Ah! 10948 edited. ch1.
Ah! My Goddess is the copyrighted property of Kosuke Fujisnima. This story is a separate work of fiction using characters from the original not written for profit under the Fair Use doctrine regarding copyrighted materials.
This is a re-editing of my second story 10948. I've added a prologue and additional dialogue and background in an attempt to make the story flow better. But it is still basically the same story so don't expect to find much difference.
Prologue:
"Confirmed," came the electronic voice of Yggdrasil in Peorth's mind, "accessing system file 10948. Confirming connection with Peorth."
With that final input the Heavenly computer system known as Yggdrasil, in a fashion understood only by it, began dumping the contents of the classified file directly into the receptive goddess' brain. Shocked by what she saw, "Is that…Belldandy? Peorth couldn't help but question the machine, "What is she doing here?" before reigning her mind back in so the rest of the data file could to transfer into her. She didn't need to ask who the other was. For although Yggdrasil had obscured the offender's face it still had failed to conceal his identity. The sex goddess had easily recognized the robes as belonging to a former client of hers. Celestin, one time holder of the lowest seat in the Council of Heaven which by virtue of their convoluted systems of checks and balances made him the most influential being in Heaven, second only to the AMO himself.
"Well that explains a few things," she thought wryly to herself as she walked back to her station trying to clear her head. Thinking back certain events in her past now started to make sense, at least now she knew why Celestin would make her play dress up with the Auburn hared wig and all too short light blue robes and why he just disappeared all of a sudden.
"What a shame for you, Belldandy," Peorth thought to herself as her mind continue to wander, "he would have made a good first love for you had I been able to finish with him."
Peorth knew she wasn't being vain with that last thought. After all that was her purpose, to take the dark energies of lust and refocus them down the more enlightened path of love. How many relationships she had saved in her tenure she didn't know and didn't much care but the number she knew was somewhere in the thousands. Sadly while she could help the relationships of others, for herself she knew there could be none, for how could she devote the time and energy to just one special person when she knew that she would forever be required to help those in need?
"Such a beautiful day," she forced herself think as she tried to calm her mind, "who could possibly think that something so awful could have happened to Belldandy on a day such as this?" Without warning the anger she had felt earlier by what she had just witnessed was upon her once again, "Vaccination!" she seethed, "How could they even think of it! After everything else that they had done to Belldandy and now they want to vaccinate her too!"
She would have been even more enraged had her own anger not hidden another dark truth from her. While the awful information that was the 10948 data file was being downloaded in to her consciousness the council had also hidden deep in her subconscious access to Heaven's final option, Gungnir.
10948 Ch.1
Not that far from the outskirts of Nekomi lies an old run down apartment building. Although the amount of available living space in the region is far outstripped by the need the unknown owner of the building failed to capitalize on that fact and make the minor renovations necessary to attract tenants. His reason wasn't due to apathy; instead it was because one of his tenants, his only one as a matter of fact, liked her privacy. As a result a certain First class Demon and her boss had their run of the entire building. It would have been the height of luxury too had the rest of the building had any windows.
In the basement of said apartment where the only tenets dwelled was Mara who in her boredom was trying to hone her skills at BreakOut, while Hild's child like avatar was poring over Nidhogg's quarterly reports. The relative silence of the room was suddenly shattered by the innocent sounding voice of the ruler of all Demon-kind as she noticed an anomaly in the data runs. "One zero nine four eight," came Hild's voice as she suddenly sat up seemingly suspended in space above the unkempt floor of the basement.
"What?" said a startled Mara, as she looked up from the video game she had been playing.
"One zero nine four eight." repeated Hild, showing Mara a piece of fan-fold paper who's apparent origin was thin air.
"So what exactly does that mean?" asked Mara.
"I don't really know myself," Hild replied, "but Nidhogg thinks it might be the number of a classified file in the Yggdrasil system due to the fact that it was accessed immediately after the system became infected with that latest virus. That's what piqued my interest just now. Looking at the printout it seems that the virus entered through a satellite 6."
"As I recall, Satellite 6 is Belldandy's IP Port." Mara commented.
