Ah My Goddess Fan Fiction ❯ Trial By Tenderness ❯ Part 21 - Wired Science ( Chapter 21 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Part 21 Wired Science



Skuld was feverishly at work in her mecha laboratory, sorting through her large omnium of electronic gear. Yesterday, in the midst of her ongoing despair over the disappearance of her oldest sister, an idea popped into her head. It was so obvious...*too* obvious. Skuld was almost embarrassed by the fact that it had escaped her normally meticulous intelligence. Fortunately, Belldandy wasn't around, otherwise she would have to swallow her pride and admit that she had overlooked a very simple idea.
Urd had been gone five weeks. After her initial reaction of stark disbelief, Skuld had slipped into the deepest melancholy that she had ever experienced. This past week, her despondency had intensified to a weltschmerz-like hopelessness. Her remaining sister could do little to revive her from the emotional malaise. Belldandy, who was normally placid and serene, was beginning to become anxiety-wrought over Urd's absence. Skuld had realized that Urd was undetectable by forms of magic; Urd's suspended license had resulted in a power loss that rendered her almost human. As with her situation, Skuld knew almost all of Urd's divine resources were required just to maintain a human form. All three Goddesses had human forms, just as solid as any mortal's body. Urd was no exception. Her human form was consistently maintained in every particularity. For all aspects, Urd *was* human. She manifested as a normal 27-year-old female human being, with full biological attributes.
Including DNA.
Last night, Skuld had rushed into her sister's "Urd's Castle" room-slash-lab and had found a broken fingernail near a row of neatly organized apothecaries. A real fingernail, not a glue-on falsie. She took it to her lab and analyzed it, extracting the mRNA and some DNA from the tightly packed cuticle cells. From this starting point, Skuld was able to decipher a good portion of the genome of Urd's physical manifestation. However, a large number of the marker proteins were long gone; the genetic information was incomplete. Skuld had pulled an overnighter, labors of sweat dripping in the hot summer night as she worked at her laptop computer to design a paradigmatic program that would reconstruct an extrapolative model of Urd's full DNA sequence. She had finished the incredibly complex program just a short while ago.
Skuld was proud of herself, despite being exhausted from missing her evening sleep. With the scant bit of cellular information, she had reconstructed an entire DNA sequence. The error margin was only six replicable yields out of several septillion recombinants. Thus, upon application, Skuld's genetic 'map' would manage to 'weed out' over six billion unique DNA patterns; at the most, there would only be five or six people on the planet who would manifest the genetic characteristics that her mathematical model designated as Urd's.
"One of those six will be you, Big Sister. Then we can find out where you are and go get you," she thought to herself with earnest intent. She looked at mini-Banpei and oathed a grave voice.
"And *once* we get you back here, you'll have hell to pay for making all of us so feel sad and worried, Urd!" she announced. Mini-Banpei nodded back to her in agreement.
She walked out to the kitchen, spying Tomohisa humming to himself while he listened to a BoA CD.
"And there's the other problem," Skuld sighed as she helped herself to a fitting reward of a dozen mochi ice creams.
Skuld was still resentful that her older sister had divided the six of them into boy-girl teams. Despite her misgivings and protestations, she was stuck at home with Tomohisa while the others were out touring Japan trying to locate her errant sister. Tomohisa seemed to go out of his way to be nice to her, which was irritating at best.
"If I feel crummy because my sister's gone, then why should he act like my feelings are something that need to be changed?" she would ask herself.

* * * *

Three weeks ago, Tomohisa had invited her to play softball with him. Every Saturday, he left to go to the park to play with his friends. Skuld had told herself "why not?" and went along for the adventure of it. She had played softball once before with Megumi when her softball team was challenged for playing rights of an N.I.T. field by a gang of college baseball players. Recently, she had been an unenthused witness to several American baseball games on TV, courtesy of Tomohisa's infatuation with the sport.
Arriving at the baseball diamond, two captains were elected and then each captain started picking players for his team. She was disheartened when they picked teams and she was the last one picked. By Tomohisa no less.
"He asks me along, then suddenly is ashamed of me when it comes to playing the game," she thought disgruntledly.
Then Tomohisa gave her an aluminum bat and told her to hit the softball. The bat was feathery...lightweight compared to Mjolnir. It weighed only a fraction of her mallet; striking a thrown object would be a breeze in comparison to quelching bugs. Skuld grinned at him mischievously and went to the plate, banging the tip of the bat on home plate like she had seen the players for the New York Cubs do on TV. Crouching at the plate, Skuld heard the pitcher croon mockingly.
"Ah, you're just a *little girl*...I'll pitch it nice and slow for you!"
"THAT DOES IT!" Skuld thought angrily, assuming a 'game face'.
The pitcher heaved the ball at her lightly and Skuld swung with all her might, visually imagining that she was crushing a viral-sized bug. Gasps erupted around her from both teams as she blasted the softball so hard that its seams tore loose. They found the ball over 200 meters feet away in a culvert that ran along one side of the park. Half of its cover was missing. After this, Skuld heard whispers of "freak" and "flat-chested tomboy"...these didn't help to improve her mood.
As they rode their bicycles on the way home, Tomohisa was silent...until she mentioned that she was imitating the New York Cubs. With a roll of his eyes, he started giggling. Skuld never did find out what was so funny about her mention of the American baseball team...
The next few days, she decided to tone it down a bit. The last thing Skuld didn't need was for this group of mortal boys to suspect who and what she was. Yet, she couldn't resist hitting a homer once in a while.
"Like three out of every four at bats...that's about right," she eventually decided.
She also relished in the fact that now she was always the first player picked by the team captains.
Tomohisa had been almost gallant, despite being overshadowed by his friend. It was a major blow to his ego to be out-batted by a *girl*. Yet his pals still held him in the highest respect as the only 9th grade player they knew that was a starter for his future high school's varsity baseball team.
Skuld enjoyed watching him push himself harder to try and exceed her at the home run derby. She had to admit to herself that he was a much better fielder than she was.
Then Tomohisa had really done it. Two days ago, after they had finished a game, he walked home with her as usual. Seeming harmless...until he put his arm around her and tried to kiss her. Skuld left a hand-shaped red mark on his cheek to point out that he should never try to take any liberties with her.
But when they arrived home, she was clouded with confusion. What really puzzled her was that she somehow felt *guilty* for slapping him. As if *she* had done something wrong, instead of Tomohisa! Skuld spent most of yesterday with her melancholy compounded by confusion.

