Scene #7918: TPT: The Breakthrough Case (1)

Owner	Pose
Flamel Parsons	Welcome to the MOTHERLOBE! https://i.imgur.com/vYWtTAr.jpeg This quarry is the largest Psitanium mine in the entire world, and it shows. The nearby dam is the only thing that keeps it from turning into the second-largest psitanium-infused lake in the world, and gives a huge amount of space to the central structure: A 60s-era behemoth of glass and concrete, wrought by the world's foremost geokinetics, ferrokinetics, and virtukinetics and into the shape of two massive hands supporting a huge brain above its stem, allowing its vast third eye to display clearly. The landing pad is where most arrive, though if some prefer to ride by boat rather than aircraft, or hike from the nearby public campground, that's always fine too. However, today we aren't heading into the big foyer. Instead, the group is invited to take a short raft-ride, or jump over a variety of floating psychoreactive platforms, to a building labeled, simply, "OTTO LAB" (https://i.imgur.com/AZeynJJ.jpeg). It's a ways over the water, but opens automatically when approached. Inside... Nothing but a foyer! That is, until Flamel Parsons scans his thinkerprint, and the fake cave wall opens to a chamber of spinning red lights, and then... The laboratory of OTTO MENTALIS! He's shown up a few times before, the graying man with the engineer's jacket, but today he's not doing duo comedy with the scientist, Agent Sasha Nein. Today, he's looking over sheets of transcribed notes and dozens of screens that slowly rotate around his workspace... https://i.imgur.com/TvWcZ4K.jpeg
Persephone Kore	"Even your raft rides are therapeutic, Flamel," Persephone says on the way over. She seems faintly enthralled by the experience, because I am! "Or are they all this relaxing? Ahaha, I don't think I'd know." There's a little pause as she dreamily regards the reflections on the surface of the water. "I don't think I've been swimming, even. It's a very Earth thing." The fact of her being here makes it easy for everyone else to find it relaxing, too. There's always that little gravitational pull about her, making it easier to think and act in the ways I want you to, and harder to disagree. That means, as always, a kind of sedate warmth. Persephone steps off the raft just a little early and walks the remaining twenty feet to shore herself. Her heels clack on the water's surface. Haha, I've always wanted to do that. As the group enters the lab, her demeanor downshifts into something more solemn. Graying academics in labcoats have a certain influence on her, bringing a forbearing and gently concerned attitude to the fore. "All children someday take care of their parents." Isn't that it? "Hello, doctor," she says softly to catch Otto's attention. "You know what we're here for, don't you? Hollis only made part of the cure. She says you and Ford made the rest." A gentle smile. "I'm sure you don't remember. But thank you for your hard work back then, anyway. Since no-one else has had the chance to say it."
Ozhira	Ozhira is present on the raft in their human disguise. It is the same shape they had assumed on their previous visit to the Motherlobe, although their height might be a bit off. A little shorter, in a way that might not be easily noticed. The same messy black hair, dark blazer, plaid skirt, and shark-like teeth. While some might be interested in the water or their destination, the Devourer instead stares intently at the raft's modest motor with no small degree of fascination, as if imagining how it must function and taking their time doing so. Ozhira starts when Phony hops off the raft, lifting their gaze to stare after her. They stand as well, looking down at the water with some amount of clear indecision-- an indecision that lasts long enough for the raft to pull up and render the choice moot in the first place. Which, mercifully, brings the noise of their stream-of-consciousness to an end. From repeatedly thinking about engines, motors, machines-- to water, swimming, hunting-- to the task at hand in a more focused and less mentally 'noisy' fashion. Stepping up to a spot somewhat behind and a few paces beside Persephone, the monstrosity lifts one hand in an awkward finger-wiggling wave while attempting a smile. The result is less than comforting, but they're trying. "Hello. We are Ozhira. We have come to help however we can."
