Chapter 2


Chapter 2 - To sleep, perchance to dream.
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I felt the mists caress my skin with their clammy fingers as I walked
through them, watching the multicoloured skeins of vapour curl around
me as they parted about my body, the ground formless under my feet.
Then I walked out of them, my mind not really registering that as I
found myself on a sunlit grassy hillside. A few yards away a girl
stood, looking at me with an oddly thoughtful expression on her face.

I must have been dreaming, because I was standing looking at Iczer-2.
And, looking down, _I_ was still Iczer-2... I looked over at her, in
complete and utter confusion. It didn't even feel like a dream, there
was none of that fuzzy randomness and arbitrary scene-shifting you get
in dreams, the shock of what was happening had jerked me out of the
drowsy state I had been in.

She grinned, and stepped gracefully forward, slowly placing her palm
against my cheek and stroking it slowly with her fingertips. I
shivered at the sensation. "How???"

She chuckled softly.
"I'm doing it, of course! You aren't dreaming... well, actually, I
suppose you are, but I'M controlling the dream. Otherwise you'd look
like you, not like me. There are certain advantages to being not in
control of my own body. Not many, but..."

I blushed, feeling seriously embarrassed. How do you talk to someone
whose body you are currently using while she's stuck in the back of
your mind?

Her fingers slowly stroked down my cheek, the gentle touch raising
goosebumps as I looked back at her. "Don't worry, I know we didn't
have any choice. And we WILL find a way out of this mess! 

I lifted my hand, resting it against the one she held to my cheek. It
felt very strange, I kept expecting to feel her hand small against
mine, like I was used to with a girl, but instead they were the same
size.

"I wish I hadn't got you into this mess. It isn't fair, it's your body
- _you_ should be in control, not me"

She smiled, slowly drawing our hands downward.
"What's done is done, and at least I have my partner now. However...
there are a number of things I'm _not_ happy about.

I looked at her sadly, still feeling very guilty.
"What are they?"

"Well, firstly, I am _not_ happy about your level of control! Its MY
body, after all, and you don't seem to have any idea about how to do
_anything_ with it!!"

I blinked in hurt surprise.
"That's hardly fair!! I've only been living in it for a day, how
should I know...

She cut me off with an abrupt hand gesture.
"I know. Nevertheless, you _have_ to get more control, get practice in
using this body and its... your word would be 'powers'. Otherwise
you're going to get us both killed. You couldn't even fight a few
punks like those without letting a couple of them hit you! What if
they'd been using real weapons?"

She was right, of course. But I still didn't see what she intended to
do about it.

"What do you have in mind?"

This time she grinned in a predatory manner.
"I'm going to train you, of course! Every night... here..."

I gulped. I definitely didn't like the look on her face, I was already
getting the idea that she wasn't going to be the world's easiest
taskmistress to satisfy.

"What about sleep? I need some...!"

"You'll get some. You're just going to have to get by on not much,
won't you? But we MUST do this, you nearly got us into a mess fighting
those few street punks, how do you think you'd do in a REAL fight??"

I sighed, looking down unhappily as she rubbed in just how incompetent
I was compared with her. The worst of it was, she was completely
correct. "Badly, of course. And I know you're right. It's just
that..."

Iczer-2 stepped forward, as her slim hands rose to cup my face gently,
a finger brushing softly against my cheek. I flushed as I met her
eyes, looking into dark cerulean pools that seemed to draw me into
them.

"This isn't how I wished to spend my time with my partner either. But
what must, is. However...

With that last cryptic comment, she slowly drew me towards her, her
head tilting as our lips met, pressing together gently as she stroked
hers across mine in a butterfly's caress, letting me taste the soft
moist warmth of her lips as she pressed close against me, her supple
body meeting mine as I felt her warmth. My arms slipped about her,
almost without thought as I held her close for a timeless moment,
feeling the pressure of her body against mine before she at last broke
her kiss, pushing me gently away with a look of sadness, the spell
broken.

"There... "

I blushed deeply, not wanting to admit even to myself how aroused I'd
been made by kissing her, _especially_ since I not only looked like
her right now, but was also female. It felt distinctly, well, _odd_,
as well as... lets just say I wished she hadn't stopped, even though
my breathing hadn't yet steadied back down to what it was supposed to
be. 

