Chapter 2 - To sleep, perchance to dream.
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I felt the mists caress my skin with their clammy fingers as I walked 
through them, watching the multicoloured skeins of vapour curl around me 
as they parted about my body, the ground formless under my feet. Then I 
walked out of them, my mind not really registering that as I found 
myself on a sunlit grassy hillside. A few yards away a girl stood, 
looking at me with an oddly thoughtful expression on her face.

I must have been dreaming, because I was standing looking at Iczer-2. 
And, looking down, _I_ was still Iczer-2...
I looked over at her, in complete and utter confusion. It didn't even 
feel like a dream, there was none of that fuzzy randomness and arbitrary 
scene-shifting you get in dreams, the shock of what was happening had 
jerked me out of the drowsy state I had been in.

She grinned, and stepped gracefully forward, slowly placing her palm 
against my cheek and stroking it slowly with her fingertips. I shivered 
at the sensation.
"How???"

She chuckled softly.
"I'm doing it, of course! You aren't dreaming... well, actually, I 
suppose you are, but I'M controlling the dream. Otherwise you'd look 
like you, not like me. There are certain advantages to being not in 
control of my own body. Not many, but..."

I blushed, feeling seriously embarrassed. How do you talk to someone 
whose body you are currently using while she's stuck in the back of your 
mind?

Her fingers slowly stroked down my cheek, the gentle touch raising 
goosebumps as I looked back at her.
"Don't worry, I know we didn't have any choice. And we WILL find a way 
out of this mess! 

I lifted my hand, resting it against the one she held to my cheek. It 
felt very strange, I kept expecting to feel her hand small against mine, 
like I was used to with a girl, but instead they were the same size.

"I wish I hadn't got you into this mess. It isn't fair, it's your body - 
_you_ should be in control, not me"

She smiled, slowly drawing our hands downward.
"What's done is done, and at least I have my partner now. However... 
there are a number of things I'm _not_ happy about.

I looked at her sadly, still feeling very guilty.
"What are they?"

"Well, firstly, I am _not_ happy about your level of control! Its MY 
body, after all, and you don't seem to have any idea about how to do 
_anything_ with it!!"

I blinked in hurt surprise.
"That's hardly fair!! I've only been living in it for a day, how should 
I know...

She cut me off with an abrupt hand gesture.
"I know. Nevertheless, you _have_ to get more control, get practice in 
using this body and its... your word would be 'powers'. Otherwise you're
going to get us both killed. You couldn't even fight a few punks like 
those without letting a couple of them hit you! What if they'd been using 
real weapons?"

She was right, of course. But I still didn't see what she intended to do 
about it.

"What do you have in mind?"

This time she grinned in a predatory manner.
"I'm going to train you, of course! Every night... here..."

I gulped. I definitely didn't like the look on her face, I was already 
getting the idea that she wasn't going to be the world's easiest 
taskmistress to satisfy.

"What about sleep? I need some...!"

"You'll get some. You're just going to have to get by on not much, won't 
you? But we MUST do this, you nearly got us into a mess fighting those 
few street punks, how do you think you'd do in a REAL fight??"

I sighed, looking down unhappily as she rubbed in just how incompetent I 
was compared with her. The worst of it was, she was completely correct.
"Badly, of course. And I know you're right. It's just that..."

Iczer-2 stepped forward, as her slim hands rose to cup my face gently, a 
finger brushing softly against my cheek. I flushed as I met her eyes, 
looking into dark cerulean pools that seemed to draw me into them.

"This isn't how I wished to spend my time with my partner either. But 
what must, is. However...

With that last cryptic comment, she slowly drew me towards her, her head 
tilting as our lips met, pressing together gently as she stroked hers 
across mine in a butterfly's caress, letting me taste the soft moist 
warmth of her lips as she pressed close against me, her supple body 
meeting mine as I felt her warmth. My arms slipped about her, almost 
without thought as I held her close for a timeless moment, feeling the 
pressure of her body against mine before she at last broke her kiss, 
pushing me gently away with a look of sadness, the spell broken.

"There... "

I blushed deeply, not wanting to admit even to myself how aroused I'd 
been made by kissing her, _especially_ since I not only looked like her 
right now, but was also female. It felt distinctly, well, _odd_, as well 
as... lets just say I wished she hadn't stopped, even though my 
breathing hadn't yet steadied back down to what it was supposed to be. 