* * * *

She looked at Tomohisa as he was reading...what else?...but a baseball magazine.
"Why does he make me feel this way? Why do I question myself when I'm around him? Why do I like spending time with him...even if he thinks I'm too young? Why doesn't *he* have a girlfriend? And why did he try to *kiss* me...as if *I'm* his girlfriend or something?" her mind raced.
She looked at him, singing to himself in the living room. "Tomohisa-san, what are you doing to me?" she pondered fretfully.
As if Tomohisa wasn't enough, then there was Megumi and Genji. It was like Elder Sister and Keiichi all over again. Eating dinner with the two was an exercise in cutthroat patience.
They would make goo-goo eyes at each other and feed each other bits of food. They sat almost on top of each other on the couch. They would lower their voices to a whisper whenever Skuld walked into the room. And they would kiss in front of her, as if she wasn't even there.
Skuld wondered aloud if their kissy-kissy actions had influenced Tomohisa to try and kiss her. At the dinner table, she would glance at Tomohisa...who looked like he was enjoying his cousin's mellowness around her boyfriend. Skuld would roll her eyes, concluding that Megumi and Genji *were* the reason why Tomohisa was acting so whimsical around her.
Despite her rivalry with Megumi, Skuld accorded Keiichi's younger sister some respect. She *was* an expert engineer...this had been proven by her tie with Skuld during the Robot Wars. Skuld had also been impressed by her dedication to Keiichi by saving his life during the Demon Rally incident. But this...how could she be so grossly irresponsible? Genji was virtually a stranger! Now he was practically living with her. With *us*!
"I'm not against people being in love...but why do mortals fall in love so *impulsively*. So uncalculatedly? So...illogically! It doesn't make sense...just like most things on this stupid Earthrealm," Skuld half-wondered half-concluded. Why didn't Megumi look at her big brother and learn from his mistakes? Mistakes like falling in love so quickly with Belldandy despite the well-reasoned objections of his girlfriend's younger sister. Mistakes like being financially unprepared; Keiichi was so broke that he had to take on extra work during the holidays because he couldn't afford to buy Belldandy anything other than a cheap ring. Skuld thought he was being niggardly...the ring he ended up getting her sister was little more than a garnet.
Now, she had to endure Megumi's lovesilliness. The fact that Megumi had fallen for Genji so suddenly; well...this had knocked her down a few notches in Skuld's esteem.
"And then they carry all lovey-dovey and stuff all the time," she declared acridly. "In *my* house, too."
Relieved that the objects of her intractable spite were out for a day at the beach, Skuld returned to her lab room to work on the next part of her project to find Urd.

* * * * * * * *

I had gone out last night to the Capital Department Store to shop for supplies for my next expedition out to the caves. I bought all the easel-sized paper sheets and charcoal chalkpens they had in stock, plus a large box full of string, tape and sundries. I ended up having to hire a porter to help me lug all the stuff back to my hotel room.
I had realized that there were too many characters/words on the walls. A photographic record might be unreliable because of the low level of illumination in the antechamber where the panels of language walls were. I would have to rely on other means to record this archeological treasure.
In Xian, there is a courtyard with thousands of stone steles. Formerly, this was the location of the Metropolitan Examinations. To the untrained eye, the courtyard looked like an old cemetery. The faces of most of the stones were intricately carved with commentaries on the Four Classics, Buddhist sutras, poetry, political commentaries, even Christian Syriac Gospels. Many of them had ornately carved relief images as well. But these steles had a significant function besides decoration. Artists through the centuries had taken ink or ground charcoal and coated the steles, and then applied a piece of paper to the face of the stone. Pounding softly with a pad or cloth on the back, the writing or image on the stone would be transferred to the paper. The paper would be carefully peeled off; transformed into a 'negative' of the stele surface. In effect, the steles were the world's first copying machines...some of them dated to the early Tang Dynasty...and were still producing legible copies.
I planned to employ a variant of the same method to transfer the lettering/words from each of the nine panels of early language. Coupled with the possibility of photographic evidence, there would be no denying that this was a bona fide discovery. With all the X-Files-type paranoia going around, the last thing I needed was for the authenticity of such a find to be dismissed as forgery or hobgoblinry. Also to consider was the fact that the Divines had been involved in this; for all I knew, I could return to the cave tomorrow and find smooth walls or be 'locked out'. I felt humored by the irony of the adage "time is of the essence" as I prepared for my attempt.
Instead of coating the actual surfaces of each panel with some kind of substance, I would adhere the paper to the face of each panel and then blacken the back side of the paper with the charcoal chalkpens. This would quickly darken everything except the engraved characters, which would be transferred as white marks against the black background. As a historical find...this antechamber with its codex of ancient and lost languages was irreplaceable. It deserved the utmost respect. After examining a series of possible methods, I realized that this was the least intrusive method of transferring the carved images of the wall to another media.
As I rode the bus out to the caves, I noticed that today was going to be a hot one, even by central China climate standards. I was already soaked with sweat after walking almost a kilometer to the cave section where Cave 948 was located. Peng accompanied me, but did not climb the cliff face because of his fear of heights. I climbed up to the cave entrance, then lowered my rope and hauled up the art supplies, ladders and thermoses of water. I had told Peng that I was planning to stay overnight. Actually, since I had only four days left in Dunhuang, I would probably spend almost all of my remaining time in this chamber.
I decided to begin my work on the proto-Chinese wall in deference to the host country of this find. Looking at the statue of the three Goddesses for an intangible mental support, I gingerly taped the first easel paper to the wall and started blackening its back with a charcoal chalkpen. I would blacken only the area immediately around each character, leaving a margin where I could write the accordant translation in English and Chinese. This was going to be tedious, exhausting work, I realized with reluctance.
"Give me the strength to do what must be done," I affirmed as I continued to transfer the relief images to the paper.

* * * * * * * *

Mara was up and around after being laid up for five mortal weeks in traction. She still had to rely on the use of crutches. Try as she might, she couldn't force herself to manifest as a healed mortal shell. Once more, the Ultimate Force continued to thwart her plans. The UF was almost devious in its despicable maltreatment of her. She reluctantly resigned herself to the fact that she had to heal on mortal terms. Every day Mara was confined to bed, her resentment at Belldandy and her worthless mortal so-called boyfriend stewed. Yes, she was angry with Megumi as well. Megumi would get hers, Mara would make sure of it. But it was Belldandy and Keiichi who were the main players in Mara's downfall.
*Again.*
"Keiichi is so inept and worthless...it makes me sick! But he *always* winds up unscathed despite the best-laid evil plans I come up with," she thought angrily. "He *never* had to pay the consequences for being so close to a Goddess. It's like he's *immune* to perfidy and malignant deviltry. It's a total mishmash!" She jerkily propelled herself with her crutches up to a blood-red wall and manipulated a fleshy green knob with her hand. An image arose; the bird's-eye view from one of her Sere-hawks.
"Thank the Dark Lord for you guys!" Mara thought with a relish. Her Sere-hawks were pets, Demon birds that sported bright red and black furfeathers. Each hawk had a large, proud crest and orange wingfeathers. When aroused, their wingfeathers would ignite; they would swoop about on wings of flame that splattered blood and ochre on anything in their flight path. Mara could link telepathically with them, and 'see' through their eyes, 'feel' their impressions. And what fun that was!
For the last several weeks while bedridden, Mara had sent them out to scout humans in the rural villages in northern Honshu, Akita Prefecture. They would sweep down from the skies, their flaming wings causing abject terror in the eyes of their victims. Mara had watched with glee as several farmers were caught by a squadron of Sere-hawks in an open rice paddy...they had been so frightened by the bird attacks that they peed their pants. Mara especially savored the cacophony of mortals screaming in fear whenever they were swarmed by her Sere-hawks.

