(Note: Thanks for the reviews and subs, guys! I hope I don't disappoint.

I forgot to mention it last chapter, so let me cover my ass here: I don't own FMA. All licensed characters, places, and concepts belong to Hiromu Arakawa and the companies that licensed them in all their different incarnations. I'm only borrowing, and I promise that I'll return the characters the way I found them (If not a little cleaner. XD) Again, I'm a comment-whore, so please review. Concrit is love. Flames get donated to Mustang.)

Much love goes out to my amazing beta, Hyrugi Kitsune, without whom I'd look like a blathering idiot. Many thanks.

Summary: "Given: When Electronics glitch, strange things happen. When a virtual reality set glitches, sometimes reality itself can change, for better or for worse. And sometimes, the hardest part is trying to get home again. Lana Hirokan must make her way through a new life in Amestris, while trying to understand exactly why life has thrown her across the Gate. Perhaps, though, our dreams are closer than we ever expect them to be."

Glitch

Ch. 2: Quantum Effects

"LANA!" my father called from downstairs. I jumped, and pulled off the headset.

"WHAT IS IT!?" I called back.

"Would you come down here for a minute?" he asked. "I need to talk to you."

"Okay..." I said with a private groan. My father and I did not get along great, and I rarely looked forward to his "chats", which were usually more along the lines of "college-related lectures and chore lectures" than anything worth the time it took.

I made my reluctant way downstairs, wishing with every step that I could go back up and plug in. I was starting to think that I much preferred the fantasy world to my own reality. At least there, college was only an option.

When I got downstairs, I discovered that I was correct.

"How was your day?" he asked. Like always.

"Fine," I said. "I got my SVR."

"And how is that?"

"Iono. I've barely started playing."

"OH. Well, don't let your GAMES get in the way of SCHOOL."

I won't, Dad. Don't worry. They're just games. School is important. I have to get into the best college. I have to be the perfect daughter and get a degree in perfection. And I can't do that by playing video games.

Hah---Had I said that, he would have torn my head off over how he just wants me to be the best I can be

"Okay, Dad."

I wandered into the kitchen, and started digging through the fridge for food.

"What have we got to eat?" I asked, staring at the sorrowfully empty fridge.

"Eh… Whatever's in there," Dad replied.

The television started blaring, and I sighed at my father's penchant for sitting on his ass.

"Hey Lan?"

"…Yes?"

"You might want to see this."

"What is it?" I asked, keeping my annoyance from my tone (he'd have my head if I 'mouthed off' to him.)

"They've got this story about sunspots and stuff."

"Eh. No thanks."

"Oh, alright. I just thought you'd like to watch it, I mean, you're so interested in this stuff! It's astronomy! And I was hoping you'd watch it with me."

I guess he was trying to be nice, but he always got so emotional over these things. It was like, by saying I didn't want to watch a story about fucking sunspots, I was telling him that I wanted to kill his dog. But that's the kind of person he was, and there wasn't really anything I could do to change it.

In school the next day, I was hit by a barrage of questions about the SVR.

"How was it?" they would ask.

"Amazing," I'd say.

"Could you feel everything?" one boy asked me; I told him about the texture of the walls, the sounds of life going on around you, the people that reacted to your presence.

"Could you control it?" Saja asked. So I told her how I could take a handle on the storyline, and introduce eddies and tangents by going off on my own during quests, but also how parts would be blocked, and how I could relax and let the camera take me as it wished.

"How do you fight?" one of the more action-obsessed boys asked. I confessed that I hadn't gotten to doing Alchemy yet, let alone fighting anyone. He looked disappointed.

"What did the characters look like?" Alai asked. She was a complete FMA nerd.

"Riza was… Intimidating," I said with a laugh. "I knocked on Roy's door, and she opened it. And I was like, OMGWTFOSHIT."

Alai giggled. "What did Roy look like?"

I grinned. "He was sitting in front of the window, so I couldn't see him too well. It was disappointing, really. No eye-candy for Lana."

She suddenly got very serious. "Did you see Ed?"

I laughed. "No, you silly fangirl. I think he's in South Command, actually. It's a year after his test."

"Oh…" she said, her face falling. "That's a pity."

"I'm sure I'll see him at some point." I told her.

"You'd better. Or else." She said teasingly.

"Or else what?" I asked her.

"Or else I'll be unhappy." She said.

"Oh NOES! Unhappy Fangirl Alert! Code red! Code red!" I said, laughing hysterically.

"Come on, let's get to class," Alai said, grinning.

My first class, that day, was English. We were studying poetry, and it was time to dissect the very strange (and usually fascinating) poems that our textbook tended to feature. The last homework had been to analyze two poems, and I had picked e.e. cummings's "l(a" and Edmund Conti's "Pragmatist". I won't bore you with the details (Unless my wordcount flounders. I'm writing this as a memory of noveling months from long ago.), but suffice it to say that those two poems since became some of my favorite poems in the world.

I found it hard to pay attention, though. School wasn't where I wanted to be, to be honest. I wanted to be home, plugged in, making my way through a world that was beyond my wildest dreams.

But first, I had to finish the day.

My next class was Computer Graphics, where I worked on colorizing a black and white photo that I had taken of a friend a few months previous. After that was Photography, and then Calculus—it was a fairly mundane day.

I did finally make my way home, my brain feeling like mush from the inanity of a list of boring classes. As I had the day before, I began VRing as soon as I got home, planning to carry out the next mission or so as a winding down from the day.

I stood in the doorway of Lt. Colonel Mustang's office, on the verge of entry. The man was idly shuffling papers from one side of his desk to the other, clearly procrastinating on something.

The blonde woman who had let me in spoke. "Sir, this is Lana Hirokan to see you. She's interested in the exam."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," he said, looking up. He then turned to me, and seemed to look me up and down.

"So, do you think you're ready for this?" He asked me.

"I think so, Sir," I said, nodding.

"It is customary that those who intend to take the test find training before the exam. That will be your duty to find," he said. "However, I suggest that you try to find someone whose specialty relates to your own. What is your talent?"

"I..." I said, casting about my mind for an idea.

The electronic voice began to rattle off a list of possible tracks. "Fire-based, Water-based, Air-based, Metal-based, Medicine-based, Stone-based, Offensive, Defensive, Food-based, Life—" The voice cut off unexpectedly.

"What the…?" I said. "Save."

There was no response.

"Quit! End Task! Stop--!" The world fell to darkness around me.