Title: In Cognitio
Author: Jintor
Summary: Thefts of psychic equipment have begun occuring around the exclusive boarding school of Demure Academy. Lili Zanatto is returning for another boring year of boarding school at Demure, but she - and the rest of her friends - are caught up in the action when Razputin, professional psychonaut, is dispatched to find out what's really going on under the school's snooty exterior...
Author Notes: Demure Academy, Angus, Lester, Tessa and Zoe are all from Atrophy-Conception's Always the Same fanfiction, and I thank her for letting me use her characters and settings. The Psychonauts and most related materials come from DoubleFine, who I don't want to sue me but I do want to make awesome games.
No eyes glowed red in the darkness, no cape swirled dramatically through the night. The wind blew silently through the dark and empty streets, carrying ahead of the particular debris of civilisations.
A door swung slowly open. Empty air passed through the doorway, before it slowly swung shut once more. A clicking noise snapped through the air as the door shut and locked itself.
It had been so simple! He had been right, he was always right. They never should have doubted him, not even for a second. It had all been true! Everything, every single bit, from the way you felt to how you used it... it was better than drugs, and much safer, too... and it was powerful...
XXX
Lili Zanotto emerged out of the back seat, glancing up at the massive ornamentation on the front of the building, clearly made to impress and awe. In fact it looked rather like a fancy biscuit, crumbling and brown. Somebody – another one of Dad's nameless chauffers – placed her bag besides her. The gravel crunched loudly as he walked slowly back to the car.
The vehicle vanished up the road as she dragged the bag through the front gates of the massive estate, the words Demure Academy inscribed above the gates. She hated the school with a passion. It combined rich snobs who knew nothing and the boarding school education-system to create slightly less rich snobs who now thought they knew everything.
The bag tugged at her arm, and she briefly contemplated hurling it along with her mind. It sure wasn't going to get any exercise here. Unfortunately her father had long ago forbidden her to use any of her more obvious psychic powers outside of training and strongly discouraged any use of her talents at all.
She was being watched, though, she knew it. Normal people knew when they were being watched. Psychics knew when they were being watched. The fact that there were students everywhere was beside the point; the feeling was that someone was watching, specifically, watching her (1). Her fingers rose to her temples as she concentrated on tracing the mind. It was… watching… with… more than just eyesight? The shape of the mind was human, but the… way it was organized was… strange. And then-
-suddenly-
-for a fleeting second-
-she was being looked back at-
-and the mind was gone. The sudden shock at the sudden disappearance of the mind caused Lili to stumble slightly, but she caught herself in time, her mind racing. It hadn't run away, the mind hadn't really moved in any normal sense of the word, it had simply… disappeared. And it had looked back at her as well.
Only psychics had that degree of control over their own thoughts. Most people's minds were chaotic storms, flicking from thought to thought to thought. Even the people who looked relatively calm and peaceful on the outside – to take an example, monks – hid a mind like a whirling maelstrom of activity within their skulls. But psychics…
Psychics could control their thoughts. Psychics could hide their emotional baggage, lock up their memory vaults, wield their censors the way they were meant to be wielded – as a weapon against the invaders of the mind. Psychics could make their minds into mental fortresses – if they chose to. The psychedelic disco of Psychonaut Milla Vordello's mind lay as lively, dancing testimony to the fact that not everybody liked their minds like a filing cupboard.
Lili picked up her bag again and moved onwards. She had a whole year here – again – and she could definitely find that mind again, if she wanted to. The other minds she could sense around her were nothings, arrogant and snobbish, looking down on her even if they only came up to her waist. She brushed a familiar mind, standing by the old oak tree.
"Hey, Lili…" came the nervous voice of Angus Gant. Lili nodded at him and continued up the path towards the towering white building with the hideous ornamentation. "Uh… do you want me… to, y'know, carry your bag for you, or something…?"
Lili stopped once more, and appraised Angus. He hadn't changed much over the holidays – he had grown slightly, but he was still tall, thin, and gangly, giving off the overall impression of 'nerd' or in certain parts of the school, 'target'. She glared at him for a moment, and continued up the stairs, dragging her bag behind her.
(1) This level of paranoia is normal for psychics.
XXX
Tessa Burdine was glaring into the middle distance as if she had a personal grudge against it, when a large hand knocked her headphones off.
"Hey!" she muttered, snapping into reality. The image of Lester Quartz, professional mayhem-maker, snapped into focus. He was holding up three fingers.
"Firstly, Tessa," he said, "people around us are giving us weird looks-"
"-like I don't get those everyday-"
"-secondly, your music is damaging my hearing at this distance so I'd hate to think of what it's doing to your hearing-"
"-nothing at all-"
"-and finally… don't you want to make out?" Lester wriggled his eyebrows suggestively. Tessa sighed and whacked him, hard. Lester shrugged it off, reached into the crowd surrounding them and pulled up a chair. "What? C'mon… one kiss…"
"You sound drunk," said Tessa, annoyed, "despite the fact that I know you've never touched alcohol in your life, and in any case are too stupid to work out what has alcohol in it."
