Chapter Three: Visitor from Heaven
"Miss Peorth!" The black-haired goddess lifted her eyes from her Yggdrasil access console. "Yes, Chrono?" The head of Yggdrasil administration rose from her chair and went to meet the other goddess halfway. "Miss Peorth, there is an anomaly in the system."
The goddess first class arched an eyebrow. "What kind of anomaly?" Chrono shook her head. "We don't know. It's there, then it's gone. Like some kind of bug in the Yggdrasil tracking system. We're not even exactly sure where it is. It fades in and out before our scans can get a good hold on it."
"Any estimate where it appears?"
Chrono gave her an apologetic look. "The only thing we can say is that it is usually somewhere in Japan. We are running an analysis now to check if the problem is with Yggdrasil, but it seems to be working fine." Peorth nodded. "What does it look like?"
"It's a code I've never seen before, and it matches nothing in our databanks." The young goddess called up a screen. "This is a snapshot we got before it vanished." She keyed in a command. "This is the source code we got off the scans. It's a little fuzzy, but that's all we've got."
Peorth looked at the data scrolling down the screen. At first, it seemed as unfamiliar to her as it had to her aide, then she recognized a couple of familiar symbols as they scrolled past. She entered a few command lines of her own, and the code straightened out. The goddess of roses gasped in shock. Can it be...after all this time? "Have you seen it before?" Chrono asked.
Peorth cleared the screen, then deleted the file. "Chrono, make sure every trace of this file and other records of this anomaly are deleted. Talk to no one about this. Not a trace of this anomaly is to leak outside this office, understood?"
The younger goddess nodded. "If I may ask...what is it?"
"Something I had thought I would never see again."
As soon as the junior goddess was gone, Peorth teleported through her camera. She was fueled by a hope she hadn't felt in far too many years.
Keiichi's camera sat where he had put it, on the table in the study. Suddenly, it rose into the air and began swirling with energy, rotating faster and faster. A vortex of magical energy opened, and Peorth stepped out of the center of it. She arranged her short black hair, and carefully opened the door to the adjacent corridor. The goddess of roses smiled briefly at the fond memories she had of her short stay at the temple. She stepped out into the corridor, and...crash! The raven-haired goddess groaned as she lifted herself off the ground, and, across from her, Belldandy did the same.
"Ah, gomen," Belldandy offered even before she was fully upright. "Oh, Peorth! What brings you here?" She smiled. "It's nice to have you visit again. I hope you are well?" Peorth nodded and returned Belldandy's smile. "Very well, thank you. But I'm afraid I'm here for official reasons. Belldandy, are your sisters here? And please, get Keiichi, too. This might concern him, as well." Belldandy's eyes widened in concern. "Oh dear, is it something serious?"
The visitor shook her head. "Not really. I just wanted to ask something of all of you. But I'd rather explain it to everyone at once, if possible." Belldandy nodded in acknowledgement. "Please, have a seat in the living room," she added before leaving in search of the rest of the temple's usual occupants.
Moments later, the four goddesses and one mortal sat and stood around the living room. "So, what's the matter, Peorth?" Urd asked, leaning forward. Peorth glanced around once and began, "There has been a problem with Yggdrasil. About two hours ago, we found a sort of...glitch in the system – a recoursing signal that seems to appear and disappear totally at random. It never stays in one place long enough for us to get a good reading on it."
"Why did you come here, then? I mean, you could have asked any of Yggdrasil's admins and coordinators to pinpoint it, or extrapolate the data you have." Skuld asked. "Simple. First, neither of my subordinates were able to exactly to that, and second, the signal always seems to appear around Japan. More precisely, Chiba District. We think it's zooming in somewhere here. It stays for different lengths of time. It's almost like it knows when we're tracking it – and it vanishes quickly – and when we're not."
Urd arched her eyebrow. "What makes you think the problem's not with Yggdrasil itself? That it's a...a bug running loose, or something?" Peorth rose from her chair. "It's not a bug, I'm sure of that." "Why?" Keiichi queried.
"Because I've seen this kind of signature on Yggdrasil scanners before. Never this fuzzily, but signatures with similar code and behaviour." Skuld demanded, "When?" Peorth's eyes seemed to look back through time as she replied. "A very long time ago. And it's also one of the reasons why I came to you. To most of the people – even in Heaven – this kind of signature...shouldn't even exist."