She surprised me again by slowly raising one delicate eyebrow at me,
in an unmistakably sarcastic gesture, then ruined the effect by
giggling.

"Never mind. You'll get used to it."

Then she looked more sober.
"You'll _have_ to get used to it. I don't think we are going to get
all this fixed soon."

I looked over at her, and sighed. Damn, I wished I could disagree with
her. But I couldn't. Instead, I reached out, taking her hand gently in
mine, and squeezing slightly in reassurance.

"So... I suppose we'd better get started with my lessons?"

She grinned.
"You're changing the subject deliberately, aren't you! You're right,
though. So, lesson 1....."

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Sylia Stingray sipped her morning tea slowly as she scanned the
morning newspaper, feeling the paper rustle under her fingers. She
smiled slightly at herself; while the paper was anachronistic, and not
nearly as convenient as a data-retrieval program, there was something
restful about reading it as she had her breakfast.

She noticed that the furore over the satellite strikes Largo had
caused was nowhere near dying down yet. The editorials were stridently
calling for resignations, and she had every sympathy with them. It was
obvious that a few scapegoats would soon be fed to the wolves to
appease the masses, but she doubted if any of the real culprits would
take any blame. As if that was any surprise, given the current morals
of the people in high offices nowadays.

Frowning, she read further. the world news seemed about as good, or
bad, as ever; the Polar War still appeared to be stalemate for all
practical purposes. Local news wasn't as good, however. There had been
more Boomer rampages in the last few days, and ADPolice were taking
heavier than usual casualties in stopping them, not to mention the
civilian bodycount. She sighed, and took another sip of her tea. It
couldn't be helped, after the damage they'd taken recently, both
material and psychological, the Knight Sabers weren't in any condition
to help out. The police would just have to deal with them for the time
being. She had notified Fargo that she had other business for the near
future, and so wouldn't be interested in any work. 

Putting the paper down, she looked out the window, not really seeing
the cold morning. She was still very worried about Priss; although all
of them had been scarred to some extent by what had happened, she was
by far the worse. She would have to keep a closer eye on her,
especially now that her almost-healed injury wasn't slowing her down
as much; she didn't want her starting to act foolishly again, both for
personal and practical reasons.

Getting up, she made some mental notes to herself to ask Linna and
Nene to keep her as busy as possible, to let her have a chance to
relax and to let the mental wounds heal a little more. Carefully she
tidied the paper and teacup to one side, preparing herself to start
another day.

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Iczer opened her eyes slowly and reluctantly, feeling the lids crawl
up heavily, knowing something was not right but not awake enough yet
to figure out what. Then she jerked, a wave of panic sending her bolt
upright as she looked around the room with startled eyes, not
registering what she saw, as for a few seconds she couldn't work out
where she was or what she was doing, the sight of her own hand
grabbing the sheet looking strange, as if it didn't belong to her.
Then it faded, the room snapping into clarity as she shuddered and
took a deep breath, her heart still hammering from the shock. For a
moment there she hadn't known who she was, where she was, or even if
she should be a she, and she shivered in reaction as she tried to slow
her breathing and heart.

She sat up a bit more, looking sadly at the slim hand raised in front
of her. It hadn't all been a bad dream, then, this was real. And
morning, from the look of the murky daylight probing past the
curtains. Joy. Automatically she grabbed for the watch she kept by the
bed, and only realised after a couple of seconds of frantic scrabbling
that of course she didn't have one there. Damn, she really had to get
her act together.

Pushing the sheet the rest of the way off her, she sat up, yawning as
she rubbed her eyes, disliking the gritty feeling in them as she
looked about hopefully, then slumped as she belatedly realised that
cheap Japanese hotels didn't provide coffee-making facilities. Leaning
forward, she poked at the control panel of the TV with one slim
finger, wincing as it burst noisily into life, as she tried to work
out which of the pretty coloured graphical icons on the control panel
worked a clock display. 

After a bit of playing around, during which she rapidly came to the
conclusion that morning TV had made absolutely _no_ progress in the
last 40 years, she managed to find a news channel which also indicated
the time. 9am, how wonderful. That meant she had to be out of here in
an hour, and she felt like she'd got about 2 hours sleep. And no
coffee.

