” Sasha replied in kind. “We have to know what they can do before we can decide what to do with them.”

They were both quiet for a long moment, new information and implications swirling in their minds. Everything they learned about the ten rescuees introduced a fresh new angle of horror to their situation, and they still didn’t have enough information to do anything with. And Razputin was still there, at the end of the table, almost definitely taking Dawn’s words and behavior and applying them to his new friend. Sasha watched him for a moment, his gaze obscured by his glasses and Milla sitting between them, seeing the worry on his young face slowly growing into horror as the dots connected in his mind.

For his part, he couldn’t unsee young Lila in the same situation, having her head shaved or being strapped to a surgical table. Or Leah, or any of them. He’d been needling Milla with this comments about willing, informed volunteer subjects, but he meant it. There were lines. It stymied research sometimes, which frustrated him personally, but he would not cross them. If their theories were correct, whoever had done this had stepped right over those lines as if they didn’t exist.

I have to get back into that cellar .

Chapter Text

Lizzie

Lizzie didn’t normally use her lev ball as a mode of transportation – it brought her perilously close to door frames – but it was the only way she would make it back to the evaluation room with the granola bar and water bottle she’d snagged from the vending machine.

“Why are they so far away,” she grumbled to herself as she rounded another corner. “They know we come out of there starving, just put it next to - “

“Problem, Lizzie?”

Lizzie skidded to a halt and looked up to find her sister perched on one of the fixtures hanging from the ceiling.

“Not until now,” she shot back. “Fuck off, Norma, I actually have shit to do today.”

“Oh, I bet.” Norma floated down to stand in front of Lizzie. “Babysitting?”

“Escorting,” Lizzie ground out. Norma had always been driven, focused on achievement to the detriment of her personal relationships, but the last three months had been particularly bad. Lizzie knew why, even if Norma wasn’t opening up to her anymore, but that didn’t make it any less grating to deal with. “And you know who, or else you wouldn’t be fucking with me.”

Norma didn’t answer, just stared at Lizzie for a long moment before turning away. “Fine,” she said flippantly. “Go do your errands, Elizabeth. ”

Lizzie took a deep breath that came out a little colder than it had gone in, and rolled her lev ball back up under her feet.

“At least they trust me with errands anymore,” she snapped. “When was the last time Nein gave you anything to do?”

She saw Norma spin around out of the corner of her eye as she sped away. Maybe it was cowardly, taking off before Norma could respond, but she didn’t want to have a whole-ass fight in the middle of the hallway. Not again.

She managed to make it back just as Frazie was exiting the room, nearly getting bowled over by the next trainee in the process.

“Bitch,” she muttered, letting her feet settle back on the ground in front of Frazie.

“Okay, when do I learn that,” Frazie asked. “Apparently it’s the only way to get anywhere around here.”

Lizzie laughed. “Not today.” She handed over the granola and water. “Today you eat snacks and nap.”

Frazie stared at the items dubiously before taking them. “Didn’t actually realize how hungry I was before I saw this,” she muttered, tearing open the bar.

“Yeah, that happens. You learn to monitor your hunger levels.” She shrugged. “Come on, let’s get you back to your room.”

Frazie’s eyes cut up to her as she opened the water bottle. “I can get back on my own,” she said flatly.

“I’m not, like, spying on you,” Lizzie protested. “I’m making sure you don’t pass out in the hall.”

“Why would I pass out?”

“Because you – it’s like - “ Lizzie made a frustrated noise, gesticulating wordlessly for a moment. “Okay, like – you stretch, right? Before you trapeze or whatever?”

Frazie blinked. “Every morning, really, but yeah.”

“Every morning? That’s – not the point.” She shook her head. “You can over-stretch, right?”

“I mean, yeah.”

“What happens if you over-stretch?”

Frazie shrugged. “You can hurt yourself? Tear a muscle, fuck up your joints, general weakn – oh.” She looked down, realization and resignation on her face. “Point taken.”

“Yyyyup.” Lizzie grinned. “You think your knee going out is bad, wait ‘til your brain goes out of joint.” Frazie winced.

“So...naps, huh.”

“Naps,” Lizzie said decisively. “Come on, you’re running on endorphins right now. The crash won’t take long to hit.”

They made their way through the hallways, diverting from the main atrium path to a side hallway leading to an elevator. Lizzie leaned against the back wall, hands in her pockets, and hit the appropriate button with the toe of her boot.

“So did you?” Frazie asked when the door was closed.

“Did I what?” Lizzie looked over; Frazie was leaning against the back wall in an position almost mirroring her own.

“Crash.”

Lizzie let out a laugh. “Oh shit yeah. Almost didn’t make it back to my room. And they didn’t even put me through the whole gauntlet the way they did you.”

“Wait, really?"

“Yeah, during the hydrokinesis test I tried to move the water and wound up freezing the whole bitch.” Her grin was tired at the edges. “They marked me down as a cryo and kicked me out.” She looked sidelong at Frazie. “Why did they put you through the whole thing?”

Frazie shrugged, and Lizzie thought she saw bitterness cross her face. “Guess I just wasn’t good enough at anything.”

“Wait, did they ask you about your first event?” When Frazie nodded, Lizzie hummed knowingly. “Yeah, that just means you don’t have any of the ‘field’ specialties.”

“What does that mean?” The elevator doors opened and Lizzie strode out, Frazie on her heels.

“It means you don't blow stuff up,” Lizzie explained, knowing her voice was bitter. “Or freeze it, or drown it, or – you get the idea. Not as your main ability, anyway.” She sighed. “The Psychonauts aren’t a ‘military’ organization per se, but as more psychics happen and non-psychics get more intolerant of them, psychic crime goes up. Psychics have to self-police.” She glanced at Frazie again. “Your grandma kind of proved that.”

Frazie flushed red. “She didn’t -”

“Relax,” Lizzie interrupted. “I’m not pinning blame. I’m just saying that was the point that people really realized how strong a psychic can be, and that non-psychics really don’t have a chance in hell.” She shrugged. “Anyway, the Psychonauts have kind of become that police force. Oh, there’s still research divisions and scientific study, but even Sasha Nein goes out and blows stuff up with his mind when they tell him to.” She shrugged. “If you have a blow-stuff-up specialty, you kind of get...heavily encouraged to apply to the agent program.” They stopped in front of Frazie’s door. “Guess you lucked out, since that’s not even what you want.”

“They didn’t tell me what my specialty was,” Frazie muttered. “If they knew, it’d have been nice of them to let me in the loop.”

“They don’t always right away.” Lizzie shrugged, looking at the door instead of Frazie. “We’re here,” she said unnecessarily.

“Yeah,” Frazie said. “I should probably go take that nap.”

“Probably.” Lizzie nodded. “Uh, they might decide your placement overnight, so I’ll, like. Come by to get you again, if that’s the case.”

“Just you?” Frazie asked, her voice totally flat, and Lizzie sighed internally, trying to keep her exasperation off her face.

“I’m not glued to Norma’s hip,” she said. “Clearly. And...I wouldn’t bring her around you right now, anyway. Intentionally, anyway.”

“Right now?” Frazie lifted an eyebrow.

“I’m still hoping she remembers what getting her shit together looks like,” Lizzie responded dryly. “Before we both die of old age.”

F razie looked away, crossing her arms over her chest. “...me too.” Her eyes cut back over to Lizzie. “For Raz’s sake, if nothing else. He’s the one who has to work with her.”

Lizzie shrugged, sliding her hands into her back pockets. “He’s been pretty professional,” she told Frazie. “He’s a pretty smooth little dude.” She remembered what Raz had said the night previous, about wanting to make a good impression, be a good agent. Having seen how little Frazie cared about making anyone like her, least of all Norma, Lizzie wondered what Raz going feral would look like. If there was any truth to even half the very classified stories that she definitely had not heard ... the kid had earned it.

Frazie was smiling fondly. “He is,” she agreed. “He works really hard at it.” She looked up at Lizzie again. “And if you ever tell him I said that I’ll hunt you down.”

Lizzie raised her hands in mock surrender. “No way, dude, I’ve seen your aiming skills. I like the back of my head the way it is.” She grinned, and Frazie returned it for a moment before it became a jaw-cracking yawn.

“Sorry,” she muttered, covering her mouth.

“Nah, man, you’re good. Go get some rest. Tomorrow?”

“See you then.” Frazie smiled sleepily, pressing the button to trigger the entry scan. “Oh!” Lizzie turned back around as Frazie called after her. “Siyavong – the guy you told me owed you $20?” She grinned widely. “Says he already paid you, and he remembers better than you think he does.”

Lizzie couldn’t fight the laugh that burst out of her throat. “He would say that,” she said, returning Frazie’s grin. “I’ll shake it out of the old welcher yet.”

Frazie laughed, withdrawing into her room, and Lizzie turned and headed for the cafeteria with a warm sort of buzzing sensation in the center of her chest that she couldn’t really explain – nor did she want to examine too closely, for fear of chasing it away.

“Yo, Lizzie!” She looked up as Gisu came gliding down the hallway from the opposite direction, pulling up short in front of her. “How’d she do?”

“Made it inside before she passed out,” Lizzie said, pointing a thumb over her shoulder.

“They give her an answer?”

“Not yet.” Lizzie shrugged. “She wasn’t any of the physical skills, anyway.”

Gisu clicked her tongue in disappointment. “It’s gonna be weeks now.”

“Not necessarily.” Lizzie shrugged. “Depends on what her first event was.” Non-physical skills did sometimes require extra, more detailed tests on things like psychometrics or clairvoyance, but not always.

“Yeah, I was just hoping I could tell Dion.”

Lizzie raised an eyebrow. “He cares?”

“He asked,” Gisu said defensively. “He is getting better, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lizzie waved one hand at Gisu before sliding both into her back pockets. “Go on before you’re late for your date.”

“It’s not a - “ Gisu cut herself off, fuming silently for a second. “He’s bringing me some of Frazie’s clothes,” she said. “So she’s not stuck wearing the sweatsuit.”

“Oh.” Lizzie paused. “Cool. Go pick them up on your date, then.”

“I will burn your eyebrows off,” Gisu threatened, and Lizzie just laughed as she walked away.

R azputin

Michael was next, and after seeing him look around nervously Raz gently confirmed that he was there, and watching. And he did keep his eyes on the other boy, watching him muddle through the clairvoyance and telepathy tests, but it was hard for him to focus. He kept seeing Dawn, eyes bright with anger and pain, hearing Milla’s words – she’s had her memories tampered with. They all had. That’s why Michael didn’t know if he’d had a sister. It might be why he was so afraid of needles. Evan said he needed a friend who hadn’t been there. Someone who didn’t know, whose face didn’t remind him of it.

Something awful had happened to this kid, only a year older than him. He’d known that. But the nebulous concept of “awful” was starting to take shape, and Raz didn’t like it at all.

Michael’s test didn’t go as long as Frazie’s, as they hit the levitation portion and Michael, concentrating deeply, managed to form a slightly more stable lev ball than the day before, and bounced nearly to the ceiling before Siyavong could get the mat under him.

“Well he’s got that flair I was talking about,” Milla murmured, but there was a confused tone to it. “When did he - “

Siyavong had apparently just asked Michael the same thing as he helped him up from the mat, because Michael proudly declared “Raz taught me!”

Siyavong glanced surreptitiously at the observation room, and Sasha and Milla looked over at Raz.

“I didn’t teach him anything,” Raz protested. “He asked to see my lev ball, I showed him, once, and then he - “ He gestured at the scene on the other side of the window.

“Compelling,” Sasha muttered, making some kind of note on his folder. Raz couldn’t read any of them from where he was sitting, but Sasha was running out of room on the corner of that file.

“Well I think we can wrap this up here,” Siyavong said kindly. “Go on outside and someone will take you back to your room.”

“Okay.” Michael started towards the door, and Raz saw his feet lift off of the ground for a little longer than they should have.

“Ah, Michael?” Siyavong said, sounding amused.

“Yeah?” Michael stopped and turned around.

“Let’s just try walking for the next little while, okay?”

“...okay.” There was a pout in his voice, but he walked the rest of the way to the door with normal strides.