"You are absolutely right Mara," Hild smiled at her with a cat-that-ate-the-canary-grin. "So I'm willing to bet that whatever is in that file is somehow related to Belldandy."
"Do you have any clues as to what might be inside?"
"No I don't," Hild admitted, "but I do have a snooper program in Nidhogg designed to flag seldom used file numbers that might be classified. Seeing as how this file was accessed just before all hell broke loose up there it is a good bet that it might disclose a vulnerability in Heaven's system."
"What did happen anyway? I know it must have been something major for them to do a full system reset." Mara commented.
"I don't know either," Hild admitted uncharacteristically, "and that's what makes me jealous, all that hate and discontent and me having nothing to do with any of it! That's why I think I might need to take a look inside that file."
Mara realizing that the conversation was taking a dangerous turn was suddenly on the alert. "My lady far be it from me to question your wisdom but aren't we crossing into a dangerous area here?"
"Great rewards only come with great risk Mara, you should know that. If there is something in that file that we can use to our advantage don't you think we should at least explore the possibility of hacking it?
"I won't argue with you on that, but if it is classified then how do you propose we access it? It's not like you can hack into Heaven's system anytime you want. Not to mention that if Heaven finds out that we were even thinking of hacking into Yggdrasil then we will be in violation of the truce and subject to some very severe sanctions!"
"True, but it might be worth the risk if the file contains information on a vulnerability that Yggdrasil shares with Belldandy. If that is the case and we are able to exploit it then we can finally put an end to this struggle once and for all! You must agree that with Belldandy being as vulnerable as she is being stuck down here on Earth this represents a golden opportunity to strike at Heaven through her!
"Keiichi Morisato," Hild continued wistfully, "who would have ever thought that I would be grateful to that idiot for trapping Belldandy down here on the mortal plane."
"That means putting an end to the truce!" Mara gasped terrified, "Are you sure you want to do that?"
"What's the matter Mara?" Hild scoffed. "Afraid to go head to head with the goddesses on our own turf?"
"It's not that," Mara said backpedaling, "but the doublet system has worked out for us so far. Are you sure you want to go back to the way things used to be?"
"And the doublet system will work out for us once again. It's not like Heaven will break the truce on their own. If we can hack the system and successfully crash it, then we can be in total control of this world before they know what hit them. Heaven won't have any choice but to acknowledge our dominance over the mortal plane."
"Well then," Mara said not sounding too convinced, "how do you propose we hack in to the system?"
"It's really very simple Mara," Hild explained snapping her fingers causing an 8 x 10 glossy photo to appear in her hand, "any security system is only as strong as its weakest link, right now with Belldandy trapped down here she is that weak link. We need only find some method of hacking into her connection then downloading the information."
"Yes but Belldandy's firewall is as strong as any in Heaven! Its not like you will be able to find a link you can crack that easily. Besides, a direct attack against her link is the same as an attack against Yggdrasil itself. We'll have Lind and her Valkyries up our kazoos in a heartbeat if we do so!"
"We don't have to attack the link directly," Hild spoke as if to a slow child, "if the information is in a shared file then we just need to download the information from Belldandy to a non-secure server."
"That's what I'm saying; goddesses don't have any weak links!"
"Yes, but she does have a weakness," Hild responded turning the photo of a certain popular sidecar racing team so Mara could see it, "Keiichi!"
Taking the photo from Hild, Mara studied the face of her archnemesis' boyfriend staring back at her from the picture before continuing, "I don't see how he can help us, humans don't have direct links to one another much less to a goddess. For Keiichi to have a link with Belldandy then she would need to establish it herself and she sure as Heaven won't do that if she thinks it will put him in danger!"
"How about if it were to keep him from danger?"
"Ah ha," Mara exclaimed, the light suddenly going on inside her mind, "I sense the beginnings of another of your diabolical plans Lady Hild. What is it that you have in mind?"
"It's really very simple." Hild smiled now that Mara was onboard. "All we need to do is to get Belldandy to link up with Keiichi, and then force her to download all her information onto him. Once that is done we can seal him up, drain his brain and if I'm feeling particularly generous, I might even let him go when I'm done. Heaven will be powerless to stop us and since we never struck directly at Belldandy or Yggdrasil technically we will still be within the confines of the truce."
