xp_logs | Haller and Maddie: Memory Work (backdated)

Maddie is introduced to one of the most important (and terrifying) parts of using her powers: altered memories and how to fix them.

Though the most central zone happened to be the most normal, "normal" was a relative term with mindscapes. Urban architecture dominated, but here and there the geography took on the craggy drops of Muir Island or the well-manicured look of mansion's grounds. The dissonant elements fused together with the smooth logic of a dream.

The streets were not wholly empty. Occasionally a suggestion of shape and movement appeared like a dimly-glimpsed reflection of in a lit window, echoes of past fragmentation. The mind's owner paid them no mind. Instead, he turned to his guest.

"Today," Jim said, "we're going to look at my morning."

A pair of green eyes stared up at him, calm and unblinking, in return. "Your morning," echoed Maddie sounding as though she had clearly heard her teacher yet still wished he had said something different. It was not that she was ungrateful for the chance to practice looking into his memories, she just didn't quite care about what Haller did in his free time. Although, if there was something that could top Multiple-Personality-Crime Fighting-Student Counselor, Maddie had to admit that would be interesting. But she doubted he held such secrets. Or that he would let her view them. So mundane it was.

She shrugged. "Well, let's get on with it, I suppose."

The counselor knelt down at the side of the road. "I did plan this lesson," he said, as if answering her unvoiced dubiousness. "I promise you won't see anything you can't unsee. Here we go . . ."

The man rose, bringing with him a chain. It was about the width of a utility chain, and clean despite its apparent origins from the gutter. Taking one end in each hand, he extended it to Maddie so she could inspect it.

"Memory structures are unique to each mind," he said. "Depending on the circumstances, their representations can be dictated by the subject or by yourself. The form it takes doesn't affect the memories. Since I'm in control I can show you a single, specific segment, but memories are contextual. It's not unusual to find yourself in a web, a mosaic, or anything with a lot of interconnected parts."

"I wasn't worried about that," was the redhead's reply as she grasped the chain in both hands, measuring its weight. "I just really don't care about what you do in your free time."

Maddie ran her finger along the metal links. The chain felt real; it was heavy in her hands, the links themselves were a type of metal, which was confirmed by the clinking sounds it made when she gave it a shake. "So, this is supposed to be a morning's worth of your memories?" She scratched at a particularly rusty link, and frowned slightly when nothing chipped away or rubbed onto her finger.

"What? Did you spend this morning oxidizing or something?"

"Sort of. I had the professor help me prepare." The counselor tapped the rusted metal. "This is an example of telepathic tampering. Method one: obscuring. Put your hand over the links and try to read the memory."

Maddie raised an eyebrow at him, as if to ask "Are you sure?" then sighed, closed her eyes, and rest her hands upon the rusty link.

She was inside the mansion, now, in one of the many similar looking hallways she traversed daily. Everything looked exactly the same as it always did, except from a higher viewpoint, now that she was inside Haller's mind. She knew, without looking, what he was wearing, and that Haller was on his way to his office. It was a walk they had both taken countless times before, just another morning.

Of course, because this was a lesson, something about the situation had to change. As she continued down the hall, the scene around her became hazy, like she had just stepped out of a hot shower into a steam filled bathroom. A blurry shape approached her, a person, though neither she nor Haller knew who. It stopped, and through the thick fog, Maddie could make out movement from the person before her, leading her to believe that they were having a conversation. But it was as if the fog had filled Haller's ears as the scene remained silent. Finally, the two bid farewell and parted ways. As soon as they had, the fog lifted, and her journey down the hallway commenced once more.

Figuring this was the end of the obscured memory Haller had wanted her to see, Maddie directed her mind to leave and return to the greenplace where the telepaths stood facing one another, the chain still clasped in their hands.

"So that memory," she asked, looking up at the man whose mind she had just been inside. "You don't remember who you spoke to or what you guys said? At all?"

Jim shook his head. "If I try, I think I get a vague sense of the gist. Said good morning, that kind of thing. But very little else." Again he tapped the damaged link. "If something happens and you need to fuzz out your identity, this is a good method. It doesn't compromise the integrity of the subject's memory so it's pretty unobtrusive, and with a little work you can focus the interference so you can convey information without necessarily letting them remember your face. For example, if you want to tell the cops something but don't want them to know who you are."