Staren	Staren seems to have interpreted the Psychonauts' style as close to 'mid-late 20th century rebel group' seen somewhere in a movie and dressed accordingly with a black turtleneck and semi-loosefitting green cargo pants. She has a Concord-orange kerchief around her neck and a matching armband with the word 'BRILLIANT' on it in little silvery letters. The labcoat is tied around her waist, she's still wearing unnecessary round-framed glasses, and has her hair up in a ponytail. She is looking at the platforming challenge when Persephone shows up, and wants to just go sit in the raft with her, then considers that Persephone knows she kind of wants to do the challenge and show off being good at it, and goes ahead. For the sake of the challenge she avoids using flight, sticking to the thrusters in her shoes to skate and high-jump and a bracer-mounted grapple tag. She arrives at the other side via grapple-swing flinging her through the air, tries to go for a dramatic somersault, but hasn't actually practiced that maneuver, and turns into a cat in midair to land on all fours and then put on that 'I meant to do that' look before padding onward. She returns to catgirl form after a few steps, and just sort of gravitates to Persephone, drawn in to her orbit until they see The LABORATORY! She glances over the screens and shelves, wondering just what he's working on here! Once his attention is on the group, she addresses the doctor, "Nice to meet you, Doctor! Staren Wiremu, Gifted of the Concord, I work with their R&D sometimes." She smiles and approaches, holding out a hand to shake. "What are you working on?"
Seras Victoria	Seras is here! Still more than a little weirded out by all the brainscapades that go on in this superspy-superhero shindig, and of no desire to talk about most of what hapened in the last fantastic adventure, but... she's here, regardless. Just not in the usual way. Because... Vampires can't cross running water. When she neared the stones, ready to cross, primal terror crept in and she adamantly refused to go out to the lab, certain something terrible would happen. It didn't take long for her to remember about the running water thing. Thankfully, this problem isn't hard to surmount in the Multiverse! Seras herself is back on the 'shore' as it were, working the controls of a little gizmo. Meanwhile, a little zippy drone with a thin display panel showing her face flits into the lab after the group. This might've been provided by someone here. Or, maybe something the Paladins rushed over or Psychonauts provided. "I don't pretend to follow half of what's happening with this case. You Psychonauts get up to some right bonkers business." Her voice comes from the drone's microphone and her expression is a warm, appreciative smile. No, she doesn't get it, but these guys do and she sincerely appreciates that.
Lilian Rook	Lilian was definitely going to just fly over to the destination point. Probably even 'teleport'. She was definitely about to do that, until seeing Persephone down for taking a whole leisurely Disney ride with Flamel. It's not as if she said so or anything; she's clearly just sort of hoping it won't be patently obvious while she impatiently fidgets on a slow little water ride with nothing to do. "I'm still trying to process 'an Earth thing'." she says to Persephone along the way. "You sound like someone who's never been. A secondary fan. It's too hard to imagine you having that much love for somewhere you don't spend any time at. I know 'space' is probably an appropriate word for you, in more ways than one, but . . ." A moment later. §It's a little too sad to realize that you don't spend any time on our own homeworld, honestly. Summer is coming up. That'd be the perfect time to finally try swimming, right?§ "I don't quite think she's to the point where you're looking after her." §And I'd really like to imagine that isn't true on my account at least.§ Lilian hasn't had the chance to meet Otto, but she's heard (and 'heard') his name enough times in passing here to have some idea of who he is. Despite being a weirdo in a cave surrounded by crackpot junk, she feels a little bit weird of him heroically dressed in that one outfit Rita really liked (and Candy, but it's always so hard to tell with him). The ghost of a smile haunts the edge of her lips when she hears 'right bonkers', familiar yet charmingly lowbrow. It slides off her face hearing Persephone. "Don't remember? Beg pardon?"
Flamel Parsons	Persephone's causing a number of the machines around Otto to vibrate. Up on shelves, in secure cases, they're not going to fall out at least, but they rattle every so often. "That's right. Kore, isn't it? I've heard about you. It seems that way, yes. Not just no memories, but no perception. Took me a minute to realize what I was looking at." "And the... fracture case and the hunger case. Got a lot of chatter around the quarry, I hear. The kind that gets Nein interested, at least." He peers at Ozhira and Seras, before adjusting his glasses and looking at Staren. "Well, missy, it's this fascinating little thing you brought me, courtesy of Kore's help." He pushes some of the papers he's leaning over around, spreading out the display of the schematics of the core. He answers Lilian's question: "The Mk. II Mass Censor Device Warhead. A psychonauts project I worked on, to modify some rather powerful psychoreactive technology. Unfortunately," He adjusts his glasses again. "I don't remember working on the thing."
