"Born Again"
Part 1
Chapter 2
"Close Encounters"
By Brian Welch
bwelchz7@yahoo.com
Based on the manga Aa! Megami-sama
(Ah! My Goddess!/Oh My Goddess!)
The wonderful world of Aa! Megami-sama was created by
Fujishima Kosuke. Aa! Megami-sama/Oh My Goddess!
characters are copyright Kodansha Ltd. Tokyo, Studio
Proteus, and Dark Horse Comics, Inc.
-----
Relief Goddess Office, Heaven
-----
"Whoa!" Eric grabbed onto Belldandy as they
materialized in mid air.
"It's OK, I won't let you fall," Belldandy reassured
him, "You can let go of me, now."
"Oh, sorry," Eric released his hold.
Belldandy picked up something that looked like an
ordinary telephone and dialed a number. "Hello,
Skuld?
We're here. We're going straight to the maintenance
facility."
After hanging up, she turned to Eric. "Come, we have
to meet my sisters," Taking Eric's hands, she suddenly
unfurled large, white wings.
"Wow!" was all Eric could say.
In a moment, they were soaring over what looked like
something out of a fantasy novel. Islands of grass
and
trees, scattered with fanciful buildings, floated all
around them.
"This looks amazing! I didn't expect it to be so high
tech," Eric marveled. Was I expecting the rustic
wooden and stone lodges of Asgard?
They were rapidly approaching a tall, thin structure
which rose through the cloud cover and out of sight.
I
suppose, with a little imagination, that could be the
World Tree, he decided.
Belldandy didn't pause as they flew inside. Upon
landing, her wings shrank back into her shoulders and
she led Eric into a large room.
Eric looked around.
"Wow." I'm saying that a lot, lately.
A chair floated high in the room above a ring of what
had to be, given their anxious expressions and cramped
conditions, about a dozen computer operators.
That's right, I remember there were bunches of Disir,
kind of acting as lesser Norns. Could these be some
of
them?
In the floating chair sat a figure with long white
hair. Though he couldn't make out many details from
where he stood, Eric knew it must be the great Urd,
the
eldest and wisest of the Norns, the one whose name
itself means destiny.
I'm about to receive the biggest honor of my life.
"Urd!" Belldandy called out.
"Glad to see you made it safely," came the reply.
"I need to talk with you, so come down here now!"
Belldandy's voice held an uncharacteristic edge.
Eric mentally prepared himself to make a proper
greeting to the eldest Norn. Better to err on the
side
of formality, he decided.
"OK, OK, so what's the emergency? I have a couple
subsystems about to die on me," Urd griped as she
landed before them.
Halfway into a formal bow, Eric froze. Something was
terribly wrong. Standing in front of him was a full
180cm of deeply tanned, emerald- eyed, platinum-haired
bombshell. Moreover, in contrast to Belldandy's
simple
elegance, this woman's outfit was clearly designed to
showcase an ample figure.
I must have made a mistake. Surely, Belldandy didn't
say this woman was Urd!?
"Sister, I trust this was simply an honest mistake,"
Belldandy interrupted Eric's thoughts, "but that
mirror
you sent me to was in Eric's shower!"
"Huh? His shower!? Bwa-ha-ha-- Uh oh." Oh, geez,
am
I in trouble again? This isn't fair!
How do I get out of this? "Uh, shower? Really? Ah,
well, you know, bathrooms are one of the logical
places
to find a mirror." Urd put on a disarming smile and
started smoothing the back of her hair.
"While he was in it!"
Urd's eyes widened.
"Now, wait a minute!" Urd protested. "How was I
supposed to know something like that? I told you the
resolution was awful!"
Eric's mind was going numb from the sense of
disillusionment pouring over him as he listened to the
exchange between the goddesses. I really set myself
up, this time. I must have desperately wanted to
believe the story, that these people might actually be
the Norns, that I might be playing the role of a hero
to the avatars of destiny, fighting for the survival
of
creation against the forces of chaos. But everything
here is twisted, just a mockery of what it should be.
Having come up with a viable explanation for the
snafu,
Urd for the first time noticed the look of confusion
and profound disappointment, almost grief, on the
young
man's face as he stared at her.
She cocked a thumb at Eric. "Is this the guy all the
fuss is about?" Yeah, a way to change the subject!
Besides, what's wrong with him? Could he be brain
damaged, or maybe he's gay?
"Don't try to change the subject," Belldandy said.
Doh!
Belldandy stared critically at Urd, weighing her
sister's previous explanation and her current look of
contrition. "Well, as long as it was just an honest
mistake..."
"Honest! It was a mistake! Just one of those things,
ya know?"
This whining air head is definitely not _the_ Urd,
Eric
concluded.
Fortunately, an interruption occurred before the
situation could degenerate further.
"Belldandy!" called a male voice.
"Keiichi!" Belldandy whirled and rushed to wrap her
love in a fierce hug.
Eric watched the exchange with interest. Something
told him this was the man who went with the ring. Was
there a Norse deity by the name of Keiichi?
[Negative, even allowing for differences in
pronunciation.]
He looks oriental...
[Name and facial features suggest Japanese origin.]
"Hi!" a new voice brought Eric out of his thoughts.
He turned to see a raven-haired beauty who appeared to
be in her late teens, holding a mallet of some kind
over her shoulder.
"I'm Skuld! Are you Eric Donovan?" she asked
cheerfully, extending a gloved hand.
"Ah, yes, I am," Eric replied, shaking hands. This is
Skuld!? Well, what do you know?
"Wow, you're big for a mortal," Skuld exclaimed,
looking up into Eric's face.