She surprised me again by slowly raising one delicate eyebrow at me, in 
an unmistakably sarcastic gesture, then ruined the effect by giggling.

"Never mind. You'll get used to it."

Then she looked more sober.
"You'll _have_ to get used to it. I don't think we are going to get all 
this fixed soon."

I looked over at her, and sighed. Damn, I wished I could disagree with 
her. But I couldn't. Instead, I reached out, taking her hand gently in 
mine, and squeezing slightly in reassurance.

"So... I suppose we'd better get started with my lessons?"

She grinned.
"You're changing the subject deliberately, aren't you! You're right, 
though. So, lesson 1....."

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Sylia Stingray sipped her morning tea slowly as she scanned the morning 
newspaper, feeling the paper rustle under her fingers. She smiled 
slightly at herself; while the paper was anachronistic, and not nearly 
as convenient as a data-retrieval program, there was something restful 
about reading it as she had her breakfast.

She noticed that the furore over the satellite strikes Largo had caused 
was nowhere near dying down yet. The editorials were stridently calling 
for resignations, and she had every sympathy with them. It was obvious 
that a few scapegoats would soon be fed to the wolves to appease the 
masses, but she doubted if any of the real culprits would take any 
blame. As if that was any surprise, given the current morals of the 
people in high offices nowadays.

Frowning, she read further. the world news seemed about as good, or bad, 
as ever; the Polar War still appeared to be stalemate for all practical 
purposes. Local news wasn't as good, however. There had been more Boomer 
rampages in the last few days, and ADPolice were taking heavier than 
usual casualties in stopping them, not to mention the civilian 
bodycount. She sighed, and took another sip of her tea. It couldn't be 
helped, after the damage they'd taken recently, both material and 
psychological, the Knight Sabers weren't in any condition to help out. 
The police would just have to deal with them for the time being. She had 
notified Fargo that she had other business for the near future, and so 
wouldn't be interested in any work. 

Putting the paper down, she looked out the window, not really seeing the 
cold morning. She was still very worried about Priss; although all of 
them had been scarred to some extent by what had happened, she was by 
far the worse. She would have to keep a closer eye on her, especially 
now that her almost-healed injury wasn't slowing her down as much; she 
didn't want her starting to act foolishly again, both for personal and 
practical reasons.

Getting up, she made some mental notes to herself to ask Linna and Nene 
to keep her as busy as possible, to let her have a chance to relax and 
to let the mental wounds heal a little more. Carefully she tidied the 
paper and teacup to one side, preparing herself to start another day.

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Iczer opened her eyes slowly and reluctantly, feeling the lids crawl up 
heavily, knowing something was not right but not awake enough yet to 
figure out what. Then she jerked, a wave of panic sending her bolt 
upright as she looked around the room with startled eyes, not 
registering what she saw, as for a few seconds she couldn't work out 
where she was or what she was doing, the sight of her own hand grabbing 
the sheet looking strange, as if it didn't belong to her. Then it faded, 
the room snapping into clarity as she shuddered and took a deep breath, 
her heart still hammering from the shock. For a moment there she hadn't 
known who she was, where she was, or even if she should be a she, and 
she shivered in reaction as she tried to slow her breathing and heart.

She sat up a bit more, looking sadly at the slim hand raised in front of 
her. It hadn't all been a bad dream, then, this was real. And morning, 
from the look of the murky daylight probing past the curtains. Joy. 
Automatically she grabbed for the watch she kept by the bed, and only 
realised after a couple of seconds of frantic scrabbling that of course 
she didn't have one there. Damn, she really had to get her act together.

Pushing the sheet the rest of the way off her, she sat up, yawning as 
she rubbed her eyes, disliking the gritty feeling in them as she looked 
about hopefully, then slumped as she belatedly realised that cheap 
Japanese hotels didn't provide coffee-making facilities. Leaning 
forward, she poked at the control panel of the TV with one slim finger, 
wincing as it burst noisily into life, as she tried to work out which of 
the pretty coloured graphical icons on the control panel worked a clock 
display. 

After a bit of playing around, during which she rapidly came to the 
conclusion that morning TV had made absolutely _no_ progress in the last 
40 years, she managed to find a news channel which also indicated the 
time. 9am, how wonderful. That meant she had to be out of here in an 
hour, and she felt like she'd got about 2 hours sleep. And no coffee.