Raz stood quickly from his chair. “I’m gonna - “

“You know he’s going to fall right asleep,” Sasha reminded him.

“I know,” Raz responded, “but – maybe I could - “

“Go on, darling,” Milla interrupted. “Go talk to your friend.”

“...thanks.” Raz slid out of the room and out the side door, pushing his own lev ball under his feet to get around the corner that little bit faster.

When he did, it was to a much different scene than had been in the testing room. Michael was clinging to Evan’s hand while an agent Raz didn’t recognize was trying to coax him away.

“No!” Michael yelled. “I want to stay with Evan!”

“Go on, lad,” Evan murmured, but it was drowned out by Michael’s yelling.

“I don’t want to be by myself!”

“You won’t be,” Evan said, trying to loose Michael’s death grip on his wrist. “Lin here will be with you.”

“I don’t know her!” Michael protested, trying to hide his whole body behind Evan’s big hand.

“Hey,” Raz said suddenly, making all three of them look over. “Maybe, uh, I could…?”

Both Evan and Lin looked down at Michael, who looked between Evan and Raz.

“Is it okay if I…?”

“Of course,” Evan said, fondness and relief in his voice. “We trust Razputin, don’t we?”

“...yeah.” Slowly, Michael released Evan’s hand. “You’ll come back though, right?”

“Of course,” Evan soothed. “Just as soon as they’re done with me.”

“...okay.” Michael walked over to Raz, looking over his shoulder at Evan.

“Two shakes,” Evan promised, winking.

Thank you, lad . Evan’s voice in his mind, along with a wave of gratitude. Raz just nodded and smiled.

I promised, was all he said, and Evan’s smile spoke volumes.

“Come on,” Raz said to Michael. “Let’s get you to your room before you faceplant onto the linoleum.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Not yet.”

They made their way through the hallways under the Motherlobe, Raz having to convince Michael a couple of times not to attempt a lev ball instead of walking. It was hard to impress on the boy that he would eventually feel the impact of the psychic workout he’d just been put through, given that he was still riding the endorphins from successfully stretching his mental muscles. Sure enough, as they neared the dormitories Michael grew quieter and quieter, drifting closer to Raz as they walked. By the time they checked in with Vineet at the boys’ hall desk, it was hard for Raz to walk without bumping into him with every other step.

“We’re almost there,” Raz assured him as they entered the hall. Michael only mumbled in response. He’ll feel better after a nap, Raz thought, moving them both down the hallway a little faster.

Michael stopped outside his room, staring up at the number plate without moving.

“You have to unlock it,” Raz reminded him. “My ID won’t work for your room.”

“...I don’t want to,” Michael admitted.

“What?” Raz looked between Michael and the door. “Why not?”

Michael didn’t answer, shrinking in on himself. Frowning, Raz let his mind pass gently over the other boy’s, finding nothing but fear and apprehension...and loneliness.

“Hey,” he said, as the pieces clicked into place. “Would it be cool if I hung out here for a while? I have make-up work from missing classes today, and they say a change of environment can help you retain information.”

Michael looked over at him, blinking. “You said I’d fall asleep soon.”

“I’ll be quiet.” Raz grinned, and after a moment Michael gave a small, quiet smile in return as he unlocked the door.

It took a moment for the two to get arranged, Michael curled up on his bed and Raz at the small desk. He didn’t actually have any of his work with him, but he hoped the folders he pulled out of his bag looked convincing to the increasingly drowsy Michael.

“You were right,” Michael admitted, pulling the blankets up over himself.

“I slept for three days after my evaluation. Well. There were other factors.” Raz grimaced remembering the exhaustion that had taken over after the longest week of his life had finally ended that summer.

Michael’s eyes shot open and he struggled upright. “I don’t want to sleep that long again, I don’t – I won’t - “

“Hey!” Raz went over to Michael’s bedside, standing in front of him with his hands out. “Hey, it was a figure of speech. You’re not gonna sleep that long. It’ll just be a regular long nap. Okay?” He smiled as Michael quieted, staring at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Okay?” Raz repeated gently, and Michael nodded. “Okay. Just get some rest, alright?”

“...okay.” Michael wormed his way back under the covers, turning onto his side so he could see the desk.

“You just go to sleep. I’ll let myself out when I’m done working.” Raz went back to his desk, forcing himself to turn his back to the other boy. There were pieces connecting in his mind, and he didn’t like the shape they were forming. None of the rescuees having solid memories of their pasts, Michael’s aversion to needles and sleep, and his reluctance to leave Evan...no. No, Raz didn’t like how any of this felt. At all.

Sasha

A particle manipulator, a levitator, an aerokinetic, an echokinetic, two pyrokinetics, two invisists, and two “to be determined”.

And they all walk into a bar , Sasha thought sardonically as he made his way back to his office. Milla had gone to check on Lila after a very tiring evaluation, and Sasha had watched the remaining evaluations on his own. All of the rescuees displayed the same memory issues as Dawn and Michael, with varying levels of aggression when confronted about it, as well as varying enthusiasm and control over their skills. The echokinetic, Donovan, didn’t even speak due to his lack of control. There were pieces and parts flying around in his mind that he was very eager to sit down and put together when he got back in his lab where he could think.

Which is why seeing Norma Natividad outside his office brought him up short.

He sighed internally, but managed to keep it off his face. He was Norma’s mentor, and he had neglected that fact somewhat in the aftermath of that summer. Not for lack of Milla nagging him about it. He just didn’t have the easy connection with children that she had, and Norma in particular apparently needed more guidance than he’d expected when he selected her.

“Norma,” he greeted, moving past her to unlock the office door.

“Agent Nein,” she responded. She seemed almost hesitant to even speak to him. Sasha couldn’t understand why, they’d had a perfectly amicable relationship up to that point.

“What can I help you with?” He entered the office, leaving the door open for Norma to trail in behind him.

“I was wondering…” Norma trailed off, cleared her throat, and started again. “I was wondering if there was anything you needed me to do. Sir.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘sir’.” Sasha set his files on his desk, remembering at the last moment to flip the top folder over to hide his assortment of notes. “What do you mean?”

“I just…” He turned around to face her and caught her fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, which she stopped immediately when she realized he was looking. “I just haven’t received any mentor assignments since you left for camp. Aside from the…”

“Scavenger hunt?” Sasha lifted an eyebrow and she sighed.

“Yes.”

“Which I understand you’re blackmailing Junior Agent Aquato into completing for you.”

“...I prefer to think of it as ‘delegating’.”

“Hm.” Sasha crossed his arms over his chest. “You seem to have created work for yourself in my absence.” She winced, though she made an impressive attempt at hiding it. He did like Norma. She was confident and ambitious, qualities he had encouraged – apparently at the expense of any kind of forethought.

“Agent Nein, I - “

“No, no.” Sasha sighed, waving her off as he leaned against the edge of his desk, retrieving a cigarette from his pocket. He hadn’t been able to smoke in the observation room, and this wasn’t helping his withdrawal. “That was cheap. I apologize. But since we’re talking about it...” He lit the cigarette, aerokinetically drawing the smoke away from Norma. He’d keep it in its bubble and release it once she’d left. “Honestly, I follow your logic. There’s a mole in the Motherlobe, the Grand Head was kidnapped, a new trainee shows up with an already impressive and highly classified track record, then that trainee’s family appears on our doorstep with cultural similarities to the apparent source of our mole’s motivations.” He took another pull on the cigarette. “You are of course too young to remember the mass emigration of Grulovian refugees during and after the war. The Aquatos could have been any of those displaced families. But again, you are too young.” He looked at her. “Am I on the right track?”

“...there was also Ford Cruller,” she said quietly. “Everybody knows what kind of a crackpot he is – or was, I guess. For him to show back up all of a sudden? With some weird connection to Raz, who has a weird connection to Maligula? And then they disappear into the woods in the middle of the night?” She was regaining confidence in her former theory, defending it to Sasha.

“Which you knew because you were stalking the Aquatos in the forest.”

“I was...following a lead.”

“A hunch,” Sasha corrected. “And while it is true that a hunch can sometimes become a lead, you instead forced it into one. ‘Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.’”

“Sherlock Holmes,” she sighed. “But I was right,” she exploded a moment later. “No one could have seen the actual mole – no one did see him, until I - “

“That was a happy accident,” Sasha interrupted. “And I think you know that.” Norma’s mouth closed around her protests, forming a frown. “The point is, you got target fixation, Norma. The connections you made were sound in theory, but you let stereotypes and a desire for personal glory get in the way of proper investigation and study. Not to mention a complete lack of thought as to the possible consequences of your actions or any attempts to discuss your theories with senior agents. And now, as a result, you’ve damaged your colleague’s trust in you. That can be deadly for a field agent – if you ever reach that point, now.” Norma wasn’t looking at him anymore, instead scowling at her feet as she endured the lecture. Sighing, Sasha looked down at his stack of files, their myriad scribbled notes hidden, nevertheless bringing to mind the thought he’d had all morning – I have to get back into that cellar.

“I don’t have anything for you right now,” he told Norma, whose scowl intensified. “I’m following up on another mission. ...but I may in a few days. I have to speak to Agent Forsythe.”

The scowl dropped from Norma’s face and her eyes widened enormously behind her glasses – for just a split second, before she schooled her expression into something more reserved and “professional”.

“In the meantime…” Sasha paused, sighing as he tried to come up with a suitable task for the girl. “In the meantime, I want you to brush up on our history.” The directive came out of his mouth before it was even a solidified thought. “Junior Agent Gette’s display in the atrium is very well done, but it is a...PR version. A good face to show visitors. I want you to go into the library here and find our complete history.”

Norma shifted subtly from foot to foot. “Psychic history or Psychonaut history?”

“...just the Psychonauts,” Sasha decided. There were many centuries of known psychics and psychic phenomena before the Psychic Seven and the founding of the original Psychonauts facilities, but that wasn’t totally relevant to the lesson he was trying to impart to Norma. “This will be an ongoing assignment. Study at your own pace, but make sure the knowledge sticks.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “You can start now.”

“...yes, sir.” Norma shuffled out of his office, trying not to look dejected. Sasha sighed again as the doors shut behind her, releasing his smoke cloud into the room.

I know you’re partial to Razputin, darling, but you can’t neglect your duties with Norma just because you’re upset with her. Milla’s voice in his head was more affectionate than chiding.

I’m not partial to Razputin, he protested sitting back at his desk and flipping the top file back over. I merely recognize his potential. You know as well as I do that if he had been raised among psychics -

He wouldn’t have struggled like you did?

Sasha didn’t answer and Milla didn’t push, letting their connection fade back into a gentle background presence. Sasha pulled out another cigarette, lit it with a thought, and got back to work.

Gisu

Gisu still used the mines to get to the Questionable Area, at least when she was meeting with Dion. She rationalized it as being less likely that his mother would see her, but somewhere in the back of her mind she was pretty sure she just didn’t want her name on the sign-out list at the gate so often. Her friends teased her enough as it was, and Lizzie’s latest salvo, however good-natured, was still fresh on her mind.

Which had to be the source of the little lurch in the pit of her stomach when she saw Dion waiting for her outside the dilapidated diner. Had to be.

“Hey,” she said, pulling up short in front of him and stepping off her board.

“Hey.” He lifted a small backpack, not dissimilar to the one Raz wore. “I got Frazie’s stuff like you asked.” His grin was lopsided. “Wasn’t expecting to get the question in the middle of the night, though.”

Gisu ducked her head. “ Sorry. ” She took the bag from him and started trying to figure out how to fit it into her own bag. “ I just didn’t want her to have to wait any longer than she had to. Your mom give you any shit about it?”

Dion looked away from her, back towards his family’s camp. “Nah. Dad ran interference.” He sounded deeply uncomfortable with the idea of his parents working against each other. Gisu wanted to comfort him, to tell him his mom would come around just like he had, that she was just hurt and probably scared for her kids. But the words tangled around each other and died on her tongue, and all she could get out was “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He rolled his shoulders and looked back down at her with a smile. “Nothing you did.”

Gisu finally gave up on making the bag fit and just affixed it to the top of her own bag with the velcro straps she usually used to hold her board in place. She’d be riding the board back, after all, and it wasn’t like it was gonna run off on its own in the meantime.

