Issue 1 Downtime

McDohl was sitting alone at one of the restaurants in China town. Things had been well for her the last few days, nothing really exciting, just kinda there, nothing could really beat the time she had on her birthday with Cal. Taking a sip of her tea, she looked at some of the other customers.

Eventually the waitress stepped up to Sara's table. "Can I bring you anything else?"

"No, I'll just be going." She said softly, standing from the table.

The waitress nods. "Let me get your bill then."

"I already paid though..", she said softly, concentrating her will onto the unsuspecting waitress, implanting memories of Sara paying with cash, and receiving change.

The waitress blinks and shakes her head. "O-of course. I am so sorry. Have a nice day, Miss." she smiles apologetically.

"Don't worry about it, miss. Enjoy the rest of your day.." She said with a smile, moving toward the door. "Way too easy..", she thought to herself.

While Sara was walking towards the door a woman at one of the other tables perked up as she noticed the manipulations of the waitresses memory. It only took her a moment to trace it to the young woman and, a little behind her, followed her out the door. Meanwhile the restaurant staff was slowly forgetting the woman had ever been there to begin with.

After about half a block the middle-aged woman caught up to Sara and stood next to her as they waited at a pedestrian light.

"That was quite impressive for someone as young as you." she mind-speaks to her, still not actually looking at Sara.

"I'm not sure what you are talking about..", she mind spoke back, watching the traffic go by.

"Not usually one to be complimented for my actions is all..", she continued, looking over to the women.

"Not like that one was hard to put together.., but yes, under direct supervision of Samantha McManus for my unruly behavior.", she says in a rather sarcastic tone.

There's a short pause while Melpomene looks for a bit of clarification on that in Sara's surface thoughts.

"My my, I think you may have hit a bit of a sore spot there for Sammy. No wonder she has it out for you."

"Promise? Ms. Melpomene, I don't think I have much of that, to be honest. I've been screwing up everything from the beginning...", she says kinda mocking McManus in a way.

Another voice chimes into the conversation, "Being such the bad girl that she is, encouragement is not something that happens often..mostly just disappointment..", said the voice, as McDohl's eyes swirled for a moment. "Even my boyfriend disapproves of my actions.."

"Poor girl. Shouldn't a boyfriend like you for who you are?" she asks with a convincing attempt at compassion while she tries to isolate where in Sara's head that new voice had come from.

"You'd think that, but all I feel when I tell him about my exploits is sadness...like I'm not good enough..", she continued, her mind instinctively trying to prevent itself from being exposed.

It would probably be little effort for Mel to find what she is looking for anyway, but for now she's happy to wait for a better opportunity. No need to spook Sara at this time.

"Don't let their attitudes delude you into thinking you're not good enough. You're not as good as you could be, but do you really think Samantha or a non-telepath should be the judge of that? You have a gift and a rather peculiar one at that. In time I am certain you could convince most people of that."

"I could probably convince them all, just to be honest..", she said with a sly smile. "I want to prove myself..", she added, looking Mel directly in the eye.

"Prove yourself to whom?" she asks, looking largely disinterested towards what is going on in the physical world right now.

"Everyone..", she said, her face taking on a stern look. "I just don't know how.."

"Everyone?" Mel chuckles. Mentally at least. "Careful dear, that sounds awfully close to a clicheed villain's 'I'll show all of them!'."

McDohl giggled a bit. "They will rue the day they challenged me!", she said with a laugh, her stern look turning into a bright smile.

"Joke all you want," she says, and if she's annoyed by Sara's joking around she hides it very well at least, "But the first lesson in anything is always to choose your targets carefully. All of them are and always will be better than one of you."

"Show me how good you are at that." she says, glancing at the man walking in front of them.

"Okay..", she said softly, looking the man over for a second. "You are no longer a man, but a duck...", she continues, not really sure what she wanted to do. The man stops for a moment, before he begins to waddle a bit and quack. "Does that work?"

"Maybe a little outwardly suspicious, but it works." she points out, as the other pedestrians start throwing more or less obvious glances at the clearly deranged man. "Now undo it and cover the marks it left on his mind."

Taking a breath, she moved her way back into the man's mind changing him back to normal, and replacing the few moments that passed with memories of him making an ass of himself to some girl on the street. "Obviously you can see what I'm doing..so what do you think?"

"A couple of things. First of all, yes he won't question the false memories you gave him, but that is partially because he is not fully aware of the possibility that the thoughts in his head may not be his. But look at this..." And with that Melpomene reached into the man's mind, brushed aside the shame and confusion he was feeling about what he thought just happened and slipped into his subconsciousness.

"Everything leaves traces and the deeper you go the harder they become to remove. At some point he might have a dream about what really happened or experience dejavu when he sees a duck. It is not about creating a fitting piece to fit in the hole, though that certainly plays a part in it. But any telepath could easily see the footsteps you left behind. But let's not get ahead of ourselves." she goes on and methodically unravels the man's memories and the places where the new memory had been 'stitched in'.

"If you did this on anything deeper seated than his short-term memories it would unravel eventually. Look at the memories of his dog. See all the connections it has? You could cover them up with something else but they would resurface in time and even a decent enough therapist would likely be able to speed up that process. And if you cut them out it leaves loose ends. Not of facts that no longer fit but emotions and thoughts he will no longer be able to place. He would notice something was missing even if he would not know what."