"I see one major problem," Mara said scratching her head, "how do we force Belldandy to download her information onto Keiichi?"
"We do that by uploading a minor programming change into Keiichi's short term memory before they link up."
"And just how minor is minor?" Mara asked with a smirk.
"We'll just simply change Keiichi's program from its customary default of RAM to a simple Read to End of File code. Once the link is established that will force the two of them to exchange all their memories before Belldandy can sever the link. In effect moving all that critical information from her onto an unprotected server. Now it might be possible for her to sever the link before the program reached the critical file but if she were to do that then she would run the risk of scrambling his brains permanently."
"Belldandy guards Keiichi with a jealousy that is frightening," Mara pointed out. "I'm sure Belldandy will notice if Keiichi starts walking around with that Read to End of File code running amok in his brain."
"You're right, of course, in order for this to work it would need to be imbedded into a Trojan horse with a Read Once DRO code that would trigger immediately after Belldandy establishes the link."
"Why the DRO, wouldn't we want to leave it in place for possible future use?"
"No, we can't take the risk."
"Why not?"
"Just as you said earlier about the Doublet treaty. If we leave any code in his brain that can be traced back to us Heaven's wrath will be so great that even I wouldn't want to be here."
"Okay," said Mara as the wheels in her twisted mind started to turn, "Three basic problems we need to overcome.
"We need to trick Belldandy into voluntarily establishing a direct link with Keiichi.
"We need to have pre loaded a virus into his mind.
"And we need to be there to spring the trap and seal Keiichi before Belldandy can clean up."
"The first part shouldn't be that hard," began Hild, "the silly bitch is absolutely guileless. She always takes the shortest path between point A and B. We just need to create a situation where she witnesses him walking into the path of some impending danger and then make it so she has no other way to communicate a warning to him. The third part is just a matter of stealth and timing."
"But what about part two?" began Mara, "How do we take control of his mind without Belldandy knowing? She may be guileless but she isn't stupid. She'll know something is up as soon as she senses our presence."
"That's true, but she still won't know what we are up to. With a little misdirection we can have her jumping one way when she should be going the other."
"Okay, so you have the Belldandy part of this equation handled but even if you can get her to dance to your tune just how are you going to handle Keiichi. How are you planning on uploading your Trojan horse into that idiot's feeble mind?"
"How should I know?" Hild smiled evilly at Mara, "That is what I have my Cyber Daemon for."
"Oh please, don't tell me you are going to call him in!"
"Of course I am! Those three goddesses have been a pain in my butt for way too long. It's time to roll out the big guns. By the way, what time is it in Seattle?"
"Oh that poor bastard!" Shuddered Mara in sympathy.
At the secret headquarters of a little known software manufacturer located at:
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-7329, USA
Tel: (425) 882-8080
Fax: (425) 706-7329.
"I don't know who this is," came the voice of the obviously disgruntled Daemon whom Hild had woken on the far side of the world, "but it had better be good for you to be waking me at this ungodly hour of the night!"
"Don't you dare blaspheme in my presence!" came the playful jibe from Hild as she stared out of the Daemon's computer screen.
"Oh, pardon me, it's you Lady Hild!" the evil visage of the knurled old Daemon suddenly brightening at the sound of Hild's voice.
Now normally, when a demon discovers it has spoken disrespectfully to the CEO of hell they recoil in fright. However, the look on the face of the Daemon staring out of the computer terminal was anything but scared. Instead it was more akin to affection, almost bordering on lust, as he admired Hild's girlish form from the relative safety of his video display.
What terrified Mara even more was the look that Hild returned. When the CEO of hell finds herself being spoken to in such a fashion the usual glare she gave the unlucky offender was enough to make your average demon wish for death! However, instead of being angry, she was looking back at the gnarled old face that was ogling her flirtatiously, almost as if she returned his feelings.
"Daemon William." said Hild formally, "long time no see."