“Ready?” she asked, standing and looking up at him. It was truly stupid how tall he was. She’d told him so before. His long arms were useful for getting behind the kitchen’s appliances, at least.

“Yeah, let’s go find that breaker box.”

The search for the diner’s breaker box had become an epic quest. They’d spent the last few weeks just cataloging everything and making lists of what needed to be fixed and what was unsalvageable. It was a battle getting him to admit he couldn’t fix every broken thing, and that cannibalizing parts from other appliances wasn’t always safe.

But they’d finally gotten everything neatly sorted, and now they had to turn off the gas and electricity to get to work. The gas had been easy to find; there was a valve on the outside of the building. (Turning it off had been slightly harder; it had been many years of exposure to the elements since anyone had tried to move it, and it took Dion putting almost his full weight on the wrench to get it into the “off” position.) They hadn’t had time to find the breaker box, however, and they each took a half of the restaurant to search.

A half-hour later, Gisu was about ready to start taking out chunks of wall in an attempt to find it when Dion’s voice rang across the building.

“I think I found it.” He motioned for Gisu to join him in front of the door leading to the office next to the kitchen. He was peering through the window into the darkened room, and she did the same. “See that yellow box on the wall?”

“Yeah, that could be it.” She reached for the doorknob and tried to turn it – only to find it locked. She groaned, slumping against the door. “Of course.”

“Could we take it off the hinges?” Dion asked, stepping forward to inspect the rusted screws holding it into the wall.

“Do we have a screwdriver that’ll fit?” Gisu was already headed back for the tool bag.

“They’re pretty small,” Dion said doubtfully, and sure enough, there wasn’t a screwdriver in the cobbled-together tool kit that would fit the hinge screws.

“We could force it,” Dion suggested, scowling at the door. “Kick it down or break the window or something.”

“I mean yeah,” Gisu admitted with a sigh. “But it’d be one more thing to fix.” She’d never mastered summoning an Aspect, either, which she decided not to mention to Dion for the sake of not having to explain something that wouldn’t work anyway.

Dion crossed his arms over his chest. “We can’t work on anything with the power on,” he said.

“I know.” Gisu stared at the door for a long moment. “...I could pick it,” she admitted after a minute.

“You have lockpicks?” Dion asked, incredulous.

“No.” She tapped her temple. “I can technically use TK on things I can’t see. It’s just a pain in the ass.”

“Can’t you see through the window?” Dion asked.

“No,” she said, glaring at the door. “It’s at a weird angle.” And I’m too short, she added bitterly in her own mind.

“Could you…” Dion trailed off. “No, never mind.”

“What?” Gisu asked, but he just shook his head.

“No, it’s stupid.”

“A stupid idea is still more of an idea than we have right now,” Gisu pointed out, and he sighed.

“I don’t know if this is how that works,” he said, anxiety tinging his voice. “But Raz said he can...look through other people’s eyes?” He cringed slightly at the thought. “If I looked down through the window, could you, like...see through my eyes and use that to aim your...whatever you said.”

“TK. Telekinesis.” Gisu looked between him and the door. “I mean...I don’t have any evidence that it wouldn’t work.” She grimaced. “It’d take a crazy amount of control, though, using two totally separate skill classes at the same time.”

“I believe in you,” Dion told her. It was said lightly, like it was more of a comment on a seemingly impossible task than on her. But something about the way he said it and his expression when she looked back up at him made something solidify in the center of her chest and she settled into the floor with her legs crossed.

“For science,” she declared, trying to match his light tone. “Go stare at that doorknob.”

He hesitated for a second, looking at her, but moved to the door to stare down through the window. “It’s so fucking dark ,” he complained.

“I believe in you,” she muttered back, and caught a wave of surprised mirth off of him as she put her fingers on both temples. “You’re really okay with me touching your mind?”

“...I trust you.” It was said quietly and much more sincerely than his encouragement a moment ago, making the solid confidence in Gisu’s center turn warm and fluttery. She pushed it firmly aside, not allowing it to distract her. She was going to have enough trouble with this as it was.

“It’s going to be a mild touch,” she told him, closing her eyes. “I’m not reading your thoughts or memories. Just tapping into your visual center.”

“Okay.” He sounded slightly more uncomfortable now, but didn’t tell her to stop.

“One more thing.”

“What?”

“Please don’t talk to me while I’m doing this, I can only split my focus so many ways.”

“Quiet game. Got it.”

“Thanks.” She took a deep breath, reached out with her mind, and found Dion’s sense of sight. His eyesight was a little better than hers, and it took a second to adjust to the difference as well as the general sensation of looking through eyes that were not her own. It was a perception shift on more than one level, but she was eventually able to find the doorknob through the dark and the dust.

Now the hard part. She grit her teeth, activating a totally different section of her brain and reaching out with her telekinetic hand. Dion’s perspective made it easier to phase the hand through the door, though it still took an extra mental push to get it through the wood.

Now she had to fiddle with a very small lock at a perspective she wasn’t used to, while fighting to keep both skills active. She kept missing the knob entirely, or her “fingers” slid off the little switch that would unlock the door.

She was contemplating just ripping the knob off, fuck what she said about fixing things, when Dion yelled.

“Hey!” His perspective whipped around, making her momentarily dizzy, but she still caught a brief glimpse of herself through his eyes as he turned.

Then she saw his little brother, standing next to her bag – and holding her board.

“Queepie!” Dion snapped as she withdrew from his mind and dismissed her telekinetic hand. “That’s not yours!”

He laid it on the ground, standing on it. “How does it go?” he asked, bouncing on it slightly.

“It’s for le - “ Gisu cut herself off as she stood – or tried to, as the dizziness made her vision swim and she sat heavily back on the ground.

“Gisu?” Dion knelt next to her, helping her stay upright with hands on her shoulders, and Queepie took off through the door with the board. “Queepie!” Dion started to go after him, then stopped and looked back at Gisu, looking back and forth between the two with increasing agitation.

“If Mom sees him with that board she’s gonna figure out it’s yours,” he muttered, but his hands didn’t leave her shoulders.

“Go,” she managed to get out. “I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” He looked down at her, clearly concerned. “I didn’t mean to yank away like that, I just - “

“It’s fine.” Gisu gave a shaky smile. “Get my board back and we’ll call it even.”

His jaw clenched, but he nodded. “I’ll be quick.” Squeezing her shoulders almost absent-mindedly, he took off through the doors after his youngest brother.

Fucking tall fast motherfucker, Gisu thought woozily, laying back on the grimy tile. She’d need three showers later to get the gross feeling off of her, but vertical wasn’t an option right now . She’d pushed herself farther than she’d thought, and Dion taking her for a ride like that hadn’t helped. She wouldn’t tell him that, though, he felt bad enough. So she just laid there and stared at the ceiling, waiting for her body to reorient itself.

Dion

Queepie was fast and tended to go vertical, but there were only so many places he could hide, and with the family having stayed in one place for so long he’d developed a few favorite hiding spots. So Dion didn’t bother climbing every tree, just glancing up into the high branches for signs of his youngest brother.

Finally he spotted a flash of technicolor over one of the branches – Gisu’s board. As quietly as possible, he scaled the tree, swinging over the last branch and grabbing the edge of the board. The only reason he didn’t snatch it away was because Queepie was balancing on the other end of it.

“What the fuck, Queepie,” he hissed. “That’s dangerous, get off of there.”

“I won’t fall,” Queepie protested, but climbed off of the board to sit cross-legged on the branch. That wasn’t much better, but it let Dion tug the board over to himself as he sat back on the junction where the branch met the tree.

“What the fuck,” he repeated. “Why did you do that?”

Queepie shrugged silently, looking away from Dion and out over the park.

Dion opened his mouth to yell, but something in Queepie’s expression made him close his teeth around it and sigh through his nose instead.

“What’s wrong, dude.”

Queepie cut his eyes back at Dion. “Nothin’,” he muttered.

“What’s wrong,” Dion asked again. “You run off and give Mom heart attacks and jump off of things you shouldn’t be on top of to start with, but you’ve never resorted to stealing before.” He waved the board at him. “So tell me what’s up.”

Queepie mumbled something Dion couldn’t hear.

“What?”

“I said I’m bored,” Queepie exploded, throwing his arms out and making Dion’s heart jump as his balance shifted. “Raz has been gone for months, now Frazie’s gone, Tala’s moping all over the place because Nona’s gone, and you spend all your time with Gisu.” He sneered the name, crossing his arms over his chest. “And I’m bored.”

It didn’t take much for Dion to translate “bored” into “lonely”. Queepie hid from everyone every chance he got, but they all did when they stopped somewhere. Being crammed together for days meant they all wanted at least a couple of hours where they didn’t have to see, hear, or talk to anyone. But they were at least still around . He knew he could go find them if he wanted to. And with him being psychic, Dion realized, he could probably at least sense them throughout the park. Frazie had talked about that before, about knowing where each of them were pretty much all the time, just in the back of her mind. Queepie probably had the same thing. Until now.

“I’m sorry,” Dion said quietly. Queepie looked over at him in surprise. “Things have changed a lot, really fast. We’re all just...adjusting.”

Queepie hunched over, staring at the ground now. “It sucks,” he said flatly. Dion gave a short, quiet laugh.

“It super does,” he agreed. “But...it’ll get better. Just takes time.” He swung his legs over the side of the branch. “Tell you what. I’ll take this back to Gisu, so she can get home. Then I’ll come back and we can – whatever. I’ll let you beat me at gruloky.”

Queepie scoffed. “You don’t have to let me do anything,” he said, and Dion grinned.

“We’ll see. I’ll be right back.” And he clambered back down through the branches, as carefully as he could with one hand. When both feet were on the ground, he looked back up at Queepie. “And get down before you fall!”

With a mischievous laugh that bordered on maniacal, Queepie fell straight backwards off the branch, catching himself halfway down and floating the rest of the way. Dion just rolled his eyes and headed back towards the diner.

Gisu was laying flat on the floor with her eyes closed when he got back.

“Gisu?” He knelt next to her, hesitant to disturb her if she was in some kind of trance. But her eyes flickered open at the sound of her name, and her eyes focused fuzzily on his face.

“You’re back,” she muttered, sitting up.

“I’m back,” he echoed. She sat up slowly, and Dion instinctively laid one hand on her back to help brace her, making a face when his hand came in contact with the debris on the back of her shirt. “And you’re grimy.”

“Thanks,” she said ruefully. “Always what I like to hear.”

He handed her the board once she was upright, sitting in front of her as she sat with her face in her hands. “But seriously, you’re alright?”

“Yeah,” she muttered. “I just...overstretched my brain.”

“I’m sorry,” Dion said. “I shouldn’t have - “

“Shut up.” Gisu waved her hands at him, cutting him off. “Seriously, shut up. I’m fine. You can’t control a knee-jerk reaction like that.”

“...I guess.” Dion frowned, then sighed. “I think we actually managed to accomplish negative things today.”

Gisu looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

Dion ticked off the items on his fingers. “We didn’t get the door open, I broke your brain - “

“Shut up - “

“ - and my shithead brother stole your board and potentially gave my mom another reason to be absolutely unbearable.” He dropped his hand, sighing again. “So: negative progress.”

“Did you kill him?” Gisu asked, reaching for her bag.

“No, he’s just…” Dion went to scrub at his face, remembering the gunk on his hand at the last second and wiping it on his pants leg instead. “He’s acting out,” he finished. “Everything that’s going on, and he’s a little kid…” He shrugged.

Gisu nodded as she pulled a bottle of water out of her bag. “Yeah, I guess I get that. When you actually lay out everything that happened this summer...it’s a lot.”

Dion snorted. “You’re telling me.” They sat in silence for a moment before he turned to look out the window of the diner. “I told him I’d hang out with him for a while.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged again. “Seemed like the right thing to do.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. He’s probably worried you’re gonna end up leaving too, even if he doesn’t realize it.”

“No chance of that,” Dion responded. “I might be the only one of us actually attached to the circus.”

