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Disclaimer and credits will be found after the end of the
chapter.




          DRUNKARD'S WALK V / OH! MY BROTHER! BOOK II:
            ANOTHER DIVINE MESS YOU'VE GOTTEN ME INTO

           by Robert M. Schroeck and Christopher Angel





2.  In Which Some Of The Pieces Start Coming Together, Whether
I Want Them To Or Not



It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living god.
-- from "The Story of O" by Pauline Reage

All parts should go together without forcing.  You must remember
that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you.
Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a
reason.  By all means, do not use a hammer.  -- IBM maintenance
manual, 1925



Tokyo, Nekomi Ward, Saturday, May 10, 1997, 6:51 AM

A good night's sleep did wonders for my mental balance and what
little serenity I normally maintained.  By the light of day, with
my wits a bit more tightly wrapped than the night before, things
seemed not quite so horrible as I had feared.  Even the near-
destruction of my motorcycle looked merely difficult to deal with
now, rather than insurmountable.

(If I hadn't wanted to see Skuld punished for her vandalism, I
would have just gathered up all the parts, retreated to a hidey-
hole, and looked for a song that could take care of the
reassembly.  But goddess or not, I'd decided the girl was just
too damned arrogant and needed to be taken down a peg or two.  In
my humble opinion, of course.  Anyway, although I could think of
a few possible cycle repair songs off the top of my head, none of
them were *exactly* what I needed.  And most of them... well, I'd
only want to use them in a real emergency, which this wasn't.)

As I dressed and stepped out into the cool air of the early
morning, I gave a silent thanks that my frazzled nerves and smart
mouth hadn't gotten me into more trouble than they had.  Then I
set about checking out what would be my home for the foreseeable
future.

The big, blocky building that I couldn't get a good look at in
the dark the previous night turned out to be a Shinto temple.
And it was one of the finest examples of its kind that I'd ever
seen, too -- three hundred years old if it was a day, but in such
perfect condition that it looked like it could have been built
the day before.

Then again, given who lived right next to it, maybe that wasn't
much of a surprise.

It sat in the middle of a large complex bounded on all sides by a
white stone wall.  The junkyard I'd thought I'd found myself in
was, in fact, the front "yard" of the complex, paved in smooth
flagstones and exquisitely maintained -- except for all the
mechanical trash.

Why it was littered with all manner of engine and vehicle parts,
I still had no idea.  I had gotten up shortly after dawn, as I
often do, and no one else in the house had been awake yet, so I'd
had no one to ask.  Oh well, that would wait.

Other than the mechanical detritus, the temple grounds were
immaculate, in utterly perfect condition.  If it hadn't been for
those parts and the occasional car which trundled by on the
street outside the gate, I could have sworn it was the Meiji
period, or maybe even Tokugawa.  But I'd spied a calendar in the
kitchen on my way outside and had confirmed the date.  If it had
been Homeline, I wouldn't leave yet for another year or so.

But it wasn't Homeline.  If a roomful of Celestials hadn't told
me that the previous night, the neatly-stacked newspapers by the
low dining table would have.  No metahumans, and the politics
were different -- once again, this was a far more relaxed and
even xenophiliac Japan than the one I knew.  (After a decade of
jumping from world to world, I was starting to wonder why *our*
Japan was the odd man out.  Knowing the answer might make it
easier to deal with their little gang of racist demagogues.)

But I hadn't really expected that it would be home.  Hoped, yes.
Expected, no.

In ten years of traveling from universe to universe, I'd evolved
from overconfidence to simple determination.  I was going to keep
going forward, one world at a time, until I got home.  But I
wouldn't expect any particular jump to take me there.  It was
going to take me a long, long time.

The fact that (as far as Buckaroo and I could determine) I hadn't
aged a day in nearly 7 years, though, suggested that I wouldn't
need to worry (much) about racing the clock to make it back.  It
suggested other things to worry about, but not that.

I wasn't thinking about my aging rate and its implications at
that moment, though -- I had explored that topic as thoroughly as
I'd cared to some months earlier.  Instead, I was seated on the
floor of the temple proper, about halfway between the door and
the exact center of the building.

When I'd first walked through the entry, I saw that it was
regularly swept.  But the sweeping had missed the faintest traces
of varicolored dust that had seeped into the almost imperceptible
cracks between the floorboards.  I would've missed it myself, had
not the sun been at exactly the right angle as I'd entered and
slipped off my shoes.  I'd taken a few moments to investigate; it
looked like the remains of the kind of circles used for European-
style ritual magic.  I'd raised an eyebrow at that -- the
combination was undeniably odd -- but, hey, it wasn't *my*
business what they did with their temple.

After my little round of playing Sherlock Holmes, I'd settled
down to meditate.  More or less.  A student of Zen wouldn't have
called it meditation.  And I certainly wasn't trying for a state
of no-mind.  What I was doing was trying to study the bizarre
source of mystic power I'd detected the previous night.

I spent well over half an hour immersed in magesight examining
the thing, and I had no idea what it was supposed to be.  Despite
my initial impression the night before, it did look a little like
a node -- some of the local lines of power definitely fed into
it, and it had the same sense of "pressure" and power as a node.
But it wasn't a "pool" or "knot", which are the closest analogies
to the forms nodes can take.  Instead, it was more like a
fountain.

You see, a node is a lot like the lake behind a dam.  Think of
the mana as the water, with the local ley lines being the streams
and rivers feeding the lake.  The water in that lake doesn't seem
to move much, but there's a *lot* of it, and it wants to go
somewhere else -- right now, and very fast.  If it gets the
chance, it will.  And gods save anything that might be in its
way.

(That's what makes using a node so dangerous to a mage -- he
basically has to turn himself into a soda straw stuck into and
through the dam, and make sure the water coming out of it doesn't
blow through that straw so hard and fast that it shreds the
little thing.  According to what I learned in Velgarth, not every
mage survives his first attempt to use a node, even when it's a
"weak" one.)

Anyway, this node-thing -- it had managed to find a "somewhere
else" to go to, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out
*where*.  The power squirted *up* out of it, and then just
*vanished*.  It was a constant flow, too, a hell of a one, but it
all simply... went away.  And that was just *so* wrong.

Also, the path it followed made a column that ran right through
the exact geometric center of the temple, not to mention that of
the remains of all those ritual circles.  I was willing to bet
dollars to donuts that it wasn't *any* kind of coincidence.

After thirty minutes or so of this, as I said, I decided I wasn't
going to learn anything more, at least not that morning.  I rose
from seiza, bowed to the center of the building where the node-
thing invisibly lurked, and then slipped right into the first of
my usual morning kata.  I never even stopped to think about the
fact that I was still in the temple -- it just somehow felt so
right and proper that I automatically shifted gears to my
physical conditioning without thinking.

I wish I could say I have an Art, but I don't.  I never trained
in any kind of combat, really, not before I joined the Warriors.
I was a street fighter during the year or so before, when I was a
member of that Soho gang, but that was unsophisticated brawling;
I was fast, I was lucky and I had my field, and that was pretty
much all I needed, or so I thought.

After I joined the Warriors, though, I discovered that I needed
much, much more than that.  Fortunately, I managed to pick it up
as I went along; near-constant mortal peril is a tremendous
incentive for learning.  But I didn't really study any particular
style.  Instead, I had a collection of moves and tactics I'd
copied from the fighters I'd sparred with or gone up against in
live combat, strung together once again with my speed and luck.
Over the years I'd more or less hammered them together into a
functional mass that didn't really have a name.  If I had to call
it anything, I'd call it "kludge-fu" -- just like its electronic
and mechanical counterparts it was (as Jackson Granholme had put
it so many years ago) "an ill-assorted collection of poorly
matching parts, forming a distressing whole."

Fortunately, it was distressing far more often to my opponents
than to me, but that didn't mean I didn't have to work on it.
Years of practice -- especially the twenty-plus months I'd spent
training under and with Alberich -- had smoothed it into a
coherent style of sorts, but there was still always room for
improvement.  Hence my morning workouts, where I endeavored to
find more ways to fit together the various pieces stolen from all
those other different Arts.

Obviously, I didn't know the original names for most of the moves
and combos, so I'd long ago begun making up my own.  Which was
how it came to be that I was flowing smoothly from "Rabbit Flirts
With Hunter" through "Overhand Pie Smash" to "Yappy Dog Bounces".
I was working on a transition into the more advanced "Wait For
Me, Bay-bee!" when I heard a little intake of breath behind me.
I spun and dropped into a crouch ("Cossack Dancer Stumbles"),
only to see nothing more than the tail end of a long lock of
black hair whip by the door post and vanish out of sight.

*Skuld?  But why...*  Then I shrugged to myself -- what man can
understand the ineffable whims of the gods, right? -- and went
back to my katas.  "Cossack Dancer Stumbles" to "Duck Looks For
Beak" to "I Woulda Baked A Cake" to "Ooh, Wise guy, Eh?", and
from there into a long-familiar series of moves that had ceased
to need individual names any more, and which set me to bouncing
off the walls.  Literally.

"Good morning, Doug."

The door was in my peripheral vision this time, so the appearance
of another female figure there wasn't a surprise.  I let a
follow-through carry me via a tumble into a rest position, then
bowed to her. "Good morning, Belldandy."

With a smile, she returned the bow.  "Breakfast will be ready
shortly, if you'd like to join us."

I smiled back at her as I straightened up.  "Yes, thank you, I
would."

                              * * *

An androgynous figure in tight black leather and topped by a mass
of wavy blonde hair perched invisibly on the compound wall.  Eyes
narrowed, she watched intently as the goddess and the mortal
walked together, chatting, between the temple and the house.
Next to her, a tiny humanoid pointed and spoke for the first time
in some minutes.

"See, mistress!" it exclaimed.  "A mortal stranger, as Senbei
said.  A *special* mortal!"

Her eyes narrowed, and a brow marked with vicious crimson slashes
furrowed.  "Yes, yes, you did," she replied peevishly.  "And yes,
more than just an ordinary mortal.  A magus, if I'm not mistaken.
Odd.  I thought I knew who all the mages were on this mudball."
Mara rose to her feet with a loose-limbed, lazy-looking grace,
and strolled along the top of the fence to keep up with the pair.
Her steps were unconsciously certain and sure, her stride as
quick and confident as though she walked on solid ground, while
she focused her mystic senses on the mortal man below.

She frowned as she teased an unusual signature out of his
pattern.  "He's got a Mark on him," she muttered aloud, more to
herself than to her tiny flunky, who scampered up to her heels in
case she needed him.  "Bad enough he's shacking up with the Goody
Girls and the upstart, but he's got someone else from the Other
Side watching over him, too."  The frown mutated slightly,
gaining elements of curiosity and puzzlement.  "But who...?"

Her eyes shot open as recognition dawned.  "Impossible!  She's
supposed to be *dead*!"  Mara checked again and snarled.  No
mistake.  A moment later, a smile dawned on her face even as her
eyes narrowed.  This was information she could turn to her
advantage.  "Senbei!"

"Yes, mistress?"

"Make a note of the mortal's Akashic pattern."  She waved lazily
at the man as he entered the house, her gaze already distant as
she anticipated her next move.  "I want a full report on him.
And I mean *everything*."  She did not consciously notice the
goddess pause on the threshold, turn, and futilely scan the yard
with narrowed eyes before entering herself.

"Yes, mistress!"

Mara slowly smiled as she thought of the advantage her discovery
could bring her, as well as the potential it held for serious
mischief.  The Stormsdaughter *lived*, in spite of all those in
Hell who claimed otherwise.  And she'd marked this mortal as one
of hers.

                              * * *

7:35 AM

I took a few minutes to wash up -- not a full bath, not with
breakfast already waiting, but then again, it wasn't necessary.
My katas that morning had been gentle enough that I hadn't even
worked up a real sweat.  That done, I padded back down the hall
to the dining room where everyone was already seated.  (Except
Megumi, who had departed the night before to return her own place
somewhere in the vicinity of the NIT campus.)

I took a quick glance around the table, which was 80% occupied by
Celestials.  "My stars," I said with a little grin, "it's full of
gods!"

Skuld and Angel both looked at me and did a synchronized pair of
eye rolls that I found quite improbable but funny nonetheless,
while Keiichi -- who was clearly just as familiar with a certain
classic movie as the two gods were -- burst out with a bark of
laughter.  (Good thing that Kubrick's "2002" obviously had
existed in that universe, too, otherwise that joke would have
fallen *so* flat.)  I broadened the grin and nodded at him while
I sat down at the table, taking the same seat I had been guided
to the night before.

Which, of course, left me sandwiched between Skuld and Belldandy
again.

"Good morning, everyone," I announced as I made myself
comfortable, and got a round of greetings back -- some friendly
and even warm, others desultory or grudging.  Oh well, can't
please everyone.  Belldandy began distributing bowls of rice as
part of a traditional Japanese breakfast.  I was still caught
somewhere between amused and bemused at the intersection of Norse
gods and Japanese food, and I think it showed in my face because
a suddenly-concerned Belldandy asked, "Is there something wrong
with breakfast, Doug?"

I blinked, sputtered for a moment, then dove headfirst into the
truth or something like it.  "No, just..."  I waved vaguely at
the table.  "You're very Japanese for someone who's
Scandinavian," I finally blurted lamely, unable to come up with
any better way to put what I was thinking.  "All of you."

"Some of us," Angel offered sotto voce, "are actually very
Canadian and might like pancakes once in a while.  Or waffles
and hash browns."

Belldandy surprised me by ignoring him, and cranked her smile to
11.  "Thank you!  I do try my best."

"...Or French toast.  Or freakin' Cheerios..." Angel went on, his
voce a bit more sotto than before, but still audible.  I glanced
over at him, saw his grin, and realized he was probably invoking
a family joke given how everyone else at the table seemed to be
deaf to his complaints.  "...Or fried eggs and bacon..."

"Too much cholesterol, Chris," Belldandy declared, interrupting
the rhythm of his recitation.  "And we had pancakes *yesterday*,"
she continued on in terms of mild but amused reproach.

"A man can never have too many pancakes," he insisted.  "And we
don't have to worry about cholesterol."

"Keiichi does," Belldandy riposted in tones of such deadpan
seriousness that I had to check the continuing smile on her face
to confirm that the joke was still being carried along.