She groaned, and sat up, feeling her back pop as she stretched slowly 
and sensuously, yawning deeply. God, but that felt good. At least she 
had time for a shower before she had to leave, she needed one. Running 
one hand through her thick mane of hair, she hoped the hotel provided 
shampoo. Lots of it.

************************************************************************

Iczer yawned again as she sleepily stirred sugar into her breakfast 
coffee, hoping it would wake her up a little. While her 'tutorial' with 
Iczer-2 last night had been both informative and useful, she wished it 
had let her get more than a few hours of sleep. Now she had to find more 
time during the day to practice what she'd been shown as well; Iczer-2 
had been insistent on that, both the physical katas and the mental 
exercises. She had tried the one to blunt her empathy as soon as she got 
up; at least it was helping, but she still had a faint throbbing behind 
her eyes she would prefer to be without. Well, at least that would give 
her an incentive to practice _that_ particular skill...

Her initial thought had been to change back to her male form just before 
vacating the hotel room, as she'd have been more comfortable exploring 
MegaTokyo like that. She hadn't thought she/he would have been in any 
danger during public areas in daytime, at least as long as he kept to 
the better parts of town. However the pain and shock of the change had 
been even worse than before; he'd taken minutes to stop shaking after, 
and the cramps hadn't stopped for a while after that. It was a good job 
that no-one had knocked on the hotel room door during that, he'd have 
had a lot of explaining to do. While the shock of the change had gone 
away after a while, the general discomfort and trembling hadn't. He'd 
left the hotel, and tried walking around for a while, but found that the 
constant background pain more than he could stand, especially since he 
had an easy way of escaping it. It wasn't that it was so bad, exactly, 
it didn't really hurt a lot, it was just that it was _always_ there, 
like a mild toothache, that made it feel more and more unendurable. It 
hadn't helped that his trembling was noticed, and he got a lot of nasty 
looks from passers-by, who presumably thought he was a drunk or drug-
addict of some sort. 'Drunk Gaijin' was one of the more repeatable names
he'd been called; the locals might have had to accept foreigners here, but
they didn't like them much.
In the end he'd given in, and managed to find a deserted alley to 
transform in. That in itself had been interesting, he hadn't had nearly 
as much trouble changing back into Iczer than he had changing out of 
her, leading him to wonder about the longer term aspects of the merge, 
something he noted that Belldandy had been less than forthcoming about. 
He/she was rapidly coming to the conclusion that there were a lot of 
things he hadn't been told, and wondered why? It raised the 
uncomfortable supposition that the Norns had their own agenda; while 
that wasn't really surprising, the thought that he/she could get caught 
up in the gears again, as it were, was unsettling after the last time...
On balance, she'd decided to stay as Iczer for the near term, at least.
The decision came easily enough; in fact, she had a brief feeling of 
unease at how easy, considering all it involved, but quickly brushed it 
aside as mere nervousness; after all, it was the obvious thing to do, 
wasn't it?

Drowsily she looked through the window of the coffee-shop at the 
bustling streets of MegaTokyo. Even though it was well after the morning 
rush hour, both roads and pavements were packed with hurrying people. 
She started slightly as she saw her reflection in the glass, and then 
grinned in embarrassment. She really should stop being surprised when 
she saw herself, but she was still finding it very hard to come to terms 
with. Her 'conversation' with Iczer-2 had helped a lot, at least on an 
intellectual level, with addressing the problem, but amending her 
instinctive and emotional reactions would take much longer. Not to 
mention the confusion she felt when men smiled at her. She wasn't sure 
whether to blush, scowl or hit them, but had settled on ignoring them as 
her present most sensible option. It wasn't so much the fact that she 
was now female, but the fact that it wasn't her own body that was making 
her more uncomfortable. In a way, she felt it would have been simpler if 
she'd been turned permanently female, at least she could have come to 
terms with that and got on with life. As it was, she couldn't get it 
straight in her head just what he/she was.

At least she'd managed to disguise her appearance better. A pair of 
mirror shades found in her bag hid the unusual colour of her eyes (not 
to mention the dark shadows under them right now) while the length and 
thickness of her hair made covering the tips of her ears relatively 
simple. The less she stood out the better, she needed to find out a lot 
more about this place before she'd feel comfortable, let alone safe. But 
she wanted to stay for a while at least; she 'knew' that technology here 
was better than her home world's, and hoped its medical science might be 
up to fixing David's neurological damage. At least it was worth a try. 
If it wasn't, well, she could try another world. In any case, they'd 
have to do that at some stage, unless this BGC universe was way different
from what she thought, they could do nothing to cure their magical joining.