"Thanks," Eric smiled. I was definitely expecting
someone more ominous than this charming young lady!
Perhaps all the differences haven't been for the
worse,
after all.
"So, this really is _the_ Eric Donovan? Funny, he
certainly doesn't look like a computer genius," Urd
looked Eric up and down. "Belldandy, are you sure you
got the right one?"
"Urd, honestly!" Belldandy admonished.
"Just checking. He looks more like a sports jock than
a computer jock, you know."
"What does that have to do with it?" Skuld asked.
"I was talking to your sister."
"Just because he isn't drooling all over you, you
think
he's incompetent? Ha! It just means he has good
taste, that's all!"
"Can it, kid, nobody asked you!"
"You're just mad because he sees you for the arrogant,
selfish, violent, pushy..."
"I said, SHUT UP!"
"...impulsive, stupid person you really are!"
"That's it! I'm going to teach you a little respect
for your elders!"
Urd raised her hand in the air. Something very bright
sizzled in it.
Skuld muttered something and reached into her blouse,
pulling out an object Eric couldn't identify, but
which
made him very nervous nonetheless. The air in front
of
her began to glow.
Eric noticed Keiichi was looking for cover and decided
to join him.
"STOP IT!!!" Belldandy ordered in a voice that seemed
to come from everywhere at once.
Everyone in the room, the two quarreling sisters, the
two retreating men, and the pit full of computer
operators froze and looked to Belldandy. "Don't
either
of you dare do this!" she addressed her sisters. "We
need to save our energies for this crisis, not waste
them on stupid arguments."
Skuld was the first to back down. "Sorry, Sis, I was
just trying to defend Eric."
"You were picking a fight with your sister," Belldandy
corrected. She turned to Urd. "Well?"
"OK, OK, so I was a little rough on the guy. He still
doesn't look like much of a genius, though."
"I think you will find that there's much more to him
than meets the eye."
Belldandy looked from one sister to the other. "Now,
you two make up."
"Sorry."
"Sorry."
"There, that's better." Belldandy was once again her
cheerful self.
"I never would have expected that from Belldandy,"
Eric
said under his breath.
"The crisis has put everyone on edge," Keiichi
explained. "They haven't fought like this for years
and years."
"Oh. Well, if I can do anything to relieve that kind
of tension from Belldandy, I'll do it."
"By the way, I'm Keiichi Morisato." I'd heard there
were some big people in Africa, but he's almost as big
as Tamiya.
"Eric Donovan, pleased to meet you."
They shook hands.
"Urd," Belldandy said, "remember that the Almighty
said
Eric is to have full access and our full cooperation."
"Yeah, he called just after you left to 'remind' me of
it. The problem is, I just don't have time right now.
We've lost 3 subsystems while we were busy keeping
your
link stabilized and 2 more are going critical." Urd
spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness.
"That's OK, I can get him started!" Skuld offered.
She
took Eric's hand and began dragging him toward an
exit.
Belldandy and Keiichi began following Skuld and Eric.
"Hey, if you see Peorth, tell her to get her tail over
here and give me a hand," Urd called after them.
"Where are we going?" Eric asked Skuld.
"We're going to see Yggdrasil!" Skuld explained.
"That's why you're here, right? You can watch us
debug
it. It'll be good experience."
Keiichi placed a hand on Eric's shoulder. "Don't mind
Urd. Like I said, we're all short tempered these
days.
Beside, Urd calms down as quickly as she blows up.
You
wouldn't believe how quickly she'd lose her temper
when
I first met her. Anyway, to change the subject, I
think you'll find the methods we use for debugging to
be very, ah, unconventional," Keiichi added with a
grin.
Eric stared at the mainframe as they entered the room.
Whoa. I'm in waaaaaay over my head.
This looked nothing like any computer he had ever
imagined, and he had a hunch that what he was seeing
was only the smallest fraction what was actually
there.
Something disturbed him about the picture, too. "What
are those white things running around?" he asked.
Several creatures that looked like multi-legged
cartoon
bunny rabbits were scampering around the mainframe.
Despite looking harmless, there was something about
them that gave Eric the creeps.
"Those are bugs!" Skuld cried as she and Keiichi
sprang
into action. "We leave the system for five minutes,
and
look what happens!"
"Bugs. Like... real bugs. I am definitely out of my
league, here. Can I help?" he called out.
"No!" Skuld shouted, madly swinging.
"Just sit back and enjoy the show," Keiichi advised.
"Well, it's about time you got back here, I'm being
run
ragged!" Peorth walked around from the other side of
Yggdrasil, hammer in hand.
"Whoa," Eric said. And I thought Urd dressed
provocatively! Maybe she didn't have time to change
from the swimming pool?
"We'll take over, Peorth," Belldandy said as Peorth
walked over. "Urd says she needs your help."
"That's not surprising," Peorth said as her debugging
hammer vanished. "However, first things first. I
assume this is the wunderkind?"
"Yes. Eric Donovan, this is goddess first class
Peorth," Belldandy said.
Don't screw this one up like you did with Urd. "I'm
honored to meet you." Eric bowed deeply.
"Oh my, so well mannered." Peorth returned the bow
with a flourish then appraised Eric. "Mmm, tall,
dark,
handsome, and... the most amazing eyes. Belldandy, I
see you're still collecting the most fascinating men.
I don't mean to horn in on your harem, but didn't your
mother ever tell you it was nice to share?"
Belldandy blushed furiously, at a complete loss for
words.
"Hehe," she's so fun to mess with, Peorth chuckled.
Still, it's the truth; the truly unique ones flock to
her for some reason. Turning back to Eric, she said
"It's a pity I'm called away now, but we shall meet
again, cherie."