*Glarwrak?*

Mara was startled by the sound...all her Sere-hawks were supposed to be out pestering mortals.
"What are you doing here, Anthrax?" she said to the bird in a flat voice. For some strange reason, Mara had named her Sere-hawks after heavy metal bands. Blade, Megadeath, Slayer, Pantera, Deathfate, St. Vitus and Anthrax.
*Skweerchk!*
"This had better be good...hey, what's that you have?" Mara said as she reached to pull a paper from the hooked beak of her pet.
"Mmmm, what's this?" she said as she unfolded it and read it. After a second read, she threw it up in the air while shrieking with malicious joy.
"BWAH HA HA HEhhhhh!" she shouted as the paper floated down in lazy semi-circles. "I can't believe this! Of all the damned luck! This...is incredible! Hahahaha!"
Mara reached over and soothed Anthrax's feathers affectionately. Then she picked up the paper and read it aloud:

Missing: Urudo Hayasaki, age 27. Resident of Makuhari.
Reward offered for any information leading to
the location of this runaway person. Please
help us find our sister. Contact us at...

Mara stared at the grainy portrait of Urd in one of her more capricious aspects, sporting her trademark vixen grin. Her *ugly* vixen grin. She couldn't believe her luck. She had sensed that something was afoul at that hated compound where the three bimbo sisters lived. But this?
"I bet Belldandy and the Skuld-brat are going *nuts* with grief! And I'm not there to behold it," she thought with disappointment.
Her last Sere-hawk reconnaissance of the temple had disclosed that Belldandy and Keiichi-moron were gone; Megumi had some spell on her that made her disgustingly sleazy...and she had some effete mortal male drooling over her; the Skuld-brat was moping around the house in a deep funk and some other little kid was hanging around like he lived there. Neither the pseudo-Demon Cevn nor the sleazeball Urd had been sighted.
"That's why those two are gone!" Mara concluded. Her mind raced to find a way to take advantage of this situation. Finally, a devious plan came to her mind. She hobbled over and picked up the HOTline phone to Vanagdrasil.
"Hello, Demon Grief Office. Yes, this *is* Mara. I need to talk to Shiva and Berugone right away...yes, you heard me. Hey girls, what's roastin'? I need a favor...yeah you guys both owe me big time for that little help with Stalin a while back...yeah, you remember...well here's the deal. There's a certain half-Goddess half-Demoness that's here on the mortal planet...yeah, that one. Urd. Hild's and Freiija's halfbred miscue.
"Heh heh, she's really lame, isn't she? I want you to track her down. Yep...she has left the roost, so to speak...should be easy for you, since there is only a handful of half-n-halfs...yes, she should be the only one on Earth. Once you find her, give me a ring. I have something special planned."
It was complicated, to be sure. Urd was part Goddess, but she was also the daughter of Hild, one of the Demon Queens. So Mara couldn't just off her. But she *could* bring Urd to grief.
"Boy, *do* I have something special planned...for all of them," Mara mused with a sadistic grin.

* * * * * * * *

Keiichi was subdued as he drove down the coastal highway towards their next destination. Belldandy shared his mood; she was staring out the window wordlessly. Keiichi looked at his beloved girlfriend...who somehow looked different since they had become intimate. He felt like he had spent his entire life with her...and yet, had just discovered her. She was no longer just his girlfriend. She was a woman.
"I don't know what to think about it," he reflected. The last few nights they had slept together had been bliss. Rapturous. Ambrosia and cherry blossoms. He felt a new joy when he saw how good he could make Belldandy feel. Then the next day, all the women that he saw on the streets looked different. It was as if he had discovered a hidden, secret part of the feminine nature in Belldandy...in all women.
Belldandy for her part was so happy that Keiichi and she had added a new dimension to their relationship. At first, she almost felt like she was going to be addicted to being intimate...it was so natural for her and Keiichi to lay softly nude next to each other after making love. Belldandy already knew that she loved Keiichi, but she was delighted to see the new way she could please him. She smiled to herself when she thought of the humor of it...Urd had been trying to get her and Keiichi to become sexual almost from the start; now that they had become intimate, Urd wasn't involved at all.
They drove west on the new Highway 2 with hushed hearts. Belldandy winced as she remembered all that had happened here over 60 years ago. Had it been so recently? 60 years was just a moment in time, as far as Belldandy reckoned. But yet, it was three Earthrealm generations ago. Almost from another world of time.

* * * *

She had been on vacation leave from the GRO when the mortals had obliterated Hiroshima. All of the Gods and Goddesses in Yggdrasil were stunned by the psychic death scream of hundreds of thousands of people. She had immediately sought out Skuld; somehow knowing that as the youngest, she would be most effected by the horrible event. Belldandy remembered how she had found Skuld huddled in a corner of one the data stacks, shivering in shock. Then they both went to Urd's office node in the Sysop Center. They found Urd at her console, staring vacantly into space, shocked into speechlessness. Urd detached her node from the cluster and they cried on each other's shoulders in grief over the atrocity. Only five times before in human history had so many people died in the same instant, one of which was instigated by Kami-sama. But this time, the mortals themselves had initiated it. Almost immediately, they were stunned again when the horror was *repeated* in Nagasaki.
Kami-sama took a dim view of the proceedings on the mortal world. Soon after the bombings, He called an Assembly at Urd's Well to discuss the possibility of instigating a catastrophic disaster on the mortal world. The last time He had done so was over 14,000 mortal years earlier. At that time the mortals had reached a crossroads; they were totally stagnant in any kind of development. Any tribal group that showed progress was brutalized by other nomadic clans. Thus, there was no spiritual or intellectual growth. After much debate, Kami-sama had redirected a large asteroid so that it split into several pieces, landing in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. The ensuing floods and climatic disruption claimed the lives of over 95% of the human race. The trauma of this event was recorded for posterity in the dimly remembered records of each pre-modern Earthrealm civilization. Yet, the disaster had served as an evolutionary 'jump start', motivating the mortals to attain to greater heights in technology, philosophy, spirituality and culture. The same advances that eventually resulted in the building of a nuclear bomb.
Now, He wanted to slow them down. They finally possessed the opportunity and technology to obliterate themselves. The debate He instigated required time compression, because it would have continued for several centuries otherwise. He compacted four centuries of discussion into two mortal years. Because many of the Yggdrasilian divines were ultra-sensitive to their mortal charges, the shock-like ripple through Yggdrasil at the time of the atomic bombings had resulted in a pessimistic view of the human race. However, a few Gods and Goddesses held out, claiming that if the Earthrealm mortals could learn from this painful lesson, they might reach the Next Level. Belldandy and Urd had vociferously argued that there was so much potential in the human race that had not yet been realized. In the end, their side of the debate, albeit initially the minority viewpoint, had found favor with Kami-sama...and garnered a 61% approval of the Assembly. He decided that He would place the humans on probation for one of their centuries. If they demonstrated sufficient progress in this short period of time, then He would aid them in reaching the Next Level. If not...then He would dispopulate 95% of the humans and start over again.
Working out of the Goddess Relief Office, Belldandy often wondered if the humans had indeed made progress. True, there was less overt warfare...but individual incidences of insanity, cruelty and asociality had risen dramatically. She was beginning to feel that the mortals were regressing, rather than progressing.
Then suddenly, her entire perspective on this issue had been upended. For the past three years, she had been thrust right in the middle of humanity. Belldandy had been linked with a mortal by his own volition. Keiichi's wish had brought her into the closest contact with a mortal that any Goddess had encountered...pretty much since she started working at the Goddess Relief Office. Because of this, she was a sort of vicarious link between the divine world of Yggdrasil and the human world of the mortals. Those Gods who sought to condemn or support the human race scrutinized her impressions of the mortals. Keiichi, thus, was a 'test case' of sorts. The host of impressions from her time with Keiichi would be involved in Kami-sama's and the Assembly's decision. Ultimately, it would be the Lord's choice, but He often used the Assembly as a forum to balance His considerations against.
Since there was no other opportunity for anyone in Yggdrasil to experience what it was like to be a mortal firsthand, Keiichi had become the Test Mortal. Belldandy was the only Goddess from the Relief Office permanently assigned to a human.

