Spliced

Bambi watched as Stella disappeared into her bedroom, a place she would not emerge from for several days. Stella would not sleep so much as she would enter into a form of low energy trance, a kind of hibernation almost. While in this trance she would explore at rapid speed the paths that the future could take and when she awoke she would be calm and clear-headed.

Murphy was waiting for Bambi when she left the building.

“I thought you had somewhere to be?”

He shook his head and kicked off the wall to join her on her walk. “I was just avoiding meeting Gabriel. I can’t get too close to him. It’s not safe.

Bambi slowed down her pace slightly. “He read your mind?”

“Something like that. It didn’t go so well.”

She gave him a sideways glance unsure if he meant for Gabriel or himself. She didn’t really want to know. She tried to stay out of his head. Instead she fanned out, searching in every other head in the vicinity for those who had seen which direction Gabriel had gone.

“You promised Stella you’d leave him alone. The Bambi I know always keeps her promises.”

“No, I told Stella I wouldn’t touch him or mindwalk him.”

“There are other options, but none that end well. Trust me, he’ll get what’s coming to him but it won’t be by us, and it won’t be yet, not for quite some time.”

“You didn’t see what he was about to do to her.”

“I know what he was he was doing, what he’s done, but you still can’t touch him, in the non-literal definition of the word.”

“Why is he so important?”

“He’s not but it works out better this way, trust me.”

“You’re an arse.”

“Noted. Leave Gabriel alone.”

She spun to face Murphy and the pair of them stood there in the street staring at each other. “I don’t get what this next task is meant to accomplish.”

“You could read my mind if you want to know.”

Bambi shook her head and started walking again. She wouldn’t, not that deep. When it came to Murphy, some things she didn’t want to know.

Murphy waited and then jogged a short way to catch up. “Sometimes you do you know.”

“Do I?” Bambi gave him a doubtful look.

Murphy replied with a dashing smile and a secretive glint in his eye.

“You mean the other Bambi’s?”

“You know, you’re my favorite Bambi.”

Bambi glanced at him again and immediately regretted it. That darn smile. “I bet you say that to all the girls,” she replied dryly, but once again he had managed to completely disarm her. Pushing aside her own icky feelings about all the alternate realities and timelines she dipped into his mind, just a little way and she could see how he wanted it to be, the world that is. She could see the things he wanted to avoid, and that was enough for her to trust him. But then she made the mistake of going just a little further.

“You slept with her?!”

“Amanda?” he replied. At her look he continued. “Oh, yes, but that was a lifetime ago, another world, one in which Sirius died. It’s important that never happens by the way. It’s not good for anyone. His dying.”

Bambi sighed. It had been a lifetime ago, several in fact. She could see that just like she could see how much she featured across all his lives. She pulled herself back out of his thoughts. The idea of other versions of her that she had no experience of being wigged her out. Their relationship was not a normal one, that was obvious. She knew he hadn’t lived every life with her, just as she didn’t spend every hot and steamy night she had with him. Of course, with her schedule she didn’t find much time for dating so most of her dalliances were bought and paid for at a discrete fancy little club in Mercy. Given her tastes, it also made finding a compatible partner a hell of a lot easier in addition to removing any chance of an awkward morning after. She liked the no strings attached. Except for Murphy. Murphy was a giant tangled ball of yarn, and she was caught up in him like a newborn kitten. Despite everything she still loved him and he loved her, and he had for quite some time, a lot more than several lifetimes. So she skipped over the small issue of sex with another woman to something far more important.

“Why didn’t you make her a guardian?”

Murphy started rapidly shaking his head. “I did. Once, maybe twice. Bad idea. Very very bad idea. I get the reason the sorcerers have their tests you know. The first rule of the guardian’s is non-interference. We do only that which is absolutely necessary.”

“That’s bullshit and you and I both know it.”

“Okay, look, I’ll admit sometimes I get a little bored or I take a break, but my goal is and has always been the preservation of this world.”

“You said she was a descendant of the original guardians? The ones who split the world. So surely-”

“What? No I didn’t.”

“You said it just the other day. It’s why we need her blood.”

Murphy looked baffled.

“For the spell.”

“What? No...”