Flamel Parsons	He pushes forward one of the main cross-sectional views, carefully drawn out with a draftsman's hand. "A small psilerium core is bombarded with synthetic psychic waves, overstimulated into a runaway reaction, and then its outward blast is polarized along Censor alignments. It destructively interferes with normal Censor behavior in a wide area, then shifts that imprint onto the collective unconscious." Flamel knows his psychic science enough to summarize: "It uses some of our world's unique minerals to, somehow, censor out an entire location. Impossible to remember, impossible to perceive evidence it exists -- or ever did. You could drive right through the blast zone and never realize you were anywhere important at all. We're not... strictly sure how it's related to the MAD outbreak, or the cure, but, there's one problem." "The Psychonauts don't make weapons. At least we're not supposed to. Machines are dreams, they're thoughts and ideas made manifest in the physical world." Mentalis speaks up, sounding a bit sour on the topic. "The day I mark a blueprint with the word 'warhead' is the day I go into psychoisolation and don't come out. It looks like I was trying to modify something, the Mk. I version of the device. Adding safeties and limiters."
Staren	Staren looks at the schematics, listening. "Psilerium... different from psitanium?" The question is rhetorical, but a prompt to explain what psilerium is. About it not being a weapon... "That sounds right. Persephone was only able to get it because she wasn't willing to kill anyone, even to..." save the world "...even to stop this."
Flamel Parsons	"Yes, we defend free thought. Well, our original goal was to explore the deepest depths of the human mind. But our day job is certainly defending free thought. And you can't freely think if you're dead." Dr. Mentalis rambles. He shoves those glasses up the bridge of his nose and looks absently at a large machine behind him. "Well, not without a lot of assistive equipment, anyway." He turns back to the group. "So it makes sense that Kore couldn't acquire this without pacifism, but we've had to make hard choices before. A willingness to kill if necessary was never a disqualifier for the Psychonauts. So why... this?" He runs his fingers through the salt-and-pepper bush on his head and plants both palms on the table. There's a tinge of stress on his voice.
Persephone Kore	Ahahaha, sorry. It is patently obvious! "I haven't been enough," she answers Lilian, perhaps a little sadly. "It's so different. A place that made humans, and not a place that humans made. Both are very human, but I was really missing one. Of course I love the place that made the people I love so much, but..." She trails off. The wind rustles her hair. It is photoshop-morphed back into place. "Well, take me swimming sometime, okay? You practically promised, so I'm holding you to it!" She laughs. It's a pretty laugh, on a pretty day, on a pretty lake. But I don't think you exactly understand. She's not any less capable than she used to be. But I've always been the one to reassure her; not the other way around. Persephone gives Staren's platforming performance a cheerful, approving little wink, then pats the catgirl's back once she gravitates over. "You really do remind me of Dylan sometimes," she says warmly. "Not much, but more than I ever thought you would. There's no point unless you get to cut loose sometimes; is that it?" ---- "'Kore' is fine, doctor," she answers in that well-practiced reassuring tone. The rattling goes on for a few seconds. Then it stops, because I asked it to stop. "Those are the designs we brought back from Director Hollis's head, aren't they?" She could say 'I brought back', but opts not to. "I understand. You can't make something to harm anyone without really wanting to harm them. So, making a machine like a 'warhead' is a sign of an unhealthy mindset. Is that right?" Her expression is closer to neutral than normal, but it still shifts into a little frown. "You said 'trying to', doctor. Do you think the safeties worked? Was this the device as a failure, or a success? Hollis's mind seemed to believe the previous implementation was a mistake, somehow. That's why she wouldn't give it to anyone willing to kill." She breaks 'character' for a moment to look back at Ozhira and beam, eyes shut. "You're doing great!" she whispers. Then, modeling a little wave: "But maybe a little more like this? You got it."
Seras Victoria	The Seras-drone buzzes over a little closer after hearing the explanation from Dr. Mentalis. "So, modify it to add limiters and safeties. This... memory-erasing bomb. So... there might be some weird use for it. Covering up a dangerous secret? Making everyone in a big area forget about something really inconvenient? That's what this thing does, right?"