* * * *


Looking over at Keiichi, Belldandy chided herself. She had never told Keiichi about this.
Belldandy knew that he was not ready to accept knowledge with *this* kind of gravity. Keiichi, despite his courage and kindness, had a fragile side to him as well. Averedly, *any* mortal would be overwhelmed to discover that his or her life played such an important role in humanity's future. What would Keiichi do if he found out that much of the onus which would influence Kami-sama's decision depended on what kind of a mortal life he led. She knew that she would have to inform him of this someday.
"All of these thoughts, because of Hiroshima," Belldandy mused as she sighed loudly.
"Belldandy, you okay?" he asked, noticing her deep contemplation.
"A..ah, Keiichi, I was just thinking to myself."
"It's kind of weird, being in Hiroshima. You must feel it too."
"Yes...it's a little...overwhelming."
"You can say that again," he replied uncomfortably.
They followed the same routine that they had performed in over a dozen cities. Stop by the Prefectural Office and file a missing person report. Then visit the police stations and the metropolitan offices. Hang up flyers downtown. Visit the fire departments.
But no matter where they were traveling within the city, the skeletal dome of the Industrial Promotion Hall cast a long shadow over their journey.
After completing their rounds, they decided to confront their personal demons and fears. They went to Peace Park, right next to the ruined A-bomb Dome. Keiichi had never been to Hiroshima before; he possessed only the textbook knowledge that every Japanese schoolchild was given. Belldandy, having experienced Hiroshima at a more profound level than any human was capable of, was emotionally reserved.
They walked through the cenotaph and entered the Peace Memorial Museum. Keiichi was aghast at the photographs of Hiroshima right after the destruction. Horror was an insufficient term to describe the atrocity that occurred here. Although it was from another era, Keiichi felt a stirring in his blood that bordered on depressed outrage. He felt a clenching fear that when he walked out of the museum, the sky would be blood red with black falling rains. Part of the museum visit involved viewing "The Movie", as the museum guide termed it.
Keiichi was apprehensive about this, as "The Movie" was infamous throughout Japan. While he and Bell-chan waited in line, he watched the previous group pile out of the theatre. In stark contrast to the buzzing of conversations in his line, those exiting the theater were silent. No one was talking, no one was smiling. Keiichi and Belldandy found themselves in a subdued, sober mood as "The Movie" began. When it was their turn to exit the museum theatre...they left with stunned expressions on their faces.
It was just too much to accept on an emotional level.
In a profound fugue of quiet, they walked along the canal until they found a bench to sit in the sunlight. With a nightmarish twist, he kept looking at the Hiroshima skyline, expecting it to disappear any second...and be replaced with furnace gray squalorous ruins.
Keiichi tore his mind away from his fearful fantasies and looked at Belldandy. She was dressed in a sundress with a long white skirt and a light blue frilly top. She had put her sunhat back on to keep from getting too much sun...it was hot today. Her beauty looked out of place in contrast to the horrible ugliness of Hiroshima after the bombing. Keiichi thanked his lucky stars that he wasn't alive then. Then he felt a repugnant feeling as he realized that Belldandy was alive at the time of the bombings. His mind spiraled, filled with doubts.
Belldandy watched as Keiichi leaned down and grasped his hands tightly in front of him, resting his elbows on his knees. She knew him well enough to realize that his faith in humanity was affronted by their visit to the museum. She could almost imagine the sparks of deep reflection going on in his mind. He looked like the whole weight of the world was bearing down on him.
"In a way, it is," she thought ironically.
Keiichi straightened up and took his time to form words around what was on his mind.
"Belldandy...*why* did this happen? How could human beings do this to each other? WHY? What is it about us, as a species or race, that could make us so blind to the suffering we inflict on each other? How could a person take another person's life? Why..?" his questions spilled out like baby spiders out of a nest egg.
Belldandy reached over and placed a finger on his lips to gently quiet him. He was getting really worked up over this, his eyes darting from side to side in hyperanxiety.
The questions her Keiichi had asked had been debated for millennia in Yggdrasil. The only one that seemed to have an answer was Kami-sama...but even He admitted that He was mystified by the mass destruction of the nuclear bombings. How could she answer Keiichi? She wanted to reassure him, to reassure herself. She also wanted to speak for the half a million voices that were silenced on those two fateful days.
"Keiichi...I *don't* think that Man is inherently evil. True, what happened here was the most horrible thing humanity has ever done. But I really, really believe in mankind, despite strong evidence to the contrary. Many of us in Yggdrasil believe that Mankind died here, at the moment this bomb went off. I feel that Mankind was reborn in a sense, by finally having to face the sheer insanity of human destructive folly. My personal convictions lie with the fact that peace got a second chance...as long as the mortal world harbors grief towards the darkness of what happened."
"But they haven't! Thousands of people starve to death every year while much of the world wallows in wealth. In America, people kill each other everyday with handguns. Hundreds of thousands of men and women are killed each year in driving accidents...the highest automobile fatality rate is right here in Japan! How can you say that you have faith in us?" he asked desperately.
"I *do* have faith in mankind! I have faith in *one* man as well!" she said as she turned and placed a comforting hand on each of Keiichi's shoulders.
"I want you to know that I *love* you. L-O-V-E YOU, Keiichi Morisato! But I think...it's time I told you about an important matter that involves you," Belldandy confided in a serious voice.
Keiichi looked at her serious mien and his heart skipped a beat.
"After this happened, there was deep concern in Yggdrasil about mankind," she began. Belldandy couldn't tell Keiichi about how close mankind came to being wiped off the face of the planet; this information was as closely guarded as the knowledge of the existence of Vanagdrasil.
"We decided to put mankind on a sort of trial, to see if they could reach the Next Level," she said seriously.
"What does that have to do with me, Bell?" Keiichi asked, suddenly alerted by the change in tone in Belldandy's voice.
"Because...one of the ways that mankind is being measured is through *you*, Keiichi. You're a 'guinea pig' of sorts. Many Gods and Goddesses in Yggdrasil are observing how I live with you from day-to-day. Since no one else is as closely connected to a mortal as I with you, it is incumbent that we Gods learn about mankind...from what I learn about you, Keiichi."
Keiichi felt his thoughts pour out like a spilled bowl of miso soup. His mind went blank as he realized what Belldandy just said. She had basically said that he was being closely monitored in connection with some kind of judgment pending on Mankind. He was already overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of Hiroshima and all it represented...now Belldandy had dumped *this* on him!
