Tales of MU

In Which The Contents Of Mackenzie’s Floordrobe Are Laid Bare

You know that kind of dream where you’re called up to give a book report or take an oral exam or something and you realize that not only did you forget to prepare, you forgot to get dressed so you’re standing there either buck naked or in the most embarrassing underwear that you own?

I didn’t have that dream Saturday night.

But having some sort of ridiculous owl-turtle thing tilting its head the way only something that’s at least fifty percent owl by volume can while you flounder around trying to explain what’s been going on in your life lately and why you suddenly need its help with something else feels remarkably similar.

The owl-turtle thing had once explained that the dreams that most kinds of people have are just random mishmashes, fleeting jumbles of images and lingering emotions that their conscious brain has to work to turn into a slightly more coherent and orderly mishmash. If that was true, then it seemed possible that the naked-in-front-of-the-class dream was the brain trying to make sense of a burning feeling of humiliation or inadequacy for a task.

In this dream that wasn’t a normal dream, being interrogated by a creature dreamed up by a mind far more coherent and orderly than mine, I didn’t need to construct a separate scenario to explain that feeling.

“Let’s start at the beginning, because I want to make sure I’ve got this right,” the owl-turtle thing said.

“I thought you just pulled knowledge out of my memories,” I said.

“It’s more like seeping in than being pulled,” it said. “And I don’t know everything you know… I might know anything you know, but I don’t know everything. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I guess I kind of knew that.”

“Right,” it said. “You know that, but you weren’t remembering it until it was called to mind… and that right there is why I don’t know everything you know. You don’t know everything you know. Minds aren’t open books, and they’re not filing cabinets. They’re more like… like the floor of your room would be if you didn’t live with Amaranth. Sure, you’d have a general idea where to lay your hands on anything that you happened to need, but you wouldn’t be able to rattle off an inventory of everything or name its location, and sometimes things would go completely missing or you would move aside a discarded pizza box and suddenly find a comic book you had completely forgotten exists.”

“Hey, I lived by myself all summer,” I said.

“It was All-New Mecknights Special #3.”

“It was a busy summer!” I said. “And it wasn’t really a discarded pizza box if I hadn’t thrown it away yet, was it?”

“Touché. I guess you win this round,” it said. “But let’s start with the part where everyone except you knew that your Glamour and Design Building was alive, there was a negative interaction between its psychic spirit and your infernally-charged mind, you used Amaranth’s status as a fellow embodied spirit to broker peace and you’re using a psychic filter to attend classes while you learn to shield yourself better so it doesn’t happen again and you need me to help you get the walls up while you’re awake.”

“Um… it sounds like you’ve got it, actually,” I said.

“Yeah, it kind of… arrived,” it said. “I think I’m caught up now. Sheesh, and you think my existence is ridiculous.”

“Two thinks you’re ridiculous,” I said. “And since you’re her thought, that’s how I see you… kind of like how she didn’t like you, so I have a hard time doing so.”

“Whereas I’m forced to dislike you on your own merits,” it said.

The guest in my head had been literally dreamed up by Two. As a living golem, Two was capable of dreaming, but as with everything that didn’t come with directions she’d been worried that she wasn’t doing it right. So she’d asked her friend Hazel what people dreamed about and was told that it’s weird stuff that’s not quite one thing and not quite another, “like some sort of ridiculous owl-turtle thing”. Taking things as literal directions was pretty much the path of least resistance for Two, so she’d done exactly that.

The brain in Two’s skull was a pretty close replica of the human model, but the mind it housed was different… more structured, as I understood it. Not simple in the sense that people mean it when they call someone simple-minded, but… simplified. The living thing that she’d created was still a dream, but it had a stability that most dreams lacked. It had a discrete existence of its own.

The owl-turtle thing had jumped into Dee’s head using her telepathy, and had learned to use her powers to ride into other heads if they were asleep at the same time that she was.

“The place where I’m still a little hazy,” it continued, “is where your priorities are. Am I helping you defend against your father’s nocturnal intrusions, or trying to help you coexist with this building?”

“I was hoping you could do both,” I said. “I mean, you were helping establish the pattern for mental shielding in my mind before you disappeared on your not-at-all-suspicious business for a week. It seems like that’s the solution to both problems. All that’s changed is that now I need it sooner rather than later. I think your concerns about messing around in my psyche on a school night might have to be set aside for a while.”

“Right, because when the demon that sired you is creeping around for unknown reasons it’s alright to dawdle, but when your class schedule is at risk it’s time to get serious.”

“Hey, you were the one who wanted to dawdle,” I said. “I’d rather risk a little less-than-restful sleep now at the beginning of the semester than have to play catch-up later on. Anyway, it’s not that the new reason is more important than the old one… it’s that suddenly there are two reasons instead of just one. And also, the second reason is time-sensitive… I mean, the first one is an ‘at any moment’ kind of thing, but it’s hard to plan around those.”

The owl-turtle thing gave its… flipper-wing things… a slow flap, almost like a shrug.

“Okay, kid, look,” it said. “The thing is, you’re really not just asking for the same thing only quicker. Unless you’re planning on sleeping through class every day, the walls we’ve been building aren’t going to be going there with you anyway.”

“You suggested it was possible for me to learn to hold on to them when I’m awake,” I said.

“Possible, yes,” it said. “Easy? No. And not even strictly necessary, when you were just looking to keep out nocturnal visitors. There’s a whole other set of skills… a very different style of thing… that you’ll need to master to hold onto the shields when you’re going about your day, when your conscious mind is engaging with and being engaged by things all around you.”