Watching her go, Eric wasn't sure whether he should
feel lucky or terrified. By the time his thoughts had
returned to the matter at hand, Belldandy had already
joined Skuld and Keiichi in the debugging.
Eric watched the mayhem in stunned amazement. Wasn't
all of this pounding a little rough on the hardware?
He noticed that the "bugs" apparently left no trace
once they were destroyed. That was a good thing,
since
otherwise the place would have been knee deep in
pseudo- rabbit carcasses by this point.
Once the population had been reduced to what must have
been manageable levels Keiichi walked over to Eric.
"Belldandy and Skuld have incredible stamina, but I
need a breather now and then," he explained.
"I was meaning to ask," Eric said, "what are all those
things that look like pots lying around that suck in
the bugs?"
"Technically, they're highly modified rice cookers.
In
fact, Skuld made the first prototype from one of mine.
She calls them bug zappers."
"Oh. Now that you mention it, they do work that way,
don't they?"
"Yeah, but they don't get all the new ones. Skuld
reprograms the zappers for the new bug types, but new
kinds come along that are resistant." He held up his
hammer. "None of them are resistant to manual
debugging methods, though."
"Any reason why bugs look like demented cartoon bunny
rabbits?"
Keiichi grinned. "I think it has something to do with
having a very young goddess as chief debugger."
"Ah, I see." Eric grinned back. "So, um, is this why
I'm here, to help you get rid of these bug things?"
"That sure would be great, though the Almighty wasn't
too clear as to what your duties would be once you got
here."
"Just 'Save Yggdrasil'."
"That's all I've ever heard," Keiichi answered. Poor
guy, he's been dropped in here without a clue of what
he's supposed to do or how to go about doing it.
They watched the two goddesses at work for a couple
more minutes. Eric could have sat there all day
watching the show, and not only because it featured
two
breathtakingly beautiful women. The contrast in
debugging styles was equally engaging.
Skuld attacked the bugs like a berserker, hammer
flying, and missing almost as many times as she made
contact.
Belldandy, on the other hand, stalked her bugs. That
was the only word for it. Her method was calm and
calculating, almost cold. She rarely took more than a
single blow to take out a bug, and often would catch
two at a time. There is definitely more than meets
the
eye to the cheerful, sunny Belldandy, Eric concluded.
As far as Eric could see, the two methods were equally
effective, and it made for very interesting viewing.
After a few minutes, though, he realized something.
A look at Keiichi verified his realization. "Do you
mind if I ask a personal question?" Eric asked.
"Huh?" Keiichi had also been wrapped up in watching
the goddesses, or at least one of them. "Sure, I
guess..."
"I noticed that Belldandy, Skuld, Peorth and Urd have
markings on their faces, but you don't. Are they a
sign or rank or something?"
"Yes, in a way. It's because they're goddesses. All
gods and goddesses have them."
"Then... you're not a god?"
"No, I'm just an ordinary mortal guy who dialed the
wrong phone number one day."
"Oh? That sounds like the beginning to a fascinating
story."
"It's also a long one. I'll be glad to tell it to you
sometime, but right now I need to get back to work."
"Skuld, let me take over," Keiichi offered. "They
seem
to be under control, now."
"Great! Thanks, Keiichi!" Skuld called as she came
over to where Eric was standing. "You know, he's the
best brother anyone could ask for."
"He seems like a really nice guy. We were talking
about those markings on your faces. Are they some
kind
of communications device?"
"Sort of, they contain programs which connect us to
Yggdrasil."
"Oh. That explains what happened when I made my
wish."
"Yes, from what Sis tells me, it's a wonderful
experience," Skuld sighed.
Chaotic would be more like it from my point of view,
Eric mentally quipped.
"One of these days, when the system is working
smoothly
again and I get my First Class license, I'm going to
request a temporary assignment to the Relief Goddess
Office."
"I liked your use of the word 'when'."
Skuld smiled. "Urd thinks answering the telephones
and
granting wishes is boring, but I think it's wonderful.
I can't wait."
"What's the Relief Goddess Office?"
"That's where Belldandy works. Worthy mortals call
the
office and Belldandy goes to Earth to grant them a
wish."
"Keiichi said he dialed a wrong number." Definitely
sounds like a story worth waiting for the unabridged
version.
"Yes, he did, and Sis answered," Skuld sighed, again.
"Wait a minute," Eric suddenly realized. "I never
dialed a number!"
"You're a special case. Belldandy was sent on a
special mission to get you."
"Which reminds me of why I'm here. How do I go about
accessing the system? Belldandy said you were making
something?"
"Oh, yeah, I'll show it to you! Sis, I'm going to
show
Eric his terminal. I'll be back in a few minutes."
"Have a good time!" Belldandy paused from stalking
bugs
and waved cheerfully.
Skuld and Eric headed back towards Yggdrasil
Maintenance.
"Are we going back to where Urd works?" Eric asked
warily.
"Yes, but don't worry, her bark is worse than her
bite."
Skuld led Eric to a terminal nearly identical to the
ones used by the Yggdrasil computer operators. It had
been placed off to the side of the operators, upon a
platform resting firmly in mid air. A series of
similarly anchored steps led up to it. Eric looked
down a little nervously as Skuld led him to the
platform and showed him a headband.
"Well, here it is!" Skuld said, obviously proud of her
handiwork. "This is your link to the system. Isn't it
beautiful? Since you're from 3-space, you're limited
to perceiving in 3 dimensions. This includes an
interpreter for higher order dimensions."
"This isn't 3 dimensional space?" Eric asked, looking
around.
