Scene #9125: TPT: 1-# WISH(CONTRADICTION

Owner	Pose
Flamel Parsons	The massive structure starts to slow. The black-hole-like psycho-spatial warp that can be found at the geometric midpoint of the two drill-like devices to the side and the concentric dishes above begins to fade, first flickering and then slowly lapsing its surreal visual warp. The rattling stops, and arcing electricity slowly dies. Rattling finally relents. The Proto-Astralathe hums horribly as flywheels and emitters slow and cool. The machine's conduits have fully burnt out. Flamel peeks over the desk, removing his safety goggles. Another man, introduced as "Otto Mentalis", and a third, "Sasha Nein", poke up from either side. Otto quickly whispers, "She didn't die, right?" Sasha shakes his head with an urgency that shows he was worried. Flamel, himself, quickly gets his sunglasses on and approaches Petra. Heavy panels have fallen out of place in the lab, and consoles look like they've been blown out from the inside, but... There shouldn't be any injuries on Petra herself, right? Though he's quick to offer -- no, not a hand to keep her steady, but he rolled a cart of recovery materials up that she could lean on inconspicuously. "Phew... wow I hope that worked, because we're not getting a second shot at that any time in the next couple years and the data isn't going to be done processing until next week." He laughs a bit, rambling that bleak situation in a bit of a cheery, happy tone. "They really weren't kidding -- a wish like that is kind of an immovable object! It's really impressive to reconcile the contradiction of even nudging it..."
Petra Soroka	Petra isn't sprawled out helplessly when the spatial warp and electric smoke clears. Compared to the damage wreaked on the psychic tools, Petra herself looks almost untouched at first glance, still positioned correctly in her chair with her skull still intact and no brain goop leaking out of her ears. Her eyes are squeezed shut, though, and her skin is dotted with sweat and feverishly swaying between pale and overheated, and when she sucks in a breath and forces her eyes open, it sounds like the ligaments in her entire torso all creak and pop from the tension. But, she stayed seated! Petra is, all things considered, extremely experienced with being put into psychic contraptions; mostly without causing them to explode afterwards. There's a bleary look in Petra's eyes at first, a delay in mental and visual processing that results in her teetering up and accepting the cart as a crutch without bitching about it at all. She raises up a hand, proclaims "Not dead!" and then lapses into a shuddery minute-long coughing fit. Petra raises her face from her arms and looks around the room, assessing the damage. "So, like... how expensive was all this? I'm really racking up a fucking kill count on psychotech, huh. Jesus. And I thought the Beauty of Ash was bad." She squashes her cheek to the side to look over at the scientists. In the couple minutes since the process ended, her tension has rapidly started draining away, leaving her hoarse and spent. "So what's the results? Like, are we just sitting on our asses until whenever that stuff's done processing? And what's the-- like, scientific side. What data are you getting?"
Flamel Parsons	Flamel waves a hand dismissively on the topic of costs. "Oh, absolutely super expensive on material costs, but we do our own manufacturing and repairs. We're not the Air Force or the Gastronauts," He spits the word. "We don't use tech contractors. Saves a lot!" An ethically-focused espionage agency goes a long ways, apparently. Otto, the older one (https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/psychonauts/images/4/42/OttoConceptArt.png), is already hard at work on getting some of this stuff back together. "Don't believe him. He thinks technology just magically re-assembles all on its own." He says, while the technology around him seems to magically re-assemble all on its own. The other man, Sasha Nein (https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/psychonauts/images/4/4c/SASHASHASHASHASHAAndasketchyDartLOV.jpg) is looking over readings on long, long sheets of paper, wild lines all over. "Results... Well," He mutters, taking a long drag from a cigarette. "That's a good question." He holds it up to Petra, who probably won't understand any of it. "Note this baseline psychic response, here." He says, gesturing to what's probably(?) an earlier segment of the procedure. A handful of other colors vary significantly, spikes in one deeply affecting all the others, but that one -- Petra, marked in pure white -- has a totally unchanging pattern. "This is pre-procedure data. We took it to be part of your psychic defenses. But when the Proto-Astralathe temporarily disabled the defenses, it stayed..." He adjusts his cigarette with thoughtful worry. "Now, here." A harsh line, and massive spikes beyond the page's width, show where the process began and ended. Now... "Look." The line -- whatever that was -- has split into two for a moment, before the divergence terminates. "The wish is... impossible to change. But it has been changed. On a micropsychic level, both states are existing at the same time." "I really wonder what that's going to mean!" Flamel pipes up optimistically. "It's not multiple personalities -- god do we ever not need more of that -- but almost something more spatiotemporal... It should allow for some kind of internalization, but the exact mechanisms, I can't even say for sure. You'd need to try out something deeply affecting now!" He beams happily. "Interested in that?"