Well.  If this were like most of the family jokes I'd run into,
it probably ran to two or three escalating stages.  Rather than
get caught up in it, I decided to "ignorantly" disrupt the flow.
Besides, it was far too "normal"-seeming for my comfort.  "So," I
asked between mouthfuls of rice.  "Would it be impolite for me to
ask what all the scrap metal outside is about?"

Keiichi put down his soup bowl and sighed.  "I'm a member of a
racing club at school, and our clubhouse is being renovated.  The
sempais needed a place to put everything while that's going on."
He didn't sound thrilled.

"Ah.  And because you had the space..."

He nodded.  "Yeah, exactly.  I'm the only one not living in a
dorm room or a four-tatami apartment."  He sighed.  "Now we just
need to neaten it up and get it out of the way -- or at least
under tarps in case it rains."

I nodded in understanding.  "Well, I'll be happy to give you a
hand with that this afternoon.  But this morning I have to see if
I can sell those coins."  That said, I picked up my soup and
slurped a few spoonfuls.  (Don't look at me like that.  It's
*polite* to slurp in Japan.  Well, most versions of it, anyway.)

"What kind of coins are they?" Urd asked as I put the bowl down.
"I didn't get a good look at them last night."

"They're US Double Eagles, twenty-dollar face value back when
they were minted in the 1920s," I said around mouthfuls of rice.
"Unless there's something really funky about your world, they
should be worth quite a bit more here-and-now, just from the gold
content alone."  I scooped up another bit of rice, and after I
chewed and swallowed, I added thoughtfully, "Those are the last
of my supply.  I managed to acquire a small stack of them a few
worlds back, but I went through them pretty quickly."

"Which reminds me -- you promised to tell us about your journeys
this morning," Belldandy interjected.

I nodded.  "That I did."  I sat back up and in between polishing
off the fish, rice and soup, I kept my promise.  I started with a
little bit about Homeline.  I moved on to the extremist attack on
Piccadilly Circus, and how I'd been bushwhacked by an enemy with
a teleport gate, then how I'd woken up in a cool green grove of
trees, surrounded by white, blue-eyed horses.  As I expounded
enthusiastically on the city of Haven and its inhabitants,
though, Angel suddenly burst into a fit of coughing that sprayed
bits of rice and fish across the table.  "You were..." he began,
then cut off suddenly with a yelp of pain as Belldandy quickly
and efficiently cleaned up from his explosion.

Next to him, Urd grinned as she turned mischievous green eyes on
me.  "Please excuse him.  Old war wound.  It acts up every once
in a while."  Shyeah right, like I'd believe *that* old gag.
Especially when Chris got two words of an objection out and then
yelped again.  But despite this, the look in Urd's dancing eyes
said, "trust me."

I gave her a very suspicious look, but against my better judgment
I didn't pursue the matter.

I resolved, of course, to catch Angel later (without Urd around,
of course) and grill him privately.

Anyway, I hit most of the high points, briefly describing the
worlds where I got involved in local events and skipping over the
far more numerous timelines in which I'd only stayed a day or so,
or those where I'd enjoyed weeks of relative peace (AKA
"boredom").  I seemed to be doing a good job of informing and
entertaining everyone, except for Angel -- whose grimaces and
scowls (and occasional yelps followed by glares at Urd) only
multiplied and grew in intensity as I went on.  I tried to ignore
his increasing agitation, but as I described my time bunking at
the Institute with the Cavaliers (Buckaroo's answer to the threat
Hanoi Xan posed to me), Angel suddenly slammed his open palm on
the table.  The sharp bang of the impact startled everyone in the
room.  I cut off in mid-word and frowned.  "Just *what* is your
problem?" I growled.

"You have to be freaking *kidding* me!" he bellowed, ignoring my
question, and leapt to his feet.  One of his knees caught the
edge of the table and jostled it, sloshing tea and jangling
plates and glasses against each other.  With a gracefulness that
belied the speed behind it, Belldandy plucked several endangered
items off the table before they could tip or spill.  To her
right, Keiichi had frozen in place, his chopsticks halfway
between bowl and mouth.  To my left, Skuld sat silently, her eyes
wide.

Across the table, Urd simply looked chagrined.

By the time I looked back at him, Angel had stretched to his full
height, which was especially considerable given that I was
sitting on the floor.  "I'm supposed to believe this?" he roared,
waving one hand in my general direction.

"'Niichan!" Urd snapped at him.  "*NOT NOW!*"

"Like hell, Urd," Angel snapped back.  He thrust a pointed
forefinger at her.  "You.  My room.  *NOW.*"  Scowling, Urd
opened her mouth, evidently about to protest, but he cut her off.
"I mean it, Urd."  Then he stormed off around the table and out
the dining room door.

Her brow creasing as her glower deepened, Urd growled something
inaudible and rose to her own feet with a boneless-looking
fluidity that was no less graceful than Belldandy's moves even as
it was a completely different *class* of motion.  With a
surprisingly apologetic look at me she followed.

For a minute or two, the room was utterly silent save for
Belldandy's soft humming as she replaced the endangered items on
the table.

I looked around at the faces of my breakfast companions.  Then I
quietly asked, "Was it something I said?"

                              * * *

Chris stormed into his room and immediately strode over to his
computer, where with a fusillade of keystrokes he pulled up
window after window of web pages.  A second later, he turned to
his shelves and began pulling books and laserdiscs off of them as
Urd swept into the room and slammed the door behind her.

"What is *wrong* with you?" she demanded, and was nonplussed to
receive a single finger held up in the air as her brother
continued to pull items from his shelf, finally dropping a huge
stack on the bed.

When Chris did begin to speak, Urd was surprised to hear a strong
undertone of sheer *fury* in his even voice -- something she
hadn't heard from him since the Modi incident.  "I," he began,
and then stopped and took a deep breath to begin again.  "I have
accepted a lot of things in the past year or so.  I've accepted
that my religious world view is wrong.  I've dealt with the fact
that the Judeo-Christian 'pantheon' is populated by weird-ass
critters with a superiority complex.  I've adjusted quite well to
the fact that Shiva -- a goddess of death, mind you -- decided to
turn herself into something out of a Square game.  I've dealt
with magic, and Yggdrasil, and technology that's impossible.
I've handled all that and more, and frankly, I think I've been
remarkably tolerant.  But if you guys honestly expect me to
believe that... that... *CRAP* that guy is spouting, you don't
know me at all.

"Look at this," he continued, and pointed at the books and
laserdiscs on his bed.  "The 'Valdemar' books by Mercedes Lackey.
The 'Bubblegum Crisis' anime.  The freaking *'Adventures of
Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension'*, for Tyr's sake!"
With a wild gesture, he indicated his computer.  "'Kodomo no
Omocha', his third 'jump', is some stupid kids' anime that I
can't stand, and to top it all off, his bloody supposed
*homeworld* is a sourcebook for GURPS!"

Urd's mind whirled as she realized the danger their visitor had
brought to them, and the danger her brother was in.  If Chris
realized the truth about the dreams he didn't remember, he might
try to access his full nature, whatever that was, before he was
ready, and only Kami-sama knew what the results of that would be.
Urd picked up one of the books and began to flip through it.  "So
you think he's lying?" she said evenly, trying to remain calm.

"What am I supposed to believe?" he hollered.  With one deft
motion he scooped up a book blazoned with the title "GURPS
Warriors' World" and brandished it at her.  "That sitting out
there is a guy who just *happens* to come from a world that's
*exactly* like one described in a roleplaying sourcebook?  That
he's hopping through other universes that are animes, books, and
movies?"  He threw the trade-sized paperback back onto the bed.

Urd didn't respond, but instead began to gather up the materials
that her brother had dumped on his bed into neat piles, using the
time to formulate a reply.  "You don't have to believe it," she
finally said.  "What you have to accept is that as far as *he* is
concerned, what he's experienced is real, and as far as *we* are
concerned, he's an extra-dimensional traveler."  Chris snorted
disgustedly, and she sighed.  "The universe is infinite,
'Niichan.  The theories the mortals have come up with --
alternate realities, entire instances of our universe appearing
beyond the expansion limit of our universe, quantum realities,
none of it's quite right, but it touches on the truth."

"And the Boss just *happens* to make universes that look
identical to works of fiction?  Come on, he wouldn't... okay, he
would," Chris admitted, recalling that this was the same being
who owned up to using dice to make key decisions.

Urd smiled and patted him on the shoulder.  "It's probably more
likely that the writers or creators of these works are somehow
tapping into those realities, anyway."

With a sigh, Chris flopped down heavily onto the bed, making the
book piles collapse into disorder.  "But it's just so...
*silly*," he complained as he laid back to look at the ceiling.
"I mean, come on -- training with Alberich?  Hanging around with
Buckaroo Banzai?  I wonder if he actually visited the 8th
dimension..."

Urd began to comment, and then stopped as she felt a strange
resonance coming from her brother.  With careful scrutiny, she
watched as he unconsciously began to put himself into an odd sort
of trance.

"Can you even visit an alternate dimension within an alternate
reality?  Ooh, that would cause a headache... and boomers being
really sentient?  No, that doesn't make sense... Sylia said that
only a limited production model can reach sentience reliably,
like the 33S... variation in production processes causing
slightly different cerebral matrices... those variations mean
even a simple model can have unexpected complexity... fail-safes
designed to prevent full sentience in regular production
models... the leap in data-net complexity induces massive
instability and insanity when fail-safes are destroyed... in
combat models, usually causes a rampage as threat recognition
systems malfunction..."

"'Niichan?" Urd said hesitantly.

Chris blinked and sat up suddenly, his eyes a bit glazed.  He
clutched his head and grimaced.  "Woah, dizzy.  I shouldn't sit
up so fast."  Shaking his head, he looked over that the pile on
his bed and grimaced.  "Joy.  You're going to insist I hide
these, aren't you?"  Urd nodded wordlessly.  "Okay, I'll dump
them all over at my room at The Well of Urd."

"What room?"

Chris gave her an innocent look.  "You three *were* going to give
me a place to live up there, weren't you?"  He laughed at Urd's
expression, then grimaced.  "I'll put these away, don't worry
about it.  If you're serious about keeping this from our little
guest, we need to get Skuld to put a filter on our network
connection and *watch* him.  Lackey's a bloody popular Western
author, and 'Kodomo no Omocha' has a big fan base.  Luckily
'Bubblegum Crisis' and 'Buckaroo' are lower profile, but you'll
still want to make sure he doesn't catch on."

Urd smiled.  "I guess we'll just have to break the TV, then."

                              * * *

7:22 AM

We finished our breakfasts in silence, a certain awkwardness
having fallen over the meal after Angel and Urd's departure.
After laying down my chopsticks, I rose and thanked Belldandy,
then retreated to my room, where I did my best to ignore the
muffled and inarticulate outbursts from behind the closed door
farther on down the hall.  Apparently I'd upset him again.  Well,
fuck.  Hopefully my new status within the household would keep me
from getting my ass handed to me a second time, but just to save
myself another beating I resolved to go about my morning errands
right at that very bloody moment.  I could always brush my teeth
when I got back.

I made sure my tuneplug was still firmly seated in my ear, then
grabbed the double eagles out of my bag.  As I slipped the coins
into my pocket I made a mental note to bring the rest of my
possessions in from Skuld's workshop later.  Then I dashed for
the door before Angel decided to come barreling out of his room
with death in his eyes, ready to punish me for whatever
infraction I'd unknowingly committed.  It only took a couple of
seconds for me to reach the exit and safety, but I got
intercepted anyway -- by Keiichi.

I wanted *out* as fast as possible, and didn't relish any delays.
Before I could say anything, though, Keiichi held out a folded,
slightly worn piece of paper -- a flyer or pamphlet of some sort.
"Here," he said with a smile as I took it automatically.  "This
should help you get about town, since none of us can be your tour
guide at the moment."

I glanced at it.  "Nekomi:  A Student's Map", it said in large,
bright, friendly kanji; below it was a note adding that it had
been compiled by the NIT student council for the use of incoming
freshmen.  I unfolded it and saw that it was surprisingly
detailed.  It took me only a moment to find what I wanted -- the
local ginza.

A bit of my tension suddenly flushed from my system, and I looked
up from the map with a smile.  "Thanks, Keiichi-san," I said.
"This is exactly what I needed.  I owe you one."

He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck while returning
the smile, a little sheepishly, I thought.  "No, that's okay.
Don't worry about who owes who what."

I shook my head.  "Can't do that.  Gotta keep my karma balanced
and all that."  I was only half-serious -- gods know I have more
blood on my hands than I can ever hope to balance out -- but
Keiichi nodded solemnly.

"If you feel that way," he replied.

"I do," I said as I slipped the map into a back pocket and began
putting on my shoes.  "It's just... It's important to me that I
not feel like I'm imposing, that I'm not freeloading.  Even if
it's something as small as this map."  I touched the top of the
paper sticking out of my pocket.  "I don't like feeling like I'm
taking advantage of people."  I also didn't want to owe
*anything* to a Celestial, no matter how nice they were, but I
wasn't going to say *that* aloud.

He nodded again.  "I can understand that.  I only wish my sempais
felt the same way..."

I chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder.  "Don't worry, I'll
help you with the yard like I said.  Maybe I can do something
after Skuld and I spend some time this afternoon reassembling my
bike."

"Sounds like a plan.  Oh, and that reminds me.  Bell wanted to
know if you'd be back in time for lunch, or if you'll be eating
out."

Keiichi and I chatted for a couple more minutes about how likely
I would be to get back in time for lunch (conclusion:  unknown,
but I'd try hard -- only two meals and already I knew Belldandy's
cooking should not be missed for anything short of a national
emergency).  We then parted company.  I still didn't want to meet
up with Angel and find out just what the hell he thought I'd done
now, so I took off as quickly as I politely could.

As soon as I was through the gate and on the street, I pulled out
the map.  The temple was easy to find, as it was the only one to
be found in the area displayed in the flyer.  I looked up from
the label on the map to the sign near the gate just to be sure;
yup, they both read "Tarikihonganji" -- "The Temple of Salvation
By Faith in Amida Buddha", if you want it in English.  I studied
the name plaque doubtfully for a few moments -- things were
getting very weirdly ecumenical around there, in my opinion.
Norse goddesses living in a Shinto temple that had a Buddhist
name?  Their "brother" very clearly from a Christian tradition?
What was next?  Krishna dropping in for cup of sugar?