"Nope. Heaven is in 10-space, though not 10-space in
your universe. We exist separately. Like I said, your
perception is limited because we didn't have time to
give you a 10-dimensional body, so you'll have to
settle for this interface."
Eric turned the headband over in his hands. "All that
fits into this little thing?"
"Amazing, isn't it?"
"Amazing doesn't seem adequate, somehow." Eric toyed
with the headband some more, then looked at Skuld.
"Changing the subject, besides the bug zappers and
hammers, do you have automatic debugging routines?"
"Of course! The problem with the automatic routines,
though, is that processing speed isn't fast enough to
catch all of the bugs. Also, we need to constantly
modify the routines for new bug types, just like we do
for the zappers. There have been a bunch of new types
lately, too. They'd overwhelm the system in no time
if
we didn't keep on our toes."
"Well, that's sort of familiar. I've worked with
auto-
debugging routines in the past."
"The concepts here should be similar to those used in
your mortal systems."
"I hope so."
"Before you start doing anything you need to know how
things work. Sit here, put on the headband and I'll
show you the terminal.
Eric did as instructed. "Whoa!" He grabbed the
terminal to steady himself.
"Are you OK?" Skuld asked, grabbing Eric. "I may have
the resolution set too high."
He held up a hand, eyes tightly clenched. "It's all
right, give me a second, here. I think it's clearing
up a bit."
"Your brain has to adjust to the increase in sensory
information."
"What does this headband do, exactly?" Eric asked,
maintaining a death grip on the terminal.
"It receives a feed of data from Yggdrasil and
delivers
a corresponding feed from your brain to Yggdrasil."
"Directly to and from Yggdrasil?"
"Yes. It functions similarly to our goddess
markings."
"You're kidding! Isn't that a little bit...
dangerous?"
"It has safeguards built in."
"That's a relief." Eric loosened his grip on the
terminal and opened his eyes. "OK, I think I'm
getting
a handle on this."
"Good. Also, I used your existing AI's neurological
interface, so it'll be offline while you're wearing
the
headband. Would you like me to show you how the
terminal works?"
"Sure. I'll just stop you if things get crazy again."
Skuld began with basic functionality then moved into
the programming environment. "Look here, then.
You'll
notice that most of Yggdrasil's programs are hyper-
dimensional patterns."
"One of these things?" Eric pointed.
"Yes. You've never seen anything like this before,
have you?"
"I've heard theories, but you're right. I'm basically
clueless as to what all this stuff means."
Skuld sighed. Am I going to have to give him a
remedial course in programming? I don't have the
time!
I need to get back to debugging! "OK, let's do this.
Here's a basic template for a pattern. Now, imagine
you want this template to, say, turn your environment
blue. You need to modify the pattern like this.
Then,
we introduce the pattern into the screen definitions,
and voila!"
The terminal's screen turned blue.
"OK now I see," Eric said.
"You want to try it?"
"Sure. Let's say I want a green screen. I take the
pattern you just created, modify it like this, and..."
The screen turned green.
"Hey, you're a quick learner!"
"Thanks, but may I make a suggestion? Could you point
me in the direction of a debugging related program
that
I can play with?"
"Sure," Skuld answered. She tapped at the terminal.
"This is a working directory. You can mess with
anything in here."
"Perfect! What's this code?"
"I was working on automating the updates for our
debugging algorithms. The computer operators do that
now, but it would be faster to have Yggdrasil do it."
"So, this piece identifies the new bug signature and
passes it to this piece which then loads the updates
into the debugging routines?"
Skuld looked at Eric. "That's the way it was going to
work, yeah. How did you know?"
"Would you believe me if I told you I guessed?"
"Well, I don't think that you'd lie to me..."
"I didn't. Would you mind if I tinkered with this
program of yours?"
"No, of course not. I haven't had time to finish it
with all the problems we've been having."
"Can I call you if I run into problems?"
"Sure."
"Great! Um, so how do I do that... call you, I mean?"
Skuld tapped at the terminal for a couple seconds. An
icon appeared. "Just press this. Do you really think
you have a handle on this, though?"
"There's one quick way to find out."
"OK then, I'll leave you with it." Skuld's expression
betrayed her puzzlement as she left.
Eric watched Skuld leave, then noticed Urd and Peorth
looking down at him. Urd's going to be keeping a
close
watch on me, he realized, but I've worked under these
kinds of conditions before. It isn't anything I can't
handle, even if it adds to the pressure.
As for Peorth, why do I feel like a gazelle being
watched by a lioness?
-----
Next day...
-----
A cheer went up from the computer operators. A couple
of them waved at Skuld and Eric. Skuld gave an
exaggerated bow, while Eric smiled and waved back
hesitantly.
"Well, the automated update module for the debugging
routines appears to be functioning," Peorth said as
she
observed the scene below.
"Wonderful, so he finished one of Skuld's scripts."
"You know, Urd, you might want to give the boy a
break," Peorth replied. "It's impressive enough that
he was able to produce anything at all."
"He isn't here to produce 'anything at all,' he's here
to put this system back into working order. Do I need
to remind you that we lost one of the auto stabilizers
for the time control program this morning?"
"He's been here one day, Urd."
"..."
"Well, at least he made the operators happy," Peorth
said.
Eric turned to Skuld "It wasn't that much, you had
already done the hard part," he said. "All I did was
to integrate it into the production system."
"So? The important thing is that you were able to do
it without us having to help you. Anything you do
like
that is a net gain for us, and you did make the
operators' lives that much easier."