Petra Soroka	Petra is about to ask about the 'Gastronauts'. She has to. Her mouth is about to open, her mind is fully occupied trying to figure out what the hell that could possibly mean, but she hesitates a moment longer to consider: does she really want to hear about that? Even the idea of tiny little vore scientists somehow feels more violating than the mind diving, because at least that's the devil she knows. "I don't want to know about the Gastronauts," Petra concludes after a debate conducted solely within herself. "But I'm kind of, like, morbidly curious if I've managed to break into the billions of credits of busted up psychotech or if I'm still stuck in the millions. I made, like, a receipt for it, a few years ago." Petra does her best to interpret Sasha's data, which, to her credit, is a pretty good layman's shot. The presence of data does a lot to divert her anxiety into studiousness, and while she's gnawing on her knuckle and trying to follow along, it's pretty easy to see which behavioral concepts of hers were derived into Psychonautra-- who, until now, was Sasha's only experience with Petra! "Hahh... I've never actually, like, gotten it studied before, so the amount of context I actually have is...." Petra rubs her palm into her face, trying to scrub out exhaustion and recalcitrance. "It's sort of like, that, all the psychic ability I had before turned into, like, this thing. I've got no fucking clue if this makes me more psychic, or less psychic, or-- I don't know. Fucking dumbshit fucked-up brain." Despite being as drained as she is, Petra points her finger right at Flamel's face and then nods. "Let's go for it. I'm not gonna step outside not knowing what my brain's up to, so, go get some weird fucking device and try and get more data, or whatever." Petra pauses and backtracks to something Flamel said, but she only processed fully now. "Hang on, did you make me more mentally ill?"
Flamel Parsons	Otto shoots Flamel and Petra a look the moment she mentions getting a weird device. Horror strings are near-audible. But Flamel knows the right approach. "No device, actually!" He beams sunnily. "We're just gonna go talk to Agent Vodello. She's great at being an affecting person." Otto makes a grumpy "huff" sound and returns to his technical repairs, while Flamel winks at Petra and quietly grabs some of the nearby sensors to put onto the wheeled cart. He whispers, "And I'll just take some of the sensors that are still working..." Out into the halls of the Motherlobe, not outside yet. The enriching corridors are well-adorned with nice greenery and visually-stimulating decoration, until they get to Milla's meditation chamber. "'Meeeel," The tall woman floating, seated, in the middle draws his name out in a playfully scolding way. "Darling, are you in more trouble? You nearly broke my relaxation with that psychic energy spike!" https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/psychonauts/images/9/9e/20211223094201_1.jpg https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/psychonauts/images/0/07/Milla_concept.jpg "Oh, no no! It was all above-board. And I think it probably didn't do anything psychohazardous!" Flamel is as friendly as ever, but with Milla, it feels more authentic. "I just figured I could bring Petra by and see how the treatment took. We're looking to see how her barriers are now, and I know you have a lot of opinions about trauma that you can talk about really well." "Oh, dear, I'm always happy to help, but that's a bit of a downer mood, isn't it...? Don't start pressuring her, you know how you can get." Her Rs roll relaxedly. "Hahaha, no no, it's enrichment for her. Hey, Petra! Take a seat and say what you think the fundamental value of human suffering is! I just know any conversation you have with Agent Vodello will be so affecting." He's setting up the sensors now, which Milla regards with a heavy sigh.