She groaned, and sat up, feeling her back pop as she stretched slowly
and sensuously, yawning deeply. God, but that felt good. At least she
had time for a shower before she had to leave, she needed one. Running
one hand through her thick mane of hair, she hoped the hotel provided
shampoo. Lots of it.

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Iczer yawned again as she sleepily stirred sugar into her breakfast
coffee, hoping it would wake her up a little. While her 'tutorial'
with Iczer-2 last night had been both informative and useful, she
wished it had let her get more than a few hours of sleep. Now she had
to find more time during the day to practice what she'd been shown as
well; Iczer-2 had been insistent on that, both the physical katas and
the mental exercises. She had tried the one to blunt her empathy as
soon as she got up; at least it was helping, but she still had a faint
throbbing behind her eyes she would prefer to be without. Well, at
least that would give her an incentive to practice _that_ particular
skill...

Her initial thought had been to change back to her male form just
before vacating the hotel room, as she'd have been more comfortable
exploring MegaTokyo like that. She hadn't thought she/he would have
been in any danger during public areas in daytime, at least as long as
he kept to the better parts of town. However the pain and shock of the
change had been even worse than before; he'd taken minutes to stop
shaking after, and the cramps hadn't stopped for a while after that.
It was a good job that no-one had knocked on the hotel room door
during that, he'd have had a lot of explaining to do. While the shock
of the change had gone away after a while, the general discomfort and
trembling hadn't. He'd left the hotel, and tried walking around for a
while, but found that the constant background pain more than he could
stand, especially since he had an easy way of escaping it. It wasn't
that it was so bad, exactly, it didn't really hurt a lot, it was just
that it was _always_ there, like a mild toothache, that made it feel
more and more unendurable. It hadn't helped that his trembling was
noticed, and he got a lot of nasty looks from passers-by, who
presumably thought he was a drunk or drug- addict of some sort. 'Drunk
Gaijin' was one of the more repeatable names he'd been called; the
locals might have had to accept foreigners here, but they didn't like
them much. In the end he'd given in, and managed to find a deserted
alley to transform in. That in itself had been interesting, he hadn't
had nearly as much trouble changing back into Iczer than he had
changing out of her, leading him to wonder about the longer term
aspects of the merge, something he noted that Belldandy had been less
than forthcoming about. He/she was rapidly coming to the conclusion
that there were a lot of things he hadn't been told, and wondered why?
It raised the uncomfortable supposition that the Norns had their own
agenda; while that wasn't really surprising, the thought that he/she
could get caught up in the gears again, as it were, was unsettling
after the last time... On balance, she'd decided to stay as Iczer for
the near term, at least. The decision came easily enough; in fact, she
had a brief feeling of unease at how easy, considering all it
involved, but quickly brushed it aside as mere nervousness; after all,
it was the obvious thing to do, wasn't it?

Drowsily she looked through the window of the coffee-shop at the
bustling streets of MegaTokyo. Even though it was well after the
morning rush hour, both roads and pavements were packed with hurrying
people. She started slightly as she saw her reflection in the glass,
and then grinned in embarrassment. She really should stop being
surprised when she saw herself, but she was still finding it very hard
to come to terms with. Her 'conversation' with Iczer-2 had helped a
lot, at least on an intellectual level, with addressing the problem,
but amending her instinctive and emotional reactions would take much
longer. Not to mention the confusion she felt when men smiled at her.
She wasn't sure whether to blush, scowl or hit them, but had settled
on ignoring them as her present most sensible option. It wasn't so
much the fact that she was now female, but the fact that it wasn't her
own body that was making her more uncomfortable. In a way, she felt it
would have been simpler if she'd been turned permanently female, at
least she could have come to terms with that and got on with life. As
it was, she couldn't get it straight in her head just what he/she was.

At least she'd managed to disguise her appearance better. A pair of
mirror shades found in her bag hid the unusual colour of her eyes (not
to mention the dark shadows under them right now) while the length and
thickness of her hair made covering the tips of her ears relatively
simple. The less she stood out the better, she needed to find out a
lot more about this place before she'd feel comfortable, let alone
safe. But she wanted to stay for a while at least; she 'knew' that
technology here was better than her home world's, and hoped its
medical science might be up to fixing David's neurological damage. At
least it was worth a try. If it wasn't, well, she could try another
world. In any case, they'd have to do that at some stage, unless this
BGC universe was way different from what she thought, they could do
nothing to cure their magical joining.