"What's going on here?" Maddie motioned to another irregularity in the chain's composition. There was a gap, with the missing link suspended below the chain, yet behaving as if it were still connected to its brethren. It was as if it were connected on either end by invisible thread, yet she could pass her hand through the empty space with no resistance. "Lemme guess, one memory replaced with another?"

"No. This is another method of detachment: severance. Try reading that one."

The scent of freshly brewed coffee was the first thing Maddie noticed about this new memory. Even though she couldn't drink the stuff, she loved the smell; it was warm, inviting. But that was not the only thing she saw. She was in a room she had never been in before (the teacher's lounge? she guessed, judging by the notes about Christmas break on the wall). She walked toward the coffee maker...

Then she was looking out the window, mug in hand, sipping the dark brew.

Maddie jerked back to reality. "What the-"

"With this method the subject remembers nothing," explained Jim. "When we refer to a simple wipe -- getting rid of a memory -- what we're actually doing is some variation of this. We simply drop it out of conscious access. The mind does it naturally with routine: you don't often bother remembering you passed every door in the hall, but you know you must have." He fingered the detached link, his expression carefully neutral. "This is what you use if you need to not be remembered. Or to have a fact or experience completely forgotten."

Nod. "So technically the memory between when I was going toward the coffeemaker and when I was at the window still exists in the mind, but we cut off access to it?" Her lips pursed and brow deeply furrowed as the younger telepath concentrated on answering her own question. "But if a telepath were to search your mind, they could still find it."

"Exactly." Jim dangled the chain in one hand and pointed to the floating link. "Each of these methods has pros and cons. A detached memory is more subtle because technically you've only displaced it, not tampered with it. A telepath won't notice unless they're looking for it, and it usually doesn't bother than subject. However, it's much easier to mend." He flicked a finger against the corroded link. "Now, a clouded memory is harder to repair, but easier to notice. The lack of detail can actually cause the subject to think about it harder, signaling where a telepath should look, and you can see it's obviously been compromised. As you get more experience and get familiar with what other telepaths 'feel' like you might even be able to identify who's done it. The more skilled the telepath the less obvious the damage might be, but either way both are findable."

"So rust is a fuzzy memory, that'll give you an idea of what happened but you can't remember details. And a dropped link is a memory that still exists but you can't remember when it comes to the chain of events." Maddie pointed to each example as she spoke before turning to the last of the three irregularities. A link had been completely removed. "So this one is a complete memory wipe? Where not even a telepath would be able to find?"

All expression drained from the counselor's face. "No, not a wipe. This is obliteration." He touched the end of the chain, right before the gap. "When you do this, the memory cannot be recovered."

Maddie brushed away the correction. "Same difference," she declared. "Important thing is memory go POOF. Like you go from waking up in your bed to holding a bloody knife with no memory of how you got there."

Jim shook his head. "Not the same difference. Read the memory."

She was in Professor Xavier's office, and he was wheeling himself out from behind the desk. There was the teacup she always used during their chats.

She was midway down the staircase. Haller felt fine, but inside his memory, Maddie was gritting her teeth, trying to fight the screaming headache that had appeared out of nowhere, while at the same time trying to breathe deeply to calm her racing heart. She closed her eyes, and gripped the stairway railing furiously.

Her hands were clinging to the utility chain, using it as a lifeline to keep from falling as her knees buckled beneath her.

"Oh G-d," she was breathing hard, her legs and arms were shaking from both the pressure she was putting on them and the reaction her body was having from the incredibly jarring memory. "Holy fuck. Dammit. Fuck. Shit. Fuuuuck."

A hand snaked under her elbow to support her, momentarily the broad, firm grip of Jack.

"It's okay," said Jim, his own face slightly grey. "That's the last one. I'm sorry to spring that on you, but it's important you feel the difference."

Finally, Maddie had calmed herself down enough that she could release the chain and pull herself upright. There were imprints on her hands of the chain, and her legs were still a little shaky, but her heart rate was slowing back down and the pain in her head had been reduced to feeling like an ice pick had been jammed into her skull.