She paused in her walking and put her hands on her hips. “When did you last jump?”

Murphy checked his watch. “About an hour ago.”

Bambi let that sink into her own brain for a moment before she started walking again. “And our meeting at that bar in Mercy was how long ago for you?”

“Um, awhile.”

Against her better judgement Bambi read his mind to find out how long ‘awhile’ was. The answer was longer than she’d been expecting.

“So she’s not a descendant of the guardians and we don’t need her blood?”

“No, we still do, and I don’t know, she might be, or she might not be. I got some bad info from a guy. Them back alley places you know. The guy actually turned out to be a great stand-up comedian though and not too bad at karaoke.” He shot her a smile. “Either way, whether she is or she isn’t doesn’t matter. She’s powerful and she’s not a sorcerer so it works out well. Plus there’s the matter of Lily.”

“So the plan hasn’t changed?”

“No, well, there’s a few kinks I still need to work out, my guy wasn’t wrong about everything, but it’ll be fine. And powerful or not, no matter how young that woman gets recruited she makes for a terrible guardian.”

“How young? You didn’t?”

“I didn’t,” he confirmed. “I can’t. She’s almost our age. I’d be a kid, limited memories then.” He paused. “Anyway, I haven’t been back that far in quite some time. It’s more that I don’t think people really change their spots too much you know. I mean some things do but some things really don’t. She cares too much about her family and she always will.”

Bambi frowned, thoughts going to her own two college aged kids. “I care about my family.”

Murphy shook his head. “Not like that. It’s different and better this way. Trust me.”

“I don’t know how you expect us to trust you when you can’t even remember a few days ago let alone...” she trailed off with a sigh.

Murphy turned around and started walking backwards in front of her. He gave her the full physical with his eyes, taking his time like he was looking at something he never wanted to forget. “You were wearing that sexy pantsuit. After we talked we went out for breakfast. I ordered bacon and eggs with extra of both. You said you weren’t that hungry. You ordered a long black and then when the food arrived you ate two of my eggs, one strip of bacon, and half a slice of my toast.”

“I’m always wearing a pantsuit,” Bambi replied but she couldn’t help the smile creeping up on to her face.

“And you always eat my eggs. I believe I also compared you to a dog.”

Bambi gave a laugh. “You did,” she agreed.

“See, I don’t forget the important stuff.” He spun around so he was walking beside her again. “I didn’t remember the blood thing because it turns out it’s not actually that important. I mean the blood is, but not the related to the original original guardians bit.” He waved a hand absently then he stopped walking.

She stopped and looked at him. “You really are an arse,” she told him with a smile.

He smiled back. “I know.” Then he nodded at the building they’d stopped in front of. “Don’t mess up.”

With another, this time cockier, smile she replied, “When do I ever mess up?” She watched him walk backwards off down the street for a bit. He was grinning the whole way doing that thing with his eyes again. Then she turned back toward the building beside her.

They had passed by the front of the hospital some time ago. This was a side entrance usually reserved for police and professionals of a similar ilk. The sign by the single-sized back door simply read ‘Morgue.’

Bambi pushed her way inside. The front desk was empty so after putting on a pair of gloves she leaned over and shifted through some papers hoping to find a roster.

“Can I help you?” a female voice asked a few minutes later.

She turned to face a tall youngish looking girl with mousy dark blonde hair. The girl was wearing blue scrubs and gloves. Her hair was tied back in a low ponytail. She had a pretty face but a sullen sort of look to her.

Bambi entered her mind.

Her name was Ursula Dred and she was an empath. That was unfortunate. Empath minds were always a little harder to make alterations to. They tended to focus more heavily on how things felt rather than just what they thought. Bambi could change thoughts and the mind’s interpretations of what it felt but she could not alter feeling itself. A memory of a strong enough feeling was almost impossible to erase completely. The trick was to make sure that every feeling had a reason for it. The problem was that Bambi could not read what a person actually felt, only what they thought they felt if they thought consciously about it at all. If a person felt emotions that they themselves could not identify or did not at the time consider then they would be beyond Bambi’s ability to even notice them. But not being able to identify them didn’t mean they wouldn’t be able to later and if inconsistencies were noticed then the person might start to pick at their memories a little closer. For the most part regular people tended to brush small inconsistencies off but to empaths, emotions were far more important, and small inconsistencies had a much greater impact.