“So give them to me,” I said.

“Oh, she don’t ask for much, does she?” the owl-turtle thing said. “These skills took Dee years to master. And while I can get the patterns from her… well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t have a lot of experience with the waking world. Trying to translate them into your mind is going to involve a bit of… trial and error.”

“What’s the worst that can happen?” I asked.

“Well, we’re doing something that no one in the history of anything ever has attempted before, so literally no one knows,” it said.

“If somebody… shields wrong… that just means they’re not shielding, right?” I said. “Or that they are but it’s easy to get past. I mean, ask Dee if she’s ever heard of anyone being hurt in a horrible mental-shielding accident.”

“Maybe the reason she hasn’t is that normally, people learn to do these things slowly and properly,” it said.

“We’re talking about a basic technique!”

“Oh, a thousand pardons, madame,” it said. “I didn’t realize you were an expert in the subtle arts.”

“If you’re going to say no, just say no,” I said. “I don’t want to drop this class… I like it, and it will be a hassle to find something else that fulfills the requirement and doesn’t take me into the Emily Center, but if I can’t get a functional shield in place in a couple of weeks then I need to know now so I don’t waste any more time.”

“You understand, I can’t guarantee anything,” it said. “I have literally no idea how long this will take, or if it will even work. I have no idea what the effect of interrupting your normal dreaming every night for two weeks will be. And not that you care, but I’d be putting some of my own projects on hold in the meantime.”

“I thought I was your project,” I said

“I have other interests, I thought I’d made that clear,” it said. “And I’m not saying yes yet. There are going to be some conditions.”

“Name them.”

The owl-turtle thing wasn’t the sort of entity that could bind a pact, but I’d learned it can be a mistake to say something like okay, what? when someone says they have conditions… it can be construed as an agreement.

“First, we do it my way,” it said. “And my way involves spending the first several nights… possibly the first week… testing the waters.”

“A whole week?” I said. “Did you miss the part where that’s the thing that I only have two of to show results?”

“Hey, things might go faster the second week if I know what I’m doing,” it said. “We proceed with caution. Because if you wake up catatonic or go round the bend due to my interference, Dee’s going to stop cooperating with my housecalls and go back to looking for a way to contain or destroy me. And also, separately, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“And you won’t help me at all if I don’t agree to this?”

“Yes,” it said. “That’s my first condition.”

“What are the others?”

“Only one,” it said. “I might need to call on you to do a little research for me, sometime in the near future… I can’t exactly go to the library and check out a book, and there are some topics about which I have a burning curiosity. You like killing time there anyway, so my condition is this: when I need information about something, you go and get it.”

“You keep reminding me that you’re a unique phenomenon,” I said. “What exactly do you think we’ll be able to learn from the library that’s going to help you?”

“I have interests beyond my own existence,” it said.

“How often do you propose to do this?” I asked.

“As often as I need to, as long as we’re associating with each other,” it said. “This is what you might call a modification to our ongoing relationship. I’m already helping you out a lot, I’m just asking that you help me out a little in return. I’ll give you your first assignments when the two weeks are up… I won’t have time to perch around picking your brain before then. Also, there’s something to be said for taking on one thing at a time, when you have the option.”

“Assignments? Plural?”

“Yes… just like interests, plural,” it said. “If it’s any consolation, some of it might be helpful to me helping you.”

“Like what?”

“Information about your father. You know he’s been in the area a long time, that man from Law told you as much. Don’t you think he might have left his mark somewhere?”

“The goal is to have less to do with him, not more,” I said. “Why are you always so interested in finding out more about him?”

“I think it’s wrong to underestimate him,” the owl-turtle thing said. “We’ve managed to stymie him a little, between the two of us. That’s good, but don’t you wonder what else he might be capable of if he’s shut out completely?”

“Please… the man is a coward,” I said. “If he was capable of more than sneaking around in my head at night, he’d be doing that instead.”

“Are you forgetting that he’s managed to tamper with things in your room before?”

I had forgotten about that, until the owl-turtle thing mentioned it… it had been a total comic under a pizza box for me. He’d been harassing me in my dreams for so long that I forgot the time he’d somehow dosed my stash of decadent bath stuff while I slept with something to bring out the worst in me.

“Okay, but that’s still just sneaking around,” I said.

“Think about the damage he did,” he said. “Think about how much worse it could have been. Think about the fact that if things had gone a little differently you might have been kicked out of school, since your academic career seems to be your only real impetus to action. Anyway, you’ve heard my conditions. If you agree, you’re going to be doing some research on… among other things… your father. So what’s it going to be?”

“Are you going to tell me what else you want me to look up for you?”

“When I know what it is,” it said. “Ongoing relationship, remember? I won’t know exactly what I’m looking for without some initial research. Anyway: yes or no?”

“Do you need an answer tonight?” I asked.

“No,” it said. “I’ll need to return to Dee’s mind to get a few things before we start. In fact, I think I’ll need a long conversation with her, so it wouldn’t even be tomorrow night.”

“Call it a provisional yes, then,” I said. “I’ll want to talk to her, too… and Amaranth, but probably it’ll be yes. I can’t exactly go to anyone else.”

“You sound so grudging about it,” it said. “I’m not asking you to do anything you don’t like to do anyway.”

“I don’t like thinking about my father,” I said.

“Think of it this way: there are worse ways to find out what he’s capable of.”

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Characters: Mackenzie, Some Sort Of Ridiculous Owl Turtle Thing