"Okay, okay. Not 'same difference'. Totally different. Really really fuckin' different."

"Extremely fucking different." Jim removed the chain from her reach and let her steady herself for a moment before he continued.

"The sole advantage to obliteration is that the memory is unrecoverable. The disadvantage is that it's also the most obvious form of tampering -- something even the subject can notice if attention is drawn to it. Experience and identity aren't linear. Even if the memory is non-vital, you've basically chopped out a piece of the brain's architecture. The mind doesn't like that. Sometimes there are fragments left behind that you can reconstruct, but usually all you can do is aid the healing process. Clean the wound, apply sutures, hope the scar isn't too bad." He gave the chain at his side an idle swing before adding mildly, "Either way, I don't suggest doing it."

"Copy that loud and clear." She closed her eyes and massaged her left temple, but it did nothing to lessen the pain. "Fuck. That's like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre of memory tricks." Maddie slowly opened one eye and squinted up at her teacher.

"Good lesson. Same time next week?"

Jim smiled. "That wasn't the lesson," he said, and held the chain taut. Grasping the few links right before the gap, he pinched; the chain separated as if the links had been made of wet clay. He tossed the segment with the obliterated memory behind his back. It vanished before it hit the ground.

The rest of the chain, and its two compromised memories, he tossed to Maddie.

"Okay," he said as he brought a lighter to the cigarette in his lips, neither of which had existed a moment ago, "Fix it."

"You're fucking kidding me," she asked as her eyes open wide with surprise as the chain was tossed her way. The order had caught her off guard, and Maddie fumbled awkwardly for several moments before managed to get a good grip on Haller's memories.

Suddenly, the wooziness and stabbing brain pain seemed like the least of her worries.

"Let me get this straight." Maddie glowered at Haller as she moved toward him. "You show me what happens when you obliterate a memory, be it caused by accident or an intentional thing, and tell me not to do that and then hand me your memories and tell me to go to town and fix them, just like that.

"Are you out of your freaking mind?" Her voice began to rise. "That's like saying 'don't think about an elephant'. Of course I'm going to think of the fucking elephant and how if I screw up I basically mentally castrate you!"

"You won't," Jim replied. He pocketed the lighter and began to tick off points on his fingers. "One: Complete destruction is also more difficult than you'd think, even on a non-psi. I have defenses. There's no way you'd be able to get that far with me watching you. Two: Even if some fluke happens, you can't do anything the professor can't repair, and you only have access to a very limited area. It's not like those two hours of my life were important to begin with. And three: The only way you learn is by doing. I'd rather you do it under controlled circumstances than in the moment."

He didn't blame her for being nervous. It was a daunting thing to be thrown into, but it was the classic "learn it at home or learn it on the street" issue. He took the cigarette from his lips and looked at her with his odd-colored eyes, tone lighter. "Anyway, I didn't have a teacher when I started. Trust me. My brain has survived its fair share of mistakes. Besides . . ." he smiled and gestured over his shoulder into the distance, where a black dome was barely visible above the buildings, "I keep everything important in there."

Maddie retreated a few steps, and continued examining the chain in her hands. She pulled on it, testing the strength of the links, bit one link with her molars and wondered how Haller had managed to break the chain, because the entire thing seemed pretty solid. She was also stalling in order to give herself time to think everything over. Usually she was good at puzzles; cryptograms, word searches, those questions about how to cross a lake with a lion, an elephant and a mouse. Hell, she was the "Where's Waldo" champion back in the day. But this? This was a completely different beast.

"I don't know what to do," she admitted with a shrug and held the chain out in Haller's direction. "I can't even figure out where to begin."

"Start with the detached link," Jim suggested. "Don't overthink it. Let's look at this visually for a moment. You see a chain with a link that's come off, and you need to reconnect it. What's your first instinct? Don't worry about physics or strength. Just the first random thing that comes to mind."