Gisu lifted an eyebrow as she took a sip of water. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean everybody’s always said it’s going to me in the end – family business, whatever – but Raz and Frazie always seem to act like that’s some...unfathomable burden. I don’t think it is. It’s...it’s family, y’know?” He looked back out the window, suddenly embarrassed. He hadn’t actually said most of that out loud before, not wanting to seem childish and over-eager to his parents, or wanting to deal with his younger siblings’ eye-rolling. “It’s stupid.”

“No it’s not.” Gisu packed the half-empty water bottle back into her bag. “You’ve got plans, y’know? A future. That’s not stupid.” She started to stand, wobbling slightly.

“Woah, careful.” Dion shot up to help steady her. “You sure you’re okay to get back on your own?”

“Of course.” Gisu flashed a smile at him. “I’ll probably feel better once I get moving, anyway.”

“...you’re not going through the caves, are you?”

Gisu shrugged as she picked up her board. “Got to. Didn’t check out at the gate.” Dion sighed and she elbowed him slightly. “I’m fine,” she insisted.

“...alright,” Dion relented finally. “Just...let me know when you get back.”

“It’s not gonna be weird?” She half-teased, tapping her temple.

Dion gave her a half-smile. “Not if it means I know you’re okay.”

Gisu gave him a look he couldn’t decipher, looking up at him with her head tilted to one side. But she kicked her board under her feet before he could question it, the twin levitation balls appearing under it. Dion instinctively stretched out his hand to spot her, and she laughed.

“I’m really fine,” she said, but it was more fond than exasperated.

“Habit,” he muttered, forcing himself to drop his hand.

He walked with her to the cave entrance and watched her disappear into it, turning at the last moment to give him a smile and a mock salute. He stood there for a minute, staring at the cave’s mouth and frowning, before he shook his head and went to go find Queepie.

Dawn

People. Why were there so many people? None of them kind or well-intentioned, just malice and anger radiating from all of them. Fear and panic in the air, in her head, all around her. Herded together like cattle, concentrated mental energy creating a feedback loop, amplifying and intensifying.

Noise! Pain! Screaming! The smell of iron and powder -

“Dawn!”

Dawn bolted upright in bed, drenched in sweat and breathing like she’d run a marathon. The phantom panic in her mind and her muscles clenched with unspent adrenaline making her breathe in short, sharp pants.

“Dawn, look at me.”

Slowly, dazedly, Dawn looked to her left to see Lila’s serious little face staring at her – along with a huge scorch mark in the bedspread.

“Fuck,” she whispered, the word painful with how tight and dry her throat was. “Shit. I didn’t - “

“I’m fine,” Lila interrupted. “Here.” She handed Dawn a glass of water, not releasing it until she was sure Dawn’s shaking fingers had a proper grip. She had to brace it with her other hand, but she managed to get it to her lips and take a long, grateful sip. “...dreams?” Lila asked after a moment, and Dawn grimaced.

“When is it not?”

“...past or future?”

Dawn sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know. I never know.” She set the glass on her nightstand and curled her knees up to rest her head on them. There were burn marks all along it, wherever it’d been touching her. “Sorry, kid.”

“It’s not your fault.” Lila sat next to her, present but not touching. “You okay?”

“I will be. I think.” She gave a short, humorless laugh. “Waking up here’s a lot better than it was there.”

Lila nodded, hesitating before resting her head against Dawn’s shoulder. They sat like that for a long moment, silent as Dawn collected the pieces of her mind and slotted them back into place, slowly letting her muscles unclench and her heart stop racing.

“Leah’s asking if you’re okay.”

“I’m good. Or I will be.” Leah never touched Dawn’s mind after one of her dreams, for the safety of them both. Dawn’s mind was always sore, like it’d fallen down a flight of stairs, and the pain always seemed to transfer to whoever it came in contact with.

“She says sorry.” Dawn smiled into her knees. Leah always apologized, like anything that happened to any of them was her fault.

“Tell her to shut up.”

“I’m not gonna tell her that.”

“I know.”

“...you should talk to Milla.” Dawn pulled a face, finally sitting up.

“I know you like her, Lil Bit, but I…” She sighed heavily. “I just don’t know.”

“She’s really nice. She’s...gentle. I think she could help you.”

“...I’ll think about. That’s all I can promise.”

“That’s enough,” Lila said, and Dawn could only smile.

“Thanks, kid.”

“You need a shower,” was Lila’s response, and Dawn’s smile became a laugh.

“Is that so?” She leaned over to kiss the top of Lila’s head before getting up. Her legs were still shaking from the adrenaline, but they held her up. “I’ll do that. You see if I burned all the way through to the mattress.” She frowned. “I don’t wanna have to ask for a replacement after just a couple of days.”

“I’ll check. You go get un-stinky.” That got another chuckle out of Dawn as she headed into the bathroom with its small shower stall.

As she stood under the water, letting it wash off the remnants of her night terrors, she tried to inspect the pieces of it, tried to put them together into a coherent picture. But they slipped out of her grasp, washing down the drain.

Chapter Text

Razputin

He had initially gone to see Sasha, but when he caught sight of Norma emerging from his office he’d just turned on his heel and gone the other way. His mood was too raw at the moment to deal with whatever Norma had going on, whatever had put that pensive look on her face.

Instead he’d taken his worries to sleep with him, resulting in some distressing dreams (people everywhere, panic and fear), and when he woke he felt like he hadn’t slept at all.

So after breakfast, he headed up and out, around the outside of the main Motherlobe building and up to the overhang where Lili kept her garden.

“Morning,” he said as he levitated slowly to the ground.

“Morning,” she echoed. “Grab that for me, would you?” She indicated the edge of a plastic sheet, and he lifted it as she pulled on the other edge. Together they laid it over a wooden frame encasing several small flowers.

“Getting ready for winter?” Raz asked.

“Yup. Getting these things on here right is hard with one person, even with TK.” She knelt down, fastening the sheet to the bottom of the frame. “Thanks, Raz.”

“No problem.” She came around to fasten the other edge and he stepped back to give her room.

“You didn’t come up here just to help me winterize,” she said, teasing.

“I...might have,” Raz defended, and Lili stood to face him with one fist propped on her hip.

“No you didn’t,” she said, but she was smiling at him.

His shoulders slumped. “No, I didn’t.”

“Knew it.” She punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Your punishment is helping me dig up these bulbs.”

“I don’t wanna hurt them,” he said, but followed her to the back of the garden.

“You won’t,” she assured him. “They’re tough. Aren’t you, guys?” Raz heard nothing, but the way Lili’s smile grew told him she did. He thought back to what Milla had said about the collective unconscious, how it was cold and empty to her where it was full of life to him, and wondered if it was the same divide that kept him from hearing what Lili heard.

She handed him a trowel and they knelt in the dirt together, her gently directing him where to dig and how deep.

“So what’s up?” she asked, and Raz frowned at the flower he was supposed to be extracting.

“What isn’t?” he muttered under his breath.

“Go best to worst,” Lili suggested, and he puffed out a sigh.

“Fine. Uh...my sister’s gonna start training here,” he started.

“Oh, I heard Hollis talking about that!” Lili had already carefully disentangled one bulb and set it on a nearby rack. “I’m glad, she’s got a lot of potential.”

“She’s not gonna be a Psychonaut,” Raz told her, sliding his hand carefully under the partially-lifted plant. “She just wants to be able to control it.”

“That’s all most psychics want, honestly.” Lili moved to the next flower. “Your little brother should probably come in, too.”

“That would be how we find out my mom’s pyrokinetic,” he said flatly. “Because her head would literally catch fire.” He explained the scene outside Forsythe’s office, and Lili winced sympathetically.

“I haven’t met many non-psychic parents of psychics,” she admitted. “But your mom seems...a little on the extreme end. No offense.”

“None taken,” Raz sighed. “You’re not wrong.” Words swirled around in his head – instinctive defense of his mother, apologies for her behavior, a general sense of exhaustion with the whole situation.

Some of it must have leaked through, because Lili bumped his shoulder gently with hers. “It’s fine,” she said. “You don’t have to know what to say.”

Raz had never been so grateful to hear a series of words in his entire life.

“But that’s not all, is it?”

Raz rescinded his gratitude.

“I don’t know how much I can say about the other,” he admitted. “It’s about that mission I went on the other day.”

“I heard about that too,” she said. “A little bit, anyway, Dad won’t let me read the file.”

“It’s a weird case,” he sighed. “It just...keeps getting bigger. And I don’t know where to start.”

“If my dad won’t even talk to me about it, it’s probably pretty intense.” Lili frowned as she laid a second bulb aside.

“...hypothetically,” Raz said, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a grin split Lili’s face. “Hypothetically, is it possible to erase someone’s memories with psychic abilities?”

Lili gave a long, pensive sigh. “I mean, maybe? It’d be some hard-core mental manipulation. I don’t know of anyone who could do it, unless they just haven’t told me. And I wouldn’t blame them for keeping it a secret.” She shivered. “It’s scary to think about.”

“Yeah.” Raz drifted into silence for a moment as he finally disentangled the roots of his bulb from the others. His thoughts went to that summer and Forsythe’s mind, and how easily changing thought patterns might have slid into something more permanent and damaging. Not to mention any of the other things he’d done in people’s minds. Sasha’s admonitions came back to him, with a little added weight.

“Oh,” he said suddenly, his other question jumping to mind. “I was gonna ask Sasha, but...less hypothetically, is being able to mimic other people’s abilities a thing? Or I guess more like learning really fast, just from seeing someone do it?”

“With no other instruction?” When Raz answered in the affirmative Lili just hummed for a moment. “I mean some people are just really fast learners – like you, Mr. Eight-Merit-Badges-In-Three-Days - “ Raz ducked his head a little, smiling. “But I don’t see why there couldn’t be natural imitators like that. That probably really is a Sasha question, that’s his whole thing.” She gestured with one hand, depositing a third bulb with the other.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you seriously not know what he does in that lab?”

“The first time I was in there he had Loboto strapped to a table, probing his mind with some weird machine,” Raz reminded her. “Hell, the first time I met him he threw me at the Brain Tumbler. The cheap one. I try not to think about what he does in his lab.”

Lili laughed at that, tossing her head back for a second. “I guess that’s fair,” she said, still giggling a little. “He’s a psychic geneticist. He’s trying to figure out why we can do what we do, and how far we could potentially go with it. Why psychic bloodlines are a thing. All of that.” She shrugged. “If anybody would know about a weird obscure psychic ability, it would be him.”

Raz lifted his second bulb free, and Lili gently took it from him to lay with the others. “That was my first thought, too. I went to ask him, but…”

“But what?”

“Norma was there,” he sighed. “I didn’t even wanna risk bumping into her.”

Lili pulled a sour face. She shared a lot of Raz’s opinions on Norma, for similar reasons. However inadvertently, Norma had put Lili’s father in direct danger – his body, anyway. “I don’t blame you. I don’t even go into that side of the building if I can help it.”

“I don’t like holding a grudge,” Raz said quietly. “I don’t like how it feels. But she just...won’t let me let it go.” He made a noise of frustration. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense,” Lili countered. “To me, anyway. But I’m an angrier person than you are.” She said it easily, with no embarrassment or self-recrimination. Just a statement of fact.

But not here , Raz thought privately. Not here, surrounded by her plants and up to her elbows in mulch. Here she was calm, almost serene. She is the plants, he thought with a small smile.

“Together we make one almost-emotionally-stable human,” he said out loud, turning his smile on her. She returned it warmly, the corners of her eyes crinkling with it.

“But seriously, you gotta learn how to let yourself be mad,” she said, lifting another bulb free.

“I can manage mad pretty okay.”

“But then you yell at yourself for it,” she told him. “You feel bad about it. You gotta just let it burn through you.”

“It always comes back to burning with you.”

“Hey, if it works, it works.”

The conversation dissolved into good-natured bickering at that point, and by the time he had to leave for class Raz felt lighter inside, cleaner somehow despite the dirt caked under his fingernails, and he thought he understood Lili a little better.

Frazie

Frazie was halfway through a quad stretch when there was a knock on her door.

“Just a second,” she called, unfolding herself from the stretch and making her way to the door. Lizzie was on the other side, and Frazie found she wasn’t totally surprised. “Good morning,” she said, for lack of anything else coming to mind.

