"Born Again"
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 Kosuke
Fujishima. 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," Peorth chuckled. She's so fun to mess with. 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."
"Aa..." 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 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.
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.
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).
Nidhog is a computer closely linked to Yggdrasil? Canonically, all
we know is that Nidhog is the demon's computer system and that it is
linked somehow to Yggdrasil. Given the Norse basis of this fic, I
have assumed the two systems are very closely linked, and that
Nidhog has a fundamentally detrimental effect upon Yggdrasil.
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 Kosuke
Fujishima. 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," Peorth chuckled. She's so fun to mess with. 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."
"Aa..." 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 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.
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.
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).
Nidhog is a computer closely linked to Yggdrasil? Canonically, all
we know is that Nidhog is the demon's computer system and that it is
linked somehow to Yggdrasil. Given the Norse basis of this fic, I
have assumed the two systems are very closely linked, and that
Nidhog has a fundamentally detrimental effect upon Yggdrasil.