"What exactly...is it?" Keiichi asked. "I mean, Yggdrasil has to have a record of it, right?" Peorth's reply was a quick incantation, and an image of the occurences in the Yggdrasil control room formed, hovering in the air between the five of them. It zoomed in on the display readouts. Urd and Skuld both shook their heads.
Urd pursed her lips. "I've never seen anything even remotely like this before," Urd stated. "Neither have I," Skuld added. "The header code is kind of strange...like it's been garbled. On purpose, maybe. Or maybe it's just the result of the faulty scanning." Urd declared after studying the readouts more carefully. "But that's all I can tell. It seems to have something to do with the Yggdrasil code for time, though."
"Something like this is definitely not in Yggdrasil files. I must've looked through all of them during the incident with Celestine and Gunganeer, and I never found anything like this," Skuld said.
"But if it's not in Yggdrasil files, how can it exist?" Keiichi chimed in. Peorth smiled wryly. "It was there, once. Heavily encrypted, under the highest security seals you could imagine. Even Kami-sama didn't have full access to these files. I deleted them, personally, on Kami-sama's orders."
Urd gasped, and even Belldandy and Skuld looked shocked at the implication that Kami-sama himself had ordered such actions to be taken – to delete any information from the worldcomputer.
"I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?" Five pairs of eyes turned toward the source of the new voice. Tom stood in the living room door, smiling sheepishly. "I...I just wanted to get the briefcase I left here the last time, and the front door was kinda open..." He glanced at Peorth, having noticed she was staring at him. "Uh, something wrong, lady?"
It can't be...Peorth thought. She shook her head briefly. "No, nothing. It's all right. I'm Peorth, by the way." Tom bowed slightly. "Tom Tavin. Anyway, sorry about this," he added and left again.
Urd kept glancing from Peorth to Tom during the short interruption. After he was gone, she arched an eyebrow at Peorth. "What was that all about? You looked like you knew him." Peorth shook her head. "He looked familiar, but I cannot possibly know him." Urd didn't press the matter any further, knowing the head of Yggdrasil wouldn't reveal anything this private.
"Maybe you do know him. I felt that he was familiar when I met him, too. Coincidence, maybe?" Peorth looked up at her. "If we're thinking of the same person, I don't think so. He's a mortal, for all it's worth. He is a mortal and not a demon, right?"
"Uh..." the three goddesses looked abashed. "Actually, we never thought of scanning him. He just dropped in one night, and collapsed on our doorstep." Belldandy moved to stand beside Urd. "Well, he is a nice person, and I don't think he's a demon, or even an associate of theirs."
Peorth nodded in acceptance. "I'll run a scan on him, anyway. Just to be entirely sure." Belldandy shrugged. "Go ahead." Peorth reached out with her goddess powers and tried to read the Yggdrasil signature Tavin gave off. After nearly a minute, she woke up to Urd's and Belldandy's voices calling her name.
"Huh?" She glanced up into the concerned faces of her three fellow goddesses and one mortal. "What happened?" She then realized that she was laying on the floor of the living room. "Well, you said you wanted to scan him, and you just, uh, collapsed." Belldandy told her. "Seems to be happening a lot around here, lately," Urd added, snickering.
"And? Did you get a good reading on him?" Skuld asked. Peorth tried to recall. "Not really. Actually, I didn't get any reading at all. It's like he's screened from Yggdrasil, somehow." Urd shot her a sideway glance. "A real mystery man, huh? I like that," she said before jumping through the TV. "Be back in a jiffy," she noted before vanishing totally.
"Peorth, is something wrong?" Belldandy's voice cut into the other goddesses's thoughts. "No, nothing. I was just thinking."
"About what?" Keiichi joined Belldandy and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"You know, before I was assigned head of Yggdrasil, I used to work with the Earth Help Center. I came across lots of people, and only one I had ever known barely came close to having the raw power to shroud their Yggdrasil tracking signature."
"And? I mean, Tom can't be that person, can he?" Keiichi chuckled. "I mean, you said yourself it was a long time ago."
Peorth chuckled nervously. "Yeah, you're right. It can't possibly be him. It's probably just a bug, like Urd suspected." "We'll know for sure when she's back," Skuld added. "That's the only thing she's good for, anyway." That got her a stern glance from Belldandy, and she shrugged. "I'll be in my room."