A glint of a thought later, he was wondering just how much of their private life was on display...and turned red as he imagined the minions of Yggdrasil watching as he was making love with Belldandy.
"What is wrong with me! Bell-chan is telling me...that the fate of humanity hinges on how I get along with her! And all I can worry about is my sex life? Man...if they could see inside of my head right now...humanity is going to fail this 'trial' she mentioned...miserably!" he mentally confronted himself.
Belldandy saw Keiichi's face pale with anxiety, and then redden with embarrassment. Correctly guessing that he was uncomfortable with his love life being on display, she quickly explained more about the situation.
"Keiichi, I *promise* you that none of our privacy is being invaded or watched. The way that we measure mankind in Yggdrasil for this particular reason is not concerned with our love...although our love is going to be an important consideration someday. Please trust me; that our love is *our* love...for you and I only! Consider this...I'm 'filtering' out the specifics about our love for each other. All they have to know is that we are in love...I won't share anything more than this. And our feelings for each other won't become general knowledge in Yggdrasil until *we* decide that they should be. The only people that know about us are the people who must know about us..."
"Bell-chan...this is a little bit too much for me to understand," Keiichi stated in a quivering voice.
"You must believe me!" she half-stated, half-asked.
"*Can* I believe her?" Keiichi wondered to himself. He remembered how Belldandy had often asserted that she would believe him...no matter what...because she loved him.
"Do I have *that* kind of belief in her? And if I don't, do I have that kind of love? It seems so easy for her...after all, she *is* a Goddess. I could never understand things the way she does," he reflected. Then he had a sudden insight...one that had been lingering on his mind for quite some time.
"Bell-chan and I are in the same situation...it's just as hard for her to deal with being a mortal as it is for me to deal with being in love with a Goddess," he rerealized with a solvent insight.
Keiichi searched back in his memory to the early times in their relationship. When he first met Belldandy, it seemed like she didn't know anything at all about what she was doing. He laughed at the memory of the first time she baked cookies for him. She had left them in the oven for hours and burnt them. Then she served the burnt-to-a-crisp cookies to Megumi and he as if nothing happened. She smiled brightly as she set down the plateful of charred cookies...then looked mystified when Keiichi and his sister broke down in laughter.
"She didn't know," Keiichi reminded himself. "Just like *I* don't know!"
"But we don't have to know! Isn't that what love is about? Sharing our discoveries and mysteries together?" he thought. At once, he decided to trust her implicitly.
"If Belldandy says that our love life, that my life, isn't under the kind of scrutiny where my fate is being decided or my privacy is invaded...then I trust her. I love her too much to go through life not trusting her. Without trust, my love for her is nothing more than spit on the side of a well...one splash and it's gone," he concluded.
"Belldandy, I love you...and I trust what you're saying," he said decisively, puncturing his fear and apprehensions.
"Keiichi...I love you best!" Belldandy almost leapt into his arms and was all over him, kissing him passionately. A few tourists strolling down the canal walkway stopped and smiled as they hugged and kissed each other fervently. One of them even took a picture.
"Keiichi...if you're worried about being 'under the gun' because Yggdrasil is paying special attention to you, I want to you to consider this. I, a Goddess, have fallen in love with you. That means that there is something inside of you that I recognize...something that is closer to we Gods than to the mortal realm. For every thing that was evil about Hiroshima...you are its opposite. You're kind, generous, caring, benevolent, accepting, patient, humble and courageous. I love you...and that's *a lot* of evidence that points towards the positive potential of mankind. The fact that you can love me...also means that mankind is nearer to the point of reaching the Next Level than many of its detractors would think. You're reaching towards a higher level by choosing to love me. Just keep on being yourself...and you'll do Mankind proud!"
Keiichi was almost in tears as Belldandy appraised him. He rarely thought of himself that way.
"This must be another reason why love is so special...I get to see myself through Belldandy's eyes...and see that I *am* a nice person," he flashed with transpersonal insight.
Keiichi grinned broadly at Belldandy, then stood up and offered his hand. Taking his hand, she walked with him down the Peace Memorial Park Canal.
Their hearts were enclothed with peace.

* * * * * * * *

*Crash!*
She looked at the wall in her hotel room and noticed that another dent was made in the plaster. Nothing worked anymore. Nothing could make her feel better. The glamour. The fawning attention of the men. The fast life. The outfits. All of it was empty...unable to fill the hole in her being.
Urd hadn't shown up for work for the past few days. She ignored the phone when it rang, and when they stopped by her hotel room, all she said was "I'm sick. Go away." She had spent much of the time curled up in her bed, hugging her knees in a fetal position. The last barrier had fallen and she was now feeling the sheer pain of her existence. Even if she had her Goddess powers, she *still* couldn't do anything about it.
Feeling pangs of homesickness, Urd reviewed the sequence of events that brought her to China. She still couldn't shake the sense that she was wrong in coming here. But what could she do? It had been so fun for the first few weeks of her modeling job. She was quickly becoming a celebrity. But no matter where she was, she still had to deal with herself.
"It'll never end, this loneliness that I'm fated to feel! Damn the freakin' Ultimate Force!" she thought once again. The wall on the left side of her bed, opposite the window, was pockmarked with plaster punctures. Underneath it was a large pile of smashed jiu and pijiu bottles that Urd had flung against the wall. Even drinking booze didn't help anymore.
She sat up on her bed and paced through her room. Urd looked in the bathroom mirror at her face...something she formerly took pride in. But all the beauty in the universe wouldn't find her someone to love. She pounded the sink with her fists.
"Why...why...why?" she screamed as the tears came hot on her cheeks.
Looking in the mirror, the face that speculated back at her was filled with sadness and anxiety. The visage of the Eldest Norn...the one who was always helping her younger sisters...but yet at times the most childish of all three. Maybe it was time to change all that. She flopped back down on her bed and hugged a pillow. She was disappointed that *all* she could hug was a pillow...that no one could hug her.
The cruel world spun on with its "ain't no time for tears" attitude.
Urd had never felt such pressing bleakness in her existence. True, she had felt brief flashes of it at times...but now she felt a constant hopelessness. Fate had cast her to be the loneliest of all creatures in the universe. She felt a coldness that wasn't cold, an emptiness that wasn't void. It was enclosing her body.
"I can't take anymore of this! It's time to end it!" she shouted in her empty room.

