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by Hanna-Chris Gast
 

1996 new science-fiction-series appeared in the railway station bookshops: "Shadowrun", a series in which many authors participate. It deals with an extremely gloomy future in the 21st century where multinational companies and the Mafia rule the world, and the problems of poverty and environmental pollution have become even worse than today. Furthermore, MAGIC has returned and transformed a part of mankind into trolls, dwarfs or worse creatures - with all problems that go along with it.. 

 I was sitting with my girlfriend (of mine) in the "Begine", a woman's bar in Berlin. The music was too grim to dance and I was watching the women entering the bar. Suddenly a lady came in who seemed familiar to me. She was wearing bright, colorful strange-looking clothes and had an androgyne appearance as well as quite a big nose. Somehow she reminded me of the jolly joker of a card game with which we had played when we were kids. This playing card character had always seemed sinister to me and also now this kind of fear struck me again. "This woman, I know her!", I said to my friend. The Jolly-Joker-Lady noticed my look and seemed to have heard what I had said. She pointed with her finger on me and murmured: "Forget!"

As a child I could never stand people pointing with their finger on me and even as an adult I suffered from nightmares of magic. 
My psychotherapist, Dr. Prehm, advised me not to fight magic (offenders) aggressors in my dreams. According to him, they were a part of me which I had to integrate into my ego. Therefore I had practiced this method and since then my nightmares had disappeared. This Jolly-Joker-Lady was of course neither a nightmare nor a splitted part of my psyche. Nevertheless I reacted automatically with the intention: "Absorb the magic and integrate it into your ego."

An unknown strength pulsed through me. What was that? The Jolly-Joker-Lady immediately pulled back her finger and hissed: "Drekhead - you are going to destroy my time machine with that vampire magic!" She thought for a while and asked: "Who are you? Are you also on a voyage through time? There is no magic yet in the 20th century!" The women around were feeling that there was something strange and moved away from us. The stranger snapped her fingers and the people around sank into a deep slumber. That was like in this Darkover-novel "Hawkmistress". A woman with Psi - or "Laran", how Psi is called at Darkover. A woman like this would have been good for our Darkover-club. What a pity that she was mad. 
The existence of Psi is proved but I had learned that any kind of time machine was ruled out by the laws of physics. (must be completely impossible!). Only mental voyages through time were possible, like in that Darkover-novel "The forbidden Tower" but still this woman stood really in front of me!

Without waiting for an answer the Jolly-Joker-Lady said to me:

"Now I know who you are: You are Hanna the witch from the 21st century, who, in her flying wheelchair, saved the sister of the elf-king, her great-niece, from the attack of the troll with his dragon!
But you look younger than on the holos." I felt angry. "I'm still steady on my feet and I go by bus or subway, but not by wheelchair." "Then you used the wheelchair only as a flying object and your frailty was just a rumor?", the Jolly-Joker-Lady asked. I murmured an evasive answer for one shall not contradict madmen. I bit back an answer like: "As long as I am not faster than 50 kilometers per hour over restricted areas, it's not forbidden anyway..."

Instead, I asked politely: "And who are you?" The woman hesitated for a short moment and then replied: "I am a student of history from the 24th century. I am to explore with a magic time machine, where the magic genes of the lineage of the elf-king originate from. Whether from the Gast's ancestors from Saxony or the French ancestors. By the way - did you know that you look very similar to Saint Joan of Arc, the cousin of one of your French ancestors? I was there the day before yesterday and filmed her burning at the stake. Do you want to see the record?" I refused. I have had enough of this crazy woman. But where did I know her from? Sometime in my early childhood there had been someone whom I feared and who looked like her. Had this woman perhaps been our babysitter?
But then she could not look so young. She appeared like being in the early thirties. "It seems to me as if I met you once before.", I finally said.

"Maybe in the Fifties. I was there yesterday and scanned  (sounded out) the genes of the Gast family. Anything like that is not very convenient - especially for kids - but for historicall researches it is essential.
After all (At last) one of their girls was the grandmother of the first elf-king. But I have not met you there. A "Hanna" with the birth date of 1953 was not among the children although the chronicles say so.

I smiled and although I seldom tell strangers I did it this time: "I am transsexual and born as a boy." She stood there with her mouth open. I mentally used her Psi-force to place the woman on the empty chair next to me and my friend. She followed my telekinetic grasp like a sleepwalker. "I do not look having once been a man, do I?" I said smiling. I often surprised people with it. "No, I didn't mean that... I wanted to say... that's the explanation." the woman stammered. “The gene for an extreme magic talent expresses itself somehow differently in ages without magic. But I would not have guessed transsexuality. In the 24th century the best magicians are born with a different sex than (as) the scan of the pregnant mother predicted. You know, prenatal goblinisation with high magic talent..." 
She stopped. "Drek, if I tell you more of that sort, I'll get into trouble with the Renraku-Cops, sorry." And the Jolly-Joker-Lady vanished.

My friend awoke and stretched herself. "Well, I nearly fell asleep because of this boring music. What about you?" I nodded. "I was even dreaming!" 
 
 
 
 
 

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