“Mornin’.” Lizzie shoved her hands in her pockets. “You get your classification?”

“Not yet. But it’s only - “ Frazie craned her head back to see the clock on the other side of the door. “Seven in the morning.” When she made her way upright again, Lizzie was staring at her. “What?”

“You just did a whole-ass backbend,” Lizzie laughed. “To look at the clock.”

“It wasn’t that far,” Frazie protested.

“Your hair touched your ankles,” Lizzie insisted. “But anyway – I figured I’d give you a tour. If you wanted.” The laughter was gone, replaced with what Frazie could only call awkward.

“I mean. I’m okay with that.”

“Cool.” Lizzie’s easy smile returned. “I can’t take you up top, but there’s plenty of shit down here.” She jerked a thumb towards the cafeteria. “Breakfast first?”

“Sure. Lemme get dressed.” She’d put on her old costume to stretch in – the fabric was familiar and moved with her, making the movements easier.

“Oh, were you just like. Standing here in your underwear?”

“No.” Frazie couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s my acrobat costume. Gisu brought me some clothes from – from camp.” It was her turn to be awkward, stumbling over the word home as it suddenly felt wrong and heavy on her tongue. “Just let me – gimme two minutes.”

“Take five,” Lizzie said, shrugging, and Frazie closed the door with a smile that faded as soon as there was a barrier between them. Gisu hadn’t looked entirely well when she dropped the clothes off at Frazie’s door, but she wouldn’t tell her what happened. Frazie’s worry was that she’d somehow gotten hurt retrieving the bag, but Gisu waved her off, insisting she was fine, she just needed sleep. Frazie hadn’t had much of a choice but to watch her levitate down the hallway, watching for any signs of instability in her lev balls. She’d made it to her room, however, and Frazie had just packed the clothes away.

They smelled like the caravan, like campfires and old chests and dust from the road. She knew that would fade as she washed them, and she wasn’t sure if she was dreading that or looking forward to it.

As she dug through, looking for a shirt, her hand hit something solid that she hadn’t noticed the night before. Disentangling it from the fabric, she realized it was a small, leather-bound journal – her journal. An old one, already full, but apparently Dion had found it and packed it in here for her.

She opened the front cover, surprised when a scrap of paper fell out. She picked it up, worried a page had torn loose, but it was a note in Dion’s handwriting. I read every word, it said, and the laugh forced its way out of Frazie’s chest before she realized. She suddenly missed her older brother fiercely, an aching in her chest that had been there the whole time, in the background, suddenly shoved to the forefront with this one teasing note.

She hugged the journal to herself and squeezed her eyes shut against the threat of tears, taking a deep breath. “We’ll cry about it later,” she promised herself, and smiled down at the journal one more time before tucking it back inside the drawer and retrieving the shirt she’d originally been looking for.

“Sorry,” she said when she finally re-emerged from her room.

“No worries,” Lizzie said, pushing herself up from where she’d been slouched against the wall. “Cute shirt.”

Frazie looked down at it – several years old, colors faded almost entirely away, with a scalloped collar and sleeves. “Thanks,” she said, looking away. She didn’t see what was cute about it, but she wasn’t going to be rude.

“Come on.” Lizzie led the way down the hallway, Frazie following behind.

“You don’t have to give me a tour,” Frazie said once they were sitting at the table together.

“Dude.” Lizzie gestured with her fork, jabbing it towards Frazie. “You just got dumped into a world you know almost nothing about, and every teacher, instructor, and even some of the other students are going to assume you know shit you have no reason to have known before now.” She speared a piece of sausage and ate it. “Better to get a crash course while you can.”

“...I mean, when you put it that way.” She cut off a piece of waffle. “Did you get a crash course?”

“What? Oh, no. I was born into it.” Lizzie didn’t look entirely pleased with the fact. “I mean, we’re not a big name, but we’re on the Wall.”

Frazie just blinked at her. She could hear the capital letter in Lizzie’s voice, but that didn’t make the sentence any more comprehensible to her.

“What? Oh, shit. See, even I’m doing it.” Lizzie made a face at herself. “We’ll start with the Wall. It’s in the library, you should probably know where that is anyway.”

“Okay, sure.” The two of them hurried to finish their meal, and Lizzie led Frazie into the labyrinth of hallways under the Motherlobe.

“Behold,” Lizzie said, stretching her arms out wide. “The Wall.”

The Wall was exactly what it sounded like, a huge mural taking up the entirety of the eastern wall of the library. The library was not a small room, either, almost cavernous if not for the fact that it was crammed absolutely full of shelves and shelves of books. The mural was of a sprawling family tree with several starting points and almost unreadably small text as the families branched and joined and split away again. There were several ladders available to reach the highest levels, and Frazie could only stare in sheer awe at the thing.

“You got your Booles and your Zanottos,” Lizzie said, gesturing at two of the tallest lines. “And down here in the corner, the Natividads.” That was said with a much flatter tone, as Lizzie indicated a shorter tree. It was technically a branch off of another family, the Arabejos, which was in turn a branch off of the Sorianos.

“If someone changes their name when they get married it makes a whole new branch,” Lizzie explained. “Which just makes the whole thing more complicated than it needs to be, if you ask me.”

“What happens when you run out of room?” Frazie asked.

“Well, it’s not all on here,” Lizzie said, moving over to the “Natividad” section. “Like, if you look, it just starts using ‘this family sure does exist’ and doesn’t go into details. It’s pretty much just the larger families that have to worry about it. It’s also all in an actual searchable format too.” She gestured at the shelves around them. “That’s what all this is. They’re working on putting it on computers, but uh. There’s a lot of it.”

“It’s so...meticulous,” Frazie muttered, squinting up at the top of the Boole line. It wasn’t even readable from this distance.

“Well, the psychic community’s not as big as you might think,” Lizzie explained. “If you marry another psychic – and most of them do – you gotta be careful that you’re not marrying your fourth cousin or whatever. Like those tiny Nordic countries that make you take a DNA test before you can get married.” Lizzie gestured upwards. “And if your family is known for a certain skill, like the Zanottos and their plants, or the Dumonts and their aerokinesis, you might want to continue that genetic line with someone with the same skill.” She bared her teeth. “Norma keeps cracking wise about me marrying into the Malones, because they’re almost all cryokinetic, and I keep freezing her feet to the floor. You think she’d learn eventually.”

“What’s your family known for?” Frazie asked, ignoring the chance to jab at Norma. It just seemed to make Lizzie tired.

Lizzie shrugged, tucking her hands into her pockets. “Eh, we’re a mixed bag. There’s just enough of us to justify a spot on the Wall.” She sighed. “It also makes some of the more ability-obsessed families try to headhunt us for marriages, because we have that same specialty with less risk of genetic fuck-ups.”

“That’s absolutely horrifying,” Frazie said flatly.

“Hey, be glad you’re apparently not hydrokinetic.” Lizzie gestured at the far left corner of the mural. “Your family is apparently on the menu.”

Frazie spun around, staring up at where Lizzie had pointed. Sure enough, squeezed into the corner was a new branch: The Galochio-Aquatos.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Frazie muttered. “Nona changed her name to Mux – Dad’s actual mom wasn’t psychic – there’s only like five of us, why - “

“It’s a fame thing,” Lizzie said quietly. “Your grandmother changed her name, but her husband wasn’t psychic. So the psychic line is still the Galochios. Yeah, there’s only five psychic Aquatos, but everybody knows your name. People keep it quiet because he’s a kid, but people have a whole hero worship thing going on with your brother.”

“He’s ten,” Frazie protested. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the mural, her name printed neatly under her father’s. Indelibly connecting her to the psychic world, without her consent or consideration.

“Hey, I’m with you,” Lizzie assured her. “He’s been through shit no one should have to go through, let alone before they hit puberty.” She paused. “Allegedly. Everything about it is classified and I definitely don’t know about anything I wasn’t directly involved in.” Frazie gave a short snort of a laugh through her nose. “If he’s not still attached to Lili when he hits age of majority he’s gonna have to navigate some really shitty family politics. It’s like the fucking psychic mob.”

“...is that a thing?”

“Used to be.” That wasn’t Lizzie’s voice. Both girls spun around to see Norma, standing behind them with a small stack of books levitating beside her.

Norma

Norma watched Frazie’s expression harden, and Lizzie’s mingle exasperation with outright annoyance, and managed to keep her sigh internal.

“Did you fucking follow us here?” Lizzie asked flatly, and Norma rolled her eyes.

“No. I’m doing an assignment from Agent Nein.” She’d started the night before, but that had mostly been just figuring out what parts of the massive library she even needed to be looking in. The history of the Psychonauts required context from psychic history as a whole, which was a rabbit hole of interconnected events and non-psychic history. “I heard my name and came over.”

“To eavesdrop.”

Norma started to snap back at her sister, then bit down on the response. The words damaged trust kept playing in her head, and she didn’t think getting into a shouting match in the middle of the library would do anything to help. “I don’t think it’s an actionable offense to investigate someone saying your fairly uncommon name,” she said tightly. “But if you want me to go, I’ll go.”

“No, say what you came to say.” Lizzie shoved her hands in her pockets and Norma took a long, slow breath that she had to fight to keep from coming out as flame. Lizzie always did this, wound her up and then feigned indifference so when Norma snapped she looked like the unreasonable one. And Frazie was right there, watching the byplay with wariness.

“Psychic mobs,” Norma said flatly. “Psychics masked their own operations behind non-psychic mob activity. Used funds from their legitimate businesses to move psychics out from where they’d been hiding in the countryside into the cities where they had resources and protection. They ran drugs derived from psitanium and used that money to grease palms and divert attention from noticeable psychic events – usually adolescents coming into their abilities.” She shrugged. “They used the ‘crime family’ structure, sure, but few of the actual bloodlines survived as we know them today. They weren’t as concerned with the genetic aspect, more the ‘survival’ aspect,” she added dryly.

“This your homework from Nein?” Lizzie asked, one eyebrow raised.

Norma shifted uncomfortably, looking away. “Part of it,” she admitted.

“What happened then?” Norma looked back around to see Frazie staring at her with an intense expression.

“What do you mean?”

“The mob – the non-psychic one – got broken up eventually, right? Or at least...curtailed, or whatever. What happened when the psychics couldn’t hide their activities anymore?”

“I mean they still exist,” Norma said, gesturing slightly with the levitating books. “That’s about as far as I’ve gotten. The communities they’ve started are still around, too, though there’s only a couple that are known as ‘psychic cities’, including here. Kind of hard to be covert when you’re ten miles from the biggest psychic institution in the world, I guess.” She flipped open one of the books. “Lizzie and I grew up in one of the original ones, actually, before we came here.”

“Wait, seriously?” Lizzie walked over and grabbed the open book.

“Yeah, it’s still ‘secret’ though.”

“Which is why we thought it was just non-psychic hell,” Lizzie muttered, scanning the directory. “Huh, shit, you’re right.”

“You’re not from here?” Frazie asked. When Norma looked up there was something tight and odd in her expression.

“Nah, when we both got into the cadet program our parents decided it was easier to move to stay nearby. I think they’re happier now, too, being in an openly psychic community.” She froze then, going very still next to Norma. Frazie’s expression had become unreadable, some combination of hurt and – envy? Resentment? Norma reached out almost instinctively, intending to scan Frazie’s surface thoughts and emotions, but stopped before she actually gleaned anything. It wasn’t her business, she told herself firmly. If for no other reason than if she pissed anybody else off she’d probably never get to go into the field again.

“That’s good,” Frazie said finally. “That’s – that’s really cool.”

“Yeah.” Lizzie’s voice was oddly quiet, and Norma’s eyes flicked between the two of them. She could read Lizzie’s thoughts, if she really wanted, but Lizzie had no compunctions about putting her on her ass.

“Anyway.” Lizzie snapped the book shut and tossed it into the air, leaving Norma scrambling to catch it. “That’s – what I wanted to show you.” She walked back over to Frazie, glancing at Norma over her shoulder. “With a surprisingly informative sidebar.”

Norma glared at her, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “You’re welcome,” she said flatly.

“You should...probably know where the gym is, too,” Lizzie said, gesturing at the door. “Maybe you can stretch or practice in there, instead of in your room.”