Eventually I turned back to the map and located the college's
position relative to the temple.  Then I deliberately headed off
in the opposite direction just to be sure I didn't cross paths
with Angel.  It made for a slightly roundabout way to the
shopping district, but not too much so, and it gave me a chance
to learn about the neighborhood I'd be living in for at least the
next three weeks.

What I learned was that I liked it.  A Japanese college town is
very much the same as an American college town, once you allow
for the cultural differences at the foundation level, and I've
always had a thing for college towns.  I spent a year living in
Princeton, New Jersey right after graduating from the University
simply because I liked the atmosphere (and access to the
libraries!).  If I hadn't moved to England in a huff after I quit
my job at RCA's Sarnoff Labs I'd probably still be there today.
(And living a much quieter, duller life...)  As it is, I still
spend a lot of time in London's more "academic" neighborhoods.

Nekomi, for all that the tech college at its center was a
completely different flavor of school, had a feel like the best
parts of Princeton without the inherent preppy snobbery that
always seemed to lurk at the periphery of my alma mater.  (No,
the University itself was surprisingly unsnobbish, even those
parts of it which were historically considered bastions of the
so-called elite.  Some *individuals*, on the other hand, could be
quite the nose-in-the-air prats.  But then, you can find them
anywhere.  As I was rather unpleasantly reminded a little
later...)

After a lovely, leisurely stroll through the traditional-style
residential neighborhood that wrapped much of the way around the
temple hill, I found myself rather suddenly in the commercial
district, standing under a road-spanning sign that proclaimed
"Nekomi Street Shopping Plaza".

Some of the shops along the local ginza were just opening up;
others had clearly been doing business for hours already.  I got
a lot of speculative looks and a few friendly greetings from some
of the shopkeepers, confirming my earlier impression of a more
relaxed attitude toward gaijin than the Japan of my own world
possessed.  Not to mention that it seemed likely to me that there
were at least a couple foreigners in the student body -- I
probably wasn't the only blond Anglo-type in the area.

Given that this *was* a college neighborhood, the stores I passed
were an eclectic mix of traditional shops and more outre vendors.
Gothy/punk boutiques and chain clothing shops vied with old-
fashioned kissatens and markets for street-front space, and the
exotic scent of incense battled it out with charcoal smoke and
the aroma of cooking meat.  Best of all, there were easily a
half-dozen music stores in the first three blocks; I'd have to
come back for them later, when I wasn't on a special mission.

And this was only the main street!  A quick glance to either side
whenever I entered a crosswalk revealed that the shopping
district extended for at least a block or two to either side.  I
wondered if there were any places I could get custom cycle parts,
then thought about Keiichi's motor club and then realized that
*that* was a foregone conclusion.  Either way, I could foresee
myself spending a lot of time wandering about the area, learning
its odd and hidden corners and its secret specialties.

After an hour's browsing among the shops and the shoppers, I was
still thoroughly enjoying myself.  I'd worked part of the way
down one of the larger side streets where cars were permitted
when a small sign caught my eye:  "We Buy Gold and Jewelry!"  It
stuck out at right angles over a stall that couldn't have been
much bigger than a police box.  Stepping closer, I saw that it
and several similarly-sized neighbors were all inset into the
front of a building housing an all-night karaoke place that was
currently in hibernation pending sunset.

Twenty minutes and some recreational haggling later I turned away
from the counter some 120,000 yen richer.  The dealer had happily
given me cash, and had been willing to buy some of the gems I
also had on me, which was a pleasant bonus.  That allowed me to
give the entire eighty-some thousand yen I got for the coins to
Belldandy and Keiichi as I'd promised and still have a little
pocket change to play with until I found myself a job.  I
wondered if there were a cybernetics lab on the campus that could
use an anachronistically skilled (but unaccredited) technician.

Anyway, as I turned from the stall and back to the street, I
collided with someone who'd been coming down the sidewalk.  I
grunted with the impact and bounced off the unfortunate soul,
catching myself before I could stumble.  Without looking, I
murmured, "I'm sorry, please excuse me," in my politest Japanese.

"Filthy gaijin scum!" snapped the other half of the accident as I
turned to face him.  "Why don't you watch where you're going!"
As if the racial insult and the supercilious tone in which he
spat it out weren't enough of a clue, the clothes and the bearing
immediately told me the story -- one I had grown up with, and
thus was intimately familiar with.  From the toes of his gleaming
Italian leather shoes to the stylish frames of his designer
glasses and the immaculately coiffed hair, he was a perfect
example of Brattus Cashus Toomuchus -- the Spoiled Rich Kid.

I have no patience for the species, as I'd not only grown up
around them -- I'd *been* one of them for a lot longer than I'd
like to admit.  This one was a classic example, and to top it off
he was in a royal snit, too, as he was apparently of the "King of
the Road" variety.  You know the kind:  "Part before me, ye
peasants, for I am more important than thee and the avenue of
travel is mine own possession!"  Smarmy git.  Sheesh.

I resisted the urge to belt him.  Not only would it have been
very antisocial, it would have undoubtedly earned me some
official attention I'd much rather avoid.  Let's not even
consider the fact that he was just a crunchy.  Unless I took care
to pull my punch -- which honestly wasn't something he made me
feel much like doing -- I could kill or at the very least
seriously injure him.

So rather than hurt him, I did the next best thing.  I bowed so
low it was almost a kowtow, tugged my forelock (well, what would
have been my forelock had my hair been long enough), and said in
the most obsequious mode Japanese possesses, "Forgive this one, o
mighty lord, for his grievous transgression, and pray withhold
the righteous might of thy blade."  Of course I said it with as
audible a sneer as I could pour into the words.  Then I lifted my
head enough to look up at him through the hair hanging over my
eyes and gave him one of my trademark enemy-enraging grins of
taunting.

Smarmy-dono snarled, took a step toward me, then thought better
of it as I straightened back up.  I had at least five centimeters
on him, and my jeans and T-shirt did nothing to hide my physique.
I'm not bulky or muscular, but I'm fit in a way that Maggie (and
Kat, and Diana, and Alison) admiringly call "hardbody".  I also
massed at least ten or fifteen kilos more than him, too, so the
effect was heightened.  Seeing that, he just sneered back and
brushed past me, coming as close as he possibly could to walking
into me and still not touch me.

I turned and watched him as he continued down the street.  His
body language broadcast the fact that he was seething all the way
to the incredibly cliche late-model red sports car -- a
convertible, of course -- parked about 50 meters away.  With
exaggerated care he unlocked the door and slid behind the wheel.
Once he had the engine started, he gunned it mercilessly and
peeled out of the parking space.  I rolled my eyes.

Behind me, the gold dealer chortled.  "That one's parents should
have spanked him a time or two before he got out of high school,"
the old man declared with a chuckle.  I shared a wry grin with
him for a moment, then bowed respectfully and continued on my
way.  I still had a couple hours before lunch, and wanted to see
more of the neighborhood.

Besides, I'd spotted a sign that said "Skeeball" down the block.
I hadn't played a game of skeeball since I moved to England.  I
smiled to myself and made my way through the midmorning throng,
jingling the coins in my pocket as I did.

                              * * *

7:35 AM

"You've been quiet this morning," Chris commented once they were
on the street and headed toward the campus.

"Huh?"  Skuld looked up in confusion.

"And just a *touch* distracted," her brother added, more to
himself than to her.  He inclined his head and raised an eyebrow.
"What are you planning on building now?  And how long before it
detonates?"

Skuld's face darkened into an all-too-familiar scowl.  "'Niichan!
You're teasing me!"

"Yup," Chris admitted as they paused at a corner and waited for
the light.  "But you're usually only this distracted when some
idea has come to you and you're working out all the details."
With one eye on the crossing signal, he gave his little sister an
encouraging, brotherly smile.  "So what is it, and do I need to
warn Keiichi to reinforce the house again?"

Skuld shook her head, the scowl evaporating only to be replaced
by a look of irritated confusion.  "No, it's nothing like that,"
she murmured.

"No?"  Chris' eyebrow raised again.  The light changed, and the
two of them stepped into the street.  "Then what's on your mind?"

The young goddess scrunched up her face for a moment, then spat,
"It's *him*."

"Him, who?" Chris asked.  "Sangnoir?"

They stepped up onto the curb and out of the street.  "Yeah."

Skuld found herself stopping short as her brother's hand closed
tightly but gently around her shoulder.  "What did he do *now*?"
Chris growled.  Skuld turned and felt a surge of panic when she
saw her brother's god marks jitter and flicker with a faint
tracery of light.  "I'll kill him.  No, I'll hurt him, *then*
I'll kill him.  No wait, I'll give him to Thrudr, *then* I'll
hurt what's left, then I'll get..."

She grabbed his free hand and held on tightly.  "No, 'Niichan,
don't!  He hasn't done anything!"

Chris turned a gaze on her that looked like embers about to burst
into vigorous flame.  "Are you sure?"

Skuld shook her head so rapidly that it sent her long black hair
rippling wildly up and down its length.  "Absolutely."

Chris closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath as his body
shuddered.  When he opened his eyes again, the markings on his
face no longer seemed to have a life of their own.  "Yeesh."  He
gave her a stern look.  "Skuld, *please* do not tempt the Happy
Fun Full Manifestation."

"Sorry," she whispered, appalled at the idea of what had almost
happened.

He slid his hand off her shoulder to rub her back briefly, right
at the base of her neck between her shoulder blades.  The warmth
of his large hand seemed to seep right into her and banish the
bad thoughts.  "It's okay.  Don't worry about it," he said, and
then a moment later he added, "I think we should get moving,
don't you?  Don't want to be late to classes, after all."

Skuld rubbed the back of her neck and smiled sheepishly at her
brother.  "Um, yeah."

They walked in silence for several minutes.  Then Chris asked,
"So, what was it about Sangnoir that has you all quiet and
broody?"

Skuld started and glanced over at him.  "Um," she began, and he
chuckled.  She scowled again.  "Don't laugh at me!" she snapped.

Chris stifled his chuckles.  "Sorry.  So," he went on, "what
was it?"

Skuld was silent for a long moment.  Just as Chris was about to
repeat the question, she said, "He was in the temple this
morning, doing some kind of martial arts."

Chris tilted his head and raised an eyebrow.  "Hey, *I* do
martial arts in the temple.  So?"

Skuld looked at her feet as they turned a corner.  "I've never
seen anything like it before, not even when Thor and everyone
were trying to train you up real fast.  It was like he was
dancing.  Not like he was doing memorized steps, but more like
someone dancing for the joy of it, without thinking about what
they're doing."

"Slick.  That bothered you?" her brother asked.

"No, that wasn't it... well, not *that* exactly."  Skuld stopped
in the middle of the sidewalk again and turned a look of
confusion on him.  She shook her head.  "It's just...  I don't
get it.  How can someone who's that big a jerk do something
that... that... beautiful?"

Chris got a pained look on his face.  "Skuld, you're making me
want to kill him again.  No crushes on way older men allowed."

The confusion vanished, replaced by a look of pure fury.
"Christopher James Angel!  How can you even *think* such a
thing?"

Holding up his hands in a placating gesture, Chris suppressed a
sudden urge to back away quickly.  "Sorry, I take it back.
Nobody's got a crush on anyone.  Nope, no way, nada."  Not if the
very idea spurred his little sister to use his *full* name.

A gaze combining equal parts baleful and unspeakably cute speared
him.  He didn't know whether to chuckle warmly or run for his
life.  "And don't you forget it.  He's a jerk, and a *mortal* to
boot."

Chris wisely refrained from reciting a litany of the divine-
mortal liaisons that surrounded his younger sister on a daily
basis, and decided to change the subject before he got into any
more trouble.  "So, short-'n'-cute, how come you didn't want to
help Sangnoir put his motorcycle back together?"

It worked.  Skuld suddenly deflated, her former anger now
completely overwhelmed by a palpable embarrassment.  She stared
off into space as, quite unconsciously, she brought her
forefingers together just about chest-height and began "tenting"
them against each other; Chris found the odd motion of her hands
strangely engrossing.

"It's silly," she finally said, startling Chris out of a state
of near-hypnosis.

He tilted his head and raised an eyebrow.  "Try me.  I won't
laugh.  Cross my heart," he added, making the traditional "X"
over his chest with his free hand.

"I mean, everyone already knew I'd done it," Skuld went on as if
she hadn't really heard him.  "But I didn't want to admit I'd
done it."  She dropped her hands and clenched them lightly in
front of herself.  "If I didn't agree to repair it I could still
say it wasn't really me."

Chris nodded solemnly.  "Yup, that *is* silly."

Abruptly her hands clenched into fists.  "'Niichan!"

He held up his hands in yet another placating gesture.  "Hey, I'm
just agreeing with you."

"Oooooh!" she huffed, and stomped off in the direction of their
classes.  Chris allowed himself a fond smile and her a few
meters' lead on him, then trotted after her.

"Admit it," he announced conversationally when he'd caught up to
her a few moments later.  "If he hadn't been insisting that you
take responsibility for taking it apart, you'd've been *jumping*
at the chance to put that motorcycle back together."

"Well, yeah," Skuld grudgingly admitted.  "It's just... it's the
*principle* of the thing!"

Chris chuckled.  "Oh, I know.  I was your age once.  If someone
had told me I *had* to do something I wanted to do as a
punishment for something else, I'd've been just as contrary about
it."

"I'm not being contrary!" Skuld shouted.  The outburst gained her
the attention of nearby pedestrians, who spared a moment to stare
at the uncouth gaijin girl.

She blushed, ducked her head, and hurried onward.

"'How does your garden grow?'" Chris murmured to himself with a
smile and caught up with her again.  As soon as he was at her
side once more he tried his most reassuring tone.  "Skuld.  It's
okay -- you can feel however you want about whatever you want.
Just...  don't do anything stupid.  That's *my* job."

"I'm not going to do anything stupid."  Between his elevated
vantage point and Skuld's bowed head, Chris couldn't tell for
sure, but he'd be willing to bet she was scowling again.  One of
these days he'd have to tell her how adorable it made her look.
"I made a promise, after all," she continued, "and it's just as
binding as a contract."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that."  Chris narrowed his eyes; that
brought up something he hadn't gotten an answer to the night
before.  "Talking about your promise, what *exactly* was with
your transformation with the 'tude and scary voice last night?"