Sipping her coffee slowly, she wondered what would be best to do
today? She hadn't got enough money for more than a few nights at a
hotel, not in view of the prices they charged, and she had other
things to buy, starting with food. She needed to find somewhere to
practice, where she wouldn't be disturbed, and still had no solution
to the problem of no papers and no identity. Which meant that she
couldn't get a job, even if she had any skills that would be useful,
which seemed unlikely. There might or might not be a market for battle
androids in MegaTokyo, but if there was she did _not_ want to get
involved with it. At least the coffee was wonderful. She wasn't quite
sure why her caffeine addiction had carried over now she wasn't even
in her original body, maybe it had been psychological? Although it
tasted so good, she certainly wasn't going to give it up, especially
as it was achieving its normal purpose of allowing her to face another
morning. Not to mention the help that the familiar ritual of drinking
it gave her in trying to pretend that everything was normal, allowing
her to at least try to fool herself in that respect. But every time
she realised she'd _deliberately_ changed back from her 'own' form
into this one, she shivered. Something in the back of her mind seemed
almost to be trying to tell her something was the matter, but she
couldn't understand what or why.


The information she had acquired from the hotel rooms TV/Net access
unit had been interesting, and the search and retrieval abilities a
revelation to someone used to 1990's software, but even so there was a
limit to what she could extract in an hour. Still, it seemed her
memories of BGC weren't that far off, at least on the surface, and
she'd stick with them until she got more detailed information. The
most worrying part had been the almost complete absence of unskilled
job opportunities, and the bulk of what had been posted seemed more
than a little dubious, particularly the female ones. Especially since
she'd have to ask to be paid in cash, she didn't think the local banks
would be very pleased at the idea of an alien android opening an
account...

The data concerning the Knight Sabers and Boomer activity had been
interesting, though. There was something truly absorbing in reading
about the real-life version of what she'd only seen in the anime; it
was very similar, but it was very obvious that the anime had only
covered the highlights. It reminded her of reading the book after
seeing the comic, the level of detail in the real world was
fascinating. She wished again she'd watched the series more often, but
she'd just have to make do. As far as she could tell, assuming events
continued broadly as she 'knew', she was somewhere between Part 6 and
Part 7 of their series. The files had recorded the destruction of Aqua
city in Tokyo Bay, and there was an obituary notice for a Brian Mason
of GENOM, which definitely placed her after the first three episodes,
and the recent news was full of mentions of the satellite beam strikes
on the city that Largo had caused in Episode 6, so she guessed that
she was just after that. She was glad of that, she didn't want to have
anything to do with someone like Largo, and the temptation to try and
warn about the satellite strikes would have been difficult to resist,
even knowing it might have changed things enough to let him win. A
search for 'Griffon' or 'Griffin' hadn't found anything, but then she
didn't know if the name of the car had ever been public. She'd also
found a recent news article detailing the death of the head of G&M,
which tallied with the date, late March. Pity the city seemed to be
suffering an unseasonable cold snap, she'd have appreciated warmer
weather. So far, things in the news seemed to broadly correspond with
what she 'knew'.

It wasn't as if she had any intention of getting involved, the last
thing she needed with all her current problems was to get involved
with a group of battlesuited mercenaries, but it would be a help if
she had prior knowledge of what might be about to happen. She stressed
'might' to herself again. This _wasn't_ the anime, the Universe just
happened to resemble it so far. She'd just have to keep a careful eye
on the news, and see what turned up that she recognised. Besides, she
didn't recall there _were_ any details between the sixth and seventh
parts of the anime, at least up until the attack on GENOM in the
summer. And it clearly wasn't summer yet! 

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Madigan looked up from her console at the faint sound of a cough from
the man standing in front of her desk. She smiled inwardly; even
though the GENOM scientist was nominally of the same corporate rank as
her, some equals were more equal than others. She looked up, outwardly
at least sincerely sorry she'd had to keep him waiting, as she sat
back in her chair.

"You said this was important?"