Petra Soroka	Compared to Flamel, Petra looks a lot more like she's the one who's in trouble. Even though she's following behind him of her own free will, she releases radiation like she's being guiltily dragged by the ear to the principal's office, or like she's being walked down the aisle in a courtroom by a baliff. She lurks behind him, acutely shy, but not just shy of Milla herself, but of the environment that's clearly meant to be psychically relaxing. "Yeah, uh-- it was my fault, actually. Sorry for blowing shit up with my head." Petra dutifully clambers up onto one of the large cushions and folds her legs underneath herself, sitting on her ankles with her palms planted between her thighs like a tense gay frog. She presses her lips together and shoots a worried look at Milla, then at Flamel for confirmation. Whatever negative interactions they've had before, right now he's the only one she knows, and she's in his home turf! So, comparatively, it's somewhat more comfortable to look to him for permission. "Uh-- like, you know that's not gonna be good, Flamel. Isn't that, like, more testing how much psychic harm I can inflict on the people I interact with? I'm pretty sure that that... hasn't changed."
Flamel Parsons	Flamel's unflappable. "Oh, no, definitely not. Trust me!" Milla raises an eyebrow. "Darling, do you want to hurt me?" She drifts a little closer, and-- uh oh. It's like Persephone energy, coming off her. She leaves her eyes shut, and leaves a peaceful smile on her cheeks when she gestures with her index finger. "People hurt each other, but that doesn't mean it's suddenly wrong to help them. 'Mel's told us about you -- if you were left in psychoisolation, would it really help you?" A gesture, all around her! "It was only through some kind of connection, that you knew where to go, to be healed! And that's something you're doing for someone who matters, I'd bet. A little harm's not too bad of a price. Maybe one day I'll ask, 'Is there someone we can call, who can resist the worst psychohazard?' And this conversation will be my chance to know the answer, and help sooo many people." Her smile's so soft. "Part of being kind is knowing how to let a little unintentional harm go. Let the turbulance go through the ride, and just roll with it. So," She tilts her head. "Do you want to hurt me, dear? Or for me to be someone who has been hurt?"
Petra Soroka	Oh no. The fact that Petra has ample defenses, both behavioral and psychic, to this exact kind of treatment, is more of a hindrance than a help to her in this instant. Unable to stop herself from feeling the impulsive rejection well up inside her chest, and simultaneously diligently reminding herself that she's here precisely to become a different way than that, Petra gets trapped in a looping stun animation while Milla talks to her. Flamel's sensors tell him first, but even just paying a little bit of psychic attention to Petra's existence informs him soonafter: the radioactive haze of Petra's aura is still there, skittering in psychic space around her with needlepoint shards. Its presence is only erratic, though, shuddering around at wildly varying intensities or flickering off entirely. Her speech seems to anchor it in one state or another, snapping still as a razor shield or briefly vanishing depending on the emotional intent of each word. "I thought I was the worst psychohazard," Petra blurts out after a distressed pause. She fidgets around with her hands on the cushion, pincering her thighs shut to squeeze her wrists and shrink her frame. "It's complicated. Like, like, of course it doesn't help me to be alone. Obviously, like, that's the worst thing for a person. But it's also worse for people to be around me, so, you're right; in order to be better for some other people, I made the decision to, uh, spend your well-being to reduce some of the debt that I have, so that some specific other people have to spend less to be around me. So I sort of already made the decision to hurt you, or, at least, it was an acceptable-- I figured it would happen, and made the decision that it was okay." "I don't really think it's possible to do 'unintentional' harm, right? The way you are is the way you are, and either you're aware of how that hurts people, or, you've made yourself, or allowed yourself to be made, into someone who isn't aware of that, and that's, if not intentional, a kind of 'fault' too. But I am aware of it, so it's not fair to brush any of it off as unintentional."
Flamel Parsons	"Nobody is a psychohazard." Milla goes on the "attack" almost instantly. Flamel was right: These two can NEVER be allowed unsupervised in the same room. "As for my well-being, dear, I'm a professional. I know how to protect myself. But you see, you're being so mindful!" She beams, firing blasts of approval. "The goal is always the same: To help. To be kind. Isn't it? Even if it's just to some people. You don't want to hurt, you want to help -- and you're willing to hurt to do it." She holds out one hand. "Maybe it's not an accident. But it's not what you want either. It's somewhere in-between -- or both, maybe neither." She chuckles a little. "But it's always possible to cause pain on accident." She says, nodding seriously. "I've..." Her smile briefly falters. "I've seen someone who was hurt, badly, by the people that loved them. When those people who loved them were hurt by a tragedy, themselves, they weren't able to help but hurt the one they loved. Pain sneaks around. All you can do is rrroll with it, dear." She chuckles again, lightening up! She leans forward in her floating seat, smiling. "So, if you're wanting to see how you can internalize things... Try one thing. Just as a little favor for me, darling! Just say... 'I don't want to hurt you.' I think you don't. And I don't really know how many chances you get to say it."