"Hey, if it gets you drunk as well, then-"
"Hey guys," said Lili, dragging a chair and a bag behind her and setting it up next to Tessa. The gigantic ebb and hum of the crowd suddenly discharged Angus, flinging him sprawling to the ground. Lester helped him to his feet, once he stopped laughing riotously, and propelled him into a nearby seat.
"Thanks…" muttered Angus, a little embarrassed. He brightened up slightly. "So… how were your holidays?"
Tessa, who was untangling the mass of cords that snaked down from her headphones, shrugged. "Lazed around… saw some bands… parents declared war on each other… nothing unusual. You guys?"
"Summer camp" said Lili, looking bored. "Same one…"
Everyone frowned slightly. Everyone there knew that Lili had been going to the same summer camp since she was six…
"Uh… well…" said Angus, breaking the silence nervously. "More… ZARK stuff… conventions… that sorta thing."
"Uh-huh" said Tessa, nodding. She pointed at Lester. "What about you? Military camp, again?"
"Yep" said Lester, running his hands over his head. "Practically bald, once more… hey, listen: I found out some cool stuff at camp."
"What?" demanded Tessa, sarcastically. "Don't tell me: You learnt how to tie knots."
"Tell us, already!" said Angus, fidgeting slightly. The crowds parted slightly and Zoe Martinagrau drifted vaguely out, dragging a large, bright pink bag behind her. She said a dispirited 'Hi' and sat down… glumly.
The other four looked at her. "Are… you… OK, Zoe?" said Tessa, after a moments silence. Zoe looked up, quickly, almost guiltily. "No, no… no… it's nothing… go on, Lester…"
After another awkward silence, Lester shrugged. "An… organization, right? Or was it an institution: Well, get this: the government's got its own mental institution!"
"Uh, what's so surprising about that?" said Tessa, after a moment where Lester looked around, clearly expecting some kind of praise. "They're all over the countryside. I've been there, I've seen mental institutes befor-"
"No, no, no! I mean an organization! A mental organization! For psychics!" said Lester, in a sort of hissing whisper. "The Government actually believes in that spoon-bending crap! Can you believe that?"
"What?" exclaimed Angus, leaning forwards and pushing his glasses up his nose. "Of course they would take it seriously, there's been loads of documented evidence of psychic activity –"
"-it's a load of crap" said Tessa, dismissively, preparing to raise her headphones to her ears again. "There's no such thing as psychics – "
"I think the government is taking it pretty seriously for something that doesn't exist" said Angus, severely. "If they've gone and made an organization for them-"
"Yeah, I heard it was top-secret-"supplied Lester.
"Then how did you find out about it?" asked Tessa, raising an eyebrow. "If it's so secret, how did your boot-camp buddies find out about it?"
"Oh, one of the guys snuck into that 'radioactive zone' thing. Up at… what's it called? Lake-"
"Oblongata?" asked Lili, her face neutral.
"-yeah, right, and he saw a bunch of kids"
"-setting things on fire with their minds? Levitating?" asked Angus, eagerly. "I heard they can get into your heads, psychics – "
"-and he brought back this weird mineral thing, here, look, I traded some stuff for it…"
Lester held out his hands, palms up. On them rested a single stone arrowhead. "And it super-concentrates the mind or something, least that's what I felt-" he was saying as everyone craned for a better view. Even Zoe snapped out of her sullen mood to glance at the purple-pinkish carving.
Lili didn't bother. A single arrowhead wasn't that good a psychic amplifier, and if it started making people around here go crazy then she would be the first to know. Besides, most of the brain activity in the room was coming from the group of kids clustering around a tiny pebble of psitanium. Except…
A foreign mind reared out of the darkness. Lili clutched her hand to her forehead as a sharp, sudden mental link was established-
-lonely-
-and was cut, almost just a quickly. The darkness receded. The outsiders behind her were still arguing over psychics and not one of them seemed to have realized that their proof had just come and gone.
The mind hadn't been hostile, Lili decided as she sat back, one fingerless-glove clad hand still on her forehead. The sharp, stinging pain hadn't been from hostile intent, but a natural reaction from whenever someone attempted to establish a mental link with someone who wasn't ready for it. It had been, if anything…
…curious.
Around them, the lights dimmed. The crowd fell silent as the elderly principal climbed to his feet and welcomed one and all to another fine year at Demure Academy. Orientation had begun.
So, how was it? Reviews appreciated. This is my first fanfiction ever, despite being a long-time lurker here with an account, so... yeah. All characters mentioned so far are property of either Atrophy-Conception or Doublefine.