Ozhira	"We are not fractured," Ozhira objects, "We are many." Fractured suggests that something is broken, after all. They glance towards Persephone, then adjust their posture and put a bit more confidence into the wave that goes on for perhaps a bit too long for a casual greeting before the creature lowers that hand. Both hands, in fact, fold behind their back as they listen between those who are more educated on the subject of minds and technologies. Rather, and perhaps with a similar 'energy' as a curious child, Ozhira approaches those projected schematics and simply stares at them, their mouth slightly agape. It's a mix of awe and fascination, as they don't often get to see machines depicted this way; with all the layers peeled back and all the internals exposed. But, like this, it is only a representation and not an actual, functional device. "When hunting, use the tool best suited to prey. Special prey; special tools. Is this the same?"
Staren	Persephone is a mind-reader! Staren initially just wanted to see if she could, and then added to that was knowing how Persephone likes seeing others show what they can do, after the 'cultist' encounter in Chains Knight's world. "Perhaps there's a difference between accepting that you have to kill sometimes, and being someone who would design a device to kill." Staren's mind briefly flickers through a decade and a half of weapon designs. Lasers, beam sabers, revolvers, lasers, missile launchers, smart bullets, exploding bullets, weird multiverse magitech, and her own brand of Techno-Wizardry. "...Or rather... perhaps some difference between these things is what whoever set up that psychic vault was testing for." "I've worked with Flamel for years. I've seen some crazy psi-tech devices and techniques like the mind dive and that thing that stops people from being infected by world-threatening ideas, and straightforward things like his use of telekinesis offensively and defensively... You use mundane machines like the plane you ferry us around in..." "...But I haven't seen Flamel ever pull out a Psychonauts-made device that was a weapon; for that matter, I don't think I've even seen any of you carrying sidearms."
Lilian Rook	"I what?" Lilian replies to Persephone, stepping off the raft. It isn't sarcastic; she hadn't predicted that one. She has, in fact, apparently forgotten completely that she didn't say that part out loud earlier. "Well, if even you can find time in your busy schedule for it, I'd feel remiss in refusing to rise to the occasion." There's a tiny pause where she considers something else. "Actually, I'm sure it'd be something important to do. Something especially worth doing." A miniature sound of bone-deep exasperation follows, along with a slightly grumbled "Even if that means yet more swimsuit outings." §I do. The idea that children 'someday' take care of their parents isn't the same if they always were, is it? Caring about her, caring for her, and taking care of her, are different. You have plenty of time before you have to be a parent to her in return. I insist.§ Meeting Otto Mentalis is certainly interesting, but the news he has to give is much less than Lilian had hoped for. She sighs, and for once, it is genuine disappointment. "Of course. It'd be too easy otherwise." she says, resisting the urge to rub the bridge of her nose. "In your estimation, do you believe the fact that you don't remember to be a safety measure, or an accident by nature of working with a piece of technology that is designed to make people not remember?" she asks. "Gut feeling. 'Thin slice' as they say." "Or self-inflicted." she reluctantly forwards, when the scientist gets philosophical about weapons. "If that's how you feel, then I suspect you might want to forget if you hypothetically did make a warhead. Even one for the purposes of delivery only, rather than mass death." Lilian shifts her weight from foot to foot restlessly. Her fingertips dig into her upper arm in something like agitation. For whatever reason, she doesn't like this talk. Thinking a little bit harder about how much it typically takes to get her to express anything involuntarily, she must really not like it. Lilian gasps in frustration. "Come off it. Thoughts can be weapons too. Ideas can be violence without any external help, never mind made manifest. How can machines made by humans be any more pure than humanity? People's dreams could have ended the world; what's wrong with doing violence to a dream like that? What's the problem with shooting an awful idea dead?" Rather than continue or clarify, Lilian just closes her eyes, holds her temple with one hand, and holds the other hand up in a 'no need, continue' sort of gesture, holding a breath for a long time. Not really remembering that she isnt' wearing three layers for a change, her whole body is tensed at once for a good thirty seconds. "Erasing a city from the map. I can think of a hundred simple reasons." Lilian smoothly continues. "Ten seconds to midnight. Silo site about to launch. Archduke clause. Global cascade-triggering political event in the streets. You have clairvoyants here, don't you? Even if it's to prevent global catastrophe though, the deleterious and unethical uses for this design are obvious, aren't they? If you kept them after the Cold War, being able to simply mass-obliterate any perception of a place or person or event or idea; that's arguably more power in fewer people's hands than two countries splitting the atom. I can think of plenty of reasons you'd attempt to limit it too. How does this factor into the mission?" Unprompted, once again blurring the lines between Said and Thought, "No Staren, I'm pretty certain you're exactly the sort of person that a conscientious objector to the device's existence would want to keep out. Don't make exceptions."