Sipping her coffee slowly, she wondered what would be best to do today?
She hadn't got enough money for more than a few nights at a hotel, not 
in view of the prices they charged, and she had other things to buy, 
starting with food. She needed to find somewhere to practice, where she 
wouldn't be disturbed, and still had no solution to the problem of no 
papers and no identity. Which meant that she couldn't get a job, even if 
she had any skills that would be useful, which seemed unlikely. There 
might or might not be a market for battle androids in MegaTokyo, but if 
there was she did _not_ want to get involved with it.
At least the coffee was wonderful. She wasn't quite sure why her 
caffeine addiction had carried over now she wasn't even in her original 
body, maybe it had been psychological? Although it tasted so good, she 
certainly wasn't going to give it up, especially as it was achieving its 
normal purpose of allowing her to face another morning. Not to mention 
the help that the familiar ritual of drinking it gave her in trying to 
pretend that everything was normal, allowing her to at least try to fool 
herself in that respect. But every time she realised she'd 
_deliberately_ changed back from her 'own' form into this one, she 
shivered. Something in the back of her mind seemed almost to be trying 
to tell her something was the matter, but she couldn't understand what 
or why.


The information she had acquired from the hotel rooms TV/Net access unit 
had been interesting, and the search and retrieval abilities a 
revelation to someone used to 1990's software, but even so there was a 
limit to what she could extract in an hour. Still, it seemed her memories
of BGC weren't that far off, at least on the surface, and she'd stick 
with them until she got more detailed information. The most worrying 
part had been the almost complete absence of unskilled job opportunities,
and the bulk of what had been posted seemed more than a little dubious,
particularly the female ones. Especially since she'd have to ask to be 
paid in cash, she didn't think the local banks would be very pleased at
the idea of an alien android opening an account...

The data concerning the Knight Sabers and Boomer activity had been 
interesting, though. There was something truly absorbing in reading 
about the real-life version of what she'd only seen in the anime; it was 
very similar, but it was very obvious that the anime had only covered 
the highlights. It reminded her of reading the book after seeing the 
comic, the level of detail in the real world was fascinating. She wished 
again she'd watched the series more often, but she'd just have to make 
do. As far as she could tell, assuming events continued broadly as she 
'knew', she was somewhere between Part 6 and Part 7 of their series. The 
files had recorded the destruction of Aqua city in Tokyo Bay, and there 
was an obituary notice for a Brian Mason of GENOM, which definitely 
placed her after the first three episodes, and the recent news was full 
of mentions of the satellite beam strikes on the city that Largo had 
caused in Episode 6, so she guessed that she was just after that. She 
was glad of that, she didn't want to have anything to do with someone 
like Largo, and the temptation to try and warn about the satellite 
strikes would have been difficult to resist, even knowing it might have 
changed things enough to let him win. A search for 'Griffon' or 'Griffin'
hadn't found anything, but then she didn't know if the name of the car 
had ever been public. She'd also found a recent news article detailing
the death of the head of G&M, which tallied with the date, late March.
Pity the city seemed to be suffering an unseasonable cold snap, she'd 
have appreciated warmer weather. So far, things in the news seemed to 
broadly correspond with what she 'knew'.

It wasn't as if she had any intention of getting involved, the last 
thing she needed with all her current problems was to get involved with 
a group of battlesuited mercenaries, but it would be a help if she had 
prior knowledge of what might be about to happen. She stressed 'might' 
to herself again. This _wasn't_ the anime, the Universe just happened to 
resemble it so far. She'd just have to keep a careful eye on the news, 
and see what turned up that she recognised. Besides, she didn't recall 
there _were_ any details between the sixth and seventh parts of the 
anime, at least up until the attack on GENOM in the summer. And it 
clearly wasn't summer yet! 

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Madigan looked up from her console at the faint sound of a cough from 
the man standing in front of her desk. She smiled inwardly; even though 
the GENOM scientist was nominally of the same corporate rank as her, 
some equals were more equal than others. She looked up, outwardly at 
least sincerely sorry she'd had to keep him waiting, as she sat back in 
her chair.

"You said this was important?"