Skuld lifted her head and shot him an indecipherable glance.
"It's a god thing, 'Niichan, something you'll learn about when
you're ready.  Until then we're not supposed to talk to you about
it."

"Uh-huh."  He frowned.  "Number eight million, four hundred and
twenty three thousand, nine hundred and fifty *three* on the list
of things the Boss has said to keep Chris in the dark about."

She nodded.  "Yeah."  She looped a lock of ebon hair around one
finger and twirled it nervously.  "We're... it's..."  She
struggled for the words for a moment, then sighed.  "Father says
there'll be a point when you'll *know*, and you won't need to
ask, and until then we're not to say anything about it."

Chris resisted the urge to growl.  "Heimdall's Hair, the Boss has
more plots and secrets going on than your average soap opera."
He sighed again, this time more loudly and investing it with just
how put-upon he felt every time he dealt with Kami-sama.  "Okay,
then maybe you can answer a different question."

Skuld turned to him and raised a cautious eyebrow.  "Like what?"

"Like, how is it we ended up talking in Old Norse *again*?"

                              * * *

Nekomi Street Shopping Plaza, Saturday, May 10, 1997, 10:17 AM

If you've never seen a skeeball game, it's quite simple, really.
Imagine something kind of like a miniature bowling alley, except
instead of pins there's this little ramp up to an angled wall on
which a set of concentric rings are fixed.  Each ring has a point
value -- the smaller the ring the higher the points.  For your
quarter (or local equivalent) you get eight wooden balls a little
bit bigger than baseballs.  You bowl them down the "alley" such
that they hit the ramp and fly up to (hopefully) land in one of
the rings.  Naturally, you want to make bullseyes for maximum
points, but sometimes you flub it and the balls drop down behind
the ramp and you get no points at all.

In some arcades the machines just show you a score, but in other
places they spit out tickets in proportion to how well you did;
you can then redeem the tickets for prizes.  This was one of the
places with prizes.

I spent almost an hour playing there, and had a great time.  I'd
almost forgotten how relaxing skeeball could be.  I'd acquired a
liking for the game during my college years, when I'd spend
weekends -- and the occasional summer week -- at the Jersey
Shore.  I still had an arm for the game, too (not that being
metahuman didn't help), which eventually got me a lot of
attention -- after a few rounds of play I had a mixed bag of
local college students and truant school kids watching me avidly;
they cheered with every bullseye and groaned the few times I
botched a pitch.

When I finally stopped playing, there was a great cry of
disappointment.  But they let me go -- although not without a lot
of handshaking and expressions of disbelief at my performance.
Apparently no one in the crowd had ever seen someone play as
consistently well as I had for as long as I had, and a lot of
people wanted to shake my hand or congratulate me.  I just smiled
and gathered up the long, continuous stream of tickets that had
pooled at my feet and made my way to the redemption counter.

I came away from the arcade with a cheap pair of sunglasses and a
battery-powered toy mecha -- called "Garban" or some such.  I
could probably have bought them both for half of what I'd spent
on the rounds of skeeball I'd played, but I didn't really care.
It was the game that I'd been there for, and the prizes were just
lagniappe.

Still, I'd put some thought into what I'd selected.  It wasn't
much, but I hoped maybe Skuld would accept the toy robot as a
peace offering.

That is, if she didn't throw it in my face instead.

                              * * *

Makiyura Hall, Nekomi Institute of Technology, Saturday, May 10,
1997, 11:03 AM

As the shower warmed up, Megumi Morisato swished the water around
her mouth and then spat out the last bit of toothpaste residue.
She rinsed again, feeling the sharp, false chill of the mint
flavor linger on her tongue and the inside of her cheeks.  She
stood up from her stoop over the sink, stretched and yawned, then
wiped away the tears that the yawn had squeezed from the corners
of her eyes.  *Crazy dream last night,* she thought muzzily as
she stared at the bleary image in mirror.  *Bikers from beyond
space and time, and my bro dating a goddess.*  She chuckled.
*Sure, Belldandy's, like, super-nice, but come *on*, girl...*
She shook her head and smiled self-indulgently, then stripped,
stepped under the water and began to soap up.

*I think I'll head over to the temple and see if I can't score
some lunch, and I'll tell them about the dream at the same time,*
she mused while scrubbing.  *They'll get a kick out of it for
sure.*

Fifteen minutes later she'd finished toweling off and strolled
back to her dorm room to dress before making her way to lunch.
At the door she had to juggle her bathing supplies in order to
pull out her key to unlock it.  She didn't want to set the still-
moist plastic bucket down and leave behind a puddle on the floor
right outside her room, but she didn't want to let it drip all
over her robe, either.  After a few moments of trading items back
and forth between hands, though, she managed to extract her key
and unlock the door without too much water damage to anything.

A plaintive beep greeted her as she stepped through.  *Who
called?* she wondered as she spotted the blinking "new message"
light on her answering machine.  She hit the "play" button and
unwrapped the towel "turban" she'd wrapped around her head so she
could finish drying her hair.

"Good morning, Megumi."  Belldandy's recorded voice was crisp and
clear, far more so than most of the messages Megumi received.  "I
was just wondering if you would be joining us for lunch today,
since you said you would like to help reassemble Doug's
motorcycle."

Megumi froze in the middle of toweling her hair, and turned
slowly toward the machine.

"Please call back," Belldandy continued brightly, "so I know how
many to cook for.  Have a good morning, and we'll see you later!"

As the playback shut off with a click, Megumi sat down heavily on
her bed.  *Not a dream,* she thought, stunned.  *Not a dream.*

                              * * *

Tarikihonganji Temple, Saturday, May 10, 1997, 11:14 AM

I got back to the temple complex a bit earlier than I'd intended,
but that was okay.  I stuck my head into the kitchen and let
Belldandy know I was there and would be joining them for lunch
after all, and got another one of those brilliant smiles in
return.  Urd was nowhere to be seen.

Mecha toy in hand, I made my way down the hall, peering through
doors until I found what *had* to be Skuld's room.  It was pretty
obvious, especially compared to the other rooms on the hall --
desktop computer, piles of engineering texts, random electronic
and mechanical kipple, assorted hand tools, scattered pieces of
red and white clothing too small for anyone else, and a stack of
empty 2-liter ice cream tubs.  (An apparently random assortment
of flavors, too.  I checked.  Everything from plain chocolate and
vanilla through Cherry Garcia and Heavenly Hash -- big surprise,
that one -- to some seriously *weird* stuff like sweet potato and
cactus.  The girl's taste in frozen treats was apparently broad
and indiscriminate.)

Anyway, I stepped in, careful not to tread on anything or disturb
her piles (I know a techie's optimal organizational system when I
see one), and stood over the computer.  A quick glance told me
that the machine was actually turned off and not just in a power-
conservation mode.  Good.  I bent Garban into a sitting position
and perched the robot on the keyboard where Skuld couldn't
possibly miss it.  I didn't expect it would make everything
better, but maybe it would at least open a door.

That taken care of, I loped out to Skuld's workshop.  I
suppressed a shudder at the sight of my dismembered bike, then
stepped carefully through and around the parts to the far wall.
First thing I did there was take up Buckaroo's sword -- well,
*my* sword now, that was whole point of him giving it to me,
after all -- and slide it through my belt as if I were arming
myself for battle.  Then, after a moment's mental debate, I
simply grabbed the whole pannier assembly (fortunately still
intact), slung it on the shoulder opposite the sword, and carried
it back to my room.

After setting down the panniers, I respectfully laid the sword on
top of the folded futon and made a mental note to build or buy a
proper stand for it.  Then I began to unpack my gear, starting
with Lisa's photo of me with Maggie.  There was a small, low
dresser plus the traditional closets hidden behind the wall
panels, so I had more than enough room for everything, and a
place on top of the dresser for the picture in its simple wooden
frame.

When that was done, I paused, thought for a moment, then dug out
the little maintenance kit that Buckaroo had given me with the
sword.  I sat Indian-style on the tatami-mat floor with the kit
in front of me and the still-sheathed sword across my knees. Then
I drew the katana and began to clean the blade, even though it
really had no need of it.

I was humming quietly to myself and still polishing it when Urd
poked her head in.

                              * * *

Skuld stomped through the temple gate in a mood just short of a
high dudgeon.  *Stupid mortals.  Stupid 'Niichan!  Doesn't he
know he's supposed to walk with *me*, not a bunch of guys I don't
even *know*?*

She growled as she stalked through the debris-strewn yard and
into the house, paying little attention when she kicked her shoes
off and almost sending one through a window.  The near-accident
made her growl louder as she gathered them up and threw them
roughly into their cubbyhole.

*Ice cream,* she thought angrily.  *I need ice cream.*

Out of consideration for the work Belldandy put into the floors,
Skuld did not stomp on her way to the kitchen, even though she
knew her stockinged feet could not possibly damage the finish of
the wood.  Plus, after her near-tantrum in the entry, she felt
vaguely embarrassed and did not want to attract any attention for
a little while.  It didn't mean she was any less angry; she just
wanted to be angry and alone.

Once in the kitchen she retrieved a bowl and spoon from a cabinet
and a tub of rocky road from the freezer.  A few deft movements
with the spoon and the bowl was full.  Setting it aside on the
counter, she returned the tub to the proper place.  Then she
retrieved the bowl (now pleasantly chill to the touch) and
stepped into the dining room to sulk in relative privacy.

"Ah, Skuld, there you are."  Belldandy seemed almost to pop up
out of nowhere as soon as Skuld had seated herself and begun to
eat, startling the younger goddess so badly that she almost
dropped her spoon. "You're back earlier than I expected."

"'Niichan wanted to walk home with his dumb mortal friends,"
Skuld replied in a surly mutter, then shoved a spoonful of rocky
road into her mouth.

Belldandy seemed to ignore her bad mood.  "He did?  That's
wonderful!"

Skuld pulled the spoon, now sucked clean of all ice cream, from
her mouth and sulked.  "*I* don't think so."

Her elder sister regarded her with gentle sternness.  "Now,
Skuld, that's no way to be.  It's good that Oniisan finally has
friends that he likes to be with."

"Don't see why he needs'em."  Skuld punctuated her statement by
stabbing her spoon into the mound of rocky road.  "He's got us,
doesn't he?"

"You have to remember that Chris grew up as a mortal, Skuld, and
needs mortal companionship from time to time."  Belldandy seated
herself next to her sister.  "Don't you remember how lonely he
was when he first got here?"

Skuld grimaced.  "Yeah, I remember."

"Isn't it better for him to be happy?"

"But, oneesama!"  Skuld turned to her, forgetting her ice cream.
"Why can't he be happy with us?"

Belldandy smiled indulgently and ran her fingers through Skuld's
hair.  "He is, little sister, he is.  But he's happier when he
has friends he's made himself, not had forced upon him."  She
brushed the trailing ends of the younger goddess' raven cowlick
out of her eyes for a moment.  "He's going to be with us for all
eter... forever, after all; it's not like they can steal him away
from us.  Can't you share Oniisan for just a mortal lifetime, if
it makes him happy?"

Skuld slumped in her seat, a picture of perfect misery.  "Don't
wanna," she whispered.

Sternness returned to Belldandy's expression.  "Skuld," she
warned.

The little goddess sighed.  "I suppose."  She picked up her spoon
again and gestured sharply with the utensil.  "But don't expect
me to be happy about it!"  She turned her attention back to the
confection in front of her and dug a huge mouthful out of it.

Belldandy caressed her hair once more.  "That's better.  Don't
worry, it'll all work out in the end."

"If you say so," Skuld mumbled around her spoon.

"I do," her older sister smiled.  She stood and crossed to the
kitchen door.  "Now don't spoil your appetite for lunch.  And if
everyone gets home early enough, we'll be doing some cleanup work
in the yard before we eat.  If we do, we would really appreciate
your help."

"'kay."

                              * * *

As Skuld stormed off ahead of them into the temple, Chris sighed
and bestowed a withering look upon his friends.  "Juhachi, I know
your brother's a jerk and all -- believe me, I know -- but do you
have to take it out on my little sister?"

Said young man snorted derisively and leaned on the gate.  "If
she'd pull her prejudiced head out of her rear, I wouldn't."

"Here they go again," snorted one of their companions as the two
dissolved into a woefully familiar round of bickering.  He
blinked as their other two friends only grunted responses.  "Yo,
Earth to Louis.  Earth to Hiroshi."  At their lack of feedback,
he finally snapped, "What are you two looking at?!"

Chris and Juhachi paused their argument to listen in.

"Awwfully nice 'door' you've got there, Chris," Hiroshi said in a
far-too-innocent tone.

In the same tone, Louis added, "Got some new toys lately?"

Chris chuckled nervously and replied, "Uh, Skuld?  Little Miss
Inventor, remember?"

Louis made an indelicate noise and sneered.  "Riiiight."

"You know," Hiroshi mused, "if you take things all together, I
wonder if--"

"No!" Chris barked angrily, pointing an imperious finger at the
two.  "Damnit, NO!  I got enough trouble without you two bringing
me more grief!"

"I'm sort of duty-bound," Louis protested.

"No!  Jean'll tell Larry, and Larry'll tell Dom, and then I'll
have to deal with a freaking triad.  I *hate* those guys!"  He
turned to Hiroshi, and continued with a snarl, "And *your* boss
will tell the other reprobates, and I'll have a bloody battalion
of interfering gits down here.  We've got this one handled!"  He
stormed into the house, muttering to himself.

"You know, he's awwwwfully high-strung, considering what he is
and all," Takeshi noted with a worried expression.  "Gramps is
pretty laid back, usually."

Juhachi laughed.  "Compared to your grand-dad, week-dead corpses
are high-strung."

                              * * *

Some minutes later, Chris grimaced when he "just happened" to
peer into the room that Belldandy had given Sangnoir and found
it empty.  After the little talking-to Urd had given him, he'd
wanted to ... well, not quite apologize to Sangnoir, more like
reassure him that Chris's outburst over breakfast wasn't really
his fault.