Frazie followed Lizzie, but not before looking up at the Wall one last time with a tight, odd expression. When she left Norma followed her line of sight, settling on the new addition in the upper corner.

“Ah,” she said quietly. “I see.”

Sasha

Hollis had her hands clasped in front of her face and the bridge of her nose pressed between her forefingers. She sat that way for a long moment, and Sasha let her, even though she’d called him into her office. He’d sent her several dozen pages of extremely upsetting information, and she was likely trying to decide which one to yell about first.

Not that Hollis was in any way an unreasonable supervisor or an unreasonable person. Just writing the report had made him want to go outside and yell, himself.

“Okay,” she said, not looking up. “Let me get this straight. You want to go back in the caves.”

“Yes.”

“The caves that gave you an overwhelming sense of fear, anxiety, and disorientation.”

“Yes.”

“The caves that made you fire blindly into the dark and almost take out a little girl.” She looked up then, meeting Sasha’s eyes with a hard stare.

Sasha paused, stifling his initial, defensive reaction. She wasn’t attacking him, she was trying to make a point. A good one.

“Yes,” he repeated, more quietly. “Hollis, I believe there is - “

She cut him off with a sharp hand motion. “I know. I read the report.” The weariness was back in her voice as she opened the folder again. “But Sasha...you want to take kids down there?”

Sasha did shift in his seat a little now. “I have my reasons.”

“I know. Those are in the report too. Explain them to me anyway.”

But they’re in the report, Sasha protested privately, taking a deep breath anyway. He knew it’d been a big ask. Asking him to defend it was only fair.

“Razputin has only ever been on combat-heavy missions,” he said. “To the point of creating combat for lack of considering any other course of action.” He spread his hands in front of him. “When all you have is a hammer, etc. I want him on a purely research-based mission, to expand his toolset.” He paused. “In addition, he knows what the effects of psilirium look like from the inside. He...pulled us all out of our minds, in the Rhombus.” It rankled him just slightly to have been rescued by a ten-year-old not once but twice, but he usually reminded himself that it was just indicative of the incredible potential the boy had.

“And Norma?” Forsythe asked quietly.

“She came to me,” Sasha told her. “Asking for something to do. I assume in an attempt to redeem herself after the events of this summer.” He was craving a cigarette now, but Hollis didn’t permit it in her office, aerokinesis or no aerokinesis. “I think being on, again, a purely research-based mission would be good for her. Going through the scientific process. Searching for evidence instead of jumping to conclusions.”

“And you think having both of them on this mission, at the same time, under the mood-altering effects of psilirium, is a good idea?”

“Razputin has been nothing but professional. Putting Norma in a professional environment with him will likely force her to respond in kind. They don’t have to like each other, but they have to be able to work together.”

Hollis sighed, flipping through his request again. “I can’t argue with any of this,” she admitted, somewhat begrudgingly. “We haven’t even gotten into the...area at the end of the hallway.” A few agents had stayed behind, anticipating the return of whoever had imprisoned the ten psychics there, and explored past where Milla’s team had stopped. They had described the room at the end as a laboratory, using terse, vague language that Sasha could only read as discomfort at whatever they had found. The fact that the captor, the one Leah would only describe as “him”, had never returned suggested that he intended to abandon them there to starve, trapped in cages underground, unable to call for help either audibly or mentally. If Milla hadn’t detected the burst of energy that allowed them to escape – if they’d never been able to produce that energy…

Sasha realized his fingers were clenched in the fabric of his pants leg. He forced them to relax. “That is my other goal,” he said, relieved that at least his voice sounded normal. “ There are too many questions left unanswered, and we owe it to those ten to find their families. That place is the only lead we have.”

“Not to mention finding the son of a bitch that took them,” Hollis muttered, then sighed. “Alright,” she said, levitating a pen towards herself. “Alright. But not immediately.”

“What?”

She glanced up at him. “Not until I’m certain both Aquato and Natividad are ready to go back into the field. Norma is still over-confident in her own abilities versus cooperating with fellow agents. And Razputin…” She trailed off. When she spoke again her voice was soft. “Raz has earned a break.”

Sasha found himself unable to argue with either assessment, though he dearly wanted to. He’d suggested Norma and Razputin for their own development as psychics and as agents, and while nothing Forsythe said was incorrect, it still felt like she was holding them back. And he included himself in that, his research stifled.

“Understood,” he said, knowing he sounded petulant even in that single word. Hollis, to her credit, didn’t call him out on it, instead handing him back his request with the words “pending review” attached.

“We have teams already there; I’ll send any pertinent data your way.” She folded her hands in front of her. “I want to know what’s going on too,” she told him gently. “But we have to measure the cost.”

“...understood,” Sasha repeated.

“In the meantime I want you to continue interfacing with Leah. She seems to trust you. Maybe she’ll tell you if she remembers anything.”

“We can only hope.” Sasha was biting the ends off of his words. Hollis just sighed and nodded towards the doorway, finally dismissing him. He stood to leave, already levitating a cigarette out of his pocket, and strode down the hallway with long, steady strides. He wasn’t trying to look angry, but judging by the way people scattered out of his path, he did anyway.

Pertinent data. What did she know from pertinent data? What did she know about any of it? It was ridiculous that he had to go through bureaucracy to conduct science, that he had to ask permission to teach his students.

He made it to his office and flung the file on his desk, pacing around his lab with the cigarette between his teeth. He was agitated, making photokinetic sparks at the tips of his fingers just to burn off the energy.

That was what made him stop. He hadn’t done that since he was a boy, sparking his fingers when he was upset . The meeting, however disappointing, should not have made him this... angry .

He made it back to his desk and sat heavily in the chair, anger fading in the face of curiosity. He prodded at his own mind, trying to find the aberrant section, which part of him was reacting so irrationally.

Does psilirium exposure have long-term effects? He wondered suddenly, and spun around to his computer. Psilirium poisoning was certainly a thing, but they’d never been able to study lingering effects. Or the effects of exposure to so much psilirium. If indeed that was what was in the walls of the cave. Which was why he needed to get down there -

He cut off the line of thought before it could pull him back into anger. Anger wasn’t useful here. He needed focus. He needed answers.

Gisu

She’d managed to remember to shoot Dion a very groggy “made it” before she collapsed into her bed, feeling his mingled relief and worry as she drifted off. Her dreams were odd, muted and distant where they weren’t wholly foreign and unfamiliar. She tossed and turned, never fully waking but not resting, either.

When she did wake, it was to a pair of eyes very, very close to her own.

“Ah!” She instinctively shoved backwards telekinetically, feeling resistance. The figure still skidded backward several feet, and Gisu sat up quickly to snap the bedside lamp on to reveal Sam Boole, blinking at her in the sudden light. “What the fuck, Sam.”

“Are you dead?” Sam asked. Gisu laid both hands over her face, rubbing at her eyes with her fingertips.

“Yes,” she said flatly. “Yes, I died and you have revived me through sheer terror. How’d you even get in?”

“You gave me a card,” Sam reminded her. “When you needed that thing but you couldn’t leave your project.”

“….right.” She looked up, eyes still half-shut. “And why are you here now?”

“You slept through marksmanship,” Sam said. “Duhaime sent me to check on you.”

Gisu whipped her head around to stare at her bedside clock – it was well past noon. Groaning, she flopped back onto her pillow, staring at the ceiling.

“I’m sick,” she said flatly. It wasn’t a total lie, she still felt slightly off from her experience yesterday, and a headache was starting behind her eyes.

Sam leaned over into her field of vision. “You went to see Dion yesterday.”

“You don’t know that.” Sam was silent, and after a moment Gisu threw one arm over her eyes. “Yes you do. Your fucking spy.”

“He’s not a spy!” Sam said defensively. “He’s a – a sub-agent.”

“Uh-huh.” Gisu sat up again. “What’d he see?”

“Not a lot,” Sam admitted. “Birds don’t have great attention spans.”

“Okay but what did he see.”

“Dion chasing Raz’s other brother. The little one. He had your board, which is how I knew you were there.”

“Great,” Gisu grumbled. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been – at least she hadn’t found out about their ill-advised psychic experiment – but Gisu still wasn’t thrilled about anyone knowing she went out there. It was why she’d gone through the caves to start with instead of just signing out like a normal person.

“Is that why you’re sick?” Sam asked.

“No. A little. Look, am I in trouble with Duhaime?”

“Probably not, he said it’d be nice if you had a legit reason for skipping for once.”

Gisu grimaced. “Fine. I’ll go to the nurse or Milla or whoever.”

“I’d pick Milla,” Sam said. “She’s a lot more willing to lie for you.” Gisu shot Sam a sharp look, but her expression was as bland as always.

“Maybe I will,” she muttered. “Look, you did your job in harassing me, get out so I can take a shower and stuff.”

“You need one,” Sam said, heading back for the door.

“Thanks, Sam,” Gisu said dryly. “You know how to make a girl feel special.”

The door shut behind Sam and Gisu let her head drop into her hands as the headache finally pushed its way through. It was familiar, the pain that comes from stretching a muscle past its limits, which was actually comforting. If she’d had worse or unusual pain after her little stunt yesterday she really would have to go to medical, and have to admit to what she did.

She wasn’t even sure why she was being so secretive about it. It had probably been stupid , pulling two abilities at once for the first time without a teacher or somebody around who knew what they were doing. And it hadn’t been for a great reason – they really could have just kicked the door in and dealt with the consequences later.

You were showing off , said a voice in the back of her head.

No I wasn’t , she protested. I don’t have to show off for non-psychics. Some psychics did, liking the attention it got them from people who didn’t know they were doing the absolute lowest-level, basic, baby psychic skills. Gisu had never been that insecure.

Not non-psychics. Just him .

Gisu flung the covers off her bed and launched herself across the room to the bathroom, drowning out her own mind with the sound of the shower running.

She made her way to Milla’s office, gliding along on her board with her hands shoved in her pockets. Her expression was dark and sullen, which at least kept people from approaching her or asking why she wasn’t in class. It was partially that her head really did hurt, kept to a dull ache by the aspirin she’d begged off of Mel. Most of it, however, was due to the way she kept examining and re-examining her actions and motivations, no matter how hard she tried to drag her mind onto any other topic.

The more she went over the previous day’s events the angrier she got at herself. It had been a stupid risk. She could have torn her brain in half. She knew better, and even if she didn’t it wasn’t like mental safety and caution wasn’t drilled into them from the second they set foot in the door here.

And for what? A door she could have easily kicked in and just as easily replaced? Or was it really to show off? To do something big and cool and psychic in front of Dion?

Stupid , she muttered at herself for the millionth time since she’d woken up. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She didn’t like that she’d been so reckless, and especially not the thought that it had been to impress a boy. To impress anyone, really – she’d never had the kind of ego that needed stroking like that – but for the sake of what?

Her mind skittered away from the question before she could even start to form an answer. She didn’t have time to think about shit like that. Too much to do.

Milla’s door was open, as it often was, and she peeked around the frame before entering. Milla was in the center of the room, in her meditative connection to the world psychic network, and Gisu slipped inside to flop onto one of the beanbag chairs that lined the wall.

“Hello, darling.”

“Hi.” Gisu pulled her hood up over her head, closing her eyes and willing the aspirin to take effect.

“Is everything okay?”

“Just a headache.” She tipped her head back against the wall.

“I think you should go to the nurse if you have a headache, baby.” Not scolding, not lecturing. Just a suggestion. “Headaches are not always innocuous for psychics.”

“I know.” Gisu sighed internally. She was pretty sure she could live to be a hundred and not be as gracious or patient as Milla. Especially with moody, uncooperative teenagers. “I took something. I just need quiet, I think.”

That was a lie. What she needed was to excise the voice that was running circles around her mind, alternating between berating and mocking her as it went.

“Alright, darling. I’m here if you need me.”

“Thanks.” Gisu huddled down into her beanbag nest, crossing her arms over her chest.

S he wasn’t sure if she dozed off or not, only that eventually the headache abated somewhat and she was able to form a slightly less sour thought. “Milla?”

“Yes, darling?”