"Lady Hild" said Daemon William obviously overjoyed by the source of the interruption, "always a pleasure to see you any time of the day or night. I must say I admire the new look. What can I do for you?" he asked as he continued to disrobe her with his eyes.
"Billy, I need to ask you a favor."
"Shoot."
"I need to upload a computer virus."
"Is that all?" said Daemon William in obvious disappointment. "Surely you have your own people on staff to handle that kind of thing for you locally."
"I do, but this is a special kind of virus. Instead of the usual method of having a human place a virus onto a computer, I want to upload a virus from a computer to a human."
"I see," said Daemon William, once again cheerful in the face of this new challenge, "well then that's a little different and as it just so happens my product development crew has been working just such an application."
"Shame on you," Hild said playfully, "trying to go with such a radical product improvement without telling me about it."
"Actually, I was going to see if you would allow us to roll it into the new OS after the beta testing was done," said Daemon William trying unsuccessfully to keep a straight face. Both Hild and Daemon William lost their battle to maintain their stoic expressions at the same time and broke down into laughter.
"Of course," he said after he regained his composure, "I wouldn't be worthy of the title Daemon if I didn't possess some duplicity! But anyway, as I'm sure you already know, I have a version of the new Reverse Interface Virus ready for its first beta test. All I need from you is the target's name."
"Of course, his name is Keiichi Morisato."
"And what would you like this virus to do?"
"I want to upload a Trojan horse into his mind."
"I assume you have the code already written and you just need a delivery service."
"That's right, I'm sending you the specifics in an encrypted attachment."
"Very well," Billy replied, "I'll get to work on the base code right away. With that he turned away from the screen and began typing away on an ancient Commodore 64. As he worked he continued his conversation with his boss.
"Lady Hild, if you don't mind my asking, what's got you in such a state?"
"It's those three dam goddesses," Hild vented, "how dare they almost destroy the entire world and I don't even get an invitation!"
"I see, was that what that master reset I felt the other day all about?"
"It was, but the kicker of it all is that the Infernal realm wasn't in on it."
"You're saying that the Earth just had a major AU adjustment the other day and it wasn't our fault?" Daemon William asked in awe.
"That's right."
"How is that even possible?"
"It's those dam three Norn's," Hild answered him in disgust, "They create more discord in Heaven by accident than the whole of the Infernal Realm can accomplish by design. If I can't find some way to get those bitches back up there soon we all might find ourselves unemployed!"
"That would be…inconvenient." Daemon William sighed. "Well I'm all done with the base code, just give me a few minutes to insert the attachment into the file and then I will insert the new code into the next automatic update."
"About how long do you think it will take to propagate?"
"With my new VvIiSrTuAs operating system needing to be updated almost constantly I can guarantee that the next time the target logs on he will be instantly infected."
"Oh, you are my hero!" said Hild as she openly flirted with him in an almost obscene fashion.
"You are too kind," smiled Daemon William as he stared longingly at Hild.
As Mara observed the romantic interplay between the two she couldn't help but shudder with revulsion at what such an evil paring would produce. It was all she could do to hold back her nausea as the ever-worsening visuals in her minds eye caused by her twisted imagination degenerated into possibilities even too disgusting for her to contemplate. Finally, the two were done chatting and the conversation terminated.
Hild had been aware of Mara's discomfort the whole time but being the ruler of hell she couldn't help but make her sweat a little before putting her mind at ease.
"Don't worry yourself Mara," Hild told her, "there are limits to even my depravity. While I'll admit that I do share a certain fondness for the old pervert, I just don't think I could ever let him sire my child."
"It's not just that!" Mara said, as her frustration boiled over. "Why is it that he gets all the special treatment! How come he's a Daemon and I'm still just a Demon? I have the tenure yet still I'm stuck here everyday in this crappy run down apartment getting my ass kicked by those dam goddesses while he's living the life of luxury in Seattle."
"Redmond actually," Hild corrected, "but to answer your question. Innate ability can only take you so far Mara. Desire and motivation are also needed and while it's true you have a natural talent for the job, you just don't seem to be motivated to really get down and dirty. There have been times when, if I didn't know any better, I would swear you have a conscience!