*The guy's twitchy enough around us as it is,* Chris thought.
*No need to make him worse.*

Unfortunately, Sangnoir wasn't around -- although if the empty
motorcycle panniers and the open sword care kit in the center of
the floor were any indication, he hadn't been gone long.
Succumbing to his curiosity, Chris stepped in and took a closer
look.

The first thing that caught his eye was a photo in a simple 
wooden frame, standing in a place of honor in the center of the 
room's small dresser.  Chris picked it up and studied it. 
Against the backdrop of a nighttime cityscape, Sangnoir and a 
woman with long, auburn hair were kissing.  She was dressed in 
little bits of black leather and cloth, and was wearing dark 
glasses despite the nighttime setting.  Not bad looking at all, 
Chris decided upon studying the small image a bit more 
thoroughly, but not to his tastes.  *If she had Ami's or Rachel's 
assets, though, woah.* He shook himself out of that line of 
thought.  "I hope for *his* sake that's his wife," the god 
muttered as he replaced the photo and glanced around the room 
once more.

The blade that went with the care kit was sheathed and carefully
set away from where Sangnoir had obviously been working on it, in
a spot where no one could stumble over it accidentally.  Chris
nodded approvingly to himself at the good sword discipline --
another set of skills that had been pounded into his head by all
the other Aesir, despite the fact that his personal weaponry was
magically created and maintained and never needed the kind of
care a mortal-made blade did.

"You'll never know when you're going to need it," Tyr had said
once over a post-training mug of mead, "even if it's just for a
nice showpiece you pick up somewhere."  Grimacing at the too-
sweet beverage, Chris had allowed for the possibility and then
let himself be dragged off by Wayland.  The demigod smith had
then schooled him thoroughly in the proper care of swords both
magical and mundane.

Chris shook his head and drove the memory back, but his eyes
still rested on the katana with its black-and-gold saya.
Wrought-gold bosses punctuated the plain black lacquer with a
repetition of the angular, back-to-back double "B" symbol that
he'd seen in connection with the movie.  He could imagine a
reproduction house offering a katana as a tie-in to the film, but
not one of this quality -- this was no $200 show-sword.  His
training with Wayland came to the fore; even without touching it,
he could tell simply from the craftsmanship of the saya, hilt and
tsuba that this was a master-made blade, worth thousands -- maybe
tens of thousands -- of dollars.

*Score one for Urd and freakin' absurdity,* he reluctantly
admitted to himself.  *No master smith would make a movie
"souvenir" sword.*  Chris allowed himself a moment to wonder if
Sangnoir knew how to use the weapon.  *I wonder what it'd be like
to spar with someone who *couldn't* beat the crap out of me with
his eyes closed.*

But that would depend on putting Sangnoir at his ease, and that
reminded Chris he still had to speak to the man.  At least he
wasn't gone for good -- if the evidence of unpacking hadn't made
that clear, there was the fact that his motorcycle was still
here, after all.  And Skuld's promise seemed like it might have
some kind of binding effect on *both* of them...  Still, it
annoyed Chris that he might not get to make this right for a few
more hours yet.

                              * * *

11:31 AM

I tossed one last piston into the cardboard box on the ground in
front of me, then squatted to pick it up.  (Always remember,
kids!  Lift with your *legs*, not your back!  Doesn't matter how
strong you are, you can still hurt yourself.  We once won a
battle because one of the enemy ruptured a disk in his back
lifting an Abrams tank the wrong way and ended up dropping it on
himself.)  Getting a good grip on the box, I grunted and stood
up. "Those sempai of yours sound like real winners, Keiichi," I
shot over my shoulder at my host.

"Oh, they're not really that bad."  Keiichi stepped into view, a
box of his own in his arms.  The one who had actually recruited
me for this dirty little job, Urd, was ever-so-seductively
sprawled out on the engawa watching us.

"I dunno," I replied as we carried our loads into the storage
shed (which was rapidly filling up, by the way).  "They seem a
whole lot like certain lazy deities who drag guests out to do
work that they themselves ought to be taking part in," I
continued in a voice that was somewhat louder than necessary for
Keiichi to hear me in the confines of the shed.

"I *heard* that," Urd's melodious tones, laced with amusement,
drifted in through the door.

I stuck my head out into the sun and shot her a pointed look.
"You were *supposed* to," I said flatly.

She grinned and blew me a kiss.  I dodged theatrically, prompting
a laugh from her, and then turned back to see a bemused Keiichi.
"Are you fighting with her or playing?" he asked.

I shrugged.  "Good question.  If I get hit with a lightning bolt
when I go back out in the yard, we'll know."  Suiting action to
words, I stepped out of the shed and was vaguely disappointed
that nothing was waiting to smite me.  Oh, well.

"Hey!" a newly-familiar baritone foghorned from the door.
"Sangnoir!  Hold on there!"  I looked up to see exactly what I
had expected -- Angel, his eyes fixed on me and one finger
pointed in my direction, almost falling over himself in his haste
to get out the door of the house and into the yard.

*Christ on a hand truck.*  I groaned silently as Keiichi slowly
edged away from me.  *What did I do *now*?*  I looked over at
my human host.  "I think I'd prefer the lightning bolt."

Angel trotted out into the yard and over to the shed, where he
stopped and stood, half in shadow and half in sunlight, with one
hand rubbing the back of his neck.  I remembered seeing Keiichi
make the same gesture and wondered who got it from whom.  "What's
up?" I cautiously asked him.

He took a breath and then said, "Look, I just wanted to say
'sorry' about me yelling at breakfast.  You didn't do anything
wrong; it's just that I've just been a little stressed recently
and it all came out right then."

I blinked, momentarily struck dumb by the complete turnaround in
attitude, from divine badass to aw-shucks foot-shuffling.  But he
seemed sincere enough, and your humble narrator is not one to
look a gift horse in the orthodontia.  I recovered quickly, and
nodded.  "I'm not surprised, what with the celestial circus this
place seems to be.  It's a wonder you're not *more* stressed."  I
stuck out my hand.  "I've also been more than my share of asshole
over the past 24 hours, and that can't have helped.  Sorry about
that.  Start fresh?"

Angel looked at me, then at my hand, then at me.  Then a smile
slowly broke across his freckled mug.  He grabbed my hand in his
own and pumped it.  "You've got a deal."  The shake ended, but he
didn't let go, or let up.  "Fair warning, though.  You do
anything to hurt my sisters..."

I rolled my eyes and nodded.  "Yes, yes, I'll die a long and
painful death.  I know, I've already read that page, thank you.
Besides," I went on as I extricated my hand and did the full
sitcom prying-the-fingers-apart schtick, "Belldandy has already
charmed the pants off me, Urd's growing on me like a particularly
virulent fungus..."  Over on the engawa a certain goddess gave an
outraged squawk and Angel started coughing -- suppressed
laughter, I hoped.  (Either that or a bad lung condition, and he
really ought to see a doctor.)  I ignored them both.  "... And I
am currently oathbound with and to Skuld.  None of your sisters
have anything to fear from *me*."

He recovered from the coughing fit and gave me a long look --
serious, but not suspicious.  Then he nodded briskly.  "Fair
enough."

"Cool."  Then I raised an eyebrow.  "Well, then, Chris -- it *is*
okay if I call you Chris, right?"

He nodded.  "Sure."

"Great.  Anyway, now that that's settled, and since you're out
here, how about you help us mere mortals with what's left of the
junk?"  I gestured broadly around us.  "Which is, basically, most
of it."

With a resigned look at the still-considerable piles scattered
around the temple yard, Chris sighed and nodded again.  "Sure,
just let me duck into the house and change into some clothes I
don't mind getting grubby."

"Huh."  I looked him up and down.  "Can't you just, you know..."
I mimed a pseudomystic gesture.  "...magic up some work clothes?"

Chris gave me a flat look.  "You don't want me to try to cast a
spell to change my clothes.  Really."

"I don't?"

"You don't," said Keiichi, who had sidled up to the conversation.
He sounded just a little bit nervous.

I looked back and forth between the pair, then shrugged.  "Okay,
whatever you say."

As Chris vanished into the house I turned to Keiichi.  "Bad at
spellcraft, is he?"  Keiichi just shuddered, which I took as an
emphatic "yes".

A few minutes later, Chris came back out in a faded blue T-shirt
and a slightly ragged pair of jeans.  Without a word he joined
the two of us in the slow process of moving metal from the yard
and into the shed.

It took us maybe twenty minutes to finish clearing away the
closest pile to the door and move on to the next.  I sighed in a
certain amount of relief when I realized that instead of a mass
of small, essentially randomized parts, this new pile was made
primarily of larger pieces -- body panels, mostly -- piled around
and on top of a larger something partially draped in a canvas
tarp.  Even if some of the pieces would need two people to carry
them, this pile should move a lot faster than the last one.

I felt a presence behind me, then another, and turned to find
that Keiichi and Chris had come up and stopped to stare with me
at the next goal.  I inclined my head toward the heap.  "Shall
we?"

In about fifteen minutes we had cleared away enough of the pile
that we could pull aside the tarp and see what was under it.
When it was revealed, I just stared for a moment at the blocky
green shape with the familiar blue oval logo on its hood,
surprised as hell.  Keiichi and Chris were unimpressed -- I
presumed that Keiichi had seen the vehicle before, wherever they
had stored it until now, and Chris probably didn't even recognize
it.  But I did.  It was the car I'd fetched up against during
the fight the previous day.  Not just that, but...

"Damn," I murmured.  "That's a *Prefect*.  A genuine 1959 Ford
Prefect."  I yanked the tarp back further to reveal more of the
small, blobby car -- it had clearly seen better days, as its
green finish was dull and chalky, where it hadn't flaked entirely
away around various scrapes, dings and scratches.  I looked over
at Keiichi.  "How the *hell* did a Ford Prefect get all the way
to Japan from England?"

Behind me, Chris suddenly spoke up.  "It hitchhiked?"  There was
a hint of a smile in his voice I didn't understand.

I went for the intellectual response.  "Huh?"  Beside me, Keiichi
had turned and was giving Chris a curious look.

Chris ignored both of us and stepped up to the battered little
car.  He fingered one of the creases in its fender.  "See that
dent?" he asked.  "I've named it 'Arthur'.  It goes everywhere
the Ford does."

I looked over at Keiichi, who looked as confused as I felt.  He
spotted my glance, shrugged and mouthed, "Don't ask *me*."

"Chris," I said softly, "you're freaking us out, here..."

Silently I debated the merits of backing away from the suddenly
very disturbing (and/or disturbed) person.  But then he turned
back to me with a broad grin.  "Never heard of 'The Hitchhiker's
Guide To The Galaxy', I take it?" he asked.

I shook my head.  "Doesn't sound familiar."  Absently, I went on,
"Then again, we rarely leave the solar system back home, and it's
always on business when we do.  So it's not like we've ever
really needed a casual travel guide."

He gave me a funny look, and it seemed like he was about to say
something more when Belldandy appeared on the engawa, standing
over Urd.  "Oh, you've already started!" she announced.  "Just a
moment -- I'll go get Skuld and we'll help you."  She looked down
at her older sister, the slightest wrinkle of her forehead
betraying a faint disapproval at the other goddess' sloth.  "Urd,
aren't *you* helping?"

Urd tossed her hair and smiled engagingly, her white teeth a
startling contrast to her nut-brown skin in the morning sunlight.
"I'm providing moral support."

Belldandy didn't exactly "tut-tut" at her, but somehow that was
the sense I got.  "You should do more than that."

"Oh, I suppose."  Urd rolled her eyes, but kept smiling and
uncoiled herself from her provocative sprawl on the porch. "Let's
get this over with then, shall we, boys?"  She waved her hands in
a set of gestures that were obviously mystic.

"Well, if we're going to go about it *that* way," I said as she
began casting a spell, "I might as well get my helmet."

                              * * *

11:57 AM

The campus bus system had a stop near the temple, so unless she
were hitching a ride with one of the other Motor Club members,
Megumi usually just took the most convenient of the system's four
routes whenever she visited her brother.  This warm, sunny Spring
morning was no different.  Besides, it was free for students, and
in her informed opinion you couldn't beat that deal with a stick.

*Free ride, and free lunch.  How much better could you get?* she
thought with a satisfied little smile.

An electronic tone announced the Tariki stop -- named for the
temple, although it was a couple of blocks away -- and Megumi
bounced out of her seat to grab one of the cold steel handrails
near the bus doors.  The bus stopped with a jerk that would have
thrown her to the floor had she not been holding tight, then the
doors opened; she hopped down the steps to their lowest level and
from there to the ground outside.

*Free lunch,* she thought again, and then she flashed back on
Belldandy's message.  Her light step faltered for a moment.
*Nah,* she reassured herself.  *It's all just a big practical
joke they're playing on me.  That's it.  That guy Doug's in on
it.*  But Belldandy would never do anything like that, a little
voice in the back of her mind whispered, and her step faltered
again.  Urd might, she allowed, and maybe Skuld, in the right
mood.  But Belldandy?

Before she was quite aware of it she found the temple stairs in
front of her, and with a odd sense of mixed trepidation and
anticipation, she mounted them.  At the top she paused for a
moment, one hand on the wooden gate; the sound of Western rock-
and-roll drifted out to her.  Forgetting her nervousness, she
raised an eyebrow and murmured to herself, "Huh.  They don't
usually play the radio that loud."  Curiosity overwhelmed
concern, and with a cry of "Hey, people!" she pushed the gate
open and stepped into the temple yard...

...and into fairyland.  As the gate slammed shut behind her,
Megumi's carefully-constructed conviction that she had been the
victim of an elaborate practical joke collapsed under the weight
of the sight before her:

The first thing she saw was Belldandy, singing along sweetly with
the rock-and-roll song as she led a line of dancing auto parts
across the yard and into one of the outlying sheds.  She spied
Megumi, waved, and returned her attention to herding her metallic
flock.  Megumi weakly returned the wave.

Beyond Belldandy, Urd was making cursory shooing motions with her
hands that seemed to be sweeping a small pile of metallic scrap
along behind the middle sister.  In between, Keiichi and Chris
resorted to simple muscle power as they manhandled some of the
mid-sized pieces across the flagstones.