The man nodded, restraining his annoyance at the dominance game the
woman was playing. He knew her reputation, as well as her connections,
and instead put on his serious, corporate meeting look. He would take
out his anger on some of his own subordinates later.

"Yes. As I am sure you know, I head the special section of the science
division here. Last night, some of my staff recorded
some...unusual...energy signatures.

"Unusual? In what way? And why should I be interested in them?

He smiled.
"It pertains to our standing orders to report anything to you that
doesn't fall into the usual areas of responsibility, and which may be
of potential interest to the company. I feel this applies to this
case."

She nodded, looking interested at last. He might be a scientist, and
even GENOM had problems keeping their better scientists and engineers
in order, but he knew his job. He wouldn't have bothered her with
something trivial.

"Please explain. Why is this particular event of significance?"

"Because this energy signature shouldn't have been possible outside of
a laboratory, indeed I would have been amazed to find it even there!
Yet it appeared in the MegaTokyo metropolitan area.

The scientist held up his portable computer, pointing it at the video
wall at the side. It lit up, showing data and graphs as they spread
across it. Despite herself, she narrowed her eyes in interest at the
labels on some of them. She didn't know what they meant, yet, but her
instincts, and what she could understand of the information displays,
told her this was of potential importance.

"Explain this, please."

"Of course. The disturbance was first noted at 8pm yesterday night.
Our recorders noted a powerful energy spike, unusual in that it lasted
for nearly 30 seconds, growing fast , holding and then vanishing. Not
normal behaviour. However the event which really alerted us was a
gravitational energy event at precisely the same time. Now, this
_could_ be a coincidence, but it could also mean the two are
connected. And since no- one has yet produced such an effect in the
laboratory, it was flagged up by the monitoring computers"

Madigan steepled her fingers, frowning at the data crossing the wall.

"Very well. I assume you investigated the building these events
occurred in?"

He smiled back at her, confident now he had her interested in his
presentation. "Ah, now that is even more interesting! Naturally, once
the event had been flagged, we sent a team to investigate it.
Unfortunately, our science teams don't have the priority levels of
_some_ of the reaction teams, and it took them 40 minutes to assemble
and get to the site. But it wasn't a laboratory, or even a building.
It seems that this event took place in an alley in one of the rougher
areas of the city!"

This time her eyebrows raised sharply. She wished the scientist would
get to the point, her time was valuable, but she knew better than to
push a senior scientist without good reason.

"So what conclusions do you draw?

He turned off his display, turning, face serious.
"We don't think its natural. Our team got some _very_ interesting
readings and data, including some samples we are still analysing,
which seem to include strange matter, an unusual state of matter
previously only theorised about. Heat scans taken of the alley
indicate a humanoid person, probably female from the footsteps, was
there, and left. Unfortunately, the residue of the 'event' interfered
with our instrumentation, but the most likely time is after the
'event', and so we think it probable that the two are connected. If we
can get more information, and learn what happened, and most
importantly how to duplicate it, we will gain a lead in some areas of
physical research that have some extremely promising long term
potential, and GENOM will of course be the sole owner."

She nodded. This did sound interesting after all.
"So. I assume you would like me to approve your further research, and
to track down this mysterious figure for - questioning?"

"Yes, that would be ideal. We don't have the resources in the science
section for finding her, although we will of course keep up our direct
observations."

She looked into nowhere for a moment, considering, then decided. This
had the feeling of something profitable, and was certainly worth
investigating further.

"Very well, I authorise the expenditure of your resources. I will let
you know when the 'person' is available for your team to interrogate.

He bowed, formally, stepping backwards.
"Thank you. We will keep you informed of our progress."

She gestured in polite dismissal. Of course he would. And her network
would make sure _all_ the information was reported to her. As he left,
she leant back in her chair, musing for a moment. She had a feeling
about this one, it smelt interesting. She wasn't always right, of
course, but she thought this strange happening had a definite
potential for her and GENOM. Sitting up, she started to give the
orders to one of GENOMS search teams to find this mysterious person,
wincing slightly as she felt a small tug from her not yet fully healed
injury. She really shouldn't have been back at work yet, according to
the doctor, but of course he had no real comprehension of the
corporate culture inside the GENOM senior management, and how her
position would be weakened by any sign of weakness.