Petra Soroka	Petra's eyes narrow at the assertion that she's being mindful. A devious trick, to lure her into a snare that this woman so deftly set up. Petra's HP bar chips down from the beams of approval, scoring glancing blows along her hull. "Okay, but, like-- my 'goal' and my 'nature' are different. Even if wanting to help is my goal, wanting to hurt is my nature, so... so... yeah. Even if you're right, it's because I know 'I' am an obstacle that I've got to maneuver around in order to do things well, so any time I hurt people, it's either because I baked it into the design on purpose, or because I didn't consider everything correctly in the first place." "And all those examples, like, there's sort of an important thing that they've got in common, and you know that, and everyone knows that. It's because they suffered first. And I..." Petra sighs, mental gymnastics more draining to keep up than usual. She just got put in an Evil Science Contraption that beamed her brain so hard that the whole room exploded, and it still feels like it barely did anything. She might be an ontological fuckup, but it's hard to say that she isn't ontologically fucked-up too, at this point. And succumbing to her basic instinct to fight treatment when that's exactly what she's here for, feels kind of pathetic. "... yeah." Petra takes a slow, steady breath. The smells of upholstry and soil, incense and warm, calming air, paint an environmental picture, and the meditative ritual that Petra does to attune herself to her surroundings takes that picture in and holds it there. She runs a hand through her hair, palm coming to a stop on top of her head with hair tangled between her fingers. "... Sure. I might've measured the risks, I might've planned for the fact that I'd probably fuck up a lot of Flamel's shit again, I might've ranked your well-being lower than other people's in my head, but... I don't, actually, want to hurt you." Voice of the Gentle: See! That felt nice, didn't it? Voice of the Pure: WOAH HEY WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?! Petra's buzzing neuropathic aura snaps off entirely, and she flinches away from nothing, scrambling back on the cushion. Her eyes widen and she stares at Milla, then at Flamel, and presses a hand to the side of her head. "Hey-- what? What the hell is this? This isn't, like-- like, it's not your voice. Right? I haven't--" Voice of the Gentle: Hmmm. Let's think through this, instead of blaming anyone. Voice of the Gentle: We're aware enough of our own psyche to know that this isn't something totally foreign, right? We're not under attack; this is a safe place. Everyone here has the same goal to be kind. Voice of the Gentle: So that must mean that this is some sort of fractalization of ourselves, like Sasha was saying! Voice of the Pure: No!! No no no! Shutting this down immediately! What the fuck!!! Petra blinks and the psycho-superpositioning of her mental state collapses. Her aura immediately flares back up again, unsteady and volatile. "... Eh?"
Flamel Parsons	Flamel perks up. He immediately rushes closer, running a scanner over Petra. Lengths of paper dispense from a printer he wheeled in, and he watches the lines... "Line... lines... two! Two signatures, nearly-but-not-quite identical. That's the secret! Uncollapsed self." He snaps his fingers once, excitedly. "If the wish must always prevent you from internalizing someone's influence, but the influence has to be internalized... then a self-that-has-internalized and a self-that-will-never-internalize must come into being! A framework for resolving the contradiction outside of the wish, since a wish can't contain a contradiction!" His eyes shine with excitement. "I think... I think we're getting both outcomes simultaneously. Hard-lockout gone, and hard-lockout still present -- until the conflict collapses because one overtakes the other. Whichever one you act on, whichever one... wins you over, defines what you become. Or rather, defines what you always were, all along, in the logic of the wish!" Flamel's gathering up a lot of paper now, practically bouncing on his soles. "This is fascinating. Wow, wow. Instead of one signature expressing multiple identities that increase to enable survival during a time of high stress, I'm reading... multiple psychic signatures, expressing the reduction of multiplied true selves into reality, in order to enable growth during a time of lowered stress. Your wish has invented..." He baps a fist against an upwards palm, experiencing a revelation. "Persona-Singularity Adaptation!" Milla stares at Flamel for a moment. "'Mel, darling, that's very stupid." She says, as if speaking to a camper back at Whispering rock. "You can't reduce a girl to the opposite of a normal thing. The name's cute, though." She looks to Petra. "You can keep the term if you want, but I'd call it 'Mindswarm', the Psychonauts have developed some techniques that try to do that before." And she smiles! "And I appreciate you saying that, dear. I know you're used to people thinking that you want everything you wind up doing. So they say your nature is to hurt." Milla Vodello isn't super invested in Flamel's weird little project. She's more invested in Petra. More Persephonoid posture, hands clasped, fingers laced. "You're seeing yourself like a weapon, dear. Something people can use for good, but still evil inside. Pet-raaaaa!" She draws the name out in such a long, friendly way. "You don't want to hurt me, what about making me happy? Join me for just five minutes here in meditation, and I guarantee, I'll be happier after than before. If you don't want to hurt me, and you want to make me happy, then everything else is just accidents you can roll with, and maybe your nature isn't to hurt everyone, just some people!" She's willing to compromise, which is why she's a Lesser Phonyist. But she is angling towards a more finalized internalization, if Flamel's work has opened the option for that.