Skuld was on the other side of the yard, a gleaming white device
about the size and shape of a shirtbox in her hands; a beam of
glowing red light shot from it to a pile of engine blocks that
floated, quite unlike engine blocks ought to, a meter or so off
the ground.  With tiny movements of the box she seemed to be
nudging the heavy masses of metal along; Megumi noticed that
everyone else was careful to keep from wandering too close to the
levitating cargo.

After watching that with wide eyes, it took Megumi a moment more
to notice that the rock-and-roll music emanated not from the
house's radio but from a motorcycle helmet sitting unattended on
the engawa; with a flash of recognition, she realized that it was
the one that had been worn by the mysterious stranger of the
previous day.  Its owner, dressed simply in jeans and a T-shirt,
carried a greasy cardboard box into the shed as a calf-deep river
of parts flowed past him with a bubbling, chuckling sound.  Then
Megumi took a second look, blinked and swore softly.  The parts
weren't just floating past him, they were being carried -- by
tiny men with pointed red hats and long beards, who laughed and
chortled as they bore their burdens.

	"<...Ha ha ha, hee hee hee
	  I'm a laughing gnome
          And you can't catch me...>"

Megumi's English was pretty good in her opinion, and she had
almost no problem understanding the song.  She wondered what the
connection between the song and the tiny men was; she was sure
that it couldn't be mere coincidence.

"Well!"  Belldandy's announcement from the shed door captured
Megumi's attention before she could boggle any further.  "Now
that Megumi's here I do believe it's time for lunch."  As the
others ceased their efforts, the goddess turned and bowed to the
army of tiny men streaming back out of the shed.  "Thank you ever
so much for your help," she said to them.

Somehow it did not surprise Megumi when the little men -- now no
longer bearing their loads or suffused with laughter -- as one
silently doffed their red hats and returned the bow with a deep
obeisance of their own.  Standing straight again, they replaced
their hats on their heads and vanished with a soft "pop!" at the
moment the music stopped.

"Great," Sangnoir said as he stepped out of shed sans greasy box.
"I'm famished."  Catching sight of her, he waved.  "Heya, Megumi-
san.  Back to have your mind blown further?"

She grinned weakly.  "Too late, I think."  She looked around at
the others.  "So I guess it wasn't all just a big joke on me,
then?"

"Nope," Keiichi replied.

"Not by us, at least," Sangnoir added.

                              * * *

12:11 PM

"Okay," Megumi said as she lowered her tea cup, "having had my
nose rubbed in the greater reality twice in two days, I'd just
like to ask one more time -- whyinhell didn't anyone tell me the
truth about you guys?"  She glared at her brother, then at Urd,
then at Urd's brother.  She added a little extra to that last one
on general principle.

Doug, the guy with the motorcycle, frowned.  "I don't get it.
How could you *not* know?  They shed divinity like a cat sheds
dander!"

"Charming image, guy," Chris muttered into his rice while
Skuld bristled.

Megumi ignored him.  "I thought they were just nice!"

Doug gave her a look that said, I beg your pardon, good lady,
but one of us is an idiot, and it most expressly is *not* me.

Megumi resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him and
instead turned her guns on a more familiar target.  "And *you*!"
she declared.

Chris looked up from his half-empty bowl and raised an eyebrow.
"Me?"  He looked over at his sisters, who were each busily
staying out of the crossfire in their own unique ways.

"Yes, you!  How could *you* not tell me?" she growled.

Doug grinned, coughed and tried to slide surreptitiously back
from the table.  Chris slowly put down his rice bowl, then
carefully returned his chopsticks to their rest before looking
Megumi straight in the eye.  "Why should I?  *I'm* not dating
you, thank Cupid for that.  My *sister* is dating your *brother*.
That makes you nothing to me.  Keiichi and Bell didn't think you
could be trusted with that info, and frankly, I agree with them."

A stricken look came across Megumi's face, and she turned to her
brother, who had been watching the exchange with obvious concern.
"Keiichi?" she asked plaintively.

He gave her a sickly grin and rubbed the back of his neck with
his left hand.  "Well, it wasn't so much that we didn't *trust*
you...  it's just that, well, it was all so new, and Belldandy
and I had just met the day before *you* met her, and I didn't
know how people would react, so I... just thought it would be
better if you didn't know."  He grimaced.  "If *no one* knew."
He glanced around the table.  "Of course, that was before it
seemed like everyone in the neighborhood was getting in on the
secret."

Megumi swung back to Chris.  "Yeah!  That's right!  I heard you
talking with your..."  She let herself put a little sneer into
her voice.  "...*girlfriends*.  *They* know you're all gods.
Hell, it sounded like they've actually *met* some other gods
*besides* you guys!"

Chris started and looked up again.  "Huh?  Ami and Rachel?  Well,
duh, of course they know.  *All* of my friends know."

Suddenly, the room went utterly silent.  Most of the table was
staring at Chris; Doug was glancing back and forth between
everyone, his eyebrows elevated almost into his hairline.

Finally, Urd broke the silence.  In a hushed, shocked tone, she
said, "You didn't!  Even Takeshi and Louis?  You can't tell them
about..."

"Urd," Paradox interrupted, giving her a flat stare.  "Takeshi is
Futsu-no-kami's grandson, and Louis is a servitor of the
Archangel of Lightning, Jean.  Hiroshi is the High Priest of
Heimdall, and Juhachi is the older mortal brother of Indra's
current incarnation.  If they don't know about Celestials by now,
they've got bigger problems."  Seeing the shocked looks on the
faces of all three of his sisters, he scowled.  "What, you
thought I had *normal* friends?"

Wide-eyed, Skuld looked at Belldandy and then back to Chris.
"Kind of, yeah," she replied.

Chris' face flickered out of and back into the scowl.  "Guess
again."  His eyes flicked over at Megumi.  "What?" he growled.

Keiichi's sister covered her downcast eyes with one hand and
groaned.  "Ah, geeze, and I *dated* Takeshi, too.  Are they
*everywhere*?"

"Not up on religion, are you?" Doug offered, not unkindly.
"Like, say, kami of place?"

"I'm an engineer!" Megumi protested, as if that explained
everything.  She scrunched her eyes shut and brought her fisted
hands up to her temples.  "What's next?  Am I going to get to
meet Amaterasu Omikami when she shows up for lunch next week?"

"Oh, no, Megumi," Belldandy said matter-of-factly as she poured
herself some more tea.  "You've already met Amaterasu."

"Oh, well, that's fine, then..."  Her eyes snapped open, giving
her a wild, off-kilter look.  "*WHAT?*" she shouted.

On the other side of the table Doug tried to suppress a snicker.

Urd stretched languidly and gave her an almost feline smile.
"Don't you remember our 'cousin' 'Ama-chan' who came by for a
visit last month?" she asked, apparently enjoying herself.  "As I
recall, the two of you hit it off pretty well and decided to go
out and find some 'action' that night.  Called us 'sticks in the
mud', too, as I recall, both of you."

Still wide-eyed, Megumi stared at Urd.  "Y-y-you mean..."

Doug didn't even try to suppress the snicker this time as around
the table, Urd, Belldandy, Skuld and Chris all nodded in unison.
Sitting next to Belldandy, Keiichi looked like he didn't know
whether to laugh or cry.

Megumi dropped her eyes to the forgotten meal on the table before
them and began shaking her head.  "I can't believe this.  No way.
You're telling me that the rowdy, raunchy girl who I went
drinking and guy-watching with was *Amaterasu*?"  A thoughtful
look passed momentarily across her face.  "Well, that *would*
explain why she kept looking in her compact mirror so much..."

On his side of the table, Chris raised an eyebrow.  "Excuse me.
Amaterasu?  'Raunchy'?  Did I hear that correctly?  Despite
living here for over a year I'm still not that familiar with the
local gods, but that doesn't sound quite right to me."

Urd waved away his objection.  "She's gotten a lot more relaxed
since that business with the cave.  Fancies herself a tough,
independent 'modern girl' these days."  She paused and took on a
thoughtful look.  "Considering that leather miniskirt she was
wearing, I'd say she was right, too."

Belldandy reached over and patted the mortal girl's hand.  "And
she took *quite* a liking to you, too, Megumi.  I do believe
she's planning to make another visit as soon as her schedule
allows."

A poleaxed Megumi emitted a wordless squeak of complete
intimidation at the idea that *Amaterasu* enjoyed *her* company.

Chris rolled his eyes and muttered something in English about
"Grand Central Station".

Megumi worked her mouth silently, struggling for something --
anything -- to say.  The room was silent again as she tried.
Then Doug coughed, snorted, and burst out laughing -- great
whooping guffaws that filled the room and flowed out into the
yard through the open shoji door.  Slowly he keeled over
sideways, still laughing as he sprawled helplessly on the tatami
floor.

This seemed to rouse Megumi from her state of shock.  "Hey!"  She
jumped up from her cushion and rounded the table to stand over
the older man.  "What are *you* laughing about?"  She drew back
one leg as if to kick him with her stockinged foot.

Doug was still guffawing, his eyes squeezed shut and leaking
tears.  With one hand he tried in vain to wipe away the moisture
on his cheeks.  "I'm... I'm sorry," he managed to force out
between chortles.  Slowly, he brought his reactions under
control.  "It's just... it's like that Monty Python sketch with
the stockbroker," he said, still wiping his eyes and smiling.
"The one who doesn't see any of the strange and bizarre things
around him on his way to work.  In the midst of magic and wonder
you've managed to remain utterly mundane!"

"Oooooooh," Megumi growled, her foot still cocked back.  "You
make me *so* want to kick you!"

"You do," Doug replied in a curiously high-pitched voice, "and
I'll give you *such* a pinch!"

This time Chris coughed, and started choking.  With a squeak of
alarm, Skuld hopped to her feet and began pounding his back until
he stopped.  "You all right, 'Niichan?" she inquired.

He nodded.  "Just caught by surprise," he added hoarsely.

"Sorry," murmured Doug soberly.  He had rolled to his knees and
looked almost ready to lunge forward to help; a look of obvious
concern painted his face.

"'Sokay," the god replied.  "You can quote from the classics
whenever you want.  Just... not while I'm eating."

Doug grinned and nodded.  "Deal."  He tilted his head and gave
the god an odd look for a moment, then popped to his feet.  "Now,
loath as I am to interrupt this wonderful little comedy scene, I
was wondering if folks were maybe ready to start work on my
bike?"

Reflexively, Skuld scowled.  "Yes," she ground out between
gritted teeth.

Doug snorted at her.  "Really, Skuld, it's not like you're going
to your death or something.  And you *know* you're not doing
*all* the work by yourself, I'll be out there helping..."  He
yelped suddenly as Megumi dumped her half-full bowl of soup over
his head.

"That's for being a jerk," she said and stalked off.

Doug's eyes rolled up to watch droplets of soup stream off his
eyebrows.  "...just as soon as I clean up," he continued
without missing a beat, then glanced over at Keiichi.  "I
suppose I deserved that," he added with a sheepish grin.
Megumi's brother just shrugged.

As Belldandy appeared at Doug's side with a towel, Chris snorted
and finally burst out into whoops of laughter of his own.

"Laugh it up, Blueboy," Doug muttered as he wiped broth out of
his hair.

                              * * *

12:32 PM

"Will you look at *this*?"  Megumi glanced up from where she had
begun collecting all the parts necessary to the reconstruction of
the futuristic motorcycle's frame.  Skuld stood at the workbench
at the back of the shed, frowning at a large, unfamiliar-looking
assembly.

The two of them had headed out to the shed directly from the
house in near-identical states of annoyance with Doug Sangnoir,
and each had picked a task to help them calm down.  Keiichi and
Chris had followed them out at least as far as the yard, then had
gotten caught up in a discussion about some little green car they
had unearthed before her arrival.  For some reason she didn't
quite understand, that had irritated Megumi even more.

Megumi looked down at her handiwork, sighed, and stood, tip-
toeing her way across the floor to stand at the girl's side.
"What is it?"  A shaft of warm sunlight angled down across the
bench from one of the shed's windows, illuminating the smooth
wooden surface and the device which rested there.  She studied
the conglomeration of familiar and unfamiliar parts and tried to
eke out some sense of function from their arrangement,
unsuccessfully.

"It's a hack job," Skuld declared derisively.  Then she paused,
and in more thoughtful tone.  "A good one, but still a hack job.
This was never meant to do what he's making it do, and it's
terribly inefficient."

"What was it supposed to do?" Megumi asked with a strained,
deliberate calmness born of her determination to keep her own
frayed temper under control.

Skuld sniffed.  "It *was* a weapon, once."

"A weapon?"  Megumi involuntarily stepped back from the bench.
"What kind?"

"Oh, relax.  It *used* to be a primitive gravity cannon, but
someone -- probably *him* -- messed with it so much it can't be
used like that any more.  You see?  He rerouted its output back
into its graviton emitter -- that's this, by the way," Skuld
tapped a gleaming metal object about the size and shape of a
grapefruit, "with a really gruesome kludge that inverts it and
forces it to set up a nasty cascading standing wave in four-
space."

Megumi decided to take a shot in the dark.  "That's what made the
motorcycle fly, then?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Skuld replied in a distracted tone as she
bent over the device and poked at its innards.  "He's got some
crude modulators that let him unbalance the standing wave, which
then makes this kind of 'downhill' effect that kinda 'slides' the
motorcycle off in the direction of the imbalance.  Nice idea, but
how it's implemented..."  She shook her head again without
lifting it.  "What a mess.  I mean, look at this."  She pointed
at a tiny circuit board -- little more than an EPROM and some
wires -- sloppily epoxied onto the side of something that looked
to Megumi like a miniature air horn.  "What's a nice chip like
you doing in a place like this?"

"So, is there anything actually *wrong* with it?" Megumi asked
after another minute or so of watching Skuld alternate between
poking and making disgusted noises.

"Other than it's an ugly offense against the aesthetics of any
right-thinking engineer?" the girl replied absently.  "No."  She
chewed on her lip for a few moments.  "Yes," she finally said
with a sigh.  "It's a jury-rigged mess that takes way too much
power to do way too little.  There are so many easier ways to
make a grav drive this small that use much less power and have so
many other features."  Skuld looked up at Megumi and grimaced.
"If I *don't* improve it, it's going to gnaw at me for*ever*."

Megumi shrugged.  "Then do it."

The grimace shifted back to the frown.  "If I did, it'd be like
giving *him* a present," she growled.