The man nodded, restraining his annoyance at the dominance game the 
woman was playing. He knew her reputation, as well as her connections, 
and instead put on his serious, corporate meeting look. He would take 
out his anger on some of his own subordinates later.

"Yes. As I am sure you know, I head the special section of the science 
division here. Last night, some of my staff recorded 
some...unusual...energy signatures.

"Unusual? In what way? And why should I be interested in them?

He smiled.
"It pertains to our standing orders to report anything to you that 
doesn't fall into the usual areas of responsibility, and which may be of 
potential interest to the company. I feel this applies to this case."

She nodded, looking interested at last. He might be a scientist, and 
even GENOM had problems keeping their better scientists and engineers in 
order, but he knew his job. He wouldn't have bothered her with something 
trivial.

"Please explain. Why is this particular event of significance?"

"Because this energy signature shouldn't have been possible outside of a 
laboratory, indeed I would have been amazed to find it even there! Yet 
it appeared in the MegaTokyo metropolitan area.

The scientist held up his portable computer, pointing it at the video 
wall at the side. It lit up, showing data and graphs as they spread 
across it. Despite herself, she narrowed her eyes in interest at the 
labels on some of them. She didn't know what they meant, yet, but her 
instincts, and what she could understand of the information displays, 
told her this was of potential importance.

"Explain this, please."

"Of course. The disturbance was first noted at 8pm yesterday night. Our 
recorders noted a powerful energy spike, unusual in that it lasted for 
nearly 30 seconds, growing fast , holding and then vanishing. Not normal 
behaviour. However the event which really alerted us was a gravitational 
energy event at precisely the same time. Now, this _could_ be a 
coincidence, but it could also mean the two are connected. And since no-
one has yet produced such an effect in the laboratory, it was flagged up
by the monitoring computers"

Madigan steepled her fingers, frowning at the data crossing the wall.

"Very well. I assume you investigated the building these events occurred 
in?"

He smiled back at her, confident now he had her interested in his 
presentation.
"Ah, now that is even more interesting! Naturally, once the event had 
been flagged, we sent a team to investigate it. Unfortunately, our 
science teams don't have the priority levels of _some_ of the reaction 
teams, and it took them 40 minutes to assemble and get to the site. But 
it wasn't a laboratory, or even a building. It seems that this event 
took place in an alley in one of the rougher areas of the city!"

This time her eyebrows raised sharply. She wished the scientist would 
get to the point, her time was valuable, but she knew better than to 
push a senior scientist without good reason.

"So what conclusions do you draw?

He turned off his display, turning, face serious.
"We don't think its natural. Our team got some _very_ interesting 
readings and data, including some samples we are still analysing, which 
seem to include strange matter, an unusual state of matter previously 
only theorised about. Heat scans taken of the alley indicate a humanoid 
person, probably female from the footsteps, was there, and left. 
Unfortunately, the residue of the 'event' interfered with our 
instrumentation, but the most likely time is after the 'event', and so 
we think it probable that the two are connected. If we can get more 
information, and learn what happened, and most importantly how to 
duplicate it, we will gain a lead in some areas of physical research that
have some extremely promising long term potential, and GENOM will of 
course be the sole owner."

She nodded. This did sound interesting after all.
"So. I assume you would like me to approve your further research, and 
to track down this mysterious figure for - questioning?"

"Yes, that would be ideal. We don't have the resources in the science 
section for finding her, although we will of course keep up our direct 
observations."

She looked into nowhere for a moment, considering, then decided. This 
had the feeling of something profitable, and was certainly worth 
investigating further.

"Very well, I authorise the expenditure of your resources. I will let 
you know when the 'person' is available for your team to interrogate.

He bowed, formally, stepping backwards.
"Thank you. We will keep you informed of our progress."

She gestured in polite dismissal. Of course he would. And her network 
would make sure _all_ the information was reported to her.
As he left, she leant back in her chair, musing for a moment. She had a 
feeling about this one, it smelt interesting. She wasn't always right, 
of course, but she thought this strange happening had a definite 
potential for her and GENOM. Sitting up, she started to give the orders 
to one of GENOMS search teams to find this mysterious person, wincing 
slightly as she felt a small tug from her not yet fully healed injury.
She really shouldn't have been back at work yet, according to the doctor,
but of course he had no real comprehension of the corporate culture 
inside the GENOM senior management, and how her position would be
weakened by any sign of weakness.