Petra Soroka	Despite Flamel's Flamelness, his explanation seems to both make sense to Petra and help her settle down. It is her head after all, and the sensation of being inside it gives context to psychobabble ramblings that might be incomprehensible nerd shit otherwise. She's also, similarly, driven in the moment to try and analyze whatever the hell is up with her herself, so it feels more like assistance in that analysis rather than voyeurism. "Okay, so, like... you punched a hole in my brain, and now that hole is a little psychic containment chamber where whatever psychic shit can sit without my brain destroying it. And then the decision on whether it's more 'Petra' to accept it is deferred until it makes its case. So..." Petra sighs, burying her face in her hands. "So I'll just have to get used to all this. I mean, it's a-- the solution makes sense, but you actually did just make me more mentally ill." Milla catches Petra's attention and she lifts her face up to tilt her head at her. "Wait, 'Mindswarm'? Like, the book? About, uh... the fucking, uh... faceting aspects thing, for multitasking? That was you guys?" Petra rubs her knuckles over her lips, scrubbing away her urge to ramble. "I guess I'll need to, like, feel it out more to know which name's appropriate. I mean, I've got to feel it out for a lot of reasons. My job's got monsters that eat people's minds all the time, I need to make sure I'm not making myself, like, a charcuterie plate for brainsuckers." "So-- so...." Petra crosses her legs and wraps her hands around her ankles, rocking forwards on the cushion slightly and looking away. It's impossible for her to tell whether it feels a little nice to be here because of the tech, the attention, the environment and organizational ideology, or if it's just because she got her brain blasted with more psychic energy than has touched her heart in years. Voice of the Gentle: It probably doesn't matter either way. Lobotomy Corporation only feels nice because of getting hurt there, too. Voice of the Gentle: We don't have a reason to leave, and we don't really want to. "--So, I'd better stay for a minute. Yeah. Sometimes when I meditate, it hurts, though, so... look out for that."
Flamel Parsons	Flamel quickly nods. "I mean, technically. If you got a psychic wound from a complex piece of scientific equipment being operated by an agent of a vague yet menacing government organization, it was going to wind up being enrichment for you." He tugs an envelope out of his inner jacket pocket. "I actually cleared this one with the ethics board! They won't let me do procedures to young psychics without oversight now, ever since the whole magical girl business." Milla beams in a cheerful way. "You've kept up with the literature! See? You've been ready for this for ages." The smile stays, through more. "And I appreciate you sticking around. If you want to enjoy yourself somewhere more stimulating like my dance floor, I don't mind -- it's just one little gesture that tells me you don't want to hurt me, so that's more than good enough to make me happy, darling." Flamel pipes up. "I won't talk a bunch! But it'll be great study material!" He's gonna keep those sensors pointed at Petra. Milla laughs, in that sort of "annoyed yet lovingly tolerating" tone. She refreshes a little incense, telekinetically rearranges some pillows, and says, "Now dear, any music you like? A shared playlist does wonders for clearing the mind, you know!" When she settles in, she settles in near Petra, too. Not close enough to intrude on mental space, but not far enough that Petra can sense anything but a sense of positivity from her. At the very least, it's clear who's probably responsible for some of Flamel's persistently content and upbeat disposition.