The mortal girl crossed her arms and tried to give the young
goddess what she hoped was a firm look.  "Which will give you
more satisfaction in the long run?  Thumbing your nose at
Laughing Boy in there, or not being driven nuts by the lost
chance to fix the thing?"

Skuld was silent for a long moment, then muttered something under
her breath.

"What was that?" Megumi asked, eyebrow raised.

"Not being driven nuts," Skuld ground out.

Megumi smiled.  "Then go ahead and rebuild it, and the hell with
him."  A panicked look suddenly appeared on her face.  "I'm not
going to get in trouble for saying that, am I?"

"Saying what?" Skuld asked, already pulling tools out of the
drawer unit under one end of the bench.

"H..."  Megumi stopped herself, then started again in a whisper.
"*Hell*."

Skuld looked up, surprised.  "Huh?  No!"

"Even around a goddess?"

Skuld lifted her face and gave her a disgusted look.  "Did you
get punished for talking all ecchi with..."  She scrunched up her
nose for a moment.  "...Ama-chan?"

Megumi flushed.  "No!  I mean, no, I didn't... we didn't... it
wasn't like *that*!"

"I thought you went *boy-watching* with her," Skuld accused.
"When *Urd* boywatches, she gets so ecchi I want to slap her."
She closed her eyes in an obvious effort to calm herself, then
opened them again and turned back to the device on the bench top.
"Anyway, no, you won't get punished for saying dirty words around
us.  *I'd* get in trouble with Father if I said any dirty words,
but you mortals, you can get away with a lot."

Tilting her head to one side, Megumi studied Skuld.  "We can,
huh?"

The girl-god sniffed.  "You're not held to as high a standard as
*we* are."

Megumi scowled.  "Oh, if you weren't only thirteen, I'd..."  She
stopped cold.  "You *are* really thirteen, aren't you?" she
asked, her annoyance evaporating in the face of sudden curiosity.
Sure, Belldandy had said so, but...

"Yes and no," Skuld said without lifting her face from the
gravity drive.  "*This body* is thirteen.  The Mind filtered
through it comes out thirteen.  But *I*, who I *really* am,
ultimately, am not."

Megumi frowned at the odd phrasing.  "But..."

"If it helps you visualize things," Skuld interrupted quietly,
"you can think of me as a little tiny finger puppet, attached to
something huge and powerful that stays out of your sight."

"How powerful?" Megumi asked, still frowning.

Still probing the innards of the drive, Skuld sighed.  "Almost
twenty years ago," she said softly, "at the moment you were
conceived, the One who expresses herself here as Urd spun out the
thread of your life."  She turned to Megumi, her hands held out
in front of herself, palms turned up and fingers slightly
separated.  Megumi was astonished to see a shimmering line of
golden light between the girl's outstretched hands.  It glistened
and glowed visibly even in the bright afternoon sunlight that
played across the bench top, perfectly straight except where it
wove in and out of Skuld's fingers. "*This* thread.  Look at it,
Megumi."

"I..."

"LOOK."  Somehow, Skuld's barely-pubescent voice had acquired the
weight of centuries and poured it all into that one word.  It was
the same voice the girl had spoken with when she had made her
promise to Sangnoir; Megumi found that she could not refuse its
command.

She looked.

And she realized the thread was not static -- it moved.  Slowly,
inexorably, it moved, flowing over the knuckles of Skuld's left
hand to play along the knuckles of her right, with an ever so
slight tautness as it crossed the space in between.  It was as
though Skuld had woven her fingers through a single beam of warm,
flowing sunlight and held it out for Megumi to study.

Without realizing she was doing so, Megumi reached out and
touched the shining thread with her forefinger.  For a moment she
felt a faint resistance, like poking a sponge, and then...

Light exploded in her mind, and she watched, as if from a
distance and at very high speed with no sound, as she and Skuld
went back to work on various parts of the motorcycle.  Its owner
joined them, prompting an angry response of some kind from Skuld
that ended abruptly as Urd walked by the door to the shed.  Light
flared again, and she found herself not watching, but living
again.

"Wow," she whispered.

"This is your life, Megumi.  Well, the next fifteen minutes or so
of it," Skuld continued, in something akin to her usual voice.
"If I wanted, I could show you the most likely end of your
thread, but..." she stopped, and swallowed, and Megumi felt a
moment of unreasoning fear.  "I'm not going to do that.  If I
did, then I'd know when...  when I'll probably have to cut it
off.  I don't have to know that until I actually do it, and I
*don't* want to know it.  So I won't."  The young goddess
drooped.

Recovering from her experience, Megumi shuddered.  "Is that it,
then?  My life is all laid out already?  Don't I get a choice?
In anything?"

Skuld did something with her fingers, and the thread vanished.
"Of course you do.  Free will trumps almost everything.  While it
still flows through my hands, your thread is pure potential,
capable of whatever you care to achieve.  The vision you saw was
just the most likely events, not a fixed destiny.  You can change
*anything* about your life, even the place where I cut your
thread.  Don't *ever* forget that!"

Megumi nodded slowly as she pondered this revelation.

                              * * *

After another round of washing myself and getting a fresh shirt,
I headed out to Skuld's workshop.  My hair was still a bit damp,
and the cool Spring breeze felt colder still thanks to the
miracle of evaporation.  I paused in the sun and ran my fingers
through my hair, and drew them back wet and chilled.  *Should
have toweled off better,* I mused.

Ahead of me, I could see into the shed through its open door;
only Skuld and Megumi were in there.  Skuld was perched on a high
stool at the bench that took up the back wall.  Megumi was
sitting on the floor, her face hidden from me by her hair; she
was laying out some parts in front of her -- various pieces of
the frame, from what I could see.

(There normally aren't all *that* many pieces that make up a
frame -- although things like the front fork (for instance) can
be broken down into a lot more parts than you might think at
first.  It seemed, though, like Skuld had managed not only to
take apart everything that *could* come apart, but also more than
a few things that should have stayed welded together into one
permanent piece.  To put a capper on it, her organizational
system had scattered all those now-separate bits across a dozen
different places in the shop, instead of leaving them grouped
together.)

Anyway, I rubbed my hands on my pants to dry them off, then
briskly stepped over to the door.  I knocked once, softly, then
said, "I see you've started without me."

Skuld merely grunted without turning around, but Megumi's head
shot up and she gave me a strange, unreadable look, almost but
not quite questioning.  This close I could see that a couple of
the shock absorbers from the turbine mounting mixed in with the
parts in front of her, but I could understand that -- they did
look like they might have belonged with the cycle's frame.  I
crouched down in front of her and scooped them up out of the
collection on the floor.

"These are part of the turbine mounting, Megumi-san," I said with
a smile.  She nodded wordlessly.  Shrugging at her lack of reply,
I duck-walked over to the turbine housing and laid the parts on
the blonde wood floor next to it.  I looked up to see Megumi's
eyes on me.  "What do you think?" I asked, hoping to get some
kind of response from her.  "I'm very proud of the work I put
into her."  Lovingly, I stroked the housing, savoring the slick,
almost silky sensation of my fingers sliding across the
microscopically-smooth, nano-fabricated ceramic.  "She has a
heart of chrome, and a voice like a horny angel," I quoted
absently, thinking of the years of joyful riding I had gotten.

There was a "Hmph!" and a metallic squeak, and when I looked up
again Skuld had swung her stool around and was glaring balefully
at me.  "I'll have you know, Mister Douglas Sangnoir," she
declared primly, "that angels do *not* get hor-"

"'Bye, all!"  Urd's voice suddenly rang out.  I turned around
just in time to catch her as she slinked past the shed door, clad
in skin-tight bits of silk, fur and leather.  "I'm off on a hot
date!  Don't expect me home until tomorrow... say, around
lunchtime!"

"-ny...  Oh, never mind!" Skuld finished with a snarl, then spun
around violently to return to whatever was on the bench behind
her.

I managed not to laugh as I turned back to face her, which was a
good thing, because she probably would have taken it all wrong.
A quick glance over at Megumi revealed that she was still leaning
over the frame, but her hair was rippling suspiciously as it hid
her face from my view.

Stepping in front of her to get to where Skuld was perched, I
squeezed Megumi's shoulder and gave her a quick, friendly grin
when she looked up.  For a moment she looked almost offended, but
then she relented and returned the grin.  I patted the shoulder
I'd squeezed and stepped on past her.

"So, what have you decided to work on first?" I asked the godling
girl on the stool.

"I am trying," she replied without looking at me, "to turn this
pile of junk into something that looks like a real gravity
drive."  There was more than a bit of snideness in her tone.

"That pile of junk," I replied in complete seriousness, "*is* a
real gravity drive."

Skuld turned and gave me a Look.  "I don't *think* so.  This is
like... like..."  She waved her hands angrily, as if trying to
snag a simile out of the air.  "Oh, I don't *know* what it's
like.  It's just stupid and dangerous and I can't believe you
actually fly around on this thing without it *and* you getting
sucked into a singularity after the first ten meters."

I shrugged.  "I'm good at hacking gear like that."

"Ha!" Skuld scoffed.  "'Hacking' is *right*!  You couldn't have
messed it up more if you'd used an axe."  She looked into its
guts again and shook her head angrily.  "And wasteful!  How much
power do you lose just on that red glow around the wheels?"  She
shook her head. "If I'm stuck rebuilding your bike, there is *no*
way I'm going to let that... that... *thing* go back on it."

"You're not taking away my grav drive, girl."  All the previous
day's stress was now back with interest, and it was all I could
do not to start shouting at her.  "We have a *deal* -- no less
than the condition it was in when I arrived, remember?  The grav
drive's part of that."

Skuld's lip curled in a brownie scout snarl.  One distant corner
of my mind noted that she was actually rather adorable when she
was riled up, but it didn't have much input on my thought
processes at that moment.  "Who said I was taking it away,
buster?"  She poked me in the chest with her forefinger.  "If my
name is going to go on this motorcycle, I'm going to make sure
everything is up to *my* standards.  And this ... half-brained
pile of broken parts is *not* acceptable."

Huh?  "Wait a minute."  I tilted my head and studied her, my
growing anger evaporating almost instantly.  "Are you talking
about rebuilding it?"

"At the very least," she sniffed.  "Maybe even scrapping it and
making a *proper* drive unit from scratch."

"Huh.  Can't argue with that," I declared, my eyebrows creeping
up toward my hairline.  "So, what did you have in mind?"

Skuld gave me a suspicious look, then seemed to see that I was
serious and relaxed.  "Well, I've got a couple of ideas..."

I held up a hand as a thought struck me.  "Hold on a moment.
Hey, Megumi," I said, turning back to look at the girl in
question, "you want in on this?"

Megumi scrambled to her feet.  "Sure.  But I don't know anything
about gravity stuff, you know.  It's a little beyond us mere
mortals."

"No problem," I said, grinning, as I caught Skuld's eye and got a
small nod in return.  "I'm not so hot on the numbers side myself,
to tell you the truth.  So we'll stick to the practical stuff for
the moment and bring you up to speed on the theory as needed.
Besides," I added, "it wouldn't be fair to leave you stuck with
doing grunt work while we got into the real fun."

"Works for me," she said with a smile and stepped up to the bench
on the other side of Skuld.  I grinned at her over the little
goddess' head, then turned my attention back to the partially-
disassembled drive unit.

"Okay, sensei," I addressed Skuld in all seriousness, "what's the
plan?"

                              * * *

After an extended discussion on the ultimate purpose and fate of
the green 1959 Prefect in the yard, Chris and Keiichi finally
rejoined the others.  Venturing into the shop, they found Doug,
Skuld and Megumi clustered around one end of the workbench and
chattering energetically.  Technobabble phrases like "graviton
flux", "controlled local space-time deformations", and
"metastable waveforms" were bandied about with wild abandon, and
of the three, only Megumi seemed somewhat out of her depth.  But
every time a puzzled look crossed her face, one or the other of
her conversational partners would pause the discussion to spit
out a quick explanation.  Her eyes would widen with
comprehension, she would nod, and launch herself into the depths
of the discussion once more.

Perched on a stool between the two mortals, Skuld held in her
hands something that looked like a cross between an Etch-A-Sketch
and a laptop computer; Chris recognized it as a kind of touch-
sensitive electronic "sketchpad" that his little sister had built
a few months earlier.  All three of the discussion participants
were engaged in modifying a design displayed in classic blueprint
style on the flat-screened device.

None of them seemed to have noticed the two men enter the shed.

Keiichi and Chris looked at each other and shared a grin.  Then
Chris cleared his throat and loudly asked, "Is this a private
game, or can anybody play?"

The three all started simultaneously, and looked up.  Chris was
amused to note the mixture of embarrassment and intellectual
fervor in his little sister's eyes.  What surprised him, though,
was that Megumi's eyes held a similar excited light.

"Depends," Doug said with a mischievous twitch of his lips.
"How are you on gravitics?"

"Interested," Chris replied.  "But I'm more into practical
applications than theory."

"A man after my own heart," Doug grinned.  "I couldn't tell you
exactly how or why a gravmaster does what it does, but with the
right tools I can make one sit up and beg."

Behind him Skuld snorted.  "Yeah, by lopping off its legs and
gluing its butt to the ground."  She mimed holding up a sign.
"'Will warp fabric of space-time for food,'" she added in a
voice that might have been stentorian in a larger person.

Megumi clamped a hand over her mouth but failed to stifle a
bark of laughter.

Doug, still grinning, rolled his eyes, then turned back to the
two girls and wagged his forefinger at them.  "No comments from
the peanut gallery, please.  Not all of us get our toys factory
direct from Heaven."  He turned back to Keiichi and Chris.
"We've been bringing Megumi here up to speed on everything that
doesn't need a couple of Ph.Ds in math and physics, so you can
just jump in on the class if you want.  I've got a lot of hands-
on experience I'm sharing, and Skuld... well, based on what I've
heard in the last few minutes, if she doesn't know it, it's not
worth knowing."

Chris spotted the surprised and pleased look Skuld shot toward
the blond man and suppressed an urge to raise an eyebrow.
"Okay," he said instead.  "To what end?"

Doug gave a quick snort of laughter.  "Your little sister is
mortally offended by the heinous kludge I used to turn a gravity
gun into a gravity drive for the motorcycle."  He laid a finger
beside his nose as he donned an elaborately false expression of
ponderous cogitation.  "Or would that be *immortally* offended,
considering who we're talking about here?"