"Thanks. It's a first step, at least. It's going to
take a lot more than this, though, in order to fix
this
system." He looked up at where Urd and Peorth floated
in their chairs. Urd's expression was unreadable.
Peorth smiled and blew him a kiss.
An image of a gazelle on the plains of Africa flashed
through Eric's mind. He suddenly became engrossed in
his terminal.
"So..." Skuld looked at Eric. "How did you do it?"
"Well," Eric took in a deep breath, "I have these...
I'll call them hunches for lack of a better term.
I'll
be looking at a problem and I'll get this feeling that
I should approach it this way, or use that tool."
Eric looked at Skuld who looked back at him
skeptically
but said nothing.
"OK, take this program I just finished. All I had to
do was put a wrapper around the pieces you had already
designed and then integrate it into the existing
debugging structure. It's easy once you know where
you
want to put the code and what it has to interface
with."
"And... you're saying you just 'knew' what the wrapper
should look like and where the resulting program
should
go?"
"Exactly. I know it sounds silly, but that's the way
it works for me. I can't explain how I get these
ideas, they just come."
"You've had these hunches before?"
"For as long as I can remember."
Skuld shook her head. "I'd love to talk about this
more, but I have to get back to work. Do you need
anything else from me right now?" I need to talk to
someone about this.
"Not at the moment. I'll call you if I run into a
roadblock?"
"I'll be here in a flash." Skuld patted Eric's
shoulder before turning to leave. Sis brought him
here, maybe she has a handle on this, she thought.
At the Yggdrasil mainframe, Skuld walked over to where
Belldandy and Keiichi were smashing bugs.
"Eric's automation routine worked," she said as she
pulled out her hammer and started in.
"That's good news!" Keiichi said, hammering another
bug.
"Yes, that's wonderful," Belldandy added.
"You know sis, when you told Urd there was more to
that
guy than met the eye? I just thought you were being
nice."
"There's something very different about him. I sensed
it when I was on Earth."
"Well, 'different' is an understatement. 'Impossible'
is the word that comes to my mind."
"Oh? Eric isn't being difficult, is he?"
"No, I didn't mean it that way. He's great!
Impossibly great! That's what I meant. Did he ever
talk to you about getting hunches or about things just
popping into his head?"
"Oh, yes, he said that was one of the reasons he was
such a good programmer. I think that may also be the
reason the Almighty picked him. We all have our
talents."
"Just not quite as freaky as his. Still, he's a
really
nice guy. I like him."
-----
>From her position below Urd and Peorth, Chrono called
out "Time program has exceeded 5% deviation in
alignment."
"Urd, another one of the auto stabilizers for the time
program is failing," Peorth said.
"I'm on it," Urd replied, dropping what she had been
doing. "Get ready to bring the axis back into
tolerance manually if you have to."
Skuld appeared next to Urd. "Urd, I need to talk to
you."
"Not now, can't you see I'm busy? We have to get this
auto stabilizer back up pronto."
"It's important, Urd!"
"Fine, just give me a couple minutes here."
Skuld looked down to where Eric sat engrossed in his
terminal. I wonder what he's working on, now?
"OK, the stabilizer is restarted. How's it holding,
Chrono?"
"Time axis is now 3% out of alignment... 2%... and
holding."
"Not perfect," Peorth said.
"It'll have to do. Lock it down. So, Skuld, what's
the big emergency?"
"It's about Eric. You remember the software he wrote
for the debugging routines?"
Urd nodded impatiently.
"Well, I asked him how he did it and he couldn't
really
tell me." Skuld paused, not sure how to go on.
"I don't follow you," Urd said. "Are you saying he
forgot what you told him about how to write a script?"
"I didn't tell him anything. I had to get back to
debugging and this morning he had it done."
"Then who do you think showed him how to do it?
Belldandy? Peorth?"
"Hey," Peorth said. "Don't look at me!"
"That's just it," Skuld said. "Nobody told him! He
did
it on his own."
"Yeah, right. Somebody must have helped him."
"You say he couldn't really tell you how, Skuld,"
Peorth interrupted. "So what _did_ he say?"
"He said that he just knew what it had to look like
and
how it needed to fit into our debugging system."
Urd looked at Peorth, who shrugged.
"Maybe it's time we paid our Mr. Donovan a visit," Urd
said.
Eric stared at the pattern, mumbling to himself. "OK,
if I modify this section and then link it to these two
sections..." He examined his handiwork. "No, that's
still not right. I need to make a change here,
like...
that?" He paused again, examining the program, then
smiled. "Hey, I think I've done it!"
"Done what?" Urd asked from over his shoulder.
"Waah!" Eric jumped, missed his chair on the way down,
and hit the floor. "Ow!" he staggered to his feet,
rubbing his bruised rear end.
Urd gave Eric an amused look. Peorth just stared.
"Are you OK?" Skuld asked.
"Yeah, I was just startled," Eric said.
"What were you so excited about?" Urd asked.
"Well, Skuld said that one of the problems you're
having is that the processing speed of the debugging
routines wasn't fast enough. I've just made a
modification to the debugging routine engine which
should speed things up a bit."
"Oh?" Urd gave him an incredulous look.
"Well, I'll need to test it, of course."
"Of course. Skuld, Peorth, you wanna come over and
give this a look?"
The three goddesses gathered around the terminal.
"Well, it looks something like the debugging routine,"
Skuld said.
"What's this do?" Peorth pointed.
"Damned if I know," Urd replied.
"Can I run it?" Eric asked.
"Looks harmless enough to me," Urd said. "What do you
think, ladies?"
"I trust him," Skuld said.
"Peorth?"
"Like you said, Urd, it looks harmless enough."