Maddie sighed. "Look for where the breaks were for the link to have come detached then widening them to create a gap where the link can be slipped back into place then closing the gaps and rejoining the broken parts and securing them, probably with duct tape or super glue 'cause I can't sodder, so it doesn't break there again."

Jim nodded. "Good. So -- why can't you do that?"

She shot him a look and deadpanned, "Because the links are solid." The dumbass was left implied.

The counselor shook his head. "No. They can't be solid because they don't exist."

Jim held up his cigarette. "Remember, this isn't reality. We can do anything here. Manifest whatever we want, translate abstract concepts into a language we can understand -- like the chain." He closed his hand around the cigarette, then opened it; it was empty. "Don't mistake the representation for the thing itself." He smiled. "If tools are what you need, just create them. Remember, we're telepaths. There is no wrong way to do anything. Our only limit is our imagination."

"Fine." That little speech did little to calm her nerves. It wasn't like this chain was something she thought up herself, that would make sense for her to manipulate it. The link was dangling in thin air, she could move her hand through the space with no resistance. How was she supposed to separate something that was already separated?

Maddie sighed, turned the chain upside down, grasped the free link in her hand, and gave it a strong tug. Nothing. She tugged again. Still no change. She lowered the chain ends to the ground, placed one foot on each side, and strained to pull up the detached link.

"Dammit." She threw the chain to the ground and kicked it away. "You can't detach something that's not connected! There's nothing to disconnect! It's just... there."

"That's what a telepath does," Jim explained. He held out a hand; the chain reappeared, dangling in his grasp. "We can work changes in people -- affect how they think and what they remember. But remember, the mind wants to be whole. That's why you see these memories represented as a chain, something with logic and structure. Once you understand the subject's personal language you can start working out how to restore order."

Once more, Jim tossed the chain back to her. "Relax, Maddie. Joking aside, this is just about getting comfortable with things and seeing what you can do. I have twenty years and a lot of mistakes on you. Don't stress." He smiled. "Just think Thich Nhat Hanh. We have to be ready to release our knowledge in order to come to a higher understanding of reality."

The sigh as Maddie grasped the chain once more was unlike her previous sighs of exasperation, but one of letting go. She stretched her neck and rolled her shoulders, releasing the tension she hadn't noticed was stored there. "We become what we think," she murmured, pulling the chain through her hands until she reached the missing link.

Eyes closed, Maddie took a deep cleansing breath as she prepared herself to tackle the problem of the dropped link once more. "We become what we think," she repeated. It was not the full saying, she forgot the rest of it, and she was likely taking it out of context but it felt right in this situation. "We become what we think." She conjured up the the image of the chain and imagined its dropped link prying open and settling back into place, its ends melding back together.

What was it. That was what she had to do. Just like fixing a link in a necklace. There was nothing keeping the link in the memory chain suspended, except for her thinking it was. It was just like anything else in the astral plane: anything she could think of she could create. She would break the link and reattach it. With renewed fortitude, Maddie opened her eyes once more, ready to tackle the seemingly impossible task before her.

But there was nothing to fix. "How...?" Maddie ran her hand over the chain; she couldn't figure out which link it was that had previously been suspended, that portion of the chain was flawless. She held it up close, scrutinizing every inch of the memories, looking for a tell of where it had been tampered with. "It's fixed?"

"Dammit!" She stamped her foot in frustration. "I don't even know what I did? Wait," her gaze shifted back to the man nearby. "I did fix it, right?"

Jim smiled. "Take a look."

The memory from the teacher's lounge replayed without Maddie's coaxing. The lead-in was identical, but now there were an additional few seconds. She opened the overhead cupboard to select a mug, automatically bypassing the one nearest her hand due to water-spotting. Choice made, she removed the pot from the cradle and poured herself a cup. Stifling a yawn, she moved to the window, mug in hand, and took a sip of the dark brew.

"The hardest part about telepathy is learning our limits -- or rather, accepting our relative lack of them," the counselor said as the sequence concluded. "I'm not saying there aren't rules. Stamina and power do count, especially if you're working against someone very experienced. Knowing what to look for is important. So is realizing when a method is doing more harm than good. But like I said, this isn't like the physical world. Here, will is power -- if you know how to use it."