Gisu fiddled with the hem of her jacket, still not having opened her eyes. “Have you ever…” The sentence ended in a sharp huff of breath as she tried to formulate her question. “Pushed yourself too far? Like really too far. Done something with your abilities you probably shouldn’t have.”

“Of course I have,” Milla replied simply. “In the course of Psychonaut duties you have to think on your feet, be adaptable.” Her lips quirked upwards in a smile that was just a little sardonic. “And sometimes have a lower than average self-preservation instinct.”

That made Gisu smile too, despite herself. “But not for a mission,” she continued. “Just to…” She sighed, hating the words before they even came out of her mouth. “Just to show off.”

Milla’s laugh was light and tinkling, and not unkind. “Oh, I’m sorry, darling, I don’t mean to laugh.” She opened her eyes, smiling widely down at Gisu. “But every young psychic shows off. Every young person shows off, whatever their talent. We have an intrinsic need to impress each other, to make sure others think highly of us.” S he tilted her head at Gisu now. “ Would this have anything to do with your headache this morning?”

Gisu looked away, squirming a little.

“I won’t pry,” Milla said, settling back into her meditative pose. “But I can’t really help you if I don’t know what happened. And...I really would encourage you to tell someone, even if it’s not me, if you think you’ve hurt yourself or you’re in any danger.”

“Yeah.” Gisu slid back into her beanbag, trying to disappear into it. “I will.”

“Thank you, darling.” A pause. “And you really should stop skipping marksmanship.”

Gisu pulled her hood over her head and didn’t respond.

Chapter Text

Lila

Not all of them had gotten cut-and-dried classifications the day before. Some of them, like Leah and Marchi, were going to have to go back for other tests to pin down what their abilities actually were. It upset Lila a little, reminding her of countless hours in the middle of the Room, being told to do the same thing over and over until her ears and nose were bleeding.

She curled tighter into Aparajita , hiding in her hair. Aparajita was carrying her on her back down the hallway, those of them with concrete skills being taken to be entered into the psychic database. This excited Eirian and Thomas, their escorts, very much. They said it meant they had a place in the world now, a psychic home, and that if they had registered psychic family it would make it easier to find them. It had made Dawn frown, but that wasn’t that hard.

Some of them, like Evan and Jongsoo , were from other countries, so being in the Psychonauts system would bring up a warning if they were registered in other countries’ systems. They had rattled off a lot of letters that didn’t mean anything to Lila before stopping themselves and smiling apologetically. “It’ll come”, they promised. “You’ll learn the lingo”.

Tony walked right behind them , carrying Jongsoo on his back the way Aparajita was carrying her. Donovan was likewise carrying Michael. It was how they always traveled, the kids carried by the adults and always trying to make sure Evan and Dawn had their hands free. Lila thought they could have told the Psychonauts what they could do, the skills they were practiced enough with to strategize around, but Leah had told them to cooperate for now. If they felt unsafe here, they’d find a way to leave, but for right now it was better to do as they were told.

That had really made Dawn frown. And they still always walked like they would have to run at any moment.

“The walks will get easier as time goes on,” Thomas assured them. “Once you’ve been taught how to use levitation balls, definitely.”

Michael started flexing his feet, the psychic energy already gathering around them, but Evan thumped him gently in the back of his head with one finger and he settled down.

What happens after we go in your system? Donovan asked. He didn’t speak out loud much, since his ability had to do with his voice. He could mostly control it now, but the wide-broadcast psychic speech was a habit.

“There will be a series of aptitude tests,” Eirian said. “Not right this instant – over the coming days. You’ll be able to move about the lower levels more freely after we’ve got you thinkerprinted.”

Lila saw Dawn turn to Aparajita, mouthing the words what the fuck? Aparajita just shrugged, jostling Lila slightly.

“And you’ll be able to request access to the main atrium, with a fully registered psychic accompanying you.” Thomas added.

“Once we know your general level of ability we’ll enroll you in the appropriate classes,” Eirian went on.

“Can we opt out of any of this?” Dawn asked tightly. Lila swung a foot and caught her in the elbow, making her glare out of the corner of her eye.

Behave , Lila said, echoing Leah’s own instructions.

I’m just asking a question!

Lila just sent back the mental equivalent of a raised eyebrow, making Dawn huff.

“Unfortunately not,” Eirian replied. “Untrained psychic abilities can be dangerous to both the psychic and those around them. It’s our moral duty to make sure all psychics have at least baseline control.”

If we didn’t have ‘baseline control’ Dawn would have scorched their eyebrows off by now, Tony said, making them all stifle giggles – except Dawn, who swung her foot out to trip him.

Hey! He protested. Not while I’m carrying the kid!

If their guides or guards knew about the mental sidebar they didn’t show it, just guiding the group through a series of corridors and into an office that was really too small for all of them. But they simply huddled in on each other, used to close quarters and cramped conditions, and the press of bodies was actually comforting to Lila as she was shifted into Aparajita’s lap rather than her shoulders.

Eirian and Thomas went to the desk, saying something quietly to the person sitting behind it, who craned their neck to peer around the two of them at the group. Their eyes widened at the amount of them, and they shook their head as the sound of a keyboard filled the small room.

“Donovan?” Donovan startled at the sound of his name, and he crossed the room to sit next to the clerk as they put his information into the system.

“This is gonna take forever,” Tony muttered, tipping his head back and stretching his legs out to cross them at the ankles.

Lila closed her eyes and curled into Aparajita, letting the feel of the other’s minds wash over her. Tony and Dawn’s simmering agitation tempered by Evan’s steady calm, Michael’s excitement like a high-pitched whine in the background. The cacophony was calming to her, and she was halfway back to sleep when Aparajita’s name was called and she had to shift Lila to another chair so she could get up.

Rubbing her eyes, she crawled instead into Dawn’s lap. Dawn’s arms went around her automatically, and she rested her chin on Lila’s head.

What’s it like? Lila asked Donovan as he settled back into his seat.

They sure do get real agitated when you’re a whole-ass amnesiac and can’t answer all their questions, Donovan replied dryly, and Dawn gave a derisive snort in response.

Sounds about right , she sent, along with a wave of bitterness, and Lila just sighed and nestled further into Dawn’s chest, letting her eyes drift shut again.

Razputin

Raz popped his lev ball out from under his feet as he approached Sasha’s lab – he’d activated the door by accident before and didn’t want to roll in on Sasha. He was halfway across the small common area when he heard Milla’s voice drifting out of her own office.

“I don’t like it, Hollis.” She was keeping to a low murmur, but with the door open it carried enough for Raz to hear. “I don’t like how fast they’re moving.”

“It’s a necessity, Vodello.” That was indeed Agent Forsythe’s voice, also attempting for quiet. Raz had wondered aloud why psychics didn’t just default to mental speech all the time, and Sasha had given him a lengthy, rambling answer about the psychology of speaking to another human and hearing a reply in return, as well as not wanting the vocal cords to atrophy. He was pretty sure it just boiled down to “humans like hearing other humans talk”. The basis of communication buried way down in their DNA.

“They’re traumatized,” Milla retorted. “Some of them are children. They need care and compassion, not to be forced through a psychic gauntlet.”

“We need to know what they can do. What they’re capable of. In case…” Hollis sighed. Raz could almost see her pinching the bridge of her nose. “In case they’re not refugees,” she finished.

Milla didn’t say anything for a long moment. Hollis was the one to finally break the silence. “I know you don’t like the thought of anyone using kids for infiltration.” Her voice was surprisingly gentle. “Hell, neither do I. But it is a possibility we have to consider.”

“You’re right.” Milla’s voice was clipped, barely contained agitation. “I hate it. But you’re right.”

“Do what you can for them,” Hollis said. “You’re right, too – they do need kindness. They’re just not going to get it from Intake.”

“Which - “

“You’ve mentioned before.” Hollis cut Milla off. “I know. I don’t disagree. But I also can’t take you off your actual duties to sit downstairs all day. Besides,” and her tone was almost joking now. “There’s no windows down there. You’d wilt.”

Milla made a small, grumpy noise before it broke into a quiet laugh, and Raz heard Hollis’ quick, sharp footsteps muffled on the carpet. Panicking, he wrapped himself in a bubble of invisibility, even holding his breath as Hollis exited the office and started down the hall.

When she was gone, he exhaled slowly, aware that Milla’s door was still open, but stayed invisible as he tried to process what he’d heard. The rescuees, infiltrators? He knew the agency was hyper-sensitive to the thought of another mole, but he couldn’t picture Michael or Lila as some kind of...subversive agent. They were just kids.

You’re just a kid , his brain reminded him, and he shook off the thought. That was different. He’d figure out how later.

Slowly dropping his invisibility, he turned and headed into Sasha’s lab like he’d originally intended. Hopefully Sasha would have answers that made him feel better instead of worse.

Sasha wasn’t immediately visible from the door, and Raz peered around the corner into his small office. “Sasha?”

“Come in, Razputin.” He waved with one hand, not turning around. His cigarette was floating by his head, and Raz watched the smoke condense itself into its aerokinetic bubble. It was probably a reflex by now, Raz thought, as he did it every time someone approached him indoors. It was probably also how he stopped the smell from permeating everything, now that he thought about it.

Raz entered the small room, finding the chair that was shoved in the only free space along the wall. Sasha didn’t actively forbid anyone from coming into his lab, not like the GPC, but he didn’t exactly make it a friendly environment either.

“How may I help you?” Sasha still didn’t turn to face him. Raz didn’t take it personally; he knew Sasha was still listening. Most of the time.

“I had some questions,” he said, folding his legs up in the chair. “About...psychic stuff? I guess?”

“That is a very broad topic, young man.”

Raz pulled a face. “I guess...psychic abilities? Kinds of psychic abilities? Lili said that was your...whole thing.” He waved a hand, acknowledging his own vagueness.

“You asked Miss Zanotto first?” Sasha did turn around then.

“Well, I came here yesterday,” Raz said quickly, worried he’d offended him. “But you were...already speaking with a student.”

Sasha was quiet for a moment, searching his own memory. “Ah,” he said quietly. “Junior Agent Natividad.”

“...yeah. I didn’t want to interrupt.” He was trying to stay diplomatic. Sasha didn’t need to know that he’d seen Norma leaving, or that he turned around and walked away as soon as he’d seen her face. She was still his fellow agent, no matter what had happened between them. He could be professional. To a point.

“Well, what was your question?” Sasha’s cigarette floated back down into his hand. He clearly wasn’t going to go into any details about his conversation with Norma, which was just fine with Raz.

“Is there…” He paused, trying to formulate his question. “Is there a psychic ability specifically for mimicking other psychic abilities?”

Sasha frowned, putting the cigarette to his mouth. “What do you mean?”

Raz blew a piece of hair out of his face in frustration. “Like – seeing a skill and – okay, it’s about Michael,” he said finally, throwing his hands in the air. “When I went to see him that first night he was here, he saw me use my lev ball in the hallway, and asked me to show him, so I did, because why not, right? And he did it, right there in the room! Like it was kind of lumpy and it didn’t hold up for long, but he did it.”

“You mentioned that,” Sasha murmured. “During his evaluation.”

“Yeah,” Raz said quickly. “And I was wondering – if that’s maybe his skill? I know he got classified as a levitator, but what if he was still just mimicking what I showed him?”

Sasha glanced at his desk, where Raz saw the file folder Sasha had taken so many notes on. “You already had the same thought.”

“A similar thought,” Sasha clarified. “There is much we don’t know still, about these psychics.” He paused, taking a long drag on his cigarette. It was one of his more obvious stalling tactics, not that Raz would ever say that to him. He was trying to decide whether or not to tell Raz something, which was incredibly frustrating for Raz. He’d seen and done so much already, why not just let him in the loop?

“You said you had other questions?” Sasha said finally, and Raz tried not to groan out loud. Maybe it was just classified, and not Sasha trying to protect him or whatever.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Uh – can you alter someone’s memories with a psychic ability?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You and Milla, in the observation room – you said they’ve had their memories tampered with. Made them forget their families. If – if it was a psychic that kept them down there, would they have…? I know there’s the Astrolathe.” He grimaced. “But there’s only the one of those, right? I think it’d be a bigger deal if you’d found another one down there.”

He looked up when Sasha didn’t answer, finally noticing how still he had gone. “...Sasha?”