Skuld rolled her eyes and blew a raspberry at the back of his
head, prompting Megumi to give up and dissolve into a fit of
giggles.  Doug grinned and waggled his blond eyebrows
outrageously at Chris and Keiichi before turning back and
scruffling Skuld's cowlick.

As the little goddess bleated her offense at the indignity of
this unwarranted liberty and Megumi continued to giggle, Chris
smiled and shook his head.  *Not so twitchy now, is he?  I can't
believe this nutbar is the same guy who seemed so dangerous
yesterday.  What happened?*

Doug glanced back toward them.  "Keiichi, how about you?"

The short man shook his head with a wry smile.  "Sorry, no.  I'd
rather the stuff I drive stay on the ground."

Shrugging, Doug said, "Hey, your loss," and turned back to the
sketchpad.  "What's next?" he asked.

Skuld frowned, this time in concentration rather than annoyance.
"I'm not sure," she said after a moment.  "Actually, I think
maybe we've gotten just about as far as we can get with this
design for the moment.  Megumi?"

The mortal girl shrugged.  "Don't ask me.  I'm just following
your lead here."

"So."  Doug frowned as he studied the sketchpad's screen.  "Shall
we sit on it for a while and see if we get any more ideas?  I'd
hate to rush into an implementation only to realize we could have
come up something better when we're half-done with it.  That'd be
more of a waste of time and effort than waiting would be."

"It *would* give me the time to piece together everything I've
learned today," Megumi mused, running a finger along the edge of
the "sketchpad".  "Maybe after I get that all assimilated, I can
be of more use."

"Hey!  You're of use!" Doug protested.  "You're the one who came
up with the idea for that field-deformation thing, after all."

"Ahem!" Skuld interrupted impatiently.  "If we're going to let
the design stew for now, what are we going to work on instead?"
She looked around at the small group, her expression clearly
soliciting ideas from the latecomers as well as those who had
already been working.

Keiichi glanced at the others.  "The frame," he declared, glad
finally to have something to contribute from *his* area of
expertise.

Skuld frowned, not in annoyance but in thought, then nodded.
Megumi gave him a wry grin that he didn't understand.  Sangnoir
nodded as well and said, "Makes sense to me.  Start with the
foundation."

Keiichi looked across at Chris.  "Don't look at me," the tall
man said.  "I'm just unskilled labor until you show me some
electronics."

"Okay," Skuld declared.  "The frame it is."

                              * * *

4:37 PM

We spent about an hour and a half clearing out a space in the
middle of the workshop where we could reassemble the frame.  The
only reason it took so long was that we were carefully boxing and
labeling the parts that Skuld had initially laid out on the
floor where we'd decided to work -- over her objections, I might
add.  The little goddess was certain she could rearrange
everything in such a way that she could find any part we might
need later and let us know in no uncertain terms that she thought
we were wasting all our time.

Fortunately, Keiichi and Chris were able to talk her down from
yet another fit of temper, and even got her to conjure up the
boxes for us -- neat trick, that, I might add.  I have to admit
that Chris had far more effect on her than Keiichi did, but I
supposed that that was the big brother thing kicking in.  (Not
like I'd know for sure, what with me being an only child and all,
but that seemed the way to bet.)  Which reminded me, I still had
to get the story of just *how* the Norns had a big brother out of
someone -- probably Chris, given they way they all looked at him
the last time I'd brought it up.  I put that on my mental "to-do"
list while Megumi and I finished up the last of the clean-up.

Once we had a good portion of the floor cleared away, we laid
down a drop cloth to protect the wood and went to work.  Not that
I really thought we needed the cloth.  Every piece of the bike,
right on down to the damned oil filter, had been clean and dry;
there'd been no evidence of any drippage anywhere.  There'd been
no evidence of *fluid* anywhere -- in the process of
disassembling it, Skuld had somehow drained and steamcleaned the
entire bike inside and out in just a few minutes.  Wouldn't I
just *love* to know how she'd accomplished that... and with what
equipment, if any.

Anyway.  The labor crew at this point had lost one person, Chris
having wandered off after calming Skuld down, when it became
obvious that no electronics were immediately forthcoming.  (Don't
ask *me* what else he had to do that afternoon -- maybe he had an
appointment to be the referee for another argument between his
girlfriends, I dunno.)  Megumi, with her brother's help,
retrieved the parts of the frame that she'd been working on
earlier in the afternoon, and together the four of us played
jigsaw puzzle, with only my memory (and Skuld's) of the proper
arrangement to clue us in to where most of the pieces went, and
how.

That took longer than I thought it would -- another hour-plus,
mainly because God-girl and I got into two more arguments over
where things belonged.  (I guess whatever techie cred I'd earned
with her while working the gravitics angle only went so far.)
Before we could come to blows either time, Megumi (rather
cautiously) grabbed Skuld and led her to the far corner of the
shop, while Keiichi (equally cautiously) herded me out the door
and into the yard.  They kept us there until we calmed down
enough to talk rationally and solve the problem.  (Final score
for those curious:  one-all; we were each right once.)

Once we'd laid out all the pieces of the frame, Keiichi, Megumi
and I stepped back to let Skuld handle the rest of the process.
Up until this point the work had been split pretty evenly between
the four or five of us, but the terms of the agreement between
Skuld and myself specified that she had to do at least half the
job herself.  So I declared that the first stage of actually
reassembling the frame belonged entirely to her.

This of course occasioned some grumbling from a certain girl with
a cowlick, but not really more than a token protest -- a promise
was a promise, after all.  "Besides," as I pointed out to her,
"nothing says you can't use all your favorite tools and toys,
right?"

Skuld's eyes lit up like a radio station switchboard during a
ticket giveaway.  "Right!" she chirped, switching moods like
you'd switch tracks on a CD player.  The change in her tone was
enough to make Megumi look up from where she had been studying
one of the bike's frame elements.  (Two-centimeter-diameter
rotorolled titanium alloy tubing with a 5mm wall, with a +/-
0.05mm tolerance on both measurements -- a stock Mitsubishi frame
circa 2015.)  When she saw the sudden bloom of enthusiasm on
Skuld's face she chuckled and shot me a wink.

Which was how it came to be that Keiichi, Megumi and I were
looking on in a mix of awe and amusement when, an hour later,
Skuld not only had all the various parts of the bike properly
positioned relative to each other, but had them held up and
together by several dozen slender robotic arms that all sprouted
from a small box in the center of the floor.  It reminded me of
nothing more than a dinosaur skeleton in a museum with all the
support rods and wires and whatnot holding the bones together.

In between watching the little goddess set each piece in place, I
had begun an extensive survey of her workshop.  After all, if I
were going to be putting in my own share of the effort, I ought
to know what my resources were and where they were located.  I
nodded thoughtfully at most of what I saw, made envious mental
notes for when I got home on a lot of the rest, and tried not to
think about the implications of everything else that was left
over.

For his part, Keiichi seemed content to stand back and play wise
advisor, carefully watching Skuld in action.  Every once in a
while he'd clear his throat softly, then offer a suggestion.
Like as not, Skuld would take his advice, but not without an
adorable frown and some consideration.

Megumi, meanwhile, was still studying the frame of the bike.  Or
rather its construction -- she asked me about its composition
shortly after Skuld set to, and not long after that I saw her
taking measurements with a caliper and a micrometer, a pad of
lined paper at her side.  Eventually, she filled a page of that
pad, at which point she got up and retrieved the electronic
"sketchpad" on which the three of us had brainstormed the new
grav drive.  I didn't see what she was doing on it, but she poked
at the screen a lot, and at one point laid it across her knees
and actually did a furious spate of touchtyping on it.

That got my interest, and I was about to ask her what was up,
when I heard a bang followed by a deep, gravelly voice bellowing,
"MO-RI-SA-TO!"

I glanced at Keiichi, who grimaced and flinched.  "Who...?" I
began, then felt a hand on my arm.

Megumi was there.  "Relax," she said, and that was when I
realized that I had leapt to my feet.  "It's just the sempais."

It took me a moment to make the connection.  "The guys
responsible for turning this place into a junkyard?"

"Yeah," she replied with an expression that I can only describe
as a sheepish smirk.

"They sound a lot worse than they really are," Keiichi added in a
tired and resigned tone of voice as he slowly stood.  "They're
actually not that bad."

I gave him a dubious look.  "It *sounds* like you're being called
out for single combat."

Keiichi gave a little laugh at that.  "It's just Tamiya-sempai's
way."

Skuld, still working on the frame, made a very loud, rude noise,
and Keiichi's weak smile grew a bit larger.

I made a fist of my right hand and lightly punched the palm of my
left a few times.  "If you want, I could ... convince him to try
another way."

Megumi chuckled.  "I'd pay to see that."

I cocked an eyebrow at my host.  "They *do* sound like a couple
of bullies, sempais or not."

Another bellow of "MO-RI-SA-TO!" echoed outside, and with a
resigned little sigh, Keiichi stepped out into the yard.

"Here, sempais," he called out as Megumi and I traded looks.
She shrugged and we followed.  I paused on the threshold of the
shed and looked back at Skuld, who had turned away from the frame
proper to assemble something that looked like it might be a
miniature plasma welder.

"You coming?" I asked.

She shook her head without looking up.  "Nah.  I have to deal
with those idiots enough as it is."

"Okay..."  I turned back and trotted to catch up with the
siblings outside.  I saw Chris jogging out from the house as
well; we both caught up with the others at the same time, and
ended up standing next to each other in the second rank behind
Keiichi and his sister.

My first look at the sempais did nothing to reassure me.  Based 
on what little I'd heard, I *had* been expecting a couple of 
grease monkeys in dirty coveralls.  Instead, I found a pair of 
thuggish goons.  One was punked out in black leather and 
sunglasses, topped off with sparkplugs dangling from his earlobes 
and an improbably and enthusiastically vertical bleach-blond 
hairdo that defied both description and gravity.  The other was a 
musclebound block in khakis and a wifebeater T-shirt with short 
dark hair and a thin little mustache; my first thought on seeing 
*him* was that he looked like a psychotic Freddie Mercury on 
steroids.

Leatherboy wore a manic grin but the Freddie Mercury clone looked
to be in a towering rage.  Despite the earlier assurances, I eyed
him suspiciously.  On general principles I ran a tactical on him,
then followed it with one on his companion.  Just a couple of big
crunchies, I decided after a moment -- I could take care of both
the psycho and El Punko Loco with my eyes closed.

"MO-RI-SA-TO!" the big one bellowed for the third time, no less
loudly because Keiichi was standing right in front of him.  "We
are here to make sure you have taken care of da Motor Club's
valuable property!"  He looked up to the sky and clenched one
meaty fist over his heart.  "Da sacred honor of da Nekomi
Institute Motor Club rests *entirely* on your shoulders!"

Oh, joy.  A giant economy-sized drama queen.  King.  Whatever.  A
two-for-one deal, too -- loud *and* pompous.  And *valuable*?
Got some bad news for you, guy...  I've *looked* at those parts.
I rolled my eyes at the overblown hyperbole and decided that
*this* pair desperately needed a reality check.

"Yes, sempai," Keiichi answered wearily.

"Like, Keiichi, dude," Leatherboy piped up.  It was the first
thing he'd said in my presence, and it stopped me cold for a
moment.  I had never heard the essence of California surferboy
expressed in pure native Japanese before, but as J. Random God is
my witness, that's what he sounded like.  "Who's the new guy?"

New guy?  Oh.  Right.  Me.

Leatherboy glanced back and forth between Chris and me and,
before Keiichi could respond, added, "'Nother brother, right?"

"Say what?" I blurted as Chris started making a choking sound.

"Um, Ootaki-sempai..." Keiichi began as the muscular psycho
leaned down and peered intently at my face, as if noticing me for
the first time.

"'Cause it only stands to reason," Leatherboy/Ootaki went on
blithely.  "The girls don't look nothing alike, and Chris don't
look anything like any o' them.  And this guy don' look at all
like the whole four them neither, just as much.  So he's *got* to
be another brother.  QED."  With that he smiled, folded his arms
and gave a satisfied little nod.  Next to him, Psycho Freddie
nodded in unison with him.

I blinked.  "They're complete idiots, aren't they?" I muttered
under my breath to Chris.

"How'd you guess?" he whispered back.

"Metahuman levels of perception and intelligence," I replied.
"They *do* come in handy once in a while."

"You don't say."

Meanwhile, Keiichi was trying to disabuse them of the notion.
"No, sempais, this is our new house guest, Doug Sangnoir," he
said, a weary patience clearly born of lengthy experience with
these two in his voice.  "He's staying with us for a while, until
he finishes putting his motorcycle back together."

At this, Musclebound perked up, his eyes widening.  "His
motorcycle?" he blared, apparently ignoring everything else that
Keiichi had said.  Did this guy ever talk in a normal tone of
voice?  "Dat means..."  He spread his arms and lunged at me,
scattering Keiichi and Megumi to either side.  "Welcome to da..."

Some well-trained clump of neurons somewhere in the back of my
head, loosely leashed due to my confusion and distraction,
interpreted "big guy rushing at me" as an attack, and took
control.  The bright white light of the late afternoon
immediately slid into the blue end of the spectrum as I combat-
hyped.  I'd neatly dodged his grab and my hand was already
snaking out in a retaliatory palm-strike before my mind could
reassert control over my body.  I couldn't abort the strike, not
without hurting one or the other of us; the best I could was pull
the blow as much as I could -- which probably saved his life.

As it was, he still went flying backwards from the force of the
blow.  As Musclebound landed on his back a couple meters away,
gasping for breath, I slipped back into normal time.  "...club,"
he gasped in between two deep, wheezing breaths.

"Whoa," murmured Keiichi as Megumi gasped.

                              * * *

Chris had only come out to see Doug's reaction to the sempais.
Otherwise, as far as he was concerned, this was just one more
repeat of Ootaki and Tamiya's usual dog-and-pony show, which
under any other circumstances he would gladly do without.  When
it wasn't outright annoying, it was merely tedious, and he saw no
point in wasting his time being exposed to it if he didn't have
to.

Well, this time was anything but annoying or tedious.  It was, in
his opin