"Now when it comes to Billy: It was just the beginning of the PC revolution. He was one of only a handful of people who understood the true capabilities of these machines. While the rest of the world was going on about how computers were going to make everybody's lives easier Billy was already hard at work concentrating on their darker aspects. I saw promise in the convoluted way he insisted on writing his code.
"The custody battle over who would get Urd was, to put it mildly, bitter. As it so happened it was just after I had dropped her off to live with her father that I decided I might approach Billy about making a deal. I was in a particularly bad mood that day so I was looking for somebody I could really screw over. Billy was the perfect target, or so I thought, so I decided I would make a contract with him.
"Now you would have thought that since I had the upper hand and being as pissed off as I was I would have been able to negotiate a really foul contract, you know, the kind with him doing all the work and Hell reaping all the benefits. Instead by the time the negotiations were over with he had managed to wrangle a place on the board!"
"Of course he has a place on the board! It's his company after all," Mara snorted.
"Not that board," Hild chided her, "I'm talking about the board I chair."
"You're kidding me!" Mara gasped.
"How do you think he earned the title Daemon?"
"Let me get this straight," Mara asked in disbelief, "are you telling me that the great Daimakaicho was outmaneuvered?"
"Not even! With every new OS rollout Billy does for us the level of frustration and anger on earth increases tenfold and those stupid humans just keep lining up to spend their hard-earned money to buy the latest and greatest software in the hopes that that stupid machine will finally live up to all the hype. Instead exactly the opposite happens, lost files, frozen systems, crashed servers. It's literally Heaven, no I mean Hell, on earth. How can I not be fond of a Daemon that so enjoys his work and brings me such pleasure at the same time?
"Another thing to keep in mind, duplicitous as he is, he never lets his personal ambition get in the way of product development. I've known for quite some time about his work on the new virus. He has been pestering my group over at Spell Cast for months now on the details of remote human manipulation. Because of him and his dedication to our cause the humans are actually paying us to make their lives miserable! I still mark it as the single best deal I have ever made.
"That's the reason why it is so important to get Belldandy and her sisters back up to Heaven. I can't have Daemon William and the rest of my people spending hundreds of thousands of hours carefully planning and manipulating events in order to get the world to its current level of frustration only to have Belldandy and Company come along and trump the whole lot of us in a single evening."
"I understand," said Mara, "I have a question though. Once the Norn's are out of the way aren't you afraid that the humans might discover we had a hand in that last software roll out and take up arms against us?"
"Not to worry," Hild smiled in satisfaction, "Why do you think I had Billy set up his headquarters on the other side of the world? If word were to get out I still would have a five-hour lead-time. By then I will have been able to pull all my representatives from the PC and software manufacturers on this side of the world."
"I see," said Mara as she regarded the CEO of hell in a new light, "and then leave Daemon William to take the fall with the Justice Department in America while you get your group to safety over here."
"Exactly," Hild said answered her smugly.
"Aren't you worried about the possibility of the humans having such a high ranking member of the board in their custody?"
"Not really," replied Hild, "any member who sits on my board should be adept enough at getting himself out of a few minor scrapes with the law without help. Actually, I think they did try to take him down back in the early nineties."
"How did he get out of it?"
"I don't remember all the details, something about how two thirds of all the computers in the world would start coming to a halt 48 hours after he was incarcerated if they didn't back down."
"Lady Hild," questioned Mara, "if you don't mind my asking if the demon realm controls a majority of the OS market already then why haven't you been able to invade Yggdrasil directly until now?"
"Because," said Hild her good mood evaporating, "of that silly goddess in charge of Yggdrasil's Encoding Verification & Encryption department. She thought it would be cute if they were to use machines named after a certain fruit rather than use the ones that were being manufactured by my group over at I-ttiy B-itty M-inds."
"Are you saying that the only reason we haven't been able to penetrate Yggdrasil is because EVE wanted an App…?"
The evil look emanating from her boss caused her final words to die in her throat.
"Ouch," thought Mara to herself, "I should have seen that one coming."
"Yeah, me too," replied Hild.