* * * * * * * *

It had been two days since I stumbled upon the secret of the antechamber. I was harboring a massive headache because of the intensity of my task. It was repetitious, detail-oriented, delicate work. I could ill afford to become complacent or daydream. There was many times where the fastidiousness of the work caused me to inadvertently hold my breath...my tension was elevated through the imaginary plateau of tolerability.
At times I would take a short break and lean against one of the nine wall-sized panels filled with words. I had finished four of them; proto-Chinese, the pre-Linear A/B, a series of illustrations of all known animals and concepts to man in the 340th century BCE, and a lost language that utilized a set of ideographic pictograms with an almost mathematical precision. The latter resembled Chinese with its employment of characters, but each character also had a conjugative qualifier that was codified by an octal numeric set. Also, it had copular verbs, unlike Chinese. It was really a surprisingly complex language. "Xinthiac" was what it called itself.
As I stared at the statues of the Goddesses, in my mind they resembled images of the female Kwan Yin manifestation, or a Benzaiten. I would mentally converse with them, asking them what I should do, how I should proceed with my dissertation. What can I do with the rest of my life? I knew that once I finished my dissertation, I planned to fly out to Jiyuiguan, buy a camel and take the 'long walk' out in the Gobi desert. The ancient aborigines of Australia used to call this a soul walk...one would simply walk with oneself until they reached their destination...the secret self that had been concealed within layers of 'beingness'.
I returned to my painstaking work, worried that I wouldn't finish in time. Peng had been good enough to bring me a supply of bottled water this morning. I felt a little saddened that his acrophobia prevented him from sharing in my discovery. I could read intense curiosity on his face every time he had checked up on me during the past two days.
When darkness came, I would light up the lamps in the hallway leading to the antechamber, so that no kerosene or oil deposits would waft into the room and coat its contents. The last thing I needed was to disturb the antediluvian interior, kept pristine for untold centuries. Somehow I would get this done.

* * * * * * * *

Skuld had finished phase one of her project. The next phase would be much more facile in execution. She had built a Holophotic Videmeotron so that she could display the results of her search. This mecha looked like an oversized microscope with a translucent egg-like structure underneath. The oval 'egg' was filled with lattices of nanolasers. It would cast a mid-air holographic image that imitated the contents of her laptop screen. By accelerating the air molecules, she could create a series of magnitudes that would manifest in a color spectrum. She could also control the opacity of the floating image screen.
"Cool," she said to herself as she tested the image. She was proud of herself...once more she had created another sci-fi invention that the mortals would deem fantastically impossible. Grabbing a paintbrush, she deftly painted the name of the mecha on its metallic shell. Skuld felt a momentary frustration as she realized that if she would have had her powers, all she had to do was visualize the name and it would appear on the Holophotic Videmeotron. Now she had to do it manually.
"Elder Sister and Keiichi will return tomorrow!" she thought enthusiastically. She wanted to employ her creation while everyone was together, so that they could share in her joy of finding Urd. Skuld had been feeling so powerless lately...having an audience would greatly boost her self-esteem. It would be good to have Belldandy back...she had been missing her sister a lot lately. She was also worried about how Belldandy had become so zealous about the search for Urd. She felt a hint of concern for Keiichi as they left last weekend for southern Japan. Elder Sister seemed to be a little surly...if she got worse, Keiichi would be exposed to the full brunt of her anxiety.
Phase Three of the project was the simplest of all. All she had to do was to hack into the defense computers of the US and Russian military satellite system and reprogram the satellites with spectrometric capabilities; enabling them to attune to the specific patterns of the reconstructed DNA her modeling program had developed. The satellites would go into a search mode and span the globe until they found spectrometric data that matched the DNA sequences. Then they would transmit the coordinates to spycam orbiting platforms. The spying satellites would take photos of the locations specified and the images would be downloaded into Skuld's laptop and then displayed on the Holophotic Videmeotron Mk III for all to see.
"Tomorrow, we'll do this search thing *right*," she said to herself with satisfaction.

* * * * * * * *

Mara received the return call from the Vanagdrasil HOTline just a short while ago. They had located Urd. She was someplace in China, in a large metropolitan area called Beijing. According to Grief Office agents who found her, Urd was morbidly disconsolate. And in addition to this, Urd was without *any* divine powers. This news made Mara even happier...she loved it when Urd was miserable.
"And I didn't have to do anything to cause the girl her grief!" she cheerily noted.
Then it sank in. Urd doesn't have any powers. She must have gotten her license suspended again...as usual for her. Mara was pleased to see that Urd was *still* so predictable.
"She's totally at my mercy!" Mara thought. "The devilish things I could do to that bitch for all the times she humiliated me...ooooh, I'm such a Demoness at heart!"
Shiva and Berugone had informed her that they had followed the instructions of her request to the letter. Mara had asked them to assign a warding spell on Urd, so that no magical means could be utilized to find her or help her. As long as they were unable to find Urd, that do-gooder Belldandy and the little brat Skuld would become more and more miserable. If Mara had learned one thing in all her existence as a Demoness, it was her ability to twist love into jealousy or grief. A pervading grief which would make Keiichi and Megumi miserable as well. Belldandy was so naive, it probably didn't occur to her to ask her divine counterparts like Peorth to help her find Urd. Now, because of Mara's quick thinking, that option was canceled out.
"Once I get off these blessed crutches, I'll go find Urd and settle accounts with that blessed Eldest Norn!" she said in a gritty determined voice.
Mara's powers were restricted by the Ultimate Force while she was laid up with her injury. But once the UF allowed her healing, she would have full access to her Demoness powers. Even though she had been busted to a Second Class, Limited, license status by the Dark Lord, she would have more than enough power to get to Urd and make her pay dearly. She imagined a powerless Urd squirming underneath her thumb.
"If I can't hurt Belldandy by harming Keiichi, I'll *really* hurt her by harming her older sister!" she said to herself with joy, visions of her quid pro quo competing with dark tortures in her mind.