"If you will it, it will come?" Maddie turned the chain over in her hands some more. It was beginning to make sense, this whole altering the mind thing. At the same time, she had never been so confused. It totally didn't make any sense, and the more she thought about it, the more her head spun. This chain had been made for her this time, but what about when she was the one actually altering the memories in the first place?

"This seriously makes, like, zero sense."

"Not normal sense," Jim admitted. "You'll reach your own understanding eventually. Until then Jean or the professor might be able to explain it better." Or even Betsy, although he suspected Betsy instructing Maddie on the use of telepathy might some day bring about a small apocalypse.

"Now, what about the last one?" he continued, resisting the oncoming shudder of the preceding thought. He pointed to the corroded link. "Same principle, but different application. Any ideas on how to repair it?"

Maddie sat cross-legged on the ground, scratching at the rust's surface. Rust that wasn't rust. It represented an obscuring in the mind, so perhaps all it needed was a good polishing. "Steel wool," she muttered under her breath. All she needed to do was concentrate on it materializing, and it would. This time, however, she was not going to close her eyes; she was curious as to how it would appear, honestly. Would it be all at once or gradual?

While she was pondering this eternal question, Maddie noticed the itching in her left hand. Without needing to look down and confirm, she knew it was a ball of steel fibers. It was time to get to work.

The sound of metal scratching metal made the redhead cringe and shudder as she continued to scrub at the chain's surface. "Out damn spot," she murmured as the intensity of her scrubbing increased. But no matter how hard she tried, the rust remain unaltered. And her hand was beginning to cramp.

"I can't figure it out." She set the chain and wool on the ground and massaged her flexed hand to relieve the cramping. "I think about obscuring and I want to... give it a good polish. Like tarnished silver. Or wipe it clean like a window. But I'm doing it wrong." Maddie sighed and gave the chain a forlorn glance. "But I don't know what's wrong with what I'm doing."

"You're still testing your methods." At some point Jim had transitioned to a seated position, legs crossed indian-style as he watched her from the ground. He pointed to the steel wool. "This way, direct effort, isn't working. But I bet you're closer than you think. You don't use steel wool on windows or silver. It's too harsh. You use a different method on those."

Maddie continued to stare dejectedly at the chain, running her fingers through her hair and scratching her head, perplexed. Ideas were going round and round in her head, and they just kept right on going round. She had no idea how long they had been at this but it felt like several hours to her, and she was definitely having trouble concentrating. That dull twinge of pain was forming, where it always did, right behind her eyes, and she knew that if she kept trying to push herself then it would develop into a full-blown migraine.

"Can we stop for the day," she asked, looking up at Haller with pleading puppy dog eyes. "I need to rest my brain; I can't even think any more. Just until tomorrow?"

Jim studied her. He'd thrown her into the deep end, he'd known that, and this was more than just mentally taxing -- she was exerting her power in a way she never had before, and like any untried muscle she'd need practice to acquire stamina. He sometimes forgot that. With a quick smile at Maddie, he rose to his feet.

"Okay. I guess I can give you a reprieve. You did very well for your first time." The counselor raised his hands to her. In reality the right bore fading burn scars. None were present here. Instead, both hands were crisscrossed with dozens of old scars, thin as the blade of a razor. "The first memories I worked with were like glass," he explained, smile turning wry. "Having a lot of time on your hands and a slow learning curve is a bad combination. Trust me, you're doing better than you think."

Maddie yearned to ask him what he meant (well, she knew what he meant, she could see where sharp shards of glass had cut him, but she didn't know how or why or what led up to that), but she didn't dare; if Haller had wanted her to know more, she figured he would have told her more. The scars did make her thankful that all she had to show from her first efforts was some redness on her hands, and that would go away. But doing better than Maddie thought she was? Probably not. Even though she knew it was completely untrue and he was probably only saying as much to keep her from losing hope (come on, she knew how much she sucked at this; nothing made any sense), she still returned Haller's smile.

"Thanks," she replied as she rose to her feet. "Maybe one day I will eventually get the hang of this stuff. At least, you know, enough to keep me from accidentally landing someone in a permanent vegetative state."