So what was this girl likely feeling?

Bambi could not read an emotional assessment in her mind so she had to guess. Likely there was some curiosity given the girl’s thoughts. ‘Who was this person? Why were they reading the papers on the desk?’ Perhaps there was some suspicion? For a regular person Bambi could have wiped herself from their thoughts completely and they wouldn’t have thought much of it but an empath would notice the nuance between curiosity about a sound that turned out to be nothing versus how they might feel if they actually saw a person. So instead of removing herself Bambi altered what she looked like and since she didn’t want Ursula to remember her reaching over the desk and searching through papers, Bambi also made the new version of herself a little more suspicious looking in itself but nothing too outlandish or off putting.

The person in the girl’s mind would ask a simple question. They were looking for someone, a relative. They’d been told to come here by mistake.

The question Bambi actually asked was, “Who’s on duty Thursday night?” She waited for Ursula to think of her answer before swapping it with the fake question.

Before she’d even considered opening her mouth to reply Bambi was already reading through other parts of her mind, getting to know her better. Learning what her typical responses were along with any other useful information. She lived in the suburbs to the south. She owned four cats, all rescues. She liked reading fantasy stories and making cosplay outfits of the characters. She lived alone but had recently gone on a date with a lovely fellow who worked as a vet’s assistant but she kept putting off calling the guy back, even though she liked him and he’d already left a message about going to the movies. She often worked nights. She didn’t really like people. The emotions of even small crowds overwhelmed her because she was not a very good empath.That last piece of information was a very useful thing for Bambi to know. It meant she didn’t need to be quite so careful. She would be anyway but it did help her relax which meant this Ursula would also be a little more relaxed and less on edge. Her empath abilities would likely still pick up some of Bambi’s emotions but a large part of going through sorcery school was learning to suppress things like that. Perfect for the rest of this plan because the next bit was quite difficult.

Since Ursula was the one who was going to be on duty, Bambi could enact the entire plan here. Given what Bambi needed Ursula to do was also to occur here, this was very good thing. Making people do things was relatively easy for Bambi. Making them do them at some point in the future, a little less so.

Want someone to hold the door open? Easy. Have them give her their seat on public transport? No problem. Make them walk out the 10th floor window of a building or shoot their boss? Piece of cake. It wasn’t so much the now that mattered. It was the in between. Making someone do something at some point in the future was all fine and dandy if they could walk around like a zombie until then. It did get harder the further ahead the thing was but the really really difficult thing was to make them do something in the future but act completely normal and not remember anything until then. This was known as priming and it usually required a trigger. In Bambi’s case, since she wouldn’t be there, she needed things in the event to be the trigger themselves. This was much easier when one knew how the event would play out which thanks to Murphy, Bambi did.

Bambi spoke aloud what she wanted the girl to do in addition to manipulating and priming her mind. The hearing of the instructions sometimes helped cement them in the brain.

“On Thursday night a red-headed woman is going to come in here and ask to see a body.” Bambi inserted the person Ursula would see into her thoughts, stashed away in a corner which would be accessed only once the woman was seen. “You are going to take her to the body and then you are going to leave her alone and not return no matter what you hear. You will not see her for the rest of the night because you will not feel very well so you will go home early. When you next come in for work you won’t remember anyone ever being here on Thursday night and you will remember that you finished your shift only a few minutes shy of home time. And you are going to call that boy back and go to the movies with him. Understand?” The question also helped cement the actions in the mind.

Ursula nodded.

“Good. Now I am going to leave. As the door swings shut you will remember having sent a man who was looking for someone on his way and no more than that until you see the red-headed woman in this room. Now, thank you for your help.” Bambi twisted the girl’s thoughts, compressed and altered them, packaged them up until they looked smooth and normal, untouched unless one dug really deep. Bambi didn’t not expect any other mindwalker to search around in Ursula’s thoughts but she left nothing to chance. Only a really good sorcerer would find any trace of her here and only if they knew where to look first. No one would. To most of the world, Bambi Smith did not exist.