"I'll start it up as a low priority process, just in
case."
"OK, then, _you_ run it," Eric glared.
"Well, the lights are still on," Urd said after a few
moments. "Let's bump it up a little. Donovan, does
this thing write to the system logs?"
"Just like the original. I didn't modify the
logging."
"OK, let's see if it's caught anything, yet." Urd
brought up the log. "Well, it says it's caught a few,
at least. No _reported_ errors, either."
"I didn't modify the error reporting mechanism from
the
original code," Eric said defensively.
"Can't tell much about its efficiency at this level of
priority, though." Urd ignored the tone. "I'm going
to
give it regular priority. Skuld, tell the operators
to
yank the plug if it goes haywire." Urd entered a
couple commands.
"OK, let's see how this goes," Urd rose from the
terminal and brushed past Eric as she made her way to
the computer operators.
Peorth fell in behind Urd and Eric followed.
Looking back over her shoulder, Peorth gave Eric an
encouraging smile. "So far so good, eh?"
"Yeah, so far." I wish I could have run it myself,
though.
"How's it running?" Urd asked as she walked up to
Skuld.
"It looks stable so far," Skuld replied, looking first
at Urd then at Eric.
Eric breathed a sigh of relief.
"You weren't fully confident in your handiwork?"
Peorth
asked Eric.
"It's more like this system is so foreign to me that I
had no idea whether it would run at all, much less
correctly."
This brought stunned looks from the three goddesses as
well as the entire crew of computer operators.
"Hey," Eric shrugged, "I told you how this works for
me."
"You haven't told Peorth or me," Urd corrected.
"Or us!" the operators chorused.
"Oh, you're right, I forgot. Well, it sounds crazy,
but..."
"Hold up a minute," Urd interrupted. "Let's take this
discussion elsewhere. I'm not sure everyone," she
nodded towards the operators, "needs to hear what I
think you're going to say."
"Ahhhh..." The operators looked disappointed.
"Don't you have work to do?" Urd growled.
"Yes, ma'am," they sighed and turned back to their
terminals.
"I think we'd better get Belldandy involved in this,
too. Ex and Chrono, keep a close eye on that code,"
Urd added.
Once they had arrived at the Yggdrasil mainframe, Urd
called Belldandy over.
"OK, let's hear it." Urd gave Eric a critical look,
arms folded.
Eric looked around at the four goddesses. "Belldandy
and Skuld already know what I'm going to say. If it's
any comfort to you, this sort of thing has happened to
me before many times. Never on a system this
advanced,
though."
"Quit stalling," Urd said.
Eric glared back at her. "All right, then, I looked
at
the code and guessed at how I could improve it. In
the
case of the debugging routine, I wanted to make it run
faster so I played with it a bit, trying different
things until it looked right to me. I have no idea
how
it works, but I knew what it had to look like in order
to be as efficient as possible, so I changed it to
look
like that." Chew on that one, 'Miss system
administrator'!
Well, Urd smirked, so he does have some spine in him,
after all! "So you're saying you just knew what the
program needed to look like?"
"That's what I'm saying. I had a feeling, a hunch,
whatever, that it needed to look a certain way."
"That's crazy."
"It works."
Belldandy interrupted the stand-off. "Eric told me
about his hunches while we were on Earth. Almost from
the moment I appeared, I knew he could somehow sense
the importance of my being there."
Urd tapped a floating panel. "Ex, how's that new
debugging routine working?"
"Well," came the reply, "the sample size is still
small, but the new routine appears to be catching over
30% more bugs than the standard program."
"Yes!" Eric cried.
"Replacing one instance of the routine isn't going to
have much of an impact," Skuld said. "We'll need to
introduce it system wide."
"We'll test it on a couple minor subsystems first,"
Urd
countered. "We don't know what kinds of effect it may
have when massed."
"Um, I could use a hand over here as soon as you're
done," Keiichi's voice called from the mainframe.
"Coming, Keiichi," Belldandy replied and left the
group.
"We need all the help we can get, Urd," Skuld argued.
"She's got a point," Peorth added. "We may not be
able
to afford a standard testing period."
"So, it'll be a short test," Urd said.
"Do you feel it's ready to go into production, Eric?"
Skuld asked.
"Yes, I do."
"Then we can start the testing immediately. Right,
Urd?"
"You have a remarkable grasp of the obvious, Skuld."
They exchanged glares then Skuld left to join
Belldandy
and Keiichi.
-----
Back in the Yggdrasil Maintenance Facility, Ex checked
her indicators. "Overall debugging efficiency has
increased 47% since the general incorporation of the
new debugging engine!"
"Hooray! I can feel those hot springs already!"
Chrono
cried.
"Hot springs! Hot springs!" the operators chanted.
Peorth looked down at them. "Hehe, that Chrono.
Getting them worked up like this should improve their
efficiency 50%."
"Mmm," Urd replied.
Peorth looked at Urd. "You know, this stress has been
rough on all of us, but it's really taken a toll on
you. Where's that madcap goddess who used to annoy me
so much? You should be celebrating light at the end
of
the tunnel like the rest of us!"
"Excuse me if I have bigger things to think about."
"Like what?"
"If you can't see it already, you wouldn't
understand."
"You're still worked up about how Eric wrote that
code?
Fine, then, but as soon as we get all the systems back
online I'm off to soak in a hot spring along with
them," she nodded towards the operators. "You can stay
here and angst all by yourself."
"Doesn't it bother you at all?"
"I don't understand it, but I'm not second-guessing
the
Almighty. If Eric is good enough for him, he's good
enough for me."
"The Almighty may have missed something. It isn't
like
he hasn't misjudged things before."