* * * * * * * *

Finished! I had completed transferring the contents of the walls onto a bundle of large easel-sized papers. I had assembled a thick stack of them in my carrying folder, each with transcribed images and translations. My eyes were blurry from exhaustion, but it had been worth it.
I offered to help Peng ascend the cliff face despite his fear of heights. I lowered him a rope to tie around his waist, then he started his climb. I held tight, so that if he slipped because of his anxiety, I would be able to hoist him the rest of the way up. But he did fine, his insecurity lessened by the safety of the rope.
I showed him the interior of Cave 948, with its painted images of three Goddesses. Then we descended the gently sloping floor slab into the hallway and entered the antechamber. Peng was speechless when we entered the large hidden room. He saw the statuary in the middle of the room and asked me if I knew how old it was. Then I explained to him that each wall had an ancient language and that each language was arranged to correspond to each other. Peng told me that this was archeological find of the first order; he thanked me profusely for convincing him to dare the cliffside ascent despite his fears.
I had brought 24 rolls of film and proceed to make a photographic record of the place; one of us holding a flashlight on the wall section while the other photographed it. Then I took a roll of souvenir photos with Peng posing in various portions of the antechamber; then he returned the favor. I realized that this find would probably recast Peng's job. I was planning to leave, but he would remain here to deal with the aftermath of my discovery. I told him of my plans to disappear into the Gobi...then I signed a contract which gave him exclusive unlimited access to the site. I knew that he would be responsible enough to 'fight the good fight' to preserve this ancient place against predatory researchers and tourists. We joked about him being 'Head Curator Peng' and I promised to take him out to dinner before I caught my red-eye flight back to Beijing.
Somehow in the pit of my stomach, I felt that we would be the last ones to see the antechamber. Sure enough, once we hauled all the supplies out and left the place for the last time, the floor slab lifted back up into position, blocking the entryway. The small rock that I had used to trigger the slab to open fell out of its niche with a soft thud. I grabbed it and put it in a container, following a hunch that carbon dating it would reveal how old the chamber was. After all, it might have been placed in its position right after the antechamber was carved out and finished.
Peng and I went to one of the best restaurants in Dunhuang and feasted. He staunchly attempted to convince me not to simply disappear after making such an important discovery. But I told him that I didn't feel like I was part of the human race anymore.
I packed my gear, realizing that in the past few days, my body had been giving me some weird signals. Just like when I first arrived in Japan after being transported by Urd...now I felt parts of my being shifting. At the airport, I almost passed out, either from exhaustion or from whatever was happening to me.
On the plane, I tried to gather my thoughts as I looked out the window, seeing the fading twilight sun illuminate the bottoms of the clouds with a purplish rouge as we ascended. As the snow-capped Nanshan Mountains carved intricate patterns in the earth below us, I knew that the academics and doubters would vigorously attack this discovery. In fact, I knew that my whole dissertation would be the target of much unfriendly scrutiny. Each minute that the plane got closer to Beijing, I felt more apprehensive. My future rested there.