Staren	Staren blinks at Lilian. "...Yeah, that's what I meant. It shows I'm not someone they wanted to give the design to... Or at least, that they wanted to make sure there weren't only people like me in whatever group had it." Still, it hurts just a little to hear someone directly say it to her out loud...
Flamel Parsons	A head is shaken at Persephone. "No... The damage you could do with something like this is unbelievable. Lilian is right. I put plenty of safeties on it, but 'censoring out a place' is unsafe no matter what limiters you put on it." Otto shakes his head firmly. Staren gets a nod. "We don't make weapons. A healthy, capable mind, and a safe organization, those are the defenses you need. We only just now got a lid on a psychohazard situation that had one of our own designing tanks, and it was because of a max-scale intergenerational psychohazard. Thoughts can be weapons and armor, but at the very least we can have the decency not to be arms dealers." But there's a light incline to Seras. "Still some risks have to be taken. Covering up something makes sense. And that's the theory Parsons came up with. Now, trust him, because his brain's the mind we cooked up plenty of ideas on back in the day." "It's true! Back when I was just Project Mystic, they used me like a detective's Crime Computer." Flamel speaks up cheerfully. "So I tried to figure out what I might have come up with back then. If you're trying to cure MAD, maybe censoring out something that causes MAD could do that? What if a nation had tons of missile silos, and we just censored enough of those out that it calmed down? Like Lilian said, if things got bad enough that it was a choice between that and nuclear apocalypse... well, I know what I'd do!" He gestures to Ozhira. "If we're hunting a psychohazard that exists in truth... we just tell a very big lie. And that might have been what we did." The sour engineer speaks up again. "And I don't like the idea that there are a lot of big threats lying around that we censored out. Because that means, if an outbreak starts again, those could cook off. I can see why we never kept this, but I don't know why there weren't any in my archive." He adjusts his glasses again. "Because it looks like we only ever made one before we all forgot about it. Rook, I suspect you're right, whatever the cure was, it was too weapon-like to keep around. We must have wiped our own minds of anything about it. I certainly wish we'd been less thorough, though." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "So if it's weapon-like, where was it deployed? That's what we need to find out. I think I can track an answer. If I can find the invention I made immediately after this, it'll give us a clue about where we sent it to cure the outbreak. I think if we go to the laboratory I was using when this was made, we could find something."
Staren	But arms dealers help people who wouldn't be able to defend themselves otherwise... Staren doesn't say it out loud, though. She scratches her chin as Flamel discusses nigh-apocalyptic scenarios. She sighs as Otto laments their own thoroughness. "You feel that way now, but past you knew you would, and that's why he no doubt insisted that such a great job be done." Staren looks at Persephone, her words serious but she can't help smiling a little. "She's the one who passed the test the Psychonauts all put in place. So I think... any plan about the use of the weapon has to run by her." She looks from Lilian to Otto with a slight frown. "I /don't like you pointing it out/, BUT, I am clearly not the sort of person that the Psychonauts, with everything they knew about the world, thought should have control over this weapon-- err, Device. And neither are you, that's why you made yourselves forget." Staren looks back to Persephone. "But she is." Beat. Staren looks at Otto. "Wait, this wasn't your lab at the time? So where was it? Is it?"
Ozhira	"Mmm," the noise Ozhira makes comes out as a harmonized collection of voices, rather than the singular voice they normally speak with. Those red eyes rest on the doctor for a moment, then look back to the schematics that have so fascinated them. "If the danger is 'truth'... It will escape. Even a very good lie cannot last forever." They nod once, eyes fixed on the drawings, "If we must return to your laboratory... We will do this. If you know where it is, we will hunt." Their lip curls into another attempt at a smile, "This time, we hunt truth, not shadows."