"Show some respect, girl!" Sheesh, no wonder she's
still a goddess second class!
"Just making an observation."
"Then I'll make one of my own. You need to educate
that psychotic ex-boyfriend of yours. You're never
going to be able to have any fun as long as he stalks
every guy who comes near you. Of course, as stubborn
as he is, you may just need to pound that sense into
him."
"I don't need love advice, and especially not from
you."
"He's a millstone around your neck, Urd. Dump the
creep, and do it in no uncertain terms."
"Hold things down here for a while, OK? I'm going to
do a little investigating."
Peorth sighed. "Sure, change the subject. I'll help
you out this time, but don't think I'm going to do all
your work for you."
Urd left her chair and flew down to where Eric was
working.
Peorth watched her go and shook her head. "Such
passion, what a waste."
"Hey, Donovan, it looks like your code is working
out,"
Urd said.
"Yeah, I heard the announcement," Eric replied nodding
his head at the operators then went back to staring at
the terminal.
"So what are your plans now that you've solved our
problem?"
Eric stopped and looked up. "You're playing with me,
right? You can't really think I've solved anything
long term. The root cause of the system problems
still
exists and will only get worse with time. Eventually
the automated systems will again be overwhelmed."
"I'm impressed. I was thinking you might be resting
on
your laurels." Urd leaned forward. "Now, how do you
see us getting rid of the root problem?"
"I don't know, yet. Nothing's coming to me."
"Oh? I would have thought you would be well on your
way to a solution by now."
"I can't control it. My hunches either come or they
don't, and this time they haven't."
"So, the source of your insight has dried up, eh?
Does
it ever bother you? Do you ever wonder where these
ideas of yours come from?"
"I used to, but I gave up trying to figure it out.
The
best explanation I've been able to come up with is
that
I'm naturally intuitive. Sometimes I don't even know
why I should do something. I just get a hunch out of
the blue that I should take some action. No reason,
just that I need to do something. When Belldandy came
through that mirror, it scared the life out of me. I
wasn't expecting that at all, but when she started
talking I suddenly realized that I needed to do
whatever she was going to ask me to do."
"So it really isn't just about writing code. How long
have you had these intuitions?"
"As long as I can remember. When I was kid I was in
some fights where I knew exactly what punch the other
guy was going to throw."
"Sounds kind of handy to me."
"Most of the time. Sometimes it's been a real pain,
getting me into situations I didn't want to be in."
"Like this one?"
"Yeah, like this one. Still, I feel like I need to
stay here a while longer." A thought occurred to him.
"Has the Almighty said that I should leave?"
"Actually, the Almighty hasn't been too forthcoming as
to why you were brought here or on how long you should
stay," Urd replied. "He hasn't made a peep since you
arrived."
"Is he usually this enigmatic?"
Urd grinned. "That's not a bad thing. The Almighty
is
one person you _don't_ want to hear from, Donovan,
take
my word for it."
-----
"You still have misgivings about Eric, Urd?" Belldandy
asked as she stalked bugs.
"Not serious misgivings, no. After all, if he had
wanted to he could have probably destroyed the system
by now."
"You've always been suspicious of him," Skuld said.
"Why can't you just accept the fact that he has done a
wonderful job for us? Besides, the Almighty picked
him!"
"Why does everybody keep bringing up the Almighty?
OK,
I'll grant you that Donovan has done wonderful things.
Still, what do you make of this intuition thing of
his?
It spooks me. Intuitions come from somewhere. So
where are they coming from? What if someone or
something is feeding him those ideas?"
"Someone who knows more about Yggdrasil than you and
Skuld do?" Belldandy asked.
"Yeah, it's crazy. Still, whatever is driving these
ideas he gets, it apparently does know a heck of a lot
about Yggdrasil. Either that or he's been lying to us
about the whole intuition thing and it's really him
that knows so much."
"His aura hasn't shown any signs of duplicity,"
Belldandy argued.
"Yeah, so maybe he can falsify his aura?"
"You're sounding paranoid, Urd," Skuld said.
"Is it any worse than thinking somebody is feeding him
instructions? Either way, it's worse than frustrating,
it's either downright embarrassing or else chilling."
Belldandy considered the implications of this. "Even
though I haven't detected any trace of falsehood
around
him, some unknown force may be at work."
"You got that right. That guy just reeks of the
unknown. Anyway, now that we have some breathing room
I'm working on fulfilling that wish of his. Hehe, I'm
currently running a complete background check on the
guy. It sure is nice being out of crisis mode and
having higher level system functions available again,
you know? In a couple of weeks, once we get the
Ultimate Force back up and running, we can even bring
the Goddess Offices back online."
"I'm looking forward to that," Belldandy sighed.
"So am I, Belldandy. I know how much you've missed
working in the Relief Goddess Office all these years.
The system problems have been hard on all of us, but
at
least the rest of us were more or less doing our
regular jobs. Believe me, getting the Goddess Offices
back up and running is a top priority for me.
Besides," she added with a grin, "it'll mean that
Peorth will finally be out of my hair!"
-----
"Thanks for coming, Skuld," Eric said.
"Hey, I'm glad you called. Now that the debugging
routines are handling so much of the load, I can
finally give you some support."
"You've been very supportive already. I couldn't have
asked for more. The reason I called you is I want to
ask a question. Have you ever heard of something
called Nidhog?"
Skuld was quiet a moment. "Yes..."
"I was wondering about it. I can't find any reference
to it, here."
"It's the demons' computer system. It's the
counterpart to Yggdrasil, in a sense."