“It...is possible,” Sasha said quietly. “But it is very, very rare, and those with the ability are taught very early that they wield an enormous responsibility. Similar to those we spoke about this summer.” Raz looked away, still grappling with shame over his recklessness. Maybe that’s why they don’t tell me things, he thought distantly. “We don’t yet know for sure what was done to them,” Sasha continued. “But...I do not think it was a psychic ability.”

“...what’s that skill called?” Raz asked.

Sasha took another long pull on his cigarette – another stall. “It has a few names. There are only three or four in the world right now, shifted into other classes depending on their next strongest skill. U sually astral projection or clairvoyance.” Another pull on the cigarette before stubbing it out, collecting the smoke into the bubble above his head. “But it’s most commonly known as cognitive alteration .”

“Cognitive alteration,” Raz murmured quietly, committing it to memory before looking back up at Sasha. “If you do find out what happened to Michael and the others, will you tell me?”

He couldn’t tell if Sasha smiled or if his expression was simply more cynical than usual. “That depends on what we find out,” he said. “And how classified it is when we do.”

“Right.” Raz slid out of the chair. “Thanks, Sasha.”

“Anytime, Razputin.” Sasha turned back to his computer. “And…”

Raz paused at the door, waiting for Sasha to finish his thought, but he just shook his head. “No, never mind. Go on, I’m sure you’re missing a class.”

He wasn’t, but he just nodded at the back of Sasha’s head and lifted himself onto his lev ball as he headed back out into the atrium. He didn’t feel better , exactly, but he knew more than he did before, which was something at least.

Cognitive alteration , he thought again, and swerved towards the elevator to the sub-levels. He needed the library.

Frazie

She trailed behind Lizzie down the hallway, flexing her hands at her sides and trying to control her breathing. She’d already been wound up over the Wall, and then Norma showed up. She’d at least refrained from insulting her family this time, but seemed to have replaced it with being a know-it-all.

Unless the book was a jab in and of itself. Our family followed us when yours won’t . She knew Lizzie hadn’t knowingly poked the exposed nerve that was her family, but that hadn’t stopped it from hurting. Everything about this place seemed determined to stomp right on it, bringing up her brother or grandmother every time she introduced herself, or plastering her name on their breeding registry – after Lizzie’s explanation it was difficult to think of it as anything else – before she’d even moved in properly.

She was pulled between two worlds, one that revered her family for being psychic and the other trying to pretend they weren’t, and it was fucking exhausting .

But that wasn’t Lizzie’s fault. She shouldn’t be mad at her for having a supportive family just because hers was complicated and difficult. So she took a deep breath, closed her fists to stop her fingers twitching, and breathed out her frustration in a long, slow sigh.

“Hey,” she called ahead, taking a couple of long strides to catch up with Lizzie. “Sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” Lizzie said. “I should have thought before opening my fat mouth.”

“Your mouth’s not fat,” Frazie said. “None of my shit is your fault, don’t feel bad about it.”

“I feel bad for you,” Lizzie said, and Frazie just looked at her out of the corner of her eye. “Not like, in a pity way,” she added quickly. “Just like. You don’t deserve that.” She shoved her hands deep into her pockets. “No one does.”

Frazie had just opened her mouth to respond when they approached a set of double-doors. “Look, the gym!” Lizzie announced with what could only be described as relief.

Frazie pressed her lips together tightly. She didn’t know Lizzie well enough to start a fight with her, which was a small shock to realize. They’d spent so much of the past two days and Lizzie knew so much about her, but she knew relatively little about Lizzie in return.

Only time would rectify that, as much as it grated on her nerves. So she followed after Lizzie with her fingers flexing at her sides, continuing the tour of what was apparently her new home, at least for a while.

Her irritation was shoved to the back of her mind when they passed the double doors (and Thinkerprint scan) into the gym. It was huge , at least as big as the library, but much more open . Tumbling mats and parallel bars and an honest-to-god trapeze, with actual cables like her father had always wanted to replace their ropes with.

“Go on,” Lizzie said, and when Frazie looked over she had a fond smile on her face. “You know you wanna.”

“What, did my brother start cartwheeling all over the place?”

“I dunno.” Lizzie shrugged. “But you look like a kid in a candy store.”

Why that made her flush Frazie didn’t know, but she redirected it by slipping out of her shoes and heading for the tumbling mat. The shirt wasn’t the best for acrobatics, but at least she’d worn leggings instead of jeans. She picked up speed as she approached the mat, turning a cartwheel as soon as she reached the edge. She stumbled on the landing, not used to the give of a mat versus hard-packed earth, but managed a second flip regardless.

L izzie applauded behind her, and she grinned as she turned and took a bow. “Surely that’s not the first cartwheel you’ve ever seen,” she laughed.

“First professional cartwheel,” Lizzie responded. “I mean yeah, your brother, but that’s usually in training or whatever. And usually off a lev ball.” Her eyes lit up. “Oh shit, you’re gonna be unstoppable with a lev ball.”

Frazie paused, caught between two reactions. The thought of being able to launch herself higher and with more control made a dozen possible routines jump to mind...followed swiftly by the fact that her mother would never allow any of them to use their abilities on the stage.

“Hey.” Lizzie’s voice shook her out of her thoughts, and she gave a quick, unconvincing smile.

“I’m fine,” she said, and went into a backbend to avoid seeing Lizzie’s reaction.

Sasha

Sasha spent a long moment after Raz left staring at the file folder he’d written all his notes on. He and Milla both had their theories about what had happened to the group of refugees. None of them were pretty. And he wasn’t getting back into the cellar where it all happened unless or until Norma and Razputin were considered “field-ready”.

He needed a distraction. Preferably one that still worked alongside his other goals. So he flipped the folder over and looked at the notes scribbled in one corner.

Desk agent?

The agent that had apparently stopped Razputin in the hall to ask about the mission that had resulted in the rescue of these ten unknown psychics. Who chose to corner a junior agent – a child! - rather than contact one of the several full agents who had been deployed. Not to mention the fact that they tracked him down in a hallway rather than sending an email or a memo.

Picking up his desk phone, he punched in the number for the agent most often responsible for filing his cases, and therefore most likely to have the relevant files.

It took two or three rings for the voice to sound over the line. “Chryssa Capello.”

“Chryssa, it’s Agent Nein.”

“Oh.” She sounded surprised; he rarely contacted her directly. Or anyone, for that matter. “What can I do for you?”

“ The most recent file,” he said. “The Blue Ridge mission. I need Junior Agent Aquato’s statement.”

“Uh…” he could hear a keyboard clacking in the background. “Whose statement?”

“Junior Agent Razputin Aquato.” He pronounced it slowly - sometimes the static of the phone and his accent combined to make him hard to understand.

“Yeah...there’s nothing here.”

“Nothing?”

“Yeah.” More keyboard clacking. “I can see if it was submitted on paper and just hasn’t been filed yet…?”

“No, that’s alright.” Something was nagging at the back of Sasha’s mind. “Thank you, Chryssa.”

“No problem, Agent Nein.”

He hung up the phone, lifting a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it without moving. Something about this didn’t smell right.

He reached out and tapped the ever-present mental connection. M illa?

Yes, darling? Her answer was instantaneous, as always.

Do you remember what Razputin mentioned during the tests? About that agent who stopped him in the hallway?

Yes, of course I do, it was very odd.

I asked downstairs about it. He was on his feet now, pacing the length of his lab with a cigarette dangling from between his lips. His statement hasn’t been filed.

He felt her mental “frown” in her response. Perhaps they’ve just put off the paperwork? She didn’t sound convinced. Too many oddities piling on top of each other.

Perhaps. He took a long drag from his cigarette. None of the rescuees are cleared yet, are they?

The ones with solid classifications are, I think.

He grimaced; Leah had to go back for additional testing, and she was the one he wanted to speak to.

Why? Milla asked.

Never mind.

Sasha…

I’m going to ask around downstairs, he said, stubbing out his cigarette as he passed his office. And then I’m going to speak to Hollis. He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. If Hollis thought something was going on in HQ again, she’d never approve a return trip to the cellar. But p arts of a theory were trying to come together in his mind, like edge pieces of a puzzle he didn’t know how to fill in the center of yet.

Are you sure?

No , he admitted, already heading for the door. But it’s better than sitting around and letting something else happen under our noses.

Dawn

After they’d both had their information taken down, Dawn and Lila were escorted back to their room by one of the bodyguards that had flanked them every moment they were outside their room.

I feel kind of offended that they think just one of them can take me , Dawn muttered to Lila, who giggled in response. Out of all of them, Lila was the only one who actually seemed to get when she was joking and when she wasn’t. She was pretty sure most of them just thought she was angry all the time, when in reality it was only like 85% of the time. She figured she’d earned it. Most of it wasn’t even anger, just fear and anxiety that manifested in...fire, usually. And everything about this place made her anxious, no matter what Leah said.

With a sideways glance at their chaperone, she let go of Lila’s hand long enough to try to adjust the collar of her shirt – Marchi had talked her out of cutting it to sit farther away from her neck twice already – and rub the back of her head where it itched from the hair still growing back in.

“Ow,” she mumbled, and Lila looked up at her.

“Stop messing with it,” she ordered with all the gravity of an eight-year-old, and Dawn stuck her tongue out.

“I’m not , it’s - “

Their guard cried out in pain and crumpled sideways into the wall, sliding to the floor.

Dawn’s hands flew up, Lila’s only a moment behind, their shields overlapping and reinforcing each other. Their guard was passed out cold on the floor behind them, and Dawn backed them up until their backs were pressed against the brick wall.

“Dawn, what’s - “

“I don’t know,” Dawn said sharply. There was heat rising in her fingertips and she willed it back down; not yet. Not until she knew what was going on. She was not a field-clearing weapon, she told herself fiercely, and not for the first time.

Something moved to their left and Lila struck out with a psychic lash, just a reflexive fear response. Weak as it was, it still landed, and Dawn saw an invisible form flicker and ripple in response. She struck out with her own power and heard a muttered curse as the figure staggered sideways and the invisibility dropped entirely. Dawn locked eyes with their attacker, and her forehead exploded into pain.

Her shield failed as she crumpled to the floor next to the unconscious guard, blood streaming from her nose and ears. She heard Lila scream and reached out blindly for her, groping around with her hands as even the thought of using psychic abilities made a fresh wave of agonizing pain wash through her. She found nothing but empty air, and forced herself upright to try to search the hallway with blurred vision.

There were flashes of light from farther down the hallway, and she staggered in that direction. She called Lila’s name but it came out as a weak croak, and another wave of pain threatened to take her back down.

More flashes and Lila screamed again, and suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder. She slapped it away, shoving backwards and landing hard against the wall.

“ S orry! Sorry. ” The voice was familiar, but in the haze of pain it took her a second to place it. The agent that had been at the cellar. The one who blew his own head up talking to the walls. “Yes, that was me.” His response was dry, and confused Dawn further until she realized she must be talking out loud. Grimacing, she clamped her mouth shut, and felt little arms lock around her waist. Lila. “Stay here,” the agent ordered, and she heard footsteps retreat down the hallway.

“Can do,” Dawn muttered, and slid against the wall until she was seated on the floor, Lila going down with her and crawling into her lap.

“Are you okay?” Lila asked, trying to wipe blood off her face with her shirt sleeve.

“Yeah,” she lied. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Agent Nein knocked that man out,” Lila said. “The one who grabbed me.”

“Did you see his face?”

“No,” Lila said. “Should I - “

“No.” Dawn wrapped her fingers around Lila’s wrist. Just trying to remember what she’d seen threatened a new wave of pain; she didn’t want Lila risking it. “They’ll...they’ll figure it out.”

“ Now you trust them.” Her voice was frightened but teasing, and she curled up against Dawn’s chest.

“You’ll get blood on you,” she protested.

“I’ve already got blood on me.”

“Scheisse!” Rapid footsteps approaching again. “Where did he go?”

A chill ran through Dawn. “What do you mean?”

“That – he - “ The question devolved into incomprehensible muttering in a language Dawn didn’t understand, but the meaning was clear. The man who had attacked them, who had tried to take Lila, had escaped into Psychonauts HQ.