* * * * * * * *

Belldandy sighed with relief as Keiichi pulled into their home. Stepping out of her sidecar, she brushed off the road dust and hugged him, then walked towards the house. They were both disappointed in the lack of results in their search for Urd. After Hiroshima, they had traveled further southwest to Yamoguchi and Shimonoseki at the tip of Honshu. Still no signs of Urd. Skuld was waiting in the doorway, an excited look on her face.
"Sister! Keiichi! I've found a way to locate Urd!" she bubbled forth as she ran up and hugged them both. She had noticed how crestfallen they both looked and decided to tell them immediately about her discovery.
Belldandy thought this was just another one of Skuld's childish conceits until she looked deep into her sister's brown eyes and saw the impatient earnestness there. She glanced at Keiichi, whose mystified expression belied the fact that he was also puzzled by Skuld's excitement. Skuld was so animated that she was bouncing up and down; each step was a spring and a skip. Belldandy felt a cool, refreshing wash of exhilaration as she realized that her younger sister *may* be able to find Urd. She said a silent prayer to Kami-sama, hoping that at last this may be the break they were looking for.
Walking in the living room, they saw Megumi and Genji sitting at the table. Belldandy smiled as she felt the glow of fresh love radiate from them. After greeting them, Keiichi saw his cousin Tomohisa watching an American baseball game on the sports channel.
"C'mon everybody, I have something to show you!" Skuld announced with a shout. Belldandy watched her younger sister vicariously as she told them all that they would be able to find Urd soon. Skuld grabbed her by the arm and almost dragged her off down the hallway towards "Skuld Labs". Keiichi and the rest followed, caught up by the anticipatory atmosphere.
Skuld seated herself on a futon in front of her laptop computer and keyed in a few commands. In the middle of the room, a screen solidified in mid air, causing a gasp from two of their group. Belldandy looked at her sister in shock...Tomohisa and Genji hadn't been let in on their little 'secret'. Yet. Keiichi and Megumi were rooted with surprise at Skuld's boldness.
"Skuld?" Belldandy said hesitantly.
"Well, they were going to find out sooner or later, anyway...so why not now!" Tomohisa looked at her with an unreadable expression, somewhere between fear and shock. It dawned on him that this was the same girl who had pounded a softball 600 feet past the outfield fence at the park. Skuld grinned mischievously as she recognized the "I don't know what the hell you are" look on his face.
Megumi shook her head and said "I can't believe she just did this" under her breath while Genji held her hand so tightly that she thought it was going to be crushed. She reached over and patted him on the hand...he looked at her with embarrassment as he realized he was gripping her too hard and apologized. Skuld had really outdone herself this time...and whether she knew it or not, it was advantageous that she had decided to disclose her Divine origin.
Megumi knew that Genji was a keeper; she didn't feel that she could keep the secret of the Goddess sisters away from her boyfriend forever. She didn't want the burden of constantly having to explain away the 'unusual events' that occurred with regularity in their household.
Now, Skuld had taken care of things for her.
The group watched as an image of the Earth formed on the screen, then about 40 pink dots appeared over it, seemingly floating in space. A few keystrokes later, a green grid formed, linking each of the dots. Skuld turned to them with a know-it-all smile and explained.
"There is a definite way to find Urd. We know that she manifests in a human body like everyone else," she explained, as Genji and Tomohisa dropped their jaws agape.
"So I figured if I could find out what her unique DNA code is, then I would have a means to locate her. I found part of her DNA and reconstructed a sequence which should resemble Urd's real-life unique DNA pattern. It took awhile, since there are *so many* potential DNA recombinations and I only had about 20% of her genetic code available...but I was able to abstract a reliable simulacrum of her unique genome traits."
Belldandy looked at her younger sister with open admiration. She knew, in a sense, how difficult the task was that Skuld had undertaken. Building a warding mandala or a mecha was one thing, but this was an immensely more difficult task. She thought of the intricacy of the calculations required...and her mind reeled at the sheer complexity. Skuld had accomplished it with a mere mortal laptop computer and her own ingenuity. Belldandy felt a strong pride in her younger sister. Skuld had advanced much further in her development than Belldandy could have predicted as of late.
"She's so close to being ready," Belldandy said to herself proudly.
Each Goddess served a different time period. As the Goddess of the Future, Skuld's focus was on science and technology. She would never have the mystical powers of her two elder sisters. But this was appropriate, because someday the humans would become so advanced in their technological endeavors that their progress would approach the level of magic. At that time, Skuld's role would be to reconcile magic and science, so that the humans could evolve to the Next Level. Urd was just the opposite of Skuld; her focus was on pure magic and arcane alchemies. Belldandy had a more balanced measure of both...with the greater part being her mystical powers. As the Goddess of the Past, one of Urd's responsibilities was to create myths for mankind. But as mankind progressed into the future, with a greater reliance on information and machines, a new kind of myth was needed. When Skuld would reach maturity, she would embody that myth.
"What you have done to try and find our sister is marvelous...you really are growing up!" Belldandy said to her younger sister, drawing a beaming smile from Skuld that was a reward in itself.
"These dots on the screen are military satellites that spy on different parts of the world," she explained matter-of-factly. "A couple of days ago, I realized that if there is a DNA pattern, it would be detectable using current mortal technology." Genji and Tomohisa winced when she said 'mortal technology'. This was rapidly becoming too intense for Tomohisa...he had just been watching the Yankees vs. the Red Sox a few minutes earlier. He inched towards the door...and then Keiichi caught him by the arm and shook his head to say "don't run away from this." Skuld continued with her explanation.
"These satellites have advanced surveillance capabilities, including devices that scan for nuclear and chemical weapons. By uploading a little quirk, I can reprogram their onboard computers to increase their sensitivity a hundredfold. Then I will be able to use spectrometry to scan the entire surface of the Earth. Once this is done, then there should only be six or give candidates whose mass spectrometry yields match what I have extrapolated for Urd's DNA sequence. I will be able to locate the positions of the results, and then I'll uplink into the spy camera orbiting platforms and photograph the places where the candidates live. The images will download into my computer and be displayed on my wonderful, beautiful Holophotic Videmeotron Mk III. There, we'll be able to see pictures of the humans. One of them will be Urd. Simple, isn't it?"
Keiichi shook his head.
"Simple, she says," he thought with a hint of exasperation. He was lost a few seconds after Skuld tried to explain the mathematics involved in the development of the software program she used to identify what Urd's DNA sequencing was. The fact that she could hack into the most advanced military computers on the planet was daunting in itself. She made it sound as easy as putting a videotape into the VCR and turning the TV on. Glancing at his younger cousin's confusion, Keiichi felt concern for Tomohisa. His cousin had a wary expression on his face...his little female friend had turned into something much more than he had bargained for.
"I know what you must be feeling, Tomo," Keiichi thought, remembering how intimidated he felt when he first learned just how *much* of a Goddess his Bell-chan was.
"I'm going to have to sit him down and really have a talk with him when this is over," he whispered aside to Belldandy. She smiled affirmingly.
Skuld typed in a few more commands and the green gridlines in the holographic display widened out into aqua-colored fans that eventually covered the surface of the planet in a translucent glow.
"Ahhh, 100% coverage...let's see what these satellites can come up with," Skuld said as she chewed excitedly on a chocolate covered rice stick. Soon, small green dots appeared on the slowly spinning globe image: one in Europe, one in Africa, one in Okinawa. A red flashing dot appeared in east Asia, accompanied by an alarm klaxon.
"What's that?" Keiichi and Belldandy both asked at about the same time.
"That...is an indicator for a warding spell. I modified the scanning quirk with one of Banpei's detection programs on a hunch that someone might try to keep us from finding Urd though magical means."
Belldandy and Keiichi both looked at each other and said, "Mara!"
"Yep...I bet that's why that flashing light is there. But Mara didn't expect anyone to try and find Urd *this* way, did she? No way! Skuld rules again!" she shouted vivaciously, thrusting a gloved V-sign high into the air.
Belldandy smiled at her sister's hubris. Skuld had bettered herself...she estimated only six or five results...and there were only four.
"You've got a right to gloat this time, my dear little sister," she acknowledged. Skuld tapped in a few more commands and the globe shrunk into the upper corner of the holographic display. The next clatter of typing was followed by four empty screens popping up on the display. Labels popped up under each one.
"Cool...this is like being in Star Trek or Star Wars," Tomohisa marveled, his earlier sense of awe replaced by mounting interest.
One panel said "St-Pons, France." A map of Southern France popped up. Another panel said "Bangui, Central African Republic" with a detailed map of that city. Another panel displayed "Ishikawa, Okinawa, Japan." The last panel displayed a captioned map of Beijing, China.
"Now I'm going to reposition a couple of these satellites so we can start taking pictures. Lessee, how about the Hubble II, the Hirayama Asteroid Tracker, and a couple of spy satellites.."
A few moments later, the first picture popped up on the screen. An elderly black man was sitting in front of a bank on a bench, surrounded by children. The next several pictures showed that he was giving candy to a cheerful bunch of kids. Belldandy felt her heart warm up to the kind old man who was sharing joy with young children. The series of photos looked like they were taken directly overhead from the roof. Definitely not Urd, however.
The next series of photos showed the roof of a small apartment complex. Evidently, whoever was 'tagged' with the DNA they were searching for was inside, blocked from the camera's overhead view. Skuld and the others felt a little disappointment at this.
The next screen showed a foggy photo from Beijing. It was apparent that the Beijing photos were obscured by a deep cloudcover. Skuld was frustrated. There was nothing but gray and purple splashes of color. Keiichi almost felt like the Ultimate Force was conspiring against their efforts to find Urd. After seeing that Skuld's detection had flagged Beijing as a site of a warding spell, he was almost sure that they would see Urd there. Instead, they would have to wait.
The next photo arrived on the screen for Okinawa. Every male in the room craned to get a better view. The picture showed a beautiful Japanese woman, in her early 20s, laying face down on a beach towel. All she was wearing was her undone bikini top and a scant thong bikini, getting a suntan.
After a moment, someone whispered "please roll over." Megumi elbowed Genji, who turned to look at her with a blushing face and apologized with a "I'm a guy, y'know!" Megumi heard the youthful voice of her cousin on the heels of her boyfriend's amends.
"Hey Skuld, could you try to zoom in on the photo from Okinawa. I...uh...can't make out all the details," Tomohisa inquired. Keiichi looked at Belldandy and rolled his eyes.
"I can't believe he's my cousin!" he thought with a deep exasperation. Skuld was so busy keying in commands, she didn't notice the fourth image that had popped on the screen. She typed in the commands to enlarge it.
"Is that better? Does it look like Urd?" she asked.
"Ahhh, much better. Is there any way you can splash her with cold water? Too bad she isn't Urd...but she totally looks nice anyway," Tomohisa commented.
Skuld jerked her head up to see what he was talking about. She looked at the picture from Okinawa on her monitor and turned red in the face with anger.
"Hentai!"

* * * * * * * *