Persephone Kore	"'A psychohazard that's true.' I had that thought, but I almost didn't want to say it out loud. That makes it worse, doesn't it?" Persephone muses. "Like Ozhira says, if you get rid of a lie, it's dead. But a truth, people can keep tripping over. It has a natural reservoir we can't touch." "Haha, I say that, but you did touch it, didn't you? It wasn't enough just to erase the knowledge of it. You got rid of people ever tripping over it again. Until now, anyway." She nods her silent assent to going to the old lab, but then purses her lips in thought. "Doctor, it's hard for you to imagine what could've made the three of you create something like that, isn't it? We've been assuming it must have been something really awful. But is it possible that you were influenced by some kind of psychohazard, yourself, when you helped make that warhead? That the warhead itself then wiped away?" That idea sits poorly with her. Staren eventually pulls the frown off her face. "Awwww. Don't put too much weight on me, Staren! I just gave an answer that Hollis liked; that I'm not capable of making choices like that. There are a lot of people in this room smarter than I am, so I'm not sure it's best for me to be in charge." "But, if the solution we pick is one I really don't like, I promise I'll let you know."
Lilian Rook	Lilian, if nothing else, seems more or less mollified by being named 'correct' several times in quick succession. There is little more she enjoys than being told that she's right a lot, after all. "Alright. So for once this mystery is fairly straightforward." she says about the least straightforward mystery ever. "Unfortunately, minesweeping is always the burden of future generations. It's why 'sealing' is a last resort for those without the power to do more. You have my appreciation for sticking with us long enough to promptly help clean up your own mess." She looks sideways, Meaningfully, at Flamel when she hears 'intergenerational psychohazard'. §I don't remember you designing tanks. Who else was it this time?§ At Staren: §Arm's dealers help people with lots of money. That's what the term means.§ Back to Otto. "If it was intentional, then there's a high probability that you did leave yourselves some notation, somewhere. Out of the way, where it'd only be encountered once an emergency situation had progressed to the point of its inevitability. There didn't seem to be much left in that city to investigate; though the proposition of scouting it for silos is tempting, it's also an absurdly time-consuming idea for a place where clairvoyance works so poorly, just to rule out one possibility." She shuffles a little bit uncomfortably hearing about 'truths'. "Censoring a fundamental truth discoverable by anyone isn't exactly in line with free thinking. It can't be that simple. Do you know where that lab is, at least? What do you remember about it?"
Flamel Parsons	"I was working out of a little spot near a place called Green Needle Gulch." The engineer explains to Staren. "You're usually forbidden from going there, and if any of you tried to wander over, you've already forgotten you did. Ford himself built mental defenses into the forest around it, but I know the way through. All of the psy--" Pause. "All of the founders know how. Though, it's got quite a lot of mutants in it. We'll want to be pretty careful." He also regards Ozhira. He shares a glance with Flamel, and decides to keep his commentary to himself. That's why Flamel decides to just open up and directly say it: "I think doing hunting in a laboratory is exactly your type of thing! Can't say why I have that gut feeling." Persephone evokes a moment of doubt from Dr. Mentalis, but it doesn't last too long. "Nothing's impossible. But it's sure implausible. We'd just come off of a do-or-die case -- our first one, actually. Our guard, right then, was the highest it'd ever been. Maybe we were suffering from the psychohazard, but, well, you have to believe in yourself. And whatever happened, the world didn't end in nuclear fire. Still, if we were resistant to it, why would we wipe ourselves..." He shakes his head. Flamel clears this up. "Morceau Oleander, the creator of the Oleander Scale, he got into a real bad place mentally! He was going to harvest the psychically potent brains of our summer campers and put them in psychic battle tanks for some kind of plan. It turned out he was just host to an intergenerational psychohazard that his dad had transmitted to him by butchering his pets for meat, live in front of him! We hadn't been able to screen the trauma transmission event on recruitment, so his mind was full of The Butcher, an eternal meat nightmare of ground-up rabbits!" "How are you doing that with your mouth?" Otto's eyebrow raises.