"A separate computer system!?" I was hoping it would
be something more along the lines of an AI. This
complicates things. "Are the two systems linked?"
"To a degree. We aren't allowed to mess with each
others systems, though."
"Don't worry, I was just curious." I hate lying to
her.
"Oh, OK. What're you working on, now?"
"I'm trying to discover the root cause of these errors
in the system." That's true enough without giving
anything away.
"That's wonderful! Do you have any ideas where to
look?"
"Nope. I'm hoping something occurs to me."
"One of those hunches of yours?"
"Yeah. I'm hoping for a miracle of sorts," Eric gave
her a wry grin.
"So, this is where you sit and think until something
comes to you, right?"
"That's about the size of it."
"Well, then, I'm going to help out Urd and Peorth.
Let
me know if I can be of help, I'll be right up there."
"I'll be sure to do that."
After Skuld had left, Eric turned to his terminal.
"OK, we do this the hard way. Let's assume Yggdrasil
and Nidhog are a virtual pair or some kind of a
clustered configuration. That means I need to find
the
synchronization code or maybe a randomizer here.
Where
would that be? There must be some documentation
somewhere on the system. Better start digging."
Sitting in her command chair, Urd frowned at the
search
results displayed in front of her. Hmm, I need to
talk
with Belldandy about this. "Hey, Skuld, I'm going to
go talk to Belldandy a bit. You're in charge."
Urd walked up to the Yggdrasil Mainframe. "Hi,
Belldandy, how's the debugging?"
"Hello, Urd. Everything is under control," Belldandy
smiled.
"That's good news. I wish I could give you some.
I've
run an extremely thorough background check on
Donovan."
"Oh? What did you find?"
"Nothing about his origins. There is no trace of him
before he was three years old."
"That's strange. Could the archive files be damaged?"
"I've found some damage to the records, but it's a
stretch to say it's extensive enough to destroy all
traces of his existence before the age of 3. Besides,
the rest of his file is intact as far as I can tell."
Keiichi spoke up. "So you're saying he just popped
into existence when he was three years old?"
"I don't know what I'm saying. This is all very
disturbing. Belldandy, did Eric mention anything about
his childhood to you?"
"Only that he has never been able to locate his
parents."
"Well, that kind of makes sense if he just popped into
existence when he was three," Keiichi quipped.
Urd just gave him an annoyed look.
"Urd, does this mean we won't be able to grant his
wish?" Belldandy asked.
"His wish is the last thing I'm worried about. We
have
no idea who or what this guy is. That's what really
bothers me."
"Now, wait," Keiichi interjected. "What are you
thinking, that Eric may not be mortal?"
"To use your own reasoning, how many mortals do you
know who just pop into existence when they're three
years old?"
"Maybe he's a clone?"
"There'd still be a record of the cloning."
"That poor boy," sighed Belldandy.
-----
End of Part 1, Chapter 2
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Why is Urd 180cm tall? First of all, no self-
respecting Norse deity would be caught dead at 170cm
and less in height, the officially published heights
of
the goddesses. People grow tall in the Nordic
countries, and it's hard to command respect from your
worshippers when they're looking down at the top of
your head. So, why is Belldandy 165cm tall in AMG?
The easiest explanation is that she doesn't want to
appear as a giantess to her client, Keiichi. Since
the
goddesses' 3-dimensional forms have to be generated
anyway (goddesses are canonically at least 10-
dimensional beings, normally undetectable to us),
choosing an appropriate height for that form would be
a
simple matter. The immortals who arrive later
naturally adjust their heights relative to the one(s)
already there.
Heaven is in 10-space? Canonically, OMG's Heaven
exists outside of the universe in at least 10-space
(10
dimensional space). We, of course, live inside the
universe in 3 dimensional space. To simplify matters,
I just assumed 10-space for Heaven simplest thing to
do.
Why is Keiichi still alive and why is he debugging
Yggdrasil? Well, I was not about to face the wrath of
Belldandy by killing him off! Besides, the Norse gods
were re-animating the dead, making them immortal and
taking them to Asgard all the time. As for the
debugging, I needed to give Keiichi some kind of job
and I couldn't see him doing anything which would take
him away from the sisters. Debugging was a logical
choice since it doesn't require much in the way of
powers or know-how. Also, Skuld would naturally be
taking on more administrative assignments as she
became
more experienced, thereby creating the need for a new
debugger.
Why is Skuld still in her teens? Since this fic is
based on the manga rather than the OAV, the goddesses
do age but are for all intents and purposes immortal.
I assume that the rebirth of the pantheon began about
the time that worship of the Norse gods ceased, about
1,000AD. Using Urd's age as a ruler and assuming she
was reborn immediately, we see that Urd has apparently
aged 25 years in the past 1,000 of our years, a ratio
of 1 to 40. This is, I admit, an arbitrary figure,
but
it has the advantage of being the least arbitrary one.
Anyway, given the approx. 160 years between Keiichi's
college years and the time of this fanfic, the
goddesses should appear 4 years older than they did at
the beginning of OMG. That puts Urd and Belldandy at
25 (Norse gods ceased aging when they reached
adulthood) and Skuld at 16.
What's with the sparse descriptions of Heaven? Sorry
about the lack of detail, but there just isn't that
much known canonically about where the goddesses work.
I know I could have made up stuff, but I wanted to
keep
this as close to canon as possible. Thus, the sparse
descriptions.
The computer operators have names? The computer
operators aren't named in the manga, but it would have
been really boring not to have written any dialogue
for
them. Therefore, I used the names of the operators
from the movie because it added more to the story,
even
though they may not be the same operators (the movie
operators have cheek markings, the manga operators
have
no markings).
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